#i also have major issues with being active in a server for more than

[stompedchild]

after the past few days i have a lot of thoughts about tr!ros and her lack of kingdom-to-kingdom communication so i'm putting them all together.

all of the below is /rp

so, Ros Roscumber. should be in the running for the Realm SMP's "how many things can one person have wrong with them?" competition, and desperately needs to start seeing a therapist not named Pangi or BadBoyHalo. She is plagued by approximately 10001 issues and i love her. She deals with loneliness, i'd argue social anxiety to some extent, being a people pleaser to a detriment to herself, at least 2 different guilt complexes, nonexistant self-worth that borders on being suicidal, and communication.

Communication is SO important in a place like The Realm where things change on a dime and significant events can happen daily. It's especially important if you're the Royal Architect who is ALSO dealing with about 10000 problems at any given moment. Roscumber has stated that she is not particularly good with phrasing, words, or memory. This does her no favors in being a good communicator, so surely to make up for that she'd frequently express if something's wrong to her faction right? Right??????

Nope! Roscumber has a horrific guilt complex around receiving help from her faction members. She cannot handle the thought of burdening or bothering other people, so she would rather try to be independent and work on things herself to not feel that guilt. Sometimes she'll cave and ask for resources, such as recently when she asked Sneeg to make her new boots (but only after she gathered netherite with Aimsey and Pangi, her friends, not faction members). But other times, such as her training with Clown as an example, she had to be asked to not eat sweet berries and Clown had to insist that it was okay for her to take some of his food.

If the guilt complex was the only issue than maybe Ros would be doing better, but there's another major communication barrier imo. I hesitate to refer to this as anything along the lines of "lacking a backbone" because i don't think that's it. Ros can stand up for herself, though that's typically through killing people who are kinda asking for it (harry, owen, badlinu) and feeling guilty over it afterwards. I want to say that she's passive to a fault but I'm not sure if that fully capture my thoughts. Regularly passive but passive to a fault with the King in particular? I'll figure out how I want to describe this character trait of Ros' eventually :3

When Roscumber left the Kingdom and was confronted by Sneeg, she confessed that she wasn't going to say anything if she wasn't asked. Maybe this says something about how readily her trust/faith and therefore ability to communicate gets shaken, but I think this is an example of her being passive to a fault. More recently she had a chat with Aimsey where she expressed feeling tired over having to constantly defend herself, which I think is a super important line from Ros. Because Ros has been messed with in some shape or form, somewhat consistently, since around the Hostile Faction joining and Mocha deciding to be her number 1 hater. Mocha dying didn't really save her either considering the recent actions of The Jester. At the end of the day, having to be on the defending end from so much shit from so many people for about 3 months now is undeniably exhausting and draining. So what does Roscumber to in response for this? She takes an even more passive approach than normal and simply takes the blows, especially the verbal ones, as they come.

But how does this tie into Kingdom communication? Roscumber's biggest and most active ally, Sneegsnag, is typically off doing his own thing 90% of the time. He is generally speaking out of the loop with a good chunk of things that happen on the server, but it's been noticable with Ros recently. The Jester is after her once again, and she feels as though Foolish is not taking her concerns seriously, and perhaps never thought of it as a big issue in the first place. Not to mention being terrified that Owen is winning him over to kick her out of the Kingdom. Her newfound friend Pangi is having troubles with Ilip, she's dealing with having to process what Owen's said to her, and she's organizing a ball on top of all that! Now, more than ever, she wants to be listened to by someone who can hear about Kingdom secrets without getting in trouble. And yet, she does not reach out for that help.

It's a mix of her tremendous guilt around receiving help from her faction members and not wanting to bother them, see "I fear Sneegsnag has done too much for me," - paraphrased line from Roscumber, but also lacking the will to call out for help, that concerning passivity. Instead of reaching out to her faction member, her teammate, her friend(!!!), she cannot bring herself to take the initial leap of writing /msg Sneegsnag, and will instead wait for one of her friends who is around spawn more frequently to notice that something is wrong and ask her about it. She wants help, she wants comfort, she wants to be listened to by someone she wants to trust, but in order for all of that to occur she first needs to ASK for that. She is instead passive, and waits for her woes to be noticed by those who see her often. She wants her mind to be read yet there's not a single person capable of that on the server. It does not help that she tends to constantly question her loyalties, she is worried about her words misconstruing the situation, and is worried that Sneegsnag's reaction to information will be negative. So with no other active Kingdom members to turn to in confidence, she confides to Aimsey and the Honey Badgers.

It is so cool that this is a solvable issue though! All that needs to happen is for Roscumber to ask Sneeg to talk, and she then needs to open up about her recent problems. Except she has expressed struggling to do that in the first place because of all of her many issues. Sneeg has expressed wanting to support Roscumber and wanting to hang out more, but because of this lack of communication it doesn't happen, and both parties are sad because there's no talking going on. It feels as though Ros is only able to open up when pushed to a breaking point, which is not healthy in the slightest. (not that she is doing that great anyways) Otherwise she will just Not Talk about her problems in fear of being a bother or receiving an unwanted (negative) response. Despite all of this I would like to believe that when the time comes for either Ros to reach out to Sneeg, or for him to inquire about something being wrong, Ros will be given what she has been looking for this past week.

[westenmanor]

BEWARE the new Equiliberty (EQL) Discord

I've decided we're not staying quiet and professional about this afterall

Hello again friends!

I have very important things to touch upon...once again. Sigh.

Now any of you who know me, know that I HATE drama with a burning passion. I have done my best to stay out of anything that has been happening these past couple of years regarding CC creators and the like. I stay in my lane, I upload my stuff, and I keep moving.

HOWEVER, I would like to bring to light some of the things the head admin of the NEW Equiliberty Izel/Rose/Rosentine (not to be confused with Cath/Jocelyn who is in fact innocent in all of the following proceedings) along with Rose's partner HiredIT/Inky/Inscripted have said about the former staff team consisting of myself, Mark and Elsa. For those who need context, please see This Post: Moving Discord Servers.

Firstly, though, I must touch on Rose's general way of running EQL. Rose would often be absent for months at a time, leaving the rest of the team (consisting of myself, Mark, Elsa and Joc) to run the server, make changes, garner activity and the like. We did what we could, but oftentimes were lacking necessary permissions to effectively keep things running smoothly, especially towards the "end". When Rosentine/Izel would come back, things were immediately thrown to chaos for the rest of us. She would implement ideas and things without consulting the rest of the staff team, ultimately leading to the view that she was "above" the rest of us as the server creator/owner.

Occasionally, her partner, HiredIT/Inscripted, would join the server to help with technical issues and bot permissions. Initially, things were fine with that. The bot they had coded was running smoothly, everything was great. Until it wasn't. Over time, the bot started to degrade and cause more issues than not. Being that it was used for every part of the server, from verifying to downloading, this was a major blow. People could not verify they were "human" to access the server, and would message me in great confusion, wondering what the issue was. I would then have to go in and manually change roles to give them access. This was tedious and time consuming. I have many more gripes with how Rosentine chose to run the server, but those are personal and I would like to keep this to things that I have evidence for, rather than just a long winded rant.

BUT THAT'S NOT THE REASON I SAID BEWARE.

The reason I said so is because Rosentine is currently rebuilding the server in light of her/her partner's own views, which are very much Transphobic, hateful, and bigoted.

NOW I KNOW, a lot of you like to say that Cath/Joc is the hateful one, but I urge you to rethink those views and instead focus your anger on someone who has made their stance on the matter of politics and LGBTQIA+ very clear.

This specifically brings focus on one of EQL's former mods, Mark. Now Mark has always been one to challenge what Rose said in a respectful way. He would bring up good points, play devil's advocate where necessary, and challenge the rest of the team to think about different perspectives and aspects of a problem. That doesn't make him wrong. Rosentine and her partner, Inscripted, decided that because they deemed Mark "untrustworthy" for "challenging authority", that it was appropriate to intentionally misgender him, referring to him only as "she" and "female" despite multiple times Joc stood up and told them that Mark was a dude/male.

Honestly, I feel as if these images speak for themselves with no further context needed. The point remains, that if someone tells you who/what they are, you respect that.

I wish that was all, though. Unfortunately Rosentine and Inscripted spread their beliefs on the "mentally ill" and transgender communities far more broadly.

Inscripted called everyone who suffers from mental illness "unsafe" "insane" and "overgrown babies". Stating that "everything they don't like is dangerous."

He also went so far as to call transgender people "retarded", a word I strongly despise for many reasons.

To top all of this off, Inscripted called me, personally, untrustworthy because of a post that I made on BlueSky regarding USA Politics.

Spoiler alert: I'll tell you to get bent, JUST AS I DID PUBLCLY AND WILL DO SO AGAIN AND AGAIN.

Given how inclusive and diverse the sims community is, I doubt any of you actually want to be a part of this server given their new beliefs and alignments.

The only reason I stayed apart of EQL for the past two years was because I was loyal to Joc, Mark, and Elsa, along with the community we all worked so hard to build. Now, that's gone. Completely erased and replaced with new staff members and new morals. Ones that I do not personally agree with.

Come to your own conclusions as you may, but I've provided all the proof I can.

Love your faces as always, please stay safe out there.

-Cat

[coldjustness]

Small Write Up on Neve & Pain, chronic and otherwise. (and not the last write up)

The very real fact that Neve's remaining foot will get it's fair share of issues is not something that I talk about enough. A sort of wearing will set in at times in on her remaining limb. Especially with the fact that her remaining foot and leg will have to overcompensate for Neve's weight and most of her physical actions. When she stands, all of her weight goes on that leg, when she moves and jumps it's her leg that catches her, and when she pushes off in the middle of battle it's on her leg.

A fact I've learned from YouTube user Footlessjoe, that Neve, being a below the knee amputee, will have a plethora of endless aches and pains, the most common one that people know is phantom limb yes. But there’s more we don’t often see.

Phantom limb, which is horrendous and ironically Neve’s triggered by the cold - in which the nerves are freezing or burning up up, un-scratchable itches, like a burning hot iron rod, or shards of glass, is being pressed into her limb or non-existent toes, or the chronic pain of the brain screaming alarm bells for said limb that is gone.

There is ZERO level balance in how Neve carries herself - as per typical old prosthetic, the snake foot is actually three inches taller than Neve’s height

Chaffing, itching, cinched soreness will consistently exist on her residual limb aside, no matter the cushioning that Neve adds to her own limb.

Neve’s remaining foot and leg will have soreness, muscle fatigue, her spine will be out of alignment so she will have back aches galore especially in the lower region. This is why I say that after whatever may occur on said adventure, couple with lack of sleep, lack of rest will result in Neve suffering the most after travel when returning to the Lighthouse.

Which- rest, or lack thereof, also affects that chronic pain, nerve pain, phantom pain, and muscle soreness. A lack of nutrients because little food, doesn’t make up the extra stress that her body has been affected by because losing a limb can potentially affect nutrition intake. And by yes rest, I do mean sleep, but also it is important for a HIGHLY active amputee to rest that limb. ie. Not standing on the prosthetic, spending time with her prosthetic off

Eventually there is a time when Neve is outright not wearing it for a majority of her time in the Lighthouse. (And also a reason I believe that when Neve is sitting in her office in game here leg is a 100% off and logically sitting by her.)And the reason rest her limb not only important and NECESSARY AND UNAVOIDABLE is that Neve will not be able to climb and run as much as she does if she doesn’t rest that leg. (This rest is also why leg amputees will still have wheelchairs despite having prosthetic, and why in a modernesque verse, Neve will have one of her own in her apartment)

FURTHERMORE.

This also begs the question of how she deals with the pain when it becomes too much to manage. Massaging works, and we can also assume there are remedies like elfroot and certain teas she should drink - an added reason why she likely doesn’t like tea at all

It’s also amusing for me because sometimes if Neve LOOKS like she’s high it’s because she likely is. (not my screenshot - it's taken from servers I'm in or from twitters. I'll source it when I find it)

Also there is a very real fact that sometimes when she's awake at night it's because her chronic pain or phantom limb have jerked her from a dead sleep with nothing but blaring pain. And while trying to alleviate it, she longer is tired or she hurts too much to sleep because no amount of massaging makes the pain go away right away. So she might as well work.

As learned from amputees sharing their stories about limb loss. People with limb loss often have nights where their chronic pains, be it phantom pain or there’s, rip them right out of slumber and they just end up sitting there in PAIN.

This happens regardless but it doesn’t stop just because she’s romanced, as you all know.

Basically .. NEVE GALLUS IS IN PAIN ALL THE TIME and as pains like this work, it's just .. another part of her day. Nothing to write home about.

[shinakazami1]

I’ve received notice that there was a callout on me in the Stanley Parable Creator’s Club server and I would like to address it as I am a bit tired of people talking behind my back. I wasn't contacted by anyone from the server directly about the issue. 

The specific accusations were that I openly discussed a fic with NSFW themes to a minor, shared NSFW fic online without properly warning it for minors, and encouraged a self insert ship of one of my Narrator designs with a minor. 

These accusations are false, or blown entirely out of proportion. I have never intended to hurt people nor endanger minors and based on screenshots I've received, people have been spreading even more extreme misinformations, like me being a groomer. I want to tell the story with the mentioned earlier things, in hopes to clear up this matter and stop the harassment me and people received. 

1) Sharing NSFW Fic Online

I have been informed that I posted a link to my fic, "A broken promise", without a proper warning. 

I did put appropriate warning in the tags, however I did forget about archive warnings options and I misjudged that the T rating would suffice. I also had only mentioned the rape in tags and not in the ao3 warning. I will be more careful when publishing work in the future.

I've deleted the links on my posts and privated the work, as I do not want anyone else to get possibly harmed.

2) Filk

I was informed my never written fic was discussed in the discord as well with a completely incorrect premise and I would like to mention the idea to give people more insight into what it actually is supposed to be, despite the fact that it was never actually written. 

Filk (Fernator's milk) is based on a joke someone made from another fic of mine, "Bon appetit 1.5 - Chicken soup is served " where Stanley buys milk and pickles, and we called it pilk. Somebody made a joke that this is like a pregnancy craving and I decided that that would make a funny CRACK fic premise. Again, I never have written this fic, and the only place it ever existed was in a series of messages in a private discord.

The whole point of crack fics is that it has a stupid premise. In here, it was one of my Narrator's, Fernator, telling Stanley he would make him pregnant. I know that this sounds like the problem, but that was just a premise.

What really happens in the fic is that Fernator tells Stanley about human reproduction but after that, the majority of the fic is a sfw adventure on how viruses, bacteria, and plants reproduce. 

With bacteria, Stanley just gets copied, with viruses, Fernator creates a computer virus and it doesn't work so they move on, and with plant, the title filk comes in which is milk with fern spores in it. It ends up just in Stanley's foot. The end goal was for them to just get the cutout Baby as their child and then, the main fic that I talked about would end. After a while, they would realise they didn't really succeed and would try to make something, pouring filk onto Fernator and creating Pickle Rick.

The accusations of this being a non con confuse me as Stanley is happy to be brought onto this journey and there are no actual sexual activities involved in this not written project. 

3) Art with minor

One person was very supportive of one of my Narrators, Jester (they drew him a bit), and even started to call him their husband. Since they're my friend, I wanted to make them happy, so I drew something I deemed wholesome and platonic. They also took my drawing this way. 

In my eyes at the time, when I made the art, I never thought of this 'ship' as anything other than admiration for a design. 

However, that context got lost when they reposted my art on that server with my permission. 

I now see how people could think otherwise and I will be far more wary about this topic in the future.

However, while the announcement didn't use the exact word 'groomer', it highly implied it. I feel wronged for that as I received a lot of harassment in my direct messages. 

I would like a statement and an apology from the announcers because their words caused a lot of harm.

4) Conclusion

I want to finish this off with being honest about the mistakes I've made of not properly checking sfw spaces - which started all this - and talking about suggestive matters within them. The fanfiction link was certainly a slip up but I will be more careful in the future of what I post. 

However - I also want to say that it's not okay to harass people who got involved in this.

I myself have received false accusations already and seen my work be misinterpreted. I only learnt about this through buds giving me a notice and I do ask, if a similar situation would ever occur, which I don't plan on, to message me directly first about my mistake.

In the future, I will remember to double check where I discuss my fic ideas and I'll do everything in my power for this situation not to repeat. 

Thank you for reading.

[goldenharmony]

tumblr user goldenharmony im. head in hands. i am losing it over click link or whatever that show was called surely i dont remember. im fine (hello) please tell me you experienec with this show i neend to talk owiwiuwewiwijedhwejd.

LOL OK 😭

Idk how you discovered Link Click (or mentioned it in your reblogs), but I use MAL a lot and noticed that s1 was pretty high on the rankings during its airing.

Then later that year, I watched Gigguk's vid on Link Click since he's an anituber I like. I do laugh at the fact that I read the title and was like "Nah, it's not better than Steins;Gate :) " since that's MY favourite anime (and a time-travel one), and he basically implied that it wasn't as great as Steins;Gate when handling certain aspects LOL (although still is praising the series throughout this review). Fun Fact - his vid on Oshi no Ko is the whole reason I checked out the OnK manga eventually since I read Aka Akasaka's Kaguya-sama and wanted more but the premise of "simp doctor reincarnated as his idol's child" sounded rlly sus LOL.

It's why I was also kinda confused when later on MAL, I saw that Link Click had a s2 but didn't hear any hype for it despite hearing a bit for s1. I guess that was cause of Gigguk's influence on the anime community since I don't think he watched s2 so there was no big anime influencer hyping it up sadly.

Eventually late last November, someone in the AquaKana server was being very vocal on wanting to push the Link Click agenda soo I decided why not - its been a long time since I watched a time-loop series. She was also a huge fan of Steins;Gate so I trusted her judgement.

Watched ep 1 in original before having to switch to Eng Dub after cause I was not clicking with the show due to being distracted by a new language that I wasn't used to hearing yet 😭But after that, I watched a few eps per day, binged s1 ep 7-11 in one sitting, and then binged s2 in one sitting as well LOL. I was also was waiting for CFE results to see if I passed - my major career-defining exam and watching Link Click actively helped me not stress on the days leading up to it because my thoughts were preoccupied by it.

S1 gave me a Vivy/Violet Evergarden feel with its short stories, and S2 reminded me more of Death Note with it being a suspenseful murder mystery involving supernatural powers. One thing I loved is finding some stuff that Link Click does unique compared to other time-loop series. For example - actively trying to NOT change the past, and instead using the looping to understand how to resolve issues in the present. I also like it leaning into the thriller aspect more compared to other time-loop series I've seen.

CXS and LG also fall into the 2 looper categories that most loopers do. CXS being the impulsive and emotional type and LG being the stoic and serious type who has gotten jaded from all their looping.

Also I am pretty fine with how QL has been handled so far, since its not a "female character" thing to me in how she isn't as prominent as CXS and LG but more of a "character who isn't CXS and LG" thing considering the series has a lot of characters but we don't dive too deeply in most of them. Plus she's been handled much better compared to other anime series that have the set-up of "2 male leads in a suspenseful thriller show, with a girl as an almost secondary character". Thinking of Misa from Death Note and Lisa from Terror in Resonance, who are disappointing in their roles.

I also like how the fight scenes are actually well-animated since most non-action anime included fight scenes are....not great LOL.

[yurious-george]

please spill the sleepless domain opinions. ive only ever seen praise for it

DISCLAIMER: SD's story is simply not to my preference. No issues with that - normally I would just stop reading and move on - but I was on the official SD discord server during my formative years, and basically had to pretend to like Sleepless Domain to interact with the server at large. Pent up bitterness, thy name is hallowed.

That said, my god. The two main characters are insecure little bores with one of the most unimpressive lesbian relationships I've ever seen in fiction. They are So. Damn. *Samey.* They spend so much time reassuring each other and talking, so much that any conflict is brought up and resolved within pages. You can skip whole pages of dialogue and not miss a single thing of import!

On a similar note, all the other major characters have very similar flaws. They're all insecure and hate themselves in pretty, palatable ways. All of them are so afraid of hurting each other and reassuring each other, binging the comic is genuinely frustrating - I desperately wanted someone, anyone to have a different flaw besides "I'm insecure!" Just because it manifests in different ways does not mean they're different characters - they're the same characters with different set dressing.

None of these are bad characters, but they don't have a single interesting character dynamic to rub between them. Besides which, this connecting trait reveals an alarming reduction in what a good person is, compared to Kiwi Blitz - good people put others first, good people secretly aren't confident, good people hate themselves. In KB, Mary's earlier comic, the majority of characters are all trying to do the "right" thing, but have very different motivations and contexts around the concept, and here they're all... the same...

SD is most engaging when it follows Rue, an unregistered, confident magical girl with a lot of siblings. She's a conspiracy theorist, but she actively asks questions about and discusses her world - such as what's outside the barrier, how to study it, etc. Her confidence causes her to break things off with a very vulnerable character over a small lashing out, and was possibly the final snapping point in her depressive spiral. She's far more proactive than the mains in Figuring Out the World, and I would like SD a lot more if she had more focus!

Speaking of the world. I find the author. frustratingly liberal at times. As in, we've had very different experiences with mental health and Ms. Cagle's parents Probably Didn't Threaten To Send Her To A Ward Overseas For Being Suicidal :) Or torture her with an overdose of psychotropics to make her 'productive'. (you can read more about my experience here.) Opening up with loved ones has clearly been beneficial for her and that's awesome! Unfortunately some of us got tortured more for doing that. And her (so far) refusal to acknowledge that in her story is... such a massive gap in her worldbuilding?

So, despite setting up a system with a monetary benefit to torturing children, she refuses to actually depict a child being tortured by her parents into compliance with being a magical girl - the logical, ultimate conclusion of her capitalist system. All the parents are So Scared For Their Kids :( Ok, well - where's the parent who's scared of losing their meal ticket? Why Are You Setting These Things Up And Not Putting Your Whole Pussy Into It

The art and paneling are fantastic, and Ms. Cagle has some of the most clear action sequences in comics. Sleepless Domain is a great comic when it's not about the main characters.

Also the "teenagers" all talk like therapypilled 20somethings and it makes me nauseous

[aorish]

You're probably not the right person to ask, but do you know of any historical reactionary movements that aren't grounded in right-wing ideology? I've come down pretty firmly on the side of "the anti-AI art movement is way more reactionary than people want to admit" but I'd like examples that can't be derailed by going "yeah but we're not scapegoating marginalized people"

you're correct that I'm not the right person to ask about specific historical reactionary movements, I mostly read about intellectual history, not social or political history, and mostly from far too long ago to be useful or relevant to politics in the modern era.

But I also take issue with the idea that anything before the mid 19th century (at the earliest) even makes sense to call "right-wing" or "left-wing" or that left-wing ideologies don't "scapegoat marginalized people." The treatment of Jewish people in the postwar Soviet Union, for example, would tend to imply otherwise. So I think you'd probably benefit from dropping the political binary here unless you want to get sidelined into an argument about what "right-wing" means.

Also, I'm not entirely sure what you're hoping to accomplish by defending the thesis "the anti-AI art movement is way more reactionary than people want to admit"? I mean, I agree, that's probably true. But it sounds like when you press hard enough on it, what you're getting people to say is "it's fine to be a reactionary so long as you're not scapegoating marginalized people." And I just don't think many people care very much about "not being a reactionary" in itself, certainly not more than they do about what they see as their own personal financial security or of people they care about. I don't think "not being a reactionary" even wins out against their aesthetic sensibilities most of the time.

I think you probably can't win this one by attacking it head on. You can''t catch them on a technicality that shows they're thinking politically dangerous thoughts and magically convinces them of the error of their ways, people don't work that way. You gotta find a way to argue why a world with AI art isn't going to be one that's uglier, where them and all their friends are poorer because they can't make art full-time and all the art they would have made is replaced with slop. Once they accept that, all of the baseless accusations of "stolen art" or "environmental damage" will fall away, I tend to think those are also a waste of time to litigate because you can't rationalize someone out of a position they didn't rationalize themselves into. Whatever you do, probably don't point out that "we can't put the genie back in the bottle" or anything like that, though. I see that argument made a lot and I just don't think people realize how much "you might think this is going to make your life worse but get over it because there's nothing you can do about it" does not win people over.

If all else fails you could also do nothing and ignore them. AI art is such a minor "issue" that absolutely no one cares about outside of a very small circle of small-time artists and artist-adjacents online, so if you're not already a part of that circle for other reasons there's no real reason to bother, it's not going to have an impact on the broader society, there are other things you could care about. Personally, I left that big AI Art ethics discord server partially because I realized that those people all spent more time picking fights with other artists than they did making any AI art? I think basically none of them realize that the majority of the harassment they get is because they actively seek out controversy from people who are never going to like them and go out of their way to accuse them of being ableists or fascists. The proper response to random weirdos shrieking at you online isn't to try to harass them back (as if that would ever convince them of the error of their ways!) the proper response is to make it sufficiently clear that you don't care about their stupid noises, and move on.

[thenullproject-archive]

❌Welcome to the Null Project - Prologue.❌

TW: Blood, gore, multiple character death, (some) jumpscares, disturbing/unsettling content.

The purpose of this blog is to recover a project/event made for @kiingkiismet ’s discord community created by Kuiper (kismet), @elitebuster2012 , and @greynightshade in October 2020 called The Null Project, also called “NULL” by past participants and myself.

Video recovery credits from the defunct twitter to @cosmiicchaoss !

NULL was an ARG/unfiction, interactive “who dunnit” Halloween project surrounding the death of my character, Crux. There were clues and mini puzzles littered around the discord server before translating to a more immersive game medium such as Minecraft that multiple people in the server had access to.

The community worked together to figure out the active, ever changing storyline that spanned from October 2020 to (estimated) January 2021 before it was abandoned in Act 2-3 due to life issues.

4 years later, I feel comfortable enough to showcase this for my current community who would otherwise have no context for this alternative universe that concerned a major character in Kismet’s custom species and universe, Starliians, and how influential it was even though the events and snapshot of the characters and their behaviors in that time were apart of an alternative universe.

❌Disclaimers❌

1. Lost media — Due to mental health issues and a hacking of my account in 2021, a lot of the media has been lost to time and have not been recovered, so a lot of the crucial details would have to be filled in second-hand in “in a nutshell” posts for context, including the various in-character role play events as the community created self-inserts that were also apart of the story as some were friends of Crux, in character.

Also due to a lot of things being lost media, I’m gonna be editing and updating things with the help of friends and community members since my memory is shit LMAO. that being said, a lot of posts will include a “last updated” thing to show what was edited, when, and why. There’s also a lot of omitted community members since some of them I do not associate with anymore for personal reasons.

2. This is an AU and not canon — for some characters, their presentations, actions, and experiences are not going to be accurate to their canon if you know them as they are in my normal universe. Despite some feats being carried over into my main stories, a majority of these events ARE NOT CANON or NO LONGER ACCURATE. A lot has changed in 4 years lol.

3. This is no longer an active story — If you’re a person unfamiliar with my world or my stories and you stumbled here by accident, welcome! this isn’t anything to really follow other than to archive an event that is dear to my and my community’s hearts. If you are still interested, however, follow my main blog for my active projects that are still being worked on and involve a lot of these characters, or follow me on my main socials!

Act and RP Tags:

ACT I | ACT II | ACT III (incomplete/lost)

CRR - Community Roleplay Responses: the in-character roleplay responses to events. This will also be notated in posts that involve them.

Character/Group Tags:

This is to jump to anything involving specific characters or to link to their bios, some characters belong to friends and my community, they will be credited accordingly!

The Resistance (the “good guys”):

Crux | Puns | Ember/El | Jackson | Kamikaze | Soliana | Esmeralda | Arietta | Rinny | Sylvan (previously named Eden) | TBC…

The Nyxian Cult (previously called The Somnii)

Nyx | Cassian | Bradley | Ouen | Izotl / Jag | Jackie

Other:

Misc | Shitposts | Fan Art

Last updated: 10/20/24 - 4 PM EST

[ilguna]

this is gonna be a rant about my life lately and how stressed out i’ve been

i know it’s been a while, i’ll get on track with writing and then eventually fall off. with june, i started working more because my birthday trip was coming up, and since then, i’ve been busy because im gonna visit family in washington this month (july).

ever since i came back from my birthday, i have had nothing but anxiety over everything that’s been happening.

some information for everyone: i work in a restaurant. i work FOH (host, togo, bussing, expo, serving). when i met my boyfriend back in november, it’s because he started working BOH (kitchen). he’s worked for this company before, it’s just been a while. and he worked at a different location. he’s a couple years older than me.

him and i started talking at the end of january, started dating on valentine’s day. he made a major mistake a couple days later, and it’s typically what people break up over. i decided to stay with him. but i made the decision after everyone at the restaurant found out. i practically didn’t tell anyone, it was my cousin who told people, that found out before me. my cousin is/was friends with the girl that told her.

i have made my decision to stay with him, i have made that explicitly clear. my close friends (4 of them) were all against it at first, but since then, 2 of them have officially come around and aren’t actively seeking out trouble for him. 1 of them is on the fence. the last 1 has promised that she will never like him and will not make an effort.

she told me this in february, and i thought i could handle her, and that she might even change her mind, but she’s not going anywhere. i had a conversation with her towards the middle of may trying to tell her that she’s making me uncomfortable and im becoming avoidant (no contact = out of mind). she didn’t offer any peace of mind at all.

my birthday trip comes around, we’re good. i had a lot of fun in vegas. then comes the following weekend, she (difficult friend) was bartending, i was her cocktail. and 2/3 separate times, one of the male servers that have been here for like 10+ years comes over to talk shit about my boyfriend.

tidbit: my boyfriend has since become a manager (at the end of february) and the GM/AGM were good with it. i’ve been here for 3 years, the GM knew him from location 1. she didn’t see an issue.

which involves another female server, who he’s ALSO known from location 1. she was asking him to cut the floor, she did it in a way that was rude, and she’s known for being like that. he called her disrespectful for it. i guess she told the male server, because that friday he came into the bar, told the friend bartender, and then said “i bet he beats women”.

i was upset, and i took it to the GM. i stayed out of the bar for the rest of the night until she finally cut me. GM talked to the male server about it, he denied it. GM talked to the female server that was disrespectful, nothing really came of it. since then, several people in the restaurant have been referring to him as a woman/wife beater.

my boyfriends been having a hard time getting anyone in the restaurant to respect him since my cousin decided that it was her responsibility to spread my business without giving me time to cope and decide.

its upsetting. i get anxiety anytime my friend and the male server are working together because they’ve been caught talking shit since. i think both of them can tell that im on edge because the male server doesn’t really talk to me. but my friend looked at me today and called me grumpy. but there was so much i wanted to say to her about how shitty she’s being.

i’m “not supposed to” choose a boyfriend over a friend but i have tried. i have done my time defending her and her actions. i have given her time. i’ve explained that she’s making me upset. and she’s still doing it.

my boyfriend even walked in to her talking with one of the other girl servers who is NOTORIOUS for talking shit and spreading it today. and her boyfriend (who works in the kitchen) is just as bad with it. the GM has doubled down and is saying that my boyfriend is the problem. our relationship is the problem. she can’t do anything about the servers. but she’s lazy and a people pleaser so she’s not going to do anything, anyway.

i’m just so tired of feeling like this. i don’t want to talk to her. i don’t want to be her friend. the only thing i can do anymore is tell her that im done being friends with her if she can’t respect MY relationship. if you want to actively seek out a persons downfall, then you’re a shit person. especially since she’s supposed to be one of my best friends.

shes older than me too, she should be more mature but she’s not acting like it anymore. i don’t want to lose her as a friend, but if this is the only way that i can show her that i’ve tolerated enough, then it’s what has to be done. and it’ll probably make a statement in the restaurant, too.

idk. that’s just what’s going on. i’ve exhausted the people i can talk to, so i thought id share on here to type it all out. it doesn’t make me feel any better, though.

[kassandras-one-braincell]

I'm no longer gonna be able to comfortably play my special interest, which fucking sucks. Rant under cut. It's about League of Legends and Riot's anti-cheat software, Vanguard, if you're interested.

Riot Vanguard (vgk) is a kernel-level software that scans all of a system's processes to detect cheat engines, which itself is fine - industry standard - except it boasts a particular effectiveness due to how it's run. Vgk runs on start-up so that it's running before a user has the chance to launch a cheat engine, and it can ID hardware so that if a player is caught cheating, they won't be able to play again on the same device. Unless it is disabled manually, it will run 24/7, whereas other AC software will start and stop in line with the game's execution.

It's more effective than other AC software, but it absolutely bricked some PCs back upon its initial release when Valorant dropped in 2020. This was a new game, fresh code, but the anti-cheat borders on a fucking rootkit - a term I'm using liberally, because vgk isn't malware, but it works in the same way on a systemic level. Equally as invasive, and can potentially be equally as destructive; one of those is intended, and the other is an unfortunate by-product of invasive software being developed by a video game company.

League of Legends is a 15 year old game with some pretty tragic code. If vgk caused people to bluescreen after exiting Valorant, then even more people are going to encounter issues with the shitshow that is LoL's code base.

Three weeks ago, an attempt to fix a bug regarding an in-client feature fucked over a far more significant API in several major servers. Every time a particular game-mode called "Clash" launches (every other month or so), it bricks the servers. This is currently a running gag in the community: that whenever the client acts up (embarrassingly often for such a well-funded game) Riot must be dropping Clash early. But when you introduce a bloody rootkit into the mix that runs in tandem with spaghetti code and beyond the closing of the game app, this is going to undoubtedly fuck some computers up.

I'm not someone who cheats at games, but I care about my system too much to risk this. Something that relies on the BIOS, that is known to have caused permanent damage to systems while running alongside a much better programmed game, that continuously scans your system while it's active (and always activates upon start-up until disabled) is obscenely risky. With a 24/7 invasive software, it can disable drivers regardless of what you're playing and when; the worst cases - plural - I've read about anecdotally were people's cooling systems being disabled erroneously by vgk, causing gpu melting. You bet any antivirus software you have installed is going to scan without pause because of it, which will cause more system-wide performance issues, too.

There's also the (albeit minor) risk of other scripts triggering the uh-oh alarm and leading to unfair account bans, and I've poured almost 7 years into this game. I mod some of my single-player games and write scripts. No thanks.

And while I'm lucky enough to have a decent system, the TPM 2.0 and secure boot requirement for Windows 11 users means that vgk will effectively - while the phrase is crude, I haven't seen a concise alternative - "class-ban" League players. Similar to the release of OW2, where a unique SIM was required for every account, including existing ones until that got changed after enough backlash - except buying a phone number is far cheaper than buying a laptop or PC. Even with the requirements, the performance issues will tank low-end systems, which would already be at higher risk of hardware fuckery from increased and extended cpu usage. And the game is currently designed to be comfortably playable on low-end rigs, so it will force-out a good number of players.

If you play League and intend to continue playing after vgk is made mandatory in Jan/Feb 2024, give it a few months after it goes live before you play. That's enough time for any catastrophic issues to unfold, because if the testing period was anything like it is for game features, it won't be sufficient, and the number of cases of system damage will be worse than it was for Valorant upon release.

This rant does read like I'm trying to dissuade people from playing post-vgk, and I'm not, but I am urging people to be cautious and informed on the legitimate controversies surrounding Vanguard, especially anything hardware related. Familiarise yourself with how the program works and assess whether your system will likely be affected, and how permanent any damage could be to your hardware. Read forums (that aren't moderated by Riot employees where possible) and verify the information you're reading. Including this. It's 3:30am and I'm writing this angrily, so my limited explanations of the software could stand to be more thorough.

I'm hoping that there will be enough of a reduction in League's ~200m monthly player-base to spark a reversal in the decision to implement vgk. Not out of consideration for people who don't want to install a rootkit for a video game, but because Riot would lose money and shit their corporate britches.

Having to say goodbye to my favourite game, a universe I love and one of the more significant outlets to socialisation in my life absolutely sucks, though. The actual season changes looked super cool too, and I was stoked about Ambessa coming to the game. I'll enjoy the game while I can, but yeah this feels like a bitter breakup lmao.

[oopsallsyscourse]

I’m someone who is still in SN and I really don’t understand any of this drama. I was there since the server was created, have been relatively active in there, and I never saw any of this shit people are talking about as if it was this huge thing. That’s not to say the server never had any issues but you’re literally never going to be in a large group without running into occasional triggers or occasional opinions/phrasings that make you uncomfortable. It’s just how being in a big group works.

I find it interesting that you view the server as more anti-endo, though. I agree it was more anti-endo when it first stated. Anti-endo as in disliking endos rather than fakeclaiming them. The entire time in the server I only ever saw a handful of people outright fake claim, and only one time was it towards a specific individual, and the other server members didn’t support that and it got deleted. I personally view the server as pretty pro-endo now. But of course in a casual way because it’s always just been a large group of survivor wanting to talk about their hobbies, share pics of their pets, ask for advice, and receive support when they vent.

People portray it like its discourse headquarters when the discourse channels are entirely optional, and intended for venting. It’s so bizarre to me.

There's absolutely problems with the server but a lot of it was either a) blown way out of proportion or b) literally just false. Like the whole "clique nature of the server" is present in literally every large discord server. People get to know those who talk a lot and new people have a harder time finding a place for themselves. That's just human nature!

As far as being anti endo, I still stand by that, but more of a "critical of the pro endo community" kinda way. While there was criticism towards both sides, there was also a problem with focusing on the more ridiculous claims of the pro endo community while equally ridiculous claims on the anti endo side get labeled as literally too stupid to bring up. I think that's worthy of criticism.

A lot of the hard anti endos in the servers were more along the lines of "I personally don't believe this can happen, but I'm not going to go up to someone and tell them their experience is fake." Which is a more refreshing take than you usually see. But in speaking to them, you do get an idea of the legitimate concerns in the anti endo community. I think in talking about those concerns seriously, the server and individual member did become more pro endo. I even remember a whole conversation about that! Overall, it was a mix of different syscourse opinions, which is something you don't see often.

And yeah, syscourse was so very minor in the server. The thing I actually miss most about it are the game nights and advice sections. I can understand seeing it as the syscourse discord(tm) as that was a major selling point for me and probably a few other people.

[findroleplay]

Seeking fellow space explorers!

Greetings ladies, gents and fellow space explorers!

After going through a bit of a dry spell I thought I’d once again try opening my doors (well, DM’s really) to any fellow sci-fi rper’s who may be lurking about in the hopes of being able to find some fresh stories to write, sharing new or improved ideas and getting the chance to explore entire universes born from our combined imaginations whilst hopefully making a few new friends along the way.

Before heading down to the ideas section of the ad, I humbly ask (and strongly insist) that anyone who may be interested in writing with me takes the time to thoroughly read the following lists of requirements to make sure that we are on the same page when it comes to what we want/expect in a rp partner and ensure that we will mesh with one another as a result rather than clash due to incompatibility based issues that may not be fixable.

REQUIREMENTS/WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR:

-A minimum of three to four properly fleshed out and detailed paragraphs per response written in third person past tense. A decent grasp on spelling, grammar and punctuation is also required as well.

-At least one to two responses per day/every other day when possible. I am also open to planning a writing schedule provided you are capable of consistently responding at least three or more days per week. Please also bare in mind that I am in the AEST (eastern Australian time zone), meaning there’s a chance that I could be hours or even a day ahead of or behind you depending on what part of the world you call your own, but I am still fairly compatible with pretty much anyone who is in an area outside of my time zone and will happily find ways to accommodate or work around any differences in my partner’s schedule/availability if possible.

-A willingness to commit to a long term rp/being a long term writing partner and being open to writing more than just one story.

-20+ writers and characters. No exceptions.

-Being open to at least occasionally engaging in non-rp related ooc chatter.

-Active engagement during any planning/plotting phases and a willingness to bring new ideas to table.

-Willing to rp against/pair your character with a alien character who may have/has fur, fangs, claws, a tail, scales, antennae, extra limbs, etc. basically anything that doesn’t look like a blue skinned human. I do not play human main characters so please take all of this into very careful consideration before messaging me for an rp.

-Being comfortable with writing potentially explicit scenes that contain dark themes/sensitive topics such as combat, violence, gore, injuries, trauma, illnesses, etc (any and all boundaries will be discussed prior to plotting or writing these sorts of scenes).

-Being comfortable with writing out smut based scenes rather than just fading to black or simply implying they happened. I am also seeking to have a 50/50 story to smut ratio where possible, though focusing on the story and major plot lines will always be the top priority out of the two.

-Slow burn romances that allow the characters to see the best and worst sides of each other as their feelings progress. Anything that adds extra tension, drama or causes changes to their relationship dynamics and offers us a potential subplot to explore is also heavily encouraged.

-Switch dynamics only. I am not interested in playing against strictly submissive characters, characters who only bottom or ones that do not reciprocate when it comes to writing out spicy/explicit scenes.

-MxM or FxM (with me playing the male character) pairings. I do have a strong preference for MxM pairings though I am not going to turn down anyone wishing to do a FxM one, but I will not play as the female character so please refrain from approaching me if you are intending to play as the male character.

-Discord is an absolute must as it is the only platform I will rp on due to being able to use servers in order to help keep things organised and easily accessible within their own little category or channel. I will not rp on any other platform and any attempts to try and persuade me to write elsewhere will be ignored.

WHAT I AM NOT LOOKING FOR:

-one liners, one worders, rushed out responses, rapid fire, text talk, frequent or major mistakes that go uncorrected.

-Constantly switching between tenses or the use of first/second person.

-godmodding.

-controlling my characters.

-overly shy or emotionally fragile characters who need to be taken care of constantly.

-short term rp’s.

-Android characters, heavily augmented cyborg characters (this is up for discussion), magical characters, characters with wings, telepathic characters, characters that do not fit into a sci-fi setting, insectoid alien main characters, avianoid alien main characters, amphibious or fish like alien main characters, amorphous (slime) main characters and anything that even remotely resembles a xenomorph.

-time travel/dimension hopping settings or abilities.

-Cyberpunk/steampunk/dieselpunk/whatever other punk type settings there are.

-Overly submissive characters or characters who constantly require someone else to take the lead all the time or make decisions for them.

-fast paced romances.

-stories that take place in a non sci-fi setting.

With that out of the way, let’s get onto the ideas!

Down below are the ideas that I’ve been hoping to write with someone for quite a while now, though I am open to possibly mixing them together to create something new. Nothing is set in stone and I’m hoping to keep whatever plot we decide to do/make mostly fluid or free flowing, meaning that the entire course of the story isn’t entirely planned out at the beginning and we let the actions of our characters determine what happens next whilst occasionally planning what they next major plot point of the story is when we decide it’s time to fill our characters lives with even more drama.

Taking over:

The lifespan of a captain could sometimes end up being tragically short. It was the captain who was supposed to be the first to jump into their starfighter and guide their crew to victory whenever their ship was under threat, It was the captain who was expected to always be able to know what decisions were the right ones to make in regards to the welfare of the crew and it was the captain who took an oath upon receiving the keys to their ship to never put their own life before someone else’s even when faced with the most difficult decision of all. When the much loved captain of the alliance ship Maelstrom loses their life after a mission gone wrong their second in command is the one who is chosen to take their place as the new captain despite the angry protests from some of the crew members. Will the new captain be able to follow in the footsteps of the one before them and lead the Maelstrom to success whilst earning the respect of the crew, or will the burden be too much to bear?

New recruit:

Whenever talks about potentially receiving some new crew members came around it wasn’t uncommon for people to get a little bit crazy. Not everyone hated the idea of seeing a new face or two running around given it meant that there could potentially be less tasks for them to do before they got to clock out for the day, but that didn’t mean they were exactly okay with the idea that their job was potentially at risk of being handed to someone else if the captain decided that they were no longer performing at the required standards. Many of the current crew members took great pleasure in reminding any newcomers about their place on the ship and weren’t afraid to use their rank to get away with a little less than friendly behaviour when it came to doing such things to the point where it was often an unspoken rule amongst the other crew mates to not interfere with the “initiation” process lest the wraith be turned upon them instead. When the “initiation” process itself stopped depended on when the captain finally cared enough to intervene. When a new recruit arrives in the form of a previous high ranking soldier who was stripped of their title for insubordination, chaos of an entirely different kind takes hold.

The mission:

(looking for someone to play as a human crew member)

Seven. Seven alliance ships had disappeared without a trace or been destroyed by unforeseen yet suspicious circumstances. Mining asteroid explosions, ambush attacks, ship failures, all unfortunate yet unpredictable occurrences that were happening far too frequently for anyone to be able to just comfortably sit back and go on with life. With tensions between the alien and human race at an all time high, the alliance itself was desperately trying to find a way to keep the peace without causing a panic. Eventually, a proposal was made. In an all time first since the end of the great alien/human wars, an alien would be chosen and sent to work onboard a human ship. This was considered to be a very large step given many planets were still hostile to one another and the rumours circulating about the missing ships were sparking some strong reactions from both sides but the alliance was desperate….and so was the alien they were planning to send onboard. For them, it was their last and only chance to start a new life and to put a difficult past behind them. Little did anyone know, the appearance of this newcomer was more than just the first step towards changing life as many knew it for the known galaxies.

One unit, one goal:

When someone was part of a team, it felt like the people who fought beside them were all that really mattered. They cried on each other’s shoulders. They cheered each other on. They were there for each other through thick and thin. Most of the pilots who served under the galactic alliance were pretty tight knit with one another, meaning the pain of loss was worsened whenever such a tragedy struck. When a member of one of the alliance’s top intergalactic defence force teams loses their life during a search and capture mission that had gone wrong a new pilot is sent in as a replacement. As they struggle to find their place amongst people that seem to have no intention of moving on from their loss, a new threat slowly begins to rise with the intention of causing chaos and destruction on a scale that no one has ever seen before.

No easy way out:

(looking for someone to play as the captain)

It was very rare for those who believed that their sole purpose in life was to reign terror and destruction upon those who dwelled within the known galaxies to take prisoners, even more so when said prisoner actively tries to fight back against their captors rather than quietly submitting and accepting their fate, and allowing them to live despite the trouble they cause. When a lone spacer is attacked by a captain who leads a crew of fairly notorious criminals that have been seen on more than just a couple of ruined wanted posters they are given one of two options to choose from: serve alongside them as a part of their crew in exchange for being allowed to live, or be left to face the vast depths of space alone in a ship that would soon become their tomb due to the state of disrepair it was in. Will the spacer accept their fate? Or will they take their last stand right there and then?

Stowaway:

(looking for someone to play as the owner of the ship)

Life in the known galaxies was harder for some than it was for most. Whilst many people were able to live freely with little rules and regulations as to what they did, others were bound by law to follow a certain way of life. Most accepted their predetermined paths and did their best to stay out of trouble, whilst for others it was just that little bit harder to accept the way things were supposedly meant to be. Especially when things could go downhill very quickly if one happened to be on the wrong side of those laws. Whilst many people frowned upon ship jumping, the act of sneaking onboard a ship and hiding away from its occupants in order to travel, some people felt like it was the only way to reach their destinations when a fresh start to their life was in order. When a stowaway is caught trying to hijack a ship, will mercy be given? Or will they find themselves facing a new threat?

Enslaved:

(looking for someone to play as the master/mistress)

imagine living the life of one of the most successful people on the run that could exist. Galaxies trembled at your name. You and your crew swam in wealth and the going was good. Mutiny, sadly and sometimes not sadly, exists on its own accord. One person in particular reflected on this as they were forced to their feet. A collar attached to a chain and electromagnetic handcuffs prevented their escape as they stood for all those who cared to glance as they walked by in the market to see. No one wants to have their only life’s purpose be to serve another……only sometimes people don’t get that choice.

Across a sea of stars:

(looking for someone to play as one of the captives)

Although they’d abandoned their less than humble watery origins well before the first spaceship had even been invented, Pirates were believed to be one of the biggest threats that anyone could encounter within the known galaxies. Those who were brave enough to attempt to navigate through the vast starry seas of space without a small fleet rallied behind them would often meet their fate at the hands of the bloodthirsty buccaneers whose lust for wealth and power had completely overtaken their ability to feel remorse for their actions. Any twinges of guilt that did attempt to surface were often easily washed away by consuming vast amounts of alcohol and then drunkenly brawling with other members of the crew during the celebratory dinners that came after a successful day of looting or the claiming of another captain’s ship as their own. When a ship is captured by the most feared pirate of all after accidentally flying into their territory and the crew fearfully plead for their lives, fate decides to take matters into its own hands in a most unexpected way.

Last chance:

(looking for someone to play as one of the crew members)

Criminals, ranging from wannabe thieves to true crime lords, have been around long before anyone had even thought of the idea of building a spaceship and go where no one had ever been before. They’re often cunning, tricky to catch and more often than not are clever at disguising themselves whenever those wanted posters come up. It takes true talent to be on the wrong side of the laws that had been made by those long gone and get away with it. When a criminal that has been giving the alliance a run for their money has finally been captured, they are given a second chance to redeem themselves by having to work alongside the crew of the ship that captured them and even aid them to defend the ship if the need arises. Will this be enough to encourage a change of heart, or will it be the downfall of the crew and the alliance itself?

Betrothed:

Long before other planets had even been discovered, and for far longer than anyone could truly remember, there had always been arranged marriages. Arranged marriages, or betrothals as they were more often called, consisted of pairing two people together and making them get married regardless of how they felt about one another in order to secure ties to another land or another planet for what many hoped would be forever. Political marriages benefited everyone but the married pair it always seemed. After all, no one could possibly be happy being married to a complete and utter stranger, could they? How does one who is betrothed build a life of love and prosperity when the one who bears the rings of their union is not the one who also bears their heart.

To those who have made it this far, thanks for reading! If you are interested in writing with me please shoot me a friend request on discord and send me a little introductory message about yourself that includes your time zone, your availability, which idea you liked, what ideas you may have, what pairing you want to do and your favourite food so that I know you read the whole post.

Anything that is just “hey, I saw your ad. Wanna rp?” Will be immediately ignored. Introductions are also required even if you are simply inquiring about whether or not I am still looking for new partners and these types of messages will be ignored if they do not contain them.

My discord: tiberionwars

Can’t wait to write with ya!

[lightofthemagdalene]

Damage Has Been Done

Talking about what caused my hiatus/an ongoing struggle I’m having. I would really love some opinions from other practitioners.

So, a while back in 2020 I made a server. It was (and is, I suppose) a space specifically for the people I’d developed my most recent practice with and existed for the purpose of sharing developments on our practices as well as our past life recall work we were doing. It was also a space for us to be able to casually include our spirit companions in socialization.

I thought the 4 of us were pretty close! Genuinely! I considered them my best friends. I did a lot of radical acceptance and allowed myself to be as open as I could for the sake of being able to trust this group with something that has been historically beyond difficult for me to share. It was a big deal for me.

It was great for two years, and then during the third year (post Covid stress) things started to get iffy. I reached out to and made contact with a new unknown spirit for the first time (both the first time I’d talked to him and the first time I’d reached out to an unknown without being prompted so I considered this pretty major). Being a people pleaser and being concerned about our group I went right ahead and started sharing details, at one point I’d even gotten an indication he was interested in talking to one of my friends (who we will call M). I was excited to share as that was one of the friendships that had been feeling unstable and I was more than happy to share a project as a bonding exercise even though, again, it was earlier in my relationship with him than I was really comfortable sharing details.

And so M… took over. M was the most confident of us, and was often defaulted to for advice due to their experience. It was a power dynamic I’d been worried about since the creation of the server and had tried to do my best to counteract by not allowing myself to default to their opinions. I didn’t manage that this time and wasn’t as direct as I could have been with my discomfort, after all the whole point was getting the server working together again! I needed to trust them! Right?

Less than a week into me giving them permission to reach out to him they had married him. I should note this is a person with 20+ spirit spouses who had JUST done this to a spirit family member of another friend in the server (friend S). Instant, sudden new husband and a kind of baffled entitlement when it’s brought up that they’d just co-opted someone’s companion without permission. Instead of understanding how I felt (despite me talking to S about it extensively and them telling me they did), though, S started helping M. They started posting readings and “new information” that was literally identical to what I had posted. Like, the same key words and phrasing. And they were doing discussions outside of the server and absolutely everything was being kept secret.

When I finally made a post pointing out that I’d been excluded from work I was not comfortable with happening with a spirit I was still actively working on my relationship with and that I would prefer exploratory discussions happen out of DMs it was handled as if I was butting in. M was taken aback, and if I didn’t like it well then they’d just never work with him again and never discuss it again! That was notably not what I’d asked for, and I said that I was happy for them to work together but it felt like they were getting very swept up and doing unsafe spirit connection practices with an unknown entity AND it felt like I was having a spirit contact taken over without consenting to it.

It should be noted that it was explicitly a rule of the server that first contact/primary person would be defaulted to on all spirit interactions. That was created BECAUSE of S and M having had it happen in the past and it having caused severe trust issues.

They didn’t talk about the new spirit anymore, they barely talked. S kept apologizing but also saying they “didn’t understand” how I could feel like I did on the situation. M just acted like everything was fine. My relationship with S (who had been one of my closest friends) was never the same, and it had already been horribly impacted by events that happened while S had Covid and was experiencing health anxiety crisis after crisis so… I was already sensing we weren’t coming back from this, and then drawing back only confirmed that. I did try, but every conversation involved rehashing how sorry they were and I just desperately wanted to move on.

I’d stopped working with the spirit because the interaction had left me shaken, I eventually stopped practicing altogether because I didn’t trust myself. I have resumed both again recently, but the damage has been done and I am rebuilding.

10 months ago M left the server and deleted all of their content without comment. It had been more than a year since the events discussed, things had been fine. 9 months ago S blocked me everywhere except discord, and I sent them a message saying I was pretty much done with how obviously they hated me these days and how I’d rather we just call it quits.

They then left the server and (fairly dramatically) slowly deleted and blocked me on every platform that exists.

Also 9 months ago M began publicly working with the spirit in question. So, I guess they didn’t feel like actually respecting my boundary. I’m still so confused and hurt and legitimately don’t know if I should make this a call out post or what? M is a popular witchblr person who teaches other people about spirit work as part of their calling and I feel so unsafe knowing they’re out there mentoring people.

Anyway. Yeah. I’m focusing on my own work these days finally. I’ll be okay. I hope. I just likely won’t ever work with other people again.

[tinylittlecubby]

Since I either have the curse of cassandra or am a Moko Jumbie here are some further not fun predictions:

1) Elon Musk is making the moves he is making because he wants to be the next celebrity president. I dont know when, maybe when he is in his mid 60's or 70's but he wants it. I can see Mark Zuckerberg trying to do something similar, but maybe going down the Bill Gates route of political influence instead.

2) The resource wars, which are being positioned as wars for essential resources like water, are only being called such to distract from the fact that we have had many major resource wars in the past already. Wars over oil? Resource war. War over gold? Resource war. Every single god damn war over fucking land? Resource war (and maybe the most enduring version) Invasion/international interference in order to eradicate communism? Layered resource war (hard to do trade with a country that has a fundamentally different economic system/ideology then you) This narrative shift will be used the same way that the modern 'gender division' is being used. There has always been a gender divide. Gender divides have been an issue longer than capitalism has been an issue. Mysogyny was an issue before the 700 year long plague. So the current one is just a seperate chapter, not a new series. "We never had wars where people were going into other countries for a specific resource" is the same as "we never had so many men express so much vitriol for women" like where the hell have you been?

But I digress, this is a problem because it makes us treat the issue likes its new which calls for new solutions, instead of seeing the issue as old with already proven solutions. This leads to wasted time (both in terms of wasted time while living and destroyed time in terms of peoples lives being lost)

3) Online communities are gonna get messed up so much that over the next 2 decades everyone is going to migrate to tor based platforms. Although not tor based, this is already being seen with the fediverse. As tech literacy becomes better and people become more comfortable with teaching themselves things ( a cultural hallmark of the internet already) tor services are going to become accessible itself and user friendly and we are going to have a repeat of the early 00's and 2010's in terms of the internet but on different servers. I have many theories on how it could play out in different stages but I would literally need to make a video for it to make sense. Factors at play that are informing my call is: identify theft via A.I, lack of data privacy, the historical trend of dynamics flipping throughout history in general (in this case the white web becomes the deep/dark web and vice versa) advertising becoming so invasive and inescapable that people would rather lose out on money instead of deal with it (for example I could see the shift starting with cyber security oriented content creators making the shift over after they have made enough money, then other comp sci creators making the shift and not having made enough money from traditional social media so they are actually the ones to begin to learn how to monetize tor social media on mass and set up things like live streaming -which is extremely!!!! difficult currently to do on tor but they would be incentivized to make it happen due to money) also in terms of connecting with creators but creators protecting their identity, there is already vtuber culture and I could see people making avatars that pretty much look exactly like themselves irl but its still a vtuber model so its still personable but still distanced from a security perspective. Visual A.I might be accepted culturally to allow for this one circumstance so you can make a hyper realistic A.I vtuber model of yourself (JUST for aesthetics, it doesn't function independently from the live streamer they are still actively streaming) by using your own images and ONLY your own images.

[limalosershq]

WELCOME, JUNE! OR IS THAT VIOLET MENDEZ? EITHER WAY, YOU'RE A LIMA LOSER AROUND HERE NOW! Remember to look at our checklist here and then send in your account within 24 hours, if you need more time just let us know! That way I can send you the link to the discord server and you can get to plotting with everyone there. We all look forward to rping with you and once again, welcome to the mayhem of show choir!

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

NAME/ALIAS: june PRONOUNS: any! AGE (21+): 21+ TIMEZONE: aest ACTIVITY: with uni and work, lemme say 6/10!

IN CHARACTER INFORMATION

NAME: violet mendez FACECLAIM: isabella gomez AGE/BIRTHDAY: twenty, september 16th GLEE CLUB: vocal adrenaline SONG CHOICE: two birds - regina spektor MAJOR/MINOR/GRADE: freshman studying music composition  LOCATION: living off-campus in akron, with a large amount of roommates she barely sees. OCCUPATION: employee at rinky dinks. CLUBS/EXTRACURRICULARS/SPORTS: member of carmel’s gay straight alliance 

LIST AT LEAST 3 HEADCANONS ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER!

Violet comes from a family of performers. As a matter of fact, she comes from a family of Vocal Adrenaline performers. Both of her parents and all three of her older siblings attended Carmel and took home trophies during their time on the team, and they are now financial supporters of VA. This meant that Violet’s spot was quite literally handed to her. The only issue? Violet’s debilitating stage fright. Sure, she can hold a tune and do a box-step, but the second there are people in the audience, she’s falling over her own feet, which hasn’t exactly made her many friends.

When she’s not on stage, Violet does actually have a knack for writing music. She has no interest in performing the songs herself, but hopes they end up in the hands of someone really awesome some day. In a dream scenario, she’d be the ghost writer for some big mainstream pop star. All of the royalties and praise for the music, without any of it being on Violet’s name itself.

One thing that helps Violet feel like she’s less of an anxious mess is her best friend and confidant, Snake Gyllenhaal. Yeah, he’s her pet snake. He also happens to be perhaps the world’s only vegan ball python, which does make him a little less badass. A snake that refuses to eat meat and eats tofu instead? Probably about as cool as Violet herself.

QUESTIONS

IS THIS WHERE YOU PICTURED YOURSELF RIGHT NOW IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS?

Uh, well…no. I wanted to study veterinary medicine when I was a kid actually. But if I did that then I’d have to deal with the disappointed and disapproval stares of my family every time we spoke and I think I’d rather die than live through that so…yeah, music at Carmel it is! 

HOW’RE YOU FEELING ABOUT ALL THE SHOW CHOIR RIVALRY?

I had heard about it from my family, but I honestly thought they were trying to prank me. Like, people really take glee club seriously, don’t they? I don’t think the other teams are all that bad, they all seem nice enough…Don’t tell my parents I said that.

WOULD YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF A LIMA LOSER? WHERE EXACTLY IS YOUR LIFE HEADED, OR REALLY, WHERE SHOULD IT BE HEADING?

See, there’s another thing! I don’t see why Lima is so bad either! It’s quaint, I like driving through there sometimes when I wanna clear my head. If that makes me a loser, then sue me. And my life is…well, it’s heading somewhere! Currently to be decided, I guess.

[charcherry-weekly]

Charcherry Weekly - Issue 159

Augh.... so many thing happening this week. This is Mage of Light Nick Card. Let's get to it.

Summer Festival!

Early this week, the 2nd annual Unity village summer festival kicked off to a start. This year things stayed relatively busy, providing a lot of much needed revenue and publicity for the village. Page of Mind Samm and Shard's seaking shaped taiyaki stall was quite the hit, with a number of filling options available. A surprise vendor that showed up was the Greatdex stand, offering a style of pokedex that has more features than a standard issue pokedex, but doesn't quite have all the exhaustive features of an Ultradex. As a bonus, The Park's stand this year actually got more of its information accurate this year! There are still some glaring inconsistencies, but anything is better than the absolute mess of misinformation they had last year. Meanwhile, your dear newsletter writer managed to attract some new visitors to the local library! Granted, most of the visitors just wanted to swim in the pool, but I did my curative duty of asking around if anyone needed to find any books or particular information. Its really weird that with the way that search engines (particularly google) are getting worse lately, that its lead to libraries becoming more important than ever. Regardless, I have a feeling this place will continue to get a few more visitors now that it has an active librarian.

Wrap-up in the Clockwork City

Shortly after the kickoff of the festival, the people of Ironways arrived back in their reclaimed city. With word that Heir of Time Thoren Emit and Heart container server Gracidea Emit would soon arrive, out of town temporeans flocked to the site. Also of note, the party met up with Druid Lohannid, the chaotic green elf that was responsible for the quest to seek the Dew of the Mountain in the first place. They were accepted into the party, though with close watch applied to them. Upon nightfall, the active party was commended by the elders upon six stage for saving the city. Fighter Kale Ominoi was also given the conclusion of his rite's journey, essentially freeing him of all obligation and debt. They chose not to join the Grand Network for personal reasons. Eventually, Thoren and Gracidea arrived by air to greet the city. They arrived to six stage and it was firmly confirmed that Gracidea would now act as the god worshiped by the temporean church. A friendship between temporeans and pokemon was also established. At the end, Thoren offered a few personal words to Kale, before going off stage and being confronted by their sister Prince of Time Flux Emit. The rest of the active party took off down the road to the local pub for a couple drinks. Its at this point that the party finally decided upon a name to call themselves. From this day forward, they would be known as the Odd Squad. The next day, after the majority of the hangovers were conquered, they prepared their horses and cart to depart from the clockwork city. The odd squad set off for the coastal town of Shoreport to the north, to hopefully assist someone with seeking out a boat, possibly to make use of it to cross Lake Poole. The party was provided with cellphones and established their own memo to communicate through. It appears to be whitelist only so I do not know what the contents of this memo would be.

The odd squad continues their journey towards further adventures. Who knows what awaits them upon the horizon.

Pokemon Battles Galore

On thursday, the Unity Village Summer Festival Pokemon Battle Tournament was held in Unity Village, much like it was last year, though this time without the caveat of gym leader obligations at the end. Also, this time it was conducted in an elimination bracket style rather than round robin, since there were more participants than before.

The first battle was HAZEL vs Elwood. It took a while for the new mysterious trainer to arrive, but he soon showed his skills at the gym. Elwood had a team comprised of Jeffery the eggecute, Sullivan the solrock, Marcel the maractus, Zippy the sudowoodo, Juniper the phantump, and Don the fartetch'd. HAZEL's team comprised of FLOWER the shiny shaymin, MONF the monferno, MELVIN the umbreon, TIMBER the tropius, RIPPLE the bibarel, and LUKE the lucario. It was an exciting first match of the day, with HAZEL reaching her last pokemon while Elwood still had two, but MELVIN came in clutch with a wish that was sufficient enough to turn everything around in their favor! In the end, HAZEL's team won and continued onward. This sort of heated competition would come to define the mood for the rest of the day.

The second match was Heir of Time Rise Emit vs obviously a member of the jo-baddies Johnny. Rise brought their sinnohan team to the table, comprised of azumarill, Atlas the machoke, gallade, kricketune, steelix, and mew. The last party member managed to gather some shock and awe from the crowd. Johnny's team meanwhile comprised of Nasty the sneasler, a charizard called Flamelord the Smol, a venusaur called Big Beau Vinny, Takeshi the lokix, Almighty jr the exploding silvally, and a shiny blastoise known as Blasto the Master. Rise and Johnny remained rather evenly matched the entire time, keeping score neck and neck to the very end. It appears that the toxic spikes set early on by Nasty had done a number to Rise's team, and kricketune was no match for Big Beau Vinny's tankish exterior. Johnny emerged the victor in this match and continued onward.

The third match was Nate vs Joey. The powerful unovan native against the space boy. Nate's team comprised of ferrothorn, braviary, samurott, electvire, victini, and zoroark, while Joey's team comprised of Sunny! the solrock, XenoFey the clefable, Star! the starmie, Da Moon! the lunatone, BEM! the beheeyem, and Xeno-morph! the defense forme deoxys! While Joey's space themed team was dazzling, it was leveled by Nate's team, only encountering major difficulty with Xeno-morph! acting as a last line of defense for a number of turns. Nate managed to win with only two pokemon knocked out and continued onward.

The fourth match was Professor Coleman Branch vs Samm. Coleman's team was comprised of Big Locis the aerodactyl, Umbous the shiny umbreon, Fenris the arcanine, Kachin the genesect, Mordred the cereluge, and Flechette the drakloak. Samm's team was largely gym rentals from her husband's gym trainers, as she did not have a full team to enter on short notice. Her team was comprised of Krab+28 the kingler, shellder, venomoth, Reggie the riolu, Kla the klawf, and Pika the pikachu. Though she held on best she could, her largely unfamiliar team was bested by the professor's team. Coleman claimed victory and continued onward.

The fifth match Coleman was once again up, now against Gym leader Jovin. Jovin's team was comprised of Funny Guy the psyduck, Pow the kubfu, Mr. Fish the gyrados, Hercules the machop, Sir the sirfetch'd, and Shroom the breloom. Coleman retained the same team lineup as before, fully healed before beginning. It was an even but tough match-up between the two of them, Mordred dealing the final blow with a super effective bitter blade. Jovin awarded Coleman with the three-part Fury badge (badge name pending) for defeating him in an official match. Coleman yet again won and continued onward.

The sixth match was HAZEL vs Johnny. Nasty once again lead with toxic spikes, but LUKE was able to take out two pokemon before being bested. Halfway through, the toxic spikes were upgraded to inflict toxic poison. Almighty jr managed to hold back from exploding for long enough to take MELVIN by surprise. FLOWER quickly dispatched of Blasto the Master with seed flare. Overall, it was a well balanced match-up. HAZEL walked away the victor and moved onward.

The seventh match was Nate vs Coleman. Big Locis started out with a stealth rock, posing difficulty for Nate's team. There was a great deal of switching out during this match. At one point, zoroark disguised as electivire, though did not last long against Fenris. At the end it was Umbrous vs victini. Umbrous held on the best he could, but was bested by victini's U-turn, followed by a grass knot. Once again an intense battle, though sadly the professor's journey would fall short here. Nate claimed victory and moved onward.

The eighth match, gave Coleman one last chance to prove himself in battle against Johnny. Both sides applied field obstacles to each other, the toxic spikes managing to reach their full potential when Flamelord the Smol began using Dragon Tail to drag Coleman's pokemon out into the toxic spikes! Almighty Jr waited until Coleman sent out his last pokemon, Umbreous, to explode and clench the match. Johnny won this match and walked away with third place. The final match was Nate vs HAZEL. Braviary's superpower managed to do some major damage before retreating. There was a fair amount of switching out. Ferrothorn held fast, being tough and holding leftovers. He won the war of attrition against TIMBER, who was downed by iron barbs. HAZEL's last pokemon, FLOWER, couldn't hold on long due to two layers of spikes wearing them down quick, and refusing to wake up after using rest. In the end, Nate managed to win, having only gotten one party member knocked out.

Nate was declared the winner of the tournament in first place, while HAZEL ended up in second place. All three, Nate, HAZEL, and Johnny received trophies for their achievements on this day. HAZEL signed Nate's trainer card, and he also received a basket of rare evolution items from mayor Brae Emit, including a link cable. HAZEL was presented with a bouquet of flowers for second place.

With the tournament drawn to a close, everyone made their way to the stage where Samm would perform a dazzling mindfield illusion show. The crowd greatly enjoyed this display and erupted in applause afterwards.

After the show, HAZEL managed to calculate the updated ELO rankings for the group:

Katie 10.2 Nate 10.06 Jovin 8.92 Rise Emit 8.26 Brae Emit 7.82 Hazel & Gwyn 7.49 Johnny 5.81 HAZEL 5.12 Remote Soulbot 3.77 Professor Coleman Branch 2.28 Charles 1.03 Anton 0.37 Kid, Trainer of Pre-Evolutions -1.57 John, The Common Specialist -1.83 Joey -1.83 Elwood -1.83 Maggie -1.83 Samm -2.84 Nick Card -3.09 Shellderspire Isle VoidCo Employee -3.09 Shellderspire Isle Shellder -3.9 Hissnclinkanck -5.1

Unfortunately, directly after this was posted, HAZEL had been sent to another version of her world via surprise celebi collision, younger and with her shaymin, FLOWER, de-levelled to the point of debilitation. Her current team as of writing, aside from FLOWER, is NIGEL the glaceon, PHOBE the charmander, SAM the spinda, JIRACHI, and an egg. It is unknown when she will be able to return to Starter Planet.

A New Gym Leader?

The next day, a mysterious mist enveloped the village and a sinister masked rider appeared, riding spectrier, the ghostly horse pokemon. He dramatically offered an open invitation to challenge him to a pokemon battle, in return for a gym badge. Witch of Time Katyleen Kitten answered the call, HAZEL's remaining pokemon team temporarily working alongside her. Katie carefully made her way through the misty forest, relying upon LUKE's aura sense to lead them to the site of the battle. The macabre gym leader appeared before the challenger, appearing to emerge from a conspicuously placed coffin! After confirming the particulars of the battle, they began the match! Gym Leader "Nameloc"'s team was comprised of Stuff the banette, Mordred the cereluge, Flechette the drakloak, sableye, and finally Caliburn the aegislash. Katie's borrowed team from HAZEL was comprised of MONF the monferno, MELVIN the umbreon, TIMBER the tropius, RIPPLE the bibarel, and LUKE the lucario. She worked surprisingly well with HAZEL's team and was able to whittle down "Nameloc"'s pokemon. For defeating him in an official match, the mysterious gym leader presented Katie with the Hourglass badge.

This week’s known market stands in Desertia Town:

Katie’s potion stand (*CaFAI filling in for Katie when unavailable)

shinyjiggly pokesnacks stand (ran by Rufus)

Dang, way too many thing happened this week. At least I managed to get some sleep tonight and get some solid progress on that flash animation. It is very likely that desertia town may gain a new wave of commerce as more visitors from the Plit portal show up to visit. For now though, I need more sleep. https://letssosl.boards.net/thread/393/charcherry-weekly-issue-159