#i literally wrote a fucking essay jfc

[lavenoon]

Hi <333

For the writing asks i would like to know 1, 16 and 35 or just one of those if all are too much

Heya Berry!! <3 hehe

1. What font do you write in? Do you actually care or is that just the default setting?

I write in Arial! It's the default setting, though I had a long time where I wrote in exclusively Calibri and got very upset when it for some reason wasn't set to be that. Then I stopped writing for a while and apparently that reset the brain, and now it's Arial gfdhsj

(not the default, and very important to me, is the gaps between paragraphs. literally will not write past a paragraph before enabling that if I forgot before, it's too blocky otherwise and I need it for the brain)

16. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever used as a bookmark?

Oh, I think I'm pretty tame in that regard? My current bookmarks are an actual paper bookmark (space, in blue/ purple) and a long expired coupon for an etsy shop I once bought earrings from. In uni times I often used pens or highlighters as bookmarks though, when I had to flip between many sections quickly, because those leave a gap I can quickly slip my fingers into! But otherwise I don't remember any particularly weird bookmarks, I mostly just use the nearest clean flat something that's available!

35. What’s your favorite writing rule to smash into smithereens?

I think there's a rule about not starting sentences with like "and" or "but" and stuff? I'm so ready to break and ignore rules I'm not even sure about the details fghdjs (plus the differences between German and English grammar - fuck if I know)

There's just a difference between like, academic writing (which I never want to do again, jfc) and creative writing - the latter is a medium to toy with to begin with! But now that I'm remembering academic writing, god. One time we got to write an essay where we didn't have to hide that yes, this is our opinion and we are in fact a person writing this and not a perfectly objective computer. I immediately just turned the whole thing into a bit and that's why I once had to reference a youtube comedy sketch in APA style <3

And oh, actually! I just remembered I take so many liberties in terms of compound words and capitalization, where German brain comes through. Like night vision I hate that it's two words, I say nightvision because it looks better to me, and I won't stop, same with any other suddenly-a-compound-word words, don't mind that read along <3

[invisibleanonymousmonsters]

im so late but holy cow there’s so much to say about the latest chapter….in this essay i will—

first of all, my mans is really just going through it his mate was nearly killed by his piece of shit of a father who was then finally killed by the people he has oppressed for god knows how many centuries and then he’s overwhelmed with this newly gained powers whilst simultaneously dealing with the instinct to care and protect his mate who’s immediately taken in the arms of the dickhead who broke her heart because he has his own issues—YALL eris is really fucking going through it

like my god, i honestly started squealing in excitement when i realized whose room she was in like cmon y’all I’d totally love to wake up in fire daddy’s room after all that shit AND AND cute little lulu waiting for her to wake up just outside her room like cmon 😭😭😭 HE DOESNT GET PAID ENOUGH FOR ALL THIS SHIT

i also love the small details in the work jfc like he leaves a shawl for her so she doesn’t walk around in a nightgown that’s so ducking cute and how like gentle and careful he is with her AND AND HOW HE TRIES TO GIVE HER A WARM LOOK even though it seemed like it took him some great effort to do so!!!! LMAOOO AND LUCIEN IS SO MISCHIEVOUS AND SASSY my god ANYWAYS back to eris, he’s just so attentive and UGH I WANT ONE he’s so soft for her dude it’s adorable I was literally blushing at the part where he asks her to dine with him like my god cmon get your shit together eris babe but AHHH!! it’s so endearing to hear him be careful about what he says instead of being his snarky self

I truly hope that the reader doesn’t end up leaving for the mortal lands, like I know eris struggles with the idea of letting his injured mate out of his sight, but I love how he’s just so supportive of her wants. Like he’s so quick to be like you want it? you got it. i hope that they also talk and work the problem out, and that the reader understands why he did what he did, but in their shoes, it would hurt to know that the night court only seemed to care for her because they had to do it it’s crazy y’all but they all needa sit down and talk periodt CANT WAIT FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER!!!! 💕 sending you warmth and hugs

I ALSO CANT WAIT FOR THE DOGGIES TO APPEAR AWWWWW AND ALSO MORE ERIS AND LUCIEN MOMENTS i high key wanna see Lucien and reader talk about funny childhood stories, what would eris be like as a child?

I took it upon myself to round all these messages together so I can look at all of it when I'm sad and feeling unmotivated and uninspired 😂 So thank you thank you thank you for taking the time to write this and sharing your enthusiasm. 🥹

I also love that you called Lucien "lulu." I think I've seen a headcanon someone wrote about how all his nieces and nephews would call him Uncle Lulu and it warmed my ice cold heart. 🥺

[dearlybelovedhearts]

!! !! !!

//  With every “!!” i get, I’ll introduce you to an OC! | This is revenge I know, you jokes on you!! 

HA! I didn’t cheat. 

SO SAY HELLO TO MY LONGEST SURVIVING OCS. Although Noxane’s design has changed slightly since this. 

Anarth, Noxane and Lucian Svenska are literally my oldest ocs. I’ve had these boys since I was around 14. This iteration however is recent and these are heavily AU’d/Fixed from their originals. Anarth is 28, Noxane is 26, Lucian is 22. 

Anarth is the oldest, he’s kind, soft spoken and Always Tired. He has to usually stop Lucian getting himself killed. He actually brought up Lucian and Noxane for around 10 years after their parents seemingly died when their world was consumed by darkness. He uses a polearm as a weapon and is a natural genius with healing magic. He’s actually brought Lucian back from the dead twice with magic, but it makes him incredibly sick for days and he collapses afterwards. 

During the story he actually loses his heart and becomes a nobody with the name Thraxan. And he has a complete personality switch. (I FUCKING CALLED SOFT BOIS TURNING NASTY YEARS AGO. EYES @ LAURIUM) While with his heart his fighting style is very defensive, after he loses his heart, he is much more aggressive. It even shows in his weapon with turns from a standard wooden polearm into a polearm/double glaive that can separate in the middle into two glaives.

(Fun fact. Anarth is the name I use most places for things as a username. Because its basically made up and no one ever has it) 

Noxane is the second oldest, although he does have a twin, Neilla who is older then him by a few minutes. He’s the strongest of the 3 and is basically short and wide. He’s snarky and incredibly protective of his siblings and is usually the one to throw himself in the way of harm for them. He takes after his mother in looks most of all. Or he would if he was still blond. He suffered severe burns up his arms while trying to protect his brothers from a fire heartless in a very overran section of Traverse Town (where they end up living till the story kicks in) This actually damaged his arms so badly that it literally destroyed the nerves in his hands up to the middle of his forearm. Anarth wasn’t able to fix it early on when it was still fixable as he wasn’t as skilled with magic yet. Before of the nerve damage however (yes he doesnt have a sense of touch) the magic in his system built up and turned his hair white and his eyes (after I came up with this explanation. Which was after this drawing) turn bright pale blue. See, in this setting, magic is basically stored in the system and you use magic by channelling it through what are basically nerves. However when Noxane’s nerves where destroyed, this mean the magic had nowhere to go. IT’s basically slowly killing him despite the hair and the workaround for using magic which is…. Magic gauntlets!  They’re much like Ya/ngs from Rw/by however the key difference is under the gauntlet’s glove there are probes just above the burns on his arm, that read the signals his hands would get. That then converts that signal into magic through the gauntlet instead so he is totally able to use magic. Yes his fighting style is ‘punch it till it stops moving’. 

His sense of smell is also fucking insane and no one knows why. But this kid can give Ienzo a run for his money. 

(Fun fact; The whole gauntlet thing was done Before Doomfist in overwatch. Infact, before Overwatch was even a THING.) 

Lucian is the youngest. He’s also the clumsiest kid in the world. He has literally stabbed himself in the leg while trying to sheath his sword. He’s pretty happy go lucky despite the END OF THE WORLD, is protective of anyone he makes friends with. 

Compared to his brothers, hes actually useless with magic. He’s a better sword fighter then both of them however, despite being….. a danger to himself. He does get better as time goes on however. He is the most reckless however, often diving into a situation without thinking it through very well because he NEEDS TO PROTECT. 

Compared to the other two, hes really the most boring one. XD (Sorry Luce, I still love you though) 

To be fair, in the story, he ends up with a literal Princess of Heart who is also a literally Empress in her home World of Emperor’s Palace so yknow. (he even got the emperor’s sword off the Emperor when they defeated that worlds boss etc) 

[still-a-morosexual-help]

Ya know, I'm pretty sure what's going to happen with Raphael is a lesson in "don't just take second hand accounts and form a judgement about someone else without giving them a chance" and you're kinda failing that. Can we also stop pretending like Beel is an innocent marshmallow? He's a demon who's literally eaten other demons and implied to have eaten humans too and clearly is not that oblivious, and I don't blame Raph for being frustrated with the brothers when we know they can be.

........dude I'm like joking?????????????

Qmdodudidngdidodmxnx

I'M 100% JOKING!???? YOU GUYS GET THAT RIGHT??????????????????????????????????????????

FUCKING HELL DUDE

jfc

I actually like Raphael as a character, I've been excited about him coming to the game since forever. This is the same kinda shit I pull with Lucifer (aka getting MC to annoy him for fun) and he's my second favourite character

Don't know whether I should laugh or cry qndndkdkdhjdidnddjdndn

Raphael straight up tells MC that he knows they both have a bad idea of one another and that they should put that aside to try to form their own opinions of each other

Also a lot of the game and characters work on the notion of "don't judge a book by its cover". I wrote a whole mini essay on why that makes Mammon such an interesting character. The whole of S1 tried to sell Lucifer as a cold sadistic evil person only to show that he's an overworked overprotective dad.

Plus the reason I like Raphael so much is because he's a morally grey character (the same way they hinted all the angels and the celestial realm to be)

Last lesson I was ragging on Beel for only being able to list two good things about Mammon...

ALSO BEEL TRIED TO KILL MC FOR TAKING A BITE OF HIS CUSTARD (or whatever the fuck it was in S1) ANDKDUEIDKKSMS YEAH HE'S DEFINITELY NOT uwu or whatever

All that being said:

This sentence ends with "It was really depressing"

^ this wasn't about demon! Beel this was about angel! Beel. Lucifer took him in after this point, Lucifer who's an asshole took him in and showed him that his strength can be used to protect instead of destroy.

In the Mammon vs Raphael UR Raphael keeps putting down Mammon and then later chasing Mammon while throwing spears at him for picking up broken items that people have thrown away and trying to fix and sell them - an actual normal thing to do

Raphael ain't no innocent marshmallow either. He's a complex character. He's snide (yes he is. This isn't a second hand account. This is the way he talks about Michael and to MC when they guess his name wrong) and self-righteous. He also likes to stitch and he stitched the brothers clothes when they ripped them as angels. Like Michael, he probably loved the brothers and may even still miss them.

So yeah, tldr:

1. I was joking😐

2. Ik Beel ain't a sweet cinnamon roll or whatever💀

3. Raphael's a complex character with dimensions. What he said/did to Beel was shitty. NOT because Beel's a uwu baby or whatever but because it was a shitty thing to do to ANYONE who was struggling. But that doesn't make Raphael a shitty character, if anything it makes him more interesting

4. Though I don't hate any of the characters, Obey Me! is a game where players are allowed to choose their own options and make their own interpretations of things meaning despite the overall story still being the same each player will have their own unique experience. So there's definitely gonna be people who hate Raphael and adore Beel and.....that's okay? It's their game and their right to feel about it however they want to🤷🏻

5. I'm going to keep choosing options to antagonise Raphael (and Lucifer and occasionally Mammon & Satan) because a.) I think it's funny b.) My MC is an OC with their own personality and perspective of things. I play them under the assumption that they don't get to see things from "above" like us. They'd have their own biases and make their own judgements that'd fit the personality I assigned them all the way back in S1. And it fits their character that they'd be protective towards the brothers simply because they know them better and consider them family. The same way we'd side with our friends over some stranger who possibly hurt them in the past.

@avatar-mikazuki couldn't have put it in better words:

[icyharrington]

please make another fanfic i’m horny

omg idk when this ask was sent to me but like damn. this just made me think of how the other night i went through my masterlist and read a bunch of my old fics from like 2-3 yrs ago. which freaks me out to begin with seeing how fast time goes 😭 but yea i was just reading old stuff bc i was feeling nostalgic and depressed and also was curious to see how bad it was. i refused to read some of my older stuff for YEARS bc i remember a lot of them as being straight gutter trash, but i never deleted them bc they had a lot of notes 🤣

one of the fics i read was discipline which i always wrote off as being really bad but tbh it was pretty hot lmao and i thought it wasn't terrible. but while i was reading i also felt super shocked bc of how fucking vulgar my writing was, esp since i haven't written like actual smut in a really long time and i haven't really read it either. but i was legit like 0_0 jfc I POSTED THIS SHIT ON THE INTERNET?! MY FRIENDS KNOW ABOUT THIS BLOG AND I POSTED THIS SHIT?! and then i was like dying of cringe imagining my mom reading my stuff (which tbh is something she would do lmfao)

but at the same time i felt rlly proud and remembered how happy i was when this blog was first getting noticed. it genuinely made me feel so happy and excited and seen and i was sooo inspired and creative which is like the opposite of how i feel now just bc of mental health and life and covid and shit lol. also there hasn't been much material or inspiration for content recently and i don't even talk to anyone part of this fandom anymore so idk what people even wanna read.

omggg and then i got more depressed cuz i also went thru one of my old fic rec lists and realized that like 90% of them no longer existed cuz they deactivated. and it was just bumming me tf out cuz like i spoke to a lot of those ppl on a pretty regular basis and formed friendships w some of them and now i dont even know where tf they are 😭 but damn i wish i had that motivation back like i used to have. the nasty filthy freaky ass smut i used to write made me feel a lot more confident in general and it made me happy having a community of ppl just hyping each other up for being horny 🤣

anyways wtf was the point of that essay LMAOO sorry im a lil stoned and got in my feelings for a sec teehee 🙈

so to answer your question/statement/request,,,,,, hopefully someday in the near future i will regain the inspiration to write like i used to have in 2018-some of 2019. ahhh idk man

in the meantime i guess u can reread some of my old shit.. theres literally so many i GUARANTEE you haven't read them all

[mariaiscrafting]

Thoughts on Wilbur Soot? I want a full-blown essay at least 10k words/j. All jokes aside, this is an amazing blog, I come to it every day to see if you've posted something new :]. Keep going forward OP, you're truly amazing.

That is so sweet 😢 (/gen)

I was really  gonna write, “I dunno, I just think he’s a nice dude,” but then you asked for 10k words, so now Imma actually rant. Wilbur’s probably one of the first people who got me back into Minecraft, around 2019, and he was the first person I felt comfortable enough watching the Dream SMP vods from, back in November. 

First of all, the guy’s fricking gorgeous, like, ???? I never see any simping for him on my dash, and I’m just like ??? I’m not very good at simping over people’s appearances myself, so all I will say is that he’s fricking beautiful, jfc.

Second of all, I’m a music nerd, okay, and I really fucking like his singing. Back then, I listened to his music covers so much that I learned the lyrics from songs I’d never even heard of before I started watching Wilbur, by heart. Lol it helps quite a bit that a good chunk of my musical taste is made up of Life is Strange-esque, shitty indie songs that fit right into the covers he made back when he first started streaming. I’ve listened to YCGMA so many times that I have that same familiarity I have with songs I’ve listened to for literal years, knowing exactly what song comes next and when each measure ends and when the breaths are taken, etc., etc. He doesn’t have much finnesse when it comes to the technical qualities of his singing abilities, but he’s a damn good musician. His lyrical composition, chord progressions, little guitar riffs, emotion - ahhh, I just love Wilbur Soot’s music so much. I’m certain I’ll be listening to YCGMA in the middle of the night, when I need a good cry, for years to come lol. 

Third of all, I really, really appreciate his openness about his mental health just, so much. He talks about his anxiety and getting depressed so candidly, he so easily lets his audience know about what kinda mental state he was in during uni and as a teenager and while he wrote YCGMA, and it makes me feel so normal. As dumb and cliched as it is to need a public figure to validate my own lived experiences, I do, and for someone like Wilbur Soot to succeed and be so talented, encouraging, empathetic, and socially active, despite losing motivation and energy at times, gives me a little bit of hope for myself.

Fourth of all, I mean, the guy’s fucking hilarious, are we forgetting this? People always talk about his talents music-wise and writing-wise, or how nice he seems to be, but they always gloss over his genuine comedic ability, and I ??? It takes so much to keep my attention these days, and Wilbur Soot’s videos are still some of the only ones that can manage that feat. He has undeniable chemistry with practically any CC he meets, his editing style is just *chef’s kiss*, and his laugh somehow makes even the most mundane of jokes seem fucking hilarious, it’s just such a delight to watch or listen to him do bits, man.

I left the best for last, lol. The main reason I fricking love Wilbur Soot is his political consciousness and the fact that his political beliefs align pretty well with my own. I’ve dealt with cishet, mostly white guys, both on and off the Internet, for so many damn years, and it’s exhausting. I am so tired of deconstructing myself and suppressing myself for the sake of social interaction, community-building, preventing ostracization, and being able to consume content without feeling enraged or hopeless. It is an exhausting endeavor to want to like and love all the gamers I’ve watched since middle school, and having to just push down and numb the parts of me that want to flinch at offhanded jokes and comments and exclusion from online spaces. Wilbur Soot is a whole other breed of CC. Lol uhhh, I guess he’s what most of the people in the social media circles I used to frequent would call, “a feminist cuck” and “self-hating white guy.” Which all really just means that he goes just beyond human decency. Don’t get me wrong, I do not by any means let white, cishet guys dictate my self-worth anymore, or even let them educate me; that’s what all the wonderful female and POC and queer CCs that I’ve discovered over the years are for. But there’s still something deeply satisfying about listening to this person who fits all the demographic checkboxes of the kinda person who used to make me feel so Other and Wrong, instead rant about how teenage girls can’t express their interests without being denigrated for them out of deeply-entrenched misogyny, or about how society needs to stop villanizing poor people and realize that government aid and social services do a great service for community betterment and are not just used by people supposedly leeching off the taxpayer’s dime. That’s not even to mention the fucking beautiful satire of the E-Girl Trilogy. I always wanted to rant about this, but I don’t know how exactly to put it into the proper words... Basically, as someone who has spent years and years retconning, observing, and caught in the midst of incels, conservatives, and just extremely depressed cishet men of all races, I am deeply familiar with all the resentment, anxiety, misogyny, homophobia, gender essentialism, and self-hatred that goes into creating the average 20-something man’s view on women, society, romance, friendships, and sex. The E-Girl Trilogy is fucking brilliant because it so accurately captures this cocktail of emotions and ideologies, creating a fucking perfect caricature of the average man who looks and is just like Wilbur Soot. The persona is so well-crafted that most listeners who aren’t familiar with Wilbur as a person, or his political views, actually believe these songs are genuine and empathize with the narrators, can you imagine? And the fact that, in the process, Wilbur himself realizes that all of it is a fucking joke, that the narrator’s views on his love interest are weird and creepy and not at all normal or correct, is what makes it genuine satire. He embodies something so perfectly, only to mock it in the process of showing off how much he can embody it... I love satire, but I fucking suck at writing or accurately embodying it, so I’ve always been so fucking jealous of and beyond impressed by the E-Girl Trilogy’s use of satire. 

Lol this isn’t 10k words, but it was much longer than I fucking thought it’d be. Basically, I really like Wilbur Soot, and writing all of this made me realize just how much I missed watching his VODs and streams...

[secndlife]

any advice for someone who wants to start writing drabbles/short fics? 👉🏼👈🏼 i want to but like i don't know what my first step should be (aside from, obviously, write down something 😅) i like your writing so i'm also curious about how you started !!

FIRST OF ALL THANK YOU FOR ENJOYING MY WRITING

OMG LET'S GET IT !!! i'm nosey so i love giving advice i'm so sorry in advance if this gets too long 🥺 (i'm even adding cut jfc)

i started creating content in feb 2017 because i consumed literally SO MUCH stuff that at some point i was like ok i wanna do that too. i started with fake texts because i felt like it was easier? but the first thing i wrote was this fic and even tho it's in my archived masterlist i think it's pretty ok?

for me it started with me thinking of things i'd like to read, but that i couldn't find aklsdjakdj so it was almost like that tiktok audio "fuck it i'll do it myself" ksdjkajdaksdj so like maybe try to think of things you would appreciate reading? i feel like this can be a good start.

and also maybe try to start with smaller things and roughly set ideas? like get a prompt list and try to just play around with it. think who fits what. and try not to push yourself too much in terms of "OMG THIS IS SO CLICHE I CAN'T WRITE THAT" because cliche is also fucking awesome and, in the beginning, it can be easier.

i also consumed a lot of kpop content like back then i started writing for got7 so i watched a lot of reality shows etc etc to get a grasp of their personalities. because as they're public figures, even tho we don't know 100% who they are, we can get a sense of it and then just adapt/project the rest of it to fit our ideas.

also the thing with writing is that it changes so much with time and i feel like it keeps up with you? because, to me, in a way, my writing is a reflex of who i am (or at least parts of me). so whenever i change, i think this reflects in the way i write too. i don't hate what i wrote before, it's just so different that i get like UH OK BESTIE !! YOU'VE COME A LONG WAY !! and honestly seeing my progress is something i'm kinda proud of so i think this is something you will feel too after you start.

and this is also linked to another piece of advice: practice. like, don't be afraid of pulling up docs and just write whatever. editing exists for a reason and if you don't like it, you can just start over. it's not rocket science you know? there's no magic formula that will make you write.

and two important things that i feel like everyone talks about it but they're REALLY important so i'll say it too:

1. try not to compare yourself to others: that's the biggest trap you can fall into because we all have different styles and creative methods and audiences so it's literally pointless to compare. especially as we tend to compare ourselves with idk big people/accounts? like what's the point in comparing things that are different? for a comparison to be useful things need to sort of match. you'll see so much trouble if you try to compare a blanket to a charger because they're literally ?? different ?? so there's no point. same goes for writing. your writing will not fit the same purpose all the time nor the same purpose as someone else's writing so there's no point in comparing. you'll just feel bad and that's literally so bad.

2. try to write for you: i'm not gonna be a hypocrite and say i write 100% for me because honestly, no one that decides to post their stuff does that. we like the attention and feedback and we like to see others enjoying our writing too. but there's a difference between that and being stuck in others' expectations and wishes for your writing. don't fall into that. this will just put very unnecessary pressure on your shoulders and literally there's absolutely no reason for writing to feel like that. write what you want, how you want to write it.

I LITERALLY MADE AN ESSAY I'M SO SORRY I DON'T EVEN KNOW IF YOU'LL FIND ANY OF THIS USEFUL BUT I HOPE YOU DO 😭😭

but remember that writing is something very personal so something that works for me might not work for you and i think that's one of the beauties of it - how we mold it to fit us and this whole process of discovery.

still, my askbox is literally always open for whatever help you may need. and good luck!!!! and trust yourself and your instincts!!!!! 💛💛

[vanityloves]

Rules: List your favorite characters from 10 different fandoms and tag 10 people

tagged by @certified-soft-si-content ! thank you sm 👉👈😳

1) KIRBY FROM....KIRBY....

the amount serotonin i get out of this lil pink dude is incredible - i have such good memories playing these games and i highkey miss that high

2) Ponyo from....ponyo ahsjjs

oh to be a little fishy in the sea 🥺 idk i just loved the movie and I'm just attached to the characters a whole lot. shes just cute i love that i basically kin, iD'd her when the movie came out. very pisces of me

3) Dante Sparda from Devil May Cry

Man. He's such an important chara to me? DMC was one of the first things I got into by myself (usually it was with some influence of a friend). So I got to experience a new story by myself and i had something just for myself. One of the first charas i got really attached to and would die for tbh.

4) Rohan Kishibe from JJBA:DIU

Out of ALL jojo charas, Rohan got me into the series which is... so ironic. Hes the twinkiest twink of the show compared to all the Muscle Men. I just saw a chara that liked to draw and was wow me too maybe we can vibe.

5) Xigbar from Kingdom Hearts

2012 was a whackass time to be on the internet, let alone be into KH bc the fanbase sure was. something. Xigbar was always really interesting to me and JFC. KH3 threw me for a loop, just when I thought we'd tie up some loose ends. but ofc SE said fuck off. And for that.... it makes 'Xigbar' Sexy and Mysterious and i love that for us.

6) Ignis Scientia from FFXV

This man just hits different. He makes me so incredibly depressed and i love it. His entire chara is so... divine, bitch. When I was really into FFXV, I promise you, i wouldve written you essays ab him. I actually wrote an essay on Gladio and turned it into my psych teacher and I wonder what that says ab me.

7) Medic from TF2

I dont think i need to explain why but <3 i never started self caring until i got into tf2 so thats all ill say on that.

8) Aizawa Shouta from BNHA

Listen, I know bnha can be cringe but shut the hell up. Aizawa is one of the only charas i chara ab in the series simply bc of all the Dad Energy. No I will not elaborate.

9) Tifa Lockhart from FVII

God i love women im sorry i dont talk ab them more i have internalized home of foe bee uh. She can kick my ass but she cares so much and the fact that shes Gay (not canonly but.) is nice like? i love her and Aeris whenever they interact

10) Kenpachi Zaraki from Bleach

I just love Big, Bastard characters with a child. It just hits different. Idk i love that hes just looking for a fight all the time but has respect for whoever hes facing. He's kind of his own man and does what he wants and i too want to kick ass and take names (literally)

Tagging: @estrider @fictional-boyfriend @fictiongeek @heartstringsymphonies @coulromantism @moodyblueships @perseverancex-self-shipping @parvou @midnightloverboy @gorillazgirlfriend

[downn-in-flames]

let’s keep it casual

this was written for a trope stew challenge on @hpfanfictalk​ - my assigned tropes were 1) roaring rampage of revenge, 2) snowball lie, 3) friends with benefits, 4) it's personal, and 5) mistaken for betrayal. somehow, i think i managed to squish them all in here :P

read it on: hpft | ao3

[Tuesday 10 May, 15:04]

james potter: u up?

lily evans: it’s 3pm

james potter: good observation

lily evans: you need to get more creative with your ‘hi i’m bored can you come over and fuck me’ lines

james potter: did it work though?

lily evans: be there in 15

*

[Tuesday 10 May, 16:42]

sirius black: ran into lily in the lobby a few minutes ago sirius black: tell me, when are you going to finally own up to the fact that you fancy the shit out of her and aren’t just casually fucking her with no feelings involved

james potter: hmm, but see, that would require that statement to actually be true james potter: seriously, it’s just hooking up james potter: we’ve got a good thing going, i’m not going to ruin that by catching feelings

sirius black: ~catching~ feelings? sirius black: dude sirius black: feelings have long since been caught sirius black: by both of you

james potter: ur wrong but i’m not arguing that point with u anymore

sirius black: because your counterarguments are shit and you know it

*

[Wednesday 11 May, 20:53]

lily evans: i’m going to kill him i’m going to kill him i’m going to kill him lily evans: I’M GOING TO KILL HIM lily evans: give me ONE good reason not to commit murder right now

james potter: you can’t fuck me if you’re in prison?

lily evans: damn you have a point there

james potter: also why are you contemplating murder, that seems extreme

lily evans: two words for you: severus fucking snape

james potter: that’s three words

lily evans: do you want me to kill you too, bud??

james potter: you can’t fuck me if i’m dead james potter: but seriously, what did that greasebag do

lily evans: remember when i beat him to checking out the last copy of that chemistry research journal from the library?

james potter: i believe you described it as ‘the most victorious day of the semester to date’

lily evans: and i stand by that lily evans: but ANYWAYS lily evans: the creepy fucker SNUCK INTO MY ROOM and STOLE IT lily evans: and had the nerve to leave me a fucking LOVE NOTE in its place

james potter: he left you a love note?? james potter: what does it say?

lily evans: that is not the part of this story you should be fixating on lily evans: he wheedled his way through the front desk security and came into my room and WENT THROUGH MY STUFF lily evans: not to mention, the damn journal is still checked out in my name lily evans: so if he doesn’t return it on time, I’M going to have to pay for it lily evans: those things are expensive as FUCK

james potter: what a fucking twat

lily evans: i just lily evans: i can’t with him lily evans: the creepiness and borderline obsession with me is one thing lily evans: the fact that he acts like i owe it to him to be in love with him is another lily evans: but straight-up violating my privacy AND sabotaging my perfect reputation with the university library?? lily evans: i’m taking him down

james potter: hell yeah, you show that fucker once and for all

lily evans: wanna be my accomplice

james potter: that’s perhaps the sexiest thing you’ve ever said james potter: ofc i will be

lily evans: will text u when i come up with the appropriate revenge scheme

*

[Thursday 12 May, 13:02]

lily evans: meet me at the library in an hour

james potter: is this part of aforementioned revenge scheme?

lily evans: obviously

james potter: i shall be there

*

[Thursday 12 May, 15:23]

james potter: okay what the fuck was that

lily evans: in my defense it was not supposed to go that far

james potter: mind telling me what you DID have in mind when telling the librarian that we’re engaged?? james potter: because i’ve been wracking my brain and i’ve got nothing

lily evans: she was supposed to give me edit access to my account to fix my last name lily evans: which she did lily evans: and thanks to my BRILLIANT computer skills from there, the journal is checked out in snape’s name instead of mine lily evans: but clearly i underestimated how close i am with the uni library staff

james potter: no shit

lily evans: anyways, what do you want on our wedding registry

james potter: what

lily evans: i’ve got to give her a wedding website link!! she asked for it, i can’t very well show up at the library next week and not have a wedding website for her lily evans: i also ordered a £5 ring on etsy lily evans: it’s huge and tacky and exactly the sort of thing a trust fund baby like u would propose with

james potter: jfc james potter: put one of those mini waffle makers on there james potter: also i’m offended that you think so poorly of my ring-picking skills

*

[Friday 13 May, 9:10]

lily evans: hi, i have a weird request

remus lupin: that’s always a concerning sentence

lily evans: can you take fake engagement photos for me and james?? lily evans: will pay you in bourbon and chocolate

remus lupin: ……. literally what the fuck, lily remus lupin: why on earth do you need fake engagement photos

lily evans: i need them for our fake wedding website

remus lupin: somehow, that still doesn’t make this make any more sense

lily evans: it’s a long story lily evans: can you though?

remus lupin: *sigh* yes

lily evans: bless u

*

[Monday 16 May, 8:57]

lily evans: thoughts?? lily evans: Attachment - 12 Images

james potter: wow james potter: those look… really good

lily evans: we actually look like an engaged couple lily evans: like….. go us lily evans: alright, time to upload these bad boys onto the website

*

[Monday 16 May, 9:12]

james potter: sirius james potter: oh dear brother of mine james potter: who is nothing but kind and supportive and never gives me shit for anything james potter: how are you this fine evening?

sirius black: spit it out

james potter: as you know, i have been pulled into the most hare-brained of schemes with none other than lily evans james potter: and it spiralled into remus taking a bunch of fake engagement photos for us this weekend

sirius black: i am well aware sirius black: you stole my boyfriend from me on what would have otherwise been a chill saturday morning and used him to take pictures in a fucking flower field

james potter: that is correct james potter: anyways james potter: it has come to my attention that we make a Very Cute Couple

sirius black: are u saying what i think ur saying

james potter: and now i feel weird because i kind of... wish they weren’t fake??

sirius black: u ARE saying it sirius black: oh my GOD sirius black: took you long enough

james potter: hey now, you agreed not to give me shit

sirius black: if you scroll up, you’ll see i never agreed to anything

james potter: i can’t believe you’re being so rude to me in my time of dire emotional distress

*

[Monday 16 May, 15:32]

remus lupin: heard you finally got your head out of your ass and admitted you like evans as more than a friend slash hookup

james potter: i’m going to kill sirius, he wasn’t supposed to tell anyone

remus lupin: he’d like you to know that he never agreed to that either remus lupin: but seriously, it was about time

james potter: :( stop making me feel like an idiot for having feelings

remus lupin: you’re not an idiot for having feelings remus lupin: you ARE an idiot for taking so long to realise you’ve had them

james potter: this is a new development james potter: i only had friendly feelings for her until yesterday

remus lupin: …… james remus lupin: you once woke up in the middle of the night to drive to that 24-hour ice cream shop on the other side of town at 3 a.m. so you could take lily her favourite milkshake while she was studying remus lupin: that is NOT something you do for someone you only have friendly feelings for

james potter: it isn’t???

remus lupin: would you do that for me or peter?

james potter: no

remus lupin: hence, not friendly feelings

james potter: … oh

remus lupin: you are useless remus lupin: absolutely useless remus lupin: truly do not know what lily sees in you

james potter: well that’s mean

*

[Monday 16 May, 16:53]

lily evans: is it sad that i keep forgetting this wedding website is fake?? lily evans: like, i am putting Way Too Much Effort into this given that it is an elaborate ruse to appease some librarians and i keep catching myself fantasising about a real wedding lily evans: literally what is wrong with me

remus lupin: jfc remus lupin: you two really ARE meant for each other

*

[Monday 16 May, 23:49]

james potter: wait what do you mean ‘what lily sees in me’?? james potter: remus?????

*

[Tuesday 17 May, 10:03]

lily evans: stage 2 of burn snape’s life to the ground begins tomorrow lily evans: are you ready?

james potter: should i be prepared for a fake marriage this time?

lily evans: haha no, i promise i won’t spring any fake relationship statuses on you this time lily evans: but now that you mention it… lily evans: check out this work of art lily evans: theknot . com / deerlybeloved

james potter: fucking hell, evans james potter: you went all out

lily evans: umm yeah lol lily evans: turns out designing a wedding website is a really fun way to procrastinate

*

[Tuesday 17 May, 10:16]

james potter: she used a deer pun in the fake wedding page name i actually can’t breathe

sirius black: the transition from complete denial to pathetic sod happened even faster than i expected

james potter: you are ruthless

sirius black: remember when i was the pathetic sod about remus and you gave me SO much shit about it?? sirius black: this is payback, bitchhhhhhh

james potter: you’re right, i deserve this

*

[Wednesday 18 May, 19:34]

james potter: truly, evans, i don’t understand why you’re studying chem when you’re this good at hacking into things james potter: in other news, i’m having the absolute fucking time of my LIFE on snape’s reddit account rn james potter: i just wrote a long essay about how i’ve learned the errors of my bigoted ways and am embracing the blm movement and intersectional feminism and i’ve never seen something get so violently downvoted so fast

lily evans: see, this is why i knew you were the right accomplice for this lily evans: keep destroying his internet reputation and trolling his weird alt-right community with all your research and logic lily evans: you’re doing amazing sweetie

james potter: studying human rights law does occasionally have its perks james potter: this, plus ya know the whole ‘making the world a better place’ thing

lily evans: i was about to say lily evans: i should hope the only perk isn’t trolling the internet

james potter: ahahahahah yessss one of the admins is threatening to kick me out james potter: also he keeps using mudblood as an insult and i’m like ??? james potter: what does that even mean??

lily evans: somehow i feel like you don’t want to know

james potter: update i found out, and yes you were right, i didn’t want to know

lily evans: in that case, not gonna ask

*

[Thursday 19 May, 17:35]

severus snape: Potter.

james potter: fuck i really thought i’d blocked your number

severus snape: You’ve pulled childish pranks in the past, but getting me banned from the Death Eaters Messageboard is a new low.

james potter: i’m sorry what james potter: i don’t know what you’re talking about

severus snape: Cut the bullshit. severus snape: In the process of reinstating my account - with none of my reputation points, might I add, thanks for that - I’ve acquired photo evidence of the posts that resulted in my expulsion. severus snape: I know no one else who would both make a play on words about deer and quote a Taylor Swift song in the same sentence. It was obviously you, you childish buffoon.

james potter: haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate

severus snape: I’m not joking around here.

james potter: baby i’m just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake

severus snape: You’re going to regret this, mark my words.

james potter: i shake it off, i shake it off

james potter has blocked severus snape

*

[Thursday 19 May, 19:03]

lily evans: come over i’m bored

james potter: is this a ‘come over so we can have sex’ type of come over or a ‘come over so we can watch the good place for the hundredth time’ type of come over

lily evans: why does it have to be one or the other?

james potter: touché james potter: omw

*

[Thursday 19 May, 22:38]

james potter: RED ALERT I HAVE FUCKED UP james potter: you’re 1000% gonna roast me for this and i don’t fucking care because if i don’t tell someone i’m actually going to explode

sirius black: what happened with lily this time

james potter: bold of you to assume this has to do with lily

sirius black: does it have to do with lily?

james potter: ….. yes

sirius black: my bold assumption proven correct

james potter: anyways, we were shagging, as we do james potter: and it was the ~heat of the moment~, you know??

sirius black: i am not qualified to give you sex advice, if that’s where this is going

james potter: and i might’ve accidentally told her i loved her

sirius black: oh fuck that’s not where this was going

james potter: and now i don’t know what to doooooo

sirius black: well, what did you do after you said it?

james potter: honestly i blacked out james potter: i think i backtracked by telling her i meant that i love fucking her and then just like….. left as soon as we were done

sirius black: jesus fucking CHRIST

*

[Thursday 19 May, 22:54]

remus lupin: sirius is banging his head on the table repeatedly and given that he was texting you a few minutes ago i can only assume you said something on a whole new level of stupid

*

[Thursday 19 May, 23:01]

james potter: sirius??? james potter: help???

sirius black: i have never gone out on a date with a woman and even i can tell you that that is absolutely NOT what you do when you tell a girl you love them for the first time sirius black: you absolute knob

james potter: so what do i doooooo

sirius black: tell her the truth maybe? sirius black: the cat’s out of the bag now anyways and it’s not like you can make things any worse than you already have

james potter: but we agreed no one was going to catch feelings when we started sleeping together!! james potter: we pinky swore james potter: i can’t break a pinky swear

sirius black: ffs the fact that you two pinky swore on a sex agreement is something i’ll need to give you shit for at a totally separate time but that’s not the most pressing issue at the moment sirius black: my point stands, breaking a pinky swear is still an improvement on the current situation sirius black: just tell her the truth so you two can become that nauseatingly adorable couple and overtake me and remus as the most vomit-inducing pair in college

james potter: ughhhhh james potter: curse my blood-deprived brain for getting me into this mess

*

[Saturday 21 May, 9:37]

lily evans: phase 4 of fucking up snape’s life starts today - you ready?

james potter: uhhh yeah james potter: listen, are you okay?

lily evans: yes? why wouldn’t i be?

james potter: idk james potter: but good, that’s good

lily evans: yep, it’s good

james potter: how many phases are there to this snape plan anyways? james potter: will i get to know any of the phases in advance?

lily evans: 4 phases lily evans: phase 1 was putting the world back in its rightful order, phases 2-4 are all about destroying the things he holds most dear lily evans: see: his top 5 placement on that alt-right message board (phase 2), and his good reputation with all the chem professors (phase 3) lily evans: (i handled phase 3 on my own, btw)

james potter: fair enough, don’t know how i would’ve helped with chem professors anyways james potter: pretty sure one of them (slughorn i think?) hates me from that one time sirius and i let chickens loose in the science building

lily evans: oh god yeah he definitely probably does lily evans: anyways, phase 4 is sneaking into his room like he did to mine, and you’re gonna leave the note lily evans: he’ll be properly pissed off if he knows you got in, but he’d probably just wank to a note i left

james potter: thanks for the most cursed mental image of my life james potter: but you’re prob right tbh

lily evans: anyways, i’m pretty good at picking the locks on the dormitory windows, so i’ll go in that way and unlock his room from the inside - all you’ll need to do is show up lily evans: tonight at 7

james potter: roger that

*

[Saturday 21 May, 13:46]

remus lupin: have you talked to lily about the infamous mid-coital ‘i love you’ yet?

james potter: jfc must sirius tell you everything james potter: and no, i’m getting there i swear

remus lupin: get there faster

*

[Saturday 21 May, 22:40]

sirius black: is everything okay?? sirius black: actually wait i know the answer to that sirius black: you came in soaking wet two hours ago and grabbed the bottle of whiskey from the kitchen and have been blasting all too well at top volume ever since sirius black: everything is definitely not okay

james potter: fcuk lily evans james potter: and not in the fun way james potter: i’m never gonna fuck her in the fun way again

sirius black: what happened?

james potter: rememember how we were sabotaging snep’s life james potter: *sneep james potter: *snape james potter: turns out, she and sneep go way back james potter: motherfucker james potter: sneep is jsut his name now james potter: anyways, she set me up and betrayed me james potter: sneep knew i was gonna be there and put a booby trap on his door, and he and lily were inside LAUGHING at me

sirius black: wait what the fuck sirius black: lily would never

james potter: but she would apparently james potter: she even has pictures of them in primary school together james potter: i just james potter: fuck

sirius black: that’s actually beyond fucked up

james potter: originally this whole revenge on sneep thing was just me following along with lily’s rage james potter: but now it’s personal james potter: the lily revenge plan didn’t have a phase 5, but the james version does james potter: and i’m taking both of them dwon james potter: is it petty? yes james potter: will it actually fix th fact that evans betrayed me? no james potter: but will it make me feel better? yess james potter: and that, i think, is a valid reason james potter: will u hlep me??

sirius black: i mean, i’m always down to fuck with sneep sirius black: but uhh, maybe sleep off the alcohol first sirius black: and stop playing all too well

james potter: okye

sirius black: that was not an invitation to start playing you’re not sorry

james potter: taylor swift is th eonly person who gets my sadness right now i cant’ help it

*

[Sunday 22 May, 9:21]

lily evans: i called you like 5 times last night, why didn’t you pick up

james potter: i wasn’t aware you’d want to talk to me james potter: too busy hanging out with your bff sneep

lily evans: jfc you’re such a drama queen

james potter: excuse me

lily evans: also god no i’d never hang out with snape lily evans: sneep? lol

james potter: it was a typo that i’m making into an Official Thing james potter: you two seemed awfully cozy yesterday james potter: you know, when you betrayed me and led me straight into a trap

lily evans: ffs i didn’t betray you lily evans: if you would’ve picked up any of my calls last night, i would’ve been able to explain to you that this was all part of the plan

james potter: wait what

lily evans: i had to make you think i’d betrayed you because you can’t act for shit

james potter: why did you need me to think that

lily evans: for the real phase 4 lily evans: i’m destroying everything snape holds dear lily evans: which, yes, includes both his weird messageboard reputation and his teacher’s pet status, but you know what’s at the very top of that list? lily evans: his perpetual wank that i’m going to realise he was the perfect man for him all along lily evans: hence, i have lulled him into a false sense of believing his fantasy has finally come true so i can crush it under my heel once and for all

james potter: that is… downright diabolical

lily evans: i take revenge crusades very seriously

james potter: ok but how do i know you’re not double crossing me again?

lily evans: bc for fuck’s sake in what world would i EVER want to be with someone who treats me like a fucking prize that he’s owed for being nice to me as a kid?? lily evans: c’mon potter, you know me better than that

james potter: it felt SO REAL yesterday though

lily evans: that is because i, unlike you, am excellent at acting

james potter: why do you keep implying i’m a bad actor??

lily evans: because you are lily evans: exhibit a - you told me you loved me and then proceeded to full-on panic so hard that you gave the world’s worst cover up and ran away at the first possible moment

james potter: oh god, you noticed that

lily evans: of course i noticed that, because once again, you are the world’s worst actor

james potter: yikes james potter: i’m sorry, i know i managed to break literally the only rule we had going into this arrangement

lily evans: it’s actually kinda convenient, tbh lily evans: considering i broke it as well

james potter: you what

lily evans: as it happens, i have somewhat recently come to the realisation that my feelings for you are somewhat outside the bounds of what one would consider ~friendly~

james potter: was it the wedding website james potter: is that what did it

lily evans: embarrassingly enough…. yes

james potter: SAME

lily evans: wait seriously??

james potter: so serious i’m not even gonna make a sirius pun james potter: i mean, did you SEE how good we look together?? james potter: evans, we are a POWER COUPLE

lily evans: hell yes we are

james potter: a power couple who takes sneep down once and for all

lily evans: hell yes we are x100 lily evans: come over in a bit? gotta discuss the actual plan lily evans: i may have an idea that makes it even better

*

[Sunday 22 May, 10:21]

james potter: on second thought, plans have changed yet again

sirius black: i take it this is a positive change sirius black: given that you have now taken to blasting call it what you want

james potter: :)

*

[Sunday 22 May, 13:05]

james potter has unblocked severus snape

james potter: hey bro i just wanted to say i’m sorry for trying to sneak into your room

severus snape: You’re not my bro. Don’t call me that. severus snape: We both know you’re only apologising because you wanted to get into Lily’s pants.

james potter: not what this is about but go off i guess

severus snape: You’re just jealous because for once, the nice guy did get the girl. severus snape: Apology not accepted, by the way.

*

[Sunday 22 May, 13:13]

james potter: Attachment - 1 Screenshot james potter: at what point do i get to tell him i’ve actually been in your pants

lily evans: your time will come lily evans: but for now, stop texting sneep and put your phone down so that you can cuddle with your naked girlfriend who’s literally on the other side of the bed waiting for you

james potter: don’t have to ask me twice

*

[Sunday 22 May, 13:57]

lily evans: hey sev? wanna meet me at the founder’s garden this afternoon?

severus snape: Of course. Let’s do 4.

lily evans: looking forward to it xx

*

[Sunday 22 May, 18:59]

sirius black: heard sneep had a temper tantrum so dramatic half of the college overheard it

james potter: it was iconic

sirius black: also heard you and evans are engaged now???

james potter: ah, that part is just hearsay james potter: we decided to lean into the fact that we’ve already got a fake wedding website and just throw a fake proposal in there for good measure james potter: it’s still not an actual engagement james potter: but sneep doesn’t know that, and he never will

sirius black: that is so fantastically stupid, but then again, i don’t know why i’d expect anything less from you two at this point

james potter: i am going to buy her a less shitty ring though - not like an actual diamond one, but something in the middle ground, ya know? james potter: if she’s gonna wear it all the time it might as well be nice

*

[Sunday 22 May, 23:41]

severus snape: You are despicable. severus snape: You stole the girl who was clearly MINE. Lily loved ME first.

james potter: first of all, lily doesn’t belong to anyone james potter: second of all, she picked me

severus snape: And we all know you’re just going to drop her as soon as you get your dick wet.

james potter: not that our sex life is any of your business, but i can assure you that i have already disproven that theory

severus snape: That’s disgusting. I didn’t need to know that.

james potter: i mean, you’re the one who keeps bringing things back to getting into lily’s pants james potter: just wanted to share that the experience is indeed a pleasant one, 10/10 would recommend, not that you’ll ever get to experience it for yourself

severus snape: Fuck. You.

james potter: you know what i think, sneep?

severus snape: My name is Snape. Surely your pea brain can at least spell that properly.

james potter: i think you need to calm down james potter: you’re being too loud

james potter has blocked severus snape

*

[Monday 23 May, 12:54]

lily evans: fyi the uni library staff sent us one of those mini waffle makers as an engagement gift

james potter: oh my god james potter: best fake engagement ever

lily evans: figured you’d enjoy that

[caligobeltrao]

I for one would love 2 hear ur thoughts on the hannibal novel 👀👀 - bloodybrahms ☺

ahhh thank you BB!! <3 I’m gonna throw it under a cut bc I know people aren’t gonna want my ramblings clogging up their dash lol. 

Edit after I’ve written it: Holy shit this turned into a monster but tbf I did say I was going to rant. I think I miss writing college essays...

Also, I would like to note bc I’m about to bitch, I do still love Hannibal and Clarice and all of the franchise. Hell, I even love book Hannibal because I’m garbage and want to be special. So yeah. It’s a fond bitching. 

Okay where to fuckin begin man... This novel was a fucking Shit Show, my dudes. It was like baby’s first fanfiction. 

Let’s just jump in, shall we? 

So by now, having read both Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, I know Harris injects of lot of sexual shit into his novels, fine whatever, but the amount of pedophilia is insane. Like, Red Dragon with the grandmother threatening to cut his dick off by holding it in between scissors????? And then we have Mason Verger, worst human on the planet. Like jfc I’ll go into him specifically more later but just. Men. Why does it always have to be sexual. 

Like that time Clarice wasn’t wearing a bra and she wanted to prove to Paul Krendler she wasn’t wearing a wire so she flashed him her tits?? Unnecessary, Harris. Bullshit on all counts. 

Next, poor Ardelia Mapp. So he clearly wrote out her accent in Silence, which frankly reads racist since to me it seemed like he did it every time a character of color was met but he didn’t for Clarice’s Southern accent except for this book when she was talking to Ardelia. Now, that’d be a cool way to show how close they are, sure, but it just... She didn’t show up enough to warrant that reaction from me, plus all the other casually racist shit he throws in. 

Ardelia’s literally there as the wise Black best friend to help Clarice along. She doesn’t feel like her own character, she’s only there in conjunction with her, or doing something for her. She was the fucking valedictorian for Christ fucking sake, she also works at the Bureau but if her department was mentioned it was only once in passing. She was not a full character which fucking blows because she could’ve been so cool. 

And real quick before I forget, I hate how she’s treated in the end. I do like she gets a reference and that brainwashed Clarice sent her an emerald ring and a note saying she was okay, but Ardelia was abandoned by her best friend (that she had lived with) with not even a phone call and they will never see each other again and I think Ardelia knows it. It sucks and I’m heartbroken for this woman. 

I’m gonna touch a little bit on the racism too. Now I’m white and not the most qualified to talk about this shit, but I do wanna mention it because it makes me mad. There’s just so many unnecessary slurs, any POC is more of a background helper character to Clarice than anything or a foil. 

For example, Evelda Drumgo. She starts us off. Badass Black woman who runs a drug cartel. She chooses to shoot at Clarice and risk her baby’s life, and we have Clarice wash the baby off and save his life. Then Evelda’s mother is written as irrational when she slaps Clarice for visiting the baby in the hospital; I get Clarice’s impulse, but that woman just lost her daughter because Clarice killed her. I would’ve slapped Clarice too, even if it was a totally justifiable shot. 

The baby himself is used as a foil throughout other parts, most notably to me when Clarice goes to visit Mason the first time. There are two Black boys from a foster home playing in a room with a camera so Mason can watch them, and it shakes Clarice up a lil bit because of the baby, but it says she’s getting more used to it.

Now this is half and half well written and shoddy to me. It’d be a cool moment, if the whole incident wasn’t nearly completely forgotten for the rest of the book shortly afterword. It could show growth, if Clarice had any growth to show. 

And then the Romani people who are literally just used and thrown away. Sickening. Also very broadly used the stereotypes we hear which Sucks; the three we meet in any sort of depth are pickpockets, one was already in jail and Pazzi used his leverage as a police officer to get her to do what he wanted and threatened to have her baby taken away from her permanently, like it was just bad. And then the man got killed. Pazzi let him bleed out. Asshole. 

The slurs. I could take out all of them and pretty much have the same damn thing. Like I get showing negative aspects of characters and just because a character’s racist doesn’t mean the author is, but with the characters already being as shitty as they are, fully didn’t need it to make them worse. Entirely unnecessary. Racism or the character being racist has no impact on the plot is the major thing, I think. And you can replace that with anything along those lines, like sexist, homophobic, transphobic. It didn’t impact the plot, they can still be shitty, you just don’t need to use them. 

This also goes in reference to Margot being a lesbian. And the transphobia holy shit, it was disgusting. Harris had Clarice think something so cruel and unnecessary it’s like my guy why was that even remotely something we needed to hear. We didn’t. I wanted to stop reading because that’s not my Clarice, first and foremost, and second, this is supposed to be the character we LIKE. And now I don’t like ANYBODY in this damn book. 

And he treats Margot like shit too, and Barney. 

Their friendship was beautiful and great and finally for once something nice was happening in Margot’s life and I was happy reading it, and then FOR SOME REASON Margot goes to shower in the same room as Barney after a workout, which makes no sense, and then Barney tries to force a kiss on her (and he was hard, Harris made that very clear) and she had been sexually assaulted by Mason her brother and ruin the whole damn thing and none of it would have changed any other piece of the novel if you removed it!!!!!!!!! Entirely unnecessary!!!!!! And Barney had the gall to say well I couldn’t help myself like none of that was realistic in the slightest, she never would have went in the same room to shower with him. 

Something you need to do is basically get some suspension of disbelief from your reader and maintain and stretch that as you go, right? Well mine was gone at that moment.

Also side note Margot is basically just there to show how shitty Mason is for the umpteenth time. Her whole thing is lesbian sexual assault victim.

Also heavily implied she was a lesbian because of the sexual assault. And we rarely see Judy, her girlfriend, so. Bad. Bad all around. 

Circling back around to Clarice and how disappointing she is in the books as compared to the movies. Well, Clarice is also a poorly written character. She’s 1000x better in the movie. Hell, she’s even better in this book than she was in Silence, but that’s not fucking hard. 

Pretty much all the characters are so flat they don’t even classify as two dimensional. 

Like sure, maybe we wanna say Clarice didn’t really solve much in the first book and was just handed everything because she was a trainee and that’s what Hannibal wanted. 

Like if you remember the John Mulaney sketch of Delta Airlines where he’s just going “Okay!” and running to the next place he’s told, that’s Clarice. 

Okay so why does she get goaded into all this shit now? She should know better. She should know how to handle herself better. Like she messes up basic fucking shit like clearing a room before untying Hannibal, which was stupid, she seems oblivious to some of the politics at work even though she’s been in the FBI for like 7 years now, she would at least have more fucking contacts than Brigham who died in the beginning and Jack Crawford who died at the end by rolling over in his bed to his dead wife’s side and Ardelia who would be near the same level as Clarice I guess but I still don’t know her damn department???? Like you fucking network. 

Plus after her final fall from grace with the FBI, we meet or are told of random side characters that go no where and do nothing just to say “hey look at my special little girl, everyone likes her and looks up to her!!” Why? Because she caught Buffalo Bill 7 years ago and then never got a promotion or even worked with the BAU? Again, it does not make sense. People may pity her? But a random girl in the lab wouldn’t be fangirling. Starling herself said her career had gone nowhere because of the politics and not sleeping with Paul. You need to show me why she’s likable in her actions not others words. 

We spend more time away from her than with her anyways but Jesus. 

AND HER IN THE ENDING. She was fucking BRAINWASHED????? Bull FUCKING SHIT. He completely ruined anything he even remotely might’ve had in this cluster fuck of a novel. 

Case in point, difference from the movie, Hannibal spends weeks (possibly? it’s left purposefully vague and I’m guessing that’s because Harris didn’t know the ins and outs and wanted his novel done) meticulously brainwashing Clarice, he had stolen her father’s bones and she’s so far gone at that point she doesn’t care, and the whole scene where Paul is getting his brain eaten? Yeah, she happily indulges and when he insults her, she asks Hannibal for more. Fuck you, Thomas Harris. 

And Hannibal’s a Gary Stu, fucking fight me. 

In the movie he either is or he’s tap dancing on that line, don’t get me wrong, but in the novels it’s insufferable because it doesn’t seem earned. The pigs didn’t attack him because they didn’t smell fear on him. No. He’s easily able to drug and brainwash Clarice and take her as his lover. No. Go away. He’s so smart and one step ahead and can manipulate anyone and everyone into doing what he wants and blah blah blah shut up! A character being perfect isn’t interesting even if he’s evil!! We all know he’s never truly in danger because of how Harris writes him and that’s boring!! 

And I personally have a pet peeve where the villain is described as a monster or unstoppable. That’s boring and I no longer care about your story. I know 9 times out of 10 your main character is going to find a bullshit way around the impossible and kill it. Or it’s just like a default personality and nothing else is added to it. And that’s Hannibal. 

I’m on Hannibal Rising now and, spoiler alert, he’s very bland as a character. (Also Harris switched some details in the novel which kinda annoys me like get your own canon right my man but whatever.) The plot itself is pretty fun? I guess? Like there’s action and stuff and I’m enjoying that. But it’s the same set up where Harris’s Gary Stu always wins, like he was 13 in the book when he killed the butcher. Let. Your. Characters. Lose. 

Also even more racist shit but what did I expect really. 

Anyways, I have no idea who I’m supposed to root for in the novel because all the characters are just kinda shitty. It really just boils down to Harris not showing any redeeming qualities or actions from any of his characters. I liked Margot for a while out of spite but she never really went anywhere and the way she killed Mason (btw she sodomized him with a cattle prod to get his semen bc side plot and then stuffed his Moray eel down his throat and somehow I still don’t think that’s the worst part of the novel) just. No thanks really. 

All the random little side plots were also pretty not great. How many time does Harris have to say Pazzi of the Pazzis? Like I fucking get what you’re going for, even if I hadn’t watched the movie I’d be like, “Oh this dude’s gonna get hung outta that window, dope,” the literal first time. Stop treating your readers like idiots. 

And then Margot’s side plot was that the will their father left said she needed a biological heir to inherit because he was pissed she’s gay and we needed the homophobia I guess, so Mason got everything, and she was helping him with the Hannibal shit because he’s pretty incapacitated duh, and in return he would give her his jizz so Judy could be artificially inseminated and they could have a child and get some of her inheritance. I don’t care. It was all very gross, and Mason kept saying shit like suck me off you’ve done it before, I won’t be able to feel it anyway, maybe Judy’ll suck me off you think she’d like that. It’s all gross. 

And I guess this is a good a time as any to finally start on Mason. So a great rule of writing to make everything work better and give your story more depth is to give everyone both positive and negative traits right, even and especially the bad guys? Like, rules can always be broken if you’re a good enough writer, but I believe I have established that Harris isn’t quite there yet, to put it nicer than I have. 

Mason is one bad trait after another. It’s like when Harris was bored of constantly writing about plain ole pedophilia, he threw a dart at a board of horrible things and landed on topics such as: pedophilia but make it incest, extreme sadism, sadism but against children now, and good old fashioned racism! Fucking Cordell was supposed to collect the children’s tears after Mason would make them cry and put them in martinis for him. Realism went out the goddamn door real fast with this novel y’all. Like a fucking Scooby Doo villain over here. 

And he loves talking about being a sadistic pedophile, he will literally not shut up about it to Clarice when she first gets there telling her about his trip to Africa and this portable guillotine he has and just. I get it was probably like trying to make her uncomfortable on purpose because he’s a Freak, but it went way too far if only because it was annoying, not even uncomfortable for me as a reader. I was bored real quick. Get to the shit I actually wanna know. 

And it sucks because of the weird, over-the-top way of how he died, I got zero satisfaction from his death. I couldn’t even be like, “Well at least Margot got her revenge,” because that’s not how she originally wanted to kill him!!! She wanted someone else to extract his semen for the insemination but couldn’t find anybody to do it for her, and then Hannibal, whilst tied up, said use a cattle prod and you won’t have to touch him and when you kill him you can blame it on me, and I’m pretty sure even if she hit his prostate right every time and he COULD cum from that alone in addition to how his body is Fucked Up now, it would’ve been a lengthy, gross, and re-traumatizing experience for her because all she wanted to do was avoid seeing and touching her brother’s private parts again, which I think is a totally fair and rational desire. 

So I have to live with the fact that she was desperate enough to not lose the house and business because of her homophobic father to go through her childhood trauma again. There’s no place in this book that has a somewhat positive conclusion. 

Even the very last bit where Barney has a girlfriend and a ton of cash from Margot, all he wants to do is see every Vermeer in the world right? Well, because Hannibal and Clarice are in Buenos Aires where one of them is on display, Barney gets spooked and has him and his girlfriend leave before he can see it and it ends that bit with he never got to see it ever so he didn’t even complete his dream!!! 

Also for good measure, Harris throws in that Hannibal and Clarice enjoy having sex regularly. For no reason. Just letting us know. 

I know this seemed like just a bitch fest, because it was, but I kinda sorta enjoyed it? It kept my attention at the very least. It’s really disappointing because like I said, I love the movies, all of them, and have since I was little. To see the original not stand up to that image in my mind is a little heartbreaking. Especially Clarice. She was a strong female role model to me, but turns out she’s... just kinda there. And her ending is that of her no longer being herself and getting that agency taken away from her. 

There is a reference to her waking up from a sleep, if she is asleep (that’s kind of how he worded it), that kinda let us draw our conclusions on whether she was just brainwashed into being good for him or if she was willingly going along with this and was in love with him I guess and it felt like a slap in the face. She turned from a hardworking, modest country girl working her way up to the FBI into a female Hannibal. Which on the surface sounds kinda cool because we love luxe serial killers, but that’s not what she wanted or who she was set up to be. And to insinuate that she would even remotely consider choosing that path for herself is at its best an insult to her and at its worst a complete erasure of her background, what little character Harris did set up. It also completely erases my own connections to her, as a girl from a small town myself who has bigger dreams than this and also... a good, strong set of morals. He just tossed that out the window. 

Obviously if you’re on this blog, you like slasher x reader shit, and this is a novel with a slasher x a person, right? So why am I so mad about it? Because the whole point of this blog and reader insert fanfiction in general is that you are taken as you are and loved wholly as yourself and that you are worthy of that love (in a fictional setting, not really loving people who are like this, which I think we understand but I want to clarify). She was not taken as she was. He is not in love with her, she is not in love with him. She was transformed into what he wanted out of her. He couldn’t get her to be Mischa, his first plan, so he made her like himself. And the fact that he was so easily able to do it makes me upset, and even more so is that it’s not written like it’s weird or wrong. It’s written like they’re in love and this is a good thing. 

He may have been going for the classic “everyone is capable of doing bad things” stuff we see a lot, but we got that from Margot already. And Barney, for stealing Lecter’s stuff and selling it. And Paul, and the entire FBI for turning on Clarice, and the kidnappers, and Pazzi, and random shitty side characters. And none of it was particularly well written or made some sort of strong statement. It just was. And that’s not a good enough basis for a novel. 

Anyways, if you made it this far holy shit you’re a saint and I love you, let’s be friends?? <3 Have a good day y’all, thank you BB for giving me permission to ramble. 

[coldtomyflash]

Weird question, and it's perfectly okay if "I don't know" is your answer: How did you manage to do grad school AND finish writing so many good fics? I'm writing the lit review for my dissertation right now, and I want to finish several WIPs I have (if nothing else, just to prove to myself that I can), but it just feels like I can barely do either, much less both. Any advice at all?

Ah, no worries! It’s not that odd a question. Actually, someone’s asked me before ^^;  My reply to them at the time was here. No need to read it, but it’s some context? 

My reply now that my head is in a healthier place is... long and winding and not actually full of that much advice but eh, I rambled as I do. If you just want the advice, scroll all the way down and it’s there. 

For starters, I’m not a normal comparison point. This isn’t to pat myself on the back, but for a variety of reasons, writing is something that comes really naturally to me. I’ll detail those reasons, but before I get into that, the point I’m illustrating here is that... sometimes I think people compare themselves to how much I wrote and what else I accomplished in that time and think “hey cool - that is a function human! Why can’t I do that?” And the answer is short answer is that my brain is programmed for pretty much one thing, and that thing is writing writing, and holy crap I was the opposite of a functional human when writing that much and that quickly.

The long answer is - 

I’ve been making up stories literally as long as I can remember. I spent my childhood consuming stories. I taught myself to read and was during school I was consistently reading about 8 grade levels above my reading level, and loved learning about narrative structure. I annoyed the shit out of my older brother by reading the same book series as he read, but guessing plot points that were going to happen either in that book or else 2-3 books out. he didn’t get how I would just know and I’d be like “it’s obvious - that’s where the story has to go!” Because I was imagining it in my head - what i would do with it, where it would go, where it had to go. Closing the page mid0chapter and imagining the next-scene, and then picking back up to see how right or wrong I was.

And I had a best friend for most of my childhood through to early adulthood with whom I made stories. Every weekend, creating narratives together, not writing them down but basically roleplaying them by talking them out (voices and all, it was a heck of a lot of fun, as much as it made me pretty much the nerdiest teen in existence). We tried to write a novel when we were 12, got about 7 chapters in. We had a lot of starts and stops on other stories too.

Which isn’t said to stroke my own ego, it’s said to highlight that I have a metric fuckton of explicit and implicit practice at storytelling. It was and sort of is my “whole life”. I also had teachers that helped me develop storytelling skills, and was really freaking lucky to go to a school with an AP program for English that seriously stretched my ability to write fast. We had to write an essay every single class, during class, and have it finished by the end of class (or in less time if we had lecture stuff to go over too) in my last year of high school. The essays could be creative response (i.e., short stories). I wrote a short story almost every week in the space of an hour when I was 17. By the time I got to the end of year final and actually got to use a computer and type that shit instead of hand-cramping halfway through, I somehow managed to write the two-essay final in the allotted 3 hours and, i shit you not, had a wordcount of 6000 words. 

That’s still my record. It was probably a dumpster fire but I got 100% probably for sheer volume.

Anyway that was over a decade ago, but the whole reason this life story is pertinent is because - 

I have practice. The only way to improve at anything, to get faster at it, for it to ease, is to practice. Practice at storytelling, practice at having to set a scene using just words sitting in my BFF’s room and trying to describe the image I had in my head for how I wanted her to see the scene as it was playing out. Practice at writing fast and getting feedback on how to write. Practice implicitly at trying to imagine what routes stories can take. Practice taking stories apart and piecing them back together, in my head, all the time.

So that’s part of it. 

The other part, and this is what I said in my previous post, was depression. I was seriously fucking burnt out and depressed when I started writing coldflash fic, and grad school took a huge toll on my mental health. It’s easier to write when you’re doing it to procrastinate working on your dissertation, and easier to keep writing when you get positive feedback and it feeds those lovely dopamine gremlins in your brain who aren’t getting any positive validation from grad school because holy damn that shit is hard.

I had no balance in my life for a long time. It wasn’t good. I went to counselling. I got more balance. Fic slowed down. Still finished, but not 120k words in 3 months (that was the pace when I started fic writing...jfc I don’t know how I managed.) Life got harder. Fic was now harder to write. I got more counselling. Fic was easier to write. I moved around the world. Fic got harder to write. I started anti-depressants. Narratives now seem to be flowing again. 

Regardless of the state of my mental health though, I’ve never written as much as quickly as I did during the middle of grad school. And I think that’s because I was very narratively pent up when I started writing fic. I had been so busy and pushing myself so damn hard in grad school that I didn’t make almost any time for stories, for fic, for imagining my own stories. I was suppressing that side of myself in the service of Focus. So when I burnt out, my narrative side rebounded and said “fuck that noise, I still exist, and we’re making space for me”. It took over. I came literally a hair’s breadth from quitting my PhD post candidacy. Idk what type of program you’re in, but business schools in North America? It’s a 5 year PhD typically, and I was at the end of year 3 and eyeing the door.

Anyway - I say all that because - 

I am not a good example and you should not do what I did. Finishing that many long WIPs that quickly wasn’t healthy, and was only possible because I didn’t do much else at the time, and had a lifetime of practice and a narrative rebound to make it even possible. 

But - 

My actual advice?

1) Practice. Practice. Practice. 

Not all at once, but everything counts. Daydreaming counts. Watching shows and thinking of how they could be improved counts. Talking out story ideas with friends counts. Just make it fun. Practice is something we think of as arduous and annoying. Learning new words is practice. Meeting new people and considering their traits is practice. Everything can be practice for writing. All the research you do can be practice for writing. (Random note: a childhood coping mechanism for anxiety that I had was to narrate what I was doing to myself in my head in the 3rd person. Like telling a story of myself walking to gym class in my own head. That was also practice.)

2) Have fun with it! 

Don’t making writing an obligation. Then it’s another thing on the list of things you avoid. Finishing stories often feels like an obligation. I’m going through this right now with Needs Must. It can be hard to complete a WIP because you start to have internal anxieties about disappointing readers, not living up to expectations, exhaustion from that narrative, distraction / temporary loss of interest (which is normal! and not actually a bad thing!). All of that then makes you feel guilty, which makes it impossible to get into a creative space to write. You can’t work on the thing you’re avoiding.

3) It’s okay to give your WIPs breathing space. 

When you hit a wall, you may need to set it aside and read it again in a month with fresh eyes. You may need to treat your story like someone else’s story. That’s, again, literally where I’m at right now with Needs Must. I just reread a bunch of it and hadn’t really forgotten the details but once they’re on the page they’re out of my head, and so taking some time before going back to reread it made it easier for me to think of like I think of every other story: “what would I do next with this? Oh that’s a twist, that needs to come back later. There’s a theme here, we’ve seen that three times. What’s the best ending I, as a reader now, can imagine for this?”

If avoidance, guilt, and/or writer’s block aren’t your issue, and it’s literally just down to time management - 

4) Your graduate degree is more important than your WIPs. 

Your WIPs aren’t going anywhere, they don’t have a deadline, and your readers will wait for you, and new ones will find you. Time management is an essential, awful, part of being an academic. 

I get more done, both at work and creatively on fic, when I’m just a bit too busy, but that’s me. Figure out what is optimal for you, and do it. When do you get the most writing done? When you’re relieved? When you’re anxious? Late at night? First thing in the morning? When does it flow? When won’t it ruin your graduate career?

(Seriously I was writing fic at work last week and was kicking myself. I don’t have time for that shit! Set boundaries on your time!)

But full serious here, graduate school is exhausting, and almost inherently de-motivating, and even the best damn students eye the door a lot of the time, even if they do finish. It’s stressful and you feel constantly powerless. It’s a lot to need to cope with. I found writing to be a way to cope. That lit review you’re working on? Yeah, it’s zapping your time and energy. That’s normal (unfortunately). And it’s good to give yourself breaks from that to write. Don’t feel guilty for taking time here and there for yourself - to write, or to not write. To relax, unplug, unwind. To close your eyes and daydream (if you’re me) or have a bubble bath (if you’re my sister), or do whatever helps you honestly, genuinely destress. The best thing you can do for both writing and for graduate school is to take breaks and take time for yourself. There is actual science on the importance of breaks, and academics are fucking notorious for putting too much pressure on themselves to actually relax.

5) If you’re burnt out and/or depressed - seek help! 

Most universities have resources for mental health! Talk to a doctor! Don’t put too much stress and pressure on yourself! Almost half of grad students are mentally ill at some point!

6) Talk out your stories with friends! 

I know I already said this under “practice” but having a fandom friend to bounce ideas with and cheer you on is amazing and essentially. I was in constant contact with Bealeciphers when I started writing, and now I have a different friend who’s helped me the past couple years with writing and developing my stories. Mostly they cheer me on, and when I’m stuck, I tell them where the story is going and what I need help with. But honestly, writing doesn’t need to happen in a vacuum and doesn’t need to be you hunched over a laptop in the dark all alone and staring blankly at a screen (I’m definitely not projecting here, no siree). It’s amazing how motivating it is and how much it can help you stay on track to check in regularly with other writing friends!

7) Pick your battles.

You say you have a... couple(?) of WIPs? How many are you juggling? Is it too many? Do you need to set one (or two??) aside? When my steam was slowly and AATJS and Tumbling Together started to feel like a chore, I set TT aside and took a month break from AATJS then dived right back into AATJS (with the help of the friend mentioned above, cheering me on) because I knew it would be the harder one to finish, and the one that I feared I’d never finish if I put it aside too long. I tackled the biggest hurdle first. If that’s the type of thing for you, I recommend it. Pick the story that’s either the most or least likely to get finished, and focus your energy there.

Another battle-picking thing here? It’s okay to outsource. I’m terrible for not using a proofreader beta. It’s a weird control thing, despite the fact that I love people pointing out typos in my works so I can freaking fix them. The point here is: don’t be like me. If you suck at finding your own typos, use a beta or proofreader. My writer friend who helps me helps when I get stuck. I help them when they need feedback on specific scenes and tones, and I’ve recently discovered they hate editing (I love editing) so this entertains me to no end. Just - you don’t have to do it all yourself. If you feel like you do, see points 5 and 6 again.

Aaaannnddd that’s that. Whew. I just spent... wow, too long on this. I spent as much time on this as I did on my own grad student’s lit review I was providing feedback on today ^^; #whoops 

[canardroublard]

A non-exhaustive list of academic-ish articles on film theory that I’d love to write but probably won’t get around to:

Alita: Battle Angel, Avatar, Aliens, Terminator, James Cameron’s broader filmography, and the separation of the self from the body (aka what the hell is this guy’s deal. I need to know)

Alita: Battle Angel, “Strong Female Characters” and how the cure to cinematic misogyny is not having a woman punch people (why we need to deconstruct story structures which promote or condone misogyny and toxic masculinity, rather than simply centering a woman in these story structures)

A related, or possibly the same essay, Alita Battle Angel vs Wonder Woman 2017, or how to write a naïve character without depriving her of agency

And finally, Alita Battle Angel is racist, mostly in typical ways that should be apparent to anyone with decent critical thinking skills, but I could probably circle back to my first topic (separation of self from the body) specifically as it relates to Mahershala Ali’s character and get into some meaty stuff there

The Man From UNCLE as a film which consistently subverts gender tropes and stereotypes, especially surrounding masculinity and the expectations for the male action movie lead, and why this may have contributed to its poor performance with reviewers

Beasts of the Southern Wild - I don’t have any firm theses on this yet, it’s been a few years since I’ve watched it so I’d have to refresh my memory, but probably lots that could be said about the magical realism aspects of the film, and of course racism and classism

Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, and why this film does everything that A Star is Born tried to do, but does it way better and much more interestingly and didn’t make me feel like I’d wasted 2 hours of my life

The Handmaiden - A loooot to talk about here. Power dynamics between Japan and its neighbouring countries (obviously Korea, in this specific case, but that dynamic has parallels within the region) as played out on a personal level, fetishization of queer women (not saying that’s what the movie does, I’d have to rewatch and dig into it more to get a thesis on that). Oh and I am FASCINATED by this film’s use of gaze. And how gaze interacts with architecture and space.

The Circle - Yes, that Emma Watson/Tom Hanks tech company film. It was spectacularly unsuccessful as a film, a story, or really as anything, and I want to deconstruct why it sucked so bad

A non-exhaustive list of other films I’d write about in no particular order

The Favourite

Romeo + Juliet

Wes Anderson I like your films but you are kinda a misogynist (yeah let’s just cover his whole filmography because why not)

Widows (race, relationships, misogyny, and the messy intersection between those three things. Also women’s platonic relationships)

Disobedience

The Red Turtle and why I, a lover of animation, fucking hated it (spoiler: because the male main character, who admittedly has been having a bad time lately but that isn’t a valid excuse imho, acts like a dick and is rewarded for it)

The Beguiled (gaze, power dynamics)

The Florida Project

Annihilation (admittedly first I’d have to understand this mindfuck of a film before writing about it, but if I could get there I’m sure there’s lots to be said)

The Fall (not the Gillian Anderson tv show, the Lee Pace movie)

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri (idk if I’d get much further than “it’s racist” but if I were really motivated I might be able to deconstruct that a bit further) Update: wrote the “it’s racist” post. HERE

Dunkirk and perpetuating the myth of White History

Atomic Blonde

ETA

Tomb Raider (2018) and why it is at best “two-steps-forward-one-step-back” to give a white woman no romance in a story if by doing so you deprive characters of colour, namely a Chinese man and iirc a black woman, the opportunity to be romantic interests/leads

Beauty and the Beast (Emma Watson version) it’s almost impressive how this film goes out of its way to subvert its own marketing department’s attempts to make it sound feminist

Their Finest - something something war something lesbianism (I’d have to watch this again)

London Road - yes I know no one else saw this film. Even I can concede that “musical about a series of horrific serial killings” is a difficult sell to most people. But it’s a good film. Watch it. There’s lots to talk about here

Home (Dreamworks) which has a surprising amount to say about colonialism for a children’s film

Boy, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, absent parents and the struggle of self-determination for boys coming of age. Or, portrayals of boyhood in the filmography of Taika Waititi

Kill Bill , Strong Female Characters” and how the cure to cinematic misogyny is not having a woman punch people and JFC these films are misogynistic

Anna Karenina is unadaptable as a film so please stop trying to make that happen, everyone, because by trying to cram it into a 2-3 hour movie everyone drops the Levin/Kitty story and without that you lose literally half of the actual story of the book

ETA (29/03/2019) wrote a post at least touching on the basics about racism in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri so I’m crossing that off the list for now.

[cultistsonly]

But also this is my blog so I’ll freak the fuck out if I wanna and OH BOY I WANNA

I can’t find the god damn liveshow I’m going m almost completely in the dark on what’s happening and for how long so I’m Suffering™️

I’ve been thinking about how 2018 night bee later seen as the golden age of dnp and how we never know when something peaks so this might be it and with this happening I’m super concerned I was right. Im actually kind of devastated pinof is ending bc it means so much to me and so many other people and THEM like jfc that’s what they did when they first met I’m so upset ugh.

I’m not too concerned with the sims ending but dnpgames taking a hiatus gives me massive anxiety both for what will be different after and not having it for awhile bc I pin a lot of my happiness on watching them fuck around on that channel and winter generally doesn’t go great for me

I literally shaking rn which is fun (but that’s bc I wrote three essays today too) but I’m just really really nervous about where this is going.

I’m glad both their channels are coming back next year but I don’t know what’s happening with anything else so somebody hold me

[tinyhatonapumpkin]

So I watched the new Sabrina series last night.......

You can TELL it was an edgy Catholic who wrote that shit jfc. It was so bad. Like. Ffs.

Please just.. watch this video essay to understand what pissed me off about the series... Like they were all just opposite Catholics. It's such bullshit.

The original Sabrina wasn't about religion at all, it was just magic. This crap was all about how witches are evil Satan worshipers. Like the original Sabrina was like "no witches aren't bad, screw what you've been told!" This shit was like "every single bad thing Christians have ever said about witches is true"

Yea the original shit was a sitcom essentially (even the comics and cartoon), but if you REALLY wanted to make it dark, you didn't have to go all Catholic with it jfc. You could have delved into actual paganism (seriously check out Irish mythology (for example), we got some creepy shit!!), or done various things that lots of media does to be dark without being Christian as all hell.

"You're wrong!" Some of you might say, "they're literally the opposite of Catholicism! That was their whole thing!!" No, a religion has beliefs and deities. No matter how much Christianity wants to call itself monotheistic, it has multiple. Satan/the devil is a powerful entity in their religion. A god. An evil one, but one nonetheless. Other religions simply don't recognize his existence any more than they recognize the existence of the other guy.

So deciding to worship a different god in the same religion isn't that much of a deviation from the original religion. Especially when you believe in all the same mythology, just from a different perspective.

I mean hell. The common depiction of the devil - WHICH THEY USED, is Christians taking pagan deities and turning it into devil imagery for their own propoganda!! Before the persecution of pagans (*cough* genocide *cough*), Lucifer (Satan) was depicted as a beautiful man!! Because that's how he's described!! The most beautiful of all the angels!!

I mean hell their closest thing even ACKNOWLEDGING pagan shit is that WICCA thing as a sort of nod to it which. Ugh ffs Wicca is just a mess of cultural appropriation that's only ~100yrs old gtfo with that.

Also that shit with the dreamcatcher? That was like just!! Fuck off if you're gonna do witches stick to white people shit ya goddamn -

I'm just. I'm just very disappointed. To say the least.

They even do the forest shit as a nod and that just pisses me off more to be frank bc it's creating an association between the worship/respect of nature and evil and fuck right the fuck off bud. Like they even shit on herbalism even though that was actual "witches" most important shit ffs!! They were healers using medicine made from the ingredients available - ie ""magic potions"" from natural ingredients like fucking plants!! Hell the whole "eye of newt" crap we always associate with witches?? FUCKING NAMES FOR MEDICINAL HERBS USED BY PEOPLE WHO GOT LABELLED WITCHES.

TL;DR: The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is a bunch of Christian propoganda bullshit masquerading as witchcraft

[whyarewewlwlikethat]

dude!! i am crying !! she makes me so fucking happy like ive never been happier, its our 7 month anniversary in october and im hoenstly !! im so fucking gay! jfc! like im really the luckiest human on the planet likeeee she was tring to study once and wrote a wholeass notebook page abt how much she wants to wife me + i wake up to essays on how much she loves me some days and it makes me so happy she's literally perfect aaajiodfajfiodas ~moony

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 my gf also wrote me this little notebook with such sweet things I cri every time I open that notebook 😭😭😭 we truly have been blessed, moony!!!!

[beaniegyu]

i got the constellation on my back with some flowers! i can send you pictures after i reveal myself hehe it’s my favorite tattoo from the ones i have, it’s literally so pretty!!!! and THANK YOU !!!! i mean we ain’t the easiest i’ll admit that, but we fucking cool !!! i always find myself attracted to water signs :/

OH MY GOOOOOD!!!!!! WHO ALLOWED HIM JFC!!!!!!! HE IS SO SEXY 😡😡😡😡😡

i think that’s like general south american stuff bc i’m also from south america and this is SO TRUE! jeonghan latino wbk.

PLS SAMEx3 THE FIRST TIME I HEARD IT I IMMEDIATELY THOUGHT OF VERSACE ON THE FLOOR!!!!!! LIKE!!!!!! also not the habit and singing in the shower thing me with beautiful idk why

for my vu songs:

1. second life: no words just lee jihoon’s high note on repeat every day for 5 hours.

2. come to me: idk the way jeonghan’s bridge hits is different and it just makes my heart tingle i think this song is very underrated

3. habit: THE WAAAAAY THIS MAKES ME FEEL LIKE IM GOING THROUGH A DIVORCE!!!!!!

but honestly i love basically every single vu song they’re literally IT for me

- ☀️

for hhu!!! 1. lean on me: this is one of my go to hurt comfort songs. when vernon goes “naegero wa i know that it’s so hard” i just LEVITATE 2. un haeng il chi: BIG DICK ENERGY ALL AROUND!!!!!! THEY’RE ALL SO SEXY AND SUCH GOOD PERFORMERS AND RAPPERS GOD PLS 3. check in: THIS SONG!!!!!! idk it makes me wanna jump and bouce and just Be Happy honorable mention to back it up just bc of vernon’s verse and his amazing lyricist ass NOW! rank the age unit songs from most to least favorite !!

answer under the cut because i wrote an essay 😚 lmao

omg that's so CUTE. i would love to see it after the reveal 🥺. i love constellation tattoos. i'm terrified of needles though so i think i'd go tattooless my entire life anyways but if i ever get over my fear i would definitely get something star related.

i'm glad you agree heh. i didn't wanna generalize and say all latam countries not to offend anyone other than my people lmao, but yeah... we're build different and jeonghan fits the role so well. actually most of them do. sometimes i think about very latin/arg scenarios and how they would fit in them and it's hilarious.

woozi and bruno mars singing versace on the floor while wearing matching versace shirts that would be funny and crazy good at the same time. and as for your choices, man, i agree!!!!!! come to me is such a cute one 🥺. it's everything habit isn't, you know what i mean? they make you go from tragic divorce to happily strolling through a park hand in hand with a lover.

can we agree vernon tends to get the iconic verses? and he DESERVES. also, check in is one of those songs i end singing throughout the day lmao like if i listened to it it stays in my brain for a good couple of days after and i go about my day naming cities in the wrong order because i can't ever learn the right lyrics.

BACK IT UP!!!!!!! and UN HAENG IL CHI wth was that i don't know but i appreciate it so much. thank you hhu. thank you also for trauma and chilli because they're both stellar. gam3 bo1 though........................... yeah. not it, i'm so sorry.

okay age unit songs!

ah! love: it’s musically the most similar to what i like to listen to the most when i’m not listening to kpop, does that make sense? i don’t know but i live for the vibe.

hey buddy: OKAY hear me out i have a whole scenario in my head when i listen to this song and it has nothing to do with the actual lyrics. i get a cinematic vibe from it. i kinda picture it playing in the background during a scene in a spy comedy film where the characters go from being very bad spies to well trained ones. i’m aware this is ODDLY SPECIFIC but think about it in mv form? gyu, seok and hao training to become spies and go save the world? wouldn’t it be cool? i love the idea. plediss hire me pls.

light a flame: i have another mv idea for this unit. all 4 of them out in a caribbean town at night, drinking cocktails, dancing with girls and/or boys. there’s a local band playing the instruments and woozi joins them because he plays all the instruments and if he doesn’t he’s a fast learner anyways. 

do re mi: i love this one too but i guess the other three took over my brain 😭

what’s your ranking?