doodleofbugness

[doodleofbugness]

when things are already pretty horsey but then the situation

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i miss her like a mf...🚬

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Pero buatefack

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Just rewatched Avengers movie after X many years and this scene stuck out.

When Clint regains his senses, he asks Nat “how many agents…” She stops him and says, “No. Don’t do this to yourself. That wasn’t you. That was Loki.”

Things that Joss bloody Whedon understood but the very people who wrote Bucky tortured into obedience could not.

Also Steve, all of 28 years of age, putting on his 98 year old voice and snapping, “Son, don’t!” Is the sort of shit that would have had Bucky and the Howlies snorting in the sidelines.

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every day i wake up and am mad at the end of steves storyline and the full and complete lack of people who GET IT

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captain america: the first avenger is about how nazis fucking suck and we need to band together to stop them.

captain america: the winter soldier is about how fascists can be anywhere, and we have to stop them, even if it means going against what feels like the whole world.

captain america: civil war is about how even when there are fewer fascists, regular people can still be wrong and the government can't be trusted to keep the best interest of minorities in mind.

captain america: brave new world (and, to an extent, TFATWS) is about how when people in power keep secrets, miscommunicate, and spread lies, everyone suffers.

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No one owes artists anything.

But existence is lonely and sometime you throw hours and hours of effort into a void, on the slim chance it will say something back.

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There's a post going around about a specific alleged AI fanfic. The author of the post lists a lot of reasons why they believe the fic is AI. Not linking to the post and not commenting on its conclusion, but.

But.

People.

These???? Are all ABSOLUTELY VALID analogies/expressions???

"her nimble fingers worked with quiet precision"

"his grip firm but tender"

"her gown pooling around her like embers"

But the post says that:

fingers don't make sound, so what does quiet precision mean? as opposed to what? her joints cracking with every movement? how is a grip firm but tender? what does that mean? since when do embers pool? the entire fic is littered with these adjectives that contradict each other or just straight up do not make sense, because all an ai does is generate descriptive language with no understanding of what the words it's spitting out actually mean

Come on, man. These are perfectly serviceable! Quiet precision and firm but tender are bog standard fictional expressions. Granted, I've never seen the simile of a dress pooling like embers, but I like it! It evokes!

They are absolutely something that an actual living breathing person would write! (In fact they're so serviceable that if the fic is AI they're probably plagiarised) (although firm but tender is SO common I'm not sure it can be plagiarised? It's like 'toeing off his shoes').

Like, yeah, AI sucks. I agree it sucks.

But analogies or expressions that aren't a one to one match for truth (reality? observable fact? whatever, you get what I mean) are not bad?? They don't mean a fic was written with AI?? They're what makes writing GOOD. Makes it interesting.

Sure, 'her nimble fingers moved like bones and tendons covered by skin because they were bones and tendons covered in skin, but her movements were so expertly precise that no one noticed just how super precise they were' might be entertaining. briefly.

But the whole POINT of metaphor and simile is to evoke a reaction. An emotion.

There's a post by silentwalrus that I cannot find (thanks tumblr search), and it's pissing me off, because they perfectly talked about this! About metaphor and how to write original and effective ones (something they're VERY good at). The example was something like 'he did a thing like a scorpion hidden under a bush' and pointing out that if you looked at it too close it didn't make sense, but it evoked a reaction.*

A clever or strange or evocative analogy or expression does not mean it was written by AI.

____________________________

*I may be misremembering the details, and if so I apologise; it was a long time ago, but I'm positive it involved a scorpion.

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I’m so sorry but in the nicest way possible do yall actually read books or just read words??? Cause I’ve been seeing that trend of people not understanding how “snarled” and “eyes darkened” and “eyes softened” etc. was used in a book and like…

Genuinely, do yall just not have imagination?? Or not understand figurative language??? Also eyes do literally darken and soften have you not lived a life??? How do you read with no imagination? Is this how you get through so many books in one month - you simply don’t take the time the understand the words as they are read?

[doodleofbugness]

One of the most common ways that I see characters who are supposed to be extremely competent not work is by not actually showing them being competent.

This is a common trope with films with the Most Competent Woman who has to train the For Some Reason More Important Man and then swiftly gets outpaced by him despite having years or decades of experience, but I also see it a fair amount in books.

Namely, it shows up when a character is supposed to be the best fighter / assassin / thief / negotiator, but to have them actually succeed at their task would make the plot of the book fall apart, so they end up being written as kind of incompetent.

There are a few ways to avoid this problem:

Don't have the story tell us that they are the best. It's more believable that they're not immediately succeeding when they're good but not amazing than when they're supposed to be the most successful ever

Have them be stopped by reasonable forces. It can be a trap or an ambush, or it can be something else that they had no way to predict or plan for, or it can be such overwhelming force that it doesn't matter how good they are. Maybe a natural disaster strikes!

Actually show their competence. Don't just tell the reader that the character is the best but actually show them doing it in the action, reliably, consistently. Show their knowledge, their experience, their skills

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“friends don't let friends drink and drive” campaign, but “friends don't let friends act like assholes” for fandom spaces. it's time to stop watching shit go down and start asking people to calm down maybe.

deescalation tactics only. no contributing, no dogpiling.

contact your friend and ask them to stop what they're doing immediately. i don't care who's right. i don't care what ship is more valid (spoiler: no such thing!)

stop making fandom spaces toxic.

[doodleofbugness]

This weekend I was told a story which, although I’m kind of ashamed to admit it, because holy shit is it ever obvious, is kind of blowing my mind.

A friend of a friend won a free consultation with Clinton Kelly of What Not To Wear, and she was very excited, because she has a plus-size body, and wanted some tips on how to make the most of her wardrobe in a fashion culture which deliberately puts her body at a disadvantage.

Her first question for him was this: how do celebrities make a plain white t-shirt and a pair of weekend jeans look chic?  She always assumed it was because so many celebrities have, by nature or by design, very slender frames, and because they can afford very expensive clothing.  But when she watched What Not To Wear, she noticed that women of all sizes ended up in cute clothes that really fit their bodies and looked great.  She had tried to apply some guidelines from the show into her own wardrobe, but with only mixed success.  So - what gives?

His answer was that everything you will ever see on a celebrity’s body, including their outfits when they’re out and about and they just get caught by a paparazzo, has been tailored, and the same goes for everything on What Not To Wear.  Jeans, blazers, dresses - everything right down to plain t-shirts and camisoles.  He pointed out that historically, up until the last few generations, the vast majority of people either made their own clothing or had their clothing made by tailors and seamstresses.  You had your clothing made to accommodate the measurements of your individual body, and then you moved the fuck on.  Nothing on the show or in People magazine is off the rack and unaltered.  He said that what they do is ignore the actual size numbers on the tags, find something that fits an individual’s widest place, and then have it completely altered to fit.  That’s how celebrities have jeans that magically fit them all over, and the rest of us chumps can’t ever find a pair that doesn’t gape here or ride up or slouch down or have about four yards of extra fabric here and there.

I knew that having dresses and blazers altered was probably something they were doing, but to me, having alterations done generally means having my jeans hemmed and then simply living with the fact that I will always be adjusting my clothing while I’m wearing it because I have curves from here to ya-ya, some things don’t fit right, and the world is just unfair that way.  I didn’t think that having everything tailored was something that people did. 

It’s so obvious, I can’t believe I didn’t know this.  But no one ever told me.  I was told about bikini season and dieting and targeting your “problem areas” and avoiding horizontal stripes.  No one told me that Jennifer Aniston is out there wearing a bigger size of Ralph Lauren t-shirt and having it altered to fit her.

I sat there after I was told this story, and I really thought about how hard I have worked not to care about the number or the letter on the tag of my clothes, how hard I have tried to just love my body the way it is, and where I’ve succeeded and failed.  I thought about all the times I’ve stood in a fitting room and stared up at the lights and bit my lip so hard it bled, just to keep myself from crying about how nothing fits the way it’s supposed to.  No one told me that it wasn’t supposed to.  I guess I just didn’t know.  I was too busy thinking that I was the one that didn’t fit.

I thought about that, and about all the other girls and women out there whose proportions are “wrong,” who can’t find a good pair of work trousers, who can’t fill a sweater, who feel excluded and freakish and sad and frustrated because they have to go up a size, when really the size doesn’t mean anything and it never, ever did, and this is just another bullshit thing thrown in your path to make you feel shitty about yourself.

I thought about all of that, and then I thought that in elementary school, there should be a class for girls where they sit you down and tell you this stuff before you waste years of your life feeling like someone put you together wrong.

So, I have to take that and sit with it for a while.  But in the meantime, I thought perhaps I should post this, because maybe my friend, her friend, and I are the only clueless people who did not realise this, but maybe we’re not.  Maybe some of you have tried to embrace the arbitrary size you are, but still couldn’t find a cute pair of jeans, and didn’t know why.

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[doodleofbugness]

Reblog if you HAVEN'T watched a single episode of Squid Game.

[doodleofbugness]

Jason, being a semi-canonic common hallucination in the family after his death, could lead to the stupidest AU ever.

Imagine everyone seeing him — Bruce, half of the time, Dick non-stop, Tim more often than not, and eventually even Alfred starts seeing little boy's silhouette in the corner of his eye, but he never admits it, because someone needs to stay sane in this family.

It is a lot like real-life cases when cult families start to see collective hallucination, and it somehow syncronises in their minds, so they hear and see the same things, you know?

So, yeah, everyone sees Jaybin around.

Everyone but Damian. Damian is a normal one. He also knows his Akhi is alive and well, so whatever. And it takes him some time to figure out that his family is bat-shit insane, but when he does, he decides to use it on his advantage.

Damian, calling Jason: Akhi, you should visit me. It is getting awfully boring here.

Jason, frowning: You know I can't. They think I am dead, and I can't risk my plan, especially now, when Red Hood is gaining-

Damian: We will pretend you are a hallucination.

Jason: ...What?

Damian: So, there is a plan...

So, a few days after this call, Jason arrives at the Wayne Manor. He still thinks his brother's plan sucks, but gaslighting is one of his many talents, so surely, they will figure something out. He can lie his way through this meeting.

Expect, he doesn't even need to lie. His family is actually insane.

Bruce, bumping in Jason:

Jason, staring back: Uh-

Bruce: Wow. You look so grown-up. And we look so alike. Nice one, brain.

Jason: ?..

Tim, leaving his room: Hi, B, hi- Oh, damn. Hi, Jaybin. Nice leather jacket.

Bruce: Right? I guess his ghost just grows up with us now.

Jason: ????

Alfred, nodding along, out of nowhere: Master Dick will hate it. He looks taller now.

All of them: (peacefully leave the room)

Jason: What. The. Fuck.

Jason waits for the moment of clarity to happen as he chats with Damian in the kitchen, but... nothing changes. They really, really think he is a hallucination. So... he starts hanging out around more. Both because Damian is getting angsty, and because it is kinda... amusing.

Tim, stuck on the same case for a few nights, non-stop: Oh, it is really just me and you in this, Jason.

Jason, playing Mario Cart on the table by his side: Maybe take a nap, dude.

Tim: No, I need to figure out this case with-

Jason, rolling his eyes: Red Hood had already dealt with it. Go to sleep.

Tim: ...You are such a good self-care kind of hallucination.

Jason: ...

Damian: Your bets, when will they realise that you are a real person?

Jason: At this point, I am not sure that they will, even if I start screaming that I am real.

Damian: Fair. I bet a year would do.

Jason: ...A year and a half.

Dick visits the Manor. He cooes at Jason, muttering something about "of course, he would have grown up in a punk," and Jason almost breaks his role to hit him on the head.

Jason, arms folded on his chest: You know, you need serious help, dad.

Bruce, blinking at him slowly: Probably. You know what else I need?

Jason: Sleep? Retirement? To stop adopting strays? The list is endless, man.

Bruce: ...Coffee. I need more coffee.

Jason, groaning: What the fuck!!!

Alfred figures out that Jason is real, eventually. Solely because he catches him sneaking a few extra cookies, and hallucinations are not supposed to eat. He plays along with him and Damian until the very end, anyway.

(Damian ends up winning the bet because Jason loses it once and pushes Bruce down the stairs, when he starts reciting some precautionary tale about him. Everyone is flabbergasted.)

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There’s something cosmically beautiful about bookbinding fanfiction. Not the bookbinding of fanfiction for monetary gain (which is undoubtedly morally wrong) but rather bookbinding as a gift for someone you love. Or simply bookbinding for the sake of having the story in a tangible form. After all, doesn’t it deserve a place on your bookshelf, too?

But that isn’t the beautiful part. It is this: the melding of something new with something as old as language itself. Fanfiction (at least compared with bookbinding) is a strikingly new phenomenon. Modern fanfiction has only been around for a few generations. Bookbinding, on the other hand? It can be traced back to 2nd century India. It’s a dying art — one that’s been reborn in order to immortalize freely written words.

Even better: the scribes in India who first invented the process of bookbinding used it to create religious texts. In a way, aren’t we doing the same? Fanfiction isn’t a religion, of course, but if you love a story enough to bind it, isn’t that a form of reverence in itself? Isn’t it holy?

Yes. You make it so. The needle and the thread, the newly creased paper, the hardly dried ink … your fingers consecrate it. And as you slip the book onto the shelf, you make it a temple.

And isn’t that just lovely?