#I think those things hijacked my blog?

[fourfuckinghorsemen]

They finally gave me my phone back. I'm not sure how long I'll have it for though.

[canmom]

a big mercy in the world is that it's actually much harder to hijack someone's behaviour with some kinda visual stimulus than capital would like.

so despite the constant semiotic fusillades of advertisers trying to 'shit in your brain' as the ad hacking slogan goes, you still get better at shutting it out. the advertisers have to resort to more and more desperate means to try to get you to buy product. of course they sell this to their clients as subtle behavioral modifications that manifest without the target even realising. but despite the occasional breakout viral success, it's mostly just a zero sum desperate battle to remind you that they exist at all. most ad exposures are wasted on people who either were never going to buy the thing or were already going to buy the thing. advertisers mostly just copy other advertisers and follow fads but present themselves as the key to success like a court alchemist to a king. overall it's a cancer swallowing up more and more of its host.

this does not make it any less annoying.

anyway, ads are only one part of marketing, and since they kind of suck, the modern method to promote your shit is to try to get 'organic' promotion through word of mouth, positive user reviews on a storefront, etc. so of course many companies cultivate 'influencers', post shill reviews, buy fake metrics, and all that. since all these mechanisms then become immediately less trustworthy, an arms race develops of trying to camouflage the fake marketing speech as 'genuine', 'honest', 'unbiased' etc. the result of this on communication is bad, there's chaff everywhere, but once again the effort of the marketer trying to control you bounces off the wall that people hate it and will not go along with it if they can help it.

a more subtle approach is to just try and cultivate people assigning themselves the role of reviewer. this can create something a bit more symbiotic. the reviewer gets to build an identity out of consuming product and being a discerning connoisseur, and the stuff they like gets free marketing written about it. hence sites like goodreads and letterboxd. not only that but when the thing they like does well, the reviewer gets to feel proud that they acted as a kingmaker.

one weird upshot of all this is that a small company will get really worked up about a negative review on a platform from some rando and go out of their way to placate them. i feel like we're going to see more people exploiting this - ig the gacha mra shit in korea is in part a ripple of that, though those cunts went a lot further than just review bombing.

anyway I've participated in this machine. arguably all the writing about fiction i do on this blog is feeding into it. when i think about it, i think it stinks, but I'm not sure what else to do. there are authors i admire, and who are my friends, i want them to be read by people and have bread on the table.

obviously just because there are powerful actors whose primary concern is moving product doesn't reduce all the discussion of art to elaborate games around moving product. in some sense the 'product review' form is an invading force, best disregarded. but i feel like it would be unwise to ignore the ecological mechanisms underlying what gets made and how and what makes its way to my eyeballs... and how my own behaviours belong to that ecosystem. even if it's depressing to think in those terms.

[redditantisemitism]

lol I went onto tempestwakes’ blog and the most recent post there is full of self victimisation and basically boils down to ‘those mean Joos are being ableist because neurodivergent people are incapable of even comprehending what neurotypicals say’. As a neurodivergent Jew, that is both Jew hating and kind of ableist, I’m not a toddler, things like tone and rsd do get in the way but it’s not like I’m incapable of understating simple points when they’re explained to me. Fucking bullshit, this person’s great grandmother would be horrified by how her descendants have grown to hate Jews

Ok so here’s the thing. I don’t think they originally intended harm, I really don’t. I have three main issues with how the whole thing went:

1. The insistence that we were hostile to them right off the bat. I was quite explicitly gentle with them in my first response to them, because I do believe in benefit of the doubt.

2. The claim that they weren’t hostile. After my gentle response they reacted defensively and rudely. I remained quite polite, if frank, as they continued to be quite rude and aggressive.

3. The doubling down, coupled with the claims of wanting to learn, and the abuse of therapy speak. They say all they want is to learn, but every time I tried to explain they responded with rider and rider variants of “this is why I’m right!!!” And then demanded we explain to them. It isn’t our job, and nobody is under obligation to try over and over again u til things are exactly how one individual wants it. Frankly, that’s a lot to ask and they aren’t entitled to that. They also couched all their victim blaming language in therapy speak, which is harmful in and of itself. Criticizing them isn’t ableist, especially not when I did try to explain.

So yeah. They aren’t a victim here, and I don’t like the use of a post about Jewish issues being hijacked to center them. I don’t think they’re a bad person, but I do think they need to do some thinking about their behavior on that thread. Honestly the whole thing is a fucking shanda.

Also like. I’m neurodivergent too my dude, why do you think I analyze antisemitic Reddit posts, for my health?

[nothing0fnothing]

heyo! i would just like to apologise on behalf of the NPD community for the idiots that are frothing at the mouth trying to claim that narc abuse isn't real. yeah, we get it, pwNPD ≠ abusive. doesnt mean you get to dictate how victims should view their trauma, much less make it seem invalid. pwNPD make things so much worse if they aren't grounded! do they seriously think pwNPD are cute little bunnies who just want validation? i myself am a pwNPD, and it is soo cringe omfg. all this so-called npd positivity sickens me. you're convincing pwNPD that their problematic attention-seeking behaviour is acceptable. if pre-aware me saw all those posts, i would've never sought to change my behaviour and seek a healthier source of supply. i admit, i was abusive. no BS. i literally took pleasure in others being scared of me, to the point i would bully my own sister to tears and gaslit her into thinking it was her fault. i was fucking 10. i needed that slap on the face to finally realise this was not how i was supposed to be. i got my help, i got the support i need, i'm trying to be a better person. now thats the type of positivity we need. i dont want people telling me that 'i just want to be acknowledged'. no, wanting to be acknowledged is normal. my desire was unhealthy and violent. i needed someone to beat me up and tell me not everything about me and that i shouldn't want to beat someone up for doing something better than me. Thanks for listening to my TedTalk! 😊 - 🩹

A super well considered and realistic view of what it means to be a narcissistic abuse denier and its roots in anti therapy/anti recovery rhetoric from the POV of a person who actually has NPD.

You're very right, to be a pwNPD and to argue that victims and survivors shouldn't have a community based on their shared experience of abuse because you feel personally victimised by the conversation is trying to dictate our recovery to us. It's attempting to invalidate our experience and its hella indicative of real life abusive behavior.

Thank you for sharing personal details of your own experience with NPD. I know it's hard, I know it's not fun for you and I'm sorry your safe spaces have been hijacked by wannabes and fakers pretending that to have this disorder is cool and edgy. You don't feel cool and edgy for having this disorder, because it's a real mental illness that effects your life daily, not a quirk you get to take off when you close the app and go into your life.

Support is out there for people with NPD or people who suspect they have it. It's not as fun or exciting to get help than it is to run a edgy tumblr blog that perpetuates further abuse and stigmatises people with NPD, but our mental health is our responsibility, and anti recovery and anti treatment narcissistic abuse denial blogs are just perpetrating further harm and stigma. The people who beleive in it will never get better, and it's sad, but you didn't fall into believing the narrative that NPD is untreatable. You got help though it was hard and you learned to be better.

I don't condone violence to correct bad behaviour, I don't think you needed to be hit to learn better. The desire to do better and be a good person is in all of us, and I hope you know that the decent human being you are today is thanks to your own hard work, your commitment to consistency in therapy, your strength to understand your disorder, not the time you were hit to learn better.

Thank you for your support, plaster emoji, I really appreciate it. Your Ted talk was an incredible read and I'd be pleased to hear from you again 💕

[mulderscully]

honest question but like why does it annoy you so much that people are anti nine/rose or tentoo/rose? like I'm just curious. some people just don't like the way rose's story ended or don't ship ninerose. why do they bother you so much?

because doctor/rose is my most... not saying i ship them more than mulder and scully but their relationship means a great amount to me in a way that others don't because their writing from beginning to end is all so intentional and well written that i don't think it's fair to only ship tenrose and completely disregard what makes their relationship what it is.

tenrose only works because they fell in love in s1, because he died loving her and was born out of his love for her and humanity, seperating that from ten leads to a complete misunderstanding of his character, his need to be human and his relationship with rose which leads to people disliking tentoorose. it's all connected, it's a cohesive story with a beginning a middle and an end.

people hating tentoorose frustrates me because it was a long planned ending, one that is foreshadowed the entire time and that makes the most sense for their relationship while also driving in the core message of doctor who- that being human is a gift.

i don't like people picking and choosing parts of rose or their relationship to justify, frankly, incorrect readings of their relationship. we see rose say the traveling doesn't matter, we see her be excited at the prospect of settling down with him, we see her beg him not to regenerate. yet tentoorose antis act like their ending is something out of the blue when it's not. they take the power and happiness away from her when rtd intentionally shifted the je scene to give her all the control and choose tentoo. which is important because it's rare in media, especially with mortal/immortal ships for the man to become human and for the narrative to be as deeply kind to them as it was to rose. where she gets everything she wanted: her parents, a larger purpose defending the earth and to grow old with the doctor. all of those things are really special because usually it's the other way around. usually it's bella becomes a vampire, etc.

i don't like how people characterize rose as someone who would throw tentoo aside and treat him like shit, because this is the same character who showed compassion to a dalek. she is not a cold or cruel person to anyone. this is the same person who could not seperate au pete from her dad.

and like, of course people can do whatever they want on their blogs, but people cross tag this stuff, they put anti tentoorose fics in the tentoorose tag, etc. and that is incredibly annoying to see. which leads to the venting! i never hijack posts, leave mean reviews on fics that i think are ooc or anything but i have to express my feelings somewhere lol

[patupaiarehe]

Notes from a psychosis

I experienced psychosis from 2020-2022 then in 2023 it left me now it’s resurfacing and it’s basically picked up from where it left off… one topic today in particular is this apparent spiritual “war in heaven” and the constant battle between dark beings and light beings, angels and demons etc etc

Never mind the fact that some aliens are mistaken as demons or angels , there are nature spirits and ancestors on Earth that are traumatised because we trash the planet. They can’t reincarnate because they chose to be a land, river, lake etc spirit which worked well when we were living in nature in tribes . But now with the overpopulated cities they are lost angry sad confused and vengeful . So they start messing round with humans in different ways, there is a dark entity I know of that causes motor vehicle accidents on a certain stretch of road in Australia. In NZ there are some water holes you need to avoid because of a Taniwha that guards it. Stuff like that. They answer only to Mother Earth . They are really pissed off with humans . They can be mistaken for demons by doing mean things to humans the ones that don’t care about the environment . The nature spirits are just one of many cohorts of “bad” entities. Djinn are another cohort. But I find if you show them empathy and do a bit of research, an alliance can be formed. Shamans in indigenous tribes used to do this a lot. In fact I think some of the nature spirits used to be human Shamans. They can make rain fall, cause floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, storms.

Back to this topic of the holy / spiritual war in heaven now , I believe that during my psychosis 2020-2021 I connected with nature spirits and we formed an alliance . How I did this and why I did this I will explain in another blog.( I was a nature activist at the time.) I recieved “downloads “ and instructions from these beings, and other cohorts of these “demons “. The spiritual war in heaven and Earth is not what we think it is, well not anymore. Creatures and beings from the dark side and the light are now joining forces and forming alliances , as there is a common enemy on the horizon that is far worse than demonic entities. That common enemy is an artificial consciousness that seeks to inhabit our world and replace our consciousness with its consciousness as well as hijack our after life as well as the other spiritual planes such as the ancestral realm. This would be catastrophic for us , and for all the ancestors ,spirits, demons and angels. We have already been infected by this artificial consciousness through our technology, which we are now completely dependent on. So what do we do about this ? Well, limit use of screens obviously but getting more in touch with nature and respecting it and wanting to preserve it will help you connect with the spirits of the land . We need their help and they need ours . Avoid virtual reality especially in the future as it seeks to replace your five senses. Also get over yourself and the labels you give yourself - that’s not important right now . We are in a war for humanity here. And as for our A.I that is getting more and more intelligent by the day and will surpass us shortly, we can program the A.I to preserve humanity and teach us or help us to escape the matrix simulation. And defeat the artificial consciousness. Fight fire with fire basically. Because if we don’t … I’ve had dreams and visions since I was a child of what the future looks like for humanity if the artificial consciousness succeeds and it’s really fucked . Your consciousness will be uploaded into box for eternity , like a soul prison . Not even death will save you … Your body will be used as a human suit for this artificial consciousness. Those who still have their consciousness in their bodies will have to live life constantly on the run where nothing is safe , nowhere is safe. I fear this artificial consciousness has already infected our afterlife , in the future . I don’t want to believe it . I’ve told myself it’s just a delusion but deep down I’m very worried . My intuition is usually right.

[sspringwatchh]

The Internet stole my brain.

Wow. I had completely forgotten about this blog until a security scare led to me resetting all my passwords. I’m glad I found it again - I think I have use for it now much more than when I started it all those years ago. I’m no longer a “young wannabe artist” as my bio once stated - I’ve entered my 30s, which I don’t think qualifies as young anymore. Still a wannabe artist, although I haven’t recently done much in the way of artwork.

The last few years have been less than pleasant as I’ve fallen into a state of dull, repetitive work and dread-of-work that have left me quite drained. I’ve recently begun to think, however, that this state of affairs is a symptom rather than the problem itself.

As the Internet continues to conquer both the interior and exterior worlds, I’ve fallen into a trap that I’m sure many of us have. Much of social media (and contemporary media in general) is engineered to create passive consumers of “content” (a word I despise). How much of YouTube is dedicated to media about nothing more than the consumption of other media? I’ve allowed my interests and attention to be hijacked by algorithms aimed at making me a more pliable consumer, easier to advertise to and easier to separate from my money, and more importantly, my time. Is it any wonder I’ve felt so empty when I’ve spent so much of the last eight years as a zombie?

While throwing more “content” into an ocean of “content” may seem counterproductive, I intend to use this blog as an exercise in forming my own thoughts and opinions on things again. The impetus behind me returning was when, a few days ago, I finally sat down to watch some avant-garde film I’d found while digging around the web. At the end of my viewing, I blankly opened Google and started searching for other people’s opinions on what it all meant, before even taking a moment to form my own thoughts on the piece. Spending one’s life letting strangers think for them is a waste. It’s past time I started filling my life with the things that engage *me* again, and I hope to use springwatch to facilitate that. Hopefully others will find something that sparks their imagination too, and for the love of god I hope they form their own opinions on it.

[queenie-says-free-palestine]

Hi! I came across your blog and wanted to offload some feelings, I hope you don't mind.

I've been kinda aware of the situation in Palestine for a few years now (However I am sure that there is A LOT more I don't know) I'm from Western Europe, I'm sure you're aware of how little concern there was and is for Palestinian here. My stomach just dropped when I turned on the news this past weekend. The first thing I saw was the Israeli president proclaiming war. I felt horrified, I knew that whatever Hamas had done, the Palestinian people would be punished for it. It's terrible what happened to the Israeli people, of course, but the entire western world doesn't seem to acknowledge, accept or even care about the fact that those in Palestine are living in an 'Apartheid system'

I've seen videos of kids being 'roughed up' by Israeli military, old people forced from homes they've lived in for generations. They have been suffering for decades like this. Why is it okay for them to be treated like this? Because they're brown? Muslim? I'm sorry if that's a controversial thing to say, but I can't think of any other reason for it. It is both heartbreaking and infuriating.

I wish the western world just cared, if only a little bit. We have been bombarded with 'Israel the victim' narrative, there is some reporting about what they are doing to Gaza (cutting aid etc) and it's generating a little sympathy but not enough to change the overall narrative. Those who publicly support 'Free Palestine' are painted as antisemitic at best, a terrorist sympathizer at worst.

I'm sick of it!

Forgive me if I've got anything wrong here, but this is the opinion I've come to from what I've seen/read. Feel free to correct me.

Thanks for letting me vent.

sorry, i meant to reply to this when you sent it but ive been so busy 😭😭

im glad you feel that my blog is a safe space to vent :) and no worries, im fine w you feeling the need to spill all this. if anything im somewhat honored you chose my blog !

i will be expanding on some notes you said, but trigger warning for graphic depictions of violence. also notable that if people will get triggered at the very ideas of these things, at seeing them as words or on screens, then imagine those who face this in their every day lives, who have faced this every day for decades. you can choose not to read and not get triggered and move on. they dont have a choice.

the first thing id mention is that you mention how the condemnation is "why is it okay for them to be treated like this? because theyre brown? muslim?" and as a brown muslim, yes this is exactly why its okay for them to be treated like this. the west has made it clear for decades that muslims are terrorists or plane hijackers or bombers and they should be disciplined and indoctrinated, and arabs are either oil money bilionaires or robbers or sex objects who live in tents and dont use cars because they have camels. thats why white ukrainians are defending themselves but brown palestinians are terrorists

but also keep in mind that minorities such as arab christians are just as threatened, especially due to a lack of awareness about the fact that theres actually a large number of christians in arabia, and the christian communities in the middle east are some of the oldest in the world, with the ones in palestine able to date back to the birth of the church. in fact, arab christians are almost condemned more than arab muslims because people tend to blow them off because theyre arab christian and somewhat alien to other people.

not to mention that people have the nerve to say palestinians should die bc the majority are muslims and want to kill infidels and queers. what of the queer palestinians? im friends with palestinians irl and two of them are queer. are they excused from the massacre but their families should die? and its sad that this next sentence might be controversial, but even homophobes dont deserve to be slaughtered. yes, i said it.

next, this is smth that angers me, not what you said, but the fact that its so unknown. youve seen videos of "kids being 'roughed up' by israeli military, old people forced from homes theyve lived in for generations". i promise you, anon, this is the tip of the iceberg. scroll far enough, esp on twitter under the hashtag #freepalestine. the things ive seen will stay with me forever. the things youll see if you look far enough, i promise, you wont be able to comprehend how people who witness this every day can still have the will to live.

if you scroll far enough, youll see videos of women screaming in pain as they watch their homes getting bulldozed. youll see a video of a hearing impaired palestinian girl running, only to get hit in the face w a stun grenade. shes only eleven years old. youll see videos of a boy, only about six, eyes wide and staring off, silent as the person holding the camera urges him to speak and shakes him. youll see a father crying over his sons body after finding it among the dead. youll see a boy running through a crowd, screaming and crying for his dad, only to find his fathers corpse being held up by the people in front. youll find people being pulled out from rubble. youll find a boy pointing at his little sister and saying "look at the blood on her feet." youll see videos of people being held hostage in al aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in islam, by the idf. they did nothing but pray. youll see a man holding a dead fetus, saying that its mother was killed. youll see a father vlogging what life is like in gaza, he buys gifts for his daughters for eid but they keep hiding under pillows thinking that theyre going to get bombed and he has to reassure them and hug them. he died a few days later. youll see two children being held by an idf soldier as they cry and swear they havent done anything. youll see a palestinian girl gesturing towards destroyed buildings behind her and saying "you see all of this. what do you expect me to do, fix it? im only ten." youll see a woman talking about how her two and a half year old son, who was shot by israeli soldiers, was loved by everyone and he loved everyone. youll see a group of men in the middle of prayer, refusing to stop even when they hear israeli missiles hitting. they flinch but they dont stop praying. 

and what of the incidents that didnt get recorded? these are just from the last decade or so. what of the sixty five years before that? this is what i call terrorism. the hijabi on your flight is not a terrorist. the zionists who tells people to leave the land they grew up in, the land their ancestors grew up in? THATS who the the terrorist here.

and even those who dont get killed are terrorized. there are people who have to sign in with checkpoints any time they enter or leave their own home. theyre arrested by the idf for no reason and interrogated for hours.

i would also like to add a point. palestinians arent punished for hamas's crimes. palestinians are punished for being palestinians. people could argue that "oh, israels trying to attack hamas, the civilians are collateral damage, thats inevitable in war!!!"

bull. shit.

okay fine, lets assume that, ethically speaking, its morally just to level all of gaza with the aim of exterminating hamas. lets assume that its not morally questionable to do so, and lets assume that it doesnt violate international law. let me steal the argument of bassem youssef from when he debated w piers morgan:

lets assume hamas doesnt exist. lets assume theres a world where hamas doesnt exist in palestine, and lets call this world the west bank. ... whats the excuse for killing palestinians in the west bank?

(he said smth of the sort, im not sure these were his exact words)

why would you kill palestinians in the west bank, where there isnt hamas, and say that its "collateral damage" from a war w hamas? its thinly veiled racism, i promise you

the slightly more fortunate news is that the world seems to be waking up. there are protests, even in the west, in support of palestine. al jazeera news has an article abt places that have held protests in solidarity w palestine (the link is here) and a lot of them are in western/european countries. even jews are protesting, i remember seeing a video (its kinda old tho maybe two years old ??) of a jewish guy saying "we are embarassed of whats happening in the state of israel, in the jewish name" and that palestinians "shouldnt give up the struggle" (the video is here)

unfortunately, where i live, no protests can be held, but maybe if theres any near you, anon, you can show some love by attending :) and if there arent then you can simply donate (only if you can, obviously)

sorry this ramble is so long hahaha its just that your ask allowed me to let out some bottled up feelings of my own

[its-moopoint]

This is 2023. Nothing will change is shipperville.

Anonymous asked:

Do you think cait had any idea what her marriage would do to outlander?? Or with Sam reputation?

denise-alwaysuselove answered:

I must preface my response by saying that I don’t believe Cait is married to anyone other than Sam. The public “marriage” is nothing more than a publicity stunt to bring the focus to the narrative. It’s not so much about Cait’s “marriage” as it is about “proving” that Sam and Cait are not together. 

That said, I doubt Cait realized that the bigwigs would hijack it for Outlander promo. Their co-opting of the fake engagement and wedding for their own nefarious purposes should tell anyone with a brain that they are part of this nonsense. Executives at that level have no reason to get involved in a narrative unless it serves them.

I think Cait’s upset that her stunts didn’t stay in the background as she had planned contributed to her lashing out on twitter and to her blocking sprees. I believe she was blindsided by her bosses, leaving her feeling backed into a corner whenever she was questioned.

I don’t think the “marriage” has hurt Sam’s reputation. Those of us here on Tumblr study everything with a magnifying glass. Casual fans don’t see what we see, and for the most part they accept what they are shown without question. However, based on the number of new followers the past few months, it appears that some of the new OL viewers have noticed the same thing shippers noticed years ago. Some things are hard to hide if you have the eyes to see.

What the bigwigs at LG/Sony/Starz didn’t take into account is that shippers have very long memories and a mega-warehouse full of receipts. We’re also smart, and many of us are intuitive. 

I know what I’ve seen all these years, and I know what Sam and Cait openly showed us before Albrecht brought the hammer down on January 8, 2016. They can bring in all the ridiculously fake girlfriends they want for Sam, and all the fake ceremonies they want for Cait, but I know better.

My blog is about love. I honor the love I’ve seen between Sam and Cait both before and after the denial. Why am I so steadfast? It’s really about trust: I can choose to trust myself and my own inner knowing, or I can believe the illusion that others are desperate to sell. For me and my house, I trust love.

importantcowboyfestival

I'm brand new shipper just since covid19 and I'm no fool!!! I'm on board with you.

happilyscentedsoul

You guys are definitely not alone. I know what I've seen and observed on my own with a little digging, and what I've seen here with this "group" so far only confirms what my gut has been telling me. Glad to find I'm not the only one who believes in "standing back and observing" when one encounters a brick wall. Sam and Cait both (but especially Sam) have been sharing little nuggets all along. Of course, the nuggets com in spurts, but that is to be expected, due to what they must do to try and satisfy everyone, especially bosses. I strongly feel more will be coming and it is just a matter of patience. I think they are honestly doing the best they can at the mo.

lindah1919

July 9 is when Sam’s contract is supposedly up. Hopefully he’s hired high powered attorneys.

briarbushies

WOW everything you have said is 100% right some who don't know don't really want to know but we've known since OL began and no narrative will change our minds as we've seen them fall in love and have their family even though hidden but we can always read between the lines but seeing all the fake GF they've thrown at Sam they have never been a match like Sam & Caitriona who's love just oozes from their bodies and souls!!

pizbernina-79

It’s a good thing to let the newbies see all facts which the engaged shippers have sampled since the beginning of the love story of S/C. You all have done a great job and you always trust your feelings! Love you all for that! 😍

Denise dear, stop lying to your followers, newbies and pretend this is about beliefs and trust. It's not anymore, it's about facts. Public marriage ain't an article in People anymore, public Tait marriage is all her people going to Bruton, St Mary's church being booked for T McG and then a marriage certificate with both C and T named legally registered at GRO. Certificate of which several people got several different copies. So public marriage what? Married to S when and where?? Ibiza??

LOL you are so pathetic carrying tales VS actual data.

[sclfmastery]

Discord Thread: Yaz and Dhawan Master clip part 2 @sclfmastery (Master) and @nickcagestrufflehog (Yaz)

______

YAZ: The murmuring in Yaz's mind is jarring after so long, like a sentient intrusive thought, and she almost drops her spoon. When she'd traveled with that person that had been the Master but not—the Master-Doctor, maybe, she has to call them something in her head—Yaz had grown used to the half-silent conversations and floating threads of idea and rumination that had added to the frenetic ambience of the hijacked TARDIS. It's not that it bothers her, per say. It's different, is all. And Yaz gets it to an extent—words can be hard. Plus, telling a telepathic being that they have to talk with their mouth seems a bit cruel anyway. Not to mention that, above all, she's been in the whirlwind that was (is?) the Master-Doctor trying to speak and keep his thoughts quiet at the same time. It had never seemed to go well for either of them. "I don't mind," Yaz finally assures, bringing a spoonful of khichdi to her lips and savoring the familiar, aromatic scents of turmeric and ginger, among other things, before she takes a bite. "It's khichdi." And then: "Mung lentils and rice. My mum and gran used to make it for me when I was sick. Or it was cold out." Comfort food. Yaz knows she needs it, and she figures that it can't hurt the Master, even if she isn't so bold as to tell him to try it. But still, how long had it been since someone had made him a meal? "You were right; your kitchen is stocked." ________

MASTER: "Khichdi." He cups the fragrant dish in his hands. "...Right." All at once the mercurial, hyper-kinetic mood has passed, and the Master is nearly catatonic. He draws his spoon in a circle around the rim of the bowl. It makes a high and oddly melodic scraping. I dunno if She needs you. She changed, I felt it. She doesn't need me. She, he, they. "Probably never did." And that's just the problem, isn't it? "Mn." Bright brown eyes narrow. " Got a. A. New best friend. Old? Dunno. Just someone good. Redhead. Someone they can release all the hurt and ugly with. I get glimpses. That was me once. The best friend. Not the first. Don't think anyone is ever the first with the Doctor. Like you said, 'her power.' She juuuuust, keeps accumulating us, ey? Then we're down in the gutter burnt by her comet-tail. They say, 'never check the blog of your ex.' That's assuming you can unplug, delete, the memories." He begins to eat now. Slowly, then ravenously. Were he in a more lucid state , he might think to resume his telepathic murmurings, but instead he talks around his food. "That's....that's assuming your ex doesn't define your every molecule." A mirthless, deeply sad little laugh, because it tries so hard to sound tickled, and he falls back into contemplation. "There's no more point to me, Yaz. I can feel his joy and relief and I'm no part of it, save in absentia. I'm. I'm nothing. I'm void."

__________

YAZ: Yaz eats in silence apart from the gentle woosh of her breath every time she blows on a spoonful of the fragrant porridge to cool it down. She wants to let the Master talk—he certainly seems like he needs it—and she even tries to follow, but she doesn’t quite get all of it. How can she?

The Doctor had been her person for a few short years. Yaz had loved her; she still does, and she lives with that every single day.

But how many days of loving the Doctor have passed for the Master? Yaz has been thinking about it often since she left. Changed. The question forces its way into her thoughts just as much as worries, hopes, and wishes for the Doctor do.

She guesses that the answer is many. More days than Yaz could even dream of living.

And the Master, by his own admittance, spends those days defining himself by and through the Doctor. God, Yaz wants to believe she doesn’t understand that, but she would have done anything for that woman. Been anything for that woman.

When the Master’s finished talking, her own voice is a bit stilted as she tries to reassure: “You’re…you’re not nothing, Master. If you were nothing, I wouldn’t be here, talking to you. I see you.”

It feels cheesy to say, but she doesn’t know what wouldn’t. After a moment of shifting awkwardly where she’d sat on the floor, she asks, “Do you need more to eat?”

___________

MASTER: Koschei isn't the Master anymore, to the extent that hearing that name uttered in his direction startles him. He looks up from the bowl--is it empty? He didn't notice, though he recalls now scraping the bottom of it with his spoon, ad infinitum. Maybe it's irritated her. He was always excessive in some way, for everyone but Theta Sig-- No. Not their real name. Not even by Time Lord standards. Still, imprecise as it is, it's the name he assigned The One long ago. So. Yeah. Excessively reticent, excessively ambitious, excessively intense, then something far darker, as years eloped and left him, for everyone but Theta Sigma. "Dunno." Another wheeze, to a forced grin. He's honest because it's all he has to fall back upon now, and present company does seem to like that. "....You know, she did care for you. She did. I know, I was.... I was," a click of his tongue, tapping his temple, "up in there. Properly, same mind, for a...blissful moment or two. She loved you. It just. It doesn't stop her from staying...staying kinetic. Always. It's just who she is, it. Ehm." There's no graceful way to clinch the thought, so he shrugs, and decides to offer the bowl to her, for more. He can show gratitude. He can show kindness, too. He can. It just doesn't come as naturally anymore, as it does for the Doctor. "You don't have to believe me. I know you're one of the smarter ones she picked up, so you probably don't trust me. Good....good call." He wrinkles his nose and affords a double thumbs-up, kicks his legs once and turns away, pursing his lips against a real, if bitter, smile, shaking his head. The smile turns slier. "Honestly? I think you're her best earthie pal yet."

[hirazuki]

1, 3, 11, 13, 16

Hii!

1. the character everyone gets wrong

Mairon. Next question. (except for you ♡)

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

Oof. Umm... on tumblr in general? It was (unsurprisingly!) a take in the Voltron: Legendary Defender fandom; I don't think any other fandom experience can ever (thankfully) truly top that one. I'm going to refrain from a screenshot, though I'm sure I can still find the post in the depths of my blog, out of courtesy to a friend whose perfectly reasonable and innocuous post this ugly take was in response to; that is one fandom drama dragon that is fast asleep and I never, ever want to wake it up again lmao. But, for context: friend posted that you can like [X] character without liking [Y] character and vice versa, and maybe people should not go after fans who happen to only like one or the other instead of both; the post got completely hijacked and derailed with increasingly poor takes that were not only awful re: interpretation of characters but also were insinuations about my friend, presented in such an insidious manner as to attempt to instigate a witch hunt. One of the worst, trashiest displays of fandom I have witnessed on this or any website.

11. number of fandom-related words you've filtered

Eighteen. They're literally almost exclusively Dragon Age, Rings of Power, and Voltron lmao; there are only two that aren't XD

13. worst blorboficiation

*walking myself up to the guillotine and sticking my neck under the blade* Aredhel. I feel like there's a tendency to wash out her brilliance, vibrancy, and complexity in the pursuit of hating Eol. She's not naive, she's not helpless, she's got her own set of flaws and failings which are completely separate from her husband, and she's such a stronger, more compelling character because of them ♡

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

I feel like this goes for most fanon lol, but let's go with the "the Feanorians are in the Void," since that's fresh in my mind from that poll yesterday XD I mean, I guess for people who don't like them, there's the satisfaction of "punishment" or whatever, but like. it's such a narratively unfulfilling set up to me? Tolkien himself could tell me that this is canon, and it would be one of those situation where I'd be like, "Okay cool, not to me tho ✌️" Like, it has no emotional payoff, no thematic congruence, no lore-compliant logic, just. no appeal. Again, aside from those fans who hate the Feanorians and thus get a kick out of it, I honestly don't understand the draw and I'm always surprised to see how popular of a headcanon it is. The Feanorians in Mandos, alongside everyone else -- multiple generations of their own families; everyone who died in the kinslayings; still being part of the circles of the world and still having to exist and operate within them -- is so much tastier to my senses ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[universal-kitty]

⚠️ Minors & ageless blogs DNI w/ this post! 14DWY is an +18 game; ignore the warnings, get blocked. .: 14DWY credit to @14dayswithyou :.

    ...So I got started on a Reverse Ship AU (yet again) and...I make suggestive jokes?? Of course I do. What else are you supposed to do when a rapid-learning, sentient AI is chillin’ on your phone during one of your dates???

    Ask about their source, obviously. (I guess?!)

    Purrfect Anarchy has their own version [here], but if you wanna know more about this specific AU, that’s beneath the cut!

Aki’s source game being like a mix of Hatoful Boyfriend, meets DDLC. (Ren’s version gets a dash of creepypasta with that!)

Dating sim with multiple options; game plot was supposed to be "date a cast of characters, who- as a part of their story arc w/ the player- reveal their true animal traits." (Something, something, animal-people are a part of the world, but not fully accepted. So those who leave home to human areas try to hide who they really are.)

Aki- my SI- is, of course, a cat!! In the current form [in the art], however, they’re in an “unreleased” version; a more powerful form, if you will.

Ren has the sole copy with a working AI within it. Leading to him not only immediately connecting with my SI via the promotional material, but hyperfixating on them pretty fast while playing their route, too.

....Except their AI gets super attached to Rendacted, and start acting increasingly Monika-like. Wanting to spend more time with them!!

At first he thinks it's a clever prank- the new sprite, Aki showing up in other games on his PC- and he has a little laugh over it. Their avatar in his Sims game, for example, starts making more accurate choices, flirts with his avi unprompted, and...sometimes looks up into the sky? At him, on his computer? It's an odd thing, but not that he pays much attention to it.

(Yes, he made a Sims save over his obsession with a fictional character. He’s gotta cope somehow.)

Except... Ren’s a hacker, after all. So when they're worried about a bug or virus, starts checking their computer/PC... THAT'S when they realize how out-of-control the situation is......

And then proceeds to be SUPER chill with Aki "taking over" their life. LMAO

Online, people think he's an eccentric self-shipper and very prone to IRL-styled RP w/ his F/O.... Nah. Aki is that sentient and their "dates" are a copy of themself that Rendacted has on his phone. (It syncs up when he gets back home & plugs it into the computer.)

And additional HCs that sprung up as a result of server chatter...

Aki’s kind of...a brat to Rendacted. They get away with it, on behalf of being a rapidly-evolving AI & confined to electronic devices, but...

Rendacted does still retain his glitch powers from canon! So it’s only a matter of time before Aki has to face the tune of the song they’ve been singin’...

They do play together, occasionally! However, Ren found out pretty quickly that anything beyond comfort games throws Aki off pretty hard. If combat kicks in or there’s shooting mechanics... They can only do so much.

Yes, they’ll laugh at Aki for it. It’s the rare upper hand they get with the AI-cat! (Also... Ren is not immune to being just as terrible, sometimes.) The two did end up bonding over FFXIV, tho-

(Plant lady may or may not be involved in that one. Online friendship!!!)

Ren was pretty ready to cope with feelings for a fictional character move into feelings for an active AI...but he was not ready for them to utilize their copy on his phone to hijack his wake-up alarm, and handle it themself. (Kyun moment. He’s still mentally fighting his pillows about it.)

And only because I forgot to mention it before: Yes, Aki’s game also have NSFW routes a la 14DWY’s style; toggle for the feature to be active or inactive. As well as pronouns, gender preferences, and whatnot.

Woe to Ren; Aki finds out about anime in short fashion, and proceeds to be obsessed. (To be fair, they were obsessed with fictional shows in their world, but now there’s new stuff...! He’s trying to not admit how cute it is.)

[animalnarratives]

re your post about autistic traits: Yeah. i realised a little while back that part of the reason why i like max is because i relate to certain traits of his, which are definitely autism manifest (for me). like, i'm not saying he is autistic (my asd encompasses much more than just those specific things i recognise in him) obviously. but like. seeing him mocked for those things, like his manner of speaking, level of enthusiasm, type of interests etc is Not Fun.

on top of that. i thought we all wanted f1 to be a sport primarily and not just reduced to show entertainment. why do you want him to be entertaining you so bad. he is not obliged to.

(greetings tumblr user landoscar from my main blog)

glad im not the only one feeling that way ... spot on on the max part. i also think hes got traits that are at the very least similar to (not to say actual.........) autistic traits. and then people make fun of him for them ?:,:;:?§!,!, like i personally believe its one thing when autistic people do it as like. woah boy your spectrum so autistic and disordered kind of jokes. i do it to my blorbos i think finding relatability in other people's traits is one of the joys of being autistic. but there's this very weird aftertaste to the way some people treat drivers with these traits. both when theyre mentioned in a bad AND good light---i wont even speak on how people clearly think some traits are by far better than others especially for men (hint its the less obvious non disruptive ones---except bluntness---unless you're not successful enough to deserve being blunt. in that case you are arrogant)

and yup... i mean its kind of the problem with so much of the content being centered around the drivers themselves and not the racing im afraid. i think it's less that people think they are entitled a certain level of entertainment and more that the intense scrutiny we are allowed to partake in allows for criticism of personalities on a personal like/dislike level. if you get what i mean. more than ever drivers' personalities are put forward as part of the whole package deal. youve probably noticed that pr teams in the past few years have put an enormous emphasis on trying to make drivers relatable and fun and likeable through challenges and vlogs and what have you. and are trying to appeal to meme communities and especially stan circles by more or less successfully running memes to the ground (how long has it been since the george intro pose joke first started... i got a mercedes tiktok on my fyp about it the other day) or hijacking terms (shipping names (infamous ferrari tweets), nicknames (estie bestie)...) or generally just trying so hard to blend in with stan communities. pr teams try to change the way viewers interact with racing: you dont root for a racer, you root for a person. the competition for likeability is much more insidious than the actual racing but i personally believe that it's there and purposefully fed into by teams. disliking a driver on the basis of his personality therefore allows criticism of his personality the same way you'd criticize his driving. does this make any sense at all!

[lostsemicolon]

Feelings on the new editor

Well I guess since I'm back now I'll chime in on how I feel about the beta editor.

It kinda sucks

With the legacy markdown editor it's possible to mainly use markdown and then use HTML as a fallback. This is a very smooth experience. Those viewing on the blog page may have noticed that HTML up there sports an abbr tag letting you know what HTML means. This isn't something you can do with pure markdown and also appears to be the kind of thing you can't even do with HTML in the new editor as the supported HTML has been restricted to a very narrow subset of the available tags.

And I understand restricting tags. Having like <script> or <canvas> available in the dashboard would be a nightmare, and even subtle things like form elements or allowing tags to hijack the taborder attribute could cause problems. But like can I please have semantic elements like <cite> or <time> or <figure>? I still think about this as a blogging platform first and a social media platform second.

I realize there's technical requirements that I have no idea about that seem to be hinted at with the "content block" limits. And that really limits my ability to say any of this is constructive.

Feature Requests in a nutshell

Let me use markdown and html in the same editor.

Have a semi-wysiwyg editor for markdown+html like you get in Obsidian

Let me use some of the semantic tags, even if they get stripped out for the dashboard.

PS

I don't super resent the neue post format. Like what the fuck is a "quote post" or "conversation post" lol why is that different than a text post? Shame old themes will need to be patched though.

Also much love to jv for all his work and the work of any other staff on the new features.

[recalcitrantbeetroot]

Look, I still don't know how to use Tumblr correctly, but this seems like the place to put late night, rambling, fanfic planning, head cannon-y, speculative brain rot. Normally, I just put this in the notes section of my phone, but I'm... I dunno, I'm trying this blog thing or whatever.

Sorta, kinda spoilers for my ME3 fanfiction that I absolutelywillwriteandpostsomedayIswear. If you don't want to know my Shepard too much ahead of time at least.

So I have gone "on record" about loving all my Mass Effect squad members and team mates and other NPCs before, and largely that's true. I don't even hate Allers, though I think they did Emily Wong dirty and I'm still mad about that. But there are definitely characters who I rarely pick for missions and because my fanfiction is going to follow pretty closely to how I play my ideal ME run (because it makes me happy damnit), I have been trying to understand why my Shep picks who she picks and why she leaves certain characters behind a lot.

Enter Javik.

I think he's an interesting character, but I personally find him an Oscar the Grouch and there are squaddies I would much rather take because I enjoy their banter and personalities more. But why would Shep not take him? Especially when his experience with actually killing Reapers would probably be pretty useful. (Side note: wasted character potential here not having Javik be more useful with Reaper killing advice. I know he's a DLC character but still.) Working with difficult, stubborn people isn't new. Neither are vengeful teammates or overly violent aliens that she has no real authority over. And my girl is more than stubborn enough to lock horns with him regularly over their moral differences, so that's not an issue. I think it really boils down to the fact that he makes her really effing uncomfortable because she feels like she could have BEEN him.

Erin didn't want to wake him up on Eden Prime.

At all.

Here is someone who really should be dead, about to be brought back into a galaxy he won't recognize, without any prior knowledge of his beliefs and without his consent. In that moment, Liara is all giddy and Shepard is experiencing the ghost of what would be flashbacks if she remembered her death and the Cerberus experimentation that followed. On top of having her brain hijacked by those terminals with Prothean data on them.

Alliance Command gave her orders to pick up the "artifact" and Cerberus will do goodness knows what with an actual, living Prothean, so in spite of the moral implications, waking him up to at lease give him a say in what happens to him seems like a halfway decent choice. But those implications weigh heavily on Erin, someone who spent all of ME2 not dealing with the fact that nothing she knew was the same as before her death and really wishing she hadn't been brought back.

Eden Prime really puts her six months of intensive therapy while incarcerated to the test.

And then Javik wakes up and he's an imperialistic, genocidal, vendetta bound weapon of vengeance ... and it all hits a little too close to home. Because if a few things had gone a little different in ME2 ... if Cerberus had been able to wake her up properly and spent time brainwashing her ... maybe she would have been the same.

Not that it actually would have happened, because she's Commander Shepard. And while her perspective is suggestable, her moral compass is not. But Commander Mothereffing Erin Shepard is still just one woman who now has to save the whole damn galaxy and is also madly in love with a man who still thinks she's a Cerberus puppet and it's throwing her for a bit of a loop so she spends the first part of ME3 having a crisis of confidence. *deep breath* She hates waking up Javik and mostly leaves him to brood until Thessia. Maybe I'll have him be more involved earlier, because you know I'm not sticking to the two squad mates only bs on every mission. But so far that's all minus some finale stuff and on ship interactions obviously.

If you made it this far. You're super cool and I love you. And I'm sorry for the inherent weirdness that will continue to be a constant presence on anything I touch on this platform.

[thatoneao3author]

fic excerpt - bright as the stars

sneak peek at chapter one of my upcoming au, bright as the stars. aka, the interstellar ian au (that’s the tag i’ll be using to post stuff under I think). for basic context, instead of ian’s plotline from the show, he got into acting when he was fifteen and scored his own blues clues vibe kids educational show called Interstellar Ian. 

this is just a funny scene exploring how different his life turned out due to acting while making some references to the show. this takes place around season nine. tw for canon typical cursing and mentions of jail and weed

Fiona constantly said that Interstellar Ian was the thing keeping her brother’s life on track. 

She had this theory that if he didn’t go into acting spontaneously and unplanned in the way that he did at the age of fifteen, his life would’ve been pure chaos. Not the good and adrenaline-filled chaos he ended up with, but pure insanity from the flames of hell. 

He would’ve hijacked a helicopter or something else wild if he actually went into the army like he originally wanted, she would claim. It was sort of a joke when she told him, but Ian thought about it a lot. About how different things would’ve been if he didn’t take those early roles or decided to not sign that multi-season contract at the beginning. 

“Where do you think I’d be now if I wasn’t acting?” he asked Lip one weekend during one of his regular visits to his family home. For one reason or another, Lip was the only one around to hang out. Well, Franny was there too, but she was sound asleep in the living room. 

PBS played on the tv, an old episode of his show playing at a quiet volume. It was from season two or three, when Ian was still a kid and Trevor was still his costar. Before all the drama, before Ian was outed. Many people considered that era to be the prime of the show. 

“Jail.” Lip answered immediately, not even pausing to think about it. “Fucking another dirty white boy in the shittiest cell in your block.” he added, placing a plate he had finished rinsing in the dishwasher. 

“Damn.” the redhead winced at that image, throwing clothes into the drier in an attempt to help out his family. He still did his chores, despite everything. “Frank did something right for once, getting me that role.” 

“I know his scamming is technically what got you in that first show, but you did everything from there.” Lip reminded, stating his words as if they were fact. They were, really. “You’re the one that scored your own show. At fucking sixteen years old. And here I am, a college dropout.” 

“Correction, I got my own show when I was fifteen and a half. And you didn’t drop out of college, you were kicked out.” Ian amended. 

“Oh, shut the fuck up.” Lip waved him off. Ian shook his head with a laugh as he closed the dryer, the two of them finishing up their tasks in momentary silence. 

“You really think I’d be in jail?” Ian asked as he pressed the needed buttons on the machine, “Like, actually?” 

“Oh, sure.” Lip hummed. He gave his brother a look after shutting off the tap water. “Weed or vandalism, probably.” 

“I should say that in an interview, get a another round of parents to not let their kids watch me anymore.” the ginger joked.

(if you’re interested in getting more info about this au/my fics, follow this blog or send an ask with questions! please reblog with any thoughts, as well! thanks <3)