because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.
you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.
you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.
don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.
if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.
you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:
how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!
Dragon giving Luffy to Garp with the assumption that he's going to take care of him until he's ready to meet his son (because it's dangerous to have a child while he starts a fucking revolution, thank you very much) and then Garp just- Leaving Luffy on a village where he spends 24/7 alone waiting for the pirate he now considers his role model (because he doesn't have anybody else and Shanks is the only father figure around and he's just that nice) to come back from his adventures, and only being taken care of by Makino who has no responsibility over Luffy but still takes care of him because otherwise the kid would probably die from starvation, and lucky for him she's a sweetheart. And then he loses Uta, his only friend (with no explanation at all), to then carry the guilt of Shanks losing an arm for him and suddenly his legacy as a pirate. And then he's sent to another place with other people he doesn't know, because Garp thought "oh, yes, wonderful idea to leave my grandson with this depressed kid and some bandits" and Luffy luckily befriends Ace and Sabo because they're good people. Luckily. And luckily, Dadan is a good mom and loves them. But then Sabo fucking dies because nobody with authority was protecting these kids (I wonder who could've done that). And now Luffy has to carry both guilt, a legacy, and the biggest abandonment issues I've ever seen after losing his best friend and his brother when they were just children.
And I'm not saying Garp has made horrible decisions but he has made horrible decisions and Dragon should hit his own dad with Sabo's metal pipe.
so interesting to me how we've heard phil's perspective on meeting dan for the first time but haven't heard dan's at all (aside from the mr. burns comment lmao 💀). like i wonder if dan would agree with phil and describe himself as being confident, or if he was also nervous and either was good at hiding it and/or phil didn't see it through his own nerves
(slightly unrelated but i just realized this so i'm gonna put it here: dan and phil are COWARDS because why have they answered two different questions about first impressions and only talked about their impressions when meeting irl.... like why are they still withholding their first impressions of each other online (¬_¬))
The cutest reminder ever that the way family works in TSAMS canon is that two parties have to be in mutual agreement that they are family. If one party doesn't agree then they aren't family. Parties can revoke familial ties whenever they want and that means they are no longer family.
"Code Relation" theory is stupid because you're then implying that Eclipse is Sun and Moon's child. Which he isn't. Or that Killcode is somehow Moon's child and his brother at the same time that he's Eclipse, Lunar and Bloodmoon's "father" at the same time that they're Sun and Moon's grand children. Like, we're seeing the issue here, right?
Don't make things more complicated than it has to be. Just accept the fact that family is literally determined by a verbal agreement between two animatronics and nothing else because none of them were born from wombs. That means respecting canon when characters in canon decide that they aren't comfortable being family (like Eclipse) or just straight-up disown everyone (like Bloodmoon). It's okay to have headcanons, but don't try to push them onto canon.
In the days it takes you to heal from your injuries, Luffy comes to your bedroom to sleep next to you every night. He does try, the night after the first, to sleep in his own bedroom but he can't. Usually sleep comes easy to him, especially after a long day of adventure but not now. He closes his eyes, trying to think of your wounds healing, your soft breathing, your warm hand holding his, but he can't fall asleep. He huffs in irritation and rises from his bed, sulking across the ship to knock on your bedroom door and opening it slowly. You put down your book, you were also struggling to sleep, and open the covers for him. You smile at each other as he excitedly hops into your bed.
And so it becomes routine for you two. Even as your injuries heal completely, as the sunsets and the crew walks off to their separate bedrooms, Luffy follows you into yours and you let him. It becomes normal to roll over in the middle of the night and snuggle into his warm body, to wake up in the morning with his arm wrapped around you, to feel him pull you closer in his sleep, to giggle at his sleep-talking, to hear your name in his mumblings. You offer to let him keep his toothbrush and some clothes in your room, he accepts.
Sleeping together becomes so routine that you have trouble sleeping without him. There were times when you two would be separated by a foe that Luffy challenged and each night you would stay awake staring at his side of the bed, worry clouding your mind and making it impossible to sleep and eventually when Luffy defeated the foe, he would be covered in bandages and it was your turn to listen to his soft, even breathing as he slept. There were times when you be working late into the night and he would come find you, curling up on the floor next to you to sleep in your presence until you eventually finish and drag him back to your bed so you can both sleep comfortably. There were times when you would get angry at him for putting the crew in danger with his recklessness and you'd slammed your bedroom door in his face and toss and turn, your anger at him turning into desperation for him to just come to bed already, eventually you get up to find him and as you open your bedroom door, Luffy's sleeping frame falls on your legs. He'd been sleeping against your door. Smiling you pull his rubbery body into bed and cuddle up next to him, his heartbeat your lullaby. He smiles in his sleep and his arms come up around you. Whenever he's missing his hat or sandals, you find them by your bed.
This new routine of you and your captain sleeping together left your other crewmates with their mouths on the floor several times. They still hadn't gotten used to you two waving goodnight and walking into the same bedroom. When they would ask, you tried to explain but there really wasn't anything to explain. You and their captain couldn't sleep unless you slept together. That's all, why do they always stare at you in such surprise when you say that? Their shocked faces didn't discourage you both into cuddling up to each other at night, finding relaxation, warmth, safety, and comfort in each others arms. What was once your space becomes "our bedroom", "our closet", "our bathroom".
[A sad violin song plays over an image of a sad hamster]
Pac: This doesn't have anything to do with me – I wear a blue sweatshirt, you're crazy, this mouse doesn't even have a sweatshirt, this hamster! [Reading chat] Am I a depressed hamster?
[ Transcript continued ↓ ]*
–
Pac: Actually– that's fine! I embrace that idea – of course I'm going to be depressed, are you crazy? [He hits his desk, then starts counting off people on his fingers] Fit is gone, Richarlyson is gone, Ramon is gone, Bagi and Empanada who were always there when we were there are also gone, I haven't seen them! It's just me and Tubbo, and sometimes Philza shows up.
Pac: I lost Chume Labs, I lost the Favela, I lost Murder Mystery, I lost Ilha Chume Labs, it's crazy! Look at how much I've lost, and I've gained nothing! Of course I'm going to be depressed, are you crazy?! How am I supposed to be happy?!
Pac: [Reading chat] "You have us Pac," that's true, thank you. No, that's true, sorry.
* NOTE: Please note that this is an incomplete transcript, as I was primarily relying on Aypierre's translation mod at the time and if I am not confident of the translation, I do not include it. As always, please feel free to add on translations or message me corrections.
hey. when cis society is oppressing a trans man, what he is experiencing is. In Fact. misogyny. i'm sorry i know none of us like to be reminded of our agab, and it hurts whenever people perceive you as the wrong gender. but a cis person hate-criming, assaulting, verbally abusing, etc, a trans man is not doing "transandrophobia" because they do not perceive him as a man.
they perceive him as a woman failing at her gender, as a woman who has been seduced and lied to and manipulated because women are so easily led astray, just like it says in the bible. they perceive him as a woman who has been mutilated. they perceive him as a dyke that needs to be fixed. if they are hate-criming him because they *do* perceive him as a man, because he passes well enough they aren't thinking he could be trans, then they're doing so out of homophobia, perceiving him as a gay man, a pervert, a sissy, a danger to children. OR, they are being transphobic but specifically because they think he might be transfeminine instead. when cis society oppresses a trans woman, they are able to do it on multiple levels at once. She's a woman failing at her gender, a dyke that needs to be fixed. Or she's an evil and grotesque crossdressing pervert, a rude caricature, a danger to polite society. she will never be doing enough to escape oppression entirely, no matter if she gets every surgery she can and wears makeup every day and passes perfectly, because she lives under a patriarchy, and she's a woman, so she lives in a panopticon, and HAVING to get surgery and wear make-up to be respected IS oppression, especially if the alternative is being hate-crimed.
trans women (and trans men who pass) are not experiencing "transandrophobia" when a 'queer women and nbs" event turns them away at the door for being too masculine. they are. IN FACT!! experiencing the byproducts of misogyny in a patriarchy!!! where the terfs and coward cis women running those events and occupying those spaces have been taught (sometimes through experience, sometimes by men, sometimes by women) throughout life that men = stronger and more dangerous than women ALWAYS. That they need to protect themselves at all times and always be vigilant. That men and women can't be friends without sexual tension (and so as queer women the mere existence of what they perceive as a "man" is a threat). That women need a separate sports league because they can't possibly compete with someone who has even a little bit "extra" (an unquantifiable amount actually because there isn't a standard range) testosterone. That women should cook and men should fix cars. i promise you, i promise i promise i promise. it's misogyny.
like!!! you don't say cis gay men experiences "androphobia", bc that's not a thing!! you sound like fucking mens rights activists guys please! you don't say a black man experiences "misandrynoir"!! because living in a patriarchy fundamentally means men do not experience oppression based on their gender. its not happening. shut the fuck up.
stop walking us back to 2014 can we please take a step forward and stop bitching about this. there are genuine issues in the world and i'm frankly sick of people who should be smarter than that needing to be gently hand-held through this fucking explanation for the millionth time and still stomping their feet.
dude i fucking love how this server has communication as its premise and built into its fucking core. i fucking love that. bc it's one thing to be like 'this server is about multilingual communication and cultural exchange!!' bc that could present in any NUMBER of ways but like. with the federation and the eggs and a common shared goal they all decided WE ARE A TEAM. and like, ok,
when baghera was sus of jaiden because of the thing when pomme died and jaiden had been the reason baghera left her side for the only time that day, i wasn't even worried. i wasn't worried bc i was like "we just wait. because i know they will TALK TO EACH OTHER." and I WAS RIGHT. TWO DAYS LATER IT WAS ALL CLEARED UP AND BAGHERA WAS HELPING HER OUT WITH CUCURUCHO
and the ordo theoritas is functionally a secret organization. it would be SO EASY to gatekeep the lore, on grounds of "the federation is always watching and anyone could be a spy" and yet the ordo theoritas says that, like bad SAYS THAT, says OUT LOUD, "anyone could be a traitor" and then turns around and goes "hey person i've had a few days' worth of conversations with, here's a detailed rundown of everything we've learned about the island's mysteries, and the secret location of the ordo base". SOFIA was supposed to be secret from everyone, and for a little bit she was. but now like, the ordo theoritas is showing her to everyone. it would be SO EASY to hide things and to gatekeep things but they just. don't do it. here's the supercomputer!!!! don't forget to grab her waystone so you can come back anytime!!!
bad learns something. "i need to tell forever/cellbit/baghera". forever figures out a new way to protect the eggs, and he gets it to everyone within days. cucurucho tries to have a secret conversation and the entire server knows about it almost instantly and there are three people buried in the walls reading the subtitles and giving each other meaningful glances
i love it. i love it. miscommunication plotlines drive me up the fucking wall and the fact that i wasn't even SCARED when jaiden and baghera could easily have angled into an angsty tangled web of that and instead just MET WITH EACH OTHER AND EXPLAINED EVERYTHING AND CLEARED THE AIR ALMOST IMMEDIATELY was so fucking breathtaking. and this is a multilingual server. this is a MULTILINGUAL SERVER. i love it. i love it so much i want to cry. it's a server for communication and people Communicate, it would have been SO EASY to slip into monolingual factions and stick to the familiar but they DIDN'T. they DIDN'T. WE GET TO HAVE A THEORY TABLE WITH SO MANY LANGUAGES SITTING AROUND IT. we get to have conspiracy walls in every language!!!! idk sometimes i forget how fucking CRAZY all this is, like the scale of what they've accomplished
so yea thank you to quackity and the qsmp admins for this, and thank you to the streamers for hearing 'this is about connections' and taking it ENTIRELY to heart, and also thank you to whoever the fuck decided to give quackity's school class the job to look after a fucking egg to learn about parenting. bc holy shit. holy shit.
The state of the league of villains during act 3 is so sad man. Compress literally gave his ass for the league, got arrested and nobody gaf. Twice’s demise amounted to nothing, nobody cared. The whole discrimination arc Spinner was involved in was a mess. Suddenly Hori decided he cared about realism in his story so Toga dropped like a fly from a simple blood transfusion. Dabi is forced to sit and listen to Endeavor whine and yap about how sad he is about being an abusive pos, all the while nobody actually cares and he never got any real repercussions besides his family being (justifyingly) mean to him. Shigaraki was sidelined for a boring villain and was stripped off all his autonomy and agency.