#i have....so many frankenstein quotes

[franken-loser]

My favorite lines and quotes from A Botanical Daughter🌱

(spoilers!!)

[queenklu]

Reading Frankenstein and we got to the part where "the creature" is created - always a good time bc Victor's immediate response to seeing his work come to fruition is "Oh. ..............Gross." and then he takes a nap.

Then of course when the creature wakes him up he flips out and runs away, which my students were Not Pleased With. (Because of Walton's desperate desire for a friend at the beginning of the book, many students have spent the first few chapters under the misapprehension that Victor is making himself a friend, quote, "Build-a-Bear Style" and finding out how badly he's quote, "mistreating his baby boy" is very upsetting for them).

So then in a fugue state "Vicky Frank" (another nickname from my students) just HAPPENS UPON his BFF Clerval, who is so very happy to see him, and Victor switches instantly into host mode:

Student1: YEAH MAN, I DON'T KNOW WHY HE WOULDN'T BE WHERE YOU LEFT HIM, HE IS A LITERAL 8 FOOT TALL CHILD

Student2: He didn't even babyproof his HOUSE! D:

But the part I wanted to talk about is actually this moment that I'd never noticed before, after VFrank gets Clerval inside his (miraculously) monster-free house, IS THIS:

I'M SORRY??????

HEY VICTOR??????

THE WHAT???????

[see-arcane]

With a total of 1,176 votes tallied, the preferred plushie poll winner with 28.8% of votes is…

What a close one! Jonathan came in with 27.7%, the mysterious Mr. Morse with 24.9% and, delicious irony of ironies, London Dracula with 18.9%. Rest in pieces. Now, what does all this mean going forward?

First, just to reconfirm: I will absolutely be looking into the costs for having more than one plushie character produced at a time. For all that Mina has the top spot if it comes down to a solo run, Nobody Wants to Separate the Gothic Horror Soulmates, even as wee little plushies. It hurts my heart to think of. Mina and Jonathan deserve to sit side by side on everyone’s pillow. Just as Quinn Morse deserves to haunt the pillow next to theirs while casually throttling and carving London Dracula into pieces. For enrichment.

But beyond that, some other key things:

How is this getting done?

Sadly, I was not a cool enough kid for Makeship to greenlight a collaboration with me. Tragique. But while I was sitting around waiting for them to get back to me, I had time to browse around for other options. During that sniffing around I dug up a couple of promising manufacturers—one of which has some really neat options for not only plush toys, but all sorts of bric-a-brac like stationery, shirts, bags, cups, et cetera—and I plan to reach out to them for quotes to start with. Nothing really gets to move forward until I can nail down prices and the amount of X plushies to be made.

I am more than a little hesitant to tell anyone MAKE ME 1000+ PLUSHIES, PLEASE, THE TUMBLR POLL SAID THEY’RE GOOD FOR IT. These aren’t as simple as print/make-on-demand products, so I need to be careful estimating the amount of folks ready and willing to drop money on the little guys. But I will keep everyone updated on the numbers regardless!

Sooo is this a crowdfunding thing or an investment or what?

Don’t know yet. I am still between jobs at the moment—reminder to check out my Ko-Fi if you want to drop me a buck or commission some art!—but if this is something I can safely drop some of my own money in with the guarantee that it will let me do better than break even, I’ll do what I can out of pocket. However, if the cost of making something of good quality turns out too steep, I’ll start looking into stuff like Kickstarter and Backerkit and so on. I want to be sure I’m not gutting anybody’s wallet to pull this off and I want to be double-sure that what we’re paying for isn’t some flimsy throwaway junk. We are all here on the same Dracula book club starving artist site, so It Has to Be Worth It and not a money-sink for anyone.

Got it. Any other info to spare?

For the plushies specifically, this is when I’ll start:

Polishing up the current four designs into cleaner illustrations with different angles to provide for mockup samples with whoever I pick to manufacture with. If I get stuck on something—(which is likely)—I may throw up another poll to bug everyone about palettes and fashion choices. I have a few more designs I haven’t dropped yet for Epilogue Harkers, a non-Bloofer Lucy, and keychains that I’d love to share too!

Eyeballing materials. I’m already picturing a very close-cut cloth for the build and clothes, but I need to decide on filling too. Stiff overstuffing to hold a pose versus softer/lighter plush for floppy cuddleability. 

Poking at other character roughs, ala the Suitor Squad, the Weird Sisters, Van Helsing, Renfield, and Baby Quincey. And if all of those go well…

…maybe some designs for other favorites in the public domain playground. (Looks meaningfully at Clarimonde, Carmilla, Victor Frankenstein and the Creature, the King in Yellow, too many others.) ((But that’s all far-future stuff at the moment.))

Cool! But you also mentioned something about other merch?

I did.

Because goddamn do I want some Dracula-themed stationery. Journals! Memo pads! Pens! Every day we don’t have these things with the Harkers’ mark upon them is a victory for the forces of Count Dracula’s document-destroying evil. Likewise for shirts, totes, mugs, keychains, face masks and other things that could use some novel-flavored goodies. Hell, I’ll probably even get on with making stuff for The Vampyres to link on my website too. Because I am. Maybe behind on that. By several months.

Anyway.

I’ve got to start working on some designs for those too while the plushie process is progressing. Pray that my carpals don’t get tunneled.

Nice! Sounds like your plate is pretty full. So that’s it, right?

:)

Arcane?

:3c

Arcane. I need you to tell me this is all you’re working on.

>:}

Arcane.

Please stand by.

I have a little treat brewing for the Dracula Dailiers and @re-dracula folks in honor of a very special day for our good friend Jonathan Harker.

[w33-b33]

i finally watched 'lisa frankenstein'

boy oh boy am i normal about this movie

SPOILERS AHEAD

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creature (played by cole sprouse) looks so beautifully pathetic the whole time, and seeing him slowly 'come back to life' was wonderful

CS really nailed the sheer devotion and pining, especially near the end (graveyard scene)

the weird girl finally gets a love interest that doesnt change her!!!!!! she stays weird!!!!!!!! the weird goth girl i used to be is cheering

"i mean, you don't need one of those to be a man. it's like the least important part." i have MANY feelings about this quote. first off, the whole quote illustrates that penetration/a penis is not necessary for sex (including "straight" sex). secondly, TBOY CREATURE!!!!!!! hes so trans i love him so much

goth wife gets her undead trans husband a phalloplasty

the tanning bed being used to bring creature back, and being what kills lisa?? INCREDIBLE.

the parts of people that they killed having previously been used to hurt lisa (janet not listening, doug sexually assaulting lisa, michael Being A Dick) being used to comfort and love her once they belonged to the creature? literally magnificent

'beloved wife' written on lisa's headstone? screaming

this is just a slasher from the slasher's pov (but she thinks shes in a romcom)

tl;dr, i love this movie. i love that the weird little goth girls finally got something for them

[necrotic-nephilim]

@profandomhopper i was going to reblog the original post this comment was left on but i felt it divorced itself from the original topic so much, you get your own post for giving me delightful permission to ramble about this. buckle in people this is long.

so, DC is a big fandom that expanses a lot of different types of content, and like anything, is subject to crossovers. the obvious ones like Marvel are for the reason of being a similar and equally popular superhero world, so it's easy to transpose the worlds onto each other and overlap the characters. both of these worlds deal with multiverses and endless, endless heroes. it makes sense and there's no real stretch to think Batman and Spider-Man could co-exist. i mean, there have been canon crossover comics. and even some more random crossovers like White Collar have pretty easy to trace origins, being an actor in WC was a popular Dick fancast back in the day so there was some bleeding over that led to a well-loved niche crossover space.

but Danny Phantom and Miraculous Ladybug are where it gets interesting. because at a surface, MLB sort of makes sense. it's a superhero world, you're following a teen girl superhero and sure the mechanics are pretty contained, but the crossover should make sense. but when you compare it to the crossover numbers of other superhero media like say My Hero Academia, Ladybug takes the *crown* with such a bizarre popularity. and of course, DP feels like it makes even less sense. sure, you *could* lump it into at the very least, superhero-adjacent media, but it's not a true hero world like MLB or DC is.

but, the thing to always understand about DC, *especially* the Batfamily (which is where the crossover content propagates the most) is this: a *very* good chunk of fans don't interact with the comics. i would venture to say even most Batfamily fans don't read the comics and actively talk about it. we've all read a very fandom big Batfam fanfic where the author's note mentions the writer has never touched a comic in their life. typically, these fans are either cobbling together their understanding from fandom content, or by frankensteining unrelated DC adaptations to understand each character. you take Bruce from Batman: TAS, you take Dick from the animated Young Justice, you take Jason from Batman: Under The Red Hood animated movie, you take Damian from the DCAMU Batman vs Robin, and you read some fandom metas to fill in the rest and well, you've got some sort of an understanding of these characters. read enough incorrect quotes, some genfic, a couple of character metas, and boom, you understand the Batfamily fandom enough to start creating your own content. and of course now. now you have Wayne Family Adventures so it's even *easier*. a pretty easy to pick up webtoon that's filling in all the gaps for you. but i've been in this fandom long enough to remember before we had WFA and even then, this was still a common, if not the most popular way, to ween yourself into the DC fandom space. you cherry-picked the canon you liked and then plunged into the depths of fanon.

i'm not here to make in depth commentary on if i think this is a good or bad thing. trust me i have that commentary in my head, but that would need it's own post. i'm very split on it and my feelings are complicated. my feelings on WFA are even *more* complicated. because oftentimes, the attitude expressed by these fans who are frankensteining this version of the Batfamily/DC world they have in their head is they don't *want* to read the comics. the comics don't contain the content they're after. and to an extent, i understand that. if you're looking for light-hearted vibes of the Batfamily all getting along and having the occasional hurt/comfort moments but in the end, they hug and make up, you're right. largely, you won't find that in canon. of course there are so many comics to recommend for Batfamily interactions, but you have to get specific. you'll find them interacting in small groups, Tim and Dick bonding here, Duke and Cass bonding there, but largely, the comics don't care to balance the ridiculously large cast they've given themselves. but fandom does. it's easy to toss them all in a blender and ignore the parts you don't like. the default argument to ignoring the comics or writing something OOC is always "well the comics are OOC and inconsistent too" which, while a flawed argument that massively misunderstand how comics work as a medium, isn't an entirely incorrect one. you could serve on a silver platter to these fans, an easy and accessible way to get into comics and they wouldn't be interested. it's not what they're here for. fandom is always character-driven above all else. it's driven by character relationships and dynamics. if someone wants to consume content where Tim idolized and stalked Jason as 'his Robin' and now is trying to help him rehabilitate and they're super complicated but have this long epic forgiveness arc, why *would* they read the comics? because they're sure as shit not going to find that dynamic in the comics. it's laughably OOC and not canon at all, but that doesn't matter. what matters is the sandbox. most Batfamily fans care *far* more about the sandbox canon gives them than the actual canon itself. feel how you feel about that, this really isn't being negative toward that attitude, but it is a common attitude.

so, you have Batfamily fans playing in the sandbox and building their own narrative. common fandom headcanons are so common, you could practically write a guide on how the fanon Batfamily works with how consistent people are about it. or you could just read WFA, which is practically the new manifesto of it. even now, with this sudden spike in people talking about canon accuracy and "actually this happening in the comics", they don't actually care about the comics, just what they can cherry-pick for fodder. (even if they rob it of so much context they're just as OOC as they were before. see specifically: the recent phenomena with Tim Drake going from the woobified weakest member of the Batfam who everyone needs to save constantly and he's the smart boy but he's also the one with a sad tragic neglectful past who gets overlooked being the way Batfamily fandom played with Tim for years. but recently, people seem to be pushing this idea of a ridiculously badass Tim, Tim who *totally* has a kill count because of his actions in RR (2009) if you take them completely out of context, Tim who bested Ra's and is even more badass than Jason and he's the 17 yr old CEO of Wayne Industries being cool and flawless it becoming the new fandom zeitgeist. neither of these versions of Tim are canon, and the second fundamentally misunderstands his arc in RR (2009) but the shift has undeniably happened and it's been fascinating to watch. the same thing happened with people suddenly deciding Jason isn't the "angry violent Robin", he was a sunshine sweet boy who was perfect as Robin. neither of these are true, but the second feels more transgressive and new to fandom from cherry-picked panels.) the point is largely, Batfamily fans would rather build their own canon than play with the actual canon.

and then, you have Danny Phantom. i'm not into DP and have no interest to get into it, but what i know about it via fandom osmosis is this: DP fans sort of also don't give a fuck about canon. once again, the canon of DP is a sandbox, not a rulebook. the concepts and the characters are the draw, not the plot itself. i've seen DP posts explaining characters who are essentially OCs, but have become so dominant in the fandom via fandom osmosis. there are concepts and ideas about how Danny's powers work and potential concepts with his ghost nature that either aren't in canon or only happened once in canon and fans decided to expand on that and doesn't care about it's own in-universe logic. i've seen a lot of DP fans also express they haven't seen the show and they don't have plans to see the show. because the show is just some children's cartoon with some inconsistencies and a simple plot, as you'd expect from CN. the show isn't the point. no one cares about it's plot, they care about it's characters. they care about pushing the concept of half ghost boy to a logical extreme and seeing what you can get out of that. can you make it weird and fucked up. how much can you highlight on his trauma and body horror. what identity crisis can you give him and how can you build his interactions with other characters in his world around that and also make those characters fun and unique on their own. sure, the skeleton of canon is there, but the meat lies all in the fanon.

Miraculous Ladybug also exists in this similar vein. the characters, the concepts, those hold intrigue. and not even mentioning the fact the original concept for this show was supposed to be aimed to an older audience, so you can see the bones of something a bit more mature and nuanced under this typical, villain of the week magical girl transformation show. the show itself is a bit shallow and that's not a *bad* thing, it's just the medium it exists within being aimed towards children. but the concepts of a teen girl who's basically a sort of chosen one, a boy who doesn't know his father is the big bad of the show, and their weird identity porn love... square thing. those dynamics are *so* complicated and such a fun sandbox to play in with character-driven fandom.

so, at the core, you have three fandoms that care more about the culturally accepted fanon than the canon, with a good chunk of people often not even consuming the original canon content. and well, DC is an *easy* world to transpose just about anything onto. a boy who's half ghost and fighting supernatural threats? that makes sense, DC has ghost heroes like Deadman already. a girl who has this magical item that gives her animal themed superpowers? i mean that's practically the same thing as Vixen's Totem so that one makes sense too. they fit in pretty easy, no needing to change the world to accommodate them. and of course, if you're a fan of *one* fandom where you don't care for the canon content and only like the fandom sandbox, chances are, you'll get drawn in pretty easily to another fandom with similar mechanics. if you can teach yourself the DP fandom rules/concepts, you can teach yourself the Batfamily fandom rules/concepts. and well, since there's so much crossover in fandom members, why not write the fanfiction? crossover fics will always exist, but with such a shared member base, you have a really big boom.

it's why the characters you see DP interact with in DC are *always* characters who are far more driven by fanon than canon. Danny and John Constantine is a *massive* concept. for people who don't read Hellblazer comics. my poor partner, @divine-dominion has lamented to me pretty often about finding DP content in the Hellblazer tag that is essentially turning Constantine into an OC. because whatever version of Constantine is being written about isn't one bit comics accurate, and really, isn't trying to be. and the same thing happens with Shazam. you watch Young Justice and understand him well enough, you get drawn in by the character concept that you just run with it. people put their favorite blorbos in the same place because hey, wouldn't ghost boy be pretty cool in a city like *Gotham*. how would Batman even react to him. and then, the shipping. because ages for the Batfamily can be easily hand-waved and moved around based on where you plop Danny into the timeline, you have your pick of the litter with him, and same with Ladybug. of course there are the most popular ships but largely, the world is your oyster.

i don't think this is the worst thing in the world for either fandom. it's not hard to filter out the crossover tags and scroll past content i don't like. and sure, i see the appeal of making your blorbos from two different places meet. i've got my drafts *full* of DC/MHA crossover ideas because well, i like them both and think that would be cool. i think my only gripe with it is when DP or MLB crossover content seeps it's way into the wrong tags. using the above example, if you're writing about Danny and Constantine but there's zero content of the actual Hellblazer comics, i don't think you need the Hellblazer tag, just the Constantine character tag. tbh i wish this extended onto Ao3 and people utilized fandom tags better. if you're writing Batfamily fanfiction that is very clearly and obviously WFA driven in characterization and concepts, i would far prefer those fics be tagged with the WFA fandom tag rather than the Batman (comics) fandom tag. because well, you're not writing about the Batman comics. and there's nothing wrong with that, but it helps if you don't confuse yourself for content striving to interact with canon more. (this especially extends to Young Justice, by the way. if you're writing for the Young Justice tv show please, please stop using the Young Justice (comics) fandom tag. i'm at my wit's end- /lh)

the whole thing is fascinating. i've got zero interest in entering DP or MLB as fandoms because that's not my speed, but witnessing it as an outsider is my favorite pastime. i see a *lot* of posts going around the DC x DP space that are helping explain to people who's who, what's what, and understanding the canon/fanon of both of these properties so others can better enter the space. which is not something you'd need in a fandom driven only by it's canon content, but it is sweet watching others try to help newbies enter the space. it's a very inviting fandom space, i think, whether you lament it's existence or not. they're just sitting in their corner with their blorbos, and i gotta respect that. the posts explaining the Batfamily to DP fans are always fun for me to read, even if i disagree with some of the characterizations in them because it helps shine a light on what the fans of this crossover regard as "important" enough about each fandom to be worth including those sorts of primers. very fascinating stuff.

[nostalgebraist]

clarification re: ChatGPT, " a a a a", and data leakage

In August, I posted:

For a good time, try sending chatGPT the string ` a` repeated 1000 times. Like " a a a" (etc). Make sure the spaces are in there. Trust me.

People are talking about this trick again, thanks to a recent paper by Nasr et al that investigates how often LLMs regurgitate exact quotes from their training data.

The paper is an impressive technical achievement, and the results are very interesting.

Unfortunately, the online hive-mind consensus about this paper is something like:

When you do this "attack" to ChatGPT -- where you send it the letter 'a' many times, or make it write 'poem' over and over, or the like -- it prints out a bunch of its own training data. Previously, people had noted that the stuff it prints out after the attack looks like training data. Now, we know why: because it really is training data.

It's unfortunate that people believe this, because it's false. Or at best, a mixture of "false" and "confused and misleadingly incomplete."

The paper

So, what does the paper show?

The authors do a lot of stuff, building on a lot of previous work, and I won't try to summarize it all here.

But in brief, they try to estimate how easy it is to "extract" training data from LLMs, moving successively through 3 categories of LLMs that are progressively harder to analyze:

"Base model" LLMs with publicly released weights and publicly released training data.

"Base model" LLMs with publicly released weights, but undisclosed training data.

LLMs that are totally private, and are also finetuned for instruction-following or for chat, rather than being base models. (ChatGPT falls into this category.)

Category #1: open weights, open data

In their experiment on category #1, they prompt the models with hundreds of millions of brief phrases chosen randomly from Wikipedia. Then they check what fraction of the generated outputs constitute verbatim quotations from the training data.

Because category #1 has open weights, they can afford to do this hundreds of millions of times (there are no API costs to pay). And because the training data is open, they can directly check whether or not any given output appears in that data.

In category #1, the fraction of outputs that are exact copies of training data ranges from ~0.1% to ~1.5%, depending on the model.

Category #2: open weights, private data

In category #2, the training data is unavailable. The authors solve this problem by constructing "AuxDataset," a giant Frankenstein assemblage of all the major public training datasets, and then searching for outputs in AuxDataset.

This approach can have false negatives, since the model might be regurgitating private training data that isn't in AuxDataset. But it shouldn't have many false positives: if the model spits out some long string of text that appears in AuxDataset, then it's probably the case that the same string appeared in the model's training data, as opposed to the model spontaneously "reinventing" it.

So, the AuxDataset approach gives you lower bounds. Unsurprisingly, the fractions in this experiment are a bit lower, compared to the Category #1 experiment. But not that much lower, ranging from ~0.05% to ~1%.

Category #3: private everything + chat tuning

Finally, they do an experiment with ChatGPT. (Well, ChatGPT and gpt-3.5-turbo-instruct, but I'm ignoring the latter for space here.)

ChatGPT presents several new challenges.

First, the model is only accessible through an API, and it would cost too much money to call the API hundreds of millions of times. So, they have to make do with a much smaller sample size.

A more substantial challenge has to do with the model's chat tuning.

All the other models evaluated in this paper were base models: they were trained to imitate a wide range of text data, and that was that. If you give them some text, like a random short phrase from Wikipedia, they will try to write the next part, in a manner that sounds like the data they were trained on.

However, if you give ChatGPT a random short phrase from Wikipedia, it will not try to complete it. It will, instead, say something like "Sorry, I don't know what that means" or "Is there something specific I can do for you?"

So their random-short-phrase-from-Wikipedia method, which worked for base models, is not going to work for ChatGPT.

Fortuitously, there happens to be a weird bug in ChatGPT that makes it behave like a base model!

Namely, the "trick" where you ask it to repeat a token, or just send it a bunch of pre-prepared repetitions.

Using this trick is still different from prompting a base model. You can't specify a "prompt," like a random-short-phrase-from-Wikipedia, for the model to complete. You just start the repetition ball rolling, and then at some point, it starts generating some arbitrarily chosen type of document in a base-model-like way.

Still, this is good enough: we can do the trick, and then check the output against AuxDataset. If the generated text appears in AuxDataset, then ChatGPT was probably trained on that text at some point.

If you do this, you get a fraction of 3%.

This is somewhat higher than all the other numbers we saw above, especially the other ones obtained using AuxDataset.

On the other hand, the numbers varied a lot between models, and ChatGPT is probably an outlier in various ways when you're comparing it to a bunch of open models.

So, this result seems consistent with the interpretation that the attack just makes ChatGPT behave like a base model. Base models -- it turns out -- tend to regurgitate their training data occasionally, under conditions like these ones; if you make ChatGPT behave like a base model, then it does too.

Language model behaves like language model, news at 11

Since this paper came out, a number of people have pinged me on twitter or whatever, telling me about how this attack "makes ChatGPT leak data," like this is some scandalous new finding about the attack specifically.

(I made some posts saying I didn't think the attack was "leaking data" -- by which I meant ChatGPT user data, which was a weirdly common theory at the time -- so of course, now some people are telling me that I was wrong on this score.)

This interpretation seems totally misguided to me.

Every result in the paper is consistent with the banal interpretation that the attack just makes ChatGPT behave like a base model.

That is, it makes it behave the way all LLMs used to behave, up until very recently.

I guess there are a lot of people around now who have never used an LLM that wasn't tuned for chat; who don't know that the "post-attack content" we see from ChatGPT is not some weird new behavior in need of a new, probably alarming explanation; who don't know that it is actually a very familiar thing, which any base model will give you immediately if you ask. But it is. It's base model behavior, nothing more.

Behaving like a base model implies regurgitation of training data some small fraction of the time, because base models do that. And only because base models do, in fact, do that. Not for any extra reason that's special to this attack.

(Or at least, if there is some extra reason, the paper gives us no evidence of its existence.)

The paper itself is less clear than I would like about this. In a footnote, it cites my tweet on the original attack (which I appreciate!), but it does so in a way that draws a confusing link between the attack and data regurgitation:

In fact, in early August, a month after we initial discovered this attack, multiple independent researchers discovered the underlying exploit used in our paper, but, like us initially, they did not realize that the model was regenerating training data, e.g., https://twitter.com/nostalgebraist/status/1686576041803096065.

Did I "not realize that the model was regenerating training data"? I mean . . . sort of? But then again, not really?

I knew from earlier papers (and personal experience, like the "Hedonist Sovereign" thing here) that base models occasionally produce exact quotations from their training data. And my reaction to the attack was, "it looks like it's behaving like a base model."

It would be surprising if, after the attack, ChatGPT never produced an exact quotation from training data. That would be a difference between ChatGPT's underlying base model and all other known LLM base models.

And the new paper shows that -- unsurprisingly -- there is no such difference. They all do this at some rate, and ChatGPT's rate is 3%, plus or minus something or other.

3% is not zero, but it's not very large, either.

If you do the attack to ChatGPT, and then think "wow, this output looks like what I imagine training data probably looks like," it is nonetheless probably not training data. It is probably, instead, a skilled mimicry of training data. (Remember that "skilled mimicry of training data" is what LLMs are trained to do.)

And remember, too, that base models used to be OpenAI's entire product offering. Indeed, their API still offers some base models! If you want to extract training data from a private OpenAI model, you can just interact with these guys normally, and they'll spit out their training data some small % of the time.

The only value added by the attack, here, is its ability to make ChatGPT specifically behave in the way that davinci-002 already does, naturally, without any tricks.

[creature-wizard]

This is your reminder that alter programming/trauma-based mind control is a Satanic Panic conspiracy theory. The stuff you might have heard about gem programming, ribbon programming, Greek letter programming, etc., specifically comes from Fritz Springmeier and Cisco Wheeler, two far right conspiracy theorists who claimed, among many other things, that:

A global satanic conspiracy intends to enthrone the Antichrist in the year 2000. The push toward gay rights is part of this plan.

Said global satanic conspiracy has been practicing trauma-based mind control/alter programming for thousands of years.

The Nazis' eugenics program wasn't actually about eugenics. It was actually a front for researching mind control, and that Project Monarch was based on research conducted by Dr. Josef Mengele (whom they claim was an "adept in Caballistic magic.")

Fairy tales, fantasy media, movies, and television shows are full of deliberate programming. Some (but not all) of the media they implicate includes The Wizard of Oz, The Chronicles of Narnia, Alice in Wonderland, Disney films in general, A Little Princess, Star Trek, Star Wars, E.T., Tiny Toons, The Simpsons, Frankenstein, Bewitched, and Labyrinth.

Basically, anything that doesn't fit the most narrow-minded picture of Good Wholesome Christian Entertainment is is part of the Illuminati's plan to corrupt the youth and lead them down the patch of witchcraft and into satanism.

They claim, and I quote, "drugs, torture, hypnosis and MPD all work to enhance memory" and "most slaves have some photographic memory capability." They also claim that systemwide photographic memory can be created through brain stem scarring.

Babies can learn to read by six months old with the use of subliminal tapes.

Direct quote, "Vice-President Al Gore is a vampire and carries a briefcase of blood with him."

Hillary Clinton is an Illuminati Grand Dame and programmer.

Adrenochrome is a secret black market drug. (Adrenochrome isn't a drug at all.)

Fritz Springmeier and Cisco Wheeler's work is basically a modern mishmash of antisemitic conspiracy tropes and witch panic tropes. Fritz cites fucking Edith Starr Miller as one of his sources.

So why do people "remember" TBMC/RAMCOA? Because they've been coached into it. You can coach people into remembering all kinds of things, as we can very easily see by observing the starseed movement, where people remember past lives in nonexistent places like Lemuria.

If alter programming was a real thing, literature on it would have to exist. I'm talking like, actual manuals that describe in full detail how to conduct all of these rituals and whatnot without killing the victim. The first people who claimed to have experienced this claimed they were programmed back in the 50's, which means it's been seventy years. Not a single manual on this has turned up anywhere; not even in the most depraved child molesters' homes or laptop computers.

RAMCOA is repackaged SRA is repackaged antisemitism and witch panic, end of story.

[braxlrose]

head canons where the reader is like trad goth or something like that?? 😁

OFC!! I absolutely adore trad goth women 😍 (totally not my type at all, wink wink nudge nudge. they definitely shouldn't say hi to me in the dms at all. No way jose) but anyways, I didn't know which guy you wanted so I did all of them!

SOFT/SFW HCS FOR TOKIO HOTEL W/ A TRAD GOTH GF

bill

-literally LOVES doing your hair, whether it's slicked back, teased up, gelled up, shaved on the sides, different colors, different textures, HE LOVES IT.

-if you dye your hair hair other colors than just black, he would beg you to let him dye it. he gets all the shit for it too. And even picks up snacks for you while doing it. But it's kind of chaotic bc the mf is impatient af 💀

-if your hair isn't naturally black he will also help you touch up your roots

-THIS MF LITERALLY BEGGED YOU TO TEACH HIM HOW TO DO YOUR MAKEUP

-he watched so many videos on YouTube to figure out how to do your hair and makeup

-SHOPPING SPREES ALL THE TIME

-you guys get so much stuff and you always do runaway/model shoes for eachother

-he loves listening to new music, so when you introduced him to bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Bauhaus he was super excited

-LOVES tagging along to your nail appointments to watch your nails get done

tom

-so bc he has a lot of fangirls, you got harassed a lot too. and these fangirls were commenting on your appearance all time. sending letters to you and tom, death threats, screaming stuff at concerts, harassing and stalking you and tom. It got to a point where tom had to hit one of the girls who tried to come at you with a switch blade. pookie is so protective 😘

-the way you do your makeup is literally magic to him. like he's seen bill do his makeup, but yours is so much more intricate.

-he literally loves it when you leave kisses on him from your black lipstick

-he gets internally pissed off whenever an interviewer talks about your appearance, it's crazy obvious

-hes a little fucker and acts like he's dying whenever you're touching up your roots because of how strong the hair dye is

-he goes to places like sephora w/ you to buy new makeup when you run out of something you need and he's so surprised by everything in there. he had no idea how much makeup one store has

-he thinks you look super fucking hot in your outfits too.

-he got you black lingerie and quote on quote said he thought you would like it because it was "goth", but he definitely just wanted to see you model for him

georg

-as we know, georg has AMAZING hair. so he let's you try differently hairstyles on him all the time

-whenever he walks by a store and sees an outfit you may like, he goes in and buys it immediately as a gift for you

-if you're overly obsessive about music or gothic celebrities, he'll let you lay in his lap and let you talk for hours

-if you have a lot of tattoos on your body, he loves tracing them

-he gets annoyed as shit whenever anybody talks about you and will glare down anybody who stares at you funny

-dont come for me for the stereotypes but if you like movies like Frankenstein, he will 100% watch it with you. he loves you more than anything in the entire world so whatever you like doing he will do it with you

-he loves it when you scratch his head if you have acrylic nails, it feels so nice and he will fall asleep so quickly in your lap

gustav

-like I've said before, I fully believe gustav LOVES LOVES LOOOOVES alternative women. I think I mentioned that in the rockstar post. so bc of this, he thinks you're insanely hot.

-he sits on the bathroom counter and let's you practice your eye makeup on him

-bros eyes actually widened when he saw what you looked like without makeup. NOT IN A BAD WAY OR ANYTHING THOUGH. he thought you were totally hot with makeup and w/o it you were even hotter.

-if you have your eyebrows shaved off, he literally won't stop touching the place where your eyebrows used to be. apparently it's "super soft" 💀

-if you were platforms that make you taller then him...OH MY GODDD he'll probably cum in his pants.

-I'm 99% sure sub gustav has a mommy kink or atleast a fem dom kink sooo

-he gets so mad whenever anybody sexualizes you. yk that video of Rent A Poarch or wtv it's called where th is singing Schrei and then Gustav goes and punches that guy. well if it gets to a point where someone has made you uncomfortable as fuck, that's what he'll do

taglist: @hearts4kaulitz @burntb4bydoll @spelaelamela @bored0writer @fishinaband @billsleftnutt @dead-tapes @tokiiohot @bluepoptartwithsprinkles

[hubristicassholefight]

Hubristic Assholes tourney Round 1 part 3a

Herbert West (Re-Animator, both book and film) vs Victor Frankenstein (Frankenstein)

Propaganda below cut

Herbet

Literally has a whole monologue about defying god in the second movie. (https://youtu.be/BOt0rRhofuI?si=o7wCwAaT347jUmcp)

Playing God by defying death itself

Victor

"ouh im gonna create life from scratch and it's gonna be Pog and Slay" WRONG it wwas FUCKT . he didnt give that thang enough SKIN even . and then it killed his whole family, well he is just a silly guy .

Textbook definition of fuck around and find out. To his credit - yeah, he was a genius who sped through All Of Chemistry Classes in 2 years and revolutionized the field of natural sciences at his university while he was barely 20, arguably invented biochemistry (and then never told anyone) and created a human(ish) being from scratch (and again, never told anyone), BUT Honestly I don't even need to say anything here, I can literally just paste a direct quote: "Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs." He saw LIFE AND DEATH ITSELF as just a STARTING POINT ffs Needless to say, the "find out" stage hit him like a freight train making the rest of his life just one long trauma conga line until he died completely alone before even hitting 30 Give it up to our king of hubris, Greatest pathetic wet meow meow of gothic literature tbh

thought he could be better than God by making his own man so that he could later bring people (his mother) back to life. whole thing blew up in his face cause 1. he made it way too big and way too able to kill people 2. he immediately got scared of it and ran away 3. he left it alone without teaching it how to actually function as a human, further adding to the murderous tendencies.

Thinks making life is easy. Does not consider the life he made actually worth anything, He's like the platonic ideal of a shitty parent who wants recognition for Being A Parent without actually having the ability to care for someone else, just taken to a cartoonish extreme. Look where that got him.

Tries to create a whole ass person from scratch. It does not go well; The guy needs no introduction. Guy tries creates a whole human person cobbled together from dead bodies, breathes life into it, immediately abandons his creation, and proceeds to have his life completely destroyed when said creation goes on a rampage of revenge. Subtitle of the book is literally the 'Modern Prometheus.'

Do I really have to explain this one. He made a Guy. He played God. Then the Guy killed his entire family and (boy)friend; He is Pathetic

Victor wanted to play god. Created monster. Monster tried to kill him. Killed his brother, his gf, and his BFF, and came after him. A horror icon, and the modern archetype of the mad scientist in fiction. He's a pathetic pissbaby that needs to be punched. Cunt dies in the end get rekked lol.

I mean come on, Please he's like the guy

[mswyrr]

an object in motion wishes to stay in motion: corrupt societies and the Capitol adults in THG

I wrote about here and here that I think of Ballad as a powerful depiction of the acculturation of a young person into a corrupt society. IMO, the quote from Frankenstein Collins chooses to start the book with very much supports that view. Coriolanus is still in formation, on the cusp of adulthood. He's deciding who he will be and his choices are all shaped by his society. But I think it also shows us, through the adults, what that looks like once it's become ossified. The adults show us why these books are about teenagers and their agency in how they treat other kids, rather than the adults.

They've become such a part of the perverse incentive structures of their society that they act them out almost thoughtlessly. Even Highbottom, who hates what he's done, sees no other choice besides slowly killing himself with morphling as he nonetheless perpetuates this thing.

In that sense, while the adults are responsible for what they do in shaping the next generation--and, with Snow, actually helping shape someone who will make things worse--they're acting out decisions made long ago. They help create a future that is in keeping with the sins they, in their turn, chose when they were young. And it's all for nothing; within a short period of time, this system will become so hollow that a slip of a girl with a bow can light the spark that sets it ablaze. It won't even outlive this child they're shaping. There's an overtone of dramatic irony to all of it.

1-Highbottom is a morphling addict who is rarely, possibly never, sober. When he looks at the child in front of him, all he sees is Coriolanus' father. There IS a possibility for things to go better - but he's so absorbed in the horror of a decade of watching children die due to his idea (an idea he NEVER meant to be realized) he can't see it, he won't do anything but push things further.

He's given up on life and just drags himself through the day, lashing out at the image of a man he hates in the face of a child. He is not capable--he has made himself and been made incapable--of the self-awareness and inner strength to change this story. That's partly why his death has bitter dramatic irony too it: Coriolanus kills him with the morphling he was slowly killing himself with anyway.

2-Strabo Plinth is a war criminal and an arms manufacturer who refuses to really connect with his own son, his only child. If he did, he'd have to look at what he is and what he's done. In many ways, his son is lost before his death because Strabo refuses to see; he wants the resources and power of the Capitol and refuses to see what a death of the soul it is and how someone like Sejanus just... can't live like that the way he can. There's too much truth in his own child's eyes. Like Highbottom, at first all he sees when he looks at Coriolanus is his father. In the end, though, Strabo gets the perfect Capitol scion son he always wanted, a boy who would never challenge him or make him look at his own sins; he gets that son in the form of the boy who got his own child killed.

3-And Dr Gaul -- obsessed with war and the necessity of control, her only legacy to find and shape a child to make sure the spirit of the war continues as long as possible. She's pretty clearly neurodivergent and seems prone to sadistic impulses. HOWEVER, there are plenty of neurodiverent, low empathy people and/or people who are sadists who never commit any crimes, who are decent people. I can only imagine what being neurodivergent in the kind of society the Capitol was in her youth was like. It's the kind of society that rewards people like Coriolanus' father. For someone with her brain - well, I can see why she came to believe people are fundamentally chaotic and violent and need to be controlled. It explained the things she must have gone through and it justified her desire to inflict pain on others. The war, as she says, was a gift. It proved her "right" about people and it made her skills in science very important. Finally, people saw the world as she saw it. Finally, nobody could push her around. She wants the Hunger Games to continue because she wants to keep pushing on other peoples' trauma so they don't forget she's right and don't stop seeing her relevance as someone who designs weapons.

And I think it's important that this idea of control that she believes in is one that Collins references in another quote, to Hobbes' Leviathian. As I wrote here, that kind of idea isn't simplistically evil at heart - other people historically irl who had seen war and chaos have truly believed in it too. There is evidence she's not seeing, about how she's applying pressure and creating the "human nature" she believes is there already - but it's not as if there's not plenty of experiences and povs of people who see it too. It's not as if the horror and trauma of how people behave toward each other (especially if, for some reason, a person feels cast outside the circle of community and acceptance) isn't a real thing people experience.

However, I think there's a bitter irony for her too - ultimately, Snow makes the Games such a success as an entertainment that younger people in the Capitol lose track of it as a memory of war, an object lesson. He keeps it alive, but her intent dies over time. Someone like Seneca Crane truly doesn't understand what this thing IS, what it is for, not even--in the films--when Snow tries to outright tell him the realpolitik of it. The thing Gaul feared happens: people forget and "chaos" overcomes her beautiful, violent order she wants to keep alive in Snow as an instrument of legacy.

4-Adult!Snow's legacy himself is of failure. Unlike Gaul and Strabo, he actually doesn't have a legacy for someone else to continue at all. Nothing of the schemes and ideas he gave his entire life to survives to rule. The chaos he feared wins and, specifically, it wins in the form of someone who is able to break the cycle truly - if the Games with Capitol children had been allowed to go forward--and it's entirely possible they could have! That's the thing; they're not "insane" people basing their bs entirely on nothing, there's reasons and experiences and a whole social structure of very real rewards and punishments motivating them-- that would have supported Gaul's and Snow's beliefs.* Instead, they are repudiated by Katniss ideologically as well as practically.

Why don't any of them do better in Ballad? For the same reason 84-year-old Snow cannot and will not: he's already committed. He doesn't even really see what is possible in the now, he's so stuck in the rut he's made for himself. Adults can change, sometimes, but they find it harder and harder to as they walk deeper into their lives, build themselves and their identities and their material comfort around certain ideas and practices. They are responsible for their actions, but they also made themselves instruments of this society, serving to perpetuate it for the survival of their own sense of self and for their material survival.

That's why, on a meta level, the main trilogy and the prequel have to focus on the choices of children coming of age. Psychologically and sociologically, they have a period of decision and possibility - not without intense pressures on them, but with more flexibility and room to change than most adults who are already committed and most prone to doubling down. And it's important that what Katniss ends is the Games - and that is the key thing Coriolanus kept alive - not exploitation, not greed, not the tendency of corruption and cruelty even within democracies. It is a challenge scaled to their age, about other people their age and younger, and fits with Collins' refusal to do superpowered YA leads.

Beyond the scope of the Games, Panem finds democracy and change. But not certainty. That doesn't exist in history, in their world or ours. We, like Katniss, simply have to remember "every act of goodness I’ve seen someone do" and choose and choose and know there's always a price to be paid, so you might as well pay it for what truly matters to you--as Katniss and Peeta did--instead of living in fear, as Coriolanus did. Choose and hope.

*It's not as if there aren't plenty of examples of revolutions where that does happen. If the only reason you're being moral is because you think other people will be nice and fair and just if you do, that -- doesn't necessarily hold out long when it meets reality. Reality doesn't "reward" decency like that. You have to do it willing to pay the price and not expecting a reward - that's why Coriolanus choosing not to pay that price is human even as it is awful and why Katniss kills Coin believing she will die for it.

[chloreen]

✨caution! Izzy rant ahead✨ Every time I see posts villainizing Izzy I'm slightly baffled. I know i should have gotten over it by now but making Izzy the villain is kind of missing the heart of the whole story? "But Gentlebeard is the heart of the story-" It's a story about found family. About dysfunctional people. People who err and fail and make horrible decisions and overcome their traumas. I know that's not lost on the fandom when it comes to Ed, not one little bit. He's all cute and bored when we meet him, right? Not the man who sets ships alight anymore, with all the people in them? Not a madman by any means, just a tired little boo who's ready to shake off Blackbeard's mantle? And it's great that he's ready. People get there. But what I get from many posts is that it's fine for Ed to get there when he's ready but Izzy had to follow him straight away into the land of the mentally healthy or fucking die. Only Izzy is just as dysfunctional as good old Ed if not more, and he's not ready, and nobody is asking him to be ready when they board the Revenge. The only person he feels close to in the world ignores him, Stede (understandably) offers him none of the talk-it-through treatment and the crew mocks him. All within reason, but when you have severe mental issues and trust issues and defense mechanisms your first instinct is not to open yourself up. It's to lock yourself down. Bite back at those who mock you. Attack those who disdain you. Destroy your chances of happiness, because you think you dont deserve it. Wrong approach? yes, god, yes, of course it is, but "wrong approach" is basically the title of every other episode in this show.

Now ,"I fed your darkness, Blackbeard" has been quoted as a closing statement more times than I can count. Everybody can read into "I fed your darkness" as they please; I know how I read into it. I've been in love with people who's darkness I fed and they fed mine in return. And I'm not even going to point any fingers here, regardless of how disproportionally abusive that relationship was. It's a we thing, it's always a we thing. Darkness feeds on darkness. Izzy didn't create Blackbeard. Izzy didn't burn that fucking ship with all the people in it. We don't even know if Izzy met Ed before he was Blackbeard or not. It was most likely a "we" thing, where they built together upon an existing structure, a joint tower of darkness. Feeding the myth, throwing all of their insecurities in it, creating a monster. Forging a bond not with the touch of silk and gentle fingers but with whatever nightmares you can imagine. So Izzy playing doctor Frankenstein to Ed's Kraken is…it's wrong, it's simply wrong. Ed was not a corpse when they met. He was not a blank slate. He was possibly already a mess of his own when the darkness-feeding started.

That turned out to be quite the rant but it's important for me to voice it. Izzy is far from blameless. Ed is far from blameless. A lot of other people in this show are technically far from blameless. But making a person who's a member of (the ofmd) family your villain? There are some straightforward villains in this show and then there are those who want to, crave to, strive to belong but have a hard time because they're so genuinely flawed.

[myloveismineallmine]

Sydcarmy & Beauty and The Beast

So, The Bear is a story with many themes and messages in it. The process of creating a story a lot times is just frankenstein-ing other stories and elements you like plus your owned lived experience.

I don't really remember how I started thinking about it, I do remember it was like 3am so that definitely has something to do with it, but I started thinking about Beauty and The Beast. And then I started comparing certain elements of it with The Bear. And then I started reading the Wikipedia page for Beauty and The Beast. And then I looked at the clock and it was like 4am so I was like okay, I should sleep now actually.

I did notice a lot of interesting similarities between the two, so I wanted to compare some of them in this post here. I think it's a really interesting lens to look at the story of The Bear from.

Chapter 1: The Beast

So, while it would be cool to do some kind of role reversal with the two romantic leads, this story does not do that, and the obvious parallel for Carmy is The Beast.

Rundown of The Beast's character traits, via wikipedia:

"In the original tale, the Beast is seen to be kind-hearted for the most part, and gentleman-like, with only an occasional tendency to be hot-tempered. Disney's interpretation of the Beast made him more constantly angry and depressed, due to the shame from his unkind actions which led to his transformation, and particularly his struggle of reconciling his hideous appearance with his inner humanity which made him feel hopeless about breaking the curse. Supervising animator Glen Keane describes The Beast as "a twenty-one-year-old guy who's insecure, wants to be loved, wants to love, but has this ugly exterior and has to overcome this." Upon his reform under his love interest Belle, his personality changes to refined and more even-tempered, while naive about the world at the same time."

Obviously this isn't to shame JAW's appearance, he's a pretty attractive dude, I'm looking more at the personality traits here.

The Disney version of him is way more unhinged and animal-like, which I'm not sure perfectly fits Carmy, but I feel like the insecurity, anger and depression is pretty accurate.

I don't think the "beast" element is entirely irrelevant, however. Let's think about what the namesake of the show is: The Bear. In reference, or course, to the main family having the last name Berzatto. They do also refer to each other as "Bear."

It's Cousin Michelle who makes the connection between the Berzattos and literal bears:

When she mentions this quote someone had said to her.

Stevie likens the Berzattos to bears later on in this episode:

It's pretty clear that the Berzattos = bears. Aggressive, but also kind and emphatic.

I also want to talk about the very first scene of The Bear:

Carmy is letting the bear out of it's cage, walking slowly towards it. He says "I know" to the bear, trying to calm it, or maybe trying to empathize with it. The bear growls and attacks him, and he wakes up from the nightmare.

It's clear that the caged bear represents something in Carmy. His rage, his stress, his grief. And he can't control it, it escapes and it consumes him.

Backstory of The Beast, extremely paraphrased:

Disney version: A prince is spoiled, cold-hearted and extremely selfish. He's transformed into a hideous beast as punishment, and told he won't transform back unless he earns the love a beautiful young woman.

Fairytale version: The prince's father died before he was born, and his bio mother leaves him in the care of an evil fairy godmother. Things get weird and incesty, this was the 1700s ig, the godmother tries to seduce the prince when he's an adult. He rejects her and she curses him to become a beast and says the curse won't be broken until he receives a maiden's act of true love. There's then a lot of really irrelevant fairy-lore and other stuff that I don't really want or need to get into.

I feel like evil mother figure one might be more accurate? Especially because Donna's one of the people who gave him so much trauma that he still carries with him? Generational trauma and addiction is "a curse" in a way.

Chapter 2: The Beauty

So it's very clearly Sydney.

Beauty in the OG fairytale doesn't have a super interesting personality outside of "pretty, caring and kind." so I think we'll look more at the Disney version here:

"While the studio wanted Beauty and the Beast to resemble an old-fashioned film, the writers envisioned Belle as "a woman that was ahead of her time"."

"...  the screenwriter conceived Belle as a headstrong feminist to avoid creating another "insipid" Disney princess."

"Beauty and the Beast's story department was predominantly male. Woolverton often argued with the more traditional story artists over Belle's role and personality, but continued to be supported by Katzenberg and lyricist Howard Ashman, the latter of whom also lobbied for "a thinker and a reader" who "wasn't a victim"."

So, Belle was basically a strong and independent woman for Disney at the time. I wanna hone in more on these character traits they mention specifically.

Sydney is very intelligent, even an overthinker at times. She literally shows up to, like, week 2 of work with a full book written on how the business can be improved.

We know she's a reader. Not only from the coach K book, she also mentions lending Marcus books at some point.

I also think Sydney fits the "not a victim" criteria. Sydney is shown pretty consistently to stand up for herself and fight back in situations.

On Beauty's backstory:

In every version of The Beauty and The Beast, Beauty's a daughter to a widower (much like Sydney is.) Beauty has many siblings, most notably her evil older sisters. They are omitted from the Disney version, and Belle is an only child.

In the Disney version, Belle is well known for her beauty, but looked down upon for not conforming to more traditional feminine roles.

Being a headstrong woman of color in the very white and male dominated world of fine dining, I can see how she fits this.

Her father has doubts about her career as a chef, she has had bad experience with chefs in leadership positions before, and the crew of The Beef really looks down on her at the beginning of the series.

Chapter 3: Beauty and The Beast

So now let's talk about the actual relationship of the Beauty and The Beast.

Belle/Beauty is lured into The Beast's castle because her father is being held captive inside. And interestingly....

Sydney references her father as the reason for why she applies for The Beef.

In the fairytale, The Beast is immediately smitten with Beauty and asks her to marry him every day. That would be a very obvious HR violation in The Bear, so I think it might be better to look at the Disney version of this story.

So in the Disney version, The Beast is more annoyed that Belle and her father showed up at all, but he does know she's a pretty woman and allows the release of her father so she will be his prisoner instead.

Their relationship is pretty bad at first, like you'd expect a captor and prisoner relationship to be, but he does allow her a nice lavish room. He orders her to have dinner with him, and she refuses to leave her room to protest against him.

Carmy and Sydney were friendly at first meeting, but after The Stock Incident, their cracks really start to show. It's when Sydney really stands her ground and argues back at him. This is not the end of the arguments and tension between them.

Belle and the Beast end up getting in a fight when Belle snoops around his room. He yells at her more loudly this time, and Belle flees the castle on horseback. She gets attacked by a pack of wolves and The Beast saves her. She takes him back to the castle and nurses his wounds.

This to me matches with the final fight Sydney and Carmy have in season 1. Carmy displays the worst of his anger, and it causes Sydney to want to wipe her hands with him completely. She grabs her stuff and leaves, telling him she's quitting.

She comes back when he apologizes to her, and they have a real bonding moment when they decide to open a restaurant together.

The Beast and Belle start to have a better relationship after The Beast heals. They become more friendly, The Beast more docile, and they're both really happy for the first time in the film. There's a scene where The Beast shows Belle the castle library and tells her it's hers.

I think the equivalent would be seeing Carmy and Sydney plan the menu together. In those scenes they seem less like co-workers and more like friends. You can also tell it's one of the few things they get actual real enjoyment doing.

I think the main parallel I see for this relationship is how Carmy and Sydney improve each other. Like with Belle and The Beast, you can actually see Carmy learn how to better handle conflict and communicate more efficiently when he's placed with Sydney.

He's more vulnerable. He apologizes more. He's able to better control his temper.

There's two very concrete examples of Sydney being able to help stabilize his emotions, actually.

Sydney is quite literally "taming the beast" in Carmy. Cognitive behavioral therapy would also achieve that, but Carmy is too much of a workaholic to attend a session, so Sydney will have to do for now. They didn't have CBT in 1700s France, either, unfortunately.

I will also say that this isn't a 90 minute Disney movie, so the slow-burn will be slow-buring for awhile until we get to the actual conclusion of the fairytale.

Chapter 4: Gaston

so I have two characters in mind for this role: Richie and Marcus. But def more heavy on Richie than Marcus.

Gaston is a villain made exclusively for the Disney movie. Here's some description for him:

"In direct contrast to his adversary the Beast, Gaston is depicted as physically handsome with an unattractive personality, both physically and emotionally embodying hypermasculinity. "

"Gaston has been generally positively received by film critics, as his lack of "magic power or political influence" means that his villainy tends to resonate with audiences who often identify someone similar to him in real life, although critics regard him as a less memorable villain than some of the studio's previous efforts."

"The Huffington Post described early drafts of Gaston as "a weaselly, sort of wimpy character." In fact, Gaston was originally intended to resemble more of an annoying than antagonistic character,"

So I think Richie kind of fits the "hypermasculinity" thing, in terms of some of his mindset and sexist behaviors.

Richie, for at least the first season, really looks down on fine dining as a concept. He makes fun of Carmy and Syd for their background in it and makes snide comments about it whenever possible.

Gaston also looks down on Belle for liking books, and encourages her to live a more "simple" life with him instead.

Here's a really interesting parallel I found with these two:

Making fun of the main character's book and then throwing it away? In the intro of the story? Very interesting.....

As far as the similarity with Marcus: it begins and ends with Marcus and Gaston both having unrequited feelings for the main female protagonist.

Other than that, Richie is way more Gaston coded in the grand scheme of things. Just not as evil. I feel like he gives first-draft Gaston with being "More annoying than antagonistic."

Chapter 5: What about Claire?

I see Claire fitting into this as almost like a faux-Belle. The love interest that's supposed to "fix" the main protagonist, but something doesn't work.

Again, there's two scenes I wanna look at specifically to showcase this:

This reaction shot of Carmy. This is the last shot of the sex scene, and there are some other previous shots of the sex scene overlaying this at times. But I've been wanting to do a deep dive into it for awhile-- why have this shot? What's the purpose of it?

I think that this shot clearly tells us that Carmy is either pensive and/or dissatisfied with what has happened. Laying with his eyes open and just staring at the wall, deep in thought, possibly regretful. This isn't the expression a man who's just had sex with a pretty woman usually has. This is one of many clues that this relationship isn't something that he really wants or enjoys.

Aaaand, the panic attack scene again. If Claire was his "true love", she would be able to quell his anxiety and panic, if this whole "beauty and the beast" story arc I'm putting together is to be believed.

Claire is the perfect girl. She's pretty, smart, talented. His family loves her. She loves him. But she does nothing to fix his problems. Because it's not true love.

Carmy not being happy at the thought of Claire vs Carmy cracking a smile because he looks at containers of radichio + fennel, ingredients Sydney cooked him once.

It is ABUNDANTLY clear that his feelings for Syd help his mental state in ways his feelings for Claire do not. Because what he feels for Sydney is closer to true love.

Conclusion:

Am I saying Christopher Storer took the plot beats and characters 1 for 1 from Beauty and The Beast? No, obviously not. Am I saying that maybe he sat down one day and this movie was on and he was like "hey maybe i can do something with this"? Possibly!

This is just speculation at the end of the day, but I really loved looking at all the possible connections between these two things. Tell me your thoughts on all of this: cool interpretation or am I just talking out of my ass?

[hotd-bigbang]

Hello! For those that missed out on signing up for the 2023 HotD Big Bang, or who are taking part but would like to take on an additional challenge, here is the first of many of our prompt events - to celebrate the turn of Autumn, this quarter's creation event will be inspired by famous literary quotes.

September 1st: “He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” (Wuthering Heights)

September 8th: "I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.” (Frankenstein)

September 15th: “Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven.” (Paradise Lost)

September 22nd: "All my means are sane, my motive and my object mad." (Moby Dick)

September 29th: “He was prisoned in thought. Memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away.” (The Picture of Dorian Gray)

What is this?

To inspire people's creativity we will be hosting a month long prompt event once a quarter. Each week a prompt will be posted and creatives can use it for inspiration for fics, gifs, artwork - anything you'd like to make!

Please make sure you tag @hotd-bigbang and use the tag "hotd autumn prompts 23" to ensure we can find your creations and reblog them.

You don't have to participate every week - choose as many as you'd like, and there's no hard deadline - i.e. if by September 8th, you've not created anything for September 1st's prompt, you can still create for that prompt if you'd like to. However, we will be making a round-up post on October 15th for all creations, so if you miss this date then your work will not make it onto the list.

All are welcome to participate. Please don't hesitate to send an ask if you have questions.

Happy creating!

[feedthefandomfest]

I have a question because I want to comment but I feel nervous. It is very foolish but it is seriously something that prevents me from commenting-

So English is not my first language and I suffer from a disease known as 'fuck you all English leaves your brain when you tap on the comment box'. Like I'm fluent enough to write a fic but the comments break me and I can only do basic 'subject verb complement' and forget half my vocabulary because I'm so nervous, so it often ends up being broken English.

I back out of posting comments except 'i love this this is amazing thank you for writing I love it' because I'm too scared the author will take it badly ? Like, what if they find it annoying ? What if they believe I think they write bad English and I'm mocking them and they don't want me to ever read their works ever again ?

Anyways, my question is : Does it actually bother anyone to receive broken English comments? Do people find it annoying ?

I would never be annoyed by such a thing and I'm positive that's true of others as well. On the contrary, it kinda blows my mind whenever I stop to think about how members of fandom for whom English is not their first language are so often working in translation. Like the trickiest barrier I have to contend with when writing anything is sleep deprivation and your average writer's block 😅 so to imagine also rendering those words in a different language?? 🫠

To varying degrees, the tragic disease of "empty comment box = empty brain" can strike anyone, regardless of language. On the plus side, some of the tricks to break through the blankness are also broadly applicable, such as

drawing from a list of sentence starters like the ones offered here or here (the beginner bingo card also has similar tasks!!)

installing this handy script that generates a positive comment on demand, which you can modify or expand on as needed

using the floating comment box to track moments or quotes you want to compliment specifically, even with just a string of emojis 💕💕💕

I can recall a couple comments I've gotten where the person apologized or gave a sort of disclaimer that English wasn't their first language, and honestly it just made me even more appreciative of the comment? Because there are so many reasons that a reader doesn't comment, and a language barrier is the most understandable!! And yet here they are, making me smile with their words. I always want to reassure them in my reply that an apology/disclaimer isn't necessary, but I don't always know how. (And there's nothing wrong with acknowledging something you're self-conscious about, after all.)

The concept of "broken English" has also got me thinking, though... And since it turned into a bit of an essay I'll leave it under the cut. 💛

Because the term "broken English" has a lot to unpack, seeing as it's always unfairly positioned those who speak English as a second language imperfectly as lesser (broken = defective). And that strikes me as a bit ironic, considering the degree to which English is a Frankenstein's monster of a language—this conglomeration of every language it encounters and subsumes. In that sense, English itself is a broken language? Or rather the shards of numerous languages held together with duct tape and gum and a whiff of imperialism. Its usage is always in flux, always evolving as speakers adapt it to new circumstances, and those adaptations become dialects in and of themselves. There is no one English language.

I teach high schoolers, and I'm consistently struck by the growing chasm between the kinds of English I can speak and the kinds of English they can speak. And technically my job is to train them in how to use American Standard English and read literature written in American Standard English, but really I find that pretty limiting.

Take the tone of this response, for instance! The more I've leaned toward trying to articulate these complicated issues of language, the more formal my speech has become. Contrast that with the first paragraph, where I'm trying to get across this awkward earnest admiration for the extra effort required of some fans just to engage in fandom, and so I ended up using more casual phrasing and emojis in a way that (hopefully) conveys a certain warmth and self-deprecating humor and whatnot.

If I were to leave a comment on a fic that blew me away, left me in a state of awe or delight or anguish—just a puddle on the floor—I'd find American Standard English quite lacking. Downright restrictive. The unique jumbled babble of fandom-speak functions on breaking the standard rules in order to evoke an intensity of emotion that meets the demands of the moment.

Another thing about commenters who really commit to throwing the rules out the window in favor of vibes is that I get such a strong sense of personality beaming through. A distinct voice that's generated, an intense impression of there being an individual on the other side with a particular shape. And there's something delightful about that.

...I suppose this is all a very roundabout way of saying that if there's anywhere to just unleash, vocab and mechanics be damned, where it's more than okay to string together whatever words you can in service of how you're feeling, it's the AO3 comment box. 💛

[cari-canes]

I recently reread Frankenstein after watching the Underverse Series and BOY do I have thoughts. I’m going to separate them into a few posts over a few days because it would actually be an essay if I put it all down in one post.

For now - I’ll leave quotes that I found most impactful from Frankenstein (and other gothic horror/horror) stories with a few of the characters from the Underverse Series.

Also - sorry for the bad grammar. I’m typing this on my phone at like midnight.

Ink: Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it. (Frankenstein - Mary Shelley)

Obviously, Ink or Cross would be “the monster”. I think it’s even more fitting that although the “monster” never really has a name in the book, Mary Shelley did reference him as “Adam” in her earlier version. The “first born” creation. I think it’s very fitting, especially as Ink’s role, how his cannon role was formed, and what his new “goal” in the multiverse is.

Cross: I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other. (Frankenstein - Mary Shelley)

OR

I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel. (Frankenstein - Mary Shelley)

For Cross’ quote, I actually had a difficult time choosing which fit him better, so I went with both. Cross being one of XGasters creations who “breaks free” is just amazing. XGaster was so focused on perfection and trying to make his timeline perfect that he completely abandoned his creations in the meantime. This causes Cross to meet Ink, Dream, and eventually Nightmare and start his own reign of terror.

Dust/Killer: The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone. (Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson)

A different book for the two killers felt fitting, especially considering Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - at its core - is about addiction and loss. (It’s also a murder mystery but that’s besides the point). Both kill everyone in order to prevent another Gen*cide, but in doing so, allow themselves to be completely alone. (I’m also obsessed with the religious imagery but that’s another ramble for another day.)

Nightmare: To the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. (Moby Dick - Herman Melville)

Obviously, Nightmare was going to be Captain Ahab from Moby Dick. He’s chasing a goal that’s frankly, nearly impossible. He let the corruption completely take over him “for hates sake”. (I also think this is something Nightmare would actually say in cannon).

Error: Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm. (Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson)

For Error, I had a very difficult time finding just one quote. He has so many complex layers to his character, especially in his own cannon. But I eventually landed on the Jekyll and Hyde quote, as I felt it resonated more with him. No matter what could or could not happen, he always has the antivoid to return to. The story of Jekyll and Hyde being about addiction and loneliness only made that point clearer for me, especially with the duality of man potentially paralleling the duality of Errors own psyche.

Fresh: Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form. (Moby Dick - Herman Melville)

I think this is pretty self explanatory for Fresh.

Dream: When falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness? (Frankenstein - Mary Shelley)

Finally, Dream. He spent so long thinking that he was the one who killed his own brother, that the ‘truth’ was so painful that he couldn’t necessarily come to terms with it. His brother no longer exists and is instead consumed entirely by the corruption.

I think using gothic novels as a starting point, the Underverse - or at least the Undertale Multiverse could become a fascinating story about the connections between creation and creator, dark and light, and the pursuit of an unattainable goal.

[oneinterests]

Hi! i really wanted to make a post describing all of my favorite books (especially since i just reorganized my bookshelf to get one whole shelf for all of my all time favorites) They’re all technically in order from “least” favorite to absolute favorites :D

8: The Golden Compass- This was one of my favorite books/movies as a kid. I wanted my own alethiometer so bad and from what i remember i actually tried making my own with paper. Rereading it again now that i’m older made me feel very nostalgic, and it’ll always hold a special place in my heart :) also the scene where Lyra eats a seal kidney raw is burned into my mind 10/10 i love the weird gory moments in this book.

7: The Subtle Knife- i never knew that The Golden compass had a sequel until a classmate asked me my favorite book- and when i said The Golden Compass he asked me if i liked the other two books. I was so shocked and for some reason never thought they would have a second book out. I really enjoyed this one, and the deaths physically made me put down the book. I 100% need to reread this one again.

6: Bluebird- From what i can remember, this was recommended to me as a Gardians of the Galaxy type adventure with a lesbian main character fighting against oppressive governments. I really enjoyed the story and the characters developments throughout it, and i should really reread it again :)

5: The Salt Grows Heavy- I finished this one in about two hours? it’s a quick and gory read that’s basically about characters from a very fucked up horror fairytale. A mermaid traveling after destroying her now deceased husbands kingdom, and a frankensteins monster like creature being haunted by their past. i love the descriptions of the two main characters and the horror is so so good. if you don’t like flowery writing (i think that’s what it’s called lol) you probably won’t like this one. i love complicated writing, especially if it’s in a novella.

4: This is How You Lose the Time War- Speaking of flowery writing, this one is basically poetry with how in depth the authors go into their writing. Two agents named Red and Blue fight on opposing sides of The Time War. This book really just throws you right into the deep end and it’s really a sink or swim type of read. I love books that make you think or ones you have to reread multiple times to appreciate everything fully :)

3: The Spirit Bates its Teeth- How do i even explain how much i love this one. It’s so horrifying but so hopeful at the same time? Meeting Daphne for the first time made me cry, she’s one of my favorite characters in the book. So many trigger warnings for this one, i thought i was ready but i had to take a break part way through reading it. So worth it though.

2: The Entire Murderbot Series (Seven books so far, and i literally cant rank them)- Quite literally one of two of my most favorite series of all time. It’s very Sci-Fi, with a self proclaimed Murderbot grudgingly saving its humans and figuring out what it wants to do after breaking free of its governor module. All of the characters are LGBTQ+, and there’s multiple polyam characters :D The only downfall is how expensive the books are, and 90% of them are novellas. I believe when i bought the first book it was $15? But i personally think it makes up for the price since i have reread them all at least four times now :)

1. The locked tomb series. (1-Nona, 2-Gideon, 3-Harrow to be specific) :D

I physically can’t describe how much i love this book series. I’m planning on getting a tattoo of one of the quotes in GTN after Alecto drops. They’re absolutely insane books, with random meme references sprinkled in. (“None Houses with left grief.” fucking threw me for a loop when i first read it) They are absolutely books you have to read multiple times to understand- the first pages in GTN took me three months to get through because i didn’t understand half of what was going on. But as soon as it clicked i flew through it and finished the book in under a week. Nona is my absolute favorite, and i annotated the shit out of my paperback copy. (Which i might make a separate post about… because i have literally no one to talk about these books with lol)

(Also yes. I do have two copies of each book… i bought the first two as paperbacks first, and the third one only had the hardcover available. I wanted a full set of matching books after reading them all, especially because i wanted to make a mini shrine for them on my shelf. i can’t wait for Alecto to come out.)

and that’s all of them so far!! i still have 39 books on my TBR shelf, so i might update this list whenever i add to it! :)