#because i am incapable of short posts apparently

[kayura-sanada]

Yeah, Carver definitely gets more development than Bethany does, though I usually keep this to myself, especially on this site lest I upset someone who thinks she's flawless and can do no wrong. It certainly seems suspect that mages who go against the Chantry get such a raw deal and the ones who embrace it are rewarded by the narrative, go figure. It's funny how Anders destroying a Chantry makes him irredeemable and people wring their hands but if Vivienne destroys a building? Crickets.

Dude I have complained about this exact thing!!! Especially within this fandom - there are countless people on this site who scream abuse at Anders as a character, only to turn around and call Vivienne a girlboss. You really don't get to have it both ways. Though I also emphasize that they are not the same. Anders attacks a system of power and oppression in order to incite a revolution in an effort to protect a marginalized group of people, while Vivienne attacks a marginalized community in order to uphold the system of power and oppression of which she has made herself a part. (Though I am able to acknowledge that she did so in order to preserve herself and give herself some power. I just don't like who she became.)

As for Bethany and Carver, I love complexities in characters and narratives, so I love that Bethany has this huge flaw of accepting Meredith's actions and denying herself basic rights, and I love how Carver, who is so stuffed full of flaws, proves himself to be a great man once he finally comes into his own, so great that he will humble himself, apologize, and accept your leadership at the end in order to face down Meredith, whom he absolutely perceives as a threat.

I also will admit that I love how the narrative rewards those who side with the Chantry and punishes those who don't - because, in the world of Thedas, that's exactly how things would go. 'History is written by the victors' and all that. The world of Thedas seems so very real to me because we are forced within that narrative, and our frustration and desire to break out of it is, at least for me, what instigates the choices I end up making. As if I myself am attempting some sort of revolution against the parts of the world that I want to see changed. Being forced to immerse myself in such a way makes me very happy.

Anyway, in short, Dragon Age is a story chock-full of complexities, both in the worldbuilding and in the characters. Simplifying any of that in any way is a disservice to a phenomenal creation.

[caffetato-the-caffeinated-potato]

Yeah, I know this is a few days late. But this drawing took me a lot more time than I anticipated, and the executives weren't always functioning, so it is what it is.

It's hard to believe that I only started posting art Rise art in late September, and have already gained a modest following. I have @onejellyfishplease to thank for a lot of that, I believe. I would often make fanart for them and when they reblogged it I'd receive a significant spike in notes, and sometimes a new follower. So thank you, Jelly!

Jelly is also the one who encouraged me to make Tabletop Turtles, the first AU I've made since I was 12! And now I'm starting to be able to carve out my own following without needing to ride on Jelly's coattails.

Speaking of TTAU, how about an update? [Under the cut]

TTAU is still very much in development, though I'd say it is now out of the conceptual stage and is now in the planning stage. I've got many ideas for the story and am currently in the process of organizing those ideas into a rough outline and filling in some blanks.

The story of TTAU will retell the plot of the show, reimagined by the fantasy setting and different dynamics created by the separated AU aspect. Plus, with some of my own subplots and worldbuilding thrown in as well.

All that to say; this story will not be short. In classic Me fashion, I've managed to take a simple concept and turn it into an epic-length story. Because I'm incapable of telling short stories, apparently.

So, the comic probably won't be ready to start for at least a couple more months. I am a plantser, who leans a little more towards outlining, so I don't want to jump into the story without at least a general idea of where I'm going. I'll try to keep making some art for TTAU in the meantime.

And, because this is my first time ever making a comic, and literally every comic making advice video ever practically begs you not to start with a long comic, I'll be making several short comics as practice. I'll probably start with simple comic strips, work my way up to short stories. Some might be related to TTAU, but most probably won't.

Thank you for your patience, and your encouragement! Especially to @overthinkingspark-blue, @idk-im-just-here-now, @starsandspacefog, and @varianlikescheese! This idea would have fizzled out a long time ago without you guys bouncing my excitement back at me and keeping this flame burning.

And as always, if you have any questions, feel free to send me an ask!

[snailchimera]

A while back I saw an otherwise perfectly fine post about Murderbot and ART and the general progression of their relationship that, for no goddamn reason, decided to mention the "autistic people lack theory of mind" idea. It wasn't about autism. It wasn't refuting the idea that a character was autistic. Autism was not mentioned elsewhere in the post. It was just there, a brief, random, vaguely dehumanizing aside that I tried very hard to let go but apparently I can't.

First off, as used in that post, it implied that an adult autistic person is incapable of considering a situation from another person's perspective. That's straight up false. That's not going to be my main point but I just need to get it out of the way. Difficulty reading someone is not remotely the same thing as being unaware that they have their own experiences and thoughts, or unable to consider their perspective provided you've been given the necessary information to know/guess what that perspective is. I'm not saying Murderbot is autistic, but I am saying that it would not need subtle spaceship body language, whatever that would entail, to determine that actually yeah having a rogue SecUnit running around where all your delicate machinery including your brain is might be kind of worrying and it's not unreasonable to draw some clear boundaries. That actually is clear just from thinking it through.

Second, the idea that autistics lack a theory of mind comes from one particular study done with autistic children. The children watched a short puppet show. In it, one puppet placed an object in a box, then left the room. Another puppet came into the room, moved the object, and left. The first puppet came back into the room, and the children were asked where the puppet would look for the object. Allistic children usually said the puppet would look in the place where the puppet had originally put the object. Autistic children usually said the place where the object currently was.

So here's my question: did the autistic children know they were allowed to give a "wrong" answer?

Because here's the thing. Being autistic means that, from a very young age, you are painfully aware that your perception of the world around you is not the same as other peoples'. Normally I'd emphasize the difference in sensory perception here, but actually it's not uncommon for autistic kids to think everyone experiences certain sensory input as horribly painful and other people are just better at not reacting badly to it (this is also true of allistic people with pain conditions, as an example). But knowing you're missing social cues? That's near unavoidable. People are constantly assuming you know things about how they feel and why they're taking a specific action, because it's "obvious". You know you're supposed to know. You know it's supposed to be easy, so easy in fact that when you say you don't know these things you're accused of lying. Allistic people constantly assume you have context that you don't have, context that they're presumably getting from things like tone of voice, body language, etc. It's like being presumed fluent in a language that you only have a limited grasp of, and accused of not listening, not caring, or even not understanding the idea of language as a means of communication when you can't understand everything other people say.

A common complaint autistic people have about allistic people is in fact that allistic people expect us to be mind readers. Of course that's not true- allistic people expect us to pick up on forms of communication that we easily miss or misunderstand, but they are in fact communicating- but given the nature of our puppet show, that feeling might be relevant, right?

Let's imagine a different puppet scenario. Puppet A puts their ball in a chest. They leave the room. Puppet B moves the ball from the chest to a cabinet, but leaves a note saying where they moved the ball to. Puppet A comes back into the room, reads the note, and correctly locates the ball.

Now another one. Puppet A puts their ball in a chest. They leave the room. Puppet B moves the ball from the chest to a cabinet, but leaves a note saying where they moved the ball to. Puppet A comes back into the room. They don't see the note, and can't find their ball. When they ask Puppet B where their ball is, Puppet B is furious. B left a note! What is wrong with A that they can't read a simple note? A must have read the note but ignored it just to have an excuse to bother B.

Autistic children are surrounded at all times by invisible notes, and people who react extremely negatively, sometimes even violently, when they find out you're not reading their notes (because you can't, because you don't even see them).

So. Puppet A puts their ball in a chest. They leave the room. Puppet B moves the ball from the chest to a cabinet. Puppet A comes back into the room. The allistic child has never had to consider whether they themselves are missing information that everyone else who watched the puppet show has. They know there's no way for Puppet A to know the ball was moved. They correctly state that Puppet A will look in the chest.

Puppet A puts their ball in a chest. They leave the room. Puppet B moves the ball from the chest to a cabinet. Puppet A comes back into the room. The autistic child has been in many situations where they're expected to know something they had no way of knowing, like the new location of a ball they weren't told was moved. They've been in many situations where another person knew what they didn't know, even though they both received the same information. They've gotten in trouble for not knowing things. Maybe they've made people they care about angry or sad by not knowing things. Now there's an adult, an authority figure, the kind of person who might punish you or get you in trouble with your parents for giving them the wrong answer, asking you where the puppet is going to look for the ball. Well, you can't just assume you know what the puppet knows. Maybe the puppet read an invisible note. Or maybe (remember these are very young kids), the puppet is like you, someone who can't read the invisible notes, and they're going to get in trouble for looking in the wrong place unless you help them.

So you don't give the answer that makes sense to you, that Puppet A looks in the chest because that's where they left the ball. You give the "right" answer, the actual location of the ball, the answer Puppet A was probably supposed to be able to figure out in some way you know you can't see.

I'm not a psych expert. My only claim to expertise here is as an actual autistic person (diagnosed, twice actually due to a mixup with the transfer of medical records across state lines). But I have read enough to notice a trend in autism studies of taking the least charitable possible interpretation of any difference between autistic and allistic people (see the "rigid morality" study, in which sticking to one's moral stance when presented with rewards for abandoning it was pathologized in the conclusion because autistic people did so more than allistic people). There's a very long history (a part of the larger very long history of eugenics) of deliberately looking for ways to scientifically support the decision to treat autistic people as subhuman, or nonhuman.

That is probably why so many of us like stories about sad robots.

Anyway that's my rant, it's over, thank you for reading to the end. If you actually wanna take something from this whole mess, just... try to be kind to people. Do your best to understand where they're coming from, and help them understand where you're coming from.

[sygneth]

I am not even sure if I will be posting this (though, if you're reading this, I did), but, nevertheless, I have a few points about Jean that I have to make. He is no saint. He is an asshole and I’m not gonna pretend that he is not. But there is so much more to it. 

Let me start with the most obvious. He is said to have clinically diagnosed depression, with, apparently, no distinctive source, and, from what he says, we may assume he is under some sort of psychiatric supervision. 

He was diagnosed seven years ago. Diagnosed with depression, which probably means he’s been dealing with it for a good while longer, only at a certain moment he decided to seek help/had an attempt/any other circumstance that lead this man to get a diagnosis. He is now 34, seven years earlier he’d be 27. 

The reasons for such unspecified depression may be many, from some kind of a rare neurological defect causing one’s brain to be incapable of properly producing/transmitting/I’m-not-a-biologist-neither-is-English-my-first-language-so-I’m-not-gonna-dig-into-neurological-dysfunctions-further-but-you-get-the-point, serotonin, through a burnout, all the way to having other, undiagnosed disorders/illnesses as *checks Luiga’s tweets* Schizoid PD (I am not convinced that what Jean presents is a 100% textbook SPD example, rather SPD traits/behavior patterns? But I’m no specialist and even if I were, it’s hard to diagnose someone based on those few dialogue lines) and codependency tendencies. The doctors didn’t diagnose any other disorder, or at least he never mentions it, but looking at the world of Elysium, those disorders may not yet have been widely recognized, especially if not presenting themselves in the most typical ways/high-functioning. And Jean tends to be high functioning despite his issues. Yet, I assume that in Elysium, and Jamrock especially, the access and quality of psychological and psychiatric services are poor and probably limited. Not to mention education on the matter, which is probably low if not near none. (Just looking at how is alcoholism treated by *everyone* there, or the short mention of McCoy’s brother gives me a good 90’s/early 00s Eastern Europe vibe of mental issues/disabilities public awareness.)  Now, keep that in mind. 

Alright. Next up: a codependent, close relationship with an alcoholic. 

Jean’s relationship with Harry is an interesting one. I found this interesting research on codependency among spouses of alcoholics, that states codependency is related to, among others, SPD traits. (That’s an, uh, disclaimer? I was just curious how that two may coexist, but apparently, they do.) 

Back to the main thought. 

As someone who has been in a close, codependent relationship with a person who had problems with drinking, I can tell you something. It’s more than hard to get out of one. You see a person you care about do stupid, drunken, dangerous shit, you may be angry at them, you may be furious, yet you will still feel responsible for them in a way, and you will take that responsibility and try to get them out of the shit they got themselves into. I’ll say more, if that’s an actual relationship, you will feel social pressure that you are responsible for your partner’s behavior and you’re the one to take care of them. If it’s your work partner, then it’s highly probable you actually will be held responsible for their behavior, so you’re even more likely to clean up their mess. And when you help them out, because you care, because you feel like you should, because you don’t want to be “dicked” for it, maybe all of the above, they will be grateful and they will praise you and love you and even if you feel like this is not the right thing to do, you will do it again.

It takes a lot of work and self-awareness to get out of something like that healthily. And if you have some psychological knowledge, it also helps a lot, to understand how to deal with it. And the only way to do it, regardless healthy or not, is by setting boundaries. If you can healthily set them, and make the other person respect them, that’s very good. But if you have some other mental issues in addition to that, if you lack knowledge on how people’s behavior patterns work, on how exactly addictions work and that, you are maybe having some problems with generally understanding relationships between people, how and why they work, it’s very likely that you won’t be capable of setting those boundaries and enforce them to be respected. It’s very likely that one day, when something will happen and you will realize how toxic and unhealthy this relationship is for you, you will panic and you will start to do anything to get out of it, like a cat drowning in a well. That you will start acting cold, maybe even merciless from a certain perspective, maybe you won’t let yourself believe in their pleading and assurances of change, because you will know that letting yourself *feel* sympathy for the person you had this relationship with may lead to spiraling back into the wheel of codependency. Maybe you have already tried this, and letting yourself trust them only led you back to the point where you started and maybe this time, you don’t want it to end up this way.

And you know what? There is nothing wrong with trying to ensure your mental well-being. “Before approaching the casualty, always make sure the area is safe.” YES because if you’ll get hurt trying to help somebody, there will be one more person to help. The same applies to helping people get their life together. If you won’t have a good mindset to help them, if they will only drag you down, maybe the area isn’t safe? 

Moving on. 

Now, remember when I said that the level of social and psychological awareness seems very low in Elysium/Revachol/Jamrock? About that. 

You know what else I see, looking at the Harry-Jean-Dora-Kim situation? A bunch of people with self-awareness in terms of emotion, and emotional development of teenagers, but problems of grown-up people. And they are not to blame, the system is to blame. Harry seems to be very self-conscious and connected to his emotions, yet for six years he couldn’t find a healthy way to get over a heartbreak. He has tendencies to act violently, to randomly drunk-phone his ex to harass her (I mean come on, he was asking her if she is naked), not to mention a tone of other things. 

What happens here to Jean, is his situationship/best friend, whom yeah, he decided to ‘have a break’ with, immediately gets over it, and starts to go out with someone else. Taking, that this man has probably understanding of his emotions on a level of a high-schooler, he WILL be salty. He will be mad at Harry and he will be salty towards Kim when he sees them in Whirling. (Not to mention that it’s probably how they just roll in the precinct, and I’m quite sure that Harry’s and Jean’s relationship has been japing on and teasing each other, and as long as they both knew how it works, it was all good, compare: this post. So yes, Jean will be angry with Harry and he will act like an offended drama queen partially because that is just how their relationship dynamics probably looked like for the last two (at least!) years, and partially because he is an offended 16-year-old drama queen, whose bestie told her to fuck off and found a new (boy)friend. 

Is it good, that grown-up men have the emotional capabilities of high schoolers? No. Should we blame them, or the fact that their system seemingly doesn’t provide any prevention, doesn’t promote awareness, or offer any proper healthcare for that matter? I’ll leave that to you.

To add to all this, yes, the RCM’s fucked up system, hierarchy, and mentality don’t help. Yes, it would be better for both Harry and Jean and probably Kim too, taking for his PTSD, to get the fuck out of there and live peaceful lives. But you know, changing your whole lifestyle isn’t easy. Understanding that maybe it’s better to leave now and that it doesn’t mean you’ve “wasted” your years is a process, a long and hard one. I had to learn this. My close ones had to learn this. Some of them still didn’t, especially, that where I come from, there is this CEE culture of not letting yourself fail with peace of mind. You got to do everything the best you can, you gotta do it 120%, and if not, you’re a rotten piece of shit. Looking at how Harry treats himself, Revachol seems to have this in common with Central-Eastern Europe as well. 

Another thing, we don’t even know what Kim or Jean did before they joined the RCM, and Harry was a gym teacher. Thinking that it is easy to just switch your job in, again, a place with a CEE mentality, is a huge mistake. At the age of 40-odd years especially. In the 90s, especially. We don’t even know if Jean or Kim have any other education on their account, besides being cops, so changing professions would mean additional education, and for Harry, how many places, realistically, would take in a 45-year-old gym teacher?

I generally see that many people seem to forget/not understand how CE European mentality works, and it shows. I am glad that we live in a world where awareness of things such as homophobia, ableism, misogyny and else is common knowledge. But it wasn’t here, not even those 15 years ago. I remember people using names of dysfunctions and disabilities as slurs. Grown up people. I remember my classmates and my friend calling each other faggots or laughing at each other for not being gender-affirmative enough. Half of us turned out to be queer, and nobody had a problem with that, because in those times this kind of language wasn’t necessarily indicating someone’s worldview, it was just a bad habit, a very common one. I am more than happy, really, that we got rid of this kind of narrative and are more aware of the weight of a spoken word now. But when talking about past or settings that resemble this past, let’s please not forget that it DID look different and take that into consideration. Please. 

Remembering what we derived from and what a great progress as a society we did is important, as it shows the way we managed to walk, but also reminds us of what people had to deal with. And is a warning, because now we’re probably still all doing things that in 30 years will be so, so wrong. 

So concluding this ridiculously long consciousness stream, I love you, DE fandom. Now, I have an interview to watch (probably not anymore) and a comic page to draw (as always). I’ll leave you with this here.

[biggiedraws]

hmm havent been rvb posting much..... time to talk about simmons and caboose! cause a while ago i saw a post saying that simmons and caboose are on "opposite ends of the autism spectrum", which is SO true and i wanna talk about the different ways theyre each autistic coded.

[apparently i am incapable of writing a reasonable length post, sheesh]

bc like. simmons is what people typically think "mild" autism looks like. textbook "aspergers". theres a reason im using terms that arent used by the autistic community, and its because autistic people arent the ones who make these kinds of distinctions. this is autism as seen by neurotypicals: socially awkward, smart in one area of expertise but talks about it a little too much, annoyingly pedantic at times.... you get the idea. and while these are autistic traits that i can relate to, i feel like caboose is a better representation of what it feels like to actually have autism. like, he has an easier time making friends with robots than people, he never understands whats going on except for the time travel in season 17, where hes the ONLY one who understands it. he doesnt understand figurative language, constantly misses obvious social cues or breaks unwritten rules that everyone should know, and has a very hard time lying, deceiving, or keeping information from people.

and i think the reason caboose is more relatable even though simmons is more "textbook" autistic, is because caboose is written as DISABLED. he has a hard time following simple conversations. he cant understand things that should be obvious. everyone around him is constantly frustrated because "why cant he just DO it??" so even if his symptoms dont line up exactly with autism (especially since the way hes written changes over the course of the show), at the end of the day, autism is a disability. so personally, i relate a lot more with him and his struggles than someone like simmons, who is awkward and "weird", but doesnt really seem to struggle with day to day life.

in short: simmons is what masked autism (especially if you have a useful special interest, like computers) looks like from an outside perspective. a little awkward, talks too much, but smart where it counts. generally "useful", and mostly "normal". but caboose is what it feels like to grow up with autism. always confused, everyone treats you like youre different and you cant really do anything about it, cant seem to get along with anyone even though you just want to be friends, and no matter what you do, you screw up everything you touch.

anyway im not saying that simmons isnt autistic, or that hes "less" autistic (bc that isnt a thing lol). simmons just masks a lot better than caboose. thats what an autistic person pretending to be "normal" acts like (its certainly how i act around other people lmao). but because hes not written by an autistic person, they write him like thats all there is to it. which is kind of unfortunate because it feels like theres a whole other side to him that we never really get to see.

now, the fact that the writers set out to write a nerd and wrote an autism stereotype, and set out to write a dumbass and wrote someone who is clearly disabled..... that is a whole separate conversation that im not gonna get into. especially since i dont really know much about rooster teeth, aside from the fact that the fandom seems to have wholly rejected them, and of course what i can see just from watching the show. but i think its clear that its not exactly good representation.

anyway, i still hc them both as autistic, and if/when i write them, i hope my interpretation reflects that while still being true to the characters. it actually works out great for me that theres one autistic person on each team, because whenever im thinking of dialogue and i have an idea thats a little too autistic (like saying something really blunt or picking up on a pattern most people wouldnt notice) i can usually give it to one of them instead of writing it out entirely. which works out really well for caboose especially, because he tends to be quiet during exposition unless hes addressed (bc he cant follow it). so having him make autism commentary can break up all the "blue team problems" nicely. plus having him innocuously call people out when theyre being ambiguous is WAY funnier than "haha caboose doesnt know whats going on" imho

[sarandipitywrites]

howdy!!!! for the WIP excerpt ask game: 🗣 Share your favorite dialogue exchange. & 👤 Share a line that shows a character’s personality. <3 - @liv-is

hi, Liv!

i'm apparently incapable of sharing just a line or two today, so i'll leave the answers under the cut. they're both from The Art of Empty Space:

🗣 (i've definitely posted this bit before, but i love it so here it is again):

Lienzo scooped his bag from the floor and brushed past the beast, carving a path down the rightmost hallway. "Well, since that's settled, why don't we see about supper? I, for one, am famished; you do eat, I assume?" His last meal had been the half-stale chunk of bread he'd eaten an hour before reaching Iskin Forest the evening before; even if the dracolisks didn't catch him, he surely would have collapsed from hunger somewhere on the road to Minadore. "I... erm..." The beast, after a moment of shuffling in place, fell into step beside Lienzo. "...Yes?" "Oh, come now, I know you can do better than 'yes.' I know you've plenty of food in that kitchen — what do you like? Do you hunt?" Gods knew the beast was no trapper. "I... don't hunt? I don't eat meat." "You don't—?" Lienzo stopped short and squinted up at the beast. "With those teeth?" An odd, scoffing snort escaped it. "You're one to talk about teeth." It flinched and froze in place. Shoulders hunched, it looked away and bowed its head, as though it wished to pull its cloak up and disappear. It was all Lienzo could do not to burst out laughing. A monster, cowed as though it'd just mouthed off to its parent? "You're damn right, I am." He smiled, didn't bother trying to hide his teeth. "Uniquely qualified, you might say." The beast uncurled and, after a moment, offered an uncertain smile in return.

👤 :

Lienzo breathed, forced himself to hold it, and let it out again. Aaro wanted to help. She did. Just because she didn't understand why handouts weren't helpful— "If you want to help me," he said, his voice shaking with forced calm, "you will buy the last things I have of any value." His tongue flicked out, wet his lips. Don't say it. Don't say it. Whatever he did, he couldn't— "We're family. Right?"

Aaro's shoulders slumped. She dragged her hand over her face. When she looked at him again, her eyes were older than the gnarled wood of her countertop.

Lienzo had won.

Bile rose in his throat, burned the backs of his eyes. He'd won, and he was the foulest piece of shit to ever walk the planet.

Thanks for the ask! 💜

[themirokai]

Twenty Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged in this by the incredible @pellaaearien . Thank you so much, dear! I really did start working on it when you tagged me and have picked away at it ever since. It’s quite long!

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

49

2. What's your total Ao3 word count?

122,560. I write short things.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

In chronological order I have written:

BBC Sherlock- Mystrade only

James Bond

Doctor Who

Star Wars

Person of Interest

Arcane

Cats the Musical

Sandman

In theory I’m open to writing in any of those again and any others as the inspiration strikes.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

5 - Worship (Sandman, Dreamling), also received the comment that inspired my first tumblr post to breach containment.

4 - Who He Is (Mystrade), my first fic on ao3 besides the ones I moved to the Other Account. I’m a bit surprised by this honestly. It’s got age on its side but my writing has improved a lot since then. It reads as a bit clunky to me now.

3 - Loverboy (Sandman, Dreamling + Matthew the Emotional Support Raven), first time I brought my 2 Sandman series together and my first multi chap Sandman fic.

2 - The Century Gentleman (Sandman, Dreamling), I got this written and posted pretty soon after the show aired when there was a massive demand for Dreamling content and before there was a tidal wave of content to meet the demand. I have mixed feelings about it now.

1 - Sort It (James Bond & Sherlock crossover, 00Q + Mystrade), fills the niche of “Q is a Holmes brother” + fluffy Mystrade. I do still really love this story.

5. Do you respond to comments?

My rule is that I do. And I’ve generally been very diligent about it. But I burnt out a little while writing Grave and I currently have an embarrassing number of unread comments in my ao3 inbox that I keep telling myself that I need to respond to…

So if folks have commented on my stuff in the last month or so, I’m very sorry I haven’t responded.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Sequenced Proposals. No contest. Look, the character is terminally ill in canon and it’s a lawyer AU so it wasn’t going to end with him becoming a cyborg. I cried a lot while writing it. Apparently a lot of people cried while reading it. Technically he’s still alive when the story ends.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

With the one notable exception discussed above I pretty much exclusively write warm, fluffy, occasionally funny stuff. They pretty much all end happily. I am a quokka of fan fiction.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I haven’t! Someone called me a bitch in a Sequenced Proposals comment but even though we had never interacted before, they meant it positively.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Not on this account. 😏

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I’ve written 2: Sort It, as mentioned above, and Dreaming of Leverage, which is a Sandman & Leverage crossover. I’d say the latter is crazier.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nooooo. And I can’t see ever doing it. Writing is very much a solo activity for me.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

I can’t pick a favorite. I adore every ship I’ve written.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I will probably not finish Law School Days. I know how the story ends and that’s good enough for me and no one was clamoring for it. I still like to think I’ll finish Lonely Two-Legged Creatures some day.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I’m good at dialogue, especially dialogue in which characters talk about their feeeeeelings. I guess I’m also good at emotional intelligence in stories. And creating the warm & fuzzies.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Plot and description. I almost exclusively write very short things because I am incapable of plot that would carry a longer story. Also, if I’m being honest, one of the things I like about writing fan fiction is that I don’t have to describe what anyone looks like or sounds like! Y’all know that already. But I do get the flop sweats if I have to describe someone wearing clothing that is not a t-shirt and jeans.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I wish I could! More than 15 years ago I was basically conversational in Spanish, but now I’m functionally monolingual. I do appreciate when people who do this provide translations.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

As a kid, before I knew what fan fiction was, I wrote at least 100 pages of what was essentially OCs in Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar. The first fandom I intentionally wrote and posted fic for was Mystrade.

20. Favourite fic you've written?

Can’t do this, sorry. There are some of my stories that no longer resonate with me the way they did when I wrote them, but they’re in the minority and of the rest it’s impossible to pick a favorite.

Phew! That was a lot. Whenever I tag people in these I always say no pressure but really and seriously this time there’s no pressure and you don’t need to tell me why you’re not doing it. Just ignore. ALSO, if you’ve already done it and I missed it, apologies! With that said @once-in-a-blue-moon-rising @lavenderandvanilla @ml-nolan @mashumaru @ibrithir-was-here @karalynlovescake @stormofsharpthings @argylepiratewd

[elialys]

🍉🫐🍇

🍉 Do you prefer to write short fics or long fics? Multichaptered works or single ones? Why?

Honestly, I love both?? But to be honestly most of my oneshots have a tendency to end up being long anyway, as in, between 6k and 10k 😂 I am almost incapable of writing anything below 2,000 words.

Not gonna lie, I do have a certain fondness for multichaptered, long stories, because I get so emotionally invested in them? I put those characters through so much, I go on a journey with them, and managing to finish a long story is such a high. Unfortunately, I also tend to not finish a lot of them (or it takes me years to get there) because creatively, newer projects are always more appealing after a while 🥲

🫐 What’s your favorite underrated thing in your fandom? (A ship that only you seem to write for, a character there’s almost no fics about, a trope that criminally hasn’t been written yet, etc.)

As far as Fringe/Polivia is concerned, I have read most fics that were written between 2008 and 2016 (I've lost track since then 😅) and back then I always felt that everything that had to do with Olivia's abilities and her cortexiphan was rarely used in fics? Despite the fact that Olivia canonically sees Peter glimmer whenever she's particularly upset?

🍇 Is there a particular scene/episode/book/etc that you want to just write a million fics about, over and over? Which one?

Well, if my track record is any indication, I apparently can & WILL spend the rest of my life writing about Peter and Olivia 😂😭 I stopped for about 6 years, but now I'm back at it as if I never stopped, despite having already written so many stories about them for over 7 years. I think I will never get tired of writing about them in season 2 settings, or post-Switch angst in season 3, and I know I'd love to write more stories that explore their life as parents with Etta (and probably another baby!) 🥰

[cha1cedony]

Okay fine I’ll do one of these (because I like to talk about myself hehehe). Thanks @roboobin for tagging me B)

A very long ‘get to know me’ post below…

Last song: Apparently it was ‘Two Time’ - Jack Stauber, according to Spotify? I’ve also been relistening to a few tracks from Falsettos all day, for some reason. ‘I’m Breaking Down’ got stuck in my head somehow. I’m not super big on musical theater, but I LOOOOVE Falsettos and especially Trina :) You can probably tell I have a certain type of favorite characters/media lol.

Favorite color: Light greyish blue (or white, grey, silver, orrrr light greyish green?)

Last movie: I actually have no idea. Maybe Nimona with my IRLs a few months ago? I almost NEVER watch movies in full because I get bored of them easily. Sorry I know that’s so lame lololol

Currently watching: A commentary YouTube video to use as background noise while I do my writing assignments lol. Like I said, I don’t really watch a lot of movies or TV :/

Currently reading: Nothing, unfortunately! I haven’t read any books/stories in an embarrassingly long time :( I am so ridiculously busy and haven’t had the time/motivation to read and get invested in new characters. I have a bunch of series I want to reread for nostalgia purposes, though. I’m also strangely tempted to read the Animorphs series? LOL. I looked it up on AO3 for the first time a few months ago while in the kids’ section of the library with my IRLS and we were assessing the popularity of kids’ books based on the amount of AO3/Wattpad fics (btw, there are a shockingly low amount of Geronimo Stilton fics in the world). I wasn’t expecting there to be an Animorphs fandom, but there IS? And the fics are really GOOD even though I don’t know the source material? Anyway. Tempted to read it because I like putting teens in situations /lh. Also I want to read more short stories! Send me recommendations, if you have any.

Last thing I googled: This is so embarrassing. ‘Bathroom cruising’ LMAOOOO. I was just writing a funny bit, but I wanted to make sure it was accurate, okay? T_T Other recent searches include my voice lesson Lieder, various areas I’ve felt pain recently (because I’m a hypochondriac /lh), and a vlog I had to watch for my job… I was writing an article about it.

Sweet/spicy/savory: Savory. Every time. I love savory foods, and they’re basically the only types of food I ever crave. Then I would go with spicy, but only if it’s spicy in a flavorful way (and not just a painful way). I don’t like sweet foods except for chocolate—and, even then, I am infamous among my friends and acquaintances for only liking SUPER dark chocolate… like 70% cocoa or more. I would say my favorite flavor profile is bitter! :)

Current obsession: I think y’all already know :^) I am incapable of having more than one strong interest at once, soooo DnDads has quite literally been occupying my brain since liiiike October 2022… almost a year ago now! o_o Holy shit. I’ve been really busy with work and school in the past month or so, so I haven’t done basically anything else in my free time. I’d like to start cross stitching again because I have some projects to finish, and I got some of my late grandmother’s jewelry-making supplies recently, so I’ll toy around with that, too.

Currently working on: Like, right this second? Discussion post replies for my Writing in Digital Environments course :p In general? As far as hobbies go, the beginnings of my next longfic chapter! As far as work goes, I’m working on article about a mural. I have to drive like 30 mins to get a features image for it tomorrow ugh. At least I get to kill time on the clock :’)

I don’t want to tag anyone in particular, but, obviously, if you want to do this, you can just say I tagged you. Shhh I won’t tell ;) hehehe

[romance-evil-aro]

dude your whole post on "talking to someone" being romantic made me think of some recent events that have happened, so I thought I'd share.

Also apologies in advance for the long ask, I have ADHD which apparently means I am incapable of telling a relatively short story ever

As a bit of background, I attend a conservative Christian homeschool group, and am currently in the later two years of high school. I and my small group of Secret Queers have been hanging out a lot, and while I do not have many classes with my other afab friends, there is this one guy (who might also be on the aro/ace spectrums, but he's not really sure, all he knows is that he doesn't have much interest in romance or dating in particular) who I do happen to have a handful of classes with. We've become very good friends, sort of bonding over our lack of romance enthusiasm, and we ended up dancing with each other at last year's prom. (completely platonically, it was absolutely amazing and we enjoyed it thoroughly, 100% recommend in case you are interested) and we've sat next to each other during classes, and help each other out with different topics. Last week, one of the guys in our electronics and robotics class came up to him and asked if we were dating. He said no, we were just good friends, (he may have laughed when asked but he doesn't recall, however he and I had a massive laugh over it together) and when he mentioned it to his mom, she said that he shouldn't have said that we were just friends "in case {my name} wanted to be something more. (She and my mom also were very quick to assume that we had some sort of romantic attraction after we danced at prom, because apparently teaching your friend how to dance because you want to dance with someone else to say you've done it before is clearly romantic and not at all your friend agreeing to you because we both thought it would be fun) anyway, this whole thing has been super weird, and absolutely hilarious so I thought I'd share :) have a most excellent day!

it'd so wild to me what people will interpret as romantic.

I hope you have a great day too, and thank you for sharing! /g

[landwriter]

questions for the fanfiction writing asks! 1, 3, 5, 10, 11, 12, 22, 35, 36, 72, 73, 74. (… feel free to only do some if this is too many.)

hahaha i saw '1, 3,' in the preview and thought 'oh I hope there's three questions!' roll you've got mail gif of tom hanks rubbing his hands together and blowing on his fingers:

Gloam's Great Big Writing (W)ramble

Do you daydream a lot before you write, or go for it as soon as the ideas strike? I go for it straightaway. When I get an idea and can't exorcise it due to things like Operating A Motor Vehicle it literally just churns inside of me until I can. I wrote 80% of Black Shore as jot notes in a parking lot while eating a burger with one hand. My ideas are less patient than me. which ha ha truly says a lot.

Do you share your fic ideas, or do you keep them to yourself? Oh, share for sure. If I ever manage to conceive, draft, and publish a whole entire story without telling anyone about it I want a PRIZE.

How many wips do you have? What fandoms/pairings are they for? I was like "two! wait three - no, four" anyways I went and looked in my one (1) fic drafting document (clocking in at a healthy 90K lol) and counting everything I've put words down for and intend to put MORE words down for it would be, uh, haha fifteen

Do you work on multiple wips or stick to one fic at a time? I try to only focus on one but right now I have an overgrown drabble and a chapter for Oaths that I both equally want to have been done YESTERDAY so I have been bouncing between them both for a few days. I do think I could really dig doing drabbles THAT BEHAVED THEMSELVES in between longfic chapters though!

Do you write scenes in order, or do you jump around? In order, but I have no qualms putting [thing happens] and moving on because I already have to consciously try so hard to keep momentum and not constantly faff about with wording as I go. I have slipped up with Oaths a couple times now because there's just SO MUCH to write for it lol

Do you outline your fics? If yes, how detailed are your outlines? How far do you stray from them? I was labouring for a while under the delusion I was 'outlining' but I have since realized I am actually just writing fics as fast as possible in a very loose way first before I forget anything, because apparently most outlines do not have, uh enormous chunks of fully-written dialogue, play-by-play actions, and detailed descriptions of scenes and character beats? the only time I do not do this has been prompt fills but it actively makes my brain ache a little to try and remember everything inside my head while my fingers slowly write it in full lol

Do you title your fics before, during, or after the writing process? How do you come up with titles? Titles for canon fics have all come part way through. They just Show Up, and I know it's right when it Feels Right? I like punchy short titles that are outright utilitarian OR that you read after reading the fic and go 'HEY' because it was The Theme All Along. For AUs I am clinically incapable of thinking of them as anything other than 'Descriptor AU' which is why it took me over a week after posting it and two chapters in to title my Tam Lin AU

What’s your favorite fic you’ve posted? I am a terrible parent because I was going to say 'I could make a case for any of them' but it's actually any of them except Emissary of the Night. I wish I could even say I feel guilty haha. Nothing against it at all! I'm happy with it and proud of the response it's gotten, I'm just not attached.

What fic are you proudest of? Border Country. No matter what else I write, it will always be Border Country. If I publish a real life novel and it wins awards it will actually, still, be Border Country. And it will be Border Country because that was second story I wrote. Doing something previously unthinkable once is pretty wild. But I have been known to do wild shit! Doing it a second time, consciously, right after the first one went so well that a part of you is saying very persuasive unhinged things like: stop while you're ahead, lightning only strikes once, it likely won't be as good or as well-received and you won't be able to cope with that, better to not find out, don't make people have to humour you, Gloam, that's rude, be satisfied with this alone, was the actual wildest thing I've done. I started writing a second story immediately after Saint Morpheus because the response was overwhelming and incredible, and I knew if I didn't post something again within a week or two that would be the only thing I ever posted, probably. So I wrote Border Country in five days, posted it, felt like I'd defeated a curse, and I am so proud of me for it.

What’s your favorite writing compliment you’ve gotten? Black Shore getting printed, annotated, filled with marginalia and brilliant analysis, and being written an entire formatted essay in the comments about it. I wept! I literally wept and phoned my best friend about it. Literary analysis is a love language and getting that comment forced me to briefly realize that I am for the first time ever existing on the other side of the medium of written word that I have loved my whole entire life. surreal!! incredible!!

What do you tend to get complimented on the most about your writing? unsure! but I like it the most when people Have Strong Feelings @ me, quote lots of bits and pieces, or make any comment on Themes (see above lmao)

Do you have a fic you wish got a bit more love? Oaths haha - if you would like my silly rant on Why You Should Check It Out it's here :)

[fanfic writing asks]

[turningnumber]

things have gotten worse since we last spoke - review

i'm somewhere between favorable and meh on things have gotten worse since we last spoke. read it because the cover art is absolutely killer and i was not disappointed by the horror elements but it was too short and the dialogue left much to be desired in terms of believability (i can see someone posting a forum ad that verbose but nobody emails like that. some great prose but absolutely did not feel like i was witnessing 2 real people.) there was also very little to distinguish between the two characters' voices; i felt like i was reading the same person talking to herself, which i suppose could be serving some thematic end or another, but if so i certainly didn't pick up on it.

agnes' descent into madness, as it were, was impressively well developed despite taking place across such a short time period. plenty of full length novels don't pull that off as successfully as this did. the few peeks we were granted into her backstory helped her feel fleshed out and gave her instability some context. the same cannot be said for zoe, who never reports on anything happening in her life and apparently does what she does solely out of a callous desire for control. that's perfectly fine, but i think the story would be improved substantially if it gave the reader a better understanding of where that need for control comes from.

i've seen some people complaining that this book is "lesbian porn written by a man"--ignoring that dismissive attitude towards the author's nonbinary identity, i also have a hard time viewing this story as smut. i will admit it skirts literotica territory with the red dress and underwear stuff, and tonally i did find that section jarring as the rest of agnes and zoe's 'contract' wasn't particularly sexual, but it played an intermediary role in progressing the toxicity of their relationship from 'mildly troublesome' to 'deeply horrifying.' i don't think its inclusion was intended to be titillating.

also, my general stance on who's "allowed" to make porn about which minority groups is that fetishism requires a degree of sexual objectification that really isn't present here. being a cis man (which i again emphasize is not true of this author) doesn't mean you are incapable of writing about lesbians without fetishizing them. same goes for any other group. i'm inclined to approach that type of content more cautiously, of course, but this story didn't raise any red flags for me? but everyone's entitled to their perspectives, and i am not in fact a queer woman, so that's all i'll say about that.

tl;dr the email/IM format of this book wasn't used to its full potential, resulting in both characters and a setting that felt a bit too unmoored from reality for my liking. but the third act was deeply disturbing and vile in a way that it absolutely earned, no cheap shocks or predictable beats there. i doubt it'll end up on my bookshelf (although that cover art...i am tempted.) but i'd recommend it to anyone who wants to read something quick and gross and weird in the most complimentary sense :)

3.5/5

[rockscanfly]

The short version of what S4 has established is something I’ve suspected for a long time: Kaldur is incapable of taking a break because in his mind he is only as loved as he is needed.

The long version is this:

Kaldur learned from an early age that in order to support other people he had to put his own needs aside. Every relationship besides Wynnde and Delphis that we’ve seen Kaldur expound on in S4 has been one where the dynamic was set like this: Kaldur was there for them, not the other way around.

And that is the dynamic he’s trapped in with almost everyone he’s had a relationship with prior to S3 (notable exceptions are Will, M’gann, and Artemis, but we’ll circle back to them and how angry I am that Grandon doesn’t have Kaldur there for M’gann or have Artemis beating his door down. Maybe post breaking point we’ll see more from that end).

There are two categories of relationships in Kaldur’s life, pre-S3: People who need him to take on responsibilities, and people who need unreciprocated emotional support.

Many of the most important people in Kaldur’s life have needed him to shoulder burdens for them. His parents, Dick, Orin. They needed to perform a service, so they could have the space they needed to become the people they are now. 

If Kaldur had not stepped up their family would have never made it out alive. Dick Grayson would have been in charge too early and the Team very well might have all died. Orin was at risk of losing his throne if he didn’t step down as Aquaman, and he needed someone to fill the roll of Atlantean League member and continue representing Atlantis’s needs in the League and the galaxy. 

The adults in Kaldur’s life have never protected him from these responsibilities. As it stands in S4, Orin and Jeff perpetuate it, Black Canary and Batman fueled it from the start. 

Now let’s switch to emotional labor, which Kaldur performs a metric shit ton of in S1 and was apparently doing for his own mother since he was a young child. 

The entire show kicks off with Kaldur talking down a boy who attacked him and his friends unprompted. Then when M’gann has a hard time integrating, Kaldur is the one who assures her it’s the team as a whole, not her failing. He’s chosen by the rest because he’s never selfish or resentful—he focuses on the mission and the welfare of his team mates. We know he *feels* annoyance and resentment (hey, speed of Mercury, I am not Batman), so on.  But he doesn’t hold grudges or let his feelings effect the decisions he makes about the team. 

In every case (shielding M’gann with his body in the fire cage, putting on the helmet of fate, sacrificing himself for J’ohnn) he prioritizes the team and his responsibility as their leader. He never prioritizes himself. No one ever prioritizes him. Kaldur offers advice, affirmation, and support to every member of the Team in S1. Will is the only one who ever gave Kaldur any in return.

(Let us consider, for a moment, the desiccated corpse of Kaldur’s friendship with Will.

Will is the only one Kaldur indicates he leans on in Season 1 (tell me something you’ve never told anyone else.) Will has also been absent from Kaldur’s life since Season 2 (go bring Kaldur back to the light) and their split has never been addressed beyond Greg confirming via AskGreg that they eventually reconciled.

Will is the only one who had a mutual dynamic with Kaldur in Season 1. Artemis and M’gann gain that status in Season 2 during the mind-break fiasco. M’gann is shown to be Kaldur’s confidant in S3.

Notice that all three of these characters are absent from Kaldur’s life. Will has Lian, Artemis has pulled away to have her own life, M’gann has lost Conner.

Kaldur, as a rule, doesn’t reach out to people for help. He’s cut himself off from them, presumably, because he doesn’t want to burden them now that they don’t need him and have their own things going on)

Even Garth and Tula shift themselves into this category by asking him to set his own feelings aside. They make it clear that they expect Kaldur to remain their friend, never mind his pain or feelings. And he gives them that—Kaldur leaves Atlantis in Downtime on good terms with them both, assuring them that he is fine and is happy for them. It isn’t until Kaldur’s confrontation with Will that we’re given insight on just how shattered Kaldur really was. 

All the S1 Team leaned on Kaldur emotionally. They could be messy (Alpha Male, Connor in general, Kaldur’s immediate forgiveness of M’gann, Artemis in the comics, etc) because he could be controlled. And when they did that, they reinforced the fallacy that undermines almost all of Kaldur’s relationships.

Kaldur’s view of his own relationships can be startlingly transactional and one sided. He provides, he decides. He is the active participant in his relationships. People need him, and he gives them what they need, always, because he is an amazingly loving and compassionate person. 

But once someone gets slotted into the mental category of being his responsibility, Kaldur holds them at arm’s distance, because he is scared that once he is no longer needed he will no longer be loved. 

That’s why he gets pissed at Dick when Dick suggests he take a break before the constant loss and grief breaks him. It’s why his parents asking for him to care for himself produces the saddest face he has ever made. 

“I’m fine. I have to be.” In Kaldur’s mind, if he cannot be of use he cannot be loved. If he breaks, or takes a break, everyone will realize they don’t need him any more. And then they will leave.

That’s why Delphis and Wyynde are different, are the ones Kaldur can actually hear, because that was never their dynamic.

Wyynde has always been clear that he doesn’t need Kaldur to be strong for him (“I went through the same training you did/I can kick your ass/etc”).

What Wyynde needed was that compassion, that unending well of understanding and kindness. It’s implied in S4E14 that Kaldur is the first person who saw past what Wyynde had done to who he was trying to be. And, importantly, Grandon established from the get go that that support is mutual. Wyynde spends the first episode he has a speaking role in support Kaldur. This is the first relationship we have ever seen Kaldur in (with the exception of David, and that is it’s whole own kettle of unaddressed fish) where that’s the case.

Same with Delphis—Kaldur supported and helped her, and in that same episode she made it clear that she sees him for what he is and that she is able to support him in return. 

Unlike all of Kaldur’s relationships S1-S2 (with the exception of Will Harper), neither Wyynde nor Delphis begin as people Kaldur has to take care of. That’s why they’re the ones with him, down in the ruins. (That may be why Grandon is going to do something terrible to one or both of them). And it’s why they’re  the ones who might be able to reach him, and who Kaldur allows close enough that they have the chance to do so. 

[goodsniff-m8]

Nick Mullen’s essay on turning 30

Like most people, I mocked this man and then told myself I was doing it because I'm appreciative of his earnestness or naïveté or whatever. He's simple and innocent and that's something I don't have or lost and I have to deal with the heavy burden of constantly considering myself and my position. So I look at GameMasterAnthony and I do the thing we do with every sweet-mannered online retard, like beebee or that chiclet-toothed Canadian guy that does weather reports. I say look at this adorable retard, ha-ha! Who I, of course, uh, care about, by the way. I can relate to this man, who is not me, through empathy. And maybe some people mean it when they say this. Maybe they really do, but I know I don't, at least not in even remotely altruistic terms. I see this man and whatever normal human impulse drives people to bully is let out, just a little bit, and then put away, and its nature is rewritten as something different and kind. Like taking a pit-bull for a short walk and petting it and kissing it on it's head and telling yourself it wasn't bred to kill other dogs. When really, I'm tethered to GamemasterAnthony by fear. It's not empathy nor derision and it's certainly not a healthy balance between the two. It's a sense of there but for the grace of God, go I. He zips past my head like a hot bullet. I can feel him on the tips of my ears.

How close have you come to being an unfuckable loser, turning 33, alone, posting about a fictional birthday party with your only friends, Mickey Mouse and Sailor Moon? How often do you look up from your own life, thinking about how just-ok it's going, and have the same feeling you get when you realize you almost stepped off the curb in front of a bus? What happened? Could that have been you? Is that you? Did I die and this is the afterlife? Am I GameMasterAnthony, sitting here, eyes closed, turning 33, imagining friendships and contentment built on terms other than my own? He's terrifying; a near death experience, oblivious to himself. I hate him, I want him to go away. I hate myself.

Oddly enough what always struck me more harrowing than GameMasterAnthony's solitude and infantile delusion was his age itself. Thirty three! God, fuck, what an awful age. Too old to die young and too young to die wise, and probably the age more apparent than any that if you were going to do something and haven't yet, you never will. Even the secular narcissist will see Jesus as a benchmark, and he was wrapped up by 33. Thirty three you might as well kill yourself, but then again, if you were gonna, you would have by now. At least feel it. Don't have a fake birthday party for yourself, and certainly don't use so many exclamation points. You should know better, by 33, than to be happy.

And I'm sure I am someone else's GameMasterAnthony. All this exposition is too dumb, too sincere, too embarrassing, too self-serving and navel-gazing and myopic and whatever else you want to throw at it. Infantile and delusional in its own right. But how close were you to being this miserable? Are you afraid that you'll end up like this, or that you already are? Are you me? A quite-literally-custom-medically unfuckable loser, alone, turning 30, incapable of even imagining fictional friendships with cartoons for babies?

Uh oh, it's my birthday and I'm thirty so you know what that means! Bring it in, guys! Everyone I've ever feared comes in for a HUGE party! Every girlfriend, relative, colleague, idol, authority figure, naive victim of my cruelty, you; we all sit down and lose our patience while navigating the USPS customer service automated help system.

Anyways I'm going to the batting cages today. There's hip Brooklyn fathers there, with their hip Brooklyn sons, and they don't seem to be much happier.

[natache]

Ita Rina

First and Forgotten Yugoslav Film Star who provocated Gestapo

Ita Rina was born on 7 July 1907 in the small town of Divača (then Austro-Hungarian Empire, later Yugoslavia, now Slovenia) as Italina Lida Kravanja. She was called Ida Kravanja for short. She was named after a journalist Finzi Haydée, Jewish family friend from Trieste. The first daughter of Jožef a railroad worker and Marija Kravanja, Rina had a younger sister Danica. Shortly after the outbreak of the World War I, the family moved to Ljubljana, where Rina matriculated in 1923. She was not a good student; she repeated the third grade of elementary school. However, her dream was to be an actress.

In October 1926, Slovenski narod (Slovenian People) magazine organized a beauty pageant, and Rina entered the competition. She was crowned Miss Slovenia and was to travel to the final event for Miss Yugoslavia, which was supposed to be held on 20 December 1926 in Zagreb. However, her mother did not want to let her go to Zagreb. After a group visit from the Slovenian delegation, Marija Kravanja relented. Unfortunately, when Rina arrived in Zagreb, the jury was already choosing the most beautiful of three finalists. She was, however, noticed by Adolf Müller, the owner of Balkan Palace cinema in Zagreb. He immediately sent her photographs to German film producer Peter Ostermayer. As her mother did not want to let her go to Berlin, Rina ran away from home.

Her escape was enabled by a family friend, a painter Alojz Malota and his wife Hedvig Šarc. They invited her to come with them on a trip to Austria, and instead she went to Berlin. She has said that she felt very lonely and scared during the train ride and thought about returning home.

“That was my longest and hardest journey. I huddled myself in a corner of a coupe and looked around myself in fear. I only knew few words in German...”

Rina arrived in Berlin in 1927. Shortly after she had her first audition, following which she had classes in acting, diction, dancing.

"They would shine a spotlight on me" she later said "cameras would buzz. There were cables everywhere. Some complete strangers would stare at me, whispering amongst themselves. They told me to scream, to laugh, wave and cry. I think I looked most natural in scenes where I was crying. All I had to do was remember how far away from home I've gone and how I've deceived my mother."

"You don't know how to walk!" a director was yelling. I've dedicated all my strength on walking as gracefully as possible, and I thought to myself "how's it possible that I, who have climbed Triglav thrice, all of sudden am incapable of walking." I must admit, first few steps on film were harder than any danger definitely mountaineering.

After several small film roles in 1927 and 1928, the critics finally noticed her in the 1928 film The Last Supper. The same year, Rina met at a Yugoslav embassy party, her future husband Miodrag Đorđević, a shy engineering student from Belgrade, son of a general director of the Royal Post Office.

He asked her out to dinner in a little more upscale restaurant. What he would find out later is that his students account was not enough to pay for the meal. He went to the phone in an attempted to call a friend who could lend him money. Ita figured out what was going on, and since she was already rich, secretly passed him a few bank notes, to spare him the embarrassment. She always liked him, and they understood each other well.

 

Around that time newspapers in Yugoslavia started to sensationalize her love life, as a counter she published an open letter.

Cenjeni g. urednik!

Vsikdar sem bila ljubeznjiva napram g. dopisniku Vašega lista. Želela sem na ta način izražati simpatije, ki sem jih gojila do “Vremena”. Toda nežentlementski dopis Vašega dopisnika od 15. t. m. je zlorabil to mojo ljubeznivost in me prisilil, da Vas naprošam zaradi istine za uvrstitev naslednjih vrstic: Prišla sem domov na oddih, da se pripravim za bodoče delo, ne pa da se zaljubljam kakor goska. Zaradi tega ne potrebujem nikakih senzacij, zlasti pa ne senzacij, ki gredo preko meja dopustnega. Čudim se prostosti, ki si jo jemlje g. Ambrož, da izmišlja kar imena mojih idealov. Prava senzacija bi bila šele, ko bi g. Ambrož nekoliko srečneje uganil moje ideale. Kar pa piše g. Ambrož, je bilo doslej meni in vsem mojim znancem docela neznano. Odpotovala bom tedaj, ko me pokliče novo delo. Senzacijonalni odhod avtomobilov itd. je prosta glupost. 

Da končam. Žal mi je, da se je edini g. O. Ambrož smatral za najpametnejšega od vseh tukajšnjih novinarjev in da je segel po tako nehvaležnem poslu. Naši javnosti je treba servirati resnico o mojem delu in moji osebi, ne pa glupih izmišljotin. Prejmite g. urednik izraze itd.

Ita Rina.

Her breakthrough into European stardom came after taking a role in a controversial film Erotikon by a Czechoslovakian director Gustav Mahaty. As soon as she read the script about a seduced and then abandoned daughter of a guard of a railroad station, she understood it as her big chance, and she was right.

Erotikon premiered in Prague. Czechoslovakian censors cut out the scene of her giving birth to a child, but the movie garnered great success with film critics and audiences across Europe. At the premiere in Paris in Moulin Rouge and the film goers carried her out of the theatre on their hands.

The films success angered the puritans. Especially the french catholic theologian, abbot Betteleme who wrote: "... First, they lie next to each other, and then one to another ... It is true that the cover hides their figures, but it certainly does not hide their movements... The protagonists are shown in particularly long shots, especially Ita... A viewer can recognize her excitement, then her expression of anxiety mixed with longing, then the pain and at the end... I blush while describing the scenes". He went though streets of Paris tearing down the posters that were plastered all over. That only raised the popularity of the film.

In 1930, Rina acted in three films, most notable being the first talking Czechoslovakian film Tonka of the Gallows, which is often named her best role. Meanwhile, she married Miodrag Đorđević in 1931. Although she had announced her retirement from her film career, but she actually continued her acting until the outbreak of World War II. Her last prewar film was crime drama Zentrale Rio.

The situation in Germany was getting tense, especially for anybody who was considered undesirable which included actors who were foreign. She left Germany on the insistence of the then ambassador of Yugoslavia Ivo Andrić. In 1939, very close to the start of WW2 every time she went to work or went home, there was a man who sat in the car. In the beginning he was very quiet and she thought he was an assistant of the producer and that he might represent some new custume, a way of saying thanks to the actors. And then he spoke. At first there were talks of the superiority of the German race, but later his changes because more apparent. "I argued with him in that car" she told to the operator in the studio and retold him the whole conversation. "How could you have dared, that man is from Gestapo." said the operator. The story was retold to Ivo Andrić, and he ordered her and her husband to urgently leave Germany. The taping of the film was mostly done. That night they packed all of their belongs. In the morning she taped a few leftover scenes and absconded for Belgrade that same day.

"Only on the road I understood what's going on. Tanks everywhere, soldiers."

They went to live in Belgrade. She didn't act as the war was starting to rage and had her first child Milan in 1940 and thee years later a daughter Tijana. Her in-laws disagreed with the marriage to a controversial actress at first. And they had a permanent table for themselves and their friends at the local tavern.

After the bombing of Belgrade they moved to Vrnjačka Banja. Life during wartime was hard and she laboured and sold all of her possessions to keep family fed. She even rescued her husband from jail where he landed after he, in a tavern proclaimed that Hitler will have the same fate Napoleon did in Russia.

They moved back to Belgrade after the end of World War II in 1945. Although she was promised several roles in Yugoslav films, all projects were cancelled and she was treated unfavorably. After receipt of a letter she had written to President Tito, Rina began working as a co–production advisor in Avala Film. But she soon left Avala Film and moved to Lovćen Film.

She returned to the silver screen once, in the 1960 film War, about nuclear war fallout, directed by Veljko Bulajić. This was her last role. She got her role not though a studio, but through her husband asking nicely.

“Before the shooting of the film War began, I was approached by a very likable gentleman, that was the husband of Mrs. Ita Rine Miodrag, and in a very discreet, shy way, asked if we can talk and during that conversation, suggested to cast Ita. Honestly speaking, I have already completely forgotten about her. There was war, and they she didn't work for a very long time. She wasn't listed anywhere in cinematography as an active actress. I remembered her from her films. I suggested we meet. So we met, I don't know where in Zagreb or Belgrade, I cannot remember, but she impressed me. She made a strong impression, of a smart woman, an actress who didn't want to be in a film for no other reason, but to be filmed. She wanted to know about her role. I really liked that, so we made a deal.” 

As she suffered from asthma, Rina and her husband moved to Budva (then Yugoslavia, now Montenegro) in 1967. There, she took care of her husband, who was ill with sclerosis. Rina died on 10 May 1979 from an asthmatic attack during the great earthquake that leveled the capital of Montenegro. She was buried a few days later in Belgrade, in the presence of numerous film artists, admirers, friends and family. Her husband died next year.

Best source is in Slovene here:

[genderqueerspacewives]

”oh, it will only be about twelve hundred words, nothing much” i told myself when i got inspired to write a fic. lo and behold, twelve hundred words later and i still have not gotten to the fucking plot