#bluetext

[daddyloop]

I need to obey my cock

I need to obey my cock

I need to obey my cock

I need to obey my cock

I need to obey my cock

I need to obey my cock

I need to obey my cock

I need to obey my cock

I need to obey my cock

I need to obey my cock

I need to obey my cock

I need to obey my cock

[bigblueoctoling]

It really irks me whenever I see people who call Side Order's story mediocre.

Like, as I've discussed, there are things I dislike about it, but I feel like on a character level it's so much deeper than anything we've gotten out of Splatoon so far, to the point where I can't help but think you're dense if you think the story of side order is just "you defeat the big evil robot and win the game".

I went down this road of thought because I was thinking about Marina as representation of an autistic person, and how shockingly well it was handled, and furthermore, how relevant it is to the story.

For one, the things that set her apart as an autistic person don't make her out as an outcast, they are celebrated, Pearl seems to actively cherish them, even when she's not able to fully match her level of intellect.

But on top of that, the game is very intimately about exploring Marina's psyche, and confronts her struggles with relating to others without making her out to be asocial because of it.

Most relevantly, the core focus of Side Order is about Marina's subconscious fear of change, something very relatable as an autistic person- that, despite how obvious it might seem to do in retrospect, it was a difficult leap to make, as someone born into a bad situation. It's such a nuanced moral and it says so much about Marina, an obviously autistic character, in such a positive and uplifting way...

Like, not only is Marina the best autistic representation Nintendo has done, I genuinely feel like Marina is the best written autistic character I've ever seen. I know people within the splatoon fandom never stop talking about Marina and Pearl but I feel like outside of the context of splatoon that fact isn't talked about enough.

[wildcard-org]

born to be a magical girl, forced to live in a house that’s. uh. that might be god.

(another piece based on @wouldwulfie's rpverse series !! this time on the fic this isn't supposed to be madoka magica :])

if none of this is accurate the hivemind can execute me live. amen.

i have The love-hate relationship with magical girl designs. you're so pretty to look at why is making you impossible

[scpwiki-official]

have yall considered that shifting walls means that a house can cuddle you

[eyepatchdate]

if youve only read the navidson record, you dont understand the point of HoL (it's worthless)

[bigblueoctoling]

The entire basis of this concept being on an arbitrary definition of hypnosis rather than the most clear cut definition of the word, and then acting like people who don't accept this just don't care enough about callie, is really really absurd, especially when this really doesn't do the character of Callie the justice you think it does.

For the record, I will set some things straight:

Callie does care about Octarians, and went to Octo Canyon out of her own volition and desire to improve Octarians' standard of living.

Callie isn't stupid- not for any reason, but especially not because of this event- her compassion and trust were taken advantage of by a manipulative person.

That being said, I find this entire narrative people push of Callie not being hypnotized/brainwashed (for the sake of simplicity I will refer to any instance of "having your thoughts unnaturally altered" beyond this as brainwashing) to be absurd.

I feel as though people who make this claim refuse to accept the fact that there can be a middle ground between "Callie is sympathetic for Octarians" and "Callie was a thoughtless robot for the entire period between splatoon 1 and splatoon 3".

The narrative of Callie, sympathetic to the suffrage of Octarians, went to Octo Canyon to hear Octavio out, and made a genuine effort to make their lives better, before Octavio, ever fixated on his military strength over all else, betrayed her and forced her to fight alongside him, is a lot more consistent with the narrative in the future and at the time for all characters involved. People seem strangely fixated on avoiding implicating Octavio doing anything wrong, but literally all evidence points towards the reality that Octavio would always sacrifice the wellbeing of Octarians for his military power. This is literally only emphasized further in Octo Expansion and Side Order.

I don't understand where people are pulling this idea that Octavio would inexplicably show sympathy for Callie with no ulterior motives when he is the only person keeping Octarians oppressed, when all Octarians are funneled into his military and personal freedoms are routinely ignored. You posited this as a criticism against mischaracterization of Callie but all I see is mischaracterization of Octavio.

I also just think everything about this greatly damages Callie's future developments. It doesn't make any sense why Callie would be fully onboard with supporting Octavio, so willing that she would go so far as to attack Marie, allegedly by mere suggestion and not any form of brainwashing, but after being defeated, assists in helping Octarians *escape from Octavio*, makes no sense at all. On the other hand, if Callie was primarily focused on helping Octarians from the start, and then had that compassion betrayed, it portrays a lot of bravery from Callie that she is willing to go back and continue to assist them.

I also just flatly refuse the idea that Callie would ever be pushed far enough to attack Marie and 4 without being provoked by a manner such as brainwashing. Like, the entire story is about Callie and Marie's bond- how much the two of them being separated was destructive to the both of them, and how much better both of their lives became when they came back together. As long as we're talking about mischaracterizing Callie and Marie- I have to ask what sort of evidence is there that Callie would ever willingly betray Marie?

As for the rematch dialogue-

It's obviously not canon?

Like. The fact that you can replay a boss fight doesn't mean that canonically it happened again. And, for the record, this also goes for anyone who'd use this dialogue as evidence that Callie is stupid- but ultimately this feels like the only evidence I've ever seen for this entire concept that Callie is in control, but the entire idea of this rematch text being canonical evidence that this entire fight happened more than once is really, really absurd.

Now, just for the record- you can say all of this as a headcanon, that's totally fine. If you wanna develop a headcanon based on the rematch text, go for it. There's some interesting depth to explore in the idea of Callie not being brainwashed, to the hypnoshades being like a drug that Callie can't quit- but it really irks me to act like all of this stuff is canon, and that the developers/translators of the game just didn't understand the original intent of the work, and that the common reading is boring or lazy, and that people who read it that way just don't care enough... That shit is the worst.

Found this on Twitter, sounds like you lol

omg send me the link of the tweet i wanna see the comments.

Also. TRUE!!!!!!!!!! SO TRUE BESTIE!!!!!!! Everyone gets Pearl, Marina, Shiver, Frye and Big Man correct but not them.

"Callie was kidnapped!"

*shows art of Callie walking towards Octavio's mark and an official relationship chart*

"Oh she was brainwashed!" *shows articles talking about hypnosis and how it's not anywhere near the same thing as brainwashing*

Literally took me five minutes to find sources to disprove it HAHAAHAAH!!!!!!

"Oh but Marie said this!"

Literally only in the English translation btw, not any other languages.

"But Octavio said he remixed her brain!" Not in the original Japanese script and in other scripts btw. Every other script aside from English and Dutch mention hypnosis. Plus he's a DJ, he says musical puns to describe actions. The remixing is implying he got her on his side via manipulation and not direct brain "washing". God.

People really don't care that much about Callie to even look at outside sources, they just see the English script and take it as is because "Callie is silly and Splatoon is silly." Fucking hell man. Not even people who deep dive into timelines, reviewers, NEARLY EVERYONE!

Why do you think people call her HYPNO Callie huh?! What do you think HYPNO stands for? Use the fleshy pink thing in your skull. GOD! DAMN! I know Inkipedia calls her brainwashed Callie and says she was kidnapped sometimes on some of the pages, but that's down to the site being run by multiple people who have different levels of engagement in different areas of Splatoon.

If i come across one more fucking person that calls Callie a dumbass or airheaded for putting the shades back on i will literally throw myself out off of the tallest floor on the god damn Burj Khalifa. Callie was suffering from an addiction and y'all laughed at it because the game poorly presented that idea due to time constraints.

You guys are so lucky I'm not also a massive Marie fan too... I would be doing DOUBLE the ranting.

[venomhasrabiess]

BLUE PIXEL TITLES FOR RENTRY PAGES

F2u with credit! Just link the image back to tis post!!! ƪ⁠(⁠˘⁠⌣⁠˘⁠)⁠ʃ ♪

[handsome-john]

🎂 Dude I apologize for all the asks but my Clears brainrot is so so so bad,,,

Gears watches all the Babish videos that pique his interest, and he feels… really okay with himself when Babish admits to messing up dishes, or doesn’t get things right the first time. He decides to choose a recipe and make it for him and Clef. He decided on the pasta alla vodka, since it seemed pretty simple and he had a grasp on what to do, and it was similar to the pasta and sauce dish he made. He purchases the ingredients (his fridge now looks like a person lives in his house), and starts making the recipe, as well as some frozen garlic bread that he bought on a whim. It felt silly of him to do so, but he reasoned that if he was going to be putting in so much work on the sauce, he might as well have something to sop it up with. He makes the sauce from scratch and grates fresh parmesan on top of it.

Clef arrives just as he’s finishing the pasta, and it’s… amazing. It smells great. Sure, the recipe is pretty simple, but or the second dish he’d ever made, and the first one he’d made completely on his own, it’s excellently done. Clef tells him as much, and Gears gets a little pink in his softened cheeks.

“I simply followed the instructions in the video, and kept in mind the things you told me. There was little left up to intuition or skill.”

“Hey, none of that. You should be damn proud of yourself, it smells delicious.”

“…I am proud,” Gears shyly says, as if he’s realizing it for the first time, “but it’s so simple, I feel like I shouldn’t be proud.”

Clef wants to say he should be proud of everything— this Gears looks so different from the man he met. He looks cozy, in a burgundy sweater and khakis instead of a starched white shirt, scooping the pasta into two bowls for them, before slicing the garlic bread he got them. He’s not skeletal anymore, chubby and soft in ways that made Clef want to squeeze the life out of him like a teddy bear, and he looked more alert, more alive. He looked like he was healing. Clef smiles, Gears setting a plate in front of him.

“You should be proud,” Clef says, “I sure as hell am.”

I LOVE CLEARS!!!! They are so precious. Gears mental health improving because he's actually enjoying a hobby and he's eating food he enjoys without fear of getting sick! Clef just happy to socialize with him and get closer <3 they mean the world to me

[bigblueoctoling]

[xweetok-starmap]

tw being a really really worried (non-bio) parent/sibling/friend/I have no idea what I am for this kid and being terrified of child abuse happening, also actual abuse/csa mention, just really bad situations in general tbh

ETA after writing: ... but in a really grossly funny way, this is a great example of "hey wanna see what I worry about?" /toothy grins, pats the passenger seat of a car beside me from behind the wheel/ /the hypothetical passenger (reader) gets into the car beside me/ /we immediately explosively drive off a cliff straight through the protective metal railing at 90 miles an hour/

/groans/

I hate having waking up morningmares

I was thinking about the composition for my post I need to make, talking about bottom growth and DHT cream stuff

And during that time I was like, "oh yeah; I remember watching my boy doing those kind of telltale uncomfortable bottom readjustments that happen when the body is developing but also your parents haven't been keeping up with buying you new clothes, and all your shoes and pants and everything are just a little too small" (I bought him new size-adjustable rollerblades that his stepmom thought the smallest size would be too big for him but are actually EXACTLY his size, for example) stars I need to buy him new clothes cause I don't know if his parents (other parents???? sardines and crackers I have no idea where I sit with this sometimes) are gonna do it and I love him and want him to be comfy

--And registering mentally with empathy while watching him that, "Oh yeah. Bottom growth is distinctly uncomfortable, I would know this because I'm aware it's gonna be uncomfortable for ME in a couple months when I use my DHT cream; it's probably something just about every transguy is aware of and could empathize with, too"; but it's unfortunate that most cis parents have probably long since forgotten this phenomenon -- and especially everyone puts so much more emphasis on girl puberty while just leaving boys in the dark so frequently -- and so they probably aren't going to be proactive in looking out for these body changes and buying their kids new underwear or whatever

And then I thought about how it'd probably be like "a little bit but not THAT weird" for me to bring this up (I mean, I explained it pretty well in just 2 little paragraphs up there literally just now, why I would think about it at all)

But then I realized that I have actually never seen him do it in front of everyone else, I've only ever seen him do it when we're together 1:1, probably because he feels safe that I'm not gonna yell at him (he has ACTUALLY TOLD ME that he likes it when I'm with him because then he gets yelled at so much less, he's told me he wants to live with me because then he'd be treated in ways that respect his personal boundaries in places like HIS OWN ROOM like, I cry about this sometimes because there isn't anything much I can actually do in this situation above just being there for him; I don't even have a consistent roof over my head)

And then I remembered that I've always had this really strange gut feeling that I'm suspicious that his step-dad has/had been sexually abusive, even though I've never met these people just heard unflattering as all stories, it's just something I worry about; and how when the America Politics Stuff and Inauguration was first happening the thing that I was REALLY worried about was abusive parents hurting children in their home as a terrible outlet for their rage, because wow yes I am intimately familiar with this on the receptive end unfortunately, yeah that's purposeful word choice sorry

And I thought about how worried I was for my boy specifically; and how if something DID HAPPEN then not only would the legal system be terribly overloaded and understaffed and getting help would be difficult, ALSO ALSO ALSO his bio-mom is a terrible abuser of the court system who uses it to hurt people who haven't done anything wrong on purpose, and so my boy's bio-dad and step-mom (and just generally everyone in that household) have such a huge pile of trauma associated with the court system since they've been fighting with her inside of it about my boy for years, that they would prOBABLY REFUSE TO GET HIM HELP BECAUSE OF ' THEIR TRAUMA' AND THIS MAKES ME SO UPSET AND MAD; DON'T YOU DARE TELL MY BOY TO STAY QUIET IN THIS HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION BUT I REALLY THINK THEY WOULD I REALLY REALLY THINK THEY WOULD (maybe not exactly this _sentiment_ but the result would be the same) AND THIS IS AWFUL TO ME

And then I remembered back when he was like 5 or 6 and he was having very maladaptive sexual behavior (or at least indicative of highly abusive behavior: it was very strange oral involvement with the toilet in the middle of the night) I mean this boy's bio-mom used to bEAT HIM WITH A SPOON and I kind of hate the fact that because he doesn't remember this stuff anymore because he was 5 or 6 and it's all repressed now -- and I DEFINITELY did not remember what happened in my life when I was 5 or 6, at ages 9-10 which my boy is at now -- that he is actually kind of protective of his bio-mom and never shares with either parent pair, what is going on in the OTHER house with the other parent pair

/remembers and is mad about his bio-mom telling my boy that "she would wash his most precious blanket for him and then send it back" and then for MONTHS refusing to elaborate when my boy asked about it and yelling about how she'd deal with it with the bio-dad; but I ended up giving him a blanket that reminded him of this blanket he was missing for the Winter Solstice, and he is so so thrilled about this /warm loving smiles/ so at least I could help mend that tear in his life/

(Also because the other family members in the step-mom house are so traumatized by his bio-mom constantly harassing them in court and doing things like filling exclusively malicious restraining orders to try to force them out of their own house -- because her son isn't a person to love more than anything in the entire planet to her, he's just a trophy to win, and I HATE THIS -- they have probably ALSO repressed these memories, I don't know if anyone but me actively remembers and I only heard about it 2nd hand)

But he is comparatively unenthusiastic about spending time in his bio-mom's house compared to spending time at his step-mom & bio-dad's house (which is where he gets to see me and is treated with like ... when I'm not there he's treated with the AVERAGE amount of gross disrespect that children are expected to get in society from parents who still ' love them'?? I guess?; I don't like it but it's way better than CPS, I would know again unfortunately from personal experience)

And my boy LITERALLY CRIES WHENEVER I LEAVE AND HE DOESN'T KNOW WHEN HE'LL SEE ME AGAIN, this has happened for YEARS; when I finally could, I started going there regularly to spend time with him. I finally got to start leaving and see him not cry about me leaving for the first time in my life; he started making such BEAUTIFUL progress in school and socializing in general once I started going over there multiple times a week for a few months; but he was really really sad when he knew I wouldn't be able to visit for a while because I had major surgery and couldn't expose myself to the 2-weeks-there's-a-sickness-in-the-house cycle or to the allergens of the cat there (the steroids of anti allergy medication can affect the immune system in ways where I needed to stop taking it for a while, too) -- when my spouse saw my boy the day after it was my last day visiting for a good while (and he knew this ahead of time, when my last visit for a while was going to be; I kept him very in the loop about my surgery dates), I was told he just looked droopy and like he was trying really really really hard not to cry

Anyway so I feel like if anyone were to become the "I can actually talk about my life at my other parent duo's house and feel like this is a safe space to confide in" person it would be me, and I think this is really important to attempt to establish if he will allow me this privilege, if that is a type of social support that he supressedly longs for, because I desperately want him to be happy

And I'm just remembering all of these things, and being worried, and I can't see him right now to check on him because he's ~5 hours away by vehicle at his bio-mom's & step-dad's right now for Spring Break and he'll be there for another solid week of two weeks, and I don't know what's happening to him while there or if he's happy or miserable or what, and I'm really upset I couldn't see him before he left for this 2 week break due to house sickness (we were both afraid this might happen, my boy and I, when talking about scheduling for everything) --

(and I can't drive and I was SUPPOSED to learn how to drive this past half year; and a big motivation for that is that I want to be able to help take care of my boy and bring him places that would make him happy, but I never learned because my eyesight is so bad that I can't read signs ANYWHERE near far away as anyone else ever can, so my whole life I decided it was Unsafe for me to do anything but abstain from driving. But this past year I decided I was gonna try to see if I can learn, to see if I CAN do it; since at this point in my life it is VERY intrusive -- but now someone who spends a lot of time with me is worried enough that I'm being told I really ought to be checked by a doctor to see if I classify as legally blind which if I am I will NEVER?? be able to drive?? so yes that makes everything very difficult)

And I'm imagining talking to him when he's back, and I'm imagining my strange gut feeling being right about what is going on, and I'm imagining the absolutely terrible experience of talking to a 10 year old about the Burden of Contact from my OWN experience as a 10 year old who was heavily impacted by the Burden of Contact, and simultaneously understanding the desire for privacy and confidence, and simultaneously understanding how BAD the situation is, and this is such a TERRIBLE interaction for me to have to imagine having first thing in the morning like

I hate this, I hate this, I hate it here; I hate this

I hate today already, I only got maybe 5 hours of sleep, this entire thing I just described over the course of this giant written thing only took maybe a few minutes in real life,

can it be over, can I go home (where even is that)

Anyway; so that was my morning writhing around and sobbing in bed from terrible morningmares the actual reality of life is not nearly so bad. Yes hi hello.

[midnight-circus]

[bigblueoctoling]

There's a stark difference between the problems with Rise of the Mammalians and simply creating mystery.

To explain what I mean, I'll compare Sanitized Octarians (as presented in Splatoon 2) to Mammalian Octarians.

Sanitized Octarians are presented somewhat mysteriously, I believe with the intent of them being fully elaborated upon in Side Order- but they aren't just a concept introduced without any explanation. We learn some basic facts about them, like their lack of vital signatures, we know of one individual sanitized octarian, Dedf1sh, but we're not given a lot further on what exactly the deal with them is. Despite that, we are given a full elaboration on how they were created, and the reason why Tartar wanted to make them. We can also deduct how Tartar found Octarians- we see that the deep sea metro already has a population of deep sea creatures, as well as the fact that Agent 3, Cuttlefish, and Eight all naturally fall into the deep sea metro, explaining where the fresh supply comes from. As a result, there was a lot of stuff to work with for theorizing, or more personally, fan fiction.

Mammalian Octarians just sort of exist. We're not really given any explanation how they were created- When we touch fuzzy goo we're just sort of incapacitated. In Octo Expansion, we see a lot of infrastructure that clues us into the fact that Sanitized Octarians are created through a medical process of some sort. No such environmental storytelling exists for Mammalian Octarians. We're not given any explanation of why Mr. Grizz wants Mammalian Octarians in particular. We know his general goal is to make everyone Mammalian, but the only theory I can even postulate is that he used Octarians for testing, but this isn't really a theory so much as it is a stopgap- there's no deeper narrative purpose or meaning to it, especially when the narrative literally never even posits concern for these Octarians, they're just an obstacle. Nothing about this actually engages me as a theorist or a writer. We're arguably given an explanation for where the Octarians came from- Octavio explains his troops were stolen- but that's literally all that's stated on the subject. Why would Mr. Grizz pick out octarians in particular? Why not just, the inkfish from the town he's immediately within the vicinity of? Or better yet, why not use fucking salmonid to actually create some semblance of an overarching theme?

Answering any of these for the game feels less like I'm solving an intentional mystery and more like I'm fixing the stopgaps of a bunch of contrivances made solely to reach some arbitrary conclusion.

You can say that you liked Rise of the Mammalians, I'm not gonna stop you- but saying that the people who don't like how many things are just entirely random and unexplained is just lame.

I despise this mentality of "People who are bothered by questions about the story aren't engaging with the media"- if anything, it's people like you who are disengaging from splatoon's actual story. People who criticize something aren't just looking to blindly attack something because they think it's lame and for babies, it's obvious from watching this video that this guy cares about Splatoon's story- the criticisms come from a place of appreciation for the story, and a disappointment to see the absence of the care that was put into the previous stories.

I could easily go on and on and on about how absolutely nothing in Rise of the Mammalians was engaging and how much potential it wasted, but I've rambled about that before- and it should be pretty obvious it's not because I hate media engagement and I hate splatoon, that should be pretty fucking clear by the sheer amount of rambling I have on the matter.

I’m really disappointed in CosmicCloud. He made an amazing video about why Octo Expansion was such a good DLC story and about nostalgia… but then he turns around and does THIS.

I have been so confused with why so many game theorists have refused to engage with media lately. From Tears of the Kingdom to Splatoon 3, there seems to be this rejection from fans for ambiguous storytelling.

See the way Nintendo often works is that they don’t give you concrete answers for anything. Instead the details are more abstract. There are hints, and clues, and inferences you can make to draw your own conclusions from sprinkled throughout their games.

And that’s where the FUN of lore theorizing comes from! It’s FUN to take these weird seemingly inconsistencies and explain why they exist!

But for some reason fans are refusing to do that now. They had no problem doing it for Splatoon 1 and 2, but ever since Octo Expansion came out they’ve been VERY resistant to engaging with this style of storytelling and wordbuilding. The most infamous being fans reacting poorly to the reveal that Mr. Grizz was actually a bear.

Throughout this whole video CosmicCloud just uses terms like “for some reason” to dismiss anything that’s even remotely out of the ordinary in Alterna. And every time he does it I wanna scream at him because he’s not even TRYING to engage with the media in any way!

What happened that made lore theorists give up on theorizing? What changed between then and now? I don’t get it. I feel like I’m going crazy. Why doesn’t anyone want to have FUN piecing together the pieces anymore? Isn’t that the whole point of being a theorist????

[revenant-coining]

4 Pronoun Flags PT.12

(pt: 4 Pronoun Flags PT.12 /end pt)

(id: a rectangular flag with 7 horizontal lines. sizes in order from top to bottom are very thick, 2 thin, medium, 2 thin, and very thick. colors in order from top to bottom are blue, light green, pale yellow, red, pale red, light green, and blue. in the center of the flag is pale yellow text that reads “slime/boys”. /end id)

(id: a rectangular flag with 7 horizontal lines. sizes in order from top to bottom are very thick, 2 thin, medium, 2 thin, and very thick. colors in order from top to bottom are darkish yellow-green, yellow-green, light yellow-green, white, light yellow-green, yellow-green, and darkish yellow-green. in the center of the flag is darkish green text that reads “slime/ey”. /end id)

(id: a rectangular flag with 7 horizontal lines. sizes in order from top to bottom are very thick, 2 thin, medium, 2 thin, and very thick. colors in order from top to bottom are darkish green, green, light green, white, light green, green, and darkish green. in the center of the flag is darkish green text that reads “slime/slimes”. /end id)

(id: a rectangular flag with 7 horizontal lines. sizes in order from top to bottom are very thick, 2 thin, medium, 2 thin, and very thick. colors in order from top to bottom are blue, lightish blue, light blue, white, light blue, lightish blue, and blue. in the center of the flag is bluetext that reads “splish/splashs”. /end id)

Slime/boys, slime/ey/slimes/eys/slimeself, slime/slimes, & splish/splashs 3rd Person Pronoun Flags!

for cam!

tagging; @radiomogai, @pronoun-flags, @pronoun-arc

[thefearofcod]

GUYS IM FINALLY ALLOWED TO POST SXX IS HAUNTED IM DROPPIN IT THIS EVENING GET READY TO SEE A [BLUETEXT] HOUSE

[scpwiki-official]

montauk house

[xweetok-starmap]

<- context for previous: ask game “18” asked “Do you want children?”

/absolutely nods at the practicality & hormones & science bits, yeah yeah/

YEAH!!! SKY HOLIDAYS!!! /thinks of the scene in Avatar where “my girlfriend became the moon” and how THERE it’s a sad thing, but here it’s just like “we are _so here for you_ li’l guy”/

They would indeed know so much cool stuff >w<

Also like, oh my Sun if y’all ever made me an Auncle I would be __COMPLETELY INSUFFERABLE__ I would NEVER SHUT UP /joyful loud laughs/

/happy melts a little bit/ It’s always so funny I don’t remember if I talked about this with you, but When we moved into the little apartment together (the one with the playground right out front) I remember having this experience where my brain went into COMPLETE overdrive overload of “I hate kids now!” and I was like “wait, what??? I don’t understand!!?? why is my brain doing this? is it trying to ?protect me from something? because I !ALREADY DECIDED NOT TO HAVE KIDS! I don’t NEED my brain to tell me not to have kids any more than the absolute nightmare of an ATRX Cluster and the otherwise present X-chromosomal disorders that run RAMPANT in my family already did?? what is happening, what else could this possibly be about—“ but it was so overwhelmingly POTENT, like artificially potent; there was NOTHING I could do about it to make it go away . . . so I just. absolutely despised children for years and years

terrible, absolutely terrible; no ounce or source of happiness or joy or anything positive from being around them at all

But then I was able to unrepress and process a whole bunch of stuff And there was sooooooo much stuff to unrepress and process (this is my wildly triggering Dead Dove content colour sorry) What with my practicing infantophilic/neopiophilic late-uncle, all the c.o.c.s.a stuff (ESPECIALLY this; mostly this . . ) , other lived csa in general (family/otherwise), my time at the LDS Church as a child and its tie in with csam, /rotates hands around themselves in wide repeating circles/ just sooooooo much stuff . . .

and like, I imagine: sure!!! it makes SENSE for my brain to have protected me from those sorts of things!!! like I can’t even imagine having lived in a reality where my brain wasn’t outright preventing me from having any interaction with children (by making me hate them and avoid them), because /absolutely dry mouth balks/ I can’t IMAGINE how terrible it could have gone if I was like, in the middle of interacting with them and THAT was the setting in which I got initial memories of this stuff back??? like ???????? /stressed heart rate increase; woozy, dizzy; takes off my glasses in order to cover my face really really really hard with my hands/ ohmySun ohmySun oh mySun it would have been such a terrible experience to have gotten instead

. . . but now it’s way better; now I don’t have to worry about randomly getting Formerly Unknown Stuff Like That back (or at least there’s gonna be context. and that’s SO important) and so now I can interact with kids and be really really happy about it: so like /soft happy giggles/ now I see kids and I’m like “I IMMEDIATELY LOVE YOU, YOU ARE THE BEST EVER; IN THIS TINY AMOUNT OF TIME THAT WE EXIST IN THE SAME SPACE, I WILL DO EVERYTHING IN MY POWER TO NURTURE YOUR HAPPINESS IN THIS MOMENT”

which, often times, is actually interacting with the parents? Like right before you picked me up from that fashion shop I adore the other week ((storytime!!)): there was this couple who brought in a little boy — super cute!! — and both parents but especially the dad was clearly nervous; because ‘oh no, there are other people here, and our son is going to annoy the other customers . . .’ So they were talking about him going to sit on the couch and I was like “oh!! my stuff is on there and so I need to make sure that they know I am totally okay with him sitting there regardless!!” and so I! let them know that I didn’t mind! because otherwise they might have just. left. (and the boy would have been the reason and he would have picked up on that, you know??? that’s not a good feeling to have.) And then a little bit later, the boy was telling his mom about how he was bored and he wanted to play with the store blocks — but his mom was really uneasy about him being in the way or annoying other people (thinking back on it, I can practically TOUCH how uneasy she felt) and so I engaged with her a little bit, I was like “oh!!! :D did you guys bring your own blocks or are they like, store blocks behind the counter, or?” and she talked about how “no they’re just always there in the corner, but I’m worried about him being in the way . . .” and ofc I was part of the group she was worried about being annoyed so!! I made sure it was as blatantly obvious as possible that I was enthusiastic about the idea and it wouldn’t bother me at all AND THEN LATER I NOTICED HE WAS PLAYING WITH THE BLOCKS AND THE PARENTS WALKING AROUND THE STORE WERE SO MUCH MORE RELAXED AND HAPPY THAN THEY’D BEEN AND HE WAS MORE ENGAGED AND ENRICHED AND HAPPY, AND NOT BEING TREATED LIKE AN INCONVENIENCE (and towards the end of the trip, I told the dad about how “I’m really glad that I got to see [his son’s] art during my visit here!!” since he made a really excellent block tower, and his dad was clearly REALLY HAPPY about this feedback) and I’M JUST HERE LIKE YES YES THRIVE PROSPER SUCCEED DON’T BE MADE TO FEEL LIKE A BURDEN BE HAPPY AND ENRICHED AND ENGAGED I SCREAM LOVE FOR THEM FROM THE ROOFTOPS (I mean not literally I do it quietly I don’t want to freak anyone out /laughs/)

/complete lack of composure happy giggling/

yeah it ah it’s it’s it’s so much better.

/warm loving smiles/

@ the ask game . . . 18

Seeing the question immediately made me think of the "why am i thinking about having kids??????" bewildering moment from 7 months ago in #flex-chat. What ever happened with that thought, did it go anywhere? Did it settle into the ether and blow away?

I blame hormones and littles being cute. Ignoring the current limits of science and the fact I'm probably pretty sterile by now, I'm constantly of a mind that I do not have the social energy to take care of a kid like it would take a village and there is always a worry I would fuck it up, but like

I think IF I had a kid, they would be fucking awesome. That kid would be spoiled on home cooking and teaching them 1 of a million hobbies and ttrpg sessions. That kid could come to me telling me how they started dating the sky and I just tell them hell yeah wanna bring them over for the holidays