#i really do think everyone on this site (and the internet in general tbh) just hates people with ocd

[sureuncertainty]

officially covid negative!!

[siyzuii]

⨳ 　 ʾ apps/sites 4 shifting 　 . 　 ♡

hi! this will be long but i made a list of apps/sites that might be helpful for your shifting journey. reminder that you don't need these to shift but they can be helpful with manifesting, keeping track of stuff, etc.

enjoy! divider cr

NOT SPONSORED BTW LMAO

﹒ 　 ⊹ 　 🝮 　 OO1: NOTION 　 ✩

description:

basically notion is an app for documents and stuff. i have to say this one's relatively known and it's such a huge life saver and i know that probably everyone knows about it already (as they should) but i'm gonna recommend it once again.

useful for:

scripting

dashboards you can add life goals & stuff here you can look up some templates/ideas and see what i mean LOL

cons:

i personally can not think of any major ones because this app is just that good

you do have to make new accounts for the text ai generating feature but i don't know if anyone would use that

additional notes:

i personally love how customizable it is! like you can make each page have a custom icon & header, add widgets, images, and so much more. it is so so so insanely helpful for scripting i'm telling you. or you can just be basic, that works too. there's also a bunch of script templates online including specific ones (like a better cr, fame dr, fantasy dr, fandom-specific drs, bla bla bla) and it's literally the only thing shifttok is good for imo. i'm a big fan of shifterium's templates but there's other people who make them as well and i'm sure you can find some recommendations!

★ 　 ₊ 　 ➲ 　OO2: CANVA

description:

a website + app where you can design stuff from headers down to presentations, posters, covers, etc..

useful for:

album covers for singer/idol drs

book covers for writer drs or something

fake social media posts but there's better apps out there and i'll list them here as well

and much more!

cons:

a lot of things (most of which i think are the good stuff) are paid but you can find similar replicas if you scroll long enough i guess..?? and there's a free trial but i don't know if that helps

additional notes:

definitely my favorite place to go when i need to design something tbh. there's a bunch of templates you can use and the layout is very easy to navigate through! and it's pretty easy to find free alternatives for the paid stuff you do have in there

₍ⁿ⑅..ⁿ₎ 　 ˇ 　 ⩩ 　 OO3: PARROT 　 ❀ 　

description:

parrot is an app where you can record yourself saying literally anything and play it on a continuous loop

useful for:

affirmations (manifesting??)

cons:

i'm pretty sure it's iOS only

additional notes:

personally i haven't used this app (i don't like my voice so i will not be recording myself saying affirmations thank yew) so i can't give it a rating but from the looks of it and based off of recommendations i've seen it's pretty useful. should be a white icon with a pink circle that has a white parrot in it!

≥≤ 　 ﹕ 　 ⤷ 　 OO4: BEHINDTHENAME 　 ◍

description:

a site where you can generate names & even life stories if you choose it (including height, weight, blood type, birthday, nationality and more i think?? at least it gives those for me). you can choose from different cultures and stuff like fantasy & mythology.

useful for:

finding a name & info for your dr self (which is literally you by the way don't forget that!) and potentially other people you'd like to script in

cons:

it really just helps to make a basic profile of a person so the things you can do with it can be a little limited

additional notes:

i prefer using this site for ocs instead but i think it can definitely help with shifting! oddly enough it also shows like a lifespan & cause of death so.. cool i guess!!!!

✦ 　 ﹕ 　 OO5: SOCIAL MAKER/dummy

description:

social maker & social dummy are both apps where you can replicate almost basically anything from the internet from twitter posts to facebook posts, youtube posts, and more!

useful for:

social media stuff especially useful for fame drs, streamer drs, idol/singer drs and so much more

cons:

both apps were deleted so you have to have had installed them before if you want to get them back

social maker is ios only i think?

additional notes:

yeah both apps are deleted but there's alternatives out there like twinote (for twitter) photonote (for instagram) canva (has fake social media templates as i said lol) and others that you can look for (because i personally only use twinote)

⋆ 　 ᶻᶻ 　 　 OO6: HELLOFACE 　 ﹒ 　 ★

description:

basically an app for ai face swapping

useful for:

seeing what your face claim (if you have one) would look like on for example dances, fancams, interviews definitely useful for idol/singer/maybe fame drs

cons:

uses ai (i'm personally not a big fan of ai)

pretty underground so the chances that you might not like it are not low

✭ 　 　 ❒︎ 　 OO7: ROOM PLANNER 　 . 　 ♡

description:

basically what the name says. it's a 3d home designer

useful for:

making your dr room/house

visualizing your dr room/house

cons:

has paid stuff

┊ 　 ‧ 　⬭ 　 OO8: COMBYNE

description:

an app where you can combine items you like from a wide selection of stuff to make outfits!

useful for:

making outfits for your dr

visualizing said outfits

additional notes:

there's other things you can do on the app like challenges where you can compete to make the best outfit i think?? looks pretty fun i might try it HAHAHA

yuh so i got a little lazy here at the end & i know this is prolly not very helpful because most of these apps/sites are pretty well known but maybe just maybe.. i helped someone out...

HAPPY SHIFTING!!!!!

[glass--beach]

what do you think sixth wave emo will sound like?

gonna be honest i feel like even the definition of fifth wave emo is a little flimsy. it includes a mix of artists that are just continuing emo revival (4th wave) without rly changing it as well as artists who are so far removed from emo that putting them under the umbrella is a little reductive. but emo is just such a polarizing genre that if there is 1% emo in a band's sound they immediately become for emo fans only.

just real quick for any followers who don't know the waves (this is off the top of my head so might not be perfect):

1st wave (late 80s): Washington DC emotive hardcore, not very far removed from post-hardcore at all, just more focused on emotions whereas post hardcore tended (at the time) to be more political. ie rites of spring, moss icon

2nd wave (90s - early 00s): the start of "midwest emo" - develops the sound further through the influence of post-rock among other things, tends to use less distortion & gentler singing. some bands became minor successes through the post-nirvana alternative rock gold rush but many were not appreciated til way after they were active. american football, capn jazz, sunny day real estate, the promise ring, mineral, etc etc etc

3rd wave (00s): what the average person knows emo to be. often known as mall emo. crosses over with pop punk frequently. this wave saw the greatest commercial success due to strong pop songwriting and slick production. spoke to a general malaise among teenagers post 9/11. my chemical romance, AFI, the used, brand new, also includes the whole "scenecore" wave towards the end of the 00s

4th wave (late 00s - mid 10s): the "emo revival". largely a reaction against the commercialization of the genre that occurred in the 3rd wave, and a revival of a more 2nd wave sound. bands in this wave tended to put out one album on a tiny label before fizzling out, and largely found success online. they also all REALLY hated 3rd wave. the world is a beautiful place and i am no longer afraid to die, snowing, the hotelier, algernon cadwallader, modern baseball (honestly i could list 4th wave bands forever it's the wave i'm most familiar with lol)

5th wave (late 10s - 20s): online, postmodern/post-postmodern, lots of influence from genres far removed from the first four waves of emo (jazz, hyperpop, folk, noise), bedroom production, digital sounds, synthesizers, odd instrument choices, autotune, pitch shifted vocals. two of the biggest influences here are Heccra and The Brave Little Abacus (i will go to my deathbed insisting TBLA is NOT an emo band though lmao). the thing is, there are bands lumped into this wave like Home is Where or awakebutstillinbed who generally have a much more 4th wave kinda sound & very few of the traits associated with 5th wave. or Origami Angel & Mom Jeans who remind me more of later 4th wave "weed emo" bands like Jank (fuck that band tho). AND THEN there's also bands here who sound more 3rd wave, like Jhariah. i'd say the bands most emblematic of a uniquely 5th wave sound (aside from the aforementioned TBLA and Heccra) are MEEEEEEEEEEEEE (glass beach), stomach book, lobsterfight, your arms are my cocoon, nouns, weatherday.

tbh the only real common thread with 5th wave is that all of these bands are friends lmao. there are very few bands I listed there that I do not know personally, some are very close friends, and the rest are like, one degree of separation from me. i believe Bea from Home is Where was the one to codify it but critics really latched onto the term because it's every critics dream to be the first to write about a new genre right as it emerges. 5th wave's variety is largely indicative of the breakup of monoculture that's been going on since the dawn of the internet, with this sort of postmodern genre collage aesthetic that has been facilitated by the increased ease of access to ALL styles of music for everyone in the world & micro-categorization of genre on sites like rym for example. i think it's going to take putting this all into historical context to really know what comes next. any new development in emo will inevitably fit under 5th wave's very broad umbrella, and as a result MANY bands in the genre reject the term. hell, the dividing lines between all of the existing waves are extremely arbitrary and there are countless exceptions to this generally accepted categorization going all the way back to the start of emo.

at this point it is genuinely impossible for there to be a 6th wave. i'm sure we'll see some new developments, some albums that shake things up, but it will take literally redefining the genre for there to be a Next Era of Emo.

if i can try to be a little deleuzian on main i predict we will see bands push the genre forward by using the components of the more uniquely 5th wave sound while not overtly referring to fifth wave (or ANY wave) at all. it'll probably take a different setting too, possibly less bedroomy, more live, maybe a more longform classical kind of approach rather than pop structure. small ensemble orchestra + autotuned screaming? tapping guitar over endlessly looping 190BPM 909 beats? otherwise by-the-numbers midwest emo bands with vocaloid singers? rapid oscillation between all of the waves, Naked City style? emo vocals with no instrumental accompaniment whatsoever? screamo jazz? 5th Wave: The Musical? Rites Of Spring meets The Rite Of Spring? fags in skinny jeans burning american flags while Courtesy of The Red White and Blue plays on a boombox? a band that's actually a tech startup that's actually a huge ponzi scheme? Talking Heads reunites but Jerry Harrison only plays in FACGCE now? drum stems from The Black Parade echoing through an abandoned parking garage? another 9/11? Emo bands that don't play music at all and just make out with each other on stage? who fucking knows. all i know is whatever comes next, online music nerds will be crying out "this isn't emo"

sorry for the essay LMAO

[aurumacadicus]

I’m sorry someone was a huge butt about your Ace Attorney playthru “cluttering up the tag” like wtf??? They could just block you if they were so pressed about it jeez. I was really enjoying your thoughts on it and would love for you to experience the story, you were getting to the really good part and I think you would really enjoy the character arcs coming up, it’s a classic

If you are worried about being annoyed by another butthead you could make a little personal tag for it but you should have to tbh.

And honestly! Who polices the main tag of a fandom like that??? Be serious annoying person! and enjoy that that new people are experiencing something YOU clearly like don’t be a weirdo gatekeeper.

Yeah I think the reason it upset me so much is because... I was literally using Tumblr as Tumblr is meant to be used? Like, the tag isn't only for fan art or fan fic and I think some people have forgotten that, along with people's general disdain for having to curate their own experience. It would have literally been less effort for them to block me than to have gone to my page and typed their (blatantly wrong) opinion.

Like I do have my personal gaming tag (aurumacadicus plays games) so they could even blacklist that if they didn't want to block me but like I also shouldn't have to not use a tag to make other people's experiences better? I use the tags for me as a way to navigate my own blog on this broken ass webbed site. These people wouldn't have survived 00's internet 😒

I dunno. Maybe I'll try again. It was just really disheartening after everyone else was like "Yeah Rei this game is so fun I'm glad you bought it! Can't wait to hear your thoughts about it!" Like damn I can't win for losing. "You'll clutter up the page and it'll be annoying." Not the welcome into the fandom I was expecting.

[slut-4-remuslupin]

So I only got back into fandom culture in October of this past year, and I finally downloaded Tumblr a couple months ago, after going on a 9 year hiatus from this site (and, to be frank, the more I see on this app and think about fandoms in general, I’m really quite concerned about what my 13-14 year old self was doing/reading on the internet—I had absolutely zero reading fanfiction about two very real grown ass men who identified as straight at the time, but I digress) and I’m still learning how this all works.

Anyways, I recently learned that all of your ‘liked’ posts are saved on your profile as well as your reblogs, and it’s made reading one-shots and drabbles SO much easier tbh (which are now the only things in my liked section), but that also means that if I like all the posts I come across, it buries everything I’ve saved😭 I feel like such a creep now, because I keep forgetting that, and so I’ll like a post, only to immediately unlike it when I remember, and tbh I just feel so bad for everyone I’ve done it to😂

So this is my little PSA; if you get a notification that I liked your post, but then can’t see it anymore, I swear I’m not being weird/trying to be rude, I just wanted to show appreciation but forgot it messes with my saved posts😭

[housewarningparty]

Uh, genuine question, but what should non vegans and/or non vegetarians do to be respectful of vegans and/or vegetarians?

And also, a second more specific question, i get that unless the person has actually said something, irl wise it’s generally kinda dumb weird and probably a bit rude to go out of your way to avoid any mention of meat as food in front of a vegan/vegetarian, but online, where the rules are obviously different,

would it be good practice to tag posts that are about or mention meat or other animal products being used as food? Because i imagine even if you don’t care it just might get a bit grating? Like when you keep having to hear a bout a fandom you’re apathetic about

Again, promise this isn’t mocking or anything, these are genuine questions, 🙏 i just believe that similar to religious beliefs, veganism/vegetarianism shouldn’t be mocked and instead respected

None of this is dumb or weird! I think it's nice that you're trying to be mindful.

Personally, I don't think tagging for meat or animal products or stuff like that is necessary. I feel like 99% of the fast food ads I see on billboards or commercials is more obnoxious than like someone posting a pic of their dinner and talking about how good it was.

Tbh the only content I actually see on Tumblr that bothers me In A Vegan Way falls into one of two categories.

Exploitative Animal Images: idk to me this ranges from like mildly annoying to hellish. I feel like a lot of images of animals clearly in distress or in unsafe circumstances get passed around as memes a lot here and it's genuinely kinda disturbing. I mean obviously pictures of living animals captioned with something obnoxious about the kind of food you want to turn them into is one example.

Other stuff would be like videos of wild animals in domestic settings where they don't belong (I hope I never see another pet sugar glider video in my entire fucking life tbh) or like otherwise in captivity under CLEARLY shady circumstances (those tiger farms for example). Otherwise stuff like videos of people scaring their pets bc they make funny faces or silly noises about it. A lot of this stuff is pervasive in Internet humor or like cute animal pages and it can be easy to overlook but I think it's worth being critical of thinking about the circumstances animal content is produced under. Tbh I think this is a good internet rule in general - esp when it comes to meme images of violence and stuff like that.

The other category is probably more obvious and the thing I most frequently block/unfollow people over - please don't reblog weird anti-vegan propaganda. I feel like I don't really have to worry about this from you, anon, since you're clearly approaching from a respectful place but there's been what feels like a significant uptick in anti-vegan content couched in progressive language on this site recently.

From blatant misrepresentations of what veganism means to holding vegans solely accountable for stuff everyone does and/or corporate marketing, to weirdly hateful and defensive screeds - there's a LOT of really popular bad takes going around. And some of it is truly wild and really shows how little people read a post before reblogging it - a couple years ago I saw several majorly popular blogs on Tumblr reblogging an anti-vegan post that had lines about the "occult implications" of veganism buried somewhere in the text and it nearly drove me insane. More mundane examples would be the recent rise of 'vegans love to pollute with fake leather bc they're ignorant babies' type posts. A lot of these don't even have to be outright hostile to be annoying, but they all fundamentally fail to understand what veganism is about. It's not a health movement or an environmental movement or a 'lifestyle' movement - the #1 concern of veganism is animal rights.

Not saying there aren't overlapping concerns like environmentalism that can be used in the messaging, but at the end of the day whether something is good for your health or for the planet is a secondary consideration to 'does this system harm a living being unnecessarily.'

Anyway I hope that was a helpful answer!

Thanks for reaching out! Have a good one!

[subzeroparade]

💌 📡🕯️for the ask game please!

Also might I just say that I love your designs for the Byrgenwerth crew and Laurence, Ludwig, and Micolash in particular??? Your drawing style is absolutely fantastic :D

Thanks for the ask!

🕯️how do you think engaging with each other through tumblr, twitter, comments, kudos, creates healthy fandom experiences? How do you deal with that if you're not a social person/experience social anxiety?

So turns out there’s two candle emojis on this list??? I’m going to choose this one because the answer to the other one is just no and no because I love writing and I’m a meticulous planner lmao. 

I’m pretty low-key irl so engaging with folks over art and writing in fandom in ideal for me. I’m not the type to be vocal on a discord server but I love the time consecrated to looking at other people’s works, indulging in their headcanons, etc. I’m also old enough to know how to curate my own internet experience, and so have never had to deal with any unpleasant fandom drama (10/10 would recommend).

I would like to be better at leaving comments, especially on AO3, where there are some excellent works that are just woefully under-appreciated (probably because of AO3’s more general audience). I’d like to be better at engaging with those works to show my appreciation. 

📡why is writing and sharing your writing important for fandom?

I think it can double as dialogue and creative exchange - so more than just a healthy indulgence. Everyone is chasing that feeling of “ugh this piece of art makes me feel all the things” and I want to try give as much as I get in return.  

💌share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

I have no major working WIPs right now worth sharing tbh, so I took this earlier today as a little prompt/spontaneous writing exercise and extracted a bit from Litanies for 2k words worth of an “extra” scene. 

Title: Foxglove Rating: G Characters: Gehrman & Laurence Wordcount: 2k

Gehrman returns home to find Laurence digging through the dirt.

This will only really make sense for those who've read Litanies. It's extracted from this excerpt, in Gehrman's chapter:

I remember watching from afar, years ago, when he’d been the only soul willing to confirm a theory about the lake at the edge of Byrgenwerth’s grounds. The Prospectors had come across a veritable trove of seals that year, and Willem had begun to wonder if there weren’t perhaps hidden access points to the tombs obscured by the lake itself. No one knew how long the lake had been there or how exactly it had formed. The possibility that flooded passages to burial sites deep in the caves might be discovered and seized upon was suddenly at the forefront of our collective obsession. 

With all the bravado of a modest man with a death wish, he’d volunteered to go below. The scholars had outfitted him head to toe in watertight canvas and rubber, crowned by the diving suit’s great, bobbing head like a primitive carved idol with its single, staring eye. He’d spent twenty minutes walking along the lake bottom, getting as far as the cables allowed. When he re-emerged the scholars had crowded around him excitedly, given him no room to squeeze out of the suit and barely enough room to breathe. Once the glass and steel shell had been pried off his head, he’d only shrugged and told them solemnly that there was, "Nothing but silt, I’m afraid, and bulbous-faced fish with gaping mouths and silly stares, handsomer than the lot of you gawking at me now."

Only one scholar had laughed at that, a glint of copper in the sun. 

I enjoyed the concept so much I ran with a scene from the night before.

Foxglove

Gehrman returns home to find Laurence digging through the dirt.

Home is a generous word for what it is: four walls, some wood and some stone. A hearth in need of sweeping. A table with three working legs and a dubious fourth one. A bed, soft enough for his needs, softer than the hard stone floors of the labyrinths below Byrgenwerth. Outside, a sad little square of soil that doubles as a vegetable patch, where desperate, hardy things occasionally grow. Pails hung by the windows to collect rainwater. A stream for bathing, cluttered by cattails and hidden by high rushes and, past it, the path to the workshops, hard floors he’s made his bed on plenty of nights before. He’d like to sleep in his own bed, tonight. But first he needs to tend to the scholar rooting through his makeshift garden.

He walks up to the door and unlatches it. An old habit, the latch - useless here, deep in the forested paths of the academy grounds. It opens with a groan of protest.  

“I’ll be done in a moment,” comes the voice from the soil patch. Low, distracted, the sound travelling from a face that hasn’t looked up. 

Gehrman lays his overcoat across the back of one of two wooden chairs, pulled close to the hearth. He lights it, slowly, feeding it thin, dry logs at first; then any other detritus still lingering in his four square walls that he can afford to give up. Bones, most often, or scraps of parchment. A garment too worn to repair, or the nettle that grows insistently over the back windows of the little homestead. It reeks of something sharp and brackish when it burns. 

The floors are covered in the pelts of things he’s hunted on the outskirts of the grounds - beavers, mostly, though a fox or two and even a sable marten, which he’d used to make trimmings on Maria’s gloves and hat late last winter. A single wolf pelt is lain out by the fire - a beast separated from its pack, driven mad as much by starvation as by solitude. On an amber autumn night it had tried to take a student, and met its end in the muzzle of Gehrman’s pistol. He’d managed to save everything but its head. He does the tanning in the workshops to avoid the overwhelming stink from settling in his cottage for good.

Instead, the claustrophobic space smells like his little assortment of vices - poppy resin and tobacco, mainly; with notes of a bright, floral gin, which he’d been told was odourless but was certainly not. It tastes like red peppercorns and berries, with a hint of copper, laced with regret. 

He takes his pipe and tobacco pouch and steps outside into the fading light. Rounding the side of the cottage he treads across verdant, mossy things that release fragrant evidence of their decay. A few mushrooms pop their smooth, capped heads alluringly from the soil, a flash of white like bare flesh against black robes. Not edible, Maria had told him once. Not if you want to see tomorrow. He’d laughed, and she’d looked at him strangely. Gallows humour, he came to learn, made little sense to her.

Sidling up beside Laurence, he watches the last of the afternoon’s fading light travel down the scholar’s back. The anatomist’s knees are planted squarely in the dirt, legs folded under him. His sleeves are rolled up, white cuffs stained around the edges, and his suspenders hanging loosely in the dirt around his waist. He’s left his robes hanging by the door, in the same place where Gehrman hangs the nets of nettle and flax for catching fish in the generous stream nearby. He’s long since ceased trying to weave or patch them himself; not since Laurence began to do it for him with the quick, deft fingers of a surgeon used to sewing more than just plant fibres.

Laurence cuts and gathers the leaves and stems with the kind of methodical boredom of a practised hand. Not for the first time Gehrman wants to chase off the other man, to berate him for laying claim to what isn’t his, a clever little wild animal always rooting around for something more. Always taking, this creature of appetite.

Instead he knocks old cinders from his pipe and pats down the fresh mixture before charring the top. The tobacco is sweet, the quality fair - a rare indulgence he’s allowed himself. He doesn’t mind the telltale bitterness of poppy resin laced through it, the way it settles in his mouth after each breath. The hiss of the match fills the silence between them. He takes a few sips before speaking. 

“Does Maria know you’re here?”

He watches Laurence place the leaves meticulously in the square of his neckerchief, laid out in the dirt beside him. The red silk, wet at the edges, gleams like a pomegranate.

“No. I’ll thank her for these later.”

Gehrman does little for the soil patch himself. Maria cultivates it, when she comes around: her own private garden, her own little research supply. When Laurence comes he only takes from it, as he does with everything else around him. And Gehrman, patient as the white cliffs whittled away by the sea over aeons, does not stop him. 

He tamps the tobacco and relights the pipe. When he exhales, the smoke curls invitingly into the darkening air. “I’ve decided I’ll do it.”

Laurence stops and looks up at him. The soil under his fingernails hides the ever-present ink stains.

“The suit looks steady enough,” Gehrman continues, under the weight of his gaze.“Watertight, the scholars told me, and reinforced with canvas. The helmet can withstand pressure much greater than the lake’s bottom.” 

“I know,” Laurence replies, turning back to the dirt. He lays marigold across the silk neckerchief. “I checked with the scholars myself.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“Because I don’t trust it.” He tucks a strand of hair behind his ears with dirty fingers. “It’s a thing made by men. It’s fallible.”

Gehrman coughs through a smile. “But you trust the blades I sharpen in the workshop to keep you alive.”

Laurence brushes soil from a long, spindly valerian root. “A blade can kill a monster. It can’t defend against a lake.”

“No one else will go below.”

The scholar shrugs. “I’m sure they can find another fool with a death wish.”

 “Would you go?” Gehrman allows himself to press, chewing absentmindedly on the end of his pipe. “You want to know, don’t you? If there are more passages down there. Hidden ways into the tombs.”

Laurence opens his mouth, then closes it. Gehrman studies his expression, familiar enough after so many years of companionship. There’s something watchful about it - not animal wariness, but a sort of jaded watchfulness that speaks to a hurried, instinctive rush to action, held in check by the burden of consequence. He gathers some chickweed leaves gently in both hands and places them to the side before leaning back on his heels.

“I tried to talk Willem out of it, you know. But he wouldn’t hear me.” Something drifts languidly between them, long and iridescent, like a dragonfly. “Truthfully, I can’t understand why he still searches for seals. It’s been years. Eventually we will need to do something with the labyrinth relics. We’ve a cabinet of curiosities from the depths and very little practical research to show for it.”

“This will double my wages for the month,” Gehrman blurts. 

“A great consolation when you’re dead, I’m sure.”

Keep the garden in my absence, he wants to retort, but he doesn’t have the stomach for it now. The tombs took his father, and the tombs will take him. What use in pretending otherwise?

Laurence shifts on his knees, looks up at him through the last muted rays of daylight. Silently Gehrman refills the oil in the lantern that hangs from the roof’s shallow awning. The warm light ignites the copper in the scholar’s hair. 

Laurence plunges his hands back into the dirt, gaze focused on the vivid, bell-like blossoms of foxglove. “Who’s to accompany me on labyrinth expeditions, if you’re gone? Maria? She would push me down a well if no one were looking.”

“She would,” Gehrman concedes, his smile weary at the edges. “But you handled yourself well enough with a torch last time, if memory serves.”

Laurence scoffs at that, a disgruntled sound that matches his expression. They’d been separated for the first time, Gehrman remembers; someone had failed to leave the proper markers and they’d circled back, lost in the gloom, torches burning low. Gehrman had heard the scholars cry out in the same heartbeat he heard the bell - that malign silver sound he dreads on every descent. When he’d finally found them in the blackness they were at the mercy of a rat, all teeth and sinew and madness in its mouth - and Laurence, waving a torch with the kind of dogged indignation of a man who rebukes the reaper because he’s otherwise occupied.  

“Well enough that I almost set fire to the lot of us.” Laurence grabs a fistful of his own hair as if to make his point, cut just below his jaw, shorter than Gehrman ever remembers seeing it. 

“Aye.” The nauseating reek of burnt hair had made the rest of the blackened tunnels smell almost agreeable. 

He inhales deeply, tries to keep the taste of resin on his tongue. The foxglove blossoms look soft and inviting enough to caress in the pleasant glow. Laurence begins to fold the scarlet neckerchief on itself, carefully making sure not to crush the little trove of leaves and stems, delicate as vellum. Then, like an afterthought, he plucks a few leaves of mint and slips them into his sleeve.  

“Twenty minutes,” Gehrman says into the quiet hum of twilight. “Enough time to see what’s down there. No more.” 

Laurence looks at him with all the frankness of a fist to the face. “More than enough time to drown.”

Gehrman ignores this. “He’s looking for a Great One, isn’t he? Willem, I mean. Weren’t you the one to tell me water is a channel through which to commune?”

“It’s only a theory.” Laurence pulls his suspenders back over his shoulders and gathers the little bundle of silk in one hand. He extends the other to Gehrman. “And I sincerely doubt you’ll find a Great One waiting for you at the bottom of the lake.” 

Gehrman takes his hand and pulls the smaller man to his feet. “What if I do? I’ve heard it said the gods are merciful, if you can get their attention. Sympathetic, or suchlike, to our dull little existence.”

“Gods help me, Gehrman, do you believe every fanciful thing scholars tell you?” 

Gehrman’s chuckle rolls from his throat in thick puffs of smoke. “Only the ones I hear from you.” He lets go of Laurence and removes his hat, brushes the wild tufts of hair back from his cheeks and forehead, then puts the hat back on. “Will you come in and have a drink to my last night on earth?”

He watches Laurence chew the edge of a mint leaf thoughtfully. He turns away to spit the leftovers, then wipes the flecks of green from his mouth. His fingers linger over his lips. 

“Can I talk you out of it?”

“No, silver tongue. You can let me smoke my pipe in blessed silence." Laurence flashes a smile. The tight one, the one that shows his chagrin at the corners. Then he reaches into his trouser pockets and pulls out two coins. Gehrman catches their surface only faintly in the dim firelight. Old Yharnam silvers, from the looks of them. 

Without a word, Laurence takes Gehrman’s hand, lays the coins in his palm and closes his fingers. His expression doesn’t change. 

“If something happens, I won’t be the one to bury you.”

Gehrman makes his own face very still so that Laurence will not see the bitterness there. But Laurence only ever sees what he wants to see.

“And if you don’t drown, you can use them to buy something other than that vile gin you insist on serving me.” 

Gehrman dims the lantern and lets the night air chase the spectre of death from his face. 

“Come inside.” 

[bonebirds]

im not trying to start anything i'm just curious when you said people are doing the work to make the internet safer etc what do you mean??

I'm not trying to start shit either, I'm just tired of absorbing it tbh.

I'm also drained to shit and tired and idk how coherent this is going to be but I need something to gnaw on, so, dear anon!

Discussions of child abuse and etc. under the cut but nothing specific/detailed.

In a very, very general sense, I was talking about cybersecurity writ large -- very passionate, very smart furries people are constantly trying to futureproof the internet and make it safe to use. But that is happening at a massive scale -- governments, policies, standards, corporations who are responsible for the data and securing it, etc. etc.

There are also those who advocate for, and try to teach people how to be safe online and protect their information/self/friends/etc. I went for a walk earlier and it did strike me that I might be incredibly lucky to have been born when I was -- I think I'm one of the last generations who went through a school curriculum where I grew up that included basic internet safety, because the internet was very new and there was an actual concerted push to protect minors using it. Internet literacy was a thing. Lying was expected to keep yourself safe. I told so many people I was 25 when I was like, 9. Real names and all that shit we're so used to now, that whole web 2.0 shift to social media (imagine me putting airquotes around that entire phrase pls) changed a lot about the web. I think if you grew up just baked in it, it's harder to step back and look at and be like, the fuck happened? but. The fuck did happen.

But the other things I was thinking of are ones like Project Arachnid. Or the folks behind this: Inside the Bitcoin Bust That Took Down the Web’s Biggest Child Abuse Site.

(There's another anon I just deleted who asked what ~*I personally do other than scold people*~ and I will say that a year ago I contacted Arachnid, asked where I would have to go career wise to end up working with them, and changed my fucking career to ops/cybersec. Don't tell me I am not doing shit, lmao.)

But there are dedicated professionals constantly, constantly trying to keep everyone safe from actual malicious actors. And it is not a straightforward problem when you're dealing with issues of privacy, data security, transparency, and technology that is upgrading fast enough I had to take a crash course in fucking quantum computing a couple years ago.

None of that has anything to do with what people on this site go at each other for. Which is why I sit here and look at the fucking tides of vitriol and bullshit in the name of "protecting kids" over ships, fucking fictional ships they equate as 1:1 with horrendous abuse and damage, and go, just... no. That is not where the fight is happening for anyone, not really. And like I said, you can take that actual, valid, real concern for people's safety and actually do something concrete to help. (That said, this ain't about those who just don't want to see it for their own safety and health -- you gotta protect yourself that way, too! If it's a trigger, it's a trigger!)

But whatever the fuck is happening here on social media is not the fucking fight.

[didnt-hear-idsb-live-again]

I mean you got tickets in Australia? And both of their pre sales went exponentially better than the US one

I did get tickets in Australia (not to the city I even tried for), but I'm posting about the fact that the majority of my mutuals did not - and those that did either got them from physically standing in line, or got them because some people were able to get through the queue multiple times and got tickets for them, meanwhile others - most I know, tbh - never got through at all.

Their ticket sales also absolutely did NOT go better than the US one, it was about 300x worse, and I think it's really important that everyone understands this! In the US, while we all know the fan presale was a fucking DISASTER, in the end, TN made it so that everyone who was deserving of fan presale on paper (although obviously, this is not the end-all be-all of who deserves to go) got ONE ticket. Think what you want about that sale, but they really did rally and do their absolute best, and I cannot name one person I know here in the US who is an active part of the fandom, had the financial means to attend a show in the first place, and did not go to a single one. While the situation sucked, due to how bad it sucked, the cancelling of the general sale was a great thing in the end, because it let them manually set fans up with tickets. Which is a huge win! The Australian sale was a disaster due to how the ticketing site is set up - if you didn't know, the way it worked was that there was no queue. The page refreshed every 10 seconds, and the first however many people to have the page refresh got to select tickets. Meaning if you signed on at 12:30 for a 12pm presale, you could get through literally 10 times (this happened. a lot.) while someone who had been waiting since 11:45 and had a slower internet connection could not get them once. That plus the fact that there was no actual fan pre-sale at all, made this experience completely unfair and god-awful, but the thing that makes it so fucking horrible is it went perfectly "according to plan" and there's not a ticket left in the stadium. So no one is stepping in to help - there will be no TN facilitating sales to real fans, there will be no verified sales happening the week of, there will be no last-minute drops. The only chance anyone in Aus has to get to a show is getting lucky and refreshing the resale page when one goes up in a few months, but imo resales will be pretty few and far between and will be snatched up INSTANTLY due to demand and how you can't mark up the ticket prices there (which is good, they'll all be face value, but they'll be gobbled up within 4 seconds of being made available meaning money can't EVEN buy your way in; it's once again just luck and insanely fast internet, which, spoiler alert, the people who couldn't get tix don't have and that's why they don't have them).

[cleverthylacine]

Tbh I think a lot of online people have some form of moral OCD, as someone who's looking at the symptoms and seeing myself in them. I can only speak from my own experience, but I've always felt like a piece of shit if I ever put my own oxygen mask on before helping others. When covid started, I remember telling my mom that if I got it I didn't want to go to the hospital because I'd be taking a spot away from "someone who deserves it more than me". So yeah you can probably imagine what current events have been like. Damn brain running in circles of "I'm literally a murderer because I can't help more" vs "I'm doing everything that's realistically in my power to help people and can't be expected to help more than I can". I don't have a real diagnosis about it at the moment, but recognizing this as A Symptom helps me not fall into the same traps I think a lot of online people are falling into. I can't say 100% that that's every internet person's problem though, I'm just spit balling here

I debated about answering this publicly (also in may I was just trying to keep going the last 2 months till retirement), but I realised you're probably not alone among my followers.

You are never a piece of shit for fixing your own situation before trying to help others. If your own situation is a mess and you spend all your spoons or money on someone else's situation, you have not reduced the general burden of people in the world who need help vs the actual number of people who really can help. You've just transferred someone else's problems to yourself, possibly without even fixing all their problems first.

That does not in any way decrease the suffering or need in the world.

Everyone's resources are limited except for people like Elon Musk. who was once shown a plan to solve world hunger with a tiny portion of what he has and elected not to. If he chose to, he could fill up every gofundme that gets passed around this site for a desperate trans person who is trying to get out of an abusive home or a Palestinian, Sudanese, Ukranian or Congolese family that would like to live somewhere that's not being bombed.

He chooses not to because he's an asshole. He might as well be a sapient covid virus.

You don't really have a choice. You have to pay for your rent, food, utilities, household goods, medications and enough enrichment to keep you sane. After that, is there anything left at all? That has to be saved because sometime soon there might not be, right?

That's not the same thing at all. We all know who the real selfish assholes on this planet are.

It's just easier to yell at people online in the same boat as you for not doing what you think they should be able to do, than it is to demand that he help, because in a just world, the community would take action about his resource hoarding. (I don't even mean the space stuff, I think space research is super important; I mean all that money he has sitting around not doing anything except earning "interest"--which is imaginary money anyway and probably shouldn't even be a thing.)

[rinskirt]

does ami still know how to use tumblr?

i figured i could start journaling again. tbh i always liked long-form journaling a lot more than short-form blurbs and updates. twitter is more for memers, or people who like to make big, bold statements. i like to flesh things out, or think in pointless circles, which usually means 10-tweet threads no one asked for cluttering up their timelines. my posts aren't funny, or entertaining. i feel like i come off as really annoying on twitter. which for a long time has sucked and made me use of the site unpleasant. especially since it seemed like the last one left. but with twitter falling, where else is there to go?

i wish we could just bring back livejournal. i feel like the way hey separated things into communities--so you weren't forced to get annoyed over memes that aren't even for you in the first place, or diatribes about ships that are only logical and enjoyable to the people who ship them--was sincerely superior. i miss it. sadly, i don't know if it will ever come back since social media prioritizing engagement means the more people who see something, the better--even more so if it starts a fight because that will mean even MORE engagement, and even MORE clicks, and the cycle just keeps going.

tbh, for a couple years now i've been thinking it would, mentally, be so much better for me if i just quit social media. then i wouldn't have to see my friends' super exciting lives while i'm sitting home alone for the nth weekend in a row. it would mean less comparing myself to other people. more time to spend on doing things that would actually better my life. but it's a scary thought. because i'm so used to social media, so used to relying on the constant presence of others, would i still reach out to people? do i even know how to reach out to people anymore, without just screaming into the void that is twitter and hoping someone hears? will everyone forget i ever existed if they no longer see my tweets? or, worse, will they actually be glad i'm not on their feed anymore? would leaving social media just mean i'm alone from here on out?

idk. this is the dumb shit that haunts me. i grew up on the internet and on social media--was a part of the first generation to do so--so it's hard to envision my life without it. (really, social media is probably why my ability to reach out to others is so stunted...) plus, as an otaku, you kind of need social media to connect to others who share your interest. at least, you do if you're not an intensely outgoing extrovert. which i am most definitely not.

going to the genshin concert made me long so much for at least one actual flesh-and-blood friend who would want to go with me to stuff like that. i had so many feelings and thoughts that i just stewed over the entire walk back to the station, and then the hour and a half train ride home. all around me were people discussing it excitedly during every intermission, but i just kinda sat there and stared into space, listening to everyone around me talk, taking in all their thoughts and feelings and not being able to share any of my own.

i'm not someone who minds doing things alone. i think because of who i am, and the life i live, and the illness i've been dealt, i couldn't survive if i wasn't willing to do things alone. i feel like maybe that's a very lonely thing to say, and a very lonely way to think, but it's just my reality. i decided to abandon my entire life in the states where i already didn't have a ton of friends, and i came to a place where most of the people are just as shy and unwilling to reach out to strangers as i am. plus i continue in this limbo of moderately-okay-but-not-great japanese, at the level where you plateau if you don't speak much. and i don't speak much. i have a lot of trauma around speaking. it takes a very safe atmosphere to coax it out of me.

i was considering starting a journaling style that i saw recommended, where rather than writing, you record yourself speaking your thoughts and feelings. and while i know that would probably be very therapeutic and helpful for me in the long run, i haven't been able to bring myself to do it. in a book i've been reading lately, "the body keeps the score" by bessel van der kolk, he discusses how trauma freezes the part of the brain that processes language, and makes it hard to actually discuss what you're feeling. that's always been a problem for me. i don't want to talk about things. i don't want to put certain feelings and thoughts into the world. i don't even know how. not even to my phone in the privacy of my home.

but i do want to try it, if i can get myself to that point. i really do want to get better. i want so badly to stop being afraid of everyone in my life, of being abandoned by them, or being hated by them if i open up and show them the worst of me. if i admit how lost and sad and trapped i feel a lot of the time. i feel like i look like such a negative person, such a bitchy and whiny sadsack of a human, but it's because i'm afraid of everything. i'm like that annoying small dog that's so afraid you're going to kick it and so it makes itself as unpleasant to be around as possible so you just leave it be. if no one likes me, if everyone just leaves me alone, i'm safe. i can't be hurt anymore.

for how sad this journal entry comes off, though, i feel like i've been in an okay place mentally lately. the fact that i've been going out and doing stuff again is a sign of that. for a long while i remembered the first year i was in japan, how excited i was to go out and just do things, even if i had no one to do them with. but sometime around covid, that started slipping away--i stopped leaving my apartment until i was invited out, and stopped going to restaurants and shops and events unless someone would hold my hand. but i'm finally in a place where i feel like i've started to rebuild a bit.

i've been thinking a lot lately about what my priorities are, and what i can do to achieve those things, so i can have some semblance of peace and stability in my life. and right now, i feel like i want to just prioritize the idea of feeling good about myself and good about my life. i worked so hard to get to where i am now, and it feels like such a waste to be living it miserably. and while part of me can't help but feel like being miserable is just the hand i was dealt with my anxious, weird brain, i want to try to do something about it. i don't want to just continue to be sad about things and let those things fester even if they're things that can be changed.

so for now, i'll change the things that are in my power to change--my diet, my sleeping habits, getting enough exercise, doing more of the things i enjoy, cutting out more of the things that make me miserable (no matter how fun and addictive they seem in the moment...), and just being kinder to myself if i fail in any of those at any given moment. i want to feel like i am some power over my life again, however little.

anyway. now that i've made myself cry writing this, i need to run to the store. but it truly is therapeutic to actually type all this out. i enjoyed it. i missed journaling. i'll have to do this more often.

[artificial-radiance]

So I get your point on the case of "it hurts impressionable young kids." Which IS true, but also… Kids shouldn't be learning things from the internet. Their main circle of peers should NOT be the internet. It's not people online responsibility to be teaching other people's children- that's their parents responsibility. That is literally the job of a parent, to make sure their kids know what's wrong from right. TBH any parent that LETS their young and impressionable kids online without supervision is pretty irresponsible. The internet is not a source to learn from until you know how to filter the good stuff from the bad stuff, and parents should be ensuring that their kids understand that before letting them go unsupervised. It's WAY more your mothers fault for not teaching you, especially when you straight up asked her directly, that it was wrong. Than for people drawing stuff online. While I really don't like that stuff, it's incredibly off putting and discomforting to me; I recognize it's not that persons responsibility to be teaching someone ELSES kid, that they don't even know exists, what's right and what's wrong. It would be nice if they did anyways, courteous, thoughtful, and generous of them to do so- but not their responsibility and so if they don't do that, they aren't to blame for it.

I'm sorry that your family, and circle that is supposed to be educating you, failed you on something that important. But it's not the artists you saw online fault that your mother didn't set you straight, especially because at that age you shouldn't have been online without a parent monitoring.

I'm not saying you are inherently wrong, because it IS harmful to young kids; but that's why there are kid friendly spaces online, the entirety of the internet is not designed to be safe for those kinds of kids. I'm mostly saying that your anger is misdirected, it should be at the guardians who are not being responsible about the stuff their kids are seeing, and not at the people who are making them.

I don't mean this to be argumentative, and I apologize if I wrote it as such; I'm just trying to offer another perspective on the matter

I appreciate the perspective, and I agree that parents should watch their children on the internet, it certainly would've saved me from many of my issues. But this is an age where we hand children phones and tablets at a young age alongside toys and cartoons, whether we're watching with them or not. (This gets kinda long, so I've placed it under a read more)

We're in this sort of spot in time where parents are expected to give their children tablets and call it a day. Where people just want to have things be quiet in the house for once, especially with Everything that has Happened and things that are Happening. The internet is part of our lives now, whether we like it or not, and it is fully ingrained into our downtimes, schools, and work lives.

Parents don't know what's safe. Parents can do research, and research will say something like... Oh yeah, YouTube is safe! DeviantART is safe! But that didn't keep my brother from finding GTA5 videos when he was maybe 6 when my mom was right there in the room with him (I'm the one that stopped him and told him off from watching them), and it didn't keep me from finding porn at the age of 10 on both sites when my mother watch still making me usernames and passwords with my birthday and dead name in them.

Every website has the ability to be harmful to kids, so long as there's some sort of login and any semblance of being social, and that doesn't leave many options for kids in that in-between age where they 'upgrade' from toddler levels of nonsense to older kid nonsense, where they learn more than how to spell words and the water cycle and how chicks hatch from eggs.

What I'm getting at is that sometimes parents and grandparents and other such guardians just don't know and don't have the time. Parents will think that their kids will just Get It because everyone that's grown has Gotten It. Parents can love their kids to the moon and back and still not be there for them. They don't know about the abundance of incest and pedophilia in communities because kids lie about what they do or don't tell them about their interests (or they don't care), or kids don't know and they don't think they need to ask because everyone seems fine with it, especially when creators have the power to delete and hide and block negative replies. People will respond to criticism with "well I think it's fun" and a kid will go "that's right! people should have fun!"

This is why I cracked down and talked about it being on the creators as well. Kids can weasel their way onto any website just by typing something in on google, and we know that when you type in something as well-loved by children as Minecraft and FNAF on google images you don't always get the safest results, even with safe search on half the time.

And on kids having peers and friends on the internet, sometimes that's all you have. I was an outcast among my peers for years and continued to be even when I had found friends in school, and the internet provided people who would listen. I was the butt of jokes just for existing, and adults there couldn't help that. But online I could talk to people and they'd affirm that it was wrong and they would be nice to me, and what kid wouldn't kill to have people be nice to them?

And did your parents ever have to teach you that incest or pedophilia was wrong? It's not something I recall ever being directly taught, it was something I observed and realized. Yeah, it very much was on my mom for telling her however many years old child that 'well sometimes people do marry their cousins', but that wasn't even a direct lie either (sadly and disgustingly). She simply didn't tell me the truth because I was a child and are you really going to tell your child that sometimes people do that? While we need to stop censoring things for kids, there's definitely things I wouldn't want to tell a child whether they could handle it or not.

And if we depended on parents to teach their kids everything and keep them from every website on the internet, we get people like one of my partners who didn't realize they were being abused up until a few years ago because they met me and our other partners and friends. They'd think certain things were evil and vile by existing, they wouldn't know for sure that they weren't trait or cis.

There's so much to the nuance of the question "who should be teaching our children", and my best answer is everything should, which is why we need to make environments everywhere where kids that aren't little kids but not quite teens can safely learn and actually feel "mature" and "cool" doing it, rather than thinking they're on some site with pretty colors and round surfaces that are sterilized for 5-year-olds with padded corners and baby gates.

(I also feel it's worth mentioning I'm not at all mad at you, anon, but this is my rambly addition)

[anicocat]

Wow you nailed it talking about people’s behavior in this fandom, always so quick to judge everyone like... I can’t get used to it, it’s draining and mostly makes me want to stay away even though when a season starts I need to see what people are thinking because I like reading takes that are different from what I thought/noticed while watching.

I just wish people wouldn’t assume they know what’s going on in everyone else’s mind when someone types their opinion on this site, it’s so brave of the people who still do it, tbh! I myself would have already given up a long time ago, my mental health wouldn’t be able to take it.

Anyway thanks for putting my thoughts into words!

Hallo! Sorry it took a bit to answer, I get confused with my notificactions haha.

Well, yeah, some people can make really hurtful, harsh judgements... It used to really affect and scare me but over time I understood that a lot of those persons overidentify with certain character‘s attributes (body size, sexual orientation, etc) and they think everything someone says or thinks it‘s about that. It‘s worse when you‘ve been hurt because of those attributes because you‘re always expecting something bad from everyone and it‘s really difficult having a neutral, objective mindset. Sorry, but I think characters like Lou shouldn‘t be generally known within the fandom as the “fat girl“. I personally hate that but some people love it because of representation and stuff, so I guess it‘s whatever and everybody can think whatever they want.

Personally, as a fat, queer and gnc person, I used to think thought my whole identity revolved around that and if people said something I immediately thought it was because of that. I am fat, I am queer, I am gnc but I don‘t know why make a big deal of it. I hope I can live to see the moment those attributes can be see as something regular or normal. You can feel proud and unique, but that‘s it. I don‘t see straight or thin people making their whole identities about that. I think that only reinforces the idea that you‘re different and you‘re going thru some alternative, solitary path. It‘s really difficult tho, especially if you‘re not living in safe environment or you‘re still living with trauma.

Anyway, my point is that sometimes opinions are about that, sometimes they are not, so it‘s important to stop being so reactive and first make some questions or listen instead of making assumptions. Maybe on the internet is easy calling out faceless usernames for supposedly being fatphobic, fetizisher, etc., but in real life you can‘t go around labelling/classifying people like that because in the end you only isolate and hurt yourself and you think everyone is bad. That’s some kind of distorted cognitive process that is not helpful at all. There‘s obviously lots and lots of fatphobic, homophobic, racist people but not everything is about that and you have to stop seeing the world through your wounds/trauma to understand it. I‘m not really trying to downplay anyone‘s painful experiences, I‘m only talking about mine and the conclusions I‘ve reached through my own trauma healing that have made my life more peaceful and happier... Because of that, I like to think I‘m not as lost as before lmao (please dear god 🙏🏻 hahaha)

[theboy-thebitch-thelegend]

a reflection on my night / morning

hello everyone, feel free to scroll right past this, but I just need to get some thoughts out before I log off-

as context, I came out to my parents this weekend, and well, go read the post if you want, but basically, I’ve got a long few months ahead of me. Don’t worry, I’m not in any danger, I just have a lot of patient educating, researching, debating, and communication ahead of me. Which is tiring to think about, but I do feel I have a responsibility. Perhaps I’m going above and beyond, perhaps I shouldn’t feel this sense of duty. Irrelevant. I feel that way, and I’m going to act accordingly. 

Tonight, I just needed to be reminded that the world is bigger than the bubble I feel trapped in right now. 

Also, I am feeling rebellious. 

Not, maybe, rebellious in a normal sense. 

My rebellion often takes the form of aggressive positivity, strange as that may be. My rebellion is often realised through love, especially when I have been told that I must contain my love, that I must subject it to religious guidelines, that I must save it for one man that I may or may not ever meet. 

I am, in fact, bisexual, and I may very well end up marrying a man, though tbh I do always picture myself marrying a woman if I ever do marry. Tonight however I was feeling especially rebellious.

first thing I did (and the only thing I originally planned to do) was make a pinterest board that was essentially a comfort to all my gay yearnings.

Then I decided I wasn’t done being rebellious and I updated my pfp with the bi pride flag. Which got me on Tumblr. And I decided to stay here a while, and just generally spread love and positivity, and also reblog and find things that I love and that make me happy. 

And I talked with friends; caught up with people I hadn’t talked to in a while; got to know people I hadn’t previously interacted with much; shared posts and stories and laughs and ideas; vented to people (tysm again, and sorry lol- you know who you are, ily); and was able to offer some encouragement to others, or so I hope.

I discovered some new music- go check out Chub Rub, they’re awesome- and of course was reminded of my love for songs and music I’ve known for a long time (maybe I should start a running tally of how many times I unintentionally use Queen lyrics in expressing myself in personal posts and convos, lol) 

And now I’m planning to go listen to Queen II, which is my go-to album for pulling myself out of a bad funk and restoring my self-confidence.

I guess what I really wanted to say is that, as cliché as it may sound, I am genuinely so grateful for this site, and all the friends I’ve made here. Don’t let anyone tell you Internet friends aren’t real friends. You’re all real people, and we care about each other, and that makes us real friends. Period. I love you guys, and I wish you all the best in life- and, I’m going to do my best to make sure we all get the best in life, not just wishing it. 

I may not always know *how* we’re going to get through things, but I just know we will. And that means we will. I don’t even care if that sounds conceited. 

I believe in you. I believe in myself. I believe in us.

Thank you.

[angels-heap]

All your freehoun fics are aaaaaaaaaaa perfection!! tbh tho I wish you didn't post ns//fw on main bc there are minors in this fandom and we don't want to see all that

Soooooooo... I put off responding to all the asks I received last night because I needed some time to process this one, and I think I’m finally ready to try to articulate my thoughts. Anon, please understand that I mean all of this respectfully, but I am going to have to decline your request.

Before I say anything else, I do want to thank you for your kind words! Seriously, I’m glad you enjoyed my writing and I really appreciate you taking the time to send me an ask to help lift me out of my funk.

As for the second part of your ask... y’know, it’s funny, actually, that I was just talking about this with another fandom friend yesterday. I have made a very conscious decision not to separate my ns/fw fics from my other content, for a variety of reasons. Although I don’t necessarily owe you an explanation, I’m going to provide one anyway:

All of the Half Life games are rated M and the active fanbase was almost entirely comprised of older teens and adults until very, very recently.

I’m not ashamed of my ns/fw content. I mean, I’ll be the first to admit that some of it has not aged terribly well, but I’m not ashamed of the general fact that I occasionally write smut.

I have been told that I have a very distinctive writing style, which means posting fics on an alt account wouldn’t really grant me any anonymity. 

Posting my ns/fw fics to an alt account wouldn’t prevent minors from knowing that they exist, seeing as they’d still be posted on AO3 with the same tags.

All of my ns/fw fics are appropriately rated M or E and have been marked with 1-3 additional tags clearly indicating this is smut; do not read if you’re not here for smut. The descriptions are completely sfw and I have chosen not to tag specific sex acts, because I personally think scrolling through AO3 and encountering a huge list of sex words is off-putting (and potentially triggering). So, the worst thing anyone will encounter when browsing my works list on AO3 is the word “porn,” unless they click through to read more.

I honestly can’t be bothered to create a throwaway email address and another AO3 account. (And I like having all my emails and stats and comments in one place.)

Obviously, I want minors to be safe on the internet. We’re in agreement on that. And that’s why I do everything a content creator could reasonably be expected to do to make sure nobody accidentally encounters adult content in my fics that they weren’t prepared to see.

Beyond that, though, everyone (minors and adults alike) is ultimately responsible for their own internet/fandom experience. I am an adult who writes fanfiction about a game rated for adults, for an audience that is still mostly comprised of adults, and I am well within my rights to do that. Smut is always going to exist, and as long as it’s tagged properly on sites that allow it, it’s not really anyone’s place to try to change that. (Not to mention, I write the most ridiculously vanilla smut ever. Seriously. Even by fandom purity culture standards, I think I’m fine.)

If you don’t feel comfortable even knowing that ns/fw fics are out there, that’s cool. Bookmark an AO3 search with M and E ratings filtered out. Subscribe to individual works instead of subscribing to me as an author. Ask authors or friends about the content of sketchily-tagged fics that you’re not sure you feel safe reading. You have options; use them. 

And finally, all that said, I want to address one last teensy, tiny little thing that might have been a typo on your part, but just in case it wasn’t, it’s worth making a point here: You complimented my freehoun fics. Plural. Except... I have only ever written one (1) entirely sfw freehoun fic. The other two are rated E and M, respectively; granted, the M-rated one hasn’t gotten terribly spicy yet, but it will once the freaking fandom discourse dies down, and it’s been tagged accordingly since I initially posted it.

If you have read one or both of those fics, that is a choice that you made to ignore the ratings and warnings and consume content that might have been upsetting or inappropriate for you. I hope you’re okay, but I’m not going to apologize for that. That’s on you. 

Take care, and as always, I’m open to follow-up questions about this. 

[brujoenlafrontera]

hi!!! I’m a puertorriqueño/nicaragüense enby looking into resources for learning bruja stuff, any good place you know to start?

I’ve gotten a couple of asks about this lately, and i’m so happy to know there are more latinos finding their way to the practice, tumblr’s brujeria tag often gives the impression that theres so little of us out there reclaiming our practices but getting asks like these brings me a lot of faith that thats not true :) first and foremost:

GETTING INTO BRUJERIA IS HARD.

it really is. baby brujos like us know that better than anyone- getting started, is often the hardest part of doing anything, and its no different with brujeria. it can feel so overwhelming and feeling lost is natural. from my experience, although i am still a newbie ive been able to find a lot of information out there, here are the best places to find info, sorted by priority:

FAMILY! a little self explanatory, but brujeria at its best is truly is an inherited, familial practice. If you can, before delving into internet resources, definitely connect w your family if you’re able to and ask them for guidance and about their experiences!

Your family is always the best resource over anything you can find online; theres so much misinformation out there or information not relevant to your region and if someone in your family already has established practices, always trust them first

 Do some thinking back to all your cultural traditions, quirks, stories, and superstitions that you’ve  learned from your family across time and never thought too much about- and rediscover them under a new light

KEEP IN MIND: brujeria is NOT a singular , concrete practice w concrete rules in itself, the term blankets a lot of traditions across latam, the caribbean, mexico, but imo its always best to stick with brujeria related to your heritage and where your connection is.

this can be hard for people (like me!) with huge family taboos toward brujeria that make it unsafe to ask around about, and/or limitations in family connections (also like me unfortunately). I personally can really only get the tidbits and stories that my family accidentally slips out when I occasionally see them. i try to write them down as much as possible, but the info i can get is limited... and thats where the following comes in.

ONLINE COMMUNITIES. i.e, youtube, tumblr, instagram brujx communities. notice I haven’t said “internet” in general- the reason why i trust community based social media more than random individual websites you find on google is because, in the case of brujeria and honestly any non-european craft, you’re often gonna find a LOT of white people writing blogs, books, etc about their “spiritual experiences” in latam countries and wrongly/incorrectly taking ATR or indigenous traditions (like with smudging). I know, with social media, although those same white people are also on insta and tumblr, it’s a LOT easier to see the face behind the accounts and differentiate who to trust, who’s legit and has real experience to share, rather than a nameless, faceless, website that is actually some colonizer sharing colonized ideas who thinks theyre on a spiritual journey taking traditions all willy nilly. And the fact that in social media, its much easier to find a lot of good brujas at once bc they tend to follow each other lmao.what ive personally done to find information tho is essentially SCOUR tumblrs, insta accs, and watching tons of youtube videos for posts, accounts, videos, etc, and narrowing down good info from there through , namely:

CHECKING WHO YOUR SOURCE IS!!!

ASKING YOURSELF FROM WHAT EXPERIENCE THEYRE SPEAKING FROM

ALWAYS TAKING EVERYTHING WITH A GRAIN OF SALT

AND STICKING TO INFO FROM CULTURES OPEN AND RELEVANT TO ME.

again, brujería is different depending on where your family is from in latam, and if you have an established connection to indigenous and/or black roots, so it’s useful to use keywords relating to that when searching (like if ur black, you can look into ATRs(african traditional religions) which tend to mix deeply with brujeria, if ur indigenous, finding other people from your tribe is great, and if youre not pursuing your already learned traditions you can think about connecting to them more deeply(altho indigenous traditions are their own thing, sometimes they do mix with brujeria too), and apart from familial roots, if ur catholic/christian and/or want to explore it, saint work/catholic brujeria might be a good fit for you!)  

tumblr: there are a couple of fantastic brujxs on this site with great blogs and resources who have sadly left the site, but i still go through their posts heavily for spells, rituals, scraps of info! etting started w brujería is hard bc there’s really not that much info out there right now, but i compile as many good brujeria posts i find on my acc.

@brujeria-n-bongs great for catholic brujeria, now at @Upliftherbs on instagram

@brujeria-lost @barberwitch @reina-morada @highbrujita

@naomi121406 is by far the most active and informative tumblr resource ive found, shes an afro-indigenous diaguita curandera from argentina so shes also really helpful if ATRs are in your path!

Im not black myself and dont follow ATRs so i don’t really know many good blogs for afrolatine brujxs out there but if anyone would like to tag some in the replies thatd be awesome!

instagram: Ive found that instagram #brujeria tags has a pretty healthy active stream of posts. You’re gonna have to sift through a lot of them to get to the good stuff though- imo a lot of hispanics use the brujería tag not to mean “latine brujería” but just the spanish word for witchcraft, so a lot of white hispanics will put wicca/neo witchcraft in the tag. imo that’s really not something i’m personally interested in bc it’s not true to brujeria’s traditional nature, is very white/eruropean , and that wicca shit basically just got here. its a relatively a recent thing😭 so i try to stick to bruja accounts that aren’t influenced by that.

youtube: The youtube brujería tag is hit or miss? and again, contains a lot of wicca. But there are some good practitioners on there like The Mexican Witch! You just gonna look around, and dont be afraid to click on videos by really really small youtubers; they often are the ones with the most informative and legit things to say!

Everyone’s path as a bruja/o/x (sjdf trying to be inclusive w gendered language is difficult) is different but here are some topics i think are great to look into as a beginner!

ancestors: start at the bottom and figure out who they are, where theyre from, and set up an altar. it’ll help you a lot with figuring out your identity and path as a bruja later on.

setting up a grimoire

divination: tarot is actually what got me into brujeria at first! tarot isnt strictly traditional and is european in itself but its a wonderful tool for connecting to dieties, saints, etc as well as super fun and helps a lot with introspection

ritual abrecaminos, aka road opening spells!

amarres (love spells... proceed with caution)

limpias, mal de ojo

saint work: even if you’re not catholic (im ex catholic), a growing number of us (especially lgbt latines like @/upliftherbs on instagram) are starting to take back and decolonize our view of saints like La Virgen Maria and removing her from the rigid european/colonized interpretation thats been forced into us

candle spells in general (i fucking love candles tbh, cheap, easy, fun, and WORKS)

spiritual colognes, how to cleanse

finally, here are some helpful posts yall should definitely read and think about moving forward!

about using tumblr as a resource

about looking into brujeria as a part-white part latine

bruja psa + about reclaiming lost indiginety

honestly naomi’s entire brujeria tag is great and super informative for beginners and basically holds answers for almost anything at this point

hope this post helps yall out!

EDIT: oh lord now that this is posted the outline format i tried to use is all kinds of fucked up please dont mind the odd numbering lmfao tumbr hates organized formats