#Genius and sublime

[blondemadona]

Everyone can have their obsession with whatever and move on but Carmilla will forever hold a place in my heart

[illustraice]

someone save alphonse elric and may chang from a very long suffering year

[fluffylord]

TWELFTH DOCTOR S09 E00 | LAST CHRISTMAS

[ibvix]

BUT WHY DO I SEE TWO ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL LITTLE BABY FUZZIE KITTY SOULS, MUSTN'T YOU BE INCLUDING YOUR EXTRAORDINARILY COMPASSIONATE SOULS AS WELL ?!?!?!

🐈‍⬛🐾🐾🖤

Join my Patreon for more purrs ✨✨

[sentinelcole]

God, South of Midnight is so heartbreakingly good. The way it weaves story, lore and the music together into a dark and sublime harmony. Truly, I have stopped caring about combat and only want to get through it to find the next piece of lore or hear the next lyric of the song.

And giving every boss their own jazz/bluegrass folklore ballad? A genius move. An incredible move. More games need to give their bosses ballads where the lyrics sing the boss' story.

[anantaru]

⊹ ‧₊˚ ᰔ pleasures of the flesh

synopsis. ⊹ ‧₊˚ ᰔ your boyfriend kaveh was skilled in many things, but especially in the bedroom // ꒰ᐢ⸝⸝⸝⸝ᐢ꒱ ♡

cw. dirty talk, soft dom kaveh (?) & skilled kaveh and passionate love making ᰔ, fem! reader

kaveh listens to your soft broken voice and admires each tone you utter towards him with a smile blown across his entire face.

and just as much as he longed to give you the world, in this, it escapes him again, the twist and crush in his stomach when he reminds himself that he’s save with you, in your arms, that whatever happens, he’d still be overflown with an intimate warmth coming from you, his soulmate.

"yesplease— ka-kaveh," your moans were comparatively breathy and tilted, as if pitched up to appear shy and vulnerable. the fault lies upon how well and content he treated your body, because he was one to always take his time with you— in his own state of mind, you had to be divine, sublime and deserved to be treated as such.

"h-hows that? gonna make it feel good, ’promise, baby, promise," he confidently mewls his words, gingerly grinding his hips into your soft insides, again a little deeper but not overdoing it, awaiting your reactions but also groaning as he caught the slight twitch on your bottom lip whenever he rubbed over the selected spots.

the feeling of love after all this time was still consuming him as intense as day one— and his digits travel over your sensitive chest to slide his palm over your breasts, handling your soft mounds with care while settling his cock inside of you. kaveh’s pale skin delicately glows red and his breath quickens when he ghosts over your erected nipples, filling him with pride that your bodies reactions were this intense and graceful.

"closer, ‘i want you closer, closer, closer, fuck— " it doesn’t need a genius to figure out that your boyfriend kaveh was skilled in this, beyond attentive with his attention fully fixed on the current motion. what a perfect and content lover he was too, because even before pleasuring your most beloved inches, kissing your lips in tune with his slow— but deep hurdles, he’d study what would turn you into a crying mess, vulnerable— or have your legs helplessly shake around his hips.

"closer? gonna get so close to you, yeah? everything my baby wants," he whispers and coats your glossy lips with his erratic breathing, "whatever my darling wants," he manages to huff out, "been wanting to feel you like this all fucking week,"

ever so slightly, he builds up your approaching climax, the prickling burn ringing and screaming across your lower area when he began to rock you back and forth his erection, back and forth back and forth, faster and more passionate with the desire to make you climax first— though clinging on you so he could look into your dilated, glistering pupils the moment you cum on his cock.

©2024 anantaru do not repost, copy, translate, modify

[st-just]

Almost nothing will make me despise a work of fiction more thoroughly and instantaneously than its fans getting smug and talking about it like the author's some enlightened guru and the text is sublime genius that can only be disliked because it's going over your head.

[shisasan]

Werner Herzog

[skzapp]

Blog recommendations: Heartwrenching angst!

Some of the blogs with the best angst on Tumblr!

Check them out, though you’d better prepare tissues. Lots of tissues.

In the spotlight, a selected work to get you started!

Genre: angst

Blogs: 9

@lieslab

Written works

> [They find you battling suicide] in the spotlight

Definitely the Queen of angst for me.

Whether it is heart wrenching angst that leaves me bawling or hurt and comfort, the feelings are always delivered.

Especially recommended for hurt/comfort because while the angst is sublime, I find myself particularly drawn by the comforting fics, which feel like a warm blanket during a storm.

Also, can handle perfectly very heavy themes which are honestly so hard to write but she succeeds splendidly, delivering perfection each time!

@rmview

Written works

> [You disappear after a fight] in the spotlight

Mostly short drabbles that hit you directly in the heart.

Well depicted scenarios that will make you cry.

Latest heartbreak? The cold shoulder. I can’t even begin to describe how much it made me tear up.

Love the use of dialogue and very romantic quotes, let me tell you that.

All lines hit so good!

If you see me crying I am not… I just contracted ✨emotions✨

@thewinter-eden

Fake texts and written works

> [“Insecurity” series] in the spotlight

While her crack!Horror written fic series deserves an award with how funny it is (like really, check that out cause I love it), we are talking angst and so I present to you other two lovely series: Insecurity series (which has been completed) and the Jealousy series (who’s first part has yet to be released and I’m so hyped already!).

Through messages the feelings, misunderstandings and heartbreak hit deeply but, thankfully, she’ll break your heart then mend it back up during the resolution!

Unique scenarios (and for those who like me enjoy a well created coherent world surrounding parts of the same fic, there’s lore hidden in all the parts and references) with unique feels that will make you cry and then kick you feet up giggling!

@chlix

Fake texts and written works

> [“They call you a gold digger” series] in the spotlight

From assholes to regretful beggars.

Reader doesn’t always melt the second they say sorry so the resolution (if it doesn’t deservedly end up in a break up) feels much more satisfying!

Will definitely break your heart! Honestly I never knew fake texts could be so heartbreaking before!

Got me addicted to fake texts (first blog whose fake texts I actually liked).

@linoxpudding

Fake texts and written works.

> [“Intern” series] in the spotlight

When I tell you good.

Like fucking perfect.

The heartbreak-laced fake texts are amazing, like Master of Angst level.

I’m bawling in the floor each time I read it and I just wish I could read it for the first time again (though re-reading feels just as good not gonna lie).

And the written Lee Know series “Intern” is just golden.

Emotional constipation met angst with a side of their own genius and that gave birth to a masterpiece.

@bbokicidal

Written works

> [“As we are” series] in the spotlight

Hear me out: she’s known for her nsfw (and like that’s fair because it is top tier) but I think we are underrating her angst because it is just as good.

The cheater series?

The “As we are” series?!

Like damn.

There’s some people who are like “nsfw writers can’t write angst or other genres” and I don’t think it’s true and bbokicidal is the proof of that.

Members’ corner

@lovetaroandtaemin

Written works

> [“Bad Dates and Bad Luck”] in the spotlight

Only one stray kids piece but so damn good.

Bad Dates and Bad Luck is a work of art.

Got me crying all my tears over words on a screen.

Almost changed my bias for that like damn… who hurt ya (lemme kill them)?

If you also like Seventeen, definitely check that out but be ready to get out of it heartbroken and emotionally unstable.

That’s how good it is.

@fenya-scribbles

Written works

> [Secret] in the spotlight

Okay, if you know Fenya you’ll be like “that’s a sunshine, how could they write angst well?”.

Spoiler alert, they can and have.

Absolutely adore it.

Like top notch angst for real, with the right amount of hurt to balance the comforting hug you get at the end.

The carrot and the stick made fics, basically, but for your heart: comfort and angst all wrapped in a literary masterpiece.

.

@lov3rachan

Written works

> [“Loving you is a losing game” series] in the spotlight

You might like my “Loving you is a losing game” series. Probably not but who knows.

If you really have no angst left, check it out.

Let us know if you enjoyed these!

Join @stayphone now to stay updated with new recommendations each month, fun events, friendly chats in our server (with an exclusive Stray kids themed TCG) and so much more!

List suggested and curated by: Jin

User taglist: @lovetaroandtaemin @fenyasnonsense @lov3rachan @meet-me-at-our-place @blueohs @aneldrichentity @rayzyart @intrikatie @seunmong-in @changbinniescurlyhair @thekpoplover444 @therogueheart @lexlikesbts

[crimson-and-clover-1717]

Ten reasons Ed Teach is lovable 💕

kindness The sweetness and care he shows Stede when he awakes. The way he greets the crew. The patience with Jack, and Izzy, neither of whom deserve it. How quickly he wins over Zheng with his goofy giggles…

feels deeply The hurt at being mocked is palpable. The indescribable pain at Stede’s leaving. The shock and fallout from Izzy’s threats. The lack continued lack of self esteem. But Ed also feels deeply in positive ways, showing awe and wonder at Stede’s curios, fabrics, books, marmalade. Such joy at catching a fish! And he feels romantic love at a very deep level. No one has loved like Ed Teach in the history of loving.

so fucking clever Date error aside, the fog / tidal plan is fantastic. And the save with the lighthouse fuckery, sublime - because Ed came up with the practicalities of how they were going to be a lighthouse on the bounce. And whilst disturbing, it takes a genius of a mind to come up with that gravy basket imagery, including the Merstede vision. Even Ed’s survival mechanism, heartbreaking as it is, is objectively wonderful. The artistic compartmentalisation of personas. Ed both protects and breaks himself on his cleverness. But the clever working class boy who deserves the world, and finally gets it, is a trope which will never grow old for me.

believes in a best self Ed’s not quite sure what that looks like on any given day, but he wants to be utmost in who he is. ‘Jeff… never turns his back on a challenge.’ ‘Blackbeard always wins’ (problem actually). ‘‘Behold… / I’m a fisherman now… you said it was a good fish’.

And Ed’s supportive of others too. ‘You’ve got it all figured out’, ‘The sheer talent on this ship…’ Even in dark moments, Jim is ‘quite the specimen’.

Ed needs to realise that his best self is not necessarily one with no mistakes, and others aren’t without fault either (Stede, he learns the hard way). But the fact Ed won’t settle for a mediocre version of life anymore, believes in better… I love him for it.

violence as a last resort. Ed’s MO is non-violence first, prior to the Kraken spiral. Even during the raids, he is more of an observer. Ed’s attitude to violence is never casual. Pete, Roach, even Wee John… they have casual attitudes to violence in a way never demonstrated by Ed. The twice he appears to commit violence directly is to protect his mother after years of abuse, and protect Stede against colonial violence. It’s violence in the name of love.

forgives easily Too easily at times. The grace he shows over and over to Izzy. How quickly he forgives Stede (that’s okay). The only character he doesn’t forgive easily is himself. Ed’ll get there.

gets Stede Immediately. The excitement at Stede’s knickknacks. Understanding Stede is a lunatic, and that this is a likeable, desirable trait. The viewer understanding Stede through Ed’s focalisation is key to getting the show.

so goofy Ed’s cosplaying Stede within thirty minutes. He’s a theatre kid, jumping down three easy steps on a swing-rope; fuckeries, canon-balling off the ship, the gorgeous chaos of the post-coital breakfast…

has hope (it’s cute) That he ran towards the light of The Gentleman Pirate That he believed they could run away to China and be happy. That his dying brain was able to create Merstede. That he wants to give innkeeping a try even when he’s half-dead…

Ed could’ve been so hard and brittle by middle age, but he isn’t. He has boyish hope and it’s part of what saves him.

he’s beautiful His eyes, his hair, the peach of an ass, and he really does wear fine things well. But it’s not just all that. His eye-crinkles, his smile, his voice, his laughter, his tears, his double pats, his energy, his wit, his little teeth, the surly teen-girl face when he’s upset, his thoughtfulness. His unconditional love for Stede Bonnet.

This is a non-definitive list. Please add your own ‘why Ed Teach is lovable’ thoughts 💕

[aechlys]

One of the most interesting things about looking at Buck-Tick lyrics is not just Atsushi (and Imai)'s evolution as a wordsmith but his evolution with topics, if that's even the right word for it. You literally get to watch him get hit by things we both do and don't know about that happen to him throughout his life, and then how over time he grew to deal with them- or sometimes just accept them as fucked- and what he thought about it. And of course not everything is auto-biographical- we know his love for creating characters to tell meaningful stories about- but you still have the well-known strains of how he deals with significant loss, how he comes to terms eventually with people from his past he can't change, his own fuck-ups, encouragement to fans, examinations of things he encountered either irl or in the news.

And then, whoever came up with the brilliant idea to record so many live performances literally from day one until the very, very end...because not only does he evolve with each layer of new songs but also with each fresh performance of even some of the band's oldest, iconic songs. We get to see for ourselves how his relationship to various subject matter changes from performance to performance, the best ones being with decades between them. Whether it's a raw, excruciating grappling, to a sort of sublime madness of acceptance, to finally elevating himself above the issue entirely-- 太陽に���された/Murdered by the Sun is such an excellent example of this, and for those just wandering in is a song about questioning celebrity, whether it's worth being a player on the stage when the attention can be excruciating- and with the added subtext that the ones you love may die with you nowhere near them for the sake of success. Atsushi questioned his entire career with this song after his mother died from cancer while the band was on tour- "Murdered by the Sun" perhaps more than just a metaphor for being killed by the spotlight, but him as a son feeling extremely responsible for not being there. If you have the time to take out to watch all three play out, I encourage it:

The most famous, from 1992, where he even added an extra verse at the end that I don't think he ever sang again- an extremely raw and clawing performance where the lighting at the beginning hits his face perfectly to reveal a Noh mask-like countenance to pull us back to this idea of the oldest theatre, and also to the fact that he likely felt like he was currently hiding behind perhaps several masks at the time.

10 years later in 2003, now the lines of the song are drawn out, more floating, his lilting voice older and more seasoned than last time. It's been ten long years that probably shot by in a flash and he's experienced so much with still so much yet ahead of him. The madness of it all is settled in his bones now, you feel, and there is an acceptance about it even though he's learned to shoulder the strain that's still there.

10+ years again to 2015, now the song starts off as if he's telling a story about someone else entirely- he's risen so far above the issue because it is wholeheartedly his life now- but in the second half of the song you sort of see him reawaken and look back down at his past self as he asks his questions "Will I just die? Will I live?"- like looking back into the past and going "Well what will you choose, kid? Because here we are now." And in his final chorus he no longer is left beating himself up telling the sun to just kill him like he did the first time in the added verse- now he's blowing kisses to the sky in each direction as he thinks about those gone on- and this time, this time, at the end he does not die.

Honestly, that someone had the genius idea- even if it was just for marketing and to make money- of recording so so many lives which allows us to literally see it all in action with our own two eyes like the best sort of modern anthropology...I want to hug them. Because such a life...such an artist and their very vivid artistry is preserved forever now in a way that we can look at almost like pages in a book.

There is no conclusion to this post because ultimately there is no conclusion- at least not a satisfying one- to his story. Or perhaps, writing it out and thinking about it now, ironically there is. Atsushi, essentially, died on stage. Weirdly self-fulfilling that the 'sun' of the stage, in a sense, did catch up to him in the end when a song about dealing with problems in the moment was never meant to be a prophecy. And I don't think it was, genuinely. More of a curiosity at best. Something that makes his story all the more interesting, perhaps. And that's precisely why I think there's no ending to be had- every person who sinks their claws in deeply to the material will come away with some treasure that possibly no one has managed to see before. And that, right there, keeps adding pages to the book.

There is no ending because a sudden curtain fall does not constitute an ending, and there is no ending if all of us continue to add pages to his and the band's story. Not even the band is stopping their own page-adding- Imai claiming Atsushi was causing mischief in the studio while recording Subrosa is testament to that.

I don't know. This post started off as just a vehicle for me to rattle off the pressing thoughts I had about artistic and personal evolution and then turned into this whole thing so I don't have much of an ending here myself. Except to perhaps say don't stop listening, don't stop watching, don't stop posting and comparing and questioning and sharing your thoughts about things, because these are all pages to a book about a man whose artistry is very much alive and well- because of us. They say, too, sometimes, that when people are reincarnated they can still remember who they are, or they remember wisps of enough to recognize things from before. I'd like to think, perhaps in a rather fantastical way maybe, that when the wheel turns and he comes back again, that in his travels he may stumble across some old band called Buck-Tick and see not just the mountain of art he and his best friends created but also all of our little foothills piled around it containing our thoughts and translations and praises and grief and happiness all carefully built with love left behind for him and the guys. And that somehow, whether he understands it or not, he can smile at seeing us all again, even if it makes no sense to him at all.

[writinglittlebeasts]

i cant say his dick is big because that's cliche but if i call it mean-looking it basically means the same thing which is suddenly okay

editing chapter 3 (anal chapter) with my hand over my eyes because it's so cringe

[some-small-mercy]

Abhari Atlas - An Introduction to the Outer Seas

When the Celestial Host cast down and butchered the Arch-Demons of the lower depths and from them made Creation, they did not do so with a single mind, or in a single effort. The Inner World upon which you and I walk is perfectly formed, and aligned with every principle of True and Beauty - it is for this reason that the Great Gods of Heaven believed it a suitable home for the sublime Order of man and spirit we know as civilization. Make no mistake, I am no Godsemeren pollyanna - the Inner World is replete with heresy and witchcraft, with demons and apostates and every other horror. But it is full, too, of honor and beauty, of loyalty and piety, and of all the countless Glories which obedience to the Chain of Being and true Religion allow. 

But the Inner - or, as I have elsewhere argued it should be more rightly called, the Higher - World was the Celestial Divines’ masterwork, not their first attempt. In ages past, the learned and pious believed that it was built upon the ruins of these previous efforts, and it was from this imperfection that the taint of demology and witchcraft first seeped into the world. I am loathe to contradict such august and ancient sources, but in our modern age this has been proven false - the prototypes and failed attempts at the creation of the World were not destroyed or built over, they were instead cast down and hidden away, or put by the Heavens to some lesser purpose suitable to their failings and what virtues they had. 

There is a great diversity among the nations and the peoples of the Higher World and so the first service provided by a study of the Outer Seas is a contrast by which their similarities might be seen. They are all, for example, human, born imbued with a mortal soul and an honoured place in the Chain of Being. Thus, it is only through sin or tragedy that their form becomes misshapen or corrupted - this is not the case for the greater part of the creatures whose crude facsimiles of government and culture populate most Outer Seas. Not all, of course - some come close to the perfection of the Higher World, their peoples only barely distinguishable from our own. Others are earlier and less finished prototypes, or else abandoned due to some fundamental corruption or flaw, and their natives the same. Yet others were the prisons of great Titans or other fallen Angels, and even if they were once filled with true humanity, ages of capricious interference and corruption have left their descendents weakened or deformed in some manner, either in body or soul. They are not demons, or even goblins, but obvious signs of this inhumanity in visage or bearing, and hereditary tendencies to some particular corruption, abound. It is for these reasons and more that no Outer Sea has produced true Civilization or true Religion on its own, and none have proved capable of equalling the achievements or resisting the arms of the Higher World without the open support of another fully human power (however corrupt it might be). 

It was through just that corruption that the Outer Seas were first discovered - for who but warlocks and apostates would ever cut their way through the skein of the world into the abyss beyond, without any surety that there was a solitary thing to be found? Yet the piety and virtue of the Hierarch then ruling in Imir was soon rewarded with a method of invoking the grace and power of Heaven and its Sublime Will which opened the way for the World-Empire’s own ships. The methods and engines are closely guarded trade secrets of the relevant guilds and orders, but in any case require great ocean-going vessels and occulted prayers and rites that are in every case beyond the means of any lacking the genius of true humanity. 

The methods by which Outer Seas are charted are occulted, but their organization is obvious and clear, arranged in harmonious alignment such that their cosmic distance to the Higher World and the ease with which they can be reached mirrors the severity of their flaws and corruption. Thus the Pearl Sea, one of the nearest and first-charted, is almost indistinguishable from the heartlands of the Empire, and its populace - once winnowed in the Crusade that won it - so close to full humanity to be as worthy of the name as a great many peasants along the Empire’s other marches and borderlands. Thus also, though less happily, the Onyx Sea where the Celmean League’s colonies and daughter-cities have recruited from and interbred with the existing populace so eagerly with no loss of skill or vigor - and where under the Lord Regent’s Tyranny the Empire’s own holdings were lost entirely in one disastrous war after another.

Most Seas are not so blessed of course. Arrayed in an astral orrery, they spiral out, descending from the Higher World and growing more unfinished and flawed in perfect sequence. The remainder that are so close to true reality that a layman would not notice the difference are so small and marginal as to not be worth contesting the claims other principalities have made on them. The next great prizes are middling seas, obviously unfinished and dangerous to both body and soul to sail, yet full of riches and opportunity for glory that explain why the Gods Above allowed mortal eyes to chart the course to them. Here are the great prisons and blasphemous ateliers of Titan and Fae, the kingdoms of oxen walking on two hooves and birds conversing wholly through the fractured words of their long-dead trainers. This, then, is the land where legends and fortunes are made, and where treasure fleets and privateer squadrons sail for under every flag. They are also, as a whole, the theaters within which civilized powers now compete to outdo each other in colonial glory, and where each struggles to put the native creatures encountered to their most beneficial purpose. The rare examples where the creatures have not yet been brought to heel by one power or another - the cavern-dwelling clans of the Iron Sea, mostly famously - remain so by the combination of unusually belligerent and untrusting natives and a lack of treasures to justify the cost. 

At an even further remove are the Seas so primitive and distant from the Divine Plan that the dangers yet outweigh the riches and revelations they offer. Thus, the Starlit Sea, where there is neither dawn nor moon nor horizon, and the stars above are reflected by the glittering heralds of ruin beneath the waves. Thus the Whispering Depths, where any wind can be bought only with the sacrifice of a mortal soul whose breath might move it - and whose voice and secrets then taunt any who hear them for a year and a day. Thus, most of all, the Abyss itself, as dark and depthless as any entrance to Perdition, whose waters swallow ship and swimmer alike.

In the remainder of this treatise, then, I shall focus my efforts on those middling seas, and most specifically on the demi- and in-humans creatures which call them home and which must be truly brought to heel for the Empire’s banner to settle itself in their lands…

-A Discourse on the Higher and Lower Seas, by Brother Adrien of the Poor Fellows of the Sacred Pyre. Despite his later censure for Hierocratic sympathies the work remains a standard reference throughout the Holy Illyrin Empire

[literatemisfit]

My thoughts on Opening Night of Macbeth at the Harold Pinter Theatre, Oct 1, 2024:

SPOILERS ON ALL OF IT

I have never. Ever. Seen theatre like that. The theatricality in the way everyone moved, the dramatics behind every word, the energy that every single actor had for the action and the violence

The thriller aspects of the play fucking floored me. The opening flash of light on Macbeth, bloodied and traumatized, shocked me and will stay with me forever. The red lights on the witches/visions that haunt Macbeth and convulse at his feet, then attack him and make HIM convulse and whimper and *scream* fuck

Macbeth fighting off imaginary foes was genius (and also made me giggle bc David fighting no one is kind of adorable)

Macbeth's grappling with manhood was beautifully done - from soft and desperate to prove himself to his wife, to fighting with himself to kill or not to kill the king, to aggressively grabbing at and grinding on his wife ordering her to give him male children, then righteous rage at those who turn against him

Also. The way that man moves his body on the stage is - spellbinding. Bowing to the King flat on his stomach in submission, arms out like a cross in reverence and vulnerability. Crouching and kneeling, legs splayed out, lowering himself to the ground in sorrow

The knocking behind the glass chilled me. The murders of Macduff's family disturbed me. The young actor Caspar is absolutely incredible - Macbeth catching young Macduff as if to help and shush him and then handing him off to the murderer, to his doom

The gunshots! How can I forget the gunshots ringing out all around as the witches taunt and tease him, writhing and twisting and calling out to him. His fear at being surrounded by amazing horrors, his anger at learning that he isn't invincible

And oh. Oh my God the folk dancing. Never have I seen anything more extra, more energetic, more folk inspired yet modern? around and around and around they spun with mad grins and roaring laughs and growls, a show of manhood and aggression as well as mirth and pleasure

The way they froze scenes - like the dance - to emphasize the terror or the shared looks or the doubt or the thereto untold knowledge of their crime

The beautiful and rugged Scottish accents and Cush's sublime magnificence were the icing on the incredibly tall and wholly overwhelming cake that is David Tennant on stage, doing what he loves most in the whole wide world, with as much energy and turbulence and drama and theatrics and vitality and desperate longing looks as he can possibly muster. David Tennant on stage, doing what he loves:

I think David is a perfect Macbeth. The way he wavers uncertainly at having brought the daggers out of the chamber and not knowing what to do next, being led by his wife and yet so eager to please her and get them the healing they both so desperately need, needing to take charge and finding his courage when it's too late.

His breakdown at Banquo's ghost: a masterclass in fear and rage and trauma, grasping at his wife as they clutch each other on the ground, both enraged yet both afraid and confused and disturbed but for different reasons

Pretending.

[explorer-of-knowledge]

So this Night Springs episode, Absence of Creativity, is actually kind of brilliant in a sneaky way. On the surface, it’s just a funny little story about a writer who can’t think of what to put in his story. But if you really look at it, it’s actually diving into some deep stuff, about creativity, reality, & even existential dread.

The Setup: A Story That’s Falling Apart

So it starts with Martha, who finds something weird in her basement, a swirling void, something she can’t quite look at directly. She calls her friend Lydia over, & they both stare at it, confused. Then, out of nowhere, a random guy appears. Turns out, he’s the one who created everything around them, the house, the basement, the fact that they even exist. But there’s a catch: he didn’t create the vortex.

This is where things get interesting. The man (who we’ll just call the Storyteller) admits that he started writing this situation, two old ladies, something creepy in a basement, but then got stuck. He had writer’s block, & because he couldn’t think of what to put in the basement, that “nothing” actually became part of the story. Like, think about how weird that is. The void isn’t just something missing; it’s the physical manifestation of his creative block. It’s not just empty, it’s the absence of imagination itself.

What’s Actually Going On Here?

1. Reality is as Fragile as a Story

The Storyteller says he created everything, except this one thing he forgot to create. That’s kind of terrifying. It implies that reality (at least in this story) is super delicate. If the creator stops paying attention, things literally start disappearing into nothingness.

It reminds me of the whole Alan Wake theme where reality is shaped by writing. Like, if Alan doesn’t write it, does it even exist? Same thing here, if the Storyteller can’t think of what to put in the basement, it just becomes a blank space, an actual void.

It also makes you wonder, if you were in a story, how would you even know if parts of your world were missing? Maybe this happens all the time, & we just don’t notice the "voids" because our own "storyteller" fills them in.

2. The Fear of an Unfinished Idea

The Storyteller is visibly stressed about this whole thing. The women suggest just ignoring it, but he’s like, “No way, that could turn into a plot hole. It might already be one. It could sink the whole enterprise.”

That’s such a good way of explaining what writer’s block feels like. If you ignore it, it doesn’t go away, it just sits there, messing everything up. The longer you leave it, the worse it gets. & if you’re not careful, it can unravel everything you’ve built.

It’s also kind of a deeper metaphor for how creative work feels in general. Every time you hit a wall, there’s that little voice in your head going, “Should I even keep going? Is this whole thing stupid?” That’s exactly what the Storyteller is going through. He’s literally standing in front of his unfinished idea, trying to decide whether to move forward or give up.

3. The Fine Line Between Stupid & Genius

The episode ends with the Night Springs narrator saying, “It’s a fine line between the stupid and the sublime.” That’s basically the perfect summary of creative work.

So many great ideas probably seemed ridiculous at first. But if you push through that doubt, you can make something amazing. The Storyteller is caught right in that moment of hesitation. He doesn’t know if what he’s doing is genius or nonsense. & that’s what makes this episode feel so real, because honestly, that’s what every artist, writer, or creator feels at some point.

So What’s the Big Takeaway?

At first, this episode seems like a joke, like, haha, a writer ran out of ideas & made a whole episode about it. But when you really sit with it, it’s actually saying something important:

1. Reality (at least in fiction) is as strong or weak as the mind that creates it. If a creator falters, their world literally starts falling apart.

2. Writer’s block isn’t just “not having an idea.” It’s a crisis. It’s staring at nothingness & feeling like that nothingness is stronger than you.

3. Doubt is part of the process. Every creator hits a moment where they wonder if their work is brilliant or terrible. & honestly? That moment is what makes the difference between giving up & pushing forward.

What I love about this episode is that it doesn’t just talk about creativity, it actually makes you feel what it’s like to be stuck in a story you don’t know how to finish. & the fact that it ends without a clear resolution? That’s perfect. It leaves you with the same lingering question the Storyteller has: What now?

[nicklloydnow]

“About a decade ago, I ventured my opinion that the adult multitudes queueing for superhero movies were potentially an indicator of emotional arrest, which could have worrying political and social implications. Since at that time Brexit, Donald Trump and fascist populism hadn’t happened yet, my evidently crazy diatribe was largely met with outrage from the fan community, some of whom angrily demanded I be extradited to the US and made to stand trial for my crimes against superhumanity – which I felt didn’t necessarily disprove my allegations.

Ten years on, let me make my position clear: I believe that fandom is a wonderful and vital organ of contemporary culture, without which that culture ultimately stagnates, atrophies and dies. At the same time, I’m sure that fandom is sometimes a grotesque blight that poisons the society surrounding it with its mean-spirited obsessions and ridiculous, unearned sense of entitlement. Perhaps this statement still requires some breaking down.

(…)

Quite liking comics, aged 14 I thus became a comics fan with my discovery of British fandom, which was then still gummy-eyed and fresh out of the egg. The first convention I attended in London, in the basement rooms of a Southampton Row hotel in 1969, was tiny and inspiring. The attenders barely totalled a three-digit number, almost all of them some few years short of legal drinking age. The comics companies, having no monetary interest in a handful of penniless teenagers, went blissfully unrepresented, and the only industry celebrity that I recall was the sublime and sweetly unassuming genius Frank Bellamy, passing Dan Dare or Garth originals around, appearing wonderstruck that anyone had heard of him. The only thing uniting the assembly was its passion for an undervalued storytelling medium and, for the record, the consensus verdict of the gathered 15-year-old cognoscenti was that costumed musclemen were the main obstacle preventing adult audiences from taking comics seriously.

Of that hardly-a-hundred schoolkids, office boys and junior librarians, the great majority were actively involved in their pursuit, publishing or contributing to a variety of – for the most part – poorly duplicated fanzines, or else going on to work professionally in the field, such as Kevin O’Neill, Steve Moore, Steve Parkhouse or Jim Baikie, all of whom were downstairs at the Waverley hotel that weekend, keen to elevate the medium that they loved, rather than passively complain about whichever title or creator had particularly let them down that month. Of course, this was the 1960s and the same amateur energy seemed to be everywhere, spawning an underground press, Arts Lab publications and a messy, marvellous array of poetry or music fanzines that were the material fabric of that era’s counterculture; flimsy pamphlets as important and innovative today as they were then, although considerably more expensive, trust me.

Soon thereafter, caught up in the rush of adolescent life, I drifted out of touch with comic books and their attendant fandom, only returning eight years later when I was commencing work as a professional in that fondly remembered field, to find it greatly altered. Bigger, more commercial, and although there were still interesting fanzines and some fine, committed people, I detected the beginnings of a tendency to fetishise a work’s creator rather than simply appreciate the work itself, as if artists and writers were themselves part of the costumed entertainment. Never having sought a pop celebrity relationship with readers, I withdrew by stages from the social side of comics, acquiring my standing as a furious, unfathomable hermit in the process. And when I looked back, after an internet and some few decades, fandom was a very different animal.

An older animal for one thing, with a median age in its late 40s, fed, presumably, by a nostalgia that its energetic predecessor was too young to suffer from. And while the vulgar comic story was originally proffered solely to the working classes, soaring retail prices had precluded any audience save the more affluent; had gentrified a previously bustling and lively cultural slum neighbourhood. This boost in fandom’s age and status possibly explains its current sense of privilege, its tendency to carp and cavil rather than contribute or create. I speak only of comics fandom here, but have gained the impression that this reflexive belligerence – most usually from middle-aged white male conservatives – is now a part of many fan communities. My 14-year-old grandson tells me older Pokémon aficionados can display the same febrile disgruntlement. Is this a case of those unwilling to outgrow childhood enthusiasms, possibly because these anchor them to happier and less complex times, who now feel they should be sole arbiters of their pursuit?

There are, of course, entirely benign fandoms, networks of cooperative individuals who quite like the same thing, can chat with others sharing the same pastime and, importantly, provide support for one another in difficult times. These healthy subcultures, however, are less likely to impact on society in the same way that the more strident and presumptuous fandoms have managed. Unnervingly rapidly, our culture has become a fan-based landscape that the rest of us are merely living in. Our entertainments may be cancelled prematurely through an adverse fan reaction, and we may endure largely misogynist crusades such as Gamergate or Comicsgate from those who think “gate” means “conspiracy”, and that Nixon’s disgrace was predicated on a plot involving water, but this is hardly the full extent to which fan attitudes have toxified the world surrounding us, most obviously in our politics.

Elections that decide the fate of millions are conducted in an atmosphere more suited to evictions on I’m a Celebrity …, in which contestants who are insufficiently amusing are removed from office. Saleability, not substance, is the issue. Those who vote for Donald Trump or Boris Johnson seem less moved by policy or prior accomplishment than by how much they’ve enjoyed the performances on The Apprentice or Have I Got News for You. And throughout the UK, we’re now familiar with what a Stephen Yaxley-Lennon fan convention looks like.

An enthusiasm that is fertile and productive can enrich life and society, just as displacing personal frustrations into venomous tirades about your boyhood hobby can devalue them. Quite liking something is OK. You don’t need the machete or the megaphone.

Candidly, for my part, readers would have always been more than sufficient.”