#notes from the field

[vagvonfag]

Old shirt made new

[ecrivaine-musings]

by god, i just want to have my silly little books, sit with my silly little thoughts, and write my silly little words

[junemermaid]

you know what, I've had a fucking day of it and it's only one p.m., I'm gonna be rude (and truthful) on the internet

(I'm not saying you shouldn't read light/fluffy/happy/trope-filled fic, of course not. but it is not the only kind of fic out there, and there's such a clear trend in fandom against giving the least thought to a story and trying to figure out what it's trying to say. so here we fucking go:)

sometimes a story requires that you actually take two brain cells and rub them together. sometimes a story is not simply your two faves in a standard scenario where you could swap them with any two fictional idiots and have the same outcome.

some people on this webbed site have never actually thought about the fiction they so easily consume, and boy howdy does it show. I see so many wonderful and thoughtful writers in fandom go overlooked because they're not laser-focusing on whichever latest easily chewed tropeful mass that the, uh, fandom masses long for. I see people in comments drawing wild conclusions from fic that dares not to conform to the most worn-out popular romance templates.

like, sometimes the point of a story is not just two idiots get together according to a standard formula.

stories, even fanfic, are art. they're allowed to colour outside the lines. they're allowed to, in fact, examine anything the writer can conceive of because that is the power of your fucking imagination if you're not too much of a coward to use it.

I'm watching fandom lose the art of storytelling in real time, and it hurts me in my heart. I am angry because underneath I'm sad that it seems to be harder and harder to find fic that sounds like these particular characters. I'm frustrated because the overwhelming trend is towards rigidly set tropes, and because readers seem to impose those tropes willy-nilly on fic that in no way fits them.

so, do yourself a goddamn favour and meet fic on its own terms instead of immediately locking it into some preconceived pattern in your head. think about what the story (not even the writer!) is trying to tell you. sit with it. roll around in it. let it linger for a minute.

for your own sake, too, as much as that of the story.

[ecrivaine-musings]

this immediately reminded me of some of the lyrics from Hozier's song, Be

"Be as you've always been Be like the love that discovered the sin That freed the first man and will do so again And, lover, be good to me Be that hopeful feeling when Eden was lost That's been deaf to our laughter since the master was crossed Which side of the wall really suffers that cost? ... Be love in its disrepute Scorches the hillside and salts every root And watches the slowin' and starvin' of troops And, lover, be good to me Be there and just as you stand Or be like the rose that you hold in your hand That grow bold in a barren and desolate land"

love and compassion are weapons against cruelty, they are a rebellion against what we've been told 'has to be'

Y'know what? In a dying world so cruel and bleak, I think loving is the most powerful thing you can do. In a world where capitalism wants us to break our backs, where peace is scarce, and where some of our brains decide to say mean things to us. It's so important, actually, to be kind and share joy and take care each other, and ourselves, in spite of the way the world is. To love is one of the most rebellious acts one can do

[louisawells]

Part One: Embers

Fall 2022 

Like many in the wake of the pandemic of 2020, I found myself at odds with who I was becoming and who I wanted to be. The years of 2021 and 2022 brought so much change to my life and I hadn’t allowed myself (nor did I truly know how) to grieve all that I’d lost. 

Loss met me square in the face, screaming at me to pay attention to it, like a toddler in need of a parent’s warm embrace. It was the loss of close friendships and the loss of the life I had expected to lead. Seldom do we discuss how devastating these two types of specific loss can be. They barrel through your life, tossing you to and fro as you struggle to find your footing. Like the titans of Greek mythology (don’t be misled here in what I believe, they are simply that: myth) who tore their way through ancient lands leaving little behind but scorched earth. 

I was the scorched earth and I ignored and isolated my way into a corner where the loss couldn’t reach me. Numbing with television and takeout, alcohol and sometimes precarious situations with men I met at bars; this carried on for months. I felt as if I had nothing left to cultivate. Till my soil and no seeds were to be found (the pill of a lie I’d swallowed whole). These lies had settled deep within and I believed that no good was to come. I had no hope for the future and the idea of dreaming felt futile. 

It was at this time that one of my cousins made the choice to study abroad in Copenhagen for a semester. As one does with one of her favorite cousins when you’re locked in for life, I made a promise to visit her while abroad. I like to travel and this gave me an opportunity to visit a new country as well as make a stopover in one of my favorite places in the world, Uppsala, Sweden. This was the city my dad and mom lived, bravely taking a leap from “smallville,” South Carolina, to live a life abroad for two years. It was my fun fact I always shared growing up. The “two truths and a lie” ice breaker that somehow always ended in me needing to explain that “no I’m not Swedish, my parents just lived there.” A fact I proudly clung to. It made me swell with pride to know my parents forged a new path; had done something against the grain – especially for Black folks in the late 80s. For a young black girl in the midwest, there was nothing I wanted more than to feel a little special. 

So, in October of 2022, I made good on my promise to travel back to Scandinavia. When I arrived in Copenhagen, I had expected similarities to Stockholm. What I found instead was a place where the embers of my soul started to flicker. Signs of life deep within. 

It didn’t happen all at once. The embers flickered as I walked from my AirBNB in Østerbro to meet my cousin in Enghave Plads (a place I now am much more familiar with) for pizza at a cozy place I’d heard about. 

The embers flickered when, one night as I returned home, I was struck with a familiar smell of laundry that reminded me of a small apartment complex my family once lived in while my dad was finishing his medical residency. The streets were quiet that evening and as the cool October wind hit my face, I was overcome with what I could only describe as an intense feeling of familiarity and comfort. The holy spirit of the Lord whispering “a place you could call home.” 

The embers flickered even when, deciding to stay in rather than exploring the city one evening, I settled in with some homemade pasta, candles flickering and illuminating the glow of this beautiful loft apartment, and my favorite movie, “Kiki’s Delivery Service,” queued up to play. (Little did I know at the time that the art for this film was inspired by Miyazaki’s first trip to Scandinavia). Kiki’s most poignant observation (for a precocious 13 year old witch) rang aloud in my mind that evening: “without even thinking about it, I used to be able to fly. Now I'm trying to look inside myself and find out how I did it.” The embers flickered, but the lies of the weed-filled soil in my heart snuffed out any further thought on the matter. 

Upon returning from my trip, not much had changed within me, or so I believed. A few days later, I was off to Los Angeles to visit some close friends who had moved from New York in the great western migration. Sitting around the table with Camille and Leanne, my friend Camille asked aloud, in a way that I love so much about her, “what are we dreaming for in the next year?” 

There I sat, silent. As I listened to their responses, I was excited for them, but the darkness I felt in my soul wouldn’t allow me to see beyond what was right in front of me. I was a woman without hope. When it was my turn, I started to cry. Nothing was bubbling up but my grief. I choked out that I couldn’t think of anything. Camille and Leanne listened with grace (so much grace) and then gingerly pressed me for more. Then Camille spoke. “What if the holy spirit was trying to tell you something about Copenhagen? You really lit up when you spoke about it!” I sat for a moment (embers flickering once again) and replied, “maybe.” 

But, the Lord I know is nothing if not persistent when he is leading us along the path set out for us. After cleaning up dinner and as we sat chatting some more on the couch together, I pondered the thought more, and the embers flickered. When Leanne and I got back to her apartment and as she was in the bathroom getting ready for bed that evening, I sat at her dining room table and wrote out a prayer to God (as I often find this practice a way to solidify my prayers and thoughts and to be able to look back and remember): 

“What if I could dream again? What if I could travel to Copenhagen? Lord, what would it look like if I could go to Copenhagen?” I closed my journal. 

That’s the thing about embers; in the right conditions they can be used to relight a fire long after it has gone out. 

To be continued. 

[tiffanyachings]

Matching T-Shirts for You and Your Weirdly Codependent Cousin

based on this excellent post by @casgirl

[starry-bi-sky]

Blood Blossom Au: Baby's First Commissioner Meeting :)

TL:DR This Post: Danny (orphan) gets poisoned with blood blossom extract by Vlad. He runs away from him and ends up under the care of one Pre-Robin Battinson Batman! Starry is loudly pushing her batdad agenda.

(Also known as "Late At Night, When The Nightingale Sings" on my ao3!)

This was a fun rough idea I've been sitting on for weeks, thinking about how Commissioner Gordon and Nightingale's first meeting might go.

---------------

Commissioner Gordon likes to think that he's adjusting to the new normal of Gotham very well, -- the new normal being grown men running around dressed like bats, in military-grade strength body armor, committing acts of vigilantism, -- and slowly, little by little, he was no longer being surprised when this new normal pops up out of the shadows like the world's most terrifying daisy. His shaving lifespan thanks him for it.

....

The kid is a surprise though.

Granted, he seemed to be a surprise to the Bat too.

There's been a string of murders lately, -- which, in Gotham, is kind of like saying there's been another storm during monsoon season. And there's just been another; in some dilapidated building down in south Gotham, with the broken, boarded-up windows and mildew-crawling walls to match. The victim is a man in his thirties, multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, left in the center of the room for the blood to pool out around him.

The place is already secured when he arrives, the building swarmed with officers and the forensic detectives. The Bat emerges shortly after he does -- or, he might've been here the whole time, hiding someplace dark and shadowy. For his own sanity, Gordon doesn't think about it too hard.

The kid is a surprise, and he appears like a bolt of lightning.

He shows up in the middle of a conversation Gordon is having with the Bat.

A whistle, sharp and loud, slicing through the air, meant for open air rather than a confined space. Gordon's ears pierce and protest the sound, and the solemn, murmured chatter floating through the room abruptly cuts off like the swing of a gavel. As he turns towards the sound -- as they all do -- he swears, up and down, that he sees Batman's shoulders jump, just slightly.

At the source, perched on the window, is a boy. A boy in a gray-blue scarf and an oversized black hoodie, one that hangs off his frame and has ace bandages wrapped around the wrists in some attempt to cinch the sleeves. The hood is up, big like the rest of it, and threatens to swallow the upper half of the boy's face whole in the fabric. What upper half Gordon can see, is smeared with some kind of opaque, black face paint. He's holding onto the side of the frame with one hand, on his hip is a grappling hook. A familiar grappling hook.

Gordon has multiple questions, and his officers tense up.

Martinez puffs up, brows furrowing as his face shapes into a frown. Shoulders rolling back. "You can't be here, kid--"

The reaction is immediate, like a spark to gunpowder, the boy yanks his fingers from his mouth and his mouth twists into a scowl. Head snapping over to Officer Martinez, his hood manages to stay on but Gordon swears that as he bares his teeth, the glint makes them look sharper than they should be. His voice is rasp and quiet and harsh; snappish in its hissing; "Put a fuckin sock in it, Martinez. I'm not stayin."

Martinez reels back, and the boy immediately veers his attention off him. Like a switch, his demeanor drops. Despite half his face being covered, his mouth twists into a cringing, apologetic smile. Slanted and off-beat, embarrassed. It'd be disarming if this wasn't Gotham, and if he didn't just hiss at Martinez like he was about to bite his head off.

"Sorry." He whispers, voice deceptively polite and softer now. Gordon has to strain his ears to hear him. "I was looking for him."

He points his finger towards-- Gordon? No, Gordon follows the direction, and finds himself looking at -- the Bat.

The Bat, who always looks stiff as a pole, now looks even stiffer. Somehow. Well, the explains the grappling hook attached to the boy's waist.

"What are you doing here?" The Bat says, gruff and unable to completely smother the stumble of surprise in his tone.

The boy still holds a sheepish smile, and slips off the window ledge. His feet hit the creaky boards with a near-silent thud, the Batman finds his feet and rapidly begins crossing the room.

Gordon notes the slight tremble in the boy's legs as he straightens. He adjusts his scarf, which droops close to his knees now that he's standing, and slings a backpack -- how long has had that? -- off his shoulders. When the Bat reaches his side, he does as he always does, and looms over the boy like a spectre. A threatening mass of shadows cloaked in all-consuming black. Standing next to him, the boy looks teeny in comparison.

The Bat is a man who terrifies even the most hardened criminals, Gordon has seen grown men shiver in fear at the mention of his name. And yet when the boy looks up at him, he doesn't even flinch.

Instead, his sheepish smile melts away like ice under the sun, holding only traces of his previous embarrassment. It remains as a shadow on his face, a small upturn at the corners of his mouth. The boy pushes his hood back just enough to reveal glinting, ice-flint eyes surrounded in tar-black face paint. He holds the backpack up with one arm. "You forgot this."

[monakisu]

light gets it from his mom… “it” as in “two-faced backstabbing snakery” ˘ᗜ˘🐍

(late) gift 3/3 for my secret santa @llawlieta !!! for ur prompt of yagami family Fucked Up goodness ( ͒•·̫|💚🍭🎀 hope u enjoy!! HAPPY HOLS! * ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊

[betelgeusing]

if I was Fields I would do literally the exact same thing. make my cheating husband invite his work lover to a dinner that I cooked, talk to that lover about our Lutheranism, get messily wine drunk, then embarrass my cheating husband by dropping hints about his previous affairs in front of his lover. who I forced him to invite to dinner. all while saying I was actually cool with all the cheating, but now we ALL need to get tested bc they don't have CONDOMS on the SEVERED FLOOR. fully within the diva threshold. would not change a single thing

[vagvonfag]

Somehow I don't have any pictures of myself in my favorite jacket, so of course I had to fix that

[ecrivaine-musings]

the relationship between a writer and their WIPs can be so…(transmutive, agonizing, soul shattering, haunting,)…personal…

[junemermaid]

I have edited 9k+ words of porn and feelings where the fuck is my internationally recognised literature award hot bath and like three glasses of sangria because it took a week

anyway stay tuned for the last chapter of the taste of pomegranates some time today

[kbsd]

eugene sledge & robert leckie // "station to station"

it's too late to be hateful the European canon is here

-> WATCH ON GOOGLE DRIVE

(i've been thinking about this video for a long time, but this gifset by meg @ww2yaoi really inspired me to finish it. i also drew a lot of inspiration and themes from where to begin by ama @warriorgays. thank you both!)

some content warnings under the cut:

i wanted this video to be a really comprehensive dive into both leckie’s and sledge’s arcs, which meant including the particularly horrible parts of the war: namely the dehumanization of japanese people, the way the marines used that dehumanization to justify their actions, and how it eroded their own humanity in turn. as such, i included a lot of elements of the show that i wouldn’t normally put into a video and that i don’t often see in visual fanworks, so i wanted to content warn accordingly. this video includes (in addition to the usual canon-typical violence and discussion of ptsd):

canon-typical racism including racial slurs, desecration of corpses, animal cruelty, frontal nudity, and suicide

[beemovieerotica]

not commenting on that post about the AIDS retroviral injection directly but people here (again) don't totally understand the staggering cost of R&D for any medicine that successfully makes it to market, nor that there are government programs and programs run by the manufacturers themselves that will cover the cost of these drugs and ensure that the companies that produce them don't all go, you know, bankrupt

[catilinas]

that’s just rome i think (met 4 trans. mccarter)