#how to use archetypes

[ancientroyalblood]

The Role of Archetypes in Character Development

Archetypes have been a cornerstone of storytelling for centuries, acting as the universal templates that resonate with readers across cultures and time. These foundational character types, often derived from mythology, psychology, and folklore, provide writers with a framework for creating compelling and relatable characters. In this blog, we’ll delve into what archetypes are, how they function…

[moshaeu]

phainon and heroism

[inbabylontheywept]

Soviet Birds.

The secret facility that I work in has holes in the ceiling. We don't know how to get them fixed.

We tried asking the government to fix it, once. We told them that the holes in the older parts of the facility had gotten large enough to fit birds through, and that birds were getting through, and that, perhaps, a Soviet Spy could fit through as well.

After all, it is well known that Soviet Spies and pigeons are approximately the same diameter.

Our hope was that that this vague and nonsensical threat would put a little fire under Uncle Sam's feet. If the fed couldn't be bothered to give a shit about the giant gaping holes in the roof of our facility, perhaps they could be persuaded to give a shit about... Soviet Spies.

This attempt at manipulation 100% blew up in our faces.

See, the government does not need to be persuaded to give a shit about Soviet Spies. It still wakes up most nights, drenched in cold sweat, terrified and confident that a Soviet Spy is hiding in their nightstand. If it sees a rock on the ground, it flips it over, pistol drawn, ready to shoot the Soviet Spy it fully expects to slither out from underneath. Which is to say: The government is crazy. So when we dropped those two words - inflitration risk - in the repair request, they came in guns-a-blazin'.

Does that mean that they fixed the roof? Of course not. Don't be stupid. No, instead of performing basic maintenance, they installed a state of the art alarm system throughout the facility - lasers, sonar, the works - and told us to always be on the guard. Because of the roof holes.

Then they left.

So now we had an extremely good alarm system... and birds. Which have combined in incredibly obvious and predictable ways to produce an unending fountain of problems.

For Example: About once a month, someone gets called in by the local airforce dispatch because AAAAAAAAAAA a Spy is in the Rad Lab! We're all gonna die! Except every time, it's a bird. And I get why we have to check, but every time, the dispatcher is panicked and the person going out has to be like listen, listen: It's a bird. It's always a bird. It's been a bird every month for the last fifteen years. It will be a bird next month. All this stress? Bad for your heart.

Second Example: Sometimes, birds get in while we're actually working. And when it's in the morning, you know, it's a nuisance, and it stops testing (we are not going to risk irradiating a bird) but it's not an all-hands-on-deck situation because it doesn't take ten hours to get a bird out. But surprisingly often, the bird gets in riiiiight at closing time, and in that situation, everyone goes feral because nobody can leave until the alarm is set, and we cannot set the alarm while the bird is there, because the bird would immediately trigger it and then we'd have to stay another 4 hours to confirm that it was not a Soviet Bird.

So in order to go home, everyone's top priority is Get That Bird. And we have a system for it.

Step 1: The test stands tend to be located in rooms with 30+ foot ceilings. We can't catch birds in places like that - so we have to lure the bird into the relatively low ceilinged (8 feet only) upper offices.

We do this by turning all the lights off in the test rooms, then putting floodlights by the exits. I don't know why this works - some kind of evolutionary brain fragment shared by both Bugs and Birds - but work it does. The birds almost always follow after the lights. From there, it’s just two guys moving the floodlight and a third guy to turn off the lights.

Step 2: Everyone else has been waiting for this step. There is this long stairway up from the basement level into the offices, and in the final stage, the floodlights are brought to the base of the stairwell to bring the bird up. At the top of the steps there will be a group of tennish people, waiting for the signal. The light guys will set up the final transfer, everyone will tense, and then, swish...a bird will flit up the stairs and into the offices.

It's like watching werewolves on a full moon. Before the bird cometh, we are engineers. Nerds. Pale and skinny things, trembling under the fluorescent lights. After the bird, we are beasts. Feral, gnawing things, glowing under the orange sunrise of the 70's halogen floodlights.

And like all beasts, we cannot help but give chase.

Step 3: The were-engineers begin the hunt. The goal at the start is not really to catch the bird - just exhaust it. So the pack simply does not relent. Because the stakes are going home on time, the group is basically given free reign to go anywhere in the building. If someone's door is open, and the bird goes inside, they're going to have to deal with ten sweaty panting maniacs leaping around their office. They don't get to say that they're busy, or remark on how all this movement is a terrible distraction. They are allowed to sit in silence during the chaos, and perhaps thank the war party for chasing the bird while they sat comfortably on their ass. This has been explained several times, and it will continue to be explained until cooperation is achieved.

Anyway.

The chase can go on for quite some time. Sometimes, the bird will get tired and find a crevice to hide in, where it can then be reached through standard cornered-bird catching techniques.

Other times, it will slow down enough that someone can actually yoink it out of the air. But this will go on until someone catches the bird and triggers Step 4.

Step 4: The Finale. This is the get-the-bird-out-of-the-building stage, and it requires someone to adopt a specific role: To Become the Sacrificial Vessel of Bird Removal.

This job is both coveted and feared. It's coveted, because holding a wild bird in one's hands is a precious thing. To feel how small, and fragile, and scared it is, only to free it from the building? That is what it's like to be a benevolent God. But the cost! Oh, the cost. The entire time the Vessel is in motion, the bird will be biting the hell out of their fingers. And I cannot emphasize enough just how painful bird bites are. Their entire face is a set of needle posed pliers, and they know tricks the even the cartels haven't figured out yet. So there's always a little hubbub about who shall be The Vessel while onlookers, stranded outside The Office of Bird Capture, can only look on. Quiet arguments and pleas are heard, little fragments of fear and pride and glory trickling out of room like the silver dust left behind in a bag of well shook quarters. The sound of concensus is silence, and the argument will go on until that's all that's left. And then, from the darkness of the final office, the chosen sacrifice will step forward: Hands gently cupped, tears streaming down their face, fingers trembling from the pain of the ongoing bird chomps.

And this scene is what organizes people. Not leadership, not truly. No one can think and coordinate a crowd while their fingers are being attacked with a combination nutcracker/ear piercer. But the crowd sees the suffering of their annointed, and it is driven to do everything poossible to make the process flow. People instinctively flair out, finding the fastest path outside. Doors are held open. Paths are cleared. Someone, somehow, always knows the way forward and can describe it to the sufferer. Left, left, forward. Corner closet. Yep, there's a hall in there. Forward. Two-hundred more feet man, you're doing great. Just hold it together a little longer. You're killing it.

Then the final door swings open, and the bird flees out into what remains of daylight. And yet, even here, the deed is not yet done. I cannot explain it in words, but the crowd that helped is never content until they can see and speak on the Bird Vessel's wounds. They all have to pull the fingers back and see what was given. Estimate the price: One day to get better - No, three - No, a week! Are you blind? Do you see that blood blister? -Yeah, that's not going away anytime soon - Damn, can you believe how feisty those things are? Like wolves without teeth.

(They cannot help but touch as they go. It has always been this way. Even Thomas was not content until he felt the wounds in Christ's hands.)

Only when the last of the helpers has seen, and commented, and commended, will the engineers scatter. It is their return from the underworld that announces to the sun living surface dwellers that they too can go home. (@somerunner tolja it needed to be a post.)

[dammit-tazmuir]

Reasons I do think Mercymorn is genuinely one of the most visually stunning people in the TLT universe, has been at least top 5 for 10,000 years, and was also crazy hot (if on a more normal scale) pre-Resurrection:

A lot of Mercy's lines do revolve around looks and formalities and appearances. ("And it's ugly of you to call him that" etc.) It's something she puts a lot of thought and likely effort into. She says she's "not wearing the right dress" for the fancy dinner party (itself showing concern for appearance), and Augustine insists the dress she already just happened to be wearing casually was perfect as-is, implying she often dresses really nice. -

We know flesh magic can be used to alter one's appearance, including longterm, based on things like Ianthe cursing Harrow to ceaseless haircuts. Mercy is the single greatest master specialist of flesh magic who has ever existed, frankly above even John, at least in skill even if not in scale, and "no signs of age touched those eyes", etc. -

The above is a good candidate for exactly what "animaphilia" as a school is, which makes Mercy calling Ianthe "one of those animaphiliacs" and being an overwhelming hypocrite about it extremely funny. -

Harrow, or Gideon narrating Harrow's perception, does think Mercy's eyes, terrifying and cruel as they are, are also dreamy and beautiful. -

Being a woman in STEM for so long sucks. But imagine being one of the 21st century's foremost medical specialists, to a point that no one alive can do what you do, and also you're conventionally hot as hell. Not even always heels and makeup or anything, though sometimes that, but partly just the kind of looks that make even an overworked mess a hot overworked mess. Imagine the kind of attention she'd command, wanted and unwanted. Imagine the level of spite and condescension involved when she does bother putting effort into it, the level of "look upon me and cry, but if you get near me I will rip your nuts off and feed them to you." The intimidation factor she could manage. Imagine this energy being cultivated all through high school, uni, med school, and years working in medical research before she ever met the cryo team. Imagine the cryo project being the BEST group she ever worked with longterm. Like. Do you see the vision. Can you see that kind of background extra feeding into why she's Like This. Do you feel me.

[silveredsticks]

I think we're motivated enough Jack Hughes media scrum 4 Nations 20 Feb 2025

[foundfamilywhump]

day 100000 of me seeing a post about 'care/whumpers' and thinking 'that is literally just a whumper who is nice sometimes. you are literally just describing a whumper'

[a-daydreaming-angel]

Y’all… how we feeling about Past shadow milk with a beard..?

[starbuck]

Was thinking earlier about “People are not stupid, Ives.” “Really?” and how Ives’ self-centered misanthropy is so important within the larger thematic context of American Imperialism. Imperialists prioritize their own interests over all others since they believe that those they have deemed “others” are unworthy of human consideration. On an individual level, this comes down to believing that you are better than other people, more worthy of life and happiness. 

This is how Hart ends up working with Ives as a willing coconspirator… Even before Colqhoun’s arrival, Hart clearly looks down on the other residents of Fort Spencer. He describes them so uncharitably to Boyd that it isolates Boyd from everyone before he’s even met them. Hart hates his job and the life he lived that got him there and he copes by believing that he is, at least, a superior type of person to everyone under his command. 

In that way, Hart killing his former comrades in cold blood doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s the logical conclusion of his superior, misanthropic perspective pushed to the extreme. He’s better than them, so why SHOULDN’T he kill and eat them? Don’t you understand? You have to KILL! to live! You have to KILL!!!!!!! 

[silverskye13]

Did Tanguish ever return his library book?

Nope! He still has it.

Little menace needs to hurry up or they'll start charging his library card.

[cinnaminsvga]

just realized i have a terrible illness where i’ll read any bangtan fic and if yoongi makes an appearance, even if hes just a side character, i will still unknowingly want him to be end game 🤕

pictured: me upset because i keep playing myself

[greenerteacups]

Hermione, in both canon and often in fanon, seems to have predominately male friendships and kind of difficult time building strong relationships with women (Lavender, Fleur, etc.). Even initially with Luna, Hermione was particularly skeptical and had a rocky start.

What's your theory on why this is?

Hermione, especially in the early books, is written by an author who treats her unfemininity as a quality that makes her different from, and superior to, other girls. Hermione is self-serious, intellectual, and decisive, which are classically masculine virtues, which Hermione (and the author) are aware of; and so Hermione eschews femininity in any number of ways. The other girls at Hogwarts, meanwhile, with the exception of Ginny, are often portrayed as shallow, vapid, flirty (count the number of times Lavender or Parvati "giggles" or goes "oooh"), hyperemotional, and boy-obsessed. Meanwhile, Hermione is intense, driven, and oblivious to other people's feelings — in many respects "boyish." Not until the later books, when both the characters and their writing starts to mature, is humanity offered to people like Cho Chang or Fleur Delacour — and even then, Lavender's arc in sixth year is this remarkably mean subplot where a sixteen-year-old girl becomes the butt of endless jokes because she has the audacity to... act silly around her crush. (If you think "Won-Won" is a bad nickname, you need to go see what actual teens in relationships call each other, because I'm telling you, Ron has it easy.)

The narrative wants you to know that Hermione is special, and her specialness is underscored by her difference from other women. In canon, she buys into that specialness, which leads to a degree of disdain for other girls that's fueled by a superiority complex and internalized misogyny. I say this as someone who adores her, and adores her in her complexity: Hermione has trouble forming friendships with women because she believes that she is Not Like Other Girls, and her author agrees with her.

[charmfamily]

@smok3inm1rrors said he couldn't wait to see Damien in his full on hipster era when I posted scenery shots of The Watchtower so…  My contribution to Pride Month Edits! "Writer" boyfriend who doesn't actually write so much as he poses with typewriters and laptops in cafes for aesthetic Castergram photos and Photographer boyfriend who takes all the Castergram photos.

[crocodilenjoyer]

i think it’s kinda funny how many differences there are between oda’s genderbends (understandable; they are largely not good) and the variety among the fan designs, and despite it all, the one character whose depictions stay remarkably consistent is doflamingo. like everyone looked at this and went Perfect. No notes

why is that. is it because doflamingo in any form is just pure, concentrated Shitty Toxic Relative You Have To Put Up With. is it the cunty little outfits. is it because he’s a diva. is it because what’s wrong with him is so deeply entrenched in his character that it exclusively manifests in one way.

[brw]

Look I don't want to insult people for enjoying O5 X-Men and I'm not saying I'm hating this experience but it really does stand out how they really tried to force the O5 into different dynamics that were successful on other books because they could never really get them to stick like the other groups. As I've mentioned now multiple times they are heavily based off the Fantastic Four in many iterations and ways, and they just straight up copy and pasted the Coffee Bean Gang concept over to try and make something work. It's just something that really sticks out and it makes it kind of difficult to take people seriously when they talk about From The Ashes or IvX being the worst X-Men era like they weren't floundering for the first decade.

[friendofthecrows]

As always, (no pressure) reblog for more votes, etc. <3

[mrstellmeafuckingsecret]

there's a muslim james post going around and it's making me Feel Things