#i’ve been reading way too much dostoyevsky and it shows

[ruskayas]

« someone else has been here. » it’s stated as a fact, not even the hint of a question mark adorning my sentence as my eyes point to the direction of natalya’s fridge. absentmindedly, the sound of my boots can probably be heard throughout the entire apartment as i approach the dining room, and my nose detects something different in the air. i have been cautious my entire life— or so i like to believe; my first intention is never to accuse her, no. we both understand our relationship as something more than a transaction. it’s complicated, but also fairly simple. i look at her & she looks at me and we seem to speak a thousand words a minute without the need to use our voice; but her secret weapon will emerge from the emeralds of her eyes before i can even take one more step forward. i swallow hard and my throat becomes sandpaper thick; and as her magnetic field stops me on my own tracks i ask myself one simple thought : ‘is she aware she’s doing this?’

the atmosphere feels heavy and blurred with the spirit of inquiry inside my head, i want to ask her so, so many questions. i am eager to know, perhaps even desperate to solve the problem that i am creating myself. « so . . . who was it? » thumping intensifies on my chest, but i am not crazy! i know a discrepancy when i feel one. my feet decide to move once again, this time towards her & her presence made of iron. i swear i can feel her breath. « go ahead, natushka. »

@vlyuvdova

[ruby-red-inky-blue]

Carrie reads and watches Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

so because I have no impulse control where my time management is concerned, I not only binged a 32h audiobook in an abhorrently short amount of time, but followed that up with the entire miniseries immediately. Now I have opinions. (Spoilers below!)

First of all, what a book! I’m most impressed by the fact that my main criticisms somehow feel more like my own fault than the book’s? Because yes, the book is very slow especially in the beginning (read: the first 400 or so pages), touches on some things more briefly than i’d have liked and rambles on like nobody’s business - but that’s perfectly in keeping with the literature it’s borrowing its style from! In fact whenever I got actively bored, it made me smile. Because it was as if the author was winking at me, going, man, 19th century lit, eh? And the pseudo-academic style really worked for once, and I really enjoyed the footnotes. Especially because again, the sudden rambly asides and stories-within-stories even in the middle of an action scene felt very classic literature (side-eyeing Dostoyevsky).

The adaptation is interesting in that it is both a pretty faithful adaptation and a good example why book-to-screen transitions are difficult. I mean, they cribbed entire conversations wholesale from the novel, and didn’t really skip any plot points until the last one and a half episodes (unsure if this was at all times a good choice because the novel got to spend much more time on all those story threads and the show *breezes* through them).

The casting was similarly often pitch-perfect and sometimes a slightly but consistently different thing altogether. I do like Carvel a lot, even though his Strange seems like a much cleaner and nicer version of his book counterpart (more below). Norrell was somehow both a little too stiff and not crotchety enough, but pretty on point most of the time. I was a bit thrown by Stephen’s actor’s age, I’d imagined him younger, but I’m assuming it adds up. The fairies overall were a bit meh - why did they all look dusty? - but I guess ethereal uncanny beauty and magic are hard to translate into costume and make up. What puzzled me a bit was the casting for Lady Pole and Arabella, who should have maybe been swapped just looks-wise? Then again, I loved the way Lady Pole was portrayed (though they went maybe a little too hard on the firm anti-men stance towards the end? I’m undecided, it seemed a little too... modern somehow). Wasn’t a huge fan of Charlotte Riley - she didn’t have much chemistry with Carvel and sometimes it felt like they were in different shows alltogether, especially in Lost-hope (where she gave off the vibe of being in an actual made-for-tv classics adaptation). John Uskglass, while book accurate (I think?), looked hilariously emo, full on girl-from-The-Ring, and Lascelles discovered his cut-throat streak way too late. He seemed more clueless than sociopathic, which made his turning on Drawlight at the end seem like it came kinda out of nowhere. Childermas and Segundus were *chef’s kiss* though.

Now onto the biggest changes: Obviously most adaptations heighten their characters slightly because we don’t get to hear their thoughts like we do in a book. This works fine in the beginning here (they made both Norrell and Strange a little more absurd and silly via this slight exaggeration and honestly, it was pretty funny) but is a detriment to staying faithful to the characters and genre. The emotional distance between the characters and the reader that is only really broken a few times is a really big part of making the book read like a book from the period, and losing that distance makes the show feel very different (and to me also less English, but this may be personal).

Strange is much more *into* his wife throughout. This is a script choice from the get-go (”The only thing I’ve ever really wanted is Arabella” - lowkey love that though because it introduces the uncomfortable but period-appropriate view of Arabella as a treasured object very early on) but also really comes through in the acting. Carvel gives such a charming performance I didn’t mind this most of the time, and I get it. When you’re not forced to spend a thousand pages with them, you don’t get attached to characters as easily, so the easy thing to do is make them more likeable. It also makes the story much less dark-academia-esque though: Now it’s a guy desperately trying to bring his wife back to life instead of a guy going a little insane with grief over the wife he barely paid any attention to and then proceeding to get lost in his research so far that even when he does manage to bring her back, he kind of just... keeps doing... his research? Book!Strange is the “I want to watch him spin in a microwave” kind of character. Show!Strange is endearing, and consistently sympathetic. Both is good, but the vibes are different. So different, in fact, they had to make a pretty impactful change to the ending: Now Strange can’t go back to his wife because he has no idea where he is, instead of kind of going “hey I still have this darkness issue and I could probably just solve that but really we’ve been doing other more interesting things, so I’ll be just sort of gone indefinitely along with our entire property, I’m assuming this will not be an issue for you”. (Again, they’re making him much more sympathetic and I both like and hate it - I *so* wanted Strange to just be better, but also... it was more interesting that he wasn’t).

Also, his confrontation with Norrell was way more dramatic: Strange is suddenly intensely aggressive (he went to strangle him??? I think??) and Norrell was being much less repentant and reconciliatory, and there was so much push and pull before they start to work together. And it kind of broke my heart because their immediate familiarity and genuine support despite all the shit that’s been happening was an incredible move and I hated losing a second of it. Also they went hard on making Strange the prodigy and giving all the good ideas to him when half of them were Norrell’s in the book. Not a fan. (This man thought destilled mouse juice was a sensible course of action to solve a problem. He may be a genius but not... consistently.) This is all a part of the more action-heavy finale, which I understand but didn’t love. While Strange breaking into Norrell’s place to yell at everyone and throw things was in character (at least for the character the show was presenting), I *liked* how underwhelming and English their falling out was in the book, and preferred the “nothing in life matters so I’m going to Italy with Lord f***ng Byron” storyline over Strange fleeing the law (but again, it wouldn’t have meshed with how they chose to play Arabella’s “death”). Basically, I felt like the book had more interesting things to say about grief than the show storyline.

Overall I appreciate the show but it doesn’t hold a candle to the novel. It never stood a chance, really, because it was like having incredibly engaging cliffnotes on a book whose charm is less than 10 percent due to the plot. But some shots really looked like they were pulled straight from my brain, and you’ve gotta respect that.

[sneezypeasy]

Original Script Analysis, Part 1: Kataang Is Better... And Also Worse.

I want to start this off by saying that when it comes to media analysis, I personally don’t tend to give authorial intent a significant amount of weight – at least, not by default. I understand why authorial intent is so often debated among media analysts, and why so many metas and critiques often hinge their arguments on paratextual information that serves to provide potential insight on what the authors were thinking or planning. But I myself tend to follow more of a “Death of the Author” framework. There are some exceptions, such as when I believe the author’s stated intent – or even details such as their background, life experiences, advocacy etc – has bled through their work so heavily that it becomes impossible to ignore its impact on the final product. (E.g., reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky compare murder to state-ordered execution, it is hard not to contextualise the passage with the knowledge that Dostoyevsky himself faced a firing squad and was given a pardon at the very last minute). Even then, I tend to treat paratextual information like – Understanding the context behind x scene or y narrative choice potentially adds a layer of meaning to it, particularly why some scenes may have been framed the way they were, or why the author chose to tell/expand/conclude the story like this instead of like that. I use paratextual information to deepen my understanding of the author’s reasonings behind their choices. I don’t use paratextual information to form my opinion on whether their choices were good.

(I prefer to form my own opinion on that, based on what I think of the text itself.)

That being said, like most of you readers I too had heard the many rumours surrounding the writing/production process behind ATLA, especially when it came to the ships. Which ship, if any, was planned for, when were the romance arcs finally decided, were there conflicts/disagreements between writers, were there script changes and animation edits to strengthen one pairing while weakening other, and so on and so on. I’d heard the rumour that The Southern Raiders went through multiple rewrites/changes, because it was originally “too shippy”. I’d heard the rumours that Aaron and Elizabeth were pro-Zutara, Bryan and Mike were pro-Kataang, and that their respective positions/opinions on these two pairings seep through their writing in an acutely perceptible way.

I’d also heard the counter-argument, the official narrative endorsed by the creators that any chemistry or subtext between Zuko and Katara was always intended to be platonic, and that readers who saw anything romantic between these two characters were simply setting themselves up for disappointment by projecting their own expectations or preferences onto the show, nothing more.

Over the past 15 years or so, these debates shaped much of the ATLA “shipping discourse”, sometimes even dominating discussion on the subject. I myself have gotten many a variant of “Zutara was never going to happen, get over it” – even when I’ve made a deliberate effort to omit any mention of authorial intent in my analyses, because, as I’ve said, I still don’t consider that kind of paratextual information relevant to my own opinions on why I think Zutara just works better. But given the intensity of the arguments surrounding behind-the-scenes shenanigans, their impact on the final product, and even their supposed significance in determining shipping validity, it was impossible not to wonder at the truth behind all these conflicting rumours.

So when I set foot in the WGF, it was admittedly difficult to contain my bubbling excitement and anticipation. Even still, I resolved to keep my expectations low. Rumours are rumours, after all. Secondary sources must always be taken with a healthy grain of salt, and some of the rumours weren’t even second-hand information at that. And I already knew that no matter what I found, my own opinion that Zutara is the best love story almost written, would not change.

All that said and done, let’s just say that I found the discovery... highly rewarding, and for those of you who have spent years refusing to accept that you were just “reading into things”, I hope my findings bring you some long-awaited vindication.

There are two other disclaimers I need to get through before we continue:

1) The Writers Guild Foundation is not a lending library. You may make an appointment to view the scripts in person, and you are allowed to take notes and manually copy as much as you like. But you will not find copies of their scripts online, and photos and screenshots are strictly prohibited. From what I understand it’s a copyright issue. Legally I’m fairly certain that embedding photos in this post and accompanying it with critique and analysis would/should count as “Fair Use”; however, I know that at some point I’d like to be able to return to the library, and I don’t want to risk being blacklisted for not following their rules.

As such, all the images embedded in this post are reproductions of snippets that I had to manually copy and type up, word for word. It was slow work, so as much as I’d love to be able to just plop the entire script of The Southern Raiders (or any ATLA episode) here for you to read, I had to narrow my focus a fair bit. I mainly noted down, in order of significance:

additions, omissions or changes in the original script compared to the show

bits where the writer’s notes/storyboard directions contained insights or descriptions that I found interesting, surprising, or just plain funny

scenes that weren’t really all that different or unexpected, but we love to see it in writing anyway (ahem Crossroads of Destiny *cough*)

I’m sure there’s a lot that I still managed to miss - even visiting over two days, I couldn’t read every episode. I highly encourage Zutarians living in or near LA to make an appointment and read the scripts for yourselves. You’ll be able to see more than what I’ve posted here, and you might even unearth some goodies that escaped my notice.

(Credit goes to @lady-of-bath for taking my boatload of notes and reformatting them to look like scripts again ❤)

(Also apologies that some passages are split across two images; that just means they were long enough that they spanned two pages and I couldn’t be bothered splicing them back together so I just embedded them here as separate image files. I promise I didn’t cut/remove anything; images not separated by a line of dashes should be read as one continuous snippet 😊).

2) The second thing I ought to clarify is that, from my understanding, the drafts I read were final drafts. These were scripts submitted to the guild just prior to storyboarding, voice acting, animating etc. As I read them, I noticed that the only changes to the script that I could tell were non-dialogue related - so things like, descriptions of the characters’ actions, movements, facial expressions/body language, what you can or can’t see in the shot, etc. Otherwise, voice lines have been essentially kept intact. This suggests to me that the changes made to the script after submission to the guild, were also made after lines had been recorded, possibly even after scenes had been storyboarded. It also suggests that the scripts the voice actors read were the same ones I read in that library. (There is one notable exception that I found, a very interesting exception in my opinion, which we’ll get to later.)

While I would have loved to have seen the earlier drafts, to be able to see how the script changed with each revision (including revisions made to the dialogue prior to voice recording), it’s my understanding that the guild rarely ever receives these scripts, and such was the case again this time. I did also have a look to see if they had the ATLA Series Bible, but unfortunately that hadn’t been submitted either. It is what it is. Still, I’m not mad about what I found. :)

And on that note - ONTO THE SCRIPTS!

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I’m going to start off by defending Kataang a bit here. (I know, I know. Don’t worry, we’ll get to the juicy Zutara stuff in due course.) In my 2 hour long video analysis I talked about lack of development being one of the biggest structural problems with Kataang as a ship. Specifically, I showed how you can take the scenes that we know to be “Kataang scenes”, jumble them up so that they appear in a different order than they do in the show, and the end result still makes just as much narrative sense - or maybe even more sense than they did in the show. 

Interestingly, the original scripts for these scenes do not fail this test - at least, I don’t think they do. Let’s start at the very beginning:

It’s love at first sight for Aang, which we all knew already. For Katara, it’s less “love” and more “wonder”. But it’s a powerful meeting for both of them. Honestly, this isn’t all that different from how I perceived this scene on television when I watched it. 

Let’s continue with the Fortuneteller:

Okay, so again, roughly what we see on television. Katara realizes Aang could be who Aunt Wu was referring to, and is unsure what to make of this. Fair.

Next, the Cave of Two Lovers:

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Unlike in the show, Katara doesn’t blush in this script (I also checked the ending of the script where I remember her blushing again in the show, but the script doesn’t mention any blush, anywhere). However, Katara seems to be taking the possibility of Aang as a love interest a little bit more seriously here. In the show version, they hug, Aang seems a little awkward and is clearly hoping for some closure/confirmation of where they now stand, but Katara doesn’t seem to spare it a second thought - she just yeets it out of there. The slow parting and the “awkward look” these kids share in the script suggests, at least to me, that script!Katara is placing more weight on what just happened than show!Katara does, and she at least seems aware, maybe even nervous, of the fact that sharing a maybe-kiss in a secret love cave might do something to their dynamic that she’s not sure how she feels about yet. 

The divergences get more interesting now. Enter The Earth King scene, where Aang attempts to confess his feelings to Katara:

“They both know what he's about to say.” 

WELL. Not only did they cut out the “he looks her directly in the eyes” part, but they completely took out any shot that might have indicated a mutual understanding between them, as was written in the script. Instead, we get a deer-in-the-headlights look from Katara, then her head cocks to the side “What is it, Aang?” and then… nothing. Everything about her body language on screen is written to suggest she either has no idea what’s coming, or is doing a great job of playing coy about it.

The cheek-kiss is intact in both versions, however. Let’s keep going.

I didn’t take notes on the Headband. I probably should have, but I didn’t bother because there weren’t really any notable differences between the script version and the show version. What you see is basically what you get - Aang dances with On Ji, Katara is agitated but acts aloof, Aang invites her to dance, she hesitantly accepts, they dance and it’s all very cute. She says “that was some dance party, Aang” and gives him another cheek-kiss at the end. If there were any differences from script to screen, I didn’t spot them.

But there was a pretty big difference for Day of Black Sun:

(By the way, this confirms an earlier version of the rumour that had been based on alleged edits made fairly late in the storyboarding process. Credit to @lady-of-bath​ for procuring this receipt).

So, what I’m basically getting here is that, in the original script, up until the midpoint of Season 3, the writing was originally heading towards a Kataang conclusion. And actually - you may disagree with me here but you know what? I actually don’t hate this version of Kataang. (So far, anyway).

There were two main issues I had with Kataang - the structure/pacing of it was all over the place, and on a deeper level I felt that the conflict they set up regarding Aang’s character arc and “letting Katara go” were not properly resolved in the show, leading to a lack of cohesion in the storytelling.

Combing through these passages, script!Katara reads way more natural and realistic, to me, than show!Katara. Let’s look at the progression here, from Katara’s side:

She meets an “adorable” boy and forms an instant attachment to him

She sees their dynamic as platonic until a comment from Sokka makes her question whether it will always be so in the future. She doesn’t quite know what to make of this at the time.

She shares a maybe-kiss with him in a secret love cave, and seems to be aware/nervous that their dynamic may change as a result. 

Some time later, he works up the courage to confess his feelings with her, and the script makes it clear that she understands what he’s trying to say and may even have been anticipating it. 

They go to a party where Katara is moody seeing Aang dance with someone else. Then Aang asks Katara onto the floor, and they dance, and Katara seems genuinely pleased/delighted.

Finally, just before the eclipse, he kisses her. She may not have been expecting it, but her reaction (smiling after him as he flies away) shows she didn’t see it as unwelcome. 

If Kataang were actually written like this, I think that would solve the structural problems of the ship that really bothered me, and I probably wouldn’t have stopped shipping them. It’s very clear to me that taking any of these scenes, as written, and jumbling them out of order, would completely mess up the steady (if subtle) progression of Katara 1) seeing Aang as a potential love interest, 2) understanding he sees her as one, and finally 3) realising she does actually return his feelings.

It also makes Katara feel much more like a real person, and less of an objective for Aang to try to reach in a “two steps forward, one step back” sort of situation.

I think, even then, I still would have shipped Zutara as well, because I don’t think the symbolism and depth to Zutara can be beat. But I’m pretty sure I would have kept a soft spot for Kataang, for the fluff. At least, I wouldn’t be strongly opposed to it. My position would likely be “eh, there’s flaws, and it probably could have been written better, and I think writing Zutara instead would have been more compelling and thematically satisfying but you know what, this is cute. I get it.”

Of course, that’s before we get to the second half of Season 3, where Kataang goes from oscillating in place to taking a nose-dive out of ... nowhere.

And in a way that seems to seriously contrast with how the ship had been written from Cave of Two Lovers to Day of Black Sun, the downward spiral of Kataang coinciding with a deepening friendship/connection for Zutara - seems to be exacerbated in the original script.

Remember how uncomfortable it was to watch Ember Island Players in the show?

...

It’s quite a bit worse here.

Aang comes off significantly less sympathetic in this version of the episode. Here he is, looking at Katara “accusingly”, and even “glaring” at her, because the actress playing her on stage is flirting with actor!Zuko. Why is he so angry, and at her? And meanwhile, she “pretends not to notice”? Ick.

I’ll be honest, I never had a strong opinion of Aang being “possessive” in this scene. I understand why other people did, and I totally see where they’re coming from with that. Personally though, I kind of gave him the benefit of the doubt and just perceived him as immature, not really getting it, and I always perceived his jealousy to be more hapless than disturbing. This is just my personal opinion, but I felt that their clash in this episode was more indicative of a lack of compatibility and understanding between them than anything else, and obviously I think the non-con kiss was wrong, but generally I didn’t think the kid had bad intentions - I just saw him as... too young, to be honest. He did get pushy and demanding, and either way Katara deserved better, but with Aang, I kind of understood it to be stemming from hope/desperation rather than anger/entitlement.

The writing here, however, does not leave room for me to be charitable. Aang hearing Actor!Zuko suggest that Katara was supposed to be “the Avatar’s girl”, and glaring at Katara as if to say “Yeah!” - I don’t know how to read this as anything other than possessiveness. Yikes on a cracker.

ALSO, did you notice that Zuko and Katara don’t scoot away from each other in this version? Read it again; the absence of that bit escaped me on my first read-through. (Credit to @zutarawasrobbed​ for spotting that difference!) Zuko and Katara are still sitting next to each other here (the earlier “I wanted to sit here/Just sit next to me, what’s the big deal?” scene is still intact), and all it says about Katara is that she’s pretending not to notice Aang simmering at her from two seats away. Wow.

The non-con kiss is kept intact and most of it is just dialogue so there isn’t much deeper insight to gain from the script, though again, Aang comes off more explicitly volatile/angry at the end of it:

Later, Aang rejoins the group in the theater, and sees Actress!Katara reach a goofy platonic understanding with Actress!Aang, and reacts to this with chagrin and embarrassment. There is no reference to Katara averting her gaze from the screen in a sad or awkward manner, as how she does in the show. 

Overall, I find that Kataang looks worse here, a lot worse than in the show. The omission of Zuko and Katara’s “awkward scoot” is intriguing as well. To be honest, I never perceived “the scoot” to be explicit confirmation or denial of any potential attraction between them (that clip can genuinely be read two ways depending on what trope you’re trying to invoke; neither are inherently invalid), however, the fact that it wasn’t originally written but was added in later... that’s interesting.

Some of you might be forming some opinions by this point. I have some of my own as well, though I want to hold off on them for now. Let’s have a bit of a palate-cleanser with the snippet of Zuko sharing some vulnerability with Katara before we move on:

❤

Now I am going a bit out of order here - I know that EIP actually happens after The Boiling Rock/The Southern Raiders, but as I was already on the topic of the Kataang arc, I decided to continue with that before I delved into the other episodes. So now we’re going back a little bit, chronologically.

(Also, you know me, gotta save the best for last 😉)

Ultimately I had a very brief look through The Boiling Rock, and nothing really jumped out at me - except for this bit:

I can’t be the only one tickled at the idea that Zuko just yeets himself out of that prison cell and doesn’t seem to spare Mai a second thought 😂 (if you’ll recall, the show has the two of them share a glance through the cell window after Mai yells “Get off of me!”; Zuko looks apparently apologetic/sad while Mai just glares at him). I know people have pointed out how amusing it is that Zuko seems to forget about Mai completely after TBR, right up until their last scene together, but the way this scene is scripted here just makes it even funnier to me.

But I know which episode it is that you guys all want to read.

*record scratch*

Oh ho HO, what have we here Elizabeth Ehasz 😉

Next up - Part 2: The Southern Raiders, The Finale, and What I Think About it All

[herbertwest]

Be My Nemesis

[Part of a prompt-swap challenge using a prompt by @urfriendlywriter]

The feeling is unmistakable. Heart pounding, blood racing, butterflies in the stomach. Even the thought of that special person makes you break out in a stupid grin. Every thought is of them; every song is their tune. You would do anything to spend just one more second with them. You would die for them; kill for them. This is, of course, the feeling of having a nemesis.

“This is a very impressive palace you bought,” said Oleg Volkov, Sergey Razumovsky’s best friend and confidant, glancing anxiously at the gilded walls. “Very grand. Not a single bullet hole anywhere to be seen. I sure hope you keep it that way.”

Sergey, who was sprawled on a purple velvet chaise lounge, laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to shoot you this time. I will set up a variety of death traps, but I’m going to tell you where all of them are, so if you fall into one that’s on you.”

“That’s very generous of you,” said Oleg dryly.

“I think you’re going to like my new Garden of Sinners. It now has traps based on all seven deadly sins PLUS two more that I made up that SHOULD be deadly sins. Everything is all ready. Now we wait. Do you want to play chess?”

“NO,” choked Oleg, immediately going into fight-or-flight mode, his pupils dilating. He clutched his chest, feeling the five scars there.

“Do you think Major Grom wants to play chess?” asked Sergey, kicking his legs in the air.

“I suspect he wants to play chess even less than I do.”

“Why? We had so much fun last time!”

“You killed all his friends.”

“Yes, and it was so much fun!” Sergey grinned beatifically.

Oleg sighed.

Sergey pulled out his phone. “I sent Major Grom the latest puzzle ten minutes ago! Why hasn’t he answered?”

“He’s probably busy trying to stop everything from exploding again,” said Oleg. “Which I believe was the point of the puzzle.”

“Oh. Right.” Sergey put down his phone. “I’m bored. I guess I’ll just read something until he shows up.”

Oleg left, trying to find somewhere in the palace where he was least likely to become collateral damage.

About two hours later, Major Grom showed up, slightly singed.

He dodged about two thirds of Sergey’s traps, barely escaping with his life from the other third.

“Razumovsky,” he gasped upon reaching Sergey. “This time I’ll end you. I swear it.”

Sergey put down his book. “Hey, remember when we were both the avatars of gods, and we fought, and you forgave me for everything and then exploded? Because that was great. Definitely in the top ten Razgrom moments.”

Major Grom narrowed his eyes, but he did not fall for the bait of asking what Razgrom was.

“So…do you want me to hit you in the head with a shovel for old time’s sake, or should I use knock-out gas? The Garden of Sinners is waiting for you and it is so much better than last time,” said Sergey.

“I am not running naked through your murder garden again,” said Major Grom.

“It’s not really optional.”

Major Grom drew himself up to his full height. “Razumovsky, this has gone on long enough. You have been a blight upon St. Petersburg for much too long. At first I thought it would be enough to lock you away. I should have known better. You’re a cockroach. You’re a rabid cat, always clawing its way back to haunt me…but you’re on your last life.”

“That is a LOT of metaphor mixing,” said Sergey, picking up his book again and angling the cover towards Major Grom.

“You don’t take anything seriously! Do lives mean nothing to you? Do you have not the slightest spark of goodness left in you? I can’t escape from you…every time I dream you’re the ringmaster of my nightmares.”

“Be mine,” blurted Sergey.

“Is that a line from the book you’re reading?” asked Major Grom, taken aback, monologue forgotten.

“What? No, this is Dostoyevsky. Remember, you asked me before if I’d read Dostoyevsky? I’ve got to say, Raskolnikov spent a whole lot of time whining about nothing. What I want is for you to be my nemesis. I cannot resist your abject stupidity. You foil all my most ingenious schemes by running at them screaming with a blunt object. You track me down to the ends of the earth when everyone else has assumed me dead.”

Major Grom looked at him for a long moment. “To hell with this. I’m leaving. I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I am not taking part in it.” He turned around and started to leave.

Sergey sighed and picked up a shovel from under his chaise lounge. He bounded over to Major Grom and smacked him in the head with the blade.

“You are the bane of my existence,” whispered Major Grom, right before he fell unconscious.

“Music to my ears,” said Sergey. “Oleg! Help me get him into the Garden of Sinners.”

Oleg cautiously emerged from the wings. “I don’t understand why you don’t just kill him,” he said, poking Major Grom with his foot.

“I’m trying! That’s the beauty of it. There’s no way he’ll make it out of the Garden this time.”

Sergey started to drag Major Grom away.

Oleg went to check how much money was in Sergey’s ‘get Sergey out of prison’ fund. He suspected they’d need it.

[hamliet]

Pain, Fear, Death, and God: Fyodor and Gogol as Two Halves of Kirillov

God is the pain of the fear of death. Whoever conquers pain and fear will himself become God.

-Alexei Kirillov, Demons

So remember how when I first read Bungou Stray Dogs I started screeching incoherently and turned those screeches into a somewhat-coherent meta on how Fyodor in BSD was modeled after Alexei Kirillov from Dostoyesvky’s Demons? 

Well, here’s the follow up.

As I said in my previous meta, Demons is (tied with Crime and Punishment) my favorite novel of all time, and Alexei Kirillov is my very favorite character of all time, in any fictional medium, ever. He’s a walking bundle of paradoxes, existential angst and stunning compassion. But Demons is not necessarily a popular novel by Dostoyevsky standards and so Kirillov, despite being written about by literary critics and Camus, is somewhat obscure. That Asagiri is so clearly inspired by his character is shocking and thrilling for me; I’m pinching myself. 

The tl;dr version of Kirillov is that his whole schtick is that he wants to kill himself to prove that he is free and thereby can escape. It’s far more nuanced and complex, as I’ll go into, but essentially both Gogol and Fyodor’s philosophies and goals reflect this.

Gogol does not want to kill Fyodor because he hates Fyodor; rather, it’s because Gogol and Fyodor are two halves of a whole. They are a paradox together, embodying Kirillov’s complexity. Like Kirillov, they are suicidal, because killing one of them is like killing themselves. To achieve their goals, they both need to die. 

Fyodor reminds Gogol that he is human and can connect; therefore, Gogol wants to kill him to assert his free will, as he views connections as a cage. Similarly, while we haven’t gotten much insight into Fyodor’s thoughts on Gogol, I think it’s highly likely Fyodor allowed Gogol to kill himself (he thought) because he clings to his beliefs at the expense of his (very much there) empathy, and it’s better for his goals if people who provoke his empathy die. Basically: Fyodor allowed Gogol to “die” not because he doesn’t care about him, but because he does. 

For a brief background: Demons itself is an allegory about how people who become consumed by their ideas become possessed by said ideas; thus, they become devils or demons. The actual title of the novel, Бесы, is difficult to translate, hence why it has three different titles in English: The Possessed, The Devils, and Demons. The word “Бесы” in Russian refers to the ones doing the possessing, which is why the latter two are generally considered to be more accurate translations of the title. In particular, the novel demonstrates the tragic consequences of Russian nihilism and singles out moral nihilism. (It’s also looked to as a rather eerie novel, because almost everything it wrote about happening in a--then fictional--political revolution is exactly what happened in Russia a few decades later.) 

As I wrote in my previous meta, Fyodor, like Kirillov, is “consumed” by his ideas, something Kirillov laments in Demons. Fyodor’s consumption with his ideals means that he is willing to sacrifice everything for his goals. Gogol, too, shares this trait. 

Where they differ is in motivations for their respective plans, motives they share with Kirillov. Kirillov’s master plan is to commit suicide for two reasons: firstly, that he has free will and will thereby inspire society to live freely, and secondly, because he sees life as nonsensically painful and thereby not worth living. The first reflects Gogol’s personal aims, and the second Fyodor’s.

Let’s discuss Kirillov and Fyodor first. Kirillov believes that mankind invented God (keep in mind the context this was written in; God=Russian Orthodox Christianity) to go on living because of the absurdity of life. 

Listen: this man was the highest on all the earth, he constituted what it was to live for. Without this man the whole planet with everything on it is--madness only. There has not been one like Him before or since, not ever, even to the point of miracle. This is the miracle, that there has not been and never will be such a one. And if so, if the laws of nature did not pity even This One, did not pity even their own miracle, but made Him, too, live amidst a lie and die for a lie, then the whole planet is a lie, and stands upon a lie and a stupid mockery. Then the very laws of the planet are a lie and a devil's vaudeville. Why live then, answer me, if you're a man.”

Fyodor's disgust for the world and determination to save it from the sin of abilities reflects this same attitude. Life is wrong, so it should cease to exist. Abilities are wrong, so everyone with one should cease to exist. The reason is, most likely, strongly based in how painful Fyodor’s ability has been for him.

Kirillov laments:

“God is necessary and so must exist… But I know He doesn’t and can’t… Surely you must understand that a man with two such ideas can’t go on living?”

...

“If there is no God, then I am God.”

If Kirillov is god, then he is the ultimate master of his fate. Kirillov is very aware of his own limits, and so he thinks this absurd and life pointless. 

That conversation continues (Kirillov’s responses are bolded):

“There, I could never understand that point of yours: why are you God?”

“If God exists, all is His will and from His will I cannot escape. If not, it’s all my will and I am bound to show self-will.”

“Self-will? But why are you bound?”

“Because all will has become mine. Can it be that no one in the whole planet, after making an end of God and believing in his own will, will dare to express his self-will on the most vital point? It’s like a beggar inheriting a fortune and being afraid of it and not daring to approach the bag of gold, thinking himself too weak to own it. I want to manifest my self-will. I may be the only one, but I’ll do it.”

This very much reflects Gogol: killing his high moral power (connection and empathy) through the man who identifies himself as a god (Fyodor) to prove his independence and freedom. 

But we’ve kind of already seen where this ends:

Gogol you’ve literally shown yourself terrified of dying (which Kirillov is as well). I know Gogol was likely acting in this scene, but given the themes of BSD and Gogol’s character, plus the fact that he did, in fact, choose not to die, I think this is likely somewhat reflective of his true feelings.  

But again, Kirillov asserts:

“I am awfully unhappy, for I’m awfully afraid. Terror is the curse of man.… But I will assert my will, I am bound to believe that I don’t believe. I will begin and will make an end of it and open the door, and will save. That’s the only thing that will save mankind and will re-create the next generation physically; for with his present physical nature man can’t get on without his former God, I believe. For three years I’ve been seeking for the attribute of my godhead and I’ve found it; the attribute of my godhead is self-will! That’s all I can do to prove in the highest point my independence and my new terrible freedom. For it is very terrible. I am killing myself to prove my independence and my new terrible freedom.”

As Gogol outlined, what disrupted his plans was Fyodor’s empathy for him, and his empathy for Fyodor. Their connection literally saved his life (hence I kind of doubt their connection will kill them in the end). He cannot die without killing that connection. 

Two things almost disrupt Kirillov’s plans. Firstly, and chiefly, it’s his empathy for others. Kirillov is noted to be a character who is extremely kind, good with children, and unafraid to risk himself to help others. When Kirillov finds out his friend betrayed him and is planning to use Kirillov’s suicide to get away with the murder of a third friend, Kirillov is horrified. He refuses to go through with his suicide at first, screaming in horror that his friend is dead and that he unwittingly enabled his killer to end his life. When he does ultimately go through with it, he states that it is because “I want to kill myself now: all are scoundrels.” He goes through with it because his human connections are failing. 

Even the novel’s most villainous character concludes “I agree” when Kirillov is called “good.” Kirillov will stop at nothing to help his friends, and he believes all people are good and will become good if they are just told they are. However, the tragic irony of this scene is that the person speaking to Kirillov--Nikolai Stavrogin--is very much a literary example of a psychopath. (Those of you who follow me know I don’t use that word lightly.) However, Stavrogin does not want to be this way; he wants to feel, he wants to be bothered by the terrible sins he’s committed. What he’s asking Kirillov, essentially, is to understand this and call him wrong for what he did, which absolutely no one does in the novel:

“Everything’s good.”

“Everything?”

“Everything. Man is unhappy because he doesn’t know he’s happy. It’s only that. That’s all, that’s all! If anyone finds out he’ll become happy at once...

“And if anyone dies of hunger, and if anyone insults and outrages the little girl, is that good?”

“Yes! ...They’re bad because they don’t know they’re good. When they find out, they won’t outrage a little girl. They’ll find out that they’re good and they’ll all become good, every one of them.”

“Here you’ve found it out, so have you become good then?”

“I am good.”

“That I agree with, though,” Stavrogin muttered, frowning.

“He who teaches that all are good will end the world.”

“He who taught it was crucified.”

“He will come, and his name will be the man-god.”

“The god-man?”

“The man-god. That’s the difference.”

Stavrogin’s examples are based on things he’s done. Kirillov isn’t aware of these deeds, but he does know his friend’s mind better than most of their other friends. The problem is that Kirillov refuses to truly act on this empathy, to accept that men can be scoundrels and good, because he wants what he believes (that all are good) to be so. Kirillov’s too consumed with his desire to end the world (hello Fyodor) to save mankind via proving himself free to actually use his empathy to help his friends. In fact, the murderer points out to Kirillov that if he’d focused more on his friend, he might have been able to prevent the murder. 

A similar attitude is reflected in Fyodor’s desire to destroy ability-users (i.e. end the world) and in his interactions with people. He doesn’t put his empathy into forming actual connections, and those he has he deliberately does not invest in (such as when he kills the kid in his introductory chapter). He kills ability users paradoxically because he cares about them and about other people. I wrote about it a bit in this meta here:

Fyodor... lives very much in a world of black and white. He makes Goncharov happy all the time, unable to experience pain or negative emotions. He believes all ability users are a sin and should be destroyed. He’s an idealist in a lot of ways, believing in absolutes (which is also a hallmark of a childish perspective...).  he wants to... force every single ability user to feel his pain (that their abilities are a sin) by wiping them out. In short, Fyodor wants empathy despite refusing to listen to the feelings of others. (He understands their feelings; he just chooses to emphasize his pain over theirs.) 

Unlike Kirillov, however, whose last scene is renowned as “the most harrowing in all of literature” (I can’t even describe it; it has to be read) I think there’s pretty good reason to hope that Fyodor and Gogol will not end up taking each other out. Because the thing about Kirillov, the reason his character resonates so much with me, is the second reason his plans are almost disrupted: it’s how desperately he wants to live. He just wants to know that his life matters. The way Kirillov expresses these desires is absurd in a lot of ways and certainly hyperbolic, but it’s a desire reflected in most of BSD’s characters, and in, well, a lot of us in real life, too. 

Empathy and genuine human connection are the greatest powers in BSD’s world, as we saw recently through Atsushi getting the location of the page from empathizing with Sigma by telling him what he most wanted to know: that he mattered. 

Sigma now knows, to an extent, that he matters. At least, he’s been told as much.  

Gogol states that Sigma is key to his plans succeeding: Sigma’s ability can tell him Fyodor’s ability, which will enable Gogol to kill Fyodor. Except... Sigma’s ability might just work in an way that cultivates empathy post-connection with Atsushi. If Sigma can trust that he matters, despite having been created by the page and having been abused and subjected to all manner of lies and exploitation, he might be key to Fyodor and Gogol’s conflict resolution rather than to them actually killing each other.

Fyodor matters despite having an ability that seems to make him unable to touch people--because he can touch people with his empathy. (His empathy is, of course, literally what draws Gogol to want to kill him.) Fyodor’s empathy with Gogol has already physically saved Gogol.

Gogol matters even if he is understood by someone, because empathy is a strength and not a weakness. Someone understanding him doesn’t make him matter less, and being bound by feelings isn’t actually a bad thing. His connection with Fyodor has already saved his life.

Both Fyodor and Gogol have now saved Sigma at some point. Sigma’s design, of course, is literally split with two different colored halves of his hair, indicating that the artist likely means to symbolize the clash of two halves (see: Q, who represents how soukoku (Dazai and Chuuya) are two halves of a whole in terms of their best and worst traits). However, they exist in one person, and Sigma seems reasonably stable for someone with his situation. 

Additionally, Fyodor and Gogol both are also somewhat modeled after Rodion Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, whose name literally means “split” in Russian. (Actually, Kirillov is very much a more internal, tragic version of Raskolnikov.) Like Kirillov, Raskolnikov is a paradox embodied: he’s stunningly empathetic and kind (rushing into a burning building to save orphans), but his philosophy is that it’s fine for him to kill others because he’s a “Napoleon” (special figure; “man-god,” to use Kirillov’s term). 

But what is split is ultimately made whole in Crime and Punishment. Raskolnikov meditates on the raising of Lazarus from the dead and essentially resurrects himself, redeems himself. 

I highly doubt Gogol and Fyodor’s story will end with them dead because:

It’s BSD and nobody stays dead unless you’re Oda or a red shirt; 

Gogol and Sigma have already served us fake-out deaths, so it’s a lot to ask your audience to buy another death from the same character (killing Fyodor is essentially Gogol killing himself);

them surviving and having Fitzgerald-esque redemption arcs very much fits with the themes of Dostoyevsky’s works and specifically with the book after which Fyodor’s ability is named;

resurrection seems to be a motif with everything involving Fyodor, from Cannibalism to this current arc.

[erikthedead]

entry #4

Started reading FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY’s ‘Notes from the Underground,’ and I just got into the second half of him rambling and reflecting on his behaviour in detail. I never would have thought a Russian man from the 19th century would make me feel a little bit less alone in this world (or at least the ‘character’ delivering the narrative). Yet the more I read about what goes on in peoples’ heads the less insane I feel, or at least comforted by realising that everyone is a little bit insane, as long as they’re being honest. Should that be comforting? I feel like that should actually be disturbing, but I kinda like being disturbed. The bit that struck me to get writing about myself was how he recurringly mentions this need to be seen and heard and be a noble member of society, but flip flops between that and a state of isolating himself and being a recluse, ashamed by how his own face looks. I hope I’m interpreting it right, as I’m not so sure I’m smart enough to fully understand everything the man was trying to convey. The whole thing reads as him trying to make sense of himself, if anything. But if I am right in that, I can totally relate, and it causes me much distress as it seemed to have tormented him too.  His way was to throw himself into busy streets and bars, never feeling comfortable with it from what I’ve read, and possibly did it on purpose to feel uncomfortable, because he was getting bored with the current discomfort of isolating himself in his room with his books. That’s the interesting thing about it, he never once says he ‘leaves the comfort’ of his own home, like you’ll hear many well-adjusted introverts say. People who are content on their own. He obviously wasn’t content, he was bored, sick of his own brain, he tells us how he would break down into tearful fits from some sort of mental anguish that he tried to escape from through consumption of literature. I do exactly the same thing with media of all kinds, not because I ENJOY spending time with myself and my things, but because it helps me COPE with it. I am so envious of consistently introverted people who relish in their alone time. That SHOULD BE ME. All the same, it annoys me to death when someone complains about being ‘stuck in the house’ all day when they want to go out and mingle and see the world, because that is too exhausting a thing to wish for compared to creature comforts and solitude, surely. Both of them irritate me because I’m jealous of their seemingly consistent understanding of themselves, their desires and what makes them content on a regular, general basis. I’ve been trying to hard to figure out my own. I’m twenty-six now, yet I still feel juvenile as hell. I still feel like a child that goes up to the next thing that catches its eye and wants to ask, ‘can I have a go?’ And of course, to an innocent child, you let them have a go, without any expectations. You don’t get that luxury as an adult. You are expected to choose, commit, KNOW what you want. But again, I can’t help but think this isn’t me being special, that everyone probably feels this way, you certainly hear it from a lot of old people who humbly state that they are still always learning and discovering new things. Then again maybe they miss the point. Discovering things is fine, all the time. Learning is appreciated and encouraged. But actually changing or choosing not to change (both can be bad, right?), that is unsettling. We’ve given up good and evil for behaviourism and yet still people like me, Fyodor and to name a few other people I relate to when I read their autobiographies, Russell Brand, Stephen Fry, Steve-O (oh yes I compare myself to the greats, in all my unheard mighty feats), people like us can’t even get that right. Creative, expressive, bipolar people. People with big heads and sensitive souls, I’d say. Although I connect deeply to people like this I’d never want to be around them for too long. I know their torment and quite frankly my own is enough to contend with. There is a feeling of ‘pay attention to me but leave me alone.’ ‘Love me more than anything but don’t care too much about me because I’m bound to hurt you or make a fool of myself.’ Actually, in Notes from the Underground, Fyodor talks about man’s unconscious desire to smash up something he has been building, because he is unconsciously terrified of what to do what he has completed it, and Brand actually mentions this quite a bit in his Bookywooks. How he’d personally reach a level of fame and notoriety but then sabotage it, fearing the peak or what comes after – the come down. I hope I’ve interpreted these guys correctly, because it does make sense to me. The only thing that really sets me aside from these guys is my utter lack of ambition. At least in these peoples’ hypomanic states they were achieving something. What do I do? I’m the classic, slightly mentally ill underachiever that never sticks to anything. The sheer magnitude of my unconscientiousness could be used as an example of how not to be during a Jordan Peterson lecture. My downfalls were not self-sabotages, conscious or unconscious for the first half of my life. The rest you can blame on me, that’s fair enough, but puberty hit me early and like a train, and all that meant was I was spotty and got a bullied a bit, but that didn’t excuse me from performing well in my exams and essays. I was predicted to come out with some of the top grades in the whole school. I even started finding my confidence and standing up for myself to bullies after a few years adjusting to adolescence. Then my mother died suddenly one night from an overdose when I was fourteen, and my whole world flipped upside down. Like an anime main character backstory right there. It wasn’t perfect beforehand, anyone who knows my whole childhood situation will agree, but I had a bloody good chance up until she died. After that, I became nihilistic, rebellious, promiscuous and generally self-destructive. ‘How would your mother feel if she could see you now? She wouldn’t have wanted this.’ Oh how I wish I slapped anyone that said this to me. How dare they even try to assume what she would have wanted, having never known her. Of course, I said it to myself all the time, I still do sometimes, but I have that right. The rest of you don’t. Hah, rights. What a joke, even as I try to be dominant through typing to imaginary figments of the past and the future, I’m not even convincing myself.

The inconsistency, of my desires, my attitudes, my cognitions, my emotions and ultimately my behaviour is what pains me. I would rather be a complete abolition that was sure in himself than be like this. What’s even more frustrating is that it’s not that uncommon for people to be like me in that sense, but they just go with the flow with it, seemingly unaware of their inconsistency, and become incredibly defensive when you point it out. It’s understandable, I get defensive with myself, which could be an early sign of schizophrenia, who knows, time will tell. At the moment though I am without doubt an anxious, depressive, inconsistent muddled mess of a person, and even the HOPE for my future self comes and goes in powerful forms. I have the grandiose fantasies of being interviewed by people because I’m just that interesting and my achievements are that remarkable, and I also have the sheer terror while preparing to talk to the shop assistant when I’m buying something. Oh yeah, buying things, that’s a tricky one for me an’ all! The trick with me is not to give me too much choice, because if I have I will never decide, or I will make a silly last minute decision or pick the third thing after debating with myself for ten minutes between choosing from the first and the second. Not only indecisiveness, but impulsiveness plagues me. Not just buying things I don’t need, or don’t even want yet because I haven’t finished the last thing, but even charitably so. I saw a stranger E-begging by chance and decided to send him money. I have no idea why. Am I just a good person? I don’t have enough money for myself, and even if I do have some to spare, that should go to others who have helped me financially before a stranger on the internet. Maybe I’m not a good person, and I just did it to cleanse myself of some feeling of shame or guilt for wasting money on myself. As well as the positive fantasies of my future where I am destined to greatness through nothing other than my own conviction and virtues, I have the other vision in the crystal ball that shows myself destitute and addicted to hard drugs, homeless or institutionalised, ultimately suicided. Addiction and suicide run through my veins afterall, and I’ve been close to becoming the 3rd generation of my bloodline to go out by my own hand. The decently sized scar on my arm from a self-inflicted slash that was intended for my neck, that nearly severed my nerves and would have left me with a malfunctioning left hand had I gone any deeper. Sometimes I look at it and feel ashamed for doing it, for trying to throw away my beautiful, special life, and other times I look at it and feel ashamed for missing my real target, my consciousness. I battle with my consciousness a lot, I try to minimise it through drink and drugs or healthy mental exercises, distract it with my media, sublimate it through writing and drawing, but rarely do I get peace from it. Then other times, I count my blessings and praise the universe for bestowing onto me just the ability to think and feel and be a person. Neither approach to life is crazy to me, what’s crazy to me is not being able to bloody pick one and settle on it for more than a couple of days at a time. Like Fyodor describes his character going out into a busy bustling area in his urges to be part of society after a stint of isolation, I will go out some weekends and do the same, but that’s only a more recent, probably more healthy advance in my development than what I have been doing for a long time which is going online to provoke and debate people with my thoughts and opinions, and sometimes cheeky insults. I really resent when people who know me call it ‘trolling’ when I go off on these episodes. Trolling to me is when you put something out there that you don’t actually stand by, but you know will get a reaction out of people because you’re bored and want to mess with people. Now fair enough, there’s a lot to be said for that last part, but I have no reason to say things I don’t really think/feel/believe when the things I say genuinely are enough to upset people on their own, things I sincerely believe are correct. I’ll feel ever so right and convicted during these online tirades, then the next day want to delete all my social media and wipe my name from the planetary database. Perhaps I could just delete my existence while I’m at it. Seems like my self-doubt and my self-assuredness play equal part in my misery, because like everything else, I can’t choose one. The same happens if I go out and meet new people on the weekend, I’ll exchange numbers and add people with all intention of meeting up in the future, only to ghost them afterwards. I don’t know why.

[mikauzoran]

Ask Game: Mikau’s Headcanons - This Should Be a Drinking Game

Anonymous asked:

5&6

Thank you for the ask! ^.^

(The questions are from this list. So far I’ve done five, six, eleven, and fifteen.)

5. What’s your favorite headcanon you use in fics?

Oh my gosh. There are so many headcanons. XD I was actually just thinking last night that I needed to compile a list and turn it into a drinking game or something. 

Take a sip of tea every time:

1. Félix is Adrien’s older brother (eight years older). He left home at sixteen, married Marinette’s cousin Bridgette, and now lives in Marseille where he’s a homicide detective. Bri runs her own bakery. They have a daughter named Noëlle and a son on the way. Fé used to play the violin competitively growing up, and Adrien learned to play Danse Macabre and the first movement of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata from him.

2. Émilie was a stage actress, and Adrien used to do the child roles in whatever production she was in, so he grew up backstage and going to the theatre to see his mum a lot. Her signature role was Viola in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. When Gabriel and Émilie met going to high school in Marseille, she was performing Viola and dragged him into being on the costume crew for the school play once she discovered he was an aspiring fashion designer.

3. Adrien decides to pursue a career in acting. He misses performing from when he did it with his mum when he was a kid, and it makes him feel connected to her. He likes getting to portray all kinds of different people and experiencing what it’s like to be someone else. It’s a safe space for him to experience emotions since expressing emotions was frowned upon in his home growing up. The roles he really wants to play are Jean Valjean from Les Mis, the Phantom from Phantom of the Opera, Elphaba from Wicked, and Viola from Twelfth Night.

4. Adrien is originally left-handed but has learned to be ambidextrous. This is my hill to die on, and you can fight me over it. ^w^ It’s probably just production error/the creators not really caring, but I’ve noticed several times in canon where Adrien has been shown doing things left-handed. (I mean, he uses his right hand for things too, but...) In Origins, when he’s walking to class and signing autographs left and right, he does so with his left hand. In Marchand de Sable/Sandman when he’s doing homework in his room, his writing supplies are on his left side. (I just want some left-handed representation. Is that too much to ask? ;-;)

5. Adrien is biromantic asexual. Even when I pair him with Marinette, he’s never not bi. I don’t always write him as ace; sometimes he’s bisexual in my works, but I could see canon Adrien as ace.

6. Adrien’s comfort foods are mint tea and salad. When he was little, when he or  Émilie had a bad day, she would kick the kitchen staff out of the kitchen, and they would make a big salad and some mint tea and enjoy it together. Now that she’s gone, he has mint tea and/or salad when he’s feeling down, and it’s comforting because it reminds him of his mother.

7. Adrien is a total anime nerd. He grew up relatively isolated from the outside world, so he learned about life and “normal”/“acceptable” human behaviour from Disney movies and anime. He’s always wanted to be a Disney princess and a magical girl. He was really inspired by Disney and anime protagonists who overcame the difficulties in their lives to achieve their dreams and find happiness and love. He has a lot of strong, female role models, starting with his mum, so he tends to identify with female characters more strongly than male characters.

8. Adrien is a polyglot. Obviously, he knows French, and he’s learned English because it’s required. Chinese lessons are canonical. He taught himself Japanese so that he could read manga and watch anime in the original (and pass it off as “studying”). He also speaks Russian (see “9″ below). He doesn’t speak Italian, but he has a passing familiarity with the language. He knows some phrases from opera from watching it himself and his mum’s career. He has some of his favourite portions memorized. He can insult someone’s sartorial choices in Italian from listening to his father do so on trips to Milan for business, and he knows survival phrases, but he can’t actually construct sentences or have conversations. He just hasn’t invested himself in it.

9. Adrien’s bodyguard’s name is Victor (really Viktor, but he uses the French spelling to fit in). He’s originally from Russia and still has family there. The reason why he doesn’t speak is because, even though he understands French just fine, he’s self-conscious about speaking it because of his accent. He’s also afraid to make mistakes, especially in front of Gabriel who is not a patient or tolerant man. Victor taught Adrien Russian, so now they can speak together, and no one knows what they’re saying. (Nathalie has picked up a little bit here and there, but not enough to have conversations.) Victor calls Adrien Adrianka. (It’s the Russian diminutive.)

10. Nathalie speaks a little bit of Mandarin Chinese. Her tones are so-so, but she can get her point across. She learned from listening in on Adrien’s lessons so that she could make sure he stayed on top of his curriculum. When Adrien has to miss Chinese lessons on short notice, Adrien’s teacher works with Nathalie instead.

11. Luka loves all music, not just rock or punk like we’ve seen on the show. I mean, the guy is portrayed as music being his whole life, right? He came to music through rock and roll because that’s what he was exposed to through his mother and her music career, but if you dig into the music and look at its history, where it came from, what inspired it, you start wandering back through time until you get to the big names of classical concert music. Luka is an inquisitive, thoughtful guy. I can see him digging into the roots of the music he grew up with and finding all sorts of cool influences. I can see him learning about and experimenting with different types/genres of music.

12. In university, Luka studies Literature with an emphasis on nineteenth and twentieth century Russia. Why? Below is excerpted from my response to a comment asking about this point.

Especially in the nineteenth century during the height of Romanticism, a lot of literary elements and themes made their way into classical music. Program music uses literary texts as a base and illustrates the story with music. Composers drew from the Russian literary tradition as well, particularly in opera. Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades is based on Pushkin's short story, and I just found out a month ago that Shostakovich turned Gogol's short story The Nose into an opera. In the arts, one thing always leads to another. It's like looking up something on Wikipedia. Two hours later you've become an expert on botany or Balkan folk dance. I think Luka would dig into the sources of inspiration for the music he was consuming in order to better understand the works and as a means of getting inspiration himself.

So that's why Russian Literature. I think he'd eventually find his way to it through music. Then, once you find Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, you really get sucked in. For me, those two have such a way of depicting real human beings and what it means to be human. They really get at deeper human truths. Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment, and The Idiot really capture that essence for me. (War and Peace too to some extent, but not as much as the other three.) I think Luka would really be drawn to Russian literature too and come to love it for itself apart from the musical inspiration he was able to derive from it.

13. In his teens, Luka takes more of an interesting in the piano and falls in love with the violin. He adds piano and violin performance majors halfway through university and ends up becoming a professional solo pianist as well as a first violin with the Orchestre de Paris.

14. Luka wears reading glasses. I don’t think I’ve used this one much. Actually, I can’t find where I’ve used this at all. :/ Well. I suppose there will be no tea drinking at this time for this headcanon. ^.^;

15. Luka has tattoos. I don’t think I��ve gotten around to this one yet either. Adrien and Luka talk about possible tattoo ideas in Chapter Four of Nachtmusik, but... At any rate, the full extent of the tattoos would be a stylized snake on his pelvis, Odin’s raven’s on his shoulder blades, a stylized snake bracelet under his regular bracelets, and a Chat Noir paw print under his ring. So far the paw print is the only one that I’m one hundred percent positive that will happen. The stylized snake on the pelvis is pretty up there too because in the Jabberwocky/Daisy universe I was going to have Adrien and Marinette squabbling over Luka, and Adrien was going to say that he bet Marinette hadn’t seen Luka’s snake tattoo. When Marinette asks Luka where he has a snake tattoo and learns how low on Luka’s stomach it is, she’s left wondering what’s going on between Adrien and Luka. I’m undecided about the ravens and the snake bracelet.

16. The children are always named Hugo, Louis, and Emma, but the birth order depends upon the pairing. Lukadrienette have Hugo (biologically Luka’s), Emma (Adrien’s), and then Louis (Adrien’s). Lukadrien have Emma (Luka and Rose’s), Louis (Adrien and Rose’s), and then Hugo (Adrien and Juleka’s). Adrienette have Louis, Hugo, and then Emma.

Which is your favourite of my headcanons? Which one would you like to see more of? Did I miss any? ^.^;

[writing-radionoises]

remember my name

ship: little bit of fyodazai, mostly ango & dazai

genre: hurt/comfort

prompt: post fyodor’s suicide, dazai contemplates life without him

notes: sequel to disappear, obviously tw for suicide and implied sexual content.  song is remember by name by mitski

The cafe is mostly empty, likely because it's late and just about closing time.

The sun is setting against the horizon, and Dazai watches as he idly stirs his tea.

The cafe radio is playing some sort of English song Dazai can barely make out. He had asked if they would mix up the stations now and then, to hear more foreign music.

"I gave too much of my heart tonight.

Can you come to where I'm staying,

And make some extra love?

That I can save til tomorrow's show."

Dazai hums along with it, propping his head up with his fist.

It's so hard to live now, knowing that Fyodor is gone.

Dazai can't pinpoint why he misses the bastard, he's had hundreds of exes and so many people who mistreated and used him.

Yet, Fyodor stayed in his mind.

Fyodor was unique. In the end, that's why Dazai thought about him so much.

He was different from any other person he met. He was determined to get his way, to become great, and killed anything that stood in his way. He was a genius who learned whole languages within a couple of months, who mastered the art of hacking and manipulation. Fyodor had read twice as much as Dazai had in his life at the age of 15.

He was talented in so many ways, though also, he was poisoned with traumas and perhaps even a hero complex.

And most importantly, he threw his own life away.

That's what haunts Dazai the most. When he closes his eyes, he can see the empty rooftop again, Fyodor's last words forever ring in his mind.

Dazai was well versed in suicidal thoughts, and never once saw Fyodor to be plagued by them until that day.

And there wasn't anything Dazai could do to cure them at that point. It was a fatal condition.

Somehow, it has to be Dazai's fault.

"Dazai," rang a familiar voice from behind him, "You've been staring for a while. Are you alright?"

Dazai's skin crawls from the touch on his shoulder as he looks back to see the familiar face of Ango Sakaguchi.

Ango has been like Dazai's emotional support friend for what seemed like decades, the little conversations they held were always about Dazai. Ango hated talking about himself, claimed he was boring and unplagued by most of any trouble.

"Just thinking," Dazai replied.

"About what?" Asked the brunette, sitting beside Dazai at the window.

"Dostoyevsky," he answered simply, "... God, it feels weird to call him that. He always insisted I call him Fyodor, saying that 'Russian last names are hard on the Japanese tongue,' or whatever. I think he just hated hearing me mispronounce it…"

"You two used to be friends, yes?"

"Something like that," Dazai nodded along, "We used to date like ages ago, it was only for a couple of months and it… wasn't an amazing experience, but it worked out for what I needed…"

"You'll have to elaborate more, Dazai," Ango replied, brows furrowed in confusion, "When was this?"

"After Odasaku died, and after you abandoned me. I left the mafia and realized that I… didn't have any friends. I didn't even know how to make friends, and developed a chronic case of loneliness," the bandaged man continued, "It's not good when you have suicide on your mind 24/7, but I was determined to stay alive. Long story short, I hooked up with a bunch of random guys, most of which I never really knew. Bartender called me the Lord Of One Night Stands, I'd let people take me home to try and forget about my loneliness. Fyodor was my first real relationship after all that, we met in a coffee shop. He cracked a joke or two, he was really cute, and I needed another person to fuck me so I wouldn't go home and hang myself that night. It worked out."

"I thought you said it wasn't that great of a relationship earlier," Ango said.

"It wasn't," Dazai said with a sigh, "He was a sociopath who didn't really know how to interact with people. I was one of his first real friends and he used me to learn about human interaction. Though, I think the worst part was when he actually called me out on my terrible coping mechanism. He was confused why I was so offended by him using me when I was using him in return. I left him after he said that, but I've been thinking about it ever since. I use just about everyone around me for my own personal gain, and sometimes I do it without realizing. I still don't know if Fyodor ever saw me as a romantic partner, or if he was just mirroring my feelings because it was what I wanted to hear."

"You wanted someone to care about you, regardless of how temporary or fake it was," Ango simplified, and Dazai nodded, "So, why are you thinking about him tonight?"

Dazai falls silent, drumming his fingers against the counter.

The music continued to play in the background.

"'Cause I need somebody to remember my name.

After all that I can do for them is done.

I need someone to remember me."

"... He knew me at what I would say was the shittiest part of my life," Dazai said eventually, continuing to tap his fingers, "I don't care how fake it was, but he made me feel cared about. I was nineteen at the time, the love of my life died in my arms, and I had years of unprocessed childhood trauma, I was a fucking unattended oil fire. He… he couldn't put the fire out, but he at least tried. It meant a lot to me, and now I can't seem to process him being gone…"

Ango gave a simple hum as Dazai laid him head against the counter with a sigh.

"I'm starting to think everyone I care about just dies in the end. This entire Decay Of Angels thing was my fault, if I had just tried to tame the rage in Fyodor back then, all of this could've been avoided. He could be still alive today."

Ango places a comforting hand in Dazai's shoulder, unsure of what to say as Dazai closes his eyes.

The empty rooftop stands before him, with the sun setting in the background.

He knows there was no avoiding this. Nothing he could've done would've tamed Fyodor.

The Russian had said it himself, he was born to be a villain. "Destined to be a thorn in God's side," or something like that.

And even though Dazai has grown so much past the crutch that Fyodor once was to him, it feels terrible for him to be ripped away so soon.

Another sigh escapes Dazai.

"He asked me to remember him. And maybe it's selfish to say this, but now that he's gone… Who's going to remember me?" Dazai says, "Not as the agency member or the mentally ill mafia executive, but as the nineteen year old with more baggage than he can carry, and a desperate need for love?"

Ango doesn't respond, because really, there isn't an answer.

Dazai knew that.

[cherryyharryy]

I’ll Be Okay

WC:1k

Warnings: Smut

The interpretations of Dreams, Sigmund Freud. Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch, Henry Miller. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck.

It looks like the books are moving. The bed is creaking, an awful, rusted squeaking sound that I’ll remember for years. Sweat is building up in the same places as when I wake in the middle of the night in August. But I can’t get up to stumble across the room to turn the fan on. It looks like the books are moving, but it’s just me.

When I look down I can hardly see my body; he’s covering up so much. I wonder if my sweat bothers him. I guess not, because then he might get off.

Moby Dick, Herman Melville. The Order of Time, Carlo Revelli. A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe.

It’s like the books are shaking now. And he’s grunting now. When he stops and pulls out, I realize how dehydrated I am, because it takes too long for relief to register in my brain. And then once it does, it’s too late. I’m flipped over like a doll.

It’s almost two AM. I watch the second hand for an entire revolution. What time was it when I got here? How did I get here?

He said, “I’ve been watching you all night.”

I said, “I just got here.”

I remember the drink he gave me. I poured it out. I pretended to take a sip and then poured it out. And you might think I was being too nice to a guy who thought complimenting my eyes was enough, but it was done out of habit. He couldn’t even see my eyes.

The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, Peter Weiss. The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle. The Holy Bible.

He’s good at what he does. He’s patient. He starts with sweet names. Then it’s a hand on your knee. And you think, it’s just my knee, I’m okay. Then a hand on your back, rubbing your neck, thumb on your cheek. I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay.

He brought up his apartment like it was a new idea. Like people didn’t visit other people and he’s the first one to think of it. He tugged me off my stool, and I forgot how to say no.

The wallpaper is torn by the door. It’s some God awful print from the 70’s. I smell alcohol. His mouth is by my ear. No, I don’t like that you bastard. I’m okay. I’ll be okay.

And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. History of the Rain, Niall Williams. Eleven Poems, Seamus Heaney

The lights are off and there’s a lava lamp on his desk. All my clothes are on the floor. His are still on. My arms are weak, and I fall onto his bed. My face is pushed into the sheets. Not even the pillow. I don’t even get a pillow.

More sweat, accumulating on my skin, like swarms of mosquitoes landing and sticking to me. More and more. I can’t breathe. It hurts. I hate him. I want to die.

He studies English. He wants to travel. He went to Japan three years ago and he’s never been the same. He’s thinking about going vegan. It’s amazing how many facts a man will tell you about themselves when they can’t take their eyes off your breasts. And apparently, I feel so fuckin’ good. I wouldn’t know

I like to read too. Why did I tell him that? Why did I offer anything up? Checkmate. He had me. I opened the door for him. He plowed through before I could step out of the way. You should come over and see my collection. I think you’ll like it.

The Hobbit, J.R.R Tolkien. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov.

A very boring city sits outside the window; I have a view now. I’ve been placed ever so delicately on the edge of his bed. The squeaking is worse now. And the headboard bangs against the wall. It’s an old, chipped gold railing type. I’ve hit my head three times so far. I said shit each time and he said nothing.

It’s so dark out I can pretend I’m anywhere. Just a skyline of buildings. New York, London, Paris. I’ll be okay. Paris. I’m in Paris. If I squint, the water tower can be the Eiffel Tower. The power plant...the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I’m in Italy now. Maybe—

“I’m so close.”

Nevermind.

The sounds he makes when he’s finally finishing, are, without exaggeration, revolting. And then as he’s zipping his jeans he’s humming. Rocket Man. I’ll have to remember to delete it off my playlist. I’m surprised—dumbfounded—when he tosses the condom in the trash. I hate that I can’t remember him ever putting it on.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Neil Postman and Andrew Postman.

I pick up my clothes piece by piece. They burn when I slide them on.

Television: Seeing by Wire or Wireless, Alfred Dinsdale. Watership Down, Richard Adams. The Midnight Watch: A Novel of the Titanic and the Californian, David Dyer.

“You weren’t lying,” I say, scanning the bookshelf now that they’ve stopped moving.

“‘Course not.”

The Stories of Anton Chekhov, Anton Chekhov. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce.

He moves past me, the bathroom door shutting a moment after. I step back to see the top shelves.

The Odyssey, Homer. The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri.

I said yes. To everything. I can’t really blame him for hating myself. I reach up and slip Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, off and fan the pages under my nose. The bathroom door starts opening, and I shove the book into the waistband of my pants.

“You wanna stay? Smoke a little?”

“No, I’m just gonna go.”

The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee. The Trial, Frank Kafka.

He says something else, but I’m already passing by his couch. “Thanks for the book,” I whisper. “I’ll add it to my own collection.” You should come see it sometime.

[heisthq]

you all certainly didn’t make this easy on me — it was an incredibly tough decision for many of the roles. there were THIRTY-EIGHT applications for only ELEVEN roles, which is insane, and please know that every single one was incredible. i’m only one person on the internet, and this decision is in no way a reflection of the quality of your writing ( seriously, i know i just said it, but i’m kind of shocked by how good every single app was ). i’m so grateful for all the love heist has gotten, and i couldn’t be happier with the beautiful submissions i received ! from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

for those of you who were accepted, please follow the checklist, familiarize yourself with your fellow members, & review the triggers list. once your blog is set up, please send it in to the main within 24 hours so i can send you a link to the discord server. 

but enough talking — the newest members of HEISTHQ can be found under the cut !

welcome, DEDE ! you have been accepted as THE BLEEDING HEART, otherwise known as JUDY FAULKNER PRYCE ( ELIZABETH OLSEN ).

good god. what a way to start off acceptances — judy reached into my heart and took it for herself, and i’m not upset about it in the slightest. her gruff outer shell, still with that instinctive need to help, to do something, is so bleeding heart, and i ached at every step of the way through her journey. i knew i was really in for it when i dedicated a skeleton to loss itself, but you spun that concept into a living, breathing person and shot her back at me. i’ll happily let her knock me down any day, and i know she certainly will as soon as she makes her way onto the dash.

welcome, CHERRY ! you have been accepted as THE CAREER CRIMINAL, otherwise known as MISCHA DOSTOYEVSKY ( NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO ).

though you made my decision very difficult with that eleventh hour app, i couldn’t stop coming back to mischa. from the beginning of her childhood crimes to her current position as the head of the motherfucking bratva, she pulled me in and got me hook, line, and sinker. you painted such a brilliant picture of her that i felt she was going to jump off the page at any moment — and that last line of her bio ? chills. literal chills. finally, i have now decided their next heist is going to be stealing lip gloss from claire’s, shoutout to mischa for that hot idea. all in all, she’s an absolute delight, and i cannot wait to have her here. 

welcome, REED ! you have been accepted as THE EYE IN THE SKY, otherwise known as INDIANA “INDIE” ASCENCIO ( ANA DE ARMAS, BUT ONLY WITH PINK HAIR ).

okay, first of all, are you kidding me with that bio structure ? that was the coolest shit i’ve ever seen. what a way to kick it off for the eye in the sky — i said break the stereotype and you said bet. indie is an absolute gem of a character, as stunning as she is valuable, and damn if she doesn’t know it. she’s so vibrant that i could practically hear her voice when i read your answers to the prompts; i’m still howling at thirty five pages of criminal offenses. the eye in the sky needed to take me by the throat to show me who they are; you broke down the door and said here she is. i couldn’t be more honored to have her.

welcome, NOAH ! you have been accepted as THE GETAWAY DRIVER, otherwise known as CARLISLE “JACE” JACOBI HARRISON-SHEA ( CYRUS AMINI ).

the getaway driver was, arguably, the toughest choice i had to make — but i couldn’t help myself. jace drew me back in every single time like a moth to a flame, and i know he’d read that fact with that same, secret little smirk. every moment of reading your app is exciting, like i’m white-knuckled in jace’s passenger seat, along for whatever twists and turns his psyche brings, which was exactly what i was looking for. there are too many incredible quotes to put in one acceptance post, but one such example is stunningly simple: you weren’t just running. you were chasing. i posed a question in the getaway driver’s skeleton, and with one quick pivot, you took my breath away. just... wow. that’s all.

welcome, MARS ! you have been accepted as THE HIRED GUN, otherwise known as ASLAN “MAZZIE” YILMAZ ( ALPEREN DUYMAZ ).

mars, i’m gonna be honest, i hate you a little bit ( but not really. i love you ). i’m pretty sure forcing me to choose between two stunning apps should count as some sort of personal attack, but after much agonizing, i’m delighted to settle with the absolute tragedy that is my newest son mazzie. there’s a quiet power, a quiet ( but no less imposing ) threat threaded throughout his story, and somehow you managed to weave my own heartstrings into the picture alongside it all. you sent me tumbling head over heels for this man who, in his own words, is death himself. you gave me my hired gun, and he’s everything i dreamed. thank you.

welcome, LUCY ! you have been accepted as THE INSIDE MAN, otherwise known as IVY WANG ( GEMMA CHAN ).

lucy. lucy !!! you didn’t make it easy on me, but man, i couldn’t be more wrapped around ivy’s finger, which is probably just how she’d like it. the structure of your app was so interesting & unique ( that arrest report ?? HOT ). she encapsulates the inside man so perfectly — from her mannerisms to her motivations, everything was so spot on that i’m pretty sure you reached inside my brain to pull out my exact vision. she feels so real, so human and so powerful all at once, and i would personally let her arrest me and write her a thank you note for putting me in jail. i’m obsessed. obsessed !

welcome, BEE ! you have been accepted as THE MASTERMIND, otherwise known as BISHOP LEE ( CHOI MINHO ).

my beautiful mastermind is no longer mine — he’s yours, bee, every inch, and i couldn’t be happier about it. from his recruitment log ( which was !!! you wove his voice into it so perfectly ) to his reasoning for creating the group in the first place, bishop is someone i didn’t expect, but i adore him, shaping his little family & leaving behind a legacy he can be proud of ( “so bishop acts like they’re immortal, because he truly believes they are. it’s just his version of immortality is in the history books rather than an eternally beating heart.” are you KIDDING ??? ). please don’t take him from me — i don’t want to let him go. 

welcome, MIA ! you have been accepted as THE NEW KID ON THE BLOCK, otherwise known as MARTY CHOI ( KANG MINA ).

listen, i’m pretty relieved i didn’t get another app for this character, because i didn’t need one — marty is the new kid, through and through. she has that hunger that is so quintessential for this role, the drive and ambition for something more in this grand universe of ours. it’s so perfectly exemplified by marty’s own words: let me be excellent at something again. let me be proud of my own capabilities again. let me be part of something so i'll stop feeling so alone. this !! this is so perfect i almost jumped out of my skin reading it. thank you for bringing me our perfectly imperfect new kid — i can’t wait to see her in action.

welcome, LEXI ! you have been accepted as THE SECOND IN COMMAND, otherwise known as PERCY BANKS ( BRENTON THWAITES ).

holy shit, lexi. holy shit !! from the moment i saw “STATUS: deceased” at the beginning of your app, i knew i was in for a wild ride — but i had no idea what truly awaited me. from percy’s humble beginnings through his ambitious rise to hotshot fbi agent ( speaking of, can you say hot fucking take to have him as ex-fbi ? i’m floored ), i was hooked into the twists and turns of his story, my jaw dropping when i realized who jupiter was after all. the highs and lows of his first foray into the world of heists had me on the edge of my seat, and i truly cannot wait to see what percy does next — because at this rate, who knows where he’ll end up ? i’m excited to find out !

welcome, HANNAH ! you have been accepted as THE STAR OF THE SHOW, otherwise known as STRIKER KIM ( CHARLES MELTON ).

god, hannah — break my heart, why don’t you ? as each tidbit of striker’s past fell into place, that’s what you did, and i’m aching for this boy who’s just trying to stay alive ( and live as much as he can while he still is ). though the star could be played in so many different ways, you took this role an entirely different direction, and suffice to say it blew me away. literally, your mind. exhibit a — you didn’t go running to high society for fame or fortune, no. it was your insurance policy — god, striker !! he’s such a complex, heartbreaking character, and i can’t wait to see him on the dash. he may have a hand in two different worlds of crime, but he’s also got a place in my heart, and god knows he could use the love. also, making me crack a code just to understand your bio headings ? touché. i deserved that.

welcome, ELLIE ! you have been accepted as THE WATCHDOG, otherwise known as THEA JAIN ( NAOMI SCOTT ).

the watchdog requires a delicate balance: soft edges bathed in steel, a gentle person capable of terrible things. it can be a tough image to capture, but i shouldn’t have worried. your entire app painted a picture of this exact person, tugging at my heartstrings until the very end: remember that you are thea jain, and that you are a good person. you are kind. you are loved. and you are in control. that was it — just like thea’s fifth rule to round out the reminders of her morality, you completely sealed the deal. the way she cares for the team, baking for them and occasionally mothering them, exposes that soft underbelly guarded by her quiet yet surprising strength and power. you’ve made a beautiful character, ellie. i can’t thank you enough for bringing her to me.

[donewithcapitalistfrayers]

Tribute to Albert 'Nuh' Washington, from David Gilbert Getting To Know Nuh

"There's a funny thing about coming to prison: I've gotten to meet some of my favorite people in the world. From 1967-81, both above – and underground, solidarity with Black Panther (BPP) and Black Liberation Army (BLA) POW/PP's was a top priority (although I must admit our actual practice was far too intermittent and inadequate). I chanted many of the names on picket lines and read a lot of their political writings for inspiration and guidance. But I didn't get to know these comrades personally until I came to prison. As there are far too many still inside. Over these 18 1/2 years I've gotten to spend some time – do time – with New Afrikan POW/PP's Kuwasi Balagoon, Sekou Odinga, Jalil Muntaqim, Jah Heath, Mohaman Koti, and Nuh Washington.

Naturally each comrade is unique, with his particular strengths and weaknesses, foibles and delights. But there is one generalization I can make. The BPP/BLA POW/PP's I met turn Dostoyevski on his head. Fyodor Dostoyevski is the brilliant 19th century Russian novelist who penned the scathing critique of radicals as people who claim to care passionately about all of humanity but fail to love and nurture the actual individuals in their immediate lives. When I called Dostoyevski "brilliant," I meant his writing not necessarily his politics. But we should not dismiss his critique as simply a rank slander. The deficit he stresses is a real danger and something we need to be very aware of. We all must continue to grow into more fully relating with the individuals in our daily lives according to the love and ideals of our political vision.

Anyway, the generalization I can make about the BPP/BLA comrades I've met personally – in addition to the obvious good politics and strong principles – is that each on is a truly warm and insightful human being.

The circumstances under which I met Nuh Washington were especially intense. I was grieving personally and simultaneously in the midst of a heated and at times vicious political battle. Kuwasi Balagoon had been with me at Auburn prison for about a year when he died suddenly and surprisingly in December 1986, of what turned out to the AIDS. Kuwasi was a sparkling comrade and we had gotten to be very close during our 1981-83 trial, and then during that year at Auburn. I turned my deep grief into a commitment to taking on the AIDS crisis in prison. 2 other close friends of Kuwasi joined me in starting the first prisoners' peer education program on AIDS in the country. The administration didn't want to hear it; all they saw back then was the danger of prisoners organizing. A fierce struggle ensued, including their concerted effort to use the prevailing AIDS phobia to turn other prisoners against us.

So that was the scene when Nuh arrived in Auburn on May 1987. First of all Nuh, who of course was also mourning Kuwasi, provided me strong emotional support and comfort. Second, he played a great role in the struggle for AIDS education. I don't want to overdramatize it and say he saved the day. We were doing a good job in a very difficult situation. But Nuh, who in addition to being an Imam of the Muslim community was, of course, widely respected throughout the prisoner population – set a great standard of principled conduct. It wasn't so much support for me as a fellow PP as it was a commitment to doing the right thing about the AIDS crisis, which, although being downplayed by authorities, was by far and away the main cause of death among NY prisoners. Nuh provided key leadership in getting various prisoners not to fall for the divisions being promoted but instead to come together for this urgently needed work. He showed how seriously he took the issue by personally signing-up for the first training of peer educators.

In 12/87 I was shipped out of Auburn as part of a broader effort to break up this peer initiative. Despite the many hassles and limits that gutted (for that time) the scope of outreach and education we had envisioned, prisoners who remained there did manage to complete a training and Nuh was part of that very first cohort. As a broad community, prisoner peer educators have gone on to save 100s, by now probably 1,000s of lives, although we could have saved many times more without all the opposition and bureaucratic restrictions.

Can I reveal a discrediting secret to you? I hope I can count on all of you to keep it confidential: Nuh caught me in the act of selling out to the establishment. Well, you have to understand the circumstnaces. It was during those highly embattled early months of the AIDS progam. We had no literature at all, let alone anything that spoke to prisoners. Somehow I got my hands on the Surgeon General's Report on AIDS and the 1 sympathetic staff person at Auburn (she later left corrections) agreed to make copies. So I ws in her office, frantically trying to collate the piles of pages before court time. Nuh happened to walk in and, surprised to see me there, came over to see what I was doing. Without missing a beat he quipped: "I just knew we couldn't trust these white Leftists. Here's David Gilbert, highly-touted anti-imperialist PP, getting ready to pass out government propaganda – literature put out by the Reagan administration, no less, the most reactionary u.s. regime of the century!!" My retelling can't capture how funny this was in the frazzle of the moment and what a good job it did in breaking the tension. Then, with Nuh immediately pitching in, the 2 of us easily completed the collating before count.

Nuh has a terrific and unique sense of humor. He's a slyly ironic and often at first you don't realize he's joking until – like a ripple on the sea that surprisingly turns into a big wave - it breaks all over you. Another special quality I want to mention is his willingness to look analytically and critically at the past. In my personal opinion, POW/PP's in general have done a great job in holding firmly to our principles despite the tremendous pressures, but we haven't done very well – in some ways this is more difficult – in analyzing and articulating useful lessons from the errors we've made. Nuh has been very open to this, and those of you who read the revival of the BPP newspaper in the early '90s may have seen, he was written intelligently and usefully in this area."

[taminoamirfouad]

Vogue Hommes 2019: PRINCE OF MELANCHOLY

By Sophie Rosemont / Photographed by Paolo Roversi / Styled by Anastasia Barbieri  ‘Let’s get together when there’s time,’ he says. ‘I’ve finally taken a break and just been to a week of fashion shows, so I am less anxious than usual’. When you have known the young man since his first EP was released, in 2017, you know he’s not exaggerating. The apparent serenity scarcely hides the tension, the tension of forward-thinking perfectionists, whilst allowing their talent to mature and develop.

Dark eyes, a tall slender figure and jet-black hair, Tamino-Amir Moharam Fouad was born in Antwerp of a Belgian mother and Egyptian father. He doesn’t only reflect his mixed origins through his physique. In his music, he calls to mind a form of romantic rock influenced by Nick Cave (even though his high-pitched voice is more suggestive of Jeff Buckley or Thom Yorke) and the melodies of the ancestral East. His grandfather was none other than Moharam Fouad, nicknamed ‘the sound of the Nile’, an extremely popular singer and actor in Egypt. He died when Tamino was a little boy, but he profoundly inspired him: ‘I love his music. And I could identify with what I was told about him. He was obsessed by his work and never stopped singing.’

The artistic tastes of Tamino, who was so named as a tribute to the prince in Mozart’s Magic Flute, date from when he was very young. At the age of eight, he dreamt up a play and asked his little brother to play the main character: ‘I had a specific idea of what I wanted, and when he didn’t acquiesce, I flew into a rage. I was a little dictator! It was then that my parents realized that I had a strong interest in the arts, the theater, etc.’ His mother was a music-lover and always playing the piano. She initiated her son, who, after taking several classical lessons, quickly broke away from the classics: ‘I didn’t have the patience to learn the pieces as I was expected to. I wanted to interpret them differently. I admire the discipline of classical musicians, but my idea was to create a story and embody it, expressing what I wanted to say. It’s an experience. A song you like that transports you, instantly, is instinctive. You don’t know where it comes from. I don’t want to think of that too much when I’m composing, otherwise the spontaneity gets lost, and the pressure rises.’   

After his secondary schooling, he headed to Amsterdam to attend the conservatory there, as it had a reputation for being open-minded. Alone in the Dutch city where he didn’t know a soul, he composed a number of songs in his room. Once they were shared on the Internet, the buzz was such that he went back to Belgium to devote himself to his career. He had offers to perform on stage, on the radio, was invited to appear on TV and given front-row seats at runway shows. No one could resist his young leading man looks straight out of The Arabian Nights. The title of his first album Amir, actually means ‘prince’ in Arabic. Radiohead’s eminent bass player, Colin Greenwood, stars on ‘Indigo Night’ and was one of Tamino’s earliest fans. ‘Habibi,’ with its twilit mood, was an instant hit that revealed his talent for soft velvet folk.

The twelve songs on Amir, recorded with an orchestra of Tunisian, Iraqi and Syrian musicians, speak as much of love as of solitude, sensuality and contemplation, rather like those of Leonard Cohen. ‘He’s the ultimate model, a high-flying poet,’ he sighs. ‘Even though he was a passionate person, he never tried to alter his destiny, he remained elegant whatever the occasion. And, at 80, he was still recording superb albums.’ Tamino also calls to mind Nick Cave, for the corrosive, contagious tenor of his style of rock, but not just that: ‘When he gets up in the morning and puts a suit on. Whether it’s to rehearse, go on stage or get a coffee, he is always impeccably dressed.’ Rather like Tamino, in a more urbane, more understated, style. Tamino’s favorite color is black, which is at the same time romantic, gothic, minimalist, and adaptable, which he likes. 

When you meet him on a cold Paris Fashion Week Saturday, he is trying clothes on at his compatriot Ann Demeulemeester’s, who also dresses Patti Smith and PJ Harvey. ‘With Ann, I understood that a garment could be the extension of who you are, that comfort didn’t exclude the singularity of a look. Today, my creativity varies according to what I’m wearing.’ For Tamino, music inspires fashion and vice versa. ‘A fabric, a cut, an attitude can bring a melody to life. The correspondence between the two seems obvious to me.’ That said, he is far from being obsessed about his appearance. At the moment, he spends his days on the road to promote Amir. Whereas he doesn’t compose when he’s on tour, he reads Dostoyevsky, and the Lebanese poet, Khalil Gibran, whom he quotes: ‘In depth of my soul there is/A wordless song -- a song that lives/In the seed of my heart’ (from ‘Song of the Soul’, 1912). Perhaps a way for Tamino to assert his need to be alone, which is vital to him when he is composing, providing a space for him to exercise his love of words. ‘Even if at first I think about the melodies and the orchestration,’ he says, ‘I can’t imagine that a song doesn’t convey a message, or at least a feeling, that it is empty.’ He hasn’t discarded his childhood dream of being an actor, but says that if he had to take a break from music for a film shoot, the role would really have to be worthwhile.

When asked for what his definition of elegance is, he answers immediately: ‘Being kind to others, respectful, while at the same time being sure of who you are. Recently, I met Yohji Yamamoto. He’s an example of this. He is kind to everyone, relaxed, yet never leaves anything to chance.’ The same chance, or destiny, mektoub in Arabic, that has cast its benign light on Tamino. VOGUE HOMMES

(article and pictures source (x))

[darkpoisonouslove]

3-7, 13, 16-17, 21, 25-26, 28, 30-32, 36, and 41. (If you're still doing ask thing.)

I’m doing it! Wow, you sent a lot of numbers. Okay XD. Let’s see.

3. if you were any historic trope, what would you be? (i.e., the knight, the town baker, the witch of the forest, etd.)

Totally witch of the forest but if you can also mix writing into that.

4. tell us about your ideal battle outfit.

A body suit that covers everything and is made of very strong materials so that it won’t tear and will protect me from injuries (idk why the hell I would even need a battle outfit, I am not the type of person that goes well with battles). Also, def a headpiece to protect me from head injuries and keep my hair where an opponent can’t grab it and drag me by it.

5. what would you be a god/goddess of and what would people sacrifice to you?

I would be the goddess of forgiveness and people would have to sacrifice their anger and desire for vengeance to me because that’s the only way to forgive and heal.

6. name five iconic quotes that make you feel things.

Time to go through the quote tag, I see. It’s a good thing I’ve been collecting all those quotes. So idk what qualifies as iconic, but here you go - five quotes that make me feel things:

“I am somebody. I am me. I like being me. And I need nobody to make me somebody.” - Louis L’Amour

“Maybe it’s because I take everything as a lesson, or because I don’t want to walk around angry… or maybe it’s because I finally understand.” (I haven’t written down where this is from (pretty sure it was some TV show that I definitely HAVEN’T watched) but it does make me feel a lot of things)

“Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.” - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind.” - C. S. Lewis

“Hurt people hurt people. That’s how pain patterns get passed on, generation after generation after generation. Break the chain today. Meet anger with sympathy, contempt with compassion, cruelty with kindness. Greet grimaces with smiles. Forgive and forget about finding fault. Love is the weapon of the future.” - Yehuda Berg

And a little bonus because I had this one in mind ever since the beginning but I got five before I managed to find it:

“She took a step and didn’t want to take any more, but she did.” - Markus Zusak

This really needs a cut:

7. scythe, battle axe, broad sword, spear or trident?

Scythes are cool, but I’m not sure how functional they are. I definitely do not get the trident as a weapon, and spears are not good weapons imo if they’re the only thing you have going into battle. Axes look cool but are a little bit brutal for my taste, I think (though, you’ll be killing people with all the weapons - it’s why they’re weapons!). I think I’d pick a broadsword. That would suit me best.

13. cabin in the woods, apartment in the city or mansion in the suburbs?

I’m a bit torn between cabin in the woods and a mansion in the suburbs. I think I would take a mansion on the very edge of town where there are as few people as possible.

16. describe your ideal fantasy outfit

I really love the look of Regina Mills’ outfits (from OUAT) because she has the dress aesthetic but the skirt is open at the front and she wears pants underneath so that she can ride horses and, generally, be more mobile than a normal gown would allow you to be. I imagine her outfits are also a lot lighter than typical gowns were throughout history. Idk, I really like how that looks. Also, I would love some floaty veils - they look so magical and dreamy.

17. of all the fantasy races to ever exist, which one would you be?

A mermaid. God, what I wouldn’t give to be able to breathe underwater and swim with the sea creatures.

21. an evening in the forest with elves, a night in the caves with vampires or a morning in the garden with fae?

I think I’ll take the evening in the forest with elves. Though the vampires also sound kinda tempting tbh.

25. favorite childhood story? (doesn’t have to be a fairy tale)

It is a fairytale and I do know how it was called but no idea how that will be in English. Anyway, the story was about a king with three sons who sends them on a quest to bring the most beautiful puppy they can find. They have one year to do that. The brothers set out on a journey together but reach an agreement to separate at the inn they’re staying in and meet back there when the year is up. From there on we follow the youngest son who gets robbed and lost and stumbles into a castle in the woods. The door opens but he can see no one. Only floating wooden (I think?) hands that lead him through the castle. Once he’s settled in, they lead him to the owner of the castle who turns out to be a white talking cat. For the next year he stays there and the two of them have all sorts of fun along with all the other cats that live there. At the end of the year, the cat reminds him that he needs to return to his father, and he gets mad at himself because he wasted the whole year and didn’t find a puppy. She gives him a walnut and tells him only to crack it open when he gets back to his father’s palace. He meets with his brothers at the inn and sees what beautiful dogs they’ve found. Meanwhile, he’s brought a dirty mutt that his brothers mock him about. When they go to their father, though, he cracks the walnut open and from inside shows up the smallest puppy that also dances. The king is impressed but decides to give them another task. He tells them to find the finest fabric that can go through the eye of a needle for which they have a year again. The youngest prince returns to the castle of the white cat and spends the next year with her again. Then she gives him… some sort of other nut (I don’t remember what it was anymore) and sends him back to his father. When he gets there, he cracks the nut, but inside there is another nut. And another. And another. Until finally there is an entire piece of fabric in the last one that actually does go through the eye of a needle. Everyone is absolutely shooketh, but the king gives them one final task. He tells them that they need to find wives in the next year and come back to him so that he can decide who will inherit the kingdom. The youngest brother returns to the white cat again and spends that year with her as well. On the last day of his stay she tells him that at midnight he has to cut off her head and her tail and throw them into the fireplace. He starts crying because he loves her and can’t do that but she tells him to trust her and do it. He does and she transforms into a woman. She is the princess of the castle but she and her whole retinue were cursed to become cats (I don’t remember why anymore, the backstory escapes me). He takes her to his father who pronounces him the next king but the cat-turned-woman-again says that she has a kingdom of her own and so they leave the kingdom to his brothers.

Wow, I can’t believe how much I remember from that fairytale. There must have been at least ten years since I’d last read it. Anyway, yeah, I adored that tale and my grandparents and parents weren’t happy about it because it was the second longest fairytale in all the books we had and I made them read it to me all the time. It was my absolute favorite. Damn, i wanna go search for the book and read it now!

26. tell us about an experience you’ve had that seemed unreal or supernatural. (doesn’t have to be scary)

A few weeks ago I saw a cat that had these eyes that immediately let me know that that cat could understand absolutely every word I would say to it. I do think that animals in general understand us but in a reading-our-emotional-state kind of way. Not in a I-totally-get-all-the-words-you’re-saying kind of way. But I’m pretty sure that was exactly what was going on with that cat. It was kinda weird, but not a bad weird.

28. tell us three sayings that you live by.

Ah, goddammit! There are a lot of Bulgarian sayings that fit my views on life but they’re not exactly translatable, y’know?

Treat people the way you want to be treated is one principle that I *try* to follow.

Forgive but don’t forget is another principle that I believe in (I know the original is forgive and forget but I don’t believe in that. And also, remember all those things I remember from that fairytale I haven’t read in years? You think I know how to forget things? I’m a lot better with forgiving, tho, I promise.)

Everyone deserves love is a hill that I will die on tbh. I know it sounds corny, but love is the one thing that can save people and I firmly believe in that.

Not exactly sayings, but close enough for me (hopefully for you, too.)

30. describe your ideal masquerade ball outfit (mask included).

Ehh, I have no idea. It’s gotta be purple and black, tho.

31. splashing around in a river with mermaids or flying through the sky with harpies?

Definitely splashing in a river with mermaids. God, I love mermaids.

32. what would you end up in the dungeon for?

Voicing my opinion. I have literally zero respect for authority. If you’re wrong, you’re wrong and you’d better believe I WILL call you out on it. I don’t care if you’re god or whatever.

36. would you rather be a pirate or a king/queen?

Eh, I don’t know. I really don’t want to be a queen. That’s too much responsibility that I could handle, but I really don’t want to. Can I write if I’m a pirate? If yes, then that’s settled.

41. stained glass windows or fairy lights?

This became long. I’m sorry if some answers are a bit sparse. I just really didn’t know what to do with some of the questions. 😅

[leviathans-tail]

So if anyone couldn’t tell, I’ve been reading some literature over the past couple of weeks. I have mostly been focusing on Dazai and Akutagawa partly due to the third season of Bungou Stray Dogs coming out and re-sparking my interest. I have had these authors and books on my “to-read list” for the longest time and now I’m finally getting around to it and I’m glad I did. I would like to thank BSD for rekindling my interest in reading stuff other than fanfic (not that fanfic is bad but reading on screens hurts my eyes cus my sensory problems and I feel bad printing out five to read them bc trees). Anyway, I still believe that it’s important to read classics from all over the world and growing up in the west, we didn’t exactly have great exposure to authors past the British and French. I remember reading just one of Dostoyevsky’s books in High School and that qualifies as “world literature.” And I absolutely loved the American authors in my American lit class but I was curious about other authors so I’m thankful for BSD for exposing me to some different literature.

Thus far, I can definitely say that i find it interesting to read classic literature that isn’t through a Christian lens bc even Dostoyevsky and other European and American authors often rely on Christianity for their views on morality so it was refreshing to read authors who had a different perspective and I even learned more of Buddhism in the process so that was a big plus. Dazai has a short story where he basically tells the story of Jesus’ betrayal through Judas’ perspective which would not happen from many western authors cus like it’s “sacrelgious” or whatever, so that was interesting. And as a Christian myself, I was very interested to see how someone not raised in this Christian culture would interpret and react to scripture. Akutagawa also has a couple short stories about the persecution of Christians during the Tokugawa goverment’s reign and the Shimabara Rebellion. My favorite was O-Gin because of its tragedy. It was also interesting to see Christianity taking the role of the “suppressed” because we rarely if ever see that through our Western Christianized world lens.

Second thing is big kudos to Dazai for just being a bi-icon (from “Memories”) and just casually stating that he had a crush on a male classmate but then was grossed out bc the guy gave him a newt and he hates newts. Another thing I gotta say about Dazai is that he always finds a way in his short stories (haven’t read his longer works yet they are in the mail), to insert himself but make it vague whereas you know when Akutagawa wants to talk about himself vs just give you a funny story or a historical fiction work.

I think my favorite Dazai short story is “Crackling Mountain” even though Dazai basically says that some women are devious and seduce men and then are cruel blah blah blah. I really enjoy his style of writing and I could really interchange between seeing the main characters as animals and people at the same time which was weird but good. my favorite Akutagawa short story is “Hell Screen” (although Rashomon is a close second). I could make a while post just on Hell Screen bc there’s A LOT there. And “Horse Legs” omg I highly recommend if you like surreal tragicomic works. I actually laughed out loud while reading this which doesn’t happen often when reading.

This post is already all over the place so I might as well add this on. I just finished reading “The Life of a Stupid Man” by Akutagawa which was published after his suicide and it was like one of the last things he left. It’s kind of an autobiography and kind of a suicide note if you ask me. Whatever the case, it definitely made me feel differently about Akutagawa as an actual person. Going into this I knew he was feeling a lot of pressure from his extended family bc he was the primary breadwinner for all of them and he had kids that would get sick, and relatives that were killing themselves or losing jobs, etc. so I just thought that he couldn’t take the pressure and eventually snapped. I wasn’t aware that he was uhhh just f***ing around. Like this one chick he pursued aggressively then was like “woah there jk” when she started pursuing him back. She even told him that a kid she had with her husband was his like what. According to himself,Akutagawa stopped cheating on his wife when he was thirty and you can tell that in “The Life of a Stupid Man” that he feels some sort of regret for his affairs. He keeps saying how he’s an awful husband, father, and brother but like he was supporting everyone which was admirable so why feel that way otherwise? One thing I found almost comical in this short story was when he talked about his platonic woman friend that he made after turning thirty and he was like “He did not die with her, but he took a certain satisfaction in his never having touched her.” Like good job bud you managed not to f*** one of your woman friends. But I think he was proud because if he has this “affliction” it would be easy to fall back into your old ways lol. Maybe having a platonic relationship with a woman was a goal of his before he died idk. He also makes reference to himself and other authors (including Gogol) being possessed by some sort of demon and that’s why they all go crazy and/or commit suicide and he knew that he was gonna do one or the other too. He says “all that lay before him was madness or suicide,” and then talks about how a close friend of his went mad and is in the hospital.

There’s another quote a little bit before that where Akutagawa states that “not everyone is moved by literature. His own works were unlikely to appeal to people who were not like him and had not lived a life like his...” and like idk how much I agree with him there if I’m being honest. I’d say I’m one of the furthest things from the type of person Akutagawa was and I still very much enjoyed his literature. And there I think he is again doubting his abilities and being self-deprecating (duh the title). He was able to write stories that despite their placement in history showed the best and worst parts of humanity and that will resonate with every generation. And like I think anyone will laugh at “Horse Legs” -it’s a dude walking around with hooves that he has to hide bc the death people messed up and he died too early and they needed to send him back but his own legs were rotten already and Horse Legs were all that was available. Cmon that’s funny

Anyway I might add on later or make another post to document my feelings/reactions to more literature idk

[epic-summaries]

Classic Fiction Review: Finnegans Wake

Omg I had this saved in a google doc for months and forgot to post it.

Anyway to the review:

Let me tell you why I started reading this.

So, audible has daily deals and on St Patrick’s day they were selling this. I look at it and go oh I’ve heard of this book and I liked the one James Joyce short story I read (it was The Dead btw). I buy it. It was 3 dollars, how could I not?

Problem, I forgot from where I heard of this book.

Now, it’s on my reading list and it’s its turn to be listened too. It’s 6 in the morning and I’m sleep deprived, I start my car, drive and I start listening. And I’m like wtf?! This is when I remember from where I heard this book. It was a sparknotes article listing the hardest books your English teacher would make you read and this was number 1. As quoted in the article, if your English teacher gives you this, this means they hate you. Okay. https://www.sparknotes.com/blog/classic-novels-ranked-in-order-of-how-easy-they-are-to-study/

I usually don’t go in blind when reading something. Usually, I go on the Wikipedia page and read the intro paragraph, this way I know what I’m getting into. This is not the one book you go in blind! But I’m in it. I bought it and I started. I’m going to finish it. Man was it a ride and a half.

Now that I bought it and read both it in print and listened the an audiobook version (as well as had some time to process this), I’m writing this. I've been thinking about this book way too much.

Plot

Hahahahahahahahaha. What plot?! I think there’s a plot. Maybe? Sorta? It’s there? Hidden I think?

After I decided to buy this online I went to Amazon and Indigo (Canadian book retailer), and when you search Finnegan’s Wake, there was more books explaining the book then there are versions of this book. As well as their summary of the book are all different. I know academics like arguing about everything. But usually it’s about the interpretation of the plot or the interpretation of the characters, not what the bare bones plot is! So if academics can’t agree with what the fuck the plot is, I’m not going to be any help.

I’m also convinced that the plot doesn’t matter.

The Characters

There are characters in here. My favourite is the Jute and the Irishman’s conversation. Yeah. That’s not because of the characters but because of the dialogue.

There’s a character list but if you asked me to name them I would the Jute, the Irishman, I’m pretty sure there was a game show host (seriously I’m not sure if I hallucinated it but the book then becomes a game show at one point.) Someone says Humphrey Chimpden Earwick is the main character.

Tone and Style

This is why I liked this book so much. Which honestly it doesn’t feel right calling this a book. The best comparison I have is that is like one of those mordern paintings. You know the ones. The one with a dot on a white canvas and it represents something like the loneliness we feel because of the crushing weight of capitalism or something. That painting. (Think Kamilah’s art in the Good Place.)

This is what I’m comparing this book too.

So, I have a spreadsheet of all the books I own on audible and I include genre. I called this Experimental. Might be an understatement. (If you haven’t noticed this is the first book I have read in this genre. Start with Virginia Woolf? Naw. Fyodor Dostoyevsky? Nope. Crime and Punishment? No. Ulysse would have probably been better. No, I just jumped into the deep end.)

Guys this piece of art starts in the middle of a sentence! That’s not a typo! It literally starts in the middle of a sentence! Then, want to know how it ends? Which the beginning of this sentence. It’s a never ending loop of surrealism!

These are the ramblings of a madman. A man so high on his own hubris he never stopped to think if he should write this? Or maybe Carl Jung was right and he was really schizophrenic? I highly doubt it because you don’t diagnose people through their writings.

And I loved it. I never enjoyed feeling stupid more then engaging in this book. Am I masochist?

I finally found a book harder to recommend then Les Misérables! Seriously, I have no idea if I recommend reading this book.

The audible version which btw is abridged kind of, there are many copies out there. I usually listen to books at 1.25 or 1.5. This I suggest keeping it at normal speed.

The physical copy I own. Look at that cover, I’m not the only one comparing it to Mordern Art.

[dropkickwritersblock]

Written for @hail-gail's prompt swap challenge! Big thanks to @urfriendlywriter for a fun prompt!

Prompt #4 is the one I used for the following fic:

---

Be My Nemesis

The feeling is unmistakable. Heart pounding, blood racing, butterflies in the stomach. Even the thought of that special person makes you break out in a stupid grin. Every thought is of them; every song is their tune. You would do anything to spend just one more second with them. You would die for them; kill for them. This is, of course, the feeling of having a nemesis.

“This is a very impressive palace you bought,” said Oleg Volkov, Sergey Razumovsky’s best friend and confidant, glancing anxiously at the gilded walls. “Very grand. Not a single bullet hole anywhere to be seen. I sure hope you keep it that way.”

Sergey, who was sprawled on a purple velvet chaise lounge, laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to shoot you this time. I will set up a variety of death traps, but I’m going to tell you where all of them are, so if you fall into one that’s on you.”

“That’s very generous of you,” said Oleg dryly.

“I think you’re going to like my new Garden of Sinners. It now has traps based on all seven deadly sins PLUS two more that I made up that SHOULD be deadly sins. Everything is all ready. Now we wait. Do you want to play chess?”

“NO,” choked Oleg, immediately going into fight-or-flight mode, his pupils dilating. He clutched his chest, feeling the five scars there.

“Do you think Major Grom wants to play chess?” asked Sergey, kicking his legs in the air.

“I suspect he wants to play chess even less than I do.”

“Why? We had so much fun last time!”

“You killed all his friends.”

“Yes, and it was so much fun!” Sergey grinned beatifically.

Oleg sighed.

Sergey pulled out his phone. “I sent Major Grom the latest puzzle ten minutes ago! Why hasn’t he answered?”

“He’s probably busy trying to stop everything from exploding again,” said Oleg. “Which I believe was the point of the puzzle.”

“Oh. Right.” Sergey put down his phone. “I’m bored. I guess I’ll just read something until he shows up.”

Oleg left, trying to find somewhere in the palace where he was least likely to become collateral damage.

About two hours later, Major Grom showed up, slightly singed.

He dodged about two thirds of Sergey’s traps, barely escaping with his life from the other third.

“Razumovsky,” he gasped upon reaching Sergey. “This time I’ll end you. I swear it.”

Sergey put down his book. “Hey, remember when we were both the avatars of gods, and we fought, and you forgave me for everything and then exploded? Because that was great. Definitely in the top ten Razgrom moments.”

Major Grom narrowed his eyes, but he did not fall for the bait of asking what Razgrom was.

“So…do you want me to hit you in the head with a shovel for old time’s sake, or should I use knock-out gas? The Garden of Sinners is waiting for you and it is so much better than last time,” said Sergey.

“I am not running naked through your murder garden again,” said Major Grom.

“It’s not really optional.”

Major Grom drew himself up to his full height. “Razumovsky, this has gone on long enough. You have been a blight upon St. Petersburg for much too long. At first I thought it would be enough to lock you away. I should have known better. You’re a cockroach. You’re a rabid cat, always clawing its way back to haunt me…but you’re on your last life.”

“That is a LOT of metaphor mixing,” said Sergey, picking up his book again and angling the cover towards Major Grom.

“You don’t take anything seriously! Do lives mean nothing to you? Do you have not the slightest spark of goodness left in you? I can’t escape from you…every time I dream you’re the ringmaster of my nightmares.”

“Be mine,” blurted Sergey.

“Is that a line from the book you’re reading?” asked Major Grom, taken aback, monologue forgotten.

“What? No, this is Dostoyevsky. Remember, you asked me before if I’d read Dostoyevsky? I’ve got to say, Raskolnikov spent a whole lot of time whining about nothing. What I want is for you to be my nemesis. I cannot resist your abject stupidity. You foil all my most ingenious schemes by running at them screaming with a blunt object. You track me down to the ends of the earth when everyone else has assumed me dead.”

Major Grom looked at him for a long moment. “To hell with this. I’m leaving. I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I am not taking part in it.” He turned around and started to leave.

Sergey sighed and picked up a shovel from under his chaise lounge. He bounded over to Major Grom and smacked him in the head with the blade.

“You are the bane of my existence,” whispered Major Grom, right before he fell unconscious.

“Music to my ears,” said Sergey. “Oleg! Help me get him into the Garden of Sinners.”

Oleg cautiously emerged from the wings. “I don’t understand why you don’t just kill him,” he said, poking Major Grom with his foot.

“I’m trying! That’s the beauty of it. There’s no way he’ll make it out of the Garden this time.”

Sergey started to drag Major Grom away.

Oleg went to check how much money was in Sergey’s ‘get Sergey out of prison’ fund. He suspected they’d need it.

Oblivious idiots in love Prompts:

(feel free to use<3 lmaoabx tag me when any of yall write, would love to readdd! the 4th, 5th, 7th and 10th hehehe)

when they're forced to share a bed, one is freaking out, heart quivering, while the other is half asleep with their mouth wide open

A whining "who likes me? PFFT nobody" and B silently muttering "me."

one touching the other's hands and comparing pinky fingers, playing with their hair and patting their head randomly , hoping they'll get it

"be mine." "... is that a line from the book you're reading..?"

"You're denser than my dad's moustache."

eye contacts that doesn't last more than 0.001 second cause they're in the realisation phase and awkwardly looking away, down, up and everywhere but into the other's eyes

wiping a smudge of food on the corner of their lip, slowly while making eye contact and them looking away quickly

"why aren't you guys dating yet?" and A answering, "We're not like tha-" B cutting A, "Too afraid of losing the friendship."

where one of them goes "can we always be this .. close?" and the other is blinking rapidly, processing shit in their pea size brain

"i never knew you liked me!" ".. now you do. and correction, I love you."

"since when?"

^ "since.. we shared headphones that day and listened to your favorite song"

A picking an eyelash from B's face, and their hearts are both beating like crazy

"no way they like me! me?? WHY ME ? THEM LIKING ME ? HAHA JOKES."

"haven't you seen the way they look at you?" "how do they.. look at me?" "like they're helplessly falling in love."

"yes. you. yes, i like you. I've always liked you, you idiot! who doesn't like you. you're... beautiful."