#perhaps directed

[austinasleep]

me rn bc my teacher crush moved schools 💔💔

he's gone and it has changed me forever

[austinasleep]

idk im euphoric rn and feel like DEATH plz be mean 2 meeeee! ✨✨✨

[uncanny-tranny]

I think it's so relatable to see trans women and transfem and generally people who no longer have a testosterone-dominant system describing what it was like to have a testosterone-dominant system. I find that often, when they talk about being angry, depressed, irate, or just irritable, I relate because that was me before I went on testosterone. I was so fucking angry and irate and genuinely unpleasant to exist around because I didn't have testosterone.

See, I think instead of estrogen or testosterone being the "bad, angry" hormone, it's more like... of course trans people who need hormones are going to be unpleasant before getting hormones - both your body and your brain require that you have a certain level of hormone balance. Of course somebody like me was fucking furious all the time, the brain does weird shit when its needs aren't fulfilled!

This isn't about criticizing any one group of trans people, rather, I encourage people to remember that ascribing inherent qualities to certain traits (e.g., saying "estrogen is such a horrible hormone!") isn't necessarily good. It's absolutely fine to talk about personal experiences with pre-transition, I do that all the time! The only issue is bioessentializing hormones, in essence, ascribing inherentness to traits we often share.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

i swear, some episodes of the x files are like: "mulder is the most special and smartest boy in all the land because he figured out where bigfoot lives. and scully calculated the chemical composition of alien poison, saving 800 people from horrific deaths, but that is just a normal tuesday for her. isn't mulder so smart?"

[fatedroses]

And some days, I just wish you wouldn't look at me at all.

[featherymainffins]

I hate to say it but I might have to admit that Redditors can be pretty based sometimes

[travelling-hydaelyn]

Lahabrea possessed Thancred before this questline even started which means these are back to back Laha interactions. Here is how he greets the WoL in the Waking Sands immediately after his Disney villain introduction.

Meanwhile in Minfilia's solar:

presumably he took a brief break from running Alphinaud's errands to go dramatically laugh at the WoL

[hoshiina]

pairing: hoshina soushirou x gn!reader (no prns)

summary: he struggled to fall in love while you struggled to value your life the way you valued others, entire fic is inspired by one line from nandemonaiyo by macaroni empitsu

warnings: not suicidal acts but it is very selfless behaviour from the reader, reader does not exactly fear death, hoshina calls you "darling"

wc: 1500

Hoshina Soushirou struggled to fall in love, to accept that he was in love without feeling so terribly vulnerable, and you knew this. On the other hand, you struggled to value your own life the way you valued others, and he knew this. And surprisingly, or perhaps unfortunately, this combination pieced together your relationship far better than one would expect.

You were a platoon leader in the 3rd division, and you’ve been for quite a while now. You were good at what you did, bringing people together and livening up the mood when times got dark. Still, you were strong enough to not only get the job done, but also to cover for your officers when things got tough. While you enjoyed what you did, and took pride in the position you were given, you weren’t exactly fond of it anymore.

You were sick and tired of seeing your officers die, and the thought of them gone kept you up at night. Not to mention there was nothing could get rid of the guilt you felt when you had to inform their loved ones of their passing. Well, perhaps you didn’t have to inform them personally, but to you, it was the least you could do. But it hurt you so much, no matter the number of times you’ve gone through it through all these years. Even if it was inevitable considering your job, and even if it wasn’t something you had much control over, you just couldn’t get used to it— nor did you really want to. So a few years back, you had sworn that you’d protect your officers, even if it meant you’d lose your life. If risking your life was going to save theirs, there wasn’t even a need to hesitate, you’d do it every single time.

And Hoshina knew this. He knew you would and he also knew there was no stopping you at this point, because he agreed. He was the vice-captain of the 3rd division, he knew exactly how you felt and couldn’t agree more. He also knew that you took these passings to your heart. He knew the thoughts kept you up at night, and he knew just how much they broke your heart. So subconsciously, he tried not to get attached. He had locked up his feelings after a while and so he loved you a little— just a little. He was good at this too, because he naturally struggled to fall in love in the first place. He struggled to accept he was in love.

And as horrible as this sounded, you knew this and you wanted him to, because when it comes down to it, if you were to leave him behind, what you were doing would be no different. And that was the last thing you wanted to do— leave someone who loved you behind.

While this sounded like nothing more than a broken relationship, at the end of the day you were undeniably in love with him and he was as well— there was no doubting that. Although he didn't believe in being with someone while constantly on the brink of death, he still loved you and he still wished to be by your side, the same way you were absolutely in love with him. So this was just the way it was.

It was obvious whenever one of your officers passed, it was always all over your face. As soon as you walked into your shared unit, even if you put on a smile and laughed, he’d see it in your eyes right away. He’d sense it in the way you walked and the way you talked. The way you’d be a little zoned out, and sounded terribly exhausted.

Every time this happened, he made you a warm cup of tea and squeezed your cheeks as he gave you a warm kiss, and you’d realize that he caught on again. Today was one of those days again.

“It’s not your fault, darling,” he said. “You did everything you could, I know this. You know this.”

“Sorry, I don’t mean to mope around and ruin your day,” you said, and he shook his head. “I’m just a little tired of myself, for watching my coworkers who followed my lead and trusted my orders to just… die. Also, horribly ashamed to face their family— I could never apologize enough.”

“Yeah, that’s probably the hardest part,” he said.

“I know they don’t blame me, nor do they show how lost they are when they’re in front of me,” you said. “But when they’re alone, at night, they’ll start to think. It’s always harder for those left behind.”

“I won’t ever leave you behind,” he said as he kissed your forehead.

“Oh, don’t say that now,” you said. “When I’m gone you better not mope around. You're going to go find someone who won’t go dying on you any moment. You better not miss me.”

“Oh, don’t you say that. We’re not trying to jinx anything over here,” he said, flicking you on the forehead, which you quickly put your hand over. “Besides I’ll be fine. You know this.”

You did, and it made you smile. While even you thought it’d break your heart to hear the man you loved say he’d be fine without you, it was still a bit of a relief to you. This was okay.

“But really, you’d better not leave me behind,” you said.

“I would never,” he said.

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

He’d be lying if he said this didn’t break his heart a little, but he did find strange comfort in it. Or he used to at the very least. He had always been this way, it had always scared him to fall in love, to find someone important to him, and become someone important to someone. So being in a relationship came with a large sense of guilt for him, because he was never able to let go of himself and love, and he feared how unfair this was. But now, he could just love you a little, and detach himself from the rest. It was easier for him to do so.

It was supposedly, exactly what he wanted.

Yet, every time there was a mission he thought about you. He thought about whether you’d do something reckless today, or whether you’d come home injured. He prayed that none of your officers would be in danger, because he knew you’d be fine alone. He wished that you’d come home that night and scold him again for staying up too late or drinking coffee at 3 in the morning. He hoped that you’d laugh if he were to crack the stupid joke he came up with just now, and you’d make him laugh in the morning over some silly mistake you'd complain about.

He hoped that you wouldn’t leave him behind.

“Oh,” he said.

“What is it, Hoshina?” Okonogi asked.

“Sorry, nothing,” he said. “I’ll stop spacing out.”

“Rather unlike you, to be,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “I fear it is.”

It truly was rather unlike him to be hopelessly in love, and to know that he was. He was hopelessly in love with you.

This just wasn’t the right time to realize, because he had a horrifying number of kaiju to deal with in front of him. Each one of them separately would not have been a problem for him, but there were just so many— not to mention they were working together. He’d be fine though, because he promised he wouldn’t leave you behind, and who was he to be breaking a promise with you?

Soon after, Okonogi had made the decision to call people over to support him, and immediately you rushed over. You knew you had your platoon to be watching over and you weren’t the closest to him, but none of that mattered. If he was gone, you’d truly be nothing, even if that wasn’t the same for him with you.

Yet, by the time you had made it he had already neutralized every last kaiju.

“Soushirou!” you yelled, rushing over to him. He was so beaten up as he lay on the ground, absolutely still, it took everything in you to not think about the worst. Until he raised his arm to give you a weak thumbs up. “You absolute asshole. You promised you wouldn’t leave me behind.”

He smiled as you reached his side.

“You’ll be okay,” you said, sounding more like you were trying to convince yourself. “The ambulance is coming.”

“You know, I was thinking,” he said, and immediately you shot him a glare as if to warn him that this better be good if he’s wasting his breath on it.

But it was.

“Darling, I’d die if you left me behind.”

[originalartblog]

Im sure you can still fit one more in there!!!

He believes in you↑

If this goes on for any longer I'm gonna have to open an actual daycare or something

(part 1) - (part 2)

@inkingkitsune, @ask-dazai-osamu-anything, @insanebsdfan

[frogayyyy]

Joan Winston on the set of 'Turnabout Intruder'

Monday:

Tuesday:

from Star Trek Lives! by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Sondra Marshak, and Joan Winston

plus this because where's the blooper:

(from monday just after he found out. oj simpson was. also there)

[fullmetal-scar-simping]

Average fma fan talking about 03 positively: Man, it's such a miracle that the 2003 anime is written even halfway decently! After all, the writers who, as we know, have never written anything in their lives before [citation needed], they had to work while locked in individual underground cells [citation needed], only fed scraps of fma lore by Arakawa herself [citation needed] while her story was actually fully formed by the first printing of her manga in Monthly Shonen Gangan [citation needed] but they were adapting the initial first volume of manga and oopsy-daisy shot past it [citation needed], so they made up every plot beat, character arc, storyboard, and lore change completely on the fly and very randomly [citation needed]. Even though they tried to 1:1 adapt her story [citation needed, contradicted by existing sources], they fumbled the job and butchered her story, characters, and lore. Arakawa sagely forgave them [citation needed]. But somehow it's a cohesive story?! Wow! Even though the story is sad, dark, scares me, makes me cry, violent, gorey, and my fave ships aren't endgame, so -50 demerits. Still, good job team! A treat! A treat for the monkeys working the typewriters at Studio Bones circa 2002-2004! #fullmetal alchemist brotherhood

[sob-dylan]

i don’t “believe” in virginity in the sense that the concept and how it’s deployed is unfeminist, homophobic, and all around deeply dehumanizing—especially the idea that your virginity can be “taken” from you and that your first sexual experience is a subtractive act—BUT i do believe in the concept of virginity for one person and one person only: a little blond twink from louisiana named randolph bradley.

randy bradley: the world’s only true virgin. he’s like the last unicorn of virgins to me.

[jamiethebee]

(In which I spiral down a rabbit hole with Midoriya that has little to do with @codenamesazanka 's original post that started this (x).  FYI I sorta separated Deku/Izuku to indicate Deku as the hero and Izuku as the person outside of heroics.)

I started thinking about this post again (see the link above) and how Deku doesn’t really understand that non-perfect or sanitized victims exist AND still need to be saved and not by destruction. (The "maybe killing someone does save them" thing is a great way to assuage guilt but it's a stupid copout.)  Deku (hero) and more importantly Izuku (person) doesn’t really understand that though because he WAS a “perfect” victim.  Midoriya stayed quiet and inconspicuous and didn’t make a fuss about the bullying or discrimination he faced, he just kept his head down and hoped that something would change without any real effort on his part.  And if he had died as a result from the bullying he would’ve been hailed as an unfortunate victim (of who? or what? Don’t worry - isn’t his death so tragic? oh well now on to our next news story -), so any critique of society and the individuals who reinforce the status quo don’t actually have to do anything.  I know there’s more nuance here and lot of cultural things happening with this all but I’m not gonna dig into that right now.

Moving on!  Quite frankly the boy didn’t live long enough to get out of his childish mindset and get some “righteous" anger at the wrongdoings and failings of society.  All Might came along when he was still starry eyed and hopeful to lift Midoriya out of the trajectory of his life and Izuku never had any time to get to the point where he comes to terms with the hurt caused society’s rejection of his self and get angry about it.  As such, he can’t understand the league.  It probably doesn’t even occur to him that he's missing that understanding because for him it worked out - he got the attention and support to be able to escape the circumstances of his birth/quirklessness and to leave the box (deku) that society shoved him in. Twice and Toga never had that support – they both lived how they needed to in order to survive in a world not meant for them until they broke down.  (Maybe that's why Vigilante Deku AUs were so popular back in the day - they speedran Midoriya past the hopeful kid stage and to a point where a lot of the fanbase was in their own lives - seeing the issues in the world and wanting to affect change.)

Izuku, for all that he claims to want to connect to the villains, hasn’t given enough thought or empathy to understand how continuing to live a life where you don’t fit in with society can be deeply hurtful as well as the emotional repercussions of having unchangeable parts about yourself be reviled.  This isn’t to say Izuku had it easy -  of course Izuku went through hardships but.... there’s a big difference between living through stuff as a kid and finding a way out of it vs living through that, growing up, maturing, and in turn looking critically at society.  But I can’t bring myself to fault Midoriya for those exact reasons because he's just a kid. He doesn’t have the perspective to see outside of himself – at least not for the villains.  Because that seems to be too far of a stretch for him?  But Todoroki was close enough to Izuku’s mindset for him to help back in the sports festival arc.  I also acknowledge that he's a teenager and IS capable of critical thinking, but from what we've seen, his schools have never actually made the students examine the world they live in - which is a different skill from quirk analysis or historical or literary analysis or the various writing exercises that students go through. 

(Believe me – you can have the brightest kid but, most of the time, unless you point out the shortcomings of their mindsets, it won’t occur to them to look further.  (Not necessarily assuming that they’re wrong, but rather that their consideration of life is not as expansive as it should be. Especially for a kid wanting to be the greatest hero and save everyone.)  For example: many abled bodied people don’t realize how inaccessible places can be until someone brings it up to them or they find themselves in that situation (like a temporary crutch or wheelchair).  It’s through no fault of the able bodied person that they weren’t aware enough to consider it in the first place, but what they do once they realize physical accessibility is an issue, is on them.)  Back to the point – hero society never calls attention to it’s own shortcomings despite the proof quite obviously existing and the people within society don’t seem to spare much thought either. The adults who have seen more of these instances are then of course more culpable in this than the kids who haven't.

So, Midoriya was also failed by society (cough all might cough) as well, but he chose the hero path - to save people. We see him starting to consider the deeper issues in his talk with Uraraka, and the few times he “tries” to talk to various villains shows that he is aware enough of underlying issues - which makes it his duty as a hero to do something about it.  In that way, he is at fault. He chose a profession to devote his life to that should require this of him.  And through his hero work, Midoriya has seen the problems in society and yet he’s chosen to turn away from them (and by problems/them I’m referring to the villains “too far gone to save” and the issues they represent). 

(Sorry Midoriya, but considering we’re nearing the end and you haven’t shown any growth in this area….. I am faulting you for metaphorically pushing your head in the sand.  I do want to be wrong though.  I really want the kid to prove me wrong.)

And he’s able to turn away from them guilt free, in part, because he’s gotten the proverbial thumbs up by his classmates that it’s ok and that they’ll just be better and be model minority heroes and that will fix the problem! Because they’re positive representation!  Or something?  If you can put your mind to it that will fix things! Just try harder! Again, very idealistic but they are kids, so it comes with the territory.  (Horikoshi didn’t have to make them unquestionably right in that approach though.  Toga and Uraraka coming together for the win! The Shoji and Spinner match up not so much.)

Overall, there’s something about how Deku still fit into society's boxes in an acceptable way and never truly faced what existing outside of "acceptability" was like.  Don’t get me wrong it’s tough to live in the mha world as a quirkless person and of course it has its problems and restrictions, but that’s still a box that society provides for, even if the society in question doesn’t like it. 

And I'm not saying that Izuku had to live through a terrible life to understand the villains!  Just that, he has the capacity to look outside himself and be empathetic, but the application of it is lacking, despite knowing there’s problems, despite having LIVED with some of those problems. Extrapolate, boy!!!! You don't need empathy to reach out to others but the whole compassionate/kind Midoriya thing has been touted since the beginning! So I want to see it!

(Not sure how much sense this will make to people, but there’s a maturity that comes about with either time or certain circumstances that can be hard to grasp unless you’ve lived through it.  And quite frankly, Midoriya hasn’t. He went from a perfect/acceptable victim to the top tier of society (heroes).)

(Basically: Midoriya never **matured in the restrictive environment he grew up in and can't emotionally connect with the league who did, because of that. Instead he seems to have internalized the "if they were better" or "if they were truly good" then there wouldn't be a problem because just look at his classmater!, so villains being villains is their own fault and no one else is culpable.)

**centers on the idea that someone starts off as hopeful in regards to their discriminated position in life and over time matures to understand how society supports that discrimination and come to terms with the hurt that it's caused them personally (and in this case to fight back against it)

also, if you made it this far, i'm just having a fun time reading codenamesazanka's posts about the latest chapters

[thermodynamic-comedian]

if this take gets me in trouble im just gonna blame sea-induced madness because im on a boat rn but like. lonelyeyes could be a polycule and still be equally divorced AND still called lonelyeyes. if you put gertrude robinson in there. in this essay i will [red dot appears on my forehead]

[utilitycaster]

I think something important to remember in actual play is that character backstory is neither an itinerary for the GM to follow nor a to-do list for the player to check off, but rather a means to provide context for the character's motivations, how they got to where they are now, and how they will respond to whatever comes up. It's not a scripted work, so you can't just make a character follow a specific arc.

It's an extension of something I've said before, that creating characters outside the context of a specific D&D game has never really made sense to me because the GM's direction should be integral to your character creation. At best you can have a very loose concept that you drastically expand upon to fit a particular game. If you're about to play Curse of Strahd, for example, you aren't going to be exploring a complex personal history in Candlekeep. You can certainly be informed by a complex personal history in Candlekeep, and quite honestly should be informed by some kind of complex personal history somewhere! But in the game, you're going to be going into Barovia and dealing with Strahd. And you made a character based in Candlekeep because your GM said "we're playing in the Forgotten Realms". Your character is in that context as well: someone who'd have reason to go to Barovia, from the world in which Barovia exists.

Unsurprisingly, I'm talking about this because of Critical Role Campaign 3, and look, if I am wrong about what I say in this paragraph please feel free to bring up this post and say "you were wrong" but I just do not think this campaign is ever going to not be about the moon and the gods. I think there's ways it could have been about those things and still have had room for more downtime or personal excursions. I think that "pulpier and deadlier" wasn't wrong, but perhaps the cast could have benefited from more guidance in the same way that "this campaign is going to be spookier and deadlier" would not necessarily be a good way to tell your players that they're going to be playing Curse of Strahd, but it is what it is. That doesn't mean character backstories won't be explored (and honestly, I think they've all had at least a moment in the sun) but it isn't the focus, it's never really been the focus, and speaking only for myself that's been apparent for, at minimum, nearly 18 months.

It also doesn't mean you have to like it, nor that you can't complain. But there's always been hanging threads or unexplored elements. There's the obvious limitations of Pike's story given that Ashley was unable to be at the table much of the time, but we never really went deep into Scanlan's parents - and we didn't have to, because the purpose of Scanlan's mother being killed by goblins wasn't "we're going to avenge her"; it was to explain why he'd become a wandering bard and to inform how Sam played him. The Robert Sharpe plot for Jester never got much play because really, it was mostly as an establishing character moment and the reason why she left Nicodranas, not something that needed an extensive arc (nor something Laura seemed terribly interested in pursuing). We've never met Sabian or Tori; the twins never went back to Byroden during the campaign; Keyleth didn't find Vilya herself; Percy ended the campaign still with a lot of damage.

Which brings me to the final point which is that as anyone who's played a character-centric, GM-ed, longform advancement-style TTRPG should hopefully know, if there is a disconnect with what you as a player want to explore and with what your GM wants to play, and it's not in conflict with what was made clear from the start (ie, you didn't show up to the game the GM said would be Curse of Strahd and get mad that it was Curse of Strahd) it is the responsibility of the player to signal both in and out of game that this is something they want. If they don't, the GM will not know. But also, if you're wishing your favorite C3 character's backstory was explored in more depth, that character exists within the context of the moon plot. That is a part of who they are; they've grown around that plot and extricating them from it would necessarily destroy parts of them. You can tell a butterfly effect story, certainly, in which things were different, but that's ultimately fanfiction and neither a theory nor what should have happened nor is it an injustice to the character that it didn't happen. It's just what you wanted to have happened.

[noneedtofearorhope]

"i don't think it's right to tell everyone in the developing world that americans get to have 1st world quality of life for a little bit but that this was bad and no one else can ever live a life that good ever again."

love the way this just doesn't even question bourgeois standards of what makes a life 'good'.

also just... why not say 'its not fair to proles that billionaires get to have a quality of life built on the backs of their own suffering for a bit but this was bad and no one else can ever live off the expense of others ever again'?