#and they're just generally very mean & unkind to be around !

[officialpizzarat]

just found out someone at my work has been aggressively shittalking me to multiple coworkers and spreading rumors about me for the better part of this year !! feeling insane & yucky & bad !!!

[cosmicjoke]

hi

wanted to ask for some tips

i want to write a fic abput lrvi taking place during and after no regrets and i wonder if you have any advuce for charactersing levi

I can try, haha.

The thing to always remember about Levi is that, while he doesn't express his emotions outwardly very well, he's still a deeply emotional character. I think, in fact, that Levi is the most emotional character in AoT. I think he feels things more deeply than anyone, at a more profound level. So that's always something to keep in mind when characterizing him. Don't let his stoicism fool you, in other words. The key with writing him I think is to find that very subtle, but hugely important balance, in his lack of outward expression with what he's actually feeling inside. People mistake Levi's lack of outward emotion with a lack of feeling, and it's a completely false perception. You'll often see people describe Levi as "cold", but that's the wrong word. Cold, again, implies a lack of feeling, a lack of emotion and passion. That's not Levi. He's the opposite of cold. Passion means suffering, and Levi is deeply passionate. He's passionate about people's lives, about their well being, about their dreams. He gives everything to protect those things. He suffers to protect those things and to uphold their worth. Again, people mistake Levi's flat expressions as being indicative of him feeling nothing, and that's just not true, at all. His lack of outward expression is a result of him experiencing deep trauma. It's developed as a coping mechanism for the deep well of pain he feels at the suffering and loss of people he cares for, and for people in general.

I would suggest writing from Levi's perspective if you can as a way to handle that, so that we see things from Levi's perspective. So even as characters outside of Levi view his lack of outward expression one way, you counter that by showing the reader what Levi is actually thinking and feeling. Isayama had the advantage of working in a visual medium. He was able to show us Levi's micro-expressions as a way of showing us how much he was actually affected by what was going on around him. In prose writing, you're going to need to rely more on Levi's inner thoughts to convey those things.

It's also important to understand that with Levi, actions speak louder than words. Levi's not good at expressing himself. He's awkward and often unsophisticated in the way he uses language, and as a result, he often has difficulty articulating what he actually means and it comes out sounding mean or unkind when he doesn't intend for it to. But we know what his actual feelings are based on the actions he takes. Think of the moment in the RtS arc, when Levi says he "hates" weak people, and then promptly works himself to total exhaustion protecting those same people from all the titans he can. Levi doesn't mean here that he actually hates the new recruits. What he means is that he hates the situation, he hates that these people that are wholly unprepared and untrained to deal with titans, are being thrown into a nightmare scenario in which they're being forced to engage with a seemingly endless horde of them. He calls the situation "pathetic". What he really means is that it's horrible. The situation is absurd and unbelievable in its badness. Again, if Levi literally meant he hated the new recruits for being weak, he would have felt contempt toward them for that weakness and left them to fend for themselves. He wouldn't have driven himself to exhaustion trying to protect them, and he wouldn't have acted with so much urgency to try and get them behind the wall when Zeke started hurling boulders at them. He didn't hate the new recruits, he cared deeply for them, and couldn't believe the irony of them being placed into such an untenable situation on their very first mission as scouts.

So it's that kind of balance you have to try and find when writing Levi. He'll say something that on its surface seems mean or unkind or rude, but his actions reveal that he actually feels and thinks the opposite.

So yeah, again, try to do that, and also try and show Levi's inner emotions by writing from his perspective. Let us know what Levi is thinking and feeling, even as he's unable to properly put it into words or convey expected facial expressions.

[mylittleredgirl]

finally, m*a*s*h update!

season four disc two! ("quo vadis, captain chandler" to "dear ma")

there is a LOT going on in the frank and margaret department

i kind of tipped my hand here when i posted about my new obsession, but even if you are not circling the drain on this doomed ship... the Unresolved Breakup Tension is fuckin WILD in this disc

she literally punches him in the face!!! how was that not a breakup!

but then he buys her something or does something to charm or impress her, and it works! then he blows it again!! rinse and repeat!!!! i am 👀🍿

sam and diane from cheers are still theeee platonic ideal of slap-slap-kiss but these clowns definitely walked so they could run

i literally jumped off the couch when his wife found out, aaaaa it's so juicy

I'M SORRY i realize this doesn't speak well of me as a person, but those long close-ups on her face as she voluntarily eavesdrops on him dismissing their relationship (twice!!) and her heart gets fully crushed??? i could eat popcorn to this all day.

this is the kind of dysfunctional relationship that my artist friends would choose in our youth so that we could Suffer and Make Art, so i really hope margaret is writing terrible poetry about it

anyway, we're peroxide-roots deep into GIRL WHY??!??

and then bj very gently explains to radar that well, see, frank and margaret both kinda suck and we're in the middle of nowhere, so they're all they've got

and i had to spend three or four days staring at the ceiling about it, because YEAH. it's not just that they're each other's only rank-appropriate source of star-spangled orgasms

(and they both care far more about military hierarchy than they do about marital fidelity)

but they are so consistently unkind to everyone around them that they have no other choice for any human connection full stop.

i'm not even talking about their ongoing bullying war with hawkeye and trapper or bj, because that's dirty pool on both sides, but i could count on one hand the number of times either of them have interacted with a subordinate nurse or enlisted man without threatening them. like they literally would not have anyone else to talk to.

but the reveal that she still wants to MARRY HIM? oh god. ohhhh honey. noooo.

that fake proposal prank was so genuinely mean. mostly because they ruined her hot date! 👏 let 👏 margaret 👏 fuck 👏 random 👏 dudes 👏

"isn't general barker the one who wanted you to spank him?" lmaoooo

OKAY i swear i can talk about other things:

hawkeye continues to just NOT pull without trapper here. the nurses are fully dismissing or ignoring his efforts, and honestly is he even trying that hard?? have we seen him get even one date?

i've been trying to come up with an "intricate rituals" joke about hawkeye and trapper but where the rituals are... girls. you get me.

i re-watched the pilot and the desk ep (for frank/margaret reasons DON'T JUDGE ME), and hawkeye and trapper LITERALLY end the pilot handcuffed together, and in the next episode talk about sharing a nurse. how am i supposed to take this???

speaking of nurses, you know that little 🙄 you have to ignore in 2024 whenever the women on m*a*s*h get called honey and sweetheart and baby on the job (though tbh i worked on a construction site and an ad sales office in the 2010's and got the same treatment -- but in the modern day it's done ironically babe)

BUT when potter calls margaret "good girl" after he gets shot??? total opposite feeling. i literally had to pause and take a moment. he's her dad now.

also when he tucks radar in???? everyone's dad actually

in loving memory of radar's other dad though, two important points:

how proud would henry have been of drunk & disorderly radar??

and henry's "i've always wondered if i might be radar's dad" bit is genuinely 900% funnier now that we know radar's mom looks EXACTLY like him.

i don't think i have ever circled back to talk about klinger, who became so so so awesome

it's so funny that in klinger's very first appearance and 30 times since then, he has been told straight up that wearing women's clothes will never work to get him out of the army. there's no explanation for his commitment to this particular form of passive resistance except that he genuinely loves it

the swamp rats built a still and klinger got a sewing machine and learned a craft. he's so good at it!! his looks are 🔥

i feel uncomfortable when i see him in fatigues tbh. it happened a few times in this disc and i would like it to Stop actually

also precious baby father mulcahey... Protect Him.

i LOVE that everyone showed up for his church service when the grand poobah chaplain was in town. they love each other!!! (also the life magazine jeep shoot!!!)

"quo vadis, captain chandler" was really good. i'm still over colonel flagg's whole deal but i now understand why everyone loves sidney freedman, and the guest actor they had playing not-jesus was incredible

bj continues to be the best little brother hawkeye could have asked for

also he maybe invented cpr?

i didn't say much about him here but I LOVE HIM and also his off-screen wife

forward and onward!!!

[captainofthetidesbreath]

It really is so funny the ONE person going around harassing everyone for having any opinion about Imogen that doesn't priorize framing her as a Suffering Martyrdom And One Of Angelic Intent, i.e. any post trying to unpack and examine what she is fighting against in herself in her journey to become the good person she wants to be and is working toward, keeps going "we don't care about your stupid opinions" and yet has spent literally a year ruminating on other people's opinions and creates multiple burners just to block evade to tell people about it

second funniest thing is how they're constantly complaining about people prioritizing men, and then thinking that Matt (a man) liking a tweet that says the same thing a lot of these people they're harassing have BEEN saying for, well, the entire campaign is the ultimate validation, like, what happened to "of course you're prioritizing a MAN".

in general, it's actually funny this entire discourse is happening because, like, actually a lot of people on both sides are saying the same thing vis a vis Imogen's flaws, it's just that there's a disagreement because some people (especially, especially, especially the person referenced above) perceive unpacking her flaws and what she is fighting to make better in herself without spending every other sentence going "but she's a good person and she wants to be kind" equals attacking and hating on her. she does want to be these things, nobody being attacked has said otherwise, and this idea that trying to understand what parts of Imogen are preventing her from ALREADY being the person she is trying to work toward—you wouldn't need to strive for it if you believed yourself already that person—is criticism or hating on her simply bc it doesn't focus on her better intent and what she intends to be is kind of ridiculous. honestly, we can't quantify what "good" means here without first examining what she is working with and what pitfalls she is avoiding. to understand what "good" looks like for her, what does "bad" look like for and in her?

it's simply interesting to many to really examine what she's fighting against in herself on this journey toward being better and good. it's very opening line of Anna Karenina in that way, and striving to understand what she's rising up out of isn't criticism or hating on her simply bc it doesn't spend half it's word length reminding everyone she's trying to be good. (especially when the post is trying to be focused and not bog down on every thought ever. talking about carrot cake doesn't mean op thinks yellow cake is a travesty.)

And, anyway, if you're going to keep pointing at a tweet comparing her to villains in Exandria as some ultimate gotcha, you have to let people actually talk about the ways in which she IS similar to those villains (just as all PCs are similar to many villains, really, 'tis the point of a villain), tendency toward self-focus and ambition and unkindness and hunger for power and uncharitableness and all. for her to want to be kind and good and to choose instead to be kind and good, she does have to face that part of her feels an impulse otherwise and that part of her tries to draw her to make the lesser choices. she is trying to ignore that impulse, to varying degrees of success in each moment but with an overall trend upward, but that part exists and is what people want to talk about to help track and contextualize her trajectory. without that part of her that is self-centered and mean and uncharitable etc., her choice to strive to be good and kind instead is meaningless.

[sillyassonepieceheadcanons]

Teaching them to say "I love you" in your native/foreign language: (Robin, Luffy, Sanji, Law) x GN Reader, SFW

Notes: [text] is supposed to mean it's in your language of choice

Whether they're saying "I <3 u" platonically or romantically is up to you

Summary: their approach to learning language plus how successful they are about being taught

Robin

In general, she's interested in learning the dialects of the world, and will ask you to teach her other phrases in your native tongue too.

This becomes a whole thing, and in the daytime the other crewmates can hear your voices repeating phrases like,

(Off pronunciation) "[I want directions towards the East Blue]"

"No no, you gotta say it like... [I want directions towards the East Blue]..."

When you two get night shifts together, a lot of it is now spent coaching her on the phonetics and sometimes writing the words out for her to learn too. Before, conversation with Robin was a bit difficult to achieve, so you're glad you're getting to spend time with her this way.

She's a very good student and achieves excellent pronunciation thanks to ur help.

Emotional language doesn't come easy for her, but after one particularly productive session of learning, she smiles and says, "Can you check my pronunciation on this again? [I love you]"

Luffy (+ a lil Zoro)

He's not an easy person to teach but lord you can try.

At first, you try to teach him + Zoro practical phrases in case either ever gets lost in a foreign country, but they both misconstrue sentences and always end up accidentally saying the most vile and awful shit imaginable.

You decide to teach them just one phrase, as love couldn't possibly be misunderstood.

"Repeat after me Luffy, Zoro, [I... love.... you...]"

"[Į... ļõve...ÿou...]" "[İ... łove... ou...]"

Luffy repeats the new phrase once curiously, and then something clicks under that big straw hat. He gets a great big smile on his face and starts saying “[I love you! I love you! I love you!]” as fast as he can to you, over and over. He starts going around saying it to everyone in the crew, who have no idea what he’s saying but smile anyways. Zoro acts like he doesn't care enough to say it in a he's-actually-just-too-shy kind of way.

Once, you guys encounter an enemy who speaks your native tongue, so Luffy says the only phrase he knows... declaring his love to the enemy, which baffles them but has you laughing your ass off. 

Sanji

Actually it happens that he's already memorized how to say "I love u" in just about every language across the blue seas... because he wanted to make sure he could get his message across to any lady in the world, even if they don't speak his language.

Absolutely pretends like he DIDN’T KNOW though, so you can teach him and hear you say "[I love you]" a million times.

Learning foreign languages was also something impressed on him by his father as part of an unkind curriculum, so getting to experience it in a new light with you, as a man free from his family, is something which deep down he is very grateful for. 

Will now alternate between saying he loves you in English and in your dialect when he sees you. 

Law

Besides being good at fights, as a doctor, he has a very studious side of him too. However, he rejects having the first phrase he learn to be “I love you,” instead of something practical. 

If you want to be a little mischievous you can promise to teach him a polite greeting when you’re actually teaching him to say, “[Good evening, may I be so kind as to propose my eternal love for you?]” If he ever finds out he’s going to get your ass beat though. 

Wouldn’t seek out learning because he has other things to do as captain, but if you two are ever bored together he’d enjoy having you coming over and teaching him. Sometimes you like pulling out one of medical books and translating different body parts and organs for him to learn to the best of your ability. 

One snowy day you find him standing alone on the deck of the Polar Tang, and maybe because he had something to drink that day, he starts talking to you about the Heart Pirate's crew and how grateful he is to everyone but especially you. At the end, you almost don't catch it, but you swear you hear him say, "[I love you]"

[inkabelledesigns]

-holds head in hands- Girl I have been pushed around enough this month, oh my gosh.

New thing I'm discovering about myself: I have boundaries over leftover nights! I guess this isn't completely new, but I'm feeling it rather intensely tonight. At home, if I can't remember when something is from, I won't touch it, I will dispose of it because that probably means it's been in there too long and is a health hazard. But it is a whole different ball game when I'm at a family member's house. I've been visiting with some family lot this summer, and they're snowbirds. They stay in one place for the summer then another for the rest of the year. And when they're getting ready to fly, it means we have to clean out the fridge and freezer, which is hell on earth. They save everything, and while that's fine and dandy for them, you cannot feed me food from before I got here. I don't trust how long it's been in that fridge after this one particular incident with broccoli from them as a teenager, I won't do it. I'm too afraid of the mold and germs, whether they're real or not.

But they are so pushy about leftovers. They're pushy about food in general, and I tolerate it, because they're family, and I know they need to feel good about everyone being fed. But this is my boundary, this is the thing I won't let you push me on. I will not compromise, I will repeatedly hold my ground. You let me pick my leftovers and fill my plate myself. I don't want help, I will not let you slip things onto it that I can't verify the cook date of, no no no, I will not do it. Let me have some autonomy.

I'm exhausted. I'm so tired of having to hold my ground, to the point where I want to cry. It's frustrating. I don't have a lot of hangups about food, I was praised as a child for being willing to try so much stuff and not being "picky". Which is saying something, I'm autistic, we have a reputation for that that is messy and often unkind. But regardless, I'm supposed to be "easy". But this is the thing I'm not easy about. I've done everything else right, I've been nothing less than graceful and agreeable and kind about every other social convention and thing I'm supposed to do with family. This makes me feel like I'm being punished. And this isn't the last time I have to deal with it. There's one more day of leftovers before I can finally be free. I hate feeling unsafe about food, that is literally one of the worst things to put me through. If I don't have security about that, I am a mess. I don't want to be a mess, I don't want to have another breakdown in front of people I love.

I've been getting pushed about all sorts of things all summer by a wide variety of people, and I can't take much more of it. I just want people to stop pushing me. I don't want to have to defend myself anymore, why is it so hard for some people to accept that no means no? I'm so anxious about the coming weekend, I'm about to be dealing with a different side of my family that has their own series of complications and social nuances to navigate. I want to see them, just like I wanted to see the side I've been seeing now, but I'm so, so tired. I can't take much more of this. I thought I was gonna be okay, but I think I need a little time to not be okay before I can socialize again, and I'm not going to get it, or at least, enough of it to recover in time.

The plus side is, soon I get to sleep in my own bed again, without worrying about waking anyone up. And that means I can be surrounded by all the plushies I desire. I want to hold my big ones very tightly. Just, gotta hang in there a little longer. We will get through this, we will be okay. Just, don't be surprised if I'm running on empty for a while.

[sushisocks]

Hey there! I believe you said in another post that the final confrontation would be unlikely to happen if lenny and sean were alive, so i'd like to ask if you could expand on that pls(if u havent already and i just didnt see it lol)

Btw on a side note im actually super invested in your sean content😭😭the fandom seems to only talk ab him to label as an idiot, so as a fellow sean lover the way you characterize him has me so in love❤️❤️❤️❤️

Oh Anon you are SO LOVELY!!! Thank you not only in giving me the opportunity to rant more about Sean and Lenny (which I am always so willing to do), but also for your super kind words!! Sean is very dear to me, and I'm glad my reading into him as much as I do strikes a chord with other people ;;u;;

The way the general fandom often characterizes him isn't very surprising to me, given his personality & the surface level impressions he gives, but maybe for now I'll save THAT rant for another time, else we stay here forever lmaoo

So, to start answering your question, I believe you're talking about my post from a few months ago, where I talk about how I believe Sean & Lenny would've sided with Arthur & John if they'd lived to see the final confrontation. In it I mention how I find that final confrontation a lot more unlikely were Lenny & Sean to survive that far and stick around for the entire thing.

Now, WHY do I believe this? I touch on it briefly in that original post, but let's really get into it here!!

Okay to start off, there's a LOT of ways I see things going, in regards to Sean and Lenny, were they both to survive, because it adds SO MANY variables, but let's start at the very top.

At a meta level, it is important to recognize that RDR2 is a prequel to RDR1. This meant from the get that RDR2, as it is canonically, was bound to a certain outcome, to set up for RDR1. This ALSO means, that every step from the start of RDR2 was very much there not only to lay the groundwork for the end of RDR2 but also add another emotional layer to RDR1. This is all certainly things we are aware of already, but I think it's important to have that context in mind while we talk about alternative outcomes.

Because, see, Sean and Lenny HAD to die for the outcome in RDR2 to be the one it is. Not only them, but Hosea, Kieran, Molly, and Susan's deaths are ALL integral and important to the story, they ALL make a difference and contribute in pushing the story a certain way, and in reinforcing the steadily increasing hopelessness which infest the gang from Sean's death and out.

So if we're like "what if none of them died?" there are suddenly a LOT of new variables for every mission and every scenario we know from the game, which need to be considered. This is true EVEN if the change in survival count is only reduced to Lenny & Sean.

How different do you not think Shady Belle would have felt, initially, without Sean's death hanging over it? What about the bank job -- would Lenny & Sean end up on the boat to Guarma? What would've happened to them there, then? Would either of them be caught by the Pinkertons instead, with John or in his stead maybe? What other options would there have been, where would they end up at the end of that?

And already here we have to consider how those experiences might've impacted them psychologically, because of who they are.

In the post I mentioned earlier, I talk about how Lenny is new to the gang and probably isn't as stuck in it mentally as Arthur and John, nor do Sean and Lenny have the same emotional attachment/baggage in regards to Dutch. They're loyal of course, because they feel a sense of obligation to the gang, because it provides them with safety, friends, and allies, in an otherwise unkind world.

But what then happens when that changes?

How do you expect Sean and Lenny to respond when the gang starts turning on itself? When Dutch visibly starts losing it? When people start snapping at each other and threatening one another in the middle of camp?

(I have a half-formed thought here about how people would ABSOLUTELY be snapping and talking down to Sean in a way more cruel way towards the end of the game, for trying to keep things light and easy, yknow, fulfilling his role in the gang. I can only imagine what that'd end up doing to him, tbh.)

And, I'll be repeating myself from other posts here, but how do you think Lenny, a young black man painfully aware of the social structure as it exists in America at that point in time, would react to realizing what Dutch's plan with the Wapiti is? Same goes for Sean, who has SEVERAL instances through the game showing him just as politically aware as Lenny - certainly moreso than Arthur.

Would the outcome for the Wapiti tribe be the same, do you think, if Charles had more people than a very sick and tired Arthur to lean on, willing to help? Would Lenny in particular want to stick around to see Dutch attempt to drive the tribe into the ground for his own gain?

Also, I'm sorry but like, Lenny has a camp interaction with Dutch where he disagrees with him (about Miller, Dutch's favorite author) and explains why in a very well-articulated manner. In one instance, Dutch gets straight up offended by it, bcz Lenny can argue very well (and is RIGHT mind you lol).

I do absolutely believe that Lenny would not just sit around quietly in Beaver Hollow. I'd expect him to be among the most vocal in their discontent with the situation, and probably the best at arguing against Dutch.

That is, up until a certain point. Lenny is a young black boy, and Dutch is a white authority figure. Watch Dutch snap and yell at him, like he does John in Ch6 for example, and see how much longer Lenny sticks around fr. The trade is loyalty for safety and the same in kind. Why do you think members start leaving when things start looking their worst? And don't you think Lenny would be among the first to see the writing on the wall?

Though that is hinging on that very specific vibe in Beaver Hollow, where they're all scattered and losing their ties to one another. Add then in Sean, who is VITAL as social glue, and for making conversations easier. If he, and Lenny, and Mary-Beth, Tilly, Arthur, Charles, etc etc, insert your favorites here, managed to retain some of that community feeling, despite it all, then I absolutely see Lenny sticking around for them.

Same goes for Sean, tbh. I can see him leaving earlier, bcz the trade stops being equal and bcz he's not being taken seriously, and I can see him staying, for his friends.

There IS also a version of things where things are similar and I do see Sean siding with Dutch; but that is a very sad and lonely Sean, who is VERY different from where he's at in Clemens Point, and I think that's an unfair perspective to take for him in general.

Okay so, now we're back to that final confrontation, after I said I found it unlikely, why is that? Because, with every question I've posed thus far, about what Lenny & Sean's reactions might've been to canon events after their deaths, I have essentially presented a variable that comes with their survival to those points. Them being there for it, HAS to mean a change, has to mean something different happens, because their deaths are direct contributors to the path we already know the story takes WITHOUT their presences.

Now, what are those differences and changes? I honestly can't answer; something being different earlier or later can butterfly-effect into something completely new or remarkably similar to what we already know. I could sit here all day and wax poetic about all the different options and possibilities for where things could go, were ANY character to survive past their death point, BUT thankfully, that is what fanfiction is for, lol.

I hope this satisfied some of your curiosity, dear anon!! It was a lot of fun for me to write and think about, so thank you very much for asking!!!

[faith--in-the-future]

your tags here…yk this is something i’ve been thinking about as well, how louis’ songs often seem to be like they’re written from female perspective and i’ve always found it really interesting also louis talked about something similar as well…it’s probably down to him being around women all his life but also it truly does seem like some of his songs at least are written about a guy and add to it the fact some his songs having queer themes as well…makes you think huh ✍🏻

also i found it really interesting as well when this reactor said that she never was able to connect to male artist before louis because she’s “female identifying person” (9:47-10:10) and i was like…whoa

I'm too much of a girl 😭😭 oh baby louis u were so sweet and innocent shsh

but yeah totally! and I care to make the distinction here that when I say sometimes his lyrics feel like they're written by a woman I mean that bc generally and stereotypically we're used to hearing this kind of feelings/perspective from women, in particular women writing about men, not bc there's an inherent "womanly" or "mainly" way to write, obviously there aren't and probably in the future the 2 will mix more thanks to more musicians like louis but yeah if u look at the popular songs we've always listened to its much more common to find the themes of not being loved enough, begging for someone's love, saying that for long everything u did was for the other person, losing yourself in a toxic relationship, only becoming who you are now after that person left you (ex: "the day you left me was just my beginning" etc) have usually been brought on by women more than by men. also the way he talks about the flaws of the other person (they don't want to share their feelings with him, they try to act like they never feel any pain, they get lost in their pride and become ugly and unkind) are usually things we associate more with men + he differs from most straight male musicians bc he never sexualizes women in any part of his art

obviously nothing is for certain and I'm not trying to prove anything, the only thing that this proves is that louis is a very interesting and innovative songwriter that doesn't follow the usual stereotypes assigned to his gender and I'm sure that's also why he's able to connect with so many women (also could be one of the reasons why he's not taken very seriously in the indie Boys scenes ?? too soft? idk)

also from the post u linked I saw this

baby louis predicted the soft boy era... he was always ahead of his time 😌

[dandyshucks]

idk why i'm dancing around it. i think i just get scared of "spoiling" things but this is not a typical novel, and anyhow i don't even write typical novels anymore.

anyways. S/I brainstorming/info under the cut including the previous idea i had for them that i've decided to abandon

so Ky is a fae. he works as a camp counselor (both in the typical sense and in a literal counselor/therapist sense) at Deadwood (my worldbuild's year-round camp for misfits and monsters). and there's a bunch of other info there but it all gets sort of complex so i'm not going to get into all of that rn fsdjkl

but the S/I... the initial idea I had was for them to be a fae taken in by humans (sort of a changeling situation) and they'd always feel wrong bc of . being a fae and having all their fae instincts and behaviours punished. and ummm it sort of would reflect my experience as growing up with undiagnosed autism in a household/family where two of my siblings were diagnosed at a young age (and my other sibling was diagnosed with ADHD but apparently i just. somehow flew under the radar bc i was ... different and didn't make enough of a fuss i guess. but also making a fuss was punished so uhhhh.... but i digress!). there was some other symbolism to it but i dont even remember at this point fdjskl i'd have to go look at my notes and i'm not interested in doing that tbh LOL

anyways the new direction: S/I meets Ky and learns about fae, and starts thinking "ohh maybe i'm a fae too and THAT is why i feel so out of place". and um. no. theyre not fae. they are just different and society is unkind to ppl who are different. as much as they may wish for there to be a good explanation for the mistreatment and social outcasting they've endured, there is none. sometimes things just suck and you just go through shit and it doesn't mean anything.

but this new direction also has a fun new thing to go along with it ! where S/I can go with Ky to the fae realm and not immediately fit in bc they're still only human so Ky has to show them the ropes and keep them out of trouble, and I think that has some very fun possibilities to it. Ky could bring them to court balls and other events.... and there's some interesting ideas for how that would go if theyre human, moreso than if they were a fae.

I DUNNOOOO i feel silly about all of this now. i keep avoiding talking about anything ever bc i feel like i get too story-focused on anything other than guzbug but i love stories and storytelling... and this is my blog dhgsjkl i make this space whatever i want it to be. i do feel sometimes (...oftentimes) like i rly do not belong in this general space so i try hard to just sit in my corner and focus on my own things so that i dont look around and notice how out-of-place i am, but sometimes i still get anxious or panicky sdfjkl

[edoro]

Top 5 things about hunter and gus's friendship?

ooooh thank you

-the way they're just goofy dipshits together - like, the special secret bro handshake with headbutt and explosion noises? oh my god. Hunter is operating at a critical deficit of goofy dipshittery because his entire life has been a rigidly structured nightmare, and i'm really glad that he gets to just be silly now. it's also something Gus needs too - someone he can just act like a silly kid with who doesn't judge him or look down on him for it.

-they have a surprising amount in common but i think one of my favorites is that they've both had the experience of being like, very precocious for their age, and therefore ended up surrounded by people much older than them who they have to learn to get along with, who have tried to judge and take advantage of them for their age and naivitie. they've both had to work to prove themselves able to keep up with older people - adults in Hunter's case, older kids in Gus's - and had to learn how to tell when someone is being disingenuous or dishonest or unkind to them.

-the fact that Hunter is so protective of Gus... he's just a little guy! he is a tiny little guy and he needs to be taken care of. the bit at the very end of the s2 finale episode where Hunter just has his arm around Gus is so. it means so much to me. he really does just care so much about his friends and want to protect and take care of them and i love that indication of it there, where his face is so blank because he's obviously dissociating right into Mission Mode himself but he's still taking the time to offer material, physical comfort and protection to the youngest member of the group

-that even though he got the idea Hunter wasn't exactly a bad guy, Gus still didn't trust him at first... he was pretty wary when Hunter showed up at Hexside post-Hollow Mind, but he also quickly recognized that Hunter was having some kind of hard time, so he was willing to hear him out. i like that about Gus in general - he's not a punitive person or someone who holds a grudge, but he's cautious too, and not as open and trusting as, say, Luz, even though he's very nice.

-the fact that Gus 100% fully let Hunter fall down a flight of stairs without telling him they were actual stairs

[erstwhilesparrow]

wcsmp coven fic recs

will admit: most of these will be just scott + cleo, on account of how i have favourites and also on account of how other people have favourites.

just killing time, thesleepiestboy - Cleo meets a necromancer and is understandably wary. As much building out Cleo's history and the history of witchcraft in general as tracing the beginnings of Scott and Cleo's relationship. Specifically captures the [friendly but not trusting] vibes very well. (Note: This author also has a fic that more directly explores correspondences with Limited Life, titled the tell-tale clock! Vouch for that one too.)

Break Your Heart and Bury You, RainyDayDecaf - Scott tries to become a lich and it goes... a little sideways. Delightful / horrifying worldbuilding and the most heartwrenching Scott + Milo backstory. I feel like I devoured this one slightly too fast and then had to lie on the floor for a bit to recover from my brain getting fundamentally rewired. The rest of the coven admittedly doesn't show up until the end, but the glimpses we get are very sweet in their particular way. (Note: This author has another Witchcraft SMP fic that I also wholeheartedly recommend, particularly for fans of MythicalSausage.)

See the Sky, WhyB - Eloise wakes up in a field after a training session and Scott is at her side, oddly distressed. This one's about the unspeakable lengths Scott will go to for his loved ones, and also about that sweet, sweet Eloise + Scott friendship. Really good for: a mounting sense of creeping dread, hurt/comfort. (Note: This author does great hurt/comfort in general; worth poking around their other stuff too if you're into that!)

No one becomes a necromancer because they're stable, HaroThar - A brief conversation, in which Cleo tries to convince Scott that magic won't really solve his problems. I really like this portrayal of Cleo -- not unkind, but also Knows What's Up -- and Scott gets to be desperate and grieving in a way we can always do with more of. (Note: You will need to be logged in to view this one.)

[“If you’re in a time loop, blink twice,” Scott says, sitting on the steps outside of Bertha’s plaza.], theminecraftbee - There's. Look. You'll know the line that made me recommend this one when you get to it. Also contained in this fic: Scott + Cleo banter, what it really means to have all of time at your feet, many feelings about the Scott and Cleo of the Life Series.

[butmakeitgayblog]

Can you share some perspectives from Gus's pov in AWTR like how he sees his babygirl smiling and enjoying life again after dating Clarke?

It just feels like a miracle seeing Lexa smiling for no discernable reason at all these days

Lexa was always a very serious child. Very thoughtful and observant, her big green eyes always taking in the world around her and evaluating everything she sees until she understands it. She wasn't exactly a cautious baby, just methodical. Observant before taking the leap. And that trait carried on all the way through school and... after.

It used to be that Lexa only smiled when she had a direct reason. It used to be that unless she was on stage or leading a Sunday school class in a song, Lexa generally had a rather stoic expression to her face. She wasn't unkind by any means. Pleasant enough, if not a bit standoffish, but she just never was the kind of kid - or adult - who carried themselves lightly.

But then that little hoodlum started hanging around the shop, and slowly it was a bit like Gus didn't really recognize his daughter anymore.

It wasn't a sudden change. More gradual, but it was still something that stuck out from day one. It was all in the little things that you wouldn't realize unless you were looking for them.

Things like Lexa wearing a little smile, something private and entirely for herself, as she made him breakfast before he'd head over to the shop at the ass crack of dawn to start the baking for the day. More sighing and pacing around the shop during opening than usual, like she has this nervous energy in the early mornings that she can't seem to work out.

She starts humming again.

He'd forgotten how much she used to do that.

It used to fill his days from beginning to end, but after that final trip home...

It's just nice to hear it more again.

And then the two start actually dating and good lord, his daughter really does become a person he's never met before. Now she's this girl who takes risks and stays out all night just to come home the next day sporting hickeys and laughs so loud he can hear her all the way downstairs. They're the kind of laughs that sit low in the belly and leaves her breathless, tears in her eyes, but the good kind for a change. He'd thought he'd never get to hear it again. Hadn't heard it once since the day his wife died. But Clarke, she... she brings that out in Lexa. She makes Lexa happy.

And at first, that's terrifying. But he figures if Lexa can welcome the change, maybe he can too

[pokemon-teacology]

Is there Pokehistory classes? Asking for future reference, I’m on a personal journey to try and prove the Ruinous Pokémon exist, and I feel this may help. Or if you know any possible info, that’d be appreciated too! (@Poketablet-venturer)

There are! Paldea's Naranja-Uva Academy (Ive picked up that the younger students will pick a fruit based on their assigned section and stick with it, but us older uni level students hav been calling it Naruva for a while now) has history lessons at all levels!

Though it depends on your level, really. If you're enrolled in the school at a younger age (11-17) for standard school time, you'll be going over more general history, while only briefly touching on Pokémon specifically. However, once you reach 18 and you start degree level work, you can definitely specify!

I've got a buddy doing a degree in Pokémon History at the moment! I've asked them and done a bit of research, and last year their modules were as follows:

• An Introduction to History

• Hands-on History: Sources and their Historians

(both classes are shared between general history and Pokémon history students)

• Pokémon Myths and Legends (a class focused on legendary Pokémon and mythicals)

• Pokémon Legends and Myths (a hilariously similar name, this module is about stories based around Pokémon and how they affect and shape cultures, for example the Darkest Day in Galar and how the energies created by this ancient powerful creature made Pokémon massive and the rightful king of Galar vanquished the creature and harnessed its power into energy so that Pokémon could continue being massive, just only in certain places and only for a little bit, as a treat.)

• The Basics of Archaeology: Preserving the Past

• An introduction to Pokémon biology

Side note: we also had a class with this name in the Pokéology degree scheme, but it has a different module code (BR-16320 for us and HY-86520 for the history guys) and teachers. While ours went in-depth about how Pokémon biological systems work, such as breathing, diets, evolution methods, and slow-evolution, it's my understanding that the module in the history department goes over the basics in terms of historical findings.

This includes but is not limited to: how different types of Pokémon are preserved, the basics of evolution and how it was seen by ancient cultures, and slow-evolution, since having a basic idea of how to recognise and research past ancestors of the Pokémon we have today is important to knowing what sorts of Pokémon were important to past cultures.

I've got to say, I'm fascinated by your theory of the ruinous Pokémon being real! I've not really thought about it myself, but I'm curious as to what you plan on doing if you find them! The stories are about how human selfishness and cruelty brought them to life, and how they're suffering because it's all that they know, and they think the humanity is cruel and unkind always, so I'd hope that your mission after finding them is to teach them that that isn't the case :)

From what I've heard, they're sealed away using some ancient chain? There's a couple sets of ruins out of the way in paldea that nobody can get into, not with the usual methods or by Pokémon means. I've heard not even teleporting Pokémon can get inside. The story states that the king who sealed them away hid the keys to the seals all throughout the region. Since there were four Pokémon, there are four chambers, and four sets of seals, I dunno how many seals there are, but it's a start to go off of! The history teacher here who's name I can never remember is very scary, but she loves this shit from what I can recall. If you come here, definitely speak to her about it.

All in all, I really recommend this place! Naruva is genuinely such a fun environment when you're doing your degree here, the staff in the school are lovely, and Mesagoza is a really nice city to live in for that first year. I'm in a little house just in the outskirts this year, so I get the best of both worlds in terms of walking distance and peace and quiet.

But anyway!! I hope this gave you a bit of insight into what you might be studying here if you choose to take your degree in Pokémon history!

[crystalelemental]

Unit Teambuilding - Lodge Gladion

Oh holy shit.  A dude with 100% Toxic rate, boosting defenses via trainer move, Haze, AND he gets to run Synchro Healing?  This is a Stall unit if ever I've-

"We're increasing CS parameters to 3k points per stage!  Nothing new is being added!"

...you give the boy an incredible stall alt.  And you kill him on the spot.

General Overview Yeah if it's not obvious I'm kinda pissed.  Lodge Gladion is bizarre all around.  Golbat instead of Crobat feels like "We had too many Crobats," but that's the main series' fault.  Gladion has incredible tools for stall, which is taking a massive L this update, but is frankly atrocious for offense, which is what's left.  It's incredibly depressing, because like...this could've been something.  This could've been such a good pair, and it's now just a mess.

+1 Def/Sp Def/crit on TM and X Atk All is horrendously slow for offense.  Every criticism I've levied against Lodge Blue and Lodge Giovanni applies here.  The difference is, Giovanni has some 3/5 tools to kinda compress, and Blue has a 60% flinch rate.  Gladion has...Poison Fang.  Which I guess is something, but this does put him in open competition with BP Janine.  If you need Toxic to land right away, just reset with her.  It's not like Gladion will do you any better.  His oddities directly result in him working only with the best possible pairs, acting as a means of topping off their offensive needs and, hopefully, not dying immediately.  Because fun fact, his Endurance is Safety Tether, which means unless you EX him, there is no endurance. I’ll always sing the praises of Haze, given its AoE stat resetting properties, but it’s not exactly a trait you want your support doing, since it takes away from setup.

I'm so irritated on his behalf.  People clamor for Gladion for ages, and he finally gets something that's aligned to a playstyle they're taking a bat to.  Delightful, very well done DeNA, claps all around.

EX and Move Level? Support and has Safety Tether, so it's not the worst EX investment you could make I suppose.  Move Level really is 3/5 or nothing.  Synchro Healing for stall, HE1 for status support, MPRs are hilarious 3/5 gated.

Team 1: Lodge Gladion, Emma, Colress/Kukui This is about as good as it's getting. Gladion helps Emma quite well, topping off physical attack and providing Toxic turn 1 for her Buddy move condition. In longer fights, she has Potion to heal him up as needed as well. Colress or Kukui work on spread defense debuffs, which are pretty much all Emma's ever needed anyway. I could mention Oleana, as another pair that just needs the +2 Atk, but since she already handles Toxic it makes Gladion redundant and easily swapped for someone else.

Team 2: Lodge Gladion, Janine, Wallace All my grousing aside, Stall isn't dead, it's just on the back foot again. The meta changes in place have been relatively unkind, sorting us back to a sort of 10k meta where more points went into offenses than you'd like. But Gladion has exceptional tools for the job. Guaranteed Toxic, buffs defenses on TM, First Aid 4, Safety Tether, and Synchro Healing, all on the same guy. That's some excellent Stall compression. Janine is the standard Venom Drench debuff bot, while Wallace is the highest passive Trap damage that isn't Bertha. Who, don't get me wrong, I love. But Wallace has Recuperation, so if Gladion drops you have someone else ready to take some hits.

Final Thoughts Gladion really feels like someone built for Stall, but Stall is bad now. I will give credit for Haze, which allocates 100 points to an effect that now cannot threaten you. That's great. But aside from that, Gladion places himself in an awkward position as a terrible buff bot, whose stall compression is having a lot of effects but not doing any two of them at the same time. Inflicting Toxic means not buffing means no Haze-ing. So the decision of what moves to use in a moment are a little rough. The +1 defenses instead of +2 just to facilitate some slight crit bonuses is...cute, but ultimately not functional enough in my opinion.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

BTS!! Don't Hurt Yourself

BTS: Write a dvd commentary about a passage from the fic (I cannot pic a fav so I'm just gonna give any old passage, I chose this one because I have a fun backstory about when I wrote it)(Full disclosure I own dvds but its been so long since I watched dvd commentary that I don't really remember what it's like so I'll just talk about the passage and how I made the decisions I did and how it came about, you know, the making of the passage.)

Spicy. alright I can do spicy.

Stede had always thought that a desire to hurt another individual out of malice or hatred was something that was intended to be done without their consent, that it would be dampened by the thought that the other person was into it. He was somewhat surprised to find that Izzy’s openly asking for it did not cheapen his own sadistic pleasure in giving the bastard what he deserved.

And he did deserve it, Stede decided as he pressed the head of his cock into Izzy’s tight, wet cunt. Izzy deserved to get smacked around and spat upon. Not just for the stunt with the blow job and the secret phone call, but also for calling Edward a whore, and a twat, and every other unkind derogatory thing he’d said in that courtroom and out, and for being generally an unpleasant, nasty little man that no one wanted to be around, and for causing Ed so much grief.

First of all, Bonnet, you are also causing Ed grief by fucking his husband but I digress

anyway. Backstory: This is from Chapter 7 of Don't Hurt Yourself. A chapter which I slaved away on for I think about two months, because I had written up to the point where Stede and Izzy Yaoi prat fall onto each other and Stede ends up with Izzy's tit in his hand or whatever, and I had no idea where to go from there ie how to get Stede's cock in Izzy's cunt in a way that was at least realistic enough for me to be satisfied with it.(emotional realities not physical realities, as is my right as an ofmd fic author, David Jenkins school of writing ect.) It's a problem I have with writing both Jack/Stede and Izzy/Stede, I have to seamlessly bring them from bitching at each other like they do in the show to fucking each other. Its not as easy as it sounds.

The breakthrough of the writers block came for me the same night I did magic mushrooms for the first time. My dealer told me that they would take about 3 hours to kick in (they took half that amount of time) and I was like, well I have three hours to spare so I might as well try to bang out a couple paragraphs. (it was the day I posted "why is it so much easier to write when the edible is about to kick in" It was not an edible I was waiting on. Idk why I said edible I regularly admit to drugs on here lmao.) So I managed to write a lot of the dialogue and then these two paragraphs. But the shrooms kicked in as I was finishing up the last paragraph, which meant that I ended it with some absolutely inebriated drivel about the word fuck and how it's used to convey both hate (e,g. shut the fuck up, fuck you) and sex that I had to delete when I was sober and I very rapidly lost the ability to write after that.

Anyway now that the fun back story is out of the way let's actually talk about what's happening in these two paragraphs. Stizzy hate sex! Stede and Izzy are sometimes hard to make fuck because Stede simply does not think about him, but they're also incredibly fun to make fuck. Muppet vibes off the charts especially when they're doing bdsm (which is the only kind of sex Izzy knows how to have). Miss Piggy slapping Kermit energy but they're not married.

I also tend to think Stede has a dark side. He's as mean as he is nice and he's real fucking nice. I love it when he's evil, because I'm horny about evil men. I think if Stede would think about Izzy long enough he could get dark with it (a vibe which is not incompatible with muppetry broaden your horizons for the possible.) and I think the only way to make him think about Izzy long enough is to have Izzy wrong Ed and make it clear to Stede that Ed was wronged and put Izzy in Stede's direct line of sight.

Basically, I want Stede to have hate sex and I want him to realize he's a sadist. I tried to convey that here. I think that Stede as a character has the capacity for so much love and so much hate. It's an important balance to strike when writing him, if you go too far in one direction you turn him into an unrecognizable monster (which I've seen certain people do) but if you go too far in the other he becomes an unrecognizable woobie baby which is so fucking boring dude. I hope I got across his sadist awakening well. he still needs a second one where you learn you can do it to people you like tho...

The ask meme

[oc-aita]

AITA? (Sorry in advance that this is long)

My (?14) best friend H (M15) and I had been friends for 3 years now, but we'd gone to different schools the whole time. He didn't know my classmates, family, or other friends, and I counted that as a blessing.

I'm your stereotypical 'mean girl' type at school. Or at least, I'm friends with those girls. I'm mostly just complacent in their bullying. But I've allowed, ignored, and excused all kinds of shit ever since we were little. Mostly they're just badmouthing kids, but there's other aspects, too. I won't go into too many details, but if you know anything about the social hell that is bullying, you can guess a sample of the stuff that happens. I will say in my defense personally that at least I don't let them be particularly awful? Like, yeah, we're unkind, screwed up people to the kids my friends deemed as 'targets', but the particularly vile shit my friends try to say to them always gets my explicit condemnation.

I don't like being mean, I consider myself a nice person internally, but I'm actually stuck with my friend group. I have a controlling dad who wants me to act a certain way and hang with certain people, and even my friendship with H is highly secretive and behind his back, despite his flawless reputation and general fitting-the-bill of a guy my dad might allow me around. I've only ever expressed once that my friends are kinda mean (understatement, I know), and my dad freaked out at me. In short, I'm not allowed to not be friends with them. I'm not even allowed to be nice to their targets against their will.

I told H that once I entered his high school (he's a grade ahead of me) that he was going to think differently of me once he met my friends, but he brushed me off, saying he knew what kind of person I was and that nothing could be that bad. I tried to argue, but he assured me otherwise and dropped the subject. But due to a long series of contrivances, myself, H, and two of the kids my friends target most often, who will be known as R (F15) and C (M15) from here on, have been working together on what's effectively a series of projects, and will be for a while. R is our team leader, and C is her right hand man. They both fucking hate me, and I don't blame them at all.

R's pretty non-confrontational, and tries her best to keep everyone civil. She doesn't like me in the slightest, but doesn't want to have the team dogpile me for it, because she's really just too nice for her own good. We communicate as we have to, and that's that. C, however, makes it very clear to everyone that he never intends to forgive me or act as if I've been anything but awful to him - even though I haven't said pretty much anything personally, I'm sort of the de facto face of my friendgroup, which is more than bad enough. I won't act like he's even a little unjust for it, and honestly I deserve every word and more for never standing up for him, R, and everyone else.

At first H just assumed he was just holding some meaningless grudge and assumed C was a spiteful, shallow person, but after enough time I told H that he really should talk to C about why he dislikes me so much. For a while I didn't hear anything about the topic, but a couple days ago H called me, pissed off. He explained that C had told him all the things I'd overseen my friends do and say to him, as well as listed every instance of my direct interactions with him and R. To my surprise, I also learned of the things my friends had done when I wasn't there - and I was appalled. They were even worse when I wasn't around. They were vitriolic, cruel, and even took physical actions against them. To make a long story short, they once even broke something of C's that was really, really important knowing it would be hard to replace as well as expensive for his low-income family. I did my best to explain that I never would have approved of such a thing, as well as why I'm around those kinds of people at all, but H said that I was just making excuses and that, clearly, since I was friends with him, my dad can't control me as much as I act like. I wanted to point out that my dad knows my friends' parents and stuff like that, but he wouldn't let me, and I'm honestly not sure he's wrong about that anymore. Maybe I just assumed I was as powerless against my dad as I'd felt? I can't say. Either way, he told me my behavior was deplorable regardless of my explicit actions, and that he didn't feel like he could talk to me anymore for the time being outside of project work.

Am I the asshole for how I handled the situation? I know how R and C were treated is fundamentally wrong, but is there anything better I could have done?