jonnywaistcoat

[jonnywaistcoat]

Hello! I just wanted to tell you a funny situation I was in today. I drew Michael the Distortion in class and tbh my art is not so bad but my friend said it looked like "der Struwwelpeter".

I dont know if you as a master of horrors know of him but well, "der Struwwelpeter" is a charakter on the cover of a german tale book, which is supposed to show children on how to act (eating your food even if you don't like it, not playing with fire or sucking thumbs,...) by turning these everyday children problems into literal horror stories (starving to death, burning to death, get you fingers cut off by a guy with scissors).

Just wanted to let you know that one of your characters gives that impression (according to my friend, i do not agree on that)

Have a picture:

Oh I'm well aware of the Struwwelpeter. Most of the stories in the book are pretty mid (with several being breathtakingly racist), but there are a couple of fun ones in there.

Shock-headed Peter, as pictured above, is not a direct inspiration for Michael, though I'm sure the image was somewhere in the big mess of inspiration for him.

The story that's always stayed with me more, though, is that of little suck-a-thumb, and his encounter with the great, long, red-legged scissorman:

#What a name #The great long red legged scissorman #Fun to say #Creepy as hell

[jonnywaistcoat]

The thing is, I've tried to read Homestuck since - it's such a foundational text in terms of modern internet media/humour/fandom that it feels like I should read it if just for context. The trouble is, it's really hard to read these days, both because of its sheer length and the fact that a lot of it's formatting doesn't really work anymore (I mean, there are a whole bunch of Flash elements that simply don't work on modern browsers). It also seems to be grounded in a really specific early 2010s SomethingAwful style of humour, which these days only hits sporadically for me, and when the jokes aren't hitting it can be a real slog. I've managed to get up to the end of Chapter 1 before, but I've just not had time to wade through more. Maybe I'll get around to it at some point, who knows?

mr sims have you watched supernatural

The year is 2006 - I've just finished school for the summer holidays and am looking for something to fill my time. I am recommended by a friend a show called Supernatural as it's "pretty decent action horror" and it piques my interest. There's a whole four seasons of it available, so plenty to fill my time. I watch it through in a few weeks and enjoy it a medium amount, but not enough to keep up with future seasons, and I assume it ends not too long after that, as it feels like it's really running out of stories to tell.

The year is 2013 - I discover the show is still going somehow, and that things have gotten weird. I decide not to bother catching up, as nobody actually seems to think it's good, despite how intense they are about it.

The years are 2018-present - I am fully vindicated in my decision.

[jonnywaistcoat]

mr sims have you watched supernatural

The year is 2006 - I've just finished school for the summer holidays and am looking for something to fill my time. I am recommended by a friend a show called Supernatural as it's "pretty decent action horror" and it piques my interest. There's a whole four seasons of it available, so plenty to fill my time. I watch it through in a few weeks and enjoy it a medium amount, but not enough to keep up with future seasons, and I assume it ends not too long after that, as it feels like it's really running out of stories to tell.

The year is 2013 - I discover the show is still going somehow, and that things have gotten weird. I decide not to bother catching up, as nobody actually seems to think it's good, despite how intense they are about it.

The years are 2018-present - I am fully vindicated in my decision.

#I often feel like I pass by these things #Only to later discover how much of a bullet I dodged #Like how I read through and enjoyed all of Problem Sleuth #But never got around to reading Homestuck

[jonnywaistcoat]

"I will simply say that – when a spider reaches a certain size, it is often not entirely made up of spider anymore."

This line has been haunting me for years. I have no idea what it means.

Me neither. It's good, tho, right?

#Sometimes lines just come to you #And you're like #“I really like the implications of this line” #“whatever they are”

[jonnywaistcoat]

Eh, the Elias thing happened so gradually that I acclimatised to it, like a frog in boiling water. But also, I understand why if you've never actually encountered them you think aristocracy just translates to "old, rich and british", but it really doesn't. It's hard to articulate if you've never actually met any, but they are just deeply unsexy on an almost spiritual level. A revulsion of the soul.

Magnus fandom, 2016: We're horny for this lady made of worms!

Me: Huh. Unexpected, I'm not sure how to feel about that.

Magnus fandom, 2024: We're horny for this guy made of needles!

Me: Of course you are, my children. Be free.

Magnus fandom 2024: We're horny for this bulbous oozing clown man!

Me: I think 95% of your are being facetious, but the true 5% can go with god.

Magnus fandom, just now: We're horny for a member of the British Aristocracy!

Me: Gross. No. Absolutely not. Sick freaks the lot of you. I am officially kinkshaming. You disgust me.

[jonnywaistcoat]

Magnus fandom, 2016: We're horny for this lady made of worms!

Me: Huh. Unexpected, I'm not sure how to feel about that.

Magnus fandom, 2024: We're horny for this guy made of needles!

Me: Of course you are, my children. Be free.

Magnus fandom 2024: We're horny for this bulbous oozing clown man!

Me: I think 95% of your are being facetious, but the true 5% can go with god.

Magnus fandom, just now: We're horny for a member of the British Aristocracy!

Me: Gross. No. Absolutely not. Sick freaks the lot of you. I am officially kinkshaming. You disgust me.

#Genuinely surprised by how visceral my reaction was to all the hornyposting about Lady Mowbray. #Like you really don't understand #Honestly can't think of anything less sexy than the British upper class #Congrats you got me

[jonnywaistcoat]

God it would rule to be an early 70s hitman, cruising up to the location in my black 1965 Lincoln Continental, getting out, black suit, sunglasses on a cloudy day, walking to the back to retrieve the briefcase with my disassembled rifle before heading inside to the vantage point. No expression, fully dead inside. The dream.

#Was looking up the origin of the term suicide door #Was reminded of the Lincoln Continental #And here we are

[jonnywaistcoat]

can you tell me a crab fact

Sure: I like them.

#wanted dead or a crab

[jonnywaistcoat]

What’s your opinion on the contrast between “silly” and “serious” spaces? Do you think people can have very serious interpretations about a genuine piece of media and also be goofy about it? I’m asking this particularly because I’ve seen people in the Magnus podcast fandoms fight about people “misinterpreting” characters you, Alex, and the many other authors have written. Are you okay with the blorbofication or do you really wish the media you’ve written would be “taken seriously” 100% of the time?

And follow up question, what do you think about the whole “it’s up to the reader (or in some cases, listener) to make their own conclusions and interpretations and that does not make them wrong”, versus the “it was written this way because the author intended it this way, and we should respect that” argument?

This is a question I've given a lot of thought over the years, to the point where I don't know how much I can respond without it becoming a literal essay. But I'll try.

My main principle for this stuff boils roughly down to: "The only incorrect way to respond to art is to try and police the responses of others." Art is an intensely subjective, personal thing, and I think a lot of online spaces that engage with media are somewhat antithetical to what is, to me, a key part of it, which is sitting alone with your response to a story, a character, a scene or an image and allowing yourself to explore it's effect on you. To feel your feelings and think about them in relation to the text.

Now, this is not to say that jokes and goofiness about a piece of art aren't fucking great. I love to watch The Thing and drink in the vibes or arctic desolation and paranoia, or think about the picture it paints of masculinity as a sublimely lonely thing where the most terrible threat is that of an imposed, alien intimacy. And that actually makes me laugh even more the jokey shitpost "Do you think the guys in The Thing ever explored each other's bodies? Yeah but watch out". Silly and serious don't have to be in opposition, and I often find the best jokes about a piece of media come from those who have really engaged with it.

And in terms of interpreting characters? Interpreting and responding to fictional characters is one of the key functions of stories. They're not real people, there is no objective truth to who they are or what they do or why they do it. They are artificial constructs and the life they are given is given by you, the reader/listener/viewer, etc. Your interpetation of them can't be wrong, because your interpretation of them is all that there is, they have no existence outside of that.

And obviously your interpretation will be different to other people's, because your brain, your life, your associations - the building blocks from which the voices you hear on a podcast become realised people in your mind - are entirely your own. Thus you cannot say anyone else's is wrong. You can say "That's not how it came across to me" or "I have a very different reading of that character", but that's it. I suppose if someone is fundamentally missing something (like saying "x character would never use violence" when x character strangles a man to death in chapter 4) you could say "I think that's a significant misreading of the text", but that's only to be reserved for if you have the evidence to back it up and are feeling really savage.

I think this is one of the things that saddens me a bit about some aspects of fandom culture - it has a tendency to police or standardise responses or interpretations, turning them from personal experiences to be explored into public takes to be argued over. It also has the occasional moralistic strain, and if there's one thing I wish I could carve in stone on every fan space it's that Your Responses to a Piece of Art Carry No Intrinsic Moral Weight.

As for authorial intention, that's a simpler one: who gives a shit? Even the author doesn't know their own intentions half the time. There is intentionality there, of course, but often it's a chaotic and shifting mix of theme and story and character which rarely sticks in the mind in the exact form it had during writing. If you ask me what my intention was in a scene from five years ago, I'll give you an answer, but it will be my own current interpretation of a half-remembered thing, altered and warped by my own changing relationship to the work and five years of consideration and change within myself. Or I might not remember at all and just have a guess. And I'm a best case scenario because I'm still alive. Thinking about a writers possible or stated intentions is interesting and can often lead to some compelling discussion or examination, but to try and hold it up as any sort of "truth" is, to my mind, deeply misguided.

Authorial statements can provide interesting context to a work, or suggest possible readings, but they have no actual transformative effect on the text. If an author says of a book that they always imagined y character being black, despite it never being mentioned in the text, that's interesting - what happens if we read that character as black? How does it change our responses to the that character actions and position? How does it affect the wider themes and story? It doesn't, however, actually make y character black because in the text itself their race remains nonspecific. The author lost the ability to make that change the moment it was published. It's not solely theirs anymore.

So yeah, that was a fuckin essay. In conclusion, serious and silly are both good, but serious does not mean yelling at other people about "misinterpretations", it means sitting with your personal explorations of a piece of art. All interpretations are valid unless they've legitimately missed a major part of the text (and even then they're still valid interpretations of whatever incomplete or odd version of the text exists inside that person's brain). Authorial intent is interesting to think about but ultimately unknowable, untrustworthy and certainly not a source of truth. Phew.

Oh, and blorbofication is fine, though it does to my mind sometimes pair with a certain shallowness to one's exploration of the work in question.

#Big thoughts #Big rambles #These are my current thoughts at least #They will likely change #As all things do

[jonnywaistcoat]

Girldick this, boydick that, I’m hunting MOBY Dick

[jonnywaistcoat]

This Friday's meme is: the perfect being

#Wanted dead or a crab

[jonnywaistcoat]

Literally the one of the doodles I was thinking about

Jonny, I stumbled apon your blog on complete accident and it may have been the best accident of my life. I have but one burning question I must know-

What is your favourite animal?

Oof, what a question - there are some real bangers out there in the ol' animal kingdom.

As a kid I was very into tigers. Loved those big stripy fellas - my grandmother used to cut out pictures of tigers from magazines and present them to me in a manila folder when I visited. I never asked her to do this and didn't have any use for the pictures, but she gave me a lot of them.

Penguins are also up there - waddling around having a good time. Feeding time at the penguin habitat is always a highlight of any zoo visit. Sure, maybe they make houses out of their own shit, but who are you to judge?

Seals as well, especially when they're fully in orb mode. Just wobbly ocean friends!

Plus, if I'm down the aquarium anyway, I always make a beeline for the pacu fish. Big, dumb motherfuckers just swimming about like idiots - they bring me a lot of joy. Plus I recently discovered they have human-like teeth, so that's a win for team Your Nightmares.

Also sharks. Every week is Shark Week if you're not a coward.

In the end, though, if I had to pick a current favourite, the one that brings a smile to my face even in its crudest doodle rendition, why, 'tis none other than the humble crab. They come in a plethora of shapes, sizes, colours and flavours, and every one of them is just a silly little guy.

[jonnywaistcoat]

Jonny, I stumbled apon your blog on complete accident and it may have been the best accident of my life. I have but one burning question I must know-

What is your favourite animal?

Oof, what a question - there are some real bangers out there in the ol' animal kingdom.

As a kid I was very into tigers. Loved those big stripy fellas - my grandmother used to cut out pictures of tigers from magazines and present them to me in a manila folder when I visited. I never asked her to do this and didn't have any use for the pictures, but she gave me a lot of them.

Penguins are also up there - waddling around having a good time. Feeding time at the penguin habitat is always a highlight of any zoo visit. Sure, maybe they make houses out of their own shit, but who are you to judge?

Seals as well, especially when they're fully in orb mode. Just wobbly ocean friends!

Plus, if I'm down the aquarium anyway, I always make a beeline for the pacu fish. Big, dumb motherfuckers just swimming about like idiots - they bring me a lot of joy. Plus I recently discovered they have human-like teeth, so that's a win for team Your Nightmares.

Also sharks. Every week is Shark Week if you're not a coward.

In the end, though, if I had to pick a current favourite, the one that brings a smile to my face even in its crudest doodle rendition, why, 'tis none other than the humble crab. They come in a plethora of shapes, sizes, colours and flavours, and every one of them is just a silly little guy.

#Putting this all down I realise #With the exception of tigers #I'm really into your classic comedy animals #I like to laugh at a goofy fella #And clearly nature does too

[jonnywaistcoat]

Centuripe, province in Enna, Sicily, Italy

#Clive Barker knew #In the hills the cities

[jonnywaistcoat]

Hi there Jonny! I'm curious as to what your thoughts on The Wicker Man is

I'd assume you at least enjoy the movie considering you and the rest of the mechs adapted one of the songs

I mean, what's not to love? Absolutely classic bit of British folk horror with Christopher Lee at the top of his game. Also, from a Catholic perspective, it even has a happy ending - my man dies in faith and gets his martyrs crown.

#Ain't nothing says you gotta be martyred with dignity

[jonnywaistcoat]

Spock is the fakest hoe in Star Trek. That guy has cried in every single movie. Get out of here with that vulcans don’t have emotions bullshit. You aint fooling nobody, you sensitive fuck

#Spock is the messiest vulcan there ever was #He raises an eyebrow and every other vulcan is like #good lord man keep it in your pants

[jonnywaistcoat]

Pitcrawler digital is here!

Behold! The digital edition of Pitcrawler is here!

...if you backed it on IndieGoGo, at least. The rest of you will have to wait another month or two to Behold! it, I'm afraid.

It's been a real labour of love this last year to get it all ready for folks, and we're so happy to be sharing it. If you backed the campaign, you should have it in a Backerkit email that came through to you inbox (or your spam if your computer's suspicious) last week. If you haven't had it, let us know.

And for everybody else, here's a little tast of what's to come after we've sorted printing and it goes public.

#pitcrawler #Indie ttrpgs #It properly rules