#my entire family basically

[lgbtlunaverse]

While rereading mdzs I am once again shocked by how talked about the "you were the only mistake he ever made" line from Lan Xichen to Wei Wuxian is and how heated it gets some people because honestly... I don't think he actually even believes that.

Stay with me. Look at the actual line. (I Included 2 translations for comparison's sake)

Firstly, yes he is mad at Wei Wuxian in this scene. But his biggest moment of anger was actually before this. By this point he's realized that Wei Wuxian forgot what happened after nightless city (and therefore ISN'T stringing along his baby brother on purpose) so he has in fact calmed down a bit.

Secondly, notice that he starts by talking about how his uncle felt. This is not Lan Xichen making a value statement about what he thinks. When he says Lan Wangji was proper and righteous he is talking about him being a model lan, he's talking about their family and clan's perspective of Wangji. Indeed, in their eyes, Wei Wuxian is the only time Lan Wangji was ever not the textbook perfect Lan.

Thirdly, what is Lan Xichen trying to say here? What is he mad at Wei Wuxian for? It's that he doesn't know Lan Wangji is in love with him. His anger is eased by realizing Wei Wuxian doesn't remember the very blatant confessions lwj made in the cave after nightless city, or Lan Wangji fighting his own clan elders for Wei Wuxian, and so had no way of knowing the whipmarks on Lan Wangji's back were related to him. But he is still mad, he still thinks Wei Wuxian should have been able to figure it out. So what does he highlight?

The fact that the only thing Lan Wangji, perfect model-Lan righteous Lan Wangji, ever defies his clan for is Wei Wuxian.

And Wei Wuxian has seen him do this! Even if he doesn't remember this one instance. Because Lan Wangji has been doing that the whole story through. Wei Wuxian has watched Lan Wangji blatantly stand against the entire cultivation world for him, and here Lan Xichen is highlighting just how unusual that is, how much Wei Wuxian must mean to Lan Wangji that he's willing to do that. The important part of the sentence here is not "mistake" it's "only."

Lan Xichen here isn't trying to say that he disapproves of Wei Wuxian, or telling him to stay away from his brother. Remember, the thing that made him mad in the first place was Wei Wuxian saying that he and Lan Wangji slept in seperate rooms. He thought they were together! He's mad because they're not!

At no point does Lan Xichen say he individually considers Lan Wangji's feelings for Wei Wuxian a mistake. If he ever did, it's clear he accepted them regardless long ago. Mistake or not, what he wants is for his little brother to be happy.

[ruvviks]

it's been a hot sec since i've talked about cyberpunk and i was initially working on a fic that would tell the story of this whole thing, but i've abandoned it many months ago and cannot say when i'll be picking it up again SO! i've decided to instead make this timeline. sorry in advance for how much information is in this thing the cyberpunk extended blorboverse essentially refers to the story parallel to the in-game events of cyberpunk 2077 that @mojaves and i came up with. we don't really have a better name for it but at this point the term has been used so many times that i feel like everyone here knows what it is by now, but at the same time we've never really explained the full scope of what the story is by now (it's a lot sorry). so in an attempt to get you guys a little bit more up to date with it all, here's a semi coherent timeline that describes the core events of the story and every branching story that came out of it! for additional background information, you can check out the following posts (timeline 1 / timeline 2 / timeline 3) to catch up with the continuation of the in-game storyline that's referenced in this timeline, but it's mostly irrelevant to everything here save for a couple of referenced events that cross over between the stories. it all ties together very intricately sorry about that. don't worry too much about it i've included my taglist down below to make sure people who are interested won't miss this post, but feel free to skip over this if it's not your thing! won't be doing a lot of this kind of stuff in the future but i'm trying to get back to the cyberpunk roots so this is kind of like, a good starting point and reference point for later posts!

The story starts in early 2077 and is centered around Sebastian Vidal, gang leader of the Cobras and previous test subject of Arasaka Special Programs (the linked page is a lot of information but gives the most coherent overview of what the branch actually is). The current director of the SERPENT projects, Andrew Colton, and Dr. Alana Cartier, both want him dead, to tie up their last loose end before the rest of Arasaka can find out and shut down Special Programs once and for all.

Over the past months they’ve been hiring various assassins in secret, to try and get Seb killed; however, these assassins keep failing, and their latest attempt lies in the hands of Cassidy Shaffer, an ex-corpo turned assassin with a strong moral code and plenty of experience to his name. With little to work with, as his mysterious client doesn’t give out much information, Cassidy starts with what he thinks is gonna be a quick and easy job– but he ends up hunting after Seb for essentially a year.

During this year, the two men have a series of wild encounters that get more and more insane the longer it goes on; it includes, but is unfortunately not limited to, Cassidy biting off a chunk of Seb’s ear, the two of them running over the highway, the two of them getting handcuffed together and chased by the NCPD then hit by a car right in front of the hospital, and Seb sensually licking blood off Cassidy’s face after having stabbed him when Cassidy wanted to strike at a concert Seb is visiting.

All of it comes to a sudden stop when Cassidy learns his client has been lying to him the whole time, and since he does not appreciate lying clients he ends up jumping sides and teams up with the Cobras to do some cleanup duty in Arasaka Special Programs. He and Seb work together to go after a list of targets to get the still ongoing projects mostly to a halt, while remaining in the shadows themselves as to not draw too much attention their way; and during this collaboration they meet several people from their past, bringing back both good and bad memories.

One of these people is Hanan Chisaka, the Head of Security at Special Programs. She ends up becoming the next test subject of Project Cobra after the last successful subjects, Xavier and Gabriel Mason, end up escaping in the midst of the chaos of Hanako Arasaka’s capture in mid-2077. Once Seb’s best friend and Cassidy’s mentor, she’s now forced to hunt the both of them down; but in their final confrontation she snaps out of the controlled mode Arasaka keeps her in and runs away with them, effectively leaving Special Programs without any test subjects. Another one of these people is Reid Bennett, Cassidy’s ex and ex-coworker back at MaxTac. He still works for the corporation and has been on an ongoing investigation into Arasaka Special Programs; seeing Cassidy alive and well, working together with Seb no less, piques his interest and he continues to look further into the case, which will cause him to make a very big mistake later on in the timeline.

By September 2078, Seb and Cassidy have successfully taken down all their planned targets and retreat back into the shadows, leaving Special Programs with many losses and no test subjects. With the APEX program discontinued a month earlier (incident discussed in this fic, which is a continuation of the in-game events), and Hanako Arasaka recovered and ready to take the corporation back from the hands of her corrupt brother, Special Programs ends up having to retreat for the time being, and cook up a new plan in the background.

Special Programs by this point is run by Andrew Colton, Alana Cartier, and Kaida Akiyama, three players who have been in the game for a long time already in the SERPENT projects’ runtime. Colton and Cartier are married– Cartier used to be married to Seb and cheated on him for a good amount of time when he was still at Arasaka– but their marriage is starting to fall apart. Akiyama has had to watch over Special Ops agent Ambrose Hawthorne for a while during his chase after the Mason twins, which ended up with the twins dead and Hawthorne going into early retirement (Arasaka doesn’t know the twins faked their death and Ambrose is now dating one of them lol), and xe is now determined to help Colton and Cartier get Seb back into Arasaka so the projects can continue.

Cassidy’s initial plan was to leave as soon as the collaboration would come to an end, but he has found his place with the Cobras and instead ends up officially joining them.The next chapter in the story is a more laid-back and easygoing chapter, in which Cassidy learns to be part of real life again, and in which Seb learns to let people get close to him again after spending years trying to convince himself he doesn’t need any help. Over the course of a little over a year (all the way to November 2079), the two grow even closer than they had already done, going on gigs together and, you guessed it, slowly but surely falling in love until they inevitably end up together at the end of it.

Not long after the two get together, Reid returns into Cassidy’s life. He wants to try and be friends again and Cassidy gives him a second chance, though this soon enough turns out to have been a mistake, with Reid trying to create distance between Seb and Cassidy and then going as far as trying to sell Cassidy to Kang Tao (one of the few corporations that have been hunting Cassidy down for a while now) in exchange for his own freedom from MaxTac (where he would have otherwise been stuck at for probably the rest of his life). Naturally, Reid can’t watch Cassidy get tortured for long and leaks his location to the Cobras, who find and free Cassidy and take Reid into captivity instead��� he does not get killed, but instead has to sit out some time at a safehouse somewhere in solitude, where he gets to decide what kind of person he wants to be in the future.

This brings us to Elysium; a gorgeous spaceship which was supposed to be a relatively cheap escape from reality for everyone who wanted a refreshing break from Earth, but through Arasaka sponsorship has become just another cash-grab project to compete with the Crystal Palace– and considering the megacorporation has its greasy hands all over it, the secret labs in the spaceship are used for a series of very unethical experiments. Naturally so, it would be the perfect place for Colton to continue his SERPENT projects without the risk of Hanako Arasaka finding out and shutting the place down. He sends forces up to Elysium (obviously after his other attempts at relocating the project to space have failed tremendously, having lost contact with every single crew in the smaller Arasaka stations in orbit around the planet), but since he’s not there himself his cousin (one of the CEOs of Elysium), Maxwell Crane, unbeknownst to Colton, takes control of the SERPENT projects in space instead. From the earlier linked Special Programs page: “Project Eryx used the technology of previous projects, but took a completely new approach in the hosts it used; rather than focusing on the human psyche it attempted to create a new type of cyborg which would lack the humanity that caused previous projects to fail. The Cobra chips were no longer used and the software was instead installed directly onto the host’s mainframe. The flexibility of the new hosts– more robot than human, and in some cases the entire human aspect was lacking altogether– allowed for experimentation with highly advanced cybernetic enhancements and military grade tech and upgrades, turning the test subjects– dubbed ‘prototypes’– into dangerous, unstoppable killing machines.”

Things settle down for Seb and Cassidy, but this moment of peace does not last long. In January 2081 the two find themselves traveling to the spaceship Elysium, to investigate a curious situation in the laboratories– they’ve been hired by Arasaka without their knowledge and it’s a setup to get Cassidy killed and Seb back in Cartier’s control.

While in space, they learn that the secret labs have suffered an outbreak of the above mentioned prototypes. They quickly connect the dots and realize Special Programs is back in the game, and they work together with security guards Aubrey Valentine and Leon dello Russo to try and fix the situation before it gets out of hand. Obviously this fails tremendously and Elysium ends up on a complete lockdown after a ship-wide outbreak, which is eventually contained in late March of that year, with CEO Maxwell Crane dead, leaving only his wife Kinsley Osborn behind.

Elysium continues to exist and is rebuilt after the crisis, and Kinsley Osborn can now finally turn it into the retreat it was always meant to be. Previously, most Elysium employees were to be stuck in space for the rest of their lives; however, with Arasaka out of the picture they are free to leave as they please, which results in a gigantic cut in total employee count in the months that follow.

Seb and Cassidy return to Night City and take Aubrey and Leon with them. Aubrey reunites with his sisters; Becca, James, and Rikki, and soon after his return to the city he opens an LGBTQ+ nightclub called Bodytalk with them, found Downtown, City Center, in June 2081. Not only is it a fun place to hang out at, it’s also his main hub as a fixer, and he starts a collaboration with the Cobras to get business going between the gang and the club; and soon enough it grows into a large and powerful network of connections, which is the foundation on which the rest of the stories are built.

After this point in time, many many more things happen but it would take me another hour or ten to go into full detail of all of that, so instead here’s a quick rundown of some of the other things that Bodytalk gets involved in:

Reid Bennett is handed over to Aubrey and he starts working at the club, and he becomes a very valued employee as well as a good friend to many now that he’s no longer fucking insane

Kaida Akiyama returns from Elysium and shows up to Hanan’s doorstep, to ask for her help with getting out of Arasaka for good; much later on, xe starts working for Bodytalk as well, in an attempt to put xyr past behind xem and become a better person

Urban Dynamite starts performing at the club regularly, and it becomes their home base

Luna Serratos, Cassidy’s ripperdoc friend from all the way back to killing era, gets involved in the Harbinger case from Maelstrom (one of the gang’s most feared members); turns out the Harbinger is in fact Reuben de la Rosa, a by then 22-year-old kid who has ended up in Luna’s care with his friend Noah Telavera after the two got caught up in an explosion. She requests the Cobras’ help with getting Maelstrom to let Reuben go

Officer Michele Diaz from Militech (who used to be Cassidy’s boss) is demoted following the lawsuits after the Elysium incident, and her investigation into the incident in hopes to get her job back leads her to Bodytalk; she begins threatening them and sends the whole club and their allies into uncertain times

Many people get married. There’s so many fucking guys here we went a little insane with the numbers but there’s several weddings and there’s a whole polycule going on too feel free to send asks about this if you’re interested

Cobra Cybernetics releases a new line of cyberware, which is incredibly buggy and dangerous to the public; it’s brought to the club’s attention and it makes them realize that Luiza Vidal (Seb’s sister), who not that long ago asked them to kill her husband (William Colton (Andrew’s brother), CEO of Cobra Cybernetics), has gone missing; they now need to get involved without getting the news out that they actually didn’t kill William and that he is still alive somewhere, while also balancing out dynamics between Biotechnica (angry at Cobra Cybernetics for stealing their designs) and Arasaka (the actual reason why Cobra Cybernetics’ designs look like Biotechnica’s designs, because William stole designs from Special Programs after halting their partnership after the Elysium incident, but these designs had been stolen by Arthur Jenkins from Biotechnica even BEFORE that to be able to hijack the European Space Council’s cybernetics following the Frankfurt incident. Are you still with me)

Vitali Dobrynin (fixer and main character from the in-game events storyline and the continuation of it; Vincent “V” Mayer’s boyfriend) ends up visiting Bodytalk after meeting Aubrey at a Fixer Council meeting, which happens in late 2083; this essentially ties the two main storylines together, which means that yes, a lot of the characters from the two separate storylines end up meeting :]

Officer Ulysses Dimakos (used to work with Reid at MaxTac) is sent to investigate Bodytalk following the Cobra Cybernetics scandal, and ends up teaming up with the club to get MaxTac on a dead trail in exchange for his freedom of the corporation

On top of the Bodytalk / Cobras centered storyline, there’s a couple of side stories that are still connected to the whole thing but are more of a standalone thing with only a few touching points to the rest of it all:

This obviously takes place a lot earlier because it’s already mentioned above, but Special Ops agent Ambrose Hawthorne is tasked with chasing after the escaped Mason twins; naturally he lets them go and ends up going into retirement, and Xavier Mason later on ends up becoming Bodytalk’s part-time repair guy on account of knowing Kaida

Gabriel Mason ends up in a car crash with retired security specialist Ames Ortega, who was also in Elysium during the incidents there, and the two end up babysitting Ambrose and Xavier’s kids together while those two are helping Hanan with getting Kaida out of Arasaka (Are you still with me. Blink if you can hear me)

Mercenary Frankie Sayyad gets a promotion from his fixer, Vulture (real name Diana Crane, Maxwell Crane’s older sister and cousin of the Coltons), and becomes one of her Bloodhounds; he works together with Evelyn Harris, Nimue Nkuna, and Beckett Rydel, the latter being one of the very first test subjects of Arasaka Special Programs, and the four accidentally get themselves mixed into a mystery concerning their secretive fixer

Caleb Harris, ex-security at Biotechnica, ends up back at Club Bodytalk not long after the conclusion of the Cobra Cybernetics scandal, and starts working for Aubrey; he is partnered up with Ramiel Al-Masri, a mercenary who has been working for Vitali Dobrynin for a while and has recently joined Aubrey’s mercenary roster too, and together they dive into a series of gigs neither of them had expected

Journalist Bodhi Shankar has finally found more evidence and information surrounding the mysterious cult gang Umbra and its so-called Prophet, Thiago Salazar; however, his antics have led to him accidentally becoming part of the gang himself, and he has to figure out a way to get Thiago to stop listening to the supposed deity that the gang worships known as Scintilla, before she makes him do things that will get many people killed

taglist (opt in/out)

@velocitic, @deadrlngers, @euryalex, @ordinarymaine, @gurathins;

@mojaves, @shellibisshe, @dickytwister, @mnwlk, @rindemption;

@ncytiri, @calenhads, @noirapocalypto, @florbelles, @radioactiveshitstorm;

@strafethesesinners, @fashionablyfyrdraaca, @aemondtargeryen, @radioactive-synth, @katsigian;

@estevnys, @elgaravel, @aezyrraeshh, @carlosoliveiraa

[waitingforsecretsouls]

Disclaimer that I might be wrong about this, only personal impressions etc., but I feel like there exists a tendency to often depict first age Galadriel as not only particularly distanced but also disdainful towards the rest of her kin, particularly regarding Alqualondë. Which is very interesting to me, if you consider that she's the one who gets a scene of direct and pointed questioning with Melian about the finer points of the exile and lies (even if by omission) to her face. Which occurs after she had already established a stable acquaintanceship with her.

Galadriel his sister went not with him to Nargothrond, for in Doriath dwelt Celeborn, kinsman of Thingol, and there was great love between them. Therefore she remained in the Hidden Kingdom, and abode with Melian, and of her learned great lore and wisdom concerning Middle-earth. -Chapter 13: OF THE RETURN OF THE NOLDOR

She furthermore also seems committed to letting bygones be bygones:

And on a time Melian said: ‘There is some woe that lies upon you and your kin. That I can see in you, but all else is hidden from me; for by no vision or thought can I perceive anything that passed or passes in the West: a shadow lies over all the land of Aman, and reaches far out over the sea. Why will you not tell me more?’ ‘For that woe is past,’ said Galadriel; ‘and I would take what joy is here left, untroubled by memory. And maybe there is woe enough yet to come, though still hope may seem bright.’ -Chapter 15: OF THE NOLDOR IN BELERIAND

Which is not to say that she couldn't have born a grudge about Alqualondë, but rather that she prioritized unity among the Noldor and Sindar over acting on said grudge and made the deliberate choice to try and move on, even at the cost of her personal integrity (since she presumable started her tutelage while the first kinslaying was still kept a secret which is...audacious to say the least).

[androgynouspenguinexpert]

bout time i posted the og bc in the immortal words of yahtzee croshaw shit's about to get FUCKY!

also i like him :)

[beachyserasims]

Name : Denise

Age : 37

Zodiac : Aquarius

Generation : Gen x

Scariest movie : Nightmare on Elm Street

Believe in ghosts? Yes

Relation to Author : Sister

Start / Previous / Next

[st4rstudent]

Will we ever meet Bobby JR in Person?

Because I have no Idea how to draw him since I don't know how tall he is or how old he is.

Like is he a 5 or 6 Year Old Kid?

Is he born just a Regular Child or born a Prodigy?

And will he like Bear Toons? Since he Love anything related to Bears?

Like he will go crazy that any Products like Food and Toys including Clothing that has a Bear on it.

I can't properly answer any of these, since I'm not apart of the team or anything, so everything I say after this is purely speculation and/or just random thoughts. I assume that, even if Bobby Jr is not added physically into the game, he'll be mentioned plenty of times (especially around April Toons with Thomas's dialogues). Especially if Crystalline is added to the game, since it's been established that the entire Cyger family has some issues going on. As for height, you can kind of estimate his height based on this photocard of him and the Chairman. He's shorter than the Chairman (who has an ingame model that can be compared to other managers). I assume he's at most half of Chairmans height. Do NOT leave him outside with a giant hawk. He's very obviously a child, I always imagine an age that's somewhere in the early-middle of elementary school, like maybe 7 or 8? Truthfully I only assign age ranges to characters, not specific numbers, makes it easier. Either way, I can't see him being in middle school yet.

I think the idea of him seeing a bear toon and getting really excited would be kind of funny. He ends up having to be dragged away by Robert.

[siblingshuffle]

Sibling Shuffle: Doodles & Lore Expansion

AKA: Rough doodle of Rock’s first time being fully activated, and a couple of events that followed.

Follow-up to "Something’s Missing…"

Dr. Wily, sir, I’m a little confused. I can tell we’re in some kind of storage unit, but… why? What’s stored here? Up until now, you. I’m using this place as a temporary base while I re-adjust my plans. Run a self-diagnostic, Rock; I need to know if you’re fully operational. Uhhhhh… everything LOOKS normal… but…

"But"?

…I feel like something’s… missing…

What, like a component? No, I don’t think so… Then you’re fine. Now, come on - we have work to do.

————

LORE: Rock’s activation takes place right before MM2. At first, he was just Dr. Wily’s assistant, helping him build robots. (He didn’t know that the first of the DWNs were made to die). His first official meeting with Roll was when she succumbed to the virus in the first few DWNs. He felt his connection with Roll (seemingly stronger due to proximity), and got confused and curious.

As Wily was planning for his scheme in MM3, he upgraded Rock with combat capabilities (which was when Rock got the scarf). Rock was never really keen on the whole weapons thing, but, since Wily had continually lied to him about how he was the victim in the whole situation, Rock went along with it. He’s got a low tolerance for bullies, and that’s what Dr. Light & his family were… (right?)

[taegularities]

some men are textbook villains fr

[rainbowgod666]

Horus: im sorry, what did you sa-

Horse: since the high speaking doesnt get to you im gonna say it in a languaye your sorry ass can understand. See i am this family's LISTENER. While you were mad at your father for not listening to you EVEN THOUGH YOU WERE HIS FAVOURITE. I had the common decency to be there for my family because SOMEBODY has to. Trust me, getting horse plague does WONDERS for opening up people, once door came in while i was listening to marckus having his traumadump moment i fucking FORESAW him asking "brother are you alright" because WHAT ELSE HE SHOULD HAVE DONE

Horus: h- hang on just a second horse plagu-?

Horse: but you HAD to throw shit at the wall hoping it stuck, didnt you? Im closer to one of your brother's vehichles than to a human and yet even i can understand that sometimes its not the shit not being sticky enough but its the WALL. It never occurred to throw it at a tree, huh? No lets just keep hitting the white non stick walls with our excrement, because THATS gonna get us the attention that we need! No, listen. I was there for ALL OF MY FAMILY whenever they needed to. They brush and feed and heal me, and in exchange i listen to their daily problems. I live in this stable because i am a Fucking Horse. If you were in my situation, i bet you wouldnt settle for anything less than an entire COUNTRY where everyone is subject to you. Our Big D has reasons from hiding things from his sons. What the fuck makes you think you know better than your Big E, huh?

Horus: (crying in shame)

Magnus: wOAh. That was... heavy

Marckus: exactly man. I mean... who knew horse could talk!

Magnus: yeah I kn- wait wat

[wonder-worker]

"The division between the two families [the Woodvilles and the Nevilles] and their allies can be seen in the royal charters that they witnessed. Warwick, Rivers and Archbishop Neville of York, while serving as chancellor and afterwards, were fairly constant witnesses to royal charters and consequently often appeared together. This was not, however, the case for other family members and friends. From 1466 to 1469, if Scales or Woodville associates like Sir John Fogge, John Lord Audley or Humphrey Lord Stafford of Southwick witnessed royal charters, then members of the Neville group, such as John Neville, earl of Northumberland, or John Lord Wenlock would not, and vice versa. Discounting the ubiquitous Warwick, Rivers and Archbishop Neville, of the twenty-four charters issued between February 1466 and June 1469, twelve were witnessed by men associated with the Woodvilles, eight by men associated with the Nevilles and two were witnessed by no member of either group beyond the two earls at their heads and the archbishop; only two charters, both from 1466, featured associates of both families.

Such striking segregation of witnesses suggests that something more than simple convenience or availability was at play. [...] The evidence of these witness lists does show the extent of the split between the two groups from early in Edward's [first] reign and of the need for political society to work with that cleavage in the heart of the Yorkist regime."

— Theron Westervelt, "Royal charter witness lists and the politics of the reign of Edward IV"

*This is specifically applicable for Edward IV's first reign; in contrast, the charters in his second reign displayed a great deal of aristocratic and domestic unity and cohesion.

[insipid-drivel]

Friendship and relationships are hard, I'm lonely and can't be loved by anyone, so here's some hard realities and wisdom from someone who's going to die sad and alone inevitably:

Many of you have got to try to put some effort in nurturing your relationships with your friends, or at least more clearly negotiate what your friends can and can't expect from you in the long-term.

Seriously, this whole 0-contact-aside-from-reacting-through-each-other's notes and proclaiming you're ride-or-die about someone for it? Is literally killing me. I've actually been dealing with suicidality because of how impossible it is to stay in touch with, or even on good terms with, people I thought were my friends but ghosted me, and then acted bewildered when I was angry with them for it or didn't acknowledge them as my friend anymore. "You can't be mad at me for not answering your DMs for 7 years! We're friends! I still reblog your reblogs!"

I am absolutely allowed to be angry, and I absolutely can demote you in my mind from "person I thought was a friend" to "mutual that ignores me until they need a dopamine fix or an answer to a specific question".

Months or years of unprompted, unbroken silence is not friendship - acquaintenceship, sure, but not friendship. It's a bad friend that expects love and loyalty by default no matter how long they've been ghosting their friends.

Love and loyalty are like a garden: they require cultivating and a commitment to nurture and grow, or else it gradually withers, and eventually dies. Earning the love and loyalty of a friend and then abandoning the garden of that relationship is how you find yourself locked out of your former friend's garden, or find them lonely, miserable, and exhausted from trying to keep the garden thriving when they themselves have slowly been dying inside because you haven't come back to the garden in years.

You have to learn to reach out and nurture your relationships. If you're autistic or otherwise have problems socializing, there are still some skills that you need to learn to avoid being isolated and friendless at the end of the day. Being autistic with trouble socializing is not an excuse to treat people you call your friends or that you claim to love like hobbies you can leave and come back to whenever you feel like - I learned this the hard way as an autistic person with shit social skills.

You have to negotiate what a friend can expect from you if you're an Outside Cat Friend that only drops in when you have specific reasons to reach out. It can be heartbreaking being the friend left waiting for a reply or a text without knowing the friend you're waiting for is an Outside Cat Friend.

Unless you have already agreed with your friend(s) that it's okay to ghost each other for extensive periods, spontaneously dropping out of contact with someone you've convinced is a good friend to you is really shitty and makes you a shitty friend.

"But I don't have the energy to reach out." Tell them.

"I have a lot going on and don't have time to talk." FUCKING TELL THEM.

"I haven't had anything to talk about." THAT'S WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR.

"I've been too anxious to reach out." SAY THAT. JUST SAY THAT.

"I need a break from social contact for a while, so I don't wanna talk at all really." SAY THAT BEFORE YOU JUST DROP OFF THE END OF THE EARTH.

I've been the Reaching-Out Friend for most of my life, and in the past 5-10 years especially, I haven't been finding a whole lot of strength left to keep tending abandoned gardens that are thriving in name only. I've gotten fed up with self-professed friends that say they love me or view me as a sibling, but ultimately prove themselves to be bystanders when it's my turn to need someone to lean on and help me look after the garden.

Yes, there are absolutely friends you can have that can go years without hearing from you and still pick up where you left off when you do meet up again. They're awesome and worth keeping just as much as any other friends are.

There are also those friends that silently grieve your absence, that reach out to no avail, and wind up leaving the garden to die entirely after salting the soil with their own tears. Those are the friends that you've taken too much from without giving enough of yourself in return, and you've used them up and thrown them away without realizing you've treated someone that cared about you like a tool.

"I'm not the kind of friend that reaches out first."

That's your choice. No matter how you dress it up, when you decide it's time to neglect a friend, you're choosing to neglect them if they aren't prepared for what to expect from a friendship with you. You have the right to do that whenever you want to, but you cannot expect a warm reception with every person you do it to every time you do it. You cannot anticipate full amnesty in advance without full disclosure in advance.

If you're currently thinking of someone you've left sitting on read for a long time right now? It might be time to break your pattern and reach out for once.

Fall together, not apart.

[alessandramortt]

god the way i forgot for like 7 and a half episodes that this is a marvel show...... i am both dissapointed and surprised, which shoud never really be a combo. Also ghost agatha was bad simply bc it didn't let me appreacite kathryn being an apathetic b*tch in all its glory

[guinevereslancelot]

i should be able to google my own family lore

[enjxlrass]

usually I name my pieces but I never really named is one uhhh I call it projecting my indirect religious trauma onto my favorite character by drawing him with religious symbolism

basically I drew this forever ago after having to be around my extremely religious grandma for a week straight

closeups under the cut :D

[catsharkzzz]

some whiteboard things

[alistonjdrake]

I know a lot of writers that agree with me but it is a strange feeling to be surrounded by people irl who would probably cut me off or think I whole-heartedly endorse everything I write and I'm gonna be honest a boy is a little hurt.

Like when did we start to agree that art couldn't be messy? That all of our portrayals must be sanitized and neat so that no one misinterprets me or has to question what they think about something they've read? Why must I avoid subtly and be blunt when talking about a wrong thing so people know that I think it's wrong. Are you not bored? Is it not limiting? Shouldn't we just all read how-to pamphlets instead?