#so any similarities to irl illnesses is coincidence

[forever-eternal]

Just got out of my tonsillectomy:

Have some more art for my Guiding Light (name being workshopped) AU.

We all know what happens after this...

An extra series of just Cadenza (oc):

[jefferythejelly]

wtf is going on between dream and quackity??? I looked it up but I'm seeing so many different opinions from people 😓 what's going on and will I have to pick sides? I'm just so confused by this whole thing 😭

oh anon what rock have you been living under (and can you take me there)

this got kind of long bc a lot has happened and it's been kind of slowly building up over a month, and i kind of used this as an excuse to do something i've been wanting to do and make a rough timeline of events, so hope you don't mind the incredibly long post. it has certainly been An April (/neg) around here.

march 10th- quackity announces the big project he’s been teasing, the qsmp, a minecraft server with both spanish and english creators. dream puts out a priv tweet the same day saying he’s been working on something similar to collaborate with worldwide creators and he’s mentioning it bc he doesn’t want people to be worried about copying once it’s announced (this is foreshadowing)

april 2nd- dream announces the united smp and its accompanying live translation mod with a video and a tweet. small note here that the video was originally supposed to be an april fools video at first, which is why the international creators are skinned as the different manhunt members, but was delayed by a day bc editing took longer than expected. discourse starts near immediately as drantis are quick to accuse dream of copying q's idea of a multi language server

april 3rd- quackity announces that a new live translation mod is being implemented in the qsmp. copying accusations are now coming from both sides. note that it has been 1 day since the usmp announcement, so the chance that q actually developed a mod in that time is basically zero. also note that dream said he’d been working on the usmp prior to knowledge of qsmp’s mod being public. this is confirmed by snapchats dream posted later this month of camera roll screenshots of photos of a whiteboard with brainstorming for the usmp with the date march 8th visible, which is prior to the qsmp announcement. the point i’m trying to make here is that the most likely explanation is that it's a big damn coincidence

on this day there was also a brief copypasta started by george and sapnap joking about the similarities between the two servers (the first multilingual smp with live translation). george goes live with the smp from his copypasta tweet (slutsmp) and several ccs join throughout (during the stream its implied he basically @/everyone-ed the entire dsmp discord). he makes several shady comments but at this point its unclear if hes memeing quackity, the fans making drama out of the situation, or both

kind of skipping over a few weeks here bc its a lot of the same Nothingness but basically: discourse continues to spiral, egged on by the fact that dream has continued interacting with/mentioning quackity but is met with radio silence from the other side. there are a few clarifications from dream on twitter during this period that the qsmp and usmp are separate concepts and that he does not hold any ill will towards q

april 24th- while already somewhat assumed after quackity announced the qsmp's translation mod, quackity officially announces that the qsmp will be adding worldwide creators

april 27th- dream drops this thread which i highly recommend reading for yourself bc it gives a lot of context. tldr: quackity hasn't responded to dream despite multiple attempts to reach out, from both dream and other mutual friends. dream doesn't know what's going on with him but doesn't want any more hate to build between their two fanbases. he is explaining this because he feels he should explain his motives/give context as hate has built up to the point of irl threats to himself and his family's safety. he says that he is changing the concept of usmp slightly so there is less competition between the 2 servers and reiterates that he doesn't want any hate sent to quackity and that he's proud of all he's done

radio silence from quackity for this whole day, and then:

april 28th- quackity goes live on twitch. he says nothing about it and announces the new brazilian creators for the qsmp

and that's... kind of where we're at? q has continued being active on qsmp and social media and has said nothing, mutual friends are continuing to interact with quackity, and we've kind of reached a weird stalemate.

there's also some small bits of context that are more on the fandom side of things as to why a lot of ppl aren't supporting quackity anymore, so i'll (semi-briefly) try to explain those here:

during all this a mod on the qsmp was (rightfully) called out for including a mob that portrayed incredibly racist stereotypes of indigenous people. q did eventually remove the mod after public pressure but his apology/explanation of the situation was incredibly lackluster, and he didn't address any of the server members who made racist comments about the mob or after the mod's removal. this soured a lot of people's opinion of quackity/the qsmp in general.

second thing is just general vitriol between the two fandoms. qsmp fans/quackity solos were already being nasty at the start of the month, and that only built as the month continued. i saw at least one instance of a fan supposedly being doxxed and having someone show up to their house over the drama, and heard of ppl having gore/photos of self harm sent to their dms (so y'know. classic toxic twitter fandom bullshit). i will say that the toxicity has recently somewhat risen on the dteam side of things as well, with people being a lot quicker to hate on ccs still interacting with quackity and generally being super neg abt q (tho i can't act like some of that anger isn't slightly warranted. hell, i've been super angry over this and i used to be a super big fan of quackity). a lot of people are disappointed in q's silence over this whole issue and believe that it is quackity's responsibility to at least publicly denounce the doxxing/threats being made by fans in defense of him, especially as it's something that dream has already done, both prior to this situation and during.

as far as "picking sides" goes... a lot of ppl here on dtblr have been doomposting for a while, and at this point quackity is basically in no one's good books. at the same time, most of the rational people i follow have been acknowledging the nuance of the situation, and that a lot of mutual friends may be caught in the middle right now (shit dude, you're talking to a foolish main and that dude's still on quackity's damn server). there's also the matter of dream basically asking people to stop fighting, which at this point i am very inclined to agree with due to the levels of discourse and toxicity that we've already gone through, plus i think it's a better alternative than the community self-cannibalizing any time someone mentions quackity

ultimately it's up to you to decide what you want to do with this info and how much you want to remove yourself/unstan ccs, but know you aren't alone if you're sad/disappointed about how this whole thing has panned out 🫂 it has certainly been quite the Month around here

[egopathic]

alright final thoughts on the “psychopath thing” before i vow to never speak about it again:

when i’m saying that i don’t think psycho/sociopath should be used in a serious context, i didn’t mean to imply one can’t use that word for themselves outside of a medical standpoint. i can only speak for my experience and the irl friends i asked specifically about this, but the word psychopath groups in a lot of people: a lot of people with personality disorders (most often the first two clusters), schizophrenic/psychotic people, folks with DID/OSDD/DPDR, addicts and literally just gay dudes in general back in the day.

to me it’s kind of similar to the word freak. many of us have been called that (that word coincides with homophobia, ableism, racism, transphobia and transmisogyny and a ton of others), and yet it’s not a slur, and not one with any specific group in mind, like say, the F-slur or D-slur. it’s a word used to descibe anyone who’s deemed different/weird/part of an out group. so reclamation doesn’t really apply as most people have used the word freak or psychopath on themselves for jokes or whatever and i don’t have a problem with that, personally. the usage thats actually somewhat dangerous, in my opinion, is below.

my problem, is in both:

the community who’s using it on tumblr as a singular mental illness identity and/or encouraging young people to do the same. it promotes pop psychology. treatment for so called psychopaths (at least the ones i’ve looked at) range from useless to dangerous. whereas with aspd, there is clear evidence of it and treatment paths that can legitimately work. specifically because good professional treat it as what it is: a personality disorder and not some kind of inborn evilness that’s hopeless. i get why people identify with it, i certainly did too for a long time post diagnosis. but feeding into systems and roles that were designed to hurt you and your community isnt ultra cool i decided. it feels punk to decide you’re beyond help or humanity, but it’s actually way more punk to try and take care of yourself and heal from a trauma disorder. also, to the adult “psychopaths”: stop acting like you’re any different from the rest of us, or somehow better than anyone who uses the term aspd. it’s like the spider-man pointing meme. we’re the same whether you like us or not

besides it’s lack of definition and evidence of being separate from aspd, i believe it’s a word that should be removed from psychology completely. literally the only “help” it’s ever done is slap stricter sentences on people for their mental state, or allow for massive ableism and abuse within the mental health system. people who are deemed psychopaths or sociopaths while in the system are treated like shit, abused and neglected because we “can’t feel anything” or “deserve it”. there is zero need for a word like that to stick around any longer.

lastly, this just irritates me to be honest lol. and younger kids who feel like they have aspd, don’t buy into this shit please.

[bettabythesea]

Some Thoughts About A Possible Connection Between Sonic, Shadow, and the Robotnik Family 

First, let me start by saying I don't think this little theory is by any means the intention of Sonic Team, but it's something I noticed and I wanted to share it! 

So, something that's always interested me is the in-universe explanation as to why Shadow and Sonic are so similar in their abilities. Because unlike IRL… Shadow came first, created as the Ultimate Life form 50 or so years before the plot of SA2. 

Created. Like he was specifically engineered to have the abilities he does, after a ton of trial and error. (See: Biolizard)

Sonic, as far as I know, is a natural occurrence. He just happens to be a really fast hedgehog that is capable of using the power of the chaos emeralds to do things like...perform chaos control and access a super form. Which I would think was just a hedgehog thing, given Silver's abilities, but neither he nor Amy have that innate superspeed that Sonic and Shadow do. 

Given this, one can assume that Sonic and Shadow just happen to look a lot alike and have many of the same abilities. But it being just a coincidence seems...really convenient, right?

Putting a pin in that for a moment… another thing that stuck out to me is a certain line of dialogue.

"Sayonara… Shadow the Hedgehog"

It's said twice...once by Maria as she lay dying, and then again by Sonic at the end of the final story, as he leaves the space colony ark. And while it's pretty bittersweet… it's also kind of strange that Sonic says it.

Like… that is a very specific phrase… and in Japanese the line is "Adios...Shadow the Hedgehog" so it follows the pattern or "[Farewell in another language], Shadow the Hedgehog".

This sticks out because, and my memory is a bit fuzzy… but i don't think Sonic ever even got a chance to know Maria said that...and it's sort of atypical to his usual manner of speaking, which makes it all the more curious.

Putting a pin in that as well… to talk about Maria for a moment. The poor kid wanted nothing more but to go to Earth and see it for herself...but she had an illness that prevented her from doing so. NIDS, or 

Neuro-Immune Deficiency Syndrome, likely meant that if she ever were to fall sick, it would be fatal. So she was confined to the Ark where research was being done in way of a cure and where her environment could be controlled to keep her safe in the meantime. 

What this boils down to is: without a cure, fulfilling her dream to go to Earth would likely kill her. 

So imagine what Shadow meant to her. Shadow, who was not only her friend and companion, but was created as part of the efforts to find a cure for NIDS. It's likely part of why she was so adamant that he was a hero… he was hope for the future manifested. 

But with the project canceled...this meant Maria hadn't been cured by the time of the G.U.N raid. So when she and Shadow were running to the escape pods...even before she was mortally wounded at the scene, I don't think she was planning on leaving. I think her goal at that point was to save Shadow, even if it meant being alone again. (Adding to this point, in the SA2 cutscene he is already by himself in the pod when it's all playing out, and it gave me the impression that Maria pushed him in there and shut the door.) 

So with all of that out of the way… here's what I think about how these points come together.

•Maria, despite how unfair her circumstances were, had a hero's heart and was ultimately able to save a life before hers was cruelly taken.

•However that isn't the end of her story, because her bravery was rewarded and her wish to freely explore the earth was granted.

•But for that to happen, she had to be reincarnated, so although her love of the earth and drive to help others remains much intact...the memories of that life are gone.

•...And yet, some of that story remains in this new form, as there is now an uncanny resemblance to Maria's hero, Shadow the Hedgehog.

•After all… the strength to fight and protect, the endurance and speed to run for miles...across the world, even!

•Maria was reincarnated into Sonic the Hedgehog himself.

[yeswevegotavideo]

Hi, my name’s (basically) Mercury

So @thegrandwilde​ asked me a question about my internet name, and I realized I’ve never actually explained the entire story of my name in context. Then I realized that, with context, it was an extremely long story, so I thought, “Why not make a whole post about it?” 

It is a long post. I don’t know if it’s an interesting post. It’s interesting to me, at any rate.

If you’re curious, or if you have any interest in etymology, especially the etymology of names, and of the reasons people name themselves, then read on, because I’m about to give a comprehensive account of why I’ve been Mercury on the internet for so long that, for quite a while now, I’ve honestly thought of it as my “real” name in a lot of ways.

So, I was a goth in 8th grade, a grunge-goth really. I was in 8th grade in '95/'96 so like...I basically didn't have a choice in being FUCKING OBSESSED with  grunge and alternative rock in general. And I was really into Courtney Love’s whole aesthetic at the time, so I sometimes did your standard, Riot Grrrl-style babydoll dresses with combat boots look, but also like, cut the hem off of my black hamper bag and wore it over a black slip and called it a skirt because fuck you, society, that’s why.

But the main reason I was a goth in 8th grade, is because in 8th grade, I had an enormous crush on Tara.

Tara was a goth girl who made friends with me just before summer break between 7th & 8th grade. We spent the summer hanging out, and she was kind, and friendly, and beautiful, and very protective of her friends (and especially of me) and within a month, I had a gargantuan crush on her. 

I had known I was bi since I was 11, when I basically came out to my mom (who, despite being kinda’ the worst in a lot of ways, was extremely liberal, and very accepting of my and my brother’s queerness, and of the gay community as a whole. Seriously, my mom was so liberal that my form of teenage political rebellion was being a centrist. God I’m glad I grew out of that shit. Anyway). But Western culture being what it was/is, I had little-to-no understanding of how to talk to, flirt with, or otherwise romantically interact with, girls I liked. That had not changed by 8th grade (honestly, in the ways that count, it has not changed, period). So I spent all of 8th grade pining over Tara, and Tara was the de-facto leader of the rocker girl clique (in the Sacramento suburbs in the 90s, you were either a “rocker” or a “rapper", and rockers did not associate with rappers and vice-versa, because the capital of California, one of the most (and for a few years running, THE most) diverse and integrated cities in the United States, was, and is, a racist, conservative hellscape, and I had way too much internalized racism to even look at rap music so...), and I was in her favor and under her protection. (Looking back, I’m fairly sure Tara had a crush on me too, so it really was your standard wlw standing around confusedly pining for each other in silence sort of situation.)

Which is why, when I came to school after missing a day, and she informed me that, “we all picked nicknames yesterday and there’s only two left, you can either be Mercury or Star,” I was not offended by her providing me with a list of approved nicknames that had been essentially picked clean already. I was, in fact, rather honored that I got to be one of the people who got a nickname at all. I associated Star with the character from the movie The Lost Boys, who I (rather misogynistically, I think now) found to be incredibly irritating.

So I chose Mercury.

That’s not the end of the story. That’s the beginning of the story. So like, buckle up lol.

So to rewind a bit, in 7th grade, I discovered Paganism. 

I was ostensibly raised atheist, but with an understanding that my spiritual beliefs were my own goddamn business and my parents weren’t going to make that kind of a decision for me (again, SUPER LIBERAL parents. To be clear, also SUPER ABUSIVE parents, but like, SUPER LIBERAL about it. Which like, growing up being taught that emotional expression is valid and anti-authoritarianism is cool, but also being punished for being a person with independent thoughts and emotions is...a whole other story. ANYWAY). 

I tried on Christianity for like, half a second, went to church with friends a couple of times, and 7-8 year old me was immediately like, “this is fuckin’ stupid, why did God kill Jesus, he’s God, he’s fucking omnipotent, he could just choose to forgive everybody at like, any time, nobody had to die, what a dick” and decided it wasn’t for me.

But I feel an inherent need for spirituality in-general, a kinship to it. When I played in the mud as a child, I was 100% one of the little girls mixing mud & grass & mint leaves with hose water and “making potions”. For hours.

And when I met a girl in 7th grade whose entire family was Wiccan, I was fascinated. So, it being 1994, I picked up a couple Silver Ravenwolf books and some Scott Cunningham and got to studying. (I know. I KNOW!!! I was 12, there was barely an Internet, it’s hyper-cringy, I get it, don’t judge me.)

The Wiccanism didn’t stick, but the Paganism sure did. (My “official” spiritual descriptor is, “Eclectic, non-denominational kitchen witch”. I worship no gods, but am happy to work with those who don’t require sustained devotion, and I’m pretty into fae lore. There’s also a bunch of personal spiritual belief stuff involving conceptual quantum and molecular physics, like, String Theory and the Multiverse Theory, and anthropological concepts about the power of language and story in human development involved, too. And I’m also very much a skeptic, it’s complicated. “I am vast. I contain multitudes.") 

And around Freshman year, while still figuring stuff out, I came upon the concept of having a magickal name. A secret name that one shares only with the gods or spirits when doing magickal work. And I already had Mercury, a name which was granted and then almost immediately forgotten, because we were 13 and had no fucking attention spans, and Tara moved away, and most of us didn’t even talk to each other anymore and...the name was, therefore, kinda’ perfect.

So I chose it for my ritual work. And then I noticed some weird coincidences. Like, I had a pagan calendar that listed stuff like moon phases and planetary motion, and it associated different planets with different days of the week. And the planet Mercury was associated with Wednesday, which has been my favorite day of the week for most of my life (oh wait, do you...not have a favorite day of the week? Is that just me? Anyway). And when I was in maybe 5th grade, I read this book that was pretty stupid and I didn’t even really enjoy, and I don’t even remember the title of, but it repeatedly used a symbol for “the mark of the devil” in its dumb ghost mystery or whatever, and as much as I disliked the book, I was instantly attracted to the symbol. It looked like this: ☿ I would draw it on things all the time, it was one of my go-to doodles. Guess what the alchemical symbol for Mercury turned out to be?  

So in 1999, when I got a computer that came with an Earthlink subscription, and I was really, truly introduced to the Internet for the first time (and not just like, AOL), there was really only one online handle I could see myself using. After all, I was anonymous, it wasn’t “really” telling people my magickal name if they didn’t know who I was, right? (And honestly, by that point I’d kind-of left that concept behind.) So I used Mercury. And whenever that was already taken, I’d use a combination of those nickname choices from 8th grade: Mercury Star, or Mercurystar. And that eventually evolved into Mercury Starlight. And that’s me! :D

It became my fanfic pseudonym (like almost immediately, because I discovered fanfic in the year 2000 and never looked back), and then on message boards or in forums, people would just, like, call me that. And over time, I really started to like it.

I’ve never liked or felt particularly connected to my given, IRL name. And I actually have a bunch of identity and dissociation issues tied up in it (whole other story, yet again), so like, sometimes hearing people use it makes me really fucking uncomfortable. Like, that’s not really a strong enough word for it. Like, I’ve honestly sometimes wondered if name dysphoria is a thing, like similar to gender dysphoria but like, for your name. I mean, though we most frequently associate the two, dysphoria isn’t actually unique to gender identity. It’s a somewhat generic psychological concept, actually. And names are pretty innately tied to identity and sense of self, and having a name that feels so incongruous with who I am that sometimes when people use it I literally feel physically ill, or depressed, or panicky, or get like, instantly turned off if somebody uses it during sex, like...honestly, that certainly sounds like a type of dysphoria to me. I don’t know.

But every single time somebody online calls me Mercury, I just...I absolutely love it. I light up. I feel seen. It’s...it’s just my fucking name, now, man.

Buuut, I don’t really have the guts to legally change it IRL. Not yet, anyway. We’ll see what the future holds. I don’t know, I think about even just casually asking friends to call me Mercury and just...cringe right the fuck up. It’s scary. What if people think it’s stupid? That I’m being silly? Lose respect for me? I know people change their names all the time, but like, that’s them. But for me? Scaaaary.

Anyway, that’s the story, and if you made it all the way to the end, like, thank you for listening?

[aethernoise]

20. What-ifs/Alternate Timelines!

Ohhh man. All of my AU/alternate timeline ideas are extremelyill-defined, this is going to be an absolute mess. But here are some concepts (this got really long I’m sorry)

Alyx AUs…

- Immortal Flames Lieutenant with Important Friends AU is the only thing remotely useable for RP if I was ever in a situation where I needed her to not be a WoL. Similarin many cases in terms of timeline, but her service and involvement with theFlames is far more prevalent because she is not occupied with saving the world. No Echo, but still an accomplished militarythaumaturge who knows and assists the Scions, particularly on matters of Ul’dah-Amaaljarelations. May or may not practice black magic on the down low.

This one has a possible branch in which she joins the CrystalBraves, though I am not certain to what end. One end is the Black Griffin AU,which is an extremely nebulous idea I have been toying with for a long time,meant to be a foil to Ilberd’s Griffin persona, though honestly even in hercanon ‘verse she has and wears the hood and develops the nickname among theFlames… more on this later I promise.

- Paladin AU, which really just for knight-in-shining-armorfantasies. Ideally coincides with @ahlis-xiv ‘s RDM AU purely for the combined aesthetic…👀

- Slightly altered normal verse in which she’s married toRothe ( @kukurubean ) for tax purposes or SOMETHING… this exists purely for laughs and theability to make ‘THAT’S MY HUSBAND/WIFE’ jokes. (Sometimes I like to think thatthis is actually canon but it’s so inconsequential in both of their lives theyroutinely forget about it and maybe have “oh shit that’s right I’m actuallymarried” situations with actual romantic partners… again, purely for laughs andfree cake.)

- Haurchefant Lives AU, pretty self-explanatory. This may or may not result in an eventual romantic relationship.

- Alyx + dragon blood AU….. maybe the most ridiculous.Slightly less ridiculous is the Aymeric is secretly a dragon AU, which I blame @newty for because she put that idea in my head like a year ago with adifferent hc ask. Both of these have heavy Estinien involvement and LOTS AND LOTS OF HERESY.

- Any modern/irl AU is just an excuse for imagining Alyx in silly irl scenarios, which can actually help with little character development details sometimes (AndI guess imagining Aymeric in suits 💦)

- I have numerous Bad Ending HCs, at least one involves herbecoming a Primal, or it’s revealed that’s lowkey what she’s been the wholetime. There are all kinds of angsty possible details that go with these… everysingle one of these ends with her dying, either at the hands of Hydaleyn, Zodiark,or her friends/loved ones :’’’’’’’’’’’’’’)

Brief but mentionable Rhodry AUs and ideas:

Horizon Walker AU (ish)– this is the current D&Dcampaign he’s in. He’s a ranger who can traverse the aetherial plane. Actuallyworks extremely well with his canon.

Rhodry also has a WoL AU in which he dies at Carteneau butis brought back by Hydaelyn to carry out her bidding. This is actually why I gave his in-game model scars and very subtle white highlights. He doesn’t know whathappened. (I don’t know if Alyx is alive in this AU. Sometimes I think abouttheir roles being reversed and how that would turn out.)

There’s also one where he is conscripted by Garleans andloses his memory and possibly his aether, another where both he and Alyx live in the forest (coincides with @ahlis-xiv bard AU, everyone lives, everyone hangs out in the shroud and makes music together), anotherwhere it’s basically Alyx’s canon except Rhodry is with her and also has theEcho….

LIKE I SAID this is all a huge mess and vastly incomplete… butthere are some ideas worth playing with for sure.