#yeetbean

[secondbeatsongs]

ask and you shall receive, @nothorses​

[makingtrouble]

I think the censored word is shitty

See I knew I would feel silly for not guessing it but I can’t believe I forgot about the word shit

[the-adventures-of-dave]

how do you prevent fleas when taking your cats outside? it luckily isnt a problem yet, but i dont know anything about flea prevention for cats or what works. thanks so much! heres a picture of bathtub rusting in the sun for your time :3

shes been great outside since the start! im very lucky shes so chill. this is her 3rd or 4th backyard visit

We use Advantage II as our flea preventative! You can find it or similar products in most pet stores as far as I know. It’s just a paste you squeeze onto their back every few months, so no pills or stress required! The worst part is you can’t pet them for a while or else you’ll get slimed.

[mspaintripventure]

can you rip john from page 1434? pref without the subtle flashing

Of course! I hope you enjoy it!

[therealvinelle]

do you have any tips on writing Aro? I love the way you write him, and i want to do a better job than i am. he only has a small part in this fic but i feel he could easily just take over when Carlisle shows up lol

Oh that's hard to answer.

There's no official process to it when I decide how to characterize someone, it all just happens rather automatically, which makes it tough to explain to others.

Though, with Aro it's actually simpler than it is with a lot of other characters, since there are so many thing that make him unique.

The man is over three thousand years old, and he has a gift that means every time he touches a person he knows every single thought that person has ever had. His vampire brain makes it impossible for him to forget a second of his own life or even of the minds he has touched. He has ruled the vampire world with for over a thousand years, enforcing a law he came up with where breaking it means your death, no second chances and no alternative punishments (not counting those who are made to join his guard). Rather than brute numerical force, Aro decided to conquer the world with gifts and strategy. He killed all those who would stand against him, refused to yield, or who in other ways were an inconvenience to him. He killed his own sister even though he loved her, and when he thought his friend Carlisle had harboured an immortal child he was ready to kill him as well.

So, even before my interpretation of the character enters the stage, there are a few things we know about him.

He's intelligent

Too often I see Aro dumbed down to the point where it's unfeasible this guy could ever have conquered anything, nevermind the world. He's made into a comic book villain and easily outmaneuvered, usually by the Cullens even though the Cullens have zero military experience (save for Jasper, but Jasper's field of expertise is newborn armies. He knows how to use brute strength and quantity strategically, when outsmarting that entire school of military philosophy is exactly how Aro got to the top in the first place. Jasper's out of luck).

Of course, Aro had Caius and Marcus with him, taking over the world wasn't a solo mission, but if one of those three had been a weak link, the Volturi would not have succeeded. They each contribute, and more, Aro is the one who realised what talents were needed and held the group together.

You're looking at a man who understands people and sees their strengths and weaknesses, sees opportunities where others don't, who understands how best to utilise the tools and advantages he has. He is calculating, analytical, and can inspire others.

He's highly intelligent and a force to be reckoned with. If you want your characters to get the better of him you'll have to sell me on it. Either they outsmart him, or he makes a mistake, or both - the important thing is you can't sell him short.

Here's a post @thecarnivorousmuffinmeta wrote on writing intelligent characters I believe would be useful. And while the second part is about writing Tom Riddle, it's generic enough that you could apply it to Aro as well.

His gift colours his relationship with everybody

If he can read every single thought a person has ever had, then he knows them more intimately than anybody else ever will. The person you are when you are with friends, when you are at work, when you are with family, when it's just you, and all the things you won't show to anyone, Aro sees it all. He sees the best and the worst of you.

More to the point, his every relationship has an innate power imbalance where he knows everyone he meets better than they know themselves from the start, while they know only what he chooses to show them. That is, in turn, extremely isolating since most people aren't going to put up with that.

I think Aro likely allows those close to him a set of boundaries. If someone doesn't wishes to have their mind read and he disrespects that, he's signalling that there is nothing they can do to shield their mind and, in turn, themselves from him. A very effective way of establishing dominance against criminals, to be sure, and the members of his guard can't very well refuse their leader to know what they know, but when it comes to personal acquaintances such as Carlisle or the wives, he would be shattering the trust between them by forcing his gift upon them.

Aro is living in a strange world of his own where he knows everyone around him so much better than anybody else does, but that very gift is isolating and means he can't ever have a normal interaction.

His gift also gives him a unique vulnerability. Unlike Edward, he can't be blocked, which is great when you want as much information as possible, but it also means he can't be blocked. He's getting every goddamn thought. If he touches Rosalie, he'll see her rape from her point of view, and know exactly what was going through her mind at the time, and he will see her decades of grief and bitter regret at all she will never get to have. I know we all joke about Aro having canonically read Midnight Sun, but he really has seen all the years of Edward knocking his head against a wall muttering, "Angst. Angst. Angst." to himself, just as he has seen the inside of countless of other mentally ill or traumatized people.

The man has to have incredible strength to live with a gift like that. More, a gift like this will shape who is as a person.

And here you can headcanon, as I do, that he is at times reluctant to read a mind he knows won't be pleasant, or that Marcus will use his gift to filter out minds Aro really, really, shouldn't read (such as if a prospective recruit is having funny thoughts about Jane).

I also headcanon that reading a mind can be overwhelming, especially if it's his first time reading someone's mind, and that Aro has to figure out how he's going to navigate this particular person's mind before he can get anything worthwhile out of it.

He's immortal

More often than not, within Twilight or in other fandoms (pour one out for Master of Death!Harry), ancient characters will be portrayed in a way that feels mundane and narrow in scope.

You will get a lot of mocking the mayfly humans who so foolishly believe their blink of an eye time on Earth matters, or that their short-lived empires impress anybody. The immortal character will be too worldly to function, and think very highly of himself simply because he is old. He may or may not have a god complex.

It's a valid interpretation, the world has no shortage of people who are too worldly to function in their teens, and who would get a thousand times more insufferable if they lived to be three thousand years old. The fact that vampires don't mature physically is another factor working against them.

(... and I think I just made myself realise that the way Aro is frequently characterised is in fact what Edward would become, if he got to be that old. Edward talks as if he's much older than he is and considers himself to be very worldly when we meet him, give the guy another three thousand years and you'll be looking at fanon Aro.)

I personally choose to characterise Aro as one who has seen history repeat itself too often to think he's an exception. All the world's most brilliant thinkers, the most well intentioned laws and conscientiously executed governments, it has all fallen, one way or another. It is the nature of things. Aro is not the first man to become an emperor, and while his empire may be the first of its kind, his rule will one day meet its end, and while he can do everything in his power to thwart those who would be his usurpers, he would be a fool to believe it won't happen eventually.

I'll admit that @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin and I have a very specific type when it comes to how we want our immortal characters. We're both fascinated by the perspective you would get on the human race when you get to watch it for long enough, and how little trifles that seem so important to the contemporary mind would cease to matter.

I think Aro views immortals as no bigger than mortals, and that being ancient has been humbling, rather than the opposite.

I like to think I have proof of my interpretation of Aro in his love for human culture and arts. If we were ants to him, he wouldn't see the point in commissioning Solimena- why bother, when he could simply touch the man to learn how he performs his craft, and then teach himself to mimic it? Why be an academic, when our philosophies and scientific findings are the products of lesser minds?

By all accounts the man appears to be perfectly sane

Why I think Aro is sane is covered in this post.

Essentially, while all parties agree that the man is eccentric, I frequently see him characterised as insane (usually a nebulous insane where he's either a childish and infantile man, or he's a neurotic mess, or he's just... Insane™ (think Joker)).

Your fic, your decision, but... I'll just be blunt. I've yet to see insane!Aro done well. I'm sure it could be, I'm a firm believer in "anything can be pulled off if the author is good enough", but I've yet to see it.

I see him as someone easily perceived as mad, and not particularly bothered by that fact. If he was, he wouldn't be so openly himself. If anything, he seems to intentionally cultivate that perception.

A note on writing Dark™ characters

Frankly, this is worth a post of its own, just as the "How to write intelligent characters" bit, but I'll give it a shot.

For lack of a better way to explain this, I shall confess that when I was 13 I was one of those edgy kids who liked dark characters because they're so much cooler than the boring good guys. They hurt innocent people because they're edgy like that. God help me, I shipped Bellamort.

Why do I bring this up, you may wonder, and it's because a lot of the time when I'm reading Aro fic he acts like something 13-year-old me would have found very impressive. Sadly, this means we're now back to Aro being a comic book villain, because in order to have your Dark Aro™ you have to dumb him down and make him edgy (I don't want to give examples of this publicly since it's a small fandom and the examples that come to mind would be from specific and easily identified fics, so you'll have to forgive my being vague. I hope it's clear what kind of characterisation I'm describing, though). He becomes a flat and uninteresting character.

With a character like Aro, who murdered his sister for power, you can't ignore the man has a dark side, but don't write a Dark™ character.

Aro is ruthless, there is no denying that. He can kill anybody, no matter how much he loves them or how much it will destroy him, if he perceives it to be necessary. He killed god knows how many vampires on his way to power, and continues to rule not as a king, but as a judge and an executioner. He has made sure the vampire world knows he will spare no one if they break his law or try to rise up against him, and that is the kind of lesson you can't teach without making examples of countless of covens (And yes, I know Caius exists, but again, if Aro was a weak link here then the Volturi would be known as "those guys who can kill you, but won't").

In spite of this, we see he is capable of being both generous and fair to his subjects. There's a distinct lack of bloodlust, and his admiration for Carlisle points to a sincere appreciation for goodness and morality that you're not going to get from Darky McDarkety Dark.

I view him as a man with demons. He has done unforgivable things, he has to live with the eternal reminder of what he did to his sister in the form of Marcus, and I interpret his choice to present his warm and sincere side to those around him as one made because he is deeply private in his own way, and this seeming openness is a good way to keep the parts of himself he doesn't want to broadcast close to the chest.

Lastly, I'm a nerd

There's no denying my interpretation of Aro is largely inspired by several fictional characters I adore. Examples being:

Emiya Kiritsugu from Fate/Zero, a man who will destroy anyone and anything in pursuit of a cause he has devoted himself to entirely. He kills the only mother he has ever known because saving her would have meant the deaths of hundreds, and he marries the woman he loves even though they both know he will have to kill her to save the world. In the end, when he learns that his cause would only lead to greater destruction, he abandons it even though this means his wife died for nothing and his daughter will die as well. Does he hate himself for these things, yes, does that stop him, no, because he's living a life where it keeps being him who has to make these awful decisions, and every time he tries to choose the one that will save as many people as possible- or kill as few as possible.

Livia from I, Claudius, who is incredibly intelligent, ruthless, will kill her loved ones off, her biggest problems are dealing with fools, and who's ultimately recognised by Claudius as a stabilizing force after she's dead. She is hated by those who recognise her for what she is, save for by Claudius who, though he fears her, grows to understand her.

Claudius from I, Claudius, who doesn't wish to be Emperor, but he remains on the throne to Rome because he knows that the world will fall apart without him.

TL;DR: Write Aro as an intelligent man whose outlook on the world around him is shaped by his gift, one who has attentively watched human history unfold in front of him and learned from this. Make him ruthless because he has to be.

Good luck, I hope this was remotely helpful.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

do you think vampires could throw something hard enough it exists the atmosphere?

Per a brief google search, the escape velocity of Earth is 11.2 km/s (the velocity required with which to break away from Earth's orbit).

Now, this is fucking fast (it's what it says on the tin, you're going over 11 km in a single second). What makes this hard for me to guess is that we don't know the upper limits of vampire strength. We see the baseball game, but for all they're claiming to go "all out", they're not throwing things hard enough to get this kind of velocity out of it.

As a result, I'm going to say no, as Emmett most certainly has tried and would most certainly brag about it were it possible. (I imagine many destroyed roofs in neighborhoods the Cullens have lived in).

[bellaslilpapercut]

Werewolves: thoughts?

Sexy and versatile!! I love werewolves and Ginger from Ginger Snaps is my #1 hair inspiration currently! I think one of the reasons I like werewolves better than vampires is because they're as versatile as vampires but always more immediately recognizable. Like there are certain laws and weaknesses of werewolves that turn up All the Time keeping them consistent across a lot of history (like the rougaroux is recognizably similar to the loupe garou who is also recognizable in HP series, TVD, etc) (okay side note: supernatural really fucked up their rougaroux episode lore, rougaroux is the Cajun version of loupe garou! They're man-wolves! I have no idea where CW got the lore for that one lolol)

I also think werewolves are the ideal boyfriends (probably) and are usually much more tragic characters than vampires because I have never heard of a werewolf lore that would make it possible to choose becoming one. (Twilight doesn't count bc they aren't "werewolves" because smeyer just wrote out her stream of consciousness with no planning lol.) Like there is something compelling about someone choosing to be a vampire and then living through an eternity of regret or whatever but I think werewolves are almost always more my kind of story, I love how werewolves fit so perfectly into self-acceptance narratives like that shit is exactlyyyy my jam!

[mightbewriting]

Do you remember any good harmony fics you've read? I feel like I'm constantly scraping the bottom of the barrel bc there's just SO many harmony fics and a lot of them are too steeped in tropes/etc for me to enjoy at all

i am yeetbean? yeetbean is me? i feel this on a cellular level, friend. and I wish I remembered so that I could help you out. but its been months and months and months since I waded into those murky waters in search of quality harmony that hits in the right way for me. 

i have...vague recollections of drunk tumblring and this same question being brought up. and I think there were some lovely folks who recommended things, but as I was drunk at the time I definitely did not write them down or remember them...i am the worst lol