#i feel so fucking disconnected from all my online friends in general i feel like i dont have anyone anymore

[toastsnaffler]

in a hilarious turn of events my flatmate didn't even know I use any pronouns....

[almondarcade]

i really just show up once every month to use this shit as a diary because i cant on twitter where people will see lmAO

[elytrafemme]

i think i'm going to take a break from tumblr. (that's the TLDR, the rest of the post is long ramblings) i know that's shitty, because God knows I never check discord (not nearly as much as i should, but there's just so much) and barely reply to ao3 comments and so the least i could do is just exist here. but being on here makes the anger and grief i've been feeling for the last few weeks amplify. i can't exactly place it (well, i can place some of it, but that's neither here nor there), but i think while online activism in a place truly as online and disconnected as tumblr can be meaningful, it's so much more important to me right now to be fighting the battle in the world around me. and to find that community. because obviously i love you guys but when i feel like i'm about to spiral into a horrible place, i have to find company in the form of someone physically with me (maybe my therapist was right about me having someone on standby in this city huh). and when i see people with the most horrific understandings of what is happening in the world, to my siblings across the water, it's easier to contest that and stomach it when it's around me here than online. because at least i can do something about one of those things. what's happening in Gaza (and i admit I need to educate myself more about what's occurring in Armenia & Sudan) contains a pain that i only know a sliver of, being a second generation Iraqi Muslim across the Atlantic. but the pain is still visceral, and i've never felt this disappointed in myself in my entire life every fucking second. i'm on the edge of a relapse into something i thought i got over two years ago, and i can barely exist with myself when i'm alone but can't bring myself to ask for help. i just want to lay on my friends' air mattress in the floor above mine and never see my old friends or family again. october was the best month of my life, but simultaneously the worst, because every time there wasn't a movie night or a hangout i was cracking into pieces. for the first time in five years i need to make a safety plan, not for my life but for what i do within it. because i have no idea what tomorrow is going to look like for me but i know it's not going to be good. i'm convinced people are watching me and that if i make just one post here i'm going to hear someone banging on my door and i am so fucking scared. i usually repress these things but yesterday's realization that i'm more alone than i've ever been, and that i've been alone for so much longer than i thought, is making it hard to breathe. i don't know how to be a good person. i don't know how to live with myself anymore.

so i'm taking a break from tumblr. i might still be liking posts, but i need to force myself to stop using the site. i don't remember my password entirely so i don't want to log out, but i won't be here. it's also safe to say i'll be gone from discord for a while, too. looking at my dms makes me nauseous and i hope at least one person may be able to understand why. i'm sorry to my friends who i've not replied to in a while, i love you and i think of you and there will be a reply. obviously with every "i'm taking a break" post there's the odds i'm back here tomorrow, but i don't think that's the case.

i'll be okay. i love you all. see you.

[lesbianamalvada]

not to oil a flame but if you consider doing hours of research and collaborating with multiple people to make sure you're factually correct and then publicizing your findings in a digestible format for the public about very significant and harmful disinformation that is still being spread around to this day is the "bare minimum", I think you're the problem

the queer community didnt get where it is by shunning help and trying to pretend you're better than others. have a little respect for your history and the community that protects you, unless you want to know why we had to fight so hard to get where we are

this is seriously over todd in the shadows 😂😂😂. Bruh what research did Todd have to do to point out hacky lies like "Forrest Gump had no cultural relevance" and "Most Nazis were gay". The ones that are still being spread around to this day were 1. Covered by Hbomb as well or 2. He didn't even get to. Yes researching a video debunking obvious lies (that will in turn get you way more praise, clout, money than effort you put in) IS THE BARE MINIMUM . IT'S A DRAMA VIDEO. He debunked obvious shit.

"the queer community didnt get where it is by shunning help and trying to pretend you're better than others."

He made a youtube video, not a nonprofit asshole. I'm allowed to have a fucking opinion on youtube drama.

"have a little respect for your history and the community that protects you"

Wtf? What the actual fuck??? What does a todd in the shadows video essay have to do with my history? How about the fact I have been pointing out Somerton (and other prominent queer youtubers) lies about our history and get other "kweers" attacking me for it everyday. And I didn't need some guy to be mean to my friend on Twitter to do it. Plus TODD ISN'T IN OUR COMMUNITY, and frankly, it shows. Like him being so flabbergasted that James cares more about best actress category than best actor, when that's normal in the gay male community. And I don't have any beef with Todd, my point was the EXTRA praise he was getting and WHY like him being a straight person made his contribution more special???

Also another thing I hate about you motherfuckers, youtube essays aren't protecting me or anyone else from shit. Yeah they *can* be education, but it's a business people profit from like everyone else. And a lot of them raise money for trans issues sometimes but it's not like they are our actual political representatives. Can you name one LGBT activist, their place in history, and what they did? Probably not, you lot can just say "Marsha P. Johnson threw the first brick at stonewall" and run. People like you are why Somerton got so popular, you like the aesthetics of education and activism without doing any of the work, like reading or community service.

"unless you want to know why we had to fight so hard to get where we are"

When will you people learn online discourse about youtube drama has zero effect on the rights of anyone anywhere?? All this because I'm not sucking off some straight youtuber who made a drama video? You're really threatening me with the repeal of my rights? You people are so disconnected from reality. Who the fuck is "we", anon? What have you done?? I was shunned by my mother's side of the family and my dad couldn't even look at me when he found out I was gay. I was homeless because of it, I lost everything. You know who didn't help me during that fucking time??? A FUCKING VIDEO ESSAYISTS!! Changing opinions on homosexuality, lesbian activists who actually made political changes, and myself! That's what "protected" me, okay? Frankly the LGBT community treats lesbians like crap and always guilts us with "we need to stick together" or "you don't want to fight for your rights again do you??" As if we aren't still fighting! So no, I won't be guilted into sucking the dick of the straight white man of the day. I'm not going to put up with being interrogated on why I don't suck dick in general. I'm not putting someone's feelings before my physical boundaries. I'm not going to police my language. I'm not going to qualify discussions of homophobia against lesbians with how some groups have it worse or how we're all effected, or how I'm not one of those problematic gay, or etc. I'm not bending over for an online queer community that produces nothing of value, frankly. This behavior is condescending, self-important, and honestly embarrassing.

[katsudondom]

I need to vent, sorry

long post incoming :)

↓

Yeah, I feel that I was born in the wrong generation

And no, I don't think I'm special or anything for saying that.

Like, do people think I want to feel like an outcast whenever I'm around a group of people that are the same age as me? Because I'd trade my interests and niches any day if it meant I could finally feel what it's like to have a group of friends by my side, or a partner holding my hand.

And yes, I do have many criticisms about certain aspects of modern technology and social media, but I don't downright hate it or dismiss the good that came from modern technology/the Internet entirely. If anything, I'd love to be born when the Internet was just starting to walk, when it wasn't as popular yet and when you were considered a nerd for even owning a computer. That'd be an amazing time to be alive, until "normies" (cant find a better word sorry I know it's cringe) started making the Internet more mainstream and later on it being the #1 reason why Americans are more stupid and self-centered then ever (in my personal opinion).

I'm more so disconnected with my generation because of the culture, not modern technology.. A generation where we believe in anything without doing any research or seeing different perspectives first, a generation that's easily brainwashed into believing anything, a generation that's so sure that their opinion is right that they'll even ruin someone else's life or ridicule them into oblivion just because the other person thinks differently. That's the reason why I feel like I don't belong with my generation, not because "ew social media".

Actually, that's not the whole reason why-

I also really just love the grunge/rock culture of the 90's, and the scene/emo culture of the early 2000's. It all felt like a community back then, like wherever you were at there'd be people accepting you with open arms, no matter who you were or what you looked like, ready to have you join their clique people that just liked the same shit as you do.

Nowadays, there doesn't even feel like a community anymore, even within your own culture. Everyone's divided, everyone's prejudice, and everyone can't put their differences aside and at least co-exist with each other. This "you're with me or against me" mentality is getting old real fast. Instead, let's have thoughtful and provoking conversations with each other, instead of being quick to go on social media and wishing ill to the white kid in your History class just because he wore a red hat that you happened to disagree with.

Idk, it's all just really silly.

I was just scrolling down watching YouTube when I saw a video calling people like me who think they're in the wrong generation "annoying" and I had to vent since it actually triggered me a bit, ngl, because just by looking at the thumbnail where they put a bunch of modern technologies and had "modern" in bold letters with the word being crossed out, I knew what points they were going to make, and I just needed to vent about how not everyone who feels like an outcast is trying so hard to be different.... It's 99% the complete opposite and I just always hated that stereotype from people who obviously have it way better in life, from people who clearly don't understand what it's like to be almost invisible even when you try so hard to be liked/seen to the point where you fantasize about a time you weren't even born in because "what if?".

Shit, I'm done, needed to get that off my chest and the only way I'd feel good about it is by posting it online. Scared to put tags on this because half of the criticisms about Gen Z that I wrote about relate to about 99% of Tumblr users, so I might piss someone off but fuck it, I want my voice to be heard and no one will probably care to read this anyway.

And yes, I know there's other teens/young adults out there like me, who has the same mindset as I do. I don't think that I'm the only special snowflake that feels this way, but it's so fucking hard finding someone who sees the world the same way as I do, that it does make me feel a bit like I am the only one.

Anyway,

Goodnight 🖤

[sbeefs]

uhhh generally nsfw text warning?? some talk of p*rn and such and also sexuality and male partner, lmao

listing myself as bisexual on here has opened such a can of worms in my head because I was given unfiltered access to the internet at far too early of an age and I basically immediately fell into obsessively looking at fucked up porn art. like I couldn’t deal with real porn even before I knew how fucked it was behind the scenes (and on camera), like I’m an autistic mess who can barely look at people’s faces in real life let alone when they’re naked and fucking or whatever. so I just looked at art and that’s a mixed blessing bc while it isn’t real, it’s probably partially referenced from real porn and the limits of the human body in reality no longer exist so you get some really fucked up shit going on that I’m not gonna get into the details of bc no one needs that. but let’s just say I was getting into some bizarre, abstract stuff and like, it’s all drawn by men, all of it. I had some access to female drawn porn that was usually better on tumblr but after the porn ban I lost all of that and was just stuck with male-drawn garbage where consent was nonexistent always, like either right from the start or a woman would consent and then it’d go too far and she’d want it to stop and it wouldn’t. it sucked so much but I guess I was kinda addicted and fucked in the brain so it felt like that’s all I could jack off to ever. 

and I had (and still have) a complete disconnect between myself and my libido, just crippling self hatred and disgust for my body and self so I turn myself off, so when I’m trying to get off, I just don’t put myself in any situation, I’m not included. and for my entire teens I considered myself asexual because I had no interest in touching anyone else or having sex or dating or kissing or anything, I just had my weird, abstract porn that made me feel like shit. and then at like 18-ish I went “asexuality is not real I don’t think, so what am I” and bc I still wasn’t feeling anything or at least not recognising it as feeling something, I went “statistically speaking I am probably heterosexual” so I went with that. and then at 18 I met a guy online and we became friends and then after a couple months we ended up dating and I was like “great, I’m fixed and I don’t have to think about this anymore” and it was fine! like we’re both autistic and he had a really delayed sexuality too due to fucked up shit happening to him as a kid and teenager so we didn’t talk about anything sexual for the first year and a half or so? we were just close friends who would sometimes think about handholding or hugging and it was nice. and then like a while into it I started having sexual urges and it took a while for him to catch up in which I just felt like such a pervert all the time, like my sexual urges were immoral and I was forcing myself on him by having those thoughts. eventually he did catch up with me and it was nice and we’d have sexual conversations and stuff. we’ve never sent any sorta photos to each other though like I’ve never even seen him shirtless and I don’t think I’d want to see any part of him naked in a photo, it feels very wrong. like I’m hoping and guessing it’d be fine in person but it feels really weird online. I’ve never met him in person so I’m just guessing there but yeah.

but anyway about a year ago I started thinking about everything again and I realised that if what I saw as attraction to men within me was indeed attraction to men (which I’m sure it is), then I also have the same level of attraction towards women. now I do need to say that on both sides this is very limited. I’m peak “demisexual” type if I believed in that nonsense, ya know? I’ve either not got enough of a libido or my libido is too fucked to really look at a person and go “they are sexually attractive” so I have a hard time recognising it. so I see people go “you gotta want to eat pussy to be a ssa woman” and that makes perfect sense but I don’t *know* if it fits me?? like it’s so fucked in my head and I’m scared I’m actually just pornsick and objectifying women because of that rather than experiencing a genuine sexual attraction to them. but I also don’t know where objectification ends and sexual attraction starts and if there’s overlap and if I’m capable of having both perhaps??? like I’m sorta scared to approach it and thinking about it makes me feel predatory and homophobic somehow. I have dreams sometimes where I’m eating pussy and I never knew what to make of that, like if they were pornsickness or something. and I was using the “I’m objectifying women” excuse for a while and I thought “well it’ll lessen if I went cold turkey on the porn and looked at more imagery of women as natural human beings instead” but that’s actually just made it stronger. like I can now differentiate a type in my head and I react more strongly to seeing a naked or lightly clothed woman or even just a normally clothed one too.

and its made me think about shit that happened in school to me like this one female friend of mine who looking back I probably had a crush on but somehow didn’t realise it was a crush?? like I was making amvs on flipnote about her and me to love songs and our thighs touched once while we were sat at a desk together and I genuinely couldn’t stop thinking about it and I still remember it now and I was probably so much less subtle than I realised about leaning my leg into it and oh godddddd

and this is absolutely tmi (but this whole entire post is so) but I tried masturbating last night to just a thought about two female characters of mine making out, touching each others bodies and fingering/rubbing and I successfully got wet and came in less time than it takes me when looking at the fucked up porn and I genuinely felt nice afterwards instead of guilty and uncomfortable. and I’ve never been able to do that while thinking of a male and female character having sex, even when it’s been picturing it as nice and loving and mutual. so like, I guess I am sexually attracted to women even though that still feels wrong and weird to say? and I don’t know maybe that’s still objectification somehow.

I think my strongest guess right now is that I am bisexual but my m+f side of my sexuality is all broken and twisted from all the weird fuckin porn I looked at for years, while my f+f side is more sheltered because f+f porn on the sites I go on are still very male-centric, it’s all drawn by dudes, and I just avoided those thoughts for a long time. and just like, some internalised issues somewhere down the line, though I dunno where those would come from bc my family’s never been openly homophobic or anything, my parents are pretty casual about that sorta stuff and my friend group in school was mostly girls who dated each other, funnily enough

I dunno, rambling. none of it matters anyhow bc I’m probably never dating again if the boyfriend thing falls through, I’m too autistic for it. 

[eastcoastzilla]

34!!

I'm almost positive no one gets on tumblr anymore so I'm gonna use it like a livejournal from 2005

Crazy to think that person above in the photo is me + I am now 34. Wasn't I just 19 yesterday? How does time do that? Move so fast and not at all, all at the same time..

So much changes, yet also stays the same. Year 5 this Nov at Cowan - I would say I am content there. It works, it is steady, + that's all I can really ask for at this point. Everything in life is super unstable and as I get older I find myself craving that stability more and more. That feeling of peace; that feeling of everything being okay and knowing that whatever comes our way we will be okay. The old saying "we want for nothing" becomes more relatable in my 30's. Don't get me wrong though - I do NOT feel 34. Heck, I don't even feel 30. I still feel like I'm in my 20's. I think my a lot of my generation feels that way until they are in their 40s/50s and I'm okay with it. From working at a retirement home for 10 years, I've come to highly believe that age is just a number. (Check back in with me in five years to see if I have a new opinion. I bet I do.)

Material things don't matter. I don't need things to feel like I've lived a good life. I just want to be happy and find enjoyment with the person I love to share life with :). Things are scary and life can be fucking hard but I'm proud of how far we've come. Never asking for too much but it can feel like the odds are stacked against us/me. I try to remind myself that there are peaks and valleys. Writing shit out helps me get it out and move on - that's how I've always been able to process things.

Rinzler got sick right when we were going away to NY for my birthday. We spent 3 days thinking we were losing our best buddy of 12 years. He ended up pulling through and Perry hall animal hospital saved the day but it was super scary + eye opening. He's getting older and we are trying to appreciate the time we have with him here. It's why I wish I had a pet growing up so I would be more prepared to lose one since it's inevitable. At least we have him for now and he's a great light in our lives.

It's September and very soon it's the first day of fall. I'm super bummed summer is over - I'm always cold so I'm down with the heat! However I can't wait to camp soon.

Friends are grown up, moved away, married + doing the fam/kids thing. I love to see them happy and enjoy meeting their babies. Kae's boys are amazing - I'm always blown that she is a mom just because it will always feel like we are still 16 burning CDs for the first time.

Idk why but there's a weird stigma about people who don't want to have kids. Plus I wish people would stop saying "want". Of course I WANT to have kids. I believe I SHOULDNT have kids for my own personal reason that's no one's business but my own. So even though I have chosen not to at this time, it's not okay to assume that I don't get sad about not having kids or that I hate kids. Neither are true. Sometimes I have to not look too deeply at photos online because I will get into my own head and it will take off from there. I don't think that will ever go away. Maybe it's a natural thing - like a natural "maturnal" thing something within me that can't help it cos it screams HEY YOU SHOULD PROCREATE AND BE A PARENT. Whatever it is, it's le pits. There is an eternal, internal voice war going on in my head - should I feel guilty knowing that sometimes I can't spend too much time online or I get really sad about seeing all the mom photos, knowing I'll never be a mom.. I'll never get those firsts.. It's my choice to not have kids so is it even fair for me to get sad? Uh yes thats how you feel let yourself feel it - then I disconnect and stop looking or thinking about it until the next time I do it all over again. Idk, maybe it's something I'm supposed to work through? It's weird. Logically I know it's a smart decision for where I'm at, where we are at, and things directly relating to the happiness and fullness of the child in question. It's a decision I am content with but at the same time have so many thoughts on. Hopefully it'll get easier. Another part of me hopes that I will finally befriend a human being in my later years and we can chat about it like rory and lane. But clearly I just watch too much TV/movies. At least those are good right now. Except for the internet - XFINITY sucks ass.

That is all. Goodnight :)

[glitchdollmemoria]

more paragraphs on paragraphs about sappy conversion feelings

once again stating that jewish conversion student joy is an emotion unlike anything else, in fact its an emotion with so many different facets and intricacies between different people that it feels unfair to chalk it up to one single emotion.

i used to struggle a lot with trying to study, or even reading for fun, largely because of my issues with disorganized thinking (which i can recognize is affecting how im writing this post, but listen, im not fucking cured lol). in the past year or so since i started looking into conversion, ive improved a lot in that regard. i still do struggle with disorganized thinking, but when it comes to jewish studies, i struggle a lot less. my brain has a bit less trouble trying to make sense of what im reading or hearing. and when it comes to the trouble i still do have, ive been able to apply skills that i previously didnt use often, like just going batshit with a pack of highlighters. since then, ive found it easier to apply those skills even outside of jewish studies - i can highlight fictional books to help myself follow along, i can put ebooks into documents so i can digitally highlight them, that sort of stuff.

and now i feel more motivated to study and read and learn and do things just in general! a year ago i mostly spent my free time sitting around in my room playing video games or browsing around online. and neither of those are bad on their own, but i really wasnt doing much else. it felt like i was mostly killing time. now, a year later, i often feel like i have too much i want to do, i have so many hobbies and goals i keep adding to - jewish studies, visual art, writing, music, computer science, reading, roleplay, and even still video games and browsing online, theres so much i want to do and really no shortage of activities i can fill my time with. i feel so much more satisfied and whole as a person, because ive been able to take that excitement and motivation from pursuing conversion and apply it to other aspects of my life. i feel less guilty taking time to relax and do less important things because i know that i spend plenty of other time taking steps toward the goals i have in my life. i feel more balanced than i ever have.

theres also the joy of being part of a community. i used to be very disconnected from the people around me, and this is still something i deal with for a lot of reasons, i dont expect to ever fully stop feeling that disconnection. but going to the synagogue, being invited to events, connecting with the other congregants, all of it helps me to feel like i have a spot where i do belong. right after i came back from my first time attending this congregation a couple days ago, i immediately went and told my friends that i knew this was my congregation. these are the people who didnt hesitate to take me in, this is the building where i feel comfortable and happy and at home, this is the community i want to be involved in. i never had that growing up. theres a large part of me thats almost grateful for all the time ive spent isolated from others, even if it wasnt an isolation that i deserved, because it makes me all the more overjoyed and grateful to finally have somewhere i feel like i belong.

and then theres the aspect of learning more about my jewish heritage. as with the rest of the things in this post, this isnt meant to be a universal experience, but in my case i do have jewish family from generations back who i didnt even know about until i told my grandmother i wanted to convert and she started telling me about her own grandfather. and its been so fascinating to look into my ancestry, to learn the names of the people im descended from, to read about people who lived over a hundred years ago, to learn about the culture they came from. i have a whole new life goal now to visit the country my great-great-grandfather immigrated from! i want to bring my boyfriend with me and go explore all the beautiful landmarks! and im not sure the best word for it, but i think i could say its fulfilling, to be coming back to the culture and religion that my family became disconnected from due to assimilation, disconnected even to the point that my father didnt believe his own mothers claims of going to shul as a kid. i get to learn about all these traditions i never even knew were a part of my family history! i get to raise my future kids with jewish culture, and teach them about their great-great-great-plus-grandparents.

everything about converting feels like coming home. i am exactly on the path im supposed to be on. im growing into myself, finally. never have i been this intent on living. i think thats the best way i can phrase it. i want to toast over and over, l'chaim, l'chaim, l'chaim, just like i did with my new congregation last shabbat.

[ms-demeanor]

Stressed Computer Anon:

Hi friend!

You’ve actually given me the idea for a very helpful book I want to write but it’s pretty clear you’re not going to be okay waiting that long so here’s a very, very basic primer for people in similar situations

SO YOU THINK YOU’RE BEING CYBERSTALKED

If you’re worried about being tracked online by people who have somehow accessed your computer or phone and/or you’re worried about your computer being taken over FEAR NOT! This is VERY fixable!

So the thing is the only way that people can track you like this is by having some kind of network access to your devices. I can’t track your cellphone if it isn’t connected to the cell network (at least not without a pretty serious amount of legwork and a warrant) and I can’t track your computer if it’s not connected to the internet.

The absolute easiest, fastest, most guaranteed way to fix this problem is by disconnecting all your devices. I know that doesn’t seem great because what’s the point of having the devices if they’re not going to be connected, but don’t worry you’ll get this settled and get back online eventually.

What you are going to do FIRST is get on a device that you’ve never used before, get on a computer or phone network you’ve never used before, and you’re going to change your passwords. While you’re at it you may want to get yourself set up with a password manager. Here’s a step by step of the ideal way this would work:

Go to someplace with public-ish computers where you can use the computers for a while (school or public library works well)

Open up a private session of whatever browser is installed on that computer

Create a protonmail email account

Log in to each of your online accounts, change the recovery email to the protonmail account, and reset the passwords

(do the rest of the stuff that i’m going to tell you about)

Install a password manager AFTER you’ve sanitized your network and change all your passwords AGAIN using the password manager generated passwords.

Once you have reset all your passwords (steps 1-3) it is time to sanitize your network and your extant devices.

Start by doing a backup of your phone and your computer. This is a FILE BACKUP ONLY, you DO NOT want to restore from backup.

Make sure you’ve got the manufacturer installation discs and activation keys for any software that you have on your computer (or the online equivalent - you don’t use a disc to install MS office these days, you use a Microsoft account and you should have already changed your password for that) because you are going to have to REINSTALL your computer. This means you ALSO need an installation disc for your operating system.

Connect to your router and change the password, select the most secure security settings you router allows.

Reinstall your operating system on your computer and factory reset your phone (make sure you’ve written down all your contacts and saved all the files on your computer or phone to an external device because you will lose them with the reset/reinstall).

(Windows, Mac, Android, iOS)

Make sure that the only things you plug into your computer are things you’ve purchased - remove all wireless dongles for mice or keyboards, make sure the chargers for your phones are all ones that you’ve purchased and not any that were given to you, and only plug stuff back in if you’re 100% sure you know what it goes to.

AFTER REINSTALL/RESET TURN OFF ALL THE WEIRD WIRELESS CONNECTIONS YOUR PHONE AND COMPUTER MAKE. Turn off bluetooth, turn off network discoverability, turn off anything that lets shit talk to your computer or phone.

(This will break/disable things like smart speakers, activity trackers, and a bunch of other IoT tech. If you’re paranoid enough to be doing all of this stuff you should NOT be using those things anyway)

Once you’ve reinstalled your OS on your computer go online and set yourself up with a VPN. If you are feeling EXCEPTIONALLY paranoid you can do this using a mobile hotspot instead of your internet connection. Also if you are feeling exceptionally paranoid you can encrypt your devices.

Now that your traffic is encrypted go back into your router settings and reset your password again. You may want to consider purchasing a better/more secure router or one that has an included VPN (from that list I like the Synology router).

Since at this point your computer should be pretty much completely taken care of you can follow the steps in my other post on the issue to secure your phone.

At this point if you connect to the internet through a secured router and a vpn, and if you are using a VPN on the phone and don’t have any weird mystery apps installed and have shut down app permissions, and if you’re doing all of that carefully and well and you’ve changed all your passwords a couple times, nobody should reasonably be able to snoop your traffic.

That isn’t to say I’d consider this setup safe to plot against the government or anything or to prevent a subpoena to your wireless provider if someone filed one, but for the average weirdo on the internet who wants to creep on your traffic you’ve pretty much locked them out.

After that be careful about what you post online (because a SHOCKING amount of what people think has come from someone spying on their network is actually just stuff that’s reasonably extrapolated from your socials) and if someone approaches you in person about your online activities don’t be alone with that person and publicly challenge them about what they’re saying (maybe take a video of them and post that online). Also do not allow other people physical access to your phone, computer, or router.

Based on the descriptions you’ve given me in your asks it seems reasonably possible that you’re experiencing some upsetting coincidences and that nothing is happening, but there’s also a possibility that someone is remotely accessing your computer. If so, doing everything that I’ve described will close off their access.

If you continue to have these upsetting experiences after going through all of these steps I’d say to have a conversation with a reasonable friend and get a reality check. Unfortunately people are often very scared of computers and because they don’t understand them sometimes innocuous things can be upsetting.

There have been several people who have visited our hacker meetups over the years to beg us to stop the hackers attacking them when there is nobody attacking them or they’ve got things set up in such a way that it would be impossible to do what they think is happening. Fixating on the belief that you’re being attacked and tracked can be very upsetting and can make you more likely to misinterpret nonthreatening happenstance as a cohesive and intentional plan.

I’m not saying that’s what’s happening to you, your circumstance is in a gray area where I don’t want to tell you that someone is watching you and you should be paranoid because that’s not what it sounds like, but the things you’re describing reasonably COULD be because of intruders on your computer so there’s no harm in hardening your network. HOWEVER if you DO harden your network and that doesn’t make you feel any better it’s time to ask for some assistance from people in your life.

IN GENERAL to avoid having people remotely access your computer you should:

Make sure that you are very cautious about what programs you install

Do not open unexpected email attachments and do not click on mystery links

Use unique passwords across your accounts

Do not allow people physical access to your devices

Use encryption on your web traffic through a VPN or a secured router

Do not grant people permission to access your computer or allow people to talk you through the process of setting up access for them (so if someone calls from “microsoft” and says they need access to your computer to fix it just hang up)

Use a strong antivirus program

And in general if you think that something FUCKING WEIRD is going on with your computer you should

document every instance of it being fucking weird

take a photo or video of the fucking weird thing on your phone

think about what someone has to gain by accessing your system

think about the ways that someone could plausibly access your system

check in with someone who knows more about computers than you do (like me - this is the right thing to do! and similarly the people who come to the hacker meetups are doing the right thing! But it’s important to listen to these folks and learn from the conversation instead of dismissing the information they give you - that “what do they gain” question applies here too. I have nothing to gain by misleading you, so it’s very unlikely that I’m lying to you)

And in your life in general:

If you’re scared about something you should ask questions and learn more. Everything is much less scary when you know how to fix it or are able to identify the source of a problem. This is true for computers, it’s true for auto repair, it’s true for plumbing.

So I’m really glad you asked, and good luck. I hope this helps.

[abloodymess]

I am a music person. One of my earliest memories is listening to Patti Smith's Horses with my Mom as we washed dishes. The Velvet Underground, weird Jazz, Chicago Blues, 70s Soul, along with all the heavy hitters of classic rock (Stones, The Who, Beatles, Kinks, etc) were always coming out the stereo my entire childhood. As a child my Dad took me to see and meet all sorts of old blues guys, he also used me to sneak back stage, it was a good gimmick and I have fond memories of standing just off stage as Bonnie Raitt was about to take the stage, and her taking a shine to the 7 year old roaming around.

Anyways, I thought this was how all kids experienced music. When we moved and I started a new school (big 4th grade) and I tried to communicate my love of music, kids my own age had no idea what I was talking about. My first sense of a disconnect between myself and my peers of this farm town. Reading Thrasher and watching skateboard videos sure planted the seeds of a whole world of modern music I had not experienced yet.

I did not come online as a modern music fan until 91. My cousin noticed I was getting drawn into metal and hard rock; he took me aside and showed me this new band called Nirvana. He had Bleach and showed me it, "you like this?, they are playing in two weeks in Chicago, want to go?" Not sure how we got my mom to say yes, but my first concert without my folks was seeing Nirvana at the 1200 person club The Metro just before the Teen Spirit video broke. I honestly was kind of scared, but the energy and the feel of the electricity in the room changed me. I knew this is something I wanted to be part of. Are there more bands like this?

91-95 felt like it should have been a lifetime, looking back its crazy how small that window really was. How fast the mainstream was able to pounce on underground bands with really progressive ideals and just decimate them. They either died (literally or financially), went back to the underground, or imploded as the machine found copies of copies that could fit in the box but were easier to deal with. If Nirvana was a Pixies rip-off, I am not sure what you would call Days of the New when they showed up in 97. God bless REM for soldiering on. (I am generalizing here because there was A LOT of music that got marketed as “Girl Music” your Tori Amos, Fiona Apples, Natalie Merchants, all of a sudden this was music for girlfriends and should be separated to the Lilith Fair while “real music” was Creed or something? and I am not even touching Hip-Hop here) There was a moment though in the early/mid 90s where it was perfectly normal to see Cibo Motto on the same stage as Soundgarden, then something changed. 

“Grunge” or whatever you want to call it was hollowed out and the imitators were fizzling out (some great singles in there but very few career groups), there was a push by radio to somehow hybrid cool DJ/Rave culture with rock culture and you got “Electronica” which was kind of soulless, but the good and pioneering electronic groups got a place in the sun. Rock though, it got hyper masculine (and not that Grunge wasn’t, but there was a sincerity and fragility that was removed) and fucking dethatched from any other feeling but anger, anything else was viewed as a weakness, there was no longer a sense of queerness or the feminine. 

By 96 I was out, I wanted nothing to do with what was going on, so I turned inward and got real into early Emo bands and old Goth records, I was a full on punk with metal leanings. Screamy boys and girls who had nothing but “feelings” and sincerity bubbling out of themselves. We formed our bands and locked ourselves in basement across the country with our own shows and did our own thing, ignoring what was going on above ground. A nice deep sub-genre of a sub-genre to keep myself with not having to associate with what I saw as the meatheads taking over. (Again, not that there wasn’t dreadful misogyny, racism, and shitty shit going on where I was). 

When I watched the documentary it was incredibly depressing. I can’t say if the documentary itself was good or bad, but the ideas presented, the where we were at that time and how we got there just kept rolling over and over in my head and how fast it happened from 94-99 a complete sea change happened. I don’t really have any insight to that, but its just staggering to go from waiting for a concert to start and having Food Not Bombs handing out flyers and a few short years later it is Girls Gone Wild getting girls to show their boobs (AND IT WAS THE SAME BAND just 2 years later and a really different fan base and energy). 

Clearly the promoters of Woodstock 99 were at best evil dummies, who after all this time showed zero reflection and just wanted to blame women and Mtv or the bands or anyone but themselves. I do not think the documentary sides with them, but presents that is what these men believe. Honestly if anyone sides with those dudes, get some help. Corporate rock sucks and even the most well meaning bands get put in horrible positions time and time again. I will never understand how Rage Against the Machine is always at the most corporate shit-shows standing there like a bunch of assholes. 

Anyways, sorry, I just needed to vomit out some words about this. I am just glad I wasn’t there, didn’t see myself reflected back, or see any of my friends. 

[aegialia]

self-indulgent reflection on being on tumblr

so i recently hit 1000 followers on here and this blog has existed for almost exactly 8 years, so i wanted to ramble about tumblr and my experience of it for awhile. under the cut so definitely feel free to ignore this.

i started this blog right around when i was fourteen and had just started high school. at that point, i was out to my parents (and no one else) as bi, i had an inkling i was Struggling with something but i had no idea what and felt like i couldnt actually acknowledge it, and i had left leaning but very vague politics. tumblr definitely has shaped my journey around sexuality/gender/mental health/politics, both for good and for ill. 

for good: 

seeing other ppl talk about being lesbians helped me realize i could be a lesbian w/o being a traitor to the concept of bisexuality. hearing trans ppl talk about their experiences and explaining non-binary stuff and dysphoria helped me understand what i was going through 

i don’t like talking about my mental health stuff in detail on here, but suffice to say, i was Going Through it in high school. i’m still going through it now, but i am in a much better place (thank you medication and 7 years of therapy!). seeing ppl talk about the weird, dumb, awful parts of mental illness let me acknowledge that i was going through those things too, that i wasnt like evil for feeling like that, that i could change. people talking about adhd/autism was particularly helpful---being able to identify why i’d always felt like my brain just didn’t work right is the first step in the (ongoing) process of not hating myself for the way my brain works

politics is definitely the area where i think tumblr was the best for me. i got exposed to so many opinions i definitely wasn’t hearing in school, from intelligent, well-read people who could articulate theory in ways i could understand. tumblr didn’t give me my politics and i didn’t learn everything i know about theory from it, but the communities of people i was around pointed me in the right directions. tumblr was also a good place to learn how to react to criticism. this doesn’t seem to be most people’s experience, but getting called out over minor things on tumblr genuinely helped me learn how to take a step back, look at my behavior, apologize, and try to change, which, as it turns out, is a helpful skill irl as well

for ill:

wrt sexuality and gender, it’s probably pretty obvious someone who’s journey is ‘cis bi girl -> cis with a million different microlabels -> nb w a million different microlabels for both sexuality and gender -> nb butch lesbian who’s not super into romance’ would have some bad times on tumblr. the bi circles i was in made being a lesbian seem like an immoral choice, the ‘’’mogai’’’ (or whatever u wanna call them) circles made me feel like i had to divy up and perfectly label every aspect of myself in a way that really wasn’t helpful for me, the lesbian circles i was in made me feel like being a lesbian was about ending up in a monogamous butch/femme cottagecore relationship and that there was something wrong with me for not really wanting that. to be clear i think microlabels can be very helpful for people/a monogamous butch/femme relationship is a perfectly fine thing to want, they just didn’t work for me. im very very glad ive reached a point in my life where i dont feel the need to stay up to date on the latest discourse and am more focused on finding a way to exist that is comfortable for me and supporting my community irl. 10/10 would recommend to everyone

not going to get deep into it, but social media is. not good for my brain in general. i still enjoy using tumblr, but these days im pretty careful to step back from it frequently and treat it as an occasional hobby. 

the cons of political stuff on tumblr are probably also very obvious. there are some just awful discussions on here and the culture surrounding the way we handle bad behavior and justice and accountability and working to become a better person and make up for the harm you’ve caused has historically been fucking awful and trying to unlearn it and find new ways to engage with this stuff is exhausting. 

for all that i’ve changed over the course of having this blog, this blog has stayed pretty fucking static. i started out being super into diana wynne jones and the iliad and those are still two of my biggest interests and things i talk about the most on here. there are definitely specific things that have petered away (i started this blog almost entirely to keep up with good omens fan stuff and i pretty much haven’t touched it since the miniseries came out, i haven’t sought out pacific rim/supernatural/elementary/mcu content in years), but im still pretty much interested in the same things. i like relatively small fandoms, i like weird side characters, i like to be a grumpy child playing with my toys in the corner. when a fandom im in gets popular, i tend to stop engaging with it entirely (hello rqg/tma/good omens/enola holmes!). i dont think its a pretentious ‘i liked it before it was cool’ thing so much as a ‘people get Weird and awful when a fandom hits a certain level of popularity and there’s too much content and i really, really hate the bad faith arguments larger fandoms tend to spawn’ thing. i’ll consume content from big fandoms, but i pretty much refuse to actually engage with them at this point.

one of the stranger parts of my experience of tumblr is the social side. i’ve never really known how people make friends online---how do you go from liking each other’s posts and occasionally replying to them to actually being friends who communicate off social media? i’ve had conversations with ppl on tumblr and i’ve had sort-of friendships that are contained to tumblr where i’d like to get to know them better, but i’ve never figured out how to do that. my best friend’s job is pretty much to make friends/connections on the internet (she’s an activist and artist), my dad knows people everywhere in the world from twitter, and i’m just sitting here like a little old grandpa who doesn’t understand how you can have internet friends. 

at this point in my life, i’m fine with this, but this has made me feel real fucking bad in the past---like, if everyone online, even the ppl who say they’re weird and brainbad in a similar way to me, can make friends on the internet, what’s wrong with me? particularly in high school and my first year of college, when i was just horribly lonely all the time, it made me feel super disconnected and like there was something fundamentally bad about me. these days, i’m a lot chiller about it. i use social media to engage with stuff i enjoy and share my thoughts about it. it’s okay that my social difficulties extend to me not knowing how to use the internet to socialize.

on a somewhat related topic, it’s wild that i have 1000 followers. obviously, that’s not an actually super large number and a huge number of them are probably bots or inactive. if you post consistently for eight years and follow lots of people, like i do, it’s not a surprise to end up with this many followers. it is also, thankfully, the sort of followers that are not fans. probably most ppl following this blog dont remember why they followed and dont know anything about me or my interests. this sounds like its meant to be depressing but it’s not. i like that my way of engaging w the internet lets me do pretty much whatever i want and no one will care. the mere concept of being. like. tumblr famous in any capacity, even just in one community/fandom, is viscerally horrifying to me. 

i really enjoy the space i’ve created for myself on here. on one hand, going back through my blog is obviously embarrassing and full of hating my past self. on the other hand, i now have a very nice collection of things i enjoy in this blog. i like seeing what i’ve been interested in and (when i’m in a good mental health place) i like to be able to remember how i thought and talked about the things i loved when i was younger. im not at the place in my life where i can love a younger version of myself, but sometimes i can laugh at zir with a level of fondness. 

i’ve always been paranoid about sharing details about my life on here (and the fact that my parents have always been able to see it certainly contributed), so the version of jack on here is a carefully curated version, who’s super enthusiastic about the things they love, was very conscientious about apologizing and trying to do better when ze messed up, and tried to be polite to others. that’s a younger version of myself that i’m closer to being able to have compassion for than the version i find in essays and poems and memories. 

i’m starting grad school in ten days and i’m still using the blog i started when i began high school. tumblr has helped me in a lot of ways and hurt me in a lot of ways, but i still have to admit that it’s been a significant factor in shaping me. i’d be incredibly embarrassed to admit that irl, but it’s true. other than my family and like one friend, this blog is one of the only things that’s ‘known’ me since i started high school. i’ve changed so much in that time and im glad to have this weird little record of myself throughout those changes, even if i’d probably warn my younger self away from tumblr if i could go back in time.

tl;dr i have had a mixed experience on tumblr and i have mixed feelings about that experience. no idea if anyone read any of this very long, very rambling internet memoir

p.s. fun facts about this blog:

i’ve never changed my icon or blog title

i recently got a second version of the poster i got my blog title from. i chose my blog title by looking at what was hanging on the wall directly in front of me. 

my original url was gloomthkin. this was not, as you’d probably assume, an otherkin thing. i had literally no idea what otherkin was at that point. i’d just learned the word gloomth from a bill bryson book and thought it would be cool n edgy to be the child of the quality of gloom. i changed my url after i learned what otherkin was and realized everyone probably assumed something about me that wasn’t true which i hated (not bc i had an issue w otherkin, just bc i don’t like ppl thinking untrue things about me)

during my good omens days, i once sent a tumblr ask to nail guyman which, in retrospect, was kinda rude. i stand by the content but id never send an ask like that now. he replied to it privately in a way that so deeply embarrassed and shamed 15 year old me that i’ve never gotten over it. i still get nervous and embarrassed when i see anything about him or his books

[rickriordanfandam]

opinions on riordanverse ; my edition

a lot of people have been doing this so i decided why not right. probably gna lose some followers or smth but anyways. pls respect my opinions! if u disagree, thats fine, but please be polite. unless any of my opinions strikes u as morally wrong then pls point it out to me respectfully. thanks!

- i actually liked drew. im so sorry to everyone who hates her but full offence, why. think about it this way ok, first of all drew became hc because silena died. silena was the traitor, the one who betrayed chb, yet after she died campers celebrated her as a hero? and then drew suddenly has to replace her and live up to idk that legacy she left behind,, when all of a sudden this girl named piper swoops in and takes her place. idk abt u but i wld be salty abt that too. not only that, but as an asian, the chances of drew having faced racism/bullying as a child is pretty high (she studies at brooklyn academy). which means that when she finds out shes a demigod, and arrives at chb where most of the campers are white (this is an assumption btw), she’d obviously be scared of being bullied for her skin color right?? so the first thing she wld do before the campers get to bully her is to bully them before they can do so. (sentence structure here is wack i apologize) ofc this might not even have happened, drew could have had a perfect childhood && was a b1tch for no reason, BUT EVEN THEN HER ROLE AS A BULLY WAS PRETTY VITAL BECAUSE THAT FURTHER SHOWED THE CONTRAST BETWEEN HER AND PIPER,, HIGHLIGHTING PIPER AS A HERO//GOOD CHARACTER,, AND THEREFORE MAKING READERS LIKE PIPER MORE. anyway stop hating on drew please. ALSO WHY IS THIS SO LONGA SDFJHG

- jason isnt bland, the fandom just kinda erased his backstory (thanks to @pjohoo-memes for the phrasing lol)

- reynabeth wouldnt have lasted/would have broken up several times. idk i just see them as two extremely powerful characters who have firm opinions and will definitely clash at some point. in a platonic relationship,, i can see them as really good friends but as lovers? idk i just think theyll break up

- PIPABETH

- i dont really like jercy,, i see them as better friends than lovers. also idt jason and percy were that close..?

- the dam and not my type jokes are srsly cringey and were never funny. ik that seems hypocritical since my username literally makes use of the dam joke but honestly i dont actually like the joke. its not funny to me and has never been funny

- the seven were not best friends. they definitely argued,, and honestly probably werent as close as the fandom makes them seem. like ure dumped with 6 other people, out of which u only know a few. my introverted ass would have jumped off the argo 2 quicker than leo valdez could bomb camp jupiter up. also leo was a dick to frank. so what if frank is bigger sized?? thats not a valid reason to tease him

- the fandom needs to stop hating on octavian while worshipping luke. if u hate luke and u say u hate octavian too, then okay. but if u tell me ure a luke stan but u despise octavian?? imma disagree w u. luke was worse than octavian im sorry. first of all, octavian being a dick was kinda justified. hes been after the praetor position for so long, and everyone keeps saying to “wait for jason” when suddenly this dude, whos a son of NEPTUNE (neptune wasnt liked much by romans), and the camp decides to make him praetor?? dude i would be pissed off big time. and then afterwards, he finds out that greek demigods are real and the dude they made praetor is greek. AND THEN GREEK DEMIGODS COME TO CJ AND ONE OF THEM BOMB IT UP?? octavian has been told all his life that greeks are scum and this dude called leo valdez attacks cj. sure it was an accident, but did octavian know that? no. so it was honestly justified that he was such a salty prick im just saying. also some of yall be hating on octavian for cutting a teddy bear open and thats the funniest shit ive ever heard i swear 

- luke didnt go to elysium

- travis and connor stoll r way too underrated. the two have been head counselors of the hermes cabin since luke was revealed as a traitor, can u imagine the stress? luke, the person they probably looked up to as a brother, betrayed them. and they didnt even have time to process this when they were  thrown the roles of being hcs. that would have been so stressful and i would probably have broken down if i were them. the stoll brothers taking turns to wake up at ungodly hours because a new camper is crying and homesick and terrified, the stoll brothers having to comfort and take care of new campers, having to deal with the amount of people in that cramped space because not enough campers are being claimed fast enough. having to resolve issues between campers in the hermes cabin all the time. the stolls arent just comedic relief, and we need to stop treating them as such

- tratie shldve been canon idc idc

- demigods of the demeter cabin arent talked about enough and i love the fact that meg was demeters kid. like she isnt the child of one of the big three yet shes so powerful.

- we need to hype clarisse up more her character arc was phucking amazing 

- rachel is overhated. sis found out greek gods exist and regularly come down to earth to fuck around and went “ok cool”. queen shit behavior methinks

- the floor 19 crew of mcga is srsly underrated. like do u even remember halfborn gunderson, mallory keen, tj, etc??? bc i feel like we only remember samirah, magnus, alex, and sometimes blitz and hearthstone

- sadie (tkc) was kinda annoying at first. i like her more now tho but i rmb not liking her for a phat while

- tkc and mcga need more love

- carter kane and jason grace arent boring. theyre just really sweet boys who are too good for this world and yes yes yes 

- hazel and frank (especially frank) need to be hyped up more. i hardly ever see anything about them. also yall seem to forget that frank was literally made praetor and that even hecate admired hazel and was willing to fight beside her because of how powerful she was

- frazels age gap is kinda sketch but i still think theyre really cute

- nico definitely had trauma from going to tartarus on his own

- GROVER IS PERCYS BEST FRIEND

- annabeth isnt smarter than leo but neither is leo smarter than annabeth. ive seen a lot of discussions about who is smarter and heres my hot take on it: neither. theyre equally smart, just in different ways. leos a genius mathematically speaking. he has no issues solving math problems meant for people much, much older than him. annabeth on the otherhand, is great at strategies etc. she can make an army of 1000 more powerful than the enemy, even if theyre outnumbered. so in my opinion, both are equally as smart//u cant compare their intelligence, because their talents lie in two different areas.

- while i do agree rick riordan isnt a god and that hes bound to make mistakes,, AND that hes given us a lot of representation,, if the representation offends the people its sposed to represent, then theres a problem. im talking about piper as a poc and wearing feathers in her hair. im not a poc, so i cant speak for them on whether or not its wrong, because i dont know either. HOWEVER, i have seen multiple posts BY pocs talking about how they didnt really like rick’s representation of piper, and thats an issue. pocs have been and are still oppressed and discriminated against by many. as a white cis man, we cant really blame him for not knowing (tho he could have done a research,, asked some pocs,, idk), but by representing pocs in that manner, hes influencing impressionable kids/teens into thinking “oh pocs wear feathers in their hair all the time” etc, which isnt true. the pjo/hoo series is extremely successful, and kids who read the books will probably start forming inaccurate opinions on pocs. the amount of fan art that depicts piper with feathers in her hair dont help either. “but rick said so in the books, so its canon” yeah well rick isnt a god and he can get some things wrong at times. im not saying we should cancel him, im saying we should start educating ourselves and not spread false info like pocs wearing feathers in their hair all the time. also that snake song shit where she sang Summertime was just- yeah. bc heres the thing you can be racist, and still include minorities, but portray them in a racist way. And even then, ignorance isn't a thing to admire. Getting those facts wrong still has a major impact. It continues to perpetuate racist stereotypes.

“ With the feather thing, I looked it up myself; it takes less than five minutes to figure out that Cherokees don't braid feathers into their hair. I didn't grow up in the country where my parents are from. I have many other first/second generation American friends who have also been through that, with a bit of a disconnect from their culture. But something that most of us have in common is that when we didn't know something, and when our parents weren't that big of a help, we looked it up. We sought out resources online and through other people from our culture to be able to connect more with where we came from. Some of that took a Google search. So I find it hard to believe that Piper, a girl who Rick's trying to portray as someone who is attempting to connect with her culture and is totally against racist stereotypes, wouldn't know that eagle feathers aren't supposed to be braided into your hair casually. She may be disconnected from her culture, but she's also shown to want to connect back to it. Piper wouldn't be casually braiding feathers into her hair while also telling off people for being racist. It makes no sense.” - reddit thread (down below) 

for those of yall who wanna know more please please read this, it has a lot of things i wanna add in here : https://www.reddit.com/r/camphalfblood/comments/gy3gl2/piper_mcleans_portrayal_is_innacurate/ 

as well as https://finding-my-culture.tumblr.com/post/189422373260/maxie-ratties-and-cattie-finding-my-culture 

i will be posting screenshots of these in future posts so if ure viewing this on ig and u dont have tumblr,, dont worry 

- the fact that most of the strong female characters in the series refuse to be “girly”, and ngl i dont really like that. just because ure girly doesnt mean u cant be strong. 

- piper would have been a great way for him to start making the strong characters act girlier, but instead he went with the “I’m not like other girls” trope which is quite obnoxious to hear constantly, and I don’t think it’s necessarily great for younger girls to read that idea growing up.  the closest we've ever had to a strong female character who was also into "girly" things was Silena. when I was younger I admired Piper's "I'm not like other girls" thing, but then I got older and realized that the whole mentality of "not like other girls" is super obnoxious, and a little bit toxic

i have a heck load more that i cant rmb rn but yeah feel free to add more 

[oneweekoneband]

In the first cold hours of a new December morning, Taylor Swift once again revealed herself to be the primary antagonist in my hero’s journey. Weary and woebegone as I am, I will not waste strength on any attempt to deny that this latest attack has knocked me off balance, but I believe it is important that I—we, really, the lot of us who have been bloodied pitiably beneath this most brutal show of force—rebound immediately into a defensive posture so that there might be any hope at all for survival. Taylor’s second pandemic album will be released at midnight tonight, so I guess Shakespeare and his little “play” about elder abuse can get fucked after all. The album is called evermore. It was hubris, I can see in retrospect, which led me to tempt my enemy by writing all these words about her on this, the week of her birthday, knowing as I do that Taylor is one of those especially dangerous adults who make a big deal about both birthdays and lucky numbers. Icarus is my name now, covered in melted wax and tumbling to the sea. So as to steel ourselves for these horrors yet to come, I offer now, with not arrogance but the faith of the foolhardy, my best conjecture as to the content of each detestable track. 

willow - Could be about a tree. Could be about a girl. More likely it is both somehow, which is extremely pervy, and not just because that’s part of the plot of the unspeakably cursed The Raven Cycle novels, which I, a full blown adult with, generally speaking, normal brain function, voluntarily read for the first time this summer because some of us, ma’am, used the pandemic for activities that hurt only ourselves, not others. Well, happy holidays, tree fuckers.

champagne problems - Whatever this is, know that I will be considering it a work after Fall Out Boy’s “Champagne for My Real Friends, Real Pain for My Sham Friends” and I’ll be right to do so and many people will say as much admiringly and they’ll smile at me with pride and doff their caps as I go.

gold rush - If this song is anything but a loving, comprehensive summation of the children’s novel DEAR AMERICA Seeds of Hope: The Gold Rush Diary of Susanna Fairchild then I’m going to walk directly out of my home and, deadly virus be damned, keep walking until I’ve entered Taylor Swift’s instead, at which point I will begin to scream out a litany of complaints at the very top of my voice, ceasing only when her security team kills me or we fall in love.

tis the damn season - Worst case scenario this is a sad Christmas song (the best kind of Christmas song) and it devastates me in the most degrading way possible. Best case scenario it’s really bad and dumb and I can live without pain.

tolerate it - Many possibilities here. Could be about white-knuckling it through a period of depression, or a breakup. Most obviously, it could be about COVID-19 lockdowns keeping us trapped in our homes, disconnected from loved ones, going slow-brained and strange, bowls piling up, and suddenly so desperate for human interaction that even memories of having drinks with somebody from Hinge who quoted Friends twice in an hour are tantalizing in comparison to the touch-starved dreamstate of staying indoors... But I kinda feel like this is Taylor replying “COPE” from on high to my tweets about how I would rather be boiled alive than have to face the existence of this record.

no body, no crime (feat. Haim) - What would be very good is if this is a homosexual romp about Taylor Swift and the one hot Haim guitar girl with the really gay energy doing a murder together a la “Somethin’ Bad” by Miranda Lambert with Carrie Underwood, but honestly, it is probably another song about Gone Girl.

happiness - Impossible to speak on this since, thanks to Taylor Swift, happiness is something with which I have no familiarity. 

dorothea - Have seen chirping on the odious bird application about how perhaps this song title suggests that Taylor has written a song about Middlemarch, titling it for Dorothea Brooke, but I reject this because it implies that Taylor has read Middlemarch, which is a premise I cannot accept. Whether this refusal is out of self-preservation, being unwilling and in fact unable to face a world where Taylor Swift read and was moved to creation by the novel which was my most essential friend the summer I got dumped by a guy who I still had to work feet away from in a candle factory for another month, and about which Emily Dickinson (Emily Dickinson whose birthday it happens to be today, which isn’t to say that this means anything about anything. I am simply trying to batten down all hatches literally and spiritually in light of having been had once again by this numerology obsessed demon) once wrote "What do I think of Middlemarch? What do I think of glory.” or because I just at my core do not believe that Taylor has read a single book since Gone Girl I couldn’t possibly say.

coney island (feat. The National) : Some ungodly americana ass bullshit that is going to ruin my life. The thought of holy terror shaped like a horse girl Taylor Swift and trickster nymph in the body of a tax accountant Matt Berninger, two individuals I have allowed, separately, to cause me grievous psychic harm, having even the barest amount of one to one contact, even digitally, has made me want to peel all my skin off and put it back on flipped inside out so that I might, when I look in the mirror, see a version of myself which approximates how I feel.

ivy - Another song for the plant lesbians. That’s fine, and I’m happy for that community, but what I want to know, looking at this growing pile of songs named after women, is where, Taylor, is the song about loudmouth queen Inez, legendary gossip and, for my money, the star of folklore?  

cowboy like me - Putting it as mildly as humanly possible, to slit my throat would be less cruel. I am drawing a straight line from me writing illegible sequels to perfect film An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (itself a sequel) in crayon as a toddler, to Paula Cole’s “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” on the radio in my mom’s two door Honda, to me everyday after school in third grade changing into the cowboy costume my godmother bought, to me at fourteen internalizing a sense of righteous indignation that would take years to even begin to outgrow when Crash beat Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture, to the winter I dropped half my classes out of fear and sickness and read paperback westerns on the twenty third floor of the college library for tens of hours at a go, to the profoundly gay episode of Supernatural called “Tombstone” which is, yes, named for the profoundly gay cowboy film Tombstone, to the inspired and revitalizing pause in “Space Cowboy” by Kacey Musgraves where she’s like, “You can have your space........ cowboy”, to Mitski’s Be the Cowboy, to the perfect boygenius cover of certified classic “Cowboy Take Me Away”, to whatever the hell this is going to be.That line is not to make a point at all. It’s just that there is a line and beside it there is me, incapacitated.

long story short - Just like all the other times anyone has ever invoked this phrase in the entire history of human beings expressing themselves with language, it is going to be a huge lie, because this woman never shuts up.

marjorie - After all that Taylor has put me through over the years, she should have at least named one of these wretched things “ellen” after my dead Sagittarian grandmother, whose birthday is tomorrow, December 11th, which is again, the release date of Taylor Swift’s second album in sixth months, but it’s probably for the best that she didn’t because you simpletons would immediately think it was an homage to George Bush’s friend Dory the fish, and therefore gay, regardless of the actual text of the song, and it’d be the “betty” massacre all over again. That being said, this is almost assuredly another horny song about some mid-century white lady. Only days ago Taylor was telling Entertainment Weekly that she’s been watching a lot of movies in quarantine, and while she didn’t name 1958’s Marjorie Morningstar starring Natalie Wood, I wouldn’t put it past her.

closure - God, I hope this one is another Kaylor classic so we can all act like complete raving lunatics online from the confines of our own plague quarters for a few days. It’s been a hard year.

evermore (feat. Bon Iver) - I’ll be catatonic by this point. Who cares?

right where you left me - Yes, in hell.

it’s time to go - Yes, TO HELL.

[savnofilter]

TW: MENTIONS OF DISCOURSE, GR//MING, P/D/PHILIA, ASS//LT, C//NSENT, D//RK CONTENT.

- this isnt under a read more because i want people to read this, but please read past this/tread carefully if you cannot handle such topics. this is not meant to be interacted with.

I'm not sure how to really go about this. I've been overthinking if I should address this and bring up some stuff while I've been gone, so sorry the absence. I deleted the tumblr app a few days ago and I downloaded it again today so i could post this. I really don't like making posts like this because it cuts the vibe that I've been trying to portray that everything is okay and it makes me feel really disconnected to you guys. I am sorry for the abrupt absence and cutting off any source of communication between us. I knew if I left any form of direct line of talk to me that I would receive hate and I just mentally decided that I cant sit through being harassed right now.

Have you guys ever paid attention to the same people who always have a statement to say or is always in discourse? It's very telling how everyone can post about me, but I shouldnt dare post about them. I'm tired of not being able to post about what I want without people vague posting about me, bringing me up every time they start another discourse with another writer or directly talking about me. My days on here are starting to feel the same. Its good then it goes bad. Good goes bad and bad goes good. It's not even tiring, annoying, or angering -- its repetitive. When I'm not saying anything people create fake stories about me, and when i speak about it im the one starting discourse. Don't get me wrong, I'm nowhere near perfect and I have made my own mistakes. But why the fuck am I always being told to be the mature one, why am I the one who should've done better, why do you people expect so much from me. It's the fact people are always quick to say, "no one cares about you, youre fishing for attention" when they're the ones who vague and interact with me while ive been minding my business for months now. Hm. The fact people have me proudly blocked but still harass me anyways shows a lot about themselves than it does for me. How its such an issue that im a minor until it comes to demonizing, tearing down my character, gaslighting, lying and bullying. I'm a literal example of how their friend group manipulates their followers and exiles people from fandoms for not kissing their ass. except now its in your face.

Consider this my last post about this discourse. I'm not going to waste my time on people who fail to digest other peoples thoughts and opinions time and time again because theyre weak narcissists. If I so choose to decide to shit post my opinions or argue with someone, none of you should be aggravated or moved by it because youre not even supposed to be on my page. If its not something serious i will not be wasting energy that i can be using to build on myself as a growing person than on miserable old ladies that have to use fanfiction to have excitement in their pity, depressing and lackluster lives. If people so do choose to create stories or vague about me, I do not care. So I ask respectfully to people who do lurk on my page to not attempt to message, post or vague about me please. This includes sending anons to yourself to make shit happen.

Past that, something got me thinking. My (older) friend had showed me screenshots of adult writers (no one i have spoken to) that were very excited to write underaged reader with adult characters. There are other instances where writers (that you have probably read from) on here openly made reader underage while aging characters up as adults/with adults. There are many more but there's really no point in listing them nor do I really care. But least to say, the same people who are gung-ho over these pedophilic themes/stories are the same people who support predatory people.

I've been thinking about whether or not i should continue writing for the students anymore. Granted, I still think they're attractive because one snap of the fingers cant stop that. I had been teetering on this thought for awhile because of how borderline pedophilic the people are here towards my age group. I enjoy writing but not to the point of willingly being in a straight line of sight where people who are well over 16 are harassing me and lurking on my page, especially to other minors solely because they are my friends. Backtracking to the statement before, I honestly dont know if I will either stop writing or just for the students as a whole. It shows that clearly some people are using their attraction to teens with the excuse that the characters are fake. The rapid normalization on dark problematic "kinks" is disgusting and vile, and the fact that its discourse now to shame said interests is appalling. Concluding that combined with my experiences here, i feel unsafe.

***(TRIGGER WARNING)*** I dont talk about my personal life on here that much cause I dont see the need too nor do i think its anyone's business. Paired with the fact that the people i have trusted personal information with have used it against me, I will be preventing myself from opening that door. Besides that for now, I have sparsely shared I've been assaulted before. This is my first time really opening up about this and i kind of find it necessary now. Coming from someone who has been a victim of assault and CP by people my age and well over, writing nsfw has been the only way where I could feel comfortable with sex in general. I won't get into details because mentioning this is triggering already and can make people uncomfortable. It feels like anywhere I go, I'm constantly putting myself in a position to be abused. The same people who told me I didn't have to worry about my age and be judged for it, exposed the minimum comfort of keeping myself private online to demonize, judge and hurt me. People call me "extra" for being distraught about my face and age being posted because they think im trying to be sneaky which isn't the case. Its the principle that they KNEW I wasnt ready to share said things, and coming from someone who is inherently a private and closed person, she knew damn well what she was doing when posting screenshots of me on Tumblr. There is no excuse for it. The same writers who write dub/non-con can BARELY understand basic consent and its fucking terrifying. This site was the only other place I could cope without being criticized. To see people who some i was close to proudly lie on my name, (adults) say that i sent them pornographic content without their consent is so very hurtful. To watch people supposedly be victims and then use their own trauma to invalidate my own was so fucking humiliating, disgusting and nerve wracking. Although I knew I made the terrible decision to interact with stories, I have never initiated any NSFW discussion with anyone in DMs unless they did it with me first and a few times -- and trust me raise your hand I'll show you the proof. I was sure that everyone I talked to regularly knew that I was a minor, and to my general consensus, people were under the impression I was 15/16 (which I was and am).***

Whether it be victim blaming from the grooming discourse, I've been met with racism, harassment towards my friends, people wanting me to harm myself and be assaulted. I fear what will happen when i will turn 18, if the harassment will escalate and what not. A big part of me is that I'm still here anyways because it pisses people off and I don't care when I receive hate. I can take it but I don't want it. A good conscious of me knows that I should be doing what's best for me but at the end I'm still attached to my ego-self with the added fact that I sincerely enjoy interacting with my followers and posting stories.

I just don't know how the options look. I'll probably be updating my blog rules as of right now. I've been writing more sfw lately because of this and it'd be nice if you guys supported those until I properly decide. I still have plenty of requests of a bunch of characters (mostly Bakugo and Dabi) and original stuff (all sfw & nsfw) that I really wanna share with you guys. But I just ask that what I do modify that you will respect it like you would to any other writer on here.

Stay safe, keep your mask on, and thank you.

[valkblue]

Being a Behavior technician requires a certain amount of dedication to the job — the rigorous type, bordeline rigid. That’s what is expected to be at peak efficiency regarding analysis protocols and diagnostics for host service and calibration.

For that, Vivian thinks she might be the worst tech in her department. 

— masterlist, AO3

Chapter 1 on 12

Chapter wordcount: 2,486 Story status: Complete Rating: General Warning: people swear a lot, technobabble counts as swearing as well (believe me)…

Author’s notes: This is the first time I post a fanfic online. A real big one I mean. Not just crackfics... I’m emotional. I don’t know what the schedule will be yet because my queue is acting up, but everything should be out regularly, or something that looks like it. This first chapter is an intro to the main character and what she does, and I hope you’ll enjoy this story and its characters all the way!  Also, I really want to thank @pheedraws​ and @something-tofightfor​ for their heartwarming feedback on the whole story. Thank you SO much!!

Have a good time reading, and my askbox/messages are open! 💙

— Chapter 1

Now wasn’t a good time to yawn…

And yet, Vivian had nothing else to do but wait right now, wait while the progress bars slowly filled up on her tablet screen.

Now wasn’t the time, simply because some of her colleagues were passing through the hallway, behind the glass panels of her cubicle, and among them was the head of Behavior department — incidentally, her superior.

No doubt they were all about to grab a bite at the restaurant and Vivian held back an almost envious mumble; she was starving! But before she could go eat anything, she had to finish with her last subject on her morning schedule; host ID#DH410829420391, named Mildred.

And Mildred was back at the lab on account of a negative report about her response time during interactions with other hosts but also with guests. A lag that only happened in character mode, not in analysis. So, Vivian started with refreshing her lexical base and improvisation engine. It took some time to check the entire tree but as of now, it was done.

"Can you confirm if the update’s complete?"

"Confirmed," Mildred answered right away, her voice flat and her look vacant.

"Back in character mode."

Mildred seemed to wake up and blinked once before focusing her attention  back on Vivian.

"Mildred?"

"Oh, I’m sorry," she answered with a hint of a shy smile. "I must have drifted off, I believe… The working hours at the farm are ungodly sometimes!"

The response time was more than good, now. The improvisation too.

"I was wondering if there’s a lot of clients at the farm these days," Vivian asked.

The answer was not long to come.

"Certainly! Our cattle sure gives the best milk there is. No matter what the competition says!"

"How many green bottles are standing on the wall?"

Questions and procedures were always more or less the same to determine which bits of code, settings or values could cause an issue or start to glitch like crazy!

But today, for Mildred — and Vivian — everything was back in order, and each/both of them could soon return to the the usual course of their scheduled day.

It was about time for Vivian to take a break, if she was reduced to that kind of wisecrack…

A glance at her wristwatch, even while her tablet displayed a more accurate time than the watch hands, and Vivian concluded her analysis. She folded the tablet, slid it back in her jacket pocket, and left the large glass room after one last embarrassed look at Mildred she was leaving there, naked in the dark. Vivian didn’t even fight down a shiver. It was actually freezing cold in there!

She comforted herself with the thought that Mildred didn’t feel anything in this state, disconnected, and that a team wouldn’t take too long to come get her, do her hair, dress her up and put her back in rotation in no time. Barely as much as Vivian had for her lunch break… and that was just enough to go all the way up to the hub restaurant. But the bosses here didn’t care much about how long the lunch breaks lasted, as long as the work was done in time.

So, Vivian didn’t hurry to get to the elevator she shared with two co-workers who only interrupted their chitchat about hockey results for a vague greeting.

At this hour, the restaurant was a bit more crowded but it still wasn’t too hard to find a seat in the large and relatively peaceful room. The whole vibe in it was corporate though, even in that staff only room; every dish were stamped with the park logo and name — from the bottom of the plates to the salt shakers — and a flat HD screen displayed a bunch of Delos branches ads that looked much weirder without sound.

After a while, one didn’t really pay attention to all this anymore… A few months was enough to make it all part of the landscape and for the mind to simply stop noticing it.

And Vivian had been working here for three years, now.

However, she was still bothered by a few details sometimes, such as the huge white walls that spanned all the way up a balcony floor and a domed ceiling or the fact that the stalls were lit with a pale light under which the food turned to a sickly colour.

Hopefully, under the less saturated lights of the main room, the Caesar salads and the turkey-tomato sandwiches were back to a more appetizing hue.

Her tray loaded with a potato-corn salad, a big glass of water and a piece of bread, Vivian walked towards the tables, eager for her potatoes to lose their blueish glint. Just shy of the screen, she recognised a familiar face, Margaret’s, another Behavior tech from her team. Both were on friendly basis now, where it was possible to enjoy some time together and to laugh a little, even if it took them a whole year to finally break the ice.

Margaret waved at Vivian when she saw her pick her way across the room, inviting her to join them — them being Margaret, and three other guys from their department.

"Did you hear the latest, Vivian!?" she blurted. "I’ve been told that Damon Dyers is in the park, at this very moment!"

"Damon… Dyers?"

Vivian didn’t even hide her puzzlement while sitting in front of her.

"The actor," one of the three guys — Luke — pointed out. "Marge was just exposing how she’ll mooch the control room techs for a footage…"

"Listen, if you were as thirsty as I am about this guy, you’d understand!" Margaret replied.

To that, he quipped:

"My husband would be pissed!"

All chuckled in approval before returning to their almost emptied plates, while Vivian had barely touched her own.

"Can you imagine," Margaret daydreamt, leaning back in her seat as in a comfy armchair, holding her Pyrex glass like a snifter of bourbon. "Damon hunting down Escaton in the hills…"

Vivian scoffed; she could imagine, indeed.

At the table, Charles, Thawal and Luke didn’t pay any more attention to them, carrying on with their chat about retro gaming. Vivian would probably have preferred to be part of that conversation; not that she didn’t know shit about movies and their actors, but more like aside from a few exceptions on which they got along swimmingly, she didn’t have much taste in common with Margaret. But she listened to her friend anyway as she kept going after a sip of sparkling water:

"How am I not supposed to be hot on the idea!? I’ll deadass find someone to bootleg me some footages!"

Vivian smiled out of politeness, not saying much, as always. Her mouth was full anyway.

"Oh, by the way!"

Margaret took another swip of her glass before putting it down on the table and leaning towards Vivian.

"Apparently, they’re going to burden us with a whole new bunch of hosts in two or three weeks," she said, with all the serious she could muster. "I heard that from Elsie. Narrative must be trying to compensate for something, if you know what I mean…"

Vivian knew very well.

"We barely have time to light a fag between two sessions already and they plan to add another hundred on our backs!?"

She snorted disdainfully.

"Don’t know what they’re spicing their coffee with but it isn’t doing them any good."

"No shit," admitted Vivian, a bit testy at the idea. "Unless they also plan to hire? Did Lowe say anything about it?"

Margaret shrugged.

"No idea, I haven’t talked to him in a while."

She patted her blazer pockets then sighed softly; Vivian understood her attitude as relief, and a craving, even a need to light a cigarette.

"You should ask," Margaret pointed out with a smile a tad clenched in the orbicularis muscles. "You like him, right?"

Vivian approved; she admired his thoroughness, his love for details… A lot could be learned while working under his care and Vivian found him both spirited and friendly.

Margaret didn’t quite share the feeling, however; in her own words, he was giving her the heebie-jeebies.

"Anyway, I’m off," Margaret stated with an even greater impatience in her voice. "I gotta light one before the crazy afternoon waiting for me!"

She gathered her cutlery on her tray, adding:

"Not giving up on the idea to come across Damon fucking Dyers, though! At least in video recs. Wish me luck!"

Vivian nodded and Margaret put her tray away on the sideboard before hurrying to the exit.

Her colleagues had changed topics next to her, and now they were talking about cars, motorcycles and mechanics. As she didn’t know much about that topic, not as much as in computers, she listened only a little without taking part.

Then, Vivian finished wolfing down her potato salad and her glass of water; she would soon return to her shift and examine a series of hosts, the characteristics of which she overviewed on her tablet from her timetable’s folders. It was simply routine checks, and Vivian liked that kind of sessions; it was like meeting with a friend, just to catch up with them.

But for now, she would take a few minutes to get some air and natural light on top of the hub before diving back into the high tech depths of the Mesa.

At seven in the evening, closer to eight, Vivian was glad to be back to her on-site apartments. Once again, she had grabbed a snack at the restaurant but the room was much more crowded than it was at lunch and came close to a headache before reaching "home". She could have dined here, cooked something on her induction hob but she was so tired — or lazy — that, tonight again, she still choose to eat at the restaurant over having to do the dishes!

Now, she was getting out of the shower in her bathrobe and throw herself on her bed.

Living like this, it was like being a teenager all over again, back at her parents’, or at the dorm… but once she closed her apartment’s door, Vivian was totally free to do whatever she wanted. As long as it didn’t involve wrecking the place!

But now, even if she wanted to, Vivian wouldn’t have had the strength to break any chair, nor even to make a mess of the bed… About that, she was actually planning on laying there, and falling asleep in her bathrobe while watching a movie or reading any book she had available on her personal tablet. A tablet that was nothing close to the one she was using every day in the Behavior department labs, but a tablet anyway.

She swiped the covers without any real interest; in all honesty, she was feeling too tired to read. Even something she had already read. And she cringed a little when the minimalistic cover with her automatically signed name appeared.

Yeah, even too tired to read her own words!

Besides, it wasn’t great literature at all — a fanfiction. Two, to be precise. Both about the hosts and their narratives as she could have written about a movie, book, or video game’s characters.

Vivian grumbled, letting her tablet fall flat on her stomach, and she stared at the white ceiling before closing her eyes while nibbling her lips. She had written this almost six months after she started working here, taken over by all the motivation, excitement and creativity around her!

She refocused on herself since but, in the meantime, she wrote these. And even though Vivian considered herself to have a fertile imagination, she still commended herself about how better for everyone it was she hadn’t applied for a job in Narrative…

Rising her tablet up again and tapping on the lit screen, she entered the file and skimmed through it, trying to ignore the grammar mistakes she stopped committing since; and mistakes aside, her stories had nothing exceptional, totally influenced as they were by her mood and the not-so-new-but-still-trendy storyline — Escaton’s and his bandits, essentially…

Over a very short time, when Vivian was still more or less trying to fit into the life of the facility and social circles of her co-workers whose names had yet to be caught, she had heard so many comments, appreciations and reviews for this narrative that she looked into it first.

After all, the park afforded Lee Sizemore, renowned author who made a big name for himself with a "hot and grimy" historical saga, a few years back before running out of puff under his editor’s pressure. And a juicy offer by a video game studio to adapt it. 

She understood; everybody, whether staff or guests, was more or less hyped by the brute force brought by Hector Escaton — virile and dark male figure — to the relative tranquility of the park’s starting point.

And Vivian had been no exception.

If her first story was only about made-up characters to explore the pleasing and well rounded context of Sweetwater, her second, on the other hand, was more audacious, altering shamelessly the story from what its authors had surely intended; victorious over the town after killing the sheriff and all opposition, Escaton and his gang enjoyed their plunder at the Mariposa where Hector fell for one of the saloon girls.

That being said, Vivian remained very proper — maybe totally prudish — in these sort of narrative fantasies of hers; nothing turned freaky or utterly violent…

All she did was throwing a few sentences on her writing app for some evenings, when inspiration struck or simply because she urged herself to follow through with what she started. All on her personal tablet. She knew better than to write that on anything system-tethered. Imagining that a bored somebody could just hack into the system all the way up to her personal data… and end up on that giddy nonsense, made her wants to puke!

Not to mention that it might also be forbidden. Even though she never planned to, she knew she couldn’t share it with anyone, nor anywhere. Not as a park employee. If the guests were writing critiques and other reviews online about their stay, herself couldn’t talk about it from the inside. Confidentiality and shit…

Her texts would remain secret, and her silly fantasies with them. In any case, it wasn’t as if she intended to try anything for herself, and even less with Hector Escaton, all the more since he wasn’t even part of the batch her team had in charge. And also, rumor has it that fantasies aren’t always good when act upon!

With a lazy tap, Vivian quitted the reading app and dropped the tablet on her sheets before burying her face in her soft pillow. She let out a deep sigh in it, relaxed, and in fact, she fell asleep almost right away.

[iaintyourbro]

What’s your take on Cloud’s depression during AC? People on twitter are suddenly talking about this, again. This matter was brought up by those antis saying that we Clotis should accept the fact that Tifa wasn’t the one who “healed” Cloud and that she was also being mean and not considerate whatsoever. The funny thing is that, they also accused us of denying his depression and not understanding it. TF. Let’s be real, Tifa played a major part, in fact she gave him morale thx to her “scolding” lol

Hey anon.. 

Yeah, Twitter has me depressed today. I think it started last night. I was enjoying it for a bit, but the last week or two have been so bad over there with bullshit that I’m about to just take a break from the entire fandom. 

My Take on AC Cloud:

I watched AC when it first came out, and I barely remember it. I remember I didn’t like what they did. Why was Cloud so depressed and brooding? Oh Aerith is in this? Interesting. I felt like it was disjointed and removed a lot of the great progress Cloud made in OG. They kept this depressed, brooding guy in KH as well... It just didn’t seem right to me. I was young, too. 

At this point we also didn’t have On the Way to a Smile, Crisis Core, or anything else, really.. None of the Ultimanias were in English at this point. I also was not interested enough in going online. It was a weird time when I was playing other things and was meh on FF7 for a while. I was always a FF8 fangirl, so was jealous of FF7 at times hahaha. It got so much more attention and love. 

It took me a long time to watch it again. I remember my husband watching it before Remake came out and I felt mad or sad. It was like an emotion from memory, and I didn’t know why. I can’t describe it. I saw it on the TV and was like why is this on here... 

After playing Remake, I bit the bullet and ordered AC Complete, which had things tweaked and added. I also am now in my 30′s and have a lot more life experience.

Antis like to say Cloud is depressed solely because Aerith is dead and he wants to be with her. This may be one of the reasons I didn’t like AC, because when I did happen to come across some FF7 thing online, I’d see this shit and be like whatever, that makes no sense. 

I enjoyed ACC. My heart was actually pounding and I was nervous/intrigued by what was going on even though I knew the story. I haven’t read all of CoT yet, but I’ve seen the excerpts online, so I know the general gist of things.

Based strictly on ACC:

Cloud is really upset that Denzel is sick. He’s obsessively looking up medical stuff to figure out how to cure it - this is shown with everything all over his desk. He’s closed in on himself to do this. I did the same shit when my dad had cancer. I did it for three fucking years while he was alive - from the time he got diagnosed to the day he was dying. Every damn day I looked up articles, research, and theories. It’s not healthy. It’s depressing and I closed myself off from the world half the time and didn’t realize it. Thank God my husband is a patient saint. 

Cloud does care a lot about Tifa. His reaction alone at seeing her knocked out in the church is heart wrenching. When they’re brought back to Seventh Heaven, Cloud pops right up when he sees Tifa there. He then stays with her until she wakes up. This is a pretty good amount of time. The sun is up when he’s looking over her, and when she wakes up, it’s dark outside. He could have slipped out again without her noticing if he really wanted to. I’m sure he may have contemplated it. 

She calls his ass out on how he’s acting. She knows he’s sick at this point. This was huge for Tifa who’s not confrontational. He clearly doesn’t want to completely disconnect, or he would have gotten rid of his cell phone voluntarily. He doesn’t. They actually show him checking his messages. 

Ultimately Cloud leaves because he ends up with Geostigma. That’s the last straw. He can’t face the fact that he’s going to die and what it’ll do to his family, so he leaves. Listen, I think the only reason my dad didn’t try to leave when he was diagnosed was because he had nowhere to go and by time he started verbalizing wanting to leave, he was physically unable to. Yes, I remember him being angry because he was hospitalized again and he told my mom he was going to get an apartment by himself so she didn’t know when he was getting bad. It’s very hurtful to even think it, and even worse when you know they don’t actually mean it... They do it because they don’t want to see their family hurt. 

The setup he has at the church as his “living” area is super depressing. It looks like something a homeless person sets up. He legit was going to wait to die. He had a lot of knowledge about this, so he figured there was nothing he could do. 

Marlene calls Cloud out on his bullshit too. Cloud admits to her he doesn’t think he can take care of anybody. Marlene Barrret quotes him and it’s cute. I think Cloud appreciated it and I think it made him think.

In ACC, Cloud has a short conversation with Aerith. Aerith seems almost annoyed with him like “wtf is your deal, dude” kind of attitude. Zack shows up when he’s bloody and half dead fighting Sephiroth to encourage him. There are scenes with him talking at Zack’s grave and saying he couldn’t keep his promise to him. He flat out tells Aerith he wants to be forgiven. He doesn’t say I miss you, I want to be with you, none of that happens. In fact, it’s mainly her telling him HE needs to start doing some forgiving - ultimately to himself. 

When Cloud is in limbo - between living and dying - Cloud says “Mom.” Very romantic, I know. Then Zack and Aerith have a conversation very similar to a couple that’s going to adopt a child and they tell Cloud he’s too big for them. This is the “I see the light” and the person on the other side is like “nah bro go back, not your time yet.”

He wakes up, Tifa and crew is there, he smiles at Tifa... and it’s a happy ending. He sees both Zack AND Aerith at the end, and they walk off in to the light together all cute and shit.

Adding in Things from the Novels/Interviews/Thoughts:

The devs have said Cloud was happy with his family and that scared him. The happier he got, the more scared he got. We know he cherishes everything. He especially cherishes the family he has.

Cloud’s depression spiral started from the high anxiety of having a happy life and Elmyra asking him to deliver flowers to Aerith’s grave. Now, I have my feelings about this, but when I look at it logically, I don’t think Elmyra ultimately does this out of spite. I actually don’t think Elmyra thinks Cloud and Aerith were a thing - so it wasn’t that either. I think she knew Cloud was friends with her and maybe he’d want to deliver some flowers - to give him some business. 

This flower delivery reminds Cloud of what he thinks is his failure to protect somebody else. At this point he has his memories of what happened to Nibelheim, his mother, Tifa, and Zack. The Sector 7 plate drop and Aerith are the most recent “failures”. So this brings up Aerith.

Then Denzel comes along and he’s an orphan because his parents were... yeah... killed during the Sector 7 plate collapse. Double ouch. But Cloud and Tifa are going to take care of him.

Tifa herself has a lot of guilt because of the same reasons, she just deals with it very differently. Tifa tells Cloud to bring Denzel right home. She can make amends by adopting him in to her family and caring for him. Cloud thinks Aerith brought Denzel to him (Tifa corrects him). This is a Cloud thing, it’s not romantic. Cloud doesn’t know the guilt Tifa feels. He legit thinks all of this is his fault. Tifa’s guilt stems from the fact that Shinra drops the plate because Avalanche was in Sector 7 - she was in Avalanche. She feels guilty about Aerith because she thinks its her fault Aerith followed them to Don Corneo’s mansion. The thing is, Aerith doesn’t blame EITHER of them - I just wish they’d cover a Tifa/Aerith conversation about this as well... 

Cloud and Tifa do have fights in the novels from what I understand, but it’s because he’s acting weird. He feels bad hiding the fact that he’s been going to the church a lot, and I think that does turn in to a whole LTD debate. So you can take this as Tifa is jealous that he’s going to the church all the time or she’s upset that he is hiding from her. 

In the novels, Tifa has a breakdown when they go see the church after they defeat Sephiroth. This is where you get to see how badly Aerith’s death impacted her. So my thought is... Cloud thinks bringing her to the church hurts her because of her feelings, not because she’s jealous. I think Cloud is oblivious to the jealousy thing, honestly. Don’t think it’s a thought in his mind. 

I honestly don’t know the real reason why he goes to the church to hide. I think this is another point of fight with both sides. My personal take is there was nowhere else he could go and be alone. Most of the stuff had been destroyed. It was still close by, so he could still do his work and keep an eye on things/be nearby.

There is a quote that is taken to be literal, but I think it’s just a way to say it wouldn’t have mattered who Cloud was “with.” Yes, Tifa and Cloud have issues, and I believe the quote goes “Perhaps it would have gone better with Aerith, but I think her responsibility is too great. Maybe the children will help them with their issues.” This isn’t exact, but it’s the jist of what they said. The children do help them - that’s the point of the scenes with Marlene, to slap him silly with reality. 

“Oh but he sees Aerith when the building is falling.” Yes, you know why? Because he thinks that’s going to happen to Tifa. This is a “NO I’M NOT LETTING THIS HAPPEN.” moment. On top of it, I don’t think anybody would be right again if they saw this happen. If my neighbor was impaled by a large sword in their back, I’d be messed up from it. I don’t really know my neighbors. He’s not replaying this death scene in his head cuz he misses Aerith, he’s playing it in his head because it’s traumatic and he doesn't want to see this happen to Tifa. Especially Tifa. 

It’s been put in Ultimanias time and time again that Cloud’s feelings are for Tifa. I went through my Ultimania - which only covers OG - and it doesn’t say anything about Cloud’s side of the CA argument. It does say how he feels about Tifa in the Lifestream, though. 

The “He wants to die for her, see, that’s why he’s going to the church and waiting.” No, he doesn’t want to die or else he wouldn’t be so depressed. Just thinking this is fucked up on so many levels. If he really wanted to die and be with her, he’d be happy he got an incurable illness, I’d think... Cloud leaves Tifa and them because he doesn’t want to hurt him with him dying and not being able to stop it. 

The other thing that would be... weird... Zack is in the Lifestream with Aerith. They walk off together for a reason. I don’t think she’s going to just drop Zack for Cloud since the whole reason she was initially interested in Cloud was because of the similarities to Zack. He had the same sword, the same clothes, and in OG had some of the same mannerisms. I noticed the dropped the squatting in Remake - the random squatting.

The ending of ACC implies that now that Geostigma is cured and Sephiroth is (hopefully) gone for good, Cloud can be happy. I’m not saying that his smile fixes everything. I’m sure that him and Tifa had to work on things, but you can see in DoC that things seem to be much better - he’s more upbeat and happy. He’s more dorky, like he should be. 

Sorry this is long. I have a lot of feelings about all this stuff today. I’ve been seeing the fights over on Twitter about it and.. yeah. Cloud is depressed because of the fact he’s dying, his kid is dying, and he can’t seem to do anything right in his mind.

Thanks for the ask.