#engage.....good

[zephhhhh]

another rosado now that the game is out and i lov him even more ✨

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[catmask]

sometimes while i think about that while a lot of adults did not treat me very well as a kid i also get a lot of 'in hindsight this person was so good to me and i didnt even realize it until now' as an adult. today i was thinking about how the first anime convention i ever went to was when i was 10 and i asked the man working the manga cafe what manga was/what a good place to start was (because the con was very overstimulating for me and i had gotten lost) and he asked how old i was before recommending yotsuba and asking if i wanted any water or something to eat. its really simple but theres a lot of bad things that couldve happened or he could've been careless in his recommendation, but instead yotsuba has remained one of my favorite manga for years, and probably a large portion of why i continue to read manga as an adult... i think adults who try to involve kids in the world safely/kindly even in little ways make so much more of a difference than they ever really know.

[bivampir]

must representation be “good”? is it not enough to watch two men destroy each other's lives

[inkskinned]

there are a lot of posts out there that are positive and healthy coping mechanisms for handling the holidays. this is not one of them :)

i think there's like. going to be times in your life you will be stuck in a social situation that you cannot escape from gracefully. i do not know why the internet doesn't believe these times exist. it's not always just that your physical safety is at risk - sometimes it's legit like "i just don't currently have the energy or time to put in the effort of responding to this." sometimes it's a coworker you hate so much. sometimes it's just like, fine, you know? like you know you can handle your aunt when she's cheerily horrible, but if you actually set a boundary around her, it's going to be weeks of fallout with your father.

i don't know why people think the answer is always just "cut them out!" or "don't let them get away with that!" because ... the real world is tricky and complicated. i think kind of a lot of us have an internal "radiation poisoning" meter for certain people. like - i'm talking about the ones who are absolutely giving you gradual ick damage. like, you can handle them, but you'll be exhausted.

and yes. you absolutely should listen to your therapist and the good posts about handling others and set good boundaries and take care of yourself. prioritize peace.

HOWEVER :) ...... since im often in a situation with a Gradual Sense of Ick person i cannot just "cut out" of my life (without losing someone else precious to me) - i have sort of developed the most. maladaptive form of mischief possible. because like, if i'm going to have to listen to this shit again, i like to have a little bit of private fun with it.

now! again, i am physically safe, just mentally drained by this man. you should only do this with people you are not in danger with. which leads me to my suggestions for when your Unfortunate Acquaintance shows up and says oh everyone pay attention to me.

my favorite word is "maybe!" said as brightly and happily as possible. whenever the Horrible Person starts in on a topic you do not want to go further with, particularly if they make a claim that you know to be inaccurate, do not respond to it. you and i have both tried to actually argue with this person, and it hasn't gone well, because this person just wants the drama of an argument. however, "maybe!" gives them literally nothing to go on. it is incredibly disarming. they are used to people having some response. they know they can't prove what they're saying, and maybe! treats them like the child they are. it dismisses them in the politest way possible.

i like to say maybe! and then, in their stunned silence, immediately change the subject. this is because i have adhd and i will have something unrelated to talk about, but if you can't think of topics fast enough, i recommend just pointing to something and saying, "isn't that lovely?" because fuck you let's bring in some positivity.

by the way. that second trick - of pointing to something and stating an opinion about it? - that just works on its own, like, 70% of the time. i picked it up from teaching preschoolers. it's an intentional "redirect". it stops children crying and it also stops grown adults from finishing their explanation on why women belong in kitchens. dual wielding!

keep it silly for yourself. i absolutely do not care if people think i'm fucking stupid (it's more fun if they do) and as a result i will purposefully misunderstand things just to see how long it takes them to realize i've completely removed them from the subject at hand. when they say "women aren't funny" i get to be like. "which women." "all women." "all women in america?" "no in the world." "like the mole people? the people in the world?" "what? no. like, alive." "oh are we not counting the mole people?" "what the fuck are you talking about." "you don't believe in the mole people?"

similarly, i play a personal game called "one up me." my Evil Acquaintance literally knows this game exists (my family & friends caught onto it and now also play it) and it always fucking gets him. i don't know why. you have to be willing to be a little free-spirited on this one, though. the trick is that when they make one of those horrible little bigoted or annoying comments they are always making, you need to go one unit weirder. not more intense, mind you - just more weird. "you don't look good in that dress." "yeah, actually, my other dress was covered in squid ink due to a mishap at the soup store." "you shouldn't wear such revealing clothes." "wait, what? oh shit. sorry, your son tears off strips when no one is looking and eats them. i swear it was longer before we left the building."

the point of "one up me" is to completely upend this person's narrative. we both know this person likes setting up situations where you cannot "win" and then they really like telling other people how badly you handled it. in a usual situation, if you respond "please don't say something that rude", you're a bitch. but if you let it happen, you're letting yourself be debased. they are not usually expecting door number three: unflappably odd. because what are they going to say when they're telling everyone how badly you behaved? "she said my son eats her dresses" ".... okay?"

if you can, form an allyship with someone whomst you can tagteam with. where they can pick up on your weird "soup store" story and run with it.

the following phrase is amazing and can be deployed for any situation: "oh, be nice :) it's the holidays!" i do not know why this works as often as it does. i'll say it for the most random shit. i think this is bc most of the time these people know they're being impolite, they just like to fight.

godbless. when in doubt, remember that you could always start stealing their pens.

the whole point of this is - if you can't escape. maybe see how long you can just be. like. a horrible little menace.

[ale-arro]

been going a little bit insane about this sentence from Ace by Angela Chen for the past week

[danielnelsen]

while i get where this comes from and it’s true to an extent, i reeeaaaally don’t like how people try to explain “trans men don’t [necessarily] have male privilege” with things like “some trans men don’t pass”.

like sure that’s the most obvious example (someone who is seen as a woman won’t have the privilege that comes with being seen a man) but you’re still acting like being a passing trans man is just a free opt-in to male privilege which is………kinda the issue.

[vaxxman]

whats so fun about the vaccinator (vacc slander)?

You come to my blog and disrespect me like that.

Have some vaccinator propaganda.

Some textless panels that I enjoyed drawing and rambling about the vaccinator medigun under the cut.

Surprise, it's only medic.

I am not saying the vaccinator is not absolutely broken, I 100% feel dirty using it against a badly coordinated team, hence I wouldn't mind if it received a nerf in the future.

A lot of people analyse the vaccinator as only useful against a badly coordinated enemy team, but I think it's much better as a weapon for when your own team sucks ass has bad synergy, since any form of uber is pretty much wasted on everyone (if you can even build enough charge). To compensate for everyone's mistakes, just make sure they stay alive long enough to capture points and push the cart. Everyone will automatically stay with you, and soon you'll have a nice meat shield of 4 people swarming around you. You know it's working, when there's suddenly 3 demoknights and a spy after you.

I love micromanaging my resistance bubbles, and I love micromanaging my team without them noticing that I'm doing it. Pressing the R-button to rotate through resistances feels like such a much more engaging contribution to the battles your patients are fighting.

Vaccinator is busted, but absolutely not boring.

And to close this rambling, here's my fav video about the vaccinator:

[xxivletxx]

i locked the fuck in for this doodle HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO THE GAME THAT RUINED & SAVED MY LIFE!!!!!! LOVE YOU LOTS GAYASS GAME

[ghostlyarchaeologist]

"I work in the field of violence. Not knowing Eliot Spencer in our line of business, it's a bit like not knowing Rembrandt."

Leverage Redemption S01E01 The Too Many Rembrandt's Job.

Bonus:

[lewdo]

[unproduciblesmackdown]

Lackadaisy Enrichment

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

i vote that next year instead of reading Dracula we do a Jeeves & Wooster Book Club. those two never got the rabid tumblr shipping fandom they deserved (disqualified for the sheer technicality of being published a century too soon). we must correct this injustice

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Mo Ran fails to master the art of pspsps (continuation of this)

(For @airagorncharda)

[kittykatninja321]

Can someone tell Democrats that leftists and progressives with moral objections are not a big enough contingent to swing an election and if they were, the way to get groups to vote for you is to offer them things they want rather than lib-scold them about voting on social media

[laikabu]

my controversial opinion is that i like that laios is bigger and more muscular than kabru because, as a poc, buff brown guy x scrawny white guy is so popular and tired, i like it whenever there’s a subversion of it from a work that’s well written. of course, not to mention that they have a very fun dynamic and the comic from the new official world guide spelling out for everyone that they do care about each other lol

i like that kabru does look feminine, especially when fandom makes the brown one always the bigger and masculine one in fanon and any instance of their delicate features is erased, even in yuri (looking at gwitch lol)

speaking of, i really like kikimari in that namari is portrayed as very masculine while kiki is feminine and elegant in fanwork

obviously, fandom isn’t activism duh, but i’m merely speaking from experience as someone who dabbles in both eastern and western fan spaces. i’ve seen it happen so many times that it’s become the staple so i love subversion that’s actually good