#but when i was active on omegle..

[anticipatecrime]

Hello! I was wondering if you wrote for Johnnie Guilbert? If so, I was gonna request Dating Headcannons for him :D !! ( Only if you’re comfortable, ofc! )

𝙙𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙣𝙨 | johnnie guilbert

a/n: yes i love him <3 take some little dating headcanons, (sorry its short)

��you either meet johnnie from my digital escape, which was a collabrative youtube channel with alternative people

•or he first sees you on omegle while streaming for the first time, shocked to see a punk person

•he gives you his instagram that day after talking with you for sometime and you start dming

•he was quite awkward and shy when you first started talking and calling on the phone, not used to this

•it took a long time of being friends with johnnie for him to ask you out, but you were okay with that because it was worth it

•after my digital escape you didn’t continue with having a social media presence other than instagram

•he never made it a thing to announce it to his viewers, he just kind of included you in videos, and people understood you were together

•at the start of your relationship, he never wanted to be touchy in public or do pda but the more he fell in love with you he didnt care about other peoples opinions

•he would definitely hold your hand, and kiss your cheek, but the rest was private

•would never admit it, but he was a hopeless romantic which means he would always be trying his best for you, and wanting to be near you

•when filming for his youtube or his friends, he would always invite you along, and it was beneficial for both of you, it helped his anxiety and it made you feel included

•he would deal with constant looks and sometimes laughter when he would go outside or go on omegle, but he would never let it get to him, just turning it into a joke

•but when people would comment on your looks, he’d be more harsher and protective

•after a long day of filming, he would collapse into your arms, and cuddle with you, saying he wishes he could just stay there forever

•you would totally go on late night walks or adventures with him to seven eleven

•date wise, he would always get creative and find stuff to do with you

•you both liked going to a different cafe every week or so, ordering something new and just enjoying your time together since you were both busy working most days

•but he still loved just watching netflix on the couch with you, having a night in

•eventually you found a show you both loved, and now you wait to watch it together every friday evening

•he wasn’t one for outside activities, but you encouraged him to go hiking and rock climbing with you and he began to like it.. other than being sweaty and the mosquitoes

•you guys would totally share music, make playlists for eachother and johnnie would eventually encourage you to start singing because your voice was one of his favourite sounds

•he would take you to his favourite bands concerts and gigs, and you would do the same, him loving all of the music you listen to

•as a tattoo artist, you would totally design tattoos for him, and find ideas for his merch line

•he was never one to take things super seriously, but when it came to your relationship, and thinking about the future, it was always thought through

•when you got a cat, he was googling everything to do with the breed, the best food it should eat, healthcare information, which may seem normal, but tell that to the 11 pages of cat research on your living room coffee table

•when you got your first apartment together, no longer having to be in the same space as his roommates, it was such a relief

•he would wait by the door, with your cat, longing for you to come home from the tattoo parlour, and when you did he would be all over you

•i dont care what anyone says, he would be so clingy, just loving your presence

•his love languages are definitely quality time and physical touch. acts of service is up there though

•he loved feeling appreciated

•he would be the sweetest and just the perfect person to be in a relationship with.

[windvexer]

the intersection of divination and unintentional spirit contact

Generally I'd say, no - divination (tarot cards, spirit/"ouija" boards, black mirrors, crystal balls, etc etc) in and of itself does not automatically conjure or evoke spirits.

If a spirit is already not in the space where you're performing divination, an act of divination will not spontaneously make spirits appear.

That being said, I have experienced and seen others experience increases in spiritual contact, activity, and awareness after "getting into" divination.

My goal in this post isn't to try to make people fearful of divination (which they should not be) but to try and highlight some of the nuances I've experienced at the intersection of divination and unintentional spirit contact.

Generally, we can divide these experiences into two categories.

There's a specific spirit who is already around, and they'd love an opportunity to chat, and,

"Hey spirit chums, isn't it neat that there's a new practitioner in town who's developing a consistent practice? Let's go over next time divination is open and say hi!"

You'll notice a distinct lack of a third category, "the demons you learned about in your nondenominational Protestant Sunday shool spontaneously appear and your house will one day be featured in a string of Amityville spinoffs."

Of course, not all divination occurs in unintended spirit contact. I'd hazard that a minority of all divinatory attempts end up this way.

So, what kind of specific spirits might already be around, wanting to chat?

I believe (and I'm not so unique in this belief) that spirits are just around us and within things, all the time. A person may have spirits in their home and yard; have spirits attached to family heirlooms; be watched over by ancestors, guides, angels, or protectors; or, in the case of many Seekers, have obtained the attention of various gods or other allies.

When a reader shuffles their tarot cards with the intent to access information they would not be able to have if not for magic, we can conceptualize that the reader is opening a little window and peering into the beyond. If spirits are "beyond," and wandering past the window, they have the ability to wave back and say howdy.

Sometimes - and, in my experience, rarely - these spirits will jut in and "take over" a reading in order to deliver some important message.

Much more often, spirits who push their way into a reading don't have anything important to say at all. They're not there because they're big, powerful, important, or relevant - they're there because it's something to do.

Many random spirits who are already around and like to show up to readings are just curious, don't particularly care about you, and are happy to be very weaselly if it means they get more attention from you. These spirits may be thrilled to claim that they are powerful demons, top-tier angels, faerie kings, your hitherto-unknown familiar spirit, and so forth.

A major giveaway is that they will often not reveal this identity until you specifically ask them if they are a faerie king, or whatever, and they'll agree that they are because to them this is Omegle and it's fun to have you on the hook.

These spirits are easy to get rid of, because they have exactly as much power over you during and after a reading as they had before the reading - which is to say, zero.

If these spirits are already not affecting your life, they will continue to not affect it once the reading is over. The fact that a reading occurred does not "magically" give them power or influence over you.

And again - while a reader worth their salt can intentionally petition helper spirits and ask to receive messages, it is pretty dang uncommon for a person's guides to force their ways into readings. More likely than not, you're dealing with some rando.

Now, all that being said - from time to time, various spirits demand attention and will use a reading as an excuse to get that attention. In my experience, this is a problem often experienced by people who are specifically spirit workers (although it can happen to others).

In circumstances like these, it's not a random curious spirit who's taking the opportunity to chat, nor is it a guide giving advice. Rather, a spirit has figured out that someone nearby can hear it, and it would like to engage your services.

It's not unheard of for a spirit worker (or very spiritually sensitive person) to take home a unique little trinket from the thrift shop, something that just catches their eye, something that makes them feel ways about things, and ignore it, and ignore it, and ignore it...

Until they open up the spirit board to try and do a meditation on the meanings of the runes, and the thrift shop spirit barges in and demands a proper shrine and maybe an offering every now and then.

Again, this isn't summoning, or conjuring, or whatever. The act of divination didn't cause the spirit to appear - it just created an opportunity for a spirit to speak.

The solution to getting rid of such a spirit is often to help it out, or respectfully remove it from the premises, or so on. That's spirit working stuff, and not a facet of divination.

But, what about people who experience an increase in general spiritual activity after readings?

Well, it's a bit like buying a new house and becoming very active in the neighborhood. The neighbors take notice of you. That attention doesn't stop the second the cookout ends and you go back inside.

I'm much less inclined to believe that divination alone will cause you to be an active member in your spiritual neighborhood. But many diviners are witches, pagans, or practitioners. They're not just reading cards, but also practicing spells, praying to gods, and modifying their own spiritual environment.

A witch who is attempting meditations to find their spirit guides, experimenting with full moon rituals, casting spells, and trying to take care of their local environment, should not really be that surprised if spirits start showing up wanting to hang out.

It doesn't mean that witch has special spirit-drawing powers (sorry), and it doesn't mean the runes you bought off Etsy are summoning demons - it means you're integrating with the spiritual reality around you.

Of course, people who don't desire random spirit contact don't have to just deal with it. There is a big difference between throwing a neighborhood bbq where anyone is invited, and having a private cookout for friends in the yard.

Spirits, by and large, often don't bother people who don't want to be bothered. Hang a big no solicitors sign on your spiritual house, and a lot of spirits just won't bother.

Again, I doubt that just reading tarot (even if you do it a lot) is going to suddenly inspire tons of spiritual contact. A lot of people work very hard to get spirits to talk to them. It's usually not as easy as coming into contact with spiritual tools.

Even direct divination that actively seeks contact with spirits (like, trying to channel someone's ancestors for them) often does not bring the spirit into the space - it's more like a two-way phone call. It doesn't actually bring the spirit to where you are and then set it loose.

Anyway. Unintended spirit contact while using divinatory tools does happen, but it's... usually not a big deal. It's often the equivalent of someone walking past your picnic at the park and saying, "some weather we're having!"

And in the random instances I've encountered where the spirit contact is actually a Situation, nine times out of ten, the spirit just wants a spirit worker to help them with someone so they can get on with their life.

[rapturebones]

People defending finnster's latest video by being like 'he didn't make the thumbnail or give it that title he paid someone else to do that and he changed it when he saw it' need to realise that the person/people who *did* make the thumbnail and title did what they did because they saw the video, and saw that the video was literally Omegle trap content, and made what they thought suited it.

And their work did suit the video, because finnster's entire career is being transmisogynistic for tra-I mean, femboy fetishists. Which is what trans women and other TMAs are actually upset about and criticising him for, not because he's 'playing 5D gender chess' or whatever. And I know he's said that he doesn't see himself as cis and has a trans girlfriend, yadda yadda; he's still profiting off of actively being transmisogynistic.

[hotvampireadjacent]

Ok only -2 people remember him but when he was active on this site I was mutuals with the moreos guy (perchu i think is username was? I forgo) only because for some dumb reason we both went on Omegle under the “tumblr” tag.

[sunnflow3rshowers]

I was actively IN an rp when the site started to die. We held on for a long time after everything shut down, but eventually let go. We watched the numbers drop from over 30k, down to 1k, and then to....0. That 0+ in the top corner is a harrowing sight.

This is going to be absolutely devastating for so many people. I am autistic and having omegle as a place to go to unwind and just search for rps without feeling the pressure of being KNOWN while doing it is something that I don't think many sites will be able to recreate.

Regardless, Omegle will be missed, and will be mourned.

[kickpedosoutofyourbar]

i've probably gotten upwards of 200 people kicked on this site for csem or promoting child sexual abuse and they keep crawling back. tumblr seriously has a huge problem with this, they need to crack down more. its so fucking exhausting doing this shit. there's so many tags for it that aren't banned but they should be.

it also makes me mad because there's a very loud minority of trans and or gay people doing this shit that think they're getting banned for being gay and or trans. i would say at least 70% of the blogs i've reported have been cis hetero men, usually with bare or totally blank blogs.

i also want to point out that for those few active lgbt bloggers there is a seriously concerning amount of posts about "youth lib" and shit like ageplay and lolisho and incest on their pages... like seriously you guys cannot be fucking serious. its so clear why you're into this shit or why youth lib only seems to matter when it comes to your ability to molest kids without consequence.

also a depressing amount of young people openly engaging with this shit and even selling csem of themselves. i was once a young girl on shit like omegle and i thought that fucked me up, it makes my heart ache thinking about how much this is going to make them suffer someday. all because they wanted to feel validated and special, and someone online decided their sexual satisfaction mattered for than the safety and wellbeing of another human. its sickening and if you promote or facilitate this shit in any way you're not a good person and you don't care about children, so stop fucking pretending you do.

[cali]

the scene im answering this questions tag thing in is me and my clones are having a sleepover and we go on omegle as activity and @transgenderer relays to me these questions:

favorite color: black, gold, the most ultramarine blue tone u can make, nobody disagrees with anybody here, they all reign on equal thrones. 2 master carpenters were executed, one because a previous iiteration of the thrones was unequal in height and one because one of the thrones was a couple grams heavier than the others.

currently reading: im still on blindsight by peter watts i havent progressed much cuz i havent had the moods but next week i do a 13 hour train ride

currently watching: 1 episode of sopranos a day with 2 italians. they always giggle when they say italian stuff, or try to say stuff but butcher it badly. i saw it once 3 yrs ago but this is giving it a sweet new angle

last song: something off of lingua ignotas caligula. i downloaded the entire album as one mp3 file so now i dont know which one is playing. whatever song is at 52:42

currently craving: i ate much today, im scanning the grocery store currently for what else i could add ontop. um. something small,. i want these instant noodles, when i visit my parents my dad gifts me them sometimes, they dont taste comparable to many other things, long weird aftertaste, awesome af

coffee or tea: coffee, a tea is ok sometimes but i made coffee really work for me by making it supersweet always and also only ever drinking it maximum 1 time a week and only ever if i want to draw with it. and the joy of drawing and sugar conditioned me really well into putting me into a good mood just by drinking a cofe, which in turn helps the picture

hobby i want to try: now the clones chime in again, i want to learn music making one day, i want to learn to sing better because its fun, third clone says spearfishing and we look at her weird. thats a hobby for when im like 38. yea i know its good to have a couple cards to play in the mid to lategame already set up in your mind.

the mentioning of spearing an animal triggers an alarm on summer transgenderers computer, no cruelty on this machine allowed and so it automatically disconnects from the call. we thought the questions fun and invite @dogheadhermitsshed @milk5 @swordoftheberserkgutsrage @claws10mileslong @cetitan i think that spreads the spores good. a good net to invite more from there on

[flyawaylarry]

🤍Interest check for Larry Roleplay!!🤍

Hii, I haven't posted anything on this blog in a MINUTE but I figured I'd try and give this a shot.

I'm looking for larry roleplay partners on telegram. It's super hard to find any these days since omegle is gone.

I am strictly looking for people OVER 18 since I like to do smut every once in a while.

I am 25 years old and have beeb rping since like, 2014 maybe? I'm from Sweden so you know what my timezone is like, I work nights so I'm actually mostly active during the nights.

-----------

WHAT IM LOOKING FOR:

× medium/long replies

× only larry roleplays

× ONLY 18+

× someone who's comfortable being both dom and sub, i am rarely sub and would looove to actually be that for once but I can also play dom

× someone who's understanding when I'm not available to reply

WHAT I DONT LIKE:

× Alpha/omega AUs, ageplay, mxf/fxf, mpreg

× very short replies (it's okay if it's just once in a while but not all the time)

× Smut all the time, I want the rp to have a story as well, not only smut

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

I have like 4 prompts and a couple of ideas, If you have any prompts and/or are interested, my telegram is stylesvalentine !! Pls hit me up

[claratenebris]

ooc: meet the mun

NAME?: mads

PRONOUNS?: she/her

MOST ACTIVE MUSE(S)?: steve harrington

RP PET PEEVES?: people who constantly drop threads and then complain about people not wanting to rp with them, effectively turning their blog into a bunch of personal posts, half of which are them whining. i'm sorry if this sounds harsh lol

EXPERIENCE / HOW MANY YEARS?: i think about 14 years in general. started on omegle (rip i miss you every day). my first rp blog on tumblr was in 2012. two of my first blogs were for sakura and for genderbent tony, so i've roleplaying in the mcu and naruto fandoms for quite a while.

FLUFF, ANGST, OR SMUT?: hmm, fluff or angst are definitely tied here. i'm constantly torn between hurting my muses and giving them the love they deserve. smut is fine, but it gets boring to write after a while. i think it's a great way to display intimacy between characters, but it needs a reason to be written.

PLOTS OR MEMES?: both. plots are great, but i also thoroughly enjoy starting at a random place and see where the muses take us. and we can always plot further after that initial interaction.

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES?: it depends. i don't really do one liners anymore, unless it's an open starter, but i always expect those to build up into something more. i'm perfectly fine with single paragraphs. i do have a tendency to ramble a bit, going into inner thoughts and introspection, so my replies can run a little long. novella is too overwhelming, though.

TIME TO WRITE?: i work from home, so sometimes i get the time to whip up a response here and there when work is calm. it's a good way to make the shift go by faster, too, but work's been quite busy lately and sometimes too tiring to write when i'm done, as i do work a very mental-heavy job.

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S)?: a little bit, here and there. i think there's a bit of each of them in me, hence why i have been writing most of them for so long. and steve, being my newest muse, has been a hyperfixation for the past couple of years.

tagged by: @desertgourd tagging: @hellfireconcert; @scinglives; @chaos--mode; @kiigan; @defectivexfragmented and whoever else sees this and wants to do it ♥

[fleshengine]

Woah you look really good on your tummy Tuesday post, how long have you been on HRT and when did you start if it's okay to ask? :0

:P that's a lil personal but I'll talk about it, my story's kind of unique so I think people should hear it. Also this was originally just one giant block of brain-dump text but I decided to split it up a lil, you're welcome.

I've been really trans since I was a kid. Like my sister used to dress me up in her clothes and princess outfits and stuff and parade me around while calling me a feminine version of my name. Which sounds like bullying but like I loved it, so... I also did the classic "play a game and make your player character a girl" thing that a lot of transfems do. I played Halo Reach with my dad (love him btw) and would make my custom Noble Six a woman. There was a bunch of other little things like that, but you get the gist. I also used to pretend to be a girl and got groomed on omegle but that's a different story.

So I came out when I was like 13 or something and my parents were that kind of supportive where they use your pronouns but want you to wait a year before getting on hormones. So I think I was like 14-15ish when I finally got on E (because when we started it then took a while to get on it horray for fucking bone scans). In the time between I came out and finally got a histreline implant and E my voice dropped a ton and my shoulders filled out and I grew a fucken adam's apple. I was on sublingual pills for a couple months but they sort of gave me massive mood swings and I turned into a giant bitch so my parents and I decided I should switch to patches.

Pills gave me a decent amount of breast growth and it was pretty awesome but patches slowed that down. (I didn't really notice at the time but nerve remapping also happened and now my dick doesn't work right lol.) It's probably something with my skin or whatever, but patches just did not work for me and while I was on them I saw very very little development. It didn't help that they were an absolute pain in the ass, would get sticky and leave gunk on me and also come off in the shower sometimes. I've heard they work for some people but they were not the right fit for me. It doesn't help that during that time I started to struggle a lot with internalized transmisogyny and also a sort of... trauma based aversion to femininity?

So I made the kind of stupid decision to just... quit E and detransition to be nonbinary. No hate to people who detransition, or enbies, it was just me being a dumb kid again. Thing was I still had a histreline implant in me keeping me from producing T, and I actually got it replaced during this time, so I just had no growth hormone in me. I was Very Androgynous and it was pretty cool to ask people what they thought my agab was. When I met my current roomy and his partner apparently they had an argument where they disagreed on my agab. Which tickled me pink when I learned about it months later. Anyway it really should've been a hint to me that it always pleased me immensely when people thought I was born a girl. Like... I'm genuinely impressed at how unperceptive younger me was about that. You poor little idiot, you like it when people pick up on your feminine traits, go back on E.

It wasn't until the last bit of my second year of college that I started using they/she, I had finally gotten a group of Very Queer friends who supported me and I guess I felt that experimentation would be okay. I also ummm... started being active here on tumblr? Surrounding myself with weird transfems helped me feel more normal about being a weird transfem. So like... thanks girlies :). From there it was a pretty quick pipeline from they/she to she/they to she/her to she/they/it. Honestly the it thing didn't really start as a trans thing, I had a dnd character (that I later realized was a Identity Crisis Character) that went by it/its exclusively and my dm started using it with me outside of dnd and my brain liked it.

Anyway, after some quick phone calls and blood tests and bullshit I got back on E in December of 2023 and I've been on since then. I'm doing injections now and even though they're a little scary I really like them. Oh I also got my histreline implant taken out and I'm on spironolactone now which is fun. Maybe it's because I'm an adult but I find the mood swings lessened as well as the headaches. I've also noticed a decent amount of growth since I started as well as more nerve remapping and I finally have those puffy nips everyone talks about all the time. Currently I think most of the growth is going to making my tits wider as opposed to adding depth, which is fine with me. I really want to get on progesterone so they can grow nice and big, but my old doc said it was a bad idea and we should wait for the early structuring to finish because starting prog too early can cause nip deformities. My new doc has no comment because I haven't talked to her yet lmao.

Anyway that's where I am rn. Got my E raised again a couple weeks ago >:) Thanks for asking, sorry if this is rambly. My journey of self discovery had an entire death and rebirth like I'm a hero or some shit.

[shutupkim420]

kpop roleplay search

i would love to do an in-character kpop rp with anyone that’s interested!! member x member only please.

big multi, but right now i'm really craving some of these ships: exo: chanhun/sechan (chanyeol/sehun), xiubaek (minseok/baekhyun), chanbaek (chanyeol/baekhyun) ; i enjoy playing sehun, but i really don't have a strong preference and enjoy writing for anyone! txt: yeonbin (soobin/yeonjun), taegyu (taehyun/beomgyu), soogyu (soobin/beomgyu) ; would prefer playing soobin the most, or beomgyu!

i like canonverse or aus. anything from silly to serious is okay with me! 

please only message me if you’re at least 20 (i'm 26!). i'm used to literate roleplays, but i definitely enjoy simpler stuff too -- no pressure for length or format, i just want to be creative and have fun and make friends. i think the texting format from omegle is fun and am totally fine to do that as fun, quick writing and/or switch back and forth when the plot requires it!

i know this post is a mess but i promise i will behave and be coherent in character. i can do multiple plots at once if you want, and i’m really engaging OOC. i don't like to push for replies, but i will message you OOC about other things and treat you like a friend. we can send each other tweets and tiktoks and have a good time!! i like to actively chat on the side to plot and scheme and laugh etc etc.

smut or not is fine. i don’t care either way. i’m really down for most things! we’d preferably rp on discord so we can chat OOC and be able to organize a sever (have multiple convenient chats, etc).

please go ahead and message me on discord @ necrowmance :D

[kotaka-kun]

Hey, I just wanted to see how you're doing. I saw your post in the Omegle tag and it resonated with me. I miss the Omegle RP community so much. It took some getting used to, but I've found Rolechat is useable and active. I just leave my name as 'a roleplayer' and most people do too. I have my ship names in there, and I'm starting to see some prompts I used to see on omegle popping up. People are slowly migrating over. It's sad, it's different, I miss Omegle too, but it's filling the void for me. Just wanted to see how you were. I'm so sad that Omegle's legacy on mainstream sites is just that creepy platform when it was so much more to all of us.

hi anon, i appreciate you checking in.

since making that post, i've tried rolechat a few more times, but idk if its just my chosen fandoms/ships but ive not had any success which has admittedly been discouraging.

i still miss omegle a lot. i havent unbookmarked it yet -- i dont really ever want to -- so every so often ill just click it out of habit when ive got some downtime and then be reminded of what we lost and... i dunno.

and yeah, it sucks that people who never understood omegle to begin with can just crack jokes about it. but it doesnt make me as angry as i could be. if anything, it just makes me sadder bc i know they'll never get the chance to see it as anything as a site for lewd video chatters. they'll never get the chance to explore worlds and stories with a complete stranger the way we did.

maybe ill keep trying rolechat, try switching up some of my ships. i dunno. im just afraid to hold out hope.

[0x7b]

Omegle has been shut down.

Posting here for posterity. Retrieved directly from omegle.com on Nov 8 2023

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” — C.S. Lewis

“In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” — Douglas Adams

Dear strangers,

From the moment I discovered the Internet at a young age, it has been a magical place to me. Growing up in a small town, relatively isolated from the larger world, it was a revelation how much more there was to discover – how many interesting people and ideas the world had to offer.

As a young teenager, I couldn’t just waltz onto a college campus and tell a student: “Let’s debate moral philosophy!” I couldn’t walk up to a professor and say: “Tell me something interesting about microeconomics!” But online, I was able to meet those people, and have those conversations. I was also an avid Wikipedia editor; I contributed to open source software projects; and I often helped answer computer programming questions posed by people many years older than me.

In short, the Internet opened the door to a much larger, more diverse, and more vibrant world than I would have otherwise been able to experience; and enabled me to be an active participant in, and contributor to, that world. All of this helped me to learn, and to grow into a more well-rounded person.

Moreover, as a survivor of childhood rape, I was acutely aware that any time I interacted with someone in the physical world, I was risking my physical body. The Internet gave me a refuge from that fear. I was under no illusion that only good people used the Internet; but I knew that, if I said “no” to someone online, they couldn’t physically reach through the screen and hold a weapon to my head, or worse. I saw the miles of copper wires and fiber-optic cables between me and other people as a kind of shield – one that empowered me to be less isolated than my trauma and fear would have otherwise allowed.

I launched Omegle when I was 18 years old, and still living with my parents. It was meant to build on the things I loved about the Internet, while introducing a form of social spontaneity that I felt didn’t exist elsewhere. If the Internet is a manifestation of the “global village”, Omegle was meant to be a way of strolling down a street in that village, striking up conversations with the people you ran into along the way.

The premise was rather straightforward: when you used Omegle, it would randomly place you in a chat with someone else. These chats could be as long or as short as you chose. If you didn’t want to talk to a particular person, for whatever reason, you could simply end the chat and – if desired – move onto another chat with someone else. It was the idea of “meeting new people” distilled down to almost its platonic ideal.

Building on what I saw as the intrinsic safety benefits of the Internet, users were anonymous to each other by default. This made chats more self-contained, and made it less likely that a malicious person would be able to track someone else down off-site after their chat ended.

I didn’t really know what to expect when I launched Omegle. Would anyone even care about some Web site that an 18 year old kid made in his bedroom in his parents’ house in Vermont, with no marketing budget? But it became popular almost instantly after launch, and grew organically from there, reaching millions of daily users. I believe this had something to do with meeting new people being a basic human need, and with Omegle being among the best ways to fulfill that need. As the saying goes: “If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door.”

Over the years, people have used Omegle to explore foreign cultures; to get advice about their lives from impartial third parties; and to help alleviate feelings of loneliness and isolation. I’ve even heard stories of soulmates meeting on Omegle, and getting married. Those are only some of the highlights.

Unfortunately, there are also lowlights. Virtually every tool can be used for good or for evil, and that is especially true of communication tools, due to their innate flexibility. The telephone can be used to wish your grandmother “happy birthday”, but it can also be used to call in a bomb threat. There can be no honest accounting of Omegle without acknowledging that some people misused it, including to commit unspeakably heinous crimes.

I believe in a responsibility to be a “good Samaritan”, and to implement reasonable measures to fight crime and other misuse. That is exactly what Omegle did. In addition to the basic safety feature of anonymity, there was a great deal of moderation behind the scenes, including state-of-the-art AI operating in concert with a wonderful team of human moderators. Omegle punched above its weight in content moderation, and I’m proud of what we accomplished.

Omegle’s moderation even had a positive impact beyond the site. Omegle worked with law enforcement agencies, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, to help put evildoers in prison where they belong. There are “people” rotting behind bars right now thanks in part to evidence that Omegle proactively collected against them, and tipped the authorities off to.

All that said, the fight against crime isn’t one that can ever truly be won. It’s a never-ending battle that must be fought and re-fought every day; and even if you do the very best job it is possible for you to do, you may make a sizable dent, but you won’t “win” in any absolute sense of that word. That’s heartbreaking, but it’s also a basic lesson of criminology, and one that I think the vast majority of people understand on some level. Even superheroes, the fictional characters that our culture imbues with special powers as a form of wish fulfillment in the fight against crime, don’t succeed at eliminating crime altogether.

In recent years, it seems like the whole world has become more ornery. Maybe that has something to do with the pandemic, or with political disagreements. Whatever the reason, people have become faster to attack, and slower to recognize each other’s shared humanity. One aspect of this has been a constant barrage of attacks on communication services, Omegle included, based on the behavior of a malicious subset of users.

To an extent, it is reasonable to question the policies and practices of any place where crime has occurred. I have always welcomed constructive feedback; and indeed, Omegle implemented a number of improvements based on such feedback over the years. However, the recent attacks have felt anything but constructive. The only way to please these people is to stop offering the service. Sometimes they say so, explicitly and avowedly; other times, it can be inferred from their act of setting standards that are not humanly achievable. Either way, the net result is the same.

Omegle is the direct target of these attacks, but their ultimate victim is you: all of you out there who have used, or would have used, Omegle to improve your lives, and the lives of others. When they say Omegle shouldn’t exist, they are really saying that you shouldn’t be allowed to use it; that you shouldn’t be allowed to meet random new people online. That idea is anathema to the ideals I cherish – specifically, to the bedrock principle of a free society that, when restrictions are imposed to prevent crime, the burden of those restrictions must not be targeted at innocent victims or potential victims of crime.

Consider the idea that society ought to force women to dress modestly in order to prevent rape. One counter-argument is that rapists don’t really target women based on their clothing; but a more powerful counter-argument is that, irrespective of what rapists do, women’s rights should remain intact. If society robs women of their rights to bodily autonomy and self-expression based on the actions of rapists – even if it does so with the best intentions in the world – then society is practically doing the work of rapists for them.

Fear can be a valuable tool, guiding us away from danger. However, fear can also be a mental cage that keeps us from all of the things that make life worth living. Individuals and families must be allowed to strike the right balance for themselves, based on their own unique circumstances and needs. A world of mandatory fear is a world ruled by fear – a dark place indeed.

I’ve done my best to weather the attacks, with the interests of Omegle’s users – and the broader principle – in mind. If something as simple as meeting random new people is forbidden, what’s next? That is far and away removed from anything that could be considered a reasonable compromise of the principle I outlined. Analogies are a limited tool, but a physical-world analogy might be shutting down Central Park because crime occurs there – or perhaps more provocatively, destroying the universe because it contains evil. A healthy, free society cannot endure when we are collectively afraid of each other to this extent.

Unfortunately, what is right doesn’t always prevail. As much as I wish circumstances were different, the stress and expense of this fight – coupled with the existing stress and expense of operating Omegle, and fighting its misuse – are simply too much. Operating Omegle is no longer sustainable, financially nor psychologically. Frankly, I don’t want to have a heart attack in my 30s.

The battle for Omegle has been lost, but the war against the Internet rages on. Virtually every online communication service has been subject to the same kinds of attack as Omegle; and while some of them are much larger companies with much greater resources, they all have their breaking point somewhere. I worry that, unless the tide turns soon, the Internet I fell in love with may cease to exist, and in its place, we will have something closer to a souped-up version of TV – focused largely on passive consumption, with much less opportunity for active participation and genuine human connection. If that sounds like a bad idea to you, please consider donating to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization that fights for your rights online.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone who used Omegle for positive purposes, and to everyone who contributed to the site’s success in any way. I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep fighting for you.

Sincerely, Leif K-Brooks Founder, Omegle.com LLC

[amischiefofmuses]

Munday - About the Mun v.03

name // Magpie/Magnus/Mags Pronouns // He/They preference of communication // DMs - though if mutuals want my discord I'm willing to add them! experience in rp & how long // I think I've been rping for 15 years at least, so I have a lot of writing experience under my belt from that. platforms you’ve used // Deviantart, twitter, omegle, between friends and here- which is where feels most like home. name of most active muse // Alastor, he has stolen my brain and eaten it tbh. best experience //  Hard to single out just one, a lot of my fondest are ridiculous shitpost interactions but there's also the time I did a bad movie night as Sans with like 100+ attendees. It was hilarious and such a great bonding experience. rp pet peeves // Pushing shipping with zero communication, especially if the muses have no connection in canon. I prefer to get a feel for how the muses interact before doing that otherwise it feels stilted or forced. I also like to get to know the mun a bit if we're gonna ship. fluff,  angst,  or  smut // not sure where hurt/comfort lies on this, cause it's kinda between fluff and angst. I'm a bitch for a good hurt/comfort threads. plots or memes // Memes to start, then we can spitball ideas of places to take it!! long or short replies // Both. Shorter ones are great for if I'm struggling with focus but I do love a good long indepth thread to wax poetic on. best time to write // Evenings, it takes me some time to get the energy and focus to write. are you like your muse // I think all my muses have a bit of me in there somewhere but some are just surface level (Moriarty being perpetually restless- same bud). I'd say I'm most like Lucifer though, in fact my friends legitimately LAUGHED when they met him in the show because every new detail was just so me that it was ridiculous. Him being short af was honestly the killing blow.

Tagged: Stolen from @hellshoard

Tagging: If you're reading this, you're tagged!!!

[muutosarchive]

get to know the author!

name : morgan / moogs

pronouns :  she/her

preference of communication : discord

most active muse :  five nights at freddy's charas, flora ghoul maybe. missy, i guess. i suppose it's like, fair game right now for the most part. i'm writing everyone a fair bit.

experience / how many years :  i was .. ig technically gifted so i've been writing long/short form stories and other things since ten years old and rp since 12/13 on omegle and email, also with friends on facebook. so 12 years ish rp experience and 15 total of writing. i've also gotten my associates degree in writing for film and television as a post secondary student, and graduated with a mighty fine GPA. ;)

best experience : meeting my lovely fiance and all of my lasting beautiful relationships and friendships like with like - pj, jess, sam, ben, munchie, spectre, veronica, little, billie, vero, ed, aleera ... like s/o to those people who have been there for literal years or coming up on a year for some of us! how time flies. i'm so so so excited to make more friends moving forward and just have a silly billy time.

rp pet peeves : snakes. people who have main character syndrome on this website and think their pretty graphics and purple prose make them better than everyone else. people who are allergic to fun. people to assume writer = muse, when it comes to morality. assuming people aren't grown and educated enough to weigh their decisions regarding problematic content and media. people who think fiction needs to be squeaky clean and PG for 'the sake of humanity'. people who marginalize an entire group of people while claiming to be progressive. hypocrites. cliques and exclusionist behavior. stalkers. <3

fluff, angst, or smut : Angst, and dirty gross monster-fucking nasty depraved - *gunshots*

plots or memes : plots, but memes are great to get things going at random and it's amazing what can spark from them.

long or short replies : i've been known to write 1,000 words in one reply.

time to write : before 4pm when my brain and focus turn to mush.

are you like your muses : you can draw pieces of yourself from everyone. if i couldn't relate to my muses in some way what's the point? what am i getting out of it?

tagged by: @atlatsofstories <3 tagging: @chrchgrl @lettherebemonsters @silvcrignis @helk1ll @7poisons @cyberpawn @dilffactory @faztastiic @squarecranks @charmbag @divinehr @diicktective @goldshadows

[boxcutterwithurnameonit]

rest in peace, Omegle

you will not be forgotten

made a hugely positive impact on so many people's lives, I have spent some of my lowest moments on omegle talking to kind and empathetic strangers and I have been there for other strangers when they were struggling too

quote Leif K-Brooks, Omegle founder: "The battle for Omegle has been lost, but the war against the Internet rages on. Virtually every online communication service has been subject to the same kinds of attack as Omegle; and while some of them are much larger companies with much greater resources, they all have their breaking point somewhere. I worry that, unless the tide turns soon, the Internet I fell in love with may cease to exist, and in its place, we will have something closer to a souped-up version of TV – focused largely on passive consumption, with much less opportunity for active participation and genuine human connection. If that sounds like a bad idea to you, please consider donating to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization that fights for your rights online."