#thinking about the box having negative side effects

[pysgodyn]

[lovebvni]

'Advice From Your S/O' ( Pick-a-Pile ) (old)

I haven't done a pick-a-pile lately, I had covid then life got in the way, but I'm back with some shifting advice from your s/o! 

You will be picking a number between 1 and 5

Breathe in....

Breathe out...

Now, what's the number you heard?

[pile 1, 2, 3

4, 5]

pile 1

Pile 1!

Conformation this pile is for you: Have been having nightmares, waking up in the middle of the night, feeling like things aren't going well for you, 9, 999

Cards: 9 of Swords, Page of Cups, 9 of Pentacles

"I see you've been disappointed with your situation, but you know, things are going to get better. Take a break, look to your material life more than you look to shifting right now. Take a break, stop thinking about shifting. I think you're obsessed." Wow, your partner had NO trouble giving this to you straight up. They are basically trying to say take a break. Think about something else, be creative!

Things I kept seeing/hearing: memer, laughs a lot, is in physical or mental pain, obsession, Addison Rae, overachiever

pile 2

Pile 2!

Conformation this pile is for you: You have a mental illness of some sort, you want to work with a deity, you have a cat (or pet)

Cards: The Devil, 5 of Wands (R), 8 of Cups

You guys may have also been drawn to pile 1

"Hello, my love! I want you to be happy. What's wrong? Do you need to rant? I'm here for you if you do! I love you SO SO SOOO much! I was asked to bring you advice. Positive change is coming. I know, that really isnt advice but you NEED to know that happiness is coming to you, CHANGE is coming to you. You feel suck but, you're actually slowly moving forward! I'll always be by your side to hold your hand, dont worry!"

Things I kept seeing/hearing: The colour purple, 555, blue, deities, 'It's Nerf or Nothing!"

pile 3

Pile 3!

Conformation this pile is for you: You love listening to music, weirdcore, Simp/kin Bakugou, cook, denki kinnie 1, 111, 1111, fighter,  fire sign, childish

Cards: 7  of wands(r), king of wands, Ace of Cups, Ace of Swords

"HII! I'm going to be honest with you, you're not TRYING to do everything you want to! I know you want to do great things but you WONT PUT WORK INTO IT! Can you PLEASE actually try to put work into what you're doing? Put effort into it. You're wasting your potential. Once you do this, something new is coming! I promise, pinky swear!!"

Things I kept seeing/hearing: 111, 1111, January, New Beginnings are coming, JAM SESSION!!, artist, learner

pile 4

Pile 4

MENTIONS OF ABUSE/NEGLECT!!

Conformation this pile is for you: Shoto Todoroki, Hyper, 555, 1010, overachiever, doing more than needed, hard working, shifting for an escape, falling, box (LMFAO WTF??), spiritual, magic wand, have a snake

Cards: The World, Page of Wands(R), 10 of Swords, 5 of Swords, The Tower, 8 of Wands

"Hello. You are my world, I want you to know that. I am sending lots of love, because I know that there is a lot going on with you. The parental figures in your life do NOT treat you the way they should. I want you to know, I'm sending you signs and messages, I don't know if you're getting them/paying attention to them. I want you to know there are NO rules you have to follow, nothing you do will effect your journey negatively, okay? Every thing is downhill from here, a smooth ride, you are going to shift soon. Don't loose hope."

Things I kept seeing/hearing: Nicki Minaj, Billie Eilish, finally, endings coming, childish, blonde hair, red 3.

pile 5

Pile 5

Conformation this pile is for you: Shinsou, 333, 33, artist, drawing, roblox, Katsuki Bakugou

Cards: The Hanged Man, 3 of Pentacles, 3 of Wands, The Empress (R)

"WITHIN TIME YOU WILL SHIFT! CALM DOWN! Take a break, focus on what you want to do in your cr, do you like someone? Talk to them! Work on your script, do whatever! I love you! No matter what, I'll wait for you! Success is coming, you're almost at the top of this mountain!!"

Things I kept seeing/hearing: 333, Black, blue, sunglasses, cars, friends, online friends.

[capacle]

Drawing stars on sticky notes?

What do you get when you combine Progress Clocks, Aspects, Usage Dice, and Insight Rolls?

If you answered “an unholy mess”, well, that’d have been my guess too if someone asked me that. But that didn’t stop me from doing it anyway. And, surprisingly, instead of creating an abomination that shouldn’t see the light of the day, it became the core mechanic of my newest game, one that I’m giddily excited about.

I want to dive deeper into this quirky little mechanic called Sparks, that involves drawing stars on sticky notes. In essence, it is a tool to track progress of any kind. Towards a goal, an event, an effect, whatever. But in a closer look… well, it is more than that.

Escaping the temple

Let’s say you grab an ancient idol from a cursed temple, triggering a self-destruction spell. You need to escape before the temple collapses and traps you inside. You’d grab a sticky note, write “The Temple Collapses,” and place it on the table. Your Spark is now created.

To advance the Spark, you’d add rays to the star when certain fictional or mechanical triggers occur. For example, if you spend too much time in a room while trying to escape, you might add a ray to represent the passage of time. Or say you try to place a heavy rock in place of the idol to stop the spell, and you roll a bad Fate Check (the equivalent of a Yes/No Oracle or a Fortune Roll in other games), you’d add a ray to the Spark. A particularly bad roll (e.g., a 1) might even add two rays.

Up until this point, you might be thinking, “Well, this is just a Progress Clock.” But here’s the fun twist: every time you advance the Spark, you may perform a Spark Check by rolling a D6. If the roll matches a ray on the star, the event happens, and the Spark resolves.

For instance, if you’ve added two rays to your Spark and roll a 1 or 2, the temple collapses. If you don’t hit a ray, the temple holds, and you can keep pushing to escape. This creates what I like to call “controlled unpredictability”. You get a sense of the odds of the event happening, but you can’t predict exactly when it will occur.

If you continue advancing the Spark—for example, by getting lost or failing additional rolls—the likelihood of disaster increases as you add more rays. Let’s say you roll again with four rays and hit a ray. The temple collapses, trapping you. The Spark resolves, and now you must deal with the consequences.

But that’s not all! Let’s say you miss all previous checks and end up filling all five rays of a Spark. Well, you still have to make a Spark Check. But since the Spark has only 5 rays and the die has 6 sides, rolling a 6 after the star is full results in an Overturn.

An Overturn flips the expected outcome. If the event was negative (e.g., the temple collapses), it might turn positive: the collapsing ground reveals a hidden network of ancient tunnels filled with mysterious symbols. What was almost a certain disaster opens up as a new path your adventure can take!

SIDE NOTE: I get it that using stars as a tally marker may not be the most intuitive graphical solution. I honestly chose it to meet the vibes of the game, and give it an air of mysticism, like it is more than just a counter. But I encourage you to use any form of tracking you prefer: tally marks, tokens, numbers, checking boxes and so on.

Flexible and modular

I hope that by now you can see this is more than a tool to count up to 5. If you follow me for a while, you know that I’ve toyed with the same idea in Derelict Delvers with Danger Clocks. In that game, they are restricted to represent monsters and obstacles. In Everspark, they can do all sorts of things.

You can use Sparks to track challenges, such as overcoming obstacles (including combat); the arrival of looming threats; the depletion of meaningful resources; contests between parties vying for the same goal; long-term projects like crafting, studying, or achieving a personal milestone; and conditions affecting characters, enemies, or environments.

Sparks can also track events like a lunar eclipse, the arrival of a king; the use of special power sources like mana or magical items with limited charges. They’re useful for tracking character advancement (including multiclassing), exploration (like a full journey or delving into a dungeon), or even montage scenes where you tackle complex challenges like making plans, setting camp, or preparing for a journey.

You can even create layered challenges to represent more complex or powerful enemies. Say you are fighting an enormous creature, and you want it to be a high-stakes and dramatic encounter. Instead of relying on “HP inflation” and just make, say, a 3-star Spark, you can represent different aspects of the challenge with separate Sparks, like a Spark representing an Arcane Shield that needs to be dealt with before harming it, and another one for its Spiked Tail that causes all sorts of trouble for melee attacks.

Instead of turning the combat in a boring meat grind, you have to approach the encounter as a puzzle. Different characters with unique skill sets can contribute, and the whole scene becomes more dynamic. You can even have environmental Sparks representing dangers or potential opportunities.

And the best thing is: you don’t need to prep that in advance. Crafting Sparks is part of the game. And I encourage you to do it as a collaborative process, if you’re playing in a group. We have a lot of fun brainstorming possible things we can add to a scene to make it even more memorable.

Spark-based scenarios

Picture this: you’re deciding who gets to be the next captain of the ship. It starts with a skill contest. It’s two candidates—you against them—and you are displaying skills to decide who’s going to be the captain. You have a resource Spark, which is the crew support. You can tap into it to gain leverage, but it can go either way—perhaps the crew support goes to your adversary, making it a double-edged resource.

You have to resolve this contest before the serpent god arrives (a threat) and, who knows, eats the loser of the contest. All the while, you’re dealing with the storm of the century (environment), which is battering the ship and tossing the crew around. On top of that, the ship is leaking (escalation)—because why not?

This can be a full session of chaos, crazy ideas, and unpredictable outcomes, with new Sparks being created as a result of complications and bad rolls. Others might be discarded as the situation evolves. It’s a wild, chaotic, and incredibly fun experience.

On top of that, you can bend the rules with “Spark tricks,” which are ways in which you twist and bend the rules of how to advance and resolve Sparks. These include locked rays (which can’t be hit), regenerating rays (that are erased), linked Sparks (where one Spark affects others), resistance (making two spark checks and keeping the worse result), and persistent Sparks (which remain active even after being resolved).

You get a sticky note! And you get a sticky note!

These are just a few ideas. It’s important to note that Sparks are modular, optional and disposable. They can be used for almost anything, but they shouldn’t be used for everything. You can handwave situations, roleplay them, or use just a few rolls to resolve them. But if you want more granularity, want to zoom into the action, or want to give more screen time to certain moments, Sparks can certainly help. And when a Spark is no longer relevant, you can simply discard it, even without resolving it.

It’s amazing all the things you can do with a simple piece of paper

My advice is that you introduce Sparks gradually into your gameplay—the book itself divides Sparks into Basic, Intermediate and Advanced. In my home game, we’re seventeen sessions in, and since all players are already comfortable with the mechanics, it is beautiful to see the proliferation of Sparks: characters are working on new skills, getting rid of curses, and trying to find lost relatives. The city has a creature about to arrive, a gang following them around, and more. All that tracked with Sparks.

Just think of nachos

When I was coming up with a checklist of the things you have to consider when creating a Spark, I had a pleasant surprise. See, you need to create the Name of whatever you’re tracking; decide how and when it Advances; when you need to make a Spark Check; what happens when you Hit a ray, what is a possible Overturn; and if there are any Special rules or conditions.

Hence, the NACHOS template was born.

Obviously, you don’t need to write every detail down for every Spark (or for most Sparks, really), but it is a good way to make sure everyone knows how the Spark behaves and to align expectations. If you want to play around with how a Spark works, just think of Nachos.

Hack it away

I’m super excited to get this in everyone’s hands and see what creative people can do with it by bending its rules and applications. I see it as a tool to inject a layer of tension, suspense and surprise to what could otherwise be just a tally count.

I’m working hard on editing Everspark at the moment (meanwhile, the campaign is on late pledge, so you can jump in if you want). It’s coming out nicely, I must say. The Sparks chapter has nearly 20 different suggested ways of using them, all with examples. And more nuance than I can fit on a post.

I’ve also published a video explaining this concept in even more detail:

Meanwhile, check out the campaign page and join us to keep the Everspark alive! And I’d sincerely appreciate it if you shared this around with people that might like it.

[myobsessionsspace]

maybe a tough question but hypothetically, do you think it would be the end of BTS if Jungkook and jimin ever came out as a couple?

Hypothetically speaking.

For some reason I don’t think the majority of the fandom would be accepting, sadly. 

What are your thoughts? Again, hypothetically. I really doubt they ever would. 

the travel show almost feels like a cushion? If that’s the right way to put it. Like it’s them saying, we’re close. And if upon our release from MS, you catch us out and about together or closer than ever, well, we served together, we travelled together, we are simply close.

a cover. Of sorts.

thoughts?

Hi Lovely,

If it’s ok I’d like to talk about coming out first before I talk about the hypothetical in relation to Jikook.

Coming Out

As a member of the community myself I can only speak for my own experiences, own up to my lack of experiences, refer to what I’ve learnt from others and resources and it still wouldn’t be enough. Because identity, orientation, expression etc is totally individual. Sometimes it’s constantly evolving and sometimes due to situations left dormant or stifled.

Sexual orientation for some people is not a one and done. There are many people I know that have come out with one label then have come out later one with another, then another.

I say all that to say one of the key focuses in coming out is to label yourself unambiguously.

This originally was meant to be for the person in question only.

This was meant to be so the person in question could live in their full authentic truth, to no longer have to deal with societal pressures and expectations.

To understand themselves and to have people understand them. To find a community, to be embraced and loved.

Coming out was meant to feel LIBERATING to the person in question, freeing, coming out of a box, a closet if you will.

Sadly that’s not always the case for everyone.

Sometimes it’s because of the environments they are in, that doesn’t allow for them to be fully embraced, to have that fearless freedom, to have that community. Sometimes it’s just not safe.

Not safe due to the emotional anguish that may be inflicted on the person by those closest to them, those in their everyday environment, those in their wider environment.

It may have physical safety repercussions, financial repercussions, familial and social repercussions, religious conflicts etc.

It may just not be safe because the person in question is not ready to deal with the psychological and emotional effects that may ensue after they coming out because we live in a world where the majority oppress the minority, and being queer is a minority.

No matter how progressive people may view the world to be, through the lense of the internet, in the human body, physically dealing with everything that comes with labelling yourself is a big deal.

On the flip side there are those that are fortunate that they don’t even have to come out. Or any fears aren’t actualised because they’re blessed.

There are people that have never been taught to be fearful of learning themselves, expressing themselves.

They’ve never been taught to view people and their differences in any negative way. They’ve been taught they are in a safe and loved environment that no matter what they do, how they live or who they do or don’t love

They are and will still be loved and have a place.

There are some people that when they do come out their family and or friends would be like ‘oh honey, why are you being formal about it, even the cat knew’

Even with people that have all of the above they may come out to every Tom, Dick and Harry they meet, they may come out to a select few or they might not come out at all.

Because essentially coming out is the person in questions choice. It’s their privilege, it’s their right. It’s theirs.

It’s not the requirement so others around them feel better. It’s not a job requirement, a legal requirement any requirement at all. It’s not a must to prove you’re actually queer. If someone never comes out in their whole life it doesn’t negate their queerness.

Labelling oneself is not for others. It’s for the person.

For them to define themselves if they so wish to, for them to understand themselves, to learn themselves, to appreciate and love themselves.

To find others like them, to cut down time explaining to others if they so wish to about their preferences, expression, identity and so on.

Ok so with that out of the way

Jikook

- No I don’t think the show is them coming out

- Yes I think the show is to show what we already know and what is one hard fact, that Jikook are best friends and closer than close

- Yes, I’m hoping that it helps those that do know of them and don’t, to accept their closeness as not just co-workers in a group but as a very close duo within the group

- Yes I agree with you, the fandom as a whole, if they were to undeniably be known as a romantic non-heterosexual couple, wouldn’t fully embrace them how we would believe in 2024.

Sadly one of the things that comes along with boy bands is the fan girl in varying forms. The fan girl that no matter their proximity to the boy band member, their relationship status, their age, whatever, the fan girl puts their wants, beliefs and ideals onto them. They idolise their idol. Sadly the majority boy band fans and BTS’ fans idolise them, fantasise about them. Be it with themselves or a stand in they deem suitable, a woman.

Because heteronormativity is so rooted in their thinking, they can’t see their idols as anything but. What else could they do but be successful then have the wife, kids, pets and picket fence? If not that then the idol will remain the bad boy lothario of their fantasies even grey haired and weak backed.

For too many people in the world and too many in the fandom being gay first and foremost is seen as defective. To believe that about their idol would be ‘wrong’ in their eyes. If it was to be proven true it would cause an array of negative emotions, thoughts and actions. The most tame being to leave the fandom.

I’m a very pessimistic person, though I need and seek for positivity. Thats that’s chronic that anxiety & depression baby✨

I have grown up and am surrounded by a culture similar to the SK conservative culture when it comes to nearly everything, gender roles, sexuality etc. I am a minority from a culture that legally, religiously and socially oppresses queer people. I can without the Korean male element wholeheartedly understand being closeted in SK.

I can’t however understand being a celebrity of any kind, let alone a celebrity of their magnitude.

Jikook & Labelling

We have no clue. From context clues we can assume Jimin to be bisexual, but from nothing directly and explicitly verbalised by him. Through his art, many have drawn this conclusion. There are other assumptions that have been made by some to do with his gender expression and identity. He has only ever referred to himself as a 남자 [man] any and everytime in public. Yes we have evidence of him bucking masculine stereotypes and my understanding of him is that he’s growing and defining HIS understanding of what it is to be a man and it’s not what the society he’s grown up in deems it to be. I have my own views on Jungkook and his orientation *100% mlm gay*

However not everyone feels the need to label themselves or chooses to and we have no idea when it comes to Jikook, only assumptions. So Jikook may not feel the need to come out because they may not label themselves and feel the need to make that public knowledge through official statements, interviews, on tv etc.

I can’t see this ever being Jikook, just my opinion 🙈

Like you anon I believe they’ll just keep Jikooking. I don’t believe they would if they wanted to ever come out in a public official statement type of way, they’d just live their lives and let people think whatever they wanted to think.

And if they ever did, it’d most likely be when Bangtan are no longer continuously active, seeing as they want to perform on cruises etc in their 60s, who knows when that’ll ever be.

There are some of my friends that think the same as me and some that think they’ll totally come out in a big way one day and not decades and decades in the future.

If you were able to get to the end of this you’re a real one🙌💪

A topic like this is something that I couldn’t answer in a short way. I’m not even close to being finished with what I could say, it’s so nuanced and there’s soo much more that could be talked about but this is already wordy AF 😩

Thank you anon

💜

[hexed-padlock]

Thinking about how elves can reincarnate. What if there are a few individuals besides elves that have a similar ability. Take our dear Tav for example. What if in a past life, they were a great Artificer. Nowadays, they’ve settled for a simpler life alongside their beloved Astarion. What Astarion doesn’t know, however, is that his partner has been working on a special ring for him. Tav went on a small journey without Astarion to look for the Cloak of Dragomir, study it’s enchantments, and create a ring that has the cloak’s enchantments but is able mitigates its negative effects. It takes them months, and the one year anniversary of saving Baldur’s Gate is fast approaching. The last month is spent in a haze of furious work, getting the ring done just in time. They’re always away, spending long hours getting everything perfect. Gale and Tav have been spending a lot of time together researching and working on the ring as a team.

Then the one year anniversary of the Absolute’s defeat comes around. The whole city is in a joyous mood, a massive festival is set to run all throughout the night.

The old gang is back together, standing by the docks once again. It’s dark, but sunrise is just a few minutes away. Tav is by Gale’s side, and he hands them a box with the ring inside.

Astarion sees Gale hand Tav something as Tav gives him a peck on the cheek in thanks. Ah, so this is why Tav’s been so distant lately. He sulks in a corner, self-loathing taking hold. But Tav bounds over, grabs his hands and pulls him out of the shadows.

Astarion looked at their happy expression, noting that daylight was coming. Is this how this’d end? Burning in the sunlight as the love of his life leaves him for that damned wizard? He looks away, refusing to meet Tav’s eyes.

Tav finally registers the expression on his face as guilt grips them. “Love, I’m sorry. I’m sorry if you felt like I neglected you, but all this was for our future. Please look at me.” Hours spent perfecting a gift for him were still hours spent away from his side, they kept it a secret, not wanting to ruin the surprise.

“Starlight, my beautiful night sky. Please.”

And he finally looks at them, and they’re on their knees, holding a box out, a ring with a single glowing stone shining out in the darkness.

“Astarion Ancunin, my love, will you marry me?”

Astarion stares, awe, disbelief, confusion, all warring inside him—But above it all, relief, fear, and love.

Breathless, he whispers, “Yes.”

Tav slips the ring on and pulls him into a kiss, just as the first rays of sunlight bathe the city in a golden glow. Astarion panics for a moment, trying to find shade, before he feels only the warm caress of the sun, and the gentle touch of his lover.

The party once stood upon these docks as the wreckage of the city lay around them, incomplete and fractured as Astarion disappeared into the shadows and Karlach vanished back into Avernus. It was a solemn celebration. Now, they were all finally together, standing in the glorious light of a bright future as the rebuilt city celebrates it’s continued freedom.

The future is bright and the world is so full of color.

[jambeast]

Reminded again of the terrible website Mythcreants, and I think the main pattern, the biggest repeating problem I’ve seen with them, is how they, like, imagine a pretty broad Category of Thing, imagine it being in some way bigoted, and then instruct the audience to never do that Broad Category of Thing, and instead do the opposite - stay on the safe side, afraid of saying anything inadvertently if anyone were to read into what they’re saying.

If you’ve got a character with a disability, you could imagine it potentially feeling demeaning or tiring or patronising if the disabled character is really vocally down on the disability and it’s a significant issue for them and it ruins their life. So the solution, you are instructed, is that your disabled character must not consider it that big of a deal. There’s a stereotype of having evil villains having certain minor distinctive disabilities like eyepatches and hook-hands and scars. And like, you can imagine that having some negative cultural effect. So the solution, you are instructed, is that villains are not allowed disabilities. Unless they are sympathetic about it. There was a bit about ‘Villain Redemption Arcs’ - one point in the numbered list of things not to do was the villain being too villainous. Villains get redeemed, but they were too evil in the past, so they don’t *deserve* to be redeemed. The solution, they instruct, is to just not redeem villains that are ‘irredeemable’, or to make your villains less evil.

It’s all just very... uncreative. Surface-level.

Like, it’s stuff that you could probably do to be *aware* of, but that *awareness* of it should lead you to do something *interesting* about it, and Mythcreants just seems so fundamentally afraid of doing things that are *interesting* over anxiously avoiding things that could be considered problematic. Just nervously hiding from it.

Like, good fiction, I find, grabs an idea, and just *goes into it*. It’s following it wherever it leads. Really *exploring* whatever the thing has to offer. Like it’d be so much better if you’re just... aware of the stereotype, or aware of how evil the villain is, and you just... explore that. You go somewhere with it. You do something interesting about it.

But the writing advice is always more ‘Covering your Ass’ and ‘Checking the boxes’ than, like, being interesting. It’s less about Good writing as it is about Inoffensive writing.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

Recently I’ve been writing for a character that can be difficult to plausibly whump because of their fast healing, super immune system, and generally has abilities that, if given any thought at all, would keep them from being or getting whumped in the first place. I’m often having to think out of the box when it comes to whumping this type of character but it can be frustrating sometimes.

Do you have any tips, suggestions, or ideas on how to whump characters who seem like they’re pretty much unwhumpable?

anon, you and I are pretty much on the same boat here because my Blorbo is also someone who’s canonically very hard to whump (I’ve actually made a post complaining about this exact issue here); basically, neither bullets nor knives can pierce his skin in canon, and as someone who writes whump and wants to keep things as canonically accurate as possible, yeah, this is a problem I myself also have to deal with on a daily basis.

here are what I personally do to get around to whump my Blorbo;

for a character whose skin is bulletproof or knifeproof, I have my antagonist make a special, customized weapon made specifically to pierce skin that would have otherwise been unbreakable.

for a character who has super immune system or is fast at healing, I usually come up with something that would suppress their immune system/healing power, something that’d have negative reactions on their body; doesn’t have to be permanent, just for the time being so that I could whump them. doesn’t have to be something fancy either, just anything, you know; for instance, maybe this specific drug has a negative side effect on the Blorbo, so they can’t reach their healing ability until the drug wears off, just long enough for me to whump them. if canon doesn’t specify what they are or aren’t allergic to, you can just use anything.

anyway, all in all, it still depends on who your Blorbo is and what exactly is their strength, durability or ability to heal, etc. as the definite answer can still vary depending on each hard-to-whump character. but I hope my general advice above helps at least a little!

[thewarfox]

DEI is racist.

I wrote this as a comment to a youtube video, but I am relatively certain that it will get shadowbanned. I'm pretty happy with the thoughts I wrote down, so I decided to bring them over here: The reason DEI has a negative inclination is the same reason that Affirmative Action has a negative inclination. Even if the person being hired is qualified, you cannot be certain they got the position because of their merits, or because of their 'diverse' qualities. Let's say that, hypothetically, you have two equally qualified candidates that have to be decided between. One has to be picked. The only difference between them is that one is a white man, and one is a black woman. Same age, same education, same records, everything else is equal. When you have a culture of DEI, you immediately run into a problem. If you DON'T hire the black woman, you risk being called a racist and a sexist. If you do hire her, you risk being accused of picking her for her immutable characteristics instead of for her qualifications. On the side of the hypothetical black woman, if you get picked for the job, you can't be completely certain that you were picked for your qualifications, or if you were picked for your God-given characteristics. On the side of the hypothetical white man, if you get picked for the job, you can't be completely certain that you were picked for your qualifications, or if you were picked because your employer is a racist or sexist. There are obviously other possibilities, but we're trying to narrow the thought experiment for simplicity. By utilizing DEI, you are putting discrimination on the table. You are stating that you have an agenda to shape your workplace based on categories that have nothing to do with qualifications. You are subjecting people hired under it to be insecure about the circumstances of their employment, and their true role in the organization. Are they there to do a job, or are they there to check off a box? Have they really earned the position, or are they being used to signal to outside observers? And finally, like any system humanity creates, people take advantage of it. Does it happen very often? Hopefully not. But it certainly does happen, however rarely. And the fear that the people you're hiring might be a grifter of some kind does poison the well. A rotten apple can spoil the bunch. It can breed distrust of potential selectees based off of the actions of a few bad actors. It opens the door for behaviors and worries and conflicts that don't need to exist. There are places where DEI has no place, and everything works fine. Take basketball for instance. You don't see anyone saying that a certain percentage of asian or white players need to be on every team to reflect the population. Any team that does such a thing will likely be at a competitive disadvantage to the teams that don't do it. They are composing the teams of the best players, and they happen to mostly be black, and no one has a problem with this. DEI didn't have to be implemented to get black people onto the teams, their own skill, ability, and effectiveness got them there. If they failed to get onto the teams because the rules forced them to hire other people for the team, how many black basketballers would not be able to get on the team when they otherwise would? In fact, one could say that DEI-like thinking kept black players out of basketball in the early days, and only when teams started taking risks by hiring them, and they started winning games more as a result, the inherent competitiveness of sport demanded that other teams had to hire black players as well if they didn't want to be left behind. It was only by abolishing a policy of composing a team by race that the sport was allowed to take its modern, superior shape. DEI is not a recipe for competitiveness. It is inherently anticapitalistic. It promotes unhealthy discrimination. It opens the door for ugly and unhealthy criticism. It calls into question the capabilities of people, and whether they are qualified for their positions.

[wondercourse]

something that sucks about discovering the possibility of being mixed-origin is that it directly ties me to syscourse in most people's minds if i choose to talk about it online (which i am lol).

it shouldn't. i should be allowed to navigate this outside of the lens of syscourse. to one side, i am now the enemy; to the other, i am now an ally. i can't just be.

honestly thank god i'm in therapy because it's such a "hey man how's it going" thing. she wants to focus on what's actually important in this process as we slowly transition from phase 1 to phase 2 (she doesn't refer to it with phasic language but funny enough her philosophy lines up with it so). she doesn't care about origin! she just wants to aid in my recovery.

not so on the internet! i have to fit into a box, and being put in that box shuts me out of so many things. the quoigenic label automatically categorizes me in the minds of many and that drives me up a wall, especially as someone who Doesn't Like The Labels.

fortunately, outside of setting boundaries and being frustrated by this realization, this doesn't have that negative of an effect on me like it would've as a teenager. random people's preconceived notions about me don't define my identity, i do.

i just think it's wild that i even needed to realize this at all. that something as simple as changing my label—even with the possibility of still being totally traumagenic—creates narratives in people's minds. i'm a faker. i don't have trauma. i'm a poor, misguided traumagenic system that got dragged into pro-endo rhetoric. i'm this. i'm that.

like that's weird. and i think what bothers me about it is that for a lot of people who may perceive me, there's morality attached to that. i'm bad now or i'm good now. and while i think that both sides of this suck, the worst thing is that in the eyes of some, i have attached a term to myself that makes me less than, and that says "fakeclaiming/suicide baiting/harassing this person is okay".

again, i'm in a spot where i recognize that this doesn't ACTUALLY define my morality—identifying as quoigenic is morally neutral—nor does it make it okay for people to treat me like shit for it, but it's just like...what? like idk i'm just recognizing and acknowledging how asinine that is in general.

anyway, i hope this appropriate for the sysconversation tag. just wanted to talk about that because i was thinking about it in the context of the choice to keep this account separate from my other blog because of this. i'm okay, just befuddled.

[weirdthinkingdragon]

Warnings: yandere, drugging, aphrodisiac mention (not to reader), slight manipulation? slight spicy mention.

Yandere male hero x chill sidekick reader

Thinking about a yandere hero being extremely obsessed with their sidekick. So obsessed to the point they pretend there's a villain that has to be hunted down (note: the vilain was already caught by the hero when sidekick was asleep for their plan to work). But instead they put a trap for themself with a type of gas aphrodisiac. They know you too well. They know without hesitation if something were to happen to them, you'd sacrifice yourself in trying to save the people from him if necessary.

He just has to play his cards right. He even made sure no one would be around the abandoned area. Even the few people that took less... heroic measures to remove.

He leads you there and tells you to start searching, and you get the box first, prepared to open it to check.

For a second with the box in your hands, he thought of you getting the gas instead. But he couldn't do that to you. It can have some negative side effects after all that he doesn't want to make you have. Yes, he's so smitten that if he gets a severe headache or something after, he'll gladly take it. It would just be another upside knowing you'd be taking care of him and only focused on him.

"W-wait! It could be a trap!" His hands reach out for it. "Let me handle it."

You just shrug and give him the box.

His excitement is almost too much to contain. Sure, there's better ways than his plan, but he wants to guarantee you'll be stuck with him one way or another. He refused to not have you near him. If a villain or even a hero harms you, they're dead. A good way is putting his thanks on TV later. Next to no one doubts the hero after all. And you'll have to stay with him or be targeted by villains and jealous fans. He does feel a little bad for it, but not enough to cancel it.

He walks out of the range the gas would hit you and rips open the box, getting knocked back by the smell that assaults his nose.

It's faster working and stronger than he thought it would be. The heat overwhelming him fast.

"Sh- I... Hah, it's... some sort of aphrodisiac. An extremely- a very strong one. I'm not going to be able to handle it or hold myself back. You need- you need to go!"

You secretly admit you're a bit excited yourself. That and you know you have to stop him from going to a poor person to the public. You lock the door and slowly walk closer.

Fuck, he feels severe pain. He really DOES need you right now.

But despite the pain, an internal smile is within him. Perfect.

[bethanydelleman]

Online Discourse, Redemption Arcs, and Jane Austen

There is a story in the Bible where Jesus is brought a woman who has cheated on her spouse. The officials ask Jesus what to do, he knows they are trying to trick him into breaking the law with mercy, so he says, "Go ahead, throw rocks at her until she dies, that's the law, BUT whoever has never done anything wrong throws the first stone." Eventually everyone leaves and Jesus forgives the woman.

This post I shared a while ago really makes me think of that story, because online commentary of characters seems to so often break into two groups:

People so unforgiving, so unwilling to allow a single misstep in a character that they would start throwing stones immediately

People who will twist themselves into knots to prove that everything the character did was justified (and since we have zero backstory for the unnamed woman in this story, it would be easy to give her a sympathetic one. She did it because of trauma!)

Let's apply this to Emma Woodhouse. At Box Hill, she mildly insults an older woman, it is a poorly timed and placed joke:

“Oh! very well,” exclaimed Miss Bates, “then I need not be uneasy. ‘Three things very dull indeed.’ That will just do for me, you know. I shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as ever I open my mouth, shan’t I? (looking round with the most good-humoured dependence on every body’s assent)—Do not you all think I shall?” Emma could not resist. “Ah! ma’am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me—but you will be limited as to number—only three at once.”

There are basically two reactions to this insult: BURN EMMA AT THE STAKE and Eh, not that bad. Now I think with this particular insult, it really wasn't that bad and we are told about the surrounding extenuating circumstances that caused Emma to slip up. However, I'm probably wrong because Emma does feel guilty and she does make amends. While she does not directly apologize, it's clear in the novel that what she did was a relationship repair.

What makes me feel like a crazy person is how many people throw first stones! How many people are SHOCKED by what Emma said and they could NEVER imagine insulting Miss Bates in such a cruel way! Get over yourself! I feel fairly certain that every human being on earth over 25 had insulted someone to the same level as Emma has insulted Miss Bates. That doesn't mean it is excusable, Emma should apologize and so should we, but I'm left amazed by how many people feel blameless in the face of this extremely human and relatable error.

And yes, it makes me wonder about forgiveness in their real lives. There are some things that I believe could be hard and fast "never forgive" rules, like your SO should never hit you, but people make mistakes. We should have room for forgiveness, we should understand circumstances. People get tired and sick and angry and overwhelmed and sometimes they screw up. It makes me wonder if this is an online persona effect, where we never show our negative sides, or is this a true opinion. Do people forget their own mistakes?

There also seems to be this idea that once someone has done something once, it's already a pattern even if the novel is full of counter-evidence. Emma is very polite throughout the novel, she endures people that annoy her a lot, she is endlessly accommodating with her father, but a single insult to Miss Bates and people start retroactively making her worse. When she visited that poor family she must have been insulting them! (Nope) Suddenly she becomes a villain through and through, instead of a normal girl who made a few mistakes.

That's not even getting into the real "villains" of Austen's works. The amount of people who tell me that Lydia (16), Henry Crawford (probably 24), Mary Crawford (22-24), Willoughby (25), and so on and so fourth ARE INCAPABLE OF CHANGE and will never improve. Like excuse me? Have you not changed and improved since you were 16-25? How early do you give up on people? Do you really think a young adult is fully formed?

Is this how you think of people in the real world too?

[sol-consort]

TALI!!!!! Also they should give Krogans cats I feel like Krogans would like their vibes

yeah it's very cute to think about Krogans cuddling with cats and being best friends!

But realistically... look at their treatment of pyjaks and varren. Nom nom nom or fighting rings. Cats often steal food from humans, yet we don't go blasting them off with military grade rockets... At least I hope we haven't, someone check the history records rq.

That side mission segment never sat well with me in ME2. Especially after that ME1 Pyjack mission where you have to search for important datadisk stolen by a pyjack, having to abandon the mako so you don't accidentally hurt them, carefully search one after another, doing whatever you can to avoid harming these cute monkey-like animals.

Sure, some krogans do keep them as decently treated pets, but those are rare and few in-between. It's a nurtured habit rather than something ingrained in their nature, krogans used to be in the stone ages before they were forcibly "uplifted" by the salarians. As their society develops and gets comfortable with safety, animal cruelty will become a thing of the past... hopefully.

Currently, krogans haven't been big on animals. Cats wouldn't like Tuchanka either, too much radiation and sand storms. Krogans might find snapping turtles adorable, however.

Hanar hold very high empathy to animals, animal fighting rings, and anything unsavoury are forbidden from all of their planets. Believing in every creature having a soul, etc. Cats would abhor their slimy squishy texture—like how they have mysterious beef with cucumbers—but hanar might find them extremely adorable.

Elcor and cats share the trait of subtle body language and highly complex communication that has to be "watered down" for the other species to understand. I feel like they'd get along, cats would love napping on them, they're a big soft heater to them.

Lastly, a portion of our love of cats comes from them literally infecting us with a brain parasite, Toxoplasma gondii. It's meant for cat-prey to get infected, but humans' immune system is far too strong for it to do any harm besides slight flu symptoms at the early stages of the infection. After that, it remains dormant in our brain. We are a dead-end host, offer zero benefits to the parasite, we were never meant to be its target.

But it slightly increases our dopamine, which is nice.

it still has negative side effects, that's why pregnant women are told not to handle cat litter boxes; the parasite resides in cats' digestive system.

If you see a rat being playful with a cat or running towards them, chances are the parasite is well developed in the rat's brain. That's literally what it does, makes you seek cats.

it's why infected people start noticing their cats smelling nice like "baby powder" and have this urge to smooch their fur. In rats, it makes cat urine smell unbelievably good, so they go running towards it.

It just happened that this behaviour in humans translates into a feeling of love, euphoria, and elation when petting a cat, wanting to pick them up and smoother them in hugs and kisses.

Approximately 30% of the human population have toxoplasmosis, chances are if you ever owned a cat and cuddled, you have it. So yay I'm infected, you probably are too.

That alone might deter any alien species from ever interacting with cats. The "crazy cat lover" effect might amplify in species with weaker immune systems, aka quarians, or simply different proteins structures, aka turians.

But eh, it's probably nothing, Sid—a turian—is shown to love cats lots. Infected humans can't spread the parasite to others either—the infected host needs to die for it to happen. The immune system can't exactly enter the brain, only monitor it from outside the barrier for any signs of danger. So the parasite is kept imprisoned and gets bonked on the head whenever it tries to leave.

Btw cats aren't actually infected by their own parasite, they have sort of a symbiotic relationship with it. Toxoplasma gondii has two life cycles. One starts as they're born inside a cat's bowels, they are harmless and mostly beneficial to their original host.

The second cycle starts after they're thrown out in the litter box. Now they seek a new "prey" host to infect the brains of. Releasing chemicals and slightly altering your perspection of things. Increasing your risk of schizophrenia. Subtle agitation in the eyes.

You can also get it from uncooked meat or unwashed vegetables, so it's not that scary or dire of a parasite. It's just that cats are its most successful symbotic host to this day.

But if your immune system experiences a major failure and shuts down for a prolonged amount of time, the parasite will break from its cage and start spreading.

Congestive faculties start shutting down, eye blindness in some cases, until it eventually kills you.

That's also true with any sort of bacteria or parasite you catch while your immune system is down, it's easy to set a village ablaze with nothing but a single match once the castle walls crash down.

Toxoplasma gondii isn't special; anything can kill you! Without your immune system, you're just a bag of flesh and blood, susceptible to rot and being cannibalised by the air particles themselves.

But don't worry! this is normal for your body... sometimes. Only 43% of the human body is actually...uh human. The rest are foreign bacteria, microbes, fungi, some parasites, and other things that we collect throughout our journey of life. We even trade bacteria with other humans we meet all the time without realising it.

The majority of you—the physical you—is in fact, not you. You—cells you create—are a minority in your own body ecosystem.

Why do you think humans are so deadly to turians? We are a walking swamp, A living breathing extremely diverse bio-ecosystem. A dormant parasite or a two is nothing.

[halogenwarrior]

I posted this as a reply to someone else's post but I want to make it its own post because the original didn't get any likes or reflags, maybe because it didn't show up in the tags.

My take on the hate for Cassie Animorphs that you see a lot is that the perception is that Cassie makes decisions that are questionable or flawed but always turns out to be right in the end because of author fiat/favoritism, which I don't think is accurate when you analyze things deeply though I can see why people say so.

The thing is, how it usually works when the Animorphs are having an argument about morality is that the "failure mode" (the consequences of the action if it doesn't work out) of Cassie's suggestion or decision is that the war is completely lost and all of humanity is enslaved or killed by the Andalites, while the "success mode" is that a small amount of beings are saved and/or there will be a long-term ripple effect that leads to benefits for a lot of beings, both in terms of making the war more winnable and benefits that extent outside the war entirely. For example, letting Tom have the blue box would have led to the loss of the war if the gamble didn't pay off, and does have negative consequences for the war that could have easily led to them losing, but its positive impact is in both Yeerk and Taxxon defectors helping the Animorphs in the war and in, from a "humanitarian" perspective, Yeerks and Taxxons being offered a better choice besides war and conquest or the personal consequences of having to live in their standard bodies.

Meanwhile the "failure mode" of following the plan of someone like Marco can also sometimes be that the Animorphs will just lose the war, or sometimes that they will be back where they started (which is still a difficult and hopeless position with the Yeerks' greater numbers and more advanced technology), while the "success mode" is that they get that much closer to winning the war, such that if they continually forego opportunities like this they will have no chances of winning at all.

And for this reason, it is true that generally, when the others decide to go with Cassie's decision despite those risks, or Cassie acts on her beliefs anyway without the permission of the others, she turns out to be right and they don't all get killed or become Controllers. The plot armor and narrative conventions that they can't have the main characters just lose there, which is usually what will happen if they listen to Cassie and she is wrong. BUT the narrative shows the balance between Cassie's perspective and someone like Marco's both having their places in a different way; by showing the situations where the others don't go through with Cassie's plan, and Cassie is unable or unwilling to do her own thing or sabotage them. Such as blowing up the Yeerk pool in #52, which she explicitly opposes morally. But the others don't agree with Cassie and do it anyway, and it works, and it's clear they would have just lost the war there if they had sided with Cassie. Due to the restraints of the narrative, Cassie being wrong is usually indicated not by the others listening to Cassie or failing to stop her from taking action and her failing, but of them doing the opposite of what Cassie wants and succeeding. It's not as flashy and obvious, the other Animorphs don't sit there and say "wow we are so glad we didn't listen to Cassie or we would all be dead and humanity would be enslaved, isn't she dumb", but it's clear from the consequences of the narrative that she was wrong in that case.

The only exception where they were able to illustrate Cassie being wrong in the opposite way, where they take her side and do what Cassie wants and it's wrong, is with regards to throwing away the device to reprogram the Chee (initially what Cassie wanted and the others did not). This leads to consequences in the last book where it forces Jake to get the Chee's participation by threats and force instead, leading directly to Rachel and Tom's death and the escape of Tom's ship. And this comes down to the consequences happening in the last book of the series, meaning that while it doesn't lose them the war the narrative isn't as restricted to keeping all the main characters alive that it can't demonstrate permanent consequences to following Cassie's idea. But in other cases, Cassie isn't always right but her being wrong is demonstrated by the implications of what would have happened if they listened to her rather than what did happen when they did.

Overall I think her character is treated in a pretty balanced way between her perspective being right and wrong, although the narrative framing (out of necessity due to having to write within the constraints of not having the main characters lose and be killed/enslaved) drawing more attention to the times when she is right makes it look otherwise!

[forwomenbiwomen]

trigger: talking about weight!

I have really been struggeling with my body image latetly and Im sorry to vent, but I really need to talk about it with someone.

Despite being objectively thin for all my teen years and early twenties, I have always felt "big."

Until earlier this year I was able to wear clothes I've had since age 17-18, but for the past few months I've been under alot of stress + I started medicine that has affecting my appetite, and for the first time in my life I have gained weight. I have gained nearly 14 pounds over the past two months and I feel horrible. In the back of my mind, I have felt that being young and skinny was my only appeal and Im no longer either. I feel so hyper aware of this everytime I eat and I dont know what to do. I feel so disgusted when I look at the changes in my body and see how big my gut is and how my pants dont fit anymore. And people notice and comment on my increased appetite and snacking and how rounder I have gotten:(

Aw my love 🥺🥺 I completely understand you, that conditioning runs deeeeeep. When I gained weight I felt like the universe suddenly conspired against me to make my life a pain. I saw my body as betraying me, I felt like my fat was a mess I was cursed to be unable to tidy.

But weight is something your body fluctuates for a reason. Being skinny is only nice when you put your entire self-worth into it. Otherwise it's just another neutral state, even possibly a negative one. Raised on a desert island, with only your own body and your natural surroundings, how important would being skinny and weak and fuckable be? Our female bodies in particular make a lot of effort to combat the artificial starvation we inflict, so we gain fat a lot quicker than males. Why wouldn't we? We're the dominant sex, and our body is our armour. Why wouldn't we protect ourselves? What use is looking like a child when our purpose is to be women? As you age, you can no longer force yourself into that childish box, you can no longer pretend to be weaker than you are, and as a woman in this culture this is radical. Your armour grows because your experience grows.

You said you put on weight because of medication, but how miraculous is that?! You have access to a modern drug that makes you better and is also giving you more fat and protection, and you think it's a negative side effect? Could it, indeed, be your body's way of radically recovering? I think it is :). If you still worry about your health, think in terms of muscle. Your body is your armour, your muscles are part of that. You cannot let the patriarchal conditioning of "skinny = healthy" get you down.

I understand the pressure and shame from family though, it suuuuucks. What assholes. With my family, I eventually had to get in their faces and tell them to fuck off... kindly. And I did a hell of a lot of deconstructing with the help of these lovely ladies on radblr!

I hope you're ok and you move into this new stage of your life with grace and strength. Whatever happens, your mind is your own. Many hugs 🤗🫂🫂🫂

[m0use-trapped]

“Good morning Theodore, how’s your week been?”

[The patient had been quiet in their appointments so far. They hadn't shared much, aside from the direct answers to the questions asked. Sometimes, even those were left vague.]

“It's been… fine. S- standard.”

[Miss Jennings hummed and nodded.]

“There’s never enough to do in hospitals for long term patients.”

[The patient nodded back, looking down at their hands. Avoiding eye contact.]

“Yeah. The- the nurses have… not let me do much without- uh, without supervision.”

“They’re a big stickler on that, especially with you being new. Maybe I can try talking to them about letting you do more.”

[She wrote a note down, presumably to remind herself to do that.]

“And what about your meds, have you noticed any differences? Positive or negative, could even just be a side-effect.”

“Not much… I- I still find myself with… what did we call them? L- looping thoughts?”

[They hesitated, trying to figure out if that was the right term to explain the persistent feeling of being watched. It was, but they were second guessing it.]

“I’m sure it can’t be easy having to work on looping thoughts when you are being supervised everywhere you go. If it weren’t so cold out I’d suggest trying to go outside alone for a bit, and that could still be good if you’re willing to deal with the temperature. However, I can’t promise your doctors and nurses will agree with my plan. We all want what’s best for you, but we tend to butt heads on what we think is best for you. Of course that’s also up to you and if you’d want to go outside at all.”

“I think- yes, I think I would like that. The- the doctors would… probably want su- supervision, though.”

[They paused, still not having looked up from their hands.]

“I don't mind the cold.”

“Yes, I’m sure they will, that’s the butting heads part, but that will be my issue to deal with.”

[There was a pause in the conversation. Silence hung in the air between them, almost-awkward but not quite.]

“I saw on your file that it’s your birthday today. So happy birthday.”

[The patient blinked. Surprise was clear in their expression as they finally looked up at Miss Jennings. They looked startled.]

“It- what? I- I forgot it would- uh… thank you..?”

[They were not doing a very good job keeping the uneasiness out of their tone.]

“Sorry, that came a bit out of nowhere.”

[She stood up from her seat, grabbing a box from her desk and walking back over to hand it to the patient.]

“I don’t know you that well, so I apologize if this isn’t something you’d like, but at the very least it will give you something to do in your room.”

[The box read “Super Slide: Handheld Console for Sliding Puzzle.”]

[The patient looked down at the box as they took it, face still betraying their surprise.]

“Oh- I, uh- thank- thank you.”

[They winced at the amount they managed to stutter in the simple response, though they didn't comment on it. They looked down at the colorful puzzle, eyes darting back and forth as they read the box.]

“I've never heard of these. Thank you. You, uh, you didn't have to…”

[They trailed off there.]

“I'm aware I didn't need to, but I figured it would be a nice change of pace. Also truth be told I hadn't before this week either, but then I saw a video for it, and then I saw it at Walmart and figured it'd be a good puzzle.”

[They pulled their legs up onto the chair to sit cris-cross as they studied the box.]

“I- I think this will help. Thank you.”

[The familiar feeling of tears starting to come to their eyes was starting to become noticeable, and they blinked hard, trying to get rid of them before they became visible to Miss Jennings.]

“I'm glad you like it. All I ever hope to do is to make my client's lives better. Is there anything else you'd want to talk about?”

[They shook their head, then stopped themself to speak. The tears were gone.]

“I- yes, actually, uh…”

[They hesitated. They'd meant to say this the week before, but they never did. This wasn't actually something they had told anyone.]

“You- you know me as Theo, and I, uh-“

[The words stuck in their throat, and they faltered.]

“Take your time, we aren't in a rush here.”

[She smiled gently.]

[The patient's response was mumbled quietly enough that Miss Jennings couldn't actually hear it, but they seemed to realize that before she could say anything, and repeated themself slightly louder.]

“I've… been meaning to- to bring something up. It's- it's about gender, and…”

[They trailed off there, words eluding them.]

“Uh- yeah.”

[Miss Jennings hummed.]

“Alright, do you have a different name you would like me to call you?”

“Y- yes. Um- yes.”

[Hesitation, and more hesitation. They were putting this off.]

“Would you- uh… If I give you- a different name, do you- do you have to tell it to… anyone?”

[They were still putting this off. It's too late to go back now.]

“Nope, I can continue to refer to you as Theodore around others and call you by your new name when it's us two.”

[They nodded. They breathed out through their nose. This is fine, it'll be fine. Tell her.]

"..."

“Wren.”

[Breathe. It'll be fine. Keep breathing - do a better job. Breathe better.]

“Well, it's nice to meet you Wren, do you still like he/him pronouns?”

[Oh.]

“They/them. Please.”

[They looked down at their knees again.]

“Alright, thank you for trusting me with this. I know it's sometimes difficult to be open about it, especially with someone you don't know too well. I promise you, not a word of this will leave this room until you want it to, if you ever want it to.”

"Tha- thank you."

[The patient - Wren - spoke quietly. The anxiety that had twisted their stomach into knots slowly eased away as the response sank in. They didn't know what they had expected, but it was not this. This was nice.]

[It was nice, being heard.]

[It feels nice to be known.]

[sanderssidesthehouse]

Can you do Patton for the character bingo? I've seen a lot of different takes so I'm curious to see what you think.

-🌻🌼

Hi flower anon! I'm a little nervous about this one ngl but I will do it for you.

Circle sizes represent how confident I was marking a box. Not a lot of confidence on this one bc I'm still conflicted. I think further resolution of his arc might solidify how I feel about him, or change it completely.

I don't really like Patton Sanders and that's my toxic trait, but HEAR ME OUT. I don't want to convince anyone not to like him, in fact I'd love to convince people of all the reasons they COULD possibly like him! Just like bc of my real life personal experiences, I'm not very fond of him. He is not my blorbo 😔 I don't hate him, but I do mildly dislike him. (As a character I think he's great, his conflict presents a fascinating narrative that I enjoy quite a lot.)

"But Ace," I hear you saying, "you said you don't like him and yet you still think he's being done dirty by fans?" To which I say "Yes, absolutely, there are people out there liking and disliking him for the wrong reasons!" (In my humble opinion.)

Patton is NOT an innocent little baby who needs to be protected, NOR is he a manipulative asshole. He's just a guy trying his best who messes up sometimes. He should be treated like an adult with agency and be given some grace for when he stumbles.

He does care about his famILY and he tries so hard to show it, but he's always felt like he has to know the correct answers and that they're depending on him. And tbh with how much c!Thomas defers to Morality, I get it. When someone is constantly looking to you for answers and it's your job to have them, saying 'I don't know' is scary! But he and everyone else should really try to be brave and say 'let's figure it out together' rather than confidently giving an answer that has a good chance of being wrong. But again, I do understand the crushing weight of these expectations.

I think it's really clever that Morality got paired with Emotions, bc emotions are what drives morality. Different people have different emotions that more strongly affect their morals, with Patton, we see compassion as a primary motivator, but also fear. The fear of slipping into the category known as 'bad person' and the fear of that categorization being permanent. And then bottles that fear up out of shame. Very catholic guilt of him.

I do feel bad for Patton where we left him bc he's finally going to get the help he needs, but somewhat at the cost of the love and respect of his famILY. Roman feels betrayed, Virgil hates Janus, and Logan... Well he's got a lot going on right now anyway.

I prefer Patton when I'm looking at him through the lens of his relationships to the others. He really does his best for them, he's a sweet guy. He tries to be encouraging and he clearly knows the other three very well. And with Janus I think the strongest negative emotion he feels is occasional annoyance, you know, like when he was impersonated. He seems to actually kind of like him otherwise. Not the biggest fan of Remus, which is an understandable side effect of him not yet having sorted himself out. He's trying now, so I'm sure that will come with time.

Also his froggy traits are sick as hell and I hope we see more, I want to see more, make him a frog please, I beg. That's like, the high point of his character to me, I actually had to come back and edit this after I scheduled it to include that bc holy crap Patton's a frog and I love that for him, but I also love that for ME.

So why don't I like him? I have intrusive thoughts and moral ocd and personal trauma I'm not going to get in to so like... He's just so unbelievably frustrating to me as he currently is. Also it just irks me that he's clearly not as naive as he pretends to be and it just boils my blood when people play willfully ignorant. He's doing it bc he's scared, but isn't that why everyone does it? It's still bad, and it causes a lot of damage. I'm of the opinion that if something scares you, you should learn everything you can about it. Logan said something like that once and he was right.

He just makes me feel the need to tell people they don't have to be a moral paragon to be good or do good things or be deserving of happiness, health, safety, and love. I get it's his job and all, I just really can't separate a character like that from all the stuff I had to learn and unlearn for my personal health and safety. And maybe I actually just want to say that to him. Maybe the problem is that we're too similar in all of our worst traits and seeing a grim reflection where once stood a cheery mural is upsetting. Maybe it's Maybelline.

Idk, I might actually like him. I'm very wishy washy on this subject. I think I can manage liking him while also disliking him. I'm very talented. I would love for everyone to tell me all the reasons they love Patton! I think he's neat and I'd love to like him.