#Approaching the Sign

[fortunaestalta]

[ofswordsandpens]

its funny because Percy has been spiraling ever since pjo and whenever he has a particularly bad episode you have other characters actively worried about it and you think to yourself surely they're going to intervene, surely someone is going to talk to him about it, and then like no one ever does lol

[formulanni]

Sergio Perez as The Page of Cups:

The Page of Cups can represent the potential for new beginnings, positive experiences, and creative inspiration. This heralds a happy surprise of some kind. The fish that pops out of the cup is a signal that one's unconscious is attempting to make contact, though sometimes one does not understand what is meant to be said.

Taglist: @st-leclerc @rubywingsracing @saviour-of-lord @three-days-time @the-wall-is-my-goal @albonoooo @ch3rubd0lls

Special shoutout to @your-ace-cousin-clover for helping me remember to post this 😭

[rebouks]

Previous // Next

Byrd: Dad? Oscar: Morning, bud.. miserable day, huh? I’m not looking forward to packing up in the rain. Oscar: Did you sleep okay? Byrd: Erm… Oscar: GO GET YOUR HEARING AIDS! [Byrd fidgeted guilty, implying that he’d lost yet another pair] Byrd: [sobs] Why do I have to be deaf without them, papa-.. s’not fair. [Oscar held Byrd tightly, stroking his back until his sobs subsided somewhat] Oscar: LET’S SEE WHAT WE CAN DO… [Oscar plonked Byrd outside as he rummaged through his bags, eventually producing a backup pair of hearing aids] Oscar: Better? [Byrd nodded gratefully, burying his snotty nose in his father’s hair as he threw his arms around him] Oscar: Maybe you ought to think twice about learning SSL. Byrd: What’s the point? No one else knows it. Oscar: Robin does, and we all know bits n’ pieces, don’t we? [Byrd grumbled disinterestedly] Oscar: I think it’s long overdue, pal-.. what if we all learn it together? Properly this time. Byrd: I guess… Oscar: All I heard was yes. Byrd: Are you deaf too? Oscar: [snorts] C’mon, we’ll probably find the other pairs as we clear up. Wren: Daaaaad, it’s raining! Oscar: The faster we get goin’, the faster we’ll be in the car-.. I bet Wren can pack up faster than you. Byrd: [gasps] NO WAY! [rain pattering]

[mikakuna]

tortured by the thoughts of what if bruce was just a slightly better person towards jason. he took in a homeless child and wasn't the adult for him he should've been. what if jason sometimes thinks about who he could've been if a different adult took him in? would he have been safer, happier? do you think, after he becomes red hood, he wonders why robin was too dangerous for 19 year old dick but fine for 12 year old jason?

[bsptourist]

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created by RileySV

[lord-squiggletits]

I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.

I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.

The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...

Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.

I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.

And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?

It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.

To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.

In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.

Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.

So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.

What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.

Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

Howdy, Syn! Hope you’re doing well. I’ve got a fun little ask for you:

If you’ve got some spare time on your hands, I was wondering if there was a little (non-spoilery) detail in—well, any of your stories, I’m obsessed with all of them—that you really enjoy but don’t think anyone’s picked up on yet. If there is, I’d love to hear any ramblings on it 👀

Have a good one!

This ask is ages old but I’m working on chipping away at my backlog little by little. Since I’m in a pez dispenser debris kick right now, let’s look at that.

I honest to God can’t remember if I’ve discussed this before, so sorry if it’s redundant, but one of the main points of pez dispenser debris is that the conflict is Man v. Self to the exclusion of all else.

Like, to an extent, there’s a secondary conflict of Man v. Society, but that 1) primarily (but not entirely) exists in Izuku’s past and 2) feeds into the Man v. Self conflict by being the primary driver behind both Izukus’ actions.

I decided to eschew any kind of genuine conflict between Izuku and the people in his life because I didn’t for a second want the narrative to get confused by considerations about whether it was safe to have told his loved ones about his past.

I very easily could have chosen to explore a plot line where the people around him feel betrayed or question him. At the very least, Mirio could have had a moment of “what the fuck, man, I’ve spent my whole career being looked down on as the world’s Quirkless hero and you didn’t think to fucking mention you grew up Quirkless?”

Close to the entire class has been vulnerable with him. Todoroki told him about being abused his entire childhood. He knows about Uraraka’s financial traumas. Iida nearly killed that guy the one time. Kirishima made him look at that suspicious bump in the unfortunate place.

These are kids who have spent the past three years in the trenches together. They’ve been in actual, life or death scenarios since the age of 14-15, and the only thing that they could count on was each other. And then here they are, at the very end of it all, and they find out that the guy they’ve been trusting with their back the whole time seemingly didn’t trust them enough to tell them a single detail of his life before they met him.

They could have been a little more conflicted about the revelation. At the very least, they could have questioned deeper how their friend went from 0 Quirks to a suspicious amount of Quirks when they spent their entire time at school with Guy Whose Entire Thing Is Transferring Quirks And Like. Trying to Murder Kids Who Are Specifically Them took personal issue with every single field trip they’ve ever had.

But every single outside POV is like “obviously we can trust him. It’s Midoriya. Anywho I will now be questioning my own character because he can’t be the problem so it must be me.”

If I explored plot points like that, it would have divided the conflict’s attention between Man v. Self and Man v. Man. The plot would have to devote time and focus to resolving Izuku’s issues with his loved ones and regaining their trust, and that would have detracted from a major theme of this fic, which is that this wasn’t about not trusting the people around him. He didn’t tell them because of an internalized issue.

Midoriya trusted his friends with his life. This wasn’t about fear of them rejecting him because he grew up Quirkless. The conflict is with himself.

I also eliminated sources of external conflict by having it all come out to the entire class all at once. I didn’t want to waste plot resources on what Izuku would naturally do in this situation, which is try to hide the little shit by all means necessary and quarantine his very existence. There would be too much time and energy wasted on slowly revealing the truth to select members of the class one by one.

And don’t get me wrong, that could have been an interesting plot—it just wasn’t the one I wanted to write.

This fic is about having to grapple with the part of yourself that is still hurt and angry about it. The part that cannot process the past to the point where you fear it endangers your future. You want your trauma to just go away and not exist anymore, because things are better so it means you shouldn’t have to be them anymore.

The older Izuku wants the younger one to be gone. He wants him to, at the very least, stop talking about what happened in the past and accept the future for how it is, because he doesn’t want to lose what he’s gained. But in doing so he mirrors the denial of self his younger counterpart is being far more explicit about.

Because both versions of Izuku are refusing to believe the other is them.

Young Izuku is doing it in a very literal way. That guy ain’t me. He killed and replaced me. There is absolutely no way I am him. He refuses to accept that there is any version of him who could become like his older self.

But the older Izuku is doing the same thing, just in a less literal sense. Hes almost acting like his old self is somehow legitimately a distinct entity. He slips and says it to Aizawa—stop looking at me like I’m him. The older Izuku wants to just bulldoze over his past and pretend like it doesn’t belong to him, but it just doesn’t work that way.

That’s the conflict I wanted to capture for this fic. Just this absolute refusal to reconcile your past and your future because to do so would require processing the trauma you’ve been through. And so I cauterized off all other sources of conflict, because they’d just detract from what needed to be center stage.

[screwpinecaprice]

I woke up feeling like I was crying to sleep when I wasn't??? And my dream was about Mei from Turning Red riding a snow sleigh. Um There's nothing sad about that??? Lol

Anyway, the warm up sketches. The colors were added in Medibang. It was pretty fun, might do that technique some other time. My body still refused to recover from being bummed out throughout the day so I did house chores instead of commissions. 😅 Will try again tomorrow.

[bloodsported]

the funniest, most overlooked aspect of the x-files is how everytime mulder meets with one of his sources it always feels like they're cruising

[serpentface]

Do you conlang? I was wondering if you had naming languages (or possibly even more developed ones) for pulling the words you use. I tried to search your blog but didn't find anything, wouldn't be surprised if the feature is just busted tho. Your worldbuilding is wonderful and I particularly enjoy the anthropological and linguistic elements.

Ok the thing is I had kind of decided I was not going to do any conlanging because I don't feel like I'm equipped to do a good job of it, like was fully like "I'm just going to do JUST enough that it doesn't fail an immediate sniff test and is more thoughtful than just keysmashing and putting in vowels". And then have kinda been conlanging anyway (though not to a very deep and serious extent. I maybe have like....an above average comprehension of how language construction works via willingness to research, but that's not saying much, also I can never remember the meanings of most linguistic terms like 'frictives' or etc off the top of my head. I'm just kinda raw dogging it with a vague conceptualization of what these things mean)

I do at least have a naming language for Wardi (and more basic rules for other established languages) but the rudimentary forms of it were devised with methods much shakier and less linguistically viable than even the most basic naming language schemes, and I only went back over it LONG after I had already made a bunch of words so there's some inconsistencies with consonant presence and usage. (This can at least be justified because it IS a language that would have a lot of loanwords and would be heavily influenced by other language groups- Burri being by far the most significant, Highland-Finnic and Yuroma-Lowlands also being large contributors)

The 'method' I used was:

-Skip basic construction elements and fully move into devising necessary name words, with at least a Vibe of what consonants are going to be common and how pronunciation works -Identify some roots out of the established words and their meanings. Establish an ongoing glossary of known roots/words. -Construct new words based in root words, or as obvious extensions/variants of established words. -Get really involved in how the literal meanings of some words might not translate properly to english, mostly use this to produce a glossary of in-universe slang. -Realize that I probably should have at least some very basic internal consistency at this point. -Google search tutorials on writing a naming language. -Reverse engineer a naming language out of established words, and ascribe all remaining inconsistencies to being loanwords or just the mysteries of life or whatever.

I do at least have some strongly established pronunciation rules and a sense of broad regional dialect/accents.

-'ai' words are almost always pronounced with a long 'aye' sound.

-There is no 'Z' or 'X' sound, a Wardi speaker pronouncing 'zebra' would go for 'tsee-brah', and would attempt 'xylophone' as 'ssye-lohp-hon'

-'V' sounds are nearly absent and occur only in loanwords, and tend to be pronounced with a 'W' sound. 'Virsum' is a Highland word (pronounced 'veer-soom') denoting ancestry, a Wardi speaker would go 'weer-sum'.

-'Ch' spellings almost always imply a soft 'chuh' sound when appearing after an E, I, or O (pelatoche= pel-ah-toh-chey), but a hard 'kh' sound after an A or U (odomache= oh-doh-mah-khe). When at the start of a word, it's usually a soft 'ch' unless followed by an 'i' sound (chin (dog) is pronounced with a hard K 'khiin', cholem (salt) is pronounced with a soft Ch 'cho-lehm')

-Western Wardin has strong Burri cultural and linguistic influence, and a distinct accent- one of the most pronounced differences is use of the ñ sound in 'nn' words. The western city of Ephennos is pronounced 'ey-fey-nyos' by most residents, the southeastern city of Erubinnos is pronounced 'eh-roo-been-nos' by most residents. Palo's surname 'Apolynnon' is pronounced 'A-puh-lee-nyon' in the Burri and western Wardi dialects (which is the 'proper' pronunciation, given that it's a Kos name), but will generally be spoken as 'Ah-poh-leen-non' in the south and east.

-R's are rolled in Highland-Finnic words. Rolling R's is common in far northern rural Wardi dialects but no others. Most urban Wardi speakers consider rolling R's sort of a hick thing, and often think it sounds stupid or at least uneducated. (Brakul's name should be pronounced with a brief rolled 'r', short 'ah' and long 'uul', but is generally being pronounced by his south-southeastern compatriots with a long unrolled 'Brah' sound).

Anyway not really a sturdy construction that will hold up to the scrutiny of someone well equipped for linguistics but not pure bullshit either.

[alma-n]

FowlFest 2023, day5, favourite scene

Heavy tlc spoilers

Artemis,

Help me.

We don't possibly talk enough about this scene. And theres no valid excuse for that!

We all, including Holly, know what he did was for the better; and he did not in fact let her die.

But imagine being stabbed through your heart with a fucking cursed sword, and you ask the one and only person you trust to save you in that situation for help, only to be watched to death before their very eyes.

And Holly had never asked for help. I don't remember her doing it after either. She does shit on her own. The agony, the pain, and oh boy the TRUST, for her to do that.

Its painful.

Yes, Artemis in fact didn't let holly die, but she is to forever have nightmares about that moment. And in her dreams, Artemis does indeed only care enough to glance her way briefly.

[abrahamvanhelsings]

i think edward little would be great at emails actually. i think he'd love having to opportunity to think abt what he needs to say and formulate it well and concisely. i think he'd write perfectly ok emails, to the point but polite enough not to be blunt. in normal circumstances he'd receive normal emails and write normal replies and it would be fine. the problem in terror is that he keeps getting increasingly upsetting emails from his boss and they're all no-reply

[wof-reworked]

I have the worlds smallest little headcanon that Seawings are, on average, more likely to be deaf/hoh since they rely the least on it for hunting and survival + Aquatic means it’s much easier for a deaf Seawing to be fully absorbed in Seawing society

Second highest is (modern) Nightwings because naturally sensitive hearing + constant exposure to a loud volcano = lots of dragons with progressive hearing loss. Im not sure how much Nightwings have a sign language (time at volcano vs how terrible nightwing society is, fight!) but I do think the most recent generation of Nightwings would probably have their own dialect/baby language since they’re the most likely to be effected by it with the increase in volcanic activity and the way Nightwing dragonets are raised together in dormitories

[autoauthor]

Enabler

Izuna: I have done nothing wrong, ever, in my life Hashirama: Just yesterday you attacked a man with what witnesses call, "excessive force". He's in critical condition in the hospital as we speak. Izuna: 🥺 Tobirama: Oh look at that, our sources show that that man was a chronic puppy kicker and also probably an enemy spy. Now excuse me I have something to take care of.

~ Later ~

Hashirama: Well, it looks like the victim admitted to various crimes before taking his life in a very public manner. Tobirama: What a shame. Loss of life is always regrettable. Still, we must be thankful he is off our streets.

[natileroxs]

I think one of the biggest missed opportunities in all the Gear 5 at Marineford fics I read (still love them btw) is the fact that if Luffy had gone Gear 5 there would be nothing that could stop Zunesha from stepping over the Red Line and coming to see their oldest friend Joy Boy.