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raineandsky · 3 months

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#86

Being a hero is stressful. That much is common knowledge. How a hero goes about unwinding from said stress is a mystery no one has yet figured out.

The hero settles in one of the little chairs in the circle. The man next to her gives her a light nudge. “Let’s see what you made this week, then.”

The hero reaches into her bag to show off her latest stress relief—a giant blanket, knitted in the downtime between jobs, sporting a rainbow of colours in bright streaks across its face. Everyone oohs and ahhs appropriately before the rest of the circle gets to showing off their own creations.

It’s been nice to have a place that isn’t entirely consumed by work, the hero thinks as she nods approvingly at someone’s mug cosy. No worrying about tomorrow, no wondering where the villains might be.

Her gaze flits to the next person in line to show something off, and her heart momentarily stops as she meets her eye. At least she doesn’t have to worry about the latter of her thoughts right now.

What the hell is the villain doing at the hero’s weekly knitting club?

“Go on,” the woman next to the villain prompts. The villain huffs and makes a show of it, but she pulls out a cardigan with a ghost of a pleased smirk.

The hero only realised why she’s so self-satisfied when she catches herself gaping in awe. The villain’s little cardigan is elaborate in pattern, swooping waves lining its shoulders. The yarns meld together in a perfect cacophony of colour. It’s amazing, more amazing than anything the hero could do.

The villain soaks in the praise with a humble nod before setting her gaze on the hero. It probably looks hopeful to anyone else, but the hero can see the glitter of arrogance in her eye. Go on, the villain’s practically saying, tell me how great I am.

“It’s nice,” the hero says through gritted teeth, and the villain’s smile turns humoured.

The hero can’t leave fast enough. Everyone else is packing their projects away. The hero’s blanket gets folded thankfully easily and she’s out the door before anyone can stop her.

Fine. A new project. Something to advance her skills and show the villain that she’s not the hot shit she thinks she is.

It takes all week. The hero holds her jumper up to show the group. The villain raises her eyebrows from across the circle.

“Inspired by another knitter here,” the hero says with what could almost be sarcasm, and the villain snorts a poorly contained laugh.

The villain shows off her creation. A pair of mittens, the patterns lacy and the colours bright. The hero scowls. Pissed doesn’t describe the feeling.

Next week. A layered scarf from the hero. The villain wins everyone’s affections with a tiny knitted elephant. “For my niece’s birthday,” the villain says innocently. “She loves them.”

Leaving is becoming more of a race with each passing week. “Keep trying,” the villain comments brightly before the hero can escape. “You’ve plenty of room to improve.”

The hero considers strangling the villain with her scarf.

The hero settles at her computer that evening with a scowl and a cup of hot chocolate, mentally prepared to prowl the internet for several hours for ideas on how to one-up the villain. It’s madness. She’s meant to be out there kicking the villain’s ass, and here she is trying to out-knit her.

It’s been three weeks, and she’s only just realising that her stress-relieving hobby is suddenly a lot more stress-inducing.

“Fuck,” she hisses outloud, and she momentarily considers the idea of knitting the word into a coaster for the villain too.

#creative writing #writblr #writers on tumblr #writing #writing community #heroes and villains #hero x villain #i cant lie broskis!!! work is tiring!!!#ive been working basically fukn above my job title (yes i will be making a big point of this to my boss) and every day im KNACKERED #weve been filmin some stuff for promotional stuff and tho my boss is like 'yea ill sort stuff :)' ive done ALL the planning #its been fun but itll be nice for this week to be over (affectionate)#and i know i say this a lot and it never happens but the queue is genuinely short rn and i am mostly coming home and staring at walls #so if it runs out and things end up a lil late sorry! im just tryna remember how to be human

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opia-jpg · 1 year

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25th anniversary 🌹

#of course you have pink hair and pronouns........#rgu #revolutionary girl utena #rgu fanart #revolutionary girl utena fanart #utena tenjou #utena fanart #anime #fanart #my art!#image description in alt #artist on tumblr #i admit i got carried away with rendering and it didn't turn out as i wanted it to. but it's still nice #and yes i KNOW im late to the party the anniversary was two days ago. however i don't care #shoujo kakumei utena

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beholding-moth · 5 months

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so that second half of the hbomberguy video huh...

#yes i know im late to the parade as always ahah #even tho the video IS BARELY A DAY OLD GUYS HOW DID IT EVEN COME UP ON MY RADAR WITH HOW MUCH I LIVE UNDER A ROCK-#hbomberguy #if u havent watched it yet tho i recommend it big time!! hbomberguy makes a lot of rly good points and its good to learn a thing or two abo-#about how to cite ur sources well and how to handle the materials you cite!#i cant believe im saying this but its not even about the plagiarism for me.... its the blatant theft and erasure of queer content creators-#that resulted from that plagiarism thats getting to me..... like thats some huge and wild shit. a very big smelly dump of it.

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aeoris4lovers · 1 year

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Angstpril 2023 Day One: Liar

There were very few things in life that Eadwulf insisted upon without any chance of compromise. Choosing battles was a matter of survival under the tutelage of Master Ikithon; incurring punishment was easy enough to do even without the added risk that stubbornness presented. To resist bending only made it inevitable that one would eventually have to break, and as far as Eadwulf was concerned, the world offered little of great enough importance to justify tempting that fate.

It was not an oath made lightly, then, when he promised that he would return every day that he was able to one particular cell in the depths of Vergesson Sanatorium.

Astrid refused to speak to him for weeks after the incident, after what he did that night to save her from a fate far worse than a scar. So, with no one there to swear it to, he made his promise to the gods themselves.

He knelt on the floor of his bedroom, hands clasped together in his lap. Outside the small window above his bed, the cool light of the nearly-full moon fanned out across the skies, setting the shadowed room aglow with the night’s ghostly haze. His gaze settled on the nearest mountain peaks; ancient and immense and unmoving, he thought they must be the closest things to gods he would ever lay his eyes on. When thoughts of his past, of his people, of his own actions that night threatened to creep to the front of his mind, he pressed them back into the darkness of memory. They were gone now; there was nothing more to be done for them. Instead, he turned his thoughts again to Bren, to bright red hair and wild eyes and roaring flames and the crack of rock against bone.

“If I condemned him to this fate,” he whispered, so quiet it was more thought than speech, “let me be the one to see him through it.”

Only a moment later, the soft moonlight was eclipsed by the silhouettes of two ravens coming to rest on the windowsill, and he knew somewhere deep within him that his oath had been sealed.

The next morning, he rose earlier than usual and ate his breakfast as quickly as he could manage to hold it down. The sun still hadn’t even begun to show itself in the young day’s sky when he slipped past the guards at the sanatorium, giving each of them a look which told them not to stand in his way if they valued their lives. They had no way of knowing that, in truth, he wasn’t sure if he would have the courage to make good on that threat; they only saw the determination in his eyes and stepped aside.

As he pushed through hall after hall, he wasted no time looking at anything other than the faces in each cell, searching for blue eyes and red hair. Any strange looks that may have been aimed his way were lost in the blur of stone and bars and wrong faces.

When he finally turned a corner and saw a short-cropped burst of orange in the nearest cell, he was just in time to stop the guard who was preparing to enter with whatever sad excuse for a breakfast they had prepared for the day. He caught the guard by the arm, stooping down to look her in the eye, and pressed a few coins into her hand.

All he said was, “Let me.”

She stared at him for a long few seconds, head tilted to one side, before shrugging.

“If you insist.”

Handing him the tray of oatmeal and water, she unlocked the door of Bren’s cell and started off toward the next one down, leaving Eadwulf there alone. He slipped through the door, closed it behind him, and crouched down next to Bren, truly taking in his current state for the first time.

Perhaps the most noticeable thing should have been how beat up he was – the dark bruises, the blood that no one had bothered to wash from his skin. But instead, all Eadwulf could see was how empty he looked. There was always such a fire behind his eyes, a kind of passion and life there, like his mind was working so feverishly to puzzle the world together that you could watch it happening from the outside, and now? That fire had been all but doused. His eyes were glazed over, wandering helplessly around the space, looking through it all and not truly seeing any of it. There was a slight strain on his face, a clench to his brow that Eadwulf knew his resting face didn’t possess, which betrayed some process of thought, no doubt an unpleasant one. It was distant, though, and passive, as though the thoughts had taken on a life of their own within his mind and he, in this clouded state, was helpless to resist or engage them at all. When his gaze finally fell on Eadwulf, there was a soft spark of recognition that sent Eadwulf’s heart into his throat.

Eadwulf returned every morning after that, and again every night, so long as he wasn’t off on a mission or locked away for the sake of some punishment. Each morning, he fed Bren whatever breakfast the guards had prepared, careful to make it a far more gentle process than the other meals likely involved. As Bren’s hair grew longer with time, Eadwulf took to brushing it, and trimming it when the ends began to fray. A few times, he considered cutting it short again; surely, it would be more comfortable for Bren to have less of it. But there was no ignoring how his eyes fluttered closed at the feeling of it being brushed, or how he hummed in a way that almost seemed to approach contentment — better to keep it long, Eadwulf always ultimately decided.

At night, Eadwulf would clean him — easy enough to do with a simple spell, but most nights Eadwulf wiped his face and hands the mundane way first, probably more for his own sake than for Bren’s — and tended to whatever wounds may have been sustained since the last visit. Then, he would take out whatever books he had been able to find that day, sit by Bren’s side, and read. Bren’s favorite of the books, judging by the way his eyes brightened ever so slightly at the sight of its cover, was an old children's story about a young boy and a cat prince, so they always started and finished with that one. In between, they cycled through as many of the other books as Eadwulf thought they safely had time for, and by the time he closed the fairytale for the final time, Bren was almost always slumped against his side, asleep.

Eventually, once the rifts between them had been repaired, Astrid joined him for some of his visits, though she was quickly given more responsibilities than him and often found it more difficult to get away. On those days, Astrid would braid Bren’s hair once he had brushed it in the mornings, and alternated reading with him at night.

And after every nighttime visit, he would sit in his bed and write a few lines in a journal: how the day’s visits had gone, what had gone on in the outside world that day or over the past few days, what he and Astrid were doing in their own lives. Someday, he told himself, Bren would have his mind back. Someday, he would hand over the journal, a meticulous record of the days Bren was locked away. Someday, Bren would be able to read it, and it would be as if he hadn’t missed a thing at all.

In all that time spent in Bren’s cell, Eadwulf never feared being discovered by Master Ikithon — not out of carelessness or apathy toward the consequences he would inevitably incur, but because he knew it was foolish to assume he hadn’t already been discovered at the very start. The archmage’s gaze took immense care to avoid, and nowhere was it more omnipresent than in the halls of the sanatorium. The chances that he had gone unnoticed were laughably slim — it was better to assume Master Ikithon was well aware, that a confrontation would come soon enough.

And come it did.

One morning, nearly two years into his visits, Eadwulf arrived at Bren’s cell to see his teacher standing there, calmly watching him approach. Inside the cell, he could see Bren’s eyes wide and his face held more tensely than usual. He was shifting slightly where he sat, as though his own body were the walls of a prison preventing him from running away.

All at once, Eadwulf was overcome with the urge to run forward, to lunge at Ikithon, to scream, because how dare he come here and strike that kind of fear into someone so helpless, hasn’t Bren been through enough? But he pushed the urge down and kept calm as he walked in spite of it. It was him that the archmage was angry with, it was him who would face the consequences of his actions; Bren had no reason to be afraid.

As it turned out, neither did he. Master Ikithon wasn’t angry, not at Eadwulf nor Bren; he never said or even suggested that Eadwulf would be punished, and the calm smile never fell from his face. He seemed entirely unfazed — pleased, even — by Eadwulf’s actions.

“You are welcome to visit our dear Bren whenever you wish, Eadwulf,” he said in a tone that could almost be mistaken for good-natured, “as is Miss Becke. In fact, I think it’s wonderful that you three have grown to care so much for each other, even after all this time. By all means, do continue to come visit him if it pleases you.” Moving closer, he added in a lower tone, “I would only urge you to remember that it is for you, yes? As much as it pains me to say this, Bren is — how shall I put this? — absent, by all accounts. You are a smart boy, I have no doubt you’ve noticed. Each time you leave this place, it is to him as if you were never here at all; he won’t remember. The sharp young man we knew is, I’m afraid, no longer with us.”

And every night since then, as silence fell over the sanatorium’s halls, Eadwulf would look down at Bren, tucked against his side the same way they had once grown used to laying in their beds, and ask himself: how could that possibly be true?

How, when he still squirmed at the mere sight of his old teacher standing nearby, when his eyes still sparked at the sight of his favorite fairytale’s cover, when he still remembered how to fall asleep next to Eadwulf like it was as simple as breathing, could Bren be gone? How could it be possible that such a sharp mind, so full of passion and of life, simply slipped away? Even if he remembered none of it, even if each day felt to him like the first time, Bren seemed in his own way to welcome their company far more than any other’s, to relax in some small way at their presence; did that not count for something?

It would take him many more years to truly make sense of it, to fully understand the weight of what it meant, but the simple fact remained: that Bren was gone was the first of Trent Ikithon’s lies that Eadwulf ever saw through.

#yes this is a day late. no i don't know if its good or not. yes im posting it anyway because these are my babies #im deep in an Eadwulf My Beloved Who The Fuck Are You kick rn so most of my entries will probably be centered around Him™️#i want to peel him open like an onion and see what's going on inside. yknow #*slaps eadwulf* this baby can hold so much love shown through acts of service inside of it #angstpril2023 #criticalrole #fanfiction #day1 #liar #cr fic #critical role fic #eadwulf grieve #bren aldric ermendrud #caleb widogast #trent ikithon #<- literally my number one parasocial enemy tbh. and hes not even real #i would tag astrid but she's only very briefly mentioned so it feels wrong #this will eventually be on ao3 but for now i'm just slapping it here and getting the FUCK to bed

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soldier-poet-king · 8 months

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Well bit the bullet and forewarned my parents about the tattoo appt so I don't just show up one day with it, but took the cowards way out and did it while they're out of town and won't be back til Friday so I don't have to face the ire as my mother cools down

#franposting #my nonna on the other hand. im just. i dont think im gonna say anything at all tbh #it just. is what it is.#maybe putting art i have craved for so long on my body #is a way of learning to inhabit myself. of autonomy. of seeing myself as a person #not just like. a use made for a specific end #yes telos has a place but also maybe my telos isnt just to exist and burn myself up for every other person's whim #out of a sense of a guilt and an apology for my own existence #maybe. idk. maybe the duty and martyrs complex is right tho #idk. idk. been thinking a lot about family lately and how everything mostly just hurts.#the good days are just. neutral. theyre good by virtue of not being actively bad #but im realizing i genuinely dont know how to care for people or relate to people properly and its just. well. hm.#that sure is a thing im gonna have to live with for the rest of my life #i feel odd and unsettled and offputting even to myself. alas.#honestly work being unfulfilling and boring is part of the problem #without concrete clear and interesting goals and tasks i lose direction and fall apart #i need to be focused on things and tasks or else I'll die. or navel gaze my way into solipsism

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bluedrawsomething · 2 years

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sidestober day 2: space!

hes studying rocks.... let him

#logan sanders #sanders sides #sanders sides fanart #sanders sides logan #ts logan #yes i know im late for day two but shhhh #digital art #my art #space

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perpetualproductions · 1 month

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Trying to not let the depression win by distracting myself.

Send in some asks, people! Questions! Fic/ One Shot requests (GenV/Limoreau)! Theories, queries, a funny word! Have at it! Anything you want! (keep it appropriate you filthy animals).

Fuck mental illness, let's have some fun -Me

😎👍❤️ (much love)

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hella1975 · 8 months

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just full force threw a shoe at my sister's face and when my mum got me alone after she was like 'you shouldn't clobber her. but i get it' 😭

#it kicked off today but in my defence she's actually proper in the wrong this time even my DAD called her a bitch and my mum is FUMING #baso my sister came into my work with her mate when i was closing the other day and all the staff GLARED at them bc of aforementioned #close so i was being v chill so everyone 1) knew it was my sister and not some customer coming in late and 2) her friend wouldnt be uncomfy #like that's the real kicker her i was being extra laid back FOR her friend so he'd feel more at ease. and one thing about me is yes ive #said countless times i have a rural accent but my mum also raised me to know when and how to speak nice if need be bc people are cunts here #so when im waitressing i speak nicely bc it's a stuck up restaurant w stuck up customers but when im with my sister? making a point of #being laid back? my normal accent came through. and her mate when i was gone said i sounded 'really [from the county we live in]'#which WOULD NOT BE A COMPLIMENT. it's baso saying 'your sister sounds local and chavy' without using such explosive words #and my sister LET HIM SAY IT. SHE DIDNT DEFEND ME. and she told my mum about it later bc SHE THOUGHT SHE'D TELL ME OFF #LIKE SHE DID IT TO SNITCH. THERE WAS NO SCENARIO WHERE MY SISTER WASNT BEING A CUNT. and my mum hit the ROOF #one thing she's rlly been big on is loyalty bc it's always been the 3 of us so when she found out my sister let him say that she FLIPPED #and this all happened last night and i only found out this morning bc i overheard them screaming at each other and turns out my mum #tried to keep it from me bc she didnt want my feelings hurt and IM pissed bc it actually did hurt more than i thought it would #like i KNOW what people say about my accent but it's a guy i know? my sister's been friends w him for years? i was being nice?#it's EMBARRASSING like i was clueless & friendly and turned around for him to be like 'look at this stupid local girl' like??#and my sister did NOTHING? it just sucks so i STORMED upstairs when i found out and had it out with my sister #and she knew she was fucked so she did all 'im not talking to you i have nothing to say' AND PUT HER EARPHONES IN?#the way i RIPPED them out. got in her face like okay girl u think i sound like a chav ill act like a chav lets GO #and it just got really aggressive and i wound up grabbing HER OWN SANDAL and full force hurling it at her face 😭 oops #from close range too like i was already in her face so i basically just smacked her with a sandal DSHGJKSH #now we're sat in silence bc alas we still share a room. WHAT the fuck. insane tbh but it's a bit funny. im so angry rn i could KILL #hella goes home

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crescentfool · 2 years

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recently, i’ve been thinking about what a 100% social link/confidant run is like from the perspective of the persona protagonists, rather than the player. i’ve always been a sucker for thinking about the type of narrative created by a person’s gameplay choices (it can be so fun and deep) so!! i wrote this analysis / musing.

some notes before we start: this was written with the lens of persona 3 being the most recent game i played- but the concepts are applicable to the p4/p5 protagonists as well! no spoilers for any of the games are mentioned; this is moreso a general discussion of ludonarrative dissonance with the game mechanics and narrative and how it makes for fun angst (ft. personal interpretation).

(more under the cut!)

the framework: game mechanics

in all of the games, the social link system’s existence coincides with the social stats mechanic. certain social links require a specific set of stats in order to initiate it, or surpass a certain rank. each game has around 20 of these- each of which represent the major arcana (+ some bonuses, e.g. aeon / jester / faith / councilor).

for any players going for a 100% social link run, this basically requires each social stat to be maxed out. anyone who’s followed a guide for a 100% run would know that the beginning of the game tends to be very “strict” with how time can be used, most of which involves getting the stats raised as soon as possible.

outside of characterization and worldbuilding, completing social links are incentivized for a variety of gameplay reasons. so how could this completionist play style affect the protagonists?

prioritizing social stats over everything else: a general view

regardless of which protagonist you want to put under a petri dish, with a 100% run, you’re essentially asking the protagonist to form amicable bonds with 20 or so people, give or take. granted, not everyone becomes adjoined to the hip to the protagonist.

personally, i feel that forming 20 different bonds over the course of a year would be rather strenuous. during these 100% runs, the protagonists may feel that they’re spreading themselves thin trying to dedicate their resources to multiple different people as well as raising their “social stats.” i find the implications that this has on said bonds is so, utterly fascinating.

while this isn’t reflected in the game and would be better represented within a fic, i find it difficult to believe that this type of behavior doesn’t have any ramifications on the quality of the protagonist’s closer relationships (or their self-image, for that matter).

just… imagine calling one of your close friends but then they consistently give responses along the lines of “lmao sorry i’m busy doing other things,” and they rarely make the time of day for you. how would you feel? gameplay-wise, this deterioration of the relationship is best represented in persona 3 with social links reversing if you haven’t spent time with them in awhile.

part of my fascination with this concept is influenced by my own experiences. trying to maintain so many relationships can be difficult to keep up with and it quickly gets overwhelming (see dunbar’s number for more information). jumping between so many people also makes it difficult to focus on a few relationships meaningfully- meaning that relationships may be limited to being simple pleasantries. even then, ‘successfully’ keeping every relationship satisfying comes at the cost of being unable to pursue your own development and interests.

overall, i think that trying to do so many things ends up lowering the quality of the relationship(s) involved, especially when you also consider the fatigue from going to school as well as fighting shadows.

playing the therapist friend / listening role: a general view

another aspect of the 100% run that i think about is how the protagonists rarely open up to other people. a good chunk of SLs follow a storyline of the protagonist acting as a therapist friend/helping the other person through one central issue. some SLs are an exception to this and have a more casual “we’re just hanging out vibe.”

basically, SLs tend to be weighted toward the other character’s growth, moreso than the protagonist’s (which is handled by the main story). that said, the idea of mostly playing a listening role across most of your relationships and not having many that you feel comfortable to speak freely about your own stuff… feels really unbalanced and unhealthy?

i do think that part of the lack of “input” can be attributed to the silent-protagonist approach taken in the games (which is a whole ‘nother topic). but!! i find that each protagonist’s options, while limited, are fun to think about! some of the traits and interpretations i’ve seen for the differing protags, to name a few, include:

being afraid to open up / get attached and keeping people at arm’s distance as a result

needing to be around other people, even if it’s just listening them, to distract from their own struggles / pretend nothing’s wrong with them

enjoying helping others, being a good and careful listener who can provide an appropriate and helpful response

the willingness to prioritize others over themselves; a lack of self-preservation

compulsive people pleasing

at its worst, the lack of “protagonist talking” or equal reciprocation in response could be misinterpreted by the other person as disinterest (like they’re talking to a wall). alternatively- the lack of “personal tidbits” could be taken as, “you don’t trust me enough to be able to open up, huh.” and i just think that seeing this in a fic would be the biggest shitshow ever (and i would read that).

concluding thoughts:

overall, i feel that the protagonists taking a predominantly listening approach to several relationships at once can lead to compassion fatigue and general burnout. the protagonists are rarely at the receiving end of being listened to and/or having their issues worked through… and that’s kind of sad?

while the 100% social link run can provide great power to any persona fusions (and other cool battle abilities + hijinks)... i ultimately think that there’d be a lot of mental strain that would make achieving this much more difficult when you take a narrative-emphasized approach.

i do realize that it is possible to see the general vibe of this post as “100% social link is bad,” but like… there’s something i find really appealing about the messiness of attempting to manage so many relations at once- only to fall short in several of them and attempting to salvage the last bits of their sanity. when you think about the complications of the 100% SL run from the shoes of the protagonist… yeah!! that’s the good shit!

anyways! if anyone knows of any fics with this kinda vibe for the p3/4/5 protags… feel free to drop it in my askbox… i like them all VERY much :3c… and if this raised any food for thought- i’d be equally honored! let the protags go through shit i wanna see their emotions and coping mechanisms damn it! 👏

#persona 3 #persona 4 #persona 5 #yes it is 3am and im posting this. i couldn't sleep so i wanted to write something that i've been thinking abt as of late :x #highly recommend looking up ludonarrative dissonance btw! if ur interested in game storywriting its SOO interesting bc its definitely-#an occurence that happens every now and then in a video game. persona included. like.. when game mechanics tell one story but the narrative #-ends up contradicting that (or some other thing in reality ends up doing that...). does that even make sense??#i tried to keep this post general to p3/4/5 but if you know me well enough you'll see how my p3 bias has shaped this post. lmao #i also could go on a tangent about how i feel about orpheus telos as a thing w/rt p3 social links BUT I WONT. unless...?#i have more i want to say on the topic (maybe will do so at a later time) but feel free to ask for more specific hcs with the protags?#maybe not p4kun though just bc ive only watched p4 so i havent had the time to let it sit btwn play sessions #anyway bye im just going to let this float in the void while i sleep. have a good day #meta #hc and au nonsense #lizzy speaks

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homestuck--edits · 9 months

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hii hii ok can ii get uhhhhh thii2 panel