#i need them to have a moral conflict but i also need them to be super duper besties
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Could you possibly elaborate more on your EQ movies?? I'm really interested in this Cove Sunset... 👀
oh yeah actually i would love to talk more about that! so basically i wrote two movies intended to be the penultimate and the final installment in the Equestria Girls series since that’s definitely never going to get an official ending. i wanted to tie up loose ends…
i made a poster for the second one of the two that i made a few years back right here. but anyway…
the first of the two is called “Royal Nightmare.” the premise is as follows: it’s now spring of the girls’ senior year, and rarity has made the decision to run for queen of the spring fling after being robbed by sunset she tried to run for princess years ago. but when rarity gets possessed by dark magic, sunset has to confront her repressed baggage from the past if she wants to save her friend before it’s too late.
basically, this one deals a lot with sunset’s past with rarity. the film has a mix of the events taking place in the present day as well as flashbacks to the past, being the girls’ freshman year. it covers stuff like sunset arriving for the first time, her meeting flash, how she rose to power, and what she did to rarity (i changed it up just a tad because the junior novelization is a Weird book). it also has a lot of focus on rarijack as well.
the other one, intended as a finale movie, is titled “Forever Friendship.” after finally graduating from canterlot high, the girls are about to move onto the next stages in each of their lives. however, sunset still has unfinished business in regards to herself. together, the girls set out on one last adventure to uncover the truth behind sunset’s family and the sunset from their world. but could this be end?
this one is basically, like, giving sunset closure. in it i explore sunset’s origin and the truth about the Other sunset shimmer. it has an entire conflict that revolves around a discussion of the moral dilemma that comes with having magic in the human world. at heart it’s about sunset finding her purpose once and for all. i can’t say much else without spoiling it.
royal nightmare is complete in THEORY but needs a lot of, like, extra fleshing out and possibly the addition of a few more scenes. also, forever friendship is now missing a song or two because i removed one scene entirely and instead repurposed the song for royal nightmare. also ALSO, they’re a bit old now and i approached them differently than i did when writing for ever after high. i wasn’t totally thinking about completely matching the tone and more about cinematics. it’s not that i bumped the ratings up, but i let dialogue be lengthy and… idk, nuanced? i guess? more so in forever friendship than royal nightmare, at least. and there’s probably an occasional typo in them both.
i would share them, but the thing that makes me hesitant is the fact that for the songs, i made an unlisted youtube playlist of myself singing them each just for people who read them to have reference when the scenes pop up. it wasn’t so embarrassing when it was just being shared between myself and my friends, but the audio is kinda bad and there’s no music it’s just me singing. i didn’t even have the same range as i wanted for some of the songs or the characters so i sound wonky in it. and i can’t redo it now because i’m older and my voice has dropped so that’s a no-go.
idk, maybe i could give in with enough convincing.
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Cass and Jason dynamic, but because their morals are so conflicting they pretend not to know each other’s secret identites for the family’s sake
Harper: How can you just talk to Jason when you beat the shit out of him just last night?
Cass: What do you mean?
Harper: C’mon, Cass! You literally broke his helmet!
Cass: No, I broke Red Hood’s helmet.
Harper:
Cass:
Jason: Mornin’. Y’all doing alright?
Cass: Good morning, Jay.
Harper: I-
Harper: Forget it. I’d rather not ask.
Or even them in the batcave getting ready for patrol:
Jason: See you later, Cass.
Cass: Later.
Cass: [Looks away and puts her Batgirl mask]
Jason: [Puts his helmet on and turns to face her]
Cass: Red Hood.
Jason: Batgirl.
#i need them to have a moral conflict but i also need them to be super duper besties#so in my head they have a civilian truce#dc comics#dc#red hood#batgirl#black bat#batfam#batfamily#jason todd#cass cain#cassandra cain
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I'm not posting this ask because I reported it to tumblr for threat of violence but I woke up to this
followed by the anon in question coming off anon to leave me paragraphs of guilt tripping dribble in my DMs before blocking me.
I didn't bother reading their messages since they'd already blocked me so I just blocked them back. ( I did read something like 'if you post these screencaps remove my url' -- anon, I didn't do more than skim your whole novel of a guilt trip, I'm sure as hell not posting it so that you can guilt trip others. plus!! I already promised you in an ask that is still posted here on my blog that I would not name-drop you if you came off anon. callout culture is a thing your side of the fence does, not mine. lmao )
#ambers.txt#this whole thing has been a wild ride.#I hope that person gets help with all their conflicting ideals so that they can live a happier and healthier life#instead of harassing and guilt tripping strangers on the internet who have nothing to do with them.#also pretty bold of them to assume I've never experienced a cult.#because religious trauma sure is a thing that I have.#with a literal dx of religious blasphemy ocd because of how much morality was shoved down my throat growing up.#but no I need to go apologize to other cult survivors.#like okay lemme go across the hall to my partner's room and apologize to him for growing up in the south.#oh wait I don't have to do that because we've been together in a healthy relationship for the last decade and we're also both proshippers!
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i can't take any discourse post seriously if it says "x side is refusing to listen to survivors" because if you can't accept that survivors are not a monolith and may disagree with you in regards to your shared type of trauma then it really begs the question, are YOU actually listening to survivors? or are you only listening to the ones who say what you already thought and disregarding the rest as a) people who are incapable of understanding their own trauma and therefore can't be trusted to make decisions about it for themselves or b) outright fakers?
#i also go out of way to try and take all discourse posts with a heaping helping of salt but these ones specifically im like#conflicting access needs dude what hurts you might help another person so you need to step back and ask yourself if what they're doing#is overall harmful or just harmful to you specifically and act accordingly#theres nothing wrong with you being the problem here‚ its ok to be like 'i cant be around this' and dip#ik the word problem has negative connotation but idk ive always felt like my brain worked a little differently than other ppls w that#problem doesnt mean anything morally bad it just means somethings not working as intended and so#you need to problem solve to fix it#you have a problem that is you can't be around xyz thing while others can#and in your own spaces youre allowed to solve that problem by requesting others not bring it in with them if doable or to work together#to minimize its impact on you if you have to be around it#but in spaces where that thing is accepted and enjoyed and you are the outlier‚ theres nothinf shameful abt the solution to that problem#being removing yourself from that space#you were the problem‚ so you solved the problem. it doesnt have to be a bad thing yknow?#same with 'broken' ive had multiple people to me explain why i shouldnt use that word about myself but im like#no i understand abt forming neural pathways with negative words but its not negative to me genuinely !!! its just a descriptor!!!!#like. a part of my body is supposed to work/exist in a specific way‚ but it didnt. it was broken‚ it couldnt perform its intended function#it was broken‚ and we fixed it#you wouldnt tell me to call a broken bone a fuckin. 'area for improvement bone' it got broke! it dont work anymore!!#my brain doesnt produce the chemicals its supposed to‚ its BROKEN and im taking medicine to fix it#i think veronica got it but i only got to see her for a few months#anyways. that was kind of offtopic but i think still follows the central theme of just. understanding that sometimes people's brains#work different from yours and they process the world differently than you#i dont call other people broken because i know that would be mean given how their brains interpret the word but i do feel comfortable#using my own version of language to describe myself#autism dialect KENFKSBFKSBFMDB
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Started thinking about the Amanda Waller + Ben Turner relationship again.... fuck, I'm gonna need a minute
#I JUST- SHDIAUDJSHDSHEYEYRYRYRY guys. guys#i know none of you see my vision and thats okay. i will make you see my vision. i will force you to see my vision. i will-#like jesus fucking christ oh my god. its so interesting and gives me so many emotions and just!!!#i know im not making sense bc none of my moots are sui sq fans and also like half of the content fucking me up specifically here is in my#head because i cant stop thinking about my absolute power fix it au but like!!!!!!!#also the fact i have a fix it for a comic that isnt out yet is so funny to me. its literally fucking real though. god knows we need it#may my own content carry me through the dark times (extreme villain waller arc)#anyways this fucks me up so bad you dont even know. someday ill actually explain it#dc hire me to write a suicide squad ongoing PLEASE. i could do it so good it would be so fucking good dc PLEASE 😭😭😭😭😭😭#also like this isnt me shipping them btw. like 110% not that. just to clarify.#i wouldnt even call it a friendship bc like. theyre not friends really. he has the most equal dynamic with her i would say but it still isnt#equal. shes v much his boss even though they have an understanding and respect there#like she believes and trusts in him much more than anybody really even himself. like she sees the good man and the leader even when he#doesnt. but she isnt nice about it. and there is a lot of conflict between them when there needs to be#like as much as ben is “wallers man”--the team leader she wanted from the beginning before rick flagg pushed his way in#ben i would say is still a very moral person even when lost and unsure of himself and his goodness (which is like one of his main things)#like i feel like while amanda can lean very into a “the ends justify the means” mindset in her worse moments and do bad things to get#herself out of a corner ben has like a deep and meaningful understanding of how the choices of your methods and how you act can weigh on you#like even though he was brainwashed and whatnot (thats still the story right? i cant remember) he holds a lot of guilt and baggage over his#actions and i think is able to temper amanda's worse tendencies in terms of that by calling her out when he recognizes that behavior#idk. i just really think that amanda waller and the suicide squad as a whole has lost its way without a more moral authority presence there.#like someone who can call her out and keep them more on track. which i really thing ben is and could be#i just very much am interested in their dynamic and how that would look like as equals and how i think they could help each other.#which ofc is what my wip is about and revolves around#blah#sui sq
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deleted my twitter app (not account) bc i really can’t handle the intense no-nuance high-stakes takes right now. not that here is all that much better but it’s definitely less of a time sink
#i just.#ok.#i just think if ur gonna go scorched earth on prioritizing high minded ideals over outcomes ur not actually as morally pure as u think u r#and I also think if ur gonna do that u gotta say with ur CHEST the collateral damage you’ll sign onto#both by abstaining from concrete action now and by destroying infrastructure in the name of a brighter future#im not even gonna tell you ur wrong. but i want you to say who u think is worth sacrificing#i have awful news for you the folks who don’t make it thru the revolution are very rarely the rich and healthy and connected#it’s gonna be folks who are desperate enough to fight and folks who can’t handle more instability.#poor folks. sick folks. disabled folks. disenfranchised folks. unhoused folks.#you think you can build a functioning mutual aid network from scratch during a revolution serving tens of millions?#i know it’s a nice thought that the failures of US welfare programs are Just Capitalism. and that’s a huge chunk#but it’s also because IT IS DIFFICULT. and that’s WITH billions of dollars and a chokehold on the global supply chain#im not saying any of the options are good. but when u call for revolution u gotta acknowledge ur stealing from today for tomorrow#and look hard at the folks who stand to lose the most. say you’re fine with martyring them - whether or not they agree#I’ve got myself all worked up now and i wanna post about it. to maybe share some god damn perspective.#things are bad! things are not good. unsustainable trends abound. but wow for all ur whining online#about how everyone needs to know EVERYTHING about ALL ISSUES in EVERY CONFLICT or else you are EVIL#ur missing the forest for the trees my dude. takes are easy - policy is hard#get fucked. don’t get people killed.
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📁 UM um fiona 🙏
fiona my oft-neglected beloved…. i think she and mina mongoose have a History. there was something. not necessarily on either side of platonic or romantic but they had some wacky sonic comic adventure off screen sometime after fiona ditched the freedom fighters and mina was on tour w/o ash,, let mina get some of her frustration out and be a little morally gray for funsies and let fiona have girl friends. or girlfriends. both is good. it didn’t last but they know each other and absolute No One gets why
#this is both bc i think they could relate to each other but not be enough for each other#and also be feminism. they both deserve a less shitty dynamic. they aren’t Friends Friends but there’s an understanding between them#i want mina to be morally gray. i want fiona to have her own network of people she knows across every shade of archie’s fucked up morality#i. i get the feeling i’ve talked about this before??? have i??????? i need to reread archie so bad. anyway point being Girls. like them.#we are ignoring the questionable relationship with tails in both situations i am talking purely from a ‘trauma from my childhood shaped by w#ar and getting dragged into a conflict i was unprepared for’ level of relatability#archie sonic#text✨#ask game#fiona fox
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i feel like discourse about hockey (and sport in general) would really improve a lot if more people realized that spectator sport is a form of narrativized media and applied their literacy skills accordingly
#sorry these tags are so long#this is not about anybody on this website i just need to stop looking at the bird app#but actually though media coverage of spectator sports exists to construct narratives around athletes/teams/etc.#so if we look at this whole mitch marner/sheldon keefe bullshit#(which is what has me kicking off about this currently)#positioning the two of them as being opposed to one another within the wider narrative of this leafs team#lends itself to a couple different constructed storylines#the first is the continuation of the Mitch Marner Villain Arc (derogatory)#which is playing itself out as sort of a rise-and-fall story structure wherein marner comes into the locker room as a revered hometown hero#and then through time and tricks is made out to be a Whiny Baby Man Who Wants All The Attention And Plays The Hero Too Much#by the way you should be reading that as:#Mitch Marner Wanted To Be Paid The Value Of His Physical Labour Which Is Considered Morally Reprehensible Under Capitalism#And Therefore Everything He Does Now Is Bad#but i digress#the logical conclusion of this narrative is either he wins a cup with this team or is traded and forever villified in the toronto market#either he has a so called redemption arc or becomes a tale of caution basically#the second narrative is that there is a rift in the toronto locker room#this one's a little more straightforward in that it gives fans a side to back in a theoretical conflict#everybody likes to have a good guy to root for and a bad guy to root against it's really just a matter of who you perceive as being the hero#it also lends itself nicely to an overarching narrative surrounding the team and its playoff struggles#hey everybody look at this team that can't make it out of the first round. what the fuck is up with that.#the fun part about this narrative is that you can project whatever the hell you want onto it#are they overcoming adversity? are they distracted? is this kyle dubas' fault? is the team better or worse for it? you decide!#and at the end of the day all of this drives visibility and clicks#which drives (you guessed it) profit#anyways i'm not saying all this to be like 'hurr durr media bad' or whatever#there's a ton of sport media that is highly informative and responsible and incredibly important and i respect the hell out of (most of) it#what i am saying is that when an article comes up that is not based in verifiable fact#(and even when it is! but especially when it isn't)#please please ask yourselves why the person and/or publication writing it is doing so in the way that they are
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God please make me less bitter I am so full of love at least I wanna be but I'm so used to dealing with manipulative abusive freaks I'm just not the person I want to be
#its like. im a good person i swaer but also ive been taught to be sneaky. manipulative when needed.#ive hidden recording devices in my clothing#ive been taught to lure people into confession#there were 2 seperate times me and a family member almost commited murder against other members#we had plans and everything. just mever acted on it because with all the things going on#we would have been immediately suspected#all of this happened when i was just a child by the way#like 8-17 even now i still think like this just no specific target#god im bitter and hateful scheming and horrible#my moral compass is really skewed but at the same time im transparent#everyone i am to my friends both irl amd here and even the way i present myself. is all still me#i act exactly how im feeling im quite the mouth believe me i dont fudge on my thoughts#i just have conflicting feelings about my past and how its affected me#i feel ruined even though i know im not#in fact im thriving im ahead in life of everyone i hate but its still not enough i want to burn them to the ground#maybe i shouldnt have let my mom put rum in my coffee idk im talking to much blah blah blah im gonna go listen to musoc bye
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How Do I Make My Fictional Gypsies Not Racist?
(Or, "You can't, sorry, but…")
You want to include some Gypsies in your fantasy setting. Or, you need someone for your main characters to meet, who is an outsider in the eyes of the locals, but who already lives here. Or you need a culture in conflict with your settled people, or who have just arrived out of nowhere. Or, you just like the idea of campfires in the forest and voices raised in song. And you’re about to step straight into a muckpile of cliches and, accidentally, write something racist.
(In this, I am mostly using Gypsy as an endonym of Romany people, who are a subset of the Romani people, alongside Roma, Sinti, Gitano, Romanisael, Kale, etc, but also in the theory of "Gypsying" as proposed by Lex and Percy H, where Romani people are treated with a particular mix of orientalism, criminalisation, racialisation, and othering, that creates "The Gypsy" out of both nomadic peoples as a whole and people with Romani heritage and racialised physical features, languages, and cultural markers)
Enough of my friends play TTRPGs or write fantasy stories that this question comes up a lot - They mention Dungeons and Dragons’ Curse Of Strahd, World Of Darkness’s Gypsies, World Of Darkness’s Ravnos, World of Darkness’s Silent Striders… And they roll their eyes and say “These are all terrible! But how can I do it, you know, without it being racist?”
And their eyes are big and sad and ever so hopeful that I will tell them the secret of how to take the Roma of the real world and place them in a fictional one, whilst both appealing to gorjer stereotypes of Gypsies and not adding to the weight of stereotyping that already crushes us. So, disappointingly, there is no secret.
Gypsies, like every other real-world culture, exist as we do today because of interactions with cultures and geography around us: The living waggon, probably the archetypal thing which gorjer writers want to include in their portrayals of nomads, is a relatively modern invention - Most likely French, and adopted from French Showmen by Romanies, who brought it to Britain. So already, that’s a tradition that only spans a small amount of the time that Gypsies have existed, and only a small number of the full breadth of Romani ways of living. But the reasons that the waggon is what it is are based on the real world - The wheels are tall and iron-rimmed, because although you expect to travel on cobbled, tarmac, or packed-earth roads and for comparatively short distances, it wasn’t rare to have to ford a river in Britain in the late nineteenth century, on country roads. They were drawn by a single horse, and the shape of that horse was determined by a mixture of local breeds - Welsh cobs, fell ponies, various draft breeds - as well as by the aesthetic tastes of the breeders. The stove inside is on the left, so that as you move down a British road, the chimney sticks up into the part where there will be the least overhanging branches, to reduce the chance of hitting it.
So taking a fictional setting that looks like (for example) thirteenth century China (with dragons), and placing a nineteenth century Romanichal family in it will inevitably result in some racist assumptions being made, as the answer to “Why does this culture do this?” becomes “They just do it because I want them to” rather than having a consistent internal logic.
Some stereotypes will always follow nomads - They appear in different forms in different cultures, but they always arise from the settled people's same fears: That the nomads don't share their values, and are fundamentally strangers. Common ones are that we have a secret language to fool outsiders with, that we steal children and disguise them as our own, that our sexual morals are shocking (This one has flipped in the last half century - From the Gypsy Lore Society's talk of the lascivious Romni seductress who will lie with a strange man for a night after a 'gypsy wedding', to today's frenzied talk of 'grabbing' and sexually-conservative early marriages to ensure virginity), that we are supernatural in some way, and that we are more like animals than humans. These are tropes where if you want to address them, you will have to address them as libels - there is no way to casually write a baby-stealing, magical succubus nomad without it backfiring onto real life Roma. (The kind of person who has the skills to write these tropes well, is not the kind of person who is reading this guide.)
It’s too easy to say a list of prescriptive “Do nots”, which might stop you from making the most common pitfalls, but which can end up with your nomads being slightly flat as you dance around the topics that you’re trying to avoid, rather than being a rich culture that feels real in your world.
So, here are some questions to ask, to create your nomadic people, so that they will have a distinctive culture of their own that may (or may not) look anything like real-world Romani people: These aren't the only questions, but they're good starting points to think about before you make anything concrete, and they will hopefully inspire you to ask MORE questions.
First - Why are they nomadic? Nobody moves just to feel the wind in their hair and see a new horizon every morning, no matter what the inspirational poster says. Are they transhumant herders who pay a small rent to graze their flock on the local lord’s land? Are they following migratory herds across common land, being moved on by the cycle of the seasons and the movement of their animals? Are they seasonal workers who follow man-made cycles of labour: Harvests, fairs, religious festivals? Are they refugees fleeing a recent conflict, who will pass through this area and never return? Are they on a regular pilgrimage? Do they travel within the same area predictably, or is their movement governed by something that is hard to predict? How do they see their own movements - Do they think of themselves as being pushed along by some external force, or as choosing to travel? Will they work for and with outsiders, either as employees or as partners, or do they aim to be fully self-sufficient? What other jobs do they do - Their whole society won’t all be involved in one industry, what do their children, elderly, disabled people do with their time, and is it “work”?
If they are totally isolationist - How do they produce the things which need a complex supply chain or large facilities to make? How do they view artefacts from outsiders which come into their possession - Things which have been made with technology that they can’t produce for themselves? (This doesn’t need to be anything about quality of goods, only about complexity - A violin can be made by one artisan working with hand tools, wood, gut and shellac, but an accordion needs presses to make reeds, metal lathes to make screws, complex organic chemistry to make celluloid lacquer, vulcanised rubber, and a thousand other components)
How do they feel about outsiders? How do they buy and sell to outsiders? If it’s seen as taboo, do they do it anyway? Do they speak the same language as the nearby settled people (With what kind of fluency, or bilingualism, or dialect)? Do they intermarry, and how is that viewed when it happens? What stories does this culture tell about why they are a separate people to the nearby settled people? Are those stories true? Do they have a notional “homeland” and do they intend to go there? If so, is it a real place?
What gorjers think of as classic "Gipsy music" is a product of our real-world situation. Guitar from Spain, accordions from the Soviet Union (Which needed modern machining and factories to produce and make accessible to people who weren't rich- and which were in turn encouraged by Soviet authorities preferring the standardised and modern accordion to the folk traditions of the indigenous peoples within the bloc), brass from Western classical traditions, via Balkan folk music, influences from klezmer and jazz and bhangra and polka and our own music traditions (And we influence them too). What are your people's musical influences? Do they make their own instruments or buy them from settled people? How many musical traditions do they have, and what are they all for (Weddings, funerals, storytelling, campfire songs, entertainment...)? Do they have professional musicians, and if so, how do those musicians earn money? Are instrument makers professionals, or do they use improvised and easy-to-make instruments like willow whistles, spoons, washtubs, etc? (Of course the answer can be "A bit of both")
If you're thinking about jobs - How do they work? Are they employed by settled people (How do they feel about them?) Are they self employed but providing services/goods to the settled people? Are they mostly avoidant of settled people other than to buy things that they can't produce themselves? Are they totally isolationist? Is their work mostly subsistence, or do they create a surplus to sell to outsiders? How do they interact with other workers nearby? Who works, and how- Are there 'family businesses', apprentices, children with part time work? Is it considered 'a job' or just part of their way of life? How do they educate their children, and is that considered 'work'? How old are children when they are considered adult, and what markers confer adulthood? What is considered a rite of passage?
When they travel, how do they do it? Do they share ownership of beasts of burden, or each individually have "their horse"? Do families stick together or try to spread out? How does a child begin to live apart from their family, or start their own family? Are their dwellings something that they take with them, or do they find places to stay or build temporary shelter with disposable material? Who shares a dwelling and why? What do they do for privacy, and what do they think privacy is for?
If you're thinking about food - Do they hunt? Herd? Forage? Buy or trade from settled people? Do they travel between places where they've sown crops or managed wildstock in previous years, so that when they arrive there is food already seeded in the landscape? How do they feel about buying food from settled people, and is that common? If it's frowned upon - How much do people do it anyway? How do they preserve food for winter? How much food do they carry with them, compared to how much they plan to buy or forage at their destinations? How is food shared- Communal stores, personal ownership?
Why are they a "separate people" to the settled people? What is their creation myth? Why do they believe that they are nomadic and the other people are settled, and is it correct? Do they look different? Are there legal restrictions on them settling? Are there legal restrictions on them intermixing? Are there cultural reasons why they are a separate people? Where did those reasons come from? How long have they been travelling? How long do they think they've been travelling? Where did they come from? Do they travel mostly within one area and return to the same sites predictably, or are they going to move on again soon and never come back?
And then within that - What about the members of their society who are "unusual" in some way: How does their society treat disabled people? (are they considered disabled, do they have that distinction and how is it applied?) How does their society treat LGBT+ people? What happens to someone who doesn't get married and has no children? What happens to someone who 'leaves'? What happens to young widows and widowers? What happens if someone just 'can't fit in'? What happens to someone who is adopted or married in? What happens to people who are mixed race, and in a fantasy setting to people who are mixed species? What is taboo to them and what will they find shocking if they leave? What is society's attitude to 'difference' of various kinds?
Basically, if you build your nomads from the ground-up, rather than starting from the idea of "I want Gypsies/Buryats/Berbers/Minceiri but with the numbers filed off and not offensive" you can end up with a rich, unique nomadic culture who make sense in your world and don't end up making a rod for the back of real-world cultures.
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Let's talk about killing off characters.
Killing off characters is a dramatic device often used to advance the plot, create tension, or evoke emotional responses from readers or viewers. We love doing it. The initial shock, the mourning after. The effects of it on the other characters. It's fun.
Nevertheless, you can still achieve the desired impact on your plot and characters without necessarily resorting to fictional murder.
Here are some alternatives to drive the plot forward:
Character Transformation: Instead of killing off a character, you can have them undergo significant personal growth or change. This could involve overcoming challenges, facing moral dilemmas, or undergoing a shift in beliefs or values. Their transformation can still drive the plot forward and impact other characters. (I especially love it when the transformation is negative—like when a traumatic experience of some sort completely strips a character of their soul. But that's a sentiment for another day.)
Betrayal or Conflict: Introduce betrayal or conflict between characters that challenges relationships and creates tension. This can lead to significant plot developments and character arcs without resorting to death. And it can be cause for quite a lot of angst.
Separation or Estrangement: Have characters physically or emotionally separated from each other, causing tension and driving the plot forward as they strive to reconnect or deal with the consequences of their estrangement.
Sacrifice without Death: Characters can make significant sacrifices that don't necessarily involve their death. This could be sacrificing personal goals, relationships, or values for the greater good or to achieve a specific objective.
Injury or Disability: Instead of killing off a character, you can incapacitate them through injury or disability. This will create challenges for the character and those around them, leading to character development and plot progression as they're forced to adapt to their new circumstances.
Redemption Arcs: Characters who have committed wrongdoings can undergo redemption arcs where they seek forgiveness, make amends, or strive to become better individuals. This can drive the plot forward while also adding depth to the character. Keep in mind that this may not be a suitable alternative to death for some characters—for instance, the protagonist forgiving their abusive parent despite all they were forced to go through may evoke a sense of indignation rather than admiration for their supposed selflessness.
Revelations or Secrets: Introduce revelations or uncover secrets that have significant impacts on characters and their relationships. This can lead to conflict, tension, and plot twists without the need for death.
Forced Alliances or Unexpected Partnerships: Characters can be forced into alliances or partnerships with unlikely allies, leading to interesting dynamics and plot developments as they navigate these new relationships.
Loss of Power or Status: Characters can experience a loss of power, status, or reputation, which can drive the plot forward as they strive to regain what they've lost, seek revenge on those responsible, or adapt to their new circumstances.
Time Constraints or Pressure: Introduce time constraints or pressure situations that force characters to act quickly and make difficult, split-second decisions that may end up being quite regrettable later on. This can raise conflicts of who's to blame, or what should have been done.
I feel like I strayed off a little, but there you have it. Hope this was helpful! ❤
#writeblr#writing#writing tips#writing advice#writing help#writing resources#creative writing#plot development#plot device#torturing my characters#deception-united
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Okay, so I already wrote a bunch of stuff about how that scene, although it is really sweet, is also kind of a Bad Sign for Simon - how he refuses to learn the Obvious Lesson from the Winterworld adventure (that being the Ice King again is probably a really really bad idea). But I want to talk about it also a little more about what it means for Fionna’s character as well.
Because while sitting around and wallowing in self-loathing is probably bad for Fionna, especially after being told that she shouldn't be allowed to exist, and Simon is right to try and get her out of her funk. It's also still worthwhile for Fionna to have some introspection about the Consequences of Her Actions. Because she and Cake really did not consider them at all at first. They have a sense of morality and an instinct towards heroism, but they also tend to kinda forget the fantastical worlds they visit don’t exist entirely for their fantasy and have kind of a Protagonist-Centered-Morality fallacy.
Most obviously you can see it in the market in Ooo. How Cake, in her excitement, damaged and hurt and even killed
A bunch of innocent marketgoers without even noticing. And then Fionna immediately jumped to Cake’s defense against these ‘weirdos’, who were actually just normal kinda-righteously-angry Oooian citizens.
It’s actually very similar to the whole Winterworld situation. Fionna’s assumption that she’s automatically the hero and protagonist of the story and black-and-white view of the situation and her tendency to kick ass first and ask questions later meant that she just recklessly injured a lot of innocent people.
(It might’ve been worse actually cause at least in Winterworld she was at least manipulated by an evil Wizard)
Fionna and Cake clearly have a great potential for heroism, but they do need to be a bit more considerate of the situation and people around them. And it does make sense considering that from their perspective - they’ve been living a very ordinary life up until now (and Cake was literally an animal. A very clever animal, but still not bound by the same standards of morality as the talking animals in Ooo). Action and adventure and fantasy stuff has been purely the realm of daydream and video games for them - and Fionna literally speaks about it in these terms.
(also, Fionna's Main Character Syndrome was undoubtedly validated when God literally told her that she was created to be the main character of her universe)
So yeah, it takes them some time to really process how to be heroes - they need to grapple with questions that Finn and Jake already kinda dealt with seventeen years ago. And actually a lot of those; how to resolve a situation without necessarily using violence, when does a 'villain' actually deserve sympathy and kindness, the importance of the larger context of any given conflict... their confrontations with Ice King all played a big part in that. It was never just him, but he was still a very major part.
And for Fionna and Cake right now, learning these lessons require some amount of personal introspection. So while it was a sweet attempt at comforting, I dunno if Simon’s little ‘the only problem with that universe is that this Alternative Me was terrible because he didn’t even acknowledge or remember Betty as the love of our life and the light of my entire universe’ thing is actually Good.
I’m not quite sure Simon is the best person to teach Fionna and Cake heroism 101, because he is so focused on the Crown Quest as the thing that brings back Meaning to his life, and because his fatherly instincts just kinda go “Sad Young Person???? MUST GIVE COMFORT!” and also on account of the kidnapping.
I’m sure Fionna is going to become the heroine she dreams about eventually, it’s just going to be a bumpy ride. The best we can hope for is that they accept Simon’s comfort, that she doesn't start believing that she is nothing but an Error for the entire universe like the Scarab claims, but don’t necessarily listen to all of Simon's his words either.
#adventure time#atimers#fionna and cake#fionna & cake#at#at spoilers#fac spoilers#f&c#f&c spoilers#simon petrikov#the winter king#adventure time fionna and cake#adventure time spoilers#adventure time simon#fionna and cake spoilers#fionna and cake series#fionna and cake simon#fionna and cake show#fionna campbell#fionna the human#adventure time fionna#cake the cat#adventure time cake#cake adventure time#simon adventure time#scarab#the scarab#fionna and cake scarab
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Which moon signs are the most carefree and which are the least carefree? Thank you!
I will answer based on my opinion and what Ive seen so it wont be true for everyone. Also aspect, degree and house placement plays a huge role.💗
Most carefree:
Aquarius Moons are very emotionally detached from what Ive noticed so they are usually kinda carefree. Depends on other aspects tho.
Sagittarius Moons i feel like are just all over the place and cant stay in one place for too long or care about people/things too much because their whole nature is about fleeing and going to the next place. Very carefree.
Libra Moons gives 0 fucks as long as they are well liked and they look good, very chill to be around and they see all sides to stuff so they dont play morals police.
Aries Moons seem to not care much at all from what Ive noticed. They also seem to handle issues instantly so thats probably why they dont need to care because they already handled anything. They seem to put their energy into goals etc.
In the middle:
Capricorn Moons they care a lot about social status but emotionally I find them detached as hell and almost cold. I put them in the middle bc they are very caring (and sometimes obsessive) when it comes to having the right connections etc.
Gemini Moons are also kind of detached like the other air Moons but they gossip a lot and know everything about everyone so they are not carefree.
Cancer Moons seem to not care much about irrelevant stuff but extremely emotionally caring and protective when it comes to family and friends. They might not care about what goes on in your life or who follows who on social media but they are ready to beat someone up for you.
Least carefree:
Virgo Moons are people I very often find with their nose in other peoples business and they play morals police and judge stuff that got nothing to do with them. Always beefing with somebody.
Leo Moons care a lot about attention and have sensitive egos. They have a very hard time letting go. If you wound their ego or make them feel less than they will do anything to show they are good enough. They are super loyal tho, love them.
Taurus Moons can hold a grudge oh lord I had two guys with this one who hated me for YEARS. These people just like Virgo Moon seem to play morals police a lot and be interested in people they dont even know. If you make these people upset they will NEVER get over it.
Scorpio Moons are very intense and cant let go. They will talk about that conflict that happened last year like it was yesterday. They dont notice themselves how intense they come across when they become obsessed with someone. They have imaginary beef with people who dont care for them.
Pisces Moons are such sweethearts but their sensitivity can make them care about stuff that others wouldnt notice, nothing wrong with that tho.
#astro notes#astrology#astro observations#astronotes#scorpio moon#moon in aries#moon in aquarius#moon in capricorn#moon in cancer
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Here's another thing I feel like we need to talk about regarding the current war between Israel and Hamas. Minor as it may be, I've been losing my mind over this.
As a person who grew up in the early 2010s, I grew up mostly on the internet and fandom culture, and have written quite a lot of fanficition in my early teens.
Something I've realized this past week is that people are seeing Palestine as a fandom. And not only does it belittle the actual problem, it dehumanizes Palestinians and Israelis alike and allows the rewriting of facts and truths as if it were an AU fanfic.
After realizing that I jokingly told a friend that I wouldn't be surprised to see RPF about the events of October 7th. I had in mind something like slash fiction of Hamas members, but today I found out people are writing fanfiction about A HOSTAGE AND HER CAPTOR.
I also found out it didn't happen in a vaccum - apparently tiktok is exploding with this stuff, saying Maya Regev - the hostage in question - had "left her heart in Gaza", because she smiled and said "shukran, bye" to her captors.
In case you have forgotten - Maya Regev was SHOT IN THE LEG AND TAKEN HOSTAGE INTO GAZA along with her brother, who was released FOUR DAYS AFTER HER. She was released with a shattered leg and without her brother - but if she smiled, her captors must have treated her so well, amirite? (Even though there are already plenty of horror stories from Hamas captivity, and children came back pale and whispering with their heads full of lice.)
Even in the early 2010s there was a debate whether RPF is legit or not (and at 26 I can safely say it's a no from me), but in this case it's even worse. These are not public figures we are talking about. This isn't One Direction or The Beatles. The Hamas terrorists are, well, terrorists, and Maya Regev is a private person made public because she was TAKEN HOSTAGE INTO GAZA. Writing a FANFIC about actual people who were actually injured during October 7th is beyond sickening, and it's probably the most immoral thing you can do on social media for the Palestinian cause (and if you guys claim to be on the side of morality you might want to be consistent).
Another thing that's driving me crazy is the difference between Israelis and Non-Israelis who grew up on the same things at the same time. my friends and I learned a lot about justice, critical thinking, and the power of art and creativity on the internet. I met a lot of my online friends in socialist youth movements and rallies, and many of them later became my classmates in Bezalel - BECAUSE we applied what we had learned into our adult life.
Non Israelis who grew up on the same platforms as I did who took part in the same fandoms, read the same fanfiction works, learned the same truths of social justice and the power of art- are now viewing the conflict as a fandom. You're either a fan or you're wrong - there is no middle. No room for critical thinking, for "Palestinians have every right to self-determination and an independent state BUT Hamas who actively prevents them said rights has comitted crimes against humanity on 7.10 and must be held accountable", or for "the occupation must end BUT the Jewish people are indigenous to the region" - there is only room for "by all means" and "from the river to the sea". It doesn't matter if they don't know which river and what sea - because if the conflict is a fandom, then they can write an AU to deal with every truth that doesn't settle with their narrative, and rewrite reality to fit their next fanfic.
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Someone needs to say it: The "Heaven is actually bad" plot line that Hazbin is based around is useless when you spend more then 2 minutes thinking about Vivzie's Hell and her characters.
Besides it being much too early for this idea, the revelation that Heaven or at least the beings running it aren't good people has little to no impact when the people who are being harmed by this are all horrible people. Stay with me here. None of these people are people who were unfairly brought into hell and we are never ever introduced to someone who was either. Why should we care that Heaven is "evil" and blocking redemption when all the sinners in hell we see are the worst of the worst who would have never gotten in even if it was fair.
For the "Heaven is bad" plot line to actually work, you need people who were just one sin away from Heaven, who would've gotten into Heaven if circumstance hadn't forced them down a path that stole it from them. You need characters who aren't comedic villains but land in the middle of morally grey. Those who deserved to be in Heaven but because Heaven refused to consider their circumstances, they were tossed to burn with people much worse than them. Those are the people who should be your main cast cause those are the people who would actually be impacted by Heaven being bad/ Heaven lying.
Angel dust, for all his trauma, was still part of the mafia and likely had killed people before (showing to almost take joy in it). Husk became an overlord and gambled souls, so he had to have had blood on his hands before hell. Alastor is a serial killer, and the list goes on and on. Sure, these characters are (somewhat) interesting, but they don't make for good characters to have when the key plot line is that Heaven is a scam. Even if that fact is true, none of them were ever going to get there in the first place and this is something we also se in every single background sinner shown in Hell too. They were never close to getting there, so why would they or we care that Heaven is bad when all sinners are shown to be horrific people who are at best in the dark grey area of morality.
If you look at it from the "angel's are unfairly killing sinners" route, it still doesn't work. If the angels are killing them, what makes it different then the sinner on sinner violence that hell is full off? Why is them dying by angels this bad thing when they are just as likely if not 10x times more likely to get knifed in the back by other sinners in hell the other 364 days, especially when everyone here apparently is just as horrible as the next person. You cannot condemn the angels for killing demons and then make a joke of out sinners killing each other and never show sinners who doesn't want to kill people. Life either matters or it doesn't and when the main cast doesn't even show a care for life (outside of Charlie's who's entire flaw is her naivety), why should the audience.
On top of that, Vivzie's whole overpopulation aspect and the Heaven plot line would connect better if she actually had people like those I mentioned above, people who stole to survive but got tossed out cause stealing is technically wrong, people who killed another to protect someone else but were still sent to hell because even though they saved that person's life that person wasn't supposed to be saved, people who passively engaged in sins but never really did anything harmful under them. This would add into how Hell is so overpopulated and highlight why its so important that Heaven is evil/ why Charlie's plan isn't just a naive pathetic fever dream.
In the end, Vivzie should have never made Heaven the central plot of this show nor tried to assign this blatant good vs evil to that conflict. Neither her characters nor her writing choices are able to respond to this conflict in a way that will end or even tell the story in a satisfactory manner.
#anti hazbin hotel#hazbin hotel critical#vivziepop critical#spindlehorse critical#spindlehorse criticism#also I am not just talking out my ass for this#I had/have this same problem in one of my original works#where I had to make the relationship between Heaven and God and cambion a lot more complex then just oh this side bad this side good#and thats what you have to do as a fucking writer is ask the hard question and be ready to scrap characters and ideas to answer them#When you deal with human characters nothing is black vs white and the minute you claim it is#you have failed
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on disliking people
ive been working on a thought lately and it goes something like: creators of marginalized identities have it really rough because people end up treating them not as an invisible force behind the content they like, like majority-identified creators, but as a sort of totem to symbolize the fan’s support of that particular identity. so when the creator turns out to be a real, complex person, the fan perceives the sudden conflict between their moral signalling and the creator’s complex lived identity as a betrayal and responds with reflexive horror and outrage. they attack, because actually they’re defending their own hurt feelings, and their own jeopardized identity as a good person who supports good people.
this also happens on i think a micro level with trans people: allies want to support us, but we’re just people. a lot of us are obnoxious and most of us weird. transphobia is horrible and unjust: it’s good to be against it. it’s a good and valiant thing to want to oppose it. but again, real actual trans people are very often unpalatable because we are not meant for consumption. we aren’t pleasant because we’re not products. we’re just living our weird little lives, having gross sex, saying stupid things, looking kind of funky. that’s what real people do. that’s how real people are.
so when people who passionately oppose transphobia bonk into the surprising fact that trans people can be unpleasant, they experience cognitive dissonance in a way that feels like a personal betrayal. and they lash out, they push back. and the trans person gets reclassified as Specifically Bad, because the person lashing out isn’t transphobic, can’t be transphobic, hates transphobia, so there must be some exception here that squares the circle of the fact that they don’t like this trans person (who, again, isn’t a movement, an ideal, a product, an experience). and the trans person in question has a really bad day, or week, or month, or they die, if the lashback gets big enough. and the cycle continues.
i think a really vital component of opposing bigotry is internalizing and accepting that normal people can be unpleasant and it’s not a moral failing for you to just casually dislike lots of people for no real reason. humans aren’t meant for consumption. it’s a feature, not a failing.
sticking up for people’s rights gets a lot less emotionally complicated when you know, fundamentally, that you don’t have to like those people. because they’re just people, and people deserve rights even if you dislike them, which a lot of the time, you will not.
it’s fine. it really, really needs to be fine.
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