#there was actually a story i've heard before

[pastasuccubus]

Xelzaz is my overall favorite follower because he's not just fully platonic, but intelligent. Just ignore his racially insensitive questions to Khajiit DBs lmfao they genuinely come from a place of ignorance and they're pretty funny. He really knows how to make you feel guilty for considering doing Daedric quests. He's the group mom.

Inigo goes into every save, because he's my comfort bankie, and I can't imagine what my life would be like if I hadn't stumbled across his mod when I was severely depressed. He's fully platonic, like Xelzaz, but DAMN is he simple sometimes lmao. He's creative, at least.

Taliesin is a character that I want to see grow---he's my butterfly. I see his exploration into Skyrim to be the caterpillar finally coming out of his chrysalis, and it doesn't matter to me if he's actually a moth. Then he's a beautiful moth with a sweet personality. I saw Dynamite124's sneakpeak at his new dialogue, and that line would actually make my face red (I barely reacted to his more scandalous dialogue lol).

I enjoy Lucien's flaws, because the nuance and the stories he both actively and passively tells are fun. Nepo baby learning how to finally make friends, and all that. I've made a whole posts about him before lol, I don't just yell at him for collecting 306 firewood.

I accidentally romanced Auri once, which was mortifying because I was still in the closet back then, and my dad was in the room. I got that 'tism rizz, ig. When more time passes, I might actually do her romance route again---just intentionally this time as someone who's now out and proud.

I also accidentally romanced Gore once, which was not my intention at all. Idk what's wrong with me, I keep on thinking I'm being platonic, then 'oops, romance.' Only reason I'm in my irl relationship is because I stumbled into it, but I actually had a crush on him back this time. I'll legit see the word 'date' and assume that it's platonic.

I like Remiel's platonic route, but I've also accidentally romanced her before. There's definitely something wrong with me lmao. She's a great character, and she's dense---just like me frfr.

Intentionally romanced Kaidan on pre-extended edition and community revoiced. Tbh, I prefer the revoiced, it's less buggy and the dialogue hits its marks better.

They're all my favorite, in some way---

Except Bishop, I tried playing with him once, years ago, after I heard some online hype about him, and I was incredibly uncomfortable as a then fresh-faced 18 year old. He reminded me too much of the lecherous men I often used to see in customer service---just with a younger face. Everything about him screams cycle of abuse, over-sexualization, misogyny, and the way he demeans the DB is disgusting. My ethics don't stand by him as a character and I really wonder what was going on in the heads of the people who made his mod.

I would like to throw in Recorder as a follower mod I enjoyed, I only ever went platonic route with her. I have heard some online criticism, but I don't know much about it tbh.

I'm planning on installing Val Serano pepper or whatever his name is. I can't remember who has interaction dialogue with him though.

Varric is also a mod I keep on meaning to install. When I first saw the name, I got excited because I thought that someone had successfully made a functioning Dragon Age 2: Varric mod. He's the best character in that whole damn game---which he should be, cuz he's the one recounting the whole story to Cassandra. But back to the Skyrim Varric lol. I would love to have an old man on my team, getting up to shenanigans.

Everytime I try one a new one pops up in my reccomended! So I got curious

Please reblog for a bigger sample!!!!

[creature-wizard]

Found some stories from people who realized their SRA/repressed memory therapists were a bunch of quacks. Lots of CWs for talk of severe abuse and some occasional disturbing activities. If you can stomach it, it's worth a read because it shows just how bad these therapists could get with malpractice and quackery. If you don't want to read the whole thing, here's some key takeaways:

Many therapists just decided their patients had repressed memories. The patients were not allowed to question or disagree with this. The therapists basically flexed their professional authority and told them they were just in denial. Former patient Deborah David described her own experience as being like constantly told that she had once seen a bear climbing a candy cane, told that other people had seen bears on candy canes, and constantly being asked leading questions about her experiences with bears on candy canes, and told that she was in denial if she said she'd never seen one.

Not all patients appear to have been put under hypnosis, but the therapists' insistence that terrible things must have happened to them and their insistence that the only way to heal was to "remember" all of it basically had a number of patients just imagining up all the horrible scenarios they could think of. Former patient Laura Pasley realized after getting out that a number of her "memories" actually came from the book Sybil, the movie Deranged, and from a story she'd written when she was seventeen.

(Worth noting here that a study showed that people who believe they have past lives are more likely to forget where they learned information. It would make a lot of sense if many people who "remembered" SRA under therapists like these have the same issue.)

Many patients were told that their bodies stored memory of this alleged repressed trauma, and any physical sensation they felt was a "body memory" surfacing. So for a hypothetical example, someone who experienced an aching ankle might be told that this is their body "remembering" parental abuse. A patient might imagine a scenario where a parent broke their ankle, and the therapist would treat this as a "recovered" memory.

A number of patients were diagnosed with MPD (as it was called at the time) regardless of whether they initially showed any symptoms. Patients were pushed into "uncovering" these alters that allegedly remembered all the abuse. One patient (Robert Wilson) actually began acting out the alters his therapist told him he had outside of the therapist's office, in some very harmful and destructive ways. (CW for prostitution and animal death if you want to read his story.)

Another patient (Nell Charette) said that while her therapy was ongoing, she had "eight different people telling [her] what to do."

Another patient (Susan) reports:

I mapped an elaborate system, virtually every emotional state or conflicting world view was an alter, plus the male protector and little girl and little boy that went with it. There were sets of 12 for every ego state, complete with names. In the end, I had about 200 "alters." ... Now along with all these alters is the question of how did they get here? Now, we've all heard the story that you can't be this way without severe, repeated, sexual or physical trauma from before you were 5. I'm really pissed about this part, because look how they did this: 1. Your symptoms mean you have MPD, the first step to getting better is to admit this. There is no other thing this could be; if it walks like a duck it's a duck. 2. Since you have MPD, you had to have been sexually/physically/ritually abused. There is no other way you could have this, so you need to admit it to get better. 3. You have to bring these "memories" forward to get better.

This confirms exactly what I've been saying for months: that the mythology of SRA and Project Monarch-type alter programming permits any uncomfortable feeling, any unwanted impulse, and any conflicting beliefs to be attributed to an alter, and therefore to trauma-based mind control, extreme abuse, or whatever you want to call it.

Robert's unfortunate case also confirms that if you go telling a sufficiently unstable person that they have certain alters that do certain things, they will effectively develop them. (This is why convincing a child that they might have a prostitute alter is not only unethical, but also incredibly dangerous!)

If you try and make yourself uncover certain alters, or if someone convinces you that you have them, you will almost certainly "find" them. The simple act of imagining an alter can be enough to make your brain start generating one, or at least something that resembles one close enough to convince people like these therapists.

Many of these former patients describe their mental health deteriorating as their "therapy" progressed. Many who came in without severe issues were completely dysfunctional by the time they left, and if they did have issues when they started, they were exacerbated. This was treated as a part of the healing process, with patients being told that "you have to get worse before you get better" and "the only way out is through."

As retractor Stephanie Krauss put it:

They get hold of this impressive-sounding theory and it goes through some metamorphosis in their minds and is transformed into fact. Then they go treat patients with this new information that only causes more havoc in the lives of persons with normal problems. They have this zeal to treat a disorder that doesn't even exist-at least, not until after treatment starts, and that's when the suffering really begins.

I know brainwashing techniques, and what these people experienced was 100% brainwashing. Each patient had their very sense of self torn apart and each was led to believe that they couldn't trust their own minds. They were led to believe that they had a serious problem that only the therapist - the one with all the power - could fix. They were only "healing" when they complied with the therapist's desires. They were told to cut off anyone who challenged the therapist's narrative.

In other words, the real programmers, the real practitioners of mind control, were the therapists.

[thatfeelinwhenyou]

hey girlie! just wanted to come on and let you know that there's an author on here that's plagiarising your work. well, she claims she's never heard of safe & sound before that's why she didn't give you any credits. but before that she said she knows about it but never read it, and only know the synopsis. which i find kinda weird? she also mentioned your fic in her authors note but never actually tagged you or anything.

she says that she was inspired by a story she read on wattpad? but some of the scenes are literally identical, and almost word for word.

her disclaimers and warnings are almost same as yours too... thought that you should know about this!

i'll link the fic in another ask because i'm not sure if you'd want to post it out there or not!!

hi anon! first of all, thank you so much for alerting me about this matter. and also to the many other anons who sent in an ask telling me about this 🥹🫶

i'm only replying to this specific ask because it's the only one that didn't explicitly state the blog of the writer. rest assured i saw all your asks, and i really really appreciate it!

i will just say my two cents here. i'm not even going to engage with the author of that particular fic because there's no age indication on their blog, and god forbid i'm beefing with a kid 😂

i went to check out the fic and thought to myself it can't be THAT simila—i am dumbfounded!

fic in qns s&s

it's not word for word but personally, i think the idea is there.

next, to address the point where they claimed they never even knew my fic existed until someone commented to let them know (this conversation with the user that brought it up took place on 13 Feb). i took the liberty to scroll through my notifs and found their username liking part 4 & the masterlist of s&s on 11 Feb...

it's definitely understandable that ideas overlap or are inspired—after all safe & sound was also inspired by The Walking Dead and The Hunger Games. and personally, i think it's okay to express the same ideas in one's own flair. but i find it hard to wrap my head around the fact that they found it necessary to claim that they didn't know that s&s existed.

they did end up mentioning safe & sound in the author's note. but only to reiterate that they weren't inspired by it, but by a story they'd read on wattpad. and because s&s and said wattpad story are "exactly the same" they gave credits to me (no tags or anything of sorts). which i find it so weird because shouldn't you give the credit to the writer of that specific story you were inspired by and not... me?

the user that was engaging with them also requested for the wattpad story link but they "deleted the app" 😅

my intention is not to be petty or put myself on a pedestal, but with the indications right in my face i think i have the right to be concerned. i also want to clear up the confusion among my readers that's taken the effort to alert me about the issue!

if you have coincidentally come across this fic, and have read it. could you let me know if you think it's similar? who knows maybe i'm just insecure or smt 🤡

however, this is not in anyway insinuating anyone to go onto their blog and spread negativity. please do not engage! i'm only here for opinions and to prevent anyone else from engaging.

lastly, if you're the author of this particular fic and you think you've been wronged and that i've misunderstood, please do not hesitate to reach out to me!

thank you.

-nat

[not-poignant]

Asking as someone who looooved Falling Falling Stars (ffs Efnisien has so many of my favorite character traits all together that I was actually in disbelief. And as I have OCD I always love seeing a character that has it. And I have a very similar kind to Efnisien. It was very nice to see portrayed) I was wondering. Have you ever read The Emotional Incest Syndrome? By Patricia Love and Jo Robinson. Your descriptions of parental enmeshment rang so true I was thinking maybe you’d find this book interesting if you haven’t read it.

Hi anon,

I haven't read that book before (I hadn't heard of it until your message) but it does look interesting!

Tbh that kind of enmeshment I find really interesting in general, I mean broadly anything around interpersonal trauma is interesting to me, but especially between caregivers and vulnerable people, whether that's adults and children, royalty and subjects, psychologists/doctors and patients etc.

It's funny in a way because quite a few people have been like 'I relate to Efnisien so much but I haven't done what he's done!' and it's like, it's not what he's done in a way that makes him who he is. It's what he's experienced and suffered through, and the way his brain chemistry works, and his formative experiences around conception of self. And those things are very relatable to many of us, because many of us have been made to feel small, or dismissed, or like we don't matter, or aren't seen, to someone who is supposed to care for us and love us unconditionally. Unfortunately many of us have experienced abuse, and many of us have a family history of mental illness and/or neurodivergence.

It's been really humbling how many folks actually went on to realise they had OCD and/or the Pure O subtype through Efnisien, I've gotten some extremely touching messages about it from folks, where I just kind of have to sit there like 'oh, sometimes my silly little stories can do some cool stuff if the timing is right.'

But there's something really magical about the way that characters can kind of show exaggerated examples (or straight up non-exaggerated examples) of what we're going through, and in hurt/comfort and trauma recovery stories, it means we get to gently roleplay the experience of recovering through that!

It's honestly my favourite thing about writing these themes and why I can't imagine writing anything else.

[letitrainathousandflames]

Maybe, in writing, make sure to crack the belief in that seemingly easy manner but then spend some time mentioning those many patched-up holes afterwards.

"I've had heard of poverty before, but was certain the king was doing his best to adress the issue" or "ive been told repeatedly that thw poverty issue was being made to be worse than it actually was, and people just wanted handouts"

Or "i was told that the poor deserved to be poor just like i deserved to be whipped because they were wicked, as was i. But after having been fed and cared by then, i realize they are not wicked and i, who always felt real deep in my heart of hearts that maybe i wasnt wicked, maybe i didnt deserve the whippings, can feel this belief crumbling apart."

Maybe, also, have her belief system be eroded bit by bit until theres nothing. First, she realizes the poor arent wicked. Then she realizes they arent really greedy people wanting handouts, theyre just living in subhuman conditions and need dignity. Then she speaks to elders and reslizes the king has never ever lifted a finger to adress the issue, preferring to make propaganda about the poor being greedy layabouts.

It goes from the poor aren't evil -> maybe i wasnt evil -> they were suffering and the king lied about their suffering -> they dont deserve to suffer -> i didnt deserve to suffer -> i didnt deserve the whippings -> they fucking whipped me! for nothing! just to keep me in line! like they keep the poor suferring to keep them in line to prevent an uprising! -> screw the king actually.

This can happen in the span of several months to a week to even a day, depending on the pace/size of your story. Just like movies make people fall helplessly in love in the span of an afternoon, you can make it work, if you write it well.

I, personally, would make this whole process last at least a few days to feel believable. But each writer has their own style!

There is an odd thing I see in books sometimes where a character who is defined by their steadfast loyalty to a person or organization is presented with one (1) piece of evidence against them and immediately changes their mind.

I was just reading a book where a character is deeply loyal to the royal family despite being their literal whipping girl, but she immediately decides that the king must be a bad ruler the first time she sees poverty exists. And he is--but it's weird that the 15 years of being whipped didn't convince her but the existence of poor people did.

It often reads like a plot-convenient way of having a character change their mind without having to do any of the actual work or spend any actual time on what it means for them to change their mind. But it also often rings false--we know for a fact that people with deeply held beliefs are often not convinced no matter how much evidence they see to the contrary, much less because one piece of evidence was presented to them.

[chocolatepot]

OFMD fandom, consider TGCF

Tian Guan Ci Fu is a Chinese light novel with an English translation published by Seven Seas Entertainment as Heaven Official's Blessing. You might not have heard of it, but chances are pretty good that you've heard of Mo Dao Zu Shi, adapted by Tencent into a tv series that aired on Netflix as The Untamed. ("Sexy Times with Wangxian", yes.) That's by the same author, Mo Xiang Tong Xiu!

For roughly the year before OFMD first aired, I was in MXTX fandom, more focused on MDZS than TGCF, although I'd read and liked both. Recently, though, I've come back to TGCF in a big way - doing a full reread - and a number of parallels to OFMD have been jumping out at me, making me think, hey, maybe my friends would like this?

Canon m/m romance that is the emotional backbone for the story

Lots of humor!

Main character from a high status background ...

... who is derided as a laughingstock by his high-falutin' peers and by people on the ground

Love interest who is widely believed to be the most powerful evil being in existence

Despite the obvious aesthetic differences, the MC and LI get each other on a level nobody else does

Also despite appearances, both MC and LI are very much not young and spend a long time alone before they meet

You could even say there's a "slyly complicated butch/femme dynamic" (a phrase from an old article about OFMD that always sticks in my head)

MC's kindness and attention to people considered "worthless" often help solve the problem

Okay, curious? I'll tell you about TGCF in more detail behind the cut.

(I do want to be clear here, I'm stressing these points of similarity but these two canons are not The Same - I'm just saying, if these are aspects of OFMD that really resonated with you, you should think about giving TGCF a try!)

Okay, if you haven't really heard of MXTX novels before, I assume you might not be familiar with a lot of the genre conventions, so I'll step way back. TGCF is xianxia, which is a type of fantasy where people can gain powers and eventually ascend to immortality/godhood; in some xianxia books, the process of gaining or using those powers is the point, but here it's really just background for the story. These powers are gained through "cultivation", which can be a combo of meditation and martial arts practice. People who die are either reincarnated or turn into ghosts, depending on how much resentment they have going on.

The first volume opens with a prologue explaining that Xie Lian was a handsome and popular prince who ascended at seventeen; when his kingdom was beset with war and famine, he came back to help the populace but was unsuccessful. As a result, they burned his temples and stopped worshipping him, and he was also banished from the heavens with his powers cut off. Having to live as a penniless normal person (but still immortal) was some Real Bad Times, and when he ascended again, angrily, he was banished again. This time, he went back down and lived peacefully but in destitution as a wandering busker and scrap collector for several centuries. And then he ascended a third time.

That's where the story picks up! Xie Lian is now a god again and everyone appears to either hate him or think he's incredibly pathetic. He starts off in trouble by accidentally causing a lot of property damage, and to repay it he's sent to solve a mystery: brides in wedding processions that go by a particular mountain are being kidnapped. Part of his investigation involves dressing up as a bride as bait for the "ghost groom", and this is where the reader gets their first sight of Hua Cheng, taking bride!Xie Lian's hand and briefly guiding and protecting him. After the mystery is solved, Xie Lian finds out that the man who seemed very kind and attractive to him is actually a ghost who defeated and destroyed thirty-three gods - he's the ruler of Ghost City, someone everyone is terrified of.

I'm not going to go further into the plot because there are some big central mysteries that are so fun to uncover as you go, and I don't want to deprive you of that! But as the story goes on, Hua Cheng is involved more and more, and the adorable thing that I think will appeal to OFMD fans is the way everyone else is really concerned by AHH OH NO HUA CHENG while Xie Lian always feels safe with him. (And by the same token, Hua Cheng is always impressed with Xie Lian despite the way everyone else thinks he's obviously the crummiest god that could possibly exist.) There's also a lot of resonance with s1 of OFMD in the way that Hua Cheng, let's just say, has been following Xie Lian's ship before arranging a meeting, and also is well aware of his feelings for Xie Lian while the latter is considerably more confused.

The full translation has been pulled from the web as its translator collab'd with Seven Seas, but you can find some other people's translations of the earlier chapters still online via NovelUpdates. If this all sounds interesting to you but you're not sure about buying or can't find it through your library system, I'd recommend checking that out (although be aware that free translations are sometimes ... real bad, just run through Google Translate).

My last point, not really aimed at OFMD fans: I feel like a lot of people who say that canon queer romance can never match up to the fanon surrounding queerbait need to get into BL! It has a very fanfiction sensibility, all the drama and yearning and sex you could want. (Well, this one doesn't actually have sex in it. But in the MDZS extras Wei Wuxian has a canonical non-con kink, so.)

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Once again, I am SO EXCITED to show you guys a retelling, but unfortunately I have to write it first.

[bubblegum-gf]

videos from the gay chicken universe

[queenlucythevaliant]

'Yes, that old oak with which I saw eye to eye was here in this forest,' thought Prince Andrei. 'But whereabouts?' he wondered again, looking at the left side of the road and, without realizing, without recognizing it, admiring the very oak he sought. The old oak, quite transfigured, spread out a canopy of dark, sappy green, and seemed to swoon and sway in the rays of the evening sun. There was nothing to be seen now of knotted fingers and scars, of old doubts and sorrows. Through the rough, century-old bark, even where there were no twigs, leaves had sprouted, so juicy, so young that it was hard to believe that aged veteran had borne them.

'Yes, it is the same oak,' thought Prince Andrei, and all at once he was seized by an irrational, spring-like feeling of joy and renewal. All the best moments of his life of a sudden rose to his memory. Austerlitz, with that lofty sky, the reproachful look on his dead wife's face, Pierre at the ferry, that girl thrilled by the beauty of the night, and that night itself and the moon and ... everything suddenly crowded back into his mind.

'No, life is not over at thirty-one,' Prince Andrei decided all at once, finally and irrevocably. 'It is not enough for me to know what I have in me- everyone else must know it too: Pierre, and that young girl who wanted to fly away into the sky; all of them must learn to know me, in order that my life may not be lived for myself alone.

From War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

[asleepinawell]

every time i overhead smash something with my giant hammer i imagine it's this pop up

[a-quiet-autumn]

i have not listened to hamilton in like a week why is he STILL HERE

read the tags if you want to see me talk about musicals for a little TOO long

[katyspersonal]

I know we don't talk and there's stuff we may not agree with. But I am truly sorry you've dealt with a lot of drama over fictional crap. And I'm sorry if my posts in the past ever contributed to that. Hope you have a better day.

Hey... That's all fine, don't worry! After all, it takes a lot of time and Insight to realise that Gehrman is a very gentle and respectful man and Godrick is an absolute gigachad kdkdkshdffhhgfds /lh /lh

But yeah, on a serious note. It was quite frustrating to find out the real motivation under all that... mess was something so pathetic, but at the same time this is what happens when people make engagement with media and fandoms a moral, political act. Not necessarily a problem, after all, I was the one who concluded that the way a fan judges fictional characters and other fans will very well reveal how cruel they are to real people who do something bad, or how much they will forgive based on personal sympathies. And my mad ravings about caring about female characters! I think the problem comes when a fan is so insecure that they have nothing else besides this defence of ideals through fandomry. If your only way to assert yourself is to be a good guy punishing the bad guys, and that mad raving loredigger discovers there is NO bad guy, what is left of you?

This is why it is crucial to have passion for nurturing rather than for undermining! I think if you speak like this, you've found this truth too? This is true that I don't know you very much (mutual-in-law thing), but to be honest.. you didn't poison my fandom experience at all? I tend to never be aware about discourse until someone basically calls me for help fhdhgsdgdfs Can't scout the fandom tag regularly!

But not only it actually was a quite long ago I saw a "negative" post from you, but also I've seen through the posts that my friends liked or reblogged from you that you've actually became very eager person to defend people's passion and interests! I think the post that particularly got stuck with me was when you resented seeing someone's light die after some Redditor asshole "well aktualy"'d a thing they were excited about creating (not exact wording but maybe you remember too)? Like... you are fine, man. At that point I realised that you were a good fan and in the end valued people's creativity and passion over personal preferences. That you never wanted to be THAT guy, even if your interpretation could not be further from someone else's. Coming to terms with what actually matters in fandomry is very mature and I am happy to see this attitude!

I am still glad that you messaged me about this though; I did not expect this, but thank you! I think I will continue getting involved in fictional discourse because my autistic senses cannot ignore factually incorrect takes with a clear insidious motive, and.. eh, sooner or later, I'll piss off the wrong guy again. Don't feel bad for me when it inevitably happens :p I've accepted the shortcomings when I decided to be the debate guy. Simply laughing at some gremlin starting a discourse with the girls in DMs and not stressing over it is only funny until I realise that newer fans could get misinformed right off the bat.

[nyxypoo]

live laugh love my local library

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

alright, time for some post-beta screens:

Inventor Irvyn - Engineer (Holosmith)

Glaucia Razetalon - Revenant (Renegade)

Postumus Skyslicer - Ranger (Soulbeast)

and a bonus dabbing Ruju that absolutely nobody asked for:

[quaranmine]

If you can't get a friend to go with you, why don't you just go by yourself? It will be fun and I'm certain nothing terrible will happen /j

No but please don't actually go by yourself lmao...

Surely I wouldn't face any problems at all on the sketchy washed out dirt forest service road that everyone in reviews says is closed half the time in an area with more than likely no cell service ??? 😁

[tragicclownwrites]

🤡