#there's not a point to this post i just think the way my brain works is funny

[thehoneybeet]

this is a lovely discussion, and i love the concept of social recognition euphoria and same-hat intimacy, and i want to talk more about it, and what we mean when we say 'community'.

(@letteredlettered just made some very similar points in this post as I was drafting this, but i'll put this here anyway!)

going back to the initial post, i think i'm interpreting the Big Feelings somewhat differently than even the OP of that post. to me, this is not about comments or kudos, really, at all. it's about someone whose work was that 'same hat', same-aesthetic thing, who discovered that there was a whole private community of people same-hatting with each other about the author's work without extending that invitation to them. it's about realising there is a whole community of people who like the same things you like, who clearly adore your writing, who have the same hat, but have no interest or desire to have a hat-discussion with you about it. and that can hurt.

a comment is just an entry point into community. i have found community with some amazing people because of comments i've left on their fics, or comments they have left on mine. a comment, i think, isn't a goal in itself. it isn't the end - it's a beginning. it's a doorway.

whether a reader wants to open that door is up to them, as others have said better than i can. but that's not really what the root of this is about, to me. as others have said, quantifying kudos/comments is a poor substitute for the qualitative, soul-warming kind of witnessing and wet-braining that makes the fandom experience so wonderful. when you have a community who get your work, whose energy you can mingle with, it gets easier to not care about how many kudos or comments you have. and likewise, i think bad feelings surrounding kudos/comments are in a way, a facade for the the thing that hurts more - feeling the absence of that kind of connection.

as yiikes said, we aren't owed this nourishment, but i want to extend the conversation a bit into thinking more about how we create community with each other and other people we haven't met yet. what do we owe each other?

what they said at the end feels like the heart of things: "there are huge appetites for structures and practices in fandom that make that kind of intimacy easier for newcomers to find."

i've been here for a little while - longer than some, not as long as others. and lately, at least around my corner of things, i have seen a proliferation of a particular kind of fandom experience: the invite-only server, the private ao3 challenge, groups and experiences that you need to be in-the-know about to even begin to participate in. that, essentially, require an invitation.

these spaces can be wonderful, and there is absolutely room in fandom for these things. close friendships are some of the yummiest food in fandom. but often, the unintentional side effect of squeeing about these things publicly is that other people will see it (after the fact, at the end of challenge, etc.), and wonder how they too can participate, how they too can be inside, and they won't know. often, the view from the outside looks like a window, rather than a door.

i guess what i'm trying to say is that while we don't necessarily owe people comments, or conversations, or membership in our circles, i do think we owe each other to think about how we can engage in these things as kindly as possible. how we can make it easier for newcomers to ask to be invited in, how we can be more proactive about inviting, and most importantly, how we can encourage the kinds of community that don't require an invitation at all.

re - your last post, as a writer i find that to be an absurd take. people who write exclusively for validation probably shouldn't. if discovering your work is enjoyed and loved - just privately - is a dealbreaker for you, i think there are probably bigger issues that need to be worked through. the idea that we write fic for free and yet this discussion about "payment" through kudos/comments persists is so backwards and obnoxious.

sorry to tag you on this, obv you have nothing to do with op, but i just wanted to say - as a writer recs are a HUGE deal. to know that you liked something enough to share it with others is the biggest compliment for me personally. thanks for doing what you do.

I’m happy you reached out because this is a really interesting perspective. I definitely see increased messaging around comments = payment that pressures readers into thinking they are required to leave comments, and I agree that there are many layers in this convo that point out to a not-so-healthy relationship with fandom.

I find it hard to join this discussion not being an author myself, because I only have the privileged perspective. Ofc I understand how important feedback can be to boost newcomers and those who don’t feel part of the community. We all deal with insecurity in different ways and it’s hard to navigate a big fandom when you don’t have a group of friends to rely on. In the end the fandom experience is about a sense of belonging and it saddens me to realize that I might be part of the problem since my recs only reach Tumblr and my ao3 comments are far and few in between.

It’s funny because my blog has always targeted other readers: at the beginning I didn’t even tag authors and did not expect them to find or engage with my posts. Over the years the recs became more and more personal, until I realized I was writing them for myself. Sure, they are love letters to the fic and might help more people find them, but at the end of the day this is my little therapy corner where I can let go and babble around to my heart’s content 🙏🏼 I’ve always been proud of this blog and seeing that post gave me mixed feelings about it for the first time, so thank you for your message!

Again, I think this discussion has many layers and I’m a bit wary to get involved being a humble reader, but I’d be curious to see how others feel about it…

[itshermocrates]

Some thoughts on Vander and Silco's relationship

I already talked about this when Arcane S1 first came out, but now that the show is over and we got to see a different reality where everyone has a good ending (except for Vi I guess) I want to bring back my Silco x Vander thoughts

So yeah, vanco ?? silder ??? post

Even if in Arcane S1 there’s some sort of parallel between Jinx/Powder and Silco + Vi and Vander, in my eyes those two were made for an old man yaoi story

Now that we have seen Jayvik’s evolution and that glimpse of them together in a “better future”, I realized that Vander and Silco (+ Felicia) could have something similar to what was happening initially with Jayce and Viktor (+ Mel)

Two best friends working together for a common cause, one hopelessly in love with the other while his partner can’t see ―or doesn’t want to recognize― his own feelings. Since I already have a Jayvik analysis in my drafts, I’m going to focus on Silco and Vander

This will be half a theory - half a fic + I also posted this on BlueSky so yeah, if you see it there it was also me lol

[Pinning, Unrequited love and love confessions that go wrong ahead]

I think Silco and Vander were the perfect duo back in their youth, together they had the brains and the strength, using both charm and cold logic to make people eager to follow them. What Silco lacked, Vander was able to provide and vice versa. Together they were the greatest leaders Zaun could ever ask for.

They not only completed each other like two puzzle pieces, but also shared a bond that had been nurtured since childhood. They had been facing hardships and Piltover’s aggressions since they were little kids, so it was natural that the years of friendship brought them impossibly close.

Some even said that they could have entire conversations without exchanging a single word.

At some point Silco developed a crush on Vander, how could he not? Despite his strength and sometimes scary appearance, Vander had always been the big sunshine boy who was looking after him. That urge to protect and take care of others seemed to be part of his very essence, and if someone benefited from this, it was his best friend.

Of course, they needed to fight and get dirty in the deepest hellholes of Zaun, but even when Vander got his knuckles drenched in blood, Silco could only see the kind man with bright eyes and a dream for a better life that Vander truly was.

Silco really thought that this new beginning for them was only possible because Vander was there with him, since when hope seemed completely lost, when the circumstances took another member of their little family, Vander always remained firm in his stance. They would find a way, they would fight back, they would keep pushing forward and they wouldn’t stop until they finally had the future they deserved.

Oh, wasn’t he convincing? Always the beacon in their times of need, who else could lead them out of their misery?

Vander’s kindness was disarming, and his light was so bright that Silco couldn’t help but fall in love with him. He loved him so deeply it made him feel sick, but he could do nothing about it. Vander had been in love with Felicia for almost as long as Silco had loved him, and even if she wasn’t really interested in him, there was no way that man could get over his emotions.

Just like Silco himself couldn’t make his own feelings go away. He pinned for years, forcing himself to hide how he felt so nothing changed between them and he didn’t lose his best friend. He had to protect their friendship, but, above everything else, he had to protect their dream of a free nation for Zaun.

Silco pinned and suffered in silence until he couldn’t take it anymore, until his unrequited love felt like an open wound badly infected, moments away from killing him. Then, and only then, he confessed.

Vander didn’t make a huge deal out of it, he was understanding and visibly confused. It was an awkward situation, but he could be nothing but kind, even as he broke Silco’s heart. Of course, he didn’t feel the same.

Or maybe he did, but he was too blind to see it, too infatuated by the idea of a future with Felicia to give a shot to a real future with him.

Vander had used a very familiar word to excuse his lack of introspection, one that served him as a shield while unknowingly harming Silco as if it had used the sharpest of blades.

“Silco, you’re my brother…”

They used brotherhood a lot to describe their relationship. Their found family, their friends, their allies in the Zaun revolution and even the fucking pilts, they all could see how deeply they cared for each other. And every time that was the reason they assumed to be behind their bond.

No one could ever deny the love in their eyes, the protective gestures, the smiles... It was obvious, but everyone assumed that what they shared was a blood bond. For Silco it was much more than some stupid liquid running through their veins, what they shared had been built over years of companionship, years of pain and struggle, blood was fucking nothing in comparison. Their souls were connected in a way no one could ever imagine or understand.

And Vander knew this. He knew how strong their bond was, but he hadn't really asked himself if what he felt for Silco was something more than brotherhood. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do if it wasn’t the case either, but he didn’t go as far as to truly consider it.

Vander didn't know how to react to Silco's confession, he didn’t want to hurt him or change their world forever. He was happy as they currently were, it was easy to live with Silco as a brother, but he didn’t know what was waiting for them if he ever allowed himself to analyze his own feelings.

Because of this, and completely unaware of the pain he was causing, Vander uttered that seemingly harmless word that Silco couldn’t stand anymore.

Brother.

The softness in his tone didn’t make it any less devastating. The pain in his eyes, as he knew how badly he was breaking Silco's heart, didn’t make it easier to hear.

The countless "I love you"s he pronounced after that, reassuring that even if it was not the same feeling, Silco was still one of the most important people in his life didn’t soothe the agony of his reopened wound.

None of that mattered.

Because he didn't feel the same as Silco.

The same word that once had been forced on them was now stronger than anything he had built together.

Silco didn't want to feel that pain, he couldn't allow it to stay inside his chest, not when it was so profound.

So he decided to leave The Last Drop. It would be only for a couple of days, to distance himself a little from the source of his pain and try to stitch close that damned cut.

During that time, alone and completely heartbroken, he focused on thinking of ways to achieve the goal they had been fighting for since they were teenagers. The Zaunite revolution and Zaun’s independence. He ignored his pain and used all his anger to plan their next move in their fight against Piltover, thinking of new ways to finally defeat their enemy.

It was during those days, blinded by the pain of his aching heart, that he understood they could only win against Piltover if they showed their true nature to the world. He knew by then that they needed to be more aggressive in their methods and destabilize, not only their government, but also their peace.

Let their own people know what monsters they had for leaders.

Let the people of Piltover suffer the same pain they had suffered since the very moment the City of Progress came to be.

The fight had turned into a way for him to forget his own suffering, and in his anguish, provoking pain to others stopped feeling wrong at all if that meant they could get closer to their goal of freedom.

It was at this point where the conflict with Vander started. Suddenly, the word "brothers" didn't quite fit them anymore, it seemed too caring for them. Now it was a word pronounced in a low voice, and when it was Silco the one saying it, his tone could only express disgust. He rolls his eyes as if the word was some sort of sick joke he hated to voice out loud, a reminder of what could never be.

Silco’s pain is a heavy weight preventing them both from going back to what they once had, and seeing this wounded Vander every single time his friend reminded him of his rejection. This, and how differently they started to approach their fight, made them step further and further away from the other.

And when they saw each other during important meetings, Silco threw the word “brother” extremely carelessly, always with the intention to wound Vander instead of calming him and expressing how much he still loved him.

It had turned into a word that neither of them could ever forget, and that would hunt Silco until the end of his days.

It had turned into a word that neither of them could ever forget, and that would hunt Silco until the end of his days.

[There's still a lot of resentment in Silco's expression, and in this scene before saying brother, Silco rolls his eyes. The man was PISSED]

In conclusion, I think "brother" was Silco and Vander's equivalent of Jayvik's "partner" and I bet Viktor was pissed as hell everytime he heard someone reffering to him as Jayce's partner AND JUST THAT, for both scientific pride and his hopeless crush on Jayce Talis.

[grison-in-space]

Matilda continues to be incredibly useful anywhere I am sat "at rest" for any length of time and might get caught up in a hyperfixation. I haven't been posting a lot because she and Tribble have been on crate and rotate since August while Tribble's cognitive dysfunction syndrome (doggy dementia) renders her prone to sobbing in agonized sorrow if she's left in any room without company. It's only relatively recently that I've worked out a schedule that seems to be working in terms of when Matilda can be available when I need the support while also giving Tribble time with me.

But it continues to be really helpful to have Matilda act as a physical activator (cued or uncued) and hyperfixation interrupter. She is a more pleasant way of anchoring my brain in the passage of time than any alarm I've ever encountered, because she is aware that the capture of my attention means that I will reward her and the more gently she picks up my attention the more pleased I will be. She offers DPT when someone seems distressed while sitting down, sometimes by force. She settles nicely in an office environment (albeit on my office couch) and she handles strange experiences by freezing, inspecting the situation, and trusting that if possible I will let her tap out.

She walks about a mile a day in a loose heel whenever she is in public (anywhere that she is not inside my office, home, or car) and is increasing in professionalism over squirrels and the ubiquitous wild turkeys around my office. She is getting better at that even when they have the temerity to ignore her, shout at her, chase each other, and make horrible noises. She can handle scary echoey staircases, stairs you can see through, public bathrooms, vending machines, and weird rattly construction equipment she might have to walk over. (There was a temporary ramp on the way to campus for a while, and this winter saw a lot of construction.)

Even the dog reactivity is leveling off with maturity and self control. We are rapidly approaching the point where I'll start thinking about actual public access training without worrying about a very vocal outburst at another dog. I don't actually need her in public so often, but it would be nice to, e.g., run into the Costco pharmacy to get meds on my way home sort of thing without worrying about leaving her in the car. Run small errands. That sort of thing. She does handle stores nicely on the occasions we have tested.

I recently bought a car that my spouse had identified and insisted I come test drive. I made a mistake and locked my keys in my office on my way home to meet spouse before going to the dealership; we pivoted so that they came and picked me up, and we just went to the dealership. Matilda hung out in our car during the five minute test drive, then came out and joined us while hanging out in the dealership while negotiating the price of the car for the next two or three hours on a series of "settles." (She does not care for waiting in public, but she's willing to lie down and settle down with minimal interaction from me for a very long time.)

I may have to go visit Joanns and the Sierra Trading Club and Magus & Quinn booksellers a bit more moving forward. The horror!

Nice job, baby dog. I'm proud of you.

[quitesins]

Prince!Shouto x Writer/Artist!Reader

Masterlist

Sfw, Female!Reader, Fantasy Au, random thought that I just wanted out of my head, mind the typos!

You’re a writer/artist, gaining quick popularity across the kingdom due to the satirical works you put out, particularly the ones where you satirise The King.

Your pieces are doing numbers. Sung in pubs, tacked to every board in town, even shoved into the arms of royal guards who can’t do anything but stand at their post and take it.

And you’re beaming, practically swimming in money and praise. You let a bit of it get to your head, suddenly dismissive of any consequences that come with mocking the royal family. Especially with your foreign pen name, feeling safe signing the end of each work while cozied up in your little house hidden away in the forest… that is until you get a knock on the door and… it’s The Prince.

[Or Shouto, crown prince, can barely hold in his laugh every time his father calls a meeting to discuss the crudely drawn pictures of him being pasted around the city. And god the first time he heard one of your poems? Being read aloud in the formal voice of one of the guards? It wasn’t just Shouto who had to excuse himself from the table, but his mother too, trailing behind him with a soft smile on her face.

He makes sure the guards keep any of the flyers that make their way into the castle, citing it as “evidence,” crucial to the investigations. Really he just takes them to his room, gleefully pinning them up. Even taking comfort in them on particularly cruel training nights.

He’s never been malicious, but when it comes to his father, he can be quite testy. Petulant for good reason. Your drawings of his father, the harsh scribbles accompanied by wretched songs, somehow he feels seen. Like the awful hate in his heart is warm and somewhere appreciated.

Shouto also thinks the way you draw his father as just a massive rectangle with two deeply furrowed brows is really funny.]

“You know…” Shouto speaks, unintentionally solemn. You prepare to be scolded on instinct. “You’ve drawn my hair on the wrong side.”

In his hand he raises the crumpled remains of one of your works. Even with the paper having seen better days, it’s undeniably yours— with it’s signature juts of ink, harsh lines and messy splashes of colour thrown across the page. In your infamous handwriting, there’s a vulgar poem captioning the drawing. Implying the prince to be a bastard, with a women killing smile and a surprisingly impish attitude.

Your signature printed in bright red ink probably doesn’t help your case either.

“The scar is accurate howe—”

“Give me that.” You snatch the flyer from him, crumpling it into your hand and tightening around it.

Shouto doesn’t protest, seemingly entertained by your sudden shyness. The words of [Pen Name] have been always been so crass, he had never expected you to hold such embarrassment. He doesn’t want you to, but he finds it amusing all the same.

“Look.” You don’t like his smile, it’s too soft, earnest. “If you’re here to execute me just do it!” There’s a wobble in your voice when you speak. Not from genuine fear of death, instead you sound like a sulking child. “I can’t imagine the king would send his son for any other reason..”

“Shouto,” He prompts. “I’d like it if you called me Shouto.” In the blink of an eye, in front of you is another flyer. “See.” He points to the picture of him, his name written in massive letters underneath.

“How many do you have,” You groan, snatching the paper from him again. His little disappointed pout feels like a win, it must have been his last. “Then why are you here?”

Shouto stares as if he doesn’t quite know himself. His eyes glaze over you, your cluttered room and to where you fists have finally softened in their grip. Then, like a spark alights behind his eyes, he smiles, responding with blunt determination.

“To be your friend.”

I wishhh I had the brain power to write full fics coz this au is so fun to think about… maybe if the fantasising gets too big to stay in my head I’ll write drabbles of random nonchronological scenarios, or not!

[marbles-for-breakfast]

Thoughts/Arguments about Endogenic systems:

(for context, I’m probably best described as “quoigenic”, but I don’t really identify with any origin label because I think they ultimately cause more confusion than clarity)

Firstly, for those who don’t know, the term endogenic is about the narrative of your own existence. It was created by a diagnosed DID system which believes they were born plural and would have been plural regardless of the trauma they experienced. Whether you personally believe that to be true is your business, but I fail to understand how people think that idea is harmful, ableist or anything else. Not everybody wants to conceive of the origin of their existence in the same way. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Trying to force people to adopt a certain narrative about their own life doesn’t help anyone or prevent any sort of harm.

As far as willogenic systems go (because they’re under the endo umbrella, I’m pretty sure), I really don’t know enough about them to have a super definitive opinion. People seem to have mostly positive experiences with it, and it sure doesn’t affect me whether somebody I don’t know tries to make headmates through things like meditation. It’s obviously something quite different than DID, but I imagine it could work similarly in some ways, so I don’t really mind them using terms like ‘system’. I do understand the aversion to willogenics to some extent, though. I feel that sometimes too. And ultimately I think that’s because they get to make a choice that I wasn’t given. And they get to skip syscovery, and probably a lot of dissociation on top of that. It’s tempting to resent them, to assume they see it as a fun or frivolous thing, and are totally ignorant of our problems and suffering. But I don’t think that’s true.

They know what DID is. They know it’s usually caused by trauma, and often serious abuse. They know it is a serious disorder that can make life very difficult. They also know that they created headmates through meditation or something, and now they’re a system. Why should that upset us? Why do we think we own plurality just because we suffered more on the road here? Maybe you think they’re wrong about having headmates, but…. how would we know? Just because an experience isn’t accepted or understood by the field of psychology doesn’t mean it’s not happening. And I make a point to believe people about their own minds.

Just because they don’t have DID and have very different experiences to people with DID doesn’t mean they can’t acknowledge that those experiences do have some similarities. And it certainly doesn’t mean they can’t find community with OSDDID systems who want to normalize plurality itself in order to make life easier for all systems. It may seem “weird” to us, we might not understand it, but that doesn’t mean we should deny just because we originally learned that DID (and therefore plurality) can only form through extreme trauma. Aren’t a lot of the things we originally learned about DID wrong? Aren’t a lot of the things we assumed about it wrong? We, as a species, have never understood the human brain. Even doctors and educators make assumptions about what’s impossible without looking into it enough to prove that.

But when tons of people tell you they created headmates on purpose, and you don’t really have a reason to think they’re wrong other than “I don’t think that’s possible”, maybe it’s time to switch to, “idk how that works, but you do you”. It’s time to acknowledge that someone living their life in a way that you wouldn’t choose for yourself is actually completely fine. I mean, as long as they’re not hurting anybody obviously, but willogenics are not hurting anybody by being openly willogenic.

So yeah, endogenic systems are not inherently a threat to you or anyone else.

This post sums up my thoughts pretty well, so I might just refer people to it in the future. If you’re here from that, thanks for hearing what I have to say. I hope it helps you refine your worldview in some way. You don’t have to agree with everything I said here. I just hope you at least interact with people with more good faith (believing what they say until they give you a reason not to).

[bidokja]

I was joking a while back that the actor they have playing KDJ for the orv movie was too handsome for him and a friend who's read orv was like "KDJ is actually secretly attractive!!" And I just felt my soul leave my body right then

SIGHS...

Okay. Buckle in. I'm gonna finally actually address and explain and theorize about this whole...thing.

I'm not gonna cite any exact chapters cause it's like 11:30 and I've got an 8 hour drive in the morning but I'll at least make an approximate reference to where certain things are mentioned. Also, this post is just my personal interpretation for a good bit of it, but it's an interpretation I feel very solid about, so do with that what you will. Moving on to the meat of things:

There is one (1) instance in the web novel that I know of which describes specific features of Kim Dokja (especially ones other people notice). This takes place when members of KimCom are trying to make Kim Dokja presentable to give his speech at the Industrial Complex (after it's been plopped down on Earth). This is when they start really paying attention and focusing on Kim Dokja's appearance since they're putting makeup on him; I still don't think they can interpret his whole face, but they can accurately pick out and retain more features than usual. If I remember correctly they reference him having long eyelashes, smooth skin, and soft hair. These features can be viewed as (stereotypically) attractive.

Certain parts of the fandom have taken this scene and run with it at a very surface level, without realizing (or without acknowledging at the very least) that this scene is not about how Kim Dokja looks. This is, in part, due to not realizing or acknowledging why Kim Dokja's face is "censored" in the first place, and what that censoring actually means. I think it's also possible that some people are assuming the censorship works like a physical phenomena rather than an altered perception.

I'll address that last point first. The censorship of Kim Dokja's features is not something as simple as a physical phenomena. It's not a bar or scribble or mosaic over his face. If that were true it'd be very obvious to anyone looking at him that his face is hidden. But his face is not hidden to people. They can look at him and see a face. If they concentrate on his eyes, they can see where he's looking. They know when he's frowning or grinning. They see a face loud and clear. But what face are they seeing? Because it's not really his, whatever they're seeing.

No one quite agrees on what he really looks like. And if they try and think about what he looks like, they can't recall. Or if they do, it's vague, or different each time. We notice these little details throughout the series. Basically, Kim Dokja's face is cognitively obscured. Something - likely the Fourth Wall, though I can't recall if this is ever stated outright - is interfering with everyone's ability to perceive him properly. This culminated in him feeling off to others; and since they don't even realize this is happening, they surmise that he is "ugly."

Moving on to the other point about what the censorship means: To be blunt, the censorship of his face is an allegory for his disconnect from the "story" (aka: real life, and the real people at his side). The lifting - however slight - of this censorship represents him becoming more and more a part of the "story" (aka: less disconnected from the life he is living and the people at his side). The censorship's existence and lifting can represent other things - like dissociation or depersonalization or, if you want to get really meta, the fact that he is all of our faces at once - but that's how I'd sum up the main premise of it. (The Fourth Wall is a larger part of the dissociation allegory, but that's for another post).

So you see, them noticing his individual features isn't about the features. It's not about the features! It doesn't matter at all which features got listed. Because they could describe any features whatsoever and it would not change the entire point of the scene. Because the point isn't what he looks like. The point is that they can truly and clearly see these features. For the first time. They are seeing parts of him for the first time. Re-read that sentence multiple times, literally and metaphorically. What does it mean to see someone as they are?

This is an extremely significant turning point dressed up as a dress-up scene.

---

P.S. / Additionally, I'm of the opinion that Kim Dokja is not handsome, and he is not ugly. He is not pretty, and he is not ghastly. Not attractive, nor unattractive. Kim Dokja isn't any of these things. More importantly, Kim Dokja can't be any of these things. The entire point of Kim Dokja is that you cannot pick him out of a crowd; he is the crowd. He's a reader. He's the reader. Why does he need to be handsome? Why must he be pretty? Why is him being attractive necessary or relevant? He doesn't, he doesn't, it's not. He is someone deeply deeply loved and irreplaceable to those around him, and someone who cannot even begin to recognize or accept that unless it's through a love letter masquerading as a story he can read. He is the crowd, a reader, the reader. He's you, he's me. He's every single one of us.

[zebratimw]

Spirit animal SQH

[revvethasmythh]

I am curious about how Liliana and Ludinus' goals differ. Because Ludinus' obvious goal is to eradicate the gods--Liliana's, however, is apparently to free the Ruidusborn from the burden of their powers. How do these two things coincide? Obviously we can see how releasing Predathos causes the downfall of the gods, but why would releasing Predathos help the Ruidusborn? The obvious (though not necessarily correct) conclusion one would jump to is that, in order for Ruidusborn/Exaltants to be free from their powers, one would need to kill Predathos, not just free him. So I'm led to wonder if Liliana is willing to aid Ludinus in achieving his goal (kill the gods) in order to achieve her goal through some secondary effect (however one goes about killing a thing powerful enough to kill the gods). Which I suppose makes some sense, because why would you go to the effort to destroy all the gods only to allow a creature of equal-to-greater power of the gods continue to exist over Exandria? You wouldn't, would you? You'd probably want that to be gone as well

[blondiest]

girl help i lost sight of creating things first and foremost for myself and got overly invested in external validation therefore setting myself up to feel terrible about my works because i started looking at them too closely and became paranoid that they weren't good enough and that people would think they're stupid and—

i am going to be on here less and for a little while may be engaging with other people's writing a bit less as i try to get back into my own creative flow again 🥲 will still pop in now and again but i think being too tuned-in to everything has been making me a little insecure (<- a me problem; all of you are lovely and sweet) and with some added work stress i'm just!!! not engaging with things in a way that makes me happy or that feels particularly healthy.

honestly i feel strange even bothering to make a post about this bc Who Cares but i didn't want anyone to feel ignored if i am just straight not replying to messages etc for chunks of time. 🤝

[iliveinprocrasti-nationn]

one thing abt being disabled/chronically ill that some people don’t get is that sometimes body maintenance that ensures you have the absolute minimum amount of function can also be something that takes away a lot of control and autonomy. you can argue till the cows come home that making those decisions to try and help yourself (or realistically to try to make sure things aren’t worse than they already are) is something that exhibits control and autonomy and stuff, but they can be so limiting in practice because they’re things that take up so much time but have to be done to do anything else

[johnslittlespoon]

also my inbox is fr a warzone rn i'm SO behind on like ~50 asks </3 itching to get back, just been trying to focus on actual fic writing when i get in a rare productive swing instead of hrs of drabbling and brainrot lmfaooo but i'll clear up a whole evening eventually to sit down and go thru a ton of them!

[front-facing-pokemon]

[hide-your-bugs-away]

i had a dream last night that there was an alternate cut of the NME Poll Winner's Concert (1965) that captured different angles of the bands performing and the Animals' portion of the show was an unchanging, straightforward shot of the whole band and i could see each and every moment Alan looked up at Eric (no jump cuts required) 😔🙏

[keeps-ache]

once again i am on the playlist lol

[valenthario]

feeling sooo stuck with my content rn🤪🤪‼️

[dolokhoded]

mel c magdalene made me realize what was missing from my magdalene design and it's that she's not fucking jacked. it's crucial to her character