#the rest of this is just half-finished sentences and meandering paragraphs

[cinnamonsikwate]

haven't posted anything fandom-related in a while but here's a little something for #NamorWeek! snippets of a thing i started last year but will probably never finish 🥲

this was titled 'inframundo' in my drafts!

[widdlefangs]

Platonic 

Pairing: Bobby x ChildhoodFriend!MC Words: 1.7k Notes: Ok full disclosure I’ve used this for other fandoms but I just felt like it was so relevant to Bobby. I guess I’m doing fics now so maybe send me prompts or smth and I’ll jot some fics down. Headcanons too. 

Bobby clicked his pen for what seemed like the umpteenth time during this whole study session. He stared as his study buddy bit her lip at an equation she’s been writing yet again. She scribbled furiously before scratching it out with a frustrated groan. She leaned back on her chair and slumped with a whimper escaping her lips. Bobby nudged her foot with his own under the table.

“Hey,” he comforted his friend, “Come on, you need to take a break.”

He bounced off his chair and walked towards her small kitchen. Bobby found pride in the fact that he knows his way around like it’s his own. He got her stash of peppermint tea at the top left corner cabinet right beside the Christmas mugs. He hooked a foot on the lower cabinet where her small spoons were. He plugged the water heater at the bottom socket because the top sparked since he plugged a hair blower there once in one of their all nighters. With pronounced ease, he prepared the exact blend of tea he knew she loved with the precision of a friend who knew her inside out. He leaned back and watched her wallow in the pages of her book whilst the water boiled.

He was her friend. No, he was her best friend (he hoped, if no other human would agree to buying her tampons if she can’t leave the house). She was most definitely his best friend, none can deny that. Bottomline is, for the majority of their lives, it has always been platonic. Painfully platonic. 

It doesn’t matter if she cuddles between his legs on her couch whenever they watch Ghibli. It doesn’t matter if he strips butt naked in front of her as they change for a night out. It doesn’t matter if his parents already set up her clothes in Bobby’s closet and her toothbrush beside his. She and he shall be perpetually…just platonic. Sighing, he pushed the off button before it lit red knowing that she hated scalding her tongue.

He wondered how they’ve gotten here. There was a project once back in grade school where they were asked to write where they see themselves in twenty years. She was there in every paragraph, in every line, in every sentence in his write up. She was what came up to his mind when one would ask him who he envisions to be his wife someday. And that image hasn’t changed since. Perhaps it took root from the innocence of childhood—how hugging and cuddling and touching in general was deemed platonic in children, that’s why she’s gotten to used to it— but as respectable adults, it just seemed like he was doing all the responsibilities of a boyfriend without getting the benefits of one.

He shook his head at the thought of how hopeless he was. Someday, she’ll find a man that can’t love her half as much as he did. And she’ll think he’s the one. And someday he’ll find her cuddled up with him on her couch as he sits by at the other end just because he’s the best friend.

He felt a pair of slim arms wrap around his waist and a button nose nuzzle the back of his shoulder. Exactly  the type of behaviour he’d been elaborating in his head earlier.

“I smelled the tea.”

“I know you did, you can’t resist me.” he chuckled sadly. After knowing Bobby since childhood, she knew there was a matter of glumness in his tone. She tugged on his waist, urging him to face her.

“Don’t even bother telling me you’re all right. Spill it.” she looked up at him.

“Spill what?” he cocked an eyebrow, taking a sip at her teacup.

“Don’t spill what me, McKenzie. I know something is up with you,” she said, taking her tea from his hand and gingerly nursing it between her fingers.

“Nothing is up with me,” his mouth quirked, taking his own cup and smiling at her with tired eyes.

She frowned at that. Pursing her lips as she leaned on the kitchen island across him. He knitted their toes together while sipping his tea. He reached for the side of the refrigerator and took out the rest of the chocolate cake he baked from yesterday. Grabbing a fork, he pushed off the counter to lean into her, one arm supporting his weight on the counter his other balanced the two slices of cake on a plate. She placed her head on the crook of his shoulder out of habit. There she goes again.

“Tell you what, if you finish your slice first, I’ll spill.”

She gave him a bewildered look and he used that to his advantage by shoving the slice in his mouth. She quickly caught on and started stuffing her face with cake as well. In an effort to win, he shoved his entire piece in his mouth and grabbed the rest of hers and made a run for it.

“Can’t finish your slice now, can you?” he sputtered, mouth full of cake. Bobby jumped on her couch, nesting on it like a hawk. She protested below him, cheeks all puffed up in cake.

“Bobby I swear, I’m not afraid to push you off!” she stomped, barely able to speak.

“Oh yeah? Prove it!”

And that was all it took for him to be tackled to the floor with her straddling him. She had a wild look as she reached for the crumbled cake and ate it off his hand. He revelled in the feeling of her mouth around his fingers, he’d like to feel that more often. It was down to a battle of chewing. The first one to swallow wins. She planted her hands on his chest and narrowed her eyes at him as she chewed the food in her mouth furiously, even if it did make her look like a deranged animal. It’s not like they weren’t twenty-two year olds rolling around on the floor on a lopsided food eating contest.

She swallowed first. He let her. “Aha! I win. Now spill.”

He was still chewing, albeit leisurely now. He placed a hand on her hip as a sign to wait. She didn’t seem to mind the intimate gesture. He finally swallowed.

Taking a deep breath— for the confession and his hurting throat— he spilled.

“I was thinking how much I love how we’re so platonic. Even if I’m practically your boyfriend—no, your husband, with all that we’ve been doing.”

She gave him an incredulous look. Bobby can’t believe that this moment was where all his years of platonic relationship lead up to.

“That’s it? I wrestled you for that?”

He bit his lip—hurt that she reacted the way she did. The way she always would. She degraded his feelings—feelings that have in fact been pent-up for years. He was sick of it. Absolutely sick of it.

“Do you think what we have is platonic?” he spoke up. She noted the tone of a challenge in his voice. There was hurt there too. Unable to look straight into his eyes, she turned away.

“If someone walked into this room right now and see us, would they think we’re platonic? You’re straddling me in your pyjamas while I’m in my boxers and you think this is platonic?”

She gulped.

“I’m so tired. Tired of pretending that there’s nothing here,” he pushed.

“Bobby— I

In truth she didn’t know what to tell him, or how. There was just too much history between them.

“Could you tell me right now, to my face, that you don’t love me. If you can say that right now, I swear, I’ll let it go. I won’t ever bring up the topic ever again,”  he declared. There was an almost violent beating in his chest. An anxiety that couldn’t be quelled with anything but her words.

His heart clenched when she couldn’t reply to him. It spurned his anger even further.

With everything on the line, he kissed her. He kissed with all the fervour he’d been wanting since he met her. Bobby knew that this wasn’t how he wanted to reveal his feelings. He knew that this could very well end as a nightmare for the both of them.

Until he suddenly felt it. Her hands weaving into his hair like how he’d always imagined. Her lips pressing back with as much ardour. Her body curling into his as she kissed him. She kissed him. Back.

They stayed there for who knows how long, just lingering in the shade of the night, enjoying each other’s company in a whole other light. Finally, he broke away—he still had a point to make.

“Now did you think that was platonic?”  he murmured, a little breathless.

His spine was tingling, his hands a bit shaky, the world was spinning and the point of intersection was her. Innately her. Hers all along. It was her.

She muttered something incoherent, a little smile tugging on the sides of her lips and his heart leapt with joy. He tucked a loose lock of her hair behind her shoulder and kissed the skin that was revealed to him. He’d always wanted to kiss her there. It’s not like it hasn’t been accessible, on the contrary, it was a tease for him. To know that he could get so close and yet he couldn’t touch.

He released his meanderings and breathed on her skin, feeling  her shiver reverberate to his hands. It made him deliriously happy. “How about that? Was that platonic?”

She shook her head a little. Bobby allowed his hands to travel down her back like he has done so for the past thirteen years, but none so as leisurely as he did now.

“Can I ask if this is platonic?” she whispered and kissed the length from his ear to his jawline and latched on to the hollow of his neck. Bobby hadn’t meant to, but he groaned.

“Yeah that’s very platonic. Friends do that all the time.” he struggled to create coherent sentences with all the emotions swirling inside him. She leaned on her elbows and smiled at him.

“You know, Bobby, I love how we’re so platonic.”

“I love how we’re so platonic too.”

[kioraxerxo]

Platonic

Pairing: Brian May x F!Reader Word Count: 1,716 Rating: G Summary: You were Brian’s long time friend. And honestly, he was starting to get frustrated. 

Brian clicked his pen for what seemed like the umpteenth time during this whole study session. He stared as his study buddy bit her lip at an equation she’s been writing yet again. She scribbled furiously before scratching it out with a frustrated groan. She leaned back on her chair and slumped with a whimper escaping her lips. Brian nudged her foot with his own under the table.

“Hey,” he comforted his friend, “Come on, you need to take a break.”

He bounced off his chair and walked towards her small kitchen. Brian found pride in the fact that he knows his way around like it’s his own. He got her stash of peppermint tea at the top left corner cabinet right beside the Christmas mugs. He hooked a foot on the lower cabinet where her small spoons were. He plugged the water heater at the bottom socket because the top sparked since he plugged a hair blower there once in one of their all nighters. With pronounced ease, he prepared the exact blend of tea he knew she loved with the precision of a friend who knew her inside out. He leaned back and watched her wallow in the pages of her book whilst the water boiled.

He was her friend. No, he was her best friend (he hoped, if no other human would agree to buying her tampons if she can’t leave the house). She was most definitely his best friend, none can deny that. Bottomline is, for the majority of their lives, it has always been platonic. Painfully platonic. It doesn't matter if she cuddles between his legs on her couch whenever they watch Star Trek. It doesn’t matter if he strips butt naked in front of her as they change for school. It doesn't matter if his parents already set up her clothes in Brian’s closet and her toothbrush beside his. She and he shall be perpetually…just platonic. Sighing, he pushed the off button before it lighted red knowing that she hated scalding her tongue.

He wondered how they’ve gotten here. There was a project once back in grade school where they were asked to write where they see themselves in twenty years. She was there in every paragraph, in every line, in every sentence in his write up. She was what came up to his mind when one would ask him who he envisions to be his wife someday. And that image hasn’t changed since. Perhaps it took root from the innocence of childhood—how hugging and cuddling and touching in general was deemed platonic in children, that’s why she’s gotten to used to it— but as respectable adults, it just seemed like he was doing all the responsibilities of a boyfriend without getting the benefits of one.

He shook his head at the thought of hopeless he was. Someday, she'll find a man that can’t love her half as much as he did. And she’ll think he’s the one. And someday he’ll find her cuddled up with him on her couch as he sits by at the other end just because he’s the best friend.

He felt a pair of slim arms wrap around his waist and a button nose nuzzle the back of his shoulder. Exactly  the type of behaviour he’d been elaborating in his head earlier.

“I smelled the tea.”

“I know you did, you can’t resist me.” he chuckled sadly. After knowing Brian since childhood, she knew there was a matter of glumness in his tone. She tugged on his waist, urging him to face her.

“Don’t even bother telling me you’re all right. Spill it.” she looked up at him.

“Spill what?” he cocked an eyebrow, taking a sip at her teacup.

“Don’t spill what me, May. I know something is up with you,” she said, taking her tea from his hand and gingerly nursing it between her fingers.

“Nothing is up with me,” his mouth quirked, taking his own cup and smiling at her with tired eyes.

She frowned at that. Pursing her lips as she leaned on the kitchen island across him. He knitted their toes together while sipping his tea. He reached for the side of the refrigerator and took out the rest of the chocolate cake from yesterday. Grabbing a fork, he pushed off the counter to lean into her, one arm supporting his weight on the counter his other balanced the two slices of cake on a plate. She placed her head on the crook of his shoulder out of habit. There she goes again.

“Tell you what, if you finish your cake first, I’ll spill.”

She gave him a bewildered look and he used that to his advantage by shoving the slice in his mouth. She quickly caught on and started stuffing her face with cake as well. In an effort to win, he shoved his entire piece in his mouth and grabbed the rest of her and made a run for it.

“Can’t finish your slice now, can you?” he sputtered, mouth full of cake. Brian jumped on her couch, nesting on it like a hawk. She protested below him, cheeks all puffed up in cake.

“Brian I swear, I’m not afraid to push you off!” she stomped, barely able to speak.

“Oh yeah? Prove it!”

And that was all it took for him to be tackled to the floor with her straddling him. She had a wild look as she reached for the crumbled cake and ate it off his hand. He revelled in the feeling of her mouth around his fingers, he’d like to feel that more often. It was down to a battle of chewing. The first one to swallow wins. She planted her hands on his chest and narrowed her eyes at him as she chewed the food in her mouth furiously, even if it did make her look like a deranged animal. It’s not like they weren’t twenty-one year olds rolling around on the floor on a lopsided food eating contest.

She swallowed first. He let her. “Aha! I win. Now spill.”

He was still chewing, albeit leisurely now. He placed a hand on her hip as a sign to wait. She didn’t seem to mind the intimate gesture. He finally swallowed.

Taking a deep breath— for the confession and his hurting throat— he spilled.

“I was thinking how much I love how we’re so platonic. Even if I’m practically your boyfriend—no, your husband, with all that we’ve been doing.”

She gave him an incredulous look. Brian can’t believe that this moment was where all his years of platonic relationship lead up to.

“That’s it? I wrestled you for that?”

He bit his lip—hurt that she reacted the way she did. The way she always would. She degraded his feelings—feelings that have in fact been pent-up for years. He was sick of it. Absolutely sick of it.

“Do you think what we have is platonic?” he spoke up. She noted the tone of a challenge in his voice. There was hurt there too. Unable to look straight into his eyes, she turned away.

“If someone walked into this room right now and see us, would they think we’re platonic? You’re straddling me in your pyjamas while I’m in my boxers and you think this is platonic?”

She gulped.

“I’m so tired. Tired of pretending that there’s nothing here,” he pushed.

“Brian— I

In truth she didn’t know what to tell him, or how. There was just too much history between them.

“What? Could you tell me right now, to my face, that you don’t love me. If you can say that right now, I swear, I’ll let it go. I won’t ever bring up the topic ever again,”  he declared. There was an almost violent beating in his chest. An anxiety that couldn’t be quelled with anything but her words.

His heart clenched when she couldn’t reply to him. It spurned his anger even further.

With an almost frenzied manner, he kissed her. He kissed with all the fervour he’d been wanting to since he met her. Brian knew that this wasn’t how he wanted to reveal his feelings. He knew that this could very well end as a nightmare for the both of them.

Until he suddenly felt it. Her hands weaving into his hair like how he’d always imagined. Her lips pressing back with as much ardour. Her body curling into his as she kissed him. She kissed him. Back.

They stayed there for who knows how long, just lingering in the shade of the night, enjoying each other’s company in a whole other light. Finally, he broke away—he still had a point to make.

“Now did you think that was platonic?”  he murmured, a little breathless.

His spine was tingling, his hands a bit shaky, the world was spinning and the point of intersection was her. Innately her. Hers all along. It was her.

She muttered something incoherent, a little smile tugging on the sides of her lips and his heart leapt with joy. He tucked a loose lock of her hair behind her shoulder and kissed the skin that was revealed to him. He’d always wanted to kiss her there. It’s not like it hasn’t been accessible, on the contrary, it was a tease for him. To know that he could get so close and yet he couldn’t touch.

He released his meanderings and breathed on her skin, feeling  her shiver reverberate to his hands. It made him deliriously happy. “How about that? Was that platonic?”

She shook her head a little. Brian allowed his hands to travel down her back like he has done so for the past thirteen years, but none so as leisurely as he did now.

“Can I ask if this is platonic?” she whispered and kissed the length from his ear to his jawline and latched on to the hollow of his neck. Brian hadn't meant to, but he groaned.

“Yeah that’s very platonic. Friends do that all the time.” he struggled to create coherent sentences with all the emotions swirling inside him. She leaned on her elbows and smiled at him.

“You know Brian, I love how we’re so platonic.”

“I love how we’re so platonic too.”

[thelandofffanfictrash]

Real Talk: Nicky Parlouzer Meets Wow Wow Wubbzy

Name: Nicky Parlouzer Meets Wow Wow Wubbzy

Fandom(s): Sonic the Hedgehog and Wow Wow Wubbzy!

Chapters: 3

Description: I always loved Wow Wow Wubbzy (I miss that show) and the Sonic Manga so I wanted to make a crossover for them. Hiatus actually concedering continuing this story.

Summary: A scheme by Eggman gets Nicky, Amy, Eggman, and Little John (who gets retconned from the story by chapter 3) transported to the world of Wow Wow Wubbzy, where they meet Wubbzy and his friends.

Oooookay, so I’m pretty sure a good number of you are confused. Is this an OC fic? Where’s Sonic? Why are the only Sonic characters here Amy and Eggman? Who is Nicky Parlouzer?

The answer to the first question is actually a surprising “no”. This is not an OC fic. Even I was surprised. To answer the other three questions, though, we need to talk about the Sonic the Hedgehog manga. It’s an obscure piece of media (so obscure that I, someone that was an absolutely rabid Sonic fan that thought she knew everything there was to know, didn’t even know about it until I found this fic) that ran from 1992 to 1994. You can read this article from the Sonic Wiki if you want the nitty-gritty details, but the basic jist of the story is that it centers around a normal hedgehog boy named, you guessed it, Nicky (”Parlouzer” is likely a surname made up by the author), who lives in a place called Hedgehog Town. Nicky has the ability to transform into Sonic the Hedgehog to fight back evil, primarily Eggman. No one knows that Nicky is Sonic, though..not even Nicky himself knows. Other characters from the manga that appear in this fic are Nicky’s best friend, Little John, and Nicky’s girlfriend, Amy (the manga being notable for being the first appearance of Amy in any media, even before her game debut).

Now that we have that bit of context out of the way, we can actually start talking about this fic...because oh boy is there a lot to talk about.

To start, the spelling and grammar of this fic are really bad and author often abuses their caps lock key, because at least half the dialogue in this fic is written in all caps. The entire fic is also center-formatted, which is NEVER the right choice for a fanfiction. The first thing you see in this fic is a modified version of the Wow Wow Wubbzy theme song (which means I can check the song lyrics box on my bad fanfiction bingo card prematurely). The worst part, though, is that author actually gets some of the lyrics WRONG (as looking up the actual lyrics will immediately tell you). For example, the second line of the song is supposed to read “He's got a bendy tail and he likes it that way”, but this fic’s version says “He's got a baby tail and he likes to play, play, play” It doesn’t even match rhythmically, dang it.

*ahem*

The actual story immediately kicks off with Eggman kidnapping Amy two sentences in. As you can already tell, the pacing in this story is going to be absolutely horrific. In particular, everything in this story goes at...well...Sonic speed, and that’s not at all a good thing. It feels like this entire story was written in a rush without any thought put into it.

After that, Nicky transforms into Sonic right in front of Little John, which is already ANOTHER problem. The manga went to great lengths to keep Nicky’s secret identity, well, a SECRET. In this story, though, that’s kicked to the curb in the very first paragraph. Little John finds out first, then Nicky transforms AGAIN later in front of Wubbzy and friends, then Sonic transforms BACK into Nicky in front of Amy, then Nicky finds out. None of it is treated as a dramatic reveal, though, and nobody really reacts to it like they should. It just makes it really jarring.

Once we get to Eggman’s base, another problem with this fic rears it’s ugly head: AUTHOR NEVER EXPLAINS WHY ANYTHING HAPPENS. It’s never explained why Eggman decided to combat Sonic with a portal, why the portal malfunctions, or why this portal brought everyone to the world of Wow Wow Wubbzy. It all just kind of happens and the reader isn’t supposed to question it even though it makes no sense.

Now we end up in the Wow Wow Wubbzy world. Don’t worry if you don’t know anything about Wubbzy. Author only scrapes the bare minimum as far as needing to know things about Wubbzy goes, which is pretty much nothing. It’s very clear that author was much more focused on Nicky and friends in this fic and kind of throws Wubbzy in here to be here, which is a problem because you could replace Wow Wow Wubbzy with just about any other fandom and pretty much NOTHING about this fic would change. For your benefit, though, here’s what you need to know about Wubbzy for this fic (because my younger siblings were right within this show’s target demographic when it was airing): Wubbzy is your stereotypical cheery child character, Daizy is your stereotypical little girl character, Walden is your stereotypical bookish nerd character, and Widget is your stereotypical clumsy inventor character. I could go on about how the show does little to break away from cliches besides inserting constant non-sequiturs and lolrandom “humor”, but that’s another rant for another day in another place.

Anyway, the fic somehow both meanders and still manages to move way too quickly once Nicky ends up here. Wubbzy and Daizy find him injured, take him to Walden (for some reason), then Nicky wakes up and realizes he’s in another dimension. The four of them go to Widget for help, she agrees to build a portal, the rest of them go to find Nicky’s friends, they find Amy being mugged in an alleyway, Nicky transforms into Sonic to save her, then they talk about going to find Little John only for author to completely retcon him being here in the author’s note for the next chapter...even though author did nothing to try to write out Little John in previous chapters, which is extremely lazy and extremely confusing.

Instead, we’re thrown into a random Halloween party...which is where this story decides it wants to do a Beanus and give us a horribly-thought-out one-shot plotline that didn’t need to be here at all.

Basically, the party goes south when Eggman crashes in, takes Amy hostage, and mind-controls Wubbzy to be evil. Nicky has to transform into Sonic to rescue Amy and fend off Wubbzy while trying to get him back to normal. In the middle of all of this is a musical number, which is 137 LINES LONG AND DOES NOTHING FOR THE PLOT. CAN AUTHORS PLEASE STOP DECIDING THAT THEIR FICS NEED MUSICAL NUMBERS BECAUSE THEY DON’T MAKE SENSE WITHOUT ACTUAL MUSIC AND ONLY SERVE TO BE POINTLESS FILLER, ESPECIALLY WHEN THE CIRCUMSTANCE NEVER CALLED FOR IT.

After this is where the fic ends, with the author dropping it in favor of a rewrite that they also didn’t finish. I actually did read this rewrite...and, while the writing quality and pacing are slightly improved (KEYWORD: SLIGHTLY), everything else about it is somehow WORSE. I won’t be reviewing it, though, since I don’t really feel like I need to. Read it yourself if you want to see what’s wrong with it.

This fic is really, really, REALLY bad. It ranks among some of the worst I’ve ever reviewed, it’s that bad. This fic didn’t do a single thing right and that’s blantantly obvious. Heck, even Wow Wow Wubbzy itself is written better than this and it’s not often that you’ll hear me compliment the show responsible for causing my little brother to incessantly refer to things as [blank]ity-[blank]s for a good while. You can only hear the phrase “kickity-kickball” so many times before you start to crack, believe you me.

[myipscrapbook]

How to Do Nothing by Jenny O’Dell.

Below are my real-time thoughts as I read How to Do Nothing by Jenny O’Dell. It took me the whole studio time because I kept stopping to write my thoughts out. TL;DR: I’m blown away by the relevance of O’Dell’s ideas to my IP project and my life, by the quality of the writing, and by the variety of sources, both personal and secondary. Incredible. So glad this exists.

1:39pm: I'm feeling nervous about finishing a draft tonight, but I need to appreciate that this draft doesn't need to be perfect. Despite how great yesterday's meeting was, only just now I found myself failing to provide a simple sentence to someone describing what my project will be. The form is still up in the air. Those tasks I had been told to do after yesterday's meeting, I haven't done them yet. So, instead of fretting over organizing my homework or my proposal, I'm just going to do those tasks first. Step one: read How to Do Nothing by Jenny O'Dell. 

1:52: I'm reading How to Do Nothing, and I had to stop to write about how great this piece is so far. It starts from personal experience, walking in a rose garden, then describes O'Dell's work, with a touch of humor, but then also generously describes other people's works that also revolve around creating structures that reframe our experience of the overlooked into an act of appreciation. I'm at a part of the article where O'Dell is talking about labyrinths, and it reminded me of how Sophia mentioned that this process is actually revealing a common thread throughout my 4 years here, because I also am fascinated by mazes and labyrinths– getting lost in order to rediscover something, or as the article begins, being silent in order to discover what's worth saying. 

There's a difference between mazes and labyrinths. Mazes have an entrance and an exit; Labyrinths only have one entrance/exit. Mazes are prisons, like for the minotaur. (I know the myth says he was trapped in a labyrinth but it meant a maze-like structure... confusing) In a Maze, the aim and excitement is to escape, to get out. Labyrinths are not about escaping; you know that you'll end up back where you started. No, they're about getting lost, meandering, and returning changed and refreshed. They're designed, like the rose garden in O'Dell's piece, for people to stop and smell the roses. To observe and reflect. Labyrinths "make it possible not to walk straight through a space, nor to stand still, but something very well in between." 

^O’Dell

 I seriously can't believe how much this is related to my previous thoughts, inside and outside of the classroom. In Jennifer Metsker's writing class a year ago, I wrote about mazes, labyrinths, time capsules, observation/appreciation of the mundane. All before I really got involved with M-BARC's time capsule, and well before my IP thought process began. It's amazing how all these things are connected. 

Libraries are like labyrinths. I enjoyed getting lost in the special collections archives. When I had to retrieve a book, I took my time back there, and took plenty of photos. I mean, a lot of photos. The categorization and tall Richard Serra bookshelf canals encouraged curiosity. There's a whole alleyway of every Don Quixote edition and translation one can imagine, all the same, and all completely different. 

(weird panoramas are good) 2:10: Now she's connected the practice of Deep Listening to Bird Watching, or really "Bird Noticing."  Can't help but think about iNaturalist, and how the app has restructured how I move through the world. Now I pay attention to strange new birds, insects, plants, all around me. I learn their names. I observed what a ladybug larvae looks like, and how it looks when it turns into an adult, and all this I've done because of this app. Isn't interesting that a system, an architecture of noticing, can be as simple as a phone app?? 

2:14: Watching birds and deep listening really requires DOING NOTHING. (Reminds me of Bored and Brilliant, and The Abramovic Method, which shows how sometimes its hard to do nothing. http://www.wnyc.org/story/marina-abramovic-goldberg-performance-art/ )

 2:19: Noticing things increases the granularity of attention: you begin to notice AND IDENTIFY everything you never noticed before. O'Dell Compares this to realizing her mother spoke not 2 but 3 languages. 

"With effort, we can become attuned to things, able to pick up and then hopefully differentiate finer and finer frequencies each time." 

This is essentially the moral of the Parable of the Sunfish.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Sunfish

(And It's worth mentioning Robin Sloan's great app, Fish, about using this parable to better understand our relationship to observing the river of internet articles we share and never return to every day. "To return is an act of love" writes Sloan. I agree. To pay attention, to listen, is an act of love, too.) 

2:22: What's great about this article is that O'Dell always ties together her examples in concise language that gets to the root of their commonality. For example: (emphasis mine)

"What these moments of stopping to listen have in common with those labyrinthine spaces is that they all initially enact some kind of removal from the sphere of familiarity. Even if brief or momentary, they are retreats, and like longer retreats, they affect the way we see everyday life when we do come back to it."

 She's investigating these examples and revealing to herself and the reader why they matter, and what their effect is. Christo and Jeanne-Claude's work would fit nicely into this collection– certainly an architecture designed to defamiliarize oneself with the landscape.

 2:28: Now she's connecting many examples by their common underground aspect, and how it works to remove us from our environment, or context. 

 2:30: Now connecting it to John Muir's life?? And his near loss of vision, which convinced him to reconsider to what end he was using his senses to appreciate his world.... I never knew all this. (Only a few paragraphs ago she briefly mentioned Rebecca Solnit's description of an earlier example... How many people and places are mentioned in this piece?? And yet it all flows so naturally; none of it feels forced.) 

And then transitions it to her dad's experience of removal! Always tying it back to personal experiences (Why has this mattered to others? --> Why does this matter to you?) There is a structure to this whole piece in this way. Also, John Cleese managed to slip in too. 

2:36: ..."the granularity of attention we achieve outward also extends inward" What a realization. Reminds me of Robert Krulwich's commencement speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AA2JtZ_7yE  (love that man) about sitting on a rock, uncertain about his future, and just, sitting. And thinking. His granularity of attention increased internally... He realized not only why he was unhappy as a lawyer, but why he was unhappy seeking a perfect love life, a reframed what his goals were. There are SO MANY IDEAS in this article. God I should print it out to keep on my desk. 

2:45: Great paragraph on "Bios." What is my "bio"? What is my artist statement? How do I describe myself? 

2:46: The precarity of nothing: A new section does a turn that Metsker would approve of: points out an obvious critique of this logic (one I admit I hadn't thought of at first.) 

2:50 This article is taking an interesting turn into what the value of public spaces is, and the value of doing "what we will." The value of doing things that have no economic purpose. I can feel guilty about doing things that have no economic purpose.

This reminds me of 17776, the speculative fiction published this summer about a world in which, for some reason, everyone stops dying and being born. All of us here, we live forever, and no one else will. Without death, the whole idea of "spending time productively" falls apart, and with it many Americans' sense of purpose. After a few decades, a century, people begin to get past this capitalist mode of life-meaning, and start to spend their time, well, playing. In this story, it focuses on how immortal everyday americans play football in a future with no end. It's absurd and oddly beautiful at parts. 

 2:57: Took a break and ran into Franc. Told him I was reading the How to Do Nothing, and how excited I was by it. He said he enjoys looking at my blog and seeing what I'm thinking about, and feels that I'll know exactly what I want to do real soon. 1. I'll never stop being surprised this blog gets read. 2. That vote of confidence is really encouraging. I'm starting to feel the same way. I also told him that I got the invite to the dinner with Mark Dion: "That's the way to do it," Franc said. Feeling great. 

 3:02: 

"The removal of economic security for working people — 8 hours for work, 8 hours for rest, 8 hours for what we will — dissolves those boundaries so that we are left with 24 potentially monetizable hours that are sometimes not even restricted to our time zones or our sleep cycles." 

Oh my god. That Uber game taught me exactly this unsettling point. Every hour of one's day became a resource for Uber to mine for money, at the expense of one's quality of life. 

3:17:  

"I know that in the months after the election, a lot of us found ourselves searching for this thing called ‘truth,’ but what I also felt to be missing was just reality, something I could point to after all of this and say, this is really real." 

I am blown away that this O'Dell reached this point in this same article. This is what I was grasping at very early this semester, but I never imagined it would in any way be connected to this other topic, of slow observation and "doing nothing." Perhaps close observation of the tangible world around us IS a way of addressing Truth. 

I am reminded of my conversation with Julian, the Arcade Cellist, the one who was spouting off his beliefs that we never landed on the moon, and that the earth is flat. However, after an hour and a half talking, he gets to this point:

“The things you know are real to you every day in your hand. You can see them. The things we don’t know, they’re everywhere. ... This is real to me."

“This” being his cello, his music. And he started playing a beautiful song, and I could at least appreciate what he meant. 

Photo credit @Mark Bialek. My 4min Audio Piece:

https://drive.google.com/a/umich.edu/file/d/0BwjQk6D2fHggZFVMclJLdVBrYTQ/view?usp=sharing

Since the election, and even in the months leading up to it, I've considered deleting my facebook, or at the very least avoiding it. Not avoiding the NEWS, but the chatter. Looking at sidewalks and fire hydrants and bugs, walking outside, felt very grounding. This article feels very validating because I haven't talked to anyone about this feeling, that it can feel refreshing to take stock of the immediate truths around you, the air and the sidewalk, the flowers and trees. Playing the cello. There's no agenda to it, no politics, no hate, only greater attention and understanding.

This is also what made David O'Reilly's game Everything so profound to play; It was a game based on this idea of doing nothing, and appreciating being a member of this world, on par with the microbes and birds and comets. There's literally a game mechanic for announcing you exist, or that "I am,' called "singing," as well as a game mechanic for "dancing," or moving with others of a similar type, not towards a destination, but for the sake of moving. Isn't that beautiful? Isn't that NOT economically productive? Isn't that all that really matters? 

 3:29: Oh god O'Dell's talk about Herons, and posting photos of them on twitter, is exactly what I've been doing with bugs and creatures around town. The Grey Cross Spider that greets me on my way into North Quad. The Boxelder Bugs that welcome me into the Duderstadt. 

(Hello cricket!)

Hell, this is how I used my Snapchat stories this summer, even now sometimes. I stopped uploading photos of myself or what I was doing, and instead I started to share videos of ducks. and squirrels. and swans. and caterpillars. and clouds. And I really liked it. And I even got comments from one or two friends that they really liked it too. Who knew Snapchat could be a place not explicitly for making others jealous about your social life? Maybe it could be a place for moments like these. 

 3:35: oh my god, I can't say how many times my brother and I have talked about befriending crows. It's on our bucket list. My brother loves loves loves birds in a very similar manner to O'Dell here. He once tried to make friends with crows by laying out peanuts like this, but they always got swiped by a seagull. Pssh. In a past life, I imagine that my brother was a Default Wren™. That's what we call those wrens, you know the ones, the Default brown birds everywhere. Here's an audubon picture of one: 

3:43: This is just unreal. O’Dell arrived at the same point I reached at 3:17... This “direct sensuous reality” is like a “life raft,” as it was for Julian, the arcade cellist. The fact that she writes this following the election, and that I had the same response to the election in my life, is validating, because like I said, you don’t see this perspective at all on social media. 

“I am not an avatar, a set of preferences, or some smooth cognitive force. I’m lumpy, I’m an animal, I hurt sometimes, and I’m different one day to the next. I hear, I see, and I smell things that hear, see, and smell me. And it can take a break to remember that, a break to do nothing, to listen, to remember what we are and where we are.”

People aren’t encouraged to talk about the mundane tactile world on social media. We’re encouraged to share things of “importance” and social merit, and to deliver our opinions on articles. I don’t ever share images of mundane findings on facebook; no one does. Nothing screams "boring person” than posting images like that. But maybe I am boring! Or at least by this definition of interesting and boring, I totally am. There’s a lot of shame in doing something “unproductive.” And anyways, there’s FAR more important things out there to post about than my day-to-day social life, and my political hot-takes. Seriously. And just as scandals and outrage is important, so too is taking the time to appreciate the immediate world you’re a part of, so you can react thoughtfully to these events.

I remember this summer, when I was thinking about my IP project, I was so angry, and I felt I was OBLIGED to address Donald Trump, yet I was exhausted by his existence and the hatred around the issues that he inflamed. It was all distracting from the importance underneath those issues. I stepped away from facebook for a while, and talked with my brother about my thoughts on this, and his advice for me was not to make something that directly talked about Donald Trump, but rather identify and address what angers me about him. I realized that what angered me most about him is his distorted view of all sorts of Americans. I remember realizing in this moment, AHA! I know what I’ll do! I’ll talk to my neighbors! I’ll interview my neighbors about their lives. Because my block is home to people of many religions, backgrounds, countries of origin, passions, jobs. It’s home to people of a variety of lawn care regiments and any number of children. It’s a New Jersey block. My block is America. Talking to my neighbors is a way for me to tangibly grasp on to what America is. It’s immediate and it’s real. It’s Truth. 

Although I didn’t know it at the time, that’s precisely what spoke to me about that concept. I didn’t have enough time in the summer to execute on this idea, but I instead I put myself in more conversations with my neighbors, and in that way, was trying to appreciate being a part of their community. Doing nothing taught me what I needed to do. 

 “It’s a kind of nothing that’s necessary for, at the end of the day, doing something.” –––This.  4:07: 

...“self care “is poised to be wrenched away from activists and turned into an excuse to buy an expensive bath oil.” 

Exactly. This kind of “self-care,” this kind of “doing nothing,” is not/should not be misconstrued as disengagement, but is actually really its own form of engagement. Especially after this past election, it felt like you had no agency in the shitshow. But this kind of “doing nothing” can help clarify what true agency you DO have, so that you know what sorts of actions you CAN do that will have a positive effect.  4:15: My computer dies... I go back to central campus to charge...

4:34:  “Doing nothing teaches us how to listen.” In this context, this means listen to OTHERS. 

4:35: (emphasis mine)

“But even with the problem of the filter bubble aside, the platforms that we use to communicate with each other about very important things do not encourage listening. They encourage shouting, or having a “take” after having read a single headline.” 

Oh man, this is what I was thinking at 3:43. 4:38: Connectivity vs Sensitivity. Sensitivity is more time, so, “too expensive.”

4:40: 

“So, self preservation and the cultivation of sensitivity — these are two somethings we might get from nothing. But there’s one more: an antidote to the rhetoric of growth.”

O’Dell zooms out here, but is also really squeezing the most out of this idea. The article could’ve wrapped up here, but it has more to say. These insights don’t come without plenty of time spent sifting through these ideas. This medium article is a goddamn thesis. 4:49: This section about daily care, routine maintenance, vs growth, “progress,” disruption– it reminds me a lot of the issues confronted in the tech world with the quantified self, fitbits and the impulse to one-up your best mile run time, or to beat your friends. 

This is actually what I decided to focus my sci fi prototype project for this month on. If some tech is designed to make us more competitive, can tech be designed to make our lives more routine, daily, reflective lives? Continued daily practice and care and work is so meaningful and underrated compared to “working smarter, not harder” and “innovation.” O’Dell also points out the gendered nature of these topics. 4:58: The point O’Dell makes about Solnit’s Paradise Built in Hell is exactly what I felt about recent Stamps Lecture Series speaker Keiji Ashizawa’s work in Ishinomaki following the 2011 earthquake in Japan. Ashizawa immediately worked towards bringing people together to rebuild as a community. For the terror of that disaster, this kind of work is the most noble and rewarding sort I can imagine there is. 

(When Rebecca Solnit came to campus last February, she opened her lecture up to questions. I waited on line to ask her what she would recommend we put in the Bicentennial Time Capsule, regarding her speech on “generational amnesia.” There was no time left in the lecture to answer all the questions, but she let the remaining people on line speak their questions anyway. So I go the honor of asking Solnit a question, although not the pleasure of hearing her response.)

5:03: 

“And I’m suggesting that we fiercely protect our human animality against all technologies that actively ignore and disdain the body, the bodies of others, and the body of the landscape that we inhabit.”

  This section is a call to action. Metsker would approve. Nicely paired with images of Elon Musk and Soylent. This was the theme of Robin Sloan’s book Sourdough, which heavily features a soylent-type brand. 

Emphasis mine:

“There are certain people who would like to use technology to live longer, or forever. Ironically, this desire is a perfect illustration of the death drive from the Maintenance Manifesto (“separation, individuality, Avant-Garde par excellence; to follow one’s own path — do your own thing; dynamic change”). To such men I propose that a far more parsimonious way to live forever is to exit the trajectory of productive time, so that a single moment might open almost to infinity. As John Muir once said, “Longest is the life that contains the largest amount of time-effacing enjoyment.” 

CLAP CLAP CLAP 5:23: I finished the article and spent time listening to the silence of the Gordon Hempton “Desert Thunder” track, linked to at the end. This article is a lot to process. 

IN CONCLUSION

I am so glad Jenny O’Dell synthesized these ideas so well and put these words out into the world. I look forward to reading her other writings and looking at more of her work, which she reflects on briefly to close this piece. 

O’Dell says she doesn’t know what’s next for her, or what all these thoughts add up to. I don’t either for myself, but I’m very excited to see what she ends up doing next. Same goes for me.