#VANITAS VANITATUM

[grassbreads]

im curious, whats your favorite longfic??

Oh my god anon you are enabling me so hard right now. Are we sure you're not some deep splintered section of my subconscious that split off just for the sake of sending me this ask?

Anyway, my favorite fanfiction is a Homestuck fic by oxfordroulette called Vanitas Vanitatum. This mildly pornographic novel-length fantasy au dirkjohn fic is genuinely, independent of actual Homestuck, one of my all time favorite written stories.

Vanitas Vanitatum is the third fic in a long series, but it's technically a standalone. The first fic in the series is a jadekat fantasy road trip adventure, the second one is about jadekat getting dragged into a bunch of mysterious royal intrigue at Jade's arranged marriage to Eridan, and Vanitas Vanitatum is about the aftermath of that intrigue. John Egbert ascends to the throne of their country after the death of his and Jade's evil mother in the previous fic, and he's totally fine guys! He's definitely absolutely having zero mental health troubles!

Dirk, our pov character, enters as a new member of John's secret police. He slowly befriends his new king/boss and, in doing so, begins to discover the extent to which John is totally definitely okay! He's fine Dirk so you can stop asking! And because he's Dirk Strider, when he discovers how John is struggling, he immediately wants to Fix Him. Enter a twisted mess of genuinely falling in love and horrible shadowy puppet master schemes.

Vanitas Vanitatum is the ultimate "I can fix him" romance. It is an "I can fix him" romance to the extent that Dirk's desire to "fix" John becomes one of the fic's main conflicts—in addition to John's genuine mental health crisis and the political crisis that's happening around them. If you know anything about my taste in fiction, you're probably looking at "dark fantasy story about a guy trying to unravel and understand his crush's mental health problems" and going "okay yeah. I see why Andie is obsessed with this."

If you're a Homestuck fan, even if you're not usually a DirkJohn person, I cannot recommend Vanitas Vanitatum highly enough. It's well-written, it's funny, it's heartwarming, and it's absolutely heartbreaking. The plot is twisty and, especially if you've read the rest of the series, absolutely filled with delicious dramatic irony. The way oxfordroulette writes Dirk's pov is an absolute treat. And while the fic is fairly nsfw (there's only three actual sex scenes if I remember right, but lot of discussion and thinking about sex in the interim), the real porn in this fic is the food and costume porn. The author knows what the people want, and it's decadent food descriptions and crazy fantasy royalty outfits. It's also illustrated!

Honestly, if the fic didn't require an understanding of troll romance quadrants to make any goddamn sense, I'd be recommending it to non Homestuck fans as well. It's just a really good story.

Here's the official summary:

You've determined the hobbies of the monarch you serve are as follows: 1. Ill-timed pranks. 2. Cooking. 3. Subconsciously pulling elaborate political schemes off perfectly, ad infinitum, every one of which inches his mind closer to some ineffable dark chasm you're curious to find the depth of. Anyway, he makes damn good lasagna.

Read it here :)

[cochlearia-tatrae]

SANYA KANTAROVSKY (B.1982) Charnal Field, 2022 oil on canvas 190.3 x 140 cm

In Charnal Field, Sanya Kantarovsky offers a meditative scene of sublime beauty. A six-foot-tall memento mori, the present work lingers on a form whose soul seems to be floating above it. The desolate landscape, which evokes the masterful and evocative touch of Edvard Munch, is not all dark. Instead, glimpses of yellow come through, perhaps signaling the approaching dawn. Ghostly mushrooms rise from the soil and signal new life within death.

[pannazmiya]

☿️

ig

[apesoformythoughts]

“There are two alternative things that men generally mean when they say they have found all the world vanity. One is that they believe so ecstatically in the worth of something beyond the world they see that this world is comparatively worthless. The other is that they believe in nothing beyond the world they see, and find that world intrinsically worthless. They are the direct contrary of each other, like many people who say the same thing. To the first sort of man the colours of paradise are so vivid that against them green grass looks grey or red roses brown; to the other all possible colours are prejudged as colourless. The former only dismisses this life because it is short; that is, because there is so little of it; but by his very doctrine of the soul he obviously wants more of it. The latter is intrinsically weary of life, and would presumably be still wearier of immortality.”

— G.K. Chesterton

[missbrunettebarbie-writer]

List of my WIPs

2022 has left me very little time and inspiration for my original writing. Sadly it looks like 2023 will be the same. So I decided to at least do a bit of a clean-up, figuire out what I want to keep and what I want to get rid off. I also changed a few premises, twisted a few characters and here is the final result:

Vanitas Vanitatum

Nefele Stellarion has been told all her life that she is her father’s most valuable asset, his well-guarded secret, that will one day help take down the fae ruling class. Privately, she had always thought she is his most shameful secret: proof that even the man who had done the impossible by bringing magic to humans had fallen pray to a fairy’s spell and sired her daughter. The coming Sacrifice Ritual is her chance to prove her allegiance to the man who had raised her, but blood is thicker than water and more bitter than bile. And once Nefele makes a choice, her destiny is forever altered.

Paint the town red

Everyone knows the story of Juliet Spencer, the priest’s golden-haired daughter, the town’s darling, Graveville’s missing girl. Less people know about Laura Spencer, her sister that was born after her disappearance. And what is there to know? Surely Laura’s birth has been a soothing balm for her eldery grief-stricken parents. Surely, she must have been loved and spoiled rotten. Surely, her strange behaviour is nothing but teenage rebellion. On her fourteenth birthday, Laura learns the same terrifying secret that her sister had learned two decades ago: when the door of your house is locked, you are trapped inside with the monsters. But what Graveville will soon learn is that the past always comes to haunt you. And a predator can easily turn into prey when the right monster comes along.

Pandora’s key

Christine Leclair has been accepted into the most prestigious school of witchcraft in Europe and she’s gonna redeem her family name by becoming the best witch of her generation. Falling in love with the beautiful, mysterious, effortlessly talented Elettra Fabbri has not been in her plans. But Elettra hides her own secret that might shake the entire school. Meanwhile, in a neighbouring country, Mira Adelardi has been trapped in a mental hospital for years, for the sole crime of knowing magic beyond what humans could comprehend. Escape seems a pipe dream before befriending one of her fellow patients, a seer that knows more than she should. Once the paths of these three women cross, Europe is never the same again.

All we are is skin and bone

A self-exiled werewolf, the disgraced heir to a dynasty turned vampire, the rebellious witch daughter of a conservative politician and a retired hunter; these are the secrets that the four members of the most popular up-and-coming rock band of the moment are hiding. But can secrets be kept when the spotlight is always on you? Eric Winn, host of one of the most popular morning shows, is ready to prove that the truth always comes out. The former werewolf hunter will stop at nothing to reveal to his audience what his four guests are hiding behind their glamour rockstar facade. 

[necatormundi]

he was so real for this

[sictransitgloriamvndi]

[sigmastolen]

got a 39" BLÅHAJ for my birthday and tbh i think it might fix me

[latin-phrases-showdown]

Round 1 Poll 14

Translation and propaganda for In vino veritas

Translation and propaganda for Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas

[natalinanize]

Ash to ash or something.

On a good day, brain does 180 and starts to think of skulls and crows - classic brain move!

[fredericbassoulet-blog]

[grassbreads]

Something about Dirk Strider really does inspire some transcendent goddamn fanworks, huh.

[funky-lil-ghost]

listening to 40 minutes of choral-orchestral music in latin will fix me

[pannazmiya]

Went shopping with Husband in Vienna 🥀

[yourdarkacademiagay]

About what i can do to be remembered

sometimes i wonder what will be my gift to the Earth, my monument which will remind future generations of my existance, something that won’t let me die, like Horace with his “Exegi Monumentum”. He survived centures, but what can I, simple nobody (at least for now) offer? With the feeling, that even though so much have been discovered, yet so little we really know, there’s a big stage for me to use, the question is how well will i perform myself on this stage?  What can i do to become outstanding, to be viewed unique? If my life is the theatre, i have to be the best actress, if my life is the book, i have to be the main character, if my life is my life, i have to posess it as much as i can and control it according to my will. Not let anyone dictate me what to do, because, at the end it will be my problem what i’ve done with my life and i will be sorry - not anyone else. My own personal freedom is just for me to use and i will use it with all my strenght so i can achieve my dreams and build my own monument. It’s all up to me.

[very-small-giant]

vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas