#Normally i don't engage with these

[jq37]

In Sophomore Year, Adaine's nightmare vision of herself is in mourning garments, speaking to her underlying fear that, as an elf, she'll outlive everyone she cares about and have to face forever alone.

In the finale of Junior Year, Aelwyn says that she hopes that she and Adaine can eat ice cream and do magic together forever and Adaine with no trace of insincerity agrees. She still has to face forever, but not alone. Not anymore.

[inkskinned]

there are a lot of posts out there that are positive and healthy coping mechanisms for handling the holidays. this is not one of them :)

i think there's like. going to be times in your life you will be stuck in a social situation that you cannot escape from gracefully. i do not know why the internet doesn't believe these times exist. it's not always just that your physical safety is at risk - sometimes it's legit like "i just don't currently have the energy or time to put in the effort of responding to this." sometimes it's a coworker you hate so much. sometimes it's just like, fine, you know? like you know you can handle your aunt when she's cheerily horrible, but if you actually set a boundary around her, it's going to be weeks of fallout with your father.

i don't know why people think the answer is always just "cut them out!" or "don't let them get away with that!" because ... the real world is tricky and complicated. i think kind of a lot of us have an internal "radiation poisoning" meter for certain people. like - i'm talking about the ones who are absolutely giving you gradual ick damage. like, you can handle them, but you'll be exhausted.

and yes. you absolutely should listen to your therapist and the good posts about handling others and set good boundaries and take care of yourself. prioritize peace.

HOWEVER :) ...... since im often in a situation with a Gradual Sense of Ick person i cannot just "cut out" of my life (without losing someone else precious to me) - i have sort of developed the most. maladaptive form of mischief possible. because like, if i'm going to have to listen to this shit again, i like to have a little bit of private fun with it.

now! again, i am physically safe, just mentally drained by this man. you should only do this with people you are not in danger with. which leads me to my suggestions for when your Unfortunate Acquaintance shows up and says oh everyone pay attention to me.

my favorite word is "maybe!" said as brightly and happily as possible. whenever the Horrible Person starts in on a topic you do not want to go further with, particularly if they make a claim that you know to be inaccurate, do not respond to it. you and i have both tried to actually argue with this person, and it hasn't gone well, because this person just wants the drama of an argument. however, "maybe!" gives them literally nothing to go on. it is incredibly disarming. they are used to people having some response. they know they can't prove what they're saying, and maybe! treats them like the child they are. it dismisses them in the politest way possible.

i like to say maybe! and then, in their stunned silence, immediately change the subject. this is because i have adhd and i will have something unrelated to talk about, but if you can't think of topics fast enough, i recommend just pointing to something and saying, "isn't that lovely?" because fuck you let's bring in some positivity.

by the way. that second trick - of pointing to something and stating an opinion about it? - that just works on its own, like, 70% of the time. i picked it up from teaching preschoolers. it's an intentional "redirect". it stops children crying and it also stops grown adults from finishing their explanation on why women belong in kitchens. dual wielding!

keep it silly for yourself. i absolutely do not care if people think i'm fucking stupid (it's more fun if they do) and as a result i will purposefully misunderstand things just to see how long it takes them to realize i've completely removed them from the subject at hand. when they say "women aren't funny" i get to be like. "which women." "all women." "all women in america?" "no in the world." "like the mole people? the people in the world?" "what? no. like, alive." "oh are we not counting the mole people?" "what the fuck are you talking about." "you don't believe in the mole people?"

similarly, i play a personal game called "one up me." my Evil Acquaintance literally knows this game exists (my family & friends caught onto it and now also play it) and it always fucking gets him. i don't know why. you have to be willing to be a little free-spirited on this one, though. the trick is that when they make one of those horrible little bigoted or annoying comments they are always making, you need to go one unit weirder. not more intense, mind you - just more weird. "you don't look good in that dress." "yeah, actually, my other dress was covered in squid ink due to a mishap at the soup store." "you shouldn't wear such revealing clothes." "wait, what? oh shit. sorry, your son tears off strips when no one is looking and eats them. i swear it was longer before we left the building."

the point of "one up me" is to completely upend this person's narrative. we both know this person likes setting up situations where you cannot "win" and then they really like telling other people how badly you handled it. in a usual situation, if you respond "please don't say something that rude", you're a bitch. but if you let it happen, you're letting yourself be debased. they are not usually expecting door number three: unflappably odd. because what are they going to say when they're telling everyone how badly you behaved? "she said my son eats her dresses" ".... okay?"

if you can, form an allyship with someone whomst you can tagteam with. where they can pick up on your weird "soup store" story and run with it.

the following phrase is amazing and can be deployed for any situation: "oh, be nice :) it's the holidays!" i do not know why this works as often as it does. i'll say it for the most random shit. i think this is bc most of the time these people know they're being impolite, they just like to fight.

godbless. when in doubt, remember that you could always start stealing their pens.

the whole point of this is - if you can't escape. maybe see how long you can just be. like. a horrible little menace.

[throesofincreasingwonder]

You know what? I want a whole post for this:

Sex Repulsion is not the same thing as, or an excuse for, Sex Negativity

non-negotiable!

I am a sex-repulsed asexual. This means that I am uncomfortable and repulsed by the idea of engaging in sexual acts. This does not mean that I have an excuse to be repulsed by other people's sexual attraction or the right to police how other people engage in or express sexual acts or attraction.

Young queer people need to learn the difference between sex repulsion and sex negativity, and actively work to unlearn sex-negative attitudes. Asexuality, even sex-repulsed asexuality, is and should be fully compatible with sex positivity.

If you are uncomfortable with the idea of other people feeling sexual attraction or engaging in sexual acts that do not involve you in any way, that is not sex repulsion it is the cultural Christianity and you need to seriously work on that.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

finally at that age where i'm thinking i should get a tattoo. not bc i feel strongly about it, just seems like a waste not to. i've got so much skin i'm not using

[copypastus]

Fandom is about smacking the dolls you like together like they're kissing coz it makes you happy, it's not that serious.

Reposting someone's work to ridicule it coz you don't agree with the pairing is bad etiquette.

@praetorqueenreyna silly hat Rhys inspired me @lorcandidlucienwill hope i can make you smile with this

[calware]

thinking about doing a month-long event for the homestuck tumblr community to encourage people to make + post fanworks as well as reblog other people's fanworks.... where people can opt-in by being randomly assigned one of two teams (probably red and blue) so that each team has roughly the same amount of members. teams get points for making fanworks and having their posts reblogged, which encourages people to make posts and also reblog the posts made by their team members. and the top 3 people in each team to get the most points get some kind of reward... hmmmm

[vegalocity]

...You know what?

Alright i'll play-

You know that was only one version of the myth right? there are in fact LOTS of different versions, in one version Zeus marries them both off because very simply he was tired of the other gods fighting eachother over Aphrodite and basically just said 'if you guys keep doing this i'll put her with the one no one wants'

If you maybe bothered to look at sources for him beyond one or two modern histories that were more concerned in telling popular versions rather than all of them you might have noticed that, hell even in Overly Sarcastic Productions Videos they make it clear that there are often MANY versions of how myths are recorded. And can change depending on the person wiritng them. (like the whole Medusa situation where everyone started telling the Version Ovid straight up invented because he loved rewriting the gods as monsters that toy with the lives of mortals in order to make political commentary)

also i dunno how to tell you this miss, but not being able to take no for an answer was a COMMON theme for the male gods, This is not slander just so you're aware, this is a mythologically accepted fact, Greece had a MAJOR sexism problem back in the day and since gods are themselves invented to explainthe world around them, it was reflected in their gods. so to decry Hephaestus for such behavior and excuse those gods that you personally worship or say that that simply isn't 'Your version' or that those stories in specific are bullshit is a narrative bias that i REALLY hope you grow out of.

And furthermore, Aphrodite was with Ares before she was married to Haphaestus, But Chronologically through the state of grecian stories. not necessarily in the chronology of the myths. Since many of those stories were kinda FRAGMENTARY (i mean hell we don't technically know about the pomegranate situation in full in the story of Hades and Persephone because the ONLY RECORDED SCRIPT OF THE STORY is literally damaged in that area) people speculate. People have always been speculating and giving educated guesses.

But in the Illiad they were a thing, and Hephaestus was married to another yes, but you know what happened before the illiad? that's right baby the Grecian Dark Ages where it's approximated that Aphrodite touched down in greece in the first place where she was adapted from the Phonetian goddess Astarte

(and i mean if you want to bring CHRONOLOGY into this then Adonis would in fact be Aphrodite's true love since he was the adaptation of the Babylonian Goddess Ishtar's husband whom was in fact the source material for Astarte)

But anyway, Aphrodite when she first touched down, as i'm sure you're aware if you're such an aficionado, was a war goddess, worshipped as such in her first island of worship and Sparta, but- Oh hey, that doesn't have greater appeal to the EXTREMELY SEXIST rest of greece huh? then what do you do Athenian Ruler in power that doesn't want those pesky women to get ideas? Simple! You look at her and say 'oh no no she's not a war goddess herself she's uh- She's SLEEPING With a war god! that's right she's with Ares!'

But oh no! that's not deterring people! So what do you do oh Athenian ruler? you go 'wait no guys its BAD that she's sleeping with Ares because she's.... cheating on her husband! with his brother!'

To treat the myths as if they were not written by people with agendas just as any religious text before it is folly at best misleading at worst. Just because they're older than the bible doesn't mean they weren't still carved into the stones by men whom wanted people to see THEIR version of the story before all else.

So we as people in the future with things like understanding of historical significance can then use these stories as bases to interpret what is laid out before us and thus we all are allowed to pick and choose as we please and from there can decide to have takes someone else may or may not agree with

Unless you want to take every story you can find as wholly literal

Because if you do i've got some stories to tell you

Again, this is not slander, this is VERY easily accessible with a simple google search.

if you can ignore certain aspects of the stories that give you yucky feelings about gods you otherwise adore, why can't someone else? what makes you special? why do you get to claim sources and then decry behaviors the very gods you're quoted to worship engage with those exact same ones, if not MORE often than the one you're decrying?

Your takes are no less valid than anyone else's they're just as biased as Ovid changed Medusa's story to make her a victim when originally, she was just another monster

I know Hubris is a common flaw in greek tragedies, but at least have the decency to not make it everyone else's business.

sometimes i wonder why 'modern greek mythology interpretations' tend to look at the Aphrodite's Affair situation and settle on 'it was so girlboss of Aphrodite to cheat on her husband with his literal brother' and make jokes about Hephaestus being 'cucked' or 'an incel' when memes about publicly humiliating cheaters are absolutely widespread on the internet, and in the myth itself Hephaestus basically just does the equivalent of the 'welcome home cheater' on the bedsheets meme, it's VERY weaksauce in comparison to what his mother usually does

then i remember Hephaestus is a disabled man and i realize exactly why.

[hussyknee]

I'm really not a villain enjoyer. I love anti-heroes and anti-villains. But I can't see fictional evil separate from real evil. As in not that enjoying dark fiction means you condone it, but that all fiction holds up some kind of mirror to the world as it is. Killing innocent people doesn't make you an iconic lesbian girlboss it just makes you part of the mundane and stultifying black rot of the universe.

"But characters struggling with honour and goodness and the egoism of being good are so boring." Cool well some of us actually struggle with that stuff on the daily because being a good person is complicated and harder than being an edgelord.

Sure you can use fiction to explore the darkness of human nature and learn empathy, but the world doesn't actually suffer from a deficit of empathy for powerful and privileged people who do heinous stuff. You could literally kill a thousand babies in broad daylight and they'll find a way to blame your childhood trauma for it as long as you're white, cisgender, abled and attractive, and you'll be their poor little meow meow by the end of the week. Don't act like you're advocating for Quasimodo when you're just making Elon Musk hot, smart and gay.

[xenonsdoodles]

is stealing longing glances from a distance normal for the three month mark in a relationship or is he moving too fast

[uncanny-tranny]

You know, I've seen these discussions about people who have made themselves disabled (though not necessarily on purpose), and it's something I resonate with, and think is so nuanced that it's a discussion worth having in-depth

See, I feel like sometimes people think of "making yourself disabled" as a completely able-bodied person who - through their decisions, either accidental or wreckless - will just... make themselves disabled, and I actually think that's less common. I know for myself, my changing disabilities have been spurred on because I was already disabled. I use myself as an example of a broader point - that is, I think often the ways people think of this topic are somewhat narrow.

There's a special kind of guilt you feel (at least, in my experience) wherein you know your suffering has resulted from your decisions, yet simultaneously knowing that you weren't given a proper chance to start off on a fair playing field. And yet no matter what you feel about this, the pain still hurts just as badly. It still hurts even if you don't blame yourself at all

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Tbh I think this ‘if I think it’s good enough’ with a vague ‘read the ones that made it through to figure out how to be good enough’ on fandom posts makes them unbearably annoying to me. Especially with how often you post obvious rage bait. Like either accept them or don’t, but you clearly don’t care about whether the post is believable with the regular posts so I don’t see why you’d care with the fandom one.

Frankly, it's because I'll accept that real life can be strange beyond my personal comprehension sometimes, but for creative writing I have standards.

[navree]

aegon/jaehaera/daenaera ot3 au just moved to the tippy top of my list due to the fanartist whose art inspired it being driven off of twitter by deranged team black stans who are mad they like jaehaera, there's no explanation for why Those People constantly mock actor's appearances and deride other's fanart other than that they are not only too talentless to draw themselves but also depressingly ugly and taking it out on other people

[duthea]

been playing the funny fire emblem game

[moiraimyths]

Before we call anon rude because let’s see it from their perspective, imagine getting an entire feast to eat. That can be pretty hard to start with so much that’s going on, but if they start with one thing they know they’ll like (aka one character they like) that can be the start for them leaping to other characters to finish the story and the bigger story. I struggle the same way to start book series if I don’t have at least one character that drives me to read it, it’s all about what can be the hook to push them through. Sounds like the anon is neurodivergent (just a guess) so they might genuinely not see it as rude and see it as a solution to even play the game to start with.

Btw absolutely adore the game, the complex and rich characters making them all so unique is amazing. The art is so pleasing to the eyes I love it!! I’m waiting for it all to get out at once so I don’t get too impatient. Shae however interests me the most, which routes will have the most lore for them? Will there be routes that give more lore in general based on decisions you make or do they all share the same amount? (I mean general lore not just Shae lore)

Apologies; we are not trying to accuse any asker of being rude! We are simply explaining our perspective as the developers / are trying to broadly encourage folks to dip their toes into other areas of the story outside of the main route(s) they're interested in, especially considering some routes will be made available sooner than others, and these other routes will likely contain additional scenes/lore of everyone's fave(s) regardless! We want to give each main cast member an equal amount of love (and lore) regardless of their overall popularity, so our goal is not to tut-tut anyone for having strong preferences for one character over the others, but rather to explain that you may be surprised by how much *more* you learn about your preferred characters in the other routes. That's all!

For Shae... Well, they were a foot soldier for one of the worst periods of the War. Lore wise, any other story that touches on the War will likely have content relevant to them and their experiences. ^^

[carouselunique]

Is it true that there's no animosity between you and... you know, you know who. You never talk about her in any way. I guess I'm curious. You guys seemed like really close friends and then just weren't friends at all. And there was some stuff she said that seemed very targeted at you...

I don't know if she feels any animosity toward me or not any more. Our mutual friends have said she doesn't and I take them on their word in that regard, assuming that if they have an answer for me it's because they're aware how she feels. I wouldn't know and it's not my place to put words in her mouth.

I haven't spoken to her/about her in a long time and the only time she even crosses my mind is when people bring her up to me. As for me feeling any animosity? I'll admit my feelings on her these days are complicated and way too nuance-core for people who aren't my friends to hear about but I wouldn't call them animosity in any way. I inherently want people my friends care about to live well because I care about my friends, and anyone my friends care about by proxy and I still share friends with her. I would never wish ill on people my friends care about so animosity doesn't fit into that by definition. I'd say I'm hurt more than anything and even then I've worked through a lot of it with trusted friends who have helped me deal with my emotions in a healthy way.

(Besides, my own life struggles keep me from even being able to invest time into animosity. I have to expend that energy loving my family, doing my best to support them during our struggles. And I've never been a hateful person it isn't in me. I would rather play 'Hot To Go' by Chappell Roan and teach my dad how to do the hand gestures to help him strengthen his muscles again than focus on hating anyone...)

I try not to think about her because it hurts. I often think that people forget that I'm a real person outside of her sphere, and that I wouldn't want to talk about what happened because I truly did consider her a friend for a long time. And when someone I consider a friend appears to not regard me with care any more suddenly and I don't even have closure on that... well... it hurts... A lot. Of course I never talk about it.

And I'm not stupid, I have seen some stuff she's said that I've gathered was about me. I remind myself that she has a right to vent in her own spaces and I truly mean that... it's just a shame that her own spaces have people who then have taken these things to me to show me (after all, I wouldn't have even seen these things myself if not for third-party anons going 'this u?') saying it is my own fault because I was a terribly cruel friend or my own fault for not listening to warnings about her when I had the chance and that makes me a stupid gullible bitch. You lot haven't seen some of the awful shit about me from some of her more ravenous fans and haters I've seen over the years that I've had to let roll off my back in the fear it would bring backlash - not even to me, to her. I don't want to be the cause of any hatred going to anyone.

Also I'm just not going to ever talk about the details of our fallen friendship or our fallen relationship. That's private. She might be a public person to some extent but I never was, even if I do gain some measure of small fandom for my work one day I'm just private about personal matters especially raw ones. I almost deleted this ask entirely but Idk I never stated that it bothers me when people talk to me about her from my own mouth, so I guess that's what this ramble is.

If you send me anything about Lily Orchard it will not be addressed. I am not a part of her life not even through our mutual friends. I do not know or care what's going on with her public/personal life. I haven't kept up. I will never keep up. Don't treat me as an extension of the situation because I am not in the situation. In the most plainly stated sense of the word: Leave me the Hell alone. (...pretty please.)

All I've wanted this entire time was to be left alone to process everything in a healthy, peaceful way. I'm workin' on it.

[taffywabbit]

my short-term goal as a creative for a few years now has basically been to try and increase my income (or just speed up how quickly I earn the same amount, which is kinda the same thing I guess) so i can reach a point where i make enough that i don't have to constantly be pushing my time and energy to the absolute limit to pay my bills, and can start making time to start larger long-form projects and explore creative areas besides drawing. unfortunately things keep costing more money than they did the last time I looked so it feels like I am not really making much progress towards that goal. I am like a little fish trying to swim upstream and it always feels like there should probably be a smarter, less exhausting way to get where I'm going but I'm just not aware of it