#think i might be longterm insane about them

[onthewaytosomewhere]

ok so it's wednesday and we're doing some southern philanthropy again cuz liam/pez is what i have more words of and not the thing i can't really post....cuz it's a kinda-secret thing

so here we go i'll start this off and then attempt to go to sleep maybe

Percy’s hand on his lower back brings him out of his thoughts, and Liam’s eyes are drawn to the plush lips that look like they are made for kissing. He hasn’t been kissed in more than a year and most of the kisses towards the end of his relationship with Spencer were less than satisfactory. Liam slides his hand up Percy’s arm; as it rests on his shoulder, he makes the decision. Apparently, the feel of a muscular bicep is enough to make him weak. He leans in to be heard over the music and doesn’t have to yell, and asks, “Can I kiss you?” Percy laughs and smiles up at him, “If you don’t, I’m going to be very upset.” Liam watches the way Percy’s teeth pull at his lip, and he wants to drag his own teeth across it. Liam bends down just a bit, and the way their lips perfectly slot together is thrilling. The slow slide of their lips against each other makes Liam want more. He chases a rush he’s not experienced in so long and slides his tongue just past Percy’s lips, not a lot, just enough to taste the whiskey still lingering from their drinks. He’s unsure which of them moans, but he pulls back slightly at it; Percy’s lips follow his though, and they continue kissing. Liam is thrilled to be in a club again, kissing and dancing, chasing the feeling of joy that a good kiss gives him.

no-pressure tags beneath the cut on this lovely wednesday 💚

💚first i'm tagging back the peeps who tagged me on sunday for this lovely wednesday of wips, (while i was driving across 5 states to get home) @jmagnabo92 @tailsbeth-writes @priincebutt @cha-melodius @suseagull04

@heysweetheart-writes @wordsofhoneydew @lizzie-bennetdarcy @thesleepyskipper

@taste-thewaste @littlemisskittentoes @stellarm

💚and some more peeps cuz well i'm just gonna tag everyone cuz that's how i'm rolling today @adreamareads @agame-writes @anincompletelist @bitbybitwrites @blueeyedgrlwrites

@dragonflylady77 @duchessdepolignaca03 @england-would-fall @firenati0n @firstsprinces

@forever-fixating @getmehighonmagic @hgejfmw-hgejhsf @inell @inexplicablymine

@itsmaybitheway @jellibuns @junebugclaremontdiaz @kiwiana-writes @mikibwrites

@msmarvelouswinchester @nocoastposts @piratefalls @softboynick @sophie1973

@thedramasummer @theprinceandagcd @thinkof-england @tinyarmedtrex @typicalopposite

@yrsacdfox @indestructibleheart @everwitch-magiks @cricketnationrise @orchidscript

@captainjunglegym @eusuntgratie @bigassbowlingballhead @violetbaudelaire-quagmire @oxfordslutphase

have a wonderful wednesday filled with all the words peeps 💚💚

for the record tags are still screw-y

[purpleserpents]

insane ramblings

trying not to lose too much sleep over the latest leaks (and failing).

genuinely miserable thinking about alicent’s potential suicide attempt. the only thing that would make it even worse if she does it during some sort of random journey with criston outside of kings landing. there is speculation that this scene is somewhere in the crownlands. at the same time there is speculation that criston is not present in this scene because fabien wasn't on set with olivia.

my only sliver of hope is the rhaenicent end of season reunion, which i would say it's almost guaranteed. i'm guessing that they'll probably parallel the sept scene fairly heavily. i would love to see the inversion of roles taken to the fullest extent. in 2x03 alicent looks so regal in the sept, and rhaenyra meets her as a septa, dressed as a common servant of the realm. it would be crazy to now see dragonstone rhaenyra in her best dragon scale dress meeting alicent at her lowest point of the season, disheveled and suicidal, begging for some semblance of peace. i would probably cry but it would make for great storytelling.

my fear is that they’ll take the parallel too far because they can’t write for shit and alicent will leave somewhere that will make the story worse. olivia has mentioned alicent finding freedom in the final arc of this season, and this is really what's eating at my brain. the places alicent could go longterm:

dragonstone: if the rhaenicent reunion happens, she will have to stop at dragonstone regardless. some possible theories: 1) alicent could be taken prisoner here, but the fandom consensus seems to be that it's too early for that. this would also be the complete opposite of alicent finding her freedom, as olivia has implied. so i think this one is unlikely. 2) alicent stays in dragonstone with some sort of agency. i think the best possible version of this would be a full alicent turncloak arc. this would obviously be another huge deviation from the books, but i've seen some really interesting speculation about how if alicent had switched sides, TB could have spun it as alicent being taken captive, which would look a lot less bad. this would be so good -- it would call into question the way that history has been written, which is the best space for the show to exist in imo. there is also the snippet of rhaenyra saying "history will paint you as a villain" in a teaser, with the word "villain" being possibly dubbed in another language in the feminine form (i haven't confirmed this myself). this line could be definitely be said to alicent during their reunion, and, in my wildest dreams, could be part of the turncloak arc. the main thing that stands in the way of alicent turncloak actually happening (besides bad writing and the centuries long oppression of lesbians) is helaena. i don't think alicent could leave helaena and jaehaera alone. one day i will write about alicent, helaena, and jaehaera flying to dragonstone with dreamfyre, because i am insane. (but, seriously, if you were to write a turncloak alicent arc, it would be genius for alicent to bring her clairvoyant daughter - the enemy queen - and aegon's only heir over to the other side). they will never write this because they hate me.

oldtown: it would be an insane amount of traveling, especially if she has to meet rhaenyra first, but the leaks suggest she's going to oldtown. on one hand, they might be able to do something cool with daeron (thought he hasn't been cast). on the other hand, i think it would take some really good writing to paint alicent going back to her shitty father in oldtown as her "finding her freedom." to me, alicent going to her home town to be lady hightower would be a major character set back. it would be a different scenery, she would be far from her royal sons, but she would still be stuck in duty, just in a new font. i honestly don't want them to add oldtown scenes to the show. it will be another location, another story thread to follow. hopefully they don't do that, but they might choose to for some new season 3 terrain

nowhere?: alicent is clearly starting some sort of spiritual journey in kings landing in the last episode alone. hitting her breaking point, even leaving kings landing for the suicide attempt + rhaenicent reunion could be a freedom arc for a while, even if she comes back. i think it is possible that she will just come back to kings landing, and that we are associating freedom too much with alicent's physical location.

no matter what happens, the leaks feel insane but fairly plausible. the most unrealistic thing i see is the amount of fast traveling. having alicent do a continental tour of westeros feels like a really dumb way to attract similar criticism to later seasons of got.

i have to laugh, i could be living my life like a normal person if i had never started this show

[heretherebedork]

Not to dwell on the fanservice issues since I also cannot engage with that part of BL for similar reasons, but I am truly concerned that the industry still doesn't have a way for brand pairs to end without causing massive harm to the actors, both personally and professionally. Sometimes I think we've made massive strides in fanservice, but then I see all the massive brand pairs currently in existence and how companies have not figured out how to let these actors move beyond them. I'll try to avoid using specific names, but there are some HUGE brands at GMMTV right now that one day might want to branch beyond BL . And we have seen how the breakup of a certain GMMTV pair caused fan devastation, harassment of a new actor, and frankly something that isn't talked about enough - actors now have to contend with a loss in job stability and probably income. Sure, their personal fans and casual viewers (me) won't care - but I am not paying money to go to their fan meetings or brand events or their concerts, and those pair fans won't either. And companies seem to just be sticking their head in the sand and hoping they can recruit the next big thing before a pillar explodes.

Even in a less controversial moment, it was just announced that a pair is ending as one needs a health break. And, thank god he's getting one. But it's also insane that their careers are going to have to undergo fundamental changes and potentially job losses (aside from dealing with angry and heartbroken fans, of which I've seen many) because they might have new onscreen partners.

I can only think of a handful of examples (I'm specifically thinking Max and Tul but there are others I'm sure) where actors have been mostly able to end their specific brand partnership (or move to other projects) without imploding the BL universe. But in those cases, I never get the impression it's because the company has a well thought out safety plan that they've discussed with the actors to minimize the impact on their careers and move them in a new direction. It seems like the lucky few have great working relationships with their co-stars and are basically able to leverage either their personal friendship or stellar working relationship to put the brand pair out to pasture with very gentle hands.

There's other issues about fanservice that really grinds my gears, but in light of the fact I believe some pairs will be ending soon, this has really made me extra angry. It feels like company negligence is going to stab some of these actors in the back when they feel like it's time to fly the nest. And fans are enabling their poor behavior.

This is all a very valid worry and one that I definitely share. Fan's response to actor pairs breaking is extreme and the ones who are really dating are even worse. I think of MewGulf every single time and the vitriolic response that people had to them and it's just... so scary, honestly.

I still see people on the some of these shorts and posts lamenting an actor pair that did one show together and never planned on doing another and people expressing how heartbreaking it is that they're not still together and just... yeah.

And having no plan for ending these pairings and their careers after does absolutely trap these actors in a portion of their career until or unless they're willing to give it all up in order to move on to something new. Which is not how it should be! Fanservice is meant to be fun and compliment to the shows, a fiction for the viewers that they enjoy, not the end all be all of an actor's career.

And there are just... there are so many actors that, right now, if they announced that they weren't dating... they would be destroyed. Utterly. Completely and totally and people would be rending their clothing and screaming about true love and it just scares me.

Fanservice has a place but I think there has to a pull back on them.

I, admittedly, don't know much about pairs that have moved apart in the longterm but I've seen people still mad about short term ones and making up longform fictional excuses for them not being able to work together but still being in love and it's just... it's wild. It's scary. They are actors! Acting! I promise!

I don't trust anything until or unless they're not working together anymore. They have to not be working on any shows together before I'll believe anything because look at what the shipping gets them. The dedicated fans, the hugely defensive fanbase, people so loyal that they will look for any sign they're in love and buy every single fanmeeting ticket, music event ticket or piece of merch based on their relationship.

Truly wild.

[genderstealer2000]

How do you start gender hoarding? I know that it might sound like a stupid question, but you see, I live in a place where trans people and nbs are looked down upon but lesbians and gays are ok. (rural Australia)

I felt weird coming out to my bf as a demigirl( I am AFAB) and he knows I’m a furry, but doesn’t know about my alter humanity (questioning therian)

So my view of gender is very “traditional” and where I live there’s only really female, male, trans and (very rare) nonbinary. I also have highly suspected autism/ self diagnosed yet I don’t see gender in a way I hear people with autism do, probably due to my upbringing

I want to know from a person like you who knows the “newer” ways of gender how I should gender hoard and not stick myself to just the traditional genders

its not a stupid question at all!! ill do my best to answer! so i identify as agender transmasc. agender goes under the trans umbrella and nonbinary, but i dont see myself as gender neutral i just have no gender. now going more into the transmasc, just means i feel more masculine. doesnt really effect the way i present my gender any differently, hmm i guess i dont really know how to explain it. i dont understand the concept of gender, i dont understand a lot of social constructs, i honestly think its sort of unneeded. my gender is complex in the most noncomplex way, its vast and its tiny. ive made my own genders based off of feelings and intrests, i think thats the best way to get started with genderhoarding. making your own ideas, analyzing yourself. (personally its helped me become more aware of who i am!) imaginationnnnn!! creativity!! make something up, no ones stopping you! the way i view gender is its what makes you, you. it doesnt have to make sense to anyone but you. it doesnt have to make sense! some of the things i tie in with my gender are the rustling of leaves in a forest, fog in the early morning, large fields, chaotic music, soft stuffed animals, the smell of pavement after it rains, soft piano music, acoustic guitar, the moon some of those things are real different!! and those are some of the things that i view my gender as! i think its a lot easier too with the internet, theres a ton of people who have similar ideas and interests so they also make genders, sexualities, and flags to go along with them.

i have a board on pinterest that i frequently add stuff to, i could link it here if you would like! i also save just anynthing that pops up if it remindes me of my friends or it seems cool. it doesnt mean i identify with it, but its cool to read about them! i keep track of them in a notebook as well!! my genders relate to my hyperfixations, mostly. Hyperfixations and anything that i can relate too! ex. horrormasc: a masculine aligned horrorgender. fits both definitions (1: a horrifying/all over the place gender, and 2: a gender related to different horror genres) raingender: a xenogender connected to the rain scenekid/scene neutral, oldwebemoic, onlineboyic, endspacic etc, etc. dont feel rushed at all to tell your boyfriend! when i started feeling more comfortable telling people, i made sure to have articals pulled up to read, notes etc. so it would be easier to sort me thoughts? get it out more smoothly. i also wanted to talk about self-diagnosing!! i hear so much negative about it, but honestly, its good to research and try and find out things about yourself. that my opinion. and not for longterm, just for a bit until you can get evaluated. gahhhhh self diagnosing is valid and it makes me so mad to see people who think its not. granted, some people to just see a couple things and "oh yup got that" but when you really spend time looking at signs, symptoms, traits it can be very beneficial in the long run, and also just to check before you go get evaluated also i apologize if this is insanely long, or if it makes no sense. im sleep deprived, im trying to fall asleep gahh i hope this helped even a little bit!! if you want me to expand on anything or explain anything further feel free to dm me!

[sylvaridreams]

To be frank and up front and honest with all of you I DON'T know how much longer I will be on Tumblr. I don't intend to delete this blog, and in the event that my main ever got nuked I have this side blog co-admined by a backup account, so my posts won't vanish. Not yet.

But I do not like what Tumblr is doing. I don't respect the decisions being made here and I think ignoring them longterm is insane and cruel at best, and ignoring them short-term and hoping it smooths out for now is no better. Like frankly it's just not. I follow my gw2 mutuals for gw2 so I don't expect you guys to be reblogging posts about the bans or anything, like this is the silly game zone. So that's not the point of this post. I'm not shaming the gamers for posting games instead of "holy hell they already banned another."

I do wanna say, I've had this blog almost 10 years (making it my oldest surviving blog! It's followed me from my first account that I made in 2011!) And for a long while I felt like an outsider to the gw2 community and it was really hard for me to find a niche where people didn't shun and ignore me. So I love you all and appreciate how welcoming everyone last year when I came back to gw2blr. I didn't expect that. I didn't expect I'd make friends out of this at all. I turn 30 in about 2 weeks, and at a certain point it's hard for me to meet people and make friends, even online. It's just tough to do somehow. You think at points "this is what I have now, from here to the end" and then new people are nice to you anyway. I love this community here. I hope we can keep playing and talking ocs and doing silly stuff at art party and tagging each other to say "this is nearly as sad and wet as your commander!" for a really long time.

And all that said. Maybe I'll leave. Maybe I'll start over elsewhere or just not have anywhere to post. I don't know. I'm trying out some other places. I'm investigating what my options look and feel like and determining where I might want to start planting seeds for sylvaridreams to start over.

If things go how I anticipate they will, I'll set up shop elsewhere. And I'll stop putting new posts here. And then I'll start cleaning up. Scraping out my old posts from the back to tidy up and consolidate for that new place. We'll see.

Even if everything does rocket to the bottom and fizzle out and some wealthy man's tantrum about trans people existing online shuts down Tumblr's servers for being completely unprofitable, I genuinely do hope that we can continue to have fun together somehow. Whether it's a mass relocation or just monthly art parties. Mayhe we'll see each other in game. Who knows.

I'm currently trying out cohost.org as a new place to post. I don't have a site set up yet for gw2 blogging but I might head that way soon, and meanwhile youre welcome to follow my main site if you want, it's damazcuz just like my main blog is. That said, if I do make a gw2 cohost I'll post about it again with a link.

This isn't a goodbye post and I'm not gone yet but I'm a sappy person and I like what we have here. And I want to give a solid heads up of where I might be heading before I just go.

[madwheelerz]

So, let's talk about the quarry, and frankly a bit about some of the fandom purity culture going on. Fair warning this mentions suicide/eating disorders and so literally everything is under a read more.

I've seen a lot of people get very upset about the concept that the quarry might indicate Mike has passive suicidality. The quarry is set up in a way where Troy pressures Mike to kill himself. Ultimately it is Mike's choice. That's just the scene.

There were two options presented by the bullies. 1: Mike jumps and Dustin keeps his baby death at the cost Mike's life or 2: Mike doesn't jump and Dustin losses his baby teeth.

The longterm effects of these outcomes are so different. Mike will not come back, but Dustin's teeth would grow back eventually. That trauma would still be there though.

Mike didn't try to sacrifice himself for Dustin's life, but he also wasn't just trying to spare Dustin a small amount of pain. Mike doesn't try to bargain with the bullies, he doesn't look for an alternate, he just jumps.

Also keep in mind there is literally a song about depression and passive suicidality in his playlist. If dismiss it, you have to dismiss the other songs being used as proof as well.

Frankly this whole "stop making things darker than they are!" campaign is so interesting to me because I'm not very into horror. I feel like some people have forgotten that the context of the show starts with a boy kidnapped into another dimension and that one of our main characters was a lab rat.

This is similar to what happened with the ed debate. People seeing patterns that you aren't seeing isn't inherently evil/wrong, but it's literally how we consume media. Like skip the posts you don't like, but if you want to have a discussion you have to come back with something better than "I don't like/think this and therefore it's wrong".

I've come across posts that have made me insanely uncomfortable, but that unfortunately didn't make them any less accurate. If you don't want to hear about certain things pls utilize that block button.

[bisluthq]

they think it's lorene because bo has some crazy ass insane stans that follow her around so they've been hyper focusing on joe ever since deuxmoi posted about them meeting up.

Theyre all over r/travisandtayloe trying to get people to call lorene a mf predator (and the peeps at r/travisandtaylor obviously fell for it because they just happen to hate women in general as it turns out 😭)

Like, i'm not saying it's impossible, you know?

They have known each other for longer than that, joe is just a freak about following people back and they do have mutual friends, i just think that joe being in LA and Lorene going to the UK isn't that big of a clue.

Joe and Lorene attended the same play from their mutual friend in June, but on different days. I'm travelling to see a guy and he brings his best guy friend instead of me? Come on now

well she def wouldn't be a predator lol. she's 46 and he's 33 - that's not a scandalous age gap at all??? Both came out of veryyyyyy longterm relationships quite recently so they'd have that in common. They've also got friends in common and like multiple interests in common (politics, music, obviously film). They're also both fucking hot lmao so they'd look good together imo.

HOWEVER, I don't think Joe being in LA in any way means that he's got a gf there (it just means he's an actor who likes it there which like we knew) and it certainly doesn't mean it's Lorene (he might be seeing someone completely different) and I don't think Lorene going to England means she has a bf there (it just means she's a rich lady who goes to different places lol) or that it's Joe (again lol she might have one but as you say why wouldn't they at least go to the play on the same night lmao?)

it's not impossible but it's also equally possible they're friendly and in the same broad social circle and/or maybe working on something.

ps. the only upcoming project Lorene is attached to on IMDB is a Shawn Mendes movie and ngl after "he looks like a villain" I'd LOVE for them to be co-stars and that'd be a very funny/cute thing to ask them about in promo tbh when like they've had a chance to, well, meet.

[clarynewme]

Hello may I request a future spouse reading based on my natal chart? Thank you so much!

Hi 😊@aeriscallanga ! Somehow I can only post like this (mercury retrograde).

First thing I noticed in your natal chart is your 7th house mars in capricorn (mars is also your 5th lord so dating thinking longterm and no in between) which means you have a strong desire for serious long term relationships(no funny business 🤨 lol).

You will make an effort to make the relationship work no matter what obstacles may come.You probably will or want to take the lead in relationships like being the provider, making plans for the future, helping your partner achieving his goals. However this might be annoying to your partner, in the sense he might think you are too controlling, overbearing, aggressive if not careful, nagging and authoritative like a father figure even though you are a woman. You might have high standards regarding your partner if he isn't up to your expectations you won't settle. With that being said your partner might be hardworking, practical,ambitious, traditional, strong, active, well known, boss energy, strict, serious, very attractive, hot, loves sports, values justice,politics and moral, business savy, fair, etc.

Your 7th lord saturn is in gemini in the 12th house so your spouse might be communicative, intelligent but have difficulties expressing himself with words that could cause misunderstandings, might experience anxiety, sleep issues, need to be isolated at times, so solitude is important, might be aloof, dualistic, strong introverted vibes, only opens up to people he is close to and might have a fear of commitment. Fs might have a serious aproach of life, be curious about spirituality and occult but won't feel very open to dig deeper or explore these topics. (my best friend has saturn in gemini in 12th house and everytime I try to ask her to receive a reading from me she feels scared and doesn't want to know what will happen etc, she is curious about other people's charts or how astrology works but if it's for her she is like NO lol😂 I respect that👌😅.) Oh 12th house also means Foreign lands, he might have an subconcious fear of travelling long distance or problems in Foreign lands, maybe speaking Foreign languages. Another thing this could possibly indicate is that he might be from a different culture/ethnicity/country. You may also meet him through travelling as well. You might also dream of each other before/after meeting and have a psychic/intuitive connection.

Now 7th lord saturn is involved in 2 grand trines that involves mercury and uranus and the other involves venus and neptune INSANE🤯 I am going to suggest you to read this post with the planets involved: https://www.tumblr.com/twelvehousemoon/174759956768/the-impact-of-each-planet-in-a-grand-trine?source=share

Since those are all air placements = AIR GRAND TRINE he would be really intelligent, logical, curious,knowledgeable, smart, rational, communicative, networker, flexible,etc. Seeing all those air placements in water houses he would also probably display water signs qualities too, he could balance his emotions and reason/logic, could express creatively with his words, through art, writing, music etc, could have a strong intuition, easier express his emotions related to family (4th house) intimacy (8th house) and subconscious issues (12th house).

However if displayed on a negative way it could lead to emotional detachment due to reason or overthinking emotions.

Saturn is also opposite pluto and moon this means your future spouse could struggle to either fulfilling tasks or exploring transformative experiences at work causing possible power struggles around responsibilities they need to fulfill. With the moon involved they need freedom and adventure in their work but saturn restricts them.

Your juno is in leo 14 degrees which indicates a need for a passionate, loving, fun, romantic, sensual, balanced relationship, power couple dynamic, spouse will probably have these characteristics, be creative, have a loud voice, spoil you with gifts, will allow you to shine individually, support you, recognize you (your talents and strenghts) maybe even tell everyone how they love you and boast about you increasing your confidence, maybe possessive and stubborn (taurus degree). With juno being in 2nd house financial security/money and family might be very important in the relationship.

Jupiter significator of spouse is in cancer exalted in 1st house so he would be similar to you optimistic, confident, intuitive, empathetic, emotional, caring, nurturing, close to his family or mother figure, spiritual, loves cooking/food, travelling, have a large body due to overindulgence, inflated ego/egoistic/arrogant, overgiving that can bring exploitation etc.

You can check jupiter aspects in "aspects in the chart" section from @elysiansparadise🥰 :

https://www.tumblr.com/elysiansparadise/673646738534481920/%F0%9D%93%9C%F0%9D%93%AA%F0%9D%93%BC%F0%9D%93%BD%F0%9D%93%AE%F0%9D%93%BB%F0%9D%93%B5%F0%9D%93%B2%F0%9D%93%BC%F0%9D%93%BD?source=share

You can check Juno harmonious aspects to sun/moon/mercury/saturn on this post from @littleneptuneflower 💗 :

https://www.tumblr.com/littleneptuneflower/159425166056/juno-aspects?source=share

When it comes to his career I sugggest you read @stellarsagittarius 🥰 in your case it would be 10th house libra with venus (10th lord),mercury and sun. I am leaning towards fashion, beauty, arts influencer, celebrity, social media, etc.

https://www.tumblr.com/stellarsagittarius/734165830517014528/your-future-spouses-profession-in-your?source=share

In relation to appearance you could check out @lilithsrealm post😇:

https://www.tumblr.com/lilithsrealm/751482065921392640/what-your-spouse-looks-like-based-on-astrology?source=share

I see that with jupiter transiting in gemini in your 12th house conjunct your saturn 7th lord you might meet a potential marriage or long term partner this year! For more details/confirmation I would need to analyse the vedic charts.

You might meet around the themes of: 1.Sagittarius: horse, arrow, Bow, education, travel, foreign, etc. (This technique is by Camila Regina on tiktok💗)

2.Aries: they could approach you first, Ram, horns, physical/body, sports,gym, Computer Ram,fast things, cars, races etc

Astrology placements: (these would have to be confirmed with birth details)

Leo/Taurus/Gemini/Pisces/Virgo/Aquarius/Cancer/Capricorn/ Libra

Okay I think I am done😅 I hope you like this reading if you do leave feedback on my page🙏 And let me know if it resonates👌it helps improving my readings🫶💜

[gemsofgreece]

Some will complain that Greece has become kr will become a tourist destination only because of many Greeks leaving the country and many places are filled with hotels. While i agree that Greece should invest in schools, healthcare, hospitals, tourism is the number one income to our country.

Especially during summer, but that happens i believe in all around the world. Italy, France for example are tourist destinations all year and northern Europe is mostly a winter destination whereas Greece is a summer one.

It might seem counterintuitive coming from my blog but I don’t agree. Tourism can be the number one income in a country but no country should have such disproportionate sizes of income. You can’t survive only on one thing. If something bad happens, knock wood, and tourist visits decline, what do you do then? Tourism is not a very reliable source of income.

There is also the overdevelopment which is very much a real thing: doctors and teachers in Santorini can’t find a house and sleep in yards or leave the Island, because all houses are rented by tourists for higher prices? So Santorini’s kids won’t get proper education and the people will have no doctor but that’s okay because they get tourists’ money? This is just not a healthy development and it’s hardly a development at all. The excessive construction has already started degrading the natural environment and the authenticity of the traditional settlements. The problem slowly expands to more of the country, with all people struggling to find houses to rent longterm that have no insane prices and luxe resorts being built out of place in traditional settlements protected by the state and cultural organisations.

Every country should invest in all sectors it can evenly. By all means, focus on your strengths, but not at the expense of all other sectors and the well-rounded development of the country. And young people should find jobs in what they have studied or what they desire: sciences, arts, commerce, agriculture, industry and not all of them be forced to become waiters and receptionists working in hectic conditions because all other sectors are dead. Or, worse, leave.

I agree though that Greece should try to distribute its visitors throughout the whole year, like Italy and France. It’s already slowly happening, however the tourist count should not increase too much at this point. France and Italy are different cases. They get more tourists but they are much bigger countries with much bigger populations. I think they have 60something million people and get about 60-80 million tourists all year round. This is only a little larger than local population so it’s sustainable. Greece gets only 30 million tourists but it has 10 million population! This is barely sustainable. I believe our high season popular places can’t bear more than that. It means that most locals must be obligatorily in tourism services. That’s just not right. On the contrary, French and Italian people can choose their career paths more freely and contribute to far more sectors of economy at the same time.

By the way, I believe Greece can do up to 40 million but ONLY if tourists come throughout the year and to more places in the country. Otherwise not. Greece can be compared better with Croatia which also gets more tourists (11 mil) than it has people (~ 4 mil). Croatia is beautiful, I have been there, but it’s rapid unhealthy development starts getting evident. I have been to almost all Balkan countries and even though strictly speaking it’s probable it was amongst the prettiest, it was not my most enjoyable experience exactly for how it starts lacking in authenticity compared to the rest, because of its fast growing tourist culture and tourism-centrism. (Just my two cents)

See also the beautiful islands and countries of the Indopacific, Hawaii etc The quality of the life of local people has been freefalling ever since large parts of the lands are becoming luxe resorts of big hotel chains, specialising in “exclusive experiences” for the tourists who stay there locked taking baths and yoga, removed from the real life of the country they are visiting, almost as removed as the locals who have been working night and day in their service for a better life. Tourists should become travellers and explorers again. Countries should strive for diversity and not excessive dependency in their economy. People should start living and truly enjoying their own countries too.

[whoreviewswho]

Wokeness, Responsibility and if RTD is problematic - Introduction

Is Russell T Davies a problematic figure? Is he too woke or not aware enough? Is he doing something wrong to illicit negative responses from the progressives as well as the conservatives? Is it something in the programme, something in the marketing or is he doing nothing particularly bad at all? Well, perhaps you and I, faithful reader, can come to some sort of conclusion. Let's find out together as we take a dive into the controversial choices behind RTD2 and the mind of the man behind them.

There is an extremely telling moment in issue 599 of Doctor Who Magazine in their feature on The Giggle, specifically the climax. On page 18, the magazine printed some conversation between Benjamin Cook, Ncuti Gatwa and Russell T Davies (RTD) which you can read below;

"When you wished for it," Russell asks [Ncuti] now, "there wasn't a part of you thinking, but there's no point, it's not going to happen, because I'm black?" "Never," says Ncuti. "I love that," says Russell. "Because here I am, as a 59-year-old white man, assuming that would weigh heavily on your mind." "Yeah, no, completely," says Ncuti. "When it was announced and everyone was saying, 'He's the first black Doctor!' - that was insane. Slowly I was like, '... ohh." "Yes, it's hard to know what to do with that."

I find this to be a very revealing exchange and an invaluable insight into RTD's mind. RTD thinks. He thinks a lot. It is very clear not only that he thinks a lot and is very conscious of his decisions and responsibilities as a showrunner but also that he wants us to know that. And, you know what, perhaps he is a little too conscious. Perhaps RTD thinks too much.

But of course RTD thinks. He is a writer and a storyteller. He is, in fact, a very good storyteller and, in order to be so, one has to be continuing to engage with new art, meet new people and be connected to the world around them. This is not conjecture, this is how art works; it is a expression and representation of how the artist relates, reflects and responds to the world around them. RTD is a wickedly intelligent, queer man and you need look no further than his own work to see how passionate he has always been about depicting a diverse range of characters and stories that are firmly rooted in the political and social climate of his day. In fact, he explicitly said as much himself in a December 2023 interview for Rolling Stone;

"From my point of view, whatever I make on television, I try to embrace queerness and queer politics and that’s like breathing to me because that’s my world. That’s how I live.”

At the time I am writing (two months away from season one's debuting), RTD's second stint as show runner of Doctor Who, RTD2, as it has come to be known, has proven to be as divisive for longterm fans as his initial tenure, if not more so. No surprises there, of course, but what was unforeseen however, at least by me, was the vocal backlash from the progressive crowd. 

Perhaps it shouldn't have been though. After all, we are talking about a sixty year old white cis man. As well researched and intentioned as he may be, the scope of his experiences will inevitably reach their limits regarding gender, sexuality and cultural backgrounds. Even ethically, to hold somebody of quite a different generation to the exact same standards as your own, a significantly younger or potentially older audience member, is a pretty dubious and flawed thing to put into practice.

Still, backlash from the progressives might also have been foreseen if we took more than half a glance at his original time on the show. The quality and impact of representation in 2000s Doctor Who was certainly varied, and something worth discussing in more depth in some other entry. That does not make it any less significant that it was Russell who spearheaded the first openly queer companion, its first black supporting character and then first black companion as well as the oldest leading lady to date. And these things were not simply acts of ticking boxes. Jack Harkness, Mickey Smith, Martha Jones and Donna Noble were strong, fully-realised characters who were regularly recurring across almost five years of television. One of them even led a TV show of his own for half a decade. Combine that with more than a handful of overtly political storylines across the episodes that he produced and you have a revived Doctor Who that is quickly established as one of the most progressive television programmes of its kind in the 2000s. 

But mistakes were made, particularly regarding racial background. YouTuber Princess Weekes has made a particularly articulate video outlining RTD's pitfalls in representing black communities in Doctor Who a couple of months ago and I strongly encourage you to go and check that out. This article is not about the 2000s though. This is about the present day and the world surrounding RTD as he re-entered the role of showrunner in 2021. So, in order to contextualise that, let us tackle that frustratingly large elephant in the room; let's briefly discuss how Doctor Who became too woke.

This will be a very short discussion because, of course, this didn't happen. Yet, somehow, this narrative, that Doctor Who has become more occupied with pushing its progressive political agendas than telling compelling stories, is a bizarre claim that has been looming over the series for far too long now. It is a line of thinking that I first remember hearing around 2016 with the announcement of Bill Potts as the first openly lesbian companion. Y'know, because having an openly lesbian character must surely mean the Moff was out of ideas. But it really seemed to become a thorn in the fandom's side in the year following when Jodie Whittaker's casting was revealed. Together with Chris Chibnall's casting of two people-of-colour in his main cast and hiring the most diverse writers the show has ever seen to tell stories that reflect their varied life experiences and backgrounds CLEARLY indicated the show was on a downward spiral. The writing was on the wall*.

Okay, so, let's break this down for a second because obviously Doctor Who of the past seven years has not been too woke. But, even if that were the case, what does that even mean? Well, let's be blunt here, this is a form of cultural appropriation. The usage of 'woke' as a slang term for being attentive to social issues originated in African American Vernacular English. As Marriam-Webster defines it; 

"In [African-American Vernacular English], awake is often rendered as woke, as in, 'I was sleeping, but now I’m woke'". 

In the mid-2010s, "stay woke" became a watch word in the black community eventually becoming entwined in the BLM movement. The term has since been co-opted by conservatives, in another harmful display of white aggression, as an insulting short-hand for people and works that challenge their comfortably ignorant view of the world in really any way at all.

TLDR; to level the accusation of a television programme being "too aware of social and political injustices", especially a show with as long a history in of engaging with those sorts of ideas as Doctor Who, as if it were some kind of negative is one of the most laughable criticisms that the show has ever seen. 

It is actually even more laughable when you consider that one could take less than half a glance at Chibnall's version of the show and realise that it was, in fact, doing remarkably little actual engagement with contemporary social and political issues at all. Hell, 10.96 million people tuned into the first episode of his run to learn that for themselves. But this article is not about Chris Chibnall either. This is about Russell T Davies. The man who walked into the office while Chris Chibnall was still in the job and was revealed as such before Chibnall's final season, the Flux storyline, had even gone to air. As nasty a move this was from BBC, seemingly attempting to sabotage their own show, they knew how big of a deal this was. This is Russell T Davies ! The OG showrunner !! The guy who turned a dead cult TV show into an enormous national, and eventual, international franchise !!! This will be 2008, all over again !!!! RTD was going to save Doctor Who !!!!! Praise be to Russell T !!!!!!

Of course, this did not happen. 

It was a pretty dumb call from the conservative crowd to claim RTD was going to swoop in and be their champion. There was truly no reason at all to suspect that he would come back to Doctor Who and not bring his established brand of mindful, inclusive and socially charged writing to the programme. After all, in the years since writing regularly for Doctor Who, Davies produced works like Years and Years and It's a Sin, two incredibly thoughtful though quite different series, the former being a speculative work of science-fiction envisioning the next fifteen years of human history through the eyes of a single family and the latter an intimate and tragic retrospective on the UK AIDS crisis. For a certain crowd of people, this was actually the most appealing aspect of RTD's return. The man was going off the heels of some of his most acclaimed work of all-time, works that spoke to harsh realities of the world we live in and told compelling stories of any number of diverse characters. And, for some people, this was somehow a red flag.

There are longtime fans of a certain generation who have been vocal of RTD's flaws as a social-justice champion from day one. Diamanda Hagan is one such person who comes to mind. I have a great deal of respect for her and her opinions which are often much more articulate and interesting to engage with than my own. If you are unfamiliar, I encourage you seek her out. For the purposes of this article, there are two recent(ish) tweets of hers that I will be citing and the first is as follows;

"[In reference to the polarised reception to The Church on Ruby Road] I continue to be amused by people watching RTD being RTD, now disliking it and thinking that RTD or his work is the one that changed." - December 26, 2023

I would like to use this quote to springboard into a more in-depth discussion of RTD's choices onscreen (strap in, everybody 'cause this'll be more than one post) but, before I do, allow me to note that I find myself only half-agreeing with Hagan's assertion here. Onscreen, Davies' work is distinctly his own. His style has evolved, certainly, insofar as his language and the presentation but the overall package, the flavour and spirit of RTD Who, is much the same as it was from 2005-2010. 

But I would insist that something has changed and that something is what Davies is saying behind the scenes and in promo material because, and this is a crucial point, regardless of how 'woke' RTD2 actually is, and we will get into it, he certainly wants you to think that it is. I do not think that this is an out of arrogance or some kind of saviour complex. I don't believe that RTD is sitting at home rubbing his hands and thinking 'hehehe look how progressive everybody thinks I am". No, I think that Russell is drawing attention to how progressive the show is in the media because he genuinely believes in making socially conscious choices and their impact and consequences. He wants audiences to be talking about disability and race and queerness and class and acceptance and bigotry. RTD is asking us to talk about the topics highlighted in his productions.

So, let's do that then....

To be continued in part one; The Regeneration Question and Davros with Legs

*The fact that Chris Chibnall's version of Doctor Who was ultimately lacking in compelling storytelling for most audiences is extremely unfortunate but obviously unrelated to his diverse cast and crew.

[dexships]

as you crouched your eyes wandered to every inch of the bottom shelf of the display, dozens of flavors of that sticky, so cold it burns drink of mtn dew, mind racing with the possibilities of each and every one. you would pick one out, turn around the bottle in your hand for a bit just long enough to not look suspicious or creepy about bottles of mtn dew but long enough for your squip to give you the rundown on each iteration. 

the idea that a different flavor was basically a trial run of dlc for the supercomputer that lived along side you was kind of insane and you were so, terribly curious about it, and after some convincing you got the squip to go along with it too, so long as you promised to be careful in no matter the state they found themself in, and you knew the risks yourself. you were careful to avoid any that seemed the slightest bit dangerous (the infrequent but painfully memorable migraines that came from system updates made you too scared to take a single risk with this thing) and the squip would explain any info he had on them, connected to a database of other of his kind who had experienced it. you wondered if they had some sort of social media they posted about it on and it made you chuckle. 

“its just a filing system, not twitter.” he intruded on your thoughts. 

you went back to your pilfering, making your choice on what seemed the safest option for now, throwback, something about making him a little more easy going and, in the words of another squip located in the mind of an influencer in malibu, “hazed in a drunken, lovesick stupor not unlike a girl writing her crush’s name over and over like in the cinema”, however the descriptor did not seem to portray it in a negative light. 

all these flavors, these ideas of what he might end up being, even just for a bit got you thinking about any...longterm effects, anything that would linger even just for a bit that could potentially backfire.

“make no mistake,” he said, once again interfering with your inner voice that seemed to get a little quieter every day, “though these do conflict with my ‘personality’, none of these have any adverse effects on our directive. they cant make me do anything you don’t want me to.”

“okay...” you spoke up, in your mind of course. talking out loud to this guy was a no-go, you spoke to yourself enough as a kid to get called weird, you didn’t want strangers at a 7/11 to think so little of you, “what about what you want? these won’t interfere with that, right?”

“...” he seemed to cock his head a bit, eyebrows furrowing as if he didn’t hear you right, “i’m not sure i follow. our directive is what i follow. wanting is out of my hands.”

“i mean there’s gotta be something you wanna do, right dude?” you pushed yourself off the floor, stumbling back as you felt just how long you were down there, your legs jelly and only a little stingey. “i mean like, youre a supercomputer. youre learning new shit every day, there isn’t anything of that you wanna do yourself?”

for once, he seemed to look downright clueless. it was so strange, he always had a snappy retort or hyperintelligent, collected response to any of your ‘odd’ questions, but for once he looked...stumped. he has seen every possible outcome to this conversation, you know that, but its like you just picked the very least possible question to ask. 

“i...i don’t think i...know?” it was said more like a question, the idea that he didnt know seemed to shock him more than it did you. 

you didn’t know what you were supposed to say, or what he was banking on you to say in the timeline where this conversation got to end before he had to stop relying on the algorithm to carry it, but you just sighed, and turned around to the cash register. “well, cmon, lets go get me stoned, get you sloshed and figure it out together, k?” you glanced back down the aisle to see the hazy figure of your squip still standing there, until catching up, not just blink and hes right in front of you, but looking down at the tile, as if trying to think something over. 

[illmoraineakoi]

Hollow Knight Plush Stuff

So, I decided I'm going to give this a shot, at least until I hit some sort of big snag that makes the end result not worth the effort.

Read More because this post got loooong

As per my last post trying to resist doing this, I've begun by trying to figure out some basic measurements for Hollow. The objective is to be as sprite accurate as possible, which I don't really foresee as being an issue, given the simple design.

And doing the measurements has really put into perspective on how utterly insane this venture might be.

The plan is that the plush will be 7 1/2 feet tall, from feet (if you could call those points 'feet') to the dip between their horns. I've determined this to be a really good body pillow/huggable buddy scale. In addition, if I ever develop a pattern for Ghost with this scale, they'll be 20 inches tall (without horns) and that's also a really nice huggable size.

Hugability is very important to me, you see.

Anyway, Measurements.

You want to know the measurements I've come up with?

Shin - 29 1/4 in Knee Ball - 2 5/8 in Thigh - 23 1/4 in Torso - 25 1/2 in Bicept - 18 1/2 in Forearm - 16 1/4 in Neck - ~8 - 9 in Head - - 14 in Horns - 41 in

If those numbers don't mean anything to you, get a yard stick, and look them up.

These are only the basic length measurements, I still have to work on width/thickness, and the more in detail stuff. Like the hands, which I just....chose to ignore for now lmao.

But now I want to throw some ideas around for how I want this thing to be put together, and some issues I foresee.

Stuffing Options-

there are benefits to Hollow being so thin, but I don't think their limbs stuffing will be one of them. Stuffing their limbs with normal fluff might not hold up longterm. Stuffing, unless densely packed, will move around and shift, and long narrow things are the worst at this. The amount of dragon tails I've made that have empty crease spaced because of this (and because i never learned my lesson) is at least a dozen by now. If I want to really make this, I don't want this to happen, and I especially don't want to have to try to open it back up to fix it a year or two down the line.

So, normal fluff for limbs is out. That leaves me with two options: foam or batting.

Both would negate the empty spaces issue, and both has their pros and cons. But ultimately, I think it comes down to how much I want the limbs to hold their form. Batting would be easier to work with, and cheaper, but it'd likely cause the final limbs to be floppier than using foam would. Foam would make them stiffer (perhaps even too stiff, depending on the type of foam available to me) and keep the actual shape of the limbs better. Pretty much just gotta figure out how cuddleable I want to go, I think.

For the torso, shifting fluff won't be such an issue, as there's more space to move side to side, which in turn means there's less chances for empty pockets to form. Main issue I foresee would be the waist, which will likely be the area it would bend the most. I think for the torso, I need to think about how much I want it to be able to support itself, which would be nice.

But now we get to the two major things that I KNOW will be a mess of problems on problems and be a bitch to deal with: the head and the neck.

Necks are the bane of my existence, and I know why most plushes don't have them: that moving stuffing empty space causing the necks to loose support and flop about. The bigger/heavier the head, the worse it'll be.

And Hollow's head is fucking MASSIVE.

The entire thing is 55 inches long, most of which is horn.

If I want the neck to have any sort of support, I will have to use dense foam, and even then I might have to put some sort of plastic tubing/metal armature within it. I would prefer to not have to do that, but It'll all come down to how heavy the head will be.

Which means that the head will have to be as light as possible. normal fluff is out, stuffing it to as firm as I tend to like my plushes will make it too heavy. I sort of want to try foam, at least for the horns. I feel like foam would be really nice to keep the shape of the horns, which is an important thing to me.

the more and more I type, the more I think that this plush will be mostly foam-stuffed. Which is actually kind of neat, I've never worked with foam as a stuffing material that much before. Mostly as a core to hold shapes. We'll see, this is mostly just spitballing ideas.

Fabric-

I want to see if I have enough fabric already, which will go a big way into factoring if I actually do this. But I also want to use minky for this, and I don't think I have any black minky left.

Minky is my go-to fabric for my plushes, because it's my favorite and because it's very soft. the specific type of minky I use, Shannon Cuddle 3, also has a short pile (fur) compared to other minkys, while being no less soft. Minky is also somewhat stretchy due to being a knit-like fabric, which makes rounded parts nice and smooth. I love working with Minky, and the idea of having a big minky-fluffy Hollow is one that I cannot pass up, that would be sooooo nice.

But I'm not sure if I'd want their head to be minky as well. I feel like having it be a different fabric, a different texture, would be really nice, both tactically and visually. Probably still a knit, so it's still soft, but one without a pile. Or I could just do what I sometimes do and just....use minky inside out lmao. bit of a waste of minky for such large parts, i usually only do that for smaller parts. I think I might actually have a white fabric that might work really well, though with how large the head will be, I'm not sure I'll have enough. Which will suck, because I haven't been able to find this fabric ever since RIP ME

I might check out the Amish fabric shop I sometimes shop at, I can't remember for the life of me if it sells minky. It'll be a good place to look for potential mask fabrics regardless.

As a side note: a cursed part of my brain briefly though about how the plush might look like if I used velvet for the body. It'd probably look really cool, but I'm someone who doesn't like the feel of velvet. it's like...prickly, to me, not soft at all. So while it might LOOK really nice, it's definitely not worth doing. I want to be able to cuddle this plush.

[Also side note: my favorite fabric site has apparently shut down WTF WHY THAT SITE WAS SO FUCKING GOOD?! IT HAD ALL THE MINKY COLORS NOOOO]

Eyes-

Eyes are always a part I pay extra attention to in plushes, because I feel like they can make or break a plush's face.

I've done some googling, and it seems like everyone who's made HK plushes of Vessels just do black circles. Which makes sense, that's literally the easiest thing you can do to make their eyes.

That's probably what I'll ed up doing as well (or, well, eggy ovals instead of circles) but I still wonder what it might look like if I tried to make a sort of indent or carve out for eyes, so they're more like eye holes. I think that'd be a really cool idea, and could potentially look really neat, really look like head shell has some depth from the 'underlying' blackness. The issue would be doing it with fabric, which could prove difficult.

If I do use foam for the head, that would make it a bit more possible. The foam would hold the shape of the eye socket.

Perhaps gluing black fabric directly onto the foam 'skull', then layering a doubled layer of fabric over top (or even fabric over thin foam over the skull?) would work? That calls into question how to keep the fabric over top secured in it's proper place. even if fit snugly over the foam, it would still be able to move a little bit...This would require some testing, to see if it's even an idea that may work.

Another idea would be to carve out the eye sockets, line that socket with white fabric, then shove a piece of black-covered foam into it, gluing it in place. That seems like it'd be easier, and might look better. I'll test it.

Side note: it'd also be interesting to see if I can make the mask cracks indented too, but those are probably too thin to even try.

Pure Vessel vs Hollow Knight-

Gonna be real, I dunno which one I want to make. Pure Vessel would be easier, despite taking a little more material. I also wouldn't have to deal with the crack.

But at the same time, THK would be more challenging, and I kind of want that challenge.

If I do THK, I kind of want to add some infection 'scars' to their torso, make it less symmetrical than the other side. I've never really tried to do something like that.

I also kinda don't want to have to make two hands lamo

This thing will be so big that I'll only be able to make one. And also only have the space to keep one.

Ending Thoughts-

When I first had the idea for this, I was sure that once I really thought things through, really put thought into all the things I'd have to do to actually make it, that I'd become so daunted that I'd trash it. And for all intents and purposes, this idea is utterly INSANE. I should not be thinking of doing this. It's a huge amount of effort, and time, and money, for something that will ultimately be completely useless. For an oversized plush. that serves no purpose besides being cuddled.

But rather than daunting, I think this could be fun. that I might enjoy the challenge, and enjoy expanding my sewing skills, learning new things. Broken down, it doesn't really seem so bad.

Would it be a waste of time? Potentially. Would I be better off working on other, more productive things? Probably. Would it be a waste of money? Absolutely.

Am I still going to do it?

Yes. Yes I am.

Tomorrow I'll tackle doing some pattern sketches. For the rest of tonight, I'll do some research into fabrics and foams and other potential materials. Maybe some more measurements. Should really do the hand.

Man, this is gonna be one hell of a wild ride.

[armorabs]

bestie (even though we aren't mutuals) someone said plabs was abusive... 💀

its really laughable to try claiming ANY relationship between two consenting unrelated adults of the same age in a noncontinuity gag cartoon is "abusive" when the relationship is inherently and conceptually malleable; entirely beholden to whatever they think is funniest for an episode - where nothing about it is Inherently Unhealthy or Unchanging

like. i'm not going to come at them because i imagine theyre probably just a kid figuring out their boundaries, how to express those boundaries, how to practice media literacy, and how to express what their comfortable with - i'm not checking though. i really don't care that much - i remember when i was younger i myself often had kneejerk and very strong reactions to something that i wasn't entirely comfortable or happy with. actually, i still do that (yall have seen me talk about what i think of plankaren...)

its one thing to say, "i don't think it's very funny" or "i don't think the relationship actually would work out" or even "i kind of prefer the canon pairings" - absolutely fine opinions to have, perfectly valid reasons to be disinterested in, well, anything! i'd be a hypocrite not to be understanding of just not liking something, even if it's perfectly fine.

but its like... rivalry is not inherently toxic or abusive. i have seen some truly bizarre takes exclusive to spongebob that specifically refer to RIVALRY itself as toxic and abusive. but to think that it is, is to fundamentally misunderstand what rivalry actually is. rivalry is not about hatred or being enemies - rivalry is just about competition, it is very specifically two people competing and measuring themselves against each other; and you can be competitive with your friends without hurting them or them hurting you. in the minutes where you play smash bros with a friend - you are rivals. in the moment you make a bet to see whether one of you can eat more of something than the other - you are rivals. but you are friends, too. every day labels overlap, sometimes briefly, sometimes longterm. that dynamics might not be simple and clear-cut is just a fact of life. people are inherently complex, so their relationships are too.

sometimes the rivalry between plankton and krabs is taken to extremes, sometimes either one can do some heinous shit as enemies, all part of the groundwork for visual gags and humor ... but not always. not every episode is related, and a lot of them end with a reset. the entire universe is changing, malleable, and inconsistent. the plankton and krabs that exist in one episode have not always experienced what a plankton and krabs that exist in another episode might have. its like looney tunes? you have to keep in mind... looney tunes is one of the inspirations behind spongebob, and how they write their episodes is influenced by how looney tunes is structured. 

by nature, plabs can't be abusive because there is no consistent continuity, no matter how many people try to claim there is or try to find one and cling to it. there never has been a clear, consistent continuity. not every episode has happened in every other episode, not always. like, no continuity means there’s no real pattern. no real pattern means, well, obviously if there’s no pattern then there’s no cycle of abuse. and there is no imbalanced power structure, neither one has more power over the other, they’re the same age, they’re not related... so anything that could make it abusive, does not apply to them, and is not inherent to them because again this is a nickelodeon non-continuity gag cartoon created in 1999 with no real stakes or plot that often relies on absurdism and refuge in audacity. everything is exaggerated, and insane, and weird, and its laughable to overthink that and try to discourse about it.

(and thats not going into arguments about the exact nature of their relationship or how they feel about each other beyond that)

so anyways to write about spongebob relationships, inherently, you must make your own continuity to make it happen and to make it work no matter how plausible it might have been in the source material. it’s a necessity to a franchise with more than 300 episodes, comics, books, three movies, several games, multiple spinoffs, and much more to come - all inevitably to contradict each other to some degree as there have been countless people working on the franchise across the decades, all who have different views on the characters, the series, and their relationships - this is actually inherent to fanfiction as a whole but we're talking about spongebob so i'm covering that conversation in spongebob-colored paint - and to write anything, means that by nature... one must make it your own, the same way everyone who has worked on the franchise has to some degree, and to make something your own means that you get to - no, you HAVE to, you MUST - decide what you want to keep, what you want to use... and what you can just leave in its own, original setting

not to mention that nearly all explorations of the relationship with a romantic angle focus on what it would take to fix or improve the relationship, negating any toxicity that would have existed in the relationship to begin with! so... anyways

[orossii]

the geopolitical situation right now is so fucking batshit and people in the west just do not realize how bad it’s going to get for them yet. like i don’t want to be an alarmist but every scenario in which i might be wrong about how absolutely devastated western europe and the US are going to get in the very immediate future relies on the idea that the US is capable of longterm planning and didn’t absolutely shit themselves over the ukraine stunt, which is absolutely not going according to plan. the goal was to destroy Russia and weaken Europe, but instead its destroyed Europe and strengthened Russia exponentially. if you told me a year ago the situation we would be in now i wouldn’t have believed you. the US is accelerating toward the bottom in a panic, like someone struggling to escape quicksand, and we’re ruled with an iron fist by people whose brains have been totally fried after generations of escalating sadism, hedonism, greed, and unchallenged conquest. they’re hired for their family pedigree and ability to tell the powerful what they want to hear, not what they need to hear. they can not think rationally because if they did they’d have to recognize that there’s no way for their death cult economic system to compete with an emerging china and russia, and they’re desperate to hold onto the absolute power they’ve enjoyed for the last 80 years even if it means gutting their supposed allies in Western Europe and trying to goad nuclear-armed rival superpowers into conflicts they want nothing to do with. the nord stream bombings have had such grim implications lol i can not stop thinking about them. people are going to be blindsided by this. it all makes me feel completely insane but i can’t stop staring forward at the oncoming train

[bratz-kitten]

ASTRO OBSERVATIONS PT. 7

gemini and pisces placements are similar in the sense that geminis are able to see things from all perspectives, while pisces are able to empathise with people who have all sorts of different perspectives. pisces placements... be careful with over-empathising with the people who hurt you to the point where you’re understanding why they did it and you start excusing their actions. gemini placements... be careful with seeking the multi-layers and million different perspectives in everything and everyone to the point where you’re driving your own mind insane and you don’t know what your opinion is anymore because you hyper-analyse so much. too much of a good ability becomes a curse.

people with venus-mars aspects have a talent for making people who hate them fall in love with them 💋

moon in the 11th house natives tend to attract friends who get into scandals. moon in the 10th house natives tend to be the ones who get into said scandals. it’s a PERFECT FRIENDSHIP

capricorn placements have a talent for knowing how to make things last. they want to prolong the enjoyment they get out of something for as long as possible, which is why their hobbies, friendships and relationships tend to last a lifetime... hedonistic sluts

since both the 7th house and the 11th house rule fandoms, celebrities with a 7th house or 11th house neptune can attract fans who view them as angels who can’t do nothing wrong — because of this, those celebrities rarely take accountability for their mistakes, since people keep pushing the “but they’re perfect :(“ light on them

pluto conjunct ascendant natives always come off as very serious during first impressions, no matter how approachable and inviting they strive to appear.

sun and moon in the 10th house people may feel as if they’re always exposed to the public eye, they can’t get away with keeping things secretive. others always notice whatever they want kept on the low. this can be especially frustrating if they notice that others aren’t exposed to the same kind of scrutiny that they are for simply existing

lilith in pisces bitches have a natural talent for appearing like angels even in situations where they are 100% guilty. it’s very easy for them to put on their vulnerable, lost puppy act lmfao, which triggers others’ protective instincts. they may be able to cry on cue when people call them out on their bullshit, making them feel like THEY’re the shitty ones for confronting the lilith native... it’s insane

lilith in the 12th house natives may feel as though the themes of lilith are trapped in their psyche, at the core of who they are and those themes become unavoidable for them — they’re always there, lurking in the shadows, becoming the center of their nightmares

people with mercury in the 1st house can feel veryyy threatened and defensive when someone possesses knowledge in an area that they don’t, it’s like it hits them right on their biggest fears. they often either try to “one-up” the other person in an attempt to heal their broken ego or shut down altogether in insecurity. it’s imperative that they work on developing a strong sense of self-worth because they can be extremely prone to comparing their mental skills to those of other people.

people with personal planets in the 12th house may feel as though a lot of their artistic drive is stifled by their lack of energy. like... in the mental realm there’s a lot going on and it’s incredible, but then you pick up a pen to actualize your visions and you feel exhaustion immediately overtaking you. it can feel like there’s a lot to your psyche that feels inaccessible to you not because you don’t want to explore it, but because you have yet to restore the energy to dive deep into it. this can be especially noticeable if there’s absolutely no 5th house energy in the chart

people with jupiter in an earth sign love being surrounded by greeneries in their home; they may take a lot of enjoyment out of taking care of plants, gardening, cooking and stuff of the sort. it makes them feel more grounded, independent, and even healed. they also LOVE scents that connect them to nature like the scent of grass and the ocean.

air mercuries can be very beware of strangers, they can feel offended when their friends make them socialize with someone they don’t know and it can take a hot while before they trust the person enough to lower their defences a bit. they need to know it’s safe before expressing their usual sexy eccentric selves in front of someone new. on the other hand, aries placements can also hate being introduced to new people through their friends but it’s mostly because they’re very territorial over them, and can’t stand the thought that this new person can hurt their friendship in any possible way

meanwhile, it’s probably an earth or leo/sagittarius mercury introducing new friends to the group. they’re so fucking good with people and it shows in how they make people feel welcomed so easily, it’s like they “take” the person in and adopt them into the group. they can’t stand seeing someone being treated like an outcast because they know how it sucks to feel rejected, so they’ll try their best to make you feel included

while on the subject of people who hate seeing others be treated like an outcast because they know how it feels like to be rejected: SCORPIO RISINGS. bro. people underestimate how chill they can actually be. if they see you being left out, they’ll approach you with no fucks given and do anything in their power to make you feel comfortable. they do so well in group settings.

and while on the subject of scorpio risings... i have a scorpio rising friend and he goes thru it on the daily. he often complains that people are always suspicious of him and that they seem repulsed by him, strangers on the street will stay tf away from him. and it’s so heartbreaking because his personality is so friendly and welcoming and it doesn’t at all match his intimidating appearance. scorpio risings have this energy that not many people can handle, others feel either really drawn to them or downright scared of them because of the “danger” element they seem to carry in them

i know two people who are both scorpio suns and libra moons and they look the exact same, even though they have different risings. brown, deep-set eyes, coarse dark hair, naturally tanner skin tone — and they have the same style as well, using lots of band t-shirts and dark clothing. scorpio energy is always so noticeable wherever it is i swear, it’s like it takes over the rest of the chart

gemini moons are what yall claim gemini venuses to be. like, seriously... have you ever met someone with a gemini venus? they don’t need constant stimulation or else they’ll get bored and cheat. not in the slightest; actually, they’re often incredibly loyal and crave longterm, committed relationships. if anything, they need stimulation outside of their relationship in the form of a good, exciting career and hobbies so that they don’t get too addicted to their partner and to constantly analysing every aspect of their relationship. gemini moons however, tend to have multiple partners throughout life and they often feat deep commitment. they can be huge players imo, IT’S THEM YOU SHOULD BE WORRIED ABOUT!

sagittarius placements are so... tactile? like, they love to touch things. when they go to stores and stuff, they’ll start holding everything that catches their attention— it’s like they can only decide if they want to buy something after thouroughly exploring how it feels, the texture and the energy that the object gives them through touch. and they talk so much with their hands. it makes me so anxious like bitch you aren’t selena gomez, i promise you that you CAN keep your hands to yourself

taurus placements are so weird to me, i can’t understand them. it’s like they’re afraid of exploring their own depths, which in turn makes me unable to explore them. okay, how do i put this... it’s like they have this preset idea of who they are and after deciding so, they’re unwilling to let go of it. “i’m the stable friend who’s here for everyone even when i can barely take care of my own self” and then that’s who they are: the people who are a steady rock in the lives of others, taking care of everyone. and then they refuse to change even after getting hurt. and then, it’s like... well, you can’t just be that. you are a human who contains multitudes, but i don’t think you give yourself enough credit on how layered you are. that fear of changeability, that need to be the one stable thing in a world full of unpredictability will only damage you in the end, because you won’t get to fully experience life’s greatest pleasure: knowing yourself. becoming your own best friend, exploring every layer that there is to your being. i think you deny yourself of that experience because you fear that, with self-learning comes self-growth which leads to transformation. and you fear transformation because you don’t want to change for the worst. but like... transformation is necessary and with that comes adaptability + flexibility, which are things you could greatly benefit from.

scorpio venuses can be so pessimistic— and when they’re in a dark mindset, it’s so difficult to pull them out of it. it’s so difficult to get them to see the good in difficult situations, and to help them believe that it gets better. but even if you don’t believe me, i’ll keep telling you; it does get better. you’ll get through this.

jupiter in the 4th house is an indicator of food having been an amazing part of your childhood; there might’ve been a lot of feasts and you could’ve had a parent who loved to cook. being well fed might be a huge concern for you now; you might get sick easily when you’re eating fast food and non-traditional plates.

mercury square uranus is an extremely difficult aspect to have because, in your earlier years, you might’ve felt dumb or like there was something wrong with your intelligence because you might’ve found school difficult due to it’s structured nature that didn’t fit with the way you like to learn things— you need to learn in an interactive way that piques your interest. your anxiety and any traumatic experienced that you faced could’ve heavily impacted your school performance. you might’ve had an ease with learning but then, when it came to doing the written tests, you couldn’t perform to the best of your abilities. either way, school might’ve been a source of a lot of stress and difficulty.

mercury square pluto can have some weird manifestation where, like... you suspect things but you always suspect the wrong things. i’ve met a few people with this aspect and all of them were extremely suspicious of the most random things who were literally normal and innocent. this aspect can cause a lot of chaos to one’s interpersonal relationships because you might find yourself suspecting your loved ones in the weirdest circumstances due to your trust issues, which in return causes them to lose trust in you + the want to confide in you because you keep questioning everything they’re up to WHEN THEY’RE NOT UP TO ANYTHING IN THE FIRST PLACE. probably the most frustrating thing that can happen with this aspect is when you always suspect what you shouldn’t, but then, when sketchy things are actually happening that should be questioned, you don’t bat an eye to it. omfg it drives me insane

moon conjunct the ascendant can make someone have a very delicate appearance that gives others the impression that they need to handle you like fine china or else you might break. my mother has this at a very tight orb and whenever i bring people over, their first impression of her is always “she looks so frail”. the native might be extremely sensitive to every minor inconvenience which brings a lot of frustration to them, a feeling that they can’t control their reactions and inner turmoil. it can also suck when you don’t want to be depicted as the victim but then that’s the way everyone perceives you. the native might have very expressive and shiny eyes, and they can cry easily. it’s very difficult for them to hide their emotions.

your jupiter sign can signify where you feel an overflow of energy. jupiter in cancer may feel like you have an overflow of nurturing and protective energy towards your loved ones, with a lot of intuition and need for introspection. jupiter in leo can make you feel like you a talent for self-expression and dealing with others, being overly dramatic and prideful at times, and with a huge drive to have fun. jupiter in virgo can feel an overflow of perceptive qualities, with a huge amount of self-awareness and also awareness of your surroundings, ability to constantly analyse and a constant strive for perfection (which btw is impossible since perfection is unattainable and you’re a human being who makes mistakes and that’s completely fine. stop finding flaws where there aren’t none).

[the-final-sif]

In Dreamon AU previous post, you said that Dream would purposely spend time with Quackity to prove he's not traumatized and I can't help but wonder how Quackity react to that or how other people react, because how do you react to that aside from disturbed horror, I mean, I can see Sapnap trying to get him to stop doing that but then what. Not to mention the whole 'a skeleton clips him with an arrow and he walks into the community house not noticing that there’s blood covering his whole shoulder'

Here's a very fun list of things:

The person who actually brings up the fact that c!Dream was tortured is c!Techno when everyone realizes what a poor state his body is in. He names c!Quackity as the one who did it, although he's not aware of the extent.

Dream literally would not have told anyone else about it either. When he wakes up and is finally questioned about the situation, he's quick to defend Quackity. He's firm that it was the Dreamon's influence and not Quackity's fault.

He needs it to be the Dreamon's influence. He needs it to not be something Quackity would really do. He needs it to be the Dreamon because he killed the Dreamon. He needs it to be over now.

Quackity... At first he's really not sure. There's part of him that wants to believe it was just the Dreamon. Certainly, he can now tell in reflection that his mind wasn't entirely his own. But there's a part of him that knows that he didn't fight it. He wasn't under the Dreamon's influence when he came up with the idea. He knows better then to excuse himself like that.

It's not until c!Schlatt is revived that it really hits Quackity. Because Schlatt was worse off than almost anyone else, maybe c!Wilbur had him beat. Maybe. And now that he's back and clear minded, it's easy to see that the Dreamon was influencing him. But Quackity can't help but still be fearful. Some part of Schlatt was still okay with doing what he did.

Prior to this realization, Dream had still been... not exactly hanging out with Quackity, but obviously forcing himself to interact/be in the same space as if he's trying to prove he's not afraid of him. Even though Quackity can catch him flinching out of the corner of his eye.

Quackity goes to c!Bad for help in the end, because Bad understands both sides of this. Bad encourages him to give Dream space, but talk to him eventually. Just not right now, when Dream is still such a wreck that one wrong shove might shatter him.

Also. Yeah. Dream has like, a new insane pain tolerance that's 50% the torture and 50% the longterm disconnect with his own body. The problem is his body is very fragile, so he can get seriously hurt, not notice, and then collapse without warning. It's terrifying for everyone but him. He's just... used to it. He's accepted this. At least that's what he tells himself.

One time it's walking into the community house with his entire left sleeve soaked in blood. c!Sapnap had a fucking heart attack, and Dream... he was upset that he had to wash his hoodie again.

The next time it's a baby zombie biting into his leg three or four times before c!Punz notices and kills it for him. Dream was busy with his admin work and never noticed it.

The time after that, it's him coming down with a 'strange aliment' where he's dizzy, cold, and his body gets weak to the point he can't stand. Dream insists he isn't sick. It takes nearly five hours of tests for c!Ponk to finally think to ask when the last time Dream ate was. Turns out his alarms were getting annoying so he paused them. It's been days since he last ate.

Dream tries to laugh it off. Tries to convince everyone else he's fine. He refuses to admit it might be a problem.

Until one day he has a close call with a creeper. Sure, he realized he got blown up, but he didn't know how bad the damage was to his back. There's nobody around, and before he thinks to ask for help, he's lost too much blood.

When he wakes up (someone found him, they found him and they moved him and he hates that he's somewhere new how did he get here-) c!Ranboo is there and he's been crying. Seeing Ranboo, who only had him for so long, who still has trouble opening up around others, crying because he almost lost Dream- It opens his eyes to at least part of the problem.

Dream is more careful after that.