#people are messy and imperfect

[a-memory-a-distant-echo]

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 😭😭😭

[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?

[mishkakagehishka]

https://www.tumblr.com/mishkakagehishka/712593594910949376

kicks down your door.

OP IS SO DAMN RIGHT AND YOU'RE SO DAMN RIGHT FOR REBLOGGING.

PLEASE IF YOU'RE TOO LAZY TO READ HOT LIMIT AT LEAST T R Y TO FACT CHECK!! DO SCHOOLS NOT TEACH PEOPLE TO C H E C K T H E I R S O U R C E S!!! EVERYTIME A CHARACTER CRAZY:B OR VALKYRIE OR EDEN GETS MISINTERPRETATED I START VIOLENTLY CHEWING SILVERWARE!!! READ THE STORY!! AT LEAST LEARN THE CONTEXT!! IM LAZY TOO BUT THAT'S NOT AN EXCUSE TO FALL FOR MISINFORMATION!!! THE WIKI IS RIGHT THERE!!! I WILL VIOLENTLY CHEW THROUGH ALL THE BUTTER KNIVES!!!

im not that enraged but its so annoying!!!! when people dont fact check!!!! come on!!! we're taught this!!!! in!!! school!!!! we!!! are!!! living in a world where you need to look out for misinformation!!!! we should know this by now!!!!

- chicken liver

I feel like, i respect not reading stories. But i feel like if you're gonna talk shit about certain characters, you HAVE TO read stories. I want sources for your claims of xyz being an irredeemable bastard. I want someone who's read Human Comedy and Neverland and Hermitage and Machina to tell me if they think Shu is a piece of shit who is never gonna be redeemable. I want someone who has finished the main story of !! and Hot Limit to tell me if they think Rinne is a bad person one-dimensional villain.

I respect disliking a character and i respect talking shit about a character, but i do not, will not, cannot respect misinfo and misinfo-based hatred on a character !!!

[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

[kyofsonder]

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.

[patricia-taxxon]

If you're a neutral onlooker to this, I won't ask much of you, but don't you dare miss the cause and effect of what happened here. This isn't about justice, incest fetishism or grooming. It's the same pattern, transmisogyny-exempt people will never be forced to introspect on why they keep being dealt the same card or why it keeps working, why every inconvenient transfem that is loud enough to enter their peripheral vision is also suspiciously easy to find dirt on. I said I felt vaguely threatened by transmasculine people, I was attacked, strawmanned, and old retracted callouts were reheated and served within days, with new distortions added on for flavor.

I should have learned my lesson to never make comparisons to anything, but I'm talking to people who I trust will at least take me at my word. The Heard/Depp trial wasn't about proving who abused whom, it was about the right of women to speak of the abuse they faced from men in power in even the vaguest possible terms without themselves having their privacy and dignity violated in the endless drive to reveal the imperfect victim.

And to any of the other transfems who are participating in this charade, just remember, it will happen to you. You will have a messy breakup, you will be abused or groomed and have the tables turned back on you, you will say something that makes a TME person uncomfortable, and suddenly the only people you'll be able to trust are the transfems who've already been burned. I'll say something now that you'll write off, but I hope you remember it when your time comes. I forgive you.

[cuppy-dog-city]

steven universe taste so good when u ain’t got a bitch in ya ear telling you it’s nasty.

[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

[miisfits-toys]

hi hi r u perhaps a fan on the game "smile for me"? i feel like you'd really like the game and yugo limbo's artstyle :-)

I Am in fact a big fan of Yugo Limbo's work!! I believe I found them just before they started posting about the development of Smile For Me, and have been on the ride since! I've very much been looking forward to their latest endeavors... A copy of BKMN sits lovingly on a bookshelf and I clap my silly hands over GGG development.

Their work has very much been an inspiration for me over the years, as have their own inspirations!! I very much suggest peeking into the things people are into, both for art-style reasons and There's A Lot of Cool Media reasons.

I appreciate you referring their work to me! Thank you and Best Wishes [-:!!

[lilyprettyremy]

10 Bad Habits to Let Go of for a Beautiful Life (Trust Me, You’ll Thank Yourself)

We all have those habits that hold us back — some sneakier than others. And while no one’s perfect, a little spring cleaning of your daily habits can unlock a happier, healthier life. Ready to drop the bad vibes and level up? Here are 10 bad habits to leave behind for good!

1. The Comparison Game — It’s Gotta Go

We’ve all done it. Scrolling, looking at someone’s perfect life, and feeling like we’re not enough. But honestly? Comparing yourself to others is a losing game. Focus on your own growth, and unfollow anything or anyone that makes you feel less-than. Your journey is yours alone, and it’s beautiful in its own way. Keep your eyes on your own lane!

2. Procrastinating Like It’s a Sport

We get it — that “I’ll do it tomorrow” energy feels good in the moment, but it’s also a trap. The more you put off tasks, the more they pile up and haunt you. Trust, the best feeling is getting stuff done now and freeing up your mind for the fun stuff later. Break it down, set a timer, and just start. You’ll feel like a boss when you’re done.

3. Saying Yes to Everything (Even When You Don’t Want To)

No is a full sentence, babe! If you’re constantly saying yes to things that don’t align with your goals or drain your energy, it’s time to stop. Overcommitting leads to burnout, and life’s too short for that. Start setting boundaries and prioritize what makes you feel good. Your time is precious, so treat it like gold.

4. Relying on Everyone Else’s Approval

We all love a little validation, but depending on it? That’s a recipe for insecurity. Your worth isn’t measured by someone else’s likes or approval. The only validation you really need is your own. So hype yourself up, celebrate your wins, and be proud of the progress you’re making, regardless of who’s watching.

5. Avoiding Your Finances Like It’s Scary

Finances don’t have to be terrifying! Ignoring them might feel easier in the moment, but getting a handle on your money situation is so empowering. Start small — track your spending, create a budget, and set a savings goal. The sooner you take control, the more stress-free your future will feel.

6. Holding Grudges Like They’re Trophies

Honestly, holding onto grudges only weighs you down. Letting go of past negativity isn’t about excusing people’s behavior — it’s about freeing yourself. Don’t let old situations control your peace. Forgiveness is for you, babe. The less baggage you carry, the lighter you’ll feel.

7. Talking Down to Yourself

Would you say those mean things to your best friend? Didn’t think so! So why do we let ourselves get away with it? Cut out the negative self-talk and replace it with something a little more kind and uplifting. You deserve better from yourself. You wouldn’t believe how much your mindset can change once you start being nice to yourself.

8. Expecting Everything to Be Perfect

Perfection is a myth, and chasing it will only leave you stressed and frustrated. Life happens in the in-between moments — the imperfect, messy, beautifully real ones. Give yourself some grace and celebrate progress, not perfection. A “good enough” life is often a perfect one in disguise.

9. Staying in Your Safe Bubble

Your comfort zone might feel cozy, but nothing grows there! Stepping outside of it might be scary, but it’s where all the magic happens. Whether it’s trying something new, starting a project, or meeting new people, discomfort leads to growth. Don’t let fear hold you back — take the leap!

10. Blaming Everything Else for What’s Not Going Right

It’s easy to point fingers and blame outside circumstances, but taking responsibility is where real change starts. You’ve got more control than you think! Instead of dwelling on what’s going wrong, focus on what you can change. You’ve got the power to turn things around — it’s all in your hands.

These bad habits? They’re not serving you, and it’s time to leave them in the past. Letting go of what’s holding you back will clear the way for bigger, better things. You’re already halfway there just by recognizing what needs to change. So let go, level up, and watch your life get a little more beautiful, one habit at a time.