#people are messy and imperfect

[tide-locked]

i feel like people forget that sometimes characters in fic are written like that because it's a reflection of real life.

people have sex without setting boundaries. people have unprotected sex without talking about their sexual histories or producing recent sti tests. people play with kink without discussing it ahead of time or establishing a safeword. they have anal without 'enough' prep or lube—they may even prefer it like that.

and none of this is really a fantasy. it's all pretty normal. you can feel that it's inappropriately normalised, and you'd probably be right! but it is normalised: one study found that 58% of female undergraduate students on the campus studied had been choked during sex. 20% of those students said that they'd never been asked if it was ok; another 30% said they'd only sometimes been asked if they consented. fully half! (non-paywalled journal article on choking during sex here, including these numbers.) despite a rise in stis of all sorts, condom use is declining. (pdf link to the full text of this study about declining condom use in the us; aidsmap article about an australian study with similar results.)

even when people do talk about things—sex or anything else—they communicate imperfectly. 'yeah, but don't go too far' is consenting and setting a boundary, and also relying that the person you're talking to has the same metric for 'too far' that you do. for some people, 'the trash needs to go out' is a neutral, factual observation; for others, it's a request that the person they're speaking to take out the trash.

even when people understand each other perfectly, people react unpredictably to things sometimes! we behave irrationally! people laugh uncontrollably at funerals, or get angry at the straw that broke their back rather than the enormous load they were already carrying. they get scared and lash out at people trying to help them. when hurt, most people do not instinctively reach for therapy-approved grounding exercises and 'i feel' statements.

pretty much any bad choice that characters could conceivably make is a choice that people make in real life, on purpose, all the time. people do things that can have catastrophic, life-changing effects because it felt like a good idea at the time, or they're leaning into the vibe, or they just didn't think about it all that much, or an infinite number of other reasons.

fiction isn't intended as a guide on the best, safest, and most responsible ways to live your life, and fanfic isn't any different. it's not a narrative flaw to let characters do things that are messy or harmful or downright stupid—it's a reflection of what people are actually like, and not something that authors should feel they have to apologise for.

[lukolabrainrot]

Ok I've been SUPER busy, so I am not going to be able to respond to Asks until the 25th. So many people have been having complex feelings about all the information and rumors that have been coming out this weekend though. That is valid, but personally, I haven't really been very phased by everything this weekend. Bringing this back around for some positive energy, and because I still feel as confident as I did last week about L/N. I will also add this:

Everyone here who has been following the story for a while knows that A trolls and does shady s**t. A therefore is not a very reliable source.

We really don't have any reason NOT to trust N.

Everything that has happened this weekend doesn't really surprise me based on all the L coded crumbs N gave us last week. This is A's MO. Nothing really new.

Reminder: WITHOUT RECEIPTS=BS until proven true. Unconfirmed rumors are not facts! And there have been soooo many rumors in this situation that ended up not being true. So we kind of just have to wait for more publicly available information, and understand that we're NEVER going to know all the facts.

Just because L still likes A's posts and hasn't liked N's recent posts DOES NOT confirm that he and A are still together, or that him and N aren't getting along. It just doesn't.

Lastly, BOTH L AND N are not perfect human beings, and have made mistakes in their lives. Human beings are complex and multidimensional. I think there is just a lot more publicly available information about L, which is why we have been focusing on him more. You definitely don't have to agree with everything he's done in his life (I know I don't). However, it's important to process your feelings in smaller spaces like this. It is not alright to directly spew hate online about ANYONE involved in this situation. It just causes more pain, and doesn't accomplish anything.

I'M NOT CRYING, YOU'RE CRYING 😭😭😭

[winnielewoo]

kind of insanely obsessed with gelphie but none of my friends fw gelphie as much as i do bc enemies to best friends to ??? to enemies to ??? again is the bread and butter of doomed yuri good god. they love each other. they only have each other in a world that tries to separate them into two different things. they respect each other's choices and ambition despite that love and attachment they have for each other. "if that's where you have to go, then that's where you'll go. but i'll always be here, on the off chance that you'll choose to be with me, instead." i know some lesbian from 2008 probably dissected gelphie to a much greater degree than i ever will and has said half of the things i'm saying but oh my god.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[the-mpreg-guy]

i don’t have bitter deangirl moments bc the only decision they made with him that actively makes me angry was how they killed him. if i’m bitching about something it’s bc i’m a cunty little guy who actually does love the choices spn made with my little guy but kinda hates fandom reactions to them

[genderqueersammy]

The most heartbreaking thing is seeing how Dean’s written to be a really fucking messy parentified child (because ofc no child can be a proper parent to another child) who tries and wants to do Sam good and yet fails and yet still loves and cares for Sam so deeply, and then finding out that the fandom wants him to be the same boring eldest child as a perfect parent troupe we’ve seen a hundred times

[gibbearish]

its occuring to me what specifically it is that therapists go to therapy for

[itsmesheep]

*beating you with hammers* SOMETIMES 🔨 THINGS 🔨 THAT 🔨 ARE 🔨 HOMOEROTIC 🔨 ARE 🔨 INTENTIONAL 🔨🔨🔨

[dilfssi]

it will always make me laugh how when anything negative about messi comes up in the news, people’s first reaction is to say he’s not the person that the media paints him out to be… i mean yes? that’s why i like him. he’s not a perfect dude, he was a brat during his peak years, he got heated on the field because he was overly competitive, he has issues with other players when they’re not performing, he sulks especially when things aren’t going his way. none of these things make him any less great or any less worthy of admiration.

[laniidae-passerine]

stuck in a world where you get one really good season of tv followed by a season so poorly written and paced it’s baffling. who will free us from this

[brain-bumbler]

What character do you think is underrated in pn2

...Dion. But maybe I'm underestimating the number of other people who blorbo this side character and its not just like me and two friends xD Though I also wish Frazie had more dissections and works. She's so interesting!

I think a great thing about Psychonauts is that every character is so unique and individual and creative, they all stand out in their own spotlight. And the fandom is really great about giving everyone attention. I can't think of any character that I haven't seen a lot of love for- because they're all lovable!

When I really think about it though, Truman is a good case for being underrated! He seems like such a great dad character. The fandom loves Gus, but let's not forget how Truman seems so caring and supportive of Lili. He's possibly a single dad, dealing with a whole organization and a little firestarter at the same time. Dilf Truman truthers where are you?

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[worldwithoutmiracles]

also, it's a toxic manifestation of the individualization of American society. you used to have unions, families, neighborhoods, clubs, sports teams, work mentors, church groups, coworkers, casual acquaintances, hell your local grocer, all of these people you would talk to every day and who would have roughly similar local concerns as you did. healing, growth, learning, venting, soothing - all of these things were community responsibilities, and if there was something lacking, it was up to the community to do better.

now that corporations and technology have weakened all of those real bonds and atomized us into consumers in content bubbles, it's up to each individual person to "work" on themselves. group religion becomes a personal spirituality. your unionized workplace becomes your personal hustle. your community softball league gets swapped out for a side gig that's more "productive" (and coincidentally, isolating). and the entirety of the injustices of the world become "mental health struggles", and it's up to you and your phone that is tuned to 24/7 panic and outrage to navigate it alone with expensive therapy and self-help books. oh and if you fail at any of these, it is your personal moral fault.

I'm not saying all the old structures were great or that people didn't used to have problems. I'm not saying everything about our new lens is flawed, or that no problems can be solved through individual work. but I'm shocked at how quickly and completely most people have fallen into a kind of bootstraps Protestant-work-ethic myth about every problem in their lives being a problem in themselves.

these are not all things we are supposed to do alone. you are not failing. no person is capable of healing themselves completely and perfecting themselves through raw effort. structural change and larger institutions are important tools in creating the life you want to live and the person you want to be. form community. help other people. have conversations with people with different views. stop making yourself the center of all the world's hopes and all its failures.

i keep thinking about how it feels as if we have developed ourselves an obsession with "healing" these days – and a friend said something that really stuck in my head – "if you're part of a community where you're always trying to heal, then that means that you always need to be sick". like i think that we're all taking this ideal of healing too far saying that everybody needs therapy all the time and resetting your gut biome or surrounding yourself with positive energy or whatever it is that you can come up with. you're always focusing on something that is "wrong" and that needs to be eliminated, after which everything will be okay again. it all sounds like just another way of maintaining an illusion of control over your life and i don't think it's doing us any good

[sonderden]

It's been several days and I'm still bothered by the many 3 (out of 5) star ratings for a book I just finished reading because

1) I enjoyed it a lot, and admire it from a craft perspective. I feel naturally defensive of my own enjoyment when I see others calling this work annoying or boring or meaningless. It was the first book in months I've been able to read through to the end without getting distracted and letting my library loan lapse partway through, it was genuinely compelling to me, and it had plenty of meaning about mortality and humanity and choice -- and what it means when the choice of life and death is in your own hands. People saying they didn't see any of that... I know it's honest to their experience, and it's fair in its own right, but it still bothers me that so many people said it on the book tracking app I use.

2) Several of the reviews hate the lead character, specifically, and I'm bitter about the inaccuracies of WHY they hate her -- I almlst want to reply to one reviewer in particular, "If you're going to have problems with a major character, have problems that are actually there on the page and don't invent them out of thin air." Some also hated the romantic sub-plot and said it had "unnecessary bodice-ripping" when I, personally, found it way less romance-focused than other fantasy novels I've read in the past. Again, this is probably a personal perspective thing, but compared to the books that faded to black or had a graphic sex scene every other chapter I'd say 2.5 scenes that involved so much as kissing and only 1 short bedroom scene through the entire book is pretty tame. It's fine to be upset that there was romance and/or sex, but at least be accurate about how much there was and how it was handled.

3) While I know this one is specifically due to my being a writer and that the issue it brings up is more nuanced than just "be so kind to everyone that you lose all your critical reading skills and/or ability to resonate emotionally with books and other forms of fiction," and that the average person is in fact unaware of what it means to write a whole novel or series, any review that says a book was bad or just wasn't their thing without acknowledging the work that the author put into it has the potential to discourage that author and/or others from ever making or sharing their work again and that can decrease the number of books in the world. Which sucks. It's hard to avoid, but it sucks. Sometimes I think I just shouldn't read book reviews at all, before or after my own reading of a novel/novella/series.

[xyywrites]

Tips for writing flawed but lovable characters.

Flawed characters are the ones we root for, cry over, and remember long after the story ends. But creating a character who’s both imperfect and likable can feel like a tightrope walk. 

1. Flaws That Stem From Their Strengths

When a character’s greatest strength is also their Achilles' heel, it creates depth.

Strength: Fiercely loyal.

Flaw: Blind to betrayal or willing to go to dangerous extremes for loved ones.

“She’d burn the whole world down to save her sister—even if it killed her.”

2. Let Their Flaws Cause Problems

Flaws should have consequences—messy, believable ones.

Flaw: Impatience.

Result: They rush into action, ruining carefully laid plans.

“I thought I could handle it myself,” he muttered, staring at the smoking wreckage. “Guess not.”

3. Show Self-Awareness—or Lack Thereof

Characters who know they’re flawed (but struggle to change) are relatable. Characters who don’t realize their flaws can create dramatic tension.

A self-aware flaw: “I know I talk too much. It’s just… silence makes me feel like I’m disappearing.” A blind spot: “What do you mean I always have to be right? I’m just better at solving problems than most people!”

4. Give Them Redeeming Traits

A mix of good and bad keeps characters balanced.

Flaw: They’re manipulative.

Redeeming Trait: They use it to protect vulnerable people.

“Yes, I lied to get him to trust me. But he would’ve died otherwise.”

Readers are more forgiving of flaws when they see the bigger picture.

5. Let Them Grow—But Slowly

Instant redemption feels cheap. Characters should stumble, fail, and backslide before they change.

Early in the story: “I don’t need anyone. I’ve got this.”

Midpoint: “Okay, fine. Maybe I could use some help. But don’t get used to it.”

End: “Thank you. For everything.”

The gradual arc makes their growth feel earned.

6. Make Them Relatable, Not Perfect

Readers connect with characters who feel human—messy emotions, bad decisions, and all.

A bad decision: Skipping their best friend’s wedding because they’re jealous of their happiness.

A messy emotion: Feeling guilty afterward but doubling down to justify their actions.

A vulnerable moment: Finally apologizing, unsure if they’ll be forgiven.

7. Use Humor as a Balancing Act

Humor softens even the most prickly characters.

Flaw: Cynicism.

Humorous side: Making snarky, self-deprecating remarks that reveal their softer side.

“Love? No thanks. I’m allergic to heartbreak—and flowers.”

8. Avoid Overdoing the Flaws

Too many flaws can make a character feel unlikable or overburdened.

Instead of: A character who’s selfish, cruel, cowardly, and rude.

Try: A character who’s selfish but occasionally shows surprising generosity.

“Don’t tell anyone I helped you. I have a reputation to maintain.”

9. Let Them Be Vulnerable

Vulnerability adds layers and makes flaws understandable.

Flaw: They’re cold and distant.

Vulnerability: They’ve been hurt before and are terrified of getting close to anyone again.

“It’s easier this way. If I don’t care about you, then you can’t leave me.”

10. Make Their Flaws Integral to the Plot

When flaws directly impact the story, they feel purposeful rather than tacked on.

Flaw: Their arrogance alienates the people they need.

Plot Impact: When their plan fails, they’re left scrambling because no one will help them.

Flawed but lovable characters are the backbone of compelling stories. They remind us that imperfection is human—and that growth is possible.

[ln-ofx]

Yeah I am an avid Kara Corvus watcher and had a similar experience. Get 10 big personalities in the same game and you're bound to have failed bits, disagreements, and some pissed off people who didn't have a lot of fun because they got ignored in the chaos of the game. It's happened to all of them at least once I bet.

I had only a passing familiarity with Travis's name and fame so going in blind, I also felt that Travis's rant felt a little out of nowhere and preachy, at worst condescending and annoying.. but if I remember right it reflected a lot of common sentiments of the group and to my understanding everyone involved moved on fine and I straight up forgot it happened. He stayed in their vc call late and had a neat convo on podcasting and streaming/entertainment career stuff it was cool. Thought he seemed chill.

Had no idea it was such a "big deal" til the sarahZ video as well. Insane to me that this one awkward rant was such a damning event.

really fucking sucks that the catalyst for the mcelroy brothers' "downfall" was when one of them *checks notes* displayed symptoms of the mental illness he was very open about, in a way that was deeply embarrassing but ultimately pretty harmless