#this man has a way with words

[egophiliac]

GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY, THE NEXT BOOK 7 UPDATE FOR THE JP SERVER IS SET FOR MARCH 1ST.

HOW WE FEELIN LADS!?!?!

AHHHHHHHH NOOO I'M NOT READY, I thought we'd be getting the fourth anniversary first and then Sebek's birthday and then maybe some more episode 7, I didn't -- I didn't think it'd be Friday --

oh god and they're rerunning the story cards, they didn't say this was the final part but it feels like...maybe the penultimate chapter? could the end of episode 7 finally be looming in the distance?! WHAT AM I GOING TO DO

[adsolisoccasum]

I want someone to write songs about me the way Hozier writes songs

[vaguely-concerned]

having seen at least the rough outlines of all the romances now I have to say that I think emmrich's is probably objectively the best in terms of coherence and completeness of story arc (with the understanding that ultimately the 'best' romance is whichever one makes YOUR heart sing anyway so objectivity is a silly thing to claim that way, it just felt like it's the arc with the most well-paced focused content and the least dangling threads)... but lucanis' is my favourite haha. just. the whole kneeling before your beloved full of reverence but without any of the distance that usually implies??? his complete undramatic certainty and calm in every scene with rook after this, having spent the whole game caught between fear and longing???? mr. lives in a pantry but it says nothing about my psyche don't worry about it it's purely for tactical reasons that I keep myself contained in a small dark room not entirely unlike a cell, love among the parsnips -- finally coming to rook in their room and it's so comfortable and comforting???? after all the times rook supports and comforts him through the game he's finally able to return the same to them when they need it while being so calm and steady and it's so fucking sweet and feels so effortless and with no price attached?????? he basically assigns himself the role of your bodyguard and he WILL stab a god over it??????????????? the turn to protector (which was in his heart all along longing to get out and find a place) of it all????? he sounds like he's found himself unexpectedly stumbling into such a soul-lightening state of revelatory existential relief, full on 'you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves' mary oliver style, and he goes and he shares that with rook and protectively envelops them in it when they're hurting??????????????????????????? hello for the maker's sake hello can anyone hear me?????

[hexesandroses]

Listen, I'm not here to dictate how you should interpret Dottore's character, I'm really not; but the one misconception about him that really kills me is the idea that he's a "sadist who experiments on people for fun". Where in the world did people even get that from?

Here's the truth: Dottore experiments on people because he thinks he should. Because, if experimenting on someone will get him the results he desires in his endless pursuit of knowledge, then he will not think twice before going through with the experiment regardless of how cruel it is. Tighnari, while recounting his conversation with Dottore, says, "he never came off as malicious, but an utter lack of compassion permeated throughout our conversation". That's who Dottore is - someone lacking compassion for people, someone who sees himself as greater than the others (whilst also seeking recognition in his homeland, but that's a separate can of worms that I'm not opening today). Dottore won't think twice about how his subjects feel because he does not care; there is no pity nor excitement, only a need for results, answers. So... the next time someone says he's a sadist, just keep this in mind: he's literally not.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

(loosely) that scene from potc... its so Them i think...

[s0fter-sin]

something happening on a mission, something personal that has soap spiralling; panic and rage making him reckless, thoughtless, and ghost has to draw the line

“you’re compromised johnny; you know what that means?”

“you’re not pulling me out,” soap immediately snarls. he turns on him and ghost barely recognises him; venomous fear turning his eyes to unyielding ice. "you're not sidelining me; i need to be in this-!"

but ghost has never been afraid of venom; spat or dripped straight from bared fangs.

he snakes out a hand grip the back of his neck, jerking him in a rough shake. "if you can't think, you can't be a soldier," he growls and he flinches like he's been struck.

his lips quiver as they twist in a sneer and he wrenches, trying to free himself of his hold.

ghost doesn't let him.

"it means you give your body to me because your head ain't fucking attached to it anymore."

soap stills, body trembling beneath his hand as he sucks in shaking breaths.

he tightens his grip, pulling him closer and digs his forehead hard into his. “it means you give yourself to me so i can have the weapon that you are and use you the way you're meant to be used."

the ice in soap's eyes fractures.

ghost’s voice drops to a whisper, spoken only to johnny, not this facade of vengeance and pain, and wills it to reach him through the glaciers.

“so i can keep you safe ‘til it’s done and i can bring you back.”

[whetstonefires]

The reason I keep banging the Jiang Fengmian drum so hard is not that he did nothing wrong--he's definitely in contention for best parenting in this book but that bar is in the ground--but because most of the takes I see about him are so extremely bad.

If you want to slag him off for trying to make choices that would hurt no one, and winding up properly protecting no one as a result, that's valid! That's an interesting and text-based critique, which opens into his parallels with Lan Xichen!

If you want to blame him for being weirdly over-invested in Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng being bffs, that's fair, that definitely contributed to the weirdness between them. If you want to say he was a poor communicator, that he fundamentally misunderstood his son, that he failed to be emotionally available in a way his kids could get much use out of, even that he should have figured out a way to stop Yu Ziyuan from creating such a hostile environment, all of that is fair game!

If you want to tackle how the worst thing he did to his kids was die I am so interested in how Wei Wuxian went on to abandon A-Yuan by going to his death, and how that might be tied to how his primary adult role model tied him to a boat and went off to a fight he knew he was going to lose.

After his parents had already left him like that once before, presumably less intentionally.

But no, instead I keep seeing that Jiang Fengmian didn't care. That he never expressed affection. That he actively participated in Yu Ziyuan's fucky game of forcing proxy conflict onto the boys instead of constantly trying (and failing) to shut it down, or that he ignored her bad behavior because it didn't affect him, or that he fought with her constantly, or that he was too much of an unmanly coward to stand up to her when she wanted something.

All of which are directly in contradiction to every scene he's in, and several of which manage to invert or erase the actual conflicts between him and his wife that were the source of all that tension.

And which are really interesting, because some of the most intractable elements are ideological--Yu Ziyuan is fundamentally a conservative and Jiang Fengmian seems to want to be an egalitarian, which ofc matched poorly with his hereditary authority as patriarch of a large sect.

The fact that the bit where we get to actually see him failing to parent Jiang Cheng consists of him gently and firmly trying to correct Jiang Cheng's ethics when what was actually needed in that moment was reassurance for the well-founded insecurities that were causing him to be a little bitch, only for Yu Ziyuan to charge in and make everything fifty times worse, is so much more interesting than literally any version of this family dynamic I have seen in fic. It's to the point I'm relieved when writers kill Jiang Fengmian off, because it means they probably won't feel the need to character-assassinate him too badly.

The number of people I've seen come right out and say some variation of 'men can't be abused' is killing me here. No, Yu Ziyuan wanting to hurt her husband does not constitute sufficient proof that he abused her first and deserved it! That's not how anything works!

[tea-cat-arts]

I simply think this fandom doesn't give Wei Wuxian enough credit for the various ways in which he saved Lan Wangji

[turtleblogatlast]

Shockingly underrated thing about Leo is that he’s legitimately charming when he wants to be?

He’s the Faceman! He’s persuasive! That’s not just some random title he gave himself with no backing to it. People will listen to him. Even if they think he’s being annoying or if they’re upset at him, people listen to him anyway! There’s a reason his bros push him out front to talk to people, and when this happens, that talking nearly always works.

Moreover, Leo knows people. He looks at them and takes into account how they act and what they’re like as he makes his way through the conversations. It’s easy to forget this aspect of Leo’s character because he only brings it out when he really needs (read: wants) to, but it really is a notable part of him that always love to see.

And I say charm in particular because he has a knack for not only getting people to pay attention, but for getting people to stay and listen to what he has to say.

[chapinii]

I love how supportive fit is when it comes to pac's english, it's 100% his teacher brain taking over but it's so nice to see if pac ever struggles with a word, fit'll pronounce it clearly for him and sometimes tell him more about the specifics of the word for fun. Things can sometimes come off as condescending when it comes to language corrections, but he always turns it into more of an informative moment, it's very cool :)

Same with fit asking abt portuguese words too, it was rlly nice to see pac sharing some stuff about minas gerais after helping w fit's pronunciation, I love it when ppl exchange language stuff man

[ringosmistress]

[guardian-angle22]

Colson Baker (aka Machine Gun Kelly) | December 2021

[brainrot-jikan]

im not the biggest alhaitham/kaveh shipper (because im a rare pair ho) but it seems to me that in alhaitham/kaveh getting-together fics tend to be... unequal.

the beautiful thing about alhaitham and kaveh is that they're both equally right and equally wrong and equally dicks about it. but the writers for alhaitham/kaveh much more frequently seem to give alhaitham the burden change (the burden of the character flaw) instead of kaveh.

in any good character arc, the main character has a fatal flaw or misconception, and by the end of that arc they have addressed that flaw in some definitive way. scrooge was a scrooge and learned that being that way was detrimental; merlin from finding nemo was overprotective to a fault and had to learn that he couldn't (and shouldn't) control everything and to let go; the wolf from little red riding hood learns that you should stop while you're ahead.

stories centering around romance tend to lean heavily on character arcs, which makes sense. and since romance generally requires two individuals to be vulnerable and open and emotional with each other, it makes double sense that alhaitham/kaveh authors zoom straight into alhaitham's lack of emotional vulnerability.

this bothers me.

in society, individuals are expected to experience and present emotions in a specific way. if someone dies, you cry. if someone smiles at you, you smile back. if you're at a party, you're supposed to be having fun. if you don't do these things, you're seen as impolite at best and a inhuman freak at worst. when these behaviors are frequent it's often viewed as emotional immaturity, or a lack of ability to feel at all. the inability or lack of willingness to conform to societies emotional expectations of you is seen as a flaw and a reason for exclusion.

alhaitham is canonically disliked and avoided for being the way he is. he prefers it this way, but that doesn't mean the people perpetuating this avoidance are in the right. they are the societal pressure to conform that alhaitham blows off. alhaitham could be the way he is for a lot of reasons: avoidant attachment style, trauma, following someone else's example (eg. his grandmother), or just his base personality. it doesn't MATTER. he is the way he is. kaveh having to accept that should be part of the story.

putting the burden of the fatal flaw on alhaitham, making the way alhaitham treats kaveh and the people around him the problem, feels invalidating. it implies heavily that alhaitham's way of interfacing with the world, alhaitham's very SELF, is incorrect. my suggestion is to flip a larger portion of that burden onto kaveh. kaveh 👏 character 👏 arcs 👏

some examples/recommendations:

- make kaveh project his insecurities onto other people but especially onto alhaitham; he's overly reliant on other people for his own self worth, and he perceives alhaitham's lack of positive feedback as a direct reflection of how alhaitham feels about him. but learns along the way that alhaitham doesn't hate him, kaveh's actual struggle is with hating himself and being unable to his own self as worthy of love. maybe throw in how you are responsible for your own recovery, other people can help but you can't rely on them to carry you through self actualization.

- or, kaveh tries to make alhaitham behave more like a "normal" person, to be more pleasant and emotive and forthcoming, and then realizes he's in the wrong for trying to make alhaitham into something he's not, possibly for all the wrong reasons (not because he likes alhaitham better like that, but bc society says that's healthier and a better/more conforming way to be)

- or you could go ahead make alhaitham's issues the main problem but they're too complicated to overcome in a short period of time, so kaveh has to accept alhaitham is doing his best in his own way and not push for unrealistic and unhealthy changes. he could alter his own behavior to give alhaitham space and time and a safe place to land.

that got sappy so it's past time for me to dip out. go forth and ship things; but maybe consider letting alhaitham be a rude stone-faced bastard if he wants to be.

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

alex + looking at miles

[somnimagus]

colored some more things from my sketchbook! zelda edition this time

[id in alt!]

[raviollies]

I struggle to find friends IRL and the major thing I have a hurdle with is like....connecting? Genuinely feeling something? Obviously this doesnt apply to everyone and there are people i feel comnected to but for vast majority i just feel like its surface level social etiquette.

I will go through the motions of comforting someone, of lending a hand, paying for lunch or getting them drinks, but I don't feel any emotional connection. I enjoy my time out, and I want them to like me, but somehow it just doesn't find a place to stick around within me. I move away and I don't feel any desire to talk to them again, even if I spent a significant amount of time together. I struggle with finding FRIENDS because most relationships have felt empty, even though I've always had "friends", they just feel space filler and I don't know why, because I earnestly try to connect with them, and do the things a friend would do, but it's just the motions. I don't feel anything by doing those things. I don't feel anything from their reaction, and it makes me feel horrible just even saying that lowkey.

I been thinking of how to bring this up to my psych because it's a major contributing factor to my loneliness but I also don't know how to word it.