#this one isn’t the worst I just think it’s an example of how stupid people are with ai art and like

[thelostboys87]

like yeah dude it’s really cool that you used AI to complete an art piece that was purposefully left unfinished because the artist was dying of AIDS as the government ignored the mass loss of life and health. all you really did was show that technology can bring an art piece into the modern age but why? why do we need to do that? what does it say about us if we feel that a piece needs to be ‘completed’? how are we viewing completion?? can seeing an ai generated “completion” of unfinished have the same effect of seeing the parts haring left blank and the parts where the art drips into the blank? does it aid the narrative of it in any way? can AI understand the levels at which artists used their pieces about AIDS as a form of protest? of begging to be seen? how can it when an AI’s concept of ‘completing’ the piece is just guesswork of what the colours and shapes would look like to match what haring made which is nowhere near the same level of intention that came from him? you said you ‘completed’ the piece with ai because his story is so sad but does that mean we should try to rectify sadness by getting rid of the representation of it? should we not continue to sit in the sadness and discomfort that unfinished and other AIDS inspired art asks us to do because those feelings are only a fraction of what the people who died and lost felt, is that not the least we can do for them? and what good does any of this actually do when we can use technology to ‘complete’ a purposefully unfinished art piece about an artist’s untimely death from AIDS but we can never bring keith haring or any other person who died of AIDS back to life? where does haring, the person whose illness and death lives in those blanks, come into your self fulfilling ai generated completion of his work?

[anzulvr]

What do you think Karma would be like with a calm/chill reader who's easygoing and effortlessly charming personality sometimes turns completely 180 when they feel strong emotions? Like they can go from sweetly comforting Nagisa to yelling oddly detailed threats at Terasaka while chasing him with a metal bottle for eating her food. (Maybe mix in some passive aggressive sarcastic sass when Korosensei's being annoying?)

Karma x Chill(..but actually really passive aggressive) reader 🤗🤗 Ty for the request!! (Sorry took long)

— You don’t argue often and you are also very good at listening to everyones perspective and ideas even if they’re different from you. People view you as very understanding so seeing you actually getting into a heated fight it’s surprising at first.

— Karma is so surprised when he sees you angry for the first time like he didn’t know you had it in you to say the things you did.

— He TRIES to get you pissed off just to see you react, since you know he’s kidding and dating him gives you a soft spot for him it’s basically just him failing to annoy you.

— This one time Karma scribbled over your paper to bother you and all you did was frown for a second and erase / re do anything he messed up. (He felt bad and helped you when he realized you weren’t going to fight 😭)

— then in a group project with Yoshida (also Isogai and Rinka) Yoshida scribbled a little bit on your notes (not nearly as much damage as Karma made) but it pissed you off so badly you grabbed a marker and started scribbling on his face

“I’ve been working on those notes for days you actual dumbass”

“Hey- I’m sorry!! I’ll rewrite them— get off me your using permanent marker it’ll be hard to take off!!”

“GOOD.”

— “Damn [name] that mad?” When you hear Karma mention how you reacted you stop so fast

“I wasn’t actually mad. We we’re just playing right Yoshida?”

Only out of fear he agrees “Right..”

— You’re tolerance for everything is way higher for Karma because you like him too much to get mad, that doesn’t mean you never get mad at him it just takes a little more to.

— Some of the things you respond with are shady in the way people expect Karma and it’s just so confusing cause it feels so out of character for you.

— but it’s definitely one of the things Karma likes the most about you because 1. It’s funny 2. Hes glad to see you stand up for yourself once in a while because he’s usually the one telling people off for you.

— passive aggressiveness would come whenever Korosensei or really E class is too pushy about certain topics.

For example before Karma confessed to you theyd push you to do it first and come up with crazy plans to make things happen.

— they full on locked you in a room together and instead of waiting it out you found a way to break the doorknob (together #romanceisreal)

Angry you and happy Karma is a mix end class fears because he’ll be constantly hyping it up😭

Like you’ll be be hitting Terasaka with a notebook because he said something stupid and Karma will go:

“[Name] wait— Use this one it’s way thicker!!”

(took inspo for ur original request lollol)

Karma will support anything you try and honestly rile you up more to see what you do

Angry you and Angry Karma is definitely the worst mix of all

hell on earth

! but it hardly happens since you usually reel each other in

Just tell him to chill tf out😭

Having strong emotions isn’t all bad, you’re empathetic, kind and care for everyone in class— even Terasaka no matter how much of a pain he can be.

mom friend-ish?? (Awe yeah Mom friend definitely)

They don’t actually mind it and are grateful for the times you stand up for them bc they know you love them

Especially Karma even though you’re prone to getting into arguments like all couples do it’ll work out fine because you both care to much about eachother.

If you’re the type to remind people you love them after arguing it’s another thing he loves about you, since he himself has trouble saying he’s wrong first it’s helped him swallow his pride and apologize faster.

(Literally so cute my fave relationship dynamic)

[inamindfarfaraway]

The Morality of Mabel and Dipper Pines

Warning: Dipper Levels of Overanalysis Ahead

I’d like to make it clear at the start that I love both of these characters equally and they’re both good people, just in different ways. But I’ve seen a lot of criticism of Mabel’s flaws and less of Dipper’s, so I’d like to contribute to the discussion of their respective characters by exploring a divide between them I haven’t seen talked about much.

Mabel really wants to be a moral person. She places a lot of intrinsic worth in the concepts of ethics, like kindness and fairness and the wellbeing of others. Being a bad person could be considered her worst fear. It’s definitely up there with her other greatest fears of losing her relationship with Dipper and the inevitability of change, and those fears developed later largely in response to Ford and the baggage he brought with him.

Dipper just doesn’t care about that as much. That isn’t to say he’s a bad person! He's compassionate, selfless, brave and unquestionably heroic by the end of the show. They both are. But it sticks out to me how differently they think about ethics. For example, Dipper literally kills Wax Sherlock Holmes, while Mabel is so averse to hurting someone’s feelings that she can’t bear to break out of a false, one-sided relationship with Gideon until Dipper's life is at stake. You see what I’m getting at here? But I have more evidence! Buckle up, this is gonna get long.

Compare how they treat their rivals, Pacifica and Robbie. These are ordinary humans with no real authority over them who, age and class gaps aside, they're basically on even footing with in confrontations, so this is a good metric for how aggressive they are when upset and how much they hold grudges in mundane situations.

In “Irrational Treasure”, Mabel is deeply hurt by Pacifica’s mockery to the point of giving up her silly identity, and sets out to prove her wrong that she can be competent. But at the end, when presented with the opportunity to destroy the Northwest family’s fake prestigious legacy that they use to justify putting others down, she declares, “I’ve got nothing to prove” and lets it go. She’s secure in herself. Her motivation is satisfied. Why bother putting more pain and strife into the world? It’s Dipper, who has been only been hurt by proximity to Mabel, who insists on exposing the truth specifically to spite Pacifica and takes away that “Man, revenge is underrated. That felt awesome!” Revenge is arguably a form of justice, especially in this sense of revealing an unfair lie, but still, he takes great pleasure in bringing an enemy down for the sake of it, not to fix the damage they did.

In “Fight Fighters”, Dipper’s vindictive streak returns. He manipulates the ridiculously powerful Rumble McSkirmish into brutally beating up Robbie on the fraudulent charge of murder, threatening Robbie’s life. He didn’t realize Rumble would try to kill Robbie, but he was fine with him severely injuring him. Rumble is a fighting game character, a superpowered master martial artist. Robbie is a normal fifteen-year-old. This is not a sportsmanlike matchup. By the end Dipper learns his lesson and takes responsibility, but so does Mabel about hurting people to try to have a perfect life and people still complain about that!

In “The Golf War”, Mabel is again the twin with a bone to pick with Pacifica, but Dipper takes her rivalry more seriously than her and is more willing to be mean about it. He encourages her to cheat when she doesn’t want to, justifying it because Pacifica is “cheating at life”. Understandable, but still underhanded. While Mabel bonds and buries the hatchet with her rival by the end, outright declaring their rivalry to be stupid, Dipper holds onto it, refusing to forgive Pacifica at all and disapproving of Mabel's offer to give her a ride home afterward despite the pouring rain and her absent parents. He still wholeheartedly considers her “the worst” (and tells her so to her face) at the beginning of “Northwest Mansion Mystery”, even though he saw her and Mabel help and protect each other in their fight against the Lilliputtians and Pacifica thank Mabel and accept her apology.

In “The Love God”, Mabel’s compassion is on full display. She makes it apparent that she wants everyone she knows to be happy, to the point of making a chart to show her friends’ feelings with stickers, and goes out of her way to help Robbie just because she doesn’t think any human being should be so lonely and sad. Dipper initially has no sympathy for Robbie’s misery and sees the twins and his old friends leaving him to rot as a good thing.

Dipper just invests more emotionally into hating people and is more willing to play dirty. Mabel prefers to see the best in people, forgive, deescalate conflict and turn enemies into friends whenever possible, and has more respect for honour and sportsmanship.

Compare the insecurities they highlight in "Society of the Blind Eye". These could have been their last words spoken with their memories of the summer, so they are fully candid and vulnerable.

Mabel confesses, “I only love some of my stuffed animals and the guilt is killing me!” She reprimands herself for not having sincere affection for all the people in her life… who are inanimate objects, hence this being a joke about how immature and overly sentimental she is. But she’s telling the truth! Not being honest about your feelings toward someone who loves you (as toys are assumed to love their kids) is wrong. It’s something a bad, or at least flawed, person would do. We also know that it’s something Mabel can do with real consequences - she loves Dipper unconditionally, but her frequent teasing of him instead of letting this on damages his self-esteem more than she intends and often realizes - and when she does realize as in “Little Dipper”, she’s ashamed of herself. Her guilt is that she’s failing morally, that she hurts the people around her despite her good intentions.

Dipper admits, “Sometimes I use big words and don’t actually know what they mean. I mean, I’m supposed to be the smart guy! If I’m not the smart guy, then who am I?” He primarily thinks of his worth in terms of competence. Dipper is generally not that confident, at this point in time. He has an intense drive to prove his worth. He is acutely aware of his physical and social shortcomings. But the one thing he knows that he does well is analytical, deductive and strategic thinking, and so to always have value he’s built his entire identity around being particularly intelligent. He’s the planner, the mastermind, the guy with the specialized knowledge and important big words who people have no choice but to respect and listen to, because a lifetime of loneliness besides Mabel has taught him that given a choice, they probably won’t. Except just like Mabel’s all-loving attitude, there’s an element of performance. He doesn’t know everything; he’s inherently irrational to a degree like everyone else. So he tries to seem smarter than he is. His guilt is that he’s failing intellectually and practically, that he isn’t contributing enough to be worth something.

This is where Dipper diverges. He wants to be ethically good less than he wants to be good AT things, and respected for it. But they both beat themselves up when they don’t live up to their self-assigned archetypes of All-Loving Hero and The Smart Guy, when they aren’t good enough by their own unreasonably high standards.

"The Last Mabelcorn" deconstructs Mabel’s fixation on her moral perfection. Celestabellabethabelle, who I will henceforth call C-Beth for short, manipulates it to keep her out of the unicorns’ way. She makes manifest Mabel’s fear that she isn’t good enough no matter what she does. We see Mabel push herself further and further to try to prove herself, much like Dipper in episodes like “Dipper vs Manliness”, and emotionally unravel until she’s miserable, self-loathing and openly listing her vices in a way never seen before. But this isn’t productive! Wallowing in shame doesn’t motivate her to be better! She needs to learn that although she isn’t perfect, the virtues she has are good enough to work with to both get out and kick C-Beth out of her head. She decides to stop worrying about meeting an impossible ideal of goodness and just focus on doing good, by using efficient (if violent, and therefore immoral under certain paradigms) methods to protect her family. Her plot in this episode has its detractors and I understand the criticisms that the message wasn’t handled as well as it could have been. But I think it does okay. Mabel definitely reevaluates her need to feel like a good person here. She switches from prioritizing what’s important to her, the validation of being "pure of heart", to what’s important to others and in the bigger picture, simply getting the unicorn hair to keep Bill out of the Mystery Shack.

Finally, compare the twins’ disastrous errors in judgement in “Scary-Oke” and “Dipper and Mabel vs the Future”, when they both accidentally unleash terrible forces of evil upon the town and set in motion a local apocalypse.

Dipper recites an incantation from Journal 3 that causes the dead to rise as bloodthirsty zombies, desperate to prove to the government agents before they leave that the supernatural is real and warrants their help investigating, driven by both his desire for knowledge (his tool to feel secure in himself) and more immediately his fear of being dismissed as unworthy. He is emotionally vulnerable, but still creates the dangerous situation on his own initiative. Since he doesn’t need a blacklight to read the spell and the beginning of the episode established that he’s already familiar with all Journal 3’s visible entries, he knows what the spell would do. He doesn’t realize how many zombies will appear and how dangerous they’ll be. But he is aware that there are risks. Plus, the Shack is hosting a party full of innocent civilians and Mabel has explicitly asked him not to interfere with weirdness. The one thing she told him not to do that night was raise the dead! And what does he do? Raises the dead.

Mabel is actively deceived and manipulated into giving who she believes to be Blendin Blandin, an expert in time-altering technology, what she believes to be an item of such technology, with the intention of warping time to extend the summer for the town. This is a selfish choice. But on top of how emotionally compromised she is, sobbing in despair after “the worst day of [her] life”, consider her internal logic: the end of summer is going to mean the trials and tribulations of growing up for both her and Dipper, and they won’t even have each other if he gets his way; Wendy is already going through that and has told her how awful high school is; she overheard at least some of the Stans’ conversation at the end of “A Tale of Two Stans”, meaning she might know that Stan will have to give up his home and business once the summer is over; and she and Dipper both have true friends here who they will miss and be missed by, as opposed to their memories of Piedmont where we only see them supporting and comforting each other and never hear of any friends. And it isn’t like she’s the only one having fun! Stan is happier than ever, Ford is back home, Dipper’s come into his own more than she could ever have anticipated. He’ll still get to delve into the mysteries of this town that he loves so much. But she’ll be there too. If you want more Gravity Falls, you can see where she’s coming from. She genuinely thinks that “just a little more summer” would be a positive experience for everyone, with plenty of good reason. Yes, she’s recklessly messing with powerful forces that she doesn’t understand. Yes, she isn’t nearly as suspicious of this sudden miracle solution as she should be. But she has no evidence that this would harm anyone.

Their responses after making their mistake are also noteworthy. They’re both horrified and remorseful. But Dipper expresses no concern for the agents for the rest of the episode when it looks like they’ve been killed due to his actions. He even nonchalantly remarks that he thought they were dead when he sees them again. Mabel, however, reaches to stop Bill and begs him to “wait” before he knocks her unconscious. Then she’s imprisoned in Mabelland, which is designed to make her never want to leave and based on how it only occurs to her after she renounces it that the neon colours and repetitive background music are too much even for her, may additionally have a direct, if subtle, influence on her mind. So she’s a little distracted from her guilt. But by risking her life to fix the repercussions of her actions and save the town, she shows much more responsibility for the townspeople’s lives than Dipper showed for the agents he’d tried so hard to impress. He just happily went about his business for weeks believing he had two people’s deaths on his conscience. Never even looked into whether they survived.

These differences in their personal moral philosophies add another layer to the parallels between the two generations of Pines twins. Typically, Dipper parallels Ford and Mabel parallels Stan. But less so here! Like Mabel, Ford very staunchly believes in abstract moral theory, namely that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. He holds a grudge for weeks against Stan saving him from being lost in the dimensions through the portal, because it endangered the rest of the world by creating the Rift. It was a good deed with good intentions… but it didn’t only make life better for everyone. To Ford, that means it isn’t good enough. Hmm, which younger twin has a problem with judging anything short of ‘pure good’ to not be worthwhile? Also like Mabel, Ford’s self-righteousness is often hypocritical, considering his pride, selfishness and willingness to disregard the possible negative consequences of his actions, e.g. trusting Bill and building the portal in the first place.

Like Dipper, Stan is willing and ready to use underhanded methods to win against his enemies, to lie, cheat, steal and leverage assets he doesn’t really have the right to. He’s more inclined to be aggressive, spiteful and smug. As for holding grudges, even to an unreasonable extent, he personally despised a nine-year-old child even before he knew that the child was a bad person. He would absolutely summon Rumble McSkirmish to attack a rival for him. He prides himself on his cunning, another form of intelligence, and prioritises being good at what he does best over holding the moral high ground. He is shown to have lifelong insecurities about Ford being better than him in other fields (and thus explicitly valued more by their father); so his pragmatism is his way of trying to always be useful to the people he loves, and indeed a key way he shows them his love.

[lostyesterday]

My top ten favorite B7 scenes

B’Elanna/Seven is my current favorite Star Trek ship, so I wanted to make a list of my personal favorite scenes featuring the two of them in Voyager. These scenes aren’t necessarily good (although I do think some of them are), and they’re not necessarily the scenes that provide the best “evidence” for B7 as a ship (which isn’t something I care about all that much to be honest). These are just the scenes that I personally enjoyed and have thought about the most.

10. Someone to Watch Over Me

This episode is terrible, but given how much I’ve thought about this particular scene, I couldn’t not include it. This is the Voyager scene that most clearly demonstrates how obsessed Seven is with B’Elanna and particularly with her romantic relationships. To me personally, this screams oblivious gay crush taking the form of jealous obsession. Obviously, B’Elanna is right and Seven is stepping way out of line here. This is probably the worst thing Seven ever did to B’Elanna and she’s so justified in being mad about it.

9. Survival Instinct

I really enjoy this scene because it’s an example of both B’Elanna and Seven trying to change the adversarial nature of their relationship. B’Elanna is trying to help Seven here even though she has difficulty with her. Seven immediately regrets her defensive response to B’Elanna’s attempted helpfulness. I think it’s interesting to see how the two of them have fallen into a pattern, responding defensively to each other because they’re used to their dynamic being adversarial, when they both theoretically have the capacity to understand each other better than most other people understand either of them.

8. Infinite Regress

The infamous cheek bite scene. Is this scene good? No, probably not. Has it lived in my head rent free since I originally saw it? Yes, absolutely. Technically, you could call this the only intentionally sexually coded Seven/B’Elanna scene in the show. Mostly, the thing I can’t stop thinking about is the two of them joking about it afterward. B’Elanna jokingly asking if this qualifies as their second date… I will think about that line forever.

7. The Voyager Conspiracy

I love everything about this. Seven immediately calling B’Elanna as soon as she thinks she’s found a problem with the ship’s systems regardless of how early it is in the morning. The tone of B’Elanna’s response implying this probably isn’t the first time this has happened. B’Elanna actually investigating the problem even though she’s rightfully irritated at Seven for being so annoying. I love them.

6. Course: Oblivion

It’s so, so easy to interpret this scene as Seven being jealous of Tom’s relationship with B’Elanna. Me when the person I have a crush on just got married: Monogamy is stupid, and it would make way more sense and be better if everyone (you) would have sex with anyone they want to, whenever (me, right now).

5. Human Error

Ignoring my issues with this episode, it’s so interesting how one of Seven’s major attempts to become “more human” is to try to connect to B’Elanna in this way. I think she chose B’Elanna here because she’s someone Seven genuinely wants to connect with at this point in the series, but she still struggles with how to make that connection. Also, I cannot stop thinking about Seven thinking in detail about how B’Elanna does her hair. Given the rest of the scene, I think it makes sense to say that she didn’t choose this question/compliment/terrible flirtation randomly and has genuinely just admired B’Elanna’s hair a lot. Which sure is something. And of course I love B’Elanna’s confusion here. She can tell Seven’s trying really hard to be nice, which is so not like Seven that she can hardly believe it.

4. Message in a Bottle

I love how these two scenes represent both the adversarial tension between B’Elanna and Seven, and the potential ways they could relate to and understand each other with time. B’Elanna is clearly deeply frustrated with Seven, and yet she still tries to explain to Seven why people (not just B’Elanna) are reacting negatively to her. And B’Elanna can obviously relate to being perceived by others as rude, which makes her statement that she doesn’t expect Seven to change overnight, with the subtext that she understands deeply how difficult this situation is for Seven too, really fascinating. Seven initially appearing to ignore B’Elanna and then later saying thank you to her compliment is also great. Also, B’Elanna’s reaction to Seven shocking that guy is so fun.

3. Extreme Risk

This is a short interaction, but it’s so interesting. Seven initially tries to engage in their ordinary adversarial back and forth, but when B’Elanna doesn’t respond in the typical way, immediately asks if something is wrong. I love that Seven is the first person in the episode to notice that there’s something wrong with B’Elanna. It’s so interesting that Seven seems almost disturbed by the lack of any hostility in B’Elanna’s responses and by B’Elanna immediately putting Seven in charge of something she was going to do. I think that, in a way, Seven has grown comfortable with her adversarial dynamic with B’Elanna because it’s familiar. Maybe B’Elanna has grown comfortable with it to, to a certain extent, and her lack of willingness to engage in the typical verbal sparring of their relationship in this episode comes from the same place as her lack of desire to participate in the normal routines of her other relationships. I guess I’m suggesting here that maybe Seven and B’Elanna are both more important to each other than the show explicitly portrays.

2. Hope and Fear

The iconic “we’ll be outcasts together” scene. This is probably the single scene that best illustrates the parallels between Seven and B’Elanna – how both of them have been treated like outcasts and deep down expect to continue to be outcasts forever. How both of them feel deeply ambivalent about belonging – desiring it desperately and yet pushing away from it because they believe they can never have it. Also, B’Elanna’s defensive excuse that she was “joking” two seconds after she realizes she was accidentally way too vulnerable is so good.

1. Imperfection

Thinking about this scene makes me want to scream incoherently, but I’ll try to summarize my main thoughts concisely and analytically. This is probably the scene where B’Elanna and Seven genuinely connect and relate to each other most strongly. B’Elanna understands better than anyone else in this episode what Seven needs, and Seven trusts B’Elanna of all people to ask these questions to, to be vulnerable with in this way. B’Elanna saying that Seven’s made an impact on every member of the crew is… a lot. B’Elanna truly listening to Seven here and understanding what it is that’s bothering her and saying the exact right thing in response. The whole framing of this scene with the close-up shots on faces, the softness in B’Elanna’s voice. Fuck.

[slocumjoe]

ways people write the companions that make me go hmmm

Gage excluded because I haven't seen enough portrayals of him

Cait; Poor Cait has such confusing, odd writing choices that I can’t blame anyone for doing this, but...when she’s boiled down to either Tough Irish Gal or Traumatized, with little dimension. Again, Bethesda does this themselves in text, depending on ??? so it’s not, like, a big deal. My advice for writing Cait is to remember that she exists outside of being Irish or Traumatized. She’s read/read about Freud, for example. So, she presumably learned to read, likely self-taught. If she read something psychology related, she must have taken an interest in it. That sort of thing. The best way to write Cait is to not take the obvious answer, because Cait’s depth itself isn’t obvious.

Curie; When people write Curie as a stupid, horny, smol bean 2 gud 4 dis world, i throw up in my mouth. Same as Cait, this is Bethesda’s fault. They have a habit of going for funny dialogue instead of sensible. There is no reason for Curie to say half the shit she does, she says it because someone thought it was funny, or worse, sexy. I’d recommend going through Curie’s likes/dislikes and dialogue even more so than I do other companions. Curie has a lot of edges if you go looking for them. Y’know Covenant? Curie supports Covenant. Also, she’s literally a robot in a human body. She’s 200+ years old, too. Make her fucking weird. Y’know how elves/fae are? Like that. Bonus if you make her friendliness off-putting. Being friends with a doctor gets annoying, speaking from personal experience. Also, being a doctor, she knows all about sex and sexual pleasure. She’s not confused what a dick is

Hancock; please acknowledge other aspects of his character beyond horny, sad, or high. He has them, I swear. Do you even know his parents’ names? No. You care only about ghoul dick or stoner jokes. He’s not even a stoner, he does the Fallout equivalent of meth/adderall. Much like Deacon, he does and thinks about other shit. I joke with Hancock as well, but you might notice that none of my actual reacts/headcanons open and close with shit like “he huffs some jet with one hand, fingers you with the other, and thinks about how he sucks”

Danse; i promise you, Paladin Danse is not hypervigilant of people’s asses/tits/dicks/whatevers. He’s not imagining having sex with your busty Sole every time he looks at them. That’s not just not Danse, it’s also very creepy and dehumanizing to both Danse and Sole. Is Sole not more than their tits? Other companions get the too-horny treatment as well, but I see Danse getting it worse of all. Sometimes he’s written as absolute manchild regarding sex, knowing literally nothing, same as Curie. I say Danse doesn’t know what jerking off is as a joke, but he probably knows. But Chronic Virgin Danse is usually a light-hearted joke, Hypersexual Danse is just fucking weird. It gets into unhealthy territory. Like...Danse wouldn’t want to fight people flirting with his crush. He wouldn’t even get aggressive if he was dating Sole. He’s not a hotheaded asshole. Annoyed at best, rude at worst. It’s giving Fifty shades/Twilight/After. 

Deacon; You guys know that when Deacon takes a shit, he isn’t dedicating it to Barbara, right? He isn’t dedicating it to his own redemption, or saving synths? He isn’t thinking up a cool lie to make about the shit-taking? When he has a drink of water, he isn’t like, “Barb used to drink water.” or “The U.P Deathclaws drank water” or “I’m gonna say I killed a behemoth with a water bottle!” Deacon has other thoughts and motivations beyond the meme or the sad. I can’t judge too much, because Deacon himself would approve of being thought of like this, but good god. Just let the dude be a dude sometimes. Let him shit in peace. 

MacCready; might be because he’s the most solidly written, but very few complaints with most MacCready stuff. Him being a little perverted is in character, he’s 22. However, I have seen people straight up forget Duncan and Lucy. It’s okay, though. So did Bethesda.

Nick; Also usually solid, the most common crime is that aforementioned After Shades of Twilight writing. Nick is not a possessive dude. He’s even less likely than Danse to get aggressive over his partner. Yeah, sure, he’s a cop, but is that really the fantasy you want? Really? 

Piper; I have...famously strong opinions on Piper, but good god. Blue this, Blue that, I’m gonna write about this, this’ll look good in my paper, I’m putting this in the news. Oh my God. You’d think Sole was a fucking SMURF with how many writers call them Blue. You’d think Piper dragged her writing press behind her like Sisyphus heaving his boulder along. Same as Deacon and Hancock, SHE DOES OTHER SHIT. People bend over backwards trying to work in the fact she’s a reporter. Same as Cait, the obvious is not interesting. 

Preston; fuck the settlement jokes, I hate it when Preston is turned into an UwU soft boy baby cinnamon roll 2 gud 4 dis world UwU sunshine sweetie pie cutie. Whenever someone does this, they don’t actually like Preston. They have no thoughts, no feelings, they just...I don’t know, want to be contrarion to Preston haters? “Imagine not liking Preston, couldn’t be me ;333″ you realize this is racist, right? Like, you know infantilizing black men is racist? Oh my God you don't know this is racist

X6-88; SPEAKING OF FUCKING RACISM. The highest discourse I’ve seen around X6 is calling it ableist to HC him as autistic, but that is NOT the biggest issue with X6 writing. X6-88 is best described as, like, a very expensive, very spoiled cat of a rich, Old Money asshole. You know the Evil Stepmother’s cat in Cinderella? That bitch. That’s X6 in a nutshell. That’s how you write X6. I’m not even going to get into the racist ass portrayals of X6 because fuck is it tiring, just gonna leave you with this; X6 is best when you see his character for the humor and genuinely interesting philosophies in it, and not when you see him as a BDSM hardcore porn big dick sex god dominant daddy who likes spanking. 

[mickeym4ndy]

I only watched Shamless last year and I never seen any of the hall of shame episodes because everyone said they were terrible so I’ve only seen some of the gallavich clips. but I saw you talk about the 85% love thing which is an insane ooc thing they made ian say but I never see people talk about the thing mickey said about his bipolar? I was shocked it was such an asshole ooc move I can’t believe the writers thought it was ok?

Yea it was very fucked up by Mickey, hall of shame was the worst.

I don’t think it’s that ooc for either of them to lash out at each other when they’re hurt, but to sink that low was really fucked up, and yea very ooc given what they’ve been through. Seeing Mickey try to hit someone where it hurts when he feels cornered/hurt isn’t uncommon (eg: how he spoke to Svetlana at the baptism) but for him to actually make a comment like that to Ian about his bipolar after everything was imo really ooc for Mickey. And just a fucked up thing to say.

Going on a bit of a tangent here but I think one of the worst parts about Hall of Shame is that the writers were so close to getting it right, but they kept fucking it up so badly.

For example, the 87% comment was mean and unfair but not just for Mickey, for Ian also. Because the flashbacks implied Ian wasn’t talking about family & friends etc, he was talking about past “relationships.” Which Caleb and Trevor I can understand to an extent, but to include Kash and Ned and other men that took advantage of him in that “13%” is fucked up by the writers and imo does Ian a massive disservice. It’s like they’re treating these men like ex boyfriends, and not predators who groomed and took advantage of a teenager. It’s like they refuse to acknowledge that Ian was groomed.

And this ep/ Ned’s death, instead of being a way to make Gallavich fight over stupid shit, could’ve been a chance for Ian to actually realize that & come to terms with it. Mickey could’ve brought up how fucked it was too. They could’ve actually talked about and dealt with something real.

Even Mickey’s comment to Ian about leaving being his whole MO had validity based on their past tbh. It’s been talked about a lot recently how Mickey has abandonment issues with Ian because of everything that went down between them, and that could’ve been an opportunity for them to discuss that. Like actually discuss a massive element of their past that’s caused Mickey’s biggest insecurity in their relationship. Not visiting him in prison stuff, Mexico, etc.

But instead the writers made them lash out and say stupid shit to each other and make Mickey make that gross ableist comment.

Half the time in the later seasons it felt like the writers were just choosing things for them to say/do based on the idea like “what would someone say here” but not “what would Ian/Mickey say here.” If that makes sense. It’s like they barely knew the characters so they just wrote their own version of them? Idk

I’m sure there’s other stuff from the ep that could’ve been an opportunity to actually deal with stuff had it been handled differently, but I haven’t watched it in a long time so can’t remember.

I think s11 was flawed but there were things I liked, but hall of shame really was a mess. Only thing that was good were the kisses at the end lol.

[thatbadadvice]

Help! All These Boring, Ugly Bitches Won't Hang Out With Me

Care and Feeding, Slate, 23 January 23:

Dear Care and Feeding: I live in the very lonely overlap of a Venn diagram, and I need help figuring out how to fix it. To keep it short, I’m a mom who was on the fence about having kids, so I’m not a very ‘mom-y’ mom. My kid isn’t my life or my identity, and while I think I’m a caring and attentive parent, I’m not the primary parent, and I like it that way. I lost most of my non-parent friends when I had my kid. However, my appearance and interests still very much scream “non-parent.” My kid is off-putting to the people most like me (many are overtly judgmental), but my looks and lifestyle are off-putting to other moms (for example, I prioritize my appearance, have a lot of tattoos, and value my work). This has left me very lonely and isolated. Finding friends as an adult is so hard, so please don’t suggest “finding my people” as I’m very extroverted and have been trying to make new friends for years. It’s not working. If I’m honest, I think my childless friends think I’m stupid for having a kid, while my mom acquaintances are jealous of my appearance and judge my choices. It really sucks. ��The Worst Venn Diagram

Dear The Worst Venn Diagram,

Holy shit, a mom ... but with tattoos? Is that even possible? You think you've heard everything at a gig like this, but then someone as incredible as you comes along with such an unusual life story! What a remarkable woman you are.

I can see why it would be difficult for someone as hot and interesting as you to make meaningful connections when you yourself are so special and have a lot of tattoos, and moms are always so ugly and boring and worthless and don't have any tattoos, let alone a lot of them. It might help take the sting off to reframe it this way: it's actually a much bigger bummer that all those sad, frumpy mommy-bots are missing out on an amazing opportunity to befriend a mom with tattoos. Can you imagine how enriched their lives would be if they could get over themselves for just one minute and try to understand you as a person, rather than making a bunch of generalizations and assumptions based on surface-level observations? But here they are, writing you off as soon as they see how beautiful and covered in tattoos you are when you walk around with your important briefcase from work. It's really their loss.

You're practically a unicorn! I mean, okay — unicorn is hyperbole. But you get what I'm saying! You're probably one of a handful of women anywhere who has a kid and also cares about the way she looks, and when you add in the fact that you work and have just so, so many tattoos? I don't know, unicorn might not be far off.

In light of that, you've set for yourself a really hard task here. It's not going to be made easier by the fact that the dull and homely stay-at-home moms who stupidly chose to contribute nothing worthwhile to society are being so judgmental about the way you live your life as a gorgeous, professional cool girl who just happens to have a kid. You have such a neat and fun lifestyle and other women don't! Why should you be punished for being a valuable person who, more importantly, values herself, unlike the other moms, who look like absolute shit and never have anything interesting to say and don't have tattoos and are so mean and critical of your choices and the way you look?

Never forget this: you are exceptional. It's not such a mystery that you've been trying so unsuccessfully to make friends for so long. Of course you can't "find your people." There are none. You're a sexy mom with tattoos and a job, and that's always going to be hard for the two kinds of women on earth to understand, whether they're the kind of woman who is a judgy, child-free asshole or the other kind of woman: a jealous, kid-obsessed mommy zombie.

You are one of one — wild and precious and brave and free and so, so pretty, and with so many tattoos. You must never let motherhood define you — only everyone else.

[frawgs]

If you actually did the research you said you did you’d know that the coconut dirt is one of the worst substrates you could use. Considering you have what I assume is a lot of followers, You’re setting an extremely dangerous example of how to take care of a reptile. I fucking hate when people like you THINK they know what they’re doing when you’re putting an innocent animal at risk. Whatever. When your pet dies don’t come crying to us about SHIT. You know what you’re doing.

hii i’ve been researching for as long as i’ve had my gecko (got her in 2015) i am constantly improving and fixing because the correct info isn’t exactly given to you upfront and i was a stupid childish kid at the time of purchase but i can assure you i’ve done my research and im aware of the risks but considering i only put a thinnnnnnn layer of coconut fiber and mainly all rocks she barely touches it and i also packed it in tight so it isn’t loose. i also kept her reptile carpet in the places she’d be laying and hiding in so she barely comes into contact with it… i’ve been watching her for these past couple of hours to see if any of it sticks to her and it doesn’t it’s so tightly packed its pretty much just regular dirt. also i bought her at a petco forever ago and they told me to use sand and luckily i knew enough than to give her fuckin sand. i was scared to post about her upgrade because i knew of the weird ppl who would accuse me of knowing nothing but i know a thing or two and im trying my best to give her the best life i can but there’s always room for improvement and im aware im not perfect but i try very very hard

[coraniaid]

I don't know how it's possible to watch Season 3 of Buffy and not notice that Buffy Summers is  consistently the one character most willing to come to Faith's defense, both before and after Allan Finch dies.

I mean, yes, I understand how in-universe it's possible for Faith to not notice this.  It's very natural that she doesn’t: Faith's a traumatized teenager with literally no support system.  She isn’t used to anybody else believing in her or caring about her. 

She’s somebody who is always willing to believe the worst of others (“all men are beasts”, “nine times out of ten the face [a person] is showing you is not the real one”).  And her own sense of self-worth is very fragile and deeply intertwined with her relationship with Buffy, fluctuating wildly between "I am better than everyone else (because I am a Slayer like Buffy)" and "every parental figure I've ever had has told me I was stupid and worthless and they were right (I will never be as good as Buffy)".  

So it's easy for her to interpret Buffy's overtures of friendship as rejections of a deeper connection, to take her suggestions that they should work together as judgments that Faith isn't good enough on her own and that she needs to act more like Buffy.

(And ... okay, yes, it’s also true that sometimes Buffy does judge Faith, and she does think Faith would be better off being at least a little bit more like her.  I think it’s clear that Buffy does care about Faith, and wants to protect her, but I don't think Buffy's perfect.  She's often afraid to express herself clearly or talk about her feelings, especially after what happened with Angelus in Season 2, and she does have a definite inclination to assume she knows best and that other people should just listen to her without question. She's a traumatized teenager too, even if that's not always quite so obvious.)

And crucially, Faith doesn't get to see Buffy defending her when she isn't around.

But the audience?  We do get to see that.  We see how much Buffy believes in Faith and how her first instinct is almost always to stick up for her.

We see it at the end of the first episode Faith appears in, when Buffy is talking to Giles about their fight with Kakistos.

Buffy: "[Faith] really came through in the end.   She had a lot to deal with, but she did it.  She got it behind her."

-- S3E03 | Faith, Hope & Trick

(This is also, as the episode makes clear, an example of Buffy comparing herself to Faith and deciding that she needs to follow the other Slayer’s example.  Which is something that Faith is convinced never happens.  But it does: when Faith isn’t there to see it.)

And after their fight in Revelations, we see Buffy admitting to Xander and Willow that she worries about Faith and wants to include her in the group more:

Xander: "How come Faith was a no show?"

Buffy: "Couldn't reach her ... again.  She hasn't been hanging out much."

Xander: "I detect worry."

Buffy; "A little bit.  Slaying's a rough gig."

-- S3E09 | The Wish

After Finch dies, Buffy is the one to tell Angel that Faith wants to be helped, and urge him not to give up on her:

Buffy: "How's she doing? ... You'll keep trying, right? ... I'll just go to Faith's and I'll get some of her stuff.  That way she'll see that we're on her side."

Angel: "Look, I don't want to get your hopes up, Buffy.  She may not want us to help her."

Buffy: "She does.  She just doesn't know how to say it."

-- S3E15 | Consequences

And at the end of the same episode, Buffy is again the one to persuade Giles that Faith’s actions in saving her from Trick show she deserves a chance at rehabilitation:

Buffy: "She could have left me there to die, Giles, but she didn't. ... I'm not gonna give up on her."

-- S3E15 | Consequences

And in the following episode, we see Buffy defend Faith to Willow and again talk about how similar they are.

Buffy: "[Faith] had it rough.  Different circumstances, that could be me."

-- S3E16 | Doppelgangland

And a couple of episodes later, when Buffy's attempting to talk herself out of the fear that Angel might be cheating on her with Faith, it's Faith who she tells herself wouldn't betray her, not the vampire she's actually dating.

Buffy: I went to Angel's last night and Faith was there.  They looked sort of intimate.

Willow: No way.  I know what you're thinking and no way.

Buffy:  You're right.  Faith would never do that.

-- S3E17 | Enemies

Even later on in the same episode, when Faith's actual collusion with the Mayor is revealed, Buffy's first reaction is to make excuses for her and then to implore her to listen to her:

Buffy: You don't know what you're doing ... Faith, listen to me ... I never knew you had so much rage in you.

-- S3E17 | Enemies

It's only after all of that that Buffy seems prepared to give up on Faith, and only in Graduation Day when Angel's life is on the line that she's actually willing to hurt her (earlier, in Choices, she’s still talking about ‘capturing’ Faith).  And when she does stab Faith, and Faith falls from the roof, seemingly to her death, it’s obvious from her reaction that Buffy immediately regrets this.  Even if she didn’t think she had any other choice, it isn’t how she wanted things to happen.

So honestly it kind of baffles me when I see people agreeing with the take that Buffy’s focus on how Faith might be feeling, when she hears that she’s woken up in This Year’s Girl, and her apparent hope that Faith might regret her past actions and want to change, is somehow something new.  That it isn’t perfectly in keeping with how Buffy’s always felt about Faith.  Or even that the idea of being willing to give people a second chance is something Buffy had to learn from Angel.

Because no, sorry, that's just totally backwards: Angel himself learned all that from Buffy.  

(Also, just logistically ... how would Buffy have learned anything from Angel at this point in Season 4 that she didn't already know back in Season 3, when – from her point of view, at least – she's barely spoken to him since he broke up with her and left town last season?)

Not just in regards to Faith, either, but the whole idea of needing to keep fighting for people and not give up on them, and how you have to keep doing that every day? Angel's whole mission statement (both the character and the show)? That's literally all taken from a speech Buffy gives Angel in Amends.  The show is very clear on this: it's Buffy who teaches Angel to be a better person, not the other way around.

[tabithatwo]

you people are so weird. any person with a brain would understand that shauna would be the most affected by the loss of her baby. that baby is literally a part of her in a way that jackie will never be able to. you’re just mad that shauna’s character no longer revolves around the non canon ship that you made up in your head.

I’m only gonna respond to one of these the rest will be deleted but this is a good example to use to tap into more general concerning discussion I see!

Two parts, the easy one first:

everyone who says this stuff is missing the point completely, the conversation isn’t even about shipping like…at all, actually! It’s character continuity! The point is simply that s1 21 shauna was constantly impacted by a specific thing (the loss of Jackie) and now that we’ve seen that loss on screen in 96, the showrunners have shifted s2 21 Shauna a LOT (both on screen and in interviews). I also talked about Misty’s continuity. Im concerned about the 2021 CHARACTERS CHANGING BASED ON THINGS THAT HAVE ALL ALREADY HAPPENED TO THEM IN THE PAST BY THE FIRST FRAME OF ADULT THEM THAT WE EVER SEE IN THE SHOW. Because I worry that the writers don’t themselves know enough of what happened in the 96 tl to not have continuity issues in the adult characters and/or there’s been a push somewhere to make the characters more tolerable or sympathetic. Like that is the thesis statement idk if that helps lol cause I think you’re probably willfully misunderstanding me but in case you’re not there’s another rephrasing of it.

Second thing, less easy:

telling people that “anyone with a brain would understand that the loss of a baby would impact her most” is actually a very cruel thing to do! I’m taking the time to explain this in case you’re on the younger side or something and maybe just don’t understand, but when you talk to people you do not know what they’ve experienced. So imagining that you’re telling someone who has experienced the thing you’re lecturing them on when you say things can be a helpful metric in being less of an asshole in your phrasing. Pregnancy loss and stillbirth CAN absolutely be the hardest thing some people ever experience. But applying that rhetoric to every single woman is actually a very right wing bullshit propaganda sexist crock of shit, which is the other issue I have with this storyline that’s making me weary. The entire she showed no interest in this baby but every woman wants their baby and it just takes seeing it to realize thing? Rotted. Absolutely rotted lol. Can that happen? YEAH! Does it every time or even most of the time? FUCKING NO IT DOES NOT! Does constantly portraying that in media create a general understanding that is incredibly harmful? The one you’re actually sending back at me right now? ALSO YEAH! I’m not saying I don’t think there’s a way they can go with Shauna’s grief that doesn’t play into this, but the shift in her 2021 character PAIRED with the quote about the baby being the most profound loss worries me.

Especially when the proof is a little bit in the pudding, because there are so many people like you very loudly saying that miscarriage or pregnancy loss or stillbirth is unequivocally the worst thing that can happen to a woman and that questioning that is wrong.

So back to think about who you’re talking to and how they could have any life you don’t understand: you sent this to me! A stranger on the internet! And I, someone who actually quite literally experienced pregnancy loss at 19 years old of a baby that I didn’t want with a man that I slept with because of his proximity to a specific woman, woke up to a message telling me that I’m stupid for not understanding the impact of the loss of a pregnancy. Now is that the exact same loss as Shauna’s? No of course not but damn if it isn’t a little eerie in its closeness lol. Which is probably WHY I care so much how they’re handling this rhetoric.

ANYWAY LAYING THIS SUBJECT TO REST FOR NOW LIKE COACH BENS LEG Y’ALL ARE DOING TOO MUCH LET ME TALK ABOUT MY CONCERNS FOR THE CONTINUITY AND DIRECTION OF A TV SHOW I LOVE ON MY OWN BLOG WITHOUT TELLING ME I DONT UNDERSTAND A THING IVE EXPERIENCED THANKS SO MUCH!

[ordinaryschmuck]

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 made me cry three times.

Hey, that’s one per movie...Yeah, this movie’s awesome.

If you couldn’t tell, this is a very emotional film for sure, and a part of why that works so well is because it’s these characters. The Guardians are some of the most likable characters in the MCU, so seeing them go through a lot of hard stuff in this movie hits ya where it hurts because of how much you care about them. Especially Rocket, who I might not see the same way again after this movie due to his crazy tragic backstory.

Speaking of which, shit gets DARK with Volume 3! Do you like animals? Then maybe don’t watch this one, because there are scenes where animals get tortured, mutilated, mutated, and even killed throughout the film. You don’t see the REAL brutal stuff, but the implications that James Gunn puts in might actually be worse than SHOWING us. But don’t let that make you think we DON’T see any gruesome stuff in this. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 is one of the few MCU projects that EARNS its PG-13 rating, having some VIOLENT imagery and deaths. For example, there’s a moment where you see what a character really looks like, and it might just be the goriest thing the MCU has ever had, which is the biggest compliment I can give.

But despite all that, it’s still funny! Like, REALLY funny! And the jokes don’t spoil and dramatic or serious moment in the film, either...Well, except for maybe one or two scenes, but that’s NOTHING compared to films where the jokes completely harm the final product like Thor: Love and Thunder. Here, the jokes are perfectly placed, are rarely forced in, and are ACTUALLY funny. Me and everyone in the theater were cackling with laughter a LOT throughout the movie. I could barely restrain myself from belting out a laugh or two half the time.

And the action. Holy SHIT, the action! These “trilogies” in the MCU really know how to save the cool stuff for the third movies. Iron Man 3, Captain America: Civil War, Thor: Ragnarok, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and now THIS FILM all feature some of the most epic, creative, and fun action scenes and set-pieces in the MCU. There’s a hallway fight that might just top Daredevil’s due to how violent and creative it is with these characters, their powers, and how they kill people. It really does feel like James Gunn wanted to give the fans a few final cool battles before leaving the MCU forever.

Which brings me to another thing about what makes this movie awesome: It is a clear send-off for James Gunn and the Guardians. The movie makes it VERY clear that this will be the last time all these characters will be together. Hell, the credits features pictures of the Guardians throughout their journies and adventures in the MCU. The most we’ll PROBABLY get are cameos, but other than that, this is the end for most of these characters. And WHAT an end it was.

If there’s anything to complain about, there’s two problems.

#1, Adam Warlock. The character isn’t...bad and Will Poulter nails the voice I always pictured this character having. But he doesn’t really nail who Warlock is in the comics and, overall, he’s kind of...pointless. You can easily write him out of the movie and make a few extra tweaks NOTHING would be missing. Honestly, it feels like the only reason why he’s here is because Volume 2 teased his appearance and James Gunn had no choice but to...bring him in for this last ride. Also, Warlock has the worst costume in the MCU. I mean, look at this:

What even is this?

Which brings me to #2--Which is my most nitpickiest complaint: Star Lord doesn’t wear his mask. Ever. Throughout all two hours and a half hours of this film. It’s part of a bigger complain I have where characters don’t mask up as much as they should in these movies, but it doesn’t stop how distracting it is. I don’t want see Chrisp Ratt’s stupid face in this. I want to see STAR LORD.

THIS! I want to see THIS! And the crazy thing is that Volume 3 finally gives the Guardians their comic accurate uniforms, but don’t go all the way in giving us Star Lord’s mask. Not even the original one they made for these movies. Part of the fun of superheroes are their cool and iconic costumes so it sucks that we don’t get to see enough of that. Imagine if Spider-Man: No Way Home or Captain America: Civil War didn’t have Peter and Steve wear their masks for the big and epic fights, including the finale battles. It wouldn’t be great, would it? Seeing Tom Holland and Chris Evans fight instead of Spider-Man and Captain America.

LET YOUR HEROES WEAR MASKS, YOU COWARDS!

...But other than that, this movie’s a near perfect 9/10 for me.

Now, does this mean Marvel’s back on their game and they’ll be making good movies again?

...We’ll see.

For now, I’ll remain hopeful. Because while the MCU is going through a bit of a rough patch with its films and recent shows, there’s still some fun to be had. I’ll always keep an eye out for what they have next, even if it’s not always as good as it could be, it’ll always lead me to seeing...

A fun, nostalgic thrill-ride that honors Spider-Man and what makes him so awesome.

A touching tribute to Chadwick Boseman and how much he and the character he portrayed meant to others.

And this final ride that’s fun, tragic, and complete in all the right ways.

[persephoneprice]

hope this isn't a weird question but -- what do you hc as the negative qualities of each of the mentors, beyond what's already in canon? as in the things that make them morally gray / cause problems in their relationships / etc. like for example i think of hilarius as generally a sweet and generous type of guy, but also as self-centered in a lot of ways and often wanting to be the center of attention lol

this isn’t a weird question at all! actually, it’s super interesting to think about- let’s dive in and discuss!

*side note, i started trying to do every mentor but realized it was getting way too long so i’m just doing a few. if there’s a specific mentor you’re curious about that i didn’t do, let me know!

livia cardew

i think based on the book, you could say that she comes across and snooty and mean. however, i would also bully coriolanus so i am choosing not to judge her for this. but as far as her negative traits go, i think she takes things too far and holds grudges. that’s why she makes fun of coriolanus when he doesn’t understand the poem and why she brings up him being an orphan. it’s too far and she knows it, but livia is the type to go for the kill and nothing is off limits when she truly doesn’t like you.

io jasper

i think io’s biggest problem is how smart she is. it intimidates people when they try to talk to her because she comes off as a know-it-all.

urban canville

everything about him is a negative trait. 💛

persephone price

i headcanon persephone to be a pretty deeply insecure person and i think that affects her life a lot. she has a habit of trying to people please and isn’t great at putting her own needs first. she has trouble really voicing her own thoughts and opinions sometimes out of fear of other people’s reactions. all of this leads to issues in her relationships with her friends and partners because she struggles so much to be open and really communicate.

festus creed

festus is impulsive. he never thinks before he speaks and he’s his own worst enemy in that regard. he blurts out things in class that doesn’t doesn’t always really mean (like when he was talking about forcing people to watch the games). he feels stupid afterward but he can’t seem to stop himself from running his mouth. he tends to encourage his friends to do stupid things without thinking the consequences through. i hc that one of his biggest fights with persephone was during the games when he made a comment about how coral should go ahead and kill mizzen off- it really hurt her and to his credit, he did realize what a stupid thing that was to say.

felix ravinstill

when he was younger- it was just that he assumed that because he was a ravinstill everyone would want to be his friend and like him automatically. he really believed that being a ravinstill made him above his peers.

when he was older- that became a new issue for him. he was insecure that everyone only liked him because he was a ravinstill and tended to be paranoid that his friendships weren’t genuine. it made it hard for him to be truly open and close with people.

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

Curious - what do you think about Darkling's will to save Grisha? What part of him do you think is "good" despite him being a vicious villain? Or is he completely self serving in your eyes?

Hmm I think he started out genuinely meaning well but past a certain point it took a back seat to his personal ambitions. By canon era he seems more preoccupied with *being the person to fix things* rather than them simply being fixed, if that makes sense? Like his ego and need for unilateral control clearly come first.

There’s definitely a lot of murkiness in the series where it’s hard to separate in-universe characterization from author shortcomings sometimes, but I think it’s pretty telling that his contribution to making things safer for Grisha results in the Little Palace and essentially a personal army answering to him alone. And he seems to be content with that until a sun summoner shows up and allows him to try to enact world domination via Shadow Fold. I feel like if his real primary goal is meant to be any sort of large scale liberation we would simply see more of it as something he’s pursuing?

Anyway I think “good” is hard to define. I wouldn’t say he’s one note evil? But he’s certainly incredibly ruthless and vindictive. We see him personally hurt other Grisha the most tbh? And frequently disproportionately and to his own detriment. A scenario where he wins everything seems so easy and attainable if he was just a little less cruel and a little more patient.

I think the thing mostly tripping him up is just immortality tbh. He’s so old that individual people and lives don’t have much meaning to him anymore, he’s playing a numbers game instead. And it’s become more about winning than any particular ideology or value. I think a good example of that is him working with Fjerda circa S&S to sack Os Alta, which seems like a pretty stunning abandonment of his supposed values. Or how his plan seems to have been “kill pretty much everyone” sgdhdg like the Darkling Did Nothing Wrong side of the fandom bring up him not killing the kids in the orphanage a lot as a defense, but he did very much kill basically all the Grisha left in the Little Palace. The only survivors were the ones that escaped. He didn’t actually spare anyone!

I think RoW, for all its contradictions and awkward relationship with the original trilogy, does showcase circumstances where he isn’t the absolute worst (lol) pretty well. He isn’t redeemed, because he isn’t sorry for a single thing he did! But he is also happy to be the person to go to tree hell to save the day, because who *else* could possibly do that, except for him, the main character of the universe? Like, frankly, I think the tree hell stuff is fucking stupid, but it is a deft way to show how his ego and values are intrinsically tied, and how under specific circumstances he is willing to sacrifice very, very much, despite being an otherwise fairly selfish character.

[hoolay-boobs]

How do you get into the perspective of your OC(s)? What were the first few things you did to get into their character and understand them better?

I absolutely love this question bc it led to me re reading my own work 😂

I somehow got to my my characters very well without ever putting my book in first person. It’s all third person, sub for one character who breaks the fourth wall and sometimes speaks without quotation marks.

I was inspired by Shannon Hale’s run of Ever After High (Ever After High has at least three different book series by three different authors, plus a Netflix tv series- it’s like a miniature MCU but with better characterization lmao) and I can arguably say that Shannon Hale has the best material on all of Ever After High.

Here is an example (the image is sourced from Etsy) of how a character breaks the containment of using proper formatting of quotation marks and speaks directly to the narrator

I do this as well. Different font, and then I write it like a text message going back and forth, disregarding quotation marks or proper formatting. However this only happens a couple of times per book for my character, and a handful (4-5) times in Ever After High.

I know my characters far too well. The main eight are like children to me, I know their deepest desire and darkest fear and coping mechanism and guilty pleasure. I have been with them for over 5 years without finishing my novel. The time has been spent with making playlists and drawing pictures and creating Pinterest boards and writing things that I don’t intend to publish or include in the final manuscript (hehehe fanfiction by the author) because I simply like to explore them in different situations. My books are going to be in third person, but I ocassionally write in first person, even if I’m planning on just deleting it, because I just like to practice getting in my characters’ heads when I have writers block.

I follow the “worst” writing advice ever. I base many traits for my OCs off of myself, which could be seen as making them Mary Sues. I write them like real people, adding in stupid dialogue of them stuttering or accidentally interrupting one another and then saying “oh sorry, you go first”. I write smut about my favourite OC ships knowing that I’ll never include it in the final draft of my book, just because I want to write about what’s happening “off screen” and what my characters are doing when the reader isn’t looking (although there are indeed some sex scenes in my book, I do like to write additional ones that aren’t nearly as eloquent or have any plans to include it in the published novel). I started my second draft before my first draft was finished, solely because I understood my writing style had improved so abruptly and the characters had evolved so much, I needed to start fresh. I look in the mirror and act out my character’s conversations with one another or their fight scenes or how they wave their hands around like Elsa conjuring magic. I take breaks for months and when I finally sit down and write, I’ll either write 5 words, or 2205 words in one sitting, and not often anything in between.

I have horrible writing advice, and I suggest you take any of it that you’d like or that resonated with you, because it has brought me so much joy in my life and has helped me gradually get to know my characters like new friends who become family.

I’ve been told that my writing “flows like butter” which is so odd because I juggle 4 protagonists, 2 antagonists, and 2 deuteragonists. They don’t “all fit”, but they all have a role to play. Like the delicious fries on the side of the burger, the whole meal. Your characters don’t need to be stars. They just need to be memorable. And I know they will be. Your mind is more capable than you think.

Like honestly, just word vomit on the page and write silly stuff. It will be the most human, glorious, flawed, messy, endearing, and passionate writing you’ll see. Just go create chaos. And play with your characters like Barbie dolls. In a little while, you’ll know them like you know yourself.

At the end of the day, anything you write will be an achievement because you took nothing and turned it into something, transformed a blank page into a series of words and letters. That’s god behaviour right there. Even if it’s shitty writing, you created it from scratch.

But also, don’t worry about setting deadlines and timelines. I’ve been at this since grade 10 and now I’m in university and I’m still not done. Let your characters marinate and soak and rest in your mind. Let them grow. There is no rush. All is well 💜 and one day your characters will grow like little plants from seeds 🫂🫂🫂💕💕💕 just be patient with yourself, and have fun with getting to know your characters!

[nekropsii]

When it comes to "Fanon Stereotypes", which characters(aside from the Alphas because they're already criminally underexplored) do you think have it the worst? Alternatively; One misunderstanding or lie per character you see shown around as some weird truth?

As far as “Fanon Stereotypes,” as you’ve put it, goes… The first examples that come to mind that aren’t Alpha Trolls are Dave, Karkat, Kanaya, Dirk and Jake in tandem, and specifically how a lot of people portray June. John’s fine, people get weird with June specifically half the time, and I’m not talking about the discourse surrounding her…

For the “Misunderstanding Passed Off as Truth” part of your inquiry… Here’s a small and random assortment:

John has literally never used :B during the entire run of Homestuck. This is a Jane thing. That is a Jane emoticon.

Rose is not good at therapy. She’s never been good at therapy. She’s a 13 year old girl armchair diagnosing her brother as gay using Freudian psychoanalysis. If you take Freudian psychology seriously… I don’t know what to tell you.

Dave’s character arc is literally not about “overcoming toxic masculinity.” Yes, this is a trait he picks up from Bro, that is undeniable, but that’s genuinely not what the focus of his arc is. His arc circles around overcoming childhood neglect and abuse. It just so happens that being a little more forthcoming with his thoughts and feelings fell in line with that. Toxic masculinity, and the head-on tackling of it, was never the crux of his development.

Please for the love of god Jade is not stupid, and she doesn’t mean nothing to the plot. She’s just forgetful and also doesn’t want to be fucking miserable. She also doesn’t “get in the way of DaveKat,” because Dave and Jade legitimately had a thing going on way before Meteorstuck even happened.

Karkat’s arc isn’t about overcoming toxic masculinity either. What. His arc is about how he was born a Mutantblood and raised in a society that hates him. He’s the fucking Second Coming of Troll Christ. There’s so much pressure on him, and none of that pressure is focused in any way on his personal expression of/experience with his own masculinity.

Dave and Karkat do not have arcs that parallel each other at all. They aren’t narratively fated to be together, they aren’t masterfully foils, or star-crossed lovers or anything. The only ways they truly parallel each other in writing is due to the fact that they’re both Knights, and therefore are both interacting with what’s most important to them in generally the same or similar ways. That’s how Classes work. Revolutionary.

Kanaya isn’t stuffy, or boring, or overly-wordy. She isn’t a “mom friend” either. She’s just an extremely awkward girl who cares a lot about her friends and is very bad at social situations. She also isn’t fashionable or cool. I implore you to look back on her dialogue and on the outfits she wears. She is a mess.

Terezi is not a manic pixie dream girl. I’m in pain. This is still going on…

Jake’s character actually does extend past him being Dirk’s arm candy, actually! Jake isn’t just a “Sexy Lamp”! He’s very, very interesting, and he can exist outside of the concept of shipping- in fact, he canonically really, really wants to exist outside of the concept of being people’s object of romantic affections!

Tavros did not reciprocate Gamzee’s feelings. I’m not knocking on people who ship them, because I genuinely could not fucking care less, but I have seen people say that Tavros reciprocated those feelings, which… No, he didn’t.

Nothing to do with a character, but Moiraillegience is a romantic quadrant. It’s inherently romantic, just in a platonic way. It is not just “best friendship”- it’s more comparable to a Queerplatonic Relationship than anything. It is, in fact, weird to Paleship two siblings.

[gendrie]

can you talk more about how arya will have the best understanding of life and death? this really interests me bc obvs arya is the most connected to the stranger, the many faced god and the whole idea of death as a gift of mercy vs death as punishment which keeps cropping up in her story. and then that furthers her resolution with lsh bc stoneheart is a violation of life and death. its so interesting to me.

i think its interesting too. the value of life contrasted against the inevitably of death is one of the biggest themes in the series. the story is driven by human characters; their feelings, their perspective and the choices they make, but theres always that presence of mortality looming over every single one of them.

“Truth is sometimes hard to hear. Two of the central phrases are true, but they are not truths that most human beings like to contemplate. Winter is coming and Valar morghulis – all men must die. Mortality is the inescapable truth of all life . . . and of all stories, too.” GRRM [x]

it isn’t out of some nihilist mindset. it’s just the truth. arya’s storyline is about the truth as much as it is about life/death. she makes a constant effort to see things as they truly are. it’s not at all a coincidence that arya’s pov strongly features “winter is coming” AND “valar morghulis” (the only other character both appear in is tyrion iirc) so thats significant. people point out her association with death all the time, but it’s usually just so they can pretend she’s "too far gone” and won’t survive the series. theres a lot of reasons she has this connection and none of them are because she’s dying. au contraire! arya is going to be one of the ultimate stories of survival because she has been threatened by death so closely.

"You are too young to be burdened with all my cares," he told her, "but you are also a Stark of Winterfell. You know our words." "Winter is coming," Arya whispered. "The hard cruel times," her father said. "We tasted them on the Trident, child, and when Bran fell. You were born in the long summer, sweet one, you've never known anything else, but now the winter is truly coming. Remember the sigil of our House, Arya." "The direwolf," she said, thinking of Nymeria. She hugged her knees against her chest, suddenly afraid. (Arya, AGOT)

the starks are associated with death in general. theres a huge emphasis in the story on their crypt (a place of fear for many, but strength for some like arya and bran) and their house words are a reminder of mortality and times of hardship. that harsh reality is the foundation of house stark. “the hard cruel times” ned tells arya after her brother has lays comatose and her friend brutally murdered. this is her second chapter and its just a taste. arya is going to witness a horrific disregard for human life. for arya it was kill or be killed.

"So you say, but might be the boy knows something we don't, maybe it's us ought to be run . . ." Yes, Arya thought. Yes, it's you who ought to run, you and Lord Tywin and the Mountain and Ser Addam and Ser Amory and stupid Ser Lyonel whoever he is, all of you better run or my brother will kill you, he's a Stark, he's more wolf than man, and so am I. (Arya, ACOK)

the direwolves get a lot association with death too because they are hunters. life/death is just another cycle of nature and arya's got a lot of those too (moon phases, water motif). like the wolf arya values her pack. which is why losing them has, literally, threatened her own survival. arya has so much to do with death because her grief is so tremendous. every death chips away at her sense of self. a couple days ago i posted the moment where arya receives the news that bran and rickon were killed and winterfell fallen and its great example bc her immediate reaction is: “AM I STILL ARYA?” it was the same with ned and the red wedding was the worst of all bc that was her last hope to be reunited with robb and her mother. all the characters deal with this to one extent or another but only arya is so harmed by it that she’s driven to become “no one” thats identity rock bottom

All men must die. That was what the words meant, the words that Jaqen H'ghar had taught her when he gave her the worn iron coin. She had learned more Braavosi words since they left Saltpans, the words for please and thank you and sea and star and fire wine, but she came to them knowing that all men must die. (Arya, AFFC)

now, she’s in a place where they worship death. she is depressed and vulnerable and attempting to join their ranks which will require she kill herself. essentially. suicide is a core element in the hob&w. but she won’t be able to do it. (for a variety of reasons) arya hid needle, the symbol of her life, and promised she would be back, telling herself that death cannot have it!!!!!!!

“Theres a certain grim intellectual power behind the faith of the Faceless Men, valar morghulis, all men must die, and you know all men do die so it doesn’t seem to matter what god they pray to in the end they’re dead. Which would seem to indict that the god of death is a really, really powerful god and maybe one that we should pay attention to.” GRRM [x]

but i don’t think its not all bad. the things arya is learning there can be valuable. not just the abilities, but their philosophy. it’s an extremely powerful thing to accept that death is a part of life. so simple and yet so terrifying. but in the hob&w death is peaceful. their god - the god of death - is the one all “bow” to in the end.

When she took it out, he died. The horses were screaming. Arya stood over the body, still and frightened in the face of death. Blood had gushed from the boy's mouth as he collapsed, and more was seeping from the slit in his belly, pooling beneath his body. His palms were cut where he'd grabbed at the blade. She backed away slowly, Needle red in her hand. She had to get away, someplace far from here, someplace safe away from the stableboy's accusing eyes. (Arya, AGOT)

life and death are not opposites, though, as some characters in asoiaf preach. death is a part of life. huge distinction. nor can any of them truly beat death. they might defeat the others, but eventually? death will come for every single one of them. there is no true victory against death/winter in the end. that is what makes it bittersweet. arya is set up to be among the characters with the greatest understanding of that. she is still learning, though. and truthfully? arya has gotten a little too comfortable with death. how not? she was forced to kill to survive. she’s just a child and she’s wielding one of the greatest powers that exist; the ability to take a life.

"Do you fear death?" She bit her lip. "No." "Let us see." The priest lowered his cowl. Beneath he had no face; only a yellowed skull with a few scraps of skin still clinging to the cheeks, and a white worm wriggling from one empty eye socket. "Kiss me, child," he croaked, in a voice as dry and husky as a death rattle. Does he think to scare me? Arya kissed him where his nose should be and plucked the grave worm from his eye to eat it, but it melted like a shadow in her hand. (Arya, AFFC)

violation is a perfect word to describe lady stoneheart’s existence. when arya is confronted with her she will see that. the kindly man telling arya that “death is not the worst thing” will never be more applicable. arya urged her mother to rise and she did! in defiance of god and nature bc arya stark could not let go. but she’s not the woman she once was. death took too much that can never be reclaimed. lady stoneheart is rotting and ruthless, but………..she actively searches for arya too. there is a piece of humanity left even in one of the most monstrous beings in asoiaf (classic grrm) and arya is the key.

The night rang to the clash of steel and the cries of the wounded and dying. For a moment Arya stood uncertain, not knowing which way to go. Death was all around her. (Arya, ACOK)

that is the flip side to the entire thing because there is no death without life. one cannot exist without the other. and arya is so full of life. she is generous and spirited and angry and proud and curious and adaptable. she cares so deeply for people. she grieved mycah when nobody else cared. she tried to surrender herself to the gold cloaks knowing it would mean imprisonment and possibly death because she didn’t want anyone else to die for her like syrio. she shared her rabbit leg with gendry. she would not leave that baby behind. she washed and bound the wounds of her enemy and in doing so saved his life.

She looked at their filthy hair and scraggly beards and reddened eyes, at their dry, cracked, bleeding lips. Wolves, she thought again. Like me. Was this her pack? How could they be Robb's men? She wanted to hit them. She wanted to hurt them. She wanted to cry. They all seemed to be looking at her, the living and the dead alike. The old man had squeezed three fingers out between the bars. "Water," he said, "water." Arya swung down from her horse. They can't hurt me, they're dying. She took her cup from her bedroll and went to the fountain. "What do you think you're doing, boy?" the townsman snapped. "They're no concern o' yours." She raised the cup to the fish's mouth. The water splashed across her fingers and down her sleeve, but Arya did not move until the cup was brimming over. (Arya, ASOS)

no scene better exemplifies the dichotomy of life and death than the stoney sept. arya has seen torture before. she has seen murder and rape. theres not even a hint of blame or judgement on arya’s part for the way the villagers reacted, but she shows the northmen mercy all the same. she did not move until the cup was brimming over! arya gave them one last merciful taste of life giving water, but did not look away when they were put to death. they were shown mercy and served justice.

"He is an evil man," she announced that evening when she returned to the House of Black and White. "His lips are cruel, his eyes are mean, and he has a villain's beard." The kindly man chuckled. "He is a man like any other, with light in him and darkness. It is not for you to judge him." That gave her pause. "Have the gods judged him?" "Some gods, mayhaps. What are gods for if not to sit in judgment over men? The Many-Faced God does not weigh men's souls, however. He gives his gift to the best of men as he gives it to the worst. Elsewise the good would live forever." (Arya, ADWD)

sam and dareon in braavos is another good example. arya saves sam when he’s about to get jumped, but kills dareon for desertion. the faceless men tell arya it is not her place to judge and this is something she will never be able to embrace. arya cannot be a hired killer. she needs to weigh their actions and condemn them by her own volition. i do expect we will see the limits of this get pushed to the brink (and possibly over) in twow. arya was able to justify killing the insurance man with a bit of effort and raff was an incidental freebie, but the faceless men don’t only go after bad men. arya is going to find this out the hard way. then she will have to ask herself a lot of questions about identity, power and authority.

She would make much better time on her own, Arya knew, but she could not leave them. They were her pack, her friends, the only living friends that remained to her, and if not for her they would still be safe at Harrenhal, Gendry sweating at his forge and Hot Pie in the kitchens. If the Mummers catch us, I'll tell them that I'm Ned Stark's daughter and sister to the King in the North. I'll command them to take me to my brother, and to do no harm to Hot Pie and Gendry. They might not believe her, though, and even if they did . . . Lord Bolton was her brother's bannerman, but he frightened her all the same. I won't let them take us, she vowed silently, reaching back over her shoulder to touch the hilt of the sword that Gendry had stolen for her. I won't. (Arya, ASOS)

i am going to, once again, jump on my arya and leadership soapbox. these are the fundamentals of being a leader. it means being responsible for the lives and deaths of people - sometimes a thousand, sometimes just a blacksmith and a bakers boy - and, for as long as you are in charge, dealing with with an unending series of morally complex problems. how to protect/provide? how to dispense justice? a leader has to truly understand the value of life and do everything in their power to preserve it while, simultaneously, carrying the weight of death for every person. this was never intended to be a glamorous, fun position. its service. and death is a part of the job description. it has been from the very first chapter in the series when bran is taken to watch his father behead a man.

"One day, Bran, you will be Robb's bannerman, holding a keep of your own for your brother and your king, and justice will fall to you. When that day comes, you must take no pleasure in the task, but neither must you look away. A ruler who hides behind paid executioners soon forgets what death is." (Bran, AGOT)

arya’s storyline constantly addresses the core aspects of leadership: crime and punishment, mercy and justice, life and death, valar morghulis and valar dohaeris. ie: mycah’s murder by the hound, her father’s murder, the march to harrenhal, her list, imprisonment, the horrors of the riverlands even and esp the ones committed by the northerners, the brotherhood without banners and their mission, the red wedding, the faceless men, ect! she is trying to find the answers, but honestly? there’s no easy answer. no one size fits all solution. there’s never going to be. but experience counts for a lot. arya has lived and survived one atrocity after another. she has been surrounded by death and destruction. she has traveled to the underworld, and yet she is still alive, still fighting, still growing.

"Her father beat her so often and so brutally that she was never truly free of pain or fear until she came to us." "Did you kill him?" "She asked the gift for herself, not for her father." You should have killed him. (Arya, ADWD)

when discussing the future of westeros, arya, usually, gets written out of the narrative. the fandom argues that her storyline is just about killing and death and tragedy she doesn’t want the job anyway. but i have always thought she has so much potential, in part, because she’s on her way to understanding death not despite it. arya’s journey has laid bare before her the real cost of war. it has threatened her existence. arya has looked death in the face, many times, and she has been afraid, defiant, unfeeling, guilty. i think she is going to truly understand the power of death in the end and not fear it, but not live in service of it either. arya will turn away from that road and run towards life.