#this is an entire dissertation what is WRONG with me

[sanctamater]

on our lady and her relationship with her own femininity - a meta looking at the character of lady a. c.omstock through the lens of religion, victorian womanhood, and pseudo science of the era.  or - a rewrite of an old meta that i needed a refresh given that i was in high school when i wrote this originally.  given the historical content from many sources in this post, please proceed with caution as it will contain heavy examples of misogyny and medical sexism. this post will also contain mentions of child birth, child rearing, pregnancy, and infertility.  THIS IS A MONSTER OF A META. GOD BE WITH YOU, YE WHO READ THIS.

Lady Comstock, within the narrative of of Bioshock Infinite, is shown to be a paragon of virtue - the wife of the cult’s prophet, the mother of the messiah; the ideal woman in all respects - the perfect mother, wife, and citizen and a model for all within columbia to emulate. While in the canon shown to the player within the game shows that she has been dead for near twenty years (providing Zachary the ability to use her corpse as a political prop, which is another discussion for another time) - it does not allow much exploration into Lady Comstock’s relationship with this mantle of holy mother, reconciling that with her own past, and the relationship she has with her own femininity and how she views herself under the influence of victorian upbringing and societal norms. 

By 1912, Lady Comstock’s perception of her femininity, self, and womanhood is incredibly - horrifically - skewed; almost self-hating while deifying. I will split this meta into 3 sections - her past and victorian ideals, Mary’s role in faith (and thus, Amelia’s within the cult); and some culminating thoughts on how all of these factor into and impact Amelia near twenty years into her role as mother of the messiah within the narrative of Infinite.

PART I: PAST REVELATIONS AND VIEWS OF THE ERA.

Not much is known of Lady Comstock’s past within the canon of the game - it boils down to a single voxophone singing praise to the prophet, her redeemer, and is left open-ended for audience interpretation for as to what, exactly, she was seeking forgiveness for. the transcript of said audio diary is as follows: 

“To those who loved me, I was the most generous of souls. There was no pain I would deny them. No betrayal I would not gladly give. And when I had scorched the hearts of all who loved me, the Prophet said, “There is nothing you can do for which I will not forgive you, for God has granted me sight, and through His eyes, even you are loved.”” (Unconditional; recorded in universe on April 1st, 1893)

Without reading too much into the audio and its implications, one can rightfully assume that Lady Comstock, at the very least, played with the affections of others for her own amusement until she was left alone due to her actions towards others. Aside from Daisy Fitzroy mentioning that Lady Comstock had ‘experienced hardship’ in her youth, nothing more is said about her past. The most popular fanon interpretation (one that i also subscribe to) is that this voxophone refers to promiscuity. Given that the character of Lady Comstock is based off of American socialite and political figurehead Alice Roosevelt Longworth - a woman known for breaking many social rules in her day; in addition to several affairs throughout her life, which she did not hide and were common knowledge in high society, I agree with this interpretation of the audio diary. With Alice’s proximity to the white house, the social consequences for this would be less severe, however - turning back to Lady Comstock, in my own canon, this voxophone does refer to her engaging in multiple affairs with multiple partners with the express intent of playing with their affections and publicly betraying them for her own gain and amusement. 

I have already discussed here why Lady Comstock must be of the upper class for Zachary to gain the traction he needs for his cult to flourish. with that in mind, most of high society could turn a blind eye to affairs - provided they remained discreet, which Lady Comstock at the time was not. The consequences of a promiscuous woman were more than just of the social variety, leaving her isolated; but of a moral variety as well. Elizabeth Lee (who received a BA from Brown University in ‘97 and wrote most of her material during a summer research group) also had this to say:

“Women were portrayed either frigid or else insatiable. A young lady was only worth as much as her chastity and appearance of complete innocence, for women were time bombs just waiting to be set off. Once led astray, she was the fallen woman, and nothing could reconcile that till she died.” “This preoccupation developed into an ideology that legitimised unequal power relations in the economic and political sphere even as it glorified women’s role in the domestic and “moral” sphere. It is easy to see, therefore, how the myth of women’s salvatory and redemptive potential victimized women.” (Langland, Patriarchal Ideology and Marginal Motherhood in Victorian Novels by Women).

The Victorian Era had given rise to the cult of domesticity and the role of the ‘angel of the house’ - in engaging in torrid, obvious affairs, Amelia directly defies these societal expectations, and brings the ire of that society upon not the man involved in the affair, but the woman. Though these affairs, Amelia would have made her social worth and capital null and void - an ‘unwoman’; with nothing to remove that mantle from her in life. She would have been considered the lowest of the low; and become a fringe society member. In addition to this, women with sexual drive were considered ‘ill’ and ‘unnatural’; disrupting the ‘order of things’ through their anomaly - 

 “… there can be no doubt that sexual feeling in the female is in abeyance … and even if roused (which in many instances it never can be) is very moderate compared with that of the male…. The best mothers, wives, and managers of households, know little or nothing of sexual indulgences. Love of home, children, and domestic duties, are the only passions they feel. As a general rule, a modest woman seldom desires any sexual gratification for herself. She submits to her husband, but only to please him; and, but for the desire of maternity, would far rather be relieved from his attentions. (Boumelha; Thomas Hardy and Women. P. 14). “Middle-class women who, by mid century, were giving birth 'confined' within the home, now achieved true womanhood if they responded emotionally to their infants and bonded with them through breast-feeding and constant attendance. Motherhood was seen as an affirmation of their identity.” (Abrams, Ideals of Womanhood in Victorian Britain).

Victorians, in addition to the moral consequences facing women who engaged in affairs and were connected with their sexuality and desires, also believed that women who were as such had something wrong with them on a medical, biological level - and subscribed to the belief that women were biologically destined to be subservient mothers - in addition to that, the Victorians also placed intrinsic value to a woman’s chastity: 

“And how is the vice of unchastity confined within boundaries so rigid in the case of the female sex? … it is because even an unchaste man will marry none but a chaste woman.”  (Boumelha; Thomas Hardy and Women. P. 19). “Even if Victorians did not subscribe to the idea of the Angel in the House, they were attracted to the implicit idea of women’s redemptive or salvatory potential.” (Langland, Patriarchal Ideology and Marginal Motherhood in Victorian Novels by Women).

Amelia, through her affairs, is victimised by this victorian mindset - and was not only removed of social capital and status, but ostracized from society and isolated with the consensus being that no matter what she did in the future that she would never be considered a ‘true’ woman - no amount of confession or repentance could change that. She would be, in the eyes of society, ‘damaged goods’; and nothing short of death could change that. With that in mind, we lay the societal groundwork and environment that Amelia grew up surrounded by, and was conditioned in.

PART II: MARY, MOTHER OF GOD; HER ROLE IN THE CHURCH, AND LADY A. COMSTOCK, HOLY MOTHER. 

After the elevation of Columbia and isolation of the cult, Zachary Hale Comstock reveals that Lady Comstock is to birth the messiah in seven days time - a girl who shall ignite the world and cleanse the sodom (re: Earth) below in flame. This prophecy and the action of Elizabeth being brought to Columbia cements Lady Comstock as the cult’s holy mother - the modern day ‘Mother Mary’ for the people to rally around.  Pope John Paul II wrote an encyclical on Mary’s role in the church which can be found here. Given the cult’s proximity to Catholicism in game canon, I have chosen to reference this in regards to Lady Comstock’s role within the cult as the mother of the messiah and the ‘mistress of forgiveness’. 

Mary embraces each and every one in the Church, and embraces each and every one through the Church. In this sense Mary, Mother of the Church, is also the Church's model.

Mary is thus present in the mystery of the Church as a model. But the Church's mystery also consists in generating people to a new and immortal life: this is her motherhood in the Holy Spirit. And here Mary is not only the model and figure of the Church; she is much more. For, "with maternal love she cooperates in the birth and development" of the sons and daughters of Mother Church. 

Amelia, with this position within the cult in mind, is also positioned socially at the helm of society - and in an environment where religion is one with all things in every level, she is to be a model for the women of Columbia and a piece of living, breathing propaganda - all that they are should aspire to be. She is, all at once, the perfect vision of a wife, mother, woman, and citizen in all that she does and must be above reproach in temperament, manner and history - and while she certainly has left things at the proverbial riverside, Amelia’s past is, according to the society she has grown up in and continues to be in, an unforgivable act. It should be noted, of course, that in my canon, lady comstock downplayed her relationships with others, her affairs, and lied in confessional to Zachary Hale Comstock - fearing another rejection after living as a pariah for so long.

Be that as it may - Lady Comstock must be, much like Mary, above her own humanity; a model to all and the spirit of the cult and its reach - for not only is Lady Comstock mother to the lamb (Elizabeth); she is mother to Columbia and all its people - it is her divine and (only) purpose within the cult and its hierarchy - and to fail or waver in that duty - or to question the prophet, who is both god and the church/cult embodied - would, of course, mean she has outlived her usefulness.

The Mother of that Son, therefore, mindful of what has been told her at the Annunciation and in subsequent events, bears within herself the radical "newness" of faith: the beginning of the New Covenant.

Lady Comstock, as the figure/spirit of Mary within the cult, bears the heavy weight of carrying it with her in all forms - Zachary may be a more tangible figurehead than God, and even redirects attention from Amelia to himself, but the narrative remains the same - she is the one to birth their messiah, it is her that carries the future of the cult and prophecy - and with that weight upon her, it is a venerated position meant for an ideal - not a living, breathing person to live up to and occupy. Indeed, Lady Comstock’s role within the cult goes beyond mother to the lamb - but becomes mother of the city and its people; with several referring to her as ‘sweet mother of Columbia’ and ‘mother of forgiveness’ et cetera, et cetera (all Marian-esque titles, might I add).  But Mary, of course, is not just a mother to the messiah and a carrier of the faith - but also a mediator between god and mankind - entreating to god for man, guiding christ to ensure he looks out for man. Mary is the balance - the bridge - between the holy and the mundane; and as such, Lady Comstock serves that same role - and does so, as far as iI can see within canon perception of her as some omnipotent entity ("You won't hide long from her! She knows no blindness!" "Her eyes are open even in the grave! You will not escape!" "I will shine her light on you!" "She sees in channels! Yes, she does!" Which, in canon, she has become in death a saint of justice and in that way they would be praying to her to intercede on their behalf in order to gain god’s justice; but again, Amelia the saint is a separate conversation for another day - and I have already discussed her narrative role as caritas) has her acting on behalf as a conduit for the loyal and devoted when the prophet is ‘busy’; or the prayers are not ‘important’ enough for him to act upon.

Thus there is a mediation: Mary places herself between her Son and mankind in the reality of their wants, needs and sufferings. She puts herself "in the middle," that is to say she acts as a mediatrix not as an outsider, but in her position as mother. She knows that as such she can point out to her Son the needs of mankind, and in fact, she "has the right" to do so. Her mediation is thus in the nature of intercession: Mary "intercedes" for mankind.

The teaching of the Second Vatican Council presents the truth of Mary's mediation as "a sharing in the one unique source that is the mediation of Christ himself." Thus we read: "The Church does not hesitate to profess this subordinate role of Mary. She experiences it continuously and commends it to the hearts of the faithful, so that, encouraged by this maternal help, they may more closely adhere to the Mediator and Redeemer." This role is at the same time special and extraordinary. It flows from her divine motherhood and can be understood and lived in faith only on the basis of the full truth of this motherhood. 

Of course, this role is steeped in the fact that she is still a mother to the city, the faith (read; cult), and to its messiah - it is because she is a mother that she intercedes on behalf of man, and in that vein, it is also why Lady Comstock is shown to be that same mediator in the balance between god and man - because she is a mother; and not just any mother, but the mother of mothers within the cult. Above all else, her role is that of holy mother - mother in all ways, mother of all things; perfection and humility incarnate - and selfless, as only any holy mother can be. 

PART III: SIMPLY, AMELIA. 

Now that I have discussed the environment and views in which Amelia was raised in and formed by - as well as her role within the cult, we can discuss how all of this has impact her at her core; her identity, and her relationship with herself and the societal ideal of womanhood that she has found herself to be exemplifying. The years of social shunning and shame and the sudden exaltation of herself by the masses has, to put it lightly, twisted her sense of self and her views on herself.

Amelia was 16-18 during the time she found herself ostracized from society - two years of being treated as lower than dirt; two years of being reviled and shunned; of having all manner of comments and insults hurled her way by “polite society”. While obviously, her treatment of her flings was not the greatest - she did not deserve the outright disgust from the people around her, who would have simply been neutral on the matter had she been a man. Not only that, but having friends and those who had watched her grow up - people she had respected - and eventually, her own family; not only turn away from her and leave her alone, but to insult her and shun her at every turn? That would deeply effect someone at any age; let alone an upset teenager who is lashing out at the world. Give it enough time, and no matter how much she might pretend that it does not effect her, it will - and Amelia begins to internalise these thoughts, these insults, these actions - believing that she deserves this; that she is everything that has been said about her, that she is unforgivable, and nothing could reconcile that now that she had left the good graces of society, and all that she understood about womanhood - that there was nothing beyond duty, motherhood, and rearing children; and now that she had strayed from this path, there was no recovering, or going back from this no matter what she did to attempt to fix it.  With all of this in play, it did leave Amelia open to being indoctrinated into the cult under the guise and appeal of finally finding redemption and getting a second start - a clean slate. She would have had no support system, no family looking out for her in order to keep their own reputations unsullied, and would have been at a very low point mentally/emotionally. This leaves her vulnerable - and it is all too easy for Zachary to draw her deeper into the cult once he finds out she has money to spare. Even with all this talk of redemption and clean slates, however, Amelia knows at this point that what she has done is unforgivable to the eyes of society - and fearing losing her chance at this second chance, she would lie to Zachary; claiming that the gossip was hearsay spread by men who she had spurned. This omission is understandable - but she continues to internalise these thoughts and beliefs, having no one to healthily discuss her emotions and thoughts with.  Her self-view continues to twist upon entering Columbia - the sudden exaltation; the prophecy that she is to bear the Messiah; first met with elation, but then sadness and despair as it becomes clear in game canon that she and the Prophet cannot conceive. Zachary mentions this in audio briefly:

“The Archangel tells me that Columbia will only survive so long as my line sits the throne. Yet Lady Comstock produces no child. I have done what a man can do, yet there is no child! I have asked Lutece about the matter, but even she refuses to help.” (A Broken Circle; recorded in universe on September the 10th, 1893; a month before Elizabeth’s arrival in Columbia)

The implication here is that Zachary blames Amelia for their failure to conceive - something that was common to do at the time with couples struggling with fertility. Amelia, too, blames herself - believing that her indiscretions have manifested into infertility; and that for lying to Zachary about the extent of these affairs, that God, himself, is punishing her with infertility - as all she knows is that women who have ‘fallen’ in the way she has never receive grace. 

With that in mind, it can also be argued that her outburst in Rosalind Lutece’s home after Elizabeth’s arrival in Columbia was as much anger and hurt at the thought Zachary had had an affair with her, but a projection of her own thoughts and feelings towards herself on to Rosalind. 

I have touched on the fact Amelia does not enjoy the deification she has received within the cult and in Columbia - it makes her uncomfortable at a base level; for she does not believe that she deserves it. Elizabeth is not ‘her child’ (though she comes to accept that she is indeed her daughter years down the road) - the messiah is a lie, the prophecy is a lie; and she, too, is a lie - but at every turn, she is praised as mother, above all else - when she knows this to be a lie; and believes that God, again, is punishing her for her transgressions. It is a heavy thing, to go from a social pariah to the apex of society - the ideal in everything. All those expectations would be crushing - and they are. Amelia has no resources or ability to cope with the self-loathing she feels internally, nor any ability to cope with or compartmentalize the devotion the public shows her - and it is killing her; and the blind adoration she receives does not sit well upon her shoulders. It is uncomfortable, to say the least - and has, over the years, twisted into self-loathing as she understands herself to be ‘unwoman’ in the eyes of society, while exemplifying womanhood within the cult - and endeavours to redeem herself by acting and being as she should, resulting in an unhealthy relationship with herself and her own sexuality. 

Going deeper into that, Amelia treats herself with distance - she is not herself, her desires are not hers, and has become, in years, very much a voyeur into her own life - she has numbed herself, frozen herself; and in attempting to become this caricature of a woman and mother that Columbia has asked her to be: unerring, perfect - and above feeling. It manifests in certain ways - namely in her appearance, as she attempts to reclaim her femininity and own womanhood and exist with it in peace.

But if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering. Luke 7:38 ESV

Hair was also a symbol of womanhood in the Victorian Era with extreme importance placed upon it - Amelia covers hers, grows it long; wears it in elaborate styles - it is an intrinsic part of her; an extension - a visual representation of her reclamation of what she feels was taken from her. She’s got an unhealthy attachment to her hair - won’t let scissors near it - it is a core part of her identity. In addition, she dresses, of course, as she must - never too gaudy or ostentatious; always down to her toes, up to her neck, and down to her wrists - always blue, as a symbol of motherhood, of femininity. This, of course; is not as important to her as her hair - nor is it as important to her as the repression of her own sexual desires and appetites; which she cannot get rid of and are a great source of destress for her when they do surface, as she is constantly fighting against herself to be as she believes she is supposed to be: devoid of any desire. 

But at the end of the day, she still finds that she does hate herself - and believes, at her heart, that it will only take one small thing to send her back to the state she once was in, for she has never achieved grace - and feels altogether undeserving of the title of mother, and all that it implies. 

[theatreslave]

I fully need you all to realize

in another universe, each and every one of us, is making Severus Snape stutter and blush.

[asurrogateblog]

as a media psychology researcher 85% of my job is figuring out the most horrifically academic way to say "you idiots wouldn't last a day on tumblr"

[astradyke]

I would adore a deep dive into your thoughts on Phil’s quiet but wonderful way of showing his love for Dan being through photos

hi, i’m sorry i’m responding so late to this, but i really appreciate you enabling me here because i do seriously think about this constantly. i don’t know if i have the words to articulate it, though, so… bear with me. i'd quite like to try.

nobody loves in just a singular way, that’s the preface to this. when i say that Dan loves through words and Phil loves through photography, i don’t mean that Dan doesn’t use photography as an act of love— because there is a polaroid, in their house, of Phil that Dan took— and i don’t mean that Phil has never said something profound about Dan, because we all remember how he talked about Dan’s book at the end of the haircut video (19:13). i, at the very least, never really left the parts at the end of what Dan and Phil Text Each Other 2 where Phil constantly amplifies the work Dan is trying to do, unmasking his own frustrations at the struggles Dan has to experience, and meets Dan's self deprecation with affection (here's that dissertation) (19:57). Dan may use words in a very abstract, artistic way, professing his love for Phil as a ‘soulmate’, an unmatched connection, but Phil still has a careful, casual way of endlessly maneuvering himself to stand by Dan’s side. etc. and of course, there are five thousand other ways to adore a person. Dan and Phil do a little bit of everything; we are lucky to see a spare few snippets.

all that said, let’s talk about photography, yeah?

there is a permanence to photography, even if it’s not always a tangible permanence. they are timestamps, living commitments; i refuse to accept the idea that photography is somehow a ‘stand in’ to ‘true human connection’, rather than a critical facet of it. ex. i know that my best friend is real even if i didn’t have a photo of him sitting beside me on a wayward bus, but it’s still important that i inscribed that memory distinctly into the fabric of my life by taking a moment to chronicle it.

Phil Lester uses photography as a way to immortalize a thousand different fragments of his forever with Dan. there’s a distinct thought process, right, to see someone you love and decide— i never want to lose this moment. that decision, in of itself, is enough of a love confession, but there’s another layer when you decide, on top of all of it, i want the entire world to see this. when Dan described his love for Phil as "more than just romantic", he opened up a piece of himself to show the world, this is how i love this person. this is how i see him. when Dan calls Phil bubby, or dear, this is him cracking a hard exterior to say this is how i see you.

the two of them, upon first meeting, took a selfie together at the Apple store— Phil was the one to press the button. when they sat at the top of the sky-bar, Phil was the one to take a photo of Dan amidst the golden hour light. maybe he didn’t know that Dan loved him back, yet, but he had a certainty in his own adoration of Dan— that regardless of whether Dan wanted him back, Phil wanted him. the image feels timid but assured, like swallowing down anxiety to look yourself in the mirror; you can feel that through the pixels of it, so transparently. Phil’s love of Dan was not conditioned on anything: it was a terrifying but beautiful thing, and he wanted to preserve it, so even if it all went wrong he could say this is how i loved you. this is how you are loved, to me. you don’t have to want me back, but know that you were wanted, here, crawling into your own head sitting across from me in a city i’d like to call home with you, someday. so let me. and when you look at this photo of heart eyes Howell, cradling a bear, it’s louder than a blood rush: i love you.

[ID: Dan Howell sitting in the sunlight, looking outside the window while holding his phone. end ID.]

[ID: Dan Howell in a fuzzy hat, holding a stuffed bear against his face and looking at the camera with a small smile. end ID]

(sorry. it was necessary to include).

every year, Phil spills this oath into his camera roll. when Dan’s birthday arrives, Phil has a thousand candids to show for it, a thousand of silly and unflattering photos— a “loving” selection (7:41). exposing my heart a little here, but when you are someone who struggles with insecurity at some level, photos of you that are unflattering circling around feels horrifying. you want to be composed, and pretty, and loved— but then, maybe, it settles in that you are loved someplace beyond conditions. Phil chronicles these casual, vulnerable moments with Dan, and he shares them, because he loves Dan to a level past the flat logic of if he is composed, if he is pretty, then he is loved. Dan may be unattractive at points, but he is never unloved. never again.

these photos also demonstrate how much Phil romanticizes the little moments with Dan. watching him play Skyrim in VR; sitting beside him while he plays Elden Ring (3:40); admiring an oddly-shaped tear in his pants (missing citation); taken aback by a large poodle jumping into his lap. there are hundreds of photos of Dan taken by Phil which have escaped. imagine how many more linger. if we can go off of this (admittedly horrifying) tweet, we can envision a camera roll overflowing with him.

when they go on vacation, Phil takes soft photographs of Dan. here’s this love in a new city, just like we did fifteen years ago in Manchester, before i knew the right way to hold your hand, the right way to counter your cynicism, the right way to systemically reject every pet name because saying your name like a promise is enough— i’m putting this love into the world because i no longer live in a world where i go a second without it. Phil saves photos of Dan looking at him like he hung the stars, and he saves photos of Dan walking in front of him— he would never save them, as an Orpheus, but thankfully he doesn’t have to anymore, not after 2019— and he saves photos of Dan happy, because he wants to save that, too. Phil will save photos from every era of Dan’s life, but he wants those photos the most.

Phil has seen Dan perform in front of thousands. he has seen Dan pass out from standing up too quickly in their living room. he has seen Dan stumble home from a unexpected solo walk, he has seen Dan try to hide his fear-to-death in Phil’s childhood bedroom, he has seen Dan try to use a laundry machine, he has seen Dan in every way a person could: i love you.

Dan knows all of this. Dan sends Phil photos of himself when he’s solo traveling for his tour; the two of them almost never call, not unless Dan’s in a cab, but they regularly facetime. Dan winces at old photos of himself, but Phil coos at them.

Phil Lester is a romantic. he likes to hold his love to his chest— sharing photographs, but careful not to share too much. i think we under-estimate the shift Phil had to make, sometimes, in 2019: coming out was a major deal to him, too, even if he had already been out to some. more than that, coming out while Dan was also out is a very different experience. still, he likes to stay private, which is why we’ve not seen what i imagine to be hundreds of photos of Dan in Phil’s arms, or Dan kissing him on the cheek, or Dan asleep beside him in his bed (because we know how often he takes photos of Dan asleep, but i can't even begin to get into that right now).

even still, from what we can see, God, it’s everything, isn’t it? i can’t imagine what it felt like, for Dan, first trying to reconcile all of this. when you go so long without experiencing a safe kind of love, your reality fundamentally shifts. everything is brittle: you have to be hard enough to survive it, but not too hard to break the little you have entirely. half of you is a secret, the other half of you feels like it should be— who you are shifts, when you are loved, so in the reverse: when you go so long without it you feel displaced internally. when you find that love, you throw yourself entirely into it, expecting nothing but wanting everything. you punch a wall only to feel the plaster cradle your touch; you tell yourself you’d never turn back and you hate that need to; you expect to hit the sea but the wax never seems to melt. impossibly, you are okay. maybe i showed too much of my own heart there, but when i look at 2009 Dan, i see all of that. eighteen years old, and for the first time since he was a tiny child, he actually felt safe.

because Phil says Dan like it’s the sweetest word in the world. because Phil has a hunger for everything Dan creates. because Phil held Dan when he dropped out of university, picked up his first radio job with him, moved in with him, and never left. because Phil never treated Dan like an experience to hide away. Phil loved parts of Dan back into life.

because Phil takes photographs of Dan, everywhere in his life, to say: this is my world, now. you can’t take a photo in the daylight without capturing the sun. you can’t take a photo in the nighttime without capturing the absence of it. Phil says Dan’s name in every video, and he takes another hundred photos, because he’s so fucking sure about this love. there’s not even a question to be asked.

this is only a fraction of what there is to say about it, some messily constructed analysis, but it's hard to capture. i'd call Dan a lucky bastard, but it's hardly luck, is it? Phil makes the decision to love Dan every single day, and it might look quiet, but it's so unfathomably loud.

[cuubism]

Computation

part 7 of Complex Mathematics

(aka Dream vs Technology -- Technology: 1, Dream: 0)

------------

Wednesday, 3:54am

Hob. what is the wifi password?

3:56am: why are you texting me when I’m in the same house?

3:57am: I did not want to wake you up.

4:00am: ……….

4:01am: Ah.

4:03am: it’s 12345. which is terrible security by the way

4:04am: how do i know this and you don’t? we’re in YOUR flat

4:05am: Computers are your friends, not mine.

4:10am: It does not like the password.

4:12am: alright i’m getting up

Dream creeps back into the living room, holding a cup of tea, as Hob’s tinkering with the router. Turns out it needed to be completely reset before he could reconnect it to Dream’s laptop. Not that this is that hard, but for some reason Hob doesn’t understand, technology is simply out of Dream’s grasp. Head in the clouds, too smart for basic computer skills, etc etc.

“A peace offering,” Dream says, placing the tea on the coffee table. He perches on the couch beside where Hob’s leaning over the router on its spot on the bookshelf.

“I’m not mad at you,” Hob says. He pats the router as its indicator lights finally turn green again. “I will take tea, though.”

“I woke you,” Dream says softly.

“You’ve woken me before, you will again,” Hob says with equanimity. Their sleep schedules are out of alignment, it tends to happen.

It’s the wrong thing to say, though. Dream cringes, hands folding in his lap. “I should be able to handle such things.”

“It’s just the wifi.” Hob finally finishes reconnecting Dream’s laptop and turns properly towards him. Dream still looks guilty about it. Sometimes Hob misses the time before they were dating, when Dream would bristle at him instead of caving. Just because he doesn’t like seeing Dream feel bad.

He takes the cup of tea and places it in Dream’s hands instead, briefly wrapping their hands around each other. “It’s okay,” he repeats. Possibly they should have a longer conversation about it, but Hob’s not emotionally awake enough for it.

Instead, he gets up and heads for the kitchen to put on some coffee. He needs something with more caffeine in it than tea.

“What are you doing?” Dream asks.

“Might as well get something done while my brain is online,” Hob says. He goes to fetch his own laptop from Dream’s bedroom. Lord knows it’ll need to get reconnected to the glitchy wifi again, anyway.

~~

Friday, 2:05pm

Hob.

2:06pm: ?

2:07pm: The wifi is angry again.

2:09pm: did you antagonize it?

2:09pm: hang on did you just wake up now?

2:10pm: I cannot comment.

2:12pm: I assume you have been hard at work in the library since six.

2:14pm: more like hardly working in the library. i did make an app that gives you a gold star every time you do the laundry

2:16pm: Will that assist in your routines?

2:17pm: probably not but it’ll be fun for 5 minutes

2:17pm: wifi password’s still 12345

2:18pm: maybe I should make an app for that instead…

2:20pm: I do not think it would help.

2:30pm: …You are not trying to make said app, are you?

2:34pm: nope just realized I’m late for a class and had to scramble out of there. I’ll be back later can do couples counseling for you and wifi then?

2:35pm: Very well.

For a while after putting down his phone, Dream stares at the wifi router in vexation, as if that will possibly make the angry red lights turn green again. He doesn’t know what he’s done wrong. He knows even less what to do to fix it.

He needs the wifi operational to keep generating these fractals. He supposes he could go to the library and use university wifi, but that requires going out in public, which is preferably avoided, at least while he’s trying to work. So he will have to do something else until Hob gets back from class.

He recalls what Hob had said. That instead of working on his dissertation he had made an entire phone app about laundry. He had said it so casually, like it was a doodle to pass the time. Dream can use apps—barely—but he cannot begin to fathom how he would go about making one. Hob does not understand how even in his procrastination he is exceptional.

Well. This is something that Dream can do. Hob hates doing laundry—hence the app-based reward system—but Dream doesn’t mind. He finds it meditative. He will have to be more precise about fabric care instructions now, as while his own clothes rarely range beyond grey, black, and dark blue, Hob actually wears colors which might bleed into each other.

He puts on his headphones with some music, gathers up the laundry from the bedroom, and goes about his routine.

When Hob gets back, Dream has finished hanging the laundry to dry and returned to his contemplation of the router, this time still with his headphones playing. He’s lost in thought, and doesn’t notice Hob’s come in until his hand lands on Dream’s shoulder. Normally a sudden touch when he’s thinking would make him jump, but he’s become used to Hob.

“Trying to solve your marital problems through telepathy?” Hob asks.

“We were never married,” Dream says. “Indeed we are enemies.”

Hob laughs. He kisses Dream on the cheek, then kneels in front of the router. “You have to stop tormenting my boyfriend,” he tells it. It only blinks back at him innocently.

Hob can be very silly at times. “I do not think arguing with the inanimate object will help,” Dream says.

“You never know.” Hob takes the router down and sets about unplugging all the cables. Dream still doesn’t know what any of them precisely do, nor how wifi works. It may as well be magic.  

Hob has it fixed within minutes, of course. Far more effective than Dream’s intense staring. He gets Dream’s laptop reconnected, and Dream is finally able to start generating his fractal. “Thank you,” he says.

“Anything for my love,” says Hob, getting to his feet again. “Guessing you want some time to yourself now to work on this?”

“Yes,” says Dream, with some guilt. Hob has come home to help him only for him to immediately bury himself in his work again. But yes, he does want to make progress on this at last.

“Well, good,” says Hob, and Dream turns to him in surprise. “Because I’m due for a nap.”

Dream still hasn’t formulated a response to this by the time Hob’s disappeared into his bedroom. Strange, that their routines can be so opposite and still meld together so well.

Hob pokes his head back out into the hall. “Did you do the laundry?”

“Yes,” says Dream.

“I could kiss you,” Hob declares, then blows one to him before disappearing back into the bedroom.

Dream presses his hand to his cheek, as if to touch a kiss that had really landed there. Smiles to himself. Then goes back to his fractal.

~~

Monday, 5:02pm

Hob.

5:03pm: Wifi?

5:04pm: …Yes.

Thursday, 9:50pm

…..Hob.

9:50pm: I’m sitting right next to you.

9:51pm: ….

9:51pm: I’m just gonna get you a new router. This thing’s got problems.

9:52pm: I think it is I who has the problems.

9:52pm: That too.

Saturday, 6:00pm

Hob.

6:00pm: Is it broken AGAIN??

6:01pm: No. I got dinner.

6:02pm: Oh!

6:02pm: Fuck I’m starving.

6:03pm: Coming back from class now.

6:03pm: Don’t touch the router it’s in a fragile mental state.

6:04pm: Aren’t we all.

~~

Thursday, 3:50pm

This time, it is the wifi in Hob’s flat that is stymieing Dream. He does not think it is broken. Hob has merely changed the password, as he’s much more diligent about internet security than Dream, and then forgotten to tell Dream what it is. Or, more likely, correctly assumed Dream would have to ask him again anyway.

He briefly contemplates trying to deduce the password, but it is likely an incomprehensible string of characters that Hob would claim is ideal security precisely because of the impossibility of deducing it.

He refuses to text Hob about it again. Hob has a class to teach soon—Dream has his schedule memorized—Dream does not want to distract him. Though speaking of…

3:50pm: You have a class in ten minutes.

3:51pm: FUCK

3:51pm: I got distracted

3:53pm: Now… running

3:54pm: You are not near the building, are you.

3:55pm: NOPE

Dream smiles to himself, thinking of Hob sprinting across campus. It happens often. Hob is good at many things, but time management is not one of them. This is why Dream knows his schedule.

He does feel… a bit silly, though. He should be better at this, should he not? Less bothersome to Hob over small things that he should be able to handle.

Normally he would go back to his work to distract himself from these thoughts, but he still can’t work on his fractals without being able to connect remotely to the university computers, which are more powerful than his own. This is something Hob had also set up for him, because Dream had not been able to make any sense of the instructions he had been given for remote login, and the like.

Sighing, he instead takes his sketchbook out of his bag. It’s been a while since he’s made any time for drawing. But he had started looking at fractals in the first place to better understand patterns in art, to understand resonances between what occurred in nature and what was projected by mathematics. And drawing used to soothe him.

So he starts drawing, sketching the fractal he has been generating—to the extant that he can with the imprecise instrument of his pen. Even in infinite impossible digital form, the branching spirals eventually become too small for him to see, though he knows they continue on in perfect replication forever, smaller and smaller until they disappear into atoms. He cannot recreate that level of detail by hand. But he tries.

By the time he gets another text back from Hob, an hour later, he’s moved to the floor to have more space. He’s found a bigger piece of scrap paper and is drawing the fractal again, in more detail this time, color-coding the different shapes, free-handing where he should probably use a ruler for more precision. He has achieved several more levels of replication than before, but it is still not right. He can’t get it right. If he could only use the stupid computer system he could get it right.

Finally he looks at his phone, several minutes after the text alert pinged.

Thanks love 😘

Unexpectedly, it makes him tear up. Always this happens to him. He does not realize how frustrated he has become with himself until it is too late.

Of course, to only make matters worse, he is still sitting hunched on the floor, pen clasped tight in his hand, teeth clenched so hard it’s hurting his jaw, when Hob comes through the door. He must have texted not far from home.

“Hey, love,” Hob’s already saying as he comes through the door, “meant to stop and grab dinner but I totally forgot— I’m sure I have something here, though— Dream?”

Dream hasn’t moved from the floor, or responded. Hob puts down his bag and comes over to him. He looks down at the fractal, which is still incomplete. “Did you draw that?”

“Obviously,” Dream bites. The pen is still in his hand. He drops it, scraping a hand through his hair. Great. Now he’s snapping at Hob, too.

Hob sits down on the floor beside him. He studies the fractal. Then points to one of the shapes that Dream’s colored in red. “That’s supposed to be purple.”

Dream stares at the fractal. Hob is right, it is meant to be purple. According to the way Dream had color-coded it digitally. He looks at Hob. “How do you know that?”

“I’ve watched you fiddling with it enough. We set it up on your laptop, remember?”

Yes. Dream remembers. He remembers how Hob had helped him.

“Wifi giving you troubles again?” Hob asks, looking from the drawing, to Dream’s laptop, which is sleeping on the couch.

Dream nods, then saws quietly, “Are you not… frustrated with me? Annoyed?”

Hob doesn’t need to ask what he means. “Sometimes,” he says, and Dream can’t help his flinch. “So?”

“So?”

Hob shrugs. “I would have missed that class if you didn’t text me.”

Dream does not understand the relevance.

Hob looks up at him, raising an eyebrow in challenge. “Aren’t you annoyed with me?”

Perhaps he is, at times. Recently, Dream has been too absorbed in his project to feel much about it at all.

“I don’t know,” he says. “It is just how you are.”

Hob seems to think that Dream still doesn’t understand the point he’s making, and perhaps Dream doesn’t. Hob takes his hand. “Look. I’ve no idea why someone as smart as you are is constantly defeated by basic technology, but it doesn’t matter. Always having to be the one to fix the router is a small price to pay for having you in my life.”

Dream’s mouth opens, but no words come out. He… he does not know if anyone has ever put up with him with so little complaint. For truly, it is not only computer troubles. It is all the small things that stack upon each other to make him feel different and difficult.

“I find I do not like…” Dream admits tentatively, “when you must do these things. That I should be able to do.”

“You did the laundry the other day,” Hob says.

Why must he jump topics in this manner? “I do not understand.”

“Well, we don’t actually live together, you know. You have your own laundry. You don’t have to do mine, too.”

“I thought it would help you,” Dream says.

Hob just waits expectantly.

Dream looks down at his lap. “Ah. I… see.” Hob finds him frustrating at times, he had said so, but still wants to help him. He finds Hob’s admittance that Dream is frustrating to be a relief, in its way. He would only feel more on edge if Hob pretended otherwise, surely to snap later when Dream was least expecting it, as so many have done.

“Give me your arm,” Hob says then.

When Dream does, Hob pushes up his sleeve, takes one of the markers from the floor and writes on Dream’s forearm, the wifi password is I love you.

“There,” he says. “Now you won’t forget.”

Dream touches the words with a light fingertip. “This is not good internet security.”

“Oh, so you do listen my ramblings,” Hob says, laughing. Always, Dream thinks. “What, you’re going to throw out my valentine because I cut the heart out a little wonky?”

He makes as if to rub the marker off, and Dream pulls his arm protectively to his chest. Hob’s smile softens. He carefully pulls Dream forward into a hug, Dream’s arm pressed between them. Dream tucks his face into the crook of Hob’s neck. It’s one of his favorite places to hide.

“I’ll help you fix your program after we find some dinner,” Hob tells him, rubbing his back.

“I think I should give up on using computers,” Dream mumbles.

Hob chuckles. “See how you feel about it after I make you some brownies for dessert.”

Dream hums in pleasure at the thought, and Hob kisses the side of his head. And Dream touches, again, the words Hob’s written on his arm, where it’s pressed between them. And allows himself to smile.

Wednesday, 6:03pm

Dream is attempting to cook dinner. Hob doesn’t think it’s going so well. At least not if the blaring fire alarm, which Hob’s just silenced by waving a dish towel at it until the smoke dissipated, is any indication. But it does mean he’s been treated to the sight of Dream with his sleeves rolled up, delicate hands at work—and wearing an actual apron.

Having soothed the alarm, he leans against the counter so he can shamelessly ogle instead of helping.

“What are you even trying to make?” he asks, eyeing the still-smoking oven.

Dream pouts. “Only bread. It should not be so hard.”

“You didn’t wait for me to get home to watch?” He imagines the sight of Dream aggressively kneading the bread dough. It shouldn’t be a turn on, but it kind of is.

“You would make a spectacle of my misery?” Dream says, but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his lips, like he knows exactly what Hob is thinking about.

“Definitely,” Hob says, and Dream sighs, but turns to take the attempt at bread out of the oven. It’s… pretty blackened, to be honest. “Butter’ll save it, I’m sure!” Hob says cheerfully.

“Nothing will save it,” says Dream, morosely. He pulls off his oven mitt in apparent disgrace, and— Hob catches his arm.

“How has this not faded yet?”

For Hob’s writing saying the wifi password is I love you is still on his forearm.

Dream looks sheepish. “I got it tattooed.”

Hob tilts his head at him, confused. “So you could remember the wifi password?”

“So that I could remember this.” He traces his finger over, I love you.

Hob feels a blush creep across his cheeks. But it’s a pleasant feeling. “This is not even my best handwriting.”

“I know,” says Dream. He does not seem unhappy about it.

Hob takes his arm, touches the words, too. “You could have just gotten this part done.”

“I think,” Dream says slowly, touching the part that says, the wifi password is, “that this is another form of the same.”

And Hob… finds himself tearing up a little. Because it’s true. It’s so silly that Dream, certifiable maths genius, struggles so much with basic computer skills. But Hob will do any silly thing for him, because he loves him.

“Yeah,” he says, taking a shaky breath. “It is.”

“Unfortunately, you can never change the wifi password now,” says Dream, and Hob laughs wetly.

“I really can’t, can I? Terrible security. The things I’ll do for you, darling.”

“Would that include making proper bread?” Dream asks, and Hob nods, patting his arm.

“We’ll fix it, don’t worry.”

Now he’s wondering how he didn’t notice Dream getting a tattoo. Though to be fair, they haven’t seen each other as much in the past two weeks as they usually would, thanks to very inconvenient scheduling. Apparently Dream’s taken advantage of that time to do this.

“Can’t let you out of my sight for a second,” he says, as he fetches a new bread pan from the cupboard. “God knows what you’ll come back with next.”

“Be careful or I will consider that a challenge,” Dream says, and Hob pauses as way too many images flash through his mind. He shakes them off. He’ll never be able to focus on anything like that.

And Dream, the bastard, is smirking.

“Watch that look on your face or you might find that flour you’re holding dumped over your head,” Hob warns, but Dream only looks victorious, and utterly uncaring of the bag of flour he's precariously picked up.

“How will you ogle me kneading the dough that way?”

Hob swipes a dish towel from the counter and throws it at him. Dream yelps and spills the flour, which poofs up in a cloud of white landing all over his black t-shirt.

“Hob,” he complains.

“Serves you right, you dickhead,” Hob says. It only returns the smirk to Dream’s face.

“If you feel that way perhaps I’ll decide I don’t need your supervision,” he says archly.

Hob tears a piece off of Dream’s first attempt at a loaf. Or rather, breaks off a piece, which is hard as stone. He shows it to him as evidence.

Dream snatches it and shoves it into his mouth. Bites down with a crunch so horrifying Hob’s afraid he’s broken a tooth. But Dream persists, chewing it painstakingly and then swallowing, as if by force.

“Taste good?” Hob asks.

“Yes—” Dream starts to insist—then dissolves into a fit of coughing that swiftly turns into giggles. Hob loves it so much when he laughs like that. It’s so rare.

Hob laughs with him. Then frees the crumpled bag of flour from Dream’s grasp and sets it aside, brushes the flour and crumbs from his shirt. Then he takes Dream’s arm and runs his fingertip over the words again, still in awe.

He again finds himself having to clear his throat to avoid tearing up. But he manages, and says, “Let’s get you some proper, not burnt bread, yeah?”

“Please,” says Dream, a tad sheepish. “I am… very hungry.”

Hob kisses his cheek, then goes about solving that problem, too.

[ayeforscotland]

Trying to limit and monitor kids’ social media usage would make so many problems so much worse and I need people to think about it objectively and not take it into consideration just because the concept is a knee-jerk reaction from a grieving mother being exploited by everyone around her.

— Kids already lie about their age, so an age limit is already unenforceable unless you literally require legal ID, which is an incredible breach of privacy with even further safety risks.

— Vulnerable children including LGBTQ kids living with bigoted families would be put in real-life danger of abuse or homelessness if their families had a way of knowing when they’re seeking support.

— The internet and technology is a requirement to navigate the world around you at the most basic level. That is a fact and schools know it too. Limiting access to that in this day and age would be massively limiting one’s knowledge, safety and basic life skills, especially if their family is neglectful or abusive.

— What constitutes as social media cannot necessarily strictly be defined. Some people consider WhatsApp to be social media despite the fact it’s a texting app, and the people you communicate with there are presumably people you’ve spoken to before if you know their numbers. Kids need a way of communicating with people for both practical and safety reasons, and blanketing almost everything as ‘social media’ and limiting access to it inhibits that.

— If you put a ban on all ‘social media’ until the age of 16 and then suddenly allow access, what you end up with is a child who has zero knowledge or experience of something suddenly being thrown into a world where anything is possible. It’s like when teens are forbidden alcohol their whole lives and the day they turn 18 they go on a massive binge not knowing their limits and end up either sick or in the hospital. It’s a recipe for disaster. They NEED exposure so they can learn.

— Let’s be real, kids would find a way around a ban through VPNs or other means anyway. We all figured out how to dodge the website blockers at school when we were 12. I doubt this would be any different.

While the fact that one of the killers watched gore on the dark web is indeed concerning, I really feel the spotlight is being shone on entirely the wrong issue here. Their conversations about the murder were all on social media and provided significant proof for the case. What kids need isn’t for adults to try to control them and read everything into their lives, it’s for adults to communicate with them and make them feel comfortable enough to talk to them when they have a problem. And that’s ignoring the, you know, whole transphobia thing.

(Sorry to write a dissertation in your inbox but despite my deepest sympathies and compassion for Esther seeing people put any stock into her awful, awful idea when that’s so clearly not the problem does quite frustrate me and I need everyone to know just how illogical it is)

I don’t need to add anything to that besides saying this line of argument is very similar to the people who campaign for an internet where no one can be anonymous, it puts so many additional people at risk.

Thanks for taking the time to share!

[jmdbjk]

Make assumptions and get the wrong idea. Please. That's what he said.

My brain listening to Who:

(on the beat of course)

Sorry for the brain porn but that's how my brain feels when I hear Jimin's vocals. The runs, the ad libs, the highs, lows, and in-betweens, the breathing, especially the breathing. Especially in the 4K version of the Tonight Show performance posted on BangtanTV.

For many years now I've been wanting to hear Jimin let 'er rip on a big song and FINALLY! FINALLY!

FINALLY!

I started to jot down my interpretations of Who but you know what? no one needs yet another analyzation of the song, the lyrics, the MV, the belt sharing, the ... but one thing I need to point out... Ryan's Vintage Clothes is definitely a nod to Ryan Gosling don't you think? (just kidding sorta)

A ton of people have given their dissertations on what they think it all means. All I know is Jimin has that MAGIC and he is FLEXING big time.

This is my favorite shot from the most recent promo image drop on Weverse. I have always dissented when Jimin would say his left side is his best side. No sir. It's your right side.

The entire Muse album is a complete mind-bender for me. He came up with the ideas and themes and what he couldn't do on his own, he explained to all the people helping him in order to create his vision...

PDogg said this in an interview: "I also believe the experience of collaborating with various producers and songwriters in LA and NY gave Jimin the opportunity to further explore his limitless potential."

Minseong Kim (Performance Director): "When we were working together, I saw Jimin putting a lot of thought into delivering the song's choreography as a visual art form. He uses his detailed expressions to convey various artistic elements in the performance beyond simply presenting stylish, energetic choreography. He is always devoted to emphasizing the artistic elements of the performance by forming a visceral connection to it. I believe that his commitment and passion has shaped Jimin's unique style and allows him to deliver one of the most exciting performances in pop music."

and:

"We had countless discussions about how to visually articulate the story and message of the song through the performance on a larger scale, in a manner that's true to the song's title Who. When the choreography was completed Jimin was utterly pleased with the performance having all the elements he had wished to incorporate."

You can read the entire VMAGAZINE article here.

Regarding the other songs on the album, in MiniMoniMusic Exchange, Jimin mentioned that Rebirth was his favorite track. I do love it too, Jimin. The heartbeat, the poignancy. Perfection.

And I have to compare Be Mine to Seven. In Jungkook's Seven, the explicit version was so very literal and so in your face it was funny, even the MV added to the unserious vibe of it all.

But in Jimin's, Be Mine, he has probably the most erotic lyric I've ever heard coming out of the mouth of a Tannie: "... a hot island, a party with just the two of us; I know what you want and baby I want the same; love ‘til the morning; we just keep fallin’... baby come, baby come; show me what, show me what love is, yeah yeah; melt me hot, hot, hot quickly"

I am streaming all the versions of all the songs and album. I absolutely love it.

Now that I got that out of my system...

It's been about a year (??!?!?) since Jungkook's Only Fans debut live stream. Time is flying.

We are anticipating gaining more context soon surrounding exactly what went down between them the prior two weeks to this live and what did Jimin mean when he said he "can handle it? (Are you sure you wanna know?)

There is a high possibility we might get some jikook carpool karaoke.

The main trailer drops Monday. Hold on to your ... whatever it is you hold on to when you get shook because I'm sure it'll be another earthquake on the timeline.

All lyrics translations credit: © 2024 by Learn Korean With Sel www.learnkoreanwithsel.com/

[anghraine]

I've been moving and navigating further departmental nonsense etc (my pseudo-dissertation got approved for defending, though! l o l). But it was interesting to see the Worst P&P Takes poll I reblogged accumulating more results and the general tenor of responses in the notes.

I mean, the results are definitely to be expected if you're familiar with the side of Austen fandom doing a lot of the reblogging etc. But still, interesting!

Many Tumblr polls specify that they're asking about personal preferences that may be irrational—favorite/least favorite, coolest/most annoying, or something like that. This one, though, asked for the worst interpretation of P&P, not the most annoying one—and the current leader is "Darcy is never really proud, he's just shy and probably has anxiety" against some very steep competition on the Bad Takes front.

I was thinking about why that seemed a kind of tediously predictable choice even though I agree that the take is wrong, and realized that while I do disagree with the shy Darcy interpretation and I particularly disagree with the specific formulation where he is never proud at all, it ultimately feels to me like a failure of nuance rather than just completely wrongheaded like some of the others. And this is probably my fundamental difference with a lot of Darcy takes I see!

In my opinion, a character who is introverted and who feels awkward in various social situations and who doesn't like common social activities and who has to work himself up to talking to his crush and who is repeatedly suggested to behave very differently in contexts where he's more comfortable being interpreted as shy and anxious is not that big of a leap.

Yes, it's important that he is actually fundamentally confident and haughty, that he makes his personal feelings of discomfort other people's problem, and that he thinks he's such a unique and special butterfly that he doesn't need to even put in an effort outside his personal social circle. But it's a misreading that is easy to follow (and long predates the 2005 P&P, as I've mentioned before!).

The additional misreading that a shy and anxious Darcy is also never proud at all is a much more drastic leap, and in my experience, condemnations of shy Darcy interpretations rarely differentiate between "Darcy is shy as well as arrogant" and "Darcy is shy rather than arrogant" as interpretations (although their basic arguments are quite different). But even that as the worst possible misreading of P&P when Darcy is not even the main character is ?????????

I mean, for one alternative (not even the one I voted for!), the idea that Elizabeth is an author avatar Mary Sue seems a far worse misreading of P&P than basically anything to do with Darcy at all. The center piece of the entire novel is Elizabeth's epiphany of self-knowledge about her own shortcomings that do not particularly resemble Austen's at all, but were ethically a concern for her, and she's a complex, interesting character in general whom Austen correctly regarded as a major achievement. Inverting that into Elizabeth as an improbably perfect, reality-warping self-insert is deeply wrong and frankly pretty misogynistic as well.

(ngl though, it's a little funny to see such a blatantly terrible reading of Elizabeth rank so far behind the shy Darcy votes. I've gotten "does anyone actually think/say that?" so many times on my posts about Austen fandom's prioritization of Darcy's character development over Elizabeth's and yet...)

And even just going with the Darcy-centric misreadings, the idea of Darcy as a "bad boy" seems easily the most absolutely wrong take on him. His pride is at least complicated and the finer points can be fairly debated and it's a quality that actually changes somewhat throughout the novel, and you can have discussion over what happened when, whose testimonies should be weighted more, etc. But there is no point at which "bad boy" isn't utterly wrong for him. However, there's definitely a tendency in some wings of the fandom to find the idea of Darcy being misread too favorably more objectionable than him being read too unfavorably, regardless of the particulars, so it's not a surprise.

I suppose you could argue about what "worst" means in the context of variously bad interpretations. Like, is an interpretation that is about a fairly trivial aspect of the book but extremely wrong about it "worse" than an interpretation that is pretty bad but at least comprehensibly so about something very important?

[wreckedandpolemic]

white gold pregnancy scare blurb? 😍

your first pregnancy scare (i say first because let’s be real the two of you fuck raw and like rabbits) happens when you’ve been together about a year, not living together per se, but something close to it. you’re up to your neck in final deadlines for uni, and the last thing you need is your parents breathing down your neck for an entire month.

when your period is late, you aren’t that worried about it at first; you’re stressed, not sleeping super well, it happens. but then it gets to two weeks, and you start to panic, and random, freak sickness throws your world completely off-kilter. matty wakes to find you crying on the bathroom floor, in a total, uncontrolled downward spiral.

“oh, darling,” he murmurs, approaching you cautiously. “what is it? what’s wrong?”

you choke on a sob. “i think i might be pregnant,” you say quietly, deliberately staring at the floor and avoiding matty’s eyes as he wraps an arm around your trembling shoulders.

“okay,” he says after a beat. “are you sure?”

you shake your head. “no. i can’t— i don’t— i can’t be a mum. not right now, anyway. but i— i know you want kids, and it’s,” you pause, biting your lip even as you press into the soothing heat of his body. “i don’t want you to think i’m scared because of you.”

he kisses the side of your head. “we’re in this together, love. you and me, yeah? whatever you want to do, i’m right there with you, okay?” you nod tearfully, overwhelmed in gratitude for his calm, soothing presence. he coaxes you back into the bedroom, lays you down on the bed and holds you, soothes you softly. the pair of you lie in quiet, resting against his chest and clinging to his arms until your cheeks have dried and your breathing evens out. “you gonna be alright if i run out and get you a test, darling?”

you try not to spiral while he’s gone. it’s not like you’ve never thought about having kids with him; most days the thought of him cradling a sweet, squishy little baby is enough to have you in floods of tears. but in those visions you aren’t twenty-two with a dissertation due in two weeks, and it all feels too fucking real.

matty’s back shockingly fast, though. he must’ve driven at least the speed limit to have been there and back in this time. especially because he’s carrying more than just a pregnancy test, arms laden with flowers and chocolates, bubble bath and face masks. he smiles, the simple action infinitely reassuring. “called off work on the way there. whatever it says, i wanna be here for my girl.” you just melt. god, you’re so fucking lucky. “wasn’t sure which one to get, so i just got ‘em all,” he says sheepishly, producing a comically large stack of pregnancy tests, the sight shocking a giggle out of you. he looks relieved, the first time you’ve laughed all morning.

you end up taking three, leaving them face down on the counter while you wait, unable to bear the tension. matty holds your hand the whole time, kisses you, murmurs reassurances against your skin. when your timer goes off, you bury your face in his shoulder. “you look. i can’t do it,” you mumble.

you watch his face as he turns over each test one by one. he’s smiling, but that doesn’t tell you anything, because he’s infuriatingly calm in situations like this. “you’re not pregnant, darling,” he says, and you crumple in relief.

“thank fucking god,” you gasp, unable to stop yourself, and he chuckles.

“alright, angel. you can stop stressin’ so much, now. i’m gonna take care of you.”

matty runs you a bath, the water silky and scented like roses, massaging the tension out of your shoulders. “you know, i do wanna have kids. with you. one day,” you add hastily.

he smiles into the skin of your neck. “gonna be the best mum, darling. when you’re ready.”

“how about we just practice making them for now?” you tease, tipping your head back so you can look in his eyes, wide with adoration.

“i like the sound of that.”

[pacific-rimbaud]

i was reading your thoughts on how fans felt about l&oha and while i concur it is a perfect piece of work in my head and have reread it 5x, i wonder if you think fans tend to be harsher/more critical of hermione and let draco slide? i see it a lot in fics where he's more of an alphahole type

Oh, man. Okay. The can is open, the worms are loose. Rant under the cut.

I'm actually going to set men aside entirely. Just. To the side with you. I desperately need more realistically complicated men, too, but that's a whole separate discussion. Right now: women.

There must be whole dissertations out there on the phenomenon of readers hating female characters with negative traits. I'm a fandom old, so I didn't grow up identifying with Hermione, and wouldn't have even if I'd been young enough to. I did that "which character are you" test just now and my top three matches were Janis Ian from Mean Girls, Jughead from Riverdale and April from Parks and Rec, which, massive grain of salt, etc. BUT gives you an idea. I am not a Hermione and never was, so she's never been a comfort character or self-insert for me. Some of my favorite fictional women are Sophie Hatter (mean, irrational, petty, old and mostly loving it), Harrowhark Nonagesimus (evil stick), Phryne Fisher (zero fucks to give). What I like about Hermione is how imperfect she is. I'm a "cleverest witch of your age I've ever met" truther (book!Lupin is absolutely saying "you're the canniest 14 year-old child I have personally met, saying this as a guy who doesn't get out much," not "you are a once-in-a-century genius"), and from my perspective, she's often wrong and often a dick, and not in a fun and fiesty burn-down-the-world BAMF way. Which. Good for her! Be human.

And that's the thing. I personally don't want Hermione to be perfect, I want her to be what I think she is, textually, which is intelligent, hardworking, loyal, competitive, compassionate, controlling, belittling, rude, petty, insecure, vindictive, volatile. She has the right to be that way, because she's human. The desire for perfected women (or unapologetically and unstoppably awful ones, another brand of female power fantasy) is not limited to Dramione fandom. I think it's amplified in DHr by many readers who DO identify as former gifted children, books-as-coping-mechanism kids and Strong Female Personalities who felt marginalized in childhood and want to see Hermione have it all: she's slim, she's tiny, she's fragile as a bird, she'll break your neck, she'll step on your throat, she'll tear down the system, she'll heal all wounds, she does not need help, she holds all the knowledge, she holds all the cards, she is forever wronged, she can do no wrong, her vagina is tight, her nipples are hard, her hair is on point, her waist is tiny, her tits are bouncing, her ass is in the style of Now. And like. This isn't at all unique to DHr and Hermione. It's pervasive in fiction written by and for women. Female power fantasies are obviously feeding a massive hunger. It's just not what I personally want. Personally, I find it alienating and uncomfortable, which I know equates to, "That is wrong and shouldn't exist" to a lot of people, but that's its own tale as old as time.

There's a disconnect that happens too often where a reader wants one (1) thing from their fiction, and receives something else, even when the contents are clearly labeled on the tin. In this case, wanting a female power fantasy and encountering a woman who's written with flaws makes people upset. And maybe if we could be more honest with ourselves about what we're looking for when we read, work to accept that not everyone wants the same experience, and learn to close a book when it's not working for us and say, "No shade, this isn't for me," it would be less upsetting when we encounter a character who isn't written to meet our personal expectations. I will open a book, realize the FMC is a female power fantasy archetype and close it, because that's not what I show up for. I like my women gritty and weird and foolish and vulnerable and liable to hurt people and feel terrible about it. Give me all the exhausting chatterers and evil sticks and jocks with swords and their hearts on their sleeves (their hearts ripped out), give me shy Anne Elliot and her suitcase full of regrets and the ugly fuckup who never has a glow up, give me dirtbag stoners and Fleabag and Alicent Hightower apologetics and every role Natasha Lyon has ever played. It's not a moral high ground, it's about a preference for seeing actual, demeritus flaws on the page and on the screen. Blame that woman. It's her fault. She has so many faults. Then show me how to forgive her so I can figure out how to forgive myself.

The thing is, I love women. I love women so fucking much. I want to be around them, to get to know them, to read about them, to watch them on TV and see them in films. And personally, I like them ugly. Physically. Spiritually. Morally. Give a woman a Bad Personality and watch her succeed in the most self-injurious way possible, fuck you. Give her a gaping chest wound and line it with teeth. Stick a piece of grit in that girl's tightly sealed shell so that a pearl is her only option. Make her love other women, make her fuck it up, make her have to earn them back.

Thankfully I do feel like we're getting more ugly women in fiction, especially BIPOC, queer and marginalized women who deserve gross, weird, nasty representation and not just didactic moralism, patronization and misguided sainthood. Some readers won't want that, and that's fine. Again, personally (it's all so personal, please, please remember that when you hit that comment button), I'm here for it. If you write about women like this, know that you have a thirsty reader here. I'm swallowing them up. I'm smacking my lips. I'm smashing my mug on the cafeteria floor and calling for another.

[justjesse116]

Hullo, I'm currently sad as fuck and feel like elaborating on why I feel Dabi does what he does speaking from unfortunately personal experience.

TLDR Dabi is autistic af and his family failed him in even more ways than you can imagine.

First and fore-fucking-most, Dabi is driven by emotions, and if you disagree quite frankly we're not following the same story. So, with that in mind, and I need to keep this all brief lest I write a fucking dissertation on the Todoroki family, let me cook.

Between his 'mood swings', as in he's either emotionally detached or psychotic, his entire plan, which involves being, quite literally, 10 steps ahead of everyone else, and that's being conservative, and his thirst-for-justice attitude, Todoroki Touya is autistic. Which I'm sure endeared him to his own family about as much as it did me to mine.

ANYWAY. At this point, Dabi doesn't care what's 'right' or 'wrong'. He doesn't care what he has to do, or who he has to hurt, in order to feel like he's worth something. And even if he does know on some level what he's doing is 'wrong', he doesn't care anymore. The world has shown him that you do something bad, and if you have enough pull, if you lie enough, you scheme enough, it all goes away, and nobody cares, because at the end of the day people need something to cling to. And if that just so happens to be you, you can do no wrong, it's your golden ticket. Your family will defend you no matter what, so will most of your friends, and even strangers who you've never fucking met before.

They all have this idea of this person in their head who doesn't really exist, but it doesn't matter, because that fake person fits their criteria of what they need to feel okay on a daily basis.

So, what I'm trying to say is, as noble as Dabi's cause seems to be, he's never going to be able to overcome human nature. He claims it's 'Hero Society', but that's just a fancy name for human nature. That's not to say I don't think he should do it, every day of my life I wish I had anything as remotely convincing as blue flames to make people listen to me, but unfortunately in the world WE, THE AUDIENCE, lives in, it's never going to happen this way.

I guess this is just a post about me coming to terms with the fact that life in the real world fucking sucks and I can't do anything as impactful as I'd like it to be like it is in my favorite manga lmao.

I guess circling back to my main point, Todoroki Touya is autistic, and those aspects of his personality are what is driving him, that's making him do what he's doing, because even before I knew who he was, before I knew what he was really doing, I clung to him like a limpet because he acted like I do, seemed to think like I do, and I guessed who and what he was based on our (unfortunately) mutual childhoods and tendencies. And again, I'm not trying to seem like I know everything, I've just been around this miserable rock a few more times than I'd prefer, and I think that if he could, Dabi would agree.

But don't mind me, like I said, we're unfortunately, uncomfortably similar, and it's also just bad timing that I'm having a bad time family wise, so I'm probably projecting more than should be allowed.

[sout999]

adhd talk

the third truly unsung project alongside my film and dissertation was the weird amount of targeted effort i had to put into Completing Anything Big As A Neurodivergent Person Whose Brain Is A Crazy Off The Rails Train Staffed and Patronised Entirely By Multiple Exact Copies Of The Squirrel From Ice Age

which is a description like 99/100 people reading this can relate to, but i think a sentiment i see less often and therefore feel kind of stupid and stubborn and lonesome about is "adhd is innate but is also exasperated by hectic lifestyle/modern instant gratification machines so if i fix my habits around those i can cure myself forever". which is silly and wrong but also i feel abit disconnected from adhd social media culture and cant cope just relating to it (which is all it seems to be sometimes) but learning to harness or tame it to do the things that are really important to me

i felt really cringe tbh having to look up youtube videos of HARVARD STUDENT REVEALS PRO STUDY TRICK and then narrowing it down to specifically adhd-focused study videos and keeping a planner and setting aside specific time to study studying and practising anti-academic meltdown journaling techniques and reading fucking atomic habits but i really didn't want to contribute to my abhorrent academic record following me all through undergrad. in fact i wish i had done this sooner but i was not self aware enough to consider the fact

probably the best change i made was severely cutting down or being mindful of social media time, i don't backread my tl anymore and have more moments of awareness when i find myself dumbly scrolling and realize i dont want to be doing this, and then wondering what i actually Do want to be doing. i keep a book nearby to read, and have also swapped a lot of social media time to sketching-off-pinterest time. reading about the psychology behind social media apps is also super interesting, although i always feel like a paranoid wacko conspiracy theorist talking about it. stuff like how negativity and judgemental behaviour is good for engagement (and therefore ad revenue), and how if all posts on your tl were interesting you wouldn't be as addicted to social media as you are, therefore microblogging employs a slot machine/gacha system where you "roll" for posts by logging on and hope to get a good one. it's a little full on but the more i think of it as a revolting and evil machine the more incentive i have to do something else with my time ^q^

a harder thing to do was, in the late stages of the project, the real crunch time month, avoid everything that could become a huge hyperfixation, and then eventually even minor distractions or fixations. because i know if i got super obsessed with something i'd just be up posting about it or drawing fanart. i had to bar myself from persona 3 remake and elden ring dlc and all these other shiny new releases, and the mobile games i was playing... i look forward to catching up on them now. i took up reading books a lot more because unfortunately thats just not as exciting. in the last month of film work i stopped listening to music on my computer so i wouldnt get drawing or animation ideas to distract me from film work. as of writing this i havent listened to music in like 40 days guys 😱 at the same time i am the kind of person who needs background noise to work, so i have:

watched novum's four hour hereditary video essay three times

watched novum's seven hour midsomar video essay three times

watched that one five hour bojack horseman retrospective twice

listened to audiobooks of the Britney Spears biography, Jennette McCurdy biography, three Playboy Bunny biographies (i was on some sort of lady bopgraphy kick i guess), and a few fiction books

rewatched all of bojack horseman

started on House MD and got a few seasons in before i finished the project, amazingly the perfect show to look away from bc of all the medical stuff, how many lumbar punctures do you need to show like seriously

honorable mention to the learned skill of communication and being honest and picking your battles and killing your darlings which is a larger part of managing mental illness than i cared to admit but one of the hardest ones because it involved confronting things and making big painful drastic changes and then having to tell the faculty about them. sometimes i'd be stuck on a piece of animation work for weeks/months, then go back and change the underlying idea to one i'm actually passionate about, and do the animation work in one day using newly found magical hyperfocus passion power. it's crazy! but being able to be confident about taking those steps rather than keeping on with what you're "supposed" to do went a long way.

i very much look forward to listening to a music and playing some video games properly now and being pulverized like a small victorian child from the sheer amount of fun i'm having. i'd say it was all worth it and a fun experiment in channeling the magical humours of passion and boredom and i hope it will help me with future projects too. i Am super burnt out though x__ x thanks for reading and for all your support up until now!

[gender-roles-can-suck-my-dick]

Imagine: you are the fresh-out-of-highschool nephew of a scientist, he raised you to be as obsessed with proving that magic exists and it comes from a parallel magic plant world as he is (gone wrong). You believe none of that and want to get into medicine to study genetics and prove him wrong to make a point (your relationship isn't so bad but he WILL owe you those 20$)

But then one day you're hanging around in a meadow (which you're pretty sure is private property) and a lanky ass guy(person?) comes running at you and tells you you have to run as well. You're used to running from cops because your uncle takes you to some fun research and sample-taking trips, so you bolt. He follows you and obviously, this guy is as used to running as a potted plant, because he keeps tripping.

Anyway, you take him to your home and then to the lab to treat a weird injury he got, but you notice that thin scar tissue has already formed over it (you worry because the wound looks greenish and weirdly leaf-shaped. How did they even manage to get it infected so quickly??)

And it turns out that this anxious idiot thinks this is NORMAL???? you run some tests on them (he doesn't object because. Well, maybe he just doesn't like disagreements)and whatever in the everloving holy fuck is going on, THE GUY'S DNA MATCHES THE ONE OF A PLANT. The guy had no idea of any of this and he just tells you that "sometimes weird creatures start chasing me if I stay too long in nature areas" and you realise you ntver saw what was chasing both of you. You decide this plant guy is too interesting to simply stop talking to. He could make a fine dissertation paper for when you finish your studies! Which makes it awfully convenient when he sort of seems to like you. That, apparently, makes you friends (good, you didn't even have to go through the awkward are-we-or-are-we-not-friends stage) and he keeps showing up, so at one point you guys start texting.

He tends to be quite proper so, when one day he just texts you a location (in the forest, mind you), you become concerned and go straight there. It turns out the idiot talked to a professor from the university course in linguistics he wants to take once he starts college, and the clarifications (clarifications on the topic they refused to answer what it was) led them here. To a fucking puddle. In the middle of the forest. And before you can stop them, he sticks his HAND in it??????? And it comes out looking like the flesh had given out. But after some seconds it looks like it's healing? And after a few minutes of you taking pictures (for scientific reference), it's alright again. You want to stick your hand into the puddle too (but you wear gloves because what kind of idiot does what he did. And he didn't look like they were in pain for even a second in the entire process. What qthe fuck Neri)

Ypu stick your hand in the puddle, up to your wrist, and almost immediately take it out because it feels like it's burning. And it WAS really burning, your fingertips started smoking and your fingernails looked like they're melting (you didn't know that fingernails could do that) and your veins looked red through your skin (which was alarming to a whole new level because you have dark skin and your veins had NEVER been visible in that area of your body)

You both go back to your house and your uncle treats you. He is as weird as usual but now you're starting to believe he's the only knowledgeable person here. There is so much you don't know and once Neri leaves, you ask your uncle to tell you (again, but now you will be paying attention) all he knows about this magic research of his, and show him the DNA thing you got from Neri when you met.

This starts a chain reaction, because Neri has been researching stuff as well, with that one professor (whom you do not trust because he led you both to the Death Puddle of Burning, and your hand doesn't seem to be recovering at all. In fact, the burning is spreading bit by bit through your arm.). So far you have only found traces of similar creatures in forest and swamp environments from your uncle's field trip samples, while he has found. Well. An address that most certainly shouldn't exist.

You guys call the Yellow Pages number for it, and what responds doesn't appear to be talking because you don't hear jack, but Neri seems to hear it. He hears the thing on the other side of the phone. They tell you that the woman was perfectly lovely and normal, and you tell them that you didn't hear a single sound in the entire 5 minutes the phone call lasted. Road trip ahead (sure hope it doesn't)

One of your mutual friends, Lilian, who would like to study genetics as well, interrogates both of you because she thinks you're doing drugs. She ends up even more concerned and decides to tag along. Her girlfriend, Marcela (who wants to get into mechatronic engineering, either that or physics), comes too because she wants to record it all.)

You get to the little cabin, and it looks empty and clean. Save from the huge ass pot of HUGE half-dead blue irises. Since all 3 of you were already expecting not to hear anything, you let Neri fool around while Marcela records. Until something on her camera shows up: (you know those stories about name-stealing faeries? Do you know those stories about gnomes? Forget all of it. The thing on Marce's camera was as if a flower was anthropomorphic. It could roughly be a middle-aged short woman, but her legs were stuffed into several flower pots.)

Neri kept looking at her and acting as if they were talking (they were, you know that now), but you didn't know what came over you when you took the camera and smashed it. (Perhaps it was the flash of guilt over recording the plant person. You wouldn't have liked it if that were you, even if you couldn't see it. See her.)

Once you looked up, there she was. The plant lady looked at you, and you didn't know what you should have done. You would probably have slowly walked away if your hand (entire forearm) hadn't started burning again when she touched it to finally greet you.

You don't know what happened next, only that Marce found you some 100m away from where the cabin was, looking down and showing your left foot on a puddle that looked like the first one, but slightly bigger. She and Lilian dragged you out, foot burning as you now knew it should.

The days after the incident, your uncle grew desperate,the burns grew each day and, though you claimed you were fine to walk,he wouldn't let you go out like this. He repeated that he "wouldn't let you go like he did". (Whomst???? Did????)You told him you wouldn't go anywhere, and he shook his head the next time Neri visited you.

And he did visit you often. Once, he brought another of those creatures that always tried to kill them, it looked transparent-ish and a bit more human than the blue iris lady (he never told you how the visit with the blue irises lady ended, and at this point you didn't want to ask)and told you that he had found where it (he) had come from. The puddles. The plants came from the puddles??and they transformed into creatures and monsters after some time here???? You owed your uncle 20$, but that wasn't important: a whole different world. With plant humans(probably) Only about 5 people you knew knew of it. Your arm and leg burned when you thought about it. There was a different world and when you stuck your hand into the door it burned you-

But that other world didn't know you yet, there was a burning hell to run to wirh your lab equipment on hand, catch these hands and watch upu RUN- but you are still in your bed, tucked in by your uncle like that one time as a kid when you got dengue from a mosquito and your bones frailed and your uncle thought you would die.

Neri asked you if you were alright. You asked him to go with you, go jump in the puddle, together, and see what burned hotter than hell on the other side.

Well.

The weeks after the second incident blurred together. Neri came back every day with more information, and he didn't look into your eyes even once. You'd started to think it would be like this forever, drowning the burning in your veins with his apathy. Until the police took him again for trespassing, and you weren't fast enough to get him out of the spot on time. Your bones frailed (like that one time you got dengue as a child, and you almost wished it had killed you then).

(Neri was to be living in that town for a year or 2, he had told you once. To work and study away from home for a bit before college. Their family wouldn't believe if he called them to bail them out of jail for trespassing, of all things.) Something happened, something inside your arm itched and the burning in your leg felt like it made you stronger, for a minute there.

All you know is the next 3 things:

1) You burned down the station before they could get his I.D and picture.

2)You died from the burns.

3) Somehow, you could still think. And hear. And see.

Your uncle was the first one to visit your grave. He sounded broken, but he said something along the lines of "At least you died here, instead of running away", had he heard you talk to Neri????? He never shared anything about his personal life before your birth, you wished uou had asked with more care and less curiosity. You still burned with the need to know, but there was no way of asking him now. Lilian visited next, and the next time she brought Marcela along.

It was pretty funny, how something resembling hope flickered in your (chest??? You barely had a body now. Soul would have been a better description.) when you heard brilliant, kindhearted Marce yell "HOLY SHIT WAIT HERE" and half an hour later "I HAVE THE OUIJA HOLD ON". It was even funnier when it did work (You said hi to them, and then they left. So also it didn't work, because they didn't come back for a week. Instead, Neri did.)

He looked tired, and a bit off. A burn scar that looked like a handprint hugged his face, fingerprints around his jaw and thumb reaching his mouth. His mouth looked slightly charred as well. If you could still feel dread, you would have dreaded to assume it had been you who did that, but you didn't remember what happened the day you died. It would have been funny if you did. Or at least you’d remember how kissing him felt like.

The frustrating thing was that you couldn't for the life (ha, life) of you understand what they were saying. Also that he brought that one plant boy (who resembled a white chrysanthemum despite the rotten petals, you noticed) with them. And that the plant boy was looking at you. Directly into your eyes. You would have punched him in his plant face if you weren't (probably) a ghost.

He just whispered, as if he were yelling "You can cross now, you have nobody to lose".

With that, Neri just stood still, as if shocked. He sprinted away, terrible at running as always. The plant boy gave you a small salute and you wished you could burn down his roots and rip what was left of the flower stem growing in his head.

Neri never visited you again, and you overheard Marcela telling Lilian that nobody had been able to find him since the night he visited. You knew in your bones, for that was the only part of yourself that hadn't burnt and betrayed you in life, that he had gone into the puddle, and your bone-gut feeling was proved when Marce and Lily came by the next night.

That night was a blur, and you didn't even get to say goodbye to your uncle or that one grey cat that came by for food on Tuesdays. Marcela and Lilian dug and dragged your corpse out from your grave and into the forest. What WERE you meant to do, if not follow them? Once again, you wished you could feel fear, because they were getting awfully close to the spot where that second puddle was.

Down the puddle, you went. You couldn’t bring yourself to reproach them.

After that, everything always burned and you were hungry and empty and humans were scarce in that place, so there was no way to find replacements for the body parts that kept consuming each other without your permission. There were huge deers with sharp teeth and insects like elephants, with plant people either running from you or shooting their magic (magic, magic, 20$, magic)

And then-

(the rest of the story from here is a blur from antheas's pov, since he isn't the main character. He is the second main character and the love interest but calling him the love interest sounds degrading to my ears so i Do Not Do That)

I want to study your brain this is SO COOL I AM SO INVESTED

WHERE did the chrysanthemum guy come from??? Do antheas and neri ever reunite???? Why did Marcela and Lilian drag antheas into the puddle?? Why do the puddles burn??? What actually happened with the blue Iris lady????

I am frothing at the mouth /pos THANK YOU

[magefeathers]

In honor of TMBTE’s first birthday I’ve decided to finally unleash my dissertation on my unusual interpretation(s) of Sleep! I’ve only ever seen one person who had a similar outlook to me, and they said they received some Negative Feedback on their views, so uh, don’t shoot me?

My favorite thing about this band's fandom is exploration of the lore, how open to interpretation everything is, and how welcome we are to find our own stories within the source material. I love reading how other people interpret certain songs, or the overarching story, differently from each other based on their own outlooks and experiences. That's what I think the point is. So I want to be clear that I'm not trying to say I'm right, I'm not trying to say anyone else is wrong, I'm just expressing my own opinion.

Grab a drink, it's a long one. I won't give a TL;DR because I don't want people to reactively shoot down my theory without reading my reasoning, but I will say it deviates from the more standard interpretations in two ways:

I don't believe Sleep is meant to be an actual deity, I think it's meant to be more allegorical, a metaphor for something real.

I don't think the music, or the story being told, is about Sleep.

I'm sorry if I've already lost you with the first point. I'm sorry if I seem like a party pooper. I love the aesthetic and the worldbuilding and the symbolism, and I love the creativity of the fans who build out the story on the premise of Vessel actually communing with and having some manner of relationship with this great, unknowable, ancient deity. The issue for me is that I can only read that story if I already have that story in my mind, if that makes sense. Sure, I can make the songs fit that narrative, but I never would have arrived at that narrative on my own, without first reading that the band was made to worship this deity. And in my mind, if I couldn't arrive at that conclusion naturally, without being led there, then it probably wasn't the conclusion I was meant to arrive at.

For a while, I could vibe with the idea that Sleep was supposed to be a metaphor for a lover, either present or former, and a toxic relationship he was struggling or had struggled with. But as I delved deeper into their catalogue I very much lost the impression that all of these songs were about one singular person, or even that all of the songs were about romantic relationships in general. And as I got more into the fandom and found out that there was more official dialogue from the band than just the "One Single Interview" everyone talked about, I realized that trying to fit the songs to all be about one person or thing would never work, because the songs weren't about Sleep, there were merely gifts to Sleep.

Now, I could have sworn that when I first got into the band’s lore I read on their official website that their songs are offerings to Sleep - not about Sleep, the way everyone seems to interpret them. That no longer appears to be the case. I have this screenshot that I took of part of what I remember reading, but I distinctly recall there being another paragraph or two in addition to what I cropped, and unfortunately my PC doesn’t show me the link the screenshot was taken on, like my phone would. And in re-reading the text in the screenshot, it does seem to be speaking about Sleep Token as a separate entity so I may be entirely misremembering how official of a source it was ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Regardless, I’ve seen multiple articles that word it in this manner, that the songs are for Sleep rather than about Sleep, and nowhere in the official sources I’ve found is it said that the songs are about Sleep, so I’m going to assume I’m right and continue under the assumption I’ve worked under all along: that the songs are not, in fact, about Sleep.

They are, however, for Sleep. This has never been debated. The songs are tokens, or offerings, to Sleep.

So, let me share with you the official communications that developed my theory. In addition to what I've commonly seen referred to as their "only interview" before II's drumeo video, I've found (poor quality) scans of two magazine spreads, one from Kerrang! and another I'm unsure of the source of, both featuring Jaws. I read most of these after having watched videos of rituals and reading transcripts of the conversation between Vessel and, presumably, his mask, that took place on last year's tour, as well as the monologue from The Room Below. I started to notice a common theme between that more recent conversation and these much earlier interviews, that for some reason surprised me: Vessel had wanted the fans to project onto the music all along.

Noteworthy quotes from the linked sources, in roughly chronological order:

“Our verses are a token, crafted to magnify and embody the multitude of emotion that writhes in our subconscious. Sonically our voice is rooted in the resonation between the notes and your emotion.”

“As musicians we are inspired by the human condition [...]. As followers we are bound by a duty to combine our crafts to create music that conveys some of our most primal, and powerful emotions.”

“We are here to deliver a message; touch people in their hearts and subconscious minds.”

“There exists a considerable body of art that explores the deeper recesses of the human mind. Sleep Token serve as a means to explore this on an individual basis. The music is a representation of one individual’s deepest and most fundamental emotions and desires. This is what people connect to. They see themselves in this individual, and the music becomes about them.”

“The aim is to provide something people can engage with without being obstructed by the identity of its creator.”

“The ultimate goal is to engender a constructive emotional process within as many people as possible. Simply the basic concept of understanding oneself better, understanding others better as a result.”

“Sleep Token draw from the most profound experiences we have in life and, most crucially, where they intersect. [...] To see this within yourself, and then to see it reflected in others - this is the essence of worship.”

“We all desire to see the darkest, most profound aspects of ourselves reflected in the expressions of others. [...] We’re here to provide this expression, so it may serve as a device with which people might understand themselves better.”

"We are here to silently collect. To project ourselves onto one-another."

"Perhaps that is another reason why we are here. At the very least, we have all suffered."

"I think they just want to know that I am feeling something, feeling what they are feeling, perhaps."

"In order for all of this to work there has to be a certain boundary in place. They need to be able to project themselves onto this without anyone else's identity getting in the way. In turn, I need to be able to show my true self to them in a way that does not compromise their ability to connect."

"They, too, are pained. They, too, do not know who they truly are. They are each stood alone on a stage of their own. And yet, they are here. United by that sense of never truly belonging. They see something beyond their own bleak horizons, and they reach for it. Together. So let us join now, to reflect their joy and to serve as a conduit for their anguish. To swallow their fear."

And finally, from the Fall For Me music video: "So for now let me serve as a living drama of your pain. If we are to be submerged let us be submerged together."

When I place them right next to each other, it's probably easier to see the common theme that I caught onto. I cycled through a few ideas - including Vessel himself being Sleep, or Sleep representing music and the connection it can foster between people - but I kept coming back to the way Vessel has repeatedly talked about fans projecting onto the music, examining themselves through it, understanding themselves through it. Projecting ourselves onto him, seeing ourselves in him, trying to understand ourselves through our interpretations of his story.

He's a Vessel for us. The songs are tokens, offerings, to us. We, the fans, are Sleep. The songs are gifts for us to examine ourselves through, to help us delve into our own experiences and emotional responses and understand ourselves - and, in turn, understand each other. It isn't Vessel that we are worshipping, it's ourselves and each other that we see in Vessel. I could even get really sentimental and cheesy if I wanted and say that Vessel directly worships us as well, albeit wordlessly, with his deep bows and falling to his knees in appreciation of his audience.

And just to reiterate, I don't think the songs are about Sleep. Although I think an argument could possibly be made about the toxic relationship between Vessel and Sleep being a metaphor for the parasocial relationship between an entertainer and their audience, I... won't get into that. Today, at least. Although I think it's a really interesting take that deserves exploration, I don't genuinely think any of the songs are directed toward or written about the fans/audience. I just think he's sharing the story of his life with us and allowing us to project our own lives upon it, to remind us that none of us are alone in this world. None of us are alone in our feelings, or in our experiences, no matter how isolated we may feel in them.

[EDIT: After making this post I found yet another magazine interview, in which Vessel kind of.... confirms this whole theory?

"He is everyone. He is you. There is a power in music that binds us all, every note relates to another."

The power of music uniting people and allowing us to see ourselves in each other and connect through that was exactly what I had in mind when I formed this theory, so it's kind of validating that I'm interpreting things correctly to see it put so bluntly lol]

If you made it to the end of this, thank you for hearing me out! \owo/ I had been wanting to make a post about this for a while as it seemed a very clear-cut take to me that I didn't think would be controversial. Speaking with the person I mentioned at the beginning who had a similar theory kind of scared me off it, since they said they received some outright hate for it, but talking to them also really got me excited to dig into my theory and provide my sources and show everyone the breadcrumb trail of how I arrived at this conclusion. So I hope at least a couple people enjoyed it!

If this is received well maybe I'll be brave enough to actually post about some of my song interpretations ^^; As I said, I don't think they're all about any one thing. My favorite quote from the ones listed above is this one: "Sleep Token draw from the most profound experiences we have in life and, most crucially, where they intersect." The intersectionality of it all is what's most interesting to me, so that quote was a little bit vindicating to read, lol. It's not all about romantic relationships, to me. It's about how every experience we go through in life, how we feel about them, how we react to them - all of those experiences overlap and intersect and color each other. It's about how everything you've ever been through will affect everything else you ever go through. But now I am genuinely rambling ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Thank you again for reading, and feel free to slide into my DMs to talk about this god-given band whensoever you wish.

[lol-jackles]

Why don’t you admit when you post incorrect info, such as your first statement that CM Production wasn’t one of the producers in Ackles’ new show? It was even listed in multiple articles. People apparently pointed it out and then you do this passive/aggressive dance, downplaying it. Why? Own your oopsies. Also, when someone asks about potential pay for a series, give your educated guess, and then stop. No need to drone on with a word salad about how much all the crew make, and every other cast member down to the PA. The question was just about Jensen. When someone goes on with irrelevant TMI, it comes across like they really don’t know the answer.

By the way, has anyone ever mentioned to you that it’s weird to create an entire tumblr blog about a celebrity that you claim to hate, yet follow so obsessively? SPN is definitely a “unique” fandom to research. I found you, someone named GooB, Patrick, Vinnie and a Kelios. I’m amazed Jensen and Jared don’t have 24 hour security. Just wild. A dissertation could be written on this convoluted fandom.

If you're talking about the IMDB site, Jensen is no longer listed as executive/producer Link.

You know what you need to do now, take your own words and admit that you are wrong and say that CMP/Jensen is not producer on The Countdown.

What passive aggressive dance? I don't dance, I straight up tell you what I think and why I think I'm right. It's me who has to remind you all when my theory doesn't pan out because despite appearances, I'm actually not a prophet.

"when someone asks about potential pay for a series, give your educated guess, and then stop."

Why did that part bother you so much? I'm genuinely curious. My readers know I have difficulties keeping it short but in the 8 years I've had this blog no one has ever demanded me to just "stop" lol. What triggered you?

I never said anything about how much crews and PA's make. Re-read and get back to me when you calmed down. Remember, inhale through the nose and exhale slowly through the mouth. You're welcome.

Interesting, how did you find me? Along with Goob, Patrick (a name he no longer identifies with) and Vinnie and Kelios? From butthurt Destiel shippers and Jensen stans on twitter? No wonder you're so mad and think that lol-jackles blog is All About Jensen when he actually only takes up 18% of my entire blog but you would know that if you bothered to read anything past your obsessive Jensen goggles.

[pearlsmater]

hello all, as an eddie diaz defender there are some things i have been compelled to put out there in the tumblr ether. i trust that they will find their rightful audience 🙏

i would just like to address something that has been really annoying me as i've lurked on tumblr as of late, and that is the persistent arguments by a certain set of shippers that:

tptb only allowed 911 to make 1 character queer and they chose buck

if eddie does come out as gay, it would be something new and not something that has been written into the character for several seasons

now I could write up an entire dissertation on how eddie's relationships with women are all glaringly written with the intent to demonstrate eddie's repression, but i feel like that is unnecessary as you could find better write ups on all of that elsewhere.

what i do want to say is that it is incredibly frustrating for people to talk about eddie as if he is at the most a "queer-coded" character and not one legitimately written as gay. the writing is not subtle and buddie shippers are not reading into things bc of their ship.

the fact that the coming out storyline involving tommy was initially going to be with eddie was not just a fleeting idea the writers had on the same level as eddie initially being brought in as maddie's love interest. that obviously came during the ideation stage of eddie as a new character on the show, before he was the eddie we know today.

having eddie come out this season was a storyline written for eddie as an established character, a decision which is very obviously predicated on all of his prior characterization. tim minear did not just throw a dart and go "yeah, why not make eddie gay?". that was the storyline he planned to tell until there was a last minute change and it became buck's coming out instead. however, that does not mean that eddie's character has magically become straight.

he is still being written as the same repressed man, who has now reached a breaking point as his excuse that "shannon was the love of his life" and that's why he cannot forge genuine romantic connections with women has led him to lose the most important thing in his life.

this has brought eddie to the rock bottom from which he will finally be able to build himself back up, but this time by being true to himself and not just doing what others tell him or what he thinks is "the right thing to do". this is what eddie's character has been building towards and to not acknowledge that is to completely misunderstand him.

eddie will be coming out in season 8 and i hope when he does you will all realize JUST HOW WRONG YOU WERE.

(also buddie is obviously happening)