#and like yeah i have artist friends on discord from around the internet

[funkle420]

i really wanna make friends with other artists here!!!

I have an artist discord server too if anyone's interested :3

edit: (this is for mutuals in their mid/late 20s-30s only)

[rakassauce]

welcome, and howdy!!!

yo, I'm raka. an artist who adores the scene subculture, anime/cartoons, and the old internet. been a while since i did an intro, and I don't particularly enjoy my current one. so, i thought i'd fix that!

but before i get into it, lemme begin with some ground rules:

DNI if you are/support ANY of the following:

a proshipper/comshipper

a terf/truscum/transmed/transphobic in any way

anti-palestine (however, that doesn't give you the right to be an anti-semite, that shit ain't cool)

Are a pro-lifer, this is a pro-choice zone babie

anti-neopronouns

ableist

a MAP/YAP, get that pedo shit outta here

a neo-nazi/on some type of white supremecist shit

a zoophile

...they gone now? yeah? cool, let's rock n' roll. (quick heads up for flashing blinkies/images, and eyestrain. that's gonna be a constant on this blog.)

name: raka/alex/izzy

age: 16, turning 17 on JULY 14TH!!!

DOB: 07/14/2007

pronouns: she/he/they

current hyperfixation: YU-GI-OH!!!!

favorite color: hot pink/red/neon green

favorite song: party like a millionaire - millionaires/i also like genres like rock, electronic, and pop

favorite games: sims (4 and 3), touhou project, legend of zelda

hobbies: scouring the internet, watching anime, drawing, spending time w/ my bf

favorite food: menudo!! my nanny (that's what I call my grandma ^^;) makes it for me occasionally and on my bday nearly every year

dislikes: assholes, unnecessary internet discourse, instagram comments, my horrible sleep schedule (help lol)

favorite movie(s): yugioh the movie: pyramid of light, bill and ted's excellent adventure, idle hands

likes: the night, old internet vibes, art, magical girls (SAILOR MOON), scene kid stuff

loves: my dad and my boyfriend!!!

rando facts: i'm half mexican :] i wanna learn more spanish to be in touch with my mom's side of the family. i've only ever finished one anime despite starting a few, and that would be Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. even though i'm on ep 27 of the 2003 version of FMA (it's on hold since it isn't my current fixation), i honestly prefer it. my favorite vocaloids are hatsune miku and kagamine rin and len)! now if we're talking utauloids: yokune ruko and kasane teto.

my tags:

#raka's sauce (my art)

#other people's awesome sauce (reblogged art)

#raka reblogs!

#raka's brain dump

#raka's cc finds!!

so, i'm raka. i've lurked around the internet for a little while now--since I was about five. restricted internet access? don't know her. i only started really participating in online communities when i was about 10, on quotev and amino (rip, it was a shitshow but i had a good time for the most part). at some point i just kinda...fell off of trying to find internet spaces? it didn't really feel fun anymore, y'know? i went back to lurking, looking at stuff i enjoyed/making things in silence.

well, fuck that. if i wanna have fun, i'm gonna make it fun. i love drawing, i always have!! i've been drawing since i was about five or six. it's always been an escape for me during REALLY rough times--it made me happy to draw my favorite characters, and even create my own! i love interacting with fandom spaces too, finding folks who are into the same stuff i am. connecting with strangers is fun, when you don't really know anybody irl who shares your exact interests!

i wanna make/reblog fandom art on here, and maybe make moots/friends. i also have OCs i love and adore that i'd like to share--with lore, of course.

i hope y'all have a wonderful day or night!!! take care of yourselves!!!

with all that said, blinkie/stamp dump time!!! a further insight of myself, if you will

sources for a few stamps:

Mel-Rosey on Deviantart

StarriiChan on Deviantart

kas7ia on Deviantart

blinkies.cafe for blinkies

YukiMiyasawa on Deviantart | another stamp from them

hissatsugirl on Deviantart

Papikari on Deviantart

Magica-28 on Deviantart

RaptureCyner on Deviantart

and feel free to hmu on other things such as:

discord - rakassauce

artfight

spacehey (i need to finish up my profile :/ sorry for mess)

instagram

[ragamuffin-ponies]

I got these commissioned by DreamZ, one of my favorite artists. Please check out her art and engorge her to make more Rarijack content:

Hopefully that link works

This is about to get serious I think. At least as serious as I can get on my fucking Tumblr page called Ragamuffin Ponies 😭

A couple months ago I had an extremely intense anxiety attack because I couldn't find a good profile picture on my fucking discord. I wanted one that was Rainbow Dash but with short hair. I ended up using the following picture

This image was edited and uploaded anonymously to derpibooru. No artist is known. I used ai to upscale the image to HD, it was pretty low quality before.

Even looking at them not to check the sources I can feel my chest tighten. I'm still not sure why I got this way, but it was the catylist to find out why certain things like this have been meeting me feel so terrible for as long as I can remember.

I'm still figuring it out, but I think a lot of it can be chalked up to some sort of gender dysphoria. No I have not talked to my shrink about this yet. Shortly after graduating college I befriended a plethora of trans, nonbinary, or otherwise genderqueer/transexual individuals. It's crazy now quickly people you've never met in person can become such integral parts to your life. One of my favorite aspects of the human existence for sure. Anyway, hearing them talk about their trans experience, especially one of them in particular, I caught myself going "wow I was exactly the same way when I was a kid," or "I've thought the same thing all the time."

I used to be pretty transphobic, and although there is one specific person I've hurt dearly (who I have fully apologized and made up with all these years later) I never went out of my way to harass anyone because I wasn't evil like that, just wrong. I always told myself "yeah I'd rather be a girl but I can't do that because something something biology facts and logic". I have long hair and when I cut it I hated myself. It's not a suprise that when I shave my arms and legs I stop literally making myself sick and my sh desires go away by at least 60%. It's a lot of bullshit that I think most other people would have maybe all picked up on by now, but idk if anyone has.

Now, I'm not trans. There's definitely things I still like about being a guy I think. Genderfluid is a label that I think really fits me, but I'm NOT COMING OUT OKAY? For now I'm still cis. This is all very new we're talking a couple months. It's more like I'm questioning right now.

I really want to reach out to one or more of my trans friends for help, but I'm afraid where to start. Number one I don't want to just vent to them. I definitely don't want to say the wrong thing and trigger or insult them. But most of all I don't want to be a burden.

Also right now my brain wants to just stay in the closet forever. But that's worse than bisexuality, which I only need to hide from my parents and grandparents. With it being my actual gender idk how long I can keep the jig up. Lol I say that like they don't already know I'm bi and it's not just some big dumbass game. Completely by happenstance, I managed to explain what genderfluid was and naturally they were like "wow what kind of world are we living in" and it definitely visibly upset me but I don't think anyone noticed. I just went into my room quickly. And that was months ago, before I was even confident in my self-diagnosis (which again, I'm still not sure about. I might still be cis or I might be something else. No clue bro). So I don't ever tell my parents, okay, then what? I tell my brother? My girlfriend? My irl friends? My internet friends? Random strangers on Tumblr?? I settled on the last one for now. I still need to figure out what the fuck is even happening to me.

I'm glad this is happening when I'm in the safest, just emotionally sound, financially / mentally stable point I've been in in my life though. The timing is great because I can take as long as I want to figure this all out.

PS. I only haven't mentioned it to my gf yet bc idk how the hell she'd react, plus it's all still so new, both my emotions and our relationship. She is VERY gender nonconforming, very butch. Except she is completely cis gendered and straight as an arrow. Plus her being a gender enigma aside (and I am being very presumptuous when I say this) a lot of her friends seem homophobic, although she isn't. Obviously. Don't want to get too far into it bc I don't want to seem judgemental of people I haven't met but I've seen enough to make me already hate two of them maybe three. And that's just through social media and like three conversations. I might try to drop a few hints here and there, because I think if anyone should know it should be her, right?

PPS. I hate the genderfluid pride flag it fucking sucks and genuinely that might be on the cons list. Same reason I'm bisexual instead of pansexual even though I'm actually pansexual, the pansexual flag sucks and the bi flag rocks don't @ me

Anyway DMs are open if you want to help me the fuck out

[flower-zombie-rob]

@archivefullofyoutubers Did a thing and I keep seeing people filling this out for new community members so I thought I would do one too just for the hell of it

Preferred name: either robbie or flower. Neither are my real name because i value my internet privacy, but most default to robbie so im comfy with either :)

Preferred pronouns: i dont really care

When did you start watching JSE?: I started around 2016, but 2017 was when I really got into the fandom and started watching the whole channel addictively on the regular.

Why did you start watching JSE?: I had a (really toxic) ex friend who liked it and at the time I wasn't that fussed so i watched a few vids, fell in love with his personality, went down the ego rabbithole and ended up getting so connected with it that im still here to this day and its been a really positive thing for me. I don't think she's involved with the community anymore, but I still am and will be for the foreseeable future.

Favourite thing about the channel?: its between the sweet personality of the man running the channel and the wonderful community of amazing people who inhabit the fandom. I love the whole ego thing because I am a sucker for weird characters who are played by the same person. I love the amazingly kind community and the charity work that we help sean to do. I adore all of the spectacular people and friends that I've met along the way in this community and the absolute talent that lines every part of our niche intrests. I just love JSE as a whole.

Do you have a fav ego?: Its no secret that I among the very rare few whose favorite ego is Robbie the zombie(second place is marvin). He is non-cannon and was a community creation that came about after a thumbnail was made with him in it. From there, the creatives took him and made him a great custom character who is fully up to everyone's interpretation and usually he is the sweetest little cinnamon roll boi that I have ever seen. He also has an incredibly strong connection to me personally and my blogs branding throughout the years, and I could never forget how much, as a character, he has contributed to my persona online. And hes just as cute as a muffin, i wanna hug him and squish his cheeks and pat his head and hes my little blorbo now id die for him.

What kind of community member are you?: I am a very active member of the community and thoughni dont think my art is comendable i have to condsider myself(due to others perceptions) to be a community artist. I am not a theorist because I do not have the brains for that, but I do like to entertain theories and read them. I like to get very interactive with other members of the community and according to someone on a jse discord server I am a tumblr OG of this community (though I'm not sure how true that is...)

What else do you enjoy?: In terms of content: I like sander sides, I like markiplier, I like the owl house, im obsessed with all things neil gaiman, im head over heels for good omens and the sandman, i love my own ocs even if i rarely draw them, and id like to dabble and try out cosplay because its an intrest of mine among other things. As most people do, I like music and films and I am actually a grade 3 vocalist doing a filmaking course(no way! I have a life outside tumblr!?😱)

Are you open to nice messages and new friends?: Oh yeah, 100%. Please! I absolutely love interacting with people and I get so many really kind and supportive people interacting with me! I love all of you so much!!! In terms of making online friends, I don't tend to give away much about myself personally or my information outside of what I share on my blog (like my age or my real name or my face most of the time or anything), but i have been branching out more with that, having met some of you at comic con this year. So sure! im open to friendships that dont push my boundaries :)

Thanks to the og creator for the questions and I'm glad to introduce myself to some new members of this community or migrators from Twitter

💜

[melodyalanaroster]

Dear @chinomiko,

When I first started playing My Candy Love on New Year’s Day in 2013, I was simply a 17 year old girl who was starting the second half of my Senior Year in High School. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and I certainly had no idea where I’d end up. At the time, I was just looking for a new anime style site to call my internet home after the destruction of TinierMe. In my search, I stumbled upon your site. I had never played a dating simulator before, and I fell for your art style, so I decided to give the site a shot. It didn’t take me long to bond with Nathaniel... He was a kind young man, who loved to read, and had a tortured home life... Even though the torture at home was different between him and me, I still felt like I had found a character I could recognize... Hell, I did the same thing with Ken... My bond with Nathaniel was just so much deeper... 

Then I graduated High School... I had no college prospects, and no idea what I even wanted to go to college for (still entirely don’t know).... My issues at home were getting worse, my love life was far from perfect, and living in Texas can be kind of ruthless on those who aren’t following the status quo... Even with going to the United Kingdom for 5 weeks, things still didn’t get better... And of course, the death of my childhood cat, Luna, in 2014 made things worse... So, I started focusing my free time on the game.... Working like crazy to get up to date with the episodes and bonus episodes, editing pics, and even writing fanfics... It became my escape from real life.

That did not change when I met the love of my real life in 2015. Despite entering into a relationship that is still going strong, I needed an escape from the hell my abuser was putting my family and me through, from the shitty job that I had gotten (and still have as of this letter), and from the hell that a really rare disease that had kicked on in my mother’s immune system had begun to put her and my family through. No amount of talking to people in my inner circle in real life helped... And there were times where it felt like the only emotions I knew were anger, sadness, and fear... It was during this time that my main MCL OC, Melody Alana Roster, came to life as what she is today... A strong, smart, beautiful, powerful, woman who goes through some of the worst hell imaginable and ends up living a life of peace with the man she loves (Nathaniel).... When my abuser’s time in my family’s and my life was ending and she was going “all out” on me? I thought of what Alana and Nathaniel would be doing during the newest episode of the game. My job putting me through mental and physical hell (it’s a very demanding job)? I daydreamed about Nathaniel and Alana. My mother’s disease progressing and making my mother put my grandmother and me through hell? I would go in my room and write a section of my story or edit a pic when I could. Hell, My Candy Love became so prominent in my life as an escape that when my abuser’s daughter came back at me (this time with my boyfriend’s ex friend), one of the things she’d say to me was “All you do is sit in your room and write fanfiction.”... I needed something and My Candy Love and it’s fandom was something I enjoyed that kept me in my room (where I felt safe)... To this day, my boyfriend understands why I’ve put so much time and effort into it... Why I’ve spent so much money on it (AP, Gold, commissioned pics, and items)... It was a light in what felt like a sea of darkness in my life...

Now, I’m going to clarify something here... What is written in the last paragraph took place over the course of 5 years... Of course, when I get to the point of 2020, its easy to guess some of the reasons why I continued to focus on My Candy Love... However, I have an added reason.... Not only did the pandemic bitch slap Texas mid March, but about a week before that happened, on March 10th, my mother succumbed to the secondary infection brought on by her disease... And I had to grieve... Of course, when the pandemic hit about week later, I was told by society that I didn’t have time to grieve... As I am a grocery store worker... Which, I still tried to use My Candy Love as a means of escape... It felt like life was going “Yeah, you’re free from your mom’s disease, now here’s one that YOU could bring home to your grandparents and kill them with simply by going to work!”... Because, I’m sure even you know how poorly America has handled the pandemic... And Texas is one of the worst states when it comes to that...

I’m not saying this to make you feel sorry for me... Not in the slightest... I’ve leaned on my family, friends, and boyfriend for everything, so it’s not JUST My Candy Love that got me through all of this... I’m telling you this because My Candy Love and what I’ve done for it has helped me with it all immensely. I thought I had lost my passion for writing while I was still in school, even though my favorite teacher was encouraging me to continue... And here I am still writing my MCL fanfiction... Not only am I still writing my fanfic, I’m getting it turned into 1 copy of an actual book for my shelf when I’m done... When I took photography in High School and wasn’t good at photoshop, I thought it would never be a skill I’d use... And, yet, over the course of my time with MCL, my photo editing skills have improved DRASTICALLY... Sure, I can’t really edit real life photos... But I can make stuff for MCL avatars and such...

I mean, if someone had told me 8 years ago that I’d be so invested in this game that I’d have a body pillow of my favorite love interest, a folder of commissioned art, a blog with over 1,300 followers, an Instagram with nearly 300 followers, a custom plushie of my favorite love interest, a Discord Server with around 200 people in it... That I’d be the Vice President/Club Photographer of the US version of a fan club... That I’d make friends throughout the world in the fandom... That my editing skills would become as good as they are now... That I’d be working on the biggest writing project I’ve EVER worked on... And that I’d cry at the last episode the same way I cried during the Season 8 finale of Scrubs, the series finale of iCarly, Matt Smith’s regeneration in Doctor Who and the ending of Deathly Hallows Part 2... I would have told them that they’re crazy....

Yet... Here I am... I’m turning 26 years old in July... And all of that has happened... In real life, I’m still dealing with the pandemic, I’ve celebrated my 5 year anniversary with my boyfriend, and I’m even preparing to move in with him... Yet, online, I’m still VERY invested in your game. I’m still a long way from finishing my OC’s story... I still want to edit pics for Nathaniel and Alana... And I’m going to be contemplating playing the new game for a while... I’ll still play events... As long as Nathaniel is around, I’ll be there to greet him with a smile... But I don’t know about your new project...

All that being said.... There’s one MAJOR thing I’d like to say to you, Chino....

THANK YOU!

Thank you for everything! For all your hard work in this story... It’s far from perfect, but I still enjoyed the majority of it... For creating Nathaniel, the holder of my 2D heart.... Seriously, thank you for creating him... I have anime crushes, but I don’t love them as deeply as I love Nath.... Thank you for your art! Its amazing! You’re in my top 3 favorite digital artists... The others being Drachea Rannak and Marco Albiero... Thank you for all the work you continue to put into the game that a lot of us have, kind of, grown up with.... I wasn’t really a kid when I started playing, but I do consider myself to have “grown up” with it... Thank you for all of the other love interests... For Castiel, Kentin, Armin, Lysander, Priya, Rayan and Hyun... They’re not the ones I love most, but they’re all interesting characters... Thank you for Candy... While she and Alana greatly differ from each other, Candy was the heroine in a story that gave birth to Alana... Candy is far from perfect, but I’m glad her story ended well.... Thank you for creating the game that brought this fandom into existence... While the fandom can be VERY toxic at times, there are a lot of amazing people in it... They have become some of my dearest friends...

While the entire My Candy Love team at Beemoov deserves my gratitude... I feel like you are the most deserving of it... Because, without you, My Candy Love would not exist.

I look forward to seeing My Candy Love’s future... Either from the sidelines, or from the middle of it... I will see it’s future...

Thank you ChiNoMiko.

All my love and respect,

Melody Alana Roster

[captainmazzic]

Happy Halloween.

So it’s about time I gave a real fucking update instead of just dicking around being cagey about shit. I’ve mentioned a new project repeatedly. So let’s sit down and actually talk about it, friends. Pull up a chair, grab yourself some hot cocoa and strap in. Welcome to Sarc’s emotional roller coaster.

Bear with me. This is hard to talk about for so many reasons, but mostly because I’ve been belittled and ridiculed so many times in my life for liking “cringy” things or wanting to do things that other people think are stupid or childish. I hear the voice of my father telling me to “make something of my life” and “don’t squander your talents”, I hear the voice of my mother telling me I have “so much potential” and “one day I hope you get some ambition”, I hear the voice of my ex telling me to “stop wasting time with stupid shit” and “nobody is interested in failures”. I hear old teachers telling me honor roll students should go to college and study high-demand majors and anything else would be lazy and detrimental and won’t contribute anything worthwhile to society.

It’s the same shit that prevented me for a long time from posting art online. From posting writing online. From making ocs and showing them to other people. And now it’s preventing me from starting this project, and I’m so, so tired of it.

My biggest fear right now is that once I start talking about this project I’ll lose this tiny little community of people vaguely interested in my stuff that have somehow stuck around. External validation and sharing the things I love are my primary motivations with everything I do online, and while screaming into the void is all well and good, I need feedback and interaction and community. I need it so, so badly. I wouldn’t post jack shit – ever – if I didn’t need that, to be honest.

So anyway.

When the pandemic kicked into high gear earlier this year I got laid off for a few months. It gave me a lot of time to think about who I am and where I wanted to be in life, what mattered to me, what dreams I still had and which ones had fallen by the wayside.

Some of them are huge – once upon a time I was very religious. I went through seminary, got my minister’s certification, and was slated to be an associate pastor in a mega-church and rake in a six-figure income within 3 years. But I lost my faith and couldn’t stand the idea of being disingenuous.

And there was also a time when I received a full-ride scholarship to a very prestigious university that would have spanned a 12-year program and resulted in me having several doctorates and masters degrees by the end of it, in the fields of geology, palaeontology, and cladistics. But the scholarship program that was supposed to sponsor me went bankrupt the very semester I was supposed to capitalize on it. I was still accepted into the school, but the $1.2 million price tag would have all been out of my own pocket. So obviously that didn’t happen.

Those were the “acceptable” dreams. Those were the ones that parents and teachers and the general outside world approved of and thought were worthy goals. But neither of them panned out, and all I have left are the cringy ones. Like homesteading and sustainable living (can’t start without land, can’t have land without money). Like making comic books and doing art commissions for a living (it has to be steady to support myself, and I’m far too slow an artist for things to be steady). And like… playing video games.

Ha.

What’s funny is I can already envision the eyerolls and hear the snorts of laughter. What kind of dream is that? Only a handful of famous youtubers and twitch celebrities play video games for a living, and breaking into a field like that is pretty much impossible unless you already have friends in famous places.

Yeah, but… it would be so much fun. Right?

It WOULD be fun. I don’t have to become a super popular celebrity for it to be fun, right?

I don’t have to make it my day job and rake in piles of cash for it to be fun, right?

… I don’t have to actually be successful for it to be fun… right?

… Right?

:/

… I love video games.

I’ve loved them ever since I tried and failed so many times to win The Empire Strikes Back on Atari 2600. I’ve loved them ever since I played Mortal Kombat with my cousin in his basement with the sound down super low because it was ultra-violent and I would have been in so much trouble if mom caught me playing it. I’ve loved them ever since I tried and failed to finish Strife and Hexen and Heretic without the computer crashing and rebooting to DOS. I’ve loved them ever since I had to cheat-code my way through Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II just to get past the first boss fight but then no-clipped through the wall and died anyway. I still love that game.

But I stopped playing video games for a very long time. I was intimidated out of them by an ex and a somewhat toxic friend group who were Real Gamers™. I was brought to LAN parties but not allowed to play, because I slowed down the team and didn’t know the controls. I was banned from commenting on other people’s moves or cheering people on because it was distracting and I could cost them a win. I was even kicked out of their online D&D campaigns because I couldn’t be serious enough or roleplay well enough for their standards. Even if I was playing a game on my own, I couldn’t play with anyone else in the house because I’d be ridiculed for dying a lot, or for going the wrong way, or for picking the wrong game because only certain games are “good” and most of the ones I wanted to play were “stupid” or “trash” or a “waste of time”.

That kind of thing sits with me for a very, very long time. I didn’t really play games at all for over a decade. Even after I ended up on the opposite side of the country, with a new circle of friends, I couldn’t bring myself to play much of anything.

And then I had an extended visit with a friend of mine, and he introduced me to an early version of a ridiculous little game called Minecraft. My friend was an avid gamer but also a very kind one. In the ten years before this, I had told myself that I just preferred to watch other people play games instead of playing them myself (a lie. I mean, I absolutely adore watching other people play, but I also want to play too lol), my friend saw through that and very gently encouraged me to take a stab at playing Minecraft myself. He moved his laptop over to me, and I played a whole ten minutes with him watching before my nerves failed me and I promptly died. But miraculously it wasn’t a big deal to him. It was just a game. I might have cried in relief, I don’t remember.

After my visit I shelved playing video games for like another year, despite buying a whole mess of them because other friends online loved certain titles and wanted to talk about them with me. (I never played them, just bought them. I couldn’t even handle the thought of playing by myself in my own house). But for some reason I mentioned to my brother-in-law my old visit to my Minecraft-loving friend, and he just… up and bought the game for me. My brother-in-law is also an avid gamer with a lovely and patient disposition, and he suggested I just play in creative mode and build things to start. So I did that (behind a locked door in the RV that I lived in by myself, with the lights off and the sound down low) and Minecraft was my sole video game for another several years.

Then a couple years ago another friend of mine (hi Char) introduced me to Star Wars: The Old Republic, and I fell in love. It sparked a renewed interest in video games that I thought I would never really have the opportunity to satisfy, because games were still intimidating.

Let me clarify: I… SUCK. At video games. I’m terrible at them. Learning controls is a nightmare and a tunicate evolving its own brain would learn faster than me. If I’m aiming, I can’t hit the broad side of a barn. I have the direction sense of a whirligig beetle on the back of a drunk pigeon. I die fast and I die often. I can count the number of games I’ve actually finished on one hand. Even less if we don’t count the ones I had to use cheat codes to get through. But none of that diminishes my love of experiencing them, and over this whole pandemic and quarantine thing I’ve had a lot of time to unpack and mull over my thoughts and feelings and passions about them.

… I moved my RV to a new spot literally the day before the lockdown in my state first initiated. Before this I was in a spot that had no internet other than what reception I could get on my phone, with severely limited bandwidth and patchy, unreliable service. The new spot has a steady wi-fi connection, and while upload speed is utter shit, downloading and streaming video are just this side of manageable. So I spent the first three months of the quarantine lockdown doing pretty much nothing other than watching Jacksepticeye, CrankGameplays, and Markiplier play video games on YouTube. (I honestly had no idea before this that people even did let’s plays. My internet access/speed has been shit for so long I’m totally out of the loop).

It… for fear of sounding utterly stupid yet again, it inspired me.

Like. These people really love what they’re doing. They just. Play video games and have fun with it, and I mean yeah they make money hand-over-fist doing it but the main thing is they HAVE FUN doing it. They have fun! Playing video games! In front of people! It’s wild. And the thing that REALLY got me was… they have feedback on it too. They have a COMMUNITY. They have people they can talk to about it. They have people that they can play games WITH, even, who don’t yell at them or tell them they suck every five minutes or tell them they can’t play with them because they’re worthless as teammates. They can fuck up in a game and their friends are laughing along with them on Discord instead of screaming at them to get it right or get out. They can play games by themselves in their house and then upload videos on the internet and then they can talk to other people about it! They have fun! It’s awesome! They have fun!!

I just. It meant so much to me. It meant so much to me to see these videos of these three, and then another dozen or so that I’ve followed since, play all these games and have such a good time and also be such a positive and kind and encouraging source of energy.

I know all of this is not exactly about video games specifically. It’s about coming to terms with how I’ve been treated as a person and as a friend, about how other people respect someone’s interests and passions, about how it’s okay to share your interests with other people and it’s okay to like things that other people might not care about or think are important.

And I’m so, so tired of not doing the things I love because I’m afraid of what other people will think.

So I, uh. I invested all of the stimulus money I had into a new rig and equipment like a camera, lighting, acoustic panels, all that shit. I dug out all the games I bought but never played, I made accounts on all the big gaming services like Steam and Itch.io and GoG, and I made a YouTube channel. And I’m going to be making my own let’s plays. And it will suck, and it will be cringy and awkward and badly done, and it won’t make me money or be a valid career option or be anything but another very expensive hobby, but it will be mine, and it will be something I can share with people and (hopefully) have fun with, and it will (hopefully) be an avenue for some of this positive social interaction I’m craving.

I know YouTube can be toxic and super negative and full of trolls and cancel culture fanatics and people just waiting to find something to tear you down for, but like. Come on, y’all. I’m posting this on tumblr dot com. Toxic is everywhere anyway. I just want to try, you know?

I just want to love video games again.

Someone famous that I look up to so, so much told me – without knowing that I was even listening, without even knowing that I even exist – that if I enjoy doing something, to just go for it. To just jump in and do it, and if it works then it works, and if it doesn’t, what have I actually lost?

And I’m lucky enough to have four whole offline friends that I’ve mentioned this idea to, and each of them has said encouraging things like I’d have a good voice and face and style for making let’s plays. I honestly don’t know how true that part is, but on my good days I believe them. And they also said that I should go for it, to just try.

So that’s… that’s what I’m doing, I guess. I just want to try.

I know it’s not Star Wars fanart. I know it’s not Star Wars fanfiction. I know it’s not Star Wars meta or essays or ranting about the Sith and the Jedi and the Force. I know it’s not what y’all want from me. And that’s utterly terrifying. I’m bracing myself to be alone on the internet again, because I know that when I dive headfirst into this thing, it’ll eat away into the time that I normally might be spending doing writing or art, and it’s going to be something no one else wants to see and no one signed up for. And that’s partly why it’s taken me so very, very long to get started.

The other part is more physical. Of course as soon as I decide that I’m going to put my face on a camera is when my entire face goes to shit. I’m currently waiting on a potential diagnosis for mouth cancer, while already dealing with a severe jaw infection that’s causing my teeth and gums to rot inside my mouth. They already took part of my jaw, I’m missing teeth, others are turning black, if I open my mouth even just a little it is so obvious and I look like a very, very literal zombie. I have never been more grateful that masks are socially acceptable. I have a series of twelve appointments scheduled to treat this shit now that I have dental and health insurance (goodbye paycheque), and I might qualify for reconstruction surgery too. But that doesn’t really help how I look right now.

So I just can’t bring myself to start this project just yet. I’ve been sitting on it for months now with all the other pieces in place, but I just. Can’t. Start. It’s driving me crazy, because I want to start so badly. I feel like I’m wasting time. I feel like I’ve already wasted so much time, because I haven’t even done anything else in the meantime. I haven’t done hardly any art or fanfic, nothing. My anxiety is spiking so high right now because I have all these expectations of myself, but I can’t do anything about it. I’ve been told that I could just start without a camera or wear a mask on screen, and I’ve actually done some recording doing exactly that, but I just… can’t seem to make anything I want to finalize.

It’s also frustrating because I have no way of uploading anything at home. I’ll have to go over to my partner’s house which is nearly an hour’s drive away in order to get internet good enough to upload videos, which means that upload schedules are going to be shiiiiiit and that’s also frustrating.

But. But. BUT. I want to do this.

I want to do this so badly. I want to share let’s plays and experience a love of video games with other people. I want to actually play games with other people too. I also just acquired a piano keyboard, and I want to play again on the regular because I miss it so much. I used to play piano for hours every single day, it’s so relaxing and fun, maybe I can post that too. Maybe I can post let’s draws or something, where I ask y’all what to draw and then make a video of me drawing it while bullshitting to the camera I don’t know it sounds like fun. Maybe I can post videos of my cooking because the shit I make seems to be everyone’s favourite thing on instagram, and maybe I can take my camera with me when I go to the ocean or hike up into the middle of nowhere in the mountains and film how beautiful everything is up there. Or maybe I can do none of that and just focus on one thing, I honestly have no idea what I’m doing or how to do it, but I just… I want to try. I just want to try.

I don’t know where any of this is going anymore. I’m sorry I haven’t responded to messages, or opened up commissions. I’m sorry that this isn’t what y’all wanted. I’m still going to continue drawing and writing, I’m still going to be around, I’m not going anywhere, but I have no idea how prolific I’m going to be and I have no idea even when I’ll start uploading videos, to be honest. But I just. I’m just gonna try. It might still take me a while but I’m gonna try. Wish me luck. I love y’all.

[fmdkiana]

*youtuber vc* WHATZ up famerz. i’ve got another SICK character for you to get to know! so SMASH that follow button! MAIM me with that like!

...anyway hi i’m demi, the famed hag, and this is my fourth child (following sung, andy, n jeonghwa) her name is kiana, also goes by ki and kiki, and if that nickname brings to mind anything But kiki’s delivery service u shall b Wrong. she’s fuse’s main dancer and lead vocalist, iconic qwen. here’s her pinterest, bio, public profile, private profile, timeline [wip for links], plots, & social media [wip for insta]. i’ll leave a condensed version under ze cut <3 you can reach me easiest at fmdjoosung or demi#6468 on discord if you’d like to chat abt this girlie!

okay first things first i’m gonna nip this in the bud. if ur like excuse? iu in fuse? ur coocoo for cocoa puffs for that one. u would be right! and i intend to prove to u that she Is fitting. example a-z demonstrates an at home kiki and a fuse ki. thank me later for all this pretty laydee content

background

may 28th, 1994 ya girl is a gemini

from seattle

born to a pediatric surgeon and a software engineer (who specializes in ai bc her mom is Cool) kiana developed a love for science... then tossed it away to be A Star

not immediately though

really it all stems from the desire to be unique in a positive way

with seattle’s large east asian population, she was lumped together with everyone else, and places where she stood out, kids made fun of her for

she felt like an outcast in every sense of the word, which is why when A Boy gave her the genuine time of day, she latched on

they quickly became bad for each other, codependent at its best

kiana’s lil ass rly thought they were romeo and juliet torn apart when her parents made them break up

she kept sneaking out to see him, and eventually it became troublesome enough that her parents decided to move the fam to korea

heartbroken and with the desire to feel desired, she auditioned for gold star

since she was young, she had dance classes, just as her mom did before giving it up for something more stable

dance isn’t what drove her as much as the feeling of a crowd being entertained by her

trained for 3 years, gold star had high hopes for her given her dance background + looks, hence her role in impulse’s a

a couple years after debut, the company manages to snag her an ost, and when that does well, they shove her onto as many osts as possible, but it manages to do basically nothing to help her or fuse’s fame, no matter the impact of the song itself, and they slow down on trying

that *big bad wolf vc* my dears, is what sets up her overall Thing, that no matter what she does, or how many people claim to love her, they don’t show up for her as a solo celebrity

it leaves her a little dejected, fearful, worried, but idol life isn’t something she minds doing anyway. part of her still wants to strive for more attention, and claw her way there, because she aches terribly to feel special and different, and to a degree, idol life will always give that to her

personality

the archetype of the kid in middle school who calls themselves L and only draws in anime style and comes to school in cosplay and naruto runs around and randomly speaks japanese........ yeah, that was kiana as a kid

and really, she’s only let the problematic parts of it go. she’s still a big fat weeb (& has lots of other fandom type interests too)

an internet kid, someone who never got a big following. draws fanart, has written fanfiction, engages on fan forums. stays at home unless she’s dragged out by friends

she’s a very Normal, Everyday type person in most ways, and that bugs her to no end

she’s someone who as a kid thought she had superpowers, like full on believed it, and to this day still thinks well maybe it’s just not kicked in yet

considers herself ~an empath~ because she naturally has very strong emotions, and seeing or “feeling” the emotions of others makes her feel that way too. that includes positive And negative emotions

she can and is wrong about what she “feels” from others, but the emotional effect on herself is still the same

and because that happens so much, kiana retreats into herself

she has a very small inner circle, and isn’t very interested in more than surface level relationships with most people because it’s exhausting to feel so much all of the time

that means usually, most people meeting her will meet someone who can be doin a little doodle, you’ll say hi, she’ll say hi back, then go right back to her doodle

she’s Nice and polite enough, but doesn’t take those first steps. some ppl might view her coldly bc of it

HOWEVA if someone were to bring up one of her ~special interests, she would come off like a completely different person

animated, kinda loud, won’t shut up. that’s more often the type of person her inner circle gets to see

she’s also a reversal of the hard shell soft inside trope, as a lot of her outward self and personality can seem soft, gentle, maybe even naive depending on someone’s view, but there is a core to her affection thats... dangerous

but i’ll leave that for the dms

and finally, here’s a phat list of personality traits that apply to kiana, depending on her relationships with who she’s talking to and how she’s feeling. yes some are complete opposites. see: gemini. if you wanna kno how to get a certain trait from her, i’ll be glad to explain

abnormal, apathetic, artistic, clingy, contradictory, dedicated, demure, disorganized, earnest, effeminate, emotional, empathetic, excitable, fanatical, guarded, hesitant, insecure, introverted, jealous, loyal, mercurial, modest, neat, needy, nervous, numb, obsessive, organized, overthinking, passionate, persevering, protective, quiet, romantic, scatterbrained, silly, stubborn, tactful, temperamental, vigilant, vivacious, volatile, wall flower, withdrawn

fun fax

claims her style inspiration is the 70s but really mixes in influences from ~the 40s to 80s

if she’s dressing herself, heavily prefers skirts and dresses over pants

doesn’t like being touched unless she’s really close with someone, then she likes a lot of it

plant mom. apartment basc a greenhouse

insists one day she will make her own jam but has yet to get around to it so she just has a bunch of jars in her apartment and uses them for plants and paper clip holders and the like

her fictional character romantic Type is the tsundere. is convinced fictional characters are the best dating partners

always wears glasses when at home, and a good amount of the time when not working in general

her mario kart main is link bc nostalgia and valuing a strong stat set that favors zoom zoom

the furthest she goes for environmental impact is always using a hydroflask

prefers having bangs and hair with a wave

always carries bandaids and bandages in her bag because she gets eczema patches when she’s stressed and it’s Embarrassing to her so she covers em up

[just-another-hhazbin]

Just here to say I relate so much about the anxiety of putting my art out into the world, out for the people to look at and judge to their whims, whatever they want to do with it and think of it. It was hard. And utterly sickening. Like the desire to please everybody shakes me up and i get disheartened with whatever they choose to do with it, and i hate that it affects me. That i can't just "not care" and like you said, just chuck it out and forget about it.

Like you want to be seen but at a single speck of someone seeing you, you ran away. It's all just scary and you want to hide. Taking a break from social media and separating it from my daily life helped. If it's different for you, then I apologize for assuming I knew. Please ignore this if it's irrelevant to you.

For me, it’s less the actual posting of my art and more the interaction with others. As some of y’all who have been around a few weeks know, I generally have a very flippant, couldn’t care less about the opinions of others and am not afraid to get into an argument or seven. Besides that, I’m of the firm belief that no one can judge my art more harshly than myself lmao. Like thanks for telling me it sucks, I think so too. 🤷 I’ve spent years being bullied IRL for everything and anything including my art, so... been there, done that, hit rock bottom and discovered apathy. I do feel a lot more pressure when it comes to requests and commissions of course, but that’s pretty normal.

For me it’s interacting that’s hard. Just leaving a comment has me second guessing myself a million times. I never know what to say or how to say it or if I should just pick an emoji. It’s especially worse when it comes to interacting with artists or people whose content I like or who I admire, because that is a rare time when my desire for approval kicks in. Not necessarily in regard to art, but in regard to their perception of myself. Do they think I’m nice? Did my comment make them smile? Did I come off well? Have I secretly offended them and oh no they hate me now?

Besides this blog, my family (who I’m on rough terms with), and a discord server I talk in maybe twice daily with people I’ve known for three years, I haven’t actually talked to anyone since early February.

It is almost Halloween. Since February. I haven’t even had to talk to a cashier.

And I’ve loved it. Couldn’t be happier. But now we’ve got people in my DMs being super condescending and managing to hit nearly every trigger I have from gender dysphoria to trauma because they and their group of friends think I’m stealing VIVZIEPOP’S art (let that sink in for a moment. Moustache Angel Dust = Vivziepop art?!?!), people who I admire leaving comments that I flounder at replying to, people asking for collaborations and trades while I have anxiety over every response, random teens spilling their life stories like I’m a therapist and not an adult stranger on the internet, etc.

It’s exhausting.

So yeah. In a way it’s similar because it’s based around how people’s perceptions and words affect us, but for me it’s the actual words themselves. I much prefer the anonymous void of Tumblr.hellsite.com. I’m sure part of it is also me being stressed from school and sick as hell, but. People are exhausting either way. I do appreciate the comment though, anon. Thanks. 💜💜💜



[strikethanatos]

Why I Left The Hypno/BDSM Basement

Many of you don’t know me. I apologize for that. I have a hard time being social in large groups, so I just don’t do it. My bad. If you do know me, it’s probably as a moderator of any of a number of hypnosis servers on Discord, including The Hypnotic Speakeasy, of which I am the proprietor, and for a short while The Hypno/BDSM Basement. I quit the mod team and left there recently, and I think you deserve to know why.

See, to me, power has a function: to protect. We who have power are bound by an inescapable duty use it to protect those who do not have it, and that is especially important in the hypnosis community, because the potential harms that arise from us falling down on the job are much more severe. Make no mistake. Hypnosis can absolutely ruin lives. We lie to ourselves that we can’t be made to do something we didn’t want to do in the first place, but famously, there was a hypnotist during the Cold War who hypnotized someone into robbing a bank, claiming that it was his duty to do so to fight Communism.

Because some hypnotists have that power to change more than we should, we have to constantly be on guard to make sure that we are doing what is in the best interests of our subjects, especially given that so few of us are trained therapists. However, we all fail. We all make mistakes. And when we do, it is our duty to ourselves and those whom we have wronged to apologize where possible, to right our wrongs where possible, and to learn from what we did. I am not saying that one bad mistake should necessarily get one exiled forever. What I am saying, however, is that forgiveness should not be given freely, but earned.

The decision to allow MindEraser, also known as NeuralNetsandPrettyPatterns, to remain in the Basement, fully cognizant of his abuses against the greater hypnosis community, is in a word inexcusable. He has not apologized. He has not admitted that anything he did was wrong, much less any specific thing. He just “wants the past to be the past.” No matter what he says, he has not learned. He is still trying to twist consent to mean what it doesn’t. He is still summoning internet mobs to attack people and coerce institutions he dislikes. He uses the same tools to try to get his way that he has always used in the past. Anyone remember when he got banned from every hypnosis convention in North America and Europe, and how he had people go to con committees to tell them what a swell guy he is? Or when he asked followers on Tumblr to appeal the decision to tag his account as being NSFW en masse? Or when he’s dragged people into the main chat of the Pattern Palace to have them explain to everyone why they questioned some decision of his? When he continues to use the same methods, why should you ever believe that he himself has changed?

Here is my issue with him. He has proven time and time again to be predatory and vindictive. He denies responsibility for the consequences of his actions, claiming that it is the responsibility of the subject to reject inappropriate suggestions. He says this, even though anyone with even a basic knowledge of the hypnosis community knows that some people are more suggestible than others, that some people respond more to suggestions than others do, and that some people are less able to reject suggestions than others. Knowing this, he’s released a file that told listeners things like, “You’re gonna forget those other women (men)”, “They are never as good as me”, “They are never as good as me”. (Source: https://kallie-den.tumblr.com/post/171704815843/thesecretsubject-kallie-den-hypdom-this)

That was inexcusable.

And what was his response? To call anyone who was concerned about this a “white knight with something to gain”, to deflect any and all blame, to deny responsibility for what happens to subjects who listen to his files. (Source: https://thesecretsubject.tumblr.com/post/171650964672/note-to-the-hypnosis-community) That is inexcusable.

By that ethical standard, it is impossible to blame hypnotists for harm caused by their suggestions to subjects. And yet, we all know, that as artists, that as creators, that as hypnotists, when we make something we take responsibility for what it does. We ought to warn people about its’ serious consequences. And when we fail to uphold these simple, basic expectations, then we ought to take personal responsibility for these actions.

Neither has happened.

What followed has been a year and a half of witch hunting of any and all people who show basic human decency and concern for their subjects, and the result was that he rebranded himself as MindEraser on Discord and other platforms to distance himself from the controversy.

So, yeah, when he showed up in the Basement, I had concerns. I relayed them to the owner, and spoke to others. He was banned, for a few hours.

But then I was told that he just wanted to “let the past be past.” That I should be “neutral” and “impartial”.

That is not my duty as a moderator, on any platform. My duty is a firm and unwavering responsibility to the community as a whole. To seek out and eliminate predators and those whose actions hurt the health of the community. To, in this era of finally questioning the reign of cultures that tolerate and encourage sexual harassment and exploitation, believing victims. To listen to people seeking justice, and acting on their behalf.

My duty is not to ignore such infamous abusers. In fact, the night before this came up, we collectively yeeted a predator on far less well documented grounds than these. So, where, in the name of justice, is it writ that we are obligated to forgive anyone who seeks it? What responsibility do I have, as a hypnotist, as a creator, as a moderator, as a man, do I have to forgive abusers who have hurt my friends and levied bizarre and false accusations against me?

Presented with this false choice, I came to the conclusion that I had no moral choice but to leave the Basement behind, and furthermore, that I have to remove the moderator who made that choice to tell me to be “impartial” from the Speakeasy.

I’ll be taking care of myself and my server. In the mean time, if you want me, find me at the Hypnotic Speakeasy. I’ll be around. https://discord.gg/dtdTHUJ

[kai-keda]

So something on twitter got me rambling this to someone who I don’t even know whether or not they’re involved in the same communities as me or not and I kinda just realized this is actually a big problem.

Why are fandom spaces having age wars? Or would it be more appropriate to call it generational wars?

Basically what I’m going on about is how now that I’m 25 years old and have joined and become super involved with a relatively much newer community than any other I’ve been in before I’m seeing a lot of hostility.

Hostility thrown at me by complete strangers.

Okay, so, if you’ve known me for long enough you’d know that I’m used to people not liking me because of actions I did or words I said. Specifically I’m referring to that mega dark time in the Dragon Ball fandom when my mental health was unchecked, I was overly emotional and stupid.

When I say “Hostility being thrown at me by complete strangers” in this context I don’t mean it in that same sense. I mean people who only know my age and that I’m in their fandom.

With my previous fandoms they were things that a lot of adults were in as well because they initially joined said fandom as children themselves. This includes Dragon Ball and Naruto. So I never really had a problem with people hearing my age and running for the hills screaming since they were used to seeing adults. There were also communities with source materials that were geared more towards adults like Trigun.

Heck I was still more often than not on the younger side of any particular group discussion. At most I would be more in the middle of the groups age range and never the oldest.

That is until now.

See I’ve recently gotten really excited, obsessed, hyperfixated or whatever you want to call it with the MCYT content creators. I’m talking of course specifically about the Dream SMP stuff but also the creators individually.

I love the Sleepy Bois Inc group and the Dream Team and Fundy and Ranboo and Niki and BBH and Tubbo and just the whole lot of them in the right contexts honestly.

To me this wasn’t really anything new. I mean, once upon a time I enjoyed Yogscast but I was really young and not involved in the internet’s current world of fandom culture. Also, I never obsessed over them and their story. I was into other things at the time.

When I get really invested in something I tend to immediately go searching for a community to share it with and I’ve started following on tumblr and twitter a lot of wonderful fan-artists and analysts and shitposters and man the lot of you are so great. And I’m also subscribed to a LOT of animators on YouTube. I’ve been leaving as many positive comments ranging from pointing out the finer details of a piece of work to fully emotional responses as I can possibly leave.

And it seems like you guys are really awesome and open and friendly! You guys tend to reply to my comments and even if you don’t (which is totally fair! Don’t feel pressured, my comments are to make you feel good not a trap to make you interact with me!) you’ll leave a like or heck a heart on my YouTube comments to y’all’s animations.

Seeing my positive energy getting returned with positive energy gave me the courage to join some discord servers and I started, of course, with the official ones. Wilbur Soot was the content creator of this group of people that I watched first so of course by this point I was subscribed to him on Twitch. I was also subbed to TommyInnit so I joined their servers. I’m in a few other servers including SAD-ist’s server and Techno’s members only server.

I started out joining vc’s and chatting in text channels but it’s been quite a long time since I’ve done either of those two things (not including a stray opinion here or there being thrown into the DreamSMP Boundaries discord).

I’m pretty sure it’s been since early December since I’ve really interacted in ANY of these servers - including the much smaller non-official fan ones!

Why is that?

Honestly, I got tired of the hostility thrown my way at any mention or reminder of my age.

I’m 25 years old and when people in these servers hear that, a good chunk legitimately feel really awkward.

I was asked not once, not twice, but FOUR TIMES in a single night from FOUR DIFFERENT PEOPLE in the SAME VOICE CALL “Why are you in a fan server for a sixteen year old Minecraft streamer (referring to TommyInnit) if you’re 25?” with NO trace of irony and with complete seriousness and out of all those times only ONE PERSON defended me because they were in the call for the third instance only for them to leave, someone else to join and it to happen again.

And each time, the call went quiet and everyone waited silently for my answer. They were all legitimately concerned for the fact that I happen to be a fan of a streamer who happens to be younger than me.

And when I pointed out what I THOUGHT was obvious which was “90% of the other streamers he’s with and openly calls friends are also adults including Wilbur who is only one year younger than me and Philza who is seven years OLDER than me” only a portion of people responded with “yeah that’s true.”

The rest said “That’s not the same.”

I tried again to “explain myself” (we’ll get to how shitty THAT is in a minute) by detailing how I just genuinely think Tommy, and Tubbo as well, are fun to watch. They’re entertaining, they’re funny, they’re energetic, they work well off the other streamers and I also find them adorable the same way I find puppies and kittens adorable. Heck, I love referring to Tommy as a Chihuahua because he’s a tiny little child with a really loud bark. It’s funny and cute and that’s the appeal.

That got a few other people to relax but there were still some people who at this point just said “well, I still think it’s weird but whatever.” and continued on only with an awkward air of nervousness around them.

Alright so it’s really important for me to stress that being a fan of a content creator does not equate wanting anything romantic or sexual with them in any capacity and therefore there is nothing inherently “creepy” or predatory about an adult being a fan of a content creator who happens to be a minor. I get that that seems like a hard concept to grasp but it’s true.

I’m sure there’s plenty of musicians and actors y’all absolutely adore who you don’t want to marry and/or bang. Heck, I’m positive there’s a good chunk of you who love Miyazaki films. You love his work, you’re a fan of what he does, of his content and you’re a fan of him yet you don’t want to marry and/or bang him. I’m sure a lot of you also have really close platonic friendships that you enjoy.

Assuming I’m only a fan of Tommy to get closer to him and his fans who are minors for some gross reasons is really shitty. NEVER assume the worst in someone like that. Be cautious around adults on the internet in general, sure, but this particular attitude I’ve described is disgusting.

Anyways, beyond that though this rabbit hole goes deeper.

It’s not just people being concerned that an adult is a fan of a content creator who is a minor. People have actually openly shamed and mocked me for being 25 years old in these other servers. Including the one you have to pay monthly to get into in the first place!

And now I go on twitter and I see a post pointing out how silly it is for minors to push adults out of fandom spaces that are based on content created BY ADULTS and the replies are people arguing FOR THE EXCLUSION OF ADULTS?!?!

HELLO?!?!

Are you guys okay?!?!

How is me being a fan of Philza and wanting to interact with other fans of his weird and creepy?? THE MAN IS LITERALLY SEVEN YEARS OLDER THAN ME AND MARRIED WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!

I heard that there’s been a lot of drama in the JoJo fandom recently where minors are trying to say the whole fandom needs to be purged of adults??? That it’s meant to be a safe space for children and teenagers?? THE ANIME JOJO’S BIZZARE ADVENTURE?!?! DO Y’ALL KNOW HOW OLD THAT FRANCHISE IS?!?! IT’S OLDER THAN SOME OF YOU!!

Should teenagers have safe spaces in fandom where they don’t have to worry about strange adults if they’re uncomfortable with that? Absolutely.

Should adults be shamed and kicked out of fandom as soon as they become an adult? Should “20” be the age where fandom must stop? Absolutely fucking NOT!

I want so bad to make friendships and be a part of a community of people who enjoy these dorky Minecraft streamers as much as I do. It kills me to open Discord, see all the activity in these servers and shy away at the last minute from joining in because of my age.

I’m rusty on this quote so forgive me if it’s not exact but this has been my life motto since I became an adult and accepted my place in fandom. I think a lot of you guys can learn from it:

“When I became an adult I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

- C.S Lewis

[sally-mun]

How long have you and your partner been together? I knwo you've said it's been years but how long exactly?

It depends a little on how you look at it, because there was a big gap in there for a while. Our current stint is around a decade, but if you count when we FIRST started RPing, it’s actually closer to two decades.

Here, let me just do it like this:

1997-2005(ish): Yeah, my RPing dates back this far (probably farther back than some of you have been alive, oof). Back then the internet was still SUPER new, so there weren’t a lot of ways to hang out online beyond message boards and chatrooms – and you were NEVER supposed to go in chatrooms, because that’s where all the stalkers were! However I’d come across this Sonic webpage that I thought was super cool, and in contact info of the gal that ran it was linked a chat where she was known to hang out. It was back during the days of GeoCities (before Yahoo even owned it), and there were only a handful of chatrooms on the site in total. Among them was a room simply called “Games Chat.” I decided to take the chance and went in hoping to find the girl that ran the website. I never did, but this was my first introduction to RPing!

So for those who’ve never done this format, it’s kind of a free-for-all. Whatever screen name you log in with is your character, and everything happens in real time. Your turn is basically one line, and it can be dialogue, *actions*, or both if you could fit them. Yes, the turns are small, but the chatroom format meant that turns were taken rapidly, and it actually covered a LOT of ground in a short amount of time. You could do a single session and call that a day, or you could keep meeting up with the same people over and over to do a continuous game/story. There were basically no hard rules, just ones you established yourselves either before you started or mid-game ((via talking OOC)). Regulars came to know each other while other faces slipped in and out in a flash. Canon characters and OCs basically shared equal footing. It was exciting and fast-paced and I loved it.

Over time things changed a bit; GeoCities was bought up by Yahoo, and at that time “Games Chat” was changed to “Anime Capsule,” since I guess someone on the back end noticed that we were talking/RPing way more about anime than about video games. After a couple years of that, though, Yahoo decided to shut the chatroom down all together – but fear not, one of our users set up our own Anime Capsule on his own sever! We continued there for a few more years, and the chatroom itself gained more and more features that made it an even cooler place, but I eventually drifted away from here as other regulars gradually dropped off. At this point, I lost most contact with my current partner.

Sadly, so far as I’m aware this chatroom no longer exists.

2006-2011(ish): With the Anime Capsule behind me, I was invited by @fini-mun to a forum RP with a bunch of my friends (many of whom are even here on Tumblr now – hi guys!). This was my first time using a message board for gaming purposes, but I really liked it. The downside is it’s much, much slower than chatroom RP, but it was fun to get to use actual prose and narration. This RP is what made me realize just how much I enjoy writing, and it’s more or less when I transitioned to seeing myself as a writer instead of an artist (which is funny in a way, because looking back on my old threads there I was SO TERRIBLE, but hey that’s growth I guess).

For those who’ve never done forum RP, it’s MUCH more structured. There’s an area specifically for character profiles, another area specifically for OOC discussion, and then an area for the actual RPs themselves. Each thread is a specific area and time, and the board maintains a single, continuous continuity. If a character enters one thread, they can’t simultaneously be in another, because all threads are part of the same canon. When all characters leave a thread, that particular thread is archived, and then a new one is started whenever a character comes back to the area. This particular forum also had an “off-canon” area, which was specifically for silly OOC threads, “what if” scenarios, or ongoing jokes.

This was a SUPER tight community for me. We were a fairly small group and kept the forum private, and only got new users if one of us specifically invited someone. It operated pretty well for a few years, despite being a group of only about 15-20 people. I eventually left this group after an incident went down which changed things in a way that could never really be undone. The forum was different, the group was different, and most importantly, I was different. I did my best to linger for a while but it just wasn’t working for me anymore.

This forum has undergone a few changes, but still exists! You can find it here, or message @jammerlee if you have questions!

2008-2010(ish): In the midst of the forum RP, I’d reconnected with several of my Anime Capsule friends on AIM, and we intermittently continued some of our games via AIM itself. This was nice for me, because it was like a throwback to my chatroom RP days, but on a much smaller scale. At this time I reconnected with my current partner and invited him to the forum RP, but he declined, as forum RPing just isn’t his jam.

For the most part, this didn’t result in anything particularly noteworthy, as it was largely one-off instances and a lot of OOC talk. I liked the focused one-on-one aspect of it all, and I definitely appreciated the rapid progress you can make in IMRP, since that was one of my favorite things about chatroom RPing. So, even though I was still at the forum at the time, this also became a regular RP method for me on the side. Over the years I intermittently attempted to get a couple of friends from the forum RP to IMRP with me too ( @fini-mun and @jammerlee being my biggest targets), but in most cases these attempts fizzled. I had a really fun Knuckles & Rouge story going for a while with Deebs, but that eventually died out because of…

2010-2013(ish): …the arrival of Tumblr! I ended up here due to another invitation from @fini-mun, I’m assuming because we’d both left the forum RP and our IMRPing was inconsistent. It’s probably needless to say, but Deebs made a Finitevus character blog and I made a Sally character blog.

The thing is, I actually had a really tough time with Tumblr RP format. I just really didn’t like the serialized nature of the posts because it made it too difficult (in my opinion) to read through things in order, and nevermind the fact that there’s relevant info spread across multiple blogs! It just really wasn’t my cup of tea, but I still wanted to play here with the friends I’d made, so I decided to make my own version of Tumblr RP: I wrote my character blog as though Sally herself was blogging and getting used to using the internet for play instead of work. This turned out to be WILDLY successful, to the point that I even got a lot of fanmail from former Sally-haters telling me I’d softened or even completely changed their view of the character!

Although I don’t update it anymore, the blog itself still exists, and can be found here!

2010-present: This is the current RP with my current partner. Since I was no longer at the forum RP and Deebs had moved away from IMRP, I reached out to my ye olde partner and asked if he would have any interest in RPing a crackship that Deebs and I had been talking about (aka Knuckles x Finitevus). He was intrigued by the idea and we decided to give it a go, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s turned out to be the most stable game of our LIVES. We’ve been IMRPing consistently for the last decade or so, originally on AIM and then eventually moving to Discord when AIM bit the dust. We don’t RP every day like we used to when we were kids, and we take breaks from the main story to do AUs now and then, but for the most part we’re still chugging along and have no intentions of stopping anytime soon!

And even though these RPs are not public performance, apparently I’m writing summary TV shows of them now, so you can view those here at my blog as I intermittently work on them – and while you’re at it, you can support me on Patreon or Ko-Fi because these things take a lot of time and effort and it would really help me pay my bills!

[natural-0-games]

Let The Flames Begin: Tune Tuesday

Alright y’all might have seen that this account’s been starting up for the first time in a while. We’re actually going around and doing stuff, cool. There’s one simple reason for that, and this is me, Lexi, the one behind this whole thing talking: I’ve decided to cut out all the toxic people in my life and extend my vetting for letting new people in. (queue this music because I’m allowed to have musical overlays on my textposts it’s tuesday! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_ohWuaNPWo ) If you’ve been reading my other posts you can probably piece it all together, but in the last 6 months I found myself a decent friend group at college... at least I thought I did. See, originally it was just me and this real chill guy who I won’t say the name of because internet, so I’ll just call him E. E and I met up near the start of the school year because E was just such an approachable person that even I could overcome my big NPC energy to talk to him. We got to talking, and decided it would be cool to start up a club for RPGs at the school, so that players and gamemasters could draw from a pool of people to make sure everyone got the experience they wanted. Then came D (again, not their name because privacy, but also y’know, I can’t resist calling him a D because he’s a d i c k), he was originally pretty chill, but almost immediately he ripped the club idea from my hands and decided all on his own without any input from me or E or anyone else that the club was going to include all tabletop games. Alright not at all what the club was supposed to be about, but okay. So a month rolls by, and D has determined that the club is going to do RPGs at most once a month. You know, the thing we were designed around in the first place, not ‘each campaign once a month’ which I could vaguely see to prevent burnout but nah, nah he means ‘one official club campaign session spread across all campaigns per month’. What. The. Fuck. Then it’s October, and I’ve got this cool idea, reverse trick-or-treating, you know that thing where you go door to door and give people candy? It was gonna be nice, and cool, and I told the whole friend-group about it at the start of October. Other shit happened in October regarding people I look up to and the discontinuation of my absolute favorite show, so there’s that. But the important thing to this post happened on Halloween, that day when they all said they’d join me going around giving people candy, and we’d all have a good time. I’d arranged it for six... six rolls around, no one’s there. I check the group discord, and I’m like ‘hey, where is everybody?’ only response is from E, saying that most people are at dinner and we should probably reschedule to later. I reply that it’s understandable and rearrange for 8. I get a message from B (only time she’s mentioned) saying she’ll be able to show up for sure. No one showed up. Only one person at 10 who came to console me because I kinda exploded in the discord server because I’d been planning this all month and no one fucking showed up. Yeah I cried myself to sleep that night, don’t judge. So now it’s November, and I finally put into action a plan I’d wanted to work on since the start of college: A larp league at the school, only problem is I’m going to have to craft the system from nothing. Alright, I’ve got inspiration from said favorite show ever that was cancelled in october, I’m going to base it around that. I then tell everyone in the friend group and they encourage me, I tell them I’ll be running a christmas event after thanksgiving break, they say that’s awesome. That’s when I realized I’m going to need to make over 1200 abilities because each of the 40 classes needs 33 abilities. I asked them for any suggestions, got a grand total of 0. So I worked my ass off, far more than is healthy, and got... absolutely nowhere because there was no chance in the first place. Right before thanksgiving break I tell them ‘hey, there’s no chance of me finishing the whole system in time, we’ll use a simplified edition i’ll come up with now’ they gave approval. I made a whole mini-system on 3 hours of sleep. I went home for thanksgiving break and caused my whole family extra stress during their move by needing to make swords for this event. So the day of the event rolls around, I’ve got everything set up, I’m out of the field, waiting. The event starts at 11, and that’s when i get there. No one’s there. ‘That’s okay’ I figure, ‘they’re not exactly punctual, they’ll be here in 15-20 minutes’. They are not. At 11:30, E shows up, I ask him where the fuck everyone is. Turns out B is still asleep despite giving me confirmation she’d be here last night, D and the rest of the group are at breakfast and have no intention of showing up despite being 25 seconds away, and E doesn’t see anything wrong with this. I waited until noon, still no one, so I gave up and headed back to my dorm, I’d informed them on the discord that if no one showed up by noon I’d cancel. And I fucking seethed. These people didn’t give a single fuck about me, or my time, or my effort. And after a few hours of calming down, past the tears, past the attempts at breaking things, I got onto the discord server, and I told them, in no indirect terms, that repeatedly encouraging people to devote time and effort to projects for the group, to get them excited for their events, to say that you’ll be there, and then all ghost without a word was absolutely abusive and I didn’t want that in my life. Instead of even a single attempt at an apology, or even a bullshit excuse, they all started yelling at me and kicked me from the server, the club, and the friendgroup. So that’s where I am. I don’t give a single fuck about people who disrespect my time. I don’t give a single fuck about people who think that just because someone has bigger problems than me my problems don’t exist. I don’t give a single fuck about people who bail on plans without a warning or remorse. And I feel so free. So I’m turning all the effort on projects I was making for those toxic assholes inward, I’m making the shit I love, and if you don’t enjoy it, you don’t have to be around me or use my stuff. Sure the first few apprentice games and such will be free, and the proof-of-concept for anything will be free, but if I’ve put in serious effort? If i’ve put in 150 hours already (like on a certain larp system...) and it’s not even a tenth of the way done? You bet your left buttock that I’m not giving that away for free. If I’m going to make something I want to get something out of it. So there’s that. And just because I know I need help here, I do have some open positions: Sabrina needs a pilot, and that’s the fancy lore way of saying I desperately need an artist, because my art is shit and while I have no idea how to make UI-interactive games, I’m going to try my best to learn. Elluwen needs a pilot, and that’s still a fancy way of saying I need playtesters. I’ve been relying on my friend groups too much for this, posting a message about this new game I’ve got that’s nearly done, and waiting 2 weeks to get a single person to even try to play it. Meanwhile I’m playing it repeatedly to try to find bugs and their version is almost completely replaced. and several more... honestly to just put it clearly: I need reliable people in my life, and if that means setting up a patreon for people to see sneak peaks and be playtesters through, wonderful! If I can find an artist willing to be on call for my projects, and of course still pursue their own endeavors, I can’t afford a full-time artist, that’s amazing.

I know what you’re here for, at least on tuesday, you want the shitposts, I’ve still got those, but everything above is far more important.

This week’s themesong: Let The Flames Begin This week’s cryptic meme: Slowly ripping the limbs off an effigy This week’s mood: Focused Anger This week’s character: Lokeeda

[resbang-bookclub]

AMA Transcript: Unrequited

Next up, @infantbluee, @kallie-flower, @nori-wings and @thiefofblood (Souly on Discord) came to answer questions and spread the love for their Resbang, Unrequited! Here’s some of what went down:

Q: How did you guys come up with this idea? I remember you threw a ton of ideas around and settled on this one. Can you take us through the process? >:)

kallieflower: Oh god. We went through SO many different ideas. We wrote like what? 40k for our first idea before we scrapped that?

b l u e: Then like 30k for the next one that we also scrapped.

kallieflower: WE KEPT TRYING TO WRITE SHORT THINGS BUT IT DIDN’T WORK. Soma just does not work as shortfic.

b l u e: Even our final bang ended up being a 40k two-shot lmao.

Q: So what was it about this final idea that made u guys decide, YES, this is it???

kallieflower: The first idea was a Madoka Magica AU that exploded into a mess because magical girl worlds take a loooooottttt of work. The second fic also exploded into something big.

b l u e: We were going to stick with it though. We were. We had it all ready for check-in and everything. But then like two days before, kallie went, "okay so I love our fic idea and all but what about this." Me, on three hours of sleep: "I effing hate you." Then we stumbled through our first 3k and sent it to the mods like the gremlins we are.

kallieflower: We didn’t expect it to get so big either but c’est la vie. Chloe almost killed me like 48293783 times during the process but I think we managed alright.

b l u e: You're lucky I love you so much.

Q: Did you guys start writing straight from the beginning of the fic or did you write a specific scene first?

kallieflower: Actually we didn’t start from the beginning haha! Or well, our idea didn’t start from a plot. We just wanted to write Maka cursed. We wanted to write her with no inhibitions in love, like she might’ve been had she not been so hurt by her parents’ separation. And since there are witches in the SE universe, we had fun with that instead of making it an AU.

Q: Do you write linearly at all or did you jump around a lot?

b l u e: Surprisingly yes. Aside from my dream sequences.

kallieflower: Your dream sequences were our pit stops. We just had to actually do the writing to get there.

b l u e: Hahaha our writing process was.... Unique.

kallieflower: That’s one way to put it lmao.

nori-wings: It was a mess, but we love it.

b l u e: WE are a mess so it's just us in fic form.

kallieflower: God yeah. For one thing, this fic was like 90% chloe with me just making her do crazy things I wanted to happen.

nori-wings: And 5% of what the artists wanted to happen.

b l u e: YEAH hahaha that was kallie too tbh. She was like, "me as a witch would not understand anything about my magic at all and would curse people for kicks, so let's do that."

kallieflower: We would have a general plot of how we wanted to go and what points we wanted to hit. Chloe would start to write it, but then I would be like “WAIT WHAT ABOUT THIS.” And then she would pretend she thought I was a total nuisance but we all know she’s too soft and sweet to ever say no to anything. Also our artists were such a LOVELY help too.

b l u e: We wanted as much of their input as possible and we wanted to make this as much of a collab as we could. The train scene at the beginning of the third chapter was all nori because she was mad at us for only torturing Soul and wanted Maka to cry too.

Q: Nori/Souly did you have a favorite piece of art to make?

the monkey chain (soul): The skating scene was my fave. I also accidentally changed the part in the fic with the skating since I didn't ask what kind of skates they were supposed to be kfljgdf.

b l u e: LMAO it's our fault though!!!! We were Too Slow.

nori-wings: Black*Star dragging Soul and Maka is my favorite, it was super fun to draw.

b l u e: When you sent the first wip of that, I think I cried for days. It was better than my dreams. You were both so fast GOD, it takes me seventeen years just to sketch a pic.

kallieflower: For real tho. We don’t deserve artists.

nori-wings: They are exaggerating, it was a quick sketch that I made on a post it lol. It took me a week to draw it in digital.

the monkey chain (soul): I had free time since we moved and were without internet for a night so I had a ton of time to finish my pic.

Q: Did you have trouble meeting the deadline?

kallieflower: Trouble is putting it lightly lmao. We died. Many times.

b l u e: I don't trust fast writers. Clearly they are superhuman. It wouldn't have been hard if we didn't spend so much time drowning in memes and shitposts that we neglected to write.

kallieflower: I blame the internet.

Q: Were there any scenes that you guys really struggled with writing?

b l u e: The beginning, definitely. Everything else flowed out pretty quickly, but the beginning made us want to cry into our pillows and smash our keyboards.

kallieflower: I think there was a period of time where Chloe was like, “I will physically pay you money to write this scene so I don’t have to.” But yeah, the beginning scenes were definitely hardest to write. I think we rewrote them like a million times.

Q: Nori and Souly, was there a part of your art that was trickier to do?

nori-wings: I think painting Soul and Maka's kiss, because I wanted to use as few colors as possible and I played a lot with shading, or at least I tried haha.

the monkey chain (soul): Uhhhh not really for me? My pieces were relatively simple and probably the most issue I had was drawing Maka's skates and figuring out what Soul would be wearing.

b l u e: I cried when we got paired with souly.

kallieflower: Chloe literally fangirled to hell over getting souly as our second artist. And we were very lucky to get nori as our artist too because we already became really close friends through the zine and talked all the time. Our resbang just gave us an excuse to move all our blabber to a personal server lmao.

nori-wings: Yeah, they asked me to be something like a beta but I ended up being their artist.

kallieflower: We joked about it beforehand too and were SO happy it happened. We were so blessed with support and love this year. We never would’ve finished without the help of our artists and betas.

nori-wings: They are making it sound nice, but we wouldn't let them drop out.

kallieflower: LMFAOOOOOO. Nori likes to be sassy but she’s one of the softest of us all

b l u e: We legitimately would've dropped out if not for our artists.

kallieflower: “Do it for our artists” was our mantra through the whole process when we wanted to quit. Peer pressure makes diamonds, maybe.

b l u e: I mean, it didn't feel like that when we were bullshitting our way through our next 5k before each deadline, but it be like that sometimes.

Q: What was your favourite scene to write?

b l u e: My favorite to write was definitely the nightmare demon scene.

kallieflower: Because she’s a sadist and likes angst. Chloe likes to make people feel pain so her favorite scenes were definitely the angsty ones.

b l u e: FDSJFKDSF

Q: For errbody: what do you feel like you improved/grew in this resbang, writing and arting-wise??

kallieflower: For me, I definitely grew in writing skills even though I didn’t end up writing much of this bang (chloe, bless your soul for carrying me this year lmao) because chloe is SO GOOD at writing that it made me want to be better, learn better, do better.

b l u e: Kallie made me work harder than I ever have my entire life and it paid off SO MUCH. I very much only ever write ventfics.

the monkey chain (soul): I feel like I Peaked with Maka's outfit in the skating picture, like I don't pride myself in outfit design much these days but Maka's outfit came out so good. I didn't expect it.

Q: Were there any parts of Unrequited that really pushed you out of your comfort zone?

b l u e: Writing with someone else was such an experience.

kallieflower: We definitely had to compromise a lot in terms of writing. Like I wanted Soul to walk in on Kid touching Maka’s scar and Chloe immediately said “fine, but only if we make Kid a gardener” and if that isn’t a super fair trade off, idk what is. Chloe and I work so well together so that was easy. And we like a lot of the same things.

b l u e: There was a little adjustment [with adapting to different writing styles] but not much, because despite what kallie says, she's actually so freaking smart and talented it actually makes my eyes water.

Q: If you had the time to do something differently, what would you do and why?

b l u e: Everything. Jk no but really. There's just a lot I wish we could've elaborated on. And more suffering to be had of course. I just wish we had more time to elaborate on Spirit and Maka's mom.

kallieflower: Oh god yeah. Maka did not get enough of a backstory in the manga or anime and that makes me sad always.

Q: What made you both decide on the outcome of the curse? Did the witch know how it was going to affect Kid?

b l u e: We actually knew the outcome from the very beginning when we decided what kind of curse it was.

Q: Okay SO one last question for the crew. What is next!!!! >:)

nori-wings: Next collab is me writing and Chloe as my artist. (She just doesn't know it.)

b l u e: FDHDJFKSDDSF

kallieflower: OMG PLS HAHAHA. I’d be all over that collab. Chloe is working on a soma longfic she won’t let me beta because she’s Secretive. And I am trying to work up the energy to use my keyboard again after the hell that was finishing Resbang.

Thanks to the crew for stopping by! Stay tuned for more transcripts!

[cerastes]

Regarding this mess.

I didn’t understand the gravity of the situation, so I apologize for treating the whole issue nonchalantly and treating the anger of people in a “aw you are bitching again, aren’t you?” dismissive manner. I didn’t have a fight or an argument about this, it’s not why I’m making this post. In fact, people very reasonably approached me and explained, hey, Drimo, there’s actually very valid reasons for the outrage, reasons I did not consider myself, starting from artists whose very livelihood depend on this to sex workers who benefit from just how anonymous one can be in this website, practically the only platform of a high level of exposure that doesn’t constantly bombard you with prompts on linking the account to your real life, so alongside this apology, I also extend my gratitude to those of you who explained that, yeah, this is a very justified outrage. It’s a good reminder that one is not above all and one doesn’t know all of the possible angles to something at any given time.

Following that, I want to talk about the past and the future. I’ve said this before, but one possible last time can’t hurt: This website helped me immensely when I needed it the most. It gave me new hobbies, new interests, new friends, and an unending wealth of fun. Six years that I truly am glad happened. It goes beyond just a sappy “thank you” when I say that this website, and the experience within, helped me, it all helped me get over my suicidal depression, it helped me considerably mature as a person, it helped me see the value of contact. I was ready to hole myself up as a hermit after some bad experiences both on the net and IRL after 2011, the harshest year of my life, and ended up joining this website and joining a community accidentally (this is a story all of its own) which directly led to my current group of friends here, affectionately dubbed “Hopeboyz” or “Hopesquad”. It is no exaggeration when I say I hold a lot of dear memories tightly tucked in this website, and I think it’s no time for aloof bravado, so I’ll just go ahead and say it’s sad to see it go like this. The damage is done, and while I hope for the best, I am also prepared for the worst. To my main hub on the net for a very important stretch of time of my life: Thank you for everything, even with the bad mingled in all the overwhelming good, I am happy for my time here.

In a future post, I’ll announce when I am ready to give out my Twitter and Discord for those who want it. I already have a Twitter, but the thing is, I want to nuke it and start it anew due to some very important inconveniences associated with its current state (namely, my sister and a person from my university somehow found it, likely because I used my mail for it; I don’t want my sister or this person to have a look at my internet life). As for Discord, that’s all fine, but I’d rather hand out both things in one package when that’s ready. With Discord, I’ll also limit it to fewer people, like friends and mutuals, because as I have made painfully clear by now, I don’t truly enjoy chat clients and chatting.

However, what I enjoy less is the idea that I might just lose contact with a lot of you permanently in a worse case scenario. I’m a hermit, but I’m not heartless, and I have it in me to admit when I’d prefer not to let go of some people. It’s a big decision I’m not entirely done making, but it’s one I think is important to make. End of the day, I can’t say I learned anything from my time here if I just hole up again and vanish altogether after all is said and done. For these reasons, I have decided on Twitter and Discord. Perhaps some new website, like Pillowfort, will end up being where we see each other again, but until such uncertainties become certain, I err on playing the safe game.

Lastly, I want to thank you all for the great times and great friendships you’ve given me. I know I’m a hermit and, to some degree, eccentric, which I am not using in an endearing way, but you put up with all my weirder aspects, and it is very much appreciated. This goes double to those that have been around for the long haul: Again, I believe this isn’t the time for aloof bravado, so I’ll say that you made this hermit happy to break his modus operandi. During my second year here, I recall thinking, in response to dramatic “I’M LEAVING TUMBLR!” posts that mostly wanted to fish for sympathy, “man, if I ever leave tumblr, I’ll just do it quietly and for good, none of this 3 days of absence before reopening another blog bullshit”. This is certainly a different context, it’s less leaving and more the shop closing up, but as you can see from the making of this post, I’ve changed my mind about that, haha. I’m very conservative with my compliments, I know this, and it’s because I dislike the idea of them cheapening through unworthy and irresponsible distribution, but I’ve also learned that there’s not need to keep them tightly closed as family heirlooms, either, so, again, as this paragraph started: Thank you all for the great times and great friendships.

That’s all.

[shidiand]

How do you imagine Tenco's Story ending in your head?

that is a GREAT but UNEXPECTED QUESTION freshlybaked "spider" bread and i'm really happy to have the opportunity to try and answer this ageless question that has burned within all of us in the tenco's story iv waiting room community since 2013. it is an incredible coincidence (or is it? 👀) that i was just talking to Risa about tenco's this (edit: yesterday) morning so i am extra double super in the mood to talk about Tenco's Story today. so excellent of a coincidence is this that i am tempted to refer you to them in case you wanted to hear their thoughts on the matter that would probably turn out super cool, but that is neither here nor there; let us talk Tenco's Story.

i of course must mention my unadvertised and modestly detailed commentary on tenco's i-iii at https://shidiand.tumblr.com/tencos, presenting slightly interesting facts in an unwieldy and difficult-to-use format, but as it dates back to june 2017, i want to take some time to understand my feelings about the series once more.

tenco's story is a series that has a lot of meaning to me.

i took on my current name of shidiand in november of 2013. i was still in 11th grade at the time, 4th year of high school, and a very socially isolated person. i should say i was introduced to touhou in 7th grade, 2010, so i was still working through a 3 years-strong phase of trying to simultaneously both find an outlet for and bottle up an endless wellspring of awkward weeaboo-gamer nerd energy at the time.

i had my first real foray onto the internet in 2010, tried out twitter, followed some RPers and other people who had Cool Touhou Usernames. didn't really go anywhere. i had maybe 50 followers, i dont really know the count but it was definitely a) double digits and b) pretty low. didn't know what to tweet about. didn't know how to hit it off with others. i think there was basically maybe only 3 other people i ever properly interacted with. oh shit i was playing league of legends at the time. oh my god. i really did play league of .. oh my god. let's move on.

aw shit im super digressing amn't i. well.

this is just how it goes when i write essays on tumblr.com.

i'm afraid you're just along for the ride at this point so please do your best to enjoy it.

i got kind of tired of twitter at the time because i didnt know what to do with it. didnt know how to interact with people and didnt find the people i was following interesting, so i ghosted on out of there by the end of 2012. didnt deactivate it until like 2015 but at that point that was just burning away my dark history. anyways. november 2013.

--im taking a lot of time here trawling through old files on my computer, my tumblr blog, notification emails still lying around in my gmail inbox from twitter, the dropbox i didn't actually use but it had several tenco's story pictures on it but i deleted them so this was useless, ... to trace the timeline of this story and im really seeing a lot of remnants of dark history here you know? did you know i wrote a letter to a girl i had a crush on valentine's day 2014, slipped it into her locker, and anxiously hung around nearby at lunchtime to see how she reacted at lunchtime? i certainly didn't, or at least i made darn ass sure to forget about this incredible virgin incident and not remember it, ever, until i came across the records of it that i thoughtfully preserved for the me of 5 years later today. ok well now i have to read the letter to see if it was as bad as it just sounded there brb

ok so the good news is that it was actually very focused on being positive and full of admiration for the cool things she did instead of being a confession letter so i am very glad i was able to be a respectful chad 5 years ago, but the bad news is that the jokes, the actual sentences i put together. oh my god. but i mean. well. at least i got the spirit. its certainly a step up from this other person in my grade, WEEABOO ANDREW, YOU MAY RECALL THIS STORY AND HIS NAME FROM PREVIOUS STORYTIMES, THE MAN THE MYTH THE LEGEND who came to school on halloween once cosplaying kirito from sword art online and got very possessive about people asking if they could hold his black replica plastic sword, and probably worse, dropped a "will you be my girlfriend" letter into the locker of my homie and fellow trombonist samantha, who was a little bit nerdy, hung out with the anime-likers who were actually sociable and fun to be around so you can imagine why weeaboo andrew was into her, which had i) a direct quotation from SAO chapter 16.5 (origin of the famous "glopping noise" line), and ii) a condom. jesus christ. i dont want to talk about this any more. next topic.

i also put this drawing of iku nagae and her skarmory (actually an albinoss from 18 DRAGONS) on the other side of the letter because it was the coolest thing i could think of drawing at the time. and i completely agree with 2014 me because it IS super fucking cool. hell fuckin yeah

https://shidiand.tumblr.com/post/76301993387/iku-nagae-ft-that-thing-that-supposedly-is-a

alright that was a fun little trip down memory lane but lets get back on track. november 2013. i started anew as shidiand. still awkward, still learning how to express myself and looking for my place among others. i followed some touhou bloggers, hung around r/touhou a lot as well. in december i got my first tablet for christmas, a wacom bamboo splash. i still use this thing! the usb cable disconnects if you bump it so i have to find just the perfect position to sit in whenever i want to draw, but its served me well. anyways. i was just starting to play around with digital art but i remember, probably just before new years, for some reason i wanted to find out more about tenshi hinanawi (i don't remember why. tenshi wasn't even one of my favourite characters at the time) so i went googling and right there on zerochan i found this:

https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=23525572

this was during my dark souls phase so i just went BANANAS at the sight of this. this was literally the coolest image i had ever seen in my internet life. That image alone made me want to draw in hopes that I could make something as cool as that someday.

it wasn't immediately after but i soon discovered tenco's story, and it was love. kannnu was my very first artistic inspiration, and for a long time, my only one. i absolutely idolized them at the time. since then, ive found other artists to look up to, in a more healthy manner, but to this day i still look up to kannnu, still admire their work a lot.

i played around with drawing, followed the lives of people on tumblr, started reading touhou fanfiction, made a new twitter. i met a lot of new people along the way. some people i havent stuck with, some i cut ties with, and some people i still keep in contact with today. over those long 5 years of being shidiand, i found a name (i used to use shidian and then shid, but someone called me shidi once and i realized that was a lot better), how to reach out to others, how to express myself, places that i could feel included in. this is why i owe a blood debt to evelyn, who permitted me to kneel at her throne and was like "yea ok you can join my discord server u seem cool". evelyn, if you were confused by me ominously mentioning this blood debt/blood oath in a tumblr reply 1-2 years ago, this is the context. those 5 years were like a coming of age of sorts, that i never had when i was in high school.

and my love for tenco's story, that inspired me to draw that day, has been with me since almost the very beginning of my time as shidiand. from the beginning, i have always encouraged people to READ TENCO'S STORY, like the kin of those who cry PLAY MELTY or WATCH SYMPHOGEAR. i think my very first sidebar description was something akin to a prayer, written in very choral language, hoping for the day tenco's story iv was completed, ..., "meanwhile, furious shitposting". kannnu's work, finding delight in whatever they chose to draw, has been at my side, all along. my true mentor, my guiding moonlight...

so that's why i still to this day love tenco's story so much.

let's talk about tenco's story.

tenco's story is a story told through single pictures. the plot is vague, and details are sparse. dialogue is rare. we only know what has happened; we seldom know why. furthermore, there are many gaps between scenes that the reader is left to fill in for themselves; we see only snapshots that form an hazy outline of the events that occurred, and must imagine the rest. motivations and explanations fail me. but even with a barebones plot, tenco's story has themes, and if nothing else, those have to be carried through.

the main theme, of course, is journey and travel, but there are also other ideas, too. i actually think they start to change as the series goes on:

book i, where tenshi runs away from home, is about striking out on your own. it's a very fun and unpredictable journey, together with a friend.

book ii, where tenshi and iku are separated, forces tenshi to find and rely on companions of her own even more. but they do so, and they are able overcome hardships, and there is food and festival.

book iii marks a climax, reasserting tenshi's goal of finding the sword of hisou. i feel like the journey shifts from a travel (visiting) to a path forwards (making your way through). perhaps this is just something i get from knowing the locations from dark souls (Anor Londo, New Londo Ruins, the Great Hollow), but the locations start to give more of a sense of verticality, like they're emphasizing tenshi's climb to the summit. the hardships and enemies are the greatest they've been yet, and right when they near the top, tenshi and iku start to bleed. the book ends on an uncertain note.

if i had to describe the type of journey and travel that tenshi and iku undertake, there's this sense of wonder at discovering new places, wandering from vista to vista in delight, but also a sense of conquering, making it through a difficult patch. the sequence from pages 2-44 to 2-51, taken together, convey this sense of overcoming the best. it's one of my favourite parts. again, although the tone definitely starts to lean towards struggle in book iii, i think tenco's sense of wonder really is the heart of the series. there's no map of the world, no predicting where tenshi and iku will end up next. and through their travels, though they come across many enemies, they also find friends -- places of refuge, places full of life, people who will look after them for a few days, companions who will stay with them for the rest of the journey. at the end of book iii, we see a long haired tenshi with purple hair being impaled by the sword of hisou (3-33, see also this extra illustration that risa pointed out to me http://sinnnkai.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-195.html), and regular short haired tenshi continuing on her journey (3-42). if we ignore the out-of-story images where tenshi has the sword of hisou, tenshi has actually only ever used her sunlight blade (2-24, 3-26, etc), so i think that the long haired tenshi on 3-33 is a different person altogether. (if i had to guess, she might be the purple haired woman in the top left of https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=35443328 as we have never seen that woman appear anywhere.) she probably has something to do with the flashbacks at the end of book ii and she might somehow be short-haired tenshi at the same time, but this is just speculation.

however, in 3-43, tenshi's hair is rather blue, so i don't know if this is the purple haired woman or not. if it is, tenshi is probably still fine and closing in on the summit, but if it isn't, then it's very worrying to see a picture of tenshi without any of her companions. it's very ominous.

meanwhile, iku, while climbing the red carpeted corridor, is stabbed, and disappears for a few pages. there's a black page, a shot of a shrine that strongly resembles the hakurei shrine, and a picture of iku standing behind someone in a tux, with the line "In the past, I was saved by the lady I was serving, you see?". and then iku wakes up in a field of flowers.

i think what this scene makes clear is a theme that has continued to appear and reappear throughout every book of "being saved, being aided by someone's kindness".

i think another theme that is implied and has to be addressed by this story of running away from home is "return". something im imagining is that the reason tenshi makes finding the sword of hisou her goal is because she wants to have something to prove herself with, to vindicate her when she comes home. but i don't think she needs to prove anything, and i ultimately think that she would be happier spending the rest of her life exploring.

so i think this should be what happens in the ending.

open on iku's journey, and give her a long sequence of travel without seeing tenshi. underline her newfound resolve. she climbs to the summit with albinoss, and finds the rest of tenshi's companions fallen. and in the last room is sword of hisou tenshi, who has lost herself, and it comes down to iku to bring her back. after a difficult battle, when both of them are on their last legs, iku is unable to stand any longer. but at this moment tenshi sees her companions struggling to get back up and reach her, and that's what brings her to her senses. and iku gets to see how many friends tenshi's been able to make on her own, and they finally and properly reunite. together, tenshi and iku carry each other out of the last room.

i don't think it's necessary to return to heaven. as a conclusion, dedicate some time to tenshi and iku travelling together. they're on their way back, revisiting old friends who helped them along the way, enjoying the journey. their last stop is the house of the elderly nawis (1-42). tenshi shows off the sword of hisou; she decided to keep it not as a trophy to show her family but as proof of the bonds of her companions. surrounded by friends, tenshi and iku decide to part ways with each other, knowing that the other will be alright. iku drifts among the clouds once more, and tenshi sets off for the horizon.

that's the plot that i'd write/just wrote. i don't really expect tenco's story iv to ever come out, though. i mentioned my first sidebar description earlier in this essay, but of course, you can see that it's been changed. 2 years ago, i read my hopeful prayer once more and was struck with a terrible melancholy, so now it reads this: "having come to terms with the fact that tenco's story iv will never be released, i can still live, knowing that the spirit of the journey will live on through kannnu's original works [...] meanwhile, furious shitposting".

on one level, tenco's story is a story, but in the process of following it, i came to think of the work itself as a journey too. you can constantly see kannnu's improvement between and even within each book. they have always drawn whatever they liked; what plot matters in the face of "I wanted to draw a beautiful sky." "I wanted to draw a fantastic battle." "I wanted to draw Dark Souls and Monster Hunter and Pokemon and Brave Fencer Musashi and Bokura no Taiyou and Touhou."

its not really kannnu's style to go back and tie up old ends. they just draw whatever makes them happy. so as i watch them continue to draw beautiful places and fantastic creatures, new characters heading out on journeys of their own or just enjoying their everyday lives, it's as if tenco's story never ended. the limits and consistency of that world ignored, and a new one springs up; in a way, the world of tenco's, which had such thin boundaries, just gets bigger.

but even so, having said all that, i still see them draw that short-haired tenshi from time to time. it makes me happy to see them remember tenco's story with such fondness. often crossing over with orion or roar or elweiss, you can see tenshi on another journey.

[cosmosogler]

hi guys. i decided to stop and read for a while. i finished my drawing goal for the day, but i won’t have the scene ready for tomorrow evening. 

i’m about out of posts for the comic.

maybe i’ll try to finish one more panel before bed... i dunno.

umm anyway i got up this morning kinda late, like 9:30, even though i was awake for a long time beforehand. i was doing something on the computer... i don’t remember what it was. my tumblr activity feed is broken again which is really aggravating, since i can’t see if people liked my comic posts recently unless i check the actual posts. makes it feel more quiet. that’s what i need right now. definitely. silence. a flat “0 notes” line.

i considered putting my halloween story into the writing club’s google drive to see if i could get feedback on it, but raul basically said that the only person who leaves comments on others’ work is me.

i tried talking to one of my acquaintances about his story when he said something about it in a discord channel. he was cagey about it, which is fine of course. he left without asking about my project or progress or anything. i got up and brushed my teeth. i realized it was 11 already so i made an early lunch.

lunch made me super ill and exhausted so i went back to bed for an hour. i putted around on the internet for an hour watching a video while refreshing my tumblr and deviantart pages. nothing came up to comment on. i felt bored and irritated so i started doing homework just to have something to, like, interact with and pass the time. i got caught up on my class notes, which is a relief. i would have done some grading but i saw my comic scene sitting on my desk and realized i couldn’t neglect it for yet another day. i made an oven dinner and watched another video in the meantime and ate miserably trying to get my thoughts in order, and then wrote that other post and then got to work. mbmbam cheered me up a little bit. i finished four panels. six and a half left. i could finish that loose half a panel if i gave it another 10 minutes... 

eventually i started feeling bland and gunky so i put the sketchbook to the side and read a fanfiction for a while. but it feels like... i’m reading it to complete it, you know? like i just want it off my bookmarks bar / to-do checklist. normally i’d be all over the fandom and topic but it’s hard to feel engaged right now. it was like that with my drawing, too. i’m really happy with the paper quality and the way the panels are coming out- something about the pencil work just looks really, really good in a way my other, ancient sketchbook hadn’t been able to hold. i wish i could feel happier about that. or, more consistently happy? i wish the happiness would last longer than the exact amount of time i’m looking at the page? yeah, that.

and the scene itself is even not upsetting, for once. i’m happy while i’m drawing it, but i dunno. something seems to wear off after the first 30 minutes and it’s hard to stick with it. it’s not really artist’s block... i know exactly what i want to be drawing and how to do it. it’s just that i can’t enjoy anything right now and it all feels mushy and gray. 

(kind of like the actual art of the comic, dohohoho)

i did feel less lonely though, getting to work and listening to a podcast and putting together all the trappings of productivity. reading distracted me for a while, even if feeling like this was also distracting me from the reading. 

tomorrow i’ve got an extra em lecture to attend, as review before the midterm. i’m not gonna skip it, but i am just... exhausted. i gotta finish an entire assignment for my other class before wednesday, and the midterm is also on wednesday, and... gaahhhhhhd. i’ve got three missing em assignments, and each of those takes like 6-8 hours. (i’ve got sooz’s help, so it will take less, but the learning still has to get done...) grading has to happen somewhere in there, and finishing the scene, and trying to move this entire comic delay trainwreck back on schedule with my bare hands. 

i don’t even want to talk to anyone anymore at this point. harrison is actively exhausting, i just haven’t really felt a connection with tia or harith or any of the new students... everyone else seems just too hard to reach out to. it’s hard to want to talk to closer friends because i get so caught up in “is this conversation balanced? did i ask about their day? i need to catch up with them first. oh they have something to talk about. it’s way easier to listen to their story about their trip and look at pictures. oh now the conversation’s over i guess.” (or whatever. i’m not talking about anyone specific. i’m not mad or upset or anything. i’m just so tired.)

i’m choking up 200 dollars at my therapist appointment on tuesday, to cover my deductible... at least i’ve got my budget fairly balanced now. i gotta get snoopy to the vet in two weeks which will put a hole in my pocket. and i also need to start actively complaining to my mother’s insurance company about the reimbursement they never gave me despite the doctor’s office filing the paperwork for me. that’ll cover snoopy’s bills. 

everyone at the office seems to think i’m, like, super nice or work hard or whatever. i’m so tired all the time. i did, at least, today, keep my screaming entirely internal. i think the most noise i accidentally made was a strangled groan when i had to get up after sitting in the comfortable chair to too long transcribing class notes. 

but! sitting curled up in the chair like that hurts an entirely different part of my back than sitting at the desk, so it gives my shoulders a chance to rest. 

what i mean is, i didn’t go off at anyone. i got kind of curt with harrison and i said something unnecessarily gloomy to asher but i kept it... restrained, more than usual. i think. just wait for it to go away. no one can help anyway. no one would help. no one would know to help, that i need help, or how to help.

i’m so tired! i’m too tired to do all my stretches every single day! i’m too tired to reframe every bad thought as it comes up! i’m too tired to challenge every single bit of the endless tsunami of negative self talk all day every day! i’m too tired to do the dishes after every meal! or even every day! i’m too tired to go to bed on time every single night and do the breathing exercises and try to force myself asleep. i’m too tired to get up and comfort myself after the scalding nightmares until i can sleep again. 

i’m too tired to do any of the things that would make me have enough energy to do them. and i’m too injured to go for a bike ride and enjoy the cold front that blew through town and lowered the temperature by like 15 degrees. the best i can do is keep my window open and try to ignore the downtown noises. 

maybe i could go stand in the public pool. if i can get myself up early enough. that cheers me up a little bit, sometimes, not always. 

i wish i had someone with me to do those things. but i don’t. and no one’s gonna do them but me. so i gotta also devote energy to being my own cheerleader while i don’t even have the energy to not be my own worst enemy. 

“nothing better to do.” that’s all the motivation i’ve ever had. sometimes it’s enough. but not always. sometimes i’m too tired. gotta lay on the floor and make whiny noises and stare off into space for five hours.

then i gotta pick myself up and get moving again. no one’s gonna pick me up. can’t lay there forever. i don’t like laying there doing nothing.