#that and we're at a point in his life

[thewolfisawake]

Man, I feel I've been letting too much babygirl show through with Bal. But I don't wanna just do bloodbath for the sake of it, you know? I swear he does more stuff. I'm just an idiot.

[jesncin]

batman: so by splitting the work between former League members, Young Justice team, and current League members we were able to take down a good portion of the meta child trafficking ring and bring one of the leaders of the operation to justice.

wonder woman: but you lied in order to do that. do you feel bad that you had to lie. to do that.

batman (a vigilante): ,,? not. not really.

[morrigan-sims]

And I forget sometimes I'm just flesh and bone.

As he stands in the ruined bathroom, all Rook can think is, At least now I can breathe.

[arospecsyourblockdudes]

i love liushen as much as the next guy but i dont know how theyd ever end up together. liu qingge as a person is not the type of guy to be in touch with his emotions like at all and shen qingqiu just doesnt ever really know whats going on esp when hes being hit on. doomed to be a couple of lesbians constantly going on dates and neither of them know it

[eastbluecrewed]

things you can't get back

aka i've been waiting so patiently to see kidd get his ass beat by shanks (affectionate)

[b0nelessdoodles]

screw it i'm posting the other little chunk of this silly little au thing 'cause i want to and it might motivate me to idk clean it up and finish it yippee!

[levemetal]

Retired happy Junmei for no reason at all except let them be happy post-canon that's all.

[fellamarsh]

another thing i've been trying to do recently is read more self-published stuff. "but fell," you say, "you're a self-published author. surely you've been reading self-published stuff all along" and then i laugh for so long in response we both become uncomfortable.

see, the fear (which has for a long time been killing my mind) that i'll read other self-published stuff and find out that it's so much better than mine that i might as well stop writing forever kept me from doing that basically ever. i have a hard time not unfavorably comparing my work to others and had convinced myself i was being smart by withholding an avenue of de-motivation (reader: i was not being smart). it also doesn't help that i'm pretty low income and have a hard time spending money on books i haven't already read, and that self-published stuff isn't always available at the library---but really a lot of it was just me being a coward. which i'm working on. i could talk about how this particular cowardice is Very Silly, but i think enough has been said about it on writeblr and in the Writing Space in general that i don't feel the need to (though i will if anyone wants me to).

instead, i wanna talk about the self-published things i have read in the past few months and ask about the self-published things you love!

so: what happened was i got real sick, and while i was real sick i (naturally) read over 200,000 words of ace attorney fan fiction in the span of a few days. eventually i got bored of it (and also maybe annoyed at how people were characterizing some of my guys), but i still wanted to read something gay and romantic and nice, something i knew was gonna end happily, which isn't my typical fare.

now you may be saying (having gotten over all the uncomfortable laughter from earlier) "fell, you write gay romance. what do you mean that's not your typical fare?" listen. until a couple months ago i hadn't read a cut and dry romance novel since before i finished college. for context: i graduated in 2015. i know it doesn't make sense. i'm a guy who doesn't make sense.

but in this case it worked to my advantage. not the not making sense thing, but the not having read Published Romance in 1000 years thing. I didn't know where to start. I was very skeptical of everything the library had Available Now in the Gay Fantasy Romance category. what if it was all bad and also not good?

and then i scrolled past the familiar cover of our very own @ashen-crest's A Rival Most Vial.

now this was comfortable territory! this was a novel by a very nice writeblr person whose posts i enjoy! i already loosely knew the plot, i was familiar with the characters, i knew the names of things like rosemond street and the griffin's claw and that ambrose had blue hair and that at the end of it all there would definitely be Boyfriends. i didn't have to worry that this would be bad! i only had to worry that it would be really good!

but i wasn't worried about that, because i was officially Not Writing at the time, and because why the hell hadn't i read this book yet Ash literally emailed me some very kind words last year when my cat died??

Y'all, I devoured ARMV. If you haven't read it yet---especially if cozy fantasy is more your thing than it is mine---you should check it out Immediately. It was fun! It was heartwarming! It was sweet and earnest and confident! I was delighted to find it was occasionally hot! Ambrose and Eli snuggled up into my sick exhausted heart and found a permanent little place there. (Especially Ambrose. I have such a thing for Stiff Guys who Kind of Suck for Tragic Backstory Reasons and are So So Lonely They Don't Even Realize It. gawd)

(And a very small part of my brain spent the whole time wondering why I had been so afraid to really engage with the work my community is doing. The community that I'm in. The one I'm a part of. Why?! Maybe more on that later.)

But from there the curse was broken! I immediately devoured @stjohnstarling's What Manner of Man in a similar sort of frenzy (and hooooly shit guys am I excited for the expanded, finalized version to come out at the end of next month!) and started digging into @lurinatftbn's The Flower that Bloomed Nowhere (which I can already tell is going to be an All Time Favorite).

And now I want to ask you what your favorite self-published books are so that I can read them, too, but I think I will in another post that doesn't dedicate so much space to talking about my various and sundry Issues and isn't Terminally Long

[redgoldblue]

for the love of god someone add tommy to the 118 group chat

[viric-dreams]

Local Sequencer hasn't gotten regular and rejuvenating sleep since 1872.

[coollyinterferes]

The unmistakable sound of footsteps approaching begins to fill the air. Whoever is coming seems to have brought some company along…

They are getting closer… and closer… and closer…

…and closer…

……until..................

"Goooooood evenin'!!" Comes the loud greeting from a certain blond man. A big smile on his face and all.

"We beg your pardon for our prolonged absence. It was completely beyond our control..." Then adds the gentleman standing by his side, apologizing on behalf of both, offering a genuine smile along with the apology.

"...BUT! We're back!" And hopefully for good this time…

[byfulcrums]

Something I love about ATLA is that it doesn't force the "forgive the villain" on all the characters. It's been left clear that Ozai is a bad person, and there's no chance of redemption; the only reason he's not dead yet is because Aang is a pacifist

The one episode where a character is supposed to forgive someone who has hurt them in the past is the one where Katara is off to kill a man (which, fair) and Zuko helps. In that episode, even if Aang is telling her to let go, she doesn't forgive him. She never will. But she spares him. Not because she thinks he doesn't deserve death (he does), but because she's not willing to continue the cycle of violence

Killing someone can have a very important impact in your entire being, mostly depending on who you are as a person. Aang would've never recovered from killing Ozai. Katara wouldn't be who she is now, had she taken her revenge on the man that killed her mother

And the best part of it is that Ozai doesn't deserve to die. Not in a "I'm defending him" way (ew), but in a "he deserves worse that than" way

Taking away his bending was the perfect punishment for him. He believed bending made you superior and he never cared enough to train something besides his bending. What a loser. Zuko and Azula wouldn't be restrained by something like that

He's alive. Nobody has forgiven him. Nobody ever will

[shadystranger]

"The fandom unnecessarily villainizes sam and dean for choosing each other over strangers when it's literally how humans work" great critic but I actually think the fandom (those interested in the brothers' relationship) are reacting to it how they're meant to: in a negative light.

To trace things back, yes, it's a given, kind of an innate human nature to respond in situations by prioritizing the people you know over ones you don't. That is true. On an individual basis, each person would do this, I would do this, and anyone'd be crazy to villainize this act on my and your part. But sam and dean do it, and it's painted in this hyperbolic moral degeneration light both by the narrative (we could argue) and by the fandom. Because see, sam and dean are a little different than you and me.

They're positioned in their world as tragic heroes who, given the nature of their job, are expectedly deprived of things the normal person could enjoy. They don't get to lead normal lives, they don't die by natural causes, and they must navigate through life bearing more than they must know with soul-crippling responsibilities. "We're the people who save the world," sam and dean don't spend much time before they assume the token role of saviors in their world. Along with that role comes even more imposed limitations.

They are more viscerally equipped and knowledgeable. They have access to things randoms could never dream of having (like death and god). The more you know, the worse you sleep and comes with the mere knowing is the obligation to do something about it. Someone ignorant to the whole ordeal simply doesn't have to answer to it.

Basically, they're soldiers. Imagine samdean reporting for duty, they preserve peace of the public and their blind following to decision moral rightness is taken for granted. It comes with the job. You don't get to make ill-advised progress in your self-interest as a person (sth random ppl can enjoy) when several lives are at stake.

At some point, sam and dean themselves are metaphoricaly acting Gods: people's survival or death depends on them. Sometimes, it's a city's worth of population. Other times, it's the entire world. Their right to free-decision making stops depending only on its virtuous intent and starts being consequential. They're elevated to adhere to higher standards and criteria than normal people are held to.

The rightness of their actions will not be determined among a set of feasible options but instead assessed by whether they chose the option with the best consequences. Or not. The main decision-making factor for "heroes" like them should be putting the general welfare at its fore interest. Not one individual's. Especially not if it's one individual's.

When dean and/or sam sacrifices someone stranger to save his brother, it's a subjective good call I can relate and see myself in it, but given their position within the universe it's irresponsible and far objectively wrong; especially if at the cost of saving his brother, several others suffered.

There are criteria for judging the actions of the pivotal role they uphold. From a subjective moralness standpoint, sam and dean are only humans, and they can be cut some slack or even not at all villainized for doing what their instinct demands. On the other hand, moral objectiveness influenced by the world-setting's structure deems the goodness or badness of how they behave based on the particular consequences of their given actions and whether said actions affected people in good or bad ways. If sam and dean did something that brought peace to the world on the whole and reduced suffering, it's good and logical, whereas if said action caused suffering and threatened peace, it's bad.

dean grudgingly accepting sam’s plan to overtake lucifer even though it meant losing his brother is the objectively morally good choice to make. He had to sacrifice his precious family, but he ultimately was rational and responsible enough to know his brother's life is not a fair trade-off to millions. both sam and dean here act in accordance with their positions within the story/world: they're heroes. But by S8 dean doesn't let sam make a similar sacrifice. He prioritizes sam's life over the many who'll be possessed and will either kill others or be killed themselves. sam releases a world-ending evil to save his brother, and later on, both take turns facilitating the guy who practically promises them an apocalypse to once again save each other.

"The good of any one person is no more important from the point of view of the universe than the good of any other." sam or dean's lives aren't more important than someone else's, this was a point so base sam felt the need to make because it needed to be addressed, their lack of changing anything about it is another matter. Thing is they're the world's designated saviors be it by choice or not, the narrative views them as the fact, they're expected to value the well-being of all individuals equally, regardless of their personal closeness. Imagine a firefighter postponing saving you because someone he knows is more important even when the situation for them is not as grave as you. It'd be unethical and worthy of condemnation because in this line of work, and in general when your job is saving people and work towards the greater good, you do it indiscriminately, you don't get to privilege the well-being of yourself or your family over the well-being of distant others.

sam and dean hold a rightful consequentialist commitment to their actions being as good as possible: the basis on which one outcome is better than another is only if it contains a greater sum total of people's betterment. No impartiality.

Yes, it's his brother, his only family, but it's still morally wrong to prioritize him (in their case). Let's use a patriotism allegory. Imagine a general of a losing army. He catches wind of the enemy's secret bases or is exposed to confidentials enough to turn the tide to his side. However, he finds out his family at home is being held hostage. The moment he reveals what he knows, they get killed. A man has to save his family it's the most basic human instinct, yes, but you'd think it's irredeemably wrong for him to prioritize his family in this case. You'd think he doesn't even have the right to choose when it's a choice between two insignificant people and the entire country being infiltrated and invaded, with the deaths of million soldiers and citizens. It's not even a choosing matter. sam and dean are the general in this scenario, and instead of the country being at stake, it's sometimes the entire population they're throwing to the fire for each other. Anyone'd think it's messed up. You're supposed to.

There is a good reason to save your family (brother) over a stranger (or two, or hundred or million); but labeling both actions as right would risk ignoring the important moral difference between the two. And we need to draw an account of what a hero is obliged to do in order to meet minimal moral standards. sam and dean's constant moral failure to meet such standard despite their role in their universe paints them as flawed, sometimes as the story's designated antichrist.

Their ceaseless prioritizing of themselves marks their moral debauchery and decline as heroes. they get away with not fulfilling their obligations that are thrust upon them by design, they're using a cheat code acting not how they're supposed to and that's the characters/narrarive's grip with them. I don't blame corbin for what he did, while It’s extremely wrong that he tried killing sam, it was a call for survival. Your savior normally doesn’t come with conditions. He was faced with an oddity from the typical rescue mission. And he did what he had to ensure the more number of people survives. We sympathize with sam and dean, so we criminalize corbin immediately and side with dean. We're swept by emotions and our judgment is clouded you could say but from a utility standpoint, dean's decision to stay with a dying sam would've lead to four people's death, or three and one heavily wounded meanwhile corbin's leads to three people's survival and the loss of one. With corbin, more lives are saved, with one unfortunate but necessary sacrifice. Morally and objectively, corbin was more right in choking sam than dean was in staying.

[yuridovewing]

the erins will write the most horrifying realistic depictions of abusive relationships and then go online like "omg we literally invented the most wholesome romance..."

[beliscary]

look at him. he hasn't slept in three days bc he isn't ...impolitic about the emperor like his boyfriend is and he knows that when you strike at a king you must kill him

[subsequentibis]

made up some guys to engage in shrinking shenanigans. theyre terrible people and i enjoy them deeply

dr. alfred "alfie" kauffstein is a world class scientist who's committed all future inventions and progress to the ownership of a Shady Space Corporation in exchange for a lifetime of funding. he's working on perfecting true, reversible shrinking technology, none of the pseudo-compression that deep space transport companies are using these days. he has the formula down pat, and now it's just a matter of perfecting the method of application - rays, serums, pills, etc, etc.

robin "robbie" cosmique is a world class scumbag who needed a legit job while he laid low and let the legal consequences of his last get rich quick scheme blow over. the Shady Space Corporation is always looking for ways to keep costs low and the personnel budget is the first to get slashed, so instead of any kind of accredited or qualified scientific expert to assist dr. kauffstein, they hired robbie. he and alfie are always at odds, but nonetheless manage to work rather well together - though they're also the only guinea pigs around for alfie's experiments. robbie will eventually get fired when it's discovered he's been sneaking samples of the shrinking serum for yet another harebrained scheme, but for now they're making the best of it.