#[ now everyone will think i'm weird lol ]

[icewindandboringhorror]

Some fantasy traveler inventory details (like what they would carry in their bags), based on two of the recent costumes I did.. love finding random little scraps and items and putting them together lol

[good--merits-accumulated]

going through some old left-for-dead projects and just found this one where I was like. INTENT on dissecting jeff's brain on the operating table (i.e. google docs) but only from todd's weird skewed pov

[professor voice] it's about brothers as eternal combatants and it's about being so convinced of your own goodness you excuse your shitty actions. it's also about comparing yourself to a dog because you feel less fully formed than your brother. lol.

[silusvesuius]

elituli but lesbians

real as fack

[giantkillerjack]

Uh-oh! You are like, SOOO awkward!!

You're so awkward that it is occasionally mildly uncomfortable for people!

You're so awkward that sometimes people are confused by you and then there are awkward silences!

You're so awkward ...... that ultimately no one is harmed!!

Oh damn!!! What a vile crime you have committed! What an unforgivable thing it is to make a fellow human briefly confused!

Why, if *I* were ever briefly confused and kind of uncomfortable as a result, I'd be devastated.... by the absolute net zero change in my happiness and health! - From which I might never recover!! Yes indeed! No punishment can ever be enough for you!!

So you better absolutely hate yourself for it.

Better be SO MEAN to yourself about every single missed social cue so you don't forget your horrible crime! Meaner than you'd ever dream of being to someone else for the same thing! This is YOUR responsibility!

You need to show the world that you KNOW you are bad by punishing yourself constantly! After all, think of all the people who BENEFIT from you punishing yourself! - No, really! Think about it! Think about who benefits from your pain.

Think of alllllll the definitely-good people that your definitely-necessary self-torment definitely helps! I mean, you can't just cut off their definitely-life-sustaining supply of your suffering, right?? Sure, everyone else has a breaking point, but you're probably the only person in human history who doesn't, right? Best not to question it probably. Sure, it's a symptom that billions of people with trauma have had, but who knows? You could be a one-in-seven-billion exception. Anything's possible!

Instead, better just accept that idea that bullies carry like guns in holsters - the idea that people who have trouble with social cues deserve to suffer. Better carry on the burden they placed on you until you drop. Aid the cause of the callous by enforcing shame and suffering upon yourself extra hard; try your best to do their work for them. They're very busy.

Better not recognize that you need patience and kindness to heal from your trauma. Better not find out that it was trauma rather than personal weakness filling your head with self-hating thoughts. Better not find out it wasn't your fault.

Better not find out that awkwardness is not inherently harmful or unkind, and, in fact, the people who act like it is *are the ones enacting harm and being cruel.*

Better not get righteously angry when you realize just how much unnecessary damage this has done to you. After all, if you get mad, you might realize you deserve better. You might even feel brave enough to DEMAND better! You might build boundaries that keep you safe! You might make other people think they deserve to feel safe too! And we obviously can't be having that, so...

Better not show yourself even a little kindness a little bit at a time.

Better not make a habit out of it after all that practice.

Better not get confident.

Especially if you can't first wipe out every trace of awkward. (And you probably never will. Because people who experience absolute social certainty at all times tend to be insufferable assholes that enforce the status quo. And you just don't have the stock portfolio for that.)

Better not be confident and awkward because then you might confuse and delight people

- you might accidentally end up making other people feel less shame for their social difficulties

- you might make isolated, traumatized, and shy people feel like they deserve to be included in social situations

- you might even make them feel they can be themselves around you

- you might start loving the effect you have on a room

- you might enjoy conversations more

- you might forgive yourself and bounce back from shame more easily and frequently

- you might come to enjoy some of those moments of harmless confusion you cause because NOBODY expects the Confident Awkward, and that can genuinely be an advantage in social situations

- you might stop apologizing so much.

- you might find that socializing is like a video game: it requires practice but also a safe space for it to be fun and positive.

Or if you can't become assertive and confident, better not remain awkward and shy and quiet, and then love and forgive yourself anyway!

Why, it would be carnage!!

In either scenario, you run the risk of finding out that it's not your fault that safe spaces full of kind people can be really hard to find, create, and nurture. You could end up building a skillset that helps you do those things if you're not careful!

If you start giving yourself even the tiniest amount of grace at a time, you will find that you've accessed a gateway drug with extreme long-term side effects:

- You might realize that it was never your fault that it took so long to like yourself.

- You might realize that you were always worth talking to, even when you didn't like yourself and communication felt impossibly difficult.

- You might realize that you'll still be worth talking to even if communication becomes harder as you age and/or experience disability.

- You might come to know that you deserve to be heard even on bad days when words come slow and blurry.

You might discover that you were always deserving of kindness, first and foremost from yourself.

So. As you can see, it's FAR too much of a risk to start granting your awkward self free pardons for your many heinous and harmless crimes. Better to just leave it there.

[northern-passage]

one thing i find really difficult about navigating the IF space is the direct line of contact between readers and authors. we share the same space, and i think that plays a big part in this weird blurred line we have in this community and overall lack of boundaries.

for a lot of people this is a fun hobby and while i personally try to keep it... semi-professional most of the time, it's easy to get wrapped up in having fun on tumblr (or the forums, or reddit, wherever it is that you mainly post/interact) and have a lot of personal interactions with both readers and authors alike - which is fun! i like it more often than not, but i also think that's why a lot of comments in this space can end up being really entitled, over-familiar, and inappropriate.

it's no secret that most authors get really weird messages on here, and while this is also a problem on social media at large and not just specific to IF tumblr, it is still definitely a big problem in this community.

and to be clear i'm not saying that you can't be friendly with authors or readers (i've become friends with a handful of readers myself) and i definitely don't mean to imply that there needs to be a huge divide between us; that's silly - again, most authors are readers, most readers are authors, we’re just people on the internet sharing the same space. but all of us deserve to have our boundaries respected. this is my story, and we are strangers. as a general rule of thumb: if you wouldn't say it out loud to someone you just met, you probably shouldn't be saying it to a stranger online. especially anonymously.

[slyandthefamilybook]

can we talk about "clocking" discourse because I feel like way too many people went from "I don't want transphobes to think I am my AGAB because it would cause me dysphoria and possibly put me in danger" to "I don't want anyone, not even other trans people, to think I'm trans" as if that's a natural progression

[rimouskis]

one of my best friends is about to have a baby today........... so weird to be on the periphery of something so life changing. I want to go "life is going to change forever" as if it hasn't already

[chrisbangs]

hello... (and bye ig 👋)

[chaoticjoke]

ooc: meet the mun

NAME?: natalie

PRONOUNS?: she/her

MOST ACTIVE MUSE(S)?: the joker. obviously. he's stuck in my head and i guess i'm destined to write him... for-everrrr. there's also a catwoman blog i've recently made but it was probably a mistake lol

RP PET PEEVES?: minor stuff like people not cutting their threads or, alternatively, cutting everything off in a thread except their own reply. i can guess they do it for their blog aesthetic reasons but, when i do my drafts, reading my own previous reply is a must. also threads being started but never finished or even moved forward. i can really say that, if we write together, i'd rather we had one major thread or plot instead of lots meaningless memes and nothing more.

EXPERIENCE / HOW MANY YEARS?: circa 2015... so let's say 9 years of the clownery

FLUFF, ANGST, OR SMUT?: angst. AAAANGST. like a perfect genre, natural for my chaotic muse

PLOTS OR MEMES?: i love both but most of my threads and connections come from memes. okay, let me tell little secret here though -- if I follow someone first i already have a raw plot written out in my head, like what joker might do with your muse and how he would act, because whereas he claims he's not a schemer, he has everything figured out and he's always a few steps ahead. i rarely share his intentions or plans because it'll ruin the rp experience for me and my rp partners. and, this can be added to the pet peeves, but there were times when people would drop threads without telling me, and i would be genuinely upset because we didn't finish and they bailed too early, never knowing what was in stock for their muse. kind of discouraging, but that's fine :D

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES?: long replies because i feel i can bring more context and meaning to his replies, plus i'm a sucker for writing his twisted train of thots

TIME TO WRITE?: joker's muse mostly comes to me at night. or late evening. most of my replies are written at that time. i envy those who can write their muses everywhere -- at work, at school/uni, while watching a TV show or being at a party, etc. i can write him only: 1) when i'm not tired, 2) when my mind isn't occupied with irl stuff, 3) when i'm most comfy and isolated -- in my room, with a cup of strong black coffee on my table and his playlist on. god forbid i get interrupted in mid-reply... oh, and i never do drafts on mobile -- i always need my laptop's keyboard to tap on lol

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S)?: lol nO. absolutely not. except probably for owning a purple suit and for my big love for the batman. i wish i could read people like joker does and as well as turning their little evil plans upside down.

tagged by: @freakarus (ty! <3) tagging: tag yoselves

[acerikus]

Sometimes I just sit here like. Wow the k///h fandom really fucked me up lol

[icewindandboringhorror]

I have a big google doc thing where I keep track of media and stuff (putting everything in loosely ranked categories), which is mostly just for my own reference so I know what tv shows I've already seen before, etc. and I never really look back through it, typically just a quick "okay, watched two movie in the past 8 months, need to quickly slap them somewhere in the lists. okay. done. save document. exit". But today I was actually reading through some of the old notes and there are like... MULTIPLE places where my comment is basically "It would have been good if it were about elves" or "I wish there was a fantasy show made in this same style" or "It's well made, but I just keep thinking about how I would like it more if everyone was an elf or was in old 1700s costumes" or etc like...... lol.... Most biased media ranking system on earth blatantly made by someone with an extremely hyperspecific range of narrow interests. It'd be like if a food reviewer only had 5 foods they actually liked, so they'd just go to a pizza place and be like "eh, the pizza was okay, but I just think it would be better if it was cereal instead. :/ ...2 out of 10"

[wewontbesleeping]

type of "content" that probably drives me the craziest is when women, just regular, every day, non influencer women who haven't had plastic surgery or fillers/botox mention their age and all the weirdos have to file into their comments to be like "you're 35??? I'M 35 and i look soooo much younger than you!!! you look OLD and UGLY!!!!!" like. first of all, what makes you think that's ever an acceptable thing to say to anyone? but second of all, you do not look 18. i don't know who told you that, but they were lying. you look 35. she looks 35. there's nothing wrong with that. walk outside and look at what actual human beings look like without filters. you have lines on your face, too.

[purgaytorysupremacy]

i'm applying for a fellowship that required my faculty supervisor to write me a letter of support and yesterday he very shyly emailed to say he was nearly done but wanted to confirm my pronouns. i'm a cis woman who is just very very tall (before you ask: 6'2") and uses a nickname bc my given name is too Dutch for most folks (apparently) but i have just discovered that for the last two-ish months i've been in the program, everyone has been dancing around my pronouns and substituting my name more than is normal bc no one wanted to misgender me and were apparently just waiting for someone to either use pronouns in front of me or for me to use them myself and i think i have truly reached my final queer form

[dyed-indigo]

i am having a wonderful day today :)

[longagoitwastuesday]

Going through the Utahim.e tag had me checking several times if at some point I had clicked on the G.ojo/Utahim.e one instead

[gamingofkenna]

Oxenfree 2 spoilers, re the 'final choice'

I played the whole game in a solid 7 hour chunk yesterday and I'm still trying to decide how I feel about it, and I'll have to do another playthrough when I can, because there's so much of the way the characters are that seems based on your choices so I wanna see what happens when I make other choices

but I'm seeing that a lot of people let Olivia go through the portal at the end, and that everyone who didn't is saying those who did are monsters for letting this grief-stricken teenager kill herself

and. i don't think there is a 'right' choice at the end there in most circumstances. but i did let Olivia take the radio, because as awful as it felt I just kept thinking that I couldn't do that to Rex

especially since we just had a ghost moment of Rex telling Riley she has to keep fighting, even though she's going to keep failing? to follow that up with 'or you can just kill yourself now to save these kids'? like it is a horrible thing to do to Olivia but it's a horrible thing to do to Rex too?

honestly, based on my playthrough, the 'right' thing seems to be Jacob going through the portal. few players forced him to because apparently the only way for him to do it is if you force him - I didn't even let him come on the island with me. I saw the prompt that I could stop him and immediately knew that if I didn't he would die. Riley kept seeing visions of her future but Jacob never did. Jacob kept talking to me about how he feels he never did anything important in life, how he likes just chilling in his hometown, how he doesn't have any grand ambition but also wants to do something important and meaningful

when that prompt popped up I thought 'if I go to that island I'm getting sucked into this loop too and I'm not coming back; Jacob doesn't deserve that' and I made him stay. I'm curious now if there's a specific dialogue tree that leads to Jacob deciding, at the end, that him going through that portal and saving everyone by doing what he's always been doing is his way of being a hero. but that wasn't the option i'd been given. instead I had two suicidal people, who both had their whole lives in front of them