#GOOD BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT THE PROBLEM

[that-ineffable-devil]

Turns out I bring out the neurodivergence people are masking in FULL FORCE when they start talking to me.

Yes, I do consider this a public service.

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[ask-the-rag-dolly]

anyways good episode

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I just want you to know that I was rereading the PDMDZS comics yet again, and I finally caved and watched Legally Blonde because you're like a puppeteer that draws things and I'm like "well, guess I have to see it now." Now, after watching Legally Blonde, I must tell you that Elle Woods is love, Elle Woods is life, Elle Woods is everything to me. Elle Woods would have been able to save Wei Wuxian from the Jins all while looking sparkly and fantastic as she does it. (Obviously with her hype girlies in the background)

Her power and influence know no bounds!

[cairafea]

they're matching costumes.

[fictionadventurer]

Hot Tip: If you're trying to secretly commit bigamy, don't do it when your wife is hidden in the house you currently live in.

Hot Tip: If you stop an innocent girl from committing bigamy, don't leave her living alone in the house with the guy who tried to trick her into bigamy.

Hot Tip: When you're trying to convince a girl to live as your mistress, don't tell her about how you grew to hate all the other mistresses you lived with.

Hot Tip: If you leave your home and place of employment with nowhere else to go, DON'T SPEND ALL YOUR MONEY ON BUS FARE!

[luminique]

hii hii lumii !! I ADORE your interpretation of lighter so far— I love him smm

anyways, I hope my req is okay but I was wondering if you could do a comfort fic ? maybe reader has been a lil distant lately and just in some feels and he gives them a lil talk after being blown off here and there to find out they were having issues w their mental health and not feeling good enough and maybe he’s caught off guard because reader is usually so out going and always has a smile on their face and to see them feel so small makes him wanna take care of them so much and gives them so much reassurance and gentle kisses and cuddles 👉👈

I hope it’s okay !! I’ve been in the feels lately

hi anonn !! im gonna answer this one first because i've been in the feels too and i think we all deserve some reassurance, especially after all of the sad lighter story.

i don't take lighter for the kind to be too intrusive. that's not to say that he doesn't notice the way you're staring off into the distance, as if always having something on your mind. or the way you left earlier than usual for the SoC's nightly hangouts around the fire. or the way you had just been distancing yourself from him.

maybe you just needed a day, or two, and so he waited. he waited, and waited, but it just seemed like it was getting worse. he was beginning to get anxious, coming up with possibilities and worse case scenarios. even his favorite grape-flavored lollipop couldn't reduce the anxiety that was building up inside of him as he followed after you one night.

he shook off his nerves, spending quite a bit of time at the front door of your lodging while in blazewood. mentally practicing what to say so that he wouldn't make things even worse than they already were. one step, two deep breaths, three knocks on your door. he cleared his voice, usually confident and smooth but now carried a hint of worry in it.

"hey, uh... everything alright?"

you could hear the ruffling of his jacket, the soft metal clinks of his gloves. he didn't dare open the door until you allowed him to, so he waited, just like he always had. "lighter? yeah, everything's fine," was that a slight crack in your voice? no, no, he had to have imagined that. he knew it was wrong but he had waited long enough. he turned the knob, opening the door just a little bit but still not walking in.

"you don't have to tell me everything. just... know that i'll be here, waiting for you." he wasn't the best at comforting, nor was he good at even navigating these sorts of things but at the very least, he wanted you to have the knowledge that you had him. it didn't take long for you to finally get up, opening the door that separated the both of you. you looked so... different. the light absent from your eyes, the edges of your lips normally turned upwards but now they weren't. if he couldn't say what you wanted to hear, maybe you'd understand through his actions.

his arms wrapped around you. squeezing you just a little tighter than usual as he somehow made the both of you waddle backwards into your room. he had kept his gloves in his pants, not wanting to hurt you even more with them. his embrace was a familiar warmth, like the fire during particularly cold nights in the outer ring. you could hear his heart racing, was it from nervousness? anxiety? fear? even he didn't know.

he took this as an opportunity to place soft kisses on the top of your head but then stopped all of a sudden. he turned around to the door and realized that it was still wide open. he kicked it close with his foot, feeling embarrassed at the fact that he had to stop because of something so minor. he wanted you to feel safe, to have privacy, to be able to breathe without others barging in. technically, he had invaded this space of yours but you were slowly melting into him, as if you had been waiting for this too.

every passing second hugging you, kissing you, it made his own worries disappear. he hoped the same for you as you slowly spoke to him about your own problems. as he listened, he'd pause every once in while to give you a deadpan stare. not because he was making fun of you or anything, but it genuinely baffled him how you could say such things about yourself. you felt so insecure about yourself and your image, about being with him, being with the SoC. he had to physically stop himself from just blurting "i love you" every time you said something so degrading.

instead, he chose to wait and listen. his calloused hands gently caressing yours, his lips pressing kisses on the side of your head as you nuzzled into him. he loves you for who you are, the person in front of him, not the image that you had made yourself out to be in your mind. but he waits for you to let it all out before he says anything else. he will wait, he will listen, he will always be there for you.

[codenamesazanka]

What Deku doesn't understand is that the “League of Villains” encapsulates exactly who Tenko - the Crying Child Deku was so adamant about saving - is. He thinks reaching out a hand, smashing that hatred, and saving Tenko means getting Tenko to abandon the League. He is completely wrong - and he would've realized this if he just talked to Shigaraki in all the time he fought against Shigaraki. And listened to what Tenko said in Chapter 418.

The League of Villains is the group Shigaraki Tomura created in order to wreck shit and kill All Might and bring down Hero Society. Shigaraki picked the name and picked the purpose and picked its members and he leads them towards the apocalypse—

—and this is also the group of outcasts that are his comrades and friends; that he gathered and created a place for, where they can be themselves in a society that ruthlessly denied them that. He accepted Twice without care for his insanity and inability to use his quirk, never pushed Twice to do more than he was able to. He accepted Spinner despite being a Stain fanboy and having a weak, nearly useless quirk, and promised him the destruction of the world that hurt him; for all of League. When Toga was pushed by the other members to choose a Villain name despite wanting to live as herself, as Toga Himiko, Shigaraki spoke up in indirect defense of her choice, providing himself as an example of someone who didn't use a Villain name, and who can override the boss' words? Dabi was allowed to come and go as he pleased, and although he was the most aloof member, by the end, he was declaring the world burn for "our" sake - plural; the League's. Mr. Compress believed in Shigaraki enough to entrust an ancestor's dream and family legacy to him; when surrounded by Heroes at Jaku, he was willing to die to save Shigaraki, to let him escape.

The League is a collection of people that Shigaraki cares for - that he saved. That was always the surest sign that ‘Tenko’, sweet and kind and hero-aspiring boy, was alive inside.

Without the League, without having seen the time Shigaraki spent with the League, a reader can just write off Shigaraki and say there’s nothing left in there worth saving. The League is literally the evidence for Tenko have still existed and that Shigaraki was "worth" saving, long before we ever saw ‘Inner Tenko’.

But Deku doesn't understand that.

To go further: outside of the League, Shigaraki still had his distorted but undeniable kindness and fairness. I've spoke about it before, and sorry for repeating myself, but even towards his Villain enemies, he gives them consideration: Shigaraki left Overhaul crippled, but 100 chapters later, he's still continuing Overhaul's work - the quirk erasing bullets - and even laments that Overhaul would be disappointed when Shigaraki sees some of the bullets destroyed. All For One at Jaku tries to take over his body, at the time seemingly only a phantom voice in his head, but Shigaraki still acknowledges that he's grateful AFO took him in. It's only when AFO oversteps that again and again, taking possession of his body, that Shigaraki would tear the AFO vestige from inside out and mock him when the opportunity arises.

And there's ReDestro, and the importance of the ending of MVA. RD and his army picks a fight with Shigaraki - something that Shigaraki explicitly points out; the blame for what happened to Deika is on largely them. RD challenged Shigaraki and the League; blackmailed them, kidnapped their broker, and attacked their pitiful 6-member team with a town-sized militia; insulted Shigaraki, destroyed The Hands, tried to kill him. Shigaraki had every reason to just dust RD while the man was sitting there bleeding out with his legs cut off. Just finish him off without even giving the guy last words. It was more than fair.

But Shigaraki didn't. He went and talked to RD. To mock him for picking this fight, but it was still a talk. And when RD acknowledge his defeat and kowtowed, Shigaraki let him live. Took over his army and resources, but RD was still alive and even made lieutenant.

Without this - if Shigaraki had just dusted RD after defeating him - we would have only seen Shigaraki as a conquerer and not someone who can be reasoned with. He would just be AFO with different minions. And Shigaraki wasn't.

He can be brutal, and he seems like he's destroying for evil fun; but Shigaraki has his compassion and justice. A Villainous Hero for the Villains. It's why he destroys; it's why he doesn't regret his actions, why he wishes good luck to Deku to continue it, even after Deku smashed his core of anger and hatred. Shigaraki saved his League, and he refuses to disavow doing so. Because he shouldn't.

And Deku just doesn't understand that.

[msnihilist]

"you guys are celebrating a murder" yes, I am aware?? 🤨 that's literally The Whole Point

[utilitycaster]

I truly have no patience for "criticizing a creative choice is disrespectful" as a statement. If you can't tell the difference between sending hate or harassing creators/fans, vs. saying "I didn't like this and here's why" you are an idiot. And on the flip side if you're a creator and someone says "I didn't like this" without any sort of personal attacks or hate involved, simply on the basis of critique and personal preference, and that makes you feel bad enough to stop creating then maybe you should step back and either get offline or make room for someone who has an actual creative vision that isn't "I want everyone to like me."

[lizzybeeee]

Who wants to bet that Anders was planned to be in that post-credit's Executor cutscene montage but they changed it to Bartrand when they realized it would go over real badly with everyone?

[brown-little-robin]

I think I'm in the "conscious incompetence" stage of being a social animal in the real world and it sucks so majorly. bro what do you do after you realize you're bad at socializing and then in-person interaction gets harder because you know you're failing at it now.

[epiphainie]

i can't with all these "the show is highlighting tommy's jealousy, they're planting seeds that it will cause problems" takes like bffr. he mentioned being envious over the 118's dynamic twice, sure, but in what world (literally how?) would that cause a relationship problem? do yall expect him to be in cahoots with gerrard behind their back and murder buck to take over his life or something?? like even with the hyperbole aside, i genuinely cannot see how they can turn this into relationship drama without going against everything they showed us with tommy so far

[brainrotcharacters]

it's a big thing for us to say Logan fell first and he fell harder because Wade falls fast. Very fast very obviously to someone attuned to his tells. At the time that he learned to care for Logan, Logan wasn't attuned yet.

It's a bold statement to say Logan fell first because that's suggesting he learned to care for Wade even faster than Wade learned to care for him in vice versa.

[deanpinterester]

having sally yell at baby percy feels so fundamentally wrong. i didn't mind when she got frustrated with him in the pool because that was just one instance of sally losing her temper but now it's like oh. this is just how the show version of her is.

like. idk. one of sally's defining traits was that she never got mad at percy. that didn't mean she was weak. that was her strength. that she could pull through tough times by putting a smile on her face, so that she didn't scare percy, so that she could protect him.

i just feel like it would have been a much more well-defined scene if we got to see how sally manages to talk percy out of the car by. being nice?? coaxing him??? explaining the situation in a way he would understand instead of just saying "there are things i have to do that you don't understand" (if you say that to a kid they are 100% not going to listen to you bc. yeah they don't understand!! so you have to explain it in a way they WOULD understand!!)

if sally had already been dating smelly gabe at this point, she could have leveraged this. she could have put a funny spin on it and said "i'm just trying to get you away from smelly gabe's stinky gym shorts." if she wanted baby percy to not feel like she was abandoning him and separating him from the rest of society, she could have said "the kids in there are just like you." she could have given him a keepsake, to show she will always be with him. there are SO many ways the writers could have spun this and they just didn't. they went the easy way out.

all of these flashback scenes are painting a very unfortunate picture that percy didn't actually have a good relationship with his mom. and i know that's not the vibe the show is trying to go for, but they've got to understand!! that not everyone who's watched the show has the read the books! we don't all automatically know that sally and percy have the bestest mother-son relationship ever! if you only show sally being frustrated at baby percy, we start to think oh dang, maybe this whole time percy doesn't actually have a good relationship with his mom!

[coquelicoq]

adsfkj i have dusted off the cql folder on my computer for the first time since 2021 and i just found a bunch of fic snippets so short i can't even tell what they were supposed to be about. except this one in which i apparently had the lan sect invent hash functions, all so that there could be a dramatic reveal that jiang cheng had never removed wei wuxian from the yunmeng jiang sect records??

Wei Wuxian sighed and slumped back on his heels. It wasn't that he was incapable of being patient, he just didn't want to. Here was an array that could tell a sect if a prospective initiate was currently on another sect's rolls, without actually giving any sect access to the records of another sect. How was it doing that? The applications for this technology were potentially enormous. Wei Wuxian couldn't wait to get his grubby little hands all over the design.

there's also a more extended passage from a different "wei wuxian finds out he's still a member of ymj" concept (feat. jin ling!) which includes the paragraph

"He can't join the Lan sect!" Jin Ling was exclaiming. "He's already in a sect, technically, and you can only be on the official roster for one sect at a time. I should know, my elders have only been hounding me about it since before I could even say the words 'conflict of interest.'"

but the rest of them are just single sentence one-offs like

'Hey‚' Wei Wuxian protests weakly. 'It’s not my fault. I’ve been dead for quite some time.'

and

After customer service‚ there isn’t much an unearthly shriek can do to phase a person.

and then there's this sentence fragment:

The leader of the Jiang Sect‚ who looks like a Sect Leader‚ is dressed like a Sect Leader‚ and‚ most importantly‚ is not stuck in a hole like an idiot‚ therefore behaving with the dignity of a Sect Leader‚

dying to know where i was going with this. and who was the narrator? whoever it is, they are definitely comparing someone unfavorably to jiang cheng. some idiot has fallen in a hole and jiang cheng comes along and the narrator is like now that's what i'm talking about. maybe the narrator is the idiot in question? maybe wei wuxian is the idiot. but then i don't know why i would have been leaning on the sect leader thing since wei wuxian is not a sect leader. 2021 was a long time ago apparently because i have no memory of this.