#(it just makes everyone more miserable!)

[redysetdare]

enough stories about how someone learns to truely be happy through love. i want a story where someone is desperately seeking out love thinking it's the only way to be happy only for them to learn by the end that happiness is what they make of it and they don't need love at all to make it.

#aro #aromantic #ace #asexual #aroace #loveless aro #loveless #non-partnering #nonpartnering #non partnering #nonamorous #aplatonic #enough of amatonormative tropes in media!!! enough 'you're miserable without love' stories!!! #less “you're too focused on ambitions to make you happy that you dont let yourself fall in love” #more “you're too focused on finding love to make you happy that you wont let yourself live” #more “there is so much more to life than love and so much more that can bring your happiness if you just let yourself experience it.” #maybe I should write this story #and when i say love i mean all love. not just romantic love. #which is why i tagged aplatonic too #while i mostly see this trope in terms of romantic love i think there's something to be said about #telling stories where people are perfectly content alone too #it doesn't have to be sad or pathetic to not have friends by choice. they dont have to be a miserable person to not have friends #i think we need more variety in stories where it shows people just content in their lack of love or relationships in all shapes #not everyone wants a family not everyone wants friends not everyone wants a partner not everyone wants love #some of us are content without. that should be explored without the need to fix it.

[lord-squiggletits]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#squiggposting #pharma apologism #i'm sure the doylist reason for the writing is just that pharma was a designated villain #so since he's a villain and 'crazy' it's fine for everyone even the good guys to treat him like complete trash #i just think from a watsonian perspective taking a sympathetic approach is way more interesting and logically consistent #what i mean is like. from a meta perspective one of the best ways to show that a character is super evil and not worth saving #is when even the good guy heroes. the ones who are supposed to be kind and compassionate and wise. see him as dirt #and this is also kind of a necessity in most plots bc TF is the kind of series that just needs action villains and long-term antagonists #so not every villain is written or has a plot to be made redeemable. and pharma is one of these bc he's not important or a legacy character #so from a doylist (meta) perspective you could read the autobots' disregard of pharma as a sign of #'this guy is not meant to have your sympathy as a reader. pay no attention to him' #but from a watsonian (in universe) perspective it paints a miserable picture of pharma being utterly forsaken by the ppl he served alongsid #and like yeah i'm super autistic about pharma so of course i view him with sympathy but like #the idea of being a loyal and good person for years only to be subjected to a Torment Nexus of #being blackmailed into breaking all of the oaths you held sacred. under threat of you and all your comrades dying horrible torturous deaths #then when your comrades find out about it they focus solely on the 'harvesting organs' and not on the 'blackmail' part #and then you get literally left for dead by your comrades and best friend hating your guts #and then you get rescued by a guy who uses you as a test subject for his evil machine #this is a fucking nightmare scenario like pharma could hardly be suffering more if the author TRIED to make him suffer #and for me it's like. the evil pharma did can't be decontextualized to what drove him to that. as well as the question of like #how easily ppl can write someone off as evil and turn a blind eye to (or even find satisfaction in) their suffering bc theyre evil #and either brought it on themselves or it's just karma paying a visit #like. i feel like if pharma WERE a shitty doctor and a terrible person his whole life then the delphi situation would feel like karma #but the way it's written and the lore retroactively put in makes it feel more pharma getting thrown in a torture carousel #and THEN becoming evil. but then being treated as if he was always evil or was some sort of bad apple #bc like i'm not opposed to LOLing when a villain gets a karmic torture/death related to the wrongs they committed #but in pharma's case it feels less like karma and more like endless torture + being abandoned by ppl who should have been more loyal

[butterflysonnets]

yes i'm rooting for m*leven breakup because byler is neat but mostly? i'm rooting for m*leven breakup for the sake of el and mike.

to me, their romance was always a puppy love born out of a combination of social pressures, naïve curiosity, and a lack of true understanding regarding intimacy and romantic love and what it really is. it was real in that they do truly, deeply care about each other and they are close friends, maybe even shared an attraction, but a maturing romance is so much more than that. they've grown up and out of being boyfriend/girlfriend, and that's okay! i think television/film needs to show more often that most of us don't have definite "soulmates" or first childhood loves that we spend our whole lives with. it doesn't mean these relationships meant nothing and didn't impact us, it just means they've run their course and that something else is in the cards, and this is part of life!

i've always felt el was at her best and most confident self when broken up with mike, discovering who she was and what she liked alongside another girl her age instead of just relying on mike for mentorship on how to live in the real world. she deserves more of an opportunity to find herself, her autonomy, and her independence, and to love who she is, and she's made it clear she's felt insecure in the relationship with mike because she isn't being loved and understood the way she wants, needs, and deserves from someone who is her partner.

also, it's okay if mike doesn't love her in "the way he should". he is not obligated to love her romantically and stay in a relationship with her just because she's a girl, because she "needed someone", or because he cares about her a lot. he shouldn't be pressured into a romance if it's not truly coming from his heart. he deserves freedom to find out and honour who he is, too, instead of just staying in his non-functional first relationship — one he got into as a child, essentially — and defining himself that way because it's what's expected when a boy and a girl are close. he loves her in some way, yes, but it's okay if he doesn't feel comfortable or secure being her boyfriend anymore, for whatever reason that is. he's felt insecure too, and that's valid and it matters.

they are their own people and are steadily growing and changing every day. they need time to figure out who those people are, and it's become clear (at least in my opinion) that those people aren't meant to be a couple at this stage.

they deserve freedom. they deserve to grow up and be authentic to themselves and not feel like they need to lie for the sake of a relationship. they deserve to move on from this version of their relationship that isn't making them happy and rekindle the best part of their bond: their strong, beautiful friendship. they don't have to be a couple if it doesn't make them stronger and better and happier people.

i think it would be healthy and wonderful for a show, especially one consumed frequently by young adults, to show a relationship starting, progressing, and ending on good terms in this way. sometimes things don't work out, and that is okay.

#eve text #elmike #stranger things #byler #only tagging byler because i feel like yall will like this take lol #tagging tagging tagging WHAT ARE EVERYONE ELSE'S THOUGHTS #god i can't believe i'm making a post about stranger things. this feels like poking a bear #i'm not particularly anti m*leven but like... they'd have to do something pretty special at this point for me to feel like it's viable #i'm seeing the bts of s5 and it's got me Having Thoughts #elmike friendship is something i am so passionate about #even before i ever liked byler (didn't ship at all until s4 even though i knew it was a thing before) i've felt this way about elmike #i always believed they were close friends at heart and needed to break up #the romance part of them felt very distinctly young and very much “he was a boy she was a girl” to me #and it hasn't deepened into anything more mature and i don't see how it could based on the current state of the writing... #the fact that lumax exists — a young relationship that is actively maturing and is healthy — makes that clear to me #and the “love confession” in s4 and how disingenuous and miserable it felt was just the nail in the coffin #also the fact that will (who is IN LOVE with mike) was instrumental in making it happen? ... uh... okay... interesting choice… #fucked up and reductive if they make it another queer unrequited love sacrifice for the sake of pushing the heterosexual agenda YUCK #so i really hope the speculation about a m*leven breakup is real!! i think it just makes sense for their characters but who knows #i don't believe in the notion of love at first sight or one true love and i think the writers don't too??? #love to me is an accumulation of experiences and we inevitably choose it at some point rather than fall into it... but idk #tv is so fixated on keeping couples together... sometimes it's just not reality guys especially with young people... LET IT GO... #like i said though i'm not 100% sold that they're going to give up their “golden couple” LMAO #stranger things hasn't historically subverted too many tropes if i'm being honest #anyway i seriously need this season to come out quickly... i'm so bored and getting my master's is crushing my soul #i need frivolity #ALSO btw i won't respond to hateful messages about this so please don't bother. it's not that serious. this is a netflix show

[knightsickness]

jace continued failure to beat the coleism allegations. will somebody please get this kid the holy grail im trying to see something

#a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #hotd #house of the dragon #criston cole #jacerys velaryon #not even a jace cole truther i just think the failed galahadism is fun #like all my dance takes based entirely on i think it would be funny and would make everyone involved even more miserable

[lightningidle]

Fig's line "I don't think I'm an artist, I think I'm just a good friend" has not left my head at all. Just...

You're Fig Faeth and your horns came in over the summer and you pick up the bard class as a form of adolescent rock 'n' roll rebellion, and it works! It's exactly the outlet you need! You give a guy you just met drumsticks and you start a band and it's good enough that within a year and a half you're touring. You are, in every sense, good at being a bard.

And then, finally, your junior year, you start to take it seriously. Your art goes from an outlet and a form of rebellion to a practice. A discipline. (Can rebellion exist within a discipline?) Your classmates know what they want to do with their work. They all have a thesis statement. And yeah, there's cohesion in the music you make, but you've never had to think about why you make it. You've never sat down and dissected what it is about bass that speaks to you. You've never poured over your lyrics to pick at any deeper meaning. Why should you? You don't play music for a grand design, you do it to... huh, why do you do it?

(Your art is the one form of self-expression that feels as safe as Disguise Self does, because even if you're pouring your heart onto the page and then screaming it in front of thousands of people, it's not like you're really making yourself known. You can sing I'm lonely, I'm scared, I'm furious, and your fans will sing it right back, and there will still be the distance between performer and audience to keep your heart safe.)

Now you're being asked to look inward to explain the artistic choices you're making, and you can't help but recoil at that, because you'd rather do anything than look inward. Meanwhile, your classmates have no problem with it, so you start to wonder if you're a real artist at all. Can your art be authentic if it only exists to bolster a thesis statement? Has your art been unauthentic this whole time because you've never really thought about a thesis statement before? Is that what makes it art, and not just the next track on somebody's teen angst playlist?

You can't think about yourself— acknowledging your own existence makes you want to puke. So if your music is an extension of yourself, (and it is, even if it's just because the spotlight reveals only what you want it to,) you can't think about your music. You can't. You have to. Your grade depends on it.

You're Fig Faeth, and you keep multiclassing because you'd rather be a good friend than a great artist. If introspection is what great art demands, then fuck it. You must not be a bard at all.

#Dimension 20 #fig faeth #fhjy #Idle Chatter #my last two years of college were when I started to get more and more nauseous about my own art #because I wasn't being taught how to make the art I wanted to make #the whole curriculum's focus was on gallery art #which infuriated me! I wanted to make art that didn't have to involve twelve layers of meaning and metaphor to be considered good!! #so I drove myself into the ground time and again trying to make (miserable) work that I thought would fit the criteria of a Real Artist #anyway it's been 4 years and I'm just now picking at why I don't enjoy creating anymore so Fig's whole arc has hit home in a major way #ALSO. AAAAALSO. THE ADHD STRUGGLE WE SEE WITH BOTH FIG AND KRISTEN. LOVING SOMETHING BUT STILL STRUGGLING WITH FOLLOW THROUGH #BEING TOLD YOU'RE NOT DOING ENOUGH WHEN IT'S SO FUCKING HARD JUST TO GET WHERE EVERYONE ELSE IS AND NOT UNDERSTANDING WHY IT'S HARD FOR YOU #it was easy and now that the rubber's hit the road it's hard for you but not for others so it must be YOU that's the problem #you must be lazy or stupid or just not suited to this after all even though it's part of a pattern that has been happening all your life #if you were good enough or cared enough then surely the discipline would come easily to you! the way it comes easily to all your classmates #SCREAMS I gotta stop before I write a second essay in the tags. I'm so normal you can trust me to be normal about D&D characters

[puppyeared]

i wrote this as a joke because I wanted to strangle a guy watching tiktoks without headphones on the bus, but im genuinely disturbed that we've gotten to a point where convenience comes first. and it depresses me even more that its used to justify and monetize greed

#like we have so many ways of doing things that could help us in the long run but because we're told it requires more work we just cant #its too resource intensive. or maybe its too much to maintain. we have to overlook benefits so money can go into more important things #we teach each other to do things a certain way so it works for everyone but who was it convenient for first? what abt who it might hurt? #i have to wonder if the rules our current system uses is worth listening to or following if it doesnt have our best interests in mind. u an #me and the ppl around us.. would we be better off if i ate my meals knowing the person who grew it wanted to feed others the way they could #feed themselves? and that isnt to say we're going to be happy doing it but i guess satisfied that its helping someone instead of quietly #accepting that itll eventually go in the dumpster behind a grocery store because it stopped looking appetizing or it wasnt on sale anymore #what about building homes so we can shelter each other? what if we were satisfied with what we did because we knew it would be paid back #with kindness? isnt that what we evolved to do?? heal each others bones and tell stories and help each other?? #why dont houses come with solar panels or generators unless we find a way to make people pay to use the sun? why is our pooled money used #to fund genocides instead of education and hospitals? whose interests and convenience came first when we started this?? #i wont pretend to know the answer because i dont. but we all know we're miserable and im sorry to say that i cant see myself fighting #for a world that wont fight for me too. why do we work if we cant live from it?? why did they stop us from plucking more teeth from our #bosses until they could build more walls around themselves and then go back to underpaying us?? #im so tired. i cant even imagine making it to age 70 #yapping #vent

[littlelightfish]

I finnaly did some Holm drawings <3

Holm and Mickbell got separated from the rest of the party because of monsters. Mickbell is terrified because he knows they're the only left alive. If Holm dies, he'll be all alone down here and probably just get killed too. Holm is... badly injured, has little mana left, not enough to heal himself. He's having trouble breathing and everything hurts. Mick is pressing his hat(? against one of his many injures, but it's not doing much. He knows they'll both die here.

Everyone died before him trying to protect him. The monster took all his companions lifes before dying thanks to Marillier. He is so tired and roughed up of this happening (because it does happen a lot, to him to be the the last man standing and everyone dying in protecting him bc he can revive them), but let's it happen. He can't really do anything other than survive to help his friends and it's frustrating.

He's a silly creature. Frozen in place. Having prision flashbacks. He not okie-dokie.

He so silly I love him <3.

#i will angst the living shit out of him when I get the chance don't worry #dedicated to my beloved members of holm nation. you know who you are lovelies <3 #i need to make this man cry and sob and be miserable but he is so silly calm i can't do it correctly >:[ #he's still got angst material in him tho #mickbell trying his best to keep his healer (on low mana + badly injured) alive because they got ambushed and everyone else is dead <3 #mick and holm make a great odd duo and i love it hehe #dungeon meshi #dunmeshi #delicious in dungeon #holm #holm kranom #holm dungeon meshi #mickbell #mickbell tomas #mickbell dungeon meshi #i feel i didnt quite get all of him right but eeh #marillier #she just there #but yea. mick and holm need to be angsted more. #mickbell -> kuro's life depends on holm. holm->everyone's lifes depends on him. #my shit #lets ignore all the anatomycah HORRORS i commited here <3<3

[stizzysupremacy]

“It’s a romcom!”

their breakup has a body count, which is neither especially romantic nor particularly funny 🤷‍♀️

#man I hope certain people experience what it is to have friends whose breakup becomes everyone’s problem #let’s see if you still think they are cute together after they tear the whole group asunder with their drama #and make everyone miserable before getting back together #and then act like they did nothing wrong and invite you to their way-too-soon wedding where you have to grit your teeth and smile #knowing one of them will be crashing on your couch for a week after the inevitable divorce #if ppl choose to be optimistic and believe in their love and their ability to work things out #that’s great more power to you. just stfu to me when I point out red flags that worry and sadden me #I DIDNT ASK YOUR OPINION. I LEFT IT UNTAGGED FOR A REASON #(to be clear I do think the show is funny and has cute love stories. but definitely NOT because of the main couple. yikes)

[renees-bruised-knuckles]

the way Jean feels about the Ravens is really mimicked in the way he feels about exy. it's all he has, he pours his soul into understanding it, he has no other support structure holding him up, he loved it once, he hates and resents it, its trapping him, he still loves it.

I expected his feelings towards both to be so simply hateful and bitter and yet they're so enmeshed with who he is as a person and he cares about them so much despite the harm they've done him.

like with exy, the game is inherently violent but exponentially more so on the Ravens. even standing still in front of Jeremy, Jean is always going for a trip or a painful takeaway, not even considering that exy doesnt have to break people down. but he still takes pride in the sport and being so good at it and knowing it inside and out. and part of that is necessity but part is just his enjoyment. he was a little kid once that was fascinated with the game. it didn't always just hurt.

and with the Ravens, all of them are violent but some of them are also kind to him and he learned all about them and what they care about and who they love and wants to protect them, even from the knowledge that he's being hurt. "they didn't know." they all betray him and turn a blind eye but theyre all he has and theyre the only constant in his life. he wants to protect them. even from their own grief and regret.

“I hate them,” Jean said, and left. It was the cold hard truth; it was a blatant lie.

He loved the Ravens, he hated them, he wished he’d never met them.

"I was under the impression you and the Ravens hated each other.” “We do,” Jean said. “We don’t. We are Ravens.”

#the sunshine court spoilers #the sunshine court #aftg #jean moreau #just like i so expected for him to be miserable and burnt-out and hate exy and the ravens and everyone and everything #and he says he does! #and its kind of true! #but he also is full of love and hope and thats even more terrifying and horrible #hes damaged but he really isnt broken #even the ravens couldnt make him lose himself #the strong must protect the sweet but the strong is jean and the sweet hes protecting is also himself

[om0000]

imagine if westley rlly betrayed wander n sylvia n stayed in the hater empire jk jk unless

#hmmm how do i make him suffer more #hed live such a miserable life #idk i just like that “character gets all they wanted n then realizes it doesnt fulfill them” thing sm #imagine how getting special treatment n then being instantly demoted back to just private again after wander n sylvia escape would feel #im saying like cartoonishly instantly back #its like everyone forgot abt his stupid medal of evil n stuff its just all back to status quo except westley being less enthusiastic n #more n more hyperaware of all the brainwashing #which is actually funny asf cuz peepers n haters brainwasing n propaganda is so bad it only works on westley n maybe like 3 more watchdogs💀 #if the watchdogs still have a home planet i like to think they have the craziest propaganda going on down there actually to the point #enrolling in the hater empire is a lot of watchpuppies' dream #its like our thing w every kid wanting to be an astronaut except its every watchpuppy wanting to serve the hater empire #which was def westley at some point #except bro somehow kept that enthusiasm going for 3 years of witnessing hater fuck up n peepers violate workers rights all day every day #wait nvm the propaganda might actually work rlly well considering the eye on the skullship n andys whole thing abt being absolutely #engrossed w haters whatabouts n shit despite never seeing him up close before #damnn imagine that #imagine their war machine evil empire being actually bad n not just silly cartoon aliens (its still just silly cartoon aliens) #this got long asf idk i just lkke #i wanted to say “i just like propaganda” idk how to phrase it right n not sound fucked up in the head #its all propaganda pro propaganda i have a feeling im not alone 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 #pbj

[winepresswrath]

trying to plot out a xichen/huaisang emma au solely for the purposes of slotting jin guangyao and nie mingjue into the already married siblings role. in theory this leaves us with no one to play emma's dad but no they're both emma's dad for maximum impact. and obviously jin guangyao is also the nanny. and it ends with huaisang vowing to be worse, actually.

#they still get married tho no one is escaping the toxicity #i think everyone lives? maybe? #an improvement on my original jin guangyao is harriet idea #wwx is now harriet and nhs is insanely smug about wangxian #thus his vow to be worse actually #i think jc and wq are frank and jane #sorry to jc! and also frank actually they're a terrible mashup except i cannot resist them having a secret engagement on account of wq's #controversial connexions and related poverty #however since this is jc he obviously does not succeed in his plan to flirt with nhs for cover #making nhs obviously even more smug. and again #worse #originally i was also going to have jgy kill nmj after huaisang hooks them up but it's just too sad even if it's the right choice i shan't #it IS the right choice though like it should be a murder mystery-emma mashup from xichen's pov #where he's soooo concerned about huaisang and jgy after mingjue dies #and huaisang is like. using his matchmaking as deep cover to send jgy to the gallows #but that version of the story is so miserable #and i think unfair to both mingjue and jgs neither of whom are likely to get to that place in their relationship under the conditions #of this au. they're busy being married and fighting about whether mingjue should be more politically active or w/e #jgY now that was unfair to jgy #emma but no one learns anything. emma but one of the brontes was there giving notes #not anne sorry anne i love u anne

[mihrsuri]

I haven’t read Austen, so what does Robert do during their annus horribilis that is ‘Captain Wentworth’ like?

So Persuasion is probably my favourite Austen novel (a plot summary from Spark Notes here) and basically (spoilers)

1546/1547 is a garbage dumpster of years in the OT3 verse for a whole number of reasons but one thing that happens is that Robert and Elizabeth have a huge fight blow up* They both say some fairly awful things to each other and at a certain point they are living apart. And Robert, who has been trying to apologise and getting rebuffed is just…he’s spending time with a younger woman (I might make her up) and I want to be clear - nothing happens. They aren’t flirting (the young woman in question is very much in love with someone else), they aren’t ever alone or anything but he is hurting and he is trying to hurt Elizabeth/make her show she does care about him/hurt her because this is AWFUL.

*This happens for a variety of reasons - mostly like, Elizabeth getting in her head about whether Robert wants a more conventional wife/what if she doesn’t give him a son (still got that lingering trauma - just in a different form) and Robert getting in his head and the two of them being extremely uh, Tempesty.

#lil and her ridiculous aus #ot3: political power trio #tudors ot3 verse reference #it’s not following the exact plot of persuasion but the vibes! #(it just makes everyone more miserable!) #at least some period dramas/movies about Robert and Elizabeth make this a permanent rift etc #(which is a BIT AWKWARD considering they have four more kids and like EVERYTHING ELSE) #i will say this level of a fight never happens again i don’t think? #i have to consult with rina about this 👀

[katierosefun]

oh there's something particularly painful about my mister in that dong hoon tells ji an that as long as no one knows, it's no big deal, and there's something particularly painful about how ji an tells dong hoon that sometimes, i want [my secret] to play out on big screens for everyone to see, and there's something particularly painful about how the second dong hoon meets the loan shark tormenting ji an, he starts screaming and yelling about how she's just a kid, how could you do that to a kid, and there's something particularly painful about how dong hoon doesn't even let ji an know he did that, but ji an knows. she knows because she was listening in the entire time and she just starts crying because someone actually knows this ugly, sad part of her and still took her side, and something particularly painful about how my mister started with as long as no one knows, it's no big deal but really concludes with there is so much risk in having someone know who you are but there's also so much comfort and peace to be found in that, too and maybe you shouldn't isolate yourself and maybe you should reach for that kind of comfort in being known and loved anyways

#caroline talks #my mister #if this is incoherent. it should be #rewatched the first 2.5 episodes of my mister last night #felt like crying my eyes out the entire time tbh!! #every time i watch this show there's just something about it that hurts me more and more and there's something that makes the messages #in this show feel more and more relevant #idk. thinking a lot about when ji an talks about how sometimes she wishes. sometimes she wishes #that everyone knew what she'd done and what had been done to her. #something about how ji an can't ever bring herself to connect truly with another person because of how much she hates #the feeling of people realizing what her past looks like #and not wanting to withstand the pity and also horror. like. okay. #something about ji an sobbing by the bridge when she listens to dong hoon pummeling that loan shark guy #and how i used to always cry at that scene but now i tear up just thinking about it #because you know! there's that shock (that firstly: someone knows your miserable secret. and secondly: they're still on your side) #and then absolute heartache because you don't know what to do with that information. you didn't expect it. #you're sobbing at a bridge because someone knows who you are and someone knows the scars of your past and still gets angry and sad for you. #and you still feel like you don't deserve it because you know deep down you are not a very good person (or so you tell yourself). #and. oughough. lee ji an holds such a place in my miserable little heart

[byanyan]

something something byan ending up in the office on at least half of the days they actually bother showing up to school, specifically for breaking the dress code... some of the teachers eventually hitting a point of letting the less drastic rule violations slide bc they don't want to deal with the scene they know from experience that byan will cause, but then others being especially nit-picky about it... idk I'm just thinking about it tonight

#like u know a chunk of it is transphobic but like. #the majority of it is genuinely bc they're outright intentionally wearing skirts that're too short & shit #byan is maliciously breaking the dress code bc they think it's stupid #but they also wanna stick it to those who don't think they should be dressing the way they do #and in the process they give everyone a fucking headache sfjgksh #and like. they're more than happy to be doing that. that's WHY they make such a scene. #fuck authority!!! if ur gonna stifle them then they're gonna make sure ur miserable!!!! #they're petty enough to come back tomorrow wearing an even shorter skirt just so u have to deal with it again!!! #and if u eventually cave & don't call them on the smaller shit?? that just means they're winning!!!!!! #ahdjgsg hi I'm alive & thinking about Them but also like. drowning myself in games to get through the days #actual writing is still on the backburner for now but I have been slowly cleaning up my drafts for whenever I do have the energy back :'v #━━ ˟ ⊰ ✰ ooc ⋮ don’t @ me.

[rubinaitoart]

Social Anxiety is back from his coffee break and is cospiring with Mental Exhaustion to make it worse.

I’d appreciate that they’re working together but I’d rather they work on other things instead of my downfall.

#rubin rambles #personified emotions go brrr #it’s like an office setting #and half of my employees are dedicated to making my life miserable #and I’m just trying to make sure we meet our monthly quota #meanwhile ADHD and Dopamine are distracting everyone else with their class clown type shenanigans #actually it’s a bit more like a classroom sometimes

[risingsunresistance]

love the amount of ppl i've seen going "ugh another hotm grind i HAVE to do, this game is so boring and stupid and i hate it" ok but you dont have to do it. nothing is making you do it. all the content is self-contained, upgrading your hotm here doesnt help you anywhere EXCEPT for here. if you want the pets just wait till they're on the auction house

#if you're after more levels but it's making you this miserable then maybe it isnt worth it #like i could have a few more levels grinding voidglooms and demonlords but i dont bc i dont wanna it's that easy #just play what you like #no wonder everyone quits. they dont realize they dont HAVE to be the best #skyblock is a game full of perfectionists who are trained to hate themselves lmao #im here because i love hotm. you're here bc you hate hotm. we are not the same <3 #chat #sb