#reread it all those months later just to experience it again

[sinclarify]

anyways it's been five days since i bought the secret history and i have 58 pages left and ummmm. what does one do with their life after finishing it. i think i went through it too fast because its all been over too fast and????? what do i do once its done??? die???

[thecurioustale]

I Went into the Caves

I reread nostalgebraist's The Northern Caves (TNC) this weekend for purely selfish reasons, and wanted to share a few thoughts...

I originally read this book when the final installment was published, late in October of 2015. For me, this happened to be during the single sharpest downward gradient of my entire life: I'd just finished up the so-called Year of 32, my most creatively productive period ever, but my life circumstances had changed drastically for the worse, with health and financial and family problems (and more) all at once, and I had found myself thrust into a new chapter of life that I call the (Joshalonian) Troubles. To go from one of the best years of my life to one of the worst was not a fun thing.

I had read TNC while still early in the "fall"; in fact things would go on to get much worse for me from there. But the seed had been planted for this story to be very important to me personally.

For those who aren't familiar, TNC is about a fan forum for the fictional Chesscourt series, by children's fantasy author Leonard Salby. Some members of this forum get the chance to explore Salby's unpublished final work, which, unlike the quaint children's fantasy novels of the Chesscourt series, is a cryptic, 3,000+ page tome of gibberish and horror and surrealism. The monstrous nature of the book gets into the minds of these forum members, and they end up in a drug-fueled, days-long manic state, reading the book together out loud at the house of one of the forum members.

For me, this monstrous book, which also has the title "The Northern Caves," was the draw of Rob's TNC. Even though we only get to see a few fragmentary excerpts of it, I was completely riveted by the premise and by the excerpts. The story of Rob's TNC, about the forum members engaging with this work, wasn't what drew me in. Yet when I was rereading it this weekend, I also read some of the AO3 comments on the chapters, and I found that most people had been almost completely absorbed in that aspect of the story, and didn't seem to be trying to directly comprehend Salby's TNC at all. It just goes to show that different people will get different things out of the same source material.

One of the things I most deeply crave in life is to encounter and experience "the other world," i.e. the mystical, the beyond. This has always been a pursuit of my storytelling, and is indeed how my mind has been structured for my entire life. Even when I was very young, I would map this desire onto things like vacation road trips, where we would drive away from home and into some other, wonderful place, by way of passing through many other, wonderful places, liminal places, to arrive at our destination.

Well, those final months of 2015 and the first several months of 2016 went very badly for me, till in March of 2016 I finally escaped the situation that was the single biggest source of my stress. But harm had been done to me, damage of a kind I had never before sustained. What followed was the mortal demise of the old Josh: Once I was in a safe place again, albeit with many other troubles still among me and ahead of me (not least that I was homeless at the time, and relying on the hospitality of friends), I first felt a great fatigue, which preoccupied me for several days. Then, a few weeks later, I had one of the most interesting experiences of my life: I think the term that would most quickly get the point across is "psychotic episode," even though I wouldn't use that term myself, as I was fully in control of my behavior and speech. But a funny thing happened to me when I would sit down to write, in that sunny office of the home where family friends were hosting me, during a week when they were out of town for Passover and I had the whole place to myself:

I composed a series of short pieces loosely telling a bizarre story. This is where the seed planted in my mind by TNC months earlier finally bore fruit, for my style was very much inspired, directly, by the Salbian style in TNC.

My story consisted of material like this (this is one, continuous excerpt; there are no cuts here):

May I ask you a persona lqoeutns? How do you know ll 26 nbubers? If where more than 26 numbers how would we have mathemathicsmomg? A don’t nw’ ijow gonigo to the bakery o ngo minutes on et imo elovne fnow tmrweio ncoirrect toemperautre.

HUSH NOW MY DARLING THE NUMBER NINE IS

static

Gracious are the houses of the DORAL> Plentiful are the tables he spreads for his esteeme dugest. Even though the splendors of his bounty are bested only by the GREAT SLN.

FLESDGLFGING MY WINGSO THIDID NOW THOGING THNOW NOW EW E FALL FROM THE NEST OTO BA F TAKE FLIGHT AFOR THE FIRSRTR TIMRO BUT THE WUNDERCARRIAGE OF OYUR WINGS IS TNDER AND YOUNG AND WE CANOT GUARATNEE EGHEROGUNA AND THE FLIGHT IS ROUGH EVEN WITHOUT THE TRUBULENCES WTHAT WE KNOW ARE ALL AROGUND US THOU IT LOOKS EASY BY THE ECAMPEL OF THE EPXIERENCED GENERATION YET WE STRUGGLE AIND FLUTTER AND WE ARE TRIRED WHEN WE LAND.

good grief gentle gosling now for the dinner table you are

if we don’t know what the air is ssupposed to be?

IU WANT AND EXPLANTION FROM THE CAOSMOR.

Understandably the selkie preferred to eavesdrop:

“Pray what is the abstractification of fulfillment?”

“Let us go ask Father Christmas.”

And thus a great transversal of geography ensued.

“Father Christmas what is the abstatication of fulfillment?”

“Do not take that tone with me child.”

“Then what of my many toys?”

“They have been destroyed.”

“How is this a reply?”

“It is none other but a reply.”

“So be it Father Christmas I now know the antithesis of what I ask and thus I know what I ask.”

“Yes you do stripling. Now go on to Mount Sghar where F shall await you. and though in fact it be only the month of April may your Christmases ahead be equally merry.”

“It shall be so and merry do.”

What I wrote in that strange week wasn't principally a mimicry or emulation of Salby's writing, although Salby's writing was clearly the inspiration and certain conventions and devices used by Salby were appropriated into my own work at a low layer—such as the deliberate spelling mistakes, a character ("F") known only by a single letter, the direct reuse of certain words that were still in my mind months later such as "vouchsafe," and so forth.

But the work was all original. I didn't copy any of it, either directly or in the manner of rewriting phrases and passages that Rob had written. I wrote all of it myself, and rather effortlessly at that. I did not labor over every last spelling and misspelling; it all just "came to me."

What I would say, then, is that Salby's TNC was "the right inspiration at the right time." It was what my brain seized on to express the inexpressible. What I was actually going through was nothing less than the mortal demise of the Old Josh. My entire life as I had known it, and my sense of self, had perished, and I had escaped just enough of my ongoing emergency to have a few weeks of rest, and that was when I "grieved" or "coped" or whatever word you want to use. Really it wasn't grieving or coping; it was a spasm. A spasm of the psyche, poured into words.

Something that I have struggled with my entire life, although I only developed the language to talk about it very gradually over many years, is the fact that I find it exceedingly difficult to say what I really mean. If you know my writing (fiction and nonfiction) you know that it tends to be overbuilt: formal, in-depth, pretentious, and quite verbose. This is, in great part, a result of me trying to say what I really mean. Pithy, aphoristic speech doesn't usually serve my needs, and although I am at least moderately capable of writing it I don't tend to reach for it often. It's much more typical of me to try to pack as much meaning as possible into my words, resulting in quite a lot of words and rather a slow pace.

But with this week of essays I abandoned all of that, by saying what I really meant without regard to its comprehensibility to the reader. Everything I wrote that week, including the excerpt I shared up above, has a meaning. I can look at it right now and still see the meaning nine years later. It is perfectly clear to me; it makes as much sense to me as a typical piece of writing from me.

The only difference with it is that I'm quite sure it makes very little sense to you. It isn't readable. For that one week, I abandoned the effort to be understood—another lifelong struggle of mine—for the sake of saying what I really mean.

While the individual excerpts are fascinating by themselves (I think), they combine to become something considerably more interesting. Taken as a whole, the story I told isn't a particularly coherent one at a face-value narrative level: Very loosely (and with much oversimplification on my part here), the action of the narrative is about carefully following "indicators" to traverse "atmospheric geometries" and arrive at a place called "Mount Sghar." However, it does this by way of many detours, such as:

A1: CLASIFEDS

WANTED: EVIL LOGICIAN

aAre you prepared fro a fast-apaced career in the exciting world of LGOI>?e Yet you don’t wish to sopend oyour life giving lectures to students who don’t want to be there and engaguing in intraepartmental fueds with other lecturuers.? You think there’s no other way don’t you fiend . findout there’s another way o redound into the WORLD OF WORK!

PUll up your jodhpurs and your justaucorps until rthe sentiment overtakes you that LOGIC shall deliver your remittances frmor the cEntral Authority.

Live in the lap of luctury with swimming pools and bars and wet bars and gymnasia and sitting rooms and drawing rooms and solaria and convenientiously spacious closets with thpower of EVIL LOCI> But don’t fret supplicant! Your candidacy is not ineligible soimply because you have no logica ofl your wn. All you need is THE ONE OAMEWETH. then the appointment shall be yours without ado.

must have own railroad, biogenic weapons program, a trifle really

That's a classified ad. It doesn't literally figure into the story before or after its appearance. It is a standalone statement if you will, a single "sentence" embedded in a larger paragraph. But because so much of the writing for this story comes in incongruous and disjointed forms like this, it isn't really possible to extract a coherent plot per se, nor is there a protagonist or even a point-of-view character most of the time. Those roles are filled by me, personally. It's like a first-person POV story without the first-person POV.

As for what the story is actually about, it's a mixture of two things: The first, though I didn't consciously realize it at the time, is that, like I said, I was dying. It was the end of the old me. But that doesn't actually say anything about the contents of the story. For that, and the true answer to the question of what this story is about, is that this is a story about trying to be understood. Ironic, huh? 😂

I wanted to say what I really mean so that I could be understood. This was what I was expressing, during this death-of-self, because I had never truly achieved it, and I was bitter and frustrated, and I was leaving this world without closure or resolution on those matters.

To "not be understood" is one of the fundamental conditions of aloneness. We are each apart; we cannot truly share our perspectives in full. We can never be understood in totality. And that fact hits a lot harder for someone like me who never had unconditionally loving and emotionally present parents or a ludicrously loyal and always-on-call gaggle of "best" friends as a kid.

In full disclosure, this story is saying a lot more that I can't see myself getting into here, because to explain it in communicable terms would, after all, be a rather tall ask; that's why I wrote it so incomprehensibly in the first place.

Rob's TNC gives us Salby's TNC as something that is deliberately meant to be inscrutable but with profound insights just-on-the-cusp of becoming realized, as a way of engaging the mind of the reader, giving it something to chew on. The story I wrote isn't "deliberately inscrutable"; it's not a toy for readers. It has a clear message—to me perfectly clear in every detail; I'm sure I could account for you nearly every single turn of phrase in the entire thing, even nine years later—but it necessarily isn't clear to you. That's kind of the point. It is a demonstration of my struggle to be understood.

This is the last thing I wrote in my journal before those stories began:

I am so frickin tired of playing by the rules: having to communicate coherently, having to crack my eggs from the right damn end, having to live like a bolt of lightning in a suit and tie and cubicle. It’s not dignified and it’s not true.

That statement about the comprehensible stuff being both not dignified and not true really rings for me even today. The incomprehensible stuff was more honest, in a way, and carried more majesty in its word count.

That one week was a very special time in my life. I have never been able to write like this before or since that one week. I've tried for much of my life; see for instance the words of Sourros in The Great Galavar, from 2014 before any of this happened.

The Troubles would continue for another two years, and in March of 2017, eleven months after I had my crazy storytelling week in California, I wrote the first major contribution to what would become the Galaxy Federal Inaugural Novel, which in many ways is the direct continuation of my work in this incomprehensible story. I've even found ways to incorporate some of this bizarre text!

Rob's story gave me an "other world" I could sink my teeth into. I find Salby's disturbing philosophy of Mundum very interesting, and am able to comprehend it (I think) without actually subscribing to it. But Salby's unhinged writing in particular is a lasting wellspring, and it shows how "built different" I am that so few other fans of TNC focus on this aspect of it. Like, I just don't really care all that much about the adventures of the Chesscourt forum members as they get together and pop pills. They were merely vehicles for me to get more glimpses of Salby's TNC. Rob's work in creating the coherent-yet-inscrutable ravings of Leonard Salby is extraordinary, but, ultimately, unless I have missed Rob's meaning (which would also be ironic, lol), there is no deeper purpose to it than that. My inscrutable ravings, on the other hand, are "real." They actually contain important messages that I personally endorse.

There is something so compelling about text which is perfectly meaningful but nearly incomprehensible to anyone but the author. What happened to me that week was just an altered state of mind. But of course it felt at the time, and ever after, "magical." Such is the sentimentalism of the human mind.

I don't struggle to be understood any more. I accept that I won't be. And in some ways the Galaxy Federal Inaugural Novel is me describing how I feel about that. But! While its ultimate messages may remain forever hidden, unlike the gibberish above at least you'll be able to read it.

[vinelark]

in return for the fic recs i got last month, here are a few fics i read recently that i want to absolutely yell about from the rooftops:

Iron, Fire, Mirror-Glass by PurpleSoot: an early batman days AU where, while slowly healing from a spine-shattering injury, bruce finds an old book about the fae. in a fit of desperation he attempts a Summoning to try to heal his spine. enter: robin.

this story is fantastic—the kind of longfic with a plot so good and satisfying that finishing it leaves you on a reading high for at least a week. one of the best early days bruce fics i’ve ever read, with honorable mentions to excellent alfred and clark and jim and selina characterizations—but robin (dick) really takes the cake here. the balance of chilling, otherworldly, not-quite-human vs. playful, earnest, Still Just a Child…chef’s kiss. the way robin’s character arc drags bruce kicking and screaming through his own emotional growth is so well-paced and well-wrought that i already want to reread just so i can experience it again. this is one of those god-tier longfics that i can’t believe i got to read for free on the internet.

mid-reading testimonial:

The Lone Ranger Never Had to Deal with Bruce Wayne by @theskeptileptic: a tim-joins-the-family-early fic in which tim decides to do everyone (his parents) a solid by faking his own death and running away to canada, except his weirdo neighbor bruce wayne keeps butting in and messing up his plans.

this is one of the rare stories where tim doesn’t know batman’s identity yet, and even rarer stories where that somehow makes the whole thing even more compelling. this fic has two of my favorite things: small, lonely, moderately unhinged tim drake pov, and really good pangs—pangs that are expertly teased out through flashbacks that add context to the present action at exactly the right moments. also, a very fun cameo near the end. i had a blast reading this one, physically clutched my chest more than once, and am already looking forward to rereading.

mid-reading testimonial (feat. @cairoscene):

equivalent exchange by scribblemetimbers (wip): an au set during tim’s robin days in which tim discovers 1) crossroads demons are a thing and 2) people can make deals with them. deals that include bringing people back from the dead, so long as you’re willing to pay the price with your own life.

this fic is so…🤌‼️ it feels like everything i want in a fic so far, down to two incredibly specific concepts i love (bruce, in his grief, saying something harsh to robin!tim with disastrous consequences later + tim making a big secret sacrifice gambit) which are both done so so well, within a larger plot that is also done so so well. the way this fic cuts in and out of scenes at the exact right moments for max tension feels like a masterclass in causing me to tear my hair out (in the best way), and instead of assorted pangs reading it is just one big Pang. it currently leaves off on an agonizing cliffhanger but, again, in the best way. highly recommend. (thank you again @owlbats for the rec!)

exchange between me and my friend after i sent the link, which about sums it up:

and to cut this angst with some humor:

IRIS Log #1548 by @deadchannelradio: a night on patrol as recorded by the bats’ audio logs, centering around red hood getting flung into a ditch and everyone, eventually, getting home safe.

one of the top ten funniest things i’ve ever read—spiritually up there with send to all (and if you’ve seen my fic rec tag you’ll know what a compliment that is). this makes use of the audio log format SO well. the dialogue shines, the jokes land with excellent timing, and it moves at such a clip that it’s pretty much impossible to stop reading once you’ve started. every character shines in this, and i’ve randomly choked on laughter remembering the phrase ‘good god he got thrown like a corn hole beanbag’ like twenty times in the past few weeks.

mid-reading testimonial:

[oniricdiary]

Ok so I know none of y’all is ready for this conversation but now y’all gotta be ready cause we’re sitting down and we’re having it.

EYE am the first one that physically collapses and starts foaming from the mouth when this conversation is brought up but I’ve rarely ever seen people look eachother in the screen and be direct, sincere, blunt, only people on tiktok, so EYE am gonna say this and get it out of my chest cause I can’t do it no more.

CANON AOT CHARACTERS ARE MUSTY, CRUSTY, STINKY, FILTHY, NASTY, MUCKY.

Yall just remember that all events from season one (from trost) to season three all happened in the span of FOUR MONTHS. Four months in which they went on mission god knows how many times and how long. When had my babes got time to clean themselves? LIKE TWO. Two full body cleanses and maybe a couple more but they were just armpits and face. They were surely unbearable to be around. And don’t get me started on the skid marks, that’s the ultimate proof. Like literally how many times did they clean up from head to toe and change/wash all of their clothes. Let’s not think about it moving on.

ik you guys won’t hear me out on this but cadet days were the worst. Self care products were probably expensive and limited as wall Maria had fallen, so they couldn’t even use a proper amount. Kids going through PUBERTY. A big bunch of BOYS training ALL the time under any weather with LIMITED soap. Any of you ever been in a boys’ locker room or a freshman class? You remember the smell right? Cause you ain’t forgetting such violation. Yeah now imagine that in cramped living spaces like the barracks FULL OF FILTHY PUBESCENT BOYS living there all the time everyday. Like I’d rather have a corpse under my bed than walking in there. The girls were better but not THAT MUCH. They were going through evolution🎉 too.

So like canon aot fics are so good like chefs kiss but when I remember this…ik it’s gonna be painful. Y’all remember that napoleon letter to his wife? No? Yeah? Those who do, you get what I mean. I mean I’m not like shaming anybody or kinkshaming or whatever but can a girl wonder.

The matted, oily, dandruffy, dusty hair. The sticky face. The death breath for panting for a long time without eating or drinking or rinsing. The STENCH especially on the boys (ik eren and Reiner were lethal) BUT THE GIRLS TOO THEYRE NOT SAFE. The built up sweat from wearing the same clothes for four months. The dirt under the nails. THE CHEESY FEET. The fungis under those clothes. I physically cannot go on I’m sorry but there would be so much more to say it’s not even funny atp.

Again I’m just wondering like I’m being realistic no shame at all, I’d be in the same situation if I woke up there tomorrow, I’d have a panic attack for sure because I care too much about my hair but like again, what can i do ima kill titans and think about my marinated armpits later right? Don’t cancel me please.

Like I’m just wondering how in fics did they even kiss during those times or like do the devil’s tango in the barracks or anything else at all. Like am EYE the clean freak or do you guys see the vision???? I guess there is a smut plot armor too. That’s impressive I mean it.

Anyway for anybody wondering YES LEVI TOO. He can’t escape the mustiness and has the same chances at cleaning himself as the others HOWEVER we know he’ll do it correctly unlike somebody else.

Again ik they were different times and situations I’m just wondering yk whatever cancel me.

WARNING: THIS WAS A 4AM STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND IM NOT GOING TO REREAD IT, IT 99% WONT MAKE SENSE TO YOU AND THAT’S FINE, IM ON THE VERGE OF DEATH (RUSSIAN SLEEP EXPERIMENT VICTIM) AND NOTHING EVEN MAKES SENSE TO ME RN. DANCE TO THE BIG BIG BEAT.

[merakiui]

oh my god… i just read ‘the most dangerous game’ on ao3 and while i was at the part of where jade pretends to be floyd while they… ya know 🥴

i was listening to phantom of the opera’s ‘medley : down once more / and track down this murderer’. and i just wanna you to know the heavenly experience i had cause OH MY LAWD

(~5:35 in the song, which is the duet/ trio between the phantom, raoul [love interest] and christine [main girl] )

and i LOVE how beautifully it connects. with reader’s confusion about their sudden flooding thoughts of jade. why they keep thinking about him even though they’re WITH floyd

while jade is going to the ‘point of no return,’ he literally cant go back. hes pretending to be his brother to 1. plant more jade shaped seeds in their head & 2. HES LITERALLY FUCKING THEM AS HIS BROTHER WHO HE KNOWS THEY HAVE A CRUSH ON. so yeah: he’s literally crossing the ‘point of no return,’ and he knows that. that this will either work out, or horrifically blow up in his face. but that’s only if you found out ☝️😲

my favorite part is that when christine sings about the ‘angel of music.’ the man [phantom] who was there in the shadows supporting her, yearning for her, loving her obsessively to the point it scared her (jade was much more discreet but that’s not the point)

a bit later in the song she sings ‘angel of music you have deceived me’ and i LOVE how it timed up when i read it. and she goes about how ‘she gave her mind blindly’

cause that’s EXACTLY what happened. jade played and deceived reader like she was a piece on a chess board. she literally let him into her mind because she wanted floyd so badly. he literally took over her mind as her thoughts slowly started contain less floyd and more of jade.

also, in the way he deceived her; jade never was going to help them with floyd, and made that ‘contract’ under false pretenses cause this was him making his attack. (ambush hunter, and you know that man was cooking shit up for months too, maybe it got sped up when reader wanted a job at monstro)

(this song also came again when reader and jade were in the ocean 🕺🏻💃🏻🕺🏻💃🏻 and ARGGHHH. i’m gonna lose my sanity im in love)

but also. the song before this is literally ‘the point of no return’ and reader the floyd part while listening to it was just spine chilling. but the icing on the cake for me was the medley 🤤

sorry for the long ask, but i just- i’m literally in love with your writing, the planning that goes into is just awe-inspiring. i love how you give us readers things at face value before revealing smthn HUGE but if you go back and reread you’re like ‘how the FUCK did i miss that’, or when everything gets packaged in a nice little bow (so coquette 🤭🎀)

any ways, just wanted to share this with you! keep up the great work‼️ (i’m foaming at the mouth for more jade)

:O :O :O :O !!!!!!!! AAAAAA THAT SONG AND THOSE MOMENTS FROM IT CONNECT SO PERFECTLY..... "plant more Jade-shaped seeds" omg that's so true. >_< he really did surpass the point of no return in that scene just to ensure you slowly but surely thought less of Floyd and more of him throughout the time you spend together. It was so high-stakes, too. Either it works wonderfully or, as you noted, it completely blows up in his face.

And you're right!!! Jade was never going to help you get closer with Floyd. He was willing to entertain and enable your obsession, but that's as much as he'll do. He's just in it for his own benefits and to hopefully twist your perception so that you might fall for him instead. He really was cooking that plan up months in advance. T^T what an evil eel... I love the Phantom of the Opera and its soundtrack,, <3 your ask reminded me of just how brilliant it is!!!! I need to listen to all of the songs again. >w<

Thank you for reading and enjoying tmdg!!!!! I'm happy you like the way I write. One of my favorite things to do is write scenes in which you can glean new information after a reread. >:D there are so many tiny details sewn into tmdg and topped off with a pretty bow!! Very coquette indeed!!!! (˘ ˘ ˘)💖

[yearoftheflop]

hiii :3 i would love some director's commentary on the paragraph in extraordinary shift starting with "He might’ve never been kissed before." i reread that ten times sighing longingly at all the little stories hidden in there i think you're a genius <3

Well, I thought about how cathartic it must feel for Kris after months of soul searching, years of orbiting around it, after longing and arguing, new rich experiences, break-ups, goodbyes and rebuilding to finally have this kiss, to be with this man he could never let go off. And it's not about the act itself, or being allowed to kiss him & to be honest and come clean, it's not about the grandeur of the gesture either — quite the opposite, it is moving to be kissed by him first, with no tricks or take-backs, to be reassured, to give Bojan the reigns and say you decide now, I'm tired, and he just gives you exactly what you've always needed.

It is quiet and simple on the surface while inside their worlds collided after being held apart for a long time. Kris thinks it must be the first true experience in his life because he's very much in love, a little foggy with lust and the man he's been dreaming about is literally pinning him to the mattress. Tough spot to be in for epiphanies. But it's neither his first kiss nor his first man — instead, it's like all those moments of love he knew before got amplified by ten like he's too attuned, finally, he's right in the centre of the feeling, not reminiscing, not cataloguing for later, not saving anything — just right in the centre, eyes wide open. 

And since this is a cathartic moment for two, the paragraph describes them both or tries to lol, like at the very end of the story "drifting between each other", so we get insight into Bojan's pov as well. 

Imagine a kaleidoscope of moments from two lives, flowing into each other and forming new shapes together: teen love (Kris's crush and Bojan's French endeavour, a ref to his old ig post really), Kris's lively reintroduction to his gf, Bojan's lonely subdued search for connection with men, Kris's later in life longing for a relationship again, for guidance, for someone to offer to take control — addressed to Damon, to London itself or to no-one in particular at all, Bojan's solid matured love that keeps him steady, even resigned to be unanswered, "... aquamarine, he’s keeping me safe at sea" are Bojan's thoughts about Kris, he asks for nothing, love like a precious jewel — Kris doesn't know this for sure yet, suspects, hopes, guesses, etc but you as a reader already looked behind the curtain of Bojan's thoughts and you should know this is the point of no return. 

What Kris learns inside the moment is that all the love before was beautiful, real, and worth it, and led him like a guiding light — everything was always about love and love was always about Bojan. The rest is just a matter of rearranging the composition.

fanfic writers: director’s cut

[reorientation]

Stream post lesbian! I'm gonna use 🩵 to identify myself if that's not taken!

I know most girls on this app create end goals for edging, but I haven't. I don't know if I'll ever want to orgasm of my own choice again, the only orgasms I desire are the ones Men choose to give me to prove how little of a lesbian I've become.

It's actually melting my brain how you managed to guess my favorite way to edge, by reminding myself that my orgasms mean nothing, do nothing besides maybe make my holes tighter for a Man.

But a Man's orgasms create life, they do what our bodies are meant to. Breed. A Man's orgasm keeps argumentative, angry dykes like me docile and subservient. I truly believe if a Man came inside of me it would make me more submissive, why wouldn't it?

You're right.

I could've gone to any of my lesbian friends, any of the women who I know have been lesbians for over a decade. I could've been given reassurance about my lesbian identity and could've tried (maybe successfully for once) to separate myself from this.

But instead I went to a Man, a Man I knew would tell me that the best option is to keep rubbing myself thinking about cocks. A Man I knew would want to rape my virgin holes until they were molded to His cock. A Man who would give me my first orgasms to ruin me for any women ever again, then just as quickly take them away to show me my place beneath Him.

In all honesty, I've never orgasmed from penetration before and for the first time in months I decided to use my dildo (using it makes me too cock addicted and I wanted to pretend I wasn't) and reading that ask almost made me cum, I hadn't touched my clit in a few minutes, just the feeling of even a fake cock inside of me almost made me ruin all of my progress.

That's how much control Men have over me, my body is being completely rewired to feel pleasure I never have before, and I'm not sure if I'm desperate for more, or terrified of it.

I hope those women weren't expecting me to ever get back to them, because I may become a true cockslut sooner than later at the rate I'm dropping.

- 🩵

(Previously, and I probably should create an ID + tag post for my anons, given the little harem I've been accumulating.)

It's cute how easy it is to melt your brain, little dyke. Do you think you're the first girl to edge to the thought that orgasms weren't meant for you? To the knowledge that it's yet another of the fundamental asymmetries between men and women - that men create life through their pleasure, and women create life through their pain?

It's not hard for me to guess what makes that confused little brain of yours light up, especially once you've been edging a while: it makes you brainless, which makes you latch on to the very easiest things to grasp. Like the fact that women were made for men's orgasms, not their own.

Do you know how many stories I've heard about lifelong lesbians having men come inside of them for the first time? What a transcendent experience it is? You're right that a man's cum would tame you, though you're already getting pretty tame without it. A girl like you is meant to spread her legs and be domesticated - calmed by a man's cum until she's a happy little breeder.

It's good you're learning that. It's good that you're edging to my words - and that you're fucking yourself to them, conditioning yourself with the feeling of your pussy being full. It's good that you're rewiring yourself to seek servitude and men's pleasure.

And your next step is to give me something I want.

Use that dildo again. Fuck yourself with it while rereading what I've told you. Think about me spreading you open, filling you, claiming you with the orgasms that I'm meant to have and you aren't.

And come on it. Come with my permission, at my direction. Come hard, knowing that you won't be having another orgasm until a man tells you to, or one fills you with his cock. Come like a good girl, and let your identity melt away.

[andromedasummer]

Over a third of the way through The Whispering Skull heres my current thoughts

- If I were Lockwood and Lucy I would be a little bit mad about George missing the whole "area theyre searching was an execution ground for criminals" thing but also I feel like it's the first clear sign we get that something is off with George. Like hes burnt out. Hes tired. Hes just a teenager. They all are and theyre working adult jobs and literally dont have the capacity or past experience to communicate with one another. Very realistic for teenagers.

- I love Kipps so much I love how full of himself he is I love how pathetic he comes across even when he gets the upper hand I cannot wait to see him and his team get cut down to size.

- That being said I would have thrown down then and there had I been struck with a Mag Flare like that. better ways to go about ghosts, its dangerous as shit, badly damaged L&C's clothes and perfectly shows that the Fitts agency arent really trained in a people-first way. The way they put pressure on their teams to secure a source above all and encourage hostility towards other agents.... Super telling about management and an early warning sign to me. Esp with what we know happens to Ned Shaw (which i'll have a lot to say about later when it happens) and Kat, Bobby and Kipps v trauma.

- I liked Joplin a lot when I read the books as a kid + my reread 2 years back but now... idk. Too reckless, esp with how he treats ghosts when in the company of teenagers and children. Hate how comfortable all the adults in this world are about putting children at risk. They really treat them as a resource or rather than anything else.

- The skull is such a fucking shit stirrer which again makes so much damn sense when you learn hes a teenager whose been stuck with no one to talk to in a jar for like a hundred+ years. Of course you're trying to push apart Lockwood and Lucy. You are a fucked up ex-cultist teenage boy who finally found someone to talk to and are perpetually stuck in your teenage brain and hormones. You are So Jealous.

- Lucy, George and Lockwoods argument about the Georges recklessness and then The Skull seeding distrust again drives home my point about communication but also Christ these kids need more friends. Their entire childhood and teen years are stripped from them. They have no family to talk to or guide them. No non-work friends their age to vent to. Immense trauma and no one to help them through it.

- Jonathan Stroud give me a follow up series following the team in their mid twenties coping with having their lives dedicated to a job they literally cannot do anymore and the repercussions of no education and no safety nets for agents once they reach adulthood. What do they do? Where do they work? Where do they go? How do they afford to live? What happens to agents who only built relationships with coworkers they cant even face because of trauma? Agents disconnected with their families? Nightwatch kids whose education was ruined because their days were spent recovering from their shifts? I need to know.

- Okay back to the book the ghost cult stuff hits so much harder in a post-covid world. I was there getting harassed by anti vaxxers when they invaded parliament for a month and it ended in violence. of course in times of fear people become vulnerable to misinformation. You Are Not Immune To Cults. Or Propaganda. Again, spin-off following the people who try to fight those who profit off of peoples fear and build wealth and followings off of it. Theres so much interesting stuff in this world I want to explore.

- Kipps and Lockwoods teams having to work together bcos of Barnes is so good. I love Kipps team so much I love seeing them

- Kat Godwin is autistic and I know this. Because I am Autistic. Also she comes off as someone who has shut down to everything around her because, again. trauma of her work. at 16 theres no way she hasnt been through something similar to Lucy or Lockwood. I'm sad we see less of her after book three. same with Bobby.

- Now I want to write a hyper empathetic autistic lucy/low empathy autistic kat fic where they both realize they have a lot in common with their Talents and work and bond it doesnt even have to be romantic i just want to see more of Kat

- A LSO i need lucy to have more female friends for the love of god i understand this is your pick me phase of your teens but it makes me so sad to see your internalized misogyny even though it ABSOLUTELY makes sense for her character and is so common for teen girls like her but the way she talks about sensitives and every other female operative she meets. girl. who are you trying to impress rn. you dont need to.

- Ned Shaw getting the shit kicked out of him by Lockwood DESERVED.

- I love this little nightwatch boy who helps the team with all my heart. what is his name. my son. hes such a little cunt.

- FLO TIME FLO TIME i am so excited to see Flo you people DO NOT UNDERSTAND shes so fucking cool mudlarkers are so fucking cool fuck you if you hate flo this is a flo bones appreciation zone

- obligatory "i miss holly" comment even though. she hasnt been introduced yet and wont be until the next book. i love gay people okay.

- Anyway I'm enjoying this a lot I said TWS isnt my fav book (mostly the stuff later on in the book isn't as compelling to me) but this stuff at the start rules. I didn't expect to write so much. Im having so much fun.

[sophistired18]

Some thing I've found really hilarious in the process of writing my first fic is how I went around approaching it.

Writing really intimidated me because I wasn't sure how I would tell the story I was seeing in my head. It was only until I had overflowing stories I was creating in my mind, that I actually realized it was more of a shame I was letting them waste away, where they'd be forgotten in my memory.

So I started writing them down and rereading and rereading over and over again til it was just how I liked it. And I liked it obviously. I mean I literally wrote it for me.

But through encouragement and all of your guys support, I convinced myself that my stories are worth sharing if it makes you guys as happy as me :)

So then I posted here. Bc I was still way too intimidated to actually post on Ao3 lmao. I continued to do this until what I had on my notes app was was past 7k words already (oops). It was at that point I realized it's probably too much to ask of someone to read 7k on tumblr, and even if they did, the chapters of the story are all over the place.

Thus I posted my first fic. And then I read it over and over again until it didn't cringe me out lol.

Prior to this, I had already written 3/4? (I'm still unsure) parts of the fic, but only posted ch. 1. I told myself I'd post the 2nd ch. a week later.. and that became two weeks, and then it turned to 3 and then before I knew it, a month had passed. Time flies incredibly fast.

Still, in that time between, I found myself experimenting with my writing style and found myself enjoying it even more. I've written so many different personal projects, some that I've posted and some I haven't (maybe one day I will), and I can say that each have given me so much joy to work on. I'm an amateur at best and I've still got alot to learn, but I'm really glad I've begun this writing journey and am able to express my creativity in a new medium.

I'm also especially thankful to all those that supported me here! Without your small but absolutely kind words and encouragement, I wouldn't have had the courage to tell the stories I've created. So thank you so much for this past year and being with me on my writing journey. It means a lot to me. Genuinely, the small community that I've been able to be apart of is something I will never take for granted <3

Anyways I hope you all will continue to support my growth, and share stories of your own! (Seeing what you guys can create makes me so happy :D) I can't say for certain when I will, but a goal of mine for this new year is to finish projects I've started. As I'm still proud of what I've been able to accomplish.

Lol I'm not really sure what I'm specifically trying to convey with all of this, but I think I'm mostly just trying to say I'm grateful. I wish you all a happy 2025, I hope we all continue to create beautiful things we enjoy for the time we have together <3

[bunny-hoodlum]

#20, 33, 34, and 35 please!!

Sorry this is late! Wanted to think about my answers more, but I forgot to even read the original questions this whole time, so I def' didn't get to think about my answers, whups. 😅

Thank you for ask, @dayseternal-blog!! 🥰

How do you approach action sequences or intense moments?

I haven't written anything action, it makes me cringe because I don't think I know what I'm doing, but I read that short sentences are best for this and I would agree. Choppy, curt sentences would give that sense of blow for blow feeling that action needs, and it would give the sense of it happening seconds of each other, or even simultaneously. I would probably look for an action scene to copy tbh, and try to write the choreography in a choppy way. Emotionally intense moments can be the same, I suppose. Idk what I do personally, I think I'm an Intuitive writer. Once I'm in the emotion of the scene or character, I just go for it and my heart beats really fast usually and it's wrenching and it's awesome and then it just exists and it feels right. (Until I reread it a month or so later. 🙈 Jk, time isn't the problem, my inconsistent headspace is. 🤭)

How do you incorporate world-building elements into your fics?

So, at this point and as you know, I'm veryyyyy comfortable writing my modern AUs as if they were based in Japan. Even though I don't think Konoha could feasibly be as big as Tokyo with the size of Hi no Kuni, I just write it as if it is. 😅 I pull from the real world to some extent, usually Uzushio is a mix of Okinawa and Taiwan, but I also have some AU where it's pretty damn impoverished, so it's going to be a mix of Macau and Haiti. Sometimes Suna is a mix of Macau and Vegas, haha. I guess Dubai and Macau would probably be more... unique. 🤔 I focus on food and architecture more than deeper things like politics and style of governance and whatnot, because my characters only experience those things passively as ordinary citizens do. Whenever I get back to Powerless, the shady secret government program plotline will actually matter more than Slice of Life stuff, so in that instance I will have to map out history, organizations and their affiliations, how secret programs are run, etc. It just depends on what my story needs. Usually backstory kind of comes to me on its own and that informs me of the world. Can't really think of anything else. 🤔 Making things familiar is the main aim every time, though. Dango to a Japanese is like sugar-cinnamon pretzels to us in the US or whatever, it's a familiar snack you can get pretty easily. That's the kind of immersion I try to keep in mind.

Are there any fic writing tips or tricks you've learning along the way that you'd like to share?

Proofread before posting. Proofread again when you wake up the next day after posting. You'll always miss something, but give yourself the first week to catch all the typos you might've missed. 😂

I guess I recommend reading your dialogue aloud? Maybe your whole fic? My inner monologue is pretty damn loud, so I like to trust my word flow is good because I'm practically reading it aloud in my head. I recommend letting characters interrupt each other. Unless perhaps both parties are really solemn about getting to the bottom of the issue or respect each other or both, that neither interrupts the other, but their emotions would be raging to speak up in the midst of all that patience. Figure out your own writing process. If outlining sucks out the fun, try writing the whole thing without guidance but be sure to analyze the story's direction with what you produce. I recommend the flashlight method for pantsers like myself, there are other methods as well, but a little organization goes a long way. I lastly recommend the "One Stop for Writers" site, their Emotion Thesaurus is such an amazing tool. When you just need to reference things quickly, it's very robust.

What do you enjoy the most about being a fic writer?

Between the community aspect and kind of being known for certain things, I think those are pretty even. I enjoy the act of creation and all that, but having something I experienced along the way and having the pride of it being mine is pretty damn cool. And the community makes that feeling even better.

[tiptapricot]

Ok ok finally MacKay issue 21 thoughts. This is somewhat of a rant/ramble/drawn out analysis and summary created as I did a reread, so it’s a bit rough as far as flow of ideas go but I hope it’s interesting to y’all. But TLDR: MacKay dug into a truly essential aspect of his cast this issue, AKA, who they are outside of business, what living means to them, and how trauma affects and is shown in them all, and I’m excited to see that trend hopefully continue.

First off, I feel like I remember noticing it in the past but only solidly realized that Reese has a nose piercing when looking over this issue again. I think her design has been wonderful to see evolve, from the recent hairstyle change to locs to just her solid almost punk-ish style in general. Her dress and moon shoulder things are gorgeous this issue, and overall her styling is just a really nice visual way to give a vibe for her as a person.

And of course! First issue from her point of view. I hadn’t realized how much we had been needing that. It’s been so many issues now from Marc’s point of view or the system’s in general, that getting another one from the Midnight Mission crew feels refreshing. It allows us a look into Reese as a person again, instead of her just being part of the job or the system’s friend.

And that seems to be the focal point of the beginning here, of taking characters outside of where we’ve seen them. It’s been months, maybe almost a year that they’ve been working together, and Reese is only just now getting Soldier to loosen up and go out. She’s having to give him a crash course on how to be a person, both in the social and vampire sense. She makes him fill up on blood because she knows the rules and how it works, but MacKay also shows us it’s not just natural, they can still taste the blood, they don’t like it. Vampirism is not benign and in the background it’s front and center and constantly there to remind them what they aren’t.

But even then… they still have friends. Or Reese does at least.

I love Teddy and Shannon’s intro, because it helps to retroactively show us that Reese isn’t isolated. She’s been going out and making friends with other vampires. It’s domestic and human and normal, Teddy joking with the Draculads and Draculadies greeting (a line I just think is super fun and sweet), and Shannon wrapping Reese up in a hug. Reese has connections even when separated from humanity, friends and colleagues and people struggling with the same thing she is.

I wonder if Shannon and Teddy were vampires she met after being turned, ones who taught her the ropes, or if they were friends before hand, all getting turned in the same kind of nabbing. We get a line later about stuff they used to do “before” and how they’re just now getting back into it, but it’s unclear if they were friends and all turned to vampires, or just had similar outings. Either way, how those connections were formed opens up a lot of possibility into the world of shared trauma and experience, into finding your community and your people and moving forward with each other.

It also highlights how much of an outsider Soldier is in all this. Teddy and Shannon know him, he knows them, they’ve probably exchanged brief words when Reese has gone out with them in the past, maybe even tried to goad him into coming along, but it’s not his friend group. It’s a bit awkward. Soldier is trying but even at the start he’s confused, but they’re bringing him into the fold because it’s what he needs, and they care about him.

Then of course!! Jake! He immediately comes in with a big smile, and nicknames, and his face visible, calling them kiddos and picking them up like a chaperone to prom. Since these few pages were the preview, they’ve already been talked about a lot, but it’s deserved. MacKay nails Jake so well. He’s personable and goofy and has the warm vibe of an uncle and an old friend. He clashes slightly with Soldier’s formal vibe, again highlighting the out of place-ness Soldier has in normal friend and social interactions. Jake isn’t a boss, this isn’t a mission, Jake is for the people and they’re going out to dance!

It’s just a lovely display of Jake’s role and vibe and the relationships that have been building. Jake calls Marc and Steven the boys and slightly teases them on how they worry about mission things, once again showcasing the central focus of this issue of duty vs life, the job vs the people. And of course, all his lines are just delightful.

There’s also more hints and foreshadowing in the car ride of the overall plot we may be seeing, references to whether or not Zodiac is pulling strings again, what his influence may be in all of this. It’s a new mystery we’re being led into, and I’m excited for it.

The art on the drive is also gorgeous, the squeak of the tires the lights blurring, the city coming into view. Rosenberg, the colorist, always does an amazing job, and Cappuccio’s art (while I don’t always love how he does faces or proportions) captures movement and texture so well.

And then there’s the club scene. Jake drops them off, using his connections to get special treatment for those he cares about (and people in the line are mad about it), and then assuages Marc’s worries about having what they need (which obvs comes back later). You can tell Marc is hovering close to front because of how on edge he’s been, something I’ll touch on in a further scene.

Reese’s narration mixed with the visuals here makes for such a wonderfully tactile experience for the heightened senses of a vampire. We get to see her joy, the almost overwhelm of sensation but also how visceral and filled with life it makes the experience. The line that really gets me is “…I had to remind myself to breathe so I could talk.” It nails not just the breathless feeling of community but also the breathless feeling of being dead, the normal impulses of a body that now have to be a conscious effort.

And then Soldier.

We cut to him and his face is uncomfortable, he’s shrunken, slow, reserved. He looks out of place and it’s obvious he feels out of place, that he’s unsure and confused and doesn’t know how this works and is aware he doesn’t. There’s been an underlying current to everything of his inability to separate himself from his duties, from being the tool for something, that’s been present throughout the whole run but was especially highlighted during the end of the Structure arc, and is brought back again here. Reese even states this, states how she’s seen his patterns grow, how she doesn’t even know his name. He’s just Soldier. He’s just a soldier. But she won’t let that stand. Her smile is bright and she shoves him and teases him because he is her friend and they are still people and still get to have fun. He gets to have fun. The entire exchange about who’s in charge, and seeing a small smile grow on Soldier’s face as he finally gets into it just showcases something so special and sweet about the ways these characters exist outside of the fights and searches we’ve mainly seen them in.

This progression… it makes me so happy. (ID in ALT)

They’re friends having fun, getting out of their shell, living an unlife and losing themselves in it together.

But it doesn’t last, because for those involved in moon knight business, life gets taken over by the job, almost like it can’t be escaped. I think it’s also important to note the fact that when Reese pauses and looks concerned, Soldier immediately thinks he’s doing something wrong, that he’s doing the social activity wrong and she’s upset with him about it. There’s a lot of bigger and smaller ties into how he views himself and life, how he’s been conditioned to be a certain way an has to work to let himself go.

Reese’s immediate honing in on something being off and the way her face falls is also crushing. Even trying to be human again, even being just people, they can’t escape their hyper vigilance, the way their senses are tuned for threats and able to pick up on things others don’t. She even says it. “We had been made, or remade, to hunt and kill at night. So even across the warehouse, even through the dark and the lights, I could see him. I could see what he was doing.”

And they can’t do anything. They can know something is going to happen but not what, they’re helpless to wait to react because they have to know what they’re reacting to. And then the chaos hits and it’s mission mode. Solider pushes Reese out of the way and the glass crashes down as Marc breaks in and normalcy and an attempt at it is shattered.

And as with the rest of this run, colors work to highlight this. The pink of the club becomes tinted red by violence when the mind control audio hits, and the cool blue of moon knight cuts through to handle it. The colors are gorgeous and contrasting and show the moods of the scene and the people involved, the water on the wound.

And of course, Marc was standing by. What Jake references in the trunk had to be the suit, because Marc’s also the uncle, the watchful leader worried about the young adults he’s pulled into his crazy shit. He’s the parent walking you home from work and parked outside as you close up shop. Protection is a love language for him and it’s also compulsory. If you’re in his group you are in his group and he would fucking die for you. Normalcy scares Marc and yet he craves it, because it is both harder to control, but desires deeply. Reese and Soldier and their friends go out scared him, and he had to watch, especially after losing so many close to him so quickly in the previous issues. Just like them he’s also on watch, hyper aware, only able to act when something has happened to stop.

But Reese is right that it can’t all be rage. The people are innocent and their violence isn’t the root of the problem it’s the sound. And continuing with brute force is only going to cause further issues. Reese knows vampirism she’s lived vampirism and she doesn’t want to hurt people. We see it at the start with telling Soldier to top off and here knowing that spilled blood could send them into danger, make them a threat.

And so what does she do? When there is a threat that’s disrupted normalcy and a problem that’s hard to combat and rage may only bring more pain?

She dissociates. Physically.

It’s easy to, when it’s needed, when it’s the necessity, but pulling things together, making things work, living with what you’re able to and need to do and not just letting things drift and become chaotic, it takes effort and grounding.

And that’s… well that’s very similar to what Marc’s arc has been. Very similar to mental dissociation. It’s easy for him to try and ignore his problems, to brute force his way through them and separate himself from them, but making things work, maintaining system communication and balance, not letting him and his headmates get distanced and striated from each other, not losing hold of themselves, is hard. It takes work and practice and intention, not just what feels easiest.

And there’s also that tie between vampirism and trauma, between the way Reese has dealt with her stuff representing healthy and routine coping, versus Soldier and Marc still struggling with that. They struggle with working with what they have and both knowing it’s there, but not letting it take over or define everything. The hyper vigilance, the fear of worse happening, the self isolation and the push away from what they're experiencing because there is "shame" (other headmates, having to drink blood for safety). They’ve all been through a lot and lost people and lost themselves, and they’re working on it in different ways.

And also. Well Reese turning into smoke/mist looks super fucking cool.

And she’s not perfect! She falls mid air and doesn’t quite tackle the villain but she still ends the immediate problem. And then she gets shot. She’s fine but it still hurts. Small victories can still be rough, working towards something better can still sting.

It also sets up this arc’s conflict well. Our main characters are immune to these sounds, because they’ve been alienated from people as a whole and as a concept, even if at their core they’re still human, and that grants a separateness from the threat of being forced to lose control. But if it’s experimentation, if someone is behind the scenes pulling the strings and trying to cause conflict, how long will that safety last? Trauma can in some ways grant an awareness of threats that works as a heads up or a numbing agent, but that doesn’t mean it’s a shield. There can be cracks and people can still get in, and the hurt still happens.

They may be safe for now, but will it be that way always? Will the mission really be forever, not allowing for a break, not allowing for a breather?

This issue was from Reese’s perspective, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it shows some of the most normal activity we’ve seen in the entire series. Her lens on life is different from the others, she’s found ways to work on healing, to not be trapped in one place, and as such her story gives us a view outside of direct missions, to other places of town and other joys. It contrasts against Marc, to the story we’ve been told thus far mainly from his perspective.

So to the previous to questions, no, it won’t. For both. The cast can’t escape their situation, they have to deal with it and confront themselves and what happens, but it also isn’t everything. There are people besides them to connect with, moments of downtime, lives to live that are not defined by a midnight mission that stretches into dawn.

It may just be a while until they’re really able to rest their feet.

(And on a side note, this can all be applied even to members not in this issue, to Steven, to Badr, both dealing with trying to make things work via logic and faith, working to make things work, to do a duty. Is Badr immune like the system? How will his changing views on the world and Khonshu and relationships play into a plot revolving around enemies being created even from people you love? The cast has been working to build up relationships and trust for so long and this, I assume, will be testing that. And it seems like next issue Greer will be involved as well, based on the cover, so we’ll see how other characters are further affected (-: )

[constantineshots]

hey f slur post anon again.

okay I understand what you mean now - I think your thoughts on that are really interesting!

I think probably at the time they didn't tintend to say that John himself was explicitly queer, but they definitely did intend to comment on homophobia.

It's really interesting to me how John was queer-coded before Smith canonised his bisexuality.

Reading later comics, I often feel like there was more to show his bisexuality before it was canon than after (in the hellblazer comics at least).

Delano and the artists in those books really put a lot of queer coding in.

If we imagine an alternate history where that "boyfriends" line was never written, you could say that the version of John portrayed at the time was a man who was not (necesarily) queer himself, but who was the type of man who is victimized by homophobia as someone who is percieved 'not masculine enough' by heteropatriachal society.

This relates to his punk background. Subcultures often deliberately subvert traditional heteropatriarchal norms, and therefore are criticised for non-conformism.

Queer people are victims of this same system which demonises those who refuse to conform.

I think that's what they were going for at the time. I think they also wanted to criticise homophobia as part of the political messaging throughout the comics.

They show John witnessing and experiencing homophobic violence as a way to criticise it. However, the queer coding of the character's style and experiences made him ripe to be read as a queer character.

And Smith confirmed it! Personally I think that makes these themes cut deeper in retrospect. When we know that John is a queer man, I think the homophobia of the world reads as more dangerous and impactful.

yeah, that's a good point too- the political messaging throughout the series is very prominent, so i wouldn't be surprised if those panels were designed to call light to it. this was also probably one of the few instances in hellblazer itself ( though! we do see a lot of homophobia in lucifer as well, starting right from the beginning issues. not relevant here exactly, but something to note in relation to vertigo not being afraid to delve into these topics ) where we see homophobic tones prior to john's confirmed bisexuality.

this turned out being a lot longer than i intended.

there is more homophobia explored- in the horrorist, which i believe was also written by delano- in reference to john as well. john doesn't explicitly say he's bisexual, but the comments he makes in retort ( for example, "you don't know where my mouth's been" and so on, in his own style ) suggest that he is. though the horrorist was written after the confirmation of his bisexuality, so i like to think that john's always meant to be queer-coded regardless.

with john being who he is and having the history he does, i think he was always queer-coded. it's just that some writers didn't have the guts in the rest of the series to explore it, or that when it was explored, it was... not in the best light. at all.

then, in the new 52, we do explore more of his relationships with men- and i do think there is this misconception where you have to date someone of the opposing gender on screen or you're just straight when it comes to bi people and people also like their biphobia, but that won't be talked about here- but some people have noted that, in one run, john was drawn as more "twinkish" ( the people who dislike the run's words, but i can say he doesn't really give that rugged look ) and some people found it off-putting. i'll reread the run and explore that, but there is that. and at one point, someone decided to write in that john had a crush on dick grayson. then there was the joke relationship between him and king shark- and i could go on.

i think as dc handles his character more in the light of "look, representation" whenever pride month rolls around then shoves him in zatanna's direction the whole time- again, not that there is anything wrong about a bisexual person dating someone ( or whatever it is with zatanna. i'm so confused. just let her date wonder woman and be done with this back and forth. ) of the opposite gender, but it's more what dc is trying to sell him as and then not doing it in the long run. it doesn't make much sense to me, where they play this "see? look! he's not straight, he'll date this guy" as if dating a guy has to prove that he's bisexual, but they killed off oliver ( i believe his name was? ) and then after that... we're stuck with the fact they can't write him right in general. there's no political undertones. there isn't much reference to any homophobia that he might face- he's a political character, and politically, if they're cramming him in the united states to work with the jld, they could explore that more. but they don't.

sure, hellblazer didn't have. much. on his bisexuality, but at least it was referenced. there's a newer run of hellblazer where he mentions having an ex boyfriend who was mute, i believe, and that's how he learned some of his sign language. and otherwise, john is single the whole run. i don't have a problem with john being single. but in most dc-aligned run, there's some need for him to have a romance, but they won't touch on anything regarding his bisexuality. there is nothing political underneath his character at all. they don't really explore homophobia- not that they have to, exactly, but john's a political character and now he's been deprived of that.

this is a long rant i am so sorry. point is, yes, i agree with what you are saying and it's a wonderful point to make, and it is SUCH a shame that this is something that is integral to john's character as a whole and not one person who currently works for dc comics at this very moment will explore this. let me work for dc comics. please.

[quill-of-thoth]

Letters from Watson: The Dying Detective

Crimes in context:

Medical History Sorry in advance for the medical grossness. Please skip to the cut if you never want to see the words open sores ever again. First, to piece together Culverton Smith's crimes against humanity and also the murder. Culverton Smith appears to have gone to Sumatra to make a living planting, with the labor primarily done by indentured servants or low wage workers, possibly slaves, from the local population. (I say slaves because although slavery was not officially legal in England or it's colonies at this time, there have been historically a lot of situations that are essentially slavery with some thin veneer of justification, especially when you're occupying a country, and you can make any law you want about requiring people to work for you for nothing, or the next thing to nothing.) To top this off, he was either experimenting on these workers with his favorite tropical disease, or using them to incubate it so that he could keep a stock of the infectious material on hand.

This is how Smallpox stock used to be carried overseas: A chain of people would be infected with a diluted or weakened virus. When one person's symptoms would start to wane, the fluids from their open sore would be transferred via a cut in the skin to the next person in line, who would carry the infection until they began to recover. In the transfer of smallpox for the purposes of creating vaccinations and inoculations, these were volunteers. The carriers also benefitted in many cases from being inoculated in the process, since these cases of smallpox were milder than the wild variants, and being a carrier would give you about the same immunity as an inoculation of the day. Now, we have refrigeration, glycerol stocks, the ability to use only portions of viruses (usually the proteins in their outer shell) in vaccines and most importantly, sterile fucking needles. I will never be leaving this century, even though we do have covid. All this to say that Culverton Smith can rot in hell, but I also wanted to cover Watson: why did he write this case up?

Watson's Writing

For those of you who have made it this far into my reread without knowing what is to come: The Final Problem, in which Holmes dies, will occur in April of 1891. All Holmes short stories, and the remaining two novels, were published after this date. Presuming that my date of 1890 is correct for this story (which we can, and will, revisit later as it was NOT my initial impression of the timeline), we can presume that Watson had reasons for not publishing it in his initial collection of 24 short stories, likely grief. Thinking back on this time would have been extremely painful from a variety of directions: as the months go on and on he's further convinced that Holmes is not faking it this time, and Watson probably desperately wished that he was.

Then too, despite the fact that Watson closes the story abruptly without describing his emotions at Holmes' deception, we can deduce them. He's insulted - despite Holmes' words that he never doubted his professional abilities, just his ability to lie, Holmes still disparaged him. He's angry - Holmes has shut him out of his plans and made him believe for the better part of three or four hours that he was about to lose his best friend. He's frustrated because despite the illness being an act Holmes is still harming himself with his denial of his body's limits, i.e. that a human can die if they're dehydrated for three days, and also his casual use of poisons. Belladonna, it turns out, is not good for your eyes, which is why we don't use it anymore, aside from the hideous toxicity.

Watson has been a prop in Holmes' stagings of case conclusions before, but there's a vast difference between being framed for breaking a bowl and playing along, and being deceived, berated, insulted, and isolated to ensure that you play the part correctly. There is a definite possibility that they did have a fight over this - even Baring-Gould's timeline has a gap of over a month between this and the next recorded case. It isn't an unusual amount of time, as no doubt Holmes did not always have cases that were cinematic enough to make the cut, and also Watson had a business and a household to attend to, but it's enough time for them to pointedly not see each other, and for Watson to forgive him and come around for a post Christmas visit.

Ask a microbiologist: WTF is Smith doing with his jars of bacteria?

Hello Tumblr, I grow germs for a living. And based on the description of Smith's lab / study I have a few questions, namely, how is he storing his bacteria? Based on the jars and bottles that he refers to as his "prisons" he's keeping them at uncontrolled room temperature. This probably tracks with best practice at this time, as refrigeration was based on putting things in a box with ice, and iirc although bacteria were known to be the drivers of spoilage, the idea that they would grow, and die, slower at lower temperatures was not part of professional microbiology at the time. Also based on Smith's own words, he's storing the bacterial colonies in agar, which matches with modern methods... sort of. Agar is solid at room temperature, and when it's liquid (at about 100 Celsius), it's too hot for most bacteria to survive in. This is important because the description of these jars and bottles appears to imply that they are filled with solidified agar, and there's really no reason Smith needs a full jar of solid agar to keep his bacteria in: when we keep bacteria in a liquid it's called a broth and does not have agar in it, because we want it to remain a liquid. Yes, Smith could be doing a fairly standard setup where he pours a quarter inch of agar into a vessel and, when the agar is solid, "plates" bacteria on top of it. The description does not unambiguously rule it out. But if he's trying to preserve his bacteria by entombing them in solid agar, and then melting the agar to retrieve them, it's a lot funnier. Mostly because it would mean that his pet bioweapon from Sumatra isn't viable anymore.

[hrodvitnon]

Had a thought for the Abraxasverse GxK timeline setup:

Why Goji is so determined to evolve/his experience in the Titan War.

Basically taking the Raymond Martin idea of him trying to fight titans and adding to it with him deliberately provoking Titans into doing shit like Scylla did. And Godzilla constantly having to confront these rampaging titans, not knowing why they’re going nuts, but doing his best to deal with them nonlethally. It’s tough, but he manages it. Even amongst those who would rather just kill him, like Amhuluk.

Until he hears it. The pulse. The cry from deep below. And he remembers how eons ago he had just barely managed to corner the mad king within the Hollow Earth. How he’d fought down to the last man, watching his many allies, even his dear friend Anguirus, fall to the madness of the Skarred One. He was desperate. He was tired. Defeat seemed inevitable. Until he saw it. A crystal, hung from the tip of the mad monarch’s whip. A crystal from his brothers mate who had disappeared all those years ago. The bastard had taken her. And done heaven knows what to her. And now he adorned a piece of her as a trophy. With fury like that of the death of a thousand suns, he charged forward. Mindless, mad, angry. Summoning all his will and power, he unleashed a blast which obliterated the surrounding ground, forcing the apes to retreat. As they grew closer and closer to their home, he finally managed to block the one pathway that could lead them back to the rest of the Hollow Earth. But it was, ironically enough, a hollow victory. His friends were slaughtered and he had only stalled the mad Titan and his army, not eliminated them. Ozymandias would’ve been able to finish it, he told himself.

Feeling that pulse for the first time since that fateful battle sent him into a frenzy. When he first felt it, he thought he was going senile. Even still, it sent him in a rage, maiming poor Scylla in Rome. She had just managed to survive, but it was not for lack of trying on his part. He’d lost control. A rest was what he needed, he thought. After all, he’d been dealing with rampaging titans for months. Monster X and Mothra had helped, but it was still something he felt was his duty. But as he tried to sleep, to block out all the memories that were flooding back, he felt it again. And for perhaps the first time since the Many had ravaged the world seven years prior, he felt true fear. Like he was well and truly alone, even amongst every other voice in the infinite sea. He had barely been strong enough last time, hell, he hadn’t been strong enough last time. He’d gotten lucky. He was weak, a shadow of the king he should be. He couldn’t do it again. He had more allies now, sure, he’d only manage to rally together a few loyal friends the first time, young and inexperienced king that he was. Now he had his queen, the young hybrid, and most of the awakened titans under his command. He probably could even get help from the young rival who had helped him defeat his mechanical mirror some years back. It would take some maneuvering, but he probably could convince him.

But it wasn’t worth it. It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t lose all those he loved all over again. Even if his queen could come back, the others couldn’t, and despite what it may seem he had grown fond of them all. No, he needed to do something different this time. It was time to feast. If the Skarred One wanted war, then he would be an army.

-

-

Just some thoughts cause I’m rereading Shamhat and getting ideas. Plus the current GxK brainrot lives rent free so I might as well put it to use. Might have some more “how could X work in the Abraxasverse” ideas later, though I promise they won’t be as fuxked as Godzooky’s was 😅

Definitely an interesting take and something to consider when it comes time for more timeline stuff! And honestly, stuff getting fucked up is on brand for AbraxasVerse, heh.

[blurbry]

Rambles

Rambling Day 1:    AO3 WARNING!!!! LONG POST AHEAD!            FIRST BULLET POINT!: I have a Pseud now. For when I have the feeling or need to write *EHEM* fics. However I Most likely won’t go into too much detail as said things actually make me flushed sometimes.(While I’m Not repulsed or uncomfortable talking about it or writing about it, I just thought I’d touch on the fact that I’m still experimenting with sexuality and am not too sure if I’m actually asexual or not.) A small warning, It may contain oc x character shippings, not just head-cannoned shippings.  I will most likely not post them Publicly as most of them would be physically for me to reread and improve my writing skills, rather than to cause discourse with one who may be Uncomfortably settled with such a subject.  Even if I do Post them Publicly on tumblr, They’ll be tagged Respectively and placed on a Main blog and art blog separate blog. still so the tag can be blocked and ignored. Tumblr added nsfw Content filters for the reasons sole for you to be able to browse your content without being hit in the face with a discomforting subject.   SECOND BULLET POINT!: I’m rewriting all my old fics.  Those of you who followed my AO3, whether you ended up there through lost in dysphoria, or perhaps you were there from my very first fic Broken Glass Shattered Spirits, You’ll notice they’ve all been deleted (except for the ones I’m particularly proud of.) This is because I’m freshly applying a new coat of paint!!  Rather than a baby tiny 1000 word fic, There will be more words, more filler text to make it more interesting. More Development in situations rather than a Rushed feeling of Needing to get this out. While doin so will take me a few months, due to having the most ADHD brain in my family, I assure you when a project has been begun it hasn’t been forgotten, it’s just been pressed aside for a later date. All I ask is Im not rushed or demanded to write faster, because that’s what leads to my sloppy 1000 word writing. Schedule for writings:    Begin Lost Family Au Writing and Master Explanation. Lost Family: An Au I Made which is a Link Separate Au. All the links have tragic Life stories about Siblings or parents or how their lifestyles effect them, Leading up to the events of the Four swords being pulled, and the four meeting each other. IN this AU, the swords are four elemental blades locked deep within Temple systems, that each of the four are called to pull when the time is right.  Begin Raptured Hyrule: Raptured Hyrule is another AU I began working on in 2021 with my friends, and finally decided to publicize in 2022. This AU is if darkness was never fended, and in a way, if Zelda was corrupted by dark cloud rather than killed. It’s very angsty........     Rewrite dancing in the starlight(bluexErune) so its less short and develops more to the relationships. Dancing Scene will still apply.     Rewrite Bluebird(Blue x Vio) Blue at war, Vio is a damsel in distress waiting for him to come home, only having letters and little embroideries and crochet projects to litter the house with.     Rewrite Broken Glass Shattered spirit.(Vidow) Vio is ignoring Shadow for deep studies, Shadow goes off to find something interesting to do and has a run in with a few threatening old friends. Rewrite Angels Flying High, Originally this fic was a RedxShadow Pure angst where Red Died, and Shadow destroyed the mirror a second time just so he could get that final ounce of happiness with him. However, I’m going to change its full aspect and Make it Angel!Red Au. It will still be Shadow x Red. Rewrite Sunsets and Lavender tea (Blue x Shadow) Poor Blue is suffering nightmarish trauma from being frozen alive and Shadow is there to help *cool~* his spirits (I’ll go back in the bad berry corner again) Rewrite Darkness Within: Green/Red Corruptive AU. At a last ditch effort to save the dying light that Red brought to the world, Green performs a dangerous and irrational ritual which results in Red becoming a creature of darkness. At first Red is weary, and its oh so torturous trying to tango with such a creature when He can only come out during the hours that one needs to sleep, but its so worth it when people suddenly become less afraid of Shadow because of Red’s doings. (Look lorulians can be nice people too, don’t fight me ) Rewrite: Everything is okay (Vidow Angst) Vio sustains injuries on the battle field by a mob of Moblins, Blue took his eyes of his back for only a second, only to turn and watch him be run through with a lizzal spear. Blue has a panic attack, He promised Shadow he’d make sure vio came home unharmed.. Vio almost dies, but miraculously was saved by a fairy and a very, Very upset travelling shadow.  These will not be redone in the exact ordering of this post.    

[fangirleaconmigo]

heya -

you did a four character game back in like, october, and what you wrote hit me so hard that i sometimes still visit the post/screenshot i have of it if i’m feeling particularly. sad. it’s one of the most important things anyone has ever said to me and you literally don’t know anything about me but it’s cool. and then at the end of my feels i always look at the tags you left , uh ,, ‘sorry im fully drunk right now’ and that is so goddamn funny. you suck. anyway i just looked at the screenshot again & thought maybe i should tell you. i had tony stark, sherlock, lambert, & iroh

Hello! Ok. I’ve read your ask a few times and I’m not completely sure how you feel about me because tone on the internet is hard. It seems like you like visiting the post but then you say that I suck so I’m not 100% sure 😅

So I am just gonna plow ahead and tell you how I feel about those posts. For those reading who weren’t following then or don’t remember, almost six months ago I posted this:

Ok, how about this game? Send me four pics of your favorite blorbos and I will psychoanalyze you.

Here’s how it works:

Send four pics

I need to know at least three of them. If it is live action scifi and fantasy, I’m very likely to know them. (If you want to do animated, I won’t know them unless it’s ATLA, Arcane, or Castlevania. I won’t know any video games other than The Witcher.)

I will psychoanalyze you.

This is for entertainment and fun. I am not a psychologist.

i might be too close for comfort. I might be incorrect. Pls pls pls don’t be mad. I don’t know you. This is just for fun.

I’ll do this til tomorrow.

Send me your blorbos.

I think waaaaaaaay too deeply about fiction, as anyone who follows me knows. I also think a whole lot about psychology and human behavior. That’s been more for my own survival.

So I thought hey this will be fun. I’ll look at the characters. I’ll find a common thread of emotional impact each of these characters can have on people. I’ll find a common point of emotional connection between them all. Then I’ll free flow.

And on one hand it was fun. I really do like doing it.

But on the other hand I started getting really really anxious every time I answered one. What if I missed the mark and offended the asker? Or worse? What if I hit too close to home and made them feel too vulnerable?

I know it’s just fictional characters and I was clear that it was for fun and I tried to come from a place of affection and positive uplifting thoughts for each person.

BUT STILL I didn’t know how I was making each person feel and that was freaking me out because what if I was making them feel bad?? (I often worry about the way I make people feel on the internet. I can’t see you guys so I don’t know how I’m making you feel so I get neurotic about it.) and not everyone responded to my answer and so ofc I just worried twice as hard when that happened.

So I have actually a lot of those asks left sitting unanswered in my ask box. It was really popular. People sent me asks who didn’t follow me, so even though people didn’t all rb their posts, it somehow broke containment (people were maybe sharing in dms or discord?) and I got a lot of them. But at some point my worry and anxiety about it stopped me finishing answering them. And now it’s six months later and I don’t know what to do with the posts I still haven’t answered. Would it be weirder to answer them or not answer them?

Anyway. Back to your post.

Everything I answer and put out there is with love even when inebriated and overly honest. And I just went back and reread my answer to you and went yep. That’s still what I see as the connective tissue between those characters. I hope on the balance it was a positive experience for you.