Impy

Fandom account for yet another agender, queer, polyamorous, disabled, ND millennial who likes fiction, mischief, and cats 🖤💜🤍

[wayward-imp]

Other places to find me:

AO3: wayward_imp

Bluesky: wayward-imp

[ladyshinga]

i think baby-priority-seating should be a thing on planes. like. not, "they go on first", i mean how seating is ARRANGED. like o shit there's a baby on this flight? then the attendants ask everyone in the waiting area "who here is good with babies and enjoys the communal human experience of helping a parent soothe a scared child?" and then they rearrange everyone to make sure those people are sitting next to the baby just in case, and boom, less stress for probably literally everyone including the baby

i have no idea why i am thinking about this. i have no baby and have not been on a flight in years. this is dan levys fault

[wayward-imp]

Every memory I have regarding children on flights is overwhelmingly of the people around them reacting positively. Like, one kid says something a little too loud and the whole plane chuckles indulgently levels of positive.

Arranging the planes such that babies and kiddos end up surrounded by patient and willing adults is honestly a brilliant way to deliberately foster an environment where everyone is more patient and relaxed. Because, unsurprisingly, kids who feel safe and cared for tend to be much less stressful to travel with.

[prokopetz]

Did you play AD&D? I can't remember how old you are, so hopefully that's not too offensive. If so, was a typical game really as hostile as people say it was?

That's one of those question where the answer hovers somewhere between "no, with a couple of massive caveats" and "yes, but not in the way most people think".

A lot of AD&D 1st Edition's GMing practices are pretty hardass by modern standards; however, they need to be understood in the context that the game's authors were writing for a target audience who mainly played the game in college wargaming clubs, where players would frequently transfer between groups and group sizes tended to be very large – six players per GM was considered a bare minimum, and up to a dozen player characters in a single party was by no means unheard of!

In particular, players would often bring their character sheets with them when hopping between groups, and it was considered a faux pas for a GM to reject an incoming player's existing character or request any substantive changes be made, so managing expectations could be quite challenging; even as late as 2nd Edition, the Dungeon Master's Guide contains extensive discussion of how to gracefully handle players bringing existing characters with them who aren't necessarily a good fit for the present game's tone or resource economy.

The upshot is that the culture of play these iterations of Dungeons & Dragons are targeting inherently obliges the GM to take a much firmer hand to keep things on track than a pickup game that draws players exclusively from within the GM's established friend group might – and to be sure, some GMs abused these expectations to act like petty tyrants, but some contemporary GMs do that, too.

A big part of the modern perception that 1E and 2E were extraordinarily player hostile, meanwhile, has nothing to do with the previously discussed GMing practices; rather, it emerges from the transition away from that culture of play in a slightly unexpected way.

In brief, back when D&D was mainly played by wargaming clubs, it was fashionable to run pre-written adventure modules competitively at conventions; the competition wasn't between players, but between parties, with multiple groups running the same adventure in parallel to contend for prizes. Tournament play sometimes chose its winners based on the fastest real-time completion of the module in question, or set specific objectives within the module which would award points when completed, a bit like speed-running or achievement-hunting in a video game (though neither practice existed yet at the time).

It was the survival module, however, that quickly emerged as the most popular tournament format. In a survival tournament, each player would provide or was furnished with a binder containing a fixed number of pre-generated character sheets, switching to the next character sheet in the set as each preceding character died; the winning group was the one whose last surviving character's corpse hit the dirt furthest from the dungeon entrance.

Many of 1E's most popular adventure modules, including the infamous Tomb of Horrors, were originally written as survival modules to be run at tournaments in conventions. As such, they were designed to kill off player characters both quickly and efficiently, so as to reduce the likelihood that the tournament would run overtime and get kicked out of the convention venue. When they were later cleanup and repackaged as commercial adventure modules, their text rarely bothered to explain any of this – who doesn't recognise a survival module when they see one?

The answer to that question, of course, is kids who didn't come up through the mentorship system of the college wargaming clubs, but taught themselves how to play D&D from first principles using books they bought at their local hobby stores – and when D&D's popularity unexpectedly exploded in the early 1980s, there were suddenly rather a lot of them!

These kids purchased the repackaged survival modules along with all their other D&D books; having no frame of reference, they assumed that these represented what a "standard" D&D adventure was supposed to look like – and since they weren't experienced players with whole binders full of pre-generated backup characters at their fingertips, the result was a lot of seemingly unfair total party kills, and a lot of kids concluding that the previous generation's GMs must have been objectively insane.

[stephenleasheppard]

There is an additional amusing point of order here, which is the answer to the following two questions. I once had a discussion with someone in Gary Gygax's gaming group, who was involved in early TSR work a bit. Allow me to paraphrase my questions and his answers.

Why publish survival modules as your primary format of published adventure?

"Because that's what we had -- they were already laid out for publication. Why not publish them and make some money off it?"

Did it ever occur to you at the time that publishing adventures like these would shape the larger D&D culture's expectations of what play was supposed to look like?

"No, why would it?"

[sabotflask]

One of my favorite anecdotes about early D&D, from Blog of Holding:

"It’s hard to get that context just from reading the original Dungeons and Dragons books. If nine groups learned D&D from the books, they’d end up playing nine different games.

"Mornard told us about an early D&D tournament game – possibly in the first Gen Con in Parkside in 1978? Gary Gygax was DMing nine tournament teams successively through the same module, and whoever got the furthest in the dungeon would win. You’d expect this to take all day, and so Mike was surprised to see Gary, looking shaken, wandering through the hallways at about 2 PM. Mike bought Gary a beer and asked him what had happened – wasn’t he supposed to be DMing right now?

“It’s over!” replied a stunned Gary Gygax.

"Gary described how the first group had fared. Walking down the first staircase into the dungeon, the first rank of fighters suddenly disappeared through a black wall. There was a quiet whoosh, and a quiet thud. The players conferred, and then they sent the second rank forward, who disappeared too. The rest of the players followed.

"The same thing happened to the next tournament team, and the next. Players filed into the unknown, one after another. And they were all killed. The wall was an illusion, and behind it was a pit. Eight out of the nine groups had thrown themselves like lemmings over a cliff; only one group had thought to tap around with a ten foot pole. That group passed the first obstacle, so they won the tournament.

"Gary and his players couldn’t believe that the tournament players had been so incautious. But, to be fair, none of those tournament groups had played in Gary Gygax’s game. They had learned the rules of D&D, but they had no experience of the milieu in which the book was written. Of those nine groups that had learned D&D from a book, only one played sufficiently like Gary’s group to survive thirty seconds in his dungeon."

[odyver]

alright I've got to do some quick math to explain attitudes towards AI to my boss.

we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)

please rb for larger sample size!

Question 1/3

What is your age, and do you feel AI is a net positive or net negative in our lives today?

under 18, AI is a net positive

under 18, AI is a net negative

18-29, AI is a net positive

18-29, AI is a net negative

30-45, AI is a net positive

30-45, AI is a net negative

46-60, AI is a net positive

46-60, AI is a net negative

over 60, AI is a net postive

over 60, AI is a net negative

Remaining time: 5 days 22 hours

[odyver]

Question 2/3

How often do you visit or interact with museums/archives (whether in person or online)?

Frequently (multiple times per month)

Often (multiple times per year)

Occasionally (a couple times per year)

Rarely (once every couple of years)

Never :(

Remaining time: 5 days 23 hours

[odyver]

Question 3/3

If you saw a museum was using AI in exhibits, marketing, research, etc., would you be more or less inclined to visit that museum?

under 18, more inclined

under 18, less inclined

18-29, more inclined

18-29, less inclined

30-45, more inclined

30-45, less inclined

46-60, more inclined

46-60, less inclined

over 60, more inclined

over 60, less inclined

Remaining time: 5 days 23 hours

Thank you for helping with this data collection. Please rb for as big a sample as possible!

🫶

[dog-of-ulthar]

I'm so mad that a crucial piece of ADHD infrastructure for me has been learning to leave shit half done. It flies in the face of all conventional wisdom. It flies in the face of my own experience, as a serial ongoing project neglector. I gotta just stop, and stop where it makes the LEAST amount of sense to stop.

If I say "just let me just get to a good stopping point," that is the devil speaking through me. If I get to a good stopping point, I wrap up a big chunk of a project, I put everything away, mentally and physically. Getting to a good stopping point means finishing up all the easy stuff you already figured out how to do, so the next step when you try to get back to it is all hard stuff, AND you have to get all the Tools and Materials out again? Nothing will come of this. One million quilt blocks be upon ye, and no finished quilt.

And if I say "I'll power through and finish now, and then I'll be done," this is an even bigger and meaner devil. I know I CAN work when I'm getting progressively more tired, hungry, or frustrated, but I also know my efficiently is going to start dropping rapidly. There is NO POINT in pushing through that, if you aren't in high school. Adult deadlines aren't real. File for an extension on your taxes and do that shit whenever. Don't finish Now. Finish in the morning, finish after lunch, after you've taken a little walk. You have to fight the demon that really really REALLY wants to be Done, because when you force yourself to work while not at your best you cause it to take twice as long and make you four times as miserable. I know you're thinking "but if I don't finish while I have motivation I might never finish", and that's true, but only if you stop WRONG

You gotta stop time's up pencils down NO last minute final touches. Leave the needle in the fabric. Do not tie a knot. For the love of god do not put anything away if you can help it. Do not save and exist that word document. Listen, it fucking hurts. It rankles at you the rest of the day, the feeling of "oooh I was so close, I just gotta do this one little thing." That's GOOD. That feeling is what breaks the cycle, the tendency to put something down and not touch it for a month or more. That one little thing is a gift to yourself in the morning. It gets you back in. Then when you're high on having finished your big task and STILL full of energy because it's a new day and you only did one little thing?? Maybe you're going to bask in that for a while, but if you're anything like me that's when you start the next hard thing. Because you're already up and doing stuff, and you've just proven to yourself that projects do get finished sometimes. And THIS is how you build momentum. This is how you regain faith in yourself.

[wayward-imp]

I am thinking today about the ways in which so many of our ideas about which moral or immoral acts law should regulate are about protecting people, but rarely do we interrogate what we are actually protecting them from. Is it harm, or merely experience? Is it loss of liberty, or merely loss of social impunity? What exactly is it that we casually believe it is wrong to inflict on each other, and does that belief stand up to scrutiny?

It's just something I wish we would all consider a little more closely. Who are we protecting, what are we protecting them from, and is a blanket statement of right and wrong for entire categories of behavior really a social norm that does that? We should always, always, at least ask.

[cloysterbell]

“This is a big ass speech. This is a big ass stop the show, this is the moral framework of the entire five years you’ve seen. Nate Ford justifies 77 episodes of Leverage in this speech, cause you know what? It is the last goddamn episode, you’re gonna know why we made the show. We didn’t make the show cause we thought it was clever or cute or fun. I always say this, no show succeeds unless somebody loves it and you know what, everybody loves this show and to me, what Nate’s saying here is important enough to say out loud. No one should be allowed to cheat and get away with it.” - John Rogers, The Long Goodbye Job DVD Commentary

[theoutcastrogue]

Congress Is Considering Abolishing Your Right to Be Anonymous Online

The bipartisan push to remove anonymity from the internet is ushering in an era of unprecedented mass surveillance and censorship.

"The problem is that there’s no way to reliably verify someone’s age without verifying who they are. A platform cannot magically discern that a user is 16 without collecting identifying information, whether through government documents such as a passport, payment information like a credit card, or other identity-disclosing data. Whether that data is stored by the platform itself or outsourced to a vendor, the result is always the same: A user’s offline identity is forever linked with their online behavior.

Stripping anonymity from the internet would constitute one of the most sweeping rollbacks of civil rights in recent history. It would allow for unprecedented levels of mass surveillance and censorship, endangering the most marginalized members of society. Whistleblowers exposing corporate wrongdoing could be tracked and fired, government employees speaking out about illegal behavior or bad policies could face prosecution, and activists organizing protests could be identified and surveilled before ever setting foot on the street."

[softness-and-shattering]

And this is exactly the kind of thing US lawmakers will decide for US citizens, and it will effect everyone who uses the internet globally. Already any kind of age verification amounts to "hand over your government identification to a private US corporation".

I dont know what solutions might be on a broader scale, but its absurd for one country to have this much power and for their private corporations to be handed this amount of authority from literally world governments demanding "safety for children". This power structure is absurd.

Yall USians have got to shut down all this bullshit, youre the ones who vote these people in and out. Theyre not gonna give a shit what foreigners have to say.

[fforsythiaaa]

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

[hypokeimena]

#'this is present in the text' is often a good first step #but those second and third ones (naming it; describing its function) are vital (via @elucubrare)

[suzannahnatters]

all RIGHT:

Why You're Writing Medieval (and Medieval-Coded) Women Wrong: A RANT

(Or, For the Love of God, People, Stop Pretending Victorian Style Gender Roles Applied to All of History)

This is a problem I see alllll over the place - I'll be reading a medieval-coded book and the women will be told they aren't allowed to fight or learn or work, that they are only supposed to get married, keep house and have babies, &c &c.

If I point this out ppl will be like "yes but there was misogyny back then! women were treated terribly!" and OK. Stop right there.

By & large, what we as a culture think of as misogyny & patriarchy is the expression prevalent in Victorian times - not medieval. (And NO, this is not me blaming Victorians for their theme park version of "medieval history". This is me blaming 21st century people for being ignorant & refusing to do their homework).

Yes, there was misogyny in medieval times, but 1) in many ways it was actually markedly less severe than Victorian misogyny, tyvm - and 2) it was of a quite different type. (Disclaimer: I am speaking specifically of Frankish, Western European medieval women rather than those in other parts of the world. This applies to a lesser extent in Byzantium and I am still learning about women in the medieval Islamic world.)

So, here are the 2 vital things to remember about women when writing medieval or medieval-coded societies

FIRST. Where in Victorian times the primary axes of prejudice were gender and race - so that a male labourer had more rights than a female of the higher classes, and a middle class white man would be treated with more respect than an African or Indian dignitary - In medieval times, the primary axis of prejudice was, overwhelmingly, class. Thus, Frankish crusader knights arguably felt more solidarity with their Muslim opponents of knightly status, than they did their own peasants. Faith and age were also medieval axes of prejudice - children and young people were exploited ruthlessly, sent into war or marriage at 15 (boys) or 12 (girls). Gender was less important.

What this meant was that a medieval woman could expect - indeed demand - to be treated more or less the same way the men of her class were. Where no ancient legal obstacle existed, such as Salic law, a king's daughter could and did expect to rule, even after marriage.

Women of the knightly class could & did arm & fight - something that required a MASSIVE outlay of money, which was obviously at their discretion & disposal. See: Sichelgaita, Isabel de Conches, the unnamed women fighting in armour as knights during the Third Crusade, as recorded by Muslim chroniclers.

Tolkien's Eowyn is a great example of this medieval attitude to class trumping race: complaining that she's being told not to fight, she stresses her class: "I am of the house of Eorl & not a serving woman". She claims her rights, not as a woman, but as a member of the warrior class and the ruling family. Similarly in Renaissance Venice a doge protested the practice which saw 80% of noble women locked into convents for life: if these had been men they would have been "born to command & govern the world". Their class ought to have exempted them from discrimination on the basis of sex.

So, tip #1 for writing medieval women: remember that their class always outweighed their gender. They might be subordinate to the men within their own class, but not to those below.

SECOND. Whereas Victorians saw women's highest calling as marriage & children - the "angel in the house" ennobling & improving their men on a spiritual but rarely practical level - Medievals by contrast prized virginity/celibacy above marriage, seeing it as a way for women to transcend their sex. Often as nuns, saints, mystics; sometimes as warriors, queens, & ladies; always as businesswomen & merchants, women could & did forge their own paths in life

When Elizabeth I claimed to have "the heart & stomach of a king" & adopted the persona of the virgin queen, this was the norm she appealed to. Women could do things; they just had to prove they were Not Like Other Girls. By Elizabeth's time things were already changing: it was the Reformation that switched the ideal to marriage, & the Enlightenment that divorced femininity from reason, aggression & public life.

For more on this topic, read Katherine Hager's article "Endowed With Manly Courage: Medieval Perceptions of Women in Combat" on women who transcended gender to occupy a liminal space as warrior/virgin/saint.

So, tip #2: remember that for medieval women, wife and mother wasn't the ideal, virgin saint was the ideal. By proving yourself "not like other girls" you could gain significant autonomy & freedom.

Finally a bonus tip: if writing about medieval women, be sure to read writing on women's issues from the time so as to understand the terms in which these women spoke about & defended their ambitions. Start with Christine de Pisan.

I learned all this doing the reading for WATCHERS OF OUTREMER, my series of historical fantasy novels set in the medieval crusader states, which were dominated by strong medieval women! Book 5, THE HOUSE OF MOURNING (forthcoming 2023) will focus, to a greater extent than any other novel I've ever yet read or written, on the experience of women during the crusades - as warriors, captives, and political leaders. I can't wait to share it with you all!

[notes-from-a-human]

If you're writing about Byzantium/Byzantine inspired places, there's a few other things to keep in mind:

-Byzantium was a civilization that spanned a millenia and a huge geographical area. The treatment and experience of women was not constant at all times in all places.

-Women had different levels of autonomy at different periods of their lives. Many women gained great autonomy after their husband's death (and he usually died much before her), and could be registered as the head of household.

-There are basically two career options for Byzantine women: wife/mother or nun. Sometimes both, but never at the same time.

-Just as in the Latin West, class mattered a lot, and basically determined a person's entire life. Peasant women worked in agriculture and trades, while noble women had a much softer life.

-the idea that noble women were confined to the house is likely an exaggeration. (A byproduct of Byzantium's "distorting mirror") Furthermore, the women's quarters were nowhere near as closed off and restricted as the later Ottoman harems. In many places, women could move freely between their own quarters and the rest of the house. However, if a non-related male was visiting it was customary that the women would not be seen. This seems to be a mainly noble/middle class practice, and not an elite or peasant practice.

-Women played important ceremonial functions at the royal court. The Augusta (one of three titles for an empress) received the wives of visiting nobles, and was so important that, even if the emperor was unmarried, he might crown his daughter for the role. (See Leo the Wise) Additionally, there was an office reserved just for a woman, she was called "the lady with the sash" and she was placed very close to the emperor, and thus highly influential.

-Imperial women were highly influential, and could be incredibly masterful politicians.

-Women weren't forced to have endless babies until they died in childbirth. Byzantine women had access to both contraception and abortion, and there was some amount of recognition of a woman's right to choose. Furthermore, if a woman already had kids, but decided she didn't want to be a mom anymore, joining a convent was always an option. (For wealthy women)

If you're interested in learning more, the volume "Byzantine Women: Varieties of Experience," edited by Lynda Garland is a good starting point. You can also read the hymns of Kassia the Nun, or the Alexiad of Anna Komnene to get an idea of how women wrote, and what concerned elite women.

[suzannahnatters]

Excellent comments - plus, I'll recommend the great Judith Herrin as a magisterial voice in Byzantine women's history!

[wayward-imp]

Mildly obsessed with the concept of a Halaire Venom Arc.

Because who but a master actor could retain their distinct sense of self even while playing a role? Maybe, unlike the others, Hal could wear Bolaire without being slowly consumed. Symbiosis, not parasitism, and undertaken specifically to save Bolaire for some reason.

I think Bolaire would almost be fine with that, for a while, but ultimately would long to be a separate person again. Maybe not even for himself, but because it's a crime to limit a versatile performer to a single role.

[wayward-imp]

Update: No part of my wish to see this has changed, I still think it would be phenomenal watching Taliesin and Liam play out the process of finding symbiosis at the table. But I can see more reasons to do it than just protecting Bolaire now, and while Taliesin is clearly eager for it, I think Bolaire would not be. Part of him probably wants that more than a little, but a lot of him is also probably repulsed by it. I think he does the sentient mask equivalent of waking up in a cold sweat about it.

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[lostsometime]

ok sorry to double reblog BUT I just looked him up and he does these fantastic videos where he breaks down HOW he actually mimics the other artists’ styles. Like for ed Sheeran, he explains how he brings his voice forward in the mouth, while Adam Levine sings in the back of the mouth, stuff like that. It’s SO COOL, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone actually break down how to do this sort of thing, as a skill, instead of just treating it like a neat trick they just happen to be good at. https://www.tiktok.com/@justinjmooremusic

Check him out he’s so cool

[subversivecynic]

The singing with where the voices in your mouth is such a complex thing that I understood pretty intrinsically and it's why I succeeded in vocal studies as long as I did. How you hold your teeth and where to hold the sound is so important.

[microsff]

A spaceship entered Earth's orbit and broadcast a message:

"We are the Interstellar Library. Do you want to swap? We have thousands of stories."

There were many replies.

The library was silent for a whole day, then:

"What do you mean, 'We have millions'?"

[a-krogan-skald-and-bearsark]

"And that's just on AO3!"

[world-enough-and-timerogue]

my fav relationship ship dynamic is where it doesn't matter if you call it platonic or romantic or queerplatonic because they always act the same in every type of relationship. and the way they act? fucking weird.

[catchaspark]

Rest = Lying Down, Eyes Closed Because other parts of the program from England made sense, I decided to try resting every afternoon. After some experimentation, I determined that the most restorative rest resulted from lying down in a quiet place with my eyes closed. I was surprised at the results from taking a 15-minute rest in mid-afternoon. Even that short break seemed to help, reducing my symptoms, increasing my stamina and making my life more stable. After a while I added a similar rest in late morning. Over time, I came to believe that my scheduled rest was the most important strategy I used in my recovery. Resting everyday according to a fixed schedule, not just when I felt sick or tired, was part of a shift from living in response to symptoms to living a planned life. The experience showed me that rest could be used for more than recovering from doing too much; it could be employed as a preventive measure as well. In the terms suggested by someone in our self-help program, I learned the difference between recuperative rest and pre-emptive rest. Surprisingly, taking pre-emptive rests greatly reduced the time I spent in recuperative rest, because I was experiencing much less Post-Exertional Malaise. The result was that my total rest time was reduced.

sometimes like an idiot i assume everyone has read bruce campbell on resting/pacing to handle post-exertional malaise affiliated with chronic fatigue. that is obviously not true! anyway here's the hot guide, i linked straight to the "schedule in mandatory complete 15 min rest as part of your day and hopefully you will get to do less surprise many hours of rest to recover" section but the whole thing is laid out pretty clearly

[feels-like-fire]

If there was one thing I wish I could impart to anyone wanting to enjoy and engage with a book more, it is: Assume the POV character is not being honest with you.

I don't necessarily mean every POV character is a scummy liar who is secretly a murder, or something. But one of the most common and useful narrative devices fiction authors can employ is an unreliable narrator. And some of the most delicious and interesting tension in a story comes from the conflict between what the POV character thinks is true versus actual reality.

This dissonance can be about sooooo many things, but the two I'm most thinking of with this post are:

How the character thinks of themselves (I'm honest, wicked, incompetent, undeserving of love, totally straight) vs what they are forced to face over the course of the story

What other people think of them vs what other people ACTUALLY think of them (this person I'm obsessed with DEFINITELY HATES ME turns into "Oh shit they're? in love with me?")

Often you'll get both of these dissonances in the same book! Which is just. So juicy and delicious. And yet I've seen so many people write off incredible books with fantastic character growth because they assume the POV character & narrative is telling the complete, unvarnished truth when, in reality, that character is such deep denial I can hear the author making jokes about a river in Egypt from several countries away. Or sometimes the main character is just really misinformed, clueless, or believes false information.

Please, please assume the POV character is fully lying to themselves about something important (and by extension lying to YOU, the reader) at the start of the story. Pay attention to what things the narrator/POV character repeats to themselves or other people over and over (you know... like when you're trying to tell yourself This is Fine.jpg), and compare it to how they actually act, and how other characters in the story act. You will very often notice a discrepancy.

Often, this leads to "things get worse before they get better." A great (but by no means the only) example is: the MC believes the second main character hates them, or is a bastard, or betrayed them, etc (maybe because the MC believes that they themselves are a terrible person who deserves to be betrayed) and acts accordingly to fight back or protect themselves, only to discover they were Totally Wrong and now they have to desperately try to fix what they have possibly fucked up beyond repair.

It's great! This is such a juicy arc! I never get tired of it! But it DOES require you to understand that the narrative is NOT being honest with you for a portion of the story. The author expects you to know this, and to pay close enough attention to spot the fault lines in the facade, so you can enjoy watching it crack open to reveal the truth inside.

[sistertaxon]

why are there so many posts about asexuals being immune to sirens. people. sirens don’t lure you in with sex (necessarily). they sing about whatever it is that you want most. they could sing about mothman or cinnamon toast crunch and guess what then your asexual pirate is fucking dead

[thesylverlining]

this is the only kind of ace discourse i ever want to see on my dash. the only kind. ever again. good job

[kittyknowsthings]

Do you think the sirens would be grateful that they finally get some variety? 

[systlin]

“Oh my god we can finally just sing about pasta thank the fucking gods.” 

[totohoy-blog]

I’m not asexual but I’m fairly certain sirens would do a far better job luring me into the depths with a song about pasta rather than sex…

[systlin]

I mean. 

“WHAT THE FUCK STAY AWAY FROM THE ROCKS.”

“FUCKER THEY SAID THEY HAVE FETTUCCINE CARBONARA AND HOT GARLIC BREAD OVER THERE HANG ON BITCH.” 

[musicalhell]

This is true; Odysseus heard them promising him knowledge of the future.  So the next time you see artwork like this:

Remember those sultry naked chicks are saying “We’ll tell you the winning lotto numbers.”

[fuckstaffposts]

Them: “We have unlimited wifi at incredible speeds~” Me: *diving headfirst into the water*

[rpluvsyj]

This post is a blessing

[wittyusername97]

Congratulations! Odysseus! You’ve been selected as a winner for the free $1000 Amazon Gift Card, Apple iPhone X 256G or Samsung Galaxy S8! Claim your prize now!

[kitvalkyrie]

Oh my god sirens were literally scam websites

[10thingsihateabout-all-yall]

Oh my god they were phishing