#this is about every podcast protagonist ever actually

[aro-of-spades]

they love him for his bitchy attitude and avoidant tendencies

[novelconcepts]

Another year, another absurd amount of books read (296, because if I wasn't reading or writing this year, my brain was on fire). I was asked again for my top books of the year, so here we go: 2023's top 10, in no particular order.

This was the first book I read of the year--literally, vacated the hangout with my wife and sibling-in-laws to sit on their couch upstairs and eat through it. Do you love The Fall of the House of Usher, but wish for a nonbinary protagonist and a lot more mushrooms? This is the book for you! (T. Kingfisher is fucking rad, I made a concerted effort to only list ONE of her books on here, but honorable mention goes to The Twisted Ones for fucking me upppp.)

A gay, post-apocolyptic Pinocchio retelling involving copious robots, found family elements, and a cool-ass treehouse. Klune always hits for me with his unrepentant queer family dynamics and sense of humor. Honorable mention to the first two in the Green Creek series (although that's got a lot more...adult elements in among the werewolves, you've been warned).

I thiiiink I found this through The Homo Schedule podcast (PSA: if you missed out on Jasmin Savoy Brown and Liv Hewson doing a podcast together, now you know better), and it wrecked my shit. Tons of trigger warnings, as this is a memoir about abuse within a queer relationship, but it's so beautifully written. I personally suggest listening to the audiobook first, then standing anxiously behind someone at a book warehouse sale, hoping they'll set down the only paperback copy so you can swipe it.

A fantastical-historical reimagining in which the KKK is filled with literal monsters, and Black women are resistance fighters armed to take them out. Visceral and intense, and truly an excellent horror story.

Just. Such a soft time travel story about a daughter and her father and cherishing the time you get with loved ones. I was thoroughly unprepared for how lovely I found this one. It's very kind.

Spooky house, take-no-shit redhead, protective sibling elements, bisexual recluse with a sword who really just needs a nap. I haven't found a Harrow book yet I haven't slapped five stars on. She's so good at character and atmosphere, and I'm always surprised at how fast her stories race by.

The whole Daevabad trilogy (of which this is the first book) is just magical. A girl from the mortal world finds herself embroiled with the centuries-long prejudices and wars of djinn in a fantastical city. It's one of the rare stories of its kind that does have a love triangle, but doesn't feel like a love triangle; it's far less interested in the insufferable "who gets picked" than it is in the actual horrors these people are both perpetrating and coping with. It's an intoxicating ride.

Fuck You, TERFS: the book. Given that fact, there's obviously quite a lot of transphobia to deal with, but it's very clear that those people are wrong, and it's a super-engaging (and super-oh-god-what-comes-next) witchy time populated with queer, protective, interesting characters I'm excited to see again in the follow-up.

Have you ever wanted a haunted house story with visceral imagery and a rather lovely twist? Gailey has you covered. As much as I enjoyed The Echo Wife, I think I actually loved this one more, and it makes me so excited to see what else they've got up their sleeve.

One of my final reads for the year, when I was just churning through hardcovers at the speed of sound. I love this book. I recognize it won't be for everyone, but it takes so much of what I love about IT (one of my all-time favorite books, despite its flaws) and twists it through the lens of an author who escaped the Mormon church. It's horrific, it's fantastically abstract in places, it explores childhood and memory, imagination and abuse, and almost every character is queer. It's a great "I simply cannot sleep until I've finished" read.

[aa-400]

malevolent and the queer-coded villain trope

*disclaimer please respect the #masked tag. while i'm putting these thoughts out into the ether they're not really meant for harlan to see as i don't want to be put on blast for criticising the show. this is not me attempting to malign this podcast or its creator or to go "it's bad and problematic actually so don't listen to it" because that's a frankly horrible and unhelpful way of engaging with media and the world at large. i'm certainly not going to stop enjoying malevolent wholeheartedly or supporting harlan in his creative endeavours. this is not an accusation, it's an observation.

i've been thinking about the queer-coded villain trope in a separate context recently, but something clicked for me with part 34. horror (and other genre fiction but let's focus on the relevant genre here) has a tradition of placing queer elements within the subtext. it's a means of Othering and used to separate the protagonist from whatever evil entity they're up against in the story, be it man or creature, and where the the tropes of the monstrous queer and the queer-coded villain are born from.

a brief second disclaimer. i'm a queer villain and queer horror enjoyer and here to reclaim every single queer-coded villain and monster ever created but acting like the trope doesn't have a problematic, negative history is a sucky way of engaging with and examining a piece of media so let's not do that.

aaanyway, to the actual meat of this post: i believe malevolent reiterates the monstrous queer / queer-coded villain tropes however unintentionally and they go unexamined in the text.

first, we have kayne. flamboyant, exaggerated kayne who calls arthur—and to an extent john—pet names. i don't really think i have to go into detail for people to know what i'm getting at.

then we have larson. yeah, larson. in particular, i'm referring to the scene where arthur wakes up in the larson estate and his clothes have been removed. larson approaches arthur while he's in bed, vulnerable, and while there's not anything untoward happening in the text, it's still very ... master of the house and the gothic heroine, for lack of a better comparison. actually, think of count dracula and jonathan harker in castle dracula — the dynamic is very reminiscent of that, and dracula is a famously queer coded monster in part for that whole thing.

and finally, there's the butcher. a predator—a serial killer—obsessed with chasing arthur down. and boy did part 34 lay it down thick. i mean, he hears peggy gordon in his head when he hunts arthur and sings it to him when he's come to get him. it's a song about a man's unrequited love and it's pretty obvious the butcher's meant to be the man while arthur is peggy, who slighted him when he escaped from the butcher back in the train. and then as if that wasn't obvious enough he has a line about falling in love with his victims. "it's dedication, devotion, a bond. (laugh) sounds a bit like falling in love, doesn't it? maybe i suppose you could say i've fallen in love with each and every one of them. with each and every animal." which is then followed by more arthur-specific obsessing.

harlan has explicitly stated that arthur isn't queer rep, so unintentionally what's happening in the text is that the heterosexual protagonist is pitted against these queer-coded malevolent entities in a way that's pretty text book.

none of these characters i used as examples are written to be explicitly queer, but the coding is certainly there. again, i'm not saying harlan is a secret queerphobe who is putting this subtext in malevolent intentionally—i can with confidence say that we can safely assume that isn't the case! but, like i said when i was prefacing this post, queer subtext in the monstrous and villainous have a recorded history within horror. it's really easy to reiterate tropes like that if you create within a genre without actively examining your work and its wider context, and i think that's what happening here.

so what was the point of this post? there isn't much of one, really, i just made an observation and wanted to share because i believe in and enjoy examining the things you love critically. and i do love malevolent, with its queer-coded villains and all. i'm not calling for anything to change in the story, or accusing harlan or anyone else of anything; i'm just having thoughts about the wider scope of horror media and where malevolent fits within it and i'm using a cda and queer theory oriented brain to do it.

[writing-is-a-martial-art]

happy halloween!! who is mr rot and what is his deal?

Happy Halloween!!

That is one of my favorite questions of all time actually buckle up we're going for a ride-

Mr. Rot is the central character (although not strictly speaking protagonist, fun complicated narrative structure I haven't quite worked out yet in there) of the podcast I'm working on, tentatively named Maldeot (future changes possible), with the collaboration of @thinkabouttheimplications (shoutout to Luka, voted most likely to be the voice of Mr. Rot once we get to recording, also the guy who put literally all the musical themes and a bunch extremely fun characters in here) and @mongrel-mage (his idea for fashion designs of Maldeot <3 also his guy who ends up in situations <3)

Mr. Rot is the fast talking darling of the public, radio host and general announcer person for the city of Maldeot, a beautiful little (actual size undetermined and perhaps unknowable) island city that's the heart of theatre and radio entertainment in a weird mirror version of the 1920s golden age of Hollywood where the film industry never actually became a thing, and also happened with this ambiguously placed city instead of Hollywood at its center. Easy, right?

Mr. Rot is also an undead freak (deeply affectionate) who lives in the city's catacombs and plots its destruction in his free time. He's about to turn a century old and let's just say he's having a bit of a post-life crisis. The city's mayor is also his ex, who's also immortal and... Well, they didn't part on the most flawless of terms, so having to cooperate with her is Not Good for his mental well-being <3 (he is also bisexual) (I feel the need to mention it every time because it never comes up because nobody wants him) (he also died and came back having transitioned and renamed himself).

Although his villain vibes are ever present, he considers his quest to destroy Maldeot and himself with it - the two are inseparably tied together - an act of noble self-sacrifice for the Greater Good, due to the city of Maldeot being [REDACTED] [HORRIBLE SQUELCHING NOISES] [UPBEAT JAZZY TUNE CUTS IN], and I can't say he's entirely wrong (he is mostly wrong, though).

He is also sad, I need to stress just how sad this radio man is. There's a good chance many a tragic event could be avoided if he took a moment to consider he may not in fact be in a tragedy and entirely doomed, but that would be a different podcast entirely.

*puts him in your trick or treat bucket thing* happy Halloween, shake him around to your heart's content.

[seraphtrevs]

Do you have some favourite analyses about Lalo ? (From you or others)

Do I ever!

Lalo is Gay

And I don't mean "can be interrupted as gay" or "the straights wrote a gay character without realizing it", both of which are fine reasons to say a character is gay.

But I mean actually written on purpose gay. Lalo and Gus are written as foils who are superficially different - calculating/spontaneous, orderly/chaotic, serious/playful.

But if you look a little closer, they have a lot in common. Both have no personal life outside the game. Both are playing 5D chess while everyone else is playing checkers. Both are loners who trust almost no one. Both don't flaunt their wealth. Both are motivated by devotion to a loved one.

They're so alike, in fact, that they can almost read each other's minds - Lalo immediately knows who got him sent to jail and who sent the assassins after him, even though he didn't have proof. Gus never believed for a second Lalo was dead, even though every scrap of evidence pointed to it being the case, including a corpse matching Lalo's dental records. Lalo knows Gus tapped the phone. Gus knew Lalo was headed for the lab.

So - although different at first glance, their essential natures are the same. Gus is gay, ergo...

And there are context clues pointing to his sexuality. He's a confirmed bachelor despite the fact that he should be having kids to carry on the family dynasty. He declines the opportunity to have sex with a woman, even though there were very practical reasons for him to have sex with her. Being invited into her home and poking around once she was asleep would have been easier than breaking in, but he chose to hide in the bushes. Plus, he forces Nacho to elope with him.

Will we ever get confirmation? Probably not. But I'm a legit truther on this

Lalo is Satan

Mira -

It's the same picture.

Lalo tempts Jimmy into selling his soul to him, which he later comes to collect. And as I've talked about probably too much, Nacho is very explicitly a Christ figure. Lalo tries to tempt Nacho with power and wealth, but Nacho is never tempted. They really are Cartel Satan and Cartel Jesus, and I love that that ties them together

Lalo is an anti-protagonist

Which is a term I just made up. He's not an antihero - that would be Jimmy. It's just that he hijacks the narrative whenever he shows up. He has a very protagonist-like story - Gus and Nacho are the ones who are sabotaging him, when all he wants to do is protect his family. Assassins are sent to his home, and he defeats them single-handedly. He is betrayed by someone he trusted - someone who he has always treated well and genuinely liked.

But he's not a protagonist! He's a villain, who does very villainous things! On the Insider Podcast for the Black and Blue episode (I think), one of the writers mentions how much she roots for Lalo when he's away from the lead characters. He's written for you to root for, and then feel weird about rooting for.

He's the embodiment of Chuck's final, terrible advice to Jimmy - if you're going to do bad things, don't bother feeling guilty about it. And he only shows up once Chuck is gone. Does Chuck really want Jimmy to be like Lalo? Is Kim's "ends justify the means" attitude in season 6 warranted? How much does motive matter?

@lalo-tellmeagain - we were talking about his blue shoes - I don't have any production notes on this or anything, so this is just my personal interpretation. But blue is the color of the good guys in BCS. Lalo's blue shoes are ironic.

[grahamfolgersdeliciousnotebooks]

There were a lot of instances, really, that could be considered their "first kiss." A look at some moments that might, depending on your perspective, count as Jon and Martin's first kiss. For the Jonmartin week day 1 prompt "First Kiss" - Updates one chapter a day, every day of Jonmartin Week.

For the last day of @jonmartinweek week, I'm posting what I intended to be the last chapter of the fic I wrote for the day 1 prompt, "First Kiss." However, someone in the comments of chapter 8 got me thinking about two additional chapters I could add to the end, if I wanted to turn this epilogue into an interlude. Please let me know (either here or on AO3) if you'd be interested in me writing two more chpaters exploring the end of the series, and what comes after. In the meantime, enjoy this quiet safehouse moment, and something that is definitely not Jon and Martin's first kiss.

They kissed quite a bit at the safehouse. Jon thought they had earned that right.

Cups of tea were always handed over with a kiss on the forehead. Jon lit a fire in the hearth and was rewarded with a kiss on the cheek. When the morning fog rolled in and Martin suddenly froze, eyes glazed over with bitter memory, Jon took his hand and pressed a kiss to each of his knuckles, murmuring soft, it’s alright ’s and stay with me’ s, and when Jon woke up from a nightmare with tears in his eyes and no breath in his lungs, Martin tugged him close, kissed the back of his neck, and told him it was just a dream.

They orbited each other like stranded satellites, never drifting far, always drawn back by the gravitational pull between them. Jon knew it wasn’t sustainable, this anxious, clinging codependency, but neither one of them was ready for anything else right now. That would have to come with time.

Jon stood up from where he’d been knelt in front of the hearth, tending the fire, and wiped the dust from his aching knees. Martin looked up from his knitting and stretched his arms out to Jon in obvious invitation. Jon did as he was bid, sinking into the cushions beside Martin and letting himself be pulled close until he was resting on Martin’s chest.

“How was your day, dear?”

Jon laughed. “You were here for most of it.” He cast his mind back, trying to think of something over which they could make conversation. “I’m coming around on this book,” he said, gesturing to the spy novel that was currently resting on the end table. “I think it might actually be a brilliant work of satire.”

“Oh? So you don’t think it’s ‘trite and overwritten, with clear overtones of misogyny’ anymore?”

“Oh, no, it definitely is,” Jon said. He sat up and stretched himself across the couch to grab the worn, cracked paperback. “Listen to this.” He flipped to the page he’d dogeared earlier, when Martin was in the shower and Jon had been buzzing with the urge to subject him to the passage. “Lindsey didn’t bother with a bra; she just slipped an old Yale tee shirt over her ample chest and bounced to the door. She regretted that decision a moment later when she saw the shredded, 6’4” bulk of Jack Masterson – That’s the protagonist’s name, Jack Masterson – on her doorstep. Her breasts perked up at the sight of him, and she was certain he could see her nipples standing at attention through the thin cotton of her shirt.”

“That’s– awful!” Martin exclaimed through wheezing laughter. “That can’t be real!”

“My point exactly!” Jon said. “It has to be a work of incisive self-parody, because no real human man could ever write that and expect it to be taken seriously.”

He settled back against Martin’s chest and rode the aftershocks of another wave of laughter. “You can borrow it if you like,” he offered. “I’m nearly finished.”

“I’ll pass, thanks.”

They laughed again, more softly, then fell into a comfortable silence. The fire popped and crackled beside them, and a log fell against the grate with a sharp crack. Outside the window, the crickets began to chirp. The lamplight and the fire cast a warm golden glow over the room, gilding the overstuffed armchair, the television set that didn’t get any channels, the axe that Martin used to chop firewood and that they both tried not to think of any other uses Daisy might have had for.

“It still feels like a dream,” Martin murmured eventually.

Jon twisted around so that he could look him in the eye while they spoke. “What does?”

“This? You? All of it,” Martin said. The reflection of the lamplight had flecked his eyes with gold as he stared at Jon in affectionate disbelief. “I’m… I’m glad we get to have this,” he admitted. “Even if Jonah kicks down the door tomorrow, drags us back to the Panopticon, plucks out our eyes – whatever he’s planning – we’ll always have had this. Nothing can change that.”

There were a thousand things Jon could have said to that, but in that moment, all of them felt insufficient, so instead he bowed his head and lowered his lips to Martin’s.

It wasn’t their first kiss, by any stretch of the imagination, but it was soft and sweet and languid. They weren’t in any hurry, anymore. After a moment, Jon pulled back and simply stared down at Martin, sprawled beneath him. His eyes had slipped closed and his lips were parted and his cheeks were growing pink. It might have been the most beautiful sight Jon had ever seen. When he opened his eyes, he looked dazed, and more than a little dazzled. Jon could sympathize.

“I love you,” Martin whispered, and that was a first.

“I love you, too,” Jon replied in a breathless rush. “God, Martin, I–” Once again, his words failed him, so he bent down for one more kiss. It seemed to get the message across.

[haveyouheardthispodcast]

What are your personal favorite podcasts?

Mod Nic here, I just got access to the askbox (Thank you Mods Kat and Axe!) and I'll be getting to the asks and submissions in chronological order except I wanted to answer this first.

My top three podcasts I can't rank because they all feel incomparable. They are Welcome to Night Vale, Wolf 359, and Friends at the Table.

Welcome to Night Vale: A classic. I've listened to this at least four times. Of course, 20 new episodes come out a year (plus bonus episodes on Patreon and liveshows on Bandcamp) so I haven't listened to every episode four times, because on each listen it gets longer and longer. I found it summer of 2013 when I was on an international road trip and could only check Tumblr on my iPod Touch when the hostel/motel/airport/ferryport had WiFi. Everyone was talking about it so I used the Apple podcast app (before it was subsumed by iTunes (before it was later rejected by iTunes)) for the first time. I remember coming back to the US and being at my grandparents and excited for a good WiFi connection and a lack of time pressure so that I could reblog Night Vale art like everyone else. My comfort podcast. Despite many people comparing any fiction podcast to Welcome to Night Vale, the first one to feel similar on an emotional level to me is Hello From The Hallowoods. It has the same sense of yes, the world is filled with horrors, but life is beautiful nonetheless. A narrator's gentle voice will tell me the happenings of many people who may or may not know each other but still make up a broader community.

Wolf 359: This is not the first non-Night Vale podcast I listened to, but it was the one that unlocked podcasts for me. The first one that I could track easily and was always eager for the next episode. The first one that was dangerous for my sleep and my homework the way that books are dangerous — once I start I can't put it down. I started it early fall of 2016 at the beginning of my junior year of college. I remember walking around parks playing Pokémon Go and coloring a page of an adult coloring book. I believe I caught up at Memoria, which was amazing timing. Opposite of a comfort podcast. I think I've listened to seasons 1–3 twice, but since the show finished I can't listen to more than an episode without getting devastated by emotions. Second media property I've ever had a fic idea for that I really want to write.... just as soon as I can manage a relisten. Not really comparable except for that it also has a protagonist that is a diagetic narrator closely backed by an ensemble cast and a show-long plot (instead of a season-long plot), but Hi Nay is probably the fastest I've ever gone from hearing a podcast for the first time to backing it on Patreon (but it was more a replacement for The Magnus Archives in my listening schedule, turns out I need to be exercising to listen to horror).

Friends at the Table: An actual play podcast that ruined me for actual play podcasts. Started listening in 2017 after I needed to temporarily withdraw from school due to my health collapsing causing me to fail classes. I had been listening to The Adventure Zone, but I actually started it because so many amazing Wolf 359 fan artists and fic writers were making art and fic for F@tT and I just had to know what that was about. I caught up just in time to start with Spring in Hieron. Due to my personal audio issues, I often have no idea what's going on in the sci-fi seasons, but that hasn't stopped me from crying because of it anyways. I can give personalized recommended starting points if I know someone, but in general I'm a big advocate for starting with the very first episode. My favorite season is probably still Autumn in Hieron, despite the audio quality. The moment when an interpretation of a roll from a player caused the pirates to become undead pirates was probably the moment when I got excited about wanting to play tabletop roleplaying games myself. Since I found it I've bounced off of every single actual play podcast I've tried listening to, until a few months ago when I started the Ruin's Gate season of The Unexplored Places. Ruin's Gate has the distinction of being the first time I've been able to track what the rolls of a Forged in the Dark game mean from a narrative perspective instead of just a mechanics perspective.

—Mod Nic

[citadelofswords]

i’ve started my annual relisten of interstitial season one and i feel like i have been neglecting my duties as your dashboard’s resident actual play podcast liker so here. have a recommendation post.

Why You Should Listen To Interstitial: A Crossover Driven Actual Play Podcast

first of all: what am i talking about? well, interstitial is a tabletop game written by riley hopkins inspired by kingdom hearts. in riley’s own words, it is “a tabletop RPG about our connections with other people, the power we draw from those connections, and traveling to different worlds.” it’s a powered by the apocalypse game so if you’re familiar with dungeon world, monster of the week, or masks, you’ll pick it up pretty quickly. (you can get it on riley’s website or on itch.io!)

but this post is not about the game. this is about interstitial the crossover driven actual play podcast, which began as a patreon reward for the got it memorized? kingdom hearts recap podcast.

interstitial has three seasons and several bonus arcs to its name. you don’t need to listen to all the seasons in order for the others to make sense, but i still recommend you do. here is what the seasons are like:

season one, the original patreon reward season, is directly inspired by and linked to kingdom hearts, featuring keyblades, nobodies, and the funniest version of organization xiii you’ve ever heard. i will not spoil you for the characters or worlds visited in this season; i will simply tell you to listen to the first ten minutes of character creation and say that that just about sets the standard for the rest of the show. (all properties contained in this season are specifically disney owned which, as we know, is a very VERY wide umbrella.) by the way i listened to season one the first time while knowing nothing about kingdom hearts and i still understood most of it so don’t worry about that.

the door to darkness specials are one-shot specials released between seasons one and two. here are some things that happen in them: shego from kim possible norts archie andrews (touch of evil), riley fails so many rolls that tony hawk fades from existence completely (reality and other falsehoods), wheels plays bright eyes from the total eclipse of the heart music video (lonely souls), and in the 2 fast 2 furious special the party has to prevent matt hardy and problem sleuth from being norted.

season two, subtitled authority, breaks away from the disney property mantle. the protagonists are rescued fragments of destroyed worlds who are being shuffled from world to world while their worlds are being rebuilt. well, that’s the original conceit, anyway. i want you to also listen to this season’s character creation episode, if nothing else, because it is the PERFECT example of how to do character introductions through a framing device. also, there is a cyborg version of john cena being chased down by his version of vince mcmahon who has transcended this mortal coil and is now a gas cloud.

season three, subtitled proximity, was a surprise release at the beginning of 2022. it’s the heist season; the characters are part of a crew set up to just rob some motherfuckers blind. that’s an oversimplification. i cannot stress enough that season three is perfect in every fucking way. if you thought pidge voltron should have been canonically nonbinary, if you like john wick, if you like having two characters both named miles in the same room, if you like the abba song “the winner takes it all” you will love this season. it is only BARELY edged out by season one in my personal rankings because season one is my comfort show but who knows. i might revisit my rankings on my next relisten.

if you think the things i vaguely alluded to were buckwild, all i can say is, you’ve got a big storm coming.

each season is about sixteen episodes a piece, and each episode is about an hour long, so it’s very easily digestible. the episodes are absolutely hilarious and poignant in turn, everyone is a joy to listen to both in and out of character, and you can tell they’re all just having an absolute blast.

you can find interstitial on your podcast app of choice: spotify, apple podcasts, etcetera. please listen to it. and maybe if you like it post about it a little bit!

(please note this post is not sponsored by or endorsed by interstitial or riley themself i just love this show and want to share it with people so here i am)

[child-of-hurin]

my love @kareenvorbarra tagged me to share 5 books read since September that I have loved.

Clarimonde (La Morte Amoureuse), Téophile Gautier -- I don't have a single criticism to make about this book :) A wonderful read, I especially loved the execution of the part where the protagonist doesn't know which life is real and which is a dream. I listened to the old Brazilian Portuguese translation available on the Conto um Conto podcast feed and thought it was excellent, e uma amiga leu a belíssima edição da editora Wish e também elogiou bastante -- fica a dica pros lusófonos daqui :)

Le Cycle de la Belle Dame sans Mercy, David Hult & Joan McRae -- It's an anthology of poems and/or contemporary literary endeavors related to La Belle Dame sans Mercy (Alain Chartier), and it's very interesting, and a lot of fun to read, even if sometimes one can't help the exasperation at how much our titular character has to go through for the crime of... being the object of an extremely insistent suitor's obsession :P It's really interesting to see the ways in which many different readers reacted to it though, and a nice contrast to the Roman de la rose that I had just finished. And the poetry itself is lovely -- I wish there was audio or video available of someone reading it out loud, but if there is, I can't seem to find it :'(

Antes do Baile Verde, Lygia Fagundes Telles -- A collection of short stories, I think most of them are available individually in English but the collection itself doesn't seem to have ever been translated into this language. I recently got obsessed with The Hunt (one of the stories), and after listening to every single recording of it I could find, I decided to read it for myself, and ended up reading the whole book, and it's really excellent, I love the way she builds and holds (and almost never resolves) the tension... One of my favorite short story writers ^^

Vita Nostra, Marina and Sergey Dyachenko -- I LOOOOOVED this book, so much that I do not know how to talk about it. I loved it and I haven't stopped thinking about it since I finished reading it. I am on the verge of rereading it though I know I should wait longer... Anyway if anyone has read insightful conversation/reviews of this book that go beyond praising it, please let me know, I'm very interested!

The Obelisk Gate, N.K. Jemisin -- It's such a wonderful experience to read an author who has both a vision and the technical skill to pull it off! My favorite thing about this specific volume were the visuals, I really think they were incredible. I have already forgotten parts of the plot, but I think I remember vividly every single scene with a stone-eater. I'm also sooo pleased by the way she looks at greater social power structures! Been A WHILE since I read original setting fantasy with an actual spine. TBH I was 100% burned out on that specific genre for a while and The Fifth Season is what brought me back. On the side of things I didn't like, there are a couple (that "magic" vocabulary scene was genuinely cringe imo...), but mostly I wish there was more commonplace tenderness, both in-narrative and on a meta level. If it wasn't for Hoa as a narrative element, this book would be unreadable (to me ofc).

Tag uuuh @ourlightsinvain @imindhowwelayinjune @thelioninmybed @bamboocounting @vardasvapors @anghraine @yavieriel @medievalcat @seagodofmagic @hadrianspaywall @nelyafinwe (are you in the room with us giulia...) @hoeratius & anyone else who feels like doing it :)

[jackstarbrightisaqueen]

10 things I’ve learned about writing over the last year

In the last year, I’ve published very little indeed. I’ve been writing a bit and plotting a lot, but I’ve done a lot of thinking about and analysing the craft of writing, and I thought it might be fun to reflect on the most important lessons I feel l’ve personally learned over the last 12 months. Take ‘em or leave ‘em. They are not necessarily for everyone. Nor are they intended to be a criticism of anyone, including my past self. Some of the mistakes identified below I’ve made, some I haven’t, but these are all now things that are at the forefront of my mind when I write. You don’t have to agree.

1. Characters are not puppets for the plot

The first one is a big one. It has taken me a long time to work out why certain characters end up feeling flat when I read them, or why sometimes their behaviour feels “off” to me at one point or another. The reason is this. If you are making your characters do things just because it suits the plot or what you personally want to happen, you are at risk of having them behave out of character - and then the readers stop identifying with the character. You may achieve your plot point, it may be funny or “cool” or press your own personal buttons to have them act in a certain way, but it is crucial that you step back and think about whether this is actually something the character would do, and why they’re doing it…otherwise the characters are just puppets for your plot. This applies not only to your protagonist, but every single person in the scene. Every person has their own motivations, and you should know why they’re doing something.

2. Twists should be surprising, yet inevitable

I am indebted to Writing Excuses for this one - and as they say on their podcast, if a twist can only be surprising OR inevitable…it should be inevitable. It is more important that you foreshadow something than you surprise the reader. Readers would always rather feel like they’re cleverer than you than you cheated them. And that’s all you’re doing if you spring a surprise on them that you didn’t foreshadow. You cheated.

3. Engage the senses

This is a simple one. When describing, engage as many of the senses as you can. If you only rely on what your character can see, your descriptions will probably fall flat.

4. Use filtering with caution

By “filtering” I mean points that you preface with phrases like “He thought”, “She saw”, “He could hear”, “They knew that”, etc. You are filtering the point you really want to make through these “filter” words. I have read advice from extremely successful authors that says you should always cut these words. It is undoubtedly true that the more of these you cut, the closer to your character’s point of view and voice the reader will feel. But it is not true that you can never use them. There are some authors that use it habitually and their characters still feel like they breathe off the page. Sometimes you might even want to create a sense of distance between the character and the reader. But know what you’re doing when you use it. Proceed with caution.

5. Tie up your threads in the right order

This is another Writing Excuses one - from Mary Robinette Kowal. It originates from the “MICE” quotient, the theory of which is that every plot and subplot can be fitted into 4 categories - milieu, idea, character, event. Without going too much into detail (but it’s worth looking up!), the basic point is: wrap up your plot points in the order you introduced them. If you’ve ever read a story that feels like it keeps ending, and ending, and ending…the points have probably been introduced and then wrapped up out of order. There should be a first-in-last-out policy when it comes to plot points.

6. Decide on your end at the beginning

This is likely a controversial one for pantsers. Look, I’m not saying that one has to plot. But if you want to write a story that feels focused and tight, everything you write should be aimed at getting you from A to B. It’s easy to come up with cool ideas and things that could happen, but you should only include those that are going to progress your characters and plot to where they are going to be at the end, or that are going to serve the underlying point(s) that you are trying to achieve. At the very least, know what point you are trying to make in the story - e.g. the fall of a hero, about learning to trust, about finding love. And be aware that you should be setting up that point from the very beginning of the story. If the story is about two people finding one another, you probably should have set up at the beginning that they lost one another. Which leads me to the next point…

7. Be conscious of the promises you are making to your readers

Admittedly this wasn’t a new lesson to me, but its importance has grown and solidified in my process over the last 12 months. From the very beginning of a story, the opening scene, you are making implied promises to your readers about what the story is about. If your opening gambit is a character being bullied by their mother and not being able to stand up for themselves, you are probably promising the reader that this pattern of behaviour is somehow going to be rectified or addressed in the course of the story. And that means you have to be fair to your readers; don’t mislead them. This applies to everything in your story. Think Chekhov’s gun: if you put a loaded gun on the mantelpiece in Act 1, you better have it fire in Act 3. Now, OK, sometimes your loaded gun will be a red herring. But you MUST NOT cheat your readers. That loaded gun represents a promise, so it might not shoot someone but you can’t just leave it hanging there without ever referring to it again.

8. Be specific

The specific is always better than the general. “He looked round” is OK but isn’t “His head snapped round” so much better? “She ran his fingers through his hair” gets the message across, but “Her fingernails grazed his skull” is something I can really feel. Be as specific as you possibly can. (Note: this does not mean that I need a full blow-by-blow account of the specific type of crane the protagonist is operating and paragraphs of explanation of how it works. Yes, Anthony Horowitz, I’m looking at you.)

9. Tailor your descriptions to the character

This can be a tricky one when your characters are all operating within the same sphere (e.g. they are all police officers), but an easy way to tailor your character voice is to adjust your descriptions to the character’s experience. A teacher might not think of a carpet as blood red; an assassin might. The first thing a teacher sees when he walks into a room isn’t the easiest point of exit; it might be for an assassin. An assassin might not instinctively bother to remember someone’s name; for a teacher, it’s practically in the job description.

10. Asking “why” will fix most of your problems

This is a more general one that loosely ties a lot of this together. But if you’re having problems - whether it’s that the story feels like it’s dragging, or your characters don’t seem to want to do what you wanted them to do - just stop and ask “why”. Why am I including this point, why does it matter, why are the characters wanting to do something else. If you don’t have a clear answer (beyond “I thought it would be cool”), you’ve probably got your answer - which is to throw the point out and try something else. But, otherwise, asking “why” will help you to focus on what you’re trying to achieve - and that’s always going to help you get back on track. 

[doctorloup]

ACTUALLY FUCK IT, I WILL ELABORATE, STRAP IN, BITCHES

Let me first make the following statements - 1) I come not to bin Caesar but to praise him. WOE.BEGONE is beautiful chaos, an erratic smorgasbord of musical talent, and complex characterisation. I respect this craft, I see how much work has gone into it and I am deeply impressed. Multiple ten-minute plus long fucking musical numbers, season finales with three whole songs in them. The memetic virus that is Old Brush Valley. Wild. 2) However, apart from respecting the music, I massively bounced off this podcast the first time I tried to listen to it, because I found the protagonist such an awful damp weasel of a man. I do not like the wet cat men so beloved of tumblr. I find them deeply annoying. No shade on you all but your kink is not my kink etc. I bounced off it so hard that I actually confused it with Ostium which I listened to around at the same time, and I would describe as fun and poignant, but really rather heterosexual. Woe.Begone is not remotely heterosexual. It is gayer than Quentin Crisp in a little Sailor Suit, gayer than the letter Bram Stoker sent to Walt Whitman saying "I am six feet two inches high and twelve stone weight naked". Gay as Elton John in a feather boa riding up Brokeback Mountain on a bear while sniffing poppers and quoting Oscar Wilde. I should have known. I should have guessed from the fans being absolutely feral nightmare gnomes.  They reminded me of the Stellar Firma fans. That shrieking bucket of wild kobolds snorting ketamine and downing tide pods vibe. That should have been a warning. But they asked nicely and they politely invited me into the discord server and like a fool I humoured them.  I gritted my teeth at the horribly flawed characters and I stuck with it….

Spoilers follow.

::deep breath::

MIKE WALTERS? Stupid idiot motherfucking Mike Walters goddamn fool multiple murderous alternately callous and arrogant shithead or wet as depressed otter’s pocket sociopathic-ARG-playing biggest varmint in the west cowboy motherfucking MIKE WALTERS WHAT THE EVER LOVING FUCK DID I JUST LISTEN TO? WHAT IS THIS CASUALLY/DELIBERATELY VIOLENT SLAPSTICK TIME TRAVEL FUCKING COSPLAY MURDER FEST? COWBOYIFICATION? Okay I understand this is a clever way for the VA to distinguish between characters played by the same guy, weird fetish aye but I’ve seen worse BUT WHY THE FUCK DOES NEARLY EVERY OTHER CHARACTER DO IT TOO JESUS FUCKING CHRIST ON A BISCUIT IN GRAVY I ALMOST STARTED DOING IT MYSELF MULTIPLE TIMES I HAD TO DRINK TEA AND THINK OF ENGLAND TO STOP MYSELF SAYING GET ALONG LITTLE DAWGIE shit here we go again help RULE BRITANNIA WHAT WHAT YOU WON'T GET ME YA BASTARDS

AND ANOTHER THING: IN THE HISTORY OF NARRATIVE NO PROBLEM HAS IN ANY WAY EVER BEEN SOLVED BY RAISING THE DEAD jesus doesn’t count anyway that was consensual NON-CONSENSUALLY RAISING THE DEAD AND THE FACT THIS ENTIRE CLUSTERFUCK STARTED WITH THAT SHOULD BE EXTREMELY TELLING HOLY FUCK every time I hear him talk I just want to shriek OH MY GOD WHY CAN’T YOU GET THERAPY WHY DO YOU KEEP REPEATEDLY RETRAUMATISING EVERY VERSION OF YOURSELF I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND EXPLAIN TO ME WHY ANYTHING YOU EVER DID FROM EPISODE 1 ONWARDS WAS EVER A GOOD IDEA AND YET I COULDN’T STOP LISTENING, SOMETIMES OUT OF SPITE, SOMETIMES OUT OF A HORRIFIED DESIRE TO SEE WHAT HE FUCKS UP NEXT it was like listening to a car crash in slow motion sweartaefuck.

HOW CAN SO MUCH ABJECT HYPOCRISY, USELESSNESS AND NAKED SELF-INTEREST BE CRAMMED INTO THE BODY OF ONE, AND I USE THIS WORD LOOSELY, MAN?? NOT TO MENTION THE FRANKLY HETEROSEXUAL LEVELS OF TOXIC MASCULINITY FUCKSAKE AND WHILE I’M HERE HEY LETS TALK ABOUT THE OTHER CHARACTERS. Edgar “Inexplicably Evil Gluten-free Postman”,  Anne “I support my transfemme sisters but fuck this may be too far”, Marisa “Where in the holy fuck do you keep getting that tank?!” Ng, Matt “I thought you were too sensible to get involved in this nonsense but boy was I wrong”, Ty “No amount of apparently learning to respect boundaries will make up for this level of affably psychotic ‘For Science and the Greater Good’ leering viciousness” Betteridge, Я осуждаю тебя за то, что ты оставил свою собаку с Майками Борисом, Felix “Criminal Offence Against Oreos”, Hunter “Somehow worse than the protagonist, apparently that’s possible” Hartley, Sylvester August “Actually this character isn’t absolutely terrible, which is weird for a Harlan character, I’m usually immediately sus of anyone he plays carry on sir“ Baxter. HAVE I JUST GONE TO THE very helpful thank you WIKI SO I CAN ENSURE I HAVE VENTED ABOUT EVERYONE I WANT TO in this fucking TRAUMA POLYCULE YES I HAVE 

(Hey one second voice actors I hope you know I adore you even those of you who are CLEARLY COMPLICIT in this unstable lunacy anyway it was cool waiting to see which of you would voice the FUCKING MONSTER PEOPLE) 14/10 absolute fucking masterpiece, I look forward to the next episode so I can SCREAM LIKE A BANSHEE AND CALL DOWN THE WRATH OF EVERY HARPY IN EXISTENCE TO WREAK SHREDDING VIOLENCE ON MIKE. FUCKING.  WALTERS.

[demcnsinmymind]

💭❤️🎮🍝🎶🧶😗 (throws the same symbols back at u)

Munday Meme! | Always Open!

💭 — MBTI and/or enneagram, if known ENFJ-T! Aka Extraverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging and Turbulent. The site says it's "The turbulent Protagonist" lololol. Almost identical to the Lance face, except that he's Thinking instead of Feeling ❤️ — what are some of your best qualities?

I'm very organized, structured and thorough at work. Colleagues and friends also say that I'm very reliable and don't let people down. I also like to think that I'm fairly chill and friendly/open with just about anyone, though I admit that that can be a bit superficial. 🎮 — favorite video game(s)? Project Zomboid, The Last Of Us games, especially Part 2, Detroit Become Human, RDR2, Subnautica also fun and relaxing games such as ATS or Firewatch, recently played It Takes Two with a friend and also adored that game. I either love storydriven games or post apocalyptic sandbox games. I got almost 1k hours of Project Zomboid lmfao 🍝 — favorite food(s)? It's like each year I got a new favorite boring type of self-made soup as a favorite. Last year it was pumpkin soup, this year it's tomato soup, I LOOOVE all types of green salads and eat like 5 bowls of them a week, sweet potatoes are my latest hype, be that as chips, fries or god knows what else I can make out of them. Also cliché German who loves a great kebab 🎶 — favorite song at the moment? Worst is on its way by Korn, but actually the big remix with HEALTH and the like. I'm usually not really one for hip hop and so forth but this mashup's such a fucking baaaanger and I love how dark it sounds. Stuck on repeat ever since it came out and makes me go feral on the dancefloor at my local goth club haha. Can't believe I've been a Korn fan for over 20 years. 🧶 — any non-writing hobbies/interests? MOVIES, all the movies and tv shows and obv filmmaking, with it being my job. Also reading and listening to podcasts, watching a crapload of documentaries and information videos on youtube about stuff that interests me (morbidly enough that's engineering disasters both in architecture, with airplanes and ships, but also darker psychology stuff), I'm super interested in abandoned stuff and urban exploration, gaming's obv also a big one, and I like to keep informed on latest developments in consumer electronics and PC building, lovecraftian mythology is obv a big one lately, but also some economics/financial sector stuff or nature and 'how it's made' documentaries, just a whole variety of things I keep myself stuffed with on youtube and Spotify 😗 — what are some of your favorite things to do when you have some time to yourself?

The neat part is that I'm a very independent sort of 'loner' person since I have no interest in romantic relationships or marriage whatsoever, so I mostly have time to myself if I'm not working or consciously hanging out with friends and I know how to use that me time well. Ever since I started on my weight loss journey last year I've come to really enjoy doing sporty things such as swimming countless laps each week at a pool, or religiously running 5k every week if the weather allows it, have even started going to a gym every once in a while, and in the summer doing lots of cycling and inline skating and paddling on the lake. Being active has just honestly become such fun for me. Also like I said before I do love a good read or audio book, I also love looking at my game concept art books or doing puzzles (I'll literally sit for hours and finish a 1k puzzle in one go), then obv writing stories and RPing, gaming, I also picked up French on Duolingo to refresh my old school lessons, so lemme tell you, my 'me time' schedule is always full. I also love to go to my local goth club and dance til I can't walk anymore every now and then. Though I do go to the movies/parties/brunches and what not with friends a lot to, I also like to do it on my own every now and then! I do recommend spending more time with yourself and not making your entire existence absolutely depended on the company of other people 24/7, it can be really insightful, relaxing and refreshing!

[lords-of-fortune]

10, 17 and 24 please!!!!

Does Rook have any friends or family that the protagonist gets to meet? Tell us about them!

Going with Gio for this batch since he's my main Rook. He absolutely does! He has a sibling who he supports back in Rivain with his work for the Lords so I imagine he'd be happy to introduce them to Tasso especially since they're a bit of a homebody and Gio likes making them make friends akdkf. Gio also has several children, one of whom lives with Tasso so definitely the protagonist would be able to meet him as well! I could see his companion quest being something to do with meeting all 3 of his kids and dealing with his Emotions about that. But this question is actually centered on the friends/family themselves so I will try to do a quick lil thing about at least Tasso and the kids. Tasso is older than Gio by 7 years and has raised Gio since Gio was 9 and they were 16. They are generally quiet and introverted, a complete contrast to Gio himself lmao. They stay at home while Gio works with the Lords and they do some fiber crafts on the side as a means of making a little extra money. They also now are helping raise Gio's oldest son Rafi alongside Gio's ex Zahra (not to be confused with Zara Renata. Different lady) it's kind of a complicated situation bc Tasso is in fact now dating Gio's ex and yeah it's messy akdk.

Rafi is 4 and is a curious lil guy. Eventually when he's older he is going to be a warrior because somehow despite both parents being mages he didn't inherit the magic gene apparently sjdkp

The second oldest is Lorenz who lives with his mother Elisse in Nevarra. He is a pretty quiet kid, doesn't like being picked up. He is in fact the future mage of the three kids.

Briar is the youngest and the only girl she lives with her parent Thyme but I haven't decided where exactly they're located yet bc Thyme I imagine is kind of an itinerant rogue. Not associated with any of the big factions but an independent like Nadia from the podcast. Briar is a sweetie but maybe a little spoiled (as much as a career criminal can spoil their child) She will be taking after her parent and become a rogue. Yes, together the three would make a complete party lmao

Write a banter for Rook and [companion of your choice]:

Harding: sooo… three kids, huh?

Gio: look, every man on this team is a dad, you can't judge just me

Harding: every man?

Gio: I'd accept the argument that Lucanis is Spite's babysitter rather than his father but you can't tell me that Manfred and Assan aren't Emmrich's and Davrin's sons respectively.

Harding: those are slightly different situations, don't you think?

Gio: I suppose.

Harding: plus you've got *three*

Gio: believe me, I'm just as stunned as you are.

Gio: but that's all the more reason to keep fighting. Can't let a fake god or three get in the way of unplanned fatherhood

What sorts of actions raise Rook's approval?

He approves of a protagonist with a commitment to the bit. The world is ending, might as well be funny about it. He also approves of niceness towards elves, mages, and children (every kid he encounters reminds him that he's a dad now) and greatly approves acknowledgement of the fact that he is Not Dalish and has never been Dalish should the topic ever come up

Sorry this took 2000 years, I'm soooo bad at banter ajdkfl

[hismercytomyjustice]

Omfggg I cannot believe my little BG3 fic is about to hit 70 subscribers!!! (*꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ)

It is wonderful and terrifying all at the same time haha!!! It’s also weirdly humbling knowing almost 70 people trust me and this story enough to want updates as it’s posted???

Thank fuck I’ve written most of it already because otherwise I would be STRESSING TF OUT.

I crossed the 75k word threshold the other day. The 75k maximum I thought I would probably hit seeing as I’ve never written much over like 50k before and that was only once in the fanfic world and 3x in the “this will likely never see the light of day” original work world haha.

PLEASE TELL ME HOW THE FUCK I STILL FOUR FULL CHAPTERS LEFT TO WRITE.

In the event you clicked to see more, just know you’re about to see a lot of rambling of mental health and writing.

I’m winding down chapter 14 now and chapter 18 is at least 50-75% done after I skipped to it in a panic due to the massive writers block I hit in 13 over hardcore stressing over my characterization of Cazador. Just “he is not being horrible enough, he needs to be more horrible, but not too horrible or this fic will need to be even longer and I’m already wildly out of my word count comfort zone” lol.

So that leaves the tail end of 14 and 18, and then I just have to write 15, 16, and 17.

Oh thank fuck. It’s only three I thought it was four full length ones left. Oh god. This simultaneously brings me relief and anxiety lmaooo.

Oh god.

But this fic is going to have such a special place in my heart because writing it has reminded me THAT I LOVE WRITING.

I’ve barely written in the last decade for a variety of reasons and tbh until I started writing this fic, I was starting to wonder if I really even enjoyed writing and wanted to do it anymore.

Not because I didn’t, but because the level of passion I used to have for it seemed to just be…missing? I kept thinking “it’s so weird how writing used to be such a huge part of my life and now I never seem to be able to do it or want to do it”.

I’ve come to realize in the last month or so, the biggest culprit was my previously semi-diagnosed OCD. Second biggest may have been my definitely undiagnosed ADHD.

Any time I’d try to sit down to plot or draft or anything I would get into OCD spirals and either completely talk myself out of it or get into it for a little bit and then hit a roadblock in the story I couldn’t get past or convince myself what I wrote was awful and no one would ever want to read it because I would get bored writing it so why the hell would anyone want to read it? So then I’d convince myself I needed to read up on the craft of writing to make up for my deficiencies. And the more I learned the more I realized I didn’t know or the more deficiencies I saw and the more I’d get into my own head.

I spent some much time kind of wishing I hadn’t read so many books, went to so many convention panels, listened to so many podcasts about writing, etc. Because any time I looked at a blank page, I couldn’t get out of my own head enough to fucking WRITE.

Just an endless stream of: The first line is super important and has to hook the reader, make sure you start in the middle of the story, your protagonist should have xyz, your villain should have abc, every sentence should do more than one thing, if you don’t regularly make time to write you’re not a real writer, all these other people make time to write and their lives are way busier than yours so what’s wrong with you, you must hate writing otherwise you’d actually do it, you’ll never get anything published because you lack discipline, etc etc etc.

I just desperately wanted to go back to the days where I could just flip open a blank notebook and go to town without giving a shit about what anyone else thought a story had to be and without second guessing every single letter I put on the page.

And then such a weird combo of stars aligned that finally made me remember why I fucking love writing and why I do it in the first place???

Consuming media that makes me passionate about storytelling and reawakens my creative drive.

My friend offhandedly mentioning she writes on her phone sometimes and isn’t a phone kind of like a little notebook you can carry around and whip out whenever? Bonus, you don’t have to retype everything after writing by hand!

Getting officially officially diagnosed with OCD. Third therapist’s is a charm amirite? If I had a nickel for every therapist who told me I was exhibiting signs of OCD I’d have three nickels… I didn’t even go to my current therapist for OCD. My former therapist suggested finding a specialist in exposure therapy to help with an unrelated phobia (I will not go into on here and probably never will because it’s deeply personal) and the specialist I found happens to specialize in OCD because exposure therapy is often used to treat it.

And my current therapist taught me what OCD thought spirals are, how they start up, how they take root, how they get out of control. Suddenly it wasn’t just “oh, I have anxiety so I need to use decision techniques to combat it” it was “ohhh this is therapy designed with my brain in mind and my brain isn’t as weird or scary as I thought.” It’s just wild to spend decades of your life thinking your brain is fucked up and you don’t understand what’s wrong with it so how could anyone but then you get a literal fucking worksheet that maps out an example spiral with a note on it that reads “this you?”.

Specifically, she taught me about Inference-based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (ICBT). If anyone reads this and is curious about ICBT. this article does a pretty good job of explaining it.

It was just wild to look at this piece of paper that was like “oh, no, this is a regular/common enough brain thing that we’ve done research on it and made a fun little worksheet for it” that makes it all feel so weirdly mundane and less scary as a result? Like decades of “I’m scared of my own brain” turned into “your brain isn’t scary, there’s a clear pattern to this kind of thing and lots of people go through it”.

And then I decided to take piano lessons. Because I started writing a POTO AU before I started my BG3 fic and I remembered how much I loved music in the same way. How much I enjoy the violin but struggle to get myself to play now that I’m not part of an ensemble. And that was another thing I haven’t found much joy in lately either.

And my OCD went off the fucking RAILS with that. Because of all my insecurities around being someone who always struggled to practice regularly and realizing how much of a refresher I needed on music in general after so much time away. Leaving lessons wanting to cry because of how fucking stupid an inept I felt and being utterly convinced I was wasting my teacher’s time.

BUT. Because of ICBT and my therapist, I could see I was hardcore OCD spiraling. It marginally helped because at least part of me was like “okay, these feelings aren’t the truth and they are irrational” even as I still struggled to find any actual self-compassion over it all. Because why the fuck is wrong with me it’s piano, I am paying for lessons, I do not have to be perfect. My therapist insisted my only obligation was to just show up for the lessons and SHE IS RIGHT. Like, yeah, it’s great to practice and I want to get better at it, but OCD-ing myself to the point I’m fucking miserable and never practice (much like I did with writing) is not the answer.

Piano made me realize my OCD impacts my day-to-day life in a variety. Not just my 10/10 OCD spirals/fears.

Do I still struggle with how fucking ridiculous getting worked up over voluntarily taking piano lessons made me feel? 10000%. Am I actually enjoying and looking forward to my lessons and actually practicing because I want to instead of feeling paralyzed or over analyzing or avoiding or forcing myself to? Also 10000% true!!! It’s fucking wild how much you can enjoy things you like when your OCD SHUTS THE FUCK UP FOR FIVE GODDAMN SECONDS.

Like obvs I still have a lot of work to do on the OCD front, but I’ve made so much fucking progress over the past few months. It feels like night and day sometimes. If you’d told me like 6 months ago I’d have written 75k on one fanfic in addition more on others, I would have laughed on your face and then doom spiraled about it.

God I have missed actually ENJOYING things. My therapist was not exaggerating when she talked about me having a breakthrough last session about overcompensating and how it negatively has impacted myself and my fledgling self-compassion.

It feels so fucking GOOD.

Navigating OCD and ADHD, especially as a late diagnosed person isn’t easy. I’m still learning so much and also puzzling out what does and doesn’t work for me. But for the first time in such a long time, I feel like I’m actually making progress on those fronts and it is such a fucking relief after borderline hating myself for years now.

This got wildly out of hand, but OH WELL. I’m just so fucking happy and relieved to be seeing some progress for myself that I was starting to worry might never fucking happen.

[signalwatch]

Psycho (1960)

Watched:  10/26/2023

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  3rd or 4th

Director:  Alfred Hitchcock

So, it's not really worth talking too deeply about Psycho (1960) here at Ye Olde Film Watch Journal.  The movie is one of the most written about, discussed and analyzed flicks that one is likely to see.  So I won't get into plot, analysis, etc...  Y'all can chase that around on your own.  

I hadn't personally seen it in probably two decades, so I decided to give it a whirl as part of our Halloween spooktacular cinema series.  

Probably my foremost comment is that the movie actually lives up to the hype.  Some movies do.  Lawrence of Arabia.  2001.  The Godfather Part II.  I can go on listing great movies, but just assume I agree with you as you fill in your own blank here.

Maybe those movies show signs of age or that they were made in another time, but there's nothing about them that doesn't pull you in and hold you.  And Psycho - minus the weirdo psychoanalysis at the conclusion - is kind of a perfect film.  Every line has weight or double meaning, every shot provides you with information about the story and characters, and the sound and atmosphere are on point.

Hitchcock is known as the master of suspense, and from the moment Janet Leigh picks up the money, the movie never really lets up.  That it breaks deeply ingrained narrative tradition and bumps her off - now one of the most famous scenes in cinema - is still a mental jolt.  You're all in on Marion's flight and plight by the time she decides to get clean (itself a double meaning).  

I can only imagine how audiences felt in 1960.  You'll hear it pitched as the first 30 minutes - but the car sinks at about the 1 hour mark of a 110 minute film.  To actually have a victim built up as a protagonist, it just naturally seems she should survive - something that Leigh's own daughter would perfect in Halloween.    And the beautiful leads almost always survive in horror pictures - drop a comment to name a movie where one doesn't, prior to 1960.

It's also impossible to say enough about Anthony Perkins in the movie, who possibly did *too* good of a job and got himself planted in the world's consciousness as Norman Bates, no matter what other roles he took on.  But, man, not a false note in the film, and putting in a performance utterly ahead of its time.  This role is closer, timelinewise to Dracula by 30+ years than it is to today, 63 years on.  Absolutely unreal.  And if you were only partially there with Norman, the final moments of the film are one of the great selling points.

I've seen and enjoyed the direct sequel - but I'm not sure it ever should have had one.  That final shot should have been the end capper.

I'm not clear on the production of the film.  I know the studios didn't want to make it, and it seems like a good 1/3rd of movies that go on to be genre-busting classics come for very passionate filmmakers studio execs want to out guess.  I know you wind up with some duds from letting name directors chase their bliss, but sometimes you wind up making one of the most important films of the century.

Psycho has its sequels, a TV show and it's been endlessly referenced, ripped-off, homaged, and a good chunk of films are now a xerox of a xerox of the original.  And for good reason.  A lot of horror would learn its tricks from the movie and how its framed, how Hitch used the stairs and sets and camera placement.  Montage would tell us more than actually just showing the thing in the shower sequence.  Reveals that show us things are endlessly more f'd up than we first expected when we find Mother in the cellar.  

I don't know that simply dipping back into the well is able to recapture what's there.  It's the Hitchcockian synergy of all the elements working together, and that's lightning in a bottle.  That some can do this over and over is just amazing fortune for audiences.  

If you listened to our Texas Chainsaw Massacre podcast, you'll be aware that I recently finally Googled the murders of real life psychopath Ed Gein, which partially inspired TCM, Psycho and portions of Silence of the Lambs.   There's a whole lot to unpack there, and it's absolutely horrible, but turns out the author of the original book that Psycho is based on lived near Gein, so you can see how he'd have some inspiration.

I don't really have much to say on it, and I don't particularly think you'll sleep better actually reading up on Gein, so don't.  But it's also fascinating that one guy seems to have spread his personal horrors out through so much culture and pop culture.

[myswatchlist]

new girl

okay i need to talk about new girl for a second.. i'm currently on my third or fourth rewatch and its one of my favorite shows.. a comfort show for sure. i watched it for the first time in my first semester of college and i didn't want to watch any of my typical comfort movies or tv shows because i watched them with my family and they were making me sad. one of those comfort movies was (and still is) dirty dancing, which if you've seen the new girl pilot you get where i'm going here.

i had seen the little autoplay clip on netflix probably a hundred times. "we're going to have to ask you to give up the table" is forever engrained in my head. watching that clip, new girl didn't really seem like a show i would really LOVE. all i had heard about it was that it was zooey deschanel living with a bunch of guys, and that first clip being her getting stood up at a date. i thought it was going to have a lot of weird gender stereotypes and never really seemed to be something i was in the mood to watch.

except for this one random day in my first semester of college.

in the pilot episode the protagonist (more on this later), jess day, portrayed by zooey deschanel moves out of the house she had with her boyfriend of six years after he cheated on her. jess is whimsical. she is in her late 20s/early 30s and a teacher at a middle school and tends to rock a lot of polka dots (full positivity here). in this first episode jess moves in with three men (nay, boys): nick miller, schmidt, and coach (who is somewhat replaced by winston bishop a few episodes later) who are all around the same age as jess. jess spends much of the first episode crying on the couch while watching dirty dancing, which is what made me go "okay maybe this show is actually going to be pretty good"

the clip netflix shows is from the end of the pilot, when jess gets stood up on a date. what i don't think is included in this clip (though to be fair i don't think i ever watched enough before clicking on the show or scrolling past) is how jess' three new roommates show up at her date after finding out from the guy she was supposed to go out with that he stood her up because she was texting him. nick, schmidt, and coach tell jess that the guy sucks for standing her up, but more importantly, start singing (i've had) the time of my life which plays during the final dance in dirty dancing (if you've never seen the movie i highly recommend it).

so, the pilot definitely kept me watching the show. but every episode after just sold me more. as the show progresses we find that jess is not really the protagonist. the whole loft (jess, nick, schmidt, and winston) and their relationships and journeys are what the show follows. maybe the real new girl is the friends we made along the way.

new girl is seriously one of the funniest shows i've ever watched. from lines like "this restaurant is so fancy i dont know which fork to kill myself with" to a reference to bears in every episode i'm always having a great time. but new girl is not just a comedy. it tackles ideas of stereotypes, especially around gender. throughout the show we see how each character grows significantly and how they all impact each other over and over again and help each other evolve.

nick and jess' first kiss is by FAR one of the best kisses on tv. their "slow burn" romance with the foundation of great friendship and constant romantic tension is perfection. one of their moments that always sticks out to me is when jess breaks up with a boyfriend because she wants a relationship with heat and passion and immediately comes home and has a screaming match with nick for getting back together with his awful ex girlfriend where she says she wants the best for him and he deserves better.

i'll stop rambling aimlessly about new girl now. zooey deschanel (jess), hannah simone (cece), and lamorne morris (winston) have a podcast started during quarantine where they go through each new girl episode and Discuss, talking about not only what happened on screen but also what went into making each episode so good. that's all i have to say about new girl. i promise i'll get better at writing about things and having a throughline and whatnot. peace out.