i!!! i think i am about to change my canon once again (is anyone really all that surprised?) in the case of jane’s interactions at school. i am simply craving for her to find a group of girls, or even just one girl to befriend. someone who knows jane has some problems, but doesn’t care. (there’s a lot of rumours about her at school. that she was kidnapped as a child and grew up in an abusive household, and only recently was found by police and put back into the care of her mother and aunt. no one knows what’s true and what isn’t, but after the roller rink incident sam owens has to make an official story about her.) they genuinely like her. they don’t care that her speech pattern is a bit weird or the way she jumps at the sound of the school bells. or that she quite frankly, appears to be academically dumb. someone who thinks jane is a nice girl, fun to be around. someone jane can meet on her own, without connection to the party or anyone she knew previously. jane being able to make a friend on her own would majorly increase her confidence, and help her feel like she’s normal. her having important interactions outside the party / people connected to the upside down. someone who doesn’t know that side of her life, who just knows janessa ives, a girl who has some issues but is getting through them! i think it would be so fundamental to her social growth.

The indescribable tension between an overworked and underpaid smut writer, and his biggest fan hater.

(for @frummpets)

i dont know how else to put this but to approach books (or any media, really) solely for the sake of relatability is genuinely incredibly heartbreaking......to have such little (or such unwilling) imaginative scope that you cannot stretch yourself, even marginally, in a different direction to what you’ve known or are used to knowing when the very POINT of stories is to transport you somewhere else, into someone else, so you can do just that........when fran lebowiz said a book “is supposed to be a door!” and george saunders said good prose “is like empathy training wheels” they were right!!! they were so so so SO absolutely entirely right!!!!!

truly what a guy

My thoughts during the Churro™ scene as a professionally licensed Yapper:

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT:

While they’re in the canteen, there’s a moment where Art looks at Patrick and you can clearly see the relief in his eyes that he has his friend there with him. (Or does he??)

I don’t think Art was lying about not keeping in touch with Patrick. In between his tennis career and his relationship, Patrick has neglected Art (which I think is because he’s so used to him being there that he just never fathomed him not being there which makes him complacent in their friendship).

But when Art realizes that once again Patrick has been taken away by just the mere image of Tashi, he’s hurt. I think in that moment Art wanted to feed that hurt, lash out and make Patrick feel the pain he feels for being left out.

Art jokes about Patrick not being there to visit him because he misses him. He misses his friend, his constant and yes, it’s in a joking manner but Patrick sees thru him (as he always does).

(The fucking head tilt took me out because it screams fond like ‘aw baby u really did miss me ure so cute when ure jealous but wont admit it’)

The entire scene (for me) turns into reassurances and doubts. Their friendship was being tested to see if it could withstand having to share their love and space with a third. Having to make concessions and space around their new desire and jealousy.

When Art tries to downplay his thoughts, trying to twist Tashi’s words to manipulate he was clearly being petty but I also think there’s some truth to his statement of not wanting Patrick to get hurt. He is his friend first but he also knows him (the same intrinsic way that Patrick knows Art) and how his friend will be able to bounce back from any relationship because Art truly doesn’t think these two are that serious (blinded by Patrick’s history and his own feelings). So Patrick sees the manipulation for what it is.

(The fond look in his eye when Art isn’t looking. That man is in love your honor!!!!!)

Patrick knows Art was trying to manipulate him. He knows it and he likes it, encourages it even. He looks at him like he’s proud of Art. The fact that it mattered more to him that Art was actually being vocal about his own wants instead of repressing as he always did, even if it was through breaking him and his girlfriend up. He didn’t even see it as a threat because it never occurs to him that he could lose Tashi to Art (or vice versa) because at this point, he’s secure in his place within the triangle. But also reveals how insecure Art feels within that same triangle because of his perceived isolation.

This pic, obviously

Every time I read Fernando cursing in fic, I can only think about this clip and then my brain short-circuits

I always think a lot of Mickey’s trauma that he buried pretty deep will hit him really really hard post canon.

He’s been in survival mode his whole life so he suppressed a lot of what happened to him just to get through life. He didn’t have the option of dealing with it.

Post canon, things will likely finally slow down for him - less money worries because they have their business, no threat of Terry coming after him, not doing many illegal things so less constant fear of getting caught for something and going back to jail.

So he’ll finally be able to relax a bit and, in his mind, start living and enjoying things in life.

But I think once life slows down, all the trauma from his childhood all the way to adulthood will hit him like a truck. Even things he hasn’t thought about in years will really start affecting him.

And I think he’d get frustrated with himself because he wouldn’t be able to understand why he’s doing so much worse when things are finally good.

But that’s actually why he’s doing so much worse. Because he doesn’t need to constantly prepared for something going wrong, so there’s space for other things in his mind, so everything he’s buried would come right to the surface.

I feel like he’d go through a pretty hard time before he can start to get better because he’ll have to face things he’s suppressed head on, because he won’t be able to bury them any more.

generally I just don't think elves are all that hot. like they look nice, yes. but there's just a certain vibe you gotta have to reach the level of being hot and elves never really get there in a way thats 100% 'mhm that's hot'. they're like really pretty antique vases nice to look at and admire for a lil bit but I mean im not gonna fuck the vase.

I've been moving and navigating further departmental nonsense etc (my pseudo-dissertation got approved for defending, though! l o l). But it was interesting to see the Worst P&P Takes poll I reblogged accumulating more results and the general tenor of responses in the notes.

I mean, the results are definitely to be expected if you're familiar with the side of Austen fandom doing a lot of the reblogging etc. But still, interesting!

Many Tumblr polls specify that they're asking about personal preferences that may be irrational—favorite/least favorite, coolest/most annoying, or something like that. This one, though, asked for the worst interpretation of P&P, not the most annoying one—and the current leader is "Darcy is never really proud, he's just shy and probably has anxiety" against some very steep competition on the Bad Takes front.

I was thinking about why that seemed a kind of tediously predictable choice even though I agree that the take is wrong, and realized that while I do disagree with the shy Darcy interpretation and I particularly disagree with the specific formulation where he is never proud at all, it ultimately feels to me like a failure of nuance rather than just completely wrongheaded like some of the others. And this is probably my fundamental difference with a lot of Darcy takes I see!

In my opinion, a character who is introverted and who feels awkward in various social situations and who doesn't like common social activities and who has to work himself up to talking to his crush and who is repeatedly suggested to behave very differently in contexts where he's more comfortable being interpreted as shy and anxious is not that big of a leap.

Yes, it's important that he is actually fundamentally confident and haughty, that he makes his personal feelings of discomfort other people's problem, and that he thinks he's such a unique and special butterfly that he doesn't need to even put in an effort outside his personal social circle. But it's a misreading that is easy to follow (and long predates the 2005 P&P, as I've mentioned before!).

The additional misreading that a shy and anxious Darcy is also never proud at all is a much more drastic leap, and in my experience, condemnations of shy Darcy interpretations rarely differentiate between "Darcy is shy as well as arrogant" and "Darcy is shy rather than arrogant" as interpretations (although their basic arguments are quite different). But even that as the worst possible misreading of P&P when Darcy is not even the main character is ?????????

I mean, for one alternative (not even the one I voted for!), the idea that Elizabeth is an author avatar Mary Sue seems a far worse misreading of P&P than basically anything to do with Darcy at all. The center piece of the entire novel is Elizabeth's epiphany of self-knowledge about her own shortcomings that do not particularly resemble Austen's at all, but were ethically a concern for her, and she's a complex, interesting character in general whom Austen correctly regarded as a major achievement. Inverting that into Elizabeth as an improbably perfect, reality-warping self-insert is deeply wrong and frankly pretty misogynistic as well.

(ngl though, it's a little funny to see such a blatantly terrible reading of Elizabeth rank so far behind the shy Darcy votes. I've gotten "does anyone actually think/say that?" so many times on my posts about Austen fandom's prioritization of Darcy's character development over Elizabeth's and yet...)

And even just going with the Darcy-centric misreadings, the idea of Darcy as a "bad boy" seems easily the most absolutely wrong take on him. His pride is at least complicated and the finer points can be fairly debated and it's a quality that actually changes somewhat throughout the novel, and you can have discussion over what happened when, whose testimonies should be weighted more, etc. But there is no point at which "bad boy" isn't utterly wrong for him. However, there's definitely a tendency in some wings of the fandom to find the idea of Darcy being misread too favorably more objectionable than him being read too unfavorably, regardless of the particulars, so it's not a surprise.

I suppose you could argue about what "worst" means in the context of variously bad interpretations. Like, is an interpretation that is about a fairly trivial aspect of the book but extremely wrong about it "worse" than an interpretation that is pretty bad but at least comprehensibly so about something very important?

WIP preview for the Hyrule-centric LU fan comic I've been working on in my free time 👀

I really want to work on this, but also I am very busy rn, so we'll see when I actually get it finished :,) But like since this is theoretically in part an art blog I thought I should probably post some art even if it is just a WIP like this.

i wanna know more about svsss menopause

They synced their periods together too well. Now they are synced through their perimenopause years.

I think on this fine Saturday afternoon it's a good opportunity to take a breather and remember that there are really no ethical paparazzi pictures. Every single one is inherently exploitative.

Just because photos were taken on a movie set, when someone is 'working,' does not make the practice any less invasive and creepy. Imagine just going about your day, doing your job and having some weirdo snapping pictures of you to sell without your consent for others to endlessly repost online.

There are thousands of pictures of your favourite actor online already. Plenty taken with his knowledge and consent. I'd really like to see more of them on my dash, rather than the creeper shots.

And don't get me started how disseminating these pictures directly leads to people going to said sets. What starts off as admiring how good someone looks has real world implications.

No, hanging around a movie set and disrupting people doing their jobs is not harmless fun or a way to show your appreciation.

If you hang around a movie set, you are a stalker.

Don't tell me that it's okay to take your online admiration for someone offline. You may admire him but he does not, and will never, personally know you. He will never be your friend/boyfriend/daddy. He is a stranger.

The only way meeting your favourite actor is going to happen is at a convention or maaaaaybe a movie premiere if you're incredibly fortunate. You know, places they appear specifically to meet fans (or not in the case of premieres, where the purpose is to promote a movie. Which is also completely understandable if actors don't stop. You are not owed an interaction).

Of course, you cannot help it if you randomly run into someone you admire in the wild. Even then, consider that they probably won't be all too thrilled to be approached in public by a complete stranger. It's up to you to gauge the situation, but remember there is a person at the heart of all of this.

Boundaries and respect are a kindness which deserves to be extended to each and every human being regardless of their looks/talent/fame/wealth.

Fandoms blur those lines a little too often for my liking and I think just scrutinising what you're interacting with, or what behaviour you could be possibly falling down that slippery slope towards is nice to do every once in a while.

I mean no malice with this post and it is not directed at anyone in particular. It's something I cannot help but feel strongly about because I've seen this destructive cycle time and again in fandoms over the years. It's not healthy and it makes us all a little bit more disconnected from our humanity for it...

one of the wild things about people’s stubborn insistence on misunderstanding The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas is that the narrator anticipates an audience that won’t engage with the text, just in the opposite direction. Throughout the story are little asides asking what the reader is willing to believe in. Can you believe in a utopia? What if I told you this? What about this? Can you believe in the festivals? The towers by the sea? Can we believe that they have no king? Can we believe that they are joyful? Does your utopia have technology, luxury, sex, temples, drugs? The story is consulting you as it’s being told, framed as a dialogue. It literally asks you directly: do you only believe joy is possible with suffering? And, implicitly, why?

the question isn’t just “what would you personally do about the kid.” It isn’t just an intricate trolley problem. It’s an interrogation of the limits of imagination. How do we make suffering compulsory? Why? What futures (or pasts) are we capable of imagining? How do we rationalize suffering as necessary? And so on. In all of the conversations I’ve seen or had about this story, no one has mentioned the fact that it’s actively breaking the fourth wall. The narrator is building a world in front of your eyes and challenging you to participate. “I would free the kid” and then what? What does the Omelas you’ve constructed look like, and why? And what does that say about the worlds you’re building in real life?

“Heaven Official’s Blessing moments that plague my mind like how the Human Face Disease plagued Jun Wu”

Xie Lian waking up, with no recollection of his last 800 years, in panic because he’s covered in hickeys and BITE MARKS (to which he swears he’s been violated by the “mysterious man”)

Mei Nianqing and his commentaries (most notably: “fluffy child” in reference to Quan Yizhen, and “He’s been STALKING YOU FOR 800 YEARS! Ew, too creepy!!” in reference to Hua Cheng)

Qi Rong spitting on the palace floor and vandalizing the walls with “GREAT GHOST KING QI RONG WAS HERE!!”

Qi Rong insulting Xie Lian and Hua Cheng with “DOG FUCKED XIE LIAN” and “DOG HUA CHENG” … which somehow makes perfect sense together

Qi Rong dragging Hong-er in a bag tied to a horse

“CAN’T YOU KNOCK LIKE A NORMAL PERSON?!” exclaimed Qi Rong, the abnormal green gremlin cannibal

Qi Rong having a massive cleavage in the donghua:

Xie Lian taking down Jun Wu, a GOD who literally couldn’t be taken down even with THREE MARTIAL GODS AND A GHOST KING, by body slamming him against a rock wall.

When Hua Cheng put on a little outfit changing show for Xie Lian like a disco ball because he was bored

Xie Lian, after 800 years, finding someone who would listen to him and care for him like no one else have and show him what it means to simply be happy and find joy in living (Hua Cheng)