#low intensity

[banamine-bananime]

i really really like simmons quite a lot but i think i like him for different reasons than a lot of fans because usually i don't see the traits i find compelling emphasized as much as i focus on them.

really enjoy simmons as the intersection of "guy who Needs Constant Praise Or He'll Die Probably" and "in a constant state of agonizing about what is the Right thing to do/what he is Supposed to do/what is the Normal thing to do [while not seeing any distinction between these]" and "constantly chasing this ideal of being recognized and respected that is really not realistic, at least not with the way he's going about it like you can fill up the Respect Points Bar by grinding chores and the most obsequious dialogue options" and "would sell absolutely anyone to satan for a corn chip of that recognition/achievement/praise".

like

VERY fun to have a guy chronically brownnosing a) because he's genuinely reduced to an emotional wreck by any whiff of something adjacent to fatherly approval AND b) for rather cynically ambitious reasons totally ready to starscream it the moment he gets the opportunity. Very fun to have a guy who a) worries about things like recycling and veganism AND b) is down with turncoating and murder. Very fun to have a guy a) who idolizes and strives to emulate authority figures AND b) really at his core does not respect them except as someone who has achieved what he desperately wants, and secretly knows he would obviously do it soooo much better than these idiots. Very fun to have a guy who's a) really anxiously, fastidiously conscientious and cares about the right thing in abstract AND b) really low emotional empathy and gives surprisingly few fucks about other people when it comes down to it

because people contain multitudes, and characters evolve, etc. there's a wide spectrum of in-character simmons characterizations but i think the most fun are definitely playing with the ruthless asshole end of that spectrum lol. Obviously i don't mean like literally doesn't give a shit about anyone or would do LITERALLY anything in self-interest. clearly he does care (sometimes) and is not Evil. he's only half-evil on his dad's si- /shot

[rad-roche]

sock garters!

[paper-daisy]

It was not love at first sight exactly, but - familiarity.

[astraltrickster]

I want to introduce a disability concept that I've been calling paradoxical stigma.

What is paradoxical stigma? It's the stigma against:

1) The actually disabling traits of a disability that's in the spotlight for the parts of it that are convenient to accommodate, and/or

2) The diagnosis of such a disability itself,

Due to the assumption that the spotlight renders it "destigmatized" and no longer in need of support.

As of right now, at least around this corner of the internet, the most obvious examples of this are autism and ADHD. It's become disturbingly common for people to treat those like Diet Disabilities That Don't Actually Count. It's been really interesting to watch the popular attitude about these disorders shift from "autism is either a tragedy or an excuse depending on 'severity', and ADHD is just a myth used to drug kids into complicity instead of teaching them actual skills", to "actually these are real disorders that affect people in all aspects of their lives", to "I GUESS they're real disorders but honestly EVERYONE has them can't we worry about more SERIOUS ones?" and...not in a good way.

It comes up...partially as a legitimate backlash to people with these disorders who think that invisible disability and/or neurodivergence begins and ends at their experience, and...yeah, that's a problem all right, in fact if I had a dollar for every asshole who looked at my struggles with things like keeping my space clean or not fucking up my medication doses DUE TO ADHD and went "well I have the same diagnosis and I don't have THAT problem to THAT extent, obviously you're just lazy and careless", or saw me having an AUTISTIC meltdown and called it "bullying" or worse because I get loud and insisted that I NEED to CONTROL that CHOSEN BEHAVIOR if I want to not be a Bad Person, or heard about how AUTISTIC overstimulation defense measures play into my trouble with cleaning and insisted that well THEY'RE autistic too and don't have that specific problem so this is clearly weaponized helplessness because I just don't WANT to learn to do better, I'd...probably have a lot more assistive tech. I also get really, really frustrated and upset when people use RSD to mean "if you ever criticize me that's the height of ableism, no matter how much I'm actually fucking up and hurting you" - especially since it's so often invoked as a defense against being lightly criticized for ACTUALLY harmful behavior and as much as it sucks there IS no substitute to make that more emotional-dysregulation-friendly beyond basic kindness in criticism. That attitude exists. It's bad.

And yet, theoretically, I think we could all agree that the response to that should NEVER be to reinvent the old "ugh, those aren't REAL disabilities, those are just EXCUSES that LAZY PARENTS make for kids being kids, what they need is DISCIPLINE" stereotype of the 90s-2000s, just now aimed at those same kids as adults, in ostensibly supportive spaces - or arguably worse, to revert all our understanding of support needs to the externally judged high-functioning/low-functioning dichotomy.

What really sets this apart as paradoxical stigma, rather than just garden-variety lateral ableism, is that 1) we CAN theoretically all agree that reinventing those stereotypes is a terrible response, yet many people do it anyway, and 2) these stereotypes are invoked not only because of that intracommunity misbehavior, but both within and outside of disabled spaces, because of the illusion that you can bring up those disorders and have them taken seriously because fidget toys and stim videos and weighted blankets are popular now. An event having quiet rooms, or backlash to Autism Speaks being visible outside of autistic spaces, will be taken as "proof" that autism stigma is over forever and anyone who complains about it is just a whiner who doesn't know how good they have it...even when what they're complaining about is, say, being barred from migration. Paradoxical stigma is enacted by people who think that they, alone, are standing up against someone who's throwing others under the bus to continue to progress their own limited agenda...when in fact they're speaking a very popular shitty opinion, that MANY of the people making that claim would disagree with HEAVILY once separated from the "crab bucket reflex".

As a personal example, the result is that when I'm looking for assistance, I'm...hesitant to bring up those diagnoses, because I know I'm going to be written off as "obviously a high-functioning low-support needs scammer who just doesn't WANT to CONTRIBUTE TO SOCIETY and EARN things" - even by people who otherwise agree that people should be allowed to survive even if they truly are the living strawman lazy bum who has nothing wrong with them but just WANTS to lay around eating junk food and doing drugs all day, AND that disability deserves to be respected, isn't black-and-white, and affects everyone differently; somehow when these combine in the context of my diagnoses that have had a very sanitized version of themselves "destigmatized" on TikTok, they cancel out into blatant reactionary sentiment indistinguishable from what I'd hear from my shitty token Republican uncle.

So, that's paradoxical stigma. Feel free to use the term if you find it useful.

[cybertron-smash-or-pass]

TF One D-16

[icantalk710]

Quick compilation to show that I'm, for all intents and purposes, still alive in one way or another, hi 😳

[sensitiveheartless]

...Somethin' please!

Hiya, thanks for the ask! :D This is the fic which I started writing a while back and then completely forgot about (the non-descriptive title I gave it did not help lol) — but basically it's a very silly college AU where Albatross comes up with a very stupid plan for Chuuya to get kissed for the first time at a dorm party. (Dazai has known Chuuya since they were both fifteen and is internally Seething over the entire situation)

Here's a rather long snippet to give the proper vibe:

---

Chuuya sighed, and thumped his head back against the wall of the closet.

Worse than the indignity of it all was how boring it was. Time felt like it crawled by even slower when he couldn’t even check the time on his phone.

Like anyone was going to come in, anyway. What kind of weirdo would be desperate enough to kiss someone who was blindfolded? And to kiss Chuuya, no less. He wasn’t exactly known for his sunny disposition. They’d probably be too afraid of him kicking them.

Chuuya shifted restlessly. He could just leave, he knew. Ditch the entire party. It seemed pretty lame so far, and it wasn’t like Chuuya wanted to be kissed…

Much.

…Alright, maybe he was a little curious, just to see what all the fuss was about.

But only a little. It was just that he hadn't ever gotten a chance to fool around during his high school years, not with how quickly everything went to shit—and even after Adam found him and things began to look up, Chuuya had been far too busy trying to put his life back together to bother with dating.

Still, this seemed like a pretty stupid way to lose his first kiss. Why the hell had Albatross thought this was a good idea?

Ugh. Whatever. He would give it another couple of minutes, and then he’d leave. Yeah. No one was gonna come in, anyway.

Of course, at that exact moment, the closet door creaked open.

Chuuya stiffened, glowering even though the other person wouldn't be able to see it. Raucous sounds from the party outside filtered in with the mystery person, at least until the closet door latched shut once again with a gentle click.

…So there were people desperate and weird enough to do this?!

“Hey,” Chuuya said, just to break the silence. He could hear the other person breathing, hushed and a little fast. Were they nervous? “Come to take a shot at it? Honestly, I think this whole thing is stupid as hell, but I’m not gonna stop ya.”

The other person’s breathing did something funny, but they didn’t move. They had to be standing quite close to Chuuya, considering how small the closet was, but the two of them weren’t touching at all.

After a moment of expectant silence, Chuuya frowned. “Oi, are you really just gonna stand there?” he asked, blindly reaching forward. “Who are you, anyw—?”

Before he could get out the last word, Chuuya found himself pulled abruptly into the person’s arms. Contrary to his expectations, however, he was not kissed—instead, he was crushed against the other’s chest, his cheek squished against what he guessed to be their collar bone.

Chuuya blinked behind the darkness of his blindfold.

This person had snuck in here, just to…hug him?

If it could even be called a hug, because it certainly wasn’t like any embrace Chuuya had received before. Nothing like the brisk but warm hugs he got from Adam, or the awkward one-armed hugs from Shirase, or the enthusiastic bone-crushing squeezes from Albatross whenever his friend got overexcited.

If anything, this grip was possessive, and seemed almost desperate with the way the person’s fingers dug into the curve of Chuuya’s spine, keeping the two of them plastered together. They were quite a bit taller than Chuuya, and their embrace was so tight that he could barely keep his toes on the ground.

It was annoying, but also kind of…interesting.

Chuuya tried to focus on the feeling of the fabric pressed against his cheek. Knitted, slightly scratchy material—with cables? A wool sweater?

It was certainly warm. Chuuya felt like he was burning up.

…He had really never been held like this before. Like the other person couldn’t bear to let him go. For the life of him, Chuuya didn’t know what to make of it.

After a few stunned moments, Chuuya squirmed a little. The arms around him loosened at once, allowing him to move his own hands up between them and brace himself against the mystery person’s chest.

Chuuya raised his chin towards where the other person’s face must be, and cocked his head to the side challengingly. “What? Was this all you wanted?” he asked, tapping a finger against the person’s chest. “Maybe you misunderstood the game, hmm? I thought you were supposed to ki—”

[kazamajun]

[tomfrogisblue]

purgatory one was such an irl fever dream

No One Made It Out Unscathed.

everyone on every day at the exact second the server opens, weekly or monthly streamers suddenly becoming daily streamers, chill players suddenly calculating out which food gives the best saturation or how to get 0.1% of a point better on missions, Tubbo having actual nightmares, Cellbit's voice that wasn't great at the start taking even more of a beating due to constant screaming, Roier fully losing his shit a week and a half in - leading to a completely player-driven reset of how the xp and enchantment systems were being utilised (Because Everyone Was Fucking Miserable), the point where the gay ninjas had been eliminated but not told what would happen to them so everyone was like really weirdly intensely stressed out for about 14 hours, Tubbo just being too actually psyched out to beat Phil in the 1v1, how REAL the emotions were from the creators when they finally saw their kids again and THEN THE ROOF STARTED TO CAVE IN, loads of creators just taking a full break from the server when the nuke went off with a bunch of them not returning for MONTHS, the creators later being asked if they want to join purgatory two and many being like "lmao, no ❤️" and two characters (very much main characters in terms of lore) straight up canonically dying in the nuke blast

and there was just... a vibe to it. our eggs will die if we lose. if we're not being lied to AND if we're not the cursed team. how do we know who's the cursed team? should we lose on purpose if we're not? we're obviously the cursed team (EVERY TEAM SAID THIS).

and the chatters didn't escape the psychological torture this event organically produced. our children have been missing for months at this point and it almost doesn't matter who wins because everyone is at the end of their tether and absolutely every egg could theoretically die.

Enjoy, Sinners.

[fortunateoneironaut]

[sameschmidtdiffname]

Do y'all think when Peeta came back from the Capitol he was partially looking at Katniss in the manner he was when he saw her in such a disheveled state after the war partially because after an intense amount of therapy and prepping to live as her neighbor again, he was just standing there like "I was scared of THIS??"

[munamania]

yeah ppl who say nancy wheeler is the straightest girl they’ve ever seen just don’t understand her like i do etc but also they’re looking with their eyes closed on purpose because. hello.

are you serious rn

[plumbogs]

2024 simblr goals

get more weird

make those men kiss

make those women kiss

make those men women

make them kiss

[sideprince]

One of my HCs is that even though I think Snape learned a lot about teaching from McGonagall, he learned how to command a room from Voldemort. The combination of all the time he spent as a DE observing Voldemort and the insignificance of students' problems and complaints in the face of all he had been traumatized by seen and done by the time he walks in to teach his first class seems like a much bigger factor in how he takes up space in a room than what he picked up from McG.

McGonagall has the ability to elicit immediate respect and emanate an air of stature, but Voldemort has the ability to intimidate and strike fear in those around him. Snape didn't learn the latter from Minerva.

[bunabi]

also dentist update if anyone was curious:

I enrolled in an insurance plan and I have an appointment tomorrow for a consultation at a trustworthy place 💕

I have to waste time fighting the previous dentist into releasing the xray records they promised to send me days ago, but after that I'm evergreen baby