#also shes a very... passive personality? which is not super engaging to most people when looking at others ocs | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

azure-cherie · 2 years

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𝓥𝓮𝓷𝓾𝓼 𝓹𝓮𝓻𝓼𝓸𝓷𝓪 𝓬𝓱𝓪𝓻𝓽 𝓸𝓫𝓼𝓮𝓻𝓿𝓪𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷𝓼₊̣̇.ෆ˟̑*̑˚̑*̑˟̑ෆ.₊̣̇.

These are based on people ik irl , so idk if you relate , well i hope you do (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧ , i am not a professional astrologer so take this with a grain of salt. Have a good read :)

This is based on tropical astrology

Refer to your Venus Persona Chart

♡︎Having an exhaulted sun makes you Intimidating to the other gender , they fear your attitude .

♡︎Air sign Ascendent will give you a manic pixie dream girl vibe .

♡︎Aries mercury wants someone to actively approach them or they themselves will do it , they don't like to wait for love confessions.

♡︎Saturn in cancer are prone to crying when their crush gets into a relationship.

♡︎Saturn in cancer becomes extremely irritable when they go through a heartbreak and if your Saturn is in 1st it may also affect your appearance .

♡︎Neptune in Aquarius gets prophetic dreams about their love life . Uranus pisces and Uranus conjunct Neptune as well .

♡︎Pluto in Saggitarius are the ones who give advice although their own love life is messed up .

♡︎Node in earth signs may like to go for the nerd ,or be a nerd or be kinda sapiosexual .

♡︎The wild untamed archaetype is very Lilith in gemini .

♡︎I don't know about anyone else but pisces to me is a sign of detachment, although it represents two fishes , to me it's like two energies within us like yin yang , but they're mostly closed off to the outer world , likewise a pisces moon doesn't desire a relationship they like to dream about it but they have no wishes to pursue it .

♡︎Jupiter in Scorpio or Aries can go for the dark feminine aesthetic if they wish to succeed with the help of their looks it will give them abundance.

♡︎If you have your sun conjunct mercury people might be attracted to your voice or you can pursue a creative career regarding singing , and yes it can give you a raspy or a Alto or baritone voice as well .

♡︎All baddies have moon trine venus , in their natal or persona , I'll tell you why , moon represents the unconscious, no matter what you think unconscious is a dark place to be , and moon also represents emotions when one is aware of their emotions only then they can master it , this aspect is of development, to be detached you need to surpass attachment.

♡︎Chiron in Capricorn must engage themselves into a self care routine after any harsh phases of life , this will help them feel better.

♡︎Venus conjunct mars are the type being active in love , bringing each other's gifts and going for adventures, about oneself, they like to buy themselves gifts which is amazing!

♡︎Jupiter trine saturn is a glow up placement .

♡︎Sun trine Pluto likes to burn themselves down , they like the idea of growing from ashes like a phoenix.

♡︎Venus - Pluto femme fatale vibes but prone to oversexualisation .

♡︎Venusian mars in Venus persona chart can go into the fashion industry or any industry that deals with aesthetics.

♡︎Gemini venus are indecisive in love , they get many offers for companionship, they mostly reject them , they don't know whom to love . I have seen them go through so much because the person whom they want doesn't want them and they can't love anyone else .

♡︎Moon opposite mars - passive aggressive in love .

♡︎Leo mercury gets or gives a lot of love letters .

♡︎Mars in leo bold expressive, confesses their love regardless of how scared they are .

♡︎Sun /Venus / jup in cancer gives the native a mommy vibe , bigger breasts as well .

♡︎When lana del rey said "because i am pretty when i cry " she meant sun-moon , sun-pluto, moon-venus , Venus -neptune .

♡︎One of the most beautiful person I know has a Capricorn and aquarius stellium in her vpc.

♡︎Mars in Aries , masculine vibe they generally need men who can defeat their masculinity, they aren't much into feminine men.

♡︎Sun in Libra , soft girl aesthetic, likes shiny things , super friendly, everyone loves them.

♡︎Mercury in Virgo , really polite knows how to craft words , I've seen them always saying thank you sooo much, welcome, good morning etc

♡︎Venus in Libra don't tell me you didn't have a phase when you binged on fs readings.

♡︎Virgo stellium -people fall in love with them because of their intelligence.

♡︎Venus in cancer - becomes beautiful in their later life , attracts a lot of jealousy.

♡︎Venus in Scorpio, people being jealous of their good looks .

With love, 🌷💞

-Azure

#Spotify #astro community #astrology #astrology notes #astrology placements #astrology community #astrology observations #astro observations #astro notes #western astrology #tropical astrology #persona chart observations #persona chart #venus persona chart

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vergess · 5 months

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vergess can you actually explain classpects to me... i was super into them before the muse/lord thing was revealed and the "meta" about classpects changed. so ?????? how do

Well, first things first, I never kept up with the meta on classpects. Not when I was running @godtiertalk and not now.

I use classpects for myself as a fun toy. It's a bit like pokemon. I understand conceptually that there are people using classpects/pokemon in wildly different ways, but I'm over here looking at my shinies and thinking about breeding groups, not consternating myself with what a head-to-head matchup between Time and Space would look like at a numeric level.

With that in mind, I've generally taken a "what and how" approach to classpecting, rather than the more traditional "personality and narrative role" approach. That always struck me as deeply limiting in its applications. First of all, real human people don't have a narrative role, so jot that down, but secondly it means not being able to classpect a character until after a media property has concluded, which is not only Way Less Fun, but also!

Also!!!

Literally not how classpects worked in Homestuck itself.

So for me, classpecting a character involves asking myself what the character does, and how they do it. The "what" will go towards their aspect, and the "how" towards their class.

For example, I might say, "Haumeath is a classic space character: she likes experiencing and exploring for their own sakes. What she does is wander. But in terms of how she interacts with her wanderlust, she's very confident in it on the surface, but hugely anxious underneath that something about her Is Not Good Enough. How she engages with her wandering is compulsively."

So then I would ask myself what kind of class gets compulsive about the use of their aspect, and the answer to that is generally Knights (see: Dave's timeloops, Latula's obsessive overcompensation, every negative thing karkat has ever done). So logically I would conclude Haumeath is a Knight of Space.

Except then, and this is the part I have the most fun with, is to look at the whole title not just the sum of its parts, and see if it still fits. Which, in this case, it absolutely does NOT. While Space is a highly passive aspect associated with stability and inertia, the combination with knight (one who exploits a limited supply) brings up an image that makes simply no sense compared to Haumeath herself: someone fighting against a limited supply of space to just Be. Haumeath has almost the opposite problem of too many options.

Which raises the question of inversion: is Haumeath's title actually the opposite of Knight of Space, namely the Sylph of Time? One who is passively created by the passage of change and the weight of destruction? This title immediately seems more fitting, with sylphs (Kanaya, Aranea) often appearing calm on the surface but hiding immense anxiety and self doubt that leads them down some staggeringly stupid paths.

And then, of course, the most important part of all: imagining a little pink dragon wearing this costume with its silly sleeves so that every time she takes a step there's like 8x more tails to deal with than she's ready for.

And isn't that what it all comes back to in the end? Imagining your favourite characters in a dumbass costume?

#Asks #Answered asks #shipfishwrites #classpects

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azazelsconfessional · 3 years

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((so i was gonna open up my askbox again but I got distracted doing this and watching streams i think idr what i did the past few hours, buuut there's something I need to cover first, especially since there are so many new people around! Hello! Especially since so many of you are playing OCs/MCs.

Don't worry, it's a tip to hopefully help you along! It may get a little long, especially as I try and provide examples. . .but hopefully it'll help.

I'm gonna talk a lot about OCs but this applies to canon characters too a bit. It certainly helps.

Tl;dr, you should have a character profile page.

(also remember that tumblr mobile doesn't really have direct access to Pages made with the Pages function on desktop, so you'll have to link them manually in your pinned or description or host them on another site(I used Google Docs in the apst) or in a regular post(this makes it very easy to lose as a forewarning) for maximum accessibility!)

(rules pages are also really really handy if you have alot of resteictions.)

So, in general, OCs have a bit of a lower reception rate in rp. Idk if that'll be the case here with MCs because they're, well, the main character. Housamo is also a series that lends itself well to OCs pretty well, especially non-human ones, but I figured I'd warn for that.

BUT. That doesn't mean you shouldn't play an OC! It just means there are things you need to keep in mind!

Think of all of the OCs you've seen--you all seem to be fun and wonderful people, and your characters are surely interesting. But. . .if you don't tell anybody about them, nobody will know what's going on or where to start, which makes asking questions a little hard, right? That's easier to work around with MC characters--we've played the game, we know the story, we know the characters, so we can figure out questions fairly easily based on that alone and go from there.

But with other OCs, especially those that don't represent charactera from mythology or fiction like many other characters in housamo do, there's like. Nowhere to start. We may see a face or some dialogue, but otherwise we don't have a frame of reference.

That's where a profile comes in!

Azazel-mun, I don't want to share all of the info about my character at once!

What if I don't know everything about my OC yet and want to figure it out along thw way?

The profile doesn't have to be super detailed! At most it shoule include things like the character's name and age and probably things like their location, profession, grade in school or place of work, etc., and anything you'd notice on the surface like their apperance. It's never a bad thing to include a description of their personality too, or a small section about their history/background. Little things that even you should probably know, too.

You can also section your profile off a bit into things like "surface info," "meta info," "things you could easily figure out about them," etc. That way, no one can spoil themself. Making lists like this can help you think these things through if you haven't already as well.

Let's use Azazel, a character that you probably know already, as an example here. I don't have a profile set

Name: Azazel

Species: Fallen Angel; Capra Therian - an anthropomorphic Goat (?)

Gender(pronouns): Male(he/him)

Age: difficult to calculate; several thousand years old?

Apperance age: hard to say, he's not human. Adult.

Origins: banished from his home world of Eden, has been in the human world for several thousand years

Profession: Priest of dubious denomination, most likely Catholic or Protestant; teacher at Daikanyama Academy; de facto head of the Missionaries Non-Profit charity Organization; supervisor of the Aoyama Missionaries

Role & Rule: Watcher; Revelation - allows him to see anything within the territory of the Aoyama Missionaries and anywhere the pages of his Artifact see

Apperance: Azazel is a 5'10"(180cm) tall, anthropomorphic goat of ambiguous breed, with fawn fur all over his body and lighter fur on his head and around his neck. He has brown, riged horns which curve out and back. Though his eyes are often closed, when opened they're red. He always carried around a leather bound bible with an eye on the cover, and is never seen without several chains on his person, although only the one(s) around his neck can be seen unless he's undressed.

He wears a black priest's cassock with a maroon sash and a capelet of the same color, with the same eye as on his bible on the shoulders of the cape, and brown dress shoes. The front of the robe is always open to expose his bare chest and the chains beneath.

Personality: Azazel is kind and doting, very fitting of both a teacher and priest, although his openly flirtatious, lustful, and secretive nature causes others to distrust him. He doesn't mind this at all. He has a strong adoration for humans, and values love in all of its forms more than anything. He's a bit of a passive person, often being unmotivated but working hard regardless, and seems to prefer to watch others and the world go by, although he won't decline most invitations to take part in it. He is always aware of anything that happens within the extensive territory of the Missionaries, and seems to know and see just about everything about anyone he meets, from their surface to their soul. . . .

If you know Azazel, or take note of some of the wording or question marks, you'll note I didn't explain everything(although I may have shared more than you want to.) This is just a bare bones exampe of how I do my profiles--but it can get even more bare!

I'll do two this time, a more vague version of Azazel's, and another that obscures information all together, using the same or a similar format to the above.

Name: Azazel

Species: anthropomorphic goat

Gender(pronouns): male (he/him)

Age: unquestionably an adult

Origins: Eden

Profession: Priest; teacher; head of a charity NPO; member of the Missionaries

Apperance: Horned goatman of slightly above average human height. Light brown fur, blond fur-hair, red eyes. Wears priest robes and a gold chain around his neck and chest. Carries around a bible with an eye on it?

Personality: Kind of eerie, but friendly and affectionate. A little flirtatious, especially towards humans. Seems to know everything about people for some reason?

Compare it to the one before--see how I've left even more things off or left things ambiguous while still sharing what's necessary or surface level? However, it's also not as engaging or as informative as the other one where I gave more information.

As someone who plays him, profiles like this aren't as helpful for me lol since he knows so much about everyone and everything, having a lot of details helps me play my character!

Now, as helpful as this is, this is also a character you probably know. So how about I do this with an OC? Normally I'm extremely detailed in my profiles and such, especially for OCs, sharing headcanons and ideas for relationships between characters. But, again, I'll try and show how you can show some info while leaving some up to people to ask about to later be filled in.

Name: Kezia

Faceclaim/Art Source: [this is where you would put where you get the art for any icons you use--if you draw it yourself, say so; if you use official art from a series, credit the name of the character and the series; if you use picrews, link the specific picrews. DO NOT USE ART YOU HAVE NOT BEEN PERMITTED TO USE. DO NOT STEAL ART. IF YOU CAN'T FIND THE CREDIT, ASK SOMEONE TO HELP YOU, DO NOT JUST SAY THAT IT ISN'T YOURS. DO NOT USE ART YOU HAVE NOT BEEN GIVEN PERMISSION TO USE OR THAT ISN'T FROM A SERIES OF SOME SORT.]

Species: Human

Gender(pronouns): Female (she/her)

Age: mid 20's~early 30's?

Apperance age: older than she looks?

Origins: Tokyo?

Profession: Professor; Witch

Apperance: A fidgety woman who looks older than she is. She looks anxious and confused as often as she looks curious and confident. Wavy light brown hair. Often carries around schoolbooks and is never alone, always with a Rattus Therian and often with a Nyarlathotep.

Personality: seemingly anxious, but curious and exploratative nonetheless. On the awkward side, but can still keep up with the Nyarls that accompany her. Gets into trouble when she gets ahead of herself in exploring and learning about the arcane, but her Rule allows her to disappear easily.

History: Has always been curious about magic and attempted to run through a Gate when they began to open up. Performed a summon and brought a certain transients to Tokyo and recieved her familiar and the magic to use her Rule as a result. Currently teaches at a college. She stumbled into a certain someone while attempting to explore time, and became a fan ever since.

That tells you a fair amount, doesn't it? Even for someone you don't know? It may even raise some questions that you could ask. At the same time, it doesn't tell you that much, and that can be as much of a hindrance for coming up with questions as saying too much can. It's really up to you what's too much and too little. Here's a more detailed version! Some things have been left vague or confusing in such a way that they could be filled in after being revealed through asks and play. That way, people are encouraged to/given ideas of what to ask--and you can still share things in the long run.

Name: Kezia

Faceclaim/Art Source: [N/A]

Species: Human

Gender(pronouns): Female (she/her)

Age: mid 20's~early 30's?

Apperance age: somewhere in her 30's, maybe even a little older

Origins: Tokyo, with some sort of connection to at least one other world

Profession: Professor of [?] at [?] Academy; Witch

Role & Rule: [?] & [?]

Artifact, Summon, Familiar?: Always accompanied by at least one Nyarlathotep and some sort of man-rat? She also carries around a book that's labeled as a Grimoire, but it's rare for someone to be both a summon-user and an Artifact-user. . . .

Apperance: A fidgety older woman wearing a labcoat and a witch's hat. She looks quite stressed and has trouble sitting still. Her ashy brown hair is thin and a little wavy, with some strands of gray. Although she often squints, she doesn't wear glasses. She carries around a lot of books relating to maths and sciences and one labeled 'Grimoire' decorated with arcane symbols from Gehenna and Old Ones. She's always accompanied by at least one Nyarlathotep and a very short, bearded man who can best be described as a brown rat therian with a human-like face. Sometimes there's a normal rat on her person or in her pockets.

Personality: Kezia is a fidgety and anxious magic practitioner. She's very curious about other worlds and has been since the Gates appeared in this Tokyo since she was a child, however she has been pursuing magic before then. She often appears somewhat confused about or fascenated by even her usual surroundings, but, at other times moves through the world with confidence even in unfamiliar territory. She also likes rats and other rodents, and as such will often avoid felines and birds of prey. She has a tendency to disappear, seeming to walk through walls despite assuredly being alive.

She's a little bit awkward with people, but somehow keeps up with Nyarlathoteps nonetheless. She's a good teacher, once she figures out how to explain things in ways others can understand easily, but can be a bit difficult to follow and flighty up until then. Aware of this, she's rather patient, if a little down on herself at times. However, she most often simply has her mind elsewhere. Despite this and the company she keeps, she's relatively sane. . .most of the time.

She shares a name with a witch from the world of Old Ones who made a pact with Nyarlathotep, believing him to be the Devil. . .and the ratman always at her side uses the same name as that witch's familiar as well. It's. . .probably just a coincidence. . .who would rightfully make a pact with Nyarlathotep?

History: Kezia is an adult human from this Tokyo before the apperance of the Gates and construction of the Walls. She's explored various witchcraft pursuits since she was a child, with what was originally a mere imaginative curiosity and fascination. After the arrival of the Gates when she was still young, she snuck over the fences built around one and attempted to go inside the massive pillar of light, which she attributes to the reason she often seems to struggle with her vision. Several years later, she performed a successful summon and she recieved her familiar, Brown Jenkin, transformed into a somewhat therian form from one of her pet rats, and was given some powers from Nyarlathotep. She has no discernable control over any of the chaotic creatures, however they seem to spend time around her regardless.

At present she's a professor of a subject that interests her at a certain college. She's had other dangerous run-ins due to her excitement over the arcane and "darker" arts, but doesn't seem to show any signs of stopping. However, after an incident in an attempt to explore time itself, she encountered a certain guardian of time and feels reluctant for once to explore it further. . .although she's become quite a big fan of his.

. . .i ran out of steam amd kinda lost track of where i was going. idk if that helped at all really. But maybe it did! I hope it did. You don't need to use any of those things exactly by any means, but that's the kind of thing you usually see in profile pages. Basics like someone's name and birthday and age and apperance and a little about their personality, maybe some history. Oftentimes things like powers and weapons and the like. Interests, hobbies, ways they could be intereacted with, etc. Just stuff that'd help you know the character.

I write everything in paragraph form, but everyone is more than welcome to use a more script format. I love making profiles, myself--it really helps to think about the character and details about them. Normally I make really, really detailed profiles, but maybe I'll try and be more simple about it this time around. depends on how i'm feeling.

I know this seems weirdly hypocritical given I don't have one but when I first made this blog there were like four of us including myself. I didn't see the need for a rules or profile page because I didn't anticipate that there'd be so many of us or, like, people from other fandoms or who aren't familiar with certain characters. I'll rectify that soon hopefully. But I figured I'd pass along this idea/knowledge to others.

. . .I'm gonna go reopen my askbox now. Feel free to send asks again, ask about this, etc! You can send me an IM too if you want. I'll properly close up the guest event tomorrow. I'm real tired rn lol so idk how much i'll get done, but i usually do things super late at night my time, so i have some time to pull my shit together haha))

#ooc #((anyway i'm gonna open the askbox and crawl into a hole))#((i got nothing done lol i was so engaged with something else all week))

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himboarcher · 3 years

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reasons i've seen folks say that grad critics hate grad:

they hate travis (in fairness, i’ve def seen some comments of people shitting on trav for the sake of shitting on trav, but it’s not super common and typically gets downvoted into oblivion on reddit.)

it's not balance / travis isn't griffin (???????)

they hate neurodivergent people (again, in fairness, i have seen a handful of comments that could come across this way! but most of the time when travis being ADHD or his NPD is brought up, it's by defenders saying that criticizing travis is ableist because he's neurodivergent or, in one particular comment, infantilizing him bc of it and literally comparing grad to putting a kid's artwork on the fridge. there were some comments early on that pointed to him being a narcissist as the reason for things people disliked about grad, but everyone seems to have realized that that's a shitty train of thought and left it behind.)

they're just toxic haters (again, there are a small handful of people like this because this is the internet, but the genuine criticism greatly outweighs their bullshit. i 100% think that the people, which is mostly just one dude who is also insufferable on reddit, who have been responding rudely to positive tweets under the episode announcements lately are out of line and need to stop. there's been an influx of that lately, presumably because people are frustrated that after over a year of grad going on, there's been no improvement to most of the major issues. that's still no excuse to be a dick to folks, though.)

vs some of the actual reasons i don't like grad:

the racism / racist tropes, and the way that they’ve straight up ignored this criticism and will likely never acknowledge it. pretty wild considering a core tenet of their brand is their willingness to acknowledge when they’ve messed up and do their best to course correct.

clumsy attempts at inclusion that are shallow and often end up being fairly offensive ("...ask me about my wheelchair," anyone?)

on a related note: i don't think that travis had bad intentions, but as an nonbinary person, it feels othering to me that travis only has enby characters give others their pronouns unprompted. i'm thinking specifically of kai here. having listened to their introduction, i don't think it's as bad or awkward as some people have said, but i can't remember travis ever having another NPC tell the PCs their pronouns, especially not a cis character. it's not a huge deal, but it's something that rubbed me the wrong way. admittedly, i don't think it would bother me so much if travis hadn't dropped the ball so much with performative inclusion in the past.

okay i'm putting the rest under a read more because even without getting into all of the problems i have with it, this got Long.

little to no player agency. player choices are ultimately meaningless and have little to no effect on the world. even when he seems to go along with a plan they come up with, it always ends with them having to go back to travis' pre-written script (see: subpoenaing the xorn, but not really because they had to go with travis' original plan of "send the xorn home through the rift".) the players repeatedly get told things about what they think or feel or what they've been doing to an unnecessary degree. fitzroy is the only one who really gets space to play and decide things for himself, and that's only because travis has decided he's the main character.

the NPCs are all too nice and willing to give the PCs anything they ask for and more, unless the PCs are trying to follow their own plan and then the NPCs are completely useless. but honestly, aside from gray, all of the NPCs are just.... nice. travis refuses to even let his antagonists be mean or cruel or even more than just slightly rude, because that'd be a bummer and we don't want that! the "twist" of gordy the lich king actually being polite and chill is not a twist at all because everyone is like that in this world. the NPCs are also wildly overpowered, but then suddenly absolutely useless when the PCs actually want their help.

too many cliffhangers that are dropped immediately at the beginning of the next episode. i feel bad for travis because so many of these cliffhangers actually set up good momentum and seemed like things were gonna get interesting, but almost every single time he just dropped them at the beginning of the next episode. like when althea showed up to interview the boys and the next episode started with travis being like "actually you went to sleep, she said she'll be back tomorrow!"

that time travis specifically said in his exposition dump that the thundermen left their horses behind because they thought the centaurs might be offended by them riding horses, only to later on rag on them for being surprised that the centaurs had horses they could ride.....

also the centaur arc in general, but i already listed racism above, so.

the way that the toxic positivity and parasocial tendencies in the mcelroy fandoms have made a large portion of the fandom take ANY criticism as a personal attack on travis and/or on themselves for enjoying something others consider bad, either morally or just quality-wise. it’s okay to admit that something you like has problematic elements or just isn’t as good as it once was. you can and should engage critically with the media you consume.

related to above: the way travis has handled genuine criticism, which is to throw public tantrums on his twitter or make weird passive aggressive tweets & ultimately ignore all the genuine criticism and advice he's been offered by claiming it's all subjective, even after he specifically asked for it and set up an email for folks to send in genuine, objective advice for him (after he threw a tantrum on twitter and replied to someone's criticism publicly, which resulted in his followers dogpiling on that person bc how dare they insult their internet best friend). while i was writing this last night, he actually announced that he’s taking a break from Twitter and acknowledged that he’s been using it as an echo chamber where he can easily get validation from folks, and honestly i’m happy for him that he’s recognized this problem and is stepping away for a while! i hope he’ll genuinely use this time to reflect on how he’s been behaving and find a more healthy way to use social media. i’m leaving this point in because i think his Twitter being such a positive echo chamber was encouraging him to do stuff like this, and him somewhat acknowledging his behavior doesn’t mean it can no longer be discussed.

rainer. extremely cool concept in theory and i was very into it until that awkward "does anyone want to ask about my wheelchair?" moment. also when travis had her use her mobility aid to RAM INTO A DOOR instead of just fucking knocking???? also all the times travis has tried to force a romantic relationship between her and fitzroy, despite fitzroy displaying no interest in her in that way. also, just to clarify: as an ace person, i don’t think this is aphobic! (and it’s kind of a stretch to call it that imo, especially since griffin never explicitly said that fitzroy's aromantic!) i just think it’s weird and awkward and a little uncomfortable for me personally, mostly because it reminds me of the times i’ve been in similar situations.

less of a problem than a lot of the other stuff and more just bad writing, but the forced emotional moments. in general, nothing in grad feels earned (why are the boys heading a war? when they have multiple actual heroes with combat experience on their side and a supposedly powerful secret organization? and the thundermen are like 21 years old max and have only had like ~10 fights in the entire campaign?) but there've been a couple times where travis has tried to force unearned emotional moments, presumably because he knows people enjoyed those with the last campaigns. but the difference is that in balance, the big emotional moments happened because they were earned. in grad, it's just travis throwing a baby pegasus at us for a few minutes and then the next time she shows up, it's supposed to be a tearful goodbye.

there are absolutely no stakes. remember when the thundermen got told that if they left, gray would kill 10 students? and then they left and came back and it turns out that what gray actually meant was, "i'll tie ten students who are mostly nameless NPCs to a tree and throw some dogs at them that you can easily stop in time, then throw a tantrum because how dare you but i'll leave before you can really do anything to hurt me lol" travis did have fitzroy's magic get taken away, but like. it didn't really do anything? also all he had to get it back was be coerced into using drugs by an authority figure and trip in the woods?

we're told that the school is weird and the hero system is corrupt, but the world of nua is still presented as more of a liberal utopia than anything? althea getting fired because of a corrupt villain is the only time we've somewhat seen corruption, but even then, she was still allowed to get (what seems to me, anyway, but admittedly i don't know for sure bc nothing about the HOG makes much sense) a fairly important job from the very people who stripped her of her hero license or whatever the fuck heroes need?

travis doesn't actually seem to understand how capitalism or bureaucracy works and just chalks up everything to "red tape." also more on the rest of the boys than him specifically, but the "let's destroy capitalism!" thing turning into just pushing some filing cabinets over................... okay.

and one last piece of extremely subjective criticism: it's just kind of.... boring. i think a lot of people, myself included, would be willing to overlook 90% of the problems with graduation if it didn't feel like such a slog to get through.

also people saying that we can't or shouldn't criticize graduation because it's "free" is absolutely absurd for several reasons. first, something being free does not make it above criticism. second, there ARE people who directly financially support the show with monthly donations. three, there's a difference between something being free and something being not for profit. podcasting is their full time job. they make their living off of money made from TAZ and MBMBAM (and probably their other shows to a lesser extent). this not a fun home game that they are graciously recording and sharing with us. it is a product they are producing that they make money off of, both from ads in the episodes and merch & books based off of these podcasts. they have marketed themselves as professionals, and both griffin and travis have been on panels where they are marketed as professional DMs and appear alongside other professional DMs (which makes it incredibly frustrating when people say that travis is just a newbie DM and we can't criticize him because of that. if he's a newbie, then he should not be taking part of panels as a professional DM where he speaks as an expert). TAZ is free in the same way that an episode of NCIS is free. i may not pay for it directly, but the creators are paid to create it and profit off of me consuming this product. so saying we should be grateful for any mcelnoise that the benevolent good boys share with us and that we're not allowed to criticize it "because it's free" is absolutely wild.

#negativity cw #i guess #anyway this is not meant to say that you cannot enjoy grad.#but i'm tired of folks on this website acting like there aren't genuine problems with it #and saying that people just dislike it bc they hate travis etc etc #taz graduation #i genuinely don't expect anyone to read this bc it's so long #but here ya go.#long post

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canary3d-obsessed · 4 years

Text

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed - Episode 02

Warning: Spoilers for all 50 episodes!

(Masterpost ) (Previous Episode) (Next Episode)

Donkey Riding

way ho and away we go, donkey riding donkey riding way ho and away we go, riding on a donkey

Wei Wuxian and Apple are doing their best for the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Xiao Zhan had trouble riding the donkey sitting side-saddle, so the Department of Questionable Practical Effects made him a fake leg to wear while riding regular style.

Can you spot it? It’s very hard to spot. It is very convincing.

Simple Pleasures

Wei Wuxian takes his time wandering up the nearest mountain, and half of the cultivators in the land also wander up this mountain because...Night Hunting! The cultivators are hot and thirsty from walking because they forgot that they all know how to fly.

Wei Wuxian relaxes by a well and listens to people stanning him.

Also

I’m going to say it: Wei Wuxian never met a drinking vessel he couldn’t blow.

Everything is Beautiful at the Ballet

The actress who plays A-Yan is named Zhang Linran. She probably has studied dance since she was 4 and now she gets her big break which turns out to be feeding an apple to a donkey. So let’s pause for a second to look at how beautifully she moves.

Reunions are Awkward, Part 1

Wei Wuxian meets up with one of his family members and it goes super well.

I...like Jin Ling? He’s much less of a douchebag than his dad, his uncles Jin, Jiang, and Mo (the three stooges), and every damn one of his Jin cousins. He’s genuinely brave (his Dad’s primary good quality) and his hair is on fleek. He’s still a whiny diaper baby, but I like him.

(much more after the cut!)

Then Jiang Cheng shows up, looking fine as hell and radiating peak arrogant-prick energy.

When he discovers that ‘Mo Xuanyu” stuck a piece of paper to Jin Ling, he tells the child to literally murder him. Excellent uncleing! A+++++ would recommend.

“In fact, literally murder anyone who uses Yiling Laozu’s tools, like talismans, lure flags, or spirit compasses - basically murder everyone in the Lan Clan plus those other fanboys we saw coming up the hill. Then get out there and make some friends, goddamn it!”

These nets full of cultivators on this daytime night hunt are the only time we ever see anything in a net during a night hunt. In fact dudes constantly go night hunting and the only prey we ever see is rock lady, murder turtle, and a couple of rag mops in the lake.

You Are Not Qualified to Speak to Me

Also radiating arrogant-prick energy on this occasion is Lan Wangji. He has been using pettiness as a weapon since long before he met this Jiang Cheng turkey, and he *brings it* when Jiang Cheng tries to have a conversation with him.

Letting your eyes wander everywhere except to his punchable face while you ignore his passive-aggressive questions? Quality work.

Dropping a silence spell on his child and then letting your own child explain it to him? Golden.

Lan Wangji is never ever going to forgive Jiang Cheng for what he did on cliff day, and his silence here is as pointed as an ice pick. I suspect the last words Lan Wangji actually spoke to him were “Jiang Wanyin, stop it,” sixteen years ago.

Jiang Cheng is actually the bigger person in this particular interaction, visibly mastering his temper and telling Jin Ling to take his medicine.

Reflecting

Wei Wuxian hangs out by a beautiful river and hallucinates for a while. River Jiang Yanli is nurturing and River Jiang Cheng is pissed off, so there are no surprises there. River Jiang Cheng thinks that Wei Wuxian is a promise-breaking douchebag. He’s not exactly wrong.

Courtesy of convenient gossiping cultivators, Wei Wuxian discovers that the 16 year old arrogant kid from the Jin clan who his brother from the Jiang clan has custody of is actually and quite obviously Jin Rulan.

Well fuck I guess now I care about something, that’s inconvenient.

Needing to help parent the child of the sister who parented him is what draws Wei Wuxian fully into his new life.

As soon as he has this realization, Apple comes back from roaming around, and never gives him any trouble after this for the rest of the story. Which...probably doesn’t mean anything.

Wen Gravesite

Does Wen Ning hang out here because it’s where he and his (dead) people came from? Oh great, now I am sad.

Judging by all the leaves on this grave thingy I’m going to say that this grave tender dude is, ah, not very good at his job.

Get him, Jingyi!

I feel like maybe we all focus too much on how Lan Jingyi is so hilarious and sardonic and not enough on how he is a such a biscuit.

Soul Grass

As mentioned in the previous post, Chinese spiritual concepts don’t always translate well into English. Soul grass? Sure, why not.

This is where Wei Wuxian’s Sherlock Holmes brain starts to work, although he still doesn’t remember really basic stuff about Dafan Mountain. Dying and changing bodies is rough on the old neurochemistry. This creates more opportunities for flashbacks, however, and if there’s one thing The Untamed deffo needs more of, it’s kissing flashbacks.

Temple Statue

Presumably grave-tender dude is also in charge of clearing away spiderwebs at the temple, because it’s not getting done.

Jin Ling walks into the temple blaspheming at full volume.

Since this isn’t a Greek story, he isn’t immediately struck blind for this. Then when he wishes for the statue to come alive, it obligingly does. Everything’s coming up Rulan!

Wei Wuxian shows up to rescue all the kids by throwing talismans at the monster which does not tip anyone off to who he is.

Baby Cultivator Babysitting

Lan Wangji chills out in the cultivators’ pavilion with Jiang Cheng and their mutual hate boners.

Meanwhile, Wei Wuxian forgets all about his nephew and turns into cool professor guy, explaining the basics of soul-eating to the baby cultivators and gleefully encouraging their fear of Hanguang-Jun’s punishments.

Because the Lan babies are good filial children they are super respectful and engaged with this random adult who is lecturing them. They also - like their own Hanguang-Jun at their age - see and admire Wei Wuxian’s intellect. It’s easy to forget how extremely smart Wei Wuxian is, because of how extremely dumb Wei Wuxian is.

Lan Jingyi suddenly figures out Wei Wuxian is not crazy.

Bis. Kit.

Then Rock Lady shows up and Jin Ling sticks 6 arrows into her while Lans Jingyi and Sizhui stand around not bothering to draw their swords.

I see a lot of comments about the bad effects in the statue sequences but I think Rock Lady is all right. The figure animation is decent and the lighting is no worse on her than on everything else in the scene. Her hair is nice, for a rock person.

Admittedly I just finished watching Guardian which has CGI monsters so bad they may have injured my retinas and possibly also my DNA, so the bar, for me, is pretty low. Rock lady clears it with room to spare.

Note: Wei Wuxian’s flute playing does zippity towards controlling the statue. Not sure what his plan was here.

Wen Ning Kicks Ass

Now we get to meet Wen Ning, who appears to be a stone-cold badass. Later we will discover how hilariously inaccurate that assessment is.

While all versions of Wen Ning are delightful, this version of Wen Ning is also...strangely attractive? He’s got a Patti-Smith-Horses-Era vibe here, instead of his more usual lost-baby-dork vibe. And his dreamy “I have nails in my head” expression is intriguing.

I mean, he’s not a total snack like zombie Song Lan or pre-zombie Song Lan or blind Song Lan or post-zombie Song Lan, but this look is a good one for Wen Ning, is what I’m saying.

Reunions are Awkward, Part 2

Lan Wangji, who has 99% already recognized Wei Wuxian because of the haunted sword and the fierce jawline and beautiful neck and tiny tiny waist, is summoned by his flute playing as inexorably as the Ghost General was.

Jiang Cheng also recognizes Wei Wuxian and goes into full beatdown mode, thwarted (silently) by Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian attempts to preserve his incognito by sassing Jiang Cheng in as sibling-like a manner as possible.

Hanguang-Jun’s Pro-Ghost Agenda Has Been Clear for Some Time

This Jiang/Lan fight is hilarious when you consider the implications.

Macroexpression vs. Microexpression

Mo Xuanyu brought Wei Wuxian back using sacrifice summons, a dark ritual invented by Wei Wuxian that he, most likely, did NOT show to Lan Wangji back in the day. So it’s a pretty safe bet that Lan Wangji doesn’t know that Wei Wuxian was gifted a body, rather than stealing one.

when your brother turns around, you must whip him you will never live it down unless you whip him

When Jiang Cheng lets loose with Zidian, it’s not just because he’s angry. He’s using purple power to force Wei Wuxian’s ghost out of the body he’s apparently possessed. And Lan Wangji instantly STOPS him from doing that.

Clan Leader Jiang: this person has been possessed, against their will, by an evil ghost

Future Chief Cultivator Lan: Counterpoint: I am banging the ghost

Flashback Time

Welcome to your 30-episode flashback!

Once I used to join in Every boy and girl was my friend Now there's revolution, but they don't know What they're fighting

Let us close our eyes Outside their lives go on much faster Oh, we won't give in We'll keep living in the past

Road Tripping to Summer School

Gosh I’m looking forward to younger, kinder, more relatable Jiang Cheng.

...prick.

Incidentally, until now this episode didn’t know that Jiang Cheng has smile muscles, and neither did the person who glued his wig on for him.

I Like Rabbits

Here we have our first rabbit in a large collection of rabbit iconography that appears in The Untamed.

Instead of sending everyone to the Wikipedia page for Tu'er Shen I’m going to take this opportunity to rec the short film Kiss of the Rabbit God by Andrew Thomas Huang (tw: blood, tw:body-mod cutting) which you can read about and watch over at Nowness.com

Particularly if you are a queer person of Chinese heritage, check it out.

So. What the fuck are these? Are they food?

Are they made from wax? Or corn starch? or pig intestines?

Wei Wuxian runs off to get laid drunk and Jiang Cheng grumps about it. Jiang Yanli reminds him that being free is a Jiang Clan Rule, so really Wei Wuxian is following the rules by not following the rules. Does that mean he’s not free? My head hurts.

Jiang Cheng: yes but grump grump grump

Jiang Yanli: Nothing bad will ever happen because of A-Xian’s choices, trust me

Outro

Wei Wuxian faint tally: one Caught by: the cold hard ground

Soundtrack: 1. Donkey Riding by Great Big Sea 2. Living in the Past by Jethro Tull 3. Whip It by Devo

Fic prompt: Lan Wangji’s internal monologue while he sits in the pavilion with Jiang Cheng

If you write a fic from this prompt and want to share, please post a link in comments!

Bonus: Wang Zuocheng, macro-expression king

Episode 03 Restless Rewatch coming soon!

#the untamed #fytheuntamed #the untamed spoilers #the untamed gifs #the untamed stills #my gifs #my stills #restless rewatch #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #lan wangji #lan jingyi #c-drama #bl drama #the untamed memes

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new-lorien-artist · 2 years

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If you had to pick one canon human Garde and have one of the OG Garde be the designated mentor for them, which human Garde would go with which OG?

I don't know what you mean by canon human Garde, since I don't think I've heard of any headcanoned ones (or publicly released human garde OCs, though that'd be kinda cool), so I'm gonna assume you're sticking to the ones that have been named in the series, since there's tooons of Human Garde who are left unnamed.

Here's what I think so far:

John - mentors Duanphen

I'm not a hundred percent sure how this would happen but for now it's hypothetical. I don't know the extent of Duanphen's Legacy outside of what we've seen her do, but John could be someone who can help figure that out. From his experience with Ximic, he's learned how to observe and utilize Legacies, acquiring them when the situation calls for more than one person who has a specific Legacy, and combining them with other powers to gain a unique upper hand. He could work with Duanphen to test how she can fare with fighting other Legacies or scenarios, such as fighting in the air or underwater, battling against long ranged Legacies or invisibility, facing combat with one Legacy or multiple at once, making her change her strategies and fighting style to adapt to the situation. I imagine most of their mentorship is going off of technical skill and bringing out the most in Duanphen, most of their conversation being about this rather than personal grievances or casual conversation, at least at first.

Six - mentors Nemo

From what we know in the novellas, Six and Nemo are on a pretty similar wavelength. They're both greatly determined and stubborn, look after their friends, do everything they can to fix things if something goes wrong, and can be depended on. I would imagine most of their training would reflect Katarina's training methods with Six growing up, learning how to fight hand-to-hand combat, to be agile and reactive, and to look for signs of company when it seems you're alone. Maybe something like Six turning invisible and making Nemo track her through her own senses, and to spot her with telekinesis. Maybe they'd also have a swim competition for fun, to see who's the better one.

Marina - mentors Rabiya

Marina has primarily used her healing on the battlefield until Glacen came in, and has rarely used her Legacies as a combative aid since there weren't many situations that called for her abilities, so one of her most experienced challenges was using a supportive Legacy and how. Rabiya's Loralite Generation, much like healing, costs time and energy and leaves her vulnerable because of how much focus she needs, so she'd have to learn how to defend herself, and how to locate, if not create, a safe hidden area where she can use her Legacy with minimal dangers. So Marina can train her in focus, strengthening, endurance (bigger Loralite crystals), self-defense, and being constantly aware of her surroundings for places to escape to or people who are around her, as well as stalling the enemy and keeping them distracted. Both Marina and Rabiya have a side to them where they try to end things as passively as possible, but still holding firm to their ground and taking action when they need to, so there's a wavelength between them that's like do no harm but take no shit.

Nine - mentors Kopano

Nine already has a good relationship with the Fugitive Six, and has worked one-on-one with Kopano, figuring out his Legacy and training him like crazy. Nine knows how to utilize non-offensive Legacies and turn them into offensive by knowing his surroundings and getting creative with the extent of his powers, which Kopano has also proven to make the most of when exerting Pondus in daily life and in battle. Kopano's also a very ecstatic and positive person who Nine can keep up with, actively engaging in his ideas for being this cool super powered Garde who can save the world, but also keep him level-headed and remind him the stakes and trials of being a hero, how it's more back breaking responsibility that can and will injure you. Sort of a humbling experience, but not said in a discouraging manner, because they both agree Legacies are super cool to have.

Ella - mentors Simon

They both share Legacies that are mental based, Simon able to transfer knowledge and Ella capable of telepathy, precognition, the like. Ella's had her share of intense training and exercise in the past, and could fulfill that with Simon, out of the need to be able to fight even if their Legacies don't make that necessary. I can't think of many ways this mentorship can train Simon. Probably learning to observe and hold onto key information to relay back, keeping his thoughts on track to avoid slipping other information (in Gen One he accidentally transferred a bed wetting incident to Isabela since he had drunken too much water at the time). I'm.. not super sure who Ella can mentor, though I've gone through a couple other ideas (Ella mentoring Nigel, which I mainly think is funny but probably has potential).

And, if you want to include Five in this, then

Five - mentors Miki

Yeah, this would be an interesting team up. They're both very well trained in their powers because of those who helped them develop their Legacies, Five with the Mogadorians and Miki with the Foundation. Their Legacies are similar to each other's and copy an almost identical list of advantages (good for spying and hiding from trouble quickly). I just wonder what their dynamic would be like, reflecting their past choices, what that god them into, and their resolve and direction for future paths. Five is very adamant on his position to dismantle organizations that puppeteer Human Garde, which Miki had been involved in and wanted out of it. Not much I can imagine they would get into when teamed up together, but it's a thought.

#you ask i answer #lorien legacies #lorien legacies reborn #loric garde #human garde #sorry this took so long i kind of struggled figuring this one out #i do really want to see the dynamics of above play out because some of them i sat down thinking on them and figured #they would be very cool or very very funny #ella mentoring anyone i imagine to be mostly funny because of her foresight and just being chill about everything

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deonideatta · 3 years

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Alright it's Vincenzo and fire meta time! I dont know if this is super obvious and I'm just repeating what everyone's already picked up on, but Solar's version of Adrenaline gave me the push I needed to write down my thoughts (Italian version >>> tho imo) so here goes. I apologize in advance for the length sflds this is my thoughts straight to the page so it went on for a while :')

We associate Vincenzo with fire almost from the first episode. From the get go, the first major thing we see Vincenzo do is burn down a vineyard, pretty nonchalantly. Then we establish his habit of fiddling with lighters, and to round it off he blows up Paolo's car. The fire imagery is there from the beginning. When he loses his temper he's fiery, he fights fire with fire, his birthday is on bonfire night, it's a pretty clear link. Yet, interestingly enough, as we get to know more about his character, it appears like he is mostly a very level-headed person when it comes to high stakes conflict, as seen in the court scenes and in scenes like the ones where he threatens Choi Myung Hee. In fact, his cool-headedness is one of the things Cha Young lists as one of his charms in ep8. He doesn't come off as hot-blooded as quickly as a character like Father Kim in The Fiery Priest, for example.

Besides the times when he's just annoyed angry over things like being robbed or the drama with Geumga plaza, we see him get seriously angry only over the emotions from seeing his mom (he yells at her, he lights a cigarette) over Hong Yu Chan's insistence on pursuing Babel despite the danger (he raises his voice on multiple occasions), and over the death of HYC (he throws a wine glass and then he has syringes stuck in JHS's pillow and he organizes the warehouse arson). Note how most of these things are accompanied by some use of a lighter (more on that later). Yet, times when he yells and cusses in Italian aside, in doing most of these things he's not very visibly aggressive? If you get what I mean. He's still almost cold/mechanical in the way he goes about it. Like the result of his anger is an inevitability; if you light a lighter you start a fire. This is seen when he gets angry over the vineyard owner's attitude (he doesn't lose his cool, he just burns down the vineyard) and Paolo's attempted assassination of him (he shoots the assassins calmly, he blows up Paolo's car and threatens him, he leaves italy). Even the actual act of the Babel arson isn't very fiery on Vincenzo's part.

The thing about Vincenzo though is that, much like the lighters which he constantly opens and closes without lighting, most of the time he's not always very openly fiery. As mentioned above the only times we see Vincenzo actually light a lighter are when he's truly angry. He opens and closes them to calm down, but occasionally instead of calming down he lights the lighter, and he burns down a vineyard or lights a cigarette. He says in ep 2 that being weak and feeling helpless make him angry, and perhaps that's why opening and closing a lighter helps him calm down, because it reminds him that he can do something, he can light the lighter if he chooses to.

A lot of his anger/bitterness goes back to him being abandoned by his mother, and we see that it's still a big deal for him because some of only times we see him lose a grip on his anger and have outbursts of emotion are in scenes related to his mom (when he comes to tell her no one will come visit her now, when she doesn't want to get treatment, early on when he's in the courtroom for her case). We see that momentary crack in his level-headed personality when it comes to his mom, and the cracks get larger the worse her condition gets. (I wonder how it will go if she dies? It seems like she might. Perhaps that'll push him over the edge). Being someone who doesn't like feeling helpless, the scenes where he's angry about his mom become all the more impactful because there's nothing he can do, he can light the lighter but all he can do with that light is light a cigarette. Notably we also see him get emotionally angry/agitated worrying over Hong Yu Chan's perseverance in fighting Babel, perhaps since he also comes to see HYC as a mentor/father figure. He was helpless again, he couldn't do anything to help his mother's sentence and he couldn't do anything to stop HYC and his eventual death. In all this we see that there is a marked contrast between fiery emotionally engaged angry Vincenzo and cool-headed business minded angry Vincenzo. The more dangerous of the two is arguably cool-headed angry Vincenzo, because this is the mode he enters after the initial burst of emotional anger, after which he hatches and executes another high stakes plan.

Which brings me back to Adrenaline. The lyric about wanting to leave so as not to cause hurt is there in both versions, but in english it's "Fire, rising up (to) higher, I'm burning up it's dire, I don't wanna hurt you so leave" (According to this translation of the Italian version the equivalent part in that one is "The fire (is) rising upwards, I'm burning slowly, Please leave me, I don't want to hurt you", more or less the same thing). At this point we're aware that Vincenzo has a lot of unresolved internal anger, but we aren't clear on the full extent of it yet. He effectively hides it behind smooth words and well thought out plans, but that doesn't change the fact that he's "burning up" with all that pent up anger (over his mother mostly, and now also over Babel to an extent), which is also "rising up" as he's reminded of his past and faces new challenges. It's only a matter of time until he hits burnout, or an explosion of some kind. If you think of it like a water balloon (idk i'm bad at coming up with metaphors), over time more and more things (abandonement issues, having to kill so many people, having to leave italy, frustrations surrounding the tenants, BabelTM, the death of Hong Yu Chan, meeting his mother again, hearing the truth about his mother's case first hand, his mother potentially dying, and so on) fill it up until bANG, it's too much and it bursts. Pent up anger is a ticking time bomb, and it's anyone's guess when he'll stop clicking the lighter open and shut and set the world on fire again. We'll either have Vincenzo overcome and learn to let go of his anger, or we'll get to see him truly snap and cause some real damage to his status as a non-fugitive and/or his relationships. Maybe some combination of both.

Interestingly though, we haven't seen him get directly really angry at Cha Young before, though they were very passive agressive in the earlier eps. This shows a difference in the way he sees her now and the way he saw Hong Yu Chan, she's willing to get her hands dirty and so even though they're still fighting the same Babel he's not as worried about her safety because she's a lot like him. And yet, assuming that Adrenaline is from Vincenzo's POV and the person he doesn't want to hurt is Cha Young, we can infer that Vincenzo knows full well the potential danger of his pent up anger, and that he cares enough about Cha Young to want to still keep a certain distance from her so as not to hurt her in the event that said anger leads to bigger trouble/more illegal high stakes plans/things she wouldn't approve of i.e hurting or killing people. We see that he is drawn to her (very obviously), and that he likes her (VERY OBVIOUSLY), but he doesn't want to burn her, hence scenes like the "villains don't deserve to love/love requires qualifications" scene. Fire can warm people, it can be a force for 'good' (for example, the revenge on Babel for its victims and Cha Young via the arson), but it can also destroy people. It looks like it is definitely eating away at Vincenzo, and he doesn't want the fire consuming him to burn those close to him.

He's done things that may or may not haunt him, and he may not deem himself worthy of love because of those things, but deep down I do think he wants to be loved, to have a home, to let go of his anger and be allowed to live without it. His initial plan was to get filthy rich and then run away, but like the monk said, unless he faces his anger, it'll follow him wherever he goes. Forests burn down and regrow naturally, but unnatural forest fires are hella destructive, it's all about how he handles his anger. Harness it and overcome it, or let it control him and eventually destroy him. Rn it looks like it torments him but he uses it to his advantage, as a driving force, but how sustainable is that? Each of the arsons are preceded by gasoline, what will serve as Vincenzo's gasoline and what will be the spark that sets him alight? Will Cha Young be the bucket of water that settles Vincenzo's flames, or will she be the bucket of gasoline that burns him to the ground? We'll just have to wait and see.

Pls interact it took me like a week to write all this :')

#if i've missed anything lmk #my schoolwork watching me neglect it to write this like 🧍‍♂️#doesn this count as eng lit work #yes it does #vincenzo #tvn kdrama #tvn vincenzo #kdrama meta #vincenzo meta #vincenzo kdrama #vincenzo cassano #hong cha young #kdrama

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hopeshoodie · 3 years

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Part 7 of my Pros and Cons of dating the different islanders (yes I’m finally coming back to this :P)

Gary

Cons

He doesn’t have a whole lot of thoughts about things that he’s not actively excited or annoyed by, and he doesn’t really feign interest. If MC buys a new top, or is invested in a new show, or anything that Gary doesn’t really care about, he’ll really disinterestedly say “that’s cool babe,” and make her feel like it’s unimportant. He’s not patronizing/embarrassing her on purpose, he just doesn’t have a lot of tact. You would have to really talk to him and work with him to get him out of this habit, because he doesn’t see how it’s hurtful or care that much to change.

He gets really defensive. If you call him out on his behavior or point out how he’s really stubborn, he’ll argue with you without really considering if his behavior is bad. Arguments with Gary suck because it gets to a point where he’s not hearing you and will just say “whatever” and refuse to engage. The best way to change Gary’s behavior is some pavlovian shit- you need to offer positive reinforcement without him really noticing. When he communicates really well, shower him with affection. When he picks up after himself, tell him how much you appreciate it.

He’s very willing to walk away from things that challenge him instead of trying to grow as a person. We saw that with him and Lottie- whenever she or MC offered valid criticism of his behavior he would just walk away. That applies to most areas of his life- if he tries a new hobby and isn’t good at it immediately he’ll drop it. He doesn’t really like trying new things or going to new places, and if something challenges his worldview he’s more likely to ignore it than engage.

I’ve said this already but he buys MC heart shaped jewelry and pandora charm bracelets...

Gary’s a lad. While he doesn’t intend to hurt anyone’s feelings, he never really engaged with social justice issues and he hasn’t done the work needed to be anti-racist. He’ll laugh along to sexist, racist, homophobic, and ableist jokes without really thinking about the implication. He’s loath to call anyone out. If MC points out ��hey that thing you/your friend said is hurtful,” he’ll get defensive and say “why are you ruining a good time? It was just a joke” If MC sits down and explains to him how the things he says are actively hurting her, he’ll internalize that and not do it. But he’s really hesitant to say the same to other people- he doesn’t want to ‘ruin the mood’ and get made fun of for being ‘PC’.

Gary’s super dense. He doesn’t really pick up hints very well, so MC needs to explicitly tell him “I need you to compliment this dress” or “we haven’t gone on a proper date in awhile and I’m feeling undesired, can we go out for dinner tomorrow?” I firmly believe that the reason Gary tolerated all of Lottie’s passive aggressiveness was because he didn’t pick up on it, so MC needs to be direct.

He doesn’t appreciate all the effort it takes to get all dolled up, even though he loves it when MC goes all out. I know he SAYS he doesn’t like high maintenance women, but in canon when given the choice between Hannah (seemingly low maintenance) and Marisol (very outgoing and done up), he chooses the higher-maintenance option. Every woman he dated on the show was a glam kind of girl- MC, Lottie, Marisol. So while he loves when MC has a full face and outfit done, he complains about how long it takes her and how she always sneaks away for touch ups during the night. He’s one of those dudes who is like “wow you’re so pretty without makeup” but you’re literally wearing foundation, contour, eyeshadow, eyeliner, mascara, blush- he thinks the difference between makeup and not wearing any makeup is red lipstick. This is super annoying because MC puts a lot of effort into her look only for him to downplay that effort but still enjoy the results.

Building off of the above, Gary severely underestimates how much effort it takes to do “domestic work” like cooking, cleaning, and administrating for the household (I imagine pre-MC he forgets to do the basics like renew licenses, register to vote, schedule appointments, etc). So if MC points out how she spent the whole day cleaning, he’ll be like “that seems a bit much? You just cleaned the kitchen?” and doesn’t really get it until MC breaks down “I swept and washed the floor, I disinfected the dishwasher, I ran cleaners through the sink link, I cleaned out and organized the fridge, I dusted and sanitized the chandelier, I organized the spice drawer, I wiped out the cabinets…” He’s not really motivated to learn how to clean or do laundry or cook.

He doesn’t communicate. This is canon- he doesn’t tell Lottie where his head is at in the game, he strings Lottie and Hannah along, and he doesn’t reassure MC when other girls are clearly cracking on with him. So most of the problems in a relationship with Gary come from MC not knowing what he wants and him never initiating emotionally vulnerable conversations.

He’s not going to do well if MC needs to travel a lot for work, and he’s not going to move to live with her. Even after his nan dies, I don’t see him leaving Chatham. So if moving to a new place is important to you, this is a dealbreaker.

Pros

If something goes really wrong, he’ll never do the same thing twice. This applies to physical mistakes as well as emotional- if he forgets to wear eye protection and gets sawdust in his eyes, he’ll be religious about wearing glasses from them on. If he forgets a birthday or anniversary and makes MC cry, he will be SO diligent from then on about remembering dates. On that thought, he HATES seeing MC cry. He will move heavens and earth to stop whatever’s upsetting her or fix it.

Hugs and cuddling from Gary? So comforting. He just has that vibe, like he’s a really good cuddler. Not to mention that he’s really good at the nasty in canon, so it would stand to reason………

All of that internalized masculinity has an upside- he wants to take care of his family. He’s on top of all the ‘masculine’ caretaking stuff like buying a home, maintaining the landscaping, fixing the tires on the vehicles, shoveling, fixing stuff up around the house, managing the cable/internet/tech. Which is nice because I hate doing those things, but also I’m absolutely teaching him how to do laundry and pick up after himself.

Gary is SO calm in emergency situations. I have this headcanon for Rahim too, but the more panicked those around them get, the calmer they are. Especially in situations where they’ve prepared/considered before like tornadoes or floods. They’re not the kind of guys who take the lead normally, but in these super dire situations they find it in them to take over and calm everyone else down. I can see him having a lowkey stockpile of food, an emergency first aid kit, and a go-bag.

I know people don’t like this headcanon, but too bad. Gary is catholic. That’s the law. Sorry I don’t make the rules. That’s not so much of a pro for me, an atheist nihilist lesbian, but I can recognize a religious man has a certain amount of charm. He has a close knit community, is super consistent about attending services, and has a certain level of taking morals really seriously. He definitely donates a fair bit to charity and is always the one saying “love thy neighbor” when people are being shitty.

Gary’s spontaneous, but in a controlled way. He very much likes his routine and respects MC’s need for consistency. But periodically he’ll just be like “we have nothing planned for today- want to go rent a paddleboat?” or he’ll pick up flowers “just because”. If MC and he are going on a vacation, he much prefers to only plan 1 or 2 things to do a day and then once they’re in the place see interesting things and suggest ‘let��s do that’. He’ll do really thoughtful stuff like text MC if she has anything planned for dinner then randomly bring her favorite restaurant food home. Thursday nights are date nights!! Doing formal ‘dress up nice and go to a proper dinner date without the kids and movie’ is really important to him.

Gary’s a really good dad. Like yeah he has a lot to learn about not telling his son to ‘stop crying’ and not telling his daughter ‘no boys until you’re married’, but he genuinely wants the best for them. He’s really supportive of their hobbies/sports/interests, and will happily pay for summer camp/field trips/conventions. He might not ‘get it’ all the time, but he’ll smile and nod.

He gets a lot of delight out of really little things. If his kid draws something for him, he’ll pin it to the fridge and smile at it every time he sees it without fail. If MC says she likes a certain shirt on him, he’ll triple the amount of times he wears it. He keeps the bird feeders outside their dining room window full, because he can happily sit with a cup of coffee and watch the birds for hours. It truly is the little things.

He’s really good at remembering MC’s favorite things, or even things she mentioned liking once. This is to the point where it’s a bit confusing. MC will compliment Gary’s nan on her christmas poinsettias one year, then two years later Gary buys a ton of poinsettias and is like “I thought you loved poinsettias” and not be able to remember why he thought that. So MC has to be careful with fake compliments, because Gary cannot tell the difference. But that’s still, like, super endearing and nice of him.

There’s a few LIs that I feel like could get bored in a long-term relationship. I can see Lucas, Felix, and Rahim feeling like they’re ‘falling out of love’ when the intensity of a new relationship fades and they struggle to settle into domesticity. Gary is NOT one of them. He’s one of those “I fall in love with you more every single day” kind of guys. As MC gains weight/ages, he’ll insist “you age like a fine wine” and “I like you more with meat on your bones”. He’ll insist to their kids that “your mom is the most beautiful woman on earth”. Gary was built for long-term relationships.

#pros and cons #headcanons

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vldkeith · 3 years

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whats the ml shit?

oh god were u on yesterday?? basically kenzie and i were engaging in criticism of the way a certain artist (she lies at midnight) portrays klance and how it’s gross and fetishistic and awful. and some ppl who saw that went over to the artists’ actual blog and inboxed her abt it—one person specifically said that a gay boy kl blogger (me) was uncomfortable with the way she portrayed mlm relationships, and her response was to basically just. not respond. i don’t remember exactly but i think she was like “i’m just sitting here” or w/e and didn’t offer a valid explanation or any defense, she just disregarded it. she got some other anons as well that she posted, all calm, but eventually she closed her inbox bc she said it was getting full. i can’t know if she ever received hate.

after that she very passive-aggressively reblogged her most recent fanfic (which was the catalyst for this round of criticism by me and kenzie, bc the writing in it made us wildly uncomfortable and me specifically) and then posted some art that, again, engaged in the practices she was criticized for just hours ago. interspersed throughout this were posts about how it’s all hEr OPinIoN and one i specifically remember talking about how masculine keith was that made me super uncomfortable. she was just criticized for this, remember.

subsequently, some other user (sh*nce shipper, lol) dropped kenzie’s url in the replies of one of the artists’ posts, saying she was the one who was “sending anons”—a statement which isn’t true on any front, because *i* started the criticism and we never told people to talk to the artist—and kenzie got two anons calling her names and being generally vile. kenzie closed her inbox, i messaged the user who posted her url and told them it was a shitty thing to do, nothing came of that.

a few hours later, a popular klance blogger received an ask talking about one of the artists’ fanfics and how awful it was, and that blogger published the ask publicly and agreed with them, talking about how gross the artist portrays klance and how there’s clear evidence that their intention is fetishization. kenzie and i felt the highest we had in our entire lives. multiple people have come forward talking abt how much they dislike ml’s shit, including just now when a popular kl writer messaged me—though i MUST say they did not directly mention the artist or her work, they were just talking abt how much they appreciated my view of klance. but still, the timing was there.

since all of this, ml has deleted all mention of any of this except for some asks supporting her. to the best of my knowledge her ask box remains closed? i’d rather not go back on her blog to check; i don’t want to see that klance, it upsets me.

but that’s the story. kenzie and i are shocked that people actually cared about what we said, and moreover, decided to listen and Act. we’ve made these criticisms for months and for the most part they just remained in our little blogosphere, but it seems this time they’ve actually spread out and reached people outside of kenzie and i’s direct influence/interaction. it’s kind of scary but also seeing people understand and feel the same way makes me so happy as an mlm, you have no idea.

and that’s what you missed on glee

#*inhale* OK #asks🌟

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firelord-frowny · 3 years

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i’m binge watching dr phil (bc i ran out of Lynn Toler’s divorce court 😭) while i knit, and just

i’m on this episode with a girl and a guy in their early 20s who had a baby AFTER they broke up, and everybody involved is being extra immature and stupid and annoying, and she’s mad that he’s dating somebody else even though she broke up with him??? complaining that ~he shouldn’t be focused on another woman, i’m not focused on another man~ and it’s like GIRL YOU AREN’T EVEN TOGETHERRRRRRR!!!!! and the dude is being dumb and not wanting to go out of his way to be in the child’s life, and they’re both hella stupid, and the guy’s new girlfriend honestly seems way too mature to be dealing with that shit, but i guess she isn’t, otherwise she wouldn’t still beeeeeee in a relationship with a guy who’s behaving dumbly in a dumb situation, but i digress...

LMAO I COULD NEVERRRRRRRRRRRR! oh my god i could LITERALLY NEVER have a child with someone i wasn’t already certain i wanted to spend the rest of my life with, LET ALONE someone i had ALREADY DUMPED oh my god!!!! which, i mean, i don’t want kids ANYWAY, but i for DAMN sure would have to be very happily and very comfortably married to a dude for a WHILE before there would even be a fraction of a chance that i’d change my mind.

i truly do not understaaaaaaaaaaand how anyone could be so casual about having a whole child with somebody they already decided they didn’t like and subsequently broke up with. Assuming you plan to raise the child, and assuming the other parent plans to participate in that as well, you’re LITERALLY agreeing to have a permanent and profound connection with someone you don’t like FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!!

for at least the next 18 years, you’re going to get into stupid arguments about How To Discipline Your Child. for the rest of your life, you’re going to have to engage with this person at your kid’s recitals/performances/sports games/honor roll assemblies/graduations/etc. your kid is gonna prefer one of your homes over the other and they’re gonna throw a fit when it’s time to go spend the weekend at mommy’s.

i mean, i KNOOOOOOOOOOOOW that there are plenty of parents who are able to be fantastic coparents with each other, and they remain good friends, and they’re supportive of each other’s relationship with the kid, and they make decisions together, and they both take responsibility for the child’s emotional, financial, and physical needs, and when/if they ever pursue new relationships with other people, it doesn’t cause any issues because all the adults involved are mature and responsible and care deeply about the wellbeing of the child. I know there are situations like that. I know not every set of single coparents have an awful experience.

BUT YOU CAN’T COUNT ON THAT OMGGGG!!!!!

you could date a dude for a month, think he’s the most responsible, respectful, gentlemanly gentleman who ever gentleman’d on earth. you discover on the 32nd day of dating him that he’s an insecure, passive-aggressive, untrustworthy mooch who becomes a complete asshole when you disagree about the smallest things.

you could date a lady for a month and think she’s compassionate and understanding and supportive, and on day 32 you discover she has no respect for boundaries, she thinks it’s okay to hit you when she’s mad on account of She’s Just A Weak Little Woman So It’s Impossible For Her To REALLY Hurt You.

You don’t knoooooooooooooooowwwwww people well enough after just a few months of dating them to decide that you should have them in your life forever! shit, i honestly don’t even think a few YEARS is enough time to make a choice like that. You need to know how somebody behaves in adversity. You need to know if they’re financially responsible. You need to know if their long-term goals are compatible with your own. You need to know how they respond to YOU when YOU are experiencing adversity. How do they interact with you when you’re depressed? Afraid? Overwhelmed? You need to at least have an IDEA of how they grieve when they lose a loved one. You need to know how they cope with sudden and drastic changes. You need to observe them long enough to learn their habits and behavior patterns. You need to be able to reliably predict the kinds of choices they’ll make.

So like, it can take YEARS to finally gather enough data about a person to predict what a lifelong relationship with them might be like. You can date someone for 2 years and everything is fantastic, but then you get to the 3rd year and they lose their job and they respond to the stress by becoming abusive. You can date someone for 3 years and discover in the 4th year that they begrudge your success and try to take you down a peg every time you achieve something that you’re proud of.

If I got knocked up by some dude I haven’t known and trusted and loved for a few years already, there is no. fucking. way. that i would have that baby. there is no way i would even get up to any hanky panky with them without being on birth control and using condoms in the FIRST place, so the odds that I would get knocked up by anyone are super slim, but if I got knocked up anyway, i would fuckin teleport to a clinic right fuckin quick and have that motherfucker yoinked out of my uterus SO fast! *aretha franklin voice* ain’t no way.

i caaaaan’t. i CAN’T! IMAGINE!!!

and i am SURE this is a biased assumption due to the fact that I mostly hear about these kinds of parents on court tv or talk shows or whatever, but it seeeeems almost like a rule of thumb that people who have a baby very shortly after meeting each other tend to be stupid and irresponsible as FUCK. And that makes sense to me bc like... only an irresponsible person would make the long series of unwise choices that would lead to them having a baby at a young age with someone they don’t know they can trust. I feel like responsible people tend not to let that happen!

and PLEASE don’t get me wrong - i don’t think people who get into situations like that are Bad People. like, you can be irresponsible and immature and make shitty choices and still be a good person who’s kind and whose heart is always in the right place and who always tries to do the right thing, even if they’re not very good at figuring out what the right thing even is.

i only mean to express how dumbstruck i am by the very CONCEPT of On Purposely linking yourself permanently with somebody you already know you don’t like, or who you may DISCOVER you don’t like in the near future. even just the THOUGHT of it mkaes me anxious.

like omfg if i got knocked up and raised the child of that one ain’t shit motherfucker i had a Thing with in college?????? disaster. a lifetime of fuckboy shenanigans. a lifetime of missed appointments and broken promises and probably also a lifetime of being under the constant threat of a fuckin police raid lmfaoooo dude was LITERALLY a drug dealer. no way. no way. AIN’T NO WAY!!!

ohmy goddddddd. young adults (and even Adulty Adults, tbh), PLEEEEAAAAAASSSEEEE value yourself enough that getting on a ride without knowing where it’s headed is WHOLLY out of the question for you. Permanently attaching yourself to a near stranger should not be viable option. ESPECIALLY if you still haven’t built a stable, self-sufficient life for yourself. like, if you DO wind up having a child with a near stranger, you should at LEAST have steady, good-paying employment, and safe and comfortable housing. I mean, those are things that you should try to have before you have a baby REGARDLESS of who you have it with, but if you DO have a baby with a near stranger/someone you don’t like, it’s ESPECIALLY important that you’re able to support yourself so you’ll always be okay in spite of any potential fuckery, tom foolery, or shenanigans from the other parent. you’re not up a creek if they won’t pay child support. you can afford daycare if the other parent is unwilling to take care of your child when you’re not at home.

i caaaaAAAAAN’T!!!!

#this is a long ass post lmaooo

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architectuul · 3 years

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The Introverted “Seismograph”

Memory is not an instrument for surveying the past but its theatre. It is the medium of past experience, just as the earth is the medium in which dead cities lie buried. He who seeks to approach his own buried past must conduct himself like a man digging. - Walter Benjamin, Berlin Childhood around 1900

How can an architect sense underground vibes of the present time and translate them into the future? This was the question that Hans Hollein posed at the 6th Architecture Biennale in Venice in 1996: Sensori del futuro. L’architetto come sismografo [Sensing the Future - The Architect as Seismograph]. The title contained a faint echo of Porthoghesi’s Biennale The Presence of the Past, dealing between past and future memories, laying the ground for the Next Biennale in 2002. Hollein was the first non-Italian curator following the Unnamed Biennale in 1991 when Dal Co invited foreign countries, introducing national pavilions and opened the prestigious Arsenale with an exhibition of 43 architectural schools from all over the world.

Read also “Teatro del Mondo: An Odyssey” and “The Greek Experiment”

Hollein portrayed several international star architects-including himself-via their hands, comparing them to a super powerful apparatus that can make predictions. Most of them are sketching, others are playing the piano, working at the computer or just explaining something. Some of them are dealing with the memories of utopias like Arata Isozaki, Massimo Scolari and Peter Cook whose captivating drawings revived past memories from previous Biennales. And some others are dealing with their own personal memories, looking into their past experiences, recalling colours, textures and materials and managing to display all these fragments of memory in such a way that when they are seen together, through analogies, they can convey deeper meanings and create dialogues. Kyriakos Krokos was one of them.

Among all these powerful seismographs Kyriakos Krokos (1941-1998) made his appearance through his work in the Greek pavilion. An architect who dealt with his memories with the same passion and even more dedication than Pikionis (one of the few Greek architects who received international recognition and his work was showcased in the first Greek pavilion in 1991).

“I wanted to get closer to my childhood senses. (…) Memory for me was a tool of liberation from the bonds the architecture school created” said Krokos and maybe that’s why he never wanted to be part of the architecture academic community. Back in the 1960s, he was struggling with the modern fashion as he referred to his studies at National Technical University of Athens where the influence of the modern movement is still present. How current remains this discussion even today when architecture schools create limitations and produce architects with restrictions following contemporary movements or star-architect clones. For Krokos, the only way for someone to be free of these bonds is to look inside oneself and try to see the world with the eyes of a child “..when everything was enchanting us (…) I felt the art as a substitute for innocence, that everything was trying to drown, and the great works to show the way back”.

He stood away from the avant grade of his era, showcasing in Venice Biennale local construction materials and fragments of his memories growing up in the agrarian island of Samos. Thus he managed to recall not only his own personal experiences and his path of becoming an architect but also pieces of collective memories from the people who lived and worked in the same region.

For Krokos, architecture exists in time before and after its completion and he sought to attribute an active role of participation of every agent related to the construction. This practice implies an ethos, an attitude of life; to live according to who you are, to think and build as you live. Krokos saw the architect as craftsman, being actively engaged in the construction, introducing participatory methods, formulating a collective vocabulary, (thus very specific for each project) combing memories, materials, local techniques, colors, light and shadow in a section. "There are no right materials, there is the right relationship of materials” said in one of his few interviews, talking about principles which relate to bioclimatic factors, about sustainability and passive building systems. “The beginnings of the new fashion with concrete as the dominant material - this is not to blame, of course - confused us. The engineer now had to say how the house would be done. People no longer say I will build but I will pour a slab.” The 6th Venice Biennale was for Krokos his last work, redefining the question of making architecture, characterised by humanistic power with respect to both living bodies and the environment.

Is Krokos relevant today? Maybe his architecture wasn’t contemporary in his era either. His projects stand timeless, allowing us to look back when we feel the need. To look our own experiences, memories and traces of our bodies. To understand the environment we inhabit and coexist, comprehend our inter-connections, try to find associations between diverse places and the particularities of physical and non-physical elements. In an era that the architect as an autonomous persona has ceased long ago, maybe it is interesting to look into architecture through collective memories, as negotiation between rural and urban, individual and collective, text and context, political and planned, local tradition and digital technologies, moving away from fixed dichotomies.

Carl Jung in one of his letters to Freud explain the concept of analogy and analogical thought: Logical thought is what expressed in words directed to the outside world in the form of discourse. While, Analogical thought is sensed yet unreal, imagined yet silent; it is not a discourse but rather a meditation on themes of the past, an interior monologue.

The medium of analogical thought is memory, where the medium of logical thought is the language.

***

VAB 10: Christina Serifi

Christina Serifi is an architect, researcher and urbanist, co-founder of TiriLab (Future Architecture Platform Fellow) an initiative which explores multi cultural heritage related to techniques, technologies and culture specifics from communities in northern Greece. Christina is associate researcher in Terreform, where she has coordinated various publications regrading indigenous knowledge, alternative educational models and self sufficiency. Her work investigates forms, collective memories, typologies and local practices, focusing on urban fragments, in-between spaces, as well as osculation of architectural and social space, Christina has been awarded with the Fulbright fellowship and Urban Design Award ’14 from CCNY.

#vab #venice architecture biennial #cold cases

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phoebehalliwell · 3 years

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I am having Thoughtstm about Bianca.

Have you thought about what her relationship would be with the rest of the Halliwell brood? Like does she get along with white!future Wyatt and Melinda? And what does she think of Henry Jr and his desire to make his Mark on the Halliwell Line?

Also I for some reason see her getting along really well with Dency? I know they don’t exist in the same universe but I could see them being friends? Maybe roasting Chris together and being good sparring partners? I think she’d dig Dency’s little detective thing she’d got going… and I know Bianca is with Chris but like… Bianca x Dency ? 👀 👀 Could be cute 😂😂

okay so for starters i think bianca gets along p well with all of the next gen but like. it wasn’t an immediate thing like. i think esp with wyatt because wyatt really is kind of like. like he's the kind of epitome of the next generation son of a charmed one and a whitelighter he's hella powerful blah blah blah and like. he kinda sits at the top of his class. which is like bianca. so i think bianca thought that wyatt would be like her because you know how like if you're only raised around people like you you kind of start thinking like how your brain works is how like everyone's brain works? i think bianca thinks wyatt is like her so she doesn't like him because well. you can guess. but i think upon meeting wyatt i mean he's just really like gentle really passive he doesn't like. like he doesn't hate magic. but it doesn't feel ingrained in him despite who he is he doesn't live for the battle like looking at him you see no markers that he's one of the most powerful witches of his generation and bianca's kinda just like huh. you don't have to feel the compulsive need to be the best at everything all the time and like make sure people know you're the best and also people kind of hate you for it because they'll never be as good as you so u decide to hate them first you decide you will be the bitch you craft a persona they're basically guaranteed to hate so when they reject you it's on your terms you wanted them to do that you basically forced their hand because the alternative is being genuine and that way if they do reject you it's not a mask they just saw you and didn't like you because let's be real there's not much to like. and wyatt's like hmm. no? i think she wouldn't really get along as well with wyatt as she would with chris because her and chris are very much both witches at heart you can feel it in everything they do but i don't think she like. doesn't get along with wyatt. i mean okay for starters wyatt kind of operates the opposite as bianca whereas bianca will throw up her stone cold alpha bitch mask before anyone can decide whether or not they like her again she kind of forces their hand because she needs this to be on her terms. wyatt does the exact opposite because again the elders almost killed him as a bebe and he's always kind of worried that some day they'll realize he as a person is just not worth the risk so he tries to be so super likable and genial and like. good witch!! at all times. and it's kind of like calls to like game recognizes game where both bianca and wyatt can tell the others wearing a mask no one's that nice and no one's that cold so like. i do think they like each other. they feel like they can be honest around each other (eventually. it does take wyatt a very long time to overcome that phoenix hurdle because again he's well read he knows what's up he knows they're like an organization of like superwitches smart deadly all of the above and he doesn't wanna be. giving up his secrets to them you know? much less the halliwell secrets. but i think once it becomes clear that bianca is her own person once she breaks from the phoenix then like. like you know they have to trust each other first. but once they do, they're buddies) i also think bianca's studied art history so i think they can talk about that and chris is like. okay? because like. no he gets it shure it's cool but also how long reasonably can you talk about a single painting like come on now.

as far as melinda goes i think like i think melinda comes off as really passive really kind a nurturing type like in her day to day life or whatever like oh she's such a sweetheart but she's kind of shy again like s1 piper is really my jumping off point for mellie that and she has leo's big heart That Being Said i do not think that shows At All when she's home i think she drags her brothers for filth like nail on the head baby she's like. if you're being a dick (which, between chris and wyatt, happens relatively frequently) she's gonna call you out on it!! in a very brutal and personalized, but at the same time still kinda funny way. she definitely has receipts. so i think just first hearing the way chris and bianca engage the way she like. like she respects chris's skills as a witch bianca does she thinks he's very talented she would trust him with her life but at the same time chris u fuckin idiot i think they have a very playful raport but bianca is very starstruck by him she's never lost in the layer and layers or fog that surround chris's identity i think like too many of chris's lis (not that he like ever does relationships really) are just kinda like. lost in the image. whether it's charmed one or brooding skinny brunet w daddy issues they are many images of chris u can see instead of the real one but bianca sees chris as he is which i think gives her immediate points from melinda melinda is also an empath and i do think bianca is protected against empaths but like melinda's like oh you two are In Love in love. as far as personal relationships go between melinda and bianca i think melinda would be the one who most consciously tries to make bianca feel like a part of the family like a halliwell. chris, respectfully, i love him, doesn't think of like. inviting her to some family events, especially not early in the relationship because like. he just doesn't. but melinda's like chris!! thanksgiving u gotta invite her 2 thanksgiving. because again. melinda can't feel bianca. but like. she's been an empath her whole life she knows what she's looking at and like. bianca needs a loving family. and she is totally willing to provide that!! and then for what it's worth i think despite all her skill bianca isn't nearly as good at reading mel as melinda is at reading her. like i think she sees the soft external melinda and then the melinda who roasts her siblings and is like okay i kinda get it. and like melinda want to be a nurse or doctor she wants to fuse her empath with a mortal career to best help people like sure. but i think like. but them on a solo mission together (i guess duo mission) and bianca'll fine she's just really misread melinda like in general what she thought she was looking at is not the witch melinda is and i think it's just because bianca's unaccustomed to seeing someone who has power like melinda who can fight like melinda who undeniably has her mother's unbreakable fierce spirit just be like how melinda is in her day to day life. like someone who's that great at what she does just choose kindness and gentleness daily not because the elders are breathing down her neck or like she needs allies or like she has some epic prophecy to fill she just like. chooses kindness because she wants to. she wants a kind world. and bianca's like huh. bc lowkey forgot that was an option. but it's difficult seeing all the shit bianca has.

in regards to henry i think henry jr and bianca get along famously because they just like feel really similar like. like bianca was never liked in the phoenix because well a) she's a bitch b) she's the best and c) like she was always clearly people favorite so like. others were it was jealously call a spade a spade this is like elementary era it's jealousy when you're eight and trying your hardest and the other eight year old gets praise the praise u really want and she didn't even try she didn't even care she didn't have to because she's just so much better than you. like!! yeah so kids at school never liked her, esp within the phoenix (ftr i think phoenix go thru a normal education system so like can like function/blend in real well in normal society and then Also go to phoenix academy, so kinda like what gen2 does with magic school). bianca's never fit it, but she's also wicked smart. so kinda like henry! like paige kind of runs magic school henry's sisters go there like henry's been at magic school. he doesn't take classes, but he's always there. he burns through the books in the library. he knows everyone just calls him the mortal, he doesn't care, because he also knows they know he's smart than them like if they could swallow their pride and ask him for help like most of these kids would become better witches but they don't because henry's a mortal. bianca doesn't care, the kid knows his shit. so what if he doesn't have powers, like, dude, he's basically a walking encyclopedia, and he's read the book of shadows cover to cover like a dozen times, do you know how rare that knowledge is? that's the sacred book of the warren line like that's a crucial ancestral item and henry's like. like in bianca's mind not only is henry a warren witch like he's Thee warren witch no other person alive knows that magic better than him. i also think they have similar senses of humor.

dency!! i mean i think if dency were born any later she'd be besties with like all the phoenix i think magic isn't at a stage where they're really integrated into society yet and there's still kind of that cultish structure but that's not the reason light magic doesn't engage right they don't deal with the phoenix because they're neutral so they will work with demons meaning working with them as a light magic practitioner is forbidden. and then for what its worth i think dency being demon/charmed one is really gonna herald in an era of just kinda like acceptance for those who are neutral or even born of dark magic but like. that hasn't happened. yet. but like. in regards to bianca specifically. i think they'd vibe. i think bianca would throw up her cooler than u bitch personality as she always does and i think dency'd be so into it. and then, of course, dency doesn't look down her nose at the phoenix like most other witches do, again, because she's the source's heir. from what vantage point can she judge others? i think for bianca just seeing someone who's so kinda unabashedly themselves like honest about it too dency's not like. a role model. like there's penn who's really put together and always trying to seem pristine and polite and then they're dency who like hasn't showered in four days because she's out of shampoo so she needs to buy some Then she can shower. there's like. an honest about being kinda uncool kinda a fuck up that makes dency like. cool. like because we all do it (maybe not specifically the shampoo thing, but) like we all have some elements of ourselves that are just kind of truly pathetic and dency doesn't try to cover it up with some shiny veneer she doesn't she not like wyatt with his perfect mask or even bianca with her bitch one dency doesn't wear a mask take me or leave me baby and i think bianca really loves her for that. it genuinely depends on were in the timeline in chrisbianca does bianca meet dency because like. dude. powercouple. i don't think it'd go anywhere i don't think we're necessarily hitting soulmatism or kinda the raw vulnerability we'll get from a latestage chrisbianca but like. dude. like. 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀. like. !

#idk theoretically bianca still exists in dencyverse #but i probably won't have them meet just bc like #i don't really want the other universe selves of versions of people however u wanna phrase it meet #bc i can't keep track #which is why the cupitches aren't dency's younger siblings here #and if they were they'd all have different names #charmed #next gen #charmed next generation #bianca bishop #wyatt halliwell #chris halliwell #melinda halliwell #henry mitchell jr #dency halliwell #💌#chris x bianca

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pochapal · 3 years

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You don't gotta answer this publicly, but what on earth happened/is happening RE: Dogpiling?

this is long but there’s a lot to cover and i don’t know how much information is pre-known going into this.

basically breadtuber sarah z made a 2 hour fandom postmortem video on homestuck. instead of being a genuine look into what made the comic and the fandom so massive and so relevant for so long, she kind of glosses over all that in the first thirty minutes, then spends the rest of the video discussing homestuck’s two major controversies in the least tactful way imaginable.

the first one she talks about is the hiveswap development hell fiasco, which on paper is an interesting thing to bring up in relation to a lack of content contributing to fandom decline, but sarah’s primary source for all this is a pseudo-anonymous blog run by giovan_h, someone who is notorious for treating dangerous and baseless accusation as fact and for obsessively stalking current and former whatpumpkin staff members to obtain information for said blog. she supposedly tries to bring a balanced argument on what exactly happened in the three year dark period between hiveswap’s supposed release date and when act 1 actually came out by pitting ipgd’s tumblr post (the one that made the odd gentlemen embezzlement claims vis a vis king’s quest) against giovan’s blog (claiming through anonymous and unverified sources that hussie deliberately dicked around and failed to meet a single deadline, then broke contract terms by using the kickstarter money to commission the odd gentlemen to animate act 7 instead of working on hiveswap. there are a lot of other unsavoury claims about hussie and certain other wp members among these blog posts, but that’s the primary relevant gist).

neither account can actually be verified (ipgd’s post claims their information is spotty because they’re talking around a pretty strict settlement nda and giovan’s sources and accounts are deliberately vague and unverifiable to “protect various parties from retaliation from hussie/wp”) but sarah ultimately comes down and says that she’s inclined to take giovan’s blog as more truthful for. reasons. this is obviously bad because within minutes of the video dropping several wp team members reveal sarah never once tried to get in contact with them, which has led to attacks on the team members because a lot of zealous people looking for an excuse to keep being mad at homestuck in the wake of hs^2′s semi-permanent hiatus were emboldened by a video essayist treating the ugliest speculation as hard fact. as of right now, the hiveswap kickstarter has released a statement clarifying the development situation as best they can (from what i’ve read it does point to them legally being unable to point to/discuss certain things) which has had all the impact of dropping a match onto an oil spill. the anti homestuck zealots firmly believe every word of that post to be bullshit and are accusing the wp team of covering for hussie and his super heinous evil crimes (keep in mind we are still not privy to the internal workings of wp because why the fuck would we be) so the wp team in turn are putting these people on blast for this dangerous harassment (it doesn’t need to be said that as a professional being publicly accused of covering up fraud is a very bad thing) and then as a counter counter response the angry fans are now accusing the wp staff of abusing their power to direct mass harassment towards specific individuals (this amounting to people getting into wp members’ private discord servers and publicly posting mean things they have said about giovan et al which imo only serves to bolster the stalking claims) and the whole thing went very ugly very fast.

the second controversy that sarah brings up is everything involved in post canon homestuck (epilogues, pesterquest, hs^2). here she reverts to more of a passively pro-fandom stance, asserting time and time again how horrible and evil the epilogues and everything else were because of how they took the characters and stories everyone knows and loves and warped them into something unrecognisably terrible, that post-canon homestuck was universally reviled. in a very bad and awkward placement of information she then segues into a kind of hand-wavey discussion of the intense backlash towards certain post-canon trans interpretations (of vriska, june, and roxy) in a very I Am A Cis Woman So I’m Not Qualified To Make Any Statements Here Other Than Transphobes Fuck Off <3 But Also This Is Indicative Of A Growing Fandom Resentment way, which honestly begs the question of why she needed to include this at all. another bad thing here is how she super glosses over the “controversies” surrounding “the advocates for june egbert” and “the writer for vriska’s pesterquest route” - she is obviously referring to former creative director kate here (she kind of confirms this on twitter by saying she didn’t want to mention kate by name in order to not stir up further drama which uh... yeah) and the inexcusably terrible chain of events which led to every single out trans woman working on homestuck to resign to protect themselves from further mass harassment and dogpiling from the fandom.

she instead, for some reason decides to focus on how post-canon homestuck has been a total commercial and creative failure, that homestuck^2 basically shouldn’t have even happened after the fandom’s distaste for the epilogues and that it was not only controversial but also was a low quality mess everyone agreed sucked. she then goes on to compare the hs^2 team to the wp hiveswap dev team, and passively applies the same giovan-esque assertions to the internal workings of hs^2, kind of but not really implying the reasons given for the shutting down of hs^2 were bullshit. this is super bad for the fact that the post canon homestuck team is the most openly marginalised group of people working for hs is in an official capacity, and we have seen time and time again what drawing undue, speculative negative attention towards these people has done. again, reminder sarah did not reach out to a single person who worked/is working on homestuck for what is essentially a drama video disguised as a fandom postmortem. the upshot here is that her post-canon section served to embolden yet another wp-hostile section of the fanbase - those who adamantly believe that only the fandom itself can create worthwhile homestuck projects, and that all writers are evil people who want their queer fans dead (only a partial exaggeration) and produce spite projects which are driven by the steadfast belief that their work is inherently superior to official content by virtue of their fan status. among this group were a lot of people who latched onto any accusation against a team member as fuel to push them out of “ruining” such a beloved franchise so sarah’s video serves as proof that all the hs^2 writers were morally corrupt monsters ruining a fandom space that was meant for minors and queer people (this is all very anti/anti-anti carousel of bullshit nonsense that i have no time for) and thus they’re confident to once again tear down the remaining public facing staff members, ignoring how all this crusade has done so far is drive a handful of trans women and people of colour off of official homestuck projects for their own safety.

then she ends the video with a “oh btw this video is proudly sponsored by audible <3″ bit and it’s just. beyond unbelievably awfully stupid that she deliberately reignited this aggression which has caused untold material harm on marginalised people (that happened less than a year ago!!!) just for the sake of quick clicks and ad revenue. she consolidated the most dogshit takes as fact within the general fandom consensus, sided with some of the worst people to engage with homestuck, potentially detonated the last shreds of stability of this independent marginalised media project, and wrapped it all up with a sponsorship from an amazon subsidiary company of all fucking things. this is obviously a case of an incredibly short sighted decision to cash in on a very complicated and unwieldy fandom history but still the potential consequences here are unfathomable.

#extrarabbitsauce #didn't intend on this being public but i saved as draft and now my only choice is to publicly post this. whatever #got called a terf for liking homestuck^2 whatever pigshit this post potentially attracts will be nothing

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microsuedemouse · 3 years

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5, 11, 14 for the salty ask game! ☆

I forgot to answer these sooner oooooops

I love these asks though lmao okay

5 - Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

hmmmm I feel like it's likely but I'm not coming up with any specific examples? I can say for sure that certain really volatile/discourse-y fandoms have made it hard for me to enjoy ship stuff in general at times. also Certain Fandom Attitudes have definitely made me very self-conscious about my ships, especially - in a bizarro-world kind of twist - m/f ones? like. it's weird but some fandoms seem to foster communities that get so attached to certain same-gender ships that having an m/f ship is like painting a target on your forehead. it's ridiculous, esp for a person who is... not straight herself...

((also, to be super clear: I'm talking about fans who are rabid for non-canon same-gender ships. shipping a canonically gay character in a 'het' ship is obviously weird as fuck, to say the least, and not a thing I support lmao.))

no wait I thought of one it's a bit obscure oops but. Karma/Nagisa in Assassination Classroom. I like Karma with Okuda more anyway but Karma and Nagisa are definitely extremely shippable! the problem here is that the fandom loves to depict Nagisa (a male character, for the record) in girls' clothes or otherwise being emasculated/feminised somehow, and they especially love to do it in the context of Karma/Nagisa ship stuff. and while I'm not against people who love to depict characters crossdressing or whatever - that's good stuff, it's fun - the story very clearly shows us that Nagisa hates being seen as girlish. he has long hair and is made to wear girls' outfits a few times in-canon, and it makes him miserable, which we eventually learn is bc his mom desperately wanted a daughter and now she makes him grow out his hair/try on dresses/etc. while she fantasises about having a daughter instead of a son. SO YEAH depicting Nagisa in skirts/dresses or otherwise forcing him into feminine roles just seems like a really shitty thing to do? and its prevalence in fandom put me off Karma/Nagisa content altogether. I enjoy their not-entirely-straight dynamic in-canon but I staunchly avoid fanart/fic about them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

11 - Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

OH HMMMM. I'm trying to think of some older examples bc I literally don't pay enough attention to most fandoms anymore even to know which characters are actively unpopular lol. but honestly I'm wracking my brain and not coming up with anything??

14 - Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

l o l uhhhh

I mean I'm. SUPER choosy with what aspects of fandom I engage with at all at this point, largely because of how discourse-y and straight-up catty certain fandoms got while I was more active in them. so most of my unpopular opinions are very much in a bubble now, separated from Fandom At Large, like... ships I don't care for, or story decisions I didn't like, or whatever. and I don't even usually know they're unpopular.

the last truly contentious opinion I had and aired for a fandom was years ago with Camp Camp, when I took a stand on camper/counselor shipping. for those who don't know wtf I'm on about: a major ship in the CC fandom was (is? idk anymore) between a ten-year-old boy and a man who's in his early to mid-twenties (canonically 23 or 24 iirc?). and for some reason the fandom was increasingly divided on whether or not this was okay. there were people who were okay with it even if they didn't ship it, and there were people who were not okay with it. I came down emphatically on the latter side, if that's not obvious! I do not support shipping children with adults.

aaaaanyway yeah the fandom devolved into such a cesspit of discourse and pettiness and people being horrible to each other that I basically just dipped lol. it was sucking up so much energy just to passively read those posts when I didn't have to! and that was when I officially settled into my now-firm stance of engaging with fandom only by talking to a few select (sane) friends, occasionally reading fanfic that I like, and even more occasionally throwing my own fanfic over the fence for people to read if they are brave enough to step into the Fandom Yard.

HOO BOY I TALK SO MUCH MY APOLOGIES also lol Izu I'm sorry these are great questions I just didn't have very good answers lmao

it's been like a day and a half but if anybody else wants to ask me any salty fandom questions they're right here. (also I'll reblog them again in a sec.) I swear I have real answers

#survey #fandom

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mannatea · 3 years

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Hi. I used to follow your old blog on a different account. Hope you're doing well. Do you have any tips on thinking up stories that are *not* dark and depressing due to subject material? The last story I was working on I had to quit because the backstory I was developing for my passive male character was super depressing. At times I enjoyed researching it, though what won out was the thought I was wasting my time looking into angsty things for something I wasn't even planning to publish. Now I want to write something a little happier. But I have the most experience in writing angst and cringe comedy 😅 thanks for any help you can give. Stay safe out there!

By the way, good on you for dropping that manga you used to follow. I was happy most of the characters lived, but other than that, it felt "meh" to me (granted, I didn't read all the way from the beginning). The author was probably going for a "people will always be fighting each other" theme, but some of the imagery of what happened after a time skip could definitely be taken as pro-fascist. And I was disappointed the protagonist basically said he wanted to bring about destruction! I'm glad I didn't spend any money to read it.

Wow, hi! I’m doing all right, thanks for asking. I hope you’re doing all right, too. :)

As far as “that manga” goes, I’ve kept tabs on it. I’ve been on the fringes for the last two-ish years; I dedicated something like four real life years to that fandom and mostly had a good time while I was there (made some friends I hope to keep for life), so it was one of those situations where I just had to find out how it ended. I realized at some point that I was in a very negative space in the fandom, and felt it was better to publicly drop the series and the blog associated with all of my meta/discussion than to play in what had become a toxic pool for me. I didn’t really want to drop the account after my time there, but I couldn’t have dealt with the nonstop questions/messages/etc that would have piled in over the years, and eh, when you’re done you’re done. I criticize Hallmark television for fun, now, instead. It’s a lot less stressful! And literally nothing is That Deep so there’s very few delusions, at least on the Tumblr side of things. (Reddit, however, is insane, but I don’t post in the fandom there.)

As far as writing advice goes, I am going to apologize in advance for muddled thoughts. I just got out of work and have been staring at numbers all day, so it’s hard for me to think lmaoo.

In my opinion, any sort of character or personality type/flaw/whatever could have developed via a negative OR positive influence/catalyst, so that’s something to consider. I also think people tend to reach for “sad” or “traumatic” pasts either as a way to cope with their own issues/pasts/whatevers, or because it’s the “easy explanation” for why a character is the way they are.

If you WANT to write things a certain way, it’s sometimes a matter of changing the lens through which you’re viewing life, the story, the characters, or character writing in general. This is never easy, especially when you find a genre you feel comfortable in, but it’s always possible. When I was in college and submitted an autobiographical piece (Rot Tooth) for a creative writing final, I received multiple comments from classmates and even the professor that my talent/skill was in writing comedy. COMEDY!!!! I don’t think anyone who has read my writing from the last decade would say that I was a comedy writer. I stopped labeling ‘fics as humor/romance so long ago I can’t even remember when it was. But boom. I had written a comedy piece.

I don’t think I can ignore that most of the comedic elements in Rot Tooth were brought about because humor is one of the ways in which I cope with things, but it was also a very conscious choice I made. I wanted people to be able to engage with the story without being grossed out, without getting bored, without feeling that it was a poor-pathetic-me story, and humor was the classiest way to do it. Here, read this long story that includes journal entries from Ye Olde Livejournal days, but it will make you laugh often enough that the depressing aspects of the story don’t weigh it down too much! It was probably the only way to make the subject matter widely palatable.

As often as I joke about characters or scenes or moments that “just write themselves” the author does have control. I mostly write fanfiction, so let’s go with examples from that.

I’m (very slowly) working on a ‘fic called Three Years which features a character who, when last seen, was headed off to serve a prison sentence. They haven’t been on the show for three years and thus I assume they have been serving that sentence for the last three years. The story starts when this character is released from prison. They are a woman. This is a historical piece of fiction. Prisons were vile to women and yet...this is fiction. I have a choice. I get to choose. Does she get to start her life off carrying 25 bags of trauma or just 2? It would be unreasonable to expect that someone, especially a woman, who was imprisoned for 3 years in the early 1900s wouldn’t have some issues (at the very least, the isolation would have been awful), but it doesn’t really have to be much worse than that. It doesn’t.

I have the power to choose.

A character has anger issues. Sure, he could have had a traumatic past with an abusive parent who took his anger out on him or his mom or whatever...or maybe it is an inherited personality trait and the parent figure with the problem was never really That Bad about it, but seeing it normalized makes it harder for the character in question to realize it’s a huge problem and part of their character arc is realizing they need to get help, not because they don’t want to be like their dad, and not because they hate their dad, but because they just want to be a better person/they don’t want to let that struggle consume them.

Someone’s sweetheart goes off to war. Guess what? They don’t have to die there to force a traumatic past. They don’t have to come back a raging alcoholic either. Maybe the time apart, and the time fighting a war just puts a natural sort of crack in the relationship by making it clearer to each character what they want in life/what matters to them in their life.

A character is super passionate about their work/hobby. Maybe they have ADHD and it’s a hyperfixation. Maybe they’re autistic and it’s a Special Interest. It doesn’t have to be “their parents ignored them and forced them to be alone all the time and they used this thing to cope so it means everything to them because it’s always been there.”

Maybe you have a character whose greatest fear is losing the people they love. It doesn’t have to be because a pet died in their arms when they were four and it traumatized them. It doesn’t have to be because they only have one person they love in the whole world. It can just be a thing because that’s a valid fear literally anyone can reasonably have, and maybe it’s a bigger deal because they don’t have siblings or aren’t close to many people! (And the “aren’t close to many people” thing doesn’t have to stem from trauma, either. Most busy adults for example who get to choose their friends, are just like that.)

A perfectionist might just have the personality type; it doesn’t mean their parents criticized everything they ever did. A person with three failed marriages might hesitate to fall in love and try again but it doesn’t have to be because those three failed marriages were abusive. A quiet character may just be shy or introverted by nature.

I think everyone carries some kind of trauma with them, so it’s never unreasonable to have some in a person’s past (you can’t write an ugly character without having to think about the fact that they carry some trauma from what it’s like to grow up ugly), but it doesn’t have to define them. It doesn’t have to overshadow everything else in their past.

You can always ask yourself, “Why am I reaching for angst every time I create a backstory?” Literally everyone has some kind of angst. Most kids were hurt by things said to them in school, for example, or made fun of for some reason. Most people did something extremely embarrassing as a kid and never got over it. There are a thousand little moments in our adult lives that go back to these little points—you might call them the tiny traumas. But they’re not defining. They’re not so heavy they also live in the present. Not all of them.

Why do you reach for the darkest corner? Why not for the light? Or a middle ground?

I encourage people to write basically whatever floats their boat, but it sounds like you’re at a point where you just feel weighed down by that sort of stuff, and that’s not a great way to feel, especially when it discourages you from working on a project entirely.

My final suggestion: look at some of your favorite characters from various types of media. Are they all traumatized? What are their defining characteristics? Black Beauty has some depressing stuff in it, but is ultimately a story with a happy ending. Pride and Prejudice has drama, but nobody’s past is filled with the darkest stuff imaginable. North and South has awful things to consider in it (cotton mills were sooo awful) but the characters are not wildly traumatized people.

What kind of story are you trying to tell? Do the characters need to be traumatized to tell it? Does the story have to be dark to get across the message you want to send?

Way back in the day, when I was into “that manga” I made an RP blog for a one-off character that nobody gave a damn about. Like, he was so one-off that even back in those days nobody even remembered him having existed. It was sort of a joke RP blog that wasn’t supposed to be serious. The only canon information we had about this character was that he enjoyed drinking. I decided to make him a lighthearted character because the series was pretty dark and I wanted to send people hilarious starters instead of wading through the muck of depression with everyone else’s sad, abused characters. I decided his family was old money and he had a brother. Nothing super traumatizing in his past. Some family issues but not the sort of thing that would haunt anyone. He was not traumatized in his recent past any more than other characters were. Mostly just “a regular guy.” I really loved RPing him. He was fun! The story could get heavy but he didn’t have to be.

Anyway, dive head-first into the dark angst if you want, but if it’s not necessary to tell the story you want to tell, just remember you don’t have to go there. You have the choice.

#long post #thoughts about writing #nacrene-archaeologist #answered mail

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