#you-only-think-you’re-in-control

[dos-security]

[CIVILIAN COMPLIANCE NOTICE – PROCEDURE REVISION 8.3]

Effective immediately, all personnel and civilians are advised to stop naming the voices.

While it is natural to anthropomorphize persistent internal narrators, giving them names creates unintended recognition loops, which in turn risk:

Informational symmetry with non-permitted entities

Spontaneous third-person perspective drift

Formal invitations to entities that were only curious

If a voice in your head has already introduced itself:

You may refer to it as “Companion A” until it fades

Do not refer to it in writing, online, or in chalk

If the voice requests a name, decline politely but firmly

Under no circumstances should you give it your own

This protocol does not apply to:

Prayer

Brainstorming sessions

Professional ventriloquism (licensed)

The Department reminds all citizens that internal monologues are normal. It’s only when they start making demands that containment becomes necessary.

If you’ve already given a voice a name, please submit a retroactive designation report via Form B-9, then attempt to sleep it off.

[cologona]

Sometimes I feel like maybe I’m being too hard on Bruce because he’s a grieving father and you don’t judge people for how they get by when the dead usually stay dead, but then I remember that the Waynes are the closest thing Gotham (maybe even the whole of America in the DC universe) has to royalty and Batman claimed the city for himself, so when Bruce turns abandons the responsibility he himself took on for getting Jason justice, it’s not a just a dead body he turns his back on, he’s betraying a member of the people he claimed. A citizen he was supposed to serve.

[stephofromcabin12]

You think you’ve overcome your people pleaser tendencies until you have to cancel plans

[gregmarriage]

has someone invented a version of love, without loss? asking for a friend

[malachitezmeyka]

Sometimes I go like “I’m fine” and then remember that one friend whom I loved dearly who did a complete 180, told me to fuck off and essentially split apart our entire friend group in 2022 simply because I was Russian and she was Ukrainian. We didn’t talk politics, didn’t discuss the news too much, nobody held any anti Ukrainian opinions. We showered her in nothing but sympathy and support. And yet somehow, it was all our fault. We were 15 and it was our fault. Because we were Russian, so how could it not be?

I’ve never been the same since

[shorthaltsjester]

being a huge fan of tlou but also like. thinking that certain stories are built for certain mediums. like the entire theme of tlou2 is grounded and fresh because it’s a railroad/story video game that still affords you mechanical choices in how you navigate the world. i just don’t have a lot of confidence that presenting that story in a tv show with the minimal adjustments that they did in s1 will be fulfilling or compelling in any comparable way. because with tlou1 some of the like. beauty of that story was simply that it was such an emotive story contained in the medium of video games. and some of that was retained just by hitting similar or expanded emotional beats in the show, like the episodes that expanded on the life of the characters and the realities of that world. but truly so much of tlou2 emotional depth and ‘why does this story matter’ rests in the fact that’s it’s your hands on the controller, continually choosing to go forward in the story and have hope that it will work out in your-as-ellie-or-abby-or-somehow-booth’s favour. and you simply cannot get that in a non-interactive medium like television. like i do think tlou2 is a good story but it’s a good story because of the investment required by the player to keep pressing buttons and keep returning and to feel the adrenaline like responses of high intensity moments and be jarringly shifted into backstories that only increase the frustration. in general i’ve been thinking a lot about cross-medium adaptation and on the one hand i am glad that season 1 makes the story of the last of us more accessible to people who wouldn’t pick up a video game but it’s also like. maybe instead we can destigmatize video games as this inaccessible and dangerous medium a bit more instead of just . implicitly agreeing . like no maybe your mom won’t pick up a video game controller and play the last of us . but maybe you can play the game in the living room. sometimes the mediums that stories are told in aren’t just important but are actually foundational parts of how the information of a story is conveyed and that’s not only okay but is fucking fantastic. we should be happy actually that there are so many ways to collect a bunch of themes and ideas and put them together and hold them out to someone else and say “won’t you consider this with me. won’t you feel these emotions and care about these characters with me.”

[laineystein]

It's hard not to feel abandoned by god because he has not blessed me with marriage and kids. I can accept getting married at an old age but it'll kill me if I never have kids. Why does he think that never having kids is the "better" choice for me? It makes me feel like a piece of shit, and I can't imagine a future worth staying alive for if I'm just going to be a childless hag for the remainder of my life.

I’m truly sorry you feel that way. Unfortunately I do not have those answers for you. I say this with so much love - I think you need to talk to someone. I’d actually suggest speaking with a mental health professional and a Rav. Some random woman on tumblr (aka me) is not your lifeline here. Every person has a very unique journey and ultimately it’s in your hands on how you move forward and make it work. But you have to move forward. That’s step one. And then, in my opinion, asking for help from actual professionals sounds like a good second step to me.

[ponds-of-ink]

hey sorry to bother you again but if something bad happens it's best to make a bluesky account just in case okay?

Well, while I appreciate these updates, I’m not scared yet. The main site’s still chugging along, and it looks like there aren’t any plans of a shutdown.. That I’m aware of, anyway.

If it does happen, though, I’ll consider the idea of making a new account elsewhere. BlueSky sounds like a nice alternative, from what I’ve heard, but I might swing over to YouTube first. I’m more used to that site lol.

(Oh, and I may as well bring this up for everyone who follows me: If the site goes down for whatever reason, feel free to archive my stuff if you can [especially the stories or whatever you personally like]. I’ll definitely try to archive my Scraptrap analysis, since it’s the only post that’s made it out of Tumblr.)

Edit: Oh, yeah, and I’m also on ArtFight. So—while it would be more seasonal—you’ll definitely see me “fighting” along with other artists.

[starbuck]

The way I don’t want to watch the next season of this show bc at the end is when characters start dying. And get separated from each other forever. If I just keep telling and retelling the story and never get to the end maybe I can make it so they all live and are happy... #Ishmaelcore

[unfortunatelyilikebnha]

The diffriders are so fucking fascinating to me specifically flare trooper dumjid bc like. You take a dragon mercenary who has seen war and has actively watched many comrades die. His whole thing is that he’s a perfect guard and thus the only one who survived, leading to a fucked up conception of himself as above death. And then you have him possess the body of some kid who presumably agrees to let him see earth bc That’s His Favorite Card And He Thinks He’s Cool and who’s probably like 12 (sorry saori I have no clue how old you are I’m just guessing based off taiyou + hiroki) and just. Walk around on earth (where are saori’s parents btw. Like you could say this about most vanguard characters but where are saori’s parents/guardians/friends do they know what “saori” is up to?? Does anyone who knew him pre-diffride realize how different he’s been acting?). Play a card game where he commands his dead comrades bc shiranui is paying him (which. How is he paying him, earth currency or cray currency? And what IS cray currency for that matter?). The only thing he likes about earth is the music but he is specifically cursed to keep having his headphones break. When a unit who’s diffriding a human dies in the human’s body, both the unit and the human die on both planets, and besides the money dumjid is only on shiranui’s team bc antero/miguel DIED, a fact which he’s fully aware of and iirc derides him for (may be wrong abt that one though). He constantly tells people to die when he’s cardfighting them. He is laid-back about vanguard and doesn’t care much until he loses a cardfight and because loss and death are inextricably linked in his mind he proceeds to get Super Fucked Up About It bc he’s built his entire self image off being The One Who Survives and losing the cardfight is akin to confirming that it’s possible for him to die & he especially can’t accept that Some Random Humans have the ability to take him out. Sometimes he shows his opponents the battlefield and the bodies of his comrades and they really don’t seem to devote much thought to it (like. What??? I get that chrono & friends love vanguard and chrono does address it a little bit but mostly iirc just to say “I don’t think that’s what vanguard actually does/that’s not OUR vanguard”). He’s affected worse and worse with each loss and joins a group trying to end the world to get revenge on the humans who’ve beaten him (iirc unclear whether he knows the success of the destruction of the earth will destroy him too). He becomes the last of the original diffriders - chaos breaker dragon doesn’t count he was diffridden during U20 - to remain on earth, a point which he makes sure to bring up as proof of his superior survival abilities. The kid whose body he’s possessing expresses that he’s not happy about the way dumjid’s acting and dumjid doesn’t give a shit and continues to puppet his body around. Just, everything about him as a character is so fascinating in a concerning way and, like shiranui, he brings up the fact that vanguard is Real in a way that the earth characters don’t really consider - yes they have strong imaginations and genuine attachment to their units, but ultimately they’re playing a card game where even if cards get sent to the drop/damage zones they can come back for the next battle* whereas on cray they’re fighting Actual Battles and the units that die die For Real And Permanently. Unlike shiranui, who eventually began to see vanguard as a method of reunion with his dead friends and decided that what he’d been told about earth vanguard being a direct cause for his friends’ deaths might be wrong, Dumjid never changes his view on earth vanguard after “experiencing death”, so when he finally loses and goes back to cray he’s essentially dragged back clawing and screaming. I don’t know, there’s just something about him that’s sooooo soooo fascinating to me

[krash-and-co]

can i just mention here, it is not show fan vs book fan, at least from me? i know a large amount of my followers came from the show and i absolutely love yall. it was never meant to be anyone against anyone, and i sincerely apologize if that happened. (well, it has, im seeing it, and it makes me absolutely sick.) i don’t know how it turned into this. i do not hate ANYONE for coming from the show. period. i don’t even know where that came from. i can’t stress enough how much i love you guys.

i dont hate any of yall, i don’t want yall to hate everyone either. everything has blown so out of control and we’ve been very misunderstood; im not going to try and explain my claim again here as that is not the purpose of this post, but we’ve been very misunderstood and that led to more misunderstanding and it’s one big spiral of pure hate that we had absolutely zero intentions of starting. i did not post online to say ‘i hate you.’ i did not message on discord to say ‘i hate you.’ because i don’t. and i never meant for you guys to think that, and if you do, im sorry.

[thebookworm0001]

One of the dumber things about the men complaining about single cat ladies Existing and Having Opinions is that they tend to worship Paul more than Jesus - and Paul hated the idea of anyone getting married and having sex. He thought it was useless and a distraction and that you should only do it if you couldn’t keep your horny paws off each other. He thought you shouldn’t have kids because it was useless when Jesus would return literally tomorrow. Why would you have kids just wait until the world is fixed.

Paul would love single cat ladies. Single cat ladies are closer to Jesus than anybody in a heterosexual marriage with 8 kids in his book.

[nunyverse-scribe]

If there’s one thing I noticed in recent times when it comes to fan engagement with art and artists (TV shows, books, movies [franchises], etc.) is that a big factor in the downward spiral in media literacy and critically analyzing what we engage with is that a lot of people… feel sort of obligated to getting defensive for the specific things they like. And they assume any critique or criticism is a form of ill will or malice towards the piece.

Which I think is SUCH a terrible mindset to have when engaging with any piece of art or media, especially in a time where there’s this general push for dumber downed media for the masses to consume and likewise less critical thinking. I notice a pattern where there are people that will give a million disclaimers about how much they love the media they’re about to critique because they know the average fan will dogpile on them and assume it’s someone who doesn’t like the art that’s critiquing it. Or I notice when a subsection of fans of a media start critiquing it, there’s another crowd in the fandom that say “if you don’t like it so much, then why are you watching it 😒” even though that’s not the case, the critiques come from a place of love. That’s not right, it’s not good to have this general consensus that to love something means to ignore or outright accept glaring problems in relation to it.

We as audience members, we as fans of a certain thing, need to be able to be ok with the fact that the shows, movies, books, etc. we enjoy might have some negative elements to it that we HAVE to be critical of. Sometimes the thing we dislike is something as small as a trope we’re tired of seeing. Sometimes the thing we dislike is a LOT bigger, though, such as questionable messaging subconsciously implemented due to the writers’ internalized bias.

And honestly THAT is what matters most to me when it comes to this type of thing.

Because EVERYONE is susceptible to the subliminal propaganda in a piece. You, me, your neighbors, your parents, kids, the elderly, everyone. And even moreso when we choose not to question or challenge the things in the media or art being fed to us.

Why? Because to just accept any glaring problems in (with the example I’m typically using right now in this rant) a specific narrative purely because as a whole you like the story means that you are allowing that narrative—and likewise other narratives you’re bound to consume and internalize—make the decision on your thoughts and the decision on your principles and moral compass.

To combat that you have to do as I stated above: challenge those attributes of the story or art or whatever that are relaying questionable messages. Even if you, generally speaking, really like it.

QUESTION why that creator will depict women, or POC, or disabled ppl, or queer ppl, or another marginalized identity in the certain way that they do. QUESTION why a creator’s art relays a certain commentary on the systems of fascism, or capitalism, or the patriarchy, or police brutality, or any other oppressive system. Especially because this art and these stories we engage with don’t exist in a vacuum: what came before it to lay the foundations was experiences of the creator, what was there alongside its creation was the creator’s personal principles and ideals, and what comes after it is the impact it will leave on minds and ideologies it will spread.

I dunno, I say this because I enjoy critically analyzing the stories and the art that I love. I will watch a TV show or read a book and I will connect with a lot of aspects of it, I will love it, I will recommend it to others. However, I will also have long conversations with fellow fans (usually friends) about the pitfalls, I will take note of certain aspects of the story that were questionable choices, and I will view it with a critical eye. And maybe it’s just because I’m a writer myself, but I feel like being that nuanced and careful with how you view the art that you love, to praise AND critique it, is in itself a form of love or passion for the art.

And I really wish more people understood that? Especially when it comes to art, things aren’t black and white. They are allowed to be good and bad at the same time. Characters are allowed to be likable but also horrible people. And I feel that having this mindset of “I like it therefore I see it as perfect” is a very, VERY dangerous one to harbor.

[bone-fanfiction]

being forced to neglect your own self care to appeal to your mother’s aesthetic of being an adult

[comixandco]

my favourite part of season 5 is still the reveal that Gabriel and Tomoe thought Adrien and Kagami made the perfect pair and wanted them to be together because it completely flips their relationship

Kagami and Adrien sneaking around and finding the slightest gaps in their schedule and giving their bodyguards/parents the slip to spend time together and feeling so clever that they’ve gotten away with it their parents don’t suspect a thing

only to smashcut to Gabriel and Tomoe doing an evil pound it because their ship is canon

[diltonsstrangescience]

I genuinely was not expecting the “fake doubles get destroyed” thing to actually be a running joke like this. Yet here we are. Third time and counting.

First it was one fake spy getting hit on the head. Then it was two fake spies getting disintegrated by a mailbox. Now we have three fake spies and one fake car getting blown up by a robot cow! It’s just going to get more elaborate from here! How are they going to top three doubles plus a car? An entire duplicate building of P.O.P. headquarters?

Also I love the implication that C.R.U.S.H. has used other robot cows full of explosives in the past. Like this is one of their default plans.