#you can't save everyone

[tumblingdownthefoxden]

Dwat

Additions to Altan's backstory to properly set up an emotional moment in a chapter went unplanned.

I wanted to make a backstory where he was just a passionate ball of chaos who would kill an abusive family member for you, no questions asked, but I wondered what would happen if he went toe to toe with a weakness of his magic and now he has secondary trauma.

I'm going with it. Let me know if you would like me to write it

@rascalentertainments @annymation @chillwildwave @spectator-zee @signed-sapphire @oh-shtars @hopeyarts @uva124 @mythartist21 @your-ne1ghbor @thisnameisnotspokenfor

[kitkatwinchester]

F*CK

Well...

I see Scott accidentally chose the nightmare option with his dream state...

I hate it.

I hate that his brain is trying to make him go against his own nature and convince him to start killing people, and I hate that it's using Liam and repeatedly killing him to do it. But the biggest reason I hate it is because of my poor baby's guilt complex. All of those people are already dead, and while Scott wasn't directly involved in killing any of them, you can tell, based on the fact that his brain is doing this, that there's a part of him that feels like he should've done something about it.

And that is soooo not fair to yourself, Scott. Deaton and Chris tried to tell you. You CAN'T save everyone. You CAN'T. A lot of these people are writing their own fates by default of the choices they make--Peter killed The Mute, yes, mostly out of anger, but also to protect Derek and Noah. Rafael killed The Chemist in order to save Stiles. The closest deaths to you were those of The Orphans, and even those WEREN'T YOUR FAULT, because their actions put them in the crossfire, and THAT'S what got them killed.

I get it, Scott. I do. And you know I love that about you. But you GOTTA stop blaming yourself (also very quick aside, Scott having more fangs is an interesting revelation...).

But the other thing is...I'm also kind of glad he's thinking about it at all. Because as much as I love Scott and his savior complex...Liam does have a point. Just like his dad said, sometimes killing is your only option. If it's them or you, are you really going to let them kill you just so that you don't have to kill them? Are you going to let them kill someone in your pack? His loyalty and love for his friends and family makes me find it hard to believe that he'd ever let somebody hurt them, but I don't necessarily trust him to protect himself...and that's a scary thought.

So yeah, I hate the way his brain is doing it. I hate it with every fiber of my being. I hate that Scott is sitting there torturing himself and beating himself up. But I'm also kind of hoping he gains something from it, and I'm hoping that maybe this nightmarish dream state will give him a chance to work through that guilt and learn that sometimes, it really is you or them...

But still...poor baby. :(

Anyways.

I want to hate the interactions between Malia and Peter, because I REALLY want to hate Peter, ESPECIALLY when I can see his manipulation from a mile away, but....I don't. I REALLY don't. God there's just something about him...I can't truly hate him. I can't. He's too funny, and too charming, and too smart, and just overall too fun for me to hate him.

I don't trust him IN the slightest, but...I also don't hate him. And I'm hoping Malia has a similar frame of mind about him.

Back to the hospital, that Stiles, Kira, and Liam interaction was ADORABLE and I love them. XD <3

"Okay and you're both coming right back. Immediately. *shakes head* Kids."

STILES YOU ARE THE SAME AGE! Sure, Liam is a freshmen, but Kira is YOUR AGE SIR! YOU ARE EQUALS! XD XD

But, admittedly, he and Scott are 100% the parents of the pack, so...ya know. There is that. XD <3

All of that said, I am absolutely freaking terrified at the prospect of Kira and Liam having to face one of those freaking Berserker things ALONE, but it's FINE.

This is where a million things start to go wrong, I just know it....

ANYWAYS.

Happy gif to make me feel better. XD

(STILES YOU ARE SUCH A PARENT I CANNOT! XD <3)

Update: THE WAY STILES SO DRASTICALLY FLINCHED WHEN ARGENT ACCIDENTALLY PULLED HIS GUN ON HIM I HATE IT!! AS IF THIS KID NEEDED ANY MORE TRAUMA FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

Update Part II: LET'S F*CKING GO! Dude that Derek and Braeden scene was AMAZING, and the set-up was BEAUTIFUL, and I could not have asked for anything better OMG. The chemistry, the sass, the electricity, the attitude, the LINES, the MOVEMENTS, the MAKE-OUT SESH! Yeah that was awesome. 10/10 approve. I'm adding a gif because I loved it so much and didn't feel like making a whole new post.

(I soooo hope we get more of them. I love them already. <3)

[firerubyjam]

No matter how much you do for them, if it doesn't come from the person they want it from They will never appreciate it

[sunderwight]

What if the plant body hadn't worked out, and the Holy Mausoleum solution had actually taken a long time to sort of "fix" Shen Qingqiu's body and fully call his soul back to it, so that hundreds of years passed and civilization in PIDW/SV world progressed to the point of something like the "modern era"?

Imagine Luo Binghe trying to delicately introduce his shizun to such strange concepts as smart phones and credit cards, while Shen Qingqiu is just desperately trying to figure out how dumb he should play this. Would it be believable for him to get everything on the first try? There have to be some differences between what he knows and this world's versions, right, because of the demons and cultivators and things? Right?? But it's not like any of this actually IS difficult for him to grasp!

Luo Binghe: Shizun already discerned how to type using a keyboard...?

Shen Qingqiu, sweating bullets: what, like it's hard?

[starry-bi-sky]

on a completely separate note; shizun luo binghe with a disciple shen yuan who fell into the abyss??? *thinks about LBH canonically stealing SQQ's corpse for 5 years* he'd hallucinate i think. like, like visual and audial hallucinations.

Keeps thinking he's seeing SQQ in the corner of his eyes, or wandering between the trees, amongst a group of disciples. Thinks he hears him calling for him, but its just the wind or another disciple.

Gets Xiu Ya reforged but patently fucking refuses to make a sword mound. Because his disciple Is Not Dead :))) There was No Body. He's Not Dead. And If You keep Insisting That He Is, He's Gonna Skewer You :). He's holding onto Xiu Ya so he can return his most favored disciple's sword when he returns. It's on his hip right next to Zheng Yang where it's supposed to be.

Also this motherfucker?? does not sleep btw. He has the image of SQQ, wide eyed and hysterical and standing at the mouth of the abyss burned into his fucking eyelids. Can't use the dreamscape to escape it either because he keeps trying to save him and either he does and it's an incredibly cruel trick to wake up to, or he doesn't and he gets his heart broken in several different pieces again.

There is no convincing this man that Shen Qingqiu is dead. Absolutely nothing at all. He is buried so deep in denial that moles would be jealous of how deep he is. He keeps making tea for two in the bamboo house only to remember that it's just him. SQQ's fans are hiding everywhere, little reminders of his presence. He goes to wake up SQQ on the mornings he sleeps in-- only to find the room empty.

[nevermeyers]

“When it's your time to go, make sure you're surrounded by others”

[consistantly-changing]

[Image descriptions in order: a list item which says "remember that you can't save everyone".]

[A list item from a different list which has been checked off, which says "Remember that you have to try."]

[A transcript of arabic text, which says "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say: It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it; If". The original arabic, copied directly, says:

הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, לֹא עָלֶיךָ הַמְּלָאכָה לִגְמֹר, וְלֹא אַתָּה בֶן חוֹרִין לִבָּטֵל מִמֶּנָּה. אִם לָמַדְתָּ

/End ID.]

[egophiliac]

happy new year Ego!!! Just wanted to let you know that I absolutely adore your twst fanart and the tags are just an absolute pleasure to read! You are my greatest inspiration for my personal twst art and I just wanted to thank you for your wonderful masterpieces <333 if possible, may I ask what are some of your headcanons for the diasomnia family? If not for diasomnia then any other characters are fine as well!

thank you, and happy new year! 💚💜💚 that is amazing to hear; it's always a little bewildering but super flattering that other people like my silly little doodles so much!

I don't think I really have any really solid headcanons and also canon keeps validating me left and right (FLUFFY DOMESTIC DIAFAM IS REAL). mostly just kind of...impressions and general thoughts, if that makes sense! lately though I've been kind of obsessed with thinking about Lilia's hair, and specifically when/why he ended up cutting it. (l-look, we're bouncing around the timeline and I gotta make decisions about these things when I draw, it's relevant) (I mean I would probably be weirdly fixated on this anyway, but.)

I think I've settled on the idea that he kept it long until he went to NRC, partly because 1) I like drawing The Ponytail, and 2) I think he thought of NRC as a chance to reinvent himself a bit! he gets to go and be a wacky carefree teenager for a few years and have fun! (officially he's there to keep an eye on Son #1, but how much trouble could he get into, really.) so he gave himself a Cool Teen Haircut to go with his fresh new Cool Teen Persona!

also maybe he had some reflection on his hair's troubled past with three kids...

...and had to weigh his vanity versus the fact that he was going off to be around hundreds of kids on a daily basis, and. the choice suddenly seemed obvious.

[marikodraws]

equipping Akechi’s tie to fight Shido 👊🚢

[geneticdriftwood]

persephone's in hell; a rooftop conversation

for @mysterycitrus

persephone's in hell, @mysterycitrus // white winter hymnal, fleet foxes // assorted dc comics

[belethlegwen]

I mean, the responses by Narrans in the comments have been disappointing, but I don't believe any of us are truly surprised by the results here.

For anyone reading through these comments/reblogs still, I just want to say that I fully appreciate the effort everyone put into explaining how and why the use of generative-AI for art/writing is problematic and genuinely harmful to creatives and their communities. As is on clear display, however, there will always be people who, to put a clear metaphor on it, believe that because they weren't the one that kicked in the door, taking anything from inside someone else's home is no longer a crime; it's merely an opportunity they're taking advantage of.

You can't educate everyone, and people will still choose to do what they do and justify it however they can. Their choices to face whatever consequences may come from that are their own, and they still maintain that right and that power to themselves.

At the end of the day, all we can feel is disappointment, and then move on.

The list of trustworthy creatives grows smaller, but remember there's still hope for those who create themselves, and use tools made and provided by people who gave their full consent for them to be used.

I love everyone in this community who creates for themselves, and I love the things you put out there. I love those of you who previously used generative-AI, learned, and stopped using it and found alternatives that worked for you. I am so sorry to the people who had their art and writings scraped from websites like Twitter, DeviantArt, Facebook, Instagram, AO3, Wattpad, and those people who had their creations fed into LLM/AI databases without their knowledge or consent (including through Adobe Creative Cloud, etc) to train these things.

Stay out there, stay creative, stay loving, and above all: Support other creatives and stand with them in solidarity against theft.

I don’t expect you to answer this question publicly, but I am thoroughly disappointed that you’ve chosen to continue the use of AI art when the artists around you have begged you not to and explained in detail why it’s harmful. I truly hope you realize how much you’re hurting artists by using it and not only apologize, but delete every speck of AI art on your page. Good day.

You don't expect me to answer to answer publicly? At least I am willing to put my name on my stance "Anonymous."

To you, I say you are a coward for not addressing this to me in a way where we can have a conversation about it.

Do you know why I play around with AI generated images? Because sometimes I struggle to make rent. I struggle to obtain groceries on some days. Would you like screen shots of my bank account balance? Do you want me to beg for art for free to others who are struggling just as much as me?

No. It is not fair to the artist to ask them to spend their time making something for me for free and you are not being fair to me because you're not taking my situation under consideration.

I cannot afford to hire an artist for every idea that pops into my head that I want an image for. For things that matter, like my book covers, I have to carefully budget and pay someone to illustrate an image.

I celebrate artists and admire each and every work on every platform I am on. Every piece of fan art I have received or seen I make sure to complement and admire because that is true talent. Artists should be admired and compensated fairly, and I cannot do that on a whim.

You are out here trolling and belittling someone who merely wanted to share an idea and who can't afford to hire an artist to do so on a daily basis. If I had the finances, I would have a team of artists on call to sketch every idea that popped into my head.

But I don't...

Also, if you have a problem with me and my methods, have the courage to post under something other than "Anonymous" where we can have a discussion about options.

I do not wish you ill and do hope that you have a good day, but I ask that you consider your apparent privileged position to either create art to your heart's delight or to pay someone to do it for you because I have neither.

Cheers and, as always, stay awesome! ~Narrans

[cortex-rampage]

I find the way that BBC Merlin set up Merlin's powers in the first episode to be quite funny. I mean, we see this sort of lanky guy and it is established that he is Merlin and (according to our own common knowledge) therefore he is the most powerful warlock ever. Okay, cool. One might assume that he has come to Gaius to develop his powers, that maybe he's only in the beginning of his magical journey. But instead the exposition shows Merlin, in the pilot episode of this 5 series show, stop time and employ levitation to save someone's life with magic, and then it is announced that prince Arthur is essentially his soulmate, and their joint power will create the most glorious age Camelot has ever seen. Quite an exciting set-up. And then for the rest of the entire show this man who we know possesses TIME-ALTERING POWERS mostly uses them on-screen to do common chores and annoy and prank THAT SAME Arthur. Like that one post said, "All of it's destiny and all of it's his fault." :p

[mari-lair]

Y'know about that worst-case neglect route down the acts?

So, what if the menu changes at that point?

Mirabelle

Isabeau

Odile

Bonnie

"a-and Siffrin!"

Siffrin's turn becomes automatic and Bonnie becomes a playable character

they just want to be useful

they are desperate to be useful to their team

That's absolutely heartbreaking thank you for the mental image I am in shambles

They will still not let Bonnie fight no matter how op they get, no no no, Bonnie is a kid so no getting in harms way! but siffrin feeling like he isn't part of the game anymore? isn't part of the team??? Agh that's so possible I AM DEAD

[lord-squiggletits]

I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.

I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.

The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...

Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.

I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.

And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?

It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.

To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.

In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.

Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.

So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.

What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.

Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?

[youkaiyume]

I am watching "My Happy Marriage" for the first time and I really want to like it but it's hard to get past the amateur level writing, and the unnecessary magical element. As a period romance it also seems to lack any adherence to the time period it chose, and it's a shame cuz I think it would be far more interesting if it solved it's drama by adhering to the societal rules surrounding marriage and laws at the time.

I'm powering through it but it feels like I'm reading a poorly researched fanfic.

[kibu-me]

"A curse of madness has been cast upon the remote village of Mankai... Can you guess who the Wolves are?"

(aka a3! x werewolf game)