#do I think it's irrational?

[inkydinks]

haha oh no here it comes again*

***the thought that I'm a Big Bad Man and folks must steer clear for their protection

[evercelle]

2024 art summary! it sure has been a year

[uncanny-tranny]

When I was a young trans guy, I used to have a huge irrational fear of being hit in the groin and needing to overinflate the pain I felt because I wanted to pass in every scenario. However, now, I think if that ever happened to me, I would just stand there like 😐 so everybody can admire that I am just so tough.

[helluvahotmess]

blitz is definitely gonna be the one bridging the gap between octavia and stolas

he can relate to octavia- one parent is shitty (true we don't know if stella has physically hurt via- but she might now knowing via fucked up dear old andy) whilst the other parent is kind, but needed a lot of support of their own, whilst still putting it aside to comfort their child. so he can relate to her

like we know tilla was sick in some way (seems like she may of been bed-ridden alot) and possibly had been on medication as a result (or supposed to, cash sucks) so he can assure via that stolas isn't on medication because of her- things are far more complicated than that.

[dreamsy990]

some of the less nice thoughts about being aroace

extras below the cut

sketch

closeups on my favorite panels

bonus: adios

[saint-augustines-pears]

Actually, no, we should know what a woman is. If you’re going to challenge a term, you have to come up with a new definition. If we are going to have a rational conversation, all terms must be defined.

If woman doesn’t mean adult female human, what does it mean? If you’re getting defensive reading this, that’s a problem. You should be able to know what you’re arguing for. You should be able to tell people what you’re arguing for. Otherwise, what the fuck are you even doing? Why are you arguing about something that, if undefined, logically does not exist?

I would love for everyone to be happy. Delusion is not happiness. I need to know whether this is delusion or not.

[t1sunfortunate]

I truly do think one of the largest pitfalls among the "media consumption is my passion" crowd is the tendency to treat characters as human beings with agency rather than narrative tools manipulated by the author

[waterlinkedgirl]

Musical Touken Ranbu: Michinooku ~ Hitotsu Hachisu (Michinooku ~ A Single Lotus)

Here we go! Only a few days after the archive release and toumyu's ninth anniversary (congratulations!)

Michioku, or Michihasu, is a myu I have many conflicting feelings about, both positive and negative. However, I do believe that with the right amount of care in the next Mika-related story myu, the negative can still be cleared. Plus, I'm glad about a lot of things being re-established. The writer does need to step up her game a little on the plot-writing side of things, as well as the understanding-and-respecting-past-myu side of things, but as long as she does, this can still be given a proper place within what was already established.

Keep in mind that these are only the subtitle files, timed and tled to the DMM senshuuraku and the bluray respectively. The archive version will have a talk at the start, so the starting times of the subs will have to be delayed accordingly.

You can find the subtitles and my TL notes document here!

[stormyrainyday]

apologies this is far from a coherent shower thought but i think it's time we like. decided to detach our identity a bit from the things we do. it's fine to just read. you don't have to be a reader. it's fine to just game. you don't have to be a gamer. you can be those things but i feel like in a quest to find ourselves and open our hearts, especially to others online (because i know, the first thing we do when on a new platform is say hi im [name] i like these things we should talk, i know, i do, my pinned post is literally that), i feel like we forget that we are more than the things we do and even the things we love. we, to borrow words from slay the princess, contain it in our multitudes.

it's a sentiment i've felt for a long time as someone who has been on the internet and in fandom spaces for a good decade now, and like. i find when we hold these things so close that they become us, we become too defensive over them. how many minor fandom disagreements spiral into threats, name calling, doxxing even? i find, especially younger users in fan spaces, tend to take even small differences of opinion and take them personally. saw someone blow up and call people awful names over believing only one person could top in a genshin ship. another left a server i was in because they disliked a popular character, and other (respectfully), decided to share why they did like her. i get that things like rejection sensitivity are a thing, but i think this failure to recognize the self as an entity apart from the things you do and the thoughts you have definitely contribute to this. phenomenon i suppose.

it's genuinely slay the princess that has given me the vocabulary to express and understand this thing i was already thinking. i think, though we are not gods, it's important to understand that we are not things so easily defined. we consist of our thoughts, our actions, our perceptions, our beliefs, and more. even the outside world's perception of us reflects some part of our nature. but not all of it. it's impossible to define oneself in one, two, three words or even an essay.

because like we don't exist in a vacuum. part of our existence is defined in our interactions with others. but not all. never all. there is no one who can truly know you, and we cannot truly know ourselves. our principles bend to the whims of circumstance no matter what we tell ourselves otherwise, so we can't decide what we are or what we would be in a situation for sure, ever. and that's not a bad thing, but if we can't ever truly know ourselves, then how can we assign such great importance to something as superficial as the things we enjoy sometimes?

we are both a constant and the capacity to change. and to take just a handful of things and call it your identity, even subconsciously, is a disservice to the self. in an effort to be seen we break ourselves down into easy (i hate to say it but) marketable pieces.

take being a reader for example. it has always felt like vague slang for booksmart, thoughtful, likely quiet and introverted as well, just as much as it means "i like to read books". theres an aesthetic to it involved, and a whole subculture. do you write in your books? do you keep them museum-fresh quality? do you read smut or classics or high fantasy or satire and what does it say about you? if you say audiobooks aren't real literature, are you signalling to others about quality and sophistication, or are you a pretentious asshole, and ableist to boot? these connotations assigned to such an otherwise benign thing about someone are i think are reflective of the construct of identity and perception. i could go on about it in a way that's more coherent but i, a student, have other things to do right now.

(does being a student make me intelligent? does it impress you to know i study medicine? what if i told you i average Cs in my classes? what if i told you i dislike patient care? what if i told you i'm not here for the money OR to make the world a better place, and that i'm here purely to serve my curiosities about the way the body functions and to absolve my obsessive need to understand just what are we? does this change what you think of me? does it matter? what if you knew the guilt i felt for seeing so much suffering, but still hating patient care enough to worry endlessly about being stuck in it as a career? am i better for it? but i have not acted on this guilt. it is a mere feeling that only i know. knew. is it different now that i've confessed it? does it matter? does any of it change who i am, fundamentally? or am i a thing detached from it all? or. as i like to believe. is it both? your shifting perceptions of me and the way i change shape and form (so much like our beloved princess in slay the princess) in your eyes, they make up me just as much as the soul or the self or whatever other philosophical name you assign to it. at the end of the day, isn't the most important thing that i am just me? both devoid of and constituted of the sum of my parts? what is found in the spaces between my cells? impulses and chemicals. is that me? is it all me? can i ever really know it? and why, why, why define it at all?)

[averlym]

litany of the martyrs (click for better resolution!)

[youngchronicpain]

"it's okay to take your pain meds as prescribed when you need them" I sing to myself while taking 3/4 of a dose because even after all these years I'm terrified of being fully dependent on a medication that I know I need

[marnz]

I find historians’ obsession with trying to figure out what medical malady King Henry VIII had that made him act like that really strange to be honest with you. This is the guy that broke from the Catholic Church and declared himself head of a brand new church, all so he could invent divorce. He rewrote history to insist he had never actually truly been married to Catherine of Aragon. He killed people and faced no consequences. As King he was surrounded by a bunch of yes men who didn’t just ‘let’ him kill his wives and ppl who displeased him, they actively manufactured ways for him to do so. Is it really so strange that he continued to act in this way? Must we resort to medical explanations for this behavior?

I do wonder if this is an attempt to rationalize and explain despicable behavior, but the truth is we can rationalize and explain anything. That is our gift as human beings! As Frank Bidart said, man is a moral animal / You can get human beings to do anything — IF you convince them it is moral / You can convince human beings anything is moral. Anyone who does a despicable act likely, but not always, does it because they find it correct, even necessary. I find the idea that Henry did all of this to get a son and maintain his grip on power and ensure a peaceful succession much more understandable and likely than people theorizing he had x disease that made him so nuts he started killing his wives indiscriminately.

[incesthemes]

i can't stop thinking about the first episode of season 6, when sam tries to convince dean to come with him, to come back to hunting. he says "it's just better with you around, that's all." it's an interesting line because sam is soulless, obviously. and even though he doesn't understand the details yet, he knows something's wrong with him.

"it's better with you around" he says, citing dean's compassion and care for others as the reason why. and how interesting is that? sam's working with plenty of other hunters who still have their souls—they're all more than capable of caring about the people they save. but sam needs dean specifically. he knows he's missing something, and he sees dean and recognizes that something in him. even cold and calculating and unrelentingly logical, sam recognizes that dean, alone, can "complete" him, give something back to him that he's supposed to have.

in episode 8 he tells dean he "needs his help." he doesn't elaborate; he never explains what he means by that. he has a whole family of hunters who'd be willing and able to help him, but still he needs dean. even without his soul, his hyperrational mind knows he needs him.

soulless sam isn't capable of caring about dean. but he doesn't need to care to know they need to be together, no matter what—to know dean is good for him, dean completes him, dean needs to be there for him.

it's like a sick reversal of season 1. sam drags dean back into this life because he can't keep going without him. because he needs him. because when you think about it logically, and sam has no other choice, there was never any other option for them.

[pcktknife]

after like 3 therapy sessions and single questions from like 2 random people I'm realizing that I am scared of many things for little to no reason

[djo]

i hate that one of the effects of growing up poor is that i struggle immensely with getting rid of things 😐

[shrikeseams]

You know what, while I’m being irrationally angry about how people interpret fiction differently than me, I would also like to rail against the interpretation that the Long Siege was passive, and not an active attempt to regain the silmarils.

CAN YOU FUCKING IMAGINE THINKING THAT HUNDREDS OF YEARS OF SLOW GRINDING WARFARE IS PASSIVE. CAN YOU? It’s like saying that Gondor was passive and ambivalent about Mordor because they didn’t succeed in taking it out. BAFFLING.

Like, please stop and spend like, two minutes imagining how things would have gone for Beleriand if the sons of Feanor had pulled a Luthien. If they just snuck in to Angband, snatched the silmarils, and the fucked off out of the war effort forever because they got theirs.

How long d’you think it would take for Morgoth to flood forces through the entire eastern frontier? How long d’you think it would take until Doriath was actively under direct siege, without convenient Noldor buffer states on their flanks?

For that matter, how long do we think it would take for Morgoth to reclaim the silmarils, with the sons of Feanor get them without defeating Morgoth first?

How long do you think DORIATH would keep their silmaril, without the majority of the exiled Noldor standing between Doriath and Morgoth???

Luthien (and Beren) can do what they do because Luthien does not, as far as I can tell, actually take any interest in the well-being of the vast majority of people living in Beleriand. She is not a queen. She doesn’t seem to take any interest in politics. She doesn’t seem to take any interest in the well-being of the people of Doriath or Nargothrond, either! Luthien can get in and get out because she needs one (1) sparkling rock to convince her boyfriend that he can marry her honorably. She doesn’t need to worry about direct pursuit because she has the exiled noldor and her mom standing between her (and everyone she cares about) and the war.

THE SONS OF FEANOR DO NOT HAVE THAT LUXURY. If they want to claim the silmarils in a way that doesn’t fuck over everyone in their faction by drawing  direct, targeted attacks from Morgoth, they need to defeat Morgoth first. That is the only way for them to claim the silmarils sustainably. They are actually pursing their goal in the slow, safe, smart way.