P.S.C.

He/Him, Bisexual, Genderfluid, Capricorn. This is a mostly fandom blog with an emphasis on writing and exploring characterizations, especially for LGBTQ+

[pocketsizedcannibal]

Lord forgive me

[pocketsizedcannibal]

Where I’m at as of June 2022

So I made this tumblr so I could talk to anyone who reads my fics or has any questions and I know its really sparce. But there’s at least a couple of people who have given it a look. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know the real reason why I went on hiatus for so long. 

I got a new job last fall and its been very long hard hours and very stressfull. I loved my old job but I lost it due to the pandemic, even though it took a year and a half into the pandemic before we had to close down. It was a small ma & pa catering company that had a very small restaurant as well. I miss it a lot but there’s no going back. Now I work for a major retail company and its been very hard on me.  Then, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and its just been a lot. Im afraid every day that I could loose her. She just completed week number 4 of chemo. Its taken a lot just to be able to even say it. I just dont even know what to do some days. Im basically pretending everything is fine and normal but its not. It hard enough to keep from crying at work. I’m not a crier. I’m not a person who shows my emotions at all if I can help it.  So, yea. Sorry about the lack of updates. I know I say that almost every update and have some excuse. But I’m definitely in a different place right now then I was when I started some of my stories. 

On the other hand, I do have a wonderful editor now who has worked very hard to help me get some of my shit together and actually produce work. She’s my rock and I dont know what I would do without her. (She’s also my girlfriend).  weird update on my tiny Hannibal project- I actually did complete him and he even had his own house now. But I am unhappy with his paint job. So, I spray painted him with a clear paint to protect his face. It fucked the colors up so bad that I had to repaint him several times since and I have never truly been as happy with it since. He has a great Phicen 12th scale body though and a fabulous little suit to go with him. Took me a long while but he even had shoes. Is he perfect? No. But I am getting to the point where thats ok. He is perfect for me and thats what matters. Eventually I will post some photos of him, but my camera isnt very good right now and I’m holding off for just a bit longer. 

[pocketsizedcannibal]

February Update

So if you do follow me on ao3, you might have seen that I am no longer locked out of my account! I have been slowly starting to update things but I am only just recovering from the holiday rush of my job- a job I hate so much I am seriously considering quitting to pursue one of my real passions. I’m at a point in my life where something has to give. I also developed pneumonia in early January and have just recovered from that. 

Also tiny Hannibal now had two full suits of clothing because I have fucking spoiled him. I am anxious about the paint job to his face after a varnishing attempt that went wrong and he chipped some paint off his hair, so I am going to try to get him fixed up soon. I dont have shoes for him, annoyingly. No one sells 1/12 mens shoes???? ugh. I tried to make my own and they work at slippers but not as leather oxfords. All I ask is for absurdly detailed items no one could possibly make, is that so much? Anyway, post paint job, I am hoping to do some photos of him. 

I am feeling very unhinged, frankly. I’m working on my fic ‘Of Stags on Fawns’. Things are just not great with me right now. 

I dont plan on ever telling people who I am. But I am going to Wondercon in California in April, so that should be *interesting*. I would say fun, but I’m working at the event which is nerve wracking. I only made one convention appearance since the beginning of the pandemic and I feel like I’m no longer ‘in character’. I will be a panelist at the event, so I should have plenty of time to shop, I love artist ally vendors and I am hoping to buy lots of goodies from them to fill the void in my life. 

[pocketsizedcannibal]

I’m Locked Outside in the Rain

So I have been locked outside of my A03 account (reflectiveless), and am trying actively to regain access to it. I haven’t been posting much the last couple of months. I actually got my pre pandemic job back and was working long hard hours, but then the pandemic made the restaurant go under. Greeeeaaaat. Because of that I had to get a new-new job and my hours are the worst they have ever been. I have been depressed and just driven to my breaking point, finding it hard to enjoy anything anymore. Everything had gone from bad to worse. So I decided to work on some stories once more and update my a03, that’s when I discovered I couldn’t log back in. I have been locked out for weeks now, and they said it will be the minimum of one more week. Whats a pocket sized cannibal to do? I am very hopeful I will be let back onto my account.  I have a back up plan should that fail, however. If I absolutely do not get my account back for some reason, I will make a new account and upload anything I am actively writing to it. This would include Stags and Fawns, Little Agent, and The Man of my Nightmares. But I am waiting for my old account to be greenlit first. Thank you for being so patient. 

Im updating Little Agent first, as I have a chapter ready to be posted for it. 

Stags, which has been giving me a lot of trouble, will be next. 

If you like those or my other stories, I have more new ones that I havent posted before that you might enjoy. One of which will actually be featuring a pocket sized Hannibal. Speaking of, I did in fact finish the 1/12 scale Hannibal doll, he has a Phicen body for anyone curious, and while he does have clothes, he doesn’t have a nice suit yet. I’m still looking for one. But he lives a life of luxury in a dollhouse. There will be pictures of him soon. 

[vintagegeekculture]

oooh have you ever done a post about the ridiculous mandatory twist endings in old sci-fi and horror comics? Like when the guy at the end would be like "I saved the Earth from Martians because I am in fact a Vensuvian who has sworn to protect our sister planet!" with no build up whatsoever.

Yeah, that is a good question - why do some scifi twist endings fail?

As a teenager obsessed with Rod Serling and the Twilight Zone, I bought every single one of Rod Serling’s guides to writing. I wanted to know what he knew.

The reason that Rod Serling’s twist endings work is because they “answer the question” that the story raised in the first place. They are connected to the very clear reason to even tell the story at all. Rod’s story structures were all about starting off with a question, the way he did in his script for Planet of the Apes (yes, Rod Serling wrote the script for Planet of the Apes, which makes sense, since it feels like a Twilight Zone episode): “is mankind inherently violent and self-destructive?” The plot of Planet of the Apes argues the point back and forth, and finally, we get an answer to the question: the Planet of the Apes was earth, after we destroyed ourselves. The reason the ending has “oomph” is because it answers the question that the story asked. 

My friend and fellow Rod Serling fan Brian McDonald wrote an article about this where he explains everything beautifully. Check it out. His articles are all worth reading and he’s one of the most intelligent guys I’ve run into if you want to know how to be a better writer.

According to Rod Serling, every story has three parts: proposal, argument, and conclusion. Proposal is where you express the idea the story will go over, like, “are humans violent and self destructive?” Argument is where the characters go back and forth on this, and conclusion is where you answer the question the story raised in a definitive and clear fashion. 

The reason that a lot of twist endings like those of M. Night Shyamalan’s and a lot of the 1950s horror comics fail is that they’re just a thing that happens instead of being connected to the theme of the story. 

One of the most effective and memorable “final panels” in old scifi comics is EC Comics’ “Judgment Day,” where an astronaut from an enlightened earth visits a backward planet divided between orange and blue robots, where one group has more rights than the other. The point of the story is “is prejudice permanent, and will things ever get better?” And in the final panel, the astronaut from earth takes his helmet off and reveals he is a black man, answering the question the story raised. 

[airyairyquitecontrary-deactivat]

IIRC “Judgment Day” was part of the inspiration for the excellent Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Far Beyond the Stars.”

[may-shepard]

This whole post is liquid gold for writers.

[systlin]

purge of 2002? of 2012? what ARE those?

Oh, how quickly the past is forgotten. 

They are part of the reason A03 is a thing now. Not the whole reason, but part of it. 

The Great Purges of 2002 and 2012 are when ff.net got a wild hair up their ass about THINK OF THE CHILDREN and nuked any fic posted on there that was explicit. Thousands upon thousands of nc-17 smutfics were lost.

It’s what led to the creation of alternate hosting sites for smutty fic…AdultFanfiction was the one I went to…but thousands of fics would never be recovered. 

[systlin]

Shit like the Great Purges and the Strikethrough of Livejournal eventually led to fans banding together to create A03, which I would have absolutely KILLED for when I was 15.

[persephonebooklover]

Back up ao3 was created by fans?

[systlin]

It’s…right on the main page. 

[fanfictionanthology]

I love this because I will bet you that persefv has read that bit we are all so inundated with hyperbole and advertising that says that the consumer is somehow in charge of whatever product they are shilling that we all just assumed this was another sales tactic.

[naryrising]

But we’re not even… selling anything…  *quiet sobs*

[wrangletangle]

No ads. No subscriptions. No data selling.

We are the definition of “what it says on the tin.”

[elfwreck]

Is there any way to spread this info? 

THE OTW WAS CREATED BY FANS SO WE’D HAVE AN ARCHIVE THAT WASN’T SUBJECT TO CORPORATE REVIEW. 

Nonprofit, so that nobody could ever say, “this isn’t making enough money; it’s getting shut down.” (See: Geocities, Quizilla, Figment, G+.) With lawyers involved and a firm awareness of the legalities of fanfic, so nobody would decide “we’ve gotten a nasty letter from a megacorporation with lawyers, so we’re hiding because we can’t afford to face a lawsuit. (Jedi Hurtaholics, Trevizo’s Millennium site.) With teams, so that an argument between co-mods didn’t result in the destruction of a whole archive. (Gryffindor Tower, Detention.)

AO3 IS OUR SITE.

It is by fans, for fans. Fans do all the coding. All the legal paperwork. All the abuse/tos violation complaints. Fans make all the choices about policies. Fans decide how to run the fundraisers. Fans write the blog posts. All the volunteer staff are fans; all the people who train them are fans. Fans wrangle all the tags. 

(And the other OTW projects, too. Fans manage the entries at Fanlore. Fans run the Open Doors project. Fans publish Transformative Works and Cultures.)

EVERYONE WORKING FOR THE OTW LOVES FANDOM. Wants it to survive. Wants it to be awesome for everyone.

(Knows that it can’t be awesome for everyone; some approaches to fandom just clash hard. But they strive to minimize those clashes as much as possible, because they love fandom.) 

AO3 is not some company that decided, “we’ll make a site for fanfic and then…” I don’t know what people are thinking is the reason. Money? Data harvesting? Tax shelter? Amusement and pity?

Nope; AO3 was fans saying, “Livejournal sucks; we’re tired of this fucked-up ‘rebuild every three years’ garbage; WE NEED TO OWN THE DAMN SERVERS.”

That’s the “of our own” part of the name. OTW isn’t a “them” running the site “for us.” It’s “us” making places for “us” to share what we love with others of “us.” 

[dirtydragonthoughts]

This this this.

I was there for all of that shit, and AO3 is a godsend. If you enjoy or create fanworks, support AO3, donate if you can, and remember why it’s there in the first place!!

[olderthannetfic]

Fandom history really does get lost quickly. For current 20-something fans, AO3 has always been there.

[catasters]

[haya-haya-haya]

it all belongs to her

[nohomo-mrfrodo]

[pocketsizedcannibal]

Got this dumb ad on my fb feed today. We don’t want over priced merch with rainbows. WE WANT LARGE AMPHIBIANS. 

[prymetimepublishing]

“The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it.”

— Agatha Christie, The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd

[calculustics]

wake up babe new will graham hat dropped

[unseeliefaerie]

[sophie531896273240810891]

i spent $32 on this fucking bowl at the moma and at first i felt bad buying it bc it was so expensive but ive had a terrible day today and every time i look at my lil bowl im like :o) you know what. i can get through anything with this bowl by my side

[sophie531896273240810891]

i literally get what marie kondo was talking about now

[sophie531896273240810891]

bc everyone keeps requesting to see it filled :)

[pocketsizedcannibal]

Will Graham : Sometimes... at night I leave the lights on in my little house, and... walk across the flat fields When I look back from a distance, the house is like a boat on the sea. It's really the only time I feel safe.

[allyouneediswall]

[pocketsizedcannibal]

Imagine a modern Baba Yaga story!

[katartchive]

Skeleton Praying (c. 1600s) Skeleton Pleading (c. 1600s) Marble floor of the Cornaro Chapel

[pocketsizedcannibal]

I’d love to paint this one day, maybe recreate it as a floor in 1/12 scale

[pocketsizedcannibal]

haha I’m painting a tiny Hannibal and he’s already looking spooky as absolute hell

[pens-swords-stuff]

[tacticaltaxonomist]

[pocketsizedcannibal]

I’m feeling personally attacked by this highly relatable content 

[pocketsizedcannibal]

Happy Trans Visibility Day!

I’m a day late on this but I also created my tumblr today, so, eh, I tried.  All trans people are valid, you don’t have to have dysphoria, or plan on having or want any sort of surgery. I put that I’m genderfluid on here, but I don’t really know to tell you the truth. I might be trans towards one gender. My pronouns here are He/Him, but those aren’t the pronouns I always use or use everywhere. Sometimes its they/ them or she/ her, or he/she. Gender is a very nuanced concept. Maybe one day the whole world will see that. 

[pocketsizedcannibal]

Kassie's Portrait Maker ~ meiker.io

Lots of options to design character portraits, including vampires, demons, elves, orcs, and people who wear cardigans. Some of the art was inspired by m...

This is where I got my avatar from. I’m a big fan of these portrait maker type games.