#*mostly* I'd been keeping my full feelings on the topic to myself

[babacontainsmultitudes]

🤔 Admittedly I was a little disappointed by the reveal (but certainly not surprised the foreshadowing was heavy in this episode lol), but not actually against how Beth (and Will) seem to be playing with it thus far- which is to say that I do think it has a lot of potential, and I suspect there's more to what we're seeing).

;) Big ol' ramble below

Mostly the theory has turned me off until now (at least insofar as I've witnessed it transpire in the fandom at large) because it struck me as so painfully ironic to see Trudy, a 1950s housewife, struggle to exist under the system that she's in, fail to fit the mold assigned to her, and be denied her personhood very literally for it (this being ironic insofar as how it mimics how she would have been treated back then). This and because frankly I just think she's a lot less interesting if she's fully a robot LOL, but I'll hopefully get to that in a bit.

Not that the hints at her mechanical nature and the relevance of Tucker's background were lost on me; I can appreciate why those would contribute to a plausible, fun and I think still mostly harmless theory (now fact). However, minus one or two specific posts I've seen on the matter (namely a recent one suggesting that if Trudy is a robot Beth is probably taking inspiration from The Stepford Wives, :( sorry person who made that post I couldn't find it I wanted to credit yoouuu), I've seen the theory just about exclusively presented in a manner that, rather than explore the metaphorical and political significance of Trudy being partially or fully mechanical, at best disregards the parts of her narrative that are at their core about sexism (among other related things), and at worst negates them entirely (i.e. Trudy only thinking and acting how she does because she's a robot malfunctioning and not because the world itself is causing harm and she rightfully wants something more than the role she was forced into, Trudy not even having any real thoughts and feelings of her own, etc.). I just think it kind of sucks to shove all those important things about her aside and say "actually, there's no person suffering here, she's just a robot" and perhaps worse yet to imply that she does have thoughts and feelings but because they result in Weird™ behavior it must be a problem with her code and not at all relate to what women were subjugated to during this point in American history.

CONVERSELY I don't think Trudy being a robot (or at least partially one) at least from what Beth and Will have presented us thus far, inherently suffers from any of these issues? First and foremost because Trudy definitely appears to possess sentience, thoughts, and emotions of her own, matters which immediately complicate her degree of personhood and don't inherently box her behavior in as a bug in her programming rather than an issue with the world she's been put in, quite the opposite in fact! I think they have a very solid groundwork laid out here to make a strong statement with Trudy's narrative (and perhaps ask the question of what is really malfunctioning here), all the more so since [I pull out a Rebecca Swallows-style conspiracy board] I don't think she's entirely robotic in nature? Actually you should just read Mack's tags in this post cause he has great thoughts on the matter (of which those are just some of them), but if I can direct your attention to one thing in particular, it would be Beth's fact (I *believe* from episode 2) about Trudy never graduating high school because of her essay where she suggested that "perhaps women could one day domesticate themselves", a statement that could of course be interpreted a number of ways but ultimately threatened the patriarchal status quo enough (in suggesting women's independence) to cost Trudy her diploma. Taken on its own this fact appears to contradict the theory that Trudy has always been robotic in nature, because it doesn't really make sense that Trudy would have been set up to go through high school (or school at all really) when Tucker's intention was/is for her to be the perfect housewife. You may then suggest that Trudy's memories of this are fabricated and not actually her lived experiences, in which case firstly perhaps you should reread my earlier point on the robot theory being used to actively negate and otherwise disregard the portions of Trudy's narrative that pertain to sexism and feminism, and secondly it really doesn't make any sense to me that Tucker would implant those kind of memories into Trudy's brain? To be completely honest if she's been a robot from the very beginning (rather than someone who became a cyborg, which is what I'm trying to suggest here), then I don't see why Tucker would program her with actual sentience in the first place (suspending my disbelief here with regards to the possibility of programming sentience to begin with). It seems much more likely to me then that Trudy was not always a robot, and instead altered by Tucker to force her into a role of subordination and remedy her """imperfections""". This option is significantly more interesting to me one, because it implies that Trudy has actually lived a life up until the present, full of its own complexities and strife (and dreams, and real actual memories worth exploring, etc.), and hence is not by any means "just a robot", and second because it amplifies the hypothetical statement being made on the lives of the real living women of the era and how they were treated and seen as being "in need of fixing" for not conforming to gender roles or otherwise acting "out of line" with what was expected of them.

OKAY THIS GOT OUT OF HAND SO I'M CUTTING MYSELF OFF HERE but I wanted to my share my current thoughts what with this ending and where I'm at so hopefully that was at least interesting to whoever has chosen to read through this one okay thank you byyyyyyyyye~

[sourw0lfs]

dance with the devil - part seven

This has been done for days but I told myself I'd write ahead a bit before I posted it. Then my brain went on vacation about it, so uh here?

Words: 692 | Rating: E (mostly parts 1 & 2, but also future parts) | CW: no warnings this time! except Eddie's continued bad time

part one || part two || part three || part four || part five || part six || part seven || part eight || part nine || part ten || part eleven || part twelve

Most of the details surrounding his actual death are fuzzy to Eddie, and he supposes that makes sense in the grand scheme of things. Something about blocking out trauma or whatever. He isn’t really sure how any of that actually works. Instead he just focuses on making it all into a cohesive story for the girl that’s still staring at him judgingly. And yeah, he’s earned that look if he’s being honest with himself. He did show up uninvited.

“Well,” he says with a dramatic sweep of his arm. “It all starts in this very city, about twenty-three years ago.”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down, I want the long story but not your life story,” the girl interrupts him. “Start with how you ended up in the same room as Steve.”

The interruption should be rude, but Eddie just shrugs. Less work for him and his already fuzzy memories. It’s like as soon as he died, everything got jumbled up and thrown away if he didn’t need it. It’s a pain honestly. “Right, so,” he starts again with a pointed look at the girl. “I don’t know if he mentioned that I’ve been assigned as his guardian angel, but I have been. Because I died recently.”

Something twinges painfully in Eddie’s chest as he says the words, but he presses on anyway. It’s not like he knows why he’s sad about being dead. “I don’t know why I got assigned your friend or who made the decision or whatever,” he continues. “I just know that I’ve got a job to keep him safe, and I have to do it or it’s adios to somewhere much less fun for me.”

Hopefully that’s enough to appease both the girl and Steve, because Eddie doesn’t really have much else on the topic. They’re both looking at him like he’s grown a second head, and that does absolutely nothing for Eddie’s worries.

“So you’re not actually an angel then,” the girl says after studying him for a few minutes. “Because if you were, failing Steve wouldn’t be it for you, would it?”

It’s then that Eddie decides he doesn’t like her. Not because she’s wrong. She isn’t wrong. But because there’s something deeply uncomfortable about a stranger calling him out so quickly and easily.

He sighs heavily, fighting the urge to roll his eyes. “No, it wouldn’t be. Or I imagine it wouldn’t be. I don’t actually know. I just know I woke up from dying and a really scary, really tiny lady told me I had to keep ‘Steve Harrington’ out of harms way until I stack up enough good points to get real wings. And that failing would be bad.”

The girl is frowning at him, studying him like a bug under a microscope again, and Eddie squirms. Then her expression softens, and it makes Eddie feel bad for disliking her just a little. “Thank you for protecting him,” she says quietly. “Usually that’s my job, but I don’t have angel magic or whatever.”

Eddie isn’t sure why she just believes his words for what they are, but he’s not going to question it. Not if it makes his life (non-life?) easier. "I mean, I barely do, but you're welcome all the same. I'm Eddie." He thrusts a hand in the girl's direction.

"Robin," she returns with a smile as she takes his hand and gives it a firm shake.

It's a lot better, a lot calmer, than his introduction with Steve. Considering Eddie still wouldn't even know his name if he hadn't been sent in with it. Despite the original hesitation, Eddie thinks he might like this Robin girl a lot more. Maybe that'll make this whole thing just a little bit easier to swallow. Because Steve certainly isn't doing Eddie any favors, even after Eddie got him out of what would have been a full-on murder charge. Ungrateful, but Eddie has a job to do, thankless or not.

"Glad you two are getting on, really," Steve says as he looks between the two of them with a grumpy frown. "But what exactly does this all mean for me? It's my life being invaded."

Tags below the cut! Let me know if you want added <3

@chaosgremlinmunson @soaringornithopter @hbyrde36 @shares-a-vest @dreamwatch @quevadilla @tboyeddie @penny00dreadful @momotonescreaming @stevesbipanic @dawners @steddiejudas @just-my-latest-hyperfixation @estrellami-1 @vthx @lolawonsstuff @gleek4twd @littlebluejane @swimmingbirdrunningrock @lawrencebshaggoth @sadisticaltarts @queenie-ofthe-void @r0binscript @anaibis @hairdressersdoitwithstyle @goodolefashionedloverboi @spookednsaucy @anne-bennett-cosplayer @flustratedcas

[tokidokitokyo]

Podcast Review: Tofugu

Podcast Title: Tofugu Podcast

Ease of Listening: ★★★★★

Length of Episodes: ★★★★☆

Level of Engagement: ★★★★★

Episode Frequency: ☆☆☆☆☆

Overall: ★★★★☆

Today I will be reviewing the Tofugu Podcast. I listened to the bulk of this podcast over the course of a few months. This podcast is created by the popular Tofugu website crew. It is in English mostly with a focus on Japanese language learning. (No, I am receiving no compensation for this review, I just wanted to share my opinion!)

Do I currently listen to this podcast?: Yes, I listen to this podcast when new episodes come out (but it's been a while).

General Overview

Good For Levels: Beginner | Intermediate | Advanced

In this podcast, native Japanese speakers pair with Japanese learners (all on the Tofugu staff) to discuss the Japanese language, Japan-specific experiences, and other topics relating to Japan. The earlier podcasts are a bit more "friends hanging out" vibe than the more recent ones, which have a more structured feeling. They both have their pros and cons, but I like the recent more structured podcast because I think they are well thought out and provide a lot of insight into the finer points of Japanese grammar, particles, and vocabulary whilst still being very interesting. The Japanese language podcasts are also often paired with a new Tofugu article, so there is an extra level of learning and review to be had with this series. The only things that lowered the overall score were the long lengths of episodes and the long wait time in between new podcast releases.

Ease of Listening ★★★★★

The podcasts flow well and the hosts communicate their points well. I wouldn't listen to this podcast whilst trying to do something that I'd have to think through, but it's good for a commute (which is when I mostly listen to it) or if you have some down time.

Length of Episodes ★★★★☆

The podcasts can be 30 minutes to an hour, and I usually listen to one during my commute, but if they are longer I'll have to break it up. I think it's a reasonable length, but if you are looking for something short and sweet this is not it. It never felt too long because I was engaged the entire time I was listening.

Level of Engagement ★★★★★

As an intermediate learner, I get a lot out of this podcast, but their in-depth explanations are good for beginners as well. Native speakers and Japanese learners have a loose script to base their discussion on a particular topic on, and the conversation style podcast with examples and quizzes makes it flow really well. I found myself continuously engaged for the full episode. The Japanese learners ask a lot of questions that I would have asked myself, and the chemistry amongst the hosts makes me keep listening even through the Wani-Kani ads.

Episode Frequency ☆☆☆☆☆

Podcasts aren't being released at the time I am writing this, so if you are looking for new material this isn't the place to look. The last podcast was released in April 2023, and before that they had one in December 2022, so it seems like they have slowed down on this. However, if you would like to listen to the episodes already released, you will learn from them and have a few months of material to go through.

Overall ★★★★☆

In general, I think this is a well-done podcast with a lot of useful information for both beginners and intermediate Japanese learners. It might be a bit mundane or simplified for advanced learners, but you might also pick up something you didn't know before! Unfortunately they don't seem to be releasing new podcasts, but I recommend listening to the old episodes to glean information on the Japanese language.

[therealbl0om-blog]

About Me! (UPDATED)

Hello! As some of the people that follow me, remember my old about me.. Well, I have deleted that one and decided to update it. This will be my new About me for now. Keep in touch!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello, my name is Bloom! I'd rather keep most of my stuff private, such as my age, address, etc. I myself am a writer, mostly a role-player, I love to draw tons of stuff, drawing Kaiju's is my favorite topic to draw! (Ex. Godzilla...) and/or some backgrounds, aesthetic sunsets, sunrises, sky, stuff like that! I am IN LOVE, MADLY in love with two characters from my favorite show (Transformers: Rescue Bots) and those two characters are Kade and Heatwave. I would die for stories about Kadewave, or talk about them 24/7 I just LOVE their dynamic in the show and It's the only thing I'd mainly write about, role-play about or talk about!

I would love to write about Kadewave, stories, plots, head-cannons, It's just my thing man. But I can write other stories for custom-characters, made up-characters, and so on. ˘˘

STORIES THAT I ACCEPT:

Romance

Comedy

Horror

LGBTQ+ Stories (Gay, Bi, etc)

Adventures

Journey's

Mysteries

STORIES THAT I DON'T ACCEPT:

Hara**ments

Abus**ents (Ex. abusing relationship, family, friend...)

Se*ual Actions

Involving Alcohol

^^

I DON'T write about those topics, but I am fine with talking about them (besides the Se*ual Actions topic). Such as characters being harassed, abused, drunk (basically their past, etc). That I am fine with, only if we keep it at a low limit! Going over the limit, I am sorry but we can no longer talk about that topic.

I don't do commissions for art just yet because of some personal issues about credit cards, paypal, stuff like that so I won't be doing commissions until then, till the problem is solved. Although, I can do requests. Unfortunately I have been in a lack of drawing so I lost my skills from the past and my art has been getting worse and worse each attempt I try to do. ˘˘

STUFF THAT I CAN DRAW:

Kaiju's (Godzilla, Shin Godzilla, Destoroyah, MAYBE Ghidorah,...)

Background's (Sunsets, Sunrises, Forests, Oceans, The Sky, Space,...)

Dragon's (Night Furies, Light Furies, Any Type Dragon FOR NOW.)

Only Portraits, not full body!

Simple Animals (Parrot, Owl, Mouse,...)

STUFF THAT I CAN'T DRAW:

Human Bodies

Robots (Transformers, Animal Robots,...)

Mythical Creatures

Animals (Dogs, Cats, Horses,...)

Earthly Vehicles (Cars, Planes, Boats (Maybe), Motorcycles,...)

As I've mentioned before, yes, I do role-play and I role-play QUITE A LOT. Thanks to role-playing my writing has evolved and gotten better since the first time I did my writing story. I love role-playing about Kadewave (Where are my Kadewave people!?!?!). I mostly love to play as Kade and have a whole angst on him and have the world turn on him, think everything is his fault, bla bla but there can be angst on Heatwave as well and I'm fine with that! I love to role-play about their partnership, not involving other Rescue Bots, Humans. Just them in the role-play, as if the others don't exist but the plot can have them 'off island' or the two can be far off in a different country, having a break, or whatever.

I role-play on Discord 24/7, that's the only platform I can role-play on but I can gladly role-play here on Tumblr in the Messages, just by using (Kade)/(Heatwave)/(CHARACTER NAME) at the start to know who were playing as. I'm very detailed in my role-play parts, and when I say detailed.. I at least have a lot of words in my part (100 (Min)-1000(Max)). I use a bot on Discord called the Tupperbox, where you can make your own bot for the role-play and play as it! It won't say your name, it will only say [The Bots Name] and will have the tag 'Bot' as every bot does!

If you want to role-play with me, on Tumblr, on Discord, feel free to ask. Send me a question, or message me, I'll respond as fast as I can. Although, I have a few topics that I'm fine with role-playing, and some that I'm not fine and I'd be glad to put those in.

TOPICS THAT I'M FINE WITH:

Depression

Self-Harm

Self-Suicide

Anxiety

LGBTQ (Having two characters same gender, fall in love,...)

Traumatizing Backstories

Comedy

Adventures

Journey's

Arguments

Partnership's

Friendship's

Gore / Horror

TOPICS THAT I'M NOT FINE WITH:

Se*ual Energy/Actions

Harassments Energy/Actions

Abusing Energy/Actions

Vore

Harassments, Abusing and Se*uality CAN be mentioned but there won't be any actions (The characters doing those topics in the role-play)! If you're asking for these actions to appear they will NOT, and the role-play plot will be CANCELLED!

If you're a Discord user, you can freely message me and/or ask me for my Discord user, first we will talk about the plot of the role-play, the character and the whole topic about it here on Tumblr, after that's settled we'll be heading on Discord and I'll teach you about the Tupperbox if you don't know already.

That's it for now!

[skayafair]

Ep 35-36

Wait, hold on. Do I understand it correctly that J is technically not dead but has just... completed the transformation and had to stay there? And Alyx is changing the same way now? So they can maybe at least be there together in the end? Tough luck, I know.

But damn Beckett! This bastard! >:(((

Cass and Silas, when they get the err relationship bits, make me blush like no other pairing or media ever has. I don't know why but it just feels so personal and real? Gods this podcast is superb in acting and editing. And writing.

I really like Lizzy in the past 2 episodes. She's very relatable and feels fully fleshed now. Also I need someone to give her a good supportive hug. To all of them, really, but to her especially.

I don't want to think of what happened to Allura and how everyone starting with Silas are going to react when the 1st shock is gone. Oh gods.

The gods are pissing me off, by the way, no news here. I half-wish them to turn out to be some kind of an AI because I love the "ancient advanced technologies" trope but we'll see.

I like how emotional and emotionally unhinged these episodes are. Podcasts really don't hold back do they... It's been very difficult to listen to ep 36. It's just... scary and heavy, but not in a horror way. Just in a life way. The worst (meaning the heaviest) part was the call to Silas' mom. I just couldn't believe he'd actually go and do this RIGHT AWAY. FFS! What?! Couldn't wait for a few days?? Or was it planned to announce them all dead all along?

Another thing I really like about Syntax is that the team members are slowly losing their composure the farther they go. Usually in plots like this the characters manage somehow (if the writers even care to make this a point at all) or seem to be just emotionally tough enough to bear basically anything. Team Alpha breaks down little by little until they start doing... dangerous things. They acknowledge they're at the end of their ropes but have no choice but to go forward. Plus before this last breach their situation wasn't as dire. This world seems to be willing to kill them with all it's got. And they aren't coping anymore. I like seeing this narative-wise - it makes them feel like actual living people, not heroes who stay sane no matter what because the story must go on.

I half-wish there was a happy ending where they get everyone they've lost back somehow. Aren't there gods? I thought Lizzy was going to fall and nearly started crying from how scared I was. It seems that since I've got my emotions back a year ago everything that touches my heart gets through with full force with no filter normal people have to not worry for characters as much as in real situations. Oh well. I'll ascribe that to great acting. But I also feel this isn't that kind of a story. It's not even about the deaths losing their impact - as someone who hates and fears this topic altogether I'd say no death can be made meaningless by coming back to life, because life is priceless no matter how one looks at it. No. It's just... they aren't coming back. And that's really grim. Usually I drop such stories because... really, I have enough grim and dark things irl. And just like most shows for the last few decades, it keeps getting darker. I seek solace and escape in stories. Others' suffering doesn't make me feel better - it adds to the one here, irl. But also... there's some kind of hope that still lingers in Syntax? And I've already got too attached to the characters to drop it. I hope it won't fail me like this. That there's some... point or meaning at the end of this road, that all they went through wasn't for nothing. Although I don't even know what this would mean now.

Well. I know the story is good when I can't drop it even despite all the triggers. It's just pity it started as a feel good series with mostly just adventures and exploring and went on like this for 2 seasons, and now I postpone listening to it because I need to pull myself together to face what's going on there. I guess I can still relisten to those 2 seasons as a feel good thing though 😅

[yooniesim]

Hey nonny, thank you for telling me this! And thank you for considering my well being 💜 I blocked the names out of your ask because... I'm going to be honest, I've never heard of either of these people, I have no idea who they are. I tried checking, but nothing comes up, so I assume the one that didn't deactivate has me blocked out of fear. This isn't unexpected- I've dealt with plenty of irrelevant blogs like this before. They would probably like a mention, but can't handle direct confrontation in DMs. They can only manage anons that agree with them, blow smoke up their asses, and make them feel good about themselves for what they're doing. It's much easier to delete anons that disagree with you so no one else sees them and only post the ones that do, creating whatever narrative you like. Don't worry- I'm well-versed in the tactics of a full-time terminally online hater lmfao. But that being said, off the top of my head, I'm drawing a blank for who they could be or what, if any, content they create. So if anyone is trying to start drama for clout... well, we know who it is, don't we?

(This reply got pretty long/rambly and isn't all relevant, so I'm going to throw the rest under a cut- sorry nonny!)

...I think it's very strange, that even when I've been mostly on hiatus for quite a long time, and haven't done shit, I'm still such a strong presence in so many minds. I don't quite get the obsession, though I imagine it's jealously and frustration that I somehow keep existing when they'd prefer I didn't. Which- I'd kind of understand if it was someone I had history with, but I really have no idea who these particular losers are, so I can only conclude that it's just a need for attention...? I don't know.

Look, I'll say right now, it's fine if someone thinks I'm not friendly. It's alright if they make posts, and answer a bunch of anons about me. People can spend their limited free time however they want, and if they choose to spend it on me for... some unknown reason... that's their right, even if it is odd in my opinion. I don't read these posts. I've been here long enough and pissed off enough people that there are quite a few bigots and generally not well-adjusted people obsessed with me that go to ask boxes to spew untrue nonsense, that morons like the OPs you mentioned gladly eat up, and there's nothing I can do about that. As much as simblr loves to pretend otherwise... it loves drama and toxicity, it loves hating on acceptable targets when they get the chance, and they really love a good circlejerk. It thrives on finding the next conflict, especially if it gives them the chance to feel superior to someone else. That won't change, and as long as it's like that, people like the OPs and posts like the ones they made will continue to exist.

And as much as it sounds that way, I'm not coming at this from purely a lecturing standpoint. I know this so well because, yes- as I've mentioned many times- I've been in the same position of that toxic feedback loop. Drama on the internet can be a rush, it can be fun, it can be exciting. Even if you start with good intentions and consider yourself to just be speaking the "truth", it's easy to fall into a narrative that is much more toxic than you realize. That's something I had to recognize in myself, take a step back, and think about the fact that it isn't about the truth, it's about word choice and choosing your battles. Every little issue and every little thing you dislike about someone else doesn't need to be spoken aloud, doesn't need their own post. But that's what I was doing, to the detriment of myself and those around me. That, yes, was very "unfriendly" and abrasive.

Though I also think that people here don't quite understand the... social pressure that gets put on people that speak out or share their opinions here. I started out just wanting to talk about one issue- paywalls, largely- but once I started, I quickly started to get requests for my opinions on other topics. (A lot like I still do now, but I delete or ignore 90% of them) And since I was very blunt/free with my opinions, people started to seek me out more and more. I got a lot of attention very quickly from people that had much larger followings, and much more of both fans and haters, than I did. They started vague posting me or mentioning me outright, which sent waves of asks my way, and much more attention very fast. From the very jump, I was getting ostracized/demonized by one group of people while getting low-key idolized for being honest by another. I'll admit, it was nice in some ways, but very stressful in others. Suddenly, instead of just sharing my opinion online to a void, it became that people started treating me as some voice of reason, or that I had an obligation to speak for them. I got more and more asks about various topics, from paywalls to bigotry to minor "injustices" from simblr #4632. I started wanting to back off as it got bigger, but there was always something happening, always something someone wanted me to talk about or "bring awareness" to, always someone poking & prodding me whether it was with good intentions or bad ones. It was overwhelming. I felt like I couldn't focus on, well, the sims, because how jarring was it to be in a serious conversation about racism and then posting random gameplay? And the lines between what was an important issue and what was just petty drama started to blur more and more. What was necessary for me to say, and what was just plain mean? It became more and more difficult for me to distinguish in this public persona I had created.

I started spending more time on discord in hopes of backing off some, but that only made it worse- I was inexperienced with having my own server, incompetent really, and the same problems I had here were magnified ten times there. Anything I said or did was under a lense by both the people that agreed with me and those that didn't, the negative and "truthful" environment I advertised only invited more toxic and drama-seeking people to me, and while I did my best to hide behind my blunt/straightforward exterior, it got scary very fast. There was a lot of pressure to do everything "right" at all times, to always be there as a mouthpiece for others and for the "truth", but no one can be correct all the time. And the pressure, along with the weight of what was happening to me offline, was suffocating. It was as if people were always watching me, waiting for me to slip up or be vulnerable so they could get to me, and I couldn't keep that from happening forever. Because quite a few people didn't like me for being annoying or negative or speaking my mind, when I started getting targeted by bigots more extremely, it was celebrated by quite a few big people here, even those that claim to be advocates and allies. They reveled in the chance to get at me in some way, even if they had to rub shoulders with blatant racists and transphobes to do so, and if there was anything that woke me up to the true nature of drama and "activism" here, it was that. The truth was, drama wasn't an unfortunate consequence of speaking your mind about important issues- it was the goal. Everything I had ever done or said was just a spectacle, entertainment. I had deluded myself into thinking I was doing something important, when I was actually just being laughed at and used. There's nothing being done here that's truly important. It's fuel for egos, and something to engage in when you're bored. That's it. But I was the dumbass sitting there at the center of it all, the face that could take it all while everyone else disappeared once they were bored.

But by the time I realized this, well. I was already in quite deep, wasn't I? I guess the question is, how do you extract yourself from a bad situation, and a bad reputation for that matter, when your personality and intentions have already been decided and declared by others? It's been several years now, quite a while since I recognized where I was going wrong and set on the journey to cut that shit out of my life, but it still persists and I don't expect it to go away anytime soon. Truth is, there's quite a few people that really, really dislike me, even people I've never interacted with, and there's absolutely nothing I can do to change their minds. There's people that I haven't mentioned or thought about in years that still mention me regularly, publicly and privately. I've apologized many times, decided to move on and never mention them again, and stuck with that- despite never receiving apologies or the same grace myself. And at the end of the day, that's all I can really do. Change my behavior and try to ignore the people that can't do the same for themselves.

I do find it funny you say that the post is about me trying to create drama for clout, though- because let's be honest, that ship has sailed lol. I've gotten more "clout" for drama than anyone else on simblr ever has, I definitely don't need to say anything to get more. I've been blocked and/or mentioned by almost every simblr, especially paywallers and every "popular" blog that's been forming parasocial relationships here since they were 12, on every platform, from tumblr to twt to discord to anon sites. I can't keep my name out of people's mouths even when I do my best to mind my damn business. When you're that infamous, you really don't have to try, do you? 😂 and since I've never heard of these OPs, I can only assume they're hoping to get a little advertisement from me, which I'm not about to give them lol. at this point, I'm trying to do a reverse on the clout. Let's bring it down a little, how about that 😭

[neothesatisfactory]

About myself

and this blog

or something idfk

I guess it's about time I make a pinned post about myself, my preferences, this blog, tags i use, what to expect from me, and more, but I don't even know what all to include so this will likely be revised many many times. So please, bear with me.

Display your age if you want, I'm not entitled to that info. I will simply block if I find out you're underage. Nothing personal, sorry :/

While I'd love to make my blog a safe place for minors on this site, since I personally know what it's like to be a minor who has nowhere to go IRL or online, and that's a really shitty situation to be stuck in. Unfortunately though, I simply don't have the energy or working memory functionality to create an alt blog specifically for nsfw posts and actually use it, so, please see above.

Info about myself, my DNI policy, and tags I use below the break:

Myself:

I use she/her pronouns

I go by the alias Neo

I am queer friendly! I am always doing what I can to learn about the various problems faced by various peoples within our community so I can better understand, help, and provide acceptance and comfort for everyone!

I try to keep an open mind. So long as myself (and when applicable, individuals or communities I affiliate with) are treated respectfully, I will do my best to listen to and understand someone else's perspective on a given topic.

I love helping people any way I can to the best of my ability within my boundaries. Recently this has mostly been in the form of long heartfelt discussion with validation, affirmation, and when needed or requested: advice; but I've also recently been told by some that my instrumental and singing abilities really helped them. (Catharsis through music I think?)

Some of my Interests include but definitely are not limited to: Photography, music production, archeology, anthropology, vehicles of all kinds, aeronautical engineering, 3d modeling, and chemistry.

I have a complicated relationship with my own voice. I am both very proud of it and feel a tinge of guilt when complimented on it.

I'm gonna flex a bit about my voice anyway: The most common compliment I get is on my voice, which I am very proud of as I had to train it to sound this way. – Many people, friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers have told me things such as: "Your voice is so soothing", "Your voice is perfect", "You have a very relaxing voice", "You sound like a voice actor for a milf in an anime" (one of the most unique ones), "you sound like a voice actor"/"you should be a voice actor", "can/will you read me bedtime stories?"/"I want you to read me a bedtime story"/"you seem like you're really good at reading bedtime stories"/etc., "Your voice is really hot", and "you should be an audiobook narrator". (I promise I'm not full of myself T^T, these are genuinely things people have said to me over the past couple years).

I am in fact working towards getting into voice acting, audiobook narration, and music production. Currently I am trying to save up for a new sound setup, but car issues suck and are expensive :(

My favourite pick-up line is: *while playing the piano, after the receiver of the line comments on my piano playing* "Look, I've been playing the piano for over a decade. One tends to get pretty good at fingering in that time~" sometimes with something like "and if you play your cards right, it won't just be the keys I finger tonight" added onto the end.

My DNI policy:

I don't believe in DNI's, I will simply block who I please as I please

Important tags I use:

For brevity, the word "posts" will refer to posts, reblogs, and replies.

#neo.master – Master post/Master list – Used on posts containing important information or directories on something. Used for personal reference, you can ignore this one.

#neo.txt – For self-written text posts – Used on posts that have text written by myself. This is used when I myself am speaking.

#neo.png – Contains oc images – Used on posts containing a picture that was taken/created by myself or by a friend of mine, with their permission.

#neo.mp4 – Contains oc video – Used on posts containing a video that was taken/created by myself or by a friend of mine, with their permission.

#neo.irl – "Neo (dot) in real life" – Used in conjunction with +neo.png and/or +neo.webm when the image or video was taken IRL.

#neo.ivr – "Neo (dot) in virtual reality" – Used in conjunction with +neo.png and/or +neo.webm when the picture or video was taken virtually. (E g. a screenshot/screenrecording of a game/application, or photo/video taken with an in-game/in-application virtual camera.)

#neo.slf – Contains a selfie – Used in conjunction with any or multiple of the above four tags, and on any post that contains an image or video in which myself (if IRL) or my avatar (if IVR) is present.

#neo.poll – Contains an oc poll – Used on posts containing a tumblr poll created by me.

#hornyposting, #hornypost, #horny, #nsfw, #nsft – These are all used on posts containing nsfw or otherwise horny content, and are used largely interchangeably. I'm trying to use them more often for your blacklisting convenience :)

Multiple of these will likely be used on the same posts when applicable.

(Note: Currently, some of these tags aren't actually used on any of my posts yet. This list is a reminder/framework for when I do make a particular post, as well as a list of tags I actually use)

[incorrect-whos-lila]

hi! i’m mod lila, and welcome to incorrect who’s lila quotes! about the mod, rules, and tagging system can be found under the cut. i hope you enjoy your stay! :)

about the mod!

hi, i’m mod lila. you can call me that if you’d like, otherwise, i also go by marshy. i use any pronouns, but generally have a preference for he/him or they/them. i’ll be the one running this blog, as well as contributing quotes of my own to fill the queue with—currently, i’m not looking for additional mods since i don’t expect this blog to be too overwhelming to maintain, but if that changes, i’ll be sure to make a post about it! my main is @marshmellowtea, and occasionally i make unhinged posts about this game over there. :)

rules for the blog! (well actually some of these are more like loose guidelines but still lol)

submissions are open for this blog, including anon submissions. i as mod reserve the right to refuse submissions i feel are inappropriate, but hopefully those those will be few and far between.

quotes will post once a day based on queue, unless there’s a reason to change that (such as a huge influx of submissions). quotes will be both from myself and submissions, and they will be tagged accordingly. submissions will be tagged with the blog url of the submitter as well if applicable, otherwise they’ll be tagged as anon. :)

because the queue is run on submissions and my own brain power, this blog may have periods of inactivity from time to time. sorry in advance for that ^^;

if your submission hasn’t been posted in a reasonable amount of time (depending on how the queue looks that time period will probably change), feel free to send an ask about it! i just ask that you don’t hound me about it, i do have a life outside of this blog after all, lol.

if you know the source of your quote, please include it in your submission! unknown sources will be tagged as “source: unknown”, but i think part of the fun of an incorrect quotes blog is seeing where all the quotes come from so i’d like to minimize use of that tag as much as possible. if you see a quote with an unknown source that you recognize the source of, please feel free to send in an ask!

light nsfw will be allowed (think things like jokes and allusions to sexual content), and will be tagged as #suggestive. no full on smut in the inbox though, please.

this is more of a personal preference than a hard and fast rule, but i highly recommend putting your submissions in chat format if possible (or quote format, if it’s a quote for one character and you think it fits better). i’ll still publish submissions in normal text post format, but i just think it looks neater, haha. also, as mod, i may go in and edit the formatting of your post if needed for readability (ex. bolding character names, adding paragraph breaks if need be), but i’ll never change the actual text of the post itself (that includes typos, btw—if you see a typo in your submission, feel free to send in an ask to get it fixed! i just don’t want to fuck with your text without permission, it feels rude, lol). ^-^

please do not send submissions through the ask box! submissions sent through the ask box will be deleted!

any content that i feel needs a trigger warning will be tagged as “tw [thing]”, and trigger tags can be asked to be added for certain posts, though i reserve the right to deny tag requests for any reason (they will probably almost always get a yes, but there are some things that i may just be unable to tag for whatever reason. not....quite sure what those reasons could be, but i figured i'd put the warning out there, lol). on the whole, though, while i understand this game can be dark and deals with some heavy topics that are bound to be mentioned here from time to time, i’d like to keep this blog mostly lighthearted.

finally, most importantly: no discourse on the blog for any reason, lol. it's just not the place :'))

tagging system (or, aka, mod lila overexplains himself lol)

i wanna preface this section with that i don’t expect you guys to tag your submissions yourself—as mod, i’m more than happy to do it! especially since i’m a little particular about the way i order them, haha. that being said though, if you do want to tag your posts, this is the way i’ll be doing it. don’t worry about following it to the letter if you do add tags, because i’ll go in and edit them as needed like the perfectionist little shithead i am, lol.

tags should (mostly) be in the same order every time: fandom tags first (i use both who's lila and who’s lila?), character tags generally in the order they appear in the post (mentioned characters may or may not be tagged on a case by case basis), ship tag(s) if applicable, trigger tags if applicable, the quote source, whether it’s a submission or my post, the submitter’s url/anon, and any commentary from myself or the submitter (i am a chatty bitch, apologies in advance lol. if both me and the submitter have commentary, i’ll differentiate our comments in some way, with the submitter’s comments always coming first).

the submission tag will be, well, submission, lol, and my quotes will just be tagged “mod lila”.

as stated above, triggers will be tagged “tw [thing]”. sources will be tagged “source: [thing]”.

general posts/announcements will be tagged “mod lila whispers to y(o)u” (like when she whispers to yu in that one scene? haha. i’m clever i swear—)

any other tags/tagging conventions that need to be created will be added here as needed!

[hardcolorfest]

✨️ AM I PLURAL? ✨️

Please help me, I have gone back and forth on this for years, at least 10 years which is literally like a third of my life so far!

Please, I am desprate for ANY outside views and opinions, I feel like I need others to read my experience and help me understand why I keep on getting into this cycle of "this is plural/no actually its not."

EDIT: this is LONG and I ran out of energy near the end so the writing gets really sloppy so I added a timeline of events up top. I'm so sorry, this ended up turning into more of a vent towards the end, but if anyone wants to read my life story and give me... uhhh........ feedback? I'm sorry words hard now I'm so tired.

I'm getting tired of the doubting and accepting cycle, the "is this normal and I'm just attributing it to a plural thing" floating around in my head constantly. I'm going to try and keep this short, but I'll need to lay everything out so anyone can get a full picture of what I'm/We're working with.

First of all, sorry this is posted on a random empty blog with a title and description totally unrelated. I was going to use this blog for something else but the crisis in my/our identity keeps getting in the way of doing much of anything solid for the last like year now. That's how bad this has gotten now, I hardly feel like a real person anymore and I don't know what to do. Secondly I'm really sorry if there are typos or anything like that. Sometimes my phone autocorrects something and I won't notice that it's changed it to something really weird, like it sometimes switches "I" to "you" and so on for like literally no reason so idk.

Now on to the meat.

🌲

The timeline so far goes > 2012 discover systems > understand I'm not one even though I'd like to be > follow and watch systems online while reading any resource or information posts > learn about tulpas > "make" first tulpa > seemingly gains sentience and gets angry > leaves > 2016 reset > 2016 does not care about being a system > fuzzy memory bullshit here, none of it has to do with this posts topic > 2019 reset > mostly uninterested in being plural > in 2020, 2019 me decides to try make a tulpa again > goes surprisingly well, much faster than last time (which I barely remember at this time) > he eventually talks without my focused effort > I doubt his existence being real > he gets angry, we argue for weeks > eventually he disappears, vaguely sometimes feel like he's "checking in on me" > the 2021 fuckery (more trauma) > homeless and feeling alone > now have stable housing > vaguely refer to self as plural and make a pk and list out like 6 headmates including yourself as one and the past tulpas > goes well and smoothly for a while, everyone's pretty happy despite acknowledging past trauma and working on that together > 2023 reset happens > make new accounts again and feel upset about all these past events > is happy and having a lot of fun all year > occasionally still feels like the logged pk headmates are vaguely around but can't really talk to them much anymore > sometimes fully switches out anyway but not too long > remembers these resets happened before and makes posts to 2019's freinds > mixed reception and lots of questions, 2023 gets overwhelmed and never answers back > now I feel guilty

✨️ I will now explain in more detail.

So for the last 10 years, probably a little longer by like a year or two but I can't be precise, I've known about plurality, DID, tulpas and other concepts like this. I've also been aware of kins/therians/otherkin/fictionkin and so on and related concepts for much longer, 20 years or so, give or take a year or two again. I've never been very good at role-playing, and I struggled to "play" anyone but myself.

Since learning about systems, I took an interest in them. In the concept of being able to step back and let someone else take control. The idea was extremely appealing. I've been traumatized from a childhood of neglect and abuse, and life was starting to get to the point it was wearing me down to nothing. I wanted to take a break, to "die but not die" as I had put it back then. To "go away" with little financial consiquence and come back when I felt recharged. I wasn't really sure how I felt about sharing my life, but was willing to if it meant I could sometimes take a break. Gladly.

So I did a lot of research, quietly reading and observing people online. Maybe it was a little creepy, like watching a fandom from afar and learning what the show they liked was about secondhand through them. I think after I learned about how DID presents, I decided it wasn't really how I was at all and concluded for sure I was not and never could be a system since I did not talk to voices in my head, loose control of my body, nor have severe trauma (to me at the time, this is definitely not the case) and therefore I was not a system. I still watched from afar though.

I think I learned about tulpas around then. I knew I wasn't ever going to have DID due to my conclusions at the time, so I guess I could emulate a headmate until my brain thought it was real. And I still do think you can do this, don't get me wrong, I am fascinated by the human mind and how we process things and the nature of consciousness from a scientific level. I don't think its too far fetched for our brains to be able to do this, genuinely, even if I choose weird ways to describe it.

Anyway, I did try to make a tulpa a few times, maybe twice honestly, but each of them eventually got angry with me once they got to the point they could talk freely. The anger was about me doubting their existence after they were no longer being consciously forced and could do things without my input. Each time, after a little bit of arguing for weeks, they would disappear and I would be left feeling alone in scilence and upset at the fact that I ultimately caused them to leave me.

I have, in the past, "reset" myself somehow. I don't think I did it intentionally, I'm not even sure if there's a common trigger. It's happened a few times. It's happened in the past but I have no real memory of them except for vague feelings and fuzzy memories that feel like I'm seeing someone else's life. However I do remember more about the last two times than any other times.

The first of these was around 2016 I think, and that version of "me" now feels like a complete seprate being who has their own name, likes and dislikes, interests and hobbies, spiritual and political beliefs, and vision of themselves in terms of looks and self-concept. And then in 2019 that version of "me" got packed away into the back of my mind and suddenly I was someone else.

This 2019 "me" had some leftover interests, and of course had any knowledge nessicary to still life the continuous life that having a body and a presence requires, like knowledge of family and friends, jobs and schedules, and so on. It felt like taking over someone else's life, but none of their stuff is really yours. Their freinds suddenly feel like strangers, or at best acquaintances you could say "hello" to but really couldn't hold a conversation with anymore. Even interests and hobbies that carried over were either dampened feeling or the focus of that interest/hobby changed significantly enough that it wasn't really expressed in the same ways. 2019 "me" enjoyed art and drawing with a lot of the same enthusiasm that 2016 did, but with less of a focus on furry and more of a focus on anime, and in particular diving into the world of en ess eff double-yew, which 2016 was not interested in the least but 2019 was vigorously passionate about lol

The further back in versions of "me" we go, the fuzzier it gets. But the general feeling is the same. You wake up in a room with someone else's clothes, books, toys and collections and you have to fight yourself to not immediately throw them all out. You know that would just make them sad. And they do kind of pop back in, although usually only for a short time, a few hours to maybe a day or two, where you just suddenly feel like the past you is you again and everything from the name association, hobbies and beliefs come crashing back like a tidal wave, washing "current you" out of the picture for the time. And besides, they miss their friends. You think about their freinds from time to time, wanting to talk again, wanting to make the lingering sadness happy again...

Its happened again, 2023. I remember more clearly about 2019, since that was the "me" before me.

During 2019 me's "life" I went through another pretty traumatic event involving others who I trusted at the time, ended up homeless and really effed up. Obviously I made it out okay for the most part, I'm still alive and I'm here. I think 2019 me started dying around that time though.

And as it felt like 2019 me was dying, "others" started to feel like they were there. Past "me's" and the past tulpas and others as well who I never tried to intentionally create or who I remember as being a "reset." They would sometimes take over, like in that I would feel like I would suddenly be them and identified myself with their name, enjoyed their likes and hobbies, the dislikes, the views and opinions. And I wasn't actually "me" anymore, I was fully "them" in my opinion. Like a shape shifter who still feels themselves in the back of the current "you." Not really like a performance, like it was natural and correct.

At this point I want to notice we had stable housing and a stable job. Things were looking up around the time it felt like 2019 me was fading. While homeless "I" was the only one present, struggling to stay alive takes your full effort and attention and leaves very little room for thoughts pondering your potential identity. But after having a safe place to live is when we had that boom of sudden activity.

A lot of not much happens except daily life and occasional switches logged, happily accepting self as plural. Quietly too, I never ended up announcing it to anyone, and for most people we appeared as a single entity that just sometimes got into specific "moods." I was never actually interested in being loudly plural, even when I desired being plural from afar. Even back then I agreed (with myself lol) that if I ever found out I was plural we would keep it to ourselves and enjoy each other's company like an in-joke nobody else would ever be aware of but us.

But we did start to fade a bit, and after maybe just a month into 2023 everyone disappeared.

After the 2023 reset, I was left all alone, with all the knowledge of everything that happened. I felt again like a stranger in someone else's body, in their life. I knew inherently to keep up the charade and not tell anyone. I knew I couldn't just go up to 2019's friends and tell them "I'm sorry but you're a stranger to me now, like my sibling's friend's friends, and I'm really hurt by this because now i feel alone and empty." Nobody takes that the right way.

And I found a new fandom to be interested in so I could just pretend and "be someone else" and not have to address to 2019's friends why I suddenly stopped talking to them. New accounts, new personality. No name. Had several months of happy fun fandom time before the really bad feelings about abandoning my freinds and not explaining what happened at all to them started to set in.

Still, I was happy. I got to exist freely this time, maybe I could openly be plural online! But you know, the whole emptiness and they disappeared thing. It sucked, but I got little whispers here and there. Now that I think about it, I think they never really disappeared but just got super weak.

Whatever, the point here is I want them to come back but we keep having strained communication and difficulty with fuzziness any time any "non-me's" try to take over.

And I felt guilty.

So I messaged some of 2019's friends recently with mixed reception. Some of who just seemed like they were happy to hear anything at all after I disappeared completely for almost a whole year. Some who never really responded, Some of who I'm not even sure if they have seen it. Nobody really angry or anything. I didn't use any words like "plural" or "headmate" or anything. I explained it all as the past me being packed away completely, including the things they cared about, but still feeling that little sadness about it. Nobody brought up plurality either. I'm okay with that, I don't know if it's good to just suggest that out of nowhere to someone. But the lack of any question about that, especially from people who I know actually do know about systems, made me think really hard about if anything I expereinced here was even a plural thing or if it was just a mind trick I did because I was struggling with long lasting traumas. And I understand how ridiculous that sounds. I'm aware. I'm just trying to get it down in words that can be understood, it evokes that feeling of knowing you're right but fearing you're mistaken.

I'm so sorry I'm really tired and I didn't realize how long this post would take to type. I just got out of an exhausting shift at work and am so low on my battery words are starting to feel a bit strange for no reason.

So to cut the rest, the point in making this post is outside validation that I either AM or that I AM NOT making shit up because I wanted to be plural 10 years ago, or that I fucked up my brain by trying to make tulpas, or that I just discovered being a system through making tulpas I guess, or like what.

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY I am super upset and feel really bad and guilty and responsible for not being attached to anything from 2019's life, including their freinds and I have no idea why I have these "resets" and is that just a normal "living and growing as a person" thing or is that what splitting or whatever feels like or like... is that just me being an asshole?

Am I an asshole?

I feel so empty, no name, no freinds, no real personality except the emulation of an anime character... abandoned everyone I cared about for almost a whole year... its hard and requires a lot of effort to "be" the others, or even talk to them... I'm so tired.

[fictionkinfessions]

This is a post about the current blog poll regarding ask games on this blog. You can find the original post and poll to vote on via this link below. Please do not send votes via ask messages.

Posts about this topic have the tag 'blog poll'.

https://www.tumblr.com/fictionkinfessions/724128639169544192/

This is long. Here is a read more.

Anonymous asked: sorry im not home and mobile search sucks or else id look myself, but is there a catchall tag for ask games? i think there is but bad memory lol. if not maybe there should be so people can block all games instead of each new one !

Anonymous asked: Suggestion for the ask game debacle: why not tag all those posts with one consistent tag like "kinfessions ask game" or something? Either in addition to or in place of the custom tags. That gives everybody's blacklist something to pick up without requiring someone to add a tag for every single ask game.

Anonymous asked: voted to keep ask games but consider just adding a catch-all tag alongside the specific game for blacklisting purposes maybe? the anon has a fair point with how many there have been lately that it can kind of drown out regular confessions but ask games are fun and it wouldn't exactly be fair to completely get rid of them. wouldn't mind a sister blog for them either though

There isn't a catch all tag, and that's a extremely good idea. I'm kinda kicking myself for not asking for feedback before making a whole poll about it. We'd still have the poll, but there would've been better options about what to do. Also for not doing that to start with.

Anonymous asked: i'm all for continuing the ask games, but can we at least LIMIT them? sometimes it feels like there's a new one every day, or like everything posted is a response to an ask game. it's obviously not stopping anybody from kinfessing normally, but it feels weird to only see ask game responses when the blog was originally intended for kinfessions

Anonymous asked: a suggestion about ask games: host one or two as events with loose but present time limits. kinda like this blog had for june, with mostly pride-themed prompts? it would probably require more moderation, so no pressure if you don't feel up to it mpc. we could even vote for favorite games but i can see it may leave someone upset bc their idea lost. right now it seems (to me. just a personal opinion) like this sudden overflow of different yet very specific prompts is a bit directionless. it's not necessarily bad for a community blog but could discourage a full "conversation"? of linked confessions, which i see as the point of ask games. this isn't to say there are no responses to posted answers - quite the opposite, actually! i just think having fewer themes would allow more unique experiences to be included, instead of splitting more subtopics.

True, there have been a fair amount, and it's been ramping up. Not a bad thing, it's nice that people have curiosity about other's canons and sources.

Seems like a lot of work, but doable imo. My concern would be actually getting people to vote for the ask games. Also if an ask game wins, but nobody plays it, then what? Do we just go onto the next one? Would there be a time limit? What if people send things after the time limit? I'd feel like such a dick for not posting it because they didn't send it in on time. This isn't really a final exam at school or your office job with time limits. Literally how do I explain it without sounding like a Super Serious Tool?

People do that for holiday things, you can't stop that from happening. The only reason I put a time limit for holidays is so nobody gets triggered after they remove a tag from their blacklist, assuming nobody celebrates Fathers Day 2 weeks afterwards. You know what I mean? Not to mention this blog is very active. People may not see prompts until long after the time limit, and they may still want to participate. Also who thinks up themes, if there will be any?

Though maybe we don't vote on them. Like you mentioned, people might get upset if theirs isn't picked. I suppose we could just do it chronologically, as they're sent in. I'm not sure how to manage this. Save the future ask games to drafts and hope I don't lose them? Probably.

Anonymous asked: Going to agree with the anon, there is a bit too many ask games ngl, like I like them but there is so many of them at this point and like I even blacklist the tags but they still get through. I just wish that there was a bit less of them or that there was a seperate blog :(

The thing about the auxiliary blog is that it won't have the same amount of traffic and might go dead. Not a bad thing, such is life. But I think part of the appeal of ask games replies and confessions is that this is a fairly high traffic blog. People want to be seen, even if it's anonymous. I wouldn't mind running a side blog, or at least getting it active enough to let someone else handle it.

Anonymous asked: Hello MPC! You don’t have to post this, but I saw that you were asking for opinions and I can’t actually find somewhere to vote on a poll (unless it was metaphorical? I can’t tell honestly), so feel free to delete this if it’s just taking up space- but I kind of agree with the anon who spoke up about the ask games. It’s not really a bad thing they exist, but when you have so many going at one time, it’s hard to keep track of and sometimes the pinned post/asks become incredibly long. It also feels like it goes against the whole ‘this is not a canon call’ mindset of the blog because it can and does spark up conversations between people, if that makes sense? It’s not a bad thing people are involved, but I feel like it takes away from the point of the blog a little. I think having the ask games be cleaned up and a new system put into place to make it easier to block the tag/find them would be super helpful, but I know that can be stressful. All in all, I’m sure everyone will support your decision!! Thank you for everything you put into this blog MPC 🖤

The voting poll post is here if you haven't found it already. Thank you for your input, you have some good points. https://www.tumblr.com/fictionkinfessions/724128639169544192 It's true that the ask game post is incredibly, tediously long. Even with tags, it's hard to ignore.

I don't know about the canon call thing, I haven't really seen people implying they should be contacted over x y z happening in their canon due to an ask game reply. Honestly I'm not fighting that battle very hard anyways.

I get the feeling that ask games are going to stay. But we did get some ideas on how to manage them better than their current form.

Summary of suggestions

Limit amount of active ask games per week or per month. Maybe 3 per week?

Create a catch all tag for ask game responses

Ask game topics per week or month. Maybe can be voteable as well?

Create side blog solely for ask games regardless??

[captainseamech]

[4, 8, and 9?]

Questions for muns

8. do you expect your answered memes/asks to be turned into threads? regardless of answer, what’s your reasoning?

In my opinion I think it depends on what kind of meme/ask. But in general, I don't expect much about most of the time because well... either I just end up writing a drabble whenever it's a prompt/starter or, in case someone turns the ask into a thread, I don't feel like going further with that topic. Again, it depends of my muse and my inspiration at the time, but most of the time I keep my expectations low.

9. when you look at a new blog, what is it that makes you press the follow button? is it the muse, the aesthetics, the writing–?

Being honest with you, I'm what people calls 'your friendly neighbor' so I try to go and support as many new rpers as I see and can! Of course I do look at things like rules page, about character and if the person tags their posts accordingly. But yeah if I see a possible interaction with our muses in general, I gently slap that follow button and even offer some help if they need!

//okay so... I replied to these out of order because question number 4 accidentally turned into a ramble of mine, which is of course under cut. There's a very small f.naf mention in the first paragraph but you can safely skip to the second one if so desired.

———————

4. which muse of yours is your all time favorite? if you stopped writing them: why?

Well I mean, I have quite a good variety of muses (not counting with my deadass multi) but in general, I love all of my babies equally! But I do have a certain muse that I had some fun for a while which is M.onty from F.naf, I sadly stopped writing him because the fandom kind of... killed him for me because they kept calling the character a villain etc etc (which is just because of a stupid theory curse you MatPat) and... yeah.

But to keep myself within the fandom of this blog, High Tide has been my very first muse for years now. I love that we kind of grow together and I learned to write more about him occasionally, but his muse is... kind of quiet all of a sudden. I mean sure it happened before and that led me to dip from the internet for like, 2 years. Sure it can happen again but I have to say that I have a small concern that his muse goes radio silent again all of a sudden because I do want to write him with my mutuals, being them old or new, but my scaredy ahh keeps making me think that I intervene or ask for too much attention. Not to mention the fact that people constantly annoying my mutuals because of my 'main ship' (even though I declared myself multi-ship) saying that he'd probably steal a different ship's partner is just... yeah. Demotivating not gonna lie.

Not to mention that I feel like my headcanons are unintentionally forcing people to follow that part of what imagined of his canon (like saying that he was friends with TFP Megatronus in his Gladiator era for example) and this... sort of counts as god-modding for me and I honestly don't want people to feel forced to follow my canon. That's why I mostly do silly headcanons regarding his actions or his daily routine instead of going too deep with his backstory because I have this sense that a secondary/background character shouldn't have that much lore in a single rp blog. I rarely bring his lore up for the reasons mentioned before sooo yeah I think that's why I stopped writing him that often, even though I love him dearly and I'd do anything for him...

And I also feel like I make him way overpowered strength wise, another reason why I never brought the topic about his full strength up in public. Anons are probably just waiting for me to make an 'OP move' with him to start their ramblings or saying that I'm unfair. That's why I almost never do fighting threads, I know that I may or may not have done High Tide extremely strong and I don't want people to come here and say that I'm buffing him up. Not to mention the rare instances of me mentioning his gladiator arc and almost immediately regretting bringing this up.

I feel like he's slooooowly going inactive again, but that's part of life I guess. If he does go inactive, I may try to go absolutely radio silent about his past and even discard the headcanons about him being a gladiator, his strength and all and just keep the trauma of having to lose his partners since they're somewhat close to canon giving the nature of the whole franchise.

[petrichoraline]

hi petriiiii 🫶🏻 what dramas are you most looking forward right now? or not just dramas but other things too! i'm losing excitement and it's making me a little sad :c

hi, cutie!! right now i'm mostly looking forward to things that have finished airing haha, like a few jbls and dangerous romance. if it's a jbl released this year - i want it. the last bl i finished watching was, iirc, taikan yoho and i haven't been interacting with the fandom on here in terms of commentary in months. i've been out of the loop so getting this question makes me very excited and flattered but also a lil sad cause i might not have anything of substance to say.

i'm not too sure what is coming up in terms of shows but last twilight is smth that i hope i get to keep up with! @stormyoceans managed to get and keep me excited about it so that could be a bit of a comeback for me. i dare not be excited for supposed 2024 gmm releases for now (except maybe for the kieta hatsukoi adaptation uwu) and i'm not really aware of what the other companies are putting out.. oh, i am interested in middleman's love! although i never actually watched bed friend, idk why i'm so interested in tutoryim considering i never even finished cutie pie but here we are 😄

ohh, i want to watch the cute kbls!! sing my crush, why r u, love alarm s2 for example 🥰 also to finish love tractor but that's not up to me only @howitrulyam ˙꒳​˙ and to rewatch kinou nani tabeta? and proceed with the second season <3

as for other media - i'm interested in how ofmd s2 ends; i kinda want to watch miyazaki's the boy and the heron because it's gonna be released in cinemas here! trying to hype myself up to go to the movies alone lol; i'd like to watch a nice regular jdrama, maybe something like beni sasu life :) my happy marriage are a movie and an anime i'd like to get into as well; and lucky my love seems like it'd be to my taste!

anyways, there are plenty of fun shows out there, both older and newer <3 i personally have no desire to watch a lot of stuff so there are no personal recs i can give you about recent or upcoming shows. the dash seems to be full of lots of opinionated bloggers who are keeping up with everything that's currently airing so i'm sure goof stuff are being released and there's def a lot that you're going to like! sometimes synopses don't sound too promising but the series turn out to be really enjoyable so keep an open mind ☺️ in any case i can always recommend older stuff..? if you crave smth in particular i'm alwaysss open to digging through my lists💕💓💞 that being said, i get the desire to watch new stuff as they're being a topic of discussion in the fandom and it's a lot of fun so i'll encourage you to pick a few random shows - varying by country, genre, cast, company, and try to keep up with them weekly. maybe also look into het dramas or even anime? western series? books or games? sometimes you may need a palette cleanser and if the current catalog of upcoming bls isn't really doing it for you, direct your attention elsewhere for a minute. that's what i'm kinda doing rn after a bit of a burnout and it feels good. just mix it up <3

and let's keep in touch! 🥰

[aewrie]

distractions aren't working so

(yelling into the void to get this out of my system but seriously tread carefully if you're sensitive to topics of abuse/ c/sa /mental health crap)

i'd be looking for a therapist but am not exactly in the headspace to do so. my old one was overall great and i'd be contacting her but she was basically useless when it came to this topic. think she was more confused and conflicted at the idea of a child being the abuser than me. which. that's not gonna help. and by the time i'd trust myself to see through that ordeal idk. i could probably use it anyway but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

could use it right now. i've been crying on and off for like 3-4 hours, while teetering on the edge of another breakdown

took me what, 10?? years before i felt ok using the word trauma in reference to being bullied for years. even after i kinda knew how fucked it all was. only after a health professional was like 'yeah, that's trauma you've got going on' after hearing the tl;dr of my life i felt i was allowed to. (she then proceeded to recommend therapy lmao). bc it wasn't so bad. boy i'm good at rationalizing all that away. other people always have it worse! and it's not like there was obvious violence, so obviously it doesn't count.

same fucking thing when i got diagnosed with depression and anxiety. i was passively suicidal & heading into worse direction and i was only willing to admit that i was sad & anxious. probably. surely not anything that would warrant treatment.

and now this thing i've filed away under 'miscellaneous shit that was not ideal probably, but surely it wasn't' That Bad, other people have it Worse':

yesterday i checked out this vr interview stream dealing with abuse right before i had to go sleep (the best idea ever. clearly) and at the point i started watching the discussion made basically no sense so i figure i go to the start and watch from there. and the interviewee describes the abuse, and i'm fine until a particular detail comes up and then it kinda unraveled from there. i had to pause just to get a breather. i watched maybe a few minutes more idk.

i've looked into child psychology and sexual development before bc ever since i bumped into the term child-on-child sa i've been stuck with the whole 'but does it count if x y z' (mostly: can someone so young even be an abuser, bc obviously if he didnt' intentionally & maliciously do it, i am not allowed to feel upset), even earlier that same damn day! but nothing unequivocally said yes or no. so of course i'm going with the safe answer of no, i'm not allowed to call it abuse.

but after that Moment i looked at some more stuff and found a couple of videos, one from a therapist knowledgeable on the topic, and one first-hand account, read some comments to boot, and then i'm having the sort of crying episode that leaves me feeling physically sick for a full day at least

at work today I was distracted the second i was not properly busy, then i managed to keep it together for a bit when i got home and now here we are. fuck i'm glad i'll have multiple days off now. on the long run this is good to process. but def not feeling it right now lol. at least i'm not stuck in a corner of fandom where loaded buzzwords get thrown around like they mean nothing, i knew that fucked with my head even back during the vl/d heyday and i was just getting around to the 'ok that Happened and maybe it was messed up, but Not abuse' stage of denial

good news i might be done crying rn so i guess that helped

i guess this was gonna be happening sooner or later bc i've been somewhat actively thinking about all that for months but rip it came out of nowhere

(and gonna throw it in here just in case; i'd rather not have 'i'm sorry' messages or similar, 9 times out of 10 i just feel awkward as shit. more neutral (not sure what's the best word?) is fine)

[fioreloe]

To my dearest Ylana Xyne,

This is Eero Antonio, back with his monthly letter to his very own beloved one. Allow me to be cheesy for a moment, and I present to you all of these paragraphs.

Speaking of letters, there are many things I have told you, some of which are said and some of which are unsaid. I believe it was a blissful event to have you come into my life because I am now able to love and protect you.

Suddenly, I've been thinking about what my favorite phase of life was recently, and I guess it was July, the day you came to me for the first time. From a total stranger to one of the most important people in my life. Life is full of meaningless repetition, but I don't mind having it with you because you're the one who always throws away my blue. I wish you had the spark for every "Baby, kumain ka na ba?" " at 8 a.m., "I love you" every hour of the day, our never-ending midnight talk where the topics sometimes went deep or really shallow, and mostly about nonsense in the world because the day passes quickly with my Ylana as my best companion. Even if you do nothing, I will be grateful for your entire existence because I am the happiest human-being because of you. Every single thing you say makes me feel something.

I used to be someone who would refrain and avoid getting hurt at all costs, but now I'm at the point where it's okay even if it's going to be hurtful in the end as long as the person is you. I value you the most. I rarely feel at ease with people like this, but you did, and I'm eternally grateful. Being around you makes me feel safe since I don't have to pretend to be anyone else; I can just be myself, and you wouldn't want any other boyfriend. Thank you for wanting to understand me and for always being willing to deal with my flaws.

As a sane person, as someone who is willing to stick with you through many ups and downs, as a lover with many loves to offer, worries are unavoidable at times. Things like "What ifs" used to creep me out. But, on the other hand, I devised a solution. Instead of thinking about those unpleasant unproven thoughts and assuming things, I'd rather think about our happiest current state. What if I kiss you right now? What if we cuddle close and stare at your pretty face? What if we talk until the sun rises again today? What if we spend our monthsary with the biggest smile on our faces.

I can't promise that I won't be busy in the coming days, but please keep in mind that I love you even on my busiest days, and that I always think of you as I go about my business. If our quality time is lessened due to my hectic schedule, it does not mean I love you any less. I still love you the same, and I love you more and more every day. To the edge of the universe, I love you more than you can imagine. I wish I could win our never-ending race to love you more.

It's okay to not be okay sometimes, but please remember that no matter what happens, I will stay and I will be here. If you need a shoulder to cry on, I'll lend you mine; if you want to cry, I'll accompany you with my own cookies and warm hugs; if you're tired, I'll let you sleep in my arms; and if you feel like the world is against you, let me be your world instead - the kind of world that treats you with care and will not let you be hurt. I know what's best for my love, and I know what you truly deserve.

Apparently, expressing how much I adore you would be a never-ending chapter. You are deserving of all of my love. Seeing you asleep while I'm awake filled my heart; knowing you're awake while I'm sleeping makes me feel warm and content, knowing that someone loves me that much and always wants me to get enough sleep. It goes without saying that I adore you. One of my favorite things about you is that you always know how to make me your special someone. You are everything that the song "Lemonade" is about: a sunshine in the rain, my Tylenol when I’m in pain, lemonade when it’s burning hot on summer days, you are exactly everything what I need.

Ylana, you can show me your most vulnerable side while also being a tough person with a pure loving heart, okay? I appreciate you always being my number one cheerleader when no one knows what's going on behind my remarks. That is why this also applies to you. Baby, I may not always know what's going on and what you're going through, but one thing is certain: I'm always rooting for you and what you do. I am your home, and you can always come back to me. I'm proud of you because you handled everything so well. You deserve everything good in life, and I'd trade my soul for it. I'm far from a powerful person, but I can give you my biggest bear hug right now.

Happy second month to us. I love you endlessly forever and more.

[sodacansculptures]

Hello, everyone!!

Just wanted to give an update on my life and my absence. It is a bit depressing, so feel free to skip the rest of this post. I am on mobile and do not know how to do a "read more", so I apologize.

The TL;DR version is that I have been struggling with unemployment for over a year (thanks, covid) and have become very discouraged in my efforts, and I am essentially in survival mode while battling depression. I do have a therapist and I know I will ultimately be okay--just not having a particularly good time at the moment.

The full version is that in 2018, finishing grad school became my top priority and was why I had to take a break from sculpting. I graduated in May of 2020 with my Master's, and I had a job lined up with a university, but it got withdrawn because the whole university shut down. As far as I know, the position was never re-offered or re-posted.

The industries for which my degrees qualify me and that I am pursuing were highly affected by budget cuts and project cancelations due to the pandemic, so they have many displaced workers seeking reentry into the field, resulting in unusually high numbers of applicants and competition for people such as myself. (USA Today actually interviewed me for my expertise on this topic.)

Lower-tier jobs pass over me because I am overqualified and they assume I will be pursuing other employment, leaving them with turnover, which is expensive to any agency. Higher-tier jobs are in high demand as they offer better wages and better working conditions, so they have a large crop of candidates from which to pick and elect someone with more experience than myself (and obviously I cannot gain more experience without employment). I am in a sort of impossible situation that has left everyone involved in my employment search with frustration.

Over the past year, I have enlisted the help of an employment training/retention program and multiple staffing agencies, and they have been extremely supportive of me and helped me expand my network. I have sought out much help, and I am endlessly grateful to have support, but unfortunately there is little they can do more than what I have already been doing for myself to gain employment.

I have a stellar resume, an awesome number of favorable and practical references, and I always study the agency and position to which I am applying so I can write an informed cover letter and have relevant talking points during interviews. I put a lot of time and effort into every opportunity, and when I inquire for feedback, employers repeatedly tell me that they admire my resourcefulness and work ethic and think I would be an extremely valuable worker, but another candidate just had a little more experience. It is heartbreaking to know I have done my best and interviewed excellently but ultimately end up back at square one. I honestly wish there was something I was doing wrong so that there was something tangible I could improve to fix my situation.

My effort feels invisible to the outside world and it seems the public assumes I am on a sort of easy vacation. In reality, every day for me is full of uncertainty, and every day, I wish I could be working. I get by utilizing my skills from high school robotics and self-instruction via the internet to repair, restore, and upgrade old electronics, but it is not stable work and not for what I went to school.

Additionally, I have been deemed not to qualify for Unemployment for a nonsensical rationalization. They ask for employment history in order to calculate how much to pay, but for some reason, student jobs do not count as jobs to them. So although they have me in their system as having been employed as a graduate assistant, they both demand to know from my previous employer what that wage was (and the institution would not forward that wage information to Unemployment because it is a student job and irrelevant to Unemployment's calculations), and would not consider that, anyway, in how much to pay me. So essentially, Unemployment could not figure out how much to pay me, so they just decided not to. I have opened appeals over the situation with them twice, and I have been rejected twice and had the case closed with no opportunity to reopen it. It is a huge slap in the face that even the social system put in place to help people such as myself has failed me and turned me away.

I would take a factory job or do some other physical labor since those are hiring, but I have plantar fasciitis and being on my feet for more than an hour or so at a time just is not feasible for me. I was receiving physical therapy for it at one point, but insurance stopped covering it because they decided I should have had enough visits by now to have recovered. I'm also struggling to get my insurance to cover things like treatment for GERD, which makes eating anything at all a nightmare to deal with.

I have been getting by mostly on pity from family and friends. I do not have unnecessary things like wifi, and I have a lot of expenses I had been putting off because I assumed I would have a job by now (such as a vacuum cleaner. Mine is broken). It kills me to ask for money because it's embarrassing for me that I can't provide for myself, and I got into the field of public administration because I want to be a servant to the people and help them have resources and money, not take money from them.

If you don't have a lot of money, please keep it for yourself. I'm not hurting that badly that I would want to put others in a precarious situation. But if you have a little change you'd like to spare for me (and absolutely no pressure. If I receive nothing, I will still be okay), my Venmo and my PayPal are each @asclw7643. Any little bit would help and I'd be greatly appreciative.

Finally, I did finish that project I was posting about last year in my previous post. I want to post a photo of it, but I can't seem to locate where I put it at the moment. It's Kicks from Animal Crossing. I wanted to do a series of wooden block sprites (mainly Pokemon) and I do still want to. I want to come back to soda can sculpting, as well, so I want to let you all know that I'm here, I'm alive, and I'll persist.

Thank you all for your patience. I promise it will be rewarded and I have a lot of ideas for new sculptures. =]

With love,

- Crystal

(or Cris. I go by either.)

[bearmustard]

Hi Clare! I've been listening to your podcast and I love that there's a lot of talk about the bears there so I thought I'd ask you, right now there's a lot of accs on Twitter trying to be like them and make people think is all happening again and I know I know is all fake but like idk how to explain why?? Like why can we trust the bears but not all these accs?? My actual question is what was the one thing that made you realize the bears were actually Louis and Harry and not someone random??

Oh nonnie, you really know how to fire me up! Welcome to my favourite topic in all of Larrie fandom. Not the bears, per say, (though I love them with my entire being and they are the thing that kept me a larrie when shit got really hard and confusing) but about thinking critically about how communication is happening, what that looks like, and how we can separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, when it comes to weighing up evidence. 

A quick note - I am wary of the phrase ‘do your research’, especially since it’s become the catch-cry of conspiracy groups like Q etc etc. I believe that you should research, and consider the expert opinions (in this case, a combination of expert evidence, veteran larries’ experience, information from H & L themselves) but human beings are pattern seekers, and there is only so much ‘research’ will tell you, before your brain starts looking for patterns in the smallest things to create a narrative, and that’s not always how real life works. So you have to kind of hold two things in your mind - the first is that we will never know the full story, or even a fraction of it. (Maybe one day we’ll get a tell all, but I’m not holding my breath). The second thing to keep in mind is that real life is messy as fuck, and often stranger than fiction, and things that are TOO neat are things you want to investigate/think critically about/maintain a healthy suspicion about. 

So to your first question - how do you know all of those accts are fake in your gut? Often it’s because they are TOO neat. They line up too well with the story people are telling, which is rarely what the story is. It gets a lot of clout at the time, but long term it doesn’t make sense. I arrived in this fandom at the tail-end of the @goodbyeadulthood phenom, where anybody making any kind of sensible, evidence based theory was called a plant (mostly jokingly) (mostly) so I guess being able to see that this has all happened before gives me a bit of perspective when it comes to excitement about “insider accounts”. Accts like CBO and hscox94 have very clear patterns - they are ridiculously vague, they almost never predict (always following, not leading, events), and they conveniently change/adapt their story to the prevailing winds of fandom opinion. 

How we know the bears were the real deal then? I mean, honest answer is we really can’t ever know, but there is compelling evidence that they were. @tellmethisisnotlove has an excellent masterpost (that I just realised feature some of my own theories, lol) on how the bears link to 1D, and specifically to Harry and Louis. 

What people forget, though, because it’s been accepted fandom lore for so long, but many larries were not convinced that it was Harry and Louis themselves at the time. It’s only with hindsight that the majority agree. We knew they were connected to the band. RBB definitely started from (probably) Josh Devine, probably as a joke, because he created the first twitter acct, but it was very different in tone from what the bears would become. 

RBB really was just considered a cute tour mascot, and that only started to change in the Europe leg of the OTRA tour. Coincidently, this was after the 2 month break where BG was set up, H & L were separated, and L had a bunch of behind the scenes stuff going on with Sony and SYCO. Prior to this, H & L had been less cryptic in their resistance (big gay war of 2014 anyone?) and had paid a heavy, heavy price. 

So in Europe, RBB gets a pal, and all of a sudden, they’re being dressed up, usually in the same costume (this is why he was called Teddy Mercury to start) and was just a fun thing to watch out for. They were linked to the band (any roadie you talk to says there’s no fucking way they wouldn’t be signed off by the band) but not in a tangible way. 

It got really nuts in July (which, in my head, is when Louis takes over the bears fully, with Harry) for the US leg. This is when big money starts being spent, the scenes get way more elaborate, they start using the blue and green (and red) stickers, and they start featuring props about closeted gay artists, or famous people who had to hide a secret, or sony flip phones (you get the gist). My recollection is that it wasn’t until Vancouver, and the KD Lang book, that the fandom started thinking the Bears were telling us anything, and then we went back and with hindsight realised there were small references to events. 

Even then, there was extremely healthy skepticism in the fandom about the bears being directly from Louis and Harry until much later, when in London they had the blue and green spotlights and the ‘Love Larry’ picture. You can hear in the podcast ep the week we finally feel like we can say for sure it’s Louis (and we are hysterical about it) and that’s the week of Belfast, the countdown, the newcastle gay bar, and the reflection of Louis’ shirt in RBB’s sunglasses. That’s in OCTOBER. Nearly FIVE MONTHS of RBB and SBB leaving us cryptic clues and getting more and more elaborate. Five months of people (including die hard RBB fans like myself) constantly doubting themselves as to whether it really meant something. Moreover, the interview where they are asked about it was December, and so for many that was the final piece of the puzzle, so we forget now that there was so much uncertainty about how much we could trust it. 

Even now, there are things that we haven’t figured out about the bears, that suddenly make sense when something from the time is revealed, and that has been happening since hiatus. 

And that’s my answer - TLDR - that hindsight, critical thinking/understanding, and context are what tells us the bears are the real deal, and were orchestrated by Louis and Harry in response to events and pressures behind the scenes. That they found a way to support and encourage their LGBT fans (and allies) in a year where a lot of things were awful. Those bears were the goddamn light in the tunnel, showing us a way to understand.