#not discourse im processing feelings

[insecuregodcomplex]

*NOT discourse*

I think Buck asked Tommy if he’s interested in girls not because he forgot he’s gay, but because Buck is navigating his own boundaries within his sexuality and wanted to discuss more of where his and Tommy’s perceptions overlap

[peppersnot]

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[ponderosapineneedles]

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[swordformike]

i hate the mentality that not being very vocal about something = not caring at all and you are Evil

[ablednt]

A little girl just fucking died and half you fuckers are still acting like this is some political discourse and going on about hamas fuck you I've actually had enough

[gurorori]

im really sad thinkin abt some of my friends

[psychhound]

announcing spiritkeep: a therapeutic ttrpg

howdy all! some big announcements!!!

first, im nearing the end of my master's program, studying rhetoric and writing, games, and educational psychology. im about halfway done with my thesis, and figured it was time to make an announcement …

my thesis, entitled "designing ​spiritkeep​: therapeutically applied RPGs as a discourse community" is … about what it says on the tin :) in it, I look at the practice of TA-RPGs, which are TTRPGs run for the express purpose of inducing therapeutic growth. TA-RPGs are usually run by a clinician, like a therapist or counselor, or a certified therapeutic game master. my thesis is looking at the needs of therapeutic game masters as a community and asking … what do they need from TTRPGs that isn't currently available?

the thesis takes concepts from rhetoric, linguistics, game studies, literature studies, psychology, and more to ask the question … what would a TTRPG specifically designed for therapeutic use look like? i examine concepts like bleed, close to home characters, dramatic rehearsal, performative speech acts, fixed vs growth mindsets, information processing theory, and more. i also look at criteria set forth by current TA-RPG practitioners for what makes a good TA-RPG, and examine five current games against those criteria. then, i put together the research into a foundation for spiritkeep, a dedicated TA-RPG

spiritkeep is designed around the goal of helping teens and adults heal from complex trauma

that said, its perfectly suitable for a homegame as well, as long as everyone is on the same page and approaches it with the mindset of collaborative growth. all in all, it's still going to be a fun game and a good TTRPG!!

in spiritkeep, you play as a smalltown taskforce with the shared goal of restoring your currently struggling community to a thriving state. you go out on missions like finding resources, diplomacy with neighboring cities, researching ecological problems, and more, while you slowly make your town a better place to live. spiritkeep includes collaborative worldbuilding, a large assortment of playbook options like the Wayfarer, the Knight, the Ghost, or the Shepherd (all designed to hit where it hurts, at least a little!), and a brand new system inspired by PBtA, FitD, BOB, WoD, and more. while the game is designed around grappling with identity and learning how to grow, it can also get a bit tactical and crunchy!! the new dice mechanic makes you think on your feet with every roll

this announcement is also to say that i am beginning the initial crowdfunding of the game through itch. right now, im trying to raise funds to pay the fee to my school to make my thesis open access, meaning anyone can read it. then, remaining funds will go towards things like resources, consultants, art for the kickstarter, and everything else i need to get this project off the ground. ideally, ill be able to team with a publisher to cover the logistics of business while i can focus on the game itself. once the game is finished, there will still be plenty of playtesting, consulting, and other work to do. but!!! this post marks my first steps towards what has been my dream for years now

this sale is how im starting the funding process. it includes the zine preview of my thesis, covering my chapter outline and big concepts, and also my first TA-RPG: with breath & sword, a solo game to help players calm down from anxiety. both items have community copies available: please feel free to grab one if you can't contribute !!

questions, comments, or partnership offers can be sent to psychhoundgames @ gmail(.)com

thanks y'all!!! wish me luck!!!! 🥰🥰🥰

[ixxivvv]

small in your coat.

zayne, sylus, caleb.

(written by me in 15+hr makeup and contacts crouching on the station floor as i wait for the last train after a shitty night club shift, yearning for a dream to make me feel protected, in their coat.)

-⛄️ zayne ❄️-

made from well tailored houses, all his jackets had structure to them. shoulders wide and thick fabrics.

"Heading home." he sent to you, in mind you are waiting in his home. your night together, sleeping in his place for tonight for no particular reason was going to begin after a while of being busy with each others work: and you couldn't wait.

you explore his apartment in curiosity, a place you are familiar with now. his room still felt like you were entering his world. no dust, everything was in order and tidy. it still felt so wide and neat, in contrast to your casual attire now.

you opened his cabinets and drawers, observing the entire thing. you find bits and pieces of your favorite memories together- the shirt he wore to your first date together, the sweater you gifted him, and all of his coats on the hanger. reaching for one, the classic burberry trench coat and resting it on your shoulders. it just felt like a back hug- he may be cold but only you know how warm and kind he was. it nest heavy on you, nearly dragging the ends to the floor, the sleeves too long too. in his pocket, something crinkles- a piece of bonbon chocolate and a candy. it made you smile, as you look into the mirror.

as you felt him, the entrance door opens. "darling? im home..." you scurry over, "forgetting" to take your new cape on. "welcome home! :)"

he expresses that micro expression he often does- his pupils widening and looking to the side, almost processing his next move. but this time, he couldn't find words. was it too much? you tilt your head, peeping into him. ".. zayne?"

he managed to look at you, then suddenly grips your shoulders tight. he gasps and flushes,

"... did you miss me that much?"

- 🐦‍⬛sylus 🚗-

his biker jacket, thick leather with a thrashing pattern in his signature colors. the one you hold on tight to from his back when you two are on a joyride. in fancy outings with a dress he order made, he subtly pushes you forward: to show his beautiful girl, to lead the way and only when you seem lost he stands by your side.

he rarely showed his back, which is why you enjoyed joyrides. sylus hasn't taken you out for a dinner or party or anything for a while due to discourse and in fighting between groups. arrests, leadership changes, moving positions and disagreements. it was hectic and n109 zone was not safe now- less people in the streets. he kept you inside which is fine, but even without luke and kieran in the home, only mephisto kept you company for now.

eye rolling media coverage that would never have enough air time of what truely happened, social media discourse of what happened...

"mephisto-h... where is sylus?" and the high tech shows a display of his current location. still out there in some meeting with some people you wouldn't want to know. its all so hectic just looking at it. the cons of being a "mafia boss boyfriend's girlfriend" trope is going to your day job and watching people at work come and go, no idea of anything and the kind of people youve come to known and their struggles. its all just outsiders. you loved sylus, you really did, and more than the thrilling adrenaline. a kind of world which youve come to know that he is there in because he can't live anywhere else. the kind of loneliness and disconnect from people that "don't watch the news" or it's "too dark".

your heavy legs dragged you into his closet. opening the doors, it smelled of his cologne and dry cleaners. but you reached out for the only jacket that dosen't particularly smell of anything- his biker jacket. its made with protective plates and leather. it faintly smelled of his cologne and petrol. maybe you did miss the thrill of when you first got together. or the wind.

"kitten?" sylus walks in, surprising you.

"sylus? you were home?" "why, unhappy to see me? well, i can clearly see you wanted to see me." he chuckles and looks into you lovingly, like a kitten caught in a ball of yarn. caught redhanded, so small in his jacket all curled up like a blanket. he lifts you up, bridal style- so adorable, pretending to not miss him with your words but so clearly did.

sylus decided in that moment, that the discourse needs to end- to bring a sense of "peace" back.

- ✈️ caleb 🍎-

(soo theres a canon audio that you steal his jacket aand... well this will be based off that 😭)

caleb called you to eat dinner from downstairs- "y/n! dinners ready~!" he said so happily, he enjoyed cooking but he loves "playing" house with you.

but you weren't coming down, so he placed the pan in the middle of the table and headed upstairs? where were you now? werent you just taking a shower? still in the shower prohaps? however his instincts, senses you were in his room. his big footsteps, open to a sight he didn't expect.

you were already changed with no makeup, but you had your hands behind your back, staring into his closet like an art piece.

"did you, find my clothes interesting?" you took back by surprise, eyes widening. he informs you that dinners ready and guides you downstairs around your shoulder. you seemed to be in thought still, "i wonder whats in her head again." caleb ponders.

as you sit across him from the dinner table, chewing - still in thought. he couldn't leave it.

"pipsqueak, whats on your mind?" ".. nothing. pass the soy sauce?" his eyes lose its spark.

as he showered that night, washing his hair down in his own thoughts. he could feel himself getting anxious, triggering his own core and attempting to coax himself out of it. hes practicing not to doubt you so much.

he sighs as he steps out the shower in a single towel wrapped around his waist, just to see you sitting in the corner of his bed again, dangling your legs. you just stared into him, only with one thing. his colonel jacket hauled on your tiny shoulders. you were sitting on the long tail of the trench, the back stitching that resembles mechanical wings rests on your back. your soft features contrasted with the black color that faintly smelled of iron.

"...", he had no words, whether in disbelief or just how small you were in his build. if you stood up, the coat might drag across the floor. you fury your brows, sensing that he didn't enjoy the gesture. it was childish, but the details on his coat was impressive- no fraying or loose thread, some signs of wear. it sat heavy on you, emotionally and physically.

but caleb also adored it- his brute power and fear in the jacket suddenly seemed softer in your touch. how he'd just let you.

".. you like the colonel that much? or the owner of this uniform?" you touch the gold stitching, teasing him a bit more.

".. then, i must bow down to the colonel." he gets on his knee, softly taking your foot. he was still in his towel, but you knew what was going to happen-

and you loved it. crossing your arms, roleplaying your power. caleb smirks and places a kiss on your ankle.

".. you have the full authority to command me. i shall serve you, my entire body.." as he kisses up your foot and thigh- only you can do this to the actual colonel himself.

[mythalism]

i think what people need to understand is that no amount of essays assuring me of veilguard's strengths, of which i agree there are plenty, is going to change the fact that the emotional experience veilguard prompted within me (and for many others) while i played it was a deeply negative one. discomfort at best, painful at worst. im talking stomach aches. visceral, somatic creeping disappointment and dread that i tried to fight for hours and hours but eventually had no choice but to accept. i stopped wanting to play entirely around 30 hours. i felt vaguely ill. i felt anxious. i could not sleep for a few days. and im not saying i felt sick because it was so bad, but that i felt sick because of the sinking realization that i was about to be terribly, horribly disappointed after so, so long. you could call me dramatic and im sure someone will. idk what to tell you. my emotions manifest physically long before they become decipherable or understandable to me mentally, especially when they're 10 years in the making. probably an autism symptom. regardless, it was genuinely pretty awful, especially because i had immense good faith for this game. i was so hopeful and optimistic and generally thrilled and literally anyone who followed me before october 31 would know that. the emotional whiplash and crash was intense and devastating, and i was reeling for days. you cannot tell me that this experience was "wrong" or "toxic" due to it's negative nature. it was entirely involuntary and outside of my control, as i would expect many people's joy was. emotional reactions are not beholden to fandom discourse.

any post i have made criticizing the game since is attempt to make sense of the emotional roller-coaster of the past 10 years, this summer, and finally this game's release. i do not come on here and write out my criticisms of veilguard because i want YOU to dislike it too. the nature of my essays are not persuasive. if they do persuade you its just because i am a well-trained essayist. sorry. if they dont, great! that wasnt the point. i have no desire to change anyone's mind on the game, in fact i actually would not wish the disappointment i felt on anyone. the fact that i have a lot of followers who agree with what i say and who spread the thoughts i express across tumblr is literally out of my control. when i write out my long-winded criticisms, it is out of a need to express and externalize that sinking, cold feeling i had while playing, in pursuit of understanding exactly why playing that game felt that way to me. identifying, analyzing and verbalizing is the only way i have been able to process my experience. its confessional and therapeutic more than anything. it helps other people understand their own difficult emotional process with the game. its not an attempt to ruin your fun. my negative experience with veilguard does not invalidate anyone else's positive one.

i see so many posts acting like all criticism is an intentional, targeted hate campaign and i dont understand that assumption. to what ends? what would that achieve? why would i bother with such a thing? maybe that is some people's intention in the deep hater corners of this website, and im blissfully unaware. if it is, fuck them. its certainly the intention of annoying grifters, but i feel the distinction between transphobe grifters and devastated fans is pretty clear, so im not sure why the lines are deliberately blurred as if those groups are remotely similar. some of my criticisms come from a more objective place. the writing comes to mind, and it's a consistent criticism from thousands of players. but just because i consider it to be poorly executed, does not make it unlovable. and when i say that i think its poorly done, i am not saying that you cannot or should not love it, or that you are stupid for loving it. maybe someone out there is saying that!!! but i am not. things do not have to be perfect to be enjoyable. they dont even have to be well executed to be enjoyable. "i think x aspect of veilguard is poorly done for yz reasons" is a completely different sentence than "you should not like x aspect of veilguard for yz reasons". these are not the same statements. i see so many posts that are so vitriolic and acting like two experiences of this game cannot coexist, that one has to win and be objectively right, moralizing them on a false axis of positivity = good and negativity = bad, and acting like the existence of one negates the experience of the other. and why? why would that be true? i literally love so many things that other people think are absolute ass. i also love plenty of things that i myself think are actual ass. i love them anyway. this is allowed and really fun. i am not sure who told you that it is not.

however, i have just as much of a right to express my disappointment as you have to express your excitement. i am genuinely happy for everyone who loves the game, i am glad it resonated, or that you saw yourself in its characters, or that it just scratched your hyperfixation itch. but whatever je ne se quoi it had for you, it did not have for me. i have written out so much criticism about so many aspects of the game, but fundamentally what it comes down to and what i cannot express in words is that while i played after waiting 10 years for that moment, it felt wrong. it wasn't that i had specific expectations for game story that were not met, in fact, it exceeded my expectations in a lot of ways. i mean that in terms of how i felt, something was off. it did not resonate. it did not land. it did not hit the right cord with me. i did not have enough moments of joy to outweigh the feeling of emptiness. i did not walk away from it feeling the way that the previous games made me feel. and ive been trying to figure out exactly why that is for three months now by talking about it with people who feel similarly. i am not sure that i will ever be able to analyze my way into figuring it out. it might just have to simply be that it left me bereft.

and so my posts are not anti-veilguard hater propaganda to make you feel like shit for loving the game. rather, they are me verbally processing exactly why i feel like shit so i can hopefully stop feeling like shit. to assume that people who are trying to process these negative feelings are toxic and intentionally malicious is a projection made in bad faith. i love dragon age, and it is because i love it so much that it disappointed me, and it is because disappointed me that i have to verbally process it on tumblr.com so that i dont go absolutely insane. i tag my posts properly. i do not go into tags where i do not belong. i do not rage-bait. i am participating in post-partum dragon age therapy between me and my followers. if it ends up on your dash, sorry. my therapy is popular i guess. so please for the love of god enjoy the game, freely and enthusiastically. i am happy for you. i will sit here and be jealous that it spoke to something in your soul that it unfortunately did not speak to in mine, and nothing i say can take that away from you. please stop interpreting it as an attempt to.

[transmutationisms]

this is probably shaped by my limited frame of reference, but im really fascinated by witnessing the real-time development of adhd as a diagnosis. people attribute so many symptoms to it now or maybe they always did? i was wondering if you have any thoughts on what is the use of adhd specifically as a category within psychiatry. I'm esl so sorry for any confusing wording

no you're right imo; diagnostic categories are always somewhat in flux ofc but ADHD is one that has seen a particularly pronounced shift in the last couple decades. obviously this is multifactorial but my observation goes something along these lines:

'hyperactivity' has been dx'd in children since about the 1950s (also when Ritalin hit the market) but the ADHD dx doesn't really take off until the 90s (also when Adderall, a 2nd-gen reformulation of the 'obesity' drug Obetrol, hit the market). so, it's not all that surprising that 20 years later you see increased patient awareness of the diagnosis, increased popular interest in it, and shifting / expanding ideas of what it means and what ADHD 'is'. it's a relatively young dx.

part of the reason it's young is because it's basically a 'biopsychiatric' dx, meaning it diagnoses certain behaviours as being a 'brain problem' rather than having social causes or context. in practice this is complicated because psychs do use pharmacological approaches in conjunction with psychodynamic ones all the time; nevertheless, the central promise of DSM ADHD and its pharmaceutical treatments has consistently been that the ADHD subject has a physiological, neurological disorder / dysfunction / aberration, and that the drug treatments on the market fix it. that none of this is actually empirically supported is conceptually inconvenient and entrenched by the research process.

the biopsychiatric narrative is worth paying attention to because the context here is one in which it has become commonly accepted that behavioural 'disorders' and affective distress of various kinds can be, basically, either of pure biological origin, or else Your Fault. in the case of childhood hyperactivity, Your Fault historically also included Your Mother's Fault; part of the reason many mothers embraced Ritalin in the 50s and 60s was because the proffered pharmaceutical narrative explicitly challenged the idea that these mothers had done something 'wrong' to result in their (mostly) sons exhibiting disruptive and hyperactive behaviour.

this dichotomy of biology vs personal failing is very overtly present in quite a bit of discourse around ADHD today. if it's my brain being 'wrong' or different, then it's not something I've done wrong but a disease with a simple chemical fix. in this context I don't think it's surprising at all that a lot of popular and patient conceptions of ADHD have seen a considerable widening over the past few decades. often people like to blame this on pharmaceutical companies, and it's true that industry benefits from these discourses and frequently invests in them (eg, via instruments like ADDitude mag). however, that's a pretty simplistic explanation on its own and doesn't really account for the ways in which patients and potential patients also find this diagnostic category personally useful, for reasons ranging from identity-formation to the desire to access prescription amphetamines. ADHD increasingly shows up as a biologised explanation for behaviours ranging from 'eating too many sweets' to 'postural sway' and so on. you can see in such examples how invoking the idea of an aberrant ADHD brain is both reassuring to people who have been made to feel ashamed of certain behaviours, and provides a sense of shared identity and community with others.

all of this is to say: I don't find it surprising at all when I see a relative broadening of notions of ADHD, almost always expressed in biological terms (the 'ADHD brain' operates differently, 'seeks dopamine', causes this or that). ADHD is in some ways a particularly blatant distillation of this general trend in popular psychiatric discourses, for reasons relating to expectations about childhood and child behaviour, and the historical and present relationship between the ADHD label and the regulation of amphetamines. but much of what's happening with ADHD in terms of popular discourses about it can also be seen with many, many other psychiatric diagnoses, to varying extents and in various ways.

my experience writing about ADHD on this website leads me to close by explicitly stating the following: I do not think any ADHD behaviours / symptoms are people's 'fault' or an individual failing; I do not think using drugs for any reason is morally bad or needs to be justified; the fact that I do not think ADHD is a 'brain disease' does not mean I think people are 'making it up' or exaggerating wrt any difficulties they experience personally, professionally, emotionally, &c.

[catboywizard]

heyyy hot takes at 4am time but like what is wrong with people?? we just received really huge awful news, let people have some time to process???

i just saw someone saying anyone upset about the neil gaiman thing because of what it means for good omens, something they loved deeply, is a “fucking monster”

like, good for you for never having anything you love be revealed to be made by an awful person, i guess?

of course we should be supporting and believing the victims, but people can be upset about things for more than one reason? and talking about one of those things doesn’t negate the other? (like right now, i’m specifically talking about the situation in the context of assholes online acting like they’re so much better then fans who are upset, and that doesn’t mean i think we shouldn’t be centering the victims and what they’ve gone through)

it took me a really long time to (mostly) get over harry potter because it was a huge part of me and something i cared about very deeply. even as a victim of jkr’s vitriol myself. now im at the point where thinking about the situation only hurts a little bit, but it took me like a year or even longer to get there. the neil gaiman news is less than 24 hours old at this point.

just, be nicer to good omens fans right now please. mourning something you loved so much it felt like a part of you doesn’t make you automatically selfish.

and if this kind of thing hasn’t happened to you yet, just know that any human is capable of terrible things like this, and that means any of your favorite creators. if one of them ever gets revealed to be a horrible person, i hope people are nicer to you about it then they are being right now.

note: i also saw a couple people saying stuff like “well yall should have dropped him ages ago when he was revealed to be a zionist/be creepy towards younger fans/write women characters really badly/etc.” and like yeah, that’s not great, but i didn’t know any of that stuff? i feel like a lot of discourse would be solved if people just remembered that the worlds a big place and just cause you know something doesn’t mean everyone does. it’s not a moral failing to have never been informed about something (also, i haven’t personally found any actual evidence of him being a zionist, just people claiming he is)

[genderqueerdykes]

i think that certain parts of the community are starting to become more and more exclusionist. like im starting to see a lot more pro-lesboy spaces say "lesboy doesnt mean trans man/cis man! full men cant be lesboys!" or pro-mspec monospec spaces say "mspec monospec doesnt mean being both things for the same attraction! it means being mspec for sex/romance and monospec for the other!! no one is a romantic mspec AND monospec at the same time!" or just. Things like that.

i did not see this ask until now and am i glad you sent it

short answer: yes, agreed, it's petty queer infighting that doesn't need to be happening

so from what i've noticed is most of online queer discourse really at the end of the day is about what an individual person thinks that queer label isn't, and not what it is. people are very nihilistic right now, and really love to take everything in bad faith. we're seeing a rash of reactionary content in general where people take their knee jerk reaction as their stance on an entire complex concept that requires time to digest and process. like literally the most farfetched dogshit take you've ever seen because they just found out about a concept and bullshitted and answer.

certain people wanna think they're experts on queerness overnight because they just realized they're [xyz] or whatever other reason they want to be the expert on queerness. really what it is is people who want to tell other people what it is, but not listen. like it really just is people who want to say "this is how queerness works. shut up because i'm the only one who knows why. don't ask me for a reason". like it's about control. it's about people who have never done any research into queer history in any country on any continent, has not interacted with their local queer community who still want to have a captive audience about what queerness "really is". so instead of learning history and talking to other people they tell you how they feel and spin it as the truth.

other people just send the most bizarre angry posts, asks, DMs, whatever, about how they hate this 1 really specific kind of person that they've never actually met, but hypothetically they would hate. it's mind games. people get caught up in their own thoughts long enough to believe the hypothetical guy they made up isn't real. it's the strawman argument. i don't know what compels humans to do this but for whatever reason, people really love making up a fictional guy to get offended at. it's really bizarre. if cishet men wanted to identify as lesbians, they would literally already be doing it

if you know what logical fallacies are to some extend and have been around internet discussions in general for a long time, you start to recognize the patterns. it's a type of entitled attitude that leads a person to not be in a community for very long. it's a certain kind of person who gets a rise out of being a jackass. like i've tried to word that better. no. that's what it is. like people are aware of the fact that they're being a jackass and continue to do it anyway. people are getting a kick out of this. like. people are chasing the rush you get from fucking with someone. that's all it is. when people say "how can they be so cruel?" they're chasing a mental high that fades extremely quickly, so they have to keep doing it over, and over, and over.

it's like how do i put it. now that social media is so widespread, just about everyone has one on at least a few platforms at this point. people are being exposed to these conversations. and you're gonna have some complete noobs who come in thinking they can define lesbianism because they realized they were a lesbian yesterday and it's like. people will keep fighting the same tired old argument about how trans men can't be lesbians for the 9439030985th time and meanwhile they're ignoring the 50 trans male dykes interacting with one of their mutuals like i think it's literally dumb as hell that there are people on this website mentally abusing strangers on the internet because they refuse to crack open a book, read a zine or open a pdf and read the biographies of real world trans male lesbians, or even just read an article about one. like it's easier and more fun for them to pretend it's not happening it's wild as hell to me

anyway, yes. it's really stupid. people are getting caught up in all the wrong parts of what separates identities. it's the compulsion to draw lines in the sand that is forced upon us in our binary obsessed society. it is likely tied to black and white thinking, and catastrophizing, which both can happen when someone is stressed and looking at a situation in a maladaptive way, either due to perspective or neurotype. sometimes this legitimately can be due to someone's mental health, so it's not an excuse, but it's an explanation for why people get so riled up. those headspaces get you very heated and it's difficult to come down from. it requires a lot of time learning emotional coping skills to walk backwards from those types of episodes

[bitterbutblue]

a short little thing

let you break my heart again ☆ stelle x reader

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────

angst!

a/n: writing this was actually more like a flow of incoherent thoughts so im sorry if this makes absolutely no sense T-T

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────

Liminality- where what you do has no consequences, a time between the depths of the evening and the earliest of the day where you find yourself open to an idea of doing things you would never do when the sun actually is up and glaring down at you. She looks you up and down, and you can only let out a breath you didn't realise you had been holding as your eyes meet.

"You alright?"

You can barely make out Stelle's voice over the bass boosted music, thrumming and pounding and the walls are shaking and you feel like it's all caving in. Strobe lights that flicker and flash in unrecognisable patterns but you still recognise the colour of her eyes through it all.

"Yeah."

It's odd. You never found yourself pulled towards her until right now this moment where maybe because of the alcohol in your system or the idea that nothing here will hold any weight tomorrow (it will, you just haven't processed that yet). The tension between you two only grows, from the day she first flirted with you drunk to now, you can only presume she wants what you want too. Her eyes dart down, a tentative hand on your waist.

"Is this okay?"

You can't even bring yourself to look into her eyes anymore, only looking down at her lips as she pulls you in slightly closer, taking your hand gently and placing it on her waist. The movement to the beat is more instinctive than anything as you dance and the energy is intoxicating. You're choking on it, and so is she.

This doesn't mean anything, you know that right?

Yeah, no. I totally agree.

Good- no strings attached?

Yeah. No strings attached.

So when she kisses you, you can push aside any thought of what could've been and the lingering idea that out of all your friends, she is the only one whose eyes you know the colour of without hesitation. You don't remember how long it lasted for, you just remember the smile on her face as you pull away.

This is a horrible idea, you know?

Yeah, for sure.

"We shouldn't be doing this."

"No I agree."

The three words slip out faster than you realise, a bit faster than the feeling of your heart cracking slightly.

"I'm glad we're on the same page."

You didn't want to be on this page. A part of you hoped that if you kept it up maybe she would start to feel the same way back but you see how she never looks at you in a room full of people and you see how she never makes the first move and you hurt in silence. You convince yourself it was all in the past, you convince yourself that you will stop liking her and maybe the feeling of her lips on yours would gradually fade into nothing but a thing to laugh at but it's hard to laugh when it hurts so bad. It hurts to the point where your chest caves in from standing and you can't breathe without it threatening to burst into pieces of what it once was.

So, we're still friends?

Yeah, of course.

Liminality- where this whole discourse started and now she looks her up and down. A pink haired girl who you just met today holds her hand the way she held yours months ago and you can already see the ending of the story but you still decide to stay to see it happen- to feel the stab in your chest in real time and to feel the crowd cave in and suffocate you. The sea of people seem to fade, and you feel like all you can see through the flashing lights is the way she puts her hand on the pink haired girl's shoulder and you know what's going to happen before it even unfolded.

So why did it hurt so much when they kissed?

You pushed yourself away from Rappa and the others, choking out some incoherent babbled excuse about how you want to go and they don't follow you because they're pissed and gone and you want to cry. Breathe, count. 1, 2, 3, 4. Breathe, count. 1, 2, 3, 4. She was never yours to begin with. Breathe, count. 1, 2, 3, 4.

Three of them find you outside bar, zoned out. They ask if you're okay and you smile and say you're fine but Robin knows better.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Aventurine asks, and you nod. The music is still going, the night is still young so they brush off your nod because they want to go back to take advantage of the little time they have left before they're brought back to their responsibilities in the day. A shift in tone, a wicked grin. "Did you see Stelle? She was absolutely getting it on with March."

You look away from Aventurine when he says that. You catch the way Dan Heng glances at you, he knows. Robin pulls you aside and asks if you're okay and you say you want to go home because your throat is closing up and your eyes are welling up in tears and for god's sake it's 3am at a club and you cannot cry.

It's 3am at a club and you're alone.

You tell Robin you'll go now. You walk her back into the club to make sure she finds the others but really you just want to see if they're still together because the self sabotaging part of yourself is always going to be a part of you. A glimpse of pink hair, and a sickening feeling in your gut stirs up again. You leave faster than you can even process your own movements. You don't look back, because she's not looking at you.

The next few days, you get on with your life. But you subconsciously still check your phone once in a while- hoping for her to text you to ask if you're okay. She never does.

[communist-hatsunemiku]

so little update, my plan to regulate my adderall use and actually use my prescription as prescribed is going well and my time locking box has worked wonders. A side effect of me being actually properly medicated with stimulants means scrolling on tumblr like just my dashboard is actually so incredibly boring and really just makes me feel like im doing less than nothing. im like wasting precious brain processing power on stupid tumblr bullshit. Most discourse posts and all that shit is just irritating to read

[purrpl-png]

What is your opinion on Beast x Ancient?

sighhh deep down i knew someday ill have to answer this question😞

i dont really like participating in ship discourses and it turned out a little longer than i thought, so im placing it undercut for those who are interested enough to read what i think

the answer is that its not for me. at least not in a romantic way. at least not for now. i was never really a fan of ships with complicated/toxic dynamics or hero x villain or rivals at all. for example, i never liked billford or tomtord or even sonadow and stuff like that. not that theyre entirely bad, its just not for me and gives me discomfort, because i was in toxic relationships myself and i just can't help but associate them with my personal experience. this includes beast x ancient and even some of the beast x beast too with the way i portay beasts characters in my mind, but its not about them

honestly, i am not really into shipping in general as i cant really understand or process the concept of shipping in my mind as a whole, if it makes sense. like i personally never truly understood the exact point of it nor felt the urge to ship. but i do understand that shipping plays a huge role in every fandom and its just how it is, people having fun, even if i am somewhere far away from all this. ofc i drew a couple of 'shipey' things out of pure joke or to play with some dynamics for fun (ex. my shadowbill animation and buttervelvet post), but never went any further than that. doesnt mean that i dont ship anything at all, trust me, i actually love some ships, but its not like HUGE for me and is very rare, it's just very difficult to explain exactly

dont get me wrong, id LIE if i said that i dont like to see beasts and ancients interact with each other. id lie if i said i dont enjoy the possibility of many interesting scenarios between them and an idea of slow redemption arcs either. all these parallels and tragic doomed soulmates stuff is SICK AF, i like their dynamics and contrasts between the characters. their bond is like a foundation of life itself; their virtues cannot exist without each other, no matter how much they like it or not and theyre complete opposites, but at the same time theres NO ONE whos is more similar to them than they are to each other. all of them are the only perfect match to confront each other and its such a peak cinema i wish more people didnt sleep on, because theres SO much you can do with it💔

unfortunately, i saw a lot of people romantize/fetishize very weird things iykwim... ive seen some HORRENDOUS bad terrible uncomfortable stuff i wish i didnt, that i clearly dont support and dont interact with :( it even made me block some of the tags. and while im still here, i want to remind that i have pr0ship in my dni, so if youre a pr0shipper reading this, please, unfollow/block me, because ive seen some interacting with my posts before😞

and just to add, of course i know that most of beast x ancient shippers dont do that, because some of my online AND irl friends i knew for YEARS and i sure know they wouldnt hurt a fly in their life and dont approve of such things at all either, liked beast x ancient, but i still prefer not to engage with it anyway just in case. lets just say i am extremely neutral/apathetic to everything unless its something bad and harmful

thank you for listening to my little yap session, i hope any of it made sense, i am not really much of a public talker honestly and interacting with any fandoms and people in it usually gives me some kind of anxiety and mixed feelings, because im struggling with comprehending peoples attention. its been like that for years and ongoing even now, but im really trying to open up a little as a person and not just a rando who usually drops their drawings once in a while and disappears until the next time lol

[prettyboykatsuki-moved]

gen question tho do you wonder why the culture of fanfic has shifted to where smut is by far the most common and most popular type of fic? i stumbled upon a writer a few months ago who openly admitted to only writing what she did because it got her followers and notes on her posts and she apologized for mischaracterizing some characters in her smut pieces. it was the first time ive ever seen that as just something ppl talked about and felt comfortable to say

i have a metapost about this somewhere floating around this blog but the long and short of it is that fandom is reflecting our current cultural values around commodity and instant gratification.

it's hard to describe but the commodification of fandom has generally made some parts of it performative. people dont see reading fanfiction as just... engaging with someones work but as a kind of consumption. authors are not people but "content" creators. artists must advertise themselves to recieve any noteworthy response.

so its less community oriented and more commodified.

im a smut blog primarily so i have to clarify - there's nothing wrong with people choosing to write smut or preferring to read it. im not critiquing smut itself or its presence in fandom culture. and i never would. i literally write porn and smut itself has plenty of merit and value. and its especially important to be writing really dirty erotica in a culture that is sex obsessed yet so puritanical

the issue itself lies with how that process has ultimately dismantled the community aspect of fandom. if you've been present in fanculture prior to 2020 - you will know it was not like this. proship discourse, engagement discourse, etc - all of this happens because fandom culture itself has become a commodity

i think smut as a genre provides ease of tension and the most instant gratification in terms of writing. things like long ongoing fic that may or may not finished, or angst, or fluff - these things can, and do get popular from time to time. but people have a much shorter attention span, and getting that same type of release will take longer.

specifically it will require a reader to engage in the story more actively to see it through. that used to be the norm. but fandom itself has been commodified - so people view all of this as a passive and endless stream of content they can observe instead of a community of people in which their presence as lurkers and readers are needed. this also why i think a lot of engagement discourse can feel very misdirected

there is no longer and ecosystem in which to preserve the things that made fandom good. its reflective of the culture. the same reason smut blows up and and why netflix release 8 episode action packed series instead of 25 with better pacing is the same - the causation for these things are the same. its commodity, need for gratification, and trying to get ahold and maintain peoples attention.

its not the fault of author nor readers that this happens. theres always merit in writing your own original work. there's merit in all writing.

the increased popularity of smut is just a byproduct of the culture we're in right now. it doesn't make all smut low effort or automatically less worthy of peoples time (which is why i feel deeply irritated when i see posts talking about how the tags are only smut) . its just the genre with the quickest release of tension, and that's why people are seeking out in their media all the time right now.

fandom reflects culture, not the other way around. and right now culture demands engagement be solely to be gratified, as consumed - instead of experienced and enjoyed.