#i also think i can probably solve a lot of my problems with that whole thing if i just add some margins and padding and borders

[phoenixcatch7]

If there's one thing I like more than time travel it's crossover reincarnation, so.

Botk link reincarnated as Damian Wayne.

An incredible weapon master of all types, but especially prodigious with a sword - he was beating knights at the age of 4 and with his memories as intact as they get for him I can see that goalpost moving even further (probably with traps and tricks, a 3yo doesn't exactly have great bodily control).

He's an excellent survivalist, agile, strong, durable, cunning and creative. He can move like a feather in the breeze, strike from behind with ease. His first kill, an animal, did not stir him as it did the other children. With his poise, grace, skills, obedience, he ought to be ra'as' finest assassin in the making, a jewel in the crown of the league.

Except he never speaks a word. Half his targets escape unscathed. He skates by true punishment on the merit of his skills and achievements in other missions. Testing has shown it is not a physical deformity that prevents his speech, but not even talia has been able to coaxe a word from him past his second birthday.

It is a defect ra'as is growing more and more frustrated by, as each attempt to fix these two final flaws ends in resounding failure. Less extreme solutions are running dry.

Talia fears those solutions. Her child does too, she knows. For them, there is a possible solution, more extreme than anything ra'as would tolerate.

She sends him out of the league. To his father.

To Gotham.

[fingertipsmp3]

I love reading because you’ll be like “okay let me just finish this chapter and then I’ll get some work done” and at the end of the chapter in question the main character gets sealed into a tomb against his will

[tealvenetianmask]

More about Blitz and anger . . .

Anger is a super stigmatized emotion. That's for a reason- it's powerful. When we see it from other people it's usually externalized- it's ugly, aggressive, shows up in abusive situations- it sometimes leads to violence. But when we talk about righteous anger, or the anger of marginalized people, we sometimes praise it. That's because anger can be empowering too.

I want to talk about how Blitz's anger, while it's also destructive at times, has empowered him.

Personal note: when I was a kid, I was yelled at frequently by my mother. The house I grew up in was a 60's rancher with a long hallway in the center, and she would chase me down the hallway yelling. As I grew older, I learned to yell back. Feeling anger and externalizing it didn't make the hurt go away, and it didn't solve our problems- it turned us into two people yelling at each other- but it did make me feel less helpless.

So let's look at Blitz as a kid. In addition to guilt tripping him, his father tells him that "there are scarier things," than stealing from a wealthy and (literally) powerful family, and he doesn't disagree. I think this screenshot captures their relationship pretty well.

We see moments of defiance from Blitz though, even as he's very much under Cash's control. Georgia Dow pointed this out in her video about how Blitz learned resilience in his childhood. Here, have some defiant expressions:

Notice Blitz's eyebrows here, mirroring his father. I suspect that as he grew older, Blitz learned to push back harder, to argue, maybe even to yell. He learned to channel his anger- at being used, diminished, devalued (very likely yelled at and probably physically hurt too) into expression, into fight (I don't picture him physically fighting Cash, but the guy has fight in him- of all kinds).

He learned to feel angry at the world and express that too- for treating imps as lower than other demons, for limiting his options in life, for filling the road to success with exploitation (as we see in the Mammon flashbacks with Fizz).

Speaking of that flashback, he's very ready, as a teenager, to express anger exactly when he needs to for the purpose of protecting a loved one.

Fast forward to the present.

Blitz's anger helps him stand up for the people he cares about- see Fizz in the present at Mammon's show but also Moxxie in Spring Broken.

It helps make him good at his job too. When we see him fight, he doesn't tend to seem all out enraged, but he's super determined and all in. He's at home in a conflict. When he's doing his best fighting, we see a mix of the "angry" facial expressions and pure confidence.

Anger also helps him manage a lot of difficult emotions. Disclaimer (and idea I'll get back to soon)- I said manage, not deal with.

When he interacts with Verosika and with Robo Fizz early in season 1, there's genuine underlying pain from how the relationships with Verosika and the real Fizz ended, but he channels that into anger. The anger makes him take action (Good action? Eh. But still action- he's not crying on his couch.) rather than get consumed by more painful emotions. He's able to keep going.

It also gets in his way, even as he uses it as a coping mechanism. Is his anger at Muffy and the Karen in the doctor's office understandable as he's dealing with his frustration about the inaccessibility of healthcare for Loona and his worries about losing Stolas? Yes. Is it helpful? No, probably not.

It isn't useful with Stolas either. Stolas is this person who's kind and beautiful and quirky and able to match his wit, and who Blitz has grown genuine feelings for, but who is also deeply entwined in the unfairness in Hell's society that Blitz has grown to resent throughout his life- AND Stolas unknowingly participates in some very familiar microaggressions himself.

Blitz channels a whole range of complicated emotions- love, fear, despair at the thought that he isn't loved back- all into anger because he HAS been wronged and his world IS unfair, and anger is COMFORTABLE because anger is ACTIVE, and with it he doesn't have to just let things happen to him!

So we end up back here.

[havocskies]

HOBIE BROWN HEADCANONS | NSFW

im iffy on writing actual smut bc id be reconsidering a lot in my life during it but i am not above writing headcanons xoxo

honestly this is kinda jst me rambling but oh well take it anyway

╭──╯ . . . . . ༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶ . . . . . ╰──╮

• definitely wouldn’t be aggressive but not against throwing you around just a little (if you’re okay w that obviously)

• i don’t think he’d be absolutely nasty. like he’s clearly a bit freaky, he makes a joke abt biting in his intro but i can’t see him being crazy ??

• sony let us know he’s into biting n everyone jst ignored that we need to think abt that more.

• not entirely serious. he isn’t above making a few jokes every once in a while, especially if you’re a bit nervous

• back to that though if he tries to initiate something and he sees you’re even slightly unsure or nervous ?? it’s off. he’s asking what’s wrong immediately and if it’s solvable great, he’ll solve it if it isn’t it’s off. he has no problem leaving you be if you aren’t up to it, there’s no convincing involved

• wouldn’t be into anything extremely degrading, aggressive, or violent. to him that’s porn culture and he wants absolutely nothing to do with it, even if you asked. i just don’t think he’d get off to anyone being seriously hurt

• however he has no shame with a BIT of pain. he did make a biting joke so i mean

• i think light choking would be the worst he’s automatically willing to do or receive. ofc he’s willing to talk but it’d have to be a very detailed talk abt what both of you are okay w doing/receiving

• honestly i jst think talks like that wld be important to him in general. he doesn’t wanna overstep any boundaries, especially not during something as big as sex. he’d never try to introduce you to something before having a genuine conversation about it first

• aftercare is peak w this man. godsend. you’ll never get any better

• not rough all the time. yg write him to be like absolutely insane n aggressive in bed n i jst can’t see it. like hobie never once even raised his voice unless it was loud, like in his intro. nothing abt him was ever aggressive. i think maybe he’d have no shame being SLIGHTLY rough but i don’t think his intention would be to hurt you/see how much you can take ever

• i think most of the time he’d be pretty normal. he’d be paying complete attention to you jst to be sure you’re comfortable always, he’ll stop immediately if you aren’t

• honestly he’s probably a switch, i can see it. he has no problem giving or receiving, though there wld still have to be some talks abt some things LMAO

• i see comments on edits (even mine) abt how he switches positions a lot n it lowk made me giggle. i think he definitely would on occasion just to catch you off guard, but his whole hating consistency thing imo was a joke jst to mess w miles, half the things he said in his intro were to mess w miles

• probably not very experienced but he knows enough and learns fast. like i don’t think he would be into hookup culture or even care abt sex much but he isn’t clueless, yk ?? he knows what he’s doing at least

• doesn’t really ask for head. if you bring it up, great !! he obviously won’t complain ☠️ but to him i think it’d be more of a bonus, not something he expects from you

• i don’t think he’d be into rough head either. to him it’s about what YOU’RE comfortable doing and what YOU can do. he isn’t going to force you into doing anything. like if his hand is ever on your head it’s to hold your hair back and/or just love on you

• like i said he doesn’t really get off to seeing you struggle

• also idk if it’d be pierced. would he be above it absolutely not but that also involves a stranger handling and piercing your dick. if he did it himself, then maybe

• sex to him isn’t as important. he isn’t going to be all distraught if you aren’t ready or you jst don’t want to. it’s jst a bonus to him, obviously it’s important but your needs and thoughts are SIGNIFICANTLY more important to him than what he jst wants

[dduane]

Hope this isn't an ask you get all the time, but how do you track your progress when you're doing editing?

Everyone talks about word goals, and that seems fine for a first draft, but doesn't make sense to me when it comes to revisions. Do you have any kind of system for setting daily goals for your revisions?

Actually, I don't think anyone's ever asked me about this. :) So no sweat.

Briefly: I think you're wise in not attempting wordcounting in this phase of dealing with an MS—or trying to push yourself into a structure so rigid. ...There's this, too: there's a whole lot too much emphasis out there at the moment on trying to force yourself into other people's writing and editing paradigms—so many of them riddled with bar graphs and "demonstrable" daily progress. You need to find what works for you. More words dealt with in a day, sure, that's encouraging in its way. But are they the right words?

Today’s Writer Take that will probably strike some as Hot (and ask me if I care): Some kinds of writing progress are just neither graphically nor numerically quantifiable. And damned to the least TripAdvisorally-acceptable regions of [insert your preferred underworld here] be those who’ve tried to sell people the idea that they are.

(sigh)

Now, for what it's worth: here's how I do it. Which may be useful to other people, or not so much so. And that's fine, because I'm not editing their novels. :)

(Adding a break here. Under the cut: advice + advice = advice, and some images of text I shouldn't be letting y'all see just yet... but WTF.)

Revision for me is a fairly relaxed business—unless my editor has told me WE NEED THIS ON TUESDAY, which thank sweet Thoth on his e-bike is very rare.

It also helps that I like revising. (When I was a kid, I liked liver, too. And spinach. Just call me Miss Outlier and let's move on.) I really enjoy the feeling of the work’s rough edges being filed down and the sparse places being filled out.

And also: second draft/first revision draft is nowhere near as tense for me as first draft. Because, thank God, at least there's a book.

First draft is where I sweat blood and otherwise suffer. While I can see the story just fine in my head, it's not really real for me until the first draft, whole in narrative and action, is complete on paper/in the machine. And till it's achieved at least that level of reality, I can't relax.

But by the time I hit my second/revision draft, I can be confident that any really serious problems in the novel have already been solved—because I'm an outliner. In the outline stage, potential thematic or structural troubles will routinely have revealed themselves way long ago: before drafting even got started, as I first wired the story's bones together. The successfully-executed first draft acts as proof-of-concept for that structural wiring. By the time that draft’s done, it’s immediately apparent whether the skeleton can successfully stand up by itself. And gods is that a relief when it does! You’re tempted to jump around yelling “It's aliiiiiive!" as the lightning strikes around you.*

However, if after submitting that draft my editor's found something structurally or thematically troublesome in it that I've completely missed until this point, my first order of business becomes to fix whatever their notes involve and submit the fixes. Nothing further happens until the editor sees what I've done about those problems, and until I get agreement that whatever intervention I've enacted has now sorted the problems out.

After that, everything happens in bed.

(...casually noting that for a line to use somewhere else...) :)

But seriously: I do my best revision and editing before getting up in the morning.

Some of this is because, for me, the mind's nice and quiet and (theoretically) at least moderately well rested, right after sleep. I might take the briefest glance at my email first to make sure nothing urgent needs attention... but once that’s done, I refuse to let myself go any further down that hole. That early-morning calm is a mental state I'm glad to exploit, and one I jealously guard. On days when I'm forced to do without the working lie-in**, I use a different approach: when there's a pause, sit down and do nothing—no reading, no video, no music, no phone, nothing—for half an hour: then start editing. Routinely, the quiet I need will once more have fallen.

The in-bed-editing approach also works for me because (since I'm working in Scrivener) it's absolutely no big deal to finish a day's editing on a file by exporting a version of the file containing the day's edits to ebook format, and into my Dropbox. From there, in the morning, without ever getting out from under the covers, I can pull that .epub file into my tablet and read it as an ebook, making corrections and notes there.

This is what it looks like (on a page without too many corrections) if the app you're using is "Books" in an iPad. The second image is what you get when you touch on the marginal yellow square of the note to examine it.

Then, when I'm finished looking over the previous day's/evening's writing and adding notes to it, I go downstairs, get some caffeine in me, and make the changes in the main Scrivener file. (If I was running the project in question on the iPad version of Scrivener, I'd just make the change right there. But who knows when I'd actually get up, then? Better to do it this way.) :)

In the normal flow of things I'll attempt to deal with a chapter or two a day in this mode. (Always bearing in mind that my chapters in early drafts typically run long—often 10K or so—and I'm likely enough to rebreak them later.) This first level of revision is the easy one: catching typos and bad or clumsy phrasings, reworking character interactions that need smoothing out; adding better descriptive passages (with particular emphasis on staying in the visual, audio and tactile senses), etc., etc.

So again: no way I'd ever bother worrying about word counts, with these. What seems to count for more is giving yourself time to recognize, gradually, at a reader's pace, what's working in the prose and what isn't. Rush—or try to force the pace to a given number of words per day—and you run the risk of missing something vital. To me, at the tracking level, it seems sufficient to note which chapters have been dealt with, and which are still hanging fire. (I can change the chapters' color labels in Scrivener to make this status visible at a glance, if I need to.)

When everything's dealt with on this pass—which if I'm lucky will take no more than a couple/few weeks—I try to take a couple weeks off before dealing with the MS again. Sometimes that's possible: sometimes not. The longer you can leave the book alone to let your perceptions of it rest and reset themselves, the better. Distance—mental or temporal—seems to lend clarity.

In any case, for me, next comes another pass, tougher to describe. Casually, I refer to it as the "Missed Opportunities/Complications" pass. This is a thing that one of the very best writers I know, John M. Ford, used to do. One of his editors (I think it was) came across him working on an MS one time, and asked him what he was doing. "Complications," Mike muttered. "Removing them?" said his editor. Mike shook his head. "Adding them," he said.

In this pass you look for in-novel connections you've previously missed making. Some dramatic moments have their impact significantly increased if you've found a way to connect them, even casually, with previous events, situations, character thoughts, or dialogue. (The cheap and easy mnemonic for this kind of thing: "Say a thing twice, and it echoes. Say it three times, and it resonates.")

Equally, events (and people) may turn out to require more complex backstory than you've given them in your first draft; so this is where you take care of that. And of course there are almost certainly character and emotional interactions that can use attention; fewer words, more depth, more complexity. What things do these people, in this situation, need to say to one another that they haven't? And also, what drama got scamped or passed up on because you were just too damn tired in the last draft? —Because you too, poor baby, are human; and that state can, entirely logically, make you want not to deal with any more damn drama just now. Even though drama is the lifeblood of your narrative, usually, and tying a tourniquet around it really doesn't help. You are the conduit of power into your narrative, and your varying ability to conduct it is always an issue… so you need to keep an eye open for places where the flow may have temporarily failed.

This pass, ideally, might take no more than another few weeks or a month. And again, I'm not sure any attempt at wordcount tracking would do this work any good. Because, again... are they the right words? And to make the narrative more effective, you may wind up removing as many words as you added in previous passes.

Finally, with all things taken together, I usually reach a point where (by myself, anyway) I can't think of anything to do that'll make this book any better. That's where there then comes—and again, impossible to assign a word count to it—a time when you know you're as Done As You Can Be. If you've been doing this long enough, you may even hear a strange kind of sigh in the back of your head, as the book gives up and lets go...

...into the next stage of production. But even then you keep an eye on it… because in my experience it’s rare that any book's ever that easily just finished. Even in page proofs, something may happen to surprise you.

Anyway, that's when I throw the book the hell out of the house—because no matter how much I've loved it previously, by that time I'm usually seriously tired of it—and wait to see whether the editor feels it needs one more draft. (Disclosure: this has never happened. There might be a few notes that need to be handled. But another full draft? Never yet.)

Anyway: hope this is of help to you.

But the heart of it all? Find your own way, and screw the bar graphs.

*That line, too, is an indicator of trouble to come. "It's?" Not "he's"? Tsk tsk.

**Usually sort of 7-9 AM. Sometimes way earlier, depending on the time of year. Dawn comes real early in the summertime in Ireland…

[decolonize-the-everything]

I hate democrats with all my very heart but I can't in good faith advise to vote 3rd party in these hell years when they would see every trans person hang and be off hormones. When the transphobia is not at its height (Eg, like. a few years ago) I would 100% agree with you, but the stakes are too high. If the states falls to transphobia, even more countries will follow it. I think it's harmful to consider not voting D this upcoming election. Once they got off tihs current bend, I could get behind where you are coming from.

"this is helpful and not lacking critical analysis at all"

"if the states fall to transphobia"

Where have you been?

GA & VA are blue states this year btw. It's gotten worse since May and and April, too. The mid terms didn't save anyone.

Also if you, the person reading this, have considered voting 3rd party pls know it's not nearly as unpopular or as unlikely of a win as Democrats want you to think it is.

People would vote for a good 3rd party candidate, actually.

Dems convincing you its a long shot is absolutely a self-preserving psyop hoping to convince you otherwise. Its a half-assed theory that blatantly denies what we learned from 2016 and can still see in polls.

And that's 3rd party candidates stand a shot of they can get in the primaries for the general election. People want progressives. People were pissed and turned to voting for Trump when Sanders fell out- not Clinton.

They need and want another option and it's not a long shot or unlikely. They just need to make it to the primaries.

Enter Cornel West

Cornel West is not running as a Democrat and thus does not need to battle Biden for a spot on the general ballot in November of 2024....

✨ Which gives you and all your friends plenty of time to learn about him ✨

So here are some of his policies and also his campaign site

I'm a decolonial anarchist that hates the state and sees voting as nothing as upholding the state. I make no room for Democrats because Democrats lack the ambition to challenge anything about it.

But unless Cornel West drops out or ends up being some awful closeted abused... Im going to vote for him.

A lot of his politics and campaign goals align with my politics. I wouldn't feel like I was settling if I voted for him.

And a lot of this stuff isn't unreasonable or unrealistic either. Like I just made a post about how the NDAA budget proposal for 2024 is being increased with enough money to solve clean water, homelessness, and implement free college tuition for the whole USA. And Republicans are fighting for more.

And that's just the budget for two years, it'll probably be increased by another hundred billion in a couple years. Nobody blinks when the military budget is swelling like that.

But we should when we can be using that kind of money to solve real problems that real people are having and face and would change lives literally overnight. They just throw that money at the military where most of us never see it again.

But this stuff can be real.

[whatsthelimitoncharacters]

So, in my opinion, Athena is probably dead. I think that it’s dumb and doesn’t make sense but the listening party animatic definitely implies she’s dead

Here we have some before and after pictures. When I first saw the livestream, I assumed that she was just gonna pass out and that people were overreacting. However, the glow fading really implies that she is in fact dead.

Shortly before the earlier images, we see Athena kind of holding onto life with her glow flickering. We can assume she is almost dead because Ares asks if she’s even alive(I will return to this). All this considered, despite the fact she isn’t glowing in a lot of scenes in this song(such as Odysseus showing her Telemachus), her glow fading really does show that she is probably dead.

If you need some evidence from the songs, we can also get some without looking at the animatics. First and most importantly, Ares asks if Athena is dead. While Ares isn’t the most respected god and many would label him as kind of dumb, he would probably know that gods can’t die if that’s the case. Him asking this does show that a god can, in theory, die. If you want mythological precedence, you can look at how Pan died(I know that there’s a bit of debate to that but idc). Another piece of evidence is actually Calypso saying “Last i checked, goddesses can’t die.” Many people take this as proof that Athena is incapable of death but it’s already been established by major gods that a god/goddess could die and there’s a mythological precedent, so calypso may be lying. In honesty, she isn’t being entirely untruthful in saying that she can’t die. Odysseus is just a half dead mortal king and Zeus is the single most powerful god. Odysseus can’t kill calypso while Zeus could kill Athena. This segues very well into how this line fits into the larger saga. Instead of this line acting as foreshadowing for Athena’s survival, it instead acts as tragic irony for Odysseus. Athena is Odysseus’ only chance at leaving and she dies. The irony comes because Odysseus’ problem could be solved if only a different goddess had died. The wrong goddess died and now it’s up to Zeus to decide whether Odysseus should be set free.

Now, if I’m correct, then I have a lot of feelings about this. If I’m wrong I have slightly less. If I’m right, you can see my previous post for a lot of my reasons why I think athena dying is a bad decision, but I’ll give one here. Gods don’t die. Pan is the only death I can think of (not counting stuff like Helios disappearing over time) and the phrasing of pans death could also be interpreted as the cult of Tammuz praising him for his one myth. Even characters that are treated as mortal like Medea (both her parents are minor gods so she probably should be too) don’t get myths where they die. Medea just runs off to a far away land. Kronos is sliced to bits. Typhon is sealed under Mount Etna. Kronos’ children are swallowed whole. ATHENA’S MOTHER GAVE BIRTH IN ZEUS’ HEAD. IT DOESNT MAKE SENSE THAT ATHENA COULD DIE. If she isn’t dead, why is the animatic like that? Jorge had to have commissioned it. I doubt the animator would have added that in on their own. Why would it be framed so much like she’s dead if she wasn’t.

[alexanderwales]

Pitchposting: Generation Ship

(Pitchposting is a way of giving away ideas that threaten to grow in my mind until they become draft documents. They are free to a good home, though there's no guarantee that I won't try to write them at some point.)

Alright, hear me out: it's a generation ship, one expected to reach its destination with an entirely new generation of people who never knew the homeland, except instead of being a scifi concept, we're doing it as mundane as possible.

I think this is one of those ideas that only appeals to me because I immediately start thinking about the logistics of it all, and there's something in the mundane, gritty realism that really appeals to me. Mostly I'm worldbuilding and problem solving, trying to get at what it would actually be like for people to have been at sea their entire lives, to have a ship that either needs to endure the waves or be rebuilt as it goes.

I was going to say that this needs to be fantasy, but I guess technically it can be an Alderson Disk or something. An Alderson Disk has a habitable circumference of approximately a billion kilometers, a sailing ship can go maybe eighty miles a day, that's a ballpark of 12.5 million days to circumnavigate the disk, which is 34,000 years. That's a hell of a lot of generations, twice as long as we've had agriculture. (But you could also just have it be a fantasy world that's larger than our own, with a generation ship that was only trying to flee to greener pastures that are a hundred years away.)

The purest version of this story is a world that's just water, to match the void of space. The ship sails, repairs are made from flotsam and jetsam and driftwood from unspecified places, rainwater is caught and put into barrels, pitch is used for patching, fish and kelp are hauled up from the ocean, birds are captured from the sky, and the ship must necessarily endure storms and swells.

I've always felt there was something compelling about constrained living situations, places where everyone knows everyone and you have to make it work because there's absolutely no way out — where you're on a knife's edge because there's only so much preparation you can do. A generation ship needs to think about absolutely all of its needs and how it will deal with the deterioration of all things over time, along with problems that might only crop up once every hundred years, or problems that won't become apparent until long after the ship has left the dock.

Let's say you have a sailing ship the size of one of the largest sailing vessels of the 19th century, a thousand people all told. The families are carefully braided to prevent accidental incest, everyone has their position in life, every master has at least one apprentice but probably more so gout or cancer don't eliminate the last person who knew how to make more pitch.

This is clearly an Idea story, one that starts with a ridiculous premise and then explores it, but one of my favorite things about idea stories is finding the characters and the conflicts within them. For a generation ship, the biggest, most obvious conflict is the conflict between generations: the old people who once knew dry land, the middle generation who will likely die before the destination is reached, and the children who will be the beneficiaries of all this travel.

We have a woman who was born to the sea, who loves the sea, who loves the travel and takes great joy in knowing that she's probably not going to see the end of it until she's ancient. We have the grizzled sailor who's nearly risen to the rank of captain and sees the whole mission as utter foolishness. A boy of thirteen who is obsessed with writing stories about the land they've set off toward and keeps his telescope on the horizon, hoping that the predictions were off, that they're somehow two decades early. A girl of sixteen who doesn't feel suited to the marriage that's planned for her, who is secretly in love with her best friend. A scientist who has been quietly advancing the state of knowledge with every new fish brought up from the deeps.

And then there's the plot, which there are so, so many options for. I would start the novel with simple sailing, a few chapters of the daily routine, the personalities, their petty fights with each other, and the stress of being in the middle of unfathomably deep waters whose depths are only glimpsed when the nets bring up something new. Then ... an island, another ship, sea creatures that have a glimmer of intelligence, a storm that makes the ship limp, spoilage that threatens starvation unless drastic action is taken, a political squabble that might bring all the plans crashing down.

Maybe it's a book about being trapped by the past, or about hanging on by what feels like a delicate thread, or about how systems are fragile and careful thinking and brave leadership are the only things that will get us through.

Mostly I think I want to be a geek about a ship that needs to survive in the ocean for a hundred years, and I do not have the time to write this novel, not when there are so many other novels to write.

[theredponcho]

Crazy 6 In The Morning Theory!

I have a theory on why the key in rottmnt is indestructible. The prison demention IS the key or rather the prison demtion is located inside the key.

I have some evidence to back my claim.

Evidence A: The flash back scene.

I can’t find the photo to show what I’m talking about but if you go back in the movie you’ll see what Im about to talk about. In the flash back scene went the great warriors were using the key, instead of showing a visual of a portal sucking up the aliens or the warriors forcing the Krang into a portal or just showing them disappear what do they show us. The Krang all being sucked INTO the key. Now this very well could have just been a stylistic choice but at the same time it could have been intentional.

Evidence B: the whiteboard scene

Again I could not find the image of April and Splinter in front of a white board but luckily for this one I don’t think I need a image to describe what I’m about to talk about. During the movie, the movie tried to make it clear to us the veiwer that the key is indestructible meaning no matter how many lasers you chuck at it the thing will stay right there solid bo scratches no nothing. Now why is that?

In some ways it feels like a design flaw if you were to put a animal in the cage one would think the first thing anyone would do was to get rid of the key to make sure said thing has no means of obtaining it or getting out. The first warriors were the ones to make the key so they probably would have had some means of destroying it or they at least would have thought to hide it in a place no one can obtain it or even better lock it in a different demention like they did with the shredder.

But maybe If the key was litterly the prison demention it would make a lot more since why it would be indestructible. You dont want to destroy the means of where your keeping your prisoners it defeats the purpose. I can also see them wanting to keep a close eye on the key to make sure nothing tried to escape it or break out. Suddenly everything makes a little bit more sense. Also if you were creating a demention out of no where you would need a place to put it. You would want it to be a place thats easy to find and get to at any time and be easy to watch. If you were hiding it you would want the place to seem inconspicuous, somewhere that could be in plain sight, somewhere that no one would think it would be, maybe in a place where it can easily be moved or hidden. So why not put it in something rather then put it somewhere. This way you can always have it be watch 24-7 you can move and hide it easily and no one would think that a whole pocket demention would be in your pocket. For all we know they could have been treating this item like the shredder tea kettle till they died and lost it along the way.

Evidence C: Style

The key has a lot of intrusting design choices litteraly and in a sort of metaphorical figurative sense. The movie makes the key seem very similar to pandora’s box. Once you open it its almost impossible to put all the evils back in that box and you have to live with the consequences.

Also went you first think of a key the first thing that comes to mind is probably your standard house key 🔑 for a lot of people myself included. The designers however decided to make it a clinder like container. Almost like it wasn’t really ment to be a key in the since that you would use it to open a door. It was more of a key in the since that it was the key to solving their alien problems. The key shape kinda reminds me more of one of those time capsules that you would find underground. It looks more like something thats ment to BE opened rather then OPEN something. Like the key wasn’t a key at all instead it was a doorway or a lock. Like a chest or a pringels can.

People also always like to point out that the key looks like a Hawaii teekie item which going back to the last evidence could have been intentional for having it be hidden in plain sight. Sure it looks unusual but I can also see it very much being a decoration piece in someones home or someone using it as some sort of paper weight. I could also see it being passed of as a artifact some one would dig up and put in a museum…wait.

Hope you liked my theory and I rest my case. Feel free to give your own evidence or thoughts I would love to read them.❤️

[tanadrin]

My suggestion to boost birth rates: 3-day-workweek

Again the kind of thing that might help at the margins a little, for people who want kids but are worried about having enough time to raise them, but the problem is a lot of people just don't want kids! And thanks to the sexual revolution, they don't have to have them! Which is good. Being raised by parents who don't want you probably sucks a lot. Having to have kids when you don't want to probably also sucks a lot.

Honestly, for marginal fixes that might really make a bigger difference, subsidizing childcare, reducing the social expectation to never let your kids out of your sight, and affording children (especially older children) more independence, to make the whole process of parenting easier, might also help a lot. Right now we demand extremely high engagement from parents for all 18 years of their kids' childhood to be considered a "good parent." And that's not only stressful for parents, it can be really oppressive for children, who should have lots of free time to spend with their peers. Given the world is much safer now than it is when our grandparents were kids, you would expect attitudes/anxieties around child safety to have gotten more relaxed over the decades, but the opposite has been true.

Also funding schools more so they can run social clubs and after school activities for kids to spend time with their peers and also figure out what hobbies/interests/sports they like also seems like it would be helpful, and so these things are not only the province of well-off upper-middle-class-and-wealthier children. Mass transit so that parents don't have to constantly shuttle older children to and from every activity they participate in. Better social safety net so people don't have to worry about having kids then falling into poverty and not being able to take care of them.

Idk, I just think this is a really hard problem that arises due to diverse factors, and can only be solved with a very diverse set of approaches.

[xviiper-rents-houses]

Yandere Sonic

Yes, yes, this is a bit of a random drabble. Grammar might not be the best but, hey, you get something! I'll probably do some writing for this guy later on, we'll see!

Sonic

Ah yes, the name of the games, comics and films: Sonic. Honestly, good character. He's smart, fast, funny and replies with quick combacks when battling enemies or participating in playful banter. Sonic has a bit of an ego as well, flamboyant and loves to show off, making you wonder why you should even root for him in the first place.

That's where the writers get you with Sonic constantly being humbled and told to slow down. His need for speed and impatience are two of the biggest weaknesses he bears, hindering Sonic from being whole. However, he learns from his mistakes and keeps trying; Sonic does not give up. Sonic also hyperfixates on problems that bother him, probably digging far too deeply into an issue that might not need that much solving, thus creating further problems.

That's where I get the idea that he could be a yandere. I mean, (this was mentioned in another blog) how scary would it be if he was your stalker? Petrifying, I'll tell you that. Honestly, you could be minding your own business, going on a simple walk or maybe doing a favorite hobby, being followed by Sonic and when you turn your back, there's no trace of your stalker.

Here's what makes it even better, (or worse, depending upon how you feel) Sonic in my interpretation would absolutely focus on you. Sure, he'd still interact with other characters but, you are his top priority. He'd chose you over anything. Sonic's good at putting up an act, he can downplay any accusations with his good reputation and charm.

Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss. Sonic doesn't give up, as mentioned before, he will find a way to make you his. He's saved so many Mobians and Mobius itself alike, gone on interdimensional missions, fought in space; the blue hedgehog is a traveling connoisseur. Each adventure he went on, Sonic made it out alive and better than before. He's had a lot of down points, I see this as a reoccurring issue he has to deal with, and still, he finds a way out of it.

Perhaps his constant down points give him paranoia? I'm thinking with the amount of things Sonic has endured he'd be worried about losing you. Maybe not to the point of isolating you from the entire world, (I think Sonic would still let you speak to your friends under watchful eyes and listening ears) but he would make sure that he's always around and ready to protect you.

Yeaaaaah, that's about it. Let me know what you guys think! I'll probably work on writing some random drabbles about other characters, fanfics, y'know, the usual.

[parachutingkitten]

Jay = High Intelligence, Low Wisdom

Kai = Low Intelligence, High Wisdom

Essay about this concept below the cut

Now these are all just my interpretations of the characters, I don't necessarily have hard evidence on hand to back all this up, but here we go:

I've been trying to put my finger on the Kai smart/dumb duality, and I think I can finally somewhat make out my thoughts. Kai is not smart. Book smarts don't come easily to him, he's not great at math, he's not great at overly complex stratagizing- but he's got a LOT of great knowledge in him.

Take the dragon healing in DR. He might not intuitively know how different medicines work or why, but he's got injured enough that he knows that type of information is important to know, and so he's forced it into his head. He couldn't tell you why the blue goop helpped the dragon, but he knew that it would, and that it would be important to remember that it would.

He's pretty good at navigating complex social situations, because he's good at reading people. Having had a history with extreme emotions, he knows how to take them into account, and knows how important it is to do so, even if it's not necessarily logical. I hate to say this, but he's very emotionally intelligent, which sounds kinda like an insult but is actually insanely valuable, because humans are inherently emotional creatures.

He's got a solid basis of common sense, and is constantly looking at the bigger picture. That's why he can come up with the best outline for a plan, because he can not think through the details. Now, if he tries to implement a plan of his without consulting others, he's probably going to miss some very important details, and screw himself over. But, he's most likely to have the best basic premise for an effective plan. This is why his intuition is usually correct. He's not logically thinking through the most likely scenario given all available factors, he's looking at every problem from the birds eye view, and is easily able to fill in the blanks, because he sees the whole picture. You can not tell me this kid knew Lloyd was the Green Ninja because he used logical deduction to eliminate all other possibilities, he had a gut feeling based on realizing the value of human life.

Now, sometimes you need details. And Kai is not good at those. He sucks at those. Big time. But he's self aware enough to know when those times are (most of the time, sometimes he wastes all his lives in a video game before talking to anyone else).

The thing all of these points have in common is that he's lived a very full life while making very many mistakes, and he's learned from all of them. He learns from his dumb mistakes, and is wise enough to know which lessons are worth holding on to.

Jay on the other hand... does not learn from his mistakes. He's got a real thick skull.

Inside that skull is a really smart guy who intuitively latches on to engineering and science concepts. He's got a whole heck of a lot of information that his brain is holding onto simply because it can. This man is all about the details. He gets hyperfixated on details to the point where it's a problem. He's the most likely to solve the intricate problem facing the team, forget that they need to stay hidden, and yell "I did it!". Good at details, bad at big picture. This is also why he usually gives up hope so easily compared to the rest of the team. He can not think long term, he can not see the bigger picture like Kai can, so road blocks in the current plan seem insurmountable.

Sure, he might have rigged an old sailing ship with rocket boosters, but he couldn't unscramble "darnagom" his logical problem solving skills are not what's carrying him.

My standby for the Jay dumb/smart duality is that he should have a significant amount of William Osman energy to him. He's very smart, and can work out how to solve intricate problems and make insane builds, but if making said things is a dangerous or dumb idea has never once crossed his mind, and if it has, he has actively chosen to ignore it. Jay's intelligence is much more creativity based than I think a lot of people like to think. Engineering is about slapping crazy ideas together which barely hold together at first- and that's Jay's brand of smarts.

If you compare this to Zane, that's the vital component that his intelligence is missing- the creativity. He is VERY good at assessing options, but not so great at coming up with new solutions himself. He's running on pure logic and tested successes. He's also missing that social intelligence that Kai has. I'd venture to say that Zane is, by far the most gullible member of the team. If there is not a solid logical reason to doubt something, he is absolutely going to take it at face value. Point being, all the ninja have different smarts, and stupidities, let's not try to conflate them too much.

[eli-am-confused]

please tell me more about your au with Wiley, Sheila, Duke & Holloway :0

The general idea is that they grow up together and solve Hatchetfield “mysteries” which mostly involves throwing hands with cultists and saving people from becoming another missing persons case. I can see them solving smaller problems to, but I just can’t get the image of them punching cultists in the face out of my head. I imagine they’re also discovering stuff about Hatchetfield along the way.

This au is based on Scooby Doo and Solve It Squad with hints of Gravity Falls because of some obvious reasons. Basically, childhood friends from mid-elementary to the end of high school who get up to some serious hijinks. They split up after high school due to a multitude of factors but specifically after the Accident™️ which causes Holloway to make her deal. They do end up back in Hatchetfield and as a group in adulthood but that takes time and a LOT of stuff happens before then. I’m mostly focused on them as kids and teens tho because that’s when most of the au stuff actually happens.

That gets me to some miscellaneous thoughts, that you probably weren’t asking for but I don’t exactly have a lot of people to talk to about this, over the au in no particular order and with no particular significance. (Keep in mind that not everything is quite set in stone and I love hearing other ideas.)

- Duke is the youngest, then Holloway, then Wilbur, and lastly Sheila is the oldest. Sheila likes to shove it in everyone’s faces that she’s the oldest but Wilbur’s the only one who ever falls for the bait. The other two just roll their eyes and go back to whatever they were doing prior to it getting brought up.

- The whole group has a tendency to banter and pick fights with each other. Sheila is especially bad about it and Wilbur is really bad about always falling into her traps. The only person in the group who is constantly good at shooting down someone who’s trying to pick a fight is Duke, he’s also very efficient at ending fights. That, of course, doesn’t mean he isn’t prone to getting into some mischief of his own from time to time.

- Believe it or not Wilbur has the capability of being the most serious of the group. He can get really into a case and is very protective over his friends and “civilians” that accidentally get caught up in the supernatural. He has the uncanny ability to flip from childish to serious, as he grows older he uses this to his advantage.



- Ok so I’m sure you’re all aware of my Jon Matteson (+Curt Mega) character family tree head-cannon/au. Well, that is also a part of this au because I’m in love with them being the biggest, most confusing family in Hatchetfield.

That being said, Duke is the oldest brother of like 5 and takes his job as oldest very seriously. Despite being the youngest of the friend group he is a professional mother hen and is always carrying medical supplies, water, and snacks in his backpack (plus some important case files and books on the weird and unusual). He also has a very “no man left behind” mentality but I think the whole group echoes that sentiment.

- Wilbur may be an only child but he’s grown up pretty close to his cousin Ted. They have an almost sibling relationship, but are much meaner to each other so a lot of people assume they don’t get along. But a lot of people also have the tendency to assume they’re twins so what do they know anyway?

- Sheila is an only child rich kid. Her parents are also a part of a cult but she doesn’t realize it or get involved with the cult until her senior year of high school. She is a confusing case when it comes to sociability because on one hand she can be absolutely terrible about interacting with others but on the other she knows how to manipulate others into doing the things she needs them to do.

- Holloway is an orphan who didn’t know her parents. Despite growing up around a lot of other kids she’s always felt like an outsider. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t look out for the other kids tho, she’s just more of a cool cousin than an older sister type. Holloway is the worst at social interactions, but she is very protective of those around her and will do basically anything to make sure they’re ok.

- Something I totally didn’t almost forgot to add is that their favorite hangout spot is Wilbur’s house; it has been for about as long as they’ve been friends. It was really just the obvious choice for them. Holloway can’t host for pretty obvious reasons. Duke would like to host but his house is always full of people of all ages and he doesn’t want his friends to feel uncomfortable while he takes care of a younger brother that wouldn’t sit still for anyone but him. Sheila may be rich but she’s all too aware that her parents are weird and they wouldn’t like having her friends over anyway. Wilbur’s house is just, unfortunately, the best place to be.

- an idea I’ve been throwing around in my head is that Holloway could be in contact with Webby. The main groups that this au is based on (Scooby Doo/Solve It Squad) both have an animal companion (talking dog really but in Mystery Incorporated the group before the Scooby gang had a bird so I think any animal would work) and I think Webby could fit that spot in her spider form. I don’t want her to be all that involved though, just giving little hints and suggestions to the group (specially Holloway) when they need it.

- @/thearcanecat mentioned in her reblog of the first post about this au that she imagines Sheriff Keane would be worried about the kids at first before realizing that they’re doing a better job then his own police force and then he would sneak important files in Dukes bag to get them on a case/help them figure some stuff out and I really like that idea! Originally I had imagined Sheriff Keane really not being involved in what the group was doing but I think this makes sense for him. Like obviously he would never do anything to endanger the children but I imagine he’s very proud of the work they’re doing. They are, after all, doing a lot more for Hatchetfield then his men ever have.

- No one can stay mad at Duke. It’s just a way of life. Duke of course doesn’t abuse this power but it does come with some perks. He can easily make witnesses feel comfortable after tragedy, he can talk the groups way out of trouble with the cops, and on the more rare and bizarre occasion he can make a cult member rethink all the bad things they’ve done in the name of whatever dark god they follow. He’s particularly good with younger kids and has a big soft spot for them. Dukes main motivation in life is to help others and make the world a safer place for everyone.

- another thing I’m kinda thinking about is possible shipping? Like obviously this wouldn’t come up until they’re teens but it is an idea I’m juggling with. Specifically wine and dine is something I think can only really come together as adults but I think it could be a very interesting concept post Accident™️ (I am still planning on actually writing it out but if you wanna know the gist of what happens there it’s in the reblogs of the first post for this au). I’m also particularly attached to teen Wilbur dealing with the most obvious and embarrassing crush on Duke. This is all just a thought tho and I do not plan on them getting crushes on each other until they’re older.

Sorry this took so long to answer it’s just been a busy week. If anyone has questions about this au I am very happy to talk about it.

(Also I’m really bad at naming things so if anyone has any idea of a name for this au I am taking suggestions because all I have is the Hatchet Catchers and I’m really not sure about that one)

[2hoothoots]

Revisiting P2 since the docu epilogue dropped and your AMV (<3) popped up as a sign for me to ask something that hopefully you haven't already spoken about years ago: What did you think of the in-game psych explanation for Maligula, that she's the primitive savage part of the mind? P2 is a weird mix of sketchy Freud/Jung concepts that Tim likes meshed with modern psych, and Maligula's deal seems like something they probably wrote a lot of different versions of but never quite solved elegantly

yeah, i think you totally hit the nail on the head - it's always felt like one of the parts of the story that they couldn't quite give enough polish to before they had to finalize it and move on with development. like - i went to go get my artbook to see if it had any insight into the writing process, and did you know that Nona and Maligula being the same person was apparently added way later in development? that's wild! i didn't know that until literally right now! i may or may not have skipped straight to my favourite characters when my artbook arrived and then put it on my shelf without reading the whole thing

ANYWAY, retrospectively i think it being a twist that was added later actually makes a lot of sense in the context of everything you mentioned. the Maligula problem, to me, is the fact that they're trying to juggle a bunch of different things that she has to be in the story. there's Maligula, the ruthless big bad, and Nona, the beloved grandma, and if you suddenly have to also make them both the same person... well, it ends up being kind of a thorny writing problem to make that work, haha.

here's some art i made so this isn't just a wall of text, rest of the answer under the cut

i think one thing they could have done when they needed to rehabilitate a mass-murderer into a lovable old lady was pull back on either end of the spectrum. make your villain softer and more sympathetic, or give grandma a mean streak like she's one bad day away from a tragedy at the crochet club. and to give the story credit, i'm really glad they didn't. Nona is relentlessly sweet and endearing - and that's great! she needs to be in order to make the audience care about her, otherwise the emotional beats are never going to land. likewise, Maligula is a great villain, she's vicious and ruthless and at the culmination of her arc we see she simply does not give a shit about murdering hundreds of people. i love that for her, honestly, you go girl

but then, like - how do you connect the dots? how do you frame grandma having a violently murderous streak in a way that doesn't make the ending of "but she's over it now" feel kinda weird and hollow? and how do you do that while also being sympathetic to the game's themes around mental health? Maligula's informed by the traumatic things that happened to Lucrecia during the war, but she can't just be a manifestation of trauma, because the moral of the story being that trauma makes you a mass-murderer (until you beat up your trauma and shove it in a giant pit) would feel... really tonally dissonant!

so i think you're totally right that the sprinkling of pop-psych concepts we get ends up feeling a little bit like an awkward band-aid. Maligula's story is about how the horrors of war can shape you into a terrible person, who does terrible things - ...but there's also, like, special circumstances, so it doesn't feel weird that she goes back to being Raz's sweet grandma afterwards. special psychic circumstances! she's not just any war criminal, she's the fight or flight response gone out of control!

which - i dunno, i think that line in particular always stood out to me, because that's not really what the fight or flight (or freeze or fawn) response is, right? it's a temporary boost of adrenaline to the system to rev you up for getting out of a dangerous situation. an overactive fight or flight response is called chronic stress and anxiety. i know the games are pop-psych and not actual science, but it always stood out to me as a little awkward.

if it were me in the writer's seat - with the benefit of all the time in the world to workshop it, and no looming deadlines, and the hindsight of having a full completed game in front of me to think about - i might have tried to frame it around connection. i think you could swing the lens to instead focus on how violence, stress, trauma etc., make it harder to understand and empathise with the people around you. the tragedy of Lucrecia's story is that she came home to try and help her countrymen, the people she cared so dearly about. but the more time passed, the less she cared, the less she was able to see them as people. after Marona's death, the Maligula that remains is one who's unable to even care about killing her own sister. the alternative is too raw, too painful - instead, she sheds her last vestiges of remorse, and throws herself into the easy relief of violence. (we see this again, when Nona "awakens" as Maligula - when confronted with the baggage of her past, she chooses to wash it all away with force, unable and unwilling to care about the people she used to call friends.)

and i think shifting the focus like that ties it in thematically, too. a big theme (of both games, but especially the sequel) is how important connection is, how being able to understand and reach out to and rely on other people is a lifeline during hard times. PN2 touches on how there aren't really "good people" and "bad people" - everyone has the capacity to do wonderful or terrible things, and i think Raz's line to Maligula about how "everybody's got something like you" works. Lucrecia was never a monster, no matter how everyone tried to pretend she was. she was just a person, the same as everyone else - and just like everyone else, she could be pushed to extremes under the right circumstances. it just feels kind of odd when the implicit context is "everybody's got a mass-murderer hidden in the primal recesses of their brain", hahaha.

but like, again, that's the privilege of hindsight, right? i've definitely also been on the other side of the creative process, stuck with something i suddenly need to make work in a story and having to come up with a solution that feels like a band-aid. sometimes you just gotta call it good enough, and move on. and i think the game is overall much stronger for having Nona and Maligula be the same person - it plays into the wider themes, it sets up some great emotional beats, and i think it's overall well-executed, even if there are one or two hiccups in the writing.

anyway, great ask! thank you for the invitation to ramble, this is something that stuck out to me on my first playthrough of the game and it was fun to sit down and get my thoughts in order

[despondentnuzzy]

Alright fuck it I want to ramble analyze characters more. I've been stuck on who so I opened to a random page. Saw Marasi first and now I am going to see what things my brain will inform me about her as I write this post.

Spoils for Era 1 and 2 of Mistborn

I've seen Marasi compared to Vin, both in the text and in some posts online, but let's take another angle.

In Mistborn if I asked you which character

Is the socially inconvenient child to an upper class house

Has a half-sibling that gets romantically involved with the main protagonist

First bonds with our earring wearing protagonist at a high society function

Has an education that leads them to believe they can fix the whole world if you just let them do it

Oh my gosh it's Elend Venture in a wig!

But now that I think about it, there is a lot of similarities between Elend and Marasi beyond surface level plot.

Marasi and Elend of course share the traits mentioned above but also share a similar problem. Theory works in theory, practice doesn't always work in practice.

Both of these characters would achieve far greater success if they just didn't play by the rules they said everyone should agree to on the basis they know better.

However while Elend relents at the end of his era, becoming a mostly benevolent tyrant.

Marasi gives up her opportunity to circumnavigate her rules. She rejects the offer to join the Ghostbloods. An organization she could likely do far more with than any regular position within The Basins policing system would ever afford her.

Now in Wax's epilogue we find out she's running for Governor, which would give her greater ability to enact her reforms but she is still working within the system, which realistically will greatly limit her ability to solve problems. (Although I'm sure come Era 3 we'll find out she did plenty of good for the people of Scadriel.)

I mentioned previously that Wayne is toxic preservation while Wax is literally stated to be a force of ruin.

In this view I would see Marasi as Harmony. Unlike Sazed, who is Harmony due to his duplicitous (but not decietful) nature, Marasi is a true balance.

Rusts I feel like I said very little with too much in this post? OH FUCK HER ALLOMANCY!

Umm fuck, Marasi probably has symbolic traits tied to her Allomancy let's see.

You could argue that it plays into how slowly she feels like she grows, that everything can happen so fast around her and that if she was only given the right tools (allomantic grenades) her skills would become invaluable?? Idk I probably should make another post about her sometime. Feels like I didn't do her justice here haha

[its-no-biggie]

okay i just finished rewatching fma brotherhood and can we please talk about how fuckin 15 ed is. like lots of anime protagonists are 15 but ed is *so* 15.

like- he needs to disguise the car so he makes it into a 15 year olds idea of a really cool car, and its so cringe the adults force him to change it. he makes ling a sword and puts a little skull on the handle (for literally no reason except that he presumably thought it would be cool, even though they were in the middle of getting their asses kicked by envy) and then gets defensive when ling calls it lame. he gets riled up unbelievably easily over NOTHING. his fighting style is scrappy- hes experienced but not disciplined, and he'll use whatevers on hand to get the job done. he'll mess around in the middle of a fight, use unnecessarily flashy moves/weapons, and hes just generally a nuisance in combat. he gets really flustered when people insinuate that winry is his girlfriend, and then when he DOES confess to her 2 years later he uses a fucking alchemy metaphor because hes a NERD.

im saying all of this with affection by the way- hes a cringe 15 year old because 15 year olds are cringe! i feel like most of the time these high school age protagonists are basically just adult characters with more naive ideals, or theyre a bit more emotional, or they have "childish" interests. ESPECIALLY with these high stakes action-adventure stories, where the fate of the world is in their hands. but a kid can have the weight of the world on their shoulders and still handle their emotions poorly, act recklessly, goof off at inappropriate times, and generally think and act in a way that adults wouldnt. and still be mature and competent characters! i mean, ed is a GREAT protagonist. he has a full understanding of the stakes and he knows how and when to get serious. but he also does shit like breaking into a secret government laboratory, alone, in the middle of the night, with no plan, and nearly gets himself killed in the process. because hes a reckless kid! and if he HADNT done that, they never would have found out the enemys plan in time!

and its just so perfectly executed- instead of childish traits being sprinkled on top of adult problem solving and emotional regulation, him being 15 informs how he acts all the time! sometimes this is a good thing because he solves problems in a unique way, and sometimes it causes even MORE problems. its a fundamental aspect of his character that contributes to both his strong and weak points.

and my absolute favourite part is that hes still treated like a person worthy of his title and reputation- not only by the adult characters, but by the narrative itself. but he isnt treated like an adult either! the adults around him dont talk down to him, but they also dont have adult expectations of him. theres a whole bit about how the adults shouldnt stand by while the children are on the battlefield- insinuating that while the children are worthy of standing on the battlefield alongside them, they also feel some responsibility to lead them since theyre the adults. which is super reasonable! its probably the best take on adult mentor figures for child main characters ive ever seen.

and yeah theres an argument to be made that it was pretty fucked up of mustang to recruit ed to the military at 12 years old. but he was super upfront with him about what it would entail and didnt force him into it. so watching it as an adult, yeah, its fucked up. but the target audience is kids and thats how kids want to be treated! yeah its a lot of responsibility, but ed knew that going in AND he has a huge support network of trustworthy adults who are looking out for him. hes fine. and hes DEFINITELY better off than most high school age protagonists, who are just sort of thrust into high stakes, life-threatening situations with little guidance. the dynamic is less "you are The Chosen One who will singlehandedly save the world" and more "i mean you certainly have the skills and we really appreciate you working with us but what the fuck is a child doing in the military. who authorized this?? youre going to get yourself killed PLEASE be more careful!" and like. if youre gonna have a show about a 15 year old saving the world, then thats definitely the way to do it.

and what really seals the deal is how pissed ed gets when people treat him like a kid. thats the most 15 year old thing ever! he FEELS like hes being talked down to and disrespected just because hes not given the same expectations and responsibilities as the adults. watching it as a 20 year old im super impressed by the way the adults treat ed, but i can also understand why ed gets so frustrated. its the nature of being a teenager and thinking you can handle more than you can. which really just solidifies how fuckin 15 he is

btw im not saying ed is the only well written teenager in the show. hes just the clearest example- hes so LOUD about who he is and it makes it really easy to talk about his character traits. also hes like my favourite character ever and i just have to talk about him. so like al and the rest are also really convincing kids, and a lot of this stuff kind of applies to all of them! im just talking about ed because i want to lmfao