#literally not even tumblr compression is this bad what the fuck

[teslacoils-and-hubris]

I feel like what's being left out of the conversation about why an algorithm would be bad for tumblr is because we know what algorithms do on other social media sites. Promote reactionary hate.

Twitter is such a discourse spewing cesspool BECAUSE the algorithm promotes posts with lots of engagement. What kind of posts are those? Posts that make people mad. It is an endless feedback loop of arguing and hate. There's a reason click bait of people doing outrageous gross things get spread and its because they make people mad. Facebook literally has papers showing how their algorithm promotes hateful content. It's a well documented, well recorded problem.

I know they've said they're rolling back the algorithm based dash idea, but still most of the complaints I saw were people not saying that they didn't want it to change. And yeah I don't want it to change either but there are reason behind that beyond just preferring it to how other sites run things

And since I'm only allowing myself one post on the matter- if they decide to compress reblog chains they're fucking idiots. They literally already have a feature for that, shorten long posts, and NO ONE USES IT!!! ITS ON THE SAME LIST OF THINGS WE TELL NEWCOMERS TO TURN OFF ALONGSIDE BEST THINGS FIRST!!! THIS IS ALREADY A FEATURE!!! IF PEOPLE WANT IT THEY CAN USE IT WHY WOULD YOU MAKE IT MADITORY WHEN REBLOG CHAINS ARE SO INTEGRAL TO THE SITE

I would even argue that having these options, AND KEEPING THEM AS OPTIONS, is a good thing. If people want an algorithm spoonfeeding them content and an experience more similar to other sites? Fine. Let them. Tell them it's a thing when they make an account, and let it be something people can toggle on and off. Whatever. But trying to force everyone who prefers tumblr as it is to basically have Twitter 2.0? You're stupid and insane if you think that's a good idea

[ryouhiko-ankuu]

I saw that post about what Tumblr is supposedly planning to do... I found out about your art a few years ago and I love your style, and I know it's frustrating to have the threat of your work being put on AI and such, I understand the feeling as an artist too (although I haven't uploaded my art yet to Tumblr)

You don't have to answer this message, but I wanted to send this because I found out about an interesting tool that can be helpful against the AI problem that you may like: https://www.tumblr.com/does-this-look-inanimate-to-you/740926391530487808?source=share

Sorry for the bad English though, it is not my first language. I really love your art and hope I could get as good as you someday!

Thanks for your kind words anon.

I know about Nightshade and Glaze, even used the latter a couple of times, and I admire the team's efforts... BUT realistically I can't use it:

they still haven't addressed the issue with 1660/1650/1550 GPUs (and I don't have any spare money to buy a new GPU just to make Glaze and Nightshade work)

iirc the only Glaze version that worked for me was 0.0.3 and that's simply because it didn't use GPU at all; their latest "non-GPU" version on download page still switches to GPU for an unknown reason and produces the same black image error again;

I contacted them three times trying to troubleshoot this and they never replied;

I have access to webglaze, but it barely solves any problems. It has a limitation of 10 glazes per day and 40 glazes per week. This might seem like a non-issue since I post stuff once in a blue moon, but let me illustrate what the problem here is with an example - here, look at the glazed version of the screenshot with Jam that I posted on twitter:

As you can see, glaze artifacts here fuck the whole image up like some really bad jpeg compression, there's even some weird pink blob on her face. These artifacts are a common problem for artists who use clean lines and colours instead of painterly style. To be fair, you can still make it look much prettier, like some kind of a fancy texture, but for that you literally have to run it many, MANY times, like some gacha. Ten glazes are NOT enough. If I had a working app, I could run it twenty, fifty, heck I could run it hundred times to figure out better settings and image properties. I have no such opportunity, so instead I just tried sending it to webglaze one more time, got another result with a pink blob across Jam's face and opted for posting a non-glazed version.

I guess I sound like some ungrateful bitch but honestly I'm mostly disheartened that the only tools to protect my work at least somehow are just posting smaller images with 72 dpi resolution and blocking AI bros to avoid targeted attention. I'm tired. So fucking tired. And I can't even "draw for myself" and keep my work on the hard drive away from people's eyes because it's quite literally a form of communication for me. Duh.

[chemicalbakeryarts]

Well, this is new! Not sure if you guys know this over on Tumblr but I love to try new things! And uh.. this time, I would try something a bit more physical than usual!

This custom is of an oc of mine, Legendary Flare! Though I have not posted her to Tumblr, so uh���. If you want more information check out her DeviantArt post! (Semi-old art lol)

As a Skylanders fan, and someone who has tons of Skylanders oc's. I'm naturally going to want a toy of my Skylanders oc's! Toy customs have been something I've wanted to do for at least a few months.... I was thinking of doing a custom of Thorn on Knockout Terrafin and really want to make that. But it was just a "yeah that would be cool" with no serious intent of actually doing anything with those actions. Until less than a week ago I actually started taking this seriously, and I think it was around two weeks ago when I was having dinner with my Dad and asked if we could go shopping for art supplies for making a clay sculpture, and fortunately for me, he said yes! (I'll be applying for a job.... again in a few days so I'm hoping I won't need him for this kind of stuff in the future) I ended up drawing a reference photo for the pose I wanted to do, and the next day we headed out to Micheals. 40$ CAD down the drain I quickly got to work on making a clay figure of Legendary Flare, effectively turning what used to be my epic gamer man cave into an a mini-art studio. starting with removing Torch from her base using some pliers. And FUCK dude removing a Skylander from the base is difficult, it might be because of being weak as fuck and my slender hands but it is NOT easy.

But after that was dealt with I got to work on sculpting. Day one, I did her legs, day two I did the tail, day three I did the rest of the body, and day four I did the painting. And although getting her big legs to stay on the damn base wasn't easy, soon enough I got her on. The sculpting was incredibly fun around the end! Sure it was a bit difficult to make sure everything... you know, stuck. but It was a good time! And painting was soooo satisfying. I was literally squealing and going "oh my god" while finishing the paint job, it was amazing and I loved every second of it.

Now, time for the mistakes I made. (for context I used air dry clay, and although the paint doesn't matter here I used acrylics)

First, making everything stick together. I recommend making small holes and indents in places you want to stick parts into. like placing the arm on the torso? Make a small indent hole in the torso. Maybe this is an issue from me not using a wire armature for the figure but getting everything in place proved to be difficult. Her claws kept falling out because they were on the edge of the base. And also using a wet paintbrush to mold the clay together of course.

Second, smoothing everything out. Basically getting a wet paint brush and stroking the clays cracks. I didn't do this enough. Which you can't tell as much since the images were compressed but its a bit of an issue, less so since this character has scales, but again, its an issue.

----------------------------------------

Overall I would say sculpting is a super fun experience! Generally I just love trying new things with my art but this proved to be especially rewarding! And, uh... If anyones wondering why I chose Legendary Flare specifically. Its for three reasons. A: I don't care about Torch and Legendary Flare is my only fire element oc, B: She only has three colours so painting her would be pretty easy, and C: she isn't a main character or anything so if I mess up, it's not as bad as someone more well-known and pushed on my account.

I briefly considered making a video about my process on this (hell I even filmed Torch before I removed her) but later I decided not to film because I wasn't sure if the results would be good and since Legendary Flare, being a Legendary variant requires some context to explain why she's a variant anyways. I might make a video about a future custom tho idk.

Be sure to let me know your thoughts on me doing customs and if you want me to make more of them! I have a lot more clay and paint and I do not like to waste money!

(also what tags do people put toy customs in?)

[sparxwrites]

i'm slowly circling around hermitcraft (i keep telling myself i'm not going to get into another minecraft smp thing, i did my days in the yogscast mines) and it's so compelling. i won't lie. what would you, personally, suggest as a starting point for someone who hasn't watched any of these people before? even without knowing these characters, your hermitcraft fic is so good that i want to learn more about them

yeah see, i told myself that too and then dsmp and 3rd life and hermitcraft happened and. here i am. back in the pits again!! having the time of my life about it ngl.

so, okay, my first caveat would be: fandom does a lot of heavy lifting re: it having a plot. like... i'd say they're less plotty than the yogs were, with season 8 being an honourable exception. so don't go in expecting that my fic has uhhhhh. really any relation to canon lmao. (though to be fair, it didn't really in yogs either, so...)

first option: watch an episode of Hermitcraft Recap (a channel that does a weekly "what happened on hermitcraft this week" highlights video), see if any of the things mentioned take your fancy, and then check out the channel of the hermit that did it. this is good if you're hunting for someone doing a specific Thing in minecraft, rather than streamer personality.

second option: see the rec list below, and check out one of those people's season 8. season 8 is now over, but it was very short compared to regular seasons - so a lot of the excitement gets compressed and amped up, and it's a good way to really get an idea of what people are about. it will give you an unrealistic idea of how plotty hermitcraft gets, especially the end, because they went absolutely off the shits with that one, but it's a great season.

third option: see the rec list below, and jump straight into season 9 - either at the beginning of someone's series, or at the current point, or skip around through various people's things. we're like 20-ish eps in, depending on the person, but honestly it's pretty easy to dip in and out; we just had a big Plot Development with rendog getting crowned king of the server, so it's a good time to start! rec list (biased to the people i watch, obvs! the others are great too, but these are my faves), to help you decide who to pick:

Literally unhinged impossible redstone, constantly on his villain arc, (and tomato plants?): DocM77

Very good redstone, also extremely funny: TangoTek (also makes excellent noises), MumboJumbo (on break atm. i miss him :( ), Zedaph (he's doing. weird shit this season, but i support him in his quest to be a lunatic)

Incredible building, but also chaos-gremlin energy: BdoubleO100 (excellent noises pt.2), Grian (main character energy, tumblr's fave), PearlescentMoon (i am kissing her s9 base directly on the mouth)

Incredible building, really nice voice: GoodTimesWithScar (tumblr's other fave)

Building but also like. weirdly chill-but-horny vibes: Keralis (deliberately), Rendog (on accident)

Literally no idea but you should watch him: Joe Hills (very odd, currently hyperfixated on pinball machines, i find him very soothing for reasons that escape me, writes haikus for his episodes????)

fourth option: some of what you've seen from me will be from 3rd / last / double life, a bunch of semi-hardcore "death games" series run by grian and involving a bunch of hermits (plus some other friends, including inthelittlewood from the yogscast!). these are great, and i watched these before hermitcraft, and then based who i was watching in hc on what i'd seen there. double life is happening rn and we're only 3 eps in, so it'd be easy to catch up! it's basically a soulmate au but in minecraft, because grian is insane; i'm really enjoying BdoubleO100, PearlescentMoon, Tango, Rendog, and Grian (Scar is on a weird zookeeping arc, godbless, so he's in my bad books until he starts killing again. otherwise, the go-to rec is Grian or Scar's pov of 3rd Life, which sent me fucking insane.

[stillness-in-green]

No, Re-Destro Is Not Destro’s Literal Son

and

Yes, I Will Die On This Hill

I have a number of small, persistent quibbles with some of the widespread misapprehensions I see included in BNHA fanfic, quoted as fact in meta posts, even cited on the wiki. Quirk cancellation restraints, what the 20% quirklessness data point means in practice, when Kurogiri comes into existence relative to the time of the Shimura Family Massacre, things like that. My biggest one, though, is as the title suggests: the idea that Yotsubashi Rikiya is Yotsubashi Chikara’s son.

I don’t entirely know where this confusion comes from. As far as I can tell, the early scanlations didn’t get it wrong—one rendered the line in Chapter 218 about Destro having a child he didn’t know about as being children, plural, but otherwise, they were all accurate enough. It seems people just assumed that the child mentioned in 218 must be Re-Destro, who was, after all, right there on the panel. Even though the scanlations never said it, even though the official translation never said it, even though ample evidence in the manga disproves it, the idea still got around that Rikiya is Chikara’s son.

I have and will maintain that this is obviously wrong if you stop to think about it for even a moment, but unfortunately, most people don’t. The error can be found on less well-tended parts of the fandom wiki[1]; it’s in tumblr meta posts about the villains; it’s in fanfic.

And now, god help me, it is on the official anime website, too.

“Stillness-in-green, maybe you should consider that you might just be wro—”

I will face BONES and walk backwards into hell.

But if you want, you can come with me, and I’ll explain on the way. Hit the jump.

Dialogue + Narration

There are two places where the relationship between Chikara and Rikiya is explicitly addressed—the lead-in to the dinner scene in Chapter 218 and the fight between Clone!Shigaraki and RD in Chapter 232. If you include the Ultra Analysis databook, the number goes up to four: once each in Re-Destro and Destro Classic’s character blurbs.

Let’s take a look at each of those places, shall we?

The relevant Japanese text here is in the first narration box: 子ども, kodomo.

Kodomo is not gendered. It literally just means child. The key kanji is 子, ko. Like most kanji, it has a lot of potential readings, and you can add other kanji to it to modify it. Add 息 and you get musuko, son. Pronounce 子 as shi instead of ko, and you get a term that is frequently, though not exclusively, used to refer to boys. Add 女 to that reading and you get joshi, woman/girl. 子 is in a lot of words, many of them gendered! Used for kodomo as Hori does here, though, it does nothing to indicate a gender one way or the other.

Also too, it does nothing to indicate that Rikiya is the child in question; it simply states that there was such a child, somewhere in the world. Now, the natural assumption for anyone who knows how the graphic novel medium works and who understands basic literary analysis would be that the significant character we just met is, in fact, the child in question—except that everything else we learn about Destro and the original Meta Liberation Army here makes it entirely impossible.

I’ll do a full breakdown on why that is in the next section. In the meantime, here’s the next reference:

Here, we’re looking at the phrase the Viz translation renders as, “His blood runs through these veins.” The literal Japanese there is, Desutoro no matsuei chi o tsugu mono! In a literal translation, chi o tsugu mono means, “one who inherits the blood,” or, more loosely, “blood successor.” It’s matsuei—末裔—that’s the key word here.

Japanese has several words to express the concept of “descendant.” Matsuei is one word; the data book uses shison. So what’s the difference? Well, I’ll talk about shison in a moment, but I had an inkling of it just from looking at the kanji in matsuei—“end” and “descendant” respectively, leaving me with an impression of something like a final descendant or the terminus of the bloodline. Further research confirmed it: shison can refer to any lineal blood tie, but matsuei refers to a bloodline’s final inheritor, the person at the end of a long line of many, or even countless, generations. It’s the difference between being able to point to a grandparent and the kind of painstaking genealogical research that lets you[2] point to a famous royal from eight hundred years ago—matsuei is a word that very much assumes the existence of those countless generations.

So not only does Rikiya’s line there not imply that he’s Chikara’s son, but his specific word choice also tells us that he cannot be Chikara’s son. That’s, uh. Pretty conclusive, I would say.

Lastly, though, there’s also the data book. This is, perhaps, the actual closest you’re going to get to a manga equivalent of those character blurbs on the anime website, at least until such time as Hori deigns to give the MLA types character profile pages. (I live ever in hope.)

There are two relevant bits of text, one in Re-Destro’s entry, and the other in Destro Classic’s. The first describes how Re-Destro organizes the MLA as Desutoro no chi o tsugu mono: the same phrase he uses for himself in the manga, minus the matsuei. @codenamesazanka (the one who told me about the databook references among other citations, bless) rendered it as “Destro’s blood successor”; I have also seen it given as “the successor of Destro’s bloodline.” Note again, the lack of reference to a father/son bond.

Chikara’s entry uses that other descendant word I mentioned before, 子孫, shison. Notice that the term uses that ko kanji from kodomo before? As it does in joshi, 子 here reads shi. The other kanji, 孫, means grandchild. Thus, literally, grandchild-child—or, in the vernacular, simply descendant.

And then we have the anime website.

So, for comparison’s sake, the anime website uses 息子—the same combination of kanji that I said earlier gives you musuko, son. Heck, it even uses ��, chichi, for Destro—father. It’s as explicit as it’s possible to be, and I just don’t know why or how the anime website could fuck that up so bad when absolutely nothing in the manga describes the two Yotsubashis that way, and, indeed, one specific word choice actually rules out the possibility.

So, that’s all the manga says directly. It’s not the only evidence there is, though. In fact, the next piece makes it even more clear how colossally and impossibly wrong a father/son connection for Destro and his modern successor is.

Timeline

The long and short of this section is, “Since Harima Oji was Sako Atsuhiro’s great-great-grandfather, there is no possible way that Destro—who pre-dated Harima—can be Re-Destro’s father.” If you read that sentence and nodded your complete understanding and agreement, feel free to skip ahead to the last section. If you’d like the full explanation it takes to reach that sentence’s conclusion, though, read on.

So, aside from the word matsuei, the timeline is the most telling piece of evidence to my eye. I address it secondly rather than firstly because it’s less direct than the explicit narration; it relies on drawing conclusions based on things we’ve been told elsewhere rather than on the immediately relevant text. Oh, Mr. Compress’s relationship to Harima is explicit enough, but on what am I basing my claim that Destro predates him?

Regarding that, there’s no explicit year relative to My Hero Academia’s current events given for when Destro and the original Meta Liberation Army were active; the same is true for Harima Oji’s escapades. However, we are given some broad-strokes information, relative not to current events, but rather to the history of heroism as a legal institution in Japan.

We know that there was a widespread, lengthy period of chaos following the rise of quirks—called meta-abilities in those early years. At some point, however, people began to search for a way for meta-humans to live in peace with non-metas. The compromise that was reached was the foundation of professional heroism in Japan—while the use of meta-abilities would be legal in private settings, it was only by becoming licensed by the state as “heroes” that people could use their quirks in public.[3]

The legislation curtailing the use of meta-abilities—and the appropriation of a dead woman’s language to popularize a law establishing exactly the opposite of what she used that language to call for—is what catalyzed the rise of the original MLA. Thus, we can position Destro as being alive and active around the same time that heroism as a legal institution was being formed. Since we further know that he committed suicide in prison, we can assume that his child was conceived at some point prior to his capture. Ergo, Destro’s child, were they alive today, would be as old as Japanese professional heroism itself.

Next, consider Harima Oji, the Peerless Thief, a criminal who targeted the riches of “sham heroes.” We’re specifically told that he was active in the days in which the current system was settling into place—e.g. he only became active once the Hero System was established enough to have produced corrupt heroes. We’re told he preached reformation—he wasn’t just some pre-existing criminal who saw a shiny new target in heroes; he had specific grievances which he wanted addressed by the system, and which the system was not addressing.

The earliest Harima could possibly be active, then, is concurrent with Destro—Harima fighting against the corrupt people who had found their way into the new heroic institution, and Destro fighting against using the institution of heroism to oppress non-heroes. What I think is more likely, though, is that Harima came after Destro—Harima needed to have had time to realize what kinds of fakes had been drawn to this shiny new career path, maybe even to spend some time trying to change things the legal way.

I don’t suspect they were separated by very long—I would imagine Destro was easily within Harima’s living memory, and might well have influenced why he chose the path of protest that he did—but I do think they were separate.

Moving forward, then, Mr. Compress is four generations distant from his famous ancestor. Thus, even if you assume that Harima is of the same generation as Chikara, that’s what you’re looking at for Chikara’s child: someone who, were they alive today, would be old enough to be the great-grandparent of a thirty-two-year-old man.

Re-Destro’s probably a few years older than Mr. C, sure,[4] but that man doesn’t have Ujiko’s slow-aging quirk. Unless you want to start pulling theories about cryogenic stasis the story for some reason never saw fit to mention out of thin air, Re-Destro is in no way old enough to fit the bill.

This is backed up by one other piece of the timeline as well, and one more place we can look at language:

The small child at the center of the image is Rikiya, so young that he’s in schoolboy shorts for a meeting otherwise so formal that he’s been made to wear a tie. He’s, what, six to nine here, tops? And the adults speaking to him say that they’ve been in hiding for generations—代々, daidai, the kanji for generation followed by a kanji that just means, “See that kanji written right before me? Yeah, just read that one again.”

The original MLA was active for only a handful of years, and, per Chapter 218, they didn’t dissolve until Destro was captured. Thus, we can assume they have been in hiding since then, but not before then. With that in mind, this is another line that renders a father/son relationship impossible.

Remember, Chikara already had a child in the world circa his capture. If Rikiya were Chikara’s son, then Destro’s capture and his army’s subsequent dissolution could not have happened any farther back than nine months plus however old Rikiya was in this exact moment of his youth. Rikiya, who we see here as a child of less than ten.

Ten years in hiding doesn’t make one generation; it damn sure doesn’t make multiple ones.

Now, you could make theories about cryogenic statis that would explain this ludicrous discrepancy, sure. You could also theorize about e.g. artificial insemination,[5] or time stop quirks, or any number of other possibilities in the vast panoply the HeroAca world offers. The point is, though, that you don’t need to. There was, in the manga, no discrepancy that needed to be explained. It is only fanon misinterpretation and a glaring disinterest in the series’ villains from official sources that have presented this issue.

I’m praying that it’s all just a misunderstanding on the part of whoever maintains the website, and that the anime itself will render the relevant bits of dialogue correctly. Given the extreme cuts and alterations that My Villain Academia has been subjected to thus far, though, I’m sure you can appreciate my being concerned.

…So that’s the meat of it. The idea that Rikiya is Chikara’s son is wrong simply on the basis of what’s said in the text, and it’s doubly wrong on the basis of the timeline. There is, though, one other thing I think points towards Re-Destro being exactly the descendant he says he is, not a son playing down the connection out of humility or something. This one is a lot more headcanon-y, though, so I saved it for last.

MLA Social Dynamics

It’s quite simple. We have, in the MLA, a group of people that venerates Destro’s bloodline to an obviously unhealthy degree, putting up portraits of him wherever they can get away with it, tagging his successor with a “Re-” as if to invoke reincarnation or miraculous return, entirely willing to throw their lives away for what they think was his cause, and others’ lives if those others say anything too scathing about the words Destro wrote, quite as if they treat Destro’s memoir as some sort of holy writ.

They venerate Destro that much, and you’re trying to tell me that they wouldn’t just call a spade a spade and acknowledge RD as the son of their great leader? Come on.

Since long before I turned up the matsuei factoid in researching this piece, since long before Mr. Compress gave us such a helpful generational comparison, I’ve held the opinion that, given a group that holds their leaders in such high esteem, with such particular regard for bloodline, the only reason Rikiya does just call himself a descendant, rather than citing the specific term for what he is, is that the specific term is distant enough that it actually does sound more impressive to just say “descendant,” rather than something like, “great-great-great-grandson.” That kind of thing just begs the question, “What took you guys so long?” or, “You and how many other people, buddy?”

Mr. Compress may have the panache to carry off a line like that, but Rikiya’s a different story. If he had something so amazing up his sleeve as, “I am the son of the great Destro,” I have to think he’d just say it proudly, not fall back on the impressionistic vaguery of something like chi o tsugu mono. Even if I had no other evidence to work with, I’d think the same—all the evidence you need is right there in the character writing of who Rikiya and the MLA are and how they talk about the man whose dreams Re-Destro was raised to carry.

A closing note: I will allow that Rikiya is being overdramatic when he uses matsuei and its connotation of countless generations. There are a few other things we can use to trace the history of heroism—Ujiko’s age, and the 18-years-or-less periods that One For All was held by its pre-All Might bearers—and running those numbers leads me to believe that it is, in fact, entirely possible to count the number of generations between Rikiya and Chikara, and the number, while higher than one, is probably not all that high. Certainly matsuei is being more dramatic about it than is entirely warranted, hence the poetic flourish of the official translation’s, “His blood runs through these veins!” The theatricality only makes me fonder of him, however.

------------------------

FOOTNOTES

[1] It was changed and reverted on Re-Destro’s page at least twice before it finally stuck in January of this year. Chikara’s page took until July to be corrected, and it’s still wrong on various other subpages.

[2] Or your kids, if you have those. Only the last generation in the bloodline is the matsuei, but that’s a moving goalpost as long as the bloodline is still propagating.

[3] This summary of events combines what we know from both My Hero Academia proper and the Vigilantes spin-off, which I recommend to anyone who’s at all interested in finer-grained worldbuilding on Hero Society Japan than the main series makes time for.

[4] I personally headcanon him as 42.

[5] To which point I would refer back to the word kodomo, and note that that word choice indicates that Destro had a child in the world. Not a sperm sample kept in a freezer somewhere, waiting for the right would-be mother: an actual child. Some quick research on my part says that the farthest that term stretches is in using it to refer to yet-unborn children, fetuses still in the womb. Seeing as Japan doesn’t even allow inmates conjugal visits in real life, much less in a setting where villains are so dehumanized that Tartarus is an acceptable punishment for them, the line about Destro “having a child out in the world” takes us right back to a date of conception no later than Destro’s final night of freedom.

[feralgoblinchild]

Fun facts that SUCK about chronic illness:

I have POTS-Postural Orthoststic Tachycardia Syndrome among other issues, but the POTS makes me pass out and makes me feel like I'm about to pass out. It also flares up REALLY bad if I have to miss my antidepressants (I can't afford $188/month for that AND another $188/month for my heart meds so sometimes I don't get to take either unless my mom covers the cost for me right now). Chronic illness is EXPENSIVE!!!!!!! This doesn't include medical debt I've accumulated. Thats literally just two of my medications monthly cost right now. Insurance systems don't work. They make people even more sick.

With antidepressant withdrawals, mine makes me violently vomit. One day when I was JUST BARELY able to not vomit all over all the surfaces in my work, one of my coworkers asked how I was doing on my lunch. I was honest and explained how shitty I felt. He said he meant it as a compliment, but you can't tell that in feeling bad at all. We learn to mask disability and illness because its so much easier than explaining to every customer or patient that you're chronically ill and drinking more water or meditating will not cure your neurological dysfunction. No matter how well meaning they are. We can be at an 8 or a 9 on a feeling shitty scale and a good percentage of people may not be able to tell. I've worked through passing out multiple times in a shift. No one would have known if it hadn't happened in the middle of a case or I hadn't told them. Couldn't move the next day, but I worked through it.

We have to be so obnoxiously careful to not overextended ourselves or we pay for it the next day/later that day. I take too hot a shower and I can't sleep for hours because of the palpitations. I forget my compression socks my head might become a fishbowl on a merry-go-round. I don't get to take my meds, I feel like I can't catch my breath. I let myself overheat, I hit the ground. But we've learned that we have limits, and we're constantly fine tuning those limits. Sometimes we push past it for one reason or another, but we'll always pay for it when we do.

I can't afford basic medical care. The US has an excessively flawed system. I literally can't afford medications to make me not pass out. I have to have help from my parents when I'm almost 30 just to afford my medical bills. And this isn't even doctors appointments. We CANNOT continue to allow this country to run healthcare on insurance. It's damn well past time for socialized healthcare. It took me a fucking year to get in to see my dysautonomia specialist, so don't you DARE tell me ITS gonna make it sO mUcH lOnGeR tO wAiT NOT THAT MUCH LONGER BUDDY IT TOOK 2-3 YEARS FROM WHEN MY AYMOTOMA GOT BAD ENOUGH TO SEEK MEDICAL CARE TO THE TESTING TO DIAGNOSE IT. TWO TO THREE YEARS OF MY LIFE LIFING WITHIUT A DIAGNOSIS TO AN ILLNESS THAT TOOK ME OUT OF MY DREAM JOB, ENTIRELY OUT OF MY FIELD, AND LEFT ME SCRAMBLING TO FIND ANY JOB I COULD PHYSICALLY DO

And I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm able to stand up to work sometimes. I'm able to enjoy active activities if I've spent enough time resting. I'm not entirely reliant on my wheelchair. I have a doctor who cared enough to get me a parking placard. I made enough money in my dream job to start looking into what was going on. My parents make enough money to help me. I'm LUCKY over here with my life falling apart in so many ways. There are people who can't even afford a diagnosis to take to a disability hearing, but disability will be damned if you don't have a diagnosis.

Disabled and chronically ill people struggle on the daily, regardless of government's decision on their disability, regardless of the degree of their illness. We fight tooth and nail and claw and every last possible tool we can find, down to the last dirt clod we can throw. If you're dealing with any disability or chronic illness, no matter the extent, no matter the type, know you're strong just for being here right now, even if scrolling on Tumblr is all you could manage today. Ita hard as hell dealing with this crap. And you're fighting every day to stay here. That's hardcore if I've ever seen it

[stayarmytinyzenmoa-l]

Glitched [Change Your Passwords]

Hacker AU

TW: Implied Stalking, Language

Pairing: (NCT) Unknown x Reader

Genre: Choose Your Story, Thriller, Suspense, Mystery

(3/?) [Previous] | [Next]

[Main Masterlist] | [Glitched Masterlist]

Word Count: 3.9K

Notes: Sorry for the wait on this one! I’ve been studying for my classes, but don’t worry I won’t leave you all hanging haha. Also I’ve updated the video links to go to a video archive blog of mine because the private posts were just not working out for me so I hope this will be easier! I ask that you don’t follow that blog only for spoilers as I’ll upload videos/other medias there first prior to posting the actual fics so you might either get spoiled or just really confused lol. But yeah, I hope you enjoy!!

Disclaimer: Please remember that this is an AU and a work of fiction, obviously the idol(s) mentioned/written/implied would never partake in or condone these actions. I would never wish any of these actions to occur to anyone mentioned in the writings of this story, nor do I wish any harm on them. The idols mentions in this work are meant to be acknowledged as no more than face claims and are not meant to represent the idols in any way.

You sat down first with Jaemin and Yangyang still in line for whatever it was they had decided to eat for lunch, you, meanwhile, decided on changing your passwords. Figure, you have since decided on calling him that since that’s what he told you to tell Instagram, seemed very adamant on it, and thus here you were, changing literally all of your passcodes and writing them down on the side of the paper bag you requested.

But as you did this the creeping feeling of being watched never left you. The security cameras were pointed the other way and no one, to your knowledge, was making an active effort to stare at you. It had to be related to that scare from earlier, you had nearly forgotten about it while in your lab. You finished changing the last passcode and looked down at your phone, the last passcode being the one to your Tumblr account, and you opened your messages, secretly hoping that maybe you’d receive another message from Figure, but none were presented to you. No doubt changing your passcodes might have disconnected you from the person as a whole. But, of course, right when you least expect it, things always turn around. Then in came a message from user011719.

https://videoarchivesatzml.tumblr.com/post/644877251145515008/glitched-change-your-passwords-video

You played the video again. Why did it just stop mid-sentence? You tried to play it again but the message, much like the one you received earlier, disappeared. Like it was never there in the first place. You wondered what could have happened, if you didn’t know what you did already you would’ve assumed that he cut the recording too soon or that he ran out of WiFi, but this couldn’t have been the case, it was too easy, too simple.

But you were more concerned about another thing Figure had mentioned. To your knowledge, no one had used your phone. The only person that it could’ve been was… Jaehyun. But why would he have done that? There was no purpose as to why he would do that.

“(Y/N)!” Seonghwa called out to you and you waved.

“Oh, hello!”

“Oh, thank god, you have your phone,” he sighs. “Did Jaehyun give it to you?”

“Yeah, he did,” you were surprised by how convenient Seonghwa’s timing was, but you had to give him the benefit of the doubt. “Why?”

“Bambam was looking through it.”

“He was what?!”

“Yeah, that’s why Somi isn’t around right now, she’s probably beating his ass. He’s been here the longest but Somi doesn’t really give a fuck,” Seonghwa shakes his head. “Don’t worry, he didn’t open anything, he was just being a bitch.”

“How did he know my password?”

“You really should change your password from 0000, (Y/N), it’s too simple,” Seonghwa laughs.

“Oh god, don’t worry I already changed it. What did he want anyway?”

“I’m pretty sure he was just being stupid, Bambam acts like that but he’s not a dick, he looked surprised himself when he got your password, I figured I’d tell you because that was just out of line.”

“It was, yeah, thanks for telling me,” you nodded your head.

“It was the right thing to do, I’m gonna go head out now, I have to make sure Somi didn’t go too far, I’ll see you back in lab.”

“See you,” he waved at you again and walked out of the food court. You pulled out your phone and stared at it, people seriously have no boundaries. Bambam had already rubbed you the wrong way but this was honestly such a dick move, you shook your head.

You hoped that he didn’t see your Instagram, Seonghwa said that he didn’t see or open anything but still. You’d have to thank Somi later, but you still couldn’t believe that he was so shameless with it. The nerve of some people, if this were a cartoon you’d be certain that steam would be blowing out of your ears, you would definitely give him a piece of your mind back in lab later. You looked at the DMs, if anyone else saw this they would be more than just suspicious, no doubt, or they would think that you were crazy and laugh at you.

But looking at these DMs, you thought back to the video. Figure mentioned that there was someone keeping him captive, and with this knowledge, you felt your heart rate rise slightly, and you could only think of the worse. But, despite this, you were at least able to screenshot that one part that he asked you to send to not.here127, something that you were glad that you did because you hardly remembered what else he sent.

You left the app and opened your notes app, then you tried to type out the screenshot. You got pretty far until about the second sentence, at that point the keyboard started lagging until it stopped working altogether.

“What the fuck?” You whispered to yourself and restarted the app, trying to type out the message again, but still came the same result. You even tried restarting your phone altogether, but still, the same result. Until your keypad started moving itself, and you gasped loudly enough for some people to turn their heads. You dropped your phone on the table. “Uh, sorry, just family news,” you said aloud. Many of the people seemingly understood this and turned back around. But when you looked down at your phone, the lone sentence on your notes app read:

“Don’t. - Figure”

It was like you could feel your blood circulating through you. You had no idea how to feel right now, nor did you want to take the time to figure it out. Then it started typing again.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have hacked into your phone but… something came up, and it would just be safer for you if I did this. I’d tell you what it was but it would be better if I didn’t. Just… tell him in person, okay?”

You nodded your head slowly and picked your phone back up, reopening Instagram. Part of you felt more awkward now knowing that this Figure was in your phone, probably watching you as you typed, but you wanted to give what limited trust you could. Then another foreign feeling came over you, one you’ve felt since entering this facility, actually, and when you looked to the corner of the room, you saw the camera focused right on you, then you continued the conversation.

You stared at the camera that was still trained on you, then at your phone’s camera. You wanted to cover the camera, to be honest, but two things stopped you. One being how you would make fun of your friends when they did so, and two being how Figure had mentioned that the whole reason why he hacked into your phone was because “something came up.” Now, you aren't stupid. You could put two and two together and no doubt this “something” was related to this new person that not.here127 mentioned, Connect.

“So how’s your first day so far?” Jaemin asks once he sits down. You locked your phone and placed it back into your pocket.

“It’s great, it’s everything I could’ve hoped for, I just can’t believe that I’m finally here, you know?” You answered. Jaemin had his usual lopsided smile on while Yangyang sat down, he looked between both of you and a sly smirk crawled on his face. You knew that look, you knew what he was planning and you stomped on his foot before he could think about it.

“You okay, Yangyang?” Jaemin asks.

“Just fine,” he winces. “But how’s the hell lab, (Y/N)?”

“Actually not that bad… so far. But I shouldn’t jinx it,” you shook your head. “How about you, Lab V, right?”

“I think my mentor has it out for me. He’s always pointing out the little mistakes I make, it’s so nerve-racking…”

“Who’s your mentor?” Jaemin asks.

“Sicheng…” Yangyang frowns.

“Oh, you’re fine. He’s like that with everyone.”

“What does your lab work on?”

“Uh, it’s kind of weird,” Yangyang hums. “Some biomatter stuff.”

“You don’t know what you’re studying?!”

“I mean I do! But like, it’s weird,” Yangyang shook his head. “Technically, it’s called Biomatter Space Compression. But like, it’s weird because like… I think there’s more to it,” Yangyang frowns.

“So like what space does to the body?”

“Yeah, but like… you know what, forget it, I have no idea how to explain it,” Yangyang shakes his head. “Give me like a week to make sense of it,” he laughs.

“I used to be in that lab, and that’s probably the best way to explain it,” Jaemin sighs. A loud beeping noise goes off and Yangyang groans.

“Shut up,” your jaw drops while you fought back a smile. Yangyang reluctantly pulls out a device probably twice his age. “Is that a pager?!” You started to laugh.

“Yeah,” he holds it in his hand and shows you. “As soon as my supervisor busted this out I almost laughed out loud,” Yangyang chuckles.

“Oh god, that’s old…”

“I know, looks like he’s calling us all back in early, so I’ll see you after then,” Yangyang waves goodbye and leaves the cafeteria, leaving you and Jaemin behind.

“Ah, I guess lunch is almost over,” Jaemin stretches his arms back and yawns. “I’ll walk you back to the labs,” Jaemin tosses the paper bag into the trash bin and stands up, waiting for you to catch up to him. You quickly followed suit and walked next to him. You both exited the bustling lunch hall and walked back into the outdoor walkway, the grand structure never failing to amaze you but to be fair it is still your first day. You were both making a beeline for the labs, and you, of course, noticed the cameras discreetly following you the entire time. You soon approached your lab building and you both stopped in front of it.

“Thanks…” you didn’t really have much to say, what do you say in this situation? You both had only known each other briefly and never on the level to easily make small talk. You were about to go back inside when he said something rather peculiar.

“No problem… You must be pretty smart if you got this internship, you know. If you feel like something’s off, then it probably is,” he says. Then he walks off without giving you a chance to answer. You walked into the locker room with a heavy mind, putting your equipment back on and begrudgingly placing your phone back into the UV chamber, feeling at least a little more secure with your now changed passwords, then you walked back into the lab.

“(Y/N)!”

“Bambam,” the name came out harshly from your mouth and he shoots an awkward smile.

“You guys told (Y/N)?”

“Of course we did!” Seonghwa glares at him.

“I’m so sorry, (Y/N), he grabbed it because it’s the same model as his phone and he ended up opening it since you both coincidentally had the same password,” Somi sighs. “0000, really?! You have important lab information on your phone and your password is 0000?!”

“I know okay? I changed it,” Bambam rolls his eyes.

“To what? 1234?” Jaehyun laughs.

“Well, when we’re done here, I’m gonna change it again,” Bambam crosses his arms. “Sorry about that, (Y/N), it was a genuine mistake, I didn’t open anything, promise,” he says. Your shoulders relaxed, you couldn’t help mistakes, and though this was an eerie coincidence there wasn’t much you could say anyway.

“It’s fine,” you shook your head. Somi’s explanation made enough sense, you think. “Just be more careful next time, I’d rather not have a complete stranger going through my phone, mistakenly or not,” you said sternly. The other members of the lab group looked at you with a strange expression, maybe you said it a bit too harshly, and truthfully normally you’d shrug it off but with the whole thing going on with Figure, or Connect, or whoever the hell you were DMing on Instagram is just getting to you. Then there were those damn cameras, both around the facility and on your own phone.

“Sorry about that, I’m just a little stressed,” you shook your head and tried to play it off. Bambam starts laughing out loud and you flinched at the sudden outburst.

“Oh, don’t worry, we get it! Seonghwa was worse when he first started,” Bambam’s worried look is immediately replaced with a happier one while he clapped the other one’s shoulder. “You should’ve seen him, he snapped at all of us.”

“I didn’t.”

“Oh, you did,” Jaehyun chuckles and moves to the lab table. “But now, with all of that out of the way, we have to work,” Jaehyun says. Everyone moved to their stations quickly, picking up where you each left off prior to lunch. You were put on data recording, something not precisely fun but also the only thing you could currently be trusted with. You were amazed by how easily they all worked together, you couldn’t help but feel like you were just stepping on their toes really, but every time they’d call you over they’d be nice about it at the very least. You each moved around the clock nonstop, you walking around the rather large lab table with the rather large laptop to each station as the main researchers called you over to record something, and them occasionally overlapping in their stations as each of the trials were carried out and analyzed.

“Alright then,” Bambam stands up and stretches his back. “I’m going home.”

“Already?” You asked while you looked at the wall clock, it read 7:48 pm, about an hour away from clock out time. You then looked at the laptop in your hands and saw about 3/4s of the spreadsheet filled. “Don’t we need to finish the rest of this today?”

“Nah, the rest of the trials take about a day to develop, so we’re good on waiting, or at least I am,” Bambam says. “You did good, rookie, don’t worry about it,” he says.

“Oh, thanks,” you cleared your throat.

“Be safe on your way home then, Bambam,” Jaehyun says without looking up from his microscope. “Don’t worry, (Y/N), we don’t have strict clock-out times,” he says while turning the bulb off on the microscope.

“Heading out too?” Somi asks.

“Yup, you all stay safe,” Jaehyun waves at them and walks out of the lab, following close behind Bambam.

“I’m almost done here,” Somi twists open the pipette drip and watches the chemical drop into the solution. “Just have to finish developing these samples and recording color changes, if you want I can take it from here, (Y/N),” she offers.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, (Y/N), you’ve been walking around all day, I’m surprised you’re not lightheaded from all the times you walked around here,” she says. “I’m serious! Jaehyun left so he won’t know,” she says.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Seonghwa shrugs while he closes the mice cage.

“You’re cleared!” Somi smiles.

“Thanks, Somi,” you had on a tired smile, it was true, your feet were killing you with all the walking you’ve been doing and you haven’t had a chance to sit down.

“Get home safe,” she says.

“Do you need a ride home?” Seonghwa asks.

“No thank you, I’ll just take the bus,” you said, hoping that Yangyang was still here.

“Okay, see you tomorrow then,” Somi waved at you while you left. You entered the empty locker room and shrugged your lab coat off and hung it in your locker, placing your goggles on the top shelf and grabbing your bag. Then you turned around and, with your breath held, opened the UV chest. You saw your phone resting undisturbed in the same spot you left it and you felt a wave of relief while you picked it up. Everything was still in order and you spotted the text from Yangyang simply stating that his team messed up an experiment and they had to redo the whole thing and told you to just head home without him.

“Well, great,” you shook your head and walked out into the darkened facility. “West wing…” you mumbled to yourself, following the signs quickly. You pushed open the double doors and walked out into the nighttime, the moon already in the sky. You opened Instagram and quickly read through the conversation again while you descended the steps, and you soon noticed the car parked in front of you, and as you walked over to it, someone stopped you.

“Oh, (Y/N)!” Jaehyun called out to you, he looked like he was just about to re-enter the building. “Perfect timing,” he says while holding up his phone.

“Oh, hello,” you said. He was the first person who came up to you out here.

“I forgot that you weren’t in our work group chat, we were planning on getting dinner together,” he shows you the conversation. You spotted Somi’s text saying that she forgot to tell you about it and asked if anyone had your number. “Want to come?” He asks. You quickly glanced at the car behind him, it hadn’t moved since you walked out and the windows were tinted.

[[Follow Jaehyun or Go to the Car]]

General Tag List: @vickylamore @hangsxng @mizzdivagirl7-blog @sehunnies-hunnie96 @roses09020617 @bat-shark-repellant @cloudreads @awesomei @raeincitizen @here-aeth

Glitched: @red-moon-dream​ @vinmylife @tyuningkai @fortrest @leesalts @tvehyungs-gf @gaiyofanfiction @lvvcky 

[phoebehalliwell]

I need some kind of a photoshop lesson for this aesthetic of yours

okay i’m gonna do a tutorial real time for a picspam type aesthetic that will look like this ⇣ a photo i will put here once i make it.

step one. open ps : )

welcome : )

okay so dimensions r a thing tumblr compresses photos like hella so i do all my still img aesthetics 900x900 is you’re trying to do this for say insta i would actually recommend jumping up to 1080x1080. pixels, obviously. idk if i have to clarify that.

so click ctrl+n or create new i’ll be doing 900x900

these r the rest of my settings i personally do not think they matter my resolution stays at 72 the only thing i’ve detected this affecting is font size. (side note notice how this pic looks all fuzzy? that’s bc it’s a ss with a boatload of pixels. and if there’s one thing tumblr hates. it’s pixels. and then it’s users. but who’s counting? tumblr is. i recommend keeping ur still images 900x900♥)

step two is collecting ur images i personally use pinterest for these bc quite frankly it’s really nice & easy to find these types of photos esp if you’re looking for a canon character bc if you type in [character name] aesthetic you’ll get stuff if you don’t quite frankly even just type in aesthetic you can scroll until you find an image you like click on that and go through like images underneath it and keep burning thru. like u probably know how to work pinterest. but i am being thorough and covering my bases. searching [color] aesthetic is also nice or even searching a character that isn’t the character you’re doing this for but who’s kind of similar that also works. i recommend esp for charmed bc their pinterest gets bogged down with screencaps and then like. charms like jewelry searching “charmed aesthetic” or “phoebe halliwell aesthetic” really just doesn’t cut it so what i’d recommend is instead of going through pins, go through boards.

bc like. big difference. other pro tips if you see a board you like, go to the person’s profile and check out their other boards bc odds are you’ll find more you like. another protip if you’re specifically doing ocs typing in oc aesthetic will get you a lot even going to the boards on that as well. yields.

so. you’ve gathered ur images. u need five. open em. i’m making an aesthetic 4 myself which you’ve probably already guessed from the fact i’m putting the finished piece at the top, but it’s not ready yet so it’s still a surprise for me. 

cropping. if ur doing a 900x900, use these setting exactly. 1080x1080 use 1080/2 x 1080/3. i’m not doing the math 4 u ♥

most important part? Delete Cropped Pixels. otherwise ur not really doing anything. crop all five images.

but them in ur document. document? psd? ur thing ♥ place them places. u do not have to commit now. leave one middle one blank. it does not matter which one. i personally like to alternate my text pieces if i’m doing a long post like what i did on my ncwotng set. some people keep them all on the same side. this lowkey bugs me i feel like it throws off the Balance but i imagine some people like The Consistency. i don’t. but w/e. it’s up to u as this is gonna be ur set. also like. as you’ve cropped these to x/2,x/3 settings they should fit nice like puzzle pieces : )

the next step i personally like doing is creating by text box with The Color™ do this bc simply duplicating one of ur images, shoving it in the empty slot, and converting into a sharp object. edit contents.

now. obvi i selected these images w a color scheme in mid. i recommend u do the same. even if it’s just vague. they don’t all have 2 fit. this is my example of my sheridan piece b4 or after. tweaking is possible. layers w masks r ur friend. i can talk about them more if need be.

But. back 2 the smart object. brush tool. paint it.

♥

the text i used was times new roman all caps 40pt font 0 spacing for the title and times new roman 14pt font 0 spacing italics for the subheading. here’s my dency b4 and after for comparison

next step is after you have your text in alright, shove everything into groups. mode on “normal”

then you can start editing. the groups let you edit things like lighting and color without touching any of the layers below it 👍

i’m not gonna do a Major coloring tutorial, for lighting i’ll usually tinker with exposure, levels, sometimes brightness/contrast. for colors, color balance + hue/saturation. i rarely touch anything else.

i’ll bring u along 4 the coloring of this one bc i’m gonna add a layer mask.

so the first thing i’m going to do bc the paper itself is already close to the vibe is i’m going to color it normal and just ignore the background

something like that. then i’m going to add a layer mask (square button w the plus sign)

and then i’m going to eye dropper a color off from somewhere else

now i was talking about the “normal” blend mode stops ur color settings from bleeding over onto other images? does not apply to painting on layers but you’re already masking this bad boy, so it doesn’t matter. just don’t say i didn’t warn u

i’d recommend using a really ridiculous blend mode to clean up ur thing at first, i’m using darken which isn’t that wild but like whatevs.

add a layer mask using this button.

select and mask

use this thing to clean up ur mask

okay so i did a lot since we last spoke

but if i impart any lesson to u. it’s: fuck around. find out. that’s literally how i’ve basically done everything. nothing’s ever really gone horribly wrong. click things. see what happens.

okay so now that you’ve kinda gotten everything figured out. change ur text box color again. i’m introducing u to ye ol trick that is not the paint brush. but. hue/saturation on colorize more yeah babyyyyy

ahaha yes. love this bad boy.

Now. Trick To Make Everything Super Cohesive™. put things above All of your groups.

yeah boy.

reorganize ur thing bc u don’t like how it looks.

fuck around w a lot of stuff.

it’s still cluttered.

fuck it. grab a new image.

something like that. never let the fear of striking out keep u from playing the game : )

fuck around a bit more.

vibes♥

save ur image bc u literally Have Not Done That Yet

& then remember the other thing u forgot to do

eyedropper what ur text box looks like move the whole thing to the tippity top and recolor

this is just bc u’ve fuck around a lot w a lot f different settings. this ensures that the text stays the same color u set it as.

okay final step.

turn The Whole Thing into a smart object, smart sharpen

leave out the text box tho. the sharpened text can look weird. it’s ur choice, but with these settings,, cronch.

and wallah. ctrl+shift+s save as png and bada bing bada boom baby. aesthetic

[mnchysmanuscripts]

Huh? What?

This is a blog. I’m going to use it to write blog posts. Think of this as a solo podcast, but you have to use your eyes to read it. Posts here will be somewhat personal, though mostly they’ll be write-ups on subjects or themes that’ve been rattling around in my head for a while. 

My main/art blog is here. There, I will post my art and make an occasional text post to let you know what’s going on with me as it pertains to my art. Maybe I’ll let you know about events going on in ENDLESS WAR or about upcoming projects. Stuff that, if you’re interested in my art, you will also be interested in.

This blog is for long-winded diatribes and the occasional hot take (please, end my fucking life), so if you don’t want any part in that then you can mosey on over to the main blog.

Why not Twitter?

Twitter is obviously bad, I don’t even have to explain why you already know it’s true. (He says, before proceeding to explain.) By the nature of it’s design, it cannot be anything other than personality-based. Meaning, the content (*shudder*) you consume is people, their lives and their experiences. You live vicariously through them. Inherently I am uninterested, as my interests push me further and further away from the internet personality social media influencers sphere of influence. But, while it’s built for pedantic status updates, people perplexingly use it to try and debate one another, namely in politics. Twitter is a terrible platform for doing so, as the character limit and culture of jockeying for clearly-defined literal social currency attests. No one listens to each other, because no one actually says anything of worth that people should listen to. There’s more to it than this, but this is the crux of my repulsion from it. So, how is Tumblr any different? It’s less popular and obviously I couldn’t write all this in a tweet. It being less popular means there’s less of a reason to make a show out of discourse, obviously it still happens but it’s not the sole reason to enter debates like on Twitter. People also have all the space in the world to express themselves, so the quality of ideas present usually increases, not just in the context of debates. But, I hear some people say, if you just follow artists than you’ll be fine, you won’t hear any braindead bickering! And while that’s true, Twitter is also a terrible platform for posting and archiving art due to it’s timeline algorithm, image compression, and lack of permanence. Tumblr may not be perfect, even in those regards, but I prefer it over Twitter.

Why the sudden return to social media?

There’s been a lot on my mind. While I enjoy talking with my friends about stuff, sometimes there’s nothing that scratches my conversational itch like babbling on for an eternity in a text post and publishing it for people to ridicule me for my lack of perspective and/or tact. There’s so many ideas that I’ve been grappling with, stuff about distractions, productivity, intentionality, creativity, influence, passion, politics, history, rhetoric, normality, structure, authority  and more.

Why not just talk about stuff on one of your thousands of podcasts?

I do intend to talk about a few of the subjects I will post about with Ben on Rowdy Fuckers Cop Killers, but other than that there’s no show that would actually fit discussions of this nature. The Pro Crastinators Podcast, as much as I love the hosts, is the Twitter of podcasts. It’s fast, fleeting, and a terrible platform for discussion. Which isn’t even really a bad thing in the context of a comedy podcast, but isn’t the place for the sort of subjects I want to discuss. There’s also something to be said for how conversations change tone and delivery. In posts like these, I am in complete control. I can take as long as I want to formulate my thoughts and to craft my sentences to ensure there’s no misinterpretation of meaning, and talk for literal hours if I saw fit. In a conversation, it is an exchange between two people. Good podcasts are not blog posts spoken aloud that switch off narrator every couple of minutes, they are an exchange between the hosts of their personalities, insights on the subjects being discussed, and the differences the hosts will inherently have. While that makes for great conversation and I value it extremely highly, there is something to be said for having your thoughts, and no one else’s, clearly communicated outside of interference or influence. This is not me telling you to not respond to any of these posts, in fact I heavily encourage you to do so and even to debate me when you see fit, but that act of debating is meaningfully different through blog posts than through a podcast. Here, the spotlight is on me, then you on, then on me, then on you. It is never on the both of us at the same time, meaning we can truly flourish and establish all that we want to establish before the other is physically capable of responding. I really value this.

Why you got so much on your mind?

That’s a story for another time. A story you will hear shortly.

[feminismforlesbians]

I mostly see accounts of people who were terfs in their youth and changed their mind. What made you go the other way?

@bluegone  

I’m finally back at my laptop. 

(I had this huge essay going in reply to this and then realized that absolutely no one would read of all it and started from scratch).

I’d have to agree with some of the people who commented on this through replies or reblogs while I was away—-I have never seen someone who was a “terf in their youth” shift entire ideologies into liberal feminism. You’ll see a lot of people apologize profusely for being a transphobic cis gay before opening their eyes to tumblr dot com and becoming an instant trans inclusionist. That means that as young 14, 15, 16 year olds (their youth) they had never heard of gender identity vs sex or else didn’t know that attraction based on sex, which was their natural attraction, was a bad thing. It doesn’t mean they were “terfs”. It means they were young gay or bisexual kids who hadn’t ever been exposed to gender theory before and now have subscribed fully to it, apologies for the past crime of feeling sex-based attraction always ready to be offered up. They didn’t change their minds from one ideology to another; they simply subscribed to one without comparison to anything else. 

I actually fully engaged in one movement, then consciously made the decision to subscribe to a different one. 

I’ve been on this hellsite for a very long time. I’m 21 now and I was either 14 or just newly 15 when I first ~made an account. The mainstream “LGBT and feminist movement” on here is liberal trans-inclusive ace-inclusive feminism. It’s large, it’s the default, it’s the social justice community you participate in unless 1) you know there’s a different one you value and you find it or 2) you find a different one through the mainstream and value it (a la me). This mainstream collective has enjoyed trends such as monosexual privilege, gender bang pt 1, mogaii, split attraction model, gender bang pt 2, “q*eer”, and others. I was involved in all aforementioned and the others in between. I believed myself to be bisexual when I first started, because I knew I was attracted to girls and I assumed I was attracted to guys. The monosexual privilege, mogaii, and split attraction model trends all did fantastic jobs of reinforcing this internalized heterosexism but also created a substantial amount of internalized lesbophobia. Gender bang pt 1 and the split attraction model together also created some short-lived but intense body sex dysphoria (wherein I would find myself browsing through packers and binders and shutting my eyes while using the restroom, despite still knowing myself to be a woman) because between the pressure to hyperdefine every aspect of my attraction and to deconstruct my gender, I went through the extra identity crisis that was never needed. This is all a very compressed version of the experience, and is more of a background for the events that started the momentum to my switch in ideologies. 

The tumultuous gender and sexuality crises that I personally experienced as a result of these trends lasted from about the ages 14 to 18; I didn’t start to drift away from the libfem community until I was 20. It was not the personal crises that made me leave, and it’s not my crying about them, about my individual woe-is-me tale that makes me a “terf”. It’s the foundation, though, and that’s why it’s worth mentioning. So you are aware I am not talking out of my ass when I describe things in the libfem community, like language used, priorities made, or the effects on young and/or gay people. I’m not talking out of my ass because I was fully subscribed to it for years; enthusiastically and wholeheartedly. It was my community. 

By the time I was about 18-19 I had finally just let myself be a girl and the sex dysphoria had dissipated along with the frantic attempts to gender-trend myself so that I could make my sexuality “make sense”; I knew I was attracted to girls and though I assumed I must have been attracted to guys, I couldn’t describe how and gender-trending seemed to be the answer. I let that go, the gender-trending part, and then I was just a “cis” bisexual girl. I was okay with that; I accepted that trans people were The Most Oppressed. I knew (and still know) that trans people are deserving of safety, and health care, and that dysphoria can be life threatening. I was content with the standards that trans people came first. Trans women are women and trans men are men, check your cis privilege, and so on. 

And then somewhat of a trio of things of happened in quick succession: there was finally that “duh…I’m a lesbian” moment, a wave of gender theory craze that I call gender bang pt 2, and then I got involved in the ace diskhorse. When I finally let myself be a lesbian it was like…learning to fly. For about two seconds. I just felt free from the discomfort and frustration and pain I’d put myself through trying to convince myself I was attracted to men when I really just wasn’t. And then I came out as a lesbian on here, on this hellsite, and I got people telling me, immediately, that that was great as long as I wasn’t One Of Those Lesbians. The terfy ones. Suddenly it became imperative that every time I talked about women I said and trans women. It was with my own internal freedom to be attracted only to women that I finally saw that the reverse was true in this community I was a part of. I was friends with straight women, bisexual women, pansexual women, q*eer women, q*eer nonbinary people, and many trans people. And they were all attracted to men. And what I watched was how normalized and encouraged attraction to men was—how the “thirst” for men was being called empowering and sexy and “q*eer”. Maybe it is empowering and sexy (it’s certainly not “q*eer”), but not when attraction women was either hush hushed or practically infantilized. Attraction to men was loud and suggestive and sexual and humorous and encouraged; attraction to women was…not. This I noticed first. Men and women. And then I noticed something else. It was okay to connect men to penises. It was assumed, by nearly every person around me, that when one “thirsted for that dick” they were talking about a man and that was okay. If someone said “I really want to fuck her”, without even citing whether “cis” or trans, the entire community was on alert. If someone were to say “I would eat her out”, there would be goddamn riots in the name of transphobia. This was where I started think that it was kind of fucked up that people could be “transphobic” in talking about men and penises have it celebrated as feminist, and then utterly destroyed for talking about women and vulvas. This was where I started to wonder why it was okay for my straight female friend to talk about her thirst for men using explicit details involving dick, but it wasn’t okay for me, a lesbian, to have a sexual attraction to vulvas. This was where I started to want to ask questions about sex-based attraction (but I didn’t, because you don’t ask questions in libfem communities. You just accept, validate, and welcome everybody and shut your goddamn mouth if you don’t.)

This overlapped with the gender bang pt 2, which was a reinforcement of the gender theory that had been prevailing for a while but was more significant to me at the time. While I was now starting to wonder why people attracted to men could specify male genitalia in their attraction and lesbians weren’t permitted to do the same for women, there was beginning a larger push to pretend like biological sex didn’t exist at all. There was a push for people to believe that only gender, a concept of personal identity, factored into attraction. It was a push that made it so a woman was only a woman because she said so, and to speak of biological sex was to be transphobic. It was a push that deconstructed my womanhood and my sexuality in one blow. It was a push that further amplified discussions of “dick”, except now where my lack of participation in such talks would have been unnoticeable, it was a “red flag”. It was upsetting. It wasn’t trans people that were upsetting to me, or trans women, or trans “validity”. I wasn’t angry about the fact that trans people existed, I didn’t wish them ill or dead. I was angry that my femaleness, my womanhood, the part of who I was for which this movement claimed to stand for—feminism—was now the enemy. It was being erased. I was angry that my sexuality, which I had had barely a breath to revel in, which I had had denied to me through all this other genderist bullshit, was now treated as a “risk factor” for being a transphobe—the ultimate evil. I couldn’t say any of this, though, I couldn’t ask any questions, I couldn’t differ even slightly in opinion, or disagree with something or have some fucking boundaries, because this is the libfem circles we are talking about. So, instead, I just buried my thoughts because part of me felt that maybe I was evil for thinking that way. 

And right around then I stumbled into the ace diskhorse. Yes, that one area within liberal feminism where there is the slightest variety—I say slightest because in fact, if you openly suggest ace exclusion as a libfem, you will be decimated just as you would for criticizing genderism. However, I say variety, because there are a decent amount of libfems who are ace exclusionists but subscribe to literally everything else in libfem rhetoric. That’s where I found myself, on another tiny blog, lurking curiously in these trans-inclusive gender-not-sex q*eer ace-exclusive posts. (Mind, I am ace exclusive. But that’s not what makes me a terf. Just an aphobe, apparently). This was where I learned that, hey, it was possible to not agree with every single little thing that the tumblr mainstream declared “valid”. I had never strayed away from the mainstream because I didn’t know of any other circle except, you know, terfs, which were obviously evil—so why would I have ever bothered to look at a so-called terf’s blog or in a “terfy” tag? I hadn’t. I hadn’t ever seen anything but the tumblr mainstream all very forcefully agreeing with each other, supported by kawaii banners and not much else. Yet here was the tiny ace-exclusive corner, where people actually discussed like, concepts, and constructs, and facts, and histories, and actual manifestations of oppressions. I saw people actually asking goddamn questions. 

A few times, I would see an ace-inclusive libfem telling an ace-exclusive libfem that they were evil fucking aphobes that were “just as bad as terfs”. Privately, I would think, no, no I’m not like a terf. Terfs are evil! They want to kill trans women and are total fetishists! I don’t want to kill anyone, I know trans people. Just because I think maybe being female matters and that maybe it’s okay to be attracted to sex, does not mean I’m a terf. 

So it was all happening in congruence: I was a lesbian finally free from her own internalized lesbophobia, looking to embrace and revel in my sexuality after hating it for so long, as the community I trusted told me that it was wrong to desire vulva but empowering to suck dick. I was starting to look up and outside and thinking about asking questions just as I discovered that questions could be asked. I was thinking.

I can identify a moment that could be called the catalyst. 

I was perusing my ace-exclusionist corner, and an ace-exclusionist libfem had made a post about asexuality that a “terf” had dared agree with. There was no mention of trans people or sex or gender on either end and still the libfem said:

“go get hit by a truck and die, terf”

It was so brutally violent and since the “terf” had said nothing that was trans or gender or sex related, I thought that this must mean that terfs are so universally evil they’re worthy of fucking death threats just for commenting on a post. And then I worried the thoughts I’d been having, the anger about devaluing my sex and sexuality in the name of trans activism, were terfy. And so I clicked on that terf’s blog, to see how maliciously cruel and hateful these terfs were so that I could reaffirm my previous loyalty to trans-inclusive feminism. 

Except what happened was that I clicked on that terf’s blog and she wasn’t the spawn of Satan. I clicked on people she reblogged from and people they reblogged from and soon found myself lurking in honest-to-God terf circles. It wasn’t violent. It wasn’t evil. No one was asking for the rapes and murders of trans women. No one was fetishizing women. There were black terfs and brown terfs and disabled terfs and lesbian terfs and bisexual terfs and young terfs and older terfs. These terfs weren’t at all the kawaiied pasteled hivemind that libfem was. They actually talked about things; they explored, explained, and support ideas, history, facts, and values. It was invigorating. They didn’t all agree all the time all at once and no one was threatening lives for having a different perspective. Their commonality? In the most basic definition, these trans exclusive radical feminists believed in sex-based oppression, in sex-based attraction, and in the prioritization of women in feminism. Obviously there’s much more to it than that; that’s what made it so fascinating, this movement that had a foundation and entire layers of analyses and arguments and facts and history and convictions. 

I lurked and I lurked and I lurked and then I said fuck it, and I made a blog. I believe that gender is a social construct, that biological sex is fact, that sex-based oppression exists; I don’t want trans people dead, I don’t think trans people don’t deserve health care, I don’t think trans people don’t deserve safety. There’s more, but those are the baselines. 

So I guess now I’m a terf that switched sides. And apparently deserving of things like getting hit by a truck and dying. Comes with the territory when you decide to be part of a movement that asks questions and doesn’t deny reality. 

[werewolfin]

Flame Headcanons

@i-w-p-chan​ asked me to explain some xover thoughts between Katekyo Hitman Reborn flames & Boku no Hero Academia characters, so buckle up ‘cuz it’s a long post under the read more! Headcanon, ho!

To explain my numbers, I gotta explain a buncha other shit too, lmao.

So basically I got some inspo from micronecro way back when (the post here on my tumblr if you're curious) that Earth Flames & whatnot were all combination Flames. Swamp is Storm+Sun, Forest Sun+Lightning, Mountain Lightning+Rain, Desert Rain+Mist, Glacier Mist+Cloud, & that last mysterious flame being named Geyser for Cloud+Storm.

I also wanted a third part of Flames for the water aspect (Earth is obvs earth, Sky is a combo of fire & air for skies themselves), so I also came up with Ocean Flames & that entire set. The feeling was only reinforced by an offhand comment by nordiamus over on FFN in their Game On xover, really.

So if Sky is the most purely Flame set & Earth is combo, shouldn't Ocean also be some sort of combo? But if the Sky is so common & Earth heard of but not really heard of, then wouldn't Ocean be even more rare?

I eventually settled on a natural 3:4:5 ratio, but to have a ratio I needed to have numbers, so I had to math shit out & also needed to have shorthand symbols so I didn't inevitably confuse myself while making sure they actually showed up in both Notepad & Excel, colors for much the same, & characteristics for the Flames themselves too. Took a long while, but I got everything settled out.

I chose 108 for the point system because it's already a trope, lol. I also made use of Umei-no Mai's Black Sky's headcanon that you actually needed around 5% of each Flame to develop properly, though I had to use it as 6% b/c the math would've become bad math otherwise. This means any singular Flame can only be a value between 6 to 76 out of 108 (6-70%), b/c there’s gotta be at least 6 points (6%) on everything. Here’s a handy chart:

Yellow is where I folded percentages together, red is the tens on the point side, with green the tens on the percent side. A general guideline I use is that you need at least 18% to produce a visible Flame. You can do it with smaller percentages down to 10%, but it requires exceptional control & possibly small reserves (which can also be called depth). (this scenario would also produce a functional sky but it’d be a fairly weak one since it was both not activated as such and not a full state of being for them).

Dying Will Flames of the Sky: NAME: hex code, attribute, symbol (reason if needed) (the link has interesting info), type of resolve (HC from Gokurdera being able to light 5 Flames but not all at once); appearance

STORM: #EB1C23 brilliant red, disintegration, ♋ (looks like hurricane cell; I'm aware it's actually the symbol for Cancer), to take down; low-heat smoldering, smokey upcurls & tongues

SKY: #FFA719 vivid gamboge, harmony, at least 10% (11/108) on all, ☰ (this the trigram symbol for heaven you see), to keep/stay; most like fire w/ flares, wisps, & overall more ethereal movement

SUN: #FFC70F amber, activation, ☀, to improve; like starlight in that it’s constant jetting outwards, more a shining than a straight-up fire

LIGHTNING/THUNDER: #23B04B malachite, hardening, ϟ (this is the only lightning-shaped symbol to show up tbh, it's technically the lowercase Greek letter for Q), to defend; electricity w/ small arcs between branches

RAIN: #99D8E8 cerulean, tranquility, ☂, to slow down; pool water with refraction in slow-motion, more round & globular than a fire except it gives off (what it’s user thinks of as ‘relaxing’) heat

MIST: #3F49CC phthalo blue, construction, ♒ (I couldn't find anything that was explicitly 'fog' or whatever, so I had to make do with whatever worked; it's the symbol for Aquarius, though it also symbolizes wind which is the next best, since mist is a groundbound cloud anyways), to confuse; wispy, almost entirely see through, with off center diffusion of color, the palest of the Flames

CLOUD: #A249A3 moderate magenta, propagation, ☁, to overtake; like puffs of smoke with a natural reach of twice the length of everything else in the Sky set (whole hand length minimum)

Dying Will Flames of the Ocean/Sea: NAME: hex code, attribute, symbol (reason if needed); appearance. Funfact: this set has the most desaturated colors as though it’s deeper in the sea, though if you go for max 240-value saturation they’re still discernible from the other sets.

WHIRLPOOL: #DE7C66 light scarlet, combustion (rapid burning), ☁/♋/☀, ♓ (Pisces symbol, yes, but fish live in pools; also what the fuck, I see literal fish as the symbol everywhere else but this fucking site); elongated fingers of flame that seem to spin or spiral their entire length rather than just the tips like Storm does, like screws or a helix

OCEAN: #FF7700 vivid orange, encompass, 12% (13/108) on all with remainder divided, ☵ (the trigram for water yo; easily distinguishable from both Sky & Earth, even has a mini horizon on there to make a "between the Earth & the Heavens" metaphor); heavy fire, somewhat similar to a tri-pronged crown or W that flutters like it's in the wind

VOLCANO: #C2AC1D moderate gold, acidification (pH cycling), ♋/☀/ϟ, ☈ (the symbol for thunderstorms which I find appropriate, b/c volcanoes can actually spawn these); smokey & partially see thru w/ green halo edging, fuzzy-looking around the edges, tho for a better visual of what I mean, look up fire opals

CURRENT: #85B357 moderate chartreuse, magnetism, ☀/ϟ/☂, ☄ (actually symbolizes comets, but it's theorized comets brought water to Earth anyway); clumps together, lengths loop each other to form a field, look at your hand in the process of turning into a fist, it’s like that

WATERFALL: #306D78 arctic blue, binding, ϟ/☂/♒, ♆ (fuck yeah, the symbol for Neptune sure, but rivers were his children &/or domain as all rivers lead to the ocean); elastic & flexible with no purely set expression beyond naturally long reach (the longest Flame overall)

MOON: #9999CC deep periwinkle, reflection, ☂/♒/☁, ☾ (obvious); moves like a shadow where there’s three or more overlapping areas w/ a natural wave pattern, if you’ve ever seen the sun during a heatwave it’s like where it wobbles due to the thermal air currents so the sun itself doesn’t look like a full disc

TIDE: #CFA7C3 light fuchsia, expansion, ♒/☁/♋, ♎ (the symbol for Libra & the alchemical symbol for the subliminal; also looks like the moon rising from the sea); light, aggressively more magenta when hyper-layered, leaves afterimages like when staring into a bright light, strangely behaves like a less intense Sun Flame where it’s an overall but softer & rounder glow rather than jetting out

Dying Will Flames of the Earth/Soil: NAME: hex code, attribute, symbol (reason if needed); appearance

SWAMP: #FFB482 tangelo, fermentation (living things), 28% (30) ♋/☀ each, ☣ (biohazard was a perfect fit); almost flat but highly agitated w/ irregular flares & flickers, highest temp behind Earth in this set, technically shortest Flame at half a finger height (knuckle to first joint)

EARTH: #BD3900 vermillion, gravity, 14% (15) all, ☷ (trigram for earth); dense & exceptionally rounded fire, appearing like a split V flame that doesn’t move about as much as an actual fire, more pulled together

FOREST: #A6DE5D electric lime, growth, 23% (25) ☀/ϟ each, ♣ (club suit b/c it looks like a little tree); thin, finely branched & erratic fire, with unpredictable sparks

MOUNTAIN: #62BD8E spring green, compression, 28% (30) ϟ/☂ each, ▲ (it's a triangle, but it doubles as a mountain symbol on maps); almost opaque, w/ a fat bottom and narrow top (shaped like a deflated balloon if such a thing floated in your palm) & slow sinuous motion (the widest Flame at the base at around twice the width of the palm holding it, picture lava lamp wax)

DESERT: #1C6BFF cobalt, emergence (big patterns that appear b/c of small things, ex. ripples in sand from wind movement pushing grains around, or the uniqueness of snowflakes) (also influenced by InsaneScriptist's One Piece/KHR xover fic Xanxus' Adventures in Parenthood Piracy where Desert flames are many illusions stacked onto each other), 32% (35) ☂/♒ each, ✿ (black florette b/c I can't really see the white one, & desert flowers are very pretty); perfectly transparent but for a tint, warps the coloring immediately around it into the blue spectrum, a place where it’s just inexplicably blue above where it’s being held, like staring into a mirror reflecting itself greener and greener, but if made visible to others it might give an appearance of sand because it’s also not a very “even” or “smooth” Flame

GLACIER: #C68CFF light violet, fortification taking the form of crystals as it’s just that intense, 37% (40) ♒/☁ each, ♦ (diamond suit b/c that's a basic crystal shape, also to not leave Forest as a card by itself); upside down kite shape w/ barbed &  jagged edges like frost, not see through like you almost expect tho it’s the whitest one in general w/ bright vivid color at the edge

GEYSER: #99007D red plum, extension, 32% (35) ☁/♋ each, ♨ (hot springs are close enough to geysers for me to the connection); like heated water complete w/ dense steaming, and the leading edge even redder

Have a handy little mnemonic pic to remember how to get what.

And just who can forget Night Flames either? I headcanon that Night was one of the 3 human Flames before the Earthlings like Kawahira were forced to pass the other 3 sets onto humans to sustain life; Snow, Void, & Night were all buried under and/or split between the newer sets, which is why no one ever pulls them forth until Bermuda has his Flames torn out by his Pacifier being taken by Checkerface.

SNOW: silvery-white, absorption (base reason for why humans can become all sorts of creatures, but never back), prevalent ☀ &/or ☂ &/or ☁, ☊ (ascending node, alchemical symbol for sublimation). Appearance: aerogel if it was fire shaped, glowing around the edges like a halo, pale silver-ish, a defined or captured mist spray.

VOID: (perfect) gray, preservation, ☰ &/or ☵ &/or ☷, ⊕ (alchemical symbol for verdigris, symbol for Earth the planet). This was basically the first version of Skies, Oceans, & Earths for humans. Appearance: a blooming iridescence, like summoning a faint rainbow upon a slick surface but in petaled flower silhouette (inherent control of it’s user imparts the number of petals).

NIGHT: black*, perpetuity (grim determination to do this ONE thing & damn the consequences, to carry on), prevalent ♋ &/or ϟ &/or ♒, ☋ (descending node, alchemical symbol for purification). Appearance: invisible unless moving, black & heavy looking when it does almost like a smear or smudge, with a type of simmering heat to it, an absence of light (resulting in a clear pacifier). *You know the video game thing/unresolvable YouTube video error where it’s supposed to be dark but it’s actually just a dark grey that feels creepy to look at too long? That color.

(I got a lot, seriously a bunch of other shit attributed to each Flame too, but this thing is already long enough. If I get interest, I’ll just make another post).

This has Earth-set Flames absurdly specialist but still very possible by accident, while leaving the Ocean-set harder to achieve any other way but naturally feeling the resolve for each separate component Flame. It also makes Oceans & Earths fundamentally Skies, just denser or even-keeled if you can get that. (compare phases of matter as gas [always chaotic], liquid [clumping together but still fairly energetic], and solid [at least mostly rigid in state]).

You also don’t need to be part of the same set to be considered an element, either... folding down anyway. A fully realized Earth could only truly bond w/ only Earth-set Flames, an Ocean could bond w/ Ocean-set Flames, but a Sky could bond w/ anyone by latching onto just one Flame, disregarding if it’s part of a composite Flame. Earth and/or Ocean Flames might identify more as a Sky than their ‘proper’ label as a matter of self-preservation as their elements are so rare, so would feel more at home pulling in Sky elements rather than Ocean or Earth elements. (not that it’d stop them if given the choice).

This all neatly dovetails into headcanon Flames for Class 1A for BNHA, arranged by set then seat.

From the Sky-set, you got:

Asui Tsuyu: ♋: 6=6%; ☀: 37=34%; ϟ: 11=10%; ☂: 37=34%; ♒: 6=6%; ☁: 11=10%; (☀, ☂). You can’t tell me she talks with that huge tongue without having to Actively shoot it, right? Rain because she’s just so naturally calm.

Mashirao Ojiro (6): ♋: 6=6%; ☀: 9=8%; ϟ: 9=8%; ☂: 6=6%; ♒: 6=6%; ☁: 72=66%; (☁). Because he seems kinda distant to me like most of KHR Clouds seem to be in theory, idk why. I do think he’s cool tho.

Kaminari Denki: ♋: 6=6%; ☀: 36=33%; ϟ: 24=22%; ☂: 6=6%; ♒: 6=6%; ☁: 30=28%; (☀, ϟ, ☁). Sun b/c his lightning is actually yellow so I theorize he’s actually Propagating his natural Activated bioelectricity via Cloud, but there’s enough Lightning to leave him intact doing so and lend his bioelectricity it’s more elongated shape. A further headcanon is that his family’s lightning quirks all effectively have different colors.

Kirishima Eijirou: ♋: 6=6%; ☀: 13=12%; ϟ: 48=44%; ☂: 17=16%; ♒: 8=7%; ☁: 16=15%; (ϟ). That’s some classic Lightning right there.

Jiro Kyouka: ♋: 9=8%; ☀: 18=17%; ϟ: 18=17%; ☂: 14=13%; ♒: 9=8%; ☁: 40=37%; (☁). To make the sound of her heartbeat exponentially louder like a boss. Also introduces sensitivity problems.

Tokoyami Fumikage: ♋: 22=20%; ☀: 6=6%; ϟ: 6=6%; ☂: 26=24%; ♒: 40=37%; ☁: 8=7%; (♋, ☂, ♒). Mist to materialize Dark Shadow, Rain to be dense enough to interact w/ which when paired w/ Storm fucks w/ him when Dark Shadow gets too powerful (ie overwhelming him & largely destructive).

fuck Mineta, let’s replace him

I can’t believe I have shamed myself into including him

Mineta Minoru: ♋: 6=6%; ☀: 30=28%; ϟ: 7=6%; ☂: 6=6%; ♒: 26=24%; ☁: 33=30%; (☀, ♒, ☁). While he can inherently multiply what’s essentially wads of his hair, Mist is what imparts it’s special properties (otherwise he’d stick to his pillows & his clothes would catch on when he gets dressed), & Sun lets him naturally produce more. This is where overuse comes into play; too much Sun Flame in too short a time frame splits the skin, though thankfully the bloodflow washes out anything that might’ve evolved into cancer cells before it begins healing. I figure if he trains more & CAREFULLY, he might start using Sun to more enhance Cloud allowing him more stamina w/ his quirk.

From the Ocean-set, you get:

Ashido Mina: ♋: 30=28%; ☀: 20=19%; ϟ: 25=23%; ☂: 10=9%; ♒: 15=14%; ☁: 8=7%; (♋, ☀, ϟ) / (☈): she adjusts pH to get what she wants. It’s fair chance she was born with near-Sky values.

Iida Tenya: ♋: 19=18%; ☀: 21=19%; ϟ: 19=18%; ☂: 7=6%; ♒: 22=20%; ☁: 20=19%; (♋, ☀, ϟ, ♒, ☁) / (♓, ♎w). Combustion engine, baby! He’s exploding things to go faster. His family’s been cultivating this particular quirk so long his line is close to producing Skies!

Uraraka Ochako: ♋: 6=6%; ☀: 22=20%; ϟ: 23=21%; ☂: 24=22%; ♒: 19=18%; ☁: 14=13%; (☀, ϟ, ☂, ♒) / (☄, ♆w, ☾). Manipulating magnetism to cancel out a lot of the gravity by making it attracted to itself & only itself so repelling everything not itself, & reflection to drop them back into gravity by touching her own fingertips. Her Cloud attribute isn’t actually able to manifest outside of her body b/c it lacks outward-manifesting strength; it makes up for this in being able to apply Moon w/ extra depth & precision. The depth part is what makes her nauseous. She’s actually got a hidden attribute in Waterfall/binding! She might be able to functionally (seek a) target where she drops stuff later on if she discovers it.

Mezou Shouji: ♋: 22=20%; ☀: 12=11%; ϟ: 6=6%; ☂: 6=6%; ♒: 28=26%; ☁: 34=31%; (♋, ♒, ☁) / (♎). Expansion materializes new body parts with the help of Mist, Cloud to shorthand remember bodyparts he’s already got, & Storm to reabsorb them when they’re no longer needed.

Hagakure Tooru: ♋: 6=6%; ☀: 6=6%; ϟ: 6=6%; ☂: 36=33%; ♒: 30=28%; ☁: 24=22%; (☂, ♒, ☁) / (☾). She’s just straight up reflecting most if not all light that hits her body, which is why you can see her clothing but not her. HC she’s got excellent night vision; you might see a bit of eyeshine even!

Hmmm... for funsies, how about:

Shinsou Hitoshi: ♋: 6=6%; ☀: 6=6%; ϟ: 36=33%; ☂: 30=28%; ♒: 24=22%; ☁: 6=6%; (ϟ, ☂, ♒) / (♆). He takes control by binding his will on top of yours, like puppet strings. He reroutes your actions to his command w/ a combination of redirecting your natural electrical signals in your brain (which is why getting jarred will return your action to you) & Mist enabling him to do it in ways that won’t get detected until he does it. He’d be unstoppable if he ever worked out how to do it without the invitation; though as it’s partly psychological he might stop himself from ever overcoming that limitation.

And lastly from the Earth-set, you have:

Aoyama Yuuga: ♋: 30=28%; ☀: 29=27%; ϟ: 28=26%; ☂: 6=6%; ♒: 8=7%; ☁: 7=6%; (♋, ☀, ϟ) / (☈) / (☣). He’s fermenting the bacteria in his stomach by changing the acidity of his stomach acids whenever he shoots his laser. Boy’s gotta eat if he wants it to recharge.

Kouda Kouji: ♋: 6=6%; ☀: 37=34%; ϟ: 37=34%; ☂: 11=10%; ♒: 11=10%; ☁: 6=6%; (☀, ϟ) / x / (♣). He can communicate w/ living things b/c he’s basically making them recognize him as a friend (not that he doesn’t make friends with them anyway, tho).

Satou Rikidou: ♋: 6=6%; ☀: 22=20%; ϟ: 32=30%; ☂: 30=28%; ♒: 11=10%; ☁: 7=6%; (☀, ϟ, ☂) / ☄w / (▲). He compresses sugar to allow his body to process it quicker without it having to be digested first.

Sero Hanta: ♋: 35=32%; ☀: 6=6%; ϟ: 6=6%; ☂: 7=6%; ♒: 6=6%; ☁: 48=44%; (♋, ☁) / x / (♨). He produces something sticky then extends it very far.

Yaoyorozu Momo: ♋: 6=6%; ☀: 7=6%; ϟ: 6=6%; ☂: 35=32%; ♒: 35=32%; ☁: 19=18%; (☂, ♒, ☁) / ☾w / (✿). This is obvious, but I will say she gives whatever she makes true form because she’s using both knowledge to give it form & real energy derived from her body to give it material, which is why nothing dissolves away once she turns away from it.

You might have noticed a few missing. Here’s Todoroki w/ some calculations for his family members! Yeah!

Enji Todoroki/Endeavor: ♋: 49=45%; ☀: 6=6%; ϟ: 6=6%; ☂: 25=23%; ♒: 9=8%; ☁: 13=12%; (♋, ☂). Storm because fire (named Hellfire because it curls strangely & the fact it could burn everything), Rain for upping temperature by effecting density (meaning a thinner stream of fire).

Touya/Dabi: ♋: 37=34%; ☀: 6=6%; ϟ: 6=6%; ☂: 17=16%; ♒: 9=8%; ☁: 33=30%; (♋, ☁), Storm has the lowest energy & temperature imo, and Cloud’s b/c he can make a LOT of fire; I HC it’s more than Dumpster Fire could manage (that guy’s more of a precision over power kinda guy Flame wise, even if still pretty powerful). This Todoroki bro is just that good with his quirk, to produce blue fire by pure willpower.

Fuyumi: ♋: 13=12%; ☀: 6=6%; ϟ: 7=6%; ☂: 34=31%; ♒: 29=27%; ☁: 19=18%; (☂, ♒, ☁) / ♎w, ☾w. She’s totally a Rain, you can fight me on this. Her quirk’s gotta be something Asshole would consider useless for Hero work, so I’ll venture it might be Chill: temperature manipulation with a leaning towards cooler temps. If she ever became truly aware of the possibilities she could conjure, she’d obliterate him. Have fun sparking fire when everything refuses to heat up, bitch, lmao.

Natsuo: ♋: 8=7%; ☀: 6=6%; ϟ: 13=12%; ☂: 16=15%; ♒: 49=45%; ☁: 16=15%; (♒). Mostly so every single Todoroki has their own major element, though it’s still an entirely possible outcome from his parents. I don’t think he’s publicly quirkless because if that was a possibility his father would’ve gotten a new wife/brood mare b/c he’s THAT asshole. However, his Mist is strong enough that even if he was, he could’ve become an Active Flame user at a young age, and Mist’s pale blue color and gaseous form (if seen) might’ve made him seem like another temperature manipulator, thus also useless for his father’s ambitions. If he’s the type, he might be using it as a more physical support for himself, such as running longer or lifting more without injury than should be possible for someone who doesn’t exercise, that kind of thing.

Shouto: ♋: 6=6%; ☀: 6=6%; ϟ: 6=6%; ☂: 6=6%; ♒: 42=38%; ☁: 42=38%; (♒, ☁) / x / (♦). He’s the ultimate ice maker, & the fire side is just genetics making a general fire. If he ever became able to use Flames instead of fire, the fire would instead be a violet color rather than the yellowish one that it is now. Mist & Cloud are higher than his mother’s due to some very mild combination with his father’s values. It also makes his ice & consequently his fire VERY strong, considering every scrap not needed by the others is fed into his ice.

Rei: ♋: 6=6%; ☀: 6=6%; ϟ: 7=6%; ☂: 9=8%; ♒: 40=37%; ☁: 40=37%; (♒, ☁) / x / (♦). Ice, but a bit more spread out for variety. I’ve given her a common surname Yukimura, 雪村 "snow village" that alludes to her ice quirk, Flame, & the fact she seems to have had little support over the years.

Here’s Bakugou & Izuku!

Bakugou Katsuki: ♋: 30=28%; ☀: 30=28%; ϟ: 13=12%; ☂: 13=12%; ♒: 11=10%; ☁: 11=10%; ☰, (♋, ☀) / x / (☣). A first generation Sky. Fermentation applies to various bacteria that’s present in his sweat b/c they live on his skin, with Storm killing them & Sun activating whatever is left behind. He doesn’t always use Storm, which just leaves Sun sparking his palms, a holdover from his father also being a Swamp user.

Midoriya Izuku: ♋: 18=17%; ☀: 14=13%; ϟ: 26=24%; ☂: 14=13%; ♒: 14=13%; ☁: 22=20%; ☰, (ϟ, ☁) / ☵, (♓, ♎). A legacy Sky from his mother’s side (she’s an Earth as is most of the family on that half of his tree), though it’s completely chance he managed to be an Ocean b/c the values his father had lowered just the right higher Earth stats his mother had. Lightning & Cloud have high values enough to be secondaries, which actually shows up whenever he uses One for All which is naturally propagating to begin with. He’s got the proper Lightning appearing & everything. Whirlpool & Tide are an accident of numbers but also greatly appreciated by enabling better control? allocation? of One for All’s power.

Here’s everyone else who didn’t fit anything else above, like teachers & secondary characters!

Midoriya Inko: ♋: 18=17%; ☀: 15=14%; ϟ: 15=14%; ☂: 18=17%; ♒: 21=19%; ☁: 21=19%; ☰, (♒, ☁) / ☵, (♓, ♆) / ☷. She pulls things like gravity, ‘nuff said.

Hisashi Midoriya: ♋: 19=18%; ☀: 6=6%; ϟ: 31=29%; ☂: 7=6%; ♒: 22=20%; ☁: 23=21%; (♋, ϟ, ♒, ☁) / ♎w. Aways from being a Sky, but any potential offspring have a fairly good chance of being one with the right spouse/Inko. His ϟ deals with plasma, ☁ gives some projection so he doesn’t light himself on fire, ♒ a bit of fireproofing to the body parts & organs involved in fire-beathing, & ♋ some true (excuse the pun) fire power to what he can disintergrate w/ the fire produced. End result is a whitish-yellow flame between 2,200 °F (1,200 °C) & 2,400 °F (1,300 °C). I HC that he doesn’t have a very far reach with his fire-breath, about an arm length maybe unless he’s so emotional he lights some Cloud so it’s a full body length or longer. I also HC he took his wife’s name when they married, so I use Teiko (醍醐 "Good liquor, fine wine; clarified butter, ghee," w/ a pun of 大悟 "enlightenment") as his previous surname.

Aizawa Shouta: ♋: 20=19%; ☀: 7=6%; ϟ: 6=6%; ☂: 29=27%; ♒: 25=23%; ☁: 21=19%; (♋, ☂, ♒, ☁) / (☾). He’s sending a cancellation wave (the reverse reflection, no?) but the pale color of Moon is overpowered by his visible Storm which gives his eyes a visage of red & makes them dry af. He releases it in waves w/ Rain being the largest component meaning it floats his hair & gives the appearance of being underwater. Doubly powerful in that Rain, Mist, & Cloud are divisible by both points and percentage.

Camie: ♋: 7=6%; ☀: 6=6%; ϟ: 21=19%; ☂: 30=28%; ♒: 38=35%; ☁: 6=6%; (ϟ, ☂, ♒) / ♆w / (✿). I made her a Desert rather than just a regular Mist because I had another calculation, tbh. I also figure Desert would be more fitting since while dramatic she’s also fairly chill and likes a good laugh, & Mist always seemed like a “effect self” more than “effect others” kind of utilization (not that it’s not possible or anything, obvs). Waterfall is for when she finally gets that little niggle in her technique that will allow her to greatly expand the range she currently has, as in “will hold until she lets it drop” kinda range.

Hawks: ♋: 6=6%; ☀: 6=6%; ϟ: 49=45%; ☂: 14=13%; ♒: 26=24%; ☁: 7=6%; (ϟ, ♒). His wings can do and handle some crazy shit because they are made of reinforced (ϟ) crazy shit (♒), and that’s just how he is.

Villains!

All For One: ♋: 11=10%; ☀: 19=18%; ϟ: 20=19%; ☂: 12=11%; ♒: 35=32%; ☁: 11=10%; ☰, (☀, ϟ, ♒). Mist for it being a mostly mental power for all that it effects his body, Sun to pull up the right genetics configuration FOR the quirks he’s taken, Lightning so his actual DNA is protected or lets him revert back to his own.

Shigaraki Tomura/Shimura Tenko: ♋: 71=65%; ☀: 6=6%; ϟ: 6=6%; ☂: 6=6%; ♒: 8=7%; ☁: 11=10%; (♋). Simple. Got deep reserves & relatively high quirk stamina from Nana's side thru his father.

Since it’s a common headcanon that Skies will vie for elements until they got a full arc & put themselves against other Skies in order to get the ones they want, Bakugou & Izuku were put into an instinctive conflict when Bakugou got access to his quirk. Oceans Encompass so Izuku seriously just did want to be friends for a good while for all he wasn’t Active, but Bakugou doesn’t or didn’t get that because he saw Izuku as a potential or possibly actual disruption to his own Harmony.

And since to have Flames the Earthlings need to have existed, I’m proposing that the Trinisette was disrupted by whatever, such as a mission for potential Arcobaleno resulting in all of them dying with/without ever bonding to the Pacifiers or Kawahira dying either before Bermuda could come into being/Bermuda got a lucky shot in before abruptly staying dead from backlash, & quirks are what appeared from Flames spiraling out of control. Flame distribution is fairly unique even among close family members, resulting in equally unique is similar quirks.

BNHA-verse has gotta prepare for a big storm, is what I’m saying.

+edit: Maybe All for One was one of the first Quirked people to be born to that first disruption wave & discovered he could take Quirks, went out of his way to get powerful ‘Quirks’ first (or what he thought of as Quirks/super powers, but might have been Flame abilities specialized or not), resulting in a shortage of any potential emergency Arcobaleno if Kawahira didn’t die off suddenly.

[sisterstrugglingsarah-blog]

Music makes the world feel good

Wooooo super super unedited and I literally have no one to beta shit for me plus its like 1:32am so excuSE the many mistakes. Also I changed it up a teeny bit so I apologise if you don’t like that.

Word count: 1048 (wooo)

Pairing(s): Virgil/Patton (Platonic so yall don’t have to worry)

Warning(s): Fluff and angst (Boi I did NOT intend to write this much angst at all smhhhhh)

@pat-on-verge

Hmu if you want me to tag you in future fanfics!

Virgil wanted to kill himself. He messed up again. Now Thomas had to deal with depression because of his stupid actions. All he had to do was tell him that the video wasn’t good enough and *boom*, the man goes into shut-down mode. How was Virgil supposed to know that Thomas wasn’t having a good day? He was his anxiety, not feelings. He didn’t have the time to constantly ask Patton how he was feeling.

Throwing himself onto his bed, Virgil sighed and began to scroll through Tumblr, reblogging memes and the occasional motivational wallpaper for the fans. He did run the account, after all.

Coming across some particularly depressing wallpapers, he was just about to reblog it to the usual one when he realised he was going to make a huge mistake and quickly posted it to his personal blog. Breathing a sigh of relief, he noticed that the words on the wallpapers were actually song lyrics. Song lyrics from the musical Thomas had put up with his friends.

‘How long ago was that?’

Virgil had to admit, the songs were catchy, and soon he found himself humming a few of them. One of the songs, however, seemed to get itself stuck in his head no matter how he tried to shake it out.

‘I never wanted to be the bad guy…’

‘Aw, crap. Not again.’ Virgil thought miserably. He found the album on his phone and began to play that song, pulling his knees up to his chest and burying his face into them, letting the words flow over his compressed form.

‘But it’s just you, and you alone to blame…’

‘Nononono…’ No matter how much he wanted the feelings to go away, he found it best to just acknowledge them first. Let them sink into him so that Thomas won’t have to bear so much of the pain. It was part of his job, unfortunately. For some reason, when Virgil bore the brunt of the depression, Thomas seemed to be less cut off from others and the rest of the sides would function much better. It was probably because he was his anxiety. Depression and anxiety, best buddies, right?

Patton did consist of most of the feelings, but depression always seemed to hit hardest. On Virgil. It would wrap around his heart like a thorny vine, squeezing and crushing every exposed part possible. It would cause anxiety to stumble to the floor while grabbing chips from the kitchen, clutching his chest in agonising pain, unable to get up for help. He would curl up in a ball and not want to move, causing Thomas to do the same on the couch and fall asleep with thoughts more depressing than the ones Virgil would usually come up with. It was a completely different experience. One that Virgil had to compress so fucking deep inside himself just to even move.

He hated it. He hated it so much. Because of something he did, he had to bear the consequences of it. He never seemed to think before he said anything to Thomas. Even during videos, Virgil could tell when an insult hit hard because his heart would clench in a way that he never wanted to feel again. But he still continued to do it.

“Because if Thomas can’t take a little scolding, how would he be in the working world?” Thomas’ mother would ask his father when Thomas did badly in exams and she had scolded him.

This had stuck with Virgil since. He didn’t know why. Throwing Thomas a mental insult just seemed like the right thing to do when Thomas was getting complacent or haughty due to Roman or Patton’s actions sometimes. But he never stopped to consider his own actions.

All he wanted was for Thomas to function properly, yes, but what good did it do when all he caused was depression? He had this talk with the others, even got it sorted out in a video, but did he really mean it when he said he wouldn’t go? What was he really here for?

The songs continued in the background of his wallowing, the reprise of the relatable song beginning to play.

“Hey, kiddo! Wanna have a game of-” Patton, opening the door gently, stopped in his tracks, his inviting smile quickly morphing into a frown. “What’s wrong? Something happen?” He asked, concerned for his sad child.

“I-It’s nothing, just the usual dose of depression, nothing I can’t handle.” Virgil barely looked up to know who it was by the voice, not wanting to cause any trouble for the dad.

“Hey, just tell me. I’ve handled much worse than you sulking in a corner, you know?” Patton refused to let Virgil’s sadness get to him and smiled at the other, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. Virgil turned the moved to turn the music off but Patton told him not to do so, instead smiling warmly at him. “The good part is coming up now. Keep listening!”

Sure enough, in the silence, with the music playing and the song coming to an end, it took on a more… encouraging tone. One that made Patton, looking at Virgil with a reassuring smile, sing the last line. 

“That doesn’t have to be how the story goes…”

At this one line, Virgil’s eyes filled with tears, all his pains projected into the few that managed to slip past his hooded lids, a shudder shaking his entire frame. Barely managing a smile, he looked up at Patton, who by that time, had sat down on the edge of his bed, the soft mattress dipping ever so slightly. 

“It’s okay to feel sad, you know? I feel sad sometimes, too. Especially when you’re sad. You think I can’t feel it? I’m literally Thomas’ feelings. If any of the sides are feeling anything, I can feel it too. So don’t think that I don’t know when you’re depressed.” Patton jokingly turned his tone of voice into his ‘Dad Lecture’ one, pointing at Virgil with a grin. 

Virgil actually snorted slightly, barely able to contain his laughter at the dad’s strange antics. He wasn’t a child. But it did feel kind of satisfying to be treated like one every once in a while.

Felt safe.

[newhologram]

Survival is anything but typical

I don’t work hard at positivity and happiness and self care because I’m privileged or neurotypical or never had anything bad happen to me ever.

Why would someone with such a perfect (and not real, no one has this) life and brain and body need to work so hard for those things? 

Maybe we need to ask ourselves that before we call every person or coping method *~neurotypical~* and be assholes about it. Maybe just don’t be an asshole at all, because neurotypical is not an insult? Why have we turned it into an insult? I’m really uncomfortable with “haha i make the assumption that ur brain is more on the normal side bc u recommended something to help, fuck u”, that’s really immature and gross.  

Unless you can literally see into someone’s brain, unless you’re someone’s actual neurologist or something, maybe don’t assume you know whether or not their brain is “normal” based on something that is annoying but ultimately just harmless ignorance like, “hey, I know you’re in a lot of pain everyday, maybe this one type of yoga is something that could help, I saw it in a documentary!”

Like, let’s talk about that for a second. As a disabled person (physical and mental yay), these are the things I work hard at to try to make life more bearable and to stay alive because my conditions and the high levels of pain I’m almost always in literally almost caused me to end my own life: meditation, yoga, aromatherapy, herbs, self-massage, journaling, and there are more things like treatments I get or going to the sauna but those are just the things I do myself. 

Guess what people who do not have such illnesses are constantly suggesting to me?

Me: *confesses to someone my illnesses and struggles* Them: Oh! You know, yoga might help— Me: Yeah, I do it twice a day. Really helps my spine out.  Them: Have you tried medit— Me: Two or more times a day, Primordial Sound as well as Vedic mantras and yeah, it’s really great for so many things. Them: My cousin’s husband’s niece does this thing where they get the oil from thyme leaves, you know like the stuff you cook with— Me: Yeah, I know, I use white thyme oil actually, it’s excellent for nerve pain and fatigue.  This is literally. Every new person. I meet. Who learns about my status as a person with incurable debilitating chronic illnesses. It’s exhausting and when I’m cranky all I can think is “what the fuck you just learned that I’ve been sick for several years and you think I never tried fucking yoga??????” But I don’t say that because I don’t wanna be a dick for no reason. That would make me a dick. There is no scenario where I would not be a dick for acting that way. People are not mind readers, the universe doesn’t revolve around me, strangers do not know what I’ve tried. My sister has tagged me in self care stuff in instagram that I already knew about, so should I call her a “fucking neurotypical” and be an asshole when she’s trying to help her little sis out? Sure, if I wanna be a dick.

My anger and frustration and suffering is not an excuse for me to be an asshole and snap at them and insult them for not knowing any better, for not understanding that yes, these things are very helpful and I already do them but they’re not cures and every person with illness is different and has to find different things that work for them. Yoga is great for me but might be too hard for others. In fact sometimes yoga is too hard for me if I’m having a bad flare up and I can barely stretch my arms without getting woozy. 

I’m just cracking up imagining some tumblr “blogger” at a healing center constantly interrupting a self-care lecture like “UM IMAGINE BEING THIS NEUROTYPICAL LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!” in a room full of sick and disabled people who are desperate to learn ways to improve their functionality and lessen suffering. You would look like an idiot and an asshole. 

When my self-care is mocked, my survival is mocked. When my survival is mocked, my will to live is mocked. When my will to live is mocked, my life is a joke then, isn’t it? I’m just a joke. Look at New, what a joke she is, making a yoga routine and sticking to it, what a joke she is, working hard to be nice and patient with people even when they piss her the hell off and on the inside she’s screaming. She must be #neurotypical lololololololol but oh wait her brain literally didn’t have enough bloodflow most of her life and her brainstem was compressed to the point where her brain couldn’t talk to her organs properly looool so #typical #amirite

I’m positive because on the inside, I’m actually very negative. The truth is, I hate myself. I hate my guts. I hate my voice, my face, my handwriting, my art, my videos, my life, my work, everything. It takes so much work to go about daily life with this much hatred for myself and sometimes it’s so overwhelming that my brain goes, “you don’t even deserve a heating pad or pain meds or acupuncture, you should just suffer and die and free your family from the burden of having to take care of you, and your friends will be much happier with you gone because then they won’t have to hear you complain all the time about how much pain you’re in!” I feel that I’ll never make my father proud, I’ll never be “someone”, I’ll never be happy, I’ll never find love, I’ll probably drop dead by age 30 and the thought is mostly “eh whatever” to me because I do not value myself and I’m constantly pushing myself precisely because of, wait for it and I hate that I’m saying this, internalized ableism is so deep in me that I do not feel that I’m worth what other people are worth. So my brain thinks, “it’s okay for YOU to make yourself suffer just to spare this actually able person a simple inconvenience because you are not of any value.”

Literally that is my brain nearly every day and I have so many up and down moodswings that I’m almost constantly overwhelmed by it. I work so hard to keep that shit locked in tight because if I don’t, it manifests as passive aggression and meanness and I DON’T WANT TO BE THAT PERSON ANYMORE. I DON’T. During very imbalanced and very sick times in my life, I was that person. I was awful. I was so deeply depressed and angry and suicidal that I acted like a fucking lunatic! I was mean! I was abusive! I was NOT A GOOD NEW! This was my mental illnesses aggravated by physical illnesses at their absolute worst.

It’s not neurotypical to want to be a better person. 

It’s not neurotypical to do my best with what I have and be grateful for what I have.

It’s not neurotypical to look on the bright side even when everything looks shitty. 

Like. I can barely work right now. I’m in my late 20′s. My 20′s are gone because I spent them sick instead of having normal life experiences. Last year I kissed someone for the first time in almost a decade, because illness kind of gets in the way of any kind of romantic life. One of my fears has happened. I’m too sick to do the work I love right now. It’s terrifying and I hate myself for it, I can’t stop feeling so horrible and feeling like I’m so weak for needing this time to heal and not using it to be working hard on set or advancing my career, and I have to maybe face the reality that I’m just done for and that was all I was going to be able to squeeze out of my poor sick body.

So you know what I do to deal with these feelings? 

I meditate. I make lists of the things I’m grateful for. I look for the abundance so that I won’t tunnel vision on the lack. Because otherwise all I see is lack, all I see is my pain, all I see is my empty wallet, my debt, my bruises, my vomit, my tears, my blood, my tiny studded belt in my shaking hands.

So bite my disabled ass. It’s finely toned from all the yoga I do, so be careful not to shatter your teeth.

[anigraham]

I always have a bad time when I have to contact support anywhere it seems.  Let me share my experience with Tumblr service and Kat as a reason why I hate contacting support.

Having worked alongside support teams, I get it.  There are a lot of idiots out there.  I will never forget the day a news reporter was freaking out about his mouse that simply stopped working, him calling me over for help, and that he just “didn’t have time for this!”  His mouse had came unplugged.

I always try to troubleshoot my problems.  I always try to figure it out on my own.  This includes using Google.  So when I have to resort to filling out a support ticket I try really hard to be very detailed in the problem AND what I did.

Tumblr’s support form asks for a category.  I selected Dashboard is behind weirdly.  I was very specific that my drawing for whatever reason just gets shit on after I post it.  This literally doesn’t happen for any of my other art of the same size.  So what is going on?

I figured it was because by mistake I accidentally selected a much smaller version of the pic I had saved.  But that’s why I tried again, tried renaming the file, tried resizing the file, tried different file types, tried altering the file in a variety of ways and it always seem to go back to the low quality.  And I stated I did such.

Hit submit.

Up pops up a “possible problems and solutions.”  One included mentioning the very thing that I was experiencing and literally listed everything I tried.  Made me feel good that great!  They know of this type of issue.  I happened to try everything they suggest.  Great!  Sent off my message.

Then enters Kat and the perfect fucking example of why I hate contacting support.  

Completely ignoring everything I tried and what the problem was, completely ignoring the email subject line of “Dashboard is behaving weirdly” that was created when I submitted the form. . .Kat talks about how some Tumblr themes have a limit on image widths.  And left it at that.

I essentially wrote back everything I had already submitted.  In stepped in  Alfredo whose signature had Tumblr Community Manager on it.  He totally understood my problem and asked for more information on what to do.  Excellent.  Someone with reading comprehensions does exist there!

Then Kat replies with essentially, that’s just how it is.  Images are compressed on Tumblr even though such a thing doesn’t happen with any other file.  Even when I myself take the time to resize the image to their 540 width.  Even though their own help suggests "Try saving a brand new version of the file using the photo/image application of your choice. This can sometimes help remove any encoding snags that may have been in the original file.” and that this is a problem that happens from time to time.

So basically Kat who couldn’t read my email before just tells me I’m out of luck.  On this particular drawing anyway.  

[skelesansx-blog]

send me a ship and I’ll tell you… // accepting

[[ @m-egabonavia CAUSE TUMBLR IS A FUCKING NOOB AND WOULDN’T LET U SEND IT TO ME.

Sans and Two (Clone Sans)]]

who is more likely to hurt the other? Two’s got more energy for it. He’s actually less traumatized by the whole ordeal (Even tho it’s still fucking traumatizing). 

who is emotionally stronger? Honestly, they’re kind of both emotionally destroyed from this whole thing. Two wins by a bit, as he at least doesn’t get triggered by fucking lab coats.

who is physically stronger? Two. Sans’ body was literally destroyed to make him.

who is more likely to break a bone? Sans. He’s more fragile from the whole ordeal.

who knows best what to say to upset the other? They are ultimately the same person, and as a result, they know each other intimately well, whether they want to or not. They know exactly what to say to bother the other, the exact thing that would strike a nerve/Upset the other- I’d say Sans only because he seems to have reached a limit of caring that Two hasn’t crossed yet.

who is most likely to apologise first after an argument? Sans. Because he fucking feels guilty about the whole thing like a dweeb.

who treats who’s wounds more often? Two unintentionally becomes Sans’ nurse? I def. see him just kinda picking up on when Sans is hurt/feeling bad due to the whole ‘body being destroyed to clone a thing for science’ ordeal and just...quietly getting him a hot compress or a blanket, or even just a pillow.

who is in constant need of comfort? Both of them. They both need hugs. rn. all the time.

who gets more jealous? Eh... I think both their self esteem sucks too much for that. Maybe Two, I see him def. being like “ur doing it wrong, stop, i’ll take care of it” When it comes to Sans. Prolly the only person he’d trust more than himself is Papyrus.

who’s most likely to walk out on the other? Sans, because he legit did walk out like a loon. Two is a close second. Being the clone and all.

who will propose? I DUNNO, HOW DO U MARRY A CLONE? IS THAT LEGAL? who has the most difficult parents? Two’s ‘parents’ are technically crazy human scientist peeps who made him cause they were bored (I mean, not rlly). They win.

who initiates hand-holding when they’re out in public? Sans. Just because he’ll see something that immediately initiates a panic, or suddenly feels uncomfortable around humans and needs something to ground him.

who comes up for the other all the time? Sorry I don’t understand this question…

who hogs the blankets? Sans. The ordeal made him constantly cold. 

who gets more sad? Two constantly falls into moods where he wonders why the fuck he even exists. It’s not easy to resolve being a copy of someone else.

who is better at cheering the other up? They’re both pretty good at it, even though cheering up might not be the right word. They know how each of them avoids shit, or shoves it under the table, or outright tries to ignore what’s bothering them and just have a strict no bullshit policy when it comes to each other.

who’s the one that playfully slaps the other all the time after they make silly jokes? Neither. THEY ENABLE EACH OTHER, RUN FOR THE HILLS.

who is more streetwise? Both? Maybe Two, but just because I see him being less trusting.

who is more wise? Sans.

who’s the shyest? Sans.

who boasts about the other more? Neither, really. I think they’d be just quietly content.

who sits on who’s lap? Sans. Cause Two would be afraid of ur femurs snapping, u dork.

[newhologram]

So my friend is taking a lot of heat because something they said was misunderstood and in true tumblr fashion, assumed to be coming from someone who is Not One of Us and therefore evil and of course no one on this site is mature enough to toss aside their ego for a moment to actually speak to them like a person rather than a concept to be mad at. Tumblr strips people of actually being people in the name of performative anger and it’s really messed up and often it’s THEIR OWN who end up hurt. How many times have we seen autistic and other disabled people dogpiled on and called neurotypical, and then still ignored when they say, “um? I’m disabled though?” because no one is mature enough to say, “oh shit, I shouldn’t have assumed. I’m sorry.”

It pisses me off and hurts a lot for a lot of reasons. Mostly being that friend is a good person who had genuinely meant no harm and who has given sincere apologies and explanations and is still being treated like shit with zero compassion or actual rational thought whatsoever from the people who are angry, because this is tumblr where we love to twist people’s words and actions to make them out to be Oppressors so that we can be mad and feel better about ourselves. Like how I’m constantly accused of icky intentions because I am white passing multiracial who also lives multiculturally as a Japanese language student practicing Ayurveda, or when I was cast in The Book of Life music video and put in Dia de los Muertos makeup. Anything I do is immediately judged by the fact that I got my dad’s skin and eye color. 

But right now, I’m just thinking, like. I’ve always had a hard time being understood. I got in trouble, yelled at, lectured, and scolded a lot growing up because I would say something and my meaning or emotion would be misunderstood. And even if I tried to explain what I meant, or that I hadn’t meant it in an angry way, or that I had been kidding, people would refuse to believe me, and just keep scolding me and talking down to me like I needed to be Educated. I would have meltdowns out of frustration when they did this to me. I would cry and cry and cry and cry, inconsolably, because why wouldn’t they believe me that it wasn’t what I meant? Why did no one listen? To this day people always still think I’m angry when I’m not. It still upsets me so much to be constantly misunderstood (and to have trouble understanding other people), and to be made out as a bad guy or mocked for it. If I ask for clarification at an audition, I sometimes get mocked by casting directors when I’m just trying to make sure my timing and action is right. A few months ago a customer said, “what is WRONG with you?” because I couldn’t understand what the hell he was trying to ask about our 10% off coupons. 

One time around maybe age 10 I joked that my friend “only picks on me because I’m small!” and she and her mother took it very seriously. They both turned on me and went on and on about how “she would never do that, why would you think that” and I kept trying to explain that I was only joking because we had such a size difference, like. I was being silly. It was a joke. I had a crying meltdown right there in the car because they they didn’t believe me and didn’t listen and kept lecturing me about making accusations like that. Things like this happened all throughout my childhood. 

I feel like a Martian, I feel so disconnected from other people, so I kept to myself a lot and I still do in a way, because interacting with can people frustrate me to tears but I’m an adult now and all my jobs whether acting, retail, or restaurant, involve talking to people a lot and having to do a good job pleasing them. I have to ask for clarification constantly because I never understand things and so I often look very stupid. 

I know it has something to do with the way that I speak, I have trouble conveying the right emotion so people always think I’m mad when I’m not. I get excited and say things that are then taken the wrong way. But also I found out a few months ago that I grew up with a compressed brain stem/vertebral arteries and it’s possible that this is either the cause of, or part of, and ultimately proof of me having lived with developmental delays/disabilities all my life. That’s a whole other thing and it’s still something I’m trying to come to terms with.

And so seeing this happening to my friend, them being excited and saying something that was then taken wrong, and being harassed about it and called an awful person because literally no one is listening to their explanation or even asking, “what did you actually mean?” is upsetting because I know how it feels and it’s quite frankly triggering. I don’t use this word a lot. I don’t like the way tumblr weaponizes it. I’m using it right now in the context of how being misunderstood mostly because I’m disabled caused so much stress that it is part of my larger complex PTSD and can actually cause me to go into panic rage mode because it immediately puts me on the defensive for someone to accuse me of meaning something I didn’t mean, and then not listen to me when I explain. It can make me see RED and make me feel hatred for myself because it still feels like something is wrong with ME, it’s ME that’s the problem, it’s ME that’s the broken robot, it’s MY fault I’m never understood, it’s MY fault people never listen, because I’m THAT fucking stupid. 

People can sometimes say things without thinking about a way it might be taken, but that doesn’t make them bad people. 

If you refuse to at the very least listen to them when they clarify meaning that was not conveyed and you say “NOPE, it doesn’t matter what you actually meant, or that you’re actually under the same identity/oppression umbrella as me, the thing you said would be gross if said by an oppressor and therefore you are gross and deserve zero respect!” then you’re being quite cruel to a real person for no reason other than your ego. And that is shameful.