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thesaintofnevergettingitright · 1 year

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I’ve seen a few people in the TAD fandom talk about how good a TAD/Hozier collab would be, and here’s the thing. Y’all aren’t wrong! It would be absolutely incredible!

But if I may suggest a slightly more unhinged collab idea for your consideration:

The Amazing Devil and Mariana’s Trench

Hear me out! For some reason I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what it would sound like if Joey Batey and Joshua Ramsey were locked in a room and forced to write a song together. Cuz here’s the thing? I have no idea what that would sound like! But I do know that it would be life-changing and chaotic, and would completely destroy me emotionally, and would include an unnecessary number of classic lit references! And what more can you ask of a song?

Like! I am begging yall to listen to Echos of You and The Old Witch Sleep and the Good Man Grace side by side! Do the songs sound anything alike? Absolutely not! But that’s not what it’s about!

It’s about the strategic mid-song emotional/musical whiplash! It’s about simultaneously being haunted and doing the haunting! It’s about being aware that you’re not mentally healthy and reveling in it! It’s about 19th century poets! It’s about being monstrous! PLEASE listen to this shit!

Echos of You

The Old Witch Sleep and the Good Man Grace

Are you going to tell me that the line

“But the notes of an old refrain still ring louder everyday/ From a little to a manic, a cacophony, a frantic/ A relentless refrain is the only thing that remains”

doesn’t sound EXACTLY like some shit Joey Batey would write? Or that

“Where you see weakness, I see wit/ sometimes I fall to pieces just to see what bits of me don’t fit/”

and

“We’ll dance together, so close we’re sharing breath/ but now I’m leading doesn’t that just scare you to death,”

wouldn’t fit perfectly in an Edgar Allen Poe themed album?? Of course not, because you’d be blatantly incorrect!!!

Anyway, please listen to both of these songs/albums and help me manifest this.

#mine #the amazing devil #tad #mariana's trench #I'm aware literally no one asked #you can specifically blame #soundsfaebutokay #for this particular rant #(in fairness though I've been stewing on this one for a WHILE)#now I know what you're thinking #'Suzy what's it like being so right all the time? Is it hard?'#and I'm here to tell you that it may be a burden... but it's a burden I'm willing to bear.#lmao #anyway I really have put a lot of unnecessary thought into this hypothetical collab so please enjoy some thoughts and theories:#for example: they would base the entire song around a specific work of classic lit #that's the obvious part. the fun part is theorizing which one it would be.#my money would be on either #A Midsummer Night's Dream #or a Bronte novel (probably Wuthering Heights tbh. The Moors (tm) are very on-brand for both bands lol)#other theories: someone would teach themselves how to play a new instrument for no reason. No one asked them to do that. but they did.#for some reason my heart says that the harp would be involved #I'm aware I sound fully insane at this point #I am way too deep into this hypothetical song #but such is life when your brain decides we'll only be thinking about one thing for the rest of the day

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savrenim · 2 years

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gods nov 5th is the gift that keeps giving

#I recently have been dragged into I guess sort of the boku no hero academia fandom in the funniest of ways #which is to say I read a crossover fic went 'huh that's good' and decided to read more fic while also deciding to never watch the show #which I've only done for one fandom before and tbh it might legit be a more fun fanfiction reading experience than the normal one #it is WILD trying to reverse-engineer what is simply well-accepted fan theory and what is actual canon #I've definitely gotten a few guesses wrong but the osmosis process is really fun #(esp bc if you want to be a good detective you have to check dates; even people writing very carefully close to canon #might have written a fic before canon came out)#BUT ANYWAYS I guess I read BNHA fic now it's actually pretty good #probably bc there are multiple characters that fit my standard..... not even 'blorbo' preferences #my 'you have a backstory and/or situation that means fanfic written about you is most likely going to hit the spot' preferences #1 defs being Eraserhead bc let's be real 'I am a very tired gruff teacher working two jobs at once who does not get any sleep and has #against my own will adopted all of you why is this happening to me I'm so tired' is The Most Relatable #Hawks bc Crafted Into A Weapon From Childhood is The Weapons Feels^TM #and then Dabi bc that was the crossover that I read that was fun ok it was a silly jjk crossover of 'what if Gojo is reincarnated as Dabi'#that just transferred all my 'HELLO FAVORITE CHARACTER' emotions onto Dabi who then I go and look up and has also the sort of backstory #that makes him fave character material #SO here I am sitting here just generally happy with all of this watching my annual Nov 5th meme compilation #and LO AND BEHOLD there is strong arm 'trending during the us election: destiel/ BNHA' meme #and I'm going 'what the fuuuuuuuck my new favorite fandom aLSO TRENDED IN THE NOV 5TH CHAOS????'#so obviously I had to look up why #WELL THE WHY WAS DABI BACKSTORY REVEAL #anyways my housemate had to check on me as to why I was screaming and it turns out that indeed nov 5th #is the gift that keeps on giving #if you have read this far down in my tags I feel like you now know uncomfortably personal things about me #esp if you know enough about BNHA to understand all of that #so if you have any fic recs About My Favs I'm taking them I esp enjoy canon retellings bc it's REALLY fun to try to figure out #which bits of those are actually canon

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silverskye13 · 1 year

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I'm reading The Ruins right now and realizing I watched approximately 10 minutes of the movie based on this book. This serves to make the current plot both really, unbearably slow and kind of stupid--

#spazzcat barks #spazzcat reads #its a horror book about killer plants because im doing research for the horror fic about killer sculk i wanna write #this is in theory a good idea except i now know what the monster [plants] is -- since i recognize the movie #im a bit intruiged tbh because i watched enough of the movie to know what The Horrors TM are but not how the mcs make it out #or how many of them die #now im stuck waiting on the characters to Figure Shit Out while becoming increasingly aware of the author's blatant attempts #to make their inevitable deaths tragic #Stacy is nicknamed Space-y because shes haha so random and dumb and Too Pure For This Scenerio #Amy is a horrible pessimist if we listened to her we wouldnt be in this mess -- but by Tragedy Rules b/c shes a pessimist we dont listen #xyz guy characters who want to be doctors or teachers who had their whole lives ahead of them etc etc #i will say noticeable improvement from movie to book:#in the movie this takes place in somewhere vaguely tropical [amazon] with wild angry natives trapping the MCs #it was incredibly random and incredibly racist #in the book the Mayans in a Described Location (not random) have a known language barrier #and it is Stacy (Space-y) panicking coupled with the language barrier that puts the MCs in contact with the Evil Monster Plants #and the Mayans knowing these kids are doomed now force them to stay in monster plants to keep them from spreading from a Contained Location #it makes logical sense and isnt steeped in terrible racism #so good for the book i guess

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matchmadeinsevenhells · 2 years

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One of the fun things about daydreaming writing HotD AUs is that you can literally just look at any possible dragon fight matchups and be like 👀👀👀 HMMMMMMMMM I WONDER

#hotd #house of the dragon #tbh the Blacks should've just lured Aemond somewhere #and then show up with Caraxes and Meleys..............#also fun fact Dreamfyre is THE SAME AGE AS VERMITHOR #she should be LARGE AND SCARY #Grrm i hate you SO MUCH for basically nerfing all the female dragonriders and most of the female dragons too #new theory is that the Greens having an active fighting dreamfyre was too great a headache so Helaena jsut HAD to get Depression (tm).....#helaena targaryen #dreamfyre #anyway.

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dmclemblems · 2 years

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I have to politely disagree to your reasoning of why Dimitri spared Edelgard at the end of AG. My reading was that he figured that she has already suffered enough because this time he has an idea of what TWSID have done to her and/or because now that she mentally regressed to twelve year old Edelgard, she's no longer the Edelgard that started the war in the first place.

I'm not sure if you saw my post after that one, but I mentioned a theory that basically there was dark magic on top of dark magic; that being, in this game specifically, maybe Edelgard had dark magic used on her to begin with (and was part of why she forgot about Dimitri), so in a way it could be that the "new" personality started there and the "real" personality was "asleep" that whole time.

When Thales used his dark magic to control her during AG, that would be the second time in this theory that he used it on her and I guess took her memory away to some extent, since she couldn't remember what happened over the course of six months.

If that happened it would be like, once Thales died and his dark magic on her was released, that the time she lived from back then to the present was possibly just gone. In a sense, you could say the Edelgard we know was possibly totally erased and that she's starting over from the moment her memories were first wiped/altered.

And I think it's totally valid that you have your own idea on what the final scene meant! To me I think it could be a combination of both the ideas we have, because while I think it'd make sense that maybe he's letting some things go since she may not have been totally in control and all that and the blame for most of his pain was due to Thales' desires, I think it would be hard for him to reconcile with her mentally by then. I think there's still probably some part of him that will struggle to look at her and not feel anger for things she did (especially the war). In time I think he might be able to forgive her if the theory I mentioned above is accurate/somewhat accurate and like you said, she regressed back to being a child.

Since it's an open ending on that stuff though, it could be possible that maybe she remembered him but still has her memories of the war and whatnot? Like maybe all that happened is her old memories are accessible to her now but she's returned to being who she was throughout the war, but she's remembering "oh shit, it's Dee who I've been at war with".

Because it's an ambiguous ending I think there are any number of possibilities as to why he walked away tbh. Basically the way I've been seeing it is what I wrote just above - that she might finally remember him but may also be just now realizing exactly what she's done. Perhaps a part of him was at the time still too bitter and he had to address the armies that they'd won first before trying to get into anything emotional with her.

You could kind of say with how I'm thinking of it that like, imagine you were talking to someone online and didn't know who it was. You ended up in this fight with them and bad things happened, only for you to find out later that it was another person you cherished and kind of had that oh shit moment, but the fact still remains that you had this fight with that person due to a conflict of interests without knowing who it was. You did things you normally wouldn't have done to that person, but because you didn't know it was them you did do those things.

If Edelgard had just completely regressed and was living her life over again from the age of, mentally, twelve, and everything from that point after was truly erased, I'm sure Dimitri would reconcile with her, though I'm sure he'd need some time to let his feelings work themselves out.

What he'd do after imo would really depend on which Edelgard she is at the end: twelve year old Edelgard or a combination of her memories from back then but also the person we knew in game.

Thank you for being polite about it though! I don't mind discussing opposing thoughts/opinions. Usually it's just angry stans who have no actual discussion to add and just throw insults and angry comments, so I'm not gonna bother having a calm discussion with them when I know they won't listen. Ima just tell 'em to hop off my blog if I say anything to them because they have nothing nice to say and no actual discussion to offer. I don't mind talking to fans of her (not sure if you would consider yourself a fan or if you just see the scene differently) and I've talked to a small few before who don't mind a casual conversation. The only time I actually mind it is when people have a fit and don't know how to do anything except combust and malfunction. At that point it's like, if you can't calmly explain your view to someone then you need to just ignore it and accept that someone has a different opinion. I don't talk to hardcore Dimitri haters because I know nothing I say will change their mind (and most are just gonna shit on him anyway lol), but I'm also not gonna waste my time getting mad at them one on one when I could be posting something positive about him.

#Three Hopes Spoilers #I think the ending is at least good post war fic material if nothing else #It's open ended enough that there are lots of interpretations and I know there are #people who are fans of both characters who would like to see a world where they do reconcile #so I think this ending is actually good theory/fic content for those people #tbh Edelgard would probably have to start her life all over if she did regress completely #to the point of having no knowledge anymore on what she did since Thales got to her #I do think it'd still ultimately end with Ferdinand taking over the Empire since like #either Edelgard has regressed to being a twelve year old or she just lost the war (with memory of causing it)#and I really doubt Dimitri actually wants to unify the continent or their lands in any way #I don't think he'd try to take over and be like the Empire is part of Faerghus now #There would probably have to be some kind of official meetings if she had all her memories now #as far as what to do with her after having started and lost the war #and I think if she didn't remember they'd just have to find a way to integrate her back into society somehow #I think if the war ended then and there with Thales defeated that they'd have a lot to discuss about her #but I think the war would ultimately just be over bc I'm not sure I see Edelgard just #getting back to the war and continuing to target Rhea/trying to conquer Fodlan #after remembering about Dimitri based on the way she sounded/her tone of voice #like would they have had her speak to him that way and then be like And Then She Continued The War (tm)#i mean i don't think so but then this is also intsys so who knows what bizarre ending they'd cook up lol #DCB Ask

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buffporcupine · 4 months

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death note headcanons

because i know my death note mutuals aren’t getting what they wanted from me

light

-can crack his elbows the way one would crack their knuckles

-probably had to do a musical elective in his first year of middle school and chose guitar cause he thought it would be easy but it wasn’t.

-the type of song he really enjoys is very specific. going to hell yet i tried so so hard to please god song. i missed my only chance song. why wasn’t i like the other kids song. thrones playlist. i could elaborate but i won’t

-as for sexuality, i see him as not wanting to put a label on whatever he is in theory but in practice being some type of bispec (probably berriromantic) for romantic attraction and then somewhere on the asexual spectrum for sexual attraction.

-as for gender i see him as agender whose not really in labeling himself as anything when it comes to sexuality and gender.

-agender but probably 100% fine with being super male presenting. he just wants to keep out of gender as a convo and that’s great. good for him

-no!!!!! i refuse to say this mf is aromantic (because it’s not accurate and it’d be an insult to aromantic people to say he’s aro)!!!!!

-just because he manipulated misa and kiyomi into doing his bidding and didn’t love them doesn’t immediately make him aro. i’m sure he could have found someone if he wanted to, and he could have loved them if he was with them to love them, but he wasn’t with them to love them he was with them to use them.

misa

-half belgian half japanese. her parents met in belgium while her father was on vacation.

-also im torn bcos i wanna write an au where misa is mexican and that’s it everything else is the same as canon but i��m pretty sure that’s just me wanting her to be even more Like Me (tm)

-speaks a little bit of english, way more french, and obvi japanese. finds linguistics interesting but doesn’t have enough time to research it that thoroughly

-likes being short and “small” small girl aesthetic i guess but sometimes wishes she had longer legs so she could wear skirts w/o looking silly and short

-panromantic does not see gender at all when becoming attracted to someone. i see her as def on the ace spectrum, maybe something like demisexual or aegosexual. could be me projecting dunno.

-she’s probably dated both girls and boys before

-would NOT break up with someone in a rude way or just dump them. she’d put a lot of effort into an apology and explanation into why.

-if she met miu iruma they’d be best friends. sorry i bring danganronpa into everything guys

-can we please just appeciate mexican misa for a second. she’s cooking sopa de fideo for the task and being the bilingual hot girl we all needed

-mexican misa

-as for her music taste she probably listens to upbeat english language music and sappy love songs. “there is a light that never goes out” and “melt with you” sound like go-tos for her sorry. i could also see her being a bimbo pop ayesha + britney manson girlie though

-tbh whatever your race/ethnicity is you could project it onto misa and it’d work. i love it. anyway d d d d d d d did i say m m m mexican misa

-i think she’d love love love getting her hair done!!! sensitive scalp mf but she’d still love getting her hair done

-mexican misa visiting mexico and getting braids and cute clothes and her fave candy

-was not a theatre kid. sorry guys but her middle and high school didn’t offer theatre 😔😔

lawliet

-chronically dehydrated just because he forgets to drink water. he tries to drink water and always gets afraid of developing kidney / liver problems but he just keeps forgetting. what the fuck L

-soup stan i think he’d love some good soup. soup stan x soup cooker (lawmane)

-i think you could have a really deep convo about anything with L. if you’re passionate about anything he’ll just listen and he’ll talk to you about what he’s passionate about to. he loves to think and would def entertain you with a convo about whether a hot dog is a sandwich or something dumb like that you know.

-he’s a thinker he just loves discussions

-has a british accent when speaking english bcos watari and lived in england you know. he thinks british accents in english sound good tho and LOVES making fun of how silly new york accents are (me too bro. me too)

-if he went to middle school or the japanese/british equivalent of it, he’d def be the type to choose some weird ass elective fucking creative writing instead of the “normal” guitar, choir, band, orchestra and shit

#death note #death note headcanons #light yagami #l lawliet #misa amane #yagami light #amane misa #l death note

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calibrationneeded · 1 year

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Reasons I think Jack is actually Chuck pretending to be Jack, coming from someone who has not watched a single episode of The Winchester’s and only knows about it from gif sets and posts

1. He does that little thing that Chuck does when he’s being a smug bastard where he kind of glances up to the side and pulls in his lips, making the white people face TM

2. He dresses a lot like Chuck, I mean, when have we not seen Jack dress like the odd hippie kid from an 80s sitcom? I feel like him all the sudden just wearing a tan suit jacket is really out of character.

3. The fact he quoted carry-on my wayward son, I really don’t feel like Jack would know that song, and we know for a fact that Chuck has associated the song with his books because in the musical episode, they sing the song

4. If it were really Jack, he would’ve immediately ran right up to Dean and hugged him not just stood and stared at him, Jack is a sweetie pie and likes to show affection. He wouldn’t just look at Dean like he’s a coworker

5. He didn’t give us his “I eat nickels” vibe

So, my running theory is that when Jack absorbed Chuck’s power, he was just essentially possessed by Chuck, because if we’re going off a philosophical standpoint, in order for a being to be god it can’t be a being with power. It has to be the physical embodiment of that power. So for Chuck, just to be a being with power would contradict him being God (though I don’t think that the supernatural franchise has looked into philosophy that much tbh) anyways, I’m insane

#supernatural #dean winchester #spn #castiel #the winchesters #sam winchester #theory #headcanon #chuck won #I Don’t trust this Jack somethings wrong with my boy

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x0401x · 25 days

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Hello....Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks...

I've been asked my top 10 before, but never from all of the media I love and I've never been asked to elaborate on why I love them. Not to mention that the list changes as I watch/read new stuff, so it's good to update it. Then again, I don't watch live action that much, so I'm afraid it's gonna be all animanga/books, if you don't mind.

I must say, though, that it was impossible to decide on 10 this time around. So I resorted to listing my top 5. The list is in no particular order, by the way.

1. Kuchiki Rukia

So this one was an instant fave and I don't even think I need to explain much. Badass, kindhearted, A+ sense of humor. Just checks all the boxes. Also love her unique character design.

2. Gilbert Bougainvillea

I strictly mean the book version of him. Gil was one of the very few fictional characters to ever surprise me. I love how unapologetically emotional he is and how he's always making sure the people he holds dear get to live a happy life. The way he's such a "family and friends first" kinda guy and yet nobody seems to realize it simply because he looks like the aloof type is bitterly relatable for me. Also the way he acknowledges how unfair life is for him despite being brough up in an environment that, in theory, had everything to meet all his needs, and yet tries to make the best of it all. And my God, the amount of Respect Women Juice that this guy drinks. Goals as a human being, tbh. (Yes, the books are that different from the anime.)

3. Oikawa Tsurara

I normally don't vibe all that much with characters like Tsurara, but she quite literally opened new horizons for me in fandom. Imagine the dumb, clingy servant girl stereotype turned upside down. You start out fearing that she'll fit into the Mold TM, and before you realize it, she's risen to become an upper officer in command of two clans and is endgame with the protagonist (with three more guys pinning after her). Except this isn't a Cinderella kind of journey; she was always treated by her love interest as an equal and was always portrayed as having immense potential. Her jealousy of her rivals seems comical but is actually valid, as her suspicions always hit home. She's smart and strong and not at all delusional, and the story makes sure to give her a steady growth. She never becomes overpowered, but the protagonist only gets to that level because of her.

4. Takigawa Masaki

Again, book version. Motherfucker just be casually defying every god in existence because y'all can't just try to kill my disciple like that, what the actual fuck. The "Catch These Hands" priest, because he'll punch the shit outta whoever gets between him and the little bitch who tried to harm his students. And then he'll fuck into his shrine in the middle of the woods like nothing happened. His main occupation, however, is to be hot as hell. Truly an icon.

5. Sheryl Nome

Same as with Tsurara, I normally don't vibe much with characters like Sheryl, but holy fuck, the amount of respect I have for this woman. Macross is a franchise that specializes in taking archetypes and tropes and subverting them completely, and Frontier is my favorite because the character handling in this thing is good fucking food.

Sheryl has such an attitude but she can back it up. And she does it in ways that are charismatic, rather than annoying or bitchy. She absolutely never puts herself down and is never portrayed as actually fragile and inoffensive on the inside. The narrative gets points too for never going "she's amazing but she won't ever be as good as the protagonist". And she's cute, sure, but she's also dangerous and is out there to get what she wants. Yet there's so much heart to her. So much passion and admiration for all things alive and for connecting with them through music. She usually only does what she wants but is so ridiculously selfish with the people she cherishes. Easily one of the most extremely complex and absurdly cool femme fatales in animanga.

#bleach #violet evergarden #macross #tsurune #nurarihyon no mago #macross frontier #kuchiki rukia #kyoani #gilbert bougainvillea #takigawa masaki #sheryl nome #oikawa tsurara #nuramago #anime #faves

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unforth · 1 year

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I've been trying for ages to figure out how to put something into words about The Youth In Fandom and I still don't think I've quite got it but I did reach an insight about it that I think is valuable enough that I'm gonna take a stab at writing it.

For starters, I want to make it clear, there is no "The Youth In Fandom Problem." Based on my efforts running the art sideblogs for danmei fandoms, I can say with a fair degree of confidence that a vast minority of people of all ages are antis, purity wankers, pro-censorship, ageist, etc. Even among people who mark their bios with their age, it's a shockingly low percentage of people under 18 who are being super weird about this stuff, and I think that's something a lot of older folks bemoaning The Younger Generation could stand to know and be reminded of. This isn't a majority, it's just a vocal minority, and tbh...that vocal minority has always been there, at least in my own fandom experiences.

That said, I've personally been the target of "y r u in fandom, old woman? Go take care of your kids!" bullshit, and yes it's definitely real and yes it definitely happens. (I am not old, I am not a woman, I was here before the people who said that to me were born, and I spend all the rest of my time taking care of my kids, so...).

All that introduction is to posit a theory:

The kinds of people who say "you should grow out of it, you're too old for fandom, etc." don't actually really...like what they like.

I know that sounds batshit. They're here blogging about it 24/7, of course they're obsessed! But I really genuinely find myself wondering...like...are they actually obsessed? Or are they just performing obsessed because that's what their peer group is doing? Are they just following along with their friends, mimicking their friends' enthusiasm, going with the flow because they're scared of what will happen if they say "actually I didn't think that show was very good"?

I ended up with this as a theory to posit because is to arrive at "you should grow out of it," you have to start with "I will grow out of it." And to get to "I will grow out of it," you have to start with "I may be into this now but I will definitely Change." And to get to "I will definitely Change," you have to start with the base assumption that loving certain types of media isn't just part of who you are, but rather a temporary persona you've assumed overlaying some deeper Self that will be revealed with time - or that's already been revealed and that you're deliberately masking for whatever reason.

Lemme put it less abstractly (but more longwindedly, lmao).

When I was 16, I was fucking terrified. There were all these things I loved - Star Trek, Hercules and Xena, Babylon 5, Slayers, Evangelion, Fushigi Yuugi, the Wheel of Time, many others - some I'd been into for years, some I'd only just discovered. And I looked at the adults in the world around me, who didn't sleep with stuffed toys, who got into long-term romantic and sexual relationships, who settled into careers that they stuck with for 20, 30, 40 years, who had heaps of responsibilities, and it was so frightening I literally had trouble sleeping at night. My senior year of high school, I trained myself to sleep with a pillow instead of a stuffie because "what would people in college think if they saw me snuggling a stuffed wolf?" That was something I was prepared to sacrifice to be An Adult (tm), something I was (irrationally) ashamed of, something that wasn't so much a part of my personhood that I couldn't give it up. When I left home to go to school at 17, I left my wolf at home. (I brought him with me a year later, and he's now on my bookshelf. Less disposable than 16-year-old me thought, as it turns out, but that's another story.) But there were things about myself I wasn't prepared to sacrifice to fit in during college. I still wore my Star Wars shirt. I still hung my anime posters. I still listened to J Pop. My roommate might judge me. My classmates might judge me. My professors might judge me. I didn't care. Loving those were part of who I was, and I wasn't prepared to give that up.

I found solace by looking at the adults in my life who hadn't had to give up their "childish fancies." I looked at my mother, who introduced me to Star Trek, and thought if she didn't have to stop loving Star Trek to be An Adult, then why should I? I looked at my grandfather, on whose bookshelves I first found the Lord of the Rings, and thought if he didn't have to give up LotR to be An Adult, then why should I? They might not wear fandom shirts, they might not go to conventions, they might not engage in the same way that I did, but they still loved these things, and it gave me hope.

When I was saw adults who still did fan things, who dressed how they wanted, who had cool hair styles or colors, who had tattoos, I thought "wow, what a cool person. I hope I get to grow up to be like them. I hope I'll be that comfortable in my own skin when I'm that age, because I'm sure not that comfortable in my own skin NOW."

I'll have to change in some ways - find A Career, figure out this "attraction" thing everyone keeps fucking talking about, buy a house, all the rest - but I'll be able to love the things I love.

I will still be "me" when I'm an adult, just Me-Plus-More.

I wanted to grow up to be that adult. I was prepared to take figurative arrows, to fight, to slog through, to retain the part of me that felt most valuable - my ability to love the things I loved without apologizing for it. And I knew I could do that, because I already had. Man, the shit people gave me in middle school for being an out-and-proud Trekkie? smh. It was baaaaad.

Time passes. Now I'm 40, and yes, I have changed. I've had more than one career. I got married. I figured out I never did have to figure out that "attraction" shit because I learned asexuality existed and. uh. Oh. I had children. I bought a house.

And I still have a bookcase of manga and I still have a Tumblr blog and I've found new fandoms - many, many new fandoms - nearly all for franchises that didn't even exist when I was 16 and so so scared that I used to literally break down and cry over the prospect of "having" to "give up childish things."

I got myself through on the belief that I'd still be me, and I was right. More than 20 years later, I AM still me.

And that's what leads me back to "why do The Youth think they'll age out of fandom?" And it leads me back to "I can only assume their fandom participation is mostly performative." Because look. This is who I was when I was 10 and read Lord of the Rings, and it was who I was when I was 12 and I started watching Star Trek when Voyager debuted, and it's who I was when I was 17 and I pulled an all-nighter to watch the second season of Fushigi Yuugi, and it's who I was when I was 21 and spent my birthday totally sober and gaming with my friends, and it's who I was at 26 when I got buried up to my eyeballs in Supernatural, and it's who I was at 37 when I watched The Untamed and knew as easy as breathing oh my god I've found the next obsession.

If it's an embraced, realized, adored part of your persona, there's absolutely no reason to think it's going to go away. And there's no reason nor need for it to. There are always gonna be people who judge others for having passions, and there are always gonna be people who embrace others for having passions, and you just gotta identify and avoid the former and find and adore the latter. If you're young, and you love fandom, and you're afraid you, too, will "have to" give up childish things...congratulations! You've got nothing to be afraid of! You never have to change that aspect of yourself!

But...I know these teens on Tumblr who are bullying others already know that because they can see us everywhere. And instead of going, as I did, "oh wow, those older people who still love the things they love are cool! how reassuring! I can be like them!" they think "EW OLD PERSON NOT ALLOWED THIS IS MY ROOM DO NOT ENTER."

And that's weird. When I try to think, "What kind of mentality would lead someone to feel that way, act that way, etc.?" I arrive at: being in fandom is something that they're embarrassed about. Something they're ashamed of, that they think is shameful. Something childish and therefore only for kids, even when the media they're a fan of is entirely made for and by adults. Something they think is made for them in that moment but that they'll be able to easily discard when they move on to more important parts of their lives. Something they know in their heart is transient. Something they're just doing because their friends are doing it.

That's when they'd think "why would an adult still do this?"

When it's something you "know" will be "just a phase," you don it like you don the identity of "high school student," something that'll get shucked a minute after graduation.

And while I found the idea of giving up fandom terrifying, I again can only assume that for these type of person, NOT giving up fandom becomes something terrifying. "Of course this is transient. Of course I'm going to change. I can't wait to change, I hate who I am now! Why did these so-called adults not change? Changing to not like this kind of thing is a sign of Maturity and Adulthood that I am eagerly waiting for, because I believe there's something wrong with being this way, and therefore I assume the adults I see doing this are immature, have something wrong with them, are childish, cannot be Doing Adulthood Right, because they didn't give up the thing."

"I know, in my heart, that I can't WAIT to change, so if they don't want to change, if they haven't changed, something must be wrong with them."

And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is the only reason. People are way too complex for there ever to be One Explanation Of All. I'm sure some of the teens who engage in ageist bullying just think they're ~cool~ and ~different~ and their name is Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way. Others are just uncomfortable with adults, with or without cause, and think "you don't belong in the same space as me." Some surely have drank the conservative kool-aid even as they've tried to change and are pantomiming the bullshit they were fed by those around them in new and unpleasant ways. Some think "this media was made for people like me and anyone who isn't like me can't possibly be engaging it in the Correct And Proper Way."

Some will grow out of it - out of fandom, or out of thinking that being an adult in fandom is wrong/bad/inappropriate/immature/whatever.

A few especially unpleasant ones...won't.

Unlike young!me, who looked at fannish grown ups and thought "wow, I could grow up to be like them, they're so cool!", you think "ew, I hope I don't grow up to be like them, they're so weird!"

And if that's you...why are you here?

If you don't actually like who are you when you're in fandom, that's okay. You don't have to stay. If you lose your friends because your interests change, then those friends stink and you didn't need them anyway; people who actually care about you will always keep by your side even if your interests and theirs diverge. But just cause YOU are performing your interest in fandom...doesn't mean the rest of us are. Some of us genuinely like it here. And you might think that's fucked up of us, but it's honestly none of your fucking business. You do what you gotta do to grow up, and leave the rest of us already-grown-ups alone.

And if you do genuinely love it and you're just scared because you think you'll have to change - that you'll reach some mystical age of majority and suddenly wake up a different person...you won't. For better and for worse, you'll still be you, so if there's things about yourself you don't like, it'd be better to start working on unpacking that psychological baggage now, because there's never gonna be a miracle point where you Feel Better And Like An Adult unless you put in the effort to change.

Teenagers...you will not grow up to be a new person. You will never give up who you are. You will grow up to be You-Plus-More.

And if that's something you hear and go "omg that's great news!" then I'm glad to be the one who told you. Take heart. There's hope. You can be you and that WILL be okay. You can face up to and grow from the things about yourself you don't like. You can learn more about yourself. You have time, and you will be able to improve yourself, to become more like the parts of yourself you like and less like the parts you hate.

And if that's something you hear and go "oh god no that's the worst" then you need to stare that reaction in the face and understand that the only way change is coming is if you make it happen for yourself. No one is strong-arming you into being a fan. If it's not for you...then stop. It's literally that easy. But don't take out your uncertainty and fear on other random people who are more comfortable with themselves than you are. Most of us are not here because of fear. We're here in the face of our fear, as a fuck you to our fear, because we also grew up being told we'd have to give up so-called childish things to be An Adult, and it turns out that was a pile of bullshit and we can have careers AND anime posters. And we can afford more anime posters, cause our parents are no longer telling us how to spend our money.

If your participation in fandom is primarily performative...just stop performing. Be yourself, and find your OWN passion, and stop shitting on the people who have managed to be more true to themselves and their own interests. You're not cool and edgy and different; you're just an asshole and a bully, and I pity you.

Anyway as you can tell from this rambly mess of a post, I haven't really gotten my finger on my point yet, but idk. I've been thinking about this and I think there's something there???

#unforth rambles #drama #hopefully now that I've written this I can finally get it out of my head #my posts like this pretty much always flop but that's okay #if it helped me think things out for myself #about why some people are Like That #then its job is done #anyway I wrote this post in between helping my daughter get dressed #and getting my son on the bus #and making tea #and straightening up the living room #and now i gotta start work in three minutes #the big difference between teen me and adult me is that now I have to fit the fanning into these miniscule windows of time #between all the More Important Things That Need Done #it's tiring but it's worth it

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wifegideonnav · 4 months

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#unfortunately i think the answer has to do with the worst pair of leggings in existence #being the religious figure of the squad and all #cristabel

what does this mean!!

hi lmao ok so this is less of a theory and more something that occurred to me when i saw that post but. in essence it’s definitely possible that cristabel has red eyes in reference to the sufferer/kankri vantas from homestuck. within the canon of the story, the sufferer (aka the signless) is quite literally troll jesus. his alternate universe annoying 19 year old counterpart, kankri, is in a weird way also a religious figure to his group of annoying 19 year old friends (whose alternate universe selves played other roles in the jesus retelling), who have been in the afterlife for millions of years and watched the signless’s story unfold. at least one of them wears his symbol on her necklace.

so within the pre-resurrection squad, where john wasn’t god yet, c— was the religious figure, like kankri. it’s not a 1:1, obviously both situations are more convoluted, but if tm was like hm what eye color should i give to the religious figure of my squad, it’s possible that she picked red as a nod to the signless (whose blood and therefore eyes are red)

as for the leggings thing. um. so im relatively new to the fandom aka i wasn’t there when this happened but my understanding is that it started when this panel with karkat way in the background was published:

and it looked like he was just wearing one long pants. this became a meme called “pantskat” and hussie eventually acknowledged it in canon by having the signless wear “righteous leggings”

here are said leggings, and on the right i increased the brightness so they’re easier to see

and then here’s a random sprite of kankri wearing his leggings lol, it’s canon that he wears them and only wears a sweater on top because one of his friends got sick of looking at the leggings and knitted it for him

alright well that was about 5 times longer than i thought it was gonna be lol but tbh i love elaborating 😌 and i would love to know what other people think. also i hope that this explanation even makes sense to people who haven’t read the comic 😭 i tried to make it as simple as possible but when it comes to hs that’s not saying much lol

oh also quick eta: there are people who are very into the ancestors and dancestors and i am not one of those people (esp re: ancestors) so i apologize for any inaccuracies, this is based on the best of my memory + what i could find on the wiki. ancestor/dancestor people feel free to make corrections lol

#asks #cristabel oct

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wigglebox · 2 years

Text

Queer? In my John Winchester?

It’s more likely than you think!

Sorry — but not really.

So, it’s 2022, there’s a Supernatural show on, and I am sitting at my desk wondering how to actually start talking about a queer reading for a character that many don’t like the idea of being queer.

No I’m not talking about Dean Winchester — I’m talking about John.

I remember waaaay back when in Ye Olden Times of June 2021 when the show’s script commitment was leaked, myself and a few others on Tumblr tossed around the idea of “Omg what if they make John queer, he’s in a relationship with another guy, and then heaven forces them apart because he has to be with Mary.”

And that wasn’t out of a desire to just have a slash ship. Those happen regardless, all the time, with little to no warning and little to no reason sometimes. Shipping happens. Shipping doesn’t have to be canon, doesn’t really have to make sense, and is a personal thing between you and your AO3 account.

From my perspective, I had been wondering if they’d do it simply because the meta symbolism comparison — whatever — would be so great for Destiel and that ship’s journey.

And, I still stand by that, and if anything, even more so now that I’ve had more time to think about it and see the characters on my screen.

While watching 1x04 of The Winchesters, Masters of War, even mid-episode, Twitter and Tumblr and likely your Discord servers were all ablaze with “What was that look that John just gave Carlos in that uniform? Millie? What?” and especially after this tweet:

Just gonna do one of these while I’m at it:

Anyway —

But for me, that wasn’t the only moment my brain starting firing when it came to the possibility of John and Carlos.

First of all, since we know where John and Mary are eventually going to end up, this show can’t hurt me. I’m already expecting to be hurt. It’s not queerbaiting, it’s not anything like that. Also, especially now, very much not queerbaiting. Coding is not baiting. But regardless, I had gone into this show fully expecting to just start shipping everyone for everyone just because why not?

But after 1x04 I legitimately will be paying more attention to John/Carlos.

For me, the most interesting thing about Destiel was that it kinda was born organically. Cas wasn’t meant to be a character that stuck around but the chemistry was too good to get rid of him, and the story just made sense with him there tbh. It was over the years and years that these two were on screen together in which it went from “Yay, a slash ship that’s not with his brother!” to “Oh my God are they going to make this canon? It makes the most sense!”

The thing with Destiel is that since it was organic, it was born outside of the narrative. Cas was the first one to “make it up as we go,” he exists outside the narrative.

The whole thing when it comes to Chuck Won theory for me is that Cas is a threat to Chuck because he exists outside of the narrative and kept trying to get Dean to go along with him — subconciously of course lol. [Side note, this is why I don’t believe Cas is in heaven, because if indeed Chuck won, Cas wouldn’t be there. Cas is ‘real’, he’s ‘truth’].

Destiel is a pairing, a love story, outside of the actual story while directly influencing the narrative that Chuck is trying to dole out to us.

It was a brat, the suits/Chuck couldn’t control it, and once it started rolling down the hill, no one could stop it.

Destiel was the character pairing that broke the narrative.

Now, when it comes to The Winchesters, we have a bit of a thing going on here don’t we? We have four characers: Two young women, two young men. This is actually prime fodder for a shipping free for all.

Carlos already expressed his once crush on Mary, Latika [to me at least] is kind of crushing on John, and John and Mary, we know, wind up together regardless.

However — John and Mary are the narrative. That’s The Plan TM. That’s heaven’s outcome, that’s Chuck’s outcome, that’s the thing that needs to happen for the story to play out how they want it to. John and Mary don’t have a choice in this.

But, they both still need a relationship outside of the narrative for contrast.

The thing with Supernatural is that we never had Sam or Dean have ‘narrative compliant’ relationships. There was no need to have them hook up with someone to make children who are destined to bring about the apocalypse or whatever. That was all on them. That was supposed to end with Sam and Dean.

But The Winchesters has a narrative couple, even if they don’t know it yet. For me, John and Mary still seem like just friends, they all do really, and while sometimes they’ll have talks in the van or heartfelt speeches to each other already with piano music softly playing overhead — it still doesn’t feel like romance. If anything, in 1x03 with John’s words about Mary and having to save her, it felt more like we’re inching more towards brother co-dependency than not.

Since we have a narrative couple, and we already know what that is, we need a non-narrative couple. We need John and Mary to seek relationships with others, and probably get a little farther with it than just one date. We need something outside of the narrative that’s threatening to also take John and Mary along as well. John and Mary need their Cas, because they certainnly aren’t Dean and Cas to each other.

“But Jen, why not just have John with Latika?”

Because I said so! No, just kidding, because Carlos makes more sense to me in this case.

It’s been clear to a lot of us watching that Carlos really captures the attitude and spirit of early seasons Dean. A little over confident, likely compensating for something. Withholding emotional stuff, maybe a little cavelier in his love life, and hell we even got a “why does paper even beat a rock” reference in 1x04.

But in 1x04, it feels like Carlos was also set up with Cas parallels.

Carlos was in the Navy, he was in the service, just like John. Dean and Cas were also ordered basically to “fight” by their fathers, and were essentially soldiers of their own corners of the narrative.

But, Carlos isn’t a soldier. He’s a medic. He’s a healer. First thing I thought of was “Oh, Cas healed people and Dean all the time.” That’s one of the things I associate with Cas a lot is just healing, both physical wounds and emotional ones.

I find it interestingly fasincating that Carlos was put in contrast to John like this. Dean and Cas to me were on the same level whereas Carlos felt like almost the polar opposite to John. He didn’t illegally sign up for the war while underaged, he wasn’t really looking for a fight, and he did none of the fighting but instead helped those who were wounded in the fighting. Whereas John entered the war underaged, was a Marine, and likely saw so many atrocities unfold before him including the death of his friend Murphy.

The Destiel parallels didn’t end there for me.

It seems like we’re test driving John with the different characters. He’s with Mary, alone. Then he’s with Latika, alone. And now he’s with Carlos for most of the episode, alone. So it feels like it’s almost like I’m watching The Bachelor lol. You have the winner who was engineered by producers to be the pick at the end of the competition [Mary], the one who actually was in it to find love with the Bachelor [Latika] and the one that the Bachelor actually fell in love with [Carlos].

[I’ve never seen this show lmao I’m actually modeling this off of Flavor Of Love but shh don’t tell anyone]

Obviously, my saying John is in love with Carlos is literally just me saying that. Literally no proof of that right now. I’m just saying if we’re going to throw some tropes in there, that’s where I’d slot him in.

So getting back to Destiel parallels — I found the jungle space that John and Carlos wound up in so interesting. It really reminded me of Purgaytory. Yes I’m spelling it that way.

When Carlos stepped on the mine and said John’s name like that, like Murphy did but also just like that, idk. Struck something in me. But I also found it interesting that he was in there at all. All the other people that this god killed were on their own. But now it’s both Carlos and John, and the god is using Carlos to try and like, convince John to do what it wants John to do.

Obviously, we know that despite his claims otherwise, John did wind up doing what the god wanted him to do and did in fact kinda give into his inner demons, which we saw play out the entire episode as John struggled hard.

For me, John needs someone who’s going to tempt him away from the narrative, away from going down this bad path of running instead of confronting his inner demons, and away from the narrative pairing that will eventually be with Mary. He needs someone who will help steer him away from all of this, because the narrative has to have something to rip away from him. And progress would be that thing that the narrative strips away.

And to me, yes I wouldn’t mind it being Latika either but I’m aligning her more with Mary at the moment. So for me, it’d be Carlos. Another ‘brother in arms’ [see what I did there], someone who does understand the trauma of seeing what he saw, and experienced more or less what he experienced. Someone who is that beacon of hope and light [even though I’m sure Carlos has his own issues obviously] that would make John want to confront his issues intead of run from them.

So, when I see fun Destiel parallels to John and Carlos I like them, but I’m also thinking about the meta narrative implications of this. A queer ship, for outside of the narrative, that will wind up getting the axe in order to serve the narrative. Because isn’t that what happened with Destiel, and Dean’s right to reciprocate being taken away from him [literally. the final monsters ripped people’s tongues out and he never said Cas’ name after that phone call in 15x19].

To mark a full tragedy and degradation of John Winchester, it’d be great to me anyway if they do the same with him.

Now —

I know post-episode there were some loud dissenters and those who aren’t happy about this concept that John could be queer, especially if it’s more upfront about it than Dean ever truly got a chance to do.

And for that, I understand, however I’m choosing to view this as a good thing because if they can slap on as many callbacks to Destiel as they can with these two, but knowing that with these two it’s going to fail while with Destiel more or less succeeded*, I’m choosing to call a win a win. I also don’t believe symbolism, meta, and story for The Winchesters should be sacrificed because of decisions made for a separate show that began in 2005 and tried its hardest to deliver undeniably queer Dean in its 15 year long run.

*Dean never go to say I Love You back, however I’m a continuation believer, and I also think the metaphorical silence was pretty loud.

A lot of folks choose to see adult John as homophobic, a headcanon/fanon trait that I can 100% understand where folks come from. However it’s not canon that he is, and it’s never been implied in the show either. Therefore, I feel like that point of debate is one I don’t really take all that seriously, because it’s someone’s personal reading of a character, and not tangible canon.

A queer John Winchester would I think give us the chance to add more fuel to the Destiel fire, while also giving us the chance to grieve a love story that could have been, and grieve a person that John could have been instead of the one that he became. Queer people aren’t always good, kind, reasonable, and understanding. Sometimes they can, indeed, grow into being terrible people.

The Winchesters is ultimately a tragedy. No one is going to win at the end of the day. It’s like watching a run away train and being unable to stop the characters from making the choices that we know will lead them not to safety but to mortal danger.

But if they can give us peeks into what could have been, that’ll make it so much more tragic in a way that really resonates with us.

#long post #spnwin #spnwin meta #john winchester #jarlos #1x04 #0104 #I'M SORRY GOD THIS IS SO FUCKING LONG #I HOPE I MADE SENSE #I WROTE THIS ON MY BREAK #i'm not going to let jarlos go #now that i have it in my hands you're never going to pry it from me

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fuck-you-upmusicbracket · 3 months

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Searching For Former Clarity (Against Me!)

And in the journal you kept by the side of your bed/You wrote nightly an aspiration of developing as an author/Confessing childhood secrets of dressing up in women's clothes/Compulsions you never knew the reasons to/Will everyone you ever meet or love/Be just a relationship based on a false presumption?/Despite everyone you ever meet or ever love/In the end, will you be all alone?

"Searching for a Former Clarity is about the process of dying. It's the closing track to the album, and it shares a theme with the opening track, but while Miami uses disease and dying as a way to talk about the city metaphorically, Searching for a Former Clarity is much more personal. It's also partly autobiographical. Laura Jane Grace wouldn't come out for another seven years, although if I'm remembering right she was convinced that this song would immediately out her to everyone. (I could be thinking of a different song from the same era. It's kind of a running theme in her music.) A while back I saw an old video of her performing this song, when it was still new and she still wasn't out. It felt wrong to see that version of her, honestly (I'm old enough that I should have been a fan in the 2000s but I'd never heard of Against Me until a couple years ago), but it also amazes me just how much *better* she looks now. She looked so much older then, and unbelievably more miserable, than she does now. I hate that she had to live like that for so long, but I think about that contrast every time I hear the song now. Honestly, with that in mind, I never want to hear anyone saying shit about how they are glad someone suffered so that they could Make Art(TM) about it. Fuck that. Don't get me wrong, I love this song and most of Against Me's discography, but I'd willingly give all of it up if it could somehow retroactively mean that Laura Jane Grace didn't have to have the shitty life experiences that led to it. Yes, a lot of art comes from suffering, but people shouldn't have to fucking suffer for art. I've had some experiences lately that forced me to think about my mortality a bit more seriously than usual. If I died today, there would be an extensive record of my gender, and my complex feelings about gender, on various mostly anonymous twitter and tumblr and reddit accounts. If I died today, nobody who knows me would know the name I chose for myself. Not that I'm a historical figure (I'd probably be entirely forgotten in a decade tbh) but speculation about my gender would be *at most* someone's conspiracy theory based on poorly-sourced and badly-interpreted speculation. I'd be buried as a man, I'd be remembered as a man, I'd be forgotten as a man. That was my choice. I have my reasons for making it. I don't know if it is right or wrong or even if the concepts of "right" and "wrong" are the right ones to use when thinking about it. I'm still going to have feelings about it every chance I get. Searching for a Former Clarity is a pretty good way to get them. Emma. That is the name that I chose."

Am I Awake (They Might Be Giants)

When I get through this part/Will the next one be the same/Will I be wondering/If I'm awake?/These are not the clothes I had on when I went to bed/And something else besides my hair is growing from my head/And when I close my eyes it looks the same as when I open them again/Am I awake?

"Man I don't know what exactly about this song gets me so hard but it just makes me wanna get up and stim and think about my blorbos and their trauma. it also just speaks to me as a person with memory and identity issues, it really outlines the dissociation and confusion i feel when i don't remember something and/or can't grasp what i'm feeling. it also has a sort of inception vibe to it? or maybe groundhog day? The strange vocal samples and frantic drums and fast bpm with the really slow vocals on top is just soooo good. really really good song"

#fuck you up bracket #tournament #polls #against me!#they might be giants

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yellowloid · 1 year

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hello! I saw you made a post on the analysis of the ultracheese and honestly it was such an intriguing read! I read that that you believed golden trunks was an even more meaningful song when related to miles and alex and I would really really rEALLY love to hear what you have to say about golden trunks because honestly its one of my favorite songs

hello and thank you!!! always happy to hear people enjoy my song theories ❤️

golden trunks is one of my favourites too and i was d y i n g to analyse it. it's just such a unique song sound and lyric-wise, definitely in my top three in tbhc.

(as always, disclaimer: this is just a fan theory and everything i'm gonna say is 100% subjective. i'm not claiming it's the Real Meaning TM of the song bc 1) songs can have multiple meanings depending on the lens that is used to analyse them and 2) we'll never actually know what alex meant by writing it. we only know it's the closest thing to a love song in the album, featuring a conversation between him and someone he's falling for. nothing else is set in stone.)

but let's get to the actual analysis, shall we?

to me, this song is about miles. 100% about miles. the person he's talking to, and the person he's falling (or has already fallen) for is miles. there are theories going around on the internet saying it's about taylor or even louise, which are both??? kinda senseless theories??? first let's talk about taylor: why would he create that same sense of secrecy (that is present in songs such as the ultracheese) in this one, if it were a song about his (at the time) girlfriend? why would he add that 'we're friends but i'm falling for you' vibe (that we can find in diwk too) in a song about his current partner? why would he admit to fantasising about that person (keyword: admit, like it took him some time to come to terms with it) in a song about his so of literal years? tbh it doesn't make any sense to me.

and then louise... a bit more plausible since it would at least explain the secrecy if he was cheating, but then again, still doesn't really make sense. what's with the wrestling references. i don't think she's a wrestling fan, and if she is, she's never publicly shown she is. not that she needs to, ofc, but... you know. this theory usually comes from twitter fans who can't even bear the idea of it being about miles, because god forbid someone ever mentions the idea of alex and miles being a thing!!!! so really considering the source of this "theory" is twitter i wouldn't give it much more thought lmao

so now onto the lyrics...

"last night when my psyche's / subcommittee sang to me in its scary voice / you slowly dropped your eyelids / when true love takes a grip, it leaves you without a choice"

this is such an interesting and powerful opening verse to a song. it's so cryptic, and at the same time so blunt. he admits to being a victim of night-time overthinking, that moment when you keep tossing and turning in bed and sleep just won't come to you, dooming you to unwanted thoughts, realisations and fears coming together to haunt you through the night. he's scared of those voices in his head, whispering all those truths to him that he doesn't even want to consider; his mind is being flooded by snaps of the person he's maybe trying not to think too much about, but at the same time he knows it's a losing game: there's no choice to be made, no power held over the images that keep shooting through his mind. he also seems to realise something about the person in question: the possibility of them being his "true love" (or, similarly, him being this person's "true love", hence them admitting to fantasising about him). once again, this is extremely important because he rarely ever refers to love so directly in his songs, and i don't think it's a coincidence he does it here as well as in the ultracheese. having no choice could also refer to him finally coming to the realisation that - despite the fact that he's still so scared of the whole situation - he can't run away anymore. there's no choice, he has to acknowledge the facts because they're all there, hiding in plain sight. there's no way he can escape the truth, and that terrifies him. but he does acknowledge it, as he sings:

"and in response to what you whispered in my ear / i must admit, sometimes i fantasise about you too"

i can just so easily imagine him and miles sitting entirely too close to each other in some booth at a bar, the unspoken boundaries of friendship getting blurred as too much alcohol gets in the way, and miles leaning closer and closer to him just to whisper in his ear that he sometimes fantasises about him in ways friends shouldn't. or as they rehearse their songs right before/during the eycte tour, which always reminds me of this quote:

MK: I remember, one time Alex came up to me and said "I want to see how you spit, while singing "sick puppy" in Bad Habits. I called him a madman afterwards.

AT: Yeah...

MK: But he was right. No one else would say something like that to me, It was beautiful.

AT: You see, Kasia, I just tell Miles about my fantasies, and he tries to fulfill them, even when they are very kinky, like in that case.

(full interview here)

or even during concerts, since we all know how much they loved whispering god-knows-what to each other during song breaks, then proceeding to giggle and flirt with each other like they weren't being watched by an entire crowd sksldklsh. they seemed to be self-aware of this, as they also used to take the piss and play with interviewers when asked about it:

Interviewer: What sort of things do you say to eachother on stage?

Alex: Dark, twisted and very private things.

Miles: You'd think we were freaks if you knew some of the things we talk about on stage. We talk about weird things that don't really make sense to anyone else.

(i think this is from nme, i haven't been able to find the original interview but you can read something more here)

however, imo alex admitting to fantasising about the other person in this song makes his confession so heartbreaking. a while ago me and @jewellersstunts were talking about the fact that it's just so easy to imagine miles whispering something like that to him, maybe during a concert, and him being taken by surprise + generally bad at expressing his emotions through spoken words + him being insecure about their situationship and his identity and just... not saying anything in reply. maybe brushing it off as a joke, when in reality they both knew it wasn't. now, following the fandom theory of them still being friends but having some kind of falling out after the eycte era due to the unclear nature of their relationship - miles getting serious and alex chickening out -, let's fast forward to a couple of years after the tour. when things aren't the same anymore and alex is there, all alone by himself, dwelling on the past, on what once was and what could have been... and him finally finding the courage to give miles a reply through the veil of song, because that's the only way he could ever really be able to express his emotions in some kind of neat fashion (+ i think a similar development was also featured in one of WeirdChick333's fics which as we all know are the canon milex bible so there's that)

i also can't help but think of miles' own album when i think of this song. whereas golden trunks is filled with regret and it's like saying "i didn't give you a reply when you said it, but i'm saying it now. it probably doesn't change anything though, and i'll have to live with that for the rest of my life", coup de grace as an album (and may i say, ESPECIALLY wrong side of life which is my absolute favourite miles song ever) is like saying "yeah you didn't say anything then. you broke my heart and and you keep breaking it every single day, we fought so much and nothing is the same anymore, but i don't care because i want you and you want me, so can we please, please try again?". i think that's really telling of their personalities. tbhc as a whole has a very pessimistic vibe, even though it rarely ever addresses private matters that directly (with golden trunks and the ultracheese being the most direct songs, but still being incredibly cryptic and mysterious). cdg is sad and angry and heartbroken about a nasty breakup, but in general i'd say it still holds some kind of hope for that relationship to be salvageable.

but i'm digressing. let's keep going:

"the leader of the free world / reminds you of a wrestler wearing tight golden trunks / he's got himself a theme tune / they play it for him as he makes his way to the ring"

the reference to wrestling (and possibly to something that actually happened) could be a way for alex to make it clear, even to miles himself, that this song is about him. if it were indeed something that actually happened (them watching a wrestling match or the news, and miles pointing out trump's similarity with that wrestler), then when miles listened to the song - if he still had any doubts - it'd be irrevocably clear to him that alex was talking to him. it'd be some kind of secret code, an inside joke between them turned into a way for alex to make sure miles knew. (also lmao at the twitter fans going to great lengths to prove this verse is about taylor or louise when they've never expressed any interest in wrestling while miles has been a big fan for ages. @ amtwitter bffr)

now, i don't remember if he's referring to an actual wrestler that wore golden trunks as part of his costume and that reminded miles of trump, but the mention of wrestlers in general also reminds me of a very interesting addition by @reconciledviolence729 to my ultracheese analysis. she said:

"For some reason I got fixated on the line: “And dress like a fictional character / From a place they called America / In the golden age.” I can’t help but think how Miles dressed as Ric Flair, who was a significant persona during the “golden era” of American professional wrestling (which is often considered at least somewhat faked aka fictional)."

going back to golden trunks, this verse also introduces some kind of indirect commentary on politics, which is present in other songs from the album and which continues in the next lines:

"in the daytime / bendable figures with a fresh new pack of lies / summat else to publicise / i'm sure you've heard about enough"

(quick aside: "bendable figures" could also be interpreted as a very suggestive image. not gonna elaborate any further on that)

in this reddit theory it is suggested that this mirrors the "breaking news, they take the truth and make it and fluid" verse from american sports, and i think that's a very interesting parallel. however, this part also introduces a contrast to the opening line (last night / in the daytime) which hits us with a sinister dilemma. we like to think that the (often pessimistic) conclusions about our life that we come to at night aren't to be trusted. nighttime does that, it tends to fuck with our rationality by making everything seem scarier, more threatening and disheartening than it usually is. our minds tend to lie to us at night. but here he says that the "fresh new pack of lies" comes during daytime. so what's more trustworthy, night or day? the scary, truthful voices of night or the blatant lies of day? he doesn't give any clear answer to this question. he just leaves us with the doubt, instead bringing the song to a close with newly-found courage:

"so in response to what you whispered in my ear / i'll be upfront, sometimes i fantasise about you too"

the difference with the previous "i fantasise about you too" line is obviously the use of "i'll be upfront" instead of "i must admit" - which is such a slight change, but it's still so important. the use of 'must' and 'admit' imply a certain degree of forceful admission. he finds he can't hide it anymore, and has to at least take notice of it in some way. he doesn't necessarily want to admit it, because he wishes he could still keep that confession to himself. on the other hand, saying "i'll be upfront" is so powerful on his part. he not only acknowledges the feeling, but he takes a big breath and finally comes forward, announcing it without any second thoughts. he finally finds the right way to actually reply, even if it took him so long to do it. and yes, maybe it won't change anything, but this song is a way for him to send out a message, and the fact that he managed to write it and include it in the album (despite never being able to play it live - which makes it even more sus) is a testament to how much of his heart he put into it, how much deep emotion and reflection and courage it took him to be able to compose it and sing it. and that's exactly what makes it so incredibly special.

#i love this song so much you don't understand #the fact that they never debuted it is possibly one of the sussiest things alex ever did but you know what? i get why he refused to do it #it was too personal my guy would've probably cried on stage if he did play it #perfect sense is definitely its equivalent in the car. there's no way they're gonna play it anytime soon #(watch them play it at the next show now that i said this)#(no but please play it. play perfect sense AND golden trunks. i would straight up cry throw up and die but at least i'd die happy)#also sorry at this point you know how long my posts get lmao #thanks for asking for this analysis tho it was a pleasure to write it 💖#milex #my theories

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hoochieblues · 3 months

Text

Books of 2024

tagged by @faux-fires (tysm <3) who has a much prettier bookshelf than me. (Also, there is no crime in acquiring things because shiny covers. Call it tsundoku and make it an ~aesthetic~.)

“the game is to share 9 of my favourite books from the last 12 months, or 9 books on my tbr list for this year”

uh oh.

Honestly, the past year I've read very little, mostly because I was up to my eyeballs in work and, when I wasn't, I made... many questionable choices. I read some truly incredible fanfic and some wonderful WIPs. Also a lot of slush pile material, and tbh a lot that was (mostly subjectively, sometimes objectively) pretty dreadful. Some notable exceptions* aside, I just seemed to keep picking up books that were either 'meh' at most, or (for me) 70-30 nay/yay reads (*cough*Jenny Hval*cough*).

I'm hoping this year will be better. So, here are six from my TBR pile/wishlist for 2024, and three old faves I've recently reread and/or will reread this year:

Dirtbag: Essays - Amber A'Lee Frost Politicial memoir and sometime optimistic socialist theory from Chapo Trap House alumna Amber, who's been back on the show recently since Matt Christman (my beloved)'s medical leave.

The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution - C.L.R. James Partly research, partly an important and interesting piece of history. I got into reading about the Sons of Africa and Dolben's Act while writing my current WIP and, as that series kinda bleeds over into the French Revolution, this is very relevant.

The Crimson Thread of Abandon: Stories - Terayama Shuji (tr. Elizabeth L. Armstrong) Terayama's short films and photography are amazing, so... high hopes here? Possibly even more so as I apparently have very little fiction on my tbr list. Burnout, you say? Nooo.

The Iliad tr. Emily Wilson Everything I've seen about this translation looks great, so I'm interested to read it. Apparently it cuts right to the source material in a very honest way, but idk. It's all Greek to me. (sorry.)

The Mountain in the Sea - Ray Nayler I've heard so many good things about this I'm a little nervous to start it, but it's on the 'when I have time' list. Also, because no company can resist building The Torture Nexus (though tbf plans were in the works before this book came out, and it's not quite the same thing), did you know you can still join Compassion in World Farming, Ocean Born Foundation, and over 70 other NGOs in campaigning to stop the planned Nueva Pescanova octopus farming project?

Gluck: Her Biography - Diana Souhami** I bought this last spring and I will get around to reading it properly, I swear. Gluck was an interesting artist and a... difficult person, by most accounts. Admirable in many ways, perhaps. But. But! Also the reason commercial oil paints have consistent pigment levels and standards. The more you know.

Gratuitous Gluck painting! Medallion (YouWe) (1936) is a basic bitch choice because it's so iconic, but look me in the face and say it's not Peak Melodrama(tm). This Deco beast is the de facto marriage portrait commemorating Gluck and Nesta Obermer's relationship, beginning in earnest the night they saw Fritz Busch's Don Giovanni and 'felt the intensity of the music fused them into one.'

“Now it is out,” Gluck wrote to Nesta, “and to the rest of the Universe I call Beware! Beware! We are not to be trifled with.”

As I said, peak melodrama.

So, on to three Comfort Read faves and an excuse for a shelfie or two:

Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury "God, how we get our fingers in each other’s clay. That’s friendship, each playing the potter to see what shape we can make of the other." It is the autumn read. And I still kind of want to be femme!Mr. Dark.

Spleen - Olive Moore "She did not want the stories that calm frightened children. She wanted to know why the child is frightened." You probably can't call it a 'comfort' read exactly, but it's stark, complicated, and uncompromising. One for the Virginia Woolf girlies (gn), you might say.

The Complete Illuminated Books - William Blake "As when a man dreams, he reflects not that his body sleeps." Uh. Me like pretty pitchers? I was gifted this book years ago, having always been a Blake admirer. Last year, I was listening to a collab between Esoterica and TheArtTourist (formerly Several Circles) on Blake's personal mythology (something something gnostic mysticism) and I've been coming back to pick at it over and over ever since. Generally with a hot chocolate and a squishy blankie, which I think is necessary here.

*Notable exceptions include:

Goodbye Tsgumi - Banana Yoshimoto. You should read this in an afternoon, then think wistfully about it six months later. Yoshimoto's style is easy and delicate, but primed with sharp authenticity.

the Wine and Song series from tumblr's own @eleanorkos, who is a wonderful writer, stylistically and narratively, and a joy to read.

Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black - Cookie Mueller. John Waters fans know her best for Pink Flamingos etc., but her writing is... scorching. Sometimes perhaps too much so, but it's certainly zeitgeisty.

Alec - William di Canzio. The E.M. Forster sequel no one expected. I did like it, truly. It's just that I thought it would be a bit... more. And now I have to go scour AO3 because there's probably a 200k Maurice fanfic somewhere that handles class, identity, and intertextuality better and with more commitment. If not.. no. I'm not even entertaining the thought.

**There is admittedly Disk Horse around Gluck - who, while born into privilege, famously did not want to be addressed with any prenoms, prefixes, or signifiers of class/gender - and Pronouns. I think Souhami's gotten a fair amount of heat for 'Her Biography', though Gluck did use feminine pronouns in life. (Wearily taps the 'we cannot accurately assign contemporary labels to people who lived before they were coined in their current context; it's technically conjecture, however obvious it seems' sign.) Personally, I feel like if we're going to keep referring to Radclyffe Hall as a she/her lesbian and not acknowledge the possibility of any transmasc, fluid, or he/him identities for someone who was known primarily as 'John' and whose seminal novel featured an afab protagonist called Stephen who identifies with the contemporary view of homosexuality as 'inversion' then... I'm going to sit quietly with my knitting and stay out of it.

Okay, that's it. I overran, I know, but hey. tagging @s1ithers, @lesetoilesfous, @aria-i-adagio, @dreadfutures, @emungere, @barbex and @katehedge with intrigue and curiosity, but never any pressure :)

#tag game #books #probably a #long post #book recs

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vacantgodling · 4 months

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🐐 Goat - is your character artistic? do they create? how is their sense of fashion? 🐉 Dragon - is your character lucky? do they believe in luck or fate?

for anyone from red death :3

~ @void-botanist

oooo thank you!! time to do this for the main trio :3

🐐Goat - is your character artistic? do they create? how is their sense of fashion?

RED -> cannot be artistically creative to save her life, which is really funny considering what her powers are/curse is—which tbh i should actually explain. so, red’s curse is that she can create anything but anything she creates cannot be undone. it sounds great in theory, but it means that: let’s say she creates a tree because she wants shade. that tree can never not exist now. someone could try and cut it down and they couldn’t, someone could try and uproot it and it’s impossible, it is now a permanent fixture of the world and it cannot be undone. red has a small “hack” around this which is — to a certain extent she can create “nothingness” to sort of reverse engineer stuff she creates but creating functioning air molecules in place of what she’s made gets very difficult the larger and more complex something she makes is. so, tbh red doesn’t use her curse often because it is a hassle. she has only, since discovering it by accident, used it three times for very specific reasons. and by the time the book ends she will use it a fourth time in a very massive way 👀 but i’m getting ahead of myself this is off topic. AHEM. she can be… creative in means of death if that makes sense, but she doesn’t really view it that way—she views herself as being very straightforward even if most people wouldn’t think that way. i can’t think of a good example but she is very much likely to suggest full body dismemberment to deal with a problem tm.

fashion wise, red hasn’t allowed herself any luxuries for years and when she meets hel the only thing she owns that looks nice is her red cloak that she wears. the rest of her clothes are dirty and tattered (bc if you hadn’t guessed, one of the things she’s created is that cloak so it’s impervious to the elements, to burning, wear and tear etc. same can’t be said for everything else of what little she owns).

HEL -> can be a creative person with incentive. he does scribble down his thoughts or visions he has, but he doesn’t feel like a deep seated desire to create like how you and i perhaps feel about writing. however he does enjoy looking nice, well groomed and put together. he gets very uncomfortable if he hasn’t bathed or has worn the same clothes for long periods of time so this whole “traveling on the road” thing isn’t really his Thing.

ARDEN -> used to be a musical child when he was young and before the wolf queen killed his father; despite all the gambling, his father always praised him for his voice because it was sweet and strong like his mother’s but arden’s out of practice now. he thinks swordplay in itself can be artistic and remembers seeing sword dancers at traveling circuses in his youth, but there’s no entertainment that goes through their kingdom anymore. fashion wise even without being in hiding he’s always preferred function to frills and would rather have a hearty pair of leather boots than a silk shirt any day.

🐉 Dragon - is your character lucky? do they believe in luck or fate?

RED -> she’s too disillusioned to believe in luck or fate, and if she did, she’d curse it because it seems her very existence is a curse upon all who are with her. (not to be melodramatic but).

HEL -> because he can see and know the answers to anything (being the oracle) he doesn’t believe in luck because he’s cheated luck with his curse. however, he does believe in fate and believes himself to be an instrument of fate and so a lot of how he acts while it main seem shady to those on the outside, is actually to preserve a sense of free will without mettling too much into people’s destinies.

ARDEN -> all his life people have been preaching to him about destiny. he was destined to be king, until the wolf queen, and now he’s destined to defeat her. he isn’t sure if he quite believes in fate but he does certainly think that he has luck on his side more often than not; there’s no reason he should still be alive if he didn’t.

#s: rdof

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