#etc pls free me

[thenighttrain]

i’m having such a busy day at work omg OF ALL DAYS why does it have to be today 😭😭😭😭😭😭

[mossy-aro]

ultimately i think my insistence on aro positivity honestly is as much a political stance as a personal one.

when i say aro positivity is crucial and that i dislike doomer-ist posts that express sentiments like 'I hate being aro so much I wish I was dead instead’ it's not because I don’t think there can and should be a space for negativity and acknowledging self-hate, or the many ways being aromantic can really suck sometimes. i find that to be very important!

that being said. there is smth here about how self-hate posts are sometimes just arophobia that we inflict on ourselves. and when we put that out into the ether it (intentionally or not) can become arophobia that we inflict on other members of the community. i think there absolutely needs to be a place for negativity and the expression of anger and frustration and self loathing even - these are all good things to talk about because these are things that we experience. that being said, it can also be genuinely upsetting and triggering to people to have what is essentially arophobia shown to them and then have that be validated by other aspec people. your personal thoughts can affect your wider community on a level you may not anticipate. and i understand it i truly do! it took me so long to be able to recover from accepting being aroace - it threw my entire world off kilter and made me question everything about my place in the world.

but my insistence on aro joy and positivity is because ultimately i do believe that building is at the core essence of it all. that ultimately discussions and the purpose of community should be about construction, not destruction. and this is both a personal and a political stance. talking about how much you hate yourself and cultivating online discussions/spaces where negativity about aspec identity is the main and only theme is destructive - if that’s where we let the conversation end. these thoughts can and should be used as a vehicle to look for a path forward!

joy and positivity create a space where the focus can become on forging a path forward, on construction, on community building instead of tearing ourselves and others down with negative thoughts. it’s not productive or healthy when it stops at a place of negativity - it becomes actively destructive to the essence of community.

and i do think that this is especially poignant considering the fact that being any kind of queer, but especially aromantic (and/or asexual) means forging a path for yourself and making your own happiness where there is no obvious way forward. our communities exist mostly online (right now, anyway), there is little recognition of our existence in the real world, the effects of amatonormativity are both pervasive and actively dehumanising, and there are legal, economic and social structures in place actively making our lives more difficult. yes that all sucks! it’s good to acknowledge that. we need to in order to change it. but more importantly, that’s not the end. we are still here and our happiness, our future is for us to determine. even if we can’t change the laws or society, loving yourself and understanding aromanticism as a political identity (as well as personal), as a radical worldview, and as a protest against amatonormativity is essential for both community and personal well being. the personal is political.

tldr. i guess my point is that as a community, we should focus on building, improving, and nurturing ourselves and each other (construction) as opposed to destruction. we should recognise aromanticism and asexuality as political identities as well as personal ones and rely on community and self-love in the absence of anything else as a form of protest and political power. destruction (the recognition of everything that is wrong) is essential as a starting point - but where do we go from there? we rebuild.

[caelanglang]

Shhhh…. They’re busy recharging and being in love

[felassan]

Dragon Age on YouTube live chat: "'We drift upon the echoes of the vast, eternal dream.' - Emmrich. 💜 Goodnight everyone, see you tomorrow!" [source]

The YouTube live chat info session draws to a close with a beautiful quote from Emmrich. :> the language reminds me of the "sea of dreams", "emerald waters of the Fade" imagery when it comes to the Fade. 😴

[minamaybe]

comeback!!

hey everyone! <3 i‘m not sure if anyone remembers me but i used to be quite active here a few months ago - then life got in the way (i graduated and subsequently fell into a deep hole of despair and confusion lol) and i couldn’t keep up with this blog and this community. i‘ve really missed it tho and would like to come back to y’all again, and to re-awaken my love for writing that got lost somewhere between stress and heat exhaustion. i‘m really really excited to see what you‘ve all been up to <3

[thinkpink212]

Hey, not sure if you’ve answered a similar question. How does one come to terms with the situations they are in and learn to move on to a better and successful life? This also includes feeling behind in life, when compared to friends and family or even dealing with jealousy. Sorry for the long ask.

Learn to respect yourself, your time and your journey. Learn to be gentle with yourself, to understand that you have had a life that’s unique to you. Where you started, what support you have or haven’t had alongside opportunities are vastly different from your those around you.

Learn to work with what you have, create the goal and stick to it, not through hardship but love. Get better for you because you belive you deserve better. Success is whatever you decide is sucess. To me, any woman making it past 25 without a child is sucessfull because at some point we didn’t have choices. Zoom out and look at your life in conjunction to your ancestors. Where you came from, your parents, and what’s available to you now. You can be and do whatever you want - please belive me when I say this. Comparison isn’t only a thief of joy, it’s a robber of relationships. Instead of envy, jealousy or comparison within the negatives, find inspiration. Someone succeeds, think to yourself wow, they did it despite it all, so can I. The pie will never get too small, you will never be too late for anything, you will never miss out because you’re in your own race. So please, take your time to get to know yourself, your why’s, what needs to change in order for you to get there (discipline, dedication, motivation, less distractions, more support, more money, more mental stability — and then go get it)

we are so much more stronger and more capable then we think. There are people who root for you in silence, who have you as their inspiration (even from a short or one time interaction) Whatever happens will always pas, and then you’ll have tomorrow to try again. 🫶🏾 Hope this is helpful.

[sweetenby]

Here's a cicada that just came out of their final molt + molt

Here's the same species of cicada after drying out from their metamorphosis

[brawlite]

for your d/s pov poll, were you surprised by the results? what's your own opinion on it? did it end up helping you make your decision? (writing my own d/s fic and so curious about your thoughts)

[for anyone curious about the poll/results, here's the poll on tumblr and here it is on twitter]

painting rly broad strokes of my deeply unscientific poll, about 50% of people (slightly lower on tumblr than twit) preferred reading a fic from a sub's pov. a quarter(ish, slightly higher on twitter) preferred dom pov, and the rest had a nuanced answer they left in the comments.

one of the comments i did see often on both tumblr & twitter was some variation of "feels like there’s SO much more sub pov that dom pov is extra special to me" (this quote is from @windcalling, thank you, i loved the way you said this!!).

the overall results of the poll weren't surprising to me; i kind of assumed people would rather read sub pov, given anecdotal evidence from life and similar discussions/posts -- but the recurring comments about a non zero number of people enjoying dom pov because there were fewer fics of that nature/because it was more "unique"? that WAS surprising. and kind of refreshing! also, i guess i was a little surprised that the percentage of people who have an overall preference for dom pov was as high as it was, given my earlier lack of surprise over people preferring sub pov.

one of my other favorite comments, and one i really resonated with, was from @acinonyxian, who said "[...] but generally i want to be from the perspective of the person who is having the worse time/greater internal conflict/more potential for growth or change" which is -- honestly, exactly my preference for writing something: the pov whoever is having the worse time. conflict is fun & challenging to write.

on your question of my own opinion: on writing: personally, i find it easier to write sub pov, like a little cheat -- something about all of the reactions being right there and more obvious to the readier, and if they're having a bad time about it? so easy to wallow in and make the reader wallow in, too -- but more fun to write dom pov -- it's an observation of someone else's reactions. it's picking apart something from an outside, limited perspective. its about the satisfaction of completing a difficult puzzle, the reward of putting in a lot of effort and seeing it come to fruition -- and it's also about control. which is, you know, fun. on reading: yeah, i definitely have to go with whoever is having the worse time, & that is not always the sub pov character, though often is.

to be totally honest, it didn't really help me make my decision. i actually wanted to write the fic in question (eddie/tommy from 9-1-1), the one that spurned this poll, from tommy's pov, as the more dom character, but i also wanted to included a lot of eddie/buck pining, and that... wouldn't be possible if it wasn't from eddie's pov. so, alas, i had to ditch the idea of tommy salivating over eddie on his knees. sometimes, sacrifices must be made for the greater good. i guess. :/

(but the results did inspire me to write more of my d/s kniveswood fic from knives' dom pov, so it's not nothing! and, ngl, these results will probably also color my pov thoughts in the future, too -- i like writing dom pov and its nice hearing people enjoy reading it.)

best of luck with your d/s fic, anon! let me know what pov you end up going for, and why!! i'm curious!

[sammygender]

im new here- is dean abusive?

imo yeah. smarter people than me have written dissections of the way he treats sam & others (he’s also Awful to his psuedo-son jack, but i haven’t gotten to that season yet), i’ve probably reblogged a bunch of them.

he certainly doesn’t mean to be & i don’t say it to condemn him as a person or as a character & i’m still very attached to him & he loves sam very much (not that that makes a difference in whether u abuse someone or not) - but the way he treats sam a lot/some of the time is emotionally abusive and sam is clearly badly impacted. s4 and s8 come to mind as his worst moments also ofc moc era - after that there’s less interpersonal conflict (up to where i am at least) but that’s because sam mostly stops disagreeing with dean not because dean actually gets much better <3 spn is cycles of abuse show after all. family is hell. dean’s learnt pretty much everything about how to behave from his abusive father and as a result. well. cycle continues

[anxiously-sidequesting]

I know we as a fandom all love to shit on Duncan whenever we get the chance (see: me posting Duncan GruncanWuncan) especially since the like, two times we ever see him he's shitting on us for being ourselves then tries to kill us because of his own delusions of grandeur but I thought about it and I was like, "......man that's kinda Sad actually"

BECAUSE seeing this from Duncan's perspective; he's The Best, he always has been the best, but reality constantly shows him that isn't true (Malorn, The Wizard, anyone else)

Like imagine how painful that can be when you think something that you truly deserved and something that you've fought for, maybe for your entire life, is seemingly handed to others who aren't nearly as deserving as you

And yeah WE know that Duncan has neither worked (very hard, at least) for his perceived greatness NOR does he truly """deserve""" it (Duncan has been shown to be shirking his duties off to us and possibly others for his own gain), but DUNCAN doesn't know this. Like in his mind he truly, honestly, genuinely believes with his whole fragile heart that he is just above everyone else and puts more effort in trying to convince others of that rather than literally just trying to work towards that himself

And then there's the extra added insult that even in his own class he's pretty mediocre. Duncan INSISTS that he was Malistaire's best student and that he praised Duncan maybe once and that all other Death students only wish they could be like him, but... Malorn. And I bet deep down Duncan KNOWS that in fact Malorn was Malistaire's best and most talented. And Duncan can't even really twist that in his mind because it was made solid when Malorn took over Malistaire's duties instead of him. It was proven as a hard fact that Malorn was more suited to the job than Duncan was and is widely recognized as being The Best Death student (if the YW isn't a Necromancer)

Okay so fine. Whatever it's just Death right? At least Duncan can be the best at ANYTHING ELSE, maybe he's not the most talented Necromancer but there's 6 more types of magic to excel in!!!

But then another person ruins that. The Young Wizard poofs in from another world and suddenly, Duncan is overshadowed once more because a literal child prodigy and Local Hero arrives and literally saves their world and then, the universe. Multiple times in fact

Like bro I can imagine that could be at least a little bit painful for anyone, but imagine with Duncan's already low self-esteem and his fragile, large ego, he literally and genuinely took that personally and a hit to your pride is devastating for anyone, no matter who you are. That was like, Strike Three for Duncan and it was so very personal and important to him that it left him in a deep and vulnerable state

But I think the absolute saddest part of Duncan's downfall is that near the end, he was ultimately manipulated by an adult. A grown ass adult noticed and acknowledged his insecurities and purposely struck where it hurts the most, in his weakest state. Duncan already wasn't thinking clearly from the start but when everything went to shit for him and he was clinging, Gretta DarkKettle approached him and completely broke him down to make him into something else entirely for the Schism's benefit.

Of course Duncan was a piece of shit from the start but he truly didn't have any malicious intentions until Gretta messed with his mind. Like, he went from a pretty much harmless bully to an actual criminal of the state and a threat to the literal universe. Duncan was CORRUPTED and all of his worst fears and delusions were solidified the moment Gretta """validated""" those feelings Duncan had.

Is Duncan completely blameless? Fuck no he did some fucked up shit actually and I'm glad he was held accountable for it by the narrative and the fandom!!! But I think it's something to be said that at the end of the day, Duncan was still a child that was suffering from many type of issues before being recruited and manipulated by a powerful literal cult. Wizard101 does have a theme of malicious intending and less than responsible adults using children to get what they want (Malistaire, Morganthe's brother, GF Spider, GM Raven, coughcoughAmbrose) but unlike the Young Wizard who successfully stays true to themselves despite that, Duncan had a more Morganthe-like route and ultimately succumbed to it. Of course their situations are a lot different since the YW wasn't brought in by a cult, but you can't help but feel bad for someone so young being preyed on by older people who are supposed to look out for them and protect them from something just LIKE that.

I will always shit on Duncan because it's funny and hold him accountable for his actions because he should, but I also feel bad for him and I hope he had a better ending after he was defeated

[trentskis]

lovely post from james mcclean for autism awareness week !! fair play to him for sharing his ASD diagnosis, especially in a profession with a lot of unchecked ableism within fanbases. no doubt it will be heartening to those it matters to. go on jimmy💚

[ackackh]

In honor of baseball post season I reopened my easy co as a minor baseball league WIP again and omg the fucking shenanigans and angst in this fic you guys

[bylertruther]

🚨 angst alert 🚨 i have a question for you. yes, you. put your au thinking cap on. got it? okay.

how do you think mike would've coped if they'd been in lucas and max's season four positions? as in, will dies a grotesque death in mike's arms after they agreed to go on a movie date this friday and mike admitted to feeling like he'd lost will not that long ago, mike almost gets shot and has to fight for both their lives to no avail and then pull them away from the rifts afterward to wait for help, and eleven manages to save will but he's in the hospital totally unresponsive and also whoops she can't actually find him in his mind btw. ...oof. thoughts? 🤨📝🎤

[journalppt2]

Do you ever just wanna

[starscelly]

remember that poll asking what roope would do with his hair this summer? anyways here’s that visualized

and not a choice on the poll but always an option

[princemick]

finding out people have u blocked and being unable to figure out why is one of the most confusing feelings