#I will probably talk about it a bit

[dropofsoup]

My two best friends just started dating.

For the past few months, that was my biggest fear. I told them as such.

They told me on Thursday. Thursday was a very rough day. A lot of crying happened. A lot of angry tears.

Friday was a rough day. A lot of sadness. But we talked it out.

Today is their first date.

I’m coming around. I’m happy for them.

[swordsonnet]

i'm sorry but i don't think we should call this the "autism website" when there's still posts with tons of notes mocking people who:

struggle with social skills / have anxiety around social settings

are unemployed / unable to work certain jobs

have intense or "age-inappropriate" interests

haven't had certain life experiences that are deemed universal/essential

struggle with personal hygiene

don't have any friends or dating experience

don't go outside much or at all

take things literally / don't get sarcasm/jokes

have unusual ways of speaking

generally aren't "normal"

[gascreates]

a new star

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Look what we've become.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[biblically-accurate-dca]

painting test with a limited color palette

here's the moon equivalent!

[wyvernity]

been thinking about the sinnohtrio lately......plus misc other stuff

also, casual ko-fi drop!! get something in this sketchy style starting at $10 woop woop

[cup-o-stars]

Originally I was gonna draw her in my favorite outfits she's worn, but with barely any digging I realized she consistently has the best looks- as well as the most- and it will take way too long to pick through them. So I just drew her.

[solavellan--hell]

Another reason that I find appeal in the dynamic of Solavellan:

Ever since Solas took a body, he has never really had the chance to be a person.

He has been a soldier, a traitor, a leader, a symbol, a liberator, a scary story you tell to little elven children so that they don’t misbehave, the list goes on. He has always been the means to some sort of end, both for other people and for his own self (evident by the way he constantly disregards his own wants and needs). Once the mask of Fen’Harel is on, he becomes an idea. This is something he enforces himself, because this is all he has known to be, and it is the only way he knows to achieve his duty.

And then Inquisition comes around. This time, to achieve his duty, he is forced to pretend the mask does not exist. He is just some random lowly apostate who knows a lot about the Fade. And after some time, as an unintended consequence of having to conceal the persona of the Dread Wolf, he gets to see what it would be like to live without it. He has found companionship amongst spirits before, but that aligns with his nature as a spirit, not his nature as a person. As part of the Inquisition, he gets his first taste of not having to be something greater than himself, but simply exist in his body.

Of course, it’s not enough. The mask is still there and so is his responsibility to fix his mistake. He does not allow himself to forget fully. When he is with Lavellan, however, his resolve falters dangerously, which is why he ultimately has to leave her behind. But for that limited time, she is the one person that has been the closest to what he would have been as a person, simply existing in the context of himself.

Lavellan relies on him, but doesn’t push him or use him. She lets him help as much as he is willing. She gives him agency over his position. She is the first person that he lets close to him who does so. Even in their love life, she makes her feelings known, but lets him make the final decision. She kisses him, and immediately pulls away so that he can retract if he wishes. She asks him not to go by gently holding his arm. She tells him she is willing to give their relationship a try, and lets him take his time. She is firm with her love for him, but never holds him down.

The only exception to this, in my opinion, is Felassan. Though Felassan views Solas as friend first and leader second, he ultimately tells Solas that he has to keep up the mask of the Dread Wolf if he intends to be victorious, as we read in this codex entry.

This is paralleled by Lavellan telling Rook that the world may know him as the Dread Wolf, but she knows him as her heart. An identity that he created as a manifestation of his love for her. She ends up being the only person (besides from Varric) that separates Fen’Harel, the idea, from Solas, the person. A flawed person, but a person nonetheless.

And this is what I imagine for them post-ending. He has a task, yes, but one he chose with his newfound sense of agency. And with Lavellan beside him, he can finally freely exist as simply a person, love and be loved as simply a person. Not an idea.

[hinamie]

summer is coming so i'm giving them the beach day they deserve

[mint-termsandconditions]

Random subject,

but I need someone to make a video essay about the bastardization of female characters and the woobification of male characters in media/fandom spaces

because I think it’s a really interesting subject that probably stems from biases that plague our society

from

“He’s such a silly little guy.”

to

Literally calling fictional female characters worse than Hitler or something

Like, I feel like people talk about specific characters but not the topic as a broader subject

I feel like there’s so much to talk about

but I don’t have the elegance, critical thinking skills, the experience, or consume enough media to talk about this

So anyone who’s reading this please, please make a video essay about it

Or make one arguing against it idk

I just need a good video essay to watch while doing homework

[dreamsy990]

you know i used to think it was weird how sora and roxas have such different personalities for supposedly being 'the same person' but after playing a few games i sort of realized that they do have similar personalities, because roxas acts how sora does when he's under extreme stress.

compare roxas to sora in, say, kh1. that's where a lot of peoples idea of sora's personality comes from. sora is generally very upbeat and optimistic in that game. not very similar to roxas, right?

but let's switch the game and talk about a game where sora is ABSOLUTELY GOING THROUGH IT. chain of memories.

sora's resting state is melancholy in com. he only ever cheers up in short bursts, usually when he's joking around with friends. just like roxas.

he's quick to anger, and tends to lash out at the organization members. best example of this is when larxene makes him 'remember' namine, and he swings at her repeatedly, even after she's gone. he only stops when jiminy is able to snap him out of it.

you know what scene that resembles?

sora, while a bit more on the angry side and less sad, continues to act like this in kh2 when he's in stressful situations. (he also has a tendancy to insult people which, while it's not very related to the point, is very funny and sora saying 'gonna cry?' to xigbar is great.) i cant comment any further than that about kh2 off the top of my head.

so, roxas acts like sora does when he's stressed, right? but why is roxas always acting like that? to which i say, he isnt!

he only ever acts like that when he's also in fucked up and stressful situations, which happens to be a CONSTANT in his life. but when he's hanging out with axel and xion, a decidedly NOT stressful situation, he's a lot more like sora. he's teasing his friends and insulting his coworkers and joking around and acting like a normal kid. not really important, but unless i misremembered some sora lines which is VERY possible, both roxas and sora respond to friendly insults with "oh thanks!" a lot. just a funny little detail that felt relevant.

the biggest differences between roxas and sora boil down to environment and... i dont know how to put it besides volume? roxas is very quiet and tends to keep most of his thoughts to himself, while sora is very loud and expressive in comparison.

there is one other huge difference i noticed, which is less character based and more story. sora wanted to get off destiny islands and explore with his friends, but roxas just wanted routine. sora wants adventure, and roxas wants things to stay the same, for days where he gets off work and eats ice cream with his friends to last forever, to keep having conversations about nothing and watching the sunset. roxas wants normalcy, sora wants excitement. it's just interesting seeing their contrast.

not sure if this is very well said or anything i just wanted to talk about my boys

[brofightiscancelled]

request from @hanaybuns to translate these pages from i believe "Matsuno Family Dependents Gallery"? sorry i didnt know how to approach the typesetting for this lol

all the quotes the boys are saying are from s1 episodes (right -> left):

oso 1 2 3

karamatsu 1 2 3

choromatsu 1 2 3

ichimatsu 1 2 3 (warning: ichimatsu incident)

jyushimatsu 1 2 3

todomatsu 1 2 3

[bizarrelittlemew]

calling it right now that season 3 starts like this

[adaume]

Every night is a sleepover for them 🫶💞

And a small, very self indulgent comic aaaaa run away

[pandorem]

Genuinely find it fascinating from a writing perspective that Edwin’s propensity for playing trauma olympics is a well established trait of his that plays so interestingly into his relationships with Crystal and Charles and Simon especially, and how it works in his character arc and how it both plays into and CONTRASTS his incredible capacity for forgiveness. How it’s a flaw that makes so much sense with how much he’s suffered that it’s hard not to be sympathetic towards it or even agree with him sometimes, but that it IS a flaw and comes up at times that are less fair as well. Im not sure I have a real point to this yet, it’s just something I want to chew on for a while.

for one: Edwin’s tendency to put his trauma as worse than others’ (no matter how literally correct he might be) is set up directly to parallel Crystal’s own self centered tendencies and her character arc. They BOTH have a tendency to not consider other people’s feelings and pain until someone points out to them that they are being dismissive. They are mirrors of each other and I love them so much. I also wanted to push back a bit on some things I’ve seen about how Edwin’s reaction to her yelling at him in episode one was completely justified (“what she’s been through? I spent 70 years in hell!”) because of how their traumas interact and how she let David in the first time that feel too dismissive of Crystal’s trauma. Yes, their trauma’s with demons interact in ways that it makes PERFECT SENSE that Edwin reacted the way he did, and I even sympathize with him, but something being sympathetic does not mean it’s justified. Taking away the metaphor of the Demonic nature of it all, Crystal was just cornered and threatened by her abusive ex boyfriend who has succeeded in isolating her from her entire social circle/any safety net she might have had before the boys. And uh. We don’t say about people getting out of abusive relationships that it’s justified that people were mad at them for getting into the relationship willingly. So.

Also. While Edwin’s measuring of their traumas is more sympathetic in the first episode, the moment in a later episode where Edwin (nearly lightheartedly) dismisses Crystal’s nightmare about her abusive demon ex because “the living know nothing about true nightmares” is less so, and I think is there to confirm that this is a genuine, deliberately written character flaw that he needs to grow out of, just like Crystal needs to grow.

And that brings us to Simon. The character who Edwin is THE MOST justified to be angry at, to blame and to compare their punishments. When he rages that Simon damned him to decades of being ripped apart while Simon sits quietly crying in a room, getting paper cuts from tearing pages out of books, it’s honestly difficult not to agree with him, to not feel that same righteous indignation. But then despair lays it out for him: he was about to gloat over another’s torture. And even without yet knowing more about Simon, Edwin is horrified by the idea. I think it says so much about Edwin’s GOODNESS that the time this character flaw of his feels the most justified and right is also the time he works through and past it to empathize with the pain of the real person on the other side of that. It is after he comes back, needing Simon to know that he didn’t mean to gloat, that he is then able to see Simon as a real person, as someone he shares pain with, the pain of being closeted and terrified in the 1910s. Simon was a kid, same as Edwin, who was terrified of his own nature and let that fear and humiliation lead him to cruelty that ended in consequences that he never intended. And it says so, so much about Edwin’s goodness that once he is able to see past his own pain and empathize with someone else’s, he feels for and maybe even forgives the one person that he would be most justified in NOT forgiving. That connecting with him is literally what saved Simon’s soul in the end.

(It’s also worth noting- Simon thinks that Edwin is “another trick” when he first sees him. He says that “the headmaster will be angry”. In keeping with the theme that we shouldn’t compare traumas or decide that we know what other people are going through, it seems clear to me that what we saw- sitting alone and getting paper cuts- was NOT the entirety of Simon’s hell.)

And then there’s Charles. Now. Edwin has a lot of 1910s sensibilities that make him connecting the dots on what Charles went through a bit difficult for him. But Edwin never, ever suggests that his trauma is less or isn’t worth getting upset about. Because it’s Charles, and Charles deserves no amount of pain ever, in the world. I don’t think it would ever occur to Edwin if I’m honest. Of course it’s because he loves him and Charles is his favourite person in the universe, but also I wonder at the fact that their very first meeting, so soon after Edwin had escaped hell, was one of complete empathy and compassion. Maybe seeing the bullies made him see himself in Charles but it sort of circles the point I think I’m making- Edwin’s very real flaws contrast against and thus highlight his INCREDIBLE kindness and goodness.

[biblically-accurate-dca]

substitute