#long ranting

I hate when characters are given no defined personality traits so that audiences can project themselves onto them.

Now, I’m not talking about reader inserts or choose-your-own-adventure stories where the character is actually supposed to be the audience; I’m talking about characters who have their own names and backstories, and are treated as characters, but their personalities are left, well, nonexistent.

Usually, these blank “characters” are the main protagonists of the story, but the side characters are allowed to have their own traits, so we’re stuck following the adventures of truly boring people while everyone interesting gets sidelined.

Sometimes, authors will try to make the blanks more interesting by giving them new powers, but that only works for so long.

Eventually, the powers become the new normal, and you can only add so many more before it gets ridiculous.

I’ve heard people say that blank characters are useful because they can help introduce audiences to the setting—but characters with personalities can do it just as well!

For instance, a certain series which I won’t mention by name introduces a rich, fantastical world—through a pair of characters who are basically nothing!

Their personalities can be summed up very quickly: one of them is worried and the other is curious.

That’s literally it.

Both of them eventually develop powers, but neither one ever develops a personality.

By contrast, in the Circle of Magic series by Tamora Pierce, we learn about the world’s magic system through four kids whose magic powers have recently been discovered.

All four of them have their own distinct personalities.

it's just especially infuriating after seeing my home city (Melbourne) and the family and friends in it going through a really long and harsh lockdown but coming out the other side with no new cases. their hard work paid off!

guess what? I want to go outside too. we could ALL be out doing stuff by now if proper measures had been taken but they weren't so this shit is still going. as a decent human being, I am therefore trying to not go out to do frivolous shit.

Evolution is real!

Science is real!

Vaccines are good!

Black Lives Matter!

The Earth is not flat!

Donald Trump's evil!

Global warming is real!

Coronavirus is still a threat!

Racist people are bad people!

Autistic people are still people!

LGBT people are still people!

Using the Bible to be a bitch is bad!

Being an Atheist (or other) doesn't mean you'll go to Hell!

Animals and people should be respected!

Believing in every single conspiracy theory on Facebook makes you look like a crazy idiot!

Everyone deserves love and support, no matter what their religion, intelligence, disability, skin color, sexuality or anything like that!

To everything I say

What is it about summer nights that keep me up

I laze around all afternoon but stay up until way past 3

All alone with no thoughts to really focus on

Then I find myself sleeping until almost the whole morning has died

Then decide it's too hot and start all over again

I've always made use of my summer nights

3 years ago I watched TV 2 years ago I saved lives

And year ago my summer was spent talking from 8 to 2

To some sweet chick lost out in Orosi

And every year on the 4th I'd wander the neighbors

Lost in the dramatic reactions that lit up every street but my own

I'd like to do that more wander late at night in the dark

Letting the dim lights guide me to a place you can't find in the day

By night it's coole to what I wish midday was

And I could see pretty well for someone who needs glasses during the day

I remember the summers past talking to boys and men halfway across the US

So I wouldn't fall in love with them

And girls right in my hometown so I could bike across the ways and sleep with them

But this summer seems different

I'm restless and my thoughts

Well, they're not of women anymore

Just woman but I try not to think

About it or myself really

My mind really has gone downhill

I don't really care how I die or when I die

As long as it's soon

And yet there's always that thought

Nagging at the back of my head

Telling me that I want a long life

Because I really have a gift with my words

I just don't see a relationship

From the life I know I will live

If I continue to wake up every morning or noon possibly night

I just don't see myself achieving

The only goal I really do have

It's like a sacrifice a protagonist

Has to make to save the day

I have to go do great things

Use my words to challenge

Create and better the world

But the things I want to say and do

Don't work too well with a family

Something for someone to hold

Over me as leverage

But I do feel a purpose

Something bigger than myself

Maybe that's why I hate myself

Because I'm going to do so much

But I live in a world that would just rather me not do it

Because I know I will do so much

Good in a world that is so much bad

Probably not though

This is all part of the complete

Decline of my mental health

Which seems to be speeding up

At this rate I'll be 30 years old

And have not only lived a full life

But will be confined to a

Padded cell trying to make the pain in my head stop

Because I'm too impatient

For the injection administered to make it go away

And if I don't stop screaming

They won't let me play chess with the guard

Who's real name is Steve but I call him Eddie

I think I'll like Eddie

I think I want that padded cell to be near a cliff or beach overlooking a bay like in Hawkes Harbor

That way when I completely go insane

It'll be overlooking the water

And the cool breeze will lull me into closing my eyes

And the quiet peace will finally be with me

And I won't stay up during summer nights

Won't sleep with anymore girls or flirt with guys

And I'll stop hitting my head

To make the vision of her smile go away

Stop blaming myself for nothing

Stop fighting with myself over what I said

Or who I wasn't

And I'll finally stop feeling

My mind collapse in on itself

And I'll just stop breathing

Because at that point my mind

Is so gone that I'd have to

Learn living all over again

But I'm a fast learner

And I'll probably just live another 50 years

Watching movies, writing poetry and feeling my mind collapse and rebuild itself

Over and over until I die again

Hopefully one of the times I die is the last

Hopefully I'm thinking of her smile

More than a week ago, I started having tinnitus on one ear so i was worried. I went to my familly doctor. He didnt know the cause but found on my right ear (the one that i thought healthy) otitis ... ? (Ear infection) and he touched it and i was in real pain for 2 days and the first day i thought i was gonna rip my ear off.

So you know my Family doctor told me if i knew an ear/throat spécialist. I was like hey brah there is one like litteraly next door.

He didnt approve my choice nor disaprove it.

But I should have known something was wrong.

So I went there after my apointment and asked for a meeting with this one. I dont where you live but here trying to find a specialist for anything can take weeks or months.

But, suprise, he was free the next day.

... it was weird but okay.

So i went there the next day and.... I think something went wrong.

The doctor an old white man with oily skin and weird frizzy hair.

I sat in his office and he took a motherfuckin inking pen.

Not the one you put a thing inside of it and it work. No. The one you have a little bowl of ink next to it and you put your pen in it to have ink (like in harry potter).

WELL. Its a... style ? I mean aesthetic right ?

He was asking some information while writing and looked around me. The office was dirty... most of his equipment was like... 20/30 years old ?!

I understood why my family doctor didnt want me to go there.

So put me in this really old learther chair that was unconfortable. Asked about my tinnitus and told me : "well you listened to music too loud". Well fuck you too.

So he looked at my ears, nose and throat and proceed to... wash my ear of serumen. But first he saw some shit in my left ear and proceed to fuckin rip it off from it and i kinda screamed. Then he washed them and i moan of pain because HE WASNT VERY GENTLE AT ALLLLL.

I just wanted it to stop.

After he thought my ear was clean enough he did some hearring test and noticed that my left ear got some loss.

And the end. I didnt have any answer about my tinnitus. My ears are still unconfortable and every specialist here are booked for weeks so i went to ER because the specialist in this ER are really good.