#trying to make sense of itself

[bamsara]

I think that one thing people fail to understand is that unsolicited literary criticism coming from an online stranger who is reading with no knowledge of what the authors intended goal is, is not going to be received the same as say: the authors beta reader or friends who know what the authors intended goal and has the sufficient knowledge and input to help the author reach that desired outcome.

"But I'm only trying to be helpful" How do I know you have the knowledge and literary skill for you to be able to actaully do that when we don't know each other and you are essentially a stranger to me? Are you applying this criticism based out of personal biased experience and desire to see the story or characterization be driven in another direction or tweaked, or do you know the author's intentions for the character? If the story is incomplete, are you basing your criticism of a character on the incomplete narration with only partial information available of them or are you building up a report until the story's completion? Did the author provide you with the information needed to make a fully informed criticism?

Have you discussed with the author what their plans are or are you assuming them based off the narration, especially if the narration is proven or implied to be unreliable or missing key points of the plot? Are you unbiased enough to help them reach their desired outcome for the characters and story regardless of your personal feelings towards the characters/antagonists and setting? Can you handle being told your specific input isn't wanted because you're a reader and/or have no written anything relating to their genre or topic? Do you understand and respect that the author's personal experiences might influence their writing and make it different than how you would have done it personally? Do you understand if an author only wants input from a specific demographic relating to their story?

If it's for fanfiction or other hobby media, are you holding a free hobby to a professional standard? Are you trying to give criticism because you feel like the author has produced 'subpar job performance' of their fic? Are you viewing their work as a personal intimate outlet or something that must conform with mass media? Are you applying rules and guidelines when the fic is shared for simple sharing sake? Is your criticism worded appropriately and focused on the parts where the author has requested input on rather than a general dismissal and or disapproval?

Have you put yourself in a place where you assumed you have the input needed for the story to evolve better, or have you asked what the author needs and what they're having trouble with? Can you handle having your criticism rejected if the author decides their story doesn't need the change and not take it as a personal offense against your character? Are you crossing that boundary because you think you are doing the author a favor? Are you trying to be helpful, or do you just want to be?

I think sometimes when people hear authors go 'please don't give me unsolicited writing advice or criticism' they automatically chalk it up to 'this author doesn't want ANY constructive feedback on their stuff at all' and not "i already have trusted individuals who will help me with my writing goals and- hey i don't know you like that, please stop acting so overly familiar with me'

[talisthighs]

I’m crying at the idea of Viktor just storming up to Jayce with his “visions.” Girl You Need Help. You Require Medical Attention

This is literally how Jayvik is talking to each other in the lab

[duckwnoeyes]

Something abt Willow defying the narrative itself to bring Buffy back. It’s so selfish, and thoughtless, and also the ultimate act of devotion.

She defies the laws of nature, she rips apart the fabric of reality, but she also defies the show itself. Buffy’s ending was always going to be a tragedy, she was always going to die young. Everyone knows this: Buffy, Giles, the showrunners, the audience. And that almost was the ending! The show was supposed to end in season 5, and obv external reasons led to it being continued, but in universe it’s willow forcibly continuing the story.

Willow was the only one who refused to accept that Buffy dying young was her ending. She defies the damn narrative to bring Buffy home bc that is her best friend!!! And yes it’s also abt her own power and showing that she can, but it’s also abt Buffy spending five seasons desperate to be more than just the slayer, and that Willow’s greatest kindness is refusing to let her die the way the narrative wants. Willow refuses to let Buffy suffer the destiny she’s tried to shirk from the beginning!! It’s abt Willow being physically unable to imagine a life without Buffy; a story without her best friend. They make me want to eat rocks.

[redshoes-blues]

By the way, Will is explicitly written not only as a gay character who is in love with his best friend, but also as a character who grew up believing that he’d never fall in love. He’s someone who still believes that he doesn’t deserve to be loved, because he feels like his feelings are a mistake. This isn’t the type of character arc that will end with him watching the only person he has ever expressed interest in, the boy he’s in love with, be with with someone else. That wouldn’t be satisfying for viewers, wouldn’t make sense for Will as a character, and it would be needlessly cruel. In a story focused on demonstrating why society’s outsiders deserve love and acceptance, he’s going to find just that. It’s the only end for him that fits with his arc and the show’s narrative themes. To have it end otherwise is terrible writing.

[trappedinafantasy37]

I went to a very old save of mine in which I knocked out Minthara in Act 1 and I talked to her again in the throne room. If you knocked her out, this is how she looks at you when she questions you:

She seems genuinely disturbed over your actions. Can you blame her? You were the one who knocked her out. You brought her harm for reasons that she cannot understand. She can understand someone killing her as that is what she expects of those around her. She will criticize your choice of sparing an enemy and showing mercy to someone you have greater reason to kill. Even though she has doubts about you, she shuts herself down, thinking she should be more grateful rather than doubtful of you.

You can tell her that you saw her as a potential ally, but she will call you a hypocrite as Gut and Ragzlin were not shown the same mercy, nor was any other True Soul.

You can even tell her, "You were simply too stubborn to die" as a means of trying to take any culpability off yourself. To try to turn the situation into a little jokey joke. However,

Minthara does not take it as a compliment and she knows you are full of shit. Even though you took the "good" path, she does not trust you.

Minthara understands mercy and even she believes some people are deserving of it. Sadly, she does not see herself as one of those people and is disturbed as to why you gave her mercy. There is no answer you can give her here that will make her trust you. She knows you went out of your way to spare her and only her, and that frightens her.

Remember, this is not the first time in which Minthara's entire army was killed right from underneath her and she was deliberately left as the sole survivor. Orin slaughtered all of her men in a blink of an eye, and Orin's "mercy" only brought her pain and torture. Later down the road, Minthara criticizes herself for not paying more attention to Orin when she first arrived at Moonrise. And so she is giving you a lot of attention, she is watching you, studying you, because she fears that you are going to hurt her the moment she takes her eye off you. Because you already have. Your "mercy" gave her a concussion, your deception had her found guilty of incompetence, and she was then subjected to even more torture by the Absolute in which she was given permanent brain damage. She is afraid that the only reason that you spared her, is because you want to torture her. Even when you show up in Moonrise and enter into her mind prison, she is expecting you to kill her and begs you do it quickly. She is not expecting mercy from you, only death. She is only in that predicament because of you. Why would she think for a single second that your mercy comes from a place of good intentions?

She knows fully well that she owes her life to you and that her life is entirely at your mercy, one you can revoke at any time. She doesn't trust you, she doesn't trust the rest of the companions, but she cannot leave nor walk away. There is no good way out of this for her and she's afraid of the cycle repeating. She is not going to make the same mistake again. Instead of her oath to you being from a place of affection, her oath to you comes from a place of fear.

[tuckedawaytulip]

Idk how good of an idea this is, but my brain has been rotating the idea of Martin having an emotional breakdown of sorts at some point past when everyone has usually gone home, and trying to hide in Jon's office so he can cry about his fears of friends getting replaced. Only to find Jon hasn't quite left yet and he ends up getting comforted by Jon.

[solargeist]

i keep mistaking some of ur kidxelqua art for ur grian art so i have to stop and read the captions/tags every time 😭😭 is there a fundamental difference im missing that would make it any easier

hi !!!!!!! no i understand it can be pretty confusing !! its pretty messy on my blog ahahah i'll try to explain them and their place in the AU

All the kid drawings are Xelqua ! Originally it was Grian, but as the character Xelqua developed, I changed it to him. When people send requests for kid Grian, i'm drawing Xelqua, as that is the AU.

This isn't 100% accurate as I forget to do it, but Grian and Xelqua part their hair differently, kid Xelqua does too. Xelqua's hair is always a bit longer. (Grian got a haircut when he joined the Watchers, thats why his hair parts different now in evoAU and HC, he just kept it shorter ! Xelqua used to wear his hair in a ponytail during his time with the Watchers.)

The reason why i say they're "technically the same" is bc Xelqua is just another Grian from a different timeline, he just has a different name. Xelqua only exists because this one Grian joined the Watchers, new possibilités opened new timelines, ones where he died, ones where he's a Listener instead, or ran away to different servers, or stayed. Xelqua is the only one to have reached Sainthood.

Because of this, Xelqua can hop around timelines, he usually just bugs other versions of himself, helping them, giving them tnt. He finds This Grian during s8 of HC, bugging him through the boatem void, briefly possessing him later, but hey ! water under the bridge !

Xelqua's timeline doesn't exist anymore after becoming That, but by becoming That he has essentially rewritten history in other timelines, solidifying himself as a saint of destruction, a destroyer, this is what the Watchers know him as, this is what evo Grian knew him as, even if Grian caused it--It already happened--Xelqua has always been here. (It makes Grian's head hurts when Xelqua explains this to him.)

Basically: Grian set off a chain reaction when he joined the Watchers, and that opened new universes, and in doing that, Xelqua is made.

Xelqua is powerful, but also very lonely and has a lot wrong with him, which is expected he spent many years with the Watchers. Xelqua can mimic any version of Grian he wants, but if he stays in that form for too long, he'll start to forget himself and instead think "Xelqua" is a patron, rather than himself. This is why kid Xelqua will usually praise the Saint Xelqua and be proud of his own name, he just doesn't know ! It takes a little while to remember himself and change back. This also happens in high stress, (bc of course it does, i love when a character loses control of their powers hahaha,) the memory is much worse if it happens from stress. You can't talk kid Xelqua out of this, it'll stress him out further and you'll just have a little god child throwing a temper tantrum then, never a good idea.

After s8 in HC EvoAU, Xelqua hangs around, popping up sometimes in s9, mostly in his adult watcher self. They don't get along too well at first, Xelqua has a little bit of bitterness over Grian having such a fun life, all these friends, needed, wanted..... But whatever ! Xisuma doesn't know how he keeps getting in, but Xelqua has been on good behaviour, so...... Shrug... Just let him visit sometimes....

Xelqua's version of the Watchers are gone, the unfortunate conséquences of becoming a destroyer, you kinda rip your own timeline apart. This, added with the fact that he is a cautionary tale in every other reality to Watchers, means if he tries to visit other versions of his Watcher family, they won't really know who he is, and just see something destructive and chaotic. If he wants to see Aether, he'll just... hop in a timeline and change himself into a kid and quickly forget what he's done. He's lonely, ok !!

Xelqua starts doing this kid bit on HC (late s9/early s10) too, he doesn't exactly mean to, but he does feel safe there. He eats Grian's food and takes over his couch and no one can get mad at him bc he is just a little kid--grian puts him in the corner. timeout. a few dead birds hit the roof as a result.

[kindaorangey]

hate hate haaaate marius and in the books it's infinitely more fucked up that he turns armand when he does (aged 17) and then the cunt "dies" so armand never really gets the chance to grow up or grow out of what marius asked of him before he's met with immeasurable grief BUT one thing that's really interesting about the show timeline is that there's an additional ten years before marius turns armand and there's SO MUCH that could happen in those ten years in terms of armand deciding whether or not he wants to stay with marius (and, then, why he does choose to stay) and actually having the wherewithal to make that decision.

[dunmeshistash]

idk about the actual answer of course but, going by a metanarrative pov, the demon doesn't take a human form until he can take over laios' body because that's it coming as close at it can to what it wants, aka being able to experience desires. It simply wouldn't have the same impact if it had been taking a human form throughoutthe manga, since this way we can tangibly see how close it got as well as understanding it in the abstract

following this train of thought, I think that narratively it would make the most sense for it to not be able to take a human form. Ik that a big appeal of Kui's writing is the worldbuilding and how everything seems to follow in-universe laws and logic, but sometimes the next best thing is to look at meta and draw conclusions from that

This isn't meant to be a gotcha btw!!! I think it's interesting to see theories and it's probably been left up to interpretation for that very reason :]

Oh yeah that's definitely the actual answer as to why he doesn't turn into a human, I mentioned it briefly in a reblog.

How I try to engage with that type of question is more of a "what would make sense in universe?"/"Would this be possible?" sometimes I forget to mention the "it was done like this cause it's a story" aspect cause I assume it's implied (which tbf it isn't for everyone)

Anyway don't worry I didn't take it as a gotcha, I am aware I'm overthinking Dungeon Meshi but I do it cause it's fun LOL

The question was if it could do it and while I think there's good arguments that it can't there's no hard proof so its up for interpretation, and wondering the "what ifs" is pretty fun. (My opnion is still that it can't, exactly because that's what makes more sense for the story, but now why it wouldn't be able to? idk)

[14dayswithyou]

That is all thank you

ANSWERED: Art credit for da first Ren meme goes to @meo-eiru!!

BUT HELPPPPP THESE ARE SO FUNNY JDSGJH T_T The Moth meme + Uno meme had me CACKLING lmaoooooooo

[aroaceleovaldez]

i would like to say my ideal PJO adaptation (if i was being physically forced against my will to have to pick a live action adaptation over an animated one for some reason) would be a combo like writing of the musical + casting of the show + visuals of the movies

BUT the show actually does have the playwright for the musical as one of the major writers for like three episodes and that did nothing for it. so...

[crunchycrystals]

ok so like a lot of the stuff i've seen about the ending of painted devils seems to say "sad that vanja can't remember the lesson she learned throughout the book" but i'd argue she does. she knows that she's worthy of love, that the people around her care about her. it's just a bit harder to accept because of her trauma but she knows it. she leaves not because she thinks she's unworthy of love, but because she knows she has it but the system doesn't make it easy for people like her to love and be loved.

the system perpetuating poverty is the reason why she became a thief and now it refuses to let her forget that this is who she is. see kirkling (literally used as an example of what im talking about when vanja runs away), always unfairly harsh to vanja but immune to the consequences of her bias because she's retired. and now she loves someone who wants to be a prefect, someone who is going into that very system to try and improve it, but it's still the same thing. the loopholes are still there and one day someone worse will exploit it to ruin emeric's life, prevent him from saving others from her fate, and she cares about him and those girls like her too much to let that happen

the book says that it's one thing to know something but another thing to believe it. in the same vein, it's one thing to know what you want, it's one thing to know you are loved, believe you are loved, but it's a completely different thing to be allowed to pursue that want or love. vanja and emeric don't have that freedom. gisele didn't have that freedom until vanja broke the leadership system in minkja, but no one's breaking the system for vanja. not yet at least.

[witheredgardenparty]

I've been seeing a lot of posts lately in which the op will complain that people are wildly mischaracterizing their favorite characters.

I feel like it bears reminding that "as long as you can back up your arguments with evidence, there can be multiple, and even conflicting, valid interpretations of the same text" and "just because the interpretation is valid, does not mean you have to internalize it into your understanding of the text" coexist.

[lunar-years]

I've been reflecting a lot lately about something similar to the last post I reblogged about the term "girlie" and the "girlification" of everything (e.g., girl dinner, girl job, girl math). I think especially with the sheer prevalence and impact of spaces like Tik Tok and other social media it is so extremely easy to get caught up in some of those "trends," and when you're a woman and you see other women using those terms and you do relate in some way to their perceived surface meanings, it's easy to adopt them yourself and feel like part of an in-group because of it, without realizing how dangerous such terms can be to feminism when you go around aimlessly throwing into your daily vernacular, particularly when taken alongside the wider cultural and political wave of conservatism. And it's ultimately so important to step back and take a look at how those seemingly innocuous terms are contributing to that wave!!

I'll be the first to say I definitely laughed at some of the earliest "girl dinner" Tik Toks and for a while me and my friends were all using "girl math" in our lingo, because we related to the idea and knew we all did it and found it funny. But then I saw another Tik Tok and some other posts online about why those terms are diminutive and harmful to women and I've since done my best to stop using them. It's really critical to police our own language sometimes. And like, I haven't suddenly stopped relating to ~concept~ of "girl math," in the sense that coming up with wonky "calculated" justifications for my sillier purchases is something I absolutely still do and is still something I laugh at myself for as I know I'm doing it. And there's nothing wrong with that! But I've stopped saying "girl math" because I've realized the concept behind the term has no actual relationship to my womanhood (or in this case, "girl"hood, which is obviously diminutive in itself). My ability to justify little treat purchases is not rooted in any way in my gender, and the conflating of the two is a problem. I promise you, men use "girl math" too!! But creating terms like "girl math" or "girl dinner" as the framework for those concepts situates them as inherently female, and by extent, situates females as somehow inherently less financially responsibly, less healthy, less intelligent.

Anyway, I now try to be way more conscious of the language I perpetuate, especially because I am someone who is very "traditionally feminine" in a lot of ways, which makes it that much easier to slip into some of these "trends" without critical thought. I enjoy "girlie" hobbies! I knit and bake and embroider and collect tea cups and wear dresses. I still ask my brother to help me with my taxes every year and I still make my Dad come fix my car when it breaks down. But none of that lessens the fact that I am also a self sufficient and intelligent woman, and I am increasingly cognizant of the ways in which the things I do and enjoy are being packaged into "girlie" tik tok trends that are then used to perpetuate outdated gender roles, keep ALL women in boxes, and strip us of our rights. I can enjoy all the things I enjoy while scoffing in disgust at the rise of the "trad wife," but it's also important to be very vigilant about how the language I use might inadvertently be pushing forward values I vehemently disagree with and am opposed to, and its important now more than ever to constantly examine ourselves.

[oopey-doopey]

I know the code shows Gregory talking during the elevator crash but I think it’s important that Cassie outright states she can’t fully trust that the Gregory she’s talking to during the chase is the real Gregory. We also know code in fnaf games has been used to spell out secrete messages, guide or even misdirect us as fans. However, more importantly it has been used as a form of story integration.

Whose to say that the reason the code no longer showed as Grimic but Gregory was to reflect Cassie not knowing who she was actually talking to despite her dependence?

The double text is telling and seeing as a glitch like it has not happened in the dlc before hand unless it was to intentionally show two different entities talking, we could be like Cassie and on the receiving end of not knowing if the real Gregory was the one who dropped the elevator. But the visual clue was our hint to not take that scene as so black and white.

[doodlejoltik]

my favourite writing device is having an un-Rei-liable narrator