#this is puppets blog. only sometimes do i post the real people

[puppet-purgatory]

watcher's reblog got me a Lot of new followers, so to you all: Hello! This is what the blog is about 👇👇

[twilightprince101]

Let's be careful before labeling Wally or Home as "The Villain" of Welcome Home

Or anyone for that matter imo

Listen, I can completely understand why people would go to that conclusion. "So Below" and the eerie vibe that Wally gives off in his obsession don't exactly give either a flattering light (I know there are also the art pieces on Clown's personal blog, but I'm not counting anything that hasn't been officially released yet)

But whenever someone labels a character who is acting weird as "the villain," it puts a bad taste in my mouth. At the end of the day, characters in fiction are real people with motivations, so labeling one as "evil" or "the villain" can sometimes erase that complexity. And after the most recent update, we know that Wally has A Lot of very, very complicated feelings about the situation.

Before I get into that though, I wanna point out something that Clown himself has said describes the brand of horror that "Welcome Home" gives off to themselves personally. Click here for the link to the post.

Before I get into that though, I wanna point out something that Clown himself has said describes the brand of horror that "Welcome Home" gives off to themselves personally. Click here for the link to the post.

"My home doesn't feel like home anymore."

That line sticks to me pretty hard. There's a pervasive feeling of unfamiliarity, unreality, that exists in the core of the story itself.

I think we see, firsthand, Wally experiencing this in the latest updates. In all of the hidden Bug/Answer secret videos, we see a familiar pattern. We get some sort of scene of two other characters talking, a scene in whatever universe they call home, until at the very end one of the characters addresses Wally (who was apparently there the whole time) and the video glitches out.

A key part that not a lot of people seem to realize though is that these videos are from Wally's perspective. See the above picture with Wally's hands. In every scene, Wally is present and was supposedly taking part in an activity (in the above one, helping Poppy with knitting), before the video started playing.

Whenever I saw these videos I had that same feeling that something felt. Different. The interactions felt like scenes you would see in the animated/cartoony aesthetic we'd see from the various art pieces, it doesn't feel like it's "on set/TV" to me. They're moreso just intimate glimpses into their lives. But they're shot in the real world, and that feels. Wrong.

This is very likely the same feeling that Wally's having in that moment. "My home doesn't FEEL like home." It's like he's disassociating, having a brief episode of that unreality feeling. Those bouts of strangeness don't go away until, like clockwork, someone says his name and the video ends, snapping him out of it.

Do other people in the neighborhood also feel the same way? Maybe, but we don't know. What we do know is that Wally, whether or not he tries to explain this to others, feels isolated by this sensation. "My neighbors are only neighborly until they know I'm different in a way they can see."

The only other person he likely shares this feeling with? I'd take a guess that it's Home. Nearly every time Home has been featured, Wally has been there, close. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the only physical puppets/props we’ve seen of the cast are Wally and Home.

According to this post by @eldritchravens, Home is the only other person who talks directly to Us, the viewers. That's probably why they're so close, because they're the only ones who can truly confide in each other about this.

"So does that mean Home is manipulating Wally?"

Again, I really don't think that's the case. I don't wanna call people villains quite yet. Besides, we see (or well, hear) Home and Barnaby have a conversation together, and from how Barnaby reacts it's fairly casual.

This shared feeling is likely why Wally is so obsessed with us, including the Restoration Employee. They seem to be sharing a similar sensation to Wally's bouts of unreality, in the fact that it seems they're the ONLY one who doesn't remember Welcome Home being a thing. They seem to be one of the few things that Wally (and maybe even Home) consider to be "Real." Hence their obsession with "seeing" us.

"Isn't this Wally or Home manipulating the Employee though?"

Maybe, I don't know. We don't really know much of what's going on right now, we're only getting glimpses. For all we know this could be a side-effect of Wally/Home trying to reach out. For the time being though, I want to keep my own expectations in check. I'm choosing not to label Wally, Home, The Restoration Team or anyone as a "villain" until something definitive comes up.

It is very, very likely that Wally is going to be doing something more dangerous later down the line (or maybe even is doing so now). But if he's doing anything, I get the feeling it's more out of desperation. He wants something to quell this feeling inside of him, this pervasive sense of unreality, and to connect with something he feels is "real." And, for better or for worse, that thing is us.

This whole thing isn't to bash on people for speculation or theorycrafting, I personally think speculation is very healthy! But it's still important to remember what the core of this story is going to be. We're only seeing the very start of the story right now, and we don't know what'll happen down the line. It's useful to keep that core idea at the center of our speculation so we can have reasonable expectations going forward.

As for me? This doesn't feel like a story with villains. I don't think he'll pull a Monika from DDLC and start gaining a kill count, but if something does happen to the rest of the cast, my money is that it'll happen completely by accident, and he'll regret it. Hard.

[permetutotheworld]

hi my name is Persephone, but you can call me Seph/Sephy/Nyx , I use they/xe pronouns, I’m an asexual lesbian, I’m autistic+adhd,

and I’m a minor (please don’t be creepy I’ve already had two people message me being weird and sexual)

I write a lot of poetry and I’m writing a book at the moment based off of the idea of multiple universes existing at a time, I sing and I love performing, specifically musical theatre

I ALSO TAKE REQUESTS!! I write poetry mostly for them but microfics tooo, for good omens, the marauders, percy jackson, les mis and any TJ Klune books that ive read, just pop a prompt into my inbox and ill do my best to get jt to you as fast as i can <3

my fandoms are : Les Mis, good omens, pjo, marauders, hunger games, aru shah, marvel, doctor who

my favourite music: queen, Maisie peters, the last dinner party, the crane wives, Taylor Swift, Florence and the machine, rene Rapp, Chappell roan, David Bowie, blondie, boygenius, most musicals

favourite books: house in the cerulean sea, under the whispering door, in the lives of puppets (all by TJ Klune)

my tags:

Nyx yaps: my silly little commentary on anything that happens to me

nyx vents: my life low-key sucks quite a lot at time so I vent a bit but I make sure to trigger warning everything triggering

nyx writes: I write silly little poems and stories that I post sometimes

nyx’s moots 🫶🫶: for my lovely moots

Nyx loves their gf: thats right guys i love my gf so mich and i talk about her a lot

perpendicular universe: posts about my fantasy novel im working onnn

Please dni if you’re queerphobic or discriminate against minorities in general, if you support trump or other dickwads like him or if you’re just going to be mean

also I do struggle a lot with mental health so I probably will randomly disappear or vent but I’ll make sure to trigger warning everything

my writing blogg: @persephone-writes-silly-stuff below the cut: my rp blogs, my moots and my fics

My rp blogs:

@nico-sees-dead-people @prongsie-rambles @regulus-the-star @pandora-opens-the-box @sunshine-boy-official

@enjolsaurus-rex @sunshine-prongsie-boy @panda-reads-your-death @lily-petals-falling @stars-andpoems

if you like my blog you should check out my amazing mutuals whom I love and adore:

@xenocollector LES MIS RAAA

@sauntering-vaguelydownward literally so sweet ilysm/platonically

@marylily-my-beloved love you Fatimah omg

@junos-ocean-galaxy very purple coded person and very cool also so genuinely lovely we live laugh love Juno in this household

@theoristswan5683 literally so nice omg they have the loveliest vibes 😭

@ashstillalive Amazing writer amazing person will happily beta read for you anytime

@mae-occasionally-reads so sweet so lovely so cool so glad we’re mutuals love you so much/platonic vibes only MY BEST FRIEND

@definitionoffuckup very cool individual

@rafaelthesilly I KNOW YOU IN REAL LIFE POOKIE YOURE THE BEST LESBIAN BUDDIE MY AMAZING SPOUSE ILYSM (platonically)

@ineffable-ezra I have more octopus facts for you!!!!!!!

@garden-of-runar the coolest person alive still can’t believe you followed me back althought yoir spice tolerance js weird as shit/lh and paprika is not spicy

@ravenwordss literally so sweet love you/pl

@pyromaniacbibliophile my spouse bc we are married

@cossie-fauchelevant the one and only cosette to my enjolras <3

@delinda24601 SHES SO COOL MY IRL BUS BESTIE LOVE HER TO BITS I FOUNDED HER FAN CLUB SHES SO SUPER COOL GUYS 🩷🩷🩷🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶

@im-on-crack-send-help RIYANAAA SO SUPER COOL ILYSM

@startswithahell - cant wait for those unhinged asks omgomg

@biggestqiblifan - I LOVE YOU SM/pl

@the-eclipse-is-in-me - one of my favouritest people on this hellsite

[fifi-afterhours]

Telephones and Their Possible Connection with the Audience

So some time ago l was scrolling through @/partycoffin’s blog as one does when you fall into the fandom hole of welcome home, and I wanted to do a little speculation post about telephones and this picture:

Or more specifically, Eddie's and Howdy's ones, and their different rotary dialers.

[Supposed tiny post turned into long theory ramble below cut!]

(I have checked that this was made on 4 December, 2022, so I think this could be speculated on!)

As we can see, not only are the phone types different (with theirs presumably being portable), the numbers used for dialing are replaced with colours instead. Now, a simple explanation could be made that the colours simply replace the numbers, but that's not the case:

(I know they're not buttons, but let's just use that as a placeholder name for now-)

Neither of them seems to match with the 10 buttons needed for a a normal rotary dial, so the only explanation I could think of is that each colour corresponds with a neighbor.

@softestvine made a post about this before, and if you take a look at the guestbook signatures, the missing purple button on Eddie's phone makes sense since purple should represent him, and therefore his phone number in a sense.

The real question is why would Howdy have his own phone number. Maybe an extra set of hands means he owns two phones? Or maybe it's normal to have your own contacts to ring yourself up, and Eddie is actually the odd one out? For that I'm not sure.

Continuing on, there's also the curious addition of a black button, which doesn't seem to connect to any neighbor at all. My first thought was that it could be related to Home, but considering that it communicates through onomatopoeia that even Wally couldn't understand sometimes, I feel like it's doubtful that it's meant to be for Home. (though I'm not saying that it's impossible, just unlikely for now).

Which leads to the second theory: it's to represent us, the audience, the viewers of the show. My speculation is that there was a segment on the show that would involve the characters calling or receiving a phone call from a fan of the show, similar to how irl children shows that includes audience participation will show off fanworks in their episodes. (the closest example I could think of is Blue's Clues right now since my sister used to watch that).

Admittedly this feels like a stretch, but phones seem to be important to the show in some manner. In some old posts, we have audio of what prank calls to some of the characters are like, and although they're definitely not relevant to the work now, it's interesting to note that the concept of a way to communicate with the puppets exists.

Another thing is that on one of the secret pages of the website, you're sent to this page:

An error page that shows altered text and a phone gif instead of the one with Home. Perhaps I am looking too much into this, but compared to the other hidden links, why would this one take us to an error page first, albeit a different one?

Some people have pointed it out here that if you inspect the phone gif, it says "It's for you". When you click on it, you're taken to a page called 'duet' where Wally is singing to Home.

Don't you think it's coincidental that the only page with an audio file was only found through a phone? And why is the page called 'duet' when Home only responds after Wally finished his song? That's because the duet isn't sung by Wally and Home, it's supposed to be sung by Wally and you. By clicking on the phone, you're answering Wally's call, hence the "It's for you" file name.

My conclusion is that the phones were used to talk to the audience back when the show is running, and now Wally is using them to try to reach out to us.

[burningvelvet]

on cancel culture, tumblr, lit crit shit, paranoid reading, and some observations on blogging about byron & the shelleys —

every day someone comments on one of my posts about old dead writers with the most insufferable and reactionary takes disguised under a veil of liberalism. go read eve sedgwick's essay on paranoid reading & reparative reading, and learn how to enjoy things!!! why are you trying to cancel people who died 200 years ago? stop!!!

9/10 times they've never read the writer in question, they just hear that these writers were problematic and without using their own critical thinking skills, and having done zero research, they readily condemn them. no real appreciation for literature, no real appreciation for history or culture. and if they do have these, or if they have done research, it's entirely biased, already marked with judgement (aka exemplary paranoid reading).

i think it's very interesting that percy shelley and lord byron were getting cancelled in their own time period left and right, and now they still face cancellation attempts for some of the same reasons, only now more often at the hands of self-described progressives who feel they do so for the "right reasons."

a major problem in discourse (both in and outside of academia) is that most people do not understand the difference between "criticism" in the academic sense (which is synonymous with "discussion," "analysis," "engagement") and "criticism" in the colloquial sense (synonymous with "condemnation" or "harsh judgement" or even sometimes "attacking").

so when we start talking about literary criticism, some misinformed people automatically seek to cancel every dead writer, burn every book, and disregard all of history, even the progressive bits, because they simply don't care, and think that they are being "critical" and that this is a good thing, when they are using the wrong definition of the term to begin with. if i taught a class on literature the first thing i would do is make the distinction between these two definitions.

a lot of people approach dead writers or old writing in bad faith (paranoid reading). they automatically denounce The Olds for being problematic, and then proceed to believe they are morally superior for their own lack of depth.

percy shelley is one of the most progressive and forward-thinking figures of his generation and it's honestly a miracle that we still have access to some of his works which were literally burned in his own lifetime, but that his friends and most importantly his best friend, his wife mary shelley, carefully preserved during his life and long after his death even in the face of social ruin and censure, because they recognized his immense merit and they desperately loved him and his work. this is a beautiful thing!!!

this isn't the narrative a lot of people prefer, though. a lot of people would have mary shelley, instead of being the publisher and defender of his works as she was, be forced into the role which she herself openly derided, of being percy's unwilling bride, victim, who merely tolerated him, who was herself either repressed or oppressed by him. nor is nuance allowed in this narrative.

this narrative is based on a reactionary stance disguised as progressive. that all women writers are mere victims to the men around them. nevermind the fact that mary shelley's husband was one of her biggest encouragers (as well as her trusted proofreader and editor; and all this also goes for her father godwin, but to a lesser extent, as one could more easily make the argument that godwin did emotionally neglect mary).

paint all male writers as abusive control freaks, and all female writers associated with them as their weak-willed puppets, all based on their biological sex and a surface-level analysis of their biographies. these people are arguably just as bad as the sexist pseudo-scholars who have claimed that percy actually penned the entirety of frankenstein and used mary as his puppeteered pseudonym. as if mary never sought agency of her own and never possessed a modicum of it!

for a fair analysis on percy and mary's connection, i highly recommend Anna Mercer's "The Collaborative Literary Relationship of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley" and her interview by Mathelinda Nabugodi for a TLDR version.

i find it interesting that my posts about percy shelley's personal life are not only much more popular than my similar posts about byron (probably due to percy's surname; the mary/frankenstein connection) -- but also that i see way more criticism against percy than against byron.

i think this is partly due to their portrayals in the ahistorical 2018 mary shelley biopic film (see: graham henderson's blog posts on this topic) wherein byron was somehow portrayed as less of an asshole than shelley (which i never would have thought possible had i not seen it). & maybe it has to do with interest in & misconceptions about mary in general. but this is surprising because in many regards, percy really is much more likeable and progressive than byron.

i once had a person hating on byron and trying to argue with me entirely under a post about percy shelley which had nothing to do with byron. whenever i try to critically engage with this sort of backlash on my posts, it is utterly pointless. none of them are interested in or respectful of the opinions of others, nor are they receptive to facts or nuance or engaging with any material in any mature or serious way.

it's especially difficult that they mostly comment on my more popular joking posts/memes, bc that sets up a false pretense for me or my blog to be taken unseriously, when i do take academic figures & topics seriously. my blog is a place for me to unwind and joke about literature, yes, but it's not like i'm just mindlessly joking about writers i've never studied. a lot of people assume that i'm genuinely ridiculing writers when i playfully make fun of them, so they take it as an invitation to do the same, when that's not my case at all.

— back to the percy/byron comparison: in the history of my blog posts, i've seen probably 30+ percy haters and maybe 5 byron haters. as i said, this is honestly bewildering. there are way more justifiable reasons for hating byron than there are for hating shelley.

if we're speaking solely in terms of political, creative, & ideological stances between the two, (and there are hundreds of books/essays comparing their lives/works/philosophies,) i agree and disagree with both of them on various topics. they're both extremely complex writers/thinkers/figures and very different people, despite having been friends.

but if i'm comparing them biographically speaking, if i had to let one of them babysit my children, i would choose percy 10/10 times. if i had to live with one of them, i would choose percy most of the time, although either of them would be tough as a roommate for different reasons.

but overall, percy was a bit more decent biographically speaking, though that doesn't make him a superior writer (percy himself wrote numerous times that he felt byron was creatively superior to him, but morally inferior). and i think most people who've researched the two would agree that percy is the more moral poet by most standards.

for these and many other reasons, it seems apparent to me that the majority of people who hate percy are often parroting the rhetoric of others & not actually thinking for themselves -- which mary endlessly wrote that she despised, as she devoted so much of her time and energy to defending her husband's moral character from critics, so it's especially disappointing that most of the anti-percy sentiment comes from mary shelley fans, who don't even realize how much effort she put into publishing his work and transcribing it as his pre- and posthumous amanuensis.

[wileycap]

Alright, my algorithm content is filling up with crazy people whom I've been dutifully blocking (don't judge me sometimes I want tumblr to feed me pictures of cats like I'm a small baby bird) which, you know, we all know why it's happening in an American election year.

So I'd like to caution you against one of the more insidious types of posts they have.

The Reasonable Post.

I'm going to be using the words Cats and Dogs to describe any (false) dichotomy that these people want to push. Why? Because this shit is as depressing as a single lost candy in a tin of sewing supplies. Obviously most people can see what the following examples are patterned after, but this sort of thing happens with any number of groups. Creating dichotomies and conflating different groups of Others (i.e. harnessing existing hate towards Group A by suggesting that they are all also members of Group B, with Group B being the real target) is the bread and butter of information warfare.

Imagine the following post:

"Not all Dogs are bad and we shouldn't prejudge every single Dog."

That is a Reasonable Post. Everyone can agree with it and usually they should. There is nothing wrong with that post, it really is just a very uncontroversial statement that the vast majority of people should be able to agree with. It is deliberately ignorant of any social context or the framework in which these discourses happen, but it's not wrong.

But let's consider the framing. The post exists as part of a blog, which, by unfortunate happenstance, also has other posts in it.

So, We Can't Classify Every Dog As Evil (good post, 3000 notes) exists within the same space as classics like...

Cats complain, Dogs do.

The purpose of a Cat is to stay indoors and protect the house from pests. This is one of the hardest jobs out there, and Cats should be praised!

A Dog has to HUNT. Cats will never understand this. (A/N: if you google "are cats predators" this will become a Very Funny hypothetical post from a nonexistent blog discussing a nonexistent dichotomy.)

Dogs: "Alright, human, today I've helped you with hunting, tracking and herding sheep! If there's anything else you need me to do, I've still got energy!" Cats: "Today I laid around doing nothing. Where's my food? Also my bed is bad so I stole the Dog's."

Oh, look, 5 Cats who committed Cat Crimes. I wonder if they'll receive a fair and proportionate punishment...

Et cetera, et cetera. The posts will continue to escalate, from seemingly harmless to outright hateful. They will attack existing social structures to frame them as favoring the Other. The Reasonable Post acts like the funnel theory in sales, reaching a large audience and sucking as many of them in as possible until only a few "sales" happen - but it also serves as a shorthand for likeminded people (a dogwhistle, if you will) via its framing and content that this is a blog that promotes the ideology they want to see.

*I've also noticed that a lot of these blogs have "traditional" or "vintage" pinup art. This could just be a matter of personal preference (after all, I like old timey boobs as much as the next girlie), or it could be another funnel, where people who would like to see More Boobs click on the blogs and find some boobs, but also the other stuff. Not that this has ever happened to me.

After the blog establishes some sort of following, they're usually free to engage in more extreme discourse. The Reasonable Post can then be used as a shield: "I was only saying what I've been saying all along: you shouldn't judge all Dogs. I'm sorry if that offends you."

There is also a highly desireable side effect for the Reasonable Post - it can drive people to disagree with what really is an uncontroversial, widely accepted opinion. Of course, the people disagreeing are usually (a) crazy themselves, (b) fourteen, (c) directing their interactions at the wider framework of their post, not the uncontroversial statement itself or (d) a combination. They might even be sock puppets. But these interactions are extremely valuable to these kinds of blogs. All of a sudden, they have an Enemy - an unreasonable person who probably wants to kill all of the Dogs!!! This is what we're fighting against! Rally!

And then the screenshots of those interactions can be fed into Facebook for easy outrage, or a "meme account", or any number of places where they can gain traction. They are used to reinforce existing ingroup loyalties and to bolster hate against outgroups. They are used to muddle the waters, to make extremist ideas seem like reasonable discourse and to provide plausible deniability. They are used to discredit "the opposition". Remember: fascism always requires an enemy that is both strong and weak.

Many fascist and extremist movements in the age of social media use these same tools to recruit and to advertise, and this post - while long - barely scratches the surface.

However, there is a very good way to limit the damage. Think critically about posts you see, this one included. (I should state that I'm, like, a huge leftist, and all that that implies) Familiarize yourself with common dogwhistles. Vet the blogs you see - a quick glance is usually all it takes. Block the user and don't interact with the post. Don't give it visibility.

And remember: you are not immune to propaganda.

[granulesofsand]

Good gay/night/else, Dune! Never wrote you (probably, I don't remember) but now I have a question and wander if you guys can know answer. Do not answer if what is inside makes you feel uneasy or bad or smth else, take care of yourselves, you are one of my favourite blogs to follow

TW for programming, brief mention of torture, sex and missing limbs (nothing detailed, not real gore)

So.

1) our whole life (as we remember it) our legs sometimes just deactivate randomly during day. We always needed to spend some time to make them work again

2) as we understood more about being system, we noticed that "no-no legs" is actually switching to somebody

3) it's nonhuman alter that "smells" like somebody related to sex, thinking about itself as thing made for sex

4) we probably have programming and do wander if it's programmed alter or smth like this

We have bad feelings about it. It feels very wrong. We wonder if you have ever seen something like this or expiriensed it. We heared only about hc-did systems being tortured aka programmed to think that body misses limbs, but we don't remember anything like this and we never had even big bruises in childhood, our parents would notice

🗝️🏷️ programming/torture and deprogramming details, sex and sexuality, RAMCOA in general

We’ve heard of a few similar experiences, and I’m fairly certain all of the ones I’m thinking of were from RAMCOA systems. I’m going to respond to each of the numbers as best I can, and we’ll see how that goes.

1) That sounds like dissociative paralysis (assuming y’all don’t have a physical condition causing it), which I’ve seen in both system members who thought that body part was absent or who had to hold the body in a certain position.

The main thing is that whoever is paralyzed doesn’t know they can move the body part that isn’t working. I have read about system members coming to this conclusion on their own, but even then it was usually because they were conditioned into it while forming.

Programs that can have this effect on legs include: doll/puppet, animal (especially snakes or those whose limbs don’t work like humans’), statue, and any punishments that were targeting that body part.

2) It could be switching, passive influence (especially if the one doing it is less elaborated) or someone whose job it is to turn on that paralysis (it can look like a button, a switch, a lever, a book, anything). The best way to find out (if you can’t observe them do the thing) is by asking.

We’ve seen some of your posts about conflict between alters, and, from experience, people who don’t trust you don’t tend to answer. Building rapport has to come first, otherwise you risk punishment and retaliation.

Reassuring them that there won’t be consequences (only if it’s true) and writing it out somewhere the others won’t stumble upon it can help, because there’s less chance of someone hurting them and it might get around don’t-talk rhetoric if they’ve been taught it.

3) The non-humanness of the alter doesn’t necessarily imply they’re programmed, but smelling like a perp (or anyone, really) is something I’ve never heard for by-chance alters. The believing they’re made for sex can be tended to the same regardless of origin, and looking to programmed survivors might help kick-start the healing process purely because it’s a common belief for programmed alters.

We usually start the same for anyone who has strict self-concepts like this, which is by giving them choices wherever possible. Simple things, yes-no questions like if they want ketchup with fries (and giving them space to choose outside the yes-no as long as it isn’t causing harm), then open-ended questions like what their favorite fruit is, then slightly more abstract ones like what their favorite color is.

You& can skip the orange paragraph, it has to do with sex and sexuality.

If that doesn’t work, we move to treating it as a sexual problem. Sometimes we have to get their attention by putting on (ideally non-harmful, or fictional is the next step) porn or using the kind of touch they’re used to (but let them do it or keep it to your most trusted systemmates, then move to your& most trusted outside people) and then packing in as much information as they can hold while you’re around them.

A harm reduction approach helps to make progress without immediately demanding perfection. Decide what the end goal is for this person and set incremental targets. Celebrate every target met, even if it’s not how you envisioned it happening.

4) If it is programmed, there are a lot of ways for perps to get this reaction without causing marks. Holding the position, for example, or limiting the amount of space that person had to move around could have them maintaining that behavior when they no longer need to. Hiding their legs or a larger impact could have them believing their legs aren’t usable without damaging the skin.

Our system consensus is that programming is the intention and the effect, and if the conditioning had both, it counts. You& don’t have to agree with that, and labels are always optional. You& can address the symptoms without naming the cause, or you can give it another name if ‘programming’ isn’t helpful.

The discomfort (or other bad feeling, if that’s too mildly connotated for you&) could be leaking over from those who do remember, or it could be that you’re recognizing something is strange about the situation. Human brains are very good at picking up on subtle details, and trusting that something is up because of those alarms is generally healthy.

Still do try to treat everyone with dignity and respect, including if they feel wrong, but have plans for going forward in both cases, whether the feeling is correct or not. Especially with trauma, it’s easy to decide someone isn’t worth helping, and that’s not conducive to healing whatever wounds are present here.

I’m glad you’re& noticing members in pain, even if you& can’t or aren’t ready to help them yet. Creating bonds and strengthening them will keep your system on a different path from whatever your& perps intended, and spite is a hell of a motivator. I believe in your& ability to heal, pitfalls and lapses included.

[youngestdaughtersyndrome]

Is there any chance you can give us a tag directory?

I can certainly try!!! Its not a complete directory because i have over a hundred and even i lose track of all of them. Anyways im putting the list under the cut ... i tried to organize it to the best of my ability so GENERAL is for housekeeping, TANGIBLE CONCEPTS are for physical things, FLEXIBLE CONCEPTS are things that hover between physical and conceptual, INTANGIBLE CONCEPTS are things that fully conceptual, and SPECIFIC MEDIA is for specific bands/shows/etc. I highly recommend if youre on mobile you DO NOT hit keep reading because its absurdly long and will take over ur dash. Anyways have fun knock urself out

GENERAL:

hollyws: original posts..... went by holly for a while on here, first url was honeyhollows, hollows has similar spelling to holly, you get the gist

a: a is for assorted, so anything that doesnt have an actual organizational tag goes in there-- memes, textposts, current events, etc

srb: self reblog, but not for every one of my og posts that i rb, just the ones that surpass a thousand notes and therefore get deleted. Its my greatest hits pretty much

for later: links, resources, things i want to return to, you get the gist

tag game: those like questionnaire-type games one gets tagged in

asks: asks that ive answered

vdo: in-app videos

the world flows past on both sides distant and mute: audio tag. From nazim hikmet's poem "things i didnt know i loved"

mb: moodboards

our hands empty except for our hands: webweaving and parallel posting. From ocean vuong's "on earth we're briefly gorgeous"

fave: favorites, obvs

blog thesis: the tag equivalent of me calling something real as hell, containing things that qualify as my belief system

my face: selfie tag, but most (all of them actually) get deleted approx 24 hours from original posting time so there's not really anything in there

maeve tag: pictures of my dog reside here

foster tag: my family fosters dogs sometimes, so if we've got a foster and i post a picture, it goes here

matryoshka dog, blue is your color, gi posting, betsy's ordination song, evan's dream journal: personalized tags for friends of mine

TANGIBLE CONCEPTS:

born to blow your mind or something along those lines: art! From the last shadow puppets' "miracle aligner"-- pretty much everything but photography...

the human eye is the loneliest creation: ...because this is the photography tag. I typically only use it when an image doesnt fit into any other tag, so its basically my "a" tag but for like formal images only. Kind of an ocean vuong quote but i changed it from "the human eye is god's loneliest creation" to that bc i go back and forth on god and whatnot

there's a brand new talk but it's not very clear: fashion, both in the conceptual runway sense and the "this is cute, i would wear this" sense. Aptly from david bowie's "fashion"

play pause rewind: anything having to with film or tv (that i dont have a specific tag for)-- gifsets, interviews, editorial style guides, etc.

people!: pictures where you can put a name to the face, so either celebrities or pictures that have their name in the caption

let it go free: items-- jewelry, knick knacks, tchotchkes, etc. A combination of things i would want and things i find beautiful, which are not necessarily mutually exclusive

cabinet of curiosities: a multitude of objects at once-- dollhouses, boxes full of stuff, dishes of jewelry. Its different from "let it go free" because i said so

interiors: decor, interior design, etc.

dishes: plates and platters and whatnot that i like

they really want you: dolls. From hole's "doll parts"

the light on your door: mirrors. From the velvet underground and nico's "i'll be your mirror"

releases: cars, usually crashed or rotting or in some other form of disuse, but also just normal, completely fine cars. Go watch crash 1996 dir. david cronenberg and then we'll talk

hundred voices: spirals. Also concentric circles.

nacreous: pearls, things with a mother-of-pearl inlay, etc

it's coming coming down: eyes. From sonic youth's "beauty lies in the eye"

bad girl meat: teeth. From lady gaga's "teeth"

divine and sharp: weapons, or at least some very pointy things one shouldnt run with

happiness is: a warm gun. Guns in general actually-- this is my tag for guns. From the beatles' "happiness is a warm gun". Duh

prisms: food. Lots of cake in this tag but its all foods not just cake.... i just like cake

o sailor: sailing, nautical stuff, ships, etc. From fiona apple's eponymous song

it's buzzcut season anyways: cutting hair, from lorde's "buzzcut season".

tattoos: well, its tattoos. Not necessarily ones i would want or even inspiration for future tattoos, its just that if a tattoo is the main focus of an image, it goes in here

invitation to peace: deer tag, from system of a down's "deer dance".

draw blood just to taste it hold bones just to break them: canine tag as in dogs, not the teeth, and also one that i wish wasnt so long because man this is a pain to type out. From nicole dollanganger's "dog teeth"

weird fishes: fish. From radiohead's "weird fishes"

lo voy a tener que matar: cats! From los saicos' "el entierro de los gatos". Also yeah i know it means "i'm going to have to kill him" i just think its real funny

in silence i have pulled myself free: tag for horses and all things horse related. From pj harvey's "horses in my dreams"

cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other: cowboys. From willie nelson's eponymous song

they don't love you like i love you: places i grew up in/nearby-- it's pretty much everything west of colorado with a bit of mexico in there. From yeah yeah yeahs' "maps"

like the blue blonde hollyhocks of the dead: flower tag (all sorts, not just hollyhocks). Another bastardized quote, this time from sandra cisneros' a house on mango street-- the original is "dusty hollyhocks thick and perfumy blue-blond hair of the dead". Very good book you should read it

we return to each other in waves: things relating to the water-- the ocean, lakes, rivers, etc. It's definitely a quote from something but i cant find the og source and i dont trust pinterest

consumed and refined: fire, things on fire, burning, yada yada yada

tamer: ice, snow, frozen things, etc

01010000: all things mold and rot. Referring, of course, to the date the world began to decay, which was the day it was created

FLEXIBLE CONCEPTS:

lamentations! lamentations!: art or quotes or whatever that make me scream cry throw up wail howl prostrate myself etc.

the everything the patterns: my humanity tag! Doubles as both an "awww, arent humans cute?" tag and a catchall for people who aren't celebrities and don't have their names in the caption

god and other highways: religion and god, but mostly god. If you see something in there and you think "how could this possibly be related to god OR religion?" mind your own damn business <3

i believe in angels: things i consider to be angelic, which is a classification system even more lengthy and unnecessary than this tagging system. From abba's "i have a dream"

bolts in the head: monsters and generally spooky things. And yeah ik frankenstein doesnt actually have bolts in his head and that was a lie the movie made up but also the nature and definition of a monster is just as illusory and invented as the bolts are

whispers in the air: ghosts, or the fleeting nature of things, or the imagined, or the abstraction of the memory. So yeah its ghosts

when i love you it's forever: the dead, but focusing on the flesh left behind instead of the ghost that proceeds ahead. From "confessions of a skull mask", in the anthology "necrophilia variations"

we have put her living in the tomb: houses or general structures, officially haunted or otherwise (because all buildings are haunted in some way tbh). From my favorite edgar allen poe story "the fall of the house of usher" :)

the roots of the tree: things relating to childhood, development, or family

the lovers: art, photos, etc typically with two things interacting in some familiar way. Not necessarily nsfw, but theres definitely some lesbian erotica in there so beware

cut open my sternum and pull my little ribs around you: gore and blood and all that fun stuff. Not all images of blood go in here so if youre sensitive about pictures of blood beware. You probably shouldnt follow me if you are tbh. Anways it's from purity ring's "fineshrine"

is it a love song?: hunger, desire, violence, and the place where they intersect. Gore is in here also <3 and it's a quote from the 1983 film the hunger

race my heart race my soul: images i really really love. I would say its my aesthetic but aesthetics are a lie propagated by Big Capitalism to get you to buy more shit you dont need so no its not and dont get it twisted..... from "i'll never learn" by the shangri-las, which is possibly my favorite song. I go back and forth on what my favorite song is, but this one's up there for sure

put on your red shoes and dance the blues: all things red. From david bowie's "let's dance", but the original or 2002 remaster and not the 2018 remaster because as much as i love saxophone its totally out of the blue in the intro of the 2018 remaster and i dont like it

love me blue: all things blue, from zayn's "blue". And i have no qualms with any version of this song because i love you zayn

twilight sun: all things pink, from something that someone said to me in passing once and i thought it was nice.

the dead image of life: all things green

capable of charming god: all things yellow

tête à tête: ballet, and things relating to ballet. Even pictures of models with their ribbons tied all messed up go in here, im sorry to say

do you think you've made the right decision this time?: departure, transit, etc. Coming from, though, not going to-- the emphasis is on the leaving. From the smiths' "london" (underrated track tbh)

disappearance in transformation: bugs that can fly-- mainly moths and butterflies, but some beetles and other grubs appear here too

kill this chorus: people in relation to water-- in puddles, swimming, drowning, etc. Im not saying what this is from... if you know you know and also you know why that phrase pertains to that imagery

the luckiest by far: celestial bodies, clouds, the sky, etc. From madonna's lucky star

heaven waits on the other side: weddings, mostly brides and wedding dress-type stuff. From nicole dollanganger's "heart shaped bed"

godspeed your love: all things relating to love (and occasionally heartbreak). From possibly the greatest love song ever, the righteous brothers' "unchained melody"

lily left alone: playing cards and things having to do with suites of cards. Kind of from bob dylan's "lily, rosemary, and the jack of hearts" but not really

bloodied black: martyrs, warriors, knights. Lots of pictures of armor and joan of arc imagery here

mourning lamb: farm animals, mainly sheep but also cows and pigs and whatnot. From ethel cain's "ptolemaea"

all down: typography, handwritten things, etc-- everything from journal entries to song lyrics to letters to typed notes

time is a river: myths, folklore, classics, historical art, etc. Technically a quote from heraclitus but every knows it bc of marcus aurelius

INTANGIBLE CONCEPTS:

from the fire roads: get ready for this because this and the following five tags are all connected. This is the tag equivalent of exposition on the hero's journey-- the scene is a small town, a childhood bedroom, a parking lot, etc. From bruce springsteen's "racing in the streets"

and i see big things for you: this is the first threshold (transformation) in the hero's journey. In this particular case, the protagonist becomes a groupie for a band that passed through the town, and this world of travel and casual excess is very different from the world theyre from. The scene is a basement shows, cigarettes in a hotel bed, underfunded recording studios, etc. From wolf alice's "white leather"

somewhere there's a party: the "challenges and temptations" part of the hero's journey-- our protagonist gets tired of the constant moving and, craving something more, ends up in a big city working as a model/socialite. The scene is a closet filled with frills and designer clothes, a gala, the backstage of a fashion show, etc. From the replacements' "swingin' party"

don't cry about it: now at the second threshold (abyss) of the hero's journey, things start going downhill. The protagonist loses themself in a wave of drugs, sex, and excess; the scene is now a large bathroom with a shattered mirror, a smoke-filled bdsm club, a nosebleed, etc. From lana del rey's "this is what makes us girls"

careful fear / dead devotion: with the third threshold (atonement) in the hero's journey comes the protagonist's realization of their own rock bottom and the desire to get better. The scene is a dark bedroom with light coming through the door, a park at night, an open window, etc. From the nationals' "don't swallow the cap"

born with a weak heart: the end of the hero's journey-- the protagonist takes what money they have left and splits, getting a place in the middle of nowhere and working as an attendant somewhere they won't be recognized. The scene is a clearing in the woods, a warm kitchen, a grocery store, etc. From talking heads' "this must be the place"

there was to be no death in eden: Mostly i use it for animals that i dont have a specific tag for, large groups of animals, animals in little people clothes, fantasy art, folk tales, children's books, or anything else i consider to be edenic. Im gonna be honest with you i have a weird idea of eden because i saw it in a dream ... more on that here if u scroll down to where it says september 22 2023. Its an ellen g. white quote im pretty sure, and while i personally hate the seventh-day adventists and everything that entails, i do respect a woman who gets visions

you got your good thing: things pertaining to heaven, which is a vibe i cannot possibly explain bc i saw it in a dream as well but i will link you here nonetheless and just hope you get it. In short basically heaven is an archive and the angels never build it right because they're working off pure image untainted by emotion and human perspective so everything looks a little wonky and clinical (they mean well though). From david lynch's "in heaven (lady in the radiator song", off the eraserhead 1977 soundtrack

pelican island: birds. Also any sort of ghostly island or mysterious shore. Ghosts, too. From deena metzger's eponymous poem

ST PAUL MOMENT ST PAUL MOMENT: the nature version of my humanity tag. Refers to the biblical tale of st. paul, who was blinded then healed by jesus as a way of converting him to christianity (which is fucking crazy and sooo dramatic but we're not here to talk abt that). The point is that its the sensation of being awakened to a natural power higher than yourself, like how flowers always have a number of petals that complies with the fibonacci sequence

thou mayest: being good, being bad, the feeling of being torn between your capacities for good and evil, the shame of feeling evil, etc. Go read john steinbeck's east of eden and then we'll talk

soul opium: solitude, isolation, loneliness

thorn without a rose: hole theory. From aerosmith's "hole in my soul" #sorrywomen

shadows: poems that come off as gray to me. Yeah i dont know either man they just do its a very specific vibe and there is no other way to describe it than gray

ritualism: the color white being used in a holy, ritualistic context (or at least a context i perceive as holy)

74: my yamaha tx750 was created in 1974, which is a year that is important to me for no other reason than that (if u go into the tag its pretty obvious and if its not.... well im not telling)

p: im not sayinggggg. But here you will find white horses and things about grief

are your ears on?: writing, particularly having to do with the idea of a grand overarching narrative that tropes are forcefully enacted within

SPECIFIC MEDIA:

it's impossible to compete with the dead: my tag for all things sharp objects-related. Tag is a quote from the book

spn: that would be the 2005 cw show supernatural. #Sorry

mcr: that would be the post-hardcore band my chemical romance. #Sorryyyyyyy

shattered teacup: tag for the 2013 tv show hannibal and no other version of thomas harris's work-- silence of the lambs and whatnot can be found in the "play pause rewind" tag

little nudie turtles: tag for the 2018-2023 hbo show succession. Quote by tom (it's literally tom).

and the angels wouldn't help you: tag for david lynch's twin peaks, both the show(s) and the film

time is a flat circle: tag for season one of true detective... haven't watched the other seasons of this show because honestly nothing can beat that. So its only for season one

[xclowniex]

Been thinking a lot about bean soup theory.

For those who don't know what it is, last year on tik tok, an account which only posts various bean soup recipes, got fed up at people asking for non bean soup recipies. They said something to the effect of

"If you want non bean soup recipies, go somewhere else. I'm only going to post bean soup recipies and if you don't like it then don't watch"

And it honestly applies to so many things right now.

My blog is mainly about antisemitism. If you don't wanna see that, don't follow me. Block me even, if my content keeps getting recommended to you to stop it from getting recommended.

The search function exists for a reason. You can search for content that you actually want to see instead of waiting to be spoon fed content by mommy algorithm.

Another point, just like how an account posting only bean soup recipies doesn't inherently mean that the creator thinks all other soups suck ass, me and other jews only posting about antisemitism doesn't mean we hate Palestine/Palestinians or arabs.

Sure those two things can sometimes cross over, but it's not something that's inherent to posting about antisemitism and not even something that most blogs who do post about antisemitism also think.

People online are real people! Like I am a whole ass human who has a life outside of my posts. I'm not a puppet which posts for your entertainment.

[p5x-theories]

What We Know About P5X

(updated 1/23/24)

Persona 5: The Phantom X (P5X) has now had three beta tests, the first of which ran from March 29th to 31st 2023, the second of which ran from August 18th to 25th 2023, and the third of which is running from January 16th to 31st 2024. Here’s a summary of what we know about the game itself so far. Hopefully this’ll be useful, whether you're new around here or not!

I also have updated posts about the game's story and playable characters so far, which can be found in this blog's pinned post (along with this post!) once they're all done.

Keeping this as succinct as I can, but it's still a little long, so under the cut it goes.

Overview

P5X is a turn-based RPG mobile game with gacha elements, developed by Black Wings Game Studio and published by Perfect World Games. While not directly creating it, it is officially licensed by Atlus and Sega. Atlus has apparently been very involved in its production, including Shigenori Soejima designing the protagonist and his Persona.

The game's setting has been confirmed to be an alternate/"parallel" world to Persona 5's, though translated promotional information also confirms the plot has something to do with these two worlds interacting through "time and space".

As Perfect World Games and Black Wings Game Studio are Chinese game companies, P5X is produced in Chinese, with no current official English translations, though the third beta had files that possibly indicate future plans to translate the game into English, Spanish, and Japanese, among other languages. The dialogue in-game is voiced in both Japanese and Chinese, with Japanese and Chinese voice actors for the characters.

There are specifically two main gachas in the game- a character gacha for gaining teammates, and a weapons gacha for gaining better weapons for those teammates.

Right now, we know the game will release on both mobile and PC, but it’s unconfirmed whether it will release anywhere outside of China, Taiwan, Macao, Hong Kong, and Korea, and we don’t yet have a release date for even the Chinese version of the full game. All three of the beta tests so far have been closed betas available only in China, Taiwan, Macao, and Hong Kong, where players could sign up for a chance to get in, and actual beta accounts were given out via lottery.

The Characters

So far, there are 16 new Persona users. These characters can be divided into story teammates and "Phantom Idol" (gacha-only) teammates.

The story teammates so far are the protagonist (codename Wonder), an owl named Ruferu in Japanese which has sometimes been translated as "Luffy" by fans (codename Cattle), an athletic classmate of the protagonist's named Motoha Arai (codename Closer), and a boy from another class with an interest in cooking named Shun Kanou (codename Soy). These teammates have all joined as part of the plot of the game.

The "Phantom Idol" teammates ("Kaidoru" in Japanese) are described as being cognitive beings created by Wonder's Velvet Room attendant, Merope, to assist him in the Metaverse, and seem to be based on people Wonder meets, though they are only copies. So far, they include Motoha's friend Tomoko Noge (codename Moko), first year student Kiyoshi Kurotani (codename Key), Wonder's family friend Kayo Tomiyama (codename Okyann), college freshman from China Yaoling Li (codename Rin), an aspiring acting student whose real name may be Reo Kamiyama (codename Leon), a student from Kosei High named Yukimi Fujikawa (codename Yuki), rich high school student Seiji Shiratori (codename Fleuret), a former ice skater whose real name may be Kotone Montagne (codename Mont), an online friend of Wonder's who goes by the name Yui (codename Bui), a children's fashion model whose real name may be Hina Nishimori (codename Riddle), an unemployed fisherman whose real name may be Toshiya Sumi (codename Sepia), and the runaway daughter of a local politician whose real name may be Miyu Sawara (codename Puppet).

The original Phantom Thieves from Persona 5 also appear as Phantom Idols: Joker, Mona, Skull, Panther, Fox, Queen, Oracle, Noir, and Crow. Datamining also found some of Wolf’s battle voice lines from P5S at least in the first beta, and an icon from P5S with Sophie in all three betas, suggesting they may later be added as well. No sign of Violet has been found yet, other than the Faith Arcana card in the files. Joker, at the very least, seems to have some larger role in the plot, as Wonder has a dream about them fighting at the start of the third beta, and later what seems to be a Phantom Idol Joker comes out of nowhere to rescue Wonder and Cattle in Mementos.

Munehisa Iwai, Tae Takemi, and Chihaya Mifune also return in P5X. Iwai runs the weapon gacha, Takemi sells medicine like in P5, and Chihaya tells fortunes. The other original P5 confidants’ portraits and 3D models have been found in all three betas' data, and the Councillor Arcana card was with the other cards in the second and third betas' data specifically, but it’s currently unknown whether they’ll actually return in any capacity.

Music

Several new songs have been heard in P5X, four of which feature vocals by Lyn: "Last Strike", "Wake Up Your Hero", "Shadow", and "Fatal Desire". The new instrumental tracks so far include background music for the first two Palaces, background music for special fights, a new music track for Mementos, and some music for P5X's rhythm minigame, where Wonder plays music with fellow students.

Locations

The majority of P5 and P5R’s locations have been confirmed for P5X, including Yongen-Jaya, Kichijoji, Shibuya, and Shinjuku, but the protagonist lives in a new location called Zoshigaya, and goes to a new school called Kokatsu Academy. Another school named Kiga High School has also been mentioned.

(Note that while Yongen-Jaya exists, Leblanc has been replaced with a generic coffee shop, which is eventually purchased and run by someone other than Sojiro Sakura. Similarly, the Big Bang Burger in Shibuya is now just called Big Burger, with no apparent traces of the space theming, and the Crossroads bar in Shinjuku has also been rebranded.)

Mementos and the concept of Palaces also return in P5X, though there are some differences. At least in the betas, Mementos operates as a sort of hub, with characters entering Palaces through Mementos, from the entrance to each Palace located within the massive floors of Mementos. Mementos also has special battle locations apparently similar to “domains” in other gacha games, where completing the fight gives special items to strengthen characters and weapons, themed after P5′s Palaces (so far Kamoshida, Madarame, Kaneshiro, and Okumura's Palace-themed "domains" have been found).

Basic Game Mechanics

For the most part, P5X operates extremely similarly to P5, both in and out of the Metaverse. One notable difference is that the calendar isn't progressed by anything but the story- other activities, such as working, crafting infiltration tools, and spending time with Confidants, instead cost hourglasses to do, without being restricted to a single afternoon and nighttime time slot each day, as was the case in P5.

One interesting and more significant change made in this category is that the Confidants have what appears to be a total of 20 ranks, instead of the series-standard 10. They also haven't been associated with any Arcana, though the P5R Arcana cards have all been found in the second beta's data.

The UI elements of combat look a little different (as well as all the skill animations), appearing to be more optimized for mobile play, but otherwise it seems largely the same to P5, though one notable difference is that it seems Navigator skills can be called in at will (and then have a cooldown), rather than occurring randomly. There is a new kind of special attack called a Highlight Attack, which is similar to P5S’s Showtime attacks where the character executes a special attack with their Persona.

The protagonist can gain Personas by talking to shadows, and fuse them in the Velvet Room. Challenge battles in the Velvet Room, like in P5R, are available to attempt. Palace exploration also seems relatively standard, even if the Palace itself and the method of entering it is different. One major change is that several shadow/Persona designs have been censored; this includes Incubus and many others being given shorts, Bugs' stomach being repaired with the blood removed, Mara being given a large hat, Hell Biker and other skeletal Personas having a helmet/mask that obscures the skull, and several female Personas like Lamia being given shirts. However, these changes are purely cosmetic.

Miscellaneous

It’s worth noting that because the game has yet to be officially translated to English in any capacity (outside of a single file confirming its English title as "Persona 5: The Phantom X"), character names can only be absolutely confirmed when they’re either written in Japanese kana (as opposed to the Japanese kanji characters names are typically written in) or spoken aloud in official material, to confirm which reading of the Japanese name is the intended one for this specific character.

The characters do also have Chinese names, of course, but as the voice acting defaults to Japanese, and the game is set in Japan, the names that would most likely be used by an English release (if it ever happens) are their Japanese ones. As such, the Japanese names are the ones presented in the Characters section earlier in this post, and the main ones that this blog uses.

All the codenames, however, are written in English, and thus the most easily confirmed as official.

And just to close this out, keep in mind that the majority of our information about the game contents specifically comes from the beta versions, so things can and have changed between beta playtests, and similarly may change in the actual release of the game.

[sliverspeaks]

Oh, hey! You found my blog!

Pretty much everything you need to know will be here:

If a rule isn't clear, feel free to ask a question about it! I'd love to help.

Tag list:

#sliver.speaks - text posts

#sliver.screenshots - screenshots & screen recordings

#sliver.creations - my art

#sliver.reblogs - stuff I've reblogged

#sliver.polls - polls I've made

#sliver.answers - asks I've answered

#This week's kin joy - a post series I run where I post one good kin experience I've had that week. Updates on Saturdays at 12pm ET

#something something october art challenge - when I drew things daily in back in october, with no prompts whatsoever. I made it up along the way

Not tags, but sometimes I use 🤖 and 💛 to clarify which kin I'm talking about in a post if it's unclear.

Q&A

What's the difference between this blog and your main?

Starting with the fairly obvious: This blog is mainly for my fictionkin and rain world content. It also likely won't be as active as my main (@the-firefly-jar, by the way) but I'll do my best to keep it as active as possible while still being interesting.

Why did you create a second blog?

I created a second blog mostly to avoid spoilers in my main, so people who don't want to be spoiled don't have to worry about it. I also just wanted it to be a little more organized.

Do you do art requests?

Not really, but feel free to send in doodle requests if you'd like! I just can't promise fully rendered works.

How long have you been fictionkin for?

I do not know exactly when I became fictionkin, but I awakened pretty recently! Though it should have been fairly obvious before, I just didn't realize until around the end of last month (July 2024).

Are these your only fictionkin identities?

Yes, but I am also otherhearted (Wolf), otherlink (Eastern Wolf & Bat-eared fox), and otherkin (Angel).

Do you have memories?

Nothing vivid, no. I have feelings that I've known something before but I have never had any real memories.

Does the way you think of yourself differ from canon? (Like design and such)

Not really! The only main difference is that instead of having no antenna, I have short ones.

Do you identify psychologically or spiritually? Is it a mix?

I am both psychological and spiritual fictionkin!

Do you have a past life?

Yup! Even if I don't have any memories, I believe I did.

What types of shifts do you have, if any?

My biggest shifts at the moment are antenna phantom shifts, hand phantom shifts (It's weird and hard to describe), and mental shifts. I very rarely have full-body shifts but full shifts for my puppet only are a more common.

I also have ear and mental shifts too, but they aren't super frequent.

Feel free to ask more questions if you'd like! They might not necessarily get added here but I may add them if I think they're important/interesting enough.

[swordofsun]

I posted 3,394 times in 2022

That's 2,656 more posts than 2021!

153 posts created (5%)

3,241 posts reblogged (95%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@sidewalk-scrawls

@deanandkastiel

@jewishdeanwinchester

@aceofthegreenajah

@thycatsays

I tagged 1,745 of my posts in 2022

Only 49% of my posts had no tags

#wheel of time - 226 posts

#wot book spoilers - 136 posts

#the boys - 104 posts

#the boys spoilers - 88 posts

#wot on prime - 80 posts

#spnwin - 57 posts

#stranger things - 42 posts

#the winchesters - 38 posts

#the magnus archives - 36 posts

#leverage - 35 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#then dean and cas talked about his deal with the empty and carefully held hands as we closed on them starting to research how to fix things

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

There should be one of those reblog game things where we just say The most fucked up scene from Animorphs that still lives in our heads. Occasionally coming out to remind you that those books were Fucked Up.

Mine would be the time Marco almost got stuck as a flea and only managed to partially de-morph so he was a human sized flea and Cassie had to gently hold giant flea Marco and talk him through his panic attack so he could finish de-morphing.

139 notes - Posted February 4, 2022

#4

Okay, @wigglebox wanted me to post this over here and they would follow up with their bonkers dutch angles stuff.

This is a "what the fuck is Dean doing in The Winchesters" theory. It takes Chuck Won as a given and is based on how insanely meta s15 was on top of the show being meta a fuck + the SPNWIN preview and the couple of scenes of tv static + Cas literally being narrative breaking + general vibes.

At some point after the end of 15x18 and the beginning of 15x20 Dean literally stepped out of the narrative. What we're seeing is Chuck's POV. This is the ending he wanted, the ending we never really got to see but that Becky hated so damn much. (Becky the audience insert that is given an absolutely lovely life to show how much the show cares for it's audience.) The Dean we see is a Chuck puppet or illusion of some sort.

Chuck may not have realized Dean stepped out of the narrative.

The real Dean, The True Dean, is off to the side. Just out of sight of the camera, watching it all go down. He can't effect anything because Sam and other Dean (if there even is an Other Dean) just go through the motions. Even more disturbing if it's like in Heaven when someone steps out of the memory and everyone else just continues on like they're there. There's no pie, no one on the piece of rebar, just Sam reacting as if there was. No one driving the Impala, just Chuck controlling everything.

Cas was literally narrative breaking. He didn't do what Chuck wanted and, through the power of love (an actual thing in SPN), Dean is able to make that step too. Just off camera where we can't see him watching.

So the Dean that we see in the SPNWIN preview is searching for the point where the narrative started. He's going back over his parent's story to figure out just when Chuck started actively taking an meddling role. With the end result a Cas rescue from the Empty and actually defeating Chuck.

(And possible AU where we get to see Mary and John without heaven's influence?)

139 notes - Posted July 13, 2022

#3

Sometimes it still amazes me that Stellar Firma really said:

Some people can be so bought into the system that even when they acknowledge the problems they will refuse to admit the system is at fault (Enola)

Even the most die-hard of revolutionaries can get lost when shown the decadence of the ruling class (David 7)

The most morally corrupt person you know can learn empathy and take up the fight (Trexel)

The only ethical solution to end-stage capitalism is to put everyone in the escape pods and hit the self-destruct button

That was a show.

202 notes - Posted April 25, 2022

#2

The important thing to remember about Rand al'Thor is that when he doesn't know what to do next he consults the prophecies that have been written about him for guidance.

The next important thing to remember is that while he's a giant nerd he's not classically trained so he'll jump to some wild ass conclusions.

The final thing to remember is that because he's Rand al'Thor he'll almost always be right about those conclusions.

272 notes - Posted July 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Yes, Harvey Dent is a Good Guy. That's part of his whole thing. He was Bruce Wayne's best friend and possibly the only honest DA in Gotham. He did good things and was a nice and honest person.

He's not Two Face yet! And even when he does become Two Face he's still a good guy approximately 50% of the time. That's where the coin flipping comes in. This is why Two Face is such an iconic villian and why you need a really great character actor foe the role. Once Harvey becomes Two Face the actor is essentially playing Two characters.

I'm so excited to see Misha sink his teeth into this role.

872 notes - Posted May 31, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[ranahan]

Originally this was a long-ass post about how this is a reductive and US-centric take, with many non-US examples pulled from my personal and family history. On a second thought however, I’m not sure I want to go there, so I’m gonna cut to the chase with this:

I’m not pro or contra fictional characters or sides—you couldn’t pay me to care that much, I’ve got real life problems to deal with. But I do find Mandalorian culture and politics of both sides compelling because of reasons of personal and family history and the parallels I can draw with Mandalorian history and the issues of pacifism vs. militarism.

I also enjoy fandom precisely because it allows you to explore all sorts of perspectives and narratives the original material didn’t cover (whether it was because it had a different focus, didn’t have the budget, or was too chickenshit to go there). Fandom generally does this by reinterpretating, reimagining, selecting and remixing the original material. If you want to write the New Mandalorians as a native peace movement in protest of the failed colonialist policies of their ancestors, you can. If you want to write the New Mandalorians as the Republic’s puppet government committing cultural genocide, you can. If you want to make them both at the same time, desperate to end the bloodshed, yet equally desperate to not be glassed by the Republic again, carefully balancing this double-bladed sword—you can. (And personally I wish I’d see more of the last sort.)

When it comes to Star Wars specifically, I think we should also acknowledge that it’s a fecking huge body of work and it’s entirely reasonable to expect that not all fans have consumed the entirety of it, nor might they be aware of what material is or isn’t considered canon or legends or even fanon. We also shouldn’t consider getting a degree in Star Wars to be a prerequisite for participating in fandom or meta discussions about fandom. So please keep in mind that people participating in these discussions might have been exposed to only some parts of the Star Wars narrative and might be drawing their conclusions from partial evidence. Not to mention that Star Wars itself is sometimes contradictory.

Not all people participating in these discussions are American, either. Whether you are or aren’t, keep in mind that some of your assumptions and associations (“military = vehicle of violent colonialism” vs. “military = keeps us from being violently oppressed by our bigger fascist neighbour”) may be specific to your cultural context and may not be shared globally.

My bottom line is this: don’t like, don’t read. It’s the same damn discussion we have about kinks in fandom. If you want to write about violence, non-con, terrorism, pacifism, colonialism, cultural genocide, or any other “problematic” subject, you can and it doesn’t mean that you personally agree with the opinions of your characters or want to do those things in real life. If you as a reader don’t want to read about those subjects, then you can just not read about them—but you don’t get to shame other fans or writers for exploring those narratives. Just move on.

Does that mean we shouldn’t have meta discussions about Mandalorian politics? Of course not! But keep the discussions about fictional characters to the realm of fiction and literary analysis and leave off the ad hominem arguments. This goes for both sides of this argument. Please and thank you.

P.s. OP, this not aimed personally at you. This debate has been going on in various blogs on my dash for a good long while and your post just happened to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

I am sorry, but each time I see Star Wars fan complains that Satine destroyed Mandalore culture, I imagine OP as some kind of caricatural American Dude with shotgun, shouting: FUCKING LIBS DESTROY OUR AMERICAN CULTURE WITH THEIR GUN LAWS!

[ofavernus]

I DID NOT FALL. I ROSE TO SHOULDER A COSMIC BURDEN.

ind. semi-selective, private rp blog for zariel of dungeons and dragons (as well as a few related characters, such as BG3's mizora) est. 8 / 21 / 2023, and written by fawkes ( he/they, 27 ). i’m mutuals-only, and low-activity. timezone is GMT-8. follows back from @voxdraconis.

rules and info below.

information.

this is a blog for antagonists, so it'll be relatively low-activity and will be, y'know, treated like an antagonist blog. this one isn't here to be friends. it might be here to turn you into a warlock. (:

zariel doesn't leave avernus much. she has a blood war to fight, after all. she speaks on the material plane mostly through servants or agents. i'm going to be including one sub-muse on this blog (mizora, wyll's patron cambion from BG3) as well as the following that i've used in my own d&d game:

sharptongue, a red-brown furred imp with the head of a bat, who acts as one of zariel's mouthpieces for when she needs to speak to warlocks or hunt down runaways directly. he has no character of his own, he's just for zariel to talk through, more or less.

dame surila, a tortoiseshell tabaxi paladin, dressed in the light leathers of a knight of Lathander and armed with two shortswords. she was a hellrider of the ancient past once. she's also more or less an empty husk (died, after pledging her swords eternally to zariel) and the archdevil puppets her body for when she needs a mouthpiece on the material plane that's less obviously infernal. dame surila looks like an adventurer until inspected with magic like a paladin's divine sense, which reads her as both fiend and undead.

rules.

not doing shipping on this one, though mizora may be down for shenanigans. would you, though? would you do that to wyll? you gonna bang his patron and then look him in the eye about it?

i encourage you to send me asks on this blog, it's the easiest way to interact with me. all my stuff over here (askmemes, open posts) are free game.

always feel free to ask me to tag something it if makes you uncomfortable or otherwise. i'll try to tag common content warnings as best I can, and i'd appreciate if my mutuals could do me the great service of tagging anything related to cancer, real world terminal illness or hospitals. (fantasy/fictional diseases and such are fine.) this blog won't have any full-on smut on it, though it may include mildly sexual content. it will, most likely, have canon-typical mature content around the same level as in the actual game. violence, darker themes, ect.

i have a full time job. i am a low-activity blog that may take a long while to reply (& an especially long time to answer asks). please bear with me, and always feel free to poke me and ask about a particular reply—i actually prefer if people let me know about threads they're particularly invested in. but also, know that i'm not ignoring people, i just have limited time. sometimes i will hyperfocus on particular threads and take longer to get to some than others. it's just how my brain works.

i don't care if you don't use formatting, all i ask is that you proofread your posts, and trim threads so that they don't get too overly long.

have fun & be yourself ect ect.

[a-simple-spiders-oc-dump]

some basics about the ocs from The Realm/Universe 1

UPDATE!!!! AS OF AUGUST 2023, THIS PAGE NO LONGER MATCHES THE CURRENT CANON PRECISELY. A LOT OF ELEMENTS PERSIST INTO THE REVISED CANON, BUT YOU SHOULD NOT USE THIS AS THE PRIMARY SOURCE OF INFORMATION FOR THESE GUYS. SEE THE UPDATED CHARACTER INFO PAGE FOR UP-TO-DATE INFORMATION ON THESE CHARACTERS.

(so I learned today that pages don't show up on tumblr mobile even if you link directly to them??? which means the page I spent two solid days making that clarified the concepts of Universe 1 and described (nearly) every character in the story was completely inaccessible to people on mobile???? tumblr is a functional website, lol. I'm copying over all the info into this post so everyone can see it now - the page will still be there for those who look at my blog on desktop tho!!)

(info under the cut!!)

The Realm/Universe 1: Basically, a very young goddess fucked up when making herself a friend. Said friend started a war by making a pact with interdimensional demons and sacrificing her face, the goddess was too young to make herself an army to fight said war, so she started letting dead teenagers into her world to fight for her. This was, by all accounts, a terrible decision. 

Notable Terms: 

Authors - Someone with power over a Realm. Name is a shortened version of the word “authority”. They look like normal people in their home worlds, but are reality-warping gods in their Realms. They can either be born this way (Founding Authors) or can be turned into an Author by a different Author (Inherited Authors). If an Author dies and hasn’t selected anyone to be their ‘heir’, their Realm crumbles and dies. Has some variations - Alice, for example, refers to herself as an ‘Authoress’ as a more fancy and feminine version of the title - though ‘Author’ itself is considered a gender-neutral term. 

Realms - Miniature universes created by an Author’s birth, sometimes considered to be the Author’s twin. They are sentient to some extent, though are so different from most lifeforms that they cannot communicate aside from puppeteering creatures (usually Creations) to do their bidding. Their Author(s) keeps them stable, and if the Author dies, they do too. The majority of the story takes place in one of these Realms (exceptions being prequel short stories). 

Creations - Living creatures made by Authors to serve a specific role in their Realms. Think of them as biological robots. Creations are given a 'purpose’ by their Author that forms the backbone of their identities, which can range from specific tasks they must fulfil to simply live however they choose. Aside from that, they can look like practically anything. 

Breaks - Hive monsters that spawn in the void between worlds, meant to be one part training and one part punishment for Authors who break the Unspoken Rules (which are unspoken because no one really knows what they are). They can form pacts with Real creatures as well as Creations to grant them powers in exchange for the individual becoming the focal point of their hive mind, and want nothing more than to devour Realms from the insides out. 

Characters in The Realm/Universe 1 include: (copied from my main blog lmao) 

some warnings: mentions of death, abuse, school shootings, human experimentation, murder, bullying, car crashes and suicide. none of these will be discussed in depth (outside of the death part, since I will be mentioning how each of Alice’s soldiers died), and will only be briefly mentioned, but I felt it was worth adding this warning nonetheless. let me know if there’s anything else I should add to this warnings list, and I’ll make sure to add that warning both to this and any future piece that may contain that particular content.

(also, please note that even after all this time, a lot of these guys don’t have fully solid designs - I’m more of a writer than an artist and character designs don’t mean much when you’re not using a visual medium lol. I do want to give those ocs with less solid looks permanent designs in the future, but for now???? ehhhhhhhhhhhh I’d rather focus on the writing part lmao) 

Lydia:

Age: 16

Role in the story: Protagonist

Appearance: Chubby girl with long, wavy blonde hair, warm-toned beige skin and blue eyes. Around 5'5-5'8. Wears a long, loose grey t-shirt with cut-out shoulders and a distinctive blue butterfly design with diamond-like wings on the bottom-left corner. This matches her prized necklace, which always hangs around her neck on a long chain, and her hairclip that pins the left side of her hair out of her eyes.

Rapid-fire personality info: -The latest person to get trapped in the Realm

-Wanted to be a therapist when she grew up and loves to read books on psychology and mental health for fun

-Very dedicated to helping others, even at the expense of her own health - definitely fits the “paragon” archetype and will do anything if she thinks it’s for the good of those around her

-Good at reading people - can be a surprisingly good liar when she wants to be due to this

-Bad at hiding her emotions, and cries any time she gets too emotional in general

-Just wants things to be okay and for everyone to be safe and sound. This is a much more complicated goal than it sounds, but by god is she gonna do her best to achieve it

-Has the ability to see the memories of others through her dreams. Big side effect is that whatever memory she brings up will be re-lived by the memory’s owner while she does so, and considering almost everyone in the Realm has some sort of trauma, she needs to be careful what she makes them re-live

-Died in a car crash

Gamma:

Age: 8 (behaves as though he’s an adult)

Role in the story: Secondary character, a mentor figure for Lydia; an integral figure in the backstory (also basically a secondary protagonist at this point - if the story isn’t from Lydia’s perspective, it’s probably from Gamma’s instead) 

Appearance: Tall (around 6'7-6'10), extremely pale (to the point where other characters’ narrations have remarked he looks like he’s never gone out in the sun in his life), and muscular by necessity for his job. Has black hair that’s always slicked back to his head and golden eyes that never blink with noticeable dark circles underneath. Wears a black suit with a white dress shirt and golden tie underneath. While the suit repairs itself after an attack, the lapels and wrists of his sleeves are permanently tattered due to the amount of battles he’s been in. His skin on his arms and legs is a slightly different shade from the skin on his head and torso.

Rapid fire info: -A Creation who acts as Alice’s bodyguard and assistant; has done a really good job at keeping her alive considering the circumstances

-Also in charge of the transportation of the dead teenagers from their world to the Realm; most of the soldiers don’t like associating with him due to this fact, and a good chunk of them outright despise him

-Reserved, serious, and excessively secretive

-Constantly researching things like anthropology, sociology, psychology and history just for fun, since he finds Earth absolutely fascinating

-One of the few people Alice respects as an equal, due to their long history together, which according to Gamma, includes her saving his life numerous times

-Has been through Some Shit before the wars even began

-Blames himself when things go wrong, almost as a reflex

-Seems to have some odd powers that it’s assumed Alice gave him, since he’s much stronger than a normal human and has a tendency to know things he really has no right knowing (this is due to mind-reading powers he can’t fully turn off. fun fact - he thought reading minds was a Normal Human Experience and got so freaked out when he realized it wasn’t that it led to him suppressing the ability as much as he could manage. Some whispers still come through, but he’s trying his best.)

-Though his main goal is to protect Alice and the Realm, he also wants to keep the soldiers alive, since he seems to hold them in very high regard. This doesn’t always work out.

-Basically became one of Lydia’s mentors by accident and is secretly terrified of disappointing or harming her in any way, since she’s one of the few humans who actually seems to be alright with having him around and he really doesn’t want to lose his only friend who isn’t a kid-shaped Eldritch Abomination made of wax-adjacent flesh. 

-this man has so much going on with him I swear to fuck. he’ll probably be in a LOT of the prompt fills lmao

Mikayla:

Age: 4 (behaves as though she’s in her late teens/early twenties)

Role in the story: Primary antagonist; an integral figure in the backstory

Appearance: Has replaced her face with a white, porcelain mask decorated with red swirls, and does not appear to have any hair. Her skin tone matches Alice’s - pale like candle wax - though it’s mostly covered by a long, hooded, ivory cloak and the black, veined bodysuit underneath that holds her body together as she regenerates. She’s probably around 5'8-5'11.

Rapid fire info: -Alice’s Creation, meant to be the perfect friend; turned on her after learning about the massive power imbalance they had, along with a certain incident that happened several years before her creation.

-Cut off her face to seal her pact with the Breaks, who gave her regenerative powers and limited ability to use portals; now wears a porcelain mask as a replacement face, and uses similar doll-like prosthetics when her limbs need to regenerate, more for the sake of beauty than anything

-Extremely manipulative, and does not take being told “no” well

-Switches personas on a whim, going from calm and collected to rage-fueled screaming on a hair trigger when she thinks it will keep people in line, all the while feeling nothing but calm boredom

-A massive control freak; cannot stand when her plans go awry

-Has a personal grudge against Alice, since Mikayla views Alice simply being alive as both a threat and an insult, and Gamma, since he was instrumental in stopping her original assassination attempt

Alice:

Age: 14

Role in the story: Secondary character; an integral figure in the backstory

Appearance: Takes the form of an adorable young girl the majority of the time, with skin that both looks and feels oddly reminiscent of candle wax, owlish brown eyes and straight black hair that falls to her waist. She wears an opulent, knee-length dress reminiscent of a kid’s princess/queen costume. It has a square neckline, puffed sleeves with strips of brown fabric falling to her wrists, corset lacing in the shape of a heart on her stomach, a grey sash tied around her waist in a bow on her back, and brown skirt split in the center to reveal layers of translucent yellow fabric, surrounded by gold embroidery.

Rapid fire info: -Created the Realm and has god-like powers of reality-warping and creation; she refuses to let anyone forget either of these facts.

-Childish, and acts either cheerful or annoyed about 90% of the time

-Callous and selfish, often disregarding human suffering as ‘not her problem’ despite being one of the two people bringing them to her world in the first place

-Experiments with her powers for fun, most common experiment being the creation of a living creature without really paying attention and then taking it apart while it’s still alive to see what she got wrong.

-Has a marked dislike for adults (outside of Gamma, who looks and behaves like one), refusing to allow them into her home; she’d likely do this for all humans if not for the current situation

-Hates admitting things that she sees as a blight on her reputation as an Author (i.e. caring about people, feeling emotions other than joy and rage, wanting to do things other than create, being wrong, etc.)

-Morphs into a much less friendly looking version of herself when pissed off, and is prone to having her skin melt like she’s a wax figure when sufficiently annoyed. Even in her ‘normal’ form, her skin is noticeably cold, as though she’s a living corpse, and she often grins with a few more teeth than humans should have.

-She’s basically a weird little girl given god-like powers by chance and then let loose on the multiverse

Cynthia:

Age: 17

Role in the story: Secondary character, mentor figure for Lydia; an integral figure in the backstory

Appearance: No solid outfit design just yet. (Her old outfit was designed when I was around 14/15 years old and included a t-shirt that said ’#SWAG’ on it. I wish I was joking.) What I know for now is she has olive-toned skin and a bob hair cut, dyed a dark blue/indigo, along with grey, almost silver eyes. She likely has a muscular build out of necessity, and probably wears something simple and easy to move in in case of a surprise attack.

Rapid fire info: -Co-leader of the Soldier’s Camp; also one of the very first humans in the Realm

-Used to be sweet and somewhat sarcastic but watching people die has made her withdraw to the point that she’s extremely stoic

-Asked Alice to remove her memories of her past life during the First Break War so they wouldn’t hold her back; some suspect Alice took a little more than just that

-Hard to read, and comes off as cold to most people, only opening up to Dylan since they went through the First Break War together, forming a tight bond along the way

-Focuses mostly on strategy, supplies and upkeep of the camp while Dylan takes care of the human element. Extremely practical, to the point of requesting a murphy bed for her bedroom so she could use it as an office (with her reasoning being, “there’s no point in having two separate rooms when one could serve the same purpose.”) 

-Almost all the soldiers see her as the Realm’s ultimate authority figure - especially considering Dylan’s laid back attitude and Alice being… well, Alice - though some (like Morgan and Sydney) aren’t afraid to talk back to her if they feel like it

Dylan:

Age: 17

Role in the story: Secondary character, mentor figure for Lydia

Appearance: No solid design just yet. What I know for now is that he has sepia/brown skin, short hair, and mostly wears a faded blue hoodie over a black t-shirt and a pair of navy blue jeans. (Outfit might change with time)

Rapid fire info: -Co-leader of the Soldier’s Camp

-Generally a relaxed, optimistic person who does his best to keep the morale of the camp high

-Helps newcomers get settled in the Camp, and acts as mediator for disagreements; some joke that he’s essentially the camp’s HR guy, or jokingly call him the “Camp’s Counsellor”.

-Most of the younger members look up to him like an older brother, and it’s a role he seems to suit incredibly well

-Doesn’t talk about his own problems much to avoid troubling people, though most are aware that he gets severe anxiety upon hearing gunshots and will warn him if a movie will contain them or if Troy’s planning on doing target practice

-One of the few who spoke with Gamma before they died; as such, he’s one of the few soldiers who isn’t all that intimidated by his presence, and often goes to speak with Alice and Gamma on the camp’s behalf

-Used to be in the swim team in his school and played in a band with his two best friends - Tyler and Kieran - since the beginning of high school (he did guitar and backup vocals). He was also often among the top five highest-scoring students in many of his classes. Unfortunately, most of these skills and achievements are completely useless in the Realm, much to his chagrin

-Died in a school shooting

Morgan:

Age: 18

Role in the story: Secondary character

Rapid fire info: -Medic for the Soldier’s Camp

Appearance: Has albinism, so her hair is a very pale grey (long, but often pulled back into a bun, with lash-grazing bangs), her skin is pale and pinkish, and her eyes are red (which is actually very uncommon for people with albinism, but considering her spite towards Alice, they may not have started off that colour…). She’s noticeably tall compared to the others - probably around 5'10 - 6'1. She wears a plain white t-shirt with pale grey jeans under a long, burgundy cardigan that falls to the back of her knees in a silhouette similar to a lab coat. Her fingers and lips are permanently discoloured from her death.

Rapid-fire personality info: -Both a soldier and the senior of the camp’s two medics

-Had a rough childhood where she was constantly pushed to be the best that burnt her out, and the First Break War left her completely jaded

-Known for her sharp tongue, harsh criticisms of others, and tendency to estimate to newcomers’ faces how long she thinks they’ll live - usually no longer than a month - giving her a ruthless reputation

-At the same time, she is the most skilled soldier the Realm has, considering her incredible combat skill and her high amount of medical knowledge, and she works tirelessly to maintain that status

-Has an ongoing feud with Sydney due to their clashing worldviews - Morgan believing Sydney’s a complete idiot who’s destined to get herself (and possibly others) killed with her thrill-seeking, Sydney believing Morgan’s a killjoy who’s dead set on making a shitty situation even shittier, especially for the newcomers who are already in an incredibly stressful position. Neither are entirely wrong, but neither are entirely right either

-Is unlikely friends with Trinity, doing whatever she can to keep the smaller medic from getting hurt

-Isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty if it ends the war faster

-Died of hypothermia

Sydney:

Age: 16

Role in the story: Secondary character

Appearance: Has sort of amber-toned skin that’s patched with burn scars from her death, most prominently covering much of the right side of her head and almost the entirety of her hands and forearms. Since the right side of her head can’t grow much hair anymore, her short brown hair is styled into a comb-over, and she has light brown, orange-toned eyes. Wears a black leather jacket over a yellow shirt (which likely has some sort of flame pattern on it that gets covered up by the jacket) and orange shorts with spiked studs on the left side, with purposefully-ripped black leggings underneath.

Rapid fire info: -A pyromaniac and former delinquent who fights with bats and flamethrowers

-The most Chaotic Good member of the team; more than willing to give the finger to any rules in the name of a good time, especially if it helps her friends

-Despite having the most prominent death-scars of any of Alice’s soldiers, she is barely self-conscious over her scars anymore and has a whole list of shitty puns for when she catches newcomers staring at them. After all, the majority of Alice’s soldiers have scars from their deaths - if her confidence can help the younger members accept their own scars, all the better. 

-An adrenaline junkie who genuinely enjoys fighting the Breaks for the rush, and is often doing stupid stunts to get that same rush during peaceful times; this kick-started her feud with Morgan

-Deals with bad situations/stress with shitty humor, or by indulging in her more destructive hobbies. Basically, she’s the “if I just keep moving at all times then my problems can never catch me!!” type. 

-Helps train newcomers alongside Dylan; newcomers often see her as a cool big sister figure, but don’t tend to look up to her as much as they look up to Dylan, thanks to Sydney being far more irresponsible in general. 

-Good friends with Troy and Bianca, and can often be found shirking her duties to play video games and watch movies with them

-Died in a house fire

Trinity:

Age: 13

Role in the story: Secondary character

Appearance: Looks even younger than her age, with many newcomers mistaking her for being 10 or 11. Has fawn, freckled skin, and dirty blonde hair that’s always pulled into a tight braid over her shoulder, along with deep green eyes. Wears a short/cuffed-sleeve, green button-up shirt with a darker green scarf covering her entire neck, and khaki shorts with cuffs that just barely scrape the tops of her knees.

Rapid fire info: -A girl who turned out to be a medical prodigy, brought into the Realm when they needed medics most - which is all very convenient, isn’t it? :) As of the 'present day’ in story, she’s the junior of the two medics. 

-Extremely timid around people - especially strangers - due to a history of bullying, but takes comfort in helping others and is prone to showing a more confident side of herself when doing her job due to the sense of agency it provides her

-Since she’s easily the youngest and most fragile member of the camp, all of Alice’s soldiers are extremely protective of her, doing whatever they can to keep her away from danger - Morgan especially so

-Much like Lydia, she tries to help the others through their issues; however, due to their protectiveness over her, Trinity has a much harder time getting people to open up

-Tries to push Morgan to be less of an asshole; this works, but barely and only when Trinity’s around

-Very self conscious of the bruise on her neck left by her death, often hiding it with a green scarf that also acts as something of a comfort item to her

-Died after falling out of a tree

Troy:

Age: 15

Role in the story: Secondary character

Appearance: I’ll be honest, I have basically nothing for this kid. I know he probably has shaggy ginger hair, and pale, freckled skin. He’s also probably pretty scrawny. That’s it. That’s all I’ve got for now. I kind of just imagine him as your average freshman tbh, lol

Rapid fire info: -Bianca’s twin brother

-The Realm’s only marksman, due to both how close-quarters Break combat tends to be, and due to Alice not wanting to constantly be using her energy to create bullets (and also to limit the amount of people who can kill her from long-range, should that ever become a problem)

-Prefers machines and weapons to people; can often be found playing video games or doing target practice with his hunting rifle

-Has a bit of social anxiety not helped by Bianca pushing people away from the two of them

-Knows he’s a bit boring compared to his sister and their best friend (Sydney), and it bothers him constantly, but he does his best not to let it show

-Knows that Bianca has issues due to their deaths, but doesn’t know just how bad those issues are

-Generally just wants to make the best of the shitty situation he and his sister have been dropped in and stop the wars for good

-Died by being stabbed three times in the chest

Bianca:

Age: 15

Role in the story: Secondary character

Appearance: Has shoulder-length, ginger hair often pulled into two short pigtails, along with pale, freckled skin and green eyes. Wears a large headbow shaped like a bat, along with a short-sleeved, almost retro-looking, knee-length, plain black dress with a red belt. The belt holds a large pocket knife, as well as a small sack full of throwing knives, in case of an emergency.

Rapid fire info: -Troy’s twin sister

-She and Troy were killed in the same incident, and she had to watch him die. Due to this, she’s extremely over-protective of him and deeply paranoid that anyone around them may turn out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

-Has held people she sees as threats to him at knife point, but never followed through with her threats when called on her bluff

-Acts cheerful and air-headed around other members of the camp despite this; it’s half a ploy to get them to underestimate her, half her genuine self

-Has a fixation on knives as a result of her death, seeing them as something powerful, but only as long as they’re in her hands. If anyone else wields a knife against her, she panics.

-Was just beginning to really experiment with aesthetics when she died, and while keeping her brother around is her number-one priority, she loves to DIY new decorations for her cabin and often requests different clothing from Alice

-Died by being stabbed multiple times in the abdomen

Sinclair:

Age: 16

Role in the story: Secondary antagonist

Appearance: Dresses more like they’re from an RPG than the same Earth Alice’s soldiers came on. They wear a long, dark brown cloak over a tube top made to look like bandages (since actually wrapping your chest with bandages is No Good), held together in the front with a long red belt with a replica of Mikayla’s mask as the clasp. They also wear black pants that are ragged at the hem, and black fingerless gloves. Has long brown hair that’s been cut unevenly and is often matted, brown eyes, and light, almost ashy-looking skin. More lean than muscular, though they are surprisingly strong.

Rapid fire info: -Mikayla’s first attempt at recruiting a human soldier

-Deeply infatuated with Mikayla, who has used drugs, isolation and good old fashioned emotional and mental manipulation to keep them that way. (things will get better for them as the story goes on tho)

-Very theatrical, and presents themself as a half-demon sorcerer; they spend much of their time working on their presentation and are often disappointed when people don’t treat them with the gravitas they expect.

-Genuinely believes Alice’s human soldiers were all created by her and are video game NPCs at most and mere illusions at least

-Despite this, they’re pretty ineffectual without Mikayla’s directly influencing their actions, since they don’t seem to actually want to kill anyone and greatly enjoy one-sided rivalries with Alice’s soldiers

-Yells a lot for no good reason

-An absolute shitpost of a human being

-Died by stabbing themself

[lacefuneral]

encountered something this morning. obvious sockpuppet accounts. people going out of their way to fabricate blogs so as to make queer (and ND) people look bad.

as a note, do not harass these blogs. simply block them and move on.

the first was this blog. someone actually reblogged a post of theirs that ended up on my dash, and it (and the url) immediately felt wrong to me.

i'll spare you the full bio, but here's what stood out to me. sockpuppet accounts are not always good at what they do. they sometimes get too carried away (as evidenced in the url too)

no human being would type any of that with sincerity. it just wouldn't happen.

other parts of the bio poked fun at: people who use multiple names, people who are in a system, people who use they/them, people who use neopronouns, and people who are asexual. as such, i didn't screencap those parts. actual people have bios like that.

as i looked through their posts, i encountered other urls.

this blog has very few posts, and most of them interact with or reference the sock puppet account. here's an example:

i also encountered this sockpuppet. with a quick skim, i found that all (or most) of their posts were reblogs. their bio is minimal, only mentioning he/it pronouns. at first, i thought this could be a real person. but they had sent an ask to the first sockpuppet account, and i did a search of their url on that blog. sure enough, tons of nonsensical asks came up. this account does not post on their own blog, so as to slide under the radar. they use the first sockpuppet as a conduit with which to post their content (via public answered ask)

also encountered this blog which... yeah. the url alone should give you pause. the autistic community (myself included) HATES this man. there is only one post currently, this interaction with the other sockpuppets.