#i'm like. things are fine :)

[mothwriter]

[queerasflux]

man I wish people understood how much it sucks ass to be neurodivergent and trying to find the middle ground where people like/tolerate you. like, I'm either "boring" (trying to wait my turn in conversations, holding space for other people, taking a back seat to let others get some spotlight) or "too much" (too loud/talking too much, getting excited to share, trying to participate in group conversations/activities). No one really talks about how much of being neurodivergent is just sort of trying to make yourself palatable.

I feel like so much of my life has been spent trying to find this effortless sort of middle ground everyone else seems to automatically already know, and I'm always swinging too far one way or the other. I'm lucky to have neurodivergent friends who grok me, but goddamn I wish that I could just like, exist without the constant background script in my brain that's like "you're being too loud. You're not talking enough. you're being self-centered. you're being boring. you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong." I feel like I'm back in high school trying to make friends but stuck as the eternal "weird kid"

it's just... lonely and sucks bad.

[nadiajustbe]

One of my favorite parts about the writing of Howl's Moving Castle is how easy it is to write off all the things from our world at first as him just being a weird wizard™ (also thanks to bestie @jutenium for spotting this I wouldn't put it like that without you!!/pos). Sure, Sophie uses weird descriptions, but readers have every reason to believe them because of the way Howl is presented as a character. When Sophie says he wrote with a quill that doesn't need an ink, you wouldn't think it was actually a ballpoint pen, you would think Howl had just enchanted his quill so that it wouldn't need ink! When she adds that she can't make out a single word, you think he has matchingly terrible handwriting, but in fact Sophie has simply never seen a pen writing. When she sees the mysterious labels on his books, you think he's keeping a lot of obscure magical literature, but it's really just an encyclopedia and a guide like "Top 10 Rugby Tips." When Sophie notices the bottles in Howl's bathtub, you think they're some kind of magical jars where he keeps girl's hearts, but I'm almost certain that they're just 'Dove' and 'Head and Shoulders' that he's enhanced with his spells and put silly labels on. When you read Calicifer singing a song in a language Sophie doesn't understand, you think it's some kind of ancient cipher or code, but it's actually just a rugby song in Welsh that Howl sings when he's drunk. And finally, when you see the terrifying black door, which is completely shrouded in darkness, you imagine a passage to an eerie, mythical place, similar to what Miyazaki showed us - but it's just fucking Wales.

[inkskinned]

i had a dream last night that i organized a tumblr meetup and we all agreed to go to a local bar together. so i go to the bar but it was a really busy night and i didn't want to ask every stranger "are u here for tumblr reasons" bc that's embarrassing and i'm shy. so i just got a drink and felt very awkward & hoped someone would approach me. tried to look inviting and like i was from tumblr but not like i was "from tumblr". when i left some girl stopped me to ask if i was there for the meetup but i was too shy and asked what's tumblr?

in the dream i went home to make a post about how nobody showed up to the tumblr meetup but my entire dash was people saying they'd gone to the bar but were too fucking shy to admit to being on tumblr so we'd all just had a drink and gone home

[tofixtheshadows]

This is one of my favorite minor details in Dungeon Meshi, firstly because what in the femme fatale, but also because it's one of those little things that raises so many questions about worldbuilding.

The Occam's Razor defense attorney in me says that Ryoko Kui gave Kabru a boot knife because she wanted him to escape from his bonds here. And Kabru is a very competent swordsman, why wouldn't he have a boot knife, sure. He's already got a dagger, he can have this too.

And yet: the implications. Kabru, why do you have that? That is not remotely something that could be easily accessed or used in combat. Nobody is pulling out a pen knife from the heel of their boot during a fight with a monster. It's useless in the dungeon ... unless you're the type of person who isn't just worried about monsters.

I've mentioned this before, but I consider one of Kabru's functions in the narrative as being the character who fully brings the idea of human ecosystems into the story. There's a reason why he's always connected to large groups of people (Toshiro's party, the Canaries). He (along with Mr. Tansu, briefly) introduces the reader to the social and political forces working on the dungeon, showing us that none of this is happening in a monster-filled vacuum. His confrontation with the corpse retrievers, who very nearly kill Kabru's party permanently with their reckless murder-for-money scheme, reminds us that monsters are not the only things that prey on humans. Kabru understands the ways the dungeon causes people to put profit over human lives.

We only get hints of it in the story, but like any gold-rush-style economic boom, it's implied that there is a lot of crime and corruption surrounding the dungeon.

So yeah, it really makes me wonder why Kabru keeps a tiny knife in his boot, meant to be carried on him even in situations where he would otherwise be unarmed. Stored exactly in the place where it's easy to reach, even if, for some reason, your hands are tied behind your back.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

anyone else have multiple traumatic memories associated specifically with holidays/family vacations? because that is a topic I never see discussed in all the So You Had A Shitty Childhood, Now What? self-help books i've been reading. but for me, it was a significant thing. and the more i think about it the more it seems like this would be an (unfortunately) common experience. would be grateful to hear if this matches other peoples' experiences...

[bixels]

tarpit site.

[fernsnailz]

sorry these kinds of comments have been really pissing me off recently lol

[moderndaypandora]

i recognize that simon and edwin meeting and parting in hell is narratively very good and provides closure for all. but imagine if simon had agreed to try and escape with edwin. and charles doesn't have time to really question it, because anybody who likes edwin is aces in his book and it's hell, they need to leave. (edwin, out of courtesy to their third companion, puts his plan to confess on hold until they've escaped.)

suddenly the edwin harem of "supernatural boys who all hate each other but are attracted to that negative rizz" gains another member, and at some point edwin is going to have to mention that simon was the boy who sacrificed him to hell.

the chaos. crystal's bitchy commentary. charles going from friendly smiling to clutching his cricket bat. niko's whispering "200k slow burn schoolboy rivals to lovers" with heart eyes. it'd be chef's kiss good. edwin fleeing to his books and praying that nobody, but especially not the cat king, finds him because there has been SO MUCH emotion already. hysterical.

[the--nightcrawler]

On shore leave ✶⋆.˚ Part 1 ♡ Part 2, Part 3

[forgettable-au]

FORGETTABLE-AU (Page 40-43)

* I didn't know the lab could look so creepy...

[BEGINNING] [PREVIOUS] [CONTINUE]

[lizardkingeliot]

A last dance before the feast.

[redgoldblue]

'oh eddie getting jealous' this 'buck's first gay sex experience' that. what I want to see is, in the early days after Buck comes out, Tommy very gently pushing him against the wall in the lower level of the firehouse and sweetly but thoroughly kissing him goodbye before pulling back and smiling and leaving. and a 10 second close shot on Buck still leaning against the wall all blushing and giggly before we pan back to see half the Fam on the top level leaning over the railing as Chim wolf-whistles

[hopefulsapphic]

i'm an early seasons steve harrington apologist. sorry. he was not a bad person he was not a bad boyfriend he was literally just 17

[agir1ukn0w]

sorry but snow is such a well written iconic villain and donald sutherland performs him so fucking good it's almost hilarious how i start practically foaming at the mouth every time the man opens his mouth to say something deplorable in those movies, like he's so utterly and despicably wrong about almost every crucial thing from katniss and peeta's relationship to human nature as a whole and yet the second he starts talking about how hope is the only thing stronger than fear and how you have to allow a little hope but control it so its spark doesn't grow into revolution and how it's the things we love the most that destroy us you bet your ass i am on the floor screaming crying throwing up because that is my psychotic mustache-twirling villain RIGHT THERE

[bongosinferno]

A devastating and confusing thing about the Fallout setting, when you explore the pre-war aspects, is what the creators think about pre-war America. In the first games we only get hints of the pre-war world, but they seem to be some sort of wild fascist nation invading Canada. In Fallout 1, the first thing we're introduced to of the pre-war society is seeing a soldier shoot civilians and laughing.

Now, for the first 2 games and New Vegas we don't really know much. What we know is that there's a fascist military group known as the enclave who were a sort of US deep state even before the war, and that the government teamed up with corporate interests to preform vaguely MKULTRA-ish experiments with the Vaults. Basically, the government was an extreme version of the 50s American jingoism and McCarthyism.

This is well and dandy, I guess issues come up more when we get to the later games, especially 4, where it seems like none of this extreme plotting and societal civil unrest which would exist is seen. The society as presented in 4 also seems quite progressive, gay people are featured in the opening, and none of the baggage of say, civil rights not existing are included. Now on a baseline, I don't want settings to be more conservative, homophobic and sexist etc., but it becomes a very confusing setting when it's displayed both as this jingoist extreme thing with fascist tendencies aswell as a progressive place where everyone is seemingly equal. If you're focusing on the 50s as your setting, and American nationalism in the 50s, then you can't have McCarthyism spoofs and anti-communism as a societal paranoia norm while also general equality is the norm without misunderstanding why McCarthyism and nationalist jingoism is bad. A massive harm done in anti-communist paranoia is how it degrades and vilifies any progressive movements (women's rights, civil rights, homosexuality) as being morally un-American and therefore connected to communism. To ignore this just makes any critique of MacCarthyism and jingoism weird!

Basically, pre-war America in Fallout 4 becomes this both sides thing where America is both pure and equal and white fences in every instance that we see as the player (the intro), while also supposedly being this dystopic MacCarthyist hellscape that's broadcasting gladly about their war crimes in Canada, and wants to root out communism. I guess the only fix for this issue without getting into the fine print like they had to do is just not to focus too much on the pre-war world.