#I’m not an overly emotional person in the stereotypical way. but I do get in my feels when thinking about life and the experience of living

[peapod20001]

I’m the type that can and will cry if think too hard <3

[i-like-blue-eyed-robots]

Wheatley has ADHD

It’s a common enough occurrence that it probably deserves its own trope — aliens, robots and any other nonhuman character almost always end up with autistic traits. It’s because writers take a nonhuman character and go ‘well, how do I make this character register as nonhuman, but still human enough that audiences will like them?’ And the answer is making them neurodivergent. I’m not personally inclined to say that this is a good or a bad thing, though I can see how it might be taken that way.

However, some authors like myself do it intentionally, to demonstrate how neurodivergent people can end up ostracized.

Some examples of common traits that are autistic-coded and writers give to nonhuman characters are as follows:

-difficulty understanding metaphor, sarcasm or exaggeration

-overly blunt in communication

-unawareness of others emotions/incorrect reaction to said emotions

-difficulty realizing their own emotions

-need for a strict schedule in order to be happy

Of course, there’s more out there, but I’ve seen these pop up quite a lot.

However, the Portal series’ fantastic writing team did not follow these stereotypes with their robots, and that’s what I would like to cover today.

I would go over GLaDOS in relation to this idea, like she clearly understands sarcasm, but she doesn’t quite fit for reasons that would be obvious to anyone who’s played through Portal 2. I’m here to talk about Wheatley, the other main robot we get to know in Portal 2.

Wheatley is not autistic coded. He has no problem speaking to strangers or making eye contact. He enjoys sarcasm almost as much as GLaDOs, and so on and so forth.

However, Wheatley is most definitely neurodivergent-coded, and it’s fascinating because for once, maybe for the only time ever in popular media that I’ve ever noticed, a robot is adhd-coded instead of being autistic-coded.

What do I mean by that? First of all, if you haven’t finished Portal 2 go do it now. It’s relatively cheap on Steam and it’s amazing. Moving on — it all stems from what we’re told Wheatley is, during the betrayal scene with GLaDOS. Now to preface this, GLaDOS is a liar. You can take most of what she says with a grain of salt. But, what she says is all we have officially to go off of.

To add further context to this line, the personality cores or “Aperture Science Personality Constructs” (the line of robots that Wheatley is a part of) were specifically built in order to be plugged into GLaDOS’ systems to slow her down and to keep her from killing everyone in Aperture. In the first Portal game, Chell, the player character, incinerates the four ‘successful’ cores that supposedly were the last ones needed to stop GLaDOS. However, given that the character has to travel through an empty facility to do so, it’s clear that they weren’t nearly as successful as the engineers had thought. Later, as core after core was built and none of them worked to stop GLaDOS, Aperture was needing robot maintenance of some kind since all of their human faculty were being killed, fired due to financial ruin, and/or quitting, and so the personality constructs were repurposed to try and keep the facility from falling apart.

Aside from GlaDOS and Wheatley, we don’t see any “non-corrupted” cores. And even both of them are corrupted, with GLaDOS being 80% corrupted and Wheatley assumedly 25%, after doing some quick math of the boss fight. This would normally affect my ability for confident analysis, but luckily in this case I don’t need them to prove that good ol Wheatley is adhd-coded.

Because right from the get-go, “generating an endless stream of terrible ideas” sounds pretty damn adhd to me, as someone who has both inattentive and hyperactive adhd myself. Now, that’s not to say every idea a person with adhd has is a bad one. That’s not even the case with Wheatley, despite it being what we’re told, because again, GLaDOS is an unreliable narrator. It’s Wheatley’s ideas that keep her from killing Chell with turrets or neurotoxin. He’s the one who gets Chell to dismantle those systems. Those are clearly not bad ideas.

But what about other adhd traits? Having an endless stream of ideas isn’t even on a symptom list of being adhd, it’s usually just a side effect of everything else going on. Well, Wheatley has plenty of them.

Hyperactive-type adhd symptoms include but are not limited to;

-fidgeting

-excessive physical movement

-excessive talking

-impulsive behavior

-restlessness/impatience

Oh but how can a robot ball fidget or have excessive physical movement, you may ask. Well. This is the most expressive ball I have ever seen in my life. Wheatley is constantly moving, shifting panels, popping his eye out, spinning in his casing and so forth. The excessive talking one is easy, my younger brother (also an adhd yapper, who has no room to talk) was trying to throw Wheatley over the railing into the bottomless pit beneath Aperture “because he was yapping” too much. This is unusual for a robot character (outside of the Portal series) whereas they tend to speak when spoken to. Wheatley is generally impulsive, but this is especially noticeable when he’s hooked up to the facility in the GLaDOS chassis. After PotatOS calls him a moron, he proceeds to punch her and Chell into the abyss below without thinking about it, reacting out of anger until he realizes they’re about to drop, right before they do. Interestingly, that sort of impulsive rage reaction is more often seen in monster characters, like perhaps a werewolf situation. It sort of adds to the framing that now Wheatley is in control of the facility, he has become something monstrous. Now, judging his patience level accurately is difficult, given that in the beginning he’s in a high-stress, deadly situation and later, when he’s in the chassis, he’s being affected by symptoms of drug withdrawal. However, he is impatient, such as when he’s playing the recorded sound of knocking on a door at the beginning. Granted, he’ll go on ‘knocking’ forever because it’s necessary for the story, but he speaks up every couple of minutes asking if you/Chell are going to open the door already. Again, this is unique for a robot character, as they tend to wait on a player or another character’s actions before responding to it, rather than initiating.

Impressively, these are not all the symptoms Wheatley demonstrates. There is another form of adhd, known as Inattentive-type adhd. The symptoms can include the following;

-Short attention span

-Overlooking details

-Careless mistakes

-Inability to stick to tedious tasks

-Difficulty organizing tasks

-Constantly changing tasks

-Difficulty listening to and carrying out instructions

For having a short attention span, this is again, difficult to determine for Wheatley in a normal setting. In the beginning he’s mostly able to focus, but he’s in a life-or-death scenario. However, he does ramble on about things that have no relevance to what he and the player character are doing, such as when he’s telling the player character about the many jobs he’s had around Aperture and been subsequently released from. He definitely has issues overlooking details, such as when he and Chell are supposed to be dismantling the neurotoxin facilities. While he’s busy ‘hacking’ a computer that may or may not even regulate the facility in the first place, Chell dismantles the generator and he doesn’t even realize she’s doing it at first, because he’s distracted listing off the hardware of the computer. As for careless mistakes, again, this could be simply the situation he’s in, but he definitely makes them. Like when he’s transporting the relaxation chamber in the first chapter, he runs into an unbelievable amount of other relaxation chambers, tearing Chell’s apart. Or even when he’s supposed to be guiding her around Aperture but he dips into wrong corners and has to recorrect. He most visibly has difficulty with tedious tasks when he’s in the chassis, as the facility is literally falling apart because he didn’t bother reading the manual or taking care of the massive amount of upkeep the facility requires. But again, he’s suffering symptoms of drug withdrawal as well that could be affecting his ability to do that. However, given his descriptions of his job loss, mentioned above, we can gather that this is likely an issue he had before ever being a part of the core transfer. This also is in line with difficulty organizing tasks. As for constantly changing tasks, again, he has somewhat better focus in the beginning because if he doesn’t he’ll die, and later he’s exceptionally distracted by a need to test. But even when he should be consumed with the need to test, and he does watch Chell for most of it, he does stop watching randomly at times to do… Who knows what. When it should be the only thing he can focus on. As for difficulty listening to and carrying out instructions, again, the facility falls apart and Wheatley kept being fired for similar, if not the same reasons.

So. That covers basic symptoms and how Wheatley fits pretty much all of them. But, a lesser known side effect of adhd is that it can easily lead to the development of other neurodivergent disorders such as anxiety and depression. Adhd is also linked to something known as emotional dysregulation. Wheatley clearly exhibits signs of anxiety. He’s terrified of dying, and says as much at several points. Not only is he especially scared of dying, but he’s scared of judgment, too. He’s constantly trying to seem more important or smarter than he is, and even though Chell is a silent protagonist, when he takes over the facility before being affected by the testing withdrawals, he assumes she’s been secretly plotting against him the entire time. Depression is more difficult to spot in Wheatley, as he’s not lethargic, but, again, a high-stakes situation can allow a person to mask their symptoms for a brief period out of self-preservation.

However, I do want to point out he clearly displays emotional dysregulation, and not in the way one might expect from a robot character. Wheatley is exceptionally sensitive to criticism. When GLaDOS begins her spiel about him being an intelligence dampening sphere, he moves as far away he can from her, turning his back so he doesn’t have to look at her. He even goes so far as to say “Not listening!” while she’s saying it. Then when she calls him a moron, he reacts violently, in a way he hadn’t so far in the game before that moment. He smashes her through the glass of the elevator and then, when she proceeds to call him a moron again, is when he smashes PotatOS and Chell into the pit. However, he doesn’t even need to even be actively insulted to react to perceived insults as just as much of a threat to his psyche. As mentioned earlier, despite Chell being a silent protagonist, and in some ways because Chell is a silent protagonist, Wheatley assumes that she’s been plotting against him from the start. Her perceived attacks against him are most especially notable during the boss fight. He points out that she’s always quiet, assuming that she’s “silently judging” him. He points out that she didn’t catch him when he fell off of his management rail in the beginning, and that she didn’t warn him that she was the one who killed GLaDOS.

All in all, Wheatley is a beautifully three-dimensional character, not in spite of being a robot, but rather, in some ways, because of it.

[the-far-bright-center]

In discussions of TCW-Anakin vs. film-Anakin, I understand why some people see them as being incompatible or entirely different portrayals. But whatever problems I personally have with TCW are more to do with certain OOC dialogue lines that I don't agree with, or the overly-contrived situations that TCW tends to force him into just so an episode or scene can function as a 'meta-commentary' on his character or storyline. Believe me, I have issues with specific aspects of TCW's writing for Anakin, but the fact he's more outwardly 'suave' or 'dashing' than some people expected is not one of them. If anything, I see the 'Skyguy' persona as perfectly in keeping with Anakin as portrayed at the beginning of RotS, and I would argue that a great deal of the TCW characterisation is pulled directly from those Battle of Coruscant scenes. TCW Anakin is also heavily inspired by Jake Lloyd's Little Ani in TPM, which, lest anyone forget, counts as FILM-Anakin. Seriously, do people not recall how much swagger and self-confidence little Ani has at the beginning of TPM? (🎵Do you see him hitting on the queen, though he’s just nine and she’s fourteen.’ 🎶 😅) He's a hotshot little ace podracing pilot and he knows it! And in AotC, the only reasons Anakin comes across as more 'awkward' at the beginning is that he's nervous about seeing Padme again after so long. Once he knows for sure she reciprocates his feelings at the battle of Geonosis, the suave, confident Anakin is back! And thus by the time of the Clone Wars, it makes sense that after being a general in the war in charge of many men, he'd have to have a certain level of outward charisma no matter how much inner doubt or turmoil he might be feeling. So, in my opinion, the actual baseline 'persona' for both versions of the character isn't as different as some seem to think. I'm tired of the idea that film-Anakin ISN’T supposed to be seen as ‘cool’ in-universe, just as much as I’m tired of the idea that TCW-Anakin ISN’T supposed to be viewed as a figure of pathos by the audience, either.

Imo, they’re both takes on the same character coming from different angles, set at different stages in his life, and portrayed through different mediums — an animated series heavy on self-aware, darkly ironic humour in a more contemporary style intended to entertain and increase enjoyment of the Prequels-era and its characters. vs. a more serious Greek tragedy with Shakespearean overtones made with old-Hollywood-style sensibilities as part of a mythic six-film saga.

While there are plenty of things that TCW gets wrong about Anakin (see my 'TCW discourse' tag for more on that), dismissing him because he is ‘too macho’ seems to miss the mark a bit. Just because TCW Ani doesn’t shed literal tears on-screen doesn’t mean he’s not emotional or emotionally vulnerable. As far as I remember, there's even a scene where Obi-Wan and Anakin discuss the fact that Anakin has trouble keeping his emotions hidden, especially when it comes to his feelings for his loved ones, which is the opposite of the stereotypical stoic, self-reliant 'macho' ideal. And the amount of times we're constantly bashed over the head with dramatic irony about his fate as Vader in that series surely drives home the point that his trajectory is a decidedly tragic one. (The way he cries out in agony in the Mortis arc, 'I will do such terrible things!' gets to me, every time.) Despite his powers and prowess, TCW Anakin is even shown as being physically vulnerable at times, as well — see the Jedi Crash storyline which he spends mostly knocked-out unconscious, the nod to his mechanical arm as a liability in the Zillo Beast and Citadel arcs, and the scene of him futilely struggling like a wild beast before being captured with ropes in the Zyggerian arc, or the fact he gets captured and tortured by Dooku in 'Shadow Warrior'. I see endless jokes about TCW Ani getting electrocuted every other episode, but then fandom uses this to fuel the dismissive view of him as just some dumb himbo instead of understanding that this, too, is supposed to add to the character's pathos.

Likewise, fandom claims that Prequels-Anakin is 'uncool' and 'cries all the time', which is simply not true. As noted above, film-Anakin banters, jokes, laughs, makes daring jumps out of speeders, does bold piloting moves, is in fact an imposing duellist, and so on. Sure, his character is not supposed to be seen as aspirational (obviously!) and the most memorable and dramatic moments of the latter two Prequels films feature him in the midst of extremely intense emotions. But the oft-repeated view of him as 'uncool' completely ignores the fact that by the time that RotS starts, film-Anakin is supposed to be a well-known and widely-admired charismatic general, aka the Hero With No Fear, who is viewed as almost singlehandedly saving the Republic. The audience may be privy to Anakin's inner struggles with his fear of loss, but in-story he is supposed to be seen as THE golden boy of the Jedi Order and the Republic. The RotS novelization frequently mentions that Anakin has 'dash', 'boldness', and a 'presence' 'like the Holo-Net hero that he is'. It literally says he's the best at what he does and he KNOWS it. He's not just supposed to be an awkward idiot in the way some people seem to perceive him solely based on certain scenes in AotC. Rather, he's supposed to be shown as falling from a 'great height'. By the time of RotS, film Anakin has just as much swagger and self-confidence in his role as General Skywalker as he does in TCW. Just because that side of him is not the main focus of the film doesn't mean it's not supposed to be there.

[cutiecandychopper]

Something I’m passionate about is AUDHD Luffy (meaning he’s autistic with ADHD) just like I am! So I’m gonna jot down some thoughts I have in regards as to why!

Let’s start underneath this read more!

Remember that being neurodivergent is a spectrum! My experience as an autistic woman with adhd won’t be the exact same as another person with the same conditions!

Luffy tends to hyperfocus on tasks he finds rewarding. This is pretty common in people with ADHD inattentive type. We’ve seen him straight up take a nap in the middle of the road before getting up to finish kicking someone’s ass

Only remembering details or names if they’re important to him

He can be seen masking throughout the series. Probably to escape being called a “crybaby” as a child.

His way to motivate or cheer other people up is unconventional. Certain emotions from others like crying make him uncomfortable. Probably reminds him of being teased for not regulating his emotions “normally” as a child.

Can be seen doing different stims throughout the series. Stims can be anything for a ND person, not just arm flapping as portrayed in popular media.

Contrary to stereotypes not all autistic people are “emotionless.” Plenty of us get overly excited or enthusiastic around others.

Luffy is incredibly blunt and usually gets shit for it. This happened to me all the time growing up and I’d never understand how I wasn’t being “tactful.”

Luffy tends to take stuff literally such as the concept of bananawani

He has his comfort foods and gets upset when he doesn’t have them. Meat is an obvious example.

He values certain senses over others. It’s clear he loves what I call “mouth feel” or having something in your mouth to chew on and keep your attention.

Has safe clothing items he likes to wear over and over. I completely relate to his hatred of close toed shoes and wanting to wear baggy clothes all the time.

The hat is a comfort object

Has unusual reactions to pain and body temperature compared to others. Being rubber helps with that though

Cannot process sarcasm to save his life

Is impulsive and kind of assumed everyone can read his mind when it comes to how he’s going to approach a problem and solve it

That’s just some observations I have for now! Some other time I’ll add my headcanons onto this post of stuff I think he would do but we don’t see on camera!

[milkdreamspecialmix]

about veneciano’s eyes (=ヮ=)೨☆

i generally dislike many psychological headcannons as they’re often uninformed or rely on misunderstood and stereotypical ideals of certain illnesses/disorders. it also comes at the risk of watering a character down into a slew of micro labels instead of focusing on all traits holistically. i personally find it more interesting when characters aren’t overly pathologized, but it’s all purely subjective when you think about it

that being said, i can’t help but think it’d be interesting if vene is prone to keeping his eyes closed due to some flavor of sensory processing issues or as a result of conflict, past or present.

i’ve seen a lot of takes on this trait and i like to think of it as just another enigmatic/unexplained side of him. see “The Bravest of Men (and Nations)”, a oneshot that is actually germany centric but acknowledges vene’s “strange (but beautiful) eyes” in a way that suggests he may be hiding certain emotions or insecurities by keeping them half-lidded or closed. i think it also suggests it’s just another peculiar part of him, which works well with germany’s constant attempts to make sense of vene in canon. he’s simply nonsensical, and that whimsy is part of what makes him such a great character. it’s been a bit since i’ve read that fic so take my comments on it’s subject matter with a grain of salt

i’ve seen several fics that portray him as blind, which makes sense due to his clumsiness. i could see him as being legally/partially blind as well. some have even speculated that his vocal tic might be a form of echolocation. but i prefer it as more of a purely vocal tic myself.

all of this eye talk gets me thinking about this

which kind of implies the general nation-public hadn’t seen his eyes open before. i was thinking of compiling instances of both of his eyes being open at some point... the most prominent ones i think of (not including any promotional material) seem be to associated with his curiosity, feeling content, and being surprised.

there’s also this one unfinished LJ fic from ages ago about a autistic-coded and especially eccentric vene spying on fireman!germany (??) while he showers from a neighboring apartment (???) as inspiration for his airport thriller novels (????) and i’m pretty sure there’s attention to his eyes in that one. he’s depicted as a little higher-needs (as in he relies on romano for some things despite maintaining his own apartment) and a bit agoraphobic/lacking in understanding of social cues, but still extroverted and well-meaning. i recall thinking it was cute, i’ll try to find it. but i’m getting off track

back to my original point, i think vene could reasonably have a combination of any of these things and we wouldn’t know because we rarely ever see things from his internal perspective.

we do know that he fawns a lot in order to diffuse situations and that he’s very prone to being nervous about how others perceive him, so the closed eyes also serve the purpose of shielding him from a multitude of things.

they also just make him look a bit silly, which i’m sure was the original purpose. he’s kept them open a lot more in recent years, and especially now that he’s impersonating his brother. i wonder if his eyes will give him away if germany manages to nab those sunglasses

[witchthewriter]

Hi!! Would you be okay doing a big 6 birth chart ask, like you did for the anon for Jax Teller a while back, but for Eddie Munson? 

I keep getting stuck on whether he’s Leo, Aquarius, Scorpio, or Aries. You seem really experienced with this sort of thing. And in the last ask you said that you loved this kinda stuff, so I was hoping you could help me☺️ [I may or may not might be trying to find out if me and him would be compatible if he was real👀 I have mostly Scorpio in my big 6, except for my mars which is in aqua🥴]

Also, I hope you’re having an amazing summer. I live in California and over here it’s soooo hot, I feel like I’m dying. 

I'd love to! I do love doing characters' birth charts. Thanks for wanting my opinion lol 🌿Oh and I also have a Stranger Things Soulmate quiz, if you wanted another way of finding out.

To me, Eddie doesn't really scream Scorpio - but that doesn't mean a Scorpio has to be matched with another Scorpio.

I would deduce that he has a lot of Gemini in his chart; to me, Eddie is very quick-witted, he's funny, thinks outside the box and likes to come off as a badass but really he's just a big ol' nerd. But the outside image is to protect himself.

𝐒𝐔𝐍

𝑳𝒆𝒐.

Passionate, outgoing, humorous.

The sun in a person's chart represents your ego, your drive and possibly even your ideal self, i.e, the image that you want to put out to the world.

Eddie shines, and with Leo in its native house, it means a person likes to be the centre of attention, they're bold, they like rocking the boat, but they can also be great leaders and say what needs to be said. They speak up for others.

𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐍

𝑨𝒒𝒖𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒖𝒔.

Rebellious, imaginative, intuitive.

Signs in a person's moon aspect mean stereotypes are more obvious. Or rather, the moon in a person's chart makes the traits of the zodiac sign emboldened.

The Aquarius sign has two sides to it: the rebellious spirit and the humanitarian. I see the rebellious side of Eddie, but he doesn't seem like much of a humanitarian (not saying he doesn't want equal rights, he's just not framed that way).

But he does have a very imaginative and often feels like the odd one out. He's a loner at heart, even though he can be very sociable.

𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆

𝑮𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒊

Curious, quick-witted, expressive.

A person's rising sign is the way one presents themself to the world; from your personality to your phyical appearance and mannerisms.

Gemini rising's are also very restless, and have we really seen Eddie sitting still? He's always fidgiting or waving his hands as he talks etc. He's interesting and fun, and his friends always want to be around him. He can be very magnetic.

Usually Gemini's can come off as unfeeling or less compassionate, which levels out with Eddie's Leo Sun - it levels it out.

𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐘

𝑮𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒊

Eclectic, knowledgable, charismatic.

Mercury is the ruling planet for Gemini - known as the planet of communication, thought and focus. It represents a person's mind and style of communication.

There's an air of mischevious about a Gemini in Mercury. Fred and George Weasley also have this placement. They're smart, very intelligent but they aren't overly known for it. Their playfulness almost outshines it.

The very best at banter; they think fast but also speak without thinking. It usually gets them into trouble.

𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐔𝐒

𝑪𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒓.

Caring, intuitive, sentimental.

When a Cancer Venus decides to love, they dive in deep - no small talk, no flakiness or flighty behaviour. They're all in. And although we don't see Eddie fully with a romantic partner, we do see him talk to Chrissy and he immediately brings up their shared past and his emotional link to his band.

Even when Eddie and Steve are talking, Eddie admits that whenever Dustin talks about Steve or opts to spend time other than with him, he gets jealous.

𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐒

𝑺𝒂𝒈𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒖𝒔.

Go big or go home, restless, impulsive.

Having this placement means this person is ... loud. For example, Eddie has an obvious hate for all things stereotypical in Hawkins - especially those who abide by the social rules. Remember the first scene with him? He jumps up on the table in front of the whole cafeteria to berate the people he dislikes.

This placement means whoever the person dislikes is obvious. Unlike some who hide their hate/anger/dislike and use other methods, a Sagittarius Mars is open and upfront.

[1-talk-alot]

Weird short rant thingy

So I was thinking about that one thing a few people say that’s like “damn if younger me saw me now they’d be so disappointed” but I think if younger me saw me now she wouldnt even be surprised. Like sure, personality-wise I have changed a lot, my outlook on life is a lot more negative, I’ve let go of most irrational fears, I rely on people a lot less and my desires have also changed a lot. But just because I haven’t always been the way I am doesn’t mean I wasn’t always going to. Feeling bad for an inanimate object or a fictional character who’s been ridiculed for comedy can still literally ruin my day because of how sympathetic I get, and that hasn’t changed at all. At the age of 7, I was embarrassed about my body and that hasn’t changed at all. I was online for around 6 hours a day at the age of 9 and that number had only gone up since. If younger me saw where I am now, she might wouldn’t be disappointed per se, she’d just be upset that the path she was already on hadn’t taken a better turn somewhere down the line.

Yes I’m a lot more mature than I was, yes I’m probably more confident in comparison, yes I look different, yes I act different, yes I think VERY different, but internally I really don’t think I’ve come that far. It’s less of a “she’s still with me, I carry her around every day” and more of a “i was with her, she was doomed to become more and more like me every day” situation. Like I, I and my thoughts, feelings and insecurities, lingered in her head until she inevitably grew into me. We’re so different and yet, not metaphorically, not physically, not emotionally, not internally, in some secret fifth way that I can’t describe, we’re the same.

I thought about death regularly when I was 9. I become overly hyperaware about calories when I was 9. I’d cry because I couldn’t decipher my own emotions when I was 9. I compared my body to literal models in their 20’s when I was 9. Somehow, someway, I was still so happy when I was 9. And I’d give anything to spend ten minuites in a room with myself aged 9, just so I could hold her in my arms and tell her she’s going to be ok. Whether it be true or not, I don’t know yet, but to spend time with a version of myself so naive to not understand what she’s going through, yet so experienced to understand me? I don’t care if she’s stupid or cringey or anything all little kids are at some point. I’d play with Barbie dolls with her if I had to, but if I could make a version of myself who is so troubled and yet so pure smile, I’d probably start crying. Her whole world was so fragile and her grasp on logic was so thin, if only I could talk to her again and I’d play into her stupid, stereotypical dreams forever if it meant she could stay that way. (Whimsical, innocent, reliant, naive, scared) I know that would be wrong, and society wouldn’t treat her nicely if she did, but oh god she was so precious then. I want to see her, I want to reassure her, I want to protect her but she is gone. She’s gone and I have taken her place, but you can’t reverse knowledge and she will never come back. I’d do anything to experience childlike wonder the way she did. Being in the same room as her would break me, because I’d know only one of us is going to last, and it’s not her. And yet I’d still upend my entire life just to talk to her once.

…Man idk where this came from it wasn’t even a lingering idea until this morning

bye

(Holy shit the STRENGTH it took to hit that post button! I was originally not gonna post this but I would’ve just felt too weird if I didn’t lmao)

[just-woso-stuff]

https://www.tumblr.com/just-woso-stuff/742595502327119872/the-difference-between-how-katie-mccabe-and-lauren

i get what you’re saying here, but what you don’t maybe see is that the emotions thing hugely stems from lj being black.

black people cant react without it always being seen as them being overly emotional. black women in particular. i mean, there is literally a whole thing of the “angry black woman” stereotype, and it’s portrayed across the world.

so yeah, while maybe it isn’t “katie is white so her actions are fine, while lj is black so her actions are bad”, even when you just look further into it with lj constantly being portrayed as this angry, emotional, black woman, there are roots of subconscious hints of racism and racist stereotypes there.

lj could say she loves the physicality of the game, but i doubt that it would matter in the way it does for katie. because ultimately she’s seen as violent and emotional in ways katie isn’t.

(also just wanted to add here that i’m not completely defending her actions. i think a lot of things she does can be irrational, the same with katie. but yeah).

Yeah, you got a point for sure. I didn't mean to dismiss the part racism plays in this, I simply wanted to highlight something that I don't think many people talked about.

At the same time, I also didn't mean to say that I think Katie's case is better because she's doing it consciously. I, personally, am not a huge fan of overly physical play. It is a contact sport and it's okay if things get physical I just enjoy it less, but that's just me.

So yes, overall the racism is definitely there and it's not just lj, many times it applies to african or south american national teams. when they are 'aggressive' or more physical even commentators tend to have a different (worse) attitude than when it comes to a european team. And I do wholeheartedly believe that people would be having very different conversations about this exact situation if lj was white

[themainspoon]

Personally It’s my opinion that the Brujah are just victims of Camarilla propaganda designed to stop other from vampires from taking them seriously.

The entire idea that the Brujah used to be “noble warrior poets” but have become “dumb thugs” who just like breaking things and causing problems is one that is at odds with what a lot of Brujah actually do.

The Brujah are arguably the main ideologues of Kindred society, they’re probably the #1 source of manifestos within the World of Darkness. Many Brujah (not all, but a sizeable number) were communists and anarchists back when they were human, and I probably don’t need to tell you just how much reading and writing that makes them likely to have done and to still be doing. On top of all of this, the traditional Brujah aesthetic is based pretty heavily on punk, and so it’s safe to assume that the punk subculture of the WoD is likely filled with Brujah, there are likely several who are (or at least were) musicians and songwriters.

You probably know where I’m going with this now, and so the “warrior” part of the equation probably doesn’t need to be explained. If you are a VtM fan you know that the Brujah do violence and you know that it’s often ideologically motivated.

So then, if they still write and fight with purpose, did they ever actually stop being so-called “warrior poets”? It’s my opinion that while what they write about and why they fight has almost definitely changed, they never actually stopped being warrior poets, other vampires just stopped viewing them that way.

I think this is partially because of what actually caused the shifts in what they believed and fought for, which was other vampires, even before the Camarilla was founded. They lost Carthage to the Ventrue, and ever since they’ve found themselves stuck with an authoritarian boot hanging overhead ready to fall and crush anything they try to create at a moments notice. Because of this, the writing of many of the younger Brujah became increasingly anti-authoritarian, and it began posing a threat to those in power.

And so, what do you do if you are one of those people in power? You de-legitimise them. You paint them all as “thugs” and by doing so de-valuing the things they believe and create. You paint their clan as “fallen”, great in the distant past but no longer because it slanders the younger members of the clan specifically. You position their thought as below “proper” thought, as overly emotional, naïve, and incoherent. You give people reasons not to listen, and to put the Brujah and everything they do into the “dumb violent thug” box so that they can easily disregard everything they say without actually having to engage with any of it.

The Brujah are also one of the clans who has their bane used against them. Much like how the Gangrel are viewed like animals because of their bane, and how the exclusion of and cruelty towards the Nosferatu is also “justified” by their bane, the Brujah’s bane is used to paint them as being angry and violent as opposed to reasonable and capable of critical thought. The anger that the Brujah feel and express is attributed solely to their bane in order to dismiss the fact that a lot of their anger is actually extremely justified. They’re literally hit with the classic: “your anger shows that you are hysterical and not thinking clearly, therefore you are wrong and I am right, if you get angry it means that I have won.” This tactic is no doubt one that a lot of us are familiar with, because it gets used a lot in real life, and usually against people who have many good reasons to be angry.

This is my interpretation of the Brujah: They’re a clan of extremely passionate and politically motivated radicals with strong beliefs. They have been stereotyped as dumb and violent as those in power attempt to silence them, because radical ideas pose a threat to the oppressive status quo of Kindred society.

just imagine how some brujah's feelings must be constantly belittled by saying "you brujah, you're always angry for no reason"

[crazilust]

Astro notes (3)

Hello, I’m back with a third astro notes. Please disregard anything that doesn’t make you feel good, remember these are just personal observations <3

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* Virgos really are a mess. They will do their best to keep the organized, put together persona, but the mess they’re going through behind closed doors is actually so intense. Whenever I get close to a Virgo, I’m a little shook tbh.

* Kinda unrelated to my normal content, but I really wonder how Dream (the youtuber) is handling the constant attacks to his physical appearance being a Leo and such. He kinda seems unfazed and keeps posting pics of him and videos, but idk. I’m curious how he’s handling it privately.

* I really do love me a fire x earth sign combo. Wether it’s friendship or relationship, I find them so energetic and chaotic lmao. Now, I’m gonna be honest I do think as a friendship, it works better. I also think each person has to have a varied chart in order to work. Someone with too much earth won’t really tolerate the intensity of the fire sign, and vice versa.

* Aries are not only trend setters, most of the time they are the ones to break generational traumas, mindset or traditions. They really, truly, do not give a fuck about what’s been done in the past or “what’s the right way to do this”. Lady Gaga, I believe, is the personification of that. On a personal level, it can definitely get annoying to deal with an Aries, but once you understand that they act that way because they’re trying to better themselves and by extension the world around them, it gets easier.

* Capricorns really fascinate me. I know the stereotypes around Caps is that they’re hardworking, focused on money, overly serious etc. I think part of it is true, but I think it depends on when you do meet them. If it’s before their Saturn return, you might actually meet a version of them that is actually struggling, quite immature, bad with money and overall disorganized. Remember, Saturn is severe and harsh. He doesn’t make it easy for its natives and I think it kind of explains why in the beginning of their lives, Caps are so all over the place. They get it together at one point though, and some become the stereotypical Capricorn.

* Also, on Capricorn, I’ve noticed they don’t really like when people mention their past selves. I mean, no one does, but with Caps it seems even more severe. It’s like they’re trying their hardest to dissociate from that past self that didn’t meet their ideals. I know a lot of Capricorn that even go by different names than their younger self. Crazy.

* Each element has their strength. Fire signs, it’s their will. Air signs, their intellect. Water signs, their emotions. Earth signs, their consistency. In the same vein, that same strength can quickly turn into their worst flaw. Fire signs can get really egotistical when trying to reach their goals. Air signs have a tendency to be condescending and mock others for their emotional reactions. Water signs can use emotional manipulation tactics to get what they want. Earth signs can get often stuck in their ways, no matter how toxic or unhealthy it may be.

* Cancer in 12th makes you despise your emotions, even when you rationally know that “it’s okay to feel that way”. Most often than not, they project that hatred/disdain towards other people and can’t tolerate really emotional people.

* We have to stop thinking that only earth signs and the sign of Leo is an indicator of fame. Sure, they can be indicator, but I do believe that we disregard the many types and layers of fame. Also, the way celebrities will interact with their fanbase and how they’re remembered is important. I truly believe every sign can be famous, but it won’t manifest the same. Is it easier for some signs? Sure. But every sign, using their strength could achieve it.

* Talking about fame. If you really want to achieve it, I think it’d be interesting to use your MC, North node, Mercury, Venus and Rising sign to achieve it. By checking in with your Moon sign needs, you could then regulate the right path for you. Some people truly don’t mind using drama to create traction even if it means hate, while some people could not tolerate it. Anyways, I’ll do a whole other post about it.

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So yea! That’s my comeback y’all. Lmao I’m sorry, life’s been rough. That last retrograde tried to take me outtttt, I swear.

Dolly.

[toyatominaga]

Is Soi Fon Autistic?

Now before you come at me, this is very much a fan theory that I’m analyzing. As an autistic person myself, I grew attached to Soi Fon when I was young and she’s been my favorite character since. For some reason, I oddly related to her struggles. I’m going to be diving into the different autistic traits that Soi Fon tends to portray in the series. So without further ado, here is my interpretation of all this!

1. Autistic people are cold/lack emotion

Autistic people are often stereotyped as lacking emotion and coming off as rude or cold. Soi Fon is well known, especially early on in the manga that she is a cold person who seemingly lacks no remorse. Ex. Attacking Kiyone without hesitation. She comes off coldly to Omaeda as well, and even though it seems bad, it is more so the way she communicates. We can tell that Soi Fon actually cares about Omaeda and sees him as a worthy subordinate. Perhaps, she doesn’t know how to convey those feelings in a typical manner. For autistic people, sometimes conveying and communicating emotions properly is difficult and at times miscommunications can come off as rude unintentionally.

2. Autistic People thrive in structure/order

This is very true for many autistic people. Having a schedule or routine that is consistent and regimented is very beneficial to us. Soi Fon values order and routine. She runs her squad with rigor and follows the soul society’s rules to a tee. Now here’s the kicker. When Soi Fon’s routine or sense of order is interrupted she loses it. This is very much seen when Yamamoto is killed and she responds negatively to how everyone is reacting so calmly. Curiously, she is the only captain to act so intensely in this moment, Komamura only yelling to stop her, only emphasizing how she stands out from the rest of the captains. Additionally, she in a sense doesn’t know how to “read a room”. This can also be seen when she yells at Squad Zero. Despite everyone being calm and collected, she loses it once more, further causing irritation in others. Another example, is when Yoruichi left. Being raised and engrained so hard to be a soldier, Soi Fon took on that model as her life’s destiny. From there, everything she does is her duty. Yoruichi came in and made Soi Fon question her structure, allowing her to open up as well. Of course, when Yoruichi left Soi Fon held a very deep grudge and that turned her life around. She had to change everything she was used to, which is really hard for an autistic person to do. Even the way Soi Fon talks is more formal, seen when she is discussing things or when preferring to use an honorific for Yoruichi.

3. Autistic people have special interests

Soi Fon’s special interests comes in the form of black cats and Yoruichi. Soi Fon is immediately infatuated with Yoruichi and devotes her life to her, seeing her as the only thing that mattered. Everything was focused on Yoruichi. This is seen too when Soi Fon is older. Seen a lot in the filler episodes but also in some canon, Soi Fon is obsessed with anything to do with black cats, due to Yoruichi having the power to turn into one. It even gets to the point to which she throws a tantrum and nearly blows up the Seireitei over a cat trading card. She is also seen in cutscenes and in some art playing with cat plushies and wearing cat themed clothing, further showing her interest. Sometimes Soi Fon’s interest becomes overly obsessive and it clouds her judgment at times, leading to her also losing sight of who she is.

4. Autistic people struggle with expressing and understanding their emotions

This is a big one that is scene throughout. Soi Fon is probably one of the most emotional characters in the series. If anything goes against the rules or her values she is not afraid to fight back and voice her opinions even if the emotion may seem over exaggerated. Of course, Soi Fon cries when she sees Yoruichi, understandably. Later, she is seen in various captains meeting calling out people and voicing her opinion. Oftentimes, her opinions fall on deaf ears and she is ignored or put down. She comes off as naive due to this, and of course that very well may be. She is also young so it’s understandable. In most instances we see, Soi Fon reacts in anger and/or sadness. She is angry about Yamamoto, about Yoruichi, about squad zero, she gets angry about rules being broken, etc. So one would just think she is just an angry person. But, she’s more complex than that. Additionally, she is shown to not fully understand other people’s perspectives. This is seen when she doesn’t understand why others aren’t grieving Yama the way she was or never forgiving Kisuke for causing Yoruichi to leave. Soi Fon isn’t always a cold and brash person, in fact she grows in many ways over the course of the series. She is still very rigid in her ways but she is proven to be more kind and thoughtful than she lets on, as once proven by Rukia saying that she was always nice in her opinion. This only goes to show how unique Soi Fon’s emotions are.

5. Preference for Isolation

Soi Fon is often illustrated as preferring to do things alone at times, especially in training. We see this when she goes off to train without Omaeda during TYBW. She most likely trained alone after Yoruichi left. She seems shy at times in large groups. She also doesn’t have that many close relationships.

6. Autistic people are more sensitive to things

This is a small thing, but nonetheless I’m including it. When Omaeda catches Soi Fon after being caught upon launching her Bankai, she responds by telling him to get his disgusting hands off her. Usually, one might not imagine someone who was just rescued to say something so cold, but it also goes to show that maybe Soi Fon is avoidant of physical touch. We see later that Yoruichi has touched her a few times and Soi Fon doesn’t seem fazed, even comforted, maybe showing that Yoruichi is the only person she is okay with touching her.

7. Autistic people are detail-oriented and intelligent

Soi Fon proves to be fairly intelligent and tactful. She is really good at observing things and quickly executing plans. For example, when she gathered notes on Urahara not only was she determined, but she was amazingly thorough and detail-oriented as commented by Yoruichi.

8. Autistic people are often misunderstood

One thing that is for certain, is that Soi Fon is incredibly misunderstood as a character. A lot of Bleach fans dislike her because of her cold attitude, without looking into the deeper reasons as to why she is the way she is. Also the way she reacts to change is caught off guard by others and even her opinions are often ignored or dismissed. We unfortunately don’t get to see all of Soi Fon, so we don’t know for sure how she reacts in every situation.

[majorbaby]

Re: Your Retention Please MASH writers I am once again asking, have you even met Maxwell Q. Klinger?

Honestly, I think it’s a fair question because we see Klinger take on a lot of things that are cast off by other characters (gay banter with Hawkeye post-s3, being the dog one pets once Radar is gone, occasionally the buttmonkeyism that I enjoyed when it was Frank on the receiving end) or he’s molded to fit whatever agenda the show needs because while Klinger the character isn’t expendable, his characterization certainly is. This is how you end up with all of these late-seasons Klinger subplots and traits that either completely contradict everything we know about him or tbh, outright play into racial stereotypes. Like when he’s all of sudden really into  money-making schemes, or the weird friendship he strikes up with his exploitative boss, or when he takes a lot of racist, classist abuse from other characters (usually from Charles and sometimes Potter, but everyone gets a turn) lying down. This is the man who got into a fist-fight with Frank and then afterwards came back with a grenade to blow him up after Frank told him he couldn’t wear his lucky scarf. 

This disregard for his character is how you start off with Klinger in a dress*, gun-toting, back-talking, practically fire-breathing (and hella risk-taking, considering he is a Corporal) all over Majors Burns and Houlihan in the early years and end up at Your Retention Please. 

*I’ve read that Klinger stopped wearing dresses at Jamie Farr’s request which, while I respect his reasoning for that, I still feel we the audience and Klinger the character deserved a mourning period and a damn good, in-universe reason for him to have suddenly flipped like that especially after we saw the effect wearing the uniform has on him in Change of Command. 

Though he may not have the emotional weight that comes with being a drafted doctor forced to fix people up just to send them out to get hurt worse or possibly die, his belief in the utter uselessness of the army is indistinguishable from Hawkeye and Trapper’s (BJ too, but by the time he’s settled in, the army is in the crosshairs less and less and the Klinger character starts to waver) and anyway he’s affected by having been drafted in his own personal and no less tragic way. 

I’m on board with the way the recruiter goes after Klinger. First off, he goes after everyone. Secondly, it’s a common recruiting tactic, to this day, to go after the disenfranchised, the destitute and the desperate, particularly when those traits intersect with race. So there’s some realism in how hard the recruiter goes after Klinger - however, while I know that, these writers likely do not. There’s no race awareness going on. Par for the course. 

And let’s talk about that scene  with the recruiter for a moment: the slow music that sounds to me just the slightest bit sleazy. The way the recruiter doesn’t just offer a drink, he takes the empty glass from Klinger and places a full one in his hand and then he puts his arm around Klinger and leads him to sit down. The repeated closeups: the recruiter’s smile showing off his yellowed or missing teeth (nothing wrong with having imperfect teeth and idk if it was intentional, but it’s a common physical trait for a villain) and Klinger’s clearly zonked out expression. Klinger says, “You’re right... who are you.” and the recruiter responds again by being overly familiar, saying they’re buddies and that the army is his friend and family. Like if nothing else, I’ll give them this - there were numerous ways for us to read that this guy is a predator. It was appropriately unsettling, but my praise ends there. 

Maybe I could buy that Klinger might drunkenly agree to sign up Nope. I started typing it out and I got midway before I decided I would finish and then cross it out for dramatic effect. 

The writers forgot who main-cast member Klinger is yet I’m supposed to remember who Laverne is and believe that Klinger is so broken up about her leaving him after she’s already left him (3 seasons ago! hello???) that he decides to do something as drastic as signing up for the army, whether he’s drunk as a skunk or stone cold sober? I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it anymore than I would if it were Hawkeye in that position, but they figured it was easy enough to do such a thing to Klinger. I think he (Klinger) gets this plot because it can’t be given to Hawkeye, BJ or Charles, which is funny because one of those three flew off the handle when his wife got a job, so if there’s anyone I could see doing something very drastic (though, tbf, even then not as drastic as re-enlisting) if his wife were to leave him, it’s not Klinger.

Klinger wants to go home but he’s not overly specific about why. He doesn’t have the same attachment to Laverne as BJ does to Peg - he’s not cheating on Laverne but he says about as much about her as Trapper does about Louise. In addition to wanting to be home, I think Klinger, like Hawkeye, is philosophically opposed to war.

He has that very touching scene in War of Nerves where he’s actually given space to tell us why he doesn’t want to be in the army - and it’s way more essential than just ‘I want to go home’ - he does want to go home, but he also doesn’t want to be given orders to do something that would violate his beliefs and he works tirelessly to try to avoid that fate.  

In his dresses for 7 years, he’s a walking a protest, or as Sidney aptly puts it, “a monument to hope in size 12 pumps”. He does not believe in the mission of the army, opposes its authority over him and how powerless it renders him as people die around him - who does that remind you of? If you had to call any other character “a monument to hope”?

The other characters on the show are to different degrees opposed to war, with the exception of Frank but consider their reasoning - Margaret and Potter find the army fulfilling but are morally opposed to war, Charles is opposed to his life having been interrupted by the draft, BJ shows a great deal of compassion towards the wounded but his resentment towards the army also comes from how he’s been taken from his family (not a dig at BJ, completely valid for him to feel that way, it’s just different from what Hawkeye feels) and finally Hawkeye is opposed to the army I suspect long before he’s drafted and remains that way long after he goes home. 

Getting back to Your Retention Please, I have to pass on setting up Potter and Hawkeye to “rescue” Klinger from his bad decision. Hawkeye I’ll let slide - I have my reservations about the white saviour-y undertones but I’m more fine with Hawkeye being the (white) saviour here than I am with Potter, the regular army guy, getting to be the hero and undermining the anti-military message. 

And finally, i can’t accept this at all because we already have an in-character example of Klinger’s reaction to Laverne actually leaving him in Mail Call 3 - he deserts. He returns, blessedly not because he wants to ‘do the right thing’, but rather because he doesn’t want to be a fugitive. The icing on the cake is him declaring that when he does leave the army it’ll be the honourable way, via Section 8 - that’s Klinger!

Have you ever been upset that Larry Gelbart trolling-ly suggested that Hawkeye would become a right winger post-war? That’s how I feel about this episode and the difference is it actually happened, they really did that to Klinger. He deserved better. 

[loosesodamarble]

Oh pffffff! I completely forgot to give tips on playing dating sims in my initial posting.

Well, might as well add in some tips now that I’m reblogging it for timezones.

These tips are in no particular order.

Wait for sales. At least on Nintendo Switch, sales in the eShop occur semi frequently, at least once every quarter of the year. Games can be discounted for as little as 10% or up to 70%. In fact a very recent title, 9RIP which released in America back in October is 30% off at this moment. So yeah, if you worry about breaking the bank, not to worry because as long as you wait for sales, you can get a lot of games at a cost of $20-40 a piece.

Be open-minded. Remember that a lot of dating sims come from Japan and from the same handful of studios. There’s going to be repeated tropes and potential dissonant values between you and what’s presented in the games. Try not to let yourself be turned away because some things said or portrayed by the game aren’t something you believe in. Let the game say what it will; you might find some ideas/thoughts that you do agree with. I’m not be a fan of the stereotypical line “all men are wolves” or the love interests being overly protective of the heroine, but I can’t help but laugh at a moment in Cafe Enchante where one guy gives the heroine an alarm to activate in case the featured love interest does anything questionable. It’s overprotective but it’s so exaggerated that it’s funny to me. Accept what a game gives you, or let it go in through one ear and out the other if it really bothers you.

Meet the games on their level. This is common sense for all media consumption but you should understand the general tone of a game and let it have its tone of choice. Don’t play a romantic comedy dating sim and then get mad when some questionable behavior is played for laughs. Don’t expect a game where death is brought up in the game description to be all that comforting.

Know your limits and give yourself time. In general, if a game is troubling you (by making you emotional or being boring), you’re always allowed to step away and let it sit to compose yourself however you need. I remember playing TaiAli and a certain route was really dragging so I stopped playing the game for a bit before finding the willpower to just power through it. For the heavier games, giving yourself time between playthroughs is something I highly recommend. I had weeks between my playthroughs of each route in Virche because even though I love the tragedy, it still hurt to see the guys get screwed over and I couldn’t subject myself to their suffering back to back.

If you want to enjoy something, don’t read another person’s opinion. I’ve made myself sad some days whenever I looked at opinions of CinPhen and found that a large majority of people aren’t fond of one of my personal faves. Unless you’re looking for a second opinion regarding something in a game (like some plots can be vague and confusing), there’s really no need to read other’s opinions and risk them ruining your enjoyment of a game/route/etc.

“I shouldn’t find this romantic but” is a good thought to have. Allow yourself to like normally unlikable or questionable things. Possessive lovers, cringey lines, crime, unfathomable incompetency. You’ll see them all and you’ll probably find yourself endeared by one weird thing or another. And that’s okay. I, myself, admit to liking when a love interest confines the heroine for whatever reason. Let yourself love the weird.

Save scumming is your friend. Don’t be afraid to save at LITERALLY, EVERY SINGLE choice. Because some games like Piofiore and CxM have instances where a single wrong choice can lead to the heroine dying suddenly. And you don’t want to have to replay a large chunk of a route to find where you left off. And even if it’s not to reload after a dead end, it’s easy to circle back to a choice by loading a quick save if you don’t like the way your initial choice played out.

Choices should be in-character. When it comes to making choices in game, you sometimes have to think a little on what would actually make sense for the scene and characters. In CinPhen, the heroine is someone rough around the edges so some choices that seem harsh are the right choices to make because the heroine is kinda harsh at times and such a choice would be in-character for her. Piofiore’s heroine was raised in a church but also in a town run by mafia, correct choices for her often show her as humble and cautiously understanding of the mafia.

Play your way. Some dating sim players want to get the good endings first. Some, like me, aim for bad endings first. Some play blind and let the cards fall where they will. Some people will ask for a recommended route order (because some routes reveal more than others and even studios will give official route order recommendations). Some pick at random which routes to play when. Some, myself included, play in order or which character appeals to them the most (I personally save my faves for last). Play dating sims the way you want to and don’t even let official route orders convince you you’re wrong.

(Personal anecdote: Winter’s Wish has two locked routes and the requirements to unlock them are getting the good endings of other routes. I personally find the designs and personalities of the locked route dudes dull so instead of resigning myself to watching two characters I don’t like get their happy endings as the grand finale, I used the game’s fast forward feature to skip all the text and avoided looking at the screen except to make choices to have the game register the happy endings of the non-locked characters as completed but I have no idea what the happy endings actually involve. That way, I have been able to save my faves and their happiness for last, regardless of what the game intended me to see first and last.)

But yeah, those are some general tips for how to approach/play dating sims.

Hi, can you make an dating sim recommendation list from beginner level to hard for everyone who wants to start playing them and maybe give us all some tips too if you are okay with it.

Hello lovely, Anon.

I’m flattered that you would ask me for dating sim recommendations since, to be perfectly transparent, I’m also pretty new to playing dating sims. I’ve only been playing dating sims for about 4 years now and the list of games I’ve played through is limited.

Still, you came to me so I’ll answer to the best of my abilities!

For reference, these are the games that I consider to be part of my current library (some are completed and some aren’t but they are ones that I actively play at this time):

Code Realize: Guardian of Rebirth (+ the fandiscs Future Blessings and Wintertide Blessings)

Cafe Enchante

Collar x Malice (+ the fandisc Unlimited) [note: shortened to CxM for the rest of the post]

Winter’s Wish: Spirits of Edo

Radiant Tale (+ the fandisc Fanfare) [note: shortened to RadiTale]

Variable Barricade [shortened to VariBarri]

Virche Evermore: Error Salvation (+ the fandisc Epic Lycoris)

Piofiore: Fated Memories (+ the sequel Episodio 1926)

This second list is dating sims I’ve played to completion but aren’t ones I actively play at this time (either due to issues with technology or a lack of interest).

Cinderella Phenomenon (+ the fandisc Evermore) [shortened to CinPhen]

Nameless: the one thing you must recall

Dandelion: wishes brought to you

Backstage Pass

Royal Alchemist

Taisho x Alice [shortened to TaiAli]

Cupid Parasite [shortened to CupiPara]

In total, I’ve only really played 15 dating sims. (Also, none of these are titles available on mobile devices so anything I say in this post, I can’t guarantee also applies to mobile dating sims.) I also have a bit of knowledge about other dating sims from looking at discussion threads and researching the games to see if it was something I’d be interested in. I’ll just be using whatever information I do have about these games to answer.

If anyone just wants a straightforward recommendation list, just skip to the end, but if you want to read me explaining at length various aspects of dating sim difficulty, just keep reading from here.

So to me personally, there are three main factors that can contribute to a dating sim’s difficulty: gameplay mechanics, UI, and the story/writing of the games themselves.

.....

Part 1: Difficulty from Gameplay

The easiest level of gameplay would be dating sims which are purely choice-based visual novels. You read for a while and then you’re given a choice and that choice will affect character affection or scene progression. Most of the dating sims I’ve played are pure choice-based ones. To name them all, they’d be: Code Realize, RadiTale, Cafe Enchante, Winter’s Wish, TaiAli, CinPhen, VariBarri, and Virche. It really is as simple as choosing what to say or do.

The next level of difficulty when it comes to gameplay in dating sims are games with some kind of interactive element other than choice-making. I’m not just talking about minigames but the general idea of interacting with the game that isn’t just making choices. Granted, in some cases, the interactive element is a minigame. In CxM, the minigame is pressing a button in time with a visual cue on screen. Nameless has a card matching game in a majority of the routes (it’s either 3 or 4/5 routes, I don’t remember exactly). I’ve also heard that the dating sim Jack Jeane has a rhythm minigame that comes up during each route.

Games like Piofiore and CupiPara have interactive elements that I wouldn’t consider minigames. Piofiore has a mechanic called Meanwhile Stories: at certain points during a route, the story will cut away to other characters and what they’re doing while the heroine isn’t around. Some Meanwhile Stories play automatically but others have to be selected by the player to be viewed. From my own experience, skipping out on seeing certain Meanwhile Stories will direct you to a bad ending in Piofiore (no joke, I was stuck on Orlok’s bad ending for so long before I realized I was forgetting to play the Meanwhile Stories). In CupiPara, the player is asked to answer a series of “Yes or No” questions to determine their Love Type; and depending on the Love Type result a player gets, that will determine the route ending one gets. Piofiore’s Meanwhile Stories and CupiPara’s Love Type test aren’t minigames but they are parts of the game that the player acts on and affects the story. And, well, some people might not want to deal with added elements.

The third level of difficulty for dating sims are the ones with stat raising elements. Of the games I’ve played, that would be Backstage Pass, Royal Alchemist, and Dandelion. You have to manage your beauty, stress, intelligence, etc on top of making choices to raise affection levels with a given love interest. Sometimes, you don’t even know how high you need a certain stat to be to pass a checkpoint. Those three titles in particular at least give players a few dozen save slots (as well as quick saves) so they can save scum and retry their stat grind. However, it can get tedious reloading a game over and over to get the optimal stat spread. So unless someone is comfortable/skilled with handling this kind of gameplay, I’d say a stat raiser is a harder type of dating sim.

The final and most difficult level of dating sim are games with much more intense/involved gameplay mechanics. I’ve never played games such as this myself. However, I’ve heard that dating sims like Rune Factory and Boyfriend Dungeon have dungeon crawling gameplay as part of them. Action games aren’t inherently difficult but compared to purely choice-based sims, dating sims with more active gameplay could come across as harder.

.....

Part 2: “Difficulty” from UI

I use quotation marks because I haven’t played dating sims more demanding than a stat raiser and so the difficulty I’m talking about is subjective. Really, I’m talking about certain UI/quality of life features in dating sims that make them easier to play/complete. Those exact features are a skip ability and a love catch system.

Dating sims are games that take a long time to play. They are visual novels and so have a lot of text to read. A player probably doesn’t want to re-read every single text box when replaying routes to see all endings. All dating sims have the ability to fast forward through text that’s already been read; there’s even the option to fast forward through unread text (you know, for the folks who don’t want to button mash through bad endings). However, more recent titles give players the ability to not just fast forward but jump ahead in a route to either the next instance of new text or the next choice that a player needs to make. It’s a nice feature to have for those who want to save time on completing all endings or don’t want to put up with a route they dislike. It also helps since a player doesn’t have to worry about accidentally disabling fast forward in the middle of it and pausing their progress for a second. Having to wait as you fast forward through a game isn’t the worst thing in the world, but sitting and waiting for choices to come up in the game can be a drag.

Still, if you’re the type that wants the convenience of a “skip to next choice” feature, then CinPhen, TaiAli, CupiPara, Virche, VariBarri, RadiTale, and Winter’s Wish all have that feature.

The second UI feature I brought up is the love catch system. The term refers to a feature which gives players indications of when they make good choices and increase the affection level of whichever love interest they are pursuing. This can take the form of a status screen. Or the game might give players a visual or audio cue (sometimes there both) when they make a right choice to increase affection. Several of the games I’ve played actually do both, giving players cues when they make good choices and letting them check a status screen to see how much affection they’ve built. A love catch system is a valuable tool for decreasing game difficulty since it guides a player to the good ending the first time around. It’s also helpful for players who seek out bad endings first, for those with an “earn your happy ending” mindset (it’s my preferred playstyle). Not to worry for those who want to play blind and be surprised by what ending they get, the games that give the “good choice cues” allow players to turn off the cues (although the affection status screens still exist and one just has to ignore it to the best of their ability).

But then there are games that neither give a cue for good choices nor have a status screen to check in on. In that case, a player has to go in blind and just pray to the dating sim gods that they don’t accidentally get the ending they weren’t aiming for. The lack of a love catch system is especially frustrating in games with long common routes, the part of a game where the player is interacting with all the love interests and not playing the story of a specific character. Unless the choices are blatant like “talk to Character A” or “talk to Character B,” then it can be difficult to tell what choices will set a player on the character route they want to play. Then on a character route, the choices can still be vague and hard to tell which is good and which is bad. The only other choice is to play using a guide written by someone else to get one’s desired ending.

Games with no love catch system: Code Realize (and the fandiscs), Cafe Enchante, Nameless, TaiAli, CxM: Unlimited

Games with in-game cues but no status screen: CinPhen (and Evermore)

Games with no in-game cues but a status screen: Piofiore (in Fated Memories, it’s kinda difficult to understand; it’s easier to follow in 1926)

Games with both in-game cues and a status screen: Winter’s Wish, CxM (yeah, I don’t get it either; why have a love catch system in the original game but not the fandisc?), RadiTale (and Fanfare), Virche (and Epic Lycoris), VariBarri, Royal Alchemist, Backstage Pass, CupiPara, and Dandelion.

Again, as I said at the start of this section, the “difficulty” I talked about here is subjective and the features are more quality of life than actual gameplay complexity.

.....

Part 3: Difficulty from the Writing

Just like Part 2, this aspect of a dating sim’s difficulty is subjective.

What I mean by a dating sim’s writing making the game difficult is that the content of the story might be too dark or heavy for some people.

Dating sims, like any genre of game, tell a wide range of stories. They can be goofy, dramatic, horrifying, and so on. Some stories are realistic while others are off-the-walls bonkers. If someone is looking for pure, unadulterated fluff and romance, that’s going to be hard to find. Just looking at my own experience with dating sims, the stories have a variety of tones and a wide range of topics that they cover.

I made a tier list to visualize what I feel the tone/intensity is for each game. Remember, this is my personal opinion regarding these games.

Fuck you and your happiness tier: Virche and Piofiore Gets heavy but it's not soul-crushing tier: CxM, Code Realize, Cafe Enchante Heavier topics have a presence tier: Royal Alchemist, Winter's Wish, TaiAli, Nameless More happy than sad tier: RadiTale, CupiPara, CinPhen, Dandelion Honestly not much to worry about tier: VariBarri, Backstage Pass

Let me also provide a general list of potential triggers and content warnings for each game. I’ll work my way up in intensity.

Backstage Pass: Depictions of anxiety. Sexuality, age gaps, and public perception are topics that come up depending on the route. At worst, there are strained family dynamics in a couple of routes.

Variable Barricade: Arranged marriage is a plot point. One particular routes includes attempted sexual assault and threatening suicide.

Dandelion: Mentions of terminal illness, depiction of emotional abuse, inferiority complexes, obsessive partners, and threats of violence.

Cinderella Phenomenon: Mentions of a past war, depiction of political corruption, murder, child abuse. It should be noted that one romantic interest is the heroine’s step-brother but they weren’t raised together and are hostile acquaintances at best before the game’s events.

Cupid Parasite: There’s kidnapping, romantic obsession, stalking, and attempted sexual assault. It’s also a bit more sexual than the other games I’ve played; nothing outright explicit but simply more sensual.

Radiant Tale: There’s fantasy violence and a lot of emotional baggage. Emotional trauma, terminal illness, political corruption, enslavement, and self-sacrificing mentality.

Nameless: Self-loathing, school bullying, physical abuse, attachment issues, emotional manipulation, and sexual assault.

Taisho x Alice: Topics include financial debt, arranged marriage, obsessive lovers, eating disorders, child abuse, mental health, suicidal ideation, kidnapping, and substance abuse.

Royal Alchemist: human trafficking, political corruption, assassination, human experimentation, brainwashing, concerns over war, and mass murder.

Winter’s Wish: Mild fantasy racism, kidnapping, violence against children, sex work, description of a corpse, attempted suicide, dubious consent, and terrorism.

Cafe Enchante: Age gap romances but are, for the most part, unrealistic (centuries old nonhuman characters). Depictions of self-sacrifice, unwanted bodily transformations, brainwashing, cannibalism, kidnapping, and mass murder.

Code Realize: genocide, chemical warfare, psychological conditioning, terrorism, emotional abuse, kidnapping, attempted murder, and attempted suicide.

Collar x Malice: The police, as an organization, play a large role in the plot but they are not wholly good and even get blamed for multiple tragic incidents. The game has terrorism, online bullying, alludes to bullying in a school setting, kidnapping, murder, stalking, and brainwashing.

Piofiore: The mafia in this game don’t play nice. There’s revenge, gun violence, murder, human trafficking, weapon trafficking, drug trafficking, religious indoctrination, abuse of faith, kidnapping, and sexual assault.

Virche Evermore: This game has a lot of dark content. This review includes a visual indicating all the potential triggers. Though I do believe it should be mentioned that Mathis’s route’s bad end does also heavily imply sexual coercion.

If you are sensitive to any of the heavier topics that I mentioned, I would have to advise against playing these games or to play those games with caution.

Subject matter can make a piece of media difficult to approach or enjoy. For a genre like dating sims, it’s largely marketed as romance games, but the stories the games tell aren’t always romantic but rather dramatic and emotional.

For easy to digest dating sims, I would suggest anything from the lowest two levels of my tier list. But for something darker or more plot heavy, the higher levels are there too.

.....

Thank you, Anon, for sending in your ask. I’m sorry if my reply is longer or more confusing than you thought it would be. I just wanted to give my honest and thorough thoughts on the matter of dating sim recommendations.

Let me finish my post by giving my top five dating sim recommendations based on the factors I mentioned before and some other factors.

#5: Cupid Parasite. Despite my own lack of overall interest in the game, I can still point out what makes the game worthwhile. It’s got the quality of life features that more recent dating sims have. It’s got a fun blend of fantastical and modern elements. It makes interesting use of mythology in places. The cast is colorful in design and personality. The side characters actually get up to some interesting things too, depending on the route you play. Overall, it’s a comedy but it can still provide the soft, sweet moments of romance as well as more intense drama scenes. There is a fandisc but I’ve never touched it and even without it, Cupid Parasite on its own feels like a complete and fulfilling story.

#4: Code Realize. You don’t have to get all three games but at least the first, Guardian of Rebirth, is worth a recommendation. It is one of the heavier games but even with the sorrow and drama, there’s always a happy ending where the heroine and love interest are able to be other and work towards a brighter, happier future. This game doesn’t come with the nifty UI features that make ending hunting more convenient, but with how many charming little gems are in the story, I think replaying routes from the beginning is the way to go.

#3: Royal Alchemist. I’m not terribly fond of the stat raiser element, it was still a very charming game to play. Everything is drawn beautifully, it’s very easy to get into the flow of the game, and all the characters were pretty interesting. Not just the main character and love interests but also side characters helped build the world and made it feel genuinely lived in. The political intrigue plot in the game is ever-present but it doesn’t loom so heavily over the player that they can’t have fun. It’s an indie project and is $20 on Steam so cheaper fare than the dating sims from a studio like Otomate.

#2: Variable Barricade. Although one route touches on some heavier topics, it’s generally very light-hearted and goofy. The love interests are presented as problematic weirdos but they’ll hopefully grow on you as you play and you’ll see there’s more to love than a picture perfect image. The game has a good skip feature and easy to follow love catch system. What’s nice is that the one game is a complete package (other titles have fandiscs where, while not necessary to get a complete story, you might be compelled to buy a fandisc to get more content of the characters). Also, it’s one of the few dating sims out there with a voice heroine.

#1: Cinderella Phenomenon. This was the game to really get me hooked on dating sims. I will never not recommend this game to people. The art is cute and feels kinda timeless to me, the characters are charming and lovable in their own ways, and the routes are uniquely compelling (from the more interpersonal drama of Rod’s route to the trauma-fest that is Fritz’s route). I kinda rag on the step-brother route but the character himself is actually a good guy and I can’t hate him beyond the awkward position the game put him in. Evil gets defeated every time which is cool to see. The game’s heroine is one of a few who get to join in on the action, depending on which route you play. It’s a straight-forward choice-based dating sim with UI features that makes it easy to get the good endings and easily replay to see the bad endings. Also, it’s free to play on Steam and itch.io. And the fandisc Evermore is only $10. It’s pretty accessible price-wise for anyone who plays on PC.

If my post helps anyone in their search for dating sims, I’d be happy. But I’m also happy to just talk about this somewhat understated passion of mine.

Once more, thank you Anon for your question. And thank you to anyone who took the time to read this post, either in part or in full.

To everyone, have a love day or evening, and take care of yourselves.

[honeygold-dew]

Extraordinary Attorney Woo Ep 8: “I won’t let you walk all over me.”

Well, this episode was just as much a rollercoaster as the last one, but for different reasons this time.

(Once again, episode thoughts from someone on the spectrum)

1. We start with the anonymous (who is he kidding, the entire team knows Minwoo wrote it) post on the company forum, singling out Youngwoo enough for employees to recognise her, complaining about her specifically benefitting from nepotism.

I don’t even need to mention the ableism in this, the ableism in Minwoo, I feel like that’s been covered by everyone. My thoughts this entire scene though, is why did he specifically choose Youngwoo, when he’s been working next to Sooyeon all this time who he knew had powerful connections from the beginning? How is it him being righteous and fair, when he witnesses first hand Youngwoo is more than competent at her job, but goes after her while seeing Youngwoo as “the strong” compared to the CEO of the entire company who openly benefits from connections?

Minwoo would not be threatened if Youngwoo was not more competent than him. If an autistic person worked alongside him and was not outperforming him, he wouldn’t even care to sabotage them. His ableism would assume he’s getting the job above them. He wants Youngwoo gone because he knows he doesn’t stand a chance against her as a lawyer, so he pulls all the tricks to get her out of the running and him a full-time job. Classic corporate moves, what we experience in real life, but Minwoo has time and time again actively used Youngwoo’s autism as the brunt of his sabotage.

Which is exactly why, more so than Sooyeon loudly and unapologetically standing up for Youngwoo, we got Youngwoo standing up for herself. “I won’t let you walk all over me.” And that’s all that needs to be said!

2. Minwoo responding with “Are you shameless?”

Yes. Youngwoo should be shameless. She has done nothing to be shameful for. If there’s one thing men have, it’s the audacity, trying to bring you down while being confidently wrong. Kwon why don’t you spend all this free time you have working on the case, instead? Earn your permanent employment the right way and be a better lawyer!

3. Theme of romanticism throughout the episode.

There was a post I saw on here earlier describing how poetically and lovingly Youngwoo appreciates the beauty in things around her — even in the episode she loved taking in the tree, feeling the wind and watching its leaves move, seeing the town together with it. I’m happy to see Youngwoo feeling deeply constantly shown in the drama, even more so in an episode addressing things needing to be played tactically instead of relying on human connection and emotion.

I’m happy Youngwoo was advocating the side of connection and feeling, when the stereotype of all autistic people being logical, unemotional robots is too often used in media. I’m happy that Youngwoo having romanticism, is completely in line with her character we know and love.

4. If I thought that fall on the hill looked painful, WOW did I flinch when she fell down the stairs. (Speaking of falls, her fussing over the judge after he fell on the same path was adorable, especially the part where she offered him her jacket because that’s what Junho did with her the last time, even cuter because Junho likes her and that was an act part of his constipated pining). But what I want to talk about here, Youngwoo addressing her independence from her dad.

She wants to be an independent adult both financially and in her livelihood. She wants to do things on her own. She wants to live her own life where she makes the decisions. Granted, it may have began after finding out her father’s been too controlling of her experiences, but I’m happy for her. Even living with bestie Geurami is an upgrade from an overly-worried dad. Seeing her giggle and enjoy breakfast with Geurami was honestly so nice and refreshing, normal things you do with your best friend and roomie. She didn’t overbear Youngwoo or try to treat her like a child either and made something new-ish for her to eat, which she did enjoy. In her comfort zone but new. Youngwoo happy. Geurami happy. Me happy. I hope by the end of the drama Youngwoo is able to establish her independence however she sees fit.

5. The mother… sigh. This one was a little tough to see. I don’t have much to say, this is their story and these are the decisions they’ve made to lead to this point.

At first, I thought Tae Su-mi would try to hide Youngwoo’s existence. I thought upon discovering Youngwoo’s her daughter, she’d revoke the job application on her own, considering the drama leading us to believe she was cold about her child out of wedlock. But instead… she was sad. She was crying. She asked if Youngwoo resents her. My heart ached for her. I can’t imagine that was an easy decision to make in your college days. I wonder where next their relationship will go in the episodes to come. Youngwoo’s response to her also touched me, it was nice spending time with her at the tree. Youngwoo again loving and appreciating the little things, Youngwoo again loving their small time connecting instead of focusing on the hurtful.

She’s a wonderful character, and I can’t wait for next week.

P.S. “The birds, the lambs and even Myeong-seok” line made me laugh so much. You poor soul, 3 AM is the best neurodivergent thinking time, get up!

[mercurytrinemoon]

Another post on Moon signs you can drag me for

Before we get into the actual thing, I'd like to say this post initially started as something else but ultimately, what I tried to put across is, sometimes Moon signs aren’t that easy to decipher. It’s easy to grasp overall characteristics of the signs and then learn how to identify their specific traits. But what people seem to forget it that Moon represents the deepest side of us & our inner world - it’s uncommon to really see someone’s side of it unless you really pay attention. Sometimes I’m surprised to see what someone’s Moon sign is even if I know this person well. Meaning, people usually hide that part of them - or they just simply process it internally and others can’t see their emotional reactions. It’s also uncommon for folks these days to fully express their emotional needs so it gets even trickier to pin-point their Moon characteristics. I don't think I have to mention this but, of course, your entire chart should be taken into account, as well as house placement, aspects. Personally, I like to also look at Moon's dispositor.

Let’s start from my friends, Gemini Moons, who, I feel, get a bad rep for not showing their feelings and scanning every emotion like an AI. Nah-ah. I know this one Gemini Moon whose immediate emotional reactions aren’t very cerebral in the sense of processing everything in the mind and intellectualizing it aka, what people like to label as being un-emotional. Instead her reactions are often fast (air energy) but physically expressed through Mercury (Gemini Moon’s dispositor) and Sun (overall identity) – she has them both in Aries. She’s a crybaby who can burst into tears in a matter of seconds. So she’s not something that would stereotypically be assigned to a Gemini Moon. But what I did notice is that all Gemini Moons tend to have this weird look on their face when they’re processing stuff. As if they were about to have a brain malfunction; they stop and have that specific worried look. They also like to either gossip or tell stories (either real or made up lol); they’re great with words - they can talk for hours if they feel comfortable with you. They just crave interaction and mental stimulation. Their quick reactions tend to make them effortlessly witty. Even if they’re a withdrawn Gemini type, they make up for it through social media and technology or just a quiet exploration. My shy Cancer pal with Moon in Gemini is now a brand/website designer and an instagram queen who travels the world. This is great energy for content creators in general. And don’t forget that Geminis need to have their fingers in many pies. It’s because they always have a backup plan… and they get bored easily so they need that chaos around them to feel at home. They like to have options in everything, which is kind of funny cause it’s hard for them to make up their minds and actually choose something. And they store a lot of information in their brains… I feel like it must be exhausting, no? 

On the other side of the axis, whenever I see someone with a Sagittarius Moon, I can immediately say “yup, a Sag Moon indeed” (probably thanks to my Sag stellium), meaning, they all seem the same to me. Sag Moons often find comfort in exploration - best if it’s literal travel. They always seem to need to free themselves from their surroundings, family, roots or their own culture to discover something new and exciting, even if it’s only in the imaginary words - through books, movies and other medias. Their happiness always lies somewhere else from where they currently are. Like, I think all Sagittarius Moons that I know have left their parents and went their own paths early on. And they have this yolo attitude. Just like Sagittarius Suns, they’re massive dorks, probably also obnoxious… sometimes in a REALLY annoying way. They’re either a) very wise and curious b) lil preachy and stuck up c) just plain dumb clowns with no filter. But they’re all funny. And they take things lightly, with a natural ease. This means sometimes they may offend other people just because they assume everyone’s as chill as they are; „relax! I was just kidding!” - that’s a phrase you’ll hear from them often… I mean, unless you’re a jokester yourself and you’re unmoved by their sarcastic or teasing words. They have somewhat spiritual or philosophical nature so besides making you laugh, be prepared for deep monologues. They want to believe everything will eventually fall into place. It’s also hard to bring them down - or I should say, it’s hard to make them acknowledge that they're feeling down - they always try to distract or cover it up with a joke, usually a self-depricating one. If Sagittarius Moon (or Sagittarius in general tbh) is telling you that they’re unhappy, then it’s serious.

I’ve noticed there comes a point in life for a Libra Moon where they just have enough. They’re too nice for everyone and one day they wake up and yell about how they have to do everything for everyone and everyone wants something from them and bLah bLah. Makes me think of when Bieber was this overly nice kid and then he was like “I’M NOT TAKING PICTURES WITH FANS ANYMOREEEE AAGhJFJFUWIUq”. Yup, a Libra Moon, everyone. They know how to charm and appeal to people, I think overall they’re easily liked by others. Sometimes it’s simply because they like to kiss people’s ass just to avoid being rejected. That’d be a Libra Moon’s nightmare. They like other people’s company too much. And they thrive in relationships and in a big circle of friends. What they hate is confrontations (like every other Libra placement omg). They may be good mediators when it comes to other people but if they’re involved in an argument they get sooooo passive aggressive. They just don’t know how to handle conflicts - it’s as if their nervous system wasn’t designed for emotional outbursts (because, you know, everything needs to be peaceful and harmonious Venus-style). A fussy or angry Libra Moon will suddenly get loud as they blame someone for something… and then they’ll leave the room cause they’re scared to even hear the other side of the argument. Or, alternatively, they’ll make a doormat out of themselves just to stay quiet and avoid causing any rift. And making decisions? I think it’s common for them to have two different romantic interests and feeling so dramatically torned between them *Alexa play Agony from Into the Woods*. Then when they decide, they have problems breaking the bad news to one of them.

On the other end we have Aries Moons. *deep breath* Listen, I think I’ve said enough about having Moon in Aries (or rather purely dissing it) but last time it made a bit of controversy so why not wreak even more havoc. I have a good description for this one: I will punch you but be gentle with me cause it’s easy to break my fragile heart. So basically, imagine putting Buttercup and Bubbles into one person. And honestly, I need to say this, women with this placement are just hot badasses, look at friggin Angelina Jolie. The queen of badass. The queen of hot. People say because Aries folks move quickly (literally and figuratively lol), they often get bored with whatever got them excited last week... or yesterday. Ha, yeah, right. You get their heart to open up and they’re going to have their eyes for you ONLY, like a lil puppy. Give us treats and we’ll build our world around you. But NOT in a clingy way by any means, we need our space and independence after all. My lil niece is an Aries Moon and ever since I started playing guitar with her, she became my #1 fan or something. That’s the energy. But we get easily bored with day-to-day stuff so yeah, there’s that. Innocent and clumsy yet raw in their emotions - so there’s potential to make mistakes sometimes (or a lot of times) or having this tunnel vision, like „I want this and I don’t care about anything else!”. And then excusing it with some „but the heart wants what it wants” crap (looking @ ya, Selena Gomez). They experience constant inner movement and turbulence that needs a physical outlet in order to feel satisfied. WE NEED PASSION IN OUR LIVES, OKAY?!?!?? now leave me alone

Aquarius Moons aren’t as cold as you might think. People like to describe them as if their Moons actually disappeared from their charts: dEtaCheD, uNeMotiOnaL, tHey fEeL nOtHinG. It’s just they don’t sit and dwell on things, they find solutions to the problems. If something doesn’t make them feel right, they just leave that situation. They do care about other people’s well-being, they’re very sensitive in that regard, they’re humanitarians after all. Yeah, they detach, but from their own emotions - in order to make sense of them. They may seem like snow queens sometimes (and this comes from an Aqua rising) but they’re really friendly and if you pique Aqua Moon’s interest, they’re going to be curious about you. They like new exciting things so if you’re cool enough, you have their attention. Usually they’re pretty progressive as well and can’t stand injustice. That’s why you’ll see them standing up for those who are in need. Uranian energy gives them a specific type of sharp intuition and wit. Idk they’re just cute in a quirky way. But this buzzing, fast energy is a great recipe for anxiety, over-thinking and frequent changes of heart. Similarly to Sadges, they need constant exploration and stimuli. Intelligent, people-oriented (but not people-pleasing! Look to Libras for that), individualistic. They definitely need their own space and independence. Their decision-making is fast and it’s easy for them to just say „screw it, I’m doing this”. My Aquarius Moon friend just casually decided that she’s moving to Turkey cause nothing in our city (or even country) seems interesting or helping her expand�� So she was like, see ya suckers, I’m leaving.

Leo Moons shine from within. You’ll spot them from a mile away even if they’re on the shyer side. They’re all lil stars no matter their profession. Very expressive people & easily excitable. Art galleries, live shows, theater - they love a creative environment even if they don’t pursue that lifestyle themselves... One of my Leo Moon friends is an art junkie – suggest taking her to an obscure play at the local bar, a music festival, a weird museum – she’ll say yes in the blink of an eye. And she loves discussing these things. A Leo Moon may not see themselves as artistically inclined, but usually sooner or later they at least try dipping their toes in music, arts, acting, dancing... you name it. They’ll learn a simple 3-chord song on a ukulele and then play it to you in excitement. Imagine a lil kid making you a puff piece and being super proud of it. Sometimes they just need some encouragement. Remember, Leos feed off of praise, that’s their fuel. Doesn’t mean they’re all proud, egotistical people but what it does mean is that they need a lil assurance to gain their self-confidence. I lived with a Leo Sun/Moon for almost 15 years (who’s a musician btw so yeah, a classic creative Leo type) - he did have some issues lol but ego wasn’t one of them. Drama followed him everywhere but I’m pretty sure he disliked it himself. BUT, with that being said, I feel like Leo Moons tend to dramatize themselves internally. People say it’s something Virgos or Geminis would do - because of their tendency to overthink, but Leos can just go straight to a worst-case scenario in their heads simply because they exaggerate everything. So don’t be surprised to see a Leo Moon feeling down and anxious. On the bright side, be their cheerleader and they’ll give that to you in return. They need sparks and dullness kills their upbeat spirit. They need to feel their own heartbeat so the feeling of excitement is crucial for their well-being. Romantic, giving and kind. They’re fixed fire so once they’re set on something or someone, they give their all and are rather loyal.

I feel like my chart low-key tells me I should dislike Taurus Moons but I just want to melt in their arms and just stay there? Like, forever? Low maintenance but a bit slow-moving and stubborn. They won’t settle easily, at least not officially, so you need to have a lot of patience with them. They need 3 things to feel secure and at peace: physical stimuli, time and a stable place they know they can always come back to. And it’s not like all of them are total lazy homebodies, they may be active spirits & travellers but they are going to have a reallyyyyy nice cosy flat somewhere near their childhood place (gotta be be close to their moms, you know). Not necessary materialistic but they may have one thing that they collect throughout their entire life and they won’t. ever. get. rid. of. it. There needs to be at least one constant in their life - like you know when Elton John decided to go to therapy but one thing he stuck to was shopaholism? Very Taurus Moon of him. Also, they’re very affectionate. In fact, may have issues differentiating between affection and passion - this is actually something Taurus Moon and Aries Moon have in common. Pro tip - and this is in regard to all Taurus placements - don’t smell bad when you’re around them (I mean, don't smell bad in general, no one likes stinky people lol). They have a sensitive smell. Doesn’t help that they like to smell everything. EVERYTHING. I swear, Taurus, stop sticking your nose in every single thing!!! You don't need to know how that piece of utensil smells like. Jeez.

Scorpio Moon (shoutout to those who remember me accidentally calling them sporpio last time I made a post on Moons lol). I honestly don’t know what to tell you... I feel like all you hear about Scorpio Moon is 100% true, there’s nothing to debunk here. It’s the Moon of extremes. Prone to jealousy and surpressing emotions; severe trust issues; they’re instigators. I was low-key bullied by a few Scorpio Moons when I was in school so there’s that. Very secretive and private. Scorpio Moon will be like “I’m in control of the situation!!!!” and you’ll just look at them and think, yeah, right, looks like the situation is controlling you. But keep being in denial, sure. Like, don’t get me wrong, Scorpios in general can be TOTAL SWEETHEARTS OMG but ya’ll have issues. Even celebrities who have this placements... Think Beyonce or Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus... I feel like they have issues lol, especially with control and the need for everything to be perfectly the way they want it to be. To be fair, that’s probably why they’re all so influential and high status: it’s either their way or highway. They need constant reinvention; they’re the ones to wake up one day and decide they’re going through a spiritual awakening blah blah. They also like to talk about dark and shocking topics while having casual lunch with you... So like, be warned that you may end up with a depressed mood after talking to them for 10 minutes. And their mood swings... don’t even get me started on that.

I don't know where to start with Virgo Moons... I feel like they're very calculated and nit-picky but they're a lot warmer than Virgo Suns. I think I called them softies in my last Moon post. Very sweet people but prone to anxiety. You gotta experience seeing them having a heart attack over someone mixing bananas with milk or messing with their stuff that’s been put in a perfect arrangement. I saw a Virgo Moon once literally squealing shouting "YOU'RE GONNA RUIN YOUR LAPTOP WITH THAT SUPERGLUE!!!" Highly entertaining to watch, not gonna lie. Gordon Ramsay has his Moon in Virgo - it’s conjunct Uranus and Pluto so that’s an extreme but I think him being fed up with people over small inconsistencies in their food prep is a perfect example of this energy (btw his chart is hilarious, it literally explains EVERYTHING). They're VERY picky with their food as well, just as Virgo Suns tend to be. Like, they’ll only have a specific type of single origin coffee or they’ll be vegan or something. Self-critical over their work, which is a plus... except for when finishing a simple task takes them a few hours because they want to make it perfect. They take everything seriously. This of course doesn't mean they're total bores - on the contrary, Mercurial energy gives them witty approach and a talent for choosing the right words at the right time. Tho they can be a bit awkward or shy with it. Can be as bubbly as Gemini but the grounded earthy energy gives them more practical and almost nurturing nature - earth signs are providers after all and Virgo is the sign of service - helping others is like their second nature. I’ve noticed they often find comfort in devoting themselves to a choosen task - this is why if they pursue something, they’re really good at it. They’re also very likely to dissect their emotions.

I’m not a fan of water Moons in general but Pisces Moon is the best water Moon in my opinion. Maybe because I like Pisces overall. I think it’s like a tweaked Sagittarius Moon - just more internalized, withdrawn & gloomy. But unlike Sag, who has a tendency to be an adventurous optimist, Pisces likes to focus on the negatives instead. Obviously, they can be very upbeat, they’re Jupiter-ruled after all, but there’s somehing whiny about them lol. Just like Sadges, they dream big and have their standards put up sooo high but if there's not much active energy in their charts, they’re often too passive to actually fullfill any of that - or I should say, they’re stuck daydreaming about it, believing it’ll just magically manifest for them... OR they do everything with an apathetic approach. What I do like about them is that they’re funny. And really chill - sometimes to the point of coming off as confused or hazy. I feel like a lot of them would just love to sleep all day... or sit by the lake and just think about the world. Most of them are also compassionate folks - again, maybe a bit too much. Hey Pisces, you don’t have to take everything to heart, it’s okay. On the bright side, they have big imagination and the ability to disconnect and just create. I have a few Pisces Moons in the family: one’s that sleepy artistic type with grand visions, one is an asshole-ish but funny entrepreneur with a questionable work ethic and one is a witty IT guy who’s actually a workaholic and likes to shut in his own world of computers and numbers or whatever he does there... So there’s this factor of tunnel vision, escapism and, on the more negative side, being kinda iffy and almost addicted to the way they want things to be. Once they set their eyes on something it’s done deal…

My issue with Capricorn Moons is that they're often trying to be sooooo mature omg, like, loosen up a bit. It usually starts when they're in their later teens... They can be the most rebellious kid that likes to have fun and suddenly they'll be like "I'm too old for this ugh grow up" *judgmental stare*. My 18-year old niece once literally roasted my sister that she's in her 30s and still doesn't have her own place (well so do I so I guess she also indirectly roasted me as well???). And she was SO deadpan with it. Because she herself wants to be independent and start a family before turning 25. This is classic Capricorn Moon energy. They suck out joy out of everything lol. Of course, OF COURSE, it depends on the whole chart but I feel like worst-case scenario is that at one point in their life (or maybe even a few times throughout it) they go through a massive shake-up that makes them change their attitude and re-evaluate their structures. There's this multi-instrumentalist Yvette Young - she's a sweet, funny Cancer/Leo mix but her Moon is in Capricorn. She used to be a competitive pianist but the pressure that was put on her has led her to severe health issues. Like yes, she’s now an extremely talented musician - thanks to family’s expectations & a rigid schooling system (Saturn) but it did cost her a lot. She has recovered since then but I think it's a perfect example of this energy. It’s very ambitious and hardworking but emotionally demanding in the sense that you have to actually put your emotions aside in order to deal with the rest. Another thing, because Moon can be associated with family, there's often a weird dynamic surrounding this topic. I don't think I've met a Capricorn Moon that had a completely healthy and happy relationship with their fam or one of the family members. Or, alternatively, there can be a strong bond between one of them but usually created in the atmosphere of hardships.

Last but not least, Cancer Moons. I had three school friends with this placement and all of them made this sad, whiny face as they said „oh I don’t knoooow anymoreee”  when they were feeling torned or frustrated. To be fair, two of them are water Suns so for them, it added to the mushyness. All Cancer Moons I know are family people or better yet, baby people. One of those school friends is now a guidance counsellor, working with kids; the other turned her instagram into a gallery of her own child after she gave birth. So much kid content, omg. There’s also something very indecisive about them… or I should say, hesitant. They’re not very fast at making decisions. Also, what’s interesting, they’re kind of like walking libraries, they remember a lot – so they store a lot of information in their brains just like air signs but they process it in a completely different way – emotional, obviously. I think this also makes them hold grudges a lot. For them it’s more of a question of „how does it make me feel?” rather than „how valid is it?”. There’s certain stubborness in them in that regard because they don’t keep their minds open. It’s also hard for them to walk away from people and situations, like a crab pinching you with its claws – it won’t let go. Sensitive but not easy to open up; very protective of themselves and their loved ones & they tend to shut down in their crab shells. But they may crave connection and the feeling of belonging. Also very caring and with a big imagination. They’re very receptive of their environment so mood swings are a thing for them.

[lunarticxenia]

The Sun Signs

Hi guys! So I decided to make a series. I’m going to do: each sign in each planet, each house placement for every planet, and the aspects for all the planets. This of course is going to be over the course of a month; it’s going to take a while to cover everything LMAO. I’m thinking of doing this and alternating between asteroids, “placements that make people ____”, and astrology observations. Without further ado, here’s my take on the sun signs based off of people I know: 

🪁 Aries: These people are go-getters and know what they want when they want it. I feel like a lot of people associate Aries with being extroverts because they’re a fire sign, but I know ALOT of Aries and 95% of them have been shy. It’s more of the Aries moons that I’ve noticed that have been more extroverted. However other aspects in your chart can determine this. They’re also extremely competitive and very hard workers. Every Aries I’ve ever met has worked their ass off, and they keep working their asses off until they perfect everything. Some negatives are that Aries people can be super dramatic as well, and don’t take other people’s advice. Even when they ask for it, if their mind is set on something, there’s no going back. 

🪁 Taurus: Boy oh boy, do these people just want to go on a 10 year vacation and not have to deal with anyone ever again. These people love the finer things in life; they most likely have a creative hobby or have a creative streak. They also love good food and they love a good nap. Now everyone says Tauruses are super chill, and honestly, it depends on other aspects in their chart. I’ve known super chill Tauruses and super chaotic Tauruses. I’ve noticed the chaotic Tauruses have a lot of Aries energy in their chart i.e. Aries Mercury and Aries Mars (no offense Aries). I’d say a downside of Tauruses is that they can be lazy because they love to relax (however this depends on other aspects) and they can be apathetic a lot. I’ve found that Tauruses can very much disconnect themselves from a situation when they have to, so they can keep calm and grounded. 

🪁 Gemini: These people are social and will talk for hours. I don’t mean this in a bad way. Even the more introverted Geminis, once you get to know them they will talk for days especially about things they’re passionate about. I think it’s a cute and endearing trait. A lot of people hate on Geminis, but I don’t get it. One of my best friends is a Gemini, and she’s the most genuine person I’ve ever met. In fact, most Geminis I’ve met have not been two-faced, at least from my experience. I think that Geminis are also very funny, every Gemini I’ve met has made me laugh my ass off. Every single one. They have a great sense of humor and a very engaging personality. You can see this with Gemini politicians, they’re very charismatic and know how to entertain a crowd. I’d say the more negative side of Gemini is that they can be very flighty about what they want and while they’re social, they’re not always the best communicators when it comes to interpersonal relationships. 

🪁 Cancer: I’ve found that Cancers are either extremely extroverted or extremely introverted; and this can change depending on their mood LMAO. I can speak from experience; I am a Cancer. Sometimes I feel like being social and talking; other times I hate people and I just don’t wanna deal with them. Cancers also always have a softness to them; even if they have a lot of fire energy. I don’t know how to describe it other than they just look like water itself. I’d say some obvious downsides of Cancer are that they can be extremely moody and they can be snippy. If you catch them in the wrong mood, they’ll snap at you. I’m guilty of this as well. 

🪁 Leo: Again, a lot of people don’t like Leos but I love them. The Leos I’ve met have not been self centered at all- in fact they’re the exact opposite. Perhaps it’s the underdeveloped Leo suns who are self-centered, but all the ones I’ve met have always put others before themselves. They’re not cocky at all. I’ve also found that Leos all have really nice hair; this is a stereotype that’s definitely true. I’ve never met a Leo with bad hair. I’ve also found that they’re super creative and even if they don’t have a creative hobby, they have a creative flair. They’re also REALLY funny. I feel like they’re definitely slept on in terms of funny placements. This is the sign that rules “performing” in a way, so of course they’re going to be entertaining. 

🪁 Virgo: My favorite sign. I love all the signs in their own way, but Virgo is my favorite. Every single Virgo I’ve met I’ve loved. I get along so well with them. Virgos are shit on for being critical but it’s because they know that the people in question can achieve so much. Virgos also save that critical energy for themselves and can tear themselves apart if they’re not perfect. These people are also always putting others before themselves and always try to help everyone. Remember the 6th house rules one’s sense of usefulness. They feel that if they’re not being useful in some way to people that they’re not good enough. I literally just want to hug every Virgo. Also they’re not boring at all. FOH. Virgos are literally so much fun. 

🪁 Libra: These people are just so likable. No matter what they do, you just tend to like them for some reason. They can adapt to any type of personality and they have a way of making everyone like them. This is why Libra suns tend to be popular; they’re very bubbly and sociable. Even if they’re not popular, they’re well-liked. However, this can be their downfall as well. They can be superficial and fake. They tend to flip flop in arguments alot, and they try to play on both sides which can create more tension between two people. Also, have you ever seen a Libra try to make a decision? LMAO. Love them though. 

🪁 Scorpio: Your eyes. Holy fuck. You can tell if someone is a Scorpio just by the gaze in their eyes. They stare into your fucking soul. Even if their eyes are a light color, there’s always a sense of mystery and darkness to them. Despite this sense of power they give off, once you get to know them they’re literally the biggest teddy bears. Literally just go up to one and talk to them, they’ll talk to you and be all nice and happy. I’ve noticed that Scorpios just don’t like to talk about their emotions or what goes on in their heads either. They like to look strong and they don’t show their vulnerable side to just anybody. This would be one of their downfalls. They have a hard time being vulnerable and letting people in. They look fierce, but they’re sweet and just want a hug. 

🪁 Sagittarius: The funniest people ever. I’ve never met a non-funny Sagittarius. I work with two of them and they have me in tears laughing. They’re also very smart and you can talk to them about anything. Even if they don’t get the best grades in school (which I rarely see, the Valedictorian and the Salutatorian were both Sagittariuses) they always have a base knowledge about everything. They’re also extremely chill and try not to take life too seriously. I’ve found that a downside of this placement is that they can be very flighty in love. They have a hard time settling down which can be difficult for someone who wants to date them. Sagittariuses crave independence and they’re usually not the relationship types. Also they have a hard time taking things seriously. 

🪁 Capricorns: My guilty pleasure. I’ve dated two of them and 75% of the people I’ve liked were Capricorn suns. I feel like people overlook the appeal of Capricorns. Scorpios are the “sexy” ones, but have you seen how attractive Capricorns can be? Remember, in Tarot, the Devil rules Capricorn, so they can be devilishly handsome or darkly beautiful. Even if they’re not the most attractive person in the room, they have an aura to them that’s intriguing. They speak softly and carry a big stick. They don’t have to impress anyone; they know that they’re powerful. I’d say some downsides to Capricorns are that they have a hard time expressing their emotions and they tend to shove them down; which can result in them exploding later on. They also have a tendency to be arrogant, and can dish it out, but they can’t take it. 

🪁 Aquariuses: My second guilty pleasure. I just love the Saturn energy, what can I say? Aquariuses are such lovable weirdos. I don’t know how else to describe them. Every single one I’ve met has been unique in some way and they don’t try to fit in either. They’re proud of being different. My boss is an Aquarius and I felt self conscious one day because I had a different color shirt on than everyone else and he told me “Why would you want to fit in when you could stand out?”. They’re those types of people. They’re also really funny as well, their minds just work so differently from everyone else. They’ll say the most outlandish things and you’ll die laughing. Some downsides? You could know them for years and you’ll just find out things about them. They don’t share things about themselves and it’s hard to get to know them. They also can be very emotionally cold. They don’t like emotions. 

🪁 Pisces: Softies. They’re literally soft teddy bears. No matter how big or tall or muscular they could get, you just look into their eyes and that softness is there. They’re really sweet and tend to be more introverted. They aren’t the types who go out of their way to talk to strangers at a party. They love comfort and they like to feel secure. They’re also very dreamy if that makes sense. They always look like they came out of a fantasy world. I’d say a major downside would be that they’re overly sensitive. They cannot take a joke. I remember I was telling my co worker who’s a Pisces about the negative traits of Pisces and one of them was lazy; and he got SO offended. He was like “I am NOT lazy.” LMAO. 

Also guys, as I’ve said, other things in your natal chart can affect these traits. For the next asteroid by the way, I’m between asteroid Bellona and Lilith. Which one would you guys want to see? I’ve been getting a lot of questions about those two. :)