#so I'm putting it here bc I want people to read it

[allwormdiet]

Buzz 7.2

Dog City USA, Population Rachel and Taylor

More Rachel insights, and they make sense! What the Undersiders comes down to for her is a bunch of stuff (and people) she's putting up with in order to get more money for her dogs; presumably she'd work another job if she liked it better and met the same needs, but that job doesn't exist, so this is how she's hacking it.

And like, obviously Rachel is happier without the weight of other people on her mind, but I do think some of how this is being presented to us is a projection on Taylor's part. She's freshly liberated from her home and living with a bunch of self-emancipated teenagers, out here doing Lost Boys shit; Rachel is almost the most "liberated" of them all in that framework, so that reads as something more to Taylor.

So I knew that at some point Taylor starts using her power to kind of swallow up emotions she doesn't want to deal with, and if I was a gambler I'd bet this is the start of that habit. Making her problems smaller by making herself feel smaller. Handy, but troubling if she ends up leaning on that too much; I'm sure she'll be careful and moderate power usage in this way, though.

And then yeah, fucking heartworms.

Rachel: Oh yeah this is pretty dangerous, but we're fucking doing it bc it cures my dog's parasite problem and what's a missing limb in comparison

She's learning!

The subsequent argument is, hmm. I'm not sure exactly why Taylor is picking the fight here, and she doesn't seem sure of it either? The resolution is fine enough, and why am I not surprised that Rachel's order is "anything with meat," but I dunno, I've scooped dog poop enough in my life that I wouldn't take offense to being told to do it. Maybe it's her having to scoop poop while Rachel is "just" watching Sirius recover.

Current Thoughts

Yaaaaaaaay more Rachel

I'm sure nothing bad will happen on this wonderful time spent with Rachel's dogs, now that we've caught those nasty heartworms

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

I wanna know ur Fontaine msq criticisms 👁️👁️👂I’m all ears

I'm not sure if you wanted me to talk about this secretly or publicly but! Here I go!

The TLDR: Fontaine MSQ aestheticised prison, poverty, child abuse, the justice system/court and didn't properly address any of it.

More:

Focalors/Furina has way too much of a sympathetic angle for a dictator who's lets people drown with her inaction.

Neuvillette feels Bad for sentencing some people to death/prison, but that's it. He's one of the most powerful people in Fontaine. If he felt like there are systemic injustices, I.E sending an abused Child to prison, he should be the first person to DO something about it, not just cry and be sad so the audience can be like aw, that's complex character writing isn't it? No it's not! And guilt doesn't absolve you!!!!!!! (These are stuff we deal with in OTCOJ read my fic now /j)

Meropide has children in it, both Sentenced there (Wriothesley) and BORN THERE (Lanoire), and this is just a quirk of the place. Not only that, Meropide accepts prisoners of all genders and crimes. There are abusers and abuse victims in one place. Do you know how bad that is? How much potential for crimes to happen in a place like that— oh wait, Meropide isn't under Fontaine's jurisdiction. If you are assaulted as an inmate it literally means nothing to the court.

Wriothesley had no qualifications when he took over. Depending on how long he lived on the streets, how old he was when he killed his parents, how old he was when he was first taken in by the orphanage, etc, the man might never have more than 4–5 years of formal education. Sigewinne probably had to teach him how to write reports. And do Meropide's spreadsheets. Edit because I forgot to elaborate on this one: This isn't a point brought up anywhere, which is bad, because when poverty and incarceration robs you of a proper education (and the rights to vote in many places too, too, by the way), it reduces your prospects for jobs, reduces many people's ability to get a home etc etc. Wriothesley was just, narratively, Given his position.

Meropide is an industrialized prison, and they portray this as a good thing. Prisoners are paid in coupons for their labour, and this is also portrayed as a good thing.

The One-Meal-A-Day reform was something Paimon gushed about being so great of a perk, that people might want to go to jail for food (could be interesting and reflective of systemic poverty if MHY had brains, but they don't, so I was just Pissed because essentially all Paimon wanted to say was "Prison isn't so bad, but still don't go to prison guys! Prison labour is really hard!"). By the way, in most real-world prisons they are obligated to feed you three meals a day. Because that's how much food a human needs. MHY went with one meal just so they can say "if you want to eat more, you have to work." And then the welfare meal is a goddamn gacha. So imagine you're a starving child who's too weak to work in the fucking robot assembly line, and you wander up for your first meal in 24 hours, only to luck in with a shit one. I'd kill myself.

They wrote Wriothesley, who's a victim of the system, into a guy who's say shit like "I'm the Duke I can do whatever I want" for a cool moment where he choke-slams an inmate (I know he was a bad guy. But also, in copaganda when cops are violent/disregarding protocols, they are always only portrayed to do that against bad guys, so what does our critical thinking tells us about this one?) They wrote Wriothesley, who was an inmate of a prison so bad, so notorious that it is the literal boogeyman of Fontaine, that has a legal (???) fighting pit, with an administrator who abuses his position to be unreasonable, to willingly stay in the place and become an Administrator who would choke-slam an inmate while saying a cool line about how he has the power to do whatever he wants. They wrote him, the guy who had to be fed on the streets by melusines, to think one-meal-a-day was a good enough reform (while he spends god-knows how much on his boat). This wasn't a victim-turns-into-abuser narrative either, they want all this to be seen as positive character growth.

And then, the final kicker is, they gloss over his entire abuse. You can only read about these shit in his profile, which most people don't because they don't Have Him or doesn't care to unlock it/read it online, and they jammed his entire backstory into a flaccid info-dump at the end of his character story quest. This man isn't Allowed to feel abused and neglected and show any reaction to it within the narrative of Fontaine itself, because if they actually Gave Weight to what happened to him, they'd have to confront THE FUCKING JUSTICE SYSTEM they had NO PLANS on criticising. I don't think they ever explicitly said the fucking Crime-Theatre nonsense was Bad either.

I could go on, but this is already so long. But yeah, I hope this gave you an idea.

[fubbytime]

A new friend awaits!!! Will they be a Sagittarius or a Capricorn?? Who knows :3

[mermaidsirennikita]

The dichotomy between what's popular according to booktok (from what I've see) from the most blandest books imaginable to the most taboo erotica you can think of is kinda wild.

I think that what gets me with taboo books recommended by BookTok is that they're usually very poorly written. And if the writing is poor, you're not really getting the full "shock" value.

Like, when you read Sierra Simone's Thornchapel series, the scenes read as really intense because Sierra is an excellent writer. In contrast, a book like Hooked (that one dark romance~ modern Captain Hook book, a concept I was very open to and wanted to like, for the record) is very badly written. There's taboo content and a horrible hero, but like... It just reads juvenile.

I'm about 65% through A Kiss at Midnight by Anne Stuart, a historical romance that is QUITE dark, but the writing is frankly fabulous. Because Stuart can write, the darkness (which is not like, the corny "oh he's so bad he's in a motorcycle gang" torture sequence stuff--it's TRULY intense and pretty accurate for the era) is balanced out by emotional progression and honestly? A very dry, at times dark humor. If a lesser writer handled this plotline, it would just seem like shock factor after shock factor layered on just to get people talking. Very 2edgy4me.

And I'm gonna be really real here. Some fanfic authors are made to transition to actual published books. I think Ali Hazelwood writes a really solid contemporary romance. I really enjoyed You, Again by Kate Goldbeck, and that's based on a fic I actually read. The Hurricane Wars works as a book. (And mind you, let's not take away from the work the editors and authors did to rework fics into actual books here.)

Some fic authors are meant to stay fic authors and to excel at that. I personally think that one of the reasons why we have so many blaaand romance novels right now is that a) some of them are written by less-equipped fic authors trying to write real books and b) some of the authors have read less actual books than they have fics.

There are some tensely plotted, exciting fics out there. But personally? I think the standout nature of those fics--fics like Manacled, which... I think.... is not.... for me. However, bland it is not lol--makes people think that is the NORM for fic, when it's not. The norm for fic, and what I think a lot of more casual fic consumers and people who read more fic than they do books (compared to a lot of romance readers who turn to fic to supplement their reading habits) is very plotless slice of life stuff.

And that's not meant to be derogatory. It works, especially when you're writing about characters a lot of people know and love and are PROGRAMMED to know and love. Even if it's AU and they're basically other people, if you're writing a modern, sedate romcom about Katniss and Peeta and she mentions going to archery classes and Peeta being a baker, people are like aawwwww and they enjoy the nicely written scenes that are just people being people.

That.... ultimately creates a bland story when you're writing a book about original characters nobody has a preexisting investment in.

[kevin-sedai]

The vibe really deteriorated as the day went on, and now I'm sitting in bed, awake, feeling like garbage

[cloud-somersault]

every time i hear someone sayin' they only read completed fics but also complain because there's not enough 100k slowburns, i get so irrationally mad.

how do you think fics get completed? do you think the author sits on that 100K slowburn for months and posts it all at once? maybe interact and give some engagement

[biracy]

Tbh I should probably take a break. I almost definitely won't but I should, yknow

[vermillioncrown]

pretty sure your snare trap has math for cheese

you'd think so. i thought so, too--but no one talks to me about the actual math from my fanfic (me getting hurt feelings from everyone fixating on 'bruce wayne batman dating' rather than chasing the 'data regression' -> 'fast fourier transform' -> 'dick grayson is a former mathlete about to read korvin to filth', but i fucking did it to myself and know it)

actual math/stem people more knowledgeable than me take one look and go "lmao poser" and ignore it

laymen read my fic and don't care beyond the spectacle

i think the math acts like a filter. you either vibe w my processes (which cannot be separated from how i write) or you [x] immediately

[elytrafemme]

okay i will actually stop the public breakdown sort of now because it's kind of embarrassing but i do need to point out that my girlfriend sent me a video which i do not find funny and like i'm already splitting right now and i really do not need this energy in my life where are the funny men like what are we doing here

[polaroidcats]

5, 13, 22!

thanks for asking!! <3

5. are you self confident?

I think it really depends on the context/situation, I'm usually very outspoken when it comes to things that matter to me or to injustices or things like that, which makes me seem like I'm self confident, but it totally depends on the situation, and in many aspects of my life I'm really really not very confident, I just try to hide it when possible.

13. what colour is your water bottle?

My current bottle is white and has "ihre durchlauchtigte hoheit" (engl. translation according to google: "your serene highness") printed on it in neon green, which is an inside joke between my aunt an I because it's a gender neutral way to address people.

22. what is/was your least favourite subject in school?

I think it was biology, I didn't really like any of the teachers I had and thought it was boring back then (now I don't!).

from the random asks meme! <3

[noxtivagus]

i'll read more from now on again

[umbralglade]

I got and accepted a job offer where the process of applying, phone screening, and interview took place over like 3 days, which is always concerning, but it pays 8 DOLLARS more than I'm making rn and the company has a lot of good reviews

BUT LIKE I was applying to a friend's job and although it's not the main thing, I do think working with people you like is important to like overall life happiness, especially considering this place I accepted a job offer for is mostly older guys (it's an office at a construction site). And I think I could get the same or near to the same pay at my friend's place if I mention the pay I'm being offered from this other place

Idk idkkk I just wish this place had taken longer to hire me so I could get the other job on the way too, but I had to accept it like right away ugghh

[beatbawksradio]

slán

[cosmicsnufkin]

.

[anthromimicry]

@ethicsbutcher asked: ❛ do you ever think about the future? ❜

it wasn't often that misao found herself drifting off while she was spending time with someone she wasn't very familiar with. and this was because, deep down, misao seemingly had a slight distrust towards humanity in general — what with the fact that one was responsible for the very grievous event that claimed her mother's life all those years ago being at the head of it. well, that, and what she'd been taught to believe as a child: to never let your guard down around one because they could easily stab you in the back. but they were not all bad, she'd discovered, and that was a rather black-and-white way of looking at them. regardless, this belief had still managed to dig it's claws into her. so misao remained hypervigilant around humans albeit much less than she used to be. which made it all the more confusing that all she could find herself doing was looking into the wine that doctor lecter had provided her with before one of his infamous 'ceremonial' dinners.

misao had barely touched it and she'd already had too much in her mind. it was a bit of a bummer that she couldn't indulge in it as freely as he could, but as the saying goes: c'est la vie, right? misao soon found herself being snapped back to reality by the sound of hannibal's voice. 'oh, god,' she thought. how long had he been talking to her? misao put on a small, apologetic smile as her eyes met the others, ❝ ahh, forgive me if it seems like i wasn't paying attention, doctor lecter. i was listening, but i guess you could say i have a lot on my mind, ❞ that wasn't exactly completely true but it wasn't a lie either. for, misao only really had one thing on her mind, but it had been plaguing her mind ever since she got here: what could've been his motives behind why he invited her here. they had only talked in passing when they were both within the walls of arkham, after all, hadn't they?

misao squinted her eyes at the other as if she was trying to read hannibal then. but he was not a particularly easy person to be read, even with everything she knew about body language, and how people's minds worked. winging it seemed like the best option from there as a result as misao eyed the food he was preparing, ❝ oh? that's an interesting question, though i hope you aren't asking it out of some attempt to psychoanalyze me. i already do enough of that to myself, ❞ a light snort left her nostrils then before her eyes flitted up to meet the other's once more. misao wasn't afraid of him, but what was his objective here, hmm? ❝ but if you want the truth, i think i have been mainly focusing on what's been happening around me in the present for a while. i suppose because although the future does matter, we could all die tomorrow. and because of that, i feel as if it's only right to consider the present first. ❞

misao shrugged slightly and made sure hannibal saw her take another swig of the liquor he'd given her even though she really shouldn't have. she resisted the urge to grimace at the acidity of it by closing her eyes momentarily, before speaking up again, ❝ that's just my opinion though. is there any reason why you have been thinking about what's to come, doctor? maybe something... or someone? ❞ misao's voice rose an octave whenever she'd said that last part, trying to convey that she was interested in his life. though misao just asked him this out of 'politeness' so that she could more smoothly question him down the road about why he'd chosen her to invite to his home out of all of the arkham staff. misao didn't actually care much about it. however, she was a good liar. or she thought she was anyway.

[secondpersonpoetry]

Franziska Linkerhand, Brigitte Reimann