there are a lot of evil people in the world and a lot of darkness in the world and so it’s very important for me to stress that now more than ever is the time to spread kindness and compassion. combat the evil by not only not partaking in it, but actively refuting it. destroy the notion that being compassionate or generous or kind to someone is uncool or embarrassing or even scary. be the change you want to see. start a chain reaction. positivity only breeds more positivity. do an act of kindness for someone so that that person who is too afraid to do it themselves can see you, realize that they’re not alone, and perhaps sheepishly follow your example. and then the next person who is too afraid but sees that person can do the same. when bad news comes out about bad people or horrible atrocities in the world it’s such an easy impulse to despair, and obviously it’s important to feel what you need to feel. grieve. be angry. be sorrowful. be empathetic. but dust off your pants and get up and be a part of a chain reaction that, no matter how small the scale, and spread compassion and love and care. all the reasons why you might not—“it’s hard! it’s scary! people will make fun of me! it’s useless because there’s too much evil!” are all grade A arguments as to why you should. you have no idea how many people you could inspire to do the same. even if it doesn’t get you anyway far, you can at least say you have the nobility of trying. please choose love and please choose life. you are worth loving and you are worth inspiring others to love
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Something that I relate to Jason Todd about is the alienation from your family that happens when you go through something traumatic.
I have had family members that try and bring up the cute kid I was and reminisce about a child that I am no longer able to feel connected to because of specific traumas. And I think Jason has a similar go of it in fanon.
The idea that who Bruce, Dick, and the rest of the family miss is the cute kid who used to be Robin and liked reading and was excited for school? Yeah, and that’s not who he is anymore. The memories of being that kid physically hurt, because you can’t separate out the fact that you were innocent from what happened to you. You already know the end to the story, and it’s not good.
You can’t go back to your innocence and you have to live with whatever messy and terrible things you’ve done to cope with the fact that you couldn’t handle your trauma in the way people wanted you to. It fucks you up and it feels like you’re two different people: that kid who could have done great things, and the person you are now that is stuck with all of the things you’ve done wrong.
Jason not wanting to see his family or having true difficulty reconciling with his family is on par with the glass case, the evidence that who his family wants back isn’t the person he became and is, but the kid he was. And no one is happy with the fact that he “isn’t the same kid that was lost”.
He’s changed in ways that aren’t all good, and that’s a hard pill to swallow.
I can’t imagine being Bruce or Dick or Alfred or Barbra and remembering the cute kid who thought Robin was magic. Of missing who you were before that kid died and the way it changed you as a person. Of wanting that kid back and also wanting what felt like yourself back.
Because it’s not just Jason’s grief that they have to contend with, it’s their own loss of themselves. Bruce is not the same father he was before he lost Jason and there’s no getting that man back. There’s no green light that he’ll be able to reach that undoes the past and restores his son to who he wanted him to be and himself to who he wishes he was.
I can’t imagine trying to rebuild that bridge when both people on either side are veritable strangers and looking for someone who doesn’t exist anymore.
Also, the tendency for fanon to have Jason “fall back into Robin training” is doubly painful. Because he can’t go back to being Robin. So anything that he does that is reminiscent of that kid, either in how he handles victims, or inside jokes with his family, or grumbling about current interests is going to look like maybe that kid still exists somewhere in Jason. That Jason is just lost or that something can be done in order to bring that kid out in certain circumstances when the truth is that it’s part of who he is, but it’s no longer the controlling part of his personality and it can’t be, because that kid wasn’t equipped to deal with what adult Jason has to deal with.
Being continually compared to a dead kid has got to suck worse than an older sibling standard. Especially when you never wanted to become what you are in the first place.
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every time i reread lackadaisy i become stronger about my conviction that fans are WAY too harsh on mitzi and misunderstand her completely. you go online and see people treating her like satan incarnate when she’s genuinely just a person who’s grieving and lost. her and mordecai are two sides of the same coin and it’s crazy that people are kinder to him ( when he kills people, brutally, all the time and without remorse ) but never to her … like the things i’ve seen people accuse her of is baffling enough to make me wonder if i’m genuinely misreading the text tbh. even her character sheet on the lackadaisy website says this :
cannot stress enough everything we’ve seen from mitzi and know about her, both in the past and present, proves she was a tender hearted sort of person. she is not ruthless or cruel naturally, and has to continuously decide to commit to the harsh edges she’s desperately trying to wear. she’s selfish, yes, and does have her own myriad of flaws -- but she’s hardly some manipulative mastermind with no warmth in her heart. and knowing this makes her arc and her scenes ache all the more for it tbh
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"Weeeh! I wanna recruit Minthara on a good playthrough! Weeeh! I don't like the ultimatum and want to keep both Minthara and Halsin! Weeeh! I wanna make Minthara good! Weeeh! I don't want Minthara to break up with me!" Minthara deserves more content but none of these things are at all what she needs or deserves. No, these are all things that you want for yourself, but do absolutely nothing for her. This is one of the biggest L's in the game and it will forever enrage me because I just know it will never happen.
Minthara deserves to confront Orin like all the other companions do with their abusers. She deserves to scream and yell at Orin. She deserves to cut at her the same way Orin did, make her bleed and scream in pain. Minthara deserves to torture Orin, just as she did her in the mind flayer colony. Minthara deserves the right to roll up to the Temple of Bhaal and beat the shit out of Orin with her bare hands. Leave Orin begging for mercy in which Minthara will not even give her a drop. To slam Orin down on that altar and slice her throat, offer her up as a sacrifice to the father she is so blindly devoted to.
And yes, Minthara would be afraid. She would be TERRIFIED. Despite how strong and powerful Minthara is, she is also the only one afraid of Orin. Unlike Ketheric, or Gortash, or Sarevok, she is the only one who fully acknowledges just how dangerous Orin actually is and does not underestimate her. She will walk down into that temple, intending to duel Orin with a massive disadvantage because she is terrified.
Minthara choked when seeing Orin again in the mind flayer colony. She choked when seeing Orin as an imposter, throwing her deep into the ocean of paranoia and fear. And she is so entrenched in paranoia that it actually becomes palpable to everyone around her, even you. She describes herself as paranoid, but this is the first that you actually see how paranoid she is. And she choked again when Orin kidnapped someone in camp, making her feel inadequate, making a mockery of her for being unable to protect one of her own. And every day that passes, the more and more likely that the victim is going to die and she has doubts on their survival.
At every possible avenue in which Minthara could have done something or said something about Orin, she froze in place with fear. But she's had enough. She cannot be afraid of Orin forever and she doesn't want to be. One way or another, Orin has to die and she wants to get over that fear. She needs to know that Orin is dead, for herself.
This would also make the alurlssrin confession all the more impactful. She wants to tell you that she loves you in the best way that she can because of the very high likelihood that she will never have another chance to do so. She would beg you to come with her as you give her the courage. She has the courage to face her fears and confront her tormentor, because she knows she has you in her corner. If you have the courage to stand up to the very gods themselves, then she can stand up to Orin. Romanced or not, your presence alone is enough to give her the strength to do something she would otherwise be too terrified to do.
Minthara deserves the honor to solo duel Orin in a fight to the death. Minthara deserves the right to achieve vengeance for herself. No, I do not care that this confrontation would conflict with a Durge playthrough. In fact, it would provide a phenomenal source of some interesting, and toxic, drama between Durge and Minthara. Especially if they're in a relationship. This also does not mean that Minthara killing Orin instead of Durge would not have its consequences (because it most certainly will). Even if Minthara does not fight Orin, it would be so much better if Minthara was just given the fucking chance to yell at Orin like all the other companions in their personal quests.
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In a Week by Hozier ft. Karen Cowley
“The raven is death, obviously. When I die, I want a good tombstone—something right spooky. LT’s got something against the underground, though you’d think that would be just his kind of place. That’s alright. He needs to, he can cremate me. It’s not exactly Catholic, and Mam would turn in her grave, but God is a unicorn and no one is pure anymore, so. What’s all that got to do with me?”
Johnny “Soap” McTavish has a journal. Had. It is his no longer.
Simon “Ghost” Riley had dreams—awful ones, the kind that sank claws into his lungs, dragged him into sleep, and then sent him careening out of it. He still has dreams, but they’re different, now. Better. Johnny’s pages have folded themselves under his eyes and gotten into his head, brighter and more infectious than anything else has ever been. It’s more than the past, that rotting carcass behind him, and more than now. Now is nothing. Now is ash. It’s like, it’s like—blinding, is what it is. He’s a blind man.
It is biblical now. Ghost has read it backward and forward and sideways and inside out. When he runs out of things to read, he reads them again, and when that is not enough, he reads between the lines.
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