#knowing if I tag tgs you guys will see all my old art…

[swedenis-h]

TGS Mondays save me TGS Mondays..

@glass-scientists

[bansheeoftheforest]

OC Masterlist

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Welcome to my OC masterlist! I have a lot of ocs! I hoard them like a goblin and I will never stop! SO!!! OCS!!!! So far we got two collections of OCS; The O’Jekylls, which is Dr. Jekyll’s fam, and my very own DND character who I turned into a Lodger! <3

All OCS can be found under the tag #Banshees OCS!

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��              --Lodgers--

——————Humans——————

Cederic Beumont

Cederic Beumont is a French artist (and prostitute) turned mad scientist throughout multiple events happening in his early adulthood. He is the oldest twin out of him and his sister, Cassandra, and the two of them were raised by their single father in a small village in France. After the death of their father by the age of twenty, Cederic and his sister travel around Europe until they move to America, where they lived for five years. During those five years, Cederic and Cassandra-- previously inseparable-- have a falling out which ends in Cederic storming out and leaving Cassandra to run the hotel they had set up on the coast of Florida. The falling out, combined with a lot of other stressful and dramatic things happening around him, manages to make Cederic’s mental health crumble until he practically goes insane. Previously an artist, Cederic turns to science in hopes of being able to achieve something that would make him “more” than his sister, who always has been the “smarter” one out of the two of them, which ends up in him studying Frankenstein’s life like the Holy Bible. He gets obsessed with the study of lightning and he gets obsessed with the idea to one-up God, as he previously had been born and raised Catholic, and he feels like he would be able to do everything that Frankenstein failed to do (take care of Creature, own up to the responsibilities, keep the innocent safe, etc) despite having no proof of him being able to do everything differently.

With the help of his boyfriend, Wilhelm, and Wilhelm's biology studying friends, he manages to continue his experiments. He moves between calling himself a Fulminologic Necromancer and a Necromantic Fulminologist, depending on the people he surrounds himself with, as he studies lightning as a whole and applies the knowledge to necromancy. His early experiments involves reviving dead animals with the use of electricity, although he does dabble in alchemy and chemistry when it’s needed.

Around the time he is 30 years old, he hears the word upon the street about the Society For Arcane Sciences in London, England. His boyfriend helps him scrap in enough money for a one-way ticket to London on the promise that they will still hold contact, to which Cederic immediately agrees. He travels to London by ship and marvels over how fantastically dirty and gross the entire city is, there is slums everywhere! So many animals and mythical creatures!! The moment he is within the city walls, he manages to find Sergeant Enoch Brokenshire and pleads for him to show Cederic the way to the Society. Brokenshire is, of course, very put off by this hyper-energetic bastard he can barely hear over his (normally trained away) french accent, but Brokenshire does not get paid enough to care. He basically just grabs Cederic by the collar and drags him like a stray cat over to the Society and to Dr. Henry Jekyll’s office, to which he basically dumps him on the doorstep and leaves. As Jekyll practically collects scientists, and as they already have a necromancer in the Society, Jekyll welcomes Cederic with open arms and shows him around, unaware how Cederic... is an actual mad scientist, not just using that word as a moniker.

Cederic quickly becomes friends with Sinnett and Luckett, all three of them having a knack to blow things up and play with fire. Cederic also loves to harass Tanis, the local necromancer, as he loves that they practically study the same thing and did you know this and that and wouldn’t it be cool to blow up a corpse? You know Moreau might actually have been onto something with the animals and yadeyadeyada-- Tanis does not like Cederic. Cederic thinks that they are best friends.

Cederic joins the Society sometime before the events of TGS, however, immediately jumps all over both Jasper and Frankenstein like a yappy dog excited to have new friends. He is absolutely in love with Frankenstein, much like everyone else, but quickly has a change of heart as he feels she is a wimp, because he could do this and that so much better and why would you do x y and z when you could have done a b c instead. He has a massive ‘R.I.P to them but I’m different’ complex and feels like Frankenstein can’t own up to her work and her legendary image like she should. He thinks he can one-up her, and basically tries to snatch her stuff and studies when she isn’t looking. Creature would very much like to bonk him over the head with a frying pan.

Cederic also has a pet ghost cat-- or more or less spirit cat as she has never actually been alive-- that he has had since he was a baby. He named her Adelaide-Antoinette because he is french and extra like that, and the two of them are actually inseparable, as Adelaide is connected to Cederic through a bunch of magical hijinx. Adelaide can talk to Cederic, however, no one else can hear or see her, making most people think that Cederic is genuinely insane as he is not afraid to walk around talking to himself. The only one who knows about Adelaide is Maijabi, who saw her in one of his ghost mirrors one time, but he thinks its fun to see the other Lodgers thinking that Cederic is insane, so he doesn’t say anything.

Random Trivia: Cederic is originally my DND character, played in a specific type of campaign called Scion. It takes place in the real life world, and our campaign is set during the 1960′s if WW2 had never ended. Cederic and Cassandra were originally forced to flee by the outbreak of the war and the invasions of France. Scion is also based on mythologies, were the player characters (the Scions) are children of the ancient gods. Cassandra and Cederic are children of the egyptian god Bastet, ergo, the ghost cats.

Tags: #Banshees Cederic

Art of Cederic / Original Info dump on Lodger!Cederic

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——————Animals——————

Adelaide-Antoinette

Adelaide-Antoinette is a spirit and companion cat connected to Cederic. She has been by Cederic’s side for as long as he can remember and her, her sass, and her snobbishness were many of the core influences that shaped Cederic into the person he was before his mental breakdown he is today.

Adelaide is a Birman and lives up to the snobbish reputations of such breeds. When she is particularly feisty, she likes to sit on top of Cederic’s head and use him as her steed, and also loves to call him a peasant. She is also very territorial, and very protective of Cederic too. She is basically the epitome of “No one is allowed to bully him but me”. She is also very vocal and loves to have Cederic seem like he is talking to himself. Cederic has a knack to recite Hamlet and other Shakespeare plays to her, and while it’s fun for him, Adelaide wish she could bite his tongue off after the 10th recitation. After so many years, the recites might be up in the thousands.

Adelaide also did not like all the other creatures in the Society immediately, but quickly realized that it was either them or Cederic forever, to which she quickly began to force herself to warm up to them. Her favourite is Jasper’s unicorn, who most likely share her snobbishness, but a close second is Zosi and Griffin’s cat. When she is particularly mad at Cederic, as he tends to neglect her a little once he gets caught up in his work, she likes to hang around Maijabi as he is the only other living person who can see her. Cederic also uses her to spy on the others sometimes, as she can go through walls and can’t be seen.

Tags: -

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        --The O’Jekylls--

——————Humans——————

Collin O’Jekyll

Collin O’Jekyll is Henry Jekyll’s “paternal uncle” and also his make-shift father. Collin and Henry loved each other from day one and the two of them often spend most of their free time in the pastures with Collin’s horses. Collin is an artist, who dabbles in both writing and art, but mainly breeds and sells horses for income, despite not really needing it due to his inheritance. He has always been supportive of Henry’s scientific interests and was the one to take him out to all of the scientific plays that Henry watched as a child, as his parents were less than supportive of the boy’s interests.  While mainly breeding and raising horses, Collin also buys and takes care of every animal he can get his hands on. One of his oldest pets is a male calico Maine Coon named Paddington, who got dumped by his breeder for being male. All of Collin’s animals seem to hate everyone but him, and of course, Henry. Collin also bred and gifted Henry his own horse once he turned 15; a dapple grey Clydesdale named Mayhem, named after her fiery temper. Much like Paddington, she hates everyone but her owner.

Random Trivia: Collin has a very weak immune system and therefore always wears a scarf, no matter the season or weather. He also knows how to sword fight and taught Henry a few tricks before he left Scotland. He is mainly a very cheerful and optimistic guy but won’t hesitate to throw hands if you try to hurt those he loves.

Tags: #Banshees Collin, #Collin O’Jekyll

Art of Collin / Art of Collin and Paddington

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Douglas O’Jekyll

Douglas O’Jekyll is Henry’s “biological” father and Collin’s older brother, but dislikes his role as both father and brother. He is a policeman and known for his ruthlessness and hatred for those he deems have done wrong, and he also has a massive superiority complex. He has always disliked Collin greatly and the two of them have always had a rivalry between them, however, that rivalry got to it’s boiling point when Douglas and Collin were in an accident as kids, mainly caused by Collin unintentionally during a riding trip in the Highlands, which made Douglas earn some of his scars and bred the resentment between the two of them even more. Douglas has always been disapproving of Henry’s... Well, he has always been majorly disapproving with anything that comes to Henry. He dislikes Henry’s love for his uncle, his scientific interests, Henry’s friends, his wish to become a doctor... Douglas dislikes pretty much everything with Henry, which might have its grounds in Henry looking like and taking after a lot from his uncle. As Henry grows older, Douglas’ dislike for both him and Collin grows stronger, and Douglas starts getting outspoken of his hatred for Henry. He also gets physical every once in a while, which was one of the reasons for why Henry left Scotland completely despite Collin doing his best to protect him.

Random Trivia: His scars are either from the Accident, from his work as a policeman and also from many of Collin’s animals. He has a family pedant made out of emerald with a ‘J’ for Jekyll in it, as he is the first born and the heir of the family. He has always felt like Collin was the favourite with everything, both by their parents and by the fact that Douglas’ own son and wife likes Collin more than him, which just bred his resentment for his younger brother even more.

Tags: #Banshees Douglas, #Douglas O’Jekyll.

Digital art of Douglas / Traditional art of Douglas

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Abigail O’Jekyll (Née O’Haggins)

Abigail is Henry’s mother and Douglas’ wife. She comes from a long line of Scottish non-aristocratic nobles and she is the oldest out of six sisters, making her the main heir of the O’Haggins as she has no brothers. In her youth, she was very sought after by many bachelors, and met the O’Jekyll brothers during a ball hosted by her parents. She immediately took a liking to Collin and during the dances, they fell quite in love. However, as the first born, she was forced to marry Douglas instead due to pressuring from her parents who deemed Douglas more worthy than Collin, but she and Collin continued their relationship in secret. Both Douglas and Abigail knows that neither really loves the other all that much but they play their parts due to societal expectations, even if that doesn’t make Douglas any happier when the suspicion of Abigail’s and Collin’s relationships arise. Abigail is, too, not very supportive of Henry’s scientific interests due to all of its stigma and consequences that it can bear, not to mention that she is quite afraid of Douglas’ reactions to Henry’s continuous love for science, but she allows Henry to pursue non-harmful studies in secret to keep him happy, as his happiness is the most important thing for her. She does her best to be a good mother and succeeds in that, although everyone has their bad moments. Random Trivia: While Henry looks more like Douglas and Collin, Hyde takes after Abigail’s side of the family. She wears a locket with an ‘A’ on it with a picture of Collin and Henry inside, which needs a lock to be opened (mostly to keep Douglas from discovering the photo). While she is indifferent to most animals, she loves cats (that are well behaved, which rules out all of Collin’s cats) and she likes horses, although she will never, ever ride one ever again after she fell into a hay bail when Collin tried to get her to ride one of his horses. Tags: #Banshees Abigail, #Abigail O’Haggins.  Old Art of Abigail / Updated Art of Abigail

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——————Animals——————

Paddington

Paddington is one of Collin’s most beloved cats. He is a male, calico coated Maine Coon that got dumped by his breeder for being a male calico (therefore, sterile). He lived in the streets for a while until Collin found and adopted him, to which Paddington immediately became a little diva who hates everyone but Collin and Henry. He is the cause of some of Douglas’ scars and have torn more than one of Abigail’s dresses, but is as good as gold to Collin and Henry.

Tags: #Banshees Paddington

Art of Collin and Paddington / Written description of Paddington

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Mayhem

Mayhem is Henry’s own horse that Collin bred and helped Henry to raise. She is a dapple grey Clydesdale named after her fiery temper and knack for chaos, much like most animals that Collin has been responsible for. She is quite spoiled but very well behaved when needed to be, and she often thinks that she is the mother of those she likes, such as Henry, Paddington, Zosi and Collin. Once Henry left Scotland, she was one of the few things he took with him, and he still owns her to this day; allowing her to live her best, destruction-bringing life in London, striking terror in every stable boy in the entire city.

Tags: #Banshees Mayhem.

Written description of Mayhem

[attract-mode-collective]

Exactly 79 Photos & Videos Concerning The Game Boy (plus other handhelds)

So... hope you’ve all been following me on Twitter, which is more or less the unofficial new home for Attract Mode. Mostly cuz Tumblr’s days are, alas, numbers, plus I haven’t warmed up to Medium as much as I had hoped to. Though I’ve actually spent the past two months republishing every single post that contains mainline Game Culture Snapshots, so it has remained somewhat useful at least.

Now, for a while there, I had been compiling every single thing tweeted. But because I’m now so damn active on that end… plus I’m busier than ever with other projects… I’m way behind with those digest posts, and the very idea of playing catch up legit gives me anxiety. Yet I have been sharing lots of cool things, which all deserve to be in the blog proper… and because a lot of them are specific to the Game Boy, I figure, why not just focus on that?

Like the above, which is a technique for producing full color photographs via the Game Boy Camera, and yet another thing that I can’t believe hasn’t made the rounds!

Sticking with Game Boy photography, here have a pair of mods that will greatly enhance picture quality. The first involves mounting SLR lens onto a Game Boy Camera (via ekeler.com)...

And the second has one shoving a Game Boy Camera into a SLR itself (via @MaxKriegerVG)...

As someone who was into video games as a kid, and also interested in photography, the Game Boy Camera was the first camera I was able to call my own. Am pretty sure this was the case for others as well?

I also remember seeing this ad in Nickelodeon Magazine (which I would eventually writer for, not too long later) and being absolutely gob smacked (via nintendroid.org)…

Though as much I loved Nintendo brand of FUNtography, I would quickly discover… as did everyone else I also assume… that taking pictures is serious business (via @PolandNintendo)…

Not only did I have a Game Boy Color, but I also had the Game Boy Printer (I still own both, for the record). Unfortunately my snapshots from Link’s Awakening have long since faded, but as with many things, you can find copies online (via gameandgraphics.com)…

Speaking of the world of print, coming soon is a handy guide to Nintendo handy game machine (via miki800.com)…

That one magazine ad featuring Princess Peach catch your eye as well? Well here’s a much better look at it (via suppermariobroth)…

I love handheld gadgets of all kinds, yet some of the popular ones confuse me. Like Hudson’s Shooting Watch; it makes no sense to have a gadget that can detect button presses without a game attached. Guess I’m not alone (via instagram.com/kazzycom)…

A realization I made while sifting through Game Boy related content is how popular the color yellow is with many. Cuz Pokemon? Anyhow, the final post from a blog that specializes in gorgeous photographs of gorgeous hardware, which I just brought up again very recently (via hard-aware)…

How your parents used to trade Pokemans online (via melonjaywalk)…

And no, Game Boys weren't the only things that one could connect to keitais ya know. And yes, Game Boys aren’t the only portables I’ll be showcasing (via anthony10000000)…

I own quite a few VMUs and am always looking to expand my collection… but nothing yellow, sorry. Instead, I want the one covered with dolphins (via anthony10000000)…

So my new favorites artist is Eri Kitamura, and not just cuz she makes pretty looking Game Boys…

She also makes pretty looking girls playing Game Boys (well, this one is technically listening to music)…

Was originally going to post the first thing from Eri that caught my eye, which is a Game Boy with a girl on it, but instead here’s a Game Boy with a girl on it playing a Game Boy…

Time for two more videos from the same individual responsible with the process for producing color photographs at the very top. And it’s what everyone has been waiting… specifically the backlit Game Boy Color mod everyone has been waiting for.

The process is detailed in this two-part video, and here’s the first one (it’s about 50 minutes long cuz spoilers: this shit ain’t easy)…

And here’s part two, which is ONLY 40-ish minutes long…

The author of the videos actually has a store, so if the process seems a bit too daunting, you can purchase a pre-modded unit for $250. Actually, this one is $260, cuz of the dual shells. Quite the price tag, yet somehow totally worth it (via instagram.com/esotericmods)…

Now might be a good time to mention how… remember that GBA with the GameCube finish from eBay a few months back? Well, I decided to get the one that resembles a Super Famicom, something I’ve been lusting over for years.

Well, here’s what the aforementioned seller had in his listing…

And this is what I got instead…

Yeah, that green shoulder button is not the right shade. After some complaining, I got the seller to admit that the one in the picture was hand painted; he didn’t know where it get ones that it’s exact color as on a Super Fami controller.

He also had a no refund policy, yet I bitched & moaned enough to warrant an exchange, for another Cube-esque model, one sans the stick. Cuz it’s comparatively boring to look at, here’s a version with the stick…

Again, mine just has the standard d-pad. As for my replacement… the colors of the A & B buttons are not an exact match, once again. But it’s close enough (am mostly just sick of dealing with that guy, aka johnnys_merchandise, whom you should all avoid btw), plus I have started to scour AliExpress for replacements.

BTW, my failure to obtain a modded handheld that channels another form of hardware has me wondering if I should go for something completely different instead (via instagram.com/wakuwakuisland)…

Up in the mountains, flower bloom amongst Game Boys & Game Boy Colors, whereas deep in the forest, you’ll find mushrooms and Game Boy Advances (via pxchinko)…

Some say memories are fuzzy, though for others, they're leafy (via lyosphe)…

I’ve looked all over for tinycartridge's original post, but no luck, so you can all instead have my personal copy of the earthy wallpaper that was shared years ago (and which I still to this very day)...

The Game Boy Micro, DS, and DS Lite are like family, and like siblings, there can the occasional squabble (via benkyo-es)…

@frankcifaldi: When I met this guy in 2003 and he told me he was going to make an extensive fan site about the Supervision, a Taiwanese Game Boy knockoff, I was like "sure dude." 15 years later he actually launched the thing??

Meanwhile, the Game & Watch Perfect Catalogue just came out, with the full low down on all 59 models. BTW, had no idea there were 59 in total until @ionadisco mentioned it…

How Game & Watches were sold in America; I fondly recalls this ad in-between the pages of Amazing/Spectacular/Web of Spider-Man (via suppermariobroth)…

And how Game Boys were sold in Japan, one day one apparently, which would explain this salesperson’s rather perplexed demeanor (via flashbak.com)…

Silly as it sounds, and as silly as he looks, the US version of Firebrand is nonetheless a warm & welcoming face from my childhood (via nintendometro)...

Mario dropping a knowledge bomb (via suppermariobroth)…

Here’s Peach seemingly kicking Toad’s ass in Super Mario Bros Deluxe, which I’ve been meaning to tweet for a while now, but now seems like the right time & place for obvious reasons (via nintendometro)…

A cute comic about someone finally beating a game after ten years, or at least I believe that's the case (you know, language barrier and all; via @desune593)

Sailor Moon seems to enjoy handheld gaming more so than in the arcades (via uglygreenjacket)…

It saddens me that ravages of time is robbing me of my precious memories, including the names of 90s anime, hence why I had to ask on Twitter who exactly is this (answer was Tenchi Muyo; via shxtfased)...

It’s SethEverman, just playing some pokemon blue…

Speaking of music, it again saddens me that I wasn’t about to make the trip to Japan to catch chiptunes at Square Sounds, and various associated venues. At least @bit_shifter_ took this great snapshot of Glomag at Cyberpunks Osaka…

Meanwhile, here in NYC, we actually still have record stores. And you can grab Josh’s latest release, his first in 12 years(!) at Rough Trade (via bit-shifter)…

Though back to Japan; attended Square Sounds would have also afforded me the chance to check out Tokyo Game Show, where I could have gotten that VMU shaped USB drive that was being sold at the Sega booth (via miki800)…

A few weeks before TGS, there was an earthquake in Japan, in northern island Hokkaido. Many were left without power, but one person was able to keep up with the news, thanks to an old DS peripheral that basically provides bunny ears (via kotaku.com)…

On a semi-related note, here’s someone watching old ECW VHS tapes on their Game Gear (via heavyelectricity)…

Sorry, but the only other thing I have that’s related to Sega’s Master System on the go is this gif from a pizza ranch salad dressing (yikes) commercial, which was cross-promoting Sonic Chaos (via sonicthehedgeblog)...

I have no idea why I'm so amused by this Getty Image of a Neo Geo Pocket that was confiscated at summer camp. Or perhaps no explanation is needed? (via hellomrkearns)…

Speaking of the Great Outdoors, here’s my buddy Steve enjoying some Mario Kart 8 in the middle of a forest (via instagram.com/vitaminsteve)…

And speaking of Mario Kart on the Switch, Bowser seems like a pretty cool dood to have a car trip (via suppermariobroth)…

The Switch is so beloved that people are doing fan art, not for any particular game but the simple the act of playing with it (via annazees)…

Granted, one of the best things about the Switch is all the different ways in which one can play (via kanekoshake)…

If you enjoy your Switch on the go and are looking for a way to store games… and are a diehard Breath of the Wild fan as well… plus if you have access to a 3D printer (via miki800.com)…

It’s a tribute to Star Wars… games… all of them… featuring Princess Leia focused on her DMG (via deviantart.com/robduenas)...

BTW, do you still have your Game Boy? If not, here ya go (via anthony10000000)…

When the realization hits that your Game Boy Color library is incomplete (via @Bootleg_Stuff)…

Back to my buddy Steve, who visited the Primark at the Staten Island mall and took pics of the game related apparel that, sadly, were no longer in stock by the time I was able to swing by. With the one thing I really wanted being this shirt…

This pair of Super Mario Land X Air Jordans is only $1,350.00 (via miki800.com)…

I’m sure you’ve seen him already, but for the sake of completion, here’s that grandpa from who rigged this bike with 11 phones to become a Pokemon Go master (via bbc.com)…

Yet another sign of our times, literally (via fuckdragonballz)…

This image features a PSP and a MacBook, both of which are from the mid-2000s, yet feels very late 1990s/early 2000s. Why? Those USB cables (via jcgraphix)…

And last but not least, here’s Paris Hilton with her DS in 2005 (via @ParisHilton)…

[dragongirldreams]

So, I guess it’s time enough that I should talk about my experience with Tumblr. I mean, it’s only been, what, a couple months since I said I would talk about it?

...イヤァァですけどー...(For those who can’t read Japanese: “...Iyaaa desu kedo~...” so it would mean something like “...Even though it’s unpleasant...” or ”...Even though I’m reluctant...”)(...what? You think I’m stalling? Me? Stalling? Using the Japanese language? Stalling? ...Okay, okay, you got me.

Uh... the thing is, unlike my time spent on that forum and on Deviantart, the time I spent on Tumblr, well... I don’t really look back on it fondly. And I guess it might have been part of the reason there isn’t really a “4th” influential site...

I- I’m not talking about you though! That era was already looong over by the time my sister had me make this blog. All the people that follow me, and all the people I follow, you’ve all been great!

This already has a fair bit more than I usually put above the “Read More,” so, let’s, uh, continue this there. I suppose the above counts as ample enough warning.

So, uh, to offer a slight recap... There are 3 specific sites I (somewhat frequently) visited at specific times early on in my internet life that stick out to my as “significantl” somehow. I don’t know, I just consider them “important.”

The “First” was a roleplaying forum I was a regular on. I wasn’t really good at roleplaying, honestly, but that wasn’t important. While it was the main focus, roleplaying wasn’t the only thing we talked about. This was the first internet community I really felt a part of, the first place I felt I could be myself, really. It was also where I learned that even on the Internet there were unspoken rules and things you “just shouldn’t say,” when I said why “shapeshifting” was the superpower I wanted, and everyone else called me “weird” for it.

The “Second” was Deviantart. I didn’t actually make an account here, because I was starting to get self-conscious. I mean, I wasn’t going to be writing any stories, (my roleplaying was bad enough when I have other people to help me, I’m sure it would be even worse when I have to come up with everything myself) and I wasn’t going to be writing too many comments, (what if I said something “weird” again and made people uncomfortable?) so why even bother?

Umm, before I continue, I want to make it clear that the self-consciousness didn’t really come from the rp forum. Aside from the one “weird” incident, they never really said anything to put me down. Most of my self-consciousness either came from Real Life and all it’s many pressures, or perhaps because I also started spending some time on TV Tropes, learning all about things like “Mary Sues” and “Self-Inserts” and how it’s all bad writing. I don’t really consider TV Tropes an “important site,” though. Despite ultimately spending a comparable amount of time there as on the others, it feels more like a footnote than a proper chapter, at least to me. It’s just missing a certain, je ne sais quoi.

So, back to Deviantart. While it was (and probably still is) primarily an art site, I spent more time reading... I kinda wanna say “fanfics,” but a lot of them were original, rather than being based on someone else’s work. I guess they were kinda like doujinshi, but short stories rather than manga. That’s the kinda “feel” they had about them. Anyway, I eventually found that I particularly enjoyed “TGTF” stories, and I spent most of my time here looking at groups with that as a theme. I can’t think of any particular lessons I learned here, to be honest. It was just somewhere I could go to escape the stresses of the Real World.

Uhh... onto Tumblr proper, finally. I think I’ve said this before, but to restate it, the reason I came to Tumblr in the first place was that I wanted to learn how to be a better feminist and LGBT ally. So, I mostly hung around in political and social justice tags.

But, unlike the Deviantart groups which had moderators to decide what gets in or not, on Tumblr anyone could put anything they wanted in any tag they wanted.

I could tell some of the more blatant stuff was bunk, if you asked me I would definitely say that trans people were the gender they said they were, and that gay people had just as much a right to love each and marry each other as straight people, but... I was still a kid, and I didn’t really understand the concept of “dogwhistles,” so I got pretty easily fooled by people just appropriating progressive-sounding language, and I ended up internalizing a lot of TERF/truscum and bi/pan/acephobic rhetoric. (Also a bit of racism, to a lesser degree, because I didn’t spend as much time looking into matters relating to race as I did ones related to sexuality or gender.)

Looking at the above, it’s not hard to see a bit of a common theme there. They all paint their targets as “just [privileged group] trying to invade/appropriate [oppressed group] spaces,” and evil for it. This kinda mixed poorly with my experience with “interruptions,” and led me to somewhat misinterpret sayings such as “stay in your lane” and “it’s not my job to educate you.” I managed to see my mere presence as a “straight white cis man” as something which inherently was offensive and silenced minorities. And as I was a big Liberal until recently, I put a lot of value on “free speech,” so if my presence in LGBT and feminist spaces was “interrupting” people, then it was imperative that I, a disgusting straight male, not be in LGBT and feminist spaces.

I suppose that, if that first forum unravelled the lie that the internet was free of taboos, then Tumblr shattered the delusion that it was free of gender.

I kinda want to go on a bit, but I can’t really think of any follow-ups. Such a line just has too strong a sense of finality. Luckily, I’m realizing that there actually was a “Fourth.” And in a way, it kind of acts as a mix of the other three.

So, setting the scene. Having quit the roleplaying forum out of lack of confidence in my roleplaying abilities, stopped reading TG stories on DA to not be offensive, and no longer going on Tumblr due to it only reminding me of my body, where was a gi-- guy to go?

Why, none other than 4chan, of course! That place that’s famous for being offensive! And specifically /tg/, the roleplaying section! I am not smart. (Note: /tg/ stands for “tabletop games” ie DnD, WarHammer, MtG, and the like. It is, for the most part, unrelated to the “TG stories on DA,” which is short for TGTF) (Second Note: Like with Tumblr, I at least had the wisdom to stay away from the boards with especially bad reputations, ie /b/, /pol/, /lgbt/. I also didn’t really go on /a/ or /v/ often, mostly just staying on /tg/ --which was considered one of the more progressive boards, relatively speaking.

Anyway, in /tg/ I especially spent a lot of time in /cyoag/, or the “Choose Your Own Adventure General” threads. Now, some of you might know of the old “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, but the CYOAs posted and talked about in /cyoag/ were very different; they were more like character creators, or would-you-rathers. Here’s some I enjoyed as examples (they’re kind of a big, though);

Sorry for the image spam there. And these are just some one-page ones; there are ones much longer I’ve enjoyed, like “Serene Serendipity,” -- which is about going childhood again, and pretty wholesome despite the name -- “Royal Revival,” -- where you’re secretly the reincarnation of a princess from a fantasy world who got assassinated, but your family managed to pull off a resurrection spell -- “A Mage’s Familiar,” -- you get reincarnated as the familiar of a wizard, or a witch. It does pretty well with it’s execution, there’s a bunch of different ways you can take things -- or the “Accidental Magical Girl CYOA” (or “AMGC,” for short) -- where, for some reason or another, you are turned into a Magical Girl (although an optional perk allows you to be a Magical Boy instead, that means one less perk for other things). I find the use of rolls/random numbers really increases the replayability, and helps to inspire different ways to take things. There’s this one perk, for example, that has you roll up a second character as a teammate, and this one time I rolled it, but then the new characters kept also rolling it until I had a whole 5-girl squad to go on (imagined) adventures with. That last one actually got so popular it had to split off into it’s one thread.

...I’m not sure where I’m going with this. I mean, ultimately I am, but I’m not sure how I’m going to get there. I’ve been trying to think of ways to continue for at least a day or so, now. “Maybe talk about the culture” I thought, but what would be an organic way into it? And how would I be able to capture the feel? A lot of the important things, while nigh omnipresent, were also often in the background.

I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s any kind of lesson I learned there. But it offered some sense of community when that was what I needed, as well as some pretty good escapism.

To end things off, I think I should mention this one line I saw the other day, though I don’t quite remember were. I think it was an old tweet. Regardless, what it said was, “If you were a teenage boy on 4chan, you’re either a neckbeard or a girl.”

I don’t think I’m much of a neckbeard, though. So, I guess what I’m saying is...