flammiigena - Tumblr blog

[flammiigena]

having to be “mature” at a young age sucks bc you aren’t really “mature-mature” you’re a child playing at a maturity bc you don’t have the foundation to be the bigger person when conflict arrives so what you do is ignore it bc ignoring a problem and being happy about a resolution look the same to your inexperienced eyes. Then you get adults praising you for a development above your peers but you aren’t really developing. You’re stagnant. Your peers will grow up and experience things and make mistakes and grow from them but you will keep yourself in this box, ignoring things ignoring ignoring ignoring until one day you have to face the fact… it wasn’t maturity you had. It was fear. And now you’re an adult too and you make all of your choices based on an emotional risk/costs analysis bc you don’t know any emotion other than fear & you have to start healing from your own childhood by making peace that you weren’t really a mature child. You were just a child who was given too much to carry & didn’t know how to say “no”.

[flammiigena]

They are already selling data to midjourney, and it's very likely your work is already being used to train their models because you have to OPT OUT of this, not opt in. Very scummy of them to roll this out unannounced.

[flammiigena]

Rare pity, mercy and compassion of the giants called humanity

[flammiigena]

Fascinated by stories of the - I guess you'd call it the "stolen identity" genre, like, of the Anastasia Romanov variety. But - from both sides.

Your husband has been at war for thirty years. You married when you were teenagers. The man who returns bearing his name looks... plausible, you don't remember his eyes being quite so blue, but it's been thirty years and it's not like you could ever afford to have a portrait painted. He knows your name and the names of your children and your parents, but there are curious gaps in what he remembers. But war does things to the mind. And if he's kinder than you remember? Kind enough that, maybe, you let yourself believe...

No one has ever looked twice at you, since you're just the maid, until the day a revolutionary bomb goes off, blowing a crater in the summer palace. The famously reclusive duchess and the rest of her household lie dead in the rubble. You know that you and she were the same dress size. You know where her jewels are kept. Most importantly, you know the location of the secret tunnel that leads down to the docks, and to a life overseas that would be torturously hard going for a poor maid, especially one suspected as a thief, but a lot more comfortable for a royal in exile...

The old king's most faithful retainer swears this is the heir to the throne, raised in secret and trained to one day step into his father's shoes. As the usurper as dragged off the throne, she screams that the old king's children are all dead, she made sure of it; no one pays her any heed. (Maybe they should have...)

The man in the tavern is buying drinks for the whole bar before he sets sail tomorrow for the far side of the world. He's got it all figured out - a ship of his own, retirement to a tropical paradise when he gets sick of the pirating life. His lip curls as he talks about the stultifying boredom of the aristocratic world he's already left behind. You find out that his parents recently died, and the estate is in the care of his younger sister, who was only six when her brother first left home two decades since. Between the lines, they sound like a good family; they sound like they love him, the way your family never did. Your heart aches. He shows you portraits, letters, before shoving them carelessly back in his coat pocket. They would be so easy to lift...

It's a surprisingly common concept and I just love it. It's The Return of Martin Guerre; it's multiple 90s romcoms; Agatha Christie pulls it half a dozen times. Sooner or later, it crops up in fanfic for just about any fandom with a royal or aristocratic main character.

And I can see why, because there's so much richness to it. From the outside, it can be anything from a horror story to an unlikely love story; from the perspective of the person pulling off the con, a heist movie or a tragedy or a heartwarming tale of found family. And then there are the longer-term implications: What happens if you wear a mask so long that it becomes who you are? What happens if you come to love the "replacement" to the point where you don't want to find out the truth? What is it like to uncover such a deception a century down the line, to find out that your great-grandfather... wasn't?

Just. Identity stories, man. <3

[flammiigena]

been thinking about fantasy/scifi rule systems and free will

[flammiigena]

i love when characters don't get to die

[flammiigena]

some important calvin and hobbes facts in case you haven't read the original comic strip in a long time or only absorbed stuff on it from memes and out of context bits on here:

Calvin's last name has never been given, and neither has any of his parent's names. This was actually why his uncle Max only showed up for a brief storyline; the creator of the comic, Bill Watterson, ultimately felt that while it was fine to have him as someone for his parents to talk to, it felt far too awkward to never have Max refer to them by name and he never made a return appearance.

The general tone of the comic is fairly light-hearted, with a big emphasis on goofy slapstick comedy contrasted by clever wordplay and often surprising adult-centered jokes that'll hit you like a slap. A big part of the comedy is, as Watterson put it (paraphrased) "It's really funny to me when people express deeply stupid ideas with really fancy terminology." One notable example you might have seen is that one bit where Calvin asks his mom for money to buy a Satan-worshiping rock album and his mom replies that there's nothing genuine about them and they're just putting on the attitude for shock value, and comisserates with Calvin as he deplores that mainstream nihilism can't be trusted. He concludes that childhood is disillusioning.

There is a LOT of criticism of the extreme materialism and selfish mentality of the late 80s, when the comic was initially written. This may go a long way to explain how its aged so well; much of what it criticizes resonates well with people today.

Bill Watterson views comic strips a legitimate form of artwork, and repeatedly fought to have more space to draw more beautiful and artistic backgrounds, which was a very hard fight and unpopular even with other comic strip artists. He eventually did win some compromises and a lot of Calvin And Hobbes' artwork shows it, with the use of space to indicate time as well as a sharp contrast between the often plain environments of mundane life contrasted by the wildly beautiful imagery of Calvin's imagination (which often sports realistic depictions in an art shift of sorts).

Hobbes is explicitly not an imaginary friend, by word of Watterson himself. We don't know WHAT he is exactly, and Hobbes is apparently unaware of the strange nature of his reality; people look at him and only see an ordinary stuffed tiger plushie, but he has a tangible effect on the world that would be physically impossible for Calvin to do on his own. He's apparently been around for a while, and was apparently around when Calvin was a young baby.

On that note; Hobbes has implicitly killed (notably treated as both a gag and also with the vibe of 'he's a tiger, duh') and while he doesn't do it again on-screen, he doesn't have any moral issues about it. Calvin claims that he's never had trouble bringing Hobbes to school because the last time he did, Hobbes killed and ate a bully named Tommy Chestnut and simply comments that it was gross and he needed a bath. Calvin's tried to repeat this again, but Hobbes was grossed out at the thought having to eat a kid raw and not being allowed to use an oven first, or complaining that children are too fattening.

Hobbes became gradually less human-like in body language and more like an actual cat in both body language and behavior; this was due to Watterson drawing more inspiration from his cat, who also inspired a lot of Hobbes' running gags, such as pouncing on Calvin when he got home. Several years into the syndication of the strip, Watterson's cat passed away, and he did a tribute to her with a comic strip of the two of them agreeing to try to dream together so they can keep playing when they have to sleep; Watterson's commentary (if I recall right), remarks on his cat: "We can see each other again in dreams."

[flammiigena]

Plot twist: the two boys you're choosing between are polyamorous, but they also hate eachother's guts so you still have to pick one

[flammiigena]

i love it when characters are codependent. i love it when losing someone feels like losing a limb. i love it when two people "complete" each other so wholly and terribly that one can barely function without the other. i love it when the fear of losing the only person who understands them is so all-consuming they'll destroy anything to stay together, including themselves.

[flammiigena]

ppl misunderstand me when I say "I want more [thing] in stories". I don't mean "I'm going to love every single one" I mean "I'm very picky and I want more of it in circulation so I can actually choose from a wealth of them and be discerning". I see ppl being like "you say you want more of [this thing] but you don't like [example of it]" YEAH CUZ I'M PICKY!!!!!!!! I have opinions and standards????? not all of them are gonna be the same I wanna be able to look at 100 of them and go "I want these 20" not "I only have 3 to choose from and I don't like any of them" you feel me??????

[flammiigena]

{Quotes:Nitya prakash/Richard siken ,crush}

[flammiigena]

collection of posts for a very specific dynamic

[flammiigena]

“Oh yeah, of course. That’s the whole point.”

David Leviathan on Suzanne Collins // Revenge of the Sith novelization // Taylor Swift, Hoax // Aeschylus, Orestes // Paramore, Last Hope // Aeschylus and Robert Icke, Orestia // @sw_holocron & Tony Gilroy, Twitter

[flammiigena]

do you all remember in the early 2010s where people were talking about freeing the nipple and that mixed-gender sports should become a thing and the removal of period tax and all of that and then some people realised that would mean trans people too ans they instantly decided to revert to bioessentialism 101 and now i have to see grating sentences like Well maybe jeopardy should be gender-segregated because males have a biological advantage in pressing a button

[flammiigena]

{Words by José Olivarez from Citizen Illegal /@fatimaamerbilal , from even flesh eaters don't want me.}

[flammiigena]

I think one of the worst things a story can be is unproblematic.

Nothing makes a story more unreadable than being able to see the author squirm apologetically for the story they actually want to write—wringing their hands and imploring the reader please, please don’t be mad, I know it’s ideologically questionable but I need you to not be mad at me!

For example: a Good King™️. It’s one thing for a story to present a fictional monarchy and ask me to root for it. It’s another thing for a story to say, hey, I know what you’re thinking—but don’t worry! I can justify this premise! I have introduced a lot of convoluted self-aware political justifications for why my king is good and likable without actually asking any risky ideological questions! These characters aren’t actually problematic! Don’t be mad at me!

Commit to the bit. Apologetic, defensive writing designed to bypass obvious criticisms often winds up offending me far more than stories that are just kind of surface-level problematic. If I’m gonna be a hater you cannot stop me; the more you insist that a character is actually a good oil tycoon because of all these exceptional situations and beyond my reproach, the more I resent you and hate your stupid book.

[flammiigena]

cruelty is so easy. youre not special for choosing it