#I just need occasional external validation

[misskamelie]

Fastest way to get me to do something is to make it in such a way where I know what the end goal/performance should be like + bonus points if it has clear and delimited subtasks

[milksockets]

why scan?

scanning is something i've done for probably about 12 years now (i'm ancient, for this site), with varying degrees of regularity, intensity, etc. it has ratcheted up since the dawn of 2023, though, which begs the question: why? why put so much time into what could not-wrongly be considered a passive activity, hunched over a piece of clunky machinery with the express purpose of preserving others' creations? the answers are several, and fascinating (not really).

i am a [sober] drug addict. anything i pursue, consume, create--more often than not--ends up taking on addictive qualities. i'll eat the same specific food item for a month, then never want to see, let alone taste it, again. i'll listen to one song on repeat for days until i'd rather hear nails on a chalkboard than have it shuffle on and assault my ears. one of the reasons that my scanning has increased in volume recently is that i acquired library cards to the 3 nyc library systems: nypl, brooklyn, and queens. as soon as i was able to, i pillaged + plundered those fine centers of learning, leaving any given library with as many hefty scan-worthy books as i could [barely] carry. here, finally, was a *free* way of obtaining more + more + more visual media to consume.

2023 saw me get my first legal, full-time job. as such, my adjusting to that hellish reality resulted in a steep decline in my own personal creative output. collaging, writing, and rapping all fell to the wayside as i slowly acclimated to a life of work that almost everyone else my age has known for over a decade is generally unbearable + detrimental to the maintenance of outside pursuits. in times of famine within my own artistic harvest, scanning, archiving, and sharing others' work is a means of feeling as though i am still contributing to the global oeuvre.

there’s an element of losing my mental self in a series of physical motions that becomes almost automatic after some time. “zoning out” is not something endemic to my daily life; if anything, i’m almost always too zoned in. relief is necessary.  especially considering the shitshow this past year has been in terms of my personal life.

i am a product of capitalism’s cultivating a craving for constant consumption. 

it seems that visual content is only going to continue to get more + more uninspired. has everything been done? did social media ruin it all? in any case, i feel a need to document the past. to a degree, it’s my version of doomsday prepping. (god forbid books go extinct altogether.) 

i have always gravitated towards solitary activities. this topic could be a thesis in its own right.

i thrive on external validation. this reliance is something i’ve improved upon over the past several years, but it hasn’t been altogether extinguished. even though the materials i scan are not of my own creation, i nevertheless feel a vague pride in showcasing them. occasional appreciation thereof satisfies this fixation on others’ attention, albeit in a diluted form. 

i am fortunate to live in a city bursting to the gills with cultural institutions. i am also lucky enough to have some disposable income that can be directed toward fulfilling my ravenous desire for visual media. 

((i keep getting messages about the specifics of my scanner + "process":

i have a cheap ass hp envy 6055e and i just use the software it comes with.

there's nothing special or fancy happening here, and i could definitely invest in a better and/or a large format scanner, etc. but i really just don't care enough and it's not like i'm getting paid for this lmao))

[leconcombrerit]

This thing had been rotting in my files for a year (minus three weeks but that's basically a year). It was a redraw of one of my first ever pieces for this fandom, and I still find it quite okay if a little stiff in places, so I thought I might as well share it since I don't draw that much anymore.

And then I had second thoughts, which obviously led to me posting it anyway, as you can see, but I realized I've almost made it a point not to draw anything related to Sasi anymore. As in at all. I can't, and I don't want to, and even sharing old art feels a bit 'meh'. It's too directly linked to my long going art block.

What I mean by that is that if I took all the followers I have out there and asked them what they know me or initially followed me for, you might have a fair amount of Lis 2 and the occasional Desert Bluffs afficionados, but you'd get an overwhelming majority of Sanders Sides. Sanders Sides fashion posts even. I was by no means famous for it or anything, but at my small artist scale, it was the biggest success I had.

And it makes it much harder to go back to it at all now. One, because I don't give a damn about the show anymore. Two, because I haven't been properly obsessing over anything in a while (there was a series early this year but given the actual emotional distress I get thinking about it I'm ruling it out). I haven't had real engagement from my own brain, nor real engagement from a broad audience -which makes sense, I'm not posting for anything that will reach a broad audience. But it takes its toll regardless.

Even when I finally finished writing a long fic, I couldn't help but feel 'all this for what ? Ten people or so and two hundreds have dropped it ?'. Which is a bad way to think about stuff you write for your own enjoyment but, you know, the brain gets happy with external validation even if you pretend really hard you don't care.

And so it feels tempting to go back to the golden goose just the time to get the creative juice pumping back, and I try, and I always end up frustrated and angry and feeling even less like making art that before. I'm not having fun with Sasi. Like an old friend you have nothing to say to and yet you have so much to say otherwise, so you get a bit frustrated, you know ? Not sure I'm making much sense, but that's how it feels. I want to have something like that again, but it won't be with Sanders Sides, and I somehow just want if off my radar.

It was left hanging, then lost its spark, and then I stopped caring altogether and I most likely won't even watch the finale when it does come out. I'm over it. I wish I wasn't though, because it does feel like the artistic spark won't come back all on its own this time, and the buzzing community made it so much easier to bounce back and do shit when your brain got wired all wrong.

It sounds like I'm just bawling after love and likes and stuff, and I guess that's part of it, in a way ? Like I'm in no place to do things for myself, and seeing the one thing I used to use to get back in the flow giving me a bored sense of dread doesn't feel too great.

Yet this drawing is still good ! I find it good ! I don't remember everything, but I can tell from the looks of it that I spent a while on it ! It's nice ! I should celebrate that. So I'm sharing it. I think it will be the last piece of Sasi I ever share, though. I'm not watching the finale when it comes out. I don't care about it. I'll just keep doodling my OCs and characters from cool books every once in a while. I'll write little things.

I just really, really need to stop trying to go back to it when it's clearly not working and not even for good reasons. It was a fun ride though ! So yeah. Basically. A whole ass rant for a one year old piece of art. I'm in my bi-annual depresso mood, nothing too surprising there.

[artbyblastweave]

hello. I am in the middle of doing My Take on vampires and would appreciate your thoughts on Them in fiction. they don't seem to pop up more than occasionally in superhero media, but also you are pretty widely read & they have noticeable Eras/Tendencies that I can see.

I'm definitely not as much of a vampire guy as I'm a Superhero guy, so all my opinions on vampires should be taken with a grain of salt, and with the knowledge that a lot of this is stuff I've picked up through Osmosis and the occasional lit-review for that one class in college. But here goes-

One of my potentially more controversial takes about Vampires is that I think Vampires (and adjacent creatures like werewolves) are great at capturing the emotional truth of being part of a marginalized group, or sometimes just for being subaltern- the world against you, people make you feel like you're wrong for existing, that you're dangerous, etc.- and this is why they go gangbusters both on this website and in general. But the narrative often faceplants for me if it tries to portray vampires as a literal marginalized group because all of that stuff is often objectively true within the fiction in a way that it isn't true of real-life marginalized groups. It's a souped-up version of the X-men problem, because most of the X-Men aren't obligate cannibals! The result of this is that there have been several times I'm consuming something vampire-related that wants me to primarily sympathize with the vampires, and meanwhile I'm going "geez, that's a rough deal, but I think you all need to be killed on purely utilitarian grounds, sorry."

(I do also get the sense as well, right, that this is inextricably tangled up in the fact that a lot of foundational vampire literature was kind of just taking a lot of the horrible lies people tell about the scapegoat group du jour to justify their oppression and then making a guy of whom these things were objectively true. I get the impression, at a distance, that Dracula demonstrates like fourteen different flavors of "Those Depraved Easterners Are Coming For Our Women," although to truly lock in that Take I'm gonna have to read the thing instead of just absorbing it through Tumblr Osmosis whenever Dracula Daily is running.) There are ways to thread this needle, the big one of which is to just sand down the negative externalities of vampirism. Have them feed on animals or voluntary donors or make the human predation thing an in-universe slanderous fiction to begin with. Have them feed on exclusively on quote-unquote "criminals," if you have the right unexamined assumptions about the validity of the death penalty. Go the Elder Scrolls route, where drinking blood isn't necessary to survive but is necessary to maintain a human appearance, thus ensuring that the most morally conscientious vampires are the ones most likely to be identified as vampires and scapegoated by the angry mob. The issue I sometimes take with this is that the act of implementing a "fix" of any kind can sort of broadcast that you're trying to have your cake and eat it too- that you're cutting away the ideatic core of what makes vampires interesting when divorced from metaphor, taken objectively- that they're living trolley problems. As others have said, if you sand them down too much, what are you getting out of a vampire story that you couldn't get from a Tolkien Elf, or from Batman?

A fictional group which I've never really had this issue with, though, is Zombies, in the Romero tradition. When a work wants to construct Zombies as a primarily sympathetic group, it's much easier for me to get on board with that without feeling like the core Vibe has been compromised. This is because there's actually a fairly recent source text for zombies in the form of Romero's Living Dead films, and a major component of the Living Dead films is how much it sucks without recourse to become a zombie.

I was working on a post once, which I never finished, about how there are like, three-to-four vectors of horror that zombies can embody, which different works play up to different extents. While obviously one of the big straightforward ones is the fear that your entire community starts trying to kill you and eat you one day for basically no reason, a major anxiety on display in the original Living Dead trilogy- Dawn in particular- is that in the face of a weird but manageable problem human society would act as its own condemnation, totally failing to rise to the challenge-the horror is that we would let something as inept as a zombie be dangerous to us! Also present in those films? The horror of the idea that your daily routine is so rote and conformist that you wouldn't need to be sentient to continue to carry it out- that the biggest difference between you and them is that you can occasionally be evil in more interesting and evolved ways. And there's this fear of physically and mental degradation with zombies, which for a host of reasons I find extremely fucking relatable. The sense that your body is falling apart piecemeal, bits of you sloughing off when you turn the wrong way or turn your head too quickly. There's this fog over your thinking. The bone-deep knowledge that you used to be more, and are now fundamentally less capable- that there's just enough of you left to understand something is missing. (Read into my personal circumstances whatever you want from this.) Being a zombie is foundationally, fundamentally gross in a way that being a vampire isn't; when people try to do "sexy zombies" half the joke is the pairing of those two words. There's this horror comic Kieth Giffen did once called Tag which is basically entirely about the horror of being a corpse that could feel it; I think about that comic a lot. Anyway, because so much of the horror of zombism is external to whether they're actually attacking and killing people or not, you can totally sell me on zombies as an unfairly-maligned demographic in a way that's much harder for me to buy with Vampires- dropping the danger they pose to other people allows you to maintain so much more of the core of the thing than it does with Vampires, where it feels much more like you're tip-toeing around the tensions between Wanting To Have Fun and the moral horror inherent to what you're trying to have fun with.

[fkapple]

as a fellow Shane x Emily fan, your drawings make me sooo happy, but I've also have to ask, thoughts on Clint?

yesss there are dozens of us!

sooo Clint. He's an awkward Nice Guy chump for sure, but I don't think he's the malicious incel Emily stalker some of the fandom makes him out to be, or whatever bad faith read of his character people believe.

He's just kind of frustrating I guess- like, he's one of those passive but resentful types who can't quite see inward enough to do the work to be less miserable. His need for external validation is, y'know, valid and human lol, but it impedes his ability to work on his sense of self so he's forever chasing the fantasy of falling in love and having someone else do that for him. But that's why his occasional self aware, deadpan interactions are funny and make me like him lol. I just wanna shake him I guess.

Regarding him in my comic....he's such a non-fixture in Emily's day to day life that it felt unnecessary to have him there? Like, I wasn't gonna go for a love triangle in this lol. It'd be all in his head anyway. To Em, he's a quiet but nice regular she sees every day and that's sorta it. I probably should do a comic from his POV at some point tho......

[bonefarm]

So… we need to talk about the c*w blog because I’ve gotten a metric fuckton of anons about it and I need you guys to know I do not need updates on what that person is doing. I know I’ll post about it occasionally and that’s because it DEEPLY upsets me how many animals have died of preventable causes and how that is being presented as normal. It absolutely is not.

I don’t hate that person, I don’t want them to fail and I do think they have good intentions but part of any situation where you are raising and breeding animals is being realistic about your limitations and motivations. That’s a self interrogation I am intimately familiar with.

Most of you know I let go of my rabbit herd this year and it was because I am in the middle of a lot of personal and professional changes. When I made that choice I was definitely worried that my “rabbit friends” and the people who interacted with me online would drop me like a hot potato. Turns out! Not the case! That external validation was NOT worth the amount of personal turmoil I was going through maintaining them and most of the people I’ve become friends with are still my friends.

Any kind of animal keeping where you become the authority on that animal online, and you rely on that validation, walks a fine line with self harm.

I still have one rabbit and some goats and I am SO much happier and, tbh, more successful being able to give them all my focus rather than just bouncing from crisis to crisis.

Alright yall. That’s enough public vulnerability for me today. Good talk, you left the horse water on. Go team.

[rmbunnie]

Another little inconsequential red hood thing and I'll admit that I'm decently biased but it irks me to see the whole "Jason can't shut up about his death/he makes his death everyone else's problem" take really frequently because he simply does not do that enough for it to be a thing in like any actual Red Hood story.

It's a thing you see sometimes in modern annuals/comics with large casts, particularly if a writer doesn't seem super confident with writing all of the characters that they're working with or if he's just a background character in this one, because with comics it's quicker to reduce a character to recognizable landmarks than to try and work out a whole new complex voice if you don't really need to, so it's tire iron, Jane Austen, Joker, and death, and it's all written out in dialogue because every character in a group event can't have their own internal monologue, but like. That's pretty much it. UTRH is the establishing event for Jason Todd post death so of course a lot of it is about his death, although it's arguably about the lack of response to his death more than his death itself, and he certainly makes it Bruce's issue but one beef doesn't make a trend. Plus if his death is anyone's issue beyond his own Bruce and Joker are like the number one guys whose issue it is. He THINKS about his death a ton in Lost Days, but it doesn't really reflect externally on any of his interactions besides with Joker, which again, that's justified and relevant beef. Teen Titans 29 is more about his place in the hero community/feeling like he was an outsider even before the bomb/Tim being the new robin than about his death, and side note, that being counted as an attempt on Tim's life also bugs me. He beat him up and then left of his own volition. That's not an assassination attempt its called a fight, albeit a sneaky and unfair one. But anyways. I can't speak on Battle for the Cowl because i haven't read it, both that and Batman and Robin 2009 don't really compel me, but it's entirely possible that's an outlier to my point seeing as I kinda sorta haven't read it and don't care to lmao. Even New 52 (although HIGHLY unpopular) and Rebirth/Dawn of DC/Whatever we're doing now Red Hood content don't really have him talking to people about it besides the occasional little quips. He might make stances that were developed because of his death other people's problem, like in the Mia Dearden Green Arrow situation with the "getting involved in other people's business" issue, but acting like he makes specifically his death everyone else's problem is ignoring all of the perfectly valid actually canon things he makes other people's problem. Most of the unpleasant traits he brings to the table are a result of his death and the sense of abandonment and betrayal that came with it, but that doesn't mean he's bringing his death into it when he acts unpleasantly any more than he's bringing his birth into it when he shows up in the first place. The consequences do not equal the event. All this to say it's irritating when people say the character is grating because he doesn't stop whining about his death when that kinda just indicates to me that they're working off fanon based on fanon based on kinda mid batman annual.

[funky-fairy]

Lily, Remus and Pandora Headcanons (ridiculously long list)

they're my blorbos i would give my life for them. i project a lot onto remus and lily, so if anything is wildly out of character it's probably that

Lily

very kindhearted but also sarcasm queen

burnt out

Academic validation > real sense of self worth

needs external validation (no this is not healthy she's working on it)

better at potions than snivellus and he hates it hehehe

average at „regular“ magic (spells etc) but exceptional at „scienc-y magic“ (potions, arithmancy, astronomy, herbology etc) bc she's just that cool

plant mom (also green plants > flowers)

actually a rulebreaker, she’s just too smart to get caught

struggles to feel like she belongs: witch in the muggle world, muggle in the wizard world

study buddies to best friends with Remus

fav colours sage green and lavender

sorting hat couldn’t decide between gryffindor and ravenclaw at first

never involved in any drama but knows all about it

everyone is very surprised whenever she swears but she actually swears a lot

tells Pandora about the greek pandora myth and thinks that that's flirting

lotssssss of freckles

curvy/chubby

she is so sleep deprived

sneaks into the library at night (oh wherever could the sleep deprivation come from i have no idea)

loves christmas season (decorating, baking, cheesy movies, music, buying gifts for friends etc., not the christian part)

stress-bakes but can't even cook spaghetti without burning down the kitchen (baking is just different than cooking for her)

constantly apologizes for everything

smokes occasionally and always swears it's the last time (it’s not)

actually not that short but looks very short next to remus and pandora

abba fan (unironically) and always tries to get sirius to dress up as abba with her, remus and pandora (she already coerced persuaded them) for halloween

soft but wouldn't hesitate to kill for the ppl she loves

would love penelope scott if she was a modern teen bc i say so

first one to notice remus has a crush on sirius and vice versa

last one to notice she has a crush on pandora and vice versa

reminds others to drink/eat/sleep/dress warm enough but often doesn't herself bc she feels like she 'doesn't deserve it' :((

kind of a people-pleaser but remus is helping her to stop

so afraid of failure she sometimes doesn’t even try

Remus

doesn't cry (not on purpose he just suppressed his emotions for so long he literally can't cry anymore unless he has a full on mental breakdown)

caffeine addiction

won’t drink anything that isn't hot (eg coffee and tea, but also just hot water)

covers up his intense self hatred with jokes (not self deprecating but like joking about being perfect and stuff, idk how to explain it it's mostly me projecting bc i do that lmao)

very sarcastic and can come off as harsh

actually very nice and non-judgmental

chocolate >>>>>

never involved in any drama but wants to know all about it (Lily is his main source of information)

swears a lot

teachers think he’s very responsible but he just doesn’t get caught being irresponsible

smokes too much

thought the sorting head made a mistake by sorting him into gryffindor at first and still feels insecure about it all through his hogwarts years

patronus is a big black dog(sdfghjk)

very very tall but like kind of lanky

lots of scars obv

Sirius had to ask him out (and later propose to him sdfghjdfs) bc he had too much self doubt/hatred and thought Sirius would never want to be with him :(( (He did. Sirius very much wanted to be with him. Very much.)

top tier insomniac (lily makes sleep droughts for him tho)

lily taught him how to bake and now he loves it and is getting quite good at it

corrects people's grammar

knows every single abba lyric bc of lily

david bowie fan

constantly third-wheeling pandora and lily

hits/breaks things when angry, sometimes hits himself but never others

so afraid of rejection he ends up pushing ppl away (they can’t leave you if you don’t let them close in the first place) (his only close friends still are James, Sirius, Peter and Lily, but it took so long for him to let especially Lily close. Pandora still isn’t quite there even tho they are def very good friends)

Pandora

very smart but only does anything at all if she likes the class/thinks it makes sense to have the class

only follows rules she thinks make sense and most teachers just gave up trying to do something about it

experiments with magic a lot

has scars from said experiments

also random bruises and scratches of unknown origin

wears large quantities of jewellery (piercings, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, beads etc in her butterfly locs)

homemade jewellery >>>>>

cannot flirt to save her life

eyeliner.

absolutely in love with lily’s brain

doesn’t drink caffeine

her maiden name is lovegood and both lily and her become lovegood-evans later bc in my brain they marry

just wanders around sometimes (excuses it with saying she sleepwalks if she gets caught past curfew)

t a l l

the sorting head barely touched her head before sorting her into ravenclaw

patronus is an octopus bc it's very intelligent but often seen as 'weird'

fav flower is the lily of the valley (sfdghjk)

knits (she knits sweaters and scarfs for lily <3)

is like the only one in this trio that actually feels pretty good about herself

although she does realize ppl tend to see her as 'weird' she just kind of accepted it? like, yeah, other ppl can be close-minded but she knows that and doesn't let it define her; as long as she's happy and doesn't hurt ppl it's all good for her

exclusively drinks sparkling water and jasmine tea

hates the feeling of brushing her teeth and is always working on spells/potions(with lily sdfghjdfs) that clean her teeth for her

would definitely also love penelope scott if she was a modern teen

loves pastries and other little baked goods

literally doesn't get cold

[bloggingboutburgers]

Heyyyyy, got a question if you don't mind

I'm aroace. The problem (I think) is that I'm not visibly aroace (can one even be visibly aroace?) and I'm also quite antisocial in general.

It's not that I'm hiding it (I can (I think) casually mention it when relevant) or that I'm in the closet, I just don't really feel the need to change my appearance due to it. If that makes sense

Anyway, now for the (I suppose) controversial bit.

Due to not being "visibly" queer, I don't face (I think at least) the using discrimination (or whatever you call it).

And due to that I sometimes (quite often) don't feel like I'm "actually" queer/aroace.

And yes, I know that it super fucked up to "want" (not the right word, but I'm not English. Just to clarify in case it's not obvious, I do not actual want that) to face the challenges other people do.

Any advice for this?

(extra appreciated if the advice doesn't include going out and/or meeting people, it that's just wishful thinking)

Hey! OK, I hope I don't ruin anyone's day (including yours) or say anything that might be harmful to anyone, as always I'm not gospel and can only speak from my own experience...

...But long story short, honestly, if you don't feel discriminated against, and don't suffer from it on a day to day basis... That's awesome!! And... I feel weird having to say this, but I don't think suffering discrimination should be a requirement for being queer, should it? I mean, that's literally our goal, as queer people, to end discrimination against ourselves, so if this is a demonstration that we're getting closer to that, that's awesome, honestly!

...But yeah. I mean... I hope it's not a stretch to say, but I can imagine there's quite a few queer people out there (not just aroaces) who have had the luck in their life never to be discriminated against, and I hope that continues for them, because... Yeah, that's the goal!

Being queer isn't about that, I don't think. I think first and foremost what defines you as queer is that you deviate from the hetero norm that is viewed as the "default" in society. And I've said that before and I'll say it again, because it might be even harder to actually integrate as an aroace (there's so much external pressure from in and out of the queer community, and yeah, like you said, it's hard to be visible when your orientation revolves around the ABSENCE of something), but you don't have to prove anything to anyone. If you feel you're aroace, then you are. It oughta be that simple most times.

Plus... Not feeling discriminated against at one point in your life sadly doesn't mean that won't happen later down the line. When I discovered myself as aroace as a teen, I didn't really feel my orientation gave me many problems, other than having zero resources at the time to figure out what I was even existed, and being mistaken for gay and facing the occasional homophobia because I didn't date boys. But after a while, after getting into adulthood and being dismissed a couple too many times when I mention my orientation, after the lack of rep getting to me at times (though hey, there IS rep, which I didn't even think I'd see in my lifetime), or after people decide you're old enough to ask you when you're gonna get married too many times for comfort (why do people even do that?), it kinda stuck with me to the point where I wanted to vent in comics. I don't have much to complain about in my life at all! Thankfully the laws in my country or the society I live in can't FORCE me to follow a hetero pattern, so the worst I get is systemic stuff and micro-aggressions, so yeah, I have it good. It's just an itch on a day-to-day. But yeah, made me wanna talk about it sometimes I guess.

But yeah! My bottomline would be: you're in a good situation, from what I understand, and that's great. I hope for you that it lasts. And you shouldn't feel guilty or less valid as an aroace or as a queer person for it. Your experience and your identity are what they are and no one can define your identity but yourself. I know saying "don't feel guilty" or "feel more valid" is easier said than done, but I hope that helps, anyway TwT

[luckyshouse]

your post about did helped me a lot i may or may not be a system but i have some people show up in my head sometimes and ones been around for a while so it means a lot to me and validating as im still very confused about it so thank you

of course! im more than happy that it helped. i speak from experience, i've been diagnosed with severe ptsd since i was twelve, and psychiatrists/therapists have brought up DID in the past, but for years i rejected the idea because i simply just don't line up with the typical presentations of DID. ive never felt like i had more than one person in my body, i've never had obvious or noticable switches, and everything i've ever done, i've always held a "oh yeah that sounds like me i did that" mentality, even if i didn't remember directly doing it. a lot of my DID symptoms are more internal than external, but even when it is internal, my alters do not come to me in the figures of people or even "Characters" most of the time. Just a large rotating wheel of concepts and aesthetics and occasionally kins, but even the kinning part is less about the character and more about the metaconcepts of the character and the tropes.

we live in a society in america that encourages people to bisect their identity even without DID, and i think that has contributed a lot to peoples experiences as well. even if you get all the help you can for PTSD, or feel like your trauma isn't that bad, the way society is set up to encourage you to splinter your identity and keep them seperate. that mixed with trauma is absolutely how you end up developing DID, and i think it's something thats left out of DID conversations all the time. another thing i think isn't spoken about enough is that DID is never the same as someone elses, and is primarily based on your preferred forms of escapism while you were a developing child. i believe the idea of DID having multiple people in one body may actually come from the older sorts of systems that existed before the internet, and before larger forms of escapism became common. with the internet, i feel like that's broadened the way people could develop DID as well, since it's easier than ever to get into rp spaces, or make ocs, or pretend to be different people, or distance yourself from your body. i know people whos alters genuinely do not come to them as characters, they embody themselves as a large processing machine and their "alters" are different apps they run on the computer for different tasks. when i was told about their experience, it sort of clicked for me, that this isn't a disorder about having "more people" in your brain, but an organizational system for your trauma and reactions/beliefs. it will always and forever be based off of how you existed as a child, and it never will fall under the rules of what people will try to tell you.

i think a lot of "syscourse" on tumblr has lead to a really terrible awful idea of what DID is and how someone can experience it, and has convinced people that they need to seek out "fake" systems. but even if a system WAS faking, they are still undeniably a person with PTSD and identity issues, and i don't see why assuming they are fake would help anyone in that situation. they still need help, they still need to cope, and they'd likely still benefit from plurality spaces. people see it as a very black and white issue, when in reality its like no system will ever be the same as the other, none of them will communicate the same, none of them will ever experience the same exact things, and this is because dissociative systems literally are based off of the persons family and life dynamics. no one lives the same life twice. there for no system exists the same twice.

i hope you have a good day! and i hope the ppl that show up in your head have a good one too

[multiplicity-positivity]

Do you have resources for ppl with severe aphantasia to make a headspace/communicate when we have no internal voice? I have P-DID we're pretty sure because I've basically always been stuck in front since I've formed, but we've never had internal communication and sometimes other altera front or like kinda feels like they "join" or "merge" with me a bit and I really want to see if it's possible to do that

So sorry, but we don’t have many resources or advice on creating a headspace with aphantasia. We like to recommend the blog @aphantasicheadspace for folks with aphantasia who are looking for headspace-building tips, guides, and experiences.

As far as communication goes, though, it may be useful for y’all to attempt external communication as much as possible. We’ve touched on this in our post on establishing contact with headmates (<- hyperlink). For our system at least, we had to communicate externally a lot in order to help build and bolster internal communication. We still have parts who communicate externally, because that’s their only way of being heard and acknowledged as we’re still seriously struggling with dissociative barriers.

Even though you haven’t been able to successfully communicate internally, it may be good to just keep trying every once in a while. Definitely don’t stress or overwhelm yourself/ves, but if you have the energy for it, reaching out to your alters occasionally could be really beneficial for your system. You’re still attempting to make those connections and practicing a new skill, even if you don’t hear back from anyone else! And just because you don’t hear or feel other alters doesn’t necessarily mean that they can’t hear/feel you. So sending positive vibes or emotions their way (it doesn’t have to be images or complete thoughts!) could really help communication improve overall.

We hope that internal communication will come to y’all with time. Remember that all sorts of expression are valid forms of communication - you don’t need to have an internal voice or an active imagination in order to have a method of communication that works for your system. We’re wishing you all the very best with figuring this out!

[welcometoteyvat]

random but have you thought abt gaming and hutao?

funny story anon, when I was writing ga-ming's fake voicelines and needed to give him more characters to talk about, I was considering adding a hu tao voiceline, but decided against it because I didn't really see a reason for them to meet (besides via friends (new liyue 6ang addition?!?!?!)). lowkey I now feel validated bc they don't have any in-game voicelines abt each other, but this would be a very boring ask if it just stopped here lol.

there's something to be said about gaming and hu tao's family baggage vs their cheerful external demeanor vs both doing a job that isn't super well received (?) by people in liyue harbor. but hu tao leans into her eccentricities a lot more while gaming is on the 'likeable by everyone' grind LOL also the dad similarities might increase if we ever get 76th funeral parlor director lore: hu tao's parents have been conspicuously missing forever, where did genshin put them? an interesting possibility would be if the 76th somehow split off from the family trade and subsequently got wiped from the family tree bc of ideological diffs (like ht's beef with baizhu), which could increase gaming and hu tao's possible shared father(?) troubles. but besides that I feel like there's not too much similarity there. They're both enthusiastic outward facing individuals, but idk if they'd have an interesting dynamic if they met.*

Although, you know that voiceline where hu tao does a magic trick and makes a butterfly of fire? and also how she plays with those lion statues outside the ministry of civil affairs? those two things would be straight up gamings alley ngl like he'd be so down for that kind of whimsy and playfulness. also hu tao would be a good candidate for a 2nd lion dance partner. she'd be completely down for doing odd jobs and this is absolutely a fun odd job, at least until she gets tired of it or has to focus on official business lol. idt she's the type to work hard at it; she's just there to try it out because it looked cool but gaming appreciates the enthusiasm regardless. would request to be the lions head in order to lunge at people and also pick greens. also there's potential for a gaming yun jin xingqiu hu tao tea appreciation club

oh also i think smth underrated abt hu tao is how shes like cheery and eccentric but takes her job seriously and has unidentifiable but occasionally present baggage .... which i already mentioned before is similar to how 75% of gm's voicelines are cheery, and then the other 25% is emotional conflict. idk! maybe under the right conditions, they could open up to each other and sympathize

*addendum: imo, hu tao has mostly moved on from her grief over her grandfather's death, and she doesn't have any regrets about the state of their relationship when he passed away, since they were pretty close and never on bad terms. My personal hc is that she still has some things she wished she said, ie. sincere thoughts and feelings from the heart that she usually avoids talking about (she would say "nice speech, but that kind of killed the mood" if someone made one of those anime protag power of friendship monologues). in my head, her grandpa taught her everything about death and funeral customs, played with her/listened to her poetry, pretended to go along w her pranks, and was in general a very loving person, but I don't think hu tao ever explicitly told him "I love you" before he died. she canonically tried to find him right after he passed away but knew that he wouldn't be there. by now i think she's made peace with his death, but still has a certain wistfulness about things she didn't think of saying. and then on the flip side, if ga-ming could see his mom again, he'd probably spend a whole day talking to her i think. he's also not someone to get drunk on grief or regrets, but i don't think he's quite gotten over it completely, and his rocky relationship with his father (before lantern rite 2024) makes this more emotional idk. not sure where I'm going with this, but maybe hu tao would be able to talk him through a bit of this messiness and urge him to simply continue with his own life. or show him that his mother was not at the border, perhaps never lingered there, because she didnt think there was any unfinished business with him or his father that she needed to worry about. the annoying thing about death is that even if the dead person was free of regrets, those who are still living will still miss them. maybe both gaming and hu tao would be able to understand that and/or sympathize with it. or maybe they'd just be silly together who knows, up to you

edit: it'd also be so funny to have gaming call hu tao "boss hu" 胡老板～～～～～～～

[elvenbeard]

4, 14, and 24 for Vince!

Thank you so much for asking!! :D

4. Wild date night out or quiet date night in?

At heart he's an adrenaline junkie, so if there's complete freedom and no external factors speaking against it, he'd always prefer the wild night out over the quiet night in. It doesn't have to be setting a yacht on fire every time, but occasionally he has taken Kerry on little trips to the Badlands or zooming through Night City's streets on his motorbike til the early morning hours. Going out dancing and partying is always a good plan that he's usually down for.

The reason why he prefers the wild nights out is usually because they mean an escape from a life he's often not very happy about. As a teenager he prefers to be anywhere but home, and all jobs he ever had were either "below him" (in his eyes) and boring, or so stressful that he needed a mighty distraction to clear his head and not resort to endlessly thinking things over (or just working 24/7, as he almost does at times while working for Arasaka and as a merc).

Post-2077, with some years passing, the merc and corpo days becoming past memories, as he settles into a slightly quieter life eventually, he realizes he doesn't even need the wild nights out anymore - at least not as often and as much as he used to just to stay sane.

14. What is your muse most likely to notice first about a potential partner?

That really depends on the circumstances of their first meeting. Things that tend to catch his gaze first across a room is how a guy carries himself, walks, gestures and talks. People's body language can say so much about them. If it's more an up-close-and-personal style encounter where Vince is the one being approached, it's usually the other guy's eyes that he first notices, and his voice, or, if he has unusual or bold cyberware, that'll also be something he will first have a closer look at. Not only because maaaybe he has a tiiiny 🤏 bit of a thing for cyberware xD But it's also good to know what you're up against, since Vince himself doesn't have a lot of chrome.

24. Does your muse tend to get jealous when in a relationship? Do they like it when their partner gets jealous over them?

Vince is only very rarely jealous in relationships. As much as he likes his own freedom he thinks his partner should get his own freedoms as well - it’s all a matter of mutual respect and trust to him.

The only thing he gets jealous about sometimes in his relationship with Kerry is due to their busy schedules: that Kerry often gets to spend more time with his manager, studio people, etc etc in comparison to Vince (and since Vince is living on borrowed time when their relationship begins, that realization truly hurts). I guess it’s less a real “someone is stealing my SO from me” kind of jealousy, but more envy and the overall situation making it difficult for them to spend more time together intially.

His partners getting jealous over him is something he’s no fan of at all. When he trusts someone, he is deeply loyal. Betraying friends or a loved one’s trust is one of the worst things to do in his eyes. So, if his partner is overly jealous, to him it feels like he would not trust Vince to not cheat or otherwise be illoyal. And I think Kerry is 🤏just a little bit possessive and jealous now and then (rooted in valid insecurities and experiences Kerry certainly has). Regardless it is one of their smaller recurring arguments. It gets better as time goes on and Kerry realizes he has no reason to be jealous and Vince realizes the jealousy is not from distrust but one too many traumatic losses.

[Romantic Relationship Asks]

[yzafre]

Hey I really really liked your tmnt 12/rise post! At first I was like, I don't know about this, but when your actually explained your point I think it made a lot of sense. The series strengths/weaknesses and how it messed with expectations. But I would like to also share if you don't mind, why I think its so frustrating that 12 isn't character focused. The plot in 12 is driven by the characters rather than being something that happens via external forces. 12s plot at its core is about the drama between Yoshi and Saki and how it affects their family. The Kraang kidnapped April's father, space arc kicked off because home planet was destroyed. All very personal. Karai deciding to go after Shredder or April's decision to keep away from the turtles are character decisions that affect the plot. You can absolutely have a plot that isn't so personal to the characters. 03 for example has a less personal main plot, so it makes the relative lack of character development less obvious. The character decision based plot made the character writing all the more apparent imo. (As for Rise I think having a first episode be more plot less character definitely was not helpful, nor was the wacky episode release order, and I think Rise dragging its feet on clarifying the plot included the turtles understanding of the plot, which made it difficult to understand the turtles perspective until it was retroactively filled in).

Hi! I'm so glad you enjoyed my rambling, and even more glad you want to talk about it!

My posts was definitely more focused on pure observation than any kind of judgement on what I think it should/should not have done, but obviously it's going to hit people differently depending on tastes and preferences.

You've definitely got a valid argument for why you would have preferred more character-focused work. I also would have preferred that - but I'm a big fan of character-focused, so I'm very biased. I tend to keep that in mind and try to meet the story where it's at, looking at the type of story it wanted to be (and taking everything it wasn't interested in as creative inspiration for the fandom space).

As for the actual content of your point, I both agree and disagree! That is, I agree with the premise that the set-up (Yoshi and Saki, April and the Kraang) is very personal, which seemed to naturally lend itself to leaning into the characters more. ((I've got several posts in my 'yza talks about a thing' tag that refer to this feeling.))

What I disagree with - sort of - is the statement "the plot in 12 is driven by the characters rather than being something that happens via external forces".

The plot is driven by the Shredder (and very occasionally be Leo).

And I would consider the Shredder an external force.

What I mean to say is, for a lot of the story the turtles - our protagonists - are very reactive. The Kraang are trying to destroy the world, so the turtles need to stop them. The Shredder is trying to kill them, so the turtles need to stop him. That's not really driven by their internal wants or goals. The story... doesn't really care want the turtles actually want? Other than to stay alive. (With another 'except for Leo' caveat.)

There are exceptions! You brought up the space arc, of course, which I think is a mix - the Triceratons just kind of came out of nowhere, you know? Earlier in the story they're actively trying to learn more about the Kraang because they want to help April with her dad, but that goes away half-way through the series. Trying to find/rescue Karai is a recurring internal motivation.

((I have a... very different estimation of how much Karai and April's actions actually affected the plot, so I'll leave that alone. How the writing handled those two would be an Entire Other Post.))

And I think your frustration might actually be the tension between how personal the set-up is on paper, and the lack of investment the turtles (excluding Leo) actually have with it? That it feels like setup that never gets a payoff. I might just be re-phrasing what you were trying to say, at this point.

As for Rise, yeah, I would generally agree with you. The production shenanigans Definitely didn't help. The way the plot drags its feet means it takes a while for things to get personal, which is when a lot of the best episodes start kicking in.

Anyways, maybe you agree with me, maybe you don't - we're kind of getting into opinion/perception territory here! But I love talking about stuff like this either way. Getting different people's perspectives is really interesting.

Thanks for the ask!

[abcwordsurge]

WttT MBTI Types pt 1

Well, I love the states and I love MBTI, so why not combine my interests? Please, allow me to share with you: my personal headcanons on the states' MBTI types. (Calling it "part 1" is optimistic- I'm only doing the main six in this one, and I want to get around to other states, but we'll see if that ever happens)

And of course, here's the mandatory disclaimer that all MBTI types are equal, and please remember that it doesn't define you (like I know that's literally what it's trying to do, but just... you've got personality traits besides those listed on 16personalities.com, I promise)

Florida: ENTP

Ok, this one took me a bit, because he's such a weird and complicated guy, but I think ENTP fits him best. He's got the chaos factor, obviously, so definitely an ExxP. But he isn't quite open enough about his feelings to be ExFP, and he's a bit too quick witted and clever to be ESxP, so ENTP it is

Gov: ISTJ

He's just barely holding it together, man. He's trying his best and overworking himself and can't stand it when the states act out of his control and all of that is just so ISTJ (also he needs a hug but doesn't know he needs a hug, again, very ISTJ- unhealthy ISTJ but ISTJ nonetheless- someone give this boy a hug please)

California: ENFJ

Most obvious reason is his commitment to social issues, but I also feel like he has that desire to be around people, and a sort of need for external validation, y'know? (Which isn't angsty at all, no siree, no angst material here)

New York: ISTP

Must I even explain? Acting tough + actually thoughtful and sweet but it's hard to tell + intelligent and well informed = ISTP

Texas: ESTP

I hovered between ESTP and ESTJ for a while, because yeah, I can see him being an ESTJ, but I feel like his tendency to do things purely out of spite is very ESTP. Also, that bit where he's trying to shoot down the Chinese balloon or whatever it was ("Table News: Crown of Ice")? Look me in the eyes and tell me that's not an ESTP thing to do

Loui: ISFP

He's just chilling, man. He's enjoying life, taking it easy, hanging out with his bestie, and occasionally falling apart because his emotions are too strong. Love it. He is everything I aspire to be

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk (and if you have any specific states you want me to do this for, let me know in a reblog or my ask box)

[serkonans]

it's 4 am i'm wide awake and also deliriously tired at once somehow so i'm gonna just ramble out what's on my mind

so there's this project i'm on at work, right, which i've been on in some capacity for a year and a half. when i first started on the project, i attended meetings where i listened to people give presentations on different issues that needed to be solved, and those issues were completely incomprehensible to me. everything was so complex and multilayered and required so much context and logic that it was like my brain couldn't even grapple with the breadth of how much i didn't know and would just go totally blank.

there were two guys who gave a lot of these presentations, who i was really in awe of because i felt like they must be otherworldly smart to understand any of it, let alone break it down for others and present possible solutions. in my mind, they became The Guys to impress. if i could somehow get them to think i knew my shit, that would mean i really knew it.

so i've spent the last year and a half dedicating myself to learning everything i can about this project and the different facets of it. i'm the one giving a lot of presentations that they listen to now. i'm pulled into meetings with a Bunch of people (including them) who are fiercely smart and fantastic problem solvers. and i spend so much of my time thinking no way in hell do i deserve to be in these rooms. my imposter syndrome is so large and looming all the time and i worry incessantly that someone is gonna notice and they're all going to point and laugh and turn to face away from me and i'll never win anyone back over because of my comparative idiocy.

but my kind-of-boss told me that one of them has said multiple times how smart he thinks i am and that he's so impressed by me, and i found out just two days ago that the other was really glad that i was in that room and giving the input i was giving. that one actually said as much to my face. and it was wild bc i literally got the validation i'd been so desperate for and inside i basically was like ......nah thank you but that's nothing.

because of course imposter syndrome is not something that can be cured through external means. so i was realizing that i'm going to have to solve it by finding an internal sense of validation. but while i was thinking about where the hell i was going to find that, i had something occur to me.

of those two guys, both have been at the company for years and years... one has been on this project since its inception 5+ years ago and worked for the company before that as well, and the other has worked for the company since he was in college and is 14 years in at this point and has been working on this project for almost as long as the other. it's not like we all started on the same day and they just intuitively got it and i didn't. they had a shit ton more experience and context for literally every single piece of what they were communicating than i did. they didn't get that overnight.

and i've thought "WHY" so many times about that one thinking i'm so impressive but when i stop to think about it as like. if i'm a guy who's been working on this for over 5 years and i've seen almost everyone involved in this project come and go and i've explained the same concepts a thousand times and basically written the project bible, and then some kid comes out of nowhere and is able to quote that bible back to me and give valuable presentations and feedback (and occasionally say something that stops me in my tracks and forces me to reconsider a plan of action) in a matter of months, i would probably also be like who the hell is this and how do we keep him here.

like. if i step out of my own head where i have been bemoaning not being a 100% flawless expert all the time 1.5 years in, and look at it from an angle of literally anyone else, that shit actually is pretty fucking impressive. like i can actually conceptualize how it would require me to be both intelligent and dedicated in order to get there, and how much respect that would garner for a lot of people. i would want me in the room, and i would certainly want me to be paying attention and speaking up while i was there, and not thinking about whether or not i belonged.

just wild to think about if i'm being real. like goddamn i have been really hard on myself and held myself to really exacting standards that have not been reasonable at all. and also idk. maybe if everyone around me that i'm looking up to is so smart, they'd be able to see through it if i wasn't. and maybe if i stopped thinking so much about whether or not i deserve to be viewed that way, i would be able to spend more time proving exactly why i do.