#some of its a vent and some of its not. you dont have to make it about me. its character stuff above all else!

[mossy-aro]

ultimately i think my insistence on aro positivity honestly is as much a political stance as a personal one.

when i say aro positivity is crucial and that i dislike doomer-ist posts that express sentiments like 'I hate being aro so much I wish I was dead instead’ it's not because I don’t think there can and should be a space for negativity and acknowledging self-hate, or the many ways being aromantic can really suck sometimes. i find that to be very important!

that being said. there is smth here about how self-hate posts are sometimes just arophobia that we inflict on ourselves. and when we put that out into the ether it (intentionally or not) can become arophobia that we inflict on other members of the community. i think there absolutely needs to be a place for negativity and the expression of anger and frustration and self loathing even - these are all good things to talk about because these are things that we experience. that being said, it can also be genuinely upsetting and triggering to people to have what is essentially arophobia shown to them and then have that be validated by other aspec people. your personal thoughts can affect your wider community on a level you may not anticipate. and i understand it i truly do! it took me so long to be able to recover from accepting being aroace - it threw my entire world off kilter and made me question everything about my place in the world.

but my insistence on aro joy and positivity is because ultimately i do believe that building is at the core essence of it all. that ultimately discussions and the purpose of community should be about construction, not destruction. and this is both a personal and a political stance. talking about how much you hate yourself and cultivating online discussions/spaces where negativity about aspec identity is the main and only theme is destructive - if that’s where we let the conversation end. these thoughts can and should be used as a vehicle to look for a path forward!

joy and positivity create a space where the focus can become on forging a path forward, on construction, on community building instead of tearing ourselves and others down with negative thoughts. it’s not productive or healthy when it stops at a place of negativity - it becomes actively destructive to the essence of community.

and i do think that this is especially poignant considering the fact that being any kind of queer, but especially aromantic (and/or asexual) means forging a path for yourself and making your own happiness where there is no obvious way forward. our communities exist mostly online (right now, anyway), there is little recognition of our existence in the real world, the effects of amatonormativity are both pervasive and actively dehumanising, and there are legal, economic and social structures in place actively making our lives more difficult. yes that all sucks! it’s good to acknowledge that. we need to in order to change it. but more importantly, that’s not the end. we are still here and our happiness, our future is for us to determine. even if we can’t change the laws or society, loving yourself and understanding aromanticism as a political identity (as well as personal), as a radical worldview, and as a protest against amatonormativity is essential for both community and personal well being. the personal is political.

tldr. i guess my point is that as a community, we should focus on building, improving, and nurturing ourselves and each other (construction) as opposed to destruction. we should recognise aromanticism and asexuality as political identities as well as personal ones and rely on community and self-love in the absence of anything else as a form of protest and political power. destruction (the recognition of everything that is wrong) is essential as a starting point - but where do we go from there? we rebuild.

[deoidesign]

I met the me who made different choices

[xxplastic-cubexx]

talking to my brother about quicksilver and i was like 'ik him and wanda are twins but he exudes little brother energy so much' and my bro Without Hesitation just went 'well thats what happens when you're the least favorite in the family' and he says this to me, the youngest in our family like 🧍‍♂️

[shithowdy]

realized a drawing i'm doing rn is almost identically posed to one i did 8.5 years ago of a different oc, except the old drawing was instantly tainted by one of the players featured messaging me asking if i could take it down because their abusive, possessive rp partner saw it and got jealous of them "roleplaying behind their back" and i said "nah" and it became a whole Thing that i should have walked away from at that exact moment but didn't and the 6 months that followed contained some of the most truly condensed batshit i have ever witnessed in an rp community already well-known for its batshittery.

... anyway i love my friends. so happy to accidentally redeem the pose.

[kerizaret]

In case you haven't noticed May has sucked for me so far, anyway *projects onto blorbo*

[oceanwithouthermoon]

"fandom discourse isnt that serious" yeah duh but i feel like i should be allowed to talk about things like people being misogynistic or justifying abuse without being told im complaining too much or something, when these are such extremely prevalent issues in fandom 😭

[ashersbraincell]

Mannnnn, only on roblox will you have the most profound, poignant, human conversation in a while, all the while talking to somebody with a troll avatar who you started conversation with cautiously because you didn’t know whether they would harrass you/be weird

[qoldenskies]

Oooo kickback is so interesting!! Im so curious about Splinter especially :0 why was he kicked out of his family, and why did you choose to give him dercums out of everything?

dercum's disease is what my mom has,,, its incredibly rare and has NO treatment, some painkillers dont even work. it causes really sudden weight gain and excruciating chronic pain; i really think it like. unfortunately made sense for splinter's brand of issues, its something i have experience with via a family member and its a pretty good equivalent to the mutation.

and i also think it sets up the premise well, it got worse around the time when they were luckily old enough to work but he's ALREADY been saddled with chronic pain before this point + the usual depression and trauma is staying, which explains the kind of similar family dynamic to canon. realistically now in order to leave the house his best bet would be a mobility device like a wheelchair, but for one i dont think he would considered himself "disabled enough" to need it because he can still walk, which is a terrible perspective to have but they're all a little fucked up like that. the internalized ableism demon has a hold of everyone in this fuckass family

^^^ and also he does not have the money for it, and would be unable to find a proper diagnosis; from what i've seen, there is ONE specialist in the US for dercum's disease, and that would just be to get a diagnosis, there is NO TREATMENT. and said specialist lives in arizona.

as for his family, piebald's the cousin i mentioned because i wanted to include her, she's quite a bit older (probably in her late 20s now) and babysat them before splinter moved across the country, so she's surprisingly present in their lives. lmao mostly through like, facebook correspondence and shit but she'll be relevant! with the rest of 'em i think it was mostly just caused by him not getting along with his guardian kind of like in canon, it was a mix of slacking off (maybe he dropped out? itd be interesting if he projected both that pain onto leo who's following in his steps, and donnie who he can live vicariously through because he regrets not going to college, even if he doesn't want to hurt either of them) + he was queer in the 80s, which is an explanation of its own. it just makes sense to make him really engrossed in queer culture .... something about him ..... he's a little outdated though (said with love)

with a really rare disease, no family to financially depend on, one of kids dropping out of school because of untreated issues he KNEW ABOUT but couldn't do anything about, one being uninterested in college, and the other one skipping it completely to focus on really basic work just to keep them alive, its. tough. it just unfortunately makes sense that a lot of this would go on donnie's shoulders; and while splinter is trying, so so so hard, there's a small part of him that's urging him a little too hard to stay on track about the future.

I MADE THIS AU LITERALLY YESTERDAY I DONT KNOW WHAT HAPPENED EITHER

[moliathh]

isnt it hypocrisy when some people are like "shipping alu/tegra is disrespectful and ignorant to canon because she will never betray her faith and family for her enemy" and then turn around and ship ander/card... bestie integra is a protestant christian with a "no sexual intercourse until marriage" oath (mind u they used shared title and that is commonly a thing between married couples of different titles, also that doesnt forbid them from courting) meanwhile anderson is a catholic priest, not only do catholic priests not marry, they took celibacy oath, which means no sexual nor romantic relationship, not even courting, and mind you integra wanted alucard to not disappear while anderson very much wanted him DEAD dead, idk which one of us is more "disrespectful and ignorant to canon"

personally speaking i cannot gaf about what ppl ship, you do you, as long as ur happy with your little fictional playdolls im happy for u, but do not come for other people u dont even know and talk shit about them just because they have a different headcanon and preference than you, its honestly so rude

[dizzybevvie]

"not pro-ana just using the tags" "pro-ana only for myself" Ok but you see how you're still hurting people right. you see how you're perpetuating this mindset for other people by posting about it right.

[seventh-district]

not even gonna tag this properly bc i don't wanna get Involved but i do have some Thoughts i need to get out into the void so here we go

(aaa quick edit: CW for mention/discussion of Boothill leaks)

[dream-sans-mogai]

This will probably get looks from performative and ultimately harmful non-transfems despite my being transfem but-

Some y'alls only interaction with feminist history and theories, radical feminism regardless of its intersectionality and really any feminism deeper and louder and meaner than blatant choice feminism like the barbie movie and whatever TF taylor swift thinks shes got going on is through your occasional and short interactions with terfs and it shows. You call vagina art terfy and it fucking isnt. Its feminist art. Your brainrot is making you a fucking mra. The fact y'all think talking about the man vs bear situation is about/started/ran by terfs (and encouraged some really questionable other transfems shitting on it despite it clearly just being about women's safety and yes all men, not transphobia.), everything from questioning wether certain groups belong in our community to thinking a word is a slur or having a lesbian icon (I have sources don't test me) or not to not liking a certain band has been called "terf rhetoric". I'm all for us Transmascs talking about how terfs affect us cause they absolutely do and their harm to the transmasc community can not be understated but like.... Y'all are not allowed to call Jack shit terf rhetoric anymore. Like nothing. You don't know what it means, you litterally call transmedicalism and sysmedicalism terf rhetoric. Do you mean exclusionist? Say exclusionist. Terfs are not the end all be all hate group. They have a very specific complex mindset that affects so many people in specific ways. Someone hating Neopronouns is not fucking terf rhetoric. It's nbphobia. Holy fuck. Learn what words mean.

(intersectional trans radfems exist, radical feminism isn't terfs and swerfs and historical radfems would laugh in their faces for their idiocy)

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

Personally, I think if you describe yourself as a socialist and also have a bust of Vladimir Lenin's head in your house, I should be allowed to smash that bust over your head with no consequences.

[monachopism]

being jewish with zero affiliation to israel and rather a generational line of activists for palestine is a hard line to walk and sometimes i wish i could just fall off

[shdwtouch]

also uh. this is part inquiry, part vent ? I know it's kinda shitty to be like "do you like my character ?" but now that I've gotten through more of act 2 and done the questlines involving the shadow-cursed lands... I honestly feel kinda silly. like.

knowing what happens with oliver / thaniel, as well as what is implied with arabella, I'm worried that shade is a little... redundant. I don't know. like. if people like her as a companion and the way I've built her lore that's good enough for me, I just. worry. and I worry that people may think I'm trying to replace those narratives. I don't know. it's hard to explain just how I feel. but mostly I feel silly. and worried.

probably overthinking it but. input would be most appreciated. honest input; I just want to know what people think / feel about shade in relation to the characters and lore we already have in the game, I guess. I am genuinely curious what people think.

edit: read the tags but also I should post a disclaimer, I know that if people didn't like shade they wouldn't be following or interacting with me. that's not the question I'm asking here. I'm asking for input on where she stands in the game canon lore, on what people think about that. I am honestly so, so thankful for the support and love I have received in writing shade. <3 I was not expecting this kind of love and interest, and I am grateful for everyone who has given her / me a chance !

[faggling]

I love taking care of people omggg 😍😍😍