ajthemagpie

[ajthemagpie]

I have now begun hyperfixating on Bungo Stray Dogs. Lads, this does not bode well for me-

I fear I am going to ruin every single one of my hyperfixations due to the inescapable need to add my favourite characters (sickly-looking wet cat, typically mid-thirties) to my thinspo board.

Will this stop me? No. No it will not.

[ajthemagpie]

I fear I am going to ruin every single one of my hyperfixations due to the inescapable need to add my favourite characters (sickly-looking wet cat, typically mid-thirties) to my thinspo board.

Will this stop me? No. No it will not.

[ajthemagpie]

Attempt at an intro?

So Tumblr etiquette seems to have a thing where people make a pinned post (got to figure out how, exactly, to do that when we've finished this) introducing themselves. Here's our version of that, I suppose.

Name(s): 'sup, I'm AJ, but we also go by Magpie, Ezrea, Ezzie, or Uly/Ulysses (also fine with No One, for the record. Or Ody/Odysseus, actually).

Pronouns: any except she/her, please and thank you. I am a creature that has long since surpassed the pathetic, close-minded gender binary of humans. I do not gender; I simply am. On a more serious note -- we typically use He/It (yes I'm capitalising my pronouns, we are God/j), but am fine with most anything else (seriously, go fuckin' wild). Also maybe trying out eye/eyeself nounself pronouns right now, so I guess we'll see how that goes? (Oh I'm also liable to talk about myself in the plural (!! I'M NOT A SYSTEM! !! I'm just fucking weird and often struggle to see myself as a singular being), and we will respond to being called 'Chat' unironically.)

Age: a number well beyond your feeble human comprehension. No mortal calendar could even begin to understand the extent of my eternal existence. (I am a minor).

Other vaguely relevant info: so, we're neurodivergent. AuDHD (most likely, getting diagnosed soon). We also have The Big Cry (depression) and The Big AHHHHH (anxiety), as well as a litany of other not-fun things. AAAAA battery. Or AAAAAAA battery, I can't quite tell yet. Fandoms: - The Magnus Archives (wow. Who could've guessed? *Stares -- haha -- intently at the eye/eyeself pronouns mentioned earlier*) - The Mechanisms (if that wasn't obvious already given literally everything about this profile (also three guesses as to what tipped me over the edge into taking the name 'Ulysses')) - Arcane (oh my GODS Arcane. Holy shit. I. Mmmhhhh.) - The Bible (yes, I'm serious. Not in a Christian way (nothing against Christians, I just ain't one of 'em), just in an autism way. Also, yes, I am calling the Bible a fandom. Fight me.)

Those four are my main fandoms, but I'm also a: - PJO/Riordan-verse fan - Kind of a Marvel fan? In the loosest sense possible? - A little bit of an Owl House weirdo - Doctor Who freak (no, I'm NOT over how badly Belinda was written, our girl deserved so much better) - General Greek (and Roman and Norse and anything else I can get my hands on, though especially Greek) mythology nut - EPIC: the Musical fan (Again. Wow! What a surprise!/sarc) - General literature nerd, I guess? - Andrew Joseph White books weirdo (seriously, talk to me about Compound Fracture/Hell Followed With Us/The Spirit Bares Its Teeth) - DnD gay - Tad bit feral about The Last of Us (about both the game and the show, but for the show it's mostly just in relation to the game) - Hunger Games twit - Politics freak and somehow also a languages freak? Sort of? It's weird. I'm making my own language (for DnD), so there's that I guess.

We technically write, and sometimes draw. This blog will contain our weird fandom rambles, potentially some occasional fanart, and we may well wind up spewing some shitty poetry. Also general CW, there's a good chance that discussions of general mental health, self-harm, self-worth issues, self-destructive behaviour, eating disorders, suicidal ideation, and unhealthy devotion (? for lack of a better term) will come up. So be warned!

Talk to me about whatever (do talk to me, please, I am so down to ramble/listen to you ramble about literally anything (although I might not reply for a solid minute))!

DNI is your usual; bigots fuck off, TERFS (we all know you aren't actually feminists) fuck off, all that fun stuff. Just don't be a twit and we're good. Obviously I can't actually stop you interacting, but I don't think either of us want the other's content popping up on our feeds. So. Thanks.

Okay I'm done. I think. Probably? Now we just need to figure out how to pin things!

[ajthemagpie]

I've been rewatching Doctor Who, and there's a line that stuck out to me in 'The Rings of Akahten'. It's the one where Merry mentions the idea of Grandfather going on an 'Odyssey'. ...And yes, fine, the rational part of my brain is telling me that it's just the TARDIS's translation system finding a suitable English word to represent whatever Merry is saying, and that 'Odyssey' is just the closest word there is. HOWEVER! The mad, wishful part of me really wants to believe that the tale of Odysseus is universal. That all of time and space knows about this man, this one singular, pathetic, human man, this myth, and all that he has done. That the stars whisper of his losses, that every planet has heard tales of his sacrifices, that the very atoms of the cosmos are intimately aware of the terrible things he did to get Home. That, even in the furthest stretches of space, where no human Gods have ever stretched and no human person has ever stepped, Odysseus's love for Penelope is still held up as a paragon of devotion. That their yearning transcends galaxies.

[ajthemagpie]

Name: AJ or Magpie, usually.

Age: old.

Relationship status: I am alone :D

Sexuality: I dunno man, you tell me (my best guess right now is aroace but I fear I am wrong).

Crush initial: N/A

Followers: no clue and don't really care enough to look lmfao.

Favourite fiends/mutuals: I am... so sorry. But the only person I speak to on here is the guy who tagged me, @genderfluidratswitheyes, so I guess this part of the chain ends with me! Sorry :'] (WAIT NO I HAVE ANOTHER ONE, @codexnuminous I'm sorry I've never really spoken to you but your bio says you love tag/ask games and I really hope this counts :sob: you're cool I think)

Birthday: I age in April.

Favourite song: fuck uhhhh... right this moment? Possibly 'Judas' by The Reverent Marigold. Or Cocktail Molotov from Arcane. Or literally anything (except Redeath, I'm sorry

Get to know me game! Rules: answer only what you're comfortable sharing <3

Thanks for tagging me to do this @yelenasvestpockets! <3

Name: Bea

Age: 21

Relationship status: single

Sexuality: straight

Crush initial: J

Followers: 110

Favourite fiends/mutuals: @brekker-by-brekkerr, @profwonderbearthementalista, @redwidow616, @fangirl-couch-potato, @hiddenvioletsgrow and @ten-cent-sleuth just of the top of my head.

Birthday: June 14th

Favourite song: I think it's Don't Stop Believin' by Journey

[ajthemagpie]

🖇Genderchat

genderchat - green for a connection to the overworldy, blue for a connection to masculinity, black for a lack of certain gender, overlapping eyes for the feeling of being or connecting to the feeling of being multiple, wings for nonhumanity

[ Flag created for @ajthemagpie ]

[ajthemagpie]

Pride is awesome because where else can you sit next to a complete stranger, give them a can-tab, and immediately get adopted?

[ajthemagpie]

Y'know what, it's actually so transphobic that I can't just morph into Jonathan Sims.

[ajthemagpie]

You ever just. See a character. A character that appears for all of 0.2 seconds. And then just. Yup. That's my child now. What's their name? Doesn't matter, if anything happens to them I will kill the world and then myself.

[ajthemagpie]

"Jon," Tim says suddenly, puffs of grey still trailing from his lips, "Where do you keep your feelings?"

"My- feelings?" Jon echoes flatly, his own cigarette dangling between his fingers. The air is hazy with smoke, the stench of it curling lazily in his gut.

"You know," Tim gestures vaguely, "your emotions- feelings- even you must have them, I'm sure."

Jon steals a glance at his face, turning back at the slight quirk of his lips, an indication that Tim was joking. He takes another drag, whistling out the next exhale. Exasperated, he replies, "In my brain, I suppose? Isn't that where all emotions originate?"

"Well, yes," Tim says, "but you're going about it too literally."

"Was I not supposed to?"

"No. Not like that, at least. For example," Tim puts the cigarette between his lips, takes a drag, and holds his breath. His cheeks puff out from the effort. After a few seconds, he releases his breath, smoke rolling out of his mouth like a creek. "I keep my happiness here, in my cheeks. When I smile, I feel it pulling. When I'm happy, it almost hurts."

"Or--" Tim's hand lowers, lightly patting his abdomen. Jon eyes the still lit cigarette nervously. "--I feel fear here, in my stomach. Sometimes I get so nervous I want to puke."

He flicks his hand up again, staccato, stopping by the hollow of his throat. The tips of his fingers run over his adam's apple, lightly tracing the skin of his neck as he swallows. His voice is significantly softer when he says, "I feel grief in my throat. It almost feels like choking."

"And my anger," he says, turning his hand over, fingers spread out and reaching, "I feel it in my palms, my fingers." He closes it into a fist, hard enough that Jon can see his knuckles turn white. "Like lightning."

Jon stares at his own hand thoughtfully, brow slightly furrowed. He says, haltingly, "Well- I suppose my happiness is in my hands," lightly grazing his fingers over his palm, "they've their own mind sometimes."

"And," Jon taps his collarbone, expression still pinched in thought, "my sadness is in my lungs. Sometimes I can hardly breathe." He huffs a quiet laugh, "Though that might just be all the smoking."

His hand travels to his jaw, hovering before dropping to his side. "My anger is in my tongue, in my gritted teeth. The words fly out before I can reign them in."

Tim snorts. "I can attest to that."

Jon shoves a bony elbow into his side, pointedly ignoring the expletives that follow. His hand wavers in the air for a second, before he tucks it into himself, arms crossed and cigarette dangling from his fingertips. "I guess feel fear in my bones. They burrow into me, like- hm- a worm?"

"A worm." Tim echoes, teasing. "You've got fear worms in you?"

"You asked." Jon shoots back, face warm. "I've never tried to put it into words before. You know what I meant."

"I guess I do," Tim says, leaning back against the wall. His head knocks against the brick with a soft thump. He takes another drag of the cigarette and heaves out the smoke like putting out a fire.

[ajthemagpie]

Everyone's emotions are valid and people should not be ashamed to express them unless you're me though.

[ajthemagpie]

Friend asked me who Jessica Law was this morning (I bought this upon myself) and I had to explain that she's the best not-person to ever not-person and plays the best not-people to ever not-people and then he asked me what she was if not a person and I said How Could She Be Anything, Silly! She's Plastic! She Doesn't Even Have A Voice Box, She Had To Borrow This One!

[ajthemagpie]

"I can fix him" but not in the 'he is an evil bastard of a character and that makes him upsettingly attractive' kind of way, in the 'babygirl you were done so dirty by the writers come here and let me give your character the depth and development you deserved </3' kind of way.

[ajthemagpie]

Fiction is weird because on one hand, yes, half of my favourite characters are the type of blorbo that is treated horribly by the plot and goes through Dante's nine layers of hell to get their ending. HOWEVER, the other half of my favourite characters are the type of blorbo treated terribly by the creator.

In fact, that almost makes me love them more, because there is something so painfully heartbreaking about seeing a character and feeling my chest soar and mind go wild with theories and hopes for how their story will progress, how they will be molded and shaped and changed by the story, only to be hit with the reality that the creator simply didn't do that for them. They aren't a character, or at least not a fully-realised one, and they never truly will be. And that, in my opinion, is a worse fate than any eldritch Gods or tragic sacrifice. A person with so much potential, only for none of it to be put to use because nobody cared enough to make it so.

Yes this is primarily a poorly-masked rant about the Doctor Who finale, because yes I love characters like Zuko from ATLA or Jon from TMA, characters with amazing writing and development and conflicts, but I will always also adore characters like Belinda, Thirteen, and Fifteen, because they could have been so. much. more.

Because Belinda deserves better than to be subjected to a life she never chose that only exists as a result of a bigot and is reinforced through her entire timeline being rewritten to centre around a child we really don't give two fucks about. Because Thirteen deserves half-decent writing like that which we saw in her thirty seconds in the finale, not the watery bullshit we got for the majority of her run. Because Fifteen deserves a proper life, an arc, a story, not to become nothing more than a footnote on the legacy of Doctor Who, forgotten by fans who never got to know his reincarnation well enough to even begin to mourn him. And that is what is going to happen, because it's near impossible to mourn a character that barely existed. All of them could be so vibrant, so full of life, experiencing the ups and downs of the story just like Zuko and Jon in my earlier examples, but they will never get that because so little effort was put into writing good, consistent, developed characters that they may as well be cardboard cutouts. Ghosts, doomed to exist solely for people to reflect on with vague regret and relief that that time is over. They don't deserve that.

I don't even know what I'm saying at this point but fml I needed to ramble about the bullshit of that finale. BELINDA MY BABY YOU DIDN'T DESERVE THAT </3

[ajthemagpie]

You did indeed

This knowledge was entirely self-inflicted :']

Someone please enlighten me as to how I'm supposed to work out whether my transition goals are Jonathan Sims (The Archivist) (a short bastard who Knows too much and dresses like a pretentious literature professor) or Jonny d'Ville (a short bastard who swears too much and dresses like a steampunk pirate).

[ajthemagpie]

My sibling in Christ you cannot tell my Eye-coded arse self not to check a blog and then expect me not to check it :sob:

Someone please enlighten me as to how I'm supposed to work out whether my transition goals are Jonathan Sims (The Archivist) (a short bastard who Knows too much and dresses like a pretentious literature professor) or Jonny d'Ville (a short bastard who swears too much and dresses like a steampunk pirate).

[ajthemagpie]

Okay, can we please talk about Gunpowder Tim's eyes for a moment? xD

The picture on the left (charred face/eyes) is from Tim's debut performance, the one on the right (circuit lines coming out from his eyes) is from a later one. I totally get that Tim Ledsam was still feeling out what kind of character Gpt was and what he looked like (just like how Ben didn't always have a brass-coloured face and how Rachel didn't have wings at Raphaella's debut) - but. In-universe?

In-universe, this just looks like Jonny (d'Ville) went "No shower for you right after the Moon explosion! I don't care that you just got mechanised and want to take a nap. Gig first, then you can go clean up! Chop, chop!", and I find that both hilarious and completely in character for Jonny

(also Tim looks so fucking traumatised in all pics from that first performance and that totally supports this idea T^T)