#but emotions aren't really a thing here so...

[thestrangestthing89]

A lot of the homophobia in this fandom comes from the byler community. I don't think they realize that erasing the work a gay actor did qualifies as homophobia because they are all so caught up in their own self-praise they don't realize they are wrong. Most of this fandom really struggles with empathy. They can't connect with other people and they have more respect for fictional characters because those fictional characters will never call them on their bullshit or dislike them the way a real person would. I think a lot of people who spend most of their time on social media have a hard time with understanding reality v. fiction and that feeds into their lack of empathy for real people. (And it also contributes to the high amount of confusion when it comes to analyzing the relationships between fictional characters - they are struggling to relate to human experiences.)

This lack of empathy is not just coming from the openly homophobic and anti-Semitic crowd, it's also coming from people who say they are supportive of Noah. Those people have zero problems spreading what I'm sure they think are benign rumors but they don't seem to realize that it's fueling the hatred. A recent example is the one that started today over Noah getting in trouble with Netflix and deleting some social media accounts. I highly doubt he got in trouble and there is no way that anyone in this fandom would know either way. But this plays into the false idea that he's on thin ice and his career is hanging in the balance and people can't restrain themselves from making a minor thing into a huge drama regardless of who it may hurt. Your actions have consequences in the real world. Your comments on social media don't exist in a vacuum. It's giving a green light to people who are saying worse things. Go live your own life and stop obsessing over his. There is also this insistence from so many younger people in particular that they have the right to lecture people about their own culture when they don't belong to that culture themselves. I cannot begin to state how condescending and offensive this is. You have no right to form opinions about the way someone practices their faith. You have no right to act like you know better. But since people are totally incapable of being normal about Zionism and the Jewish faith in general, they don't see the ways that this condescension is fueling hatred. All that matters is they said the "correct" thing and it got them approval. It's not surprising that so many younger people don't realize that anti-Semitism is on the rise with their generation because they simply aren't making the connection between this attitude and hatred.

People need to do better. Empathy is a learned skill and a lot of this fandom does not have the emotional maturity they need to interact with people and socialize. The people in this fandom are real people. The people in the cast and crew of this show are real people. The characters are not real people. They represent experiences that may be real and relatable so it's understandable to feel protective of those characters, but sending out hatred towards anyone who simply has a different opinion or experience isn't ok. And sending out hatred toward the actors isn't ok. A lot of people here really do not seem like they have ever interacted with another person before. It's frustrating to be watching a show about how differences make people stronger and have to deal with a fandom that won't bother to actually learn about the culture of the cast members they are criticizing and gossiping about. The most judgemental people are the most hypersensitive when it comes to being called out. As if they couldn't possibly have made a mistake. It's other people who do that not them. The people making up gossip and spreading rumors or being condescending towards Jewish people are just as responsible for this environment as the ones who are openly hateful. People need to sit with that and be more self-aware. Not to mention notice the disconnect between their attitudes and the rest of the country. People are fucking frustrated with younger people and their activism towards Gaza. Most people do not think they handled this issue well or that they are talking about it with any kind of respect for human life or different cultures. It's leading to very real violence and the fact that so many people are incapable of sitting with their mistakes and reflecting on that is concerning to say the least. This attitude is not going to serve them well outside of the internet or college campuses. (And this is without getting into the serious problems with their white savior complex and racism. A thing I could go off about for a while. They do not seem to realize their attitude towards protecting Palestine is racism not to mention totally unhelpful). They need to get out of their bubble and stop trying to gain the approval of followers by reciting slogans they don't understand. A lot of them are incredibly sheltered and it shows. They are projecting all of their own moral and emotional failings onto people who did not behave nearly as badly as they did. Learn to think independently from the masses. People who spread this kind of hate or create this environment are not people you should be seeking approval from.

With the Byler fandom rejuvenating -- along with hatred for Noah rearing up once again-- I wanted to put some thoughts out there about THIS fandom and my own personal feelings of disappointment.

It's quite weird to me that so many Bylers continue to publically crap on/use abusive language toward Noah while stanning Will Byers, their precious baby boy. I just came across a post earlier today that had someone expressing their sadness that Will Byers was getting hate post-teaser because of his actor, and while it was ok that Noah Schnapp, the real human being, was receiving this harassment, hating Will (a fictional character) was simply unfair. I want to shake these people and remind them-- if Byler receives negative backlash, Noah, the REAL gay young person, will be receiving the brunt of that hatred and you know that.

I have no feelings toward those who don't care to support any particular actor for political reasons, but I find it very offputting when people try and dismiss Noah's contribution to Will Byers, which was informed by his very real experiences coming of age and to terms with his identity. Those who try and remove Noah from Will Byers, or fancast some other (usually non-Jewish lol) actor as Will-- it feels extremely gross to me. Noah's formative years from 10-18 were on this show, and he IS Will Byers, whether you like it or not. No one else could do it like he does.

Don't even get me started on those of you who censor him out of photos posted by people who clearly care for him and want him around despite your coping and seething! And then will turn around and use toddler/young child (pre-Stranger Things) photos of him for Will Byers fan posts--pictures which were probably taken by his family! Do they not see how weird and violating that is? Some people's cognitive dissonance even goes so far that they fantasize about or sexualize the character Noah plays while speaking unkindly or abusively about him online. It's not just unkind, it's dehumanizing.

All this to say, I feel so much pity for child actors/entertainers growing up under this intense social media scrutiny. Turns out few are interested in a young person's right to privately deconstruct a belief system they grew up with and wish to instead cast stones and act morally superior. Use the pretense of social justice to be hateful and hypocritical. Noah seems, while I don't actually know him, to be a kind, thoughtful and grateful young man, and I hope to see him rise above the campaign of abusive harassment he's been on the receiving end of for the last two years.

[deerdoegone]

2009 AND WHY I AM IN LOVE.

EAST COAST BY ALEX G.

where have i been? i got two asks that noticed i seemed to dip, always in and out—touch and go. may took a nosedive for me, and i wanted an escape. no fireworks, no cool powers, nothing special that i could brag about once i got back, just the feeling of rain soaking into my clothes without the thunder. okay, maybe a lie—this is my contemporary version of the thriller that is westport.

YOU REMEMBER WESTPORT, RIGHT? good. which means you remember me! still the same girl as i would be here and in "original" westport. sweetly awkward, nauseously forgiving. girly geek, the same pink braces i have in this reality. deer in the headlights. chronic lover of all things that are adorable. tweemo meets princess prep. blackberry curve with a quiet ringtone. best friends with so-hee, always with so-hee. emotional twin to mabel pines. the human to nathaniel hare’s vampire, princess to his knight in shining fangs. diner dates. long drives around town in his busted 2001 toyota he bought off the local mechanic who had plans to scrap it. movie nights. sleeping on crumbled sheets in his small apartment on the outskirts of downtown, near the shore but still miles away from his hometown and quiet childhood.

WHAT DID YOU DO WHILE THERE? studied, for starters. i love to study and it's a beautiful art to me, in a very nerdy, shoved in the locker way. it also helps when my classes are all in things i already study here. except math. god, i hate this math class. i ate breakfast with my sister and had a rather boring morning, sitting around and watching reruns of supernatural. i have a chronic attachment to early seasons of that show, kisses to dvd for making me realize netflix cut scenes and changed them. cleaned my room, made coffee and talked with so-hee for an hour on the house phone, because i will be beating a dead horse in every reality. went walking around town, finding myself in every downtown crevice i could, dragging a stick across the chainlink fence of a construction area and getting as close to the beach as i could, staring down at it from the downtown clifftop railing. sat with nisa at her mother's salon as she got her roots touched up by her cousin; she went bronze brunette in june 2005 and never went back to black. got dinner at a local italian spot, run by a loud man who moved his family to westport from new jersey, said our town had no culture before he opened. kinda true? he gave me advice most small town shop owners give you as they hand off your plastic bag. studied more. did my usual jennifer check lying in bed routine while writing movie script ideas. the next day, i went to the lake near my house with my sister, then to work, and that was my weekend.

i've been here a month total, so far. i didn't script a time exchange, i kinda just don't believe in them because they aren't something you have to script i feel like? there are a thousand realities and a million doors to them, open the one where you last left off. or don't. open the one where a month has also gone by and your awareness jumps to you getting on the train to go clock in at your shift at bath and body works. do whatever works for you. speaking of.... bath and body works. you don't really forget you have a job or other priorities but i nearly missed a 2 to 6 on sunday because i wanted to sit by the rosewood lake all day. "don't you have work in an hour?" so thanks, mariah, for snapping me out of my trance over the sound of running water, but not the smooth running, the kind where it has to skip over rocks, so there's a hiccup or echo. it's weird, i know, but if you were there, you'd get it. everyone shift to westport and go to river/lake rosewood. my job is fun. i had ten minutes to get ready so i went to work in low rise jeans and a bare face. took the bus there and occasionally sidestepped my way through the crowd. my boss is a fifty-four year old woman who has platinum blonde streaks in honey blonde hair and chunky french tips, the ones carmela soprano has. she looks a bit like edie falco, too. adores me and gave me a cupcake from her daughter's birthday party the night before. we’re kinda understaffed, but the understaffed where it’s never a problem until we have big deals or holidays. for lunch, i had a texting session with nathan and a coca-cola slushie from the food court on the side. wasn't really hungry? i bought perfumes with my employee discount and nearly popped a blood vessel because i couldn't remember my employee number. bought vs pink clothes with that same employee number. ended my shift smelling like in-season autumn scents in a nauseating mix. don't ask how much i spent. it's embarrassing.

AFTER WORK, NATHAN PICKED ME UP. my parents came home from visiting my grandparents, who live in delaware. i fell asleep in mariah's bed after we watched always sunny in philadelphia in her room. smoked a cigarette before class with ava, gossiping about her maternal side of the family. went to class. made a fortune teller out of graded homework. turned in early work. turned in late work. stretched my legs because it's pushing to the last minute of class, and i wanna go home. went home. played the sims 3 for the rest of the day. had dinner with my family. got my nails done with so-hee and my mom. went shopping at hollister. finally went to the beach. had brunch at the local diner with nathan. lounged around with my mom's black cat, morticia. i don't know what to say. there's a lot to say and nothing at all because i feel like this might be boring? like oh, cool, my boyfriend is a vampire, but also it's nothing more than that. no mystery to his new identity, no 5AM by ex:re—the bystander anthem, no messy and action-packed life. the thing i feel like i'm supposed to say is that this reality is super cool and i'm living the supernatural dream, but it's really not like that. don't get me wrong: i love it. i'm having fun. i'm happy, most importantly, but whenever I shift, i get this wave of memories, thoughts, and opinions that remind me this is still just another life i live. i always feel self-conscious sharing because why does it always feel like that is what it's supposed to be? there's supposed to be a million stories of how i spend all day with my boyfriend, but i spend more time texting and calling him than i do seeing him twice a day because we are still just college kids with part-time jobs. there's supposed to be the coolest stories of how my vampire boyfriend turned me, and now we're living out our twilight fantasy, but i'm happy with where i'm at in my mortal body. there's no rush to bury myself in nathan's cold body, no rush to do a gazillion things i wanted to do before shifting, no rush for anything at all. it's the look of love i stare at him with, sewing with nisa and so-hee in optional home economics, and resting my forehead against cold tables when i get a 89% on my test because thank god. there aren't any fireworks like i said. it's just me. the same me who stays up watching tv, the same me who didn't learn to tie her laces until high school because she's autistic, the same me who goes "where's the rest of you?" when she sees people with the name aliyah because she's so accustomed to the double a. i script out the things i don't like about myself but it's still always me. i like this reality a lot better, and being me is never the problem.

THANKS FOR READING THIS MESSY WORD VOMIT!

[quintessenceofdust88]

Not sure if this kind aus are your cup but i really wanted to share so hope you like it 😊

Buck and Tommy meet each other way before Buck goes to LA and 118. They meet at the army. Buck is a seal, he went through it and he really likes physical aspect and the easy comrade that goes between guys, he feels like he belongs.

Tommy left army because of some injury and became a firefighter in 118, everything there goes like in canon until Tommy is asked to go back as a pilot for seals operations (i don't know anything abt usa army and seals and if it's possible but that's fiction so who cares right). He and Chimney aren't close in here and Chimney and Hen think of him as some brutal guy distant guy without any emotion.

And Tommy becomes a pilot for this group of young seals. They all came here after dadt, one of them even is an openly gay and noone is looking at him differently. So Tommy feels easier in their company, he opens up with them. He even hooks up with that cute guy with adorable birthmark above the eye. After both of them are getting closer, they like each other more and more with every interaction. They decide to try a relationship but keep it secret because they know they can be separated in different teams. But their team knows and approves, everyone is just happy for them.

And then Evan gets pregnant. Of course he wants to have a child nd Tommy agrees. Evan leaves seals and goes to LA because Tommy has a house there. They get married so Evan can be in Tommy's insurance. Tommy still has a year and a half to his deployment so he can't help Evan during the pregnancy and with the newborn but he comes for the birth.

When the baby is few months old Evan feels restless sitting home all the time so he goes to fire academy. And then to 118. He doesn't tell them about his husband or child and they still see him as a mindless young guy although this time he doesn't steal trucks for hook ups because he loves his husband. But they really like him.

When Tommy comes home Evan is over the moon. Now they can be a family together finally. Tommy goes to harbour and everything is perfect. Once he visits Evan at work and everyone there is super surprised. What do you mean Buck's married? And to Tommy? They think Buck is in an abusive relationship because well Tommy can't be a good guy for someone so positive and full of life as Buck.

ANONNNNN HOW DO YOU DROP A GEM LIKE THIS ON MY INBOX WITHOUT WARNING OMG (Also do y'all know how happy you make me by sharing all your mpreg woes and joys with me? I love that this is a thing ♥) This has everything I love! SEALs Buck and Army Tommy, yes! And the fact they make important bonds in their unit is so incredible! The 118 not liking Tommy is such DRAMA, I love it. Because yes, if you think about Tommy pre-Hen Begins and Buck, it's not a match you'd consider. And the 118 who knows Buck as this relentless sunshine and Tommy as, frankly, a jerk? Yeah, they don't like how that sounds. It also goes so well with this problem the 118 has of seeing Buck as someone who doesn't know his own mind. So naturally they think he doesn't know what Tommy is like. You gotta tell me more anonnnn! How do they find out about the baby? How does Tommy feel when he finds out his husband is working at his former station where he didn't leave such a good impression???

[stellar-solar-flare]

Mental Health Awareness May: Chronic Illness & Pain and Mental Health

I've been sitting on this because it's more than a little unnerving to talk about this but since I know I'm not alone with my struggles, I'm going to.

This post is a (slightly belated) addition to @marvel-oc-hub's Mental Health Awareness May. I admin this community, and it's welcoming of xReader fic too - if anyone wants to join, you're very welcome. See the pinned for our Discord link and other instructions.

Putting this under cut for TW: mental struggles, self-worth issues, depression, anxiety, chronic pain, chronic illness. If I missed something, please let me know. And obvious disclaimer: I am only talking about my own experience; living with chronic pain or chronic illness or both is a highly individual experience, and what I say here is in no way reflective of every person dealing with these things. Always ask about someone's experience before assuming.

Back in 2023, I wrote a husband!Steve Rogers x chronically ill!Reader fic Warmth (rated M for themes). While Reader's condition is not discussed in fic, she's dealing with chronic pain that is heavily affecting her ability and movement. The fic is specifically about a situation where she's wanting to bake a cake herself but she is unable to finish the task, and Steve, upon returning home, finds her curled up in pain on the kitchen floor.

While I wanted to showcase Steve's caring nature in the fic, I also wanted to highlight the fact that sometimes, one hates accepting help, no matter how well-meant and necessary. There is a difference between being able to bake a cake yourself and having someone bake a cake for you, and the fact that there are so many things that one can't do is incredibly frustrating and depressing. Never knowing if one is capable of completing an activity or how the this day or the next day is going to look like is anxiety-indulging to put it mildly - this is even more true if you are someone on the autism spectrum. Not to mention the fact that chronic pain itself is putting such strain on the nervous system, driving it into overdrive, which in turn makes one more susceptible to anxiety. Chronic pain/illness can also make one sleep much worse, which we all know affects one's mental health very heavily. And of course, many things that support mental health, such as exercise, healthy eating, and being social are often much harder when you're dealing with a chronic illness or pain.

I wanted to showcase Steve's unique position where he has once been chronically ill and disabled himself, and how he understand the worst of the emotions that can come from that. It's important to realize that it often isn't the kind of suffering that is pretty, silently suffering martyrdom. It is blood-red pure frustration and anger at your body and at the uncaring hand of fate at times, and Steve really gets this. He loves the Reader, her thorns and all. And she, in turn, tries her best to understand his position and his true love and acts of service for her - that they aren't because he thinks less of her but because he can make things easier for her.

We see Reader wanting to isolate, and discuss her past attempts to isolate herself from Steve and others, due to her feeling like she's a lost case and no one should hitch their wagon to her because she can't do anything. We see her loved ones reach out for her but she still suspects that she's just a charity project to others because she has nothing worth giving, right? Chronic illness can be extremely isolating and for me personally, it has made a world of difference when people have reached out to me and repeatedly understood that things can go from 0 to 100 very fast in my reality. Thank you, everyone, whether you're a friend or a reader who has awaited for updates for a long time.

When pain is present with every breath one takes, literally, it is so self-evident that mental health ties into it all so heavily and inseparably, because the mental fortitude and the battle it takes to just keep getting out of bed is a lot. To be dealing with physical pain and illness is to, in many cases, be dealing with mental pain and illness. Medical research is currently investigating the complex relationship these two have, and if they are, in a way, separate things at all.

In the fic, we see Reader face the thought that it's not all bad, even when it's a rough patch. In the same way, I want to end this post with a hopeful note: just because the fic shows a Very Hard day, it doesn't mean every day is like that. Sometimes, the toll on your mental well-being on top of physical is harder, but dealing with that is also a skill that can be developed (in addition to there being medical interventions that can help). Every day, my strategy gets a little bit better.

If you are someone who is currently battling these things, I'm sending you the best possible vibes in the universe. If you don't have personal experience with this, I hope I was able to put my own viewpoint into understandable words.

On the bad days, I am reminding myself of how Steve Rogers never gave up, no matter how many punches he took. He always got up to keep fighting, and so will I. 🛡️

(Writing this all and putting it out there was immensely scary so if you read it all, and it prompted any thoughts, I'd love to hear about them.)

[irritablepoe]

they are terrible for this you have a problem and told them and they make fun of you? that is mean as fuck people who are supposed to care about you should want you to not feel horrible but maybe the friends feel badly for you with that look? like sympathetic?

yeah, but i'm... well not okay with this exactly, but i'm glad that they're respecting these boundaries at least. i'm used to being made fun of though lol, i'll take that then ig

and yeah my friends definitely feel sympathetic towards me, though probably don't know how to react bc they don't quite understand? which again is fair, these thoughts are irrational after all (at least the feeling dirty and scratching/hitting part, though this has probably resulted bc of me not establishing boundaries much earlier where i started to feel uncomfortable with it, which is a valid thing to feel ofc but didn't realise at the time)

[etheluu]

Now that my newest video "Donut Hole" is out and I've already talked about the relevant topic before on here, I can talk a bit a about lore of Aria and Chiyoryo Mori. I'll be referencing stuff from those two things so if you want to have a better grasp on things, check them out if you haven't already.

The two of them are sisters with a good relation between them and they support each other. Now how I decided to ruin their peaceful lives: Yeah.

One is an event that caused Aria to have a robotic arm. She lost it in an accident, where she and the sisters's parents got into a car accident. She was the only one to come out of it alive, but of course not without any injuries. It might or might not have been a planned attack on the parents.

Honestly Aria is pretty prone to getting various kinds of injuries. Other than being a bit clumsy at times, she takes up stuff that can be too much for her. She also is interested in mechanics and likes to build simple machineries, so whenever she messes it up, it can backfire at her.

Even with all that, she remains positive and beams with life. Most of the time. There are still moments that are too much for her heart to handle. Just like losing her only family.

One of the things that you could have noticed in the video is the newspaper at the end. It is an article I wrote that describes the events that actually happened in the story:

What was supposed to be a casual school trip for students and teachers of [...] school in [...], turned out to be a tragic event that claimed a life of a young victim and countless other injured. During the early morning hours, the children and their educators were preparing for their planned travel when a fire broke out inside the building. Luckily, most of the people were already outside, where most of those who stayed inside were able to evacuate easily. The fire was spreading rapidly, causing some to inhale the smoke and get first and second degree burns. The ambulance was quick to transport the injured to the hospital, where they were able to receive medical help. Sadly, not everyone were lucky with their escape. Chiyoryo Mori's body was found, trapped inside women's bathroom. The cause of her death is said to be asphyxiation from the surrounding smoke. She was 17 years old at the time of this event. What many think to be an accident, or an oversight from the school administratives, could actually be a foul play. Chiyoryo was found inside one of the toilet cabins, to which locks appeared to be messed with, possibly causing her to be locked in and unable to escape. Additionally, vents and windows were shut tight, hinting at this fire being an intentional attack. Police is currently investigating this incident. Two of the boys, that attended the same class as Chiyoryo did, were found missing when the fire broke out. The on site witnesses say that they have reappeared in their group some time after everyone else have evacuated. Other evidence points at them being the perpetrators in this case, as wellas other cues; they were found to be bullying the deceased teen before this event.

After around 2 years since the car accident, Chiyoryo has lost her life as well in a fire that broke out in her school. Her bullies locked her in the bathroom stall and lit up the surrounding area. With no escape, she died of asphyxiation from the smoke.

It was all pretty brief but you have the context of what had happened. But you may think why at the start I mentioned the post where I talk about Effole and elves as species. It shouldn't have anything to do with Aria and Chiyoryo, who are both humans.

Well, they aren't, not exactly. The elf that was taken by humans in that event, where Effole was 7, was used in the tests of achieving immortality by humans. So, the selection of people who knew about the existence of non-human/extraterrestials beings, were trying to combine other species with their own. This time it was elves.

The elf that was taken, was used in creation of Chiyoryo and then Aria, making them human-elf hybrids. They were then taken under the care of two other scientist, who acted as/pretented to be their parents. Although this one didn't quite work out as you already know.

So because of the fact that the two of them were hybrids, Chiyoryo's death had complicated a bit stuff in the so called natural order. The human side of her was telling her that her soul should go to afterlife. The elf side of her wanted her consciousness to pass away. It caused her to enter this weird state where she was neither alive or dead, but more like a clump of elemental energy that imitated her human form in her last moments.

This form is a smoke. It's kind of taunting her of the way she passed away, but it's also kind of a symbolism of how her existence is tainted. Instead of being truly an elf, with the power of pure air, she's something that shouldn't even existed, a result of humanity's sin. They tainted something they shouldn't have touched in the first place. In a way, the humans did achieve immortality with this, just not in a way that they wanted to.

Also a small scene that I've came up with, just to make them even more miserable:

It's the first time Aria and Chiyoryo see each other after the latter's presumed death. The younger girl for a second thought that her sister actually have surived the fire, that the rumors were false. With her hands wide open, ready to embrace the other, and tears starting to form in her eyes, she sprints towards her.

In the moment, where she expected her body to stop upon crashing with her sister's, she was met with a smoke that only dispersed in her way, causing her to fall to the ground.

Confusion overtook her, with even more tears forming in her eyes. Aria turned her head to face her sister, and watched with horror as the smoke returned to its place, making "Chiyoryo" whole again.

[gingerbreadmonsters]

its so important to me that you know how much ive already cried over this wip and its literally only been two days

[lord-squiggletits]

Between TF and my other fandoms like BG3 and TES, I keep finding myself making OCs that have some element of "battle hardened hero who is actually good and righteous, but so traumatized by the toll of war that even after the war ends they feel empty/wrecked and can't enjoy the fruits of victory" and I'm not sure if it's bc I gravitate to a certain type of media where such OCs fit in best, or bc I have a specific character archetype I like and gravitate towards media that contains those things.

[lesbiansanemi]

I'm so tired

[thethingything]

I keep randomly remembering that the reason our brain is especially fucked and a bunch of our symptoms are worse right now is because of like, an avoidable external thing that's chemically affected our nervous system instead of either our symptoms flaring up on their own or some specific stressful event triggering it, and for some reason that keeps making us feel especially bad about it.

like our mental health being bad because of stressful stuff going on and our mental illnesses randomly flaring up both suck, but I can handle our brain just doing its own thing and/or reacting to what's going on around us.

but something about it being a medication that someone else prescribed that's changed the way our brain functions is significantly more distressing in a way I can't put into words properly. a lot of the symptoms we've got (apathy, brain fog, alexithymia, memory problems, etc) are very typical depression and dissociation symptoms, but they're like a weird version of them that feels very different to how we normally experience them.

the only way I can describe the difference in feeling is that it feels more "artificial" but I can't even really describe what I mean by that. if normal brain fog is looking out the window on a foggy day, this is looking out of a window that's been covered with those frosted vinyl sheets. you can't see shit either way, but the feeling is very different.

I just desperately want it to go away. I'm finding it hard to be enthusiastic about things I'm normally excited about no matter how bad our depression gets, and our usual coping mechanisms for getting our brain to register positive things aren't really working because it's not the same underlying mechanism.

it feels like any control I did have over our symptoms and anything I could do to help with them has been stripped away and all I can do is wait it out and hope it fixes itself, and the whole "being given a drug that changes how your brain functions and takes away your control over what your brain is doing" is pretty much the exact phobia I was trying to learn to figure out how to deal with before we get dental work done, and for the dental work it'd be like... idk probably an hour at most, whereas now I'm just stuck dealing with experiencing it 24/7 for an undetermined amount of time

[thedarklyblue]

fuck i miss her ..

[stellanslashgeode]

Okay, so. Star Wars has all these concepts that weirdo New Left boomer George Lucas tosses in there but because of storyteller limitations it would kill the plot to fully explain them all, so later writers have to come in for the spin-off materials and bat clean-up to fully explain all this crazy crap. And I would like to talk about something that made me actively angry at first, but which I now adore. And that is the Naboo.

So much about Naboo culture is infuriating from a logical standpoint. They have a queen, okay. A constitutionally elected queen? Weird, okay. Don't know why they'd do that but... She's FOURTEEN? Excuse me? Is it a ceremonial thing or, oh no it's not? Legit head of state? Why does she dress like that? Why does she talk like that? I'm so tired.

Here's the explainer. Let me go cook.

There's this joke in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy where the last living human goes back in time and finds out humans aren't actually from Earth, but an alien culture that tricked all the middle managers, pedantic weirdos, and other infuriating folk into getting in a space arc which they gave the wrong evacuation coordinates to simply get rid of them. The Naboo are like this but they're all artists and poets and hippies, but like classy ones. They fled their home planet during a war and crash landed on Naboo, then did a colonism to the Gungans because, hey, they were fleeing a war and it was do or die. This spiritual rot in their creation story is later rectified by Padmé. But it's super important to their cultural psychology. They're hippies, but will subjugate if needed. They are "peaceful" but I guarantee you every single one of them has a tiny extremely shiny pistol up their sleeve and they will draw down on you if backed against a wall.

The scene that I think says it all is at the end of Phantom Menace when Padmé is surrounded by Nute Gunray and his droids, they've got her dead to rights, but Sabé her double creates a distraction so the queen can make it to her throne. This one piece of furniture is the Naboo in a nutshell. It's richly carved with artistic details, it has two seats to the side so the queen's handmaidens can read the lips of people in the back of the room and use hand signals to communicate with the queen while she can remain focused mostly on who is speaking to her. It is hundreds of years old. And it has a secret compartment in the armrest that is FULL OF GUNS. Layers of artistic opulence hiding their true intentions.

The Naboo were created to be backwards compatible with Princess Leia. They're compassionate pacifists, but they will shot you if needed.

Why do they elect teenage royalty? It's a little creepy. It's giving "age of consent is emotional maturity". It makes no sense.

The explanation they give outsiders is they want youthful idealism untainted by cynicism. What they don't tell you is that they take kids with stated interest in politics and put them in an advanced highly competitive Leadership Academy which is like Model UN mixed with Battle Royale. Well, they don't kill each other but it's intense. It's like what the clones went though just all diplomacy training and tea ceremonies all the time. Which is crazy but so Naboo.

Oh, and all the delegates for the royalty election run using pseudonyms for security. Imagine voting for the head of state but you can't run a background check. It's so crazy.

Why does Padmé dress like that? Well, fashion is one of Naboo's major industries so it's like she's wearing the entire Fall line catalog at once. To advertise not only the talent of her people, but to show how much they favor her. BUT that dress has multiple layers of padding and resin armor. And aforementioned spots for those little silver blasters. And it breaks up her silhouette making her harder to shoot. And it's so elaborate you pay more attention to the crazy dress and not if the person wearing it is really the queen or a decoy. Everything about Naboo is like this.

Queen Amidala has that weird accent while Padmé does not. Because all her handmaidens helped create the accent together so they all can imitate it. It's like if you gave girls at a rowdy sleepover the job of federal counterintelligence. That's what they came up with.

The handmaidens wear colorful identical clothes so you can't tell them apart, hoods to partially conceal their identity, and they don't wear the queen's fancy makeup. So one of them can be the queen and spy on people in the audience. Because the Naboo don't trust shit for shit.

Their public face is so silly to hide all the truly weird shit they do behind the scenes.

They use their reputation as artist hippies to conceal multiple layers of subterfuge and disguise their methods of self defense and assuage their paranoia due to wartime trauma and their disturbing colonial past. All of them are completely off their rocker even by Star Wars standards. And I love them so much. They put on a show so everyone thinks they have them figured out but what they have going on is far more weirder and more sinister than meets the eye. You know how catty, neurotic, and competitive art school students stereotypically are? Yeah, planet art student. Love them!

There you go, @charmwasjess

[jeremiahthefroge]

yeah fuck it aphmau's 2015 minecraft roleplay series can get me back into fandom culture. sure. why not. adult life is already so fucking weird.

[curryshesus]

jeon jungkook fics that had me going feral

hi guys, here's a part 2 to my favorite jjk fics on tumblr! note that many of these fics contain 18+ content. you are responsible for the content you consume! as always, if you enjoyed any of these fics as much as i did, please take a moment to send some love to the authors! part 1 | other bts members

➺ cold nights & blurred lines - by @awrkive

summary: jungkook and you have been in a sexual relationship with each other for four months now, and it’s casual for the most part. but as time passes, you can’t help but feel that some of the lines suddenly got blurred in the process. is it a cliché to blur the lines with your fuck buddy? it definitely is. will you do something about it? both of your emotional constipation have a hard time saying yes.

➺ night crawlers - by @alphabetboyluvr

summary: jungkook’s always been good at running. track, field, red lights, shit outta luck. drugs, now, too. but he doesn’t expect to run into you. in your shared lecture halls, sure. maybe. but not down the back alleys of daerim at ass o’clock in the morning. there are only three types of women he ever sees in daerim: hookers, sugar-babies and addicts. you aren't any of those; you're a trust-fund baby who can get percocet on private repeat prescription, if you really want it. he's sure of it. so it then further begs the question: why the fuck are you here?

➺ this is how you fall in love - by @jeonqkooks

summary: after years of drinking and clubbing most days of the week and leaving every gig with a different girl on his arm, jungkook feels what it’s like to want someone with his entire being.

➺ the dilf installments - by @mercurygguk

summary: this series follows jungkook’s life as a divorced father. but wait, how exactly does one balance being a father, a boyfriend, a friend, and a respectable boss at the same time? read the installments below to find out!

➺ ultimatum - by @parkmuse

summary: your pervy, idiotic boyfriend just so happens to also be your friendly neighborhood Spider-man (in bed).

➺ a hero's journey - by @hansolmates

summary: jungkook and jisoo are the mightiest power couple. however, one drunken confession and that whole facade fades in an instant. you realize that maybe you need to break from your unvaried life for a bit and be the hero of your own love story

➺ tempest - by @kooktrash

summary: you’ve always considered your life to be more mundane than you would like to admit. it was a constant cycle of the same things over and over again that when you meet jeon jungkook at a bar, of all places, you didn’t expect to see just how much he would change your life and those around you. he’s got an air of mystery around him with his charming good looks and a violent past that you slowly begun to unravel when it feels like everything is going perfect.

➺ by its cover - by @gimmesumsuga

summary: the one where Jungkook makes a horrifically bad first impression.

➺ slow dancing - by @yoonia

summary: when your countdown appeared on your wrist right in the morning of your eighteenth birthday, you had thought that perhaps the universe was on your side, especially since the final seconds were already ticking so soon. You just never expected to have your first meeting with your soulmate to be the day when you had to let him go. But hope was not lost when you still found love without the bond, and Jungkook showed you that it was possible to find happiness beyond the system that was written for you. Except that the universe doesn’t seem to have enough of its game, when your past sacrifice comes back hitting you straight in the face, just when you had believed that you had written off the perfect ending to your bittersweet tale.

➺ e s p r e s s o - by @joonberriess

➺ hold me closer - by @ahundredtimesover

summary: when you're asked to look after your parents' house and meet them before they go on vacation, you, Jimin, and Jungkook take the trip to your hometown of Busan and relive memories of your youth. While your new relationship has you feeling like a lovesick teenager with all the affection that Jungkook shows you, you're still you - a professional trying to make it in the corporate world, and an eldest child trying not to disappoint her parents. And that turns out to be your undoing, as a little blunder causes a rift between you and Jungkook, resulting in a trip that you might as well have messed up… Not if your brother can help it, though.

[musical-chick-13]

The thing is, like...yeah, a lot of times, the Social Exclusion I've experienced has been from people I probably wouldn't have wanted to be friends with anyway. At the very least, if someone is willing to do that, if someone is going to be that judgmental over things that don't actually matter, then any actual friendship with them probably wouldn't last very long.

But...it still hurts. Because regardless of how you actually feel about these people, it's still another instance of somebody telling you that you're too annoying or too much or too emotional or too whatever. It's still one more thing that people don't even give you the choice to have? And if you hear this over and over again, if it happens everywhere you go, then after a certain point it gets difficult to not internalize it at least a little bit.

It's been 30 years of this and it never gets any easier.

[backfliips]

A lot of people on twitter wanted me to explain how I draw expressions, so here you go

Unless you're drawing explicit realism, in my opinion, expressions should be exaggerated to some degree. If you aren't doing a 1:1 recreation, the point is to get the FEELING across. Try making the expression you want to draw and feeling how your face pinches and stretches.

Skin doesn't just "disappear" when your face moves it around --- that's where wrinkles come from! Pay attention to where your skin creases when you emote, and use it to your benefit. It's a fine line between overdoing it and underdoing it -- find your own balance.

Ultimately, every expression has a little bit of push and pull, unless your face is completely neutral (and even then, there are still some wrinkles...). Learning to think of expressions as actions and reactions is VERY helpful in learning to draw them without needing a reference, and in learning how to stylize and push expressions based on references as well!

I think a lot of people end up with stiff or unexpressive emotions in their art because they're just trying to recreate a picture instead of understanding WHY and HOW the face is moving --- and it's a tough thing that takes a while to really pick up and learn. Hopefully is helpful in showing a way of thinking about it that can influence your process and approach to emotions!!!

Also, bonus: even without the lines, the planes alone still show a LOT of emotion.