#but also dont be naive

[allbycharles]

Thank you

I don't get all the Earendil and Elwing hate. Like Earendil made an incredibly difficult choice to save Middle Earth. You know, the place where his family lived?

As for Elwing, y'all act like if she had just given the Silmaril to the Feanorians, they'd have said, "Thank you" and left.

Leaving Eluréd and Elurín to starve to death or die from exposure to the elements did absolutely nothing to get the Feanorians the Silmaril. It was done out of a sadistic desire for revenge.

The Feanorians had slaughtered people in Doriath and already begun to slaughter people in Sirion.

Lots of real-life serial killers have this "if only" story they tell. "If only she hadn't broken up with me, I wouldn't have killed women who looked like her." "If only my parents hadn't abused me, I wouldn't have raped and murdered people." "If only they hadn't called me a mean name..." "If only they did what I said..." Excuses all of it. An attempt to pin the blame on someone else.

Likewise, serial killers almost always have a point where they promise they won't hurt their victim if they just do what they say. "Just get in the car, and I won't shoot." "Just don't fight me, and I'll let you go."

Has it ever occurred to people that Elwing believed the Feanorians would kill her whether she gave them the Silmaril or not? That such fucking cruel people who had by then murdered her brothers and parents and hundreds of people would have taken the Silmaril and just kept on killing people? Or that maybe they'd spare her life but take her captive and torture her? And that if they were going to kill her and everyone in Sirion anyway, she might as well make sure they at least didn't get the satisfaction of getting the Silmaril?

[yuwuta]

you ask yuuta if he wants a bite of your food and when he says yes you offer your plate to him, but he’s just sat there looking at you with his dumb big bambi boy eyes and his mouth slightly open and he will not look away or blink or close his mouth until you lift your fork to his lips to feed him and then he grins like shit’s sweet and hums about how good the food is like nothing happened like he’s not ridiculously attractive. gonna chew on steel

[dukeofthomas]

I find the fact that the confrontation at the end of UTRH is often summarized as Jason asking Bruce to kill the Joker for him fascinating.

Because that's not what happened.

Jason holds a gun up to Joker's head, gives Bruce another, and tells him that if Bruce doesn't do something (shoot Jason), he will kill Joker.

Jason doesn't give the gun to Bruce so that he would shoot Joker. He isn't expecting Bruce to pull the trigger on the clown. He's asking Bruce to do nothing. To be inactive. Because that will still be a choice, and despite having done nothing, everybody clearly agrees that Bruce would still, at least in part, be responsible for Joker's death.

...And to me, this moment is a kind of- microcosm, of the rest of Jason's point. Because after being captured and carted off to Arkham, the villain will escape again, and will kill more people. The only way to truly prevent that from happening would be to kill them; Bruce refuses to do so, and I respect his right to choose such a thing for himself, but it is still a choice, and if we agree that Bruce's inaction during the confrontation would leave him at least partly responsible for the Joker's death, then we must also agree that his inaction in permanently preventing the Rogues from killing more people means he is also, partly, responsible for all of those deaths.

[seeminglydark]

A little slice from before they started seeing each other. Just a cute moment about running into your crush in a dark alley <3

bonus lore: this is the first time he would have called them by their new name

Caro and John are from my comics Seemingly Dark and Mil-liminal, they were childhood sweethearts who lost touch, and 7 years later Caro, now a superstar podcaster, is back in town. John's still trying to put the pieces of his fractured memories back together, but hes starting to get the idea.

[reading-tlt-help-me]

finally has gotten around to finish gtn act i and dude Harrow is 17.. Gideon keeps describing this satan incarnate super duper evil person then line drops something like she looks young and frail and shes actually short and emo and she teared up when she left her tomb of a planet what a loser

AND YOU WANT ME TO HATE HER????

THIS IS MY FIRST READ PLZ INTERACT WITH NO SPOILERS

[vamptits]

this guy is opening for MCR btw.

I don't super feel the need to make a joke about it. It's just bad.

[lesbianherald]

I was thinking... It seems to me that you mostly like the post-canon character states of Jayce and Viktor? I think you like the more confident and self-aware post-trauma Jayce (when he is present) and the more insecure Viktor, or... As if he has an enormous guilt to overcome.

Will there ever be something more naive from you with their more naive, hopeful and yearning versions?

Coming home (but not to you)

(also, i do have something planned for after my medieval au if the hyperfixation is strong enough and the fandom doesn't tire me out)

update im adding to this because i cant stop thinking about it do people find my coming home jayce... confident? i was very much going for an 'i'm sorry for my migraines' and 'when I'm in the airport in the security I think I magically have a gun' kind of vibe KDLFJHSDkl

also said this in the tags but season 2 didn't even start coming out until chapter 11 the full thing wasn't out until chapter 12 so if they came off post canon inspired that is very unintentional DKJFHSLDFj

[scorpiusmalfoylovesoscarwilde]

I've said it before, I'll say it again, and I'm sure it won't be the last time. I AM SICK AND BLOODY TIRED OF THESE MFS, HALF OF WHO DONT EVEN CARE ABOUT CURSED CHILD, BITCHING AND MOANING ABOUT AN ANGSTY TEEN DARING TO BE AN ANGSTY TEEN, I WILL FIGHT THE LOT OF YOU

(this is gonna be a bit long and probably incoherent so sit down and fucking listen to me 🔫 stick with me because I'm not just complaining about albus haters)

eVERYBODY wants cOoMmpllEeXx relatable HUMAN characters - and then SHIT themselves when the flaws a CHILD has isn't just 🥺 uwu im socially awkward and traumatised 🥺. that's why scorpius doesn't get this fuckass treatment, because his terrible human flaw is that he's a bit shit at conversation and gets sad about his dead mum (generalised understatement, but this post isnt about him. dont come for me i love him 🫶🏻)

god forbid albus, who feels unloved and unwanted (with valid evidence for a teenager), albus who feels completely out of place and outcast from his entire famously-close-knit family, ablus who is well known by the world by default via Harry and hates the attention and high expectations, albus who then gets targeted and bullied by his peers because he's not as perfect and brilliant as his father, albus who is then isolated from his one friend because Harry is making irrational ptsd fueled decisions, albus who tells Harry completely sincerely that he knows he's unlikeable but he'll try and change himself and be more like his siblings because he genuinely believes that's what Harry and everyone else whos had the misfortune of meeting him wants, albus who spends the entire play trying to prove himself and fix things via idiotic childish decisions BECAUSE HES A WHOLE UNSTABLE CHILD

god forbid that CHILD doesn't react like a patient, supported, well adjusted, level headed adult. god forbid he reacts outwardly. god forbid he reacts at all, my bad. clearly he should just sniffle a bit as if he doesn't feel suffocated and helpless by everything in his life, because obviously hes just a spoiled brat who doesn't know what real suffering is. god forbid he complains or feels anything negatively, or doesn't quite grasp that other people are struggling too because he is too busy trying so hard to deal with himself and his declining mental health the best he can with basically no support or understanding. god forbid he isn't completely perfect.

you all sound like some fucking boomer telling teenagers they don't know what real struggling is, they aren't mentally ill, they dont have any problems because they have a roof over their head, they should all go to war kids are too soft these days 😫😖😱 fUCKING‼️SHUT UP‼️

he does things wrong but he knows he does and he does everything he can to fix it! and he is fourteen!!! do none of you remember what being fourteen is like 😭😭 I swear half of you have got to be basically fourteen yourselves cmon man

cause I'm seeing this fucking pattern a lot recently. not just for albus, not just in this fandom, everywhere. ‼️ no one can fucking handle flawed characters anymore ‼️ the only thing any character is allowed to have wrong with them is trauma apparently, otherwise they have to be perfect, and I'm getting sick of it. characters and stories are meant to reflect real life, they're meant to help shape our world view, why are you expecting everyone to be fucking perfect??? what happened to nuance? what happened to understanding character development? you are all acting like characters and people are so black and white. either they're perfect or they're insufferable and evil. I won't lie, the most common victims i've noticed of this are women. but the flawed women are typically demonised, whereas the men are typically turned into uwu baby boys who actually aren't capable of doing anything wrong and then fanon goes nuts making them into ittle wittle victims. and I'm so fucking sick of all of it, I hate this. (obviously this is not a strict rule. Albus Potter, and also Albus Dumbledore now I mention it, are demonised beyond belief)

BRING BACK FLAWS AND BRING BACK NOT COMPLETELY WRITING OFF A CHARACTER BECAUSE THEY DARE TO BE HUMAN

I AM FED UP, ALBUS POTTER GET BEHIND ME

[oswaldthatendswald]

This is not a new observation, but I think One Piece handles Doflamingo's backstory-- how it continues to affect his behavior and choices, as well as how it fits into the overall story-- exceptionally well. The villain who is evil due to a tragic past is a very well-established trope, but it is increasingly done quite poorly. Attempts to flesh out a villain and garner sympathy for them can become misguided justifications for their actions or goals, muddying the themes and tone of a story. My point isn't that morally complex characters can't be interesting when done competently and purpose; it's that when the villain with a tragic past is meant to be evil but his past becomes a justification, the writers' intended dynamics of the story are damaged.

Doflamingo's story never has that problem. His backstory makes it perfectly clear why he does the things he does, but it never implies that he is right to do them. It is a reason, not an excuse. The reader gets the sense that Doflamingo is very much the product of his childhood: first the golden excess of a Celestial Dragon, then the abrupt fall from grace into hatred and pain. It's the perfect storm to set a person down the worst paths possible.

But I think the reader might also feel (or at least I did) that this wasn't a fate set in stone. Doflamingo could have unlearned the ideology of a Noble and perhaps that the harm done to him doesn't justify further harm-- except that the only guidance he ever got was worship by Trebol and the other Executives, who were the nail in the coffin for any redemption Doflamingo might have had. Their appearance only validated and affirmed the beliefs Doflamingo already held regarding his place in the world.

Instead of ham-handed sympathy bait, Doflamingo's backstory is a beautifully executed extension of the worldbuilding and themes already present in the story. It is another tragedy in a world of tragedies, another story where children are put through hell. But without the external guidance and support the heroes get, Doflamingo takes the other path, becoming another perpetrator of tragedies, and a reminder that our heroes are the people they are as much (or more) because of the love and mentorship they had than due to innate goodness. It's the road less traveled, but they still might have traveled it.

[arosebyan0thername]

If there are a million Reeve Carney as Orpheus fans in the world, I am one of them. If there are only two Reeve Carney as Orpheus fans in the world, I am one of them (Eva Noblezada is the other). If there are no Reeve Carney as Orpheus fans in the world, Eva Noblezada and I are dead 😔

[valgeristik]

new year old me, since im back at it again (badly) imitating the DA tarot style 👍 but we have fun here so a win is a win. two versions since i couldnt decide on one. enjoy <3

I have a little flower language pocket guide which i've been consulting for years, and even though i know flower language is a fickle thing prone to change depending on the source, here are my choices:

field bindweed for stubbornness, tanacetum (tansy? tanacetum vulgare? пижма крч) for resistance, pomegranate flowers for naivete, and hawthorn flowers for hope 👍

I wanted some flowers that would be symbolic of some Core Qualities Zea has (hope, naivete), but also their choices in life (stubbornly following their heart and ideals wherever they take them) (having no respect for authority if it goes against what they consider to be the greater good, or a kinder option)

close up and some more thoughts under the cut <3

Vetted Gaza Evacuation Fundraiser List

E-sims donation

the idea was also to make the background a bit...ummmmm gloomy. i guess. hint at the blight n all. the sun WAS originally supposed to be just the regular kind but then i was like HOLD UPPP BUT THE ECLIPSE THOOOOO and so......

now that i think about it, i could have maybe played around with making at least some of the flowers into a more...ummm strict and symmetrical pattern rather than going for the more realistic approach and maybe that would have made this whole thing look closer to the style im actually trying to achieve here but. maybe some other time. maybe ill post another version like a week later. who knows lol

also i love the color palette reference i made for Zea bcs like. the eye color is so fun bcs it LOOKS green (to me at lest) but its like. on the orange part of the color spectrum. color witchcraft

[silverislander]

im ngl maddie has really wormed her way into my brain. i don't usually get too attached to side characters but what do you MEAN we've never actually seen the real her. wdym literally every single thing we saw could well have been a lie and we'll never know how much was genuine, if anything

[bleue-flora]

I’m losing my mind… sooo a little bit ago I was combing through the Revival Book video for my fic and I noticed something interesting — The map

What about the map? Look closely…

You’ll notice that marked by turquoise is none on than the - vine covered Doomsday’s grid over the water filled L’manhole! Confirming that this conversation and therefore the experiments on Vik and Lazar took place after prison.

Which means quite a few earth shattering things. Firstly, the revival book likely was not the main factor that drove him mad to the point of putting himself in the prison like we might have suspected. This also means that just in general, Dream is not as prepared, planned, well thought out and as mastermind as we thought, and a lot of things were actually more genuine after all.

Because if he didn’t know that the revival book worked (which is implied by the dialogue in this video over the map) then he really must have trusted the server and Tommy to not kill him permanently and the revival book mention was more likely a really desperate afterthought last card that he hadn’t even used yet (honestly he hardly had the time to be fair - but thankfully he memorized it I guess), which oh just really makes the server almost letting him die permanently sting so much more. Plus, this also suggests that maybe Punz did not have the revive book before prison (the dialogue in this scene certainly suggests as much), and it means Dream really was adamantly afraid of dying in prison, making his stubbornness to not give up the book and endure the torture make a lot more sense. Further highlighting that he also was likely not as prepared or thick skinned going into the prison as we might have thought. It also implies that he is likely being truthful about Tommy being his first revival. Oh and there’s also the fact that in this conversation he suggests killing Philza after Philza helped rescue him, which just… rude (but that doesn’t really make sense anyways since I doubt he would want to piss off Techno but still)… and since we now know the experiments with Vik and Lazar happened after prison I’d say that if staged duo did experiments on eachother it would also be after prison because why would you test on yourself before knowing that it can bring you back from any death, that’s pretty risky, (which also aligns with Dream having his original 3 lives in the staged finale).

Oh and if that wasn’t crazy enough, I also noticed there are end rods in the laboratory!

Heeeeehhhhh?!!!….. Which means they went to The End (and I already kinda suspected that since they talked about it in the finale, but I certainly didn’t think they went before/(during?) the basic experiments on Vikk and Lazar.) And not only did they go to the End they went to an End City, which does that mean they have like elytras?…

Have I blow your mind yet? Because I’m losing my shit…

{This is all of course unless we are to take these as accidental inconsistencies and flaws in the video from a lack of due diligence (since I’m pretty sure the ccs hired someone to make it) and ignore it or retcon it, (which wouldn’t be the most unreasonable thing since the dialogue in that scene suggests that they don’t know it works at all - “but what if it does work?” which doesn’t make sense for them to say after he already brought back Wilbur and Tommy). Or alternatively, we could also go the route of disregarding things due to my other theory about the video [post] and say that since it’s from DreamXD’s pov it’s messed up because he misremembered the lore as he’s a god and wasn’t paying that much attention to detail…}

[dont-give-money-to-jkrowling]

so many protagonists are Status Quo Defenders by default, but melinoë is one of the only protagonists i've seen whose love of status quo is an actual trait that is justified within the narrative and thoughtfully challenged by other characters.

she's never been around for the Status Quo, so she idealizes it and sort of tells herself that all will be right if the one threat is defeated. nevermind that everyone around her is attempting to tell her that the norm wasn't all good: heracles, arachne, moros to an extent, chronos himself, eris!!!

(well actually idk if that's what eris is trying to tell her. i think she just does whatever is fun to her? best character in the game)

makes me really excited for the later plot and ending(s) to see how melinoë evolves in her beliefs!!!

[hauntingofhouses]

guys cmon. be ffr please. akemi did Not love taigen. the only reason why she was desperate to search for him to the point of putting herself in danger is because she didn't want to get married to an abusive man (which she believed at the time that takayoshi was). when seki tried to dissuade her from running off, her reason was not "but i love taigen and wanna be with him 🥺" it was because she refused to be controlled and have her autonomy taken from her; she literally says "i won't be locked away in edo married to a stranger." and when seki still tries to argue that getting married to the heir of the shogun would be better than getting caught by brigands, she then says "that kind of man"—referring to takayoshi—"treats women like animals. they say he's a tyrant." and when seki chuckles and says "what man isn't?" her response is "you." she doesn't even talk about taigen. she is using him as much as he was using her. they both see—or, well, saw—each other as means to an end. for taigen he saw that marrying into the tokunobu clan would elevate his status and wealth. for akemi she wanted the right to choose who she married, and she wanted that person to be someone kind. that's it! neither of them loved each other. but since they were courting of course they acted sweet to each other, and they do still care for one another, especially due to their romantic history. but let's be real! akemi is a boss bitch who dropped taigen and forgot all about his ass as soon as she saw takayoshi was a nice guy. because duh? not only is takayoshi a better lover (it's implied their lovemaking lasted a long time) but he's also kinder towards her and presents her with an opportunity to claim power and freedom, which she would not have if she had married taigen, as she would have still been stuck under her father's thumb. so literally why should she settle for taigen's stupid ass! she may be a little naive at times but she's still incredibly intelligent. she would not do something stupid for the sake of "love." you know who would though? taigen.

[archersartcorner]

A sketch from a few days ago, thought of cleaning it up and adding color but tbh I like the sketchy look of it? Anyway, Skippey n Zortchey, of the Runaway Alien Royalty Coalition lmao