#i would kinda be terrified to travel the world as a lesbian couple with my kids ngl

[fuck-off-im-ace]

The event of the day at the coffee shop is two lesbian globetrotters and their children giving a presentation on their last world tour. What a concept.

[elfyourmother]

so my journey to FFXIV.

i’m so damn old and seasoned with MMOs i literally was playing their free, text-based fan homebrewed precursors on fucking telnet as a kid in the pre-web internet era so I was never scared of them, I just avoided them for the longest out of saltiness that all of my MUD and MUSH friends were quitting our games for them and the MU* scene was slowly dying because of it (Everquest and Ultima Online were the culprits when they were new). It took me a weirdly long time to get into them, given the circles I ran in.

but I played a bunch of them, UO, City of Heroes/Villains, etc. I got FFXI around the time Wings of the Goddess came out because my gf at the time played it heavily, and I decided to give it a shot because of her and wanting to see a Final Fantasy take on the genre, even though up to that point I was one of those “I don’t count the MMO as a real Final Fantasy game” FF fans. Unfortunately I ended up hating it because it was so intensely unfriendly to newbies and solo players, it was a horrible grindfest where just traveling somewhere took insane amounts of real world time, plus you leave town and get killed by level 4 rabbits and leveling involved mindless grinding in parties, meanwhile my gf’s linkshell (XI version of a Free Company) was horribly cliquish and basically ignored me unless she was logged on. WoW I had avoided because I was a diehard Warcraft RTS fan terrified of what an MMO would do to my favorite strategy games (LMAO oh my god the hilarity in hindsight), but I finally quit XI and jumped to WoW because my bf at the time finally talked me into it when Burning Crusade came out. Now BC’s story essentially mangled my favorite characters from Warcraft 3 beyond all recognition but mechanically the game was really fun to play even if my bf was a dick and made me play Alliance despite me wanting to be Horde really badly, I had a great guild, and so I just ignored the story bits I hated and wrote fix it fic. Wrath was absolutely fantastic as an Arthas stan but unfortunately the game dropped off a cliff after that and never recovered, the gameplay started getting terrible to the point it couldn’t make up for the lackluster and bad story decisions and continued derailment of my faves, the playerbase got even worse, and the devs/writers were even worse than the fans.

probably the nail in the coffin was cross server zones destroying any semblance of server culture. Proudmoore was my home server and it was an oasis away from the toxic shit the WoW community was infamous for, because the players fought hard to make it a haven for LGBT players (we had a massive pride parade every year in game, Horde + Alliance together, with zero trolling). It had a very heavy international contingent because before Blizzard opened Oceanic servers, all the Aussies and Kiwis decided to make it their home. But it was a haven because we policed ourselves. The gays ran that fucking server and anyone coming to start shit got run out of town on a rail. Even our trade chat trolls didn’t tolerate bigotry lol. People learned real quick that troublemakers weren’t wanted, they couldn’t even switch factions to run because we all exchanged notes. People stood up for each other and even though it wasn’t perfect by any means it was like an entirely different game than on other servers. It was very XIV-esque in that respect.

My little guild was run by a lesbian couple and was 90% queer/trans and a handful of cool allies and half of us were some kinda poc, we had people literally from all over the world including a really sweet Japanese girl I used to run dungeons with in the middle of the night when I had insomnia and no one else was on bc of the time difference lol. But this great server community of that got fucked up when Blizzard instituted cross realm zones, trying to make the world seem more active, when all it did was destroy our server community with an influx of the toxic people in our battlegroup (like a data center) that we came to Proudmoore to avoid. trade chat became a cesspool like it was on every other server. Slurs became a way of life when they never had before. Like every day I was reporting people for harassment, specifically homophobia and racism. One of my 2 mains was a male Blood Elf Paladin and towards the end of my regular WoW playing, almost every god damn day I would log on to tank daily heroics with him I got called the F slur. I was constantly reporting Hunters with gorilla pets named after Black people (usually Obama or Oprah). so my little bubble was gone and the story and the game hit new lows and i was done.

the irony of me quitting WoW for another Final Fantasy MMO is not lost on me either. the funny thing is I totally ignored XIV at launch because I had such a wretched experience with XI and saw the races all being the XI ones just with different names and dismissed teh whole thing as Vana’diel 2.0 and figured it would be just as bad, then heard the reports of how atrocious 1.0 was and felt vindicated in ignoring it. I was really disillusioned with WoW by then, but was kinda feeling stuck in sunk cost fallacies, still subbed out of nostalgia and doing stuff with Dandy once in a while. “WoW sucks but the only thing that would ever make me leave it for good is an Ivalice MMO” were my exact words, ask Dandy lmao

meanwhile I’d picked up Final Fantasy Record Keeper on mobile, and started posting in the Reddit sub for it, and when there was an XIV collab to celebrate Heavensward’s release that added Alphinaud and Minfilia as units along with some really powerful gear for them,I pulled on the banner even though I knew dick all about XIV just for the OP loot and ended up with a completely decked out Alphinaud. They didn’t do XIV events too often for whatever reason in FFRK but hilariously I somehow always ended up with all the best loot for XIV characters and so ended up using those units a lot--Y’shtola was my best healer for a long time--and every time there was an event somebody would make lore threads on the sub explaining different things and raving about how amazing it got after the revamp and HW. it also helped that the music on every FFXIV event slapped so hard. so I got really curious and when the game went on Playstation Store holiday sale one year I picked it up finally, mainly to find out what the deal was with this Alphinaud kid. the rest is history.

the ironic thing is FFXIV has the total opposite thing from WoW where a single player game franchise I loved was totally ruined by an MMORPG version of it. WoW destroyed the Warcraft RTS series and dragged its bloody corpse through the streets but FFXIV saved Final Fantasy to me, no joke. i was absolutely done with FF after XIII was so wretched, i never even got the sequels and ignored XV on principle (tfoh with no female characters), and then DA:O had come out to take my gaming attention. but years later with Bioware shitting the bed so hard, and WoW having been dead to me for ages, I was really ripe to “come home” to FF tbh. so in hindsight it really shouldn’t be a surprise it got me by the tits so bad. it’s the only example I can think of where an MMO installment in a franchise is better than the most recent single player ones

even my least favorite XIV story arc (Stormblood) was light years more enjoyable than XIII and I think we all about the mess that was XV. it says something to me that they gave Yoshi-P the keys to XVI. Personally I think Ishikawa should just be put in charge of writing all Final Fantasy everything until she gets tired, if it wouldn’t burn her out

[tonystarkbingo]

Tony Stark Bingo Party Prompt Meme

http://generatorland.com/usergenerator.aspx?id=25057 -- we took tags from this random generator and then made up more detailed prompts from them. These prompts are open use, even if you’re not participating in the bingo, but please tag us if you write one, we’d LOVE to see what you did with it! nonsense + everyone is gay + denial : Tony+harem - Tony, while an incorrigible flirt, does not believe that anyone actually likes him, let alone as many as do. They come up with increasingly ridiculous ideas to ask him out or at least let him know they like him, while he innocently thinks they're all just such awesome friends superpowers + bodice-ripper + sad Stuckony - something set in the Regency(ish) era but with secret superpowers as an added bonus. Let’s of angst over trying to hide their secret powers, and wanting to save people without revealing themselves and also cause they’re gay. clones + nighttime + wishes Coulson/Strange (StrangeAgent? AgentStrange? DrAgent?) - Coulson ends up spending the night in the NY Sanctum. Some of the artifacts happen to be particularly sensitive to subconscious fantasies... and isn't it lucky that cloning himself happens to be one of Strange's powers? cruising + flashbacks + bad boys Winteriron possible future Stuckony - small warning for drinking mention - Tony is driving around to distract himself so he doesn't get drunk. He gets in an accident because he is not actually in a state to drive. The accident is comparatively harmless, the flashback to his convoy being attacked in Afghanistan is less so. When Tony wakes up in the hospital he learns that the person who dragged him from his car to safety is one James "Bucky" Barnes, resident motorbike riding bad boy heartthrob and friend/visitor of Steve "regular ER customer" Rogers, who's his hospital roommate. room service + lifeguards + sharing Tony is a lifeguard who takes his job very seriously. He's attending a convention-slash-training seminar at a posh uptown hotel, but then there's a knock at the door. He opens it to find two room service carts, both with order slips on them that indicate they're actually destined for another room. Rather than call the obviously harried and beleaguered bellboy back, he pushes them down the hall himself and knocks on the door... which is answered by none other than the hot beefcake fellow-lifeguard that's been distracting Tony all day. They end up sharing the enormous amount of food... and then maybe some more. :wink: overthinking + pity sex + customer service Tony just turned 40, he's been friends with Bucky and Nat for forever, and they'd been each other's marriage backups for the longest time, like, if they weren't married at 40, they'd marry whoever wasn't married either in their little trio. Only, two years prior, Buckynat became husband and wife and so he's having a little pity party on his floor at the Tower, drinking virgin mojitos and seriously consider a particular customer service to cheer himself up in one way or another - might as well get an orgasm, as shitty and sad as it may be, it's his birthday ffs - but then Bucky and Nat appear in his elevator, and they pull him off the couch he's been sprawled on for three hours, and Nat is the first to kiss him, and he's too stunned to react much but when he does question wtf is happening, Bucky shushes him and Tony lets him. The next morning he is evidently convinced it was all just pity sex, or a kink of theirs or whatever.... certainly nothing to do with the fact that they've been courting him forever and got tired of waiting for him to step out of ObliviousStarklandia. Of course not. wolves + romantic friendship + wigs Okay, so, someone has been doing an excellent job of hiding his baldness from someone else, with whom he's been in a long term best-friends-but-in-love not-quite-relationship. He's got an elaborate series of wigs, and over the years he's gradually been replacing them with slightly more grey ones so that someone else doesn't realise. Aaaand then someone gets bitten by a werewolf, and when he shifts for the first time he is completely bald and the secret is out. accidental relationship + butt dialing + warlocks Tony Stark is not happy with today's mission, not like there's an occasion to enjoy dealing with magic. But now he's in a relationship with Bucky, which is not bad, that man is gorgeous, but this is not the way. He's ranting about it to Jarvis and doesn't realize that he sat on his phone nor that he dialed the other supersoldier in the team until he hears a muffled laugh beneath him. He's going to kill that warlock smuggling + fear + road-trip okay, a Star Wars AU. Farmboy Peter is fleeing from stormtroopers who found out his parents were Jedi. He runs into smuggler Tony and they take off in Tony's ship for an extended road trip in space. possession + loving marriage + gardens & gardening Pepperony, Morgan insists there's a spirit possessing the garden because she's seen the plants dancing. Turns out they've accidentally created sentient plants and Tony is like nope, call somebody else, I do mechanical engineering and they call Dr. Cho to fix it. The marriage is in there somewhere I promise  idiots in love + bonding + resurrection Ironhawk - Clint tries to get Lucky back after he goes over the rainbow bridge, but he can’t actually read latin and ends up bringing back Tony from the 18th century.  And poor Tony gets Clint as his guide to the 21st.  Shenanigans and eventual fluffy ending improv + cultural appropriation + shield maidens After the Battle of New York, Tony's interviewing Thor about Asguardian tech and learns that they have all kinds of shielding devices, and gets interested in trying to replicate what Thor describes just in case aliens decide to pay a call on Earth again. Thor, for his part, is kinda shocked that Earth doesn't have any such shields, though on the other hand it is Midguard, so. You know. Tony gives it a shot and a couple weeks later he's launching the satellites into orbit for a preliminary test of the shields. He intends to test them with SI tech developed from seized Chitauri tech, but before he can get the chance an alien army shows up, guns blazing and very mad about something. The shields hold, thankfully, and the aliens send a strongly worded letter informing him that he has infringed upon their religious and cultural traditions by putting the Stark logo on them. Their planet was visited centuries ago by time-travelers that greatly influenced their culture, religion, government, etc. These time travelers carried devices with that same Stark Logo on them. The Stark Logo has become a complex cultural symbol over the centuries, and they don't appreciate him using it on war tech, even if on shields. Eventually, they figure out that the time travelers' tech was Tony's tech, and agree to leave in peace, but only after Tony spends a terrifying couple of days trying to improvise his way through a diplomatic disaster with an alien power. vampire family + slapstick + loss WinterIronWidow: So, Natasha's been a vampire for a long time, and she's lonely, so she decides to take on some mates, enter established relationship WinterIron. She vampirises them, which leads to Tony having fits about GARLIC and my god, I'm ITALIAN, you horrible woman!  And Bucky's like "I'm... CATHOLIC?? OM-- I can't even say G-- now??" awkwardness + chatting & messaging + shyness Tony doesn't understand why everytime Bucky comes into the lab, Dum-E tends to drop whatever he's holding and go hide in his charging station. Dum-E's always a bit clumsy and silly but this is more than usual and Tony's worried that Dum-E doesn't like Bucky or something like that. Anyway after much discussion, with JARVIS as translator and go-between, it turns out that Dum-E has developed a bit of a crush on Bucky's fancy robotic arm. Which ends up of course being a hilarious & awkward situation for all involved. candles + explosions + blind date tony gets bullied by pepper to go on a blind date to get out of his funk, she insists that this Matt Murdock character is the perfect date and Tony will like him. reluctantly tony goes to fancy restaurant and meets Matt Murdock and they hit it off instantly the little snarky assholes. they have a nice dinner by candle light and it's all going so well up until dessert when they order some kind of chocolate lava cake which was tragically not cooked properly and ends up exploding on both of them and bam they fall in love and live happily ever after skeleton puns + reincarnation + deus ex machina A snap, that was all it took to snuff out something so bright amidst the rubble of what was once New York City, and, with Tony gone for good, the living seem rather, well…dead. Until, one day, someone they all thought long dead returned to them, a blue cube glowing in his grip and a sweet promise of a new beginning dripping from his lips. But of course, no new beginning comes without a price laundry + tenderness + dialogue “I hate laundry,” Morgan declared after trying to refold her sweatshirt for the seventh time. “Me too kiddo,” Tony whispered back, sneaking a glance over his shoulder to Pepper who was putting clothes into the wash. “But that’s why we do it together. It gets done and we don't have to do it alone.” world domination + paranoia + everything hurts Tony knew what was coming, he knew. He’d seen the future and he knew. The Kree were coming - why would no one believe him? Not his husband, not the team, not even his own son. He kept convincing them they had to suit up and defend the planet and Steve and Peter kept telling him that a engineering professor from Cal Tech can’t do that, that this suit he talks about is only in his delusions. But he’s not paranoid. Or crazy. Or any of those other words. He is Iron Man. He just has to convince everyone else. feels + useless lesbians + Santa's workshop Toni doesn’t think anyone could accuse her of overflowing with Christmas spirit. That hasn’t stopped the rest of the Avengers from turning the “festive cheer” dial up to eleven, and Toni thinks she might just have to spend the whole next month hiding in her workshop. (Hey, she let DUM-E wear a Santa hat – that has to count for something.) Too bad Jamie Barnes – cyborg superassassin extraordinaire, Captain America’s best friend, and Toni’s big gay crush – has gotten the exact same idea. Now the rest of the team thinks they’ve got a “thing,” and Toni can’t decide which is worse: putting up with the Avengers’ not-so-subtle attempts at matchmaking, or spending all her time with the woman she loves and who she is absolutely, 100%, totally certain doesn’t reciprocate. Getting through this holiday season without having her heart broken might just take… a Christmas miracle. shapeshifting + secret organizations + nurses “C. Barton - Orderly.”  That’s what his tag said.  But only a very few people knew exactly what kind of hospital Saint Natalis actually was, and just how busy they could be during the full moon. kissing games + pirates + book stores Tony always thought that the shop had a mind of its own. The books were one thing, whispering their secrets to patrons who managed to find their way to it. Jarvis always did warn him not to touch any of the artifacts. The "DO NOT TOUCH" signs plastered all over the crates. So maybe it was his fault that he managed to summon 'Buccaneer Barnes' after touching the shiny pirate sword. "Let's play a game. If you win, I'll help you put all those runaway monsters that jumped out of the books. If I win, you owe me a kiss. Whatdaya say Stark?"

[elizabethrobertajones]

(part 1) this is random but something im curious about is do you think the next few years will see a radical shift in more lead lgbt couples in shows? i feel like when supernatural started it was all about subtext/queerbating between characters we would never see canon (maybe), the last few years have seen an update in more side lgbt characters/couples and while not a lot, more main lgbt characters then we had before. I don't know if tumblr/twitter fandom translates to general audience...

Yeah, I mean, the only way is up. I feel lucky that I managed to encounter a fair amount of queer content in my formative years, whether targeted programming on TV, or taking the route of not really differentiating the perceived cultural value of independent media like webcomics and webnovels etc from the mass media as I was young enough to naturally grow up on the internet as the internet itself was growing up and web 2.0 was pretty much taking off alongside my use of the internet. And that I had liberal parents who didn’t regulate our internet, and lived in a community where culturally I didn’t really fear being discovered casually accessing all this like in particularly this terrifying seeming evangelical christian community in America.

Which really makes me feel like A: everyone should feel that comfortable in themselves via the media as I did as a mass accessible thing or B: that the world at large should be soaked in as much representation and more that I encountered as a curious teen because at the very least it did me no harm and at best helped handhold me through an awful lot. 

And then brings us to the problem that the world isn’t actually like that and for a lot of people their media is restricted one way or another, from everything such as the era of social media weirdly making us much LESS broadly travelled on the internet as I was back in the day (SO many bookmarks - I had like 100 that I would check either daily or on their weekly update schedule, with enough habit that I had pretty much memorised it all without using an RSS feed or just following everyone’s twitter and waiting for update announcements, never mind the vast pit of things which I occasionally checked to see if their sporadic but very worth it updates had occurred somewhere in the last month/year) to the vastly overwhelming amount of media accessible to us. It seems almost to flood the market and creates this panic about watching the worthiest shows and campaigning for them and raising awareness and the FOMO and how things slip by and zomg you have to watch this that and the other, when even just making this list on Netflix now contains more hours of TV than a human lifetime and also one liable to disappear from the service at some point or another without warning. 

And then on top of that you have the absolute cultural monoliths that if you’re not going to have a cohesive culture - which now includes the entire population of the world because of our connectivity on the internet and mass-joining of services - based around smaller shows and stuff, then at the very least everyone is going to watch anything under the main Disney umbrella, other superhero flicks, animated things, and all the really big studio franchises and remakes, as well as a few TV monoliths which manage to get enough people talking to make it seem like “everyone” (again - these days it seems like that’s presumed to be the entire western world plus everywhere else these things air) are watching, like Game of Thrones or whatever… THESE properties are the inescapable ones and on that basis they’re the things we have to lean on the most for representation and then again barely get any, when it comes to gender and sexuality, due to them shooting for such worldwide markets that they can’t imply gay people exist to censors in places such as China. And it exposes the cultural awfulness inherent just in getting a white female character in the lead role of some things, or the absolute garbage fire lurking underneath that if you dare have a black stormtrooper or make one of your female ghostbusters black when you’re already ruining the childhoods of so many how dare… 

In those respects, having side characters who aren’t even major well-known superheroes or jedis or ghostbusters or whatever also be gay (because even well-known lesbian Kate McKinnon didn’t manage to get her ghostbuster to be canonically gay even if we All Knew) would be absolutely groundbreaking, even if it was, like, a role that could be snipped out for the Chinese market or something. And that’s probably exactly what would happen, and cue ensuing riot from whichever fandom, along with everyone rightly pointing out that even for us who got to watch it it was still a tiny side character… I mean Disney is still at the stage of what they did with Beauty and the Beast’s ~canonical gay character~ 

So yeah… that’s thrown back to TV and smaller movies to lead the way and because the generations showing most likely the real global percentages but actually just the young western world stats on queerness in any form (like… 25% instead of 1% or whatever and that’s STILL probably too low) are still teens to young adults. The previous gayest generation above them are still just arriving in power and settling in, and the excellent changes we already have from the generation before that is what we are seeing now... But given THEIR cultural context, even their best can still seem to younger eyes, moderate and not generally placing queer characters in lead roles except in niche or indie or otherwise “acceptable” places to take those risks. I think change is always coming and culturally each generation being more open and accepting that the last is really making changes and so on, hopefully things WILL change rapidly and what was the common state of affairs in the sort of indie media I consumed as a teen will be the mainstream soon because a lot of those creators 10 years later are kicking off… 

All that said, TV in the mainstream is still controlled by Mark Pedowitz types exercising their power over the Bobos who have their Wayward Sisters pitches with the clearly labelled main character for the main teen demographic being queer. The culture is very much that we’re now pretty open and can happily have queer characters, but the main characters are still largely held separate. A good example is Riverdale, which is on the CW, a newer show with writers such as Britta Lundin, who is young, queer, and wrote a novel blatantly based on being a Destiel shipper and fan interacting with the cast and crew in fandom spaces, and whose first solo episode of Riverdale featured a looooot of the gay stuff (yay). 

But while she’s a story editor and writer for the show and can use it as a platform for writing stories for its audience using a whole range of canonically queer characters, the show still keeps all 4 of its mains at a strict remove from this. Cheryl can come out as a lesbian in the second season after a lil ho yay in the first but no clearly marked storyline about her identity, but even though Betty and Veronica kissed in the first episode it was blatant fan service (for Cheryl in-story, lol) and mostly just set the tone that they are the sort of seemingly straight girls kissing for attention while having strong romantic or physical attraction to guys. In the second season the kiss comes up again in joking that Jughead and Archie are the only ones of the main 4 who haven’t kissed, Archie gets one planted on him by a dude as a “judas kiss” moment of betrayal in season 3 and he and Jug are teased that they were expected to get together because they were close but in the same sort of homophobic undercurrent tones as early Destiel snarking from side characters, seemingly less about their relationship and more to unsettle them with implications… I mean it was a complicated moment but in the long run it didn’t seem entirely pleasant to me, especially given the overall emotional state they were in and later plot etc etc. (My mum is 1000% invested in Riverdale now as a former Archie Comics reader as a kid so this is now my life too as I was in the room when my brother callously exposed her to it, hi :P) 

Anyway that’s just one case study but aside from SPN it’s probably the most mainstream teen demographic thing I watch… Other examples would be things like B99 which had Rosa come out as bi and that’s awesome, and made us all cry a lot, but Jake, the clear main character even in a very strong and well-treated ensemble, has a great deal of bi subtext, there’s no way given Andy Samberg’s apparent habit of ad-libbing MORE progressive jokes that he’d ever be intentionally harming people if that’s how his brain works (you know, like other people quick-fire offensive stuff from their mouth working faster than brain sense of humour :P). But at the same time for all Jake’s quipping about crushes and such and the fact the show clearly knows how to be sensitive to bisexuality with Stephanie Beatriz being a strong advocate, just because Jake’s the main character and adorably married to Amy. In NO WAY can that be threatened because they’re SO GOOD, so there’s STILL uncertainty that this will pay off in the same special episode “I love my wife but I am bi” kinda way that seems obvious that could just be said. We all carry on without it affecting anything because obviously Jake’s found his soulmate so we don’t mess with that but they should know it’s important to clarify it… Even with B99′s track record, I’m nervous solely because Jake’s the main character and main characters tend not to get self-exploratory arcs about latent queerness and ESPECIALLY not if they’re happily married. If ANY show was going to do it right and trailblaze in this exact era it would be them, but… gyah :P 

Anyway I guess the conclusion right now is that the more mainstream you are the more uncertain it feels, but we are right at that cliff edge, especially with shows putting in SOME of the work. If B99 doesn’t get us there (or the Good Place where they’ll happily confirm Eleanor is bi in interviews but I believe she hasn’t said it outright on the show despite clearly showing attraction to female characters, again, the denials we know so well in SPN fandom reflect a wider audience view of dismissing this stuff as jokes and not reflective of character feeling and identification without a Special Episode dedicated to confirming it >.>) then we’re very clearly on the cusp of SOME mainstream or massively well-known show doing it at least once in a meaningful way that has an Ellen-style cultural impact on TV writing. 

Let’s make it a goal for 2019 or 2020, and hope that a NEW show with a canonically queer main from the start is pitched and becomes a mainstream hit in the next 5�� Still got a ways to go before Disney level mainstream but again there IS work going pushing the envelope, especially if we get a movie of a franchise such as idk Further Legends of Korra, or Steven Universe or something else that’s massively pushed the envelope with sexuality or gender for their main character on the small screen in the experimental petri dish they’ve had there for children’s TV. Something that would force Disney to blink about a lesbian princess or Star Wars to let Finn and Poe kiss or Marvel to let Steve and Bucky hold hands or something in order to remain relevant.

Once the Big Cultural Monoliths get in on it, I expect culture as a whole to first of all react quickly on the small screen, but honestly I’ve been waiting for them to snap pretty much my whole life since adolescence and they’re taking such wee tiny baby steps, and some factors are enormous geopolitical awfulness, that the story as a whole is unpredictable and we can only really hope that things don’t slow down. 

(Where this affects SPN is just impossible to say right now, given its almost unique position in this mess due to longevity vs fandom vs almost entirely new generation of writers’ room) 

[priestbrink]

I've been really struggling for a few years with finding my way in the world. I was raised by pretty incredible parents. My dad caring, gentle, and a good-old southern gentleman. My mom was his equal but possessed opposing qualities. She was my hero. She was the type person that would fight for the underdog for no other reason than she enjoyed the human experience and felt our best chance at improving ourselves was through working as a community. Neither were formally educated after high school, but both loved to read. My dad couldn't get enough from books regarding history, politics, and religion. My mom the opposite. She liked her dirty romance novels.

Even into high school I used to lay in bed or on the couch with her. Play with her hair and we would read. I like Sci-fi and fantasy fiction and will happily pick up a gay dirty romance novel.

My hero was taken from me by cancer when I was 18 and I slowly found myself stepping into my first year of college. I'd go to the hospital when she was there just to play with her hair and study. I'm still a momma's boy today and you'll see my blue/green eyes tear up when I talk about her sometimes. It's hard to make eye contact with myself in the mirror because she gave me these eyes.

I met an incredible guy a couple years later and life became magical again. He was my best friend. We didnt need to travel. We just moved frequently. A few cities in N Fl and then to Brooklyn NY for a job opportunity for him. And, we both had another reason for moving there that we didnt talk about until he asked me to marry him. He beat me to the question first and the state allowed it at the time when others were still fighting for the right.

During this time in my life we had an incredible group of friends. They were our neighbors and after working we were always at each others apartments.

My biological family and I continued to drift apart. We were just too different. They were absorbed in a religion that excommunicated me for my sexual preference in men and I didnt care. I gave 4 years of my life in high school to seminary and in meetings with my bishop.

I forgot to mention that at 15 my dad became my bishop, so we tried to fast and pray away the gay. It didnt work so at 18 I came out with the help of a group of hippy lesbians. Lol

I learned that life was easy with family. It's something that is engraved into our DNA. Humanity is capable of doing things above and beyond our individual selves only when we work as a community. My community and family have pulled me through hard times in the past, but I always knew I could get through things because I had words of encouragement, hugs from loved ones, and advice freely offered by those that had lived through similar situations.

A few years ago my husband and I split up after struggling with drinking and drug abuse. Too much had happened over a 2 years that the relationship wasn't fixable. I've spent 2 year since trying to figure out what went wrong and during that time I picked up a drinking habit that definitely fucked up a relationship with an incredible guy. He simply asked one day if we could just be friends.

The funny thing is we actually did become friends. We went a week or 2 later to an orchid show and had fun. It was casual and nothing weird.

I'm an odd guy and dont easily except preconceived notions like ex's can't be friends. We would on occasion text and say hi or grab lunch to catch up. My drinking continued. It cost me a couple of jobs and all this time I was also battling mental health concerns, depression and anxiety.

Life has been tough for a few years and I've made a lot of mistakes. But, something has been different from when I've struggled in the past.

Only recently have I been able to wrap my head around what that difference was. I haven't had a family to share my experiences with. It's kinda like for years I've just been alone.

I've always been a bit of a homebody and like my alone time, but my family from the past always knew they could just walk in my house. My husband and I were both southern boys at heart and if we were home then our door was unlocked.

I miss my self-made families. I had forgotten that the sound of my front door used to immediately put a smile on my face.

Something is different now for me. I find myself terrified of front doors opening. The sound of text messages or phone notifications now invokes anxiety. I've been the target of bullying in my community and I feel like I have felt like I owe an apology to someone. Today I refuse to apologize to gossip, slander, and gaslighting. If you have a problem with me then put on your big girl panties and talk to me. I try to be a person that is always improving myself and if I've offended you then let me apologize and make things right.

I dont owe an apology to some of you, but I still want to share our experiences together. I still want to help my community to advance itself.

I think gay men are failing ourselves and our community. I dont think this from just my experience, but from what I have shared with others. I feel lost and don't feel at home in my own skin. I'm failing myself and the few friends that I have managed to hold onto.

I woke up this morning and something shook me back to reality. It's not just me that's failing at life. It's like someone changed the rules on me and forgot to mention that I'm not playing life's game correctly.

I'm being told that I open myself up to bullying and putting a target on myself.

That I need to keep to myself more and not share so much about myself.

Fuck that thought. In a new man today because I choose to be. If you want in my life then I'm here and I think I'm a pretty decent guy.

If you don't want to be apart of my life then don't. One thing I've forgotten about myself is that I try to be very honest. It's part of who I am and how I was raised. I'm not changing that because I like that part of myself. It's apart of something my mom gave me. So, maybe its time I shared my super-power with my community. It's definitely time to start sharing my experiences with anyone that likes to read. Sorry if your a villain in these stories to come. Keep in mind that I'm the type guy who's head is in the clouds. I'm a day-dreamer and an aspiring fiction writer. Don't take the stories to come too personally. If your offended by the rantings of a poodle-haired guy that can't afford to feed himself. Maybe look inward. Maybe we all need to share our thoughts more openly and cut the gossip out.

[wyrmsandrocs]

all the ocean asks!! u can skip any that r uncomf

pearl: if you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?- Hm, i really want to do a trip to see the historical stuff on the US east coast, I’d also really like to go see ruins in Rome and Greece. Aside from historical interests I just…really want to be in Oregon right now

sails: describe your perfect partner. - Someone I love who loves me too

lighthouse: how much makeup do you wear? - I usually do white or black winged eyeliner, silver + whatever my colour for the day is eyeshadow, lots and lots of mascara, and some lipstick, usually non natural colours like purple, green, or just like pastel pink. Even if i decide to forgo my eye makeup im usually wearing lipstick

shells: would you prefer to be a vampire or a werewolf? - tbh a vampire cause then I would have eternity to figure out who Agent 355 was

mermaid: most embarrassing moment? - Hoo boi okay sO. One time many years ago I was a 10 year old girl on quotev. I really really liked one direction. I clicked something I probably shouldn’t have seen because of quotevs lack of an sfw/nsfw rating system. I read a lot of these because I was confused as to what they were. Instead of forgetting all about them and deleting my account like a sane person, I sent them to my best friend at the time to get /her/ to read them. Instead of asking questions abt why the hell i was reading this shit, she found way worse and kinky ones. I was horrified. I didn’t know how to delete my web history. My dad almost found the links like 20 times

turquoise: weirdest dream you’ve ever had? - The dream where my subconscious tried to tell me i was gayyyyy. It was, again, years ago, and I thought I was straight. I had just made up my first ocs cause I was doin NaNoWriMo for the first time (spoiler alert, I made it to 50,000) and i had this dream where I met and then fell in love with my oc who was super pretty and i refused to believe I was a lesbian i just chalked it up to my sleeping brain being weird

waves: favourite season and why? - Autumn and Winter are my faves because there’s rain.

breakers: would you ever consider getting married? - Yes, definitely, but gdi why isn’t poly marriage legal yet

seafoam: describe your ideal summer vacation. - Ignore summer all together and continue school where it’s rainy

rain: if it were possible, what exotic animal would you keep as a pet? - Omg a Fennec they are my favourite little animals they are so cute. My first original story that i actually wrote down and still have was about Fennecs

sunlight: least favourite song? - The Sans version of Stronger than you

marine: would you ever consider plastic surgery? - Probably not i’m ot the hugest fan of surgery at all

sea glass: what do you consider to be your best physical feature? - Man I really love my eyes i have sectoral heterochromia so my eyes are green with stripes of deep brown.

storm: do you like piercings and tattoos? Why or why not? - I really do like them, but i probably wouldnt get any more piercings than I have, I have two on each ear, but I wear a fake nose ring cause it’s pretty. I dont love the idea of getting a tattoo cause owww im a wimp also needles are not good.

boardwalk: who is your favourite fictional couple? - I really love Wylan and Jesper from Six of Crows, also lotsa ships from other stuff but right now I’m loving my children, Aria and Sitara. My smol gay witch daughters

coral: if you had to describe your personality as a food, what would you be and why? - Super dark chocolate that gives you a headache but is also really great. I’m known for giving people headaches lmao not really. Idk why it just seems right, like I may seem sweet and nice but i am actually like the most bitter person. Or sea salt caramel. I am like super salty and bitter save me lmao

nymph: old-fashioned or modern decor? - buddy old fashioned decor is the shit 

seawater: scariest movie you’ve ever watched? - Okay it’s really stupid but Dot and the Red Kangaroo scared the /fuck/ out of me as a little kid the bunyip song was terrifying. I don’t really watch scary movies tho

siren: in a fantasy setting, would you be a warrior, rogue or mage? - Maaaaaage

tempest: your favourite Pokemon? - Eevee or Vaporeon. I also really love Vulpix

tropic: what is your least favourite thing about your appearance? - I’m p self conscious abt being not a small person height or weight wise. I used to always want to be a lot smaller so that I could just kind of disappear but recently i’ve just decided that if people are gonna notice me, they are gonna notice that i’m beautiful. It’s actually really helped my confidence which is kinda weird but i’m really glad for it

aquamarine: describe your dream date. - Staying at home watching musicals and drinking hot coco in the middle of a storm

brine: gold or silver? - Silver

tidal: what is a colour that best describes your personality? - I actually really like pinks and reds and how quickly a pink can merge to a more red colour. They both stand for love, but red is also anger

azure: what is something that you do that makes you happy? - Writing honestly. Also like i really enjoy school and learning about history and languages

fog: describe where you think you’ll be in five years. - Hopefully well into college by then, I’m still in highschool but I’m gonna add college english in the fall.

coastline: what is your favourite flower? - Violets. I really like the smell of jasmine or orange blossoms

shallows: what is your typical Starbucks order? - Venti Java Chip Frappuccino idk how to spell that tho

voyage: what are your favourite names? - I really like names related to the sea like Mara

shipwreck: do you have an OC? If so, describe them. - Okay I’m gonna tell ya abt Aria and Sitara.  Aria is a Hellenic polytheist who leans toward tarot and sigils rather than actual spell work. She’s pan and loves her gf v v much. Her parents were shit and she had to leave home as soon as she could. Her parents gave her the name Megan but she really hated it so she gos by Aria. She doesn’t really know all of her parents lineage but her mother was of middle eastern descent way back in the family that no one really remembers. She doesnt want to find out and prefers looking to the future. Sitara is an atheist and has a more traditional path. Shes bi and attractd to nb peeps and women but not men, she’s also polyam which shes v v happy her gf accepts. Her parents were better but they fell out of contact a while ago. Despite not believing in Aria’s deities, she lets her worship on her own and doesnt bother her. They met in an art store, both needing to get red ribbon for a love spell. Bonus: Aria means song and Sitara means poem

cerulean: do you believe in true love? - I do, but not just the romantic kind. I think that true platonic love is also super important.

shoreline: if you could become fluent in another language, which would you pick and why? - French because I’m trying to learn it rn and it’s a royal pain. Eventually I want to learn all the Latin based languages

tsunami: describe a dream outfit of yours. - Someday I’m gonna get cute heeled boots and wear them with tights and a skirt and like a flowy long sleeve black shirt I have and do all purple makeup this will happen someday

riptide: are you introverted or extroverted? Are you happy with this? - I’m somewhere in the middle. I love talking to my friends and like that but its also really nice to just shut down skype and tumblr and read a book, yknow?

hurricane: describe a strange habit of yours. - I tend to carefully chack all the walls and corners of a room while I’m entering it, like just look around and check for anything weird, even if I’ve been there a lot. This happens with places that feel specific ways tho, like they just have suspicious energy.

Ty so much for asking, friend! ^u^