#also out of necessity

[asthedeathoflight]

I do think 70s devils minion adds a whole layer to Daniel and Armand's relationship that we're not really taking into account enough bc while it does kind of technically happen in canon (that they break up and then get back together) we never actually get to SEE them when they're back together and so its not really taken into consideration for their dynamic.

But like Armand is someone who has for his entire life been another person's possession, who has defined himself as a person that people Have instead of Love. And what the Queen of the Damned chapter shows is Daniel Molloy as someone who Armand wanted to possess and who wanted to be possessed by Armand. Armand has never owned anything in his entire 500 year life and so he NEEDS to own Daniel, he needs to have just this ONE THING to himself after all this time. And Daniel for his part is very into being so consumed by another person. For a time, Daniel is exactly what Armand needs. Here is a person who cannot hurt him, who wants to belong to him, who he can finally assert authority over and in doing so assert his own independence. Nobody in Armand's life has ever been truly HIS in the way that Daniel is.

But the longer theyre together the less urgent the need to possess and control is, and the more Armand is able to love Daniel selflessly, the more they come into conflict because Daniel still WANTS that level of obsession. Their breakup in the books is inevitable because their relationship was built on impulses that, while important stages in their growth, over time became unhealthy. Daniel needs to get out of his cycle of addiction and Armand needs to grow past needing to possess people to believing they'll stay of their own free will. So they need to break up.

BUT unlike in the books where Armand's resolve ultimately fails him and he turns Daniel anyways, cementing the both of them into both of their unhealthiest habits, show Armand manages to work through his issues to the next stage of his growth: that he needs to let Daniel go. And he does! He lets Daniel go and he bears the burden of their relationship alone for 50 years so that Daniel could not only have a human life but also develop as a person in a way he never could have if he stayed with Armand. Show Daniel is a different man from 70s/book Daniel. He knows who he is. Even though he's falling back into old patterns now that he's a vampire he's still been through this cycle a few times and hes stronger now than he would have been if he was turned when he was 30.

I think, assuming devils minion did happen in the 70s, the present Daniel/Armand dynamic will be different from what we're expecting because they've finally grown enough as people so that they can come together on equal footing which is really important bc Armand has never been someone's equal in a relationship before! This is new territory for him! So I think their relationship has potential for development of both of them as characters to places they never got to go in the books. Please note that this is NOT me saying they will have a perfectly well adjusted healthy relationship I just think that this is the next step past their old dynamic and probably will be more dangerous for other people than it is for them which is always a win.

[estrellami-1]

Lavender Letters

Part 1

There’s a few interesting-looking squiggles there that Eddie puzzles at before finally moving on to the next paragraph.

More squiggles.

Eddie reads through it once, twice more. This was not what he was expecting when he opened his locker today.

He, insanely, hopes the author is watching as he pulls his hair over his face.

He almost gets out his notebook to write a response when he realizes he doesn’t know who his admirer is. He doesn’t know how to send a note in return.

Well, he figures, he could at least write one, just in case.

There. Jumbled and all over the place, but at least it’s down on paper and not floating around in his brain anymore. He tucks the note in beside his in his notebook and carefully closes it, ensuring its safety.

He really hopes S, whoever they are, writes again.

[aro-bird]

Okay, for aro awareness week, I need you all to start recognizing that:

NOT EVERYONE IN THE ARO COMMUNITY IS FROM THE UNITED STATES OR EUROPE.

Please, when we're having discussions about aphobia, allonormativity amatonormativity, and other issues for the love of god STOP PRETENDING THAT WE DON'T EXIST AND LISTEN TO US!

We aren't just your token aros that exist in the other side of the world just for you to prove that we are everywhere or whatever point you're trying to make, we are living, breathing human beings and members of the aro community and we deserve respect and to be remembered not as a point in your discourse but as equals.

I am sick and tired of people just assuming that everyone in the community is either from the United States or Europe and only centering those voices in the discussion. We exist too.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

and! barbarian!fig! its her

[sukibenders]

Bridgerton states from season one, through Simon and Lady Danbury, to season two, with the Sharmas, to Queen Charlotte, from the beginning episode to the end spelled out clear as day, that racism exists in this world and many of the characters of colors have been impacted by it in some way. And, supposedly, I'm supposed to believe that Marina, that Kate and Edwina, that they all had more privilege and power than Penelope? No, I don't think so, a lot of things aren't right with that statement.

[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?

[autumnoakes]

i'm having trouble forming this thought into words but there's something about melinoë being raised the way that she was and being taught to think the way that she does to the point of not being able to think any other way. it's not naivety and it very much reminds me of how prejudices get passed from parent to child. i keep seeing these statements coming from the olympians saying that the old golden age was a farce and that chronos is manipulating the humans into following him (note that we don't have any living human perspective on what's happening, so we don't really know how far chronos' reach has spread. all we have to go on is what's happening in the realms of the gods and in ephyra). it's all being perpetuated by gods that melinoë has been raised to trust and believe in. i think she could be nearing a tipping point as the plot progresses, though. like i said, i don't think there's necessarily a "good" or "bad" side here, only the side that melinoë/the player is on and the side that chronos is on (plus many of the NPCs that we meet who are generally uninvolved in the whole mess). but there's also a lot that we're missing simply because melinoë is unaware of it.

[archiveofliterature]

every day i become more convinced letty fetishised ramy bc tell me why i just found out that the royal pavilion is in brighton which is WHERE LETTY'S FROM

btw the royal pavilion looks like THIS

rf kuang really chose her details right bc letty could've been from anywhere in england but no she was like let me pick brighton where a prominent example of orientalism architecture was built

[lastsurprisescramble]

ladies n gentlemen mrrrrrrrrrrr charlie kellyyyyyyyy

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Okay challenge mode. You are a therapist and Eridan Ampora from Homestuck has just walked right out of his intro page into your office. How do you fix him?

put him and karkat in a room with a pile of stuff and tell them they can't leave until they've jumped into it and talked about their feelings

[patroclusdefencesquad]

literally no one fucking talk to me.

[ckret2]

So the trick to get you in the groove to work on on oc stuff is that first you put them in a fic for something your alredy working on and rhen let them bloom

You say that like you think I haven't tried it.

The problem is, for the way I write fanfic—I go hardcore on the canon compatibility—a really good fanfic OC has to be woven so deeply into the context of the original canon universe and canon story that you can't rip the canon out of them without undermining the whole foundation of their identity as a character. One you remove the canon, all you're left with is superficial surface details that no longer make sense without the canon you've stripped away.

For me developing the kind of OC that could stand wholly independent from the source material means a failure to write the kind of OC that I feel is appropriate for the fanfic I created the OC for. If the OC is whole and complete and fully developed and needs nothing if you remove the original canon context, then what the hell are they doing in that canon anyway? If the canon has no major impact on who they are?

[rosemaryreality]

Guys I'm crying why does the official translation make it sound like Megumi wants to live that housewife lifestyle

[starbuck]

no offense to people who want him to be a completely different character, but he would literally never be nice to anyone.

[aropride]

caffeine addiction is so fucking funny. every morning for years i have woken up and had a similar type of drink with a similar amount of a substance in it and then i am comforted knowing i will not endure a headache or excessive sleepiness. it makes my hands shake sometimes but i've found that to be not worth worrying about. if i don't have it i'm tired and in pain for a few days, but otherwise it doesnt interfere with my life. i tell people this and they go "ok cool." being chemically addicted to this one specific substance is completely fine societally. nobody told me to, like, keep a strong watch over myself and my self-control when i had my first monster, i figured out myself that i need to keep my caffeine consumption at or under a certain level and it's literally fine.

HOWEVER the first time i had WEED my friends who dont have weed were like "oh... please be careful..... make sure to limit yourself... its addictive and youre mentally unwell... wdym you have it between once a month and a few times a week thats a lot... you dont want an addiction....." Like between these two substances, if i dont have caffeine for a day i get a pounding headache and im fairly irritable for a few days. i have to make sure i never run out of caffeinated beverages to avoid that. if i dont have weed for a few days in a row it literally doesnt register as a problem. because every week there are several days in a row where i dont have weed. whereas if i have it too many days in a row i go "oh this is starting to feel kind of meh. i'll cut back a bit so my tolerance doesnt start rising". and its literally fine. like out of all the substances i consume on a semi regular basis one of them i need to function and the other one is like, ok theres nothing to do and im bored time to have the candy that makes me silly