Listen, I am by no means an angst enjoyer, but just thinking about the beautiful hurt/comfort potential of nightmare being ganged up on again like when he was a child and the boys coming to defend him where dream never did (and the potential angst if dream watches it all go down)

"I am by no means an angst enjoyed," you say as you send me this. THIS is the purest angst. You embraced your inner Nightmare as you wrote these words with the aim to cause as much devastation as you could. XD

Nightmare would be near a panic attack if not having one being in a situation that is similar to the day he ALMOST DIED and was corrupted. And the gang would have to approach him slowly to keep him from fearfully lashing out. (because in order for him to be ganged up on like that he would have to be weakened. He would only be remembering that day and not thinking straight. After all, he is panicking, and who has a rational thought when that terrified?)

The gang would be absolutely worried about their boss. They have never seen him like this and it... it is wrong to see someone so strong and mighty brought to such a state of being. Still... Nightmare is their boss and they love and respect him... as they would a father.

Dream would be absolutely DEVASTATED! Once again, when his brother needed him the most he couldn't do anything. Maybe he was weakened too or something else was keeping him from helping. Doesn't matter. He wasn't there when Nighty needed him. Blue would be trying to tend to Dream who would be nearly inconsolable for days. He's a failure... it's good that Nightmare found a new family because all Dream is is a failure. (Look what you did to the guardian of positive emotions XD)

The angst here is so strong I love this. :3c Good thing something like this, maybe not fully like this, but like this has the potential of happening much later in HNBD.

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

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

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

2) The diagnosis of such a disability itself,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Look Kristen is a kid so its understandable and Ally is great and I'm sure has a plan for this. But Kristen should not be a cleric lol. I hope that after the wizard synogue incident Cassandra takes the Archfey deal to keep herself safe and Kristen loses her powers because honestly based on her RP that girl has NO wisdom. She has NEGATIVE wisdom. If you don't like the gods currently on offer but can't take responsibility for keeping a new one alive (because you're a kid) then you should just respec. Pick a charisma-based spellcaster class that doesn't require a bunch of work like the Int classes or responsibility like the Wis classes. Give up your soul to Fig (or just give it back to newly-Archfey Cassandra) for Warlock spells idk.

a taste

Luxaeterna, a participant in the first true battle of the war between the Rainwings and Icewings, the Battle of Stolen Light. Her venom-fangs were torn out by an Icewing poacher, and after surviving and avoiding capture, replaced them with harder gemstone teeth. She’s well known for the number of Icewing skulls she’s impaled throughout the war. She is Boomslang and Quetzal’s great aunt. Postwar, she has been reunited with her living grandnephew and accompanies him for scale retrieval in the Ice and Sky Kingdoms.

Quetzal in his last moments before being murdered by an Icewing poacher. He had sold Boomslang’s egg to the Icewings in the hopes of gaining immunity from the scale trade- but he learned far too late that a bargain can’t be kept with someone who wants to wear your skin.

I just want to say, that I agree with almost all of your Critical Role takes and you have 1000% better and more nuanced takes than all of Twitter and I greatly appreciate it! The takes over there regarding Liliana and the gods are just wild and you bring some much needed sanity to the content I see

Thanks! I hope you don't mind because I've been thinking about this re: the Twitter takes but the thing about Twitter and Liliana specifically that I've seen is that there's this really bizarre fetishization of like, the fact that she is a (white) southerner (this also weirdly happened for Birdie though to a much lesser extent, and the person who spearheaded that wasn't even American so I have to assume this is a specific corner of Twitter Culture At Large). And like, here's the thing. It's true that fantasy tends to be very British in its accents, and it's also true that accents in a fantasy world are used to convey the same things we'd assume in our world - RP British for educated, southern American for rural, Cockney for rougher types, etc.

It's also true that laying the exact socioeconomic parallels from our world onto, say, Liliana and Orym (who reads to me as non-regional but I, like Liam, am from the Northeast originally) is a recipe for disaster. Or rather, it's not, but it is going to reaffirm your own biases, some of which are dangerous to reaffirm.

There was a popular post on Tumblr a while back, probably not long after Trump was elected, of someone talking about how they were convincing a relative with the confederate flag towards socialism by appealing to the idea of "isn't in unfair how uneven wealth distribution is and how a small group has so much control" and a number of people were rightfully like "uh, maybe you should focus on the racism" or "hey OP ask your relative who they think that small group in control is because I'm getting a really bad feeling they're going to say it's The Jews." And I feel that a lot of the empathy for Liliana from those spaces feels like that OP. Or in other words: I get that you see your relatives in Liliana. Unfortunately, I cannot help but see me and mine in Orym.

You see someone trapped by circumstance and desperation in a dangerous ideology. I see the fact that I haven't gone to a synagogue in easily 6-7 years without there being a security guard present and usually, the doors locked with someone looking through the window to let you in, and then in the sanctuary there's been an installation so that you can quickly bar all the doors in case an alarm goes off or you hear shots in the lobby.

I think there's a great case for seeing yourself in Imogen, who is in a painful struggle with the fact that her mother does love her very much but is in dangerously deep and has done a number of incredibly terrible and harmful things. That latter point is important, incidentally; I get that cult members sometimes rise through the ranks but all but the leader are being manipulated. But the fact remains that a brainwashed person can still commit atrocities, and in this story, they have, many times over. It's especially true because like...sure, plenty of people are like "I lost my relative to a cult and I just want them back and I couldn't harm them," but also, as we've seen, this cult can and will harm Imogen! Plenty of people are also like "yeah I gotta cut them off, it hurts but unfortunately my horribly bigoted and violent relative, while a victim of brainwashing, is a threat to me too." It's not even the full picture of the Temult side of things, let alone the picture that includes the Vanguard's victims.

I also think the Southern gatekeeping is unhinged because it's like. guys there's QAnon members and other cults across the country; the Confederate flag example above was actually notable in that OP wasn't even Southern so you couldn't even write the flag off as deeply misguided heritage but rather was explicitly being used as a hate symbol. It's awfully presumptive to assume all southerners have the same experience (especially since the Temults are portrayed, physically and in accents, as white southerners, not that the experiences of white southerners aren't also incredibly varied). It's awfully presumptive to assume that people find Liliana threatening because they have no personal experience with people like her; often, it's because they have all too real experience with people like her, and it says something even worse about you if you can say "but you guys, I see me and my family in Liliana" when people are telling you that they see them and their families in Orym. I would not, personally, publicly admit that one's empathy extends to the people who remind you of your family but runs out before it reaches their victims. Nor would I publicly admit that I assume everyone who disagrees with me clearly has never had personal experience with this topic.

I should also note that, as I've noted a number of times before, that these are fictional characters and not real people. Twitter seems to be really fucking bad at grasping that. Like, yes, this is the other thing; I do not think that OP should kill their Confederate flag-toting relative, whereas if Imogen did so to Liliana I'd be like "hell yeah." The former is a real person who I do hope gets deprogrammed, just, you know, maybe adjust those priorities; the latter is a fictional character in a story.

there's something so comforting about artists you admire talking about their own struggles and insecurities

I'm making a full post about this because I think it's important. I've reblogged other posts on this topic, but this is my own experience because trans man apparently can't be artists without our own communities ripping us apart for it.

I'm mainly an actor, but I do music on the side. I've been in 5 stage productions, a commercial, and a short film. For music, I've done a few gigs at charity events, won a community talent competition, and made some money on the side as a street performer. So I feel decently confident in saying that I'm fairly good at what I do.

When I talk to other trans people about my desire to build a resume that doesn't out me as a trans, and to market myself as a gay actor and not a trans one, I'm called a traitor to the community. And told that I'm depriving trans kids of a role model. Nevermind the cis queer people who think I'm stealing roles from 'real' gay men.

What they don't understand is that work for trans men does not exist. The modern professional canon of dramatic work does not include a single trans man. Not one. I cannot work as a trans man. The best I can hope for is what I've been getting the last year and a half, small background characters whose gender doesn't matter.

When I won the community talent competition for my music, I was told afterward that it was a shame that I won because "the last thing the queer community should be celebrating is another guy with an acoustic guitar". Several people in the trans social group I started attending agreed with that sentiment, telling me to stop playing altogether and saying "the world doesn't need anymore straight men with acoustic guitars". (Side note: I'm gay and explained that but the consensus of the people there was that trans men can't be gay because we're still 'female' (side note to the side note: all of the other people in this group were trans women lesbians and did not see the irony in that)).

I dont understand how other queer people can contribute to this without realizing the harm. I would ask how trans masc artists are supposed to want to keep creating their art but I think that's the point.

looking at the lyrics of color your night and seeing the ryomina of it all..............

it's about someone experiencing the things you already know for the first time. it's about having your perspective of the things in your life become dulled and indifferent through familiarity but get brightened by seeing someone else's eyes sparkling at the sight of the same things. it's about seeing the joys of the small things again through the eyes of another.

it's about having your life colored in by learning to live!!!!!

I was rewatching The Stone Forest and I really like to think that Hilda had to pass by the Bell Keeper’s outpost on her way out of the city limits. I like to think that idiot looked at what was happening, shrugged, and said ‘eh, she’s the scariest thing out there’

I think Church on Ruby Road has finally firmly cemented my opinion that Murray Gold should not have come back.

Marcus and Fighting

Ok, I wanna talk about something real quick: where did the fandom belief that Marcus is aggressive come from?

Like he's not? The few scenes where we see him upset are scary, yes, but he never physically lashes out at any character in them. He slams his hands down on a table in the jail disownment scene, which is a common behavioral cue of frustration. And he looks mad... which makes sense because he's in jail! I don't think many other people would be that happy about that situation either. Yet he never hits the glass, threatens his kid physically, or raises his voice more than one time. Did he handle the situation well? No, but I wouldn't call that straight up aggressive.

He was upset and frustrated, so his body language said that. He's in an extremely stressful situation and is having to mentally process a lot. Everything is going to be big emotions for him, but that doesn't make him aggressive for feeling those.

And as for the bank robbing stuff? The nearby police didn't know of the crime until the alarm goes off. Most banks have a hidden button at every desk that deals with customers that alerts police silently of a robbery. The fact that the nearby police were clueless means that button was not pressed and therefore the people in the bank likely didn't see them either. They didn't hurt anyone.

And then, when they were caught by cops later in the movie? They didn't even try to run, let alone fight. Marcus, along with the others, turned himself in without any fuss. Not what you would expect if someone was a violent and aggressive criminal.

And as for in the second movie? Neither Marcus, Stan, or Barry throw the first punch. In fact, they only act defensively. They're trying to keep the guards out of the theatre. That's it. They don't go out of their way to attack Suki or Jerry when they are just standing there because they aren't posing threats to the troupe. And the gang was just defending them, not going out and picking fights.

See? Jerry was fine, despite clearly being a Crystal employee. If Marcus or any of the others had been trying to hurt people, he would have been hurt. But they left him alone.

They even wait to make sure that the guards are going to attack them and only move when they do, going by school rules of "never throw the first punch and make sure you have witnesses to prove you didn't". Technically, since they did that, they could argue self-defense.

And they did also give them the chance to just walk away as well, gently pushing Jimmy away when he tries to get in.

Sure, Marcus enjoys boxing. But that doesn't mean he's an aggressive guy. I did years of martial arts and was pretty good at it but I still flinch when I see people get paper cuts and avoid conflict like the plague. It was just a sport I liked. The same is probably true with Marcus.

Besides, we see Johnny do boxing as well and I don't think anyone could possibly ever call that ball of anxious energy stuffed inside a theatre kid's body aggressive.

Marcus is not actually committing acts of outright aggression in the two moments that he's commonly marked as being aggressive in. Instead he's upset/frustrated and protective. He never actually harms a character without an actual reason to do so, with the only reason we see being his son potentially being hurt. He's not aggressive, he's just a parent with emotions.

I'll never be able to take the theory that Vincent is Sephiroth's real father seriously cuz I cannot stress enough how important I think it is to the plot that Vincent wanted to fuck Lucrecia and did not get to.

💥

💥What are your thoughts on criticism?

 i believe it has tremendous value! and also i do not want it on my fanfic ❤️

just so there’s no misunderstandings: huge difference between literary criticism and just plain criticism, obviously. the former is wonderful and the rare times my (original) work has been subjected to it were terrifying and amazing and extremely humbling. the latter makes up a very conservative 99.9% of negative (though the posters themselves usually try to pass it off as ‘constructive’) comments on ao3.

i welcome the kind of criticism that benefits everyone. if you have ever pointed out a typo or small oversight to me (ie. switching the names of two characters in dialogue, repeated words, verb tense errors), you are my hero. because these are:

obvious errors that are 

easy to fix and will 

improve the experience for everyone reading it in the future. 

but i think there’s absolutely no good reason to post your criticism if the only one who might benefit from it is yourself. if you:

are trying to convince the writer to take their story where you personally want it to go, or

think the subject matter/ship/character interpretation is deplorable and the fic shouldn’t exist, or

believe the investment of your time reading somehow equates the writer’s time writing it and this entitles you to a certain update frequency or chapter length literally anything,

i urge you kindly to go fuck yourself, take a lil nap & then write your own story.

fanfic writers aren’t service providers. we don’t owe each other anything but the courtesy of kindness. and if sometimes that kindness looks like shutting up and moving on, i promise that is far more constructive than a hateful note could ever be.

Cardio said my echocardiogram ultrasound, exercise stress test, and week long heart monitor all showed no serious issues, my resting heart rate is fine, but that my heart rate does seem to rise very rapidly under even small amounts of stress (postural changes, taking stairs, casually walking around my house) and rises very high (160+ bpm according to the monitor) so now I get to be put on beta blockers to see if they work and if they do she said that is sufficient evidence to confirm for sure that it's POTS.

Obviously could confirm it as well with a tilt table test but those are TORTURE based off what I've heard from fellow POTSies so I am very thankful that she doesn't think that's necessary and will not be making me do one.

i love you mr. revvington