#<<< former english major

[starlightkun]

genuine question, how do you write so fast? 😭 i feel like you’re so quick with your works, both writing and putting them out!!

also i found your tumblr on ao3 and i have to say that you are carrying nct fics on ao3. i hope you never stop writing cause i could be 40 and i would still read your stuff 🫶

i think a big thing has been getting out of my head abt writing! like i only write when i want to, i don't stick to word counts (minimums or maximums), and i dont compare myself to other writers (not that i read a whole lot of fic anymore, but there's a few that i still keep up with and one of them churns out fics way faster than i do, and another who posts like maybe two or three times a year but i still love them!) like i've def said this before, but for me, writing fic is fun, it's something i do bc i want to and if i open a word doc and i'm genuinely dreading it, i'm not gonna do it (my adhd brain simply will not make me lol--tho that is a double edged sword bc i do have to chase myself into doing something i like sometimes, but the ritalin has helped a lot xx)

i also dont go into my fics completely clueless anymore. like, i for sure don't know everything, i learn a lot along the way, and tend to change stuff (and get surprised by my own fics, which is always fun!), but i definitely have more of an outline and general sort of sketch of the fic in my brain and in my word doc before i start actually writing real scenes of any sort, which has definitely helped. like, starting with one little idea isn't bad at all (strawberry sunday literally just started w the fact that i liked the title of a song that i hadn't even heard yet and it turned into like 10 fics??), but i dont just start writing head empty anymore (i used to get a tiny spark of inspiration and try to write everything start to finish immediately because i thought i'd lose it if i didn't, and it'd burn really short. now i sort of just sit with it and slowly tend to it like fire instead and it lasts a lot longer and gets a lot bigger). i ruminate a lot before anything that looks remotely like a story leaves my ideas doc and gets its own doc

idk if this necessarily makes me write faster, but i also edit as i write? like, sometimes i open a fic and i don't have anything in me to write, but i'll reread what's in the draft so far and edit, make little changes, fix continuity errors, etc. not only does it keep the whole plot so far fresh in my mind as i continue writing, but then i have a lot less to proof myself when i finally finish the whole thing because i've already caught a lot of spelling, grammatical, and plot errors! i used to find editing a slog to do bc when i finished my first draft i would be so excited and wanted to just post it! and didn't want to reread all this stuff i just wrote several times to try to find typos, and now it's usually a breeze bc my first draft isn't really my first draft, it's been continually revised as it was drafted. and sometimes i open a doc, won't feel like writing, tinker around with some editing, then suddenly have a lightbulb moment while i'm editing and jump into writing

[notmoreflippingelves]

Actually going insane over the implications of Jason asking Dick to be the Robin to his Batman in Battle for the Cowl.

Like I initially took it at the purely surface-level of Jason wanting a partner in the general sense. Which made sense, it's a huge responsibility and a lonely one so an assistant/sidekick/partner seems a no-brainer if you can get one.

But then I really thought about it, because Jason is not asking Dick to be his partner in the general sense; he's not even asking Dick to be his Nightwing. He's asking Dick to be his Robin.

And they both know exactly what Jason means: "Be the light to my darkness. Be the smile to my scowl. Be the hope to my fear. "

He's saying "Be 'Robin'; be the embodiment of Love and Justice and Goodness. Be the exceptional person that you have always been. Be the slightly-less exceptional person that I was when I wore your colors. Be the person that I was in the process of becoming and might have been (or might still be), if only Joker hadn't clipped my wings."

He's saying "I am prepared to become vengeance, become the Night. And I will go further than Bruce ever dared to, because it is what is needed. I will be the necessary evil. But you don't have to be. If Batman is Gotham's curse, Robin has always been its blessing. I will be the brutal punishment to our world, and I am asking you to be its incandescent gift."

He's saying, "Be for me, what we were for Him. Be my anchor, my comfort, my hope. Remind me what it's all for, why it's all worth it. And remind yourself as well."

He's saying "Be 'Robin' again--for both of our sakes."

[withclawandvine]

greywaren, m. stiefvater [p. 70 / p. 334]

[all-was-not-well]

The DC Universe is comprised of three types of people:

People Nightwing has slept with.

People Nightwing has mentored

People who see Nightwing as their charming son/nephew figure and are so proud of the man he has become.

The only exception to this is Donna Troy, who kissed Dick for exactly seven seconds in the first ever Titans game of spin the bottle. (Wally rigged it to be a Good Friend but completely missed the fact that Dick had spent most of the last mission staring at Roy's arms). They both agreed that this was weird, and never allowed to happen again.

[turbulenthandholding]

Sydney's polka dots and Yayoi Kusama

I wrote about it a little bit here, in a reblog of @thoughtfulchaos773's really excellent post (and ongoing thread) about Carmy's polka dots in his sauce but I have wondered since my first watch of S3, if there is some reference in all of the polka dots (Sydney's except for Carmy's sauce) to the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama.

Pumpkins and Fruits (1993)

Kusama is an artist who works in a number of mediums, including sculpting and painting, but who is primarily known for her works featuring polka dots, both paintings as well as installations of polka dots in mirrored rooms (as well as even live art installations with naked people painted with polka dots).

There's two threads in her art that I think are particularly interesting, if all of Sydney's polka dots are at all referential to Kusama's work: mental health and sexuality.

Mental Health

The genesis of polka dots in Kusama's art came from her childhood, where as early as age 10 she had hallucinations of spots.

“I translate the hallucinations and obsessional images that plague me into sculptures and paintings."

And from Wikipedia:

Kusama has been open about her mental health and has resided since the 1970s in a mental health facility which she leaves daily to walk to her nearby studio to work. She says that art has become her way to express her mental problems. "I fight pain, anxiety, and fear every day, and the only method I have found that relieved my illness is to keep creating art," she told an interviewer in 2012. "I followed the thread of art and somehow discovered a path that would allow me to live."

I think Sydney's polka dots, viewed through the lens of Kusama's art, could be an indication of the healthiness of using creativity and collaboration in the kitchen as a way to process and work through past trauma as well as anxiety. As Kusama's art has given her a path allowing life, as she said, Sydney's polka dots could represent that Carmy has a path to improved mental health and a better place through his collaboration with Syd and their mutual inspiration. Carmy spends a lot of season 3 doing things for Sydney instead of with her, and his reflection of her polka dots in his sauce stands out as a reflection and a growing recognition in him of the full depth of her importance to him.

Sexuality

Which brings me to the second potential reference to Kusama's work in the polka dots, which is a reference to sexuality.

Sexuality has played a very complicated and, even at times disturbing, role in Kusama's life and she has used her art as a way to process it and reconcile her sexuality with herself. She was traumatized early by an abusive mother who sent her to spy on her cheating father as he conducted his affairs, which led to a reaction towards anything sexual filled with a lot of disgust (understandably). Over the course of her career, she grappled more and more with her feelings on sexuality in her art, with many representation both of female and male genitals in her work. As one article says:

Her works often depict phallic shapes and repetitive patterns, which she has said are meant to represent the human obsession with sex and desire. Kusama’s art also explores themes of self-obliteration and the loss of self in the face of infinite repetition.

Phalli's Field (1965) - first mirrored room installation, filled with phallic shapes made out of fabric and cardboard, covered in polka dots.

From Stir World:

While the work circled back to the phallic motif, the design intervention of using mirrors created an architecture of infinite space. This was the beginning of what revolutionised her career so much so that in 2016, she was chosen as one of the world’s most influential people by TIME magazine. Since then, her exhibitions of infinity rooms like Love is Calling have had waiting lines of over five hours for a few seconds of viewing time. 

Especially when Kusama combines polka dots with mirrored infinity rooms as she calls them, there is very much a sense of both reflectivity and reflexivity that happens. An interesting example in terms of this discussion, Infinity Mirrored Room - Love Forever (1966/1994), the polka dots in this room being represented by round, colored light bulbs:

A description of the installation (emphasis mine):

Infinity Mirrored Room—Love Forever is an iteration of the second mirrored environment Kusama created. Sculptural, architectural, and performative, the installation blurs the lines between artistic disciplines and is activated by audience participation. Hexagonal in shape and mirrored on all sides, Love Forever features two peepholes that invite visitors to peer in and see both themselves and another participant repeated into infinity. 

Kusama used her polka dots, especially when integrated into more phallic shapes in reflective rooms, to process and come to grips with her sexuality. And if there was an intentional reference being made to her art in Sydney's proclivity towards polka dots in season 3, I think it's in Carmy's coopting of the imagery in his sauce. The reflective and reflexive gesture indicates his observation of her (in that he noticed her repeating the pattern over the course of months in her clothes and scarves) as well as his desire for her. At their best, they are vibrantly collaborative and we see each of them let the other in more than anyone else. And this isn't entirely comfortable for Sydney, seen in the way she deflects his questions about her parents and her apartment at different points. But she does eventually tell him more and let him in more - and I think the polka dots could also be a representation of her coming to grips with her feelings and ultimately desire towards/for him, as well as the importance of their collaborative relationship, especially with the difficulty of Carmy in S3 as well as her offer from Shapiro.

(Also as an aside, Yayoi Kusama's art comes up as a rather regular inspiration/collaboration in food and fine dining, so it feels like her art may at least have been on someone's radar as they thought about Syd's polka dots this season. See here and here and here and here and here - as created by a former chef from the French Laundry.)

Sources for info and pictures:

Yayoi Kusama's website

Understanding Sexuality in Yayoi Kusama's Art

Accumulation (MoMA)

Wikipedia

The Alchemist of Polka Dots

Love Forever

[sandersontheside]

I made a post about this back in 2018 but I still think about Roman, Virgil, and the gothic regularly.

[iaus]

okay I think it might skirt a bit past the 500 word limit but for the ask meme: the temple of the fallen sun scene from chapter 6 of epilogue fic, because it HAUNTS me and it's so excellently done. plz share and and all of your authorial thoughts/takes/secrets/truths!

CHAPTER 6 MY BELOVED.

I feel like I could probably talk for hours about this entire chapter because it's such a Huge Thing in my mind.

I wish I could say it was one of the driving scenes for writing this fic but it's just... not. It was almost an afterthought when I wrote it but now it's so. Central.

I almost even gave the chapter a name. Which is not something I wanted to do for this fic. But. Okay I digress. (I'm so long-winded all the time help.) Let's get into the The Scene.

(Oh my god I typed so much. I typed so much. I can't shut up. HUGE Wall of text under the read more.)

So, to preface I actually had some difficulty wrangling Jace and Porter to where they needed to be. There were some diversions I was going to do before this scene (including expanding on Jace's flashback to his... storied past).

But after some screaming and crying I realized that bridging the "sweet" scene of Jace and Porter hiking through the woods would be best bridged with "actual" Porter interacting with Jace. To add to the foreboding tone.

But this comes to this line:

To Ankarna, he thinks, the god he should worship. The god he won’t.

At this point, we know Jace is dreaming so it's time for his "meta" knowledge to come in. He knows he's about to die. He knows why (?) and he knows the goddess. (Also, this line is totally foreshadowing some upcoming choices and some choices already made.) I love this line. Jace has all this knowledge about his past and could so easily apply it to the present and he's kind of evasive about it when he's awake to this point. But here in the dream, where he has Porter again he can be so direct. He won't worship her. He is with the man who is about to kill him, but in this space he can be so truthful.

Then we cut into Jace speaking, saying these snarky little quips to Porter that we and Jace have context for:

“Romantic,” Jace says flatly. “Why are we here, Porter?”

And this little exchange

“Tragedies happened here,” Porter says, voice quiet, like an impending storm. “Took a lifelong bond and sundered it because their wife couldn’t handle the costs of conquest. Of war.” “Alarming; again, tell me why you decided here was a good idea to take me for… what did you call it? Oh, right. A date?”

All of us witnessing this moment have such horrible context for this. Including Jace! But we also know that the Jace of the past ignored these warning signs. Porter briefly mentions Cassandra's divorce as a warning: You are not doing that to me. I'm going to become this awful raging God, but you are not leaving me.

And Jace hand-waves it. I purposefully did not describe Jace's physical reaction to it, because it takes away some of his agency in a sense. We do not see if he rolls his eyes, if he shifts away from Porter, or if he moves closer. Jace, despite his knowledge, despite that this is his dream, does not get to say no to Porter wanting him to stay in this moment. That steel trap of devotion? It's already snapped shut. You are the tragic lover.

Then, we immediately set into the follow through. Jace does not get action, but Porter does. And what does he do after the acknowledgement that this romantic getaway is alarming?

He grabs Jace. He walks them to the altar: Both marriage altar and sacrificial altar. I have Porter move a lot in this chapter and Jace is mostly experiencing this standing still. Porter's moving the plot, he's got the tempo, Jace is just caught in the storm (in the story).

Then we get to some more Menacing Porter dialogue which. I will admit, I get a lot of how I write Porter from Hannibal Lecter himself from NBC Hannibal. He is deliberate, he is creepy. I actually do picture Porter as having high charisma, he just doesn't think of how he uses it so he just sounds like, well:

“Told you,” Porter says, he presses Jace onto the stone, hands grasping hard enough to bruise. He reaches one hand up, to grab Jace’s jaw. He pants into the touch, wriggles on the stone. “You can’t leave me again, sweetheart. Everything,” he drawls against Jace’s throat, “hinges on this. Plan like this has to have vows.”

This paragraph haunts me. I love it. It is everything I want Porter to be in this fic: Menacing, dangerous, but also... maybe a bit enticing? You can see this for the red flag it is, but if you've been lonely for so long and haven't been able to make connections... it's almost flattering? Here's this man that you perceive as someone who could have anyone (he makes sure you know that) but he chooses you? It's bad, it's scary, it's not something you should want but. BUT.

Also, I need to shout out this line:

Porter had kissed him that day as if he never quite believed Jace was giving him everything.

Because we don't get insight into Porter, but I think this line is damning for Porter. He is obsessed with Jace, he is sure that Jace is as obsessed with him; but there's that... doubt. I've established by now that Jace has left Porter multiple times. We never know why. But I think this line gives you a little taste, maybe, of what this horrible egomaniac feels underneath his toxic masculinity bravado. He has feelings for Jace and this murder he is going to commit comes back to this: He doesn't believe Jace. There is no trust in what he cannot control here.

But okay, back on track. We see Jace give into this and Jace also sees himself give into it:

As the memory washes over him, the heaviness of Porter’s tongue in his mouth, his palm on his arching spine, he remembers loving it. (He misses it.) After the cold loneliness that had gripped him for months as he researched and did everything Porter wouldn’t—to be greeted with such heat. With such longing. Jace loved it.

Jace even calls himself stupid for it. He gave himself to this dangerous man and he's like. I didn't stop it. (I enjoyed it.) He has this feeling that maybe he could have stopped the motion of things, but now that he's resurrected and watching it happen he has two distinct feelings on it: You are absolutely stupid for falling for this AND I miss him and everything horrible (and everything good) that came with it. He misses that unhealthiness, the danger. But he also just misses Porter (but we don't get to reconcile that right now).

And then we get to see into Jace's own view on things. For whatever reason, he likes this attention. He can see how unhealthy it is, but he likes that Porter (in his perception) is just as sick for this relationship as he is:

He had basked in the knowledge that he was the only one Porter was like this with. Others may have had him in their bed; known the devastating, delicious way Porter could make someone beg. But Jace was the one he kept coming back to. The one he growled at, grabbed, marked, and bruised—pursued. That was for Jace alone.

This whole thing is a culmination of a lonely, desperate man finding a toxic, possessive man that scratches all those deep down itches he has. We'll get more into Jace's own issues in further chapters (that flashback we saw was important), but this is just a little peek.

And now. We get to the scene that defines this whole fucked up tragic chapter:

“It’s always been leading here,” Porter growls against his mouth. The grin is back—that same curve of wild growing wider and crueler as he presses Jace fully back onto the altar: Spread out, gasping, chest exposed to the slowly sinking sun. Now, he knows the threat of Porter’s last harsh, needy kiss before he steps away, voice soft and heated, "'Til death do us part, sweetheart."

I have a very early draft of this chapter where there were no wedding vows. My first thought was to have Jace's death be so ordinary that it was insulting, but that ordinary death did not line up with as yet unpublished chapters. I was standing in another room doing something so mundane when this idea hit me. I like lunged at my phone to add in the vows. Originally, the only thing Porter was going to say was "It's always been leading here," which I felt was apt. It felt right. But I realized. Porter's obsession with Jace would not just end with that.

He would want to say something that left Jace as shattered as he was physically. So. He marries them in the worst way possible. He is now God and husband. They are bound in unholy, horrible matrimony.

In the past? Jace didn't think anything of it. Porter says creepy shit all the time, right? But. Now:

Now? Jace would lay upon the altar for Him willingly this time if given the chance. (Anything; anything to not be alone again.)

Porter has this perfect isolating control over Jace which is honestly horrifying. But all Jace can think about now is how he wants that back. A kind god has extended their hand to him, but no he wants the man who manipulated him. Who pulped his heart. The God who made him acolyte, saint, right hand, husband... Porter is the center of Jace's universe.

And now he's gone.

So, now, all he can do is remember that question: Do you want this life?

[idfk-im-bad-at-names]

So this is absolutely me reading too much into it but I like the color theme we've got going on right now when it comes to factions.

White = Federation

Black = Code

Gray = Ordo Theoritas, or the ones that are in the middle of both and hate the other two factions

[godblooded]

instantly begins crying when billy asks the audience to do the chorus to piano man.

[thebramblewood]

Is it really a creative writing workshop if there isn't one of these guys sucking the air out of the room at every opportunity?

Previous / Next

This is inspired by the true story of a guy in a poetry workshop years ago who was always incredibly eager to tear apart everyone else's poems, even though his poems were all basic white boy takes on racism and metaphors for his dick (not both at once, thankfully) and he typed all of them in the cursive equivalent of Comic Sans. All this time later, I still sometimes wonder what he's up to. (Also, I'm burnt out on writing dialogue so you'll have to imagine this man's misguided and needlessly aggressive feedback for yourself.)

[deadpanwalking]

At least tell me you're still gonna vote

It's not 2016 anymore, man. I've changed my whole shit around. I've actually been a leftist for quite some time, and believe me when I say I'm beyond done shilling for the Democratic establishment. Under the guise of "civic engagement", my leftoid commie friends and I have infiltrated the system and are gonna flood the market with potential non-voters.

Here's the deal.

You know how I've been a CASA for almost a decade? Well, my friend tipped me off about the local chapter of Black & Pink/ FJAH—I got involved ostensibly because I'm outraged by the violence and racism woven into the fabric of the justice system ruining the lives of entire generations of families. As I've been volunteering for Ayanna Pressley's election campaigns since her Boston City Council days, I've been lowkey spreading the prison abolitionist agenda by talking up the importance of the Inclusive Democracy Act—which would end felony disenfranchisement—when I tell people about Pressley's progressive policies. Now, that may sound extremely vote-pilled at first, but in the long run it accomplishes the most important leftist objective of all: suffrage gives 4.6 million people the choice not to vote.

I'm also continuing to help immigrant and refugee families navigate the byzantine naturalization/citizenship application process via the same organization that my grandmother volunteered for when she was alive. This may also veer dangerously close to patriotism (the amount of American propaganda I have to push to help them pass the civics exam is excruciating), but bear in mind that many of the freshly minted citizens will forgo voting entirely because they're just happy to be living large on Uncle Sam's handouts, and the rest are rabid Zionists who believe that "эта проститутка" (Hillary Rodham Clinton, age 76, public speaker, grandmother of 3) is an active threat to society, and are chomping at the bit to vote for Trump this and every subsequent November.

This is how we win.

[theworldwedreamabout]

the new doctor who episode was so much fun, but how did they get through a whole regency ball episode without mentioning jane austen once?? I get that bridgerton is more culturally relevant right now, but you can’t tell me that the doctor and rogue’s dance scene wasn’t directly inspired by pride & prejudice (2005)

[jehanthepoet]

Dark academia is like "what if going to school was exactly like pretentious English majors imagine. Wouldn't that be fucked up"

[fantastic-nonsense]

"comics rarely have objectively good writing and the nature of their syndicated publication format limits their ability to function as complete stories" vs. "some comics genuinely rival the clarity of purpose and quality of prose found in some of the most lauded classic texts"

[starlightkun]

okay bc im genuinely curious:

english-speaking kpop fans, if there's an english version of a song (that was released first/primarily in korean, NOT an english song put out only in english) by a kpop artist, do you usually listen to the english version or the korean version? and do you speak english as your native language or as a second/third language?

[brattybottombunny]

why can’t i write short smut 😩