#i will probably like a lot of those way less now but STILL i just crave that bc there was so much potential after that movie

[thessaralka]

DAI, DA2, DAO are flawed masterpieces but they all thematically feel deeply similar.

veilguard dookied all over the dark spiritual/ moral/ religious themes of DA by erasing slavery, the bigotry of and towards the elves (dalish in particular), sidelining andrastianism, ignoring the dwarves apart from harding's questline, and HR-ifying the writing.

where was slavery in tevinter, the literal slave capital of thedas, apart from the existence off the shadow dragons (who must be doing a really good job btw bc slavery and the impact of it is basically not a thing), and in scenes w venatori where they're using slaves as benches in this weirdly-comical-dismissive way?

where was the nuance and moral greyness in how some people sell themselves into slavery or join the qun to escape poverty and lives that would otherwise be a lot less structured and even comfortable, and the cognitive dissonance that fact gives us? where was the "slaves are illiterate so they communicate with symbols" underground slave rebellion?

the most we get of solas and his thousands-of-years-long slave-freeing mission is a comment from neve about the chains in his hideout, we see nothing about how fen'harel freed slaves as basically a lifelong purpose of his, and how many of those freed-people dedicated their lives to that mission, joining him in his cause. solas would have had other people helping him out with this, he would have had a structured slave-freeing organization, he probably would still be using the lighthouse for this, but the most we get is "crusty wifeless bachelor pad" solas all alone. did he tell everyone to fuck off, like what happened there? why was solas soooooo alone, when he literally had cultists in trespasser and logically would have EVEN MORE cultists now? i understand he's mentally and emotionally alone, but an ancient elven god who has built a slave-freeing operation he would not be so physically alone, he'd have tons of people obsessed w his mission.

making the only dalish we encounter these veil jumpers that we have no connection or care for unless we read some books is lazy, and these dalish don't seem to care that their thousands-of-years-old faith that their entire culture is founded on is being demolished before their eyes, the DREAD FUCKING WOLF is back (one of their literal gods, and he's been back for like 12 years and many of them have joined him - where are thooooose dalish?), the dalish in VG are perfectly fine working with humans (the very ones who exalted-marched all over them, humans that rape and pillage them, humans that oppress and subjugate them, humans the dalish have canonically hunted down and killed - just for being human - in past games). the dalish are canonically shitty people who are also massively subjugated, are victims of their own hubris, victims of a war they started and lost and never got over, victims of their own bigotry, victims of their own misinterpreted and forgotten lore. while they have a right to be victims, it's never talked about how fucking revolutionary it is if any dalish/ elven hero of the past games (warden or inquisitor) was able to overcome the biases of their culture and heal, and work together with humans (inquisition did this really well for Dalish Inquisitors btw). the dalish being as forgiving and open as the veil jumpers are should be a bigger deal and have a major story reason behind it because healing thousands of years of trauma in a decade is impressive (fake).

[a-dragons-journal]

i don’t think my words hold much value to people like you, and i don’t think you would be willing to listen or take it to heart, but it’s still worth trying. i would like you to realise that you are human in every way. you are not an animal, you are not a dragon. (you probably already know this. maybe you’re in denial. i don’t know) either way, none of you would actually be willing to give it even a second of thought because you’re insecure about yourself, and you’re insecure because you know you’re human. i assure you that you will not reach full personal contentment until you live out your life without pretending to be a mythical creature. wtv have a good day

Ooh, I haven’t gotten one of these asks in a few years.

So I ask this, and every other question I will follow up with, completely genuinely, and if you’re willing to really get into the weeds discussing it I’d love to do so (though I’ll probably reblog any follow-ups to my other blog): why do you think you know me and my experiences better than I do?

Why do you think you can armchair diagnose me with insecurity? What evidence do you actually have for that, besides the fact that I’m nonhuman? What evidence do you have that I’m not already content and fulfilled in my life?

Is it possible that identifying as nonhuman is unrelated to those things entirely, and you’re making a false assumption?

I get it. It looks crazy, when you’re completely new to the concept. It’s weird - it is! But pause and listen to us when we talk about our experiences for a moment.

For many of us, myself included, finding nonhumanity is a moment of suddenly understanding - of pieces falling into place, of my life experiences suddenly making sense. Awakening is something that made me more content and fulfilled, not less - there’s a sadness in it sometimes, yes, but so too is there the comfort of understanding yourself in a new way, of realizing, oh. I’m not just weird. There’s not something wrong with me. There are other people like me.

(If this sounds a lot like the experience of figuring out you’re queer, there’s a reason for that.)

To use myself as an example of the flaws in your hypothesis: there’s… honestly not much dissatisfaction with my life right now. I’ve got a stable job with decent income. I’d like to be able to cut back my hours a bit, but that will come in time. I’ve got enough free time as it is to do my art and play my tabletop games with friends in my off time. I’ve got family and friends around me. Sure, I miss my wings, but I’m hoping to pick up powered paragliding in the near future and hoping that’ll scratch that itch at least somewhat. I’m doing pretty well, honestly. This isn’t the case for all otherkin, but it’s not the case for all orthohumans (people who aren’t alterhuman in any way) either. What it does indicate, however, is that your hypothesis that being otherkin inherently means you’re insecure and unhappy with your life is false, or at minimum flawed - if it were true, I wouldn’t exist.

So, I ask again: why do you think you understand my own experiences better than I do? And moreover, why does it bother you so much that I am the way I am?

The name for the thing you’re doing here, intentionally or not, is concern trolling - trying to push me out of an identity by professing concern for problems that don’t exist. Why? Why are you going out of your way to tell other people they’re wrong about their own identity? Why is your reaction, when you see an identity you don’t understand, to decide it’s unhealthy, or just make-believe, or whatever, and then to make that the problem of the people who identify that way? What exactly makes you think this is inherently unhealthy?

Would it not be better to devote that energy to trying to understand us, instead of trying to change us?

You don’t have to answer these questions to me, obviously, but I do encourage you to answer them to yourself at least. Pick apart your worldview for a minute and see if it actually holds up under scrutiny - it’s good for you, and mental enrichment to boot! If you are willing to really get into the weeds of this discussion with me, again, I’d love to do that - I love having discussions like this, and it’s good for me to have my worldview challenged every so often too! Please, genuinely, pick at the flaws in my logic if you see them - if it can be pulled apart under scrutiny, it needs to be pulled apart and rebuilt. No one on the internet is obligated to let a stranger do that, obviously, but personally I enjoy it - it’s a meat pumpkin for me - so let’s talk, if you’re up for it. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve gotten a good interesting antikin to debate with.

[suddencolds]

a personal milestone 🥳 + author's note

i finally made it 😭 (there is probably another 10k sitting in my drafts, but i have always tracked word count for this project as a sum of already-published installments)

also a (somewhat long) journal entry below:

—

This has been the main project in my life for almost two years, now (I started writing on 1.26.2023). It's my first proper attempt at a novel, and it's one of my first times ever posting original work anywhere 😭

It's hard to say how I feel now, perhaps because I feel too much.

Where to go from here? I considered dropping the series entirely before I hit the milestone because I was very tired. In a way, I felt like I had said everything I wanted to say. But I think I also love this series a lot more than I can properly verbalize.

To be completely honest, writing this series was so lonely. To work for so long on something that I could not show to nearly anyone irl (not family, not close friends, not peers, not strangers I met who I talked to about art); to spend hundreds of hours on something that I could only ever post to a small subset of people... all of that was very lonely. I'm sure other creatives have felt this way too.

And at the same time, hearing what people on snzblr thought became probably the most potent source of happiness in my life (is that pathetic? Maybe so.) I don't think this project was self-sustaining at all; I think to some extent, I wrote it because I wanted to hear people tell me that they liked it. I realize this is a terrible and unsustainable reason to create art, but that's the truth.

On some level, though, I kept writing because I loved Y+V. They've been at the forefront at my life for almost two years now 😭 I spent a long time teaching myself how to write them, and a lot of the themes & choices in the series are quite personal. Embarrassingly, I still want to talk about Y+V all the time.

When I posted to ask if I could send my unfinished/unpolished WIPs, some people reached out to offer to read them... and then I never sent anything over to anyone. I think a part of me could not get it through my head that people would be willing to read something completely unpolished, because... well, frankly, a lot of my drafts are just pretty unreadable; I typically only post things that I have already cleaned up. More importantly, I felt like sending my drafts to people—even people who had given me explicit permission to send them!—was selfish and troublesome.

On some level, I also felt the same about asking others to brainstorm with me: I felt like I was asking them a favor which I did not know how to pay back. Perhaps this is just another way in which I have been cruel/uncharitable to myself, but I never imagined people enjoying receiving my drafts. I could never convince myself that for those people, giving feedback/discussing ideas might not actually be a chore. I was always scared to make writing less of a lonely process because I could only think about how easy it would be for me to ask too much.

This is probably the most honest I've been about this particular subject 😭 I am not good at gauging what constitutes 'too much.' I feel like I can get carried away when someone expresses interest, so I try to preemptively position myself as someone who does not impinge on others... I think that even outside of this series, I have defaulted to this pattern of trying to give and trying not to ask. In that particular sense, I am perhaps to blame for my own loneliness.

Anyways! Recently, I've gone back to (tentatively) writing after months of not writing. I'm not sure if I will post another installment here (maybe if the drafts are 'good enough', I will?), but it's nice to write without worrying so much that what I am writing needs to be publishable/presentable.

If you have ever left tags/comments on my work, and you are reading this, I am grateful beyond words to you for keeping me company + for making me feel like what I was spending so much time on was a little more meaningful :') I always go back to reread them when I'm in need of encouragement. Thank you sincerely for the happiness. ❤️

[daswithoucri]

This is in response to @theinvisibledavis talking about (misogynistic) people attacking Kat, because they don't like Earth (as well as other female characters), and how they think that "the writing of the shows are bad"

Let me start with this: Before TSAMS and LAES, I haven't watched anything in a long time. Because personally, I am not a big fan of TV series, nor do I watch a lot of movies. But these shows and their characters have captured me. I have watched every single sams video this year, during a time span of about half a year (And let me tell you, my mental health was down the drain earlier this year. A day, where I could watch 12 videos in a row, felt just amazing to me. I am now in a much better and stable state. And TSBS has always been there along the way, as a means of comfort.) .

Now I am doing the same with LAES, and I am not any less interested in it. Their videos make me laugh my guts out, make me bawl my eyes out, or simply just let me relax and calm down after a long day at work. And it's all for free! With practically an unlimited amount of content! I, for a fact, know that I am not gonna run out of new videos to watch anytime soon. They upload daily after all! I am 100% sure, that I have still about 2 years worth left to watch. And with the continues uploads, it's probably more like 4 or even 5 years. And it's all just at the grasp of our hands! All of it!

I can't imagine how much blood, sweat and tears the actors must have put into their channels. This takes so much dedication, we can't even imagine the stress they must and have been going through, to make these shows and this fandom a reality! So we all must be grateful for their hard work. What is a few minutes of entertainment for us, is hours of work for them. We need to be thankful and show our support. It's the least that we can do.

So thank you Kat, Davis, Reed, Matt and all the other VAs of other shows that I haven't gotten to know yet. Thank you for your dedication to my and many other people's favourite shows. ❤

And @queenkatluv, if you ever read this: I hope you are okay and that your mental health hasn't taken too much of a blow from all the unnecessary hate, or that you will quickly recover from it. It must be difficult, but try to not take their mean words to heart. I don't have to listen to what they say, nor will I ever, because I know from the beginning on, that what they say is simply not fact. I don't really interact with the fandom, but they gotta be just the vocal minority. I'm sure the majority loves you and Earth.

You are amazing! Your acting is amazing! Your characters are amazing! Your writing is amazing! You deserve to rest well and take it easy. Eat your favorite meal as much as you wish. Have a nice bubble bath, or take a walk in nature if you prefer. Or both! Spend time with those that do you good. You deserve it all times infinity, because you are simply just amazing.

Earth is always so kind, helpful and empathetic towards others. What would she say to you? I'm sure you'll know, because you know her the best.

(Oh an by the way, the quality of The Vampire's Bride is chef's kiss to me. It's like a TV show, but the good kind.)

[blackberrybuds]

I don't want to call you out in the server but the stuff you post about in there is probably TMI. Nobody needs to hear about your bathroom problems it's gross. Also you projecting that onto characters like Kazutoshi and Nemoto is gross. It's something to maybe keep to yourself.

kamimura & nemoto Bathroom Issues headcanons for anon <3

kamimura

canonically has crohns so this one isnt a headcanon but teehee

he works pretty frequently and pretty far from home a lot of the time so he wears diapers because his anxiety makes having to worry about always being near a bathroom like 1000 times worse

lets be real hes a punk. he has probably shoplifted diapers more than once theyre just so damn expensive. how the hell is this guy gonna pay rent while paying like twenty-five bucks for a pack of diapers he'll go through in like a week

hasegawa keeps really good track of what he can and cant eat and looks over the menu at like every restaurant they go to in advance to make sure theres something kamimura can have that wont make him flare up

when kamimura is stuck in the bathroom for like hours at a time hasegawa will stay with him and hold his hand and keep him company

hasegawa gets super annoyed and confrontational whenever a business doesnt have accessible washrooms and its the only time kamimura ever sees him get worked up and start complaining to managers

wears diapers in the killing game which is the only reason he was able to manage being completely cut off from the bathrooms at night in chapter one

eventually ended up getting a stoma bag, was super nervous at first but it ended up being way less stressful and now he decks it out in cool stoma bag covers

wears so many layers because he's still shy about the bag and doesnt want anyone noticing it

genki

woah this one is canon too? hes canonically incontinent? crazy!!

started needing diapers around the middle of the crispr experiments after his digestive tract stopped working properly

dannake handles all his changes and is super super super careful with them because of how fragile is skin is, she's always very on-top of when he needs a change and keeps them on a very cohesive schedule

suga isn't allowed to change genki because genki asked him not to (canon) but he'll still do things like run out to the store to get things for dannake or make sure nobody bothers dannake and genki while she's changing him

genki is really bad at reading his own body signals now and will usually just get really worked up and upset when he needs a change without being able to properly articulate why, dannake and suga have both gotten super good at reading those signs though

genki was still semi-lucid when he started needing diapers and was really upset and embarrassed about it, dannake tried to normalize it for him by just talking about it super casually whenever it came up (because shes a very blunt person as we know) and it honestly sort of helped

also theyre both my best friends and we talk about diapers together all the time sorry anon we're all disabled and best friends and we hate u

[ohcorny]

How did you first initially get into the professional graphic novel scene? Was it difficult getting ppl to take a chance on your writing/stories and could you talk about it a bit?

wibbles my hand? i probably had it easier than most people. first of all i'd been doing a fairly popular webcomic for like. six-seven years when an agent cold-called me to offer representation, and asked if i had any graphic novel ideas. hunger's bite was but a tiny twinkle in my eye so i started developing it.

(and then covid happened and i got a storyboard job and also eventually fired that agent but still kept developing hunger's bite)

shortly after firing that agent, and after trying to query traditionally with no real luck (though i think i only queried 3-4), there was an event on twitter called #DVPit which was basically: you'd post the elevator pitch of your story + some art, and agents would look in the tag and like anything they were interested in representing. so once the event was over you'd reach out to them with the full pitch and meet to talk about it and if the vibe was right, you'd sign on with them. i think i had 5 agents show interest, and i contacted 3 who felt like they could be a good fit, and then signed with the one i liked best. (i do not think #DVPit exists anymore for obvious reasons)

after that it was her job to send the pitch out to editors, and i think it was maybe in the second or third wave of submissions (ie, a few months) where i had 2 editors who were interested. they made their offers, i went with the one that had a bit more money (and apparently got a Really good deal) and that was that

like Looking Back, i think i had it easier than people who struggle for years to get noticed. it didn't feel that way at the time, waiting months for rejections, but now that i'm through it, it's less daunting. the main issue i would run into was finding someone who understood the vision and didn't want to change it. there was a lot of 'this would probably be better as a middle grade!' but i didn't want to take the teeth out of it.

iunno! overall i think art and comics is one of those spaces where it's like. you know at a glance if you're interested in it, or if the artist is competent. i've done slush pile with comics, it's very 'you know it when you see it'. i imagine it's the same with acquiring editors.

i fortunately have a style with broad appeal :y so it might just be easier for me on that merit

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

I LOVE going everywhere by bike. Don't need to wait for a bus. Don't need to cram myself into a bus with (urgh) people. Or even worse, what feels like every single student in town. I still get home in about the same amount of time. I'm so so flexible including with places. Like yeah sure, let's go there! I don't care if the next bus station is far away. Doesn't matter to me.

Stayed out late with friends recently. Two of em had to get their family to come pick them up because that's too far to walk and it was too late for buses. A different friend lives like 30 minutes away but always walks and their way goes through a small park where literally no one is at with few lanterns so it's pitch black and I could literally just walk them home and then take the bike which is faster and has its own light and feels and probably is safer than walking those dark ass streets at night alone.

Like. I can just do all that. And yeah, sometimes when I'm not doing too well I feel like collapsing afterwards and yeah, maybe my fingers feel like falling off a lot at this time of year but that's like. SO worth it. I have no idea how people can live and NOT go everywhere by bike. Like if it's more than 20-30 minutes maybe but even with hills.... I fucking love my bike.

[cuteniaarts]

Behold, my latest and most enamouring new obsession:

Malina, Lady of the Chief of the Northern Water Tribe. As if Red Lotus child OCs weren’t niche enough

[statementlou]

BTW Love the growth from OTB, where it's about reassurance and realization, to BTM, where it's about acceptance and growth. God, Louis' queer-coded lyricism should be talked a lot more also

I sat on this for a minute cause I didn't think I was going to answer it, cause if I did it might just be to say, I don't necessarily think it's that simple, and what does being a grinch add to anything! But I realized I do actually have something to say, although it isn't what you were looking for anon, so, sorry about that. See, what I have been thinking is amazing about Louis' lyricism (and has shown big growth between Walls and FITF) and needs to be discussed more is its versatility, its prismatic blank slate qualities even while being so specific. What I mean is: his signature style is to write lyrics that are straightforward and easily understood as telling a clear story (certain trippy dance numbers excepted obv ;). But what's remarkable is that despite their seeming simplicity and easiness to read, a LOT of his songs can be perceived in a practically infinite number of ways, with every different interpreter absolutely confident in the rightness of their read. So yes, I personally happen to believe Bigger Than Me (and some other songs such as All This Time) are in part about Louis' queer experience. But every lyric that I think that about can also very easily mean something else- they can pass as generic radio songs about nothing, or as songs about experiences non queer listeners have had about any number of things, or as being about his career generally, or in most cases as boilerplate love songs. In the lead up to this album Louis talked about how he wanted people to come up with their own interpretations of the songs a lot, which I laughed at because he then kept saying what they meant to him anyway, but I think I get now why he said that so much just now in particular- I think the way it's possible to make almost any meaning from them is something he did knowingly and with great skill (and put hard work into), and deserves to be recognized. Like maybe one thing he was writing about was the queer interpretation, but then he also made them be about the fans generally and his life and love and 5 other things, while shaping them to be malleable and universal enough that all that fits into these extremely simple lines. And I think that people insisting they know what his songs are about and that it can only be one thing actually erases that work and skill that he, I believe, is rightfully proud of, and that deserves appreciation. Also it doesn't fit anywhere but I would like to add two other thoughts: one, sometimes part of a song can be about one thing or be literal but other parts can be made up or from something else sometimes for as little reason as to make it rhyme, and two this is a whole essay probably but I'm thinking a lot lately about how Louis talks about being honest in his writing and how people think that means the same thing as being literal (writing about his exact life) and actually something can be HONEST, like can talk about feelings and thoughts that really happened while depicting made up events (see: fiction/ literature generally), without being LITERALLY TRUE (this is a thing that is exactly how it happened in my life) so just throwing that in here also.

[rotisseries]

yk that military kid camp i went to? gone for like a week? there were so many homeschooled kids it was crazy. and people that skipped grades. like a 14 yr old is a junior and this 15 yr old is starting freshman in college. made me feel 1) dumb 2) better because i feel like i am inherently less awkward and less socially inept than the average homeschooled kid. i do feel bad a little bit. not a lot.

you are less socially inept than the average homeschool kid I promise. this includes me unfortunately. also don't worry about whether or not they're smarter than you I promise something is still wrong with them

[sevicia]

I wanted to make a cleaner summary of last week's classes and also review the classes I have this week since the material is already uploaded beforehand but I was feeling so horrible throughout the day that when I sat down I was just gonna look at the ones for tomorrow but I think I'm just gonna go to bed because I just gave my little numbers game a few tries and not even the joy of tribial elementary school-level math games is bringing my brain cells and/or full sentience back

[oveliagirlhaditright]

What’re your favorite kh ships?

If I'm being honest... I really only true ship SoKai these days (my forever OTP). Mainly because I feel like that's the only one I can really ever see actually being canon (well, aside from Yozora and Nameless Star, and I also ship them: a lot of that for Versus XIII reasons. My heart won't let go). And, I mean, not that a ship needs to be canon for me to ship them. Not at all. But I'll admit that I've grown out of some of the KH ships a wee bit, as I've found more adult ones in other fandoms to get invested one.

That being said, the KH ships that I do still care about are:

SoKai

RokuShi

Namiku

RokuNami

Terqua (though it seem these days the kids call it Terrqua. Or Terraqua?)

Gulava

Skulmera

Playerlitzia

YozoraNameless Star

Xehaqus

AkuSai

SoRiKai

RiKai

Roxiri (though not in canon. More in fanon. More for crack, kind of, actually. And friendship first and foremost)

I'm warming up to Replinami some these days, because of the tragedy of it all.

I've also started to warm up to Rion a wee bit... that past Shanna thought she'd never see.

SoNami in CoM only.

I could do XionRoxasNaminé. NamiXI, too.

VenAqua slightly, but I'd always choose Terra and Aqua over it (but one thing about the Wayfinder Trio for me, if I'm being truthful, is that I prefer the three of them as friends before any romance with any of them. Part of me even really thinks all three of them are truly just meant to be friends.)

A lot of people ship Ven and Strelitzia for some reason. And I doubt it'll ever happen, tbh. Who knows if they'll ever even really get a chance to meet and be friends. But I do get why they think it'd be cute.

And while I don't know if I truly ship them anymore, a part of me will always have a soft spot for Ventus and Naminé. Because for some reason, I really used to ship this crack pairing, back in the day.

I also don't really know if I ship them... but despite what I said above, I do get the feeling that Nomura might be doing something with Lauriam/Marluxia and Elrena/Larxene.

[shaykai]

Vat/Orin childhood schenanigans is fun yes, but consider, they still try to pettily rip eachother apart as adults, the same way they would have as children

Oh yeah they would for sure- and honestly I think their relationship would be worse if he showed up later (which is always fun. Throw some animosity onto the gas fire that is their relationship)

Like she’s being prepped to start running the cult and taking over from Sarevok and then some drow walks in and is basically just handed everything (I assume there are some trials but like. It’s Durge. He passes dhshshsj)

I think they’ll lose some of their bond (mostly on Vat’il’s end. He does care about Orin! It’s just in a super messed up version of love kind of a way) but it’s also not like they were ever super close so it works out

[astrxealis]

really want to read more and more literature (esp classics!) aghhhh yesterday iirc i was on a walk with my mom and twin and an old guy (not a weirdo dw) who was jogging or walking too actually asked what book i was carrying and it's a little funny bcs uhm he just went "oh a classic!" you see. i was carrying dante's inferno. which i still haven't properly started to read but anyways he might... if my mom is right... be the local parish guy so oopsies !! LMAO anyways yeah really interested in lovecraft for a while now! horror scares me and gives me paranoia but i also enjoy the writing of it? and i remember once that something/someone said my writing is kinda similar to his. hm.

[omotelie]

WHERE’S MY FUKING CAPO

[adore-gregor]

my perception of grades totally changed since i started uni