you gonna do somethin or just stand there & bleed?

when your mutual reblogs something with a full page of tags its like. girl (gender neutral) i am filling my mug with coffee and reading this like the morning paper. i am so interested in your thoughts on this post. i love you.

There are many fun reasons to have a character avoid using guns, but I think "this otherwise-awesome fighter is a really terrible shot" is an underappreciated one. Yes, they're available in my setting and would work against my enemies. No, I don't have a moral code against them or a power that makes them redundant. I just can't aim for shit!

In general IMO the more badass and hypercompetent a character is, the more they're enriched by having one skill they're just absolutely hopeless at. Terrible shot, terrible liar, terrible dancer, no poker face, no sense of direction, can't drive, can't swim, can't cook, can't read, always broke, always late, always falls for a certain trick...

this is true. I figured out recently that one of my favorite questions for fleshing out a character is "What is something they can do, but not well?"

also re: my dean + sex work post, and especially the quote from 1x08 where dean's talking abt making money through non-legal ways like hustling and scamming and he says, "it's what we were raised to do" and then connecting that to the scene in 1x20 where john tells dean "you know what to do" cut to-- dean playing monster bait (and being nonconsensually kissed by a vampire) and then connecting that to the cut line from 14x14 where dean tells cas that john used to make him play the wide-eyed hitchhiker routine as monster bait on hunts. dean was primed from a young age by john to see his body as nothing more than a tool and weapon. he learned from a young age that his body is an object. he is daddy's blunt little instrument. he is something that can be used for a purpose and then discarded. he's repeatedly used as a soldier and weapon by john when he's needed and then abandoned and neglected when he's not. and i think that mentality absolutely influenced how he saw his body in relation to sex and sex work. and i'm not saying sex work can't be empowering or positive for some people but in dean's specific case and circumstances it wouldn't have really been a choice but more a desperate last ditch option to survive (esp since it probs started when he was underage). but it's something he doesn't even waver much on because of all these prior experiences that have primed him for being objectified. like he's already had so much of his personhood stripped, he'd already been objectified as a weapon, seeing himself as expendable and only useful when he's being used. all of this made him so vulnerable and desensitized in a way that sex work for survival wouldn't even be a huge jump for him. it's another way he can be useful and make sure he's providing for his brother and fulfilling his number one job as caretaker.

i am terminally A Sucker for characters who have a towering and generally earned ego about their own ability and absolutely no self-worth about themselves as a person at all. intoxicating combo.