#And their experiences are unique to them

[s735]

7/20/23

I got around to reading Dragon Ball and DBZ for the first time recently. Raditz, Nappa and Vegeta are my faves. I wish we saw more of them before they died.

[shorthaltsjester]

Why are your children bound by rules you will not follow?

Critical Role, Campaign 3, Downfall Parts 1-3 // Commandments of The Prime Deities according to the Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn

[ooooo-mcyt]

Scott Smajor (cc) is such a good story teller actually and the common themes he uses in his storylines captivate me. I think we should talk about how good he is at Themes more often. If I wasn't so tired I'd write essays.

[vaguely-concerned]

the question is who taught lucanis to knit. was it something he already knew how to do or is he picking it up over the course of the game as part of his 'if I manage to cram enough hobbies in there I won't have to sleep again ever. easy' experiment. did he learn it out of a book (as a sometime knitter, a horrifying thought but I wouldn't put it past him). as hilarious as I find the mental image of caterina with knitting needles I do not believe in it, did he pick it up from someone in the household staff growing up the same way he did cooking. is the sweater he wears with his introductory armour his own work (very funny if so it's just so. incredibly neutral toned and sensible.) I understand why he never does it on screen because animating knitting is the devil's own work and bioware were right to dodge right past it no one should wish themselves that kind of pain, but do you think off-screen he's using it the same way davrin does whittling during team meetings and book club nights (for real the grandmas were so right for this: knitting during social group situations is a neurodivergent life hack like you wouldn't believe if doodling isn't your thing/isn't doing it for you). it's that or sharpening his knives and some people seem to get a bit nervous about that so he mostly sticks to the knit one purl one of it all. does he make things for the team. for romanced rook perhaps. boring but useful things like socks and scarves, to be clear. I think mr. 'I made you a cake (cautiously marital intent)' would not mean to impress just make sure your feet weren't cold jogging around the heights of athim killing darkspawn. knitting more socks for harding so she won't get cold walking around everywhere in her fereldan *checks notes written on palm* clogs. some of taash' outfits... you think rook and lucanis are letting them walk around the anderfels like that without at least a token sensible scarf on even tho adaari are built different in terms of body temperature. I say no not in my lighthouse they would team up and mother hen them to shathann levels before they'd let that happen. (the scarf has dragons on it taash thinks it's kind of cool actually.) a bobble hat for manfred not because he really needs it but because he wanted to feel included. assan indignantly tries to steal it and fly away with it so he gets his own scarf to promote peace between the lighthouse little guys and it works. help.

[leidensygdom]

me: maybe i'm over it. maybe i can like, design a monster without my brain going to the absolute banging final fantasy x monster designs

the banging final fantasy x monster designs, tho:

(also i didnt want to clutter the post but there's a lot of rambling in the tags)

[gobstoppr]

Tetris Fanart.

I've been playing tetris while listening to horror podcasts. and yeah

[rockcattomato]

One really interesting thing about this fandom (hermitcraft/life series) is that the characters have no depth. Like, yeah, you can project depth onto them while you’re watching or thinking about them. But, at a baseline level they are the ‘fun’ personas of people, which really isn’t anything at all.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing in my opinion, but it does mean that every time that they’re written, you need to give them depth. In many fandoms, the characters come with it, when you’re reading a fic, they start with backstory and context from the moment you see their name on the screen. But with these people, you have to make them real manually. Because the only emotional context they can truly start with, is either the slivers that are actually there, or someone’s impressions from already being in the fandom space.

[scoriarose]

Sometimes my enrichment ideas don't go over as well as I'd hoped. I'd seen some snakes who had a great time eating egg yolk from a glass, and I tried that with my girls. I took it out of the egg as the egg was far too big, and while at first I thought of making a hole in it I remembered how many times Sakura has tried to eat her dish. And her house. And the door to her enclosure when food touched it. Sure, wild snakes might eat eggs and regurgitate the shells just fine, but there's a lot of dangerous things wild snakes have to do that really wouldn't bring any benefit to making my girls do them.

So I broke an egg into a shallow glass they couldn't get stuck in.

Sakura was absolutely baffled by this strange object. After curiously inspecting the egg yolk, it burst in her face, and exploded a yellow mess? It was then I realized I may as well be showing her an alien as she'd never seen anything like this bizarre object before in her life.

"I found a yellow ball. I touched the yellow ball. It melted into a liquid! Why did this happen???"

And she pondered the egg throughout the day, repeatedly going over to look at it again and again. It absolutely mystified her. Perhaps she was checking to see if it would do any other strange tricks, or maybe even go back to being a solid.

She seemed equally interested in the strange barrier surrounding the yellow liquified ball.

It is best to ponder life's deep questions while looped through your favorite thinking orb.

If that fails, try caressing the forcefield itself to see if it will reveal its mysteries.

Scoria wanted absolutely nothing to do with the egg in the glass, and attempts to even show it to her only led to her fleeing from it. Both seemed relieved when the bizarre thing was gone. Ah well, perhaps they might like a boiled egg slice in a familiar food dish next time. While some snakes enjoy a treat of raw egg yolk, my girls will probably be happier not going through that excitement again any time soon.

[orangerosebush]

Artemis will disassemble and clean a fountain pen with the same level of intensity as Butler disassembling and cleaning one of his guns.

[t4tails]

i don't really have a horse in this race but i think it's a bit sad to frame transmasc experiences as having nothing unique to them. if we can identify "transandrophobia" anywhere surely it's in this tendency to subtly downplay ourselves in the name of others

how is it sad? we can find solidarity with so many people. this mindset that being the prime focus of some bigotry is an achievement, something to reach for, that every group must have it, is part of the problem. we can defend ourselves against transphobia, and link arms with our sisters who do the same. we can use our experience pre and post transition to flesh out the mechanisms of how the patriarchy treats women and anybody else who isnt a cisgender man. these are good things!

[seekstrivefind]

i was sent to boarding school at six years old.

i lived in an old victorian manor house on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere. there were teachers and house mistresses, but mostly there were other children. i saw my family very little, and even when i did see them, they were strangers who knew practically nothing about me. they might as well not have existed.

aside from my school lessons, i learned everything from these other, isolated children. what was good and bad, cool and uncool, what was important and what was a supposedly proportional response to any of these ideas being challenged. it was, as you'd expect, a feral little echo chamber.

and amongst it all were the expectations (academic, mostly). we were special, we were better than other children that we nebulously understood went to school elsewhere and lived differently somehow (i didn't meet any non boarding school kids until I was 12 or 13, and then only saw them in the summer).

when expectations are put on you like that, when you're so steeped in then that you know nothing else, you convince yourself that they happen to align with your own desires. they push you, but you push yourself harder. later, as an adult, you'll look back and wonder why you threw yourself so rabidly into something you never really wanted. when you're in it, you can't think of doing anything else, because you learn all your shame there, too.

so there you are, a cohort of young people who fiercely believe that you are independently chasing something that matters more than anything else in the world. and when adults look at you pityingly and dare to suggest you are being fed into a big, pointless machine that will chew you up and spit you out into adulthood with nothing to show for it, you get angry. because they don't understand, they couldn't possibly understand. you throw yourself willingly into the machine. it chews you up like meat (the adults were right all along, of course).

and that's why I'm so emotional about the fourth house, because tamsyn muir fucking nailed boarding school trauma.

[bougiebutchbinch]

The person fakeclaiming about the electrocauter.... baby the surgeon was exaggerating to make the med student uncomfortable...

but even without that? unless you're actually doing the op you wear a basic bitch blue mask in the OR - none of them stop the smell getting in??? and just because burnt meat smells bad to you it might smell yummy to someone else???????? especially if they're very familiar with like, starting barbeques and stuff??? or just cooking on a fire????? It's literally just burning meat - if you associate that smell with food it might make you hungry!

you are NOT SUPPOSED to sniff the surgical smoke!!! It absolutely contains carcinogens, and even has a potential to spread HPV!!!! You're supposed to suction it away!!!!!! But that doesn't always happen or work.... And at the last hospital I worked at (as usual, this may be a US/my country difference lol) barely anyone bothered suctioning smoke.... I'm pretty sure there weren't any official smoke evac protocols, and certainly none on a national level!

Enough people have chimed in to agree that they find the smell weirdly yummy after a while that I think this comes down to the individual mhfghf

anyway enough about that

[atlas-dr0wned]

real love song by nothing but thieves makes me feel like i’m going insane but in the best way. it’s such a beautiful song, and the raw emotion in conor’s voice makes me feel like i’m a part of the song myself. the power in every ‘it won’t go away’ and honestly the entire chorus makes me feel like ascending to another dimension. it’s a song that i do genuinely think everybody should experience at least once

[delusionalbitchinthehouse]

Swiss hurt/comfort because I love him. So, so much. Featuring Dew being the absolute best.

It's a peculiar feeling, being the only multi ghoul in the Ministry. Sure, there are some who come close, like three-elemental hybrid Aurora, but Swiss remains, to this day, the only ghoul to detain control of all five elements. Well. "Control" might be a strong word.

He is good with fire, has always been drawn to this element specifically. Quickly started hanging out with the fire ghoul bunch after his summoning, feeling like he might fit in best with them. He is good, yes, but no more than that. Good. Average good. Nothing like the effortless and precise mastery of the element displayed by the fire ghouls.

Air comes relatively easily to Swiss. He has Cumulus and Cirrus to thank for that. Summoned at the same time as them, he remains very close to the girls, and spent countless afternoon practicing with them, learning how to weave breezes and gusts of wind, earning countless praises and kisses whenever he made progress. Still, Swiss has none of the girls' grace or range when it comes to manipulating their common element.

Surprisingly, he is quite good with quintessence as well. Quintessence, this mysterious, elusive element that's known to be so hard to control, somehow doesn't give Swiss as much troubles as he'd expected. In Aether's opinion, it might be that Swiss is so very curious of people, his mind craving connection, which would encourage the spark of quintessence within his grasp. But of course, because there always is a "but", Swiss is far from fully in control of it. He would never try what Aether successfully does to calm pain, soothe nerves or various other things.

When it comes to water...well. Swiss can, with a lot of focus, fuck around with weak currents, direct some droplets to splash someone in the face, or even, thanks to Rain's patient efforts, developpe small gills which allow him to breath semi-decently underneath the surface of the lake, but that's about it. Swiss, as much as he sometimes wishes he could, will never slink through the currents with the water ghouls' elegancy, silent and blending in so very well with their element.

Which leaves earth. Ah, earth. Swiss can feel it, the thrumming under his skin whenever he's surrounded by the element, in the forest guarding the Ministry's grounds or even Primo's beautiful rose garden. Yet Swiss can barely access to that power keeping itself just out of grasp, almost as if it was taunting him. No amount of time spent in the greenhouses helping Mountain, listening to his advice or copying his careful gestures can change that. But Swiss knows it's there, can feel it, and, on rare occasions, has his suspicions confirmed when flowers sprouts around his horns after being subjected to especially intense emotions.

So that is what Swiss is. Jack of all trades, master of none. And it gets to him, sometimes. He knows, realistically speaking, that people like him. That the Clergy sees him as a blessing, the Siblings are irresistibly drawn to him, that the ghouls are all over him. And yet, sometimes, he cannot help but feel like an outsider, a freak, something that shouldn't be, or at least shouldn't be that way.

It's often Dew who notices first when Swiss starts spiralling that way. Everyone always underestimates how perceptive and attentive to others the fire ghoul is, but Swiss has been on the receiving end of his quiet comfort enough times to know Dew cares, a lot. And somehow, when Swiss is overwhelmed by the objectively speaking irrationnal feeling of not belonging, Dew always manages to reassure him.

Maybe it's because the fire ghoul remembers his water days, when he struggled to connect with his element and felt like a disappointment, even with Mist always fiercely supporting him and expressing her pride in what Dew grew to become. In any case, he always find the words to appease Swiss, or, when words aren't what he needs, what to do to make him feel better.

A hand slipping in Swiss', an arm slung around his shoulders. A press of forehead against his, a cheeky kiss at the corner of his mouth. Sometimes, understanding that all Swiss needs is to be smothered with affection, Dew simply throws himself at the multi ghoul and wrestles him onto his back with surprising strenght before calling for a cuddle pile.

It's harder to feel like an outsider when your packmates are all purring and making happy noises on top of you.

[canisalbus]

very random question and don’t feel obligated to reply but your style reminds me of dark souls/pathologic/those types of games in general. that might just be due to the historical context but i’m curious, are you a fan of games like that?

If I had to guess it could be just the vaguely historical setting, religious overtones and occasional darker themes? My knowledge on Dark Souls et al. is sparse at best, people have been telling me to give them a try but I haven't gotten around to it.

[bisexualseraphim]

Also, I refuse to entertain the discourse as to whether acespec people are “oppressed” or not, but I will say it’s really fucking lonely — especially if you fall somewhere on the spectrum that’s a little more unconventional.

I’ve discussed many times before how I feel absolutely no attraction whatsoever except towards my lovely partner. I went through the phases queer men tend to: exploring many types of pornography and cruising on Grindr. I really tried, and none of it has ever done anything for me. It wasn’t until I started having sex with my partner that I realised, ohhh, so that’s how most people feel. And even then, enjoying sex with him is far more of an intimacy thing than the actual physical sensations. I do not fantasise about other people or consume porn. There is only him.

And yet when I’ve spoken about this in acespec spaces, I’m still treated as some sort of weirdo who doesn’t belong. I’ve literally been told many times that I can’t be demisexual because demis will still fantasise and consume porn (although that doesn’t line up with my understanding that demis require a close bond to feel sexual attraction, but never mind), and I’ve even been accused of having some weird internalised Christian puritan shit going on because I genuinely cannot comprehend ever looking at or thinking about someone in that way who isn’t my man. As if anything about this is a choice for me and it is offensive to them somehow. As if only feeling attraction to one person is like… “worse” than never feeling any attraction at all. I’ve never once shamed others for how they experience sex and sexual attraction and never would, yet people act like that’s what I’m inherently doing just by speaking about my own experiences.

So no, I won’t say whether acespec people are “oppressed” or not because honestly, when is this shit ever going to come up in conversation and ever be that relevant? But the fact I don’t feel I can talk about it even amongst other queer people, even amongst others in the acespec community, kind of speaks for itself.

Being a queer man who can’t relate to all the stereotypes and anecdotes about enjoying casual sex is one type of loneliness. Being a queer acespec man who can’t even relate to most others in the acespec community is another. I can never win, and either way I do not fit in.