#i don't even UNDERSTAND THEM COMPLETELY

[greenerteacups]

What do you think as Hermione's career would be post battle of Hogwarts? To me her being minister for magic really doesn't make sense. She does not have patience or tact to wade through murky waters of politics 😭😭

So hard to say! The Trio are so, so young when we leave them, I find it almost impossible to project their futures farther than a few years out. The job that suited me at 17 would be radically unsuited to me now. That's why of all the Trio, Ron's ending strikes me as the most realistic — he jumps straight into the save-the-world business again, burns out, realizes he's actually Done The Fuck Enough, Thanks, and pivots into a low-stress career where he gets to see his family a lot. Feels accurate! The others are weirder to me because they do seem to just... pick a lane and stay there.

With Hermione, you could spin her a couple ways. You could say that she leans into her bookish side and does research or teaching, which is not my preference for a couple reasons (namely, I don't think Hermione would like academia as a profession; she finds her classwork interesting and enjoys intellectual validation, but she'd be stifled and wasted in a DPhil program, and she'd be infuriated by the administrative politicking of your average higher-ed faculty). You could say that she gets disaffected with politics and ends up as a barrister or a lobbyist of some kind, but if anything that requires more political finesse, because you don't actually have institutional power, you're just handling the people who make decisions and trying to persuade them of your goals. This is not Hermione's preferred method of influence. She's not even particularly good at persuasion, she just happens to be smart enough (and right often enough) that people take her ideas seriously.

Or you could say her brashness fades with the years into a softened flavor of tell-you-like-it-is honesty, which some politicians actually do successfully trade on; as we see in British politics today, you don't have to be all that charming or clever to get ahead, you just need to be really driven and well-connected (which Hermione completely is; she fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the first postwar Minister and her bestie, the Literal Messiah, runs the Auror Office.) But I don't know if Hermione especially wants to be Minister, after the war. She's just watched years of horrendous bureaucratic incompetence plunge the country into a violent civil conflict. She's had not one, but two Ministers of Magic try to bully or shame her friends into complicity with fascism. Her view of government is... likely extremely dark.

But Hermione also isn't the kind of person who sees her life as a quest for happiness. Babygirl has a savior complex that makes Harry look selfish. (She basically kills her parents — yeah, obliviating is a form of murder, #changemymind — "for their own good," and justifies every batshit, vindictive, mean-spirited move she ever pulls on the grounds that it "helps" one of her friends.) She is a mean, lean, dragon-slaying machine, and she needs a dragon. After Voldemort, the Ministry is the no. 1 threat to muggle-borns and non-wizarding Beings. As a war heroine with basically infinite political capital, I'd be surprised if she didn't try to do something there. That said, Hermione is so vivacious and dynamic that she could potentially grow in a hundred different directions; it's possible that all of this, while true of her at 18, becomes completely inaccurate by 22. That's why I'm not too fussed about any particular fanon interpretation.

[doubletrucks]

it is so cool and definitely not insanity inducing at all how no matter how i personally feel about my own gender or how hard i try to present myself a certain way everyone including other queer people are going to make assumptions abt me and my identity that are pretty much completely untrue based on the way my body looks 👍👍👍 something i did not ask for at all 👍👍👍

[markantonys]

day 71 of asking why reddit has suddenly become convinced that the 'finn and mat's rhuidean trip are a waste of time and easily cut, and that season 3 will obviously feature him splitting off from the friends he just reunited with in order to spend the entire season dicking around with thom and getting into shenanigans, as that is much more important to his overall character arc than his 2-book waste arc

like there have been SO MANY posts like this lately and all of them are filled with comments of universal agreement! am i having a stroke? what the hell is going on???? i'll admit mat doesn't have a huge amount of specific stuff to do in the waste aside from rhuidean, but rhuidean is crucial to his character and s2 had Mat-Finn Connection Foreshadowing out the wazoo, plus the waste plotline is MUCH more fertile ground for creating additional Specific Mat Stuff and enhancing his character development & relationships with other main characters than his TDR plotline of dicking around with thom is.

[wonder-worker]

"[Elizabeth Woodville's] piety as queen seems to have been broadly conventional for a fifteenth-century royal, encompassing pilgrimages, membership of various fraternities, a particular devotion to her name saint, notable generosity to the Carthusians, and the foundation of a chantry at Westminster after her son was born there. ['On other occasions she supported planned religious foundations in London, […] made generous gifts to Eton College, and petitioned the pope to extend the circumstances in which indulgences could be acquired by observing the feast of the Visitation']. One possible indicator of a more personal, and more sophisticated, thread in her piety is a book of Hours of the Guardian Angel which Sutton and Visser-Fuchs have argued was commissioned for her, very possibly at her request."

-J.L. Laynesmith, "Elizabeth Woodville: The Knight's Widow", "Later Plantagenet and Wars of the Roses Consorts: Power, Influence, Dynasty"

[tippenfunkaport]

It will never not piss me off that 80s She-Ra toys were action figures but when they went to make toys for 2018 She-Ra, they would only give us fashion dolls.

How did they learn nothing from the popularity of their own toyline?

Literally, three decades passed and somehow sexism in toys got WORSE.

[zerodaryls]

it's so funny (read: sad) that if bigoted fuckheads didn't insist i was a woman simply by virtue of my body at birth, i'd probably be chill with she/her pronouns in addition to he/they. if my mom didn't insist i was her daughter, i'd probably let her call me that, and we could still have a relationship.

i'm nonbinary and 'gendered' words are hypothetically meaningless, but because there are so many people who are more interested in telling me who i am rather than lovingly and curiously letting me express my own sense of self, those words carry trauma.

there's no reason a nonbinary person like myself can't be a son and a child and a daughter. there's no reason a nonbinary person like me can't go by he, they, and she.

'she' is not a slur. 'daughter' is not derogatory. 'beautiful' 'pretty' 'gorgeous' 'feminine' are not insults.

to the contrary, they're parts of language that express certain facets of a multi-faceted human existence, like mine.

and i have this sad, mournful feeling that if it weren't for unloving, condescending people, i'd probably be down to be called any of those things alongside my usual masculine/neutral terminology.

but i'd rather die than let anyone tell me what i have to be called.

[canadiancryptid]

Finally got around to finishing Netflix's ATLA adaptation. I have a LOT of notes, but I think the biggest one is this:

At the end of Season 1 of the original, Aang had at least started learning waterbending alongside Katara, and a little bit of Firebending with Jeong Jeong. Outside of the Avatar State, he had at least started 3/4 elements.

By the same point in NATLA, he's only at 1/4. I don't think this kid has bent a single drop of water. So far he is just a *really* good airbender who can do some spirit world stuff. That should give you a good idea as to why I have a few issues with it.

[camellcat]

I'm rewatching s1 again and I think it's so fucking funny how much every other doctor except nine absolutely hates guns. nine is SO excited to shoot that goddamn dalek. he is READY he is DOWN he is soooo for it. he points a gun at rose tyler and doesn't even think about it until she scolds him for it.

and then in bad wolf where he's incredibly comfortable about holding that big ass blaster. never gets onto jack about parading around with them either. just does not bat an eye. in fact he is threatening people with it, even if it is a farce.

the others would NEVER lol

[danmeichael]

i need to work on my chengxian fics....

[da-proti-toku-grem]

why can't anyone understand that everyone is different and not everyone likes the same things and that it's completely okay AND normal for someone not to like going out and preferring to stay at home :/

[isfjmel-phleg]

🌋

[br1ghtestlight]

people who complain about bob's burgers becoming more family friendly and therefore "worse" really do not mean anything to me bcuz they've fully stated their reasons for why it became more kid-friendly after season three and i think thats completely understandable and they're allowed to do whatever they want with THEIR SHOW!!!! and honestly the quality hasn't gotten any worse they just swear slightly less than before and make less references to sex but like they go to strip clubs and get drunk etc so its not a fuckign nickelodeon show or anything.... idk object shows are kinda the same where they had more cursing and violence earlier on but now they try to keep most shows kid-friendly (generally speaking in the osc) not because they HAVE to but because its an active choice that they're making. maybe if you literally only like adult cartoons for the raunchy humor yeah you're not gonna like the later seasons as much but quality-wise they're still entertaining so?? maybe go watch family guy or something idk

[andersdotters]

Hi! I recently found your blogs, and can I just say how much I love your character analyses? Your portrayal of each character is always so in depth to the point where I can even picture them acting and speaking the same in game! I'm so impressed and I seriously don't know how you connect to each and every one of them so perfectly :O

If I may ask, what does your research and character profile process look like? As someone interested in writing, I hope to be as skilled as you with analysing characters (and writing plots and writing in general--) one day :) Any tips would be appreciated!

Thank you so much for all the hard work you do. I know I'll enjoy the story you come up with next!

Aww thank you so much!! Honestly sometimes I worry that my analyses won't be to everyone's tastes, so I'm very glad you think that they're good! I feel the same way about my writing because I know they're not the most romantic, so it's a relief to know you like it. ;v; <3 I have a lot to say about your questions though, so I'm going to put it under a readmore. It's an uh... infodump HAHA

When it comes to research, what it basically comes down to is reading everything. Read the character's lore, read their voice lines. Read what other characters have to say about them. Even talking to every NPC you see in the hopes that they'll talk about a character helps out a lot too HAHA. I also recommend going back to old events when doing research too. Reread them. Listen to the voice actor's portrayal of them. Read everything you can.

This is take three of trying to explain my character analysis process, but I'm going to give up and just explain to you the main logic that governs it. Basically what it boils down to is: we are not unique. Humans are not unique. What do I mean by this? People that are certain ways--for example, they have a low self-esteem, consistently overwork themselves, they want children when they get older, etc--they will typically share common characteristics. When you know the defining characteristics of each trait, you can potentially apply that trait to everyone you know that displays those characteristics.

For example, people that constantly overwork themselves typically have unhealthily high levels of perceived responsibility, typically with a self-deprecative trait that they don't deserve to be happy and rest. People that are very showy tend to care a lot about what people think of them. People that are extremely close to their families typically lose the ability to function properly without them.

If you know people that are like the examples above, you know that these observations are pretty accurate. And these examples represent pretty common types of people as well. Once you've seen one of them, you've seen them all. Nobody is unique. And because of that, you can apply these observations to characters because characters are meant to be human. Example one is Kaveh. Example two is Itto. And example 3 is Lyney. Now you've gotten a deeper dive into their psyche.

The way you become better at character analysis is by broadening your internal library of traits and their defining characteristics. This involves three steps: observation, drawing connections between observations, and fine tuning these connections by applying them to other people.

These steps are easy to understand, but let me go a bit more into step one. Observations come in two categories: physical observations and intuitive observations. Physical observations encompass things they physically do. Intuitive observations are larger statements that can't be tied to just a single physical observation. For example, physical observations may be that they don't go out much, they don't talk much in groups but do one-on-one, they wear bright colors, they're rude, etc. Intuitive observations are more: they seem to be uncomfortable around children, they act like they're scared to contact first, they're always on the move, etc.

The second step involves drawing lines between observations and trying to deduce meaning. For example, [they end their sentences using a rising intonation] + [they ask me my opinion a lot] = [this person cares about not sounding rude or unwelcoming]. Or, [they have a low self-esteem] + [they care about being seen as morally good] + [they engage in fandom] = [I probably should not tell this person I think Dottore and his penchant for human experimentation is hot].

Typically the logic goes: [physical observation] + [physical observation] = [intuitive observation]. [physical observation] + [intuitive observation] = [mid-tier intuitive observation]. [intuitive observation] + [intuitive observation] = [top tier intuitive observation].

But it does not end at step two. Step three basically tests to see if your observation from step two is valid or not. When you apply your observation from step two to a multitude of people, you're able to fine tune your observation to make it more generalized and more accurate. Maybe you realize that not everyone that ends their sentences in a rising intonation is necessarily polite, but it's more of a cultural thing. Maybe you see that having low self-esteem isn't always a symptom of having a high moral code. Test, revise, then test again. The higher the tier of your observation, the greater the chance it has of being wrong.

When I analyze characters, I go through my mental library and see which traits and characteristics I've catalogued before. And for things that don't have an exact match, I try to find ones that shares at least a few things in common that may follow the same logic. For example, I don't know anyone like Zhongli. However, I do have a friend that's very outgoing, but you can have a full on conversation with them and leave not knowing anything about them. Can I apply the logic of my friend to someone like Zhongli?

I will say this and I will say this again. People are not unique. Everyone is a copy of someone else in some way. When you treat the characters as if you were analysing any other normal human being, you can quite easily draw conclusions from what they have in common with people you know and have seen.

Anyway, this is so long I am so sorry. Hopefully I didn't completely bowl you over with information. OTL

[coquelicoq]

i've gotten so used to my daily practice of reading french aloud that now when i have to read something boring in english for work i default to reading it aloud. which takes way longer and also i feel like i retain even less information than i would otherwise, somehow. the upside is that my oral reading cadence in english, even of dense scientific articles, is rather excellent nowadays. i could read scientific articles out loud for a living, if that was a thing people needed me to do. which they do not, because screenreaders are a thing. maybe i could read crusty PDFs out loud for a living? but anyway all this is to say shoutout to my man alexandre dumas and also my other man victor hugo for training me to read run-on sentences in my second language. after that, dry journal articles in my first language are easy peasy.

[movedtodykedvonte]

Thinks about how the blue addison said the phone was just garbage noise and thought what if it’s Windings? Then thought maybe that’s why Spamton was the only one to understand it.

Windings is a bunch of symbols and signs which is just garbage text is you don’t understand how to decipher it. Vocally, it probably sounds the way it looks in UTDR do it’s not far to say “garbage noise” is just spoken Windings that no one can understand. The closest thing cyber citizens would probably have to wingdings is Webdings which is still very different in translation.

Now, the reason I think Spamton could understand it was because he is Spam email. Those emails often incorporate Windings or WebDings to get pass censors and blockers, meaning it wasn’t just chance that Spam was the one targeted, more so, he was the only one who could understand the garbage noise coming from the speaker as he is used to using it. Maybe the caller had called other people but they could not decipher what is a essentially foregin language to them, but then Spam, a crude speaker, could parse some of it and that’s why the caller latched onto him.

[no-one-hears-me]

people need to be more comfortable expressing love and affection with friends