#it still astounds me that they dumped all that on one character

[grahoriasfancave]

Thinking about how in a single gameplay Jason (who already has blood on his hands and conscience from an incorrect call) can be faced with the decision to:

let Merwin face the vampires alone

stab Joey

shoot or abandon Clarice

shoot Rachel

lie to Nick about his chance of survival

leave Salim to die

And then thinking about how they find Balathu or Kurum half preserved and suffering and Salim decides they must put him out of his misery. And how when Jason automatically moves to follow through, Salim puts a hand on his gun and says “I’ll do it.”

It’s a choice born of practicality, not kindness. But to Jason, who’s made the call so many times he’s gone numb, it must also be a lifeline.

[thefreelanceangel]

Which of your characters would you say has changed the most over the time that you have played them? Why did these changes come about and are you, as the player, broadly happy with them?

C'allie... definitely evolved over time.

From the first initial experiment into FFXIV--including my absolute lack of lore knowledge and discovering that I really really hate playing BRD--to a wildly busy character, she's come a shockingly long way.

C'allie started off as my "I know like one person in this entire game (ilu @mirugaidoesthings) and I'll have to get RP somehow so better make one of Those Characters" foray. To get RP, a character has to be proactive, so I made a busybody bard who wanted to be ALL up in everyone's business.

And then I got my husband to play FFXIV, which let C'allie and Seifer meet, become lovers and, more importantly, best friends. We leveled together and lo and behold, I unlocked rogue.

Combined with C'allie's easy-going, happy-go-lucky nature and how everyone perceived her as a Bimbo Party Girl, it just made perfect sense to me that she'd be a cold-blooded and exceptionally good professional assassin.

And she just kept developing, even developing something approaching sympathy, much to my surprise. C'allie fell in love with L'upus Lynx, proposed marriage, and with that one step into "stable maturity," she began settling into who she really was at an astounding rate.

C'allie is still 100% Certified Trauma-Free™ with a loving family, a happy childhood, a healthy relationship with her parents and siblings. And her being that kind of stable character really opens up a lot of room for development in relationships with others. C'allie's a safe place for her spouses, lovers, and friends to lean.

...she's also largely amoral and sees nothing wrong with killing someone to get them out of the way.

While she doesn't fuck her way across Eorzea and back any more, she does keep in contact with almost all of her previous fuck buddies and isn't adverse to finding someone to come play with her and one (or more) of her spouses.

And as for being a mother? She's... surprisingly good at it. C'allie grew up in a large, extended family that'd developed healthy support systems, conflict resolution, and child care management. She learned by example, by participating in the Kyho tribe's culture, and is passing that on pretty well to her spouses.

Plus if they ever need a break, they can just dump the kids off at her father's camp and no one will bat an eyelash.

I'd say C'allie's done pretty well to come as far as she has and I'm quite pleased with her.

[changelingsandothernonsense]

Choose Violence asks! Pick the most inflammatory ones you can find on the list and answer them. If Danger!Josh has an unpopular opinion on specific things mentioned therein, he can share them too.

Oh yes! Let's get riekling over here! This includes ART! Under the cut for length. I'm mostly just gushing about a Danger!Josh HC that I have. :3 You know the one ;)

7. What character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

So I have two of these, the first one being Cicero and the second being Miraak. Prior to seeing any discourse I either gave zero shits or just didn't care for them (based off of Cicero, I can't handle his voice, it's so grating and hurts my ears.) But I didn't think that much about either of them until I started actually participating in the fandom (in my own way, I don't really contribute outside of personal conversations and any of the art I produce...which has nothing to do with either of those characters...except my one joke about Miraak as a Shoggoth being sexy).

I had no idea that it was immoral or moral to dislike either character and I'm sorry but Cicero makes me think of smelly ham water (as someone who is very mentally ill from trauma I also find him a bit insulting.) and Miraak is a missed opportunity that has been pulled in so many directions that I just can't. I won't.

18. It's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...

Teldryn Sero! Blade for hire, best swordsman in all Morrowind and absolute goddamn Dwemer-loving dorkface! Yes, you heard me! That guy is astounded by those ruins! I present to you his vanilla dialogue when you encounter a Dwemer ruin: "The dwarves were a clever race. I wonder what happened to them?"

And his Markarth line:

"Can you imagine what Markarth must have looked like when the dwarves were living here? I can't even begin to imagine." It's there hidden amongst all that dramatic cynicism, sarcastic bravado and slight "Dunmer are better than you" attitude. This guy is a nerd for anything Dwemer! I never see anyone point this out though. I think it's a missed opportunity for character-building. His tone, still sarcastic as ever (because he is dripping in it) does change to one of awe. The only other thing he gets this way about are the Telvanni mushroom Tels. So he seems to appreciate grand architecture (though not Nordic or Imperial styles interestingly enough), it would explain why every town you walk into in Skyrim elicits a bitch-a-thon from him. He hates everything because it looks unimpressive to him. Blacklight must be as grand as Markarth is intended to be in the lore. Since he compares that city to everything. I have my own thoughts on what it looks like too ;) Guess who else is a dork for ancient shit? Me! So naturally I grabbed onto these lines and ran with them. I HC his interest in Dwemer is a full-on obsession. He wants to go to that museum, he wants to go dungeon diving with you and he insists on dumping as many dwemer nick-nacks into his pack as he can. He also does this with knives lol.

I also HC him as the Nerevarine, so on top of that I have him swiping that Dwemer Coherer back from Divayth Fyr as payback for not actually curing his corprus. Now what on earth is a coherer? An electrical component formerly used to detect radio waves. It consists of a tube containing loosely packed metal particles. They were used to pick up and measure radiowaves. And so Dwifi was born! Danger!Josh wants to reverse-engineer that shit! And I ran with that and created this <3

My baby bird fiddling with that damn machine part!

[silentsockfeet]

tlou hbo s1 ep1 thoughts (spoilers obviously)

really love that we spend half the ep following sarah through her day in the life, it’s the film equivalent of her being the first playable character in the game. we as the audience spend so much time with her and if you’re not familiar with the story i imagine you’d assume the rest of the show is meant to be around her, only for that to crumble later

the curtis and viper dvd 😭😭

i like how much they show off tommy and joel’s dynamic, specifically in the car scene. tommy mostly acts with emotion and impulse and relies a lot on joel to make the decisions, while joel is the one thinking rationally even when stakes are high: planning them a route to the highway, trying to guide them through the crowds, etc.

an obvious thing to point out but the accuracy of the sets is astounding!! sarah’s room, the austin roadsign (this one specifically broke my brain), the boston QZ, it’s all so goddamn good

LOVE the change to having joel gathering supplies to go and find tommy, it says so much about his character but also their relationship. joel at his core is still a deeply loving and protective person even after twenty years in an apocalypse has forced him to build a harder exterior. but he’s also still stuck in the past, still seeing tommy as the sort of immature younger brother he has to keep watch over

gaslight gatekeep girlboss tess everyone say thanks anna torv

i LOVE that they gave us a glimpse into how the fireflies dealt with ellie before confirming she was immune, i always wondered how the fireflies would’ve reacted to her showing up claiming immunity. the level of paranoia from the fireflies and the responding sass from ellie was exactly how i’d imagined it to go haha

also just really like the world building of how a military-occupied QZ works, with the job system and the radio post with people lining up to send messages to loved ones

obviously happy that gustavo is working on the show but there were so many times a score from the game would play in the show and there’d be this weird disconnect in my brain where i’m like ‘wait that’s not where the music is supposed to play’ LOL

joel little spoon confirmed

so so obsessed with the expansion of tess and joel’s relationship, the way tess is able to calm joel down and get him to think clearly, the way she is clearly so supportive of him going to find tommy. they were able to say so much with so little about who she is as a person and to joel

in game ellie had already met marlene once before she was infected so it made sense that she would go to her for help after, but in the show she’d never met marlene before, makes me wonder why ellie went to her/the fireflies or if that had even been what elllie had intended. maybe she just got tangled up with them and had to make do? or it could be possible that [redacted] survived long enough to escort her to an outpost and explain the situation

joel info dumping about construction in the middle of a manhunt i love this man

“kim you don’t have a fuckin ear on your fuckin head” PLEASE that line was so funny. absolutely uncalled for

bella is so goddamn good as ellie. the mannerisms the sass everything is just so spot on. there were moments when she even sounded just like game ellie it was astounding

ellie’s interest with joel’s violence is so intriguing, i feel like that’s actually a fairly sizable difference from the game. in the equivalent game scene ellie was kinda shocked that tess and joel killed the soldiers, whereas in the show she was fascinated by it.

and also depressing lol, it’s something that she’s surrounded by but has never really had to do before so i think she views violence in an aggrandizing way, kind of like the heroes in her comics. it’s really depressing to know that one day she’s going to get to the point where she realizes just how taxing violence truly is

in hindsight i should’ve known they were gonna end this ep on the reveal of ellie’s immunity, it’s such a genius cliffhanger for people new to the story

[weepingpussywillowtree]

I know it's bad etiquette to complain about ao3 comments, but part of the reason I haven't touched my multi chapter wip since early this year is that I received comments that weren't negative persay, but we're extremely mad/emphatic about a situation/character interaction. Like, nobody left comments saying it was a bad interaction, people just kind of vomited their feelings into my comments and then I randomly received them in my email inbox.

It's what got me to turn off both ao3 inbox notifications and email notifications on all my fics. That level of emotion just getting randomly dumped on me was too much, and I stepped back for my mental health.

I am honestly grateful for every comment I receive. I'm grateful that people comment at all, and I'm continually astounded that my fics make people feel such strong emotions. I do go back and read them at set intervals when I know I can emotionally handle any responses I receive. But, this interaction is what made me realize I could never be cut out for anything that involved the public eye at all, because even my 100 odd kudo, 30 subscriber fic sent me completely spiraling from a couple of readers leaving worked up comments.

Now, that fic feels emotionally tainted. I really want to finish it, but opening the doc brings up all these bad feelings about the way an ending could be received. I've actually started a new multi chapter fic for that same ship and fandom and that feels so much more fun. Right now, I'm thinking I may not even post that one until it's finished, which could be a year from now. I may permanently abandon that other fic, even though I still periodically get comments from people telling me how much it means to them. I don't want to be writing for other people. I want to be writing for myself.

Also, I am glad that I was able to be taught this lesson about myself on such a small scale :)

[thestobingirlie]

honestly you are my favorite place to complain about r/nance.

Theres this steddie fic ive been reading for a while, and it was never tagged r/nance at the start, it's just been introduced later in. and I can deal with minor r/nance as long as it doesn't play much into the story. but the way its been dealt with in this fic.

in this fic robin avoids spending time with steve for weeks, I'm pretty sure its well over a month, when she starts dating nancy. like she'll only spend time with steve at work or if its in a group, and even at work she wont talk to him much. steve obviously feels hurt and has the whole self esteem issues of what if I'm a burden/ she doesn't want me any more.

Then she only spends time with steve again because eddie told her that steve seemed lonely without her. she uses the excuse of not telling him about her and nance because they didn't want to "hurt him", and gives a half assed apology. Then Steve ends up being the one to comfort robin because she keeps calling herself a bad friend and a horrible person without even looking at why steve was hurt, and he just forgives her.

And it just bugs me because it feels like these authors don't understand a thing about steve or robin. robin wouldn't spend so long choosing nance over steve and give the poorest of apologies, and steve wouldn't accept an apology like that, or at least wouldn't let it go back to 100% ok, because he would feel too hurt to go back to their normal friendship.

thank you <3 i will always be a safe place to complain about random shit. i love complaining.

i hate when fics have untagged ships. like i get it if it’s not important enough to actually tag the relationship, but at least tag background r//nance.

god, that enrages me and i’m not even reading it lol. i hate when the wronged party ends up having to comfort the person that treated them like shit. i like the characters to grovel.

yeah, the idea that robin could go more then two days without chit-chatting to steve is insane. they would literally start going through withdrawal.

i’ve made a huge post about this before, but it always astounds me when people have characters treat steve like shit and he’s just fine with it. like, yeah, he doesn’t have much self-worth, and so on and so forth. but he literally dumped his best friends for being cunts. he isn’t gonna allow everyone around him to treat him like utter shit. steve’s still a bitchy mean girl at heart, and if people are being pricks, he’ll lash out. we’ve all seen it.

and that’s not even getting into the r//nance of it all. robin treats him like shit, and is dating his ex??? steve would fake his death and leave town or some shit so everyone feels bad for mistreating him lmao.

no but seriously. stop treating steve like shit 2023

also!!! the fact that eddie had to be the one to tell robin to start spending time with steve again? ugh.

[mediocre-eternity]

Hello. Today is 30 December 2022

I didn’t realize my holiday preoccupations and rebuilding of our Island would take me so far away from writing but I do appreciate the interest in my life and my various wisdoms.

To hold such adoring fans over, I figure I’d fill you in on some conversations I’ve had as of late.

Daniel and I hadn’t realized the “Devil’s Minion” chapter of Queen of the Damned was as popular with fringe audiences as we expected. Daniel, in fact, had no plans on becoming as much of a character as Lestat and in fact, uses pseudonyms for most of his literature. We had a good time looking through your various posts and speculations about us. Honestly, we aren’t as much of a whirlwind of succulent romantic horror as Lestat and Louis. We’re more like two rats kissing in front of an inferno at the dump. Regardless, we thought it would hilarious to fill you in with tidbits about us two.

Although we can see the appeal of assigning “The Only Time” by Nine Inch Nails as “our” song, “We’re In This Together” is much more accurate to how we operate. We’re shocked and delighted, however, that a lot of readers could pick up on our 20th century musical fixations. And seeing Trent Reznor aged about thirty years since we discovered him sort of…propelled Daniel into the present time period. Well, thank you Mister Trent Reznor for in part helping a small immortal’s fledgeling regain some of his mental acuities. At least you haven’t died yet.

We are also absolutely astounded that readers picked up on what the final “nail in the coffin” (as he likes to say) was for Daniel’s poor mortal body. But that’s all he’ll let me get into.

Daniel started calling me “boss” as a joke about four years after we met. Since then, the nickname has spilled over into our larger coven. Benji uses “boss” for me as well and Jesse, occasionally. Lestat keeps me in his phone as “chef” after laughing so hard at the explanation for it I thought he’d started seizing. Still, my pet name remains one of my favorite things in the world.

Daniel did, in fact, call me an “immortal idiot” for asking him to show me how to use the phone. Speaking of, Daniel’s portion of Queen of the Damned was entirely volunteered by Daniel to Lestat; no psychic tricks necessary. Because of this, we all ended up with a much more comical rendition of our relationship. I believe if Lestat had stolen from my mind (or just asked me) readers would have understood a much different perspective. But in this reality, I’m famed for blenders. Merci, mon amie.

Daniel wants everyone to know that he hasn’t stopped smoking. It’s part of his “vampire aesthetic,” as he likes to call it.

Daniel is not monolingual. He picked up some Italian in our time together while he was still mortal and perfected the language further from his decade with my maker. Teaching him French is another task as me and Lestat speak two different dialects of French and Daniel has trouble floating between the two. It’s hilarious how Daniel has become somewhat of a case study for American lacking in linguistics.

We love looking at fan art of us two, especially one’s highlighting my eccentricities. I believe more people need to understand how self aware I am of how I speak and move my body, and what I ultimately decide to do. So it’s extra silly when fans try to guess how I might present myself. I did see a small comic strip of my desires to be ultra-close to Daniel. I’ll admit that I have sat on his lap when other seats were perfectly available.

That’s all I can think up for now, plus I shouldn’t divulge too much all at once. If I were to, perhaps you’d be more keen on picking myself and Daniel out from the Times Square crowd tomorrow night. In case you felt bored, anyway.