#i'm so tired and yet there's so much i'd like to say

[pranabefall]

✸ — MISC NOTICE. ; minors dni. sentinel ! jing yuan x guide reader. a silly blurb for the most part. follows guideverse au concepts and such. yandere warning, i plan on expanding this into a proper oneshot soon enough XD. not edited!!!

it's your boss who issues the final warning after the third turn down. he'd given you a stern talking to, another chance and that repeated statement wedged into your head with corporate manuals and the like.

he's important, he tells you furiously. you can't just turn away from him when he comes to you...and he asks for you specifically. specifically, because he plays games you can't quite understand and inlays his conversations with double meanings and jokes you catch him chuckling over.

you don't know if you want to laugh or cry at the ridicule, at his persistence. but you kept quiet and collected your dues, silently letting yourself into his home after he summons you again.

your coworkers tell you you're thinking too much. the general is a kind man. the twisted do not hand feed finches and let cats nap on their knee. and yet you doubt. you doubt, doubt, keep doubting like it's the air you breathe, like every flex to his arm and every shift of his body is a trap.

( the general is a kind man. yet he does not feel any safer.

most sentinels, to you do not. )

one of his retainers points you to the gardens, and you find him seated beneath tree-cover, mulling over an unfinished chess game and the lack of an opponent. you don't think you could slip away at this point. you don't think you should.

his shoulders are hunched and his cheeks sallow, but he still holds that cheeky light in his eyes. annoyingly handsome. cloyingly so, in ways that make your stomach turn. and those eyes meet yours, and that smile filters through. you freeze and tell yourself not to run.

( that's not hunger you see there, you tell yourself. it's not. )

"good morning." he greets, patting the space beside him. "it's been quite some time, yes?"

you swallow. "yes." you nod, taking your seat just a little ways off. jing yuan looks amused. "it's best we get this session over with. i hope you don't mind general."

his eyelids droop and a languid tremor starts up in the depth of his chest. "mh. you're in that much of a hurry?" he half teases, holding his hand out. "i'd hoped you'd stay for some tea. it's a new brew master du has taken a liking to."

"i'm afraid i cannot linger." you repeat, a little firmer this time. you reach into that plunging darkness, tugging away the corruption that clings to his being with the finesse of threading a needle. guiding was almost second nature at this point, a mindless thing, a near instinct. and jing yuan had much to undo and unravel and pull out.

jing yuan exhales. it's long, deep, relieved almost, scraping to the borders of euphoric. you keep tugging. he lets himself pull into you, his warmth grazing against the apple of your cheek.

"it's taking longer than it should." you choke.

"is it?"

you try not to let the fear in. "sorry." you whisper. it's always like this. jing yuan's unsaid insistence, the desperation buzzing beneath his skin, the almost touches.

it's taking longer to unwind the wringing tendril, nick away at the emptiness and fill it up with something.

he has your left hand press up into his cheek. you want to snatch it back. the corruption comes undone easier though, so you let it stay there, let him touch you a little more than he should. jing yuan seems satisfied with this.

"much better, right?" he chuckles. the pads of his fingers press just above your pulse, taking in the quick paced beat. jing yuan stares long and hard at you.

you still want to run.

"you could say that..." you shove that urge back, lock it away, tell it it's not welcome. better this than feeling those hands elsewhere. the crawling terror may persist, but jing yuan wouldn't hurt you that way.

( "stay a little longer." he mumbles into your palm. "you seem so tired. did you have another long day?" )

...you hope he won't.

[waywardwhispersblaze]

I'll be forever mad that Jayce ruined the moment right there, but not because I think this would've been a perfect ending for them (I don't). I'm mad because if Jayce had just waited five fucking minutes, the resulting scene would've been so juicy.

Look at the way Vi and Cait look at each other here:

Caitlyn: shocked, betrayed, hurt

Vi just looks sad:

We know from their dialogue in ep 8 that while Vi and Caitlyn were making the plan to distract Ambessa, Vi had another one, to bring in Jinx as a contingency in case Caitlyn couldn't be trusted or failed. She had to know Caitlyn wouldn't take it well once she found out. Vi's priority n°1 was saving Vander though, and they likely didn't have much time to think this through. Basically, she had to know that from Caitlyn's POV, it would look like "Vi chooses Jinx over Cait", edition number 2.

And she was likely right! We know Caitlyn lets go of her anger towards Jinx in the next episode, and accepts that Vi has the right to choose her family, but in my opinion, she wasn't there yet in ep 6. Having a broken Jinx locked up in a cell (her single goal for the last few months) while Vi was lying unconscious on her bed for days very likely helped Caitlyn reassess her priorities in life. But here in this scene she literally doesn't have time to think!

Let's look at Caitlyn a bit more here. During their reunion, She probably expected Vi to hate her guts, but instead, Vi looks grumpy, calls her a mongoose and a cupcake in two sentences, and drops the "my dad needs help" bomb after hesitating for a hot, single second. Moments after that, Caitlyn reevaluates her life choices and decides to make a big career change. Plenty of great posts have already been made about Caitlyn's motivations there, but to sum it up, I'd say it was a combination of: her being already wary of Ambessa and not wanting to let a Noxian warlord get her hands on a dangerous weapon / innocent man, being tired of hating herself, and, yes, her feelings for Vi coming back to her in full force.

For a few, glorious moments, she was working with Vi again! Probably feeling more like herself than she had in months. Maybe she started to hope they could reconcile after all. Maybe, she hoped it could be a "do over" for their failed mission with the strike team, where she'd be helping a member of Vi's family, instead of being torn apart by one of them.

... only to find that Vi didn't actually trust her (which was deserved, but still, ouch), and to come face to face with the source of her seething hatred, the single object of her obsession in the last few months. Right after being saved by said source of seething hatred. It's a lot to take in. She had to be simultaneously disappointed and shocked

So, what was she gonna do? There was probably nothing Vi could have said that wouldn't have pissed Caitlyn off right then (no, Vi, saying "she's changed" probably wouldn't have helped), Jinx opening her mouth would have likely made it worse, but at the same time they still had to run away asap. Caitlyn had already betrayed Ambessa, she couldn't go back. Vi pretty much put her in a position where she'd have no choice but to follow along, no matter how angry she was, at least for a little while...

and I made this post just to say, that the resulting bickering would have been hilarious to see :S

(forget about Jayce waiting five minutes, though, what if it they had an hour? what would Caitlyn had done once they were far enough from the Noxian army? point her gun at Jinx? attempt an arrest? (right in front of Vander? gulp) she might have simply ended up separating from them, and that would have been heartbreaking enough, but a completely different story)

((and that's assuming cult member!vander would have just agreed to leave the commune without acting weird))

[wisteria-lodge]

Male Crying in the Harry Potter Books

(this is a clean-up of an earlier post, incorporating some of the excellent feedback & additions I got.)

Men do 32% of the crying in the Harry Potter books, even though they represent 66% of the characters (pretty much as expected).* However, I’m interested in why the crying happens, and what it says about the characters. Because for the ladies, crying is pretty neutral - they all cry, and for all sorts of reasons (tired, frustrated, stressed, emotionally overwrought...) Bellatrix, Augusta Longbottom, Ginny, Tonks… all cry. Hermione cries thirty separate times over the course of the books. There is a point where where the narrative framing judges them for crying too much (Cho) but mostly it's a non-issue.

Male crying though, is something that gets mocked (by Slytherins.) Pansy calls Neville a “fat little cry baby,” and after Rita’s article (falsely) says that Harry was crying, Draco comes in with “Want a hanky, Potter, in case you start crying in Transfiguration?” There’s also “D’you think [Hagrid]’ll cry when they cut off his hippogriff’s - ” right before Hermione slaps Draco. So making fun of guys for crying is bad right? 

Let’s get into it. 

1 : Crying because of a death

The most acceptable reason for male crying. Mostly it happens *right* at the moment of death, or possibly at the funeral/next to the grave. Severus cries over Lily's letter (the ripped one which Harry later finds) which is certainly grave-adjacent.

In Book 3, Harry cries while talking to Lupin about hearing his parents dying (although the narrative voice DOES let us know that he’s kind of embarrassed about this.)

“Harry suddenly realized that there were tears on his face mingling with the sweat. He bent his face as low as possible, wiping them off on his robes, pretending to do up his shoelace, so that Lupin wouldn’t see.” 

This attempt to hide hide tears shows up a few more times. Sirius *also* cries when talking about Lily and James' deaths... or does he?

[Harry] was pointing at Black, who shook his head slowly; the sunken eyes were suddenly overbright. "Harry...I as good as killed them," he croaked. "I persuaded Lily and James to change to Peter at the last moment, persuaded them to use him as Secret-Keeper instead of me. ... I'm to blame, I know it. ... The night they died, I'd arranged to check on Peter, make sure he was still safe, but when I arrived at his hiding place, he'd gone. Yet there was no sign of a struggle. It didn't feel right. I was scared. I set out for your parents' house straight away. And when I saw their house, destroyed, and their bodies...I realized what Peter must've done...what I'd done. ..." His voice broke. He turned away. "Enough of this," said Lupin, and there was a steely note in his voice Harry had never heard before.

@strawberrybasilsorbet analyzes this passage extremely well:

"Suddenly overbright" is a particularly memorable descriptor for me. What an unusual way to describe having tears in one's eyes! It verges on euphemistic. "His voice broke" is much more direct, but still relies on implication instead of mentioning tears outright — which, considering that the intended audience is young readers, could be seen as subtle. Like Harry in the example above, Sirius clearly considers crying something to be ashamed of: he turns away to hide his tears. And in this moment, the sentences also become short. Halting, stilted. The narrative voice evokes Sirius's feelings here instead of describing his actions in detail. It isn't until later in the scene, when Sirius and Lupin begin to take action, that we get a straightforward description: "[Sirius] approached Lupin and the struggling rat, and his wet eyes suddenly seemed to be burning in his face." But even here, it is an understated observation. We don't get a description of actual crying, or even holding back tears."

Sirius also cries in Book 4, while listening to Harry describe seeing the shades of his parents come out of Voldemort's wand.

At this point, Harry found he could not continue. He looked around at Sirius and saw that he had his face in his hands.

@strawberrybasilsorbet continues,

"[this] example is more ambiguous — Sirius might be crying, he might be trying not to cry, or he might just be overwhelmed — but either way, the scene reflects a similar approach to strong emotion. Sirius covers his face to hide his sorrow; the narrator makes a short, declarative observation that leaves a lot between the lines. These scenes suggest that masculine tears are most respected by the narrative when they are (1) in response to grief, (2) irrepressible, despite the character's attempts to obscure or prevent them. Sirius and Harry are the two characters who represent this most clearly, although Lupin's sudden steeliness in the PoA scene implies that he shares this perspective. (This is also reflected in Lupin's decision to switch from talk to action: he cuts the conversation abruptly when Sirius begins to cry, demanding that Ron hand over Scabbers immediately. He is likely trying to spare his friend the ordeal of further emotional vulnerability). The narrator's voice seems to share this instinct, giving Sirius the dignity of subtlety when describing his emotions. This contrasts strongly with characters like Peter, whose tears are described in vivid and humiliating detail. What I think is especially revealing is how...discreet?...the narrator's voice becomes when Sirius is the character who is crying.

There is this slight *fan dance* quality present, where we see Sirius before he starts crying, and then again after he has already cried. But really don't see him actually crying.

Harry also has an interesting, sort of delayed reaction to Dumbledore's death:

Dumbledore had weakened himself by drinking that terrible potion for nothing. Harry crumpled the parchment in his hand, and his eyes burned with tears as behind him. Fang began to howl. He clutched the cold locket in his hand so tightly that it hurt, but he could not prevent hot tears spilling from his eyes

There’s a lot going on in this moment: Harry is tired, frustrated, disappointed, overwhelmed. But we still get that note that tears are something that ought to be hidden, and that even though Harry is trying to stop them, these happen to be irrepressible.

Crying over a death: Full Breakdown

Amos Diggory: 1 (Cedric’s death) 

Arthur Weasley: 1 (Fred’s death)

Harry Potter: 4 (Hedwig, Lily, James, Dumbledore)

Rubeus Hagrid: 4 (Dumbledore, Buckbeak, Aragog, Harry) 

Sirius Black: 2 (Lily, James)

Severus Snape: 1 (Lily)

Argus Filtch: 1 (thinks Mrs. Norris is dead) 

Xenophillius Lovegood: 1 (thinks Luna is dead) 

Fillius Flitwick: (thinks Ginny is dead) 

Ron Weasley: 1 (Dumbledore’s funeral) 

Elphias Doge: 1 (Dumbledore’s funeral

2: Crying because of pain

You’d think this one would also be acceptable. But… not really? Dudley cries when Vernon hits him (but Harry doesn’t.) Peter Pettigrew cries when he cuts off his own hand, Saw style, but it gets framed as blubbering weakness.

Our last guy crying in pain is Book 1 Neville, after he breaks his wrist during flying lessons. He also “sniffs,” while walking into the Forbidden Forest for detention, which *might* count as crying? But really, Neville cries surprisingly little. We get a lot of “looked as though he might cry” and “on the verge of tears”... but that's not actually crying. And I think that’s because… early-books Neville, yes we’re supposed to see him as a little pathetic. But definitely not as pathetic as Dudley or Pettigrew. @blorger writes:

The characters who cry for pain are crying because they're just Not Man Enough (and that's wormtail's biggest failure as a character, isn't it?). Neville, to me, is the perfect encapsulation of JKR's attitude towards crying: he is constantly on the verge of crying, especially in the first books, because we're meant to feel a sort of benign pity for him, his weakness makes him amiable, yes, but there's still strength in his character (he can stop himself from crying! see, he's brave!). Neville does Suffering well, and nothing shows one's character to jkr more than how they handle suffering.

Crying in pain: Full Breakdown

Dudley Dursley: 1 (hit by Uncle Vernon)

Neville Longbottom: 1 (broken wrist)

Peter Pettigrew: (hand cut off)

Bonus almost crying: 

Dudley Dursley: Fake crying

Neville Longbottom: “looked as though he might cry” “on the verge of tears.” 

Professor Quirrell: “looked as though he was about to cry”

3: “Childlike” crying

Sometimes the people who cry are literally little boys. No one is going to judge infant Harry for crying when Voldemort is in the house, or little Severus for crying when his parents are fighting. Interestingly, when Myrtle is talking about Draco crying in her bathroom, Harry assumes she’s talking about someone much younger: 

“There’s been a boy in here crying?” said Harry curiously. “A young boy?” 

But of course, when an adult is crying in a childlike way, it immediately becomes… pathetic. Again we have Pettigrew, who “burst into tears. It was horrible to watch: He looked like an oversized, balding baby, cowering on the floor.” In the Horcrux cave, crying Dumbledore is described “like a child dying of thirst.” Which is also meant to be pathetic, but in more of a ‘Harry has to be the adult now’ sort of way. Also, the potion seems to have made Dumbledore mentally regress back to his youth, so it’s *closer* to a literal “child crying” moment. 

(I considered putting Dumbledore drinking the potion in the ‘pain’ section, but at least in the book I think it’s clear he’s mostly in emotional rather than physical pain.)

Where this gets messy is with the house-elves. House-elves are not children, but they are presented as childlike. They are small and in-your-face, direct even though their problem-solving tends to be very convoluted/not especially logical. I like the present-tense, no pronouns way they speak, but I can’t deny it is kind of baby-talk adjacent. And… house elves are *really* emotional. Dobby, Kreacher (and Winky) cry a LOT. If I had to guess, I would say JKR likes treating house-elves as childlike so it’s more of a surprise when it turns out that one of them was behind everything. But considering that they are slaves, it is gross - considering that one of the main real-world justifications for slavery was ‘slaves are childlike, and therefore unable to take care of themselves.'

There’s also Hagrid. With seventeen separate instances of crying, Hagrid easily cries more than any other guy in the Harry Potter books. And… well… he’s also presented as oddly childlike. He seems much more like Harry and Ron’s contemporary than a peer of the other professors - which is weird, since  if he went to school with Voldemort fifty years ago, he’s in his sixties now. But still, he’s helpless in the face of criticism, he’s comically out of his depth whenever he deals with the Ministry, he’s constantly letting things slip or drastically misjudging danger levels. The first three books all use “Hagrid gets in trouble, the gang has to bail him out” as a plot point, and in Book 4 his sideplot with Madame Maxime gets treated like a schoolboy’s first crush, with all these jokes about him wearing suits that don’t quite fit, and trying and failing to style his hair.

Childlike crying: Full breakdown

Rubeus Hagrid: 13

Dobby: 7

Kreacher: 3

Peter Pettigrew: 1

Harry Potter: 1 (infant)

Severus Snape: 1 “while a small dark-haired boy cried in a corner.”  “it was unnerving to think that the crying little boy who had watched his parents shouting ” 

Albus Dumbledore: 1 "like a child dying of thirst"

4. Crying because of strong emotion

The difference here is... does the character try to suppress the crying, or not? If they do try to suppress it, then it stays respectable, on a level with grief-crying. If not well... that means that the character crying is meant to read as a little pathetic, a little femme or (lets face it)... both.

Take this example of Ron crying after he destroys the locket horcrux:

Ron was breathing heavily: His eyes were no longer red at all, but their normal blue; they were also wet. Harry stooped, pretending he had not seen, and picked up the broken Horcrux. (...) “After you left,” he said in a low voice, grateful for the fact that Ron’s face was hidden, “[Hermione] cried for a week. Probably longer, only she didn’t want me to see..."

Hermione is allowed more tears because she is a girl, but there does come a point where she has to hide them or else run the risk of being perceived as crying too much by the narrative (like Cho.) In terms of the boys - again, we've got moment like Sirius and Remus have, where Ron is (correctly) hiding his tears and Harry is (correctly) doing a 'I'm going to protect you from further vulnerability by kind of changing the subject / pretending that I didn't see you cry.' Also, similarly to the Sirius example, the description of Ron's crying is subtle, almost euphemistic ("wet eyes.") We are not using the word cry, or tears, or anything like that.

Look at this next excerpt, of Percy's reunion with his family, and especially at how the crying of all three characters is handled:

Mrs. Weasley burst into tears. She ran forward, pushed Fred aside, and pulled Percy into a strangling hug, while he patted her on the back, his eyes on his father. “I’m sorry, Dad,” Percy said. Mr. Weasley blinked rather rapidly, then he too hurried to hug his son. “What made you see sense, Perce?” inquired George. “It’s been coming on for a while,” said Percy, mopping his eyes under his glasses with a corner of his traveling cloak.

Molly is crying buckets, no problem. Arthur gets almost-crying or euphemistic crying. And Percy is explicitly crying, not trying to hide it, and even gets the slightly comedic imagery of trying to wipe your eyes without taking off your glasses.

And well, JKR respects Percy less than she respects Arthur. As @arkadijxpancakes puts it, "When it comes to Percy, I'm still surprised how subdued his crying in that scene is. Because, yeah, Rowling does respect him less. She also has a tendency to write him in a pretty feminine manner. It's still a stark contrast to his mother, however." Even though we catch him in a serious moment, he's still slightly ridiculous Percy.

So from this, we can see that this male heightened emotionality is meant to look a bit comedic - like when Oliver Wood cries when Gryffindor wins the Quidditch cup "to highlight that his weird priorities are funny and slightly ridiculous," ( @blorger.) We also don't see Hogwarts-age Snape actually cry, but considering his nickname is “Snivellus” (ie“crybaby,” since “sniveling” is a synonym for crying, I'm assuing he does.) Just the word "Snivellus" is clearly supposed to funny and a little pathetic.

Slughorn has an interesting instance of crying at Aragog's funeral, not out of grief for Aragog, but out of a maudlin sense of togetherness, nostalgia, and camaraderie. It *is* supposed to be funny that he's crying over a giant spider he just met. Like Percy, Slughorn is also a bit femme-coded: a flashy dresser with lilac pajamas, who loves his treats and fancy dinner parties, and is well-connected without being ambitious the way Lucius is. He also is aligned with pureblood-supremacy, but hyper avoidant of violence and confrontation... just like Draco.

Draco of course gets a BIG crying scene in Book 6. We here about him crying once from Myrtle, and then see it first hand: 

Malfoy was crying — actually crying — tears streaming down his pale face into the grimy basin.

The narrative voice takes a second to let us know that he was ACTUALLY CRYING, just to hammer in that this is something unexpected and not-normal. I think I want also to attribute Draco’s tendency to cry - and cry because he’s overwhelmed, scared, lonely - to the character’s slight femme coding. And the fact that JKR clearly sees him as a bit pathetic.

The most surprising person to land in this particular category is Dumbledore. I was surprised he cries as much as he does, at such unusual times, and with none of the "manliness" of a crying Harry, Ron, Sirius, or Arthur. He cries when he sees Snape’s doe patronus - because of love or just because he’s emotionally overwhelmed. He cries all through the Horcrux cave, primarily because of guilt. He cries twice during the King’s Cross Station vision-quest, once because of his complicated feelings about Harry while he asks for forgiveness, and once over … Grindlewald.

“They say he showed remorse in later years, alone in his cell at Nurmengard. I hope that it is true. I would like to think he did feel the horror and shame of what he had done. Perhaps that lie to Voldemort was his attempt to make amends . . . to prevent Voldemort from taking the Hallow . . .”  “. . . or maybe from breaking into your tomb?” suggested Harry, and Dumbledore dabbed his eyes.

I think Dumbledore gets all these tears because he is actually, deliberately queer coded. JKR announced that Dumbledore was gay just a few months after Book 7 was published, and I think she had that character interpretation in her head as early as Book 6. My proof of that is Dumbledore's increased emotionality - and also this interesting passage from Book 6: 

This younger Albus Dumbledore’s long hair and beard were auburn. Having reached their side of the street, he strode off along the pavement, drawing many curious glances due to the flamboyantly cut suit of plum velvet that he was wearing. “Nice suit, sir,” said Harry, before he could stop himself, but Dumbledore merely chuckled.

Now, okay. Wizards out and about in the muggle world often wear unusual colors like purple and emerald green. However. That adjective flamboyantly is only used one other time in the entire series, to describe Fudge’s hand gestures. Here, it is used to describe clothes, a purple velvet suit which is honestly more than a little bit Oscar Wilde. And “flamboyantly gay” … those are two words often heard together. 

Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but I am pretty sure this is the only opinion about clothing Harry ever expresses aloud. @niche-pastiche hit the nail right on the head with the observation that "Nice suit, sir" is SO the response of a young adhd boy in the early 2000s trying not to say "thats gay." 

And so that's my say. In JKR's head, crying isn't "manly," so if you are crying, it's because you're a woman, you're a child, you're funny/pathetic, or you're ambiguously femme-coded. A noble single man tear is allowed at times of intense grief, but otherwise you have to turn your head away.

Crying because of strong emotion: Full breakdown 

Draco Malfoy: 2

Severus Snape: 1

Albus Dumbledore: 4

Horace Slughorn: 1

Arthur Weasley: 1

Percy Weasley: 1

Ron Weasley: 1

*My list of 208 Harry Potter characters comes from TV Tropes, which had the most complete breakdown. I am excluding characters from Cursed Child and the Fantastic Beasts Films. Also, please tell me if there are any instances of crying that I missed.

[cctinsleybaxter]

2024 in Books

I didn't get quite as much reading done as I would've liked this past year, but the 30 books I did read were all over the place in terms of quality and subject matter so I'd call that a success. One trend of note was that I kept accidentally reading the fabled upper-middle class white American man's Great American Novel, and, worse, liked them best of all.

The Enormous Room by E.E. Cummings

Cummings' semi-fictionalized autobiography begins with the abrupt end of his service as a volunteer medic in WWI, having been arrested and interned by the French with his coworker/best friend and marked as missing by the US embassy, and I can apparently be tricked into like poetry if it's disguised as all that. My very first note says '[Joseph] Heller was here,' and that only became more apparent as the book went on. I'm flabbergasted that with time it lost status as a classic, and that people haven't pointed out its massive influence on all sorts of 20th century-defining media when it's THE prison novel. To describe the inhabitants of The Enormous Room or even pick and choose individual lines would be to recite poetry, which for me is like turning gold back into straw (oh god.. it's happening... American werewolf transformation.mp4), but everyone really should check out Cummings' structuring and storytelling graces here. Others have talked about a gift for pivoting between a kind of stereotypical artsy romanticism and stereotypical academic traditionalism, but if I had to sum him up in a word? Obnoxious <3

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

Almost landed with the honorable mentions because it overstays its welcome and the descriptions of rape and torture progressed far beyond my stomach's limit, but like. Yeah. I don't think comparisons to Dostoevsky are overblown at all; hamfisted and predictable in places yet deeply clever and unexpected, NYC richboy ennui at the end of the 20th century has been captured so perfectly you can practically hear the cork going into the bottle. The moment I began to tire of the business card scene from the movie repeating ad nauseam and the My Immortal outfit montages and the hilariously-named restaurants where they know you I realized that it was a structural choice and started enjoying them all over again. My favorite chapter is one in which Patrick Bateman makes a last ditch effort to stop being a psycho by escaping to the Hamptons with his girlfriend ("like a spider, she accepted") only to spend the whole vacation vomiting in terracotta pots and standing around listlessly holding an ice pick. My favorite scene and line will have to remain a sickening, awful surprise.

The Devil's Candy: An Anatomy of a Hollywood Fiasco by Julie Salamon

Salamon signed on with Brian De Palma to document production of his Oscarbait adaptation of The Bonfire of the Vanities well before it became a notorious flop, and thanks to that this is one of- if not the- best books for explaining how a movie gets made. It's smart without talking down to its audience, and the fact that the film by all accounts sucked, continually and at every level, is icing on the cake for me. The approach Salamon took to forty-odd interviews and constant observational sessions, ultimately biographizing De Palma* as well as documenting the studio process is really good journalism, mostly very nuanced in how it describes people but also fun enough to select a few villains. There are so many details I'd like to share, but my favorite is the constant allusions to people taking vitamins, supplements, and random pills PAs gave them like candy because 1., it was 1990, 2., on a movie set you are not allowed to get sick, you will be killed, if the production is on a tight schedule and budget you will be killed more.

*As someone who has mixed-to-negative feelings on his movies I learned he's a very earnest artist who doesn't talk to his editors, so mystery solved.

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

"For anyone who has experienced Moby-Dick, it is a privilege to introduce it to another reader- but a privilege that is abused if extended much beyond the invitation." -Andrew Delbanco

"The real joy in Moby-Dick is the pure act of reading itself" -Fone Bone in Bone (2001), Jeff Smith

"the x-files was groundbreaking because it was the first good tv show that was also bad" -Tumblr user thexfiles

Second favorite book ever.

Re-thinking History by Keith Jenkins

Jenkins wrote this short textbook in 1990, arguing that the way history is taught, especially in higher education, is centered around the idea that with enough work and primary sources an objective, fundamental past can be discovered and accepted across nonpartisan lines, while history taught from 'alternate' viewpoints is relegated to elective courses. Depressing that not much has changed in over thirty years, but I think the structure of Jenkins' argument is really helpful if you want to be able to talk about this stuff with people and push for change with institutions. His intent to make history an intersectional issue ("the ideas I discussed had long been circulating in practically all the other discourses around...”) means he lectures as such, and while I don't agree with everything he has to say we have way more common ground than is usual for me and philosophers. I'd also like to extend a special thanks to the tens of of grad students on here who started running their mouths about James Fitzjames shortly after I finished reading; if I wasn't sold on the argument that empathy isn't a progressive or even functional way of engaging with the past that did it.

From a Buick 8 by Stephen King

This is the best Stephen King book. It suffers from some of the same bullshit as all the worst Stephen King books, I think taken as a Vietnam war allegory and as a working class story (about cops?? famously working class) it may even be uniquely bad, I disliked the epilogue and think it should've ended with the last chapter, but I loved it. Not the second run at a haunted car story I thought it was going to be, but a science fiction story (within a story) wherein you are reading about nothing mattering at 800 miles an hour. It also made me realize that much as I tend to dislike King and his reign over my favorite genre he really is talented, and might be the best in the business at writing not just addiction but what can only be described as intrusive thoughts.

Okay, get in :-)

The Wine-Dark Sea by Robert Aickman

I have a deeply embarrassing phobia of eye floaters, something I'm only admitting here because it's too stupid (or perhaps.. endearing?) to use against me. The first time I 'saw' them at five years old was the first memory I have of feeling real fear as a child, and I always wondered if there was a horror author who could manage to capture that feeling- not in a Lovecraftian space creature way, not over-explaining, just imparting the dread of a little kid experiencing the banal everyday for the first time and it making them sick to their stomach.

Well, here you go. Aickman doesn't make the mistake of lunging for 'what's the scariest thing that could happen next?' He likes a yarn, indescribable only in that it would take every adjective, and incredibly well-written beginning to end. Even the stories that didn't do it for me gave me something to chew on, but my absolute favorites were The Trains and The Inner Room.

Honorable Mentions

An Unauthorized Fan Treatise by Lauren James

This compilation of blog entries from a fan of a fictional 2010s monster-of-the-week show was reworked into a published YA novel that I haven't read, but I think the original formatting of a website with hyperlinks and comment sections you have to manually scroll through is quintessential to its working in the first place. People are writing more and more fiction revolving around the internet I grew up on (some of them grew up on it with me!), but this is one of very few I've found to have both the correct voice and an engaging plot. My equivalent of taking a mass market on an airplane so a little surface-level, but the finer details had me covering my mouth to laugh in horror because yeah, that's exactly how it would've played out.

Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

The entire plot stemming from an argument over a dinner jacket is hot.

Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin by Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony

"The Americans only counted down to add drama for their television." -Vostok guidance and trajectory expert Yuri Mazzhorin

A years-old rec from @barstoolblues that presents an excellent biography of Gagarin, probably as comprehensive as was possible in the 90s, but even more interesting insight into the space race. With years of interviews and research to sort through Doran and Bizony aren't always economical in their pacing, but the book is well-cited, well-written, and never boring. I also think it truly helps to have 'third party' (UK) authors who're critical of the USSR in very different ways than Americans and who are willing to be just as critical of the US. You'll have to turn to the book for wider context, but one of my favorite anecdotes is that they made Gagarin's professional rival Gherman Titov suit up ("dressed in the twentieth century's most distinctive suits of armour…") and go to the launch pad with him as his understudy. World's funniest, saddest psychological torture, though they did get to clonk helmets as a kiss goodbye which is very cute.

[the-red-sniper]

*Sniper opens wide eyes when he sees Spy addressing his parents. Tears come to his eyes. How many times has he dreamt of introducing someone that matters to him to his parents...? Yet he never could and never did. But what also got to Mick was Spy's reaction. He didn't tell him that he was a disgusting freak for liking men, he didn't push him away, or throw his drink into his face as that had happened a few times in the past with other people...*

I... You...

*Sniper looks away and wipes the silent tears in his sleeves.*

Thanks.

*His voice is muffled as he says it in his sleeve.*

It's the first time I say it to them and to you too. Or maybe you knew that too.

*Sniper drinks some more to give himself strength.*

Anytime in the past I tried to say it, I found myself drenched in whatever drink the other bloke has, sometimes I even take a punch or two... I can't read people, sometimes I think things are goin' well but they ain't, or maybe I just see what I wanna see.

*He sighs.*

Might be the biggest mistake I've ever made, tellin' you about this, eh? Now you'll go around blackmailin' me with it...

*He chuckles.*

Truth is, I'm tired of hidin', and I'm tired of bein' scared. D'you know how many times I wanted to tell people who I saw as more than friends to me, but then I preferred to keep the friendship rather than risk it all...?

Spook... You're one of'em. But with you, it's different. Half of me wants to tell you so much, and the other half is holding my lips together, cause I've seen everything that could happen if I did tell ya, and I know how much I'd lose. It'd hurt too much.

We're a bunch of lunatics fightin' in a desert. If I lose you... I'd lose too much.

I was jokin' about the weight comment. You're perfect as you are... *Sniper blushes and looks away before finding his way out of this compliment that might backfire on him*...even with yer twig legs...

Anyway, let's hop on the front of the van. Anywhere in particular you wanna go or d'you wanna trust your old Bushman?

*Sniper quips, playfully.*

- @the-red-sniper

Hm, you’re hilarious sometimes, did you know that? Perhaps save those compliments for a nice woman, hm?

*Spy has a small smile as he watches sniper. Never taking his eyes off him. He knows his words are not relevant for sniper, he just wants to see his reaction to such a comment.*

You’re the driver, mon ami. I trust you are actually good at driving.

*that was a dumb joke and spy tries to laugh it off quietly*

[talkorsomething]

I have Got to get more transgender

[jupiter--dream]

(cw vent, sorry it's just been A Couple Of Days)

Not really having many irl friends comes at the price of feeling so terribly lonely, I feel like I have no one to talk to because I'm not close to enough people, or maybe I am and I just haven't talked to them in a while and I don't want this to be our first conversation qwq

I'm honestly just. Tired, tbh qwq

[medicinemane]

Honestly a lot of the time, it's not even about people having to agree with me, it's about needing to know that they actually heard and listened to what I had to say even if it didn't persuade them

Just... some basic indication that there's enough respect to give a shit about what I said, and also to make sure that they disagree because they actually disagree and not cause they just didn't bother listening

It's all I really ask

[silv-paru]

GO VOTE I'M BEGGING YOU ALL

Okay, I don't usually do that, but if anyone who is french and follow me, Go vote the 7th of July.

I don't want the extreme right to be in majority in the assembly.

For context for everyone who isn't French: Macron decided to dissolve the french assembly (they vote and suggest new laws) after the European elections (spoilers: This was a bad idea considering the rise of the extreme right everywhere in Europe), meaning we have to vote to elect some new deputies. And today was the first round... surprise, surprise: the RN (which is the extreme right) was first.

The left, as a response to the European elections, formed a coalition called Le Nouveau Front Populaire (the new popular front), very 1934 of us I have to say and they are second (I think).

The second round is the 7th of July.

GO VOTE.

[meownotgood]

slowly starting to crash... very very tired... hopefully can... get through working this weekend.... and finally have a break...... (coughs and fucking dies)

[kittlyns]

A hard pill for me to swallow lately has been that, despite everything, I'm probably the best version of myself that could've existed. And that's not really a comforting thought.

[supercantaloupe]

i had a meeting to discuss the grad fellowship job and while it was overwhelmingly positive and both myself and the professor/faculty are happy and excited for me to take the job my stupid fucking brain can't stop turning over the one (1) slightly negative comment i got regarding my candidacy/qualification like shawarma

[irritablepoe]

I can't sleep 😔

[oogaboogaspookyman]

So this turned into a vent somehow!

[teaboot]

This is gonna sound rather conceited but I feel like it highlights an issue we have in Art.

I'm good at art. I've never had a hard time making art. I started using crayons before I could walk. Painting, Beadwork, sculpture, sketching, stippling, whatever- once I have a feel for the material, it doesn't take long to start doing what I want with it. It's been a common theme my whole life.

(Y contrast I'm awful at things like dancing, performance, sports, etc- in all things there is balance, right?)

Now, I've taught myself to use so many artistic mediums now that I KNOW how to most efficiently integrate them into the brain database. Once you really *understand* a material, it's much like memorizing the layout of your house, or flexing a muscle, or something in-between- it becomes PART of your brain in a way I cant quite articulate. But to get there involves just fucking around for a bit doing nothing in particular.

And I've found, especially in group settings, that nobody seems to be able to see you make something badly and leave you alone. Even if you say you're fine, you don't want help, you're happy, you're having fun, it's fine, they gotta ride your ass and hover.

I was at a class the other day for something I hadn't done before. The medium was one I've never used, so once the instructor told us the basics I started experimenting with weight, gravity, texture, viscosity, saturation, temperature, etc. The instructor had given enough info to know what was dangerous and what was safe, and beyond that I just wanted to absorb what I could about it.

And no insult to the instructor, but they kept checking in. Which was fine the first few times.

But then, without asking me what I was trying to do, started giving tips. That I told them I was grateful for but didn't really need just yet. If I had a question, I'd ask.

But they kept coming over. And touching my shit. And manipulating my project. And touching my hands. And using my tools. Without fucking asking.

And this happens every time. EVERY TIME. And by now I know the best way to get them to fuck off is to make something way beyond their expectations so they know I'm capable, then go back to doing what I want.

So I did. I wanted to keep having fun and learning, but instead I made something beautiful that I really didn't want to make, and wasted my time, and really didn't learn what I wanted to learn at all. I knew the formula to create a beautiful thing, so I followed that formula the same way I have a hundred times before, and didn't get to try anything spontaneous or ugly or exciting, just so I could be left alone.

And I know when I was a kid, I was aware aware people saw me puttering alone on something ugly assumed I had a special issue and treated me like I was stupid because of that. (I was neurodivergent.) And at at time I knew that I could do a neat trick for them like a trained pony and they'd go, "Oh, surely they aren't defective if they can do something like that!" And piss off.

But what if I hadn't known how to do that?

What if I hadn't been talented, or "special"?

What if I'd been just any other average kid trying to learn, and I couldn't pop something pretty out of my ass to get them off my back?

My problem my whole life has been that I haven't been allowed to make anything ugly in peace. I'm capable of beauty, so I have to make beauty, or get stepped on. And once people see what I can do, they get loud about it. "Look at this! Look what they did! We all know who the best is, don't we?". And that used to feel good, but it's tiring.

And how many people like me just wanted to play? Just wanted to have fun and experiment? Who were having fun with no goal in mind, or just took longer to learn, who gave up because of all the obnoxious helpers breathing down their neck with no way to shake them off?

How many of us are made to feel defective because we aren't doing things beautifully?

I have a lovely piece of art I didn't want to make.

I think I'm gonna frame it.*

(*I think I'm gonna burn it in my yard.)

[janetbrown711]

Ahahahahahhahahahaha I love how a person can leave a server and then come back because of mental health, and completely regain all authority and power without any question, but if you dare act even the slightest bit rude because of mental health that you then apologize and better yourself and your actions for to genuinely show signs of improvement, then fuck you

Anyways mental health totally matters guys we should all take care of each other