#i am out here. Screaming....

[vaor]

things i wish i had known when i escaped my family household and couldn't ask my parents for help

invest in a good mattress early on. there are many other ends you can save on - sleep is not one of them. this is key to how much energy you'll have throughout the day

you don't need a bedframe but you do need a slatted bed base (even if it's just pallets)

opening a bank account is easy

there's youtube tutorials for everything. how to install your washing machine, how to use tools, fixing stuff around the place. channels like dad, how do i? are a godsend

change energy provider as soon as your old deal runs out. you'll get better offers elsewhere and avoid price gouging

assemble a basic first aid kid at home: painkillers, probiotics, alcohol wipes, bandages, tweezers, antihistamine tablets - anything you might need in a pinch

and an emergency toolkit: flashlight, extra batteries, a utility knife, an adjustable wrench, multi-tool, duct tape

set your fridge to the lowest temperature it can go. the energy consumption is minimal in difference and it'll give you +4/7 days on most foods

off-brand products are almost always the same in quality and taste, if not better, for half the price

coupons will save you a lot of money in the long run

there's no reason to be shy around employees at the bank/laundromat/store; most people will be happy to help

vegetarian diets are generally cheap if you make food from scratch

breakfast is as important as they say

keep track of your budget in a notebook or excel file - e.g. rent, phone and internet bills, food, leisure so you'll have an overlook on your spending over the months

don't gamble

piracy is okay

stealing from big stores and chains is also ethically okay

keep medical bills and pharmacy receipts for tax returns

also, file your tax returns early

take up a hobby that isn't in front of a screen. pottery, music, going for a run every now and then, stuff that'll keep you busy and sane

and most importantly... you're allowed to get the stuff you want. treat yourself to the occasional mundane thing. a good scented candle. a bath bomb. that body lotion that makes you feel like royalty. the good coffee beans.

you're free and you deserve to be happy.

[theoldkyokodied]

posting all of these on the same day as i'm posting them on insta. as an early christmas treat. just for you :) imagine a little bow on all of this stuilly art, okay?

[hymnoeides]

I just discovered your blog and DAM I love your art, your designs for the Gods are awesome! I don’t know if you’ve finished watching those Hades gameplays and it really depends if the person you were watching chose any of the romance options, but would you hypotheticallyyyy ship Thanzag (Thanatos and Zagreus)?

ALSO YES, FELLOW PISISTRATUS FAN, FINALLY!

AUUU TYSM!!! 🥹🥹 I’m so glad,,, I’m so happy knowing people enjoy my stuff … PISISTRATUS FANS UNITE I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!/p

Thanzag? What’s that? Never heard of th//trips and spills out my pockets

Eehhehe take some of the sketches I have 🥺🫶

[treviso-nights]

the significance of rook as a protagonist who is 'unable to be evil' is because the inquisitor can be. and hawke. and the warden, for that matter. in dai there are companion disapproval cutscenes for a reason: you have either fucked up so badly or killed so many people that they literally stage an intervention for you. rook, by contrast, is a tremendously appropriate protagonist for veilguard—not just because they’re handpicked by varric but because they are good. like their goodness is the point. it is the story.

and i get why some players would be upset by that and feel constrained by the moral paradigm the narrative inherently embodies. players like options. however, rook's goodness (in whatever capacity) does not necessitate that they're a bad/flat protagonist considering they have unique backstories which tells us about the quality and the context of that goodness. in my opinion, it's a natural byproduct of the overarching story of the dragon age games: yet another person thrust into a role and political position they did not ask for but must pursue for the greater purpose of all.

the thing about veilguard though is that no possible protagonist could be as bad or as evil as the evanuris (and by extension, the chaos ripping the veil down would do at this point in time), so to play as an evil!rook feels counterintuitive to the point of the game regardless.

if we WERE to get the option to play an evil!rook who, for example, supports the evanuris and blights the world alongside them, it just means there's no more world to play in. dragon age is over.

furthermore, there's no option to help solas bring the veil down because it is an evil option. it's not a dev mistake that rook doesn't get the opportunity to side with our favorite war criminal. to most thedosians, the end of the veil means the end of their life. solas is one of the most unreliable narrators in the series, so the idea that he has harm reduction measures in place is unmeasurable because he is a proven trickster. those who'd take the chance anyway would still be considered evil by all who are affected in the wake of it.

—and i agree that it would be fun! but it's not veilguard's story because the stakes are higher than they have ever been in previous games, and thedas needs someone else to save it once again.

[egg24108]

i want a fic about them on my desk by thursday. capiche? /j

[mmehrunesraz0r]

[suntails]

totals ur drama

[axolau]

TRANSFORMERS PRIME RANT

content warning: discussions of physical/psychological abuse

I’m going to try to write a rant but we’ll see how good I am at stringing my words together.

I love Transformers Prime with my whole heart, particularly Starscream, and despite and because of this, I don’t like the way his character plays out in season three.

After Starscream rejoins the decepticons at the end of season two, the abuse he receives from Megatron gets way worse. Megatron physically beat Starscream quite often in season one, and as season three progresses, this treatment is on full display and gets so much worse. And these abuse scenes are genuinely horrible and upsetting. Megatron physically dominates Starscream, who is much smaller and thinner, and the show spends a lot of time emphasizing his fear and screams as Megatron beats him.

Alongside Starscream’s abuse getting worse, he also gets significant Stockholm syndrome in season three, which makes the whole situation one thousand times ickier. While in season one Starscream tried to usurp and fight back against Megatron, now he looks up to the person who is actively and regularly beating him half to death.

But there’s nothing wrong with depicting a toxic character dynamic, it’s how the narrative frames it that matters.

Starscream gets treated worse by Megatron while thinking better of him as the show goes on. And the only people we get to see this ugly situation through the eyes of are Starscream and Megatron, who both think this is fine in one way or another.

We never get to see any other character acknowledge the abusive relationship. The autobots are totally oblivious or totally uncaring that it’s happening, and you can bet the other Decepticons aren’t going to do anything about it. Even after Megatron leaves behind his goal of oppression, he shows no regret of how he’d treated Starscream, the person who he had arguably made suffer the most. He just shouts at him and makes him flinch one last time then abandons him. He continues to mistreat him then leaves him behind. Leaves behind the person who he had physically and psychologically destroyed for thousands if not millions of years. Although I don’t expect Megatron to show sympathy for Starscream, since his ‘redemption’ was just him retiring and leaving everyone else to clean up the mess he made. (I have good and bad feelings on Megatron’s ending, but I don’t want to get too sidetracked)

What matters is, without Megatron acknowledging the horribleness of the situation, and without the autobots being aware of it, the only person who can acknowledge how toxic the situation was is Starscream.

But he doesn’t get this chance. His arc ends when the Predacons beat him up for revenge.

Starscream is an abuse victim, and he is never given a chance to heal. No character, himself included, ever fully acknowledges how problematic the situation is. He is never given a chance to be powerful. Over and over again he is forced to be weak and without agency. From the start of season three to the end of the movie, his character is a slow trickle into suffering more and more, being beaten down again and again until he doesn’t get back up.

When watching the show, I was fine with the amount of frightening abuse they were depicting on screen because I thought they would have some amount of healing from it. But it just gets worse and worse until the show ends and that’s it. It just feels like abuse for the sake of abuse at this point.

But the thing is, I’m not even opposed to Starscream having a bad ending. Let me explain.

I think it makes sense after him being conniving and evil and power hungry and cruel for his actions to catch up for him, and for him to be humbled in one way or another.

The thing is, they depicted Starscream’s fall to shame without ever giving him a moment of power. There’s no climax in season three where he takes control of his life again. There’s no moment where he gets to be more than humiliated and shamed.

Starscream is a victim, and he’s an abuser as well. He treats everyone around him horribly. He is a perpetuator of the cycle of abuse, where, after being abused by Megatron and others, he started to replicate their cruelty in order to have power.

The story needed to recognize him as both an abuser and a victim. It seemed to think these cancel out. That Starscream being beat by the Predacons in the end is the consequence of his abusive actions towards others coming back to haunt him. But just as a middle school bully doesn’t deserve to go home and be bullied by their sibling, an abuser does not deserve to be abused by another person. No one deserves to be abused.

Starscream being abused doesn’t pay for his crimes. And he isn’t just being humbled for treating the predacons badly; he’s being tortured.

As an abuser, Starscream deserved to see the consequences of his actions in some way, but as a victim, Starscream deserved any kind of moment of victory.

All this to say, this isn’t about wether or not Starscream deserved to be beat by the predacons (although I maintain that we should have better mindsets about paying for our crimes than “abusers deserve abuse”). This is about the fact that he deserved to see a shred of honor before his fall as well.

This is about the fact that as an abuse victim, he is given not a shred of dignity or an acknowledgment of his pain. His descent in season three isn’t even a character arc. There’s no growth, no resolution, no rising or falling climax. Like I said before, it’s just him suffering over and over, until the series ends.

Starscream is perhaps a good, although tragic, depiction of an abuser: a character who treats others poorly until it finally catches up to him. But he is a bad and problematic depiction of a victim: someone who never gets to be seen, even by himself.

[littleoddwriter]

I haven't really seen anyobody talk about this here-

Caracalla lost everybody close to him (father figure and twin brother) on the same day, both technically by his own doing, but doesn't even remember half of that anyway, and is now desperate to keep at least one person around, still. he might not even remember his own screaming voice demanding her crucifixion due to her betrayal. and if he does, he clearly wants to take it back and keep her alive and around him. in terms of human companions, she's all he has left. except for Macrinus, of course, but he's still new and another father figure, unable to fill that gaping hole Caracalla's real mother has presumably left and Lucilla is going to leave if she dies. but since Macrinus has the emperor wrapped around his little finger already, just a few words from him convinced Caracalla that this was, in fact, necessary and the only way; thus, sealing Lucilla's fate.

it's devastating to me...

[ephemeralgalaxies]

no no don't talk to me. you're telling me that Blitz and Stolas both have pictures with the other of themselves smiling while the other doesn't? and those are the ones they each keep? you're telling me there is a tangible representation of their different perspectives of their relationship???

Stolas' pictures including a conscious Blitz looking away from the camera and Stolas. Blitz's picture including an unconscious Stolas cuddled up next to him. Because Stolas believes them on equal footing/the same page about what their dynamic is with Blitz just hating every minute of it and Stolas. Because Blitz believes they're on different levels entirely and that the only way he can be content is when the rest of the world (and Stolas specifically) live on without him.

Because Stolas and Blitz are both terrified of being/dying alone, but while Stolas would sacrifice his love for Blitz, Blitz doesn't believe his own love is worth anything to begin with.

[luck-of-the-drawings]

so REVENGE, HUH? or justice, if that makes you feel better. it tastes the same when cooked just right. 'I REALLY WANTED A BROTHER.' such a shame to burn a bridge you so desperately wanted to keep, especially when it wasnt even you who started the fire. especially when you hope that not a single fragment of that bridge ever washes ashore.[MAY IT ROT FAR FROM MY SIGHTS] an unfortunate loss! atleast he has his friends.

[fangbanger3000]

If you had any compassion for other writers you would take that post down. Your defensive "apology" is not enough to fix what you broke by making accusations like that with no hard evidence. So many new writers will be too scared to post their writing now because bitches like you will accuse them of using AI because they use the same adjectives more than once. Fuck you

i'm about to lose my sense of humour and my table manners.

no, "using the same adjectives more than once" is not a sign of ai and no one has fucking claimed that it is. picking my post apart limb for limb because you're timid and far too worried about what hypothetical accusers could accuse your hypothetical fic of is so fucking woe is me.

real writers had their work stolen by the bot that generated that fic. real artists had their art chewed up and shat out by that thing. do try to restrain yourselves from making this about you and focus instead on the real issue at hand.

i apologised for causing unnecessary anxiety and i meant it. i genuinely do believe that i should have worded that post better, and i do understand why someone with little knowledge of ai could read it and get scared. but the people who are attacking me (some even agreeing that the fic is ai and still attacking me because they don't like the way i wrote that post) in premature defence of their own fics are getting on my nerves fr.

what the lot of you seem to not understand is that no, weirdly paired adjectives aren't necessarily a sign of ai. repetitive structure at paragraph- and sentence level are not necessarily a sign of ai. "quick writing" is not necessarily a sign of ai.

but weirdly paired adjectives and repetitive structure at paragraph- and sentence-level and an insane output rate of content all added together within the same work? yes, that is a fucking sign of ai.

jesus christ, i did not think i'd have to spoon-feed you the point like this. my next apology post will be for overestimating your critical thinking skills.

and before you come at me: no, this post is not scolding the people i was apologising to in my last post. getting anxious is not something i blame anyone for, and as i said, the fault is mine. this post is @ the people who are turning that anxiety into a dull little butterknife that they're trying to stab me with

[theslimeologist]

can we take a moment and ask what happened here? like what did they do to her??

oh.

[omegaverse-anesthesiologist]

WAIT NOW THAT THERE ARE PEOPLE HERE I CAN FINALLY ASK THE QUESTION

[shoechoe]

you know what sure

[dangoulains-devotion]

this room was built for one chair only,

i'm not empty, i'm just lonely