#how am I supposed to find cool blogs that I like unless you reblog things??

[h-a-unted]

𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐍𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐄𝐋𝐋 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐏𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐎𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐀 𝐋𝐎𝐓 𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐄𝐑. REPOST DO NOT REBLOG !!

NAME : Kuroki (Kuro is fine, too!)

PRONOUNS : I don't mind what I get called, even though I am a girl! I think boys are hella cool, so when I get mistook for a boy, I take it as a compliment instead of an error.

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION : Discord and Tumblr IMs!

NAME OF MUSE(S) : Oh boy... I have a bunch on different blogs, but I'll list the ones here: Butcher, Maeve, Frenchie, Lenny, Emma, Travis, Ethan (E3N), Cpt Price, Adler, Alex, Atom, Chris (RE), and Martha (FFXVI). I'm going to add Legion (ME) and Emet (FFXIV) later.

BEST EXPERIENCE : Joining The Quarry fandom, which allowed me to find my bestie Ladybug, while also making it easier for me to join other fandoms and meet more friends who are so special to me now. I never expected to meet so many amazing people in The Boys fandom, so that's another highlight to me.

RP PET PEEVES / DEALBREAKERS : Being pestered for replies. If I'm rushed in any way, shape or form, my brain just shuts down, and I lose all excitement I used to have. It's one thing to be excited for a thread, that's totally fine, but being purposefully rushed or guilt-tripped into replying is a no-go for me. It has happened to me so many times, I already know how it goes and feel it in the air sometimes, even. I want to write at my leisure and to allow others to do the same. I know I take a lot of time sometimes, but if I'm rushed, I won't ever write for that thread/person again, unless I force myself and throw soulless replies that eventually die. But I'm done trying to be nice to that kind of people and then feeling bad for not being able to keep up, so I'll probably stop outright the next time this happens. Fingers crossed that it doesn't.

MUSE PREFERENCES : Assholes with trauma and/or nuance, himbos, and Artifical Intelligence or a human variant of that.

PLOTS OR MEMES : Both! If I can't for the life of me come up with a random interaction, I ask for plot, but I am mostly more than fine with memes to get things going! Both are excellent!

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES : Both long and short replies are fun! Sometimes it's easier to throw rapid-shot responses, so I go for small, but other times the muse is high and I want to describe more, so I can go for long. Any of those are fine as long (heh, punny) as I have something to reply to.

BEST TIME TO WRITE : Any time my muse is high, or even when my muse is not that high. As long as I can inspire myself enough, I'm game any time. I suppose I usually write during the noon/afternoon onward.

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S) : I usually like to find something that explains to me why I love a certain character and all that. Most of the time, I think it's just me trying to justify myself or make myself cooler, so I sometimes don't really believe I am like a character more like I want to be said character. Even so, I think Butcher is what I could've been had I not been helped when very young. Maeve feels like kind of a mirror to Butcher. She also seems to think she deserves the bad things that happen to her while showing herself as a really strong, indestructible person, I think I relate to that (and her situation of her romantic orientation and stuff, probably? Idk). Emma's cheery mask, Travis' stoic demeanor during rough situations, also Emma's calm demeanor during dangerous situations... The other characters I just really love for one thing or the other without really relating but probably admiring. And the AIs? I just really adore AIs.

TAGGED BY: tagged by @awkwardcourage (thank you so much!)

TAGGING: @dollhidden @savior-of-humanity @sesyeuxocean @reviresc @rottingkiss @hacker-codeq @arcanumsolitude @phoenix-flamed and anyone else I missed who sees this! Consider yourself tagged and feel free to tag me!

[mittensmorgul]

The Tumblr Beta Version: an objective analysis

I was tempted to just type “it sucks.” And while that is an objective analysis, it’s not exactly helpful. I’ve sent several requests to @staff and @support to restore my account to the old tumblr dashboard format, and received the same automated reply twice now. I’ll copy/paste it here so everyone is on the same page:

(lol, I had to go back and edit this, because apparently the beta version doesn’t display block quotes on the dash. So I’ve also put the block quotes in italics... hopefully it’ll display properly... note after editing: nope, it doesn’t display italics either... how the heck am I supposed to differentiate quoted text? I’ll start each quoted bit with an asterisk, I guess...)

*Thanks for reaching out about the beta dashboard.

*We're currently testing it out, and your account seems to have been selected to take part in the test. Thanks for your patience while we work on it! At this time there is not a way to opt out of testing. You may see your Tumblr experience return to normal as we continue testing.

WE CAN ONLY HOPE.

*In the meantime, check out some of the new features available only in the beta dashboard:

OKAY TUMBLR, IF YOU INSIST, though I would MUCH rather have back all the functionality I personally invested into this website through xkit... you know... making the site ACTUALLY FUNCTIONAL. Let’s see what this beta version has given me instead of functionality:

*Change Palettes: Go to the person icon, then click "Change Palette." You'll find the classic Tumblr blue, dark mode, and a few other color palettes for your dash.

So I tried out all the color palettes. In addition to the ones mentioned here, there’s one that’s trying to look like a green screen terminal that gives me flashbacks to the early 80′s. There’s a reason we stopped using green screen terminals... Another one is “canary yellow.” It’s very yellow. The “classic tumblr” isn’t actually classic tumblr... all the post boxes are dark blue with grey type, not white with black type. And all the other colors are the insanely bright fluorescent of the new Dark Blue standard tumblr scheme. Which means links are practically invisible unless I highlight them. It’s migraine inducing. The one theme with a light colored background is called “Concrete” or “Cement” or something like that and even that only works for about half an hour before the migraine aura really kicks in. I just want my Old Blue via xkit back. You know, what tumblr actually used to look like. I don’t want any of these horrible color palettes. None of them work for me.

*The new "meatballs" menu: This is where you can copy the post link, unfollow the Tumblr who made or reblogged the post, or report a violation to our Community Guidelines.

I could do all of this from the user menus with xkit, too. I don’t regularly report violations or have the urge to block people I have chosen to follow. Why on earth would I want to do any of this? And why would I want these features located directly beside the post link copy feature? 

You know what I do miss? I miss the xkit timestamps feature. I didn’t have to hover dangerously close to the KILL IT WITH FIRE meatballs menu in order to see when a post was made, and in this era of disinformation and misinformation spreading around this site faster than Covid-19, being able to see when a post was ORIGINALLY created is a far more useful feature than an easier way to block people. For reference: I currently have three blogs blocked. Two of them are pornbots. One is a nazi. If I don’t want someone’s content on my dash, I don’t follow them. This “feature” is entirely useless to me.

*A quick note: Pagination is not supported in this beta test, but we're collecting feedback to send to our engineers.

THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST. This beta test might actually be tolerable if I wasn’t trapped into endless scrolling. If I could page through my dash, refreshing it every ten posts or so. You know why? Because once I scroll about 30 posts down my dash, tumblr starts overheating my laptop under the load of ALL THOSE POSTS. Things start malfunctioning-- it takes longer and longer to load new posts the farther I scroll. And the keyboard navigation (both page down and hitting J to advance to the next post, and even just using the down arrow to scroll as I read a long post) freeze and stop functioning. One of my laptop fans has actually begun to malfunction.

You know why this wasn’t a problem on the old version? If the data load got to heavy, I could open a post in a new tab, click view on dash with xkit, and voila! Brand new tab! I could close the malfunctioning tab and everything would be refreshed to normal! But without pagination, THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE.

Also, after reblogging a few posts, the beta version of this site breaks, and doesn’t open a post tab to add commentary or even tags. It just... reblogs the untagged post with no warning whatsoever. You know... that’s really really not cool. I tag EVERYTHING. Well, almost everything. The tags are the only way to keep track of the 40k+ posts on my blog. And warn people that I am posting potential spoilers, or other specific content. It’s REALLY inconvenient to have to either immediately go to my blog to edit the post and add tags, or even comments. The alternative is to scroll up to open individual posts I want to reblog in a new tab, and then reblog directly there. Ironically enough, THOSE pages actually open with xkit installed, and everything (surprise!) functions perfectly there.

It’s perfectly reasonable to understand why this specific issue has limited the number of posts I reblog. Reblogging content should not be this much of a hassle. Creators have been complaining for a while that reblogs have drastically slowed down, and I think making it even more annoying and difficult to reblog posts will not help this problem.

Also, with xkit enabled, there’s a function that auto-loads images as you scroll, so the images are always visible BEFORE they appear on screen. I don’t have to look at the colored boxes and wonder if this is a post I’ve already seen or something I should sit and wait for. Don’t even think about watching tumblr videos. Loading priority is given to the ads that you cannot pause or dismiss, so that video loads and plays in choppy two second bursts instead of being given priority. Since that’s the content I am actually here to consume, it kinda makes me want to do the opposite of patronizing anyone who advertises here with graphically intense ads. And then when you scroll away, with xkit, gifs and videos you’ve scrolled past STOP loading and playing, which I think might be contributing to the intensity of the resource hogging that’s literally melting down my laptop.

And for reference, I have a pretty decent little gaming laptop. A blogging platform shouldn’t be driving it to the brink of frying itself. I didn’t realize just how much xkit worked to streamline this and provide basic functionality to this site.

*And lastly, if you're an XKit user, know that the XKit team is working hard to update things on their end to make it compatible with the beta dashboard.

And this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what I’ve lost without xkit. And this is a really REALLY garbage response to user complaints. “Oh, yeah, sorry we made our site suck even worse, but those nice people who do our jobs for free will surely fix our garbage soon!”

Dear wonderful people at @new-xkit-extension, I love you, and I miss you, and while I wish xkit worked with this beta version I’ve been forced into living with, I truly feel for y’all who are trying to deal with this nonsense on behalf of all of us.

And to the folks at Tumblr... maybe try to just... make your site actually more like xkit. You know, actually functional. None of these special new features are useful or functional to me. I respectfully request for a fourth time to be removed from this inane beta test.

Give us OPTIONS. Let us display ALL THE TAGS without having to click a button. Let me have back my Activity+ that actually allowed me to interact with people from my dash! That showed me real-time inline notifications in a way that I could reply to with a single click! Bring me back to my column of open messaging conversation icons so I have easy access to the people I talk with throughout the day instead of closing them all every time I refresh the page. I already feel socially isolated in freaking quarantine, please stop shutting off all my avenues of communication!

Let us have pagination! I mean, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to force heavy users of this site into a beta version that doesn’t allow us to opt out until your engineers had actually figured out how to make it work in a very basic way.

*Let me know if there's anything else I can help you with!

YES. PLEASE REMOVE ME FROM THIS BETA TEST NOW. I have let you know exactly what I want from this site. I just want it to ACTUALLY WORK. For someone who spends 12+ hours a day on this site, this beta test version is NONFUNCTIONAL. PLEASE ALLOW ME TO OPT OUT. I AM LITERALLY BEGGING YOU. I WILL ACTUALLY PAY YOU CASH MONEY TO ALLOW ME TO OPT OUT OF THIS AND GO BACK TO HAVING A FUNCTIONAL BLOG AGAIN. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!

PLEASE! 

I AM OFFICIALLY AT THE END OF MY PATIENCE FOR ENDURING THIS NIGHTMARE.

(one final quick note... I’ve only been back on my dash long enough to make the parenthetical edits-- i.e. adding italics that don’t display and then adding the asterisks at the beginning of each section of quoted text, and already my laptop is overheating again. For reference, I originally typed this entire post from within my tumblr inbox page-- which still functions normally with xkit-- and spent over an hour on it. My laptop was fine the entire time. Clearly the issue is this beta version of the website. I will never forgive tumblr if y’all fry my literal only portal to the outside world at this time. PUT ME BACK TO NORMAL NOW. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY INFURIATING AND ENTIRELY UNACCEPTABLE. Thanks)

(oops apparently i lied... when the asterisks and the previous final note failed to display, I thought that seemed suspicious, and realized that I literally needed to refresh my entire dash in order to see edited changes. Funny how xkit enabled me to do that in real time, which is just another bit of functionality I’ve lost with this beta program. Please guys, this is really, really not working for me at all, just put it back.)

[mszegedy]

30 Days of Autism Acceptance: Days 17-26

This is a list of questions by @autie-jake (full list here), where you’re supposed to answer one per day for every day of April. I keep forgetting to do these daily, so here’s all the days since my last post. My last post is here.

April 17: Have you experienced ableism before? If so, how did it feel and how did you handle it?

Yes! Actually, it made my childhood so bad that my brain decided to forget it. So, clearly nothing to write about here.

April 18: Discuss how you felt when you felt when you first learnt you were autistic vs how you feel now.

I’m not good at the whole “remembering how I feel” thing. My memories of my feelings are all semantic memory. I know as a 6th grader I thought autism was super cool and I read a whole autobiography of an autistic savant because I wanted to find out more about it (Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammett). After a lot of intense research, I decided that I couldn’t conclusively self-diagnose, and regretfully slinked away back into not understanding or advocating for my needs. Sometime later, an actually autistic coworker of mine looked at me for like five (5) minutes, and was like, “Hey, have you been diagnosed with autism yet?” I’ve since adopted her as my second mom, for that and other reasons. I’ve had very few moments in my life when I was sad to have an autistic trait, and I got over it fairly quickly.

April 19: Talk about scripting. Is scripting something that you normally do? What kind of situations do you have a script for? Does it help you?

People don’t like my apologies, so I have a couple apology scripts saved. Otherwise I tend to just wing it and fail spectacularly. The apology scripts tend to sound… scripted, but they’re better than just doing it myself, I think.

April 20: Discuss stimming. In what ways do you stim? What does stimming mean to you? What do individual stims that you do mean? Do you have any stim toys? What would you like people to know about stimming?

Pressure stims are the most important stims for me. I’m more likely to be squeezing a part of my body than not. If nothing else, I can cross my legs tight and squeeze them together. This doesn’t have any specific function; it’s just something I do that makes me feel better. When I’m stressed, I do it more.

I also do motion stims. Often my way of locomotion is more like dancing. This is a little strange, because I don’t otherwise dance. I always feel happy, relaxed, and in control when I do that. When I’m sad or tired, my feet are too heavy for it. I am also very animate with my hands when I talk. When I taught English in Hungary for the first time, the first question I was asked whether all Americans talk with their hands as much as I do. (I don’t think they do. I have it on good authority from at least one American I trust utterly that the way I use my hands is rather unique.)

I have two improvised stim toys for pressure stimming (a scarf for wrapping very tight around limbs, and a butterknife for applying waves of uniform pressure). I also recently found one of those head scratchy thingies, and now I use it every five minutes or so. It’s a little inconvenient with headphones on, but I’m rather creative with it, anyway. I don’t actually like light touch or tickles, but generally the head scratchy thingy can be given enough pressure to provide a substantial stimulus.

April 21: Give a shoutout to some of your favorite autism blogs/autistic bloggers

UM. HMM. Like 10-50% of the people I follow are autistic, but hell if I can remember any of their handles.

I reblog from @nonbinary-hawke and their native issues-related sideblog @finding-my-culture like multiple times a day but I’m pretty sure they kinda just tolerate me? I’m mostly cut off from the actual native community I’m supposed to be part of (the Siberian one), so I try to follow American native issues with kind of a “not my lane but I’m still sympathetic” vibe, and their blogs are most of my way of keeping in touch. But we have a lot of other random things in common too; similar age, similar neurotype, similar fandoms, etc. So I’m pretty much always gonna have a platonic tumblr crush on them, given that and how much I respect their principles.

@autisticadvocacy is ASAN’s official blog, I think, and it’s always posting useful and relevant articles.

@autisticjoy and @autismisaokay are two blogs I’ve followed for most of my time on tumblr. I get the majority of my autism-related content from them.

@autistic-noodle is the first autism-related blog I ever followed! I highly recommend her; if I haven’t unfollowed her after all this time, then that means that they’ve never reblogged anything that’s triggered me, which is pretty darn impressive.

@bogleech is my favorite webcomic artist, which is a vaunted honor coming from someone with ¾ of a special interest in webcomics. I’m not actually sure if he’s autistic, but he posts enough autism-related content to justify being on this list one way or another.

I’ve definitely learned at least one useful thing from @autisticlifehack. What was it? Who knows?

@autistic-flirting is very cute, if not very active.

Shout out to @tikibats and @dreamfriend, who I actually know IRL.

April 22: What are some social rules that do not make sense to you/that you don't understand?

I’m, uh. Actually not sure? I can usually explain stuff if I think hard enough. There’s some stuff I’ve never bothered to figure out, but none of it’s so pressing that I can actually remember it.

Oh! Actually! One night during freshman year of college, I went to the computer lab to do my homework in a not-at-all-revealing bathrobe. I’ve received several explanations on why this was wrong, but I don’t remember any of them.

April 23: Do you have any internal rules? What are they?

LOTS, wow. If I didn’t have them, I wouldn’t have any shred of consistency whatsoever. I am nothing but these rules. Some of them feel more like strong opinions that can be taken or left, like the ones pertaining to writing style, but even those I follow 99% of the time. They range from really foundational moral ones like, “Everything with a mind intrinsically deserves your friendship and understanding,” and, “Every neurotype deserves to exist,” to, “Always wrap code to 80 columns (unless it’s highly nested like Lisp, in which case consider 100 columns),” and, “When mixing fruit flavor tea, always pour the syrup before the tea.” It’s quite the hodgepodge.

April 24: Talk about community. What does the autistic community mean to you? Is it important? How does it feel?

I haven’t had much of a chance to actually participate in any autistic community yet. I don’t even really participate in the tumblr autistic community. It’s just sorta me, my second mom, and a couple random people I get to see occasionally. (Also, my dad, but we don’t talk about my dad.) Most of my friends are neurodivergent in some way, though, so I’m happy with the people I have. (Not that I don’t enjoy hanging around neurotypical people, too. But it feels good to not have to work to make yourself be understood.)

April 25: Do you know any other autistic people off the internet? Is anyone else in your family autistic or are you the only one? Do you wish you knew more?

See yesterday’s answer! I wouldn’t do this if I were doing these day by day, but I’m totally justified here, because it’s literally the previous paragraph.

April 26: In what ways can allistic people better accommodate you and other autistic people? What would you consider helpful?

It’s a broad question. My mom has been getting better at not punishing me for my autistic traits, but the other day she still antagonized me for stimming at the dinner table. (I’m 22. Nearly 23.) So it’d be great if she didn’t do things like that. Not even gonna talk about what my dad could do better. (The ways he does accomodate me seem unintentional.)

Outside of that, I appreciate it when people give me very clearly-worded instructions, broken down into small steps, with every possible detail specified. I appreciate it even more when those instructions are in written form, because I can only remember two or three of those when they’re spoken aloud.

I appreciate it when food places with complex menus have the option to just sit down with the menu, without a time limit, and make up your order. Sandwich and wrap places, like Subway, make me very uncomfortable for reason; Subway has an extremely combinatorically complex menu, and you’re expected to make up your order while they’re making the sandwich. I’d like to spend some time staring at a sheet with each sandwich ingredient listed and explained, and the ways they can be combined, first.

The current switch to online classes has been great for my ability to understand lectures, and terrible for my ability to do classwork and homework. Hearing the lecture through headphones circumvents most of my auditory processing issues, and seeing the lecture slides clearly circumvents most of my attention issues. But when it comes to doing classwork and homework, executive dysfunction rules me. I do wish my executive dysfunction were better accomodated for even in the case of normal classes (and probably careers), but it’s hard to guess what form that would take. I’ve run out of brainpower for good ideas.

For the rest of the month I will do these questions daily, one at a time. Hopefully.

[bigskydreaming]

Sometimes I want to follow you but then I dee that you reblog from people who have terrible misinformed/ ignorant borderline xenophobic opinions about certain things I like and they enjoy dragging the things I like.. Then I end up not following you. Even if I block some of them they'll end up on my tl and who knows maybe you have the same/ similar opinions. So yes I love your metas, but sorry I can't bring myself to follow. This has nothing to do with your existing fandoms or "dark" fics.

Okay?

Sfjskgsgksjsi

Sorry I just really don’t know what to do with this? I’m not like, mad about it lol since this is how tumblr is supposed to work I’m pretty sure, like hey it’s cool you like my metas but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re gonna like me The Person and if someone doesn’t like me then why the fuck would they follow me y’know?

In case this is about my posts yesterday about me being annoyed when people like block me but still wanna use my shit, it’s like....yeah that does legit annoy me because I think that’s dumb and I don’t get it. When I don’t like someone I don’t usually WANT to use or peruse content they create because it’s associated with them and I already decided they weren’t someone I care to associate with sooooo.....

But also, that was literally just me saying hey this annoys me. That’s it, that’s the whole scoop. Annoying things are annoying but expressing that isn’t like.....it doesn’t mean I’m going to DO anything about it or even that there’s anything TO do about it, it’s more just haha hey I too am a Person and I am disorderly and my fandom blog doubles as my main blog so here I am having Feelings, let me show you them, RAWR dinosaur emoji????

Idk maybe it’s that it’s 4 am and my brain hasn’t even rebooted enough for me to even figure out why the fuck I’m even awake, lol, but I guess what I’m saying is it sounds like you’ve made an A+ decision for yourself here? I have no idea what mutuals I reblog from that have views you see as xenophobic, without you, like, actually saying what views those are so I can confirm where I stand on them or sit or whatever. But I can tell you that I don’t follow a lot of people period and my mutuals list is pretty short and basically consists of individuals I’ve met on here that I would absolutely go the fuck to bat for, any time, any place, simply because I think they’re super cool people across the board and that’s what you do for super cool people: baseball as an analogy for friendship I guess? I never did get that particular analogy tbh. Or baseball.

Sooooooo tbh I’m like, not the guy to be all that mad that someone doesn’t like me, it’s kinda like lol this is a neat convo I’m just not sure why we’re having it, but what I’m far less keen on is like, just any kinda slight against my mutuals aka friends and friend type people at all.....especially when that doesn’t actually include what it is someone specifically has a problem with cuz Vague Wording is Vague, and when like I said, my inclination is to go to bat for my mutuals, I would kinda like to know what it is I should be swinging at in their defense. Just general FYI for anyone reading this or like future reference or whatever.

(Unless this is about Palestine again slash still, in which case I mean, I already said what I said there and what I said was What We’re Not Gonna Do is make this topic White Guy Sitting Ten Thousand Miles Away From the Gaza Strip Discourse Hour, and the one thing I always am is consistent aka stubborn aka....eh, you get it).

But anyway, my vaguely Point shaped thing here is just that, I am not a pod person or an invertebrate and my opinions are my own and I do not mindlessly agree with things others say even if it is a mutual or friend saying it, but that said, my mutuals are people I am more likely to agree with than not. So absent knowing specifically what posts of theirs concern you as to whether or not I agree with them, all I can really say is if you’re that bothered by some of their opinions in general then yeah, you’re probably best off avoiding me as well in order to keep your dash a place you’re comfortable with, regardless of how you feel about my fandom meta outside of those posts/opinions. Cuz there really is no outside as far as I see it; my fandom meta is me as is my decision as to who I reblog from and associate with as are my opinions and stances on non fandom matters. It’s all just the same me, one network, many shows, but if any of those shows are the equivalent of Fox News in your eyes, then yeah, for sure, screw that one show that has the one guy you really like and just change the channel and find one that’s a better match for you.

It’s allllllll good.

And for the record, if it’s ultimately more just that they bash things you like and seeing that randomly pop up on your dash might bum you out enough that it’s worth it not to follow me just to be safe there, like, that’s totally understandable and nothing to be sorry about. We all do it. There’s a metric fuckton of people in Batfandom that I probably WOULD follow or read or interact with if it weren’t for the fact that I see them talk and joke and reblog a lot with Big Name Batcest shippers and the like, and I mean, lol hey I’m an incest survivor who hates incest with a passion few will ever understand and seeing it pop up on my dash in posts that talk or laugh about it as something fluffy or sweet or harmless would bum me super hard. So it’s like welp, in every other respect it looks like me and this one person could sync up brainwaves and make like platonic soulmates through our next several lifetimes buuuuuuut they’ve got incest-fluff in their general sphere and that’s a dealbreaker for me so guess we’ll never know now cuz I’m gonna keep standing firmly over here. *shrugs* Does that kinda feel like a waste or a shame sometimes? Yeah, maybe, but like. Your priorities are what they are and if you’re happy with your priorities, sticking with them is the clear choice and not something anyone should kick themselves for.

I mean, I might happen to think someone’s priorities are wrong and bad but I’m allowed to just like you’re allowed to think the same about mine or my mutuals’? It’s just...when that’s the ultimate issue, people just having wildly in opposition priorities, there’s just like....not a whole lot to say there beyond ‘hey I think your priorities suck,’ ‘no, YOUR priorities suck,’ ‘well I think your FACE sucks,’ ‘how dare you, I got this face from my MOM, you giant bipedal pitstain, have you no shame’ etc etc ad nauseam.

Anyway, I’ve officially exhausted this topic so exhaustively I’ve now made myself exhausted enough to go back to sleep cuz it’s still not even 5 am lol, and this is all just brain vomit now anyway so in conclusion, it’s all whatever dude, you do you, I’ll do me, we’ll always have Paris, and that’s what you missed on Glee.

[tanoraqui]

those tags? ouch? mod worked so hard?

it’s hard to judge the level of tease vs condemnation in the tone of this, but for the record, I have thought about it, these last…god, over six years, and I’ve essentially concluded that what I put in my tags on my blog is my own business, and if the creator of a work I’m reblogging has some reaction to them, that reaction is not my responsibility, because they deliberately came to my space in order to view feedback on their work. Because is how tumblr works - you don’t see tags on your post unless you seek it out, even if “seek it out” is defined as “downloaded an extension years ago to show you tags with reblogs.” That’s still putting in extra effort, going the extra mile, or at least meter. I’m not adding my comments to the reblog, which they would automatically see in their Activity feed, nor am I replying to the post, ditto - tags are, everyone generally agrees, a place to sort things and to ramble in an undertone visible to you and your followers. If someone copies it onto the post with a reblog, that’s cool, but it wasn’t you that added it in a permanent and visible manner.

So if the creator then finds that I’ve commented - in the undertone permanent only on my own blog - with some critique, or maybe tagged it some way they never would have thought to just because it reminds me of that thing, how they feel about it is their concern, not mine. It’s a result of a thing I said, yes, about their work, but not to them. Just because a fellow tumblrer is more likely to see those comments than, say, JK Rowling is to see my extended complaints about the Fantastic Beasts movies - posted in this open forum where she is physically capable of seeing them but is unlikely to - does not mean I have cause to feel guilt or delight in any reactions they might have.

That’s the black-and-white answer, at least. The core of it. I’m aware, however, as I should be, that it is VERY much more likely that a tumblr-based creator like Modmad is going to see my tags than Rowling is, so I deliberately couched the comments in question in the classic compliment-critique-compliment sandwich of all good workshop comments everywhere - and you’d better believe I mean those first and last comments, too. I didn’t expand on them as much, but they were weighing on my chest less bc they’re positive, and what am I supposed to do, ramble endlessly about how much I like Mod’s duck comics? I mean, I could. I hope the fact that I keep reblogging and carefully tagging them all is some indication. I actually fully support the decision to make Leo an evil businessman doing it for a mix of profit and the lulz, rather than a scientist who believes in “pure” logic over magic, for the edited reasons here (shit, I didn’t think of that either), and because I agree that it WOULD have been kind of heavy-handed. There’s nothing wrong with bringing in one’s feelings on current events, and fuck that sort of businessperson. 

Not that I’m the ultimate authority on skillful storytelling, but, like, I’m pretty good. Not to brag, but I’m pretty good. And it would have been better if there’d been some dialogue of, like, Magica asking Leo “WTF”, maybe more explicit reasoning/arguing/defining character moment from her about how she wants to use these animals but sustainability is important and when you get right down to it, she just likes magical things and wants it to thrive. She’s not a “hero”, but she has her own code. Then Leo is like, “But you’re still not one of heroes, so have you considered: pure profit”. Leo is working on a different angle of “pure” than Gladstone and to a lesser extent Magica, or at least, his moral code is roughly “who cares so long as I make money”, but the overall moral becomes much more coherently “purity in ‘moral’ actions is often impossible and when it’s not, it’s usually indistinguishable from heartless, dangerous extremism, so we should all just be thoughtful and aware of nuance and keep trying our best.” Which was, I think, the message Mod was trying to get across, and overall did really well.

…back to the non-specific-comic point: being aware that there was a decent chance Mod would see my tags, I did in fact deliberately leave out a comment that the particularly sketchy art of this comic got difficult for me to follow in the action sequences, because I know damn well that’s not Mod’s fault. I’m trying to offer some idle workshopping, now remind them of things they definitely feel bad about and cannot control bc tendonitis/carpel tunnel is a Bitch. I’m saying it now, despite the at-this-point high probability that they’re going to see this post, because I want to emphasize that I am aware of the impact of my tags on a creator who might read them, even if they are seeking out that response and thus accepting their own responsibility for said impact, and I’m not trying to be an asshole.

Edit added about a minute after posting: It would also be different if the creator in question followed me, because then then I WOULD assume that they would see my reblog of their work, and at least the first couple tags. I would in that case - indeed, I have in the past - either put critique under a Read More in a separate post, or PMed them, or put it in the tags but preceded by a tag like “warning: some critique coming next”. Because IMO constructive criticism is always good, but sometimes people don’t want it just now, or not for this work, and even if it’s all good, it’s polite to let people know it’s coming if they’re not already in a space explicitly for it (like a writing workshop.)

[honeykuwu]

I posted 6,901 times in 2022

That's 2,462 more posts than 2021!

11 posts created (0%)

6,890 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@futurewgarbage

@dingdongyouarewrong

@merganfm

@vrabia

@smarter-than-the-average-blonde

I tagged 448 of my posts in 2022

#ml spoilers - 111 posts

#fnaf security breach - 64 posts

#fnaf gregory - 46 posts

#security breach - 43 posts

#glamrock freddy - 40 posts

#ml s5 spoilers - 33 posts

#fnaf sb - 31 posts

#marichat - 30 posts

#ml season 5 spoilers - 23 posts

#mlb spoilers - 18 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#i could go on and on about how this is can be used in order to isolate people and create even more difficulty in maintaining a living space

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

So I've been watching refill/restock videos, as one does, and I keep wondering... do these bitches not have any actual food? Like thry have some mezeluri and a crap tone of juices and cheese and sweets and maybe some vegetables and fruit... but like no actual food? Like, idk if I'm speaking for all romanian peeps, but you usually have o oala de ciorba sau de supa si alta with some leftover food, like do these people just know exactly how much to cook? Are they buying all their food premade? I am so confused, yet so intrigued...

4 notes - Posted May 31, 2022

#4

Man, a few years ago I saw this cool post that explained how vampires would most likely function if they existed based on like actual blood consuming bats anatomy and it was really cool and had drawn examples of stuff and I loved it, but I can't find it, so like if anyone knows what I'm talking about could you please send it to me? I would really appreciate it, I loved that post, with the bladey teeth and all

4 notes - Posted February 3, 2022

#3

Ok, am I going insane, or did they change this??

6 notes - Posted February 2, 2022

#2

Yk, if they're switching the dynamics now for adrinette, does that mean we get pinning Adrien for the future season, cause please!!! We deserve to see mushy Adrien for three seasons, I feel like thay would balance things more. A dream..

26 notes - Posted July 5, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Ok, so I absolutely love Security Breach, but I wanted to make a lost of things I feel would have made the game more enjoyable for me. It's just personal preference, it's ok if you guys don't agree. So here we go:

♡ more Freddy interactions. I really hate that he doesn't talk unless it's an event. Give him idle lines when he moves, both near Greg or with Greg inside. Make him send Greg random messages during the night, basically sell to us that they have a bond, build it throughout the night. I just fee like we would all have benefited from more papa beat and feral boy interactions.

♡ Make the hours advance slower and more equal? Idk man if I'm wrong, but I felt like the game progressed a little too fast and random? I just think it would help to get a bit more time

♡ More Vanny, the amount of times we see her is ridiculous...she was supposed to be the main villain, but I never got a real sense of danger from her. Add more chases from her. Make her randomly taunt Greg. Make her sometimes speak through the animatronics. Give us small scene where we see her interact with them. Idk, just add her more.

♡ Add more story elements: I personally feel like the story is held together with tape and that it was not the focus of the game, which imo left a lot of unanswered questions, like why do the animatronics keep getting more beat-up throughout the night, what is the deal with Vanessa, what is the deal with Greg, why is only Freddy not corrupted an so on. I feel there should have been more story elements added throughout, like small cut-scenes or lines of dialogue

♡ Allows us to actually race for a bit with Roxy, I found it kinda sad that it was only a cut-scene

♡ It would have been cool if we could also save the rest of the animatronics, not just decommission them and thus make them allies. I haven't really thought how, if I come up with an idea I will add, but I feel that is should be a more difficult mission than to decommission them, since it basically transforms and enemy into an ally. And taking from the Freddy part, give them some lines as well, I just think it would be sweet. Also with this addition, you create extra endings depending on who you saved.

♡ Remake the Afton final boss, I may be the only one, but I feel that this one was really underwhelming, I think it should have been longer and required Freddy a lot more, needed a bit more action. Taking from the points above, I feel like it would have been cool if you only had Freddy to be a harder boss and more bearable if you had everyone, or just get progressively easier the more you added to your roster. I also feel like the true ending should be with all of them. Also tell us what happened to Vanny. I feel like none of the endings actually touch all the issues in the pizza plex and while I get the idea behind it, I still feel there should have been one that figures out everything.

♡ I feel like there should be an extra panel named Extras :)) where you can see all things collected throughout your runs, so you don't run into the issue of losing everything just cause you got it after six

♡ this one is really not that important, but I think it would have been cool if there was a chance to do sth so that you can restore the ability to save during the after six am part, not really necessary, just and idea

♡ also more Vanessa, she also barely appeared snd didn't feel like an actual threat.

That's all I can think of for now. If I come up with any other ideas, I'll add them to the list

Thank y'all for taking the time to read this whole thing. Have an awesome night!

133 notes - Posted January 3, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[shadowgodling]

☠, ♦, ☄, ☀, ☢, ❥

☠ What does someone have to do for an instant unfollow from you?

(( I mean, I unfollow for lots of reasons. Poor ooc behaviour is probably number one, including things like anon hate, slurs, guilt-tripping, entitlement. Repeatedly reblogging untagged porn, gore or thiefshipping also is likely to get an unfollow. Too many ooc posts as well, I don’t mind ppl putting whatever they want on their own blog, but I’m on my rp blog to rp and random ooc posts get in the way. By that I don’t mean personal written ooc posts about the mun, i mean reblogging random tumblr posts that have nothing to do with the character. ))

♦ What was a mildly annoying thing that has happened to you rp wise?

(( My main partner’s blog having teeny tiny writing so I can’t read it unless I view it on mobile, or I like the post and go read it in my likes. It’s easy to get around unless its a read more so it’s only mildly annoying. I don’t know about other people but having to read tiny posts makes me feel less able to understand any emotion or intent behind the post because I’m too busy struggling to decipher the weeny little letters rather than actually reading and understanding it. ))

☄ Have you ever been in the middle of drama?

(( I don’t think so no. I’ve had arguments with ppl in private or in public a few times but I don’t consider that drama. ))

☀ What's your rp pet peeve?

(( Only one? Lol how to choose :/a I guess I’ll go after a topic you just raised and say I don’t like people having multiple verses on their blogs. I find it confusing, unnecessary and daunting. I’m much less likely to choose to rp with a new person who has multiple verses. Roleplaying is about having a character and growing them and giving them new experiences in a community of other characters, something I feel verses hinders. That and when I have no idea what version of a muse I’ll be talking to, how am I supposed to compose a relevant ask? ))

☢ What fads/trends are you so over?

(( Fancy formatting in tags. omfg. I don’t know when people started doing this and I think its done its dash now. At first it looked cool I admit, I thought it was neat. But now its just irritating that I can’t use the tags for their actual function. Looking things up on people’s blogs. ))

❥ Has someone ever ruined an FC or character for you?

(( Not really. I don’t tend to link specific portrayals with the general FC or character. Maybe in fanfiction but I don’t think rpland has done that to me. ))

[celestialbrush]

Please forgive me

Can I just say something? Every now and then, not often but very occasionally, I get asks of people who want me to reblog something they’ve done or want to do (a fanart, graphics, music remixes, any artistic project). And here’s the thing: this blog isn’t supposed to be either the hub central of the fandom or some compendium of the best. This is a sideblog from pre-savior/xkit ancient times, back when I was too embarrassed to flood my friends with Okami stuff they couldn’t filter. I come and go like seasons, when I feel like checking Okami stuff. I do comb the tag when I’m in the mood, but I reblog the stuff I personally like, not what I find particularly worthy to share. I’m not a curator or a newsletter or signal booster. I’m just a fan!

You’re welcome to show me your stuff, sure! I just don’t feel obligated to reblog it or like it since this is just a “shit I find cool/pretty according to my likes” kind of blog. Most of the times I don’t. I’m so sorry if that’s the case and I’ve hurt your feelings with my silence. Please don’t take it the wrong way if I don’t reply (I don’t want to accidentally offend) or help you get notes. Especially if it’s a certain niche artistic style heavily coming from a certain community I’m not a part of, since it’s not my place or taste. Anyway, it might not be a matter of quality so don’t assume it’s ugly or bad if I don’t like it. It’s just me.

I’m not sure how much of a help I am for those things, either. Most of my followers are from like 2010, back when I reblogged pixiv fanart without permission (which I stopped when I learned it was wrong) and had a few shitposts and graphics sometimes. I might have a little more than 3500 followers but most of them aren’t likely on tumblr anymore. I do see a lot of activity when I mass reblog stuff, but I’m probably not an authority in this fandom anymore.

However, here’s a guideline of a few things I absolutely ignore immediately: NSFW/fetishist stuff, anth ro/furr y stuff since it’s not my cup of tea, ships I’m not into, people who seem too desperate for the attention, and people who want to make money (T-shirt designs, fan-made merch ads, kickstarters for fanprojects unless they’re super rad, etc.)

[bisexualamy]

hi ren! i think you're so cool and soft at the same time!! how do u do that!! teach me ur ways!!

I’m not sure what you mean by soft in this instance? I’m a little skeptical of soft as an adjective for trans men because I feel like it’s always used to infantilize us (like the uwu cute soft trans boy stuff).

If you mean soft as “in touch with my emotions/emotionally vulnerable” (which I think you do) that is something I can definitely touch on because it is an aspect of my personality I’ve really tried to cultivate. In terms of cool, I don’t really think I’m cool. I appreciate that you think I am! I don’t really known what cool means? Why is one cool? The best analogous thing I can see for it in my own life is “confident” and “does/makes interesting/fun/creative things.”

This is a lot of preamble to get my thoughts out, but I do actually have some advice in both of these instances! I’ll try and be brief, though I probably won’t succeed in that. And like, obvious disclaimer that I’m speaking from my own life experience.

EDIT: very long. All of this is now under cut. This was a good post and I’m happy I wrote it, so thank you! Feel free to reblog it!

IN TERMS OF “COOL”: the best advice I can give to you is put things into the world you care about. This manifests itself for me in the art and writing I produce. I became a lot happier and more confident creating work that I actually cared about existing. I get a lot of joy and drive out of filling voids that I see as necessary to be filled. A concrete example of this has been the work I’ve been doing (that I recently won an award for) in regarding to documenting and creating around the stories of different LGBT people of faith. 

And this can be anything! This doesn’t even have to be necessarily “creative” work. There’s joy to be found in STEM fields, like building or doing math or science. It can be cooking or redesigning your bedroom! I find that always having a project to work on, no matter how small, gives me purpose that helps me do the other things in my life that I don’t want to do. Also!!! This doesn’t have to be “original.” I find that a lot of the hangups people get tend to center around filling a void that’s never been touched. My favorite professor I’ve ever had once told me: “don’t worry about doing something original. Just do something well.” I really like that and try and keep that in mind when I create.

I’ve noticed that when you’re working on things you care about it often creates drive, which looks like confidence. In my experience, people think I’m cool because I’m driven to do things I care about. I’m not like, cool in the sense of calm and collected, but I think I’m cool in the sense that I’m interesting. The other bit of advice I have for this is surround yourself with people who you feel safe and supported by. This also goes into soft as well, but your progress as a person is often hindered by unsupportive and harmful environments and people. Those two are often difficult to escape or avoid completely, but building up relationships in your life where you feel safe, where you feel supported, where you feel allowed to make mistakes, were instrumental in building my confidence and giving me the drive to stop settling for “this is the way things are.”

IN TERMS OF “SOFT”: Like I said above, a lot of this comes from being allowed to be soft in the first place. From being in environments and with people that don’t try to squash that softness. For me, I’ve made a conscious effort to be open, to be vulnerable, to be “soft” as you put it. I made this effort because I knew it helped people, and I get a lot of value out of helping people. I’ve been told that my openness about mental health, about emotional vulnerability, about LGBT things, has helped others when I see that I can be open and also succeed. That’s the reason I started this in the first place.

This mentality was very difficult for me to foster initially. I used to be very closed off and have many issues with trust, and I sometimes still do, but I’m working on self awareness. I started small and gradually adopted more and more emotionally honest practices and those grew into larger ones. The overarching theme to these is give yourself permission. Give yourself permission to be happy, to feel your emotions, to be in a world that makes you happy. Here are some of those specific things I worked on (not necessarily in this order):

When someone asks you if you’re okay, or how you are, answer honestly. Unless you’re speaking in passing to someone you don’t really know, answer truthfully. Don’t be afraid to answer “how are you” with “I’m feeling down” or “I’ve had a pretty bad day” or “I’m really angry.” This helped teach me that my emotions aren’t bad. I don’t need to hide them. I just need to be in control of them and know how to regulate them.

When you’re feeling a very intense negative emotion, stop. If you’re very sad, or very angry, don’t do anything. Stay still. Write down what you’re feeling. Talk to someone. Make no decisions in this headspace. Distance is important when assessing your own emotions. Distance will teach you what your reaction is saying. If you get very angry at a friend because they’re late, why? Did the situation hurt you, or is there something larger at play? If it was the situation, you’ll be grateful you didn’t over blow it. If there’s something larger, now you have the calmer headspace to figure out how to fix it.

Let yourself feel bad. I try to be a generally optimistic person, but acknowledging my negative emotions, and not shaming myself for them, really helped me get better control over them. Sometimes you feel shitty! It’s okay to feel shitty! Let yourself feel bad, acknowledge the badness, and then let it go when you’re ready. Don’t let yourself wallow, but don’t suppress your bad emotions. Letting myself feel everything helped me gain confidence in being vulnerable.

Tell someone if they hurt you, even if they didn’t mean it. This is not supposed to be an accusation, but being an open communicator has changed my life. If someone upsets you and you don’t tell them, it may fester and turn into something nasty. I tell my friends that if they have an issue with something I did or said, I want them to tell me so we can talk about it in a calm, open, non-accusatory way. I feel much better once I’ve talked through something that hurt me, because I usually learn the other person’s point of view and it feels less like a slight.

Be upfront about your expectations. People can’t read your mind, and expecting people to is wrong. For example, one of my biggest pet peeves is having my time wasted. There are many people who view meeting times in flux. For them, it’s okay to shift appointments around, to double book, to be a little late. That’s another way of viewing the world. So, if someone is historically late, I might say “I really need you to be on time to this specific event” or set a precedent of “it’s okay if you’re late, but you have to let me know ahead of time that you think you’ll be late so I can account for that.”

Trust your gut. Don’t doubt yourself. Self doubt has always bit me. You can typically get a sense of when something is awry. Don’t be afraid to trust your instincts.

Lay out healthy priorities. I try and prioritize my health and well-being above everything else. If a topic is triggering for me to discuss, if an environment is a significant detriment to my mental health, if someone is hurting me, I try and fix the situation, and if it won’t fix, I leave. From there, my priorities are in flux. Sometimes I prioritize people, sometimes schoolwork, sometimes self care. It depends on the scenario and the time. Prioritizing your health is not the same thing as not doing anything that you dislike, or that makes you uncomfortable. We have to do things we dislike all the time. You know within yourself what’s unhealthy and what’s just unpleasant or annoying.

Learn how to fail. Admit when you’re wrong. I used to have a terrible time admitting I was wrong. If you’re in a healthy environment with decent people, you won’t be shamed for admitting your mistakes. In this way, change your behavior if you’re wrong! I often have unrealistic expectations of people. When that’s been brought to my attention, I’ve adjusted my expectations. Also, I’ve tried to remove “I told you so” from my vocabulary. I don’t shame others for failure. And, understand that partial successes are not failures. 50% successes are okay! Anything is better than zero. Sometimes, you will hit zero. Sometimes, you will fail. Learning how to learn from failure, from not seeing failure as a reflection of my self worth, gave me more freedom to try my hand at creating things I care about. First drafts are supposed to be awful! Just start! Once you start, you can often work off of momentum.

Take time to be introspective and understand yourself. What are your values? What’s important to you? How do you typically respond to certain scenarios? What is something that makes you consistently happy? Sad? Angry? Journal, blog, talk aimlessly into your phone, talk to other people, talk to a therapist if you’re interested. Often, you need to get to know yourself like you’d get to know another person. Once you gain this sense of self, you’ll better understand a lot of what you do, say, and how you react out in the world. For me, this is an ever-evolving process. I change, I grow, and I need to consistently reflect. I think constructive and position self reflection is very important.

I know that was a long list. This took me years and years, and I’m still working on these. The path to emotional softness and regulation is often not linear. Learning to forgive myself, learning how to understand myself, learning to be gentle with myself, was hard. I see a lot of “be gentle to yourself!” positivity on here without any concrete steps are principles. These are a bulk of mine. Employing these steps helped me to foster those safe communities, and be safe in my own vulnerability. Softness tends to follow work and action.

[alreadyclaimednamefk]

1-20

send me a number and get to know me

LMAO why do I reblog these post and can never think of answers for them.

1) Favorite Artist, Beyonce, Ciara

2) Fav song? The entirety of Lemonade, Boys.

3) Fave color? Orange, any shade of Purple, any shade of Blue.

4) Dream Destination. IDK tbh the more stuff I see on here the more I wonder where is a place for a black gay person to go lol. Some place cool where I wouldn’t have to sweat lmao.

5) Last text message that made you smile. “good night hurt back” that shit took me out lmao. 

6) Single? Yes.

7) Crush on someone from this site? Nope, but I fall in love super easy so I did have a crush on one of my mutuals lmao.

8) WYBMBF? Bih come off anon I probably already am!

9) Thoughts on GoT? Meh, I mean great source material I suppose, magic, dragons and all that but like, I first started watching GoT when this gay production company blog were posting about all the gay sex in it and junk, I believe it was on season 3 hiatus when I first started watching it, I even bought all the books, but bih I stopped reading that on the first book when ummm Roberts daughter who lived in the Vale was bought up. The lack of black people didn’t help, I bet I’m gonna get a message about Gray Worm and Misandry not being real then, and like bitch what season did they come in at and where were they in the finale?

10) Fav tv show? Umm idk tbh. I love Bob’s Burgers even tho that family is annoying as fuck lmao that Thanksgiving episode still set me off lmao. I don’t think I really have a favorite there’s nothing that I really track tv wise. 

11) Time travel. I am not bringing my black ass back in time lmao, unless it’s to instigate. I’ll fuck the timeline up bih and if I knew for a fact that there were like no time cops, oooo baby.

`12) [why not both.gif] dp me while cupcakke’s entire discography plays

13) One song to listen to forever? Boys is pretty cute right now.

14) One song to forget? Die With You, I want to walk down the isle to it but I could use a break from it.

15) Fanfiction? Hell yeah I do! Umm I have a few I actually reread over and over I’m like super embarrassed to name names lmao. You really want names? It’s like all real nasty stuff.

16) Draw?, I used to have a talent for it, but it was like one of those, “something you’re okay at but can get good if you work hard at it” type of drawing talents, cause I was looking at some of my old stuff and I noticed some improvement from where I started to where I stopped.

17) Sing? No, buuuuut, I think I can hold a note. I’m pretty sure I can perfectly mimic that vine where the black woman goes outside and it’s snowing and she sings, “oh my god!“ because of how cold it is.

18) Idk, I used to want to do it, I started a few novels, I did some fanfiction, but I haven’t really put much focus into it in some years now. I’d love to go over all my grammatically wrong fanfiction and make some changes but like eh.

19) Fav book? I really loved the Sweep series, like I was excited when I heard it might become a movie, eventho I know how book to movies work, but once I started realizing social justice type things the book sorta lost some of it’s fun. But the store behind me finding the books were fun, I was just in Walmart with my cousin getting some things for her baby shower and I just happened to pass by the book section and there it was. Then I found the next one like months later when I went back.

20) Books or movies? I still enjoy books tho.

[ark-of-eden]

R is drunk and raving (not in the party way).

(R:) Additionally, I’m procrastinating like a fucking champion at working on fic construction, so you know the best use of my time is going off about random social media crap on the internet.

tl;dr: Putting all commentary in tags on Tumblr makes R cry and shit thousands of words into the Internet.

Every social media site inevitably develops sets of unwritten social conventions. Some of them actually make sense as being derived from meatspace etiquette and therefore you don’t really have to stress about remembering them as long as you play nice like a decent creature.

And some of them just don’t make any fucking sense that I can see. Folks on Twitter using a deliberately space-limited form of media to write a page’s worth or more in a string of 30+ rapidfire tweets? This is just how it’s done over there? (Tweetlonger exists but for some reason these massive chain-tweeters never seem to use it. Same with posting the whole thing in a long-form site like LJ/DW/Tumblr and just linking it to a tweet.)

And Tumblr has things that I literally had to put effort into learning after I migrated here, and after I learned about them I frankly decided to ignore them because I couldn’t see the point in them. Tumblr has this bizarre allergy to commentary and, likely derived from that, the practice of instead commenting by putting it all in awkward tags that render the tagging system not especially useful and are harder to get to if you’re actually interested in an individual’s thoughts about a thing and not just the twelfth instance of the same post crossing your dash in a day or two. It’s not like you can’t engage with people, because asks and messaging and such exist, but like...there’s this strong sense that it’s Terribly Ill-Mannered to weigh in with your own impressions right there, in the body of the post, typing your own words in that seductive, wide-open text box that appears all on its own when you go to reblog something. The properly-socialized Tumblrite eschews that tempting text field and instead posts weird sentence fragments in tag form (interspersed with actual tags that might serve to usefully categorize the post’s content), to the extent that some people can add on a good couple paragraphs of material down among the hashtags where others need to go looking for it on purpose if they want it. (I, at least, haven’t been able to find a plugin or something that automatically expands full tags on all posts so that I don’t have to fuck around with extra interface elements to get to them. I admit that I haven’t looked super hard, though.)

Preserving the original form of the OP’s post is a noble practice that I heartily support, but how is adding commentary a problem if you’re only adding a separate thing, not taking away or altering anything in the original...? This was already a practice/convention/code of social interaction on Tumblr when I got here, so I was never in the front row to witness this element taking shape. I suppose it must have made good sense at the time, but every time I see ten people reblogging the same post with no additions and a paragraph of tags appended to it, it’s like a splinter in my brain that has been digging into me for years now.

And I’m not hating on people who do that! I get that that’s The Way It’s Done Here and I am the deviant weirdo for continually adding comments directly onto things that I reblog. Tags are where individuality lives here, unless you’re producing your own original posts, which I guess other people are then supposed to reblog without commentary so that you have to go hunting after all the reblogs individually if you want to get an actual sense of what these people were all thinking when they reblogged your thing. It all just seems...so...WORK INTENSIVE, refusing to use site functions as they were intended??

Look, I absolutely know that my commentary is not the work of incisive genius that unfailingly adds value to every post I find worthy of my attention. We’re pretty much solid shitposting on this blog. Because I’m a little loaded at the moment and that gives me a handy excuse to run my fingers like an idiot (plus I put that readmore up there, so if your eyes are actually consuming these words, you have only yourself to blame for being here), let me run down relevant history of how we got here.

LJ was home for a good long while. Then shit got seriously messed up and Dreamwidth was created as a better LJ, so we migrated all our stuff over there. And journaling sites along those lines still feel like a native environment. I, in particular, am the most long-winded piece of shit we know and I am honestly incapable of talking about anything of worth in short form. It’s a sickness and I just sort of have to own it. :/ But that’s why journaling sites are a good place for me to live, because that’s where people go when they have the inclination to read meandering scrawls about the depths of other people’s lives or whatever.

We went to Twitter for a good while because all the cool people we knew from LJ were going there for some unfathomable reason. These people wrote things that were complex and fascinating to read, so all of them jumping ship to a place that limited them to 140-character chunks made no damn sense, but we loved those people and wanted to trust that they knew what the hell they were doing. And they probably did, and a couple of us were actually okay with Twitter, but I, being the long-winded shitpiece, spent a lot of time frustrated and kind of overstimulated.

Then things started going to hell more and more consistently for me personally (and us generally by extension, but that’s unnecessary detail). Bunkering down specifically to protect people that you care about from the fallout of your crazy is a fairly common thing for mentally-ill people to do, I think. So I’d shut up online until I felt stable enough to talk to people again. Those periods lasted a few days, then a week or more, then a month, then eventually I stopped talking entirely. I missed the LJ/DW format, but in the past I’d written about life events and things I was thinking about and such, so...at the time, all I really had to write about was the bad stuff. So LJ/DW was basically unusable as well.

I literally came here to be as shallow as I could possibly manage. Tumblr had a rapid, chaotic flow similar to Twitter, but could hold longer content like LJ/DW. We’ve never really used the site’s full functionality at any point, though. For at least a year, all we were following was the most lightweight, zero-calorie entertainment that we could find. (We actually came here for Flight Rising content, so there was a lot of that.) Being engaged with fandom in any consistent respect is an extremely recent thing.

And I’m not saying that fandom hasn’t got depth and complexity because it absolutely does and that’s one of the beautiful things about shared fan experiences. I kind of got into that sort of fandom by accident after getting here and rediscovering Transformers. But the unvoiced policy that I’ve always had here is to avoid the Too Real and dodge serious topics whenever possible. Thus, no gender theory, no neurodivergence or multiplicity, no nonhumanity, no religion or UPG, nothing with real substance behind it that bared real vulnerabilities. (Apparently this was a good move anyway because the nonhuman and multiplicity situation here on Tumblr is a bit of a clusterfuck? I honestly wouldn’t know, as I haven’t made a lot of effort to link up with those folks.) That’s still the policy. That might remain the policy forever until I reach some vaguely-defined threshold of sanity that makes me worthy of talking about those things in places and formats that other people can interact with.

And I’m sorry for all this talk about mental illness, but it’s simpler just to explain things clearly. I likely won’t go into any more detail about it on Tumblr. Or anywhere else, because I care about people even if I’ve never met them or talked to them at all and I still want to keep it all in the bunker to protect good people from the crazy. Sometimes, all you can do is just prevent the damage from spilling out into other people’s lives, and that’s the place that I usually operate from.

I’m still pretty drunk, so I’m allowed to ramble from too much truth serum, but all of that explanation was to get around to saying that the format of online communication that is most intuitive to me is the long, oversharing gut-spill of random people talking about things that are really meaningful to them - not in the sense of elaborate philosophy or artsy epistles to the cosmos, but just people being super real about things that are meaningful to them and going into lots of detail about them because gushing about things you love is great. And it’s possible to get that sort of discussion and gushing in Tumblr fandom, and I love it because it reminds me of better times, and the fact that I love it is WHY IT MAKES ME SO GODDAMN FRUSTRATED that Tumblr culture is basically stifling discussion and feedback and RESPONSE to things that people find interesting!!

Like, here’s how I see it. Unlike on LJ/DW, where you were limited to hyperlinking to a cool post in one of your own posts if you wanted your readers to go check it out, on Tumblr, if you find a super cool thing, you can pull it directly into your space and let other people experience it directly, exactly as you experienced it. But the thing is, I also subscribe to the My Blog My House concept. If I pull a thing into my “home,” I do it because there’s something homelike about it; it belongs in my home for some specific reason. I don’t take “ownership” of an item in the sense that I’m claiming it in place of its creator, but I’m taking ownership of it in the sense that it’s part of my Stuff now and it’ll get my fingerprints all over it and be blended into the general morass of Stuff that I recognize as my home. I don’t just pull random crap into my home for no reason at all.

And I just figure that other people are similar in the sense that they reblog things for distinct, unique reasons, not in the sense that they have some master plan for their blog content (some do, but it’s not necessary), but just that they have compelling reasons why they pick certain bits of content out of the larger river of their dashboard and put it in their own space for people to experience with them. I follow people based on the interesting things that they find interesting. I’m interested in why they’re interested in those things. They seem like interesting people to me because they’re interested in what they’re interested in.

But the WHY is a really important part of the equation for me. Did this person reblog that photo because they’ve been to that place themselves, because they like that kind of tree, because they reblog photos with that color scheme every Thursday? Did that person reblog that piece of art because they love that character, because they’re studying that art medium, because it reminded them of something funny they saw somewhere else? People attach their own context to things that they latch onto. It’s so freaking weird to me that people have to hide their interpretations or impressions in tags here on Tumblr, making them unimportant and optional in the process of sharing things they like with others. (Okay, people also share a lot of things they hate, but reasons for outrage are still part of the context that one adds to content.)

I WANT TO KNOW WHY YOU CARE ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE SHOWING ME. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT MAKES IT IMPORTANT TO YOU. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT IT MAKES YOU THINK AND FEEL. Even if it’s a blurb about how giant robots fuck or a cute kitten video, I NEED TO KNOW THESE THINGS.

Not in excruciating detail or with insightful analysis or even a lot of text at all. Mostly, the things that people put in tags are things that, to me, are a really crucial part of the experience of being able to go into someone’s “home” and see the Stuff that they chose to put in it. Reducing oneself to a glorified signal repeater is...okay, I guess, though it turns a Tumblr blog into a kind of faceless stream of other people’s material a lot of the time. The personal touch is what makes it all interesting. And I’m just unutterably frustrated that, somewhere along the line, it was decided that personalizing an experience by sharing one’s own impressions of it became rude enough that polite society decided that it had to be hidden away in tags. I want all of it, so I do go looking for it, but omg it requires MORE EFFORT and BURNING CALORIES and BODILY MOVEMENT and WAAAAH, you know what I mean. :P

And possibly Tumblr society is right and it’s done for a good, decent purpose and I’m being pigheaded and uncool by insisting on doing things my way without bothering to try and understand the local customs. I’m not usually that much of an asshole, but I am about this, for some reason. And I admit that my craving for those personal touches could very well spring from how utterly isolated and lonely I am, so maybe normal people really don’t need all the extra info and actually do just want mostly-impersonal streams of content. And that’s fine, since I know I’m kind of a weirdo even on my best days.

I’m pretty sure that that was all that I really wanted to say. I’m probably overreacting about the whole comments-in-tags thing. Like I said, it’s kind of an irrational irritation. Also, I need to stop before I write myself sober and no longer have an excuse for all of this. If you actually read all of that, you are an awesome, generous person and I’m pretty damn certain that I love you even though I have no idea who you are.

[thecreaminhiscoffee]

How Do You Run Your Blog?

Repost; Do Not Reblog. SPEED: Bandit is a very slow Bandit.  I blame the multiple blogs thing, but mostly I’m just scatterbrained.  Either I have super the most ideas and super quick on all of the blogs or I’m super slow on all of them and have no gumption and abandon blogs left and right.  >.>;;  That’s not particularly reassuring.  When I’m queuing replies and have a ton of muse, I try to start from oldest and work my way up, but more often than not I end up skipping replies that I have no muse for and come back to them later.  Sometimes I have do all the short things days and sometimes I have do all the long things days and sometimes I have do all the things on this specific blog days.  It’s kind of hit and miss.  I do have specific threads (or partners) for whom some of my muses almost always have muse, which is why you’ll see those still pop up even when I haven’t been around - or, really, I went through this once and it’s more like I have priorities with these threads/muses/muns for multiple reasons.  Which sounds like favoritism.  I suppose it kind of is.  Most of the time it’s relationships that I’m interested in developing or am intrigued by.  -shrugs-  But, for the most part, Bandit is a very slow Bandit. REPLIES:  I prefer a good mix of long threads and short threads because sometimes I only have muse for short stuff (and sometimes I use the short stuff to work my way up to longer stuff).  I actually prefer iconless for most of my muses (simply because I’m lazy and don’t feel like making icons), although I have more than enough to use for Jess and like the challenge of that, I find that using an icon is also an easy way to avoid describing my character and their expressions - finding a way to do that to the best of my ability.  -shrugs-  I have a hard time doing super long stuff unless the relationship’s been built up (and therefore Jess, already more in touch with her own internal dialogue, will dialogue more and do more) because that chemistry isn’t necessarily there yet, but once Jess (or other muses) and I are comfortable within the context of the relationship, we can go longer.  (And sometimes I feel like I’m pushing to make things longer to match and I hate that feeling.  But I do try to match length.  So there’s that.) STARTERS:  I.  Don’t do starter calls very often just because I don’t want to be swamped.  I also refuse to do starters for people with whom I already have an introductory thread (because I don’t know how my character will respond to yours in other threads yet, still working on a potential relationship basis) and also refuse to do them for people who aren’t replying to threads we already have.  I’m horrible at starters and am more likely to respond to someone else’s call or send a meme.  For starting interactions, memes are a better option.  They give me a prompt.  Starters are hard.  ...which is probably why I don’t do calls very often.  >.>;; INBOX:  I much prefer to get memes than to write starters.  So much more.  So if you want to start a thing, send a meme.  That said, I have a tendency to, uh, forget that I have stuff in my inbox.  Like, if I start working on answering a meme and don’t finish it and then don’t have the nice little ‘you have a message!’ thing, then I will forget.  My inbox here on Jess is probably the busiest of all of my inboxes (other than Bedelia and Hannibal, but I think those are mostly when I’m being salty.  I get a TON of salt memes), but for the most part, I don’t get much.  When I first ran Jess a few years back, I used to get a ton more.  Sometimes I miss that. SELECTIVITY:  My selectivity varies by blog and is basically determined by 1) my insecurities about writing a particular character (for instance, on Hannibal, I’m only following maybe twenty people - and they’re all people I’ve known for a while and trust as far as me building that character), 2) whether or not I’m potentially dealing with triggering material with that character (Hannibal, again, falls into this category, but so did Meg, when she had her own blog), and 3) whether or not I think it’d be cool for our characters to interact - whether or not I can see potential threads or interactions.  Kind of lowkey brainstorming possibilities, if that makes sense.  Jess is not my most selective of blogs - I tend to be much more open with my Disney muses - but I’m more selective about what I write with her.  (Oh, yeah, and the constant callout posts or social justice posts - I have blogs where I intentionally follow less people who do that just because sometimes I need a breather.)  In most cases, I will try to write with most people here on Jess.  That does not mean I will continue to write with most people.  But that I will try.  Jess is one of the muses I’m most comfortable with and therefore can be the most variable with, so length does not matter so much as the chemistry between us as writers does. WISHLIST ITEM:  At some point in time, Good End Jess.  Just.  Most of everything I’ve written for Jess is based on her as a tragic character.  This was not intentional at the time I started writing her (and, honestly, the verses that led to that weren’t even my idea), but she has become very much an embodiment of a character who perseveres and hopes and tries and gets nowhere.  I would like to see Jess happy - without having to make shitty choices that fuck it up because she has to choose between two or more people, etc.  I hesitate to say even if that’s by herself because, as much as Jess does need to learn to be her own person and does need to learn that it is okay to be alone, I think, honestly, she won’t learn that in and of herself.  Leaving Jess to her own devices is often a very, very bad idea - particularly given her idea of happiness being a limited quantity and that she has used up her own, which means she can only be happy if she’s sharing that with someone else, which also means she’s using up their quantity of happiness - it’s a complicated circle.  (But I like it because there’s this potential idea that Jess can learn that, although an individual may only have a limited quantity, two or more together can create more, but that’s another thing entirely.)  Basically, Jess needs something happy.  And healthy. ...also let me write book!jess who is basically a lot closer to how i’d write haruko in the context of my jess’s canon, given new things i found out about her, but yes, let me write my seductive asshole of a child.  someday.  >.>;; HONEST NOTE:  I actually have been known to bite people.  Literally.  I don’t do that anymore, though.  That said, Jessica is my most possessive muse; she’s taken traits from me that I’ve worked hard to control, to deal with, because that’s not how you relate to people (and maybe the best way to explain this is that I read those posts about how to know when you’re in an abusive relationship and make sure that I’m not doing any of the abusive stuff because that’s my tendency and I’ve worked extremely hard to not do that anymore.  This is something I know about myself) - but Jessica, being at heart a dependent muse, also has a tendency to be possessive and overreact.  This bothers me.  She doesn’t do it in threads proper, but she’ll do it outside of threads.  We’re still working on this. TAGGING: not gonna be tagging anyone because wasn’t technically tagged so.  >.>;;

[serenagaywaterford]

#5 - love your long posts, never apologize for it. The longer, the better in fact. And yeah, you were right, enough about Nick, until he becomes more interesting, if it happens at all. Back to Serena, I don’t post on tumblr, or discuss the show much in real life, so I don’t get any backlash. It’s probably easier for me, but I am an unabashed Serena apologist, and I don’t really feel bad about it, at all... anyway, love your posts, your fanfics, and your appreciation of Serena fucking Joy!

AHHH! I feel so bad cos on mobile read more cuts don’t work!!! :D But I am very relieved that at least you don’t hate lonnnnnnnnggggg rants lol.

Yeah, Nick. Nick, nick, nick… I wish I could find better things to say about him but I can’t. Not until the character actually gets interesting and does something good. Like, truly good for women in Gilead. Not just his baby mama. I just have such a strong lack of interest in anything he says or does, lmao.

FIVE, CAN YOU LEND ME SOME OF THAT NO FUCKS GIVEN ATTITUDE?! I really want to be as confident. “I am an unabashed Serena apologist, and I don’t really feel bad about it, at all”. I WANT THIS TOO. I think it probably does help not dealing with fandom at large cos it’s just an angry pit of cultish vipers out there if you even mention “Well, Serena is interesting for many reasons.” AHHHH! DEVIL WORSHIPPER!!!!!! RAPIST NAZI LOVER!!!!!” with a side of, “If you don’t ship N**k/June, you’re disgusting and don’t understand THT at all because it’s the One True Hope and Nick is just the best!” 

-_-

Like.........???

No.

sorry....

But it’s simply to exhausting to even try to respond to the vitriol anymore. I tried a while ago but no one (except our little group of Serena fans) wants to hear it. (THAT IS WHY I AM SO HAPPY I HAVE THE FELLOW SERENA ANONS/FANS HERE.) 

They hate her, she’s 1000% evil--the MOST evil on THT, she is responsible for Gilead and everything bad that has ever happened, she deserves to be beaten by fred and lose a finger that’s not even good enough!!, the end. thus i’m straight up blocked immediately for questioning that. No discussion allowed. If you like her, for any reason, or try to understand her at all, you also must be a right-wing, religious, anti-feminist nut job who hates June. You don’t deserve to even be in a THT discussion if you attempt to understand Serena at all, and god forbid you attempt to explain or reason through her behaviour or psychology. I can’t imagine how it would be if I flat out woobiefied her or was a Serena apologist in those circles. I mean, it’s totes cool if you’re a Nick or Lawrence apologist, or apparently even a Fred apologist (yeah. I saw that once and died a little inside.). Even Aunt Lydia apologists aren’t completely beaten down but Serena? Well, excuse me, your soul must be rotten just like hers sorry bye.

and i’m like... 

because yeah, it really makes your viewpoint so much stronger by just blocking people who question you and insulting them personally instead... it’s not like THT is criticising hiveminds or autocracies or cultish behaviour or anything lol.

it’s not like that sort of behaviour in a freakin TV show fandom about fascism and women’s complexities is a huge hypocritical stance to take.

so i give up lol and stick to this little blog here

i just wish i had more energy to blatantly go out into the wilds of fandom and be like I LOVE SERENA GIVE HER A REDEMPTION ARC I DON’T FEEL BAD IN ANY WAY FIGHT ME ALL DAY LONG.

ALSO LIKE

why does nick-loving necessitate rabid serena-hate? like i have personal issues with nick, but afaik there are plenty of serena people who don’t hate nick? and there are other fans who don’t like either. but it seems like if you ship n**/june there is some rule that you must be so excessively anti-serena that you look plain ole crazy. i am sure there must be people who ship it and also think serena is an interesting character???? maybe? or maybe the sorts of people who delve into serena’s character are just too different and nick is just not interesting enough when you recognise what a 100000% more complex character she is. she spoils us, lol. i dunno what the answer is. i can’t say i’ve “met” any serious n/j shippers that are also big serena fans. i would assume they exist. tho maybe the two things aren’t compatible lmao. different strokes, i suppose. lol i just wish they’d allow people to have differing opinions without having a stroke every time serena is mentioned as something other than pure evil, or be able to take criticism of precious nick without throwing a tantrum and refusing to acknowledge the problematic nature of him and other characters. (god help you if you say you don’t like n/j hahaha.)

anyway i don’t like the combative nature of this fandom. like if you aren’t part of the hivemind, you’re not welcome. i honestly don’t understand why it has to be that way??

(it’s also not great that all the big, popular fansites/fanblogs are all n/j and basically refuse to put/reblog anything on them that is any other ship, or basically anything not anti-serena. like imo if you’re running a blog for THE SHOW IN GENERAL, you should welcome all submissions and reblogs no matter if you personally like the ship/character or not. but nope. not in THT fandom lol. i don’t even think skins fandom was this bad and that’s saying something, cos it was pretty polarized but it seemed like the big blogs were fair enough in representation.)

ok i’m obvs taking this fandom thing too seriously and i need to just ignore it. i’m too old for this lol.

just stick to my little corner here with you guys and stop hoping the rest of the fandom leaves me alone hahahah unless they want to be nice ;)

[lighkoda]

The Masks We Wear (1/?)

(A/N: Heyyyy, this is your resident LL fanfic writer (that is mostly unnoticed), Lighkoda! Here’s the lay down:

This is a Muse super power AU. Actually, I’m not sure if it’s really an AU, but their universe will be changed as it goes/as they discover things, so it kind of is? This should be around PG at first, but it might escalate to T or T+. It’s a bit early to tell, but it may have some angst. The ships will vary. At this point, I’m still thinking about how this will go. Here is the link to the post I made about information concerning this AU, which will be tidied up a bit as the story goes on.   Warning: May be cringy. And I probably will update very rarely... In fact I haven’t written for very long.

Status: Chapter 1

Rating: PG

Word Count: 

But here, have the first chapter <3 Superpowers won’t appear much at first. Thanks to everyone supporting me, especially the brave followers I have that aren’t...those blogs. I read the tags you guys reblog with, and I’m always so happy to see them <3)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

3rd POV

“Eh? We...we are?”

Rin smiled happily at Hanayo, closing her eyes blissfully. 

“Mhm! We’ll be outside in tents. I’m so excited!!” She grabs Hanayo’s hands tightly and playfully leads Hanayo to spin in circles with her. “I hope we can share a tent together, Kayo-chin!” 

Hanayo, flustered, blushes a bright pink as she considers the possibility of countless situations resulting in sharing a tent with Rin. But then she contemplates the situation, a shiver running down her back

“A-Ano, we’ll be outside?” 

Rin stops spinning then and peers at Hanayo’s face closely. 

“You don’t seem very happy about it, nya... Is there something wrong with being outside?” 

Hanayo’s purple eyes widen for a moment before she closes them and waves her hands in front of her face frantically. 

“No...no, not at all! You’ve got it wrong, ahahaha...” She laughs sheepishly.

Rin isn’t quite convinced, but she pulls back her face and her eyes settle on something else quickly. 

“Ahhh, Maki-chan! You’re here!” She grabs Maki’s hand and leads her over to Hanayo, smiling warmly. “I was just talking to Kayo-chin about how fun it’ll be to go camping together, American-style, nya~!” 

Maki struggles a little as she walks over. 

“Let me go, Rin...!” 

Rin pouts and looks into Maki’s eyes. 

“Jeez, you’re such a spoilsport, Maki-chan!”

At this, Maki hesitates before replying heatedly. 

“I-I am not! You’re just too riled up all the time for no good reason,” she says as she looks away from Rin’s liquid gold orbs, twirling her red hair around her finger. 

All of a sudden, Maki feels a hand–no, a pair of hands–grasp her breasts from over her uniform. 

“No need to be shy, Maki-chan,” Nozomi says as she smiles mischievously. “Or I’ll washi-washi you!” 

Maki almost screeches like the first time Nozomi had done it to her. But she manages to keep her cool, and the only signs that she was surprised by the devilish tanuki is the widening of her purple orbs, the sudden intake of breath, the red coloring of her cheeks, and her shift in her heartbeat.

She scowls a bit before pursing her lips, slightly irritated by the third year’s antics. 

“I wasn’t being s-shy...! You can let me go now...” 

When Nozomi steps aways from Maki, she noticeably moves slightly away from her. 

“Alright, if you say so,” the purple haired girl replies knowingly, casting a quick look at the seemingly affronted girl.

Maki crosses her arms, ruffled. 

“So, where’s Eli? Aren’t you always with her?” 

“Right!” Rin meows. 

The three 1st years lean forward, waiting for the answer from Nozomi, who chuckles.

“The answer probably isn’t as interesting as you imagine. She’s in the bathroom, but she’ll be out soon. I suppose it’s much more interesting for me than for the three of you,” she mutters the last sentence distractedly as she shuffles her tarot card deck. 

The trio cringes slightly. 

“Do you think she meant to say that?” Rin whispers to Maki, who happens to be standing in the middle. 

“I-I don’t think so, Rin-chan,” Hanayo whispers back timidly. 

The corner of Maki’s lips twitch sporadically. 

“I don’t think I can handle this,” Maki says quietly before she swoons slightly. 

Rin and Hanayo place their hands against Maki’s back swiftly. 

“No, Maki-chan! You musn’t, nya~!” Rin practically shouts in her ear while making sure Maki’s eyes are still open. It looks like Maki’s soul is about to leave her body, and Hanayo whisper-shouts to her. 

“Maki-chan! W-We’re going to toast marshmallows by the campfire, you have to stay!” 

At this, Maki’s soul suddenly is pulled back inside her and she stands upright again. She coughs a little, and blushes. 

“W-Why did you say that. Hanayo-chan? It’s not like I’m not looking forward to toasting marshmallows or anything–only kids do that...” 

Rin gives Maki a sharp look. 

“Then why did you only come back once Kayo-chin mentioned marshmallows?” 

Maki turned her face away, huffing. 

“How should I-I know! It was probably just by chance.” 

Rin nods, unconvinced. 

“Sure, nya.” 

Maki moves to face Rin and argue with her, but before she can do so, a voice calls them from down the hallway. 

“Hanayo-chan! Rin-chan! Maki-chan! Oh, and Nozo-” 

Umi interrupted as she chased after her orange haired friend, barely breaking a sweat. 

“We get it, Honoka. Come on, we need to discuss plans! Stop running away.” 

Honoka ran faster as she ran down the hallway and past the four girls, who swiveled their heads to watch Umi after Honoka faded out of sight. 

“No, Umi-chan! Not unless you promise that we can bring marshmallows and crackers and chocolate to make s’mores, the American way! I’m always eating Japanese sweets, I want to try some American ones for once!”

Umi sighed as she ran right down after Honoka as she called to her. 

“I told you, you’ll get fat! We’re school idols now, you have to take care of...” 

“And there she goes,” Nozomi smiles placatingly with the air of a mother accustomed to her children’s antics. “Well, then, I suppose it can’t be helped...” 

“Go, Honoka-chan!” Rin shouted after the pair excitedly, whose footsteps could be heard echoing down the halls of the school. 

Hanayo and Maki sweatdropped as they stared after the duo running down the hallway. 

“D-Do you think they’ll be alright?” Hanayo asked. 

Maki chuckled quietly, “There’s no need to worry. I’m sure Umi-chan will work things out with Honoka-chan.” 

“Eh... But I somehow get a nervous feeling. It’s like our senpai are really our kouhai,” Hanayo said. 

“I guess we’ll just have to believe in them, won’t we~nya?” Rin responded cheerfully. 

Maki thoughtfully continues to twirl her hair around her finger. 

“Well, I guess that’s sometimes harder said than done. Ne, Hanayo-chan?”

Rin’s eyes flashed with a battle-like emotion as she stared at Maki, who stared right back. 

“N-Nani?” 

Rin suddenly threw her arms around Hanayo, showing an innocent smile. 

“Let’s go find Kotori-chan! I heard she’s making the rooming arrangements. Let’s ask to share a tent!” 

She grabs Hanayo’s hand and practically drags her out of the room, zooming out. Maki watches them, astounded, before getting up and chasing after them. 

“Mou, Rin-chan! You can’t just abduct Hanayo-chan like that,” she pouts. 

From outside the classroom, a warbly “dareka tasukete!” can be heard echoing down the hallways. 

[kevinsmilleran-blog]

Hello,

 I found your blog.

 If my intent was to hurt you or invade your privacy I would not have come clean today ... if I wasn’t getting over you I would not have come clean today ...at the time I found your blog my only intent was to better understand where i stand with you I swear to god...  but I found your blog and now I can’t take it back.

 Where did I stand.  Fuck!  it’s the crazy the whiplash I get.  one day it’s ��Ive been in hospital here’s everything for the last five days” and then two days later it’s all “none of your business.” One day it’s singing blackbird singing in the dead of night at 2am don’t hang up, the next day is “can I hang up now tired? Oh ….none of your business.”

 I lied to you when you asked if I found your blog cause I knew you’d never talk to me again, I couldn’t deal with that in that particular moment ... I was going through some shit and still thought maybe as a friend you’d be support…  can I deal with that now??? I don’t know, I think so, the truth is I am getting over you I was at the gym last night – big step -- and with each text I sent you on kik as i kept looking at my phone waiting for the d to turn into an r something just kept dying inside and I was deciding I don’t want a life of waiting for the d on kik to turn into an r... I put my phone on the shelf for a while and I felt RELIEF!!! Relief from this thing MY FUCKING PHONE that seems to only exist in a way to make me feel ignored when I’m needy and available when I’m needed.

 I just know that each day that went by lying to you made the lie worse. So now you know. I found your blog... I don’t know how to explain this... one thing I noticed about you is there’s EMPOWERED YOU and then VULNERABLE YOU... we are all both weak and strong.  well I’m the same exactly!! kinda strong in that moment when you told me you had a blog, but I can’t see it.  I nod.  Of course I nod.  I’m telling you we all should have a private place where we can write private things I’m not lying!!!

 and then it’s vulnerable me late at night not knowing where i stand

 driving me crazy

 why does she want to be with me one night but not tonight

 I need to know I need to know I need to know

 i ask she says none of my business

 I need to know

 I get a cryptic text, just a pic, looks cool, then five hours of silence and each minute of each hour just grinds away at my strength, the gears in my brain cranking spinning.  What I said about everyone having private space to write private things I MEANT IT, ya coulda hooked me up to a lie detector and when I said private space to write private things is sacred and that lie detector would have frozen over with boredom as the truth spills out into the air…. I meant it but now I need to know.  

 I NEED TO KNOW

I NEED TO KNOW!!!!

Why has that person who used to text me before going to bed every night, she has stopped.  Why is it I could text a Phineas and Ferb “whatcha doin?” one day and it was always my business and now it was always not my business.

 I needed to know!!!

I had to know.

Just to move on and get closure I had to FUCKING KNOW.

 Bono sings “the best things are easy to destroy” and does he fucking even know how easy.

 Now listen.  I can fuck up things with booze.  But I have to get a job make the money, get in a car go to a store and buy the booze.  I can fuck things up in all sorts of ways.  

 How easy was this?

 After about the 100th time my brain was screaming to itself I NEED TO KNOW, here’s how easy it was.

 First mistake…. that short story you sent, the one about the kid with the death due date going to die before everyone else he had a bad number

Second mistake…. look that up it’s literally the most popular post on tumblr

Third mistake…. Not even looking for it your avi is literally the first avi at the bottom of the page.  Reblog list.

Fourth mistake …  click on the link to your tumblr.

Fifth mistake …. The first fucking post on your tumblr is literally a link to a wordpress blog.

Sixth mistake …. You know the rest.

 I found your blog.

 How long did that take. Less than 4 seconds.

 There’s at least a protocol to nuking the world, codes, keys, you can’t even do it alone you need another guy to turn his key at the same time, I guess, I don’t really know.  I just know it’s not supposed to be that easy.

 It was that fucking easy ... to go get booze I at least have to get in a car and go to a store I DESTROYED EVERYTHING WITH YOU STONE COLD SOBER IN 4 SECONDS OF WEAKNESS WITH THREE TAPS OF MY FINGER ON A FUCKING PHONE WHILE IN MY BED!!!

 THAT FUCKING EASY! I FUCKING HATE THE INTERNET!!!!!

 I have a friend, a teacher she says if it was that easy she wanted you to find it.  Like that guy who hides porn where he knows his wife will find it eventually.  

 That’s fucking insulting. Go away friend, you’re not a friend. I fucked up.   I lacked self control.  Disrespected your space.  AGAIN. It was the second time!!!  I know what I did and I know you don’t play games that way.

 None of this is now going to help. maybe you’ll meet a stronger guy in future, I hope you do but if you ever put a guy in relationship purgatory – if you don’t know what I mean by that its this… you break up with him, but you don’t really want that so you’re “broken up” but still doing things… aw fuck it… everything together…. again when you’re “broken up” but still doing things together, don’t send him excerpts from your blog. Don’t send him the tools to find your blog in three clicks ... I think most guys would look, we are all pretty weak I think that’s why we, with our fearful patriarchies, fucked the world up.  

 Unless you want him to see your blog my advice is don’t even tell him it exists ...  if it’s a test to see if he looks for it, it’s a test that I think will rule out a lot of guys who are really pretty amazing in a lot of other ways.  Seeking out secrets is in a guys nature the way it’s in the nature of a scorpion to sting and poison a turtle carrying the scorpion across a river.  They both DIE.

 Maybe I’m wrong and I am just the worst man on earth, and every other dude would have never looked.

 But...

 I see on your tumblr a joke about someone pointing a knife but not using it ... a bad comparison maybe my point is this: if i was truly despicable (and some guys are) I would have SECRETLY kept looking at your blog for months… So I’m not despicable I’m merely pathetic and lacking the self control when it comes to wanting to know everything about you ... and yeah i do want to know that ... i fucking miss being your cheerleader… DO NOT RULE OUT THE POSSIBILITY THAT I LOOKED AT YOUR BLOG NOT JUST TO FIND OUT WHAT YOU WERE DOING, BUT BECAUSE I FUCKING GET A BIG GIANT SMILE WHEN I HEAR ABOUT HOW COOL YOU ARE!

 Purely practical... like it’s even possible I could be a better ex boyfriend if I knew more about you instead of less. Case in point, when it wasn’t a betrayal..... If I’d have found your blog before we broke up ... back then it might have saved the relationship.. I like to think I would have got us both help sooner ... but now it’s just betrayal I guess ...

 so some more honesty ... if I told you I would never look at it again I doubt I could make good on that promise ... it’s just yet another way my feelings for you reach beyond boyfriend girlfriend to father daughter ... it’s like I’m thinking well you won’t ever talk to me again but at least I can see youre ok on Facebook or tumblr or something ... so point is if you keep posting to that blog and to this tumblr I’d still look ... long after we have both moved on to someone else .. I could marry some woman and she’d wonder why I’m on some 20 something’s tumblr and be like oh it’s nothing and try to hide it from her ... if i talked to her about you she’d hear in my voice the candle I’d still hold for you...

 In that respect there is something about further contact I think we need to finally put in writing and if I could write it in stone i would... I get that as your ex boyfriend you don’t want to appear vulnerable to me.. you already have three dads, you don’t need a 4th but that’s kind of where I’m at here... I don’t think of myself as strictly an ex boyfriend but as a dad who would never not have the time for you ... for instance you know this door would never be closed to you.

 Now I know you can take care of yourself I’m just saying in an extreme emergency

 more honesty you can block me here but your tumblr is public viewable to anyone not logged into tumblr I assume you know that... more honesty ya know what????

 your tumblr IS FUCKING RAD!!! setting aside all the emotions both good and bad if we were total strangers I’d totally follow you ...

 I hate the fact that we are exes means I don’t get to be a stranger and go wow that chicks FUCKING AWESOME!  

 Anyway, i hope you’ll think about this and after the anger of betrayal subsides you might think it’s ok idk I’d like that your tumblr is cool!

 This will probably be the last things I get to say for awhile so I started feeling better about being blocked yesterday ... like I said above, the reason why is that it’s probably easier for me being blocked than it is texting you and staring at the phone for hours waiting for a response ... which is what was happening ... blocking me just takes away from me something I already don’t have anyway ... so yeah I’m just like well if I was unblocked how would that make anything better? It wouldn’t.

 I don’t know if I can think of any other last worlds ... oh i didn’t throw away anything you gave me ... it’s all packed up in two boxes labeled “amber”... encasing something in amber preserves it somehow ... it’s out of sight and out of mind as much as it can be so I don’t spend my days in tears looking at it, yet our year remains preserved encased in amber like a 99 million year old frog.

   One last way I’m weak and pathetic.. I probably would have let you throw your youth away on 50 year old ... or maybe I wouldn’t do that, and this is pretty weird but maybe I did all this fucking up so you wouldn’t throw your youth away on a 50 year old and also not spend much time being too hard on yourself

 It’s all my fault we are no longer together.

  p.s. to any reader who wants to know what I found when I found her blog, I’m a huge fan of the tv show LOST, so some things never get answered.  This isn’t about that, this is about something else.  Put it this way, I still really didn’t get the definitive answer or closure I was looking for, all I found was more questions, and I was just DESTROYING EVERYTHING I HELD DEAR IN MY HEART.  That’s the only thing that will ever happen when you go looking for THOSE KIND of answers.

[fountainpenguin]

Hey, as previously alluded to, I’ve written a post about proper blog etiquette! If you plan to send me Asks in the future, please give it a skim. I’ll leave a link to this post in my blog description in case you ever wish to review it.

Also, important thing to note: Commissions? They’re a thing now! I actually prefer art trades, but this is here just in case.

Welcome to my blog! Enjoy your visit! Here is the rundown:

About Asks

DOS:

> Feel free to Ask things! Use Anon if that makes you more comfortable!

> Ask me about my original characters / projects!

> Ask me to work out plot holes in one of my shows!

> Ask about headcanons! Specific questions are good! Very good! Yes!

> And yes, this applies to my AUs! Asks are very welcome!

> Share fun worldbuilding details you noticed in one of my shows!

> Comment if you liked previous posts I made! Ask me to elaborate!

> Ask my opinions on characters, I guess!

> Likes and dislikes!

> Point out subtle jokes and references you caught in my fanfics and liked! My love languages are “gift giving” and “acts of service”, and I count proof that you read my work as the latter, and appreciation as the former. Seriously, I love it when people tell me what they liked.

(Decent spelling / grammar is always welcome in Asks too. Just, I need to be able to understand the question).

My preferences: Psychology, characters, magic, worldbuilding, solving specific plot holes, talking about my own headcanons and fanfics

DON’TS:

> Politics and/or hot-topic issues. I haven’t needed to in the past, but if it becomes a thing, I’m just going to ignore them. I’m not here to fight.

> Hit on me. I’m aromantic/asexual AND interested in someone else. I can’t believe I have to say this, but those of you who have been, please lay off. I’m done with this.

> Try to start a headcanon/ship war. I have my tastes, you have yours.

> Please do not send the same Ask twice if you can help it. Frankly, it’s rude. It can take me awhile to answer Asks. If 10+ days have passed and your Ask hasn’t been answered, then yes, you can send it again and I won’t hold it against you.

>> Obviously, I do not expect everyone to remember every Ask I’ve ever gotten. Repeats are fine. Just not from the same person in a row.

> Please do not back me into a corner with a “touchy subject” kind of Ask. If you can’t accept that I might have a different view than yours, don’t Ask it.

>> Even if you THINK I will agree with you, if going the other way seems highly likely to offend someone, please do not Ask it.

> Don’t show up just to hate on one of my shows. Rude. I mean, you’re free to say you didn’t like something, but you can do that on your own blog.

> I haven’t yet had a problem with Anon hate on my blog, and I’d be delighted if we could keep it that way.

My un-preferences: Ships, technology, being asked repeatedly about characters I’m known to dislike, “Talk about _” without being given specifics

Rule of thumb about specifics: Specific QUESTIONS are great, especially when asking me to talk about headcanons (I adore it when people catch little details, because, again, proof that you read my stuff). Specific REQUESTS are not great, for reasons that you’ll see below.

About requests

WHAT CAN I REQUEST?

> 7VV memes

> Relationship charts

> Sketches and doodles

> Stuff related to Ask memes I reblog

> Playlists, apparently

> GIF and screenshot requests, I suppose

> Other stuff you can think of?

> I’m kind of iffy on writing requests, though. I’ve never been truly happy with the ones I’ve done in the past. I guess it’s because writing is my strength and I’m super picky about stuff like that. I have to have the right passion for a piece, and when I’m writing for someone else it’s not always there (especially because I tend to get told off for writing someone’s creations out of character no matter how hard I tried).

>> You’re totally welcome to SUGGEST writing ideas (particularly for one-shots), but I may not follow through. If I’m inspired, I’ll do it and it’ll be great. Forcing writing, however, leads to bad quality.

DOS:

> Patience is a virtue

> Be polite

> Thank me with a Like, reblog, reply, Ask, Message, or all of these. Particularly if you’ve requested more than one thing in a short span of time.

> Respect my right to say no.  

>> I draw because I want to. It’s my choice.

My preferences: Things you actually know I like

DON’TS:

> Request I draw your OCs, unless I’ve said I’m looking for some to draw

> Request I draw something for your AU

> Request I draw something for your fan-future

> Request I draw something ultra-specific to your headcanons

>> Unless there’s probable cause to suggest I share your headcanon, or you can phrase it in a way that sounds more hypothetical than a request

If you want any of these, talk to me about commissions (see below).

> Please don’t try telling me HOW to draw if you’re just getting a request, You’ll get the type of art I want to give ya for a request, and that might be a sketch or a full piece with shading. It depends on what I want to do and the time I have. If you want specifics, talk to me about commissions!

> I do not appreciate begging. If I said no, the answer is no. Whining is not attractive.

>> You are welcome to pursue the idea through a commission, though.

My un-preferences: Things (headcanons/ships) you know I don’t support; characters I’m unfamiliar with

About art trades

Read this and then talk to me about it. 

I may or may not say yes; I do love seeing drawings done for me, but it sort of depends on my mood and schedule at the time. 

About commissions

They’re a thing now!

> If you want me to draw your OCs, something for your AUs/headcanons, or characters with a design/style different from my usual body types, this is how to do it!

> We can talk over Tumblr messages, dA notes, Skype, or privately through Asks if you’re not on Anon (I’m not gonna accept a commission if you stay on Anon, but I won’t post your name/info if you say you don’t want me to).

> I will not draw NSFW stuff, underaged children in sexual situations, or “My Little Pony” because I can’t draw horses. I may add more to this list later, but basically, talk to me about it.

Commissions are great, but I’d like to try my luck with requests.

> HINT: It’s flattering when someone says, “I love that headcanon of yours!” and I might relent if they say, “Do you think you could draw _?”

> It’s cool if you say, “I have the same headcanon about _! What are your thoughts about _?” though I may or may not draw something.

> It’s offensive when someone barges in and says, “In my headcanon, I think _. Please draw that for me”.

I’d like to leave a request, but I’m shy / not sure how to phrase myself. Suggestions?

Sure! Here are some sample request ideas I thought I’d mention:

Ships:

“What’s your favorite ship from _?”

--- While this may not guarantee art, recently I was asked about ships and I did in fact draw my favorite one, completely of my own will. This open-ended question lets me breathe and have fun answering. I feel like I’m drawing because I want to, not because I’m forced to.

“My favorite ship from _ is _ and _. Do you like them too?”

--- This one’s very similar to the first, and in fact I would even follow it with the above question. It’s conversation, it’s polite, and there’s no pressure.

“Hey, I’ve noticed you’re in _ fandom! Do you ship _ and _? If so, do you have any headcanons about their future?”

--- I love talking about my headcanons. You may be noticing a pattern: this again doesn’t guarantee art, because drawing ships being romantic or something isn’t really my passion (I prefer to focus on individual characters and the psychological aspects of their relationships. I’m the kind of person who prioritizes doing non-romantic things with your lover).

Non-ships:

“Hey, _ doesn’t seem to get much love from you. Think you can do a quick sketch of him/her?”

--- This is acceptable phrasing for a request because of the words “quick sketch” and the question mark. With a request like this, I might do a pencil drawing, or something digital, depending on my mood. It really just depends, but I like the way this question leaves the choice in my hands.

“Do you have headcanons for what _ might look like _ years down the road?”

--- Even if I didn’t at the time, I can probably whip something up, and enjoy it too! You may also notice that “look like” is almost a guarantee I won’t answer without a drawing, but the question still leaves the choice to draw up to me.

“Could you draw _ wearing _?”

--- HINT: If this question ends in “like they wore in [that one chapter] of [your fanfic]?”, I’m pretty much sold.

“I checked, but I couldn’t find any drawings of _ on your blog. What does s/he look like in your style?”

--- This request is very flattering because it shows me that you care enough to do the research before asking. It could be a total lie, but I won’t know unless you make the mistake of saying a character I’ve already drawn.

“I love the way you draw _! What would s/he look like if someone had told him/her _?”

--- Again, flexibility is the way to my heart. My whole THING is “people react differently to the same situation” so yes I love Kevin Crocker. This is literally what I’m in school to study. Reaction requests would be divine!

> When you commission me, you are in control (to some degree).

> When you leave a request, I am in control. Please respect that I may choose not to draw your request at this time.

OTHER NON-ASK ETIQUETTE QUESTIONS:

Your headcanons are neat! Can I use one/some?

Of course! I’d be flattered! Please show me what you do with them!

My headcanons are typically built upon facts in the show that anyone could have found, so I don’t need to be cited for smaller things (Ex: Bunsen not having the confidence to stand up for himself, or Mikey’s morbid sense of humor, because these are both canon in the show, though they’re probably not the first things you think of when you think of these characters).

If it’s something really specific (such as one of my court case headcanons, the Refracted, fankids, the Fairy zodiac, or Wolbachia), I’d like to be cited, though. You can definitely give me gifts of these things and reference them in your work, but don’t claim them as your own, is all I ask.

(Wolbachia actually slides into iffy territory since it’s real-life biology, but if you’re using it for Pixies, I’d like to be cited since I have a big ‘fic about it.)

If you’re unsure, better safe to cite than sorry. I won’t be mad! And if you have a question about any of this, just ask. I’ll probably give you permission to use what you want, on the condition that you show me the end result.

I loved a one-shot / drawing / idea you had! Can I expand on it and post it on Tumblr / FFN / AO3 / dA / etc.?

As long as you cite me/show me what you do, I’ll allow it! That’d be fun!

I like one of your drawings! Can I share it somewhere else?

Nah, you can leave that job to me. I’ve possibly already done it; if I haven’t, you can ask me to. You’re totally welcome to reblog, though! Or you can direct others here!

Could I reblog one of your posts and cut or change some words?

*Finger guns* No way!

I try to add Read Mores to my bigger posts. I used to say that I was fine if you wanted to reblog one of my posts and trim it down to the specific section you wanted to on your blog, but then people started drastically changing my words to use them against me, mocking me and saying I was “literally grasping at straws” when answering Asks (because service for others is not cool apparently?), and that was just not super radical. It’s easier for me to say “No” up front than to make judgment calls later.

I can’t STOP you, but I’d prefer if you’d leave all my words intact. I’m kinda done being yelled at for things I ~supposedly~ said, yep yep.

You’re free to ADD a comment of your own to the end of a post that you reblog, though! Or add comments in tags!

I wrote/drew you something! What should I do?

That’s awesome! My love languages are gift giving and acts of service, so I’m serious when I say surprise gifts mean a lot to me!

If you type @fountainpenguin when you post it to your blog, I’ll get a notification automatically. You can also let me know about your work through deviantArt or FFN if you would like instead.

Yup! Just keep in mind that here, you’re in my territory, and it’s respectful to abide by my rules and comfort level. We’ll get along swimmingly~!