#but i just can't think of anything to say that would be constructive sometimes

[drbased]

Does it ever make you ever feel depressed that men have more variation in IQ? That means even though there will always be more male idiots, there will also be more male geniuses. So women can excel in any field, but a man will almost always be the "best" in it. It just makes me feel inferior every time I think about it, way more than strength difference does. Not only that, but they also have higher variation in all types of brain structure. That would mean men are naturally more diverse, personality-wise.

Sometimes I get into these negative thought processes about stupid shit and it totally consumes me. This is my latest one... Please help

Hmm.

Well firstly, IQ is a completely fake concept designed specifically for eugenicist purposes. You can train for an IQ test, your score can change depending on the day, and your score doesn’t mean anything apart from how good you are at IQ tests. It’s not a measure of intelligence, and ‘intelligence’ isn’t real anyway - as in, there is no such quality of uniform intelligence. I think it stands to reason that the highest IQ scores will be from men, because the tests are constructed around a fundamentally male world-view and value system as well as a white one. And that is what depresses me more - that ‘intelligence’ is viewed as some innate quality that only oppressors can possess so they can prove that they deserve their place in a meritocracy. It’s like that controversy about men winning more at Jeopardy than women - the world is structured around male interests and values, so men achieve in mainstream contests and use that to retroactively justify the legitimacy of those values and interests in the culture.

I’m less interested in the concept of a man beating a woman at certain activities because of him being smarter than her, than I am about him beating her because he's socialised from a young age into enjoying and valuing those activities - but also often regardless of his actual performance, he's also by default assumed to be better and more competent than her purely because he's a man. Take for example that study where when they did blind auditions for orchestras, men still got in more than women, but when they put carpeting down so women's heels couldn't be heard, there was finally a more equal ratio of women getting in. Or those studies where identical CVs given out and names that are typical of women, black people etc. get seen as less competent than those with male and white names.

We don't live in a world where we can objectively measure men's 'natural' abilities at anything psychological. But we do live in a world where we know that women's skills are massively undervalued - women have all sorts of intelligences that make the world run round; we're excellent negotiators, we're less violent, we're great at remembering, we have greater compassion, we make good leaders, we are more responsible, we have greater tact, we are safer in the workplace, we're more conscious of social issues and the environment, etc. etc. And none of what we have is seen as 'intelligence'; in fact, quite the opposite - many of our intelligences are dismissed outright as sentimentality and pearl-clutching.

Once again, though, I don't believe these traits are uniform across all women, or that they're 'natural' to us, just as men's traits aren't 'natural' to them. In the nature-nurture debate, there are too many factors in nurture that can't be realistically measured - and I have a suspicion that for many, feminists included, simply saying that men and women naturally possess certain traits is an easier narrative to swallow, because for many women the fear exists that if men can be socialised to be better, then dismissing them as evil would be morally wrong. But I don't think people need to be intrinsically, ontologically evil for us to dismiss them as oppressors - I simply judge by behaviour, which is more measurable.

Going back to intelligence, I think it's also worth saying here that women are socialised into not recognised or appreciating our skills, and to partake in behaviours that psychologically hobble us. Take for example in that orchestra study - under a feminist lens, wearing heels is a form of hobbling that's both literal and psychological. The woman is performing a feminine ritual, wearing a physically debilitating item that submissively marks her as a woman. Not to say that she would be respected more if she was gnc, but I find it interesting how women accidentally lost their spot on the orchestra in the study because their performative clothing made them noisier and easier to recognise as women. And on top of that, we have stereotype threat - there was a study done where men and women were performing some sort of test, and in one half they were in normal clothes, and the second they were in swimwear. In the second one, women performed more poorly than they did in the first, and men saw no change. Once again, we have two inexorably interlinked factors at play, here - women's swimwear is not built for utility but rather to be sexy, and women's bodies are considered inherently sexual; that's not to say that if women were wearing men's swimwear they'd do better at the test, but rather women are socialised to be self-conscious of themselves but also expected to show more skin - we're expected to dumb ourselves down in the name of being sexy.

The upside in all of this is that the moment you recognise that these things aren't set in stone, and rather that these are all skills you can develop if you gain confidence in yourself, you develop a robust sense of self that you can be comfortable and happy with regardless of external measure of male-approved success. I, for example, found confidence in myself and my writing, and now I'm finding success and getting praise online by women on tumblr. It seems you're best finding yourself environments surrounded by other women, especially feminist-minded women who are consciously choosing to fight against established biases by valuing the skills of women that are undervalued by society. Devaluing male interests and achievements in your own head is something you can also do, and I once again recommend feminist spaces as an excellent opportunity to de-program (obligatory plug for my side blog @learningwomanhood where I do exactly that).

For me, the biggest wisdom to be gained from feminism is the psychological distancing yourself from male thought - the more things you reject that you once unthinkingly believed to be normal, the more you feel that you can truly be human, vibrant, unconstrained; and the more silly the whole enterprise of patriarchy looks. It's not nice that rejecting patriarchy means rejecting mainstream society, but the older you get the more you realise that you simply can't dwell on these things and instead have to do what benefits you within it; nobody is owed a perfect existence, and once you realise that you have to choose a life for yourself and choose to be happy with that, your life will be much more comfortable. In the end, life is all about the gestures of love you make to yourself and others. When you realise that it's your job to be your own best friend, you can carry that energy with you your whole life; you will be inpenetrable because all that matters to you, no matter what situation you're going through or what hell you're in, is that you made decisions that showed love to yourself. That could be considered a form of intelligence - perhaps wisdom itself is a form of intelligence that is devalued specifically because it's female-coded. But wisdom sounds like nothing until you internalise it - all the language in the world can't seem to really get to its essence until something inside you clicks and you understand it.

One thing I would like to say is that those negative thought processes you have are not stupid: they are a valuable part of your processing of the world and are worth attention. We have this cultural idea that with regards to mental health, the parts of us that are 'real' and 'valid' and 'truly us' are all the good parts, and the negative thought processes and patterns of behaviour are like cancerous tumours that need to be artifically removed. One of the best things I ever did for myself is to take myself seriously - because that's my prerogative, as myself and my own best friend. The only thing 'bad' thing about those thought processes is that they cause you distress; that's it. So, then, it's up to you to decide how much you want to indulge in them. I find the best way to really tackle unpleasant behavioural patterns is to simply do them shamelessly, because clearly a part of you wants to do them anyway; one of the first ways I got out of my depressive spirals was to decide that I was going to do all the depressive actions (stay in bed, eat junk food etc.) but simply embrace that those are things I want to do and not feel guilty or sad about it. That way, the depression hasn't consumed me and instead I have made a choice - I have reformed my relationship with myself as an active agent and a made a choice to show love for myself through the gesture of taking my desires seriously, not dismissing them as 'mentally ill'. I could go on but the point is that all of your head is necessarily you - as in, it doesn't come from anywhere else but you, and therefore all of it should be respected and valued. Mainstream society won't tell you that - there's always supposed to be a limit, there's always something that's 'unhealthy' in some sort of metaphysical sense, there's always a part of you that's supposed to be beholden to some external standard, that keeps you feeling insecure and needing validation. But there is no true objective measure of a healthy mind; the only thing that matters is if you're comfortable with yourself, and you can always make gestures of love to yourself regardless of your situation.

#my writing #anon #theory posting #wisdom posting

[gideonisms]

my fear of roaches is so severe now....yes I CAN grab them with a paper towel and throw them outside without breaking a sweat and yes I AM the bug catcher in most of my living situations but I'm dying inside and if a hot girl WANTED to fall in love with me and catch them for me from now on I would Not say no

#:/ #my heart rate is still coming down. i'm at my aunt's so i don't have my tent so i'm just 🤢🤢😱💀 #everyone else thinks i should squish them but the sound ...no. urhghgghhhh #well and also i have a thing about unsavory awful disgusting forms of life and how you know. we are all that to someone or something and #who am i really to kill things unnecessarily for walking in the wrong place #sometimes you have to like at my apartment it had to be a battle ground bc it was them or me but u know. #off the point off the point #i have to leave this state this country this universe this galaxy. goodbye #i simply cannot be here under these conditions (saw scary bug)!!! and i'm not happy!!! #also having weird feelings abt time with my family that i chose like it wasn't mandatory for me to be here and i did want to hang out #but i'm just feeling distant & off bc i'm so different than them ig? and my beliefs clash so much and it feels bad not to say anything #but i just can't think of anything to say that would be constructive sometimes #so it's like they'll make comments i don't love but that are kind of on the edge where it's like. how do i adress this it's just a joke or #like sometimes it's not but it's something so deeply tied to their whole belief system that like idek where to start bc #i don't really want them to change their religion etc. that's something they want for me and it sucks so i'd never expect that from others #because it sucks! #but yeah when i spend time away from them it's kinda like wow y'all are the people i love and i'm not sure how i feel about that #anyway. hm. getting weird after 2 am perhaps it's time to admit defeat petition whatever deity controls roaches for some peace & go to sleep

[welcometogrouchland]

May I ask about your Jason Todd idea? <3

Hm, okay so. How to lay this out sensitively since I know it might be a tad controversial...

Prefacing by saying I'm not an expert on the minutias of Jason characterization. I like him when he appears, I think the battle for the cowl/Morrison era and some parts of modern era for him are Weird and Bad, but I'm not Jason scholar (for that I'd say maybe check out @/tumblingxelian and their great video essays), I'm just trying to think of what might be an interesting step forward for him.

First, the canon facts

Jason got lobotomized and has panic disorder on steroids. By the end of Gotham War (specifically when Jason was. Flying the batplane into the asteroid. God I can't believe that's the plot) he was finding it in himself to power through said panics

In Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing #12, the joker gives Jason a "low dose" of joker venom, which has an ambiguous effect on Jason, allowing him to power through the fear (which joker explicitly states is still very much present, just not physically debilitating, like when Jason couldn't run over in either Catwoman #57 or #58, the one with the kid in the building) even though he'd been able to do that sans venom over in Gotham War, like I previously stated.

The effect of said joker venom seems to be lingering for now, minus the creepy grin side effect it gave Jason over in that man who stopped laughing issue, as seen in the latest batman issue (number is escaping me rn, #147??). He still has the stutter which is a shorthand for fear, he's drawn with fearful expressions by Jorge Jimenez, but he says that he's "working through it" thanks to the chemicals

This is both super interesting and kind of maddening as it doesn't completely remove the consequences of what happened in Gotham War, but is trying to sweep them under the rug and get back to business as usual. I, however, propose making said consequences front and center like a fashionable urn on a mantle piece:

Since it's never stated how exactly the joker venom works, and I think the current answer is "it works how the story needs it to" I've decided that because it's a low dose, it eventually wears off. And when it wears off, Jason's back to square one in terms of mental state. Ergo, if Jason doesn't want to live the rest of his life as quaking shivering husk of his former self...he's going to need more.

(read more for the meat of things)

So, Jason self medicates for a condition given to him by the father he has endlessly complicated feelings towards with a cure invented by a man who represents everything he hates in the world who once tried to take everything from him.

Which, insert poetic cinema gif here, I'm quite proud of myself for that one.

Anyway, there's a lot of directions you could take this. Personally I think it'd be interesting to explore Jason trying to get back into the drug trade like he did in UTRH (FULL TRANSPARENCY I HAVEN'T READ THE FULL COMIC, I KNOW BROADSTROKES BUT IM NOT GONNA TRY AND MAKE PARALLELS) as he tries to use the resources (production plants and other drug runners who can hook him up with samples of joker toxin/similar stuff you can probably find around Gotham) to manufacture his own cure that means never having to go back to the joker again. Maybe he ambushes a joker toxin chemical production plant to get his own supply, and then Jason uses this as his foothold back into that world.

This isn't necessarily me saying we should regress Jason alll the way back to UTRH, that was before his anti-hero era and I'm not willing to fully shoot him back into the past. I just think that's not how you tell good stories in a medium like comics. But it'd inherently be a little different just bc he's doing it for different, slightly more self motivated (depending on your take on villain Jason) reasons and the people around him would have a different reaction to it.

Anyway, all sorts of problems can arise! Depending on how you wanna characterize Jason (wayward son who longs to be back in the fold or black sheep who doesn't play by daddy's rules, etc) he can either a) try and hide this criminal enterprise from his giant family full of nosy detectives (good idea there jay) OR do it out in the open, trying to justify himself but still putting himself on the opposite side of the family again (not the law bc that boy hasn't been on the 'right' side of it since he died)

There's also the fact that Jason now needs to take something 24/7 in order to live his life. He essentially can't be without it, he's dependent on it, in fact he'd get sick without it despite any adverse effects it may have on him (which are guaranteed, I mean. No clinical trials)

I imagine it'd be easy to become addicted to it in some way.

And uh. This is the part where it works slightly better as a fanfic pitch than an actual comic pitch. Because as much as I think it'd be such an interesting beat for Jason's character considering his fraught history with addiction and drugs (looks away from that one urban legends story where he suggests terrorising addicts to get to the suppliers and bruce lectures him. The easiest way to make Mr "we don't sell drugs to children" sympathetic and you beefed it)

I also fully recognise that this is a sensitive topic that DC doesn't have the best track record with (although addicts aren't a monolith and feel a number of ways about addictions portrayals in comics) and that there's probably some pitfalls inherent in the premise, namely bc of Jason's background as an impoverished kid and his grey morality, and how those play into stereotypes of addicts. Addiction is already such a misunderstood and stigmatized condition that I imagine playing with it with an antihero might be enough to turn some people off. Addiction is not a moral failing and I'd hate to write it as a moral failing of Jason akin to his willingness to kill, etc.

But with all that said, I think that stereotypes are primarily harmful because of their shallowness. They inhibit understanding of groups labeled "other" by presenting them in simplistic ways that don't portray richness or complexity. And I think a truly good red hood comic could give both sympathy and complexity to Jason, even as an addict. If anything, Jason is a popular character (mostly) and there could be something nice about seeing a main character go through what you're going through, gritty details and all. YMMV (can we bring that back btw?) and it depends on execution. There's a lot of ways it could go wrong, but seeing as it just lives as a hypothetical rn, I think there's also a lot of ways it could go. I mean, not right, it's a downer story beat for Jason but it's mostly meant to be interesting and a vehicle for more stories as Jason navigates it, ya know?

Anyway, I have a lot of spiels littered in my notes app and discord DMs that elaborate on all this (how this could work as act 1 in a broader Jason story where his little operation goes to shit and he has to hit the road (jack) and maybe do some character development for better or worse. I'm a sucker and wanna say better- not squeaky clean better but. Yknow, finding himself to an extent. I recognise I'm a sap and a fool tho. Or how a new outlaws team could factor into either of those eras (since I do like Jason with an outlaws team. It gives him an excuse to exercise his compelling relationships and dynamics with other characters without having to constantly tip-toe around the elephant in the room whenever he's with the batfamily all the time. He just needs a good lineup) but that's all for another time

... though without elaborating on the vision in my head it kind of just sounds like my pitch is "Jason gets addicted to his hyper-anxiety medication" BUT I SWEAR ITS MORE THAN THAT.

It's like. If Jason has struggled as a character (and this is very subjective on my part so feel free to disagree) because he has compelling relationships with all of the batfamily, but also has compelling grey morality that makes it hard to capitalize on those relationships, without the conflict always coming to "Jason stop killing!" "Nuh uh!" OR just being ignored, and the main way writers have addressed this is via reboots instead of arcs...

Then giving Jason and the bats:

real, legitimate and fresh reason for jay to be mad at Bruce (taking their relationship of love with very little understanding to it's most dramatic conclusion)

give the family a real reason to want to bring him back into the fold (feel bad about the lobotomy and it would be pretty immoral to let Jason waste away slowly and painfully because of something Bruce did)

capitalize on all the ways Jason is sympathetic (bc the addiction is a natural lead into his backstory, which is one of his most sympathetic elements)

And the ways in which he's very out of step with the bats post-resurrection (I'd be mad asf too if i came back to life just for my dad to a) not avenge me and b) LOBOTOMIZE ME meanwhile the cunt ass clown giving me my meds is just lurking out there).

Idk it's not a sophisticated pitch as of this moment but I think a real chef (writer) could cook something w/ this

#ramblings of a lunatic #do i maintag this #uhh #dc #that's enough i don't need to bother ppl with my brain dump #you made the mistake of asking /j #i hope it's not. too out of left field for what you were expecting? if you were expecting anything #this has just been rattling in my brain since i was venting about gotham war to a friend while sick a while ago #idk jasons a hot topic rn he's seemingly controversial atm but i think he's just some guy #he needs a little direction a little tlc like i said. but I've always found him interesting and i think this is at least an idea- #-for how to deal w/ jason post gotham war #tho who knows. with the new Summer Events on the horizon maybe jason will be rebooted again #and I'll go bald all at once like silver age lex luthor #not from chemicals in a lab accident but from stress at my ideas no longer having relevance #it happens more often than you'd think #the ideas thing. not me going bald. that's only sometimes #uhhh anyway hope this absolute behemoth text isn't too much. sorry i can't physically shut up #also ppl who know more about jason amd would like to say things (CONSTRUCTIVELY) on this post feel free! #(i say constructively because. I'm sensitive. mean comments make me cry)

[carionto]

When in doubt, duct it

The prevalence of mass printers means that if the design is functional, anything can be built. Humanity boasts the largest orbital shipyards in the known Galaxy, capable of constructing vessels beyond reasonable scope and complexity, which they need to be able to do due to the sheer number of redundant systems, safety features, and the compartmentalized nature of their space craft.

So why is that half of them begin to look cobbled together after a while? Nearly all civilian craft appear unique, every single small military craft has personal modifications reflecting the pilot's and crew's personalities. We've even seen whole engineering teams rip out large sections of their massive Dreadnoughts and replace them with parts from others. One time we even saw them cut off the propulsion system of a smaller Destroyer and just...

plug it under a Capital ship.

Once again, we desperately are trying to understand the nature behind this odd behavior.

"Well, the architects and designers do a fine job, but when the rubber meats the road, or I should say, when you bump into an asteroid for the first time, only then you begin to understand what each ship is like, you know? A good pilot and crew can feel what their ship wants to really be only after you've been on it for a while.

Any ship or station starts off as a blank slate, but after a while it starts to develop a personality. And like any good friend, they take care of you, so you take care of them. Sometimes the lights just aren't right, so you replace them with a different model. Other times the recoil tilts it a little bit to where it makes the life support hiccup, so you gotta add a counterweight, but not just anything, it has to fit the vibe. Then that has it's own little complaints, and it just goes on like that.

As a matter of fact, the oldest ship in the Fleet started off as a Carrier, but over time the crew, without saying a word, just knew it was meant to be a Battleship. A few "surgeries" later and the Jubilant Axolotl added six extra generators and now can't hold a single fighter craft, is always leaking something, and has two of the biggest Rail Cannons we've ever built. She could probably punch a hole through Mars if she overloaded all her generators, but the crew think that that would be the last thing she, and everything within a few hundred thousand kilometers, ever does."

#humans are space orcs #humanity fuck yeah #humans are deathworlders #humans are space australians #humans are space oddities #carionto

[these-conquered-woodlands]

severitus incorrect quotes in chronological order of how a severitus story would go part 2

-

harry: God has let me live another day and I'm going to make it snape's problem.

-

severus: I have met some of the most insufferable people. But then they met me.

-

severus: I am in charge of this disaster! harry: I have a name, you know.

-

Police Officer: You have the right to remain silent. harry: And I choose to waive that right! harry: *screaming*

-

harry: You saved me! Why? severus: People would think I murdered you if I didn't.

-

harry: If you spell skeletons backwards, it still spells skeletons. severus, deadpan: Well well, I can't wait for Halloween to see some snoteleks.

-

harry: Oh just so you know, it's very muggy outside severus: severus: I swear, if I step outside and all of my mugs are on the front lawn- harry: *Sips tea from bowl*

-

severus: ...Why did you draw a pentagram on the floor? harry: Your note told me to satanize the house before you returned. severus: severus: Sanitize. I wrote sanitize, Potter.

-

harry: Professor, professor! severus, sighing: What's wrong now? harry: Just because I’m calling doesn’t mean there’s a crisis. severus: Well then, why are you calling? harry: Well… There’s a crisis

-

harry, holding a scooter: sev- sir, can I go outside and play with this? severus, making dinner: Whatever. I'm not your parent or anything. harry, running outside: Thanks professor! severus, running out after him in a pink apron screaming: NOT ON THE STREET! STAY AWAY!

-

harry: To make up for sending you into a fit of anguish and exasperation earlier, here, have a nice hot cup of tea! severus: It's cold. harry: A nice cup of tea. severus: It's horrible. harry: Cup of tea. severus: I'm not sure if this even is tea. harry: CUP.

-

severus : I left instructions for everyone while I'm gone. harry: Mine just says "harry no." severus : I want you to apply it to every possible situation.

-

harry: So I can either do something dumb that could very well get me injured or I can listen to Professor Snape and not do the thing, harry: Well there’s a clear right answer here. harry: *proceeds to throw five packs of mentos into a barrel full of diet coke*

-

severus, looking at a photo of harry: I hate this photo. harry: I look so sweet in that photo! I’m smiling kindly. severus : You’re not smiling kindly; you look like you’re up to something. harry: Up to kindness.

-

harry: *running towards snape with open arms* severus: *moves out of the way* harry: Hey, why'd you move?! severus: I thought you were going to attack me? harry: I was going to hug you! severus: ...Why would you hug me? harry: WHY WOULD I ATTACK YOU!?

-

severus: What's this? harry, hugging severus: Affection! severus: Disgusting. severus: ...Do it again.

-

harry: *Stubs toe* FUCK! severus: Mind your language! harry: What else am I supposed to say, “Woe is I”??? harry: You have to accept that swear words are necessary sometimes.

-

severus : What happened?! harry: Do you want the long version or the short version? severus : Short? harry: Shit's fucked. severus : Okay, long. harry: Shit's very fucked.

-

severus: Just be careful, Harry! harry: *heading out the door* I'm always careful, Severus! harry: It's everything around me that's careless.

-

harry: What’s up? I’m back. severus: I literally saw you die. You died. You were dead harry: Death is a social construct.

-

harry: ...And if I run at Severus, he will most certainly catch me in his arms. *spins around and sprints at Severus* Comin' in! severus: NOWAITI'MHOLDINGCOFFEEDON'TYOUFUCKINGDARE- *mug shatters, catches Harry*

#severus snape #hp incorrect quotes #severitus #harry potter #hp fandom #snapedom

[not-poignant]

Raphael has a very poetic and grandiose way of speaking that is absolutely not the norm for day-to-day life. How do you get in the mindset to come up with his dialogues? They're perfection and I just can't even imagine how long it would take to do one paragraph of the way he talks, but you're writing an entire story with him...

Oh I love this question because I can answer it, lol sadlkjfsda

Okay so, Raphael's character is tough for me.

Normally I do a lot of dialogue research before starting to write a character in fanfiction and original fiction, but Raphael actually gets proportionately very few lines that really show his full emotional range (compared to say, Astarion), and he's got an incredibly specific way of talking that sounds similar to Astarion but at the same time is very different.

They share enough similarities (calling people darling and dear for example) that it's easy to fall into the trap of giving them the same 'voice.'

I find Astarion's voice a lot easier to 'get' and I feel like I can hear him better when I'm writing him. But Raphael I'm taking into emotional spaces we simply never see in the game, and then I have to really guess how he'd sound (like coming up with the idea that the theatricality vanishes when Raphael is genuinely panicking).

I ended up listening to a lot of interviews with Andrew Wincott, the Voice Actor for Raphael who is an incredible actor and extremely articulate. He was very clear in one of his interviews that one of the reasons he was selected to play Raphael was because, in part, he already sounded like him. Obviously there's differences / skill in changing cadence and more, but for the most part, Andrew Wincott uses similar vocabulary and talks in a similar manner to Raphael naturally, so I had an abundance of interviews that I could then listen to in order to get a feel for Raphael's voice. I picked the things that felt more 'Raphael' and added them to my dialogue notes.

I often have to go back and edit Raphael's dialogue. Sometimes it's very simple things, I had him say 'much more' in the chapter I'm editing right now, and I edited it to 'far more' because I think he'd just phrase it like that. Sometimes I expand a sentence into an entire paragraph.

I've also leaned a lot from Korilla's transcripts in the game, which have been super useful. They really cement, more than anything, how much he loves lullabies, nursery rhymes, children's tales and more.

HOW TO DO DIALOGUE RESEARCH:-

If you're new to dialogue research, it mostly involves listening to - and watching a character and then literally taking notes of how they talk. The things you observe are:

The tone of their voice - Fast or slow. Loud or soft. Musical or flat. Theatrical or matter-of-fact. High or low. Questioning or complete statements. Considered or hedging (i.e. very well constructed sentences, or a lot of pauses, ellipses, broken sentences). Rambling or concise.

How often they talk - Some characters actually say a lot with very little. Raphael is actually a lot of observation and facial expressions and eyebrow movements in between his dialogue. Little smirks, hand gestures and more. Do they interrupt or let people finish their sentences? Are they comfortable with silence? I find Raphael oscillates between long theatrical paragraphs, single sentences or words, and then a lot of silence. He's actually not very conversational, in that you can have a conversation with him, but I doubt he'd see the point of two hours of small-talk. (At this point you might be realising that dialogue research is also character research, how a character talks tells you so much about a character.)

The words (and metaphors/subjects) they use - This is a big one and I'm going to break this down a little bit more:

How they pause if they don't know what to say. Is it 'um' 'uh' 'ah' 'hm' 'mm' 'mn' or nothing at all (or something else) because they've mastered self-control over their dialogue? If Raphael says 'ah' he does so on purpose.

Filler words. Things like characters saying 'like' in a sentence. 'He was like, 'I can't believe it'' etc. This is very similar to how they pause, but it's the things people say to get from point A to point B. People who don't do this have often had training or think very hard about what they're going to say before they say it. But people say 'like' or 'and then' or 'well' or 'i realised that' or 'i thought that' etc. to carry them on. Some are more acceptable than others (people do just have realisations for example).

Profanity. How often do they swear, and how intentional is it? Some characters only swear when they get hurt or stub their toe or get angry. Some characters swear all the time for fun. Some characters only use some swear words and not others. Be specific. Be aware that some swear words are cultural! This includes blasphemy. In Faerun they use 'gods' and 'gods damn it' more often than we use 'god' or 'oh my god.'

Vulgarity. This is useful for Raphael (and Astarion) because he's very happy to be vulgar. This is like... how comfortable are they talking about sex, about sexual subjects, being crude, being seductive, flirtatious? And if they use it, do they use vulgarity to shock, seduce, scare, threaten, or for humour?

Salutations and farewells. How do they greet people? Silence? A calm hello? (A lot of greetings are omitted in dialogue but this is still good to know). How do they say hello, goodbye. How does that change between friends and enemies and strangers?

Single word sentences. This might sound weird, but sometimes when a character hears something that shocks them, or needs to acknowledge something, they may say anything from 'huh' to 'yeah' to 'fuck' to 'okay' to 'all right' to 'sure' to 'go on' to 'indeed' to just laughing out loud. The list goes on. Raphael is team 'indeed' lmao.

Sentence structure. Raphael's sentence structure is - when he's most comfortable - gently provoking, teasing, vaguely threatening, and makes liberal use of simile, metaphor, fairy tale, rhyme, sayings, colloquialisms and more. Raphael talks like someone who knows someone could quote him at any moment lmao. But from here, how a character structures their sentences can be helpful to know. Go back to 'the tone of their voice.' Those notes will give you an idea of structure.

Emotionality. How emotional are they? Do they have rage rants? Joyful giggling dialogue? Do they infodump with little emotion? Or with sheer excitement? Does their dialogue feel fake or real? Opaque or transparent? Some people wear their hearts on their sleeves, and others will never be able to say 'I love you' in anything other than actions. Raphael's emotionality in dialogue is more present in his anger and irritation, and also when he feels triumphant and/or turned on.

The symbols, sayings, colloquialisms and metaphors themselves. Not all characters use these. But some people/characters will talk through analogies, colloquialisms. This is actually Raphael's biggest dialogue departure from Astarion, imho, aside from the fact that Astarion is a lot more emotional with his dialogue.

Take into account their culture, ethnicity, conceits, upbringing, education and the people they're close to:

This one is vital. Firstly, some people tend to 'absorb' elements of those around them. A person raised by affluent people will often 'sound affluent' and a person raised in poverty will often have dialogue that reflects this and if they don't there will be reasons for that. It might be a conceit (some people self-teach themselves different accents), it might be education, it might be training, it might be the subculture/s they've entered into, and so on.

~

When doing this research, you'll end up with a kind of master-list of actual words and probably some sentences you've written down, along with a lot of notes. You can also do this for any original characters you're making at all, you're just then making it up based on the character, and this research will also give in many ways the shape of the character.

It's a fun exercise and I highly recommend everyone tries it literally for people who don't exist and also observe your friends and family, and do a dialogue cheat sheet for some of them. It's pretty eye-opening! Even one page will teach you more than nothing at all. You can go deep and write many pages, or you can do what I do and keep it lean at 2 pages. Anyone who struggles with characterisation I suggest at least try this exercise, because anyone can put on a YouTube video and/or streaming service or even a favourite Tiktoker and start doing dialogue research! It's a way of building a character from the top down while also getting information about their foundations.

#asks and answers #pia on dialogue #pia on characterisation #pia on writing #reference #on writing #writing techniques #writing advice #dodgy advice #i might just take the second 'how to' part and make it its own post #but anyway here's how to do it!

[jellieland]

This is the way it all ends.

"It's a bit different to how we did it, isn't it?" Says Oli, squinting at Grian, who is hastily constructing a staircase up to the tiny portal.

"What do you mean?" Asks Jimmy.

"There's been lot less drama, right?" He spins around and glares suspiciously at the mustachioed robot behind them, before spinning back and almost, but not quite, falling over. "No-one's even blown anything up. It's a bit boring, really."

"Well." Jimmy shrugs, nonplussed. "I guess so." He frowns. "That is a bit odd, though, actually. Grian's here. Why hasn't anything blown up?"

("Hey!" Shouts Grian from across the room. Jimmy ignores him.)

"Maybe they felt like switching things up a bit?" Says Pix, appearing beside them.

"Jesus, Pix!" Oli claps his hand to his heart. "You can't just do that to me, I have a very delicate constitution!"

"Oh, I'm sorry Oli, I'll be more careful next time."

"See that you are!"

"Wait." Jimmy cuts in. "What do you mean switching things up a bit?"

"Well-" And here, Pix hesitates. He glances between the various hermits gathered around the room, and back to Jimmy. "Well. I know Grian's felt like he's getting a bit predictable lately. And for some reason it's important to him that he's not."

"Right, right." Says Oli, nodding sagely. "You've gotta keep 'em guessing."

Pix half-grins, half-shrugs. "I guess?"

"Huh." Jimmy looks over at Grian, eyes narrowed. "Do you think that means-"

"No, Jimmy, I don't think that means he's going to stop tormenting you, sorry." Pix looks as though he is trying very hard not to laugh.

Jimmy makes an indecipherable noise of annoyance.

"So that's the only reason they're being all boring, then?" Asks Oli.

And suddenly Pix looks serious again. Almost torn. "I- maybe." He says. "I think-" And he sighs, and turns, and looks at Grumbot with something that is almost, but not quite, guilt.

"I think," He says, "That maybe they wanted to try for a quiet ending, this time."

Jimmy opens his mouth, realizes he isn't quite sure what to say, and closes it.

Oli has no such problem. "And what in the world is that supposed to mean, Mr Lore Man?"

At that, Pix chuckles. "Here I'm just Pix, Oli." And before either of them can inquire about what that means, he continues, hesitantly. "It's not... really my story to tell. Or, well. I say that." He laughs at some kind of private joke. "It's not really my place to tell you, here."

He glances over at Sausage, whose crown is fitted perfectly to his head, then follows his gaze to what remains of the portal.

"I get it, I think." He says, still looking at the rift. "Once you've gone out with a bang once, I'd imagine taking a step back next time sounds quite appealing."

The staircase is finished. There is a birch trapdoor at the top, so they will be able to get through. If they had waited much longer, it seems, it would have been too late for them to get back at all.

Pix shrugs. "Not everything has to be the end of the world. Sometimes it's just the end of your part in it."

"Well yes, but it would be funny if it was though wouldn't it?" Says Oli. "Then they'd have to come back through with us again and they'd probably build another death robot who doesn't have any appreciation for the arts, and then we'd try and keep them there again but oh no! now they want to-"

"I think it's time to go home." Says Jimmy.

Pix nods.

"Yeah." He says. "I think it is."

#empires smp #hermitcraft #oli orionsound #jimmy solidarity #pixlriffs #my writing

[amostimprobabledream]

Ignite Me - (Homelander x Reader) Part Nine

Merry Xmas, ya filthy animals! Also available on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42771771/chapters/107448564

“This has to be a secret.”

You said to Homelander, when he finally let you go and you can breathe properly once again. You felt dizzy and not just because you were standing on top of a skyscraper. Your mouth burned from his lips on yours, like you’d been kissing a hot lamp.

“A secret?” he’d scoffed, with that imperious tilt of his head you’ve become very well acquainted with. “Why? Ashamed of me?”

“No, it’s not-“ you began, flustered, feeling a heat prickling across you, your armpits slightly damp from where you’d been sweating when Homelander first grabbed you and took off into the skies. You’re not even sure what building you’re on or how far away from home you were.

Homelander pointed a finger at you, practically wagging it in your face, and if you couldn’t detect the rising annoyance, it would almost be amusing, how expressive he was with his hands.

“Because y’know, missy, this pussying out of everything before you even get started is starting to get fucking old.” Homelander continued, his eyes boring into you like he could see right into your soul and found it lacking. “You’d think you wouldn’t just keep throwing away every chance handed to you. Do you have any idea-?“

"Will you let me speak?" you snapped at him, pulling yourself back out of his range and he allowed it, though perhaps he was simply too surprised to act immediately.

He glared at you, his lips pursing and for a second your heart seemed to pause, like it tripped for a second, but you didn't back down and something in his expression relaxed marginally. You sighed and hugged your body in a self-soothing gesture, taking a moment to construct what you want – need – to say.

"It was too much. Too fast. I was just thrown into the deep end, and I didn't know how to handle it. Being around you is like...it's like a rocket taking off and I can't do anything to stop it or control it. You've been working for Vought for years; you know how all of it works and you're told how things will go and probably get to rehearse. You know what to say and how to say it. I don't. All of this is new to me and it's not...it's not easy. I'm not saying it is for you, but at least you know what you're doing. You know the risks and you know how to handle them. So, if this is what you really want, then...we need to take things slowly."

Now Homelander frowned slightly, like that wasn't what he was expecting you to say at all.

"Go on." he said.

"I was thinking about what you said. Before." you want to say, 'when you showed me who you really are', but you had to keep it vague. "About what it's really like working for Vought. About how you have to go out and do those bullshit interviews, talk about things you can barely remember...and I was thinking about how exhausting all that sounds. How it changed things. Wasn't it better between us when Vought didn't get involved? When it didn't feel like you just wanted to keep your ratings high and you didn't think I wanted a paycheck?"

Homelander cocked his head and you could see him taking in your words, weighing them and sifting out what deeper meanings might lay behind them. It seemed he determined that there weren't any lies in what you're saying because he looked back at you, and he wasn’t pursing his lips anymore, which was a good sign. You're starting to get good at figuring out what his subtle facial expressions meant.

You risked it and placed a hand on his arm.

"Wouldn't it be nice if you had something that wasn't Vought's as well?"

Something in his gaze changed when you said that. He stared at you with almost a note of astonishment, before those piercing blue eyes softened marginally. He reached out, fingertips touching your cheek.

"What did you have in mind?" he asked.

Fast forward to now, and somehow, Homelander has agreed to coming here. For a date. With you.

Sometimes you're not sure you actually survived that shooting - you're convinced you're in some fucked up purgatory. Or maybe a coma dream. It would explain an awful lot of the sight of Homelander was the last thing you saw and imprinted on your mind somehow. No - this is a date with The Homelander. You need something stronger.

You go grab the bottle of tequila that's wedged between the fridge and microwave. Getting the lid off is tricky, it's sticky thanks to pouring it before when you were already drunk and your palm chafes against the plastic, but you manage. You don't have any limes, so you just throw it back straight, gagging. It burns your throat and threatens to come back up, so you chug some coke as well to balance out the taste. The bubbles fizzed down your throat, refreshingly cool.

Shit.

“What the fuck am I doing?” you ask your reflection. She doesn’t answer you and you sigh and stuff the tequila bottle away where you got it, lest you accidentally drink all that’s left in it.

The thud is unmistakable and you have to ready yourself before you turn around.

Homelander is standing there, cape billowing in the wind, holding something in one fist - an enormous bouquet of white roses. You couldn't be more surprised if he'd turned up holding a tiger shark.

He...brought you flowers?

You hurry over to the door and open it up – you haven’t gotten around to asking anybody to fix the lock yet, since you suspect that it would just get broken again.

“Hey there,” Homelander says brightly, handing over the bouquet, the wrapping paper crinkling. The scent of roses is almost overpowering, and you lean in to smell them – they’re so fresh it’s like they’ve been cut from a garden and brought right here.

"Hi, wow." you say, stunned – they’re enormous, probably about fifty bucks’ worth of roses. Or more, depending on where he got them from. "These are beautiful, thank you."

He looks pleased with himself, and steps over the threshold, hands behind his back.

“Come in, I’ll just put these in water.” You say, as you carry the roses over to the kitchen.

You don’t have any fancy vases, but you do find a suitably large glass that should fit them all in. You sprinkle a pinch of sugar into the water before you plop the roses in, shifting them about so all of the heads have their own space. Something about them immediately brightens up the room, the petals so white they remind you of snow.

"Why the sugar?" Homelander's voice comes from behind you, and you try not to jump.

"It helps them last longer." you explain, turning around to see his eyebrow quirk up.

"Huh. Well, aren't you just full of surprises?” he said.

“So are you.” You reply, with a little smile. “I didn’t think you were a flowers and chocolates kind of guy.”

“Well, it’s what you do on a date, isn’t it?” Homelander says with one of those megawatt TV smiles he sometimes does, and your eyes stray to his pointed incisors. He sweeps his gaze around the living room – you’d tried to tidy it up before he came, thinking that it’s probably a little annoying for someone with such heightened senses to be in messy spaces.

"No Vince today?" Homelander says, and it's amazing how much scorn he can pack into a single syllable word.

"Don't worry, he won't be back until tomorrow. I told him to fuck off, and off he fucked." you say casually, with a smile. "He's nice and low maintenance like that."

Vince had acquiesced to your instruction with total laissez faire, like his roomie having a date with the World's Greatest Superhero was just another Tuesday. Before he left, though, he'd helpfully informed you he'd rolled a couple of joints, and that they were in a box under his bed should you fancy indulging for some reason.

Honestly, you were tempted.

“So! I thought we could watch a movie.” You say brightly, keen not to linger on your roommate. You know Homelander doesn’t approve of you sharing a space with Vince – not that it’s any of his business – and though you’ve assured him nothing has or will ever happen with him, you don’t want to start the evening off on the wrong foot.

Homelander opens his mouth, closes it again, and then stares at you.

“What…here?” he says, gesturing around your apartment in apparent disbelief. You can’t help smirking a bit at his reaction. He can be such a snob, but you wouldn’t expect anything less from anybody who works for Vought.

“I know it’s no multiplex, state-of-the-art set up, but if we go out anywhere, we’ll get followed around by people with cameras.” You point out, adding quickly before he decides to point out that he can fly away from any paparazzi; “I bought snacks for the occasion and everything!”

He looks a little confused, but a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, almost despite himself.

“Snacks, huh?” he says and a knot in your stomach eases – you can tell by his tone he’s decided to humour you. “Well, can’t let those go to waste, now can we?”

“Exactly.” You say, then pause. “You don’t drink, right? What do you want to go with the popcorn?”

“Milk.” Homelander responds promptly, hands behind his back. “Please.”

You’re baffled but you’re not going to question his choice – if he wants milk, you don’t see why you shouldn’t give him some. And he did say please. You just hope he isn’t picky about what kind because you only have semi-skimmed. You take out a bag of popcorn and stick it in the microwave. You can feel him watching you and it makes you self-conscious, like you’re acting in a play for an audience of one.

“Why don’t you sit down and find something for us to watch?” you say, careful to phrase it so it isn’t an order. “I’ll just be a second.”

He eyes the carton of milk in your hand, but he nods agreeably enough and approaches the sofa, and you notice he twirls his cape up and out of the way before he sits down and you get a glimpse of his firm, toned ass as he does it. You bite the inside of your cheek to stop yourself from smiling and pour the drinks, deciding not to pour yourself anything alcoholic, in the interest in trying to keep things running as smoothly as possible without having Homelander complaining about being able to smell it on your breath.

“Christ, how can you watch anything with a TV this small?” Homelander comments, though his tone is teasing rather than annoyed.

“It’s not small!” you protest, laughing a bit despite yourself. He’s so ridiculous sometimes. “It’s perfectly normal-sized, thank you. Anyway, there’s no way I’m buying a bigger one and trying to carry up all the stairs.”

The lift in your place does work, but it’s sometimes a little temperamental and you don’t really have the money to just go throwing around at a new TV whenever you want. You approach Homelander where he’s sprawled on the sofa, carrying the drinks in your hands and popcorn wedged in the crook of your elbow, when you spot what he has queued up on the TV.

“No, absolutely not, we’re not watching one of the Seven movies.” You roll your eyes - of course he was going to put something on starring himself.

“And why not?” Homelander protests, shooting you a raised eyebrow. “I do all my own stunts, you know. You think fucking Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bruce Willis can actually lift a truck over his head? Fuck no. I can.”

“Yes, but it kind of defeats the purpose of enjoying a movie if you’re going to sit there thinking about how you look onscreen and talking about what happened on set.” You point out, setting the drinks on the coffee table, along with a bowl of popcorn. “This is meant to be relaxing.”

You were going to sit down next to him, but apparently, Homelander had other ideas. No sooner had you gotten in range of him, he moved, so suddenly you didn't even have time to respond, and his hands fastened around your hips as he drew you down as nonchalantly as you'd pick up a cat. Next thing you know, you're perched on his lap, a startled look painted across your face.

Oh, okay.

"So, what were you thinking, since you've vetoed my suggestion?" Homelander says, flattening his palm on your breastbone and easing you back so you're no longer perched stiffly on his knee but instead you're now fully seated on his lap. It takes you a second to respond, too busy reeling over the fact that Homelander just casually pulled you onto his lap like it's no big deal and you just use the face of America as a chair all the damn time.

"Uh, maybe a... drama? Or a comedy, maybe?" you suggest, stumbling over your words, since he probably would find action movies boring - what can possibly happen in an action movie he doesn't do on a daily basis? "You pick one."

You hand him the remote and Homelander hums, beginning to flick through the menu - he seems less put out about watching one of the Seven movies shot down now that you've given him control over the final pick. To be honest, suddenly it doesn't seem that important - you hate yourself for thinking this and being such a slave to a little bit of physical contact, but it's the comfiest lap you've ever sat on. The padding of his suit means his thighs are nice and plush, but you can feel muscle underneath it too. And he smells nice – he probably has some specially-made cologne that normal plebians can’t buy. Plus, he's pleasantly warm and-

Oh god.

Yep. So that's...Homelander's dick. you think, stunned, as something nudges insistently against your ass. You're glad you're facing away from him, because you know you're blushing, and you know he knows you can feel it. Feel him. Fuck, he can probably hear your heartbeat increasing light the frightened thumping of a rabbit's, but you’d argue that it’s not really your fault because jesus christ, he's big. It's been a while since you've had a fuck, you can only imagine how much stretching-

Whoa there friend, you might need to slow down! You think, sinking your teeth into your bottom lip, the little pinprick of pain to try and stabilise you and your wandering thoughts.

“Hm…are you wearing perfume?” you hear Homelander say, his voice becoming a velvety drawl, no doubt taking immense enjoyment at getting you flustered so easily.

His breath fans across your neck as he moves a little closer. His nose gently butts against the back of your head as he breaths in and a shiver crawls down the length of your spine. Somehow it feels wildly erotic to have him scenting your perfume, appreciating the way it smells as it lingers on your skin.

“Just a little bit.” you reply in an unfortunately breathy voice.

Actually, this is one of your favourite perfumes – you always think of sitting in a fancy French café with little cakes whenever you wear it, and your friends always ask you where you got it from. Homelander liking it too makes you feel light-headed, but in a good way. You’re stupidly pleased he likes your choice – that he approves of it.

“Smells good.” He all but purrs and oh, that’s not fair…

“Thank you.” You say, shivering as his teeth gently graze your neck.

It's not the first time he’s kissed you, but this is different. It’s not a frantic moment fuelled by panic in an emergency, it’s not a desperate kiss made in an attempt to communicate something words can’t say. No, this time, he’s doing it simply because he feels like it. His mouth is hot, and you can’t stop thinking about how those sharp canines of his are so close to you, he could break the skin with all the effort normal people use to tear paper. Yet he’s pressing hot, lazy kisses to your neck instead. You shift on his lap, the movie becoming nonsensical babbling in the background.

He doesn’t leave his hands idle, either. He can tell you’re enjoying the kissing, so he thinks nothing about sliding a hand around to your chest and taking a handful of your breasts. You gasp a bit with how nonchalantly he does it, but it’s hard to start any belated protesting now when it feels so good – even with the gloves on it feels nice, the friction of fabric sending glorious tingles rocketing across your skin. He slides his fingers between the cups of your bra to play with your nipple, rolling it between thumb and index finger. You let out a hiss of pleasure, the sensation of it blooming through your chest. Clearly, he’s no novice when it comes to some titty-fondling.

“Fuck…” you say in a whisper, but he can hear you just as well as if you were yelling it.

His fingers cup your jaw and gently, so gently – he turns your head so he can get at your mouth as well. The burning blue of his eyes is so fucking intense that it’s a relief to close your eyes and melt into the touch. When he’s like this, it’s easy to forget what he can really do, that he isn’t just a guy you’re kissing but a Supe. The Supe. The Strongest Man in the World. That he wants this, with you, is intoxicating. Like a potent shot of validation and lust straight to the vein.

His hand pops the fly on your jeans with no effort and the next moment his hand is creeping over your groin, index finger teasing at the entrance of your cunt. A breathy sigh leaves your mouth and suddenly you can't even absorb a single word of the movie.

"Homelander-"

"Mmhmm?" he hums, just the hint of a gravel in his voice, and he tilts his hips a bit, so his crotch rubs against your ass as the pad of his finger slides up and nudges against your clit. You'd think that the thickness of the gloves would be a hindrance in him even finding it, let alone it feeling any good when he- when he-

Oh, fuck.

His finger sinks deeper into you, and you can’t help it when you mewl in pleasure. Shit, this not what you had planned for tonight, there are still so many factors outside of your control to consider, but logic and reasoning have clearly left the building. Your stupid, primal brain likes the sensation and has no intention of letting you put the brakes on. You want this so much you feel like you’re burning up from the inside with it. You’ve wanted it for a long time, you think – you just didn’t want to let yourself give in to it.

"I think," Homelander mutters in your ear and you can feel the heat of his breath, the rumble in his throat hitting some primal part of your brain that makes you shiver. "We should take this to your room. Don't you?"

#The Boys (2019) #Homelander #Homelander x Reader #The Boys (2019) x Reader #fanfiction #Writings

[lesuccube]

➚ 𝐅𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐑 : ꜱᴛᴇᴠᴇɴ ɢʀᴀɴᴛ — ᴛᴀꜱᴛᴇ ᴏꜰ ꜱᴜɴꜱʜɪɴᴇ

𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒 — how's life like with the sweetest british man ever ?

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 — fluff infection , mild smut virus

𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 — not beta'd , constructive criticism is welcomed . reblogs and comments are appreciated .

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓 — 1.6k

you and steven have been together for a good half a year and i picture steven as a more needy kind of boyfriend. the man lacked so much attention and affection before and now that he has you in his life, he never wants that to stop. he tries hard not to be needy or clingy but he can't help it.

he just wants you to look at him, love him and spend your time with him and only him. sometimes it's overwhelming but you always make sure to tell steven when it starts to get too much but those are extremely rare. you're always happy to indulge the man with some well deserved love and affection!

he's brought up the idea of you moving in with him when you hit the fifth month of being together actually.

you always end up staying over at his place whenever you two hang out (because he literally won't let you go home sometimes under the guise that it's too late for you to go back and he doesn't want anything to happen to you). i mean, he's already given you the spare copy of his keys with a matching koala keychain attached to the keyring.

you tell him that you'll consider it, not saying yes but not really saying no. he's hopeful though, would keep asking you about it after every week as both an inside joke and a serious offer.

after the whole ammit stuff that went down in cairo, steven actually reapplied at the museum! he managed to get word that donna was fired and someone else has replaced her spot . you convinced him to go back and do what he loves, reassuring steven that he'll do great.

it took a few days of convincing but in the end he did listen to you and applied for the tour guide position and he got the role with flying colors! the museum was thoroughly impressed by his knowledge of ancient egypt and gave him the job on the spot and he would be starting as a guide the following week.

you treated steven with home cooked vegetarian meals and wine that night and proceeded to end the night tangled between the sheets.

you definitely cook in the relationship. steven got a taste of you cooking stir fry once and he's begged you to keep cooking for him ever since.

he had shyly asked you to pack him lunch when he was about to start at his new role as a tour guide and you happily obliged! you make him cute vegetarian bentos daily and leave a small sticky note on his lunch box filled with words of encouragement.

you don't know this but he actually kept every single one of them in a tiny box and hid it within his shelves.

you own a car which makes steven your permanent designated passenger princess!

you think it's adorable the way he blushes profusely when you open the door for him and whines that he should be the one doing that for you, only for you to shush him and tell him that you enjoy doing it for him.

you 100% hold hands a lot especially during longer drives or if he's feeling cheeky, he'd sneak a hand on your thigh that would begin to travel higher and higher.

on those days you'd have to find a place to park and fast to sneak a quickie, edging poor steven until he's all whiny and submissive, begging for his release. but you do remind him he was being bad by distracting you while driving. he'd have to wait until later that day to be able to cum.

at times like that he's glad he wears loose and baggy clothings because it would have been embarrassing to walk around with a raging hard on outlining his jeans even though it's his fault in the first place that he has to deal with his boner while on a date with you.

you tried to build furniture together once. it was just a shelf actually, so that the book piled on the floor of his flat would have a better home. but you found out you both sucked at it, there were screws missing and the manual confused the hell out of you two even though the instructions were really easy and simple to follow.

you both gave up mid-work and the poor shelf ended up as a half finished product tucked away at one corner of his flat collecting dust.

i'm a firm believer that steven is a romanticist. he's pretty old-fashioned about it too.

he writes you handwritten letters every month celebrating the day you had agreed to be his girlfriend. if his shift at the museum ends earlier than your work, he'd pick you up at the lounge area of your work building with a fresh bouquet in hand. he plans your dates together!

he'd always make sure to ask you your free days and tries to align his own schedule with yours so you can go on a date next weekend for a trip at the farmer's market and then have some breakfast at a quaint café a little ways from the city. he's a romantic sap and you wouldn't have him any other way.

you buy gus the second new decorations in his aquarium. you never saw the original gus, all that you knew was that the first one really only had one fin.

when you asked about how the original gus was replaced he was hesitant at first, thinking you might be weirded out by his condition but marc was the one who dared him to try and tell you. so he let you know bits and pieces about his did, introduced you to marc after many heavy debates with his reflection (when you weren't around).

in conclusion, the chicagoan liked you for steven which in turn meant that he did too but that's a story for another time.

steven is a sub and you can't change my mind. bratty but a sub nonetheless. he likes that you take control and he's more than happy to give it to you with very little resistance. a little spanking sets him straight if he doesn't behave.

i also headcanon him being into bondage. he likes it when you tie him up, colorful ropes knotted and binding him in place, the anticipation of waiting for you to touch him turns him on even more.

he prefers things like silk ribbons rather than handcuffs and yes, you've definitely gagged him before when he starts to get too loud after receiving a complaint from your downstairs neighbor about your activities.

you once made an offhand comment about steven looking extremely peggable, it left him a blushy stuttering mess. but one day when you come home from work, steven is sitting on his bed looking nervous and squirmy, a big paper bag next to him.

"steven baby, what's wrong?" you ask as you set your bag on the floor next to him before kneeling in front of him, taking his hands in your own. "i um... do you remember love when you— you said i was... peggable?" he says the last word in a tiny whisper, a blush spreading from his cheeks to the tips of his ears and down his neck. he lets go of your hand to give you the bag with shaky nervousness, looking away as you peer at the contents inside: a strap on and a big bottle of lube.

"d-do you think we could uh— would you like to try it love? i-i'm fine with it if you are." let's just say you and steven had a very fun time experimenting into his new kink.

i feel like sweet steven would propose to you after a year and a half into the relationship?

yes he knows he's moving too fast but to him, you're everything. you're it. (let's say marc and layla divorced after cairo okay? okay.) plus marc liked you too. he liked you a good amount (he loves you but marc's stubborn and insists he only likes you a healthy amount) he would front and spend some time with you too. to steven that's like the best thing he could ask for.

"we don't have to marry right away, love. we're busy with work with you getting ready for your promotion and i'm getting more and more tours and it's been hectic enough for us as it is but one day yeah? one day i would love to see you walk down the aisle where we'd both say our vows and by the end of it, i get to finally call you my wife." he rambles as he kneels in front of your crying figure, ring in hand.

i know we all think he'd be a blubbering mess when proposing but i personally don't see him doing that.

if that man proposes, it's because he's set his mind into it after thorough deliberation. if he proposes, it's with confidence and purpose.

he doesn't prepare a speech, just relays what his heart tells him and it's telling him that his love for you was more than life itself and that he wants nothing more than for you to give him the absolute honor of having him as your husband. you had to kiss him to shut up so you can finally tell him...

"it's a yes steven, it will always be a yes for me. i love you more with each day i get to be with you, and to spend the rest of my waking days with your last name as my own? if this was a dream steven grant, never wake me up because i would love to be your wife. i'm yours and only yours if you'll have me."

#👤 — user : kira #📂 — file : steven grant #moon knight #moon knight x reader #moon knight fanfiction #moon knight imagine #moon knight fluff #steven grant #steven grant x reader #steven grant fanfiction #steven grant imagine #steven grant fluff

[gynandromorph]

It's okay not to answer, I know it's broad territory, but I really respect you as an artist and writer. How do you handle people misinterpreting or missing elements of your work, especially when they may still enjoy it and get something out of it? As an artist I'm struggling lately with knowing my work will always inherently be read differently from what I intended as a matter of the human experience, as well as me being autistic complicating my ability to communicate.

An addition to that last ask. I don't know if it's clear what I'm asking so I'll give some examples. A 50 year old man and a 21 year old woman will get different things from a movie due to their lived experiences. As a gentile reader I might miss jewish narrative themes in a piece of work. That doesn't mean it's bad for us to have experienced it, but as an author I find it frustrating when something is missed or misinterpreted, and I don't know how not to be a control freak about it.

i feel you, i have ocpd and being misinterpreted when i agonized and stressed about how to present my wording makes me want to light myself on fire and it's something i'm working on. writers are supposed to expect and account for different perspectives ahead of time, so it always sort of shocks me when i hear interpretations i wouldn't have thought about at all. i know logically i can't predict all outcomes, but it's still surprising anyway!!! but i generally feel a lot of distress about being misinterpreted because i'm afraid it'll label me as A Bad Person, so i think that's where the experience diverges. maybe investigating why you need to or want to control the way your work is interpreted would help as a starting point? i think having a larger audience helps, too... it means more people will misinterpret your work, but it also means you're more likely to have at least One Guy who interprets it just right and makes fireworks go off in your brain, but there's no way to control how big your audience is!

anyway, the ways to control how your work is interpreted, to the degree that you can:

you can make it simpler. the more parts a story has added to its complexity, the more it's going to be misinterpreted.

you can make the intended message more blatant. you can have a character say exactly what you want the audience to think or hear, or something very close to it. don't want a detail missed? make it bigger.

you can reprioritize parts of the story. basically think of a group of interpretations you want the audience to have if you can, and then put them in order of importance. then the story has a hierarchy to lean on wrt artistic decisions.

you can give the story multiple meanings. more targets to hit. if they're mutually exclusive, i find this works better... i like making my stories ambiguous with conflicting interpretations a lot. yeah, people are going to interpret the story wrong, because it was made in a way that will guarantee it is interpreted wrong in some way.

you can layer the meaning so that less literate audience members will at least get SOME of what you intended. basically, close to the previous strategy, but like a hybrid of that and "make it simpler" imo because you're constructing multiple interpretations that are all supposed to lead to one conclusion (like a persuasive essay or something), but can act as an adequate conclusion on their own.

all of these options have obvious qualitative losses. if you have anything in particular that is repeatedly misinterpreted or missed, it's a good idea to think about Why you're making those choices. consciously committing to a higher-risk artistic choice will help you feel more in control of what happens to it once it's done. the way your art is interpreted isn't totally out of your control, you are making decisions that add to or mitigate the risk of misinterpretations, and you can bring those choices to a more conscious awareness to see them and appreciate them. sometimes it'll feel like a begrudging compromise, but it'll still be Your choice ultimately.

on an emotional level... hopefully this makes sense. there's always going to be the piss-on-the-poor scenario and sometimes i just remind myself that some people are not as literate as me, but it's great we were still able to connect through a work that was probably difficult for them!!! it was a privilege to get to grow up with a good education, access to art and technology, strangers who want to look at what i made, and there are times where i take this for granted, and my expectations of readers are actually kind of unreasonable!!! some people are younger than me and say stupid things like i did, but they aren't able to understand things like me yet, and it's important for them to learn by figuring it out on their own!!! i was and will always be That Guy to other artists and other writers, and i want to give other people the same grace as i get. some people have wildly different life experiences compared to mine, and these experiences can be much more nuanced than i could ever imagine, but it's a little gift that they made my world larger by sharing theirs through my art!!! it's terrifying and embarrassing knowing that i don't know much of anything, even about something i have total control over, but the consequences of that aren't always negative. and possibly the saddest but most common way i deal with this is nothing more than accepting that no one is ever going to understand me on the level that i want to be understood. sometimes my frustration has come from a place of miserable alienation, where the need to feel Seen can be quite desperate. i've made art explicitly about Me, and i've made art deliberately hostile towards its audience, art that's said they don't get it and they never will, but they still bothered to try. i made a game that said no one will win here and they still played it with me, and i can appreciate that. in many cases, they actually know more about me than i know about them. but more importantly, it isn't my audience's job to take care of that emotional need -- in fact, as much as art is made out to be a mode of pure self-expression, i don't think they can. it's a reality that i don't like, but i accept it. art made to benefit others is a one-way mirror: you make them feel seen, but they should never see you, because if they see you, the mirror isn't working.

[theromanticrationalist]

Some Thoughts on Sheldon Cooper. . .

"Leonard, I am overwhelmed. Everything is changing and it is simply too much. I need to get away and think." | 7x24 The Status Quo Combustion

"Dr. Cooper, while you were away we came up with a solution that would allow you to change your field of study." "Wow. Pouting and running away actually worked! Yeah, I must say, that may not be the lesson you want to reinforce with me." | 8x02 The Junior Professor Solution

"I'm not leaving your world. I'm just talking about living across the hall." "I understand. Either way, I want you to know that I'm aware of how difficult I can be. So, I just want to say thank you for putting up with me." | 8x12 The Space Probe Disintegration

"It just seems silly to eat in two groups." "It doesn't seem silly if you think of that group as being lead by a big, evil baby." *a few moments later and everyone situated around the couch* "Well, isn't this nice. Sometimes the baby wins!" | 7x16 The Table Polarization

"Two years ago I got my driver's license." "What?! Why didn't you say anything?!" "I like being chauffeured around. It makes me feel important." | 10x16 The Allowance Evaporation

These are some of the moments where Sheldon shows a level of great self-awareness. I bring these moments up as showcasing that Sheldon's level of emotional maturity is much greater than his friends (and the writers of this show) give him credit for. One of the main problems is how the narrative often treats Sheldon as if he is completely incapable of growth, maturity, or taking care of himself. The truth couldn't be further from this. Even the narrative itself shows how much Sheldon changed during his relationship with Amy. The primary problem is that Sheldon's personality is so big and overwhelming, he doesn't HAVE to change because he is able to get everyone to do what he wants anyway, which he is fully aware of and exploits constantly. I mean if you are Sheldon, someone who has a mind sharper and faster than anyone you meet and prefer to have tight, tyrant-like control over your reality in order to feel safe and secure, pushing and manipulating people around to do your will is going to come naturally with the territory. The problem wasn't that Sheldon is a stunted adult who can't manage life on his own, but it is in the fact that Sheldon rarely got constructive and encouraging push back for his behaviors and choices. For when he did, which primarily came from Amy, he was fully capable of making corrections to his behaviors and expanding his worldview. It just ended up that he was either treated poorly and abusively or enabled and placated. That's why I really love the moment with Mrs. Davis when he comes back from his train-riding "sabbatical". Changing his field of study was a HUGE cataclysmic event in Sheldon's life and was one aspect that was causing him the greatest distress. Yet even in this reality-altering experience, Sheldon realizes that some of his responses to it weren't healthy, and makes a note of it with her, e.g. don't reward my childish behaviors because I will take FULL ADVANTAGE OF THEM. There was SUCH a missed opportunity there at the end of Season 7 going into Season 8. Penny realizing that she and Leonard needed to let Sheldon go, allowing him to make his own choices and do what he felt was right for him was a huge revelation for the characters. It was kind of a significant, paradigm shifting moment! I naively thought that they would build on that going forward in the show, but nah. Of course not. Any moments that would have allowed for such growth from all the characters were usually walked-back or dropped. It is such a shame, and makes the watching of this show frustrating for me. And yes! I know! I realize this is a sitcom! Why am I expecting such highbrow writing from something that is primarily supposed to be comedic and entertaining? Well, I think this subtext was implied in the narrative despite itself, especially with Jim Parsons. I think his acting conveys a lot of Sheldon's complexity through his body language and micro-expressions. There is SO MANY LAYERS to Parsons' performance, I just do not see how you couldn't possibly get wrapped up in dissecting them and having higher expectations of the narrative you are watching. Jim Parsons MAKES this show, otherwise what else would it offer?

#anyway just my two cents #my thoughts #my sheldon cooper thoughts #sheldon cooper #young sheldon #jim parsons #the big bang theory

[a-town-called-hometown]

hi!! i loved your post about deltarune's metafiction and its (not) escapist themes, and it got my brain jogging, like... i guess ive just been thinking "why"? like ive heard that take before and i think its valid, but also like. why ? its obvious enough to me that deltarune uses the lightner/darkner relationship as a reflection of the player/game relationship and both of these things are addressed critically, but i can't help but wonder if there's a driving force for it all, outside of deltarune. like i can accept diegetically the darkners are not, or shouldn't be, subject only to the whims of lightners, but with any good story if you break it down to its core is ultimately saying something about humanity or the world and such. i mean i seriously doubt the people who seem to think that Toby Fox intends to induce *actual* guilt into the people who fund his life's work and career by purchasing his videogames, like, it's obvious that "you are a bad person because you play this videogame" isn't the intended message, nor was it in undertale. but then, what is? what is the purpose of a story that invites us to think of toys and game characters as "real"? not to trash my beloveds but i mean, literally speaking, their lives DONT matter, they r not real. it just feels like ive seen a lot of discussion about 'what' toby is doing with the narrative but i feel like that's only half the ordeal, the other half would be the reason why. my first thought was that the implicit 3rd thing being compared to the light-dark, player-game thing is actual social hierarchy IRL in which people are oppressed by another group that doesnt see them as human, bc iirc toby talked a bit about feeling powerless and wanting to do more to change the real world on real issues in an interview in 2020ish and of course there's the snarky gag about the fedora plugboy who doesn't like politics, so he doesn't care that an evil ruler is taking over the world. im not sure if that sits right with me as what the intention is (esp because the latter is a darkner talking about another darkner) but i couldnt think of much else although i do feel like a fallacy people get themselves into a lot in the fandom is the assumption that toby fox is this Impeccable Writing Machine and not just like A Guy. people make weird or flawed art sometimes, it doesn't *have* to adhere to standards. maybe deltarune is meaningless (or the meaning IS that it's meaningless, as though to complete the metaphor of it being a "real" fictional world, because if it is 'real' then like our world there is no "answer" or "purpose", it simply *is*.) dunno! im not expecting it to boil down to a simplistic fairytale moral like "dont bully people!!" or something, mr. fox tends to write more convoluted than that, but i feel like if there's something to be gained from this particular part of the game's story then i'm not sure i see the vision. what do u think? do u think this question is even answerable with only two chapters?

respectfully, I do heavily disagree with the notion that good stories necessarily have to say anything about the world or about humanity. one of the reasons I like metafiction is that it usually says something about how stories are constructed, and that's enough for me. there's plenty of stories that have bigger themes that aren't really all that much about human nature, at least, not directly. a story can comment on one specific thing without necessarily making a broader statement about people, you know? not every story has an easily explained moral lesson.

that being said, yes, this plot element is in service of deltarune's larger themes! which are about agency, control, fate, and identity.

deltarune's fate theming and its metafiction elements are a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation given how interlocked they are, but I've found it helpful to describe deltarune as a "person vs. fate narrative that uses a metafictional lens to characterize fate." rather than the three fates of greek mythology or whatever dictating its characters' lives, it is instead the structure of the rpg their world was made to be. they are player characters. they are npcs. they play specific roles in the narrative. no one can choose who they are in this world.

control is emphasized in this story. there's the control we have over kris, of course, and in a much subtler way the control we have over the world through them. there's the darkner-lightner hierarchy, which parallels our dynamic with kris. i would argue that there are even social forces in hometown which also serve to place the lightner characters into specific roles. under this level of control, it's hard for characters to push back and determine their own identities.

all these forces combine to mean that deltarune's characters are fighting back against the narrative itself! which says stuff about people's agency, and the way rpgs are written, and how we interact with all that...

ultimately, you can apply this to real life. even if there aren't things like "fictional people who are actually real," hierarchies of control do exist in real life. narratives that erase the agency and internality of certain types of people exist in real life. it's admittedly a rather general statement, but like with any narrative about fate, seeing characters resist rules that are seemingly written into the fabric of their existence can make you feel inspired to also define your own identity! and to be transgender. don't forget to be transgender

#deltarune #deltarune analysis #im not kidding deltarune really did make me transgender.

[coquelicoq]

@loreofcardigan tagged me to list 5 topics i can talk on for an hour without preparing any material ! thank you nym 🧡

umm i guess my first question is whether i need to say accurate things about the topic for an hour or if i can just sort of bullshit it. lol. so how about i list five things and then say how much of the hour would be bullshit?

crossword construction. this would be 0% bullshit. many a person has rued getting me going on this topic.

french phonotactics. this talk might be hard to get started without a specific prompt, but once i found an in, i could keep it up for an hour. >50% would have to be bullshit (or be qualified with a lot of "my guess is..."es) because i haven't formally studied this and hell i can't even distinguish all the french phonemes. but i could sound very convincing to people who don't know anything about french or phonotactics!

i bet i could talk about murderbot for an hour. 15% bullshit of the "mmm...that's a reach" variety, but most of my theories are i think pretty well supported.

that poem about the ocean i wrote a few years ago. i recite poetry to myself sometimes when i'm upset or have insomnia or just for funsies, and one time i couldn't fall asleep so i tried reciting this poem but got distracted analyzing it and stayed up an hour explaining it to myself. but i wouldn't have been sleeping anyway so it was fine. generally i should be able to talk for an hour about any poem i've written, as a poem is a dense and intricate system for communicating something, and to communicate that something in another way, or to break down the way in which the poem is communicating it, would be pretty involved. but that one in particular i know i could talk about for an hour because i've done it before. this would be 0% bullshit because i wrote the fuckin thing lol.

paintings of light reflecting off water. one of my favorite topics, however it would be nigh on 80% bullshit because i know nothing about visual art except how it makes me Feel. how does it do what it does, and what techniques are at the artist's disposal to make it do that, and what context is any one painting (or style of painting, or artistic technique, or motif, etc.) in dialogue with? fuck if i know. but boy could i make stuff up about it.

tagging @joelletwo, @qserasera, @uovoc, @grammarpedant, @dangerliesbeforeyou, @opalescent-potato, @treecakes, and @ctl-yuejie but as always no pressure <3

#i could talk about the process of writing a crossword all the livelong day but do i? no. as a favor to you #tag games

[meenawrites]

Spider Modern AU cause I can't help myself

I've seen so many people doing this and I love so much so I shall be participating as well. I'll also be doing other characters but this post is dedicated to Spider rn. I should really be working on my finals rn but here I am.

Spider is 100% a theater kid. Like no question about it. This kid can sing, he can dance, he can do gymnastics. He's the theatre troupe's pride and joy honestly, he's always pulling big stunts that wow the audience. This also ties into his love of storytelling in general so of course he's a theatre kid. Which ALSO means a lot of his playlist is musical songs cause.. ya know, obviously. I'd imagine Kiri actually secretly gave him access to her Spotify so he'd got access to premium (secret meaning everybody but Neytiri knows tbh). 

I think Spider actually does pretty well academically. He's a fast learner and his brain absorbs things like a sponge so once he understands a concept, it's all A's for him. It kind of pisses Kiri off how smart he is without trying sometimes, but she's also super proud of him for proving his haters (and her mom) wrong. 

This kid is the Anti-Bully of the school. He sees anyone bullying anyone and he's already aiming a punch at their face. Because of that, he's kind of seen as the protector of underclassmen and targets in general so he's pretty well liked generally, except for by the traditionally popular kids. Also not super popular with parents cause all that really sticks in their heads is violent Tarzan kid. He kind of stops with the physical violence once Kiri expresses her worry for him and how she doesn't want him to just blindly resort to violence all the time. But then he starts making comments to bullies that piss them off equally so there's no real winning for him here lol.

I think Spider likes working with his hands a lot so on top of acting in theatre, he also comes up with and constructs a lot of things for set and they always look incredible. 

Also, inspired by @be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie 's latest post, he joins the cheer team in solidarity with Lo'ak because he wants to get close to Tsireya. Refer to her post for more detail on that, I reblogged it if that helps. 

Despite being a year older than both Neteyam and Kiri, Spider and Neteyam actually share a lot of classes because Neteyam is a star student and skipped a grade. Kiri could probably also skip a grade if she wanted to, but her head's a little too in the clouds during classtime for any of her teachers to recommend it, even if she does get good grades. 

Spider still has his hair long, though I'm not sure if he would let it just endlessly keep growing or he would trim it here and there to his shoulders just to manage the curls a bit. I imagine his hair grows pretty fast so maybe once a year he chops it back to his shoulders and in like three months it's already almost to his elbows. He's gotten pretty good at braiding though, so when he can't be bothered to put effort into maintaining his curls, he just brushes his hair violently and braids it all in like dutch braids or other complicated hairstyles. The girls' soccer team probably starts recruiting him to braid their hair before games (based on my own experience lmao).

On a more serious note with his home situation... I think as a kid he was probably passed through multiple foster homes and all of them kind of said that he's too much for them. Then he ends up with the McCoskers and while they're not ideal they never say anything like that or try to get rid of him (yes they neglect him but seeing how he was treated before and they're not kicking him out, he's okay with them just giving him a place to stay). At least I'd imagine until maybe something big happens like he overworks himself or something and who notices other than the new family in town? The Tonowari family. And then they swoop in and are like 'mine now' and Spider's just like what? Unconditional love? A home where they notice I'm gone? Where I don't have to find my own food? What is this?

BUT IF TRUDY LIVED: so I imagine as a kid he'd still maybe be passed through the foster system a little, but Trudy is invested in his well-being, she's just still convinced there's some couple out there who'd be better for Spider overall until she sees all of them rejecting this perfect kid and she's like screw it and screw my own problems, I'll work through them for this kid but I'm taking him. And he's a happy boy thank you very much, loves his mama to death. 

I'll probably have stuff to add eventually but take this for now. 

#Spider Socorro #Spider avatar #Trudy Lives #Meena's modern AU #Trudy is Spider's mom #Neytiri #Spiri #Kiri #Tsireya #Neteyam #Lo'ak #Tuk #Tonowari #avatar 2 #Avatar the way of water

[drdemonprince]

How do you tell the difference between perfectly reasonable bitch sessions about people processing their problems with others/groups, as opposed to having ended up in a clique? I've been in situations a few times in my life where I ended up in a friend group whose complaining about others made me feel very irritated and/or uncomfortable. But I can't tell whether that's a reasonable reaction or whether my own tendencies towards people-pleasing and toxic positivity.

I don't want to give in to a bad impulse to "play devil's advocate" or anything, but my internal reaction tends to be "well, at the moment I'd rather be with them than you" and start looking for chances to make more distance so I won't be privy to those discussions anymore. But then I worry that distancing myself from people because of unexpressed discomfort isn't the right thing to do either.

To further complicate the matter: I also criticize people behind their backs sometimes! I feel like it can contribute to less charged, more robust relationships with those around me. My tolerance for this in general has gone up a bit over the years, and now someone else is doing it about a person whose flaws I've also seen doesn't bother me nearly as much. I can't tell if that's reasonable, hypocritical, or a secret third thing. I feel like I do it with the intention of ultimately getting to know/deal with them better, but maybe that's just toxic positivity talking again.

TL;DR any tips for how to a) identify constructive vs. destructive talking about people behind their backs when I'm privy to it, and b) respond if it seems like the destructive kind?

I think the search for an over-arching rule of what should be acceptable here is the wrong tactic! Rather than worrying so much about whether what you are doing is okay, or hypocritical, or too devils-advocatey, or too fawning, or what's the optimal level and form of talking about other people to which you should permit in yourself and others.... please just let yourself actually trust how you feel! This is an interpersonal vibe issue and how you feel and what you want matters.

It annoys you to be around people who are super negative and judgmental toward others. You think the judgements this person is making of a third party are needless. Just say that! You don't have to have some grand unified theory of why it's not acceptable for them to speak in this way or some established rule set to justify how you feel. How you feel is the point! These are your relationships and you get to decide how you feel about them!

Here are some statements that are totally acceptable to say in this situation:

"I don't really like hearing you talking so negatively about people."

"Can we talk about something else? This is not interesting to me."

"I don't have any problem with them, let's move on."

"When you talk about other people like this, it makes me wonder how you see me."

"Yeah yeah I get it the picture, you don't like them. Played any good video games lately?"

Or, if they are insistent in continuing to complain about people or talk negatively in ways that you dislike and don't listen when you say it's unpleasant for you, you could just not hang out with this person! This is a very legitimate reason to not like somebody.

I had a partner for a while who would constantly talk shit about other people. I'm a hater in a great many ways so at first I thought it was fine. I'm used to people thinking I'm too analytical and too critical so sometimes being around negative people feels safe and accepting to me! And I love a good bitching sesh -- especially in person discussions about online people who are never gonna be hurt or affected by me privately talking shit with my friends.

But I noticed this person I was seeing constantly would pick apart every one else's flaws, including random people they'd only just met, while also complaining often about how they didn't get enough affection or attention themselves... it frankly disgusted me because they could not see that their shitty attitude toward others was the sole cause of their own isolation. I had to end things because it was so viscerally off-putting. This person was always perfectly nice to me. Very generous, affectionate, complimentary, and attentive. It didn't matter because I didn't like how they spoke about others and how much time they devoted to being petty. It was a huge turn off and it can be a massive friendship deal-breaker too. If you don't like it, you don't like it! that's enough.

[punishing-eden]

Hii, Can I request a Chrome x reader fic please? It can be anything you want! :)

Hoping to Spend the Night with You…

Chrome (Archlight/Glory) x Commandant/reader

Summary:

Every night, he tries his best. Whenever he fails, he will just move on and try again.

Tags: fluff, one-shot, short fic, bittersweet, food wastage (I do not condone wasting food)

Many people do not like taking overtime because of how taxing it could be. However, to you, overtime might be the thing you need to catch up with all the paperwork on your desk.

It was a few hours before midnight, you poured yourself a cup of water.

After filling up your cup, you exited the dark pantry. The base has officially entered the after hour mode, and your colleagues, almost everyone was nowhere to be found.

The corridor was dimly lit by the emergency lights as you walk pass door after door. Tonight was special. There is a Bonfire festival happening in the Central Plaza in Babylonia. Everyone went.

Even your contructs, Lucia, Lee and Liv attedned. The three even got you a ticket. Despite so, you declined their offer, and gave it to Kamui instead.

"There are more important matters to deal with right now," you told yourself, "Maybe next year..."

There was a feeling of regret for your decision, although you were use to it.

Sometimes, sacrifices has to be made.

Gazing down at the floor, you walk a little aimlessly. Your mind wandered about, thinking about all the unnesscary stressor around you.

Instinctively, you made your way back to the door of your room.

"Commandant of Grey Raven," a familiar voice spoke up.

You jolted out from your train of thought, and saw Chrome standing in front of you. Quickly, you turned to face him, and greeted him tiredly, "Oh, Chrome! Hello..."

"I thought you were going to the Bonfire Festival with your team,"Chrome said, "I know Kamui went."

“About that," you began, "Kamui went because I have him my ticket. I am too busy with work to attend. What about you? Why didn't you join the others?"

You question seems to caught Chrome off guard. If it weren't for the lights, the tint on his cheeks would have been more apparent. Embarassed and flustered by his situtation, Chrome could only give you the gist of his predicament.

"I was invited by 'Mr Smith' to attend the festival," he continued, “but I declined.”

You gave Chrome a nodded, gesturing you understood what he meant.

“I prefer using this time to do something else I find meaningful,” Chrome confessed. Now that he has calmed, his voice spoke in a stern tone.

"Like what?" You asked him. Your face showed genuine curiousity.

There was a moment of silence between them. The construct had a stern and indiffernt look on his face. Yet, with his hands behind his back, his fingers fidgeted with a small plastic container, as well as hiding the baking stains on his sleeves.

Chrome was a little speechless. For, there was something in his M. I. N. D that he want to say. But didn't have the courage to say.

"... I prefer to use this time to spend getting tomorrow's briefs and reports ready..."He gave you a model, yet, generic answer.

Hearing his answer, you nodded and gave a small smile, "I get it. When you are too busy, you just can't seem to find time to do something else." you said understandingly.

Before Chrome had the chance to reply, you beat him to it, and walked back into your room.

"Well, I'll see you around, have a good night," you said.

The automatic door closed as soon as you entered.

Chrome was left all alone. He could only watch you leave. He could not mutter a single word of protest. He really wanted to, but his sense of duty as a construct stopped him.

Fingers continued to play the plastic container. He finally took it out from his back, and looked at the small piece of cake. The whipped cream was starting to melt.

It was a planned gift for you. A small refreshment, hoping it could lead to something more.

Without a word, Chrome head back to his room. Throwing the cake away in the bin, as he walked along the corridor.

"Next time..." He said to himself.

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Author's Notes:

This is a long time coming... I am so sorry to the person who requested this.

This fic with Chrome has been in my mind for a very long time. Like, when I first made this blog. I originally want to make it long because.....

But after a very long pondering, and covid :'), I decided less is more.

(C) Punishing Eden

#pgr #punishing gray raven #punishing eden #punishing: gray raven #pgr x reader #one shot #pgr chrome x reader #pgr chrome