All art is at once surface and symbol

Goddammit, I swore I would move on from this book, but I keep having thoughts about it, especially the more I learn about the Brontes' lives. A video I listened to said that we don't like to talk about the most traumatic parts of our lives, let alone keep notes or reminders about them. So fiction is probably the closest and safest avenue in which a person might be able to process that trauma. This is something I can definitely relate with--it hurts thinking about the roughest parts of my life. But when I'm writing about other characters like the LISA cast, a bit of me bleeds into them without me realizing it until later, and that's okay. Like if you asked me to write my autobiography, you'd have to drag me kicking and screaming, but I feel safer in my stories and favorite characters (and OCs in the case of original writing)

I think Wuthering Heights disturbs me so much because it's abuse distilled to its very core. The hopelessness, the claustrophobia, how inescapable it seems. It's raw, honest, and cold. All this abuse and misery happens in an isolated place, but the biggest fear is that the outside world looks in, but instead of reacting in horror and trying to put a stop to it, they nod and even approve of what's happening. They think it's normal, acceptable, even good. It's the ugliest aspects of Victorian society, and naturally, it's repulsed by looking at a mirror of itself. That can't be the way it really looks! They're too prim and proper for that! But can one blame the author's "sick imagination" if those are things the author experienced herself? Things she has seen and witnessed and can't scrub from her psyche? And honestly, is society that different now? Today it commits the same sins and refuses to take responsibility as ever. Cruelty is the norm. Victims deserve it. Evil exists because of skin tones, class, and lack of/the wrong religion. It can't be cultivated. It's never our fault. We are Christian. We are Pure.

The mainstream doesn't want to register the abuse, the pain. So it turns to Cathy and Heathcliff's love story instead. It's only another tale of star-crossed lovers, they say. They don't recognize the toxicity and obsession in their relationship because they've been conditioned to believe that "true love" is like this. They don't think any deeper why that relationship might be forbidden, why Heathcliff and Cathy are as wild as they are. It's safer to believe they're tragic lovers who don't have a pile of bodies at their feet. Hell, I'm not going to pretend I understand them, because I clearly don't. I think we're not supposed to like or support them, but understand why they act the way they do. There's a theory that says that Heathcliff represents the "wild" and "ugly" parts of Emily, but also everything that she wishes she could be. Sort of like how some of us relate to fictional villains because they're so powerful and charismatic--traits that we as people pushed around by society and our own lives, wish we could have for ourselves. In the midst of purity culture where people are quick to judge, of course we have to explain that we don't want to be 100% like the villain or endorse everything he does. But god, imagine if after being mistreated for so long, we could do what we wanted and speak our minds without consequences. What if we can be fucked up and wrong and not have to be a role model to everyone who shares our minority status? Our wicked overlords and privileged politicians can be as despicable as they want, so why can't we? I wonder if this is that "wildness" that Emily is talking about. I don't know.

I don't know what I'm typing anymore. I think being trapped in this cursed administration is getting to me. I look at my rats and see the love in their eyes, and I'm reminded of Wuthering Heights and how there's people in real life who want to see that love and light snuffed out, leaving only misery, cruelty, and emptiness. Fuck.

Bramwell Theorists: You see, there’s no way Emily wrote Wuthering Heights ‘cause blah blah blah and blah blah blah and there’s no way a woman could write something SO dark!

Me:

via GIPHY

Thank fucking god that theory got debunked.

Emily Brontë, I may not be your book's biggest fan, but in your name, I’m going to write some of the most gruesome unladylike shit imaginable.

Listening to the Wuthering Heights audiobook has been an endurance run. D: I think the most I enjoyed myself was the chapter when Catherine I died, since I actually genuinely felt sad for Cathy and Heathcliff. Most of the time, I'm going through the book with begrudging patience and trying to analyze why the characters are behaving the way they do rather than throw in the towel, declare how much everybody sucks, and summon meteors to crash into Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange like I did in my last reading attempts. It still remains the book with the most difficult and unlikable cast for me to deal with outside of Certain Shitty Books That Will Not Be Named. Which always throws me off because I don't mind dysfunctional casts; I even encourage them, especially if they're at least interesting or entertaining to read about! There's just something about the Wuthering cast that really grinds my gears, though funny enough I don't despise Heathcliff nearly as much this time around. And the kids/second gen are more tolerable by sheer virtue of how much they keep getting screwed over and manipulated by the adults. And Edgar is pretty much... there. Unable to do anything. I felt sorry for Isabella, but she's dead now. :(

I'm having a lot of fun playing Ultra Moon again! :3 I actually got disappointed when my 3DS got low on power since I was ready to do an enormous grind session with my grass/water/ground types before we take on Olivia. Half my team is Eevees! :3 (Kris the Umbreon, Mercury the Vaporeon, and Tatara the Leafeon. I have Butter the Ribombee, which is why I shockingly don't have a Sylveon) I'm hoping to evolve my Dartrix Olan Hoyt (or should I say, Olan Hoot? (rimshot)) into a Decidueye soon. Battle Royale is ludicrously hard, but I want to see if I can crack the code to getting better at it, RIP

Five more days until the penultimate episode of The Amazing Digital Circus, aaaaaaaaaaaa

Pixar's Sexist Boys Club

Basically, the cracks started to show with Brave:

Emma Coats, a former Pixar story artist who worked on Brave, told BuzzFeed that Brenda would advocate for those who were often talked over in meetings. “[She] would quiet the room and be like, ‘Emma, you started to say something,’” helping Coats to realize that her ideas were worthwhile and reminding others to listen. Coats eventually left Pixar, and animation all together, because of how disheartened she was about what happened to Brenda in 2010.

“To me, she could’ve behaved exactly the way any of the male directors behaved, but it would have been taken differently,” Coats told reporter Ariane Lange. “Without Brenda…there’s nobody I can look up to… Imitating the guys isn’t gonna give me the same results as it gives them… When she was removed from her project, I felt kind of lost,” she said. “I can’t see why what happened to her wouldn’t happen to me,” Coats concluded.

Because Brenda Chapman treated her female colleagues with respect instead of telling them to suck it up and take abuse from the men, Pixar got butthurt and fired her.

Between this and Pete Docter kissing the asses of homophobic parents and completely neutering one of their movies as a result, I'm calling for the complete dismantlement of Pixar. The sexism, homophobia, and racism that were their guidelines should consume them alive as they scream and beg for mercy, only to have their pleas ignored... you know, just like how they treated those they considered below them.

"Weh weh Pixar's been going downhill since Lasseter left!" Reminder that Lasseter directed Cars 2 and that his solo ventures since being kicked out of Pixar have been utter flops and rightfully so.

Thank god I only engage in Deltarune fandom through close friends and a few specific servers, ‘cause dude. The current Deltarune Twitter drama is fucking insane.

Basically, the fandom is having a meltdown because a popular Spamtenna artist admitted she never played the game (not even watched an LP) and half the fandom is either calling for her cancellation or rabidly defending her. On top of that, there’s people bitching about fans being into Spamtenna and the popular characters (ex. Spamton, the Mikes) One guy was even like “Why aren’t you into the MCs instead of the stupid male joke characters!?” then proceeds to demonize Kerdly. Like what do you want, man? People will claim Spamtenna fans are misogynistic fangirls who only care about yaoi slop while completely ignoring that Spamtenna yuri is a subgenre of its own, and it’s basically yaoi vs. yuri wars all over again. Also, Spamton ties deeper into the plot than you realize? Like, are you even paying attention to the game? Now with the revelation that it’s likely they didn’t even play it and are just going off of fanon and tumblr posts, it explains so much where all this wank comes from.

"spamtenna is about to become the first canon ship that is so slandered and misrepresented in fanon that it collectively gets perceived as a crackship without any evidence in the source material. i hate it here"

Geez, calm down, man.

Basically, if anyone tries to police you over what characters and ships you like in Deltarune, you have even more incentive to tell them to fuck off. If they don’t even engage with the original canon, why should their word be held to any sort of authority? brb fangirling Spamton and my ships with him even more out of sheer spite

Discord sure proudly shot itself in the foot, didn't it? Alas, I don't have a copy of Death Stranding to fool their systems with, and I sure as hell am not forking over my ID to the government. So far, I signed up for Stoat, but I don't know which service is going to be the Next Big Thing yet. Remember when people signed up for Pillowfort and that ended up dead in the water? Yeeeeeeah. I hope this next migration will be more creative friendly, I have zero places to be motivated for building graphics and fanmixes. Sure, there's always Dreamwidth, but it's pretty quiet here, which sadly, nothing much I can do about. :(

Since I've been burnt out during the winter season, Three Sentence Ficathon has been a major help. I ended up having a lot of Moon RPG feelings so quite a number of fills are based on that game. ;; Then I took a break to do EAD Birthday Bash 2026, which was a lot of fun since I got to do silly paper plate art with markers. Everybody should read my Mouthwashing My Immortal masterpiece, buwahahahaha. It has to be the most fun I've had writing fic in a long time. XD With Birthday Bash over, I can catch up on 3SF and post all my fills. Sometimes even writing a single sentence is like pulling teeth, so if I actually manage to finish a prompt, it means a lot.

Animal Crossing 3.0 finally lets you store flowers and trees, which has been a major contributing factor to my burnout and inability to finish my island. And there's now slumber islands, so I can play with all the ideas I have bouncing around in my head without having to reset and do *everything* all over again. I can even build with friends! I just... have to find them, whoops. Gods I'm so lonely. ;; I learned how to find treasure islands so I'm basically catching up on everything and cataloging as many items as possible for building on dream islands. My museum is finally finished after forever. :P

Everyone has been shredding the latest Wuthering Heights movie, and dang, it looks as awful as it sounds. It's shitty enough that it makes me want to give the book another chance (and partly because some of Heathcliff's lines remind me of Buzzo being haunted by Lisa), but oof. The original book still employs one of my most Hated Tropes of All Time (The Misunderstanding, aka Person A conveniently hears just enough to believe the Person B hates them, and leaves right before Person B clarifies what they actually mean. I fucking despise it in Shrek, and I despise it everywhere else) And I don't know... a hated trope is like a turd in a otherwise fine bowl of cereal, you know? Once you know it's there, the turd overwhelms everything. D:

I'm still burnt out on everything, which really sucks. But at this point, I kind of have to push, you know?

There's a LOT of insane things going on IRL, but the short version is my boyfriend is graduating college at the end of December, so I'll be moving into his house with two of my dogs Neville & Lulubelle. My brother will have to be in charge of my last dog, Daisy Mae, and my two rats Karnak & Cahara, since the house is too small to support three dogs and my boyfriend's mom refuses to take rats. Dad is in early stages of dementia and thus unable to really take care of himself let alone me and my brother, so me moving out is an important step I'm taking for my life. So yeah. (deep breaths to try to keep myself sane)

I have a zillion WIPs under way, so I might as well list and describe them. Maybe it'll help keep my mind off things before I get my antidepressants back.


( LISA: The WIPful )


( Deltarune )


My Nanquest WIPs aren't posted yet, but I might as well list them:


( Nanquest )


This isn't really fanfiction, but it's not really original work either, so I'll list it anyway:


( Cookiequest )

There's a Sonic the Hedgehog fic I want to write about Espio's past, but I haven't started it yet. Only WIPS I actually finished chapters for count. :P

I might make a separate post for original novel/RPG Maker horror game ideas, but we'll see. But my unfinished toy novel still lives rent free in my head begging to be finished. :(

God, I actually got a weird Sonic dream recently. It was about Espio and Valdez from the Archie Comics. Which in turn reminds me of a fanfic I'd been wanting to write (surprisingly not slash)

Based off what little bits I know from Archie, Valdez was a blue recolor of Espio made by Ken Penders. On paper, Espio has an intriguing backstory; he and Valdez were friends, only for Valdez to be roboticized and brainwashed to believe that Espio, Sonic, and the others abandoned him. Espio is forced to mercy-kill him. The way it's actually written? Barely a footnote and executed in the worst way possible. Roboticized!Valdez even unironically used "PC" in his dialogue as an insult. Espio never talks about the incident and seems unaffected by it, and it turns out Valdez is alive and unroboticized hidden in the crowd of one of Mina Mongoose's concerts. So that tragedy meant absolutely nothing! 🤪

So I'm wondering about SEGA!Espio's past and how my version would basically be similar to Archie!Espio's past but actually better written and given some fucking weight. Valdez gets a whole new redesign. Instead of being Blue Espio, he's going to have much more individual characteristics and have scars, including one across his eye. Now get ready, 'cause this is probably going to be cliche and troperific. But hey, might as well go all out.

( Puri's version of Espio & Valdez )

And there you go, that's my version of Espio's gut-wrenching backstory with Valdez. One day I'm going to have to write this all down, but alas, today is not that day.

1. A character you absolutely worship
2. A character you like
3. A character you could give or take
4. A character you don't really care for
5. A character you'd like to spork

1: Name a pairing that you absolutely would die for
2: The pairing that you like
3: You would give this pairing, or keep it
4: The pairing that you wouldn't really care about but still support it
5: You really hate this pairing to hell, and you wish it was never alive.

If asking about Deltarune, I've played and beaten the latest chapters so you'll be seeing new characters and ships. :D