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Listen to your heart! Listen to the rain!

@alacritious-eidolon-blog / alacritious-eidolon-blog.tumblr.com

Cover by whinecraft on my commission.
My name's Otter McKilbourne, and I run way too many combo ask blogs.
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Challenge for RP folks

Think up 50 rumours, about your character, that other characters might be able to learn about them.

Rank them by how common they are or how easy they are to learn (easiest/most common at the top, hardest/rarest at the bottom).

Make the list available somewhere for people to view.

Accept asks, plotting, threads, etc. based on the rumours you provided!

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a thing i see often that bothers me a great deal (especially coming from people who aren’t in the ace spectrum) is headcanoning certain characters as asexual in a way that is meant to imply some kind of…. conservation of innocence, this character is a cinnamon roll and to preserve them as sexless keeps them good and pure. people who have sex aren’t any less innocent or virtuous or real. go eat a shoe

ya like... it bugs me when people subconsciously use asexuality as a way of implying, like... inhumanity? in like. 3 categories i’ve seen

  • This Character Is Too Good And Pure To Ever (what op talks about - infantilising asexual people while demonising people who want sex)
  • This Character Is Too Far Removed From What I Understand To Be Human To Ever (because as you know, human=sex and sex=human >___> see: casting the only asexual characters in a story as robots, undead, aliens, AI’s... implying that asexual people are somehow less human or less “feeling” than people who want sex. it’s fine to have asexual robots etc but make sure there are some asexual humans in there too, ya feel?)
  • This Person Is Too Evil And Mean To Ever (implying someone must want sex in order to be a good person [and that all good people want sex] is. wow. wowowow. haha. holy crud. this one makes me cringe similarly to when disfiguring scars are used as a way to suggest someone’s evil.)

asexual people are... people... there’s just as much variation among them as any other demographic... an asexual person is just as likely as a person of any other orientation to be a good person, a bad person, a kind person, a malicious person, a calm person, an aggressive person, a naϊve person, a streetwise person, a fresh-faced person, a traumatised person, a happy person, a sad person, an empathic person, a person who struggles to relate to others, a selfless person, a selfish person, a healthy person, a sick person... i could go on but you get the point

headcanon what you like, but watch your subconscious prejudices as you do so - or you could end up implying some really unfortunate things!

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feelin particularly bad today so it looks like i’m postponing my writing Even Further than i already have lol!! since anything i produce today is going to be crap

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  • your muse is allowed to underestimate my muse 
  • your muse is allowed to disrespect my muse
  • your muse is allowed to provoke my muse
  • your muse is allowed to be a little asshole to my muse
  • and more – !!

So long as you, the mun, understand the consequences of your muse ticking off my muse your muse is allowed to be not nice to mine. Confrontation can be interesting and fun to rp! I welcome it! While you, the mun, should know better than to provoke my muse your muse might not and that’s okay! Mun does not equal muse and vice versa. When your muse provokes mine, disrespects mine, underestimates mine, I am trusting that even if your muse doesn’t know the consequences that you, the other mun, understand there are repercussions for your muse being an asshole.

you want your muse to be an ass to mine? that’s fine – just don’t whine when your muse doesn’t come out of it unscathed. 

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“A wolf pack: the first 3 are the old or sick, they give the pace to the entire pack. If it was the other way round, they would be left behind, losing contact with the pack. In case of an ambush they would be sacrificed. Then come 5 strong ones, the front line. In the center are the rest of the pack members, then the 5 strongest following. Last is alone, the alpha. He controls everything from the rear. In that position he can see everything, decide the direction. He sees all of the pack. The pack moves according to the elders pace and help each other, watch each other.” -Unknown Cesare Brai’s photo.

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groovyherbs

this is the coolest thing i’ve read on tumblr wow

Just so you know, the caption to this post isn’t based on facts! Here’s some more information, compiled by @wolveswolves . :)

The important part, which is the original photo caption and credit:

“A massive pack of 25 timberwolves hunting bison on the Arctic circle in northern Canada. In mid-winter in Wood Buffalo National Park temperatures hover around -40C. The wolf pack, led by the alpha female, travel single-file through the deep snow to save energy. The size of the pack is a sign of how rich their prey base is during winter when the bison are more restricted by poor feeding and deep snow. The wolf packs in this National Park are the only wolves in the world that specialise in hunting bison ten times their size. They have grown to be the largest and most powerful wolves on earth. Photograph: Chadden Hunter/BBC NHU” [x]
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imo, strong characters have:

  • a personal narrative or plotline that stands on its own as a good story
  • solid motivations of their own, which may change as the story progresses
  • solid personality traits of their own, which may change as the story progresses
  • solid strengths and weaknesses of their own, which may change as the story progresses
  • a background/history that complements the story overall
  • a network of other characters they know or meet, of whom they have or develop opinions
  • is allowed by the author to react to occurrences in ways that are inconvenient to other characters
  • has some element of their personal narrative or plotline developed or resolved by the end of the story

strong characters do not necessarily:

  • never show happiness, fear, love, anger, laughter, sadness, or any other human emotion
  • always solve problems by themselves
  • never show mercy or sympathy
  • always show mercy or sympathy
  • not have a family
  • always have something they are extremely skilled at
  • never ask for help from other characters
  • never show a tender moment with people they care about
  • never be tricked or deceived
  • never be an abuse victim/survivor
  • never break down
  • never fail

“strong character” means “strong narrative construct modelled after a person”, and has nothing to do with “strong person” or misconceptions about “strong person”. thank u

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Anonymous asked:

Since now we're supposed to write strong female characters, how can we show them caring about someone else without the audience perceiving them as "weak"? Right now I'm working on a story with a strong woman as the main character, but I'm worried that I ruined her image because she has one or two tender moments with her husband

Okay, anon, first things first.

“Now we’re supposed to write strong female characters,”: that should always have been the case, it has always been the case in good literature/media, and here is why.

I’m not going to go into the general problems about the portrayal of women in the media, but one general problem is having women as victims for either a) shock value, or b) having the man save them.

That doesn’t mean female characters shouldn’t have softer moments.

“Strong female character” is not the “strong independent woman” trope. A strong female character doesn’t mean she goes around punching people and hating men and not being called babe and hating all penises because men are evil.

A strong female character is one who is strongly written, aka has her own thought/motivations/reactions that are neither there to validate some other man (or even woman) or just there to move the plot. A strong female character isn’t a prop. A strong female character is written with just as much care as a male character is.

So, put it this way: would a male character seem weak if he had a tender moment with his wife? No, that’s what we call “character development.” Would a male character be lesser if he had flaws/moments of weakness/emotional fragility? No, that would make the character compelling.

If you want an example of a strong female character, just take a look at Jessica Jones. Yes, she has superpowers, and punches people, but during the entire show, those things are not what define her.

Jessica Jones is a smartass ; she will stand up against several men during the show, and her main villain is almost a textbook case of the kind of entitlement found in male abusers.

But Jessica Jones is traumatized ; Jessica Jones has panic attacks ; Jessica’s plans are often not well thought out ; Jessica sometime gives in to her lesser urges. Jessica has tender/vulnerable moments with several people on the show.

For another example: Molly Hooper, who doesn’t go around punching people, fighting crime, is generally soft spoken. She starts out very meek because of a crush on Sherlock, grows more of a backbone during the course of the show. She still stays rather soft spoken and soft hearted. Molly Hooper is a strong female character.

So, to finally directly answer your question: don’t make a difference between a male and female characters. A character is a character, and tender moments are what gives them depth. 

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In the case of being “a strong person”: Strength means staying youthroughout hardship. It means retaining the things that make you you even when pressures from outside are trying to convince you to be someone else. It means knowing how and when to ask for help, without pride limiting your way.

Strength doesn’t mean always being able to do everything perfectly, and never showing any hardship or emotions considered “soft” by modern American/British society.

But in the case of “strong female characters”, the word “strong” is intended on a meta level. You’re being asked to write a character who stands on their own in a narrative sense, and is also female. “Strong character” and “strong person” don’t mean the same thing. “I felt that plotline was weak” is more similar in meaning to “I felt that female character was weak” than “I think that woman is weak” is. You can have a character, who is a weak woman, and is still a strong character. I feel like people like anon miss that a lot.

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raptorific

Things that, as a mentally ill person, I do not find offensive:

  • Using the words “crazy” or “nuts” or “insane” to describe something unexpected or incredible, such as “Mars has two moons?! That’s crazy!” or “Wow, those Westboro Baptists sure believe some crazy shit” or “that party was insane!“ or “You really think you can have unlimited chocolate by cutting it a certain way? Are you insane?” or “One Direction’s fans went nuts when they stepped out of that chariot.”
  • Using words like “lunatic” or “madman” to describe someone who’s behavior is fanatical, like “Why is that raving lunatic shouting about abortion at this soldier’s funeral?”

Things that, as a mentally ill person, I find incredibly offensive:

  • When you use the words “crazy” or “nuts” or “insane” or “lunatic” or “madman” or any variant as a way of dismissing me or people like me and acting like we’re not full people
  • The portrayal in the media of mentally ill people as not existing beyond their illness on the rare occasion we’re shown as existing at all
  • The portrayal of mentally ill people as dangerous, or more violent than mentally healthy people, or less intelligent and competent to run their own lives than mentally healthy people, and the fact that a lot of writers don’t seem to understand that “mentally ill” is not a motivation. 
  • The fact that every time there’s a mass shooting or a bombing or an attack and they can’t scapegoat a religion or race for the crime, the perpetrator seems to grow a mental illness just in time for the trial, and people think that explains (or in some cases excuses) what they did
  • The fact that when people push for not allowing people who can’t use them responsibly to own weapons, they always seem to start at “mentally ill people” on the list of people who shouldn’t be allowed handle weapons, even though there’s no correlation between mental illness and violence. 
  • When people say “you’d have to be crazy to (commit atrocity)” even though no, sane people commit atrocities all the time. In fact, most violent crime is committed by people with no mental illness. 
  • The fact that I have literally seen otherwise-progressive people suggest that all mentally ill people be registered by the government, and perhaps required to identify themselves, and maybe imprisoned for public safety if the need arises. How would you have us identify ourselves? Should we wear a patch on our clothes, or just present our papers upon request?

But I think what really gets me the most:

  • When mentally healthy people call others out on our behalf when it comes to things on the first list, but remain completely silent about, or even actively complicit in, everything on the second list. 

the first thing still bothers me, honestly... it makes me feel alienated and like, “well okay, so would you think those things about me, too, if you knew the full extent of my condition?” it’s not a Big Deal but it’s still not something that i enjoy experiencing in situations where it’d be nice to feel comfortable, like hanging around with friends.

but the second and third things bother me moreso. much moreso. because they are Big Deals. and when it comes to mentally healthy people trying to “spread awareness about the issues faced”, the focus absolutely needs to be on that second things, because mileage varies hugely on the first between different mentally ill individuals (as OP and my’s discrepant feelings clearly demonstrates!) as it’s more about personal comfort zones of the specific individuals that you’re friends with than society-wide issues.

“this hurts [my/my specific friend’s] feelings, please be more careful” is one (perfectly valid) thing. but when that’s ALL you talk about, as a mentally healthy person talking about “issues faced by mentally ill people”, that makes out like the issues faced by mentally ill people are just about hurt feelings. and that’s not true at all. The hurt feelings are just the icing on a very nasty cake.

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so a lot of fantasy settings do the thing where there’s one or two or maybe three human societies, all based on European cultures unless they’re bad guys, and then the non-human cultures are all based on non-European cultures, like orcs will be loosely based on Mongols and there’ll be an animal race with superficial Native American trappings.  And for many reasons this can get really annoying.

But what if we turn it around?  There’s an awful lot to explore if we stick a different angle on it.  I want to see a thing where the human kingdoms are based on, say, imperial Mali around the time of Mansa Musa and the Mughal empire, and then maybe the orcs are based on pre-Roman Gaul, and the marauding beastfolk raiders look like Polish winged hussars, and your secretive-and-xenophobic but wise-and-spiritual elves or whatever are based on all the most alien and unfamiliar bits of medieval Catholicism.

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Multi Intelligence Theory

Score your character on the following scales:

Body-Kinesthetic | “body-smart” | coordination | hands-on work     5/10 | ✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧ ★ Interpersonal | “people-smart” | empathy | socialising with others     5/10 | ✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧ ★ Verbal-Linguistic | “word-smart” | reading | writing | talking clearly     5/10 | ✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧ ★ Logical-Mathematical | “logic-smart” | logic problems | arithmetic     5/10 | ✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧ ★ Naturalistic | “nature-smart” | spotting patterns | categorising things     5/10 | ✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧ ★ Intrapersonal | “self-smart” | understanding own thoughts & actions     5/10 | ✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧ ★ Visual-Spacial | “picture-smart” | creating | interpreting images     5/10 | ✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧ ★ Musical | “music-smart” | rhythm | composition | sense mood of music     5/10 | ✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧
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lierdumoa

That second to last panel is chilling.

I think about this ALL THE TIME. I fucking love it. 

Fandom is the most brilliant, beautiful, collaborative, critical, deeply subversive stuff there is and I ADORE IT TO PIECES.

And no, it’s not all women—certainly not, absolutely not. But I’d say it’s vast majority women. (…Ridiculous crazy vast majority anybody-except-cis-men.) I know I often think of fandom as a feminine and/or queer-centered space.

I’m reblogging for the added commentary and to add a link to a meta I recently came across. The whole thing is worth a read, but the first paragraph really resonates:

The types of fandom that are most often considered traditional and acceptable, and which are often either male-dominated or coded as masculine, tend to be acquisitive, whether in terms of knowledge (obscure trivia) or merchandise (collectibles). Whereas, by contrast, the types of fandom most often considered insincere, non-serious or “unreal”, and which are often either female-dominated or coded as feminine, tend to be creative, such as making costumes, writing fanfic and drawing fanart. (via fozmeadows)
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feminerds

I love this! Ofc young women/nb people/queer ids in hostile internet spaces are really into making things and presenting them instead of themselves.

as a queer man, fandom was the first place i saw people like me get to be in love and not die for it.

Fandom is so, so very important.

<3

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