Our weirdness is what makes us right.

she/they | Queer AF | soooo normal about Critical Role

[fleursfairies]

okay? bring back maria hill

[toodrunktofindaurl]

fighting for her life, as usual

twitter | bluesky | insta | 🔞 pa/treon

[mapsontheweb]

The black areas represent the remaining natural dark skies in the United States

[largedad]

[impossiblepackage]

I’ve been in the middle of the ocean at night and now live in texas and it is so hard to explain to people that no, they have not ever seen the night sky. It is so hard to explain to people that what they think is a proper night sky is fucking pathetic. A disgrace.

People talk about how you can’t see stars in the city and yeah, that’s true, but their concept of “seeing stars” is being able to make out orion’s belt.

So, so few people have see the sky in all its glory and it’s not sad. It’s a fucking crime. Seeing a perfectly dark night, no clouds, not a hint of light pollution? That’s a fucking religious experience.

The sky the vast vast majority of us grew up with is not the sky that inspired us to look up. It is not the sky that inspired constellations. You can’t even see most constellations.

Your ancestors looked at the night sky and said “surely, that is where the gods must live.” And you might be lucky if you can see hardly more than a handful of stars.

The sky is full, fucking FULL, of stars, and you’ve never seen them.

[bisquid]

I remember the first time I saw a properly dark sky and was like ‘oh that’s why it’s called the milky way’ and promptly started to cry

When we were on a field trip to the middle of the red sea, I remember us all crowding at the end of the boat that didn’t have lights and just lying on our backs and staring

When you see a properly dark starscape

You understand why people wrote poems and made up legends and built rockets and said heaven’s in the sky

The universe is infinite. So are the stars

[bisquid]

I’m trying to find a picture on google images to show you what I mean and I can’t find any

You think of the night sky like fairy lights on black velvet, but it’s not it’s not it’s like, like, dust in sunlight, like - I can’t find the words.

The stars are everywhere, like sugar, like glitter, like dust. You can’t find the constellations at first, not because you can’t recognise them, but because there’s so many stars you can’t pick out the familiar line of Orion’s belt. The North star has gone from bright familiarity to almost vanishing among a thousand, a hundred thousand, a million other lights. The milky way is a line of light arcing across the sky like a moon-trail on water only infinitely, infinitely bigger.

And for the first time in your life you’ll understand why people call it a dome, because it is, it’s three dimensional in exactly the way a city skyscape isn’t.

You’ll understand why Luthien Tinúviel danced under starlight, not moonlight, why people in a time before we knew the earth was round still looked up and wondered and built telescopes and dreamed about the stars.

The stars are endless and ancient and infinite and you will stand with your head craned back and your rucksack forgotten at your feet and you’ll feel like you’re falling upwards into that great bright sky like it’s calling you home and you’ll wonder how you ever thought the stars were beautiful before tonight when all you’d ever seen were the naked empty skyscapes of your home. And you’ll cry and you’ll spend the rest of your time there gazing up and wondering and imagining what it would be like to stand among those bright silver flecks

And then you’ll come home, and look up, and fall in a different kind of love with that handful of blazing stars to stubborn to be outdone by the whole of human invention, leading you home despite the light pollution and the clouds and the endless bustle of this shrinking planet.

[5c0l0p3ndr4]

this is not a shot from a space telescope overlayed behind a woods, or anything. that’s not the sky as kepler or hubble or james webb see it. that’s the sky from a dark sky park in michigan. that’s the view you are missing out on from right here on earth. that’s the view that has been stolen from you.

[mckitterick]

I fell in love with the sky as a child growing up in western Minnesota, miles from a small town, near a massive lake and just downhill from an 18-hole golf course - the pure darkness broken only by a single bright light I could escape by hauling my telescope up that hill or into a nearby field

I’d often set an alarm to wake me in the middle of the night, so it was as dark as possible and my eyes as dark-adapted as they coud get, and starlight alone was enough to guide me

that’s what’s been taken from us all

[scarletswalking]

Growing up in Wyoming, we had low light pollution no matter where we were, but I lived in the biggest town there. I used to lay on the trampoline at night with my best friend and we would look at the stars. On clear nights, I remember thinking that the sky was cloudy - but I was seeing the milky way. Every summer night that I could, I would watch the sky and spot the satellites (this was waaay before star link), and count the shooting stars.

You can’t imagine it - it really is something you have to see.

[mckitterick]

I want our baby (and every kid!) to see skies that dark - we might need to move to one of those unpolluted areas one day, unless groups like DarkSky International can help turn things around dramatically

[miss-wizard]

DO NOT LET SOCIAL MEDIA TURN YOU INTO AN AMERICAN

[coleblackblood]

As an American: Seriously, please don’t

[miss-wizard]

ok well i don't

[alatismeni-theitsa]

"Americanization" is a real phenomenon, and how non-Americans should be cautious of it is taught in different countries at school. It's taught in Greece and people from other countries told me their elementary or middle school teachers (using the American grades, to make it make sense to the majority on the site) talked to them about it.

It's common sense here, except for USians, so I'll analyze it a bit more for the dominant demographic here. In a globalized setting, the most dominant culture affects the others and sets the trends. The way our language works, how we think, our levels of politeness and intimacy, and our levels of respect. (flash news, they are going down 😂)

I don't want to imply that there is nothing good in the US. There are plenty of positives in the country. It's just that for the rest of the cultures online it's a constant daily fight to not forget our roots, with the degree US media and brands have permeated our lives. In Greece at least we watch more US American media than Greek media nowadays, and many of our shows are rip-offs of USian ones, with little adaptation to Greek reality and culture.

And to demonstrate the amount of this exposure, a 22-year-old Greek asked me the other day "if something happens we call 911, right?" This might have literally cost them their life, in a dangerous situation! Because all the movies and songs they consumed (not an unusual thing for the Greek youth) were what they knew. And I found a similar comment in this comment thread.

[kingwren]

Lots of Americans in the notes failing to understand this post. It's not about not liking the US. It's not about you feeling ashamed or guilty for being American. It's not about you.

It's about American media drowning out native language media all over the world, and workplaces requiring the English language in your repertoire more and more. It's about proper translations and foreign language dubbing of films disappearing because "everyone speaks/should speak English anyway." All of this is leading to the deterioration of native speaker groups of languages worldwide.

In my country, Dutch language courses can't find enough people who want to study the language, while English language courses are overflowing with people who want to study the language. There is even widespread distaste for the Dutch language for being crude or sounding rough or what have you. That's our native language!!! That is our culture in its purest form!!! That is knowledge we inherit from our parents as they did from theirs!!! That is how we learned fairytales and folk stories and myths!!! That is the language that shapes our communication and our way of thinking!!! To hate your native language is to hate yourself at the deepest level.

And yet it's so normalised. Droves of foreigners living in the Netherlands will never learn a word of Dutch, because "everyone speaks English anyway." We are the world's leaders in non-native understanding of English, but it comes at a cost. A grave cost we will continue to pay.

If you're looking to support your non-American friends in any way that is not performatively shouting "I hate being an American" into the void, first of all, unlearn that hatred of yourself and your culture. You are of no help self-flagellating, and there is a difference between holding your country accountable for its issues, and denying yourself your culture because your country is doing and has done bad things.

(I am not going to get into arguments about whether or not US American culture exists. It does, and if you think differently you are welcome to change your mind.)

Secondly, learn about other countries. Learn a bit of Chinese. Take an interest in the Italian political system. Ask your friends about their countries' folklore. Watch documentaries about art from Nigeria. Absorb information that is not fed to you by American media.

And thirdly, quit expecting your non-American friends to communicate in a way that appeals to you. The French and Dutch will always seem rude to you because our way of communicating is far more direct than the way you communicate. People from other cultures may seem vague to you because their way of communicating is far more indirect, and you're not used to that either. Quit being frustrated when you don't get what we mean exactly. Quit assuming we mean the absolute worst thing you could imagine just because you didn't get what we meant the first time. Ask us to explain if you need us to, and learn to accept that we are different from you.

We are already adapting to your culture 100% of the time we are online. It's your responsibility to adapt to us, too. At least do your friends the courtesy of learning about and adapting to them.

[onedivinemisfit]

We are already adapting to your culture 100% of the time we are online. It's your responsibility to adapt to us, too. At least do your friends the courtesy of learning about and adapting to them.

[revcleo]

Also like people who say "just leave tumblr if you don't want to see american stuff" it's fucking everywhere it's not just online, it's offline too, our politicians keep trying to copy the USA, your tarrifs bankrupted small sellers all over Europe, your proxy wars and ability to just stop wars with a phone call also influence us, in south america Venezuela is currently risking being bombed to distract people from the fact that your president is a paedophile.

Emerican Johnson once had a good video (which I can't find any more) about how he moved from being a capitalist into a socialist, which involved leaving the USA and then realising that people outside of the USA can't choose to ignore politics from the USA because of how much it affects everyone.

There's a good video by Jack Saint on cultural cringe, and how even unintentionally when there's a culture which is considered modern (like it fills the cinemas) it can make your own culture seem boring and shitty meaning you go towards the other culture and abandon your own history and sometimes even language. Like an interesting example of this is how 'white walls' are considered cool in Indian social media because of how there's so many people from the USA who have just plain white walls for their videos, rather than traditional Indian house designs. Especially because IKEA is expensive and out of reach for most people in India, so having a plain painted white wall with IKEA furniture is actually a status symbol!

There's been so many times I've tried to get through to a bunch of people from the US the sheer amount of stuff we can't avoid. But I think the indoctrination which people in the USA do go through has been made quite clear in some of the recent videos from Evan Edinger, where he can point out where the absolute nonsense he's recieved in his comments is mentally from, as he grew up in the USA but once he lived in another country he realised all the wool which had been pulled over his eyes.

Many people from the USA when confronted with the truth seem even unable to unwilling to actually listen to people from outside the USA. They just get angry and combative. Like arguments like "We have problems inside too!" Like yeah of course you do, we know, we can show you paths to help. "Why are you attacking us, there's lots of POC in the USA" do you think there's only white people outside of the usa? do you think there's only white people even in Europe or something? Very racist argument to make. "I'm not listening to an X" if the place someone comes from means you won't listen to them, never mind the xenophobia it just makes you look like a child if you say an argument is based on who someone is rather than what it says.

[sliceoftheskye]

I remember sitting in a call with a few people in @ayeforscotland server as we watched the 2025 US election results coming in and verbalising my feelings on it which summed up as

"I cannot wait for the time that I (a Scottish Person) no longer need to know how many Electoral college votes Georgia gets."

When America sneezes the rest of us catch a cold.

[galindaisgay]

The best friends to lovers trope is incredibly popular and has been around for ages. But, when it involves two women, suddenly people are like “you’ve never had a best friend if you ship them” or “I support female friendships! Don’t corrupt their friendship with romance.” As if romance between two women automatically diminishes their friendship instead of strengthening their existing bond and creating a beautiful romantic relationship based off of the foundation of their friendship.

[tangent101]

One of the more delightful things that happened in Critical Role Campaign 3 was the gradual realization by Imogen (and Laura Bailey who played her) that Imogen was in love with her best friend Laudna (played by Marisha Ray)... and for Laudna to realize that she was also in love with Imogen and that this was okay.

More amusingly is that background information from the two players reveals that they never intended on the two characters to fall in love with each other. They created them with an intent of showcasing two female characters with a very strong bond of friendship. And honestly I think that it was events in the game that brought them to go from loving each other as friends to being in love with each other.

The primary factor behind this was the death of Laudna at the hands of Otohan Thull. Imogen (and Laura Bailey) was distraught at losing their partner... which I think led to her starting to realize that her feelings had been changing. Not long after Laudna was restored to the land of the "living" (the quotes needed as Laudna was not entirely alive due to events that happened to her decades earlier), the two women were separated from each other due to other events in the game... and were never far from each other's thoughts.

For that matter, this was not the only same-sex relationship in the game, as two of the male characters ended up romantically linked near the end of the story after being apart for a long time. But I don't recall the same level of disdain toward their pairing as toward Imogen and Laudna.

Look, those of you who are dismissive of the same-sex friends-to-lovers trope... sometimes you end up falling in love with your best friend. Who knows you best? Who else can you trust the most? It doesn't matter what the gender of the friends... love can still arise. And if it's fine for it to happen to heterosexual pairings... why not homosexual? Why can't two women fall in love with each other? Whether this is Max and Chloe from Life is Strange, Wednesday and Enid from thee show Wednesday, Imogen and Laudna (or for that matter Beau and Yasha) from Critical Role... why is this a threat? Why is this "wrong" in your eyes? Why can't best friends who are the same gender become lovers and more? And why is it a threat to you?

[writeouswriter]

Perhaps I'm too tired to write right now

[queerofthedagger]

mutual pining simply never misses. the yearning. the stupidity. the desperation while also thinking themselves alone with it. the rattling relief at the revelation. the way it works in so many scenarios— friends to lovers? a banger every time. casual hook-ups/friends with benefits while they both want more? show-stopping, spectacular, incredible. enemies who are so deep in denial it just makes them madder at each other? utterly unmatched every single time. slow burn, fast burn, burning while already fucking. mutual pining really just is that girl like truly who does it like her

[becherdireinen]

i've reached the "i don't have energy for that anymore" era.

[4rachn1d]

Just so we are all on the same page, Being kind IS in FACT punk rock

[lastflowerofyourhouse]

something i love about tamsyn muir is that she can conceive of so many types of people, right? there are so many characters with such weird shit going on, and somehow all of them are well-written. a blood-crusted former princess who sainted herself in the desperate hope that someone might finally love her. a scholar who's dedicated his entire life to the much-older pen pal who refused his hand in marriage. a nun who pledged her soul to a beautiful corpse and whose existence is spent desperately trying to atone for the fact of her birth. a woman who has spent ten thousand years in horrible pain and would kill herself and the whole universe if only she could take god with it. a girl who's spent her whole life so irrationally hated by everyone around her that she thinks the only way to be loved is to be eaten. a group of children growing up in a warzone. a commander who would do whatever it took to free the universe. god's most loyal saints, long since driven to murder and only waiting for their moment. the angry ghost of an entire world, puppeting a mannequin which they tell her is her body. ozymandias if he was a twitch streamer. i could go on.

but she has never, not once in the entire series, written a character who wasn't attracted to women. that, alone, is inconceivable.

[lastflowerofyourhouse]

well, you see, it's very simple. coronabeth always wanted to occupy naberius's position but was forced to occupy ianthe's. ianthe got jealous of corona's position and dealt with this by fusing her own soul with naberius. naberius liked coronabeth better but had more in common with ianthe, with whom he shared roughly zero common interests. coronabeth and ianthe spent every day together for 21 years, and during that time developed absolutely no ability to empathize with each other. no one really understood corona like naberius did, which is to say that no one really understood corona. corona tried to understand ianthe, except no she didn't. no one even attempted to understand naberius. naberius was corona's cavalier in his heart, and she was ianthe's cavalier in her heart, and ianthe said fuck you both and became her own cavalier. they had all known each other their entire lives. none of them knew each other at all. they were all sworn to protect and uphold at least one other member of the group. none of them particularly liked either of the others as people. the only one taking this seriously was ianthe. the only one taking this seriously was coronabeth. the only one taking this seriously was naberius. and they all, most importantly, fucking sucked. but god, who wouldn't?

[thanergetic-hyperlinks]

Ianthe is another character who sprung, horrible and fully-formed, the moment I knew her situation. She has always been the way she was, as has Coronabeth, and as has Naberius. All three of the Third inform each other -- and Ianthe, the shadow queen of the trio, was herself from day one. The only thing she missed was nearly being called 'Abella'. I think that was a hangover from the days when I wanted everyone's name to have syllables matching their house.

—from the Reddit AMA

[spaceoddity82-deactivated202510]

Harrow the ninth dares to ask the question, what if your found family just fucking suuuucked. What if they sucked soooo bad omg omg. Space alexa how do i unfind these people

[3d10fire-damage]

the thing about harrowhark nonagesimus is that on the surface, she's this aloof maybe kinda creepy maybe kind of a bitch bone nun. but then she's also like a really good necromancer, and she does such crazy badass shit with bones, literally forming harpoons out of her own bones and spearing ghosts of planets with them, and she has these iconic lines like 'death first to vultures and scavengers' and she was so focused about the Canaan House puzzle that she mapped every goddamn door in the whole place in like a day and a half and worked herself to exhaustion learning theorems, she's just an intense, sharply thinking sort of person. not to mention she's so closed off you almost wonder if she even has feelings. but then you read a bit deeper and you realize that harrowhark nonagesimus is also a sad miserable kitten on a stoop in the pouring rain. she's a neurotic mess that is borderline incapable of admitting or acknowledging her true emotions (emphasis on borderline) and would sooner fling herself into the sun than admit any vulnerability. she's the daughter of genocide. she fucking hates herself. no one has more problems than her. she is pitiful. and THEN she's also a fucking weirdo on top of all that. she can't stand food with any significant flavor. tea biscuits are beyond her. she fell in love with a frozen dead body and would marry it if she could. she's afraid of hot water. she thinks bones are the sexiest thing there is. harrowhark nonagesimus is simultaneously so cool, so sick, and so strange, and it's enough for anyone to look at her and be like, what the fuck is going on here? and that is why she gets bitches.

[theoppositeofprofound]

The point about the permeability of the soul is at least in part that we cannot separate love and consumption. You almost always can’t say ‘this is because of the soul juices mingling’ vs ‘this is one of the horrors of love’ and that’s the point.

Is Naberius haunting Ianthe because they grew up together, because they were trained to be two halves of the same whole, because she knew him inside out and there’s a love in that, however violent? Or is it because she’s been using him like a battery and a hand-puppet and a computer program and now he’s threaded up through her. She can’t know! She doesn’t want to know, she refuses to look.

Did Gideon v1 become more militaristic after Pyrhha’s death through osmosis? Or was it because he loved her and trusted her and his first thought in a crisis was What Would Pyrrha Do. Did he love Wake because their programming got jumbled or was it because he met a awful redhead and thought oh, my best friend would have been so stupid for you, she would have been such a wreck…

Did John make the earth angry or did the earth fill John with anger or was it both? Did the love come first or the fury? Does Mercy love her god because Cristabel did or does she do it for the sake of Cristabel? The lyctors all view themselves as living memorials to the dead, of course they’d voice the dead’s thoughts, act out their habits and carry on their infuriating quirks. How else do you remember? You can’t peel apart the analogy and make it all magic or all mundane because soul-permeability coexists with the everyday manacles of affection.

[candyskiez]

The fact that people don't think friendship is enough to justify characters doing insane acts of love for each other baffles me. Like have you never loved your friend so so much you want to live in their ribcage. Have you never been really weird about a friend. Have you never wanted to bite your friends parents or shove them down a staircase. Have you never wanted to be buried in the same grave as a friend. Have u never. How do u people live like this.

[cowboythethird]

harrowhark “my whole existence is the result of 200 dead children, i am the product of sacrifice and have to live with the guilt of that everyday. i am in love with a corpse and i puppet my dead parents around so i am not alone. i cannot take another loss” nonagesimus

gideon “i gave my life for you and you didnt even want it, even worse you refuse to accept it, wasting my sacrifice. you lobotomized yourself to forget everything i did for you—you refuse to embrace the life i have provided you over and over again, and now im stuck as a reanimated corpse” nav

and

coronabeth “i am sick with heartbreak and jealousy that you didnt murder and consume me, your other half, refusing to let me join you on your journey forwards, instead giving that honor to some dick they assigned us. I am dejected and maimed” tridentarius

ianthe “you are the last person i would kill—i would kill myself first without hesitation rather than lay a finger on you. i cannot live without you and i could not live myself if i was the one who removed you from this world” tridentarius

[cbrcbbr]

this isn’t how it happens