#in a kinda positive way though

[a-local-idiots-shitpost]

gonna be honest the weirdest thing I barely think about is the amount of people this blog means something to them, like am I just a passing form of entertainment for? do you actually wait for me to post and are happy about it? did I impact your live in anyway shape or form? and so many other things that I will never know about

kinda odd when I realise that just some dumb fun for me could mean so much more to somebody else

[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.

[skrunksthatwunk]

actually i'm still thinking about the moral orel finale.

he has a cross on his wall. do you know how much i think about that bc it's a lot.

a lot of stories ((auto)biographical or fictional) centering escape from abusive/fundamentalist christianity result in the lead characters leaving behind christianity entirely. and that makes complete sense! people often grow disillusioned with the associated systems and beliefs, and when it was something used to hurt them or something so inseparable from their abuse that they can't engage with it without hurting, it makes total sense that they would disengage entirely. and sometimes they just figure out that they don't really believe in god/a christian god/etc. a healthy deconstruction process can sometimes look like becoming an atheist or converting to another religion. it's all case by case. (note: i'm sure this happens with other religions as well, i'm just most familiar with christian versions of this phenomenon).

but in orel's case, his faith was one of the few things that actually brought him comfort and joy. he loved god, y'know? genuinely. and he felt loved by god and supported by him when he had no one else. and the abuses he faced were in how the people in his life twisted religion to control others, to run away from themselves, to shield them from others, etc. and often, orel's conflicts with how they acted out christianity come as a direct result of his purer understanding of god/jesus/whatever ("aren't we supposed to be like this/do that?" met with an adult's excuse for their own behavior or the fastest way they could think of to get orel to leave them alone (i.e. orel saying i thought we weren't supposed to lie? and clay saying uhhh it doesn't count if you're lying to yourself)). the little guy played catch with god instead of his dad, like.. his faith was real, and his love was real. and i think it's a good choice to have orel maintain something that was so important to him and such a grounding, comforting force in the midst of. All That Stuff Moralton Was Up To/Put Him Through. being all about jesus was not the problem, in orel's case.

and i know i'm mostly assuming that orel ended up in a healthier, less rigid version of christianity, but i feel like that's something that was hinted at a lot through the series, that that's the direction he'd go. when he meditates during the prayer bee and accepts stephanie's different way to communicate, incorporating elements of buddhism into his faith; when he has his I AM A CHURCH breakdown (removing himself from the institution and realizing he can be like,, the center of his own faith? taking a more individualistic approach? but Truly Going Through It at the same time), his acceptance (...sometimes) of those who are different from him and condemned by the adults of moralton (stephanie (lesbian icon stephanie my beloved), christina (who's like. just a slightly different form of fundie protestant from him), dr chosenberg (the jewish doctor from otherton in holy visage)). his track record on this isn't perfect, but it gets better as orel starts maturing and picking up on what an absolute shitfest moralton is. it's all ways of questioning the things he's been taught, and it makes sense that it would lead to a bigger questioning as he puts those pieces together more. anyway i think part of his growth is weeding out all the lost commandments of his upbringing and focusing on what faith means to him, and what he thinks it should mean. how he wants to see the world and how he wants to treat people and what he thinks is okay and right, and looking to religion for guidance in that, not as like. a way to justify hurting those he's afraid or resentful of, as his role models did.

he's coming to his own conclusions rather than obediently, unquestioningly taking in what others say. but he's still listening to pick out the parts that make sense to him. (edit/note: and it's his compassion and his faith that are the primary motivations for this questioning and revisal process, both of individual cases and, eventually, the final boss that is christianity.) it makes perfect sense as the conclusion to his character arc and it fits the overall approach of the show far better. it's good is what i'm saying.

and i think it's important to show that kind of ending, because that's a pretty common and equally valid result of deconstruction. and i think it cements the show's treatment of christianity as something that's often (and maybe even easily) exploited, but not something inherently bad. something that can be very positive, even. guys he even has a dog he's not afraid of loving anymore. he's not afraid of loving anyone more than jesus and i don't think it's because he loves this dog less than bartholomew (though he was probably far more desperate for healthy affection and companionship when he was younger). i think it's because he figures god would want him to love that dog. he's choosing to believe that god would want him to love and to be happy and to be kind. he's not afraid of loving in the wrong way do you know how cool that is he's taking back control he's taking back something he loves from his abusers im so normal

[loppiopio]

in a flash.

[cluescorner]

I gave myself a writing challenge and I am fascinated by it

So basically I put the robins in a randomizer to give them a new order/role (because I just...kinda wanted to see what would happen + I like role-reversal AUs) and got results that are giving me a fucking brain blast.

Stephanie, the first sidekick who defines the role

Tim, the sidekick who dies and comes back wrong

Dick, the sidekick who saves Batman from himself

Damian, the sidekick who was never supposed to be a sidekick but would go on to prove everyone wrong

Jason, the youngest sidekick who is still the Kid Wonder

...So this is fucking wild. I've got some ideas and several of these fit perfectly (Dick's role is pretty similar to his one in canon), but some of these are fucking INCREDIBLE to explore (Steph being the first Robin is something I never even considered but tbh I kinda love it).

I probably won't write a fic or anything because tbh I don't like publishing my writing that much, but I might expand this into a full AU and post about it. I might randomize other stuff too (ie, stuff that I cannot change vs stuff that I cannot keep the same) but this fucking rules as a starting point.

[bigskydreaming]

The thing that kills me about the Star Wars prequel trilogy and why I will die on my hill that my problem is not that Star Wars is a tragedy, its that its a badly written tragedy, is that Anakin Skywalker was at his closest to being a good Jedi when he was ten years old.

[etchedstars]

sorry for the influx of darcy heartstopper posts its just that her arc in s2 is about how she doesnt think shes lovable and that she can't and won't ever come out to her parents for her own safety but she still somehow manages to be happy ., and i think it may have gotten to me a little bit

[whatudottu]

Regarding your cerebrocrustacean headcanons mentioned in the previous ask: they very well could be somewhat canon given how, when asked if Albedo and Dr. Psychobos would be willing to work together, Derrick J. Wyatt responded with "Psychobos seems like a total team up slut, he'll team up with any villain any time" (his words, not mine).

Which he likely meant in the sense of "Psychobos is so power-hungry he'll team up with anyone in order to get ahead", but with your headcanons and the fact he never talks much about his personal life in mind, you could alternatively interpret it as "Psychobos is so desperately lonely he'll accept anyone he has even the slightest similarity with into his clique, even members of a species he's violently xenophobic towards" (probably to cope with/serve as a rebound for his mancrush Azmuth friendzoning him /lh /hj).

Now all of this is making me realize that it was a massive missed opportunity in Omniverse to not have Psychobos' demeanor do a complete 180 around the people he works with compared to everyone else (whether sincere or a thinly-veiled manipulation tactic) if not solely for a few jokes. Especially him acting like an affectionate father figure towards Malware (whether he likes it or not) solely so he can rub it in Azmuth's face that "I'm a FAR more attentive and caring parental figure towards your creation than YOU ever were, and I use the term loosely".

WHAT DO YOU MEAN DJW SAID 'TEAM UP SLUT' HAHAH WHAT!? dear god it's true it's on the wiki what the fuck what the fuck assdfjhghsdlfkgfkl-!

I mean, look at his already canon group; Khyber, allegedly the greatest huntsman in the galaxy, teaming up with Dr Psychobos to make a little watch that can sample (specifically predatory) animals; and Malware, a technology absorbing mutant mechamorph, working with the cybernetically enhanced (also listed as a mutant???) cerebrocrustacean in order to make said watch- if liking the concept of animals and incorporating machines as part of oneself is enough to get into Dr Psychobos' clique well, he's certainly stretched what that means far enough to at least snag two others into his initial team up. Same can't be said for Attea and the incurseans which seems to be more of a sponsor type relationship, and Maltruant commissioned him to repair his body but violated the trade agreement so whether or not Psychobos would do business with the incurseans again, he's already squarely sequestered Maltruant in the outest of out-groups :P

Hah, the 'Dr Psychobos adopting Malware specifically to stick it to Azmuth' bit reminded me of a signing-the-adoption-papers version of the 'I throw my used car batteries in the ocean' thing- something along the lines of; [psychobos voice] "You are the most calamitous individual I have had the pleasure of meeting, and I use the term loosely." [malware voice, threateningly] "I have devoured and absorbed the specs of the Omnitrix." [psychobos signing adoption papers] [malware, experiencing the affects of cerebrocrustacean in-grouping and having no frame of reference on how to deal with it] "What the fuck is happening-"

[alluralater]

hey everyone, i won’t be as active for a while. got home last night super late after being on the road for 20 some odd hours. dealing with some family things and as an older sister, my priority of taking care of my siblings comes first before anything else. being on here is amazing for me but i don’t think i’ll have much time for it. reminder to please treat those in your life who are battling addiction with patience and care. i lost my older brother (sweetest person i’ve ever known and he remained that way up until his last night) to suicide and alcoholism, trauma and ptsd, depression and his feelings of hopelessness. talk with the people you care about. another of my siblings is dealing with the same and i refuse to let it escalate to such a terrifying end twice in less than a fucking year. remind the people you care about that there are beautiful things to live for. show them kindness and love. there is all kinds of misinformation out there but know this, you can make a difference for someone. don’t let them suffer in silence.

[front-facing-pokemon]

Waited until the full line was out but nose rating for the Popplio line= THE BEST / 10. Look at those SHNOZZES !!!!!!! God it's so cute. Little clown nose I love you. Honks it. Honks it twice. Adore it really they have the best noses. Best snoots. Best starter🗣‼️‼️ (in my v humble opinion)

look how much everyone agrees with you!!! popplio line is the best. they're wonderful. we all agree upon this and no one disagrees with this

don't worry your secret is safe with me

looks like that little saga immediately resolved itself accidentally. shoutouts to the slightly-less-anonymous nose rater

[ruvviks]

HIIIIIIII BONES what faction(s) does tiberius join? and which companions is he closest with? :]

HIII EZRA THANK YOU SO MUCH :] this got insanely long because i have. so much to say about this game it's unreal i'm very sorry in advance. but hope you enjoy ^_^

so in my canon of fallout 4, there's a couple of things different from the game because i personally don't think of tiberius as a leader in any sort of way, mainly because he's like. 23 years old. that's a literal baby. he was only born yesterday fresh out of the freezer

so!! that means that the minutemen are already very much established in the commonwealth again when he emerges from the vault, and there's a lot of sprawling settlements to be found in places where you'd otherwise have to build them yourself in game; so sanctuary isn't abandoned at all, and tiberius returns to his sister's home with a special surprise waiting for him (every other house in the neighborhood is now home to a bunch of strangers centuries into the future! welcome home boy!)

that said, tiberius DOES end up sort of joining the minutemen?? but not officially. he meets preston in sanctuary who helps him get settled in in this new and strange world and in return to show his gratitude tiberius helps out wherever and whenever he can, but considering the path of revenge he's about to go on he doesn't really consider himself good enough of a person to like. fully be part of it if that makes sense?? especially since the minutemen aim for as much peaceful resolution of things as possible, and he is not like that :(

tiberius massively dislikes diamond city, and feels a lot more at home in goodneighbor. he does some mercenary work there for a while and that's also how he ends up with the railroad, which he Does officially join :] a bunch of my other fallout ocs are also railroad agents; max, who's also general of the minutemen (don't ask how she finds the time to juggle all these different jobs she doesn't know it herself either); magnus, who's a goodneighbor guard; and nikolai, an ex-raider who now does a bunch of stealth operations for the railroad. tiberius takes his job as agent very seriously and through his new connections becomes more involved with the minutemen as well, now that he knows the two work together to give escaped synths a new and safe home and such :]

he does NOT join the brotherhood of steel. he hates them so fucking much it's unreal. to him they're literally just invading the commonwealth with the way they're terrorizing settlements and forcibly establishing their own outposts and whatnot and it causes a lot of chaos everywhere which is NOT ideal at all. max is handling most of the situation but she's clearly under a lot of pressure and it makes tiberius want to blow some shit up. which he eventually does when everything has escalated so far that there's not really another way to deal with it anymore

he only joins the institute to infiltrate them for the railroad, and he is NOT having a good time during it. he dislikes shaun (his nephew, not his son!) so fucking much but there's nothing he can do about it. i'm trying to make the institute a bit more interesting but it's still a work in progress because well the game leaves a lot to be desired on that front to me personally but either way, the whole place makes him super paranoid and he quickly realizes that it's a LOT bigger than what it's making itself out to be. the area he's allowed to be in seems just a little bit too well-organized and streamlined as if it's all pre-programmed and he constantly feels like he's being watched. which he is! because he ends up finding proof of a lot more levels that go much deeper into the ground and while a lot of them seem to be abandoned, he does end up finding evidence that there's more people holed up Somewhere. and they're watching everything that's happening in the area of the institute he's allowed to be in. it's all part of something bigger and he does NOT like that shit

lastly, tiberius ends up with the children of atom :] kind of against his will?? but also he's not really being forced to stay so it's kind of a gray area really. basically what happened is that he went to the glowing sea, ended up passing out because he went by himself like the stubborn mf he is and the children of atom take them to their crater to nurse him back to health but also give him like. some sort of special radiation cocktail of some sort which ends up making him a bit of a freak. much more resilient, much more absent as well, a bit faster than he used to be. he's basically their chosen one because i feel like out of all factions it'd make most sense for the children of atom to be weirdly obsessed with him like he's a perfectly preserved human from before the war. that IS kinda fascinating

either way tiberius doesn't really mind being part of them all that much because it puts him in like a negotiator position if that makes sense?? the other factions all have their other touching points where he isn't all that needed to create connections and stuff but having this extra connection with the children of atom who are mostly feared by the rest of the commonwealth helps a LOT with keeping peace and all that, so it's beneficial for all parties involved because it also means that tiberius can just freely enter any of their outposts and he can rely on them if he needs them for anything :] the children of atom are a lot more willing to assist him with something that may be a bit shady than the minutemen or railroad would basically so it's a good backup to have LMAO

as for companions, tiberius is closest with preston 100% :] when he emerged from the vault, preston was the first person who talked to him and didn't treat him as a possible threat, and he helped him get settled in which tiberius will always be grateful for because he was so so scared. and preston made everything a little bit easier. he's very caring and patient and matches tiberius' funnyman energy surprisingly well when they're joking around, which would all remind tiberius a lot of his sister stella. preston Would in fact be like a brother to him :]

he enjoys hanging out with piper and nick, but only sparingly so since those two just love to investigate stuff and a lot of their time hanging out ends up turning into business of some sort and tiberius does NOT have the detective's spirit! he likes being clueless. he does not always need to know everything. he does like tagging along but sometimes he just wants to SIT and have a beer or something

which, naturally so, makes hancock better company for him. tiberius did a couple of gigs for him personally (and got to know him much more intimately during a wild night with both him and magnus but we don't talk about that) and he likes to stop by goodneighbor regularly for a drink and to talk about shit that's been going on lately. since magnus and hancock are together, magnus is there a lot as well but tiberius sees him a lot more regularly at the railroad too :]

that being said, the railroad is definitely tiberius' main hub for hanging out with people he loves the gang SO much. his best friends there would be nikolai, glory (she's alive yes obviously), deacon, and tinker tom :] and also max but tiberius sees her a LOT more at the castle since that's by the end of the in-game events also a place he can be found at a lot. he doesn't take a lot of minutemen jobs but he does help out on location with whatever they need, plus the castle is a huge and busy marketplace which would be super fun to visit (especially at night) so he just likes hanging out there in general! that's also where he hangs out with cait and roxy (max' wife) whenever he gets the opportunity

tiberius' relationship with x6-88 is. strained. on a surface level he likes the guy, but his loyalty to the institute definitely gets in the way of their friendship a lot at first. i haven't entirely figured out yet how to like, get x6-88 on tiberius' side in a satisfying way that doesn't feel out of character for him?? but that's basically what i'm aiming for, because the two DO spend a lot of time together away from the institute itself which would give tiberius a lot of opportunities to show x6 what the commonwealth is really like. and what the institute's reputation is and all that. and with x6 getting attached to tiberius during all of that he WILL be forced to pick a side at the end of it all. and i personally don't think he would side against tiberius after spending all that time building up an actual friendship for the first time in his life

surprisingly enough, tiberius and maccready did NOT!!! get along well at first AT ALL. when tiberius was taking gigs in goodneighbor he was unbeknownst to him stealing away a lot of mac's clientele so naturally mac has very one-sided beef with him. especially because both of them are like. babies. i can't remember maccready's exact age but that's a baby. and tiberius is one too. and they're both competitive and kinda stupid so when they first "officially" meet there's this insane tension between the two of them and every conversation they have is just a pissing contest. they've been kicked out of goodneighbor together on at least one occasion because of their near screaming competitions

(at some point after the battle of bunker hill and tiberius has temporarily broken ties with the institute because shaun's attitude pissed him the fuck off he goes to goodneighbor with his friends and after a drink or two too many he agrees to a bet maccready makes with him about killing elder maxson. tiberius succeeds by knocking out a brotherhood pilot and pretending to be the pilot instead, sort of successfully flying a vertibird up to the prydwen, somehow knocking out a guy in full power armor to then steal said guy's power armor, killing elder maxson (who by then has committed enough war crimes including but not limited to laughing max in the face when she tried to talk to him about a possible collaboration in hopes to keep the peace in the commonwealth) with a pipe pistol, and then jumping down(!!!!!!!!!) in the power armor to make his escape by walking over the bottom of the ocean on the shoreline in the power armor. he brought the guy's coat and dogtags with him as proof. maccready was turned on and angry about it)

but after traveling together for a while, tiberius and maccready learn they have a lot more in common than they initially thought and they grow closer over time :] i adjusted mac's story as well by making lucy his older sister rather than his wife (HE'S A BABY. HE DOESN'T NEED A WIFE AND A CHILD IN THIS ECONOMY) and duncan his nephew, so it's still a direct parallel to tiberius' story except lucy is still alive but missing, whereas stella is in fact very much dead. at first it makes tiberius feel frustrated and upset in a very selfish way, but it helps him with like, allowing himself to grieve for the first time since he exited the vault which by then is a LONG time ago, and then it also helps him with moving on from it rather than staying stuck in the past. helping mac with curing duncan and finding lucy helps the both of them and after all that they end up getting together :]

SO YEAH. very bumpy road for tiberius all in all and he makes connections in a bunch of different places, but he's always just a gear in the machine rather than the one operating the machine if that makes sense :] he feels a lot more at ease when he can actually make a difference at his own pace rather than having everyone look up to him constantly, the closest he got to that was when he was the one to infiltrate the institute and he has NEVER been that stressed before in his life. he makes it out alive and relatively unharmed but good lord. he's never doing that shit ever again

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

damn... kinda mad i didn't die in my dream last night... could've added another method to the list

[msburgundy]

oh boy, the next couple months are going to be rough

[jitteryjive]

i need to remake my cup bros ref… both cup and human designs… it’s been almost a year(?) and i’ve developed the headcanons and i would like to share with the class!!! (i wrote thirty tags. Please help me)

[carlottastudios]

So I think I'm making some decent progress on my unhinged Kaeya lore thoughts post

The WIP of the mindmap is below the cut

I'm really scared that I'm still missing a lot of stuff, but it's past midnight now so I'll be stopping for now and actually get some sleep

[primordial0riginator]

Me, the only Ares and Nyx shipper on planet earth: 😏