#apologies for the unprofessionalism

[nullbutler]

RESULTS:

Disturbing Yourself For Fun SURVEY This survey ran from December 28th to January 19th. It received 59 responses. Well done! Thank you so much everyone who participated.

I'll show the results now, and then I'll discuss them down below. Some biases that should be noted: I don't have an audience of proshippers. There may be a slight bias in the direction of the people who typically follow my blog. However, judging by the results, I think someone outside of my circle brought it into a few other circles, because the results are varied. What sorts of disturbing scenarios did children play? (this question allowed multiple answers) I'm sorry i used the word 'de-limbing instead of amputation'

The two most common results were stories about depression, as well as stories about being abandoned. Similarly, romantic manipulation and child neglect were very popular. Even the most uncommon results were still about 20%, making them fairly common and likely.

Were you ever uncomfortable playing? (the most common answer was some form of yes)

How old were you when you were first self-aware of the discomfort? (most common was 1st-2nd grade, second most was 3rd-6th)

How did you get into writing disturbing scenarios?

(The one that got 0 was "i realized a lot of things during the MeToo movement, which is one no one selected, but applies to me, but I didn't take my own survey sobs)

The most common results were either that it was in a book or in a fanfiction, second only to 'something disturbing happened in a show.' Real life trauma was also a massive contributing factor.

Did disturbing stories ever make you feel comfortable?

They say disturbing things comfort the disturbed and disturb the comforted...

My biggest theory of this project is "is disturbing content addictive" and to that, I can safely say, yes. Yes, it is.

The most common results were thoughts of "I shouldn't be doing this," "someone is watching me do this" and "I guess I'm just weird." However, 19% noted that it was having an impact on their trauma, and 22.4% observed that they had felt guilty over it.

The most driving force of disturbing content was, expectedly, curiosity. Children are curious. However, it should be noted that 30.2% wished that someone would acknowledge what they were doing and talk to them about it. 24.5% also acknowledged the recognition "This happened to me. Only my toys know."

Once again, I'm so sorry for all the cropping issues only providing half of the question. I completely understand that that's annoying to look through. You're welcome to take the survey if you want to, to see the questions better. I'm still leaving it open, now that my 'study' is complete:

Let's talk about fandom spaces.

Do you read disturbing fanfiction (I had to remove the visual because of the issues with the survey)

No, I don't read fanfiction: 1.7%

I do not read fanfiction that disturbs me: 3.4%

Yes, I have intentionally sought out disturbing fanfiction expecting to be disturbed: 62.7%

Yes, I have intentionally sought out disturbing fanfiction thinking "I can handle it" and was wrong: 39%

Someone I trusted showed me disturbing fanfic and it disturbed me: 3.4%

Yes. I enjoy being disturbed by high quality writing: 54.2%

I enjoy being disturbed by crack and bizarre stories: 18.6%

I find disturbing stories sexually appealing: 25.4%

I would like to imagine the 0 is the result of people being entirely truthful.

Around 50/50 of people are either morally conscious or physically conscious about certain kinds of vaguely described illegal/dangerous disturbing content. However, 13 out of 57 (22%) claimed true for both, 20 out of 57 (35%) claimed true for neither, and 23 out of 57 (40%) chose at least 1.

Adults more frequently ask the question, "What if I'm sexually into this?" They also tend to be more uncomfortable than children are when approaching disturbing topics.

squinting at the typos People also shared a lot of very personal stories. While I won't include excerpts from those, just know, I read every one of them and took the responses to heart. Thank you for your vulnerability.

CONCLUSION

I think it's really really telling that fiction is an outlet for people to express their fears and curiosities. After all, there is no one you can hurt inside fiction. However, the prevalence of it on the internet has been a lot of people's first exposure to graphic, violent, and sexual content. I'm not saying this with any intention, only to emphasize that this is the culture of the internet that we have been put into. That's the way it is, and when people are scared by something, especially when they are a child, they play with it so it becomes less frightening. This survey was just made for the express purpose of solidifying and acknowledging that fact.

There is nothing shameful about the way someone plays with their toys, but this survey has also demonstrated that violent, cruel play can lead to addiction and habituation of that play. It can be hard to find mundane things exciting when graphic and disturbing things are much more so. This is the process of desensitization. Just something to be aware of.

Personal experience: I'm someone who is very obsessive about my own morality. I'm someone who, when I was like 11, thought I was a bad evil irredeemable person because I used to make my warrior cat toys get pregnant??? Lmao... I'm not kidding. That's what that was. The degree of shame and self disgust was completely unreasonable.

And then, when I was 17, I tried to just let it all go. Basically acknowledge the idea that 'nothing in fiction really matters, go fucking wild.' And I did, and even though I got some sort of assurance from that scared 11 year old playing warrior cats, I was still looking at things that no matter how desensitized I was, horrified me. Horrified me. Made it very difficult for me to write stories that didn't involve horrifying elements. It was very hard to get my mind out of that place where the only sort of entertainment was the kind you could get through making yourself feel heart poundingly sick. Those stories have always been the easier ones for me to write.

There's no real point to this personal message, just that after all was said and done, I tried to focus on more wholesome things. And then, college hit. I prefaced this with "I'm psych student!" but I ended the study not as one anymore. I dropped out. I got really into Fear & Hunger and Kaze to ki no Uta as well as other disturbing shows. There is comfort in that.

I think, at the end of the day, to those people who can rotate their blorbo around in their heads, that's a form of playing!

Here are some interesting studies about playing:

[cosmogyros]

(Reblog this version please!) Okay fuck it. I was too nervous to post this at first, but I see tons of non-Germans wanting to know what's going on right now. So here's my summary. Thanks to my buddy @keldermans and another German friend not on Tumblr for taking a glance at it to make sure I didn't get anything too horribly wrong <3 Any remaining errors are my bad!

I spent much of today writing up an outline of the current soap-opera drama going on in the German government, for my non-German-speaking friends who'd like to enjoy the tea as well.

Disclaimer: I am not technically German, but I did my best to explain this all as accurately as possible (and I did get a couple of Actual Germans to check it over for me).

For THE GERMAN DRAMA, see below...

Cast of characters:

The German government coalition (known as the “Ampel” – traffic light – due to its colors):

Olaf Scholz, Chancellor (leader) of Germany. Party: SPD (color: red). - and the other Red party members in the coalition - this includes the Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach

Christian Lindner, Minister of Finance of Germany. Party: FDP (color: yellow). - and the other Yellow party members in the coalition (four FDP members) - this includes the Minister of Transport, Volker Wissing - and the Minister of Justice, Marco Buschmann

Robert Habeck, Vice-Chancellor of Germany. Party: Greens (color: green) - and the other Green party members in the coalition.

Other characters: Friedrich Merz, likely to become the next Chancellor. Party: CDU (color: black).

The events I can recall so far, in roughly chronological order over the past five days:

1. The government coalition argues all day Wednesday, trying to pass laws while Lindner refuses to agree to anything. In the evening, Scholz loses his patience and fires Lindner with the legendary words, “Dann, lieber Christian, möchte ich nicht mehr, dass Du meinem Kabinett angehörst. ...So. Doof.” (In that case, my dear Christian, I don’t want you in my cabinet anymore. ...Well. Sucks.)

2. Scholz then calls a press conference and gives a surprisingly impressive speech in which his rage is barely concealed. He includes some sharp jabs at Lindner and sounds very personally betrayed by the breakup.

Scholz's speech includes the immediately-legendary line “Zu oft hat er mein Vertrauen gebrochen” (Too often has he broken my trust), which everyone here in Germany is now obsessively quoting.

He declares that he will ask for a vote of confidence in January, and if he fails it (as is expected), he will call for new elections in March, six months earlier than they would otherwise have taken place.

3. Lindner gives a very emotional and self-pitying speech in which he declares “Ich habe gelitten” (I have suffered) – another phrase that becomes an instant classic with those of us watching from the sidelines – and he includes some sharp jabs at Scholz.

4. Showing solidarity with their fellow party member Lindner, all the rest of the FDP members in the coalition resign from the government too… except for Wissing, who instead decides to quit his own political party, the FDP, in order to stay in government and keep his job. He is now a party-less politician!

5. Habeck gives an emotional statement to the press, practically in tears, coming across like a kid whose parents are divorcing and he doesn’t know how to handle it. In a maudlin moment of his speech, he compares the collapse of the coalition to the end of a relationship.

6. At the end of Habeck’s statement, a reporter calls after him: “Is Lindner going to apply for Bürgergeld benefits?”

(Background: There are two tiers of unemployment benefits in Germany. To explain it in a somewhat tasteless way, there’s kind of a class distinction. If you come from a “higher-class” profession, you can typically start by getting ALG I, which is more money. If you are unemployed for the long term or come from a “lower-class” working background, you get Bürgergeld. The stereotype about people on Bürgergeld benefits is that they spend it all on drugs and alcohol and sit on park benches getting drunk all day. Also, Lindner is known for trying to pass legislation to reduce social benefits of all kinds, including unemployment benefits.)

7. Background: After the failed assassination attempt on Trump earlier this year, a popular German comedian called El Hotzo posted a joke online saying basically “too bad he missed” and promptly got fired for saying that. He kept his spirits up and joked about the job loss, saying “Ich bin Deutschlands frechster Arbeitsloser” (I’m Germany’s cheekiest unemployed boy).

Back to the present: At a press conference, a reporter asks Lindner: “How are you handling the statements being made about you online right now, such as ‘This is Germany’s cheekiest unemployed boy’?”

Lindner seems to need a long moment to figure out how to reply to this question.

8. The next day, Habeck coyly soft-launches his candidacy for Chancellor by posting a mysterious video of himself on social media in which he’s wearing a cute beaded friendship bracelet that spells out “Kanzler Era” (Chancellor Era). This is apparently a Taylor Swift reference (?).

In this video, he’s sitting in an atmospherically-lit room, writing at a table. It appears that Lindner had posted a very similar picture of himself in the past, because he now tweets in response to Habeck: “All Democrats welcome here, Robert! You got the setup almost right – the lamp was on the other side. ;)” (and he adds his own pic, which indeed very much resembles Habeck’s video)

9. Angela Merkel muses publicly, “Maybe God only created the FDP in order to test us all.” (ETA: She said this a while ago, not in response to the present situation. But it's still so true :'D)

10. A mainstream German news podcast sassily comments on Friday:

“While Olaf 'Too often has he broken my trust' Scholz is enjoying his party’s admiration for his cowboy moment and Christian 'I have suffered' Lindner is going through his own personal St. Matthew’s Passion […]”

11. Buschmann (one of the FDP party members who resigned), who apparently moonlights as a composer of electronic music under the handle "MBSounds", drops a new self-composed track on SoundCloud about the collapse of the Ampel government. It’s called “To Go Is to Stand”.

The news comments dryly: “Well, at least he doesn’t sing on the track.” (Buschmann's previous biggest hit was simply an angry speech of Lindner’s, set to music.)

Lauterbach (one of the SPD party members still in office) tweets: “No offense, but I don’t think I’ll be listening to that song more than once. But still, it was good working with you, Marco.”

12. The media ask Scholz if he’s throwing his hat in the ring to run for Chancellor again. He says yes. They ask, in what ways is he different from Friedrich Merz (the dude who’s currently expected to win)? And he replies “Ich finde mich etwas cooler, wenn es um Staatsangelegenheiten geht” (I think I’m somewhat cooler [than him] when it comes to matters of state).

And now the German media is making up new words like "scholzen" (which I can only presume means "as the leader of a country, to fire other government members you don't get along with"):

[Headline translation: "Who Donald Trump will 'scholz' first"]

[tennessoui]

what do yall think of a modern au where like. anakin and obi-wan are hired to be extras in the background of a sitcom, and they're paired together to talk at a restaurant/bar while the main characters have drama in the foreground of the scene

but the star actors keep messing up their lines and the scene keeps needing to be reset, so anakin and obi-wan start actually talking while they're waiting for the cameras to turn back on, and there's obviously a lot of instant attraction but also a lot of their talking is about like...the backstory behind their characters (as extras), and each take they decide to do something a little different to see which one can make the other one laugh more

so one take they go in for a hug instead of a hand shake when anakin arrives, another take they're playing footsie under the table the entire time (even if the cameras can't see it), another take, they're mouthing very obvious corny love confessions across the table, and then during what turns out to be the last take, anakin walks onto the set and greets obi-wan with a kiss on his mouth before they sit down to talk

except it's not talking after that, it's just obi-wan sitting there bug-eyed and mouth open, blush blooming across his face

[ms-hells-bells]

on the way home, just before getting off the bus, got publicly scolded like a child by the bus driver for an easy to make mistake that hurt/affected no one (pressing the button too close before the stop because it's a brand new bus route and it was around a blind corner AND raining at night, so i had no clue the stop i needed would be right there, and so he drove straight past the stop instead), and i apologised multiple times (he verbally STOPPED me from getting off the bus in order to yell at me) while explaining that this was my first time on this bus, but on the inside i was just like 'there is no way you would ever talk to a grown ass male stranger like this, you think it's fine because i'm not a physical threat to you'.

will not be taking that new bus again, which fucking sucks.

[patrice-bergerons]

Regret is unprofessional.

[scopostims]

[ID: 6 GIFs of MRI scans. GIF 1: A bottom to top scan of the brain and tissue. GIF 2: A bottom to top scan of the bone. GIF 3: A slower bottom to top scan of the brain and tissue. GIF 4: A front to back scan of the brain and tissue. GIF 5: A left to right scan of the brain and tissue. GIF 6: A scan of a skull rotating on a vertical axis. End ID]

mri scans :•]

my video, credit this post if you use elsewhere!

[melancholic-pigeon]

@vaspider @mistresskabooms @nerdykeppie I'm the one who's being weird? Me? really? You are absolutely sure you're not the asshole in this situation? You're ABSOLUTELY SURE this was a justified response to my polite confusion?

Wow. I really misread you.

[oyeicher]

[bla-a-a-a-a-a]

I didn't get that *gestures vaguely* feeling when looking at this one so have

[minthandsoap]

hi, i don't know if you deleted the valentine's day fic of limoreau or it's just a problem with ao3, but i couldn't find it anymore 😭 i was gonna read again while waiting for part 2 but i didn't find it

whomp. totally forgot I did that. I completely forgot I created a work solely for one shots so deleted it there and put it as a new chapter under my Limoreau One Shots!

Won't lie to you, did that just now but it's here I swear

[tamaharu]

you cannotttt do """enemies to lovers""" or whatever in a mundane setting there is just not enough breathing room for conflict w/out making someone unreasonably annoying. like in a fantasy story or smth its often larger forces that make them enemies rather than individual traits VS im reading smth where theyre actors and one of them belittled the other at their first meeting, stole + ate their food on multiple occasions, and got them kicked out of the parisian catacombs for messing with a skeleton????? like im sorry i would also hate this guy and hold a grudge forever and ever.

[gamerwoo]

hi im alive i think i have (had??) tonsillitis but my tonsils are feeling a lot better today and im less stuffy but i’ve stayed home from work all week and my boss and coworkers definitely hate me for it 🙃

but in good news: my new keyboard showed up!!!! it’s like clear/pink and it sounds super satisfying to type with, i just need to get used to the new spacing since it is smaller than my old one and doesn’t have a numpad but eeeee im excited to use it!!!!!

[sleepgarden]

I’m very sorry to anyone waiting on me for anything, this week I’m going to contact everyone and get back to any messages that I haven’t yet. Thank you so much for your patience!

[xx-hail2theking-xx]

...

...

...

Poppet?

Is something the matter?

-Duke Valefar.

[liu-yu-xin]

western kpop stans and asian kpop stans live in different worlds for real ppl on twt will be like i hope sm dies for making him apologize for this and ppl on weibo will be like i hope sm dies for not kicking him out of the group for this and not to sympathize with sm but what the hell are they supposed to do 😭

[skleech]

you’ll never guess who finally learnt how to screen record-

thought i’d record how i do my lineless work using the lasso fill tool (aka the most unprofessional, worst process you will ever see)