#be the reason people believe in good

[stylezxsilvermoon]

YES YES YES, this, being empathetic can be taught, i think its really a innate human want, but i believe it HAS to come from inside, that you truly want to be good, look inward on yourself, be introspective, and yes sometimes you'll slip up and say something mean, being a nice person does not mean being pure, nice people can be assholes from time to time, but they take those times and learn from them. that's what being human is, care about other people because we're all we've got. get introspective about it, get self-healing about it, god, it's gonna be hard but you're gonna feel good after, i'm gen z and the last few months i've REALLY been trying to be introspective and looking inward and self-healing and WHO KNEW it makes you feel good. it makes other people feel good, be good and people will notice the difference. weakness is a strong thing, acknowledging you'll never be perfect or pure (or society for that matter) heals you, vulnerability is a strength in the face of trying to be tough. vulnerability is power.

things we need to address:

gen z men getting pulled into alt-right pipelines through andrew tate, joe rogan, elon musk, jordan peterson etc

the gullibility and stupidity of half the country voting against our collective best interests

the broad effect social media has on public and common good

lazy minds and lack of empathy

outside-country interference (trump and elon’s connections to russia and the amount of bots from other countries spreading misinformation)

the long-term effects of AI and rampant disinformation

[yasartmeme]

I had a vision

Also bonus:

[sykloni]

Dannymay 2023

15. Full Hazmat AU & 23. Rogue Gallery

[spooky-activity]

Practicing my comic paneling and action poses with some Firefly/Stelle angst. Set immediately after the end of patch 2.1, where we find out Firefly is still alive!

+ bonus

[shorthaltsjester]

the mighty nein - critical role

this is a place where i don't feel alone. this is a place where i feel at home.

[nyxi-pixie]

'omg dazai treating akutagawa like he did literally makes no sense he just did it because he sucks and i hate him for it'

can we. have a conversation about this without being fucking stupid please. yes dazai fucks him up and its really awful and sucks so bad. yes it isnt necessary for akutagawa's improvement. but like everything with bsd, theres nuance to it that you are ignoring.

the initial meeting between dazai and aku is aku wanting a reason to live and dazai wanting to give him one. a repeat of what mori wanted to give him. (this does not mean those two relationships are the exact same. please guys. please things are different sometimes). Now. dazai assumes the way to give aku a desire to live is to give him purpose. he ISNT training aku to be a mindless killer - thats literally the Opposite of what hes doing. he wants aku to be More than a sword without a sheath. hes teaching aku to be efficient. not just killing people, being smart about it. being what the mafia wants. giving him a purpose through making him useful.

it also probably comes back to the fact that dazai is WRONG about what made him want (barely) to live. he believes it comes from being surrounded by death, thus making the mafia the perfect place for him. booo hes stupid boo hes wrong!! bc it doesnt. hes bored by it and he says that directly in dark era. that he thought being around death would content him with life and it HASNT. bc he was wrong in fifteen. he didnt suddenly become interested in life bc he was doing violence and masterminding for the mafia. it was bc Someone intrigued him.

dazais whole problem stems from apathy, he wants to die because hes Bored with life. nothing interests him. Except people. so he meets chuuya in fifteen and is Interested by him. and that happens to coincide with his first mission for the mafia so he thinks its the death aspect. but it isnt. and we see this repeated with the other people he cares about (oda and ango most obviously). dazais motivations for his plans arent fucking around w death for his own personal entertainment. its looking after his friends. thats the same no matter what canon material ur looking at. and that same reason is why hes alive.

his misinterpretation of that leads him to be wrong abt aku too. aku needs people, he needs a gentle hand to develop best (beast). dazai says himself that aku needs to find someone to be his sheath and that dazai cant be that person (he doesnt know how to be). ofc, the sheath is eventually atsushi and now that we see aku gain strength both with his ability, with strategic thinking, and just emotionally in general its bc of the development hes gone under w atsushi. but guess what? this is more to the thing of bsd being based on human connection. dazais alive bc of the people he cares for. aku does better around people he cares for.

this isnt to say dazais actions are at all justified, and thats not the point of this. bsd is full of grey characters. but i do wish that u guys at least understood the dynamic u want to complain about.

[glitterarygetsit]

Why do you comment?

Was discussing fic commenting practices with a friend the other day, and realised we both comment on things for different underlying reasons. So I thought it might be interesting to make a poll about it! Why do you comment? Do you see it as a one-on-one interaction with the author, or as a way of supporting the community? Is it a form of payment or the start of a dialogue?

I think there are a lot of different and valid attitudes to this, and I’m curious to see what different readers’ thought processes are! I’m sure that for most readers, multiple of these answers apply—try to pick the one that feels most important to you, and please do expand on them in the tags if you like!

[tropicalcontinental]

Human fear is the window to the soul or whatever ://

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

"The podcast is about our neighbours being murdered." "Yeah, but you made it sound cozy."

That's it. That's the show.

[warpedpuppeteer]

Y'all ever cry when you think about how everyone in Eddie's life assumed he'll make a terrible parent without even offering him the help he needed to prove himself except for Buck?? He hears about Eddie's struggles with parenting and doesn't think 'you're a bad dad' he just thinks 'you need a bit of help' and then proceeds to make that happen for Eddie.

Calling Bobby to get permission to have Chris with them because Eddie doesn't get the time to, introducing Carla to go through the shitty red tapes he's been struggling to figure out, driving him to pick-up Chris after the earthquake, throwing a surprise Christmas party so that Eddie can be with Chris, and being the person Chris can turn to when he doesn't feel like talking to Eddie.

I don't think Buck realizes how much Eddie probably values all the things Buck has done for him to allow him to be the parent that he's always been capable of being. Buck downplays the things he does and probably thinks it's not much but for Eddie it's everything. It's everything Eddie didn't get from his partner or his parents. Buck just... does it for him, as easy as breathing.

This is why it was so, so easy for Eddie to choose Buck as the legal guardian for his Will but it was a shock for Buck. Buck doesn't know how integral he's been to Eddie being a good dad. For Eddie, it's easy because be knows Buck is already capable of stepping up. For Buck, it's surprising because doesn't think all the things he does matters.

[mekammin]

now what i really love about bad blood (besides everything else about bad blood) is how EXPRESSIVE scully is when we see her in mulder-vision. maybe because they're so in tune, maybe because he's a phenomenal profiler, maybe because he loves her. he just sees through all of the guards she puts up so easily

like this is what he sees whenever shes not chewing him out

[arson-09]

Rhysand really thinks his trauma trumps everyone elses trauma

Ofc i feel bad cause rhysand was obviously abused UtM but that doesn’t excuse the fact he 1- does shit things to other people 2- can act like since he was traumatized he is morally superior.

and i know the rhysand-ites will yap about how “he knows hes not good” or “he doesnt think that at all!” but the narrative certainly thinks so. sjm jumps through HOOPS to convince you rhysand is a great and amazing person no matter what and good god it’s annoying

[caeslxys]

I’ve mentioned this elsewhere but it feels relevant again in light of the most recent episode. Something that’s really fascinating to me about Orym’s grief in comparison to the rest of the hells’ grief is that his is the youngest/most fresh and because of that tends to be the most volatile when it is triggered (aside from FCG, who was two and obviously The Most volatile when triggered.)

As in: prior to the attack on Zephrah, Orym was leading a normal, happy, casual life! with family who loved him and still do! Grief was something that was inflicted upon him via Ludinus’ machinations, whereas with characters like Imogen or Ashton, grief has been the background tapestry of their entire lives. And I think that shows in how the rest of them are largely able to, if not see past completely (Imogen/Laudna/Chetney) then at least temper/direct their vitriol or grief (Ashton/Fearne/Chetney again) to where it is most effective. (There is a glaring reason, for example, that Imogen scolded Orym for the way he reacted to Liliana and not Ashton. Because Ashton’s anger was directed in a way that was ultimately protective of Imogen—most effective—and Orym’s was founded solely in his personal grief.)

He wants Imogen to have her mom and he wants Lilliana to be salvageable for Imogen because he loves Imogen. But his love for the people in his present actively and consistently tend to conflict with the love he has for the people in his past. They are in a constant battle and Orym—he cannot fathom losing either of them.

(Or, to that point, recognize that allowing empathy to take root in him for the enemy isn't losing one of them.)

It is deeply poignant, then, that Orym’s grief is symbolized by both a sword and shield. It is something he wields as a blade when he feels his philosophy being threatened by certain conversational threads (as he believes it is one of the only things he has left of Will and Derrig, and is therefore desperately clinging onto with both bloody hands even if it makes him, occasionally, a hypocrite), but also something he can use in defense of the people he presently loves—if that provocative, blade-grief side of him does not push them—or himself—away first.

(it won’t—he is as loved by the hells as he loves them. he just needs to—as laudna so beautifully said—say and hear it more often.)

[dykedvonte]

Honestly I see Jimmy's refusal to put Curly out of his misery less about his weird feelings of envy or his delusions but the fact Curly is all but stated to be a shield to Jimmy from his actions and people seeing the worst in him.

The only characters that Jimmy really interacts with one on one before the crash are Curly and Anya, two individuals he has wildly different relationships with. It's likely that Curly really did most of the talking between them as the pilots and the rest of the crew as staff. They didn't know of Jimmy's more reprehensible behaviors cause they never really had the chance to and Jimmy is subconsciously aware. If they had disliked him more than Anya would have told Swansea earlier or even Daisuke when things got really bad.

It's why he takes the immediate opportunity to blame Curly; He's the shield. He's saved Jimmy's ass more times than he can count and more times than Jimmy would ever admit. Even when he can't really do it anymore, he mentally shields himself from his own faults by putting Curly between them. Letting Curly die puts too much on him because he doesn't know how to function without a safety net.

In the end Curly only lives because Jimmy needs the idea that Curly will inevitably make things better to stay alive, meaning Curly has to live, no matter how much it pains him to do so.

[krikidilly]

Yours is a life worth living.

[corsairspade]

Halenthir scenario where they get married for tax benefits (in a platonic good friends sort of way) and fall in love long distance via sending each other letters with ideas on how to best leverage their marriage for tax evasion.