#i don't have a reasonable answer

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

going through my old journals as part of therapy homework and i'm reading a section written in the emotional wreckage of a full-on breakdown when i get hit with this line:

There is never a satisfying answer to ‘Why didn’t they love me?’

like wow babe. good fucking point

#like you were on the ground biting the carpet and dry sobbing while you wrote that and still. good fucking point #not a shitpost #cptsd #and it's true. there's never a satisfying answer #the truth is i know why i wasn't loved #i analyzed my parent's traumas and abuse to death. i understand why i alienated and was alienated from my siblings #i know why my mom was too overwhelmed to be capable of nurturing #i know why my dad vanished into addiction and avoidance #the details of our cycles of trauma and cptsd and family history i have a phd in all of it #i understood perfectly. i spent years studying and now i knew the answer #and guess what? IT WAS NOT SATISFYING!!! #because they still didn't love me! and i still couldn't change that! #it was still a completely unsatisfying state of affairs! #so like. when the people who are supposed to love you...don't. #when the people who are supposed to take care of you...fail to #you can look for answers and reasons and explanations #but that's not actually going to FIX your situation. #and it's probably not within your ability TO fix the situation. (and definitely not your job) #because you don't need answers--you need a new situation #*inserts Just Walk Out. You Can Leave!!! (Running Skeleton) Meme* #and yes. walking out isn't always possible. #but for you i hope it will be one day soon. and i hope you build the courage to take that leap. #stepping away from the people who failed to love you...it feels like being untethered but also like being lighter than air #new and scary. immensely relieving. the future opens up. empty but empty like a canvas. blindingly bright until your eyes adjust #like climbing out of a pit you called home and for the first time realizing how bright the light of day can truly be #when you aren't just getting glimpses from the bottom of a hole

[beybuniki]

they should go on a fishing trip pt.1

#DONT COMMENT ON THE BACKGROUND I KNOWWWWWWWWWWWW #anyway this is day 1. they take a bus. the bakugo household has fishing gear so ´deku is wearing bakugo's onesoe (?) and bakugo is wearing #his dad's. and notices he has grown :') #anyway they take a BUS and don't feel like doing this at all it's awkward for so many reason #also trying to relax after everything is neurologically just really hard they might be hyperivgilant dik #and there's so much they never got to unpack bnut they have to and they have to start somewhere and with someone #deku makes that flower crown while bakugo preps everything and they both look at it and are thrown back into their childhood 🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️ #and at first they just sit and wait for the bavarian fish to bite (rody should make a cameo tbh) but then bakugo breaks the iceeee. #and he starts with their moms because their moms have been such a stubbron connection between these two :') #and deku answers with the usual 'good :) how's your mom :)?' and to everyone's surprise he actually opens up #and tells deku about his mom's insomnia because she watched her son die (that shit was live streamed tpo 10 bnha tweets btw) #idk i love to think of their moms being a very easy subject to connect through i think it's easier for them that way to be more vulnerablei #and then some fish biteeeeeeeeeeee #but like 3 small ones so they have to gather berries and mushrooms and make stew (dw there's an aldi this is bavaria after all) #but yeah day 1 is a bit weird like it's just them in the woods with no distractions #which is so different from whatever went on during their 1st year of high school #don't read this i will throw up i just need this somewhere this is my public scrapbook #bnha #deku #midoriya izuku #bakugo katsuki #the flower crown on their knees makes this a bit homosexual but fishing is always homosexual im not fighting against that #au: #fishing

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

This was home.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #blood #Good bye Jiang Disciples. May you live on in the Lan Wangji in lotus pier AU. #This is going to be the start of a bunch of sad scenes I desperately try to undercut with humour. #You may ask where Elle Woods is considering her help was requested. #The canon answer is that she didn't make it there in time. This is the reason why WWX has the pink phone in present day. #It is a favour she owes him out of apology. #I am also making it canon that Jiang Cheng hates Elle Woods for not being there. His two Nemeses in PD-MDZS are Elle and WWX. #This is why Jiang Cheng doesn't have the phone. He would hunt her down but Bruiser bit him really bad last time he tried. #His pride is too hurt to try again. #I don't think I've done a wordless comic in a while - what a fun challenge! #I'm getting lots of practice with backgrounds in the last few comics - I really feel like I'm getting more comfortable with it! #Obviously I still have a long way to go but this is a journey B*)

[carlyraejepsans]

hibiscia!!! Sorry if youve explained before but is there something specific about reset-remember fics that you hate? I don't really like them either but for me it's just because I feel like a lot of authors type sans in very ooc ways

They're completely antithetical to Sans' character arc for the sake of cheap and easy angst. The nature of his brand of cosmic horror isn't in reliving his life again and again, that's Flowey's. Sans knows OF the anomaly, knows that it's manipulating time and knows it's a threat to the entire universe, but he doesn't know how or why, because he doesn't remember.

And that's crucial! him being mostly in the dark in spite of the MANY warning signs about us... because it's in that doubt that he remains hopeful. YES we could potentially end the world... but what if we don't? yes we have unimaginable power over everyone else and we can bring back time, but what if we're just.... sad? he needs that gap in his knowledge so he can take a leap of faith across it, it's his entire character arc in the pacifist run. sans THINKS he's given up, he wants to have given up, he chose to do it because there's a comfort in that. in contenting yourself with good food and bad laughs. there's peace. but he hasn't given up, not really. on himself? maybe. but not in us.

there's no way to have that arc if he remembers resets.

#this is also why i don't like post pacifist sans angst where he worries about resets. unless there's like a Reason for frisk to reset #kinda like sam did in UG with the incident with the blasters #because ppl take his lines during the NM fight as a given without considering that... it's the fucking NM run? lol #he's talking about reaching the surface from the point of view of a sans who's only ever been antagonized by the anomaly #ie reaching the surface meant through asgore's plan being successful #pacifist achieves that in a scenario where he actively befriends and loves and cares about the anomaly. he trusts us!! #it would feel unfair to his friend if he were convinced they were going to shit on their happy ending. that's a really shitty thing to thin #it's actually sth i wanted to handle in dv. having a kid REALLY fucks with his paranoia. it's irrational but understandable #that doesn't stop him from feeling guilty towards frisk for worrying about it. or feeling worried at all #undertale #sans #answered asks #metanalysis

[realpokemon]

You must get a lot of asks, how do you decide which ones to answer?

‎

#[ #literally its just if i can think of anything funny or Worldbuildingly Constructive to say about it #unfortunately ive been pretty preoccupied as of late so i havent been able to achieve this for as many #also. this is me looking you in the eyes. if i don't answer your ask #it's probably because there are a dozen more asks every time i open this website. my goal has never been to answer every ask #its to HAVE FUN :] #also. PLEASE ASK OOC QUESTIONS IN MY DMS! #THEY ARE OPEN FOR A REASON! #it's not just there for the PORNBOTS! #or at least ask OFF ANON so i can answer privately #i hate answering ooc asks. im doing this one because i get it a Lot and no one dms me ooc questions. #crying begging read the faq #] #blog management

[thechekhov]

wait... YOU ARE MARRIED?

I've been married for like, 7 years now, yeah.

#chekhov answers #it's been a while #i just don't have reason to mention it often #chekhov irl

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

When discussing or analyzing Dazai, one thing I hope you will keep in mind when reading anything I write about him is that from my perspective, he is always, always both.

What do I mean by this? Well, I find there tends to be a general split among people who hold the opinion that "he's a manipulator and will always be manipulative" and "he's doing his best to be good and helpful and live up to Oda's last wishes for him", of which, neither is completely right - because he is both. But even among the people who hold to this dual-nature interpretation, I find that his individual actions and motivations still tend to be thought of in a dichotomous manner - is it manipulative, or genuine?

Again, I think it's always both.

Dazai has a very pragmatic view on a lot of things - he is always looking for the usefulness of things and people so that the situation turns out in his favour. He's incredibly adept at this, and his prediction and placement and careful reveals are all manipulation tactics to get his allies and enemies doing exactly what he needs them to. I don't think anyone can contest this since we see it over and over in the series.

But that's not all there is to it. He's not solely manipulative and he does, to some extent, sympathize with others - I think there are several instances of this in the series, but I want to stress that this has been apparent since Chapter 1!

For context, Dazai is recalling what Atsushi said to him a few minutes earlier, but it's very interesting that it should be this specific part of the conversation. He could've flashed back to the part where Atsushi said he had nowhere to go; no money, no food - he is about to trick him into joining, after all, and this is the key piece he uses to basically force Atsushi into the Agency. But instead it's Atsushi's self-deprecation that catches his attention, and it really does, because even during the conversation, he turns to look at him after he says this with an odd expression.

You could say that this makes Atsushi easier to manipulate, if that's your angle, but that can't be solely it, because in the later conversation with Hirotsu, we know Dazai was planning to bring Atsushi into the Agency and set him up as one half of the new Double Black the moment he met him. The panel shown there is the riverbank, set much earlier in the day than this scene. He was already planning to pair him with Akutagawa since he figured out he was the tiger, so what's with this reaction?

Well. Sometimes the simplest explanation is the best.

He manipulated Atsushi into joining with the intention of utilizing him in his future plans. He also helped him and gave him a place to belong, and importantly, he likes this kid! It's both.

I think much of it might be that his brain just kinda works way too fast - he's such a natural at crafting these elaborate plots and seeing how things connect and gathering useful people like resources that it's practically automatic - though this is not a great means when you're trying to be a kinder person. There's an omake, I believe, that has him saying "I like using my head for justice", i.e. using these underhanded means to act for the better. Not great, but those are the kind of gifts he has. He's way more suited to exploitation, but is choosing to use these tactics to save people now, which is quite reminiscent of what he tells Kyouka. Kyouka's talents lie in killing people - when what you're good at isn't who you want to be, what do you do? Well, I expect you use what you have, even if it's not ideal.

Now, about the current situation with Sigma - I think he definitely likes him, and is intrigued by him and his situation. We did get a little thought bubble where the guy amusedly compares him to Atsushi, and you can't tell me he doesn't care about Atsushi (listen to the onsen drama cd, or read 55 Minutes if you somehow don't believe me). But also, it's undeniable that Sigma is in a very vulnerable position of being homeless and having had no one be genuinely kind to him before. His trust is very easy to earn, and with the latest chapter, Dazai has now saved his life multiple times. There is, as always, a practical purpose he needs him for. And I have to be somewhat amused because Dazai is quite literally telling Sigma everything he ever wanted and needed to hear. It's a brilliant means of quickly endearing himself to Sigma - but I don't think that's all it is.

Look. The most honest moments we get in this series from Dazai are, interestingly for an expert manipulator, when people are at their most vulnerable. In spite of every pointlessly cruel act he inflicted on Akutagawa, his first meeting with him was open and transparent; much like the orphanage director, it seems he thought this treatment would make him strong and adaptable (he's wrong but that's not the point of this). He cuts Kyouka off in irritation and says "don't give me that" when she implies that she would fail the entrance exam. He tells Atsushi it's normal to cry after losing a father figure and to feel however you feel, even if that person caused you nothing but incredible pain and cannot be forgiven. He refuses to entertain Sigma's assumptions that Dazai sees himself as a superior being to him.

Selective honesty can also be utilized to great effect; Mori does this, and undoubtedly it serves this purpose for Dazai too. But I want to stress that I do sincerely believe this is all still honesty from him. Manipulation, or genuine?

Both. It's both.

#or to summarize: Dazai is a gemini (derogatory) #<- said as a fellow gemini (also derogatory) #the few exceptions to the always both rule are basically any of his interactions with odasaku #and the bit in sb where he tells chuuya about what activating corruption will entail #most everything else appears to have a dual reason. #to be clear: there's lots of ways to interpret dazai - but this is the approach i personally use in my analyses #so i'd love it if you guys would read my dazai analyses keeping this standpoint in mind :) #i think instead of debating 'is dazai bad' which is seriously kind of irrelevant to me #i'd love to talk a bit more about how dazai is actually quite helpful but also equally presumptuous about what will help people #we could also talk about the fine line between protectiveness and possessiveness with him too. #or about how drawn he is to kind people who value life likely because he's hoping to find answers or a vicarious experience #anything except the 'is he good or bad' debate. i don't like it. :/ #bsd #bsd meta #bsd analysis #bsd dazai #storyrambles #oof i never know how things like this are going to go over.

[icebluecyanide]

I saw people talking about that scene where Yassen shot Max as a huge betrayal of Alex and it's kinda funny to me like yeah he involved Alex in a murder but also I cannot emphasise enough that Alex decided to join a criminal organisation. People have been telling him he'll need to kill for days now, Alex has watched them kill multiple people already, I get that it sucks for him but you cannot team up with a known killer and be that shocked when actually his secret extra mission was to kill

#alex rider spoilers #alex rider #yassen gregorovich #alex x yassen #alex rider tv #like hot take i guess but actually i don't think he lied to alex when alex asked him about why he was coming #he just avoided the question and said something else that's true (and is part of his underlying reason for coming) #he already told alex he wouldn't just tell him everything like mrs jones might #it's the way yassen has been working for a decade and a half. you get told the essentials and don't ask questions #not answering alex's questions and holding back info/not sharing all the details of yassen's part of the mission is not the same as lying #i mean i guess the real issue here is that alex does not want to kill or be involved in a murder #which is not something yassen and scorpia have ethical concerns about ashdflhs #and is something they have basically told him he'll need to get over already #once again i cannot stress enough that alex is literally surrounded by known killers and teamed up with them

[saintsenara]

Not disputing you ofc but do you remember the exact line about ron looking like bill perchance? I would love it for referencing purposes

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

and i am afraid that you're getting a more long-winded answer than you may have been hoping for...

male weasleys are split down the middle into two camps, physically:

charlie, fred, and george are described as being short and stocky [although "short" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, since they're all taller than harry: fred and george shrink when they take polyjuice potion to transform into him in deathly hallows].

the implication - i think - is that charlie and the twins look like molly, who is described several times as short and plump in build. ginny is also described numerous times in the books as short and is said in chapter thirty-three of order of the phoenix to resemble fred and george facially, which, since's she's described in deathly hallows as having her mother's brown eyes - which probably triggered some sort of freudian shudder in harry - means i think we can conclude that this half of the family all look their mam.

[and also that molly is a hottie herself. she often gets turned by the fandom into a fairly sexless being - even though she didn't have those seven children immaculately, did she? - with a strict, prudish vibe. and - to do some discourse for a moment - we all know that the fact that she's described as fat is the direct cause of this. but several men are canonically ready to risk it all for ginny - and it's time we all acknowledged this is because she inherited her bonafide baddie powers straight from molly.]

percy and ron - on the other hand - are, like arthur, described as being tall, thin, and gangly. bill is never explicitly said to be slender, but he is described in the fifth chapter of goblet of fire as "tall" immediately after harry has stated that charlie is short[ish] and broad - which allows us to reasonably infer that he's on the arthur-weasley-skinny-legend side of the family.

and we can also assume - since ron is never said to resemble molly, nor [to harry's great relief] ginny, facially - that his features - his long nose and blue eyes - come from his father, who is also the source of percy's short-sightedness.

and, while harry [the narrative perspective] never says that he thinks arthur is hot - because why would he? - nor percy and ron [although i think it's worth noting that he doesn't consider it ridiculous that both of them manage to pull - and it's never suggested that penelope clearwater and lavender brown aren't cuties] it's actually possible to justify the idea that they are canonically fit using more than pure hot air...

[harry does - obviously - think bill's a babe. he sees fleur checking him out and immediately thinks... same.]

because a very striking narrative choice that the series makes is the idea that all pureblood nuclear family units look identical to each other - which serves as a visual metaphor for the importance of blood-status and lineage within the wizarding world. this is why narcissa malfoy is as pale and blonde as lucius and draco [even though bellatrix and andromeda are dark haired] and why molly is a redhead even though red hair and freckles are stated in the text to be weasley - rather than prewett - traits. harry's resemblance to his pureblood father eases his passage through wizarding society. voldemort's lack of resemblance to his pureblood mother does the opposite.

the weasleys and the malfoys are narrative mirrors within the series - with the fact that ron and draco are both so near-identical to arthur and lucius as to be immediately identifiable as each man's son by anyone who meets them part of this mirroring. it makes sense, then, that since the non-ron weasley children don't have a specific malfoy mirror, the same general principle applies, and the three weasley brothers who are built like arthur also strongly resemble him facially - and that bill also has a long nose [and a long something else, i'll wager!] and a cracking pair of baby blues.

or that if bill is hot, arthur is hot - and therefore if arthur is hot, ron is hot.

[where bill outpaces his brothers, i fear, is that he clearly has rizz - whereas ron's seduction skills are famously weak before he gets his hands on a copy of twelve fail-safe ways to charm witches - i.e. when he cockblocks harry spectacularly by beefing with cho unprovoked about the quidditch team she supports, which always sends me - and percy is... percy.]

[if ron had simply played it cool he could have finessed going to the ball with fleur, and i'll die on that hill...]

#asks answered #ron weasley #hot ron defence league #also I'm sorry but arthur and molly *fuck* and you're all deluding yourselves if you think they don't #harry - on the other hand - is canonically mid #ginny takes the fleur view - i am good-looking enough for both of us #one of the reasons you have to back romione is that she's too clever to risk fumbling him

[sergle]

I feel you, its so bad 😭, I had to go on a functioning adult human schedule for school and good god, out the house by 7am... bad bitches are not built for that..

WE REALLY ARE... and man, I can brute force myself into any schedule if there are things that HAVE to be done at certain times (like school, like you said) but it absolutely never feels "right". it feels like waking up at 3am to go to the airport type of shit. and it is truly so annoying... to get hit with the "that's a Normal schedule, you need to Fix your schedule" okay. alright. but let me hit you with this one. is it "normal" or is it just conducive to a 8 - 5. because no matter what my sleep schedule is like, or how locked in I am, I'm more clear headed at night + more productive and energetic. and no matter what, I'm tired during the day, especially the brightest times of day when the sun is allegedly supposed to be signaling my brain to be awake and alert. and it doesn't matter how much sleep I got.

#I can wake up in The Early Morning after going to bed at a reasonable hour the night prior and be exhausted throughout the daytime #and if I make it to the night then I'll suddenly perk back up. if I woke up at 7am that morning (with 8 hours of sleep under my belt) #I can comfortably stay awake until 5 or 6am that very next morning. #I need to Adapt to the daytime schedule- but if I loosen my grip on myself at all I will instantly SNAP back to the nighttime one. #full rubberband moment. #I don't need to transition back into it. my body just wants to click it back in place #I'll go right back into the swing of it as soon as I'm allowed to again #sergle answers #also I don't have trouble sleeping in daylight hours. yeah I have the curtains drawn in my room #but they aren't Blackout curtains. it's dim in there but not Dark. that doesn't impede me at all #it is crazy the way that people are so confident in telling me to my face that I'm on a bad and lazy schedule #bc they are categorizing my wake-up time as 'sleeping in' bc they're measuring it on their standard of when THEY go to bed. #i could go to bed at noon and wake up at 3pm and they'd say that i slept in

[greatalastoraltruist]

So we know Alastor and Lilith disappeared at the same time 7 years ago. And we know that Lucifer had a meeting with Heaven which began the exterminations. We don't know when that happened though. Either they're not mentioning when the exterminations started because they've always happened or because revealing when they started would give too much away and make it too easy to guess things. All Charlie knows is that Lucifer went to the meeting and she assumes he gave the go ahead for exterminations. But the exterminations haven't always happened. They only started after the angels, or specifically Sera I think considering no other angels knew about it, became afraid of the power and influence Lilith had over the demons.

My current theory is that that meeting was called between Sera, Adam, and Lucifer because Alastor and Lilith were planning on working together with him broadcasting her voice on his radio station to inspire the other demons to rise to war against the angels. I think Sera demanded that Lilith and Alastor be separated with Lilith making a deal with Adam to stay in heaven where she can't empower any other demons with her voice or even contact anyone in hell and that Sera demanded the exterminations happen as well in order to not only lessen the demons' power but also instill fear in them in an attempt to prevent future uprisings. I think Alastor was given the options of either be killed or sign a contract limiting his power and requiring him to stay away for a while so that their little idea of rebellion is forgotten amongst the masses. I especially think that because of Zestial's comment about folks thinking Alastor had fallen to holy arms. Maybe Sera is his contract holder. That or they tried to straight up kill him and he somehow escaped barely alive and it's taken this long for him to heal and regain enough power for him to feel comfortable revealing himself to society. But trying to kill him wouldn't explain the contact or his need to 'unclip his wings'.

#idk this is my current theory #i could end up being wrong but i feel like thats the direction all the foreshadowing is pointing towards #its way too much a coincidence for lilith and Alastor to have been gone the same amount of time esp with her in heaven after trying to #incite an uprising #considering Lilith has no wings it seems like the obv answer is Sera is his contract holder #and i see no reason for her to have ever met let alone make a contract with a demon outside of trying to stop a rebellion #one thing i don't understand tho is why didnt Sera and Adam just kill them? why are they still allowed to live? unless Lilith is somehow #unkillable but then still why didnt they just kill Alastor? #there has to be another factor im missing #ughhhhhhhhh who knows how many more years itll be before the next season #at least theyre already recording lines for it but its the animation thats gonna kill us #as much as i wish the next season was comin next year i doubt it and i def dont want any animators to be put through anymore crunch time #broadcasting across hell #alastor theory #hazbin hotel #lilith hazbin hotel #adam hazbin hotel #lucifer hazbin hotel #sera hazbin hotel #alastor hazbin hotel #lilth theory #radio demon #hazbin theory

[statementlou]

hello :) could you maybe explain a little bit how dan wootton blackmailed louis?

ugh sorry for taking a while to get to this. The problem is I feel like the only two ways to answer this are by spending a week and a half of full time labor sifting through old posts and evidence to get every detail right and lay out an airtight case, or to halfass something very serious, and so I felt a little stuck. So since I can't seem to find a good halfway point, apologies but here is the half assed version, if you want to get into it more I invite you to do your own deep dive or talk to other people, but here's how I remember things. Louis has almost never on video explicitly said things about Larry not being real and/or anything negative about fans and their theories (mostly the opposite), up until the last couple years when he obviously decided to make a major change he didn't talk about Freddie much at all let alone saying he was his kid, honestly not that much about Eleanor even; except for in two major interviews with Dan Wootton, each of which lined up with a serious traumatic Tomlinson family event that they managed to keep out of the tabloids until the very end (Jay's illness and Fizzy's struggles with substance abuse). After the fact of those events a lot of small things that didn't make sense at the time came together to look very much like Louis traded those interviews (and those answers) for having his family's private matters kept private. Story trading of this kind is a publicly known real thing that happens, and there were various clues that suggested he was being leaned on about those stories to lend legitimacy to the idea that it was something that happened in these cases. Given what we know about Dan Wootton and how he operates even before the recent flood of information and even more now, I think it's more than likely that he has been holding the threat of outing Louis (as he has done to many other public figures) over his head for over a decade, and has used his family's tragic struggles to get Louis to dance like a fucking puppet for him and I will REJOICE at his downfall when it comes whether it is now or 20 years from now... because someday it will, he has made too many enemies to stay above it forever

#I did start to try to deep dive before I realized it was too much #but I was reminded that when Louis was doing txf as a judge while fizzy was struggling #many people thought he had been pressured somehow into it; later when we knew what had been going on people were like #oh maybe he just wanted to be close to home to deal with fizzy stuff or somethng #but also: keeping fizzy stuff quiet would potentially be the info we didn't have at that time that could answer that q too of what they use #given the DW🤝simon jones🤝simon cowell cursed connections #(for the newbies: simon jones aka DWs bestie is Louis' publicist for no apparent reason even now long after he has gotten free of the rest #of the modest/syco/simon cowell shitshow) #anyway another example of story trading in our fandom is zayn's baby sister's teen pregnancy #which was known to the fandom early on but kept super quiet by respectful fans- during this time Z did some unprecedented actual interviews #for no obvious reason #and then iirc pretty much the day she turned 17 a very lowkey article reported on her marrying her bf and mentioning a pregnancy #but as if it was recent not like 7 months along #and even when she gave birth soon after it was all kind of... glossed over and around and not reported until a little later #blah blah blah #I felt like it was weird to talk about this for some reason but when I thought about it #I don't know if it matters. Like maybe talking about him not being a dad and being gay or whatever at all is bad #but assuming we're doing that anyway. why not talk about the struggles around that #and the creeps holding it over his head #dan wootton

[not-poignant]

If someone stopped reading your story, not because of anything wrong you've done, would you be interested to know why? Or would that just be unpleasant?

That would just be unpleasant, anon.

The reality is a lot of people just stop reading for a lot of reasons, and hearing someone's negative feedback isn't really that useful, because I'm writing the story for the people who really love it, and not for the people who got bored or stopped liking the themes etc. And then of course there are folks who just stop because life intervenes, which is normal.

Generally speaking there's a saying which is: If you wouldn't ask that person for personal advice, why are you listening to their criticism. And I tend to apply that pretty aggressively to strangers on the internet tbh!

Part of it is that I take negative critiques very personally, and can spend a really long time feeling like I should change an entire story for one person who's already stopped reading, or like I should be trying to fight to keep that one person's interest instead of like...focusing on all the readers who are actually just enjoying the writing as it is. And changing my writing for the people who aren't finding it interesting enough to keep reading (and/or who don't have time and/or who find it too upsetting etc.) is not going to help anyone!

So yeah, generally speaking telling a person why you've stopped reading a story is like...not really a thing to do (and that's true for most authors).

About the only time I don't mind it is when someone starts reading again after a period of absence where they've been stressed and I get a comment like 'Ah I haven't been around due to life/stress/illness but I'm so happy to be back and reading' lol, which I don't think is what you're referring to!

#asks and answers #personal #i know you said if the reason wasn't 'anything i've done wrong' #but tbh i don't think people not liking my writing is anything i've done wrong either #that's just a thing that happens #some people start reading because they think the stories will be more wholesome #or less painful #or shorter #or just haven't paid attention to the tags etc. #those things have nothing to do with me #i'm not writing the story for those people #they're like ships in the night that come by thinking 'oh are you a wafflehouse? it smells like waffles' #and then they go 'wait you only do pancakes never mind' #sdaflksadjfsda

[utilitycaster]

In the end, it is misogyny but in the form of that Imogen (and most of the female cast, if we are being fair) gets reduced to just being a woman to the point that criticizing any real flaw, wrong doing, or "hey i personally maybe perhaps don't like that she did this" is turned into an attack on her because she is a woman, because after all, all women are perfect and so so dainty they must be protected (sarcasm)

Without mentioning the attacking real women in the name of the fictional one

It really is the "God forbid a woman do anything" but in it's worst form

Sorry for venting, been having thoughts about the fandom for the past 5 years

YUP. I do recommend Unlikeable Female Characters by Anna Bogutskaya which I devoured in like, one sitting over my winter break and posted a bunch of excerpts from but this discourse is extremely not limited to the CR fandom. I mean, think about all of the endlessly churning nonsense about the women of Gone Girl and Midsommar. I am going to see Love Lies Bleeding tomorrow and have steered well clear of really any discussion because I simply would like to see buff lesbians in a crime drama but apparently the discourse is rancid.

Of course there are people who assume ill of female characters while excusing men. That is absolutely a big problem. But again, we can barely talk about that. I recently made a post about how Laura is not a particularly chaotic player, and indeed is one of the most cautious players in actual play, and again I think there is a serious and important conversation to be had about how there's probably a reason why, say, Travis and Taliesin are more likely to make extremely bold moves, because they didn't get raked over the coals during C1 for stealing a cool broom from a guest character! I actually think Marisha has managed to hang on to some of her boldness and it makes her a stronger player but I would not have been surprised if she retreated after the hate she got from Keyleth. But yeah, in actual play, bold moves are pretty important. We can't even talk about how real-world misogyny holds back the actual actors without some moronic wretch being like "FIGURES THAT A MISOGYNIST CUNT LIKE YOU LIKES A MALE ACTOR."

When a character who is a man - or in some cases, characters who are not men but are played by men - does something people don't like we can say "wow, I didn't like this, but it was an interesting choice by the actor!" but we aren't allowed to either talk about the reasons why a real world woman might hesitate to play a character who does ugly things - because of the misogynistic backlash that will land specifically on her as a real person - nor can we compliment her for going for it and playing a complex flawed character, because how DARE you say a woman is anything less than some kind of Divine Feminine ideal. At best you're allowed a two-dimensional caricature of She's So Sweet And Good But Sometimes Gets Angry (this also happened to my friend Keyleth).

And this might reveal my own biases but like. I as a woman don't love being called self-centered, but that, personally, would probably lead me to some reflection. If you call me a girlfailure, even jokingly, I am going to break your nose. It's really telling that like...one of the absolute no-brainer "hey stop calling grown women girls" feminist tenets has gone by the wayside particularly with the set of people who think that meta that fails to put women on so high a pedestal they are untouchable is misogynist. They are awful towards women, fictional and real.

A line that always stuck with me from, bizarrely, a book about wordplay, was that Victorian men would treat women of their same classes as their superiors, but never their equals - they would coddle them and protect them but they wouldn't actually engage with their thoughts and foibles. (This happened to my friend Jester).

Anyway my personal solution is to keep going. On some level, as my previous post indicates, while I don't want the harassment it also only underscores my point, that a lot of these people are way more invested in being a dick to women on the internet than writing meta about the pretend women they think they like. I have to imagine they're doing this because either think they're entitled to meta they like from people who can actually fucking write it because god knows most of the people making this complaint have the most "if you can't dazzle them with brillance, blind them with the most purple-prose bullshit you can muster" attitude; or because they literally are just champing at the bit to attack women online with the ostensible veneer of "but it's FEMINIST to call THESE women cunts because they said my blorbo wasn't saintly and flawless." However, again, I know that I'm pretty bullheaded and forcibly unlearned the uh, patriarchal idea that women should not be confrontational. I do not blame people who look at this whole situation and say "I'm going to keep my thoughts to myself because this is so unpleasant."

#answered #Anonymous #i got a ghost message too that i only assume is for the same reason as my previous anon #and like. ngl. i'm THIS close to naming suspected names. like i have tried to keep quiet but *rashinna voice* can we take out the trash #i'd love to see more meta about imogen but again i don't blame the people who are like nope not worth it. #cr tag

[carlyraejepsans]

for real WHERE does the idea that [utdr humans] are nongendered so that "you can project on them" come from. their literal character arcs are about NOT being a blank slate to be filled in by the audience

i think i understand the assumption on some level for undertale, because there is a very intentional effort to make you identify with the "player character" in order to make your choices feel like your own (the beating heart of undertale's metanarrative lies in giving you an alternative path to violence against its enemies after all, and whether you're still willing to persue it for your own selfish reasons. YOUR agency is crucial).

of course, the cardinal plot twist of the main ending sweeps the rug from under your feet on that in every way, and frisk's individuality becomes, in turn, a tool to further UT's OTHER main theme: completionism as a form of diegetic violence within the story. replaying the game would steal frisk's life and happy ending from them for our own perverse sentimentality, emotionally forcing our hand away from the reset button.

i think their neutrality absolutely aids in that immersion. but also, there's this weird attitude by (mostly) cis fans where it being functional within the story makes it... somehow "editable" and "up to the player" as well? which is gross and shows their ass on how they approach gender neutrality in general lol.

but also like. there's plenty of neutral, non PCharacters in undertale and deltarune. even when undertale was just an earthbound fangame and the player immersion metanarrative was completely absent, toby still described frisk as a "young, androgynous person". sometimes characters are just neutral by design. it's not that hard to understand lol.

anyone who makes this argument for kris deltarune is braindead. nothing else to say about it.

#this is a very difficult topic to discuss imo because on Some level I don't completely disagree with people who make that argument for chara #in SPIRIT. if not in action. like my point still stands characters can just Be neutral. and if that level of customization had been intended #well Pokemon's been doing the ''are you a boy or a girl'' shtick for ages. no reason why that couldn't have been included as well #but i do feel that we're supposed to identify with chara within the story. not as in chara is us but as in we are chara #and i think someone playing the game without outside interferences and (wrongly) coming to the conclusion that chara IS literally #themselves in the story. and thus call them by their own name (the one they likely inputted at the start) and pronouns #will be someone who grasped undertale's metanarrative more than someone who went in already spoiled on the NM route who thinks of chara #(and on some level frisk as well) as completely separate from us with independent wills and personhoods at any time #who treats them as nonbinary. even if their approach is more ''appropriate'' to a gender neutral person #systematic error vs manually changing every measure to fit what you already think is going to be the correct result. ykwim? #of course this opens a whole new parentheses while discussing the game outside of your personal experience #because even if you DO see chara as a self insert then they are a self insert for EVERYONE. women men genderqueer people #i don't call chara ''biscia'' even though that's what i named the fallen human in my playthrough. neither do i use they because i also do #if you're describing the character/story objectively in how they are executed then you're going to talk about them neutrally #because you ain't the only sunovabitch who played the darn game sonny #so like. either way you turn it. even in the most self insert reading you'd STILL logically use they/them so ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ git gud #answered asks

[bonefall]

Does Heartstar/Tigerstar II have thalassophobia(fear of deep water/drowning) would certainly make sense given his family's entire Deal with the lake. Also does Rowanstar drowning in the Moonpool mean that there's just. A rotting corpse in the moonpool now? Don't the medcats drink from that water?! (Sorry if yiu see this twice! I think tumblr deleted my ask?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The desire to CinemaSins Ding poetic imagery is the death of visual metaphor and the bane of creativity. Kill the impulse. The moonpool is as deep and clean as it needs to be in spite of being canonically a stillwater pool and logically full of algae and microbes. Magic cat god water, full of StarClan Magic (tm)

We do not need to see the cats fishing Rowanstar's body out, or an accurate estimate of pool depth, or its PH level. StarClan's emotions do wonderful things when miracles occur. A wizard with a big pool cleaning net did it.

#I get a ridiculous number of asks about this and the answer is always the same so I've started deleting them #Why don't they fly the eagles to Mordor? Same reason Barbie must travel to the Real World in her sports car #It is the journey #as for thalassophobia no she doesn't have that. Sometimes I get questions for like... situations where the answer is simply no gfgfdsgfd #And I'd feel bad answering with a flat “no” or writing out a bunch of paragraphs that soften the no #SO generally I simply don't answer them either #I think it'd be cool for Flametail's spirit or Jayfeather to fear drowning though #Especially since Flame was denied his Sharing of Stars for a long time because the Dark Forest got him first #So the poor baby was like #soaked with ice water for several months #In a cell where the demons kept him prisoner #LITERALLY the wet beast #bone babble