#which is many levels of unhinged without context

[joys-of-everyday]

I suddenly remembered the Tale of Genji and something I read (?) about how Murasaki's obliviousness to Genji's advances is essential to preserving her likability/desirability without her rejecting Genji in any way.

And it occurred to me that Shen Qingqiu's obliviousness to Luo Binghe's advances is essential to preserving his likability without him rejecting Luo Binghe in any way.

[tavyliasin]

Villain-Fucker Angst Hours

Good timezone, darlings~ Are you ready to get all up in your feelings? No? Me neither, loves, but here we are regardless so the words are going to flow as they usually do... This is focused on Raphael from Baldur's Gate 3 and his fandom, but the latter section can easily apply to any villain fandom.

Self-Analysis of Devil-Fuckery, Or Why Do I Adore Raphael When He Is Very Obviously Evil: A Short Essay by TavyliaSin (Who Still Cannot Name Anything With Less Than A Full Paragraph) ((NSFW)) (((Game Spoilers)))

The following may discuss heavier topics, but without specifics, so whilst it should be safe for most to read without triggering any difficult memories please be aware of Raphael's entire vibes, the content and context of his story, and I'd also like to mention that this isn't a "woe be us for we are terrible people" piece, it's actually more about:

"There is an inherent kindness and warmth to much of the Raphael fandom, and I think there could be some common threads behind that, pulling us all in closer in a comforting blanket that we wrap around each other to keep out the cold of the world."

So, what in the nine hells am I on about? Well. Raphael-fandom is a wild and wonderful place to be. The rest is in sections, so feel free to skip through to what you feel is relevant to your interests. I am so prone to waffle I should open a restaurant~

Who Are Fans Of Raphael? What Do They Want?

We are feral, unhinged, all sheets to the wind "I want that devil man, carnally, and there is no force in all the planes that could stop me". There's the vanilla to the extreme and every level in between, tops, bottoms, versatiles, Doms, subs, and switches - there are a whole lot of people who would love to get their hands on either (or both) of Raphael's forms, for a simple smooch or something far more spicy~ [edited in] To add on to this, not all of us even desire him in a sexual way, for many it is romantic, soft, or even just the rather pleasant thought of spending an evening with drinks by the hellfire because he would be fascinating company. Aces, Aros, and AroAces may all find themselves well within the devilish corners of fandom too~ which is a whole other essay~ [end edit] So, I see you. I'm one of you. Extremely loud and utterly hingeless in my fan appreciation for Raphael. He's one of my favourites to write about, I seek art of him, and the same goes for his mirrored other half, Haarlep, who I arguably love more despite there being far less content of them in the game.

And the Fandom? The Vibe?

From my experience in the Raphael Fandom areas, we have a very deep and abiding understanding of consent, respect, and treating each other with an absolute and uncompromising kindness. We've had talks about keeping each other safe in fandom, exchanged details of people we have encountered who need to be avoided, even shared details between moderators of different fandom servers to pre-ban people proven to be creeps and/or art thieves. We've also discussed consent, including the issues with it in the game, and how areas of the story can only really be considered dubious at best and could easily be triggering for people. And these discussions have been open, honest, fair, and with the acknowledgement that most of us love these scenes anyway. So there's a sense of care that runs through everything, behind the horny-posting and fan content, behind the endless thirsting after our favourite fictional characters. We have a depth of kindness that warms my sinners soul every time I see it.

What Does This Have To Do With Self-Reflection, Raphael, or Villainy In General?

Well let's look at Raphael. He's a villain, obviously. He's manipulative, devious, and inherently evil by his very nature. He keeps Hope chained in his basement, constantly subjected to endless torture. There's also mention of how Gortash was sold into his service at a young age, clearly not an enjoyable experience given the other details and how things turn out (particularly as Raphael would need Gortash's own plans to fail entirely in order for him to succeed in his own and get that crown). And as fans, we accept that. We don't sit making excuses, or trying to say "well actually Gortash is a little shit and Hope probably deserve it", and we don't shy away from or conveniently ignore those darker sides of him with malicious intent to enable more evil to flourish. What I noticed, when I allowed the thoughts to continue, is that there is a theme here.

If Evil Can Be Loved Then So Can I

That's the core. Of course, darlings, I am not claiming to be a heinous monster. I certainly do not have a laundry list of crimes that would make the devil himself say "Uh, that's a bit much." But I sure as fuck treat myself like I do sometimes. You see, I think a lot of us have that tendency, to judge ourselves far more harshly than anyone else. Our patience, understanding, and forgiveness for others runs deeper than the Mariana Trench, but when it comes to our own flaws? One minor mistake and we think ourselves to be the worst beings ever to disgrace the earth. Thus, the villainy we see reflects how we are treating ourselves. So by loving and accepting all of those things that should be terrible, hated, we are actually learning that no matter how poorly we think of ourselves that we can be worthy of that same love and acceptance. We are extending the affection we are unable to show ourselves to someone we see the worst parts of ourselves amplified within. And that's why villains attract the people with the most kindness. The most forgiveness. Because it takes someone with a truly huge amount of empathy to find love for the embodiment of evil.

Or, IDK, maybe villains are just hot and we're too far down to care.

But wait, before you go!

THERE'S SOMETHING WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT.

All of this is about FICTION. We should never be accepting of the kinds of evil we see in the game irl. We do not owe anyone kindness if they do not show it to us.

What is hot in fiction is not always OK IRL.

Look after yourselves out there, remember that consent is key in all things, and please do try to learn to love yourselves, darlings, you are worthy of it and you should judge yourself by the same standard you judge others. If you are in doubt, if you are worried, if you feel afraid - reach out, talk to someone. There are many who will listen.

Treat yourself as you would treat a friend. You deserve that much.

Oh, and all Raphael fans who understand kindness are welcome around me, any hour of the day, I adore our little fandom circles and would gladly collect all of us together. I'm following a lot of you as soon as I find you, like hunting shiny pokemon~

See you in Avernus, my darling Little Mice, may we all find joy in the Cambion's Embrace~

[sapphorror]

The relevance of chronology in IZ is dubious at best (in the show—it is flat-out non-existent in the comics), but I do kind of love to think about it regardless because there are so many weirdly specific points of internal continuity, practically and sometimes even emotionally, that we can't pretend there's absolutely nothing to examine there, even if the degree to which it matters is next to null. And anyway, I love a fool's errand.

So with that disclaimer I'd just like to talk about everyone's favorite organ harvesting episode and how much it kills me when examined in the context of an on-going continuity, because it's not just one of the most horrifying things Zim ever does across canon, it's really the first horrifying thing that Dib is present to bear witness to, at least on that scale. For all that NanoZim must've been scary and violating on a personal level, it was ultimately still a contained, targeted attack, and not even an unjustified one—not that Dib would consciously think of it this way, but Zim was acting in reasonable self-defense, he just chose to be really brutal and vindictive as he did so. Plus, Dib did come out on top of that encounter, so there were no real lasting consequences besides losing his evidence, which only put him back to square one. Basically, it was a great basis for forming a personal grudge, but it didn't really say anything about how generally malicious or threatening Zim actually was outside the context of their quickly-coalescing rivalry. Zim's only a monster at this point insofar as it's fun for Dib to have a dragon to defeat. The danger he poses does not yet hang over Dib's head like a guillotine.

Dark Harvest, though. In Dark Harvest, Zim shows just how capable he is of committing brutality on total bystanders at a mass scale under much less urgent circumstances without so much as a trace of hesitation or remorse—and by the end of it, Dib learns firsthand how severe the consequences for losing to Zim can actually be. Healed through the miracle of the status quo reset button or not... well.

And this adds a lot of context to why Dib spends the rest of the series so totally convinced of the danger Zim poses, even if most of the time that POV is extreme overkill. If he ever starts to doubt the necessity of his mission, just think about the time Zim stole a bunch of kids' organs, and that's irrefutable proof that Zim CAN accomplish terrible things if left unchecked. If he ever starts to doubt the morality of his intentions, just think about the time Zim stole a bunch of kids' organs (and would do so again!), and he can rest easy knowing Zim deserves every terrible consequence coming for him. If he ever forgets why he absolutely cannot afford to let his guard slip for even a second, just think about the time Zim stole a bunch of kids' organs, including Dib's, and now he remembers exactly why it's so important Zim's never allowed to gain the upper-hand. Even when he finally ditches Zim in Mopiness of Doom, it's not because he stops seeing Zim as a threat, it's that he's gotten too burnt out on single-handedly saving the world all the time to care.

(Gaz, of course, was there too and still thinks Zim is harmless, but Gaz also thinks expressing pain after having your entire lower body melted into off-brand bug spray makes you a whiner, so let's not put too much stock in her judgement here)

Even during Dark Harvest, Dib's immediate response upon finding Zim is to tell him this is totally beyond the pale, as if Zim might actually care—and while Dib trying to convince Zim he's acting totally unhinged isn't exactly unusual throughout the show, past this point he usually does so by appealing to Zim's self-interest ("stop trying to blow up the planet, you're still ON the planet") rather than any hypothetical better nature or good sense, can you even imagine. But that's exactly what he does here, reflexively or not, and that to me is a perfect demonstration of how this episode marks a radical shift in what Dib thinks he's up against.

And for some bonus meta? This also stretches into The Wettening in a really fun way, which is the second episode after Dark Harvest and the first with Dib. The sheer glee Dib takes in exploiting the new-found weakness for all it's worth, just because he can, makes a lot of sense in the wake of Dark Harvest and his new understanding of Zim as an out-of-control inhuman lunatic he has no idea how to stop. Seeing Zim vulnerable to something, openly afraid, and in obviously agonizing pain—well, humanizes would be the wrong word under the circumstances, but it cuts him back down to mortal size. He might be tough, and he might be terrifying, but he's not invincible. Even after Zim very unambiguously wins that fight and finds a way to protect himself from Earth's water, the important take-away is that there are things that can hurt him—Dib just has to figure out what they are. If Dark Harvest is the episode that shows Dib Zim is truly a monster, The Wettening is the episode to teach him even real monsters can be defeated.

[philtstone]

I don't know much about LOTR but I know Aragorn's weird. He's a weirdo. He doesn't fit in. Have you ever seen him without that stupid helmet? Wait no don't kick that

lmfaoooo

my great hope is that everyone who has not yet watched lotr now observing my unhinged posts will be compelled to watch lotr. i feel this way not only because i think its a beautiful story but also and more pragmatically because i genuinely think that for whatever flaws it may have its a very special phenomenon in filmmaking history.

(i would never presume to insist anyone has to read the books. theyre bangers though)

that said if you, gentle reader, never do watch lotr. and ur seeing my crazy posts. yes. the biggest takeaway from all of this is indeed that aragorn, prophesied king of the realm and the best dude you will ever meet, is a weirdo

many tolkien characters are weirdos in out-of-story-context. and then several tolkien characters are weirdos in in-story-context, too, which makes them great fun. in fact, it could be argued that there's so much cross-cultural race and power-level mixing in the proverbial dnd party (and all subsequent side quests), that every single character is at one point perceived as a massive weirdo by any other given character in the story.

and theyre all the good guys <3

[surrexi]

so i've been working at my new job for a little over two months now. i'm supposed to be having weekly one-on-one meetings with my boss to track how i'm settling in etc but because he's outrageously busy (like, the kind of busy that indicates there really should be two people with his job) i'm really having them every two weeks or so.

anyway i had one today, about an hour and a half before the end of the day. and it was going all right, if a little awkward because i'm a socially awkward penguin and i don't know how to mask right yet in corporate land. we were going over the various projects i'm working on, pretty normal, except every so often my boss would make an aside comment that would make me worry Something Was Wrong.

finally at the end of the meeting he's like "so there's a couple things that have been brought to my attention" (did not specify what things, like if it was something i said or i way i handled a situation or work that i did). he sends me a link to a training module he's working on building and points out a specific section that talks about a particular business dude's book about how to be a good team member, which says the key is to be humble, hungry, and (people-)smart.

boss is like "before i talk to you about [the unspecified reasons i am being made to feel vaguely in trouble], i want you to look this over and think about it. and we'll pick this up in our next meeting."

which is currently scheduled for next friday, but he's traveling that day so he absolutely might put it off longer.

he also made sure to say multiple times that if someone doesn't agree with this business dude's take on team building it's fine but also it means they won't fit on boss' team and to mention that although "many states" are at-will employment states (meaning during your first 90 days an employer can fire you without having a reason; note that texas is one such state but he weirdly didn't mention it), the company we work for "doesn't do that," which boss thinks is "very generous" of them because when he was a disney exec disney would absolutely fire the shit out of people at the drop of a hat.

so now i have NO IDEA what i did to make someone upset and/or angry at me or what i did wrong, but by god i have at least a week to obsess over (a) what i did and (b) who the fuck narc'd on me without idk TALKING TO ME FIRST?!

boss has said way more about his weird libertarian politics than i have about my own politics, i have only mentioned my religion in passing/in the context of discussing easter weekend plans with a coworker. i don't think i've behaved inappropriately or confrontationally with any of my coworkers, like with my anxiety i'm always worrying about doing my best to be clear and polite and not make people hate me lolsob.

the only thing i've thought of so far is that i've been pretty firm about working 8-hour days/40-hour weeks unless there's a concrete reason to graciously donate my time since my company doesn't do overtime pay and i'm salaried/exempt. like i have never said i would never work overtime and there's already been several days where i worked an extra 30 minutes to an hour that, again, i do not get paid for. unsurprisingly, boss frames being salaried as "we get to work more than 40 hours a week without it being a hassle because of overtime rules." and i do make offhand pro-labor comments/jokes a lot, but i haven't actually, like, threatened to unionize my fellow office workers. i live in texas ffs, if you say the word union too loud the cops show up.

i just feel like this is unhinged levels of psychological warfare from my boss and it took me SO LONG to find this job but now i'm like... maybe i'm not a good fit for your humble/hungry/smart team, bro. but god knows i don't want to be unemployed again. i just got decent health insurance! i can pay my own rent! and buy groceries and medicine!

ugh. why is everything hard.

[justfor2am]

hi my interview has been rescheduled once again because of course it is ^_^ nothing wants me to be interviewed ig ^_^ anyways 🥺😈🛒🎢✨💋🎶⛔🍦🌞💖💌❌🧐🦅👀🤗💞🧠🤩🤯💔🤭 for the fanfic writer asks or wtevr they're called??? didn't realize until just now u even rbed an ask game so apologies 🫡 side note the 💥 emoji is so fun . its just like 💥💥💥💥💥 yk??? also feel free to skip any of those i just threw down the ones i think would be most interesting but as usual there r many

i am manifesting an interview AND a job for u, get that bag king!!!

also waough ty for giving me an excuse to talk abt my blorbos 🥺🥺🥺

and ya 💥 feels like ur comboing someone really well in a fighting game, like 💥💥💥 K.O. yanno?

this is def gonna be a long one tho soooo the rest underneath the cut this goes lmao

🥺 Is there a certain type of moment or common interaction between your characters that never fails to put you in your feels?

Anything having to do with touch. I'm a sucker for physical gestures, so anything that involves details like brushing someone's hair out of their eyes, hooking a tentative pinky around someone else's hand, it doesn't need to be overt to get me in my feels every single time.

😈 Has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?

Yes! I threatened a major character death in [though I've closed my eyes, I know who you pretend I am] late in the final (12th) chapter lmao

I knew that being that late into the fic most people would've forgotten what the specific tags were and even less would be willing to scrolling all the way back up to check lol

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

Like I said in the first Q, touch is a big thing for me. Eyes and anything having to do with vision also tends to be a big one, if you read a fic with both of those elements there's a decent chance I wrote it.

As far as overarching things, I prefer to write scenery over dialogue, and put a heavy emphasis on describing what the characters are feeling/thinking over having them verbally express it.

🎢 Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

I wanna say my [detroit become human au] has shit hit the fan pretty quickly. The fic opens with the conflict and it takes a few chapters for the reader to get any context, but once you've got it, going back to the start just makes your heart break.

✨ Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it. 😉

booo hiss grrr

no but actually uhhhhhh... I will say that when I've got a good idea rattling around in my head, I can churn out a fic for that premise very quickly. to the point that i accidentally wrote three chapters for one of my fics all within a day, because I'm unhinged like that

💋 First kiss fics. Love em or hate em?

LOVE but only if they're done right. I appreciate first kiss fics that aren't perfect or a little clumsy, but also i'm a sucker for those picture perfect moments too

🎶 Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?

YA i do my best writing with some music on. I've been listening to a mix of things lately (Love from the Other Side by FOB, that new Shakira collab, and Flowers by Miley Cyrus) but i've also been looping my 14+ hour long exo playlist

⛔ Do you have a fic you started, but scrapped?

I had a sculk!Grian fic from like, I wanna say October last year that I was 1k words into that just. Disappeared. No clue where it went or how I lost but, but in hindsight, it wasn't my best work.

I'm still a bit sad to have lost it, but considerably more proud of the things I've written since.

🍦 What’s the sweetest fic you’ve created so far?

I have come to the realization that I am horrible at writing fluff without some level of conflict within the fic. Whoops! Closest I've got is a [scarian sick fic] that I wrote recently lmao

🌞 Do you have a preferred time of day to write?

Either while I'm at work when it's dead during the day time, or frantically at like, 11 o'clock p.m., there is no in between.

💖 What made you start writing?

Wayyyyy back when I was 12/13 I used to be big into rp, and I came into the realization that the rps I was doing could just as easily be formatting into fics.

None of those fics were ever published, but getting to learn how to edit and rewrite scenes that had been planned out with another person made me want to start creating stories of my own.

💌 How do you feel about comments and feedback?

Love love LOVE comments and feedback. Literally getting a comment is like a serotonin boost directly into my veins to write more, esp comments that'll point out specific scenes or moments/lines they liked.

someone pointed out that they liked the way I described fresh hickeys like blooming violets and I haven't been able to stop thinking about that comment ever since.

❌ What’s a trope you will never write?

That's a good question.... I'm trying to think of one that isn't like, a blatantly obvious icky trope.

I'm not sure if it counts as a trope, but Y/N fics. Not only are their primary function to act as fan service, they end up coming off very RPF to me which I'm not a fan of.

Oh, also RPF. Any fic i write has to do 100% with the characters those people portray, not the real person.

🧐 Do you spend much time researching for your stories?

Depends on the fic! For my [actor au] I've just been kinda flying by the seat of my pants, doing the occasional googling but not much. The opposite of this would be my [detroit become human au] where I literally rewatched jacksepticeye's d:bh playthrough and scoured wikis to make sure i'm describing androids correctly.

tl;dr: generally no, only as needed unless I get fixated on it.

🦅 Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?

Fly by the seat of my pants, but i'm trying to change this! For my multi-chaptered fics I've started actually planning out future events, and even for this one big one shot im working on, i've got an outline in the works.

...though generally, i don't plan. it's a bad habit.

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

GLADLY so speaking of that big one shot, it's going to be a boatem superhero au, i've started outlining it and getting my concepts together, i'm very excited for it!

here's a snippet:

It was fairly obvious that the Mayor had pulled some strings to get Scar to this stage; once a nobody vigilante who seemed more preoccupied with dazzling the camera over saving lives, Scar's public image had taken a hard left turn during the past few campaigning months.

The situation was more of an open secret— it was all too convenient for Scar, who practically lived in the Mayor's pocket, to be joining the city's most elite crime-fighting team.

it's VERY early in development so don't expect this one for a while tho

🤗 What advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?

I'd say figure out your character's voice is a big one. It's easy to fall into fanon tropes and while they're fun, they can cause lots of warping in the way you write your own fics, which might make them sound off.

So look out for fanon tropes! Personally I've run into people who make Scar very sweet and innocent, to the point of dusting his hands clean of blame. It's an easy hole to fall into, and no one should fault a writer for falling into tropes.

There's a line to walk, and I find that watching content relating to that character really helps shaping that "inner voice".

Also, get someone to proof read your work who is willing to point out your mistakes. Editing/betaing is never meant to be a personal attack, but rather to make sure that the fic you present to the rest of the world is cohesive and clear.

💞 Who’s your comfort character?

Scar! He just gets me fr. He's one of my favorite guys to write because of how versatile and how much variety he has. He could be a silly salesman one minute, and a quietly scary assassin the next. Whatever the bit or joke is, he fully commits to it, often to the detriment of himself, but god does it make for good content.

Also he has a really good narration voice ok

🧠 Pick a character, and I’ll tell you my favorite headcanon for them.

(ty for the speedy discord reply lol)

Grian! my darling baby boy who has every mental illness ever

no but actually, i'd say my favorite grian head canon is anything having to do with him being an alchemist. i want that man brewing potions, getting blown up, and curing all his friends ailments with the most illegal looking brew you've ever seen in your life.

🤩 Who is your favorite character to write?

Grian, mostly because he comes easiest to me! There's such a sense of endless potential when I get ready to write him, and like, idk what it is, but longing too?

We've been getting it pretty heavy w/ his whole "I Miss Mumbo" campaign but like, grian to me feels like someone who's always thinking about reaching a hand out, and pulls it back at the last second. It's very relatable.

🤯 What’s a genre you struggle with as a writer (ex. romance, action, etc.)?

Weirdly enough, it's fluff. I always feel compelled to write stories with some level of conflict or it's not "satisfying" to me. I love reading the genre, but for whatever reason when I write it, I get in my head about if it's "good enough" or not without conflict. I'm working on that lol

💔 Is there a fic of yours that broke your heart?

EDIT: so i misread this, you get fic recs as a bonus. my proper answer is: [my bad ending fae two shot], it will shatter you as it did me </3

i'm going to give two because i do what i want. the first being [It's Only Logical by TSTrashCaptain] which is a sanders sides fic that to this day, i can only dream of writing something so good. tw for themes of abuse and nsfw at times, but god. just reading the title again puts a knot in my heart in the best way possible.

now, this fic. [your heart rots in my hands by thepigeoncat]. this fic slaughtered me the first time i read it. i left a long ass comment on it. tw for major character death, but this is the perfect last life scarian fic.

it's beautiful, and tragic, and it makes me feel as though the world has truly ended /pos. please go read it.

🤭 Do you have a favorite tag to use when posting your works?

my favorite tag for when i post unbetaed work is "no beta we die like scar to the boatem hole"

as far as a REAL tag, hurt/comfort >:))

and my favorite one off funny tag is "i cannot emphasis to you enough how much blood is in this fic"

[fanfic writer emoji asks!]

[fozmeadows]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: one of the most successful alt-right psyops 4chan ever pulled was sealioning leftists in general and feminist women in particular to such a degree that, in response, we started reacting to every polite, 101-level question about feminism or leftist politics from men with anger and hostility, thereby driving said men directly towards the sympathetic arms of the alt-right, which was the entire fucking point of conditioning us to do that. I cannot emphasise enough that 4channers did this on purpose, as a concerted strategy, to make the left look unhinged, misandrist and unreasonable, and that we, collectively, took the fucking bait.

which is where the role of radfem/terf shit in furthering the same gender essentialism espoused by the alt-right really needs to be acknowledged: because as necessary and overdue as #metoo was on a cultural level, the framing of so many subsequent discussions as Yes All Men is radfem brainrot, not because patriarchy doesn't exist (it does!), but because patriarchy is an institutional and sociocultural problem rather than some inherent, indelible facet of masculinity, and that distinction matters, because you cannot solve the problem of patriarchy by treating it as fundamentally unsolvable.

this doesn't mean excusing misogyny. it doesn't mean absolving shitty men for their shitty actions. it means acknowledging that, at a basic psychological level, the vast majority of people do not react well to an all stick, no carrot approach to self-improvement, and if your response to that reaction is to say, "well, but they shouldn't need a carrot - they should just know to do right anyway, for its own sake, and the fact that they don't is why they deserve the stick," then I'd invite you to consider exactly how many different groups with individual, often radically self-contradictory definitions of right exist in this context, and how many of them, as opposed to you, are distributing carrots.

like, listen: I know that it sucks that people, universally, are not born with an innate, collective knowledge of The Best Way To Run A Society And Treat Each Other, and it additionally sucks that, even if we somehow figured out the perfect answer, some would still take convincing, others would still be on the fence, and a terrible few would still commit to being assholes. but that's what it means to be human, and there's no shortcut to getting around it! the work is the work. men are always going to exist, which means you can't build a better world without them - and if your better world doesn't acknowledge that, then it's not a better world at all; just a silo away from reality.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[cantquitu]

This will come as a shock to many, but I regret to inform you that Harry Styles has one again launched a stealth attack on Louis Tomlinson. Vicious, petty, unprovoked... it bears all the hallmarks of a Styles assault.

As you know, only the most unhinged discerning Louis Tomlinson fans are equipped to identify and track Harry Styles' vindictive strategies. We are grateful for their service. Without them, the wider world would never know what he's capable of. However, I will do my best to give clarity and context to this latest offense. And what an egregious offense!!

This very week, Harry Styles joined the England football team at a London venue for a party thrown by James Corden to celebrate Declan Rice's 50th cap for England. 

A couple of blurry pap photos show him leaving early in the night, while a ton of star players like Jordan Henderson, Jude Bellingham and James Maddison partied on until 4am. You know where this is going, right?

Who else is English, likes football, and supports the England team?  

Okay, okay, roughly 50 million people...but bear with me. One of them is LOUIS TOMLINSON! 

Need I say more?

This was clearly an attempt by Harry Styles to gain Louis' attention and RUB IT IN HIS FACE! Partying with the England team, which Louis would no doubt love to do??!! Unhinged behaviour from Styles!!

As one of Seasurfacefullofclouds1's anons so astutely put it, 

"This man goes out of his way to befriend and be around people that Louis has vocally showed so much support of over the years or called his "idols". I personally believe something did happen between them on a romantic level years ago and Harry's toxic ass either never got over it or holds some kind of twisted resentment over it...It's abusive and manipulative". 

They then poignantly ask, "Why can't Larries see this?" Why, indeed.

Some may wonder, when else has Harry gone out of his way to befriend Louis' idols?  Two words:

LIAM GALLAGHER.

Five years ago, Liam Gallagher revealed that he and Harry were both working on their albums at RAK Studios at the same time, and hung out a few times. Harry even bought him fish! Seabass!

Harry clearly went to great lengths to orchestrate this in advance, because he KNEW that Louis was about to enter his Liam Gallagher cos-play era. He befriended Gallagher before Louis had even debuted his temporary new accent, changed his walk to match LG's, or started saying  "youknowworrimean?" at least 17 times per sentence.

PREMEDITATED!

And it goes further than that! Gallagher shared in the press that he lives in the same area as Harry, and frequents the local pub right next to Harry's house. In 2019 Liam was at the pub having lunch with Andrew Wyatt and asked Harry to join and HE ACCEPTED. There's even photographic evidence courtesy of Wyatt and some fans!

From this I can only deduce one thing, and it's a chilling thought...

In 2012, when Harry Styles was buying his home, he bought one in Hampstead right next to that pub. Was he playing the long game, waiting seven years for Liam Gallagher to invite him for a pint in the hope it would gain future Louis Tomlinson's attention? After all, that's the kind of petty, obsessed demon he is.

SEVEN YEARS. Reflect on that.

Sea herself puts it best when she says,  "Imagine your divorced dad keeping track of your divorced mom's friends, throwing parties for these friends, befriending them, buying them ££thousands in gifts and favors, inviting paps to take photos and write gossip columns.

Creepy".

Yes, just imagine!

How long will Harry's crazed and creepy attention-seeking spree go on for? Will Louis finally crack and give him the response he so obviously craves? HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH??!

[utilitycaster]

Do you have any tips for a level 8 light cleric on how to be better at preventative healing? For context, I just joined a campaign where there's a house rule that healing from unconsciousness gives the healed target a level of exhaustion. Many guides for clerics tell you to wait until people are unconscious to healing word them, which would be detrimental in this campaign. When I asked a thread of self proclaimed dnd "optimizers" for advice, I was told by 3 people to wait until level 9 and stock up on diamond dust for greater restoration.

Hey anon,

So, to be honest, I hate the unconscious exhaustion rule, and so while I think the “optimizers” you spoke to aren’t dealing thoughtfully with your reality or actually listening to you, I do get where they are coming from. I also want to apologize for using this as an opportunity to vent a lot of stress, and have given you a brief summary in which I try to be normal and placed the venting at the bottom where you can ignore it.

The short-ish answer in which I am normal:

It’s ok and good to just heal people after they’ve taken a hit, and I actually disagree quite strongly with the strategy of waiting until people go unconscious to heal; pre-emptive healing is actually very smart. Also, talk to your party members! It is not metagaming to say “how are you doing”; it’s an acknowledgement that you cannot actually see the imaginary blood from their imaginary wounds. Build a strategy in which you use your cantrips and channel divinity, or if your stats permit, weapon attacks, to deal damage; and spam healing word. Alternately, if you’re willing to get up close and personal, Cure Wounds and Spiritual Weapon pair well together.

Buffing the party, particularly their HP, before combat is very useful. The spell “Aid” is your best friend. Casting Sanctuary on yourself and then focusing ONLY on buffs is not a bad idea either; Warding Bond and Beacon of Hope are also your friends.

This rule sucks and is very poorly balanced. It is worth talking to your DM about how it really hamstrings healers in particular, and has the potential to become a massive death spiral, and honestly isn’t fun or interesting. Ask them why they’ve chosen to use this house rule, and see if you can’t make the case for getting rid of it, because it is terrible.

The long answer in which I am unhinged, but am hopefully funny to someone other than myself, and largely say the same thing as was said above, plus more, is below the cut.

The good news? Always waiting until people are unconscious to heal them fucking sucks as a strategy even without this rule and people who say to do it are wrong. It presumes the DM isn’t going to have a particularly bloodthirsty enemy hit when you’re down; it presumes the wizard doesn’t throw an errant fireball; it presumes they won’t roll a nat 1 on the death save; it presumes the healer doesn’t get stunned or knocked out before they can get to people. Like, yes, sure, the last hit point is the only one that matters, but if they have 10 HP, and you heal them for 5 HP so they have 15 HP, and then they take a hit of 11 HP, then they are still up! Do you only fill your car up when it’s on empty? Do you only go grocery shopping when there’s nothing in your house but freezer burnt cauliflower, uncooked brown rice, and baker’s chocolate? Do you only go to sleep when you start swaying and being utterly unable to focus your eyes? Or do you ENGAGE in some fucking PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE and SELF CARE from time to time?

So I don’t have a formula or anything, and anyone who does have a formula is either psychic or overconfident, but having played a main healer, heal people when they seem to have taken a few hits or when they say “I’m in rough shape.” Lean heavily on decent damage cantrips (you’ve got potent spellcasting) and don’t hold back on using Radiance of the Dawn. If someone’s taken a lot of hits? Healing word them.

Some other things to consider:

Aid is an under-utilized low-level cleric spell that grants 3 of your allies 5 temp HP for 8 hours, without concentration. If you upcast it you increase the temp HP by 5 per level, ie, if you’re willing to use a single 4th level slot on this, that’s 45 HP you don’t need to healing word bit by bit.

In general, look at buffs. See below for why I think the actual solution is to tell your DM that this rule is hot garbage and they should get good; but until such time as that has been resolved I strongly advise taking advantage of the extensive passive damage options available to you. The reason why I think that telling clerics, specifically, to only heal when a PC goes down is so fucking bad is because the cleric spell list is literally fucking built on the presumption that you cast one thing and then spam heal. Spiritual weapon is a bonus action so that does assume you’re doing cure wounds instead but Spirit Guardians, Sanctuary, Beacon of Hope, Warding Bond, and Protection from Energy will all either protect you, do damage without you having to cast a spell, protect your allies, or optimize the healing you get. Also, pick up Mass Healing Word so that one person going down doesn’t turn into multiple people going down.

Tell your DM that this rule is dumb and bad. Maybe be more tactful than that, but also, maybe don’t! Because this rule fucking sucks. Even Rusty Quill Gaming, which was run in the far more unforgiving pathfinder, by someone who delights naught but misery and subpar financial management skills, did not have this rule. It really does make the role of the main healer about a thousand times less fun, particularly for a light cleric who has access to such things as scorching ray and fireball. I like playing a healer; I was a primary healer bard main for several years which really is perhaps the most non-damaging character you could play, but I still do not actually wish to be a healbot, and this pushes the healer towards that, and it’s fucking stupid and unfair and if I find whatever Reddit knuckledragger came up with it, I will make them require healing and take a point of exhaustion, that’s for fucking sure.

It’s a radical concept, I know, but what if the rules of D&D as written were, perhaps,  means tested by people who considered both game balance and player enjoyment! The overwhelming majority of house rules are made by people who think their cheeky little addition makes them fucking Marcel Duchamp creating L.H.O.O.Q. but they are in fact a toddler drawing on the wall with a crayon that they are then going to stick up their nose, and then try to eat. 

I mean, this is wildly out of scope for this question, but I think a lot of people see D&D Ideas (TM) on the internet that, at best, are made for very specific scenarios and should be used sparingly, in those specific scenarios, after serious discussion with everyone at the table and ideally unanimous approval, and should be frequently reviewed to see if they still work for everyone. At worst they are just like, things that suck that someone added because they lacked the self-control to simply admire the shiny red fire hydrant that is Dungeons & Dragons 5e and instead just had to piss on it to mark their miserable little territory. And I think people are reluctant to say “hey this house rule sucks” because it’s something someone created, but on the whole I think the majority of house rules suck and shouldn't have been created! And house rules you find on the internet usually SUCK MORE because you’re NOT EVEN IN THE HOUSE THEY WERE INTENDED FOR.

The exhaustion rule is also particularly stupid because I think the motivation is often said to be “realism” and it’s like, well, in real life people cannot cast Eldritch Blast, you fucking idiot, and not becoming exhausted by a little concussion from a troll's club is part and parcel of that same fantasy world.

One of the many really good things Brennan Lee Mulligan said recently on Adventuring Academy is that players learn the logic of the world from the DM. If every NPC attacks the party, suddenly the party will begin attacking first. If going unconscious grants exhaustion…well then why get in fights? Why not focus on assassination or deception for encounters? Why not fucking quit and become potato farmers? Why not take two nights rest after each fight, saying “well we know the world is ending tomorrow, but consider: we have a level of exhaustion because of YOUR FUCKING BULLSHIT”? Why not start stealing health potions, if this is the logic of the world you live in? Why not run away from encounters if your health is getting low - monsters do that all the time!

I think people forget that D&D is actually a relatively delicate balance, and this is looping back around to what I said about means testing. Like, have a mature talk with your DM like an adult and give them a chance to say "oh, that makes sense" because it could be that they are well-intentioned and merely inexperienced. But if they still cling to this rule after you tell them that it sucks, I am giving you carte blanche to engage in blisteringly malicious compliance in and out of game. Conspire with the rest of the party to all take the tough feat. Bully the magic shop owner for HP-boosting items. Generally become the living worst, because this house rule is AWFUL.

Anyway: tell your DM to rethink this, heal early and often, use buffs, and if your DM does not rethink having this as their house rule then burn down their house or at least rethink having them as your DM.

[crowtrobotx]

Ohhhhh I have Thoughts!

So, generally, I much prefer my dadcore “leave me the hell alone” interpretation of him. Part of it is truly self indulgent which - who cares, it’s my Barbie doll, I get to play with her how I want. But I don’t think it’s unrealistic either! As OP mentioned, there’s so little actual content of him that it’s genuinely impossible to say for sure, but we do know in canon he rarely leaves the factory and clearly has a preference for at least working alone and *probably* living alone. I posted about this before but I don’t buy his “everyone look at me!” showman persona (and I don’t think you’re supposed to tbh.) I think he does crave positive attention but what he’s doing in game is outrageously over the top as a weird attempt at dominance and/or the result of him having zero social skills because he’s a mole man living in a massive mostly underground facility by himself with only corpses for company. I don’t think he actually wants to interact with most people - he hates the other lords/Miranda and doesn’t care about the villagers - which doesn’t mean he wouldn’t want someone around he cared about, but I really struggle to see him actively inviting people into his physical/mental space even in the context of “come buy my war crime weapons.”

Now, I have been known to enjoy a little batshit insane ultra violent Karl. As a treat. I don’t think it’s set in stone that this is how he’d be, and maybe this is just my interpretation, but I got very “tired”energy from him? If that makes sense? He also has several lines where he sounds genuinely distraught before switching back to his angrier, more unhinged voice and I think that says a lot. Part of his tragedy is that he insists he’s different from Miranda/the others presumably because he believes his cause is justified but…. He’s doing terrible shit too! Still, he does clearly harbor some level of humanity still which leaves enough room for doubt that he’s just this singularly focused shallow supervillain. He is selfish, I think, but that could just be the result of being in survival mode for so long. I could just say “he has the vibes of the town dad/weird uncle who has his special interest that keeps everyone away and that’s fine by him” but I sincerely think that is supported by the little canon crumbs we were fed, and in a situation like this where Capcom either didn’t think hard enough about what they were doing or cuts to the game’s story were so intense that it left a somewhat nonsensical/lacking story, you can’t really shit on anyone’s takes that hard, y’know lol.

I do think he’d be very unmoored without Miranda and the cult tbh; you don’t just leave a situation like that and end up Fine, y’know? I think he’d likely have at least a very tumultuous period where he’d do some crazy shit because he doesn’t know what to do with his freedom and probably never planned for the “after” part of his rebellion. But I also think he’d eventually land in a place where he doesn’t want to jeopardize himself and potentially trade one prison for another and learn to lie low if for no other reason than that. So maybe my answer is actually “he’d do a little bit of the whole maniac thing for a minute as a knee jerk reaction to realizing he doesn’t fit in/can’t have a ‘normal’ life/doesn’t know what to do but then he’d have to learn to survive in a much more subtle way and because that’s what he does - survive — he’d eventually adapt.” He’d still definitely be the dude in town setting off fireworks in his front lawn year round and modding cars with absolutely wild and illegal shit. He also has annual front row seats to the county fair monster truck rally and would 100% try to upsell you on repairs you do not need to your vehicle.

On a more serious note and to conclude this totally unsolicited ramble, I don’t take VA’s ideas as gospel as a general rule but I do agree with what Neil said one time about how he thought Karl might have the inclination to maybe be a power hungry maniac post-Village but he would never actually manage to because he can’t keep focused on one thing and would keep getting distracted. Local supervillain conquered after he’s given one (1) home improvement project.

There’s so little actual game content of Heisenberg in RE8 that I can’t quite decide how to imagine post-Miranda Heisenberg—I kinda think there’s two options: 1. The slightly more realistic but less fun one: he becomes a power hungry maniac mechanic man who makes weapons for the highest bidder etc, or 2. The more fun one: he just fucks off to vibe on his own, maybe makes stuff for fun or fixes cars or smth, lays low and enjoys the good things in life

As much as I’ve already kinda decided on the latter being my preferred post-Miranda Heisenberg, I still feel like the former is almost more accurate… do any of yall have thoughts on this?

[campyvillain]

EPTG MASTERPOST (for the time being)

okay so i’ve gotten a ton of asks pertaining to what eptg is. eptg is short for ever play this game. it’s an alternate reality project game i run centering around a mysterious game a guy called ron discovers that his now dead mom worked on for years. the game is called nerves and it’s clear that something is very wrong with it, and before long, the game starts showing very anomalous properties. that’s all the surface level knowledge you really need to know from the getgo without getting into spoilers.

i started it a few months ago when i first reached 10k and it’s been going strong since november. it has multiple blogs behind it (3 as of this posts making) which can make things seem a little daunting to get into at first since a lot of posts correlate to a different post on another blog but the organization system i’ve come up with for this will hopefully ease you into that.

another thing to note is that above all else eptg is a horror arg, specifically falling into the genre of psychological horror. there are going to be elements of horror in this regardless of how silly it gets sometimes and if you don’t feel equipped to handle that, you by no means have to engage with this.

one more thing to know before i send you off to the resources for getting into eptg is that eptg is, at its core, a project centering around mysteries, and a lot of the plotlines revolve around just that. there are a ton of enigmatic mysteries in this thing and that’s by design. not everything is going to have one simple all encompassing definitive answer - not to say that some things don’t, but don’t go into into this expecting answers to every single thing you come across. if that were the case, there’d be no mysteries - and mysteries, speculation, analysis and theorizing are the eptg community’s bread and butter.

okay last tangent over, here’s what you’ll need to get you started.

STORY RELEVANT BLOGS

(side note: i’ll be linking the archives for each of the main involved blogs instead of the blogs themselves. as mentioned before eptg’s storytelling methods aren’t exactly conventional and a lot of dates on separate blogs coincide, so this is probably the best way to go about reading through it it if you’re new. just go back to the earliest recorded post on the archive and advance from there. i’d recommend keeping each blog archive in a separate tab just to keep track of when certain events line up. keep in mind that even though the involved blogs may seem wholly separate, they can effect each other under certain circumstances.)

EVERPLAYTHISGAME

the project’s namesake and also the main blog. a lot of the most important storylines unfold here. this blog by far has the most impact on the story and is the most cohesive one to follow, though it is highly recommended you comb through the other two for some additional context, especially the next one i’m about to mention.

RANVIERANVIERANVIER

a blog ran by an entity named ranvier who is shrouded in mystery, residing in an equally mysterious place only known as “the void”. this blog may seem like nothing but a series of unhinged ramblings and jokes at first but despite all that the ranvier blog is incredibly plot relevant. many of the incoherent sounding things here connect to various events on the main blog and even foreshadow future things to come albeit in a very vague way. very worth keeping up with now more than ever, since at the time i’m posting this the ranvier blog has begun unraveling into a storyline of its very own.

ALEX198932

currently, this one ran by someone known as “alex” is the least active, but despite its rare postings it’s still worth keeping an eye on. a lot of major things are hinted at here even though the blog itself may seem innocuous.

OTHER RESOURCES

this section of the masterpost is dedicated to various miscellaneous things that aren’t mandatory to understanding eptg per se (unlike the 3 main blogs listed above), but are still very good resources if you’re someone who’s new to the story and missed out on some stuff, or even if you just want to look deeper into the eptg project in general.

EVERSEETHISINFO

a fan-run blog dedicated to highlighting details of eptg that might’ve gone overlooked, be it because the info in question might’ve been ignored at the time but now bares some relevance, or info that’s caused a lot of speculation, even down to details i’ve revealed outside of the canon blogs on my own blog such as little fun facts about the characters and lore. this blog has done an incredible job of archiving even the tiniest pieces of information that would’ve been lost in tumblrs weird tagging system otherwise, and i have to commend the fan that runs it for being so thorough.

EPTG OFFICIAL DISCORD

aside from being by far the most centralized place to find other eptg fans this server is also really, really good to turn to if you’re someone who’s brand new and a little confused on what’s happening in eptg. since the start this server has always been full of people who are super dedicated to eptg in all aspects, and a lot of them are really knowledgeable on stuff that may be hard to understand for newcomers. if you’re new and don’t really know what’s going on, trust me when i say these people will try their best to get you caught up to speed if you ask them.

also it’s just a really fun place - i’m there sometimes, there’s a near constant flow of speculation, there’s even people making aus and ocs and a bunch of fanworks, it’s got a bunch of stuff. plus there’s a Minecraft server, what more could you really ask for. stop by if you wanna.

(link to join here)

that concludes the masterpost. i mostly made this bc a lot of people keep asking how they can get into eptg, and i hope this can help those who aren’t up to speed get started as i’ve got a lot of plans for this thing and i’d hate for people to miss out

[sauerland-2001]

The only thing I’ll say here is what I say at the end of every Skam season, no matter which remake:  PLEASE learn what the words toxic, queer bait, twink, fetishizing (google with care, this one!), manipulative or misogynist mean and if English isn’t your first language, please find translations for your language and think about whether or not you would use any of these words in a normal context.  That will help a lot, I promise.  Don’t just parrot what seemingly cool, big blogs shout into a tag.  

Also, and this goes for every remake as well:  learn how to express your like/dislike of a ship/storyline/character without insulting other fans in the tag of a show.  You might get woke points with a few people who agree, but most will see you as unhinged and unreasonable, and will stop interacting with you on any level, including people who actually agree with you :(.  I’ve seen this happen so many times.  Witnessed entire breakdowns from people who felt victimized because people called them out after THEY insulted others.  This is all just online.  You’re on tumblr.  It’s ok to filter tags and block people.  You don’t even need to announce it, just do it. 

[nevertheless-moving]

Misunderstanding Meta

So this started out as tags on Misunderstanding 17 but got meta enough that i started wondering if it was getting into spoiler territory? also it was just too many words.

there’s no future chapter spoilers specifically but this might remove some of the mystery around ongoing and future character conflicts. im explicitly stating some stuff that might be better enjoyed sub textually but u do u.

anyway read below if you don’t mind a premature little navel gazing but maybe hold off if you’d rather just enjoy the story as is. probably only makes sense within the context of that chapter cause again it started as tags. 

Thank you everyone for all your support and lovely comments I really really enjoy them!! I’m so glad people are enjoying the story its genuinely making it so much more fun for me! W R I T I N G, who knew!

~ TLDR: General star wars meta and VERY vague suicidal misunderstandings spoilers below the cut so read at your own peril. nsfw.~

-

It’s important to me that people understand we’ve reached the point in the story where anakin would ABSOLUTELY murder anyone Obi-Wan told him to without a shred of evidence (except for two people, one of which is unfortunately the actual Sith master).

(like if Obi-Wan had been the one to say ‘kill him’ on the bridge of the Invisible Hand Anakin would NOT have hesitated to decapitate)

i guess its not THAT different from canon but its still kind of fucked up that I’ve gotten them to where Anakin would happily bring Obi-Wan Yoda’s corpse like a cat with a dead bird.

he doesn’t even have a lightsaber! and he's fond of yoda! but if Obi-Wan asked him to he would strangle that troll with his bare hands!

the specific combination here of Obi-Wan’s active reciprocation of familial love and also (unintentionally but still!) inspiring real fear that Obi-Wan might vanish at any second due to Anakin’s rage issues and a murky unseen threat means his whole relationship with Obi-Wan has taken the natural step to where Obi-Wan is the one (1) person both capable of AND willing to direct that unhinged capacity for violence. 

And I for one am a fan of them both growing VERY aware of that and also comfortable with it to a certain extent.

THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS SO MESSED UP AND LOVING AND CODEPENDENT I LOVE IT

(presumably with some real therapy and soul searching this could all deescalate but we are SO not at the point right now)

The other side of all this is that Obi-Wan is seriously the ONLY one capable of directing that violence. Anakin doesn’t have that many coping mechanisms and now he’s so afraid that his dad/brother is going to go to the corner store for death sticks and not come back he will refrain from using his favorite one without permission.

(im talking about murder btw)

(that’s the coping mechanism)

so that’s, you know. good?????

(honestly theres a limit to far this nonsense can deescalate because on a fundamental level Anakin just goes WAY too hard and has so many neuroses that it would be kindof impossible for him to have a conventionally healthy relationship with anyone without REALLY altering some of his most basic character traits)

(and...i don’t know. healthy is fluid? i feel like if you KNOW you’re bad at morals is it really so bad to outsource them? to someone better qualified. the biggest ethical problem to me there is its an unreasonable emotional burden to put on obi-wan, but after the specific shit he’s been through i can see that weight actually kind of comforting even if he might feel a tad guilty over having that much control. i think what makes it sustainable to me is that obi-wan is establishing early on that there are NO consequences for violating the code. the fact that he’s willing to move so completely past CHILD MURDER AND GENOCIDE means he’s batshit crazy for anakin. so basically anakin gets to establish that he can exit the covenant at any time. its like how the potential for quitting makes a job a job instead of slavery and how the potential for divorce makes marriage marriage instead of slavery)

(but the job/marriage in this case is listening to obi wan kenobi when he says no murder so you know what MAYBE we shouldn’t evaluate it by the benchmarks of a normal relationship anyway jeez nevertheless moving on)

(seriously not even Palpatine ever got this much control cause Vader still murdered at Vader’s orders)

(And Padme is seeking out a relationship just healthy enough to not involve ACTIVELY holding that much of her husband’s autonomy. i mean. she does have that power. but the continued queenly conscious choice NOT to exercise it is almost sweet)

(i am aware that justifying padme and anakins relationship from a conventional lens requires some mental backflips but darn it i saw some really hot fanart of her pegging the shit out of him and also he doesnt think of her as a parental figure so if i want to say padme is just the right amount of crazy to maintain a stable relationship with anakin skywalker than that’s what im going to do.)

 (but i digress)

[doctorguilty]

It's funny I think, that being in a relationship with another borderline person has caused me make huge progress and even overcome a lot of my biggest emotional obstacles in relationships I struggled with my whole life and were damaging my relationships as recent as the one that ended before I met Gloomy. And while yes, over the course of the last several years as a got therapy and medication, and always been doing my homework to improve myself, I was really worried when we first started dating that my ongoing struggles would chase damage. I was out of therapy for a almost a year, and over the past 2 years since I've been in Oregon while I've had regular therapy, it's very very infrequent due to the pandemic and most of what I spend my sessions talking about is stuff related to that such as the exhaustion, depression, and isolation it causes. Not much at all, if ever, have have dedicated my short time to talking about my bpd symptoms like I would with previous therapists.

Yet.. this is the best I've ever been in a relationship. Granted like, my relationships were all kinda mutually dysfunctional for more reasons than just me, which would cause me to be more symptomatic, but still, I don't think it starts and ends at "this person isn't toxic". I think it's the level that gloomy understand me fully. I can describe to them the most niche, hyper specific bpd related feeling and they know it well. And I immediately feel less like I'm not just terrible scum unfit for love, because I know gloomy is so loveable, and yet they share the same symptoms and feelings. They also don't reprimand me for being open. I can share intrusive thoughts and urges and feelings that would sound absolutely toxic to other people, if they didn't understand the context about where it's coming from and that I'm being vulnerable because I don't want to feel that way. And they know those feelings well too. They 100% know the context.

I've never been with someone I could communicate ANYTHING without fear, and be recieved with empathy, affirmation I am doing the right thing by communicating and not keeping it bottled up, and the desire to comfort me, reassure me, and help me overcome what i struggle with.

I've never seen so much progress in myself so quickly.. many things that would regularly flare up all my life and did for a while in the beginning are practically gone. I've never felt so secure with someone. I've never felt less broken, and less alone. I guess I just never belonged with someone without the same personality disorder as me.... because that's really what it comes down to, my whole self is disordered, and it always will be a part of me, it is inseparable from who I am because that's just what it means to have a pd.

Gloomy has made everything so much better beyond words.. I've never felt so healthy with someone like this. I've never had a relationship so loving all the time and free from enormous emotional altercations. No, my "problems" end up being the most benign, easily resolved things like accidental hurt feelings. And even then I don't feel afraid of those things happening because I know I won't be reprimanded a million times for my mistakes.

It's unimportant now the whos or whys but honestly there were instances in the past where I would be gaslit into believing i was an unhinged abuser and my bpd symptoms were cited as the reason, even if all I did was casually express the feelings I was struggling with, like, just the fact that I had symptoms at all even if I didn't act on them or do absolutely anything was inherently abusive and I was a bad person. It was deliberate of course, y'know... but at the time I believed it, and at the beginning of my relationship with gloomy I can remember thinking... this will be over once they find out I'm a horrible person, all I can do is hide it for as long as I can and enjoy it while it lasts.

But no, here I am, being more loved by someone than I ever have been, and completely utterly naked with nothing I hide from them. It's so much easier to be healthy when I'm not trying to hide..

Anyway, yeah.. i love my bpd boyfriend so much

[phoenixyfriend]

In Which Kaguya has a Summoning Engine

As was brainstormed with @lizasweetling​ in a Kagumo server.

So, the context needed is that the Summoning Engine we reference is Lucrezia Mongfish’s ‘throne’ from Girl Genius. She held a copy of her brain in storage, and a man who’d once been in love with her, and still was, had dedicated his life to putting young women (including his own daughter) in the throne in an attempt to download her mind to overlay theirs. Most died. Some became vegetables. It only worked successfully on Lucrezia’s own daughter, the main character.

So it’s a bit horror, yeah. Not transplanting the full GG world, just the concept of the Summoning Engine. Initially, we weren’t sure how to do with this to make it Kagumo without it getting Really Weird and very villain!Sakumo.

Eventually, I started building off of the time-travel concept presented by Sloaners in The Bunnies and the Bees. Short summary: Kaguya yeeted her husband (Sakumo) centuries into the future for his own safety, and the safety of their unborn child (Kakashi in an Egg).

So Sakumo... does not know the engine exists. I think he’d be horrified if he did? But you know who does know about the engine, and is very dedicated to finding someone who can survive it, no matter how many people die in the process of finding a host?

Zetsu.

(Obvi)

Zetsu has not been able to put the machine together, but Sasori knows how to work with fiddly bits! The tech is so weird and foreign and futuristic that Sasori only mostly got it, and that's why it kept killing hosts, but tbh it’s closer than Zetsu managed alone so he can’t actually kill Sasori for failing.

So, what to do? Make. A. Host.

Zetsu helps Orochimaru figure out how to make 'empty' clones. He still has some hair from Kaguya as DNA, so just... make a clone. It’s not perfect, but make a clone. Presumably, the clone ends up with less power at least partly because Orochimaru can’t perfectly recreate the internal conditions of the Ootsutsuki uterus that Kaguya’s own mother presumably gestated her in.

Between Orochimaru making a Kaguya clone and Sasori building the machine, they kind of get it to work.

She's limited- which leads her to be less... overtly homocidal than she might be. Still a badass obv, but not to her standards, and already having at least one human she doesn't totally despise! Possibly two!

Less "world-ending terror" and more like... Konan's level.

Kaguya now gets to work figuring out how to get her darling husband back because he died?!?!?! No!

And he didn't have a backup brain! So she has to figure out necromancy.

Good thing Orochimaru was already experimenting with it!

So the timing on this is a bit variable, but Zetsu would need Orochimaru for bringing Kaguya back via the throne, which means at the very least, Minato is Hokage and Kannabi already happened, probably the Sanbi as well With time for the clone to develop, including experimentation, I'd give it at LEAST a few years later, so a few years post-Kyuubi.

Kakashi’s had time to fill up his trauma meter, and Kaguya gets an earthly avatar while he’s deep in ANBU. She should have enough power to suddenly appear behind him, ideally on a mission. For the Aesthetic.

Kakashi: [reacting to a presumed surprise attack] Kaguya: Baby!! [glomph, followed by enthusiastic hugging]

Kaguya keeps pushing for Obito to kidnap Kakashi. Maybe marry him, Obito seems like a nice young man and a worthy son in law.

As Liz responded: does he tho???

And then answer is yes! To Kaguya. She is not a stable metric, and does not know what is considered ‘a nice young man’ or otherwise... good for Kakashi.

Obito is objectively unhinged and in need of LOTS of therapy before starting any kind of romantic relationship... but Kaguya doesn't understand that.

Kaguya: My darling son! Kakashi: Uhhhh Kaguya: Now you can help me gather the bijuu and regain my glorious power. Kakashi: Uhhhhhhhh Obito: Hey, this isn't the plan I signed on for, and you seem even less relatable than old man Madara, so I'm just gonna... go.

When Kaguya succeeds in bringing back Sakumo, Kakashi is just in his face begging him to Help Stop Mom.

[caustic-light]

Got it, no worries. There’s no need to address that topic specifically since I actually feel the same about other things.

I don’t know how to deal with having such fringe and widely despised opinions as being pro-youth rights, radical inclusionist, a proshipper, etc etc. Knowing that so many random strangers hate my guts because they misconstrue my positions & think I want harm to come to people is… really hard to deal with, mentally.

Idk who or what to turn to. I feel very isolated because I don’t want to compromise my values and befriend folks I disagree with (the only way would be to lie to them about my beliefs or not mention them, which I don’t vibe with). When you add all this up, it means the amount of people I’d feel comfortable interacting with incredibly tiny.

As my views got more “extreme”, I grew uncomfortable interacting with previous friends and acquaintances (for context, I’m an ex-anti), and stopped doing so. My social world is so small, and IRL interaction feels impossible, because obviously people aren’t going to just list their views like they might do online, and realizing that someone I’d started to befriend would hate my guts if they knew what I think about certain topics is enough to stop me trying to meet anyone new. Not to mention the risk of callouts online and social consequences in meatspace.

I realize all this sounds pretty unhinged, probably? Like I probably have some kind of trauma regarding all this but I dunno how to deal with it. I’ve been struggling with this for a very long time and simply don’t know where to reach out for help at this point. Thanks for taking the time to read this. I understand if you don’t have many answers for me, I don’t expect you to solve my problems or anything, but I thought you or your followers might have dealt with similar feelings and I wonder how you might cope with it. Thanks again.

Ok, so I’ll give a tldr in advance and it’s that my advice is to instead of trying to find communities, you should look for individual people who may not agree with all of your opinions but are generally chill as people. That is something that is kinda rare to come by wherever you go on the interwebz but they do exist and I promise you, you will feel so much more comfortable if you have like a handful of accumulated friends who are not poisoned by discourse and callout culture.

Longer answer (I promise I swear to make this as concise as possible but it probably won’t be, I’m very sorry in advance):

I know that feeling al too well. Without going into too much detail, I have experienced being in a community and developing views that the community would fucking hate if you voiced them. And what I noticed is that if you do voice them in an open way, even just an exploratory version of them, yeah you get shit for it, but you also find other people who are more afraid of voicing them openly and who may contact you privately about it. However, that is advice that only works if you can: 1. say things and have a level of reach in the space you’re in where people see you as a somewhat significant person and 2. if you’re able to overcome the fear of speaking about it. That is not easy and especially when you feel alienated, it gets a lot harder, so I’ll try to also give advice under the assumption that this won’t work.

I understand the feeling of not wanting to befriend people while lying to them. For me the most important part of that is to realize that not everyone is twitter discourse brained, even if it seems like it a lot of times. A lot of people are more open than you may give them credit for. That is mostly in private, though. I’ve been surprised especially at how many people who don’t really engage with discourse are receptive to my more radical ideas if I frame them right. It helps to set up a foundation of where you’re coming from, so views you have aren’t seen out of context. Start at the bottom and work your way up. In the process screen people for how they react. I have talked to people about child abuse prevention that actually works and have gotten “you sure think a lot about sex with children” as an answer and known that that person is not gonna be open, but at the same time I have said some very radical shit (like calling out the way anti zoo mentalities in furry are full of shit to a person who is very uncomfortable with zoophilia as a concept) and gotten a surprising amount of acceptance simply bc some people are just chill. Some people hear something controversial and instead of jumping to the attack, they keep listening. A lot of people are tired of the way discourse is turned into a life or death fight everywhere it occurs. You’re not alone there.

It takes time to find people who are genuinely cool. It takes time to find people who are genuinely open. Because despite there being a surprising amount of them, especially in the beginning it’s hard to find them. It’s hard to figure out what kind of mentalities and behavior to look for and how to differentiate between genuine red flags and things that look like red flags due to discourse induced hyper vigilance. If you do have trauma from your time as an anti, this is even harder, but I promise you it’s not impossible to learn.

At the same time, though, spaces can be genuinely cool, too. Usually it’s the smaller ones with more of a community feel. But you don’t really find them by just looking for spaces, you find them by finding people who can direct you towards them.

Personally in a lot of the friendships I have I have reached some equilibrium between “well I can’t just drop xyz oppinion and not expect some kind of off reaction” and “it doesn’t feel like lying to keep some stuff to myself because I’m not hiding anything, I’m just not seeking out an argument.”

One of my most important online friends has some opinions that violently clash with mine and we both kinda know it, but also have a mutual agreement not to discourse about some topics bc there’s nothing really to gain from that. Discourse makes them uncomfortable and some topics make them uncomfortable so they don’t go there and I respect that, and they respect that I have views that would make them uncomfortable but don’t go there bc they know me as a person and that I have my reasons for the way I think and am not gonna hurt anyone with it, even if they don’t get it. That can happen. I have another friend who doesn’t know a lot of my more controversial oppinions but knows a lot of my views that naturally lead to them and they also don’t do a lot of discourse, usually just watching me go off about a topic I am passionate about and being like “yeah, I don’t have anything to add, but yeah”, or “idk if I agree with that but I don’t have anything to add” at worst. Another friend I have who knows like 95% of my most baddest views and the other 5% are not an omission but things I just never really say all that often bc the topic rarely comes up in that way. They’re also very into discourse and have strong opinions that sometimes clash with mine in significant ways but we’re still friends and know where the other person comes from and that we’re not bad people for opinions the other disagree with.

Relationships like this happen and the more you learn to find them, the more you will realize that people are better than they look in big groups on the internet. But you also gotta know when to keep distance. I believe that every person has types of people who are good for them to be close to and people who are bad for them to be close to, even outside of a political context, just by the way different characters and even lives can interact. And learning what kind of people are good for you to be around is a skill. You have to experiment and learn how you do relationships. People you really like can be bad for you and you have to learn that, too. That sometimes it’s better to keep someone at an arms length despite really hitting it off. This applies to discourse as well. It’s a very fundamental part of how to build relationships in your life, but discourse adds another layer to it. Though I have found that personally people who are unnecessarily aggressive about discourse also don’t mesh with me as people to where I can let them get close without hurting myself in the process.

Irl it’s similar but also different. Generally it’s more difficult and scary to screen people irl and test out where they stand. You have to wait for opportunities a lot more, you have to spend more time on it. You have to deal with the fact that irl people know your real identity and are in your real life. But at the same time people irl act a lot more like people. They’re a lot less discourse poisoned. What you gotta keep in mind is that, yes they’re real and know your real identity and are in the meatspace with you, but all of that also goes the other way round. The needless aggression that permeates online spaces is partially a result of people not recognizing people they argue with as real people the same way. A person talking to your face irl will be constantly aware that everything they do and say affects a real person. And they will be aware that you are a human being, no matter what your views sound like to them if you present them in a text box on a screen. So it’s a trade off. I think it’s good for the personal wellbeing to talk to people irl to get a reality check on how far removed from the average person and the real world a lot of these discourses are. (Which is both a good and a bad thing by itself, but knowing specifically where irl people usually stand is definitely good to keep in mind.)

And also how much more lenient people are in irl, and how much more okay with disagreements. Especially if they know you as a person first. Somebody who has been your friend for years in real life will not react to an opinion they find objectionable the same way as someone who knows you fleetingly, be that online, or offline. But again… the stakes are higher, so you have to go really slow about it. And really try to read the other person and see how they respond when you screen them. Unfortunately your life situation plays a lot into your ability to find cool people and ads a big luck component to it. I have been very lucky in my life by having good people around me, but I recognize that not everyone has been born into a life that in that particular regard has been as good as mine. BUT. Idk if you’re an adult, but if you’re not I can tell you that once you leave school and gain more agency over your own life, more of a choice of who to associate with it becomes significantly easier and significantly more in your own control to chose who to associate with. And the more self reliant you become, the more that increases.

Lastly… It’s difficult to talk about some of these things in a format that is both anonymous and semi public. And idk if you know who I am, who I used to be on here, or on twitter, or still am elsewhere. Idk if you came here because you know who I am, or if you just found my tumblr and thought I seemed nice enough to not tear your head off. But if you dm me we can talk more in depth and I can possibly point you to some people and/or spaces to get an easier start. And in case it’s not clear, I promise that you can be as open as you want, I have heard some really wild stuff in my life and unless you’re gonna drop in my dm’s like “I murdered a person in the pale moonlight and I wanna do it again” I can tell you with certainty that you don’t have to worry about anything being too much for me. That is not hyperbole btw, that is actually what it would take to be the wildest stuff someone ever told me.