#Intriguing Connections

[nicholasandriani]

The Marvelous Dance of Coincidence: When Destiny and Storytelling Collide

Writers and dreamers, gather ’round for a tale as old as time -aren’t they all?- a narrative element that has both captivated and confounded storytellers since the dawn of creativity: coincidence. Yes, my dear friends, today we embark on a journey to explore the craft of employing coincidence in our beloved forms of storytelling. We shall learn how to wield this powerful tool with finesse,…

[stealingyourbones]

Every day i read a post where people write that “Bruce Wayne has an adoption problem” or that Danny is adoption bait on the first second of seeing him, not even knowing if he has a want of vengeance and a sad backstory and parallels to Bruce, and every day I want to softly cry in a corner.

[warriorgoddessoftheseas]

Screenshot redraw from the Rise Movie!

[immediatebreakfast]

I have noticed something when it comes to vampires bites in this book, or the concept of watching the vampire feeding itself. The book has said how the vampires feed, how the Weird Sisters feed, and how Dracula hunts his prey; however, so far, the actual act of biting and feeding is never described nor shown.

Jonathan sees the Count give the Weird Sisters a child, he hears it cry again and again, then everything goes silent as the horrifying implications hang over his head. Yet, there are no words for teeth sinking into flesh, of blood bubbling as it escapes the arteries, or pained expressions, the act that is so characteristic of vampires is... not seen in what is considered the Vampire Novel.

However, it fits, it fits a lot with how the gothic is constructed. We don't need to read how the Weird Sisters kill a baby in front of Jonathan's eyes, it doesn't need to be described because the implication, and the poiting towards what is happening away is far more terrifying. It creates a sense of helplessness that permeates everything around the biting. You can't save those children, they are already "dead" the second the Count grabbed them.

Weirdly enough, I thought that since Jonathan isn't being actively bitten in front of our eyes, then It could mean that the Count is not biting him to bide time with his new favorite "lady" before consuming him, but no.

He was either dead or asleep, I could not say which—for the eyes were open and stony, but without the glassiness of death—and the cheeks had the warmth of life through all their pallor; the lips were as red as ever.

The lapses of memory, the tiredness, the blurriness between what is real and what is not, Jonathan is suffering from these while he is slowly drained in moments that we don't even know about, but it happens. Dracula now has the warmth of life coursing through his body as Jonathan becomes weaker, his lips are red while Jonathan is more ghastly as the days go by.

I thought he might have the keys on him, but when I went to search I saw the dead eyes, and in them, dead though they were, such a look of hate, though unconscious of me or my presence, that I fled from the place, and leaving the Count's room by the window, crawled again up the castle wall.

The rage of the Count to see Jonathan try to escape once again despite the pure torture he has been subjected. How dare he keep fighting when his body gets weaker every day?

We may not see the bites happen since the aftermath of those bites is what is important. What the victim feels both physically, and mentally is the focus in the story; just because the bite is finished doesn't mean that the horror stops.

[katabay]

ANDREY STAMATIN

Keep a close eye on Peter. You'd become desperate and turn into a villain without him.

I spend a lot of time thinking about daniil and peter, but something just clicked into place for me with andrey. so!

I am. currently untangling this thread of thoughts about the stamatin twins and daniil and this kind of. triangle that's happening. a three fold bullet for sure, the kind of recognition-awareness-understanding where three people become one, but to step back from that. when daniil and andrey talk, there's a specific shape of peter that stands in his conversational absence. so: triangle formation. it's opposite-adjacent-complementary to daniil and peter's conversations. it all goes back to that first conversation you have with andrey. it's giving knife. love it!

bsky ⭐ pixiv ⭐ pillowfort ⭐ cohost

[ifindus]

what do you think about nedpan🇳🇱🇯🇵

I haven't really gotten deep into it, but from what I've seen going around I really like it! I think they are a good pairing with a lot of potential regarding the combination of their personalities, and it's no secret that I have a weakness from anything based on historical events 😅✨

[calnexin]

Thinkin about sidestep’s farm days............ yea

[biblicallywrong]

shu

[boyfriendgideon]

as yr favorite local jason todd fan sometimes i get so fed up with the apparent inability of most dc comic writers to write a class conscious narrative about him.

and yes, i know that comics are a very ephemeral and constantly evolving and self-conflicting medium.

and yes, i know they’re a profit-driven art medium created in a capitalistic society, so there are very few times where comics are going to be created solely out of the desire to authentically and carefully and deliberately represent a character and take them from one emotional narrative place to another, because dc cares about profit and sometimes playing it safe is what sells.

and yes, i know comics and other forms of art reflect and recreate the society within which they were conceived as ideas, and so the dominant societal ideas about gender and race and class and so on are going to be recreated within comics (and/or will be responded to, if the writer is particularly societally conscious).

but jesus christ. you (the writer/writers) have a working class character who has been homeless, who has lost multiple parents, who has been in close proximity to someone struggling with addiction, who has had to steal to survive, who may have (depending on your reading of several different moments across different comics created by different people) been a victim of csa, who has clearly (subtextually) struggled with his mental health, who was a victim of a violent murder, and who has an entirely distinct and unique perspective on justice that has evolved based on his lived experiences.

and instead of delving into any of that, or examining the myriad of ways that classism in the writers’ room and the editors’ room and the readers’ heads affected jason’s character to make sure you’re writing him responsibly, or giving him a plotline where his views on what justice looks like are challenged by another working class character, or allowing him to demonstrate actual autonomy and agency in deciding what relationships he wants to have with people who he loves but sees as having failed him in different ways, or thinking carefully about what his having chosen an alias that once belonged to his murderer says about his decision-making and motivations, you keep him stuck in a loop of going by the red hood, addressing crime by occupying a position of relative power that perpetuates crime & harm rather than ever getting at the root causes, and seesawing between a) agreeing with his adoptive family entirely about fighting nonlethally in ways that are often inconsistent with his apparent motivations or b) disagreeing and experiencing unnecessarily brutal and violent reactions from his adoptive father as if that kind of violence isn’t the kind of thing he experienced as a child and something bruce himself is trying to prevent jason from perpetuating. because a comic with red hood, quips, high stakes, and familial drama sells.

it doesn’t matter if it keeps jason trapped, torn between an unanswered moral and philosophical question, a collection of identities that no longer fit him, and a family that accepts him circumstantially. it doesn’t matter if jason’s characterization is so utterly inconsistent that the only way to mesh it together is to piece different aspects of different titles and plotlines together like a jigsaw. it doesn’t matter if you do a disservice to his character, because in the end you don’t want to transform him or even understand him deeply enough to identify what makes him compelling and focus on that.

and i love jason!!!!! i love him. and i think about the stories we could have, if quality and art and doing justice to the character were prioritized as much as selling a title and having a dark and brooding batfam member besides bruce just to be the black sheep character are prioritized. and i just get a little sad.

[lightbulb-warning]

so has anyone figured out WHY there is the Need To Share our Artworks™ or is it just the vibes and our Soul apparently

[kaurwreck]

have yall ever noticed in osamu dazai's entrance exam that ranpo cuts to the heart of dazai within moments of meeting him, weighs him against the feather in his gaze, decides it neither too heavy nor light, and then says, simply, unfeignedly, deliberately, "Oh, that's nice. Anyway, welcome to the Agency."

and dazai, despite smoothing himself shapeless under ranpo's scrutiny, is rattled, slipping aside his noh mask to self-soothe by asking kunikida about ranpo's skill. because the radio static crackling along his spine can't be the sensation that he's been caught, or ranpo would have renounced or redressed or recoiled from the snake in his home— so it must be no longer human, buzzing and frustrating such and such skill ranpo set on him, and this placidity is a facade to save face. ranpo couldn't have seen what dazai didn't deign to show him, however much the thought briefly excites dazai.

except then kunikida explains that ranpo's skill is to deduce the truth of a case just by looking at it, and dazai is momentarily stunned, the static roaring in his drums as muscle memory swallows piqued yearning and spits bitter incredulity. even if there were a skill that could crack him apart to out the pluck meat that might reassure him he's made of flesh beneath the chitin, there is no exception to his nullification.

even as the blackened grief encroaches like ennui around dazai's edges, ranpo is calling them, promising them the answer they asked for, and no more than that much. he asks dazai for his glasses (the glasses precious to him, typically on his person, but in that moment, somewhere else), and dazai is coaxed by his curiosity and ranpo's beckon.

and because dazai is still a pitiable creature prone to wanting, he leans towards the taunting lure and takes it between his fingers while holding his breath to brace against the certain-to-be-crushing disappointment.

and instead, substantiation brokering little argument. ranpo can deduce the truth by looking at it. and as dazai's own discernment reverse engineers ranpo's conclusion, he finds no fault in it.

dazai's rhapsody enlivens him in the car with Kunikida, the well of him overflowing with the salvific implications that moments prior he was pinned, writhing in place, by someone sincerely seeing him, who was satiated by enough substance to then look away, who wasn't the least surprised to see wriggling, living flesh in the shape of him.

dazai's so beside himself that when kunikida remarks that he's never seen dazai marvel over someone else's skills like that before, dazai scarcely lies to him when he says lots of things take him by surprise, like when he tried to pick up a clam with his chopsticks, and it was still alive, startling him.

kunikida, who also notices more than he's given any credit for, dismisses dazai's third perspective, depersonalized, debumanized, and disassociated clam metaphor, and says: "You seemed taken aback that someone had the ability to see and know all."

to which dazai responds with the same seamless and subtly mean spirited deflection he tends towards whenever he's suddenly feeling vulnerable.

but yes, he is taken aback. it's worldview shattering, not unlike when chuuya incited him, or oda shrugged at him, or when kunikida would, later, see a lock without any key (a climax without any hope) and create one himself.

ranpo saw him, saw who he'd been, and said, with prejudice: "Anyway, welcome to the Agency."

because I didn't until a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't stopped thinking about it.

[turtledotjpeg]

This started out as just "hey I like both of these characters what if they interacted," but after seeing Melody crying about Kacho in chapter 400 I really wanted to draw her with someone who Gets It

if no one else will give them a hug... can they hug each other :'(

Oito & Melody both have a tendency to freak out a bit in stressful situations, so I wondered if they might amplify that in each other haha. But on the other hand I could see them empathizing with each other and maybe being able to comfort each other? (or maybe I'm just a bit delusional lol)

[anicehomicidaltree]

And right when I’m feeling like my blood is drained

She calls it a game

But the wound that she leaves is unmistakable

[in-tenebris-et-in-solitudine]

Being attracted to someone's way of thinking is a whole different level of attraction..

[deathlessathanasia]

"Art suggests a stronger congruence between the imperfect, monstrous forms of Hera's two sons than literature does, for in return to Olympus scenes Hephaestus is often depicted with severely twisted feet, which accordingly recall Typhon's anguipede form. An ancient variant of Hephaestus' myth, already in the Iliad, tells that he was lamed rather when Zeus hurled him from heaven for helping Hera against him. And in this he parallels Typhon who, the Theogony tells, crashes to earth lamed when overcome by Zeus, and is then hurled down again into Tartarus. In his final confinement too Typhon is associated with Hephaestus: the Theogony compares him to the tin melted in the mountains under the guidance of Hephaestus, whilst, according to Pindar, he 'sends up the most terrible fountains of Hephaestus'. But Aeschylus and Nicander co-opt Hephaestus to serve as guard over Typhon and as confiner of him at this point, setting his anvils over him and working his metals on top of his body."

- Drakon: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds by Daniel Ogden

[cerunilea]

Can't wait to see @v@/Forever ominously walking up to start interacting with other players only to be brutally attacked on-sight by half the parents before he can get half a word out