#it’s just very hard to unlearn

[crybaby-bkg]

it is so so so so soooo hard to unlearn that a problem not communicated directly to you shouldn’t affect your wellbeing and you can’t keep beating yourself up about something not being told to you!!!!!!!!????????? terrible thing to have to come to terms with. I hate it. (it’s helped so much of my anxiety when it comes to relationships with people.)

[sandinmybed]

can i be fr for a minute?? sending abuse to people online for holding different views than you is not activism and in fact actively hurts your cause. most people are not extreme in their viewpoints, you can give them a new perspective if you're willing to spend some time explaining shit. if someone is saying something you disagree with and you rush in there to condescend to them and call them disgusting and subhuman and dont even TRY to explain calmly why their views are harmful, they're going to shut you out instantly and double down on their views.

most people are simply genuinely ignorant to the issues they're talking about - they just pick their views up from the news and the world around them and express opinions because that's what every person does. if you run in there and tell them they're scum for it, what then? if someone does that to you, are you going to think "maybe i should do some research" or are you going to think "this person is an asshole, im blocking them." a lot of you think you're activists and then refuse to do any kind of actual WORK to support your cause.

[beauzos]

i know Nahyuta's whole thing is he's extremely calm and well-put together but i want this dude to be constantly under the threat of disintegrating. he definitely is calm and put together SURE and that is a core element of him no matter what (and i like that about him!) but i also like the idea of, once he no longer has to be that perfect person to survive, that the reality of everything, all his anxieties n guilt n discomfort with himself comes crashing in when it's finally safe for him to feel this way. a miserable kind of catharsis, but a catharsis nonetheless. a necessary one for him to unravel the real version of himself he had to keep deep inside. do you understand my vision

[wikiangela]

this might be a hot take but buck not dropping everything to be there for everyone (yes, including eddie and chris) and not trying to involve himself and trying to fix things he can't, and learning that he doesn't need to always be useful, is actually healthy and mature and character growth and not at all ooc

like, maybe sometimes we need to put ourselves first and have a nice relaxing evening after a hard day, especially when there's nothing we could really do? or do y'all like him only when he's useful to other characters?

(a reminder that buck almost lost his father figure: maybe he wasn't in a place emotionally to be there for eddie that evening, and weren't eddie's parents still there? why would he be there too when maybe eddie was talking things out with them? like I said before, we've really exaggerated buck's role in chris' life)

actually eddie asking buck to talk to chris about this situation was too much imo bc it's not buck's place (which he recognized and acknowledged and isn't this good for him?!)

eddie's storyline had little to nothing to do with buck, and buck still managed to be there for him like the best friend he is, without overstepping, and while recognizing that he can't really do anything to help aside from being there - and he doesn't need to physically be there 24/7 bc what for? to hold eddie's hand and tell him everything's gonna be okay? bffr rn

idk, some of the takes I see make me wonder if half of this fandom even likes buck

putting tags i wrote before here bc I'm not retyping all this but I decided fuck it, i actually wanna post it lol

[rileys-battlecats]

i really gotta get better about listening to my own brain and needs when i'm making things. i've been working on a video and i'm almost finished (yippee!!), but drawing this One Specific Frame was giving me trouble. i could have just brute-forced my way through it and finalized the initial sketch, since it was relatively good enough. but instead i left it and took a day off from working on the project, let myself recharge, and came back to the sketch with fresh eyes today. and what do you know, my redrawn sketch today is WAY better! now, i can finalize that frame and be genuinely proud of it, instead of just powering through on something i was less than happy with.

i hadn't done any other art stuff that day when i couldn't get my sketches to look right, so letting myself stop and have a break from the project felt sort of "unearned" i guess. but it's just. what i needed! and the break did what i needed it to do; i was able to come back later and make something i could be proud of.

anyway i guess this is me saying that, if you're like me and have this weird morality-complex about letting yourself rest, it's ok to take breaks, even if you feel like you haven't "earned" one yet :)

[jellyfish-grave]

The chart

[jankwritten]

yall wanna know how fucked up my anxiety is about some shit

i scroll past a post that's about a topic i don't like. whatever, it's fine. i scroll past a video that's a topic i don't care about. that's normal.

i scroll past a video that's a topic i don't like or care about but the person presenting it is a person of color? i IMMEDIATELY feel immensely guilty and need to "compensate" by "proving" it wasn't because of race by also skipping other random posts, JUST IN CASE someone thinks I'm racist because I didn't want to watch a video on a topic I didn't like or care about, that happened to be presented by a person of color.

this just in on: the police in my brain are loud and i'm scared of them

[biblicalhorror]

The most frustrating part of engaging in any of this discourse with pro-Israel people is that they claim there's just something ineffable about "seeing and understanding" how supporting Palestinian liberation is directly calling for the eradication of Jewish people (as if that type of rhetoric isn't exactly how actual antisemitism often manifests in online spaces but that's a topic for another day)

They get through people debunking the "the land belongs to the people of Israel anyway" argument and the "LGBTQ Palestinians are safe in Israel" argument and the "Genocide isn't what's happening here so you should educate yourself" argument and when all of those points are meticulously disproven over and over they still stand with "Well, myself and your Jewish friends see the hate you have in your heart for us" and it truly doesn't matter what you say at that point because even if you yourself are Jewish they will claim that refusing to support the state, government and military of Israel is inherently hateful and bigoted, as if a religious ethnostate is some inherent human right that is being taken away from them. I know many of them are blinded by the relentless propaganda that's been around their whole lives and how hard it is to break free from a belief system that is so tied to your core identity as a human being but it is so frustrating watching people being led straight to the point over and over again and just turning around and refusing to see it.

It's also so frustrating to see people using the momentum of this movement to casually tack on actual antisemitism to these discussions, as if having Jewish people in positions of power is why the US bends over backwards to excuse the actions of Israel and not, yknow, the fact that our government directly benefits from having a military stronghold in the middle east. I've talked to some well-meaning pro-Palestine friends irl who casually use antisemetic talking points because they've ALSO bought into the narrative that Israeli = Jewish and so they blame the actions of Israel and the IDF on Jewish people's "religious values" and ignore the fact that this conflict really has almost nothing to do with religion itself and everything to do with capitalism, imperialism and maintaining the US's status as a so-called "global power".

[eldritchmochi]

ive seen (and enjoyed) several posts about ashtons panic attack last week but i think the thing folks are missing about why they just... slipped away for it is just how *hard* it is to lean on someone when youve never really had someone you trusted *to* lean on. hes absolutely freaking out that maybe he might trust these assholes for that but not just yet, not for this, not right now, not as a whole fucking group with too many eyes on him, and ESPECIALLY not with a stranger in a position of power there too. nah, faced with that level of world shattering bullshit, you fuck off to have a private little freak out, then dust yourself off and go on with your day, cos you have shit to do and its *your* shit to do

i foresee him testing the waters for a good long while, and id bet they have little moments like the one with fcg a few eps ago, one on one convos for them to feel out, no okay *this* is safe before they push and figure if *that* is safe too, bit by bit before hes comfortable leaning on the hells as a group

hes gettin there tho

[astramachina]

if there is one piece of advice that i could offer writers that aspire to get traditionally published, is that when people say the industry is wholly subjective, they are 100% correct and coming to terms with this is the difference between continuing on and just breaking.

whenever i'm not getting automated rejection messages, agents who actually take the time to explain why they're passing on the manuscript (a HUGE rarity but i've been lucky this round) makes you realize real quick that it really does boil down to "actually, i just didn't vibe with it".

i keep seesawing between wanting to scrap or keep my opening chapters, and so far it's been pretty 50/50 between there's too much going on, and, there's not enough going on on most of these rejections.

the most bewildering comment i've gotten so far was that there wasn't enough worldbuilding in the opening chapters. not enough worldbuilding. in a horror novel. a contemporary horror novel. something that goes against every standard regardless of genre.

like, zoinks scoob. it's all good. i'm confused, but we're chill about it.

[electriccenturies]

I know I say this a lot but... I seriously can't believe that I spent half my life convinced that I had to agree with anything anyone said about the world — no matter how obviously false, no matter how absurd — if they said it with enough emotionally manipulative language

its actually really really sad :(

[ohdorothea]

I wanted to say something about the three lyrics in the last reblog but I didn’t wanna both op in the tags so…

I think a lot about the conversation Jack and Taylor have before this is me trying in the folklore long pond sessions. I feel like the conversation (and the song) are perhaps the most explicit Taylor has been about the affects of 2016, and the depths of Taylor’s mental health struggles in general.

This is where I start to feel uncomfortable talking about my interpretations on the song and the lyrics it was paired with in the last reblog because I don’t want to speculate about a real persons mental health which makes it difficult for me to be transparent but yeah…

I just wonder if Taylor is going to perhaps be even more explicit on TTPD given the themes of the visuals and the bonus track The Black Dog? But also the Midnights visuals were such a bait and switch I don’t know!!!

[nico-the-overlord]

i need to know your favorite sanders sides quote, or one from each side

Gosh well first that come to mind…

Roman: I am bitterly jittery and not very glittery!

Patton: It isn’t you these thoughts you’re thinking!

Janus: You’re not stuck with a evil snake boy…you’re just stuck with a snek boi (:<

Logan: FALSEHOOD.

Remus: ah, BITCH?

And I can’t think of one for Virgil…perhaps the witching hour quote or “you tried, you failed, let’s go to sleep”? This has been sitting in my box for a while because idk and I know I am def forgetting so many good lines, hope I’m not misquoting off of memory😭

[allthoseotherworlds]

It's wild to be at a social event and be enjoying yourself but also very aware that you are like. Being social in obviously autistic ways, and feeling kind of anxious and annoying about it,

And then to have someone reach out to you afterwards to let you know that they appreciate your presence and thought you had interesting things to say.

Like, huh, maybe my internalized ableism is incorrect actually

[volstruckerz]

thinking a lot about caleb’s 16 charisma and how carefully he chooses his words and about his proficiency in deception, persuasion, and intimidation. thinking about how a lot of what caleb says can be confusing because i feel like he is often at a war with himself between saying what he really means and feels vs. saying what is “right” or the most effective in a present situation.

i find it interesting that you can interpret a lot of what caleb says as both his genuine feelings and as something carefully constructed to fit a certain person, situation, or goal, depending on what he wants out of it, i.e. comforting fjord or any of the other party members, telling beau about his past to get into the cobalt soul library but carefully omitting key details. like yes, he wants to comfort them, but he also can’t quite remember how to talk to people just as “friends,” with no ulterior motive, transactions, pursuing a certain agenda, or racking up favors (this is where i feel his social awkwardness comes from, the stilted but earnest way he says he’s learning how to “people again” despite seeming to be very good at negotiating, bargaining, or deceiving. friendship is different than understanding how to use people for your own gain). 

i find it especially tragic that ikithon probably saw bren’s somewhat instinctual sense of empathy and bleeding heart and warped it for his own personal gain, to teach him how to use that to deceive and use others. this also explains caleb’s later insistence that he’s been “using” the nein, which veth later points out just sounds like he’s relying on others, just as they all are, because they are friends and family. for all his understanding of people, he has to relearn how to form relationships with them that aren’t a means to an end, which becomes super evident in the campaign.

i think caleb finds himself wanting to change because of how much he cares about the nein, despite everything in him telling him not to. he finds himself trying, after all these years, to be a good friend, but it’s fucking hard — after so long of learning to be a practiced deceiver and manipulator who thought of friendship as something you would never deserve again, how do you try to begin again?

i find it hopeful that caleb’s immense capacity for empathy and understanding others stayed constant with him through everything and that he was almost helpless to it (i also find it important that while caleb was helpless to his heart, actually trying to grow and be a better person took intent and practice, not something that just happened. it was something he had to intentionally work towards for a long time) — that no matter how much he wanted to just gain more power and pursue his ultimate goal, he still found himself loving veth beyond a mere partnership but as someone like family, and that he grew attached to her and loved the mighty nein and started to do things for them that didn’t really help him at all but simply because it was important to them and. and that he still loved astrid and wulf after everything. this is how caleb, who is constantly afraid he is exactly what ikithon made him, really shows that he isn’t him (“not yet,” to quote beau) for several reasons: because he tries, because he cares about hurting them, because he has a heart that loves, despite everything.

i find it very compelling that to have a very perceptive understanding of people can either lead to an immense capability for empathy or manipulation, and that it is a choice caleb often wars with — saying or doing the most effective thing that he was taught to do or acts of love that are ultimately riskier, left you more vulnerable, and are a gamble in its effectiveness. it’s a struggle he faces for most of the campaign as he grows, and i find it very realistic that the change doesn’t happen in an instant — it happens gradually, where the audience starts to become confused between deception and vulnerability, where we start to see a mix of the two. i find it important that just because caleb’s first attempts at comfort don’t start as something wholly vulnerable and straight-forward, that he’s still trying and that most of it still comes from his heart, even if he’s also still trying to control a situation, i.e the “you were not born with venom in your veins” speech to essek. that when caleb would have never been vulnerable with these colorful group of assholes, he finds himself wanting to open his heart and trying, in his stilted, confusing way, to let himself love again, simply for its own sake. i find it very human, hopeful, and super compelling to watch play-out throughout the campaign as he grows more into himself.

[literalite]

hi! i recently came across your blog and i love everything i'm seeing! a quick question that i hope makes sense, tips on making ocs in the sims? when creating a character do you know off the bat their ethnicity and all those details or is it just randomly making them? i'm trying to create some characters that have been bouncing around my head but i get stuck on the details

hmmm ik the process is diff for everyone but me personally i usually trawl my face inspo pinterest board for ideas if i'm like deliberately making a character for Something... i almost never stick to a single face i usually cherrypick what i feel works for the character and kind of riff off of what i feel like their i guess place and emotional standpoint would make sense.. in. i guess 😭😭 im sorry im just saying shit but sometimes its random sometimes its not but i like to keep it as loose as possible initially and i decide specific ethnicity/religion/etc etc etc like... once i'm pretty much complete