#I need to do an inbox purge at some point.

[total-drama-brainrot]

I forgot how many assistant Noah and p!Noah asks I have just rotting away in my inbox.

My bad.

[transmutationisms]

i have a handful of anonymous asks in my inbox right now asking about harm reduction as applied to eating disorders that their loved ones are experiencing. i'm not answering these individually, both because it would get repetitive and because i don't know your loved ones and can't give them personal advice, but i did want to say a few general things on this topic.

the basic principles of harm reduction are the same in regards to EDs as anything else. the point here is not to force a person to stop doing something dangerous (this is impossible) or even to pressure them to stop (this also doesn't work, and will often have the effect of making you into a person they don't feel safe around and can't turn to for help, thus actually decreasing their access to support and resources). instead, the goal of harm reduction generally is to give people the knowledge and resources they need to engage in risky behaviours as safely as possible. the reasons people do things that are physically or socially harmful to them vary, obviously, but in general these behaviours are serving some purpose in the person's life, like providing emotional 'blunting' they need to deal with otherwise intolerable circumstances, or meeting a physical need for specific substances. harm reduction meets people where they are, beginning with the premise that they deserve basic respect, dignity, and self-determination, whether or not they continue to engage in behaviours that may be endangering them.

some baseline harm reduction strategies for EDs could include:

take necessary safety precautions if (over)exercise is a feature of the disorder, or if you are at risk for fainting; ideally, have someone around (or reachable by phone) who can help in case of injury

do your best to compensate for any micronutrient deficiencies resulting from food restriction; dietary supplementation may be necessary

know if any substances/pharmaceuticals you may use (recreationally or not) can affect you more strongly, faster, or more dangerously on an empty stomach; here, harm reduction for EDs will overlap with harm reduction for drug use

know the signs of electrolyte imbalance and resultant cardiac events, particularly in EDs involving purging by laxative use or self-induced vomiting; keep a stockpile of items like sports drinks/gels that can rapidly replenish electrolytes; know where to seek emergency medical treatment and how to recognise when it may be vitally necessary

monitor long-term health risks, like bone density loss, tooth enamel damage, hyperglycaemia (in cases of diabulimia), &c. note that both this step and the above require finding medical practitioners who will treat patients non-judgmentally and without threat of institutionalisation

....and so forth.

harm reduction plans are highly individualised: they depend on the person's own goals and desires. a harm reduction plan might include strategies for engaging in ED behaviours less frequently or intensely, and may even include a long-term goal of recovery. however, harm reduction has not 'failed' if the person doesn't want to, or can't, reduce frequency or severity of behaviours right now or ever. ED harm reduction that does include goals for reducing behaviours, without necessarily trying to eliminate them entirely, might include strategies like:

purge less frequently; avoid or reduce flushing and chew/spit

reduce food restriction by raising calorie limits, not counting calories at all, eating certain 'fear foods', &c

identify triggers for restriction, binging/purging, &c; try to avoid those triggers (& possibly enlist assistance doing this)

ask someone trusted to eat with you if this would help you, for example, become more comfortable with eating non-restrictively, and turn eating into a social connection rather than a stressful event

consume a sufficient amount of food regularly and consistently <- this is the bedrock of all recovery work

again, though, the particular strategies in a person's harm reduction plan will depend on what they want to implement and are capable of doing right now. a person who's not ready for any step that asks them to engage in fewer behaviours, or to engage in behaviours less frequently, can still benefit from a harm reduction approach if they're interested. this is a conversation that should always be approached non-judgmentally and with the understanding that any harm reduction plan depends on the person's own capacities and goals. harm reduction is not about telling someone else what would be 'best' for them in an 'ideal' world. it's about meeting them where they are right now.

something important to note about EDs is that efforts to restrict food and food groups and to shrink body size are considered extremely common and 'normal' in much of the contemporary popular culture, and are frequently encouraged and prescribed by medical practitioners. this means that even when you are worried about someone with a self-endangering ED, there is often a considerable risk that, in trying to help them, you might still be promoting or acceding to the same fatphobic logic that can fuel the ED. if you, for instance, think that pursuing intentional weight loss is generally benign or healthy; if you have ideas about what size a person's body 'should' be based on things like actuarial charts; if you think that some foods are universally 'bad' and need to be restricted or eliminated; if you think that food should be 'earned' or compensated for by physical activity—stop, do not pass go, and do not try to dispense any kind of advice, harm reduction or otherwise, to someone struggling with an ED. you are not capable of being a resource here unless and until you are committed to a politics of fat liberation, disability rights, mad liberation, and anti-racism. you are not reducing harm if you are contributing to further entrenching the cultural beliefs and economic mechanisms of fatphobia and body fascism that the ED itself thrives on.

(**i am not saying that all EDs start or end with the desire to be thin as articulated through white supremacist body ideals, but it is a very common feature at this moment in history, and having these ideas reinforced, including through the lens of medical fatphobia, can certainly contribute to or worsen already-present behaviours and thought patterns where EDs are concerned.)

harm reduction also means giving a person the knowledge they need to evaluate their own goals and needs. in regards to EDs specifically, lots of public health communication is confounded by industry-funded diet and 'obesity' research that prescribes food restriction, compensatory exercise, and other recognisably 'eating disordered' behaviours, especially to fat people. many people with EDs, and their loved ones, may not even realise how many misconceptions they have learned about body size, nutrition, and the health risks of EDs. some basic places to start learning about these things from a weight-neutral / fat-liberationist angle that i would suggest include: christy harrison's podcast 'food psych' (her book is also decent but treads a lot of the same ground); gwyneth olwyn's work; lindo bacon and lucy aphramor's papers on 'health at every size'; jennifer gaudiani's book 'sick enough', which is a good starter resource on the medical effects of EDs. note that none of these resources are working within an explicitly harm reductionist framework, and imo make some missteps in this arena! but they still contain insights and information that can be useful to those who are interested in harm reduction, and to those with EDs generally.

harm reduction can be a tool to recovery, or a step on that road; it can also be an alternative for people who are not ready to seek recovery, and who may never be ready. the reality is that you cannot force someone to stop engaging in behaviours they rely on to live, whether drug use, EDs, or anything else. harm reduction proceeds from this place and from a fundamental commitment to respect for people who are generally already suffering. when approaching a loved one, you may or may not be able to initiate a conversation in which you express, eg, that you are worried about them hurting themselves, and would like to offer whatever emotional or material resources you can to help. but you have to go into any such interaction understanding that they may very well already know all of the risks of what they're doing, and may have other reasons they can't or don't want to stop. if you're trying to impose your will on them---by force, pressure, or coercion---you're not doing harm reduction, and you're most likely alienating them and turning yourself into a person they don't feel safe around where these behaviours are concerned.

[bonesandthebees]

I'm not sure if any of this is as important to say as I feel like it is, but just in case, here it is.

Idk about you, but I'm really tired of having things taken from me because the cc's were abusive. I say this with an emphasis on the fact that supporting their victims and condemning their actions is far more important, that I'm not giving that man a single cent anymore. The most important thing the community can do is support the people he hurt. But It's still gonna hurt to purge my playlist because we, as a community, were lied to. And something I derived comfort from, especially in the wake of recent personal events, has been taken from me. Not by the community or by the people coming out; by him and his actions.

So seriously thank you for creating a space for people to talk about what's going on, because it's so easy to feel guilty right now for having feelings about this situation. Especially as a neurodivergent person whose main comfort is music, including music (and YouTube videos) he made.

I just feel like it's important to put this out there. The community as a whole needs to support the victims, but it's also okay to feel betrayed and it's okay to look at his songs in your playlist, dreading deleting them, for a while. No one will hate you for that. You're not a bad person for that. They're just songs or videos, but they're content that mattered to some of us. How dare he ruin that for all of us. How dare he.

Now that I've written a whole entire novel, please take care of yourself. I know I'm an internet stranger but I almost didn't write this because I think that it's important to emphasize that while I'm glad to see Tumblr users creating a space to talk for those of us who don't post and such, I also think it's way more important that your blog be a safe space for you yourself.

- a rambly anon 🪐

yeah, trust me, I'm fucking sick of this too. you're not selfish for feeling upset about deleting his songs from your playlist or not being able to watch vods of his for comfort anymore. you are not a bad person for having an attachment to someone who lied to his audience about who he was. you are human. you are allowed to be upset.

also, to veer slightly from your point but to bring something else up, while I know there are varying opinions on the community in this I personally don't think I want to let this make me stop hoping for people to be good. yes, it might seem like an endless pattern of people you like being revealed to be assholes. and for some people, they might want to leave the community to avoid that disappointment again. for me, I'm not going to put cc's up on a pedestal and expect them to be great people, but I'm not going to expect the worst from them either. keep my expectations realistic, but not pessimistic. content creators are flawed human beings like the rest of us, and sometimes they can be really shitty people, but sometimes they can be good people too. and I'm always going to hope for the latter.

and thank you for thinking of me. honestly the reason I've slowed down answering asks the past few days is precisely because I've been trying to take care of myself. I've gone up and down in terms of how I'm doing, and when I'm not feeling up to it I don't touch my inbox.

and despite everything that's happened this morning, I've had a good day. I got myself a cinnamon roll. I'm drinking green tea and it's sunny out. I saw flowers blooming on the side of the road and it made me smile. focusing on the little things, you know?

[britts-galaxy-brain]

Do you hear yourself right now! Poppy has never had cub art made of any of her fursonas! “She's admitted to sexually abusing an underage family member.” was when Pooppy was an extremely young child and recreated the abuse an adult was already doing to her. This is extremely common in CSA victims and is called COCSA. You defended Courtney Orchard to the death when she admitted to doing the same exact thing! The only reason you're calling Poppy a pedophile over it is because you’re a Milena wannabe. Given these blatant lies you told, why would I trust a word out of your mouth. If you're willing to lie about a tragic COCSA chain to hurt a trans woman, there's nothing you won’t do.

Do not tell me I didn't see what I saw with my own fucking eyes. Poppy posted images of Pepper in compromising positions, the same sort of common poses lolicons and cub artists use. On Twitter. That was part of why she purged it.

Poppy was 17 when she committed the abuse. She changed her story when people pointed out how fucked and unforgivable it was.

Courtney capitulated because Poppy had been badgering and coercing him for days on end, taking advantage of the fact that Courtney had JUST started unpacking some really dark fucking abuse and needed a platform to warn others about her predator sister. I can back that up because Poppy tried to do the same shit to me, then turned around and told her server I "reciprocated" when I very clearly did not.

You're listening to an abusive gaslighting PEDOPHILE.

Get the fuck out of my inbox.

[writingforfishes]

Otto and Atticus Lore 1: Mark's Hangover

The inspiration for this story came at the most inconvenient time. I was at work and as the images and sounds came to me, I had to fight hard to make it appear like I was actually present. The drive home was only successful because I had taken the way home so many times before as I was still stuck in the headspace. I mad-dashed this story when I got to my computer and ended up staying awake way too long to complete it. I edited it and changed it this morning.

This was NOT the story I was intending to create next! I hope it holds up tomorrow when I read over it after I've posted it!

I was also not intending on making a separate series on the lore of these two characters, but the asks in my inbox made me think about their pasts and inspired some deeper consideration on the plots and thoughts I already had in mind.

Disclaimers: This is a work of FANTASY. Otto and Atticus are such a good couple because I need them to be a good couple. This is not, for the most part, realistic. (Also, I don't even have a tambour style mantel clock, nor did anyone in my family.)

I don't know anyone who has a kink specifically for watching someone get aroused. If that kink does exist (or is just a normal way of people reacting), I'm completely unfamiliar with it and have created a possible fictional representation of a kink. Thus, any of Otto's thoughts are extrapolated from ideas I thought would be plausible. (I am very asexual.)

If anyone is familiar with the series Otto's character was based on, this is basically a rewrite of similar character dynamics. I give real-world reasons for the fantasy content in the series to have happened. I know nothing of police procedure or detective procedure.

I do not have alcoholism. I know a few people who are alcoholics, but I don't have personal experience with the feeling of being an alcoholic and the emotions that surround the disease. If I'm misrepresenting something here, I apologize.

CW (there will probably be quite a few in this one):

Representation of a hangover from an emotional drinking binge.

Allusion to Otto's past as an alcoholic and reflection as a recovering alcoholic.

Allusion to Otto's falling off the wagon at one point. (very brief)

Mention of Jana's addiction to prescription drugs and alcohol.

Mention of Jana and Mark's break up.

Uncomfortable hiccups that concern Otto.

Mention of throwing up and retching.

Hiccups that Otto thinks are suggestive of needing to throw up.

No depiction of emeto. Discussion of previous purge (very brief).

Verbal description of the sound of Mark's hiccups by Otto to Atticus.

Verbal description of Otto's hiccups from Atticus to Otto.

Arousal mention.

Arousal and follow through implication.

A small hiccup battle.

Otto being extremely patient and understanding.

Otto also being the Felix to Mark's Oscar.

I STG, children, just look up The Odd Couple.

Atticus being embarrassed.

Mark being embarrassed.

Otto being a well-adjusted bi.

Mark being a disaster straight.

Jana is not a bad person. I intend to prove this in future stories.

Alice is also not a bad person. Etc. Etc.

Realizing how much I do lean heavily in a masc cast. I don't know why that is. Ah well, it's my fantasy anyway.

Mention of Atticus' parents both no longer existing.

Long moments in the story where no hiccups occur.

Lots of exposition surrounding past events. (I know, I know. Show, don't tell. But I had a need to write it out.

Um, if there's other stuff please tell me?

Finally! The story!

It was 6:30am and Otto was just about to have his first cup of coffee for the day when he heard the stairs from the loft bed creaking with heavy, ambling footsteps. Otto watched with attentive curiosity as Mark lumbered into the kitchen in boxers and a white shirt.

“Hey HNGK’UH!…” the younger man muttered as he sat down heavily across from Otto and shielded his eyes from the lights.

Otto wordlessly got up, sitting his unsipped coffee on the table, and turned off the overhead light while drawing the shades of the small window over the sink to let in a softer natural light into the kitchen.

“HUNGK!”

Poor guy had a wicked case of hiccups, it sounded like, and Otto knew a bad case of hiccups. A few weeks ago, Mark had been on the witnessing side of a 5-hour case of hiccups to which Otto had been victim.

But Otto knew good and well this wasn’t just about a case of the hiccups. The hiccups were a consequence of Mark’s actions. Mark’s actions were a consequence of an exorbitant amount of alcohol had the night before at a bar after work. The alcohol binge was a consequence of the fact that the future life he’d been planning with Jana had been crumbling slowly around him after a whole bunch of unpleasantness and drama that proceeded the breakup.

Mark had been staying with Otto for a few months as Jana and his relationship started to disintegrate. Yesterday Mark had told Otto that Jana had come by the police station, where he worked, to retrieve the spare key to their previously shared house from him and give him some stuff that he’d found of his that she thought he might want back.

Otto figured the finality of it all probably hit Mark pretty hard when he got a call at around 1am. Mark was slurring into his phone so much Otto could barely understand him. He had Mark hand the phone to the bartender, and he was able to get the address and head over to retrieve the wayward detective. The bartender, consequentially, was Margie.

Margie did a very good job of taking care of Mark before Otto arrived. Otto was very appreciative of the gesture. She kept his friend safe. The next week he’d visit the bar again during the daytime and would be lucky enough for her to be working so he could give her more thanks. They would start to talk, and a friendship would form quickly, thereafter.

Like clockwork, a customary pun for a clock maker, Otto awoke at 6am despite the late night. He didn’t expect Mark to be awake until much later that day.

“Didn’t think you’d be up this early,” Otto said. He kept his voice soft and tried to minimize the sounds of his shuffling through cabinets. “How’re you holding up?”

“HNGK! I’m okay. Hiccups woke me. Could-HINGK!-couldn’t get back to sleep,” Mark replied in a hoarse voice just above a whisper.

Mark lifted his hand away from his face a little when he realized the lights weren’t as bright as they had seemed before. He squinted his dark blue eyes in Otto’s direction as he watched the taller man walk back and forth. He had to look away when he found himself getting dizzy while trying to follow Otto’s path. The dull ache of pain behind his eyes and sinuses made him squeeze his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

Mark wondered if Ralph would’ve been as respectful of his current condition as Otto seemed. Ralph would have, no doubt, treated his hangover with some humor. Maybe he would’ve spoken a little loud or turned on all the lights. Ralph might’ve been sensitive later to Mark’s plight, but his friend and work partner seemed the type to shock someone in his sad, hungover state with tough love.

Mark wondered if Otto might have had a little more experience with being in the detective’s similar situation than Ralph. Mark was not wrong in his thought process, impressive as it for his brain to have formed the thought in such a dehydrated and painful state.

Otto had taken the time, when he’d settled his friend down enough that he knew he wouldn’t wake and was safe from further purging, to silence all of the chimes and striking clocks he owned. Otto had, indeed, been in Mark’s shoes and physical state more times and to a greater degree than it was likely Mark had. One thing Otto remembered viscerally about those times is that he could’ve done with a little understanding and kindness despite the bad decisions that lead him to the consequences of his self-destructive behavior.

“Here,” Otto said as he sat a glass of orange-hued liquid beside Mark’s elbow. “It’s Emergen-C. Electrolytes and vitamins. You’re really dehydrated, man, and this is a quicker way to replenish that. Tastes like orange. This,” Otto held up a small pocket of wax paper folded over a small amount of powder, “is BC powder. Powdered Aspirin and caffeine. Quickest way to get some pain relief from that headache. You gonna puke? Those hiccups sound suspicious…”

Mark took a while to respond, his brain working on reserves with all of the pressure and pounding in his head. Right. The hiccups.

“Naw. Did all of that HNK!-that last night. HMGK! I always get these after a nigh-HNGK’M!-night like...like last night. Usually takes a HNK-UH! a while to stop. Nothing helps. Kinda like you-HNGK!-yours. Thanks,” Mark said as he took a swig of the glass. The Emergen-C’s light fizz felt refreshing even though the artificialness of the orange flavor was a little offensive.

Mark felt Otto’s warm hand on his shoulder before the older man crossed back to where he was sitting before.

Otto sat down and observed his friend’s pallor and slow movements. He had memories of his own struggles with hangovers. He also had memories of squelching those hangovers with more drinking. It was less ‘hair of the dog’ and more the whole damn canine. To be fair, it was an effective method for a while. Not really something that, Otto discovered, was sustainable.

“Yeah, just pour that powder in your mouth and wash it down really quick with the water. Trust me, you don’t want that taste to linger any longer than it has to,” Otto said as he watched Mark’s cautious handling of the wax paper.

Otto watched him make a face from the bitterness of the powder before the detective quickly gulped the Emergen-C flavored water as a chaser. Otto couldn’t help but give a little chuckle.

“You good?” the clock maker asked.

“Y-HUNGK!-Yeah. Ugh!” Mark exclaimed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“It’ll help, I promise. I know you feel like crap right now. No real shortcut to a hangover, man, but you can treat the symptoms. If you’re feeling like it, I can fix us both some breakfast after I finish my coffee,” Otto said.

“Thanks. That might b-HINGK!-might be good,” Mark said sheepishly. He jerked with another hiccup and tossed his head to clear his dark hair from in front of his eyes. He regretted the motion almost immediately as he winced.

Just as Otto was finally starting to take a sip of his still steaming coffee, Mark spoke up again and Otto met his tired eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Otto lowered the mug again, shaking his head.

“Dude, you don’t have anything to be sorry for,” he said with a sad smile. “Listen, man, you are going through some tough shit right now. I mean, I’m really glad Jana’s finally getting the treatment she needs. And you were a big part of that. And, well, you know, the whole malpractice lawsuit with that bitch blonde lawyer, Alice...whatshername moved that recovery along legally, but you were a part of it, too!”

Mark snorted at the cavalier summation Otto gave of his ex’s journey from addiction to almost losing her veterinarian license, to starting in a recovery program, to Jana realizing that she couldn’t hold up a relationship with Mark and recover at the same time. While he knew it wasn’t a personal attack, Mark couldn’t help but feel supreme grief in knowing that the person he fell in love with was going through something that, not only could he not help with, but that he was a hindrance in overcoming.

Not to mention he had purchased an engagement ring he had planned on unveiling at the right moment, which seemed perpetually postponed by upticks in crime and cases he couldn’t ignore. So, did he really blame her for not feeling safe in the relationship?

Otto was speaking again, and Mark looked up from his thoughts to listen. His body jolted again, and he was reminded that his hangover was still actively punishing him for his choices. The hiccups didn’t hurt, per se, but they were definitely hard, loud, and sounded pretty terrible.

“I mean, you know I’ve been in your place before. I mean, not exactly, but similar. No one would blame you for having a little self-destructive pity party. Just...not too many of them. Cause then you end up in the hospital 15-some-odd years later being told that your pancreas is on its last legs and one more drink could send you into a fatal situation. That’s...obviously specific to my experience, but you get it. Anyway, you got wasted cause you were grieving, and you asked your amazing friend who came to pick you up if he thought you were good-looking because for some reason none of the girls at the bar wanted to go home with the shit-faced drunk guy.

“And I meant what I said. You’re extremely hot and it’s so depressing that you’re completely so heterosexual. Like...painfully straight. Ugh!” Otto said, rolling his eyes dramatically.

Mark’s eyes had gotten so comically wide that Otto could see the bloodshot veins in the whites of them and the pink inflammation lining his eyelids.

“I HNGK-KUH!-I didn’t say all that, did I? HU’NGK!” Mark asked aghast as he rubbed his chest.

“You really did. Then you suggested we try being in a relationship because, and I quote, ‘you do guys sometimes, right?’ As if I haven’t explicitly told you my preferences. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m flattered. But I just don’t think we’d make a good match.

“We have a dishwasher, Mark. We have a machine that does the dishes for us. In the kitchen. Next to the sink that has a garbage disposal. Why do we have piles of dirty dishes? Not to mention if I find your boxers in a load of my clothes one more time I...sneaky bastard. Like a thief except instead of stealing things you invade my loads of laundry, so you don’t have to do your own. Like that bird. What’s that bird? That bird who lays its eggs in the other bird’s nest and has them raise their babies, so they don’t have to? Fuck! Cuckoo bird! How the hell does a clock maker forget that?!” Otto exclaimed. “You’re like a damn laundry cuckoo bird forcing me to wash your underwear!”

Mark was having a struggle trying to coordinate his silent laughter with his forceful hiccups. His body jolted against the back of the chair again as Otto seemed to wind down.

“I swear, man H’UNGK!, I don’t remember any HNGK!-any of that. Seriously, I’m NGK!-I’m really sorry you had to deal with—ugh!” the silent hiccup thumped hard in his chest as it choked his words, “deal with me. Damn, these things are an-HNGK!-annoying!” Mark said, rubbing his chest again.

The detective did notice, though, that his headache had already started to fade. He still felt a little foggy and unsettled in his stomach, but he was already feeling better. He wasn’t sure it was Otto’s humorous distraction or the Emergen-C and BC powder. Perhaps it was a combination.

“You sure you’re good with the stomach stuff? Cause those things sound like little retches…” Otto said, still suspicious.

“Well, if you keep t-ANGK!-talking about the stomach stuff I might HNGK!-might start feeling sick, so…” Mark said, crossing his arms as he winced at another silent bodily jerk.

“Alright, alright. I’ll stop,” Otto said, holding up his hands.

“You’re not one t-HINGK!-to hiccup-shame. Mr. Five H-HUMPK!-Hours of Scary Ass Hiccups!” Mark exclaimed.

“Touché!” Otto said at the reference to the time the clock maker developed a case of hiccups that persisted for most of the day. When Mark suggested holding his breath, Otto’s body rejected the cure and gave him the fastest hiccups he’d ever had. Otto was sore for days after that night.

Otto finally touched his lips to his mug of coffee that was still quite warm. Mark chuckled before another hiccup hit him. As Otto swallowed, he gave his friend a questioning look.

“Ass hiccups,” Mark explained with a smirk. Otto would wonder later if Mark still wasn’t a little drunk.

Otto inhaled the coffee with a surprised laugh and started coughing violently. His coughing was interspersed with...well...hiccups.

“Shit! HUCK!” Otto exclaimed between coughing.

He looked up to find Mark covering his mouth, but mirth in his eyes, as he watched Otto’s struggles.

“No HNGK!-no way. Dude, do we seriously HNGKL!-have the hiccups at the same UNGK!-same time?” Mark guffawed.

“This is HULP!HMK!-this is all y-HMK!-your fault, man. HLMK! Dammit!” Otto said.

Mark just laughed again, another hard hiccup smacking into his chest and throat.

After a while, they both calmed down. For the next few minutes, it was quiet save for the call and response their hiccups played with each other. Otto continued to sip his coffee, stubborn to drink the warm beverage he was so looking forward to. Mark nursed the rest of the Emergen-C, energy that he had regained from before having dissipated as he stared into the residue on the inside of his glass.

Though Otto’s hiccups were still rapid they had decreased in strength while Mark’s stayed forceful and deep.

“HNGK!” Mark’s hiccups said.

“Hlp!Hip!” said Otto’s.

“HUNGK!…HMP’K!”

“Huck!-himp!mp!”

“HU’NGK!...UCK!...HMMNGK!”

“Huck!Huck’l!Hmpk!Mp!” Otto sighed at the fast cluster and patted his chest, muffling another hiccup behind his hand.

“Stop that!” Mark suddenly exclaimed.

Otto looked up from a paper he had begun to do the crossword on with confusion.

“You can’t t-HNGK!-tell me you’re not d-UMPK!-doing that on purpose,” Mark said.

Otto frowned, head jerking in more hiccups.

“You’re out hi-HILMK!-out hiccuping me. You’re doing one-HNGK!-one more hiccup each time,” Mark complained, grumpily sipping the last of his enhanced water. Most of it was, of course, put on. But he had genuinely wondered if somehow Otto was doing it on purpose, too.

Otto, for his part, had been oblivious to the hiccup war that Mark had been forging. But he smiled now, taking a haughty tone.

“Well…I am the hmpk!hip!-the sup—superior hic-hu’up!-hiccuper,” he said, battling through another cluster and putting a fist over his mouth as three more hit him in a row.

A beat past before they both erupted into giggling laughter at the ridiculousness. The laughter ended in both of them letting out a hiccup simultaneously, Mark’s “HINGK!” to Otto’s “Hi’ilp!” which sent them into another roll of laughter that perpetuated itself for a while before they both got tired and winded.

Otto’s hiccups ended before Mark’s and the detective ended up hiccuping for about an hour in total which left him feeling sore and tired. But Otto’s breakfast and subsequent lunch and pressuring his friend to drink more water helped Mark feel much better by the end of the day.

***

To be honest, Otto had been terrified that night when he got the call from Mark. Mark was a rational person who didn’t often let vices lead his actions. He had a very clear and logical leaning and seeing the man so out of character and destroyed shook Otto’s core. In addition, having to enter a bar again and seeing representations of himself in his worst times all around him being unnerving and unsettling in and of itself.

The main reason Mark and him had become the unlikely friends they were was due to a case of mistaken identity where Otto lived one street away from a man guilty of kidnapping and murder. Otto also fit the physical description of the man in question, which wasn’t much: a tall man with a beard and wild curly hair.

After Otto’s innocence was proven, he was still getting harassed by his neighbors who hadn’t gotten the news that the actual murderer had been caught and was being prosecuted. Otto had stormed into the police station with the dark-haired, blue-eyed detective in his sights. Before the police there could usher him out (forcefully) Mark stopped them and let Otto have his say.

Otto demanded that some representative of the police go around his neighborhood and clarify that Otto was, in fact, innocent. Additionally, someone had thrown a brick through his window, and he held Mark personally responsible for paying for said window’s replacement. Also, he hadn’t spent this many years getting his life back together as a recovering alcoholic to now be chased out of his home because of a crime he actually didn’t commit!

To Otto’s surprise, it was the lead detectives, Mark and his partner Ralph themselves who went around to every one of his neighbors and explained Otto’s innocence. They ended at Otto’s door with sincere apologies, especially Mark. He was, after all, the one who had tackled Otto to the front steps of his own house in the first place.

He was further surprised to see Mark at his door again a few days later. He gave him a check to reimburse the window and had another request for Otto. His girlfriend, he suspected, was abusing her prescription drugs and alcohol and did Otto know of any programs that could be of use. And could Otto, perhaps, be willing to help Mark understand some of what she was going through from a place of having gone through something similar? Mark didn’t understand addiction from a personal standpoint, and it was causing a rift between he and Jana that he feared was irreparable.

The request was incredibly personal and bordered on inappropriate and offensive, but something about Mark’s countenance endeared him to Otto. Otto could tell Mark was coming from a place of wanting to learn and though it was a heavy burden to share his vulnerability with a man who accused him from murder, he felt compelled to try and help.

So, Otto, who had been living a pretty secluded life up until that point, reticently decided to be of service to Mark’s questions. The friendship ended up being mutually beneficial. Otto hadn’t realized how his reclusive life had been gnawing at his mental health. It had gotten to the point where he was scared to do anything social for fear of losing control of his desires. Mark ended up being the soft introduction to an unexpectedly functional, safe friendship. It was something he’d never experienced before.

It took a while for Otto not to see Mark as some twenty-something cop made detective before they were mature enough to handle it when he couldn’t even handle his private life. And the clock maker was more than full of opinions about those facts that he didn’t at all hide from the detective during their friendship. But Otto’s gruffness was chipped away by Mark’s eagerness to learn and try to help his girlfriend, Jana. And perhaps if Mark had been more forward with Jana about that learning process and his intentions things might’ve ended differently. Finding out your boyfriend was talking about your most intimate personal struggles with a stranger was distressing and Jana was quickly losing trust in Mark and their relationship.

All said, Jana still remained part of their social circle throughout her recovery. And, of course, the story of the lawyer who led Jana’s prosecution which almost led to her losing her license and livelihood was a whole other story. Alice and Mark together. No one saw that coming.

***

Atticus continued to stroke and massage Otto’s scalp as he finished the recollection. Somehow, the clock maker’s head had ended up on Atticus’ lap while they both reclined in bed as he spoke. The writer often wondered if Otto was part dog with the way he’d flop on them at times and how much he appreciated his head massaged.

The story had started only because Atticus mentioned how they had a fantasy of Otto and another one of their friends having hiccups simultaneously. But, they were quick to caveat, if that actually happened, they wouldn’t know how they’d contain themselves. The fantasy was still a thought that gave them some arousal, though.

The fantasy reminded Otto of the one time both he and Mark had them simultaneously and his mouth ran away with the story.

“Wow. That definitely helps fill some gaps,” Atticus said. Learning more about the history of Otto’s friendships was enlightening.

Jana had moved a few hours away by the time Atticus had met Otto. She stopped by every now and then to reconnect, but Atty hadn’t been available for those sessions. After all this time, they still hadn’t met the person who’d, in many ways, triggered the events that led Otto to meeting them.

If Otto hadn’t been such good friends with Mark, and if Atticus hadn’t been a victim of a serial robbery in their old apartment complex, then Mark wouldn’t have known to suggest Otto to them after the thief had knocked an old clock Atticus had inherited from its shelf. That clock still existed and ran perfectly after Otto had repaired it. It was in the loft bedroom where Atty found themselves often to write or decompress. It was a tambour style mantel clock. Atty had it in their house growing up. Atticus didn’t even know which side of the family it was from. With both of their parents gone, they probably never would.

Clocks aside, Mark needing Otto’s guidance on Jana, in some twisted way, made it possible for Atticus and Otto to find each other. So, Atticus might owe Jana as much gratitude for them being together as Mark.

“Yeah, I forget you don’t know all of this stuff,” Otto admitted. Atticus seemed so integrated into his life that it didn’t occur to him to tell them how everyone connected.

All of Atticus’ friends were in their home state (or were relationships they’d made online). Once they’d moved, they had to make new connections. It just so happened, timewise, that Otto was one of those first connections.

“Mark was lucky to have you,” Atty said.

“Yeah, well, he saw me a lot worse than that later that year when I fell off the whole sobriety wagon. So…” Otto trailed off and seemed to snuggle his head further into the softness of Atticus’ thighs.

Atticus sighed. That story they’d heard. It wasn’t a pleasant one.

“You don’t have to do that,” they said. “Qualify your good deeds with having been more of a challenge to deal with at some other point in time. You’re a good person and you’re good at taking care of people. It’s okay to admit that.” Atticus scratched their short nails along the back of Otto’s head when they felt his neck tense.

“I know,” he finally said, breathing warmth onto Atticus’ legs in a huff. “I just wasn’t for so long...but...yeah, I know.”

“All I know is who I see, and who I see is amazing,” Atty said. They smiled as Otto turned on his back to look at them.

“Yeah, well, you’re pretty amazing, too,” Otto said, lips pulling back in a smile showing just a little bit of teeth, but it was a smile that met his eyes. “And that thing you said about not qualifying your positive traits? You’re gonna, like, do that too, right? Maybe give that one a place in the old self-talk dialogue?”

Otto’s finger reached up to tap Atticus’ temple as the writer glared at him.

“See? This is why I don’t give you compliments. Always got to turn them back on me. Like weaponized kindness. Smug bastard,” Atticus muttered.

Otto laughed.

“So what did they sound like?” Atty asked sheepishly.

“What?” Otto asked with a frown as he led one of Atticus’ hands to the middle of his chest and rubbed his hand over theirs. Atty had yet to figure out why Otto preferred their hand in that spot, but they felt honored, for some reason, to be led there.

“Mark’s…” they stuttered and stopped, then they tried again, “Mark’s hiccups.”

“Oh!” Otto said in understanding. Then he scrunched his brows again while thinking. Mark’s hiccups were so distinctive, and he was trying to figure out how to word the description accurately.

“They were kind of, um, gulpy? They seemed really powerful. Like each hiccup really rocked his body back. Um. Kind of wet, too? Not sure if that’s the right way to describe it, but it was like there was wetness in the back of his throat whenever he hiccuped that sort of...sounded...I dunno…” he struggled to find the word before he gave up and shrugged “...wet!”

“You said you kind of thought he was going to throw up at first?” Atticus asked.

“Well, I mean, yeah. But he didn’t. They were just really powerful and sort of...liquidy,” Otto said, still shaking his head with the inaccurate description.

“So, wet,” Atticus confirmed lamely.

“Yeah. Like the sound of someone who just drank something when they swallow. That sticky sound in the back of their throat, you know?”

“Oh yeah! Yeah, I know what you’re talking about! Okay...wow...actually that sounds kind of hot,” Atty said.

“Yeah?” Otto asked, grinning.

“Shaddup,” they responded grumpily.

“No, I think it’s cute. What do you like about mine?” Otto fished.

“You know, I like that yours are fast. As long as they don’t bother you too much.”

“Do I have any...hot sounding hiccups?” he asked. He was rubbing Atticus’ hand again.

“It’s just the variety,” Atticus said after a while. “Each hiccup is different. Each one is a surprise. I like when you muffle them and they get louder, and harder, and longer, one after the other, until you sound hoarse and have to open your mouth to let sharper ones out. I-I like what they do to your body. Gawd, Otto, your body moves with every hiccup. Your cute, soft belly jumps and jiggles so much and you do that thing where when your head is jerked back you blink like you’re surprised. And, just, the way you react, man. How you’re so casual with them but also trying to be considerate about them with other people or when you get a little annoyed that they’re interrupting you when you’re trying to say something it’s all just so...hot. Guh…”

Atticus could feel heat crawling up their neck in both arousal and embarrassment.

“Well damn,” Otto whispered.

“Sorry.”

“No, don’t be. I mean, when you say it like that, it does sound kind of hot,” Otto admitted. He put his fingers up to his mouth and started subconsciously nibbling at his cuticles in thought. “So, it’s not just hiccups but all the stuff around hiccups. I mean obviously it’s the body movements and the sound, but it’s more. It’s how I interact with my hiccups that’s some of what turns you on. The unexpectedness of them. Is it, maybe...Is it because I’m flustered by them?”

“Sometimes,” Atty admitted.

Otto nodded, squinting in more thought.

“I think...that’s sort of why I get turned on by seeing people aroused. They aren’t completely in control, so they just react without...being able to help it. And if they’re trying to hide it and I know it? That’s so hot. Seeing them interact with people and me knowing how hard they’re trying to keep control. Not exactly something we can ever roleplay, but it doesn’t take much when I notice that anyway. My favorite part is...well...watching them relieve the feeling. The myriad of emotion. Jeez. I dunno. My body just—and nothing else really triggers that arousal for me. Doesn’t matter how attractive someone is. It’s that. And I’m there in an instant,” Otto said.

“I can definitely understand that. Damn. It’s bedtime and I am so charged right now,” Atticus admitted.

“Me, too. You...you wanna watch one of those files I made for you? While-while I watch you?” Otto asked in a small voice.

Atticus gasped.

“Oh, gawd, can we? I didn’t even...I’ll get my ear buds. You probably don’t wanna hear yourself. Gawd, I want this so much!” Atty said.

That night as Atty watched the first video where Otto made his hiccups faster by holding his breath (recommended by Otto, himself) and Otto watched Atticus, the writer couldn’t be more grateful to Jana and Mark for their involvement in getting the two of them together. Never would Atticus had ever thought that a relationship could be this symbiotic and honest, that kindness battles were the worst of their spats, and that their most serious moments came from wanting to take care of each other and expressing their gratitude for each other.

[jimin-of-mine]

i have another question, i'm sorry for spamming your inbox so often but how do you fully trust your intuition? especially when it came to those boys? and not feel anxious about it at all, so did you feel some sort of peace when you found out you're connected to them?

one weird thing that's been happening to me too is i've been extremely sluggish as well and having these strange dreams of a member, won't say who just yet. i don't know what to make sense of it either.

My messages are open for you, if at any point you would rather a more private space for you to speak- I just want to put that out there.

I fully understand that you feel safer being anonymous though, so you can choose to continue- but just in case, I thought I would also give you that option as well.

Anonymous or not, the kpop community is fucking terrifying and after eight years of being here- it took me a long time to be able to properly get to where I am now.

I probably appear to be fearless, but they still terrify me and I've had multiple stalkers due to the amount of accounts I have had online over all of this time.

It's taken me years to be able to get to where I am now and they still scare the hell out of me- which they should and I hope I never get rid of that fear- because these people can be very dangerous and I never want to get too 'comfy' and put myself in a position that could be life-threatening.

Even more so, when I'm trying to mentally prepare myself for everything I'll have to put up with- once I cross paths- face to face with the guys. I feel sick to my stomach when I think of how much I'll need to endure, but it'll be worth it.

----

It's different for everyone and it's taken me eight years to be this confident and not anxious about anything anymore.

I would like to point out that accepting you're a twin flame is a really intense and emotional endeavor, because you are infused with this other person/people and there's A LOT of things that come with this territory. Putting it plainly, it's like being on a non-stop rollercoaster- while playing tug-of-war on it.

Twin flames are simple, yet also very complex for some people who are not familiar with what they are- so more often than not, they'll get confused. It can be hard to wrap your head around if you look it up online, since most people romanticize the connection.

For two years, I was in extreme denial and I was forced to get rid of all of my conditioning beliefs and to start over fresh after purging my entire life technically.

Think of it as when the caterpillar has to wrap itself in a cocoon in order to transform into a beautiful moth or butterfly.

There's a lot that little one needs to do, in order to emerge and be the best version of itself and it's not easy to do.

I always say that soul mates are easier than twin flames in a sense, because you don't get the intensity that you do with twins. It will be hell, for however long it takes you to properly surrender to it and stop 'chasing' your other half/halves and you will constantly be on that rollercoaster.

Everyone's journey will be different though and I feel like mine took longer, since I grew up in a very strict religion. It was more difficult for me to just get rid of my conditioning beliefs and it wasn't until 2016 that I knew I was even allowed to have my own beliefs.

So 2016 triggered a lot for me...

Twin flames will make you question your entire existence basically- in the beginning and you will be in a lot of pain for some time- physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

-----

I used to be very anxious and I doubted my connection with him constantly- before Jimin released his album MUSE, because I wasn't sure about a lot of things still.

After so long, I was waiting for for a sign from him specifically, anything at all that could tell me I wasn't 'crazy' and just projecting something onto him.

Obviously I wasn't and all of my experiences over the years proved that- but thinking back now, I feel like it was only natural of me to want something like that from him.

Getting so many signs and synchronizations, while he was visiting me in the astral realm and even tons of past life stuff (don't even get me started on past lives...)- but nothing that was manifesting in the here and now. If that makes sense?

Then he comes across very aggressively with this album and I was blown away by the entire thing.

Three songs stood out the most to me and I still can't finish them without getting extremely emotional.

He says the things that I was waiting to hear and it spoke to me on SUCH a deep level, that I was sobbing like a child and I have never had such a reaction to his music before.

I guess it just made all of my doubts disappear, because I finally had the validation and the confirmation I needed from him.

I wasn't projecting and it wasn't 'all in my head' ~

I thought it was one sided all of this time and I figured I was destined to just live out my life being a person who wasn't meant to truly cross paths with him in the 3D (The here and now) world.

------

Dreams?

If you don't feel comfortable sharing, that's alright- but they could be visiting you in the astral realm or you could be having dreams of a past life.

Both can make you feel relatively sluggish- they can also make you feel really dazed and 'out of it'. Like you're here, but you're not here at the same time. Exhaustion can be another factor as well, along with chronic pain.

Past life memories- depending on what they are, can also affect you in other physical ways as well.

I'll give you the personal example I have from one of my own.

Last year, I was very caught up in working through one of mine, and I would often feel like my legs were literally on fire and I would feel the pain as real as if it was happening again.

Of course, it was entirely psychological, but still- it was VERY real for me.

This is why I try and tell people to take it slow with past lives and to not try to do any strange kind of regression therapy or anything, because anything you have read in books or what not- has been romanticized and it's not always as lovely as they try to make it out to be.

You don't get to choose what you remember ~

Ps: I don't mind it getting spammed by pleasant people, so by all means, spam away love :)

[treacherousrift]

Same anon who asked your trans Sam childhood hc. See here are some things: Sam started going on hunts later than Dean and I believe that bc he’s transmasc and John being shit didn’t think girls could hunt. A crucial Sam thing is autonomy. Over his body in every sense. No John I’m your son. No my body shouldn’t look like this. I need to better stronger the best guy. Of course he eats mostly salad and works out, it’s another means of control. Both gender affirming and helps him be a better hunter. It proves something. Because his body has always been wrong. Wrong gender. It’s a depth of wrongness that’s cellular. To his blood and abilities from it. The pros and cons. He’s always felt like a monster. He feels terrible how much he loves the power and Control when he drinks demon demon blood. (Hc holy water & salt is itchy to him) He was born as a catalyst promise. His mother sold him to hells king. His mother burned for interrupting. Sent them on a hunt. He feels responsible despite it being Mary’s fault. He feels he deserves the punishment of demon blood. Whenever he met a girl he liked she was a monster. His first kiss was with a monster. Trans Sam is a rebel in every way. He’s a hunter who’s a monsterfucker and ends up booking of hell. Hc he drank demon blood again became hells king and still hunted in earth because he has purity issues. He needs to cleanse the world of evil since he can’t purge it from himself. Nothing felt better than when he accepted the demon blood in him and how thirty he is for it. How he loves being a psychic. He grew his hair out again bc when he was teenage boy he gave himself a buzz cut to look more manly. Later realized he missed his long hair and it has nothing to do with how much of a man he is. He’s stubborn and angry and has control issues and is obsessive about purity. He prayed everyday and the angels when he met them call him out by his blood. Just. Sam and purity and powers and being trans. Also gay. So gay. Like esp first five seasons with him always being the freak and something abt him just not aligning with the other kids who didn’t like the strange new kid. He’s a freak and I wanna make a home inside his ribs.

This is potentially the most thought out and important thing I’ve ever read in my inbox. Thank you so much for this I am thoroughly agreeing with this, it’s different and I like it, and I’m also thinking abt it a lot and will think a lot about it for a long time. And I like the point abt him being a rebel in every way because he’s also exceeding gender roles and gender constructs but also the conventions of who he is supposed to be morally? I love this ah so gay exactly

[rosebud-anonymous]

Will coming back to Tumblr bring back my teenage angst?

So, it's been a hot minute since I've done anything worthwhile on this website - if I did anything worthwhile in the first place is questionable.

As I've grown older, I've come to learn that I'm a person who loves to write (even if it's total trash), and inside me is an overwhelming need to share my voice and thoughts (without absolutely steamrolling my friends and family).

If you don't know what steamrolling means in this context, I'm basically saying that I don't want to turn into one of those raging pain in the ass people who dump all of their unsolicited thoughts and opinions on their loved ones. I care about them too much and frankly, anything I'm writing about is probably not something I'm forwardly proud of, and that's why I've chosen to keep myself anonymous. Sometimes there is shit that I want to get out there (don't worry, I'm not hateful or racist) but I don't actually fancy discussing it with anybody. Essentially, I've been inspired to jump on here and purge whatever's inside me in the form of written word. Don't worry, I'm not expecting you to find this interesting (but I'm impressed if you've read this far). I'm here to serve myself and myself alone.

My first thoughts about this platform actually lead me back to a stressful time in my life - being 17. Ha, I know, STRESSFUL. As if.

I like to laugh at myself for thinking that life was genuinely stressful at this age, it's easy to look back on your past self and cringe over something like this. But I think it's time to change the narrative and stop this intergenerational trend of who had it harder, or in this instance, dismissing the feelings of my past self because I know I have dealt with worse things since then.

At this age, you start to experience many new feelings and experience things you've never experienced before. Every time I think about Tumblr, I think about a boy hurting my feelings and making me feel like an absolute knob. Laughable now, but I'll give you a quick summary of what happened.

I'm 17 years old, I've recently left my years-long high school relationship and have started dating a boy a few years older than me. That's right, I'm the cool kid on the block with a boyfriend who has already left school and can buy my tobacco for me. Hell yeah. But oh, what's this? The ex girlfriend he was completely over and 'hated' was still trying to get in contact with him. No problem, he was ignoring her and I was his number one. Hell yeah.

We're four months (ha!) into our relationship and what do you know, the little shithead found a very cunning way to keep in touch with her without me or anyone else knowing - that 'ask an anonymous question' function on Tumblr. They would send little messages to each other as 'anonymous' via the question box, delete the message they had received and then send their replies anonymously back via the same function. Almost like an anonymous Snapchat, if you will.

Fortunately for me, he made the grave error of checking his message/question inbox in front of me which revealed my worst horrors. It was clear as fucking day who was behind that anonymous title, and you bet that was a clean cut 'fuck off' from me after that. It didn't stop my feelings from being hurt or the humiliation that followed though. Over ten years later, I still find this act incredibly snakey, but I'll give them ten points for creativity. This was the short story about why I associated Tumblr with teenage angst, and still do to this day. This story alone has sent me back to those tough days as a heartbroken teen.

This particular individual had some dirty secrets, and one day I might reveal a thing or two. I guess it will depend just on how petty I'm feeling - there's a reason I've chosen to do this anonymously, ha!

That's the end of today's waffle. Enjoy the maple syrup.

[bytebun]

📒🙏

Put "📓" or some other version of a book emoji into my inbox and I'll explain the plot of a fanfiction that I haven't written but daydream about.

hohoho ok. I feel like I need to give some context for this one.

Basically, I had a long time travel story idea that can be summarized as such:

Cody: supreme chancellor's haunted Alpha-17: what? Cody: [cocking a blaster] supreme chancellor's haunted

(in which Cody, accidental time traveler, immediately attempts to assassinate the nearest Sith Lord.)

My characterization of Cody, who is in many ways an everyman for the clones in a way that Rex very much isn't - is that he's caught somewhere between being a weapon and being a person. And for Cody in particular, he always has to be a commander before he's a brother. So in all these different ways this person of "Cody" doesn't exist without the war, and what the community around him needs from him (his duty), which is great fun when you take him out of it and give him a little shake. And when he realizes that he's never really had a choice in his entire life, that everything he thought he'd chosen was basically not really a choice at all... how does he go on?

The easy choice at those crossroads is to become a weapon - to define yourself by some mission, and lose yourself in its pursuit. (It's almost like religion, in a way - not derogatory but. giving yourself up for something greater, and making your suffering mean something - isn't that what humans want? To believe?) Like crazy murdering a Sith Lord. But of course, Cody on kamino, even half out of his mind with grief and anger, is going to pick his duty to his brothers first before doing a murder - for better or worse.

Ok all of that is the pre-amble. jaslkdfsdlkf.

I thought, ok so Cody is like this on Kamino. Because he's a man defined by what the people around him need him to be. Let's take him even further out of that - what happens if he gets dropped off somewhere else? Where his duty to his brothers is not so immediate, not so present?

AU of my own AU where our dear Commander, in control of himself for the first time since Order-66, wakes up on Tatooine.

And the nearest future-Sith is Anakin Skywalker, age 8.

He ends up with his blaster pointed at this child ensconced in his mother's arms, trembling with fear, helpless. It would be pitiable, if he didn't know exactly what kind of monster the boy would grow up to be.

Commander Cody of the 212th Attack Battalion, under one General Kenobi, had never killed a child. Would never.

Purge trooper CC-2224 never had a choice.

He has one now.

[dreamii-yume]

I would like to thank these kinds of anons and everyone else for checking in on me every few weeks and saying great things about my work up until now, despite the fact that I haven’t been active for a while ☠️

I’ve been gone for almost six months now, and I just want to clarify that I am not dead, my darlings (Yay~) ☠️ Some of y’all in my inbox are worried that something might have happened to me and while I do appreciate the concern, I’m really just trying to survive right now lol

I fucked up college a little while back and it made me just a little bit depressed, This is a lie, I cried myself to sleep for three days straight so I proceeded to distance myself from the world in order to cope. It’s a toxic trait of mine, y’all don’t have to worry about it lol I got into a really bad place, and I couldn’t find it in me to enjoy the things I used to enjoy for a while–That includes hornii and writing (Yes, those are my only strengths, please don’t laugh)

I guess I became so lonely at some point and in desperate need of a distraction from the big sad, so I tried to exploring back on my hobbies. Thankfully, I’m slowly getting myself back together and I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel I’m not dying, I swear to God– I’m reverting back to how I once before, and would like to feel the thrill of Hornii again lol

Anyway, I may not be as active as how I once were, but I still love writing hornii and would like to keep this blog as a safe place for me to archive my own ideas, as well as other darlings who have the same mindset and interests as me.

…With that said, however, I will now announce that I will not take any more Sinfic requests, but would be open for some suggestions and ideas for those who just wants to talk about Hornii. I no longer want to stay in just a single fandom, I want to explore! I want to write more Yandere Non-Con about characters that people rarely touch! (The previous Blue Lock Sinfic was the result of this impulse) I’m willing to learn more for the sake of Hornii.

Finally, I will also soon purge my inbox as every time I see it, I get burnt out and it overwhelms me, though it really pains me to do this. I had wonderful anons whose message/requests/ideas never got reply from a long time ago because I don’t know what to say and it just made guiltier and guiltier each day.

With that said, (Whew) Thank you for understanding! I hope you have a good day, and stay Hornii as always~! 👀💦

[transmutationisms]

trying to work out some thoughts on anorexia/restrictive eating disorders as inherently “mental illnesses” so forgive me for doing that in your inbox lol. but as someone who starved myself for a while as a teenager in order to fit into the ideal of thinness i reallyyyy hate when people call anorexia/bulimia a mental illness. what i was doing was very reasonable — i was trying to get thin, fast, so people would think of me as pretty/desirable, and starving myself was a way to do that. i feel like terming restrictive eating disorders as mental illnesses in & of themselves makes them seem like, unreasonable? or like you’re biologically predisposed to starve yrself? i guess i just want to know if you have any thoughts on the terming of “anorexia” or “bulimia” as mental illnesses (sorry for the vagueness of this question)

i have thoughts lol

in general i don't actually get a lot of mileage out of the concept of 'mental illness', tbh. there are lots of different things going on here—sometimes these labels are used to pathologise behaviours and experiences that are simply normal variations in human populations (& are often experienced as impairments due to the context of a social and economic environment designed to exclude them). sometimes they're just pathologising certain portions of the population, and are a tool for how marginalisation occurs, like 'drapetomania' or 'hysteria' or indeed the racialised nature of 'schizophrenia' diagnoses. sometimes what we call 'mental illness' is what i would argue is a very reasonable response to fucked up circumstances, like what you're talking about or indeed the inherently stressful and traumatising experience of, like, surviving capitalism. you also have to keep in mind that the way the pharmaceutical industry and the psychiatric establishment work in tandem means that some diagnostic labels come into existence after a drug is discovered/manufactured, and needs an insurance billing code in order to start making money.

on top of all this, as a philosophical point, 'illness' or 'disease' in medicine has some specific meanings (contested & varied over time/place, obviously) and i'm not actually convinced that affective distress is best explained or ameliorated by this framework. the argument that affective distress is a disease state has mostly been very useful for people who are invested in claiming medico-scientific authority and prestige for clinical and academic psychiatry. interestingly ofc, they have never fully succeeded in doing this because there are no biomarkers for psychiatric diagnoses, that's not how these diagnoses are made, and it's certainly not how they're treated (despite outright lies like the 'chemical imbalance' myth still being pushed on many patients).

when it comes to 'eating disorders' specifically, one thing to keep in mind up front is that although all eating disorders are restrictive in origin, both the responses to and causes of that restriction vary widely. the 'classic' story here since about the mid-20th century has been a (white, upper-class) girl who wants to be thin and starves herself in pursuit of beauty / social acceptance; depending on how she responds to this attempted restriction, you might see further restriction, binge-type behaviour, binge-purge behaviour, &c. but this is really only one eating disorder 'story'. as i've said before, food / energy restriction can start for a million different reasons, including lack of access to sufficient food, sensory aversions, other illnesses, over-exercise, &c. and people's mental and physical responses also vary a lot. i've probably never met a disordered eater who had NO thoughts on thinness as the beauty standard and beauty as currency—because of the social context we live in, these ideas will usually at some point become wrapped up in the food restriction, and are often major drivers of the sort of guilt response that tends to perpetuate eg a binge-restrict cycle. but this isn't to say that the desire for thinness is every disordered eater's sole or even primary psychological experience.

since my own experience has always been very similar to yours, though, i can speak to that a little. i agree with you fully in how i narrativise my own self-starvation, lmao. i don't think it's ever been some kind of biological predisposition with me, or a weird or aberrant or even pathological response to my circumstances. i actually think, given the social and familial context i grew up in, starving myself is one of the more logical and normal things i've ever engaged in. it's socially rewarded (both the resultant weight loss and the hypervigilant food / body behaviours in themselves) and emotionally numbing in a way that makes literally everything else 1 billion times easier to manage.

again, there's complexity here when talking about 'eating disorders' more broadly; people receive many different messages about food and body size, and respond to them differently as well. (this is a tricky thing with any diagnosis that's given on the basis of behaviours / symptoms—ie all psychiatric diagnoses—the label is ontologically incapable of differentiating between different causes for, and experiences of, what may be externally the same behaviours.) and it's also true that eating disorders involve a biological element in the sense that restrictive food intake (or the threat of restrictive food intake, like guilting yourself for eating something you perceive as unhealthy / fattening / &c) triggers a whole complicated physical response because, yknow, humans need to eat lol. but my point stands, i think: the psychiatric discourse of 'eating disorders' is still very wilfully decontextualising them, because otherwise it would have to become a broader social justice conversation about things like poverty and weight stigma. that's not something that psychiatry is disciplinarily equipped to do!

[omegapausestuck]

So you killed Homestuck². Let’s talk

Hello, hello.

It’s me; 5ider.

Now, I know that you all don’t care about me, and maybe you shouldn’t, but I have been one of Homestuck’s most stalwart supporters. I’m one of the old guard, from back when the MSPA forums were still up and running — when "Karkat steals hands” was still considered the peak of comedy... and I have waded through Andrew’s knee-deep bullshit through hell to high water, patiently waiting for the pay-off that will surely someday come. I do this because I believe that there is something pure, and genuinely wonderful, buried beneath all the self-effacing and irony and melodramatics; and I wanted to make sure, that as long as there is one more person out there with any level of investment with this fandom, I would be there to show them that we care.

Through all the pauses and retcons and hiatuses and everything, I have remained steadfast. Even during the godawful GIGAPAUSE, where I watched in horror as hundreds of my friends wandered away to greener pastures, I made a promise to post something wholly original EVERY DAY!—just to keep the fires of fandom burning even a little bit longer—and when it turned out that the thing lasted more than the three weeks I feared it would, I never relented. 365 days gave 365 new pieces of content; despite the inexplicable strain it put on my mind, my body, and my spirit. I wound up in the hospital for overwork, and I never even mentioned it. The posts still flowed nevertheless.

Now, like I said, I have been a part of this community for a very long time, and I have, indeed, born witness to all manner of malice, and childish savagery. Of course, I’m nowhere near happy with the stories I’ve been given. I’ve been very vocal about my reservations, and my dissatisfaction, along the way; but I have always been a staunch believer in the respect of your fellow peers. You can only expect to be heard when you take the time to listen to others! No belittling, no bullying, no exposing, no.. no fuckeries!!! As such, I made a specific choice not to lend credence to these people, and neither respond nor denounce their behavior, because it’s not my job to be your babysitter, and it’s not my responsibility to educate other thoughtful, intelligent people in how to carry themselves. I just figured that eventually people will figure it out, and those who can’t play nice will eventually burn out all their own goodwill. I wanted to magnify what is good, and uplifting about us. By spotlighting the best of us, those with intent to spark wildfires of confusion and rancor might see that there were other ways to express their feelings. Powerful ways. Maybe even forms that are Objectively Beautiful.

But I can’t keep quiet any longer. I fear that my silence has allowed others with more short-term, violent ambitions to fester forth, and grow, unchecked, with time. I’ve seen hosts descend on misinformed, ignorant, and even innocent parties; with ruthless ferocity, unquenchable in their bloodlust and fervor. I’ve watched you bully, and gaslight, and purge, and raze through people; using them up like they’re no more than firewood to be cast into the pyre of this never-ending witch hunt for “equality,” and ..what’s that other one? “Employee benefits of the what pumpkin team?”

What a load of bullshit.

Many of you just want an excuse to go vent your frustrations at someone, and you’ll use any hot buzz word you can get behind to lash out with your venemous tongue. Thousands of people descended on Hussie at one point because of some weird “Narrative Rights” meme, and once those ides were thankfully depleted, you doubled down and kept deluging his account with more and more words, “for the joke.” What purpose does it serve to send a windfall of pustulant notifications in a volume so grand that you can be absolutely certain that he won’t be able to apprehend it all?! All he can do is ignore you. Perhaps if a couple hundred meaningful messages were sent his way in a non-confrontational matter, he might be able to process them. Maybe he might even consider them, and eventually come to an understanding. But the way that we spearhead monolithic campaigns against people like an orchestral carpet-bombing of these people’s inboxes and notification feed! IS NOT CONSTRUCTIVE! A person drawing a picture of a he/him John Egbert IS NOT RECPTIVE! A writer involved in a fandom they are highly passionate about IS NOT VINDICTIVE! These are human BEINGS, you guys! They are people! Just like you or me! No one deserves to be crucified in this way! It doesn’t matter how much you dislike the thing that they’ve done, It doesn’t matter how inspired by emotions or opinions or trauma or sorrow, or any other such justification you dream up! You cannot talk to people in a way that is designed to crush their spirit, and bury them under a bottomless deluge of vitriolic malevolence. Every hour of every day. Twenty-four/seven. Day in, day out. Without ceasing.

You are not their Executioner.

You have no right to cast judgement on these people you have never met, and know nothing about. Very few of you have tried to initiate a genuine conversation with any of these people you are so consumed with resentment towards. Very few of you care. It needs to stop. I’m sick of seeing it. I’m sick of hearing about it. I’m sick of fearing it. You’ve harassed your way into your own detriment, and the bad faith of a few hundred-thousand has forced all the millions of us to suffer. MAYBE YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT HOMESTUCK^2. MAYBE YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT HIVESWAP. MAYBE YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT PESTERQUEST. MAYBE YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT PSYCHOLONIALS. BUT MANY OF US DO. AND IT IS NOT YOUR RIGHT TO SPEAK FOR ALL OF US. GROW UP. SIT DOWN. LISTEN.

that’s all

[titleknown]

have you seen sarah z's new video? i feel like it goes hand in hand with what you say a lot about the concerning movement of proshippers/anti antis (obvs your stance is a lot more nuanced, which i appreciate! but like thats the best way i can summarize it)

Oh, I did in fact watch it (Tho, it is not new anymore, I just have a very backed up inbox), and I do agree with a lot of the conclusions, in terms of the core premises  Tho, however, I do have some quibbles with it that I may as well tag in @dingdongyouarewrong if only to have a civil dialogue....

...Or, as it became while drafting this, diatribe because wow this got long.

Firstly, while I agree with the general idea that “anti” and “proshipper” are way too broad, I also think that the latter is significantly more united as a “side” due to…

Well, basically Ao3. Which has a tons of racist shit along with the likelihood they may have actually got their wholeass start due to racefail and even beyond that their support of pedoshit, and ; most releveant for this discussion, an actual institutional power to give their positions actual material impact and to create a “party line” to toe.

Meanwhile, all of us lumped into the so-called “antis” can do is yell, often at each other, because we don’t have our own Ao3. The grand majority of “Maybe we shouldn’t let NAMBLA shit on our archive” people I've seen fucking hate the “The Only Solution Is Federally Mandated Midna Porn Ban” people, to give an example.

But, the point is, it’s way easier to say one side is defending pedos if the hill they’re dying on is an organization giving them the ability to operate freely.

The second quibble is the whole… well, while I agree that a lot of the idea of  “irredeemable media” as a critique is incoherent when looking at the media in and of itself, the way people apply the label makes more sense when you see it as targeted less at the shows themselves and more at the social circles around the shows.

IE, it’s not that the shows are irredeemable, it’s that the people who like them are, and while that can be… overly-harsh on the direct text, it often comes from a very real place of getting a full-frontal face of the way that people use those seemingly “lesser” failures as carte-blanche for way more extreme shit, or even; like; just this hellish Florida-esque microagression-swamp few mortals could withstand.

Which, for the record, is why the colonialism Thing RE: the Avatar shipping shit mentioned in the video has become such a thing, because nobody in fandom in general gives a shit about imperalism, and that’s just a conveniently visible opening for BIPoC affected by it to vent.

Or why I’m so pissed at people saying YA authors had brainrot from their subject of choice for criticizing the morals of the classics when there were PoC in the fucking reblogs talking about how the white students in their class used it as an excuse super fucking racist to them, I’m still super mad about that.

The point is, like, as much as everybody loves Naobokov, his essay “Good Readers And Good Writers” is horseshit, media criticism cannot be isolated from the social circles they are in like a goddamn bubble, otherwise you get blindsided by shit like Gamergate or; to be more relevant again; Racefail.

So, I kinda reject the idea that so much of this comes from a hatred of being challenged, and while defending transgressive art, we need an answer to the tumors like; say; fandom racism or pedoshit, or even the “soft” defensiveness that lets the more extreme forms flourish. And I do mean tumors, because they are like a healthy concept (freedom of expression) turned to something strangling and grotesque...

...Tho, this is presuming fan-run platforms (Ideally ones better than Ao3), shit like Strikethrough or the Great Porno-Purge Betrayal by @staff is still godawful and should be roundly condemned.

But yeah, as… baroque as my quibbles are, I still do find a lot to agree with, because the point about how this conversation as it is is basically the death of nuance is vital, ditto for the points about the problems with the proshipper movement.

Hell, as much as I quibble with the whole view that people who call themselves “antis” just don’t want to be challenged, I have seen at least a few people who were real dickweeds about it, and the internet is being gentrified and sanitized, albeit as friend of the blog @pbscore has pointed a lot of people are way too quick to blame The Kids for what Men In Suits are doing.

I also may as well mention, for further reading, thelillithmachine is doing a series of posts on it, and their first one is also quite good in terms of nuance!

[dabi0118]

“You’re no better than predators grooming minors.”

Listen I completely agree with your sentiment no fucking minor should be interacting with 18+ spaces but are you fucking kidding me?

They are the minors, they endanger everyone in situations like that, most importantly themselves because they’re children and children cannot safeguard themselves

It is wild because I completely agree with you but that statement is maddening

THEY ARE THE ONES IN DANGER OF BEING GROOMED

They’re terrible people who are endangering themselves and creators but you don’t need to compare them to pedos to get that point across

Ohhh I'm sorry- no I'm not.

TW/CW: DISCOURSE, HARSH LANGUAGE, GROOMING, MENTIONS OF SEXUAL ABUSE, MANIPULATION, MINORS

First off, since ya know so much about child predators already, lemme just give you some quick definitions and examples of grooming.

If you so happen to grace us with your reading skills- grooming includes the act of manufacturing a FALSE BOND of trust in order to get something out of another individual. Which is what child predators do. When they groom minors. It is a valid comparison. And I'll tell you why.

Oh and another thing? Don't fucking talk to me like that. You don't know me.

You might think I'm just spewing bullshit out of rage, or you've already stopped reading at this point because you can't bear to accept my honest opinion- which by the way, fuck off. If you really hated my statement so much, just block me and ignore me. Can't believe I'm sitting here typing out a useless fucking response. But I'm going to, so you and all these other shit for brains can maybe understand where I'm coming from.

Didya know that minors can exploit/groom other minors? Okay. Well did you know minors could also do that to adults? No?

Well it happened to me. 😍

Now listen, I'm not talking about 12 year olds pretending to be 18 on roblox.. I'm not talking about 6/7/8 year olds stumbling on omegle. No.

I'm talking about 17 year olds who deliberately lie because they think- oh one more year isn't so bad. Then continue to build and form trust with adults who really don't want to be involved in this shit. Then they distribute harmful content to them. They possibly even make the really awful terrible decision of sending inappropriate photos to them- unsolicited!

I'm talking about 14 year olds like sugarbunkatsu- YES I'M NAMEDROPPING - who flew under everyone's radar and built trust by trying to "expose" minors herself- sending me and other people suspicious evidence of other accounts... Pretending to be 18 when she was really fucking 14. And she knew it was wrong. She knew. You know how many people were fucked up after that purge post?

In my case, when I was 18, I was mentally and emotionally manipulated and exploited by somebody younger than me. He was a minor. He knew he was doing it. He built false trust with me for years before this, making me believe shit, literally was overly nice to me just to paint a good guy act- and to top it all off, he painted me as the villain infront of family and friends.

Of course I got blamed for it, because I was the adult in the situation.

And even as I tried to cease contact and communication, he guilt tripped me. Made my life a living hell. I still have nightmares about him, and his entire presence still triggers me and fucks me up to this day. I am 22.

But I'm supposed to excuse that cause he was just a child and he can't safeguard himself right?

So yeah, as you can see, it makes me fucking mad to see minors do this. There's simply no excuse. It is predatory behavior to scope out ADULTS to interact with even when they see that big ass MINORS DNI on the front fucking page of 18+ blogs. It is GROOMING when they build trust with someone for some time just to get what they want- IN THIS CASE, it's NSFW roleplay.

Yes you're right, minors are harming everyone in this case, including themselves. But I'm talking about the fuckasses who know they are. The ones who think this is all a joke, or a silly little game to satiate their desires- which is OH!predatory behavior.

But

in the end.... Who gets blamed for all this shit? Us.

The adults.

We're the ones responsible for this bs even if we wanted nothing to do with it in the first place.

I made the comparison because I want everyone to know how fucking serious this shit is. I didn't make this comparison for fun, I didn't just take an uneducated leap of faith writing that shit. I meant every word. I WILL compare them to "pedos" to "get my point across" because they are acting just like those pedos that enrage you so much.

Of course, after all of this, if you don't agree with my opinion, or you want to keep fighting..

Unfortunately I don't have the time to sit around and explain myself for 5 hours just for my words to fall on deaf ears. If it's an argument you want, go fuck with someone else.

Goodbye. I better not see you in my inbox again.

[bittydragon]

Update Time!

I do a lot of these don’t I?

So now that I’m starting to try and get back into being more active, I’m gonna change a few minor things regarding requests

So up until recently, I’ve had requests closed as I tried catching up. It came to the point where everything was just sitting in my inbox and drafts for way too long, like, I had some stuff in there for over 6 months. I ended up purging most of my inbox due to the growing stress of leaving stuff alone for so long. Admittedly, I feel bad about some of the ones I deleted, but at the moment I needed to relieve myself of stress.

So I am now officially reopening requests! Prompts and oneshot requests are open for you guys to send in. When the writings are shorter, I will still use the #drabble tag. Those are just the smaller writings that I personally don’t warrant as one of my normal oneshots. The drabbles still won’t be named. Drabbles also won’t be found in my masterpost unless I find plenty of time to work on that. I will try to start using #bitty writes instead of #bitty reply for the drabbles, to help find those writings a bit easier instead of cycling through every single ask I’ve answered (I realize that is a pain... I will never search my blog with that tag again unless necessary...)

Now, this does not mean every single prompt/request will get a story. I will however, try my best to answer them all with ideas at the very least. I hope y’all don’t feel demotivated over sending asks because of that. I am going to make attempts at writing if I believe it is a prompt/request. Understand though that I am not required to write for everything, as that mindset from readers is what took me out of the first few fandoms I tried writing for. People have gotten upset when I didn’t write their request in a timely manner, effectively pushing me out of fandoms. I am happy to say that this fandom has been by far the kindest fandom in this regard. Everyone is constantly telling me to take my time, something nobody else in other fandoms took the time to do.

So thank you. All of you. I am excited to try getting back into writing more, especially since it looks like I won’t be slammed with classes this upcoming semester! I have already taken an ask I was sent and am in the middle of writing something for it, so except something little to come in the near future!

[fattlestacks]

(Just gonna answer this way ‘cause it might run long and Tumblr’s reply system suuuuuckssss... also [redacted artist name] ‘cause I don’t need to bring another artist into my bum out session, haha)

Thanks. :) You’ve always been very supportive of my work and I really appreciate it! Especially on days like this. I don’t know if you’d wanna be named so I left your name off the comments.

As far as my activity goes... my output is probably my best selling point... I do try to do at least one drawing every day which is a good amount, I think. It doesn’t always work out that way, but that’s the aim.

As far as the Tumblr purge goes, it seems irrelevant to my experience. Yes, traffic has slowed down some and things have been harder to find/search for but like I said, this has been my experience for many years, long before the Tumblr purge happened. I also follow a good number of chubby kink artists here and from my observations, they have no problem getting 300-1000+ likes on their artwork so... Even many of the artists I have as mutuals, I share their artwork, they share other peoples’ artwork, they never share mine. I don’t really know what to make of that other than it’s not Tumblr... it’s me.

Same with Twitter. We all moved over there at the same time, all of us started fresh over there and most of the chubby kink artists I know/follow there have double to triple the amount of followers that I do now and have no issues getting huge amounts of like/retweets on their work. I don’t know what to make of that either other than, you know... it’s me. 

And this isn’t exclusive to artists who draw super sizes (though yes, those artists will always be more popular in the community than someone who draws realistic or small chubby kink sizes) the majority of chubby kink artists I follow draw smaller sizes. Not all of them of course, but most of them. That is what I seek out after all...

My experience with DA was much of the same, I’m afraid. I never had a huge following there either, despite that being the site I was on for the longest. My work wasn’t very popular, I struggled just as much for any sort of attention there as I have everywhere else. But a lot of what chased me away from DA (other than for whatever reason their site always made my art look grainy and awful) was just that it seemed like the chubby kink community there, while active had started to emphasize way more on like huge farting blobs and such (which like, if that’s your thing, no shade. It’s just not for me). Every day on DA was just another sweaty farting blob in my inbox after another and it got to be too much. I very rarely see that on Tumblr or Twitter. 

I don’t really know what to do about any of this, other than feel bad about it and keep chugging along I guess. I know I need to just come to terms with the fact that I will never really be a popular artist. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing... being relatively obscure is probably a blessing when it comes to social media. I’ve seen enough popular artists being harassed and it’s definitely no fun.

Still... I do wish the other chubby kink artists wanted to be my friends, haha. At the very least. But they all don’t seem to like me for whatever reason.