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jez-bez · 17 days

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WIP tag game!

I was tagged by @chaeul @fairlylokai and @awiderangeofgreen (fr I saw the notifs and thought 'omg are they all the same game?? lets goooo'

RULES: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

Listen, I don't have a wip folder per se, I just have a bunch of opened tabs (and even a tab folder cuz i couldn't read my tab names anymore 👀 the folder is literally called 'fic wips', oops?) Anyway, I go back and forth between fics all the time, like. Right now I'm working on 'rain surprising phayu' but the day before I worked on 'evil warlock phayu' and before that I worked on 'serial killer phayu captured pai' WHILE I WAS STILL WORKING ON THE PREVIOUS PART OF THE SERIES. Listen, I'm a mess. You don't wanna see the inside of my head, just- just skip it.

When I joined this fandom, I hadn't written in years and now- I don't know what happened, nearly 40 posted fics in and a wips pile to die in.

ANYWAY, here goes, I guess?

I'll just put down the work titles cuz ehh that's easiest!

evil warlock Phayu

serial killer phayu captured pai

BossNoeul - missed you

rain surprising phayu

Sky/Rain serial killer universe. BEFORE (this one is not really a wip, but it's precious to me so it gets an honorable mention)

Omega Rain first time back at the races

first day of kindergarten!

Okay so, that's most of them, I think?

Feel free to ask me about any of them! I'm happy to share 💜✨

Uhhh most of my mutuals have already been tagged so... sorry if you get double tagged!

@paperzombie @ivor-outlaw @misshanbb @misshprint @feychild1225 @copperstown

eeeee have fun and remember, no pressure at all! Just for funsies!

#wip game #my wips #love in the air #phayurain #ask game #author is a mess and owns it #am i the only one whos a little scared to tag people?#like - i dont wanna bother people yknow ndjejdje pls dont get annoyed with me aaaaaa

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theambivalentagender · 1 year

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Reminder that if you want to complain about something you see in free fan content that you think is cliche or overdone, considering instead

1) Moving on to different content

2) Removing your entitled head from your ass

And if you end up equating mundane cliches you're annoyed at seeing in fan content with somehow encouraging and perpetrating negative aspects of society as a whole, consider instead

1) Touching grass. Eating grass. Getting down in there and SNORTING grass for the love of fuck

#fan content #fanfic #fanart #im not even talking about pro or anti ship discourse here thats a whole other mess #what prompted this was people apparently complaining about pregnancy and having kids depicted in fanfic #a fucking fanfic author writing two characters having kids isnt forcing a natalism by default narrative in society oh my god #oh my fucking god #shit like this just discourages people from making their own fan content and i cant stand it

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anotherhumaninthisworld · 1 year

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Hi! Out of curiosity, what was the whole drama with Charlotte and Augustin? I’ve tried reading it in several Robespierre biographies and it’s never made sense

Good question! That you couldn’t find an answer in a biography that made sense is not all that weird, I tried looking over the ones I had access to and those that touched on the fight all got it wrong in some way in my opinion. The reason for this, besides the fact that the conflict is a pretty small detail in the grand scheme of things, is probably that we have several different sources mentioning it that all put their own spin on it in some way or another. I would say these sources fit into three categories:

First off, we have contemporary letters dealing with the fight written by Augustin and Charlotte themselves. These include an undated letter from Augustin to Maximilien, as well as a letter dated July 6 1794 from Charlotte to Augustin.

Second off, we have what Charlotte had to say about the fight in Mémoires de Charlotte Robespierre sur ses deux frères, published in 1834 by Albert Laponneraye.

And third, there’s what contemporaries said regarding it. This mostly includes Armand Joseph Guffroy’s Secretes de Joseph Lebon et ses complices (1795) as well as the memoirs of Maurice Gaillard.

The fight, as far as we’re concerned, dates back to Augustin and Charlotte’s trip to the Army of Italy, where the former was tasked to go by the Committee of Public Safety on July 19 1793. Augustin set off a few days later together with Jean François Ricord, another representative on mission. For company, Ricord brought his wife Marguerite, while Augustin (on Charlotte’s request, if we’re to believe her memoirs) brought his sister.

We only have Charlotte’s memoirs to rely on regarding what played out between her and her brother during the trip. According to them, the group, after a time of traveling from town to town with counter-revolutionaries constantly after them, finally settled in Nice for a longer period of time. There, Augustin and Ricord made frequent outings to different divisions while Charlotte and Marguerite occupied themselves with making shirts for the soldiers during the day and went for walks and horseback rides in the countryside in the evenings. This latter activity soon proved to be troublesome, as ”several journals paid by the aristocracy” back in Paris started accusing the two women of acting like princesses with their equestrian outings. As a consequence, Augustin vetoed further horseback rides after receiving a letter from Maximilien regarding the issue, and Charlotte promised to abstain from riding from then on. But not long after, Marguerite, who according to Charlotte ”was the most frivolous and inconsiderate person in the world,” proposed they should go on yet another ride, and Charlotte, after trying in vain to remind her of what her brothers had said, hesitantly joined her.

When Augustin reproached his sister for the ride a few days later, Charlotte called on Marguerite to testify that it had been her idea. But Marguerite, instead of telling the truth, not only enforced the lie that it was Charlotte that had wanted the ride, but also added that she had taken her with her against her will. Augustin chose to believe her, much to Charlotte’s distress — ”My brother knew I was incapable of lying. Why then did he not want to believe me?” After this incident, Augustin started keeping a certain coldness in regards to Charlotte which caused her much despair, though it would not appear she tried to approach her brother to explain herself again.

The straw that broke the camel’s back came when Marguerite a while later suggested to Charlotte that they should go to Grasse together, something Charlotte agreed to do. But hardly had they arrived when Marguerite came forward with a forged letter, telling Charlotte it was from Augustin and that he urged her to return to Paris as soon as possible. A shocked Charlotte obeyed and set out for the capital the following morning, ending her journey somewhere in the fall of 1793. Marguerite in her turn went on to slander Charlotte to Augustin, saying that she didn’t care about him and that this was the reason for her brusque departure. She and her friend Madame Gesnel made him believe Charlotte had caluminated both Augustin and Madame Ricord. According to Charlotte, Marguerite was seducing her brother, who ”believed it essential to his honor and duty” to respond to her advances (it might be added that this is very similar to how Charlotte explains the relationship between her other brother and Éléonore Duplay). It evidently worked, and Augustin refused to see his sister when he too returned to Paris for a short stay (December-January), choosing instead to move in with the Ricords. He told Maximilien about both Charlotte’s brusque departure from Grasse, as well as her compromising the honor of him and Madame Ricord, causing the former to become angry with her too.

Such is the story as presented by Charlotte in her memoirs. Parts of it can and has been questioned, above all the idea of Augustin as completely innocent in the drama. Both Maximilien’s biographer J.M Thompson and Augustin’s Mary Young instead embrace the idea that there did exist a mutual liason between Augustin and Madame Ricord that Charlotte became an annoying witness to. Thompson declares himself sceptical in regards to the idea of Marguerite forging a letter from Augustin, while Young completely dismisses it and instead suggests the letter did indeed come from the pen of Augustin, eager to send his sister away so she wouldn’t be in the way of his love affair. The idea that there was something more than platonic friendship between Augustin and Marguerite also appears in the memoirs of Paul Barras, who served as a representative to Toulon at the same time as Augustin and Ricord:

Fully convinced that women constituted a powerful aid, [Bonaparte] assiduously paid court to the wife of Ricord, knowing that she exercised great influence over Robespierre the younger, her husband's colleague. […] Robespierre the younger was particulary attached to Madame Ricord.

Besides the question of Augustin’s guilt, it can also be observed that the letter where Maximilien tells his siblings about the controversy Charlotte’s horseback rides were causing has never been found. I’ve also not seen anyone point out the journals denouncing Charlotte and Madame Ricord’s outings the memoirs are alluding to…

If this first bit of drama can be boiled down to a mere personal feud, it gets harder to make the same case when we get to the second part of the conflict. This is where the first of the two contemporary letters — the one Augustin wrote to Maximilien — comes into the picture:

My sister does not have a single drop of blood that resembles ours. I have seen and learned so much about her that I regard her as our greatest enemy. She abuses our spotless reputation to lay down the law on us and threatens to take a scandalous step in order to compromise us. We must take a decisive stand against her. We must make her leave for Arras, and thus take her away from us, a woman who causes our common despair. She would like to give us the reputation of bad brothers, her calumnies spread against us aim at this goal. I would like you to see the citoyenne La Saudraie, she would give you certain information on all the masks that it is interesting to know in these circumstances. A certain Saint-Félix seems to be from the clique.

This letter is unfortunately undated, but two things has lead to all historians up until this point to place it somewhere in April-May 1794. The first is the fact that Augustin makes allusions to Guillodon La Saudraie whose first known contacts with Augustin (of whom she, according to the memoirs of Charles Nodier, was the presumed mistress) are from the first half of 1794, when she accompanied him on his second mission. Augustin had already in a letter dated March 24 also asked Maximilien to offer her an audience, and it seems likely for this to have been a follow-up to that.

The second clue is that, on May 19, a letter written by Augustin Darthé revealed that Charlotte had come back to Arras two days earlier, just like her younger brother asks for above. She had been escorted by Joseph Lebon, representative to Arras who Maximilien had recalled to Paris on May 14, saying that the Committee of Public Safety had decided to direct his energy ”in an even more useful way” and telling him to ”come back as soon as possible, to return promptly to the post where you currently are.” I have chosen to believe ”the more useful way” Maximilien suggests Lebon should use his energy for alludes to the mission of bringing Charlotte back to their hometown.

It can be observed that, if it’s true the letter to Maximilien is from April-May 1794, Augustin wouldn’t have met his sister since the fall of 1793 (assuming Charlotte is telling the truth in that he didn’t want to see her during his short break in Paris). The question is therefore evidently what exactly Charlotte had done for it both to reach the miles away Augustin and make him think this ill of her. In her memoirs, Charlotte passes in total silence on both this letter and her exile to Arras (and with that, the question of whether she gave her consent to being sent there or not). Since the accusations in Augustin’s letter are so vague, it gets hard to verify what exactly she’d done to make him so upset, other than it seems to be about her 1, slandering her brothers and 2, doing something scandalous. The first charge I suppose could tie in with Augustin falling for Madame Ricord’s claim that Charlotte was caluminating him, as the memoirs would have us believe. However, we do also have several pieces that could fill the criteria for the second charge that all date back to around the same period Augustin allegedly penned down his letter.

First off we have a letter written on April 25 1794 and sent off to Charlotte. In it, the author brings her up to speed regarding the recent repressive politics their hometown Arras for the past months has been the victim of:

What has been said of your country is true; for six weeks one hundred and fifty people have been guillotined and about three thousand imprisoned. […] I’ll spare you other details that are too atrocious to be believed, when you haven’t been an eyewitness. If I had more time, I could have given you more detailed facts; I cannot tell you what I have heard from different people without having had the time to verify it. We go into the countryside tomorrow. I forgot to tell you that the prosecutor of the revolutionary tribunal is arrested and the revolutionary commissar broken.

He also makes allusions to a commission Charlotte is part of, that appears to have as its goal to slow down the repression apparatus. This commission may be what the deputy Armand Joseph Guffroy is alluding to in the following part of his Secretes de Joseph Lebon et ses complices (1795):

I was not discouraged; Leblond’s sister, Demeulier’s (sic) daughter, Buissart’s wife, Robespierre’s sister, to whom he was also almost invisible, took every means to reach him.

Speaking of Guffroy, the second piece is a letter dated May 7 to him from the arragois lawyer Antoine Buissart, a friend of both him and the Robespierre siblings. The letter confirms Charlotte’s interest in what was going on in Arras:

We salute the citoyenne Robespierre; my wife has just received her letter; tell her as soon as possible that I will immediately give her the clarifications she requests.

Furthermore, as shown through the above cited letter, Charlotte came to see Guffroy (this was something she would herself confirm when interrogated after thermidor, adding that Madame Duplay reproached her for it). It is not impossible this relation caused dislike in Augustin, who, along with his brother, had ”a great contempt” for Guffroy if we’re to believe the memoirs of Élisabeth Lebas. Since March 3 1794 Guffroy had also become suspect in the political arena, as he on that day had been expelled from the Jacobins accused of having connections with a former marquis, forcing the Revolutionary Committee of the Picques section to release Louis XVI’s former locksmith and having English letters found among his papers. This denounciation had also forced him to resign from his functions as member of the Committee of General Security. Guffroy was himself convinced that Charlotte visiting him was the reason for her fallout with her brothers, as this is what he wrote about it a year later:

[The brothers] drove [Charlotte] out of their house because she did not think like they did, because she came to see my wife and because she saw citizens who were sincere friends of justice and truth.

Finally, there’s also a passage (1, 2) from the memoirs of Maurice Gaillard that’s of interest here. Gaillard claims to have met Charlotte somewhere in May 1794 to hear her opinion on the magistrates of Melun having been denounced for two years earlier signing an adress denouncing the demonstration of June 20, 1792. Charlotte not only expressed her disapproval when it came to this affair, but also deplored of the terror in Arras and raged against the Duplay family. She then helped arrange an interview between Gaillard and Couthon, but when the latter got threatening she holds him still in the armchair he was sitting while yelling at Gaillard to escape. Tracking him down again she tells him that ”the wretched man merely wanted to discover your inmost thoughts” but that she ”succeeded in making him ashamed of the crime which he was about to commit against one whom I had introduced to him in confidence.” She then urged Gaillard to flee the city, which he also went ahead and did. Curiously, Charlotte appears to think the conflict between her and Augustin to be old news in Gaillard’s account, talking instead about how she’s eagerly awaiting his return so he can help her get Maximilien to move away from the Duplays.

(note that these four pieces are very rarely (I might say never) used by Robespierre biographers who talk about the conflict a bit more in detail).

Whatever it was Augustin’s letter was alluding to, Charlotte ended up in Arras. We know through a letter her step-cousin wrote to Augustin that she doesn’t appear to have made their fallout known to her friends there (so again, pretty far from Augustin’s charge that Charlotte had slandered her brothers). Her stay was nevertheless short, already on July 1 we find a letter confirming she was back in the capital. Charlotte’s reason for leaving is unknown, but according to Guffroy it was to avoid arrest:

Lebon had [Charlotte] denounced to the popular society of Arras, by his cutthroats, as an aristocrat. Her apparent crime, and at least the pretext for her arrest, was to have been with Payen de Neuville la Liberté, an estimable farmer, whom Lebon had guillotined, and brother of another Payen, member of the constituent assembly who had served as father and friend to Robespierre, and whom Lebon likewise had guillotined. […] Without Florent Guyot (sic), who brought her back to Paris, she would have been imprisoned there, because Lebon's accomplices had denounced her in their infernal club which they called the popular society.

While most historians I’ve looked at have dismissed this as mere slander, it can nevertheless be observed that the dates of execution for the two Payen brothers Guffroy is talking about (June 21 and 26) matches rather well with the time Charlotte’s would have departed from Arras… On June 28 we do actually find a letter from Antoine Buissart to Maximilien, telling him that since a month back, he, his wife and Charlotte have been denounced by a certain Carlier, administrator of the department of Pas-de-Calais — ”You know that from this time on I am a conspirator in the eyes of the famous Carlier, and my wife and your sister two intriguers.” Guffroy did in his turn call the same Carlier ”Lebon’s fiercest lieutenant” so it may actually be him he accuses of having denounced Charlotte here above…

Augustin had returned to Paris just before Charlotte. In her memoirs, Charlotte describes the situation between them in the following way:

He seemed to be fleeing my presence. I admit it, I was indignant against him; what had I done to him, I said to myself, for him to treat me this way, for him to say to anyone who will listen that I am unworthy of him, that I conducted myself badly with him, that I no longer deserve his esteem? It was then that I wrote him the letter that Levasseur recorded in his Memoirs.

This is the second of the two contemporary letters regarding the fight, dated July 6. In her memoirs, Charlotte tried to declare certain phrases of it as embellishments by her brothers’ enemies, but an encounter with the fac-simile of it proves that she was actually lying there.

Charlotte begins the letter by writing that Augustin’s aversion for her has developed into the most implacable hatred, to the point that they can’t even talk to each other anymore. Because of this she will instead try to write to him. She tells Augustin how hurt she has become by his hostility — ”what does it matter to me that I am hated by those who are irrelevant to me and who I despise? Their memory will never come to trouble me, but being hated by my brothers, I, for whom it is a necessity to cherish them, this is the only thing which can render me as unhappy as I am” — a hostility she considers herself completely undeserving of. Despite this she writes that she won’t hold any grudges the day Augustin decides to come back to her, she will only feel joy over having him at her side again.

Like that of her brother, Charlotte’s letter is very emotional and very vague when it comes to the question of what the conflict is actually about. When she gets a bit more specific however, it would once again appear like her relationships is what Augustin had denounced her for:

Nonetheless, do not hope in your delirium to be able to make me lose the esteem of a few virtuous persons, which is the only good which remains to me, along with a pure conscience ; full of a just confidence in my virtue, I can defy you to detract it and I dare to tell you that, beside the good people who know me, you will lose your reputation rather than harming mine.

Charlotte ends by declaring she will move into the house of her and Augustin’s maid Madame Laporte so that she won’t be in Augustin’s way. Her interrogation held a few weeks later confirms that she went through with that plan. According to Charlotte’s memoirs she never saw her little brother again, and there was therefore never any reconciliation between the two. This is the last thing we know of it.

So the drama is no doubt not just a little confusing. What I personally consider most likely is that Augustin had found out about Charlotte political activities and contacts, felt both his own reputation and, to borrow a phrase from Charlotte’s letter, ’the public good” threatened by it, and written to Maximilien to urge him to send Charlotte away from Paris and with that her connections. While the mistrust of the sister certainly could have been fueled by what had played out between the two during the mission, I am hesitant to buy the memoirs’ story of Augustin simply having been brainwashed by Madame Ricord into hating Charlotte. The fact that Charlotte makes allusions to Augustin having a problem with her friends does also imply there was much more to it than that.

Finally, and I’m totally just speculating here, if it turns out no article regarding Charlotte and her scandalous horseback rides can be found in any contemporary journal, then I wouldn’t be all that defiant in front of the idea that the entire story could be something fabricated by Charlotte and Laponneraye to hide the former’s more controversial activities. We know through her testament as well as this letter that Charlotte, towards the end of her life, wanted to rehabilitate her brothers’ memory and be remembered as a loyal sister. Laponneraye was in his turn someone who evidently didn’t think women belong in politics. This is shown through the following sentence from the preface of the memoirs, which, given what has since been found out about Charlotte, has aged badly in more than one way:

Passionate about the private life, [Charlotte] could never bring herself to leave it, and was always careful not to imitate those women who, forgetting the role that suits their sex, throw themselves madly and ridiculously into a career that is not made for them. So she played no part in the extraordinary events that signaled the time when her older brother was in power. […] Charlotte Robespierre occupied herself with politics only as much as is necessary for her to follow her brothers with her eyes in the arena where they fight hand in hand against crime.

With all this in mind, the idea of Charlotte and Laponneraye redefining the conflict between the former and Augustin to be more appropriate to their narrative doesn’t come off as all that foreign to me. Regardless, I think the two letters line up much better with the version of the drama presented by Guffroy compared to the one presented in the memoirs.

#augustin robespierre #charlotte robespierre #bad brother bonbon #sus sis charlotte #robespierre #ask #maybe i’m paranoid #but the version of the fight presented in the memoirs just sounds like one of those stories by a bad author #where the characters must act as stupid as possible for the plot to even move forward #like why does charlotte join madame ricord instead of just being a damn adult and saying ”no”?#why does augustin choose to believe a person he’s just met rather than his own sister he’s known his entire life?#why does charlotte just accept that augustin doesn’t believe her rather than explaining herself again?#why doesn’t charlotte ask to see the letter this obviously suspect woman just claims to have?#regardless this whole family was messed up

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farolero-posting · 1 year

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I think Cedric and Calamus should be friends and join the club of teenagers with way too much weight on their shoulders because holy shit they deserve good things.

I mean, one of those small details that I always felt were kind of sad was that line Cedric has about not knowing Calamus or Alula... which makes sense in a way, because it was the Author who knew them better. And yet both Cedric and Calamus feel close in age and have similar personalities I am genuinely surprised they weren't friends.

And now considering their circumstances... Both of them need to be the proactive sibling, ready to react to situations that are beyond what teens like them should be doing.

We... never get told what happened to Rachis, although context probably tells us he was one of the NPCs lost to the squares. But even if Calamus and Alula were not aware of that truth, they're both still functionally orphans, and Calamus has made it his responsibility to make sure Alula is okay because she is all he has left.

Cedric is one of the few people aware of being in a simulation, and this by itself is already really isolating. Cedric is also the one responsible for... pretty much ensuring that Niko made it to the city and fulfilled their mission, having to make up plans as he goes. Not to mention the knowledge that his father is gone for good now, and the grief that is tied to it.

And besides all of this, I just really think that these two are alike in personality. Both are really polite, hardworking and responsible. The only big differences are their sets of skills and that Cedric is more willing to take risks on the spot, while I feel like Calamus would be more cautious in his place.

But gosh they could be good friends.

#oneshot game #cedric #calamus #analysis #i am not the most skilled writer but boy do i wanna do something about this yknow #Something something i wonder if Rachis and the Author had a similar dynamic at some point #Oh. another aspect im considering too as a bit of a crack theory. or a way to get some conflict potential #like. we know the cedric we meet is technically a robot.#my personal take on that is that he is made from code and contains as many memories as the original cedric was able to transfer #but when it comes to have actually experienced those things... our cedric knows those are memories. but are not /his/ own. in a way.#calamus and alula have memories that were coded in them but without awareness of their situation they see all of that as real #but cedric knows he is code and thus. he has existed inside. but whatever came before was the memories he inherited but not his own actions #so he recognizes those names. but is actually not sure he really knows them the same way his memories know them #and cannot guarantee he can be the friend they have known him as. because he is who cedric was #but also his own thing #this is a mess to explain but do u see what i mean #like how real he sees himself and how real the future ahead is and who he is aaslkfja #ok im done with my break ignore this rambling. this probably makes no sense.#im just figuring out how i wanna write characters #fic: write your own path forward #< for personal organization

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ihatethiswebsite77 · 1 year

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Cartman, Authority and shitty Parenting.

Obviously he is lacking a authoritative father figure, something that plays a big part in who he becomes since he usually tends to idolize and replicate the behavior of adult male characters who present themselves as a powerful figures with authority, those usually tend to be shitty people. To name a few: Mel Gibson, the fat guy from the Butt Out episode, Michael Jackson (tho here it's less about authority and more about just having an "hey son let's play catch" type of parent, ironically Mr. Jackson presents some of the same issues when it comes to parenting as Cartman's mother does in "Tsst"), members of Nambla (there is a reason why Cartman is seeking out older male friends while also exhibiting a wish to be the "mature" one himself). Except for Chef (probably the only adult male character who had a positive relationship and influence on Cartman, after whose death you can also see a shift in his character), every adult male characters Cartman comes in contact with is a shitty person in one way or another

A prime example of this is in one early Halloween episode where Cartman's mom makes him a h*tler costume (Why? Not sure, but in the earlier seasons Cartman's mom was more outwardly implied to be an intolerant christian from what I remember, she Is also the one that took him to see "Passion of Christ" multiple times). In the same Halloween episode Principal Victoria shows him an educational video about the bad mustache guy but instead of seeing the video for what it is Cartman is instead drawn to the mustache mans "authority". (Cartman has a thing for Authority, for what I hope now are obvious reasons )

In the forementioned episode "Tsst", it is revealed that Cartman is 100% capable of change, and that what is preventing that is his mother's god awful parenting. See Liane's and Cartman's relationship is somewhat bordering on emotional incest, where Liane, the parent, seeks out a bond with Cartman, her son, that she should be seeking with other adults her age. Basically she treats him like a friend instead of a son. In the episode, she gains authority over him (notice a pattern) and once she does his behavior and personality both start shifting. She is able to do this because she finds a bond with the guy helping her be a better parent, she gains an actual adult friend. But once the guy leaves she reverts to her old ways of spoiling and treating cartman as a vessel for her own emotional needs, and with her so does Cartman.

So basically Cartman is put in this position where he is simultaneously seeking out a father figure, while also wishing to BE an adult male authority figure. And when you pair this with the fact that in his home, he is simultaneously supposed to be the kid (someone who wants a father figure) , while also being treated like the emotional crutch in place of an actual adult man by his mother (something that would make him feel like HE is SUPPOSED TO BE that authoritative adult male figure). A not so pretty picture starts to paint itself, giving us an insight as to why Cartman came to idolise and try and replicate the behavior and attitude of adult men he recognizes as "having authority".

#people have obviously brought up these points before but i've never seen someone talk about the role #liane's 'friend' treatment of him plays in him seeking out authority #that last paragraph really ties the whole thing for me #like it's really messed up when you think about it #it's like a loop of breeding shitty behavior brought on by his own mother's shitty behavior towards him #eric cartman #south park #eric cartman analysis #liane cartman

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redheadedbrunette · 9 months

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Cool so I reread the series and I noticed a lot more than I did the first two times I read it which is fun. The relationship between Ben and Erica is more explored than I remembered which is good and I can definitely see her character arc a lot clearer.

X is still my least favorite book and there’s absolutely a corner that Gibbs wrote himself into on that one unless he’s entirely giving up on the idea of having Ben and co. be secret agents.

Ben’s a lot more of a competent spy than I remember too, which is refreshing.

I also completely forgot that all 10 of these books happen in the span of like a year and a half which is hilarious.

Oh and the age gap seems like something that would be a lot more of an issue if there weren’t only like 300 people in the world they could have contact with. Even Erica and Josh had a bit of a gap since she had to have been 14/15 or so while he was 17/18. A gap of 2.5 years would be problematic for normal kids but I think different rules would apply.

I'm so glad it was clearer on a second go around! Honestly, I didn't even really see it all that clearly until I reread the series a couple years ago (SSAS came out my first week of college) and had a lot more experience with how stories work on a fundamental idea. Erica's development is very much in the background, but when you're looking for it (excluding SSPX, but that's a different rant) it's so clear and interesting and I love it.

SSPX bothers me for SO MANY REASONS the biggest of which is that Mr. Gibbs puts the message before the overarching plot of everything, and then! It's not even a relevant message! Like, what twelve year old is hardcore believing QAnon (it's pretty obviously meant to be that or something similar). I feel like something could have been achieved and a message about privacy, like Murray makes getting a video of Ben part of some TikTok knockoff challenge, because that seems like a much more likely thing kids would do, but gotta make fun of people who remember what the news said two years ago and comparing it to what they say now! Can't have people with good memories! But yeah, it does shoot the series in the foot kind of, and I understand the reasoning behind why things were done the way they were! I just don't agree with it most of the time.

It's even funnier when you realize that it's not a year and a half evenly spread out, it's one mission his first year with five months before summer, one that summer, and seven his second year. Eight if you want to count SSGS and SSBI as different missions (I go back and forth as to whether or not I do). It's so funny. Please give poor Ben a break.

And yes! Ben is actually so much more competent than people seem to give him credit for sometimes. It's just that his skill set tends to be less flashy and useful in battle scenes, but he's very much the chess master of the group. He's the one planning and strategizing, and all the karate moves in the world aren't going to do you any good if you can't actually foil the plans.

My reasoning for why I'm okay with the age gap is because the narrative treats them as equals who are more or less in the same place in life. Like, yes she's two classes ahead of him, but for all intents and purposes, they're teamed up together constantly with others in Ben's class and I think Erica is the only one we really know about in her class (can't remember Chip's age, but he might be? idk, doesn't really matter). It's never dwelt on, and it bothers me when people try to make a deal about it! Like, they're not going to be in the same place in their lives forever. It's high school. Almost no one marries the person they dated in high school. I've long held that they'd break up sometimes after Erica graduates and starts her adult life while Ben is still in school (or something similar depending on how Mr. Gibbs decides to do things moving forward).

#anyway my own personal conspiracy theory #is that between SSAS and SSPX the CIA contacted mr. gibbs #and told him to stop writing stories where the government was covering things up #and also to make conspiracy theorists seem crazy #because whether or not you believe in actual conspiracy theories #you *cannot* deny that in the context of the Spy School universe #they are correct that the government is lying to them #because that's the only reason i could come up with why someone who's invested so much time writing a series #would mess it up so royally #and there's an out of universe reason why the school got blown up #(it's because it's hard to market a middle grade series where the characters are in high school)#(and don't say Harry Potter middle grade didn't exist as a marketing demographic back then so JK had more freedom in a lot of regards)#so i don't see why there couldn't be an out of universe explanation for the other stuff #especially because several authors *have* gotten contacted by the government when they guessed something a little too close to the truth #but anyway #enough of my crazy #it's how i cope with the book being *so bad*#and that's the stuff i can explain away #unlike Erica's characterization in that book #spy school #ginger answers #erica hale #ben ripley #anyway if you want to send me more asks i would absolutely love that #i've been missing talking about it and the tag has been *so dead* and hardly anyone comments on my ao3 stuff

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fdragon-art · 5 months

Text

Day 29 (30 Days | Homestuck - Day 15) - Andrew Hussey Doing Something Stupid (An Ectobiology Most Paradoxical)

At last! I have figured it out! My own paradox clone! ...now what am I supposed to do with them? Surely, I couldn't have been a product of my own narrative, thus making myself my own father? It is called "The Grandfather Paradox" after all, not "The Father Paradox". ...but my clone is literally in front of me, and nothing looks out of the ordinary, so they must be my paradox clone. So...what the fuck am I supposed to do with them?

=Thoughts=

I'm not one to trace resources or straight-up copy/paste, but there's a certain...strangeness to creating Homestuck fan-panels and the like. Homestuck itself is made up of countless copy/pastes of resources to make the whole process easier. One might say it counts as "fair use", though that doesn't make it any less strange or confusing.

In any case, once I had the idea, it really could only be rendered best using the fan-panel style...but I wasn't feeling particularly attached to literally emulating the style (except for taking this panel as a base). So it was mostly a matter of using some of the original resources as a base (tracing here, instead of literal copy/paste) and making adjustments based on other references (John's Junior Ectobiologist Suit, in this case).

It's a surprisingly cheap and easy process. It would certainly explain how Homestuck kept its blistering update schedule in the earlier months...though the later months had so much work put into pages on the regular, which is still an unfathomable pace.

#homestuck #30days #andrew hussie #year 4 #art #I feel like this should be sufficiently stupid enough yet totally matching some of Homestuck's energy pfft #I'll admit I have next to no attachment to Hussie.. as an author and as a character (considering just how messed up Homestuck and beyond go #during the later years ^^'')#So really.. I'm just feeling fortunate that I managed to come up with /something/ relatively quickly pfft #This really does strike me as kinda funny though. The author creating their own paradox clone XD

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