#working my way through the ask box

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

(1/6) Hello! I'm so glad to have found your tumblr! Somehow I missed it all this while lol. I just wanted to say thank you thank you thank you for all your fics, every single one. They all really mean a lot to me. You really are one of my favorite authors on the internet. I always know whatever fic you choose to write is going to somehow, inevitably, make me cry whatever the fandom.

I'm such a big fan of your writing! Expecially I love the tragedy of Gerry and Jon's relationship in nhthcth, the way Jack cares so very deeply for a son he doesn't even know is alive and feels he has horribly failed, and absolutely love the way you wrote Matt Murdock's view on the world in his one shot. Every one of your fics are so very very wonderful. I love your writing style (especially the one you chose to use for the Jack fic oh my goodness) and the way you incorporate things you know from your real life (specifically all the stuff about american law) to its fullest extent in your work. You have such a way with words, with conveying emotions, with

articulating your points. I love the way you write love, and the way you write tragedy. I love the way you write moral dilemmas and all the different ways different people see the world. I'm trying to avoid saying any more specifics (for this entire extremely long message (though you might have noticed I failed a tad bit earlier lol)) because otherwise I'd be here all day, but yeah. Man I love your writing. I'm very sorry for word vomiting all over your inbox lol. I just want to somehow tell you about even a fraction of how much your writing has impacted my life. I'm really thankful for everything you write. If you have any original fiction (or plans for any original fiction) please tell me I would love to know!! I would gladly spend all my money on it lol. Also, have to say, discovering that you go by Syn is about to revolutionize the thepolysyndetonaddictsupportgeoup fan club me and my friends have. Or at the very least cut our word count way down lol. Hope you're having a good day <3 Thank you again!!!

Hi! I just copied your other messages over into one big message.

Thank you for your message--it really means a lot to me that that you think so highly of my works.

I think I really love a kind of tragic love, and it leaks through in my works. You have Jon and Gerry, and you have Jack and Matt. And in all respects, they're loves that have sort of been dismissed. Jon and Gerry grew up as the thing that other people sacrificed. Everyone was willing to let them bear the cost of life and brutality. They're dismissed at every turn as trouble makers, as worthless, as liars, as murderers--but they're still preserving in love for each other. In the same way, Jack spends his life dismissed as another fuck up in the system, struggling to get anyone to just care about his little blind boy who's probably been dead for twenty years. And no one does. No one ever really looked for Matt. Except for Jack. The loves are tragic from their loss, but it's a kind of lonely loss. Like--someone dies young and tragically, and their family is on the news or on a crime documentary or whatever, and it's all about how this person lit up whatever room they were in. Candles on the sidewalk, the world grieves their loss. Gerry and Jon only really mattered to each other. The police treated the disappearance of Gerard Keay as a sort of "good riddance." Whereas Matt had the people close to him mourning him, but the rest of the world treated it like he was already dead. Wrote him off, didn't look, no grand police search for Matty Murdock. So you have this act of mourning that's sort of happening in the presence of people who don't even see the real value of the loss or love in the first place.

And it's interesting, because those were the loves that ended up defining the world. Jon and Gerry, whatever happened, had a love that changed the world while trapped in a web of manipulation. And the love between Jack and Matt ended up to be world-shaking itself--and it came from a poor deadbeat boxer of a dad, and a blind kid who should have been dead decades ago.

I dunno, the idea of this love that keeps its hooks in you even after its gone compels me. i write a lot of sad shit and i feel like it's usually sad because it once was happy.

Jack in toy rosaries and Matt in glaze defects have probably some of my favorite characters to write from so far. probably the only one who can really compete is peter in porcelain chips. like, both of their minds were so interesting? Jack's kind of felt like an impressionist painting to write. like--i dunno, he's blurry? everything's framed through the lens of emotions--mostly his regret and his love. he's also very old-school catholic. Like, i was raised hella catholic and you have these really old school catholics who are really traditional and literalist in their understanding of scripture and teachings. So you have Jack, who's got these really traditional ideas of forgiveness and the faith and the second coming, and it's washed through with someone whose life experiences have given him every single reason to distance himself from those teachings. So he's still got them at the base of how he thinks, but it's in direct conflict with what he feels spiritually, and it makes for this very messy, emotional, inexact portrayal of a psyche.

Matt, meanwhile, always felt more precise, if that makes sense. He's got all of these pillars and boundaries in his mind. like, you have buck v bell as a really formative experience for him, and you have this biblical idea of the sacrificial lamb, where he has always understood himself to be the one whose blood the world is willing to paint a door with, and it almost sets up these little checkpoints in his mind that he forces his own emotions to pass through. With Jack, he's this really messy stained glass window of guilt and love and everything's filtered through that tint. Matt's meanwhile constantly taking his own emotions and stopping them at these little borders of life experience and forcing them to a halt. It's almost an inverse of his father's approach.

And so you end up with someone who loves intensely, just like Jack, but it's something he's almost keeping in check from himself. you have all of these moments with Foggy, where Matt's wanting to give into his emotional instinct, and then--bam, it hits a checkpoint. and that's balanced with his constant daydreams of captain america, who acts as a sort of revelation to himself as to what Matt really wants in each stage of his life.

Like, you have him when he's little, and lonely, and afraid, and that little Matt always turns Captain America away, because he's trying to convince himself that he would turn Captain America away. He's trying to convince himself that he can protect himself from the government soldier here to use him. Because, at the end of the day, he's nine years old, and he's too afraid to tell his dad about what's happened to him, let alone anyone else. He's constantly battling this desire to be helped with his fear of being used, and he's trying to convince himself that he's going to be smarter, be clever enough, be able to see the trick ahead of time and defend himself.

And then, of course, Stick happens, and matt's internal desires change too. he had his captain america moment, and he failed it. in his mind, he let himself get tricked. it's his fault. So now he doesn't want to prove that he can protect himself--it's too tainted by failure. He wants to know that it was okay that he failed. so he creates a captain america that failed in the same way he did, who was hurt just like him, and maybe his mistake is a little bit less damning.

then, captain america is alive, and matt's older, and he's got karen and foggy but he's fucked up his life with all the secrets he kept. he doesn't really need someone to absolve him of stick anymore. he just needs someone to understand his fear, and about why he kept the secrets that he did. because he still doesn't have that. karen and foggy love him, but they still don't understand the fear he lived with all those years. he regrets hurting them, and the why doesn't change the fact that he did hurt them, but a part of him is still desperate for someone who knows what it means to be the carrie buck in buck v bell.

and then you finally get the captain america who just sits with matt on a stoop, who understands, because while matt has family now, while he isn't as lonely or afraid, and while he doesn't quite need anything from captain america the way he once did, a part of him can't quite let go of the fact that he's always wanted someone who understood. he's the one coming to captain america now, instead of the other way around--he doesn't want to be saved, so to speak. he doesn't need to be, and maybe captain america doesn't need to be either. he just wants someone who knows what it's like, and maybe captain america wants that too. and he's finally recovered enough from stick where he can make the overture instead of someone else, so he makes the approach to captain america's stoop instead of the other way around. and maybe both of them can be a little less alone.

i dunno, jack and matt are such fun characters to write. they're both so intensely emotional, but jack's very unbridled in his emotions, very messy, and you have matt who's constantly trying to keep himself in check and his emotions almost have to sneak through. i'm glad you liked them.

I'm a really really big law nerd and i feel like that leaks through like. a lot. not just with the fact that i keep insisting on writing about the supreme court, but also just because so much of law is about how you can get to two entirely different results based on how you frame an issue. and i think that sort of leaks into how i think about character's mindsets. everyone has values that they're weighing more heavily than other's, and it results in people coming to what they think is the obvious solution and what other people think is absolutely fucking insane. I could write an essay on how foggy's the platonic ideal of a lawyer's ethical system, and how matt's got two ethical systems at war within himself--a very catholic, lawyer-esque one, and a consequentialist one created by his life experiences that's directly at odds with his faith and profession. it makes for a lot of fun writing.

I do have original fiction! none of it is published, haven't made any attempts to get it published. Maybe one day. I'd love to be a writer, just got a ways to go first. thank you for your really kind message! i wish you the best!

also--the what

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

your art is absolutely amazing

i just went thru all of the poorly drawn mdzs and it was amazing seeing your art develop!

you just made my morning, thabkyou <3

Thank you so much for the kind words, and for cheering me on as I continue to learn!

[shirogane-oushirou]

no promises anymoooooreeeee i'll appear online when i appear online 😭 every time i say "ooh i think life is almost done being overwhelming!" it. becomes even more overwhelming in the dumbest ways. all i can manage rn when i'm not stressing myself into a shut-down state is staring at the wall while listening to youtube essays + mindlessly crocheting.

i might queue up ppls art and fics w/o commentary in the tags... i want other ppl to see what all of my cool friends have made, but i genuinely can't think right now with this monstrous brain fog. i'm really sorry, just. yeah. maybe i'll think of some way to make it up later!!! once the dust has settled!!!! but until then i wuv u and miss u. smiles.

[venting in tags including familial manipulation and ableism. i. didn't mean to write all of that, thiss was originally going to be a main blog post but. aaaaaAAAAAA!!!!!

also no need for replies or anything, i'd turn them off for just the one post if i could kjsndkn, i just needed to get things out and go eep jsjndsfdn ok bye bye bye bye!!!!]

[screambirdscreaming]

Much could be said interrogating the concept of "gifted kid burnout" or "smart kid syndrome" or whatever you call it, and much of it's been said better than I can

But what gets to me about it sometimes is that.... I feel like people have described a reasonable concept and then related themselves to it backwards. Or taken a real problem and constructed their concept of it backwards.

Like yeah, it does kind of fuck a person up to be highly rewarded in this extremely arbitrary constructed environment, which incidentally is where you spend most of your waking hours, while being told that it's all deeply related to your excellence and worth as a person. And then when you leave that constructed environment, you fall apart and fail to function in all sorts of ways, because you've built your skills to so completely rely on that environment (while being told this is the best most excellent thing you could do and the best most valuable way to be).

And it basically leaves a person with several options:

1) cling tighter to the structure that validates you. Dedicate yourself to reaffirming that the structure itself is meaningful to reinforce it's ability to impart meaning back to you. Spend your whole life running from failure.

2) realize that you can't keep up with the demands, but construct this as either a personal failing or a failing of the system to train you well enough. Keep seeking sources of validation to replace the hole in your sense of self-worth where being special used to go.

3) realize that the whole thing was kind of a scam from the start. Being ranked is bad. Proving value is bad. Learn to do things and enjoy things without having to be good at them or prove something.

And the thing is that I think option 3 is necessary to actually be at peace with yourself as a person. (And also, it's necessary to find true solidarity with people who were fucked up by the same system on the opposite end, being told they *weren't* good enough. Which is worse. The fact that that's worse doesn't mean I can't or won't talk about how this one sucks, but if you can't acknowledge that that one's worse, I think that's a problem.)

Anyway. Probably I'm barking up entirely the wrong tree, because the whole concept of "gifted burnout" is basically the domain of people who are stuck on option 2. And it's not like I don't see tons of stuff aimed at "it's ok to be bad at things! Enjoy it anyway!" Like that message is very much out there and in ways that I can infer to mean other people are also wrangling with this same stuff.

The problem is. Sometimes I have a problem and this type of framing is the only way I have to get at it. Sometimes I take a class where I accidentally fall into the role of being the Whizz Kid, and it's a weird sort of adrenaline hit, where being Good At The Thing feels really good and important but it takes up too much of my brainspace and I find myself more easily frustrated and it's harder to find contentment. And then I have to unpick that whole thing and walk it back and remind myself that it literally doesn't matter to be good at the thing. It's just a thing and you're just some guy and you can engage with the actual world rather than the abstract field of Showing Off Land. Like it's this whole other plane of social interaction, which may or may not exist - as in, no one else in the room is necessarily there with you, sending or receiving any signals on that frequency - but you can get stuck there. And it feels bad to be stuck there, constantly sending out "look aren't I special?" and getting upset if you don't recieve back enough pings of "wow you're so special." What is this bullshit? I don't want to be that guy. I don't like that it runs so deeply in me that it can be activated by accident.

Sometimes I do something that turns out pretty well and I want to be regular proud of it but I find myself ping-ponging between thinking I'm amazing and unprecedented and thinking that actually it's probably stupid and all sorts of people can do it - and what sort of fucked up value scale is that? It turned out pretty good and that's neat. It doesn't matter how *common* it is, that isn't anything. If it's worth doing it's worth there being plenty of it.

Like it's fine. It's fine. I've learned to recognize it and I know how to combat it so I walk myself back out of it. It just also kind of sucks. And sometimes, I wish I had an easy way to vent about it, without falling into the whole circlejerk of people coming up with backhanded ways to tell each other they're still special enough. Rather than actually deeply accepting that it's ok that you're not any better than other people.

You are just some guy! Huzzah!

[deus-ex-mona]

my five surviving braincells when something remotely good happens:

[jamietarttsnorthernattitude]

For the Word in a Wip game, how about 'Open' or 'Close'?

Thank you my talented friend :)

From chapter 3 of somebody you touch, but never hold:

When Jamie opens his door Sunday morning, the last thing he’s expecting to see is a young girl with a gap tooth smile and pigtails.

“Wow, Jamie, Uncle Roy was right. You look awful,” she says.

The second to last thing Jamie is expecting to see is Roy Kent appear with grocery bags behind the young girl.

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

For the character asks, Blanche. Questions 8, 10 & 12 😊

hiii friend!! thank you for the questions!! <3

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

Oh wow. This is a dangerous question, haha!

‘Despise' is a pretty strong word. I feel like the one thing I really can't stand is character assassination (although this is true for every character I like, to be honest). I'm not the authority on what makes Blanche Blanche, of course, but I have seen a few instances when it felt like people only saw the superficial parts of her and forgot about everything else, you know what I mean? Thankfully that's pretty rare around these parts though :)

There's one thing that's more specifically Blanche-related that's a pet-peeve of mine, and it’s the accent thing. I don't really like it when accents are explicitly written down in fanfic, and since Blanche is the one with the strongest accent in the cast, this happens to her sometimes. I just want to point out that this is not wrong per se, it's just a me thing! I prefer to 'hear’ the accent in my mind while I read — if I have to stop and parse the meaning of a sentence mid-action, it's harder for me to fully immerse myself in the story. I don't mind the occasional truncation of a 'g' at the end of a verb, or the odd 'y'all' in a phrase, but if every sentence is written like that it does get a bit hard for me 😅 once again though, this is just my personal preference, and I definitely don't despise the practice.

10. Could you be best friends with this character?

I'm actually not sure how to answer this! If we didn't know each other at all, I think we'd need to be in a situation where we have to spend some time together in order to become friends (like, idk, working together or something like that). We don't share lots of interests (appreciation for art aside), and her passion for men would definitely throw me off at the beginning, so I'd need a reason to spend time with her to get to know her! But we are more similar than we seem, so once I did get to know her better, I'd love to be her friend :) we'd probably drive each other crazy on some things, but I need someone to get me out of my comfort zone at times, and she'd probably benefit from having a more 'grounded' friend, in the same way she benefits from having Dorothy as a friend.

... of course, this is all assuming that she'd want to be my friend in the first place, which is not a given 😂 I'm probably not interesting or fun enough to convince her to give me a chance, but a gal can dream, you know?

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

Just one? :')

I've said it before on here, but I headcanon that she's a cover hog. It just makes sense to me! And, still related to sleep, I feel like this is basically canon, but she's a night owl. She's more active during the night, she sleeps in, and it takes her a while to wake up in the mornings.

She actually is knowledgeable about art -- but not necessarily about artists! I think she likely doesn't have a lot of formal education about art (and especially art history), and even if she did study anything related to it she doesn't strike me as an exceptional student overall, but she has a natural instinct for visual beauty -- she's great at things like recognizing which paintings were made with similar techniques or within the same artistic current, distinguishing the traits and characteristics of painters, identifying specific shades of colour, this kind of stuff. Show her a painting and she'll correctly tell you that it's a Van Gogh, how he painted it, the precise shades of colour he chose and why he chose them -- but she also doesn't know that he cut off his ear, you know?

She was a bit of a reckless driver, especially in her youth -- the kind who likes to hit the gas just a tad too much, who plays the music just a tad too loud. She likes acting larger than life, she likes having fun, and she likes attention, so this feels appropriate for her. I figure it probably wasn't noticeable because she rarely drove herself (she always had a gentleman at her side to drive her around), but she never really grew out of that particular trait -- until George's death. After that, I think any imprudence behind the wheel would evoke his accident in her mind, so by the time the Girls met her she had turned into a very conscientious driver.

Thank you, these were so much fun to answer!! I love love love talking about Blanche <3

[CHARA CTER ASK GAME!!! 💫]

[born-to-lose]

I watched Nightmare on Elm Street for the first time yesterday and OUGH why didn't I sooner

[t4tstarvingdog]

had the craziest nightmare today. hit every nightmare genre and added a new one just for me

[comikadraws]

Is danzo lawful or neutral evil?

I'd personally say he's in the lawful evil category. However, I'd also say there's a lot of room for discussion.

DnD alignments use terms like "neutral evil" or "lawful evil" to squeeze a long and complex moral code into a tiny box in hopes that it will condense the information for the players and Dungeon Master. Obviously, that doesn't always work.

Danzo quite obviously doesn't care for laws or lives. He barely has any morals, considering he's evil enough to sign death warrants for children. But he does seem to have ideals surrounding the meaning of being a shinobi, even if he himself hardly ever acts on any of them, only when it is convenient (i.e. to die "gloriously" on the battlefield or only considering to "sacrifice" himself when he's about to die anyway). It really depends on whether you personally think that Danzo believes in his own talk or not.

[humanransome-note]

My weekend was very productive!

Got a proper cleaner for the porch, which has black algae and is very much a slipping hazard in the rain, went to Home Depot and got a new hose and some concrete stepping stones. Dropped off 7 boxes of various sizes (all larger than a shoe box) at a charity shop, they’d been sitting in the hallway for a month at that point.

Then today, I moved some furniture and cleared up some space so the pest control guy has room to work on Wednesday.

Tomorrow I need to scrub the floor that was under the furniture, because the furniture was raised, and there have been 5 different cats in this house, so ancient hairballs have been discovered.

Now, the question is. Has this wave of activity been facilitated because the pest guy comes on Wednesday, and the looming deadline tops off my meds with extra adrenaline and I actually need a stronger dose/prescription on the regular?

Or, do I just have so much decision making anxiety that I spend most of my days in a web of long term decision paralysis, because I constantly feel like whatever choice I make in regards to my life will be massive and irreversible, so playing farming/management sims soothes and distracts me. But having clear cut goals with obviously known ends I can handle.

Or both!

Call in now to vote!!!

[knifearo]

I've been enjoying all your posts lately, especially all the community engagement. It makes me think about posting more personal aroace content instead of just reblogging.

I'm full of feelings but not sure what I really have to contribute to the conversation. Aro-identified people skew young and I feel like nobody's going to care what a middle aged aroace has to say but now I'm like hang on, maybe all aro content is good content, I don't know, I'm thinking about it.

i am absolutely of the opinion that all aro content is good content! especially because a lot of us skew young, i think it's so important to have (first of all just aro content in General. there's always a lack of that. but especially) aro content from people who don't usually have their perspectives talked about. if you've got nothing to contribute to the conversation that's fine :) more than half the time i do not either, i just make a silly happy little lah di dah i love aromanticism post and chit chat with all the little aromantic people who live on my laptop. if you're aromantic and you're engaging with the community then everybody should be more than happy to have you there :) just like you said. all aro content is good content. your opinion is valuable and your presence is treasured <2

[flashgamestournament]

WHAT WAS THE GAME FROM UR HEADER IMAGE OMG SEEING THOSE FISH EVOKED SOMETHING HIDDEN WITHIN ME

It’s bratz babyz fish tank!! I just answered an ask about it if you wanna hear my opinion on this masterpiece

[just-a-mod]

can't believe im being slandered like this in my own ask box

from a meme i reblogged

how dare /in humor

@sparklehoard @xhrystal-vampire

[bunnyb34r]

Idk why people underestimate my stubborness/willingness to stick to my guns ab something like you're gonna find out and you will not be happy bitch. Don't play chicken with me, I'll take you out. I'll take us both out before I even THINK ab conceding.

[autism-corner]

i love handsewing but man this would be 100 times easier if i actually had a machine.