#it’s not the worst thing in the world obviously but like. it’s bad in it’s own right

[scleroticstatue]

Okay. The more I learn about Eliot Spencer the more he reminds me of Gavrel. Obviously they're not the same character, and they have plenty of differences, but there are a lot of similarities. The guilt. The determination to do something good even though they know it can't wipe out the past. The willingness to adopt at the drop of a hat, the fact that they're good with kids, the cooking, even. Was that deliberate? Or is that just a character archetype you like? (Valid, and it's one of my favourites.)

Unintentional, entirely. Some things were necessary for the character. I couldn't not have Gavrel cook; he's too ostracized to buy meals at the Cooks Guild every day. He's also only sane because he's a tamer, so he is predisposed to animals and small children. And, yes, the guilt, because everyone is guilty.

However, there are significant differences. Eliot is very secure in his physical body, to the point where he is very frequent in his, erm, fraternization. Gavrel, uh. Not so much. This extends beyond the dating world and into things like sports and even perception. Eliot likes people to underestimate him, while Gavrel projects confidence and strength and a coldness that belays the fact that he is very self-conscious, even though they are both competent. Gavrel isn't actually that interested in violence for violence's sake, even within the sports realm. The reason why he got into Terrafell wasn't for the combat, and his interests outside of it when he was in school are much closer to Sophie's.

I will correct one thing: Gavrel isn't determined to do good. His only purpose in life was to get home and the drive was steadily dwindling until it was crushed on July 6th. (Which is why he was so ready to devote every waking moment to Morwen's mission the minute she had one.) Gavrel does good, but he's not determined to, and it's certainly not to make the world better. Gavrel does good things because it's honestly never occurred to him that there are other options. It's not "do I do good or not?" It's "how does this (good) thing get done?" Even his Worst Decision was not based on willfully being bad, but on a lack of information and understanding. Some of that is because he doesn't value himself enough to consider the risks and benefits of that, but some of it is because he just doesn't have an abusive bone in his body.

[qoldenskies]

You're so right that Leo is the main villain in CL, because like.....dude is already canonically implied to have a fundamental understanding of what makes people tick, and we've seen in that one episode with Big Mama that he is fully petty enough to play the long game of running circles around someone/just genuinely riling them up until he breaks them down or otherwise manages to get a response out of them (which I think was why he kind of fell back into little shit behavior during the movie for a time BUT WE CAN TALK ABOUT THAT LATER). He may not be as in tune with emotions as Mikey is, but he understands people.

And CL explores what would happen if you took the moralistic side of that personality trait away from him. I've always kind of maintained that Leo would genuinely make for a terrifying villain if he had less of a strict moral code, but CL!Leo really......showcases that to an extreme. He's really the first one to be overtly nasty towards Donnie, and even when Donnie questions it he immediately gaslight gatekeep girlbosses the shit out of him in such a ruthless way that it completely undermines his confidence from then on out. Watching him during the curse really was like not being able to tear your eyes away from a car wreck or something, it was beautiful and terrible all at the same time.

(Of course, now he's going to have to live the rest of his life knowing about how easily he could break someone down if he tried hard enough, and that's.....gotta be not entirely fun knowledge to be in possession of.)

YES EXACTLYYYYYYY..... like i know donnie loves villainous aesthetics and is occasionally a deranged little freak for fun but i still posit leo would be a LOT scarier as a villain. donnie may be capable of more but i think leo's opportunism and ability to psychologically profile people he barely knows (because he is not super acquainted with big mama at the point of many unhappy returns! they've met, like. what, twice? maybe three times?) and then use that to outwit and play them, even when big mama is established to be conniving,,, tell me that isnt a guy that would be capable of some utterly evil shit

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

😰

[quincywillows]

as i reflect more, i have to say one of the biggest aspects that turned me away completely from traditional publishing is the social media prevalence. there was such a clear expectation, literally from the moment you submit your manuscript for consideration, that you either already had a following on insta/the-platform-formally-known-as-twitter or would be committed full throttle to creating one. there was no question about it. the idea that you would sell not just your book, but yourself, online was baked into the very potential of your manuscript seeing the light of day. and i remember lurking in those spaces and seeing every single aspiring author regurgitating the same plucky, quirky posts, and sharing the same "friends" on the platform, and justifying x y z aspect about themselves as an author rather than telling me anything substantive about their novel (no true synopses in sight here -- just a quippy, 240-character logline usually filled with tropes). it literally felt like being surrounded by clones, or generic-writer-bots, and i was supposed to be inclined to show interest in their writing because of their PRESENTATION on the-platform-formally-known-as-twitter, rather than the actual writing itself. it's even worse now with tik tok and "booktok."

every single book i have ever loved, have ever called a favorite, always grew from the book itself. not the author. most of the time, i didn't know who the author even was, and i rarely take the time to go investigate further. the value and heart of a book lies in the words on the page, the content inside the manuscript -- not the name printed onto the spine.

i just really hate this trend in publishing where the author has become more of a draw or more important than the story itself. we are writers, we're sharing our writing. the story is what it's supposed to be all about; if that isn't connecting with the readers, what else matters? certainly not that -- and it's simply not worth commodifying your literal personhood just to get another click.

[sp4ceboo]

ai rant in tags bc im so fucking tired

[francy-sketches]

Look I love alicent she’s my meow meow but why are some of her stans so against her being compared to cersei they just objectively share similarities it’s not an insult to her I prommy. Like seeing them get upset at the comparison between the eye funni in hotd and the trident oopsie in got is just. Girl calm down nobody’s saying they’re the exact same but the pararell is so obvious lmao. Not everything is an attack on your fave hotd twitter is rotting your brain please go oustide we’re worried about you

[bamboozled-distress]

why is there so much hate on poppy 😭 god forbid a woman do anything

[spearxwind]

Thinking about the time i commissioned an artist i rly liked for something and the result was kind of really catastrophic just from the preview image in the email so i just. never opened the actual image

[spikeisawesome456]

.

[medicinemane]

"Highly respected individuals including henry kissanger..." well I gotta stop you right there, you've got a major inaccuracy cause no one in their right mind respects that man

[ghoulishtomato]

Modern book readers when their characters aren't literally a clone of Jesus Christ Himself starting at Chapter 1

[macroglossus]

shoutout to other bitches with emetophobia* *the only REAL BITCHES IN THE WORLD!!!!! in my pursuit to Beat Emetophobia i accidentally fucked up my body to the degree that i get ill at least once a month now (hellish. horrible) and most people kinda shrug at that but the ones who get it get it. my best friend physically recoiled. because she GETS IT

[dizzybevvie]

so scared to take a stance on danganronpa bc it had major flaws and a not great fanbase but the first game is honestly not that bad in terms of themes and such and both of these opinions will get me jumped in the street

[timeisacephalopod]

Its real strange when Americans especially (meaning politicians, less citizens but them too sometimes) say socialism doesn't work because how the hell would you even know. Half the shit American politcians describe as socialism isn't socialism, and often they treat those things like the sky will fall if they're implemented (like healthcare. Ignore Canada right above you. Lie about how our system works by telling people you need to wait years to see Drs about life threatening issues when you only get waitlisted for specialists and not for years either, it's generally a few months. Not ideal but not what American politicians say either. Ignore every other country with universal healthcare better than Canada's, which is everyone's, because there's no need to even lie about those after making the country above you look bad for not charging 80K to look at a band-aid, which is somehow an improvement to waitlists like the poor won't just die instead of seeing a dr).

Not to mention the US has invaded so many countries with politics farther left then theirs just to install right wing terrorists and then get mad when some of those terrorists they straight up funded do a 9/11 to them like they have slaughtered thousands to "spread democracy" by overthrowing democratically elected leaders all over the world for being "too socialist" or communist so how do you know socialism doesn't work? If it doesn't it's because America specifically has never allowed it to, like you can't invade every single country that does things mildly different, completely destroy them, and then say "see socialism doesn't work!" like you had nothing to do with the collapse of that system???? It's literally the meme of Eric Andre shooting that guy and being like "how come socialism didn't work!" like they didn't just shoot socialism in the face in cold blood. And also capitalism doesn't need to work at all in any way, efficient or not, for everyone to defend it to the hilt so like ok who cares if socialism works if you don't care that capitalism doesn't and you defend it anyway? Clearly "works" isn't a prerequisite to using that system so that's not even an argument worth bringing up at that point.

[jackass-jones]

Had a very bad day Gotta eat gravel

[charlie-ver]

i'm really in such a shitty mood

i have issues (which got worse) which make it extremely hard to focus and I can't fucking sleep so I just end up not performing well enough on my tests and due to missing three weeks w my tops surgery I lost so much time I can't get back

I love my school and I enjoy my major but am I having an awfully difficult time completing everything, plus my mental health is just not great but Oh that's not good enough to get extensions (: how do I explain that I get into such awful states mentally that I just end up either napping too much or in a perpetual state of some weird as fuck torpor where my brain goes "You'll fail it anyway, you won't pass to the next year anyway, so do you really have to do all these assignments?"