#it's more complicated than that actually but that's the succinct one

[ineffable-gallimaufry]

adding on to what i said last night if you don't support neopronoun users, mspec gays/lesbians, or lesboys/turigirls i would like it if you unfollow me

[wittywallflower]

DBDA post-s1 Catwin fic. rated G 2k words

Edwin went back to Port Townsend several months after their extended stay. He would never admit to expecting a warmer welcome from the shapeshifter who had professed to be so fond of him. But despite the time apart Edwin found he could still read beneath the facade of the apparently-disinterested man who didn’t stand to greet him and offered only desultory small talk.

He might cultivate an aura of boredom and indifference but of course the Cat King was feeling wary and a bit petulant, convinced he’d been forgotten about. Dubious of Edwin’s long absence and his motives for returning.

🔎

Edwin had simply needed to take the time to cope with everything that had happened. 

Time to mourn for Niko, the first friend he’d made in anything approaching a normal way. His friendship with Charles was something unshakeable, but the circumstances of their first meeting had been rather extraordinary. Edwin and Crystal had formed a mutual affection only begrudgingly, after going through a lot together. But Niko… befriending her had come so naturally. Edwin’s afterlife was so supernatural that the easy simplicity of it all had made Niko even more special. Edwin missed her terribly.

Time was also needed to recover from round 2 of Hell, or more accurately to firmly repress as much of that experience as he could. He had talked extensively of Hell to Charles early in their acquaintance; nothing needed to be rehashed, in Edwin’s opinion. It had been more of the same and he much preferred other uses of his time.

Like the time spent letting his unrequited heart be soothed by Charles’ platonic devotion. To be sure that his feelings for his best friend wouldn’t complicate things. He hadn’t worried too much about their work, knowing Charles was similarly dedicated to their cause. He was nervous about the leisure time spent alone together, always so comfortable and often fun in ways some people thought Edwin incapable of. What would Edwin even do without Charles to help fill all the hours a ghost didn't spend on sleeping or eating or grooming?

Nothing had changed though. Their friendship stayed just the same. Edwin had frankly expected it to hurt a lot more. It wasn’t painless, but as he continued to talk and laugh and solve cases with his dearest friend, Edwin realized that he didn’t need to pine for the romantic love Charles didn’t return. What Charles could give him was more than enough. He knew he had Charles' love and respect and admiration; no one could possibly care for Edwin more than the boy who went to Hell to bring him back.  Charles gave him protection, help, an ear when he needed it, and gave him equal time and attention as he gave Crystal. 

Just because Edwin hadn’t seen the appeal in kisses until recently, didn’t mean that his relationship with Charles was somehow lesser for the lack of them. 

And on the subject of kissing, it had come time for Edwin to actually come to terms with the things he had recently realized about himself. This meant research. The local library had a very helpful display front and center, actually. Edwin couldn’t have known beforehand, but it was quite auspicious that he had begun his research in June. He had learned a lot. 

In the safe space of the Cat King’s private lair, with the man he didn’t have to hide with, who liked his secret parts, Edwin had the courage to say as much - though rather more succinct and impersonal words.

“Is that why you’re here then?" the Cat King inquired. "Curiosity? Need a queer mentor for the questions the books can't answer?”

“I would think you of all people would appreciate a bit of curiosity.”

For the first time since Edwin had arrived, the Cat King’s smile looked the way he remembered it.

“Touché.”

Edwin couldn’t help a small smile in return, sensing how fun it could be to banter with the man now that there were no high stakes involved.

“So, what then," the Cat King asked further, "looking for tips on how to make that second kiss a winner? I could probably offer some… personal instruction in that.”

The words were suggestive, and a wink accompanied them, but it rang a bit hollow. Edwin didn’t fail to notice that before he rolled his eyes in exasperation.

“Why do people keep offering me kissing lessons?” he huffed.

That got the Cat King’s attention, and he sat up sharply, abandoning his indolent pose on the shabby pallet throne.

“Who?” he asked, barely managed to make it a question rather than a demand. 

Edwin had to swallow some emotion before he could speak. 

“Niko was the only person I had ever talked to about… kissing. She said she would be a ‘guinea pig’ if it would help me be less anxious about it. She thought I should save it for someone i really liked, but she still made the offer anyway.” 

Such a romantic soul, but willing to do anything to help her friends. 

Edwin sighed and shook off the creeping sadness. 

“Anyway, somehow Crystal got wind of the conversation and felt a need to point out that Niko really didn’t have the experience to be very helpful. Then Crystal offered to teach me herself, if I found a way to suggest to Charles that he adopt some of her preferred techniques.”

The Cat King stared unblinking for a long moment, then shook his head slightly is dismay.

“Hon, this love triangle you’ve got going on is a little perverse. Tell me you turned Crystal down.” 

Obviously there was no way the prim prissy ghost accepted either offer. The idea was ridiculous. But it would still be nice to hear it said out loud. 

The Cat King would accept any of Edwin’s kisses, but it did sting how narrowly he had missing having Edwin’s first. He would have been properly appreciative of it; he would have done it right, not as a surprise in some dark, shitty forest. 

Second kiss wasn’t bad though. Second was still his goal. 

Edwin answered with a look of exasperation. “Obviously I did not accept. Even if I were so inclined, I can’t see how the inevitable awkwardness would be worth it.”

“If you were 'so inclined', the fun would be worth it. The want, and pleasure.”

The Cat King’s smile was smoldering as he called back to their first conversation. Edwin’s non-corporeal body didn’t blush, but he suddenly had a rather strong memory of that it felt like to have his cheeks heat.

“Yes, well,” Edwin straightened his collar, and his posture, “I don’t have any experience with that sort of…fun. I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“I could show you.”

Edwin looked at him closely, and took a step nearer. The Cat King’s head tilted back to look up at the tall ghost as he approached where the shorter man sat.

“That’s why I am here,” Edwin said without fanfare.

The Cat King almost choked on air, eyes wide, mouth dropping open. 

Edwin leaned in to press a finger to the underside of the shapeshifter's chin, lifting until his mouth closed again.

“I know you could show me things I can’t even imagine,” Edwin almost stuttered when the cat king’s pupils blew wide and the magical being inhaled deeply. Suddenly he looked every inch like a predator ready to pounce. 

Edwin managed to continue, “and for some reason you’re perhaps the only person I could see myself trusting enough to be comfortable with.”

Too surprised by Edwin’s forthrightness to have a response to that, the Cat King could only stare up at him.

Edwin smiled almost sadly and dropped his hand from the other’s chin. 

“But that would have undoubtedly complicated things I was already struggling to figure out. Since Hell , the first time, I was always running and hiding from Death, and in a way also from myself. I didn’t let myself want anything, except to stay out of Hell. Now that it’s not a threat, things have changed. I had to figure out something to aspire to, a goal, something I want rather than just want to avoid.” 

“And what do you want?” The Cat King’s voice was underlain with a purr that had Edwin remembering goosebumps on his skin.

“To continue my work,” he answered plainly.

The shapeshifter rolled his eyes. He was not the least bit surprised and wasn’t that kinda the worst part of it?

“Even now that you don't need the good deeds as leverage to avoid Hell?” he asked anyway, even though he really could have expected no less from the ghost.

The reminder of what he had admitted under the influence of the Cat King’s truth spell was unpleasant to Edwin.

“As I said, I was ashamed of that motive. But that was never my only reason for being a detective. And now without the guilt hanging over me, I can enjoy myself more. I won't have to worry about watching our backs from Death, I can focus on the cases and be better at my work.”

The Cat King nodded, knowing that was true. Edwin did love being a detective, using that big beautiful brain of his to solve puzzles and save the day. It was his calling and it would always be his main priority.

“Sounds like you’ve got it worked out then. Got your dream job, got your weird little situationship with your best buddy. What more could a dead boy want?” he asked, a pleasant but oddly empty smile on his face.

“I want to spend time with you,” Edwin answered with hesitation.

The Cat King’s face fell in surprise at the bald admission.

“I want to talk with you,” Edwin went on. “Speak as equals without a magic bracelet or an urgent case hanging over us.” 

“I’ve never really had your full attention, have I?” the Cat King realized with a pout. “Always such a busy little detective.”

Edwin’s lip quirked upward despite himself. 

“I do take my work very seriously. Too seriously, according to some. But despite appearances, I don’t work all the time. And now it should… feel easier to take time off”

Now he wouldn’t feel so guilty if he wasn’t helping someone every single day.

The implication that Edwin wanted to spend his time off with the Cat King was just delightful. The older man tried but it was clear from the way he had to hide a smile as he playfully feigned a protest.

“Kings are busy too, you know.”

Edwin nodded gravely, as if his eyes weren’t sparkling with mirth just as much as the king’s were. 

“I’m certain we can manage to coordinate our schedules.” 

“To schedule time for a chat?” 

Only a chat? was the unspoken question.

Edwin raised an eyebrow, somehow both humorous and haughty.

“I am amenable to some recreational activities. Or a meal, if you don’t mind being the only one eating.”

“Careful there, ghostie. It's starting to sound like you’re asking me on a date.”

The Cat King could no longer restrain a wide grin. He knew he probably looked like a lovesick idiot. Which was… not inaccurate.

Edwin let himself smile back fully, without restraint. He known all along that the Cat King was intrigued by him, had been attracted to him since that first moment in Port Townsend. But now it was quite clear that it was more than simply a cat’s curiosity, or a hedonist’s lust. Edwin was a bit surprised how the idea of a chaste date had the other man looking like the cat that got the cream.

“I am doing just that,” Edwin confirmed. Then pretended at ruefulness. “And I'm sure you are insufferably pleased about the fact.”

The Cat King chuckled and reached out to take Edwin’s hand.

“Oh you handsome thing, you have no idea.” 

[transgenderpolls]

I also want to say this as a transmasculine nonbinary person that I’ve seen a LOT of trans men be uncomfortable with the term being universalised to include them. Transmasculine started out as a nonbinary label (I think, I could be mixed up) that described enben who were transitioning to a more masculine point instead of a neutral one. Obviously trans men can use transmasculine if they feel like it fits, but still I think it’s best to not just lump us together with the label because there are so many trans men who aren’t comfortable with it (I’ve actually seen a lot of people saying that it straight up makes them dysphoric because they take it as being seen as less of a man)

Same goes for non-transmasculine afab nonbinary people— there’s actually a lot of people calling to just get rid of the terms because they see it as just an indicator of agab. I’ve actually encountered more transneutral afab enben who hate being called transmasculine than I have trans men who hate it. It makes sense, the entire point for transneutral enben is transitioning to some sort of complete middle, or outside of gender alltogether, and aligning them with a specific gender is not only just incorrect but also very uncomfortable and dysphoria inducing for a lot of them. A lot of people also really don’t like the idea of t being ‘transmasculine transition’, which I totally get because I feel the same way when someone says that t is inherently ‘male transition’

(btw this is all stuff I’ve heard from these groups, I’m not just saying what I think goes through their heads or anything)

On a personal note, I also don’t like the universalisation of it because it feels like aligned enben can’t really have a term to describe ourselves— like, being a transmasc or transfem nonbinary person is a very complicated experience, most of us really struggle with this sort of balancing act of androgyny and maleness/femaleness, we’re like an in-beteeen of an in-between and it’s really fucking hard to deal with. It would just be nice if we could have our own label and space to discuss it and help each other with it. But I also get that now a lot of trans men resonate with the term and it would very much be a dick move to just say ‘nope, you can’t use this anymore, fuck you lol’, like, no

idk, I think about this a lot and the topic comes up quite frequently so I have a lot to say on it, but I can’t exactly articulate it, so I hope this made sense sorry

if anyone has sources to show otherwise i'd be happy to see them but i've always been under the impression that "transmasc(uline)" and "transfem(inine)" were umbrella terms first and foremost, with origins in the world of medical transitioning, particularly HRT, that sought specifically to include non-binary people and therefore not imply that everyone going through [medical] masculinization or feminization necessarily identifies as a man or a woman. whether the end goal is conceptualized by the individual as a masc/fem role, it's just a matter of having useful, succinct language to describe shared experience. i really don't see it as denoting agab any more than the term "trans man/woman" does. like if you really are not comfortable denoting your agab at all, it sounds like you're not comfortable talking about being trans period.

as for the binary trans men who hate it i'm gonna be real, i cannot comprehend being mad about someone using an umbrella term simply to address you and others who have significant things in common with you in one breath. i'm a binary trans man and i won't lie, i have had my phase of whining about being "lumped in with non binary people," but like... that's what it was. it was a phase that i'm over because i've grown up and now realize that it doesn't actually dilute my identity to simply have things in common with other people. it would be like a square being mad about being called a rectangle because "you're erasing the fact that i am SPECIFICALLY a square!" literally no, no one is erasing anything. especially not in the context of a poll that's just trying to not draw really arbitrary lines, and which you also literally don't have to answer.

i think it's completely valid to be made dysphoric or uncomfortable by any terminology, but there's a point at which you kind of have to accept that that is a you thing? if a term's literal function is to be inclusive and you feel excluded somehow bc you don't like that you're not being acknowledged as fundamentally different than the others who that term applies to... like i'm sorry, that's kind of ridiculous. you have to accept that it's ridiculous and not anyone else's problem.

also i truly think that if it's coming to contentions such as "just because i'm a man doesn't mean i'm masculine" or ppl otherwise trying to draw hard lines between masc and man/male as definitions... i truly think you are just trying to make this more complicated than it is. like we do need words to describe things, lol.

in any case my thing - at least on this blog - is always gonna be in the context of making polls. firstly i'm working with a character and option limit. secondly, the questions being asked make it sometimes relevant to use some terms that lump groups together, denote agab, etc. the more i think about it, i don't think there's going to be a solution that satisfies everyone, and i also don't think that there's a huge problem with that.

(btw none of this is directed at anon, you articulated yourself fine, i'm just jumping off of your talking points)

edit: irt anon not liking the universalization of "transmasc" - it just occurred to me, would "transmasc nonbinary" not simply work? like it seems to me that you just need to add the word nonbinary and now you're gucci

[doyouknowthisdisabledcharacter]

hi, curious about your vetting process for submissions? you've mentioned checking characters before posting their polls and I was wondering what kind of research went into that?

partly sheer curiosity, partly because I submitted a few characters quite some time back who are reasonably obscure and I wondered if you were having trouble finding info about them and that was why we hadn't seen them yet. :) if there's any way I can help let me know

This is gonna be a longer response in a few sections.

1.) So, our vetting process isn’t that complicated or in-depth. We basically just check does the character exist, are they disabled, and are they disabled in the way the submitter said (you’d be surprised about how often they are disabled but in a slightly different way than the submitter said, or just count for a totally different thing too). (Person who submitted Alphonse Elric with Edward Elric’s disability you will forever be in my heart). Also, only one of us actually does the research about the characters, and I generally research them by using the fandom pages (they are the literal worst most of the time but they get the job done), also for the most part there usually is a fandom page (there’s been a few times where I’ve had to read through articles or scroll Goodreads for way too long to figure out if a character even exists but that’s usually books). We also tend to rephrase qualifications in a more accurate/succinct way.

2.) It is very unlikely that we would be unable to find information for more obscure characters being disabled. If we were unable to find information we would put out a post about it.

Now onto the next part:

1.) In relation to our vetting process, we do not have the time to check that every piece of media a character is from isn’t problematic, I do try my best to at least see if the characters are problematic, but I do not have the time or energy to figure out controversial media, especially because a lot of the media is somewhat hard to find information on (we haven’t gotten to a lot of the obscure characters but I assure you they are there). In this case Harry Potter being excluded is the exception to the rule, not establishing a rule.

2.) Right now, for specific characters, the only thing that would automatically disqualify them is if they are a rapist or something along those lines, although we may try to avoid ableist representations of characters, its often hard to figure out if the depictions are ableist from just reading the wiki for them (I don’t have the time to vet the characters in significantly more depth, and often even if I looked up if the portrayal was flawed there isn’t much out there sometimes). Additionally, I’ve seen that a lot of people have a lot of different opinions on if a character is bad representation or not, so it feels wrong to exclude characters just due to reasons that can be extremely subjective.

3.) Honestly, when it comes down to it, the reason why our exclusions are the way they are is because we are submission based, and we’d like to honor that as much as possible.

[kaiserin-erzsebet]

I am once again going to complain about a hyperspecific online thing that annoys me:

it seems like at least with crochet patterns and tutorials -which is what I actually use so I can't speak for knitting- there is a tendency to call a really wide variety of things "beginner friendly" to the point where I think it might be misleading. The only pattern I've come across recently that said outright that it's "probably not for beginners" involved crocheting cables in the round, which is difficult for a number of reasons.

On one hand, I understand the desire to make crafting more approachable and less intimidating. More people being interested in fiber crafts is a net positive.

On the other, I think it starts underselling the idea that building up techniques that you've learned is something that happens over time. Learning the stitches takes time. Learning how to work in the round or shape garments is a step up in skill level. Counting and following charts is a bit more complicated than being at a beginner level.

I think on a basic level, if the tutorial does not walk through how to do a double or treble or a slip stitch and just assumes the person reading already knows, it is probably trying to talk to people with some experience already.

And that's ok! It's ok to start with a scarf or a small blanket that is one or two stitches without anything fancy. And it is a way to build skills like anything else. There's nothing wrong with being new to a craft and not doing something complicated to start.

I suppose the succinct version of my complaint is this: At what point does labeling many things as beginner-friendly go from something that makes crafting more approachable to something that will frustrate someone just starting out because they have to pick up a lot of skills at once to complete a cool pattern.

[73chn1c0l0rr3v3l]

if you're willing to share, i'd love to hear your thoughts on adoption/found family/people being weird about it. the way things ended up in that episode felt kind of off to me and i'm still trying to put my finger on why.

I'm writing this with a headache, so please forgive if it is a bit meandering.

I'm also going to state up front I am not talking about the adoption industry & all of the shitty stuff involved in that - I'm talking about my own experiences as an adoptee.

First things first: people are Weird about adoption. There's this assumption that people are default genetically related to their family unless stated otherwise, there's the assumption that people will want to be connected to their blood family, there's this assumption that biological family is always the best answer. I think a lot of people have a lot of default assumptions about what family IS & what it means, & they get uncomfortable if you question them.

There are 2 adoption narratives - either your adopted family is horrible & you find your biological family & stuff is Better, or you leave your horrible biological family to get adopted into a family that is Better. There's nothing for "i won't ever have access to the biological family, & I don't entirely relate to my adopted family either," or "my biological family loves me but I can't be in their lives because our values are too different but I don't actually like my adopted family but they're who I grew up with" or even the very succinct "they both suck, okay?" There's a huge variety of experience, & I feel like a lot of the nuance gets lost on people who don't relate for whatever reason.

It's one reason the Timeless Child resonated with me so hard? Because yeah, sometimes you don't know who you might have been & you mourn it, but you can't be anyone but the society that raised you. On a more personal level... well, Tecteun very intensely reminded me of my mother, & I was rewatching Flux (including That part) the night she died & uh... certain parts of that sure were familiar.

It's really frustrating as someone who is currently sorting through some VERY complicated family feelings - my mother (my actual mother, the mother who raised me) died in September. My father - the man I grew up with - died in 2012. I haven't heard from most of my family since then - I didn't hear from most of my family when my mother was dying, which happened over months. I haven't heard from my father's family in more than a decade at this point. They were not there when I was suffering as a kid, they were not there when I needed support as a teenager, they were not there when I was coming into myself as a young adult. Family to me isn't a thing that you WANT, because what's the point of it? I understand it's a different thing for other people, but these things are never one size fits all, & I resent them being treated as such.

If you came up to me & said "you can travel with the Doctor through time & space & you get a SPACE DAD or a SPACE MOM" I would run very fast in the other direction. I've got parents. Depending on how you look at it, I've got more than the usual set that most folks have. I don't want a replacement or an additional parent - I want to grieve the ones I have, untangle the feelings I've got about them. I want people in my life who care about me, who I care about - friends, lovers, mentors, partners, & all those other relationships that you don't have names for. I like it when things don't slot into place neatly.

Which leads me to my issues with found family as a trope. My main issue with it is that it treats the whole thing as very... one size fits all. That everyone *wants* to be part of a family with a mom & a dad & a grandmother & kids. Versus wanting to be in a polycule, wanting to be in a friend group, wanting to be part of a community. I feel like with the ending of the Giggle, it was slotting the Doctor (& Mel) in the parts of a traditional family - they're the aunt & the uncle now! Not blood related, but still having a designated Place. Which possibly ties in to people being weird about adoption, since merely being Not Blood Related somehow makes it different.

I am, admittedly, also allergic to labels. My only label irt my sexuality is queer, I do not have a gender, I have stepped off the various spectrums & am just... me. What I like about the Doctor & their relationships is that most of the time they're in that same grey area? Is the Doctor Sarah Jane's lover? Her best friend? Her avuncular old uncle figure? Her mentor? They all apply to varying degrees, but they're all also valid, & I love that.

I could also talk about my SPECIFIC issues with how it was done in the giggle, but most of that comes down to taste, & we all know that varies from person to person to a much greater degree.

I am also not telling off people who do like found family & those dynamics- I'm really glad there's so much space for so many interpretations! I'm really glad there are so many different enjoyments to be had!

... I'm not sure if all of this entirely made sense, but thank you for letting me ramble a bit.

[elle-thereafter]

For the fic writer asks: 12, 14, 29? :D

12: A trope you’re really into right now

I don't know the succinct way to describe this trope, but I'm really enjoying stories that delve into the ideas around regretting life choices and/or grieving the life you once had or could have had with different choices. Maybe it's just because I'm getting older and gaining perspective on my own life, but I'm really enjoying stories about complicated grief and regret, like super complicated. In CR especially, Ashton reframing his perception of his life and the life he thought he should have had is fascinating. All the recent stuff with Liliana, how she slid down a slippery slope into what is effectively a cult, and both regrets and rationalises those choices. I suspect also we'll get some flavours of this with Astrid's appearance too. There is something really interesting about the grey area where victims can also become perpetrators, and neither negates the reality or validity of the other. It's messy, and I really like messy, complex characters. I particularly like them when they are just becoming aware of and seriously start to reckon with their own messiness. Which way will they slide? Will they follow a path of redemption? Or will they double-down and pursue a darker path? Both options fascinate me so the whole trope and all its sub-tropes are just very tasty.

14: Where do you get your inspiration?

A ton of it comes from gaps and open questions in canon. I can't help but wonder about gaps, and that gets my brain going with "what if" and possible ways to fill in that gap, and eventually all that speculation and guessing sometimes leads to a story.

I also like prompts. Give me a single scenario or "what if" or a "what would it take to make character X do thing Y when thing Y seems wildly out of character". I also love subtle breadcrumbs that hint at hidden complexity: in the most recent episode revealing Essek in C3, there is some subtle stuff in how Matt has Essek react to the idea of Astrid, and later actually interact with Astrid: both before Astrid knows who he is and after. It immediately sent my brain off into analysis/speculation mode, and if I was the sort of person who could work on more than one writing project at once I'd already be writing a speculative one shot about it.

I'm also finding more and more I get struck by inspiration when I'm less strict about the particulars of my plot and am willing to let the characters lead more. Since starting to DM a long-running campaign with friends 5 years ago, my whole idea of how to plan and plot a story has changed a lot because when I'm DMing I have to leave a huge amount of space and flex for my players to make choices. I've adopted a lot of that flex into my narrative writing, and am way more aware of the choices the characters want to make and less rigid about forcing them to make choices I think I need them to make.

Before DMing I spent a lot of time worrying about getting the plot details just right before I started writing anything, and often would get stuck somewhere in the middle when the characters started to feel less like real people and more like soulless puppets, which led me to abandon most of my projects. Now I have only a very loose idea of the plot - just some preferred goals and themes in mind - and I'm more trusting that the plot will sort itself out as I go. It's been really freeing, and I'm finding all kinds of inspiration in the characters being allowed to do things and say things I didn't expect or plan for, and finding all kinds of interesting ways to use bits of set dressing from previous chapters so in retrospect they look like breadcrumbs and foreshadowing but actually, when I first wrote that little thing I had no longer-term plans for it. Two of the three major NPCs in Gate Building started as narrative conveniences and then became really integral to the story: I ended up with some really great narrative foils I didn't plan for, and to me that's just super cool!

29: How easy is it for you to come up with titles?

The answer is "it depends". Mostly it depends on when I need to come up with the title.

If I'm coming up with the title of something like a short fic or a chapter after it's written, I don't find it too difficult. I usually have a little note doc with various bits and pieces relevant to the project, and in there somewhere will be a place where misc title ideas start to organically collect. During the writing some get added, some get removed, some get tinkered with in the margins as I get a clearer and clearer picture of what it is I'm writing and how it's turning out. The closer I get to being done with the fic or chapter, the more the title ideas get refined, and almost always a clear winner pops out during the first editing phase when I'm tightening up the themes and sculpting things to better serve those themes.

If I have to come up with a title that has to stick before I finish something, that's way, way harder. When I decided to publish Gate Building as a WIP that title was a real challenge because I didn't really know yet how things were going to go, all I had was the first 5 chapters and some vague goals, themes and intentions. At the time I thought it was going to be more light-hearted than it's turned out to be, and the title definitely reflects that assumption; it's possible at some point I'll drop the overly complicated tagline and just leave it as "Gate Building".

WIP titles are hard if there's pressure on them to stick around because I don't yet have complete understanding of the shape of the thing, but if it's just temporary much like anyone else I'll call it any old thing. Like, my current WIP Gate Building chapter is just called "Percy" because that's the POV I'm in. Sometimes my WIP title is just the goal of the chapter if it can be stated in a concise way, mostly as a reminder of what the primary goal is.

I do like my titles to be little breadcrumbs about the chapter or the story, and they often refer to more than one thing. Sometimes I'll get stuck for a while trying to be too clever, and my rule is if I can't find a clever title by the time my editing passes are just about typos and grammar, then probably one doesn't exist so I should stop searching for it. But I do like titles that become little riddles, and can be appreciated differently after the chapter's been read. Probably this is mostly for me. :D 

---

Want to ask me more things? Here are the questions!

[puckluckie]

2 & 3 for (we're gonna) find something better please!

(We're Gonna) Find Something Better

2. How did you come up with the idea?

This was an exchange fic, so it was largely driven by my recipient's prompt/likes. However, the interesting (to me) thing about this one was I had never really considered writing S/G/A before, but when I read the assignment email, the plot basically sprang fully formed into my head. I just had to write it.

3. Did the idea change at all by the time the fic was complete?

Surprisingly, no! They usually do, but I had the full plot for this one figured out within hours of getting my SGE assignment. The only thing that really changed is that it got more fleshed out.

Hide and Seek chapter 3: identity porn

22. What is something you learned about yourself as a writer from the experience?

This is one of my favorite fics that I've written (ever, in any fandom). And what I learned from it is that I'm a better writer when I lean into things that make me uncomfortable. Specifically, in this case, that would be more complex emotions and an angstier scenario than I typically write. And honestly, this applies to (We're Gonna) Find Something Better too!

My wheelhouse has always been "relationship definition through PWP with the lightest smattering of angst but a happy ending that borders on fluffy." I suppose that technically, chapter 3 is that also, but I think the emotions are more complicated. Like, people's feelings are actually getting hurt. People in the main pairing are having sex with other characters outside of the main pairing (on screen even! so to speak). It's messy. People don't figure their shit out right away. My favorite character has moments of being an asshole and I don't apologize for it in the writing. (And, as a side note, I KEPT IT SUCCINCT.)

Honorary mention to Trappings for teaching me that I actually can write really fast, if I have to 😅

even more fic writer asks!

[idontchara]

hey there my beautiful lovely wonderful people who r mutuals/follow me this has nothing to do w yall dw. I just need to yell for a moment bc I'm annoyed ONCE AGAIN at fandom nonsense

terfs/truscum fuck off you're not wanted here and will be blocked, id rather not waste either of our times

for the love of fuck can we stop headcanoning literally only the characters that defy gender roles trans-the-"opposite"-gender-they're-defying-the-roles-of because I'm at my wits fuckin end over here. or can we headcanon them as trans the gender they identify as?????

I'm not saying trans headcanons are bad, the character of the day this is about  I actually headcanon as a trans man (though it's grossly pervasive in fandom space with so many more I can yell about). But can we not look at a man with long hair and go "ah woman." or a man/enbie person who wears specifically ambiguous styles and refers to themselves mostly ambiguously as something other than they self ID bc "oh well obviously their gender is blah blah blah." like those r two different characters who I've seen people just immediately gone "oh trans woman" over nothing but surface characteristics (ok the first applies to like 7 different men tbh). one was even canonically a trans dude! I've seen it happen to transfem and transfem coded characters albeit much less, but I'm not denying it happens, just that I can't really think of any specific ones rn.

ah fuck wait I thought of another non-binary canon slew of characters. there's one fandom that's really notorious for assigning genders to different characters based off of the pronouns they use in Japanese DESPITE the series being very clear in telling you that the "species" (it's complicated without naming the media) has moved so far beyond human society and everything we know that they DONT have genders. them using Boku or Ore or watashi is a subtle way of pointing to how they feel about themselves not in a gender way. Boku and ore pop out more when they're being tough or arrogant. but no, everyone constantly misgenders damn near the entire cast and it suckssssss

please I'm begging u to stop the fucking gender essentialism especially in media that specifically tries to avoid making characters fit in a gender box

I'm gonna bite some fucking fingers off I s2g

TL;DR u can headcanon whoever u want as whatever u want but like also please take a moment to look internally from time to time and self examine. if u literally only ever put characters into boxes that are stereotypes of gender/sexuality/race pls consider your biases and maybe consider reevaluating. men can have long hair. women can have unshaved legs. men can wear dresses/skirts. women can wear suits only. nonbinary people don't owe you androgyny either while we're at it. let people use pronouns that don't "fit" their gender! stop parroting gender essentialism into your trans headcanons bc that's also terf shit! let people express gender in ways that doesn't force them into a neat little box. thanks for listening

edited tldr to my tldr bc I'm bad at being succinct; there is a difference between subtext/coding of a character and just going "oh so and so has surface level traits of x so obviously they're x duh"

[finitevoid]

I think that a/b/o is a fascinating example of the human psyche. I genuinely think sociologists and gender scholars should be studying this shit. in like, the context of Who writes and Why. What motivates people to portray gender in this way. Because at its core, abo is an expression of patriarchal gender dynamics. It’s not necessarily an inherently Good one but it is an expression of it. A fandom trope, written mostly by women and other gender minorities, centering what is a cartoonish, warped representation of contemporary gendered experiences. The intensity of the representation isn’t realistic, but it is cathartic. making what is subtle and painful in real life as blatant and extreme as physically possible. not to mention the aspect of the fact that you remove actual sex as a factor in the caste system. again, there is a palpable catharsis in reading works written by women in which they inflict the worst of the worlds misogyny on men.

But then, it’s also regressive. The only experiences being represented are that of heterosexual women and heterosexual men. there are only two, sometimes three gendered experiences ever explored, and betas are rarely used. with such an emphasis on biological necessity, how would an alpha and an alpha, or an omega and an omega being in a relationship work? Is this analogous to gay experiences irl? Does this then mean that the caste system in an abo society ignores the concept of homosexuality entirely?

At the same time. why are the only orientations represented being alpha men, omega men, omega women, and betas of either gender? Why are alpha women so underutilized? Is it because it brushes the edge of being too close to real life? Is it impossible to wrap one’s mind around a woman being the one in power in a gendered caste system? Does it feel like it’s ignoring the effects of real life misogyny? is it because of the biological aspect? how a woman could be the one to penetrate? then, is it because of the complicated implications of making a woman with a dick the one with societal power?

and generally, how would transgenderism work in a society like this. I refuse to believe that everyone in any society would neatly fit into its boxes of gender, sexuality, and just general existence. Is it then possible for an omega to be born with the orientation of an alpha, and vice versa? or is transgenderism limited to physical sex characteristics, as we would define it in real life?

The secondary sex characteristics in abo fics are often represented as being more important socially than primary sex characteristics. is there, like, a biological reason for this…? An evolutionary one? why do omega men have a womb and a penis? Why would alpha women have… well, presumably the same thing? Would that not make alpha women and omega men adjacent in sex ?

And ALL of this isn’t to mention the absolutely bonkers messy optics of taking what are, in real life, aspects of the social caste, and making them biologically true. like, holy shit y’all, what do you MEAN alphas physically cannot hold back their lust around an omega in heat????? And why have some of the most succinct takedowns of gendered society I’ve ever read been predicated on this premise??!!???!??!!??

[tabby-shieldmaiden]

[Status: trying to rephrase things I’ve said in an earlier post I made. I hope this one is a bit more succinct and structured.]

Okay so, I’d been thinking about animation and gender and the animation industry’s relationship with the toy industry again. I’d been thinking about how to make good succinct analysis of gender politics in children’s media while also being mindful of its target audience. (ex: a show for a general audience of 10 year olds is unlikely to deal with more complicated schools of feminist thought beyond ‘girls are capable of getting things done too!’.)

And like, the first points I would make will be about basic points that have been made extensively elsewhere. The fact that female-targeted media has historically been less well-thought-out due to a combination of perceiving girls cannot handle more complex themes + an assumption that girls will simply enjoy male-character-majority media because that’s perceived as ‘the default’ + there historically being few creatives who really took it seriously do to historic gatekeeping around being on a creative team in a studio. Female characters in male-majority media will also very frequently be tokenised as ‘the girl’, they will be given less relevance in the plot, and these things do obviously affect the quality of their writing and the diversity of female characters allowed in such media. All these aspects have (depending on who you ask, greatly or not-very-greatly) improved (to varying degrees of what constitutes ‘improvement’) in recent times for various reasons, and I am glad for that.

But then I get to the next point I want to talk about. And that’s the connection the toy industry has with the animation industry. How that link they have does end up affecting the portrayal of women in the media. Because the toy industry still is very gendered. If the toy sales stop, the show will be cancelled and the company will play things safer for the next project. (Which yes, does often mean falling back on more traditional gender roles.) And that whole system will not be sustainable if one wishes for consistently well-written female characters, if it’s still so contingent on toys and the buying of all the external merchandise.

And then like. That opens up another can of worms, doesn’t it? That raises more avenues to discuss. Like the fact that most toys are bought by parents and adults rather than children. That does mean that toy companies would wish to cater to all parents, grandparents, etc, including more conservative ones. Which does mean no fashion dolls who would be masculine women any time soon. This could then tangent off into a conversation about parental authority over children and what that means for youth, especially queer youth, to have so much of their gender expression policed by their parents.

Or how it opens up an avenue of discussion around the fact that the toy industry ties are because animation is expensive. Toys provide a lot of the money to the companies who own the rights to the animation. To make media toyetic means that the animation will be less of a risk, meaning riskier ventures are often not attempted and stories get homogenised. It raises questions of possible alternatives to the current systems. Ones away from the currently extremely capitalistic ones.

Or even like. If we talk about ‘empowering’ girls and women, we may also ask which girls, which women? The toy industry relies heavily on outsourced cheap labour from Global South nations, many of the workers who work in these factories are also women. What could be done then? What should we be watching out for? It also raises questions about who tells these stories - predominantly people living in Western nations who have had access to higher education for art in the Global North. How does this actually fuel hegemony? How can these hegemonies be broken? How do we make space for more stories to be told?

I know I’m making a lot of points, and I worry that I may be talking too much. But like, you see this right? You see why I’m getting autistic about the whole deal around media designed to sell toys? This raises questions, layer after layer of questions, and I do hope that somehow, we can answer them.

[claudiajcregg]

Hoo boy, I'm behind on tagged stuff. (After this, I owe the last line I've written, the 8 tv shows, and who knows what else!) But this one was rather easy, even if formatting took me longer than I thought.

Tagged by the incredibly talented @onekisstotakewithme, whose stuff you should absolutely read because she's so good. (And prolific, too!) Thank you, Ally <3

Rules: share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. If you have written fewer than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway.

I have eleven (for now? hopefully?) and I'll put them under a cut because this might get long for my mobile peeps. (I'm not the best at first lines. Or all that follow. I noticed a pattern, lol.)

Tagging anyone who wants to do it, of course! Feel free to ignore it if you don't want to do it, or if you've been already been tagged, etc. I probably missed some posts here and there. ♥️ @miabicicletta, @ballroompink, @holy-ships-x-red-lips, @district447, @eyes-onthehorizon

From most recent to oldest. They are all for The West Wing. Will I come out of this hating my writing even more? We'll see!

still you never took your hand from mine

The idea of writing a book by herself had always felt like this thing she wasn’t sure she wanted to do, at least not at that point in her life. 

The (in)famous memoir fic. CJ starts writing a memoir while pregnant with her first child.

haunted by the notion somewhere there's a love in flames

Filomena Ristorante was an enchanting establishment she hadn’t heard of until earlier this afternoon. 

Set during CJ and Danny's business dinner in S1. It's two chapters long!)

just your smile lit a 60-watt bulb in my house that was darkened for days

When the President summoned her to the Oval Office on Tuesday, the last thing C.J. was expecting was for him to invite her to their Thanksgiving festivities up in the Residence — that was, if she didn’t have plans already.

Thanksgiving 2006 in the Residence, with a dash of thanks and trivia. CJ/Danny, with Jed/Abbey, Josh/Donna, Charlie/Zoey

don't want you to go but I'll be okay

The flight back to Andrews Air Force Base had been pushed back until the morning for various reasons; not least of which had been avoiding a repeat of everyone’s protests on the way to Portland due to the late departure time.

C.J. finds some unexpected closure when she goes out for dinner during the Portland trip. (Yes, I'm copying some of the summary for some of these, lol.)

I'll be your friend in the daylight again

If C.J. was asked to name whatever meetings she had been a part of this week, she would fail.

C.J. and her complicated feelings about her NSC card resurface once Josh gets his during the Santos administration. (No, but I'm actually surprised by how accurate and succinct some of these summaries are.)

catch my pieces as they fall apart

His beautiful wife was sad and exhausted and likely sick, and Danny didn’t know how to take her pain away.

After her father passes away, C.J. grapples with grief and what her future might hold.

say it's here where our pieces fall in place

The sun over the plains was unforgiving on this late winter day.

A series of glimpses into C.J. and Danny’s lives, together and apart, from 1998 to 2008. It's 11 chapters!

we could be the way forward and I know I'll pay for it

The second the call with Hogan disconnected, she stopped walking around the secluded garden area and was hit with a cold breeze she wasn’t prepared for.

St. Augustine, FL; spring of 1998. C.J. wrestles with her burgeoning feelings for Danny when she runs into him outside a campaign event.

maybe everything's turning out how it should be

This wasn’t the same without Leo.

As a way to honor his late mentor, Josh brings back Leo’s Big Block of Cheese tradition during the Santos Administration. Unbeknownst to him, he ends up having a special crackpot meeting of his own. (This has implied CJ/Danny and Josh/Donna.)

all's well that ends well to end up with you

The sun was setting over the small mountain range in the distance, coloring the sky with a pink-orange hue that was breathtaking. 

C.J. and Danny find a moment of quiet in a hectic day and reflect about how they got to where they are. Their wedding. It's set after their wedding.

... and +1, because I felt bad leaving it behind

maybe we'll sleep here covered in star shine

At four in the morning, the sky was beautifully dark with just the slightest hint of the day that would soon start on the horizon. 

On a sleepless night, C.J. finds herself staring at the stars and reminiscing about her childhood.

[delusion-of-negation]

there's a letter to an ex-friend under the cut - i know that he won't know about or read it, but i've been told that expressing myself might help me find closure and support. apparently, men don't talk about our emotions enough, or some bullshit - idk, i don't read feminist literature, i'm a shitposter. note: if you do read the letter, please don't take the opportunity to insult or demean my ex-friend in the notes, you know that i'm not a fan of internet gossip culture or bandwagon insult parties, especially not when you've only heard one side, especially not when you think that you deserve more information, especially not just to be a dick.

date posted: 17/08/2023 date last edited: 20/09/2023

this is unrebloggable because i don't want private emotions circulating, but i also made playlists that express how i'm feeling (because i find that putting songs or pictures in nice orders helps me express myself, i'm autistic, and music conveys feelings better than my long-winded explanations of the reasons). initially, one was in the post itself, and another was linked, along with an update post.

the letter:

frankly, i'm not a very succinct person, and when i initially wrote this i had a lot of very complex, not-yet-fully-understood feelings that i was processing with it, and it quickly became disorganised in a flurry. i want to express the points better and have edited it to do so. you callously, knowingly ruined my entire life, on every level you could, for your own amusement. i have no opportunity to even convey to you what you've done to me, and that's why i wrote this, to understand and convey those thoughts to the void. i'm explaining that the reasons for my hurt and my ever-increasing suicidality are nuanced and complicated, historic and current, and they feed into each other, yes, but the part that you played is not to be understated. this was originally more balanced and sympathetic, more mourning and sad, as an anonymous post about a complicated, personal situation that you want to wash your hands of - but you want to wash your hands of fucking me over, not once or twice, but endlessly and cruelly for weeks. you definitely have no room to judge an anonymous post to process feelings (where nobody who knows you would even see, except anyone you sent to send me hate), which doesn't talk about a single personal thing about you, when you air deeply personal info, with god knows how much selective quoting and twisting and demonising of a conversation that happened specifically while i was incapable of an ounce of coherent thought, overdosing and drunk, to people who actually know me.

you and your buddies spew callous bullshit gossiping, twisting my words (for example, when i was talking about struggling with self-loathing and depression and dark thoughts - while i was, as mentioned, drunk, on a massive overdose of various psychotropic meds, and in the midst of a suicide attempt, wherein you decided to bait and lead the conversation, to get things to take out of context later - i said that a couple of events [ie moments of struggle with the aforementioned issues] led to me talking to my previous therapist about things; it seems this may be amongst things taken out of context, put alongside other rumours, past and current, with chronic gossips and people you went to who you knew i didn't trust [who, it should be noted, i dislike and blame more than you tbh, but this isn't to them], to imply "events" meant some kind of behavioural issue, that is not and has never been something that i've done; me having a depressive episode whilst drunk at a later date, expressing that i felt like i was becoming somebody i didn't want to be, seemingly taken to again mean a behavioural issue, not likewise about struggling with my own inner experiences and darker thoughts). even without the twisting, it's so inappropriate and risky to mockingly gossip about somebody's private situation and health issues, which they told you about in a very vulnerable state - to try to expose them to harsh and undue judgement from anyone and everyone. at least one person, possibly more, (who it seems you told about the situation, or more specifically some twisted version of it, amongst other bits of obscure personal information) sent me many awful hate messages and stalked me online. and all this immediately after somebody attempted to murder me in a hate crime, which i had messaged you about from the hospital right after it happened - you are well aware of the sort of danger i was facing generally in life at the time, and the obvious ensuing fears. at first, i thought that you merely didn't understand the risks posed by hospitals and threatening gossip and harassment, but evidence just keeps cropping up that you were always well aware, and simply didn't care.

you disregarded my every boundary and my autonomy by doing what you did that night, i received no respect or consideration at my most vulnerable, and instead it was a means to an end. everything that you said (and the ultimate reveal that any niceness was all just a lie to keep me talking, while the police came to arrest me for being suicidal, or to spin something later) played on repeat in my brain, while i lay in various hospital beds, despite breaking down at mere attempts to re-read it all (i have since, and i could talk endlessly about how nice i tried to be, while you lied and pretended you wouldn't do what you have recently even if i had died). i was listening to music, monitoring my phone battery because we weren't allowed chargers (as insignificant as it sounds in the grand scheme of things, knowing that the whole time you knew that the very next morning, while my kidneys were still failing, you would demonise me and leave; you knew how abusive and distressing hospital would be too, you knew it was dangerous, you say as much in some of the chatlogs). knowing that i had nobody else close by, and that life was about to get a whole lot worse because of you, and that i was still incredibly suicidal, you left forever with a cruel final message - it really just felt like you didn't care if i was alone, hurting, in a highly abusive environment, because of you, and time has only proven this true. and then you demonised me to everyone. and that hurt feeling stewing inside of me as a result is not just losing a friend, it's a plethora of complex feelings, all mushed up together. i obviously don't think that you're obliged to be my friend (the date that this was posted alone should tell you that this is about everything that you've done since), at most i felt that dropping people for minor slights, as you seem to, isn't healthy - but regardless, to do all of this, to make it worse, to simply not care how much it hurts, that was unnecessary and cruel.

an example of the complex interactions with past trauma would be how me and a guardian (along with others) were horrifically abused (throughout my childhood). the abuse gave us c-ptsd (amongst other things) and, as a result of it, during her emotionally abusive depressive episodes, she would say that having his dna meant that i would become an abuser like him, she would tell me to go somewhere out of the way to kill myself, as i've told you before. i was a child, it stuck in my brain and formed how i respond to being thought of as evil. that fed into how much it hurt when you demonised me, when you acted like i was dangerous when i'm not, all over me being ill. on top of that, it felt doubly unfair, considering the mild hypocrisy, considering how i comforted you when you felt demonised, when you cried about how unfair it was to have your innocence and internal experience invalidated by a presumptuous bias others forced upon you - you knew how it would feel. another example, one that conveys an aspect of how and why my life got so much worse because of what you did, would be - because of being abused, tortured, in childhood, the health issues caused by it all, other health issues, the mountains of childhood trauma (from the aforementioned people and others), homelessness, and so forth - i was hospitalised for months as a teenager; i was severely abused while there, which made being thrown back into that exact same hospital (for weeks and weeks this time) because of you an even more agonising experience than it would've otherwise been (which isn't to say that it wouldn't have been agonising and dehumanising either way, it absolutely would've been).

i was sleeping in identical beds and rooms to those that i was sexually abused in (by a staff member coming into my room at night, as reports went ignored), around every corner there was another flashback to the half-a-year of agony that i endured years ago, to incessant and unending daily violence and misery that you physically cannot escape, locked in a room, with isolation, starvation, beatings, electrocution, force feeding, and so on - whatever you didn't endure personally, you were threatened with and/or saw others endure. and while some things had changed this time, others certainly hadn't, it fucking sucked. while i was there this time, i lost almost every friend i still had, i lost every irl friend (any not gone, and any feeling of safety in this godforsaken town, are certainly gone after your gossip and rumours); i couldn't see my dying relative ever again, i never saw her again, i never will see her again, and i was only able to see my bunny, who i loved more than anything, once more, very briefly at the vets, before she died, while staying with an old friend who had decided that she wanted to get rid of her (because of being in that fucking hospital, because of you, all this shit); the local mental health service continued to (and still continues to) refuse therapy or additional meds (because nothing is or will become available); i was sexually harassed by one patient and received bigoted abuse from another, and i could go on and on with more examples of the traumatic and isolating ripple effects. in short, my whole life and any remaining joy was ruined by what you did. you had me locked back there, the worst fear of my entire adult life come true, more afraid and more lonely by the day - like the last time, alone, no support network, no visitors. and any pain, sickness, or noise that caused was twisted to also be weaponised against me.

i reached out to you that night, when i was scared and needed a friend, to ease your potential concerns and to talk to my friend (i only ever wanted my best friend, although i know that you don't believe me on that point at this point, if you ever did, and i know that all innocent intentions and happy memories will have long since been twisted and tarred in your head). i never asked or expected anything of you whatsoever, then or prior. that night, i remember no suggestion of planning to hang out tomorrow, no phone call, nothing concrete, just saying that maybe you'll see me in a year, just lies and pretend understanding and manipulation. i know that it's a complex, difficult situation to navigate, respecting boundaries and choice when you're scared of the outcome that they want, and falsely thinking that handing responsibility to abusive systems will fix it - you didn't even try to help me at all, and you achieved nothing but misery. and now all of this. i know that i spiral and overthink - i don't always trust myself to be correct when i connect the dots that you're trying to hurt me. it made sense - it does track with your consistent disregard for me, with your remarks clearly knowing that there's risks in a psych ward, with your later behaviour. but it's largely interpreting a series of confusing, conflicting events/statements. i know that you spiral too, and that however much you hated me that night, you almost certainly hate me exponentially more now - i know that you'll have talked yourself in circles with whoever you gossiped to, or even alone, until i'm barely even a human being in your mind, if i ever was. i know that, if you were to ever read this, or hear me out to any degree, in any format, every sentence would be met with petty mockery, or at best the inclination to spend more time thinking of a response than hearing how another person feels.

i know that i will never have the chance to soberly explain the things that we talked about (or anything, for that matter, i don't get to correct things, defend myself, clarify things, i don't even get to know any more than vague references in insults what's been falsely claimed, and all i know from that is that whatever it is definitely isn't fucking true), ie what was poorly conveyed or misunderstood or intentionally twisted or only you baiting responses - i was drunk and on a massive overdose of various psychotropic drugs (amongst other things), and i was in a compromised and vulnerable emotional state, i couldn't say anything how i would prefer to, i could barely think at all, i couldn't account for needing careful phraseology or anything, and now i can never clear things up, all because you want to see me in the worst way possible. that said, the more words i say, the more words you have to twist. you've been doing that for a while though - for the latter half of our friendship, so much of what i said was taken in the worst way possible. you embarrassed me around friends more than once, when i was high, over a "that's what she said" level joke that you found distasteful, or something similarly benign. you'd ignore me for weeks on end, but if i wasn't available whenever you wanted for whatever topic you wanted, it'd be an issue (you once contacted friends when i didn't reply for just a day; when i expressed some concerns, it was met with frustration that i hadn't done so earlier, despite the implicit pressure not to do so that had built over the years, despite me actually having expressed concerns in the past and getting shut down with obvious excuses, that you later said were such, and despite all of the eggshells that i was walking on, your unfounded judgements; it felt like i had to fight more and more to be treated like a human being).

it wasn't a healthy dynamic for either of us. and i'm partially (quite largely, in fact) responsible for enabling and cultivating it - for one, i was so desperate to stay friends that i would permit anything, i would ignore every uncomfortable feeling (as i've told you before, i never even wanted your phone number or discord to begin with, and only agreed after repeated pressure and running out of excuses to keep refusing them, and then our level of contact increased, because you were ill and covid was happening, despite my desire to avoid it doing so, as we once somewhat discussed; but then it only grew worse as you made me more and more afraid of your constant judgement; that's not me theorising and reading into things, you admitted that it was happening), i'd limit complaints and disagreement to as mild as possible. bringing this up isn't some "got'cha, you were the asshole all along" - you know i don't think like that, i don't play that stupid heroes and villains game, it's just me trying to explain how and why this has all fucked me up. and now i have two versions of you in my memories that couldn't possibly get along - the deeply unhealthy idealisation that i fed with the scraps that you begrudgingly provided, and the asshole who ruined my entire life on a whim and then left before having to deal with the ramifications, who knowingly sent me to one of the worst places for me, without any sympathy, and who now trots around having a happy, free life, with an occasional interlude to gossip maliciously and dubiously about my personal struggles, without a single thought to how i'm left here in the mud and the rot, having to deal alone with every single consequence of your actions (and all of the shitty things from prior, which haven't been eased, in fact they're much worse), having to deal with the risks and stressors that come with people knowing really personal stuff (or at least some twisted and demonised version of it).

as much as i've bemoaned the inability to clarify myself to you, for a while i more desperately needed you to clarify yourself to me, and yet i had to drag myself kicking and screaming into the unfortunate reality that i'll never have either of those things - all the while not knowing how long i will be forced, by circumstance (my family couldn't afford another funeral at the moment, and i'm nothing if not courteous to a fault) and the few loved ones that i have left, to live in that reality. but you weren't happy to stop making my life worse at that, you weren't happy to let me even try to live my life. everything fucking sucks. and you're responsible for a lot of that suck. and, as i've said, there's far more than i could convey in a single, simple letter. and you will never know the extent of what you did, nor will you ever care about it - i've said it before, but deep down i know that you see me as nothing more than a dodged bullet despite you being the only one who shot (on the rare occasions that you briefly deign to see me at all), and that every time i writhe in frustration, confirmation bias will turn it into further proof of that conclusion, twisting and demonisation will make it feed the narrative. you said once that you simply don't think about me when i'm not around, and i am keenly aware of how little i ever mattered to you. and yet, despite all of that, despite all of this pain, i wanted my friend back, i missed my friend, i missed the person who i thought for a short while that night actually didn't feel disgusted by me, and i missed all of the good times prior. but to you, i'm nothing but a fun thing to bitch about, no matter how much danger and suffering a few minutes of your amusement causes.

i'm stuck here with nobody to talk to, and a million confusing things bouncing around in my head, and even sicker than ever from that fucking place, and you spend moments that you're bored making it worse for your own shits and giggles. nobody is or should be oversimplifying the situation, or arguing that i'm flawless, i've never claimed to be (although i'm starting to realise i need to clarify that by this, and historically anything like it, i mean things like "i word things poorly from time to time", and not whatever horrid ways you'll twist it to imply things i've never done), but i'm a harmless dumbass who got fucked over by you. in an old update, from the day my bunny died, i said "everything fucking hurts. you fucked me over. you screwed me over. you did not save me. you have no idea how much pain you've caused. i am so fucking angry and hurt. i didn't deserve this shit. because of you, what you did, i never saw my relative again and i only saw my bunny once." when i was at her funeral, which i had posted about, you organised a random effort to inform me of how far you'd spread this shit, how much danger i was in, and i said "you're not even trying to hide gossiping and shit while i'm struggling most. you're not even going to feel guilty for any of this. you destroyed me for fucking fun, for nothing but your own entertainment, it's callous. it doesn't benefit you to ruin my life and demonise me to everyone." i spent these few weeks stupidly holding on to the false hope that you would leave me be, telling myself maybe i was overthinking all the signs, working (apparently hopelessly) towards a better life. if there's an ounce of you that ever cared, which i highly doubt, just know that twisting vulnerable moments, to falsely imply that somebody has ever done anything that they haven't or to ruin their life even more and further ongoing isolation and harm that you've already fed into, is sick; someone tried to kill me, i was actively suicidal, and you thought "i know what this calls for, even more fear." you left because it'd be "good for you", but put my health, safety, even life at risk, for fun, for no reason. is that good for me? is that what supposed friends do?

goodbye

[nervousladytraveler]

Why would Poldark tv series writer DH have Ross say to Eliz S1Ep8 that Dem is the "love of his life" (not in WG books) when she is ill, then afterwards still have him pine and lust after Eliz constantly in series. Is it to show Ross as a duplicitous cad? Was it just to show his blind foolhardy idealization and obsession about Eliz because he was denied her. Don't get why she had Ross say that about Dem if it wasn't genuine and truly heartfelt. Why put it in? Doesn't make sense. What's your take?

Thanks for the ask, @anonymous. I’ve been giving this some thought (and will try to be succinct in my reply). Short answer: screen writers can have short memories. I remember feeling this frustration even as a kid watching something happen in one episode of a beloved show (Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries? Remington Steele?) that was conveniently left behind for plot purposes moving forward. And I’d shout at my TV, “Did they think we wouldn’t remember?!”

Or…perhaps it's not that simple. 

Maybe it was just easy for Ross to throw out the phrase “love of his life” because the situation was so dire. Nothing makes us love a person more than when we fear death, ours or theirs. (There’s a really lovely and sort of funny Mary Oliver poem on this very subject but I can’t remember the title). I don’t actually believe that he didn't really mean it, by the way, just offering it as an option.

Or maybe Debbie H. deliberately used that line to show us how complicated Ross and his feelings were. Sure he loved Elizabeth in one way but Demelza was the real deal. And it was really necessary in that moment in S1.8 for the audience to see a declaration of love for Demelza, so we could get through all the other horrible, painfully sad bits of that episode. It was the only saving grace, really.

If that’s the case, did DH have a memory lapse or a change of heart/direction moving forward? I mean she had to have known all the stuff Winston Graham mapped out for S2 when she wrote that line for S1. Does this make Ross a hypocrite or was she trying to show us how he lost sight of his true feelings for Demelza in S2 since we already knew she was the “love of his life” from S1?

Or were there some other lines written for S2 or even S3 that were edited out that would have helped us reconcile this inconsistency? I just read that the original scripts for S2.10 had Ross openly declaring his love for Demelza at the Trenwith riot in front of George and Elizabeth but that it was cut (not sure if it was filmed then edited out or edited out of the script before it was even filmed).

That said, considering the wildly inconsistent ride we had in S3, I can also see DH just playing around with lines, ignoring what had been established because she had somewhere else she wanted to go. And she did push Elizabeth to the center of the story far longer than WG did, so that pesky “love of my life” line she created must have proven very inconvenient for her!

Also, I have to admit, I hate the phrase “love of my life” as much as I don't dig the concept of "soulmate". I think they are really limiting and I think it is possible to love different people in different ways at different times as you grow and become a different person yourself. Sometimes you are lucky and can keep that one great love with you for years and years and sometimes you lose a great love. But I do think you can move on and find another, different, love. Ok--that's not the question you asked me.

Lastly, I wonder if the phrase is a bit anachronistic? I haven’t been able to find the origins of it but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it used in 18th/19th c. dialogue.  Totally possible that I’m wrong and it's even some old expression that can be traced back to Roman Latin poetry. Or maybe it's a relatively modern take? Anyone with intel on that, I’m all ears.

Thanks for asking (and so much for being succinct).

[tryst-art-archive]

Poetry Class Final Compilation: "Introduction"

(May 2011)

            It is truly surprising how much one can change in as little as three or four months, whether one considers the growth of a personality of the development of a body of work. At the beginning of this semester, I wrote as an alienated loner, a misfit, compelled toward poetry of self-reflection and photographs of those who are isolated. Now, four months later in May, I find that my poems dwell less on emotion and more on memory while my photographs begin to portray couples and groups, discovering each other for the first or second or third time. In the photographs, the shift is plain in the subject matter, but for the poetry the shift is most evident in the treatment of the language itself.

            The work presented in this portfolio began as long, wordy considerations that were often too caught up in philosophically mulling over an idea. After a semester of working on poetry and reworking the poems I wrote, I’ve come to shorter pieces with far more succinct language that, in general, focus far more successfully on the concrete and tangible. My poems remain mired in moments – a fleeting memory, perhaps, or an instant of consuming emotion – but these moments now come through in the depiction of an object, a scene, a tangible reality. In general, these images come within less than half a page of lines, and those lines barely take up three inches. All in all, my poetry has become far more succinct and compact, and while I’m certain it could become even more so, the progress from the previously demonstrated verbosity is noticeable.

            I think, also, that I’d argue this new focus on images is both a strength and a weakness. The images hold the ability to lull a reader and draw them in; they allow me to ensnare an audience and keep their attention, and hopefully their appreciation. However, the images also present a hurdle in that they often obfuscate the precise meaning I intended, allowing for multiple readings or only hazy, unclear ones. That I spend no time allowing my speakers to verbally mull over the concepts discussed within their poems erects a barrier between authorial intent and reader comprehension. This may not always be problematic, but it certainly can be, and my apparent inability to explicate explicitly but deftly certainly strikes me as a weakness. In fact, one critique I received from a fellow student remarked in passing that a poem I’d written was “esoteric, as usual.” This struck me as somewhat bizarre as many of my poems seemed fairly explicit to me or leastways sufficiently so; am I really so hidden away? Therein lies the weakness in the poems, then; I’m obtuse to their communicative ability.

            Nonetheless, I have by and large shortened the poems collected here, cutting out words or entire stanzas, aiming to keep only what is effective and stitching up the gashes as gracefully as possible. Even so, some poems have seen additions – “Untitled, 2003 (of which there are actually several, it turns out)” which was previously “Untitled, 2011” is an example – while others  have undergone virtually no change at all. “Complications” (previously titled “Bugs”) is a prime example of the latter. On the other hand, “Miss Bishop, Waiting” remains approximately the same length, but has been entirely rewritten.

            I made my cuts largely because my earliest poems seemed to be carrying a great deal of unnecessary baggage. The additions were largely made when called for by critiques I’ve received, when adding in those desired details seemed pertinent. I left “Complications” largely unchanged because I was happy with it as it stood, and I intended much of the ambiguity and confusion present in it; I’d like for readers to draw their own conclusions, but perhaps the small changes I have made will help them along. “Miss Bishop, Waiting” earned a rewrite by virtue of being largely uninteresting in its previous state, really. With any luck, this revised batch of poems will mark an improvement from their original incarnations.

[sunkcost]

yeah kind of obsessed with the irony of chuck telling jimmy there are no shortcuts in the same scene that he has this line about false principles. i guess it would make sense that he can’t believe jimmy takes being a lawyer seriously or that he’s willing work hard if he’s coming from the assumption that there’s a level playing field where hard work yields equal levels of success, that your success is always indicative of the work you put in. it’s made clear pretty early on that jimmy does, in fact, work very hard at his job and does take it very seriously, even while barely getting paid, but that doesn’t erase the fact that he’s broke and going into debt. it’s easy for chuck to say money’s beside the point when he’s not the one facing that reality (he doesn’t have to because jimmy is willing to try to resolve it for him, for better or worse). jimmy’s “shortcut” with the kettlemens came as a result of his desperation in response to this situation, not from his not being unwilling to work hard. 

it’s just so perfect to have them show jimmy trying to resolve both of their financial situations while chuck insists that the money isn’t an important factor in his cashing out of hhm, and then telling jimmy there are no shortcuts and money is beside the point in regards to him establishing his own law practice, and therefore tying up both situations in this idea of false principles. so many of chuck’s shortcomings are based in his inflexible adherence to his principles and his failure to recognize that some of those principles are more ideals than realities. sure, in a perfect world jimmy could just keep his nose to the grindstone until he gets clients, but there are actualities to contend with in the meantime. it’s just more complicated than chuck’s principles give room for, and so his criticisms of jimmy are never really on the mark. they’re always oversimplifications because his worldview won’t leave room for nuance. “your argument is built on quicksand, therefore it collapses.” and as long as we’re talking about fallacies, i think that the false equivocation of shortcuts and laziness kind of factors in here too. whatever you want to say about jimmy’s schemes, they clearly take an absurd amount of time, effort, and planning. they never come from him being too lazy to do things the ‘right’ way, but rather his frustration over the dead ends that come from doing things the ‘right’ way on a fundamentally uneven playing field, where hard work often doesn’t yield equal results. there's also kind of an incredible double irony in the fact that chuck quotes that as a reflection of his principles and the value he places in the purity of the law, when the rigidity of those same principles have created his blind spot, a fallacy in his own argument. it’s such a succinct display of his unwitting hypocrisy.