#start arguing. now.

[inkskinned]

there are a lot of posts out there that are positive and healthy coping mechanisms for handling the holidays. this is not one of them :)

i think there's like. going to be times in your life you will be stuck in a social situation that you cannot escape from gracefully. i do not know why the internet doesn't believe these times exist. it's not always just that your physical safety is at risk - sometimes it's legit like "i just don't currently have the energy or time to put in the effort of responding to this." sometimes it's a coworker you hate so much. sometimes it's just like, fine, you know? like you know you can handle your aunt when she's cheerily horrible, but if you actually set a boundary around her, it's going to be weeks of fallout with your father.

i don't know why people think the answer is always just "cut them out!" or "don't let them get away with that!" because ... the real world is tricky and complicated. i think kind of a lot of us have an internal "radiation poisoning" meter for certain people. like - i'm talking about the ones who are absolutely giving you gradual ick damage. like, you can handle them, but you'll be exhausted.

and yes. you absolutely should listen to your therapist and the good posts about handling others and set good boundaries and take care of yourself. prioritize peace.

HOWEVER :) ...... since im often in a situation with a Gradual Sense of Ick person i cannot just "cut out" of my life (without losing someone else precious to me) - i have sort of developed the most. maladaptive form of mischief possible. because like, if i'm going to have to listen to this shit again, i like to have a little bit of private fun with it.

now! again, i am physically safe, just mentally drained by this man. you should only do this with people you are not in danger with. which leads me to my suggestions for when your Unfortunate Acquaintance shows up and says oh everyone pay attention to me.

my favorite word is "maybe!" said as brightly and happily as possible. whenever the Horrible Person starts in on a topic you do not want to go further with, particularly if they make a claim that you know to be inaccurate, do not respond to it. you and i have both tried to actually argue with this person, and it hasn't gone well, because this person just wants the drama of an argument. however, "maybe!" gives them literally nothing to go on. it is incredibly disarming. they are used to people having some response. they know they can't prove what they're saying, and maybe! treats them like the child they are. it dismisses them in the politest way possible.

i like to say maybe! and then, in their stunned silence, immediately change the subject. this is because i have adhd and i will have something unrelated to talk about, but if you can't think of topics fast enough, i recommend just pointing to something and saying, "isn't that lovely?" because fuck you let's bring in some positivity.

by the way. that second trick - of pointing to something and stating an opinion about it? - that just works on its own, like, 70% of the time. i picked it up from teaching preschoolers. it's an intentional "redirect". it stops children crying and it also stops grown adults from finishing their explanation on why women belong in kitchens. dual wielding!

keep it silly for yourself. i absolutely do not care if people think i'm fucking stupid (it's more fun if they do) and as a result i will purposefully misunderstand things just to see how long it takes them to realize i've completely removed them from the subject at hand. when they say "women aren't funny" i get to be like. "which women." "all women." "all women in america?" "no in the world." "like the mole people? the people in the world?" "what? no. like, alive." "oh are we not counting the mole people?" "what the fuck are you talking about." "you don't believe in the mole people?"

similarly, i play a personal game called "one up me." my Evil Acquaintance literally knows this game exists (my family & friends caught onto it and now also play it) and it always fucking gets him. i don't know why. you have to be willing to be a little free-spirited on this one, though. the trick is that when they make one of those horrible little bigoted or annoying comments they are always making, you need to go one unit weirder. not more intense, mind you - just more weird. "you don't look good in that dress." "yeah, actually, my other dress was covered in squid ink due to a mishap at the soup store." "you shouldn't wear such revealing clothes." "wait, what? oh shit. sorry, your son tears off strips when no one is looking and eats them. i swear it was longer before we left the building."

the point of "one up me" is to completely upend this person's narrative. we both know this person likes setting up situations where you cannot "win" and then they really like telling other people how badly you handled it. in a usual situation, if you respond "please don't say something that rude", you're a bitch. but if you let it happen, you're letting yourself be debased. they are not usually expecting door number three: unflappably odd. because what are they going to say when they're telling everyone how badly you behaved? "she said my son eats her dresses" ".... okay?"

if you can, form an allyship with someone whomst you can tagteam with. where they can pick up on your weird "soup store" story and run with it.

the following phrase is amazing and can be deployed for any situation: "oh, be nice :) it's the holidays!" i do not know why this works as often as it does. i'll say it for the most random shit. i think this is bc most of the time these people know they're being impolite, they just like to fight.

godbless. when in doubt, remember that you could always start stealing their pens.

the whole point of this is - if you can't escape. maybe see how long you can just be. like. a horrible little menace.

[crowcryptid]

V1, Revenant and Ramattra in a room

3 different subspecies of murder robot

What would happen

[its-koili]

i keep seeing ppl drawing their ocs / favs tasting lemons on twt so i drew this s a gift for my husband

[corviiids]

i think L should've tried harder to piss light off. provoking light into slipping up would not only be hilarious i also think it would be extremely easy and effective. not saying you could get light to actually confess this way, but he would definitely make more dumb mistakes if, for example, L kept interrupting their homoerotic brain chess matches to insist that kira is actually matsuda because the butts match

[r4bidcherry]

genuinely where is all this ford hate yall are talking about cause im convinced atp that ur strawmaning and/or playing a game of broken telephone

ford DID wrong fidds and stan us simply pointing that out or making what are clearly jokes doesnt mean we think hes horrible and doesnt deserve happiness yall are saying were missing the point of his character like no were pointing out how hes made mistakes and ended up hurting people who loved him that doesnt mean we hate him or that he didnt love them back or that we hate him at least not for me

like what is him being complex and morally gray means we arent allowed to talk about it???

[beelikesbirds]

GOD they really said “how thick can we lay on the weird courtroom flirting when phoenix and edgeworth face off again?” and went with AS THICK AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. JESUS CHRIST.

like i understand it’s hard for you guys to be normal about this but i feel there are some. important stakes here?? like multiple lives maybe??? no???? ok you do you i guess

[lady-raziel]

hilarious that with each new day that passes a new bit of dirt from JD Vance's past gets discovered and plastered over the internet...it's almost as if this is why presidential campaigns have always announced their running mates well before the convention...so that if glaring issues with a candidate came to light quickly there would be time to replace them on the ticket before they were officially locked in...it's almost as if certain things in political campaigns were done for a reason, donald...because the very same critical failures had happened before...but no i'm sure you and your guys attempt to recreate a fantasy version of history while ignoring all the reasons that history was a disaster will work this time...because you are built different and the 10000th time trying fascism will work like a charm...

[glorious-spoon]

i think that if you find yourself penning a post arguing that women are intrinsically too sentimental/hysterical/emotional/intellectually shallow/sexually frigid/otherwise deficient to have valid opinions about a fictional male character (excepting, of course, those women who agree entirely with your opinions), you should perhaps stop and ask yourself 'am i committing a misogyny in the name of winning a stupid ship war on tumblr dot com?'

and then you should shut the fuck up.

[budd-ie]

“Mu Qing is too logical for his own good” is such a real problem that he deals with and as tragic as it makes his life I also think it’s really funny when someone is accusing him of something and instead of telling them to shut up or leave him alone the first thing he does is pull out the 95 fucking theses detailing every single thing wrong with their argument WITH historical evidence and additional considerations from scholarly psychology articles, MLA format works cited and completely annotated. It could use an editor and some bias correction, but he actually makes a pretty good point. anyways tgcf ace attorney au when

[unlawfulchaos]

Ice: Hey kiddo, breakfast is ready.

Baby Bradley: Thanks. Should I give the old bitch some, too? I think he's upstairs.

Ice: We've already talked about this. Slider called Mav that ONCE in the heat of an argument and you are NOT supposed to repeat it.

Ice: Also, yes.

[bixels]

OUGGHHHH UR RARIJACK IS SO (explodes intio confetti with joy )

have uou considered: them trying on outfits they picked for each other?

or or or

Rarity washing and braiding AJs hair

or

Them celebrating the others birthday, trying to figure out what to get them and surprising them n all that

or them baking together and wgatever Ensues out of that

ANYWAYS KEEP DOIN YO THANG THEY R SO CUTE ❤️❤️❤️

Oh, I have lots of ideas for them.

Because I'm drawing them pre/early-relationship, I have a lot of stuff I haven't gotten to yet. I think, despite Rarity falling in love first, AJ is the most outwardly and obviously in love. Like, girl is in LOVE with her wife. The type to take off her jacket and put it over a puddle so her wife can cross. The type to walk around with hearts popping over her head.

Something I definitely wanna get around to drawing is how they were when Rarity first moved to Ponyville, because they would've hated each other, lol. AJ going from, "I can't stand her fake ass. 😒" to, "Yes Miss Rarity. Anything you want, Miss Rarity. 🥴" Or Rarity going from, "What a big, dirty brute. 😡" to "What a big, dirty brute. 🥵"

Anyways, later one comic idea I had for when they eventually get married is Rarity comes home to catch AJ trying to surprise her with a dinner. But things are going awry because AJ is so stressed and nervous about making everything perfect, and she even burns her apple pie. She has a bit of a breakdown because she feels she can't do anything right like she's supposed to anymore, and Rarity comforts her and tells her, why don't they bake the pie together? The comic ends with the two kneading dough together.

[clockwork-ashes]

i imagine eris and helion will love annoying each other

[lovegrowsart]

the argument i keep seeing that the choice qimir gives to osha to leave the island in episode six isn't a "real choice" because in the real world it'd maybe be realistically logistically/physically difficult to cross that body of water is driving me up the wall because it's such literal thinking when star wars has never been and will never be concerned with what's realistic or logistically plausible. there's fire in space in the first episode of the show, because fire needed to be there to give osha that moment of flashback to the trauma of her childhood and help further establish her character - it's entirely in service to the story, doesn't matter that that's not how it works irl.

the reason the ship is there is because it needed to be in the distance to facilitate the visual storytelling - osha looking back at the ship, her chance to flee/escape the underworld, then looking back at qimir walking away off screen and making the choice to follow him. that's literally (heh) it. he even suggests waiting for low tide if she wants an easier time of it if we're gonna be that concerned about how oh so terribly hard it'd be for osha - who is an adult ex jedi and a mechanic that does such dangerous jobs on space ships that the republic legit made it illegal for anyone but droids to do them - to manage a bit of a difficult swim :(

ymmv on the qimir being manipulative angle, but i think it'd benefit a lot of people's understanding of the dynamic between osha and qimir in episode six to remember that star wars is fairytale - it is metaphorical and psychological mythology. it is not realistic or grounded in reality, nor is it meant to be read with realism in mind, because then you're simply analysing/critiquing from a position that the story isn't operating from.

you don't have to take a creator's words into consideration when developing your own interpretation, but such things can be helpful and valuable. leslye headland's made her intentions re: osha and qimir's dynamic pretty clear - that it's not meant to be manipulative, that one of the purposes of episode six was to explore qimir's "lighter" side and osha's "darker" side (hence the wholly unsubtle costuming choices, him in natural-looking off-white and osha entirely in solid grey). while qimir isn't being wholly honest with her right off the bat (cause why would he be?), he also isn't deceiving or tricking her about anything re: who he is and what he's about - how could he? she knows his face. she knows entirely what he's capable of and what he did in episode five. he can't play the master and the fool the way he did with mae, he can only be as honest as a man like him can be if he wants her to listen to him. i don't think she's naive about him at all, and i think people struggle with understanding that - that she doesn't have any illusions about his morality or lack thereof - and understanding that she still has the agency and desire to listen to what he has to say. you can believe it isn't "good" for her to listen to him, sure, but that doesn't mean she's being maliciously manipulated maliciously.

[ellabswilliamson]

You guys won't BELIEVE the wip im cooking up rn

Ellie and Abby are arguing over something stupid (like who's the most traumatized or who's the most awesome or some shit), Dina is a mildly concerned but mostly neutral observer of the chaos, and Jesse is playing crossword puzzles and trying to ignore Dumb and Dumber.

Image description in alt text

Based off of the image below

[fluffypotatey]

Hangster Twisters enemies-to-lovers AU where Rooster and Hangman have different chasing teams (like, Javy with Hangman and Phoenix with Rooster or smth) and their respective wingman are like, "my brother in Christ, this would be so much easier if you two dipshits would just work together" and ofc they're both like "over my dead fucking body" but they keep ending up at the same goddam storms anyway.

"Fuck off, Bradshaw, I got dibs on this one."

"Dibs? Dibs on a meteorological event? Kiss my ass."

omfg yes!!!! they even have rival YouTube accounts and it’s a whole thing of like which side are you on in this niche tornado chaser community. Bradley’s channel is more focused on explaining the data and schematics, sort of like a virtual class on tornadoes and meteorology. meanwhile, Jake’s is a lot like Tyler Owens’ tornado wranglers channel where they do challenges and shit

however, after the storms all die down, both teams go to help the communities affected and even link charities to donate to, and it’s here where Jake and Bradley are at their most friendly because now isn’t the time to be causing a scene over something as petty as “stealing” each other’s thunder. this could even lead to both teams eventually coming together to create a solution that could “tame” a tornado

[tytoalbatross]

god damn i do not post often but can i talk about intentionality for a second?? one second please

i'm gonna be talking about bg3 but this really applies to any fandom space. people will, surface-level, agree that a Black character is not getting enough content compared to their white counterparts because it's. obvious . take wyll, who is several hours behind on voiced lines compared to other origins despite being one of the original five (before they added karlach and whiteified her too but that's another post). it's hard to deny cold hard facts

but then instead of engaging in content that uplifts Black characters and creators, they'll go right back to pumping out more and more content of just their white faves. on its own, it's not actively harmful, but here's what the implication is, whether they acknowledge it or not: yes wyll has less in-game content, yes his writing didn't get the attention it deserved, therefore i don't like him as much. it only perpetuates wyll's lack of content by contributing to his sidelining in fandom spaces

what i would love for fans who claim to be allies to do is to step out of the comfort zone of their initial favorites (which can, in fact, be biased!) and start pursuing content centering Black characters with intentionality. like all things, anti-racism (actively pushing back against racism rather than simply "Not Being Racist") takes practice and effort. you can't really agree with us that wyll needs more content, then in the same breath say that it's because of that that he's not interesting to you . the point was right in front of you doing a jig and you still missed it