#because we need community. we need companionship. we need connection.

[neverendingford]

.

[self-care-club]

Adapted from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

What is a need? (Adapted from this article)

It’s important to be connected to our needs because true needs are always in our best long term interest. Our needs for air, food, water, shelter, community, companionship, autonomy, respect, etc. are all in our best long term interest to fulfill.

Wants, on the other hand, don’t necessarily correlate with long term well-being. In fact, many wants, when fulfilled, actually contribute to our long term detriment.

Put another way: needs refer to the conditions that must be met in order for us to live a balanced life; whereas wants are strategies we use to fulfill our needs. This is why needs inherently map to long term well-being, while wants don’t have such a correlation. Wants can either contribute to our long-term wellbeing, or they contribute to our long-term detriment. In order for our wants to be good for us in the long-term, we must understand which needs they map back to.

Ideally, we should be connected to our needs first, and our wants second. When we become disconnected from our needs due to past trauma, we rely too heavily on our wants to guide our decision making. The disconnection from our needs increases the likelihood that we will attach to wants that lead to our long-term detriment. 

[ms-demeanor]

i was listening to a podcast yesterday and one of the hosts was talking about how she used new age beliefs to fill a void left by leaving christianity and how when she left the new age beliefs behind she was talking to some friends who were skeptics and asked them about "the great mystery" and if they thought science could explain why we were here and how even as a skeptic now she thinks people need some kind of spirituality to connect them to the universe and seek an answer to that question.

And I cannot explain enough how no, not everyone needs that and not everyone believes that's a question that has an answer or is even a question worth serious consideration. "Why are we here?" Why would there be a reason that we are here????????????? "What is the meaning of life?" Why are you assuming life has a meaning??????????????

I just really dislike the attitude that people are incomplete or are scared or self-deluding or *bitter* if they don't think the universe has a purpose. The universe doesn't! The universe is doing its thing!

I have a purpose because I made one for myself! Because of the people around me who I loved and cared about and who loved me and raised me and are a part of my community and who deserve compassion and companionship and autonomy and comfort and peace and joy and contentment! I learned what I wanted to do and to be because of us! I do not need a supernatural or spiritual or intuitive connection to the universe in order to know what I'm about!

And I'm absolutely not upset that the universe isn't giving me answers or guidance; I don't feel alone or abandoned or adrift. There are eight billion people on the planet! I'm not alone in the universe there are eight billion people why would I want or expect anything else?

It's literally fine?

[ohholydyke]

When the prophet Elijah faced a government that wanted him dead, he wanted to die, so God sent an angel—a messenger of the Lord—who put their hands on him, brought him food and said “Arise, eat.”

And when Elijah laid back down because he lacked the strength to continue, the angel came again. They put their hands on him, brought him food and said “Arise, eat, because the journey is too great for you.”

And Elijah got up and ate. Until he was ready to engage in his long journey to the mountain of God.

When he got there, the government still wanted the prophet dead, so Elijah still wanted to die. So God told him to stand on the mountain while He came by, so that Elijah could be near God and see Him.

Elijah looked for God in the roaring wind, but God was not there. He looked for God in the earthquake, but God was not there. He looked for God in fire, but God was not there.

And then Elijah heard a gentle breeze, and God was there. In comfort. In stillness. In gentleness.

And when Elijah left, still despairing over facing a government that wanted him dead, God sent him to Damascus with the promise that Elijah would anoint new kings and a new prophet. He found Elisha, his companion and fellow prophet, who stood with Elijah as they weathered the storm of government, grief and fear together. And then they built a new world.

Elijah outlived those who wanted him dead. But he did not do it alone. Comfort, touch, food—these are the essentials. These get us out of bed. These keep us alive. The message from God when Elijah is lying down in despair isn’t “get to work,” it isn’t “focus on resisting,” it isn’t “mourn,” it isn’t chastisement. It’s “arise, eat.”

Communion, gentleness, stillness, focus—these are what motivate us to do the work. Elijah was driven by despair into God’s arms. Maybe that works for you—I will be spending my day in prayer alongside my local parish and participating in a communal Mincha service. Maybe the communion and gentleness for you is other people. Your friends, family, loved ones. Maybe it’s yourself—sitting in meditation, art, music, screaming, cooking, sobbing, stretching, gardening. Do something to be in communion with someone or something today. If you have no one, commune with yourself. Commune with plants and your pets and the wind and the water and the candlelight and anywhere you feel that gentle breeze. Stillness, focus, connection.

Finally, companionship, organizing, community, action, solidarity—these are what allow us to do the work. The journey is too great for us alone. We need each other. We will weather this storm together. We will weather the grief and mourning and despair and anger and outrage and whatever the next few years have in store for us, and we will do it standing alongside each other.

Remember—if things get overwhelming, return to the basics. Lay down. Eat. Rest. Repeat until you can find communion and stillness. And repeat both until you can find the strength to journey on and create meaningful relationships and resistance with others.

As final thoughts, I will share the prayer I have prayed regularly since I began my own journey alongside God as a blessing to anyone who may benefit from hearing it:

May God give you eyes that you may see, ears that you may hear, and lips that speak the truth in righteousness. May you receive a caring heart and open mind. May the Lord bless the work of your hands and that which you give others.

And, to those for whom Christ may be a comfort:

May the Risen Savior grant you peace. May He help you to become more like Him and find solace in Him and His Passion. May the five wounds of Christ serve as a map guiding you to His gentle breeze.

May the Holy Virgin light your way and intercede for us all, comfort the afflicted, hear our sorrows, and show us the Blessed Fruit of her womb Jesus.

Em nome do Pai, do Filho, e do Espírito Santo,

Amém.

EDIT: This post is blowing up a bit so I feel the need to expressly state (as if my blog isn’t statement enough) that this is a queer leftist message. I stand with Palestine, Sudan, the Congo and all peoples struggling to be free. I stand with Black, Brown and Indigenous peoples suffering under colonialism, racism and imperialism, I stand with queer people, I stand with the houseless, I stand with anarchists and witches and freedom fighters. The idea of self care expressed here is explicitly indebted to Audre Lorde—the act of placing boundaries with yourself in order to have the energy to do the work of fighting for liberation, freedom and equality. Her concept applied to the labor regularly performed by Black women in being forced to advocate for their own humanity, which ought to be acknowledged, but in its principles we may also find a path to guide the rest of us towards a foundation of sustainable movement. My faith is based around the acknowledgment that Jesus Christ did not come to establish a kingdom of man, or a hierarchy of oppression, but a kingdom of God built for the oppressed.

[bloggingboutburgers]

I think everyone will benefit from properly tagging posts. xreader fics abd ship fics ONLY include the relevent _x_ tags but none of the character's name on its own, allowing all the usual fanart, theories and such to stay on the main name tag and not be crowded out by horny fanfiction (I say this as someone who very much enjoys very horny, very smutty xreader fanfictions. I want to be able to search the fics I want directly without having to trawl through headcanon posts, fanart, unrelated ship posts, etc.).

No one really has a tailored experience on the internet (I'm glad tumblr is at least a little more user dictated than advertiser algorithm based), but I do get the frustration and discomfort that comes from the abundant hornyposting feeling inescapable.

It's tempting to take offence to persistent cries against xreader stuff. I like special POV episodes of shows for the same reason I like xreader fics. My favourite characters WERE the company I kept, my only real form of companionship (albeit simulated) for many many years. Not because I am allo, basically. I sought something to meet my social needs growing up where I was unable to find community or companionship in real life.

Unfortunately, because they are usually sexual in nature I just came to associate a need for human connection with sex (so am I allo or just conditioned to blend sexual, platonic and romantic feelings and actions together?). I was just happy to feel like I had someone to hang out with. I knew they weren't real and that I needed to find real people to connect with (not for lack of trying, kids are just cruel. Finally made friends as an adult, yay).

Didn't intend for any of that to be so sad or pathetic, but hopefully it gives context for the prevalence of xreader fics. Alongside the varied reasons people write / read them (no just blind allo horniness), especially in light of the widespread loneliness epidemic over the past decade.

It's still more than ok to not want anything to do with them either (be it due to being aroace or not - I know plenty of allos who find xreader fics cringe).

Something I need to clarify here – we get it. Well, we don't fundamentally get it, but trust me, we've been told time and time again why people would write/draw/be into xreader content (it's all part of the package of "aroaces MUST put themselves in allo people's shoes at all times"), and we know they're perfectly legitimate reasons, and we don't find it sad or pathetic, or cringe. At the very least I don't at all. That's not what it's about. It's not something as surface-level at that.

The thing is... The same kind of understanding effort is VERY rarely put forward in return for us. And the fact that we're perceived as naysayers is symptomatic of this. We're not crying against xreader content. People are free to do whatever they want. We just want it to be tagged to keep ourselves safe, and so we can appreciate some variety and find fandom content we can properly connect with with the identity we have.

The issue isn't that there is xreader content, or heck, that there's lots of it. It's that, as @kaoruko-han put it, "everyone is assumed to be into this", and that you can't express something as simple as "I'd rather read something else" without being finger-pointed as a villain.

Yeah, no one has a tailored experience online, but there's still a very clear lack of balance on what is acceptable to tailor to or not (and for us, that includes tumblr). And trying to find fan-content while being sex-repulsed? Bruh, you'd better pray on your lucky stars and be ready to trudge through an ocean of stuff that's loaded with the very thing that makes you scared, uncomfortable or downright triggers a feeling of sickness in you, because a lot of it ain't tagged. An alarming amount of people don't bother, because why would people like you exist, right? There's only ever them, and puritan bigots. It's that black and white in a lot of people's heads.

Here's the difference though: we, too, want people to be able to vibe to whatever fan content they want. We just wish "people" included us properly in this case. As it stands now, trying to find fan content that won't give you an uncomfortable feeling as a sex-repulsed person feels kinda like this (I'll try to illustrate that to the best of my ability as a vague comparison, please no one take that as a clear parallel, I'm literally just trying to explain how it feels in a way people who have no idea how it feels might understand): you're not into gore at all, you don't wanna look at it, but your streaming platform keeps recommending you those series that are loaded with gore. You try to filter it out, but no matter where you go, you keep being recommended those series. And no one ever gets your discomfort and you're being branded as nothing but a wet blanket for not wanting to see gore. It's kinda like that.

At this point I admire sex-repulsed or romance-repulsed people who still TRY to find anything at all in fandom spaces. I've stopped reading fanfic altogether and I've largely stopped engaging with the large majority of fandom spaces for those reasons. And that wasn't an easy choice, or one that I find fun because it feels incredibly lonely, but it's the result of years of exhaustion and strain on my mental health trying to navigate something that's so hostile to me at its core, even if it's unintentional.

So... Yeah. We know the reasons, just like the content itself, they're kinda impossible to ignore. But we are largely being ignored in this, and it's not just something at an "ick" or "picky" level ; for a sex-repulsed person, being spammed with sex entails much more than that. It's not even frustration anymore at this point, it's downright despair a lot of the time. So... Yeah, like you said, everyone would benefit from stuff being more properly tagged. For us it'd be so huge to know our safety is taken into account – that we're taken into account at all. Thing is, we're not, and we're so invisible in this and most other things that at this point, I don't have much hope. Sex-related controversies allo people can understand would sooner create a change than anything done for our sake.

[multbasa]

The Sonic community has an issue with calling every relationship a "sibling" relationship when the relationship is literally just friendship or companionship.

Like, I don't even know if a lot of people really understand what it is like to grow up with siblings by the way they slap the label on everything.

Take it from me: I'm an identical twin, so for my entire life from even before birth I was sharing a space with my twin. As adults, we have chilled out considerably and I consider her my closest connection now, but there was a LOT of growing pains with a lot of fighting before that.

There were times that we didn't even want anything to do with each other which was difficult because other people kind of treated us as a match set. The point is that we sorted out our differences and conflicts because we had to since we shared a home and even shared a room for many many years. People see us now as insanely close but they never saw the biting, hitting, yelling and tears that preceded that.

For people around the same age, I would consider a sibling bond as those who sorted out their differences in time.

As for siblings with larger age gaps, there's a bit of a different dynamic. Sometimes older siblings have to act as parents to their little siblings for instance, but there is still a difference between them and a simple friendship or companionship.

Yes, there are siblings out there who never really had much conflict growing up, but it is more likely than not to have conflict due to the situation of sharing a space for many years. There isn't often much opportunity to have time apart when you have to share a home.

So to me, a good sibling bond is one built on past tension that has resolved simply due to time. We laugh about our past spats because we see them as insignificant now and sometimes we can't even remember what the conflict was in the first place.

Even if a friendship or companionship appears similar in shape to a sibling bond, that doesn't mean that it is a sibling bond. There will always be overlap among good platonic and sibling relationships simply because they are not romantic.

It's fine to hold headcanons about characters where you consider them like family to each other, but it is absolutely unacceptable to go around imposing that headcanon on others who see the relationship differently. You have all the control you need to curate your online experience through blocking people or content you don't want to see and simply not engaging with it. To do otherwise and whine at people minding their business is incredibly infantile, and I have to wonder if those who do this have nothing important going on in their lives.

Even for stuff that really rubs me the wrong way like "twincest", I don't engage with people who post content like that because I just do not want to see it and I have more going on in my life to spend time obsessing over it. Yes, I find it gross, but I can avoid it so I don't have to see it. I'm sure people who are getting twisted over ships that aren't even incest can learn to curate their online experience so they simply don't engage with or even see what they don't like.

[herejusttosufferalong]

To the anon who just sent in about N not being interested in a relationship with L because she is high achieving and he doesn’t have the same ambitions / may not expand her horizons:

I don’t necessarily think this is a deal breaker because this is the dynamic between my husband and I. I am very career focused and ambitious. I have a large online business, a brick and mortar, published books, and am always thinking “what else can I achieve?” It never feels like enough and I always have to be doing something new. I also am very active in social issues and am passionate about advocacy.

When I heard N say “L is uncomplicated in the best way” I thought, “that is exactly my husband. I’ve never figured out how to describe this.”

It’s honestly a great dynamic. He has a great job that he loves, but he’s content in it. He works very hard but he isn’t constantly seeking more in his career and he loves to cheer me on for all my ambitions. I have a feeling this might be what L wants. To have some really good consistent acting jobs, but not necessarily someone who is hustling constantly. I don’t think he’s seeking a huge level of fame.

My husband is a true golden retriever (which I think L would be too for N) and loves to take care of things to make my life less stressful. If the man is strong enough to let the woman be the one who’s soaring more career wise, it can work super well.

He’s also never really thought much about social issues before we were together, but has started caring more and more over time as he sees my passion for it. Something L has expressed N has done for him

I think we forget our partners are not supposed to fill every need we have in life. My husband fills my needs for companionship, physical love & intimacy, and true deep connection and friendship. I have friends in my life who challenge me more mentally. Others who are spontaneous and get me to try new things. And others who are more emotionally intelligent and can engage in more deep life discussions. Our lives should be filled with a community of people who all offer different things. Nobody can be everything for anyone.

It’s clear N & L have a deep connection and other worldly chemistry. I think they both also love each other deeply. Whether they chose to be together or not, time will tell. But it’s clear they shine so bright together and I think they could make each other so happy.

💜🥃

[misterxsamsa]

I've always been fascinated by this comment in passing, about how Johnny can actually feel the emotions of the wall. It's unsurprising, considering that it's been consuming him through their shared mental connection for months, but I've always wished that we had more insight into his relationship with it, emotionally.

When you really think about it, having to knowingly serve an incomprehensible powerful being residing in your mind is terrifying. Despite his natural detachment to the situation, I'm sure it traumatized Johnny. However, Johnny's also been shown to primarily form emotional attatchment to non-human creatures. That's likely due to his disgust towards humanity, and inability to maintain relationships with others painlessly.

People can abandon you, or challenge your behaviors, but not insects or the voices fabricated inside your own head. I'd like to imagine that after a certain point, Johnny developed a trauma bond with the wall thing. It's consuming his mind, memories, and creativity, but directly because of that it's technically the creature that knows him best. After enough consumption, Johnny no longer remembers anything before it's arrival. So, you can argue by then it knows Johnny, and his history, better than he does. It's this familiarity with Johnny's psyche that allows the wall thing to take advantage of Johnny's insecurities using the Doughboys.

It's able to give him everything he could possibly desire: the invincibility needed to indulge his murderous tendencies, purpose, even companionship. It's the ultimate monkey's paw. Still, given the twisted way Johnny views relationships, he might've found an unaknowledged degree of comfort in their transactional relationship. All that's required of Johnny is that he continues to feed the wall blood. It's a largely unobtrusive task involving murder, something he would've frequently been doing anyways. However, as long as he's compliant, he's guarenteed the wall thing, and the Doughboys will never leave him.

[For a lot of the comic, Johnny's unaware that the wall's responsible for his invincibility, but this headcanon operates under the assumption he puts two-and-two together eventually, and significantly before his suicide. Nailbunny is him, so if he's aware of the Doughboy's true nature, it's possible Johnny did as well and simply repressed it for various reasons...]

Seemingly, the wall creature communicates vaguely through telepathically directed thoughts and emotions. That would naturally put a level of distance between it and Johnny, allowing him to enjoy it's closeness through a perceived veil of safety. Besides, you can argue Johnny and his infestation have something very notable in common. They're both oppurtunistic predators. I'd imagine even in spite of Johnny's growing resentment, that would provide a level of begruding understanding with it. He's no better than the wall, and the wall is certainly no better than him. It's his only true psychological equal, and he can't even be on even ground with it.

[biblicalhorror]

Okayyyyy yeah also let's talk about Tammy. I didn't know how I felt about her for awhile because she did very much feel like the Disposable Black Girlfriend, but I'm seeing people saying she's an "abuser" or God forbid "just as bad as Kevin" and that's just. Not at all true.

Yes, Tammy is controlling. She doesn't seem to really like Patty for who she is, and kind of seems to want to change her into someone else instead. HOWEVER, I think we need to look at the whole character to understand WHY she's like that. I don't think she's controlling Patty for personal gain or for the sake of manipulating her. I think she's lonely and desperate for companionship, which leads to her ignoring/pushing past the obvious incompatibility in her relationship with Patty.

Here's what we know about Tammy:

1. She seems to be the only black person in the Worcester social circle. She also mentions frequently how she's surrounded entirely by white men at work.

2. She is also the only openly lgbt person in the area, other than Patty, who is still not exactly out and proud.

3. She describes her entire job as "making excuses for" and "cleaning up after" the men at her job, particularly her partner (whose name I am unfortunately forgetting, does anyone remember?), who even had her plant evidence for him on at least one occasion.

4. Despite being very competent and good at her job, the white men around her keep failing upwards (she mentions a few times that people beneath her keep getting promoted) while she remains stagnant in her career. There doesn't seem to be any explanation for this other than the fact that she is a black lesbian in an extremely white, conservative community.

Basically, Tammy seems like someone who has been taught (like many black women) that she will have to work much harder than everyone else to get ahead in any capacity. She is also likely very, very lonely. She doesn't seem to have any friends outside of work, which isn't surprising given the above. It seems like she doesn't exactly have a ton of prospects, dating-wise, other than Patty. In my opinion, it's really no wonder that she clung to Patty so desperately and immediately and tried to forcibly mold her into someone who could be compatible. She's tough, smart, organized, direct, manipulative, no-nonsense and controlling because, well, she had to be. And she ends up trying to "rein in" Patty because, in her mind, what's the other option? She ends up alone, surrounded by men who force her to cover for their antics and don't care if she lives or dies.

I'm not saying her behavior is healthy. But it comes from an entirely different place than Kevin's abuse, or Chuck's, or even Neil's. And it's also not uncommon. In real life, I know many queer women (specifically small-town lesbians) who end up in relationship dynamics just like that over and over again because they start dating someone who doesn't quite fit, and they compensate for it by trying to force a connection instead of accepting loneliness and isolation. I have a lot of sympathy for Tammy. And I wish the show had taken more care to establish the abuse she faced from her coworkers off-camera.

[eve-was-framed]

okay this is gonna be a bit of a long rant (with some SA and CSA mentions so pls don’t read if that will be too much for you rn) but I’ve been thinking a lot about the “male loneliness epidemic” lately and I have some Thoughts ™

we live in very isolating, depressing and scary times. we live in a hyper-individualistic capitalist hellscape that seems to punish people who need community support. and I truly believe that we as humans should try to help each other out in the ways that we are able to.

but I lose 100% of my empathy for lonely depressed men when they start using their own personal issues as an excuse to peddle ideologies that advocate for rape, pedophilia, child marriage, sexual slavery, and even murder of women and girls. I don’t fucking care how sad you are, if you advocate for other humans beings to be subjected to the cruelest treatment possible then you either need to get serious help or die (and not take anyone with you when you do).

you do not have a fucking paramount on suffering. you are not the only ones who experience loneliness. I know you think women get to just pick and choose whichever romantic partner/friends we want, but that is false, and also being seen as nothing but a sex object by men is so incredibly isolating too. that’s not real love and connection, that’s only being valued for what we can provide for men. so many people feel so alone and it genuinely is a big problem.

I was raised in an extremely misogynistic cult that preaches that grown men are not responsible for anything they do to little girls bc “they’re wired that way.” I had very bad things happen to me before I was even old enough to realize what it meant. and you know what the excuse always is? “well it happened to him when he was younger too so he can’t help that he does it to you.” I learned very early that male suffering is viewed as more important than the suffering they inflict on innocent people. and despite going through this, despite seeing nearly every woman in my life go through something similar, despite all of this, I still would never ever sympathize with any ideology that preaches rape, slavery, sex trafficking, pedophilia, white supremacy, etc. and that doesn’t make me some super hero, it makes me a mildly normal person.

so no, nobody “pushed” you into your evil ideologies, nobody made you do that. if true suffering at the hands of the opposite sex is really the root cause of inceldom then almost every single woman I know would be the most insane incel you’d ever meet in your entire life. but they’re not, even though many of them are lonely and long for true companionship, none of them feel so angry and entitled to it that they want to murder and rape men or little boys. not a single one. the root cause of inceldom is, and always has been, male entitlement. men who were raised to believe the world and every woman in it exists to serve them in some way, but then grew up and realized that actually nobody is owed sex and you don’t get to force women to marry you and have kids, because we are human beings who deserve to be happy too. and this makes them so mad that they start thinking it’s okay to do whatever they want to whoever they want, because after all, nobody on planet earth could ever suffer as much as incels do when a woman tells them no.

I’m fucking sick of it. stop saying “they pushed me to this” and start taking even an ounce of accountability for your deranged, entitled mindset.

[a-s-levynn]

I'm terrified to post this. So watch me sprinting away into the distance after dropping this.

Open love letter to -in extension to the wider ST community on tumblr, but especially- to the fellowship of Sleep because without you, life would be much more lonely

My Friends,

It was today when it finally dawned on me that you gave me the most undescribably precious gift. Many of you probably going to relate to this to some degree because i am not unique in any sense but i had to get this out. And by just the sheer lenght probably not many of you will read it. But i still need to put this out there, even if i'm being obnoxious and probably sound overdramatic and maybe even cringy.

I struggle with a lot of things. Anxiety, self doubt, depression, paranoia, self destructive tendencies, self isolation and the list goes on to even darker places. All in all i have a suboptimal mental state to put it lightly. I feel inadequate in many ways. Especially with connecting to people.

To this day, i struggle every day, seeing my friends, you, talk on a daily basis, have inside jokes and wonderful conversations and whatnot and either i like it or not, thoughts intrude: "am i doing enough? Am i a good enough of a friend? Do i really have a place among these wonderful bright souls? Am i intruding? Am i inserting myself into spaces i do not have any right to be? Am i forcing myself into your circles?"

For the longest time, on most days the conclusion was no. I do not belong. You were just being nice to the pathetic little creature in the corner because by nature you are simply kind. But as the weeks went by i learned that you are also awkward people with your own stuggles and hardships which are far harder and more painful than mine. That you are choosing to be kind every day, in spite of what life threw at you. Because you know.

I started to see you also crave a particular type of companionship and you reach out with the same trembling hands, hoping that someone sees it and grabs it. That someone finally says: you are not alone. I am here. For you. With you.

And you did. You've seen a bunch of hands fumbling in the dark, desperate to hold onto something and went: yeah.. i think i'll grab all of them. Because we are coming from the same darkness. And if i can help pull you into the light than you might have the strenght to do the same for me, so we can all sit in the warmth of the fire. The fire we built together. A fire that is growing ever brighter and allowes us to see even more hands on the edges to be pulled and invited into the circle.

So we have. For a while sitting almost silently, showing the things we found along the way. Tentatively feeling out the boundries. Than we broke the silence. You even started to call me your friend at some point. I already considered you mine because i'm painfully lonely and just the gesture, that you included me among the hands you grabbed was enough for me to see you mine. But all in all, for some unknowable reason, we became friends.

The weeks turned into months and i felt a bit more comfortable to approach you on my own clumsy and awkward ways. Many of you know by now that Tiny Token was born because i was too afraid to send a happy birthday ask to someone. I still apologize regularly just for adding thoughts to posts even if i only do it in tags. I am afraid. Of so many thing.

We still don't talk daily. Yet we still call each other friend. We have actual plans now. I still stuggle with the though of not being enough. There are still days when i feel you just feeling pity towards me.

But lately there is an other thought there. Which makes me feel bad for thinking that way. A thought that's never been there before. "If i was truly bothersome or annoying or any way too unpleasent, you could simply walk away. This is the internet after all. You could just block me. You have the option to walk away but you are time and time again choosing not to. No matter how many days pass by with us not talking, you are there. I can count on you. I'm still hesitant to reach out and dump my superficial adversities on you. But i also see you keeping the door ajar, leaving the option there to be approached if anyone needs it. So it would be not just a disservice but an outright insult to you if i'd think you are just acting out of pity. But if you like me than.. there has to be something about me to actually to be worth knowing?"

And that is doing something that ten years worth of failed therapy could not. You made me question my self doubt. It is still there and will be for the rest of my life. But now there is a steady counter balance i never had this solidly in my life ever before.

I'm still afraid to ask even if anyone would be up for a talk, let alone a call because i have little to offer in conversations. I don't talk much by default and that is not a good base for conversations. I'm still terrified of overstaying my welcome. But i also know now that you probably wouldn't mind from time to time. Because you understand. Maybe one day i will get there. I don't know when but there is a hope i never truly had before.

This is something i will never be able to repay you. Thank you for understanding that we all have different levels of anxiety and fear and not holding it against one and other. I'm writing this to you with immens love and eternal gratitude i cannot truly express in any way that does it justice: Thank you for showing me hope. Thank you for being the way you are.

You gave me the biggest gift there is to give.

You gave me your friendship.

I love you.

Yours in friendship,

Levynn

[loveyourlovelysoul]

I think this era of social medias and fast internet connection and communication is only triggering our urgency in receiving (and reacting), making us forget that for some things we need time. Even (and especially) when it comes to relationships.

We try to know the other immediately, to know everything of them and then think we don't have anything else to ask/tell them (but life goes on? stuff happens?). We tend to stop to superficial topics and understanding of the other person, we avoid certain topics fearing they may be judge us or use them against us (we lost trust: but we need to remind ourselves our trust in others is not related to our self worth. We're not responsible of what others do with our vulnerability, nor it changes our worth or we should feel guilty about having trusted the wrong person: we cannot control anything and anyone outside of us and we cannot call ourselves naive if another breaks our trust). We don't talk about negative stuff, about our feelings, our wishes, our favorite stuff, our hobbies, our passions... we don't try to share them much or invite the other to something we enjoy (and vice versa). And this too blocks the interaction on a superficial level and pretty soon as well.

I think we stopped working for our relationships, isolating in a more comfortable way of thinking (actually projecting, even after two superficial chats) "I don't have anything to tell them anymore", "They must be thinking this, doing that, liking this..." instead of asking, and feeling lonely. We kinda stopped being interested in the other and wait for the other to be interested in us and show they care and think about us (out of past trauma okay, but different person won't necessarily think as us or people from our past). And we don't even share about our loneliness... because what if they judged us? But friends, or people we should share a deep connection with, don't judge/criticize us to make us feel bad (if they do, they're not friends and it's probably them projecting on us anyway). They eventually give us suggestions and other povs to make us grow and help us (same thing we can do for them). And anyway we can always have a talk on that, confronting each other's pov and grow from it: even arguments can help us grow together with someone, it's okay if things don't go well/perfectly everyday, it's okay to have bad days, it's okay to not talk everyday... in any type of relationship. It doesn't mean someone will leave us or we need to leave before they do it to us. We need to remember we're two different people and the only thing we can do is communicate. Always. With our heart. Love and friendships are choices we make also withour minds, with our will to try and not give up immediately after the first difficult situation. Together with the other person's will.

So why this huge self sabotage tendencies in relationships? Why we prefer to stay home and feel lonely, resentful to everyone not caring for us and relying on internet for companionship, maybe ending up comparing our life with others' (fake images we see online) and feel even less worthy of love and understanding? Why don't we just change our pov and try to be more open and vulnerable? Maybe even going a little more deep after we get comfortable with the other? Why do we run away (give up?) so fast? We cannot always wait for others to take the first step, we can take the risk too, we can show interest as well (actually, we should or the other will only feel used or uninteresting and lose the will to communicate on the long run). We can accept if someone is busy and we can allow them time too ofc. It doesn't necessarily mean they don't like us. Not everything is about us and our worth. We probably need to re-learn how to slowly water our relationships and care for them as we'd do with a plant: we have to wait and be patient and consistant to get flowers when we start from seeds. We may even deal with aphids as it grows, but we can get rid of them if we take good countermeasures (if we communicate openly and stay vulnerable, find compromise and a good balance with the other: both people need to feel respected, free, understood and cared for).

[mychlapci]

seekers are really communal frame types. it's actually part of the reason why they trine together; they're like rats or pigeons. a single seeker left alone to their own devices will often slip into depression without companionship. it's actually a big idea i have for my fan continuity.

i've seen people saying that vosians are prideful assholes and while i think that's true to some extent, i also think that they're just generally very focused on their communities. within my fan continuity, certain areas of cybertron lended themselves better to certain frame types. the areas that eventually became the region of vos were pitted by steep mountains and deep canyons so only those who could fly were able to properly settle there.

due to this, vos is a very flight oriented region. most cities there are built high into the atmosphere and rarely accommodate other frame types which has led to the stereotype that all vosians are vain and only care about themselves which is very much not true!

vos, in my fan continuity, isn't a single city. it's a name given to describe a specific region of cybertron that has similar topography, and language families (similar to how we call the middle east, the middle east even though there's a ton of different countries and cultures there)

vosians are generally some of the most outwardly friendly cybertronians due to the wingspeak that the region developed as their main form of communication. this language is allows for far more nuance but it's not something taught across cybertron so when vosian's speak common, their tones often come across as intensely snooty because they tend to be very blunt with their words.

seekers in particular are distinguished from other flight frames by their specific wing forms and general likeness to each other in terms of kibble placement and other such looks, are very community based, often forming massive neighborhoods and colonies of up to 120 seekers.

these colonies function just by the sheer feeling of community that shows up between those who are part of it. members often share, sleeping, cooking, bathing, and living spaces and it's not uncommon for multiple different trines to form massive poly relationships with each other just because of close proximity

this is also my explanation behind why the only air force we see in the decepticons are seekers. because they're so communal, it only made sense for them all to join the cons. not doing so would mean that one left behind might become extremely isolated and depressed from lack of contact.

seeker colonies are highly complex and often feature a single trine as the main leaders (in this case it would be the elite trine) but it can often vary from colony to colony. smaller ones might only have one trine in charge, but the bigger ones might have up to five which create a council of sorts to make decisions regarding the community

going back to the city structures of vos. it varies highly on the area but generally cities that are built high in the mountains tend to build outward around the mountain and then upward. so you'd see a lot of scaffolding around the lowest layers, just general structural support dug directly into the rock, while the upper most layers are connected by a series of bridges and pathways.

cities that built into the canyons of the region tend to be a lot more spread out, with chunkier buildings that better accommodate cybertronians of other frames. however it is consistent that vosian cities are built at high altitudes, feature heavy use of spiraling skyscrapers, and generally focused on flight frames and their specific needs. so lots of perches to land on, runways to take off from, and open aired buildings to allow for better weather predictions since some cities might be so high up that the upper layers stretch above the cloudline.

i have thoughts about the winglord thing in fandom. i think it's really interesting but i don't think it's a seeker specific thing.

so in terms of the winglord for this version of cybertron, i think it's a ceremonial term used to describe the winner of a ritual that determines who will lead the vosian region for the coming millennium regarding religious leadership. it's kinda like if the pope position got chosen by a fistfight. so like the winglord doesn't have any actual political power, but they do have a lot of religious influence

starscream in my continuity never actually becomes the winglord because of that reason. he's not particularly religious and because he specifically wants to join politics to get vos more focused on unifying with other cybertronian regions, he never participates in the winglord fights. however, sunstorm does

skywarp is a cartographer and his teleporting abilities allow him to get into unmapped spaces without too much trouble. which is very useful since vos' topography does not lend itself well to scanning devices because of the unpredictability of the weather. the area is prone to sudden and very random tornadoes because of it's mountainous landscape and it's actually part of the reason why vosian cities are designed the way they are. they're built most commonly in the areas that avoid the paths of the tornadoes

once again this ask is getting out of hand so i'm going to cap it off on that

aaaaaa i can't believe it took me so long to get to this ask, this is literally the coolest thing ever. Though i might be biased because I have... well, not exactly a continuity, more like... it's flashes and, uh, images, in my head, barely headcanons, and they're not always nearly as pregnancy-based as i led everyone to believe. And in these barely-headcanons, i am a sucker for, first of all, the cybertronian "cities" being more akin to areas or states with more cities within, and second of all your idea of seeker communal society kind of reminds me of the way that the roman kingdom operated, and i looove to get inspired by rome for my cybertronian worldbuilding. mostly because rome was very fucked up and cybertron needs to be as well.

and yeah, the winglord thing, i do feel like it's possible that every city/state on cybertron would have a high ranking official that is technically "in charge" and vosnians simply call it a winglord, but it's not exclusive to them. sorry just the political arrangement of cybertron is so interesting to me, no.1 favourite thing to think about. it probably depends on the "area" but the official can be only religious in nature or fully tyrannical or anywhere in between. again, sorry, i have to stop thinking about this.

in love with your mind, i love communal fliers. i know people can get weird about seekers and trines but i love it when it's simply a cultural difference.

[zethhazloutay]

CW: Talk about BBgate, Larries, Antis and fandom behaviours, don’t like, don’t read.

Take care everyone, I will block any negative interaction bcs I like my mental health, if you have a different point of view and are able to share with respect I would love to talk about it as long as it’s not an attack on any demographic, read it all so the conversation adds up.

Expecting H and L to come out and be public is as bad as calling them queerbaiters.

Expecting L to confirm bbygate is as distasteful as constantly probing a non-traditional family by claiming their family dynamic is not valid.

Forcing an specific queer label on them is as gross as dying on the hill that they can’t be anything but straight.

Expecting H or L to debunk their romantic relationships stunt is as disrespectful as thinking every woman their work with is their beau/beard. Stunt work is part of their work, both parties of a stunt relationship consent to it and get something out of it, the real relationships behind the screen could be anything from workplace companionship to love.

Claiming and modelling L and H relationship status to your fantasies is as bad as projecting hetero-monogamy in them.

Being a Larry truther is as toxic as being an Anti, since these both groups tend to think their lives and carrers revolve around a fan-theory for good or bad.

Even if all the theories where real or false ( I think the most important part about this is having an open mind to any possibilities) there are tons of behaviours that are disgusting by all parts of the fandom (solos ot5, Antis, Larries, Buzzings) and it’s important to remember that is fun to be part of something but we have to remember we are not entitled to ANYTHING as their fans.

Growing up, being able to have meaningful IRL interactions, grow apart from the fandom and ‘touch some grass’ made me revisit Louis words about Larry and realise what they try to convey a communicate.

“People can believe what they want to believe even if it is bs and they are so connected to their beliefs that they won’t see other realities what I don’t like is when their beliefs transpire in invasive IRL nasty behaviours”

What this tells me is he doesn’t not give a fuck abt Larries since they are not by any means his ‘golden fan base’ or the ‘rotten fan base’ (despite what any Larry or Anti says). He cares however abt the real life consequences that have bleed from crazy ass people, because again, no matter the ‘proverbial truth’ (that he has only given by voice is ‘false but you can believe in it if you want [weird response but ok]’ ) he will never give pats in the back to people that have time and time again be the headquarters of invasive behaviours that he will never want or approve, queer or cishet, with H, E, single or with another person, proudly out or closeted. He does not address toxic behaviours in the fandom because he knows that a handful of people doesn’t represent all there is to the fan base, but we know that if he notices something he doesn’t like he will call it out.

This text it’s not for making anyone feel bad or guilty (Unless you stalk people around them or other parts of the fandom) is for anyone who might suffer of ‘Parasocial Stan Larry/Anti syndrome’ to realize that it REALLY DOESN’T MATTER we don’t need to know every single thing or defend any rich popstar of their own doings. We need to enjoy music, touch grass, hydrate, talk to our loved ones and uplift the joy in our lives and fandoms, unlearn toxic behaviours and be kind. We can all be delusional, wrong, bigots, selfish, hedonist and parasocial, but the important thing is to identify our own bluff and stop it, to understand everyone does/believe things for a reason and it’s not our place for us to berate each other but to give space for possitive things (pride flags, respect for privacy, fan fiction [most say is deranged but ff is what keeps creativity and writing alive and honestly, is not harmful at all if we all follow the etiquette] ,fan projects, friendship bracelets, cute and respectful interactions, taking care of each other, accept we all have a space in the fandom and it’s not a race of ‘the best fan’).

[gctchell]

#red is the og. the VIP#one of the safest people I've ever met#spectacular writing and I've the privilege of being able to see the incredible progression#from the day we met to present day.#it's a while! and writing like hers is unforgettable. her Lilith and Niffty are delights#and she's taken what I liked about those two and intensified my love for them#only red can pile on reasons for me to love characters especially ones she takes on#an excitable writer and one of the best people u can meet. even if we're in hell.#and her improv???? I know I can count on her to roll with the punches. -- @jizzlords

#ive known red for some time even WAAAY before HH and they’re a wonderful person#great to communicate with and very loving and kind and open minded#wonderful writer to boot on top of all of that -- @therealricksanchezpleasestandup

i just signed on to the sweetest tags from some of the oldest mutuals i've had across my accounts. what the hell, yall. my darlings..

@jizzlords is wearing ozzie's skin. I mean that in the most complimentary way ever, because hel just pulls that man off with such ease it's like they're sharing the same body and he's just conducting the keyboard, taking down his autobiography online. the voice is crystal clear, you can hear iglehart in everything hel writes - down to the laughter.

hel loves this man and it is clear to see. the love for that muse is in there and the justice is being delivered right to the key. absolutely astounding portrayal, and hel even dives into ozzie being a fallen angel, and still having trauma from all that mess. hel gives him flaws, gives him green flags, brings him to life and makes him the icon of desire that he needs to be. I'm not surprised, though - hel's always knocked it clean out of the park when it comes to glamorous and iconic characters, bc hel is iconic. and just all-together so much fun to hang out with.

also, pssst: hel's writing is absolutely flipping beautiful. I've been lucky to be traveling alongside him for a long time now and watch it bounce from the characters he loves so dearly to the next. he's just gotten better, and he was already great.

@therealricksanchezpleasestandup is rick sanchez. I am not kidding lmao. you go onto that blog and it reads like rick. I've been a mutual of steffu's for.. god, a good few years, now? not even including the time on this account? and I have just watched her kick absolute ASS with this man. it's just like asmodeus and hel, it's another case of 'I think that man just lives in your skin and you're writing everything he tells you to', because damn. excellent portrayal, excellent handling, excellent managing of this man and his emotions, and just how messed up he is.

yeah, rick is a mess and steffu knows exactly how to write that while also making it so abundantly clear why and how it is that he has so many amicable relationships all over the multiverse. man knows how to juggle his personality traits and get those connections, find companionship in others that his family doesn't quite get to see that often - outside of morty. I always thought that was a pretty damn cool thing for her to cover.

because he's a universe jumper, it makes all the sense in the world that he has connects to others down here in hell. easy character to plug in with if you like rick and morty and want a rick to interact with. steffu has the man on lock, I am telling you.

[ncfan-1]

I have pondered a long time the question of just what it is that makes both Sol and Qimir both immediately want Osha upon seeing her, whereas Mae is discarded the moment Osha comes into focus. I think I have finally hit upon an answer, one I’ve hesitated to share because I was afraid people would think I was saying it to slight Osha when I’m not, but here it is. I think the answer lies in Osha’s willingness to assimilate, versus Mae’s unwillingness to assimilate.

What is it that makes Sol recoil from Mae on the night of the Ascension, and narrow his focus to be concerned only for Osha’s well-being, even though, if he really does consider the coven to be as sinister as he seems to, he ought to still think that both of these girls could be in danger? It’s when he sees the mark on Mae’s forehead that she has received as consequence of having undergone the Ascension, the physical marker of her belonging with her coven and her unwillingness to assimilate to the dominant paradigm of Force-wielding in the galaxy. He says of her that she “has been marked by dark magic,” and his attitude very much seems to be that she was tainted by this dark magic. He immediately concludes that the marked sister is safe with her family while the unmarked sister is not, even though he has no idea to what end Mae was marked, and Osha wasn’t.

It is Mae, all of eight years old, and not Osha, who is put on the spot about her marginalized culture by a pair of adult outsiders with “notions”, without one of the adults of her own community present. Mae is allowed to lie her way through her cognitive test unchallenged. Sol and Indara both know that Mae is lying during that test—Sol saw her using the Force twice; he knows perfectly well that she’s Force-sensitive—but Sol never encourages her to tell the truth, never shows any real, deep concern for her well-being, even though Mae takes the test first, even though it’s Mae’s behavior and not Osha’s that first tips him off that the twins have been told to lie. He’s Othered her. He’s dismissed her from the place in his heart where concern lives. It’s only after Sol thinks that he’s killed Mae that she seems to become important to him again, dwelling in the place in his heart where guilt lives, a frozen memory that he can perhaps forget had accepted a different way of life than the life he lives, a frozen memory that he can perhaps forget he did such a serious disservice to, even before he dropped her.

As for Qimir, I’ll admit, I have long held him in contempt for his “Mae was only interested in revenge,” because it exposes that Qimir never made much of an effort to get to know Mae, no matter how long he was acquainted with her. To the audience, it’s obvious that Mae wanted the companionship of her family more than she ever wanted revenge, because of her willingness to abandon her pursuit of revenge/justice against the Jedi who killed her family when she discovers that Osha, one of her family, is still alive. But let’s assume that Qimir is speaking truthfully when he assumes that Mae was only interested in revenge, and if we do, I wonder if this isn’t an expression of something else.

Qimir does not identify himself as a Sith, saying only that the Jedi would probably name him as such. But we know that there is an implied connection between him and Darth Plagueis, which most likely leaves him Sith-adjacent; the fact that he prompts Mae to recite the first line of the Sith Code in Episode 2 suggests as much. And we know that Qimir was once a Jedi. So, we have Jedi and Sith in Qimir’s background, the two ideologies that take turns as the dominant Force-wielding paradigms in the galaxy. And what is Mae, exactly?

Mae, who when she goes out to track down the Jedi who killed her family, wears clothing and armor that is as close a replication of traditional dress in her community as she seems able to approximate. Mae, who when she needs a poison to offer to Torbin, insists on using bunta, a poison native to Brendok, a poison that she used in her daily life for hunting during the winter, when she would hunt with her family. Mae, who wants to make damn sure that the Jedi she’s hunting down know who it is who’s coming after them, and why. What is Mae, exactly? Whatever tradition of Force-wielding she might currently be utilizing, she very clearly still identifies with the witches of Brendok.

The thing of it is, it’s not as though Mae hasn’t already made a huge compromise while training with Qimir, in that she was willing to accept his tutelage at all. The show doesn’t dwell on it, but electing to accept Jedi-adjacent training cannot possibly have been a decision she made lightly, or easily, whatever Qimir says about Mae having agreed to it “immediately.” To accept training in the tradition of the people who killed her family cannot possibly have been something she agreed to because she was eager for it for its own sake—she can only have agreed to it out of devotion to the family she lost, because she saw no other way to become strong enough to seek justice for them.

A huge compromise, and apparently not enough for Qimir. What’s the difference between Osha and Mae to Qimir? Qimir seems instantly fascinated with Osha. Even before Mae prepares to desert him, he seems to have almost completely lost interest in her, because Osha’s turned up. Why is that? We know that he treats Osha with honesty, whereas he has been consistently deceitful to Mae since they first met. We know that he approaches Osha with sympathy, whereas his treatment of Mae was such that she regarded him with no affection or respect, only with fear and implied resentment.

Qimir’s stated motivation is that he wants freedom from the Jedi, who say that someone like him “can’t exist.” That sure does sound familiar, doesn’t it? From Mae’s point of view, that’s exactly what happened to her and her family. Members of the dominant Force-wielding ideology in the galaxy came to her homeworld, trespassed into the home of her marginalized community, and killed her entire family, with her and her sister as the only survivors. But Qimir never made an attempt to reach out to her on the basis of this huge piece of shared ground between them. He was instead deceitful, made her fear him, and eventually wrote her off as “only being interested in revenge.”

What’s the difference between Osha and Mae to Qimir? Why does he treat Osha so differently?

Well, Osha was once a Jedi, too, like Qimir. And Qimir may regard that as far more genuine a stretch of common ground than Mae having spent sixteen years believing herself to be the sole survivor of a ideologically-motivated massacre of her people by Jedi who decided that they couldn’t exist. He can empathize with Osha’s circumstances, but finds nothing in Mae’s to empathize with. Instead, he looks at Mae, Mae who still identifies strongly with her marginalized community, and Others her just as much as Sol did. “You’re not like me, and you never will be.” He writes off her devotion to her family as simple revenge-obsession, and makes no effort to understand.

Osha is far more malleable to the dominant ideologies than Mae is, far more willing to assimilate. If The Acolyte hadn’t been cancelled, I think we would have seen her forced to reckon with her heritage eventually; the fact that she instinctively uses Force Magic when she has Qimir’s helmet on is a strong sign of that. But she is willing to leave her family and become a Jedi, and implied later to be willing to adhere to Qimir’s ideas of what a Dark Sider should be, and receives positive responses as a result. Whereas Mae refuses to assimilate more than is absolutely necessary for her own survival, identifies strongly with her marginalized community even after all of them are dead, and is left on the outside of everything as a result.