#jack rambles

[jack-o-phantom]

Figuring out streaming stuff as well! Planning on redrawing Chime's old reference (fnaf) and other Au's for the Art Contest im hosting

[advanced-thanatology]

had a spreadsheet moment and calculated which voice actors are in woe.begone the most

dylan griggs has been in the most (170), david ault is in second (24), and taylor michaels was in third (12)

[theboyjack]

what? i don’t have a type -but if i did it’d be audhd and trans

[jackyjackdraws]

not the same anon but following up on that Grunkle Stan kiss question what about Fordsy Wordsy :3

Stanford would be way too flustered to do and say anything but believe me, in a situation of intimacy where consent is given, Stanford will absolutely love everything

Physical touches? He suddenly turns red as a tomato

Kisses? There! He is dead! You killed it with your kindness!

Also not me believing that he has a bit of a praise kink

[a-vampire-culturelover]

Bro just finished Night in the woods.

I’m having feelings I didn’t even know I had and tasting colors I never knew I could taste.

or maybe I just want to binge eat and drink some tea idk

[ahdkshax]

A Brief Rant about House of Leaves

House of Leaves is a book written by Mark Z. Danielewski written by Zampanó and edited by Johnny Truant. This is the story of a story of a house where the space inside doesn't match what it should be outside. It's most well known for the "Navidson Hallway," a hallway from a closet that spans 5 and a half minutes long, despite the exterior of the house never changing. This brief oddity of the house sparks the beginning of The Navidson Record, a (home? hollywood?) film chronicling these spacial anomalies and all that comes with them.

But you probably already know that.

...

I just finished House of Leaves and I have a lot to say. As in an extraordinary amount to say. And I want to get it out before I lose my mind.

This rant will spoil major aspects of House of Leaves. I recommend reading the book before viewing this post, especially if that brief synopsis intrigued you. But, if you know what the book is all about or it's not for you for various reasons, you're always welcome to read this too. I won't mind.

Here are content warnings for topics this post will review:

Unreality and Unfiction

Brief mention of suicide

Violence/Death

I lied. This won't be brief.

- A Crash Course in Chekhov's Gun Factory

One of the first things I noticed in House of Leaves was the usage of setups and payoffs, not simply in the simple "this feature is here in the beginning and so will be paid off in the end (which does happen)" but more of the kind of horrible realization.

Take, for instance, the earliest Explorations. There's the one part where Navidson wanders into the hallway and finally discovers the Atrium, a space so large it can't photograph. In this exploration, Navidson nearly gets lost in the house, ever changing and turning him around endlessly as it groans on and on. This section was terrifying to me, not just because of how skilled Danielewski's writing was at this point, but because of a few pages earlier.

See, in House of Leaves, you know there are the Johnny Interludes as I will call them: times where the editor interrupts the story to talk about something with himself, treating his footnotes as more of a diary in these instances. And, just before this interlude, the book decided to talk about echoes--specifically the science of echoes, the science where you need over 50 square feet in a room to hear an echo back.

Take my fear when, after this Interlude, we are shown that Navidson is lured back home not by light or wire, but by echoes in a house that is far too small for such a thing, and these are echoes of his terrified daughter, written hauntingly to have the beginning of the word cut off to clue the reader into what was said, yet keep that weight of an echo on us in this instant.

These happen everywhere in House of Leaves, to the point that I would get nervous looking at an Interlude wall because I was scared the payoff would hit too hard. Then, more payoffs happened, of the children's drawing of their house being a black square that was referenced in a footnote about children in traumatic times drawing their houses. I know this is a staple of storytelling in general, but just the way it was done, the distraction and payoff with the intent of letting the reader sit with the gun on the mantle and think about the thousand of ways for it to go off, only for it to blow and a second, smaller gun coming out. Maybe I just don't read enough, but this was an amazing use of setup and follow-through.[1]

The final segment to this echo setup, of course, is found on page 73, where Navidson has escaped the hallway and records himself talking about last night, where he is interrupted by his daughter. As a quote from the book:

""Come play with me Daddy." Navidson lifts his daughter onto his lap. "Okay, what do you want to play?" "I don't know," she shrugs. "Always." "What's always?" But before she can answer, he starts tickling her around the neck and Daisy dissolves into bursts of delight.

"Despite the tremendous amount of material generated by Exploration A, no one has ever commented on the game Daisy wants to play with her father, perhaps because everyone assumes it is either a request "to play always" or just a childish neologism. Then again, "always" slightly mispronounces "hallways." It also echoes it."

(House of leaves, page 73)

[2]

- Scientific Horror

There's going through and telling about how echoes shouldn't exist within the walls of the house--but there's showing the scientific reasoning behind why.

This is something that shares common ground with middle school me's favorite book, Jurassic Park: Scientific Horror, explaining why what I'm reading is terrifying. My first encounter with it was with the echoes mentioned in the previous section, where the readers were given a definitive number of the minimum size of the hallway, but this is not my favorite way it had been used.

In Exploration #4, the rescue mission, Navidson and his brother Tom were working together to bring the character Reston up from a flight of stairs previously thought to have been bottomless. When Tom lowered the rope from the top that he used to pull Reston up, the world around the three of them suddenly changed and we see, in real time, the house change its shape, turning a 20 foot deep hole into something much, much deeper.

Navidson stands at the bottom of the hole waiting for the cue that Reston made it up safely: a quarter dropped to the bottom of the stairs. He waits for an hour before finally hearing the coin hit the ground.

The only problem?

Shortly after Reston vanished from Navidson's sight, Tom had pulled him to safety and dropped the coin.

An hour later it hit the ground.

Normally, this would be freaky in and of itself, but it's made a thousand times more nerve wracking when you look down to the footnote and see in those small letters that this coin had been falling for 27,273 miles. 2,371 miles longer than the Earth is wide.

This also means Navidson is trapped.

- The Importance of Layout

I felt it's important that the most famous part of House of Leaves gets its own segment in this rant. For justice, I am linking it here so I am able to show examples of the various text layouts and what they mean in the book.

But, as a TL;DR for people who do not want to click on the link for one reason or another, I will write this:

The various textual layouts not only give an extremely good insight into how the characters feel and see their surroundings at various points of the book. Not only is this a fascinating way to show instead of tell and a brilliant way to control pacing, but it also mirrors a footnote in the book about how the hallway in the house reacts to people, leading to the interpretation that the book itself is the house in the story.[3]

- Keys of Black and Grey

One thing I noticed while reading was the prevalence of black and grey in the book, not only on the distinguished cover, but in the book entirely. Every facet of the house that is, for lack of better term, physically incorrect, turns an ashy color. Maybe that's the reason behind Ash Tree Lane.

But beyond that, black and grey are often seen in the book. Black as the parts Zampanó wanted removed from the book. Black as the stakes Johnny removes from Zampanó and he is cursed with a desire to finish the Navidson Record. Black as the ink that Johnny spills over the scientific section regarding the wall samples where he has finally crossed that threshold from losing his mind because of the book to it being completely and utterly lost. Black as Holloway's body is absorbed into the house, black as Tom is dragged deep into the house then plummeting to his death.

To find out everything related to black, I'd have to reread the book again, which I will do (just not right now as this took me a month to read) but there is a theme. Maybe its the show absence. Maybe its to show madness. Or maybe it's just black.

- A Love Story

House of Leaves is an ergodic horror novel. That was the intent with writing it.

But, as I finished the story and I wiped the tears from my face, I realized something else.

House of Leaves isn't just a horror novel. It's a love story.

If you've gone this far down the post without reading the book, unless you cannot read it in any way, I suggest you leave now. This spoils the very ending of the book.

At the beginning of the book, it's said that Will Navidson and Karen Green move their family into the small home on Ash Tree Lane to become closer as a family.

Through the book, through the trials and tortures the family endures, they break apart. Despite the dozens of times Navidson holds Karen and carries her around through them knowing each other, they break apart.

Karen becomes extremely claustrophobic.

Navidson goes crazy.

Navidson returns to the House one more time after writing a suicide letter to his wife and telling her just how much he loves her. He mourns the loss of his brother who saved his children in Exploration #4, where he was consumed by the house. He mourns the young child he took a photo of instead of helping. He mourns what his life was and he wants to at least try and make things right before he leaves for his final journey.

Karen goes after him. She returns to a calm house, like they left it, no hallway to be seen and in the walls she hears Navidson speak, and she stays, despite acting as if she hadn't a care in the world, she stays for the sound of his voice when no one else can hear it.

His clothes appear in the children's room along with some tapes.

Karen watches them.

Navidson reads House of Leaves.

And the back wall reveals an all too familiar void to which Karen lights a lantern and she enters in.

The void closes.

And the two are outside.

And Karen is holding Navidson in her arms, just like he does to her.

The purpose of the house was always to bring the family together. It just took a while for it to finally happen.[4]

[jack-manifold]

Born too "HAIII HELLO FRIEND :D" forced to "hello!" 😔

[literallyjustjack]

You ever make a sketch so good you stop drawing and just look at it

[antlermoss]

I had a real shitty boyfriend that gave me lots of trauma in middle school but you know what? He did one thing good. He introduced me to the concept of Cynocephalus.

The dog-headed man of medieval legend, who was most definitely a baboon. I love him. I love the idea of a human body with an animal head. The symbolism you can do with that, the design possibilities, why this isn't a popular subset of furry cute is beyond me. Who needs paws with you can have dexterous fingers that make beautiful art and music? All the joys of humanity and all the animalistic tendencies we have portrayed physically on the body. Wolf headed politicians and terrier headed journalists. Doberman headed people who are so used to being judged they expect it and whimper when you hold their face softly, holding onto your wrists with a touch as gentle as a butterfly's.

I love them, I love them so much. I need more cynocephalus OCS.

[jack-o-phantom]

Heya everyone! I've been away for a bit as I've become an artist for a few groups/lead artist, so it's been taking up my time in a fun way. I'm enjoying the community there, now that doesn't mean I'm leave but just taking a break from tumblr!

That being said, I've also finished up my Carrd and my commissions are open to a Waiting list! With a new ticket system to make it easier on communication and shorten the questionnaire in a usually conversation :)

[advanced-thanatology]

something something you can relate wbg’s concept of iterative personhood to the ship of theseus/the teletransportation thought experiments. every five years the atoms in your body are completely changed. if you’re made up of different molecules are you the same person you were five years ago? technically not. throw time travel and iterations in there and you’ve got a whole other set of problems.

[theboyjack]

i forget that some of y’all are younger than me by a few years bc you’re just so sure of yourself - growing up in the bible belt, i’ve been repressed too long and at the ripe old age of 23 i feel like in queer years i’m just turning 18 and dipping my toes in the water for the first time

not to mention my transition timeline is very strange bc i got top surgery before even being out of the closet in most places

[jackyjackdraws]

I'm sorry for the weird question but how do you think Grunkle Stan would react if someone kissed him (I'm a Stan simp I need my food)

Good question anon.

In my countless hours chatting with Stan on Character Ai I can say that for the majority of the time he would probably get mad and/or be flustered.

But It also depends on where you kiss him, I think that he is so touch starved that kisses on the forehead and cheek are the key to his heart.

His lips tho? Nah bro, he is a man of worth, you gotta earn'em.

[nefarious-nightjar]

eepy little man

[a-vampire-culturelover]

An Warrior Cats Au Idea

So I came across an au that swapped the Fire scene from Po3 with Mapleshade and a flood, and thought to myself to make my own take on that kind of au!

-Mapleshade's secret ends up coming out a moon after the kits are born, with Oakstar being the heartless prick he is and exiling her and the kits out of thunderclan. While Mapleshade somehow manages to get the kits across the river to Riverclan territory, she herself is swept up into the currents of the waters and drifted off to the barn, presumed missing/dead by the clans while she recovers.

-The kits end up in Riverclan with Reedshine, who's already bearing kits from Appledusk, and Appledusk barely knows the kits are his, only knowing one slighlty resembles him and another resembles Mapleshade, although he had ensured to himself he'd much rather keep his reputation as loyal in riverclan than ever come clean of his forbidden relationship, moving on with Reedshine. The kits can't clearly remember Mapleshade save for a few moments they cherished of when they were in the Thunderclan nursery, but get accustomed to Riverclan life. They get renamed of course since Riverclan doesn't know what they're names are;

Petalkit -> Bluebellkit, Patchkit -> Maplekit, and Larchkit - Carpkit. Maplekit was named this by Appledusk due to looking similar to his mother, although the rest of the clan see this as a coincidence. Appledusk begins to catch on and is aware by the time of their apprenticeship that they are indeed Mapleshade and his' kits, but never tells the rest of the clan. Eventually Reedshine does have her kits, which the older three treat well and care about the rest of the clan like family.

-Meanwhile, Mapleshade has been recovering in the barn, having found out her kits were alive and well but in Riverclan. Chalking it up to Appledusk caring for them, she sees nothing wrong with it, not knowing until later about Reedshine. She assumes that when the time is right she could just walk right over to Riverclan, greet her children, and nothing would be wrong would it...?

-She inevitably finds out about Appledusk moving on and starting new with Reedshine, angering Mapleshade to a boiling point. she plots her vengeance as she realizes her kits dont even remember her, treating Reedshine like their mother and Reedshine's kits like their siblings.

-Of course her kits are oblivious, and inevitably get their warrior names, save for Carppaw who became a medicine cat aprentice.

Carppaw -> Carpsnap, Maplepaw -> Mapledusk, and Bluebellpetal.

_On their first gathering, everything goes well until a flood blocks the three and Appledusks halfway into going home, Mapleshade having jumped to confront Appledusk. After some bickering Appledusk is left no choice but to tell the three that him and mapleshade are their parents, much to their own shock.Mapleshade had tried coaxing her children to her side once more, but was met with cold glares and sad looks, as she fled and eventually died before the three could see her again. Mapleshade still ends up in the Dark Forest, planning on destroying the clans for ruining her perfect life with her kits all those moons ago.

-Carpsnap, Mapledusk, and Bluebellpetal are all confused and upset, telling riverclan and being shunned for a while until eventually being forgiven, as their heritage was originally unknown and was never their fault to begin with.

-Mapleshade actually replaces Ashfur's role later on TBC as its main antagonist, possessing Mistystar to first break and dissolve Riverclan as vengeance for the clan having taking care of her kits when SHE should have, and maybe her kits come back as reccurring characters in the arc to communicate with Rootspring alongside Mistystar to stop what's going on.

Ashfur also ends up being swapped with killing similar to how Mapleshade did in canon, although he never manages to kill but one cat. Angered and displeased with how she had chosen Brambleclaw over him, he had taken advice from Mapleshade to get vegeance by killing cats close to her.

-he first had killed Sandstorm, killing her in a skirmish outside camp so that he would not be the first to come to mind. Thunderclan mourned her loss and never looked close at the grey fur left in Sandstorm's claws from struggling to fight back, something Leafpool notices.

-he then attempts to kill Brambleclaw via deathberries, knowing he would be flattened and killed in a landslide but the bigger and stronger deputy. However due to it being noticsble and treated in time, his life was saved in the medicine den much to Ashfur's disappointment and bitterness. Leafpool noted of how Brambleclaw mentioned on the side how the squirrel with the berries had been offered to him by someone..

-Finally, he attempts to kill Leafpool after failing to kill Brambleclaw, hoping to break her heart the way his was. During what would have been the fire scene, it was instead Leafpool trying to run as Ashfur attempting to push her into the fires below to burn to death, although he had been stopped by Squirrelflight and The Three. Unlike in canon, Squirrelflight tells the truth to the Three but tells them that she loves and cares for them despite not being her actual kits, and lets them know they're Leafpool's. They're still heartbroken and taken aback, but this nonetheless eases the harsh road downhill for them all later. Ashfur, a bit shocked by these relevations, decides to take his chance and attempts to kill Squirrelflight while her back is turned, but falls to the firey depths of the camp below and dies, going to the Dark Forest. While he was there, wallowing in his misery of not winning Squirrelflight's love, Mapleshade had convinced him with her plan, which would lead to very different events in TBC later on.

[ahdkshax]

feel like its my duty to bring this pic over from my twitter and share it here