figureofdismay - Tumblr blog

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David Wilson (Canadian, b. 1964, based Vancouver, BC, Canada) - Big Blues, 2022, Paintings: Acrylic on Canvas

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ok writeblr i have a question and it does not matter if you answer re fanfic or original work:

do you nerds know what themes you intend to tackle in longer works before you start, or are the themes a fun little surprise you don't uncover until the nth draft?

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"GIRLS IN SHARED ATTIC" BILL BRANDT | SHOREDITCH, 1939 [gelatin silver print | 11 11/16 × 9 15/16"]

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Knitted Jacket

17th Century

Italy

Cleveland Museum of Art (Dudley P. Allen Fund 1931.62)

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Sometimes I wonder how people survive without obsessively thinking about fictional realities. Could not be me. Thinking only Real Life stuff for a whole day???? I would be dead.

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Knitted Jacket

1630-1650

Italy

Royal Ontario Museum (Object number: 2007.28.1)

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the thing about the x files is that if you havent seen the x files and youre like "i dont get it" literally all you have to do is watch the pilot episode and then you will Get It. you will Understand. you may choose not to watch any more bc it's not for you and that is all well and good. but you WILL get it

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It's not an "abandoned" WIP, I didn't intentionally leave it in the forest to die and forget about it, it is a lost wip who wandered into the forest despite my pleas not to. I sit at the edge of the forest every day and hear it calling for help but there is nothing I can do. It is a haunting wip

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the secret rendezvous by pierre charles-comte

19th century; oil on canvas

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Rhiannon Salisbury (British, b. 1984), J-LO AT 50, 2019. Acrylic on linen stretched canvas, 50 x 40 cm

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Embroidered Book Covers, 15th-17th centuries

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you know the drill sooo reblog pls.

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everyone is fucking but no one is horny

one of my twitter friends recently said that if she could order up a fic it would be a story written by someone who has only ever read the classics, 1.5 star trek novelizations, and their mother's romance novels from 1970, written about two people are so out of their minds horny for each other it causes them to make the absolute worst choices anyone's ever made.

and i almost lost my mind laughing because i do know exactly what she means. there is a weird vibe i can sometimes sense within the first few paragraphs a fic that really bums me out. it's almost like i can tell the author is thinking way too much about what i'm thinking about their id and it's suddenly like we're all suddenly wondering how riding a bicycle works when we're mid-ride. when you start worrying too much audience interpretation or how a fic is going to do or play or ugh marketability, it genuinely adds some weird self-conscious distance to whatever you're doing. and it's the pits from the reader side because it removes so much horniness from your story even if the idea you have is genuinely good! i know this is not a niche complaint--you find it literally everywhere as every sector of the creative internet gets #content-ed and people can't escape the stats of how any given creative outlet does.

but god there's literally nothing better than sitting down and reading some freaknasty person's art where they do not give a single shit if you like it. they had something to say and my god they were gonna say it. i've accidentally acquired so many kinks by clicking on a story where someone took me on the most insane ride of my life and i thrilled about it. i don't wanna read about polite normal regular love. i don't wanna read about people using therapy-speak on each other. i wanna read about two people feeling the biggest craziest feelings of their entire life and they cannot do anything about it except bang it out. what else are we doing here? if they're not fucking down an entire house, well jed i don't even wanna read it.

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Kaleidoscope Kindergarten (Tanshui Kindergarten), Tianshui, China, 

Designed by SAKO Architects

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Michael Parkes "Dante and Beatrice" 1993

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February me was onto something. I need to figure out how to conceptualize a Never Again fic that is also a Lazarus fic in disguise that is also an on ramp to Mulder as intellectual Dom and low key voyeur fic and then maybe you guys will see what I'm saying 👀

Lazarus is an episode I used to hate but I've watched it 3 times so far this week trying to get a handle on it because it's a characterization goldmine. It's such a fascinating episode from a Scully perspective. We see a lot of facets of her that we don't usually get, thanks to Outside People being involved in the plot and her life.

And then there's Mulder acting like a complete jackass all of the time except when he's scared out of his mind when Scully's being held hostage (note the panicked use of "Dana"!). He treats the whole thing as one of their usual bantery games about theory vs theory, pretty much ignoring that Scully was at one time deeply attached to the subject of this theory. I genuinely can't tell if Mulder is actually oblivious to the emotional turmoil this whole thing is giving Scully, or if he's wildy jealous and unsettled by the information that she used to be someone else's devoted partner-follower-caretaker (another 'brilliant, intense' man at that) and is aware, but he can't help himself.

Meanwhile I've become convinced that before Jack's psychotic break/possession and later death, Scully was considering if she and Jack would get back together, then or in the future. Maybe not seriously but in the back of her mind, while they were working together on this case, trying on the thought to see if she was open to it. She'd seen Mulder and Phoebe doing their weird little dance in Fire just a couple months ago and was probably feeling freshly like her and Mulder's 'partnership' was less exclusive than she'd sort of assumed it to be post Jersey Devil, and probably did a lot of reminding herself that 'work partners' are not usually an exclusive commitment, and thus it's Fine to be working with Jack closely again, and maybe Fine to consider other things with him, too. Of course there's Mulder and the Files in her life now and not a lot of room for anything else, so her wondering was probably fairly abstract, but I do think that the Dana who broke up with Jack in the Before The X Files time thought that they'd probably give it another shot in the future, that maybe he'd learn to be less withholding and needy or she'd be stronger and more patient, and in a less precarious place in her new career.

We're dropped in it in media res and don't have a lot of context on Jack and Dana's present day dynamic before the bank shootout, or on Mulder being aware of Jack and Dana working together, but it would be very interesting to know if he was aware of that stewing in the background and thus the aggressive 'oblivious' behavior.

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Franciszek Żmurko - Portrait of a red-haired woman (1897)