So, I Was Studying For My Finals And Reading The Bit In Snorri’s Edda About Ragnarok And At One Point

I misread a post observing that a tyrannosaurus is chronologically closer to an iPhone than it is to a stegosaurus as claiming that a tyrannosaurus is taxonomically closer to an iPhone than it is to a stegosaurus, and I swear my first thought was “okay, what have those cladistics weirdos done this time“.

Aromantic Sunset. Just don’t ask me why the sky is green and we won’t have a problem.

Aro/ace spec students who anonymously send validating little messages using owls and different spells for people struggling with accepting their identities. Eventually other students catch on and start doing the same thing, especially the students who benefit from them.

They use that one owl in the owlery, you know the one. Old Agrippa. Agrippa won’t fly long distances, so it doesn’t get to deliver messages much (something it loves very much). Agrippa becomes a favorite of the a-spec students, who bring it treats and toys and pride-color ribbons that help it hold onto things.

When the mail arrives, Agrippa soars through the Great Hall ahead of the rest. It never drops and flies; it always stays for a bit of sausage and affection. The aros and aces of Hogwarts send more messages of encouragement both for their fellow a-specs and for the owl who has stolen their hearts.

- Ravenclaw Mod

The Truth About INFPs

It bugs me when I read online forums created by other INFPs and the first thing they do is apologize for being an INFP!

I get that we’re known as the daydreamers. The crybabies. The cinnamon rolls. The overly sensitive ones. But these are only stereotypes. It’s especially bad on Tumblr, where I’ve noticed some MBTI blogs clearly don’t bother to do their research.

INFPs are the most underestimated type. Yes, we are kind and empathic. Yes, we care about people and humanity and the environment - as should everyone?

Most people see ‘INFP’ and think we’ve got our head in the clouds and we’re never present in the moment. They think we don’t have the aptitude for science or math and can’t be intelligent. They think we’re clueless and let emotions guide us completely, as if we never use logic.

I can’t even begin to tell you how wrong they are.

INFPs are powerful. When threatened, we fight back so fiercely it’s unexpected. When we’re passionate, we get shit done. We become crusaders for our causes. We spearhead entire movements. We can be so surprisingly analytical, you’d think you’re talking to an INTJ. We’re witty like ENTPs. Charming like ENFJs. We can be so outgoing you’d mistake us for an ENFP. We can be as cutthroat as INTPs and you’d never expect such a thing from us because we’re mostly merciful. But everyone has their own quirks, some INFPs are passive while others are more confrontational. Some will keep quiet while others will attack you for your ignorance. And because the INFP can also be as observant as ISFPs, our verbal assaults are hurtful and strike the heart - the more we know about you the better we can exploit your weaknesses. And we will, if we’re really pissed off.

A lot of people seemed surprised when they figure out that INFPs aren’t as sensitive or as reserved as they thought they were. That’s probably because they only know us by our stereotypes. I really want to fix that.

INFPs are gentle hurricanes. We are lovely roses whose thorns can draw blood. We’re the snow that sparkles like crushed diamonds but will leave you with blistering frostbite.

What I’m trying to say is that INFPs are not submissive doormats so I’m asking all MBTI blogs to please do their research before giving us degrading stereotypes that makes some people think they must be emotionally weak, or that they’re not intelligent, or they’re prone to slacking off and daydreaming just because their result on the Myers Briggs test was INFP. We are among the most emotionally intelligent and resilient. We understand people’s feelings, thoughts and intentions so naturally and so deeply, we probably know you better than you do. We’re fiercer than you think. We’re more intelligent than you know. We are a force not to be taken so lightly. INFPs should be proud to be who they are.

I was explaining this to a friend recently and I think it's an important distinction to make: not all queerplatonic relationships look the same.

A good way I've found to illustrate what exactly a qpr is, is to say "a qpr is to relationships what nonbinary is to gender". While both of these traditionally function on a binary (male/female, platonic/romantic), by defining our personal outlooks and experiences of the concepts of gender and relationships with new terms, we challenge the boundaries that society has put in place.

And yes, whilst redefining what actually constitutes romantic or platonic relationships, or male and female identities, and what makes them different (and acknowledging where they overlap, or where they can expand past what we traditionally expect) is important to increasing our understanding, so is providing options entirely outside of those two boxes.

And that's what it is - options. It's very easy to trivialise the concept of nonbinary and simply make gender into a trinary, rather than a binary. Male/female/nonbinary, which goes against the very purpose of the nonbinary label. This further erases the spectrum of gender. It's the same with relationships - by giving a strict set of instructions on how a qpr must look and act, you are simply creating a trinary. The point of the concept of qprs is to acknowledge that there are relationships between people that may overlap platonic and romantic, or fall partially within one and partially outside, or ones that are entirely separate from either category.

There are an infinite amount of ways a relationship can manifest, and if the people in the relationship feel that queerplatonic best describes their partnership without romance, or their affection without commitment, or their feelings towards each other that aren't quite what romantic or platonic is to them, or any other reason that rebels against amatonormativity, then they can choose to use that term. Queerplatonic covers the widest range of relationships that come in all shapes and sizes.

I think it's so important when discussing topics like relationships and gender to consciously make the effort to keep queering our ideas of the concepts - to remember that a spectrum is a spectrum. Labels can be useful for finding community, identifying your experiences and validating your struggles, but as soon as you try to start hyper-defining them, you lose the radical nature of queering our understanding of ourselves and our relationships. We name these concepts in order to give a voice to our subversion of society's arbitrary rules and expectations, not to police each other into conforming to a particular understanding of how a person (with a certain label) "should" act or be.

i dont think i posted these but here i made a little frog pattern to make tiny frog toys with my grandma

this is the first lil guy I made while still learning how i should sew it

MY FELLOW AROMANTIC SIMMERS I AM LOSING MY MIND

so the latest update to the sims 4 added sexuality customization. i was like “oh cool we can probably, like, make gay sims now instead of having everyone be bi. cool. good for the gays.”

I dared not HOPE that they would even think about aros but DUDE. THEY ADDED THE SPLIT ATTRACTION MODEL

YOU CAN NOW MAKE SIMS THAT ARE ARO, ACE, OR OTHERWISE HAVE SPLIT ATTRACTIONS VIA THE NEW SEXUALITY TAB IN THE CREATE A SIM (its under the same tab as the custom gender options)

[image ID: a small cropped screenshot of a notification from the sims 4, in which a sim says “I am not interested in romantic relationships.” end ID]

NO MORE DO WE HAVE TO SUFFER WITH THE (modded in from sims 3) UNFLIRTY TRAIT. THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER. IT STRAIGHT UP DELETES THE OPTION FOR ROMANTIC INTERACTIONS, BOTH PLAYER MADE AND AUTONOMOUS, FOR THE SIM AND FOR ANY SIMS INTERACTING WITH THEM WHO KNOW THEIR ROMANTIC ORIENTATION.

and!!!!!! then I thought!!!! no! it couldn’t possibly be! this is wonderful but they couldn’t possibly have moved the sexual interactions out of the romance tab, where they’ve always been in every sims game! if you only check the sexual attractions and leave romantic attractions unchecked it probably just like, doesn’t let you do them! they couldn’t possibly!

NOPE

[image ID: a cropped screenshot of the sims 4 showing some interaction options listed under the “friendly” category in the interaction tree. the highlighted interaction is “ask to be WooHoo partners.” end ID]

WOOHOO PARTNERS. FWB. A COMPLETELY NEW RELATIONSHIP TYPE THAT UNLOCKS WOOHOO INTERACTIONS WITHOUT REQUIRING A ROMANTIC RAPPORT LIKE YOU’VE ALWAYS NEEDED IN THE SIMS.

[image ID: a cropped screenshot of the sims 4 showing three different WooHoo options listed under the “friendly” category in the interaction tree. end ID]

LOOK AT IT. IT PUTS THE WOOHOO OPTIONS UNDER THE FRIENDLY TAB.

this is alloaro representation! this is legitimately alloaro representation, with gameplay dedicated to alloaro relationships!

fuck EA and the Sims for their cashgrabbing DLC nonsense and etc but whichever individuals on the dev team are responsible for these features, you have my respect

Aromanticism often goes hand-in-hand with:

Low self-esteem, self-loathing, and/or feelings of inferiority

Feeling lonely, isolated, or like you’re an “other”

Shame

Anxiety

Fear of abandonment, distrust of friends and family

Constant second-guessing one’s own identity

Fear of the future or an inability to imagine oneself with a “happy ending”

Disassociation in the form of feeling “unreal” or “inhuman”

This is a huge problem that can really destroy a person, and the root cause is the way our society treats relationships. But the thing is, nobody ever tries to address this problem. People outside of the aro community (which is small and disjointed as it is) don’t discuss aro issues, and don’t try to think critically about the messages they put out, and then when aros talk about how much they’re hurting, we just get told that we don’t have it as bad as other people, so we don’t have any right to complain, and our feelings aren’t real.

God knows it’s hard to heal yourself without help from others, and aros aren’t getting that help. And sure, sometimes we can talk to each other, but that can only get you so far- it’s the emotional equivalent of two people simultaneously trying to save each other from drowning. The aromantic community needs outside support, but nobody is trying to help us aside from saying that we’re Valid™ every now and then. That’s a big problem.

Because of it's theropod-like anatomy, but often being depicted with more than 3 digits per limb; do you think a Wyvern would be a dinosaur? Or would it be a case of convergent evolution from an Archosaur, or another more modern branch of reptile?

I’d kind of lean towards them evolving from similar branches to Yi Qi, a cool little critter with very different wings that looks like evolution scrapped that design after the second draft.

(Image source)

They’re not bat wings. They’re not bird wings. They’re something all of their own.

I’m sorely tempted to call them proto-dragon wings.

So I’d like to think this little dude is the way-back ancestor for wyverns, and perhaps in another timeline it would have worked out. Still some significant modifications required, but it’s a good base to start from.