#it's very long and is primarily a resource for me but i think it's helpful in converging LABB and DN

[lifesliced]

FULL DOCUMENTION OF BEYOND BIRTHDAY: one large post containing a breakdown for beyond birthday // * brief mentions of violence, death, and suicide.

please note that i only consider the novel, the manga, and the anime for sources and influences. the manga timeline is the main source i rely on with the novel being secondary. i do not consider any live action interpretations, including plays, so all information below is based on the three sources listed. all quoted content is from the translation of the LABB novel. i sometimes reference the DS games, but not often (if at all tbh).

NAME: redacted from records; officially born ‘bellamy bishop’. known only to himself, although was potentially revealed by B to the first child of wammy house “A”

TITLE: second child of wammy house, proposed successor to L, “backup”

ALIASES: B, BB*, beyond birthday**, rue ryuzaki**

** both beyond birthday and rue ryuzaki are self-given aliases, and are not known by wammy house. beyond birthday and rue ryuzaki are not associated with “B.”

DOB: oct 30 1983**

** making him 8 by the time he enters wammy house in roughly 1991 **

DOD: 01/21/04**

** making him 20 when he is killed by kira **

his DOB is based on his DOD, the vague description misora gives about his features (and it is revealed he wears heavy makeup when with her)

GENDER: cis-male

PRONOUNS: he/him/his

SEXUALITY: pansexual, demiromantic

HEIGHT: 6′ (182cm)

WEIGHT: fluctuates, generally on the thinner side (L is 110lbs or 50kg)

HAIR COLOR: naturally black, has been dyed

EYE COLOR: black, hued red in certain lights, and is blamed on partial albinism

FAMILY: father (deceased, attacked by thugs), mother (deceased, train crash), other family unknown and/or presumed deceased

ETHNICITY: japanese, vietnamese, english

DEFINING FEATURES: long limbs and features, gangly, spider-like, scruffy face, bulging eyes, dark circles, disheveled exterior.**

** “Natural black hair. A plain shirt, faded jeans. He was a young man, with dark lines under his wide, bulging eyes. Thin, and apparently fairly tall, but his back was curved, leaving his gaze two heads lower than Misora’s so he appeared to be looking up at her.“ and “[ ... ] well—he had always disguised himself with heavy makeup while he was with Misora [ ... ] ” **

we can assume his skin tone is likely a lighter tan towards a paler complexion based on his lifestyle, but made himself paler with makeup to deceive misora. he also likely added the extra shadows and dark lines beneath his eyes. 

ABILITIES: shinigami eyes from birth (”eye born”), though he cannot see the time of his own death

IQ: 274

LANGUAGES: english, vietnamese, japanese, korean, italian, latin, thai, and others

LABB CASE YEAR: summer of 2002

AGE DURING CASE: 18, almost 19

LABB NOVEL TIMELINE:

FROM MAY 2002 - JULY 2002: L looks for B after B abandons Wammy House post-A’s suicide.

JULY 22 2002: LAPD receives an impossible to solve crossword puzzle.

1ST MURDER: July 31 2002, drugged and strangled, cuts on the chest post mortem .. roman numerals.

2ND MURDER: 4 days later, August 4, 2002, drugged and beaten to death (head), eyes poked out and crushed post mortem.

3RD MURDER: 9 days later, August 13, 2002, drugged and stabbed, died of massive hemorrhaging and blood loss.

AUGUST 14, 2002: Naomi and L make contact.

AUGUST 15, 2002: Naomi begins working for L.

AUGUST 15, 2002: Naomi and ‘Rue Ryuzaki’ make contact at the first crime scene.

AUGUST 16, 2002: L confirms to Naomi of Ryuzaki’s employment as hired by the victims’ families as a private detective.

AUGUST 16TH 2002: Beyond Birthday attacks Naomi in an alleyway on her way to the second crime scene. L tells Naomi that the killer is ‘B’.

AUGUST 16, 2002: Naomi investigates the second crime scene with Ryuzaki.

AUGUST 19, 2002: Naomi Investigates the third crime scene with Ryuzaki.

AUGUST 20, 2002: Naomi stays in a hotel in West LA with preparations to arrive in the evening in Pasadena, CA by August 21st.

AUGUST 22, 2002: Naomi poses as Blackberry Brown in Condo 1313, preparing to catch the killer; 9 Floors Below, Ryuzaki poses as Bluesharp Babysplit in Condo 404.

4TH MURDER: August 22, 2002. unsuccessful suicide by fire as the intended victim to be Rue Ryuzaki / Beyond Birthday in attempts to create ‘the perfect crime’ / ‘an unsolvable case’ ***

AUGUST 23, 2002: BB begins recovery for severe third degree burns in the hospital; after months of recovery and surgery, he is sent to jail.

(LATE) ??, 2002 - ??, 2003: Mello of Wammy House meets with Beyond Birthday.

JANUARY 21, 2004: Kira kills Beyond Birthday in jail using the Death Note. Cause of death is specified as a heart attack.

*** “Immolation. Burning to death.

“He had chosen himself to be the fourth victim. Beyond Birthday, the final B.B. That Rue Ryuzaki was a fake name did not even require L’s resources—Misora was an FBI agent, and could find that out for herself quickly, and if she dug a little deeper would be able to find out that his real name was Beyond Birthday. B.B.

Naturally, his face and fingerprints would burn as well — he had always disguised himself with heavy makeup while he was with Misora, and he had never left a picture behind, so even if someone directly affiliated with Wammy’s House inspected the body, they would have no idea that Rue Ryuzaki/Beyond Birthday was B from Wammy’s House. HE HAD LEFT NOTHING TO CONNECT BEYOND BIRTHDAY TO B. He had no intention of hiding his own identity (he wanted them to find out he was Beyond Birthday, to find out he was another B.B.), but he had to hide that he was B from Wammy’s House.”

   [ … ]

A PROBLEM WITH NO SOLUTION COULD ONLY HAVE ONE ANSWER—THAT IT COULD NOT BE SOLVED. But that answer conflicted with the fairness displayed in the first three murders. Which tied their hands. Unable to find something that wasn’t there, L would have to continue searching for B—who no longer existed. The metaphor of the gradually decreasing Wara Ningyo established from the beginning that there would be only four victims, so the lack of further murders would not lead to the conclusion that the killer had passed away. L would be left chasing after the mirage of the deceased B. L would be forever followed by the mirage of the deceased B. L WOULD SPEND THE REST OF HIS LIFE TREMBLING IN FEAR OF B’S SHADOW.”

[KNOWN] VICTIMS:

Believe Bridesmaid: 44 years old, male, deceased

Quarter Queen: 13 years old, female, deceased

Backyard Bottomslash: 26, female, deceased

PERSONALITY AND ALIAS DISTINCTIONS: there are four main identities that come from [my interpretation of] B — “B” of wammy house, beyond birthday (or BB), and rue ryuzaki (RR or LL).

bellamy bishop — who he was born as, with this name being known only to himself. he has completely disassociated with this identity. the only people that know him as bellamy are all deceased, A included.

“B” of wammy house — who he became upon entering wammy house. the most “true” version of himself.

beyond birthday — as mentioned above, no one at wammy’s knows him as beyond birthday or “B.B.” it is a self-taken identity, and one that he plans to use as the fourth “victim” to the “killer” in the LABB case. this the identity he wanted his corpse to be ultimately known as, as well as who he is referred to by mello via the narrative. 

rue ryuzaki** — another unknown identity to wammy house, the man that misora naomi saw on fire, and the alias eventually taken by L in death note’s main timeline / post LABB. this is B’s detective persona, one that he uses primarily when contacting the families of the victims, as well as the alias he interacts with misora under throughout the novel. rue ryuzaki is also a social persona B has been creating for a while, and finally gets more use from when he leaves wammy house in may 2002. B’s version of ryuzaki is based on a lot of the personality B imagines L to have, basically making ryuzaki a projection, or imitation, of L.

** “B approached Naomi Misora, calling himself Rue Ryuzaki. Rue Ryuzaki – L.L. For anyone from Wammy’s House, there could be no higher goal than identifying yourself with that letter — and Beyond Birthday seized this case as his chance. Even Naomi Misora knew what had happened to detectives falsely identifying themselves as L, and B was from Wammy’s House, so he knew better than anyone so this choice suggests the strength of his decision. He never once intended to survive, he had made up his mind. He was ready.” **

[ ... ] 

“According to L’s investigation, a detective named Rue Ryuzaki had actually been hired by Believe Bridesmaid’s parents—and not only them, but relatives of the second victim, Quarter Queen, and the third victim, Backyard Bottomslash, had asked Ryuzaki to investigate the matter as well.”

regarding B, beyond birthday, and rue ryuzaki — these are three entirely separate identities. we do not see much of “B” in the novel, just beyond birthday and ryuzaki, and they are very different. the most connecting physical factor is their natural black hair, but “ryuzaki” is an identity that is worn with heavy makeup as a disguise. B even brushes his hair when getting ready as ryuzaki, which is counterproductive in itself; L does not brush his hair.

we can assume the brief bits of “beyond birthday” are actually “B.” beyond birthday and B do not necessarily have separate personalities, just individual “identities.” 

it’s a bit complicated, as B starting calling himself beyond birthday at an unspecified point in time, but never revealed that alias to anyone (that we know of). it is never directly said he started using the beyond birthday alias before or after wammy house, just that he used it at all, and that it was self-given.

** “He had those eyes before he was born, which is why he called himself Beyond Birthday. Which is why a child as strange as he, was taken in by our home, sweet home—Wammy’s House.

He was B. The second child in Wammy’s House.” **

so, regardless of when it started, beyond birthday is an internal alias; it is the start of “B.B.” 

it was B’s intention that beyond birthday would eventually become “the fourth victim” in the case, while “B” just disappeared from wammy house. there is no intent to connect beyond birthday and B from wammy house together.

“if she [Misora] dug a little deeper would be able to find out that his real name was Beyond Birthday. B.B.” 

this means that B left record of a “beyond birthday” to be found on purpose, as it was stated that he chose rue ryuzaki to be intentionally discovered as a fake almost immediately to lead misora away from the identity of rue ryuzaki towards the identity of beyond birthday. it is unclear what “records” he leaves for her to find this “beyond birthday.”

so, while there are four total identities, there are two key personalities being displayed in the narrative of the novel: ryuzaki and beyond birthday (or, ”B”).

we know now that B and beyond birthday are basically the same. beyond birthday is written as more cruel, jaded, and prone to speaking incoherently, as well as to himself. he gives himself instructions, specifically how he should laugh. as ryuzaki, he acts more composed, albeit eccentric (the way he believes L acts), and somewhat energetic. while "ryuzaki” speaks strangely, exhibits peculiar mannerisms, and seems to lack proper social etiquette, he is far more “personable” than beyond birthday.

in his youth, i believe B tried to emulate L more often than not, while also exhibiting his own strange mannerisms. this is a technical blend of his own personality in conjunction with what will eventually become the ryuzaki personality. 

he was also known to act strangely in his years at wammy house, frightening the other children. he was intelligent, clever, and highly gifted, but was also erratic, unpredictable, and aloof to a fault. he often was hunched, barefooted, and displayed other tendencies rumored to habited by L. i believe he was always eccentric, described as “brilliant and deviant” in the novel, and was always prone to a draw towards death, as well as the occult. by the time we actually see B, or beyond birthday, in the novel, we can tell he is unable to be “saved.” 

A’s suicide is what drove B to finally “lose it.” he was already naturally prone towards villainy. from birth, B saw death / he saw red, and A “leaving him” was the final straw.

NOTATIONS (RUE RYUZAKI, L, WAMMY HOUSE, ETC):

i think the above image represent the aesthetic of L that B tries to emulate the most when acting as ryuzaki, the hair is (mostly) natural, which is why this look is fitting, as it’s more flat than L’s usual look. this version of L is not as ‘stylized’ as we see later. it’s more akin to very early L, before ohba had explicit directive instead of a concept. B’s ryuzaki is flat and messy, more natural looking especially in the hair. he hunches like L, though doesn’t really understand L’s true fascination with candy and desserts, so seems to imitate that habit poorly (the jam). they share a similar physicality, though B’s weight fluctuates more than L’s given his fluctuating living conditions pre /post wammy house. 

given their age difference, B and L were in wammy house at the same time. B is four years younger than L.

L says,

“I have nothing to do with him. To be completely accurate, I do not even know B. He is simply someone I am aware of. But none of this affects my judgment. Certainly, I was interested in this case, and began to investigate it because I knew who the killer was. But that did not alter the way I investigated it, or the manner in which my investigation proceeded. Naomi Misora, I cannot overlook evil. I cannot forgive it. It does not matter if I know the person who commits evil or not. I am only interested in justice.”

despite the text saying they never in met person, there’s going to be some major canon divergence in my interpretation while using the text as a backbone. 

the timelines of LABB and DN coincide without issue, but some of the canonical details versus the fanon details of the novel conflict, which is where i am left to make adjustments. i bend to the DN canon before the LABB canon.

post his leaving, L might have visited and observed, or spoke via voice-chat** – but L also does lie a lot, or will at least stretch the truth, and has a habit of forgetting people easily (he “forgets” misora when during her arc in death note). just because L says he does not know B does not mean that B does not know (remember) L. it could be argued that L either a) does not remember seeing, meeting, and/or interacting with B before the LABB case, or, b) is lying. both seem plausible.

** we know he at least does this, as we see him conversing with near’s generation of wammy children canonically in death note. we can assume he might have done this post-leaving the wammy house for B’s generation, too. **

from the beginning, L was extremely isolated from the other children before his departure from wammy house with watari, so B could have potentially seen or spoken with L in person before L left. this would mean he met L before L became the great detective, so is emulating L from memory, as well as an early version of L. 

based on L’s appearance when he entered the wammy house, as well as the novel saying that watari met L when he was eight, it’s safe to say definitively that L came to wammy’s before B, and was there for years before B was “enrolled.” i have B as eight when he enters the wammy house, which would make L twelve. by this time, L was already functioning within wammy’s, but was independent of the other wammy orphans, primarily locked away in his room.

L is sixteen when he leaves with watari, making B twelve. 

this would be when B goes into the running with A (and C) to become the first “wammy children” that we know of. before this, they (A, B, C, etc) were likely going by whatever names or aliases they preferred. B came in without ever having his name revealed to watari or roger in the first place, and it is unknown what the other children went by before becoming “lettered.”

while B is known as the “second child in wammy house” in the novel, wammy house was a running establishment prior to A and B’s arrivals, meaning that being titled this is more applicable to the L succession program. 

A and B are the first children of the “L project.” we know that there are many children in wammy house, as well as other orphanages run by watari. wammy house seems to be more focused on particularly gifted children, or that is where the most gifted tend to be located and/or relocated depending on their situation. 

it can be agreed that B did a decent job emulating L, so it’s more likely than not they have interacted in some manner, and that L’s dismissal of B (only knowing of him) is either L lying or misremembering. it is likely B is also copying what he has heard about L, adding that into his characterization of him.

THE (A)LTERNATE + THE (B)ACKUP: “The first child, A, was unable to handle the pressure of living up to L and took his own life, and the second child, Beyond Birthday, was brilliant and deviant.” A commits suicide by may of 2002. B, who was eighteen, was already planning on leaving wammy house, hopefully with A. after A’s death, B leaves wammy house, which prompts L to look for him. this is right before the LABB book begins. they were the “first children” of wammy house. 

A was B’s closest connection, and his death is the reason that B finally left, enacting his plan. as mentioned above, A’s suicide is B’s breaking point. 

it is unclear if B was planning the LABB murder cases (the unsolvable case) / to be L’s greatest foil prior A’s death. it’s even more unclear if B would have still enacted this plan at all, were he planning it, should A have lived. B is not just a backup to L, but is also a backup to A (the “alternate” or “alternative”). whether they were close before the successor program, they were after. while B insists that B will top L, A is the only one that can top B. symbolically, A is the alpha, while B is the beta. i am affiliated with yeonban’s A, and reference him often in threads. i suggest reading A’s document if you want to learn more about him!

OTHER LETTERS: we can assume that A, B, and even C were all in one generation. other than that, the actual “generations” aren’t completely consistent to the alphabet, as (m)ello and (n)ear were the most recent candidates, the two that L had no chosen between before death. there is a potential wammy child “J” in one of the DS games, and you can read about him here.

“If I had space left over I had intended to carry right on into the other two stories I heard from L: the story of the detective war between the three greatest detectives, all solving that infamous bio-terror case, with guest appearances by the last of the alphabet, the first X** to the first Z** from Wammy’s House; and the story of how the world’s greatest inventor, Quillish Wammy, aka Watari, had first met L, then about eight years old—the case that gave birth to the century’s greatest detective, The Winchester Mad Bombings that occurred just after the third World War**.”

it is interesting that they are described as “the first” x, y, and z. this could be a translation thing, but it could also infer that letters are replaceable, and subsequently we have seen replacements via near and mello. 

we can infer that the A and B we know are the first of their letters, as well as L, and potentially C(?). we do not see replacements in death note for these letters, and by DN canon alone, we are left to assume that mello and near are the first “M” and “N” in wammy house. but this could be entirely false.

by the time we see them, they could be the second generation of letters, having gone through another A, B, C, all the way to M and N. it could stop at N, or it could go on to the end of the alphabet. we just do not know. it’s also interesting to note that characters like near, mello, matt, and linda all have aliases that are names, not letters, and that particularly near and mello are named by not just aligning the first names of their aliases to their birth names, but also their places in the wammy alphabet of succession. 

it also leaves questions for characters like matt and linda, as matt specifically is considered still to be the third in line, despite sharing a named alias that begins with the same letter as mello, with mello being the one known as “M.”

by the naming convention alone, as well as seeing that the heirs of L are at least encouraged to play should they want to, it’s clear that some structural differences have been made to the heir program. this could infer that potentially the entire first generation of lettered children “failed” for various reasons, most all ending in death. 

this all strongly leads me to believe that near, matt, mello, and linda are all part of a second generation of L’s heirs in the timeline, though linda does not seem to be in line as a successor, instead showing that there are still other children at wammy house not affiliated with the program, albeit brilliant themselves.

** i’m not even going into the third world war mentioned in the novel here in this post. **

LIVING CONDITIONS: post-wammy house, B has no singular address. it is noted that he has many lairs specifically across the united states, but also throughout the world. i headcanon that he was establishing headquarters before leaving wammy house.

MISC HC // * READING: B will read books over and over again, memorizing every line, every word, every letter until he can recite the page number, line, the book backwards if you wanted. he reads books at least four times, but never more than thirteen. this is not something A has to do. B has a photographic memory like many of the wammy children, and finds himself burdened by the constant names and dates he sees with his special eyes. by this logic, he also can usually tell who and who will not be the next L based on their dates of death, specifically for children like A, matt, or mello.

more likely tba

[befuddledcinnamonroll]

Top 10 Things I Love About the QL Tumblr Community 2023

I'm loving everyone's end of year lists, and decided to make up one of my own.

I haven't been on Tumblr for very long and was originally just lurking. 2023 marks the year where I finally started posting, after I read a take that made me feel compelled to come to a fictional character's defense. (Saengtai, my poor little blorbo).

So in commemoration of my first proper year of active tumblring, I present what I love about this community (in no particular order).

(Side note - Technically I know this is still primarily a BL community, but I like to say QL because I am trying to manifest more lesbians for us.)

1) The Gifmakers

Y'all are a good 70% of the reason I joined Tumblr in the first place. There are so many show moments that I want to relive, but without having to search through videos. Sometimes I want to appreciate the aesthetics. Sometimes I want to remember adorable or goofy moments. Sometimes I just want to see cute boys eating each other's faces. Our gifmakers give all of that to us, with the addition of so much creativity and style.

There's too many amazing ones to mention everyone, but I have to shout out @sparklyeyedhimbo, because the way your brain works makes me so happy.

2) The expertise

The other part of why I joined Tumblr was to learn more about what BLs were out there and what I might be missing. And holy hell. Y'all are putting in the work. Not only lists and resources for finding all kinds of QLs, like these fabulous monthly breakdowns by @gunsatthaphan, but also amazing posts that add additional context, like @absolutebl's incredibly helpful breakdown of Asian honorifics. There is so much research people do, for fun! And then they share it!

3) The meta analysis

I frickin love reading people's takes and analyses on series. I love learning, I love seeing perspectives from people with different cultural backgrounds to my own, it's all so fascinating! There's so much context we can miss due to our own privileges, or lack of knowing about various cultures, or due to whatever bubbles we've been living in. People here are just so smart, and nuanced, and willing to reflect and think about things, and also push back at each other, but generally with respect (except when you call out the dumb shit you see, usually on Twitter or TikTok, where people are being reductive and dumb about gender and sexuality).

And I've seen a few takes where people complain about analyses, and say that the director/production doesn't do everything deliberately, and we're all reading too much into it. To which I say, eh, lighten up. How people connect to and relate to media has relevance beyond what was intended. The point is we get to think and discuss and learn and grow. That doesn't happen if we don't analyze.

Special shout out here to @respectthepetty because colors mean things!

4) The wild theories

The other side of the analysis coin, the clown cars y'all drive around in with the wildest of theories. I have happily climbed into an occasional clown car, and usually I am utterly wrong (*cough* Saifah *cough*). But it's a super fun ride. I love seeing how people's brains work. I love it when y'all are wrong. I love it when y'all are right. It's beautiful.

5) Immediate acceptance

I am one of those people who knows that I have a lot of good qualities, and also, always kind of expect rejection. Blame the childhood bullies, I guess. Anyway, whenever I delve into a new space, I still feel like a total dork that no one will want to talk to. It's kind of a fraught way to move through the world, but I manage.

Anyway, I started posting my thoughts as they came up, and people are just totally cool with it. People even follow me sometimes. Even my silliest thoughts and dumbest jokes get at least a couple likes. It's so validating.

And my very silly joke about gay mafia in Kiseki has over 800 likes. I feel very seen.

6) Mutuals

I still kind of can't believe I have any. This ties in to the dork feeling above, but seriously - they are soooo cooooool. They're smart and awesome and funny, and they somehow find me worth following back, which is baffling yet wonderful. I want to squish their faces and give them many kisses (if they're into that kind of thing).

7) The self-exploration

I really appreciate how it's become more talked about how a lot of people are discovering queerness through BL, because that is so the case for me. I think it's both that I was in a bit of a hetero bubble before, and also that I'm evolving a bit as I age. I had figured out I was demi, and maybe a little bit gay, before getting in to BL, but being in this community, and seeing so many of you share so openly and freely, has made me realize it might be more than a little bit.

Either it was a new realization, or being around y'all has made me more gay. Win win, either way.

8) The weirdness

I'm weird. Y'all are weird. I love it.

9) The thirst

So many in this community are thirsty as fuck, and as someone who is in that same condition, I love that it's not just me. There are not many places where I can freely admit how horny I am as a part of my general existence.

Here? I could post about wanting to lick some random BL actor's face, and it would get a bunch of likes and some tags like #lickable, and it's just not remotely a big deal.

Also the gifmakers understand this, and give us beautiful cuts of our spicy scenes. They are genuinely too good for us.

10) The communal watching experience

There is absolutely nothing like watching along with people in the community. It is so worth the torture of having to wait week to week for new episodes. Seeing the show trend, watching the theories fly fast and furious, or the way everyone collectively loses their minds over particular moments. In a world that can feel very isolating, it's a very warm experience.

So there you go. Thank you all for being you. Here's to another year of QL shenanigans and losing our collective minds!

[understandingbimbos]

So. There's a few things I need to address. My documentation and study of bimbos began as a personal project. I only started a blog because I was putting a ridiculous amount of work and thought into this and figured it should be shared (and still, there's SO much I haven't shared yet...). And that's part of why this blog isn't so well managed, not consistent, and very informal. I write every post with the assumption whoever reading will have some familiarity with the fetish and that was kind of a mistake when dealing with subject matter as delicate as this and if I want to be able to attract literally any other audience. But the blog is here now so its kind of a moot point. I won't be rewriting posts. I want to kill myself every day, its astonishing I can write anything. Anyway, recently I discovered an adult performer named Celestina Blooms, in particular, this video:

We share a lot of the same thoughts. And her criticisms of BimboTok are a lot better articulated. Here are some of things she's said that stood out to me (paraphrased):

"As an actual political movement, the Gen Z bimbo isn't actually very helpful beyond being satire because there are contradictions."

"It makes no sense to be expected to have every single decision in your life, in every area of your life, be a form of activism."

"If you don't spend enough time watching all their videos to completely get the point it looks like they're satirizing the ideologies they're preaching."

"They're kind of taking this thing and being like 'Hey! This thing is leftist because I'm leftist and I said so!' when the thing is still something very tied to a lot of systems of oppression."

"I think there's an issue with saying that being feminine is feminist."

"Because there are so many minors on TikTok they'll come across this trend and see the cute aesthetic and cute clothes, and for good measure, the ideologies a lot of them agree with and be like 'Fuck yes! Sign me up!' and before you know it they're dressing like a bimbo, calling themselves a 'bimbo', and all this stuff while not even being aware of this whole other world of bimbofication as a fetish and unknowingly calling attention to themselves."

She also brings up Pink Bimbo Academy in this video (not by name, and if you somehow see this Celestina, sorry for blowing up your spot!). I bring this up because PBA actually reached out to me like two weeks ago. We had an extremely brief conversation. He lost all interest as soon as he realized my blog isn't primarily about real life bimbos and, like Celestina, I don't believe bimbos are really a real life thing. This is the reason for my last text post (now pinned).

Up until this point I didn't realize Pink Bimbo Academy was a guy, or extremely weird. He's one of those bimbo enthusiasts that genuinely believes every woman should be a bimbo, unless they're trans that is, because according to him a bimbo can't have a penis or possess any "masculine" qualities. He seems to view bimbofication less as a fetish and more of a means to an end. To him, bimbos are the peak of femininity and bimbofication only helps women to become more of who they're "biologically" meant to be. He has entire rants against feminism up on his website and aspires to create an actual real-life bimbo finishing school, like he's a super villain or some shit, like the antagonist of every school-set bimbofication story come to life. And unfortunately, he's basically the resource for bimbofication online. I have to assume not everyone that follows his guides reads all his posts and FAQ but its more than disappointing to have a transphobe be one of the main vanguards of this fetish today.

Anyway, I can't recommend Celestina's video enough. Its a bit long but all worth watching and has made the prospect of writing this book exciting again. I would suggest this video of hers too:

Post-script: After over an hour of writing all of this I realized I actually did something extremely stupid here. Celestina follows me on here, possibly one of the first people to follow me. I kept wondering why one of her icons looked so familiar and it took me until literally just now to figure it out. I hope she doesn't mind the plug, because you all should follow her too!

@celestinablooms Twitter Instagram

[runwayrunway]

No. 51 - Alaska Airlines

This is one of my most requested posts. Apparently, a very significant portion of my readers fly Alaska Airlines!

That tracks. Alaska Airlines is the fifth largest airline in the US. A sort of anti-Flair, they are supposedly the least complained-about full-service carrier in the US. They are also one of five remaining US legacy carriers, along with American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Hawaiian Airlines, and United Airlines. They operate a massive network primarily on the US West Coast, with bits branching out into nearby slices of the Americas. As one might surmise from prior knowledge of the size and population of Alaska, they're actually mostly based in Seattle.

Now, when it comes to their livery, there's one thing that stands out. At least, it stood out to me, and I'm sure at least some of you have had this thought too.

That is a human person's face on the tailfin. But who does that face belong to, and why is it on the Alaska Airlines fleet? This is precisely the sort of trivia I think anyone who knows me would expect me to be able to just rattle off, but actually...I don't know, and neither, as far as I can tell, does anyone else. Isn't that weird?

(By the way, it is indeed Alaska Airlines. I have always found that somewhat unintuitive. It's just not how you're used to hearing things phrased, right? It's Possessive Noun Airlines, Air Noun. America Airlines would sound weird. Alaska Airlines sounds weird. I am never surprised when people mistakenly say Alaskan Airlines, but it's Alaska Airlines. Just so we're all on the same page.)

Alaska's a bit of a hard place to navigate. Big empty place, lots of ice, lots of mountains, islands, trees...not very much asphalt. That's even true now, but it used to be way truer, and even back then people did still live there. And there's a lot of things those people might maybe like to have, like medical care, or food, or just the hypothetical possibility of getting somewhere without having to get the snowshoes out. In that sense, Alaska is a really perfect place for aviation to flourish.

More or less as early as physically possible, when there were planes available that weren't requisitioned for the first World War or owned by the ultra-rich, people were flying in Alaska. In a lot of ways the basic landscape hasn't changed that much. With its surplus of difficult environments and paucity of actual tarmac Alaska's harsh wilderness is an environment only suited for "bush" flying, using smaller, more rugged airplanes specialized for the environment. Some of the most popular models of bush plane are very old, not that dissimilar to what you'd see in the 50s and 60s - apparently, they just don't make them the same anymore, and as long as you don't get your de Havilland Beaver crunched horribly into the side of a mountain there's just nothing that can replace it. Alaska is full of planes on floats, planes on skis, and taildraggers on tundra tires, most of them high-wing and piston-engined. Bush pilots are a unique sort, often doing work that's neither glamorous nor lucrative (nor safe, with Alaska having two to five times the accident rate of the lower 48) but undeniably necessary.

That's not as true of Alaska Airlines. They have a modern fleet, a good safety record except for that one time, and as a category III carrier they make over a billion dollars in revenue each fiscal year, meaning their finances aren't too strained (except for that one time). Unlike the local carriers that connect remote parts of Alaska to resources and to major cities, Alaska Airlines connects Alaska to the rest of the nearby world. (Though it also does short, multi-stop milk run flights.) It's a necessary part of the ecosystem, helping to keep Alaska's beautiful but hostile terrain from getting in the way of daily life. Before they became Alaska Airlines, though, they were far more similar to what you might expect of...Alaska airlines.

Image: Roy S. Dickson

In 1932, a man with the fantastic name 'Linious McGee' started his very own airline. You could just do that back then. In 1934 it was merged into Star Air Service, another tiny airline. Star Air Service had also been founded in 1932, born from the flight-school-starting dreams of a wealthy miner with the similarly wonderful name 'Wesley Earl Dunkle'. Apparently Star had its first ever aircraft, a Fleet B-5 biplane, brought to Alaska by steamship, which I just find fairly interesting. I guess this was before you could even ferry an airplane directly to Alaska by air. They ate up a few other small airlines (and their routes), and in 1943 they won a small scuffle against another pretender to formerly rebrand themselves as Alaska Airlines. So it's been 80 years of that now!

They've gone from flying Curtiss Robins, Ford Trimotors, and Lockheed Vegas to flying basically only 737s, save a few vestigial A320 family aircraft acquired when merging with Virgin America which they plan to phase out by the end of 2024. Their livery is also on E175 regional jets operated by Horizon Air and SkyWest. The airplanes flying for them number around 300. That's incredibly large even by the standards of major airlines (not even counting the SkyWest planes that have the livery).

The Alaska Airlines livery is not breaking any molds and I need to say that upfront. This is a very straightforward pattern I've taken to calling the Lufthansa Declined, or the Lufthansa Line SAS Variation. (Because the push and pull of trend cycles in brand identity is basically comparable to chess, right? Maybe? No? Not really?) I've recently codified the concept of the Lufthansa Line, the straight line continuing where the tailfin left off to carve through the fuselage. This is a very common and very disappointing fuselage trope. The Declined, or SAS Variation, is named for an airline I specifically contrasted with Lufthansa from my very first post on this blog, SAS.

The SAS Variation simply curves this line outwards towards the front of the plane, stopping the cutoff from being quite so blunt and hopefully undoing the unbalancing effect somewhat. This can solve some of the nastier effects of Lufthansa Lines, particularly on shorter planes, but can also look very wonky if implemented without enough care. It's not always a big improvement, but it's definitely not the exact same thing, either, and it's this shape which Alaska Airlines attempts. Being introduced in 2016, this livery actually pre-dates SAS, but Delta and Lufthansa weren't starting their own namesake patterns either. The names aren't attributed based on innovation, but on formative status in my own specific understanding of airline liveries. SAS as contrasted to Lufthansa is the holotype for my creation of the taxon, and thus earlier liveries are retroactively SASlikes. Birds are dinosaurs and whales are ungulates. Taxonomy is imperfect and has to accommodate new discoveries within a sometimes unintuitive framework. That's just how it is.

I think they do better than many. The fact that they use so many colors, layered over each other, is crucial to the effect. It accomplishes similar things as a gradient might, transitioning from dark to light with minimal pain in the process.

Image taken from Alaska Airlines's very useful branding style guide.

The shades of blue and green used resemble the Aurora Borealis. I can't find anything confirming that this is intentional but I can't imagine it isn't. I think they're very nicely chosen. Different lightings can make the blue (Alaska's material calls it midnight blue, but it's technically Prussian blue) look anywhere from true vivid blue to more of a deep ocean color, which is one of my favorite shades. In particular, the very washed out yellowish green is an absolutely gorgeous choice for a highlight color. I like that the colors aren't given equal purchase, though, and that the green is used sparingly for highlight, and to create that lovely subtle 'halo' around the face on the tail. Sometimes less is more, and this is one of those cases. In fact, their own website states:

Midnight is our primary brand color, and should be used sparingly to avoid overuse—giving more prominence to the Alaska Airlines brand.

(They also note that they took specific efforts in the design process to make sure these colors had significant contrast between them to meet accessibility standards, which I really appreciate and want to see more of.)

For example, if the 'intermediate' blue colors took up more of the plane, or were separate from the green, I would probably not feel any real way about them. I definitely wouldn't think they were nice if they just did a standard Lufthansa Line block with each color individually expressed. But using them as a trim to a nice clear deep blue, overlapping each other in a way that's very carefully mapped out but seems at a glance essentially random, halfway to mixing, like the dark tail is melting slowly into the fuselage...that's nice. That adds something.

The partially-overlapping, brushlike curves are further expressed as swashes on the winglets and engines. What's interesting to me is that if you look closer you can see that the little curves are on both the inboard and outboard sides of each engine and winglet, so you get that consistent curve, hypothetically, no matter what angle you see it from. I do think I appreciate that. The curves are just never going to all line up, because airplanes are inconveniently three-dimensional and there are as many angles to view them from as there are Planck lengths at a distance where you can tell what it is you're seeing. This is a weakness in all liveries more detailed than a Braniff jellybean and adding the curves to even the side of the engine that you're usually not going to see is definitely an appreciated attempt to mitigate this. Does it work? Maybe not totally, but I see the effort.

While there's never a perfect syzygy into one continuous line, the curves seem like they're part of the same nebulous body from most angles. I appreciate this approach. I think making things look pretty good from most angles is worth more than making things look really good from one angle and awkward from all others. As they say, the perfect is the enemy of the good. I absolutely love the use on just the inside middle of the scimitar winglet, which I already think is a gorgeous feature that just elevates the MAX and retrofitted 737NGs compared to the vanilla model. It's distinctive and stylish, and the limiting of the color to just the lower half of the upper blade has a real restrained elegance to it - these slashes of color are all the more effective for the way they interact with the space around them.

Just look at these winglets. They're such a tiny feature. It's absolutely wild that I can be this in love with winglets, but there's just something about split scimitar wingtips that make me go completely wild. The amount of space and the interesting shape leaves so much more room for creativity than just about any other wingtip device. Alaska Airlines does have planes with other wingtip styles, and it uses those effectively too - covering the lower half of canted/blended winglets and fully encompassing the interior of less pronounced split winglets - but this is where they look their best.

Back to bad angles, though...

Alaska Airlines has a weird weak spot, and it's from the front and slightly above. All those gorgeous swoops on the winglets and nacelles are basically impossible to see due to their two-dimensional nature, and you can see how the colors don't fully cover the back of the fuselage. My normal policy is to judge liveries by their weakest link, but I honestly almost want to be lenient on this because of how unlikely it is that you're ever going to see an airplane from this angle. The only situations you're ever above an airplane in are ones you're basically never going to encounter as a regular passenger. Don't get me wrong, I still think this could have been designed in a way which eliminates this weak point, but as far as weak points go this is quite excusable. Is that what Thetis thought when she dipped her son in the Styx? Sure, probably, but I stand by my take. For a lot of liveries their worst angle is close to side-on, which is just fully experience-ruining. This? I'm okay with this, relatively speaking.

On the other hand, one of the better angles is one a lot more people will see - below and to one side. The taper of the different bands of color really prevents the awful jarring cutoff that Lufthansa Line and SAS Variation liveries often have, and I feel like they trick the eye into thinking up more of the fuselage is occupied than it really is. Also worth noting is that the grey underside, which resembles a shadow, is actually intentionally painted on, which is lovely. This is a feature common to the Deltalike livery trend that I outline at the start of my Southwest post, which I do think is one of the things that makes me honestly a bit sympathetic to Deltalikes when looking at them next to Lufthansalikes - at least there's an attempt to distribute visual detail evenly. Deltalikes were already a bit dated by 2016 (it was not the longest-lived trend, though it came at a time in my life perfectly positioned to make me think it was more prominent than it was) while SASlikes were on the rise, and this livery has aspects of each, but it feels less like a conflicted result of an intermediate period in dominant trends and more like something which intentionally pulled features from both where it thought they might work best. It's rare that I get this sense from a livery. That's the right way to use trends - as inspiration, not a template.

Alaska Airlines is definitely not a true Deltalike, and I would argue it's not a true SAS Variation either. (For the record, I would consider the 1998 SAS livery a Deltalike, funnily enough!) It incorporates features of both, which makes me feel uncomfortable classifying it definitively as either, though it's definitely more of a SASlike than not. For example, from the side it just is a SASlike, because the grey doesn't go high enough and isn't contrasting enough to be visible except from below. This is in contrast to actual Deltalikes, which have a thin but clearly visible line on the lower side where the underside's block of color bleeds out.

This grey color is also on the engine nacelles, although it is very subtle. This does bring up a minor gripe of mine, which is that the design on the pods cuts off at a bit of an awkwardly sharp angle, usually not worth remarking on but possible to notice from some angles if you are, say, a livery reviewer and you look at these things very closely. What I do like, though, is that the grey on the belly actively connects to the color on the tail, feeling like an extension of it instead of an awkward choice made to mitigate it.

The final specific feature of the livery I think I want to comment on is the wordmark. I really like the wordmark. It's not in their custom typeface, AS Circular, a Roboto-ish sans serif I'm not a gigantic fan of, although I really like their custom web icons. They also use Highest Praise by Adam Ladd, a fairly cheap commercially available font.

As for the wordmark itself, though, I can't seem to find what font it's based on! I have to say the original 1966 logo would be great if another airline were to use it, the 1972 is somehow giving supermarket chain, and the 1990 logo would be great if not for the weird way the K overlaps the A, which just feels sloppy and unprofessional. The 2014 and 2016 incarnations, though, are great. The 2016 one (designed by the firm Hornall Anderson) feels like a great update, just cleaning up the earlier version, though I somewhat miss the lightning-bolt S.

The placement is what I want to talk about, though. Placing a wordmark is more of an art than you might think - I'll show a couple examples of Alaska itself doing a slightly wonky job later - but when Alaska's placement is good it's great. It's one of the least cramped-looking wordmarks I've ever seen, feeling free and airy, spreading upwards above the window line. The descending line on the K and the trailing like on the A both create a feeling of freedom, like it could just keep going but doesn't want to, yet is tastefully restrained and doesn't actually overstep its bounds. I like the solid single color, and I like that it reaches almost to the engines, preventing that empty-forward-half feeling. The one thing I'll comment on for this set of images is that the left-to-right reading direction of English does mean that it looks distinctly worse seen from one side than the other. I much prefer the forward slant, which feels aerodynamic fitting with the motion of the plane, vs the alternative, in which it feels like the wordmark is trying to catch up with the aircraft's nose.

On shorter planes, though, Alaska fumbles a little. They choose to line up the wordmark with the engines instead of with the nose, creating an awkward look when it overlaps the door and nearly reaches the cockpit window. I would have leaned in the other direction were I them. This picture also demonstrates a strange feature which rears its head in certain lightings where the shading on the tailfin image makes it look almost wrinkled. I don't have anything to add to that or know how to solve it, but I need to point it out.

On a very long plane, conversely, the back half of Alaska's planes begins to feel that Lufthansa Line emptiness. The vast, vast majority of their planes are of a moderate enough length that neither issue is too overpowering, but I'm taking a wide view here! Also, the wordmark here seems to not be aligned with the engines, so...what's the idea?

Alaska Airlines is an interesting livery. More interesting than I thought I'd find it for sure. It's not just a SASlike with pleasing colors and a nice wordmark, it's a SASlike with thought put into features that can mitigate the inherent weaknesses of the SASlike. It doesn't always fully succeed, nor does it comprehensively fail, but it definitely tries.

At the end of the day, as usual, I wish there was less white. I'm sure it could have been done. I don't have an obvious solution in mind like I do for some hypothetical redesigns, so it's something I would have to think over and really dig into, but, like, Alaska Airlines makes more than a billion in revenue every year so I think that's reasonable to expect from them.

I initially started using the grading system as a way to categorize liveries without limiting myself to a very specific scale that I'll dither about for years and then change my mind about later, but it's started to end up in that role. I just don't know what better solution there is, so I'm going to continue trying to make it work. Alaska Airlines is a livery that I ultimately think I like, that I think is designed decently, but that is limited by the fact that a really good SASlike is still a SASlike - mostly white and rear-heavy. It's getting the most possible out of a flawed paradigm, and I've been inconsistent so far on how I rate a good SASlike or Lufthansalike because it causes me some legitimate cognitive dissonance.

I'm giving Alaska Airlines a provisional B-.

I think I might downgrade it to C+ later, which is why I say it's provisional. A good execution of something really limited - how do I even rate that? It's somewhere between tepidly good and better-than-average, which is a really awkward place to be. But that's probably a conversation for another day, because this post is long enough and I'm still not done.

Okay, I teased this earlier.

Him. Who is he?

The short answer: nobody knows. Not me, and not Alaska Airlines.

The long answer: deserves its own post. Both because it's long, and because I've hit image limit. And there will be images. Join me in tomorrow's bonus, where we climb our way through the rugged terrain of seemingly-lost history to attempt to put a name to this ubiquitous face.

[discar]

HZD Terraforming Base-001 Text Communications Network

Chapter 47 | Prev chapter | Next chapter Chapter Index

ADMIN [Zo]: GAIA, I have some questions about the machines down in the Burning Shores.

GAIA: Of course. How may I help?

ADMIN [Zo]: Aloy discovered a new machine called the waterwing. It appears to be similar to the sunwing, but with added functionality to allow it to swim underwater in addition to fly.

β: i think its literally a modded sunwing the code is near identical

β: i was able to get aloy an override for it with just a few parts

HIMBO: SPEAKING OF, HOW'D THAT GO?

FlameHairSavior: Dodging anti-air fire, talk later.

ADMIN [Zo]: My question was, what is the point of this machine? I assume it is more difficult to produce than a simple sunwing.

GAIA: The model designated "waterwing" is a dual-mode Acquisition-type machine, designed primarily for collecting and processing destroyed machines and other resources. The sunwing was designed to use solar energy to power its own processors, increasing the amount of time the machine could spend between recharge cycles. The waterwing improves on this base design by adding the functionality to scavenge underwater.

DIVINER: Then why not just make all sunwings waterwings??

Icarus: I assume it as Zo said. It is more difficult to produce. Specialized tools are always easier to design and build than general-purpose ones.

HIMBO: WELL, NO, A HAMMER IS EASIER TO BUILD THAN A CORKSCREW.

HIMBO: BUT A CORKSCREW IS EASIER TO BUILD THAN A CORKSCREW/FIRELIGHTER/SPARKWELDER.

HIMBO: THIS WATERWING ISN'T A GENERAL-PURPOSE TOOL, IT'S A TOOL WITH MULTIPLE SPECIALIZATIONS.

Icarus: I suppose.

GAIA: Correct. There are a variety of air-based Acquisition machines, and a variety of water-based Acquisition machines. Putting both into a single machine would undoubtedly be more expensive than simply building more of each individual machine.

β: we really need to recapture hephaestus

FlameHairSavior: Yeah, and if we had any real leads, I could be doing that instead of dealing with yet another crazy Zenith.

HIMBO: SO YOU LANDED?

FlameHairSavior: Shot down, a little, but we're fine.

β: what do you mean we

FlameHairSavior: I took Seyka with me. She has a stake in this. It's important to her.

FlameHairSavior: Her sister is involved.

FlameHairSavior: And her tribe.

FlameHairSavior: And she's very helpful.

DIVINER: ...huh.

Icarus: This makes me glad I never watched any of those ridiculous teenage dramas.

FlameHairSavior: Whatever. The point is, we're at the park. There's a fake volcano and a bunch of hologram dinosaurs. Lots of Quen guards everywhere.

Icarus: Why in the world would anyone build a fake volcano?

HIMBO: HEY, VOLCANOS ARE COOL!

Icarus: Putting your vernacular aside and accepting the comment in the spirit it was intended, I suspect that volcanoes lose some of their "cool" factor if they lack the ability to actually explode.

FlameHairSavior: I don't think it can explode.

FlameHairSavior: This whole park is some sort of... massive advertisement, or shopping mall, or both, for Londra's wife's most popular holovid series.

DIVINER: WAIT. WAITWAITWAIT.

FlameHairSavior: ...waiting.

FlameHairSavior: Actually stalking a Quen guard.

DIVINER: Are you talking about Pangea???????

FlameHairSavior: I think so, yeah.

DIVINER: [Squee.gif]

DIVINER: We've been looking for that series for forever! We only have the first movie, everything past that is in a format our focuses can't view!

DIVINER: Oh! Oh! If it's a park, there might be a gift shop!

FlameHairSavior: I'm a little busy right now, Alva.

β: also im sure any plush dinosaurs or whatever have long since rotted away to nothing

DIVINER: At least grab me copies of the holovids!

FlameHairSavior: I'll keep an eye out.

----

FlameHairSavior: Huh. Found an old data point about Londra.

DIVINER: Oh? Anything interesting?

FlameHairSavior: Interesting? Yes. Probably not useful, though.

FlameHairSavior: Apparently he thought his wife was cheating on him, so he sent his best friend the bodyguard to investigate her.

DIVINER: And??

FlameHairSavior: And she slept with him.

HIMBO: HA!

ADMIN [Zo]: Erend, be nice.

HIMBO: I'LL BET YOU A BIG BAG OF SHARDS THAT THIS GUY DESERVED WORSE.

----

FlameHairSavior: All right, have a better idea of where we need to go now.

FlameHairSavior: There's a place called the armory which should unlock the volcano, but we needed the key from a guy named Fedder, who was in the big dome.

β: why do you always have to do twenty things to do one thing

FlameHairSavior: I don't know. I really, really don't.

HIMBO: ARMORY? SO THERE WILL BE ZENITH WEAPONS?

FlameHairSavior: Not sure. I got the sense that name might have been from when the park was open. I doubt they had actual weapons inside. And if there are, they're probably all rust by now.

FlameHairSavior: Anyway, we spotted Kina in the dome with Fedder. She's definitely with Londra willingly, but she's... practicing for a play? It's weird.

FlameHairSavior: They were just doing a couple lines over and over. "How could I not come back?"

ADMIN [Zo]: Kina is Seyka's sister?

FlameHairSavior: Yeah.

DIVINER: Um, not sure if this is relevant, buuut that was Jane's most famous line from the first Pangea film!

FlameHairSavior: Jane?

DIVINER: Walter Londra's wife! Well, that was her character's name.

HIMBO: SO HE'S... MAKING THE QUEN ACT OUT HIS MOVIE?

DIVINER: We have experience with that sort of thing, so maybe it was their idea?

FlameHairSavior: I don't even know.

FlameHairSavior: Anyway, we waited for her to leave so she wouldn't be caught in the crossfire, killed Fedder, got the key. Almost to the armory now.

DIVINER: Don't let us distract you!

----

FlameHairSavior: Shit. ShitshitSHIT.

Icarus: Everything is going well, I take it?

ADMIN [Zo]: Perhaps the armory was just the fertilizer depository.

FlameHairSavior: Londra has brainwashing tech. That's what MSP is. "Mutiny Suppression Protocol." It got trashed in the Old World because it made the subjects more violent, even if they were also more loyal.

FlameHairSavior: That's why he has so many Quen guards ready to murder.

DIVINER: ...shit!

FlameHairSavior: But he was able to perfect it on the guards. He's planning to use it to brainwash a select retinue of Quen to be his new inner circle, copies of the friends he had in the 21st century.

FlameHairSavior: That's all he wants. Adoring friends who can't quite think for themselves.

β: and what hell just be on a barren planet with his harem

HIMBO: THAT'S NOT WHAT A HAREM IS.

MARSHAL Kotallo: Usually.

HIMBO: UH. I SENSE A STORY, BUT I'M NOT SURE I WANT TO ASK.

MARSHAL Kotallo: Not every Chief of the Tenakth has been as selfless and forward-thinking as Hekarro.

HIMBO: YEP, ALREADY REGRET IT.

FlameHairSavior: He's also getting DNA samples from all the Quen. He's going to have a colony of brainwashed clones to rule over with a pantheon of gods. But of course he'd be the only one with REAL power.

Icarus: How do you know all this? I doubt he left out a datapad detailing his full plans.

FlameHairSavior: We met his personal AI, Nova. He's basically been brainwashing her for a thousand years, "tweaking" her personality hour by hour.

FlameHairSavior: She begged us to kill her.

Icarus: Ah. That is unfortunate on multiple levels.

Icarus: I don't suppose you kept a copy of her core programming?

FlameHairSavior: No.

Icarus: That is likely for the best.

DIVINER: Waitwait! Does that mean Kina is going to be part of his retinue? Since she was doing lines his wife used to do?

FlameHairSavior: Yeah.

DIVINER: ...how old is Kina?

FlameHairSavior: Old enough to understand, young enough that it's still creepy. She hasn't been brainwashed yet, though. He's a perfectionist, so he's putting off the final selection.

ADMIN [Zo]: Small mercies.

FlameHairSavior: I'm going to the volcano. Hopefully I can find a way to kill him through his shield. Maybe this Zenith weapon will do the trick?

Icarus: I haven't seen the specs on it, but I wouldn't hold my breath. I highly doubt Londra would have given a minion something that could hurt him.

----

FlameHairSavior: So, there was a slaughterspine.

β: was it londras

FlameHairSavior: Yeah, and it was a big one.

FlameHairSavior: On the plus side, Kina finally realized what a bastard Londra is.

FlameHairSavior: On the down side, I think Londra has something else waiting in the wings. The slaughterspine felt more like a distraction.

Icarus: How did he control the slaughterspine? You said he was using a HORUS printer, but surely he wouldn't be foolish enough to print out SCARABs.

HIMBO: WHAT ARE THOSE?

Icarus: The Corruptors. They could easily run out of his control, especially if they're fresh from the printer.

FlameHairSavior: He officially doesn't care what happens to this planet, so I don't think he's losing any sleep over that.

DIVINER: What about the Quen!

FlameHairSavior: Oh, right.

FlameHairSavior: Well, after we took down the slaughterspine, Seyka took Kina and the other surviving Quen back to the settlement. I think most of the brainwashed guards are already dead, so they should be able to reintegrate.

DIVINER: That's good to hear!

FlameHairSavior: Londra went back to the bunker. He's up to something big.

HIMBO: KEEP US POSTED!

Chapter 47 | Prev chapter | Next chapter Chapter Index

[multiplicity-positivity]

I‘m a questioning median system, and I‘m a bit confused right now. I don‘t know my origin, but I definitely know we were influenced by trauma. That‘s also how I first thought about the possibility of plurality, bc I was researching cptsd and (p)DID. I felt like I could relate to pDID, and I also read about OSDD, specifically 1a) and 1b). This is what confuses me: I feel like I don‘t have super distinct alters, it‘s more like we‘re mostly co-fronting or co-con. But I ALSO feel like there‘s not enough amnesia for 1a), like no full blackouts. There is a lot of emotional amnesia and grey-outs though. So all in all I feel v invalid because I feel like both don‘t apply fully, but also both DO apply.

Hi! We’re sorry you’re struggling with this! Pinning down a specific diagnosis can be super difficult, especially without the help of a qualified professional! If you’re not already, we would absolutely recommend speaking to or bringing this up with a therapist. They may be able to help you narrow down a diagnosis and figure out what’s going on with you!

For what It’s worth, we’re a DID system who also exists primarily through co-fronting and co-consciousness. We have occasional blackout amnesia, but our system mostly experiences greyouts! We also spent a long time not thinking we ever had any blackouts, before we learned more about projected memories and how our system functions by hiding our amnesia from us.

We’ll go ahead and plug our resource post for questioning systems. There might be a few links in it which could be useful! We’re sorry there’s not too many links which are OSDD or P-DID specific!

Best of luck to you with figuring this out. We know it’s not easy learning about your system and what sort of disorders affect you, but we’re wishing you the very best on your journey!

🌸 Margo and 💫 Parker

[campgender]

do you have any tips for online cruising? I’m new to kink in general but have lost a lot of mobility recently and my ability to socialize offline has diminished so while I want to amp up my sex/kink life I realize it needs to happen primarily online for now…

ooh what a fun question, i’m honored you asked me❣️ + i hope things are going as smoothly as possible for you in terms of adapting to your new mobility level! i went kind of broad here but you’re more than welcome to ask any other questions 💖

ofc all of this is with the major disclaimer that like, i’m just some faggot, i can only speak to what i’ve experienced + read, what works for you may differ substantially & that’s totally okay! on that note this is at times specific to tumblr or a similar posting platform as i’m not personally familiar with grindr etc

it’s fairly common practice in tumblr cruising spaces to make a notes app list or something similar with selected kinks, boundaries, etc, that way you can send it to a play partner for easy reference without necessarily sharing that information on a blog at large (though some people put similar reference lists in a pinned post, which is fine too!) not a requirement by any means but something you might find useful

consider what types of virtual sex acts you’re interested in / comfortable with (of course, it’s okay if this changes). options include sending and/or receiving photos, videos, or audio; a synchronous audio, two-way video, or one-way video call; and long distance app-controlled toys (eg Lovense)

what kind of check-in would you want afterwards, if anything? this can of course vary depending on the person & activity. at the expense of making a vast generalization, it’s my impression that in-person kink spaces promote norms of checking in a day or two after a scene by default (at least that’s what the texts i’ve read across various decades claim, which are certainly biased towards a positive portrayal of these communities in other ways) whereas in my experience (and to my dismay lol) this isn’t as much of a thing online, like there definitely have been people who’ve checked in with me without me asking but they were the exception

it can also be helpful to think about your feelings about fantasizing about scenarios you can’t physically do for disability reasons. there’s absolutely no right or wrong answer, it’s just another conversation i’ve had to hone over time lol. for probably 3 years i wouldn’t sext about stuff i couldn’t do (kneeling, for example) because it made me feel like shit about myself; then for a long while when “stuff i couldn’t do” almost always included “have sex in person,” i got more flexible about that, to different degrees with different people

you don’t have to talk about your sex life with anyone you don’t want to, but when possible it can be helpful to have a buddy (whether they cruise / have casual sex / whatever themself or not) to talk things out with if you have a negative experience or are worried or confused about something. i am very good at construing any situation to be my fault so if i’m triggering it’s helpful to give one of my housemates the basics of what happened & them be like you didn’t do anything wrong / they shouldn’t have done that / etc. i’m also happy to be a sounding board (as long as any ask/dm has the relevant content warnings) with the caveat that i can’t guarantee a prompt response. sex-positive resources like Scarleteen are also good grounding tools for me in terms of like, other people believe in these consent practices too

one aspect to consider especially with D/s play is the (potential) difference between messaging about a shared fantasy versus one person telling the other what to do in real time (for example, “and then i’d make you shake your tits for me” versus “now shake your tits for me baby,” or whatever).

for a lot of people the latter is a different set of boundaries, including being totally off the table. being told what to do, even without videoing it or otherwise ‘proving it’ to the other person, can be an incredibly intense experience and might create feelings in someone that they weren’t expecting

as an example of a boundary i learned the hard way, someone once told me like “shut up, stop typing. do XYZ” & it made me feel like i couldn’t message to safeword if i wanted to. ig just like, even if it’s not a big deal to you be aware that it could be a big deal to others, you know? & if it is a big deal to you that’s okay

personally i tend to tell play partners i’m fine with casual sexting whenever but need to set aside a dedicated time for a scene (for example, telling someone how to touch themself) which usually means scheduling in advance

it’s absolutely not your fault if someone does something without asking, but if you’re interested in subbing, it could be helpful to have a plan ahead of time for how you want to respond if someone just starts ordering you around. there’s nothing wrong with not responding the way you planned, i just feel less overwhelmed & more in control when i’m less caught off guard

as far as like finding virtual play partners i only know what i do lol

go into relevant tumblr tags for what i’m into, sort by most recent posts, read until i find something i’m into, see if that person is looking for hookups. if so check out their blog based on my, like, cruising criteria or whatever lol; if not maybe follow them if other posts are good. repeat

different like communities & kinks & such have different norms for getting around tumblr censored tags, sometimes making things one word or various positions of periods or slashes. “example k!nk” (that’s an exclamation point instead of an i) is a common format, same with adding “nsft” (not safe for tumblr). if you’re looking for disabled play partners and/or disabled porn the “disabled nsft” tag could be a good place to start!

i look in the notes of posts i think are particularly hot (or my own posts) for tags that are hot, interesting, or well-organized & check out those blogs

same for posts that make points about consent etc that i particularly agree with

so you’ve found somebody whose posts you think are hot who’s looking for / open to new play partners, now what? ofc everybody’s different but some of the stuff i look for when deciding whether to message someone:

do they have a tag or similar for serious posts, such as about consent, stereotypes, communication, etc? do they seem to have compatible views to yours?

can they recognize when they should (or when you’d want them to) drop character? some people’s blog personas are “always on” in a way that’s not compatible with what i need; someone adding an aside at the end of an ask they’ve answered to clarify or provide reassurance goes a long way

i’m not sure how to describe this exactly but like, is there flexibility & room for disagreement in their language? this is again a personal preference but while people taking a firm tone & making (unconscious?) assumptions & whatever can still be hot when i’m jerking off or something, it’s super stylistically incompatible with what i want in practice. the play partners i’ve been most compatible with are the ones who’ve answered asks more like “are you into X? if so i would do Y. or if not that’s totally fine, i’d just do Z 💕”

do they express their boundaries with other people?

i hope some of this is helpful! best of luck to you & have fun❣️

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hello, I am an ISFP. I was wondering if there was a way to stop feeling wary all the time. My ISTJ friend is usually nonexpressive and placid. For some reason I cannot help but think that whenever my friend is being uncharacteristically warm and loving to me, that she is wanting me to do something for her. In the past, I've found it surprising but sweet when she has this disposition, because it symbolized to me that we were close and that she isn't usually like this with other people. I usually never have a problem with hanging out and doing nice things for her, and I have always taken people’s cheery spirit at face value without suspecting anything.

We have been friends for a quite a while before any of this appeared. We have supported each other through everything in the past. But my friend has an agreed upon bad habit of gatekeeping (she is extremely smart and wants to get ahead in life, first being going to a good college). She makes a big show of gatekeeping resources and not telling us.

Lately however, whenever she acts warm she has been following it up with stuff she wants to share from her life, usually related to success which I always express happiness for, but whenever I share something from my life she doesn’t take as much interest into listening/processing it than I do. I feel like when I need help she purposefully witholds information/guidance that could help me or just does the “bare minimum” a lot but when she needs help I put all my effort into it.

I do not view friendship as doing favors for each other (I dislike that perspective,) I view friendship as when you both are happy and having fun hanging out with each other. It is just that I have been trying very hard to be there when she wants guidance but it is not being reciprocated fully, rather she in weaker forms and so it makes me feel like her outward affection is stemming from her wanting me to do things for her.

I just want to be able to feel happy that she is happy without having to worry if she is using me. How do I stop feeling this pit of uneasiness or bitterness whenever she is very outwardly cheery?

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

The first thing you need to understand is that negative feelings are not an enemy to be eliminated or vanquished. Feelings provide important messages about your mental health, as well as important guidance for moral behavior. In this situation, the feelings are telling you that there's something wrong with this relationship. Getting rid of your feelings isn't going to right the wrong. Feelings won't go away until you hear them and do what's right. It sounds like your approach to relationships might be a bit too passive or naive, meaning that you aren't willing to confront difficulties and complexities head on.

Have you discussed these issues with her in depth? The best way to handle relationship problems is good communication and establishing mutual understanding. If you lack the courage or confidence to speak up as you'd like to, perhaps it would help to improve your communication skills. You have to be able to discuss the problem in a way that focuses primarily on your needs and doesn't descend into accusations and personal attacks. You have to be able to hear every side of the story. You have to be able to negotiate a solution that everyone can accept. You have to be able to face up to the negative side of yourself and others and still feel empathy and compassion.

Yes, I agree that relationships should not be seen as "transactional". But the fact of the matter is that relationships can have serious problems that need solving, if they are to remain viable over the long term. There is well-established research about what constitutes healthy versus unhealthy relationship behavior. Generally speaking, healthy relationships should have a strong sense of: fairness, trust, kindness, emotional generosity. If any of these ingredients are missing, the relationship easily becomes unhealthy.

I'm only hearing your side of the story, so I have no choice but to accept what you say about her as true. Although, with high Se, I believe you're capable of having a decent grasp of the facts. Let's examine the facts: You don't have fairness because, overall, you give more than she does. You don't have trust because you don't believe she has your best interests at heart. You don't have kindness because she hoards information and views helping as a loss to herself. You don't have emotional generosity because she is stingy with care and unresponsive to your needs.

The conclusion I would draw based on these facts is that she isn't psychologically equipped to be a good friend or the kind of friend you're looking for. Her behavior indicates she cares about herself at the expense of others, which means she's not relationship-ready. If you speak up about how the relationship is not meeting your needs and she's apologetic and willing to work on herself, then you can continue in the relationship for awhile to see whether anything actually changes.

It takes the effort and commitment of both parties to make a relationship work. If she's unwilling to acknowledge problems and is resistant to changing her behavior, there's not much you can do to repair the relationship. At that point, you have a painful decision to make about how to proceed. Are you going to draw some boundaries and lower your expectations in order to keep the relationship going? Are you going to consider the idea that the relationship might have reached a natural expiry date?

Keep in mind that it's unnecessary to cast blame; it's better to simply accept the facts about people and the facts of the relationship, and make the most reasonable decision for the sake of your well-being. Unfortunately, relationship breakups are an unavoidable reality of life. To be clear, I'm not saying that this relationship needs to end; that's for you to decide. The main point is that it's not good to let relationship problems fester until you harbor too much resentment/anger and reach a point of no return. You have to speak up every time you encounter hurtful/toxic relationship behavior because it must be changed in order to maintain a healthy and positive social life.

[devourerofdoves]

A, D, E, G, H, R, T, W, Y AAAAALL for Bill the bastard

A - Abduction: Would they abduct their darling?

Eventually! Y'know, love pyramid and all that jazz! Though maybe he wouldn't initially frame it as abduction— he's just spoiling me! And, oh boy, am I lucky for it! I'd be there quite a while before ever realising exactly what'd happened.

E - Events: What events would lead up to their obsession?

I'm a HUGE NERD. I love engineering, mechanics, physics; these are all very helpful interests for someone who you're intending to use as a pawn to have! He provides resources, knowledge, tools, and I do as he says. Easy! And SUCH an easy person to manipulate! I suppose he found it fun, and the more time that passed, the more fun he found it. The more entertainment value I served. Why get rid of something so sweet and submissive? Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to keep me around! Maybe, when all this is done, we can rule together. He can make me like him. He'd like that, he thinks. And he knows I would.

G - Games: What manipulation games would they play to get you to fall for them?

LOVEBOMBING, FOR SURE. Backhanded insults and such, too. Appealing to my desire to feel properly seen by and connectedwith another living thing.

Such a sad creature. None of what I went through was fair. It wasn't my fault. We have more in common than I realise! Neither of us asked to be like this, neither of us asked for any of what we went through to happen. Miserable, desperate. Desperate for companionship, for control. A tragedy, really. He understands. He's the only one who can.

H - Hunt: If their darling escaped their clutches, how would they hunt them down?

Would I ever truly be able to escape, though? On the off chance that I ever did, he'd order someone else to come find me. To bring me back to him. Perhaps he'd look himself, if it took too long. Not initially, though, no, he's busy. Busy figuring out what he did wrong, and how he can make sure I never pull another stunt like that again.

R - Running: How would they stop their darling from running away?

✨Psychological abuse✨🧡

If necessary, though, he can and will physically chain me up.

T - Treatment: How would they treat their darling?

Like a friend. A close friend. And, God, I would eat it up. Lap up every single drop of attention and affection, no matter how twisted.

At least, that's how I'd see it.

Of course, his treatment of me is really incredibly poor. Bill is abusive. Primarily psychologically, but physically, at times, too. He is cunning, sly, and manipulative. I am not spared from this.

Y - Yandere: What type of yandere would they be?

I'm not sure! I don't know anything about the different types of yanderes; I hardly ever use the word myself. Draw your own conclusions. Extrapolate from what I've given you.

[torque-witch]

Oct 22nd 2023 - Get back to witchcraft with me!

I think it's time we *try* to delve back into witchcraft, paganism and assorted shenanigans, blog style! It's been way too long for me and I feel so disconnected spiritually, so let's start with the basics and have some conversations about it now that a few years have passed.

*One big caveat may be that it's 2023 - politically and socially so many things are different or changing, so I want to go through all of my notes and ideas and hopefully re-examine them as someone in their 30's, married, nonbinary, queer, disabled and leftist.

So let's start with this - What is Witchcraft?

As I remember not too long ago, there were more frequent debates about what category witchcraft actually falls into. Is it inherently religious? Is it just a craft or tool?

Personally I feel like the general consensus is that it is primarily a metaphysical (and also physical) craft whose purpose is to help achieve very specific outcomes. It is inherently unbiased and neutral - but depending on the way a practitioner guides it, it can be used for good, evil or neutral gains.

While witchcraft isn't a religion, it can certainly be used in tandem with various or all religions based on beliefs and doctrinal rules. Many people equate witchcraft with Wicca, but *that religion was formed in the 50's and therefore postdates most historical references to witchcraft as a practice. We will return to that point!

It feels like in 2023, most modern and generally American-centric practice of witchcraft tends to include mindfulness, positive affirmations, vision boards, intentions, and working with Tarot and crystals. This of course is completely accessible and understandable for most people, which makes it ideal for the general population. Plus, it helps to destigmatize the practice, and I think it has done that for the most part.

Some talking points we could delve into would be that while this form of witchcraft or magic is definitely accessible and easy to digest (I also mean accessible to disabled folks!), sometimes it can reek of privilege, capitalism and inaccurate information. Witchcraft wasn't always easy to find resources on, the methods were often very complicated and folklore driven, you could literally get killed etc etc. And let's not forget that the "I'm the ancestor of witches you couldn't burn" is categorically incorrect and a weird take, not to mention the assumption that only women can and did practice. Again, another thing we will talk about.

Other than that I think the general modern idea is that witchcraft is the act of bending energy or reality to your will with the help of herbs, sigils, energy work, visualization, etc. Some people do not feel the need for any supplementals, some people practice witchcraft in tandem with gods or spirits. Some of us have even created new avenues in the modern age like using machines as a power source! (It's me) Witchcraft is sort of open to interpretation, but I do think that reference material and the basics of the scientific equation still are important within context. What historically works? What methods are time honored? Why do we use x to represent x in spellwork? So much of physical creation of spells is based off of ideas we have been building as a species for generations within storytelling. Some people believe that those stories and beliefs are what gives certain ingredients or methods power - because there is so much historical energy associated with them.

What do you think witchcraft is, or what does it mean to you in your practice? I'd really like to get back into the conversation, back into books and talk about theory.

And as a bonus - let's do a quick Tarot reading about what witchcraft is!

What is witchcraft - Nine of Pentacles, Reversed

I like this - basically a call to create your own path, to balance your own scales and take action to regain a sense of purpose and fulfillment.

How does witchcraft help people - The Moon

It helps people to explore their emotions, perceptions and beliefs! It helps to cultivate self-awareness, introspection and intuition. It can help to confront your fears, develop personal guidance and trust in yourself, and helps you to meet and understand your place in the world.

How does witchcraft harm people - Two of Cups, Reversed

I feel like the message is about stereotypes in one sense - that there is still a lot of misunderstanding about witchcraft societally and within our own communities that divides us or causes big rifts. Many of these problems are rooted in pride and the ego - who is right? Who is being self-destructive? I think it is a reminder that while there is absolutely a time and place for correcting behavior and beliefs with facts and evidence, that listening and being curious on both ends of the scrutiny can be beneficial.

What are you waiting for?

This is just a representation of the freedom that witchcraft gives to those that practice it. Your will is your command or desire. Where will that take you? What will your intentions be and what will they bring? Witchcraft can be as little or as big of a part of your life as you want it to be. So why not see where it takes you?

Anywho - I hope that was a fun and interesting read! I will try to do these more often as I try to re-immerse myself back into witchcraft. Expect some book reviews, local shop reviews, theory conversations! And if Tumblr isn't the spot for it anymore, I will probably be posting smaller blips on Instagram or full posts on my website. But until then.

Cara / Torque | They/Them/She dhdivination - Instagram dhdivination - TikTok SwampHag - Wix Death's Head Divination - Etsy

[tossdoll]

How to raise your Snorunt?

please note this is in my experience and most people live in different dimensions and such. miyuki found me, and it was a very long ride.

snorunts need to live in colder climates, and are not meant to be suited to be in warmer to even hotter climates, as they are known to overheat easily. like many ice types, they are prone to get heatstrokes incredibly easily if not careful. try looking into setting up a mini pool with snow or ice, or even your own bathtub if you have it for this enrichment. many may not know this, but snorunts do have fur. i was a little surprised too, when i first found miyuki as a little one. this fur needs to be brushed a few times a year, usually when they need to lose their coats for warmer weather and for when the weather starts getting cooler which their coat comes back.

please do not try taking away your snorunts' straw coat, as much as you think it would be "cute" to dress your snorunt in different outfits. think of it as you trying to take away a falinks' armor, or even a mimikyu's cloth without their knowledge, just don't. they are able to groom themselves through snow and rocks.

the dex entries may say they primarily eat snow and ice, but this is not the full story. they also need to consume minerals and irons to help build up for their evolution, which is how the wild snorunt line get this intake, through living caves. to simulate this, you would need to add pokemon safe minerals and vitamins, which you can find off the shelves of your local pokecenter. it's not very much talked about, but being bitten by a snorunt is similar of getting your hand slammed stuck between a metal freezer door from this diet, ouch! it's rare for one to do so, but they will if they feel threatened enough.

snorunt are social pokemon, but with their own and not with humans. this is due to the fact, very long ago, humans would try hunting them for their resources. it is still a practice happening to this day, thus, do not be surprised your snorunt may not automatically trust you or other humans. they need another friend, so please get them one if you can. this will also help warm up to you, as doing so, will help them realize you are all a pack together, like how it is in the wild.

[aromantisk-fagforening]

You’re really cool! /gen

What languages are you learning?

Which ones do you want to become fluent in, in the future?

Where do you learn them?

What’s your favorite language?

Would you advise someone to learn Norwegian?

Do you have a language you’d never want to learn?

What’s the hardest thing for you when learning a new language?

How’s your day going?

ok first thank you for this epic ask. my answer is long so it's under the cut.

I'm currently primarily learning Russian. I am sorta learning Swahili, but I haven't come any far yet.

I'm also continuing to learn french, but I'm already pretty good at french so it's pretty much just reading stuff in french.

I'm sorta learning northern Sami or Sami languages (multiple), but I haven't gotten far.

I'm not sure which languages I want to be fluent in. I guess french, I'm definitely not on a C1 level yet but I know a lot so it's probably the easiest. But I just want to take things as they come a bit. Sami languages (probably northern Sami has most materials) are a candidate, because decolonization and stuff, plus it's a new language family to me which interests me a lot. Though I'll likely try one I know people who speak.

but for learning in general I am considering/currently learning:

- Arabic (maybe Egyptian)

- Swahili

- French

- Russian

- Chinese (probably mandarin)

- Urdu

- Sámi language (unsure which)

- Norwegian sign language

- international sign language

- Usamerican sign language (ASL)

- Thai

And of course I'm probably gonna update this list. (metaphorically speaking, not physically this list in this post)

Where I learn:

So for french I learned primarily in a classroom setting, but honestly that has left me with very weak like audio processing for french.

For Russian I've been using Duolingo which is pretty good, though as people talk about I don't understand the grammar so if I want to use it formally I'm probably gonna diversify. (not sure what I'll do yet)

For Swahili I'm using language transfer. But I struggle to motivate myself to do language transfer lessons. They're primarily audio based and I'm genuinely addicted to music so I'm not always in the mood.

I've also used Polygloss, which is an image description game type thing where you get feedback on your language skills from other users. I would probably recommend this one if it sounds at all interesting to you. This has many languages btw, even toki Pona.

I've used drops but that app fuckings sucks ass. It's difficult to remember stuff in complete isolation. It's like the opposite of reading wikipedia in the target language.

For Thai I've used "Thai drill", which seems pretty good, I haven't gotten far with thai though because I've focused on other languages.

I've used lingodeer the short time I learned japanese, I've heard it's supposed to be really good for that.

I also like using texts, for Russian I've used a lot of wikipedia, trying to just read articles in Russian and see what I understand. For french I've used magazines and lemonde. For Sami I've used just the regular news.

I've tried chatting apps for language learning but I haven't really stuck to them too much so idk if that's for me. I think people like those though.

I've tried YouTube for Norwegian sign language and I find myself less likely to use youtube for language learning, but it definitely helps with getting access to resources when there's little.

Also miscellaneous websites. For Norwegian sign language, Russian and French I've used websites and it's helped at least a bit.

Translation services are essential! Like yeah don't just put everything through translation, but if you need a specific word or want to check your grammar it can be very helpful. I use it a lot in french.

On whether to learn Norwegian that depends what you value.

Some options are: novelty (different language family? unfamiliar writing system?), easiness (similar? are there apps? are there complex conjugations?), practical use (can you watch tv in the language? do you know anyone who speaks it?), different culture (will it give you access to a world radically different to your own?), decolonization (is it a colonized language?)

But personally I'm inclined to say yeah please learn my language. I can recommend resources and help teach you if you chose it, so the easiness is high (plus it's on Duolingo). the practical use, though lowered by the fact that most Norwegians speak english, is decent because it's easy to access free books online in Norwegian, plus news (that may be different like with Palestine - the free national news report does not have to be approved by isnotreal). And in general Norway values freedom of speech. The easiness is raised by you speaking English, and Norwegian also doesn't gender anything depending on subject's gender (unlike french), only grammatical gender, and you can choose between 2 & 3 genders. For novelty it's probably not that interesting though. For decolonization it's a colonizer language, Norway colonized a part of Sápmi and forced them to speak like us, no one colonized Norway. wait actually there might be more than Sápmi? idk I found this about Denmark-Norway, it might be wrong to pin it on just the Danes even though they had the upper hand historically, idk (there was centralized royal rule based in Copenhagen in Denmark). But yeah that last part idk if it really matters, it's not immoral to learn a "evil" language (of any kind), it's more that I consider it extra moral to learn a colonized language. (I wouldn't necessarily consider Norwegian evil but you get what I'm getting at).

For languages I wouldn't learn, honestly there's not many. I'm skeptical towards learning more languages like french because it's hyper gendered & usually non-binary excluding, but I think Spanish for example is one of them and it's so widely spoken it's kinda worth it.

The most difficult thing for me when learning a language, I guess staying consistent. I only have like one perfect month on Duolingo, and for other languages like Norwegian sign language I've not been consistent at all, not even reaching a rate of one lesson a month.

My day is going pretty well, especially after answering this ask :)

[austim]

A Blog Update

Hi everyone, long time no say. Sorry this is a long one, but I haven't figured out a way to keep this post brief or summarized by bullet points, so I've bolded and italicized text here and there to make it easier to read.

As you may have seen in this post, my queue ran out because of how little time I've had to browse stimblr let alone properly tag and queue posts. Most of you also know I haven't been taking or completing requests for a long time either because I had lost interest or simply didn't have enough time.

Another reason I haven't completed or accepted new requests was the sheer backlog of requests I hadn't yet completed; this might sound silly, but all those incomplete requests made me feel bad about every request I received after that I *did* complete. Considering most of those requests are at least a year old at this point and I feel unable to move forward without doing them, I've wiped out the backlog altogether and deleted every ask in my inbox.

I want to take a moment to apologize to everyone who sent requests that I haven't completed; I'm sorry I let your sweet requests sit in my inbox untouched for ages. In the future, if/when I can reach the request output I had when I first started this blog, I'd love nothing more than to complete your request for you, whether it's the same as before or something new altogether.

You may have also noticed I've been radio silent regarding the current genocide in Palestine. I've refrained from being "political" on this blog and primarily reblog political posts to another, almost-as-popular sideblog, but as things only get worse and I get sent asks from desperate families every day, I don't think I can remain silent on this specific blog about it anymore. I had refrained from making any posts (including stim posts) about this before because I thought it might be in bad taste, but at this point I think it can only do good to use my most popular blog as a platform for this. I am sincerely sorry for not doing so before.

I made a very late stimboard here with links to various resources on actions anyone can take, both monetary and free, but I want to do more. I will be temporarily opening up requests with some conditions in hopes to encourage y'all to donate to campaigns and orgs, which I will make a detailed post about later. I'm hoping this will both help the numerous displaced Palestinian families find safety as well as steadily get me back to a place where I can make more stimboards again.

I will be temporarily replacing my pinned post with a post about these new requests.

TL;DR I am trying to be active again, I have wiped the request slate clean (sorry), and I will soon start taking requests for stimboards in exchange for proof of donations to help Palestine.

Thank you for reading, I hope you're all doing well <3

[feriowind]

I'm sorry if these have been asked before, but:

- How long have you been drawing?

- What equipment do u use?

- What is ur favorite method to draw? And do u sketch first?

- Any tips for someone who is in their mid-twenties, has trouble drawing a darn football, but would very much like to learn?

oooh ive been drawing since like elementary school and i was very fortunate to have a supportive family who encouraged that!

i used to draw primarily in photoshop but i switched to clip studio paint earlier this year and it's been great except for a few filters that i miss from PS

i draw on a cintiq, but i have an intuos that i use if i can't set up a cintiq for whatever reason

definitely drawing on a cintiq or intuos in CSP or PS is my preferred method to draw, and i do sketch first or even draw thumbnails if it's a more complicated drawing that requires more planning

i def recommend drawing from life or studying your favorite artists' work for practice. Figure drawing is especially great imo and i think one of the best ways to learn how to draw faster/cleaner the more you do it. Taking a class would be the best way to learn, but there are sites like posemaniacs.com or adorkastock which are good free resources if you can't take a class

i think it's okay to copy your fav artists' works IF YOU DON'T POST IT ONLINE like just keep it private lol, it's what i did as a kid and it def helped me learn how to draw the things i enjoyed seeing in other people's art.

Of course try not to fully copy someone else's style, especially if they're a smaller artist.... it's just considered poor taste :y though parody work of famous artists is (usually) fine.

[multiplicity-positivity]

Hello! Found your blog recently, and we kinda wanted to share our story. Sorry if this ends up being long winded :[

Also CW for {possible?} dormancy and faking/feelings of faking

So around the beginning of the month, I started suspecting that I was a system. At first, I just thought I was faking it, and was simply kinning my fictives heavily. Part of the reason I thought this was because 1) I have a very active and vivid imagination; I had an entire AU going on at one point, and 2) I have a tendency to get attatched to characters, then kin them, then project onto them like a motherf'er. I didn't hear anyone at the time, either. I was also having a gender crisis. Then it happened. Next thing I know I'm hearing voices and picturing my ‘members’ just walking around.

Within a week or so, about 4 of them just disappeared. Went ghost. Couldn't hear them, couldn't see them, they were just gone. I presumed they just went dormant. And yes, they are still ghost. Around the same time is when I thought I could feel some unknown member co fronting randomly. It just felt like someone was in the passenger seat of a car with 7 other people in the back. I also started developing some communication with everyone else via one of those fake texting story apps. I could hear them, I could perfectly visualize them and our ‘headspace’ {Which is just a blank void}, and I was talking with them. Nobody's ever been front except me {I think?}, but they exist. Sometimes. There are times when they're running around like rabid monkeys or helping me decide whether or not to go another night without sleep, and then there times where my head feels empty. Just hollow, like there's nobody else there.

Sometimes I still think I'm faking it due to my absurdly detailed imagination. But I will say-I've felt weird when suddenly being referred to with feminine pronouns as a whole, but I feel better when referring to myself with feminine pronouns separately from everyone else, and they also have different genders and sexualities, and it makes me feel better than labeling myself collectively, if that makes sense. I've already dragged out my whole life story, and I don't want to take up anymore of your time, so I'll get to what I came here for.

A new member popped up recently, she's a fictive from a song, and I have no idea where they came from. All I know is she just...Appeared. Didn't even say hello, just popped up. Are there reasons for any kind of alter to just appear out of thin air with no apparent cause or origin? Also, can someone's overactive imagination play a part in having a system somehow {Aside from headspace visualization}?

{Sorry this was so long :[ }

Hi! So we feel like having an active imagination can play a big part in being plural, if that’s how you choose to identify! There is a term - imagian - that describes headmates who are imaginary friends! Maybe this describes you and your potential system?

We will say that if you don’t suspect a dissociative disorder, then “alter” is not the right term to use. The term “alter” refers to an altered self-state or altered personality state, and is a clinical term meant to describe specifically parts of a system with a dissociative disorder like DID and OSDD.

If you’re questioning plurality at all, we always suggest ruling out trauma as a potential origin before considering anything else. We have some resources in our master post, which I’ll link below, that may help you learn more about dissociative disorders, how they manifest, and if you might have one.

In dissociative disorders, no, alters don’t really just “appear out of nowhere.” They split due to trauma, and function primarily by holding onto traumatic memories. Sometimes an alter may come forward during times of peace and safety, but they usually didn’t split right then - they just made themselves known after a long time in hiding.

But for other kinds of plurality, headmates sure can simply appear! Whether walk-ins, imaginary friends, or headmates with other labels or origins, lots of systems have headmates who simply joined their system with no easily discernible cause. And having an active imagination sounds like it could be a huge contributing factor for having a system of imagian headmates!

If you’ve only been suspecting you might be a system for around a month, it may take some more time before you figure out a solid answer. We can’t confirm or deny your plurality - that’s something only you can do! Please don’t rush this process; patience is really important when it comes to questioning something major like multiplicity! Take your time, do lots of research, and don’t jump to conclusions before you’re ready!

We hope this helps! Best of luck to you on your journey!

🌸 Margo and 💫 Parker

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