#a way contradictory to how *you* are

[sweetberry-roebuck]

There's something to be said about Mouthwashing's weaponization of the video game medium. The game is very easily comparable to a movie, between its runtime and cinematic framing and focus on narrative, but the fact that it is a video game, that we play as Jimmy for much of it and take on his actions ourselves, is I think really effective in its usage.

You are the one given the all caps RESPONSIBILITY, the disproportionate power of the captain, and you are the one failing miserably to use it well. You have to scan the codes, you have to give Curly his medicine, the first action you're presented with is to turn the ship in the wrong direction. No other option available. The experience it gives you of realizing again and again that you, that Jimmy, is not doing the most sensible thing, that he's being stupid and cruel and spiteful, is really effective in forcing you to contend with the excellently written character study on a personal level.

Waking up in the middle of the night and hearing Curly groaning in pain, and then going to bother Anya about giving Curly his meds only for Jimmy to INSIST on doing it himself, I thought to myself "c'mon man why wouldn't you just give him the meds to begin with," only to realize over the rest of the game exactly why he didn't do that. By putting the player in the role of this character, carrying out his actions step by step without choice in the matter, the irrationality of his decisions is made personally exasperating. You notice the patterns.

[devilsainz]

i know following me here is crazy cause one second i'm hating charles then in the next post i'm writing a thesis on how him and carlos are a cute and compelling couple and associating songs with them™

[storywestistrash]

i am actually so tired of the way westerners treat eastern europeans

[lovegrowsart]

something that's endlessly frustrating to me is that while you could make the argument that bryke didn't intend for their invocation of attachment to be taken in the buddhist sense, then that frankly makes their appropriation of buddhist and hindu aesthetics through aang and guru pathik in the guru even worse.

aang is undertaking a spiritual journey through unlocking his chakras (an explicitly buddhist and hindu concept) to achieve enlightenment through mastering the avatar state - the entire aesthetic, thematic and narrative structure of that episode is one of the most overtly buddhist episodes of the entire show. to then argue that "oh, actually, they're not talking about attachment in that way! they're just talking about love and aang shouldn't have to give up love!!" is frankly insulting.

if what bryke wanted was aang's conflict to be a conflict of love vs power (as framed in aang's conversation with iroh), then the guru should not have been written the way it was, because that episode explicitly frames aang's conflict as being about personal earthly attachment vs enlightenment, which is not actually the same thematic conflict as love vs power. and even if that was the intention, aang just, like, gains a massive amount of power thru the lion turtle and doesn't actually do anything spiritually, emotionally, or mentally to master the avatar state, and then also just gets love.

so. what was intended point and meaning of having aang master the avatar state at all, exactly? to hopefully being in the right place at the right time to get hit by the right rock?

[coriander-candlesticks]

I'm sick so I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense, but I've been thinking about the nature of myths recently as I've been exploring hellenic polytheism.

For context: I'm ex-Mormon. I was raised in the church and, because of that, was taught biblical literalism but in, like, a more subtle way than most? I was raised believing that Adam & Eve and Noah's Ark, etc., were literally true, but that the story of Job specifically was not; I also always knew evolution and the Big Bang to be correct, despite there being a verse in the Doctrine & Covenants (a Mormon-specific religious book) where God apparently told Joseph Smith that the world is 6,000 years old- a passage I didn't know existed until my senior year of high school. I didn't realize I had believed in biblical literalism until I'd left the church, actually.

Now that I'm aware of it, it's a mindset I'm actively trying to combat while I explore Hellenic polytheism. It's definitely been a task to separate the nature of the Gods from their myths, as brutal as they often are. And it's something I've noticed within the community, too, which I think is interesting. It makes sense: Christianity, at least, has had a chokehold on much of the world for a long time, and so many of us have experienced literalism as our first interaction with any sort of holy text (though, of course, Greek myths as a whole aren't that) alongside our first experience with divinity as a wrathful God whose flaws are waved away, or ignored, or twisted into positive attributes. This also means that I'm trying to re-approach several deities with an open mind (Zeus, Hera, and Ares in particular, but many of them to some extent) while also trying to un-condition myself. I was already in the process of doing this, of course, but trying to figure out how to interact with a completely different pantheon has made that especially clear.

It extends to things like prayer and offerings, too. Prayers were very formulaic growing up, even though most of the time there wasn't a strict script to follow. There was always something you ask as part of the prayer, even if it's just 'please help me do better tomorrow' (alongside giving thanks, of course), so trying to craft a prayer without adding *everything* I'm used to including in makes it feel incomplete and, therefore, disrespectful. And daily prayer is something I'm resistant to because of prior experiences with it. I don't want to offend any of the gods by asking for something or asking for too much, especially so early on, and there's always a promised offering the few times I *have* asked. Add worries about exact obedience on top of that and it's proving to be a difficult thing to untangle. And I know that the gods are difficult to offend, figuring out how to do this takes trial & error and that's okay, it'll get better the more I do it, etc., etc.; this is more an issue with my own overthinking than anything else (hooray for ✨ mental health issues ✨). I'm not really asking for advice here, necessarily, just thinking out loud because I'm not comfortable talking to people in meat space about it yet.

[carlyraejepsans]

with toriel and asgore it's like. they're both flawed and their flaws parallel one another, but they're not EQUALLY flawed... like..... come on......

[yellowocaballero]

You played the golden deer route!! (I think?) What's been your thoughts so far just like in general but also in comparison to blue lions? Claude and the golden deer are just so fun!!

I have not finished yet! Yes I am like 5/6ths done with the Golden Deer fic. I did something that I really shouldn't do, which is like consume 1/4th of the media and go "okay I could make a fanfic out of this" and then write a long-ass fic just based off initial impressions (this is how Theater of the Absurd happened - if you're wondering why everybody was so drastically out of character, that's why). I'm still only mostly done with the Academy phase, so no spoilers!

Thoughts so far? Claude is so funny. I am genuinely so, so fascinated by him. He's one of those characters who clearly has an entire existence and situation and insanity and you're just barely privy to the surface of it. Our C support is me walking into his room (why did I do that?) as he concocts poisons. He's a mad scientist. He wants to dissect his friends like they're insects. He's incredibly self-absorbed. He's convinced he's the smartest person in the room. He's on his gap year and he's taking a vacation with the white people and the country he leads is not his biggest priority. He wakes up in the morning, looks at himself in the mirror, and says "I'm a SCHEMER I'm a TRICKSTER I'm IMPENETRABLE I'm NOT LONELY". He has a biracial narrative and it's left him with a superiority complex because the alternative is to always be inferior. He'd be a better leader if he cared more.

I love Hilda also. She's so cunning but so kind, and her competence is underlined by her severe self-esteem issues. I haven't really connected with most of the Golden Deer - their ensemble narrative is not NEARLY as strong as the Blue Lions or Ashen Wolves. They aren't all part of the same story, I feel like. I'm still working on their supports (which are mostly C and some B right now...I kinda substituted most of them on the battlefield for the AW...sorry I have faves). Most of them are either a little annoying or uninteresting...Lysithea baby girl...Lorenz is actually deeply Felix coded in that he's kinda the sanest. He cares about all of the actually important things that nobody else cares about when they really should, and a lot of unimportant things,

I didn't expect this to happen, but Claude as your BFF actually deeply underscores how 1) Dimitri is insanely in love with you, and 2) Dimitri's bugfuck. Claude's so normal about everything. Makes me go "Wow Dimitri was normal about fucking nothing".

I'm looking forward to the War Phase and seeing how things change. These kids are fucking disasters in their lives and to each other, which mirrors their disaster country. Right now Claude's the most fascinating aspect to me. I'm not plugged into the fandom, but from what I can see his complexity and depth is kind of slept on - he has a comic relief role in dynamics, but I can already tell it's pretty constructed. Writing him as a jokester is like writing Dimitri as a preppy, perfect, adorably awkward nerd. Yes, that is a major part of how they present themselves to the public. I can't entirely call it a lie. But if you think that those performances are genuine, then you're buying what they're selling. Claude, Dimitri, and Edelgard are liars, and if you stay surface level in your depiction you're scrubbing out what makes them good characters. Also, especially in Dima's case, The Point

[elftwink]

have to work on a project today and an unrelated thing happened that just made me so so so so so mad (just some irl personal stuff), which normally derails my entire day because i find it so hard to come out of the angry/upset state and tend to just circle back and obsess over whatever triggered it but! today after 20 minutes of that i had a council meeting about it (<- what i call my decision making process) the outcome of which was putting it aside (!!!) for later when i could actually talk about it and resolve it (!!!) & in the meantime we could just do other stuff.

local man exuberant and jubilated to achieve feats of basic emotional self-regulation and was seen excitedly telling reporters he "never thought this day would come" and began giving a thank you speech to nobody in particular. more on this story as it develops

[tatatatatara]

Me seeing posts that say Kaneki is kind: well yes but actually no

[good-beanswrites]

A drabble for Honesty with Yuno and Muu for @amugoffandoms! Thank you for the request -- not only was I really inspired by the concept, but writing this FINALLY made everything click in my brain about Muu's character. As Yuno is making realizations about her, so am I lmao 😂

Yuno was good at breaking people down. Given a bit of time, she could pick them apart -- what they wanted, what made them tick, what was going on behind the scenes. There were many methods to get them to give in and open up to her. Milgram had given her a challenge, though. Try as she might, she could not break Muu Kusunoki. And boy, did she try. 

As soon as they met, Yuno could see her for what she was. The two were the same, she thought with a bit of satisfaction. Yuno saw a bit of herself every time Muu read the room and responded accordingly, nudging people in a certain direction to get what she wanted. 

She tried everything in her power to connect. After all,  they were just two actresses trying to make it through this ordeal. But Muu never seemed to reciprocate. She delved into personal secrets in the hopes of seeing the other unmasked as well. She offered attention and praise. She grew chatty. She shut up and listened. She became more forceful, asking questions about her crime. Each time, Muu was far more focused on Haruka than anything else. There was something going on, and Yuno would get to the bottom of it.

Yuno knew there was only one option left to try. She’d always hated the honest route, though.

The pair had just seen Haruka off with sweet smiles. They had a quick moment to themselves in the dining hall. Yuno rested her cheek on her palm.

“Why do you do that?”

Muu took a sip of her drink, avoiding her eyes. “Do what?”

“String Haruka along like that.”

“He’s Muu’s friend. Of course we hang out.”

“He won't do anything for you in the long run. He can't.”

“Do anything…?” She giggled sweetly, knowing exactly how to angle her head to appear oblivious. “Isn’t being my friend enough?”

Yuno sat up straight. She was tired lying in circles around each other.

“Come on. Just be honest with me. What are you trying to gain in all this?”

Her face scrunched in confusion. “I told you, I want a friend. Someone who likes me and treats me well. Haruka gives Muu lots of attention. He tells me I’m pretty, and nice.” She smirked, but it was the kind of smile that showed she knew she was pretty and nice. “And I like him, too! He’s cute. Like a sad little puppy, you know? I’m less lonely with him.”

At that moment Yuno was hit with a sudden and painful realization. It was a rare occasion in which she had been wrong about someone: unlike her, Muu was an honest girl. 

All of their past conversations made sense, now. Muu never lied, she just stayed quiet. She didn't twist any truths, she just offered different ones. She may have been giving others exactly what they wanted, but she never had to fake parts of herself to do so.

Muu squinted at her. “Don’t you have friends that are just… well… friends?” Yuno’s gaping expression must have gone unnoticed, because she simply laughed. “You’re funny, you know that?” 

“Mm…”

The two sat in awkward silence. Well, it was to Yuno. Muu seemed perfectly untouched as she finished her drink. 

She stood. “Muu is going to go see what the others are doing.”

“Alright, have fun,” Yuno said distantly. “It was nice talking with you.”

“Oh, was it? I thought it was kinda weird.”

A dry laugh escaped her. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” 

Muu made it to the doorway before Yuno blurted. “Hey.” She had one last question, and knew she’d get an honest answer. “Why did the warden forgive you? I heard it was a really tough decision for them.”

“Hmph, I still think they should have forgiven Muu very easily…” She tapped a finger to her lips, thinking cutely. It was a practiced pose of Yuno’s, but she made it look effortless. It probably was. “I guess they finally understood that what I did was to protect myself, and that I was worth it. I mean, you were forgiven too, so you understand.”

She left with a dainty wave. And that’s when Yuno was hit with a second painful realization. Another rare occasion: she was jealous.

[piningpercussionist]

I saw from a post about how many asks you have and I was wondering why not just answer one ask then use that as your daily post? (I'm pretty sure you post daily from my memory)

I'm not a writer so apologies if I sound a bit rude or oblivious. But I think you don't do that because it might get tiring to write an in-character response each day.

I'm actually an Insane Person and ideally would be posting hourly/bi-hourly, if only I ever found enough content to queue up in such a manner,,

But, basically the delays can be summed up in three parts: tired or busy (lumping these together as one problem), no idea how to respond just yet (or respond in a way that satisfies me,) or I have ideas but they're art based and take more time.

I do have some wips for some art answers saved I think, but I've got, like, a single commission remaining on my docket and I refuse to let myself do other art until it's finished (barring one sketch I did for the sake of my sanity.... I cannot stress enough how much of a fight it is to get myself to do full shading and backgrounds 💀 mistakes were made.)

Now, admittedly, it's been a minute since I took a crack at writing out some more thoughtful or lengthy responses for some of the asks I've gotten- so far as I recall, at least- but the dissatisfaction problem is Extremely Real. No joke, I've had an ask sitting in my queue for several months now because I was like "yeah this is good enough," queued it, and then just before it could post I was overcome with an Intense distaste for it. I really liked the question and thought I could do better. (And still clearly have not done better....) Writing Kim honestly comes really naturally to me, and I could never really get tired of it, but sometimes an ask throws a curveball at me in a way that I just really cannot quite wrap my head around responding to. Other times, I get asks that I just can't let myself answer in a subpar manner- either the ask itself or the implications of the answer I concoct end up mattering too much to me, so I get super in my head about finalizing the reply.

And then me being tired is just a skill issue. (I'm joking; this only applies to like the last month or so, but I actually started taking some new medications recently that have been messing with me just a little in this respect. Sometimes I get tired, and when they DO give me the pep to do things, I've admittedly been trying to direct that energy into getting my life together lol)

[rubberduckyrye]

Just 2 AM thoughts: Theory crafting is just another form of writing fanfiction, you cannot change my mind.

[odysseys-blood]

honestly i feel atp its disingenuous to act like anyone knows the lore of the game super clearly and that anyone else who tries to interpret whats going on is the most wrong person on earth like the game doesnt feel like its got 5 different people writing the story and none of them are on speaking terms

[kyouka-supremacy]

---

[daz4i]

how and why is there discourse about whether or not certain queer identities exist/if people should be allowed(???) to use them. why is "people know their own identity better than you ever could, and they're the only one who get a say on what they are" such a tough concept to grasp

i think if you find yourself offended by the label someone uses (especially if they're a stranger) or think it invalidates your own, it's a good idea to look inside yourself and question why that may be. more often than not, it's a result of insecurity or uncertainty of your own identity (or many other things, but i won't make a whole list here). whatever reason it is, until you resolve it, you shouldn't take it out on people for having an identity you don't understand

many have said it before but it's worth saying over and over. infighting only helps our oppressors. conservatives don't care if you're a cis gay or a xenogender aegosexual aplatonic lesbian, they hate all of us either way. trying to fit in by going for people who are easier targets for them isn't gonna help you, it'll just alienate you from your own community, and you're never gonna please them. the momentary rush you get from hearing you're not like "one of /those/ gay people" is not worth it and is gonna do more harm in the long run, i assure you

also, it is important to me to say this, but having some less than nice kneejerk reaction caused by confusion about an identity you don't understand doesn't mean you're a bad person or anything. as long as you aren't mean to that person, and you take a second to think smth along the lines of "wait a minute, this isn't any of my business" after having said reaction, you're good 👍 a lot of reflexive reactions we have to things are ingrained into us simply by. well. living in a society 🤡 and you're not terrible for having those thoughts. it's your actions that matter, and your second thought (the "wait, why did i just think that?") is more defining of your actual character and morals than your reflex. i know that having thoughts like this, even tho they're unwanted, can very easily make one spiral, so it's important to me that whoever needs to hear this knows this doesn't make you a bad person 🙏 you're good, keep taking actions to be good, accept other people even if you don't understand them, and you're on the right track :)

[ethanhuntfemmefatale]

thinking again about my beloved tracy thephiladelphiastory. what it means for a girl disillusioned by her father to say 'the right time to decide on someone is never.'