i'm playing the long dark to get in the winter mood :)

so this is how it always goes: I am sad I have no one to talk fic to, i complain on tumblr, someone nice offers to chat, I think wow new friendship and hype myself up too much, we talk a couple of times, then they lose interest or stop talking to me, the cycle starts all over again. idk why i'm so fucking boring literally no one can handle it :'D

Every chronically online cisgirl talks about how much they'd love a punk bf until we start talking about wanting to kill cops and not being cis or genderconforming😔

im curious, do you think there is any good way to portray a redemption by death? like, can a character truly be made a better person by dying? or is it just an all-around bad trope? i vaguely saw what the authors were trying to do with tom and sandgorse's situations, but they just sucked too bad and gave it the absolute wrong effect imo

I think there's a way to make anything work! So I won't say "NO NEVER." But personally, I have a big bone to pick with it so I avoid it

A redemption death doesn't give the character time to meaningfully change, imo, or truly make up for their actions. That all has to come before the death itself. And even the very idea of giving your life up to "redeem yourself" just... sits uncomfortably with me.

Dying never makes a person better. It just kills them. A person who's dead is not changing nor growing.

So Tom and Sandgorse... what their deaths are supposed to do is re-frame everything they did before that point. With no apology on Sandgorse's end for how badly he hurt his son or wasn't there for his mate, he was a good enough person to die for someone else and thus must be forgiven. Tom thrashes two women and they both die because of him, but he was still willing to heroically throw his life down for his child, and so he is 'worthy' of being avenged and honored.

No growth. No change. No acknowledgement. The death is supposed to add sympathy to them, while there's no actual reckoning of how they hurt their victims. Not even a real consequence. "Their intentions were good, and this is proven through the ultimate sacrifice." As if that changes anything. It doesn't.

I think if there's an decent example of a redemption death in warriors, it's Bluestar's. I still have problems with how it believes Stone and Misty have to "forgive her" for some reason, REALLY don't like the fact that this series has always equated redemption and forgiveness... but that aside? Just focusing on Firestar, ThunderClan, and Bluestar?

I think what makes the moment so strong is that it is a moment of clarity through her cruelty arc. We saw the heroic person she was at the start of TPB. We know that her actions are coming from anger, spite, and paranoia. That is never shown as a thing to be excused. But while she's wrapped up in her own misery, Fireheart is being the leader she isn't.

And her last life is a return to form, spending it the way she is supposed to, as a leader, and as his mentor.

Her arc could never be about 'growth' because... she WAS a great leader. She WAS selfless, long ago. Her redemption death is a return to that, and a plot necessity. Bluestar and Firestar cannot both exist.

But, anyway, it's generally a trope I'm not fond of. I think that nearly anything can work in the right context, but I think it's so situational that I personally avoid it when possible.

While I don't know much about it, I would probably bet there are tons of issues with the cruise industry that would make me not actually appreciate it broadly speaking - HOWEVER, I do really love a lot of the interior design of some cruise ships.. How it's almost like a miniature city crammed into one area. Multiple sections with all different aesthetic designs, a variety of shops, restaurants, activity centers, community seating areas, communal use spaces (like gyms, laundry, pools, cafeteria/buffet (which I always love anywhere)), etc. etc. but then also everyone has a little nice clean comfortable looking space of their own to retreat back to if they'd like to be alone. Maybe it's something akin to the idea of 'walkable cities', where everything you could ever want to do is kind of right there just a short walk away? I also especially love how so much stuff is stacked on top of other stuff, a layered cluster of spaces, bright open atriums, and when they're set up with little walkways down the center between a bunch of rooms so it's almost like a mini city street with apartments lining it, etc.. They often seem like they'd be SUCH a cool place to live permanently, IF only something identical was just built on solid land instead lol

I hate winter!!!!!!!! Fuck daylight savings fuck sunset at 4pm i hate this shit so much

list of my grievances in the tags bc this has been the most miserable week ever and the only person i could conceivably complain to is also going through it

Hmmmmmmmm quick question! What do you do when your executive dysfunction has reached such a critical state that you:

are actively ignoring things you desperately need to do

are ghosting your employers (even though you can make it all go away by doing the one thing you most need to do: send an email and QUIT)

have almost three dozen notifications that you can't even bring yourself to look at

completely unironically have done nothing but sleep and flip between two apps for days

are fucking up your professional/financial future even though you need to move out in a matter of months

✨and✨

are paralyzed by anxiety that keeps mounting to increasingly unsustainable heights

YET

you GENUINELY CANNOT figure out how to PHYSICALLY FORCE YOUR BODY to do the (extremely short, extremely important) list of things you keep telling yourself you're going to do

because at this point you can't even shower or change the clothes you've been wearing for days on end?

Asking for a friend. I'm the friend.

i think the happiest ive been are the days where id have a set routine and regularly go on walks and do yoga and wrote and i havent been able to get back to that since i started working full time

Concept for a hilarious and extremely chaotic but also excellent 2024 language goal: Watch Goenkale and Pobol y Cwm simultaneously

GOD therseomuch shit to do i thought id have time today to DO stuff. its the fucking weekend why do ihave to do 2 classes and go outside and literally do something for school . the weekDAYS are always busy i havent had a free moment since i fucking joined

What's the ship, OP? 👀

😭 ik it makes no sense okay it makes sense in my HEAD

and only in a very specific dynamic that i maybe wrote a 1k intro chapter to already

iruka/obito no i know. it makes no sense. I just had this incredibly specific vision in which obito is an (unrepentant) war criminal and imprisioned post 4th war, and he is so toxic and bitter and dangerous and kakashi is so obviously compromised and guilt ridden about the whole thing! so kakashi (as the 6th hokage) realizes (reluctantly, and definitely pushed by his jounin commander/advisor shikamaru to the path of logic) that in order to best serve his village and stay loyal he shouldn't talk to obito, or see him. period.

and where does iruka come in? well the 6th hokage needs to assign one person to interact w his problematic beloved but also someone who isn't going to go crazy and has extremely high security clearance but also might feel some level of empathy and is proven to put the village first always.

and oh, hey. would you look at that one mission desk shinobi/academy sensei/big-hearted loud-mouthed chunin who fits those criteria exactly?

and thus Iruka is given the extremely dubious honor of being obito's jailer basically.

no offence lol but some of u need to go get a life. urgently

Disclaimer: I personally have not finished TBC beyond the first book. I did finish AVOS and its back half is considered poor quality for a reason. If you aren't having fun now I can tell you right now you wouldnt enjoy the rest. At most I think (iirc) the last book is important bc it establishes Juniperclaw attacking SkyClan, and Shadowsight getting a vision to swim in the flooded lake to 'unite' the clans- both of which are relevant to TBC in some way. But even then you could probably skim to the rrlevant parts, IDK.

i'll be real when i made that post last night it was kind of out of sarcasm and pettiness, like i do think im still gonna read those last three books and skim the boring parts at the very least, but that's on me cause now when i look at the post it does come across as very whiny and serious so that's on me lmao. (and i was kinda whiny at the moment cause i always forget about how mean spirited these books are.)

buuuuut hearing what people are saying, it does make me feel a bit better for skimming the back half of avos cause i think thats what i'm gonna have to do for sanity's sake if i want to catch up. i do want to give quotes and takes that are really backed up by the books and not secondhand info so i will try to keep to it but i think if i'm gonna read about thunderclan being shitty to twigpaw then im gonna start skimming cause like, we all know they were shitty to twigpaw now, it was uncomfortable when she was a kid and its uncomfortable still now that she's an adult. you don't need to see that backed up once again.

Clasping my hands together in prayer and wishing The GamersTM weren't also fans of what i'm a fan of

i can tell summer has been very hot and annoying to me this year because just seeing snow in the sims is enough to be deeply emotionally moving