#anyways thanks to my askers for giving me my top posts :)

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

In case your ask box is still open for sex questions (CN: mention of CSA)

Do you have any advice on how to reconceptualize yourself as a subject of desire? I was very much raised to consider myself mainly an object of other people’s (straight men’s) desire and this was violently inscribed into me as a child and teenager.

Now I’ve transitioned and I’m being read as male (I guess most people read me as a cis gay guy?) so this object-of-desire messaging has largely stopped. I find this pretty disorienting, both because of the loss of “positive” feedback and because I literally do not know how to be anything BUT an object of desire.

I’m looking for ways to learn what I want, develop intentions and follow through on them but I find this so difficult. Even just communicating about my desire with anyone fills me with existential dread and anxiety. I used to have this self-image of being a slut but after a lot of therapy work I’ve just sort of stopped having sex and I’m a little lost with this.

I wanna do (more) therapy about this but I’d be interested to hear your opinion if you have one!

Thank you so much both for taking the time to read this and for all you’ve shared so far! It has been really helpful and interesting for me!

Oooh great ask! (And my ask box is always open for anything always. If I'm not willing to respond to what I'm sent, I simply won't, or will post a brief "hey this asker, sorry I'm not the right person!" Or whatever lol)

Anyway lets talk about this because I was literally just talking to a partner about this yesterday:

Hmmm. Possibly a disorganized/incoherent thought pattern, but I think as follows: I am accustomed to offering my pleasure and pain to the desires of others and finding pleasure in the giving of power over me. I am left a bit unmoored how to offer service to someone who does not seem to want the power to instruct me in what I am to give, even if other aspects are desireable to you. It will be interesting to learn what it can look like to offer my own desires as service to another I think.

So every time my service top and I fuck, it starts the same way.

Top sits down in the cozy chair and I lay in bed and snuggle up into the blankets. We chitchat until one or both of us brings up an activity we'd like to do. If I bring up an activity, I tend to bring it up based on current interests or recent fantasies. My service top tends to exclusively bring up fantasies I have shared with them in the past.

This is difficult because I am *fucking petrified* of sharing my fantasies with people I fuck. I Do Not Want To Do That.

I understand how silly that sounds given all my tomfoolery recently, but the thing is: what I *want* is kind of fucking dark. Not like. Content wise (okay so sometimes cnc can get content dark too sure fine fuck) but emotionally. I am SUPER aware that the vast majority of my sexual desires are tied, in some way, into the way I blur love and abuse. I was actually talking about this at staff meeting yesterday too, naming for people the cognitive dissonance of needing to defend and normalize something in order to survive while also needing to eliminate it from your life entirely, and the wild swings of instability that can come as you flip between these.

Nothing is more pleasurable to me than pain. Nothing is more erotic than someone choosing to inflict extreme sensations until I sort of....reboot. When Wifey and I first got together, she had to sit me down and explain that while she was happy to play in the fetish with me, she NEEDED me to be able to differentiate between "fetish" and "self-harm using another human being as the harm". This is.....not really something I've mastered.

Cpnversations like this have been really important for me. In the moment that someone demonstrates the capacity to harm(not just hurt, HARM) me, I get intensely turned on. What does this mean psychologically? No fucking clue.

But over the years a few different partners have had some version of this conversation with me "I will happily do what brings you pleasure, but I will not allow you to use me to damage yourself."

It's a hard conversation I'm not gonna lie, but that's because it's important. And it gets to the conversation of object/subject of desire.

See, I have learned that my relationship to self-harming sexual practices was rooted in the inability to believe that I was loved unless I was in pain. Physical pain was genuinely pleasurable, but emotional pain wasn't, and I was utterly unable to tell the difference. The emotional pain caused by partners who were willing to harm me was slotted into the same box in my brain as the physical pain caused by partners who felt violated by realizing they had caused me harm. But it shouldn't have been.

Some people left me. I left others. Little by little I realized as partners came and went that I felt much worse around certain partners and sought sex and pain to stabilize, vs feeling much BETTER around other partners and seeking sex and pain to experience each other intimately.

Now my partners tell me no when I ask for something that they feel concerned about me not being thoughtful of myself in asking. My partners ask me to want things without first giving me parameters in which it is acceptable to want and sometimes I tell them a desire and it is fulfilled and ither times I tell them a desire and it is denied, and ALWAYS WITHOUT FAIL that is done with love.

My service top sits and waits for me to say how I want to be cared for, and if they realize I am unable to, they offer me a safe, pre-negotiated alternative to making a decision. This is power as a gift, not as theft. They take nothing that is not freely given, ever, even when they pin me down and fuck me.

I don't know when all this started turning into a genuine ability to discuss my desires with myself (let alone my partners) but the safety of no (not just mine, but MY PARTNER'S) has been so fucking mission critical to that shift.

So lets name some resonances here:

Self concept as slut despite cyclical episodes of sexual abstinenance and a genuine inability to measure up objectively to many of my best slutty slutty friends and role models

History of subjugation of self and denial of right to your own no

The message that if your partner gives you a no that means something is wrong, rather than embracing and reveling in your mutual right to an un-interrogated no

Difficulty conceptualizing oneself as autonomous in desire rather than an object to have desire enacted upon

Terror of communicating any successfully conceptualized desire secondary to either mistrust of others' ability to genuinely care for us and/or fear of real and perceived abandonment/rejection

Lets name the solutions my partners found:

Establish boundaries with me that both expect and REQUIRE me to be capable of identifying and expressing boundaries of my own

Collaboratively build a process of repair following a no that acknowledges both the distress of the rejection and the need for a boundary to not be crossed or pressured

Practice wanting - this is obvi gonna be different for everyone, but my partners have established a lot of different ways they ask me to practice wanting a thing and expressing the want to them in a low stakes environment

Recognizing that "wanting" and "continuing to want" are not inherent bedfellows, and often I will need to back out of a thing I wanted

Learning how to reconnect with my body - we really haven't talked about this one yet, but my relationship with embodiment is......bad. i have had suicidal levels of dysphoria since I was nine years old for a number of reasons, some related to gender, others to chronic health conditions, others secondary to physical abuse, and still others secondary to the coercive/traumatizing medical practices inflicted on my throughout childhood. I am largely incapable of remaining present in my body for more than about 30min at a time and this level of grounding has taken LITERAL DECADES to manage. Sex has gone from a way I further inflict this harm on myself to a way I learn to love and safely experience my body. The more memories I build of safe/secure pleasure, satisfaction, comfort, coexistence, etc, the more it feeds into and nourishes my trauma recovery. After all, how can I know how to want anything if I can't even feel its effect on me? Whether or not I enjoyed the experiment? My partners have each found their own way, through a careful balance of pain, communication, pleasure, withdrawal, etc., to keep me anchored in my body with them enough for it to ACTUALLY BE SAFE to fuck me or play with me. Friend, for 17years I thought I couldn't have an independent orgasm. In the last 2 years since a few major milestones of embodied restoration, I have managed a half dozen on my own, and am now near guaranteed orgasm with a partner. While I still ENJOY an overstimulation/lack of control induced orgasm, it has ceased to be my only option for pleasure, and I can't tell you how much that changes things

This got super long and my brain went all over so I hope I haven't gotten too confusing or off track here but I think the TLDR is probably this:

TLDR: for those of us whose subjugation was multi-layered and/or all-encompassing, we may simply never be done processing the ways in which we learned to subjugate ourselves in a desperate and subconscious attempt to survive. This sounds terrifying when you first encounter the idea. If you can persist long enough, it will begin to taste like freedom. Just because the panopticon lives inside us doesn't mean we have to help it continue to abuse us once our jailers have gone from our world. The fear is old and comes from a time when someone could and would harm you and you lacked any recourse. That time is dead, but you are not. For years you made yourself into the image of a survivor. Now you must learn how to make yourself in the image of someone who is truly living. You have never known any terror so strong as freedom in your whole life. You will never know a greater joy than abandoning that terror in the dust bin of your history. I love you. What happened should never have happened. It is part of you, and every day you persist that part becomes less meaningful as it is subsumed by the experiences of loving and being loved with abandon. You have survived. You will do so much more. I love you, but it doesn't matter. I love you and it's the most important thing in the world. I love you and I will never need to know you to justify that. I will still love you when I know you. I don't matter because this only ever deserves to be about you. You are alive. You are a glorious accident the world will never see again. You could not possibly be forgotten.

We will all be forgotten.

To be forgotten is to have been loved deeply enough to grow away from and to have changed enough to become something new.

If the void calls eternal, than why not revel in the Noise And Joy of Living before it comes for us

[carpedzem]

questionnaire results that i didnt forget about at all

im okay so i forgot and then forgot again a few times. ANYWAY. enjoy the results!!

i cant post every written answer, so heres my favourite :)

whats your favourite animal, be as specific as possible

Peregrine Falcon

domestic cat! specifically MY cats but any cat will do

your mom

Black bear. One tried to walk into my house recently and he was really cute but I had to tell him no :( (ARE YOU OK?)

Dumbo octopus

fancy rats

honestly i’ve always been too scared to settle on one animal as a favorite, because it feels like a question with no satisfying answer. like if i had to be honest it’s probably dogs? because i’ve grown up around them, they’re an animal i like beyond just aesthetic purposes. but when you hear this sort of question, you wonder if the asker wants to hear about something exotic, some random interest that caught the interviewees eye at a young age and never left their conscious. anyways i think it’s probably house cats

rainbow trout, luzon-bleeding hearts, and horses.. dogs too

emperor penguin

any type of liddol snake. I love them so

sea sheep

Long eared Jerboa

(most people chose cat)

george (42,5%)

second place with also a lot of votes (37%)

sapnap (45,7%)

dream (44,1%)

this is my favourite question and i cant believe i misspelled it

you can put two of your mutuals against each other in a fight. who do you chose

i can’t answer this they all hate one another it’s too real. bellaya (bellaya was the most popular answer)

Lost and Kiuda. There can only be one (one of what)

Can I just give loyal a nice spa day? I'd like to give loyal a nice spa day

violence is never the answer

🤦🏻‍♂️🤣

i would fight them all myself obviously

I fear that no matter who I put here they'd just give up and make out instead

I only have two moots I joined tumblr a day ago help (i wonder how this person likes it here so far)

Nunki "demonstars" vs Nov "sueñitos" for La Velada 2024

no fighting…. sharika shakira

Gogciety v powergnf battle of the golos

im giving you a gun with only one bullet. what do you do (vent section) (while a lot of answers made me laugh a lot im gonna skip ones that can get us in trouble LMAO. but remember you made ME laugh)

Listen would killing q give us usmp back? No. Would it make me feel SO MUCH BETTER??????? YES!!!!!! (i mean obv q took like half of the shots. the other popular answer was just lining everyone)

I give it to Sapnap. He has made it clear he will kill for Dream god bless

am i given a time machine? can i shoot someone already dead? does it have to be someone reasonably killable? the answer to these questions is irrelevant because no matter what i want it to be steve jobs.

shoot at internet cable

going to british land and the first dumbass cc i see gets it

use it to open a jar because my hands are very weak and im too embarrassed to ask anyone else to open it for me

only one :(?

Lay it carefully on the ground.

hand it to George he could judge more fairly than I (and hope he doesn't shoot Sapnap)

i send the gun and bullet to the dteam house as a secret gift with a note explaining that it's for sapnap and george only, and a letter stating to pass extras to the rest of the munchy squd. if we all donate our weapons to them, they'll be able to shoot all of dream's haters. the only obstacle is dream himself, which is why he can't know what's in the box.

Give it to gnf&sapnap and watch them fight over it

(IM SORRY I FORGOR....)

top drolo 2023 - ones i forgot about

punz

hannah

puffy

bbh

squidkid

Radio statio guy

SYLVEEYYYY

illumina

me. sorryyr i dont mean that

you (im soo not BUT THANK YOU)

I think all munchies deserve this spot, theyre all the best drolos :(( i love them

powergpu guy (jesse)

george deserves it tbh for slut smp (that is true, but i excluded snf bc i was afraid they will sweep...)

shadoune

LARRAY

Lil nas X

THATS ALL. thank you everyone who took part in this AND ONCE AGAIN IM SORRY I FORGOT ABOUT IT.... ill be better next time o7

[justagalwhowrites]

Which Pedro asker here… Omg, I love that you chose that picture for NIT bc it isn’t one I see posted often 🥰 And that’s exactly how I pictured for Din!! That scene lives in my mind rent free. In the moment I probably read it like ten times. It was SUCH an amazing face reveal for all the Din fics I’ve read.

Good for them OBVIOUSLY like God damn.

Cannot wait for your next story to start!! You are so giving. Soo many great fics have an age gap which I like but I’m excited for one that isn’t (NIT has been such a nice balance where age is maybe a thing but not really relevant). Also, that era Pedro is just… something else.

Ahhh Hi Bestie!

I LOVE that photoshoot of Pedro. LOVE LOVE LOVE it. Of course, that man is so damn photogenic that put him in front of a camera and I'm going to be happy about it.

And AHHHH OMG I'm so happy you loved that scene! That was one of the scenes that I came up with when I was first thinking about the fic. I knew the dynamic I wanted for Din and Doll, her background, that scene and their wedding. Everything else kind of built out from there but that moment for me was just PEAK.

I hope y'all like the new story! I think it's going to be a bit different. I'm not usually huge on super big age gaps? There certain power dynamic things can make me a little uncomfy with it (no hate AT ALL to people who read or write it, absolutely nothing wrong with it and I definitely understand the appeal, it's just not always my vibe.) BUT that's not a hard and fast rule by any means, @joelscruff 's Feelings on Fire is one of my favorite things EVER in part because of the age gap! It's just not necessarily something I think I'd be good at writing. I do enjoy the tropes of BFD and DBF Joel, though! It's been fun to write those in a slightly different way - where some of the taboo is still there - and I'm glad you're enjoying New in Town!

The age thing has been a weird spot for me as a writer? I think I'm older than a lot of writers in the fandom (I'm 33 so 🤷🏻‍♀️) and I prefer to write things I think I can connect with. I've never been someone in their 50s and my closest friends kind of top out in the mid-40s range. I don't feel like I intimately know life past like 45 so I'm not drawn toward writing it. But I do like putting Joel with someone more his contemporary for a lot of things. Yearling is an odd one for that, where there is a sizable age gap (Bambi is almost 43 at this point in the fic, Joel is about to turn 60) but since they met when she was in her 40s and he was in his 50s, their ages aren't really considered by each other. They're just two adults who are middle aged, the end. Compare that to Lavender where Joel was just 11 years older than Doc (a much more common age gap, I think) but their relative ages played a much bigger role early in the fic and then became non-existent as a concern. I haven't written a full fic without some kind of age gap for Joel - even though it's not really a focus of any of my fics - so I'm excited to write a Joel and a reader who are my age!

ANYWAY I went off on a tangent there but lol thank you so so much for reading and reaching out! Love you!!!

[blagueofchaos]

I posted 4,239 times in 2021

15 posts created (0%)

4224 posts reblogged (100%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 281.6 posts.

I added 638 tags in 2021

#lol :) - 122 posts

#show to stacy - 88 posts

#hahaha :) - 74 posts

#lol - 65 posts

#:) - 59 posts

#swear tw - 50 posts

#attempting to use the mass post editor to organize a bit - 50 posts

#lol xd - 46 posts

#unlistened to - 44 posts

#very nice art :) - 40 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#lol i actually generally don't have much trouble sleeping‚ it's just the getting myself to get ready to go to bed that's the problem usually

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

3 notes • Posted 2021-04-02 08:14:40 GMT

#4

4 notes • Posted 2021-04-02 08:25:02 GMT

#3

5 notes • Posted 2021-12-07 06:14:01 GMT

#2

So long story short frank iero did a live stream yesterday and talked about writing music with Gerard in the present tense (as in they’re writing music together right now), but last year he did an interview with Ernie ball (in august) and talked about witting music for my chem in past tense (and has done so several times before). Therefore it looks as though sometime in august after that interview, my chem began to write music together, which is why Frank talked about yesterday in present tense.

     Oooh okay! So that’s where the August thing came from. 

     So what I’m hearing is that MCR heard about my birthday in August and decided to start writing more new music to celebrate my birth? Lol JK ;) 

     Thanks for explaining! 

7 notes • Posted 2021-02-20 22:14:53 GMT

#1

I got you some nice cooling mist from this here waterfall

Omigosh thanks so much! Mmm that looks lovely :)

Did you take that picture yourself by the way? Because that's a very cool (ha, accidental pun) picture!

9 notes • Posted 2021-06-10 19:55:40 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[funkymbtifiction]

This is crazy! you described me entirely in one post.

Like the asker, I too have been waiting for you to write more about 9s merging with media because I wanted an outsider’s perspective. 

I kid you not, two years ago I was mindlessly scribbling on my notebook when I wrote “Who are you without media?”. At that time, it really struck me how much I change whenever I watch a movie/tv series, read a book, or listen to a new song. I know how some people say they feel like they’re ‘there’ with the emotions, characters, storyline. But I wonder if they’d still say the same thing if they knew how an enneagram 9 sx + Fi user experiences it,  :p.

Since that realization, I’ve been attempting and failing at a personal project I called “Spend a year with me”. Where I limit media time or eliminate it and see how I’d act, and who I’d be. If I ever succeed at doing it, I’ll let you know the results. :) (It kinda scares me thinking I always NEED something to be part of. I must have my own, complete, wholesome self, right?)

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

First, you know you are an ENFP and not an INFP, right? You were unclear other than having Fi and Ne but merging that much into the environment, changing your entire personality dependent on who / what is influencing you tells me you are both an ENFP and “The Bermuda Triangle” tritype - 963/936 (I lean the latter, if you were emulating success and ambition when younger). The reason you are shape-shifting so much is both because of that tritype (no “me” fixes to ground you, it’s all about the outer world and being malleable to it) combined with being a free-flowing Ne-dom who would naturally absorb things anyway. But maybe you already know this and I’m just affirming it.

I share your opinion of Revolutionary Road, btw. It gave me the same depressed and “I absolutely hate this” reaction. And I also absorb people -- I can’t spend more than ten minutes with someone who has an accent before I have it. xD

... wait, is that the reason so many adults watch animated movies and cartoons? They are less emotionally intense and threatening?? Are they 9-ing into pleasant distractions not intended to over-devastate them emotionally?? o.O

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

Honestly? I bloody HATE this merging thing and wish I didn’t have it. There was a time when I wondered if I had a personality disorder or something because of how rapidly my mood changed while listening to the top 40 on the radio hahah! It was dangerous! a different mood every three minutes!! Thanks. I hope in the future you could give us Te guidelines on how to hold our ground and make the separation because some of us need help figuring it out.

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

To be honest, you need to connect to your Fi more -- by spending time alone, deciding what you do and do not like and how things make you feel, independent of outside influences. Your media-purge is a good way of doing this, but also it’s useful to catch yourself doing it and go -- wait, is this ME or THEM? WHERE AM I IN THIS?? I DON’T HAVE TO MERGE! and learn to carve out and create space and draw boundaries of -- no, I’m not letting this in. This is Not Me.

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

so this morning, while scrolling through my fb feed, i came across an nyt opinion/advice piece from a 27yo (ie basically me lmao) who is obviously lucky, in a sense, to finally land their “dream job using my (their) skills” etc. like obvs i can’t read it bc of the stupid “you get one free article a month if you either don’t have an account or subscription” (my one free article was used up reading an article about adult adhd like last week)….. thing that nyt does.

but anyway. back on topic lol. the crux of the article in both the headline and the quote snippet was that the advice asker was really dissatisfied with the 40 hour work week that came with her “dream job”. with how having this 40hr workweek gave her no time to do her busy chores like house cleaning or laundry or didn’t even give her time to let her have her hobbies/creative pursuits (whatever they were/are).

however, in the comments on the article (and apparently from those who read the article on the comments, the advice/opinion column writer) a good bunch of like gen Xer’s and baby boomers (im assuming) were ganging up on the asker like “suck it up princess, it’s what life is!!! i work 70+ hours a week and LOVE IT and have just resigned myself to the fact that i have NO time left over to do my “chores”! learn to O U T S O U R C E these life admin tasks to someone else!!! everyone MUST LEARN this in america!!! it makes life so much easier ☺️” and such.

of course, there were plenty of the same bs comments that you see on anything about careers or home ownership towards millennials/gen Z’ers about “learn to go WITHOUT and save save save and squander your time so that you NEVER live and HAVE FUN or TIME FOR HOBBIES! my bet is that your parents did that and they survived just fine while also raising your ungrateful spiteful ass (not including any type of health issues they might have picked up from such long hours/shitty working conditions) so why can’t you just L E A R N to do the same you precious spoilt brat!!! because the reality of Real Life™️ is that you can’t have it both ways!!! then you’ll have early retirement guaranteed, hopefully!!! and know that hobbies really are time wasters most of the time ☺️ or at least they were for me!!! and your precious so-called “creative pursuits” most definitely are time wasters. no one needs THOSE.” and so on so forth.

they also had jibes for her bc the asker wanted to start a family at some point apparently… and apparently it’s “much worse” once you have kids. like. thanks geraldine and henry. you’ve just told us how much you’ve resented having your kids/family in one fell swoop. your opinion which you’ve framed as unhelpful, condescending advice is now voided.

like. i don’t know how rhonda or paul or deandra or philip could miss the point so fucking entirely. why the fuck should anyone- nay everyone (bc that’s what they make it sound like)- learn to outsource their busy chores like laundry/house cleaning/grocery shopping or god knows what else- to someone else???? why is that apparently a standard expected to be learnt in the US???

like why the fuck are you so desperate for people not to have free time to do these things (unless of course they live in some of those shitty nyc or other big city apartment blocks that don’t come with individual private laundries in the self-contained flats or a communal laundry on like the bottom floor or w/e for example) frank????

deidre why the hell are you so bitterly hankering about “be grateful that you have it easier than most and learn that hobbies mean jackshit and just sell your soul and time to your boss!!! when will the generation stopping being “me me me!!!” and “work life balance!” and think about the company’s bottom line!! learn that “work life balance” is never important! work like a slave for 50 years and see if your valuable experience is needed then! that’s when you’ll learn that those hours where you were never being lazy, instead of just expecting life to be handed to you, will have paid off!” or whatever other ridiculously toxic capitalist bullshit they were spitting out.

obviously there were FAR MORE people actually supporting the question asker and echoing the idea that the 40hr workweek is now redundant. they were also putting down the opinion/advice piece writer’s advice to the asker….. that was apparently similar to the all the bitter people on the comments saying that the 27yo was just “asking for too much” and had to “learn to suck it up instead of being a petulant and overly selfish dick!!” etc etc etc. we all know the spiel as thoroughly as the macarena now.

because whats so fucking wrong with wanting time to yourself and wanting time to do your busy chores??? why the fuck should i be outsourcing these to other people (unless of course you’re still living at home and your parents are still like “hey what clothes do you need washed i’m doing a load rn” or you have a partner that works from home or has some type of parental leave etc)???? i want to do my own laundry. i want to do my own gardening (ok lawn mowing or tree lopping (if needed) i’d actually outsource bc i can’t lift or push lawn mowers bc they’re heavy af for me or and i obvs can’t use a chainsaw)… but i want to do my own grocery shopping. i want to do my own cooking (although i would consider the meal kit services once i had job that allowed me to afford like $50 a month for one of those meal kits sub services) i want to do my own cleaning.

why, if i lived in the US and not australia, am i just expected to learn to outsource all of these tasks even if i don’t have the money for it??? like why the actual fuck are so many of you so fucking weirdly proud of being absolutely worked into the fucking ground for your “great country” (although this is actually bleeding through to australia too and i hate it); working like literally close to 100 hours a week???

because i wasn’t aware you had to be whatever the fuck his name is from 127 hours and cut your fucking limbs off just to fucking survive a job in either corporate america or just let alone any goddamned job in america….. all so they can supposedly “learn to like working for free and devaluing your worth even more to your employer through overworking yourself and always being available!!! mental health is for those who aren’t built for the Real Adult World™️!!! this person is a prime example of the younger generations being weak and dissatisfied with life so often because of their “oh poor little me!!! care for me!!” act. NO ONE CARES FOR YOU today. stop being so over-expectant/demanding and juvenile!!! only YOU care yourself and you should NEVER expect someone else to pick you up from YOUR bootstraps!!! you’re fucking whiny and conceited babies. the lot of you!!!”

because i honestly don’t know who the fuck would enjoy working 70+ hours week with no time to themselves to do what they enjoy doing…. or enjoy having zilch time to catch up on errands and life admin duties or just general house chores; especially if you’ve moved cities or an entire fucking state/s away from your family and support network. let alone doing the same thing on 40 hours a week.

and on top of everything, let’s not even get started on the time spent commuting to and from work or even commuting for life errands/tasks etc etc- especially if you’re like me and you’re nowhere near the capital city’s centre (ie sydney australia for me) for there to be reliable enough public transport and longer commute times to certain places in those cities (that i’ve bitched about plenty before on other posts on here about work/jobs).

get your head out of your asses warren and viola et al and realise that work life balance is literally NOT ASKING FOR MUCH and is asking employers to just have basic respect for their employees time if they work fulltime. it’s literally detrimental to ones health if they have to sacrifice what feels like (or what is literally like) their entire fucking existence to their employer just for meagre pay and just to fucking survive.

because i read a heart-breaking article last night from huffpost (posted by buzzfeed on fb) about a woman in the US who literally hid her having a second baby from her employer for an entire fucking year (literally the entire pregnancy and birth of the baby and the first 6 months post pushing the baby out) during the pandemic all because she was scared she would get demoted or lose her leading of a project and lose her bs “temp” job which had really turned into full time work although the employer never said anything about it being actually full time hours or whatever…. and plus the lady herself was apparently to scared to ask to be put on the books fulltime too for some weird reason.

like honestly. fuck capitalism. fuck thinking that “work life balance is just too hard for employers to add and regulate. it’s an excuse and ploy for workers to be unprofessional, unproductive and lazy!” or whatever the fuck. everyone deserves time to themselves to pursue their interests/hobbies and busy chores/life admin. no one deserves to waste their entire life working 70+ work weeks for those employers who literally have no respect for their employees personal lives and time.

and particularly during the time that is the pandemic as we’ve seen so many companies having to learn to wholeheartedly embrace working from home and more flexible schedules for their workers. worklife balance is absolutely fucking beneficial for everyone involved.

america fix your bullshit work ethic right now lmao.

[petork]

-105 please

NB i am told this was meant to say 1-50

thanks queen <3 here we go

1. Who is your favourite ghost?

lately? it's been kitty. and i'm contractually obligated to love the captain

2. If you could see the ghosts like Alison, which one do you think would come the closest to making you want to leave the house?

the obvious answer is julian but probably actually robin, i HATE being spooked (as the asker can attest xx)

3. How would you feel if you couldn’t see the ghosts, but knew they were there, like Mike?

i'd feel mad jealous even though i'd actually have it pretty good. the other person would be trying so hard to tell me how much it sucks and i'd just be like 'but... goast.....'

4. Would you want to see ghosts like Alison, or would you rather be ignorant to their goings and doings?

again my immediate answer is I WANNA SEE THEM but i also know that might suck in many ways. at least for a while. i am not a patient person so i don't know if i could learn to live with them like alison could. but on the other hand... the chance to actually talk to people from the fucking actual past... thinking emoji!

5. If you were a ghost living in the house, would you rather be upstairs with the main nine ghosts, or downstairs with the plague ghosts?

upstairs for sure, sorry to the plague ghosts but i do not want to hang out in a basement for eternity

6. If you were someone who died in the house would you rather be “sucked off” immediately, or would you like to hang around a bit and get to know some of the other ghosts before getting “sucked off”?

i would probably just end up staying forever because i'm scared of the void of death.... <3

7. Which ghost would you miss the most if they were “sucked off” in the next series?

UNBELIEVABLE question? i'd miss ALL OF THEM. but see question 1 also

8. Which ghost do you think you’d get along with the best?

it's hard to say. i think they would all get on my nerves because as said i am not very patient. but the one who would irritate me LEAST... maybe pat?

9. Which ghost would you say you’re most like?

captain. not to be a cliche but i'm gay and repressed. and also irritable and grumpy

10. Which ghost would you say you’re least like?

JULIAN

11. What is a (popular or not) fan theory that you love?

(pasted from prev answer) i don’t actually like ship it because he’s definitely older than her, but a couple of people have said kitty sometimes acts like she has a crush on thomas. which is cute to me even if she does need to get better taste (love u kitty xxx)

12. What is a (popular or not) fan theory that you don’t quite agree with?

(pasted from prev answer) not so much a specific theory but i disagree with the general idea that anything of consequence went on with the captain and havers. i think it was meant to come across as just a snippet of the captain’s poor sad gay life and, as several brain geniuses have pointed out, due to the timing of germany invading france + the captain’s medals the flashback must have been from a good few years BEFORE he died. and i think the flashback was the last time they ever saw each other, so i don’t think that a) havers has any link to the captain’s eventual death or 2) anything romantic ever happened between them

13. Favourite ship and why?

captain x my cute oc boyfriend because i've tailored it to my exact needs. why ship retail when you can ship bespoke?

14. Least favourite ship and why? (Please be nice though!)

patcap as we all know. like YES i'm a contrary bitch so i don't like things that are popular and i do think i'm better than everyone else... but really idk why exactly i just don't gel with it at all. and when i've tried to read fic in the past it feels to me like their characters are kind of flattened. and i think the captain is too much of a bitch. and i think pat is serving us normie heterosexual. it's the 'cinnamon roll' ship of this fandom and i can't STAND (metaphorical) cinnamon rolls. AND ALSO pat is not the simple soft dad cinnamon roll fandom often makes him out to be! like he is a very nice person but he's also fucked up and insane like all of them. anyway my brain charges extremely low rents

15. If you could go back in time and live in the house/on the property at the same time as one of the ghosts when they were alive, who would you pick?

captain. need to know wtf's going on with him

16. Would you rather inherit the house (and its ghostly inhabitants), or just visit?

realistically... visit. i think i would lose my mind eventually if i lived there

17. Do you think we’ll ever know how every ghost died? Do you think there will be anyone whose death we’ll never learn about?

i hope we do, but i also appreciate that isn't the sole point of the series, otherwise it would be kinda boring and discovering how they died wouldn't be as impactful. if there's anyone's death we don't find out about, i think it would probably be robin? lol what if it was so long ago he just forgot

18. What is your favourite Ghosts fanfiction?

so i'm stupid and i never use bookmarks on ao3..... i've read a LOT of different fics i like but do you think i can revisit them? no! because i'm stupid! so i cannot fairly pick an absolute fave sorry

19. What is your favourite Ghosts fan art?

THIS <3

all the babies and children on here talk about horrible histories the show being 'their childhood'........ put some respect on terry deary's name. and this artist did!

20. Tag 5 favourite Ghosts fandom content creators!

honestly i'm not good with like. knowing people. but here are 5 fanfics i've enjoyed (based on the author's replies in my inbox because, again, i am too stupid to use bookmarks)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28287567

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29868645

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28653192

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28067277/chapters/68761830

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26957662/chapters/65795407

21. Are there any historical periods you wish we’d have gotten to see a ghost/ghosts from but didn’t?

(pasted from other post) not to be predictable but i would have liked to see a 1960s ghost. like a mod who crashed his scooter or something. we have enough 20th century ghosts though but i believe the us remake has some kind of hippie ghost…

22. What is something you’re hoping to see in a future series?

flashback to the captain getting some. like implied or whatever. i can't cope with him dying a virgin. he needs this

23. What is something you’re hoping to see in a future series, but know we probably WON’T get to see?

(pasted from other post) alison meets someone else who can see ghosts, and we get to see the ghosts at THEIR house…. i always love it when we see extra ghosts but i know they probably won’t make any recurring because it would come off as running out of ideas. but i still think they should add a 90s teenager named roy

24. Which lesser-seen characters would you like to see more of in future series?

tbh there's none i can think of that i think we should SEE more of, they get a pretty good balance. there are some i definitely want to learn more about though

25. Are there any characters you wish we’d see less?

don't make me pick a least favourite child </3 but also i think thomas could probably tone it down a bit.

26. Favourite one-liner?

I'LL WAIT FOR YOU, MY COMELY NUG - me whenever i order chicken nuggets on just eat

27. Favourite episode?

DON'T EVEN... i like 2x06 and 3x05 a lot

28. Top 5 headcanons for [insert character name here]?

i'm going to do the captain because obviously i am

- he may or may not have been lavender married

- he may or may not have had a drinking problem

- public schoolboy with domineering father, clearly

- IF he had a lavender wife then she spent all her time in the company of her 'odd' female friend who wore men's clothes, smoked cigars and drove a motorbike. the captain was obviously clueless

that's 4 so a cheeky one for fanny:

- she did a lot of medicinal coke

29. Whose costume is your favourite?

kitty. gotta love an ott ballgown

30. Whose costume is your least favourite?

that's an offtopic question. you have been stopped.

31. If you could do a complete redesign of one of the ghosts’ costumes, whose would you change and how?

i would give thomas his double denim

32. If you could play any of the existing ghosts, which one would you want to play and why?

i think i'd be good at playing mary. meek weird girl who says things that don't make any sense? omg she is LITERALLY me

33. Which ghost would you least like to play and why?

julian, i'm not getting my pussy out

34. What one thing would you miss most if you became a ghost and had to live by the same rules as the Button House ghosts?

FOOD. food. eating and food.

35. How do you think one or more of the ghosts whose deaths we haven’t seen died? Or, if we know the cause of death but not the reason for the death (like Mary being burned as a witch or Humphrey being beheaded), why do you think they were killed?

i think mary's execution might have had something to do with her husband's death and her being unfairly accused or something. also like, she just acts kinda weird, and we know how that often played out for women back then...

and i think the captain died in some really boring mundane natural causes way (congenital heart attack or something) but he's stuck around because a) he's never come to terms with the whole h*mo thing and 2) he was just really mad that he died so boringly

36. Favourite [insert character name here] moment?

CAPTAIN GETTING KITTY TO SMILE

37. What do you think [insert character name here] was like when they were alive? Do you think they were exactly the same as they are now, or do you think there were any major or minor differences?

ok i'll do fanny for this one. i think she was less domineering when she was alive, in death she clearly thinks of herself as above the other ghosts and bosses them around, and when she talks shit about george it's not like he can get back at her in any way. but it would be interesting to see how they interacted when both were alive

38. It’s your turn to pick a movie for film club! What are you watching?

(from prev post) i haven’t seen any movies errr….. maybe austin powers because it’s so sad that julian died just a few years before it came out because he would love it and get really annoying about quoting it all the time and it would be really funny for the captain (who thought the movie was unironic) to have to deal with that. and fanny would NOT COPE.

39. Would you rather share a room with Thomas (constantly sighing and reciting bad poetry) or Fanny (falls out of the window screaming every night)?

fanny. men be quiet challenge

40. If you could do some kind of historical swap (i.e. place a ghost in a different period from their own), who would you choose and what period are they from now?

i would like to give kitty the chance to be a 20th or 21st century girl. maybe an era like the 60s or 80s that was known for daring fashions, i think she would luv it

41. Let’s settle this once and for all. Who’s the real leader, the Captain or Pat?

fanny

42. If the ghosts could eat, what is one food you would like to share with them that they might not have tried before?

doritos tangy cheese, mountain dew baja blast, 4loko. i would make thomas try a jalapeno. i would also make them try my cooking experiments because i do that to anyone i live with

43. You’ve heard rumours of a tenth upstairs ghost who doesn’t often venture out of their room to visit with the other residents of the house. Who are they? (i.e. make up a ghost OC. I know i’m putting you on the spot. I just want to see what you come up with.)

it's george button and his bitch ass is too scared of his wife to come down. his downfall comes when he finds out there's another gay ghost and simply has to clap them cheeks (he fails)

44. Tell me a song you think [insert character name here] would like, or a song that reminds you of them!

i think alison's probably already introduced him to them but thomas + anything by the smiths. i would also make the captain sit quietly and listen to a tracy chapman cd (for my lover...)

45. What song(s) do you think would annoy certain ghosts the most?

the smiths would annoy everyone except thomas. literally they'd all be trying to re-kill him

46. Who is one actor you’d love to see guest star? What kind of character would you like to see them play?

steve coogan as like. anyone. preferably a ghost. a roman centurion ghost if you wanna get cultural. but seriously i just want alan

47. If you could have one Horrible Histories song in Ghosts (either sung by a ghost/ghosts, or playing on the TV or computer for them to watch), which one would you want it to be and why?

that song about how no 'british' stuff is actually british. like tea. i want julian to melt down

48. What do you think the ghosts’ jobs would be in a modern living-human AU where they’re all just chaotic housemates?

captain & kitty: have their own wedding planning company

julian: still a politician but instead of an mp he's like a parish councillor. handforth antics

fanny: headteacher

robin: cool off the shits teacher at same school who undermines fanny wherever possible. deals weed to students

mary: runs a shop selling like healing crystals and incense and dreamcatchers

humphrey: customer service supervisor who actually likes his job because he takes no shit and just fucks with every single customer

thomas: unemployed podcaster

pat: dogwalker

49. What is one modern invention you think [insert character name here] would be surprised or confused by?

fanny would be so baffled by any Feminine Products. when she discovers tampons it's all she can talk about for a week. the mooncup made her go into a coma

50. Name an AU you haven’t seen someone create content for, but which you’d love to read a fic or see some art for.

not to be the way i am but i'd love if anyone ever drew art or something about my au which is a modern-day au where fanny and captain are alison and kitty's divorced parents, julian and robin are captain's brothers and alison's wack uncles, mary is their childhood nanny, thomas is a student lodger at button house, humphrey is a cat and pat is just some guy. but yeah in the past i've had a couple of anons on here mention it and i did melt into a puddle... i think if someone did art i'd explode and die. in a good way like

[fallingoverforcalum]

Paint | Kian Lawley Imagines

Summary: Kian wants to post a video with you on his own channel so he decides to post one involving you guys messing around, paint and nonsense.

Y/N = your name

warnings: none

please don’t steal this, thank you.

You and Kian had been public about your guy’s relationship for about a year now. And Kian had recently started posting regularly on his own main channel again.

“Hey babe?” Kian asked as he walked into your guy’s shared bedroom. “Yes?” you said as you looked up at him from your phone.

He plopped on the bed, and told you about his new video idea. “So what I was thinking was that we answer questions about eachother, and if the person gets it wrong you can either throw or dump some paint on them” you nodded and smiled as he talked about it.

“I think that’ll be such a good video. I love the idea.” you responded genuinely “So will you do it with me?” he asked. You looked at him with furrowed eyebrows “I thought you meant you and jc, not kian and Y/N”. He laughed and put his hands together as he begged “Why aren’t you doing it with Jc?” you asked softly “Because we already have all the videos filmed for this week, and i need one for my channel, and I wanna do it with you” he said, saying the last part with love. “Alright I’ll do it” you said with a smile.

Next thing you knew you and Kian were dressed in all white with all the colors of paint you could think of. He was doing the intro to the video explaining the game. “But if the person gets it right they get to paint the asker” he said finishing up the intro as you looked at him “You didn’t tell me me that part” “i added it” he said as he shrugged. You sighed “Okay lets get this over with” you told the camera and Kian laughed as you guys got started with the video.

“So as you can see we have these white tarps on the walls and floors so we don’t get paint everywhere” Kian told the camera. “Are we taking turns?” you asked him “Well yeah, duh” he said with sass. You smacked his shoulder jokingly as you both laughed.

“I’ll go first i insist” kian said as he looked at his questions for you on his phone, and you rolled your eyes and laughed. “What is my birthday?” he asked “September 2nd” you answered quickly “Year?” he dragged on “1995” “alright, that was an easy one anyway” he said in defeat. You picked up purple and splashed it on kian as you laughed.

Only a few questions later, and Kian was looking at his phone searching for a hard question, as you got a little bored. While Kian had his back turned you dipped your hand in red and went up to him and wiped your hand all down his back. He turned in shock “What’d you do?” he asked warningly. You giggled and tried to run away when kian dipped his hands in green and blue and ran after you picking you up and throwing you over his shoulders as you laughed historically.

“Okay if you get this wrong... there’s an issue” you started warningly “what are my dogs’ names back home” Kian eyes widened. It took a awhile and he finally said defeated “I don’t know, i give up” you pretend to walk out the room “I’m sorry!!” he laughed. You came back “You deserve a dump for that” you told him as you picked up the yellow paint from the floor and dumped it on top of his head as it dripped onto his clothes mixing with the other colors.

At this point you were both covered in paint, and about to end the video. “You look kinda cute covered in paint” he told you as you laughed “you do!!” he insisted, you rolled you eyes thinking it was cliché but cute. He walked up to you wrapping his arms around your waist as you wiped some of the wet paint away from his eyes. He dipped his head kissing your lips as you wrapped your arms around his neck and stood on your toes. “I’ll cut that out of the video” he laughed pulling away to do the outro.

[soul-music-is-life]

I'm kind of with you on the lackluster Pilot episode of "The Perfectionists". I don't know whether or not I'm into it either. And not because of Emison (I'm more of an Emaya fan myself). I just thought it was cheesy and boring. I don't know if I should keep watching. What about you?

I have actually gotten several asks about whether I plan tokeep watching and why/why not. So I’m going to answer it here and just referback to it if it keeps coming up.

I don’t mind the asks at all. I love conversing, but because of the volume of asks about thisparticular opinion this is another long driveling post, and I’m sorry. You can mute my ass if you’re sick of me. I get it.

First of all OP, thank you for not ripping into me about notliking it. Also, Emaya had my heart. I loved them, too. Maya deserved better.

Second, this is a full-scale look at the show from a critic’svantage point. I watched the first episode twice because I thought maybe I hadn’tgiven it a fair shake the first time because I was in a weird mood. But even onthe second viewing I found a lot more that I disliked than I liked. Lots ofpeople are going to disagree, and that’s fine. Just don’t @ me. I’m legit notlooking for that. I’m just a girl (cue NottingHill music) standing in front her ask inbox asking those askers to love her.

Will I keep watching? I doubt it. Given that it only got a10-episode order and The Pilot wasn’t that interesting to me, I don’t see myselfsitting through it for 9 more episodes. My reasoning is two-tiered. Part of itis disinterest and the other part is the creative aspect of it in the media. Saddleup for my “truths” (I can’t remember who said that. Marlene maybe). I gave it afew days and considered it, and what I ended up with was this:

1) I’m just not into it. For the same reasons you (OP) stated.But I’ll also add that for me…it was predictable. I called the twists longbefore they happened. If I’m already doing that in The Pilot I can guarantee I’dbe doing that as the show went on. I’m like 93% sure I know exactly how it’sgoing to end this season. I tend to do that to myself. Being a writer suckssometimes. Because you see the way things are going to go from the beginning. You just have to decide if you want to go on the journey anyway.

2) While the characters were likable (I was surprised by howmuch I liked Ava), they are a bit one-sided and kind of bland (except I foundNolan’s duality extremely intriguing). There is the argument that can be madehere that they will grow, and I do agree with that. But when I watch a show’sPilot I need to care about at least one character to see what’s going to happenand where they are going to go (In PLL it was Em/Aria for me). None of the characters in TP did that for me (noteven Mona and Alison, which surprised me, because I’ve been super-hype for thisshow not only for them, but for the newbies, too).  

3) The plot (so far) just feels like a rehash of everysingle YA mystery novel/TV show that is hot right now. And I am aware that thisis based loosely on exactly that (Sara’s series), but I think maybe I’ve justbecome desensitized to the same cheesy soap-opera-y murder mystery plots. Or perhaps I’m just desensitized to this particular kind of storytelling. It doesn’tfeel new and different to me and it was very strangely paced with too muchgoing on and not enough time to care about it. It just felt disjointed. Everythingabout the first episode just fell flat for me.

4) And lastly, yes, I’d say there is a tiny part of me…likemaybe…6% that doesn’t want to watch because I’m not about that off-screenEmison drama. I knew it was going to happen and I’m not mad about them beingsplit. I’m disappointed (hears “that’sjust ‘mom speak’ for mad!” echoing somewhere) that the marketing team isusing it for ratings. When you have decent writing you don’t need to play games like that to try andget viewers. It would be one thing to be decisive about what happened toEmily/Alison (Split them. Don’t split them. I don’t care. Just make a fuckingdecision because you’re creating a war between fans and you know it). It’sanother thing entirely to draw it out because you need people to watch and talkabout it.

I am also particularly bothered by hearing the excuse (several times by MK) that “Shay was busy”because Marlene literally planned the spin-off in season 6 (confirmed by bothher and Sasha). It. Was. Planned. I say this as a critic and not an Emison fan: Everything about the way they’ve tried to use Emison to generate buzz was underhanded. And saying shit like that opens the door for people to hate on Shay, and that’s really not cool.

Personally, I think it speaks volumes that the producers felt the need to addthe off-screen drama on top of the really decent plot they already had. Theycould have kept it unproblematic with simple writing choices and less inflammatorycommentary. They could have left the PLL drama in the PLL-verse and given thespotlight to the new drama. I don’tagree with creating old off-screen drama with zero chance of satisfactoryresolution all in the name of ratings. I hate marketing shit like that. It’s acheap amateur tactic and it turns me off.

I think the show could have been something special had theynot marketed it as PLL. But they did, so of course there was a certainexpectation. And of course there is some backlash. Because there are these twoworlds that have nothing to do with each other and so far I don’t feel likethey’ve blended it together well. For me, it was like watching PLL, but with less magic and less chemistry. If I had to describe it I’d say it feels alot like a recipe where you’re just throwing a bunch of ingredients into a bowlwith no idea what you’re making and you’re just hoping it’ll be edible by theend. Rather than focusing on the new universe the marketing team chose to focuson Ali/Mona’s new world and the drama that comes with them. And to me that almost says they don’t have faith that TPwould have been able to stand on its own without the PLL universe. Part of methinks I’d be more interested if this had been a completely fresh start. I wasactually more compelled by the newbies than I was Alison/Mona (though I adorethem, too).

That being said, I really wish the best for the cast/crew. I’llcontinue to watch the behind the scenes games/cast antics. I’ve been a fan ofSasha since I discovered PLL (everything about her seems very sweet and genuine andjust positive all around). And Janel as Mona was one of my favorite castingchoices of all time. In fact, I think my very first PLL post here was praisefor Janel. I’ve been following Sydney since she was a smol lil bean on theDisney Channel (and loved her in Tia’s Mowry’s show “Instant Mom”). Sofia seemslike a sweet girl, and I have enjoyed her other work. And Eli honestly justseems like he’d be a cool dude to kick back and have a drink with (is he evenold enough to drink? Jesus, they’re all babies). I love them all. In fact, I’veenjoyed the fun behind the scenes stuff more than I enjoyed the show. I’dwatch a reality show of them all day. That’s where I’ll get my fill. Watching them being goofy.

Final verdict: No, the show will not be getting my views. I’llprobably just watch the absurdity of Riverdale instead. Cheryl is fucking wild,y’all. And I’m kind of living for mean-dark-snarky Betty. And Sweet Pea is like…myfavorite character ever. My dumb asshole child.

As far as whether or not youshould watch it, I have no idea. I have a lot of people asking me my opinion onthat (which, I’m like the worstperson to ask, please don’t give me that responsibility. I don’t even likebeing responsible in the real world. I literally had a cookie and Cocoa Puffsfor dinner). I will say that if you’re only watching for Emison then I’d changethe channel. Because guaranteed it’s just going to make you rage. You’re not going to get anything out of it. Fill yourevenings with something more pleasant and positive for you.

And be nice to others on social media. At the end of the day, it’s only a show. You like it or you don’t.

[elizabethrobertajones]

Hey Lizzy I want to apologize. I really respect you, but unfortunately in the past that lead to me thinking you could be asked about any SPN opinion and were obligated to answer, no matter if it was wanky or not your ballpark, because you 'obviously knew everything'. That wasn't cool of me. You being a smart person who chooses to share your insights doesn't mean we're entitled to your time and I'm sorry. I hope fandom starts remembering we're all just people soon and you get the chance to relax.

Thank you, sincerely. 

At least for me, though, it’s not been a problem… I have a very quiet inbox compared to some friends here, and I barely get wanky stuff. And so I’m happy to answer a lot of things, basically anything non-wanky, and serious questions about the wanky stuff rather than just people coming to spew their misery at me. Which I rarely get, tbh, since I often don’t answer it, or also I think because I consistently avoid the initial post-episode rush when everyone’s most panicked and urgently needs to yell about everything, I’m more under the radar as a panic response blog because in the 18 hours between the episode and me returning to my dash, people get it out their systems. :P 

I think the problem with anons, though, is waaay more with a mob mentality that once someone is answering a lot of asks they beget more asks either tangential or just because they seem like a blog that answers a lot of asks quickly and efficiently (I think “efficiently” is another reason I don’t get a lot of anons :P), and often the anons start to get very impatient just to ask, rather than to check and see if it’s been asked before. Which is no one individual person’s problem but an issue with the entire system they’re just not helping with. I’m glad people are starting to check themselves because a volley of anons, meant well or not, is a great way to exhaust a blogger and get them defensive or despairing or just feeling like they have no time left to do the stuff they actually enjoy about fandom. (At which point I have wished I COULD take some of that burden off since I have a bunch of free time while I’m in exile from my kingdom or whatever this is) But the emotional burden is waaay worse for others so I absolutely can’t complain about getting the few odd anons. 

Like… I didn’t mind answering 2 asks about where the longing retcon came from in the same week because they were fairly widely spaced, but if I made that post with a link to the tag that would explain everything, and then got 3 anons demanding to know and then there were 5 more by the time i was done answering one, my inbox would feel way worse than it currently does, and as a bonus, answering one would still leave 7 people feeling like I never answered them even when answering stuff that’s literally their question - by not giving their specific ask the attention it feels like they’ve been ignored. 

If you give someone a little while and they still haven’t answered or explained, and there’s no easy to find explanation on their blog, then yeah it’s fine to ask just about anything about their content. Going away and remembering to come back and ask also will clarify to the asker if they actually care enough to do it >.> I have asked one (1) anon question to a meta blog in the entire time I’ve been on tumblr because it was something they kept alluding to and I could not for the life of me find the reason why they did and their tag didn’t have an explanation, just more allusions to it and it was such a specific thing I didn’t know any other blog that would care about it. And I asked after seeing them allude to it about 3 times so I was getting desperate but didn’t want to look silly so I asked on anon :P Anything else I cared enough to ask, I just snooped their blog and saw what else they had to say about the subject, or if it was a fresh hot subject, scrolled my dash and inevitably found someone else talking about it. Or just asked a friend if they knew what was up.

Anyways, anon, I’m glad you’re questioning how asks affect people, and I hope more people at least take some time to remember that this isn’t an instant question and answer service all the meta writers automatically opt into, because people are getting hurt and burned out, but you don’t have to worry about me specifically :) 

I’m still happy to answer most messages. At the moment most of the unanswered stuff I have is actually stuff I just don’t have a clue how to answer except the anons were sharing some idea with me and I’m a terrible person, but I don’t know how to do one line replies where I don’t engage with it beyond like “cool” and “you do you” rather than actually wanky stuff :P Other people here are much better at that than me >.> Maybe I should clear some of that out of my inbox right now tbh. It’s mostly stuff that arrived in the middle of busy inbox days and I just put off answering in favour of stuff that was real questions… THAT’s the burden that weighs me down, not the wank :P 

I really hope that others are starting to at least think about the specific emotional burden they’re asking people for when they bring wank to their inboxes though, because it’s great you’ve started to think about it but as I said it’s a systematic problem of people not thinking about the blogger behind the inbox, and fandoms are wanky places. Choosing not to answer and spread the negativity, or to reply and try and smooth it down a bit, are the only options we have for managing things and I don’t think anyone starts writing meta thinking oh goodie I can’t wait to be responsible for the mood of the fandom. While accidentally putting ourselves in the place of seeming like we know what’s going on. It’s completely unmanageable and I’m looking at it as someone whose entire adolescence was spent as a top of the ladder moderator on a fairly large forum, but it’s completely untranslatable experience. Every single one of us is just another random person in fandom and we ALL have to be responsible for our own behaviour and how we affect others. And even among people you care about or bloggers you admire, you can hurt them just by having a bad day or asking too many anon questions or whatever. 

Anyway I’m gratified you’d send this, and please don’t be scared to send more anons, just read your audience :P If someone seems stressed, try another inbox.