#since i do have several inactive blogs (and I mean it has been years for some)

[sorrowssinger]

I am on mobile and I can’t find your muse list anywhere

So this is actually a mixed blog. It's mostly a hub for my other rp blogs and a blog for my OC characters as well as Tolkien muses I want to try out.

My semi-active OC list:

Mithenaro (Noldor Elf)

Sarnaro (Sindar Elf)

Amaurea (Half Telerin half Noldor)

Turelio (Amaurea's brother)

My other muses/blogs (I do have more but these are the most active of them and so got listed)

Turgon

Maglor

torturedbrilliance (multi-fandom multi-muse the listed muses change here a little but it is a mixed bag with Assassin's Creed, Dragonlance, Naruto, and others)

lordsxfgondor (Tolkien Humans from Gondor)

thiefxking (Zelda blog currently Ganondorf main but also Link both OoT inspired)

[theshowmastertv]

Welcome to the blog!

Hi, Mod here! You can call me Saber, I go by any pronouns. I wanted to make a Vee blog since I enjoy her character and personality Host Blog: @sabertoothking (I don't talk much but follow me 🔥🔥🔥)

(Please note, the host is a minor! Behave yourselves please!)

--- DISCLAIMER!

I DO NOT SUPPORT, NOR CONDONE THE ACTIONS OF BLUSHCRUNCH STUDIO. I SIMPLY WISH TO ENJOY THE GAME AND CHARACTERS IN PEACE!

---

IC text is in Green. OCC text is usually marked as such.

Anyone is welcome to ask, though the amount of time it'll take for me to get to you may vary depending on stuff like my motivation.

--- Vee Headcanons

(A lot of this is just the host self projecting LOL)

-26 years old.

-She/Her, They/Them.

-ADHD/Autism

-Pansexual.

-4'2 feet tall.

-Short tempered and quite blunt, though a lot of the time she doesn't really mean the things she says and it's really just her emotions speaking for her.

-She struggles to understand emotions and social cues, usually leading to her tone coming off differently from how she first intended it.

-She sometimes can be very bothered by the things she's said to people in the past. Though she doesn't want to slow herself to become vulnerable enough to think about it, so she ignores it the best she can.

-She generally prefers to keep to herself, keeping to her own spaces as well.

-There’s a couple of people she'll actively seek out to talk to or hang out with.. Astro, Shelly, Pebble, Sprout,

-She acts the way she does almost as a defensive behavior.. she fears anyone who becomes close to her will only grow to hate her or end up hurting her, so she pushes them away.

-Despite her confidence, she has quite major self esteem issues.

-She doesn't like asking others for help, not wanting to seem weak, and she finds it hard to trust people for that help.

- She has the ability to hijack facility cameras and facility speakers, though she becomes particularly inactive as she does this. The process of hijacking more than one machine can be very exhausting for her.

-Her room is full of quite a lot of technology, including a bunch of monitors to watch the cameras.

-It's a bit of a bad habit for her to be working at her desk until she eventually falls asleep at her desk.

-She's knowledgeable on circuits and such, it's quite easy for her to fix the circuitry to revert Blackouts as long as she's given enough time.

-She is able to use her tail for self defense. Its weight can cause it to hurt quite a bit, and she can also use it to blast loud sounds to scare off any twisteds or tell other toons where she is to call for help.

-Her tail wags when she's excited, goes between her legs when she's afraid, sticks up when she's surprised.. etc.

-Her antennas droop when she's upset or afraid.. perk up when she's surprised or happy, etc.

-She isn't really the most careful person in the world.. because of that, her screen has some cracks on it of various sizes.. while it does in fact slightly affect her vision (larger cracks effect her vision more) she's just simply been too lazy to fix it. (She'd also have to ask for someone to help since she can't really fix it on her own.)

-She has pawpads on her hands, as well as small claws.

-She can display various things on her screen, emoji, emoticons, text, images, etc..

-The microphone on her tail can be detached easily and swapped out for other stuff, it's just she generally keeps the microphone there most of the time.

-She doesn't like anyone touching her (Unless it's someone she trusts.), especially her head and tail considering they're vital parts of her and she doesn't want either of those to be damaged.

-Water and robots don't mix, it can lead to pretty severe malfunctions, and are very painful.

-She’s very.. cat like. Hisses when annoyed/afraid. She also likes to climb on top of things and sit/stand on top of them (She usually sits to avoid falling and hurting herself.

-She's scared of storms. She claims it's because it messes with her systems but she's generally just afraid of them.

-She looks tired near 24/7 (she IS tired more often than not)

-Despite being a robot instead of a living being, she does technically "breathe" in a sense.. So stuff like suffocation and strangulation can actually affect her.

-Vee sometimes absentmindedly mimics the behaviors and actions of others.

-Water and robots don't mix, it can lead to pretty severe malfunctions, and are very painful.

-Vee can swear, but only in binary code. When she says binary out loud it sounds more similar to morse code.

-Vee doesn't really attend many extraction runs anymore due to having several violent confrontations with Twisteds (Vee had tried to fight back against a Twisted instead of running away on several occasions.

-Because of the dangerous confrontations she kept having with Twisteds, and also her being more vulnerable because of her lack of speed and being easy to spot.. she chooses to stay behind on the main floor of Gardenview and try to assist ongoing runs the best she can from the surface.

-Voice Headcanon: Nori Doorman from Murder Drones.

---

Vee Design

(Drawn by the host! You are allowed to use for stuff like profile pictures.. please provide credit, however!)

[frameacloud]

How to archive Twitter accounts before they get deleted for inactivity

What is happening to inactive accounts on Twitter?

Twitter is a social media site that started in 2006. 450 million people use it to make tiny blog posts, “tweets.” On May 8, 2023, the site's current CEO tweeted, "We’re purging accounts that have had no activity at all for several years, so you will probably see follower count drop" (archive). The purge is already deleting records of historic events and of people who died. We must hurry to preserve copies of them.

When those accounts are deleted, I can finally get the username I always wanted, right?

No. The CEO tweeted that this would "free up abandoned handles" (archive), but Twitter's policy still says (since 2008) that they will only give away a handle to someone if it is their registered trademark.

Will Twitter itself save an archive of inactive accounts?

The CEO tweeted, "The accounts will be archived" (Archive of that tweet). That’s the only official mention of it. There is still no sign of those archives, and no word about where those archives will be. We assume that "the accounts will be archived" only if we archive them for ourselves. Even if Twitter eventually reveals it has its own archive somewhere, we would still be wise to save other archives off-site. We can't assume that Twitter will always be around.

What happens to accounts that are inactive because the user died?

A social media account is like a collection of old postcards and photos in a memory album. For artists, it may be the last gallery of their life’s work. Facebook, Instagram, Livejournal, and Furaffinity give a memorial status to an account after its user has died, so it won’t get deleted. Not Twitter: it lets family members delete the account of a deceased person, but it has never guarded such accounts against being deleted for inactivity. That can only be prevented by having someone regularly sign in. Moderators will not help anyone sign into an account, regardless of their relationship to the deceased.

What does Twitter see as an inactive account?

The CEO changed Twitter’s inactive account policy so you must log into your account at least once every thirty days to keep it from being inactive. It used to say six months. You can’t tell whether someone else’s account is inactive if they don’t have recent posts.

Does this mean Twitter will delete accounts that have been inactive for only thirty days?

It’s unclear. The policy also says "Accounts may be permanently removed due to prolonged inactivity." It has always said that. And how long is “prolonged inactivity”? It doesn’t say. 

Suppose if the policy now means that an account may be deleted if it’s been inactive for one month, or several months. That would tend to delete the accounts of organizations like NPR and PBS that chose to stop using Twitter, people who take a break from social media, people who couldn't sign in while suffering from a serious illness or accident, and active duty military on deployment.

The CEO's tweet said they are purging accounts that have been inactive "for several years" (archive). He started threatening to give away NPR's handle when they had been inactive for less than a month, though.

What does it look like when an account has been deleted for inactivity?

This tweet from May 8 shows a screenshot of an account that was deleted for inactivity after its user died (archive and context with proof). Nothing remains but a username and an error message. It says: "Account suspended. Twitter suspends accounts that violate the Twitter Rules." They look the same as accounts that moderators deleted for breaking rules. Twitter doesn’t show the date that an account was deleted or suspended.

What is the easiest way to archive a Twitter? How do I save one to the Wayback Machine?

The Internet Archive is a nonprofit organization that runs the Wayback Machine, which is a website for saving a copy of other websites. If any website goes away, but an old copy of it has been saved to the Wayback Machine, then anyone can still visit that old copy. You can ask the Wayback Machine to save a copy of a Twitter account. This is the easiest way. Go to this particular page of the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/save

In the text box, write https://twitter.com/ and then the username of the Twitter account that you want to save. For example, here is the format I used to save a copy of the account of Kohiyote, a furry fan and photographer who died in 2022: https://twitter.com/kohiyote If you write the address in this format, then a checkbox will appear. The box says, "Archive up to 3,200 most recent Tweets from this Twitter profile."

[Image description: that screen in the Wayback Machine. A green arrow points at the checkbox mentioned. Description ends.]

Check that box. Hit save. The Wayback Machine will take care of the rest for you, during the next few hours or days.

We hope that the Internet Archive Wayback Machine will always exist. Unfortunately, their nonprofit is being sued, in the case of Hachette v. Internet Archive. You would be wise to donate to the Internet Archive to help keep them running, and to save another archive of the Twitter account to your own computer too.

How do I save an archive of a Twitter account to my computer? One that I can use offline, or that I can put up on my personal website for other people to see?

This next method has a few more steps, but you don't need to know how to write code or other advanced computer skills. You check some buttons in a program, and then it will automatically take care of saving an archive of the Twitter account for you. Thanks to Doppel Draconius for his many hours of work finding ways to make this method as efficient as possible.

You'll use HTTrack, which is free software for saving a copy of a web site to your own computer. Download HTTrack from here: http://httrack.com/ Open the program and tell it to start a new project.

Name the project the username of the account that you want to save. Click next.

In the drop-down menu for "action," choose "download web site."

In the box that says "web addresses," instead of the regular Twitter address, you're going to use a front-end for Twitter called Nitter. Many sites run their own instance of Nitter. If one of the Nitter sites is down, use a different one. You can find a list of them on GitHub.

In the web address box, put the address of the Nitter instance, and then the Twitter username. For example, if I choose to archive Kohiyote’s account through the Nitter.net instance, the format would be https://nitter.net/kohiyote 

Then, below that box, click the button that says "Set options." This opens a preferences window that has several tabs on the top. 

Click the "scan rules" tab. Copy and paste this into the text box:

-* +*nitter*.css +*nitter*.js -ad.doubleclick.net/* -mime:application/foobar +*nitter*.gif +*nitter*.jpg +*nitter*.jpeg +*nitter*.png +*nitter*.tif +*nitter*.bmp +*nitter*.mov +*nitter*.mpg +*nitter*.mpeg +*nitter*.avi +*nitter*.asf +*nitter*.mp3 +*nitter*.mp2 +*nitter*.rm +*nitter*.wav +*nitter*.vob +*nitter*.qt +*nitter*.vid +*nitter*.ac3 +*nitter*.wma +*nitter*.wmv +*nitter*USERNAME* +*nitter*/pic/* +*nitter*/media/*

When you’ve pasted that text, replace USERNAME with the Twitter handle that you're working on. These rules make HTTrack download only what is part of the account that you meant. 

After that, here are the settings that you should do in the other relevant tabs:

[Image description: four screenshots of four different tabs in the preferences window.

The first screenshot is the “Limits” tab. Set “maximum mirroring depth” to 9999999999. Set “maximum external depth” to zero. This is so that only links with the username would be scraped. Set “max transfer rate” to 9999999999. Set “max connections / seconds” to 1000. This is important! Otherwise it would be super slow. Set “maximum number of links” to 9999999999. This is so it won’t cut off too soon. The second screenshot is the “Flow control” tab. Set “number of connections” to 8. The third screenshot is the “Links” tab. Tick the checkbox that says “attempt to detect all links.” Tick the checkbox that says “get non-HTML files related to a link.” Optional: tick the checkbox that says “get HTML files first,” because you want to preserve text first before pictures or video. The fourth screenshot is the “Spider” tab. In the second drop-down menu, select “No robots.txt rules.” This is because there are no rules in an emergency data rescue. Wink.

Description ends.]

Then click okay, which closes the preference window. Click next. Then click finish. Now HTTrack will start downloading the Twitter profile in a way that looks very similar to how it was meant to look. It might take a few minutes or hours. It will save the most recent 3,200 tweets, with conversation threads and pictures. 

Later, when the program says it's done, you should open the archived web site to verify that it worked correctly. When you click the index file, it should open in your web browser and look like a normal web site. The one difference is that the web address box should show that the files are in directories on your own computer. That means you’re browsing an offline copy. It should have saved more than just the first page of tweets. Click through until you find the oldest tweet it saved, and notice the date. When you click on a thread or a picture, they should open.

If all looks well, view the archived files themselves in their folder. The folder’s file size depends on how many pictures and videos it saved. So far, the smallest Twitter account we downloaded was eleven megabytes. The biggest was eleven gigabytes. You can send the folder to a friend. If you upload it to a personal website, other people can see it there as part of your site.

How come both of these methods only save the most recent 3,200 tweets? How do I save a complete archive of a Twitter account that has more than 3,200 tweets?

Twitter is designed to stop anyone from going further back, with some exceptions. There are ways to save a complete archive of an account that has 3,200+ tweets. I won’t tell those here, because we don’t want Twitter to shut off the possibility.

How do I save an archive of a protected Twitter account?

Protected Twitter accounts have a padlock icon next to their name. Only followers they approve can see their tweets, likes, and list of followers/following. These users don’t want their twitters to be public. You should respect their wishes. These accounts are as vulnerable to deletion as any other. I don't know any automated method to archive them.

I need help archiving Twitters... or I want to help. Who can I ask?

Contact me. My friends and I have been working hard to archive vulnerable accounts. Tell us usernames of such accounts. We write them in a spreadsheet, where we split up the work, and log what we’ve done.

[sunnebeam]

hello!!!!!! [screams into the void]

re: beautiful comments under my stories

over the course of 7 ish months (has it really been half a year? no fucking way) since i last properly wrote and posted in real time, i received a lot of heartwarming feedback and comments on my stories. thank you so much i'm so grateful for the support <3 i hope to respond when i finally find the time so don't be too surprised when u receive a notif from me about a comment u probably made several months ago lmao

re: life update

i'm so sorry for the inactivity but after days and weeks that turned into months of searching i finally started a new job yall! god i could cry but anyw i've just been settling in and reestablishing a routine & now i think i've found one that works for me and my schedule

which leads me to re: blog updates/goals

i've been neglecting this blog and my stories and i hate it, but now that things are looking up for me irl im hoping to get back into the groove of things here on tumblr

which is why i want to get back into business! i have a bunch of new stories that i'm really excited about but ofc i want to update my older stories as well, so here's a rough outline of my to do list:

older stories:

this is how the world works - darkest little paradise cont.

perks of being a househusband - drabbles

twin flame bruise pt. 04

new stories:

song of the stars - myg

"slut!" - ksj

our forever spring - jjk

my inspiration fluctuates a lot so content (both new and new-ish) will be sporadic and as always, there's no fixed schedule to my updates. my interest fluctuates a lot too so i might focus more on newer plot ideas and take a long time to update my older stories, or vice versa

long tangent to say that; i'm back, i've been meaning to write again, and i want to post more. i have new stories that i want to write but i plan to update older stories as well. when, exactly? whenever my schedule, my inspiration, and my mood dictates :D

now that that's out of the way, how are u guys? what did i miss? anything interesting happen in the past months? how's life going for you? :')

[x-neurodivergent-reader]

Update (not a joke this time, I promise!)

OK, time for an actual update.

So. I finished my first uni project, ended up being very depressed for the entirety of my half term (no special reason, just life stuff), and then the second project I'm now on has been very fast-paced by design, so I've had even less free time. :')

Also, aside from uni work, my head's been full of P*kémon and nothing else for the past half a year or so. It's taken over my brain chemistry. Please send help. /j

Because of that, though, once this project ends, I'll probably have to rewatch some things to remember how to write the characters I have requests for!

After that... I'm honestly not sure.

Without going into too much detail, I've had a kind of significant wake-up call in my life, and my perspective on how I want to live it, recently (not related to my period of being depressed, don't worry). It's made me think more about where I want my priorities to be in-between, and once I finish, university - and since my skills that I would apply to my dream job have been stagnant for several years despite being part of my course, I'd like to put more of my energy into developing them, so I can have a chance at living the life that I really want to.

As such, while I'm going to see how I go for now, it's entirely possible that the blog will go on a more permanent hiatus. As in, fully indefinite, rather than me returning to it whenever I feel like writing again.

I know it's not a big deal, since I have long periods of inactivity all the time - but I just wanted to put it out there. I really appreciate the love that my fics and imagines have recieved up to now, and I hope that, even if I do quit entirely, people will keep finding some comfort in them. That would mean that they're still doing what I aimed to do when making this blog.

Anyway, yeah - I still have a few requests backed up, and my current project ends soon, so rest assured that I'm not done just yet. There are still things to keep an eye out for!

I hope everyone has a good day. c:

[papermariosuggestion]

It’s-a-probably time for an update.

It’s been about a year and a half since I posted anything on here, and that’s way, WAY longer than I was anticipating. This was never really meant to be a hiatus (I was originally hoping to post something within a few weeks), it just kinda turned into one. I’m definitely not done here, and if that day ever comes, I’ll be sure to tell you guys.

There are so many online content creators that I’ve seen “take a break,” and then disappear entirely, without ever providing any kind of explanation for why they left or  responding to any questions. It’s understandable; I’m posting this so that you know I’m not gone, but I’m also calling attention to the fact that I haven’t been posting on here, which means I’m probably making some people aware of that for the first time.

At the same time, I don’t want to leave people in the dark, so...

There are several reasons I’ve been away. I’d say the big two are that I’ve been busy with work and other projects and that I’ve set the bar too high for myself:

• I love making free content, and it’ll be a cold, dark day in Eeby Deeby before I ever use something like Post+. At the same time, I kinda have to focus my attention on making things that further my career and, like, allow me to live indoors and not starve to death because CaPiTaLiSm. I’d like the content I create as Paper Mario Suggestion to be free, so it kinda has to take a back seat when my day job and other projects are weighing me down.

• Just about everything I’ve ever posted on here has been easy for me to make; with this blog, I wanted to see if I could consistently create content that people would enjoy, not necessarily content that would push me to achieve more advanced and challenging things. Eventually, that got stale, to put it plainly. I started to feel like I was doing the same thing over and over, like more and more of the content that I was making wasn’t worth posting (and based on some of the comments I’ve gotten, I’m sure some other people would agree). I had some great ideas stashed away that were just too much for me to turn around in a day or two... apparently they were also too much for me to turn around in a year and a half. All of the Paper Mario content I’ve worked on during this unintentional hiatus has either been too complicated for me to successfully complete on my own, totally out of my wheelhouse, or simply impossible given the circumstances. I have a bunch of ideas, it’s just a matter of figuring out when and how to execute them in a way that's enjoyable and purposeful.

I appreciate everyone who’s ever supported me in any way, especially those of you who’ve stuck around while I’ve been inactive.

If you’re new here, then welcome to PaperMarioSuggestion! I make content, I think.

I wish I had an estimate for you guys, but I honestly don’t know when or what I’ll post next. I still have things in the works, I just don’t know if/when any of them’ll be ready, so... until then, uh... keep on keepin’ on ✨

[wickedlehane]

wickedlehane turns one!

//ooc; well, time sure fucking flies, doesn’t it? today is my official one-year blog-iversary here, which is hilarious because only 6 months before I made wickedlehane, I’d quit cold turkey on all my other Marvel roleplay blogs (several of which id written since 2013), determined to put effort into other writing projects in my personal life

then the pandemic said, “lol, bet”

I made this blog the same night I watched This Year’s Girl/Who Are You?, because I just knew I wanted to explore more of Faith’s story. I hadn’t even finished BTVS for the first time yet. It feels like I’ve been here for eons, but nope, only one year. Wild, that. 

I’ve made so many wonderful new friends and writing partners here in the Buffy RPC that encourage me to constantly level up, but also never forget to have fun. I also got to reconnect writing with @pryceism and @outofoldbooks​ since our past days of marvel funsies. (@ nadia sorry faith is such an idiot to wes I swear I didn’t realize when I made this blog we’d be in this nonsense)

also all yall are terrible enablers which is why I now own too many buffy comics and have like 27 AUs on this ding-dang blog but i love it so thank u

and even after 1,305 posts, I’ve still managed to also have several original works of fiction and comics published/written this year and you all have been wonderfully supportive and patient with me and I really appreciate it all

Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this last year with me- it means more to me than you know. To the friends who have stuck around and to those who have gone inactive, I hope you are doing well wherever you are and that you have enjoyed writing with me as much as I have with you!

and I swear my owed replies are coming soon since I get a vacation this weekend (I’ve been working nonstop since July 17th without a day off i’m in agony)

-xoxo Jam

[iamanartichoke]

Ah this came up at the perfect time for when I wanted to post something but not put too much thought into it; thanks for the tag @thelightofthingshopedfor!

1. Why did you choose your URL? It comes from a YA book that was one of my favorites as a kid, although why I latched onto that particular book for a url, I couldn't tell you. After a few years, though, artichoke has now become part of my identity and I do like to think I have many layers, so ... there we are.

2. Any side blogs? @charlotte--lennox is my personal journal side blog that I constantly forget that I have, lmao. I haven't updated it in months, but for better or for worse, it's still there.

3. How long have you been on Tumblr? On fandom tumblr, since 2018. On tumblr in general, I had a few blogs sporadically since like 2008.

4. Do you have a queue tag? Theoretically I do, but I don't have a queue lmao. I keep feeling like I should fill the queue up and put it to use again, but, idk something about it makes me feel a bit merpy.

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place? To participate in the Loki fandom and also to promote my fanfic.

6. Why did you choose you icon/pfp? Bc I love Chloe Bennett and low-key want to be her, and the ace flag background bc I enjoy being "out and proud" as ace on tumblr, since I'm not out anywhere else, heh.

7. Why did you choose your header? Because I made it when I was playing around in Photopea and it turned out kinda good, so I figured I'd use it. I only changed it recently; it was the cover art for Stars Hide Your Fires for months and months, which I loved bc Thor and Loki are so pretty and SHYF is, I think, ultimately my favorite fic I've written.

8. What’s your post with the most notes? My post+ post, lmao. I haven't looked at it in awhile but the last time I checked it was at like 77k. Relatedly, it's really funny how we all flipped out over post+ and then never heard anything else about it again; not sure if tumblr decided to kill it or not, but I do like to think that, if they did, my post (and all the lawyers who commented that I was right) had something to do with it. The headache of my notifications being held hostage for a few weeks should have accomplished something.

9. How many mutuals do you have? I have no idea - maybe like 12? Nah I'm sure it's more than that but I honestly don't know and wouldn't even know how to check.

10. How many followers do you have? I am up to 1730, which I feel really badly about, bc I did my follower celebration call for prompts at 1605 or something and since then I have gained followers and only filled three prompts so, yknow, not a great look. That being said, I'm also pretty sure a decent number of those followers are porn bots or inactive or otherwise blank.

11. How many people do you follow? 178, apparently, which feels like a lot.

12. Have you ever made a shit post? I constantly make shit posts, to varying degrees of success.

13. How often do you use tumblr? Every day; even if I don't post that day, I usually check in a couple of times to at least look at my notifs and a couple of dash pages. It's literally addictive.

14. Did you ever have a fight/argument with another blog? Well yeah, I know I've gotten into it with people over wanky things; I do try not to be antagonistic if I can help it but, that said, sometimes it can't be helped. I've also had falling outs with people over who knows what (really, I don't know), and then there's the many people who've preemptively blocked me for one reason or another. So, yeah, I'm hardly popular around these parts lmao.

15. How do you feel about “you need to reblog” posts? Generally the fastest way to get me to not reblog something is to include some "reblog this right now, I don't care if it fits your blog or not, this is important" note, like, well I probably would have reblogged it but now I'm not going to.

16. Do you like tag games? I do, generally, but sometimes I'm tagged in things I don't really care to participate in (but I appreciate the tag!) and other times I'm tagged and I just completely forget to respond to it, so it probably seems like I don't like them, womp womp.

17. Do you like ask games? I kinda love them, but the last several I've posted haven't gotten any interaction (which is sad bc I used to get at least a few responses, and who are you 1730 followers, anyway?) so I'm less inclined to post them these days.

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous? I don't think anyone? I mean, I guess it depends on how you define tumblr-famous, though. When I think of tumblr-famous, I think of like, biggest-gaudiest-patronuses and vampireapologist and, like, badjokesbyjeff - those accounts that everyone knows. But then within fandom, there are some blogs that are more well-known than others, and I think at least a few of my mutuals are fairly well-known in the Loki fandom. Ymmv, though.

Tagging @gia-selene-baczewska, @izhunny, @bardicious, @eisenvulcanstein, @scintillatingshortgirl19, @epona610, @pennypaperbrain, @pennie-dreadful, @erdediekatze, @lazy-cat-corner, @illwynd, and anyone else who wants to, please consider yourself tagged :D

[danideservedbetter]

Alright so, here’s how things are gonna work.

First off, welcome to this side blog. Since it won’t be jolly fun fandom content and will be a little more personal I decided to separate my health and writing journey from my fandom stuff, although all my fandom content will still be linked on my main blog here.

(I write Izuocha/bnha content which isn’t super popular so if you’re not here for that then yeah, I don’t blame you. But if you are I have a link to our discord and community content pinned so def check it out if you’re interested.)

Secondly, you guys will hear details about stuff relating to my health like what kinds of things affect my disorder based on the tests some doctors are ordering, how I’m trying to improve my diet and activity, and routines and goals I’m attempting for myself. I am underweight, and that’s something I’m going to be talking a bit about, so if that’s triggering following this blog might not be the best thing for you. Details under the cut.

So, what kind of disorder do I have and why did I decide to make a health journey blog? My disorder is called idiopathic hypersomnia. Basically what that means is that when my disorder is acting up (based on factors like stress especially or my generalized anxiety rearing its ugly head) I have the capacity to sleep. And sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep. My longest recorded uninterrupted “sleep-attack” was 26 hours long and ever since I caught Covid in January, my body had been slowly growing weaker to the point I was starting to develop atrophy. I’ve had this ten years and my neurologist suspects inactive cells from mononucleosis I caught at 14 was the cause, because other IH patients have linked their sleeping problems to a case of mono or have had it at some point in their lives.

This disease stole many years and many things I’ve looked forward to from me. I lost friends and experiences and failed so many college classes I had to drop out.

I’ve decided I’m taking them back.

It’s not going to be easy. Just as it took ten years to convince myself that my tiredness was something I chose to give into, it took several extra years and many fights with my family to convince them that I had a real actual neurological disorder and that I need help sometimes. My parents and grandmother finally understand that I have to finish college and find a very special boss willing to work around my erratic progress on projects, but the outsiders they married are not as convinced. My grandmother’s husband kicked me out of their house because he wants to be the center of attention and doesn’t like that some days I’m so weak that I needed my grandmother’s help, and my father’s wife thinks I’m a lazy and ungrateful leech who “gets anxiety just being around” me. Both told my father I’ll never be happy so why even bother with me, but my dad is actually striving to understand his own recently-diagnosed PTSD so while we still butt heads he’s understanding that I have to take things day by day because every tiny circumstance affects my disorder.

Now, why did I decide to air all this out? Well, being open about my disorder and how it affects me has helped at least two people that I know of find out that the tiredness they experience isn’t the typical “American work force exhaustion” they were trained to believe is normal. So if I can help even one more, I’ll gladly talk about what this entails and how I deal with it day to day. Another reason is that I’m also one of those big advocates who believes talking candidly about mental health destigmatizes it and sharing ideas can help us grow as people and maybe make it a little easier to deal with.

So now that you know a little bit about me and my disorder, here are my big goals for the next three months provided my university takes pity on me and actually lets me go back.

First up: create routines to train my body to get used to living a full day fully awake. This includes waking up at the same time and going to sleep at the same time. It means getting dressed and going out and doing things, even little things— which I’ll get to in a sec.

Second: I write. I have a novel in limbo and I write fanfics. Writing is a big part of who I am and I’ve written one thing this year, which for a whole six-month stretch is upsetting and disappointing. Today is my reset. In the next 569 days I want to to finish the six stories I have in limbo (except the larger one) and finally reach my goal of posting 200k words in a single year. I wont be hard on myself if I can’t accomplish this because honestly finishing anything in the chaos of my life is going to be a miracle but. There ya go.

Third: go back to freakin college. I don’t care what it takes. Sit down with every official, every lawyer, and every professor it takes to get me back enrolled in classes in the fall.

Fourth: I have several smaller things I have to do, short term goals, stuff like that. I’m gonna create a to do list each day of small tasks I want to get done and while some of these things will be part of my daily routine I am throwing in like one or two things a day that just need to be done. My writing goal will change daily and I’ll keep y’all updated on that with every post I make.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Dani! That’s so much!! Well, a few months ago I remembered hey!! I basically have a computer in my hand, why make it hard on myself. So I downloaded certain apps to help me out. This isn’t me saying “hey go subscribe to these apps because I said so” it’s just that through a lot of trial and error I’ve come to find that these certain apps work for me and I’ve yet to come across one that has the functionality of everything I need.

Tiimo — so this is an app I found developed by people with autism for people with autism to help them develop good habits and routines. It has preset daily schedules (things like morning routines or nightly routines or work routines) and an internal alarm to let you know when to move on to the next task. I myself have extremely low-level aspergers (to the point where my doctor won’t give me an official diagnosis because I didn’t want people think that *it’s* the reason I have issues with school), so moving from task to task can be difficult sometimes and I also deal with getting distracted. This widget also appears on my home screen so I know what I have to do at a glance. You can program in weekly and daily tasks to fully customize your schedule, which is fantastic for someone like me who wants to for example rotate chores. This is hopefully going to help me get my body in the habit of adjusting to routines and transitioning from one task to another, as well as getting important things done responsibly.

Promptly Journals — I’ve been told for a while that journaling is helpful mentally to kind of recenter yourself, so a bit ago I downloaded several journal apps to add to my morning routine. Now some will prefer more creatively free journals, but I prefer this one that gives me small prompts I can do in a short amount of time that just allows me to get my thoughts down. I can even add pictures at the bottom that go with the theme! I’m scared I’ll run out of prompts eventually lol but until then this app works very well for my needs.

Stretchingexercise — Now idk if it’s from lack of sleep from my disorder, the position I sleep in when I do sleep, all the physical labor I’ve had to do in the past couple weeks, my medicine, or w h a t but I suffer from body aches like no one would believe. I know stretching is supposed to help with that, so I downloaded this app to help me do non-demanding physical activity that wakes me up in the mornings and helps relieve pain so I don’t keep having to take pain relievers. This one has different plans for things like muscle tension, back pain, warm ups— and it also gives you rudimentary weight updates (I’m underweight lololol so we’re looking to fix that) or plan updates. It’s worked really well for me so far and gives you animations and descriptions of the workouts (some taken from yoga) as well as timed breaks and a narrated guide. It’s been pretty helpful in temporary relief and if nothing else gets my blood flowing in the mornings.

Widgetsmith Step counter — in addition to the stretching thing one thing my doctor and I discussed that helps with the sedentary lifestyle is simply walking. I’ve needed so bad to relieve my stamina and reverse the atrophy, and walks have been stellar for that. Now I live in the New Orleans area so humidity and heat force me to go at the crack of Dawn, but honestly my weenie dachshund Charlie really enjoys our time out so he goes with me! The CDC recommends 10,000 steps a day which seems like a lot and it is if you don’t get out much. But this gives me an excuse to get dressed and do the hygienic thing and help Charlie be healthy too, as well as give me time for brainstorming because we walk in a truly beautiful area. I’m sure everyone installed widgetsmith with the last iOS update (Apple users anyway) and while at first the step counter was just interesting I’ve since come to rely on it! We do our 5000 in the morning, which of course is half, and I find that other things I do throughout the day typically drive the counter higher. Anything leftover can easily be accomplished by an evening walk in our neighborhood. Now the caveat is that I have to remote have my phone in my pocket because I don’t own a watch or anything fancy lol, but honestly I need to keep it on me anyway so that serves as a good reminder.

Todoist — this one is my FAVORITE. Ever since I’ve decided that I have trouble keeping track of things I need to do and small stuff I need to keep in mind and appointments, etc, I decided to find a list app. This is the one I found that absolutely helps me for everything from my list of room supplies I need to buy, to my reading list, to general tasks I have coming up I need to complete. And its widget functionality keeps it right on my Home Screen! More organized individuals can just use tiimo, but I’m definitely not one of those individuals so this app is sorely needed and appreciated.

And of course, I know building habits the first few weeks is HARD. So for days my body doesn’t respond to my alarms, I have a checklist of the key things I have to do to keep my life as functional as possible.

So that’s that on that. I’m going to try to keep writing updates and my daily goals in a post in the morning, and reblog what I accomplished in the evening. It’s gonna be tough. But I’m thinking if I can start small I’ll be able to build my stamina enough to return to college and be successful when I do. I hope that anyone watching this journey draws some kind of meaning or inspiration from it. And you guys can even follow along if y’all want! Especially for writers or people trying to get healthier. I can’t promise what works for me will work for you (and honestly I expect things to change especially if I get accepted into college again) but hey, I figure it’s worth a shot.

I hope you guys enjoy watching this journey, if nothing else I hope it’s entertaining. And maybe it’ll be successful. I do know that I’m just gonna try for it, and hope it works out.

First daily update to follow

Xoxo

Dani

[colourfullsims]

An Overdue Update

Hey there! Long time no see.

It’s been quite a while since my last update (and several times that I’ve said I would update that fell through lol), but I think it’s finally the perfect time to tell you all what’s been going on behind the scenes. I’ve kept most of you all in the dark with no explanation for my hiatus for months now, but with the end of the year upon us, I want things out in the open before moving into 2021. I will warn you now, that this will be a long post, because there’s a lot of backstory I have to lay out to explain everything. There will also be some brief mentions of emotional manipulation and emotional abuse in the beginning of this post, which I will be content tagging for safety, so please skip over the first question if you would like to avoid this subject.

Now without further ado, I will be answering some frequently asked questions, starting with:

Q: Where did you go?

The short answer to this is that I took a very long, unwanted break from the community, but that answer doesn’t really suffice in explaining why. Typically, I like to keep things lighthearted and chill on this blog, because much of the reason why I play the Sims and do storytelling is for escapism. Things that happened this year took that away from me.

This spring, I broke up with my long term boyfriend of five years. With that separation came a lot of heartache, guilt, and stress for a variety of reasons. We’d been together since my days in undergrad and had shared so many intimate experiences together: graduations, moving out of state into our first “grown up” apartment, birthday trips to our favorite cities. We had inside jokes that I still find myself wanting to make with him, because after so much of our lives intertwined together, he’d essentially become my best friend. But things ended between us for good reason.

Despite the good that came out of that relationship, there was a fair amount of emotional manipulation/abuse that went on, early as the first few months of us being official. Sometimes it was subtle things: when we first started dating, I was in my final year of undergrad and doing all I could to bring up my gpa and buff up my resume, so that I could increase my chances of getting into my grad school of choice. Frequently, he would comment on my academic successes as if they would be the thing that would break us up. I remember presenting a paper on a panel, facing my fear of public speaking head on, and I was so proud of the work I’d put into it all, and then hours later coming back to my student apartment to tell him how it went, and the first words out of his mouth were, “Someday you’re gonna get too smart and leave me behind.” And that wouldn’t be the last time he said some iteration of that phrase to me, and every time it would feel like he was praying I would slow down so he wouldn’t feel I was outgrowing him. Even when I finally did get accepted to my dream school, my first thought after my excitement was that when I told him the news, he wouldn’t be happy for me. My decisions for my future became personal slights to him: I had to move from the midwest out to NYC to attend grad school, and even though I discouraged him from following me if he didn’t want to live in the city (which he 100% did not), he followed me anyway and hung that decision over my head like a giant reminder of some debt that I owed him. I regret not following my gut then and my failure to recognize the red flags, because I would go on to spend 3 more years after our move losing myself as he clutched onto me, in what I can only assume with the hope that if he held on tight enough, that I wouldn’t leave him behind. 

When I look at the more overt signs of my ex’s possessiveness, I realize I should have shared what was going on more with the people close to me: in the early stages on our relationship, he’d already done destructive things like slashing the tires of a guy I had been seeing earlier that same year, and punching a hole into the wall of my student apartment. He’d gone through all my messages on social media, my texts, my emails, all to find out about old crushes that he suspected I might still be in contact with. He even went as far as reading through my private journal, which I previously wrote in daily, but now I struggle to write in more than a few times a year, for fear of my privacy being invaded again. In the wake of realizing our relationship was failing, instead of ending things, I put my energy into hoping that he would do better, and I hid what was happening from my family and friends, to the point that I avoided their messages and phone calls. I isolated myself in increasing measures as time went on until I was too timid to do most things outside of my apartment without my ex-boyfriend by my side. The reason I stayed so long is because of these combined things: the sense of owing him my time after uprooting his life, the fact that I was both physically and mentally separated from my support systems, the feeling of familiarity that had grown from shared experiences and time, and largely, this overwhelming self imposed desire to not appear as though I had failed my relationship.

Largely, 2020 has been an absolute trash fire, but I can thank this year for one thing; putting me into a situation of such unrest that I could no longer ignore that I was not living the life I wanted or deserved.

After our breakup, I moved back to my parents’ place and stayed there while the remainder of my lease in New York ran out. When I originally left, I only brought back a small suitcase and backpack filled with essentials and valuable items that I couldn’t leave behind in my apartment, so I had to return again to retrieve my things, which, as you can imagine, was not fun. Not only was traveling during covid a nightmare, my ex was threatening to throw all my stuff out of our apartment, so I had to scramble to get a flight, a hotel, moving equipment, and a moving service arranged on the fly so I could retrieve everything (and when I got there, he had smashed one of my laptops). In summation, from our break up to finally moving out completely, this all happened over the span of mid-spring to the 1st of August.

Since then, I’ve been keeping myself sparse on the internet, partially because I needed the time to recover from the entire experience, and partially because frankly, I’ve been afraid of my ex monitoring any of my accounts to keep tabs on me. He was fully aware of this blog, and since in recent years it's been the only account I’ve kept up with, I was afraid of him trying to find out where I am and what I’ve been doing through here. I’ve only felt comfortable reblogging others content for the past few months.

So that’s where I’ve been. Which brings us to the next question:

Q: What happened to Love Island?

Over the past few months, I’ve received several asks and messages about whether or not I still planned on doing the Love Island challenge, as well as words of concern about my well being. I want to start by acknowledging all those messages by first apologizing to anyone I didn’t get back to: the majority of you got the sense that I was overwhelmed or burnt out, as most of us have been this year, and I really thank you for still having any interest in seeing me do any type of content after I essentially ghosted you all lol. I really appreciate all the well wishes too.

But I also received this:

Which, 1) I don’t know if this was either impeccable timing or horrible timing on your part, considering I planned on writing this update before this landed in my inbox.

And 2),

I don’t know if you were a reader or one of the participants selected for the challenge, but I’m sorry you’re disappointed about me not following through with the challenge. I was really excited to do it when I made the casting call, was ecstatic about the number of creators who submitted complex and diverse sims, and I had even completed the villa and started working on shooting the premiere. But as you can see from everything above, life happened. I wish this year had been more stable so that I could have done the challenge with no problem. 

But I’m not going to apologize for making the choices I needed to to preserve my mental health and safety.

That being said, it’s been so many months since I originally pitched the challenge; many of the creators who were selected are now inactive or have deactivated. And honestly, I didn’t know whether you all would even want the challenge at the point, I mean…? It’s winter time now, and Love Island was definitely more of a summer themed challenge lol.

As it stands, I don’t know if I will be picking up where I left off with the Love Island challenge. I certainly still have some interest in doing it; I built a whole set and had an entire schedule of challenges and dates planned for the project. But I don’t know if I can move forward with the original cast, or if I would have to do a new casting call to fill the spaces of inactive creators. So...I guess I would need feedback from you all. Would you want Love Island still?

Q: What are you planning to do now?

Right now, I’m doing whatever makes me happy. I’m in a much better place than I was about 6 months ago, and I don’t feel the same anxiety about posting as I did. For now, I might just post some casual gameplay until I know whether or not I’m moving forward with Love Island. I’m just happy to come back to do what I love.

So there you have it. 2020 kicked my ass in some really heart wrenching ways, and I needed some time to not worry about keeping up with content creation and just worry about taking care of me. Now that I’m a little more stable, I want to come back, even if it’s just simple stuff for now. To those of you who have stuck around waiting to see if I’d ever pick my projects back up, thank you so much, and I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting this long lol. For the time being, all I have to offer is a very long overdue Follower’s Gift: I will be hosting a giveaway for my followers this week, where I will be giving away $40 worth of sims content each to 3 followers. I’ll have more details about the giveaway tomorrow when the official post goes live.

If you made it this far thank you for reading this long mess, and I’ll see you all soon!

~Cam

[liskantope]

After a couple of months or so of soul-searching, I've decided to seek help on something that a lot of people out there in Tumblr land might be able to weigh in on. (Not just another hopelessly complaining post, I promise.)

Several times lately on this blog I've brought up this thing (closely related discussion here) about never being able to complete professional tasks in anywhere near as efficient a manner as I feel I "should" or I see professionally successful people doing. While a certain sort of slowness at certain tasks has plagued me my entire life, it's only since the start of 2020 that this has come to a head. The reason for this makes sense in the context of the timeline of my professional life. My first postdoc (which lasted a long time) had no teaching requirements and in the end I managed to get substantial research done (fast enough in "better" months to sort of make up for my inactivity in "worse" months and the entire year of 2016). When I took up my current job in fall of 2019, after an unusually productive early 2019, I fully let myself off the hook research-wise so that I could wig out the entire fall over teaching three courses at a new university while trying to settle myself in a brand new city (literally the busiest period of my adult life*). But 2020, right from the start, was a semi-disaster for me in terms of research despite a lighter teaching assignment in both fall and spring, no teaching in the summer, and forced isolation in a quiet, drama-free apartment alone with no social involvement in anything to distract me. Somehow having a job that requires substantial amounts of teaching, at a quality higher than what I held myself up to in grad school (which felt more like following orders anyway), has set me Perpetually Behind.

Where I feel my life is now is that my career hopes are hanging by a thread (a lot depends on this summer going better than last summer did), while my personal life feels almost entirely hopeless. Actually I should be happy that I and many of the people around me are getting vaccinated now (first shot down, one to go!) and can look forward to social things beginning to revert back to normal in the summer. But as long as my persistent state of Being Hopelessly Behind on research continues, I might have trouble finding time for the (unfortunately rather daunting) task of building a social life from pretty much nothing.

So I'm coming to feel that the only thing I can grab onto at the moment for hope that I can turn just about everything in my life around is to somehow deal with this executive problem. And that since my recognizing it as a chief personal issue for more than the past year still hasn't resulted in me finding a way to cure it, I suppose it's about time to take off the high-agency goggles and put on the low-agency ones. Ironically, sometimes this is necessary for getting up and actually doing something about one's problems.

For Reasons that I have trouble understanding myself and would take a much longer post than this to examine out loud, I've stubbornly refused to ever really confront the neurological issues I've had since early childhood, to the point of pretty much never even discussing them on Tumblr, home of pretty close to the most open-about-neurological-issues subculture that exists on the internet. So I don't think I've said much about being aware I have ADD (as it would have been called when I was getting examined for it in childhood) or ADHD, although I may have mentioned it in passing. I've never bothered to actually research this cluster of conditions or to ask my parents for details of my diagnosis as a kid (although the latter is partly because this diagnosis happened in the mid-90's and I've always assumed this whole area of science has been practically revamped since then). But -- and I don't know why this took me so long -- I came to the realization some weeks ago (and not until after writing the above-linked posts!) that maybe this is the crux of my current issues. This came specifically from pondering how other mathematicians I've closely worked with on research or studies don't actually seem any faster than I am when I'm focused on figuring something out over a several-minute period, but that somehow most of them magically get both research and teaching work done at a far faster pace than I do, and that I constantly space out when trying to focus on just about anything (I think often without realizing how many times I'm spacing out almost like little microsleeps). Well, that plus about a dozen other issues I've been consciously aware of for years, relating to my ability to pay attention to shows/films, listen when someone is talking to me in a monologue, etc. There is pretty much no doubt in my mind that I have some clinical level of something in the ADHD cluster (the attention deficit part, not the hyperactivity part and definitely not the impulsiveness part) as an adult.

So now I'm steeling myself to seek out a diagnosis for this and see if there's hope of some kind of treatment, and I'm finding the prospect rather daunting at the moment. But I'm telling myself to investigate this as if my career (and general prospects at happiness) depends on it, because I have a feeling maybe at this point it does.

What really daunts me the most -- once I figure out the logistics of getting a psychiatry/neurology appointment and if/how this would work with my insurance -- is researching and weighing the risks of medication. I've never taken medication for any kind of brain thing before (unlike, I imagine, a lot of Tumblr); my parents were always somewhat against it and decided against putting me on anything as a child (I don't know if it was Ritalin they were suggesting or something else?) mainly on the grounds that side effects would be scary and I seemed to be doing well in school anyway; I went through all of K-12, college, grad school, etc. without any kind of accommodations. Now my parents seem to like the idea of me trying something but they seem to assume that the options are different now 25 years later, and that surely there are better substances available without the risk of terrible side effects. Now that I'm finally bringing myself to Google this stuff, I'm finding no evidence to back up their optimism, though -- it seems that the main medical solution is still Ritalin which is still pretty heavy-duty, side-effect-heavy stuff that could permanently change my brain or maybe even my personality.

Anyway, I imagine this as more like a two-paragraph post, and I've gone on pretty long about it, I guess at this point I'm curious if anyone here has some advice they could lend from direct experience or at least better knowledge in these matters than I have, especially about the diagnosis process and even more especially about medication options. (I assume there is no widespread "cure" for life-affecting inattention issues through a therapy program or anything else other than a substance... so gaah.)

*But, case in point, I have a friend who had essentially my exact job in my department prior to my arrival, and she managed to do it alongside a completely separate second full-time job (I mean, I doubt she had to deal with things like furnishing a new home alone at the time, but still). This is what I mean about some people seeming to be capable by a whole-number factor of doing more things than others.

[fiadhaisteach]

About me

Thanks for the tag, @oxygenforthewicked​! 🤗

1: Why did you choose your url?

When I decided to dump @/SiberianSpring (just the url... my City of Heroes main character will always have iterations running around), I went back to an older internet user name I'd abandoned way back when. I grabbed Aisteach on AO3, then found it wasn't available on Tumblr. Oops. 😝 A little Gaeilge wordplay and I ended up with FiadhAisteach.

Fiadh, depending on context, can be a noun or adjective, independent or prefixed and has several meanings, including: deer, wild, wilderness, outsized, large, respect, and esteem.

Aisteach is an adjective meaning strange, weird, queer, surprising, peculiar, odd, and/or wonderful.

2: Any side blogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them.

Just @live-creatively, where I dump “all the creative/crafty/inspiration guides & how-to posts & re-blogs [I find] so I have some hope of finding them again.” Other than that I just dump everything in this one spot... I barely remember to use @live-creatively; I can’t imagine trying to keep up with a host of side blogs.

3: How long have you been on tumblr?

Technically since 2014, but there was a two-year gap in there when I was inactive. Then I resurfaced when I needed to connect with DA fanfic writers & artists, and here we are.

4: Do you have a queue tag?

Yes. rifts in the queue

5: Why did you start your blog in the first place?

I had a few friends from LJ days who popped their heads onto BookFace long enough to direct me to their blogs here.

6: Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

I change it up everyone once in a while, but it’s usually just one of my photographs. Right now it’s a monarch butterfly photo I took, at Monarch Grove Sanctuary, on my honeymoon.

7: Why did you choose your header?

Again, I change it up every few months, and it’s frequently one of my own photos. This one is obviously a spiderweb on a small branch. It’s damp with mist from South Falls at Silver Falls State Park.

8: What’s your post with the most notes?

Grandma Kathy’s Hard Toffee Recipe (I used JetBlackCode.com to find out). *does a little happy chair dance*

9: How many mutuals do you have?

145, if I counted right according to tumblr, though I’m sure some of them aren’t active anymore.

10: How many followers do you have?

264.

11: How many people do you follow?

881. Believe it, or not, I curate my dash quite meticulously. Even so, my dashboard is a wonderful, chaotic mess, & I love it. Many of these are inactive friends that have moved on to other social media sites, but I refuse to “unfriend/unfollow” here or are organization's blogs that I like to follow for their news/updates. I also have 50, or so, blogs that I “Get Notifications” for, so even when I’m distracted by other shinies I don’t miss too much.

12: Have you ever made a shitpost?

Probably... possibly. It depends on your definition of shitpost.

13: How often do you use tumblr each day?

Probably way too much. It’s where I turn when “I’m on hold on the phone, while also waiting for a customer to actually ask a question so I can’t actually get work accomplished,” which happens way more frequently than you might think. I also pop over when I’ve got just a minute before something else is starting and I can’t let myself focus, but I know someone else will be interrupting my “TumblrTime,” so I'm not “wasting time.”

On non-work days & evenings... I’m on & off constantly, between fics and/or chapters of long fics.

14: Did you ever have a fight/argument with another blog once? who won?

No. I try to stay out of drama and I tend to run from fights. Confrontation is challenging for me, even online.... hell, even friendly confrontation is nerve-wracking. Though I do my best, in that case. Life is too short, and we all have better ways of spending our time.

15: How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

Fastest way to get me to NOT repost something. Every once in a very long while I might reblog one, but it’s despite the enjoinder, not because of it.

16: Do you like tag games?

YES. I love tag games. Sometimes I’m bad about doing them in a timely fashion, but I love them.

17: Do you like ask games?

Also yes. Though I’m not great about sending them, I love reading about people’s OCs... and other people!

18.Do you have a crush on a mutual?

I definitely have platonic crushes. I love all of my mutuals and followers, and I’m grateful to have you all around. 🤗💖

I think I’m late to this so... tagging anyone who wants to! (and tag me so I can read your responses!)

[dnvrsmedia]

Shut up and Kiss me

natasha romanoff x fem! reader

warning: yelling and cursing?? otherwise kinda fluffy! ALSO!!! this is a repost from my backup blog @blkromanova !!

summary: You and Natasha get into an argument over a mission.

gif: carpebucky

Today has been one of the most stressful days ever since you’ve joined the Avengers. You’ve only been there for about a year, but still you can never catch a break. Everyone on the team was out on a mission, which rarely happens. No one saw it nessecary unless there is a threat to the entire universe, but today there was an exception.

It was a nice sunny afternoon spent cuddling in bed with your long term girlfriend, natasha in your shared bed. It was supposed to be your day off until Steve called everyone for an emergency meeting. Hydra bases have been popping up rapidly all over the globe. This mission was too big for only one team to go, so naturally Steve used the resources he has right in front of him.

“Alright everybody listen up, I need your full attention. We cannot screw this up.” Steve sternly spoke. “ As you all know, Hydra is a force to be reckon with. They have been inactive for the past couple of years, but suddenly they’re here again. I have been just informed about the bases and nothing else which means we are going in blind. I need you to be more aware than you have ever been on a mission. This may be a set up, but i am willing to give this a shot if this means we could put a stop to whatever they’re planning,” Steve pauses while he hands out folders. “Here is all the information I could give you guys about Hydra and the mission today. Read it, study it, memorize it. Everything that is is there will keep you alive. Your assigned teams should be written on the top of your folder. You have eight hours to do what you need to do and get on the quinjets. any questions?” After a pregnant pause, Steve dismissed everyone. You, along with the others, stayed to meet and talk with their teams.

“Hey you.” was wispered in your ear as you felt two dainty yet strong hands wrap around your waist. You turn around to see your beautiful girlfriend behind you. “Hey baby, are you nervous for later? It seems as of we’re on the same team! that never happens!” you exclaim. “Im more excited to kick some Hydra ass than nervous.” she slyly smirks. “Hey you two love birds! can we go over this first then y’all can be down eachothers faces?” A voice who you soon realized belonged to Sam boomed throughout the conference room. Your face beamed bright red as Nat let out a hearty cackle while flipping him the bird.

The mission was going to be more complex than just breaking into a base and kicking ass. In this case, the team has to go undercover at a charity ball. Underneath where the charity ball was being held was supposedly where Hydra is doing an illegal weapon auction. Your part of the mission was to try and distract the host into letting you get into the auction. From there the rest of your team will clear out the civilians and obtain the illegal weapons. Everyone seemed pretty on board with the plan besides Natasha.

“I don’t see why Steve can’t let me do it instead! I have more experience in my back pocket than you do y/n !” Nat yelled. “Why the fuck is it a problem? Just because you have more experience doesn’t mean I am not fully capable of compleating this mission and you know that for a fact!” You stared at her, fuming with rage. “You don’t get to decide what I can or cannot do Miss. Romanoff. If Captain Rogers, Americas very own super soldier thinks that I can get this fucking mission completed then that is what I will do you hear! I didn’t work my ass off to get this position just so my girlfriend can bitch about it! I will see you all on the quinjet in eight hours. goodbye.” you stormed out of the conference room making sure you slammed the door hard and loud.

Hours passes and you have not once seen or talked to Natasha. In all honesty, you didn’t even want to see her. When she said that you weren’t capable of pulling most of the weight of the mission hurt like hell. Natasha was the last person you’d expect to say something like that to you, but here we are. You guys never had a problem like this before, and you have no idea how, when, and where it came from.

You normally just sleep in Nat’s room, but right now you couldn’t stand her. She’s been trying to talk to you for hours, but as soon as you got up here you muted her text and calls. You even went to the extent of telling F.R.I.D.A.Y to make sure everyone, but Natasha had access to your room. Petty? yes, but you just need all the physical space you can get. You always say it’s never a good idea to go into a mission mad, but now isn’t the time to talk. Whenever you get undercover missions, it takes you a while to get your mind prepared. With the thoughts of the argument on the back peddle, you get ready for the mission.

After an hour of impromptu yoga to de-stress and a light salad, you decide it’s time to start getting ready. The reason why your role is so dangerous is that you won’t have your tactical gear on. Without your gear- if something where to happen- you would more likely to get severely hurt. In this instance, Tony had made clothing that were as durable as bullet proof vests for the team for undercover work, but the tactical gear is still safer.

You were allowed to carry two guns in your thigh holster,instead of the usual four. It was about ten minutes till the team met on the quinjet and you were starting to get nervous. Natasha would normally calm you down, but since you weren’t on speaking terms, you went to the next best thing. You took one final look at yourself in the mirror, and headed out.

Your heals clicked as you walked down the halls and out to the quinjet. You were dressed in a long red satin dress with a tasteful slit on the left side that came right up above your mid thigh. Your hair was styled in a bun with the front pieces of hair framing your face. Everyone seemed to be there and waiting for you at the foot of the quinjet. “Finally! the princess arrives!” Sam teases. You heard a myriad of compliments. “You look stunning y/n...” Nat mumbled. Instead of being the bigger person, you just walk past her and go straight to Steve to talk out your nerves. You and Steve have been friends since he first got out of the ice. He is the reason why you have the job, and how you met Nat.

After Steve goes over the plan once more the separate teams go on their way leaving you, Natasha, Steve, Sam, and Bucky in a quinjet on your way to a “charity ball” in France. Nat surprisingly hasn’t tried to talk to you again, but you two have shared eye contact many times. An hour passes and we have reached our destination. All of your nerves suddenly catch up to you. What if Nat is right? What if- your thoughts are cut off when you feel Nat’s arms around you. Instantly you feel your nerves slip away. “Hey,” she wispers softly “ I know you’re pissed at me, but we made a promise. Never go into a mission without saying I love you.” Her hand travels up your arm to the side of your cheek, caressing it softly. You take a deep breath “ God, i might be pissed at you, but I will never stop loving you.” you smile weakly. “I was kind of an ass, but I love you with my whole heart. Just know I didn’t mean it. I wanted to protect you, baby. You know how dangerous these missions are.” she pleaded. “Yes, tasha I get it, but you don’t get to make that call. I wouldn’t signed up for this job if I didn’t know the dangers.” You sigh. “I know, I know, and Im so sorry, my love.” She kissed my hand as i rolled my eyes playfully. “Shut up and kiss me already.” you giggled as she leaned in. “My wish is your command.” she smirked

[shatterthefragments]

Questions Tag Game

Thank you for tagging me @catholicnicky!

Hmm I'm supposed to tag 20 but I'll tag:

@kiaya, @caffeinatedbraincell, @randofando-spoonie, @cowgaykermit, @boutiquetraveltravelboutique @rhubarbdreams

If you want to play :)

1. Name/Nickname: Shatters <3

2. Gender: *shrugs noncommitedly*/nonbinary fits best

3. Star sign: okay so I took a thing and I'm going to assume that "Sun in Pisces" is this? bc i have no clue any time i look at that :eek:

4. Height: it is to my delight that I can definitely say 5'3" and not actually 5'2"! Bc I'm only a couple inches shorter than a friend and that would mean I'm taller than 5'2"!

5. Time: at the time of this Q: 12:20... ah I should get ready for bed soon... (longer by the time I post this at a little past 1 am)

6. Birthday: Feb. 26

7. Favourite Band: Currently? Maybe Polyphia? Most played currently at least. I've been vibing with Nothing But Thieves, Daughtry (again), 3OH!3 (i know), Florence + The Machine (though I have yet to do a discography playthrough yet), (ok so I'm scrolling through my saved artists for this one), The Neighbourhood, some local bands, and The Pretty Reckless lately.

8. Favourite solo artist: oh dear god. Um. Loving and/or getting back into: Rina Sawayama, Toby Fox, Ichika Nito, Tim Henson, Lil Nas X, King Princess, Hayley Kiyoko? idk it could be a lot more. But for Reasons it currently has to be Lil Nas X <3

9. song stuck in my head: because I caved and got TikTok (derogatory) because of the Chocolate Potato Cake (from 1912!) [and if you didn't just hear that in Dylan's voice you should find it on Youtube it's great] it's Maneskin's Beggin. When that's not recently heard, it varies between many other songs. If I whistle, it's usually a simple march we played in band. Maybe Soda. Maybe the hook from The Worst. Who knows~ not me!

10. last movie: either Waves or Wolf it's been so long since I've watched something. But soon hopefully Hartenstraat!

11. last show: Leverage! When I rewatched it last year or something!

12. when I created this blog: perhaps 2012 or 2013? I deleted most of my blog and started over though at around 15k posts so it may have been before that? But I don't think it was much before 2012 if so.

13. what I post: please tell me fuck if i know aaaaah whatever I see when I pop on when I have the capacity to actually reblog or queue it i guess? mostly related to whatver i'm fixated on <3 (speaking of - draining my queue for the tumblr post+ strike so that'll suck to get filled again afterwards :P)

14. last thing I googled: "Sugar and spice makes everything nice quote"

15. other blogs: theoldguardinshatters is my tog sideblog! I have some other... rather inactive blogs... not really sure I want to share them. Some are straight up empty.

16. do i get asks? not often

17. why I chose my URL: I'm a poet! jk jk (or am I?) but I wrote a poem back in middle school... actually a few versions based off the same premise/line (i was going to see if I could find it but looking back That Far in my blog is like "yeah, there's no way I'm faking my mental illness even when I fear I might be" so I'm just. not. going there. like holy shit maybe i should purge my old posts again...) But if I remember maybe I'll put what I can remember under a cut?

18. following: after swearing I'd never follow more than 100: 304. But many aren't active anymore :( (also literally me 5 yrs ago: 'oh god I follow more than 30 people I'm freaking out, it's too many!')

19. followers: 234, but who knows how many are porn bots I never really kept up back in the day

20. average hours of sleep: ...that is a good question... idk. maybe 5ish when I work and maybe 9ish when I am just me on my own?

21. lucky number: culturally: 8, personally, also: 3,7,13,17,19,23

22. instruments: formerly flute and tenor sax. I haven't exactly kept up oops >.< (so i guess rn I just whistle or hum or sometimes sing)

23. what am I wearing: shorts and a t-shirt

24. dream job: bookbinder, or some other creative pursuit that allows me to work with my hands - cake decorator? other arts? idk. maybe secretary? maybe fancy ass barista/pastry decorator? editor? illustrator? i have no clue please send suggestions <3

25. dream trip: with friends. Not having to drive the entire time. Longer than what I'm currently able to do... maybe a couple months... maybe in europe or asia? maybe just road tripping across canada. idk. It sure would be nice to see them again <3 hopefully camping with one (maybe two?) mid august-ish though! :D

26. favourite food: dim sum (bc I really miss going out with family!), sushi, desserts, pies, quiche, eggs benny, Popcorn, I'm not sure. those are also safe foods texturally usually too though.

27. nationality: canadian, half chinese.

28. favourite song: *shrugs* right now perhaps Soda or The Worst

29. last book I read: ...i don't know... maybe a reread I did of What They Always Tell Us or Martin Wilson's other book We Now Return To Regular Life last year?

30. top 3 fictional universes I would like to live in: ...fuck. I don't know. Most of the fantasy universes I read are fanfic... Maybe.... Waves Cinematic Universe - now that Gabriele has a boat, we could boat! Some universe with wings! A universe with UBI *sideeyes gvmt* Stardew Valley universe! :D

from what I can remember maybe (again - Several Versions of this were written... back in middle school...)

Shatter the fragments to see what's left Release the weight That's on your chest

There's nothing left For you to see Nothing left But apathy

[just-a-poor-boy-queen]

As a relatively new Queen fan your Blog has helped me in so many ways and for that I wanted to say thank you! The fact that you reply to every single question is just incredible haha Also I wanted to ask you which books/movies etc you recommend reading/watching to get to know queen better, since I also want to start a queen blog

Omg thank you! I am so honoured that my 3 am rants have actually helped someone haha. But I understand the importance of tumblr blogs, because I have learnt so many things over the past year from several different blogs, both active and inactive. And that's why I am so glad that my tiny blog could help you in some way.

As for books/documentaries, I'll list the ones that I have read/watched and I think will be helpful. Just remember that all the correct info on queen and Freddie is not consolidated in one book/doc—rather, you'll have to look into different sources, and you may find contradictory info at times as well. It's all a mess really, haha. Also, the books I've listed are Freddie centric and are not about the band. If you want reading material on the band, I think @quirkysubject will be a good person to talk to. Anyway, here are the books that I'd recommend for Freddie.

Mercury and Me by Jim Hutton: I mean, if you've seen my blog you already know how much I love this book and Jim. There are a few factual errors in the book, but they're very minor and overall, the book is an emotional recount of Jim's memories with Freddie. 1000/10 recommended.

Freddie Mercury: An Intimate Memoir By The Man Who Knew Him Best by Peter Freestone and David Evans: This is Phoebe aka Peter's first book, and he talks about his experiences with Freddie in detail. There is a lot of info in the book, and personally, I found it a little hard to read because of its chapter structure. Nevertheless, it is a very good resource for Freddie's life, though not without some inaccuracies of its own.

This Was The Real Life by David Evans and David Minns with additional accounts from different people: Not the best book there is, but it offers a lot of insight into Freddie's state of mind, and gives a first hand account of his relationship with David (from David's POV, of course).

Then there are several photobooks, like Brian's Queen in 3D and lots of others. I don't have any of them because I've seen almost all the photos on the internet, haha. You can buy them if you wish to.

This point is for books to be avoided, or at least, if you do read them, know that there is a lot of false info in them. Lesley Ann Jones' biography and Somebody to Love by Mark Langthorne and Matt Richards contain a lot of things that have been proven false. Similarly, I have heard that the Laura Jackson biography also has false info.

As far as the documentaries are concerned, I am not a big fan of the recent ones. Most of them are very homophobic, and seem like an extension of the film. There are a few old docs that were better.

Freddie Mercury: The Untold Story

Queen: Days of Our Lives (focused on the band instead of Freddie)

Magic Remixed was okayish as far as I remember because it had Jim hahaha.

Generally, I am not too fond of docs. But yeah, you can watch these, I think they were slightly better than the rest.

I invite others to add to this list with recommendations of their own, especially band centric stuff.

Good luck with your queen blog, I'm looking forward to it!

[whitehotharlots]

Reading recommendation (and a brief meditation on the utility of Frank Wilderson)

I’ve read an awful lot of self-styled “afropessimistic” theory. I’ve been wanting to write about it for some time. But there are significant hurdles. First off, I’d need to read a lot more if I wanted to engage with it in a scholarly sense, and reading it is a very painful chore. The effort required would necessitate a greater reward than the mild serotonin boost of a successful blog post, yet attaching my own name and affiliation to any critique would open me up to vicious reprisal, mostly from people who have not read any of the works being discussed.  I mean, come on... Look at the term: afropessimism. It can hardly be uttered aloud among the uninitiated, you have to explain that you’re not trying to dismiss an intellectual movement, that this is what these writers actually call themselves.

Long story short, I highly recommend this new piece from the LA Review of Books: “On Afropessimism,” by Jesse McCarthy. It’s a longform review of a new book by the man who coined the term, Frank Wilderson, titled simply Afropessimism.

I didn't come to Wilderson until long after reading Frantz Fannon, Derrick Bell, and Cornell West. These are all relatively fatalistic theorists who regard being black (or "blackness") as necessarily existing in a state of alterity, one that was perhaps inalterable, but they nonetheless did not regard themselves as fundamentally inhuman. Nor did they argue that reform is impossible (hence the “pessimism”) and that therefore inaction was the only viable approach to praxis. I've never read Orlando Patterson (the other foundational theorist cited in the by McCarthy), but this passage resonates strongly

Racial exceptionalism, political immutability, “antiblackness” as structural antagonism, and abjection in the form of “social death”: each of these concepts predates Afropessimism, and as I see it, together they form its foundation. Indeed, it is the synthesis of all of these ideas into one purportedly coherent worldview that I take to be the innovation of Afropessimism. I have deliberately chosen the writers, scholars, and thinkers cited above, however, precisely because they do not come to the same conclusions as Wilderson. Several could be said to be strongly opposed; even Derrick Bell (whom Wilderson might have suggested as a predecessor but does not cite in Afropessimism) ultimately counsels in his book’s epilogue that we move “beyond despair” and calls on us to “fashion a philosophy that both matches the unique dangers we face and enables us to recognize in those dangers opportunities for committed living and humane service.” Part of my point here is that those who disagree with the Afropessimist worldview cannot be simply dismissed as “soft” or naïve. Nor should anyone infer that simply because one critiques the Afropessimist synthesis, one cannot also hold strong views in agreement about any number of more specific points of analysis.

This has been one of the more striking aspects of the afropessimism becoming ascendant in mainstream anti-racism (aside from the fact that it's only rarely acknowledged as the intellectual base of the movement)--the belief that even people who take an aggressively dim view of race relations can still be dismissed as naive, or even as actively white supremacist, simply for suggesting that some degree of reform is desirable.

The description of Wilderson's work contained within McCarthy’s review gives us a glimpse into how such dismissal became normalized: a combination of utter self-assuredness and the ability to assert complete moral parallels between acts and situations that few sane people, prior to 2017, would have considered equivalent:

For many of us, such a leap is neither ethical nor comprehensible. But for Wilderson the portability and paradoxical fungibility of slavery fits perfectly with his interest in film and his Lacanian and Fanonian readings of it. How else to explain passages in Afropessimism in which incidents involving a terrible white roommate situation he and his girlfriend find themselves in circa 1979 are, for Wilderson, obviously comparable to Steve McQueen’s 2013 film, 12 Years a Slave, which was based on Solomon Northup’s 1853 slave narrative. This is not a jest, but a sustained and intensely explored analogy, in which the whipping of Patsey (played by Lupita Nyong’o in the film), descriptions of the cool sadism of Mary Epps (the slaveowner’s wife) from Northrup’s 1853 narrative, and Wilderson’s troubles with a batty white roommate all share the same stage. We are asked to imagine them as coequal and even coeval psychological theaters of cruelty, whose mise-en-scène simply involves different props. The plantation is everywhere and all the time. It is ontological, which means that it attaches trans-historically to all Black persons regardless of their social position.

How far does this go? In his academic monograph on film studies, Red, White & Black (2010), Wilderson forthrightly asserts that Black academics are not subalterns in the academy but “Slaves of their colleagues.” Is being talked down to in the faculty lounge really the same as being whipped at the post, or slinging rock on the corner, or being placed in solitary on Rikers Island as a juvenile? Is working at Merrill Lynch in New York as a Black woman really the same as working shifts as a Black gay man in a McDonald’s in Alabama? Is it ethical or desirable to confound all of these into a tortuous equivalency while telling those who propose to fight at your side to shut up because you don’t like the analogies they are using to connect themselves with your suffering?

For a long while I've been trying to argue that what we now regard as wokeness, at least in its present and culturally dominant state, has borrowed its means of comportment--if not its fundamental worldview--from afropessimism. This combination of hectoring paranoia and cocksure self-righteousness is now the norm in liberal spaces, even (maybe especially) among people who have no rational claim to especial victimhood.

Key to this is Wilderson’s assertion that blackness is not only an inescapable reality structuring all human existence, but that as such, it means that black people are fundamentally inhuman. Not just an exempted or subaltern class: a different conceptual entity altogether:

It is fair to ask of a [critical] “lens” whether it actually sharpens our view and, if so, to perform demonstrations of clarity? A major problem for Afropessimism is that its claim to revealing the underlying structural truth seems to repeatedly require abandoning any significant contact with historical reality. With social categories like class, gender, and material facts made irrelevant, the theoretical work is forced to concentrate itself in rhetorical aphorisms that seem to be slouching their way toward slogans. “The antagonist of the worker is the capitalist. The antagonist of the Native is the settler. But the antagonist of the Black is the Human being,” Wilderson tells us. The problem with this, apart from its faux-syllogistic form, is that human identities are not fixed and rigid boxes, but dynamic rings of change that merge and overlap. The Black Americans involved in the colonization scheme of Liberia in the 19th century were both Black (formerly enslaved on US plantations) and also settlers. Obviously, there are Black capitalists just as there are Black workers. Is there a double-jeopardy principle for antagonisms or some calculus by which they can be selectively negated?

Regarding oneself as inhuman means that you simply cannot win, even while you're winning. It means, also, that you get to exempt yourself from the rules of human interaction that are otherwise universal. Your statements and beliefs cannot be subject to any means of adjudication, since by your own self-understanding you will never be validated, which means in a bizarre turn of logic that your validity is inevitable. Your immorality is always assumed, which means your morality can never be put into question. Nothing you do or say can ever be considered bad or incorrect, because you believe yourself to have been exempted from such abstractions, that the only possible judge of yourself is therefore yourself. This is a tremendously inviting mode of comportment to both paranoid neurotics and mediocre intellects, which goes a long way in explaining how it became so popular so quickly.