#That might have something to do with it

[marionmorse]

Ohh my absolute goodness..

side note, one look at Heavy and Medic on the character lineup at the teamfortress.com homepage tells you EVERYTHING about their marriage

Anyway, the god... damn... I can't get over... just, Engineer TF2 and the duality of his character. Like, he's one-hundred percent someone to pull on gator skin boots, a ten gallon, get all yee-hawed up for a night out at the dance hall. But then go home and infodump about hotchkiss drives, stress-strain curves, and reflow soldering.

There are some specific competitive lines that comes to mind that are JARRING to hear in his honeyed-up Texas voice along with shit like "hooo-whee, makin' bacon!" and "START PRAYIN', BOY." Maybe that's just a huge part of the appeal to his character, but think about his BUDDIES, too.

Medic is probably quite familiar with American stereotypes pre-Gravel Wars, doesn't expect much from a bumbling rural southerner with a generic set of tools upon first glance. but.., he's a bit BLOWN AWAY when Engie gets all inquisitive about the ins and outs of the medi-gun. Wants to look into how the serum works as a mechanical component, the powering and logic behind it all, even overwhelms med's (limited) level of delicate mechanical knowledge. his arc is all, "okay, so, this little guy might be a bigger-brained fella than I expected!" The punting of med's early-day ego and subsequent forging of their friendship is just so... ourgh... I love characters and arcs and stories and growth and...

Also, Soldier! The all-American Ultra Yank who doesn't see eye-to-eye with Engie at first. They've both got contrasting leadership qualities when it comes down to it, fr, a- a- and, AND, soldier HATES nerds. Engie's a nerd. Big time. It takes a while for that mutual love respect to build up, you know? do you catch my drift? I'm just rambling now.

ALSO also, Engineer himself going from the more introverted, lone-wolf type we see in Meet the Engineer to a sort of leader, the level-headed de-escalator we see in Expiration Date. The guy who feels for and loves his team, but no doubt brings out the 'Texas' in 'em all. It's kinda cute. I imagine he taught everyone square dancing at some point, 'cause how else would they know?

In the end, I just love to think of Engie as being one of the cornerstones of the team's overall culture. i mean, he's a solid family guy - cooks the breakfasts, fixes the (practical) problems, heck, plays music, tells stories, keeps 'em together when times are tough. We ALL know that some of him has to rub off on the team he bunks with for years. Not in a father-figure way, nahh, but certainly in a Dad Friend way. Big difference.

(Can you tell who my favorite character is yet? (demo, actually. And Heavy. come to think of it, the defense trio is the love of my life. My boys. (I could write and MLA-formatted essay about the balance of culture and personality within the Tuefort Nine, citations intact.)))

[redysetdare]

Idk how to describe how difficult it is to get anyone to take you seriously when you reaction to being uncomfortable or upset is smiling and laughing.

I don't know WHY I do it. it has gotten me in trouble MANY times as a kid. It causes so much misunderstandings with people around me. They don't realize I'm uncomfortable because I'm smiling. I sound like I'm laughing when I speak.

I will be telling them "Stop" when they joke about something that upsets me but they wont register that it's genuine and serious because it sounds like I'm laughing along with the joke. It causes things to go too far until I can't take it. People ask me if i like someone but then tell me I'm lying when i say no because "You're smiling" when in reality I'm smiling from discomfort. Someone will scold me and then get even more angry because I'm smiling even tho I'm upset and they see it as mocking them.

I don't blame people for it, i know my reaction isn't normal. I know they can't tell I'm being serious. I wish this wasn't my reaction to discomfort. it would save me so much strife. But I can't stop it. it's something i cant control or fix. It can get oh so difficult for people to take you seriously when you're instinct is to smile.

[chamaleonsoul]

it's so silly how you can just, temporarily forget the things you love? like, i know i love reading, i know it, it's woven into my concept of who i am, and yet sometimes i'll spend months without reading, for no reason (or for all the reasons). And one day, all of the sudden, i find myself starving and having to catch a grip on where i am physically because i just spent 4 hours straight reading and forgot i have a body and a life to attend to ??

[idiottweets]

please tell me i'm not the only one who thinks the podcast host is kind of annoying...

[shesmore-shoebill]

"I had choice paralysis :(" is a KILLER line.

He's such a comedic powerhouse, I'm glad more people are getting exposed to him :'D

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The squad of all time has arrived on scene.

[abyssalzones]

something something "wearing a microfiber cloth in my back pocket to let the best buy employees know I'm cruising" idr how the post goes

[faraway-lightning]

not to just endlessly bitch but i cannot accurately describe the screaming fit my brain undergoes when i think about the fact that i was a full time artist and now i'm not.

[chloesimaginationthings]

Into the pit is FNAF’s own Coraline story..

[verflares]

(click for higher quality!) draconified link concept ive been chipping away at this past week ..... here's my funny little compendium concept for him:

"A heroic spirit has taken the form of this bestial dragon. Unlike it's kin, this creature exhibits an extremely aggressive disposition. It appears highly territorial, and will relentlessly chase down those who disturb its skywide patrols - of which it seems to be endlessly searching for either a long-time vassal or foe. Unfortunately, it seems the spirit within has long since forgotten exactly who it was looking for…"

[auden-dahn]

"D-Don't worry about me! Focus on helping the little one, okay?" 🌠 panel redraw of @laikascomet

[laurelwinchester]

i've said it before and i will say it again. no one will ever love me the way the people at my dentist's office love me. i don't even love me the way they love me.

[paradox-n-bedrock]

me in big fandoms: oh cool, it's so active and there's so many people to vibe with, this is amaz-

*finds my niche angle that appeals to approximately six people*

me: okay, folks, it's you and me now

[plutosoda]

lamb anatomy + making someone Jealous .

[theabigailthorn]

"Good" Acting

i have a theory that a lot of people say acting is "good" when they're emotionally moved by it, and a lot of cishet white people have a lifelong habit of not listening or empathising when minoritised people speak, so minority actors get called "bad" even when they display some pretty fucking amazing technical skill

[inkskinned]

so one of the things that's so horrifying about birth control is that you have to, like, navigate this incredibly personal choice about your body and yet also face the epitome of misogyny. like, someone in the comments will say it wasn't that bad for me, and you'll be utterly silenced. like, everyone treats birth control like something that's super dirty. like, you have no fucking information or control over this thing because certain powerful people find it icky.

first it was the oral contraceptives. you went on those young, mostly for reasons unrelated to birth control - even your dermatologist suggested them to control your acne. the list of side effects was longer than your arm, and you just stared at it, horrified.

it made you so mentally ill, but you just heard that this was adulthood. that, yes, there are of course side effects, what did you expect. one day you looked up yasmin makes me depressed because surely this was far too intense, and you discovered that over 12,000 lawsuits had been successfully filed against the brand. it remains commonly prescribed on the open market. you switched brands a few times before oral contraceptives stopped being in any way effective. your doctor just, like, shrugged and said you could try a different brand again.

and the thing is that you're a feminist. you know from your own experience that birth control can be lifesaving, and that even when used for birth control - it is necessary healthcare. you have seen it save so many people from such bad situations, yourself included. it is critical that any person has access to birth control, and you would never suggest that we just get rid of all of it.

you were a little skeeved out by the implant (heard too many bad stories about it) and figured - okay, iud. it was some of the worst pain you've ever fucking experienced, and you did it with a small number of tylenol in your system (3), like you were getting your bikini line waxed instead of something practically sewn into your body.

and what's wild is that because sometimes it isn't a painful insertion process, it is vanishingly rare to find a doctor that will actually numb the area. while your doctor was talking to you about which brand to choose, you were thinking about the other ways you've been injured in your life. you thought about how you had a suspicious mole frozen off - something so small and easy - and how they'd numbed a huge area. you thought about when you broke your wrist and didn't actually notice, because you'd thought it was a sprain.

your understanding of pain is that how the human body responds to injury doesn't always relate to the actual pain tolerance of the person - it's more about how lucky that person is physically. maybe they broke it in a perfect way. maybe they happened to get hurt in a place without a lot of nerve endings. some people can handle a broken femur but crumble under a sore tooth. there's no true way to predict how "much" something actually hurts.

in no other situation would it be appropriate for doctors to ignore pain. just because someone can break their wrist and not feel it doesn't mean no one should receive pain meds for a broken wrist. it just means that particular person was lucky about it. it should not define treatment.

in the comments of videos about IUDs, literally thousands of people report agony. blinding, nauseating, soul-crushing agony. they say things like i had 2 kids and this was the worst thing i ever experienced or i literally have a tattoo on my ribs and it felt like a tickle. this thing almost killed me or would rather run into traffic than ever feel that again.

so it's either true that every single person who reports severe pain is exaggerating. or it's true that it's far more likely you will experience pain, rather than "just a pinch." and yet - there's nothing fucking been done about it. it kind of feels like a shrug is layered on top of everything - since technically it's elective, isn't it kind of your fault for agreeing to select it? stop being fearmongering. stop being defensive.

you fucking needed yours. you are almost weirdly protective of it. yours was so important for your physical and mental health. it helped you off hormonal birth control and even started helping some of your symptoms. it still fucking hurt for no fucking reason.

once while recovering from surgery, they offered you like 15 days of vicodin. you only took 2 of them. you've been offered oxy for tonsillitis. you turned down opioids while recovering from your wisdom tooth extraction. everything else has the option. you fucking drove yourself home after it, shocked and quietly weeping, feeling like something very bad had just happened. the nurse that held your hand during the experience looked down at you, tears in her eyes, and said - i know. this is cruelty in action.

and it's fucked up because the conversation is never just "hey, so the way we are doing this is fucking barbaric and doctors should be required to offer serious pain meds" - it's usually something around the lines of "well, it didn't kill you, did it?"

you just found out that removing that little bitch will hurt just as bad. a little pinch like how oral contraceptives have "some" serious symptoms. like your life and pain are expendable or not really important. like maybe we are all hysterical about it?

hysteria comes from the latin word for uterus, which is great!

you stand here at a crossroads. like - this thing is so important. did they really have to make it so fucking dangerous. and why is it that if you make a complaint, you're told - i didn't even want you to have this in the first place. we're told be careful what you wish for. we're told that it's our fault for wanting something so illict; we could simply choose not to need medication. that maybe if we don't like the scraps, we should get ready to starve.

we have been saying for so long - "i'm not asking you to remove the option, i'm asking you to reconsider the risk." this entire time we hear: well, this is what you wanted, isn't it?