#and part of that genuinely is because of his example

[sightseertrespasser]

i think my favorite part is kind of just how it.... unfolds? it feels so natural. little bits and pieces accumulating into misunderstandings and understandings. people talking to eachother, just about whatever happens to come up. it very rarely to never feels like exposition, just a part of the world, and they are in it. the character interactions all feel in character and authentic, the way things have changed in this AU make so much sense, and all the little touches that add up together for the perfect blend of culture shock and misunderstanding. i LOVE crossover, outsider POV, isekai/transmigration, any kind of "this is not how its supposed to be, what is going on?" type stories but most fail to really properly draw out the premise. things are revealed too soon, or it feels too hamfisted how quickly or how long it takes, the flow isnt natural. the story either closes its eyes to drag it out, or skips over the shock entirely. this does neither. prowl has NO reference for jazz, and jazz has no reference for cybertronians. he is incredibly stressed, physically and mentally, and now that its come in the reality is terrifying and unsustainable, and he has to hope, he has to HOPE that this outwardly cold and calculating person he has just met will care enough, not just to keep him alive but keep him living. prowl will now have to deal with holding jazz life in his hands in a way so much different and yet so much more intimate than almost anyone else he has ever handled, and it will be work, constant, unending work.

i end up in a rereading rabbit hole because i think about the scene before that led to this scene, and the scene before, and the scene before, and each one is so satisfying alone but i go :DDD thinking about how we got there.

honestly, i know odds of survival cant continue forever, but damn if i dont wish it could

Man, that’s all just amazing to me. I’m so happy you like all the little hints and build up that goes into the big moments because that’s some of my favorite stuff to do.

Usually when I write, I’ll have the elements involved in the Big Moment already in mind and then work backwards to seed the clues throughout the lead up to have a greater payoff.

For one mini example, Prowl grumbling about his therapist which helped lay the groundwork for Rungs appearance in the story.

Additionally, it’s really, really fun looking at situations from different perspectives depending on the character and working out what they would and wouldn’t think of. For another example, Prowl is very quick to think that Jazz could be crashing, because he frequently experiences crashes.

Similarly, writing misunderstandings is a ton of fun when there’s legitimate reasons for two characters to have wildly different perspectives on something. There’s a saying that goes “you’re characters don’t know what genre they’re in.” And I want to write characters that are genuinely acting intelligently with the information they have available.

(Which is also why I had to give Jazz a concussion because otherwise he probably would’ve been waaay less complacent about a practical stranger leading him into unknown locations.”)

Jazz and Prowl dancing around their misunderstanding of each other was pretty difficult, as I personally hold that Prowl can solve any puzzle given enough time and that Jazz can make his own solution to any puzzle given enough time.

They’re both smart as hell, so as the writer I basically had to narratively trap them like rats in a maze to get the confrontation I wanted at the right moment.

Fun times and I’m glad it paid off!

[allofnypeaches]

I love a lot of things about the hunger games trilogy, but by far my favorite part of reading the books is how suzanne collins manages to use katniss' unreliability as a narrator as an advantage that improves the reading experience instead of limiting the readers' interpretation of the facts. I think about how when reading other first-person narrated books I am always conditioned to perceiving things the way they are presented to me by the narrator, without me even realizing it, and how that - obviously - reflects how every story has multiple sides to it and whatnot. but the hunger games, despite having a very biased narrator, manages to paint us a picture that is wider than katniss' view somehow. I haven't fully figured this out yet, but I think it's a combination of the following things that make this possible;

#1: Katniss, although very young and at times naive and blinded by fear, survival instincts, propaganda and most of the time just sheer confusion because of all the information that is kept from her, is very skeptical of everything. she rarely ever takes things at face value (even when she should, like when peeta shows his feelings for her), and is always questioning, pondering the different motives behind things, the possibilities and outcomes of what could happen if x thing meant y instead of z. and yes, her hypothesizing is often inconclusive - which is very understandable for someone in her situation - but it invites us to question things and hypothesize about them on our own, and through context clues that she may sometimes miss or misinterpret, we are sometimes able to piece together entire puzzles of the narrative before she does, and that is simply delightful to experience, while simultaneously not spoiling anything either, because it makes us anxious to see how and when she will realize what we already know.

a few examples include, but are not limited to :

- realizing that Peeta is madly in love with her before she even considers that possibility

- realizing that Madge genuinely likes her, as well as her entire family, and that they're actually friends before she admits this

- seeing through Gale's words and knowing he has romantic feelings for her before that ever crosses her mind

- thinking that the people in 12 are definitely looking out for her and Prim in any way they can (with their extremely limited resources and freedom) before she gets suspicious of that fact

- realizing how much of a symbol of hope and rebellion she is to Panem before she is told so (that's the most obvious one though)

- comprehending her mother's reaction (or lack thereof) to her father's death before she can see past the resentment in catching fire

- seeing that Gale brings out the worst in her at times, and seeing that he's constantly pressuring her when she's already holding the weight of the world on her shoulders, and how that makes him a bad friend, who, by the way, doesn't see her as a friend at all especially after the first games

- piecing together how terrible Coin is and how she needs to be eliminated just as much as Snow for the war to end before Katniss fully accepts that reality (she is the least oblivious to this one)

- realizing that Squad 451 don't actually believe that Coin gave her a mission in Mockingjay, but they're following her anyway because they want to, long before they tell her that

- watching her fall in love with Peeta, develop deep feelings of love and desire for him, while she is always either excusing it as something else, or too confused/oblivious/naive to see it

#2: the characters around Katniss never seem one-dimensional because of how empathetic she naturally is. because of how much she treats everyone like multi-faceted human beings as complex as she is, we are invited to wonder about those characters' feelings very deeply, and to interpret their actions accordingly, which greatly diminishes the potential for mischaracterization if the person reading actually exercises at least 1% of their critical thinking. this also goes for the system that she lives in, the culture she grows up in and the overall symbolism of things throughout the books. because of how well everything is presented, we don't need Katniss to tell us straight up how manipulative, coniving, dirty, cruel and tyrannic the government is, we can see this time and time again, in small and big things, from her odd description of things she's never seen/tried before showing us how isolated the districts are from eachother and how precarious their living situations are, to her talking about how traumatic her father's death was for her making us wonder if it was actually an accident. she doesn't have to connect the dots for us to wonder about the limited genetic pool of district 12, or about her father's extensive knowledge, where it came from and why he passed it all down to her, why he documented it in a book. it's like there is always a door open into the lives of others, into the things they believe in, into what the past of what that world was like, and if you're just willing to go through that door, the universe within the books greatly expands.

and that is all extremely intentional, too. Suzanne is trying to tell us that it is always worth it to look past our own lenses, to question things, to not be susceptible to manipulation and propaganda, to look beyond what we are shown and see the world, and the people in it, for what they truly are instead of always being limited by our own perspective of things. it's just so beautifully and masterfully written, and it will never stop being relevant. that's why these are my favorite books ever.

[lucky-luffy]

I've actually been kind of wanting to talk about Coralaw for a while now and I guess this is a good excuse to do it. Anyone who's been following me since I made this blog probably noticed the transition from "all things Luffy and Zoro" to "all things Corazon and Law" (I still love zolu, for the record, but for months now I've been completely enthralled by the latter dynamic).

Click for ramblings about fandom, found family, shipping, etc.

Obviously, Coralaw is a controversial ship. But I genuinely think that, at least in western fandom, it gets way more hate and vitriol than it deserves. For months I've been occupied with exploring it from the Japanese fandom perspective, where it's actually quite popular (pixiv rankings puts it among the top 5 OP slash ships for all time which is impressive considering the amount of pairings and characters One Piece boasts overall). A statement such as "I think people ship Law and Cora without realizing it's wrong" feels ignorant to me. Japanese fans are well-aware of what kind of dynamic they're shipping, they just also know that it's fiction and don't see the use in attaching moral values to these things the way westerners do (we all know our culture is way more easily skeeved out by sexual topics and it's only getting worse with the rise of puritanical/conservative values here. But that's…not a discussion for today lol).

"Found Family" has also become a big deal here in recent years, which I used to think was great! Found Family is an amazing trope that's especially beloved by queer fans who often have shaky or nonexistent relationships with their own blood-relatives. And One Piece includes brilliant examples of Found Family themes! But more and more I see people taking these relationships and pigeonholing them into nuclear family roles that lack nuance at best and feel downright insulting at worst (no, Robin is not Luffy's mom, for god's sake!)

"Corazon and Law" has this problem, too. And in some ways, I do see them as a type of Found Family, though not really*, and definitely not "father and son". Law had a stable, loving family that was ripped away from him, and has no reason to seek to replace them. Even if he was looking for a new father figure, Doflamingo would have been the one that Law imprinted on, being the one to take him in, educate him, train him, etc. while Corazon kept his distance between occasional beatings. Corazon and Law do bond and develop something powerful during their journey but it's notably never defined. Oda certainly could have had Law see Corazon as a parental figure or perhaps an older brother (more fitting with their abrasive dynamic and the barely-over-a-decade age difference), but he never has Law use familial language like that (neither as a child or as an adult when speaking about Cora). This is likely intentional on Oda's part, because Law never fully understood what he actually was to Corazon, why this man loved and died for him. He spent thirteen years believing that there was some kind of "condition". He was a D. He had to avenge Cora by stopping Doflamingo, fulfilling his dream. Even being seen as a "son" by Cora would have been a condition, of sorts. But as Sengoku says to him, "don't try to attach a meaning to the love you received." Which is what I see all too often from fans. "Why did Cora care? Oh, he must have loved Law like a son!" THAT undermines their canon relationship. Flattens it, cheapens it. Sometimes things are more interesting when you don't try to force them into little beige boxes! And I'd be saying this even if I didn't like Coralaw as a ship because, while I do love Found Family, I've never, ever enjoyed the way people try to link relationships back to literal familial roles, especially assigning people as "parents" when they're in their mid-twenties with no business having a teenage son. What happened to role models and mentors? What happened to being friends? Granted Cora and Law aren't any of these, either. The complexity of their (canon) relationship makes it all but impossible to label and that's why it's so fucking fantastic. That's why Law's feelings are so complicated and intense and why he can place Cora on a pedestal of "savior" because Cora transcends both friend and family while simultaneously never even reaching these levels because he was taken from Law too soon. That's the beautiful tragedy *and I why I don't completely see Cora and Law as Found Family canonically, though they had the potential for it.

But what about lovers? "Lovers" can be a type of Found Family and I do ship these two, right? Well, yes, but that's a different conversation that steps outside the boundary of canon, as shipping inherently does. That's also why arguments like "X character doesn't see Y character as a lover" are so silly to me because yeah, obviously—that's kind of how it goes, especially with gay ships. They're rarely canon, they're fanon. And that's when transformative works steps in. And one reason why tragic, "what if" types of ships are especially good for this, because the AUs and possibilities are truly endless.

"It's wrong to ship these characters, even as adults, because they met when one was a minor!" Okay, but like…why? We're all aware that these characters aren't real, right? We can (and should!) explore literally any premise in fiction, even ones that some people may find uncomfortable. And yeah, I know part of my tastes and acceptance of more nuanced pairings is because I grew up in a more lawless, "anything goes" era of fandom. My shipping interests are usually very tame and vanilla but I do enjoy some weird stuff now and then, including fictional romance that pushes boundaries while also ultimately being a net positive for the people involved. There are darker takes on Coralaw but the thing that I personally like about this ship is that their genuine care for each other could naturally evolve into deep, devoted, HEALING romance, and I've always found it interesting how the portrayal of a loving and healthy relationship between these two grown men is apparently so much more disgusting than like…all the Law abuse and rape fics and artwork that exist? Like this fandom puts Law through literal hell and the ones who ship him in a relationship that would make him actually happy are the ones who get lambasted and blacklisted? Okay…

"It's a grooming ship!" Grooming is a seriously fucked up ACTION that adults take to harm children in real life. No ship is inherently showcasing grooming unless it's specifically written that way. Someone could feasibly write a fic where an adult grooms someone from childhood but that would be clear "dead dove" content and pretty obvious that the adult is being presented as a fucked up person. But people don't think beyond "proship=bad" and ignore anything else, including that most people who like Coralaw ship them as adults, usually in a more canon-compliant scenario where Corazon re-enters Law's life after Dressrosa. That's a whole thirteen years put between them and Law is no longer the teenager Cora once knew. Part of the fun is seeing how he navigates this. If romance stems from the two at that point, I really don't see how it's wrong or even that unusual (especially in the One Piece world where there have been even more questionable canon relationships than coralaw). Like, Law is a 26-year-old man and if we're going to pretend he's a real human with rights then he's WELL within them.

I know Coralaw isn't for everyone. That's 100% fine. But the constant disrespect I see, people saying CL shippers should be violently killed, we should go to hell, etc. is something I find a thousand times more detestable than any One Piece ship. Having artists I admire tell me that they love the ship, too, but could never admit it online because they fear "anti backlash" and seeing the artists who do post their work treated so disrespectfully, is just a sad reminder of how fandom has changed. Yet meanwhile the asian fandom is like the total opposite! So yeah, goes without saying that I've been exploring their stuff more. At least the ship is appreciated over there and people act like adults about it.

I guess that's it for now. If you actually read all that, I genuinely appreciate it. Thanks!

[santae-salt]

CJ, salties, genuine and troll commenters - we need to have a discussion about emotional boundaries and emotional manipulation.

What CJ did last night was highly unprofessional and unacceptable for someone fostering minors in his community. I think it's sobering to remember that individuals as young as 13 years old can freely join and play. They could be in the discord. They could have witnessed whatever that was last night and it could impact them negatively. It is highly inappropriate to trauma dump in his discord as an owner; I understand that he feel victimized and it's valid to feel feelings, I'm not telling him that he can't, but CJ as the responsible adult need to understand that he shouldn't use his pet site audience as his dumping ground. I understand that this may frustrate and piss him off, but he needs to understand the gravity of being the owner of Santae.

I also understand it may frustrate him that I'm not placing any share of the blame on the parties that he views as attackers. This isn't what I'm talking about right now, so I'm not touching on that. That's all.

CJ, to address you directly - you are not a regular player just like "all of you". You are a developer. You hold a certain power by that title alone that, when you act like you did last night, can be classified as emotional manipulation. By bringing your significant other into the conversation, how horrible you feel, how bullied you are - it gives the idea that you are actively searching for 1) immediate sympathy and 2) people to defend you. You overstepped a massive, and concerning, boundary last night. I'll keep repeating it because of how strongly I feel about it.

You may not mean for this, and I'm not making fun of you or attacking you for saying this. I want to make that clear. You need someone unbiased who doesn't know you personally to talk to, like an actual therapist or another outside completely unrelated source. Talking to anyone close to Santae (or you) results in an echo chamber that spirals and revolves and wraps you up in stress. There's no separation and that's hard for anyone's mental health. Users aren't there to buffer your feelings. They're there to be users.

And for what it's worth, this unprofessionalism has been a concern since Santae has first kicked off. If you search the Santae tag on Tumblr and read some of the comments on the older posts regarding issues (the ID request, artist issues, etc) you'll see people expressing their concern about the development team not being able to maintain boundaries.

One example: you sent an email when you blocked someone that was wholly inappropriate and should be addressed, quite frankly. You didn't maintain the boundary of just banning the user and blocking them like an adult who owns a pet site, you had to stoop down into your wounded feelings and wield that power one more time to try and harm them the way that you felt harmed. You're mixing your personal feelings with professional actions and this will not assure the longevity of Santae. At all.

"To take words and share them publicly, stripped of context and trust like everyone else chooses to do. For what, we may never understand what happiness or joy you and a select group choose to speak in a bad way on any topic without telling the entire story. is not only deeply disappointing, but also a violation of the standards we expect every member to uphold."

This is absolutely emotional manipulation, an egregious crossing of boundaries re: owner vs user, and just unacceptable. Santae is close to you, but an attack on Santae shouldn't be an attack on you. CJ and Santae are two different entities. It's troubling that you and Santae seemed so tightly intertwined that you can no longer tell the difference.

This has gone on long enough, so I'll wrap it up here. Fwiw, I hope your s/o feels better, genuinely. I really do hope you take this as a genuine conversation of concern.

I hope you figure it out man. Yeah, it sucks. But that's part of being at the top. It's gonna suck, but you have to hold onto the positive and try to figure out the change it's going to take to get yourself in a better headspace.

☁️

[hainethehero]

Yeah, sure. Steve "who breached The Raft and broke Sam, Clint, Scott and Wanda out bc they were wrongfully incarcerated under the Sokovia Accords which were later repealed bc Steve was right."???

[Here we have a prime example of the very same part of the MCU fandom that is grossly misinformed and did not look at the movies💀🤣 bc how??? Did you not get the scene in cacw where Steve broke into the Raft and freed his team??Hating when u don't even know the material is just u being obsessed. Ts WILD]

Rogers, who saw Wanda as a child who needed guidance instead of govt/military-regulated control. Steve who protected Natasha during catws and literally got blasted by a missile when he pushed her out of the way. The same Steve who apologized to Tony for the sad relationship he had with his dad, when it wasn't even Steve's fault that Howard was obsessed with him. And the same Steve who constantly told his teammates and friends "You don't have to come with me" whenever he went on a mission (personal or otherwise) and they insisted on going with him because he was a genuinely good person?? That Steve?

Yeah, nah, that guy will prolly get all his teammates like Sam Wilson, Bucky Barnes, Wanda Maximoff, Scott Lang and Clint Barton killed...

Steve is a master tactician in the battlefield.

He was one of (if not THE most) well-read soldiers with the highest combat competency ratings in his unit. Was he stubborn at times? Yes. Too stupid not to run away from a fight? Yes.

But he wouldn't purposely put his team in danger to fight against someone as powerful as Sentry. He's not Tony, who recruited a literal child to fight for him in his war.💀 Time and time again, the MCU has shown that Steve would rather sacrifice himself, and compromise his comfort for the safety and freedom of others. So if you seriously believe that he'd lead his team to face their inevitable deaths against Sentry, then your critical thinking skills are null and void and you're just being a bitter old hater which is equally sad.

Also, let's just remember the fact that almost everyone on Team Cap is still alive and fighting for the good of the world while the other team is either dead or in shambles.💀🥴

The Steve hate is getting weird atp and it's really showing how bitter, obsessed, and uneducated most of the anti-steve part of the MCU fandom truly is.

[jellazticious]

Got any Joel or Sophie headcannons?

I was saving these for when I make a lineup buttttt hell yeah, here you go

but also these aren't cutesy hcs if that's what you're looking for. More of a dive with their characteristics

Joel The Teeth Child

He's got Indian blood

A teeensy tiny bit of a clean freak. Papineau gave him a position, he was weirded out by the roaches giving him a cup, and he was brushing SO hard at the first interaction.

Parents probably tried to teach him a little bit of french but it fell off

Considered a model student in class. He's smart, he's obedient, he's kind, and he acts more mature. Joel doesss have positive views about school from his dialogue

Genuinely a good kid, a good brother

But despite the emotional stability he has this layer of denial, could be because getting afflicted gives people a sense of numbness about their transformation or it could be because Joel himself is coping for some normalcy again

Honestly it probably is the latter since he cracks and says he doesn't want to go home if told to leave. He doesn't know exactly what happened but he knows there's nothing to go back to anymore

He would listen to anyone telling him anything actually. He knows how its like to live with a big family and he already misses the one he had

Joel does not ever stop thinking of Sam as his neighbor. He can't, not that Sam isn't a father figure but because he loves his family too much despite changing

Sophie the Little Menace

She's actively encouraged to act the way she does. Harriet WANTS her to stand up for herself

They probably just moved in the apartment building after getting away from the dad

She doesn't have a lot of friends and some kids have thought she was a bully

Her mother is right that she's a good kid. She's probably autistic too which is why she can get too rowdy or too careless but she IS capable. Just be nice to her, is all

She's attached to her slingshot enough to have Harriet mention that she carries it around. Her favourite toy

Everything she can do in combat is all because of what Harriet taught her. Sophie understands what she needs to do because she was told that it's just like the games she plays

Another part of understanding is using the dad situation as an example. "Just like what mommy does when..." The little girl absolutely sees her mom as a role model. She wants to be as tough as her

Maybe she already is. Maybe she's gonna be tougher, way tougher down the line

She definitely has her mother's nose

Sophie will remember Sam for being the weirdest babysitter she's ever had 💥💥💥

[maxdibert]

I was talking with my mother, who’s been in multiple fandoms since the 90s, about how people don’t really understand Snape and paint him as a villain when he is way more than that, and at some point she just told me « why does it matter if he is bad? he is fictional anyway », and used the example of anakin skywalker, her favorite character in fiction, who was an authoritarian leader and committed mass murder among other things but is still really loved because people think he is interesting or just because he is cool and iconic.

That’s when it struck me that the marauders fandom was the only fandom in which I had to defend a character as much. And that’s because most people in it have strong « baby’s first fandom » vibes. In any other fandoms, people stan murderers, war criminals, racists, and sexists with no shame.

But it’s only in this fandom that every character has to be a perfect little angel who’s never done anything wrong, at the cost of completely mischaracterizing the main characters because they don’t originally fit that description (sirius was a dark, messed up, and arrogant bully and even though he went against his family’s values, probably still held a lot of prejudice, he almost ruined his best friend’s life by making him kill someone and had no remorse, but we can’t talk about that because he HAS to be a good person, either how could we love him?)

so yeah, snape bullied kids… so what? not only is he fictional but he is also dead, it’s not that deep. I’d love to see marauders fans go in any other fandoms and try to tell people who they should support and who they shouldn’t because “they did something morally wrong”

Walter White is one of the most beloved characters ever and he’s a complete piece of shit. The amount of characters in A Song of Ice and Fire who are absolute garbage human beings and people adore them? I’ve seen so many Snaters who are fans of House MD, which I find the height of hypocrisy because if you accuse Snape of being a bully, then what is Gregory House? The man spent his entire life mistreating his colleagues, saying outrageous things to his patients, and being an insufferable jerk. So what’s the difference? Let’s talk about Loki in the MCU — who LITERALLY tried to commit genocide and killed thousands of people, but had so many fans they gave him his own damn series. And don’t even get me started on the amount of people who adore the Joker, a literal serial killer and terrorist. I’ve actually seen people be openly Snaters and still be part of the Hannibal fandom. Like, you really have the nerve to make posts about how Snape is the worst for making nasty comments to kids while writing statements about how redeemable a CANNIBALISTIC PSYCHOPATH is?

Honestly, I think it’s pure rage and hate towards the character at this point, because it’s not just that this doesn’t happen in other fandoms — it’s that there are Snaters who are in other fandoms with characters way worse than Severus and they don’t pull this kind of thing. So yeah, I genuinely don’t get those people

[wolfertinger]

Salems capability to make a story and characters is very underveloped, all we get is random lore drop tidbits via posts being equivalent to a kid randomly dropping a fact they made up on the spot. He will just sit there, thinking about how to excuse rape this time and suddenly he wants to make a post.so he writes out "tammy has IBS and i think its so important to represent trans black girls with big cocks that have loose bowels". But we dont find out anything besides that. Then he never mentions it again unless he wants to imply shes disabled because she shits when shes stressed. Or that Magna has a scat fetish but thats too personable, that would give her way too much personality.

I feel like by just writing those last two parts out i characterized the two of them more then he ever has..

tbh. his random characterizations, just feel odd. he will toss random details into a character, in an attempt to flesh them out, without consideration for previous things he said, about their lore. for example. randomly making hitomi an alt skater girl, despite the fact hitch's personality was alt skater boy first, and she complimented him well, by being a stoic, princess type.

i think, his ability to characterize is best shown, by his billion different versions of puppy, as she was shown more like barbie, with a million random jobs. than the actual oc with lore, he paraded her as.

she was anything, from a gamer, to a boss, to a tsundere, to a hyperfemme, to a goth girl, to a maid, to a bully, ect. genuinely. he just does this to his ocs.

[darcyolsson]

@mackaronicheese good tags 🏆 when i wrote this post i was thinking about the Good Ancestors thing, but i couldn't really decide how i felt about it. on one hand, there's lightwoods and blackthorns who are villains in every series except tmi (unless we're counting robert and maryse's past), but in each of those series there's also "good" blackthorns/lightwoods present. alec's great great grandparents can be assholes but only if there's someone around to redeem the family too. it's still different from if the morgensterns popped up just to be evil in every series, which would really have sent the message that some people are just ontologically evil, which cassie is very obviously trying to avoid. but it's definitely noteworthy that the main characters' ancestors only get to be evil if there's someone else around to clear the family's name. i also think it's notable that we know that the blackthorns and lightwoods are basically one family, even if annabel isn't biologically related to tatiana & benedict. emphasising that tatiana is both a lightwood and a blackthorn in the way tlh did does leave the impression that it's at least somewhat biological: the lightwood-blackthorns are the family that goes evil sometimes, but the pure-hearted herondales and fairchilds would never, of course. (the only exception we have to this is unsurprisingly tmi, where it's expressed that stephen was genuinely terrible)

now i KNOW it's mostly this way because of fan perception, jace's ancestors being good people who are very similar to him is way more fun to read about than if they were boring or evil people who are nothing like him at all. the morgensterns having had "good" ancestors that were a part of the tlh/tid gang would be interesting thematically, but there's only so much space for characters in your story, and i think adding in another lightwood is more fun for the average reader than adding in Evil Magic Bigot's Great-Great-Grandpa. i get it. it doesn't stop me from overanalysing things though

regarding clary, she did get to choose her last name, but that's, ironically, a theme for the fairchilds: we know henry changed his name from branwell to fairchild somewhere after tid and that the tlh fairchild kids got their mother's last name too, like clary. so clary as a character got to have her mom's last name but only because she's a part of the Biological Family Which Gets To Choose To Use Their Mom's Last Name Instead. incredible. it's literally such a perfect example of how the rest of tsc changed the message of tmi retroactively: in tmi, clary choosing to use her mom's last name was a radical choice to emphasise that biology doesn't decide who your family is, but now clary has ancestors who did the exact same thing it's the exact opposite and her defiance of traditional rules about family is actually exactly what makes her part of her family. it's genuinely fascinating

the problem w tmi in the context of tsc as a whole is that one of the core themes in tmi is redefining what family means and disregarding biology in that while in tsc as a whole biological family lines are an extremely important device used to connect the different series. the message of tmi is at odds w the rest of the world building and that's how we ended up with jace slowly going from "jace lightwood" to "jace lightwood herondale" to "jace herondale" in the background. bc jace the tmi character has to be called jace lightwood to make sense while jace the tsc character has to be called jace herondale to make sense

[atomicpirateperson]

why is rob so mischievous??

here's a yapfest of 6 reasons i came up with!

some of this is essentially canon and some of this is just theorization. i really like analyzing rob's character and if anyone wants to shoot me an ask about him i'll be grateful :]

1. to not die.

rob ended up in the void because he was useless to the show. if he couldn't die from the lack of food or water there, he would have spent an eternity in isolation. it makes sense that he's afraid of what happens if he becomes useless again, so he really needs a niche. his dilemma starts because the only niche available is the antagonist. in his monologue from The Disaster, it's clear that villainy is far from his dream job and he feels forced to act this way.

2. for revenge and closure.

of course, revenge against gumball is his most iconic and obvious motivation. however, on a deeper level, i think it's about more than the wattersons. despite his behavior, rob might have a strong sense of morals and justice. for example, in The Rerun he couldn't bring himself to end gumball's life after being saved, and his guilt was clear.

as for the closure part, he can't undo any of the traumatic events in his life, but because of this strong sense of justice, he still needs something to do about it. he still needs to resolve this somehow and he chooses vengeance.

truthfully, most of these vengeful thoughts should be directed at the void, but he can't enact revenge on the universe itself. so, he targets the closest thing to take his anger out on: gumball. in fact, as a villain, rob never brings up gumball's past offenses. who knows, maybe he doesn't even care what gumball did!

3. as a creative outlet and source of purpose.

there's no doubting that rob likes to be theatrical and extra in his villainy. there's definitely some real passion put into it even though he doesn't have a choice.

as a homeless orphan who doesn't appear to be in school, he probably doesn't have much to do in life. he's a creative and imaginative person for sure, so he needs a way to express and entertain himself.

it's easy to interpret his melodramatic moments as pure acting/exaggeration, but it could also be a genuine coping mechanism and/or way of venting, which ties into the closure thing.

4. for control.

with no house or family to provide stability or support, control is something he has been robbed of in life (pun not intended).

his shenanigans might help him feel in-control and safe by taking control and safety from others. this is especially prominent in The Disaster/Rerun with the literal remote control that sends him into a power trip.

also, while it's partially his fault, other people don't listen to him, so he has to get what he wants through force. this is probably the reason why he worked towards his benevolent goals so forcefully in The Inquisition.

5. for attention.

6. to defend himself.

this is pretty self-explanatory. real kids show attention-seeking behavior just from having inattentive parents. with no parents and little to no friends, this is probably the case for him as well. regardless if the attention is negative or positive, he really needs to be noticed and talked to by others. this would also be an additional reason for why his actions are often gumball-centric because that puts him on screen, at the center of attention.

this one doesn't show up often. i'm mainly adding it because of the scene in The Future where gumball and darwin charge at him unprompted. sure, he went into defense mode first, but he wasn't the ones who literally killed him first and asked questions later (actually, they never asked why he was doing that). the episode would have ended differently if they stopped to pick up on the many clues that this wasn't just typical rob shenanigans. (interestingly, gumball was less presumptuous in encounters before this. maybe he and darwin were angry because banana joe and his mom had nothing to do with rob's evil upbringing... but at the same time they don't always care about joe that much)

outside of that, rob's crimes might also serve to intimidate others to keep himself safe. a homeless kid alone on the streets needs to deter dangerous people as much as possible.

...and that's all i have to say :] again lmk your thoughts about this!

and before somebody acts like it is: this is not meant to say that all of rob's actions were completely normal and justified. it's just a villain analysis don't start

[mohntilyet]

is this a safe space to admit i really don't even like the lines in lucanis' first romance scene where he says something like "perfectly gathered clouds of doom" . but that does not stop me from loving him very much. i'm choosing to see this as a guy who is the terrible combo of reads romance novels, has never had a romantic relationship before AND his definition of 'good flirt' is synonymous with 'illario' so he's got an incorrect definition of what's actually romantic. the less lucanis is specifically trying to be romantic the more he becomes irresistible but i don't think he's caught onto that yet

[lorelune]

in that same vein, i mean it so fr that i do this for fun. writing is a hobby. thirsting over fictional men is the fun reprieve i have away from my deeply independent, corporate grindset. i am here on tumbls and posting my silly little thoughts and words because i have FUN and be silly and share!!!

[rivereverie]

These are all really excellent observations by OP. I can't express how much I love Astarion's complexity. If you’ve ever been isolated for a long time, then you know the feeling of meeting someone who you even marginally connect with and just wanting to scream about all the things you’ve never been able to tell anyone. I think that Astarion is probably caught between that feeling and a desire to keep his cards close to his chest to protect himself. I personally don’t think he ever found much comfort or camaraderie with his “siblings”: the only people who he had to talk to up to this point who could understand. So when he meets the PC and they accept him as a vampire, he finally has someone he can begin to confide in. Someone he can joke with and vent to openly. After spending 200 years wandering a city, surrounded by people who have no idea of the hell he lived, he just wants someone to hear him. That desire for connection interacts with his performance and ploy to get the PC to care about him, which I find so compelling. Both motivations exist in tandem.

He'll drop details about himself and his history occasionally, in part to get a reaction out of you. I heard him once described as "asking for sympathy at knifepoint", like some kind of dare or test. It's part of his game of manipulation and appealing to the PC’s sense of empathy, but I do absolutely believe that this is him genuinely wanting someone to hear and see him, too. Like everyone, he wants validation, deep down. But he wants to reveal his story on his own terms, in his own time, and there's an example of him exercising his new freedom.

There is even more payoff for this in a romance route in that HE’S the one to confess first. That’s an INCREDIBLY vulnerable thing for him to do, not only because he’s admitting to “manipulating” the PC, which could have significant consequences, but also that he’s opening himself up to emotional hurt. That is not easy to do, even for someone without his history. It’s an ultimate leap of faith in the name of connection, and it shows just how brave he is. In the end, he wants connection more than he fears rejection, and that’s powerful.

He wants to be known.

Astarion craves connection

Lately, I've been thinking an awful lot about Astarion's desperate need to bond with others, especially in Act 1. Not just to seduce you and have sex with you, not just because he wants to secure his place in the party, but because he wants - and surely needs - to connect with people after two centuries of loneliness.

I’m talking about genuine interactions with other people, without the pressure of Cazador’s will, and with interlocutors who are neither targets nor threats. Of course, sometimes it’s difficult to say if he’s only pretending or if he’s genuinely trying to bond with you, but the more I think about it, the more I see it. Just think about all the discussions you can have with him in Act 1. He's certainly the companion with the most evening interactions, and I think there's a reason for it, especially when you know that he's been so lonely for so long. And it's also quite striking given the fact that one could expect him to be much more wary, maybe even paranoid somehow (like Shadowheart), but on the contrary, he shows a real capacity to open up, to share and to relate. It's awkward sometimes, but he's trying, even if he doesn't really understand it himself.

So I wanted to look back at some interactions in act 1 and to have a closer look at them (in no particular order). And it's going to be long. And chaotic.

Take the first night in camp for instance; he opens up about not feeling comfortable sleeping in the woods. Yes, he remains quite cryptic, he doesn't tell you how terrified he is (you can't expect him to at this point), but still... he doesn't know you and yet tells you he's not feeling comfortable here. You don't even have to ask him.

He could have kept it to himself, he could have preferred to let you believe that he's fine.

Nothing forces him to tell you about it. And yet he decides, against all odds, to let you know that he's not so fine. It's implicit and subtle, yes, but it's there. He tries to reach out to someone. He's not good at it, but that's a meaningful step.

And take the stargazing scene, which, to me, is when he really decides to go for his “nice little plan”. But whether this is it or not, he is lying down and stargazing in the middle of camp, and I can't stress this enough: in the middle of camp. He’s not sitting apart, seeking calm and solitude. He obviously expects someone (you) to come and talk to him.

Another meaningful example is his confession if you go to the Underdark before the bite night. In this case, he will decide to tell you he’s a vampire. Nothing forces him to tell you. He admits it simply because he wants to be honest about it – he feels that, at this point, you won’t let him down. He wants to connect with you, despite the risks of such a revelation.

And look at his face when you say it's alright: he’s so relieved! Because you don't drive a stake through his heart, yes, but also because he knows now that you trust him. That he is ok. That he can count on you.

As for the bite scene, it's a little more complicated: He's famished and he wants to know if he can bite a sentient being now that Cazador can't control him. Of course, doing it without your consent is a terrible move (I tend to believe his idea of personal boundaries is quite fucked up at this point, but that's a topic for a another post).

But if you accept him as a vampire, he trusts you to trust him enough to ask for a snack. Which, to me, is not only related to his burning hunger. This mutual trust, again, is something he desperately craves. Because it means your partnership is not superficial. And when you let him bite you, you prove him that trust can exist between the two of you (even if he's already planning to manipulate you, because people are complicated and full of contradictions).

Then you have the scene when he asks you who you'd like to bite. IMO, it's one of the most relevant scenes concerning his need for connection. Of course he’s flirting a little, he probably has already been scheming his nice little plan. But come on, if it was only about seducing you, I think he would have chosen another topic for the conversation… I mean, honestly, you don’t usually flirt by speaking about other people’s blood (except for all the Durges around, but he doesn’t really now about that yet). 

No, beyond the flirting bits, this man is desperate to talk about his newfound freedom! for the first time in two hundred years, he can feed on all kind of beasts, whenever he wants! Of course he's excited and want to ramble about it! Imagine you've been feeding on rotten and unseasoned garbage for weeks and suddenly you can taste all kind of different spicy food, wouldn't you want to share that experience with someone? To ask them what kind of food they prefer? To imagine how this or that would taste?

Astarion is curious, he says it himself, and he wants to share his curiosity with you. Because he appreciates your company. Because he wants to share something with you, the open-minded companion who accepts him as he is. Astarion is not just teasing you, he's enjoying speaking to you "in the spirit of theoretical questions".

By the way, if you refuse to have this talk, he disapproves. Understandably!

You just turned down his first attempt to connect, to have a playful conversations, without any pressure. Of course he is disappointed! He thought you'd understand after you let him dine on you.

But if you play along, he approves whoever you pick, and gives a little comment of his own according to the companion you choose. And each answer reveals an attempt at bonding, it's always positive, even when he wouldn't have picked the same companion.

Even if you choose him.

And even if he’s already performing for his nice little plan, don't forget that it’s the first time he can really choose and decide to flirt and seduce. He feels somehow that he has to seduce you, because that's how he learned to survive, but nobody is actually forcing him to, for the first time in 200 years. So many reasons which make me believe that this discussion isn’t a performance, not completely at least, and that it's not just about his plan. It's about bonding and having a little fun.

By the way, during that scene, he calls you a friend. Is it genuine? Maybe not at this point, but I take it as wishful thinking. Whether he acknowledges it or not, he wants friends, or at least a friendly interaction.

He used the words 'friends' before, in an even more sarcastic way: The morning after the bite night, when you decide to keep him in the party after the revelation. Here, he’s not talking about you in particular, but about the whole group, and half of them are particularly wary of him, some of them are lowkey threatening him (and right before this, he told you he was scared anyone would turn against him - he still is). Without you, they would have at best kicked him out of camp.

This "friend" is ironical because none of them is seeing Astarion as a friend right now. So he deflates it with irony. Likewise, when he asks you to sleep with him the first time before the party, the “trusting friends” is ironical since you just called him out on his potential bullshit - and he knows it. It's a defence mechanism he uses each time someone sees him as a threat.

There's another "friend" in Act 1. During the "drunk scene".

This part sounds much more genuine to me. He's intoxicated, and he greets you with a "my friend" and a little laugh that makes him sound very giddy about it. If you listen to it, it doesn’t sound like he’s bitter, or manipulating.

Even the dev notes indicate that he must look “very happy".

At this point he really begins to trust you. It seems to make him happy to believe that you could really become friends. And being intoxicated helps him drop the mask a little, he's more himself: Playful, silly, displaying a sheer need to talk with someone. (look at this silly goose)

But being intoxicated also helps him open up about his past, about the torments. About his bitterness and his belief that power is the only way to be safe. About his biased vision of the world, of heroes, of power structures and responsibilities.

IMO he really needs someone he can talk to, someone who would listen and understand, if he's not sure how to do it, if he can do it, if you can be that person. He's "drunk", he needs to vent, and he vents to you.

This need to communicate, to connect with someone is even clearer when you play Durge, since he seems to relate a little more to your character. First things he tells you after you recruited him shows that he observes you and notices something is off, but it seems to be comforting to him.

As if he was thinking "thank goodness I'm not the only one who's a mess. Maybe they'll understand." And a few days letter, he comments on your state.

Not only he worries about you, but he also wants to understand what's happening to you. And if that's not a proof that this man wants to connect with others, I don't know what you need.

He has a hard time acknowledging it himself, with that little "do take care of yourself" which sounds a little awkward. And it makes sense, that must not be the kind of things he's used to say to anyone. Hence the silly little bow.

According to your answer, he can also appear to be very supportive, telling you to not fear who you are, accepting your quirks just (like you accepted his). Partners in crime. He's not alone in this.

And don't get me started on the fact that he doesn't refuse to tell you about his past. Despite his little remark on you insisting “about exhuming the past”, you don’t actually have to insist to make him talk about it. Comparing to Shadowheart, he willingly tells you about Cazador, about him being slave and very soon after you learned he's a vampire. You just have to ask, he opens up. He complains a little but he talks, for the first time in so long he's found someone he can talk to, someone who's willing to listen. And the more he trusts you, the more he tells you, without you having to insist.

I could go on for ages with examples: How he approves if you decide to tell Eithel about the tadpole in the grove. He doesn’t trust the old lady, but he clearly wants the two of you to have fun.  

How he confesses that you are "his first". I don't think he's lying about it. After all, being completely unexperimented in term of biting people, it's not exactly the image of "the sexy vampire" that he usually tries to display.

Not to mention that he seems quite embarrassed about it. His body language gives him away. He's looking away, clearing his throat.

And why would he tell you if not to bond with you?

It's not about seducing you, it's about open up a little and talk about his experience. He's already trying to be honest with you, because it's the first time in so long that he can allow himself to be honest. His face is particularly vulnerable when he admits it after he killed you during that first snack.

Should I also mention the fact that he never installs his tent in a lonely corner like Shadowheart or Lae'zel or even Wyll sometimes do? He's always, at least, close to another companion, if not in the middle of camp. Of course, it could be a question of feeling safer if the others are around, but I nonetheless think it's quite telling about his need to belong within this little group of weirdos. Likewise, a certain number of banters in Act 1 indicate that he does want to have innocent interactions with the group.

And finally, let's go back to the beginning, when you first meet him. As soon as he realises you're not an enemy, he drops his guard, relieved to have found another survivor. He obviously didn't expect you to invite him to join - it didn't even cross his mind because who would want him as part of a group? - but he quickly accepts to join "the herd". Not being alone anymore could be a good idea, right?

You could expect that after two hundred years of slavery and torment, one would be much more wary, keeping to oneself, keeping their distance with the others. But not Astarion, no. Because whether he admits it or not, he craves companionship. He craves attention - not for his looks, but for his individuality. He craves acceptance.

He joins you, first installs his tent in the centre of camp, he makes himself useful for the group, he wants to talk to you almost every night, he tries to bond with you in the most awkward ways and shares his enthusiasm for his newfound freedom. Yes, he wants to seduce you to make sure you won't let him down, but beyond that, there's a deep need for bonding, and to feel like he belongs somewhere. And if at first he probably thinks he only belongs in your bed as a good fuck, through all your interactions he begins to understand that he belongs beside you as a partner, as a friend and simply, as a person. He needs emotional support, he finds it in you, and even finds himself capable of giving emotional support. You trust him, and this trust is precious because it means you see him as a valuable person, not just a Swiss knife or a pretty thing. And it means he can trust you too. And it also means that, maybe, the world isn't as cruel as he was made to believe.

[kagoutiss]

pays for his therapy

[a-glow-in-the-snow]

[ahahah... would you believe me if i said that i... don't have all too much symbolism with it?]

[the way you took it is absolutely wonderful though. and i think it genuinely does work too. honestly it feels a bit weird on my end, since i'm someone who adores symbolism, yet sometimes i just... do things. just because.]

[the real reason for the butterflies is because i associate whole [specifically mostly Harmonia] with monarch butterflies... and thats the thing! no unfortunately i cannot give you a big ramble as to why... i don't know why i associate whole with monarch butterflies so much. like. them being orange and black makes sense but... where the symbolism?? i have no idea. well, i've tried to reason it after the fact. small, fragile... symbols of change and growth, but they can't survive cold weather [in my interpretation it's basically winter until concord, so no butterflies...]. and. honestly thank you for telling me they're poisonous because i genuinely didn't know that! and that just makes it even better for. soul and whole to me... and a bit of extension to heart and mind too.]

[as i mentioned i mostly associate harmonia [basically my soul's perception of whole, seeing him as a lot more divine and godlike than he actually is] with monarch butterflies rather than whole himself. and.. wow! finally talking about cats. but anyway, soul-cat [hnng... name idea is something like shattersong but i dont know how much i actually like the name... so im gonna call him soul for now] really really looks up to whole-cat. in a kinda unhealthy way, like.. hating himself for not being like whole. so he wears the monarch butterflies and covers the black half of his face because he wants to be more like whole, basically. also he has heterochromia. i havent decided what color his other eye is but i might go green?? or maybe a really deep amber, to try to be close to red. i dunno, his eyes also might change based on how i end up designing whole. for example if whole gets green eyes then soul's exposed eye will be his green one and the other will be idk probably yellow. if you couldn't tell it's another case of him hiding the part of him that isn't like whole. dw it learns self worth later down the line.]

[sorry if that was. disappointing or something.. haha... i still don't think you overanalyzed or anything though, don't worry. i think it's actually pretty cool to see people analyze things i make. and i think it's accurate anyway. and also gave me cool ideas!]

[Soul cat. Colored soul before colored Mind cat is crazy [I just really wanted to test its colors. I thought it'd be fun. And it was!]]

[Of course naturally, design subject to change. I can't decide if I want him to a marbled bengal or a classic tabby. He's sort of a mix of both in this image. He's also not half blind.]

[idiaa-shroxd]

YOUR WRITING IS SO PRETTY I COULD EAT IT. YOU CHARACTERIZE THE CHARACTERS SO WELL TOO!!!

thank you so much!! ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ happy you think my writing is very pretty!! and also makes me happy you think my characterization was correct.

when writing for characters always take a bit of extra time to ensure they sound good? thinking about having an actual conversation with them for a minute and what they’d do! ♧ personally a big fan of viginettes since that reveals a lot of a character more than mainstory.

Σ('◉⌓◉’) mini (huge) rant within the tags of the way of my process to understand a character!!