#working on a friends character tonight

[slothquisitor]

Just feeling super excited about playing a new D&D character this week. This is Reina, my echo knight fighter, who when my DM asked out of a scale from 1-10 how much emotional damage could he inflict, I said 10. Will I live to regret this? Probably.

[olberic]

caspar celibacy dot png

[xxplastic-cubexx]

I'm sure you've seen these pics but. Oufggfhbf. I've never been more feral. This has forced ovulation. His neck and shoulders are going to look like the scene of a murder by the time I'm done with him. We will be covered in blood. Whose? Doesn't matter. My teeth ache with the need to bite him. His waist is giving me thoughts that will never be approved by the Vatican. One of us is walking out pregnant and chances are it won't be me

Now everyone at this bar gonna see me lookin at michael fassbenders slutty waist for the next twenty munufes thank you my friend

[moeblob]

Windy at my house + power flickering = no comm work = quick laptop doodle

[dont-blame-it-on-the-kids]

Saikhan Hc

Because he’s the closest thing to a friend Lin’s got.

The fan wiki timeline says he’s 10 years younger than Lin but I suddenly cannot read and he’s 47 start of show.

He’s married with five kids. His wife is Akira a nonbender. His oldest four are 24, 20, 19 and 15 and the youngest was a surprise baby who’s 6 at start of show.

He’s always the one who makes sure Lin gets a meal when they order meals at work and he sneakily asked Kya what Lin liked so they always got her a meal she would actually enjoy.

He’s gone undercover with Lin before and has had her back on more than several occasions.

When Mako and Bolin’s parents were killed he did his best to get them into a good foster home and when that didn’t work out had the papers ready to adopt them himself but the boys had run off before he could talk to them and with them joining the gangs he never found them again until they were middle teens.

He actually has Lin over to his place for dinner quite regularly and his wife is always trying to get Lin to come to her mothers’ group where she can do needle work or knitting or something.

He’s usually the first one into work after Lin and the last one to go before Lin leaves. Though there have been a few times he’s had to insist the chief goes home before he’s able to lock up.

He never lost his bending to Amon in B1 and it’s a point of strife between officers who had to go through that and who were lucky enough to not get caught.

One night in the small breath people had between B1 and B2 there was a knock on his door at an ungodly hour in the morning. It was Lin shaken from a flashback/ptsd episode. “I- I didn’t know where else to go.” She sounded lost and terrified. Saikhan hurried her inside and Akira got her tea and a warm blanket. Fool had wandered there without a jacket on with snow on the ground. Saikhan sat and talked with her for a while until he put her up in one of his kids old rooms for the rest of the night.

His house is destroyed during the mech fight of B4 and Lin lets him and his family stay at her estate while the city rebuilds.

[be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie]

Hey, so I saw your post about some fics demonizing Neytiri. That has actually been one of my major fears as a fic writer, attempting to balance Neytiri's extremely valid trauma and the POV I'm writing from (that is typically flawed in some way). I was wondering, since you seem very well-versed on the topic, what do you define as "demonizing" for Neytiri? Is it ok to write from a perspective where a character doesn't really like or trust her, as long as the trauma is noted? Do you have any resources so I can educate myself to properly write this kind of character?

I really want to make sure I'm doing right by Neytiri and improve as a fic writer overall, so any advice you could offer would be very much appreciated!

Whoa, what a complicated and nuanced question. A great one! And I'm super flattered you came to me! Just one I'm going to try to answer to the best of my ability. I'm assuming you're referring to Norm's pov in your fic?

First of all, I do not want to at all proclaim to be an expert on generational trauma; I am not a person of color, and I have been lucky enough to have a very normal and healthy family. I just had a best friend growing up in an abusive household and took steps to educate myself best I could to understand the situation, which I believe anyone would do. So I'm just gonna try to word vomit out my thoughts for you, please ask questions or challenge any of what I say if any of you see anything you think is incorrect. Buckle in, this will be long.

What do you define as "demonizing" for Neytiri?

Demonizing means portraying someone as wicked or threatening, as evil or worthy of contempt and blame.

For me, demonizing for Neytiri is the trend I've seen lately of portraying her as this unyielding, animalistic type character who's hatred of humans, Spider specifically, goes so far that she gets physically violent with Spider and eventually ends up tearing apart her family. In these fics, Jake is always a sad sack loser bystander, loving his wife too much to step in but of course shamefully knowing how wrong what she's doing is. Infantilizing poor white savior Jake Sully, being brow beaten by his mean indigenous wife into neglecting a child is a weirdly strong take in this fandom. Often Mo'at is a wise elder chiding Neytiri for being unable to get over her prejudice. Mo'at and Jake understand Neytiri as much as anyone would, they wouldn't shame her. To me, it's an extremely reductive and frankly borderline racist characterization. When paired with a sympathetic view of Quaritch, it is at best irresponsible and at worst knowingly dangerous.

Neytiri is representative of an indigenous woman. I feel like I don't have to explain why making her violent, volatile, and completely unreasonable is a little bit of a harmful caricature. In these fics, for me, Neytiri ceases to be a person. She looses autonomy to sort of represent this monolith of hatred and prejudice that has hurt our little baby boy Spider. It's crazy to me that people can't apply the exact same empathy they have towards Spider (saving Quaritch) to Neytiri (not being able to trust Spider). They are the most foil of foil characters. Their storylines are extremely similar, if I'm being honest. Essentially, ignoring the fact that Neytiri is a member of a minority community being actively genocided by Spider's people is intentionally reductive. If you can empathize with Spider, and ESPECIALLY if you find Quaritch sympathetic, finding Neytiri's actions unforgivable is racism, plain and simple.

Also, side note, the lengths people go to where Neytiri just literally will not budge under any circumstances at all is INSANE.

(I read a fic the other day where she gave Spider to child protective services behind everyone's back. That's LUNACY. She only came around after she almost lost Tuk when Tuk was suddenly born prematurely and Mo'at came in and was like "Eywa made it so you can never have kids again because of what you did, have you learned your lesson yet?" Like?? I do not understand the HATRED some of ya'll have for her, the suffering you all think she deserves. She's having an EXTREMELY NORMAL trauma reaction to surviving GENOCIDE? Examine yourselves greatly).

But where I was going was Neytiri is the same character who pushed her parents to let them go to human school, fell in love with human Jake, defended him and trusted him despite her family, mated with him and lost her religious position because of it, and then had a bunch of part human kids with him, and adopted a fully freak of nature kid born of a human she loved and respected. She has human friends, she wears and uses human tech, and she forgave Jake after he had betrayed them. Basically what I'm saying is Neytiri, despite her continuous trauma, is the most open and curious and non traditional Na'vi of all time. Girl is READY to meet new people and learn new shit, and to be open to everyone. Sometimes I think about a no trauma Neytiri and I get emotional. I think it's crazy to say she would never budge on Spider, if it wasn't for his dad I'm pretty sure she would've softened lonnnnng ago, if not having liked him from the get go.

Um, that got way too long I have too many thoughts. Second half of your question.

Is it ok to write from a perspective where a character doesn't really like or trust her, as long as the trauma is noted?

This is a tricky question, because technically there is nothing you can't do as a writer. Of course, it also means there is nothing anyone can't criticize you for writing. Like, Colleen Hoover can say she's writing realistic depictions of domestic abuse until the cows come home, I'm still going to say she's romanticizing and normalizing it in a super callous way. Neither of us can stop the other. So yeah, of course you're okay to write from the perspective of a character that doesn't like Neytiri. I just think the point will be what your prerogative is. One of my MFA professors says it in a way I like and I'm sure I've referenced before, if you aren't trying to make a point about something that might have to have a trigger warning then don't include it. I always say I would take it a step further; if your point is to defend that thing, don't do it. So for me, my big points would be try not to project my own feelings onto the character either way; if the character is wrong about something and the narrative intends to show that they will either learn, or we the reader will grow past them. But to be sure what you feel the takeway of the piece is is what you wanted it to be, I guess.

Do you have any resources so I can educate myself to properly write this kind of character?

Well, I have a few on white writers writing BIPOC characters and the ethics of that if you're interested in that. But I don't have any on specifically writing generational trauma. I guess I'd say reading and absorbing are my biggest tools; so reading books/watching movies or TV that use the speculative to translate generational trauma, and learning about and taking in the real life examples the character is based on. Read up on some genocides, and indigenous people today and how their lives are still affected. Even just watch the news; we're witnessing a very public genocide being pushed right to our attention right now. And of course, that is not the only genocide happening rn, it's just the only one we're talking about, so there's plenty of real world case studies unfortunately right in front of us.

[caiusmarciuscoriolanus]

“I’d find you again in every universe” kinda thing.

No but seriously someone ask Chris if he took some inspiration from good will hunting. Theres literally a whole scene in “fishes” where Mikey is telling a story and it’s pointed out that he’s already told the story a million times and he becomes irritated and embarrassed. Which is similar to a scene in good will hunting where chuckie is telling a story about his dad and its pointed out by Morgan that he also has told that story a million times and he has a similar reaction. Also the way he wanted better for will than what he himself knew he’d inevitably be doing for the rest of his life. And in the most recent season of the bear, we see Mikey have similar sentiment about Carmy in the episode “napkins”. Which yeah isn’t about Richie, but Richie still managed to find something he felt passionate about after Mikey died and just based on what we know about Mikey, I don’t think he’d be the type of guy to hate or shit on Richie for growing. Idk don’t look at me I’m crying now. Like the just the understanding from both Mikey and chuckie that they’re gonna most likely stay stagnant in their ways. The fact that will is so smart and has something ahead of him and Richie also being really book smart and having something ahead of him. The way both pairs would have bashed a dudes skull out if the other asked.

[r-adio]

rattling my cage, let me outttt

[isfjmel-phleg]

The episode of the live action A T L A that adapts "The Storm" and "The Blue Spirit" is actually pretty fantastic!

[hecksupremechips]

The best feeling in the world is when there’s a piece of media you know you love and you’ve hyped it up as your favorite thing for so long but you haven’t revisited it in a while so you start to worry if it’s really as good as you make it out to be and so you go back and revisit it and it’s like. Oh this is even better than I remembered this shit rules

[rudylloyd]

I'd be more into gravity falls right now if the fandom wasn't so allergic to being happy bc I'll be honest since trying to join I can't find. ANYTHING cute or happy its all SAD.

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

kglw is kind of a mark winters ass band . if you think about it

[hella1975]

hella do you think you could dumb bitchify aftg 🥺

(your making me want to get it but idk yet)

NO. GET HELP

[invictarre-archive]

pov: you just asked me to talk about cabanela (you have no idea what kind of pandora's box you've just opened)

[aaternum]

ryu is respectful of boundaries for those who don't like physical affection, but if she's given the 'ok' she loves to give her friends hugs. squeezing hugs. jumping hugs. silly hugs. spins-you-around hugs. spooning hugs, intimate emotional hugs!! if they'll allow it and she gets close to your muse .. we should write a hug headcanon. because why tf not.

[silverselfshippingchaos]

it's the 23rd... you know what that means...

Happy Ash Day!