#little histories

[moorishflower]

i loved little histories so much, it was wonderful! out of curiosity, because it was mentioned a couple times in the fic - what would dream be like on antidepressants? i would’ve be been curious to see how it would have worked out if hob finally got him that prozac prescription lol

So, at first Dream would be EXTREMELY disappointed, because he would have to go through An Ordeal in order to get the pills, and eventually he would convince Hob to let him just...pluck some lexapro or something from dreams and Hob would be forced to admit that yeah, that...that is a bit easier, he GUESSES. So Dream would start taking them, and a day later he would refuse to take them anymore because they aren't working. He feels exactly the same as he did before, clearly Hob was wrong and he ISN'T depressed, this has been a waste of time, and it would trigger a sulk that would last for at least 2-3 days while Hob tries to explain how SSRIs work

Eventually, after like a week of going over it back and forth, Dream would throw his hands up and say YES, yes, he will try the pills for at least three months, but do not be Disappointed, Hob Gadling, when nothing changes and I tell you I told you so.

What follows is the worst month of both Dream and Hob Gadling's lives

Because the shitty thing about a lot of antidepressants is that you feel WORSE before you start to feel better. Awful, right? The parts of your brain that come back online first are the ones that recognize how FUCKED UP your brain has been for a long, long time! All of a sudden Dream is hit with the worst combination of overwhelming ennui and crippling sorrow imaginable. He's essentially bedbound for at least a week. Even retreating to the Dreaming doesn't help because he made a Deal with Hob and by the First Circle he IS going to win the challenge. He is going to prove to Hob that he does not need these pills and they are in fact making things worse, because look how SAD he is, always, constantly. (This is the part where he watches like all 12 seasons of Bones or some shit but he can't remember any of them).

Sometime around the middle of month 2, a depressive episode hits. These usually last anywhere from a day to 2-3 days for Dream, and Hob is prepared to weather the worst of it, because Dream has been so SAD lately.

And then Dream takes a nap. It's not a GREAT nap. It's a middle of the day nap. But when he wakes up, Hob asks him how he's feeling and Dream...can't answer. He had been so prepared to still be miserable, to still be crushed under meaninglessness, but it's like the nap has flicked a switch in his brain. He can think again.

Antidepressants don't change the fundamental personality of a person! Dream would still be a weird moody wet cat. He would still have depressive episodes, he would still DEFINITELY have trauma to deal with. But what they DO help with is to let you recognize when you're in a spiral. Seeing the train coming is the first step to getting off the tracks. If Dream were on antidepressants, there's a chance that...the Wake might never happen. At all. Because depression grinds you down into a single track. You can't see that there are CHOICES. Or if you do see them, they feel impossibly out of reach. The moments we get in Brief Lives and in Season of Mists and The Kindly Ones, where people make the attempt to reach out to Morpheus? If he were on antidepressants, those are the moments where he might have been able to reach back.

Thanks to @fishfingersandscarves for actually collecting these moments here!

[pocket-lin]

Good lord. The devil works hard but @moorishflower works harder!! THREE regularly updating WIPs that I am absolutely devouring!!!

[that-butch-archivist]

"Lesbian Weddings" by Wendy Jill York

source: The Femme Mystique, edited by Lesléa Newman

[fandolion]

Incredible artist Julia Stoess makes these giant 100:1 insect models, I have never seen something more beautiful !

Definition of mastering your craft, they are PERFECT

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[ciderbird]

academic bias is so funny because you’ll be reading about the same historical event and one person is like “Despite the troubles that befell his homeland and near constant criticism of the court King Blorbo remained strong in the face of adversity” and the other one is like “after letting his people carry the brunt of his cringefail decisions Blorbo the Shitface refused to listen to any reason and continued to be a warmongering piece of shit. Also he was ugly.”

[halalchampagnesocialist]

Just a random thought but can you imagine how much information about Palestinians and our history exists in Hebrew sources and we don't have access to that bc the vast majority of us don't speak it, let alone read and write it?

esp because Israel destroyed our archives so there's probably information we don't know that was sealed into those archives and are now gone forever

[cat-in-a-mech-suit]

Transmasculinity Throughout Time: Lou Alcott

Yes, you heard me. There is substantial evidence that the author of Little Women was in fact a transgender man! He actually didn’t go by the name that Little Women was published under, with family and friends he would go by Lou, Louy, or LM. His children called him “papa” and “father” and his father, Bronson Alcott, called him his son. He said in 1882, “I am more than half persuaded that I am a man’s soul, put by some freak of nature into a woman’s body.” As a child, he said in a journal, “I don’t care much for girls things. People think I’m wild and queer.” He would pass as a man at masked parties for fun, and delighted in people’s reactions. For his entire life, he expressed this identification as a man, and the character of Jo in Little Women was in part a self insert character based on this. So why don’t we hear about him as a trans man? Well, it’s just not convenient for most people to believe that a beloved book about girls becoming women was written by a man.

[moorishflower]

Little Histories (Dream/Hob Roommates AU!) Chapter 2!

Little Histories || Dream of the Endless/Hob Gadling || Explicit || WIP

Roommates, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Living Together, References to Depression, Retired Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Except not really it's just for a year, Bets & Wagers, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Idiots in Love, Bed Sharing, Not Actually Unrequited Love, The love is requited they're just stupid, Temporarily Human Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Humor, Fluff, Light Angst, Romantic Comedy, Friends to Lovers, Pining, Now for the porn parts, Hand Jobs, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Accidental Voyeurism, Voyeurism, Voice Kink, Anal Fingering

After making an ill-advised bet with his sister, Dream of the Endless is rendered completely human for one year. In need of a place to stay he turns to Hob, unaware that his oldest friend has been holding a torch for him for the past several centuries. Human experiences! Living life to the fullest! Overcoming depression! Food trucks! It's going to be a long year.

[Chapter 2 on AO3 here!]

This entire fic fulfills the prompt for @dreamlingbingo A2 - Roommates AU!

[hinamie]

surprise it's yuri!!!in 2024

[a-little-revolution]

Something I've skirted around before and want to make clear this October (Dwarfism Awareness Month) is that we were slaves.

We were court dwarfs, freak show oddities, and circus performers. We were owned and sold and stollen by able bodied people for the purpose of entertainment, public display, personal property and even fashion. We were raped, beaten, starved, and abused. That was our reality until the 1970s.

And that is why the lingering hateful culture hurts so much. Why making a mockery of bodies like mine holds so much pain.

[douglasbradburyverne]

Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder in "Blazing Saddles" (released 50 years ago today in 1974)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The dog days are over.

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[aethersea]

I do think Blazing Saddles handled its one depiction of native americans very poorly, and the full extent of its representation of chinese workers on the railroad is they were literally just there. not even one single speaking line. unclear if this is worse or better than the redface.

it's fucking phenomenal at lampooning antiblack racism though. extremely blatant, extremely funny satire, which is constantly and loudly saying "racism is the philosophy of the terminally stupid at best and morally depraved at worst, and we should all be pointing and laughing at them 24/7"

plus the main character is a heroic black man who has to navigate a whole lot of bullshit but is constantly smirking at the extraordinarily stupid racists and inviting the audience into the joke. the one heroic white character is a guy who was suicidally depressed until he met the protagonist and they just instantly became buds, and he's firmly in a supporting role the whole time and happy to be there. the protagonist saves the day with the help of his black friends from the railroad, and uses the position of power he was given to uplift not only those friends, but all the railroad workers of other minorities too, in an explicit show of solidarity.

anyone saying "Blazing Saddles is racist" had better be talking about its treatment of non-black minorities. it had better not be such superficial takes as "oh but they say the n-word all the time" or "they have nazis and the kkk in there!" because goddamn if that's the full extent of your critique I very seriously suggest you read up on media analysis. there is too much going over your head, you need to learn to recognize satire.

[trashworldblog]

this is the funniest fucking thing, after you kinda murdered your professor you become friends and go to jcpenny for a friendship photoshoot

[shorthaltsjester]

when people think delilah just completely takes over and laudna has no control. when people think jester is just an uwu child who has been manipulated by every man she’s met. when people think vex is an empty husk of daddy issues without her brother by her side. when people think fjord is an arrogant asshole who doesn’t pay attention to the party around him. when people think scanlan saying that vox machina doesn’t care about him is an accurate assessment.