#The Greatest Pleasure

[the-final-sentence]

Top Final Sentences of 2022

 I was everything I needed.           Xoài Phạm, from “The Greatest Pleasure”

He helped me find what I truly craved and identify what had been there all along: an unwavering sense of self.         Jennifer Chowdhury, from “In Pursuit of Brown-on-Brown Love”

Such an old, old memory, why should it make me cry?         Lloyd Schwartz, from “The Two Horses (A Memory)”

“I love you,” he whispered again, against the top of her head.         Mary Balogh, from Thief of Dreams

And he paused, in the space between inhalation and exhalation, and invited magic in.          Freya Marske, from A Marvellous Light        

“Nothing I didn’t already know, deep down.”         Dante Medema, from The Truth Project

It was a fine cry - loud and long - but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.         Toni Morrison, from Sula

For just a little while more, I think, let me hide here.         Jonathan Robbins Leon, from “The Same Kind of Monster”

In search of, an approximation:            desire of, love of.         Iliana Rocha, from “Elegy Falling Forward & Down“

I still crave the comfort of a hand in mine, the warmth of being claimed in the daylight.         Laura Bogart, from “A New Kind of Heroine”

And it is you, it is you she is holding like an open book, well-loved, in her hands.         Eve Alexandra, from “Heroine”

We survived to whisper our names to each other even if we could not yet confess them to anyone else.         Anna-Marie McLemore, from “Roja”

And this is the story of how I am caught.         Margaret Owen, from Little Thieves

I’m trying to hold on to this rope, and I’m trying to let go.         Melissa Faliveno, from “Tied, Tethered, Unfettered, Free”

Imagine you don’t fit anywhere, not even in your own head.         Bassey Ikpi, from “What It Feels Like”

I look to the sky and feel her ghost.         Colton Haynes, from Miss Memory Lane

It would be nice if we could talk about how we went online, driven by some sort of longing, and why we stayed there, pushing that want outward, over and over, until it couldn’t be ignored.         Kaitlyn Tiffany, from Everything I Need I Get from You

Care tasks exist for one reason only… to make your body and space functional enough for you to easily experience the joy this world has to offer.         K.C. Davis, from How to Keep House While Drowning

I had become one of the people on the street who knew where he was going.         Andrew Rannells, from Too Much Is Not Enough

Until everything was sea and sky, and the falling was flying, and he realised he was laughing too.         Alexis Hall, from A Lady for a Duke

Under the wrack and wreck of what had come before, the sky was new, and I reached for it with a yearning eager hand.         Nghi Vo, from The Chosen and the Beautiful

My beating heart is still yours, the letter said, and I’ll be waiting for you.         Dana Schwartz, from Anatomy

It won’t last for long, but it’s beautiful for now.         Linda Oatman High, from December

She holds my hand as I leave them all behind.         Erica Waters, from “Stay”

And then I fall back into my sheets, still warm and crumpled, and close my eyes.         Alice Oseman, from “Hands Against Our Hearts”

[palatinewolfsblog]

“The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.” Walter Bagehot. Happy Ascension Day! ;)

[theygender]

The more I learn about judaism the more I wonder where tf christianity got all its bad shit. Why is divorce a sin in christianity when judaism has recognized the right to divorce for nearly a millennia and has codified religious laws for it. Why does christianity consider sex to be dirty (to the point where puritans considered it a sin to enjoy having sex with your own spouse) when in judaism it's considered holy and it's a literal mitzvah to have sex with your spouse on the sabbath. Why does christianity consider it a sign that you're faithless if you question your religion when in judaism that's considered an essential part to developing your faith. I'm probably stating the obvious here but I still can't get over the fact that there's no historical basis to any of this shit before christianity started, it's like christians just said "hey guys what if we took the torah and built a new religion around it but this time it was actively hostile to human life"

[zu-is-here]

Hi :) Hi Hi Hi! Helloooo Sooooo I don't know if you do requests or not but JUST STAY WITH ME ON THIS- XD So.... what about... some Monarch Shattered Dream and Knight!Cross content ( ͡❛ ͜ʖ ͡❛) Just a suggestion XD

set them free

Monarch by @wishingstarinajar || Shattered Dream by galacii-gallery / galacii

Knight by stankychee || Cross from xtaleunderverse by jakei95

[transphilza]

some teeny cwilbur doodles (ft ctommy) i found on my old tablet :)

[metamelonisle]

i actually know about kirby outside the context of smash bros or memes this makes me better than literally everyone i know irl and i am not joking

[despazito]

Found canine good neighbor testing near me.. basil would flunk it atm but it's a goal to work towards ><

[taxolotl]

and the universe said I love you.

my cover art for the dream posqrt project!

[yellowocaballero]

Talk Shop Tuesday: what’s the most important thing to you when it comes to characterization?

[Sorry I am so behind on these I have been so fucking busy] CHARACTERIZATION I LOVE YOU SO. What a good question!!!!! I get compliments on my characterization a lot so I should probably think about this. Also @lazuliquetzal chime in if you want because you're just as good at this.

There's a lot of important things. The most important, I think, is that the character has consistent internal logic. It's like worldbuilding or magic. Their actions don't have to be objectively logical, but they do have to be consistent. The character has a framework for understanding the world, a way of perceiving the world and how it works, and an idea of how they think other people work. Everything that happens in their lives is filtered through that. They have to feel like a real person making real decisions, not an instrument of the plot.

Something I like to do is to make their greatest strength their greatest flaw. I think in writing there's no 'good' or 'bad' character traits - no virtues or sins. I think character traits are neutral, and that they can be used to good or bad effect. I think we do things because of other things that have happened to us, and that these things have positive and negative consequences.

Obviously a character has to have consistent motivations and to change over time. A character shouldn't end the story in the same place where they started. Character focused stories ought to have your characters change throughout the story - Sherlock Holmes doesn't have to have moments of character growth but your slice of life character definitely should. I think the setting around them really helps - giving them foils really helps develop and flesh out both characters.

I feel like that's all pretty basic notes though. For me and characters, there's way more to it than that. It's hard to explain. I think I can only ask that you make the plot and tropes fit the characters, not the characters fit the plot and tropes. Fanfic has a horrible habit of making characters one dimensional and stripping away a lot of nuance to fit in with different slots in relationship dynamic, roles in a team dynamic, or niches in an AU. The character should come first. And love of god if you make their personality seme or uke I will come find you with my yaoi baseball bat.

Oh and the best character-building exercise is to figure out if the character would ever be a cannibal or not and I am barely joking.

[stochasm]

freddie wong is playing the most asexual dan fucks I’ve ever seen

[janeway-lover]

Yes it is!! You wanna know how I know?

Like a month ago my work set up a dunk tank. Who was getting dunked? Our managers.

I dunked my manager 4 times and I don't do drugs but I don't think any drug could give me a high like that did.

[steffigraf]

casper ruud in the 2023 atp tour's guess the grunt (x)

[myst3ry-pl4nt]

thinking about the cannibal yaoi game again, sorry gang

[kyouka-supremacy]

What's p/p?

Ah, I meant to say, pp, Psycho-Pass. I usually add slashes to avoid unprompted rambles to show up in main tags, sorry if that resulted confusing.

I love Psycho-Pass. I already made a post about why bsd fans might find it enjoyable, but honestly, there's so much more to it beyond what it has in common with bsd.

The prompts for reflection this series offers are just wonderful: on the relationship between citizens and government, on pervasive systems, on freedom of choice and free will, on safety vs. freedom, on discrimination of minorities and creation of scapegoats, on propaganda and brainwashing, on the increasing and treacherous presence of technology in everyday life, on how government uses technology to control and manipulate people, on fighting the system from the inside vs. fighting the system from the outside. I should watch it again too. It's crazy good.

Akane Tsunemori - the coprotagonist of the first season, the protagonist of the second season and overall the true core and heart of the franchise - is one of the most complex and beautiful characters I ever met. Her growth and character development is truly amazing: the way she starts off as unknowing and naïve, and grows so so much from there; how her writing finds this perfect balance between becoming more mature / hardening and staying true to her beliefs - even when everyone, the system, the people she relies to, the people she looks up to - tell her that there's no other way, that it can't be. It's breathtaking. She is a breathtaking character. The way alone that no matter how conscious and aware she becomes of how cruel the world is, how unredeemable people are, how beyond saving the system is, she still keeps believing in humans… It may sound cliché by itself, but believe me, it's wonderfully executed, and her character is truly amazing. Not to mention, the way she mirrors the coprotagonist Kougami is fabulous, but this is not really about him; she's an amazing character of her own right, and I will die on this hill.

The female cast in general is all amazing honestly. Don't get me wrong, the male characters are just as complex and multilayered (and I LOVE Gino and Kou, how couldn't I), but that's… Something we're more accustomed to, while finding well written female characters is objectively much harder. Female characters in Psycho-Pass aren't written as female characters, they're written as people, just as much as their male counterparts are. They have their fears and hopes and strengths and weaknesses just like any other character. I love Yayoi for being strong and coolheaded. I love (LOVE) Shion for being her fabulous self, kind and flirty and confident and with an heart so big, and for her subverting the trope of guy in the chair by being a glamorous woman who's also incredibly competent at her job of analyst. I love Akane's friends and I don't like season 3 but Mai is genuinely awesome and a joy every time she's on screen. I love Risa so much I could die, I love how strong and independent she is, I love the dilemmas she had to face, I love her choices and how they might have been the wrong ones and how it still haunts her, I love the tragedy of her character in general, I love the doomed friendship that used to be between her Gino and Kou. I love love love Fredrica, I love her being bossy and confident, diligent and determined. There's just a lot of… Strong and independent women in Psycho-Pass, and it's not just a way of saying, they really are.

I LOVE women loving other women, canonly, on screen. The confirmation may be delegated to a small moment in the last episode of the first season, but the fact that it's still there nonetheless, and how it confirms that all the previous moments and exchanges were indeed moments and didn't leave it to ambiguity… It's nice, to say that the first season of Psycho-Pass came out in 2012. And you might have to wait eight years, three seasons, five movies for it, but the phrase “I just want to go outside, dine somewhere nice, and go for walks with someone I love” may make it worth it.

And I LOVE how all the leader positions are filled by women. It's a little funny, honestly, in the best way– despite what I made it look like so far, the Psycho-Pass cast is still men-dominated (or at least a pretty equally split 50/50?); yet all the leader positions are always filled by women: Akane and Mika and Kasei and Frederica and Karina, it's always women.

Also, Mika is a brilliant character. Of course I love her. I'm so so sorry for how much hate and criticism she gets (over being a purposely annoying character! Insane! When Dazai exists!), when she does really and excellent job at conveying “look! A fucked up brainwashed individual in a fucked up brainwashing environment! I wonder how that could have happened!”. Not to mention that her growth, her long and devious way to admitting that the system is flawed, is truly well made, too. Unpopular opinion, characters with big flaws, characters who are unsufferable and make lives impossible to everyone around them, characters who mess up again and again, are actually great to watch.

Again, don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore Gino and Kou too ahah. They're both great!! But that you can probably see by your own. Gino in particular used to be my favourite, how his character does a total 180° turn. I love to see men admit their mistakes and make the choice to be better tomorrow.

About that, the relationships between the characters are AMAZING. Especially the main trio Akane / Kou / Gino, all the combinations within it are beautiful and deep and brilliant, so so enjoyable to explore and with their fair share of canon content, while still never straying to romantic territory (I mean, Akane/Kou may be going in that direction, but if that's true, that's the slowest slow burn I've ever witnessed in my life).

What's more. The world building / general premise - a dystopian world, where your predisposition to do crime can be measured and the government makes use of such technology to monitor and control the population and guarantee everyone's safety - is genuinely interesting and compelling. The aesthetic is genuinely cool (AH, now that I think about it, I've got my unfair bias for people in suits, and pp has a LOT of people in suits… ). The opening and endings feature great artists like Egoist, Ryo, Who-ya Extended and Cö shu Nie, so you're sure to love them!!

(Also, Psycho-Pass is something I used to spend entire nights talking about with a friend, and I'm always thinking about her and hold her tight to my heart in every moment so. That's worth mentioning for me, pfffttt. I love my friend so much.)

Finally, because the other Psycho-Pass post I made here keeps haunting me for the lack of trigger warnings, please be aware: Psycho-Pass DOES have trigger warnings. Pretty much for eveything you can think of. Sexual assault and gore and body horror on the top of my mind, but it's quite dark and gritty at parts in its entirety, so please please keep that in mind if you decide to pick it up.

Well, this is the end of my Psycho-Pass love letter for now. Please give it a chance if you can! I'll go rewatch it now. General watch order, in order of release, is season 1 → season 2 → movie → Sinners of the System movie trilogy → season 3 → First Inspector movie → Providence movie. I don't really like the third season or First Inspector movie (the characters are still great tho, even the newly introduced ones), and I've yet to watch Providence. The first season later came out with an extended edition of added scenes between episodes, and they're quite nice, so if you can't get ahold of it, you might want to look up for a compilation of the missing scenes still.

[charmwasjess]

The energy I want to cultivate for myself here in the second month of 2024 is pure henchman vibes. Real crony-level evil goon shit. Who else here be standing in the background nodding ominously when a greater villain is speaking?

[deltastorm101]

more shots because i can't stop

credit: sam lake, seth cuddeback