#also a couple other nice things <3

[robinsnest2111]

idk what they put into Italian clothing designers that makes them so good at creating whimsical and lovely linen pieces but I'm so here for it

[hephaestuscrew]

Thinking about the protective way Clara tells Fleet not to go into DeVries' dangerous-looking training set-up, and about how when Septimus mentions Fleet's friend Fleet's immediate assumption is that he must mean Clara, and about "This is Miss Clara Entwhistle, my partner - in business, my business partner." / "I'm also his friend, but he doesn't like to say it.", and about how Fleet rarely smiles but he smiles to himself at Clara having a good idea (and Clara notices the change in his expression), and about how Clara is trying to work out Fleet's birthday through a process of elimination, and about how Fleet tries twice to shut down the conversation with Frances Byrne that's making Clara uncomfortable, and about how panicked and angry he sounds after realising she's been poisoned...

[infernalmelancholy]

okay i've been seeing more and more people, especially fic writers and fan artists, leaving social media because of the way they're being treated and it's becoming worrying.

fandom creators are not celebrities (not that you should treat celebrities horribly either but y'know what i mean.) most of the time they're teenagers or young adults just making some art in their room at 3am about a thing they like.

you have no right to make demands or offer unsolicited criticism. no right. it's the equivalent of banging on your neighbor's door to let them know you don't like how they've decorated their garden. it's their garden. you can look at it. you can like or dislike it. and then you move along. you're not allowed to demand that they change it.

and when people share things about their personal life online that is not an invitation for you to invade their privacy or converse with complete strangers like they're your childhood besties.

respect people's boundaries. ask for permission before offering your opinion. just be fucking nice to people please.

[nomairuins]

i like overthink everything now it makes me feel so dumb. i used 2 be able to just talk 2 ppl but nowadays every single thing im like Is that actually going to make them hate me. Yes probably. and then i just dont respond which makes ppl hate me. this is how it is

[thedreadvampy]

The thing is I am definitely not happy or chill in the Immediate Sense lately but I am, big picture, so fucking happy with the person I am.

It's like. My brain was made by and for consistent trauma and since that trauma stopped about 5-7 years ago, it is incredible what the amount of resilience and cleverness and flexibility and thoughtfulness I developed to survive can do when it's not being all spent on surviving. like I had a hundred ton weight on me so I had to get REALLY STRONG to stay in the same place and not get 100% crushed, and when that weight came off I found I can use the strength it used to take to stand up and I can leap tall buildings in a single bound.

I was talking to my mum the other day and she said, "you've got the 'fuck it' energy at 30 that most women don't find until their fifties at least" and I'm like yeah man. Imagine how unstoppable I'll be in 20 years.

[milkweedman]

I am sorry you've been harrassed by terfs, but the way you are currently trying to weed them out seems a bit misguided. As in, the vast majority of terfs are in fact ok with big hairy CIS men. The so-called men they are actively hating are trans women/transfem people. So by acting like you proclaiming your love to big hairy dudes is the best terf-repellant you seem to be missing the point at best.

i'd love to actually respond to your concerns or whatever the hell it was that you were trying to convey with this ask, but it has almost no basis in reality so i literally cant.

thats the one statement on how effective i think the banners are that has left my queue so far. which is: i hope it works but also have literally 2 other backup plans already in case it does not. i dont know why youre calling that "acting like [me] proclaiming [my] love to big hairy dudes is the best terf-repellant", because thats wildly off target from what i have actually said at any point. everything else youve said is also pretty much either dead wrong or ignorant, so im getting the feeling that you not reading has been a problem for a while.

(ive also not mentioned terfs this entire time--ive been talking about radfems and using the word radfems. they're not the same thing although there's large overlap. so like. thats strike two for zero reading comprehension, buddy. cause you are literally not talking about the group im talking about and youre also inventing whole new sentences that i didnt say.)

[tumbleinthenet]

the more i think about it sam and norma may be something

[sunlessys]

let’s see if i can phrase this in a meaningful, legible way…

Problem:

we introject characters that we are fully capable of talking about for hours. they don’t ever get more distinct if that isn’t true. but that leaves us with the question: if you know that character so well, isn’t there implicit pressure for the introject version of them to be exactly the same guy?

if they act in a way that isn’t in character, you’ll notice. they’ll notice. sometimes the pressure comes from other system members; sometimes it’s internal pressure to prove that you are who you say you are. some people are immune to it; some people are more sensitive. as with everything, it varies between individuals.

and there’s an additional problem called “this person’s source is something i could talk about for hours on end and never be done with.” that is: this introject is here because we like their story. the easiest way to prevent an introject from feeling pressure to conform to their source is to give them as much room as they need to decide their relationship with it. this is made harder and more complicated by sharing a head with someone who’s obsessed with them/their world/their story. it becomes a balancing act: how do you let the introject decide where they stand on their source without make other people feel like they aren’t allowed to enjoy a story that they love?

that is: how do you talk about the character in the story without implying things about the real man in your head? how do you examine the character’s traumas without hurting the real man in your head? how do you decide what personal details to share with friends who wouldn’t otherwise know anything without sharing things the real man in your head would prefer to keep to himself? how do you criticize a character’s flaws without shaming the real man in your head? and on and on. nobody wants to force anyone to be something they aren’t. but nobody wants others to give up the things that bring them joy, either.

Solution:

fictional characters and the introjects that resemble them are different, distinct people. when we talk about a story, enjoy fanart, engage with a source, or talk about the character, we are talking about the fiction. we often specify this in the way we talk: Loid Videogame, for example, is different from Loid; the line between the fictional and the real is clearly defined. in this way, Loid can decide for himself what is real to him; he is always free to say “that thing from the story also happened to me,” but it’s never assumed before he decides. this is also useful in the cases in which a system members has some kind of attraction to the character; defining it as “I’m attracted to this character but not the person I need to share a brain with” handily removes the fear of making someone in your brain uncomfortable for having feelings for a character.

this is also helpful for the introjects whose sources haven’t been completed, or who introjected before they reached the end of the story. if it does turn out that later events don’t feel true, or if there’s a wild twist that casts them in a bad light, they can say “well, that’s the story. my life went differently.” and it’s okay, not even surprising.

it means that even people familiar with the source have a chance to get to know the real guy more personally; we’ve always felt better about it when people remember facts about us and not just facts about our various sources. Bren doesn’t even share what his source is if he can help it; he doesn’t want people making assumptions about his character based on something he didn’t share himself.

obviously there’s more nuance to all of it than this. there are as many ways for an introject to experience themselves as their are introjects. but as far as a simple, stopgap rule that lets most of our people live with just a bit less stress? we’ve found this extraordinarily useful.

[wander-wren]

Hey are you still updating Other Lost Things? I really love the story so far but it hasn’t updated in a bit (it’s felt like years) and I’m wondering if the Tuesday update plan has been changed and I didn’t notice.

*Frenzied jazz hands as I scamper back into my hole in the wall*

i'm SO sorry, you're right, it's been just over four weeks, which means we're due to be on chapter 7 right now....ack

i've just been in a depression funk (i think i've said two or three times that it's Definitely Fine Now Guys, Don't Worry, and that keeps being a lie, oops) and going through the process to post olt is...not streamlined, shall we say? so i was avoiding it. which i KNEW would happen if i skipped a week, but here we are.

also, while the story is done, i was doing final edits about two weeks in advance, which means that i am now two weeks behind on final edits. which is also why i've been avoiding things. but i'm working on 6 & 7 right now because why not, and in the meantime i posted two chapters for ya :3. we meet our last main character in them! fun times

now, it is 1am, but don't worry, i have nothing better to do with my time and i'm totally nocturnal anyway. i do not remember the state of chapters 6 & 7 (except i KNOW there's a bit in chapter 6 that i keep taking out and putting back in even tho my editor wants me to keep it...ugh i have to decide on that now don't i) BUT if i can get them done tonight i will post them as well in the next few hours. and then hopefully be back on normal schedule 🙏

so for real thank you for this ask friend bc i have been thinking more and more that i definitely needed to do this, but i dunno how long it would've taken me to actually get there on my own <3

[primsycoldbottles]

[Image Description: Two digital drawings of a young, chubby woman with tanned skin, blue eyes, dimples, dyed light blonde and brown hair, and shimmery pink eyeshadow and lipstick. Her hair is shoulder length and spiky, with two portions tied up into small buns at the top of her head. She's posed standing with her legs slightly apart, holding a to-go cup of a chocolate drink with whipped cream in one hand, the other hand held out slightly in front of her, as she looks at the viewer with a bright smile. She's wearing stud earrings, a dark purple tie-front long sleeve crop top with grey and white cheetah printed fur on the collar, hem, and wrists; a short, low waisted, baby blue and white plaid mini skirt, and pink garters that attach to dark purple thigh-high stockings. The background is shades of warm pink, and there are hearts drawing around her head. The second image is of the same drawing, but edited to be coloured in various warm shades of orange, brown, and grey. End ID]

a lady based on gen 5.5 LPS #79 chosen by @lpsotd :]

[harrylights]

ok i just need to write down these whack 1d dreams i’ve had the last couple days

[justabunchofdragons]

WOW just found old art from 2020 and hoollly shit ok i am better than that 👍 would not call myself good even but eeeeh yikes.

[sysig]

Hey don’t I know you

Bonus:

[genderfluidgothwitch]

Gods it's so sexy of me to be taking it easy on my tags shift (I'm treating myself right and not overexerting myself)

[thedreadvampy]

it's been a strange arc so far

when I was 19-21 and having an extremely imbalanced relationship with someone in their mid 30s I was like 'we are both adults so the fact that this is fucking me up is my fault'

when I hit my late 20s and saw how young people in their late teens and early 20s seem now I was like 'oh wait I was so fucking young I didn't know shit about my own limits or about managing relationships and I don't know why someone in their mid to late 30s would be into that except for nefarious purposes'

the weird bit is now I'm into my 30s - not even that far into my 30s - and while I still wholeheartedly believe that last thing about how young (and self destructive) 20 year olds are, I'm also kind of like 'huh, actually nobody I know that age has their shit remotely together and frankly the reason this fucked me up is because NEITHER of us knew what the fuck we were doing it how to cope, for different reasons and at different life stages, and there probably wasn't any malice or intent to control as much as there was Blind Flailing.'

[shay-puppitty]

Bought my first bowtie at a goodwill and it's now my whole personality. I wish I had more/better clothes I could wear it with. But distinguished demon is the look for today.