#but at least i'm in good company

[astriiformes]

It's definitely... interesting to look at the evolution of the type of characters whose narratives hit me the hardest, because there's a very real shift over time that corresponds pretty glaringly my own life experiences.

When I was younger (high school and into early college) I had a tendency to latch onto bright, eccentric genius characters, not just for their positive traits but also because I was awkward and often lonely and struggled socially, and felt like I could project that onto them easily while still feeling good about myself. There were very real reasons beyond just wanting to feel smart, but I still tied a lot of weighty mental importance and self-identity to characters like the Doctor, and Newt Geiszler, and Ford Pines, in ways that absolutely influenced things like my future career goals and college choices

--and as someone who ultimately fell short of that brilliant academic archetype, in the long run I think it did a lot of damage. I won't say that seeing myself in those characters was exclusively a bad thing (it helped me figure out I was autistic, for one thing, as well as recognize elements of my personality that are also very real during a formative period), but I do have sort of an awkward relationship with how I used to feel about them vs how I feel about them now.

There wasn't a huge transitional phase. I think the main character I can point to as a sort of pivot point might be Percy de Rolo, who still fits the brilliant eccentric archetype but is much more glaringly mentally ill and ultimately ends up on a very different path than he started on by the end of his story. That smug desire to be the smartest person in the room is very much still there, but it wasn't the main reason I latched onto him. And I don't think it's coincidental my biggest CR1 phase hit after I dropped out of school the second time.

Since then, my favorite characters have been...... different. There's Fjord, who picked the wrong patron, totally ruined his life for a bit, and then slowly rebuilt his self-esteem with the guidance of a friend, a new god, and a better calling. Hunter, who was driving himself to the point of a complete breakdown trying to live up to unreasonable standards, and Lilith who made questionable life choices that put her in a similar position prior to a full-on midlife crisis in her 40s. Harrow, who's brilliant and powerful but also completely broken for it and would have been better off if she didn't feel like she had to constantly apologize for existing. And now I'm having a lot of feelings about Andreas, who starts out as a university drop-out going through a total career shift and is clearly somewhat insecure about it who then.... well..... [gestures]

Even when I do like smart or particularly gifted characters, it's for totally different reasons. I like Raine because they're awkward and anxious but still willing to stand up for what's right, and have had a real impact on how I think about my gender and helped reignite my love of performing music. When I first read Gideon the Ninth, I spent a good chunk of the book thinking about how my younger self would have latched onto Palamedes instantly, whereas with my experiences now I almost felt wary to, before ultimately deciding I actually liked him because he was kind, had a strong moral compass, and deeply loved someone who was chronically ill.

And it's not like it's more virtuous to like characters for the reasons I do now, but for me, personally it's certainly healthier to have my preferred archetype be "people who have tried and failed (but aren't giving up)," and it's been a bit of a trip watching that shift happen when for so long I felt so differently.

[lixenn]

Are we the same person? Because you just put my exact thoughts in a tumblr post, like this could have been written by me

almost 9 and i still havent cooked

fuck

[shima-draws]

Me: Oh god. It's time for our company's yearly performance review. Where my boss will judge my performance over the past year and see how awful I am at my job and--

My boss: You're doing such a great job and I'm so happy you're here <3

Me:

[marclef]

THE EYHM COLLECTION GROWS!!!! managed to make some space without having to move too much so they can all be together!!

(i made the smaller ones into stickers bc i'm running out of picture frames!! hope that's ok!)

THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYONE WHO'S GIFTED THESE TO ME THOUGH!!! I'M CALLING ALL OF YOU OUT HERE BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!! ❤❤❤❤❤

*sharp inhale* @eskariolis-con-salsa @oddpizza @woobab @the-little-knight @moon9931 @misdreavusplush @noodletime @witch-tower-au !!!!!!!

hope you all have a good holiday season!! love you all! *MWAH*

[cluescorner]

Canto 6 was incomplete

Literally why are we there? Like, we just go to a manor that's in t-corp I guess. But why are we there? We've got another Heathcliff and he's cool but he just shows up pissed off for no reason and then we leave? Weird af. Nelly, Linton, and Josephine were cool and Hindley...existed. But it's a weirdly low number of supporting characters, and I guess that 1 really important and cool one could have made up for it but that didn't happen. Even the Mili song felt incomplete, like only 1/2 of it was there! Such an odd choice to make at the halfway mark for our 12 sinners. It just feels like a lot of stuff was missing and it's really sad because I was excited for Heathcliff's canto.

[blackjackkent]

9pm update: one of the HVAC guys is still here and his coworker has left with the truck(???) and is also the only one of the pair that speaks English fluently. So me and the guy here are speaking my broken Spanish and his broken English and fiddling around with Google Translate and desperately trying together to figure out how the new Nest thermostat works.

I feel bad cos this guy is trying his best and clearly desperately wants to be done with this process too and I don't know why his coworker bailed on him. Theoretically the guy is supposed to come back soon?

IDK what's going on. Supremely weird.

[ihamtmus]

.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

i once saw a hair salon called "The One"

Mood. Y'know, most of the time I think I come off as normal and not like all I think about all day every day is Animorphs.

And then my spouse will go "two-hour limit on this parking spot, so we better get back before the car's stuck here forever." Or my mom will gesture at the red-tailed hawk sitting on the roof next door and say "keep a close eye on the dog, in case Tobias is hungry."

Neither of them has read more than maybe 3 books in the series. I just have that effect on people.

[ssaalexblake]

also the 'fans of 13 are bitchy and mean' thing is really funny bc i knew Lots of 13 fans on the internet who were nice and kind and charitable to people being aggressive towards them by answering them calmly and logically when they weren't approached as such, who dealt with the stupid takes clearly rooted in prejudice calmly and firmly with an aim to teach out of a belief that people were accidentally pedalling this stuff and not being deliberately malicious and trying to help, but people who hate it were so cruel, and so obsessive about not letting people live and like in peace to the point of harassing them, that it drove the nice ones off, either gone totally or to other fandoms because it wasn't worth putting up with it over a stupid kids tv show. So you were left with the stubborn and pissed off ones who aren't inclined to be chased off, and the same people have the gall to act confused as to why people aren't nice.

The level of shit and bullshit over the years i've gotten and/or seen over a stupid kids tv show you'd think i enjoyed the recreational era of kitten skinning and the stories i get from people who use twitter are at least twice as bad. Add the people who think dressing up rude sentiments or demands in polite language makes them any less rude (it doesn't) and it's just a nightmare.

Shockingly, while a hostile environment will not necessarily Produce hostility, it will ward the nice ones off. And it will also produce hostility. That too.

[chicago-geniza]

Me 🤝 Jane Austen 🤝 Emily Dickinson

Kidney disease :)

[wild-at-mind]

When you tell people they should be sending every spare penny to their chosen Gaza fundraiser or they are Bad. But then it all gets a bit too stressful so you have to leave tumblr. :(

[utterentropy]

I love imagining these two bickering and just Victim being half his size

It's even funnier bc Chosen is objectively a way worse person in my AU than Victim ever will be, which either means Victim's just a surprisingly okay person or Chosen is a surprisingly not okay person

[deva-arts]

You got isekai'd into SYSTEMA. What now.

Be amazed.

Remember I spawned into the "everything sucks" world.

Break down and cry.

Consider death as an escape.

Summon the global chaos by leaking insider secrets that could make about 200 new conspiracy theories.

Hope that Sera's conspirator ass tries to find me before one of the hits get me first.

Ending 1: I get sniped.

Ending 2: I get jumped.

Ending 3: I get kidnapped.

Ending 4:

Ending 200: It worked! Sera insults me. I cry from both the height she's holding me at and the insult respectively. She tells me to quit sobbing so I weep in incognito mode.

Make it into the Manumission. Wipe my face. Contemplate death again.

Get interrogated.

Get welcomed in! (I am still under close observation)

Quietly fangirl about my characters in 4k then feel incredibly weird about how much I know.

Get interrogated again.

I know that Nathaniel knows that I know but he doesn't know how much I know until I make it known that I know that he knows.

Consider death as- oh. He heard that too.

Literally everyone freaks me out for different reasons. I hang out with Sonia. She calls me fat. I still like you Sonia.

Live in the manumission under witness/informant protection and try not to die.

[stabbyfoxandrew]

i want to crawl under my desk and go to sleep

[bandzboy]

i am honestly glad most people here received the boycott well and are actually participating in it because every time i see people not doing it on twt i genuinely go crazy... but on twt it's always hard to get people to join because the streaming culture there is crazy and we are seeing the negative effects of it in real-time

[icewindandboringhorror]

Hrmm... Revising my game and I feel like there's still sooo much writing left to do, for something that probably won't even amount to much, so.. I do want to narrow my focus more (especially given my health problems seeming to get worse/less energy the past few years), but I'm not sure how would be best to...

I currently have 5 characters as the Main ones with full planned questlines and such, with each character having 6 quests you can do for them. But I haven't really started the writing for the 5th main character. So then I was thinking, if I were going to write 6 full quests worth of content anyway... is it better to allocate that time on just doing a Complete 6 Quests for ONE single character, OR would it be better to do something like.. choose THREE side characters and do 2 quests for each of them? So that people have a wider variety to interact with and sort of sample around (of course with the idea that, once the first version of the game is released, IF people actually care about it enough to make it worth the effort, I would then add additional content to complete those 3 characters stories as well)

-

SO... If you were playing an interactive fiction sort of game centered around talking to & doing quests for a cast of characters (like there's no larger plot, more it's just about interacting with people, every character kind of has a self contained story, the focus is just learning about them and the world and exploring the area) --- Which would you rather have?

(and of course it would be stated up front which characters have only partial questlines, so people don't expect them to have full quests like the others and then get disappointed, or etc. etc.)

Basically, is it better to just focus in specifically on having one fully complete questline? Or for there to be a few stories that are not complete yet, but have more initial options available?