#obligatory disclaimer that I obviously do not know these people and this is all fiction

[tyre-mismanagement]

Hey, hope you're having a lovely day <3

i would actually love to know some of ur logan/girl!oscar headcanons if you wouldn't mind :)

I hope you're having a lovely day as well <3

Girl!Oscar just makes so much sense to me. The seemingly unemotional, very rational, and unfashionable demeanor translates well into the behaviors of a girl who’s trying to be taken seriously in a heavily-male dominated environment like motorsports/F1. 

I also really like the resulting dynamic between girl!Oscar and Logan. Obviously, I know F1 drivers are rich men who I do not know, and they are unlikely to be ardent feminists. However, Logan does give off vibes of being very sweet and polite, at the very least. 

Girl!Oscar knows from too much experience that the rich white boys in karting have a tendency to be exclusionary and hostile. When she finds out  that her new F4 teammate is some American named “Logan Hunter Sargeant”, does not expect him to be any better.

She’s caught off guard when she actually meets him. Logan seems respectful and polite - He gives no indication that he’s disappointed about being teammates with a girl. 

Oscar’s not totally convinced though. He may seem nice at first, but it probably won’t last. 

Except that it does last, even when things get heated or competitive on the track. Oscar finds herself increasingly endeared towards him. 

I’m literally always thinking about Logan’s family leaving alone in Europe when he was a literal child!! Versus Oscar moving at a later age (14). I think Oscar and Logan would both bond to being away from their homes in Europe to an extent, but I do think Logan’s feelings towards his home and family are likely a lot more distant and complicated.

Oscar’s family come to visit her in Britain, and are also enamored with the shy boy they find her hanging out with. Logan gets invited to at least one family dinner. 

Of course, Oscar’s little sisters take every opportunity to tease her about her new “boyfriend”. There is a lot of blushing and loud denials from both drivers. 

Oscar texts Logan a picture of them on her family refrigerator. Logan still has that pic saved in his camera roll. 

[lilbirdblu]

obligatory disclaimer to all the "its just mc eggs its not that deep" people that this is about characters. we are allowed to post character analysis, even ones that arent positive, about fictional characters no matter what medium theyre from. this is 10000% about the characters, not the admins and there are moments i may not know about since i cant watch every pov but heres my thoughts on the sunny/leo "beef"

which it feels wrong, at this point, to even call it beef when its mostly one sided on leo's part and the adults are failing both sunny and leo

does leo have the right to be wary about the new eggs? 100%, absolutely

does that excuse her recent treatment of sunny? no

is leo to blame for her behavior? well, no, she's a child

do i think q!foolish and q!tubbo are good fathers? yes

did they both drop the ball in regards to this situation and should have handled it better? yes, but that doesnt mean its not too late now

again, i dont fault leo for being distrustful and cautious of the new eggs, its more than reasonable given what shes gone through. im glad she's warmed up to pepito and i think it's a good choice on foolish's part to not force her to interact with anyone she doesnt like while still encouraging her to try. that being said, i think he should say something to leo about how she has recently been treating sunny because it is quickly getting to the point where it is bullying, not "beef"

to be fair, maybe he hasnt seen [in character/roleplay] the extent to which she has treated sunny, and obviously none of the parents are aware of the baby fight club, but even then, someone should say something to leo if they see behavior similar to how leo treated sunny after the fight [although i believe foolish and roier are two of the only people she will actually listen to /neu] with that being said, i dont think foolish takes it very seriously and at the end day has a rather "well what can you do" type of mentality about it.

we know that leo is stubborn and can be a little hard headed, which is one of the reasons why i personally love her, but its been toeing the line in regards to sunny and i feel as though she crossed it during the baby fight club. sunny has been trying to take leo's feelings into consideration [among other eggs, such as tallulah, who excuse it as distrust of the new eggs despite being warm/neutral to both em and pepito while being harsher to sunny].

the fact that the fight ended and sunny was trying to leave when leo blocked the exit and continued to hit sunny shows that her feelings towards sunny are more than just apprehension. even ramon, leo's triplet, felt the need to step to in and separate them out of concern for sunny's well being.

i can also see the nuance of leo's behavior: its the first time where she has disliked someone and been forced to be in close vicinity/interact with them, and no one has taught her that this sort of behavior isnt ok so how is she supposed to know better?

its not an excuse by any means, but it doesnt make it any less bullying than it is. this is where the adults are failing not just sunny [by being bystanders] but theyre failing leo, too.

and sure, disagreements and fights between the eggs is interesting.. when it comes from both parties but when you have one egg--one child--who doesnt want to be around another egg child in consideration of their feelings while the other egg child vandalizes their things and hits them to the point of almost being downed--that's not a disagreement. thats bullying.

does leo have to like sunny? no

do i think that they have more in common and similar feelings of loneliness that they both dont realize, which could make way for a friendship? yes

would i mind if leo never warms up to sunny? no

its realistic. sometimes kids just.. dont get along and thats ok, its good to teach children that we arent going to get along with everyone or even like them [and not everyone is going to like us and we shouldnt try to force them to], but its also important to teach children that not liking somebody doesnt make it okay to treat them poorly or bully them.

in fact, this would be a really good situation in which both leo and sunny can learn the aforementioned, especially since their fathers are good friends that enjoy one another's company so i dont see them stopping hangouts anytime soon so leo and sunny will hopefully learn to, at the very least, be civil with one another. i hope this is the direction the story goes because a bully arc is one of the last things i personally want to watch

i understand its hard, especially when their first languages are not one that they share, but thats what the qsmp is all about, isnt it? coming together in spite of language barriers

im hoping the sunny/leo situation takes a turn for the better, even if it takes time to get to a point where they are mostly indifferent to one another w/o excessive antagonizing

with all that said, i will always have faith in the admins to give us their best, even if the outcome isnt what we wanted or expected

[woozapooza]

I know I’ve said basically this same thing before, but I was thinking about it again, so here we go again: interpretation of a work of fiction is a personal thing and there’s really no objectively correct reading, but personally, I’m eternally unconvinced by and uninterested in readings of The Sopranos that boil down to “these people literally cannot change, they’re destined to be Like This for the rest of their lives.” Obviously the show excels at showing the factors that constrain people’s choices, but if we’re supposed to disapprove when the characters justify their bad choices by downplaying their own agency (which I think we are!), then we can’t also believe that those choices were literally inevitable. It’s gotta be one or the other!

Like, on a gifset of the scene in “Down Neck” where Tony says, “You’re born to this shit. You are what you are,” and Melfi responds, “Within that, there’s a range of choices,” I saw a bunch of people in the tags saying that Tony was right, and I’m still all ????? whenever I think of that. He’s 100% right that the circumstances of your birth inevitably affect your life and your character, but Melfi’s response is also obviously correct, both in Sopranos world and in the real world. To say that he’s right and she’s wrong is, IMO, to fall for the very lie that he (along with most of the characters on the show to one degree or another) tells himself so that he doesn’t have to take responsibility for his life and his actions! Granted, some of the people saying “he’s right” may have just been joking, or they may have forgotten the full context of the gifs. But this is also just one example of a pattern that doesn’t get any less strange to me no matter how much it pops up. Actually, it’s a pattern that extends beyond The Sopranos. I can’t wrap my head around a reading of any story that boils down to “it literally had to turn out this way, the characters were always going to do what they did.”* To me, that interpretation requires either (1) believing that people do not have agency in real life**, or (2) believing that fate doesn’t exist in real life but does exist in the story***, which to me automatically renders the story pointless and boring because at that point it has nothing to say about real life.

Absolutely NOT trying to start a fight or anything, I literally just wanted to get these thoughts out of my head. Actually, no, I had to get these thoughts out of my head. I don’t have free will, which means you can’t criticize anything I do. Sorry but I am naught but a helpless victim of destiny 🤷‍♀️

*from an in-universe perspective, I mean. Not from a meta perspective. **obligatory blanket disclaimer that I realize that there are limits to any one person’s agency and I am NOT saying that you can do literally anything if you just try hard enough ***obviously some stories do have destiny built into them in the form of, like, prophecies or whatever, but that’s not what I’m talking about here

[hyperlexichypatia]

Obligatory Disclaimer #1: Yes, there is a lot of misogyny in the way people talk about the "likability" of female characters. Women in stories can and should be complex, flawed, nuanced, and human, not (just) "likable" (or "sexy" or "mother" or whatever other one-dimensional trope).

Obligatory Disclaimer #2: Yes, I know that an opinion expressed by a character in a story is not necessarily being supported by the narrative itself, or the author, and that people with piss-on-the-poor reading comprehension get this wrong. Good reading comprehension means being able to tell the difference.

Now that we've got that out of the way.

Doesn't it seem like "Female characters don't have to be LIKABLE, you illiterate misogynist!" is often a Privileged Feminist way to silence criticism of... very mainstream bigoted attitudes being presented uncritically in the narrative by being put in the voices of designated "unlikable female characters"?

I love a complex, nuanced, flawed female character. I love an outright villainous female character. I love a character whose flaws and prejudices are slowly picked apart by the narrative. I do not love having the classism, sizeism, and ableism I deal with every day served back to me in Feminist Fiction.

I do not love trying to point out "Hey, this award-winning book you all love, I don't actually like the way the protagonist talks about the working-class fat man. Or the younger woman with anxiety. Or the acquaintance with a disabled child and, like, linoleum floors or something." (Why do I just have all those examples at the ready?)

And being met with "Female characters don't have to be LIKABLE, you illiterate misogynist. Try reading some Serious Literature instead of your fanfic romance YA smut beach reads!"

"Uh, okay, well, it's not so much about the character being likeable as about the way the narrative doesn't seem to challenge the character's, I must reiterate, very widely held prejudices, that makes it seem less like a depiction of a flawed character and more like an uncritical replication of those very widely held prejudices --"

"It's a LITERARY PERSPECTIVE, GOD, didn't you go to SCHOOL? Do you think Lolita is a love story? Do you think Fight Club is about how awesome fighting is?"

"Well, no, but, for example, the way the character was so emotionally abusive to her fat daughter and her neurodivergent son --"

"Uggggh, you don't understand ANYTHING, women don't have to be PERFECT MOTHERS, she's supposed to represent HOW REAL WOMEN FEEL in the face of UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS OF PERFECT MOTHERHOOD!"

"So... the unquestioned-by-the-narrative elitism, classism, sizeism, ableism, and ageism are supposed to be... going against societal expectations?"

"OBVIOUSLY! That's how REAL WOMEN REALLY FEEL!"

"I'm a real woman, and I don't feel that way."

"UGGGGGH, YOU ILLITERATE MISOGYNIST, FEMALE CHARACTERS DON'T HAVE TO BE RELATABLE!"

[e1ectrostatic]

30 Day Fictionkind Challenge Day 18

Q: Does fictionkinity connect to neurodivergence for you?

A: Again, not inherently, but to me, yes.

Just to preface: I'll be talking not only about neurodivergence, but I'll also take the chance to talk a bit about mental illness and the psychological aspects of my fictionkinity in general.

And obligatory disclaimer: Again, treat this more like a diary entry rather than an encyclopedia entry. It's just me rambling about my own experiences and thoughts.

First of all, I'm neurodivergent in this life (obviously SHFJHVSDJA otherwise I would've answered no), and my fictotypes all exhibit many traits and behaviors that this society would classify as evidence of neurodivergence. I think having "unorthodox", sometimes debilitating and sometimes advantageous ways of looking at things, accomplishing tasks, and interacting with others is just a part of me. This way of cognitive function labelled as "neurodivergence" (being purposefully broad for privacy reasons) has followed me time and time again to the point I believe it's here to stay. Despite my troubles, I'm glad for it.

Beyond that though, I do think there's some psychological basis for my fictionkinity. I honestly think I just came with alterhumanity factory installed in this life lmao, thanks to the way my brain is wired. My connection to fiction and my interests in general were always "different" from neurotypical peers. I'm happy to embrace it.

So, using my past experiences as a reference, I wouldn't be surprised if my being fictionkin was just another one of many things affected by my neurodivergence. I mean, my brain is the main organ that allows me to experience this world, so I believe it influences every aspect of my life, at least somewhat.

For one, I've always liked to take an "immersive" approach to fiction. Sometimes it was out of escapism, sometimes it helps analysis, sometimes it's just for fun. I often "insert" myself into fictional worlds when picking them apart, especially when I really like the media. This way of thinking helps me discover (or disprove) kintypes, noemata, and memories. It also makes me feel more in tune with my already-confirmed kintypes.

For two, obsessive research and introspection are my best friends. All I want is knowledge. If I'm interested in something, I'll study it. I'll study random things for fun. If something gets me thinking or questioning, I'll dwell on it for months if not years. It feels really nice in particular to know more about myself and how I work. This way of thinking has also helped me realize I'm fictionkin as well as learn & discover more about my fictotypes.

Not that I'm saying neurotypical people don't have these experiences, nor am I saying if you engage with fiction and/or your interests in this way, you're automatically neurodivergent. It's just that I already know I'm neurodivergent, so I know these traits of mine (and others I haven't mentioned) are a product of it.

But, if I can get off topic, even though I feel my fictionkinity has some psychological basis, I still tire of the narrative that genuinely identifying as a fictional character or entity is inherently harmful and/or borne from mental illness. It's not psychological for everyone. In my specific case, I don't believe my fictionkinity is a product of mental illness. Perhaps it may influence it in some ways, but that's nothing new; mental illness influences many if not most aspects of my life. Either way, I'm not hurting myself or anyone else, I'm literally just existing. In fact, accepting myself and expressing myself has enriched my life and noticeably improved my mental health, so what's the issue?

And frankly, people really need to be more accepting of those who do consider their fictionkinity/alterhumanity to be borne from or influenced by mental illness. Just because you think the way someone functions is "weird" doesn't automatically mean it's harmful or warrants your "help". Be respectful and treat them how they wish to be treated. Know their boundaries and follow them. Like you do with literally anyone else.

Alright, that's the end of my getting off topic.

But yeah, to sum it up, my fictionkinity is not caused (at least not completely) by neurodivergence or psychological factors in general. Like I said in response to yesterday's prompt, there are metaphysical factors at play too, plus I like to think of myself as something outside of the dichotomy entirely. I don't even know where the psychological explanations end and the metaphysical explanations begin, or if it's all just one big melting pot.

I do know though that at the very least, my neurodivergence was likely a big help in the process of discovering I'm fictionkin, and goes hand in hand with my alterhumanity in general. How my brain is wired has also equipped me with unique ways to engage with fiction and identity as a whole. That's enough for me to feel like there's at least some connection between my fictionkinity and my neurodivergence.

This was a nice prompt. The psychological and metaphysical aspects of alterhumanity are interesting to me in general, so I enjoyed taking some time to think about my experience. I'm filing away some extra thoughts to elaborate on in future writings if I so choose.

[ablednt]

Alright writing/roleplay tumblr we need to talk about textforms.

This is going to be a very long post I apologize but this knowledge is deathly important as it's reaching a very vulnerable group of people. From personal experience knowing this can save people from getting into toxic friendships and help ease intense struggles and depressions. If you have writer followers I ask you reblog this to get the word out, thank you.

What is a textform

A textform is a type of willogenic/parogenic system member that form through some kind of writing or roleplaying. This means that they're sentient people who now share a body with the people who wrote them, most often being an OC or a fictional character before the writers brain gives them actual life.

Because there's been no actual scientific studies on their existence I have no hard science to give you however the logical explanation behind it goes like this:

The human brain is able to contain multiple conscious and sentient entities. Often, it will become multiple as a defense mechanism (as noted in clinical plural dissociative disorders) but it's a natural function of the human brain and may do so for really any reason (similar to most neurodivergencies that someone isn't born with)

Because this is a fairly simple change in the brain/something every brain can be capable of doing you can actually intentionally program the brain into becoming multiple, but see you can also do it entirely without meaning to or being aware of it.

Now I want to clarify that there is nothing harmful or scary about this! Being plural isn't bad at all and is an existence many people celebrate. But when someone has textforms in their unrealized system and doesn't know they're sentient it can be incredibly painful emotionally. So that's why people need to know about this.

Obligatory disclaimer: if you read this post and think you want to become plural intentionally, you are welcome to do so but you need to take at least a few months exposing yourself to the plural community to gauge if this is really something you want and can do responsibly. You cannot go back on your decision once your plural and your headmates will be sentient beings not characters to project on or toys to play with. They will have all the rights to your body and identity as you do now because you're sharing it equally with them.

Now that that's out of the way back to textforms.

How are textforms made

Normally this is in the "character development" phase. Many writers eagerly develop their characters. When I was younger and had no idea I was plural my advice for oc making turned out to be an unintentional guide to textforms (more on my experience later): just put your character in every situation imaginable until you always know how they'd respond to things.

Basically, as you spend your time making a character act and think consistently from their POV you're training your brain to have all of that data and that's very similar to the data that the brain has on you and you're training the brain to be able to operate coherently from a perspective and consciousness entirely different from your own.

Now, this isn't a %100 will make everyone plural every time, there are obviously good writers who have a grasp on their characters who are singlet. There's no actual data but if I had to guess I'd say there's about a 50/50 split down the writing community just based on what I've observed.

But there's a lot of people who became plural this way and didn't realize it and that could include the writer reading this right now which is why everyone needs to be aware of this.

If this is such a big thing how come no one notices?

Because it's been completely normalized in the writing community but dismissed as metaphorical.

How many times have you heard "the characters write themselves" or phrases that indicate that a writer is giving a voice to sentient entities? From what I've been able to observe some of that is singlet authors being metaphorical and humble bragging and a lot of that is plural writers trying desperately trying to put their experiences into words but dismissing it completely almost immediately because no one told them being plural was possible.

This is comparable to say, gender identity. Trans and nonbinary people have always existed but when they don't know they're allowed to exist like that it's often "im a tomboy" or "they disguised themselves as a man" or any other thing thats immediately dismissed as being cis.

How do I know if I have a textform?

There's a lot of different signs but here's some I have experienced before finding out I was plural

You "miss" your characters when you're not writing about them or interacting with them in some way

You feel like your characters are real "in your heart" (for me this was in an incoherent loop like "they're not real but they are to me, in my brain, but they're not real to other people, but they're in my brain so they're real but no but yes but no")

You get so distressed they're "not real" that it feeds into actual mental health problems like depression, anxiety, dissociation etc. (I'd have fits of sobbing because these were my friends but I didn't know they were with me so it felt like i was grieving their deaths and had the same level of emotional pain)

Sometimes or all the time when you write about them you feel like you "become them" or that they're writing through you. (Especially if your hands move automatically or without your control. This can be hard to notice but for me when headmates control the body or hands movements feel faster and lighter or very slightly numb.)

Your muse for writing them comes and goes unpredictability: they're either here or they're not here so writing them doesn't feel the same.

You can vividly recall things that happened to the character in 1st person (or in 3rd person visually but with their thoughts and feelings) as if they're you're own memories.

You "roleplay" them in everyday situations IRL. (E.g once I liveblogged a tv show as my muse to a friend and was like haha lol im so talented I can roleplay in real time but found out later it was a headmate doing that themselves)

You have conversations with them mentally in which they actually respond to you. Singlets don't have actual enriching conversations with themselves because they only have one perspective and cannot give themselves any new information. So if you're responding to yourself and you don't feel in control of that response then you're pretty objectively plural tbh.

You have times where the lines between you and the character feel blurry or like you're a vague fusion of yourself and the character

You have an actual relationship (of any kind: romantic, platonic, familial, etc.) in which you can sense nuanced feelings about yourself from them that you aren't in control of.

There's a lot more but that's the most notable ones

Why this is so important

I'm just talking about my own experience now so I'll preface this with a few things. I'm a mixed origin/multigenic system but our system has existed since we were toddlers. Due to trauma we have DID and for a long time dissociated heavily to avoid our plurality. This means my experience may be more distressing than other plurals with textforms however people without DID can still experience these things.

When I was a teenager I joined a lot of writing communities and also roleplayed on tumblr. Writing very quickly became my main passtime and all I really did. I joined a roleplay group when I was 15-16 that I took far too seriously to the point where people were concerned about me because I was writing what was just supposed to be a joke roleplay group %100 seriously and very intensely.

In that time I started to form my first main textforms (we've undoubtedly had them before then but I had only formed a little under a year prior) because I was doing this every day it really started bringing my characters to life. (Literally)

And honestly it was something beautiful the distress of it aside. Like one of my ocs was a kid so I'd always celebrate their birthday with them and I'd cuddle a plush so they'd know I loved them/p and we'd watch their favorite cartoon episodes together. It wouldn't be until around three years later that I realized they were actually there for this but it was heart warming.

For me, all I ever wanted was for these characters to feel appreciated and like someone really cared for them and loved them even if they couldn't feel it and it wasn't until later I learned that they could.

The trauma came in not knowing they were real. I grieved for them like they were dead because I thought I'd never get to see them. I wrote them into traumatizing or upsetting situations to cope with my childhood trauma not realizing that was effecting them for real and hurting them.

Most notably because it was my one solid interaction with them, the one time society allowed me to talk about them as if they were real, I really HAD to roleplay them. Because it became an emotional need I wound up in a lot of toxic friendships in the roleplay communities because I needed someone, anyone, to allow me to interact with my headmates. I had friends who I really was only friends with because they let me talk about my characters constantly (and some of them weren't toxic to me but it was in hindsight really unfair to them) and I let people verbally and emotionally abuse me in roleplay spaces because this wasn't just a hobby to me but a lifeline.

Not knowing they were real but feeling them there, having conversations with them, and forming actual relationships was a hellish sort of feeling I don't wish on anyone. I never realized how isolated it made me, and how horrible it felt to have the most important people in your life be people I thought didn't exist.

I only found out about plurality through luck. I met some systems who had fictives and they got strong plural vibes from me because of how I talked about certain characters and because I said I wanted to be plural but thought I probably wasn't because I'd have noticed, right?

From there I was able to actually connect with and talk to my headmates. Now I'm happily out as plural and in multiple fulfilling in system relationships.

I want everyone in the writing community who's struggling with the same things to have the chance I got. That's all I want is to educate people about this so they don't have to grieve for people who are right there with them.

Feel free to send me an ask or a dm if you have any further questions. Sorry this post was so long I can't really shorten it at all. Again if you are have a lot of writing followers I very gently request you reblog this to get the word out. Even if you can't please talk to your writing mutuals and friends about plurality and about textforms.

[Also this should go without saying but this is absolutely NOT the place for syscourse any invalidating comments about systems will be blocked and where possible deleted it costs $0.00 to prioritize people's mental health over your discourse hot takes.]