#mal’s musings

[tracingpatternswrites]

Hi, I’m alive. I feel like I haven’t been around here in ages, which I haven’t, and I’ve missed it.

I see I get tagged in sharing a snippet posts but everything I’ve been writing lately is secret. I’ve been writing towards secret fests since April and I barely remember how to do anything else.

Anyway, final deadline hit and now I can’t wait to share the works with you all. And I’m looking forward to writing new things, non fest related.

It feels good to be back.

[glowingcowboy]

A Little Life: A Review by Me

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

It took me two years to read but i finally finished it.

As a depressed person who also loves depressed people it spoke to me in a way I think no other work has ever been able to articulate the complexity of emotions that those roles entail. The want to have them be better. The desperation to keep someone alive knowing that they desperately do not want to be. The sluggish exhaustion of living when one does not want to. The dilemma of knowing that you are suffering, that every single day is exhausting and brings you only more pain but knowing that if you were to leave it would only bring pain to those you love. The dilemma of knowing someone is suffering in ways you cannot fathom and wondering if you are doing the right thing by forcing them alive like a life support machine.

I think. It paints an understanding picture of trauma, self-harm, and suicide in a light that is rarely ever considered but I think sorely needed. Sort of the way Euphoria tried to do with Rue, but because we don’t know her, people didn’t get it. A Little Life forces us to love Jude and root for him the way his loved ones do and when he lashes out when he hurts himself, it is understood that he is doing these things not because he is a bad person, but because he is desperate. Desperate and trying to distance himself, we will not be caught in the explosion when he inevitably self-destructs. When you feel the way Jude does you feel like a cornered animal that has to fight and bite and tear to escape. I understand.

Everything in A Little Life comes down to love- our love for friends family and partners. Life is measured this way. A Little Life is a portrait of Jude St. Francis in all his glory and downfalls and his life ends the way everyone knew it would - it is really a little life. Just a little sliver of the world. His world and all the people he touched. What is left when you die and everyone you left behind has to learn how to live again. What happens to those who are left behind when the rest are gone. It let me hope that maybe there was a chance that me and my friends could continue being friends until our old age. But I know how unlikely that is.

It was refreshing and also extremely hard to read which is why it has taken me two years to get through it. I had to keep taking breaks for reading it for weeks or months. I could understand why some may view it as torture porn but I think they forget the point- to show the pain and the triumphs of a life in all their hideous beauty.

At times it felt improbable- how much tragedy could befall a person. I remember I sometimes wondered how it could get so bad. Then I remember that sometimes that is just how life is. But it also painted a depressing sort of outlook- that people do not change. That who you are remains constant throughout your life and to some extent that is true. In my psychology classes, we learn that our personalities don’t change over our lifetime- they’re a constant trait pretty much and this book delivers that message over and over again with a kick to the gut. It reminds me that the hero's journey is not reality- people do not go through it. We simply grow and then we die and that is what happened in this book. There was progress, there was change, there was hope and setbacks, but at the end of the day, everyone was who they had always been. Behaviours could change but behaviour is not who you are.

I can't articulate everything this book made me feel but I know that it will occupy a special place in my bookshelves no matter what. It made me feel seen and pitied and shameful and joyous. As someone with a history of s3lf-h!rm and su!c!de related issues I could understand Jude- I too do what he does and there is no logical explanation there is only rationalization. I hoped he would get better- because if he could then surely I could. But that's not life. Life is treacherous and malicious and yes full of joy, wonder, awe, and love but these things do not change the fact that life is a tragedy.

Most importantly the book ends where it began. A life cycle complete, which is all we can really hope for.

When I started reading I was younger than them- the same age. Still in university and reading about their youth. When it ended they were impossibly older, ancient and unthinkably old. In their fifties and sixties and eighties. Much like them I cannot imagine living to be that old- and maybe like them, I will grow old despite it all.

Maybe, I too will have a little life- not terribly important but meaningful all the same.

[al-luviec]

Morro design + a ton of notes.

[supermallorygalaxyart]

(originally posted on instagram on 8/2/24)

rip roman sanders you would've loved Never The Muse by Madilyn Mei

[littlequeenies]

March 22, 1974 - May Pang, John Lennon and Mal Evans attend the Los Angeles premiere of 'The Rocky Horror Show' stage musical at The Roxy Theatre.

[marigoldendragon]

Thinking about the reason I prefer platonic Malleus stuff over romantic (aside the fact that I don't really care about him) is that that's what he wants and needs the most. A friend.

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

screw it Mal's wearing a cocktail dress to this club

[und-dann-war-es-fast-gut]

Mir ist gerade so richtig bewusst geworden, dass das jetzt doch der dritte Film ist, den Noah auf eine gewisse Art und Weise für Colin dreht.

Also genau so wie Colin es prophezeit hat*:

1) Teil 1 - der Werbefilm für den JC400 offiziell: mit Julia, einem menschenfressende Stuhl und explodierenden Gefühlen -> in Colin und Noahs Welt aber auch: das Kennenlernen, das Näherkommen, die ersten Gefühle

2) mit noch mehr Action - „Undead love“ für den JC400 offiziell: mit Patrick, Julia und einer Zombieliebe, der bzw. die ins Wasser fiel -> aber auch: der Kuss, die Liebe, der Streit, Colins Weggang

3) die sanfte Rückkehr - die Schatzsuche-Doku für den Workshop offiziell: mit Team Maxi und Joshua, die beide den Schatz wollen und alle in ihre Streitigkeiten hineinziehen -> aber auch: die Einsamkeit, Trauer und Wut, das Zulassen der Gefühle und das Bewusstsein, dass beide (eigentlich) das gleiche wollten, der Weg zum Wiedersehen und später: Colins Rückkehr, die Versöhnung, das Happy End

*und wir vor einer Weile schon spekuliert hatten, wegen des Filmplakats, das ja aber dann doch ganz anders war

[orwillidrown]

instead of watching santa claus is going to high school crossed, i’ve decided to see how far i can walk into the witchwood without feeling physically ill to prep for the camping trip i guess i’m going on

if this is the last thing i ever post, the ape-man got me

[taintedlxve]

Young Mal

[aguavivia]

Musings on the night

But how you'd please me, night! without those stars Whose light speaks in a language I have known! Since I seek for the black, the blank, the bare!

Charles Baudelaire, Flowers of Evil: A Selection

Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi, Moonlit Night on the Dnieper (1882)

But it so happens that I hear the night weep in my bones. Her immense teardrop raves mad and shouts that something has gone away forever.

Alejandra Pizarnik, The Last Innocence: The Lost Adventures

J. M. W. Turner, Fishermen at Sea (1796)

[tracingpatternswrites]

Friends - I have finished MAFS. It’s now in the very capable hands of @squintclover but I can’t wait to share it with all of you ❤️

[glowingcowboy]

i miss my hometown and childhood home and streets i’ve walked a thousand times. i miss my room with the unexplained scrabbling in the vents at night. i miss my old world. when there was a thin thread of hope that my life could turn out maybe not how i always wanted it to- but at least i could be successful. where i believed that if i just didn’t die. i’d have it! in my hands! but i don’t have that anymore.

I miss the cold. I miss the snow, where is it? i miss days looking out the window and seeing the entire world covered in a blanket of white; where every single sound was muffled and turned soft because of the snow. i miss these things. and it hurts me that I may never get them back. bury me in the snow- it looks so soft.

It is december and I’m not 17 anymore and I haven’t been 17 for a long time. and i am lost. how do i get back. how do i evolve. i don’t have these answers. all i know is that i am a constant disappointment to myself. and i cant die about it like i always planned to. I have a hard time believing that everything is going to just be alright. because it hasn’t been alright for a long long time.

[rbchild]

Das Fic ist fertig!

Ich mach jetzt hier mal einen auf Leo und Adam und gönne mir einen wohlverdient ruhigen Abend.

Ich hatte es ja echt total unterschätzt, wie schwer es sein kann, aus einer bestimmten Sicht auf die Figuren wieder rauszukommen, wenn man so lange im Rahmen eines bestimmten Universums geschrieben hat. Da dann wieder auf Canon zurückzusetzen ist mir schwerer gefallen, als ich es gedacht hätte.

"Schreib doch einfach mal ein kleines Case-Fic, um wieder rein zu kommen. Da hast du doch ein paar Ideen rumliegen, und ein paar Tropes, die du noch verarbeiten wolltest." 🤣 Ich bin eigentlich schon viel zu lange in Fandoms unterwegs, um mich noch selbst so zu verarschen.

Das 'kleine' Case-Fic (ich kann das noch nicht mal schreiben, ohne vor mich hin zu kichern) hat über 90.000 Wörter. Davon wird was im Edit wegfallen. Aber ich kenne mich, da wird im Edit auch noch was dazu kommen.

Da kümmere ich mich dann ab morgen drum. Und ab nächster Woche kann dann gepostet werden, denke ich.

Aber jetzt erst mal ist Feierabend.

[a-cloud-for-dreams]

What are your thoughts on Mal's route in Blades 2?

OOOH this is such an interesting question! Tbh I'll probably have a different answer by the end of the book but in short, I think that the idea was interesting but the execution was flawed. I feel like that could be said about most of the love interests but it's very prominent with Mal.

First, taking this route with Mal isn't out of the question. I always saw it like this: the other LIs have one barrier (getting them to open up to us). However, Mal had the additional barrier of having a ~facade~ hiding his vulnerability. It's one of the reasons the finale of his route in B1 was so satisfying. Simply put, it would be harder to reach his true self because it becomes a two-step process rather than a one-step process. I'm not trying to reduce people's complicated natures to numerical values, it's just a metric I'm using to explain my thought process.

I bring this up because MC's disappearance reinforces Mal's belief that prevents him from getting too close to anyone. That wall that he's built around his heart that has slowly fallen? It's back up now and even stronger. If MC of all people, the Savior of Morella, left him, who's to say they won't leave again even if they've returned? Case in point, I'm not super upset if they did this for the sake of the plot, but they didn't give this part of the story enough weight, which makes it harder to take seriously. This leads to my biggest problem with Blades II so far: its pacing issue.

Personally, they didn't balance the ratio of plot to emotional development as well as in the first book, which had a clear goal in each chapter that drove the plot forward and gradually expanded on the relationships between characters without the paywall. From a reader standpoint, it feels like they had too much and not enough story for a second book, if that makes sense. This makes B2 feel almost stagnant. In fact, it feels like there is a ratio of filler episodes with a plot-heavy episode every few chapters which is kind of frustrating?? I do want to emphasize that I am grateful for Blades coming back and I don't wanna seem like someone who is complaining for no reason a new book is better than nothing in this case but I wanted to bring it up because it's clearly affecting the LI routes. They weren't given enough time to emotionally process what happened, nor did they address how that negatively impacted them, they just ignore it.

Basically what I'm saying is it would have been different if Mal was apathetic and it was addressed in the story in a way that doesn't feel like a casual side effect. Personally, if I was him, I would be too worried to have MC out of my sight lol.

Idk if that was phrased well but yea <3 I'll make a post about my final thoughts on Blades II so consider this post a preview to that.

[mad-hunts]

i just realized i haven't really talked about what barton is like while he's in arkham and/or what it's like for him. so... let me start by saying barton is probably among one of the inmates at arkham that has caused the highest number of incidents. and i don't mean small ones all the time, either. because barton will go so far to make himself sick just so he can go to the infirmary and steal scalpels / ANY sort of object he can cut people with (specifically the doctors.) now, of course i'm not trying to say that this is justified because of this, but he has also has a history of being treated very badly in there (though that certainly isn't an uncommon thing for anyone in arkham unfortunately) ... and i just feel like that's important to note because his behavior could very well be partially in retaliation to this.

however, i can imagine that the staff in arkham typically don't care about considering things like this since it is a SUPER corrupt place. and thus... i hate to say it, but whenever he is compliant, it's usually because he's drugged up to the point where he's drunker than a skunk. or loopier than a pot-holder. because it is DEFINITELY not normal for barton to not rebel against them in any way. he's also refused to eat in there several times and wellll — that probably didn't vibe well with them, either. so basically what i'm trying to say is barton 'acts out' a lot while he's in there, which could be attributed both to his circumstances AND to his very altered mental state