#i know that theres a lot of spec about these things

[verystressedcollegestudent]

if there's one thing i hate more than slackers in group projects its goddamn hypocrites

[arolesbianism]

I should rly play portal, but at the same time I find it kind of funny to have it continue to exist as that one game I'd fuck around with the physics in as a lil kid instead of actually doing the puzzles in my memories especially since I'm sure I'd have rly liked glados if I actually bothered to actually progress in the video game I was playing

[kittycathat]

LGBTQIABCDEFJ is not real just stop. It's made up acronym that is rarely used outside of tumblr. Queer is not an identity its just an adjective. most intersex people explicitly state they do not consider themselves lgbt. Most lgbt people do not want to associate with aro and aces. And most lgbt in the real world living normal lives and not chronically online have little to no contact or knowledge of asexuals we literally dont care. Ur existence is so insignificant offline and if we ever met a self proclaimed aroace het cis man we would probably make sure we never had to associate with him again. Ur not gay just give it up and go live a normal life. Ur a single cis person. U either dont have the emotional capacity to love someone or u are sex repulsed and dont want to have a relationship with someone either way thats just normal and there are plenty of people like that we dont really care if u want to be alone all ur life just leave actual struggling gay people alone and shutup about ur stupid discourse no one cares except urselves.

That is true, the acronym is actually LGBTQIA (with variations,) not LGBTQIABCDEFJ. /sarc

but anyways hi anon! Theres a lot to unpack here

about "lgbtqia is rarely used outside of tumblr": that's the problem, bc we want it to be

about "its not an identity just an adjective": not quite sure what you're on, bc it literally is

about intersex people: this goes against what you just said, and supports that "queer" is an identity even more?? because these intersex people are choosing whether they identify as queer or not

about lgbtqia people not wanting to associate aro or ace people: bro if these are people you actually know irl, please find new friends. Find friends who actually support normal who are living their lives, just without romantic and/or sexual attraction.

about me being chronically online: anon.... i dont think you can talk after you typed out this whole thing as an attempt to make me feel bad... but ok. (also not very related but anonymous hate is a very very pathetic thing to do)

about asexuality being not well known: Also not sure what rock you live under but asexuality is pretty well known??? like the average person (at least where i live) will most likely know what it is.

about cishet aroace men: .. ok but why would i not want to associate with him? plus everyone lgbtqia is "self proclaimed" so idk bro

about not having "emotional capacity": bro what the hell do you want me to do,, i've literally never felt romantic attraction in my life

about "there are plenty of people like that": People might not want to be in romantic relationships for a number of reasons, but if it's because they don't feel romantic attraction... then they're aro-spec. Thank you for supporting the aro community by saying it's normal <333

about "we dont really care if u want to be alone all ur life": bro its the internet if you don't like what i'm talking about just SCROLL

about leaving "actual struggling gay people" alone: .. when did i do anything against gay people? Plus if you're trying to stop hate... why did you anonymously send a literal hate essay to me

about "ur not gay just live a normal life": omg you got something right!! i'm actually not gay!! (so proud of you <3) Also i do live a normal life, i am so basic you can't even imagine

about no one caring: well you see.. thats the problem. that's part of why i post about aromanticism, because i want people to be actually supportive

anyways! tysm for reading all that. please be civil in comments, and be kind to everyone guys <3

[goatcheesecak3]

HELLO I HAVE A REQUEST

WOULD IT BE OKAY IF U WROTE SPECS X TRANS GUY READER???

like maybe reader comes out to specs and theres just a whole lotta fluff?

it totally okay if no ofc have a good day :)

Coming out

Specs x Ftm!reader

Warnings: none

Fic type: fluff

Summary: you come out to your boyfriend, Specs

A/n hello! This was such a sweet request! I'm not a trans guy myself, so I hope I did the experience justice! Also I should preface with the fact that I hc specs as being autistic, so there's indirect references to that in here too :^)

"Uh.. specs?" You said, nervously approaching your boyfriend.

Specs was sat hunched over at his desk, painting a warhammer figure in excruciating detail.

"Uh huh?" He said without looking up.

"I need to talk to you about something important"

Specs turned to look at you, his face seemingly concerned- although you could never really get a great read on what his facial expressions meant, he wasn't very good at non verbal cues.

With a deep breath, fumbling with your hands anxiously you bit the bullet and told him the truth that you'd been hiding.

"I think - no - I KNOW, I'm not a girl. I'm a man." You blew out, puffing your cheeks up, realising how hot your face got when you were nervous, "I'm a transgender man and I can't pretend I'm not anymore".

When you were met with silence, you slowly dared to make eye contact with specs, terrified that you would be faced with a horrified look on his face. Instead, his expression was entirely neutral.

"Approximately 1.03% of adults in the U.S identify as transgender" he replied calmly.

Your face twisted in bewilderment, what the hell kind of response was that?!

"Is that your only take away?" You said, sounding a little less afraid, but a lot more confused.

Specs began to chew absent mindedly on his paintbrush for a second, looking up to the ceiling in thought, before looking back at you.

"Would you like to start borrowing my clothes?"

To anyone else, this might have seemed like an incredibly mundane response, but you knew specs very well. As a rule, he NEVER let other people wear his clothes, he had very strict rules for how he liked his clothes to feel and he didn't trust that other people wearing them wouldn't "taint" that clean feeling. But here he was, so willing to to make an exception in the rule for you, just to let you know that he approved. Specs wasn't the best with the overly gooey romantic stuff, but in all honesty this meant a lot more.

"So I take it you're okay with this?" You said, cracking a small smile

"I was unaware that you were asking for my permission" specs replied, seeming far more taken aback by this than your "shocking" revelation.

You let out a small laugh and approached him, letting him gently wrap his arms around you.

"You know this would mean that I'd be your boyfriend now, and not your girlfriend, right?" You asked, making sure everything was clarified properly.

"Of course. I might not understand all the ins and outs of this at first, but we can learn as we go. You know how much I love learning new things," specs looked up at you, his eyes full of love, "as long as you're happy. I love you"

You smiled down, enjoying the tender moment.

"I love you too"

The two of you held eachother in a comforting embrace for a minute or so, and when the moment passed, specs was the one to break the silence.

"Uh... when I said you can borrow my clothes.. my socks are still off limits. I've seen the way you treat yours"

You let out a small chuckle and kissed the top of his head

"Alright babe, it's a deal"

[mybuttonfelloff]

Okok so we all know the Sims 3 is like, not super popular and is also notoriously buggy BUT on the off chance anyone is like me and loves it, i have some tips that have greatly helped my game run better. I also am including links to any specific creators or sites I recommend. Tips under the cut bc it's a long post, but I tried to be thorough! You will need to understand like, basic reading comprehension and basic computer-y stuff (downloading files, unpacking files, dragging and dropping into folders, editing the occasional file text) but most stuff I link to have tutorials for adding mods into the game and whatnot.

I really hope this helps people like me who love TS3! but know the game is.... outdated for basically all computers. These are all things ive learned over the past couple years, so I hope this can be a helpful resource for anyone wanting to play TS3.

Number one will probably be using this tutorial to make the game recognize your current computer specs. Because the game is, yknow, old, it wont recognize newer drivers and whatnot. This tutorial will allow the game to actually recognize them and therefore run better https://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=26753.0

Nraas will be your best friend for managing things in-game. It's similar to MCCC for the sims 4 but you completely customize which like, modules you use. I highly highly recommend specifically Story Progression and Master Controller https://www.nraas.net/community/home

LazyDuchess is a goddess and I highly Highly recommend her Smooth Patch mod. It makes the game run so much better. Also she has so many other mods that make things like CAS load faster plus a search function for Build/Buy https://www.patreon.com/lazyduchess/posts

ModTheSims is a great resource for Sims 3 Mods as well, definitely recommend making an account and perusing their sims 3 mods https://modthesims.info/

Speaking of ModTheSims, I highly recommend Regul Save Cleaner to... clean up the extra data in your saves https://modthesims.info/download.php?t=652440

Also on ModTheSims theres an excellent bug fixing mod from Simler90, it touches on a bunch of like longtime bugs that havent been fixed (like the firefighter career being bugged) https://modthesims.info/download.php?t=659969

Make sure that before playing or after adding any new mods, delete the files: caspartcache.package, compositorcache.package, scriptcache.package, simcompositorcache.package, and socialcache.package. If not, the game WILL load slowly and/or crash. These files are found in Documents\ElectronicArts\The Sims 3. Not sure about Steam bc I use the EA app, but I assume its a similar path.

Save every half hour or so to prevent crashes killing too much progress. And don't play for longer than an hour per initial load (like, play for an hour, save, quit and load the game again). I find it helps the game run smoother when you dont play in 3 hour stretches.

make a backup saves folder for your saves. Im not sure why, but i found that keeping only one save in the actual saves helps it loads faster and smoother.

Also when saving your game, ALWAYS use Save As. If you Save As, you wont have to worry about accidentally corrupting your saves, which happens a lot

Also, when you're about to save, move the save you loaded into your backup saves folder BEFORE saving. I find it crashes/corrupts way less if its not trying to compete with the other save

also keep your sims personal inventory fairly empty (like 10 items max) to prevent a known bug from occurring when saving. Use a storage box or something to store collectibles like gems, plants, etc.

WHEN IN CAS WAIT UNTIL THE LITTLE FLOWER LOOKING ICON IS BLUE TO SCROLL THROUGH THE CATEGORY. When it turns blue, all the items have properly loaded, so it wont lag nearly as much.

Prev point applies to build/buy, wait for the category to load before messing with things. You'll save yourself a lot of stress

Dont use 4 speed, i find it just lags and stops progressing time. I use 2 or 3 max, even when sleeping

In BuyDebug you can buy these invisible lights that make the lighting much much better in game. Just have an actual light, like a lamp or outdoor light, to be able to change brightness and color in Live mode. Bc.... Its invisible so non-clickable

[chronically-enthusiastic]

Hello there, thanks for stumbling across my blog!

(Here's a lil comic I made for a school assignment)

I'm going to start putting my social energy levels in my bio... There's a lot of stuff I want to respond to but i currently dont have the energy to do so, and so if I don't respond within like a day, check my bio and see that... I always feel bad about being on tumblr when theres things people have sent me but responding to those things is a different level of interaction than reblogging a post... so yeah... Sorry to the people i havent responded to yet! I will soon <333 (writing this on low energy, sorry for the incoherence)

Who am I / Where else can you find me?

First of all, feel free to call me Eli!! I'm on the waiting list for an autism diagnosis. I am agender and aroace-spec.

I am verrryyy enthusiastic about the things I am interested in (hence the URL hehehe). And currently, those are: podcasts (theres a list at the bottom of the post), good omens, ofmd, bbc merlin, star trek!!!!, lotr, and probably more things that I am too tired to think of right now!

I am a very big fan of the oxford comma and double brackets. Semicolons are pretty cool too. And ellipses are incredible.

i love all of my mutuals dearly!! Making cookies and hot chocolate for you all <33

I try to use tone tags as much as possible!

Boundaries:

Things I am okay with sharing/doing:

My age, gender/sexuality, things about my guinea pigs!!, and most other things

Things I am not okay with sharing/doing:

The city I live in, pictures of me/anyone I know, my full name, my birthdate, my phone number/email address, meeting up with people irl, sending/receiving money/gifts, dms (<- though if we're mutuals and interacted a lot dms are fine!!)

^ this applies to everyone im not in the discord with

I will let someone know if they cross boundaries, and *really* would like other people to let me know if I cross theirs!!

DNI: people who are here to spread hate and anger. Just, stay away. I dont engage in discourse. I know DNIs dont deterr these people, but this is a demonstration of my core values :)

Updated to clarify - I do block the generic tags such as Israel and Gaza, which most of the posts are tagged with by the op, so if you forget its no big deal!!

Tags:

(At the top cause otherwise it will get lost) ALSO #tw body horror

I block quite a few tags but most notably #tw war and other ones to do with the war in israel/palestine. This is not because I don't care. I care so so so much about what is happening and I cry every time I see a post about it. It breaks my heart that such horrible things are happening. However, I really struggle with high empathy, and seeing a post about it can really affect me for a while, and I need tumblr to be a safe space away from the real world problems. If I follow you - please could you tag things to do with war. Thank you <3

A list of all the podcasts I listen to because y'know, its fun:

Fiction:

The Amelia Project

Wooden Overcoats

The Adventure Zone

Sherlock & Co

Alba Salix

Unseen

And a whole lot more that i no longer listen to either because they havent updated or they are a little too creepy (Welcome to Night Vale falls into the latter category)

Science:

The Sci Guys

Lets Learn Everything

Lingthusiasm

A podcast of unnecessary detail.

Comedy/other:

Dear Hank and John

The Unmade Podcast

Books Unbound

Lateral

A book list of recommendations from mutuals for my own use:

abigail by Magda Szasbo (@mack-anthology-mp3)

The Alphabet of Candice Phee (@jamie-dinow)

A list of music reccomendations from mutuals:

in the lap of the gods revisited by queen, why can't i be you by the cure, pyramid song, and lucky & the tourist by radiohead, when the sun hits by slowdive, dancing barefoot by patti smith, tangerine by led zeppelin, autumn sweater by yo la tengo, rubber ring by the smiths, water by pj harvey (from @/mack-anthology-mp3)

imi hendrix’s all along the watchtower (from @/catholickedd)

[fruit-salad-ship]

Ok. Speed racer AU.

They are rival racers, competing for a grand prize, lots of high obtain action and high flying emotions. Peach is our main racer, Grey is her manager and Plum a mysterious racer with a lot of sexual tension during the whole thing.

Excuse me while I totally obsess over the image of a ranking race, just to see who qualifies for the actual official competition. Peach has NO idea who shes up against because it doesnt matter. You win, nothing else is important. Goes round a corner a little harshly but something zips past, and theres a second where the other drivers drifting infront, cars nose to nose, like so expertly paced and manouvered, the driver waves at Peach, neither can see the others face, just two helmets looking at eachother for that split second, which is like. infuriating as all hell. This new racer is activley gettign in her face about the overtake, its a mocking move. Game on. They are nose and nose the entire time, Peach considering nudging the mystery opponent out on the final length but knows she'll get penalised if it looks purposeful. Accepts second place, they both move to the actual cup event.

Peach is SO mad, gets out the car and rips her helmet off, nearly spikes it into the ground but keeps it together, Grey's there trying to chill her out, she did really well, aside from that one racer she drove better than ever, and was way out infront of the vast majority. The competetive streak in her was challenged and he's seeing her work harder because of it. Probably harder than she's pushed it for a long time. The mystery racer is leant against the front of her car across the yard, waves sweetly at Peach who's keeping her cool, trying to not be outwardly furious, then saunters off, still no clue who's under there. Just some new blood in the mix, someone else to beat. This is entirely the hardest she's ever trained, the cars got to be perfect, Peach is grilling Grey about specs, making sure he knows every turn that feels wrong, ever second thats wasted, and they muddle through how to shave those seconds off.

Her one night off she goes to some local dive bar, tries to unwind, mulling over everything, obsessing, she cant lose again like that, it was so close. Her ability to let it go is failing, peeling the label off her beer. until that is someone small sits opposite her in the booth shes at in the back, a pretty faced little thing who's...lost? or drunk? She doesnt get why someone like her is sitting there, suggest she 'goes back to her friends or whatever' But this girl wont quit, says peach looks like shes stressing out over something, squeezes out the truth with a couple drinks and some persistence. And so Plum, the mystery girl whos kept her company, and the driver who beat her, gets out of this overly competetive woman that she's mad about her job, and worried she's losing her edge.

They bond hard, perhaps even go home together, end up gettign along well. That is until the race day, and Peach does the whole press thing, looks over, and there she is. Same girl from the bar, in the racer gear of the asshole who taunted her out on the track and won. She waves in her typical way, a little wave that Peach has recieved a few times now, and cannot stand. The sinking feeling sets in.

Plums got her right where she wants her, shaken, totally off her game, heads elsewhere, overthinking.

somewhere along their career the competetive streak and endless will-they-won-they (even though they defo have that one time) is caught by the cameras, they become this weird new obsession in the media, people are pitting them against eachother. The fierce rivalry is not without respect though. They keep beating each other by fractions of seconds, its alwasy too close to call without close ups and slow mo replays.

Until one day during another race, another car takes plums out, the thing rolls, totally wrecked, gas leaking out, inside the driver just slumped. Peach cant just leave her, 180's and forfietts the match essentially to drive back, off the road even though the cars not built for that at all, gets out despite the danger, and pulls her from the vehicle. Manages to get clear of it before the fire catches, and soon after emergency medics show up to take over. She is shaken, a little bruised and scratched, but at least not burnt up in a wreckage.

Do they have a heart to heart in the hospital? Maybe. Does it stop them competing? Never.

[dysaniadisorder]

In regards to the "paladins and bards are at their core xyz", I'd love to hear your opinions on the rest of the classes as I struggle to have individual options about things and my ideas about classes are just a chaotic collage of things I've seen and read which can lead me to only being able to think of common tropes.

And I like having a springboard to come up with other ideas especially cos I'm coming up with a DnD PC and I liked what you were putting down.

yeah ofc !! to be fair i get a lot of my thoughts on dnd classes through d20 because they have so many cool genre twists (warlock pacts being marriage pacts, a druid whos a total stoner & environmental activist) but generally i just think people have kind of small minded ideas about dnd classes?

ive noticed something strange which is. weirdly enough, people who dont know almost anything about dnd are likely to have some of the most fun campaigns. and i think its because they dont have an already preconceived notion of like... what a wizard can and cant be, what a barbarian can and cant be, ect

subclasses are some of my favorite things in the WORLD and i think they contribute sooo much to the character. Like- yeah, Barbarian has Berserker or whatever, but theres also a subclass that can make you summon wind and snow, theres a subclass that gives you animal traits, theres a subclass that connects you to giants and makes you huge, theres even a wild magic barbarian subclass !!!

and i think adding that one more level of depth to a class just breaks way to a billion other ideas- i have a friend right now writing a character whos family are total hippies, and hes kind of a skater kid, but hes a cleric of peace.

the stereotypes are SO frustrating because no ones having fun anymore, and suddenly you have a dozen elf wizards who are tall and quiet and elegant, and suddenly you have a dozen half orc barbarians who hit hard and dont like having friends. I currently play an Artificer Alchemist, largely acclaimed to be thee most boring class, and theyre fun as hell. i cant do much but what i can do has helped me & the party immensly. my friends and i found charts of all the least popular classes & subclasses, and all the ones least used were cool as hell.

i currently have so many ideas for characters its not even funny !!! my favorite is a cleric who doesnt know theyre actually a warlock. not to mention- theres plenty chance a warlock was some other class before they were a warlock. i love in The Seven, Sam Nightingale has some Bard levels because she was a tv show star and had to take some Bard training because of the program. and like,, yeah! Bards that are not just about music but other points of charisma, honestly you could probably make a Bard politician crazy easily.

to be honest while i said passion is at the core of paladins and bards i think passion may just be at the center of all of them, but it could easily Not Be. Barbarians who hate being angry and struggle with it, Clerics who struggle with their religion (these are both d20 tropes), Monks have all SORTS of junk that I love,, look. when it comes down to it the stereotypes arent bad, they just end up making fairly 2d or boring characters most of the time, which they dont have to. alot of the (annoying) comments on that post are people talking about their characters that ARE this or that stereotype, and thats fine, they clearly love their character and it sounds like they do all sorts of fun stuff with them. but they can do sooo muuuuch moooore

i fun exercise thing i like to do is take characters from other things, either my own or a tv show or game or something and try to spec them as a dnd character. its incredibly fun

my personal favorite classes are Druids and Monks, especially bc i think Monks dont get enough love (also Druids are kind of overpowered) and multiclassing is also so so fuckign fun. my best advice is just like. i dont know. think outside the box & try to be weird about it. i had a friend with a character who was a barbarian bc he had anger issues, but his passion was in food, and as such he was literally a cleric of food. he would level up his classes based on how he had acted in the time sicne he last leveled up and it was always fairly sad when he'd gain a level of barbarian because he didnt want it. i hope this all helps i really love dnd classes

[aro-culture-is]

(not aro culture! i would like to ask for advice, if that's possible. also so sorry if this is long!)

i was looking at some of the asks, and it had me thinking. the way i experience attraction is a little... uncommon? i haven't seen many people mention experiencing it, if any. i've been trying to figure out my romantic orientation, but it's been hard.

so i've been wanting to date people... but i don't know if this is my desire to be close to them and in a kindof relationship with them or not? it's been for some people in specific too, which makes me believe it isn't cupioromantic. whenever i hear about crushes, i hear it's thinking about them all day. i hear its feeling nervous or suddenly behaving differently than you would to others. that jazz. i have no idea if thats allo dumbassery (/lh) or not since i dont experience what i hear described. it seems romantic, but is it really when i dont experience what is described to be 'crushes'?

i dont experience what they describe a crush to be like... but i do experience feeling affectionate/attracted to them and wanting to date them. but then why doesnt it feel like crushes do?

im also not romance repulsed either... and fine with the idea of romance. but i wonder if i am a romance favorable aro with some other kind of attraction or not? it's difficult

if any of you are able to answer this then thank you! (i know theres probably a lot of asks so i will wait a while for it anyway)

(i am so sorry this has taken so long, the ask box just... spat this back out after presumably having eaten it when it was sent.... last year...)

honestly, i feel like you or anyone who feels like you have a lot of possible options for labels, and that's where i'm going to base this discussion since i think checking out the communities around those labels will provide better insight. that said, I also want to emphasize:

you have no obligation to solely relate to the aro or alloro communities.

first of all: our buddy, our pal, our good ol' "what the fuck is this anyways" companion, quoiromantic! the distinction between platonic and romantic isn't clear cut for everyone, and that's okay. this is an aro-spec identity.

secondly: have you heard of alterous attraction, or queerplatonic attraction? if not, looking into how people describe that, and considering if queerplatonic relationships sound more like what you're considering. these relationships can take many forms and are inherently defined by the people in the relationship rather than cultural/social norms that can influence romo relationships.

thirdly: grayromantic, aroflux, frayromantic, bellusromantic, cupioromantic, and lithromantic are all some other labels to look into.

Consider that for some grayro people, this identity can be a comfortable label for what feels like a watered-down romantic attraction. If you think it's possible you have some fluctuating levels of attraction, maybe aroflux or similar labels can provide a home for you!

i include frayro because while it's opposite term, demiromantic, is a more known identity, frayro isn't talked about a whole lot. if you think you find someone romantically attractive when you don't know them, but get to know them / think about getting to know them and lose that attraction, frayro may be something worth considering.

bellusromantic can help to explain the desire to do "romantic" things with others, while not necessarily experiencing romantic attraction to them. cupioromantic - not feeling romantic attraction but wanting a romantic relationship - could also be a possibility. lastly, lithromantic describes feeling romantic attraction but not wanting it reciprocated and/or losing attraction if it is reciprocated.

this is mostly a terminology dump, but i hope even if i'm far too late for the original asker, this can help others!

[samsspambox]

I love the hc that Artem is ace. I'm ace as well and that puts a lot of his understandable behavior into perspective. Like, saying stuff that could be sugged to mean otherwise and immediately apologizing for it because you didn't mean for it to be taken that way. But also the book! Artem trying to learn his way into someone's heart by watching dramas and a book on "love and attraction"? Yep. Not to mention, the whole thing with intimacy, where he tends to freeze when things get more intimate - not because he doesn't want it, but because he just doesn't know what to do. I've also seen people claim Artem as being dense, which is fair. I would argue tho that it's because he legitimately does not know better. When he does stuff, especially in like Focus Fire or In Sickness and In Health or Two Hearts as One, he tends to think of the "romantic" implications a little bit later - He likes Rosa, sure, but I'm pretty sure his first thought when trying to use his hands as earmuffs isn't "oh gosh, I'm right next to her", but rather "oh, I need to protect her ears." Two Hearts as One is another one - Artem and Rosa are working on the choking scene and Artem is on top of her, Artem doesn't immediately get uncomfortable with the position, he just figures that it's what he has to do for the play (which, fair), it's only after things get a little more intimate that he starts to get flustered. Artem's other autumn cars is another one. Which makes things kinda interesting because it seems like he's judging his own reactions to things between them based on how MC is reacting, when they get flustered, Artem is more than likely to mirror that too. He knows his social cues, hence the apologies for what happens as a result of his innocent intent. Some food for thought.

yEAH YEAH UR SO RIGHT NONNIE, THERES SO MUCH SHIT TO BE EXPLAINED IF ARTEM IS ACE SPEC!

like, his first instinct isn't to think about situations as 'oh this is romantic/this has sexual tension' but more like 'what's right to do in the moment' or 'what's right to do because of the environment'.

like the basketball card! he bought the milk tea bc what else was he supposed to do in that situation, but was only aware it was for couples when the person selling clarified that it was for couples, you know?

i think it's a combination of factors that lead to artem being 'dense' in the act of wooing someone. one has to be inexperience bc he just,, never had a partner at all. but i also think it was a bit of the ugly duck syndrome. a bit of spoilers here but artem's mom mentions that bc artem shot up in height during high school, a lot of people started seeing him as attractive. that makes me think that artem,,, probably had it rough in terms of being a pre-teen. and now with all the sudden attention? he'd freak out. he'd grow distrustful of those around him, shutting down any possibilities of him dating around in his early teens. also bc his parents have connections, similarly to marius, and could have been used as a step to reach his parents' attention.

and of course there's also just the innate innocence of his actions. i think that's why a lot of people like artem— hes a bit of a subversion of the 'cold hearted mf' trope. artem genuinely doesn't hide that he worries for people and wants them to succeed but because of his position of power over them it comes off as cold indifference.

i guess as someone on the ace spec, i wanna dig i to why artem chose mc as the person who'd he'd have feelings towards. how did him and mc get close? how gradual was it? i know we get some answers to their past in future cards but they mostly focus too far back to when they were just colleagues. what was that moment? cuz the game just establishes them as 'really good work colleagues' in the beginning. how did that happen? let me sEE

but you're so right nonnie artem being ace partially solves so many mysteries about artem himself. thank you for dropping by nonnie!!!

[orionsangel86]

Following the release of the pilot of that bloody Winchester prequel yesterday, a lot of people have been excitedly posting interviews and articles on it and starting up the meta and spec again. I thought I'd be able to avoid seeing it on here but this is the SPN website so clearly that was a bad assumption.

Thing is, I genuinely believed I was okay. This year has been SO GOOD for me for healing the wounds that SPN carved into me. With OFMD, WWDITS, The Sandman, IWTV, and now Good Omens 2 news I have been happily existing in a little joy filled bubble everytime I come on Tumblr.

I just scrolled past a post which had screenshots of an article from Robbie Thompson on the Winchesters. I thought I'd read it out of curiosity. I shouldn't have.

It brought everything back. Talk of the Winchester brothers and how "theres no Dean if there aint no Sam" and how they arent changing a damn thing about SPN canon, and how we will find out where Dean is, with the writer speculating he's telling the story from heaven...

I don't know why, but it hurt.

It was like something had decided to prod really hard at the old SPN scars, the ones that never really healed right to begin with, and are still jagged and tender even after 7 months of solid healing thanks to only consuming media that actually respects me as a person.

I haven't felt that kind of pain since Jared Padalecki last opened the hole in his face to spew bullshit about how the finale from Hell was so perfect and right for the brothers *gags*.

It wasnt even a bad article, but it acknowledged things I had tried to erase from my head. God. Im so fucked up. That horrible show fucked me up so much. I wanted to just shut down tumblr and mentally check myself out for a bit and put on the Dreamcast on spotify or something, but I had to get this off my chest, even if people read this and think im fucking moronic for caring so much and wasting energy on this stupid show and why do I care right?

7 fucking years I devoted to that horseshit show. 7 fucking years I held it in my heart and adored it even though the whole time it clawed and carved at me and hated me because I wasnt the audience it wanted.

One little article and I feel like ive been triggered even though that word should be far too strong for something as stupid as getting emotional over a TV show. Im having a minor breakdown in my living room at 10pm on a Wednesday night in 2022 over fucking SPN.

I dont even know why im openly admitting this on the spn website when I know its gonna subject me to hate and a whole mass loss of followers but I had to get this out. I had to write it down. Its so difficult to express how this show makes me feel. I dont wanna be the one you all roll your eyes at and call a negative anti but I also don't understand how everyone else seems to have slipped so easily back into old habits.

I wanna scream at everyone not to be fooled. But I dont wanna stamp on other peoples joy either. So I guess I gotta remove myself from the equation here. Fool me once etc etc.

Im gonna have to unfollow some long term mutuals, especially those that arent tagging content. If you correctly tag every winchester related post and reblog then at least my filters will block them, but if they slip through im gonna have to unfollow. I cant be having 10pm meltdowns over SPN at this point in my life. Not when there is so much good stuff out there to be focusing on instead.

[forcemelt]

PTS 7.1 annihilation / watchman

gonna go over some things I have personally noticed on the PTS for 7.1 for the annihilation marauder and watchman sentinel disciplines as there are some things that made me go 👀

I will try to make this coherent so that even people who don’t play anni get this as long as you sorta know how marauders tend to work like though I'll try to explain some stuff for context. i say this but it'll still make no sense lol

wrote this before the new iteration of the pts came out today, no idea if anything changed bc i don’t have the time to check.

anyway, posting it under the cut, it’s honestly way too long

hemorrhage / plasma blades tooltip

so shortly after 7.0 launched there’s already been some early datamined stuff for 7.1 - in particular i saw a spreadsheet that included some changes to certain abilities/utilities’ tooltips and from what I heard some of it actually went live since then even? not too sure now.

either way, to explain what the hemorrhage passive does, here’s its current tooltip description:

the important part to focus on is the last sentence; that’s some self healing! anyway;

this ^ is the tooltip for hemorrhage now on the pts (and this was also in the very early 7.1 datamined stuff I mentioned). what could this mean? are they removing anni heals?

after a quick test (really didn’t require any deep look on that one lol) I’m still most definitely doing basically the same amount of healing as on live.

need to point out that plasma blades, the watchman mirror for the passive still has the text about healing included on the pts. of course discrepancies between the supposedly mirror disciplines are not a new thing at all, anni and watchman literally have that on live right now with blood fury / burning zen for example.

either way i’m gonna lean towards the new hemorrhage tooltip being some kinda mistake or a leftover of the devs considering removing anni heals but dedicing to just get rid of aoe dr instead. or at least that’s my working theory but honestly who fucking knows lol, but like they would definitely include this in a dev post if they were to remove something like that anyway heh.. maybe in 7.2 🤯

blood fury / burning zen

ok, so this the one main thing I wanted to talk about, but i wanna explain some stuff first.

blood fury is one of the three utility choices you can make once you’re level 43. besides that, there’s also furious power (a rotational ability back in 6.X, now rendered useless as we don’t have the descent of the fearless set bonus) and then theres a choice called bleeding center, the latter of the two actually being the usually recommended choice for that level - what it does is that when one of your dots critically hit you build 2 fury, even during berserk - this is very very handy as annihilation currently wants to have berserk (an ability that becomes available once you get 30 stacks of fury which you build by using rage spending abilities) up for use before force rend (one of anni’s dots) come off cooldown, since now it will do 4x more damage on the initial hit if berserk is also active (it’s like a 40-50k hit - thats a lot of damage at once for a dot spec)

so if burning center tends to often be the recommended choice, why am I talking about blood fury?

simple as - it’s a dps increase. the reason people don’t always recommend it is because it makes the rotation harder to manage and its not viable on fights with a lot of target swapping for example, as you won’t be be able to build your fury stacks as fast and you might end up having force rend off cooldown before berserk becomes available, meaning you have to either delay it or use it without the buff, which is something you should avoid. but as an anni main that loves high parsing numbers this won’t stop me from taking it to a lot of fights (same for a whole lot of other anni maras out there ofc). plus i actually quite like the additional difficulty it introduces to anni, since with the dispatcher’s challenge legendary implant it no longer really has rage issues as much, so blood fury is like a bit of additional fun.

ok, so anyway, there are some interesting things to note about blood fury:

1) first off, “effect cannot occur more than once per second” my ass. happens on each hit with your weapons. you know how the ravage ability is like several hits on the target with both of your lightsabers in just one gcd? yeahh, you get a whole bunch of blood fury hits from it

of course, when people noticed this discrepancy, the question was; so what is the intended effect here? the way it works on anni or watchman? lot of people assumed that the way it is on watchman is the intended effect but it’s not like we couldn’t be sure...

2) and now the funny part - on live there’s currently a discrepancy between how blood fury works on annihilation marauder vs how it works on watchman sentinel (called burning zen there). so what exactly happens is; blood fury only occurs during berserk - when you use berserk, you get 6 charges of it - over the course of a few seconds those charges are consumed by your dots (aka “bleeds” on anni) that are on the target and berserk makes it so they are a crit hit. however - on annihilation, blood fury hits don’t consume berserk charges, but hits of burning zen DO eat berserks (called “zen” on watchman), which... isn’t really something you want. god forbid you pop zen one gcd early and place blade barrage in there, which is all nice and well on annihilation, but on watchman say bye bye to your buffed force melt because your zen charges will be eaten by barrage lmao.

anyway, great news! there’s a new addition to the blood fury / burning zen tooltip on the pts server:

turns out it is not supposed stacks of berserk! and after testing, it does work properly on both disciplines too this time.

but to my surprise, this wasn’t all! I decided to try some parsing on the pts despite my ping being less than ideal. and suddenly my crit is way higher? WELL - as it turns out, blood fury is now an autocrit too! and this actually makes sense - since it’s labeled as bleed damage it means it should technically also be a crit like the other dots are in the berserk window, and it actually does that right now on watchman on live too  - I just never noticed since the fact that the charges get consumed so quickly renders it useless and mostly a dps loss despite the crit.

so yeah, it might do even more damage. I’ve only done a few parses on the pts, but I was able to get even 1k dps increase out of blood fury alone so far and was able to hit 31k dps on the dummy without too much trouble (still one of my luckier parses though, its not like every parse on live i do is 30k). i’m tempted to play around with it more but my ping on the pts really isnt the greatest. on parsely.io there’s someone who was able to do 31.8k even - unsure whether they weren’t able to farm some of the new gear tiers already though.

but either way - top parse on live right now is 31.1k, blood fury making up ~1k of that damage there. doesn’t seem unlikely that you could then parse 32k with annihilation if blood fury will amount for double the dps it does now, so I wonder what kinda implications could this have. would be hilarious if all the former anni players who switched to fury at the start of 7.0 would now switch back bc it can suddenly parse really high (though it depends on just how big the upcoming fury nerf affects its overall dps - and again, not every anni plays with blood fury)

anyway i talked too much so huge props who actually read this tehee

[schizopositivity]

I deal with a flavour of likely schizo-spec psychosis that leans hard into paranoia and often flares my anxiety and depression. Sometimes when I get super upset about something, I start on a self-hatred spiral built on delusional thinking that only gets worse and worse until I finally stop and take a break from what's bothering me.

Is there any way to try to slow or stop spirals built on delusional thinking in the moment? Or is waiting it out the only way to deal with it?

so this is just my opinion but i dont think self hatred spirals built on delusions is indicitive of a psychotic disorder, especially if the delusions are things like "im the worst person ever" or "im worthless", just cause ive personally seen a lot of nonpsychotics experience this, i think this kind of thing is pretty common with anxiety and depression, luckily there are many resources out there to deal with this exact sort of thing ill link one

im not trying to belittle your experiences or say that youre not psychotic cause idk your whole mental health history, just based off this ask im relating it more to a lot of people i know who are nonpsychotic, also if this article doesnt feel like it would help you can google "how to deal with a self hatred spiral" and theres plenty of more resources directed at the person who is dealing with it and not from an outside perspective

[saprophetic]

would you be able to share the brand/model etc of your new chair? i hope this doesnt sound weird or anything you just seem to really like this new one and im thinking about possibly starting to use one soon and knowing where to start would be great

definitely not weird, i love mobility aids and will take any excuse to talk about them! my chair's a custom quickie nitrum from the quickie website. im pretty sure theyre like The standard for wheelchairs? on the site you can fully customize the chair you pick to match the specs you need — i wouldnt recommend doing it on your own though because the actual process can be pretty confusing. i ended up picking options that simply wouldnt work, so one of their workers called me to set everything up correctly. theres a lot of measurements & technical terms that i didnt understand well, but the guy who called was able to explain things and helped me get all the correct measurements. also he told me about the lightup front caster wheels and was very excited when i wanted them.

i WILL say that its extremely expensive; my insurance wouldn't cover it so i had to pay out of pocket with disability backpay. it ended up being just shy of $4k, but a lot of the options i picked were more expensive ones, like foldup handles (i need to be pushed sometimes but dont want to risk a stranger touching me without permission bc abled people are idiots). i just woke up so i cant think of anything else to add, but if you have any other questions im more than happy to answer them!

[love-you-like-the-movies]

hi hello can you tell me about the Aro spectrum??? idk if I fall there or if I'm normal so I wanna see bc I don't seem to Romance like my peers.... or older people.......... or little kids come to think of it................. anybody I guess XD

YES!!!!! At least to the best of my ability anyways.

I guess to start with the most basic point, someone who is aromantic experiences little to no romantic attraction. Similar to how someone on the ace spectrum experiences little to no sexual attraction. It basically comes down to ‘do you feel things differently than someone who is not aro?’ (By the way someone who isnt aro is known to be alloromantic, often shortened to allo or alloro)

I have the words ‘attraction’ italicized though for a reason. Think of it this way, someone who is ace can still be sex positive and want/have sex. They just don’t necessarily feel that way towards a specific person. Aromantic is the same way, you can not feel romantically attracted to a specific person but still enjoy romance (or not)

But it can be really hard to identify if you feel differently about these things. Unlike other queer identities, A-Specs are trying to identify a ‘lack of’. And because of that, sometimes it can take a long time to pin down exactly where you land on the spectrum. BUT I happen to have a handy flowchart on hand (im sorry I don’t remember where I snagged it from)

*Note: do not consider the flowchart to be 100% correct. Simply a tool to help you consider things you may not have thought about before*

The micro identities within the aro spectrum all very in how much and how often you feel romantic attraction, and also in how you feel about romance. Because just like how an ace person can be sex positive, negative, or neutral, and aro person can be romance positive, negative, or neutral. And it can even fluctuate!!

I highly recommend using the aromantic wiki to look up terms you arent sure about, but also tumblr has been a huge help learning about things

Personally, I fall under aro-spike. Typically I’m romance positive as well. However, Im not ace. So often, instead of saying Im aro-spike and having to explain it to people who arent sure what it is, I’ll either say Im just on the aro spectrum or I’ll use the term alloaro. Meaning allosexual and aromantic. (Theres a lot of history behind the terms used in the a-spec community, and honestly Im still trying to learn that myself)

And another note!! Its totally okay to be unsure right now! For a long time I wasnt sure how I felt, and simply said I was a questioning a-spec. Once I was sure I was somewhere in the aro spectrum (a fun convo there with a friend explaining to me that relationships are more than just best friend plus), I used a-spec. Eventually I settled on cupioromantic for a while. Until I found the term aro-spike

But uuuhhhhhh yeah. Yeah. Thats all I can think of at the moment. If you have any more questions or want me to elaborate on something just let me know!!!

[blueeyedangell]

!!! MAJOR SPN SPOILERS AHEAD !!!

Okay, so this might be a far reach but, I really am starting to think Cas is gonna come back. I’m gonna focus on this main point of why I think he’s gonna come back and they’re just hiding his return. Now, I’m not saying that Cas is gonna come back because in all honesty, I really have no clue if he’s 100% going to or not but I can give you some evidence that points to his return. 

Going back all he way to 15x13, we see the scene where Cas goes to the Empty trying to find the Occultum and talks to Ruby. I always thought this scene was a little weird because Ruby only agreed that she would only give him location to the Occultum if he would get her out of the Empty. She tells him that it’s full of, “sorrow and despair” then further states, “You’re clearly connected, Castiel. Just try.” She then of course, tells him the location before fading back into the Empty and that was the last we heard of that.

Again, when Ruby is pulled out of her “sleep” to talk to Cas, this is what it looks like. 

I thought maybe this looked familiar? Then, I remembered Season 15′s title card.

They look pretty similar, and I can’t think what else that black goo would be other than the Empty. Generally, they put something referring to the season on the the title card like in S8 we see Leviathan goo or in S13 we see Jack’s eye.

In the first gif, you might notice Ruby’s outfit. She has on a black shirt underneath with a dark blue, almost black looking, velvet blazer on top. Comparing that outfit to the photo of Misha and the actor who plays Uriel (Robert Wisdom), their outfits are slightly similar color-scheme wise.

Taking it back even further to 13x03, we know that Jack is able to wake beings up from the Empty, as he did with Cas. It’s obviously shocking, as not even God is supposed to have sway over the Empty, and this is the first time since the very beginning anything like this has happened. 

Here’s where the whiplash comes in; jumping forward to the beginning of 15x18, Billie sends Jack to the Empty when he’s about to explode. After he explodes, he is met with the Shadow of the Empty, who says one thing to him: 

“You made it loud.”

Basing it off the influence Jack has over the Empty, it might be safe to say he just accidentally woke up every living angel and demon to probably ever be in the Empty. Which- might be nice considering they have to fight against God pretty soon, so an angel/demon army might come in handy. But, also not nice considering the Shadow is pretty PO’d and also has Cas with it. Rachel Miner is also listed to be in 15x19 playing as the Empty, so hopefully we’ll get to see Cas’s side of things.

A few extra things, we still have that photo of Cas in the onion field. And I know they had filmed other scenes that were in previous episodes during the photo of Misha and Robert, but who’s not to say they didn’t film scenes there that we haven’t seen yet? Plus we haven’t had any shots of Cas in an onion field either, and last time the Empty shot him out he was in a field, hopefully it’ll do the same this time.

There’s also the theory about Jack becoming the new Death, which now that Billie is dying, would make sense especially after that scene that we saw with him and the plant dying as he reached out towards it. But I’m not sure how that part is going to play out either!

Plus, there’s no way, absolutely no way, that the writers are going to leave Cas’s story so bluntly shut. They’ve been planning this deal since S13, and wrote Cas’s speech to Dean the first day in the writing room of S15. I can’t bring myself to believe that this is the end they chose for Cas, but, only time will tell!