#array //: ( psa )

[etargus]

general & relationship tag drop.

GENERAL TAGS:

&   —   ooc   . &   —   ic   . &   —   headcanon   . &   —   prompts   . &   —   psa   . &   —   aesthetic   . &   —   isms   . &   —   crack   . &   —   wishlist   . &   —   self reblog   . &   —   commission   .

RELATIONSHIP TAGS:

&   —   archer   :   all of this turbulence wasn't forecasted‚ apologies from the intercom   . &   —   celeste   :   this is how i learnt to take the arrows in my back and shoot them at the stars   . &   —   astrophel   :   every good intention is interpolation‚ a line we drew in the array   .

[red-riding-wood]

PSA - Community Predator

Over a series of months, myself and other Tumblr users -- fic writers, gif makers, fans of created content -- have been victimised by @mrkdvidal1989, who has extensively lied about who he is, preyed on multiple women and denied involvement -- therefore ruining friendships, reputations and feelings, and promised me life-saving medical treatment that he never followed through on.

More information including mine and their stories under the cut.

The reason I am going public with this is twofold:

A) To protect others from being hurt. He is known to reach out to many tumblr users, especially young women in the Cillian Murphy fandom -- but he may have a wider reach beyond this circle. B) Since his "disappearance" three weeks ago and the unravelling of his lies, this man has ruined my life and the only hope I had of obtaining treatment for a condition that has been plaguing me for four years.

Killian Vidal is the name he has chosen to give us, and has claimed to be both a officer commander and general in the mobility troop in the SAS (the general rank does not even exist), has beaten cancer a while ago (but said to another mutual that his "time was running out" and he is currently struggling with it), and a plethora of other life experiences and general knowledge about him that varies in consistency when talking to different people and is questionable in its validity. He has also shared pictures of "himself" that when reverse image searched, belong to different people.

I got to know Kill when he reblogged one of my fanfics (as the story seems to start with a lot of his victims) and he reached out via DMs. We quickly became close friends who called nearly every day on Discord and when I told him about my health issues, he immediately offered to pay for my medical treatment wherever I could find willing doctors.

I was hesitant to believe this at first since all of this seemed too good to be true (and was). He claimed to be very wealthy, enough to afford private jets like it was nothing and to rent me an apartment in the UK in the same building as him. Over time, I grew to trust him because he felt like such a genuine person and friend, which was made all the more believable by the fact that he has such a huge following on Tumblr and was, at the time, part of a vast social network of fans and friends (one of which he even claimed to know IRL -- who will remain anonymous unless they decide to speak out). I decided to ignore the little red flags because I was so desperate to receive this treatment that for me would be life-saving.

For four years, I have been plagued by an array of (mostly) undiagnosed digestive issues that have made my life almost unbearable and have on numerous occasions nearly killed me due to malnutrition. I've spent months in hospital, endured years of malpractice and misdiagnoses, undergone heart surgery, and have tried absolutely everything I can to get better. In the winter of 2023, I was told by my doctor that I was refused in the TPN program (a treatment that may have slowed or stopped my weight loss) and that with or without it, I was looking at mortality. Refusing to stop fighting but having exhausted the public health care system in Canada, I went into 2024 not really having much hope of anything anymore.

So, when Kill came along, that changed. He promised -- and I mean, from the bottom of his heart, promised -- that he would help me get treatment, that he would get me out of my abusive home and fly me to the UK, that he would be there for me as my friend, etc. I was beyond grateful, and as my trust with him built, so did my hope.

The travel plans kept getting put off; originally, he would fly me out as soon as the apartment became available, which was the 11th of Feb, 2024. He kept finding excuses to not book the jet. Finally, it seemed as if around the 15th/16th I would be flying. My health had been declining rapidly and the situation was becoming all the more urgent, and he said he was in contact with a pilot and would send the ticket soon and call me.

That was the last I heard from him. The 16th.

Initially thinking he had ended his life (he had discussed thoughts of suicide with me prior to this), I was beside myself with worry not only thinking one of my closest friends was gone but also that my chance at life was. I reached out to his other friends, and I made several calls to the UK authorities and emergency services and ended up requesting a welfare check be made to see if he was even alive.

They reported that no one under the name Killian Vidal was in the records of the building name he gave me -- the same building that I was meant to live in within that week.

After reaching out to my now beloved friend @kittenonpluto (A.K.A., Cas) on Tumblr, I learned that Kill was in fact alive, and had told her that he was in hospital for digestive issues in Indianopolis, United States (though again, no record of his name in their medical system). He still wouldn't talk to me, but told her to tell me that he would reach out when he was out of hospital.

Cas and I compared information he'd told us (her story will be attached to this post) and looked into the mystery more. He constantly dodged confrontation and questions about the fake photos and information he'd sent her, and seemed to use his completely fabricated hospitalisation as an excuse to not fulfil his promises to myself and her, as well as a means to garner sympathy.

It was quite obvious that he didn't know how the American medical system worked, and he even incorporated elements of my actual story and used them in his. When asked about his treatments, he responded with medically false information. He reported digestive issues, reflux, and having both an NG tube and TPN -- both of which I have experience with -- and let me say, I am beyond disgusted and infuriated that my real life trauma was used as a ploy in all this.

How do we know for a fact this is false? I checked the police case for his welfare check again, and they said that they confirmed him being in the UK at the same time he had told Cas he was in hospital in the States.

After a final confrontation from both Cas and myself (and a desperate final plea for the medical aid he promised me), he was never heard from again from either of us or our friend circles.

I'm now having to pick up the pieces he's left me in and to be honest, I have little to no idea of what the hell to do or how to save myself. The fact that he strung me along for a month and built up my hope that I was going to live only to abandon me without even a word is deplorable to me.

And mine isn't the only story. I've heard from four women on Tumblr (who, again, will remain anonymous unless they choose to speak out) who he has been romantic or sexually involved with (and lied about his involvement, made them out to seem insane or toxic, created rifts in our friendships, toyed with their emotions, and made false promises to of relationships, marriage, and finances).

And that's not including the ex-wife who came back to Tumblr to claim that her and Kill had never met nor married. She was promptly silenced by a "lawyer threat" that we have strong reason to believe was a bluff.

At the end of the day, there are so many lies, half-truths, inconsistencies, etc. this man has wrapped himself in and we don't know for the life of us what his motives are, but from the information that we do know is false, he isn't genuine. He toys with people. He hurts them. Myself and the others that have been affected by this want that to stop.

And at any point, he has the ability to make a new account, and take on a new persona, pretend to be someone else. Tumblr is a wonderful place and I have met so many cool people on here, but please be careful about who you interact with and what you share, because aside from making this post, it is beyond my power to stop him from doing what he does. But after what he did to me, I could not remain silent.

Other Stories

If you have an experience or story with Killian that you would like heard, please reblog it on this thread or make a post. With your consent, I can include a link to it below.

kittenonpluto's story

aurorag98's story

everyoneisawhore's story

your-nanas-house's story

hllywdwhre's story

Final Note

Lastly, if you have read this far, thank you.

If you want to reach out to me about this issue -- whether it's to anonymously share your experience, ask questions, ask for evidence (of which I can back up these statements with), or anything at all --, please do not hesitate to do so. <3

For those who may be worried about the potential legality of this post, everything that I have stated as fact is fact and it is not my intention to slander or spread false information.

[our-honeybee-transfem-experience]

general PSA about honeybee transfem- to be clear i have no stake over afab transfem, i didnt create it. but i was a part in the making of honeybee transfem, along with a couple other people (mostly @/dr3amming) (they came up with the idea, me and another person the flag)

now, honeybee transfem was coined by plurals with plurals in mind (i am a system. for the record)

ofc it includes a vast array of other people, but it has been and always will be for plurals, and assumedly so for adjacent terms (coffeebean tmasc, etc)

if you want to make any version exclusive to a certain community, go right ahead! but do not try to gatekeep a term from one of the communities it is made for. this term is for anyone in good faith.

[credulouscanidae]

I ALMOST GOT SCAMMED

FELLOW ARTISTS SELLING COMMISSIONS please be careful! I almost got scammed by someone pretending to buy a commission off me in tumblr messages. I should've seen all the red flags but I was swept up in the excitement of taking on a commission. luckily I clocked on before I sent any money through

the scammer asked for a pet portrait, and offered a much higher price ($200usd) than what I quoted, to "show their appreciation". they didn't acknowledge when I said I generally chat via emails and send invoices, and just wanted my info to "send me money".

the scam works by them claiming they sent $200 through PayPal, and when it doesn't go through on your end, tells you that PayPal's "new protocol" is to limit your account and have the buyer send another $300, making the artist a "business account because they now have a $500 balance". but you need to refund the $300 before your funds clear on PayPal. (it was that point where I was like..hang on). they corroborate the scam by talking in tumblr dm's and sending emails (which I provided mine for them to send the commission money).

it seems like a very obvious scam, but i initially fell for it as i was not aware scammers were targeting artists. we went through the basics of the service, and I was very wrapped up in customer service mode, and excitement of receiving such a huge tip. remember they play on your emotions and vulnerabilities. there is also a sense of urgency and authority, you "have" to send the money otherwise "PayPal" will be "unable to give me my money".

I only didn't fall for it because a) i didn't HAVE $300 to give lol and b) I have dealt with PayPal enough to recognise something was suspicious.

for newer artists or people who haven't really taken commissions before, some general advice from a seasoned commission-taker:

-use invoices on PayPal. PLEASE refrain from requesting money via friends/family from a client, or transferring the money without a proper paper trail. invoices are great because YOU'RE in control of what you charge, and you can choose to let them add a tip if they want

-PayPal WILL list your transaction activity, even if the funds are on hold. IT WILL CLEARLY TELL YOU ON THE ACCOUNT.

-Any info PayPal gives you via email will also be visible on your actual account. I want to stress that, because the supposed info the scammer was sending me wasn't on my actual PayPal account.

-Talk through emails if you can. dm's can be good for quick chats, but I find keeping a paper trail is so important, even for non-scam reasons.

-PayPal will NEVER have emails appear in spam

-If there's any payment issues, the client or yourself need to dispute it through PayPal, not by "sending extra money promising it'll be paid back".

-the account that tried to scam me had no icon, and strange miscellaneous reblogs. they also comment on a huge array of artworks asking for commissions (again, warning signs I ignored out of excitement).

I'm sure there's more I could add and anyone is welcome to expand the advice also, but yeah here's just a lil psa about these scams going around.

[ckret2]

Does bill have "a type"? Since you said he only dates every millennium, what kinds of stuff would catch this lunatic's eye? What would motivate him?

You're getting a read more because I listed every single blessed thing I could think of. The tl;dr:

artists (who depict him)

hot eyeballs (subjective)

no head

bright natural coloration

emotional doormats

party animals

nerds, provided they're also attractive other ways

worshipers

things that can injure him

getting gifts

someone who expresses interest first but lets him take the lead

really tacky expensive displays of wasting wealth

someone he thinks is similar enough to "understand" him

This is the first point because it's the answer he'd give: if you ASK him, he'll say he's "a complete sucker for those deep, brooding artist types." He'll say this like it's his biggest weakness. He says it like it's a charming little character flaw. This is the narrative he tells himself. What he ACTUALLY means is if you hit on him, and if you have created art of him (visual art, sculpture, music, poetry), the odds that he'll return the interest go up by 1000%. He is incredibly vain, he loves art of himself, and "willing to give Bill art of himself" is an insanely attractive trait.

Some species have sexy eyeballs. Other species don't. It just so happens that Earth, as a whole, has evolved an array of eyeballs that are by and large pretty sexy when compared to the multiversal baseline. Those little, like, thready filament things in the irises? Mesmerizing. Visible veins?? Drive him crazy. Bloodshot eyes? Gonna be haunting his fantasies for weeks. Top tier is those frog eyes with multiple colors or crazy crackly-looking patterns.

He's not a fan of heads. Like, when a species puts a face on a little bobbly looking thing separated from the rest of the body, rather than right on the torso where it belongs? Looks weird. It's not a dealbreaker but he's definitely more attracted to species that put their faces where they belong. Similarly, a mouth without an eye in it looks weird.

Big fan of bright colors. You know what's attractive? Looking like Lisa Frank colored you. Wearing bright colors isn't as good as being bright colors, but he still finds wearing bright colors to be an attractive trait.

If you combine the last three points, I think that I accidentally made Bill's ideal lover a poison dart frog.

Usually at some point pretty early in the dating process he's gonna say something like "Just so you know—really, I'm not as bad as all the rumors and gossip and ancient legends and globally-broadcasted warning PSAs make me sound. But: I am totally crazy. You wanna stick with me, you've gotta be cool with crazy." What he's looking for is someone who says "oh I am SO cool with crazy, I am the MOST cool with crazy, crazy is GREAT." When he says this, he's not saying "I'm actually mentally ill and need someone who's supportive and understanding." He's also not saying "I'm a wild crazy fun party guy and I want a partner who can keep up with that lifestyle." What he's saying is "I am an inconsistent and inconsiderate asshole who will show no regard for you, and in a year when you're complaining about the selfish harmful things I'm doing, I'll get to roll my eye and go 'I THOUGHT you SAID you were COOL with crazy. Are you NOT cool with crazy??' And then I'll complain about you to my friends." So: he'll focus on naive emotional doormats he can push around. He'll probably draw back from someone who stands up to him, unless he got seriously interested in them before they grew a spine.

But that said, he is also more likely to show interest in people who can keep up with his lifestyle. He parties with apocalypse machines. If he sees an alien at a party where three absolutely wasted demigods started mixing sink chemicals and accidentally set off a big bang that took out half the neighborhood, and the next weekend he sees that alien at another party? That means they party hard, they don't scare easy, they don't die easy, and they avoided the cops. That's somebody he wants to spend time with. If they're not lover material, they might be Henchmaniac material. Similar opinions on substance use and mass destruction a plus.

He's kinda into nerds. Not in and of themselves, but if they already hit other traits he likes, that's a plus. If he has a choice between two identical people and one's dumb as a rock, he prefers the one who knows lots of things and likes to share facts and trivia. Bill goes for long, long stretches without feeling curiosity, and those stretches typically coincide with when he feels most depressed; someone who can drive him to think a little bit is a godsend.

If someone literally worships him, like as a god, he's into that. It's not partner material but he'll put a star next to their name in his booty call list.

Any novel Extreme Sensations, he likes. Particularly pain. Not a lot of stuff can hurt him in his true form. If someone can make him feel pain, that's interesting to him. Not even necessarily in a BDSM way. If holding someone's hand feels like being electrocuted, or they give off a gas that makes everything too loud and makes him see weird colors? That's someone he wants to touch.

I think I've just added another trait to the "poison dart frog" column.

His love language is gifts & favors, both giving and receiving. If somebody gives him a gift, he'll remember them positively. Even if it's a kinda lame gift. It makes him feel liked. Roses & chocolates would work on him.

He's not liable to be the first to express interest, because he finds being rejected utterly devastating. On the other hand, he prefers to take the lead/call the shots in a relationship. So if somebody lets it be known that they're interested in him, but then hangs back to allow him to make the first move? Appealing.

He's a sucker for gold and tacky displays of wealth. Like he's sort of disgusted by wealthy people, but he's very into wealth. If you're rich have fun with it. If you're not ordering a $900 sundae coated with gold leaf just because you can then what's the POINT. Also, Bill is tacky. If some multidimensional billionaire decides to show an interest in him by gifting him an extremely ugly diamond-covered top hat, he'd probably let them do things to him that he wouldn't even confess to his doctor. (He doesn't have a doctor but.) I think what this boils down to is that he's only into rich people who are living like they want to go broke as soon as possible.

He goes through most of his existence feeling like Nobody Understands Him. Part of this is because he's bad at communicating his sincere feelings & emotional needs and even worse at relating to or caring about other people; but part of it is just because there's not a whole lot of people who can directly relate to "my ambition drove me to destroy my entire universe and ever since then I've been grappling with the paralyzing guilt while struggling to find a new universe." So when he DOES meet somebody who he believes can really, truly understand him the way most people can't? He emotionally latches onto them HARD. Not necessarily romantically, but it easily could be. This is last on the list but probably the most important point to getting a genuine emotional connection rather than fleeting physical attraction from him.

Example that hits multiple of the above points: one of his longest & most emotionally meaningful relationships was with a sentient black hole who—quite literally—destroys anyone who gets too close to her, and is constantly wracked with chronic pain due to being a fucking black hole. She did poetry at open mic nights. She'd go up to a mic and say something like "this poem is called The Taste Of Unwillingly Consuming The Solar System You Called Your Home" and then scream into the microphone for five minutes without pause. Bill was like "she's the only one in the multiverse who Gets It." He is a sucker for brooding artists. She let him get away with unspeakable things because he's one of the only entities powerful enough to get physically close to her and survive. Which was incredibly painful, but hey, he was into that too.

Maybe they'd still be together if she looked like a frog.

[lynyangell]

"Things We Lost in the Fire" Ch. 3 *Complete*

*** PSA: @erimeows and @hawkeyes-darling are the best Betas ever!!***

Roy doesn’t sleep much that night. He’s kept awake by strange dreams. Sometimes, he’s chasing Riza through the desert. In others, he tries to burn the array from her back only to find that his gloves are too wet to catch a flame. Then, just before dawn he sees her standing before him in the church where Gracia and Hughes were married, wearing a low-backed lacy wedding gown, her skin smooth and unblemished.

It’s hard to call it a nightmare, but it’s unsettling just the same.

Riza sleeps peacefully, for a change, no doubt because of the medication, and he’s sitting up in bed beside her, going through the day’s correspondence when she rolls over in the bed, blinking up at him.

He cups her cheek in one hand and smiles. 

“Good morning, beautiful. How are you feeling?”

“Like—” her voice comes out as a harsh rasp, and she frowns. “Like I swallowed a bowl full of cut glass.”

Things We Lost in the Fire Ch. 3

[preservationofnormalcy]

Hey, figured I'd send this because! why not! I've never been able to see anything extra normal. I grew up being told that the whole magic supernatural stuff was fake. the things you'd only see in movies. I believed they were real, not because of any evidence but because I wanted it to be real. fast forward to college and guess what! the magic stuff IS real but I've never seen it. Ever. I went to a doctor and stuff but, nope I'm completely normal. I just physically can never see or interact with any magicy stuff. Dragons have always been something I love thinking about since I was a kid, could you... tell me about them? even if I'll never get to see one, I'd like to know just. something.

You must’ve had a recent extranormal experience that let you see this helpline. I know you probably have a lot of questions, so in general I’ll point out the wide array of PSAs and orientations the Office has available for new people in the community. Hello!

Specific to dragons, though, hmm. I’ve mentioned it before, but dragons are fairly rare. Only a few hundred on earth at any given time, and even then ETCetRA is their main point of contact with humans.

I guess one thing that’s well known about dragons is their tendency to hoard. They’re pretty proud about that - dragons tend to see an excess of one chosen thing as a point of success. It’s not a collection, to a dragon their hoard is more than that. It represents power, wealth, attention to detail and methodical planning. It’s a reflection of who you are as a person, whether your hoard is neatly organized and alphabetical or haphazard and personal. And in this day and age, it’s sometimes not gold or gems.

Mr Farrow, of Leviathan LTD., hoards stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments and assets. His wife, I hear, hoards fine art. I’ve known of hoards of pony figurines, decorative pillows, comics. I know of one particular dragon who hoards books.

It’s hell when a dragon wants to move realms, of course, and not just for the customs they’ll have to go through if they come here, but they put up with it.

[princessmo]

psa that richard simmons sweatin to the oldies is on tubi for free and there's a good array of different body types among the other exercisers in the program. like there are actually fat people, like me, instead of other programs where everyone is already ripped. i'm not much of an exercise guy at all but i dig these, and you don't have to do the whole hour at once, you can break it down and go at your own pace

[bermuda-n-drangle]

i've never been able to find it but i remember there was this, like, psa poster or something that was like "spot the terrorist" and it was an array of nearly identical funny little cartoon plumbers with the exception of one space which has, like, a hulking bearded plumber with a turban or headscarf or something to that effect. and the twist was that funny little plumber #28 is actually wearing a bomb vest and holding a detonator.

[blimbo-buddy]

idk why people find drawing fat characters hard, i just draw a bean on top of a round thing and boom chest now keep on using them round shapes and boom thats a guy right there

There's such a wide array of chubby/fat body shapes that people can do, but many often avoid drawing fat body types for some reason.

Psa: You won't get better at drawing fat bodies if you don't draw them often. Doesn't even have to be full drawings, quick sketches, studies, all of that stuff can be done perhaps if you have time to kill. Once you learn the basics then you can start going all out with different body types of fat/chubby characters and especially with their shapes

[mariacallous]

As a Jewish person, I may not know a ton about Christmas. But one thing I do know is that almost anything can be a Christmas cookie. While gingerbread men and the classic sugar cookies are the most common choices for Christmas, I’ve seen many more kinds of cakey confections being marketed towards the Yuletide. There are peanut butter blossoms, snickerdoodles, crinkle cookies, cookies with marzipan and cookies with peppermint and cookies with gumdrops. There are even Christmas cookies shaped like logs!

But here’s one kind of cookie that is decidedly not for Christmas: hamantaschen. 

For those that need a refresher, hamantaschen are triangular cookies for Purim that Ashkenazi Jews have been making since the Middle Ages. Though they’re traditionally filled with poppy seeds, today hamantaschen come in all kinds of flavors, including fruit jams, Nutella, cheese and more! They are also symbolic, as the triangle shape has been said to represent the Purim villain Haman’s hat, ears or pockets.

And I’m telling you this because even though you might not need to know that hamantaschen aren’t Christmas cookies, clearly there are people who do.

Recently, Apple News+ published a round-up of 100 all-time favorite Christmas cookies, where Better Homes & Gardens included a recipe for  “Peanut Butter and Jelly Triangles.” If you look at the photos, Jews will see that they look awfully familiar.

Hmm… now what could possibly be another word for triangle cookie? For anyone out there who’s stumped (we’re looking at you, Better Homes & Gardens) Google “triangle cookies.” (Spoiler: You’ll find an array of delicious-looking hamantaschen. Exactly.)

OK, look. I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes we all make well-intentioned mistakes — once as a child I forgot that my cousins weren’t Jewish and mentioned that Santa isn’t real. We’ve all been there! 

But it’s a bit hard not to see this incident as cookie-plagiarism when BH&G offered no provenance for their “Peanut Butter and Jelly Triangles.” Folding circular cookie dough into a triangle isn’t a complicated idea, maybe someone’s grandma grew up in a community without a lot of Jews and started making these cookies without realizing that hamantaschen already existed! (The Jewish community itself may have adapted hamantaschen from medieval German mohntaschen, or poppy pockets.) But did that, or a version of that story, actually happen? We’ll never know, because the recipe is absolutely devoid of background or context. 

The situation gets even more incriminating when you see under step #5 that Better Homes & Gardens instructs the reader to “Fold dough edges together in three places to form a triangular hat shape, leaving center open.”

Seriously, guys?

We don’t take candy canes and call them Purim mints, so please don’t take our hamantaschen and call them Christmas cookies!

[gerudospiriit]

[Alright, I warned you guys. Here's that juicy PSA I promised you all. It's going to cover an array of different topics that I feel need addressing and general clearing up. At least in regards to how I view things and operate here on this blog. I also hope this doesn't scare my new followers away alkjsf.]

First things first and maybe doesn't need to be said but, in case some people haven't noticed, I am pretty opinionated, and I will share my opinions here if I feel like it. However, I will never spout any negative opinions about any singular person here on this blog. I have never done it and I will never do it, explicitly or implicitly. That's not how I operate. I do my best to only give opinions and critique of general topics like overall trends in the rpc, general headcanons or fanon that are fairly widespread in the community/fandom I don't necessarily care for, and fictional characters I'm not a fan of. While I can't tell you how to take my posts, I can assure you that nothing I post here is ever, ever meant to offend or be an attack on any one person (or really be an attack at all). This goes for IC, dash commentary posts as well. I'll get to those more in a minute though.

If you don't like this kind of thing, that's perfectly fine. If you're not comfortable interacting with me because of that, it's absolutely fine. But what ISN'T fine in my book is if you take my words and posts and twist them into things they aren't or try to demonize me for nothing remotely harmful. Again, I can't control how you take my posts, but I know that I don't post anything that's inherently problematic. A hot take or unpopular opinion here and there, but again, it's nothing that's outright attacking any one person or vague blogging or being generally toxic at all. As I said, I don't attack people with my posts, but I'm not going to walk on eggshells when sharing my thoughts because some people might take them personally. I will always be careful about this and sensitive material in general. All I can say is that my posts are never meant to be personal attacks, and if you really feel one is, tell me! I would rather be able to explain myself or my mindset than end up with people thinking I'm being toxic when I'm absolutely not. That or just unfollow me. Block me. Whatever you need to do. I'm a firm believer in tailoring your own experience so if that's what you need to do, then there are no hard feelings.

Now to get into the real nitty gritty of this post: a few reminders/how I generally view certain aspects that get tossed around a little too generously in the RPC. Keep in mind all of these have their own nuances, but in general, the stuff I'm going to say is usually true.

💥Mun=/=Muse and vice versa. It shocks me that I need to talk about this in 2023 but I guess it bears repeating. My opinions are not my muse's opinions, nor are her words, opinions, and actions mine. What I say about a topic or character or anything aren't necessarily what Nabooru thinks, and what Nabooru says or thinks about a character isn't necessarily how I feel about them.

Additionally, I will not take anything said IC or OOC about Nabooru personally, and no one else should take anything negative said about their muses as a personal attack. I understand we love our muses, but it's absolutely paramount to not take one character or mun (within reason) saying something we don't like about our characters as a sleight to ourselves as real people. Just like in real life, some muses won't like our muses. Some muns might not like our (canon) characters in general. But if we, the muns, constantly take offense to our muses being disliked in any way, we're all just going to be miserable. Obviously there will always be caveats to this--like someone specifically targeting YOUR iteration of your muse or your OC--because sometimes, people are just being assholes. But in most cases, it's not that deep.

💥 Dash Commentary/Not All Muses Are Nice On a related note, in character dash commentary is just that: the character making commentary about things happening on the dash. Once again, even if the commentary is one muse being shady about another, it's very, very likely not a personal attack on YOU the MUN, and it's best to remember once again that muse does not equal the mun. Dash commentary is meant to simply allow characters to comment on the events of the dash and potentially strike up interactions. It should not be taken personal by the muns.

It's good to also remember that not all muses are nice. Some are flat out evil and cruel. Not all of them will like your muse. That's what makes roleplay fun and interesting. Muns should not be demonized and penalized because they play a muse that isn't always the easiest to get along with. My advice to you is that, if you don't want interactions that aren't all sunshine in rainbows, don't follow blogs with muses that are rougher around the edges.

Also, I would make it clear in your rules that you're not open for any kind of confrontational of confrontational adjacent threads. If it's not for you, it's totally okay! We're all here to have fun. But it's better to be honest about it up front than to have someone's muse come to yours with beef.

💥 "Vague Blogging" Accusations of harmful "vague blogging" has honestly become a pet peeve of mine. I've seen it thrown around willy nilly and it's really just insane to me. In my experience and what I've observed with other people, on occasion, the term "vague blogging" gets tossed around any time someone is offended by another person's post, even if it is a general opinion about something general someone saw--that might not have even been the offended person's post!- and wanted to comment on. While I understand there is absolutely times where people ARE being toxic and are "vague blogging" specific people to be passive aggressive, more often than not, I've seen people call a simple opinion post that doesn't jive with theirs "vague blogging." I've seen someone saying they disagree with a take called "vague blogging." If we let simple internet commentary and disagreement get labeled as "vague blogging," we might as well say that everything on the internet, especially social media sites, is just all "vague blogging" other people. That voicing your opinion about something on the internet is just "vague blogging" the person who you disagree with. And I think most of us have been online long enough to understand how ludicrous that is.

In truth, most "vague blogging" that gets called out is basically just internet dialogue, and we need to be more mindful about calling innocent opinions, whether it seems based on something you said or not, "vague blogging," especially in a negative sense, when it's harmless. People should be able to express their opinions and disagree with other people if they want to without being accused of vague blogging and demonized. In fact, we should probably get rid of the term vague blogging altogether because it's too vague (heh) and broad and invites this kind of paranoia that isn't helpful to anyone. If someone is being mean or toxic, that should just be what it is. We don't need a technical term for it.

And I get it. Someone expressing their disagreement moments after you can feel like a personal attack (and sometimes, it might be). But I think that's the crux here: a "vague blog" has to be an actual attack on the PERSON making the comment over attacking the TOPIC itself (a good thing to remember in general tbh). Which, with how internet lingo is can be difficult to pick out; being Generally Mean in a Joking Way is just kind of normal. So I get why it can be easy to jump to an accusation of someone being an ass, but we need to either do better about picking it out and not calling every post disagreeing with us "vague blogging" OR start getting better about communicating with people when we DO think it has happened (and not on anon, either).

A few examples from how I understand vague blogging:💢OP: *makes a post about how much they love Ze.lda in B.reath of the W.ild and her growth in the memories*Not "Vague Blogging": I'm not a fan of how Ze.lda was portrayed in B.reath of the W.ild. I know a lot of people like her, but this iteration just wasn't it for me. "Vague Blogging"/ Potentially Problematic: Only childish morons like Ze.lda in B.reath of the W.ild. She needed to grow up and so do you. 💢OP: *posts about how they can't stand Gan.ondorf and wishes Nin.tendo would just let him die and make another prominent villain already*Not "Vague Blogging": Gano.ndorf is a great character with a lot of subtle complexities that make him a more nuanced villain than many fans and even the writers these days give him credit for. "Vague Blogging"/ Potentially Problematic: If you want Gan.ondorf to never return to another Zelda game, you're just too stupid to see and understand how brilliant his character is.

To me, language is everything when it comes to problematic vague blogging. There really is a difference in being an ass to someone and about their post and simply expressing your opinion about it. As I said, it's hard to really pinpoint actual vague blogging versus someone just maybe passionately giving their opinion/using the internet's habit of being insulting in a joking way, but I guess I would say the best rule of thumb is what I said earlier: are they attacking you, the person, or the opinion/take/what have you? And if that's unclear and you're truly hurt by the post, talk to the person. Ask them what they meant and let them know that it felt like an attack on you as a person. Or just unfollow, block, etc. and move on.

If we want to keep labeling vague blogging as something that's ALWAYS negative and harmful, then we need to only call the stuff that's negative and harmful vague blogging. Not every opinion that doesn't jive with ours should be demonized.

💥 Which brings me to my final point: tailor your own experience. If you don't like how someone runs their blog for any reason, you're not obligated to stick around. While we should all try not to be dicks to each other, it's ultimately your responsibility to ensure you're not being exposed to content or people you don't want to be. And it should be no skin off anyone's nose if that's what someone ultimately decides. At the end of the day, we're all just here to have fun. If something someone is saying or doing makes you uncomfortable, you're not obligated to stick around. Unfollow, block, blacklist, and whatever else you need to do and move on. It's really that simple.

💥 Bonus: a person sharing their feelings is NOT manipulation probably 99% of the time. As with all of these, this isn't always the tried and true case because people suck sometimes. But people sharing how they feel about something or how something someone did to them made them feel should not be automatically branded as manipulation. Listen to each other and take into account EVERYONE'S concerns or feelings. I'm not saying every person coming into your IMs has a legitimate grievance with something you said. As I've alluded to, there is always a chance someone will take something you said differently than you intended it. Give them the space to express their concerns. And if you're on the other side, give the other person a chance to explain their meaning, apologize if needed, and come to a mutual understanding no matter how that looks. Don't lecture each other. Don't call each other names or demonize each other. Just...communicate. Like normal humans. Which I know is hard for all of us gremlins here but the lack of communication on this website is what makes it such a hellsite. We would rather jump to the worst case scenarios and slander someone across the community for what was maybe an innocent mistake or a moment of emotional weakness (we all have em) rather than just having a conversation to try and figure it out and understand each other. It's something I think we need to all work on to change.

And I think that's about all I wanted to bring attention to. At the end of the day, this is all just a dumb hellsite that we're all trying to have a semblance of fun on playing pretend. But it's also The Internet and you're going to find things and people you're not a fan of. People are going to say things we don't like. But, as much as I hate to put it this way, I think we collectively in some cases to use a bit more common sense and grow a bit of a thicker skin so we can better understand what is and isn't a personal attack and the like. If we do that, I think we'll all have a generally better time here and on the interwebs in general.

[angry-kid-with-no-money]

Array of light is so very andrew minyard coded, this has been a PSA 🙏

[dontpetmeibite]

PSA

I will absolutely not reblog human rights/economics/political posts from this account, no matter how hard I agree with them.

cleverThylacine is my real-me account. I prefer to comment on and reblog these important issues from the blog of an actual person to whom the issues are relevant, not a fictional robot cat who still doesn't understand how humans have sex with only half an interface array and no cables.

I also don't like attracting political people who don't RP into this account so they can ask me why I stan fictional mass murderers or get concerned about me because Ravi is in a pickle.

Please tag your OOC posts "OOC".

[sqbr]

Also! If you take ibuprofen/neurofen etc or any other NSAID regularly, and start noticing random abdominal pain or reflux, try stopping it for a while to see if that helps. And if it does, stop regularly taking NSAIDs before you permanently damage your digestive system. It can get very bad.

This is not a "never take NSAIDs" PSA, every medication can have side effects and not taking painkillers is often worse for your health than taking them. For me, NSAIDs cause immediate pain worse than whatever they're supposed to be fixing, but for some people they're totally benign, and for others they do cause some upset but sometimes that's worth it.

But a lot of people seem to see ibuprofen as completely harmless and even doctors don't think to suggest it as a cause when someone presents with serious digestive problems. So be aware and be careful! And NEVER exceed the recommended dose.

(Aspirin and paracetamol also can have serious side effects, not to mention opioids etc. And untreated chronic pain is also pretty bad for you! There's no Universally Good option here, just an array of flawed options you have to navigate carefully)

Every time I see another ibuprofen post on this site I'm like STOP

STOP

Stop.

Take that after a meal. Take it with a big glass of water. Don't take it on an empty stomach EVER. Don't take it with alcohol. You will destroy your stomach. You will end up with an ulcer. You will vomit blood. I'm not exaggerating.

Yes, you. Yes, it will happen to cute little you. With your cute little bottle of miracles. Ibuprofen really does that to your body.

Love, an adult person over 35 who can't take NSAIDs anymore