#it's hard to talk about feelings

[ladysternchen]

All of Arda Is Autistic- Maeglin

Maeglin looked up from the newly-forged sword he had just showed to his uncle, praising it’s many assets, only to stare straight into Idril’s eyes. Immediately, he felt his face growing hot and lowered his gaze, hating himself for his insecurities. 

“I think I never heard you talk so much, and with so much passion.”

It was a statement, nothing more, but Maeglin was sure he discerned a note of accusation in his cousin’s tone. 

“It is a good sword, Maeglin, the likes of which you will not find often even here among the most skilled smiths of Gondolin.”

Maeglin nodded, encouraged once more by his uncle’s earnest praise.

“It is the alloy that makes it special, lord! The mountains are rich with may different metals, but no-one seems to have delved for them in earnest yet!”

“No.” Turgon agreed. “Indeed we have had no knowledge of the strengthening of swords by using different metals. Our interest in those were mainly so to make jewellery and other fair works of art.”

Maeglin bowed courteously, while he could practically hear his father’s voice in his mind, scoffing. What use were fair trinkets, when there were blades to be wrought cunningly, so that they would become near sentient?

Turgon returned the small bow and left, but Idril, to Maeglin’s great surprise, did not. 

“Why are you so, cousin?” she asked, and Maeglin tensed at once.

“How?”

Idril eyed him thoughtfully for a while, then said: “I’ve never heard you talk of your parents’ deaths, nor have I seen you shed a tear for them since. For long, I thought you incapable of any such thing as emotions, but yet here you stand and explain the alloy of metals with such reverence in your voice that it borders on love.”

Maeglin considered what she had said for a moment, then answered: “It is not so that I do not grieve them. My mother, mainly, but also my father. But what good is there in speaking about those grievous things, when they cannot be undone?”

Idril nodded after a while, apparently lost in thought.

“How was it, growing up in the dark? I cannot imagine it being anything but horrible.”

“Yet it was not.”

She looked at him wonderingly, and Maeglin could not help but feel heartened by her interest in him, so he told her of his childhood and youth, something he could never have imagined doing.

“… you see, whatever the common conception, my father was not some kind of monster. He was caught in his own mind, and often so, and never felt at home among the Eldar, but in his strange way, he loved us, my mother and me. He cared for us. All this, the lore of how metals work, I learned from him, and he learned it from the Lords of Nogrod, among whom he was held in great respect. He was a fabulous smith!”

Idril wrinkled her nose.

“Well, but love does not excuse imprisoning others.”

“’t was only in the last years that Amil grew weary of Nan Elmoth. My father could never stand the light of the sun, he said it hurt him. But we wandered the forest by starlight, and we were content.”

A smile played about her lips.

“Aredhel never stayed long anywhere, I guess.”

Maeglin shook his head.

“No.”

“But you know, had he truly loved her, he would have let her go!”

He stared at her, aghast. How could letting go mean love? Idril stared curiously at him and he held her gaze, even if it made him very uncomfortable. After a while, she turned away with a sigh, leaving Maeglin behind, and he sensed that he had somehow said something wrong, but how and what was a mystery to him.

[donnieisaprettyboy]

can we stop pretending like it’s so super easy for trans men to pass. “oh just put on a baggy shirt and cut your hair-“ it literally doesn’t work like that and I refuse to believe you actually think it’s that easy

[iwieldthesword]

I need to talk about this because it's making me feel insane.

Last week, my white leftist goyisch friends sat me, a wholeass antizionist Jew, down for a "talk" because they "needed to check in about Palestine" and make sure "our values aligned before we hung out again". They apparently needed to "suss out" where I stood on Palestinian rights, despite having had several conversations about Palestine and them being some of my closest friends. They needed to check, to search for and uncover my true values, because I had said some "disturbing things" that had made them "suspicious".

Disturbing things included:

Supporting IfNotNow which is a "liberal zionist organization" because it normalizes Jewish heritage in the Levant

Not bringing Palestine up enough, despite them also not bringing it up (this was apparently a test)

Mentioning that the Houthi's flag talks about cursing all Jews

Saying Stalin was antisemitic because of the "all the paw-grihms"

...and apparently other things they wouldn't specify, but had been tracking for months.

To clarify, I am an antizionist Jew from three generations of antizionist Jews. I have been vocal in my support of Palestinian liberation and in my condemnation both of Israel's actions and its violent founding as a state, and of zionism in many of its forms. I am a regular donor to Palestinian and Jewish NGOs and advocate for Jewish antizionism in person, at temple, and online. I have been talking about Palestinian liberation before they could point to Gaza on a map. But they needed to make sure, they needed to "suss out", they needed to check. And it's notable that the majority of moments that made them suspicious of me were times where I talked about antisemitism: not about Palestinian liberation, not about Israeli decolonization, not about anything actually relevant to Palestine. It was talking about antisemitism that made them check to see if I was a cryptozionist.

One of the most pervasive and insidious forms of antisemitism is the idea that Jews are inherently untrustworthy and suspicious. You have to constantly be on guard, track what they say and do, "suss out" the real truth. You have to keep them in line and and watch them carefully because they're liars and sneaks, and if you're not looking closely they'll return to their real values (and drag you down with them). This is where the idea of "cryptozionist" comes from and what it's directly building off of: the inherent untrustworthiness of Jews and the need to check. Because no matter how close you become you can't actually trust them, and any upstanding gentile should make sure to avoid associating with Jews before "sussing out" their real allegiances and intentions. You have to make them turn out their pockets, just in case.

I'm the first and only Jew they actually were friends with; I know because they've told me (strangely proud of it in the way white Americans are proud of that kind of thing). They've asked me questions about Judaism and fawned over how beautiful and unique it was for me to be connected to my community and culture. Pre-October 7th, one of them had even mentioned being interested in coming to services at my temple. She still has my copy of our siddur. But now she needed to "check" before she could be seen with me in public. Which is what it was: it wasn't a "you're my friend and I need to give you some feedback because you're fucking up" kind of intervention (which is normal and important to have), it was a trial. It was a last chance for me to prove to them that I'm clean-enough that they could afford to risk being seen with me in public, just in case someone noticed them fraternizing with a hypothetical Enemy and their leftism was compromised. It was a test to make sure that I behave properly when required to, that I'd play along and do what I'm told and turn out my pockets if asked (because any refusal would validate the notion of having something to hide). And above all it was an opportunity for them to reaffirm their own cleanliness by putting my imagined immorality in its place.

I did what I needed to do: I smiled. I apologized. I "didn't know that". I "appreciated the feedback". I turned out my pockets because what else could I do? They'd decided who I was and what I believed, regardless of what I said or did, so there was no point in explaining that they were wrong about me. If I had told them they were being antisemitic, it would just have been proof that they were right. Caring about antisemitism is a dogwhistle in the spaces they've chosen: it's not a real form of oppression, it's a tactic for sneaky, lying Jews to weasel out of admitting their true alliances. There was nothing I could say.

Nothing's really changed for me. I'm going to continue my activism for Palestinian liberation rooted in my culture and my faith. Antizionism is still not antisemitism. But I got a reminder that many white goyisch leftists fundamentally just don't trust Jews, and that the activist spaces they're in not only exacerbate their antisemitism in an increasingly insular echo chamber, but also allow them to finally vent their internalized bigotry in a socially-acceptable way. In my former friends' eyes, what they did was activism—disavowing a Jew (and making me feel humiliated, scared, and unclean in the process) as a cathartic stand-in for doing fucking anything for actual Palestinian liberation—but for me it was a grief that I'll be feeling for a long time: not only over losing friends I loved and trusted, but also over my sense of belonging and security in leftist spaces.

[oobbbear]

I want to post this here too because I’ve seen it happen a few times

Please understand that there are cultural differences and language differences, if you see this happening let the person clarify what they meant, that person might just not be familiar with words the western side of the internet use

[hinamie]

corvidae

[nova-rpv]

a redraw of the first drawing i posted here to celebrate the fact that ive been in tumblr for more than a whole year posting my shit and havent deleted my blog in panic yippee \:D/ (mushy rant in tags)

[starry-bi-sky]

on a completely separate note; shizun luo binghe with a disciple shen yuan who fell into the abyss??? *thinks about LBH canonically stealing SQQ's corpse for 5 years* he'd hallucinate i think. like, like visual and audial hallucinations.

Keeps thinking he's seeing SQQ in the corner of his eyes, or wandering between the trees, amongst a group of disciples. Thinks he hears him calling for him, but its just the wind or another disciple.

Gets Xiu Ya reforged but patently fucking refuses to make a sword mound. Because his disciple Is Not Dead :))) There was No Body. He's Not Dead. And If You keep Insisting That He Is, He's Gonna Skewer You :). He's holding onto Xiu Ya so he can return his most favored disciple's sword when he returns. It's on his hip right next to Zheng Yang where it's supposed to be.

Also this motherfucker?? does not sleep btw. He has the image of SQQ, wide eyed and hysterical and standing at the mouth of the abyss burned into his fucking eyelids. Can't use the dreamscape to escape it either because he keeps trying to save him and either he does and it's an incredibly cruel trick to wake up to, or he doesn't and he gets his heart broken in several different pieces again.

There is no convincing this man that Shen Qingqiu is dead. Absolutely nothing at all. He is buried so deep in denial that moles would be jealous of how deep he is. He keeps making tea for two in the bamboo house only to remember that it's just him. SQQ's fans are hiding everywhere, little reminders of his presence. He goes to wake up SQQ on the mornings he sleeps in-- only to find the room empty.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Ooh, you want to know what happens at the gay bar run by ex-pirates, ooh...You'll just have to read Tiger Tiger to find out...

(Inspired by this Disco Elysium comic)

[smokin-salmon]

Fuck it. *Makes the old woman cry*

[forgettable-au]

FORGETTABLE-AU (page 82-85)

THAT LAZYBONES!!

[BEGINNING] [PREVIOUS] [CONTINUE]

[taffywabbit]

so like. at what point are we going to stop listening to game companies saying "the game was poorly received and didn't meet our sales targets, and that's why we're removing it from storefronts and taking down all the servers mere months or even weeks after release" for titles that had a long expensive development, were barely marketed, and nobody knew they'd even released until after they heard they were getting shut down and couldn't be played/purchased anymore?

I feel like the prevailing takeaway for anyone who doesn't just conclude "yeah, game was pretty mid, makes sense to me" has usually been "this company just has unreasonably impossible sales expectations and treats every project like a failure if it doesn't print a trillion dollars". but these ARE allegedly experienced business execs who aren't complete idiots, and after this most recent debacle with Concord I'm starting to wonder if a bunch of these "games getting wiped out of existence when they underperform instead of just being allowed to persist as they are and maybe improve with time" cases in recent years might be more of a Warner-Discovery type situation, like nuking an entire animated series or film that was worked on for years and preventing it from being sold because it has to be officially unprofitable for the company to use it as a tax write-off. I look at a game that was worked on for 8 years and only made available for 2 weeks, and it's hard not to see the parallels.

great work, AAA games industry, really normal and sustainable stuff you're doing over there as usual

[voltaical-art]

im in agony. a little self indulgent but I think wyll deserves to be told he's loved and have a small breakdown about it

[shorelinnes]

favorite lee know looks (2/?) ↳ superbowl (japanese version)

[buckyscap]

something about logan falling for wade in the most simple, unexpected moments. something about logan falling for wade softly.

they're having lunch in a diner. logan's plate is already empty while wade's still half-full because he can't stop rambling about the superheroes in his world, telling logan about each one of their lores and then he'd stop briefly to swallow or to drink. logan thinks it's adorable, so he keeps listening.

they're grocery shopping. logan pushes the cart, wade's the one putting stuff in it, and he'd point to every neighbor they meet and tell logan the latest gossips about them. logan makes sure to match his pace with wade's.

logan watches as wade and al argue heatedly. but even in the middle of it, wade still walks over and stomps down the warped floorboards in front of the kitchen to make sure al doesn't trip. logan finds himself not minding the thought of kissing wade.

[ghost-bxrd]

Prompt:

Instead of going for Tim, Jason goes for the easiest way to utterly destroy his Replacement and kidnaps his civilian boyfriend to demonstrate just how easy it is to lose something (or someone) you love in this line of work.

And while the whole “make the Replacement beg” part of the plan is going amazing…. Jason really didn’t plan the whole “keeping a conspiracy theorist teenager hostage” through to the end.

Bernard just wants to know what the new crime lord’s deal with Robin is. And why— and how— exactly he’s supposed to be a bargaining chip when he can count the times he met Robin on one hand. oh! and could someone maybe tell his boyfriend, Tim, that he’ll be late for their coffee date on Tuesday?

[ewwww-what]

Nobody is as excited about the preview as I am. I have paragraphs.