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bonefall · 1 day

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do you have any tips for writing a low empathy character who isn't evil? Or how to make an interesting apathetic character who's a thoughtless sort of evil? These are two different chatacters btw-

I tried looking up examples and stuff but uh. It's been a bit fruitless.

Honestly it's not too hard! Having low empathy just means we're bad at automatically "connecting" to the feelings of other people. You can come to understand it's not even a character flaw once you uncouple the idea that Empathy = Kindness. And apathy, well, that one's a bit more complicated imo.

Low Empathy

In English, it's just unfortunately super common to conflate Empathy and Compassion. To have compassion is to be aware of the suffering of another person, and ergo, want to help stop it. To be empathetic is to identify with and understand the feelings of another person. These are different things.

For an example in action; imagine a medic with a patient whose shoulder is dislocated, and xey'll need to pop that arm back in place in order for the patient to feel better.

A medic feeling EMPATHY for that patient is having an emotional response to what xey're seeing. Xey might have a tingly "ghost pain" thinking about the injury, and xey might feel guilty xey're going to put them in more agony, but also joy because this patient is going to feel much better in just a moment.

A medic feeling COMPASSION for that patient is thinking about how the shoulder must be causing a lot of pain, and knows xey have the skill to fix it. Xey know from xeir own experience that pain sucks and so it is a bad thing that needs to go away. It will hurt a little more for a moment, but then there will be immediate relief.

This is imo, why a lot of low empathy people are "bad at" comforting people without going to Autism College where they give you the scripts of Shit Neurotypicals Say. We're not trying to be selfish when we end up making "comfort sessions" about ourselves-- that's what we think empathy is, because we don't have a lot of it to really know what you want.

Like, doesn't it make sense to you? "I don't know what you're feeling. Here's a similar situation I've been though. I must know what you're feeling-- does that make you feel better? That you aren't alone? I think that's what empathy is, am I right?"

A LOT of low empathy people go into medical fields, the funeral industry, and disaster relief. We often really do want to help people so seek these fields out, or when we get there, just end up not getting burnt out like our high-empathy peers!

Apathy

As for the apathetic character, honestly, I'd suggest thinking about your story's themes. Villains are very special to me and I always try to handle them with care. What are you trying to say is bad to not care about in your work? How does their apathy play into the story you're trying to tell?

A Captain Planet villain is completely selfish, and exists only to benefit itself by exploiting nature in some way. Then the Planeteers show up and punch it in the face. Boiled down to its barest, most simple essentials; "We have conflicting goals and so I will stop you."

Personally I find total apathy to be something not especially compelling in villains, for that reason. Like, if you really don't care about anything, why bother with the trouble of going against the protag? Motivation is meant to be MOTIVATING.

(also ngl I'm on the Shadow As A Hero sort of bandwagon where I find it much funnier for the simple apathetic cool edgy guy to be the funniest person on your tennis team)

Dungeon Meshi has TWO characters who struggle with apathy, and are both antagonists at some points in the story, but never villains. Shuro and Mithrun. The theme of Dungeon Meshi is the beauty and complexity of life, the value of living, and how our connections to others changes the people we are. Food is a metaphor for bonding, self-care, and understanding.

For Shuro, he begins the story as someone who's both been encouraged to bottle up his emotions for the sake of other people, as well as to not actually consider the emotions of those lower-born than him. He's from a very different place than the other members of his party, and this causes friction as class, culture, and sophisticated, refined, weapons-grade autism clashes.

When the woman he loves is eaten by a dragon, he doesn't stop to tell her brother and """childhood friend""" what he's planning, as if they both wouldn't run in and get hurt. He owns demi-humans. He doesn't consider his own needs or the needs of his rescue team of loyal vassals. As a result, he's too weak to continue, losing a fistfight with one of the main characters, Laios.

After this, he connects with him for the very first time, and reaches out to him by giving him an important magic item. There's even a MASSIVE moment where he outright tells Laios that his ability to be so open (read: not have to mask his autism) is something he envies, breaking through that veil of apathy he wears.

The story Dungeon Meshi is telling here is that it is important to value the needs of yourself and of others. Shuro's apathy towards his own needs in a bid to prove his love weakened him. In acting like he was above his old teammates, he never spoke to them like people to smooth out his issues. He's never even noticed how much his vassals love and care for him.

(and the incredible irony is not lost on me, that Shuro's name is because Laios mispronounced it and was never corrected... while Shuro never noticed that Izutsumi had the unwanted name "Asebi" forced onto her when she was "taken in" and made his slave.)

See how that comes back to the theme? Shuro doesn't exist to just "be some asshole" or act like a villain. He has a full character arc that contributes to the narrative.

For Mithrun? I won't even spoil it. Go read Dungeon Meshi. Watch elf depression. We love a king with strabismus.

Anyway,

If you ever need good personal resources on any stigmatized mental condition, I've found it's usually productive to go into the #Actually (Thing) tag here on Tumblr. You can find people posting about basically anything. I found a lot of really good resources on NPD that way.

#bone babble #bones gives advice #also ngl npd relatable as hell

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lurkingshan · 2 days

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I have been thinking about @bengiyo's point about the way the set up of Love Sea allows Fort and Peat to play with their established dynamic, and wanted to expand on why I liked it so much. I already tossed off a facetious post about this while watching the other day, but let me be clear: I am so serious about the class disparity in this show and how it shifts the power dynamics behind the typical MAME pursuer behavior.

Mahasamut is a working class man who has been hired by a mutual friend to watch over Tongrak--providing him with transportation, housing, entertainment, and whatever else Rak wants. He is doing a job, and that knowledge is explicit between them. Most people would be kind to someone who is providing a service as a guide and caretaker, but from the moment he arrives, Rak treats Mut with disdain, as Ben details in his post. Rak is a prick who looks down on the place he is staying and the people in it. He assumes Mut can't understand him and makes rude and disrespectful comments right in front of his face. He assumes he can get anything he wants from Mut by throwing piddling sums of money at him. He assumes he can use Mut for sex. And so Mut plays the part Rak has assigned him.

Every instance of Mut being sarcastic or antagonistic toward Rak in this first episode is a direct response to how Rak is treating him. Rak assumes he can't communicate with him, so Mut continues speaking in a Southern dialect. Rak assumes he can buy him, so Mut teases him about stuff he can pay him for. Rak assumes Mut wants to have sex with him and he can use that to control him, so Mut fully puts on a "dumb local" performance and pretends to be amazed at his pale and hairless body (and yes, he also invokes colorism in that act, which I do not think was at all accidental, it's part of the point). Every moment of this is informed by their class disparity, the way Rak looks down on him for it, and the way Mut refuses to bow to that.

As all of this is going on, Mut is also genuinely taking care of Rak and doing the job he has been paid to do. And the incident on the boat was not an intentional instance of messing with Rak--he just went to get some clams and had no way to know that Rak would panic like that. As soon as he saw Rak was genuinely upset, he dropped the antagonism and comforted him, even apologizing for scaring him. Mut has good intentions and is doing what he has been asked to do while also not allowing an arrogant rich man to treat him like dirt. Rak is the person holding the true power in this pairing, and he need only treat Mut like a human being to get the same in return.

Let me just add as a final note that this is not the first time MAME has added a new layer to this antagonistic pursuer dynamic she tends to prefer in her romances. Wedding Plan was all about taking that dynamic and motivating it by a genuine queer experience, and I am glad to see her stories continuing to evolve.

#love sea #love sea the series #wedding plan #thai bl #shan shouts into the void

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ao3commentoftheday · 11 hours

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Hello. I was wondering if you could offer some advice for me even though it's a common topic :) I used to write all the time and had a huge flow of ideas that kept overlapping each other which made me super creative both in writing and in drawing. But for the past few years (vaguely stopped at the beginning of 2020) I've had no desire to write at all. A cynical part of me has convinced me that it won’t matter to even begin as I don’t finish and barely write the stories and so I don't achieve the satisfaction of deeper immersion into my stories. I know I’m not a bad writer but that my writing suffers when I have no passion.

Previously I would brainstorm/rant with my friend (vice-versa) who was also a writer but we've drifted apart since (and my other friend has no mental energy for writing anymore because of life). I find it very difficult to keep and maintain any growing passion when I'm alone and unable to share with like-minded people - my passion/motivation seems to die when I can't share it. So how do I regain and maintain it? (Obvious answer is to find someone to share ideas with but... how...? And how do I learn to motivate myself when I'm alone?)

It might be a common topic, but each individual situation is still unique. You're going through a lot, anon, and I'm glad you reached out to get some support 💗

Let's start by looking at the factors you've identified that make it difficult for you to write:

Possible burnout - 2020 makes me think of Covid, stress, uncertainty, constant change, perhaps other factors that are more specific to you as an individual. All of these things are exhausting both mentally and physically and can lead to burnout

Limited support from your community - 2 friends are less involved in your writing than they used to be

Limited empathy for yourself - your frustration is turning into self-blame where you're focusing on the fact that your stories aren't finished rather than on the fact that you lack passion for them

I'm drawing some pretty big conclusions here based on two paragraphs of text, so please do push back against anything that feels like an unfair reading of what you wrote. But it seems to me that you've been through an emotional wringer over the last few years between 2020 and your friendship drifting and not having the same supports in place that you used to have.

I think the thing you need to focus on right now is giving yourself the love and kindness you're not currently getting from others. You're beating yourself up for not finishing a story, but you say that your passion comes from immersion in it. Immersion doesn't require an ending. It just needs you to find a way to get deeper into the characters and/or the plot and/or the world.

You used to be able to find that immersion by talking about your stories with your friends. I agree that you should seek out people again since that's clearly really important to you, but while you do that you should also try to identify ways that you can immerse yourself without someone to talk to.

Try stepping away from the idea of writing the story down and instead allow yourself to just daydream about it. Think about the story. Imagine what might happen next. Play with scenes and explore the possibilities instead of deciding for sure what will happen next. When the story isn't written yet, you have an infinite choice of ways that it could go. Perhaps leaning into those myriad options will help you find the fun in it again.

As for finding a new community of people you can talk to about your writing? That's going to take some time and some work. Finding a discord server of like-minded folks. Commenting on the works of writers you find interesting. Replying to comments on your own stories. Posting ask games on tumblr and sending asks when other people post them too. Making friends online isn't always easy or fast, but those are some possible ways to go about it.

But also consider seeing if your local library has a writer's group. Join a local hobby group unrelated to writing where you can find people you enjoy. Your community doesn't have to revolve around fandom. It can also just be people who like you and who you like in return and you all feel comfortable sharing what you love.

Since you sent this ask in, I reblogged a post about rehab for writing injuries. I think you might want to take a look at that too. I think you might find it helpful. ❤️

#asks and answers #long post

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zehiiro · 17 hours

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Part 2: My Thoughts on The Book Of Carol Episode 1 - Panel

-Spoiler-free edition-

This continues Part 1 of my thoughts [link here], specifically focusing on the panel.

There seems to be some confusion that's also upsetting some people, so I feel like, as someone who was there, it's my responsibility to clarify things and share some new things. I'll also be including my transcript from different relevant portions of the panel that don't spoil the episode itself, and just to make it clear, this transcript is word for word with what was said and has not been paraphrased by me; the only portions I removed were the pauses and instances where a speaker stammered.

Incorporating Carol into the Story

Zabel has been in conversation with Melissa (about Carol) for as long as he's been in conversation with Norman (about Daryl), which is from before writing & filming even started for season 1, discussing what they each had to say about their characters in detail. Once they began to approching season 2, Zabel then began to have more detailed conversation with Melissa about what she wanted for Carol going into the future, which we could see had already started to be from episode 1 in a huge way, with almost every single Carol scene having intention and deep meaning behind it.

D. Ross: What was it like starting to think about how to incorporate Carol into the story? Did you talk about season 2? How was that discussion? S.M. Gimple: I mean, Zabel drove those discussions. D. Zabel: I think it came out in our early conversations to make sure that the first episode which you just saw really planted Carol back into the world. You know, that was a very conscious choice because we spent 6 episodes of the show focused exclusively on Daryl, and knowing that we're bringing Melissa into this show, we wanted to make sure that we started the story off in a very strong way. To sort of re-establish the character after a couple of years, we hadn't seen her. And also to make her drive to find Daryl very compelling, motivated, and active. That came out of our early, like our first conversations about how to do it.

Collaboration between Zabel, Norman, and Melissa

I said this before, but I wanna say it again that Melissa's voice was really obvious to me in the way episode 1 was done, and Norman has spoken many times about how he's worked really hard on Daryl's story in the spin-off. The below exerpt also shows that the collaboration was actually really there between Zabel, Norman, and Melissa, and that it had great influence on the direction of the show. Even Gimpel gives the credit to Zabel, Norman, and Melissa and greatly compliments their collaboration.

D. Ross: What were your discussions? Because obviously, Melissa and Scott have worked for a long time together, and obviously, Melissa and Norman forever, but this is, you know, your first time connecting David and Melissa, so what were those conversations like in terms of finding the character and getting the input and sharing new ideas? D. Zabel: Well, yeah I'm the new guy, and so as a result, I had to be hazed. It was great because I had a whole year with Norman working on the show, and part of that was my own learning process about the characters, the character specifically of Daryl, about all the show and the aesthetic of The Walking Dead universe, and so during that time I was also having conversations with Melissa and getting ready, so there was really a lot of leadup to when we brought the character back into the show and a lot of conversations that we had after those initial ones were really Melissa and me talking about how to advance the character of Carol and how to not let the character stay stagnant, same as the kind of conversations that Norman and I had in the beginning, how to continue to move the character forward and move the story forward and expand on the universe in general, and not let the characters and the world stagnate and say in the same place, 'cause it's easy to sort of keep going through the same things over and over again. So a lot of it was talking to Melissa and understanding how she saw the character, thought the character was and the things that she felt were interesting to play moving into the future. S.M. Gimple: And that is a huge thing with both Norman and Melissa. You know they have that executive producer credit, but that's the real deal, they provided a lot towards the narrative of their characters, towards the trajectory of their characters. This is them expressing themselves. And to watch this collaboration has been amazing.

Melissa's thoughts on coming back to the show and bringing her ideas

Throughout the entire panel, Melissa seemed incredibly happy. She constantly made jokes that made the whole room and panel laugh, and she spoke really proudly of the work she had done. She also seemed very comfortable collaborating with Zabel, Greg, and Norman and had nothing but beautiful things to say about them, and Manish (Ash).

I've attached a video below [link here] of the following transcript, which I recorded from my perspective. It's at a wider view and slightly longer than the ones previously uploaded by others, and it captures a lovely and respectful exchange between Zabel and Melissa.

D. Ross: What's it like from your perspective, Melissa? I mean you have so much ownership of this character for so long, so tell me about, like, in terms of coming to this new show and bring your ideas. Melissa MB: Oh, well, Scott, David, and I talked about some of the things that were really important to me, as far as what I thought Carol might want to dive into. Things you know… 12 years of The Walking Dead, there was a lot unsaid. I made a rhyme. But anyway, we picked some of the core issues, and we kind of built on that. D. Zabel: I think one of the things I'll add is building on that, things that were maybe not fully developed or resolved in the original series for the character and also and also making sure that Carol was coming because she loves and misses her friend and is worried about him, but also has a narrative of her own, that's about the things that she's dealing with herself. So, that was really important for us was that Carol needed to have a dual narrative. It wasn't all about just finding Daryl, although that's crucial,... Melissa MB: obviously. D. Zabel: but it was how is that somehow working through her own experience and what things that are still plaguing her.

Carol and Daryl as the core of every storyline in season 2

It's clear that they have made Carol and Daryl's story the centre of the whole season and that they will be heavily involved in all of the major storylines and resolutions. Using episode 1 as an example, it was already clear that even though Ash has a really interesting backstory, which they delved into in a very thoughtful and intentional way, it was still there to serve Carol's story and ultimately, Caryls story in later episodes. The same, I believe, can be said about the different storylines in France and how they're all ultimately going to come together to serve Carol and Daryl's story and development.

D. Zabel: Every episode is big, but the way that it resolves ultimately all these different stories and these different characters by the time you get to the end, I think that's the single thing I'd say was the greatest accomplishment of Season 2 is sort of the accumulation of story and character, how all the stories are resolved specifically through Daryl and Carol, of course.

Slight spoiler warning for what's below the line. This spoiler has already been shared and talked about for several days at this point.

Reunion episode.

Whether or not the reunion will be in episode 2 is up to personal interpretation. Below is the link* to another video I took from my perspective, where you can see everyone's expressions. I encourage everyone to come to their own conclusions on whether or not they think it's episode 2.

I personally lean towards it being true, firstly because Norman and Melissa's tone/behaviour seem genuine, while Zabel and Gimple seem to be more nervous and overcompensating with their counter comments (However, Norman and Melissa are so talented as actors that they could easily fool us 😅). Secondly, why tease/mislead the audience in that way? There's no logical reason, and they know that, ultimately, it would just leave us (the people who believe them) a little disappointed after building our excitement and expectations up.

This was everyone's reaction to Gimple saying, "You know what? Let's say it doesn't happen in episode 2. Let's just get into an argument now."

*Note: Tumblr only allows me to upload one video directly to the post, so unfortunately, the second video had to be a link. I know that the link may not work in some countries like Canada, so if that's you and you'd like to see the video, let me know, and I'll send it to you directly.

My final thoughts.

I know that there are a lot of concerns about:

How Carol and Daryl's joint story will fit into the season 2 narrative and whether or not their story will be handled with care

How will Carol be incorporated into the story, and will her character be treated justly (not overlooked/overshadowed)

Is Melissa being treated/billed fairly, and is she happy with the product that is Daryl Dixon: The Book of Carol

Based on all the examples above and my thoughts in the part 1 post, I'm confident that the writers, showrunner, and, of course, the leading cast, Norman and Melissa, are handling both Carol and Daryl's joint story and their individual stories really well and with a lot of care.

Regarding Melissa's treatment and happiness, none of us knows what's happening behind the scenes, but from what I could see during the panel, everyone on that stage was treating each other as equals; no one was undermining anyone, and they were all clearly there to support each other. As always, there was also that special connection between Norman and Melissa, who were having really sweet moments just between them, smiling and whispering to each other and making each other laugh, which really warmed my heart. In terms of the audience's reaction, we all clapped, cheered, and reacted the loudest for Melissa and Norman, but especially Melissa. Everyone was so excited to see her, and I even noticed some people wanting to give her a standing ovation and were halfway standing when she came on stage but were motioned to sit back down by someone who looked like event staff or security.

And lastly, regarding the billing order, I feel that it's wonderful how some of Melissa's fans are really speaking up and standing up for her on how she should be equally billed with Norman, just like Danai/Andrew and Lauren/Jeffrey, which I wholeheartedly agree with; however, I think (and bare with me here) that we should be patient, especially for the moment. The order of billing within the credits does seem strange to me as well; however, the season is still three and a half months away (110 days) from its actual release, and these are things that could have been done in error and can still be amended for the official release. If it's not, then it's also important to acknowledge that whatever the agreement is that was made between AMC and Melissa/her agents, Melissa is a very intelligent and capable of making rational choices that are in her best interest, and as long as she's happy with it, then we should be respectful of those choices because, ultimately, we are not part of that contract and therefore can't really know why certain choices were made unless we're told by one of the parties who hold the contract.

I'm not saying we shouldn't speak up if we believe she or anyone else is being treated/compensated unfairly; however, we should still keep celebrating with her for her return as Carol to the series, her incredible performance in season 2, and all the hard work she has put in, alongside the rest of the cast and crew, to give us this new season.

~~~~~

There will probably be more parts to this as more information comes out, but for now, a huge thank you to those who read this ♡♡♡ I'd love to know your opinions if you agree or disagree with anything I've said. One of my favourite things about this community is how passionate everyone is, which allows us to have some really deep and meaningful conversations about the show and characters we love.

If anyone has any questions about the episode or panel that I haven't addressed yet or would like further information on anything I have shared, please feel free to leave me an ask, anonymous or not, and I'd be more than happy to answer and discuss it. However, I will refrain from giving away any spoilers that haven't already been released.

#the book of carol #melissa mcbride #norman reedus #daryl dixon #carol peletier #caryl #the walking dead #twd #twd spoilers #caryl positivity #spoilers

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sam-keeper · 2 days

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Susan Twist: Word Lord?

Many* people** are wondering about the theory held by certain Doctor Who fans*** online that the actress Susan Twist in the new season of the long running franchise is playing what's known as a "Word Lord".

Now, granted, many more are wondering whether she might, in fact, be Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter. That, my friends, is exactly the kind of question a Word Lord would want you to be asking.

Lemme break this theory down for you.

Throughout this whole new season of Doctor Who, the protagonists have been haunted by the recurrence, in different roles, of a stage and character actor who happens to have the delightful name Susan Twist. Like, not in the show, in real life. According to Russel T Davies, she was the only actor they could get due to an "actor shortage", which seems like a pretty terrible and even implausible dilemma, but luckily Davies has made lemonade out of this very real production constraint! Twist popped up in every episode this season, in some form or other. That's versatile writing! No wonder they brought Rusty back as showrunner.

But perhaps there's more to the story than just the unfortunate realities of filming in a country ruled by a failed regime...

The Doctor and his companion Ruby started noticing Twist's recurring roles over the past few episodes, though the plot of each episode intervened before they could put anything definitive together. It's one of a number of nods to the metatextual content of the show--literal winks to the audience, another character (Mrs Flood) directly addressing the viewers, a whole musical number about how there's "always a twist at the end"--that suggested maybe some authorial tomfoolery was afoot, that maybe something a little tricky or tongue in cheek was happening.

But what could the explanation be? Could Susan Twist really be playing THE Susan, a relative of the Doctor's that hasn't been seen in the franchise since the 60s? That seems a little silly, surely! Or could she be playing another character, like... the Rani? or the Monk? Both of them got namedropped alongside Susan at one point. Or maybe she's the portended head of Maestro and the Toymaker's extracosmic family. I guess there's a theory this is Sutekh, the evil alien god from Pyramids of Mars? Sure, seems fun.

But no. Fuck all that noise. I know what's really going on here and it just coincidentally involves a character that I'm feral about, and that no one else has even heard of, a guy called, somewhat fittingly, Nobody No-one.

No-one shows up in just one and a quarter stories by Steven Hall for Big Finish's series of audio dramas, first as a minor opponent (in 45) and then as a much more motivated and fearsome one (in A Death in the Family). In the latter story, he manages to--no points if you worked this out from the title--kill the Seventh Doctor. How did a character with such a low profile manage such a feat? Well, Nobody No-one has powers comparable to a Time Lord: he is a Word Lord.

Word Lords are one of the most delightfully bonkers concepts to come out of the early exciting and experimental period in Big Finish's line of audio dramas. Hailing from another universe, they're the equivalent of Time Lords for a reality where narrative rather than chronology drives all existence. It's like if the Anchoring of the Thread established not linear time but, I guess, TV Tropes instead. Nobody No-one regenerates like the Doctor, and has his own equivalent to the TARDIS: the CORDIS, or Conveyance Of Repeating Dialogue In Space-time, which is a memetic construct transporting the Word Lord through repeated phrases, jokes, coincidental number recurrences, and so on. The CORDIS is heralded by the number 45 popping up, and you'd better believe I sat up and noticed how many times that number recurred in the code pattern in Dot and Bubble! In Death in the Family there's a whole military organization the Doctor's mucking around with--No, not UNIT. No, not Torchwood. A different thing, one run by a human supremacist vampire hold on we're getting off topic--and Nobody casually reveals at one point that his CORDIS was bouncing around inside their "For King And Country" mantra for years.

Nobody No-one's real fun as a villain comes from his special Bullshit Powers. He's a Word Lord, so he's basically a memetic being, right? He IS language in some sense. Like, apparently his CORDIS crashed into the alphabet after his first encounter with the Doctor, annihilating the 27th letter of the alphabet and causing the English Great Vowel Shift. This story does a ton with the concept of "what if a guy was words".

But what makes him so dangerous is a quirk of his own identity. To grasp what a Word Lord can do, you have to think linguistically, dialogically. Imagine someone haplessly says: "but, nobody could have gotten into that locked room to kill the ambassador!" What would that allow a Word Lord to do? And imagine further:

"No-one tells the sun whether or not to shine." "Nobody could survive that!" "Nobody could just kill the Doctor!"

One slip of the tongue, that's all it takes for Nobody No-one to gleefully command godlike power.

That's Nobody, though. I don't think Susan Twist is just Nobody. I mean, No-one could seriously ask you to believe that this character who appeared in an (unfairly, given its quality) obscure audio adventure, written by an author who only ever wrote those two stories for Doctor Who, with a bunch of wild over the top and no doubt difficult to write around powers, is going to suddenly come back as a major character in the third tv revival of this 60 year old franchise. Like, Nobody would expect Davies to start referencing, I don't know, the Shalka Doctor either, surely. And I wouldn't ask you to make that kind of totally absurd leap, not even if I happened to be writing some sort of tongue in cheek article.

No, what I'm--I mean, what the fans are suggesting is that this concept of a Time Lord but for stories, who comes from a Borgesian narrative dimension, appearing in one and one quarter obscure audio dramas by an author who never wrote anything else for Doctor Who... what the theory proposes is that there's a SECOND one of those guys.

Just think about it, think about it like a Word Lord. What has the fandom asked itself about this season? Surely, one of the foremost questions is simply: what about Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter? She's been name dropped a few times, the Doctor doesn't say she's definitively dead... could there be some reveal here that Susan is alive? There's got to be, right? That's what they're leading up to!

There's just got to be a Susan Twist.

That, my friends, is exactly how she snuck into this reality.

Now, maybe the "Susan Triad" slated to appear next episode isn't this Word Lord proper but a kind of, I don't know, fictionsuit or vessel or entry point. I'm also not sure what a "Susan Twist" would even want, what the grand scheme would be. Unlike Nobody No-one, there's not a lot of word games you can play with "Susan Twist" beyond the obvious. But, maybe that's part of the point. Nobody No-one was a megalomaniac, a guy who really did just want to watch the world burn. The Doctor's companion Hex accuses him of being "proper mad", and he responds, "Mad? I'm FUUURIOUS!" followed by an explosion from the grenade he had tossed into the duck pond. Nobody is a brash, arrogant, chaotic, and... probably not that bright guy, who has the advantage of his CORDIS's many tricks and his incredibly versatile name. Perhaps this new Word Lord wants something other than chaos and destruction. Maybe she simply wants what we've already seen her achieve in the show: universal ubiquity. There's always a Twist at the end.

Actually, this would weirdly parallel another beat from Death in the Family. In order to trap Nobody, the Doctor weaponizes his own narrative against the Word Lord, tapping into the universal internet and googling himself in order to build a whole proxy universe based on his own life. From another perspective, he basically uses the entire narrative of Doctor Who--all the episodes, all the Big Finish audios, all the Doctor Who Monthly comics, all the Virgin New Adventures--as an ideatic missile. This is such a cool concept I'd feel guilty about giving it away, only it happens about a fifth of the way through Death in the Family. Seriously, this audio GOES places. Anyway, the suggestion is that the Doctor is so entangled with the history of the universe, so threaded throughout all these other narratives, that his history effectively is a world unto itself that a being of narrative like Nobody might get completely lost in.

That's a kind of narrative ubiquity if there ever was one. If I was a Word Lord I'd be sorely tempted by that. Nobody is: he appears a perverse counterpart to the Doctor (and personally I think David Tennant would do a GREAT job playing him if he ever appeared in the show). I can't help but notice, incidentally, that we just got an episode where the shapeshifting Chuldur quickly became obsessed with cosplaying as the Doctor, and Wild Blue Yonder also introduced a couple of not-things trying to copy him. Could this Word Lord be seeking to build a narrative as strong and inescapable as the Doctor's?

It would be an interesting way of incorporating some of these meta elements without slipping too far into a kind of self-referential morass. It feels like Davies has been dancing right up on that line this entire season in a way that's exhilarating, but that also has been a bit nerve wracking for me. The more metatextual storytelling has exited the realm of weird independent art and entered the mainstream, the more cloying it's started to feel. Like, when you engage the audience, entreat them directly to care about the characters or write tearful paeans to the necessity of the Hero as a Symbol, the more it can start to feel like a bit of a desperate exercise in brand management. Clap if you DO believe in fairies, and all that. Doctor Who certainly has some history of guilt here--sorry, Steven Moffat, but sometimes it does get to be a bit much. And it does risk standing the purpose of literature on its head, where ironically through characters lauding the virtues of storytelling within society, the virtue of having participated in a transaction consuming art becomes the foundation of fandom, and the actual literary content is assumed, but treated as an afterthought.

Davies has thus far instead treated the meta content in two ways: as a unique physics to be solved, and as a way of exploring a particular bit of social commentary (sometimes more than one at once). Goblins use a "language of luck" and a physics of rope and knots, the Toymaker brings the world into a State of Play, and Maestro introduces a State of Musicals. To challenge these beings, the Doctor must understand their particular ontology and exploit it. As soon as the Bogeyman in Space Babies faces real peril, all the children who were afraid of it rally to its defense, which doubles as both a commentary on the "Teatime Terror for Tots" charge thrown at children's media like Doctor Who--children LIKE scary stories and creepy, gross monsters!--and reinforces Davies's acidic anger at social and political abandonment of people who are inconvenient to the bottom line. Rogue plays gleefully with fanfiction tropes, and its positioning of the Chuldur as "cosplayers" would riiight up to the edge of being a little too navel gazing about toxic fans... if not for the fact that the Doctor and Ruby are also explicitly cosplaying as Bridgerton characters, and the episode is still giving fans exactly what they want in the form of a whirlwind gay Doctor/Rogue romance. This season is concerned with these sorts of metatextual games, without being subsumed by them and becoming entirely about self-referential brand building.

A Death in the Family is also, notably, only partly about Nobody No-one and his machinations and the counter-machinations required to stop him, set into motion by the Seventh Doctor and carried out beyond his death by companions Ace and Hex. Like I said, a lot of the seismic action of the story is over within the first 25 minutes. The Word Lord is really just used as a jumping off point to talk about a bunch of other stuff: truth, lies, choices made for ourselves or made for us by others... we see multiple information-worlds built in the story, some of them more subtle than others. At one point Ace tearfully proclaims that traveling on the TARDIS with the Doctor "is the only life I've ever wanted!" The Seventh Doctor retorts, with some audible guilt and distress, "No, it's the only life you've ever HAD!" In a very real sense, the Doctor has created the notional worlds that Ace and Hex inhabit, defining the contours of Ace's life since she was a teenager, and deliberately staying silent about Hex's traumatic family history, deciding for both of them "what's best". Nobody No-one in that sense is a pretext, in the best tradition of Doctor Who, to dig into questions about power.

The metafictional is risky, but it's a narrative tool like any other, and it fits with a long history of Doctor Who as a franchise reflecting on itself and its place in culture, with everything from the Mind Robber's suggestion that the Doctor himself might be an escapee from fiction, to Vengeance on Varos and Trial of a Time Lord's dramatization of Doctor Who's conservative culture war critics, to the Last Great Time War as metaphor for the show's cancellation. In a sense, behaving as though cosplay or fandom or whatever don't exist and couldn't possibly be the idiom through which characters--even weird alien characters--interpret their reality and act upon it might equally alienate the show from being about any wider culture beyond itself, endlessly, the same dalek and cybermen and Master stories recycling forever. My hope is just that as Davies barrels into the finale at full speed, it's this sense of a meaning for Doctor Who beyond its own lore driving him. The anger we've seen from him about social issues, the commitment to changing the show where it needs to grow, and the willingness to take big swings at continuity all give me some reason to feel confident.

Confident, of course, that he has seen the wisdom and logic of building his arc around Susan Twist being a Word Lord. What? That's what this article is about, remember? That didn't stop being a thing. Anyway, I'm excited for friday, when all of us pulling for this theory will be proven indisputably right, and you will all, in deference, subscribe to my Patreon.

* alleged ** hypothetical *** me, specifically

#doctor who #nuwho #susan twist #metafiction #fan theory

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doodlinge · 18 hours

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my writing tips, that i think people will find useful:

- write dialogue first and THEN make a scene around it.

i like to do this sometimes for multiple reasons. first, if you’re in a flow of good ideas, getting dialogue done will be a future GAME CHANGER. you don’t have to be stuck fussing over little word choices because you just do it when you have a good idea, and it works! fuss over it now, save time for descriptions later. second, the characters you’re writing usuuallly wont be able to read eachother’s minds. we people do everything by communication and talking! so, map out what you want your scene to look like through dialogue! i like to do mine as a screenplay or movie script, so that way i can ensure that the characters are speaking Like Real People (tm). and THEN I READ IT OUTLOUD >:)

- map out your chapters before you start to write. seriously, do it.

so, personally, my favorite part of fanfiction and writing is the planning stage. and i like doing it on paper, but we’ll get into that after this. first, you get the idea, the spark in your brain that could make an AMAZING story, comic, or au. that’s the general premise to work off of! write that down, if you need. next, do a VERY rough draft of what you want to happen—specifically, the 3 main points of your story: the beginning event, the middle event or climax, and the ending event, or your point A, B, and C. work off of and build up (or build down) from each of these core events of your story, planning the small events that lead up to The Big Guy (or B). these ideas or premises for each leading event can and probably will be VERY, VERY rough, but once you’ve got the rough idea of what will probably happen done, you can get to work on MORE PLANNING (sorry guys. learn to enjoy it)

- PLANNING PART TWO BABY WOOO (plan out your chapters. and if it doesnt work when you’re writing it, that’s okay!)

this is what you will do before you write your chapters, that works for me way better than just going in with no plan. personally, when i started to write the fic i’m currently writing, i mapped out all the rough details that i want to happen in the climax chapter of my story, because most people find the middle the hardest part. since i already had an rough idea of what would have happened before the climax with my previous planning stage, i already was able to connect how all of the buildup would lead into the climax of the story pretty easily. every action in your story will have a consequence, big or small, and that all will lead up to your protagonist bursting into tears or the main couple confessing their love or the final, epic battle between the protagonist and antagonist! if, when you’re writing, the rough idea you had just isn’t working out, you can either a: redo it completely if it’s a huge problem, or b (my favorite): work around it in the moment and improvise. i ended up making my fic’s climax way better just because of the extra scenes i added in while writing, but since i had my original plan to work off of, everything was a lot easier.

- make every scene with a motive to accomplish

most people know this one, but i thought it was good to add in. whether it’s to flesh out the world around your characters with fun and shenanigans or to give the audience a little more insight into a character who will be useful in the future, every scene and every chapter should have a purpose. when people act, they also like to give their characters motivations, and for a while, i wasn’t sure how that could connect. however, now i understand. let’s say a character is trying to motivate another one to be brave and face their fears, but character a is actually only interested in their own interests. character a’s motivation is to be self-serving—they’re not as concerned with helping character b, but instead, they want to help themself. this shows a lot about character a! when you have a purpose for every story beat and a motive for each character, it can help you flesh out the character much better.

- show don’t tell (and what i interpret that as)

okay, so for a while, i had NO idea what show don’t tell even meant. i LOVE writing about my character’s thoughts, their interests, their perspectives on what’s going on around them. character analysis is one of the best parts, for me! but there are ways to show what a character is thinking without the use of heavy description. for example, take this part from the fic i’m currently working on right now:

the character i’m writing for had not mentioned her mom the entire chapter, but when you go back and analyze her character throughout it, you can see major hints that part of why she who she is stems from her trauma with her mother. when she connects to an older adult female figure and feels understood, the issues she has are shown and not told, clear as day. by using dialogue and trusting your audience to connect the dots about your characters, you can make a better-written story! remember motivations; sometimes, characters don’t even know they have the motivations that they do, and the audience has to figure it out based on context clues. leave room for intrigue and mystery! think; if you were this character in this situation feeling the way they felt, what would you do? what would you say? why would you say it, and what would that reveal about you?

- write one story beat per day and WRITE ON PAPER

the word count, for me, doesn’t matter. if the quality of your writing is good, and the pacing gives audiences room to breathe, then that’s enough! quality over quantity, in my opinion. if you’re not up for writing, PLAN CHAPTERS! plan scenes, plan events! plan dialogue, make it fun! that is writing too. for me, when i have the planning done, i go with the One Story Beat Per Day Rule. if you get one small event done each time you write, you’ll be finishing The Big Event you wanted to accomplish in no time. and if you’re in the middle of a big story beat and you just need a break, i’d say to take one…. and later, come back with a notebook and a pen and think. paper has helped me write better because the flow of thought just keeps going when i’m focused, and i think it might work for a lot of people.

- remember, YOU CAN DO THIS! MAKE IT FUN!

writing and finishing stuff is really, really hard. but if you get one small thing done for the characters in your story, comic or au each day… you’ll eventually have an amazing, finished story. make it fun for yourself. listen to music, act out the scripts, use color theory, analyze your characters and don’t make it a chore! every small step contributes to getting to the top. make something you will love to write, and that you will love to read. make something for yourself, because in the end, if you enjoy it, the audiences will enjoy it.

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heretherebedork · 2 days

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Yak has his necklace on in the preview! (I know we all saw it but also chose to un see it!!) how do you think this came to be?

Would Dee do this before his fight and losing Dee makes Yak lose the fight? Or it’s a trick in the preview and Dee just gave it back to him for good luck?

Also can you answer , why am I so consumed. Y this show and My stand in? Because they are such opposites 😅

I think that Dee is going to pull back because of the travel with Ter and watching Yak flirt with Taemrak and give him back his necklace to put a little distance between them and then Yak is going to finally declare that he wants a kiss and to be his boyfriend and swear he'll win the match for it and then lose and then get the kiss anyway and...

Honestly, knowing GMMTV, it's probably a fake out good luck gift. Or just something like that. Actuallly...

Yak was wearing his necklace during the sex scene this week. Why? No one knows! Never mentioned, never pointed out. Was this just filmed out of order? Probably.

So.. As much as the necklaces means it might also just be a... thing. In the preview. That happens.

But also, why these two shows? because these two shows are giving us characters and motivation and gorgeous development that makes sense and fits the story and the characters and it all works together. You care about everyone in MSI and WG, both good and bad, you want people to get happy endings and people to be miserable and you want to see them grow and see them love and see them heal and you want every bit of it.

It's all of that. It's the way everything had depth and everyone has depth and the relationships have taken roads that make sense and they jumped into bed but their actual relationships have take time to develop.

Same vibes. Taking care of someone who needs to be taken care of but that you don't know how you feel about taking care of but also can't help but care about all the same.

Very different approaches to the idea but the same depth.

#wandee goodday #my stand in #yakdee #yakwandee #bl drama #bl series #thai drama #thai bl #thai series #thaibl #asianlgbtqdramas #asian lgbtq dramas #thai bl drama #thai bl series

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yosomats · 24 hours

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yoshida and karamatsu being quite literally self made men, putting their all into their image, even if kara's work ethic is practically nonexistant compared to yoshida's (or simply unapplied since he's a neet lol), is super interesting! karamatsu must see yoshida and feel a great admiration and slight envy towards him, and yoshida might wonder how someone like kara is even alive, let alone happy with who he is, but also maybe, on some more subconscious level, jealous that he's satisfied with so little, in yo's opinion... much to think about🧐

IM GONNA KILL MYSELF YOU GET IT WAHHHHHHH😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 I really love whatever this type or writing or characterization is called (idk man I just draw pictures) I love complicated relationships

I went a little overboard um enjoy yoshikara relationship breakdown

Karamatsu idolizes yoshida and views him as the perfect guy and wants to become him. He kind of stalks him to try and gauge what he does so he can take that and apply it to himself without knowing the amount of effort yoshida put into himself to be who he is today. karamatsu wants a cheat code lol. At some point he actually makes contact with him and tries to befriend him (for his own selfish motives of course hes still a selfish pos like his brothers lol).

Yoshida on the other hand couldn't give two flying shits about karamatsu after he finds out hes a neet. He's not a hateful person but he cannot stand people who don't put any effort into being better (for reasons stated in the last ask). If it were anyone else yoshida would be happy to keep them company and get to know them but because karamatsu has accomplished nothing in his life yoshida is quick to turn cold towards him: ignoring him like everyone else.

Their whole story is still a wip but after a while something happens and yoshida grows softer to karamatsu and they officially become acquaintances instead of harasser and victim lol. Karamatsu's feelings of admiration and envy transform into this all encompassing infatuation. He can't tell if he wants to be him or be with him lol (he wants him carnally) Yoshida can tell but doesn't really say anything or let it ruin the quiet relationship they have going on. He does care about him but in a more pitiful understanding way. Unrequited love is awesome and I think it should be explored more cuz feelings and emotions are complicated and interesting.

Their acquaintanceship is quiet. Whether it be a late night smoke on the bridge or getting a quick meal at chibita's, their relationship is a mix of awkward and distant but peaceful. Karamatsu is just happy he has someone to spend some of his time with. Yoshida's life wouldn't be affected if karamatsu was in or out of it so he doesn't really care. Its a very once sided relationship emotionally

wow consider this the kind of official yoshikara post

#yoshi q&a #ik its not a question but its about him so im tagging it as it lol #yoshida #karamatsu #yoshikara #Ive never seen any one-sided or more selfish relationships depicted in this fandom (or anywhere really)#they're purely self indulgent #I just want an excuse to draw yoshida and karamatsu in situations where karamatsu is flustered and on the verge of death and yoshida-#- not giving a fuck #cuz he really doesnt #his heart lies with his job #grind set over grinder #getting the bag over getting the fag #LMFAO #my aroace king sigh this was fun to write #anyways I think yoshida should give kara a taste of his strap

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maboroshi-no · 2 days

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Hamefura BluRay Special Story - Maria

I have translated Maria's SS from the Anime Blu-ray special.

Series: My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! Title / Character: Maria Source: Anime BluRay S1 Vol 2 Synopsis: Maria is struggling to create new sweets for Katarina. Translation: maboroshi-no

Translation below ⮟

Maria

Maria: Hmm… Maybe I should make it a little sweeter.

I, Maria Campbell, murmured this while sampling the sweets I had just made in the kitchen.

Since the Academy of Magic had entered an long period of vacation, I had left the dorm and returned home.

I had finished the vacation assignments and had some free time, so today, I was challenging myself to create new sweets.

Baking sweets was a pastime I had since childhood.

Before, I was making sweets just to remember the happy times and motivate myself to do my best.

But now, I had come to make them because I enjoyed it.

"If I give this to her, she may be even happier. " When I thought this, a smile naturally formed.

Maria's Mother: I'm home. Oh, you're making sweets?

My mother, who had returned from grocery shopping, asked me this.

Maria: Yes. I've been thinking of a new recipe. She's looking forward to it, after all.

Maria's Mother: Do you mean Lady Katarina?

Maria: Yes.

When I nodded, my mother made a chuckling smile.

Because Lady Katarina visited my home, I had come to talk with my mother much more than before.

This made me so happy that when I returned home, I talked a lot with my mother about things from the Academy of Magic.

My mother listened with a wide smile. Then, when I finished,

Maria's Mother: You just keep talking about Lady Katarina~ You really love her, don't you?

After saying this, she chuckled.

Indeed, when I talked about things from the academy, I would naturally often end up talking about Lady Katarina.

We did spend a lot of time together, but it wasn't the only reason. It was because my time with Lady Katarina was so enjoyable.

She was a duke's daughter and a prince's fiancée, and even among the female students of the academy, she had the best parentage. She should, properly speaking, not be the kind of person who would exchange words with a commoner like me.

But Lady Katarina didn't appear to mind it in the slightest, she readily spoke to me.

While some other high-ranking noble ladies acted like they didn't want to hear anything from a commoner.

Also, Lady Katarina didn't only readily talk to me, she also said I was her friend.

Katarina: Maria, you're my precious friend.

Our social statuses were just so different, and yet she said this as if it were only natural.

I wished I could tell my childhood self that I was able to meet someone who would tell me this.

When I was five, I became "a magic wielder" after casting light magic.

Then, from that moment on, I wasn't "Maria Campbell" anymore. I became "the Wielder of Light".

As someone different who possessed the magic that was almost exclusive to nobles, in town, I was surrounded from a distance by not only the children but also by the adults.

Because of me, my mother was rumored to have had an affair with a noble. Our family relationships became strained and a distance gradually appeared between us.

The child me wished for my surroundings and my family to go back to how they were, so I put in all the effort I could.

After recalling the ones I had once made with my mother, I worked my hardest to make sweets and then brought them to school. But in the end, no one would eat them.

And like this, I was all alone for a long time.

Curled into a ball inside my bed, I would imagine someone appearing someday who would need me, who would tell me I was important to them.

When I would turn fifteen and enroll in the Academy of Magic, everyone there would possess magic, so I wouldn't be different anymore. I might be able to make some friends.

I enrolled in the academy believing this, but there, I was the only commoner and the only wielder of light, so in the end, things didn't change much compared to my town.

Rather, I was more alienated there and treated as a nuisance.

I might have to live like this forever. As I started to think this, Lady Katarina appeared before me.

Just like a hero, Lady Katarina dashingly appeared and protected me with her body when I was blamed for "getting favored treatment as a wielder of light".

Katarina: Maria-chan isn't getting such a thing as favored treatment. She's putting in great effort. Maria-chan always gives her all, we like her that's why we're staying with her!

She said these words.

The people around me wouldn't see me as anything but "The Wielder of Light".

And because of this, I had always wished this.

I wished for someone to see me as "Maria Campbell". And if it were granted, I wished to stay with this person.

But with everyone surrounding me from a distance, I thought this wish wouldn't possibly come true.

This was what I thought but Lady Katarina granted my wish.

She found me, she found the person called "Maria Campbell".

Until now, no matter how much effort I put in, people would say the result was only natural because I was the special girl with light magic. No one would realize my efforts. But Lady Katarina…

Katarina: Maria, you're such a hard worker! I need to follow your example!

She said this.

She didn't say that I could do it because I was special. She praised me for being able to do it after working hard.

At times, I couldn't help thinking that Lady Katarina could maybe use some mysterious magic.

After all, Lady Katarina showered me with the words that I desired, that I had always wanted. My heart had been empty for a long time, and upon meeting Lady Katarina, it rapidly filled. Staying by Lady Katarina's side was very comfortable.

Maria's Mother: And so, these new sweets, what kind are you making?

These words from my mother suddenly brought me back to reality. I had been absorbed in my thoughts after unconsciously remembering about the old times and my time with Lady Katarina.

Maria: Umm~ I made jam out of fruits and used it as filling, but it doesn't seem sweet enough at all.

After I had said this, my mother…

Maria's Mother: Let me have a taste.

She bit into the lined-up sweets.

Maria's mother: You're right. The sweetness may be a little mild. Does Lady Katarina like it rather sweet?

Maria: Yes. She does, but since I'm using both jam and sugar, I'm also worried about it becoming too sweet. Getting the amount right is hard.

Maria's Mother: Is that so? I'll also give it some thought, so shall we make it together?

Maria: Mom, don't you have other things to do? Is it okay?

Usually, even after coming back from groceries, my mother would do all kinds of work. She should be busy at this hour.

Maria's Mother: The other things are not so urgent, I can do them later. Baking sweets with my daughter is rather my number one priority.

My mother said this and smiled.

Maria: Thank you, Mom.

I was a little moved to tears.

And like this, after many trials and errors, my mother and I created new sweets. It was such an enjoyable, joyous, and happy time.

Finally, when I gave Lady Katarina the sweets we made, it made her incredibly happy, and I felt very happy once more.

#hamefura novel #hamefura #my next life as a villainess: all route lead to doom #maria campbell

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arkaix · 2 days

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HEYA!

sory for caps im so excited over a new interest

just watched all of doai (thats the acronym right?) and i saw you tag something about a sitcom au?!

im just SUPER curious about if you have any info or stuff you could tell me about the au, or a post you can like me to about the details

also your cool art kind of caused the final push of motivation to actually start watching, im a pastra fan and so is my friend, they even have the plush (im a bit jealous), so thank you for that :)

AKJFJEJFJJEHIEHDHRUA THANKYOUSOMUCH it's so heartwarming that ppl like the silly stuff I do o⁠(⁠(⁠*⁠^⁠▽⁠^⁠*⁠)⁠)⁠o (Muhahahaha yes the plan worked, other poor souls captured èwé)

Ok first of all, welcome to the pumpkin patch!!! I've seen this question more and more lately, and usually there are 2 Very helpful posts that can summarize the basic concept of the sitcom au:

These are a general timeline of the events and the basic explanation of the story. If you go in the reblog section of both of these (a very cool feature that I LOVE about Tumblr) you can see other ideas added to the original one. I encourage you to look in the replies and reblogs of posts because sometimes due to the way tumblr works many conversation chains form ^-^' Also fun fact this is probably the first post that started it all, the patient zero, it's all their fault And This other one is also a classic very much still true

Also also, many people have taken the concept and expanded it in charming and innovative ways, and more AUs have seen the light of day. Having fun and creating more stories, concepts and ideas is very encouraged!

And!! And if you want to ask more, there's now a discord server!

If you're interested in knowing more AUs I found these ones:

Folie of Deux

Troupe of Eldrich Horrors

Of circuses and hives

And last but not less important, if you don't already know there's an official discord server made by Pastra, full of amazing and talented people.

It's getting a little crowded these days so they added a rule that for the first week you can't post images unless you get permission >_>

HAVE FUN!! (((o(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)o)))

#arkaix talks #doai #dreams of an insomniac #doai sitcom au #pastra #pastraspec

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decepti-thots · 2 days

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here is an ask that is a free excuse to talk about any disco elysium prowldome thoughts you have because i am FASCINATED by it in the abstract but having a hard time nailing it down

so your original tags on the post this relates to specified that CD is Kim (and therefore, Prowl is Harry) and that is what actually made me really interested. because not making the self-destructive amnesiac character CD (who in canon is... that in a different way) was SO interesting to me. i will cut this both for potential DE spoilers and also so people can choose whether or not to read my overlong ramblings. lmao.

so the thing about DE as a text is that it's doing a really specific thing gameplay wise, derived from the biggest inspiration it has mechanically, which is the game Planescape Torment. specifically it is doing this thing where the idea of the amnesiac protagonist as a 'clean slate' is troubled by constant catastrophic interaction with NPCs that knew your player character before they lost their memory, so while you as the player are roleplaying as them as vessels to project yourself onto because of their diagetic memory loss, you are constantly having that fantasy of 'starting over fresh' and total control over them as an agent undermined by the reality that other people remember them, and their influence on this fictional world pre-dates your own.

i think that's SUCH a fascinating lens through which to look at what Prowl does as a character; his constant attempts at- and more to the point failure at- reinvention, because the thing that constantly gets in his way is always... himself. his own past actions catching up to him and his inability to handle that. right? so he's an incredibly interesting kind of archetype to put into this story just because the thing that always undermines him is his inability to get away from his impact on other people. he can change how he feels or who he is, but he can't change what he's done. this is a really great character to put into a narrative role like Harry in DE.

the thing is that Chromedome is not Kim, because the entire point of Kim is to give you someone to make that new first impression on. right? Kim is the character from out of town who knows of you by reputation but has no pre-existing relationship to you as an actual person. who you decide to play Harry as in the moment becomes who Kim knows you to be.

if Chromedome is anyone, surely he's. you know. Harry's ex he keeps alienating by calling her and freaking her out begging her to come back because he thinks they're inevitable and he refuses to tolerate life without her. he's Dora, at least very loosely. (well. he could be Jean, i guess. but like. I do not give a fuck about Jean. sorry.)

so i was thinking this over and like... a DE version of these two where the twist is that you think Chromedome is Kim and this is how these two meet on a case and become (professional) partners, and in reality he's been lying since realising that Prowl has no memory and he is, in fact, the ex that Prowl's limbic system keeps dropping hints he's really fucked up over (and who he has lingering repressed guilt over the knowledge he did in some way fuck over)... i think that's how i see this working tbh. it's fascinating to imagine how Chromedome would like. respond to that. and what his motivations are- both what they start off as and where they end up depending on how things go, and what an amnesiac Prowl decides to do and how he chooses to conduct himself.

there are a lot of things that i think are completely inextricable from DE even in the context of vague wonderings about silly hypothetical fandom AUs. first off, DE is about politics, and the kind of person Harry becomes in the face of his amnesia is tied extremely closely to that. fandom tends to gloss over the fact that a ton of Prowl's negative development in exRiD specifically is also linked to that comic making some points about politics, i feel; it's not that they're subtle or anything lmao, fandom just tends to focus on characters in a very individualist sense that doesn't always line up with what that comic is using them for. Prowl is someone who refuses to relinquish wartime power (and the abuses thereof) in the aftermath of a (from his perspective, still ongoing) conflict. and he is the guy, in DE, who would have been intellectually sympathetic towards the revolution, but he'd also have been working to put it down. (also, this is clearly different from Harry, who grew up in the aftermath of its failure, the generation dealing with an after that was traumatic.) and so much of Prowl's moves towards that tight grip on authoritarian power in exRiD comes from a contextually developed fear- both for himself (if he relinquishes his sunk cost fallacy there are a lot of things he did that were not justified) and for the society he imagines is under constant risk of falling into chaos if he does not. but what does he believe when he doesn't remember all the things that brought him to that point? i mean, the prowl we saw in Shadowplay thinks very differently than the one we see in the present. and specifically Roberts writes Prowl as someone whose initial drive was to try and escape the war and its conflicts altogether. so your angle there is very in line with what DE does with Harry and his amnesia, I think.

Chromedome meanwhile... i think the idea of a post-war Chromedome who has survived his own attempts at self-destruction and come to loathe Prowl playing this role of silent, judgemental observer of Prowl with this ostensible opportunity to change, who lies about not knowing Prowl as a kind of mirror to the way Chromedome has erased other relationships in his life to avoid confronting the pain of them... is really interesting, honestly. (there are versions of this where he is married to Rewind and there are versions of this where Rewind is at least temporarily still dead, and i like both tbh.) does Chromedome want Prowl to be able to genuinely change through this? perhaps the cracks in his story start showing when unlike Kim, he responds with increasing frustration at Prowl actually doing so, a thing it doesn't make sense for him to be bitter about if he's really a stranger. meanwhile Prowl is clearly and immediately latching onto Chromedome as someone he has decided he admires, and declares trust in. (harry idealizes kim a lot; the vision he has of dora, too, calls him out on literally deifying her; and we see in idw canon that for all his irritation with Chromedome now he casually asserts ludicrous stuff like 'you're literally too fantastic at your job for it to kill you' and so on.) had Chromedome comfortably convinced himself that was all bullshit and Prowl has no actual remaining feelings towards him, that it was all just to get Chromedome to do useful shit for him when he snapped his fingers? does seeing evidence to the contrary- that Prowl's feelings continue to be, annoyingly, real and genuine- destabilize him?

god there's a TON more i want to think about here. obviously there are a lot of things DE explores that bringing into this complicates as well. DE talks about suicidality and addiction extensively, obviously, for starters. (which are probably themes most people would automatically project onto Chromedome, which makes this specific configuration really interesting, i think.) the inevitable futility of trying to be an individual who is 'one of the good ones' in a system where that doesn't matter and will never allow you to be. you could probably tie that in with functionism if you wanted, and Prowl's seeming baseline agreement with at least some parts of that system on some level despite it clearly not benefiting him overmuch. right? there's a lot of potential room to engage directly with not just the basic plot setup of DE but its actual themes i think, which sort of surprised me to realise. (and is why it kept bopping around in my head, because that's really the only way i would be interested in a fusion AU kind of thing modelling itself on Elysium; i'm not here for the trope-y setup, i'm here for what DE actually does thematically and the crunchier topics it commits to exploring.)

anyway. please consider. you know that skill check you can get in the last dream with Dora? the one you can 'succeed' and it's really, really bad to do so, actually? yeah. please consider that skill check in this context. ahahaha. I SURE AM

#also there would be a sideplot where both Chromedome and Prowl find out about Springer #and it would be EXTREMELY FUNNY i think. chromedome mentally just screaming 'what.'#idw #prowl #chromedome #prowldome

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necronatural · 1 day

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Okay I think the thing that hits for me with Dead Plate is like, it is a queer game. Is the point of it.

If you look at the surrounding info that Rodya is a homophobic bisexual, Vince is gay, that the game is made by queer people & Vince's motivations were all about his own skill, it boils down to:

A perfectionist narcissistic gay man is concerned about if his food is meeting his own standards. He rejects a woman, and then uses her to earn the approval of a man he's both attracted to and had placed on the pedestal of 'target demographic' for his work. He exposes a very vulnerable part of himself to the man and is violently rejected.

That's just vibes. As for the literal events that actually take place, Vince, a selfish person, views the value he gets out of Rody's perspective as potentially synonymous with love; not love for Rody, but Rody's power to give his work value. Hence the tragic word of god info that he ended up being haunted by the fact he killed them for no reason, while if they never met, he would have died old and unloving after a long and prosperous career. In both universes, he is unable to consider anything but his own superiority and his career as a way to define himself. He does not think to grapple with his desires because he's blinded by his pride and ambition.

I think the bones of the story and the details both contain a very like...totally non-romantic, totally non-platonic queer viewpoint. despite the central storyline being about ego, every layer seems to speak to the underlying gay experience. And I think that reading really lends itself to the quality of the overall structure imho.

#pers #i played it a while ago it just stuck with me #dead plate

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coffeegnomee · 2 days

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Training my brain to learn that caring about something does not mean someone will die and it will all be lost.

Cw - death, OCD, mcyt death, dsmp and lifesteal, triggers

This is, obviously, something super personal. But sharing about it is what scares me, so I’m going to do it anyway and prove to my brain that it’s okay to care.

If you end up reading it, know you just read my heart. I hope it helps you process whatever you’re dealing with <3.

I looked up OCD tonight because my brain constantly cycles through the same thoughts and worries about Lifesteal like Non Stop. Like I know I’m ADHD but this isn’t just a fixation on this server, but like debilitating spirals of thought. And all focused around analyzing if it’s all going to fall apart or not.

They say ocd is a “limbic system impairment that occurs when someone experiences a traumatic physical or emotional event while their chronic stress load is already high.”

And that freaking resonated. They say exposure therapy can rewire the brain so let’s go explore what’s the event that’s keeping me spiraling.

My chronic stress load was extremely high that summer two years ago. And then Technoblade died. The longer it’s been the more I really sit with the fact that that was traumatic.

On top of the stress personally, now my favorite YouTuber, my comfort character on dsmp, the freaking anchor of that server, was just gone. Gone.

Dreamsmp came in a time of some pretty heavy depression. Obviously the pandemic was still occurring so that’s a chronic stress load itself (I found it January 16th 2021, so like, three days before the disc finale, but almost a year into covid) and watching through all the streams I was able to completely escape.

For the first time in months I was laughing. Like deep belly laughs. Full body. Actual joy. The neural rewiring my brain those first months was insane. It was pure serotonin.

I became motivated to work again, having something fun in the background. I looked forward to cherishing the lore, keeping those streams to the side for the evenings when I could really immerse myself into the story.

There’s a two-fold trigger that sends me into a spiral around loosing the thing that makes me happy. Unfortunately at the time, the things causing the chronic stress in my life stemmed from the things that used to bring me fulfillment and joy and purpose. They were being taken away, by my own choice, and from my health (more on that later).

So in the void of having my real-life anchors to bring fulfillment, dreamsmp was the thing keeping this whole body going. Truly a hanging on by a thread moment.

But even then, it’s not just about "loosing the thing that makes me happy" that causes these obsessive thoughts.

It’s the irrational connection that because the lore changed and the dynamic of the server stalled, that THAT therefore somehow that lead to Techno dying. (yes. An irrational and non related thought. I just realized with writing that that I have truly merged both those events so closely that when the first happens, I cannot let go of the idea of the second. I’m sitting here expecting someone to irl die.)

Huh. That’s interesting.

It’s like, I read this from some random instagram post years ago. This woman’s husband died on a sunny day and then years later sunny days fill her with dread as if the weather was signaling that she would come home to the death of a loved on.

That’s what’s going on in my noggin.

Because it’s Quackity’s lore that changed the fabric of the dreamsmp. It didn’t have to, but it did. It came at the perfect storm when everyone was super burnt out and needed to run away from the insanity of both the fans and the haters and the sudden massive fame.

He decided to do pre-recorded movies. On my live-stream smp. The very fabric of lore was changed.

And because of the larger production, it took longer, and the other members of the server seemed to not know where to take their personal lore; everyone was waiting for that damn casino to open. And since all the lore ended up happening in pre-recordings we never again experienced that magic of live stream entertainment and improv and dumb bits. Everything was sanitized. For their own sanity, sure. But at the expense of the survival of the server. (Also Techno wasn’t available because of the chemo, so truly nothing was happening on any end of the server)

That perfect storm, loosing interest in the server and the lore being fundamentally changed, set the stage for the traumatic moment of loosing a member. That's my two-fold trigger.

And his death sealed the deal. I’ve never held it against them for not wanting to continue after. Season 2 was impossible the moment that happened.

My chronic stress had exploded so far that my thyroid was fucked and I’m diagnosed with Hashimoto’s, an autoimmune disease that keeps me fatigued more often than not. Besides that, my other main chronic stress was a realization that the Future I had always expected myself to take, the Plan that I had set out, I was suddenly extremely Not Sure I wanted to do anymore.

But I had confidently told my friends and family for over 8 years that this is what I wanted (all this during college and after. I was already 26 at this time) (yes I’m old) (yes life is still crazy when you’re old) (but you start understanding yourself better). It was in this understanding of myself that I realized my direction needed to change.

Suddenly my whole identity I had built for myself was swept out from under me.

At that. same. dang. time. That same week. That’s when the news broke. Literally broke me to pieces.

And I hadn’t told anyone I was obsessed with Minecraft lore. Like bro. I’m out of college for a few years. Get a life. (But man. My eyes just light up when I think about this method of story telling. It’s just goated)

My mom sort of knew. She didn’t understand but at least I could tell her someone died and she had some sort of connection that I had been following this kid for over a year now.

But no one else. The sorrow and pain of loss is just so much worse when you can’t explain why you cared about someone so much. It’s not like my parent died. Or sibling. It was a kid I had never met in person but I resonated with so much.

And I remember distinctly thinking “It’s not worth not sharing the things you care about with other people”. Burned into my brain that day.

But time heals all wounds. Until something triggers it.

I spent the next year just following Foolish, that ray of sunshine who was involved enough to have become my comfort streamer, but not too involved that it was painful to watch because of the memories.

It was a crazy fun year. Best comfort streamer. But people change, I change, and I missed Minecraft lore. You can only watch so much valorant before it’s just the same game.

Foolish found out he was on QSMP (I think it actually was before, I think he knew about the server before it was announced) and he started looking at Minecraft content and Minecraft builds again. For the first time in over a year. It was such a random day.

But we watched Sandiction and… Rekrap2.

Both of them stole my heart and I went, maybe it’s time to return to mcyt. See what’s been brewing.

And before I knew it I was on a month-long binge of Lifesteal content and just so absolutely lost as to what order everything came out in or what season everything was from. Shoutout them being allergic to click baiting “Lifesteal” or adding season tags to the description. It’s such a mess on Youtube lol.

Soon enough I found Baconnwaffles1. Not 0. 1. Somehow found his second channel first.

The videos caught my eye. I knew they were streams and I was trying to find the vods, but as you know Bacon doesn’t have a vods channel and his streams delete after 14 days.

But then finally the fated video crossed my path: “This is PrinceZam and he just betrayed his teammates”

Oh my goddess what in the world is going on in this server.

I needed to know.

So began the true binge. Found Zam’s vods, watched season 4. And I discovered something amazing.

I have genuinely never resonated more with a character than I resonated with Zam season 4.

Every internal debate of Zam resonated with my own dilemmas. People pleasing and understanding what you value came to a head, and only one could win. But truly your values are the only real option because every moment of people pleasing will rub against your soul like hot coals.

Remember those chronic stressors? The life I didn’t know if I wanted anymore?

As Zam walked between conversations with friends, teammates, and enemies, I recognized similar conversations in my life.

I could describe the situation one way, and the person would agree and give advice. But then I realized I could describe the situation in a different light and then maybe they wouldn’t agree anymore. So I didn’t know what advice to take.

And then chat was so funny. The day before the wormhole they started giving too many opinions, the same opinions they had been giving for weeks, and in a flash I was like, omg he’s going to spiral again guys why are you like this.

And then he was like, OMG chat, YOU’RE the problem! There’s too many of you and I’m trying to make everyone happy.

If I tell you I jumped up, screamed, giggled, and floundered around like a crazy person it wouldn’t even come close to what happened. I was so proud of Zam for realizing his emotions were being swayed by the barest opposition. From that third person point of view, I could so clearly see what was going wrong and I was cheering him on to realizing what he truly wanted.

I did, and still do, see so many of the decision making problems that Zam has, within myself. As a piece of media, and him being a character, it’s the craziest most relatable story I have ever seen. I’ve never resonated with a character more.

Then we reached season 5.

The first season I truly watched as it came out. I had gotten too obsessed with this Minecraft world. I wanted more. I loved these kids and their storytelling.

But it was the first season when people started leaving the server on good terms.

Oh no. This sounds too familiar. People are loosing interest in the server I love. What’s next, a change in the fabric of how lore is created?

Then there was a change in the fabric of how the lore was created.

We saw the new members approach the server with a recording-mindset. Who weaponized the lore against the old server members. Pretending they cared about the yapping but then revealing that in itself was a complete and total lie used to get you into the perfect position to either spoil the whole riddle or shoot you with an arrow canon.

And then. Not. Care. At. All. Zero remorse.

I don’t know why the betrayals by Jumper hurt so badly. But it hurt. A lot. (I was triggered that’s why) My emotional reaction was out of proportion to reality.

It’s not like it wasn’t a Lifesteal move, people had gotten into position to betray in the past, and would continue to do so in the future with Leo and Clown betraying Minute.

But it was that “I have no remorse over the hours we spent as a team, not a single thread of care to you or to the yapping lore of this server”. It’s one thing to be betrayed by an enemy. Quite another to be betrayed by a friend.

So here I began. Triggered by something that wasn’t world ending. Quackity’s take on lore didn’t kill the server. Neither did Jumper’s. It was probably going to be fine.

But like. My brain is not agreeing. So I’m pushing back on it.

Here’s what I’m finding.

This is a fun tidbit - when Mapic said “streams are delayed” when he was in the hospital before the finale I could not convince myself that he didn’t had cancer and wasn’t going to die. Bro. Tell me you’re triggered without telling me you’re triggered. (In case you didn’t see, it was just a concussion)

I’m so hyper aware of everything that could indicate I’m going to loose someone I care about again.

The pattern recognition is going out of control.

And I keep trying to calm my brain down and catalogue all the reasons I know and believe Lifesteal will be perfectly fine for probably a while. Like how they have meetings all the time to discuss what went down on the server. They’re talking all the time to work out interpersonal problems and lore problems so that everyone is happy and feels heard. And they’re watching movies together. Meeting up and strengthening relationships. Changing admins as necessary.

And I say it again.

And again.

Every time something throws the smallest pebble at stability I walk my brain back through all the indicators that everything will be fine.

Jumper:

Jumper loves being on the server. She’s said it. She’s so excited about it. She did have a plan. She didn’t tell us the plan as it went, but she does stream. She’s getting comfortable with the idea of streaming, she’ll learn to trust chat over time. She’ll learn how to loose gracefully on this server at some point. Probably. hopefully. And since I don’t know when that will be I’ll just have to wait until season 6 and see what happens. It’s out of my control. She’s fine. It’ll be fine.

Pentar:

Pentar is fine. He doesn’t understand why chat would tell him he’s the most likely to betray even though every video he betrays. Why is he doing that that’s so weird. But he’s a great teammate and everyone likes having him around. I don’t like how he laughs at Zam, but like I can give him the benefit of the doubt that he just doesn’t take anything seriously and laughs in the face of anything serious. I’ll have to wait and see until next time to see how I feel about what he does on the server. Real life can’t be repeated over and over so just let it go. It’ll be fine.

Minute:

Minute is just so happy to be in Lifesteal. He loves it so much. You can tell by how he speaks every time there’s a group moment. He’s going to be admin next season. He loves this server. He may be overly attached to the Rules and have black and white thinking and he sometimes wields that for his own gain and I hate when he does that can he just have fun and take things less seriously? But I think he’ll get it. He’s competent. And he loves the server. He wouldn’t destroy it even on accident because someone would call him out before that happens. It’s going to be fine.

Ash:

Ash can be mean and also not care about the good that our side is doing and just wave them away saying they’re just evil. He does’t get it. But also he’s quite the actor. He puts on a lore face when he logs on, you can see it in season 4 with the wormhole. You can see it when he logs on for the justice league returns and he’s so committed to being good and fighting evil and as Zam is killing Mid in the background and he’s all shocked as if he was not the one who goaded Zam into killing her moments before. It’s a character. Even when it feels like it shouldn’t be. He does take random events in stride, pulling up the meditation guidance video when they all got killed. He’s stressed out by it, but also takes it with some levity. He’ll be fine. He just chose a questionable character to act this season and didn’t know how to balance his position as admin separate from his need to win. But he’ll be fine.

Can you see how this is exhausting? This is my brain on the daily.

Every day I find myself working through each person one after another as something small comes up to threaten the balance, or reinforce the good.

This is when I noticed this wasn’t simple excitement about the lore, thinking and guessing about what might happen. It was the same thoughts over and over and over. And I couldn’t stop a line of thought until I mentioned all the things. That’s what made me look up ocd.

But back to it, I’m actually so much more okay with Ash because it’s been a couple seasons with him. I’m starting to see his tells. So I can just let the rough parts slide away.

And that’s really what I just have to accept. That I can’t self soothe my way into being okay. Resisting acknowledging what I’m afraid of is just making me spiral more.

We’ve seen people choose to leave after stressful seasons. We know some people become aware that they aren’t cut out for Lifesteal. Or they just don’t want to be. Some of these members might decide that. And Lifesteal has continued despite members leaving.

OMg can I please stop cataloging how it will be fine?

I have to sit with the reality and realize nothing bad DID happen, NOT that nothing bad MIGHT happen.

(This is unironically so counterintuitive to my brain. What do you mean I have to just accept that nothing bad happened, what if something bad does happen!) (But that’s what anxiety looks like. That’s not a good)

How do you convince yourself that you can’t predict the future? Asking for a friend.

I think it goes back to caring. I don’t think I’m allowed to care about any of this. That it’s silly, or dumb, or immature.

It was, in fact, in caring itself that the loss of Techno was so painful.

So I don’t allow myself to care. To get too invested. Any time I see that I’m caring I push up on the walls of my trenches and shove that shit out. Only analytical thoughts in here. Measurable, quote-filled analyses.

But caring does not therefore mean there will be a loss.

So. Okay. Pivot. What am I really afraid of?

I’m afraid the server will end. That something will make Zam give up and leave.

Wow. I thought that was going to be a long ass paragraph but it really is just that. I know I’ll stop watching lifesteal if Zam is gone. Unless someone new comes in that has his same spark and dedication. Unlikely.

So that threat is the worst.

And I’ve seen his interest wax and wane. I know he can disappear for a month.

But I also know he can come back. And he’s been a lot more mature and healthy and confident in being the streamer of Lifesteal. In how much he loves the server.

Which is where pb&j being such a threat to the fabric of how lore is done is so scary, because that changes Zam’s care. But then again. It really didn’t. He just pivots.

One of the most healing things has been watching the old members leave and continue to make content. And seeing how they choose to make their exit. They honored the server and the time they were there, in Rek’s case uplifting Lifesteal.net, in Parrot’s in completely reediting all his footage into a cohesive story.

And then they still make content together. All the members make content with each other outside of Lifesteal. (And those that left the internet forever, that was okay too)

So that’s nice. Some bad things came to pass, and they've shown their response to it. Also Zam taking a break didn’t change how the lore was created, so that wouldn’t be a trigger.

The trigger from that fear would be if he did leave, my brain would go into high gear looking for who was going to die. And I would have a new post to write lol.

The trigger that is still tilting me is that pb&j changed how the lore was made, and my brain went *danger* *danger* This is something that happened last time and you know how that turned out! Start looking for who is going to die!

And it stopped me from seeing how this is not the same situation. The pattern for a death that I think I’m seeing, is not a pattern.

And sitting with how nothing DID go wrong, that fear did not come to pass, is exposure therapy.

Because nothing went catastrophically wrong with the season 5 finale. I just keep closing my eyes, sitting in the problematic lore, and not accepting what actually happened at the end of the season, and freaking out that disaster is coming.

So what happened?

Season 5, you tried to kill my server.

But The server resisted. (Hahahah undertale reference!)

Clown came back. Ro came back. Branzy betrayed everyone for Clown. Bacon and Zam sat in vc the entire finale fight. Mapicc fought until he couldn’t.

Spepticle gave his account then fought for it back. Pangi gave his account. Spoke gave his account. Red did the blessings/curses as Zam wanted. 4C said he was glad to give Minute the presidency because he knew Minute wanted peace and he knew peace was not an option in Lifesteal. Actually the quietest of goats. Didn’t realize he thought that deeply about the server.

And it meant so much that Clownpierce, who hasn’t been meaningfully involved since the season 3 finale, came back and fought for his server. He made Lifesteal season 2. It’s always been his domain and he fought for its soul.

That’s the season 5 finale.

The Players fought for Lifesteal. The server resisted destruction.

This chapter is closed. This season got it’s ending. And it’s “not like last time” like my brain keeps thinking.

The season might have ended with a lot of unknowns for how it will affect season 6. Will these old members still care? Will pb&j be a menace still?

But what happened was a moment where everyone came together to care about the server. And that means the anxiety was unfounded. If something happens like this again, I have an example where everything didn’t fall apart to counter my fear that it will.

See you around!

If you actually read to the end you’re amazing. Hopefully this is something you can do in your life to help understand what is the cause of your pain and anxiety. I wasn’t going to post it initially, but working it out as a post I could theoretically show to other people helped make it way more real than trying to work it out in my head, talking to myself. I had to write it in such a way that someone else would understand. Even if I didn’t post it.

I’ll probably have many more days of writing when I notice a new trigger. Exposure therapy isn’t a one and done. (I probably won’t post any of those.)

But my body feels so much more relaxed now. Something has shifted in my head as a result of writing this all down.

Good luck!

#lifesteal smp #dream smp #technoblade #OCD #mental health

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escapetheshark · 1 day

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Show me Love | prologue 🔞 rockstar!Chan x SW!fem AU

Genre: smut; angst

Rating: 18+

Pairing: Bang Chan x fem reader

Word count: 1k

Warnings: drug and alcohol abuse; sexually explicit content; sexual harassment; lots of misogyny; dubcon; coercion; stalking

Summary: As a rich and famous rockstar, Christopher can get whatever he wants: women, cars, drugs... It seems, however, like he can't get emotional fulfilment, which leads him to procure the company of a sex worker whose specialty is to tell men exactly what they want to hear. Who's wrapped around whose finger?

A/N: I do not view Bang Chan in this light at all, this is simply fiction. Please do not come for me, I don't think he would ever be this despicable a man, this is a fictional scenario. K cool.

Huge thank you to @youtifulish for putting up with me lol

If you like this prologue, please let me know so I feel motivated to continue this story. I really appreciate reblogs and comments. Thank you.

All their faces simply merge into one giant incoherent blob whenever I try to think about it. No names stand out to me, and no particular feature worth remembering. They all look the same, and sound the same and they all feel the same to me, too. None of them is interesting enough, none of them can even hold an interesting conversation if their lives depended on it. But they all try so hard. What can these barely legal wannabe models even have to say to me? They're so easy to impress, too. None of these bitches has ever seen diamonds in the flesh, or been in the backseat of a Lambo snorting coke off of somebody else's tits before they met me. None of them has seen the black leather sofas of the dressing rooms, none of them even knows what a Green Room is.

But to me, this is my life. I am a God.

"Alright, sweetheart, I have to do some work now."

This one looks like all the ones that came before, and all the ones who will come after. I can barely register her facial features, she's just another doll with the same eyes, nose and lips as everyone else.

"B-but it's 4 AM," she complains, making her way to the bathroom. "At least let me shower."

"Sure," I shrug while he closes the door behind her and I hear the water running. It doesn't take long for her to come out and start rummaging for her clothes which she scattered all over the floor not that long ago, as soon as she entered this hotel room. She wasted no time, how commendable.

"I'll call you a cab," I offer, and she smiles.

"That's very kind of you."

"Of course, sweetheart, whatever you need." I grab my wallet from the nightstand drawer and pull out some cash - a couple of folded-up notes I don't bother looking at. Pocket change, I suppose. Maybe a few hundred bucks. "Here, get yourself home safe and get a chopped cheese or something."

Her eyes widen and she hesitates before snatching the cash away from my hands, like a starved orphan grabbing an old bread roll. It makes me laugh.

"Alright, off you go. I'll call you." No, I won't. And she knows I won't, but I know she hopes I do. I've learned that saying this makes them feel special and I like making women feel special. Even the useless ones. With her out of the way, I roll over with heavy lids.

The sun hits me like a sharp knife directly into my eyeballs, and I feel my stomach twist violently inside my abdomen. The birds chirping sound like gunshots right in my ear and I can't bring myself to open my eyes again after I've lied down on the stretcher, half my body under the parasol and the other half exposed to the sun. The spiralling inside my head is interrupted by the sound of glasses clanking and I forcefully open one eye to see my maid pour orange juice into a cup, wordlessly.

"Thanks, Violet," is all I manage, not strong enough to look up at her.

"I need to go now, do you need anything else?"

"No, darling," I reply, the smell of the freshly squeezed orange juice too enticing for me to just ignore it. "Are you picking up your kid?"

"Yes, she finished school early today," Violet explains, and I feel her cold hand against my burning skin. "Sheesh, you need a cold shower!"

"I'll keep that in mind," I yelp at the sudden contact but she's quick to withdraw her hand from my forehead. "Thanks, darling. I'd be lost without you."

"Sure, Christopher. You sure would."

The sound of her footsteps walking away fills my mind and I chug the orange juice like a man lost in the desert, re-filling the cup until the pitcher is empty. I can't bring myself to move much more and I fall back into the stretcher, ready to just sleep off this disgusting hangover. When will you learn, Christopher? The high never lasts long enough… And, in a few hours, you'll do it all over again, you stupid dog!

Twenty-nine missed calls. Unread messages. Tiny little fruit flies or whatever the fuck these are called swarming the glass and pitcher, attracted by the scent of orange juice. The air feels significantly cooler and it's gotten dark. The sky is still tinted purple, but the sun is gone.

Shit…

My phone buzzes again and I simply ignore it, too jaded to even check the caller ID. They'll be fine without me. Everyone always is. I'm a sad little clown. And I can't stop myself from spilling my guts all over my body, the lounger and the floor as soon as I try to stand up too quickly. I'll have to leave Violet a hefty tip for this, I think to myself as I drag my limp sore body across the backyard and into one of my five bathrooms, the green one downstairs closest to the back door. The floor feels cold against my back as I stare at the ceiling, adorned with gorgeous handpainted spider-red lilies, a piece that took me nearly ten months to complete simply because I never worked on it more than forty or so minutes at a time in between recording sessions and partying with the guys back when we were still nobodies sending our shitty demo to every radio station that would have us. Good times, I whimper. Good fucking times…

To be continued

#bang chan smut #bang chan x reader #bang chan x you #bang chan hard thoughts #bang chan imagines

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suffocatorx · 2 days

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Aemond and guilt

I desperately need Aemond to get some reasonable agency and motives for his actions in season two.

In Fire and Blood he is basically a horrible person who says and does so many horrible things for no other reason than just because he can (which is especially evident in his actions in Riverlands). While this kind of portrayal is fine in books, principally ones like F&B, which show the story from the point of view of kind of historians, where we only know what characters did and not why they did it. It doesn't really work in the format of the show, where we are much closer to the characters, we observe them intimately since they were very young and therefore we understand much better their thought processes and the reasons for their actions.

So if Aemond's actions during the Dance are remain the same in the show (and we kind of know they will be since in all interviews there is this talk of unhinged Aemond), we as the audience need to know the reasoning behind them. And what I would love it to be is guilt.

We already know he in a way feels bad for Luke's death, at least in the moment it happened since it was entirely what he wanted. But this may come to pass, especially considering Aegon's reaction and how he praised it (Aemond can also just push down these feelings and try not to show them to appear strong and nonchalant, like it didn't affect him at all).

And so what other kind of guilt could push him to carry out all those horrible things? It must be something that hits much closer to home - guilt over something that happened to someone he actually cared about. And that could only be Helaena and her children. He killed Luke and the ones who suffered the consequences of that act are not Aemond but his sister, niece and nephews - arguably the most innocent people in the whole dance.

Let's look quite objectively at Aemond's and Helaena's relationship, with no subtext or anything but only through the lens of a sibling relationship. It's not out of reach to claim that they may have the best relationship between Alicent's and even Rhaenyra's children. We know that Aegon has bullied Aemond since he was young and in turn, Aemond depises his older brother because he believes he is more worthy of the first son place. Daeron basically doesn't exist in the show and even diregarding all that he was sent to Oldtown ages ago so their relationship is probably not the strongest one. When it comes to Jace and Luke, we know that Aemond also despises them because they made fun of him and later took his eye. So there is no familial love there.

But there is no reason to believe that Helaena was anything but nice to Aemond when they were growing up, and frankly, their whole life. I also find it hard to believe that Helaena could be mean to literally anyone. From the literally only two scenes they either share or ones in which they talk about each other, there seems to be no bad feelings between them. On Driftmark, Aemond defends Helaena against Ageon's cruel remarks, and then years later, during Aegon's coronation, Helaena all but hides behind Aemond. Again, nothing suggests that they don't at least tolerate each other and since we know Aemond has a soft spot for women in his family, mainly his mother, we can assume this is the same in the case of his only sister. The same must extend towards Helaena's children, since I don't really think Aemond would have any problems with his young niece and nephews.

Establishing all of that, what I would really love to see in season two is Aemond literally crumbling under the guilt of the awful fate he condemned Helaena and her children to. Not only was the "son for a son" his fault, but its consequences were suffered by completely innocent souls. Blood and Cheese was such a horrific event and to be frank, quite disproportionate to what it was avenging. B&C hurt Helaena, threatened to SA her daughter, forced her to make an impossible choice all to kill a completely blameless 6 year old in a truly gruesome manner. Not to mention that Helaena herself was overcome with guilt over choosing Maelor to die and couldn't look at him for the rest of her life.

Then, from what we know from interviews and leaks, it turns out that B&C were actually supposed to target Aemond himself, only he wasn't in his room at that time and instead he was probably in a brothel. Like, could you imagine your sister having to go through all of that, your nephew killed all because you were not where you were supposed to be? If only he wasn't galavanting somewhere, he could have at least stood a chance against B&C if they did indeed find him in his room.

What I need with burning passion in season two is Aemond on his knees, completely distraught, begging for Helaena's forgivness while she looks silently straight through him. Whether it be because, just like in the books, she effectively mentally checked out from all the trauma or what would be even better because she blames him and for the first time in their lives regards him with nothing but loathing.

And so we finally come to the crux of this whole think-piece I guess. All the horrible things that Aemond does are because he feels so imaginably guilty. And in his mind, the only way to make up for the trauma he caused his sister, nephews and niece is to kill Daemon. Of course, that isn't what Helaena wants, she is probably so sick of the violence, and Daemon's death will not in any way bring back her boy, but Aemond is blinded by it and this is what makes him so unhinged. He thinks that killing Daemon who orchestrated Blood and Cheese and maybe even cutting off his head and brining it to Helaena will absolve him of his guilt and sins. Will earn him the forgiveness of the only person who was ever truly nice to him without any ulterior motive. And he falls into this spiral of violence and the need for revenge and absolution, carrying out more and more horrific acts.

What is all the more heartbreaking is that, in the end, it's all for nothing. Aemond dies trying to unsuccessfully kill Daemon. Helaena can't deal with the pain that her little brother caused her anymore and kills herself.

There is no absolution for either of them.

#i don't even know what this is #just some thoughts that have been following me for a couple of days #the closer we get to the premiere the more my brain turns into hotd mush #just to be clear i don't mind helaemond but this piece is more about their sibling relationship #i need grief stricken slobbering mess aemond #and helaena being like fuck you i never did anthing to you in my entire life and now my son is dead because of you #house of the dragon #aemond targaryen #aemond one eye #hotd aemond #helaena targaryen #hotd helaena #think piece

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