#and we can almost understand things

[lilyimmsim]

i wonder if my neighbour knows i saw her drop her things, far off from inside my bedroom as she walked across her paddock. i wonder if she looked around, thinking “that’s so embarrassing” and knows that no one else thought so. i wonder if the homeless man on the train who scared me a little knows that when he patted me on the shoulder and said i was really kind knows that he made me realise it takes two to be judgemental. i wonder if he knows that it made me stop + understand i shouldn’t let my past stop me from seeking the good in others. i wonder if the girl who posted an instagram story quoting a favourite book of mine knows i gasped, and almost replied to her story but realised we weren’t very close and it might be weird. i wonder if she hoped i did.

[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.

[skunkes]

Nooooo that sad little smunkler has broken my heart! Wtf Talon stop being so mean to him for no reason!!! >:[

its okay, he just has bad days sometimes

[d1sc01nf3rn0]

I'm seeing a lot of people with neurodivergency, specially under the autism spectrum say that "Laios is annoying, never shuts up, is insensitive, and I can't stand him"; and the irony is not lost on me lmao.

[garfpsycho100]

i didnt really wanna draw today but then i was gifted with a blessed vision of julia as a fish transforming into The Scary Salmon when angered… so then i decided to draw the whole drawfee crew as weird little mascot creaturas.

also i know the drawfee community is sweet but PLS BE NICE I NEVER DRAW IN THIS STYLE AND I HADNT EVEN WARMED UP.

[monards]

"how can you say rhinedottir's morally grey" Man.. I'm not too sure..

[honourablepranksinatra]

Maple Leafs discourse on their team social medias makes me lose brain cells because wdym they're first in their division and coming off a 5 game win streak & people are commenting that the top players are only in it for the money and have no drive, that particular players are useless and need to be traded asap, that they're a garbage team, that they'll never make it past the first round just because they lost one game.

Apparently because they are being payed handsomely the players must be mindless automatons who perform perfectly every night. It drives me absolutely nuts how quickly alleged fans will completely turn on their own team.

[doodlejoltik]

my favourite writing device is having an un-Rei-liable narrator

[cosmogyros]

I dislike it so much when a documentary has somebody speaking one language and then another language is overlaid on top of the same audio WITHOUT DELETING THE BACKGROUND AUDIO COMPLETELY ARGH

(edit: like this)

I'm watching this (very interesting) Arte documentary right now, and first there was a Dutch scientist speaking English, while a German narrator spoke the translation of his words into German in the foreground. Then a few minutes later there were a bunch of people speaking French in the European Parliament while it was, again, dubbed into German for the documentary.

But like... my ears are compelled to listen to both things at once! I can't help but listen to the interesting accent the Dutch guy has in English, or recognize words and phrases the people are saying in French, at the same time as I'm trying to focus on the German foreground dubbing.

It's so overwhelming, I hate it, and I so intensely wish documentaries would blank out the background audio completely when dubbing over it >:(((

[franollie]

its like yeah i have hyper specific sexuality and gender headcanons for every character and yeah those headcanons shape how i think that character would interact with other characters and in certain situations but those headcanons have some roots in the source material. do we remember her? the source material? hmm. those headcanons aren't the entire character. theres more to unpack there. hello. do we remember nuance.

[armenelols]

What the fuck was this test

[thefirstknife]

Hi Bel,

I keep seeing comments about people complaining about the quality of destiny’s writing and story in the last few weeks. I haven’t really engaged with destiny since season of defiance, what’s currently gotten everyone so riled up? I thought that people were enjoying Season of the Deep/Witch in terms of narrative, why is Season of the Wish causing people to deride the destiny writing staff again?

I don't know!

Deep and Witch have been absolute bangers in every aspect to me. I've been enjoying all interactions and lore tabs we've received. A lot of them are stuff that we've never had before, a lot of reunions and closures, a lot of development and interactions between characters who you wouldn't really think would have much in common.

Sloane's return and healing from what she's been through has been fantastic, Drifter opening up with her to help her because he also got help from others was fantastic, Sloane reuniting with Aisha and Shayura brought me to tears (Shayura's descent into madness was triggered by immense trauma of Sloane staying on Titan and Titan disappearing), everything with Sloane and Zavala...

Witch was just incredible in every single way; the focus on Eris, the amount of Eris and Ikora content!!!!! Everything about Xivu and Savathun and their interactions together!! Eris finally fulfilling her goal she promised Savathun YEARS ago, getting that closure.

Wish so far has been equally great to me. All the new stuff about Ahamkara is amazing, finally giving us proof for long-standing speculation about Ahamkara and how they aren't universally evil creatures and expanding on them as a species. I love all interactions we've had so far; finally we have Petra back, Mara's singleminded focus on figuring out how to defeat the Witness and her continuous work to improve as a person, ALL SJUR MENTIONS!!!!! I won't talk about the "leak" because we have no context for it so I will wait for the full story to be revealed before I can pass judgment; something that I think should be a lesson to learn from this entire year. Maybe wait for the story to finish before judging the story.

Literally everything this past year that involves Osiris, but especially this season now that he's back in his element with the Vex. And of course every little detail we get of him and Saint. Osiris honestly shaped this year for me with everything that he's done to uncover the biggest mysteries. I think a big reason is that a lot of people just don't like Osiris, which I consider a massive skill issue.

Other than that, I don't know what are the issues people have besides just not being interested in any of these storylines and attributing it to a nebulous "bad writing" claim. I also genuinely believe that way too many people get wrapped up too much in fandom, imagine storylines they want to see and then get disappointed when the actual story doesn't go there. Almost like people forget that this isn't their story and these aren't their characters. A lot of it is also fandom completely warping characters into not what they actually are and then feeling like the canon story is the one that's wrong.

Whatever is the reason, I guess everyone is entitled to their perspective of the story and everyone is free to explore the story in different ways through fanfics and AUs and whatever. I do that too!

But I would definitely ask people to be normal with how they engage in criticism, especially in the current state of affairs. Writers are developers; they experience a ton of harassment and negativity from the community and also from inside the company. And they are online: they can see what we're saying. It's been documented that community commentary has been used to harass writers:

Imprint this into your brain and never forget what these people had to go through. Let's not forget also the way people treated Seth Dickinson on social media when he was active with Destiny fans. "Fans" were actively arguing with him about his own work (telling him that HE is wrong) and were utterly disgusting towards him when he tried explaining what he wrote. His works are now hailed as the best writing in Destiny and people want him back. If I were him, I wouldn't want to come back ngl, not with how he was treated and not with how fans are still treating writers (and hey, Seth wrote LF Collector's Edition! So he was back, technically, this year!). Let's not forget that a lot of writers are members of various marginalised groups. And I'd definitely not want to go back with zero support from leadership.

Which is also an important aspect for all developers, including writers: sometimes they have orders they may not like, but can't argue against. They do the best they can with what they're given, the time they have and directions they receive. And with that in mind, I am enjoying everything we've gotten this year, obviously with some specific complaints about things I didn't particularly enjoy (like the universally mid reception of Defiance; I've spoken about my gripes with it before, a big one being the shafting of Suraya who should've at least been mentioned in a lore tab).

I can tell that there is passion in their work, even if maybe they would prefer to do more with it, but can't. Maybe even if they want to take different routes, but can't. But from what we got, I can feel that they care about this world and these characters. I can tell that someone lovingly wrote about Sloane and her friendships with two grieving women. I can tell that they deeply cared about Sloane's friendship with Zavala and that they loved showing us Saint and Drifter caring about a fellow trauma survivor.

I can tell that the writers are immensely careful and loving towards Eris; everything she went through was crafted with love and passion from both writers and her VA. Eris' story is such a fundamental aspect of Destiny and I can tell that this was important to the writing team and that they gave her everything they could to do justice to her character and her arc and her healing and her release from the cycle she was trapped in for so long.

I can tell that there are writers who care a lot about Osiris and Saint and their relationship. I can tell that someone cared a lot about expanding on Ahamkara and giving them more personalities. I can tell that someone cared DEEPLY about Sjur and Mara and that her repeated mentions are the passionate work of writers who want us to remember her.

I could go on. And I know that not everyone sees it this way, which is fine; we all have different ways of perceiving stories. I enjoy discussing things we in the fandom disagree on and I enjoy hearing different perspectives! Unfortunately, this has recently become rarer and rarer. And for the love of god, please try and treat writers with some respect, especially now, especially those who are still working and doing their best with the shitty situation they're in. None of the cries of "poor devs" ring true to me unless the same is given to writers, instead of treating them like punching bags.

[scoriarose]

After a few hunger strikes and health worries, baby girl has finally started eating regularly and putting on weight. She was a very good girl and held still today while I weighed her- normally she's a wiggle worm who is unusually talented at hitting the tare (reset scale) button.

Whenever Scoria is out her sister Sakura watches us very carefully. At first, she didn't trust me and acted like she had some bad experiences with humans before I got her. At that time Scoria was the only being in existence she felt safe with and could flee to when she was frightened, so it's no wonder Sakura worried over her when I had her out, and thoroughly checked her over when I put her back in her enclosure.

Her look isn't one of fear and worry anymore though. Now she has one of curiosity. Of learning. When she sees me hold Scoria, she wants to try it too. When she watched me gently cup my hand around her sister, she wanted to try hiding in a "hand cave" too. And after seeing Scoria and I cuddle, she bravely came out the next morning, curled up and snuggled me for a few minutes.

It's quite the experience living with these two sweet girls who care so very much about each other, and seeing how they think and even change their thoughts and actions over time. It's also really neat to see how they both learn from watching, and trust each other's judgement.

Honestly I think people don't give snakes enough credit as far as intelligence and empathy/care are concerned. There's still so much about them we don't know, and I'm amazed by the things they show me.

[kshaar]

sorry but i do believe that it's normal to want AND possible to achieve a good grade in comment writing

[thebigqueer]

see my take is that i dont condone caits actions at all however she matches vis freak too much to not ship them in my eyes. and also i feel like the show wanted to give more depth & time to cait's "redemption" arc but it was so rushed that we never actually got to see that arc of cait realizing the consequences of her actions. i think its something thats implied to have happened off screen given the way caits already challenging ambessa but we never got that backstory so we dont actually know what was going through her mind or what led her to change her mind about ambessa.

[thanatologie]

you know what, tho, i think i actually hate the fanon idea that i've seen cropping up that emmrich is...honestly i can't think of another way to put this - domineering in private like we don't literally know what he's like in private? like we don't literally see that exactly?

is he putting on his best manners at first? yes! because he's getting the side-eye from like 90% of the veilguard just because he's a necromancer. does he have a dark side? literally everybody has a dark side, we call those flaws.

but this is a nerd who gets himself so wound up and flustered and excited and ahead of himself he manages to go from whatever smooth casanova he can pull off to stumbling over his words, unable to form a coherent sentence (more than once!). who thinks "i've been up for an hour," at the ass crack of dawn is some weird flex. who tells you about ghost vapor booze and how he won't table top because there are too many rules and miniatures. he's a dork who is so damn besotted he watches his love interest sleep like they hung the sun and moon. who leans into soft touches like he's been starving for it his whole life.

who does this shit when he gets frustrated:

where's that rizz now, huh. (side note: he's so damn tall, and taash still manages to make him look so damn tiny, and i live for it tbh.)

my point here is sometimes people are just nice. being nice doesn't mean never being frustrated or angry, it doesn't mean that if they finally do show being frustrated or being angry means they're secretly hiding some whole other...disposition for some? reason?? it means they have these things called emotions, and they show them sometimes, and it's the nice ones finally getting fed up that's always the pin drop moment.

please stop trying to make emmrich volkarin edgy, literally the only thing edgy about this man at all is his life goal to become a skeleton.