#being a motivator for people to read it

[cowpants147]

on one hand i'm fed up of uni assignments and really want this last one to be over ... but on the other hand i'm literally writing about leigh bardugo's writing career and how she became a brand-name author from shadow & bone to her new 8-figure deal so i can't really complain (i still will complain though)

[elizabethzoopzoop986]

I hate this fucking manga how am I supposed to have a life and write essays about shit when I sit down start to think and all that comes to mind is some gay little toilet freaks istg it’s a hard knock life

[notthemonthbutmarch]

No one asked but “I’m scared” is such an underrated motivation for a character to do shitty things to others.

Sometimes it’s just that simple, but there’s always some deeper meaning as to why that character is scared— like the Bad Guy heavily traumatized Protagonist and now Protagonist is deathly afraid of getting on Bad Guy’s bad side again. It’s so underrated that a character is scared solely because the situation and personal consequences scare them more than the determent of others.

Maybe I’m not looking at that kinda of media that much, but sometimes I kinda just want a character to do shitty things to others because they’re scared. Like pressing the Big Red Button is gonna launch a nuke at the building they’re currently in with the Bad Guy, but if they chose not to then the whole rest of the city gets leveled by the Bad Guy’s evil death laser of doom— and then they chose not to press the button because they’re just frankly scared of dying. They entered this fight hoping to walk away, and now between the choice to save themselves or save others they indirectly kill everyone they knew because they were just to scared to pull the trigger on themselves.

So yeah maybe make characters be cowards a little more often?

[rawliverandgoronspice]

anyway to end the series on ganondorf tp's writing, my take (which isn't canon but arguable as a valid "death of the author" read imo) is that he is at his most iredeemable AND that's because he has zero things left to lose and no community left and his goal doesn't even make sense anymore he is parasitic and a ghost and pathologically obsessed by his own godlike legitimacy because that is the only thing he still has and it has prolonged his life in a horrible diminished state in a nightmare dimension so SURELY it must mean something right right RIGHT

[imperial-nuisance-rudje]

I think my most toxic trait as a Zenos enjoyer is wanting to 1v1 everyone who says that Zenos actively wants to kill his opponents

Like, completely disregarding that it is actively ignoring the text even in StB there (and that he consistently wants the WoL especially to live), he, uh, is written as having a desire for more the opposite to happen. Very, very consistently. His drive to live is solely linked to brief moments of pleasure-from-struggle and when that drops he explicitly wants to die so he can preserve the moment (and like. *looks at the end of 6.0* if he wanted to kill the WoL he would not be disappointed when they fall before the game allows it, nor would they have lived after given his will was strong enough to bring them back if they bite it). He wants struggle and lacks the ability to give enough of a shit to hold back if someone walks up and says they're going to go for his head.

Like, death is a side effect of what he's after, it's not the goal and he explicitly considers it a waste of life. Even fighting isn't the goal, the goal is to struggle, to need to put effort in. The WoL is just the only person to put him in that state as he currently is, hence his obsession.

[mono-socke]

are you ready for some squip angst ??

imagine the squip turning human after the events of the play and getting assigned to stay with jeremy and go with him to school and everything. yeah? but the thing is, whoever made them human expects them to actually become social and make new friends and go out with others and stuff, but the squip literally knows no one but jeremy properly. and turns out, they're actually not social at all ! so they basically just follow jeremy around everywhere, only occasionally even talking to other people if they approach them first (which rarely anyone even does because,, why is that stranger here out of a sudden? and why are they following jeremy constantly? weird)

like, the squip is basically super dependent on jeremy, but he eventually gets sick of them. he endorces it for the first weeks or so, willing to play the role of a guide for them while they adapt to being a human, but eventually he is just getting annoyed by having someone follow/cling to him constantly. he just doesn't get why on earth the squip wouldn't leave him alone

jeremy also still doesn't fully trust them after the events of the play, and maybe he suspects them to plot another evil plan of some kind ? anyway, he ends up snapping, telling them to back the fuck off and leave him alone ('for someone who used to be obsessed with making me social, you sure are incompetent at it yourself. find yourself friends that AREN'T ME')

and like,, the squip just doesn't know what to do afterwards. jeremy was the only person they knew, they NEEDED him to exist properly (when they were a squip, they LITERALLY needed him to exist and have an objective and all that, and thus overtime they've grown really dependent on him, leading to the point it's an issue) but now jeremy won't even talk to them ?? they can barely funtion at all as a human, how are they supposed to do it without help ?!

(rambling over)

[57sfinest]

calling harry a “can opener” was SUCH a good play for so many reasons i think about it every day.

in the context of his work, it makes him a tool. as many people have pointed out, including martin luiga, part of the hdb tragedy is that he simply cannot leave the force, and his superiors know that and are using it to their advantage. no matter what happens, even if harry hated every nanosecond of every bit of the work and wanted to leave, he can’t and won’t leave. they can leverage anything they want against him and then reel him back in with a facade of kindness when they “allow” him to keep his job, as long as he does what they want him to. the 41st knows he has this inexplicable talent with people and they use him for it. he’s a cop: that talent can be used in so many awful ways, to push so many different agendas. and they won’t even be his own. a can opener has no particular desire to open a can, aside from maybe the satisfaction of fulfilling a purpose. a can opener has no agency, it’s just a tool for someone else to use to get what they want. and he’s learned to be okay with being used as long as it means he gets to stay. his complacency with this system makes him guilty even if he’s also being harmed by it.

but in the context of his personal life you kind of... flip it. the people around him are going to be opened up whether they want to be or not, and it’s terrible for his relationships. it’s shown that the questions, the prying- the can-opening- it’s become inextricable from who he is as a person. it’s like he doesn’t know how else to communicate, except it’s hardly communication when you’re just ripping people open. he’s invasive as all hell, although whether he means to be is debatable. he’s the kind of person that wants to take things apart to see what makes them tick. he dissects people, but really that’s too delicate of a word for what he does; if he doesn’t get what he wants right up front, he’ll abandon all subtlety and go for brute force. if he can’t get your screws loose he’ll just smash you on the ground and pick through your pieces until he’s satisfied, and if what he did to you isn’t fixable? oh well, there are other cans to open. 

and he’ll use it for personal gain: we already know he is (was?) manipulative. once he knows how you operate, he knows how to make you keep him. he can yell or he can cry; he can threaten you or he can threaten himself; he can be completely suffocating or he can withdraw completely; he can be an incorrigible liar or brutally honest; he can present himself as a threat or a joke or a talent. he’s a chimera- that’s why he’s got this inexplicable magnetism, even when people know they shouldn’t like or trust him. fidelity of character means nothing to him. he’ll be whatever he needs to be as long as it gets him what he wants. the can-opening is just his way in.

[thorinlandscaping]

waaaaa they took away my male lead in the Only Straights Show from 2-3 seasons from now and made him a girl for some sort of WOKE AGENDA they're changing my badly written misogynist book series woe is me we need more straight rep!!! this is because i like their story not for any other reason!!! i'm bi as well!!! more straight romance!!!! no nonconformity!!!! the books!!!!!!!

[cas-poisoning]

The way people write John in fic bothers me so much sometimes. Not to judge other people’s writing specifically, just the general fanon characterization of John Winchester. Yes he’s bad a father. Horrible. So much to unpack there. Yet I find it so disappointing when I go to read a fic and he’s like. Cartoonishly villainous. Excluding the fans that actually like John (which is even more crazy), it feels like everyone treats him as like this big bad one dimensional monster which imo is a disservice to the complex relationship Sam and Dean have with them. It’s also a symptom of a broader pattern in media, or even real world events. It’s so much easier to flatly paint anyone bad as inhuman, one dimensional, and just plain evil. Monstrous. But the reality is, every horrible person is still a person. Humans are capable of the evil we do, not monsters.

So when it comes to John, like yes, he is deeply deeply flawed. He really hurt his kids. But often when people write him, it feels like he makes all of his terrible decisions for the sake of being mean and terrible and abusive, which undermines the dynamic because the reality is people can be abusive or neglectful or toxic without being a complete monster 100% of time. It would almost be easier for Sam and Dean if John had actually been like that. But he was their father, who did what he thought was best, and loved them even if he didn’t show it. They have fond memories with him. He’s their father. Which is what makes it so hard for them to actually unpack the trauma they have, because it is so so difficult to realize a person you love is actually actively hurting you. Harder than realizing a villain in your life is just being a villain.

[usefulquotes7]

My biggest regrets in life are being too damn nice, apologizing when I didn’t do anything wrong, and making unworthy people a priority in my life. Unknown

[wandering-aloneo-o]

if anyone wants to send me absolutely abhorrent building/city/park/etc pictures (through reblogs or dms either works) it would be greatly appreciated!

think like terrible environmentally and/or accessibly speaking (or anything else along those lines)

[good--merits-accumulated]

going through some old left-for-dead projects and just found this one where I was like. INTENT on dissecting jeff's brain on the operating table (i.e. google docs) but only from todd's weird skewed pov

[professor voice] it's about brothers as eternal combatants and it's about being so convinced of your own goodness you excuse your shitty actions. it's also about comparing yourself to a dog because you feel less fully formed than your brother. lol.

[tea-cat-arts]

"Madam Yu would be a Karen/ treat minimum wage employees like shit-" literally the only servant she's shown abusing is Wei Wuxian (and that's because he's the victim of a proxy war between her and Jiang Fengmian around the idea of him being adopted into the family, not because of his class). Madam Yu's two handmaid's love and respect her, and Madam Yu actually defends them when Wang Lingjiao tries being a Karen to them. She also tells Wang Lingjiao to fuck off when she demands the Jiang servants bring her tea.

Also, Karens are unpleasant women, but not all unpleasant women are Karens. That term is about entitlement and being unreasonable (and often times, racist). Madam Yu is mean and unpleasant to talk to, but she keeps most of her interactions brief and probably doesn't have the time or mental energy to be a Karen or hold a grudge that long. If you want an actual example of a Karen in mdzs, Wang Lingjiao is right there

[lemongogo]

why do i love the conflict more than anything else . the misery . the incompatibility that spreads like oil slick . wanting so desperately for resolution that never comes . hmmm

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

I do kind of want to briefly ramble about Akechi’s rank 4 scene though because it kind of pleasantly surprised me?

So Akechi takes Joker to the jazz bar, which is his place to get away from it all, kind of his safe spot. His best options are when you give responses that show excitement and enthusiasm about the place, which is… aw.

Then the conversation segues into Akechi asking if Joker has a place like that, where he feels at ease, and all of the responses obviously reference Leblanc. First of all, that’s really sweet to have a kind of confirmation of that - Joker and Sojiro had a rocky start to their dynamic, but now he’s feeling like it’s a safe spot for him, and with Morgana there too, and the Thieves having come to visit a few times, maybe even more of a home than the one he left (though perhaps that’s pushing it?).

Secondly though, alarm bells were going through my head, because nowhere in all of this business does it seem a good idea to tell the detective investigating me where I live and am now operating my heists from. (Even though he probably could find that out easily… but still.)

So I picked the vaguest option, to be on the safe side, but little did I know that it doesn’t matter.

Because Joker tells Akechi about Leblanc anyways. Completely without player input. And at first I was a bit taken aback, but then it made a lot of sense.

For one thing, it confirms that Akechi is being genuine about this being his place to feel at ease. Not that I doubted that, but Akechi often says one thing and means multiple; he’s quite good at controlling the flow and direction of a conversation to get the info he wants. But that’s not the vibe I got here at all. He’s just… sharing it. Wants Joker to enjoy it the way he does. It’s actually a fair amount of openness, especially in that he’s never shared that place with anyone else before. And so Joker returns that openness with an honest answer and his own place of comfort - prioritizing returning Akechi’s honesty with his own instead of potential repercussions. Wild. I love it. And it tracks from their previous interactions.

Akechi downplays his skills by using his non-dominant hand, which Joker notices. Joker returns that (whether intentionally or inadvertently, I can’t actually say) when he puts his glasses on Akechi - the fake glasses that he wears, ostensibly, so as not to draw attention to himself. There’s a sense of honesty for honesty here, openness for openness, particularly from Joker. It’s just interesting.

[dragon-queen21]

Don’t know why I keep getting hate comments on things, maybe I’ll just melt away into a puddle forever how about that