#And like making yourself think is good

[siobhanromee]

When you are trying to figure out characterization and then someone suggests an action your character would take.. and you have to go he would not fucking do that.

[lgbtlunaverse]

There's a version of the "don't go grocery shopping while hungry" rule specifically for writers where you should never under any circumstances be allowed to touch your draft within 3 hours of reading a really good story. Because sometimes when you read something great your head goes "fuck this is so much better than my stuff I should make that more like THIS instead!" Look at me. That's the devil talking and you should close the document NOW.

[inkskinned]

you were raised in comparison.

it wasn't always obvious (well. except for the times that it was), but you internalized it young. you had to eat what you didn't like, other people are going hungry, and you should be grateful. you had to suck it up and walk on the twisted ankle, it wasn't broken, you were just being a baby. you were never actually suffering, people obviously had it worse than you did.

you had a roof over your head - imagine! with the way you behaved, with how you talked back to your parents? you're lucky they didn't kick you out on your ass. they had friends who had to deal with that. hell, you have friends who had to deal with that. and how dare you imply your father isn't there for you - just because he doesn't ever actually talk to you and just because he's completely emotionally checked out of your life doesn't mean you're not fucking lucky. think about your cousins, who don't even get to speak to their dad. so what if yours has a mean streak; is aggressive and rude. at least you have a father to be rude to you.

you really think you're hurting? you were raised in a home! you had access to clean water! you never so much as came close to experiencing a real problem. sure, okay. you have this "mental illness" thing, but teenagers are always depressed, right. it's a phase, you'll move on with your life.

what do you mean you feel burnt out at work. what do you mean you mean you never "formed healthy coping mechanisms?" we raised you better than that. you were supposed to just shoulder through things. to hold yourself to high expectations. "burning out" is for people with real jobs and real stress. burnout is for people who have sick kids and people who have high-paying jobs and people who are actually experiencing something difficult. recently you almost cried because you couldn't find your fucking car keys. you just have lost your sense of gratitude, and honestly, we're kind of hurt. we tell you we love you, isn't that enough? if you want us to stick around, you need to be better about proving it. you need to shut up about how your mental health is ruined.

it could be worse! what if you were actually experiencing executive dysfunction. if you were really actually sick, would you even be able to look at things on the internet about it? you just spend too much time on webMD. you just like to freak yourself out and feel like you belong to something. you just like playing the victim. this is always how you have been - you've always been so fucking dramatic. you have no idea how good you have it - you're too fucking sensitive.

you were like, maybe too good of a kid. unwilling to make a real fuss. and the whole time - the little points, the little validations - they went unnoticed. it isn't that you were looking for love, specifically - more like you'd just wanted any one person to actually listen. that was all you'd really need. you just needed to be witnessed. it wasn't that you couldn't withstand the burden, but you did want to know that anyone was watching. these days, you are so accustomed to the idea of comparison - you don't even think you belong in your own communities. someone always fits better than you do. you're always the outlier. they made these places safe, and then you go in, and you are just not... quite the same way that would actually-fit.

you watch the little white ocean of your numbness lap at your ankles. the tide has been coming in for a while, you need to do something about it. what you want to do is take a nap. what you want to do is develop some kind of time machine - it's not like you want your life to stop, not completely, but it would really nice if you could just get everything to freeze, just for a little while, just until you're finished resting. but at least you're not the worst you've been. at least you have anything. you're so fucking lucky. do you have any concept of the amount of global suffering?

a little ant dies at the side of your kitchen sink. you look at its strange chitinous body and think - if you could just somehow convince yourself it is enough, it will finally be enough and you can be happy. no changes will have to be made. you just need to remember what you could lose. what is still precious to you.

you can't stop staring at the ant. you could be an ant instead of a person, that is how lucky you are. it's just - you didn't know the name of the ant, did you. it's just - ants spend their whole life working, and never complain. never pull the car over to weep.

it's just - when it died, it curled up into a tight little ball.

something kind of uncomfortable: you do that when you sleep.

[canisalbus]

uh hi hello!! first i wanted to say i am deeply in love with your art (god those shapes, these lines, texture, anatomy, expression, EVERYTHING) and your latest drawing just moved something in me i cant quite grasp it, been thinking about it for a couple days. sooo i felt inspired and made myself a smol little machete out of uh wild clay so i could kiss him on the forehead before going to sleep, i hope you're ok with that? (also sorry he's kinda wonky, me and acrylics hate each other haha)

.

[s0fter-sin]

soap's whole deal being sniper and demolitions gets me going bc on the surface they sound so different but when you get into it, you realise it's bc soap's smart

sniping is all math; calculating distances and wind interference and bullet drop. something i think people overlook is he was listed as a sniper first so it can be implied that he's better at it than demolitions. he does more sniping in both campaigns than demolitions work; in capture or kill, ghost specifically calls on him to take down the aq snipers

and demolitions is math with a hit of chemistry; knowing what mixes with what, knowing how much to use, recognising environmental factors and adjusting accordingly. it's not just about the boom; so much work goes into contained/ planned explosions. especially when having enough power for a breacher charge and not bringing down the whole building is the difference between mission success and failure

the chemical bombs he makes in alone can't just be any old cleaners, they have to have the correct reaction to each other; he just knew off the top of his head what would mix with what to create what reaction. he would also potentially have to recognise them by sight/smell bc they would’ve been written in spanish

soap would also have to know architecture; recognising structural integrity and weak points so he knows exactly where to plant a charge to bring it down and how it'll come down

he has an incredible soldier's mind people just forget that bc he's sociable which itself is a skill

we know he tends to buck against orders he doesn't agree with like when he pushes back against ghost in capture or kill and shepherd when he tells them to release hassan

he gets closer to people and sees if he can trust them and that's when he follows them without question. really think about how he talks to alejandro and rudy; he asks about their home and alejandro's family and rudy's relationship with him. those aren't questions you ask a stranger after a few hours of knowing them. that's not even touching on his relationship with ghost

he also deliberately brings people of higher ranks down to his level; talking informally with ghost and giving him a shoulder punch, addressing alejandro (a colonel!!) by his first name and rudy by his nickname despite literally just meeting them. he personalises all of them and it’s in direct opposition to the reason most characters do that; it’s not due to insubordination or lack of respect, the more he respects and trusts someone, the more casual he is with them

he digs into people; he wants to know what makes them tick and that determines if he can one, trust them and two, follow their orders. once he decides that, he's the ultimate soldier; he bleeds loyalty which makes him vicious when that loyalty is taken for granted

he isn't naive or bubbly or insecure; he's an incredibly smart and aware soldier. he's aggressive and bloodthirsty and loyal and intuitive and i love him so much

[lbhslefttiddie]

youve heard of sex flowers get ready for the flower that makes you into a celestial shoujo herione complete with particle effects you cannot turn the fuck off and creates a wifebeam so powerful it can incapacitate and maim and keeps making you burst into tears and fall on your ass which makes the wifebeam More Powerful and you also cannot turn this off either. and is also still, sort of, a sex flower

from one of my favorite fanfictions, Celestial Afterglow by elanor_pam, a fic that defies description in the best possible way

[introspectivememories]

i think one of the reasons i really like bernard and darla is because they met him at a time when he wasn't robin. to me, tim drake has always felt like an amalgamation of robin and tim. and he's good at it y'know? being tim drake and robin but when bernard and darla meet him at grieves he can't be robin. he has to just be tim drake. and he's obviously struggling but he tries for his father. and that's so interesting to me because who is tim drake without robin? he obviously doesn't know either. and we see him explore this in urban legends. he even asks himself in urban legends, "who am i if i'm not robin?" and i don't think it's too much of a surprise that at the end of urban legends, when he's figured out what he wants, he chooses the boy who only ever knew him as tim drake.

[mishy-mashy]

Bruce is actually really attractive, and I have enough reasoning to make a list

He's:

Tall (. Tall enough to hit his head on the vault doorframe)

Long-legged

Has a straight nose bridge

Has high cheekbones (more noticeable in 2nd pic below)

Has a strong jawline

Sharp eyes, but they aren't small (plus eyebags if you're into that)

Overall, he has strong, attractive facial features

Has broad, refined shoulders. You can tell he works out (or he did, when he was alive)

Even has a thick, muscly neck

He has MUSCLE. Is SCULPTED. NOICE. VERY NOICE. (nice arms. Nice shoulders. Nice neck. Nice legs. Nice butt-)

(There are actually panels where you can see some of his muscles. Other than those already shown here, he's got bricky thighs-

-and in the panels where we first get his name dropped, he's got those shoulder blades too-)

The one time we see him smile, and he actually has a scary one

Has small, kinda sharp pupils, and his eyes remind me of a cat. We only ever saw him tense or defensive, so his resting/listening face is really cute

Other than the physical appearance stuff, he also:

Takes shit without batting an eye (patience, knowing it's just how Kudo is, etc)

Kudo being all "Cut the crap Bruce and give it to me straight", after Bruce tests his blood and is rightfully Concerned because they just faced AFO

Put up with Kudo's experimenting and testing over Yoichi's transferable Factor

Did ya'll see the look on Kudo's face when he realized he had Yoichi's Factor/will? Kudo was going to start in nonsense and Bruce just dealt with that.

Also something I noticed when looking back at the images here; Bruce has bandages on his arms in the void. But not when he faced AFO in the sewers.

Were he and Kudo cutting their arms open in their experimenting over Yoichi's theory? Is this why Kudo has two gauntlets instead of his one? Why we never see his bare arms in the void? That he always keeps his arms down so there's no slip?

Is smart enough to run blood tests, plus has enough common sense to pick Shinomori as his successor

He picked a guy who avoids society, has an Ability to detect danger so he can always stay away from AFO, is also a coward so he's never going to go throw himself into danger, even without knowing instinctively he stands no chance, etc.

Meanwhile, Kudo chose Bruce, who he played Hot Potato Yoichi with; but he did also trust Bruce, and put the only pure combative Ability in OFA through Bruce.

These two made their choices based on what they valued and saw the Factor needed.

Is logical, analytical, and calm.

He tried advising Midoriya on their Abilities in One For All, especially his own.

Midoriya then tried ignoring him about using Fa Jin for the first time, but found he was right, thinking: "Dammit!! I had [Lady Nagant] right where I wanted her, but... ugh! The Third was right. My parallel Quirk processes are all screwed up!" (ch. 314).

Plus, when Midoriya fixed his processing mistakes, Bruce was analyzing the way he reached his new conclusion. Pure facts, no bias, very calm, just saying it as it was.

We never see him panic. When he's caught by surprise in the sewers by AFO, Kudo, and Yoichi's little bubble event, he immediately reacts. He doesn't falter, he just knows he has to do something right now.

Was more willing to listen than Kudo to Yoichi's beckon, and probably was just following Kudo's rejection of Midoriya

While we don't see Kudo's face, we see Bruce's eyes when Yoichi calls on his heroes. Bruce was more open and receptive, or at least more impacted.

Bruce was also the one to start talking, while Kudo just kept quiet.

He actually communicates a lot

When Yoichi called them to support Midoriya, Bruce started talking to paint a picture of why they thought the way they did, so Yoichi understood where they were coming from.

(Though he seems to beat about the bush sometimes, since Kudo spoke up to be direct on how they couldn't just put their trust in some starry-eyed teenager. Plus, when Kudo tells him to just tell him what's wrong [double Factors])

When Midoriya first used Fa Jin against Nagant, Bruce came out just to tell him he knew what he was trying, but that Midoriya wasn't ready; and Midoriya found he was right. Midoriya just didn't want to listen to him then.

He asks Kudo for clarification after finding Kudo had two Factors in him after the sewer incident ("Just to be sure, All For One didn't touch you, right?") Kudo knew him well enough to go "stop beating around the bush and tell me", so Bruce was probably gonna start with questions, theories, and trying to understand everything in general, before saying "yeah you have two Factors. Don't know why".

Is strong-willed and loyal.

He followed Kudo, even to death, carrying on the cause he started until it ended with him.

Plus, when talking about how AFO needs a strong will to override OFA's own, we first see Bruce, Kudo, and Yoichi.

AFO couldn't steal OFA because the will was too strong for him, and that was back during Banjo's time. Since Shinomori never actually tried opposing AFO and just hid, we can assume the first Three (Yoichi, Kudo, Bruce) already had an accumulation of strong willpower that made OFA un-stealable. Those three are a strong enough foundation, and the main wills, that the other users just become bonuses.

Kudo, also saying that Midoriya needs allies with the same will and drive as him... hey Kudo, you're talking about yourself and your old allies, aren't you? That's why you look at Yoichi and Bruce when you say this.

Not only is Bruce attractive, but he's got good character. THE END.

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

DPxDC Prompt

Thinking back on it, Danny probably should have been more wary of being given the title ‘Ender Of Timelines’.

[starry-bi-sky]

realizing i have. a lot of untapped trauma potential for clone^2 danny because i just Fully Processed Four Months Late the fact that his parents were capturing and torturing ghosts in the basement before he became Phantom. and the fact that he was on house rest for 2 weeks. during that time period. and he wasn't really leaving the house. he could hear their screaming through the floorboards

*points at clone danny* i can give you suuuuuuch a bad time babe ahaha. i've got two untouched years before you meet damian what fucks you up before then

[crabussy]

IS ANYONE ELSE FEELING KIND TODAY!!! IS ANYONE ELSE FEELING GENEROUS TOWARDS OTHER PEOPLE!!! IS ANYBODY ELSE BEING KIND AND TRYING TO UNDERSTAND EVEN WHEN ITS HARD!!! IS ANYONE ELSE ASSUMING THE BEST OF OTHERS INTENTIONS AND RESPONDING IN KIND!!!! CAN ANYONE HEAR ME

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Smell Check [Easy: Failure]

MDZS Disco Elysium AU part 1 (part 2 - part 3)

[n1ghtwr1ter]

At the end of my latest TLT reread and it’s been physically painful attempting to read the last 40+ pages of Nona. Like, the short shrift that Gideon/Kiriona gets given by the people in the story…the theoretical good guys who honestly only see her as a thing, as a means to an end with an inconvenient dead soul attached to it… It makes me want to rip my own heart out of my chest.

Nobody has cared about Gideon her whole life. Most people, in fact, if they remembered about her at all, went out of their way to tell her how much they wished she didn’t exist. In the final chapters of Gideon, she finally gets the thing she’s been desperate for her whole life: somebody telling her that they need her, they care that she exists, and they badly want her to go on doing it. This allows her to make peace with the prospect that at the ripe old age of 18, she needs to die so that that person can go on living and living and living, using the castrated remnants of her soul as fuel to do so. Not a great way to go, but at least Gideon would get to be useful to somebody, would get to be remembered for something.

And then she wakes up in the wrong body, and finds out that her sacrifice - her attempt to be useful in the most selfless way possible, in that her self will no longer exist - has been rejected. And not only that, but the person she tried to give herself to - the one who was supposed to care about her - went to extreme lengths to make completely sure that she no longer remembered about Gideon.

She literally cut Gideon out of her brain.

And now, drifting along in the worst sort of half life where she’s inhabiting her body but it’s no longer really hers, in very obvious fashion - there’s holes in it, her heart is missing, and it’s got her shitty father’s handprints all over it (not even touching how much of a violation that is), indelibly - she finally meets back up with the small group of people who could theoretically be relied upon to be glad to see her again.

But then the one who was supposed to care about her most tries to kiss her (massively OOC for Harrow), and turns out to not even be there - it’s some weird baby inhabiting her body, and doing a really shit job of it too. The rest of them won’t stop talking about how they need her to break into the Tomb - as if she was just another key, same as the ones they worked together to acquire in Canaan House, just bigger and more inconvenient - and/or how they both fucked and killed her mom, who also (surprise, surprise) wished that Gideon had never existed, but saw her as a thing that needed to be done for the good of the mission.

Ultimately, they all make it abundantly clear - Palamedes, Camilla, Pyrrha, and especially Nona, all these people who are supposed to be kind and good and right - that they would prefer she wasn’t there. That it just be her body, with no Gideon attached - at least not Gideon the way she is now, broken and rejected and miserable. They would all far have preferred that she not have her own inconvenient thoughts and feelings and desires and impulses - that she just be inanimate and let the important people, the grown ups, get things done.

They wish she didn’t exist. Same as everybody else in her life, save one, and now she’s left wondering whether Harrow really meant it at all. Because if she did, she wouldn’t have left Gideon to Kiriona’s fate.

And honestly? Really, truly? I know everybody in the fandom loves Pal and Cam and Nona and Pyrrha, but in the end I couldn’t give less of a shit about them. They are fucking side characters, and as intriguing as Nona has been from a worldbuilding standpoint, I ultimately resent having been forced to read 400+ pages of filler bullshit about fucking side characters. I am a butch, and I’m here for my sarcastic, loving, angry, vulnerable, forgiving, and yes, inconvenient sword butch. I’m here for Gideon. But Gideon has been fridged for the last two books of the series in which she is supposed to be a, if not the, main character.

And it feels like almost nobody else in the fandom feels the same way, which, fine. I’m used to that. I’m also used to being told I’m projecting; and I’m used to being told that I’m inconvenient too, in my thoughts and my opinions and the mere fact of my existence. I spent the first eighteen years of my life being told I was inconvenient. Yet another point of overidentification with Gideon.

But in case anybody still thinks that Nona proves that Gideon was an asshole all along, think about all of the above. Think about how it would make you feel to come back from not just death but from the erasure of your existence, something you chose in order to save the life of someone you loved, and be told that you’re inconvenient. Think about how you’d feel if you’d been told all your life that it would be better for everyone if you didn’t exist. And then tell me that Kiriona isn’t in the right and that I should give a rat’s ass what happens to literally anybody else.

It’s Kiriona Hours up in this House, butches. We’ve spent long enough caring about people who would prefer we weren’t around. For once in our entire lives we were told we were important; we were told we mattered; we were told we were the main character. We were going to, if not get the girl and save the world, at least get to do something real, something important, something like being the hero.

But that’s over now; we’re back to being wrong and bad and inconvenient thanks to the simple fact of our existence. So it’s time to embrace it. Let’s be a little shit. Let’s be kind of a dick. Let’s have our own agenda, let’s play our cards close to our heartless chest, let’s allow our circle of empathy to contract to ourselves and maybe one more person. That’s where I’m at right now. And I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

[callisteios]

would you like to be a god? take this uquiz to find out what sort of god you'd be

[markantonys]

just accidentally stumbled on an egwene hate reddit thread and everyone was bitching about how she tries to act like rand's equal when she's only the second-most powerful authority figure on the continent, and one sane person was like "well, balance was a huge theme of the series, so it's pretty clear that RJ did consider the dragon and the amyrlin two halves of a whole and that rand is meant to be egwene's equal co-authority rather than her superior" and of course they were downvoted to hell. and this one little thread just really epitomizes how the readers who approach WOT as a male power fantasy just fundamentally will never understand the series and its themes and the story it was ACTUALLY telling.

[fly-sky-high-arts]

I do want to talk about sharing art online from the perspective of a hobby freelancer but before that I'll just toss this tidbit I mentioned on my main

Reblogs are not numbers. Reblogs are meant to share and pass on artwork that someone may like. NO ONE is forced to reblog anything BUT it is a core of engagement in a space like tumblr. Engagement is what brings in interest after all and it's one piece of what makes it important for freelance artists here.

When you look at the numbers and the notes, we need to stop viewing them and comparing them with likes (me included) or total in general. It doesn't help.

Artists do self rebloging to both show or remind folks they've done some work as well as to nudge people to reblog their stuff. Tags are nice and comments in them are a nice way to engage too but passing on the work, especially to help someone to get noticed, is a good way to just work the site as intended.

It will always be about luck because we can't guess who wants to engage with what online. You also can't blame yourselves for this. Don't use the internet mentality of "content" (eugh!) and "flopping" and go about it that way. People find stuff I drew years back and find ways to engage with it now. It's really about luck.

There are things that can help but I'll go about it in another post.

One more thing. Don't be shy about "shilling". Advertise your open commissions, your patreons or ko-fis. I promise it has nothing to do with how big of an artist you are. Remember that you're doing that within your own zone so "bothering" followers is hardly the case, it's your house. Make a tag for it if it helps your mind. I say as someone with social anxiety.