#with like annotations and stuff

[allgirlsareprincesses]

[blackhholes]

Monstrosity in Teen Wolf

Hybridity Is the New Metamorphosis by Harvey L. Hix / Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters by Judith Halberstam / Monstrosity: The Human Monster in Visual Culture by Alexa Wright

Written for @teenwolf-meta‘s Meta May Monday theme: beast

Monstrosity and what, precisely, makes a monster is a topic that is discussed both within the text and the larger narrative of Teen Wolf. The most direct mention of monsters vs monstrosity is in *Monstrous* when Lydia tells Meredith “Not all monsters do monstrous things” referring here to Scott, which Meredith then flips back onto Lydia herself. It’s obvious to see here that the show makes a clear differentiation between what it means to be a monster and what it means to be monstrous. To be a monster means to be something unnatural it’s particularly about the outward facing part of a person, this is mainly seen with the shapeshifters who undergo a physical transformation which marks them as something different than humans, but Meredith referring to Lydia as a monster means that it’s not only the physical attributes which makes someone a monster. Being a monster is less about what you are and more about what you aren’t. Once you’re no longer able to be comfortably placed within the category of human you are a monster. This form of monster isn’t a negative attribute though, it’s a neutral one. It simply describes that the person is not a human. 

Acting monstrous is a negative attribute within the show, humans and monsters alike can act monstrous. Monstrosity is therefore not a description of person but instead a description of character. One of the most potent examples of this is in *Fury* where the viewer sees three different factions of characters. Matt is a human so he is per definition not a monster but he is a monstrous human, he stalks Allison and has spent the season carrying out his revenge plan by taking away Jackson’s autonomy and forcing him to kill people. The werewolves on the other hand are monsters who aren’t monstrous, at least to the viewer, they, particularly Scott, are trying to find a way to catch Matt without having to kill him or Jackson. It’s interesting to consider that the Argents, hunters who have always equated monster to monstrosity, have become even more radical after the death of Victoria, despite Matt’s actions he isn’t their primary target when they enter the police station, Derek is. Because, to them Derek killed Victoria by biting her and turning her into a monster just as he is. Matt is an afterthought, he’s the loose end they will deal with afterwards. The Argents therefore has the opposite understanding of the situation than the viewer does.

Humanity is also an important topic within the show, humanity is something fallible. In *Lies of Omission* the scene at the end with Scott and Stiles in the rain serves as an important look into the characters’ and particularly Stiles’ understanding of what it means to be human. When he says to Scott “Some of us are human” it’s a vocalization of the idea that to be human is to make mistakes and that humanity makes a person incapable of always doing right. As opposed to the in-humanity that comes from being incapable of erring. It is preceded by Stiles saying “Not all of us can be true alphas”, throughout this conversation, and even the entire season, Stiles has started categorizing Scott as something other than human capable of humanity, it’s not the monstrous monster previously mentioned either, it’s a third category of non-human. The true alpha isn’t monstrous but he isn’t human either. To Stiles Scott has become a sort of mythologized character who always does the right thing instead of being a real person who’s standing in front of him. 

[xinganhao]

BREAK TIME! — been having lots of fun, but i've also posted consistently since october 😅 i don't want writing to start feeling like a chore/obligation/etc. in light of this, i probably won't be answering asks or posting here on xinganhao for the next two weeks or so. please take care of yourselves, and in case i don't see ya: good morning, good afternoon, and good night 🤍 ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )✧

[chiropteracupola]

hornblower ceramics au that no one (incl. me) asked for

[a-dagger-named-fluffy]

Every time I watch 3x08 and Ray pulls out the fbi timesheet I giggle

The amount of detail in Dex’s entry compared to the others he’s so pedantic thorough

[alienssstufff]

Updated Gillion and Edyn designs as exercise

+the oldish Chip and Jay sketch from twt

[some-pers0n]

It's so fun and goofy to write 1.5k words for your fanfic and you can get the easily done in 1-2 hours but when you're asked to do the same for an actual essay it feels like a herculean task

[moonlitlex]

i'm not like. an annotation style elitist. but genuinely the way some of these booktokers annotate their videos confounds me.

you'll see someone with extremely detailed annotations with like 500 sticky tabs in the whole book and it makes you think wow there's so much going on here. and then the annotations are just OMG! and they've highlighted 90% of the book and they've underlined everything. everything they write are just various reactions like omg! cute! wow! i gasped! hot! etc.

it just screams "i want my book to look like a serious reader owns it" but they straight up just don't understand the purpose of annotating. i don't even understand the use case for this type of annotation because like... are you really not going to know it was a cute scene on a reread unless you highlight the entire 5 pages? is this something you need to draw attention to?

it's just like. wild. to see these books with every single free space covered in annotations. the way someone writing a thesis about that book would do. but then you look at the content of the annotations and it is confusingly just someone's immediate reactions to what they've read.

which is like. it's good. that's definitely a part of annotating. but annotation is a tool to understand and analyze a text. and this is not what is going on.

and what is MORE confounding is when people who annotate like this SELL THEIR ANNOTATED BOOKS???? FOR MONEY??? THAT PEOPLE BUY ON PURPOSE????

GIRL LISTEN TO ME YOU DO NOT NEED SOME OTHER RANDOM BITCH SCRIBBLING HER FIRST REACTION ALL OVER A BOOK WHY DO PEOPLE BUY THESE WHAT THE FUCK

[laurelwen]

I feel dumb asking this but do u have any info or opinion about tvis image?? I dont really remember the context of the scene it appears in but I have been wondering who it could be or what it means i the movie. May be theres an obvious answer but I didnt want to make any conclusions.

So first off, this isn't a dumb thing to ask! It's worth looking at in detail and others might enjoy a little mini deep dive as well.

The image is a drawing on the wall in Nigel's secret room. We only see it when Sally investigates the room after Nigel is already dead and Alex is in custody. That part of the wall is never shown in the scene between Nigel and Alex, unfortunately. We can tell there are some sketches/papers on his walls, but the actual area of wall where this sketch is hung doesn't appear on camera.

Source

The drawing itself is based on a piece taken from The Anatomy of the Arteries of the Human Body, by author Richard Quain with illustrations by Joseph Maclise, published in 1844.

If you'd like to see the rest of the book, you can see all the art plates in the book here, with a link to the full digitized text as well.

Side by Side

The drawing isn't an exact match, as apparently the prop/set artists redrew the sketch to make it smaller and the area of dissection also smaller. While it was very clearly copied directly from this piece, the artist didn't quite replicate the exact facial features or even the anatomical details. Since it was used as set dressing and only seen for a split second on screen, I doubt it was given much importance--they were merely capturing the vibe of the art to support Nigel's characterization and further the macabre and gruesome atmosphere.

Meanings

It's part of the overall series of ephemera we are shown in his sketches and notebooks that highlight his interest in dissections, anatomy, etc. All of these sketches are meant to underline his "morbid fascination with all things dead."

The movie leaves us to decide whether we think he was copying this drawing from the book itself, or if he was sketching this from an actual dead human that he examined in person. We know from his notebooks that he did his own sketches of the animals he dissected, though it's hard to say if ALL of the images were his own work or if some were copied from books.

(I'm amused that Nigel Colbie was out here using regular old poster putty to put things up in his dorm room. It's so relatable and normal. He's truly just a guy.)

On the one hand, we know Nigel had access to the morgue. He knew where to find the tunnel entrance, knew that it would lead to the morgue and how to navigate the tunnels to get there, and he HAD A KEY. This absolutely suggests he had been there before. Perhaps he spent time studying and sketching the corpses. On the other hand, I find it unlikely that no one would notice if he had dissected the face and throat of a previously intact body, so it's hard to believe he could have done that and not alerted the staff to a security issue in their building. Another option is that he found one of these bodies already wounded in such a way that a study could be made without changing or disturbing it enough to be detected by staff later.

The simplest option is that he simply copied a drawing he found in a book, which is a standard practice for improving your art skills. Choose whichever possibility you find most believable and/or appealing.

One Final Note

I cannot decide if I think this was deliberate on the part of the production crew or simply a coincidence, but the original drawing does have hair that is vaguely reminiscent of Alex's style. In my opinion, the face doesn't really resemble him, though there are more similarities in the original than in the copy made for the film.

It feels unlikely to be a deliberate choice by the crew and I don't think it looks very much like Alex, but I feel like you could take that detail and run with it if you wanted. Invent head canons on why Nigel would sketch Alex with his throat sliced open, if that tickles your fancy. There's some fun to be had there.

[Like MInds Masterpost - Main]

[catboy-skippy]

magma.com rain world from like 3 months ago that i definitely did not forget about until just today (complete with recently-made annotations in red ink)

(sequel to this post)

[droppingartintotheinfinite]

Those of you following me may be aware that I’m trying to draw every room/area in Undertale for the 10th anniversary.

You know, just for fun, since I like this game a lot and have liked it since I was like. 10. and i’ve done a lot of art for it and putting it all together like this is a fun way to showcase both how insane about this game i am and how far i’ve come as an artist since i first got into it.

Well, I’ve finished the Ruins and this is my cry for help because i have No fucking clue how to format this. current iteration is a 1fps slideshow made in flipaclip which is… arguably watchable i guess but like. there has to be a better way. surely.

[pinkshiftbites]

nothing (in my head) - the deep dive podcast

premiering 9.26.24 on patreon

[undying-lilies]

Happy Easter/Pascha everyone!! I have returned from my break feeling very refreshed and with a list of things I did on my time off, because why not

I finished annotating A New Dawn! it was so fun, made me really pay attention to every bit of the story and found things I hadn't noticed before even though I've read this like five times by now, 10/10 would recommend

my computer broke. on Monday. it works but I currently cannot close it or the plastic casing around the bottom right corner will shatter

found an Omega funko pop on a random trip to Target!! I now own 3/4ths of the AM girls as funko pops (Merrin, Reva, and Omega)

had to deal with more out-of-story character drama, only this time it was a different character who was depressed over some uh. traumatic plot points in his story. I also discovered he likes listening to AJR and Hamilton

went to my church's midnight Easter service and it was absolutely wonderful :) I am slightly sleep deprived and overstimulated now but #worthit

[chiropteracupola]

lhqr outfit musings... (underlayers, everyday outfits, performance / out on the town outfits)

[violentdevotion]

going on a three week holiday to pakistan this summer inshaAllah where all i plan to do is tan and read and im already stressing about what books to read how many to bring how heavy they're going to be etc and no i don't want to use an ereader :/

[iwakuraz]

sorry for posting a thing from art class but does anybody like the first page of the book for my project