#no explanation im just noticing a pattern

[fiddlepickdouglas]

I love you short men. Sorry, I mean I love you short men. Sorry, I mean I love you short men. Fuck. Sorry, I mean I love you shor-

[arodrwho]

octavia butler GOOD

[reikunrei]

i feel like im reinventing the wheel with all these notes i have about the behavior of the lights in st bc this feels like something people would have talked about before but i Never see it mentioned anywhere. i’m not actively searching for theories or anything so i very well may have just missed it, but im surprised i don’t see it talked about ever bc.... it’s SUCH an important visual element in the show........ it has to mean Something, right??? right??

[libingan]

IM BACKKKKKKKK

i was rewatching b99 and theres this one scene w captain holt that gave me the inspiration to write LMAO

something about reader being able to read simon like an open book is just so amusing to me

the base is buzzing with its usual sounds—radios crackling, distant chatter, boots hitting the floor in rhythmic patterns. you’re used to it all by now, the routines and rhythms, the way everyone moves around each other like parts of a well-oiled machine. today, though, there's an odd tension in the air, a stiffness lingering on the faces of the others.

you spot johnny and gaz huddled together, throwing glances at ghost, who stands near the far wall, still as a statue. he’s in full gear, mask in place, eyes dark and unreadable beneath the skull pattern. his shoulders are squared, his stance firm, his gaze fixed somewhere distant. there’s a quiet intensity to him that feels like it could crack concrete if he willed it. with his arms crossed over his chest, the black fabric of his sleeves stretching over his muscles, he looks every bit the silent, unapproachable specter he’s known to be.

johnny tilts his head in ghost’s direction, muttering something to gaz, who nods back, looking genuinely concerned. you drift closer, catching pieces of their conversation as johnny’s low, accented voice reaches you. “tell me that doesn’t look like a man on the edge,” he says, eyeing ghost. “i don’t remember the last time i saw him lookin’ this grim.”

“maybe he got some bad news,” gaz adds, brows furrowed. “you think he’s about to lose it?”

you glance over at ghost again, taking in the hard line of his jaw beneath the mask, the set of his shoulders, the way he seems to radiate an intensity that could send most people scurrying. but to you? nothing feels particularly unusual. you’ve seen ghost like this enough times to know when he’s actually having a rough day—and this isn’t it. so you shrug, looking back at johnny and gaz with a small smirk.

“bad day?” you say, trying not to laugh. “he’s in a good mood.”

the two of them whip their heads to stare at you, disbelief clear on their faces. “a good mood?” johnny echoes, brows shooting up. “that—ye’re tellin’ me that right there’s him happy?”

“yep.” you give a simple nod. “trust me. i can tell.”

johnny and gaz share a bewildered look, glancing back at ghost with renewed confusion. “so… that’s his version of cheery?” gaz says, more to himself than anyone else.

before they can keep speculating, ghost’s gaze shifts over, locking onto the three of you. there’s no warmth in it, but there’s a strange steadiness, a weight, that makes it clear he’s noticed your conversation. he starts toward you, his steps slow, measured, each one landing with the faintest thud on the concrete floor. when he reaches you, he stops just a few feet away, gaze flicking to johnny.

johnny clears his throat, glancing nervously at gaz before finally blurting out, “l.t., we were just wonderin’... somethin’ wrong today?”

ghost’s eyes narrow slightly, and his head tilts just a fraction. “wrong?” he repeats, sounding almost amused. “no. i’m havin’ a good day, actually. got an extra hour of sleep this morning.”

you can feel the stunned silence coming off johnny and gaz, both of them frozen as they process the idea that ghost—a man they’re used to seeing as an impenetrable wall of silence and scowls—has just announced he’s in a good mood. you can’t help the grin that creeps onto your face as you turn to them.

“told you so,” you say, crossing your arms.

johnny looks from you to ghost, and back again, a mix of disbelief and exasperation coloring his expression. “bloody hell,” he mutters, shaking his head. “how… how d’ye know that?”

you just shrug, catching ghost’s gaze for a brief second. there’s no clear expression there, but you swear there’s the slightest glint in his eyes, a hint of something only you seem to recognize. you don’t need words or explanations—you just know.

[fanficfanatic000]

(A date?) E.M one

Nerd loser eddie x nerd loser fem reader

Trigger warning 18 + content no minors

Summary ( the fem reader works at a craft shop .seems and patches. Reader has more alt style. Reader is 21 and Eddie's 22. Eddie dropped out of high-school after almost dieing. The reader has zero friendsUntil a certain boy came into your work.)

A usual day usually consists of older women asking for floral pattern fabric And the white thread until today It was afternoon when you heard the bell on the door ring as someone with clanking chains walked in "welcome to seems and patches anything ya looking looking for?"You had to greet every customer because The job made you. He walked up to the counter. His figure was tall and leaned back Slightly his ripped dark blue jeans slightly baggy and hanging over his dirty white sneakers. His black Metallica t shirt was slighty tight clinging to his chest under a Jean jacket and a Jean vest. His doe brown eyes looking at you with his small stubble on his chin and a grin. "Uh do you guys have any sew on patches?" He raised an eyebrow"Yep our patches would be in isle 8" you smile "yeah thank you..." his hand on the back of his neck and he gulped "um can you come with me... i kinda wanted a second opinion and...." he gets flustered from your stare "n-nevermind" you smile "no problem its a pretty slow day anyways" his face immediately brightened and the red from his face drained "thanks p-pretty girl" and that caught you of guard cause no one has said that. Your face turned pink "you okay?"He looked down at your name tag "y/n?"You awkwardly nodded yes "um yeah its just no one has ever said that..."He tilted his head "?thank you?" His nose slightly scrunched "no ive never r-really been called pretty" you look down and you walk towards the isle slowly "seriously?""Yep" you say popping the p "Well i think thats probably because you make them nervous so they could never get it out.." his words have you all red and filled with butterflies he runs infront of you and held his hand out "im eddie."You put your hand in his ringed hand "hi eddie" he smiles wide and his beautiful eyes sparkle then you made it to the patches. He grabs a Metallica patch and holds it to the Jean vest. "Where would this look good?" You grabbed the patch from him and put it on the left of his chest. The air heated from noticing how close he really was. "Here would look pretty good"You hear a shaky breath exhale from eddie "Yeah" his face a pink tint as he grabbed a patch with a little coffen on it "how about this one?" You put it under the spot of the other one. The sunsetting out side "um i gotta check out now my uncle wanted me to get pizza and he's probably so Starved" he laughs slightly. As he just gave you an explanation to leave a store. "Well eddie i hope you enjoy your new patches." You say scanning them he smiles "ya know im thinking ill need more tomorrow if a certain pretty girl will be here." He leaned foreword and winked playfully. And you handed him the patches and he stepped out the clear glass door and you watch as he fist pumped in the air then basically skipped away.

look for part two with hash tag

A date em

[laebrumme]

Arlefuri is Interesting, Actually

So I was put onto a twitter thread that's been circulating around the Arlefuri community, and I was feeling to be in a bit of a fighting mood and I found a couple points brought up by the author to be the starting point for some more interesting discussions regarding fandom culture, so I decided it wouldn't hurt to have a "little" discussion around this thread and the points that are brought up.

A quick reminder here that I am not going to link the thread or use the author's name anywhere in here because this is not an attack post. While I am here to defend a ship that I really like and see a lot of value in against a really silly twitter post, I am not here to attack or be aggressive to anyone. This is something we really need to understand and my least favorite part about twitter is how it discourages thoughtful and elaborate response, which is why I'm writing this on my tumblr instead of writing a QRT or something. I want this to be thought out and civil, and there's a very good chance that the thread was written entirely in good faith, however questionable some of the arguments made are.

the amount of arlefuri shippers ive seen that keep going "you just hate it bc its yuri" without actually seeing an explanation why its such a good ship and why they keep defending it like its so canon.

Something that I've noticed as someone who has only been engaging in fandom for about a year and a half now and who got to see Arlefuri pretty much grow from inception to now is that, after a while (especially on platforms such as twitter that are so thoroughly infected by hate and aggression) communities will develop defense mechanisms based on certain patterns of how they've been attacked before. Especially in communities which are highly antagonized for one reason or another, it's easier to have a short list of most-likely reasons someone is attacking their ship than to actually engage with the argument. One of the most reliable and effective canned arguments that one might find in a particularly combative yuri enthusiast's toolbelt is the "you don't like yuri," or, in more extreme examples, the misogyny argument.

I'm not going to get into the MLM vs WLW in fandom discourse here because, quite frankly, I'm not interested and it's completely not related to anything going on here, however the argument is common within WLW ship communities because of the tension that exists between MLM, m/f, and WLW communities, especially because in a huge number of fandoms, MLM far outnumbers the WLW. It's a reliable argument to so many because, more often than not, the anti's argument is coming from a place of anti-yuri sentiment.

In the case of Arlefuri, attacks are so frequent that, for those that decide not to block and move on, it's more efficient to pull out a tool from the toolbelt instead of engaging with each and every anti post. Arlefuri shippers are, to put it bluntly, sick and tired of it and just kinda want to do their own thing.

yes, this sounds very yuriphobic as smn who ships renheng but i do ship yuri ships like acheswan, bronseele, clorivia, eimiko, and many more. not that im against rarepairs, but arlefuri is hardly a rarepair anymore, and the way the shippers are defending it, makes it feel like its as implied as the ships i mentioned above

I mean, doesn't everyone do this? Something else I've noticed is that every single HYV ship that has even the smallest basis in the canon has people that consistently go on about how, because of certain observations regarding design/symbolism/voice lines, the ship is canon. It's important to remember, though, that lot of it is playful banter or reactions borne of excitement, and very rarely are people actually insisting that Arlefuri is canon or even implied to be canon. Because with the exception of HI3 bronseele, there isn't a single HYV ship (that I know of) that is downright confirmed. And yes, that even includes Acheswan.

I think the observation being made here is a result of two things: Arlefuri as a ship just getting bigger, and how fed-up Arlefuri shippers are of being antagonized. The first point is very obvious: the more people there are out there to talk about a ship, the more confident and loud those discussions are going to become. The second one though is more interesting because I think, as a community gets antagonized more and more, a very natural response to people talking poorly about a thing you like is to engage with it even more. A lot of people, instead of taking the fight back to those that are attacking the ship, instead back away from the argument and, as if almost spitefully, engage with the ship even more. Hell, I've even seen some of my fellow arlefuri shippers talk about how this discourse is going to make them ship arlefuri even harder. It's just a natural response almost.

Also I genuinely don't understand what rarepairs have to do with the discussion at hand. It's brought up again later in the thread, and even there I'm not sure what point it's trying to get across. There's a though process there, but whatever it is it isn't communicated in the thread, which is no fault of the thread author since twitter is stupidly restrictive as a platform for arguments and expressing thoughts (that's why I'm writing this on tumblr).

literally what is the 'flavor' and 'dynamic' in arlefuri other than 'happy and grumpy' and 'enemies to lovers'??? they barely have any backstory together other than "girl one traumatizes girl two and gives her cake as an apology because it doesnt benefit her to be on bad terms with girl two". there is nothing appealing about their relationship, and honestly i feel like furina should just be her own person without that romantic nonsense.

Well I'm glad you asked!

Arlefuri is a ship that has a lot of layers and a lot of different interpretations, and I think the only way to get a proper understanding of why so many find the ship appealing is to go out onto the Arlefuri tag on ao3 and read some of more popular fics that are out there. However, I'm going to offer my personal understanding of the ship and why I enjoy it so much.

In short, the allure of Arlefuri to me lies in a simple concept: safety.

I think a lot of the misunderstanding around Arlefuri and why Arlefuri gets accused of being proship so often lies in a misunderstanding of Furina's story and what Arlecchino represents in said story. Namely, Arle wasn't the only person that made Furina feel unsafe during the events of the archon quest. Literally everyone that was involved in that quest was doing practically the exact same thing that Arlecchino did: cornering her into a position which would force her to reveal her identity as "false" archon. So coming out of the archon quest in Fontaine, Furina has not a single soul she can trust in Fontaine anymore because of how thoroughly traumatized she was in those last few days of her run as archon. Every single person involved in discovering the truth behind the Oratrice betrayed Furina in every sense of the word.

Obviously, the game has to make Furina warm up to the traveler for marketing sake (which is one of the only gripes I have about Furina's story), but aside from that, she still has a distaste for people outside. Evidence of this can be seen with how she talks in two distinct vocal modes which I'll get into here more in a bit.

This is all to say that, one, Furina is starting from scratch relationship-wise and can trust nobody, and two, that Arlecchino is no more of an antagonist than anyone else. The only difference is that Arlecchino was more forward with it, and Furina had built her up in her head as the big bad that would finally out the entire operation (that's where Furina's fear of Arlecchino comes from).

Where this all gets interesting is when you consider Arlecchino as pretty much a symbol for all that betrayal that Furina faced. Arlecchino, just like the traveler and crew, cornered her in a position by complete surprise that would, with one more move, force her to either prove herself as archon in one way or another, before they discovered that there's more to the story and moving their attention elsewhere. When you consider Arlecchino as a symbol of that, then what a relationship w/ Arlecchino represents is Furina learning how to trust and feel safe in the presence of other people.

This is a dynamic I explore in my own fic, "What Do You Want?" and is something that is explored to even more depth in the Arlefuri bible, "A Fatui Harbinger in Lady Furina's Court." Hell, even the biggest chapter of my own fic which is the catalyst for the relationship that is explored for the rest of the fic is literally called "Safety." The entire point of the ship is for Furina to find safety in someone and, through Arlecchino, to learn for the first time in her 500 years of life how to trust and love people.

I could continue on about why I enjoy about Arlefuri all day, if you can't tell, and I could start discussing the nuances of their grumpy/happy dynamic and all the gender stuff and various other examples of incredible writing and interpretations of the ship, but I think you get the idea. There's depth here. You just have to look for it.

arlefuri shippers+ships are fine IF you acknowledge that your ship is barely even canon (maybe until more infois released) and that there is no reason to be defending them so hard over very very very little crumbs, when most of those crumbs are actually headcanons that you made up yourself.

Again, nobody is earnestly going out there and defending the canonicity of Arlefuri. We're defending something completely different which I'll discuss in the next section. But even then, why should we? Why is a ship okay only if we acknowledge the lack of canonicity in a ship? We all are taking part in a culture that was literally borne of taking one canon or another and doing really silly things w/ it. That's why our fandom ancestors borrowed the term "canon" from religious studies and applied it to fandom: they needed a way to differentiate the stuff that was officially a part of the media and what was being written by fans.

We're all here to have fun. We're playing with dolls and making them kiss. There is absolutely no harm in us doing our own thing and engaging in a ship just as, say, a renheng shipper would. Just because a ship isn't canon doesn't mean that the shippers have to wear big signs on their backs that say "our ship is not canon and we are aware of that." This point feels strangely targeted in that way.

im not an arlefuri hater, infact, i was indifferent to it because i knew many people would ship it eventually, but seeing the ship grow more and more and the shippers attacking nonshippers with NO explanation on why they are defending such a copium ship is starting to make me hate it.

Okay, here's where the main discussion point is, and this right here is why I'm writing this whole essay/response thing.

This is a strawman.

This is not happening.

Every single Arlefuri shipper I've personally talked to could not care less if you don't like Arlefuri. Not every ship is for everyone, and there's nothing wrong with that. But there's a very big difference between not liking a ship and antagonizing a ship.

One of the things I absolutely hate about fandom is how much power lies in the accusation of being "proship." If someone is able to accuse someone of being proship and that accusation sticks, whether it's true or not, that person is screwed. And the same thing goes for ships. If a ship is successfully labeled as "proship" then that means that everyone that might publicly engage with that ship is going to also be labeled as proship, and that means they're going to be antagonized, even if there is nothing wrong with the ship itself.

Because people misunderstand a single cutscene in the game, people tend to label Arlefuri as, at best, toxic, and at worst, proship. And after a while, this gets tiring, especially for a community that is relatively small.

As stated before, Arlefuri shippers are so tired of being attacked and accused of various things, and because of that, engaging with people that attack the thing that we like in a respectful way becomes really really hard, and at some point, these defense attempts have started to lean more and more aggressive.

This is where I think that perception of Arlefuri shippers being so militant come from: they're defending a ship that they like in a rather aggressive and fed-up way which is very easy to interpret as attacking people for just having opinions.

Like I said before, there's a big difference between not liking a ship and antagonizing a ship.

For some reason, so many people antagonize Arlefuri. And because of how much it happens, responses have become, more often than not, either canned as discussed before, or angry.

i am lgbtqia+, i support and love love lgbtqia+ ships (including hetero ships bht thats for another conversation) but i really dont see why arlefuri is such a popular ship.

I agree, that is a separate conversation, but I find it really odd that the author found it important to spend valuable characters pointing this out.

like i said before, rarepairs are fine and fun, go for it. but if youre going to mindlessly attack people without explaining your reason, you're going to be just like most neuvifuri shippers who like to see 'nonchalant tall person' have sex with 'smaller, more childish (mentally) and petite person'. its not the ship you like, maybe its just the image, the fantasy, the thought. or you're just projecting.

There is a lot to unpack with this last point.

First of all, setting aside accusing arlefuri shippers of attacking again which we've talked about, this is straight up infantilizing Furina. Again, I'm assuming this thread was written in good faith, but if it wasn't, that's an insidious thing to throw into the thread to make that implication. As much as I'm not a fan of nvfr shippers, even they don't deserve that.

Furina is bubbly and energetic, silly and a bit out there, but she is not childish. If you pay attention to any of the quests she's in post Masquerade of the Guilty, you'll notice that (at least in the English dub although I'm assuming it carries to other dubs as well) Furina has two vocal modes with which she speaks: one for when she's in public situations with people she isn't super familiar or trusting with, and one for when she's talking one-on-one with the traveler or otherwise in situations where she feels safe. That latter vocal mode is what almost all of her voice lines in the character menu are spoken in, and is what you can consider her true self (her Ousia version of herself) which is much more thoughtful, calm, and straightforward. When she is acting as her true self, she is incredibly mature and her 500 years of life and stress really start to show.

What I'm assuming the author is thinking of when they call Furina mentally childish is how she acts when she's around various people. This is an act. She still pretends to be someone she's not when she's out and about, and that version of herself (her Pneuma aligned self) is one that is designed to be as appealing as possible: energetic, silly, and slightly arrogant. Once again, it's a character, or if you're more partial to Autistic/neurodivergent Furina headcanons, it's her masking.

Another really weird implication that comes out of this last point (at least to me) is that any and all Arlefuri content is just smut. That's obviously not true--just take my corpus of Arlefuri work as three examples out of however many. And I think it's not fair to judge the morality of most ships purely on the smut. Yes, sex can be a very useful tool for exploring the dynamics of characters, and that is used quite often in Arlefuri (same as literally every other ship known to fandom), but, w/r/t Arlefuri specifically, so much more interesting discussions exist outside of the bedroom, and some of the most seminal and impressive Arlefuri works are those that do not focus around sex. "A Fatui Harbinger in Lady Furina's Court" by DarlingMistaken, yes, is rated Explicit, but only because of one or two chapters. The entirety of the fic is an exploration of Furina's PTSD and the safety dynamic I talked about earlier. Eris's "All Bark No Bite" is completely Arlefuri sex free for the first 16 chapters and has a lot of interesting discussions of Furina's loneliness leading up to the smutty chapters. "Embers" by ChonkCatto is a slow burn romance which dives even deeper to the psychological trauma both Arlecchino and Furina have faced, as well as an exploration of Furina discovering her sexuality. And while I'm not a huge fan of tooting my own horn like this, I'm personally really proud of the discussions I have about power, trust, agency, and how love needn't be loud and passionate in my sister arlefuri fics, "What Do You Want?" and "There Must Be Something Here".

And I also want to point out that literally every ship any of us likes is purely because of the image, fantasy, and thought. That's the point of fandom. I know the author is particularly talking about the sexual side of things, but even then, that's why we do what we do. We like the idea of our favorite characters smooching, and so we make them smooch. Sometimes it's for reasons that takes an essay 3k words and counting to explain, and sometimes it's because "I find both of them hot." There's nothing wrong with that, and there never has been. If you want to read more about my thoughts on this topic specifically, you can read my previous post on here, "A Short Discussion on Fandom Culture"

Finally, I want to leave y'all with a reminder that discourse like this a fire that only you can fuel. Twitter as a platform is designed to both encourage saying things that will bait a reaction and to encourage responding to said bait in as reactionary of a way as possible. And because of the character restraints built into the app, that makes communicating your full thoughts incredibly difficult, and starts forcing people to rely on gotcha's and mantras instead of properly discussing things. And when people start echoing the same things over and over, distain in those spouting those mantras is developed in people, no matter the intention. So just block and move on. Take a page out of the fuqing shippers' book and just move on, because unless we all engage in long discussions over thousands of words, nobody is going to listen to each other because twitter is designed for people to not listen to each other.

This is a war that nobody is going to win, and it's so much better to pack up your things and return home from the front lines. It's so much better if you let people like what they like and not like what they don't like and say what they will say. We're all just a bunch of random ass nobodies beefing about fictional characters.

Just block and move on. It's so much better.

Trust me.

[identifying-cat-phenotypes]

Do you know why it's so common for black cats to have at least a little white spotting, but white cats are solidly white? I've always wondered

Yep! Sort of? It's complicated and also very simple.

It's because of how the KIT locus works, which is responsible for white in most mammals. in cats, there are three main alleles. I won't be diving into the other, smaller-scale white genes (mittens and gloves, yknow) because they don't really effect the genes I'm talking about, but they can be in any of the blanks I provide and it'd be pretty chill.

Right. So! the symbols im using are w, S, Sᴰ which is just how I write it. Usual or standardized symbols tend to be w, ws, and Wd but I like using S because it stands out more! When researching more (which i highly suggest you do!!!) they'll use a system similar to that.

OKAY! explanation time!

Hopefully I don't have to explain punnet square genetics. I will not be doing so, because tbh in USAmerica we're taught it in like, the 5th grade, so just take this TedEd and chill. I'll also be using a pedigree in a later example. :)

I will be running a simple "simulation" of sorts, but do follow along! It's below the cut! <3

All cats below are assumed to be self, as agouti is not a factor being shown!

P0:

Xo/Xo, B/B, S/w (Black, medium-low white)

XO/Y, B/b, Sᴰ/S (epistatic full white)

G1:

1, XO/Xo, B/B, w/S (Black tortie, medium-low white)

2, XO/Xo, B/b, Sᴰ/w (epistatic full white)

3, XO/Y, B/B, S/S (Pseudo-red, high white)

4, XO/Y, B/b, Sᴰ/w (Epistatic full white)

So, this doesn't tell you much immediately. You may be thinking, "Mod Robin, this doesn't answer the question at all? Did you just do all that for fun?"

Short answer, yeah this doesn't answer the question immediately. Slightly longer answer, it does, eventually, but im having fun with making long posts about cat genetics... :3

OKAY!

So, you can see that the parents are pretty normal. Black cat x Red cat, cool! The kittens are mostly torties and red, because that's how punnet squares work. However, you'll notice that one little gene changes how the cat looks. It covers the other patterns (known as an epistatic trait) with just a single allele with the trait.

This is why a lot of the white cats tend to be solid. Again, this is a BRUTE simplicity of how the expression works with other genes on the KIT locus and how white dominant works, but bear with me.

A single allele turns the whole cat white and shuts off protein production for fur color. It's dominant over every other known trait, and is uncommon in pedigree cats. It is a lot rarer in moggie populations.

Therefor, most moggies you see, black self or not, aren't usually fully white. They can be fully white with the right expressions of the right traits without white dominant, but it's connected to a plethora of polygenes that aren't really relevant to this.

It's more common to have a cat with medium-low white spotting, or none at all, than one that is fully white. This goes for every moggie cat. Pedigree cats are different because of how selective breeding works.

So. hopefully you understand all that. sorry not sorry. uhh have a good one :3

[dylan-duke]

ok i just had this realization and i need some other peoples thoughts

so right now the vancouver / hockey world is freaking out because allegedly petey and miller are beefing

BUT I FEEL LIKE THIS HAPPENS EVERY SEASON

they both get put on the trade block for "not producing" or being "locker room cancers" at this time THEN they start beefing

like why do i hear about this every year????

am i making this up????

like the canucks start hot. go on a skid and suddenly jt and petey are beefing which is why.

(now im sure theres more of an explanation for why theyve been skidding but this is a pattern im noticing)

[becauseplot]

Still feel is one of my fav fics ever and it made me so happy to see more stuff from this AU! Your post-osnf headcannons are sooo good!! Actually im a big fan of your ordem headcannons in general tbh

If you dont mind sharing more on it...Can you maybe tell us a bit more about your ideas for the effects the symbol left on Thiago? Like, is he still connected to it or to Santo Berço somehow?? I find this consequences stuff really interesting and id be cool to hear more about it

Aw thanks!! I'm glad someone's getting some enjoyment out of my rambles <33

I can go a bit deeper, of course! Warning for the fact that this does get pretty sad and heavy, sorry :(

So Santo Berço really is gone. Equipe E destroyed it. The effects that Thiago is now dealing with are essentially mental scarring: a mix of normal human PTSD with a paranormal "flare" to it. The Symbol has seared itself not just onto his back but onto his mind as well. His dreams of the Symbol are due to trauma and the fact that, just as he suspects, he was never meant to escape it. It is stuck with him now. Anything touched by Death cannot go back to the way it was before, after all.

I kind of like to think about his mental state in terms of Ordem's "sanity" system as well. He recovers plenty of "sanity" while in injury recovery, since he's given time to rest, away from stressors. Eventually, he starts to do work for the Order again, but he quickly learns that he can't handle stressful, paranormal events like he could before (systems-wise, he has a permanent de-buff/disadvantage in the sanity checks) and missions---even the short one he starts out with---just put too much strain on his body. So, he winds up becoming part of the Order's cover-up team, helping fudge official reports and write up those "logical explanations" that Veríssimo sometimes references.

It's a role that's...much easier on him, after everything he went through. He does notice a pattern between his stress and the frequency of the Symbol dreams, so it's much better this way. He will, on rare occasions, help his friends out in the field with intel gathering (perhaps encountering a Horror on the way, which is never fun), and with he gets to serve as a sounding board for Liz's investigations, both her personal ones and the ones she does with the Order.

There are...other effects of the symbol. That he doesn't like to talk about. He's taken a sickly comfort in swirling designs, ever since he woke up in that hospital; back when he dealt with the nightmares on his own, before Liz and the others knew about them, he used to go to bed with reminders to himself ("Your name is Thiago Fritz, you live in São Paulo with Liz, she's in the bedroom upstairs...") written on his arm surrounded by swirls in the hopes they might calm him down enough to think and read it. He ponders his father's pocket watch more than he should, taking solace in the even, steady tick of time moving at the right pace as much as he does watching the second hand go around and around. He finds himself tracing circle after circle after circle with his finger when he's lost in thought or anxious about something...

He finds himself taking comfort in it. The Symbol. The thought makes him feel ill.

Over the months between osnf and opd, his mind slowly starts to deteriorate. Anything touched by Death cannot go back to the way it was before, after all. The frequency of the dreams has always been correlated with his stress and thus fluctuates, but on average they start to get more frequent, and the more intense ones happen more often, and it slowly gets worse, and worse, and worse until---

---he "zones out" one day, thinking of the Symbol. Thirty seconds, nothing much, it must just be on his mind. Then, he starts to fully disconnect from his surroundings, in his own head, pondering the Symbol for a minute or two. The white void starts to creep into his vision sometimes, reality losing meaning and definition, for several minutes at a time. Minutes turn to an hour, two hours, more, if no one is around to pull him out of it.

Thiago, as much as he hates to admit it to himself, is very, very tired. His mind and body are worn out, abused, overused. The thought that he's been living on borrowed time ever since Santo Berço comes more often than he'd like. At the worst of times, he feels like he's orbiting and closing in on some final, finite point. But he'll never tell his friends this because he knows it'll scare them because fuck, it scares him too. (Though, the times where it doesn't scare him are...even worse.)

[steeloptic]

i have an art request. draw any of your favorite characters from any of your favorite medias and explain why you like them. :)

hehehe. explanations under the cut for anyone seeing this who only cares abt the art

@ubersaw asked me to tag her hi jpeg

cole brew (rhythm doctor) - he's literally me irl if i was a musician instead of an artist

wx-78 (dont starve) - human who didnt like being human and wanted to put their consciousness into a robot body... they just like me for real. bonus point for being enby

pyro (tf2) - just full of such whimsy and mystery!

paintbrush (inanimate insanity) - the reason i figured out i was non-binary. im pretty sure they didnt become a favourite until after that, but they were the first enby character i ever heard about so i latched onto them very quickly :)

petra (minecraft story mode) - my first girl crush except i never realised until a few years ago because i didnt know i was queer when mcsm first came out. she is saur cool

v2 (ultrakill) - the dream's end come true fancomic really made me think about just how tragic her story is. bested by the first version of itself, who was presumed to be worse than it as its predecessor, only to be the end of her life... i try not to think about it for too long. bonus points because robot who is genderless (are you starting to notice the pattern yet)

frye (splatoon 3) - once again just full of whimsy :) i love her dynamics with all the other idols, especially with her own group

[epiphlyte]

aaugh i never thought i would procrastinate so hard on posting here but whaddaya know this has been sitting in my drafts for days.. mostly because school has started up again for me and im too tired in the evenings to write out my thoughts on things SJKKHJ

anyways, ive been feeling extremely nostalgic recently, so as a bit of a warmup-gone-out-of-control here are the fake (well, backup) prophecy dragonets! remember this reveal absolutely shocking me reading the books as a kid. their dynamic is wacky.

an in depth explanation of their designs under the cut!

something i initially didnt like, but now think is a striking visual, is the fact that their designs really don’t go together - especially compared to the actual prophecy dragonets. was puzzling over this for ages, trying to figure out how to make them more cohesive, but eventually just decided to leave it. i think it fits since they really dont get along lol.

the problem with making starflight (check previous posts/tags) purplish is that now fatespeaker has to be a more saturated purple to distinguish the two - she additionally has faint teardrop scales by her eyes to add some spice to her design. i think canon should give nightwings more unique silver scale patterns as well, like fatespeaker's "bracelets" (sadly not included here)!

i want to eventually revisit flames scar, it didnt really come out how i wanted it to. other than that, i like his colours and his pose! you might notice that as i recall how to draw dragons again ive slowly been working on my poses and expressions, making them more dynamic.

seawings are one of my favourite tribes to draw so i really liked designing squid, although he hasn’t really made that much of an impression on me. i should eventually make a palette tracker of all the colours for the tribes, to make them more unified? or alternatively, focus more on the shapes and attributes of each one. i like making seawings squishy and frilly, like some sea animals!

viper is probably my favourite design out of this batch! i really like her colours, although they border more on the palette id use for ocs - eg. is she recognizable as a canon character? i do like her pose though!

and finally ochre - i seriously can’t remember any of this guys dialogue. with this though i did manage to nail down my mudwing designs, varying horns and tusks. maybe i’ll draw clay’s sibs next?? no one knows, not even i.. but i am currently in a character designing mood!

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

i dont want to feed into the accusation that a lot of bisexual women are „faking“ their same-sex attraction but i have made some personal observations i would like to share.

as a bisexual woman myself it is not my intention to question other bisexual women‘s sexuality, this is more about the general culture surrounding female bisexuality.

while many bisexual women point to heteronormativity and the way bigger dating pool on the other side as a reason they are exclusively dating men (which definitely does play a huge role), i have noticed some patterns that might point to different reasons.

for example, i know a few self-identified bisexual women who only ever talk about women being attractive, but no talk of the desire to sexually engage with or even date women, while they very much talk about dick and sexual desires and feelings towards men.

i think that there are some self-identified bisexual women who are not faking it, but think they‘re bisexual because they find women attractive, even though they have no desire to actually have sex with women.

this might be because: being bisexual as a woman is often considered a „quirk“ due to the fetishisation of lesbian relationships, so admitting it harbours no risk when dating men, but may even add some „spiciness“. im not saying that these women do it consciously, and i dont want to say that everything women do is for male attention, it‘s just one possible explanation.

also, internalised misogyny could be a factor: treating attractive women as sex objects is so normalised that even women who respect other women might get caught up in that, subconsciously. they equate attractiveness to fuckability, assuming that finding a woman attractive means they are sexually attracted to them, even thought they might not actually be.

to end this on a more positive note, i also know a lot of bisexual women who actually do and want to have sex with and date other women. i just think that there is a culture around female bisexuality which facilitates what i described here.

[theninth09]

This isn’t anything deep but I just love that both Liam and Theo know how to fake cry and have utilised. Liam when Scott and Stiles tied him up and Theo in the police station and in Scott’s car.

Also off topic, but is Liam blonde? Cuz I see illustrations and some fics where he is written as a blonde guy. I honestly kinda like the idea of blonde Liam.

omg you're right. liam even went all out with those teary puppy dog eyes and that weird whimper he does... like its not just forcing a little tear, he actually tries to appear as if hes scared with his facial expressions. and i mean, maybe he was a bit scared. just a lil. he doesnt believe that sciles are telling him the truth at that point (obviously) but getting attacked by some creature-person, scott biting him and then kidnapping him? even though liam handles that situation impressively well, i do think there was a little real fear inside of him. so maybe he drew on that as well to be even more convincing.

actually- this would fit thiams conversation in the truck from s6ep16. "people only feel one emotion at a time, liam. which is why you get angry when you're afraid." if we assume that he was afraid because of getting tied up and everything, this would explain his aggressive behavior afterwards. i think he definitely fakes most of it (the crying), but this may be a pattern for liam, as theo points out. instead of demanding an explanation from sciles, he attacks them and runs away. sure, he just thinks they're crazy and wants to get away from them. but its not like scott kidnapped him for no reason. liam saw. he witnessed a "person" not looking or acting like a person. he got attacked by it. he felt scott's fangs, he saw scott. as a human, none of that has a reasonable explanation. so him getting angry and running away... that was probably him actually being scared bc he cant make sense of what happened to him.

regardless, its impressive (and really funny) that he makes himself cry and puts on this "im just a scared boy :(" show. its even more impressive bc stiles seems to fall for it? stiles, famously known for Not falling for anyone's bullshit, stilinski? believing liam? like, okay. this feels like further proof to me that liams fear, at least, was real bc in later seasons hes kinda bad at pretending (that scene in s6a where him and mason show up at the house where sciles were bc of the ghostriders and he goes "h-hey what. what are u doing here" lmao) Anyway. love this instance of his quick thinking skills. hes actually very smart (when he wants to be.)

and theo does it constantly, yeah. those scenes are actually some of my favorites, if not my absolute favorites, from him in s5. its just so good and so hilarious how he makes himself small and makes his voice go all quiet and he literally starts stuttering and stumbling over his words, just for him to do his Evil Grin as soon as no one is looking at him anymore. makes me wonder what watching s5 would've been like if they hadn't shown us who theo actually is. i think that would've been kinda cool, getting manipulated and lied to by him as a viewer, just as he does to the pack. the twist at the end of s5a not only being a surprise to the characters, but the one's watching as well. and then getting shown his evil schemes in flashbacks... idk. could've been fun.

and okay omg. liams hair is so confusing to me. because in s4, he definitely looks blonde to me. look at this.

thats blonde. not the lightest blonde ever, sure, but still. maybe a dirty blonde or whatever term fits here. i personally wouldnt call this brown. right? right. i think we can agree. blonde. in s5 his hair looks much the same, maybe a tiny bit darker but still.

and then. Then. s6ep1. excuse this weird fucking picture, its the only scene where his hair is like this.

like. okay... on top it looks blonde, but it's noticeably darker at his neck. but again, this is the only scene in s6 where his hair is like this. in the same episode, even before this scene, his hair is darker, like its the entire rest of s6. pics for reference:

the first one is the very first scene of s6ep1 and the lighting is shit but its still obviously dark. like that's brown. that is Brown.

so like obviously they filmed that kissing scene before any other scenes. makes sense, since that exact hairstyle is also the hairstyle he has at the very end of s5b. so like. is he blonde??? did they dye his hair??? i have genuinely no idea. if they did dye his hair, why? or did his hair just become darker as he aged? but in some scenes it looks like his roots are lighter than the rest of his hair...

i wish i could tell you what his hair color is. people have their own opinions about this, bc ive seen fanart where hes very blonde but ive also read fics where he gets described as having "raven locks" which?? i think of black when reading that. idk. its whatever. hes a blonde, a brunette, go wild. whatever makes you happy.

[bismuthburnsblue]

YOU SELECTED: NO SLEEVES

Who saw that one coming, huh? certainly not me! a big surprise, but you know what? i will NOT be complaining about not sewing sleeves (though its less about putting them in and more about making a nice pattern, for me) its too early to say, but there might be some fun facing shenanigans coming with this choice!

Onto the collars! Once again, these are generalised a little, ill decide the exact shaping as im doing the patterning (there wont be a lot of variation, just widths and precise angles)

To split this up in a way that gives each option a fair vote, i decided to do this as a mini bracket! this post will contain the first poll, and there will be links to the other two for this round right below it. as usual there will be explanations of what exactly im meaning with each option under the cut- it might really be worth reading for this round, because some of the differences between options kind of only exist as long as i cut them differently (its hard to explain- i did a LOT of research and didnt come to any actual separations on some fronts)

There may also be an additional round for decorative features- piping, contrast accents, fun little shapes! itll depend what option is picked, i think :)

Lapel/Revere Collar vs Peter Pan Collar

Shawl Collar vs Convertible Collar (no stand)

Shirt Collar (with stand): i really struggled to define the difference between this and the convertible collar- theres not one solid answer, honestly. for the purposes of this poll im separating it based on whether its constructed with one piece, or two! if you look at all these images, you'll see that at the neckline, theres a band of fabric sewn in to bridge the divide between the shirt and the collar. the main thing this does is make the collar sit more upright on the neck, versus without which tends to sit flatter along the shoulders. it has a very traditional shirt look, but tends to only look really good when fully buttoned, in my eyes.

You could also have shirt collars that look something like this!! fun shapes and layers, the world is your oyster :)

Wing Collar: Based on my research, these can really be any shape you can imagine, at any angle and any rise. The main unifying factor is how they come to a much stronger point than a regular collar. in general, the ones i like sit pretty flat to the body at the front, folding over softly instead of having a noticeable rise (like a shirt collar does) for me, the point also has to be visible (though it can sit pretty high up round the shoulder) as otherwise it starts to look too much like a shawl collar.

[fairyminnie444]

okay im curious what your input might be on this... like before i ever even got into loa i've noticed a recurring pattern where everytime i think something is "never going to happen" or "hmm i've never seen xyz" it ends up happening?!?! like what are the odds tf and it's for extremely specific and peculiar things... it's hard to explain it but basically i occasionally reverse manifest.. i expect that something WONT happen, and it does (this is usually in my favour tho/no effect on me)

i just didnt know who to ask sorry if you're the wrong person lol im wondering if there's an explanation for this in terms of loa?

[rin-and-jade]

Im so happy to see you taking a break and I hope the break is very nice!

I understand there might be a delay in responses but thats okay, please take your time your health is more important !!

Be prepared for a huge wall of text so sorry in advance-

But, i have a few things im just itching to ask gahhh

Firstly, we originally believed we had little to no amnesia (believing osdd-1b) BUT since then we realised the amnesia is so much heavier than we realised, we figured bc we could recall general events and it was calm in a sense (we saw majority of the time when people experience amnesia its distressing and the loss of all memory) but, the memories are not memorying, so now we are assuming just DID, and that brings me to the second part...

fragments and subsystems, so, idk how valid this is (mostly bc my assumptions are based off vibes/gut instinct) but im fairly sure a subsystem occurred a few months back from a split where that alter just disappeared, which is unusual from what we have documented from the past 1.5 years (most splits the alter detaches from the stressor and those stressors mould a new alter to deal with it in a sense-) so from the recent odd split i believe a subsys was created as such? i have no clue except the vibes, in which it feels like a bunch of fragments in a sense? like i believe ive been fronting for months on my own for now, but there are some parts of my days where i just blank anything that happened, so im curious if there is-

and its not the only time as such where we have had this dreaded gut feeling there were more parts that might be dormant or even very separate, or even parts we dont even notice due to the nature of disorder being a whole lot of forgetting and the disorder pretending to not be the disorder and stuff ;-;

im so sorry for the huge rambles, if you have any advice or explanations or even resources i can read through to draw my own conclusions that would be so cool, bc as of right now im so scared to say this as i feel like im actually faking it for attention and theres no way i was traumatised enough for this and yadayada

tldr: should i trust my 'gut instincts' about system related information, or is my brain being silly?

I don't see the point on invalidating instincts, they're subconscious pattern detectors, so if you feel off, you bet it IS off. Though it's healthy to back it up with evidence preferably, and if there's no evidence yet, then you prowl like a predator in attempt to search for the truth scroll... cough--with a help from me whenever you need it, i mean im not going anywhere.

Also, you can check wether you have did or osdd by jotting down logs or patterns wether: you're memorying more or memorying less, the things you forgot, how often do you find yourself black/greying out, how distinct your personalities are, and wether you can easily remember other part's memories or able to grasp another facet of yourself (if you do not, or is really hard too, im sure this is 'did' from first impression)

--

Right, and for the advices, further explanations, or even resources are all answered by my previous edu posts where its compiled in the #jeducates tag,, i'd love you to just swim in it and process all my information like a sponge.. and come back the second time with more specific questions if you still need confirmation or assurances.

Let me know how it went, i'll be waiting for ya's update!

- c