#the top of my heap

[prahacat]

5 things I like to write about

got tagged by the lovely @cocotter and just had to fill this (really like to write about the things I like to write about)

Decay. Mostly the decay of the mind, as my characters become so obsessed with an idea that it erodes their morality and drives them to make increasingly desperate and dumb decisions, often ending in tragedy. There's just something so tasty about writing a slow descent into madness. <3

Loneliness. Perhaps it's my love for introspective passages, but I tend to isolate my characters. They're stuck in remote settings, trapped in some kind of twisted reality only they experience (hello time loop horror), they feel like they have no one to really talk to, or they're just stubborn idiots who are unable to open up. Either way, they're lonely and longing for a kindred soul.

Grief. In a lot of my fics, the characters are haunted by loss, mourning either an actual death (sorry, Qui-Gon, you got fridged again) or their broken family relationships. Very often, this will be one of the few things they can actually bond over. I love to explore how they cope with their grief or find healing (unfortunately, they mostly just deal with it via 1)

Nature. This is more tricky to incorporate if you're writing fics that are set on Coruscant or aboard cold spaceships, but I love to sneak in a bit of nature-related world-building if I can. My fics will often feature descriptions of nature, cute animals, therapeutic gardening, or characters taking a stroll in nature to collect their thoughts (and I don't care about the canon stance on this, I want Dooku's palace to have gardens and greenhouses and all that pretty shit)

Obi-Wan and Dooku. Fairly obvious, I suppose :'D But the list wouldn't be complete without them. These babies are rotting my brain 24/7, there's all kinds of potential here and I'm never gonna get tired of squeezing them for tons of juicy goodness.

Tagging @rochenn @wibzenadarksiderwithasoftheart (if you haven't done this one already)

[iceman-maverick]

this audio is going crazy on tiktok rn but i can't post edits there since my account is monetized so here it shall live 💃

[sarucane]

Ed Teach's Stories

From practically the moment we meet him, Ed's identity is unstable. We know who is he (Blackbeard) from context, from the story told by the the room around him, by Izzy and the flag his crew. But the thing is, Ed doesn't fit the story of the Mad Devil Blackbeard. Two of his first few words are "good" and "love" for crying out loud. He's called "Blackbeard," but his beard is grey.

This instability exists because Ed himself isn't sure what story he's telling--or wants to tell. "I shouldn't be bored, I'm fucking Blackbeard!" All through his early episodes Ed is in increasingly desperate tension with his own identity. He's trying to tell stories within stories, wanting all the stories to be true at the same time, yet aware of the reality that the world is constantly trying to wipe one or another of the stories away. And not really trusting that he can tell the whole story of who he is.

In the first season of OFMD, Stede wears a different outfit every episode. Yet Stede remains the same: despite his internal tensions (almost despite himself) there's a stability to his identity. But all through both seasons of OFMD, Ed putting on a new outfit means he's trying to tell a completely different story about himself.

And underneath this cacophony, there's Ed. And Ed is himself a chorus of stories, a living contradiction. A patricidal murderer who was protecting his mother; a paragon of masculinity who longs for softness and fluidity; a man renowned for violence and madness who has in fact carefully cultivated that reputation and is extremely careful with his violence; a killer who doesn't kill, yet who does kill all the time just at a bit of a remove; a half a dozen names and personas and yet always Ed; unloveable, yet deeply loved.

At the beginning of the show, Ed isn't actually good at telling his own story. He's good at listening to other people's stories, and conforming himself to them often without conscious effort. But when he tries to really tell his own story--asking Stede to run off to China, singing his break-up song song, going to become a fisherman--he fails. We don't understand in the first season why his judgement clouds, why he becomes weak when he tries to tell his story. But in the second season after spending half an episode in Ed's mind, a painful truth is undeniable: Ed, like Stede, doesn't think he's worthy of telling his own story.

So instead of telling his own story, Ed let other people tell his story. In the first season, Ed built off what Izzy told him he had to be. But he couldn't lose himself in Blackbeard, no matter how hard he tried. So in the second season, when Ed couldn't face living with his contradictions anymore, he wrote an ending worthy of Blackbeard.

All this, because Ed thinks he can only be "himself" by telling one, single story about himself. By denying his contradictions, rather than embracing them. Splitting himself in two to tell himself a story, rather than telling the story himself.

What Ed doesn't believe or trust is this: For Ed to really be himself, he has to be impossible. Two contradictory things, at the same time.

The second season of OFMD is about learning to embrace all these contradictions. In each episode of OFMD, character look at the same object or situation (a wanted poster, a unicorn, a velvety suit, a relationship, a past trauma) and they tell two completely different stories about it. Sometimes one of those stories turns out to be wrong, but more often than not both are true, and something else--something beautiful-- is born from the place where those contradictions meet. And the characters, Ed most of all, learn to accept and balance this dissonance.

Thematically speaking, I'd argue that's why the second season of OFMD is more fantastical than the first: fantasies are contradictions, real and not-real at the same time. And isn't that what transformation is, in the end? What you are and what you are not, meeting and becoming "you"?

Transformation isn't all good. At first, Ed's fantastic stories hide his pain or invoke despair

But later, the fantasies make their way into reality. The impossible begins to shape reality--and opens a way for hope.

In the last episode of S2, Ed emerges from the waves as the kraken--but there's 3 musical tracks playing, three themes: the kraken, Ed, and Blackbeard. Then he reads a love letter, and has a deeply romantic moment with his boyfriend. He puts on a new outfit to escape the British, yet his personality doesn't change at all. When Izzy first apologizes to him, Ed says "I'm the one who should be apologizing," but then Izzy changes his entire understanding of their relationship. Becomes the first family figure to offer Ed permission to be himself.

Contradictions galore, and yet Ed is still Ed. Both who he was formed into by other people (his father, Izzy, Pop Pop) and yet who he is.

In the final scenes, Ed begins to finally accept the tensions of his life. He tells Zheng that yes, he wants to kill Richie--but he doesn't go on a revenge quest. And while before his forays into being someone else meant changing his name, his clothes and mannerisms, his whole story, he doesn't act like that at all in the last scene of the ep.

And Ed's been able to do all this, to come this far, because of Stede. Stede, who Ed was drawn to because he was a "fancy man who leads a brigade of imbeciles," yet had won a fight with Izzy. Stede, who looked at Ed at his lowest moment, after Ed had admitted that the entire basis of their friendship had been in bad faith, and said, "I'm your friend." Stede who, even knowing Ed wouldn't want to hear from him, poured his heart into letters about how their bond was unbreakable.

Stede is everything he is, all at the same time. And when Ed was drowning in his own contradictions, (a rope tied around him that he could not undo and yet had put on himself) trapped somewhere "inevitable, yet impossible," Stede appeared as a fantastic, beautiful creature and brought him home.

Stede lets Ed be everything he is, and sees it all as true and worthy of love. Even when Ed fucks up, it's all right.

And sometimes, telling two different stories about something doesn't lead to a fragmented self, doesn't drive people apart.

Sometimes, it means understanding. Means acceptance, safety, connection.

From discordance (contradiction), harmony. A gentleman can be a pirate. A man can be a bird, or a unicorn. Izzy can have been one of the good ones and a fucking nightmare. And Ed can tell all his stories, they can all be true--and he can still be Ed.

[thanks-obillma]

watched nerdy prudes must die and this happened

[mo-ok]

🥷 Ninja of Ninja 🥷

[meangan-thee-lesbian]

I just had to share this email I got so all y'all can appreciate the absolute state of welfare services in Australia with me:

The NILs Loan Scheme is a government funded, no interest loan scheme for people on low incomes, but this leaves me wondering exactly who tf can qualify for their loans. Because it seems like if you have any symptoms of poverty it's a no.

I applied because I need the clutch replaced in my van, which I live in. It's lucky that I actually CAN afford the cost myself (due to living in a van & not participating in Australia's increasingly ridiculous housing market). I thankfully can afford such an expense these days & was just looking for a responsible financial buffer, just in case. But if this had happened to me a few years ago when I first became homeless and was far less financially stable, then my next living situation wouldn't be "affordable housing" it would be a fucking tent.

Anyway, the backwards ass state of a GOVERNMENT FUNDED welfare scheme refusing to assist those who need welfare the most because they don't want to encourage homelessness or whatever the dumb fuck? Just really rustled my jimmies tbh. Just screams "yet another govt welfare scheme that's actually just about handing out money to fake charities & not helping the poor". Good Shephard just got on the "do not donate to these grifters" list along with the Salvos😒

[speaknowworldtour]

day 2: the tortured poets department

“and i chose you” // “i chose this cyclone with you” // “we found wonderland, you and i got lost in it. and life was never worse but never better”

“i promise that nobody’s gonna love you like me” // “who’s gonna hold you like me? and who’s gonna know you like me?” // “you searched the world for something else to make you feel like what we had”

“and if i would’ve known how many pieces you had crumbled into i might have let them lay” // “but i’ve read this one where you come undone”

“i think i’ve seen this film before and i didn’t like the ending” // “but i’ve seen this episode and still love the show” // “cause i know exactly where it leads but i watch us go round and round each time”

“and in the end in wonderland, we both went mad” // “everyone we know understands why we’re meant to be. cause we’re crazy”

[yannfredericks]

I keep thinking like owwwww I miss cursed child and then I’m like girl you saw it literally two weeks ago but the truth is what I’m missing is the 2016 mystery of it all

[cowboygimmick]

I wish I was allowed to be bad about eating without someone going into red alert and insisting I know better. can a fat bitch not have cookies and milk for dinner during an insane period/depressive episode? what if I just can't take care of myself rn? I don't want to be enabled, but I'm so tired of having to do everything right under the guise of "loving myself"

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Month 6, day 11

More materials! This time we have granite :D Brown is the default settings for the material setup, purple is with the settings played with :3

[a-nybodys]

ed so very clearly was going through a DEEP ass manic episode with the whole talent show thing to the point that he has no recollection of it, and i for one think thats so fucking tasty

[galaxseacreature]

made some "avocado chips" tonight and they're pretty good actually. but they're also basically parmesan crisps. so ofc they are

[whatareyoudoingwithamaserati]

I am uncanny valley walking, I am inhuman.

— Illex Corva.

[faggot-friday]

for the fic nomination thing. have any of my fics been nominated jk jk unless

you don't have to answer i'm just a tad bit self obsessed

HEAPS of your fics have been nominated fam

[blujayonthewing]

grabbing myself by the scruff and forcing myself to pick a thing and actually work* on it

*put on horns and dancing tights and wander around my workshop looking a bit lost

[underatedwords]

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