#and I am not arguing about this

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The dog days are over.

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[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.

[ewwww-what]

Nobody is as excited about the preview as I am. I have paragraphs.

[lucabyte]

A belief in Nominative Determinsim

[pikp0kcas3]

The Hazbin Hotel fandom’s issue with accepting aromanticism and asexuality

Now that it is officially Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week, I want to talk about this!

I find that, as an aroace myself, I am constantly grasping at good representation and coming up empty— it usually ends up in one of two ways.

One: the character is portrayed as emotionless, cold, and robotic in nature. It’s the question aromantic and/or asexual people are often asked: “Are you heartless?” The answer is no, of course, but general media makes it out to be the opposite.

Or two: Their lack of attraction is seen as something to “fix” because they “haven’t found the right one yet”, and they end up with a partner as a “happy ending”.

It frustrates me greatly because of how little people actually see aromanticism or asexuality as a true part of the LGBTQIA+ community.

So when I watched Hazbin Hotel, and I found out about Alastor being aroace, I was over the moon. I was on cloud nine. I also saw how his voice actor has looked up the term as an attempt to learn about aroaces, which makes me OVERJOYED?? Amir is truly a blessing, and I love that he’s proud to embody a character that’s part of our community. It’s so beautiful to finally have a proper character, a fan favorite at that, who just so happens to be aroace— and that’s another thing I love about this.

It’s never explicitly stated in the show (though it is stated in interviews), but it’s rather clear when you’re watching, isn’t it? Alastor’s aversion to any sort of sexual advancement, coupled with Rosie’s blatant “I know you’re an ace in the hole” comment sort of spell out his asexuality pretty clearly, as well as what side of the spectrum he falls upon. In addition, his Valentine’s day card was strictly platonic, which caters to his aromantic side. It feels so validating to finally be represented, to finally have a character in media who shares the same lack of interest in romance and sex as I do.

When I entered the fandom to look for more content, I kind of expected to see the same respect for Alastor’s orientation there too. But that… wasn’t the case? I am fully aware that aromanticism and asexuality are both spectrums— of course, aromantic and/or asexual people can enter those kinds of relationships. I’m not denying that and they belong in the community as much as anyone else on the spectrum.

But, the more I see the same line again and again and again, the more it feels like an excuse to just ship what you want.

Usually I don’t mind shipping? I’m often a firm believer in people shipping what they like as long as it’s harmless and they don’t go crazy over it. I also know for a fact that Viv doesn’t have a problem with people shipping her characters. They are fictional, after all.

But in this case, people are ignoring the very thing that makes Alastor a part of the aroace community! People are ignoring his lack of romantic or sexual attraction!

Is this not the same as changing a gay character’s orientation to suit a straight ship? If not, how so? I’m told that we are a part of this community, so why aren’t we being treated like it? Why is it so hard to accept the people on the end of the spectrum who aren’t interested?

Something I’ve been noticing throughout my life is that society has not exactly progressed very much on the idea of accepting asexual or aromantic identities. Maybe we have, a little, since the old days— but hell, people in “the old days”, which in truth wasn’t very long ago, believed that asexuality was a medical condition to be “fixed” by taking the right medication or having sex. That’s a pretty low bar to clear. And on the romance side, you’re seen as a “late bloomer” or “boring” if you don’t express interest. These days, being friends with someone is treated like a gateway to them possibly becoming a lover. Not getting married, not going on dates, not wanting a partner— it’s all treated like a crime when it’s not.

Maybe I’m selfish, or sensitive, or I’m butthurt over nothing, or I’m making it all about me. Maybe I’m gatekeeping or whatever the term is. But please, please, please, I just want an aroace character like me who simply is not interested in sex or romance.

And I want fandom to respect that. I admire the creations that fans make— the art, the animatics, the writing and the character analysis. And I want people to keep creating because creation is indeed a beautiful thing.

But I really would like people to treat aroace identities like they’re important. Like it’s more than just a spectrum to get wiggle room to wrangle in another ship.

[stylesunchained]

Some of you really go out of your way and misinterpret what people say and I’m tired.

[clairenatural]

okay but you see sam has ALSO fallen for dean's act. sam also believes dean to be the macho, daddy's soldier, beer boobs cars guy he presents himself as. this is why sam makes fun of dean whenever he even lightly steps out of that mold and thinks it's harmless banter instead of attacking an insecurity. it's why he laughs when john talks down to dean in the early seasons and it's why he seems surprised when dean is more comfortable with himself in the later seasons. it's why he just scoffs but doesn't push it when dean puts up a front and refuses to talk about his emotions and just accepts whatever excuse he makes at face value. it's why he offers dean a strip club to make him feel better when cas dies. and this isn't his fault!! dean has spent a very long time perfecting this image in front of everyone and ESPECIALLY to sam because along with it comes safety and security and stability and the only person. who has consistently been able to see through it. is castiel

[elsecrytt]

Satoru Gojo goes to the same cafe every day for his coffee-flavored confectionary beverage. You are the barista tasked with pumping his drink with the unreasonable assortment of syrup squeezes.

You don't blink at it. You've been in customer service forever. Everything is second nature to you. But you give him a look when you hand him a drink and he just starts going.

He likes to make small chat, you learn. About meaningless things - desserts, drinks, the weather - but he makes you laugh, and he laughs at your jokes, too. He's smiling every time you talk.

He's beautiful - in that way that makes you uncertain if he's really there - and friendly, and he seems a bit lonely, eager to converse.

Something tells you Satoru probably doesn't have a lot of close friends. He's rich, too, judging by the massive tips he leaves you.

The thing is, you do a lot of things on autopilot. It's just the way these things get after a while. Pouring drinks, "What would you like today?", "I'll have that out for you soon!", "Have a nice day!", all that stuff.

Sometimes, though. Sometimes. Wires get crossed.

He's picked up his drink to leave, giving you a cheeky smile and a little wave, and you tell him, without thinking twice:

"Love you, bye!"

Oh. Oh fucking hell -

"Love you too!"

[aroaceleovaldez]

I was reading a post about CoTG and I realized: Rick has seemingly started to write every character pairing with the exact same dynamic, and he's not good at writing that dynamic and it doesn't make sense for 90% of the characters he writes it for.

It's that very specific dynamic of one half of the pair who is almost aggressive to the other party - "teasing" them constantly/insulting them, affectionately punching/judo flipping/maiming/etc, seemingly almost always exasperated with the other - and said other party usually just accepts this treatment or blanketly views it fondly, and may generally be framed as more incompetent than their partner and a little bit of a doormat (particularly relating to being insulted/teased/etc by their partner).

We start seeing this dynamic in HoO with Percy and Annabeth, as a sort of semi-inconsistent twist on their rivals-to-friends-to-lovers dynamic from the first series. Then the dynamic pattern develops further with Leo and Calypso. Then Magnus and Alex. Then Nico and Will, particularly in TSATS. And now in CoTG, it's Percy and Annabeth again but even more in this direction.

I know people have talked about Nico and Will's relationship over the series rapidly being shoehorned into Percabeth Two™, and it's extremely apparent in TSATS that Rick's doing it on purpose (including directly quoting Percabeth scenes but minorly tweaking them to be Solangelo). But recognizing it as an overarching trend in Rick's later books honestly reminds me a lot of how Rick started trying to apply the "Percy Formula" so-to-speak to nearly every protagonist in HoO (and then try to replicate similar character archetypes with Magnus and Apollo's narrations - moreso Magnus in being jaded and sarcastic, very much trying to be first series Percy. He only sounds unique because Rick failed at making him Percy 2. Apollo is more akin to later-series Percy characterization of being goofy and incompetent. Apollo [and Zeus] even got retconned to give Apollo a more similar backstory to Percy's). Rick seems to have decided that he thinks the audience wants this specific dynamic but 10 times over, except he's not good at writing it the first time because it's a bastardization of the time he did a different thing okay.

And Rick also seems aware of that too! Because he retconned Calypso and Leo at the end of TOA, probably because he realized how absolutely awful it was reading when they were written with that dynamic of Calypso just functionally hating Leo and constantly being aggressive towards him! The only time Rick's actually made the dynamic even semi-successful was with Magnus and Alex, because it actually fits within their characters, their dynamics with each other, and their environment. Alex beheading Magnus on the regular works out fine because there are no repercussions to that in Valhalla, Magnus will be fine, so it does genuinely come off as humorous. And Alex has been effectively established to be abrasive at times but have her genuine feelings shine through regularly, and that meshes well with Magnus' jaded-and-aloof-but-quietly-very-empathetic character. And Magnus has been established to, yes, not be great at combat, particularly compared to Alex. They are the only time that flavor of dynamic in that form was effective and cohesive.

Percabeth is no longer rivals-to-friends-to-lovers badasses on equal levels with shaky pasts who finally found some form of permanence with one another. Now it's super smart doting and affectionately aggressive girlfriend and her silly goofy 50%-of-the-time incompetent boyfriend who she judo flips/pushes off cliffs/etc - but affectionately~! Solangelo is trying to riff off of the early series "Poseidon & Athena are enemies" dynamic that Percabeth had but with Apollo & Hades being "opposites" but learning to accept each other, except it ends up with Will just coming off as a huge asshole and Nico being retconned to a complete doormat about it - when prior to that those characterizations would be completely contrary to their established characters (even just from TOA!). Calypso in HoO gets retconned from her PJO characterization to being snooty and aggressive, and Leo's false persona gets merged into his just normal personality except he just also becomes a doormat but more goofy than Nico with occasional haha-dark/depression-humor! Which Nico also got. Which was also a bastardized Percy trait that got redistributed.

It's exhausting. Rick write more than one relationship dynamic you can do it I promise

[bread-wizards]

I actually think Dorian and Orym should fight more.

Remember when their slowly building tension over and entire episode (full of passive aggressive remarks and blame throwing) led to threats? And how after, Orym thanked Dorian for handing over the crown sadly because he knew Dorian would be mad at him? And Dorian couldn't even look at him because he was legitimately hurt, thinking Orym was disappointed in him for doing what he thought was right? That was peak.

The fact they went from that to their current closeness and trust is the best part of their entire dynamic. Their relationship was hard fought and still will be. They will fight for it because they respect and care for one another deeply, and their disagreements don't change that, only improve it.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

I say this with as much respect as this narrative deserves but you cannot seriously fucking believe that Israel, a country on the other side of the world run by its own autonomous government, is scheduling its horrific assaults on the Palestinian people. . . . . . around the Super Bowl.

Seriously. Are you all fucking kidding me. Like legitimately how self-centered and americentric do you have to be to assume that 1) literally any other country in the world gives a single fuck about the Super Bowl 2) any other GOVERNMENT in the world gives a single fuck about the Super Bowl and 3) literally everything another country does is centered around America and our bullshit fake "holidays." Like I really thought we were done with this after the Black Friday conspiracies.

You can talk about the horrific things happening in other countries without acting like the whole world is operating on the US's schedule while also pushing just outright conspiracy theories. Unbelievable.

[fumifooms]

Dad always said I was like him

Meijack and Chilchuck Tims Dungeon Meshi, Ryoko Kui

^ 1: Moony moonless sky, Fatima Aamer Bilal / 2: Bug like an angel, Mitski / 3: Woodtangle, Mary Ruefle / 4: The Third Hour of the Night, Frank Bidart / 5 & 6: FROM THE MAKERS OF "TWO-MOM ENERGY DRINK," IT'S "LET YOUR FATHER DIE ENERGY DRINK,", Daniel Lavery & Cecilia Corrigan / 7: Batman: Year Three (1989) / 8 & 9 : FROM THE MAKERS OF […], Daniel Lavery & Cecilia Corrigan / 10: Wilt, CJ the X / 11: How Do We Forgive Our Fathers, Dick Lourie / 12: Milk and honey, Rupi Kaur / 13: And My Father's Love Was Nothing Next To God's Will, Amatullah Bourdon / 14: Moony moonless sky, Fatima Aamer Bilal / 15: Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong, Ocean Vuong / 16: untitled, Joan Tierney v 17: Drunk, The Living Tombstone / 18: unknown

When your father tried his best to provide for you but he worked all the time and even when he was home he was either tired or stressed and he’s always liked to get drunk to relax and cheer up. When you know he values work ethics and respectability so you grew up to be capable and quiet. And when he says you’re like him you’re sort of puzzled, does he really know you so little, or does he know himself so little? But you like the feeling of your father ruffling your hair so you accept it, and still you stand next to your mother just as silent and just as stoic as her during family gatherings. He leaves again and again and when your mother leaves him nothing changes, really. You wonder if it’s more telling that you know him better than he seems to himself or that you don’t know him as much as you wish you did, or that you don’t think about him all that much these days. Out of sight, out of mind. And he’s never really been there, even when he was there, after all.

[triplecreature]

actually I'm kind of curious about this because it was a huge debate among my peers in my community

Clarifications under the cut:

The poster is in a public space where it is typical for everyday people to post things. It is not someone's private property or possession. Think piece of paper taped to a telephone pole, not sign in a storefront or in someone's yard.

The poster is not protected by law; you are very unlikely to face legal consequences for vandalizing it. Caveat: some peers have argued that it risks being socially consequential because an organization or demographic that you are a part of may be judged as intolerant/oppressive/disruptive/otherwise unpleasant if people witness your actions, and thus advocated against vandalism for fear of damaging your public image.

The poster is not an expensive or personal piece of artwork; it is a mass produced print on letter paper.

You are vehemently opposed to the message displayed on the poster, but it is an opinion that people are free to have in your country.

The 4th option refers to things like intentionally putting your own poster over top of the bad poster or otherwise making the bad poster harder to view; some people argued that targeting the poster for removal is out of line, but posting your own messages is an innocent action that you are well within your right to do (in this context, posters regularly eclipse each other as new ones are posted over top of outdated ones due to limited space)

The poster is part of a campaign; it's not unique. There are many postings of it across the community.

This is all assuming that the offending poster is not old and would typically not be considered fair game for pruning for quite some time, and that it is being specifically targeted for removal because of its message (rather than petty vandalism or because it's obstructive or damaged). E.g., if a poster is advertising an event happening on April 20th, it's typical to prune it after that date but not before.

Of course the situation that prompted the real life debate did involve a specific offending message, but I'm not going to specify what it was for now because I think it'll skew the results as people will just end up voting based on whether they like or dislike that message, which isn't the point of this. For this poll we are assuming that it IS a message that you are very opposed to; you can substitute in your own opinion that you have strong feelings about.

Please reblog for sample size!

[wylanslcve]

When will we start acknowledging that Wylan suggesting to wake the unconscious guards up before killing them isn't actually ruthlessness but blunt logic because he's taken Jesper's "I'm not big on killing unconscious men" at face value and responds accordingly since he has a very literal thinking pattern? When will we start acknowledging that this is autism?

[aurorasandsad-prose]

I really do fail to understand how people are able to justify this genocide at all even after 'claiming' to know the narratives of both the sides?

How can you remain neutral in face of mass murder?

All that privilege must be real nice. Getting to sleep in your beds, safe from this living hell, while justifying genocide must be real nice. Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!

And I'm sorry to the Palestinians. I'm sorry the world's humanity is conditional. I'm sorry that we have failed you.

[clairenatural]

me: I wonder if r/supernatural celebrated the 5th

r/supernatural: