#I’m queuing this because it’s currently 3am

[hairenya]

The most stupid concept in American politics is constitutional originalism. Like it would be funny if it didn’t do so much damage to the nation as a whole.

You’re telling me the constitution (which has amendments btw, I can’t stress enough how it has amendments) can only be interpreted to mean what the framers originally intended in the exact words it’s written in and can never be changed. Notice how these people always seem to think the framers would agree with them even when we have letters explicitly to the contrary. But even done in good faith it’s still a stupid concept. Tell me you’re incapable of independent thought and problem solving without telling me. Did you also ask your mom’s permission for everything as a child? Do you need your dad to give you advice on whether or not to eat a grape? Like it’s such a cowardly cop out for people who are too afraid to take ownership of their own opinions and responsibility for their own rulings.

“But the founding fathers”- I hate to be the one to tell you this but they’re dead babe. That’s how the passage of time works. They are d-e-a-d dead. Jefferson is scrubbing a toilet with his toothbrush in Hell. John Adams is getting drunk with the angels. Alexander Hamilton was most recently reincarnated as a squirrel and Ben Franklin won’t stop sexually harassing people via mirror writing at seances. Do you want us to Ouija board them every time there’s a court case? If so Hasbro better release an updated version with caller ID so Dick Cheney doesn’t hide in the vents pretending to be the voice of god to spark a war again. For people who constantly yell about dead people voting, you seem to think we should let dead people make policy.

Of course, they get around this by claiming the constitution was “divinely inspired”. Okay main character syndrome. I don’t think you should take governing advice from a guy who flooded the earth because he had a temper tantrum but it sure would explain a lot. If we’re going to base our government on a narcissistic autocrat who doesn’t tolerate dissent, may I suggest Stalin instead? He doesn’t have quite as high a death toll as God (he’s only human after all) but at least we’d maybe get healthcare out of it. Plus while I realize it wouldn’t help the country any, putting dead leaders in glass coffins would be personally beneficial to my morale. “Jesus is love”- No sweetie that’s Shrek but okay sure. I’m down. Let’s base our government on history’s most controversial hippie. Oh sorry, not what you had in mind?

The worst part is that this idea that the constitution can only mean exactly what it explicitly says nothing more or less with no room for common sense, critical thinking, or interpretation has been expanded to apply to almost every text. It trickles down. When the people in charge of educational policy can’t read between the lines, you get an entire generation who struggles with the idea that not everything has to be explicitly stated. That you can interpret things without spoon feeding. That an author not having a footnote disclaimer decrying the actions of their character as immoral does not, in fact, mean they condone irl murder.

[supportivespaceforsurvivors]

An explanation of recent events

Hi all. I am posting a timeline of the recent events that have ended up with me inviting some of the mods I trust from @advicetotraumasurvivors to this blog. It is incomplete; as of this posting (4pm CST, August 23, 2021), nobody has admitted any wrongdoing, but I know a lot of you aren't really sure what happened at all. I apologize in advance for the verb tense shift midway through. I unfortunately don't have the spoons to edit it.

Hayden does not plan to stay with the blog. Olive plans to stay at least for now. I will likely stay. I'm not sure about Henrie or Berry at the moment. Those are the only mods that currently have access to this blog. (Edit from Mod Henrie: I’ll be staying.)

The timeline will be under the cut as it is fairly long. All times are in Central Standard Time.

Around 5:30pm CST last night, April messaged the Discord telling us she was leaving the blog. She left both the Discord and the blog shortly thereafter. We got some anons asking about why she'd left and I directed those towards her @traumasurvivors blog because I didn't feel comfortable trying to speak for her, One of them felt my answers was dismissive. That anon ended up being a mod in the Discord who was triggered by my tone. We received more asks from them, one passive-aggressive and one outright guilt-trippy.

At 7:30pm CST Henrie made an announcement that everyone who participates in the blog is a volunteer. Several mods offered in the Discord to mediate since the mod who was upset didn't feel comfortable addressing the issue with me directly.

Around 9:00pm CST we started getting some positive messages to the blog. I started to think maybe the situation had blown over. I tried to answer one of the positive anons. Tumblr gave me an error code.

We discovered the upset mod had deleted all of our inbox messages.

At 9:30pm CST Berry noticed posts were disappearing from our blog. I had noticed some weren't showing up for me, but because Tumblr is a Hellsite I figured they were there and it was just a glitch. Even the pinned post got deleted.

I panicked and asked what if the Carrd got deleted. Unfortunately, whoever the mod was, saw that and changed the email and password to the Carrd.

At 9:36pm I started adding Henrie, Hayden, Berry, and Olive to this side blog. This ended up taking several hours because we were all disoriented and triggered pretty badly by then.

At 9:45 pm I noticed they deleted my mod tag. We kept trying to encourage them to stop. Henrie reblogged all the asks that were still there to their personal in case they got deleted.

At 9:55pm I left the server and asked Berry to invite me to the new one they said they'd make so the handful of us could discuss the situation while feeling a bit more safe. There's a gap of about 20 minutes in the timeline here but I'm not sure anything super important happened during it.

Olive rescues most of the info from the Carrd by 10:21pm. April offers to transcribe the pinned post that I managed to screenshot on my phone.

Hayden makes a post around this time saying we've moved URLs. The upset mod deletes it.

I ask April if she will write down the URLs of all of our followers on advicetotraumasurvivors and send asks to them one by one to let them know what's going on. An extremely inefficient method, but at this point I'm at a loss. Henrie starts sending the asks to our followers. April finishes transcribing the pinned post at about 10:30.

At this point I have taken my sleep med and am losing reading comprehension rapidly. I say I'm going to bed but end up not sleeping until something like 4am.

At 10:31 Olive discovers that the upset mod has password-protected the blog. Henrie copy pastes the only ask in the inbox. It came in after the others were deleted.

At 11pm Olive announces she has a download/export of the blog in progress to hopefully preserve some of the posts and information on it. I ask April to boost the new URL. Henrie asks Tumblr's customer service system about uploading the file to the new blog.

At 11:10 Berry notices the queue is being messed with. Several mods go back and forth with the saboteur mod changing how often the queue posts. I suggest that we reblog ask games to the new blog so people can get to know us better once this all dies down.

At 11:21 Hayden announces the blog title has been changed to DON'T TALK TO US. A few minutes later Olive says some extremely tasteless tags are being added to queued posts, including the r slur and the n word. We won't go to any more detail about any of the other things that were said because they were extremely triggering, but we are deeply sorry to any followers (and mods) that may have seen those tags.

11: 38pm: Henrie makes posts on both blogs saying it's not us typing these awful things and to block advicetotraumasurvivors.

11:40pm: We decide to delete all the posts on the blog and the whole queue. April starts mass deleting.

11:53pm: I screenshot all the asks in the drafts. We delete all the drafts. The upset mod continues to change the blog title to triggering and inflammatory things.

1am today (Monday): Henrie asks if it's okay to announce to the original server that we moved discords and blogs. I ask if we can avoid adding people to the new discord until we know who the mod is that's upset. We eventually agree to hold off on adding people into the new discord.

2:44am: April gets an anon apologizing for their poor/inflammatory actions on her traumasurvivors blog and posts a response separate from the ask. We wait, hoping that the anon will message April.

3am: We get a similar apology on the new blog. It gets screenshotted and sent the new Discord so everyone can see it. I delete the ask from the inbox with everyone's permission because it feels very guilt trippy to me.

3:23 April gets more anons blaming her for the situation spiraling out of control, presumably from the upset mod.

12:22pm: April has more anons when we all wake up. All of us in the new server agree that we're tired and just want the situation resolved. No one comes forward.

Edit from mod Henrie: This is a timeline of all of the “major events”, but it doesn’t convey how frantic we all were. We were all feverishly working on deleting triggering tags/deleting posts/trying to find out who was doing this/etc. in between each of these times. It was chaotic and messy and incredibly exhausting for everyone involved.

[sadistic-second]

HOW I RUN MY BLOG.

SPEED: What is speed? I’d like to believe things are done as quickly as possible. Written word says that I’m pretty quick about things, 1-3 days tops. But if you’ve ever actually heard be vocalize my “speed” then well. :fingerguns: I’m a lazy piece of shit. So, that being said, depending on motivation levels that I currently possess, that reveals the speed in which I operate things here. But a good baseline is still 1-3 days.

REPLIES: For starters, I use thread tracker for all the threads I currently possess. And if I haven’t replied to something then I sincerely apologize. I am not ignoring you. I either fucked up tracking it (which I’ve done before) or something happened to the tracker itself. I know it had some issues recently. Can’t recall if it got fixed or not, but I know for a fact it fucked some of my replies up. 

On that note, if I have taken longer than seven (7) days to reply to something, hit me up. Let me know. Either the tracker or I fucked up and I need to be told. As stated above, I usually take 1-3 days to reply to things. So if it has been at least that long and you’re still waiting on me for something, chances are the above happened. 

You’d never know it by looking at the lengths of most (all?) my roleplays here, but I am a novella roleplayer at heart. Love me some details, bro. Setting scenes, getting the atmosphere just right, making sure you know for a fact what I’m doing at any given moment. Why? I dunno. That has a story in and of itself that will not be disclosed here. 

But don’t let that discourage you. I am adaptable and I can be flexible to what my partner needs/wants. Will I get carried away sometimes? Absolutely. Do you have to panic and try and match? Not at all. You do you. I’ll do me. We’ll work it out, don’t worry.

STARTERS: Don’t at me, I already know I’m stepping into a baited trap. 

Starters are nice. However, they take time to write and think up. That being said, if I’m writing it, you best believe it's tailored to you specifically. Though I do enjoy at least a basic idea discussion beforehand so I know what direction I’m supposed to take this, I can wing that shit like no tomorrow. Again, not that anyone would know since I haven’t exactly, uh . . . Done it yet. Rest assured, I have the list. I will be doing something eventually. 

You can also tag me in starters if you want. I’ll notice and I’ll get the idea and we can go from there. If it's just something you came up with outta the blue or it's from an ask or whatever, all fine by me. I’m pretty much open to any and all ideas.

INBOX: Ahahah, my inbox. Yes. That motherfucker. Look. I have at least one meme queued for every single day up until the first week of August. Not quite sure what possessed me to do this, but you know. At least you’ll always at least have one thing to choose from to send me every day. Old memes, new memes, random ass shit you just thought of at 3am because you figured I’d like it, send that in. I’ll answer it.

Sure, okay, yeah. I’ve currently got week old memes sitting in there right now. And there are at least month old memes sitting in my drafts that I haven’t posted yet. Doesn’t mean I won’t answer them. Just gotta wait for that good ol’ inspiration to kick in. 

Oh, and I hear Tumblr still eats things. So if you’ve sent me something and its been quite a while and you haven’t seen an answer, chances are I never saw it. I sincerely apologize. Send it again. Send something new. Eventually, I’ll see it. Tumblr can’t eat everything, right?

SELECTIVITY: What is selectivity? I’d write with a sentient stuffed animal if it had a good enough idea. Yes, I’m very aware of what that sounds like. Does that make me any less of a person, a writer, because I said that? Fuck no. I am more than willing to give anyone and everyone a chance provided you aren’t cringey.

Oh but Asher, what does that last bit even mean? Don’t be fucking weird. That’s all I ask. If you’ve got an idea, come to me with it and we’ll work something out. Don’t have an idea? We’ll talk about it. I will roleplay with you. I am by no means selective. 

WISHLIST: OH BOY! A WISHLIST!

Although, I suppose this would be where I’m supposed to give you some semblance of ideas or stories that I would like to give a shot at. :fingerguns: What is creativity? I will admit that I like to spout out about how creative I am and shit. However, put me on the spot and I will go blank and make myself a fucking liar.

I’ll give you some hints though. Love me some angst. I am one angsty boy. Do your absolute worst. It takes a lot to make me feel things and only two people have managed to get me to the point of tears thus far in my Tumblr career. If you think you got what it takes, bring it on.

I’m still exploring Reno’s drug habit(s). So I guess that’s sort of a wish list idea?

I want an excuse to be sadistic. My fucking name is literally sadistic-second and I cannot recall an opportunity in which I have gotten to display that true nature. I think I’ve hinted at it before? I know there are a couple shorts that I’ve written floating around. I think you can find them under “Asher writes” and uh . . . Fuck, what was that other one I wrote recently? “Raw meat” brings it up in the search so there’s that, too.

So those are kind of wish list ideas? I guess? 

HONEST NOTE: :dogekek: Bold of you to assume I have anything else left in me to put here. Nah, but like it was 2am when I wrote this. And you’re seeing it now at whatever the fuck time my queue put it at. Early morning, I know that. 

I’ve done a lot of changing, a lot of growing up in the last year or so. Big life changes happened and well. You gotta adjust or ya kinda sink. And boy did I sink. But I’m back now. I’m better. I’m getting the hang of things once again. 

No, but like what the fuck is supposed to go here? Oh, wait. I have an idea.

You guys want a better way to communicate with me? Ask for my discord. Tumblr messages are great and all, but uh . . . You’re more likely to get more out of me on discord than you are Tumblr. Why? I dunno. I’m always on discord. I’m kind of on Tumblr? Granted, I’m always on both places, but discord is where its at, man.

TAGGED BY: @that-turk-laney

TAGGING: Uh. Steal it, fam

[backstagemanaging]

As we move into 2017...

This blog is going to be a bit more inactive. Many of my posts will be queued posts, and I'll just be on here less. 2016 brought me many good things and many bad. In the past few years I've begun to notice that I am kind of an obsessive person, to the point where it can start to become unhealthy for me. Take this blog for example, I started it because I needed an outlet to obsess over anything I was currently fawning over. And I do not mean that in a bad way! I love this blog and the friends I've made through it I will never forget. Also, although I won't be posting as much, I'll still come on to chat with people using the messenger, which I love a lot like it's so much nicer than the ask box if you just want to talk. The main theme of 2017 for me is to find myself (it's cliche, I know) and to just become a bit happier with myself as a person. I'm going off to college in the early summer, and that's going to be an incredible shock for me, as I'm leaving rural Minnesota and moving to the heart of Chicago, Illinois. I'm also trying to talk more with people in 2017, and be more extroverted (wish me luck) which so far has been going decent. I know I kinda did a 2017 update post a while ago but I hadn't really reflected on things very much at the time of that, and also it was 3AM when it was written. Not the best 😅 Anyways, that's about it. I'm wishing everyone well in 2017!

[lifeofthibault]

Stopping in the Middle East for a couple of days off, before heading over to Asia for a couple of months.

Day One: Travel thoughts

My flight from Nice took off around 1:20pm. It took me close to three hours to arrive in Stockholm, where I had just over an hour to wait, before boarding on my flight to Dubai.

Even being on the plane, it still didn’t quite hit me that I was leaving to be on my own for 9 months, until the end of the year.

During that first flight, I took the time to write a long articles expressing my thanks and my thoughts to those around me. I guess I was inspired.

However, what surprised me in the best of ways, was realising that Norwegian Airlines has free in-flight Wifi onboard. Definitely a great perk, and to be quite honest, it was the first time I’ve ever had access to Wifi on a plane.

During the 6h45mn flight to Dubai, I only managed to sleep for about 45mn. However I did try to rest, anticipating some solid travel exhaustion after 12 hours of traveling from Nice to Dubai.

The Passport check and Visa formalities went actually really fast, and I was able to get my luggage quickly, at the baggage reclaim area. My friend Nimit picked me up around 3am, we caught up in the car, and headed to his house directly.

Day Two

After a short night, Nimit and I woke up around 11am and he took me out for a drive in the desert. We drove halfway around the country, which, in reality, represents about 45mn on the road. Nimit’s friend Shabaaz went with us, and had brought an Indian breakfast wrap for us!

We went to this place called Barracuda, which sits in between two different beach resorts, and is actually a liquor store. Although, calling it a liquor doesn’t quite make it justice — this place had the most amount of alcohol I’ve ever seen in one place. And since selling alcohol is only authorised with a specific license, a lot of people tend to come to this store.

Once we got back, we ended up chilling at Nimit’s house for the rest of the afternoon, being both pretty tired from the late night we had before, in addition to the blazing hot climate at this time of year — we’re talking around 37 degrees (celsius), in April, during the day.

Later this evening, Nimit’s friends, a group of about 12-14 people, came over to his house and we had a nice and friendly gathering there until the wee hours of the morning.

Day Three

On my second day in Dubai, we started the day late and went straight for a breakfast sandwich, at around midday. Then, it was time to hit our first event of the day: Middle East Film & Comic Con.

That’s right: it just so happened that Comic Con was going on during my stay, and being a self-professed pop-culture nerd, the opportunity was too good to pass out on.

We spent the early afternoon going around the different stalls, looking at comics, retro-gaming stands, merchandise and geeky apparel. And I even took a picture with the Ninja Turtles, and more importantly, with the #1 community of Star Wars cosplayers: the 501st Legion!

Once we left Comic Con, Nimit took me to another local attraction: a place called Global Village. To try and explain it, Global Village is an outdoor space that looks and feels like an amusement park — but although there are a handful of rides, the real goal of this place is to have different sections, divided into smaller villages, meant to represent different countries from all around the world. There are dozens of countries, and each section has local stalls selling everything you could think of, from clothes to food and including souvenirs, kitchen ustensils, or even spices. I’ve never seen anything like it!

Later that evening, we went back closer to the center of the city, and headed towards a middle-eastern restaurant that Nimit and his friends often go to. The food was absolutely delicious, as expected, to the point where I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to have some falafel from anywhere else in the future.

Day Four

The fourth day of my trip happened to be on a Sunday —which is also the beginning of the week in the Middle East, which means that Nimit went to work today. On my end, I had some time on my own to explore the old historic center of the city.

The day started with a quick indian breakfast at home, with Nimit’s parents. The food was delicious and the Chai (tea), nothing short of amazing. It was nice to take some time to get to know them and their family a little better. They’ve been very accommodating and friendly so far and I’m really looking forward to sharing some food with them later in the evening.

Breakfast being over, Nimit’s dad dropped me in the Historic Center of the city, and I started walking around the old town. In the middle of this megalopolis, it was quite relaxing to walk around the small streets, hiding from the sun, and making the most of the fresh breeze.

I started by going to a local cafe that doubles as an art gallery —and later stumbled upon the Coffee Museum. Needless to say that, after another short night, having two different coffees in the span of half an hour was a great way to start the day.

On my way back from the old town, I stopped by the Dubai Museum, which starts as an outdoorsy space, and later takes you underground, telling you about the story of how the city came to be, and its development up until today.

I stayed for about an hour, learning about the Bedouin lifestyle and the type of things that the local population used to do, back in the day. And later, I took Nimit’s recommendation and walked around numerous local markets. At this point, I was close to the river that reaches around the city, and got on an Abra — the local “water taxi”, to cross over to the northern bank. From there, I reached the Spice Souq and later the Gold Souq, moving from a place selling spices to another where local street vendors were selling jewellery and watches.

After a late stop to pick up a quick lunch, I took the boat back to the south bank and stayed at a cafe for about an hour and a half. Having spent most of the day outside, walking between a blazing hot sun and the shadows of the old town, it felt great to take some quiet time to resource over an iced coffee and a freshly squeezed fruit juice.

While taking some time to recharge, Nimit suggested that I check out the recently opened Etihad Museum, so I headed towards the area to discover a building that had such a beautiful architecture and interior design. The Etihad Museum is dedicated to the contemporary history of the country. The collection of things on display is rather small, however the place gives a good idea of the creation of the country in 1971.

Back then, the 9 Emirates were independent, however when Britain left in 1968, they decided to unite and form a country. But at the last minute, Qatar and Bahrein decided to remain independent. Hence the current state of the country, which unites 7 different Emirates. It was absolutely fascinating to hear about it — I personally had no idea that the country was so “recent”.

Day Five

The day started late — and yet earlier than in the previous days. I picked up a banana on the way out of the house, and grabbed an Uber to take me further south, about half an hour away, to head to Kite Beach.

Nimit recommended it because it’s is a really nice beach, but much more importantly because it’s a great spot from which to see the Burj al Arab, the iconic landmark that overlooks the seaside.

He also recommended that I check out a place called Madinat Jumeirah, which looks like an old middle eastern madinat but is actually a mall-like complex with resorts, shops and restaurants. Walking from Kite Beach to Madinat Jumeirah took me over an hour and allowed me to get in the other side of the Burj al Arab.

I walked around, as, in typical fashion, it is gigantic by European standards –just like a small village. I also took the opportunity to grab some lunch and another iced coffee before heading to the next destination.

Upon Nimit’s recommendation, I went to check out Alserkal Avenue, an industrial complex made of a multitude of warehouses, repurposed completely to accommodate hip coffee houses, art galleries and design stores. In my book, we refer to it as heaven!

I stuck around for about two hours, taking my time to browse through every single place. From the different art galleries, to the sneaker store (The Good Life), or the (Happy Studio), all the way to the local coffee house that had benches, chairs, hammocks, and even a levitating bed (Spill The Beans.) I even had time to get on the phone with S. while enjoying their home-brewed Mint Lemonade.

After another Uber ride, it was time for the main event of the day: getting to the top of the tallest building im the world, “At The Top” of the iconic Burj Khalifa.

After a quick process of obtaining the pre-booked tickets and queuing up to get through security, we finally got to the elevator.

At a rate of nine meters per seconds, it took us seventy seven seconds to get to the one-hundred-and-twenty-fifth floor, where we enjoyed the sun. On Nimit’s recommendation, I had booked tickets for 5:30pm, in order to be able to get a proper shot of the sunset. In the end, I’ve stayed for over an hour to capture this ephemeral event properly, in all it’s natural beauty.

Day Six

As I left Dubai late on the sixth day of my trip, I looked back on a short stay that was exactly what I needed — some time away, without focusing on work, where I explored a new city and region, with friends and alone. I’m really grateful for being able to catchup with Nimit after 6 years since we last saw each other, in San Francisco.

His family and friends were all incredibly welcoming and made me feel great all week long. And I’m really excited to have had the opportunity to mix both touristy things with more authentically local experiences.

As I leave the Middle East, I look forward to more adventures on my own, over in Shanghai. But you’ll read more about this very soon!

Stopping in Dubai for a couple of days... Stopping in the Middle East for a couple of days off, before heading over to Asia for a couple of months.