#One has not presented itself to me

[averlym]

fairest of the fair

[welcometogrouchland]

Noticing that TV and film will often have a character either have had an abortion in the past that isn't showcased on screen (and just used as part of the character's ~fucked up and twisted backstory~) OR contemplate getting an abortion in the present day but not to through with it. Just once I want to see someone delete that fetus within the events of the plot and not be like. Extremely majorly punished for it and/or be in the wrong

[vaguely-concerned]

I don't know what I love more, the fact that as rook you can make a statement in NO uncertain terms that you are NOT responsible one way or the other for the theological implications of the shit you're discovering in the 'regrets of the dread wolf' memories. not my jurisdiction. quite simply none of my business. not my chantry circus not my chantry monkeys. irrelevant to the matter at hand here we'll kill that god if we get to him he can get in line. or if the best thing about it is seeing the lone little 'lucanis approves' that pops up right after choosing it. corvid with a knife about to commit deicide keeping it real and sensibly, pragmatically, wilfully agnostic with me here in this magical lighthouse today

[thuringwedhil]

also I'm gonna be honest whenever i think about the fact that curufin was married to someone i just ??????? lies!!!! misinformation!!!! slander!!!!

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

I wanna know ur Fontaine msq criticisms 👁️👁️👂I’m all ears

I'm not sure if you wanted me to talk about this secretly or publicly but! Here I go!

The TLDR: Fontaine MSQ aestheticised prison, poverty, child abuse, the justice system/court and didn't properly address any of it.

More:

Focalors/Furina has way too much of a sympathetic angle for a dictator who's lets people drown with her inaction.

Neuvillette feels Bad for sentencing some people to death/prison, but that's it. He's one of the most powerful people in Fontaine. If he felt like there are systemic injustices, I.E sending an abused Child to prison, he should be the first person to DO something about it, not just cry and be sad so the audience can be like aw, that's complex character writing isn't it? No it's not! And guilt doesn't absolve you!!!!!!! (These are stuff we deal with in OTCOJ read my fic now /j)

Meropide has children in it, both Sentenced there (Wriothesley) and BORN THERE (Lanoire), and this is just a quirk of the place. Not only that, Meropide accepts prisoners of all genders and crimes. There are abusers and abuse victims in one place. Do you know how bad that is? How much potential for crimes to happen in a place like that— oh wait, Meropide isn't under Fontaine's jurisdiction. If you are assaulted as an inmate it literally means nothing to the court.

Wriothesley had no qualifications when he took over. Depending on how long he lived on the streets, how old he was when he killed his parents, how old he was when he was first taken in by the orphanage, etc, the man might never have more than 4–5 years of formal education. Sigewinne probably had to teach him how to write reports. And do Meropide's spreadsheets. Edit because I forgot to elaborate on this one: This isn't a point brought up anywhere, which is bad, because when poverty and incarceration robs you of a proper education (and the rights to vote in many places too, too, by the way), it reduces your prospects for jobs, reduces many people's ability to get a home etc etc. Wriothesley was just, narratively, Given his position.

Meropide is an industrialized prison, and they portray this as a good thing. Prisoners are paid in coupons for their labour, and this is also portrayed as a good thing.

The One-Meal-A-Day reform was something Paimon gushed about being so great of a perk, that people might want to go to jail for food (could be interesting and reflective of systemic poverty if MHY had brains, but they don't, so I was just Pissed because essentially all Paimon wanted to say was "Prison isn't so bad, but still don't go to prison guys! Prison labour is really hard!"). By the way, in most real-world prisons they are obligated to feed you three meals a day. Because that's how much food a human needs. MHY went with one meal just so they can say "if you want to eat more, you have to work." And then the welfare meal is a goddamn gacha. So imagine you're a starving child who's too weak to work in the fucking robot assembly line, and you wander up for your first meal in 24 hours, only to luck in with a shit one. I'd kill myself.

They wrote Wriothesley, who's a victim of the system, into a guy who's say shit like "I'm the Duke I can do whatever I want" for a cool moment where he choke-slams an inmate (I know he was a bad guy. But also, in copaganda when cops are violent/disregarding protocols, they are always only portrayed to do that against bad guys, so what does our critical thinking tells us about this one?) They wrote Wriothesley, who was an inmate of a prison so bad, so notorious that it is the literal boogeyman of Fontaine, that has a legal (???) fighting pit, with an administrator who abuses his position to be unreasonable, to willingly stay in the place and become an Administrator who would choke-slam an inmate while saying a cool line about how he has the power to do whatever he wants. They wrote him, the guy who had to be fed on the streets by melusines, to think one-meal-a-day was a good enough reform (while he spends god-knows how much on his boat). This wasn't a victim-turns-into-abuser narrative either, they want all this to be seen as positive character growth.

And then, the final kicker is, they gloss over his entire abuse. You can only read about these shit in his profile, which most people don't because they don't Have Him or doesn't care to unlock it/read it online, and they jammed his entire backstory into a flaccid info-dump at the end of his character story quest. This man isn't Allowed to feel abused and neglected and show any reaction to it within the narrative of Fontaine itself, because if they actually Gave Weight to what happened to him, they'd have to confront THE FUCKING JUSTICE SYSTEM they had NO PLANS on criticising. I don't think they ever explicitly said the fucking Crime-Theatre nonsense was Bad either.

I could go on, but this is already so long. But yeah, I hope this gave you an idea.

[forgotn1]

It's very difficult that I need to be friends with someone before I can even begin to develop romantic feelings for them. Attraction can arise at any time, but that doesn't really mean much to me and I don't have a desire to act on anything just because I find someone attractive. I have to actually know them and know that we can gel together before any sort of interest in a romantic relationship develops.

Which I think could be good in the long run, but I don't have any idea of how to navigate it practically. I'm afraid to risk the friendship because the few times in the past that I expressed interest in a friend, it ended badly. Not only did they not want to date me, they also no longer wanted to be my friend. Probably partly because they thought I had only been friends with them in an attempt to fuck them, which wasn't the case but it didn't really matter.

It's also very hard to tell if someone is interested or if you're just becoming much closer friends and therefore are more comfortable with each other. Platonic and romantic intimacy can look very similar at times and I don't want to mix the two up because that has only ever ended in disaster. So I tend to default to reading things as platonic.

And I do understand that I have to take risks to get what I want. But given my shaky history and the fact that I have so few friends, that risk feels insurmountable. If I want to ever find the kind of connection I've been searching for since I was a teen, then I have to be willing to risk complete destruction. Which is a lot to try and process.

On the positive side, I feel like I understand my own fears and reservations regarding romantic relationships more now. These are ideas that have been ruminating for a while now, but I hadn't been able to piece them together until now. But, knowing is only half the battle. Still gotta figure out what to do with the knowledge if I want to overcome those fears and reservations.

[quietwingsinthesky]

sometimes interpreting media through a shipping lens enhances it, on occasion even beyond the author’s original intent, but sometimes, you do have to accept that your ship was not in the heads of anyone making the source material and trying to force it to fit into evidence of your ship will severely hinder your ability to discuss the actual text.

[painom]

Enneagram for Character Analysis

Before I start, let me warn you. This will be a long post and a lot of reading, but I'll do my best to simplify things as much as possible in a way that will make sense to most people. 

The Basics

At its core, enneagram follows this basic principal. When you were a young child, you were basically, in one way or another, told something that had a profound effect on your psyche. From this unconscious childhood message, you developed a core fear and a core desire. In attempting to resist your core fear and achieve your core desire, you become a self-fulfilling prophecy that makes your core fear come true. These unconscious childhood messages, core fears, and core desires are below. 

The Triads

Though there are many ways to separate the enneagram, the three main ways are the main triads. These triads represent the three main things each subgroup of the enneagram are concerned with. When it comes to typing characters or people, this is what you want to start off with. 

There are three triads: the instinctive (gut) triad, the thinking (head) triad, and the feeling (heart) triad. Each triad is associated with a core emotion: rage (instinctive/gut), fear (thinking/head), and shame (feeling/heart). Each triad is concerned with different things: control (instinctive, gut), support/guidance (thinking/head), and self-identity (feeling/heart). Three types belong to each triad. And these types will deal with their core emotion and desires in three different ways. They will focus outward, focus inward, or do both. 

I will go into each main triad and the types associated with each, but for a general overview, you can read the box below. 

The Instinctive (Gut) Triad

The Instinctive Triad includes types 8, 9, and 1. They seek to instill their will upon the world without being affected by it. These types will attempt to put up a wall between themselves and the outer world, so as to say, "this is self, and this is not self." When things threaten to cross this line, aka their boundaries, this results in rage. Now let's go into the types. 

Enneagram 8 - The attention of 8s are focused outward. 8s try to protect themselves from the influences of the outside world so that nothing can get too close and hurt them. As a result, their mentality is, as one reference puts it, "Nothing's going to get the upperhand on me. No one is going to get through my defenses and hurt me. I'm going to keep my guard up." However, because 8s are focused outward, so is their rage. They WILL fight anything that ever comes too close to hurting them. They are not afraid of raising their voices, their not afraid of displaying their anger. They will attempt to scare and fight off anything that comes too close. Realistically speaking, you see most type 8s having abusive childhood upbringings. Being an 8 is a rare type and most people will not be that type. I may be wrong about this, but I think the only 8 is Wanderer.

Enneagram 1 - The attention of 1s are focused inward. 1s refuse to be affected by the influences of their internal world. Their rage is focused inward at themselves. They constantly are holding back from their internal impulses so as to say, "I don't want that feeling! I don't want to have that reaction or that impulse!" Because of this, they have the reputation of being perfectionists, holding themselves and others to high standards. They repress their inner desires and are rule-bound. It makes sense why they fear corruption. Some examples of type 1s are Diluc, Eula, and Cyno. 

Enneagram 9 - The attention of 9s are focused both outward and inward, in other words, they try not to be affected by influences of both the outer and inner world. In a way, one can say that they ignore their rage, completely under the delusion that it doesn't exist. 9s are primarily concerned with being at peace no matter what the cost, even if this means ignoring the world around them or giving up their wants and desires. Examples of 9s include Kazuha and Alhaitham.

There are easy ways to point out an Instinctive Triad type. Typically speaking, they are not the most emotional of people. They don't get affected by things emotionally as most people do. In my experience, they give off 'leave me tf alone' vibes. Not in the loner sense. But they dislike being obligated/manipulated to feel a specific way or act in a specific manner. They desire to have full control over themselves. There's always a wall between themselves and the outer world. 

The Feeling (Heart) Triad

The Feeling Triad includes types 2, 3, and 4. The Feeling Triad is primarily concerned with the development of a self-image. Because they don't know who they truly are, they don't feel they are worthy of love. They feel they are worthless, which results in their core feeling of shame. The Feeling Triad essentially feels that there is something missing from their core. And once they are able to find it, they will come to have self-worth and love. 

Enneagram 2 - The attention of 2s are focused outward. 2s look outside to others for validation and a sense of identity. They want to be wanted, so they act in ways which attempt to make this possible. They try to be helpful, friendly, and good to others. However, because they're so focused outside, they often do not know how they are feeling themselves. They often feel underappreciated and have feelings of resentment because of it. Mom friend types are almost always 2s. I am unsure of which characters would be a 2. Maybe Amber? Possibly Yoimiya?

Enneagram 4 - The attention of 4s are focused inward. They try to make a self-image based upon their feelings, fantasies and stories of the past. Namely, they try to create an image on what separates themselves from others, aka what makes them different, but because of this, they often feel estranged from others. They are often moody and have victim complexes, assuming they are the way they are because of the way they were treated in the past. An example of a 4 would be Fischl. 

Enneagram 3 - The attention of 3s are focused both outward and inward. Like 2s, 3s need the positive feedback and affirmation of others. They do this by striving for success and accomplishment. By creating an accomplished successful image, they feel they thus become valuable. However, they are like 4s because they need a lot of internal self-talk, attempting to create and sustain a consistent internal picture of themselves. An example of a 3 includes Lyney.

The Feeling Triad are hands down the easiest to type. These people are typically the most depressed and the most insecure. They always have some self-proclaimed self-image they are trying to project, and if you do not validate their false self-image, they can and will get mad at you before getting depressed once more. LOL Long story short, they are a pain in the butt. Are they of the most annoying types? Surprisingly, no. But they are damn easy to point out in a crowd. 

The Thinking (Head) Triad

The Thinking Triad includes types 5, 6, and 7. This triad is primarily concerned with finding an inner sense of guidance and support. They focus on the future, wondering "What's going to happen to me? How am I going to survive? How can I prepare myself to keep bad things from happening? How do I move forward in life? How do I cope?" Their minds are constantly active, and their core emotion is anxiety and fear, fear that they do not have the resources to ensure their future. Let's go into the types.

Enneagram 7 - The attention of 7s is focused outward. They charge into the world, adventurous and seemingly not afraid of anything. Where their fear is, however, not of the outside world, but the internal. They fear they do not have the resources to navigate their internal world. They fear being trapped in emotional pain, grief, and especially feelings of anxiety. So what do they do? They focus so much on the outside world that they ignore their internal. If they keep active, their anxieties will not surface. Examples of 7s are Itto and Gaming (I think). 

Enneagram 5 - The attention of 5s are focused inward. I'm going to take this straight from a book that "Fives believe that they are too frail and insubstantial to safely survive in the world. The only safe place is in their minds,so they stockpile whatever they believe will help them survive until they are ready to rejoin the world." The anxiety of 5s is what keeps them from external action. 5s are most commonly stereotyped for being bookworms. Although I am not completely sure about this, I would guess and say that examples include Kokomi, maybe Kuki Shinobu, and maybe Mika.

Enneagram 6 - The attention of 6s are focused both outward and inward. As one book says, "Sixes feel anxious inside, and so launch into external action and anticipation of the future like Sevens. But having done so, they eventually become afraid that they will make mistakes and be punished or overwhelmed by demands on them, so like Fives, they 'jump back inside.'" Then they continue doing this in a pingpong action-like manner. I also may be wrong about this, but I feel that an example would be Collei. 

The easiest way to point out the Thinking Triad types is that they are all avoidant in one way or another. There is always something they're trying to avoid. Now, DO NOT MISTAKEN ANXIETY DISORDERS WITH THE THINKING TRIAD. While there is correlation, they do not generally do not experience anxiety in the same way people with mental disorders do. 5s fear action, 6s fear trusting their support, and 7s fear their internal world. 

Conclusion

There are other aspects of enneagram to go into that give color to the types. These include wings and instinctual variants, but I won't go into that. One important thing about Enneagram is that the theory does not exist to make you feel good. It's the "this is why you're pathetic" personality theory. You will see the most of enneagram when someone is immature. When someone is grown and actualized, you will not see a lot of their core fear or core emotion. This is doubly so when the character in question would not exist in real life (think Luffy or Naruto). Take everything with a grain of salt, but it will help you to get a better view into characters. 

[yellow-yarrow]

kinda funny how cities skylines has this cutesy fun vibe but you are basically a dictator in it and the citizens ask for prisons and cops even if you build a perfect city while Frostpunk 2 has this stressfull dark mood but there is a council you have to convince to vote for your ideas and you can have things like equal pay for everyone, ubi, support for disabled people, etc

[dennisboobs]

.

[lunarharp]

wip thing...

of my bg3 avatar hellebore. i also did some casual nude studies of my 3 characters which i'll put under a cut... rather unlike me after all. (so WARNING for abrupt non-sexual full Artistic nudity lol...,,,,) (< won't be making a habit of this)

they mean the world to me

[briefcasejuice]

i don't have a continuous/relentless internal monologue in the way people usually describe it but i am always thinking about something

[guinevereslancelot]

i wish i had never been born but other than that i'm taking things well i think ❤️

[notmoreflippingelves]

Hi! I just read your post about Mateo recently. If I may, can you give me any specific instances in the narrative of the show where Mateo isn’t called out as heavily as they should have? I’m just curious?

During the Shuriki returns arc in particular, Mateo makes some pretty glaring mistakes that I feel like he should've gotten much more flack for (and based on what we see elsewhere in canon, I feel pretty confident that if Gabe, Naomi, Isa, or Esteban at least --and possibly even Elena-- had made these mistakes, they wouldn't have been swept under the rug nearly as quickly as they were for Mateo).

While it's unfair to completely blame Mateo for Carla's manipulating him during the "Rita" arc, I feel like it's reasonable to hold him a *bit* accountable. He did after all blab highly confidential information (on more than one occasion) to try and impress a pretty girl with how clever and important he was. (Something tells me that if any of the others had done likewise, they would've been called out for it. But because it's "beloved" Mateo, we don't even get "wait, you told Rita how to get into your workshop? And you've known her for only a few weeks? What were you thinking, Mateo?") Moreover, he never even apologizes for this or promises to do better/be more careful with such important, sensitive information in the future.

Even more aggravating is his behavior in "The Scepter of Night." Mateo is so eager to play the hero and claim all the glory for himself that he twice (!) disobeys a direct order/abandons the plan and goes looking for the scepter piece on his own. This directly leads to Fiero and Victor finding the scepter piece and (temporarily) stealing it. And it's really only due to luck and very conveniently-timed infighting amongst Shuriki's allies that Elena and co. are able to get the scepter piece back. While Mateo does receive some (brief) criticism, it's nowhere near the level that it should be.

Also noteworthy Elena doesn't really get particularly "mad" at him (especially considering how angry we see her get at other characters even for more minor things) . She's not truly, actually angry at Mateo (and Gabe and Naomi are only a bit angrier); she's just a little frustrated and disappointed at him in the moment. And apart from a (very short) little "do better next time" speech, Mateo doesn't face any real consequences or lingering resentment unlike other characters who do.

When Isa obeys direct orders in "Sister of Invention," she has to face consequences (Elena grounding her). Similarly, Elena holds a grudge against Esteban for days (if not weeks) after he interfered with the Feast of Friendship (a much lower stakes mistake than Mateo's imo). Moreover, it's possible to interpret Esteban's staying behind in Avalor when the others go to see the Norberg Lights as a punishment (either self-inflicted or imposed by Elena) for his actions in the previous episode.

In contrast, Mateo just gets a brief "I expected better from you" speech from Elena and Gabe jokingly assigning him push-ups as punishment (which he immediately takes back when Mateo tries to do them). I'll give Mateo a little bit of credit for actually apologizing this time (which he doesn't always do). But it's still frustrating that everyone is so ready to forgive and forget Mateo's missteps immediately while this same courtesy is seldom shown to others.

I think it's worth directly comparing a few Mateo-centric episodes with a few more similar ones that focus on other characters so that we can see how there does seem to be a noted narrative bias in his favor compared to the others.

Let's start with two "feeling kind of insecure" episodes: "Spellbound" for Mateo vs. "Naomi Knows Best" for Naomi. In the former, Mateo expresses doubt that he's capable of rising to the occasion as royal wizard. No one (except Gabe and he gets over it by the end of the episode) blames him for not having reached his full level of confidence and potential right away and not being able to immediately solve the problem. And Elena in particular (and by extension the narrative) gives him so much validation and support. Whereas in "Naomi Knows Best" (and to a lesser extent "Finders Leapers" and the "Carla-as-Rita" arc as well) the narrative "punishes" Naomi for her feelings of self-doubt. We're told that *if only* Naomi had trusted her gut instincts and stood her ground right away, Elena and co would not fallen right into the trap and that Naomi needs to screw her head back on straight and embrace confidence ASAP to fix her mistake.

When Mateo feels insecure, the narrative gives him every reassurance about how capable and special he is, that he can learn at his own pace, and his insecurity isn't really such a problem after all. When Naomi feels insecure, the narrative encourages her to get over her doubts as quickly as possible because unlike with Mateo, there's "no time" for her to wallow in self-doubt and actually the fact that she even had said doubt in the first place is what "caused" the disaster.

On a slightly different note, Naomi is also called out for taking a little free, fun time for herself in "The Last Laugh" when the group needs her, and yet somehow I have a feeling that Mateo would've been allowed to take a day off if he wanted without any protest. He complains about long hours in "Movin' on Up" and Elena gives him the big royal wizard's chambers for him to relax and unwind in. Naomi asks for one (1) day off to spend with her childhood friend for her birthday , and suddenly it's big drama. (And at the time, Naomi asked for said day off, all Elena needed from her was help doing paperwork. The Team Ash stuff came up unexpectedly.)

Similarly whenever Gabe and Mateo get their little rivalry on ("Spellbound," "Party of a Lifetime," "Captain Mateo" and a few other examples) , the narrative either presents them as equally at fault or Mateo as the only one in the right.

When Gabe brings in Bronzino to train the Royal Guards in magic, it's specifically because Mateo failed to explain how and why he was training the guards in the way he was. If he'd just explained how they were going apply the seemingly basic exercise they were doing to real magic, Gabe likely would've allowed Mateo to continue the training at his own pace.

(Also like. it's super hypocritical imo for Mateo to get annoyed at Gabe feeling impatient/impulsive about their apparent-lack-of progress when Mateo himself is easily the second most impulsive character in the show after Elena.) Mateo feels entitled to keep important information to himself (or blab it to a cute girl he barely knows) even when its no one else's best interest. He's only okay with being "cautious and patient" when he specifically is the one setting the pace. And yet, Gabe is the only one who is called out for his behavior in this episode--even though he might not have acted as he did if only Mateo had trusted him and the guards with an explanation in the first place.

And then there's just a few other "dude not cool" little moments that never really get acknowledged/Mateo never apologizes for. For instance, there a two low-key terrifying Mateo moments in "Captain Mateo" that are not only not acknowledged but are also framed in context as Mateo being just "so funny and quirky". Near the end of "Should be in Charge," Mateo magically gags Gabe so he can't protest anymore about Mateo taking over as leader of the mission. And this is after having already enchanted one of the stationary suits of armor to come to life and fight Gabe. (Gabe admittedly does lightly shove Mateo out of the way during his parts of the song, but that's still a far cry from literally drawing a sword on Mateo as Mateo does via magic to Gabe.)

It's played for laughs (The Grand Council is just smiling happily in the background throughout the scene which is so yikes), so it's easy to overlook what's actually happening. Frankly, it's pretty horrifying that Mateo's natural instinct upon his experience/authority being questioned is to literally attack and then silence. (And attack and silence someone who is supposed to be one of his best friends and closest allies at that!)

Rather than the narrative acknowledging that maybe it's a bad idea to immediately grant power to someone to someone who is so retaliatory against fairly minor criticism, the Grand Council just gives Mateo exactly what he wants and doesn't even offer a "maybe next time, let's not gag or attack our friends, okay?" alongside it. I mean sure Mateo does step down as captain at the end of the episode, but it's very specifically presented as his and Gabe's voluntary choice and not an order from Elena/the Council.

[thehealingsystem]

nate please please please please I am shaking you by the shoulders right now no one needs to do this please you can make a actual thought provoking interesting thumbnail for the song you don't need to appeal to clickbait algorithms anymore you're still letting yourself be bound to it people loved your early original songs for what they were without this. please stop doing this please stop changing thumbnails I am going to cry

[dirt-str1der]

I will always be vocal about how much dr stone sucks and how stupid it is but to be quite honest it consumes 80% of my waking thoughts and yes i also downloaded the chinese kemonomimi doujin so i could pretend to read it in my spare time