#i cant even look at the text book bc just looking at it makes me feel bad and guess how the exam goes...

[reneeub]

The Greek gods really went off with punishing Sisyphus huh

Like we all get that pushing that boulder uphill over and over is a hard job and also gets boring pretty quickly but it's cruel in a more complicated way than that

It's the growing frustration with failing the one simple task you've been doing for so long.

It's getting angry at yourself, why can't you learn anything from from what you just did.

It's always second guessing yourself if the problem is you, are you the reason you fail every time?

It's the loneliness when you have no one to ask even for smallest hints to make your work easier

It's seeing the boulder down the hill again and wondering if there is any end to this or is it just like that forever?

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

@intertexts OKAY. FINALLY GETTING MY SHIT TOGETHER AND WRITING THIS ALL DOWN SO ITS NOT JUST ROTATING IN MY BRAIN ANYMORE

NEW HAVEN WARDS MARK WINTERS ESSAY (except its more like. stream of consciousness me being insane over him)

>> its been too long, simurgh is too close. she fucking ROCKS half the city with an earthquake before she shows up. ashe runs inside as the roof collapses. his mom is trapped- she had grabbed her phone and some other small essentials and was on her way out when she got pinned by the rubble. ive typed this part out already in another post but as shes yelling at ashe trying to get him to leave, she realizes he wont go by himself so she texts mark . its kind of a shot in the dark- part of her hopes he hasnt evacuated yet so he can come get ashe and get him to safety, but she immediately feels this sense of dread for thinking like that because then that also means he's in as much danger as they are. and she can hear the singing now- some tiny part of her brain logically knows its too late and theyll be trapped by the quarantine protocols anyway, but. they can still get out of that alive. they just need to get there. anyway the important thing here is that the last thing ever hears from his wife is a text that says "ashe athome cant lea e come get hjm"

adding jonesys stupid fucking image in here bc it's so funny to me and is fr how I felt typing this whole thing up for like 4 hours

>> okay going to try my hardest to keep this chronological but i KNOW i will get distracted from that halfway through. starting from the simurgh attack. assuming simurgh attacks look pretty similar to each other, ive been imagining this a lot like the one we actually got to see with the travelers. the notice to evacuate went out in the early afternoon. (im going to say on a wednesday because thats the day i used in my fic and this is OUR AU i get to make the emotionally devastating rules. not that that matters to anyone but me. its a little treat.) so. mark was at work, ashe was at school, i like 2 think ashes mom works in somehting to do with old things or books or whatever so she was probably at work too. her IMMEDIATE thought is to go get ashe from school, because of course it is! (worldbuilding side note i think there are probably evac protocols in place for schools where. first priority is to keep the kids Togehter and get them out first so theyre SUPPOSED to evacuate straight from there and then meet up with their parents when everything is safe. but in a real emergency what parent is going to trust that and just leave their kids safety up to someone else?) she gets to the school and it is absolute chaos with all of the other parents trying to do the same thing. she gets ashe, goes to call mark to tell him where they are and- oh, yeah. she forgot her phone at home this morning. i just. like. the mundanity in that. its a normal morning, she maybe woke up late and had to rush out the door, got to work realized she didnt have her phone, had the thought like "damn thats frustrating. oh well, not like ill need it, ill just get it when im home later" we've all had days like that!!!!!!!!! but it becomes fucking heartbreaking in this situation because it means she now has No Way of contacting her husband to let him know that she has ashe and to tell him not to go to the school (because hes probably thinking the same thing) and to get out and where to meet them when theyre out. she KNOWS its a bad idea, she knows it would be catastrophic if they took too long... but all the other cars are going in the opposite direction, the road back is completely empty, surely they can be fast enough? she knows exactly where she left it, itll take two seconds and hey maybe the roads will be empty enough at that point they can get out even faster. so they fucking RUSH back home. she tells ashe to stay in the car wiht the doors locked while she runs inside.. he is scared and confused and doesnt want to be alone so after. maybe 30 seconds of her being gone he gets out of the car and goes inside.

>> switching to mark pov finally. evac notice goes out, he fucking books it to his car. but because its important to me that hes a little bit of a coward. this is where he hesitates. he knows he should find his family. meet up with them, make sure theyre all okay and they all make it out together. he's also logical. he knows this is a bad idea and his wife's job is closer to the school, shes probably already got ashe and theyre on their way out too. he can just leave. but he hasnt heard anything from her. thats not like her, she would call or something if they were okay, wouldnt she? so he kind of. panics over what he should do. he starts driving, telling himself he'll make up his mind on the road. hes about halfway to the end of the quarantine zone when he gets the text. has a moment of "fuck why are they there?" before immediately deciding to go get them. finds the aftermath of ashe's trigger. ashe is in breaker state, unresponsive except for... why is he laughing. hes sitting on the floor, knees up to his chest hands over his head jsut kind of. staring into the middle distance eyes unfocused quietly loopy laughing like hes totally unaware of the. scene.

>> mark is like. frozen there for a minute obviously horrified and he thinks ashe is having some kind of mental break at the shock and horror (he doesnt. understand that ashe killed her yet) until he goes and tries to get him to stand up and . oh the floor is unstable and bouncy like a trampoline and as soon as he touches ashe's shoulder hes knocked back by a pain in his hand that suspiciously feels like a joybuzzer turned up to 11. okay! fuck! his kid is a fucking parahuman and his wife is dead and the singing in his head just keeps getting louder and he knows what that means and he knows they have to get the hell out of there but hows he gonna do that when he cant get within 5 feet of ashe-

>> i think he just has to like. sit there and talk to ashe. which is a uniquely horrible punishment because it kills so much time in a situation where they need to get out, now, and the whole time theyre in the same room with whats left of a bloody corpse (but he cant think about that right now) and he has to be calm and keep his voice low because every sudden movement makes ashe's powers flare up again in response to a perceived threat- its MESSY, its SLOW its TERRIBLE but he needs ashe to calm down enough that he can actually talk to him and get him out. he eventually does (it feels like hours later, it was probably only like.. 10 minutes) and the weird distortions stop and mark just. runs forward and picks him up and takes him out to the car before ashe can. see what else is in the room.

>> he doesnt even bother putting ashe in another seat in the car he just holds him in his lap as he drives (oh god there are wings in the sky) just. as fast as he fucking can to whatever checkpoint or hospital or safe zone there is for any survivors. theres. not many. enough that the two of them can get lost in the crowd if they try hard enough but . not enough to fill an auditorium. he's maybe got a bunch of really small scrapes or bruises from the process of trying to get ashe to calm down but he doesnt know whether ashe is actually hurt or not so he goes to find some sort of medical attention and the whole time hes thinking "maybe this is a bad idea. i shouldnt tell them ashe has powers what if they take him away" and he gets the same sort of rundown about quarantine and payment that krouse got and mark is just standing there fucking shaking, hes still carrying ashe, he hasnt put him down since they left the house (ashe is still out of it- not because of his powers but because of. everything) and i think thats the breaking point where mark makes up his mind like. fuck this. we cant stay here, we cant go through all of the bullshit protocols, we cant wait that long (he can still hear simurgh in his head- what if shes pushing him to make this choice? is that exactly what she wants? who cares im getting my son somewhere safe)

>> i think mark is really good at. compartmentalizing and pushing down any emotion thats not anger and turning to logic in panic situations rather than emotion. so he hasnt like. fully processed any of this yet. he was more focused on "solve the problem, get out, get safe" to actually think about the fact that. oh my wife is dead. ashe doesnt have a mom anymore. ashe has powers now. how is he gonna deal with a powered kid? he never really cared about capes what does he even do now? i dont think any of this hits him until theyre out of the quarantine zone hiding out somewhere safe (as safe as they can be after. all of that) and his head is quiet and ashe is asleep and he looks down at his phone and sees the text and it all comes crashing down like. oh my god that was real. shes gone. he doesnt even have anything of hers and he never will because their house is basically gone and they can never go back and- FUCK HIM UP!!!!!!!!!!! FUCK HIM UP i want him to have a fucking breakdown . villain origin story moment he realizes nothing is ever going to be okay or normal ever again because theyve been marked by simurgh and hes already broken a huge fucking law how much worse can it get? what else does he have to lose. everything in his life revolves around keeping them safe and keeping ashe out of danger. simurgh be damned if hes going to become an agent of chaos it might as well be on his own terms to protect whats left of his family.

>> i think they move around a lot after that, never staying in one place for too long, never doing anything that make people look at them too closely. mark does a bunch of odd jobs, but its hard to get a job when youre legally dead and have no experience with making a fake identity so. theres a lot of stealing. never anything that would garner cape attention, at least at first, and if people started to get too suspicious theyd just pack up and move again.

>> and then mark does something that DOES draw cape attention. idk what it would be, but it captures the attention of. a guy who knows a guy who works for overlord. hey man you seem like you could use a job. off the books. so he joins up as like a... foot soldier mercenary whatever for overlord. this job is risky- hes essentially a full time criminal now (but what does that matter, he already broke the law), he has to spend extended periods of time away from home, he has to kill people sometimes now... but the money is worth it. he's okay with being a number, a blank face in the crowd, because it means he wont get the immediate fallout if something goes wrong. that gets put on whoever his boss is. ashe is maybe 13/14 by this point, he can take care of himself at home. mark gives himself a limit, hes never going to be away from home for more than 3 days (which he eventually extends into 5 days, which then turns into a week-). he is. really fucking good at his job. hes smart, he can be ruthless when he needs to be, he's efficient. no identity means no friends which means no slacking off on the job. this is all he has, he needs this, so hes good at it.

>> he starts to move up the ranks, take bigger (but never riskier) jobs, and it catches overlord's attention. overlord offers him a promotion. offer being in air quotes here. he lays everything out plain and simple- youre good, youre going to join my personal elite team, i know who you are and why youre running. i can offer you an out, get you and your son (oh god oh fuck overlord knows about his kid) a new life, a new identity, nobody will have any reason to suspect you. and also in order to join you have to take this (cauldron vial!!! + canon parallel to the like. forced experimentation on harttawa)

>> mark doesnt want pwoers. he doesnt want to be a cape. but overlord knows about ashe, knows about their history, and if he turns down this offer theyre both fucked. so logic takes over emotion again and he accepts it, leans into the position, stays as fucking ruthless as ever. but its Different now. hes a cape, he has a secret identity, a name, people are Looking at him now, even if all they see is a costume.

>> silly sidebar for ME here but this period of time is where he meets tide :] forever thinking about ur nhw tidalwave post. fight to maim, not kill.

>> a couple years pass like this and its Fine. ashe is 17 now, mark knows hes fucked up (theyre both fucked up) but hes too deep into this job now to give it up. its kept them safe and in place for this long, he can fool himself into believing they can stay like this . ashe does not have the same train of thought. hes lonely, hes miserable, hes bored, he just wants to have a life! they fight a lot about this. they fight a lot about this and sometimes mark leaves in the middle of it because he gets called on a job so nothing ever gets resolved. they have a particularly rough fight and mark gets pulled away in the middle of it to answer a phonecall, and when he comes back ashe is still pissed but hes just so tired and defeated that hes like "listen. we'll deal with this later, i have to go for a few days, there are groceries in the fridge, do whatever you want, just stay here, be safe, dont be stupid" and then he leaves! and ashe is still pissed and his dad is a hypocrite (why does he get to go out and use his powers and put himself in dangerous situations when ashe gets in trouble for floating the tv remote to the kitchen table while hes eating breakfast, and never gets to leave the house or go to school or have friends or-) . and this is where he makes the decision to sneak out the first time!!

>> he starts sneaking out more often, usually only when he knows mark is gonna be gone for extended periods of time, he gets good at disabling the tinker devices, he has friends!! everything is good!!!! mark finds out when he gets home from a job early and ashe is gone. and he fucking freaks out, hes ready to tear up city streets, hes ready to go on a fucking rampage... but then he hears the window open as he climbs back into his room . its a big like. "oh shit" moment on ashes part, he doesnt think hes ever seen his dad this angry before, he threatens to put bars on the goddamn windows, etc (mark has a reason to be as angry as he does- if anything ever happens to ashe everything hes ever done will have been for nothing. but its still. harsh.)

>> i think once everything cools down from this they do have an actual talk about it that isnt a fight; ashe tells him he has friends now and he just wants to be normal, be a kid, he cant spend anymore time in his room its killing him knowing hes wasting his life like this etc. i think mark maybe reluctantly agrees to letting him go out with his friends (he doesnt know who they are yet, ive GOTTA believe he knows tide hes had to have fought or at least seen the wards before, theres no way he would say yes to this if he knew thats who ashe was talking about) but gives him strict like. dont use your powers ever, curfews and check in texts and a code system and its a little Too Much but ashe is just. giddy at all of it because !! curfews are a thing Normal kids get!! he gets to go hang out with his friends without the looming threat of sneaking out to do it !!!

>> ashe starts using his powers anyway because his friends are capes and !!! he is also technically a cape!! he can help!!!! i think he starts out by beggingggg to go on patrol with them sometimes (i wont even do anything, i just want to see what its like, you guys know i have powers too i can handle myself, dont be like my dad etc etc) i think the wards are pretty reluctant to do that bc they know what its really like but. man. its ashe. he deserves Something. it becomes more frequent and serious and the prt handler tells them they should recruit him.

>> mark is sooooooo fucking against ashe joining the wards. because of course he is he has to be. ESPECIALLY considering. hey. hes a villain, working for one of the most notorious villains in the city, being put in a situation where he has to choose between fighting his son or losing overlords protection is a HUGE NIGHTMARE SCENARIO. (he would choose to say fuck overlord with no hesitation, no way he would even consider the other option, but he also knows what kind of consequences a choice like that would have)

>> hey. actually. that gives me an idea. what if thats exactly the scenario that leads up to the whole trickster thing. overlord wants to be proactive, launch an attack on the wards, they just got a dangerous new member lets go see what kind of powers theyve got. mark obviosuly refuses. overlord does not take being told no very kindly. hey what if this is how mark gets the lizard stuff. instead of getting it as a side effect mutation of his powers, he pisses off overlord, the guy who has a morbid fascination with animal human hybrids and genetic experimentation. ive solved everything!!!!!! (<< guy who is fucking insane. please imagine me with mad science hair and crazy eyes as i am saying this. dr. cross who?)

>> mark effectively goes missing while overlord has him captive, ashe is freaked out because his dad has never left without telling him first, but maybe it was an emergency or whatever... until his hard limit on jobs passes. its been over a week and no contact whatsoever. hes gone. ashe gets fucked up about this

>> mark is unconscious for the entire trickster thing. he was unmasked for the experimentation so when the heroes come to clean up the aftermath they dont recognize him as one of the villains (tide does. tide doesnt tell anyone) and take him to. a hospital rather than prison. he is fuuuucked up when he wakes up. gotta adjust to a WHOLE lot of freaky lizard things. hes kind of out of it, understandably, so nobody... tells him. its only a few days later, when mark is more lucid and can stand on his own two feet without losing balance, and when he can see properly again, tide visits him (tide has been visiting him the whole time, not that he'd remember it much, because who else will. who else will!) tide tells him ashe is missing. he breaks the news as gently as he possibly can because its gonna be a shitshow either way (he knows how mark is gonna react no matter what. waiting doesnt help either because then hes just pissed that he was lied to for days ("you coudlnt even stand, how was i supposed to tell you then?" "i dont know, i wouldve done something. he could be anywhere by now")

>> mark goes sooooo rogue. he goes so very rogue. hes literally got nothing to lose anymore. the wards try to work with him, try to help him, because theyre looking for ashe too, but he thinks theyre too slow, too good, too afraid to do things that actually need to be done. he goes too far and gets put in the birdcage.

>> i think he probably loses it a little bit in the birdcage. hardcore despair depression that turns into just this awful terrible rage. hes mad at himself for not being able to stop it, hes mad at ashe because this is what he WARNED him about for YEARS and if he only would have listened, hes mad at the world, hes mad at SIMURGH . all nhw mark winters knows is be so full of grief and rage at all times

>> breaks out of the birdcage (still insane abt this btw) and goes back on his. sort of rampage. the wards stop him (tide is. retired at this point. that happened while mark was in jail) and they try to talk some sense into him, maybe they get him to slow down just a little bit, enough to tell him what theyve learned (not much). mark and everyone else eventually learn about muse. mark winters worlds most miserable man is watching every single one of his nightmares play out in front of him and he realizes this is what simurgh marked them for. hes watching his son, unmasked, level a fucking town in some gaudy outfit he knows ashe would never wear and hes calling himself muse and thats not what his laugh sounds like and

>> okay im a little more fuzzy past this point. i said this mostly joking before but i DO think there should be a moment where. mark is up against muse and hes trying to talk to ashe like he did that first night to get him out of breaker state and ashe gets one lucid moment where he just starts crying and babbling about losing marks jacket and hes so sorry but that only lasts about 2 minutes before trickster gets control of him again. this is the catalyst for them realizing that yeah, ashe IS still in there and it might be possible to break him out .

>> god. all of that was plot and i didnt even talk about Little Things which are my favorite. heres a collection of Little Things:

>> i want him to keep his weird terrible lizard biology <3 maybe its not as smooth a transition as in canon, maybe hes just got the scales and the eye and not. the tail or infrared sense or whatever. but he Could. as a Treat for Me.

>> i actually... ironically think mark is a better dad in this au than he is in canon. like. dont get me wrong hes still awful and he sucks but. hes working with the knowledge here that no matter what he does he and ashe are still doomed and hes always waiting for the other shoe to drop and hes more scared and theres nothing he can do about it so. he makes more of an effort to Actually Care about his son. before overlord he never wouldve missed a birthday for anyhting. theyre all each other has.

>> that little bit of dialogue i typed up for mark earlier. stay here, be safe, dont be stupid. be safe, dont be stupid. he says that a lot, always in that order. enough that when ashe is with the wards sometimes he'll also say it. dakota "im going to pick up the pizza" ashe from the couch "be safe dont be stupid" (IMMEDIATE recoil as he thinks about it for more than a second because he has an oh god i sound like my dad moment. but everyone else finds it endearing)

>> THE COAT!!!!!!!! THECOAT. i think about the coat a lot. its just. a random one that ashe grabbed from the closet the first time he snuck out. but it was a good size, exactly as baggy as he likes, hey! he found old money in the pocket! so he just like. claims it as his own and neither of them ever say anything about it but its suuuuch. comfort clothing for ashe and he doesnt like thinking about why. it just is. he wears it EVERYWHERE all the time, its the one piece of clothing the rest of the wards never steal beacuse they know its important to him.

>> there is exactly one (1) surviving picture of ashes mom outside of their old house and its a crumpled polaroid mark had in his wallet from when ashe was a baby.

>> he will never admit this to himself or anyone else but. as much as mark is scared for ashe and scared for both of their safety and what it means for them to be simurgh victims... he is also scared OF ashe, even just subconsciously . he has nightmares about finding ashe that day, laughing. about what mightve happened if he wasnt able to break ashe out of that state. about what mightve happened if he had never gotten that text and continued on with the evac protocols. i need that blonde man to be fucking miserable

>> literally always thinking about your tidalwave post. never not thinking about your tidalwave post. i dont even have much to add here other than i really like nhw tidalwave a lot. the aftermath of the leviathan fight makes me crazy even if thats mostly one-sided on tides part.

>> his tinker specialty is power enhancement. he makes devices that make his and other peoples powers stronger or extend their range. the drawback is that the devices need to be Connected to the person using them in some way (thinking about the ports he has on his back in canon. his gauntlets clamp down on his forearms. overlord had him make each of the capes under his power something that enhances them too so theyve all got little. gadgets embedded in them somehow) (begs the question can he also make things that dampen powers? is this falling too far into Trump category?)

>> he got ashe his headphones as a birthday present when he was like... 15 . their fights had been getting more frequent as he had to be away from home more and ashe was fully in his angsty teen "i hate my dad" phase, but mark had been working w overlord for like a year at that point and money wasnt as much of an issue anymore so he got ashe like. the most high quality noise cancelling headphones he could possibly find.

okay i think thats all. its nearly 1am lmao!!!!!

[marieisnothere12]

kinda a hot take but i dont hate tsoa i dislike it more but i have a big ass beef with some fans (unfortunately which is what i see/interact with the most).

wow i yapped quite a lot

On the book itself, it accomplishes what its job was, write a heart-wrenching story and tell part of the story of the trojan war and not have ppl confused (or so ive heard). Miller tells us what led up to the trojan war simply and gives us enough info bc tsoa isnt abt the war—its obviously abt achilles and patroclus. I think thats why it shouldn’t be cast into the depths or tartarus, tsoa has its strengths. however, i definitely dont like how the women are written. Thetis and Deidemia are villainized but then again this is from patroclus’ pov and an adaptation so I wont bash Miller too much but still—dont like it. Briseis was ???? idk how i feel abt her. I just think her liking patroclus was iffy?? it gave main character privilege too much for me? does this even make sense?? phyrrus, well hes supposed to mirror achilles but yeah Miller didnt have too much leeway so i can forgive her on that but..my boy phyrrus…your nuance…

yeah ill give tsoa 3/5 i think its strength is that its accessible but nothing too special to elevate it up further. one big bonus it got ppl (me) it get back into greek mythology after forgetting abt it for a while so yeah and smth abt help queer teens feel better abt their sexuality which is great.

okay so the fans, acting like youre an expert on thr iliad after reading an adaptation is just. pls dont. adaptations have change. look if you watched epic the musical but havent read the odyssey i wont trust you bc jorge has made changes and so has miller. thr most notorious for me is that achilles and patroclus arent 1st cousins once removed (one of thr things that was in Troy 2004 funnily enough). i wont explain plot differences bc ✨ you probably read ot alr✨and its sanatized if that wasnt abundantly clear. theres naturally added scenes, some for the better and some for the worse (*cough* any scene with deidemia)

i am not too upset abt medic patroclus its an interesting change. i personally like a mix of warrior and medic patroclus but eh

i really wishes deidrmia wasnt a total bitch like jealous yet supportive patroclus?? i wanma see this internal conflict?? assuming patroclus has feelings for achilles atp. also i wouldve loved to see their friendship too like their not only lovers but best friends. and antilochus but alas a girl can only dream. this was a delusional hope paragraph

im like 90% sure twink patroxlus is bc of tsoa so :( man

in conclusion, i cant tell how i feel abt this book and its impact. its ???? theres lost nuance but its a single book and them again most patrochilles stuff is thr iliad and unfinished or fragmented texts so..

[aziraphales-library]

Hello, I have lost a fic! Hopefully you can help me! Fortunately I remember it really well (bc i love it so much).

So, its human au, crowley is a gardener and aziraphale restores books. Aziraphale has just moved to the countryside from london to get away from the city and his back garden is in a really terrible state so anathema recommends crowley to him, with the warning that hes incredibly rude but makes up for it cos hes so good at his job. So aziraphale hires him and he is rude at first but then they start having lunch together and texting and hes not so rude to him anymore. Also pepper and adam work for him (and are sort of scared of him) and show up sometimes when crowley cant be there and one time when this happens, crowley writes down instructions which include "be nice to him, he's my friend" and "he'll try to feed you, do not eat all his food" which aziraphale sees and it is so so so cute. Its also rated E and they almost get together but crowley thinks aziraphale just want like a "fling with the gardener" and he wants more than that so he stops it and theres like some angst for awhile until they figure out they both want a relationship.

I really appreciate your help!!!

Hi. You’re looking for...

Petrichor & Parchment by MrsNoggin (E)

“Mr. Crowley, I presume?” Aziraphale asked in lieu of an introduction, which was not forthcoming. The guy hadn’t even removed his sunglasses. Oh God, he had a tattoo on his face. Aziraphale wasn’t one to judge, but… what kind of gardener had a snake tattoo on his face?

- Mod D

[jovenshires]

You’ve probably been asked this before but what’s like your fanfic writing process?? Like how do you end up writing your fanfictions?

i actually haven't but i'd be happy to talk about it!! i'm actually writing fic right now, so here's what i've done in the past like. hour. im gonna put it under the cut bc its EXTREMELY long but if you ever wanted 'katie's guide to fic writing,' here it is!

i'm pretty easily distracted, so i've gotta make sure i'm in like. The Right Conditions. that means phone face down or away if i can (rn i've got to be on call in case my boss needs smth but you get the gist) bc i WILL just open tiktok or play a mobile game. even just now writing this answer i have picked up my phone and opened pinterest. i cannot be stopped so i try to stay off it and put it down when i catch myself!!

more and more often i cant even listen to music while i write - partly bc i tend to read my work aloud to myself to make sure it sounds right and partly bc my brain will be like "you know this song omg the words are in your brain" or "you should go look at what song this is bc you kinda like it". cannot trust myself even with sound. if i AM listening to music while i write, it's either the specific playlist for that fic, playlists with the right vibes (ex: rivals-to-lovers for iwks), OR anime openings bc. less likely to get distracted when it's not in english tbh.

(huge on all of the senses so i also usually have a candle lit. im super sensitive to smells so if there's an unpleasant smell somewhere around me i will be unable to focus <3)

all that being said about distractions, i think it's important to take breaks - dont just FORCE yourself to write. that's why i'm huge on setting goals for myself - deadlines, word count goals, timed breaks. like "okay im gonna sprint write for 10 minutes and then after that ill watch some of this danny gonzalez video" or "i'll write until 3:30 and then i should go take a break and read a book." im not always faithful to my goals but i try my best!!

as for the actual writing itself, i typically just go for it. i can usually see an image in my mind and i try my best to write that out/describe it as best i can. and then if it sounds wrong i just reword it again and again until i've got it. this is kind of where my reading aloud bit comes in - if it sounds right when you say it out loud, that generally means it sounds right in the text.

sometimes i'll just have a certain scene or just scraps of dialogue and i'll write that out and be like "okay how did they get here." i never embraced writing out of order until recently, but now that i have. no going back tbh i highly recommend it. rwylm and iwks especially had scenes WAY later down the line that i wrote first. just write what comes naturally and go from there.

occasionally i do outlines, but not super often, and when i do they're vague as hell. i think a lot of my iwks outline was just "game" and then "another game but tommy is there this time." i think outlines that go too in-depth kind of take away from the freedom of writing so. if it's for you then slay but its usually not for me

i try not to worry too hard about. the style/grammar/little things as i go. of course im guilty of this and i'll stop and edit my own works along the way sometimes but i've found it's best if you keep writing and then go back later!!

sometimes when i'm writing a new smosh cast member i'll go back and watch videos/compilations of them just to reorient my brain. i've done this a lot with chanse recently!! but i also think. it really isn't that deep too NSDKFNKNK like these are fictionalized versions of fictionalized selves and so on and so forth so don't worry about 'voice' too much im trying to kick that habit myself

EDIT: oh i've talked about this before but. as for ideas/where my fic ideas come from?? i truly try to grab from my every day life. oh i went to the grocery store today? what if smosh member a and smosh member b went to the grocery store. i watched a horror movie and you know who else could do that. otherwise i pull from music/movies/tv shows/other media and be like 'this but for smosh.' i really just be pulling from my life and repackaging it thats all. start small (haircut fic) and work your way up (homoerotic soccer epic)!

and i think that's it?? i'd like to think im pretty chill about the whole thing. (read: i am not chill in any way at all but im trying my best.) anyway, it's something i'm always happy to talk about - thank you for asking!!

[breakfastassociation]

I dont think death is a cheater

*big ol text for something very teeny*

one of puss' lives introduces the idea that death is cheating because he's coming after puss even though hes totally alive. which sure sounds like cheating to me!

but as many have noted(1), we do not see death hanging around all the time

he wasnt at mama lunas

he wasnt on the road part of the roadtrip to the star

he wasnt with puss in the safety of the woods and perrito

etc

we only see death when puss is risking his life

over consuming milk(2)

slaying the giant (this one is an easter egg)

getting shot at after stealing the map from horner

facing the bakers dozen

getting stuck in the cave of lost souls a la narcissus (this is my own pet theory, see prev post)

so it looks like death cant nab him at any old time, there is a set of boundaries that death has to operate in, ie puss has to be in real danger of losing his life to see death

which brings us to the Puss V Death sword fights that bookend this movie.

The First: death comes really close to getting puss (blood is drawn) and eventually disarms him. it would have been really easy to get this cat when hes down but he kicks the rapier over and tells him to pick it up (and continue the fight)

The Second: death appears right after puss finally has his hands on the map and is ready to make his 9 life wish. horner was stuck in his bag(3) as far as we knew and goldi + co were reconciled; there seemed to be no immediate threat to puss' life. but death rolls up nonetheless. is this the last chance, last ditch effort of death to finally get him?!

Puss got encircled in the arena of flames but like, the first thing death does after introductions is kick that rapier back over to puss and challenge him to the duel

So. in regards to cheating. i don't think death was cheating by coming after puss in person. i think if he was really cheating, he would have axed puss the first chance he got. that would line up with this whole 'vengeance' idea.

i think the writers upheld death's mythos of being an unstoppable, altho rule-bound force, of nature. taking puss' life without cause, executioner style, would have been cheating(4)

i think death kept egging puss to pick up his sword so that

puss had the opportunity to live or die in fair, armed combat

death had the opportunity to take puss' life without stepping outside the bounds of 'only taking lives in danger of being lost'

But puss earning his life back by kicking the scythe back over to death instead of running.. and acknowledging that hes fighting a losing battle but staying anyways..

idk if any of this was intentional but if it, was i think its a great job on part of the writers of showing how such a complex system of balances could be depicted without outright showing the rule book to the audience. and to give death (the plot device, not the character) such an elaborate code to adhere to...ugh ive said it before and ill say it again the writers are so good at recycling

1 - another interesting thing is that death is waiting until puss' ninth life to come for him. hes had this grudge against cats for a while and never got to short them(1.1) if hes a cheater, youd think hed take more than just one the one life of one very ungrateful cat

altho, they might value their lives more and be less deserving of getting cheated

1.1 - for the sake of this post im ignoring this bc its pure speculation + off topic #justgirlytings

2 - unconfirmed but a fun idea

3 - was this the writers telling us that the real villain will always be a white man whos getting the bag ($) ?

4 - while it may not be standard protocol for death to show up and start fights, i think we can excuse this due to the extenuating circumstances (puss legit wasted 8 lives already, fucking cats am i right fellas?)

[saintarmand]

8, 17, 21 & 22 for the iwtv ask thingy! 🤍

8. Who's your favorite actor?

jacob anderson. come on now. they're all great but he is ethereal. second place assad zaman

17. Have you read or watched anything because it was referenced in the show?

oh just a few things

love's coming of age by edward carpenter

chéri by colette

nausea by jean-paul sartre (louis was reading this in ep6 when lestat and claudia are playing chess while talking about nicki. you can't see the full cover but i went detective mode and figured it out)

madame bovary by gustave flaubert

a moveable feast by ernest hemingway (s2 first look "esurient hearts beating as one, the rumbling beast of the moveable feast")

iolanta (tchaikovsky opera)

don pasquale (donizetti opera)

pelléas et mélisande (debussy opera)

a doll's house (henrik ibsen play)

a streetcar named desire (tennessee williams play) + the movie with marlon brando

i didnt read the full text but i did hunt down and read parts of "de masticatione mortuorum, the chewing dead" that claudia mentions, full title "dissertatio historico-philosophica de masticatione mortuorum" by philip rohr (1679) (view the original manuscript here + english translation here)

i havent finished all of emily dickinson's poems yet but im getting there! (some of these i had read before ofc but im reading them all in order now)

ive also previously watched nosferatu (and rewatched it for iwtv) and the trimph of the will (NOT rewatching 💀 that was for a film history class) and ive read dante's inferno which louis mentions ("if i was to join dante's wood of the self-murdered...") and i highly recommend it!!! absolute fav

there's also stuff that wasn't directly referenced in the show but the fandom has drawn parallels to, that i've read and watched for that reason.

anne carson's an oresteia (to better understand all the agamemnon iphigenia clytemnestra electra comparisons people make)

giovanni's room by james baldwin

rebecca (1940 film)

theres def more movies but i cant remember lol

and theres some nonfiction books i've yet to finish bc im slow at nonfiction

the vampire: a casebook by alan dundes (cited by writers as s2 inspo! about irl vampire folklore)

black new orleans 1860-1880 by john w. blassingame for historical context

the theatre of fear and horror by mel gordon, on the grand guignol aka the inspiration for theatre des vampires (i did finish this one except for the summaries of all the plays, i decided to skip that there's so many. very engaging read and gives a lot of insight into the some of the bts stuff we've seen about the theatre)

louis's favorite movies from the tale of the the body thief!

la belle et la bête (1946)

the company of wolves (1984)

the dead (1987)

i may be forgetting some stuff. there's also so much more on my list that i mean to get to. a prayer for owen meany by john irving, of "memory is a monster" quote fame is locked and loaded for example

if anyone's interested to hear my thoughts on any of these feel free to ask i would love to talk about it!!!

all this and i've still only read the first 6 of the actual vampire chronicles. and im still procrastinating starting merrick

21. What was your favorite monologue of season one?

HMM the obvious one is louis's confession. ive watched the whole sequence from the funeral to the end of the episode a truly unhealthy number of times. also claudia's coffin monologue

22. Who's your favorite character? Why?

LOUIS. probably because i relate to him so much. instant connection. tricked into loving myself. also like hes literally louis how could i not love him do i need to even explain this

when i started reading the books i didnt care for book louis that much lol but i did become an armand stan. possibly bc i also relate to him im selfish like that i guess. also just his whole backstory and the way it informs everything he does is so fascinating to me. ppl say hes incomprehensible and hes literally not. everything he does makes sense when you consider his life experiences

iwtv ask game

[idealspawn]

fuck. i feel so fucking bad. i hate how i sometimes shut down and cant communicate my thoughts right away. and i cant really even vocalize that i need time either. i just lose my voice and freeze. i made the guy feel uncomfortable i think. like he said everything is fine but like. like . like. he is confused but like like like like like its not like i wasnt ever planning on elaborating bc im actually really good at communicating i just like. am weird sometimes. and i told him that. and all is well but i feel so bad that i literally just said nothing when he tried to talk to me about it. he wanted to sleep w me and i was okay w it at first bc i want it too but i was high for the first time after like 2 months and literally so disoriented and i freaked out like i barely even recognized him, i was THAT high. and then just froze and shriveled and said nothing and kept repeating that i dont know anymore and cant explain it rn. he stopped immediately the moment he noticed sth was off and asked if i was uncomfortable and/or afraid of him as in nervous. and he tried to talk abt it even when we werent high anymore and he blamed himself a lot which is so sad bc thats not it and then tried to like i guess move slower and said its ok if im not ready but the next 2 days we were together i literally just said nothing when he tried to make advances or talk abt why both of us acted awk and i like just acted like nothing happened but like still made moves on him and was okay with like other stuff just not like sleep-sleep w him. i kept sending mixed signals. i also was like so weird and quiet in general the entire time i was w him and i said i was in an odd mood and he pinky promised it wont affect anything and that he likes multidimensional people and its okay that im diff sometimes. i drank alcohol the entire time i was there too and fuck. idk im just. so fucking weird. he said its ok he is nervous and scared too and like i just fucking said nothing i dont know whats my fucking problem. fuck. like it was actually really fun too most of the time. we did graffiti and looked at the stars when we were lying down in this tower near like mmmm a big beautiful singing stage (???) and smoked his last lucky cigarette and did fun stuff on playgrounds at night and the moon and the clouds were so beautiful. the clouds were exactly like in suzume when the sky collapsed. then we cooked together, it was so fun to shop together and then we watched moomins and it was actually really nice. i picked him a nickname by opening a book on a certain page number and picking a word blindly. and he read me the little prince in french bc we both know french too and its a sentimental book to him. he sang me songs and played the guitar. he also surprised me by playing one of "our" songs and i literally started to cry. and he altered these lyrics in this one song so it applied to us and it was so sweet. i wear oversized clothes and he put my sweatshirt on and i had his jean jacket and bracelet on the entire time. he looked so nice in my hoodie and he didnt want to take it off and kept hugging it. i think probably bc it smells like me. i said i came from the moon, that they switched me when i was 5. he said he isnt even from this solar system. it was cute. made me not feel insane lol. its just like.. im a literal idiot sometimes. he was supposed to come to my place today and he asked if its okay if he comes tomorrow bc he is very confused and scattered and slow today and i think its bc of me and i feel so bad. like its okay he comes later but i intended on explaining what happened w me to him today and i just want to fix everything fast and i dont want him to feel bad and fuck. i fucking dont know. i asked him if he is confused bc of me but he hasnt answered yet. i feel so fucking bad. like all is well he said that a million times but i just want to fix everything now and immediately but not over texts....

[technicalknockout]

I wanted to reply to some of the stuff from my ask, but didn't know whether to reblog it or send it as an ask, I thought it might be easier this way?

silly straws page - i read in 'dipper and mabel's guide to mystery and nonstop fun' that bill likes silly straws and thought it was a silly random tidbit, imagine how surprised i was when i realized there was LORE behind it.. im still figuring out some codes bc i dont wanna look them up and im having so much fun !!

YEAH the silly staws page! I'm so mad that Bill said "I cut the page where I was gonna talk about Shermie Pines" stop teasing mee

I know there are some really cool codes on that page, I haven't decoded most of the book for myself yet but I intend to. There's another code on that page which is a super cool and fun one to decipher (though i've already seen what it says online but I want to replicate it myself). The one that starts with "215 858 117 450 110 628.." etc.

stanford trying to keep me from reading the book page - "you cant hear the disappointed sigh im making rn, but i assure you it's devastating" i mean he failed to stop me from reading the entire thing in one sitting but i was just very happy to see ford's cursive again. It was really funny seeing him trying to guess what the reader would be convinced by (i saw the moth picture and thought 'whats that called, a goth moth?' I laughed out loud when it turned out that was actually its name)

Sameee I got to that page and i was thinking "hiiii!". I loved his attempt to stop us from reading by showing his cool moth, and it was even better when Bill says something later on along the lines of "if he tries to show you his moth collection, throw yourself off a cliff"

Also the photo of him looks cool, but the context of it is so funny. I've seen some posts on tumblr about Ford dragging Stan into the woods and getting him to take a picture of him looking angry and mysterious. Why else does he have a photo like that. It's so silly.

urban legends page - as a long time fan of creepypasta the references in this page absolutely delighted me. Also the art is so realistically horrifying, whoever drew these i love you

YEAH that page and the Mirror Realm one and others look so cool. The new artists brought on to work on this book did a wonderful job. It fits in perfectly with Bill's weirdness.

the one true intelligence test - idk this page just made me laugh a lot

So freaking stupid i loved it so much. I think my favourite was the "divide this number in half" bit.

Entire anti-cipher society part - i love how instead of telling the story in just plain text, they made us follow the story with newspapers and journal pages. What was that called. I swear there was a name for that kind of storytelling if anyone knows pls pls tell me

That whole bit was so interesting. It was a really fun way of telling the story!

every page with ford and fiddleford - BEAUTIFUL. SUBLIME. BEST THING TO EVER EXIST IN THE WORLD. I HECKING LOVE FRIENDS BEING WHOLESOME TOGETHER AND I LOVE IT MORE WHEN THEYRE MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS FROM MY FAVORITE SHOW. THEY MAD SNOWMEN OF EACH OTHER THATS SO CUTE

Imma be honest i never really... cared for Fiddleford before. Like, I think the show is better with him in it, and I like that Ford had someone good in his life aside from Stan back in the past, but I didn't know enough about Fiddleford to care. Granted, I haven't reread Journal 3 in a while so I likely would have liked him more if I could remember what was said there, but the stuff presented in the lost Journal 3 pages here were such a treat and I understand now. I really really like him now.

Fiddleford and Ford were so wonderful together! Fiddleford was so, so nice to Ford. I'm never going to get over how Fidds made Ford TWO christmas presents, one which had multiple prototypes to get right, then forgot to get a present for his own wife. Stanford means so much to him it's crazy.

Then Ford decorating the portal room with pretty lights and played Fidds' favourite song and they made snowmen???? That's adorable omg.

And ik this is about the book, not the website, but the stuff on there as well, like the college photo and it describing how they met. AND THE AXOLOTL. Fidds getting one for Ford because it reminded him of him. And i don't think it was even a holiday of any kind. BILL WHEN I GET YOU-

"but my aim is getting better" - do i need to explain this one

I CHEERED at that bit. I showed it to my friend and they didn't get it. I forgot that they're a casual fan who's watched the show like, once, and not like me where Gravity Falls has just permanently taken up some space in my brain.

whatever this page is called;

I hated reading this (i loved reading this). i kinda got spoiled before i bought the book with an analysis post, had to literally put my phone down and think about what id just read. i think this page really puts bill and ford's relationship into perspective. ford's a person and bill's a multidimensional semi-god creature, bill will do and say anything in his power to get ford to do what he wants. this relationship cannot even begin to resemble normal. and also the forgetting your own name part horrified me, thats some good horror right there.. love it when books make me have a visceral reaction to tiny words on paper

I don't think I have anything extra to add I agree completely. I just love how much of a threat it shows Bill as. I think it works especially well because most of the book has been Silly Bill Shenanigans, you kinda forget what he's capable of. Brilliant stuff. i hated it.

call transcript from the police - OH the LORE and CHARACTER ANALYSIS FOOD RIGHT HERE. i could talk for hours about how bill straight up sucks at relationships and he's SO unwilling to admit he was upset about falling out with ford that he's lying to himself MULTIPLE TIMES OVER AND OVER and how a lack of genuine connection with people is eating him up - but if i talked about all that this post would spiral into insanity real quick. Also drunk bill talking into the phone was very very sad and very very on character and i could hear hirsch's bill voice inside my head it was really good aghjgnkhhh

LITERALLY YEA. And that kinda links up with the end of the book, where Bill is convinced someone will free him at some point. But he has no positive connections. He has no one that cares about him. And he did that all himself. Please, anytime, i will listen to your rambles. (just might not respond to it straight away but I WILL)

stan's page - I ALMOST CRIED AND I KNOW THATS KIND OF A WEIRD REACTION BUT I SAW THE STAN PAGE IN THISISNOTAWEBSITEDOTCOM OKAY AND IT WAS MAKING ME VERY UNWELL I WAS EXTREMELY RELIEVED TO JUST HEAR THIS MAN SO HAPPY AGAIN STANLEY PINES I LOVE YOU YOU DESERVE EVERYTHING

The messages from Dipper, Mabel and Stan were so lovely to see at the end. Stan is so happy now, and I'm happy for him. And it's just all really funny. "I only met him once and he cried like a baby then I punched him to death." Yeah that is basically what happened.

AH GOD YOU REPLIED TO EVERYTHING ????? THAMK YOU

YEAH the silly staws page! I'm so mad that Bill said "I cut the page where I was gonna talk about Shermie Pines" stop teasing mee

>:( he knows us too well he knows we'd give anything for more info about shermie...

I know there are some really cool codes on that page, I haven't decoded most of the book for myself yet but I intend to. There's another code on that page which is a super cool and fun one to decipher (though i've already seen what it says online but I want to replicate it myself). The one that starts with "215 858 117 450 110 628.." etc.

Ive been stuck on the numbers one, im gonna give it one more try today but i think it's gonna take a brain bigger than mine jfbsjdkskfs im STEAMING aleeeeex why are you making this so hard for me/silly

Sameee I got to that page and i was thinking "hiiii!". I loved his attempt to stop us from reading by showing his cool moth, and it was even better when Bill says something later on along the lines of "if he tries to show you his moth collection, throw yourself off a cliff"

does that imply ford tried to show bill his moth collection at some point ????? imagine jdbshfjsnf

Also the photo of him looks cool, but the context of it is so funny. I've seen some posts on tumblr about Ford dragging Stan into the woods and getting him to take a picture of him looking angry and mysterious. Why else does he have a photo like that. It's so silly.

I WHEEZED WHILE READING THIS ID NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT THAT??? but like. it's definitely on character i fully believe it happened. i mean this man backflips out of windows why not hnskdkdshd thanks for putting that image in my head

YEAH that page and the Mirror Realm one and others look so cool. The new artists brought on to work on this book did a wonderful job. It fits in perfectly with Bill's weirdness.

YEE!!!!! I think they were allowed to take more creative liberty than in the actual show, being a book and all, and i think thats really cool.

Imma be honest i never really... cared for Fiddleford before. Like, I think the show is better with him in it, and I like that Ford had someone good in his life aside from Stan back in the past, but I didn't know enough about Fiddleford to care. Granted, I haven't reread Journal 3 in a while so I likely would have liked him more if I could remember what was said there, but the stuff presented in the lost Journal 3 pages here were such a treat and I understand now. I really really like him now.

WELCOME TO THE FIDDLEFORD FANCLUB MY FRIEND. ive been a fan of him since the legend of the gobblewonker tbh.. i tend to latch onto very random silly side characters that fill the specifically shaped holes in my brain. Loved him more when i found out he had lore, love him even more after reading the book. Yay fiddleford 🎊

Fiddleford and Ford were so wonderful together! Fiddleford was so, so nice to Ford. I'm never going to get over how Fidds made Ford TWO christmas presents, one which had multiple prototypes to get right, then forgot to get a present for his own wife. Stanford means so much to him it's crazy. / Then Ford decorating the portal room with pretty lights and played Fidds' favourite song and they made snowmen???? That's adorable omg. / And ik this is about the book, not the website, but the stuff on there as well, like the college photo and it describing how they met. AND THE AXOLOTL. Fidds getting one for Ford because it reminded him of him. And i don't think it was even a holiday of any kind. BILL WHEN I GET YOU-

i swear these two are absolutely adorable and that is an objective fact i will not take criticism. the page where ford was rummaging thru fiddleford's desk and found the glove prototypes broke me.

and also yeah the college photo ! i mean like. augh. how do i put this. theyre so friends. ford believed fiddleford was right even tho they barely knew each other and worked together and came up with an entire theory. idk it's so wholesome. AND FRILLIAM !!!!! FIDDLEFORD GOT FORD A LITTLE GUY AND FORD NAMED HIM FRILLIAM AND I AM GOING TO PERSONALLY SPRAY HAND SANITIZER IN BILL'S EYE FOR RUINING THIS. these two are dear to my heart im so so frickin glad they made up and are somewhat keeping in touch now..

I CHEERED at that bit. I showed it to my friend and they didn't get it. I forgot that they're a casual fan who's watched the show like, once, and not like me where Gravity Falls has just permanently taken up some space in my brain.

I KNOW THE PAIN SO SO WELL NO ONE AROUND ME EVEN KNOWS THIS BOOK EXISTS. ILL CHEER WITH YOU WHO CARES IF WE'RE NOT ON THE SAME CONTINENT. FORD MY GUY SLAYYYYYY🎊🎉🎊🎉🎊👏👏🎊🎉🎉👏👏👏

I don't think I have anything extra to add I agree completely. I just love how much of a threat it shows Bill as. I think it works especially well because most of the book has been Silly Bill Shenanigans, you kinda forget what he's capable of. Brilliant stuff. i hated it.

exactly.. bill is a Scary Silly Guy™️ thank you tbob for reminding us. it was very on character and we appreciate it a lot. but like did you HAVE to make ford suffer for it :'(

LITERALLY YEA. And that kinda links up with the end of the book, where Bill is convinced someone will free him at some point. But he has no positive connections. He has no one that cares about him. And he did that all himself. Please, anytime, i will listen to your rambles. (just might not respond to it straight away but I WILL)

Guy had it comin for him tbh. rest in therapieces bill ciphor reincarnate as a vole (also YOU WANT TO HEAR MY RAMBLES🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺???? dont mind me if i raid your asks sometime. or discord dms. whichever you prefer !)

The messages from Dipper, Mabel and Stan were so lovely to see at the end. Stan is so happy now, and I'm happy for him. And it's just all really funny. "I only met him once and he cried like a baby then I punched him to death." Yeah that is basically what happened.

JASIDNFJSNFKSS PRETTY ACCURATE ID SAY. Stanford pines you are absolutely awesome take my money

[shadeslayer]

Would you be willing to talk about the inspiration for you sinti, shunti, kanunuk, & nunni designs? They're really cool!

absolutely !!! :D i usually have pretty explicit stuff that im referencing or am inspired by so im always happy to share <3

*ramble incoming*

[the dr pepper cans are how you know im a real southern usa babe. earlier today there was 5 empty cans in a row until i put them in the recycle bin]

i take a Lot out of the book "sun circles and human hands: the southeastern indians - art and industry" (2001 edition, not the 1957 one) which i have a physical copy of and i have sticky notes tabbing out out and also annotated highlighting every mention of the chickasaw and of sites where i know the chickasaw [or our ancestors, like the chicaza and other early mississippian/SE ntv cultures] so i can reference stuff i know would be from us, but i also take inspiration from all the designs in it because we were all a part of an interconnected cultural network of art

if you are from a tribe that would be from mississippian culture or the southeastern ceremonial complex/southeastern cult as it used to be called, or you know your people wouldve come from places within that like spiro or moundville, and you want to bring more native styling into your art this is THEEE book i would recommend. it is insanely useful. i cant vouch 100% for the text of it, and the second half is mostly kinda grainy b&w scanned photos of pottery and other items lmao, but the first half has lineart depictions OF designs found, with the attribution for the site they were found at. it is a Massive wealth of symbols and style and has been the best thing for wanting to study and emulate SE ndn art. for real i lent a copy to my grandma and then couldnt find where it was and i had to just order a new copy bc i use it so damn much

like i would post pages of it, and before i bought it i survived off the pinterest pics of scanned pages, but i cannot say enough just buy the book and look through it bc its just perfect its so useful. just posting a few pages doesnt do any justice to the wealth of style and art in it. ive tried to make myself some mock style/symbol guides from it, but even those fail to capture the variety of stuff in there and its why i still have it on hand for reference bc every time i get stumped theres so many ideas in there

but ok . book rec rant over (partly.)

i had done sinti homma, the red snake earlier, and i wanted to do a little motley of other simple transparent animals to go with it. so i did! ive got a few different animals that i played with doing, but a lot of them ended up veering too much off of the more hardline ntv style i wanted to do, and the others didnt fit the guideline i had made - i wanted them all to have a pointed tail that pointed to some corner of the frame, and curl around in the square a bit to have more of a sense of motion. i was thinking deer, turtle, spider... but none of those really fit that. so i flipped thru SC&HH for some ideas and came up with some :3

the bottom left one on the first pic there gave me a good idea of what to do with a rat tail, and on the bottom right of that same pic is the Fattest fucking fish and i lifted a lot of that design to use for my fish (and while we're here, the rattler tails on the top right of that pic were what i used for sinti hommas tail), and the bottom left on the second pic gave me the idea for the lizards legs/feet shape, and then i used the chickasaw vocab flashcards of animals to think of animal ideas and so i used the pinti from there to jump me off into doing a rat

theyre all named after the chickasaw words - sinti (snake), shunti (rat/rodent), kanunuk (lizard, specifically green striped lizard, which is why i made it green with stripes lol), nunni (fish) . i use the chickasaw dictionary webpage a lot these days though i should use my dictionary copies more bc they use the spelling style i dont prefer lol

i also want to do maybe a sort of pop art style big print of them, like repeated with different colors behind them? and/or them in a medicine wheel? but those are still wip so we shall see!

[kenonade]

stella maris reading log #1

its about damn time i start noting down how i feel when i read what i read. hell yeah. hopefully this makes me a better writer.

spoilers not really about the plot (bc honestly is there even a plot in the sense of a plot) but more about the language below the cut woooooo

tldr: book cool. writing insane. wtf. wtf. wtf. head ouchie. 越级打怪的后果就是头晕脑转 (dizziness is the consequence of attempting to read beyond my level). ooga booga man talk abt english

reading stella maris is so interesting because im just sitting here wondering like. how the FUCK did mccarthy accumulate all this knowledge about a variety of very distinct fields. my brain hurts. this is so much information. im learning nothing and learning everything at the same time. how the man managed to learn all this stuff and how he managed to put it together like this puzzle me equally intensely. its one thing to acquire knowledge. its a whole other thing to convey it in language so dense with information but also character. like, not to be that guy, but when osc does his infodumps i think to myself okay old man lets get you to bed. every time alicia opens her mouth i confront my intellectual inferiority and contemplate the meaning of life because it is alicia talking.

not to mention what the FUCK alicia. if only you’d have KNOWN. EUGH. WHAT. WHAT. WHAT.

my head hurts. the reason why im writing instead of reading is because ive already reached my reading breaking point where my eyes glaze over and the words go in one and out the other. its only been two hours. difficult language i can handle fine, verbosity is fine, i inhaled the ender stuff and only took breaks when osc pissed me off, but stella maris is information overload in a way that i’ve never experienced before. im like, texting three separate people all the time. oh i should vet this w my math guy. i need to show this to my psych classmate. this has to go to my orthopedics bestie.

i started this book saw the page number and went oh sure. its half the length of the passenger. the style means that it’ll contain less words overall too. i should be able to finish this on a three hour hsr ride. WRONG. i CANT. it’s TOO DIFFICULT. im running into roadblocks very similar to what i felt when i read the passenger: dont know place/name/context/big word. except im finding stella maris to be even more difficult because unlike some nautical jargon or random place in the midwestern usa that i can just look up, i cant. i think its impossible to even begin to comprehend all this math.

that’s definitely part of the charm of stella maris. the format of audio transcripts creates a much more intimate connection between the characters and the reader. the target demographic of this novel, though niche, is definitely not as niche as to comprise only of genius mathematicians with a burning passion for music and a hatred of psychology. the reader might be a master in one of these fields, but alicia outsmarts them in it along with all others. viewed through this lens, the reader is the doctor. the reader is the one who converses with alicia, trying their best to piece together a mind that is so extraordinarily genius and extraordinarily tormented. it’s a position of emotional significance. the reader sits through these audio recordings because they want to understand alicia. and to understand alicia is to love her. (this is a certified when i truly understand my enemy i love him moment)

all of that sits in stark contrast to western’s narration in the passenger.

i wrote an entire paragraph but tumblr fucking ate it. im pissed. its ok. for love i’ll write it again.

western’s narration is detached. it’s impersonal. mccarthy’s clinical and direct use of language alienates the viewer and prevents the formation of any sincere rapport, allowing only mild sympathy for western’s continued suffering. the reader is merely an observer, piecing together the life of a strange, curious creature through inference and deduction. nor is the reader meant to empathize with him. he’s the one who chose to abandon alicia, the one reckless enough to chose race car driving over his degree, and therefore the one who shoulders alone the responsibility of alicia’s death—or so he thinks. in a sense, because western is comparatively lucid, the detached narration becomes almost a punishment for the guilt he’s assigned to himself. he’s not the one in the mental asylum, afterall.

its interesting to me how mccarthy presents this duo to the audience. i have many Thoughts on alicia’s sexuality and stuff but i should finish the book before i synthesize those thoughts. anyway. thanks for reading 👍

[homophyte]

okay im going to be vulnerable and admit though ive owned house of leaves for a few months i was spurred to start reading it the other day after watching that video on myhouse.wad . no one make fun of me. that being said.

im not necessarily going though it super in depth and more just trying to unravel some stuff for funsies with some various help from old forums and what strikes me as sometimes glaringly missing from discussions on the book is the way it relates to women. like the fact that the house itself is treated as though it has a female identity will get talked about but theres not rlly discussions about the ramifications of that--how will and holloways posturing--named as explicitly about 'male dominance'--is essentially a fight over who gets to get the girl. wills early venture into the house is literally likened to karen kissing wax, like theyre BOTH infidelities, and thats not nearly the first time karen herself treats the situation like the house is her romantic rival or at least rival for wills attention (im not far enough in to have too solid a grasp on the implications of the name delial--but lets just say i have a suspicion?).

anyway whats maybe even more interesting than that is the way its kinda ALL about gender--its men who keep entering the house desperate to know what its about, its men driven to write about it and uncover its secret knowledge, and it drives them fucking crazy. like...you can read that--VERY EASILY--as men 'discovering' the ""hidden"" interiority of women, like, the very idea that women are complex people with their own ideas and emotions and inner worlds. the fact that the house has a secret inside is huge fucking news and just about every man in the novel reacts to it as such, but the reactions from women are like...not that. idk im not done with it by any means but the similarity between the conversations between karen & wax at the end ch VII and johnny & thumper at the end of VIII really apparent. when thumper is listening to johnny, seeking to understand him, being really invested and interested and not reacting with annoyance or disdain or boredom like he expects, it genuinely really knocks him out to the point he nearly cries--and then he bottles it up, writes it off, even when she echoes karens exact words flirting with wax he doesnt register it.

the text displays a consciousness around gendered expectations here, particularly bc thumper is a sex worker, that she cant be expected to intellectually engage w it, but she can and does...and then johnny doenst know what to DO about it, how to engage w a real moment of understanding between the sexes or whatever so he very consciously falls back on gender expectations for men and refuses to feel that connection, severing the tie he inadvertently built w her and consigning the moment to unknowable blackness. the void is invented by people determined to treat it as foreign--which often means treating it as hostile (holloways gun, johnnys suspicions when thumper didnt call him back).

that she ends with the comment 'you just need to get out of the house' is like...almost laughably on the nose especially w the way chauvanist culture has proliferated on the internet. like in the book too, dont get me wrong, its just so startlingly accurate to whats going on it seems like she really must UNDERSTAND in a way johnny fails to capture in his narration but still comes through due to her being kinda fucking great--sorry i REALLY like thumper in this actually she may be my favorite. its sort of difficult for me to look at the line and divorce it in my head from the phenomenon of the incel--read a certain way, you have johnny ranting and raving about how he just cant ever figure out what the collective 'woman' is thinking and all this time hes spent driving himself crazy about it, and thumper listening and understanding and very sympathetically and honestly saying 'that wouldnt be a big deal if you interacted w women instead of holing up inside trying to theorize about it.'

i dont necessarily think its a mistake that johnny is the kind of person he is, a partying womanizer or whatever, bc sex becomes his only interaction w women (his failure to talk abt the book w kyrie in favor or fucking her) just as entering the house becomes wills only interaction w it (or at least he rages when he cant have that interaction, he values it above others). the book is pretty clear about both of these acting as forms of penetration. as johnny gets more invested in the text he interacts more and more w the women zampano used as interpreters and comes more and more into contact w women and less and less able to deny their interiority.

the reaction from men that women are people is simple and plain disbelief, followed by disconnected, invasive, rigorous study, study that is likened to war, to surgery, to expedition--anything but understanding. its kind of baffling idk maybe im just not looking in the right place to see people talking about it but this sorta feels like...the point. hell even earlier in ch VII on page 91 you get will and holloway excitedly talking about calling the press about their huge discovery that no one will believe...and then just, karen, living her life, treated like an enigma. i literally have this written in my notes as "men discover women have internality; their wives decline to comment"

[crowdsourcedloner]

unhinged cecil rambling time, caster edition fanfest cant come soon enough

in no particular order (and regular text size) heres my thoughts/ideas/babbles about the next caster job/what i think would be neat for a caster job/apparently astro thoughts?

one really nice thing about caster jobs is the weapon can be anything so i hope it wont be just. a stick. or something. or another goddamn sword like come on square give me a mace or a bell or a fancy schmancy focus or magical tattoos or prayer beads or... idk just go wild! be unique! the world is your oyster and i wanna go shucking!

similar vein, i wonder if it'll have a raise... red mage's damage has (relatively) suffered for having easy access to verraise and magick barrier (a genuinely great defensive cooldown), and summoner's damage is likewise lesser for having a raise of it's own compared to black mage... would they add another "selfish" caster? or would they leave black mage as the "selfish" caster, like they did with the "selfish" samurai?

...also, how mobile will it be? endgame fights are decently interesting to plan movement for on black mage and red mage, so i hope they don't just make it a sparkly phys ranged...

green mage is already very hinted at (re: the earring krile picks up at the end of current patch) but, since it's previous iteration as a debuff job probably wouldn't work well in current ffxiv, it'll probably be more green-themed than anything. so... what's green themed? just the color? plants? would plants/nature be distinct enough from conjurer and white mage? would it be like sage where it's just a name reference? will krile become green mage and the player job be something entirely different? who knows! its baseless speculation hours!

(for the record i kinda hope it's just gonna be krile's job if it does come true, the idea of being a green mage doesn't really inspire any interest from me... but maybe its just a lame name and it'll look sick in game and i'll change my mind lmao)

an illusion based caster could be neat as hell imo - it could be a cool take on a pictomancer, it just fights with 'drawn' glamours that explode? we already have examples of creatures like the ink tiger in Rokkon (though that could arguably just be a fancy carbuncle?) and we have ink mages (though they're effectively arcanists) in the Heroes Gauntlet dungeon that could serve as inspiration, though you could run into problems with another book caster... maybe a paintbrush weapon? would it be big enough? an illusion job could really go wild with particle effects too... just imagine a big sketchy lb3 with paint splatters and lots of color!

time mage! clocks! dots! gimme a dot job square you cowards! ...but i'll be the first to admit this idea is the least likely, just bc of how burst focused this game is in general... dot jobs dont like when things go untargetable (so every ulti and several savages and extremes and dungeon bosses and trash mobs dying) so it'd be such a pain to balance... probably not worth the headache and better to play a different game for that power fantasy tbh

on that note, the astro rework - i'm very interested to see where it goes. i love astro's aesthetics and can play it pretty well, but playing it for any longer than a lockout absolutely murders my hands/wrists (even after i've moved keybinds multiple times it's a recurring problem) so i'm curious if they'll aim for a faster pace again. astro's current kit is undeniably strong as hell, but it's so clunky and irritating at times (fuck astrodyne, all my homies hate astrodyne) i wonder what they'll prune from it. change cards to aoe cards, perhaps? remove the seal mechanic? go back to time mage ideas? go harder into heal-over-time effects versus white mage's strong burst heals? would that even be viable? we'll need to wait for the media tour for actual info on this, unfortunately - job action trailers aren't great at piecing together what heals actually do. should see some neat animations at least.

[f1nalboys]

ok i’ve collected my thoughts on evil dead rise so under the cut i will share them hehe!! THERE R SPOILERS UNDER HERE!!! i talk abt what i liked and didn’t like and i talk specifically abt scenes!!!! if y’all wanna talk to me abt it more feel free to send me an ask, i’m abt to nap cus of cramps but i will answer them when i’m up <3 lmk if u agree or not and what ur fave scenes were!!!

so

i didn’t hate it! i’d say overrall this is a high three or a very low 4, but i don’t think i’ll be rewatching this any time soon :/ i def prefer the 2013 remake but this was still enjoyable and i had a good time watching it!!!

i think the problem i had was i had seen the trailers (which were all clips basically? at least the official ones i found on tik tok were clips from the movie) and had spoiled major moments of it for myself. normally i’m okay with and love spoilers but i think i would’ve enjoyed this one in particular more if the few scenes had been a surprise to me!!

things i loved: ELLIE!!!! holy shit, i truly think she stole the show. the difference in her as human vs as a deadite was so cool, i loved her mommy shtick she kept through out, and i think she was so eerie (i legit had a nightmare abt her killing me a few days ago before i had even watched the movie and that never happens) so!!!! i also liked the story and the change of setting, it being in an apartment and confined on that one floor (for the most part) was so interesting and i loved the difference in the book of the dead from the other movies AND the vinyl!!!! the gore was top notch and i saw lots of practical effects which will always make a movie at least 2 stars for me!! also the girl who played kassie was good AND she did her own stunt for the elevator scene which was so cool hehe. i liked the more subtle call backs to the past movies in the franchise more than the overt ones!!

i rlly liked the scenes of ellie in the hallway through the peephole and how there was blood dripping over it!!! i I LOVED THE SCENE WHERE ELLIE IS LAYING OK THE GROUND AND BRIDGET AND DANNY CRY OVER HER BODY BEFORE LAUGHING. it was such a good scene omg!!!! also the scene of bridget under the sheet floating down the hallway following danny and kassie GODDDDD!!!! and not to praise deadite ellie again but the way she moves was so cool hehe, i rlly liked how subtly off they all walked and how it felt like they were getting used to being in a body again!!!

i also loved the opening title card scene after the girl falls into the water!!!! seeing her rise up in a blasphemous way along w the title card and have it reflect in the water OH it was so good!!! and the scene where the girl is talking and saying the line of the book the other one is reading made me go 😦😦 so!!!

also im also glad they didn’t include a tree scene, but they payed homage w the elevator wires. that scene was unnecessary in the first movies and is one of my least fave parts of the franchise (especially with how Certain Fans treat it) so i’m glad they didn’t include it LMFAO

things i didn’t like: most of the acting 😔 i feel bad knocking the actors bc obviously i’m not one and idk how difficult it is, but the acting from the non-deadites really fell flat for me most of the time :/ the main girl, beth, was so close to mia in looks and attitude it just kept making me think of her which wasn’t good bc i prefer mia LMFAO 😔 the acting from bridget was rlly where i found the movie lacking though :/ some of the shots were def not my type of directing style but i know they’re all call backs to the franchise so i cant knock them too bad but the weird split screen stuff that happened (only 2 times???) was enough for me to text my friend and go “ew” LMAO. i also hated how under utilized the other characters were! the old man, the young guy who maybe had a thing with ellie, the 2 kids. it was rlly obvious they were there to boost the body count to me which sucked :(

also side note beth’s acting rlly annoyed me towards the end especially in the garage with the close ups of her face and her lip twitching but JDNWKDNWJ again thags a personal thing so i’m choosing to ignore it when i rate the movie

the baby stuff w beth was annoying as was the groupie thing but i think that’s just me so i didn’t count it against them hehe. the scene where all of the deadite are telling beth and kassie “dead by dawn” was so fucking cheesy i couldn’t find it in myself to be even a little unnerved which sucked bc i kind of loved the combining scene but it felt lack luster at the end… some of the character decisions were also so ridiculous and i KNOW it’s a movie but guys. stop leaving ur weapons embedded in them. TAKE THEM EITH YOU. PLEASE. i know it wouldn’t have helped but at the end why r u leaving it up to chance??? i also thought the ending scene was a little meh with her not noticing the blood filled parking lot until after she was in her car? idk and to add to that, the opening scene was kind of :/ but i liked the drone fake out they did

[kachimera]

So... the netflixvania nocturne alleged leaks.. (warning me negatively and incoherently yelling below) (emphasis on incoherently)

First the leaks are not confirmed and i really hope it's just a troll, so while i speak of them as if they were to happen, i cant give a proper critique and hopefully,really hopefully im just being a negative saltshaker and i'll get proven wrong when it releases.

But Jesus

What. The. Fuck.

They had to add "complexity" by including historical events (happening in the other side of the continent mind you bc apparently eastern europe isn't interesting enough for this show ?) bc "the games too simple" :) but they needed to simplify said historical revolution into "white rich men bad" through cucking Richter both in personality and literally (Nevermind that one of the social sectors in favor of the revolution was the bourgeoisie nor that many noblemen were in favour of the revolution and that Richter's fam was hated for centuries until a hundred years ago). I can't say im knowledgeable in history but i feel it's just gonna be added as edgy flavor without nuance, and what else to expect from the writers whose fav excuse for ignoring the game's themes is "oh but those were simple old games with no text".

I can't also wait to see what stale flavor of church bad we will get this time (i need to remind you all that this show got me defensive over the portrayal of christianity n virtue in the games, and this is abt japanese games were you just fucking throw crosses like boomerangs at monsters (as our Lord intended) and with criticism against it too (how many gals got branded as witches and burned again ? ))

And ofc Annette chooses to leave her priviledged guy for...Dracula. the fucking old rich white warlord Dracula, that's very revolutionary, very cool n edgy and not to mention completely in touch with her character in the games /s. It's like the complaints abt the Dracula book adaptations that ruined Jhonnatan's character and made Mina a reincarnation of Drac's wife to justify her wanting to bang her abuser :) . Even if it's used as a way to highlight Drac's manipulations or something similar i doubt it could work.

And then Richter (look at how they massacred my boy) gets corrupted not bc of him fulfilling his destiny and feeling he has no purpose anymore all due to his upbringing, bearing the weight of his family's legacy and the cycles of violence and hatred the whole series is themed after nooo he sad bc he had to kill girl who cucked him :( (It also feels like an attempt to mirror the "my wife died now im bad" Dracula shtick with a Belmont but Lament of Innocence already did this 1420952 times better)

And dont even mention Alucard n Maria fucking like jesus motherfucking christ i get some ppl ship it but it's gonna be ultra gross specially with maria being 17 during SoTN and with the sensitivity this show has treated sex before. Like the one sex scene that isn't rape is gonna be with an underage girl and an adult man with an enormous power imbalance yipee (and also completely ooc to his canon portrayal)

This l is what i mean abt the show portraying an amoral landscape for the sake of coolness and edgyness. It feels like a way to spite the game fans further at the expense of the show (which i hope im wrong at)

It saddens me a lot bc despite my beef with netflixvania it was my introduction to the series and it had many awesome moments, and i was hopeful nocturne would improve upon it's predecessors and make me love it.

And if they're fake leaks then the troll who wrote them deserves an applause for making me write this lol

[wetchickenbreast]

so jews often interpret it as being a pomegranate bc theyre a common fruit in western asia so would have been around during the time the torah was compiled; there's also a lot of ancient myths around pomegranates (like the persephone myth) and imo its just a prettier fruit that looks nicer in art than a boring apple and jews identify with it more as judaism began in the levant. there's not any textual basis; like i said, the hebrew of genesis just says "פרי" which just means fruit and not anything specific. there's nowhere in the tanakh, from my knowledge, where any specific fruit is mentioned. the apple, like i said, is due to a latin pun/homophone that popped up in the vulgate and lingered in the popular imagination.

in terms of other jewish interpretations, there were rabbis in the talmud who proposed that it could have been wheat, a fig, grapes, and apparently a banana. wheat is due to a couple of things including a pun in hebrew involving the word for sin, the fig was because of the fig leaves adam & eve covered themselves with and because figs are a common gynic symbol, the grape is bc of what i said in a previous ask, and the banana was bc of either maimonides thinking bananas were healthy (he was both a reknowned rabbi and a doctor for his community; he's probably the most well-known rabbi of all time as well) or because it was a popular belief in syrian & egyptian jewish communities, though i cant find a specific citation for an english translation (maimonides' more secular texts are far less easy to get in translation). i got all this info off the wikipedia page and from my previous coursework in jewish food traditions.

also as a note from what you said in your original post about canon-- you're right that just bc a text isn't considered canonical doesnt mean various traditions don't use it; there are many texts noncanonical to judaism and christianity that jews & christians use to discuss customs, histories, and translation. so looking into the book of enoch as a way to consider how previous generations of interpreters were looking at genesis actually makes a lot of sense, but in terms of a theological argument would be less significant than evidence from a canonical text, if that makes sense, though my understanding is even in the new testament there isn't any particular fruit considered to be the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, so this is a pretty good place to examine past interpretations

(this is so fun! i love doing comparative studies)

can you imagine how difficult a pomegranate would have been if it was the fruit 💀 like did the serpent split it open or did eve like- 😭 and then they’d have to pick out the seeds to eat them. being serious though there really isn’t enough evidence to figure out what specific fruit it was. fun to discuss though, thank you for sharing your knowledge with me!