#or derives any sense of happiness from my existence at all

[joeymets]

i am so out of sorts man

[sophiethewitch1]

1K CELEBRATION EVENT OPEN! CLOSED!

Hello, welcome! This event is going to celebrate my first thousand followers :D!! It's as the header says, a yandere alphabet, but with my special brand of soft yandere. Please feel free to send in letters for whoever you'd like, there's no limit, I might just pick and choose if you request a lot of letters. Thank you so much for following, I'm so happy you're here! Let's keep having lots of fun together <3 <3

ACCEPTING A-Z REQUESTS FOR:

The batboys (Dick, Jason, Tim, Damian, Duke) The batgirls (Barbara, Steph, Cass) My OCs (Silvan, Daire, etc.) MAYBE for most DC characters, blue lock characters, bnha characters

Alphabet made by @/jaydenchip404 tysm for making this!

List below the cut!

A = Affection (Is Their Love All-consuming, Expressed Through Possessive Gestures and Overwhelming Intensity With No Bounds?):

B = Blood (How Messy Are They Willing to Get in Pursuit of Their Darling? Would They Embrace Chaos and Revel in the Crimson Tableau Painted by Their Actions?):

C = Cruelty (Once Abducted, How is Their Treatment Marked by a Twisted Sense of Devotion? Does Mockery Become a Dark Form of Endearment?):

D = Darling (Beyond Morality, is Any Act Justified in Their Pursuit of Their Darling? Is Consent Merely an Obstacle to Be Overcome?):

E = Exposed (To What Extent Do They Bare Their Heart to Their Darling? How Vulnerable Are They When It Comes to Their Obsession?):

F = Fight (Does Resistance Only Fuel Their Passion? Do They Find Thrill in the Chase and the Challenge of Subduing Their Darling?):

G = Game (Is Every Move Meticulously Orchestrated, Turning the Pursuit Into a Twisted Game? Do They Derive Pleasure From Watching Their Darling Attempt Escape?):

H = Hell (How Carefully Crafted is Their Darling's Worst Experience, Designed to Break the Spirit While Strengthening the Bonds of Possession?):

I = Ideals (Does Their Envisioned Future Solely Revolve Around the Union With Their Darling? Is Their Love the Only Guiding Force?):

J = Jealousy (Does Jealousy Course Through Their Veins, Leading to Possessive Outbursts and a Relentless Need to Eliminate Perceived Threats?):

K = Kisses (Are Their Acts of Affection Both Tender and Suffocating? Do Their Kisses Blend Love and Possession, Leaving No Room for Escape?):

L = Love Letters (Is Courting an Intricate Dance Marked by Obsessive Letters and Gestures That Blur the Line Between Devotion and Insanity?):

M = Mask (How Drastic is the Difference Between Their Public Facade and True Self? Is the World Seeing a Mask, While Their Darling Witnesses Unfiltered Madness?):

N = Naughty (Is Punishment a Dark Art, a Methodical Infliction of Pain Designed to Correct Perceived Transgressions and Reinforce Control?):

O = Oppression (How Many Rights Are They Willing to Take Away From Their Darling, Molding Their World Into a Prison of Their Design?):

P = Patience (Is Their Patience a Calculated Facade, Concealing the Storm Brewing Beneath the Surface? Is It a Waiting Game for the Perfect Moment?):

Q = Quit (Is Moving on an Alien Concept for Them? Would the Death, Departure, or Escape of Their Darling Shatter Their World, Leaving Behind an Irreparable Void?):

R = Regret (Would Guilt Ever Be a Foreign Emotion, Overridden by the Conviction That Their Actions Are Justified? Is the Idea of Letting Their Darling Go Inconceivable?):

S = Stigma (Can the Roots of Their Obsession Be Traced to a Dark Past, a Blend of Childhood Trauma, Twisted Curiosity, and a Skewed Perception of Love?):

T = Tears (Does the Sight of Their Darling's Suffering Evoke a Twisted Pleasure, a Morbid Satisfaction Reinforcing Their Control?):

U = Unique (Do They Defy the Classic Yandere Archetype, Adding Layers of Complexity That Make Them Unpredictable and More Unnerving?):

V = Vice (Do Exploitable Weaknesses Exist, and is Discovering Them a Perilous Endeavor? Does Their Darling Tread on a Thin Line Between Manipulation and Survival?):

W = Wit's End (Is Hurting Their Darling a Dark Possibility, a Consequence of Their Unraveling Sanity When Faced With the Threat of Loss?):

X = Xoanon (Does Their Reverence for Their Darling Border on Worship, Reaching Extreme Lengths to Prove Their Devotion and Ensure Unwavering Loyalty?):

Y = Yearn (Is the Pining Relentless, an Insatiable Hunger That Consumes Their Every Waking Moment Until It Inevitably Snaps Into Obsession?):

Z = Zenith (Is Breaking Their Darling a Twisted Fantasy, the Ultimate Expression of Possession and the Culmination of Their Demented Love?):

[skaldish]

Could you expand upon your ideas around how Venerating a Deity doesn’t mean trying to embody what they represent? I was raised in a church that literally said the word “worship” meant “to try to become like”. So I’m fascinated by how you could worship a deity of a thing and not want to make more of that thing out in the world. I want to learn a new paradigm

Happy to! I love talking about paradigms.

Firstly…

Different religions and denominations conceptualize "worship" differently.

This includes "what you do to worship" but also includes ideas around "what gives worship its value."

"Trying to become like a deity" is something I've seen specifically associated with Evangelism and Fundamentalism (perhaps others, but this is what I know). It's derived from the idea that Christians are warriors of god and that it's their duty to act as his voice and hands on Earth. This is derivative of their doctrinal idea that they need to "save" people by any means necessary. (Teaching people to define who they are through God makes people dependent on God for a core sense of self, which is a huge reason why it's so psychologically awful to leave these denominations. It robs you of everything you are and leaves you with no way of creating yourself anew.

It's one thing to admire a deity and aspire to adopt some of their attributes as a point of personal growth; it's another altogether to teach people that they need to replace their inherent personality with a prescribed ideological construct. I loathe it entirely.)

Now, Catholics don't tend to interpret worship as the act of "trying to be like God." Given what I've observed and what I know of their ideology, worship for them is largely a function of sacrifice. You sacrifice your time, skills, wealth, etc. to God, because giving up things that are difficult to give up is how you show you really mean your devotion.

(I've seen this behavior in Heathens, actually, when they do things like buy top-shelf mead only to pour every last drop of it out on the ground for Odin or similar.)

I also take a lot of issues with this form of worship because I know why it exists: Extortion. The Church learned hundreds of years ago that guilt-tripping people out of their money (in exchange for salvation, an unfalsifiable concept that they neither had to prove nor procure) was an excellent way to get rich and powerful with impunity.

Clearly you caught me on a day I'm feeling extra-spicy towards Christianity. But I bring those two up in detail because I know a lot of my followers come from these backgrounds, and having more points of differentiation is important.

See, the real pitfall here lies in thinking that Christianity represents the "default" for how religions work, when in reality it's the grand exception, given all of human history.

The other religions I know about (with the exception of Judaism) are distinctly polytheistic: Shinto, Hinduism, Buddhism, and various flavors of Paganism. These all have different models of worship because they all have different, culturally-informed philosophies about how divinity works. Religions are inseparable from the cultures that create them for this reason, and why switching religions is a function of adopting a completely new mindset, not just a new set of gods to venerate.

Norse Heathen Worship

Since this is a Heathen blog I'm obligated to talk a bit about this.

How we worship as Norse Heathens is still a matter of debate, but that's because we're still figuring out how to define "worship" within the context of how it operates as a spirituality.

At no point did Norse Heathenry have a governing body, a religious figure, or a holy book to guide practice. Things developed organically, unique to their time-period and location, and stories were (and are) passed down via oral tradition rather than written down.

Many Heathens mistakenly think we're missing religious mandates, hence why they're so bent on trying to find them or devise them. I think this is a mistake.

A religion's architecture derives from the values, worldviews, and agendas of the culture/people behind it. The reason why a Christian's relationship with God looks like a Lord/servant dynamic is because the religion was shaped by lawmakers, and "loyalty towards the law" was a value they wanted to instill in the general population. Christianity was used to shape politics, so politics in turn shaped Christianity.

Norse Heathenry didn't have this function, so rather than reflecting political values, it reflects cultural ones. The stories are allegorical representations of cultural ideas, which themselves are based in the context of animism—the idea that everything operates as an ecosystem, and divinity is inseparable from that ecosystem.

This is all to say that the way Heathens worship is largely a byproduct of how they interface with that ecosystem. How this looks is something we choose based on what we find connection with, as opposed to mandates given to us.

Some people might find this kind of answer unsatisfying because it doesn't lead to any directive on "how to worship," but that might be because we're used to thinking of worship as a "duty," as opposed to what is actually, anthropologically is: A type of enrichment.

How I Worship

The way I go about worship is the same way I go about any kind of social bonding; through collaboration. In my mind, venerating deities is functionally identical to socializing with them, and like any socialization, how that's done varies from deity to deity. Anything I do in my practice—offerings, devotional art, etc—is informed by what I perceive them liking.

(Keep in mind I'm a hard polytheist, and I'm a hard polytheist because it's the only descriptor that could describe how I experience deities; as beings with autonomy divorced from my own will. A soft polytheist would conceptualize this entire thing differently.)

I also personally conceptualize "veneration" "devotion" and "worship" all differently, which is why you'll see me use the word "veneration" to describe what most people call "worship:"

Veneration is the general state of reverence or respect for something we hold spiritually important, such as a spirit, deity, or ancestor.

Devotion is a kind of enthusiastic dedication that emerges from love.

Worship is a ritual activity done as a gift for a god.

But this is just how I understand things for myself. They're not a reflection of how these things are thought of in Norse Heathenry. (In fact, they're mostly a product of the fact I initially learned about worship through observation, rather than experience. But I figured I'd bring it up anyway to provide an additional dimension to your paradigm explorations.)

I'm not sure what else to say so, uh…feel free to follow up with questions in case you want me to dive more into something.

[variant-archive]

Autocosm: a plural network of selves, each existing in their own dimension/reality/universe, all of which share a soul and/or a sense of "self"-ness with one another. There is a central self, called a metasoul or metaself, from which all other selves, called lunen, are derived from in some way.

-

Extended definiton/extra notes:

The metasoul exists in a realm called the soulscape, which functions similarly to a headspace or paracosm, in that it can vary in size, structure, visibility, stability, etc. It can also have different areas or be split into multiple connected realms.

The metasoul's consciousness extends to all lunen, and they are able to sense, feel, and remember everything their lunen do. Metasouls do not do anything equivalent to "fronting" but their presence in the lunan's consciousness, and the lunan's awareness of their presence, can vary. They may or may not be able to communicate outside of the soulscape. Not all lunen know they are a part of an autocosm, but the metasoul is aware of all lunen.

Lunen may or may not be aware of one another and cannot communicate directly. However, there is an inherent connection between all lunen that drives them to become aware of one another, and possibly experience parts of one another's lives in a manner akin to memories. Lunen may be able to communicate with each other in the soulscape, via the metasoul relaying messages, or not at all.

The soulscape can be accessed by lunen through various methods, such as meditation, reality shifting, dreaming, or other altered states of consciousness. The metasoul may also "summon" a lunan to the soulscape, and some lunen may be able to access it without effort or be connected to it at all times.

Beings other than the metasoul may inhabit the soulscape. These are called habitans. Habitans can be of any appearance, personality, or level of sapience. The origins of habitans vary; they can be created by the metasoul, spontaneously form in the soulscape, or originate from somewhere else. Habitans may or may not be considered part of the autocosm. They are not a part of the "self" the autocosm is based on, but they do inhabit it nonetheless. Not all soulscapes have habitans.

Autocosms may have different origins, although a spiritual aspect is inherent due to the concept of souls being integral. This spiritual aspect need not be focused on or considered important to the identity, though, and other aspects (such as psychological) can be present. Lunen also have different origins; they may be created willfully by the metasoul, be split off from them, spontaneously emanate, etc. (Do not use -genic terms unless you also identify as a system, I coined -genesis as an alternative term grouping for non-system alterhuman origins, you can coin those as you see fit).

As the concept mirrors aspects of many other alterhuman and plural identities, it is possible for autocosms to identify with those as well. Autocosms can be systems, lunen can be godshards/othershards, metasouls can be archetropes, soulscapes can be hearthomes, habitans can be thoughtforms, etc. The only identities autocosms incorporate inherently are plural and alterhuman. However, as they are variations of one self, it is common for lunen and metasouls to be kin with one another.

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Oh my stars, this is the most complex term I've ever coined. I'm so happy to finally be able to express my alterhuman identity in a more specific way though, so it was well worth the time and effort! If you have any questions, feel free to ask me, and feel free to message me if you think you might be part of an autocosm. I know that it's a lot lol and I can do an FAQ later if needed. Feel free to repost on pluralpedia, termora or other applicable wikis, just don't change the definition (you can include parts of the extra notes on the wiki page however you want as long as it isn't inaccurate though). I'll be posting flags/defs for lunan, metasoul and habitan soon :3

(Also, I need help with an image description again due to my insistence on a weird flag. Sorry about that, I just don't know how to write descriptions for complex flags in an accessible manner).

[kismetconstellations]

@maya-matlin, I know your message was a single character's name, but I'll go ahead and respond for the show, instead, if that's all right.

❤ Favorite character: Takashi Shirogane, my beloved.

👿Least favorite character: Sendak. As awful as Zarkon is, Sendak inspires a visceral hatred in me that only Haggar comes close to. Maybe it's his smug sense of superiority, or the fact that he's Shiro's personal tormentor who not only gets off on torturing Shiro,

but is implied to have sexually violated him, as well.

Regardless, I derive immense satisfaction from the- tragically brief- moment of Shiro getting to overpower Sendak and using the ugly hulking bastard's momentum against him to piledrive him into the ground.

It's not nearly enough, but it's something.

Though, I still think Shiro should have got to kill him. As a treat.

💐Comfort character: Shiro.

And, Hunk.

The sweetest boys. ❤

😍Character you have the biggest crush on: I don't know if I would call it a "crush", but...

I most certainly appreciate Shiro aesthetically.

🤝 Character you relate to the most: Shiro, for his experiences as a trauma survivor grappling with symptoms of self-loathing and PTSD, his fear of being a "broken" "monster", and drive to prove that he's so much more than what he was forced to be, and Hunk, for his anxiety, love of cute things, and desire to bring happiness and comfort to others.

🔥Character you think is overrated:

����Character you love to hate: I don't enjoy hating anyone, but I would bring a bag of popcorn to watch Sendak and Haggar duke it out in a fight to the death.

🙈 Character you always forget exists: Any character exclusive to seasons three through six, which I still haven't been able to convince myself to watch because of the clone. I'm sorry, but I cannot take that haircut seriously.

The fact that "Kuron" is so blatantly not Shiro, and gets several seasons of both bonding with Shiro's found family, and driving wedges between them, while the real Shiro, whom I spent two seasons getting to know and love deeply, is dead and languishing on the Astral Plane sits so wrongly with me.

These two men are not the same person. I could go on and on about the differences in confidence levels, how the clone comes across as younger and having a harsher edge, while Shiro seems older, worn, and is much, much softer and gentler. How the clone seems to be wearing eyeliner while Shiro simply has long eyelashes. That Shiro's essence being transferred into the clone's body caused the clone's fringe to magically change shape and grow out, which is unintentionally hilarious--

-- and proves that Shiro would never wear his hair that way...

I beg you, fandom, please stop referring to the clone as Shiro. He's an entirely separate person with a different temperament and his own unique personal struggles; not Actual Shiro with a different (terrible) haircut.

(It's also aggravating that "Kuron" got to reunite with Matt, who Shiro saved, while Post-Resurrection Shiro and Matt have no interaction onscreen. And, if the image I've seen floating around of "Kuron" in a group hug with Team Voltron is something that legitimately happened in the show, and not part of a character's fantasy, it's even more galling that the only people Post-Resurrection Shiro receives hugs from are Keith, right after his revival, and Allura, when she's bidding him farewell before she kills herself.

This man died, and he's only hugged by two people once he's brought back to life. Disgraceful.)

🐰Favorite non-human character: Since so much of the cast is comprised of non-human aliens, I'll reword this prompt a little bit.

My favorite non-human, in the sense that she doesn't have any somewhat human features other than two forward-facing eyes, two hands with fingers and thumbs, two feet, and a mouth located on her face, is Shay.

I love how gentle, sweet, and soft-spoken she is. Precious rock girl.

My favorite non-humanoid character is a three-way tie between Bae Bae,

Kosmo,

and the mice.

Bonus shout out to Kova for having an interesting design and being a space cat.

❤️‍🩹 Character who deserved better: Just one? I'll have to go with the only character who was treated worse than Shiro by the hack brain trusts in charge of the train wreck this show became, and that is, of course, Allura. One could write entire essays covering all of the ways she was heinously wronged by the writers, from never getting the chance to heal from her grief over losing her parents and entire home world and culture, to having her trust exploited and betrayed by Lotor, to bearing the weight of her guilt over that betrayal all the way up to the moment she sacrifices herself, to the utterly needless and cruel sacrifice, itself.

The fact that I've seen fanfiction tags and comments referring to her as a "bitch", and fics where the author warps her character, emphasizing her flaws to a ridiculous degree for the purpose of bashing her, usually complemented by a nice side of Shiro warping and bashing, with the two of them uniting to be great big bullies to Lance, Keith, or both, is absurd and detestable. But, unfortunately, it's the sort of behavior one comes to expect from a fandom populated by majority young, somewhat overzealous fans.

Spite has always been a powerful motivator for me, however, so every encounter with a fic, comment, or post of this nature only makes me like Allura and her vastly under-appreciated friendship with Shiro all the more. The price of being noble, self-sacrificing, hyper-competent, beautiful, and hated by your writers because of it is immature fans who can't or are unwilling to appreciate you, I guess.

Their loss.

---

Thank you so much for the submission! ❤

[blazehedgehog]

If one decides to start a creative project about their favorite thing, be it fanart, fanfic, fangame etc. , which approach do you prefer, the creatives involved fully dedicating themselves to recreating and recapturing what made the original works...work, or make an active choice to be derivative (this doesn't mean artists are ignorant about the original material, not necessarily) How do you feel about either, and are there any other approach you can think of?

There's this guy who used to post at SFGHQ named Sam Beddoes who now runs Freakzone Games. He's made the official Manos: The Hands of Fate game, he did both AVGN Adventures, he's the project lead on that Toxic Crusaders beat'em'up, etc.

But he's an old guard Sonic head and I've heard him turn up on a couple of Sonic podcasts, specifically to talk fangames, and by his account he got really fed up with the Sonic fangaming scene when everybody became obsessed with perfectly replicating the Genesis games, because to him, all the creativity and magic went away.

I remember hearing that and both agreeing and disagreeing with him. And I have enough thoughts about it that I've actually considered doing a video about it, and about fangaming overall.

I think there is a stigma to replicating something perfectly that's very adjacent to people who are concerned about young artists who start out by tracing pictures other people have drawn. Plagiarism is a real, legitimate problem. But it's only a problem if you lie about tracing.

I'm of the mind that if you're starting out drawing, half the problem is just learning control. Tracing can be a valuable tool in helping you to understand hand motions and give you a perspective on the construction of an image. For the earliest beginners, I don't think there's any shame in starting out by tracing. It's building muscle memory. Just don't say you drew it.

Similarly, my game development skills went way, way, way up about the time I started to analyze and perfectly replicate existing games. Like, the long canceled Sonic Forever project used an early enough version of the Sonic Worlds codebase that I had to read the Sonic Retro Physics Guide and use their data on how to add Knuckles in from scratch. My code matched how he worked in the Genesis games almost 1:1, because it was largely me just interpreting the values into something Clickteam Fusion could understand.

Something similar happened when, in 2012, I started (and never finished) a remake of my famous Mario Blue Twilight DX fangame. That's when I started really paying attention to how the source games worked so I could get a better sense of how a Mario game needed to "feel" in order to be correct.

And that trend continued with every fangame project I worked on following that, like when I figured I could make my own version of Sonic 2's Hidden Palace Zone, since I wasn't happy with the Retro Engine version. The idea was to be accurate above all else. In some cases, I'd even watch recordings of official gameplay in slow motion just so I could see exactly how the game was created, and in some cases, count frame by frame the duration of certain actions.

And all of this just makes me think of when I showed a friend my game jam game, OverBite. He complimented me on how nice the controls felt, in that kind of backhanded way where he said "When did you learn to make games feel so nice?"

Because if you go back to those really early games of mine, they all feel like garbage to control. And I attribute it to putting in a lot of time pulling apart the nuts and bolts of real retro games and putting a microscope up to why they work the way they do. Deconstructing all of their little nuances and sub-states and then trying to put it all back together again in a different programming language.

You learn a lot when you're forced to stop and understand why a piece of code exists in the way it does. Why there are all these little edge cases that you never notice but still exist to make a game feel just a little better.

At the end of the day, yes, Sam was right. Games need to have creativity and seeking out the perfect replication of the Sega Genesis Sonic games can feel somewhat futile. Every SAGE for the last ten years, there will be at least three games that instantly vanish from my memory because they are basic, plain Sonic Worlds Delta fangames with no style of their own. They just want to make Sonic 4 and we've had a lot of different Sonic 4s by now.

But the thing about learning is, you gotta learn the rules before you learn why and where to break them, because breaking (or at least bending) all of those boring, standardized rules is where your personal style starts to emerge, and that personal style is ultimately what people are going to be interested in at the end of the day.

So I think it is vitally important to start at 1:1 exact recreation and once you've made a comfortable replica, only then should you start asking yourself what you'd change and why. Make sure you understand the material before venturing further. You gotta learn to do it right first.

[theneighborhoodsave]

Hey! I was wondering how you’re approaching making a save? How do you plan out what lots you want, what you want them to look like and who you want to live there? How do you decide what places you want the worlds to be based on? I find this topic so exciting!😅 Sorry for asking so many questions!

Hi no worries at all, I'm happy to answer this! A save takes a lot of planning and if you're considering starting one it's always a good idea to feel out how others have approached it too. It's going to be a little bit of a long answer so I'm going to stick it under a cut. ↩️

How do you plan out what lots you want? I have a notebook that I've been keeping over the past year. Each world has its own page- the left side has a sticky with inspo words along with potential ideas. The right side has three categories: community, residential, and rental. I will write the in-game lot names down to start and as things evolve I will replace them with the ideas, then eventually the actual lot names. On the inside cover of the same notebook I have stickies with about 75 different lot ideas (cafe, toy shop, art museum, etc.) so if I'm ever stumped I can look over those. Generally, I try to think about what sims would want to do, whether it makes sense in the world, and keep it well-rounded in terms of lot type/availability.

How do you plan out what you want them to look like? Beyond the inspiration listed in the book, I have Pinterest boards for each world with tons of architecture and interior pictures. Sometimes I heavily reference a specific build, sometimes I mash a bunch together to create something entirely new, and sometimes I just sit down and do it from scratch pulling from my own memory/experience.

How do you plan out who you want to live there? When I start building sometimes I have a general idea of who I want living there already, but sometimes it's just a build. Once I start decorating is really when I begin to form an idea of who the sims are. If I'm feeling really CAS inspired I will make families without knowing where they're living yet and then do it in reverse.

How do you decide what places you want the worlds to be based on? For The Neighborhood V1 it's been pretty easy since I'm just going along with the general existing themes of Willow Creek/Magnolia Promenade. Newcrest will be far less derivative since I'm going to move into a completely new "area" of the U.S. I do have a different save planned (shhhhh) which will be pretty "out there"/more fantasy based so it will be based around some broader concepts.

I hope this helps to answer your questions! If you have any others feel free to ask. A save is really, really hard work. It's the biggest project I have ever taken on personally, even bigger than I initially realized. But it's also been incredibly rewarding in a creative sense!

[scary-narco-psychopath]

Blog introduction/common misconceptions

Brief intro post so people aren’t totally off put by my username/photo/misunderstanding what it’s all supposed to mean. Hi, I’m a self identified psychopath and narcissist. In this context these words mean something different to me than their clinical definition. I am 18 years old, American, and my gender is irrelevant. To answer your most pertinent questions:

No, I do not murder people for fun (or for work, for that matter)

No, I do not kick puppies and torture newborns

No, I do not derive pleasure from others suffering (not very often, anyway—it takes a real asshole for me to wish harm unto someone)

No, I am not an abuser, manipulator, or generally an asshole. I’m actually a pretty normal and nice person if you know me irl—you wouldn’t even know I’m a narc/psycho at all.

Yes, I respect other people’s existence and have basic cognitive empathy—treat others as you would like to be treated. Basic stuff.

Purpose of blog/why call yourself that?

I identify this way because I do not fit into a conventional category of mental illness for the reasons stated above (and many more), yet I find myself perpetually isolated, alone, and alienated from the “shared human experience” that unites the rest of society (supposedly anyway).

To be fair, I am clinically diagnosed—with depression and anxiety—but that is much besides the point. The issues for which I made this blog have hardly anything to do with my Major Depressive Disorder or my Generalized Anxiety Disorder (though, to be honest, they do exacerbate some of the symptoms of those conditions).

In essence, I have discovered I lack many basic, fundamental “normal” human traits, including but not limited to:

Genuine love and attachment to people and living things. I do not form bonds or real “relationships” in the proper sense—to me, people are functionally objects. I will treat them with great care, but only to the degree required of me. Furthermore, If they leave my life, I will not miss any of them.

Sharing of emotion, or “affective empathy” — I do not “feel for” other people. I do not rejoice in their happiness. I do not grieve in their despair. When I hear of tragedies or witness horrific violence, I feel barely anything more than casual disdain for the world. The only thing I really care about with people I know is if they have something in jealous of or if they can provide me with something I desire. Other than that, I have no genuine interest in them and their emotions.

Interest outside of myself and my image—kind of explained in the last point, but I am very narcissistic—I think largely about myself, almost all of the time, and there is little thought I dedicate to other people—when i genuinely try to “think” about others, it is highly forced and unnatural. I try to be subtle as I can about my narcissistic tendencies, but ultimately all I genuinely care about is my own happiness and personal whims—the service of others is secondary.

Ability to grieve or “feel gratitude”

There’s probably more I’m forgetting but those are some basics about me. Basically, I’m externally “functional” and have enough decency and cognitive empathy to distance me from the label of ASPD, as well as not enough trauma or disruptive symptoms to have NPD. I am also not autistic (though I’ve had some doubts in the past). However, I fall in a grey line between normal and abnormal, and the perpetually isolating reality of my condition is crushing to me. Hence why I’m here, making this blog.

I suppose part of me wants to hope someone out there feels a little bit like me, too���not because I care about those people, but so that I don’t feel quite as painfully alone.

Or maybe this blog is just another way to stroke my huge ego and fill the boundless void inside me that craves constant and endless attention from people.

Follower rules

All that aside, I hope you enjoy my blog. Almost anyone is welcome to browse or interact, regardless of mental health status, as long as you are not an asshole or acting aggressively and hatefully. Feel free to drop me questions in my inbox about anything, related to these topics or even random questions. Keep in mind I have the right to decline a question if I deem it too personal or wish not to answer, but I invite you to ask whatever you want—respectfully of course.

You are not welcome on my blog if you are:

Transphobic

Homophobic

Racist

Xenophobic

Bigoted

A Zionist

A nazi

I believe that’s all for an intro post. Sorry for making it SO long, just wanted to be thorough and establish a clear idea of what this blog is for, what the rules are, etc. I hope you enjoy your time and stay sane out there! It’s a crazy world <3

[egipci]

hi em! happy dadfucker friday <3 do you think dean and john kiss when they fuck, or would that be too emotionally charged for them?

Hello hello! What a great and important question! Because Dean obviously wants to smooch all the time, I think this depends entirely on how you see John and his motivation re: fucking Dean, both situationally and in general.

As we all know I’m not into crazy rapist John, but even that guy could derive some sadistic pleasure from forcing Dean to kiss him just as he could be completely uninterested in kissing. Anyway, fuck that guy! That guy doesn’t actually exist, thank God.

Now actual John Winchester who does exist, who loves his kid first and foremost and who also happens to fuck that kid because that kid is his best friend and co-parent and lieutenant and probably the closest thing he has to a source of unconditional love and forgiveness— that guy fucks his son for comfort and intimacy, and so kissing is... not out of the question. This John could range from completely apathetic re: kissing to indulgent, even, but I can’t imagine an iteration that has never ever kissed Dean during sex. I could easily see his attitude changing over time, where the sex begins way earlier than the kissing or vice verse. I could even see the kissing becoming less and less common as Dean becomes older, pursuant to John’s anxieties about emasculating him. Or even, a weird unspoken rule where they kiss and fuck but never at the same time, or where John kisses him during fucking but not on the mouth, because that’s just too boyfriend-y (and how I love a handjob and a there you go buddy and a kiss to the temple after). And obviously different mental states dictate different acts etc etc— John who’s fucking Dean to just selfishly get off, or to humiliate Dean or something is less likely to want to swap spit via kissing, I imagine. (He can just directly spit in Dean’s mouth obviously.)

Anyway— none of this is super specific so I’m going to leave you with one of my most evil and cherished headcanons, which is that John taught Dean how to kiss (and that does something for both of them, very subtly, insofar that either of them every really looks head-on at whatever they have going on). Not necessarily that he was Dean’s first kiss, though that take obviously has many merits. I mean in the sense that, regardless of whenever they got down to business, Dean, in true Dean-fashion, completely unlearns any prior experience he has such that the dadsmooching becomes his most formative smooching experience. And for 15 years all over America whenever someone kissed Dean Winchester it was just like kissing his dad.

[arcstral]

Seeing that shining blue makes her blood boil, simmering in her chest as she tries to hold back the best she can from causing a scene. It is almost the same shade of blue as that infernal child, that defect, wears halfway in their hair. It is the same blue that glimmered from a ring worn as she faced her end. And it is the same blue that plagues her now. He had looked much better when summoned by Lord Sombron, red with rage and the stain of blood.

Seeing him here and happy while she'd had to die and leave Lord Sombron behind, it almost makes her want to stride over and give him a true piece of her mind. But she can be civil. She must think of it as another thing she has to do to serve Lord Sombron, then there is nothing for her to worry about.

"Marth-" His name comes out as more as a sting than she had meant for it, barbs splintering at the edge of her tongue while everything else about her body language conveyed someone who simply wanted a nice, civil chat. This may not be the same Marth from within the rings, rather the real Marth, the one from the stories of heroes told of the rings, but he still shares that face, the one that she had stared down as her life faded. "How... unexpected to see you here, darling. The great Hero King, at a simple academy. How noble of you."

               The 'great Hero-King' turns- senses balking with alarm, confusion, then at last realization at the venomous inflection in the woman's voice. Just like his encounter with Alear, the notion of familiarity to which Marth can offer no understanding is the same, and, just like Alear, this stranger must derive her knowledge of him from an echo; the Hero-King belonged to another world. Though he still grapples with acceptance over the newfound knowledge, it is the most reasonable explanation that exists to date in explaining such strange, one-sided encounters. Weighing heavily toward love or hatred while Marth himself possessed no memory of a former meeting.

               But... upon first look there is one point of nostalgia that follows his inspection of the other. Friends, enemies, acquaintances, gods- dragons have taken so many a shape across his life that to identify their kind is a perk of natural progression. That same area of expertise shines an illuminating light upon the woman before him.

               Ears uniquely slanted into fine points, serpentine pupils gouging into the middle of the iris, and even the indiscernible metric of strangeness that an inhuman presence can hold to full, such signs serve unfailingly to signal that she is dragon. Of this there is no mistake. Even if his eyes should fail him then surely it will be the heart that knows just as well. But this dragon... this one defines his very dread, come in the form of a mage dragon; belonged to a tribe flowing with countless villains upon his native continent. To the one that stole from him a mother.

               "You..."

               Surprise gives way to a middling ground, suspended between horror and judgement, a clench of his fingers, and then—

               release.

               "You are new to the academy, I presume? Welcome." All inhibition is cut away by the shears of hospitality. While a smile, too, can be a weapon, the king wields his only in complete sincerity. Whatever the distasteful experiences between this woman and the Hero-King that walked- floated- before, in his eyes their present encounter is a seed that has yet to sprout in any sort of way. "A denizen of distant Elyos is clear in these parts, milady.... your way of speech informs me that you are plenty informed of my whereabouts. The version of me that once resided in your land, anyway."

               The same wise eyes peer back at her, the same blue they may be, and even an identical soul churning behind the difference of skin, bone, and flesh, but it is memories that make a man in the end. Or a ghost. His gaze does not flicker with recognition and in its place is a curious, prodding warmth. "—I am not your Hero-King I am sorry to say. I know little of you, not even a name. But if you will introduce yourself then perhaps here we can start anew."

[bi-sapphics]

so, many months ago i sent an anonymous ask to @satanfemme requesting a matching butch flag to hys femme flag, and hys response was that hy didn't feel comfortable making it due to not being a butch hymself ─ but that i (or any other butch) could make one if we wanted to!! and that's exactly what i did. hopefully i remember to include all of the thoughts i wanted to put down.

to OP, assuming you see this: i'm going to copy your post format, as the point is for it to match and that the flag is based off of yours. if you are uncomfortable with anything or you would like me to change/delete something, please let me know and i will be happy to communicate effectively!! :)

^^ i'd also like to note that i acknowledge your blog is 18+. at the time of this post, i am 17. i hope that this sort of contact can be counted as an exception. i won't follow you, or interact with any of your other posts. but i'd still like to respect your wishes as best as i can. give me a heads-up if there's anything else i should be aware of, thanks.

[ID: an image of a butch pride flag. the flag conists of three horizontal stripes: light purple, dark purple, and light blue. in the top left corner is a lemon-meringue colored heart.]

💜 butch pride flag 💜

meaning & design:

to start off, it was unintentional that the colors are slightly more muted than its femme counterpart. however, i decided i liked that because femmes (as far as i know) aren't typically seen as bold and bright, but rather shy and quiet. i wanted to give them that spotlight in this flag set by constrasting their warm palette with a cool one. i also wanted to portray butches as being smitten as we sit back and fondly adore femmes from the sideline. besides, the true nature of a butch/femme dynamic is private and intimate, and we can show our pride while still reserving the most of it for our lovers.

with that being said ─

"masculinity and gender non-conformity" should be self-explanatory. butchness is about challenging the expectations of womanhood especially, but any sense of expectations in a world ruled by gender roles. it also is built by its own unique characteristics of masculinity in such a queer and personal way. it is more obviously a "deviation from the norm" on the outside from femmeness, but that doesn't make it in any way more or less important to the identity.

"healing" derives from the original rainbow pride flag, and was something yet again inspired by the original post. my interpretation is that i've always heard, and now experienced for myself, how healing coming into one's true nature and fitting into the right body after realizing one is butch. the freedom of short or buzzcut hair, the comfort of casual clothes, and euphoria of the right hoodie or jacket, the embracing of a more masculine name, the honor of fulfilling a legacy, the music of a keychain jiggling in our pockets, the drilling sound of worker tools, etc. and anything else that butches throughout time and history have claimed makes them feel proud of themselves in ways that they never did before.

"protectiveness" refers to the role that butches play in our relationships. our story has collectively been built on our compatability with femmes, for whom we treat as a gentleman, knight, or otherwise a rank in loving servitude should. many of us aspire to be a prince rescuing our princess lovers from trouble, like in the fantasy books. it is a mutual agreement between us butches and our femmes that we look out for each other, and that's part of what defines who we are in this queer subculture.

lastly, the flower represents "passion." there is no butch who has ever lived without it. being butch requires the will to carry a reputation, a legacy, a love, a pride. otherwise, what's the point? this, and an eternal passion to exist for the eyes of femmes and the community of other butches. it's what makes the identity whole. it's one of the petals that make the flower pretty.

and here are the rest of the flag designs!! in order, top to bottom + left to right: female, male, lesbian/sapphic, gay, bi, alt bi, trans, bear, leather

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hi! I hope you're doing fine. I have a question about a neighbor that is most likely ENTP. He is almost 60 yo and he's been living alone since his mother died 10 years ago. He wasn't getting along that well with her but after that happened he changed a lot. He used to work as a driving instructor and made legal and illegal a lot of money and was always fighting with his brother because he despised how much he was drinking. After all of them died he started drinking a lot, and he left his job

because he couldn't drive anymore. As a person, he is pretty optimistic and funny but sometimes has this hopeless demeanor. He also sees many possibilities and has the most unexpected ideas. Apart from that he doesn't take care of himself at all even if he has the money and he also got sick from drinking so much. He also helped many people with money but because he had faith in a few nasty ones, he has some processes going on and I don t think it will end soon. The situation is upsetting him.

My father tried to talk with him a few times to make him take care of himself but that phase doesn't take more than 1-2 days. Is there something my father (ISTP) can tell him to help him realize how serious the situation is? I think he'll die in max 2 years if he doesn't stop drinking. The only thing that makes him happy is his 3 horses. My father tried with "You should take care of yourself so you can take care of the horses" but the result was the same.

-----------------------

It's hard to watch someone deteriorate before your eyes. The aging process can be very challenging for some people. We all accumulate experience as we age, but we don't all respond to those experiences the same way, and some of us are unlucky to be exposed to too many negative or traumatic experiences that are difficult to get over. There may be several issues that need addressing:

1) Purpose: Perhaps he's never had a stable and reliable source of personal meaning to ground his life. Lack of personal grounding is a common problem for extraverts with underdeveloped introverted functions. (It is a more common problem for EPs than EJs because EJs are, on average, more motivated to make themselves useful to the world and more easily distracted with busywork. It is a more common problem for ENPs than ESPs because ESPs are, on average, better at enjoying life. It is a more common problem for ENTPs than ENFPs because the impersonal nature of Ti isn't as amenable to generating personal meaning as Fi.)

There are many methods of grounding oneself and a good method also grants you some sense of purpose. For many people, especially Fe types, purpose can be derived through feeling responsible for another person. Although he didn't get on well with his family, it's likely their existence in his life granted him opportunities to be useful and productive, through caring about them or managing their affairs.

While many people do feel more grounded by caring for plants or animals, that can't really compare to a relationship with a mother, brother, spouse, or child. The death of a parent is especially difficult because, regardless of age or the quality of the relationship, parents are the archetypal representation of safety and security. Suddenly losing that existential grounding can make one feel quite lonely or unmoored, which could easily trigger Si grip in ENTPs.

Perhaps the only source of grounding he has had in life was his family, but it was an external source and now it's gone. The danger of relying only on external sources of meaning is that they can be taken away from you, and in the worst case scenario, without any warning. Your will to live is thereby easily disrupted because you lack the motivation to live for yourself, for the sake of your own well-being. No matter what type you are, it is ultimately in your best interests to make sure that your introverted functions are well-developed enough to generate meaning from within as well.

Of the four introverted functions, Ti is probably the hardest one to use for grounding. When ENTPs aren't in a good place emotionally, they tend to misuse Ti to rationalize their unhealthy behavior. This keeps them stuck and more susceptible to Si grip problems that damage physical and mental health even more. The longer they stay stuck in a rut of unhealthy routines, the more they lose hope of ever getting out. The "hopeless demeanor" is likely a symptom of this decline into Si grip.

Ideally, ENTPs should use Ne+Ti purposefully to do things such as: imagine ways to make life more interesting; uncover problems and solutions that help make the world around them a better place; generate curiosity for learning about new experiences; generate motivation to keep moving forward to greener pastures; etc. When ENTPs learn to make purposeful use of their knowledge and skills, they'll know their own value, and they'll feel more connected to life.

Maybe he can't do the job he did before, but that doesn't mean there isn't meaningful work for him out there. Many people near or of retirement age do part-time work or volunteer work to keep themselves active, engaged, and generating meaningful experiences. At that age, people start to feel a natural desire to contribute their knowledge and wisdom back to society. If loneliness is also a serious concern, you or your dad could help set him up with socializing opportunities or accompany him to get more involved in the community, then he has less time to brood and drink. In order for people to give up bad habits and routines, they have to develop some healthy habits and routines as a replacement.

2) Addiction: Substance abuse usually develops when people use substances to distract from deep-seated emotional problems. Being disconnected from emotional life is very dangerous because feelings and emotions are the tools of self-care. Pain is a signal that something is wrong, so making yourself deaf to emotional pain means you're not addressing the psychological imbalances that the pain is calling your attention to. The more deaf you become, the more likely you are to hurt yourself and not even realize the extent of the harm being done.

Unfortunately, the way psychology works is that you don't get to pick and choose what you feel. By trying to detach from negative emotions, you also lose the ability to feel positive ones. Eventually, you get cut off from all feeling and become numb. When you are no longer capable of feeling things like pleasure, enjoyment, happiness, wonder, or awe for any sustained period of time, you have little choice but to repeatedly reach for immediate comforts, gradually losing the will to engage with new experiences in the world.

Only he can tell you what kind of emotional baggage he's struggling with. Perhaps he hasn't dealt with the grief of losing the people closest to him. Perhaps he suffers from shame or low self-esteem because his life didn't turn out the way he had hoped. Perhaps he is depressed because life feels too boring/empty and he doesn't know what to do about it.

These kinds of problems aren't easy to address alone. It would be best for him to see a professional and get to the bottom of the drinking problem. Of course, he has to want to be helped. Beware that, if someone is intent on avoiding a problem, trying again and again to impress upon them how "serious" it is might actually make them avoid it even harder.

3) Stress: Chronic stress is also a significant contributor to addiction. A major source of stress in many people's lives is money. You say he's financially secure but he's embroiled in various conflicts with people related to money? If there is any way to remove those problems from his life more quickly, he should do so. If he isn't able to think of better ways to handle his problems, he can at least talk to people with more knowledge and expertise, such as lawyers. That way, he doesn't have to micromanage every step of the process himself. If being unable to cope with stress is a serious problem for him in general, it would benefit him to go to therapy to learn better coping strategies, or at least educate himself about how to maintain better mental health.

[formlessing]

An entry in my imaginary diary about my lack of inspiration

Dear Diary,

I've always wanted to keep a diary. Unfortunately, I've never had the discipline to write every day. Worse: I don't think I care enough about myself to take such a commitment. My internal states are not a topic I find that interesting to wallow in. Once (or twice), I tried tracking my moods; this was basically logging an emoji every day on some silly little app; just pick one, no questions asked: happy-face, sad-face, nothing-face. But I couldn't convince myself this information mattered. It's either noise or useless cartography.

Some time ago the habit of endless self-analyzing made sense. I knew nothing. Eventually, I knew too much. The final verdict was trite: I'm a human and a woman. All else follows. There is almost nothing about me and my perceptions I can't derive from these two facts. How I receive the world and what I project back into it, all the probable iterations; everything I know about people applies to me somehow, and vice-versa. I can't think of myself anymore as an individual, even though I'm a committed individualist in most practical matters. It's a weird self-feeding-self-effacing largesse of spirit, a boundary destruction tool. (I must admit this is an isolated phenomenon inside my consciousness and, sadly, it doesn't affect my pragmatism and common sense. First and foremost, I'm a high decoupler.)

[Agora eu sinto vontade de escrever alguma coisa. Como se alguém estivesse gritando nos confins da minha alma (qual alma?) numa língua que eu não entendo. Eu queria escrever em português, mas me falta naturalidade – não me sobrou naturalidade nenhuma. Minha percepção é absolutamente difusa, amorfa. O que eu poderia escrever quando estou convencida de que o ato consiste em pouco mais do que a vaidade de condensar, limitar, domar e corromper? Estou mais interessada em espalhamentos que constrições. Eu tento escrever e o que escrevo são meros artifícios. Não existe mais um "Eu" pra traduzir o que eu penso, tudo não passa de um exercício criativo do éter para o éter. Não há mais o ímpeto que surge da necessidade. Em algum momento, houve uma dissolução irreversível de quem eu sou, de quem eu fui.]

I have been disconnected from my native self a long time ago, it is gone for good. Sometimes I look around for her in strange places and find nothing. Nada. I guess it's really over, not even memories remain. I don't know who is screaming, I can't really recognize this voice. I'm trying really hard to care about this. To care about her. I can't. I hate to say it, I honestly do, and believe me, I am very ashamed about saying this, I think it's terrible but I will be vulnerable for once: I suspect my mind has been coopted by some universal consciousness. (Please stop now and notice my face. It's not entirely straight while I'm telling you this. Yes, my methods for self-deprecation are very baroque. Also, it is very hard to be vulnerable.) Nonetheless, the truth is: there are very few things that can fill my mind with such terror as imagining I will have to live another life; being trapped in Samsara once more; being back to the forced labor of self-expression.

Although I'm still not part of that great luminous ball out there and am little more than a conscious sack of meat and bones, I have accepted everything there was to accept. I have found my way through every existential loophole—there is nothing else to resolve. Now I'm just someone who waits. I'm in peace (R.I.P). I don't have any extraordinary feelings about this world, nor do I have some great new insight about the nature of ordinary things. My mind is eerily still. Everything is indeed very simple, even when terribly important, even when sublime and sacred, disgusting or demonic. I'm lost in the obviousness of things, or maybe I'm lost in the impenetrability of things. My head is filled with either platitudes or incomprehensible babble. I am unable to communicate anything properly or interestingly. I'm drifting. Or I'm finally rooted. It's the same—everything is the same thing as everything else, only at different levels. "Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is form. Emptiness does not differ from form, and form does not differ from Emptiness." Excuse my clichés.

At some moment in my life I walked back to get a better view and went too far. Now everything is just an indistinguishable point in space. A tiny dot in a sea of dots. Another pearl in the net. And I'm just another dot, or just another pearl with no special luster. Either way, I can't make myself care. I lack the agony to write. My agony is just meta-agony. Sorry, Thays. May you find your inspiration to write some other day.

[n4bp]

FAQ

This gets quite long, you can read more under the keep reading. More to come.

WHY TUMBLR? I am looking for alternatives that don't expose my real life identity, so Google Docs is out of the question. I'll swap over once I find an alternative that allows content for adults.

What names do you prefer being called? Nod is fine. The long version of BP is probably fine. Can't say the B part of it because tumblr's weird. My real name doesn't matter and I don't particularly identify with it. You might hear guildmates call me Aly or Syl, but neither of these are my names. They're actually names of characters I role-play on WoW. (Short for Alysithra and Sylindia) - It's a fairly common practice for WoW players to refer to each other with names or nicknames derived from RP characters. If you don't know me from this, please just call me Nod. Thank you.

How old are you? Late 20s, I'll be 30 in a couple of years. I've been playing WoW since 2010 and DBD for a few years. Took a break for a few years on WoW.

What are your pronouns? Gender? They/them, I'm agender. I have no gender.

I am not open to "debates" on my existence and you will be blocked if you decide to be transphobic.

Where do you come from? England. I was born and raised in the North East, specifically Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

I had two moms, one also a Geordie, and one from Ireland.

I am aware my accent floats all around the UK oops. I grew up with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), which back then was known as Specific Language Disorder. Or Specific Language Impairment (SLI). I still often pronounce things like how they are read, and struggle, in general, with learning language.

Are you disabled? Yes. I'm pretty open about talking about this for the most part since I grew up with most of these things. I mostly mention this because people occasionally come into my chat seeking support on some of these topics, or just someone to talk to.

I'm autistic. Diagnosed twice officially because they didn't tell my bio-mam the first time (thanks, NHS...), so I didn't get a lot of the support I needed until late... if at all. This is why I'm technically both 'self diagnosed' and officially diagnosed, despite the fact I had an official diagnosis from 4 and got it again at 16.

I'm also dyspraxic (diagnosed at 6 due to an awesome teacher I had), I don't play DBD with any assistive equipment as most of this would be against the rules. I only play with settings and filters that have been confirmed to be OK by BHVR. I mostly survive by luck, by killer mercy, and pure muscle memory/guessing.

I also have Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS), which I've had all my life since it's a genetic thing, but I was only diagnosed with as an adult. (But to be fair, doctors blamed a lot of the symptoms on the Dyspraxia.)

Finally, there's a few I'm not comfy talking about that I haven't listed. All professionally diagnosed.

Do you play with any accessability settings?

I play with the heart setting in DBD due to sensory processing issues that come with the autism/dyspraxia comorbity. Sometimes sound doesn't make sense and it's all just a blur that blends in together.

The heart setting is available through settings and accessability. I think it's the first setting. Having a visual indicator helps.

This is also why I use filters so I can easier see. Some people use nvidia filters for their filters. I use reshade or gshade, I forget which. I think reshade. Unfortunately, I don't remember where I got my pre-set from, I'm sorry.

Might've been ever Kyto or Momoseventh.

Do you always Solo Queue? It's my default as I don't have a dedicated duo any more. I'm happy to play with people who ask politely, though please bear in mind our MMRs may mismatch as I'm not very good, lol. As my audience grows my time might be more split depending on how things go. I'll likely implement a queue system in the event this happens.

What happened to your Kate/Yun-Jin duo? Gone.

She has been blocked and banned from the stream, so you won't run into her again. I'd rather just forget her entirely.

Why am I banned? You broke a rule so severe I don't want you in my stream any more. Or you were just such a jerk I didn't want you around.

Of course, this isn't a first resort. Most rule breaks will just result in the removal of your message or a timeout. Some rule breaks, extreme cases, result in an instant ban.

You can appeal in a week if you're respectful. If this is denied, I would appreciate it if you just gave me my space and leave me alone. If you're doing it for the last word, remember I can respond to get the True Last Word. I tend to treat people how they treat me.

I also have a bot that autobans spammers and certain slurs. (Well, they issue timeouts for the latter, but usually I'll also ban the user.) Depending on context (eg saying a different word that happens to just contain the slur, quoting someones username) I will likely unban when noticed, or simply not ban at all. Usernames containing these slurs will be reported on twitch as well, as they break TOS.

One of these slurs appears in an addon in DBD. If you're in good faith just referring to this addon, I'll unban. If you're just trying to get around the filter, you'll stay banned.

Why am I banned? I've never been to your stream! If you're genuinely curious and not just trying to be a jerk, here are a few different reasons for this.

The first, rulebreaks.

Either you broke a rule in my stream or you were directly witnessed (by me) to be breaking some pretty major rules in streams I often watch. Usually bigotry, sometimes self-promo or general respect stuff. I have a list of streamers I'll crossban people for if directly witnessed.

Occasionally other survivors or killers I've played with will be prebanned if I can link profiles as a result of the above as well, but this is usually in extreme cases. We're talking straight up breaking game or stream rules. I have some known hackers prebanned as I don't want to be easy content for them, and they make me nervous.

Otherwise, if you're prebanned, you either have slurs/chuddy behaviour in your profile I noted before the game, or you did something nasty and failed the vibe check in the game. Vibe check bans of this nature are usually done to prevent future harrassment from you, either to myself, viewers, or even the people I've been playing with/against.

Just being a victim of these things won't result in a pre-ban. It's only if you're the one doing this stuff.

I'm allowed to curate my personal space how I see fit, I hope you understand.

Why did you get banned from Steam Forums? Figured I'd just add this here, since I can't exactly talk for myself on forums.

I got banned for saying I don't like Dull Merchant (well, I just called her skull merchant at the time) the first time on a thread specifically asking for opinions about Skull Merchant (full month ban, btw), and then they turned it into a permanent ban when I said "no its not" twice in a completely different forum thread a while after being unbanned, which is somehow spamming. (It isn't spamming, and the situation was very much over as I'd already stopped talking in the thread after my last comment to go back to gaming. By the time I checked my messages again, I was permanently banned from the Steam Forums.. hours later, after the situation was long over.)

Anyway this cemented my eternal, undying hate for dull merchant.

I genuinely think they were just looking for reasons to get away with bigotry and ableism or one hell of a power trip, rather than fair moderation. People have repeatedly spammed more without any issue. Repeating a couple letters, or in this case 3 short words /once/ isn't spamming. Saying "no its not" twice isn't grounds for a warning, never mind a ban, and isn't spamming. And the skull merchant one doesn't make sense at all considering it was on topic and constructive. (It was for a month, too. Very silly.)

Steam forums will ban quickly and often unfairly, but won't do anything about the ableism and transphobia often witnessed there. BHVR if you're reading this, I'd appreciate the unban and I'll gladly volunteer some time to moderate your forums for free, since I'll do a better job. I guess.

And I don't see this as hypocrisy to the above question as the situations are different + the DBD steam forums are a public place.

Would you consider becoming a Fog Whisperer? No. I don't think I'd be listened to as a result of the Steam Mods on the forums, and I've heard as much that the Fog Whisperers aren't really listened to anyway. (Also, I don't think I'll be eligible for a long time. My community is too small. I love you, fam, just we're not quite there yet.)

Will you ever get a twitch tshirt? I want them, but I don't know if I'm eligible because my schedule is sporadic. BHVR please consider removing the schedule part of the eligibility criteria to become more disability accessible. Thank you.

If you could add any cosmetic to the game, what would you go for? There's so many answers I could give to this and they'll probably change depending on whims.

At the top of my list are more long hairs for Nea that I can combine with multiple outfits. I love her, but they keep giving her awful unmatchable hairstyles which limits me to about 3-4 depending on outfit.

I also would love scooby doo related survivors/killers and cosmetics.

I also would have LOVED them adding the Strawberry Cowgirl Kate, and I'm sad they didn't.

If BHVR added cosmetics from you specifically, what would you choose? Depends on what sort of freedoms I had and stuff. Maybe a legendary skin for Nea (or Sable tbh, Nea's my main but Sable maybe fits more) that looks like Revenant. She could play with her powers on the loading screen but they're disabled ingame, of course. Or maybe the cosmetics show up on a pallet stun/flash stun.

More specific bits that might work more:

Maybe a black and white bloodpoint themed shirt with my name on the back. Or maybe grey and black. Maybe black and grey with bits of dark red.

This probably won't happen but I'd be open to it.

Do you write Fanfiction? Yes. I'll advertise it on this blog if I get around to making DBD stuff. I'm a slacker. :(

[pooma-satsangam]

Ashtavakra Gita தமிழில் அஷ்டவக்ர கீதை

🇦 🇸 🇭 🇹 🇦 🇻 🇦 🇰 🇷 🇦  🇬 🇮 🇹 🇦 

𝗝𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗸𝗮:

1 How is knowledge to be acquired? How is liberation to be attained? And how is dispassion to be reached? Tell me this, sir.

𝗔𝘀𝗵𝘁𝗮𝘃𝗮𝗸𝗿𝗮:

2 If you are seeking liberation, my son, shun the objects of the senses like poison. Practise tolerance, sincerity, compassion, contentment and truthfulness like nectar.

3 You are neither earth, water, fire, air or even ether. For liberation know yourself as consisting of consciousness, the witness of these.

4 If only you will remain resting in consciousness, seeing yourself as distinct from the body, then even now you will become happy, peaceful and free from bonds.

5 You do not belong to the brahmin or any other caste, you are not at any stage, nor are you anything that the eye can see. You are unattached and formless, the witness of everything - so be happy.

6 Righteousness and unrighteousness, pleasure and pain are purely of the mind and are no concern of yours. You are neither the doer nor the reaper of the consequences, so you are always free.

7 You are the one witness of everything, and are always totally free. The cause of your bondage is that you see the witness as something other than this.

8 Since you have been bitten by the black snake of the self-opinion that 'I am the doer', drink the nectar of faith in the fact that 'I am not the doer', and be happy.

9 Burn down the forest of ignorance with the fire of the understanding that 'I am the one pure awareness', and be happy and free from distress.

10 That in which all this appears - imagined like the snake in a rope, that joy, supreme joy and awareness is what you are, so be happy.

11 If one thinks of oneself as free, one is free, and if one thinks of oneself as bound, one is bound. Here this saying is true, "Thinking makes it so".

12 Your real nature is as the one perfect, free, and actionless consciousness, the all-pervading witness - unattached to anything, desireless and at peace. It is from the illusion that you seem to be involved in samsara.

13 Meditate on yourself as motionless awareness, free from any dualism, giving up the mistaken idea that you are just a derivative consciousness, or anything external or internal.

14 You have long been trapped in the snare of identification with the body. Sever it with the knife of knowledge that 'I am awareness', and be happy, my son.

15 You are really unbound and actionless, self-illuminating and spotless already. The cause of your bondage is that you are still resorting to stilling the mind.

16 All of this is really filled by you and strung out in you, for what you consist of is pure awareness - so don't be small minded.

17 You are unconditioned and changeless, formless and immovable, unfathomable awareness and unperturbable, so hold to nothing but consciousness.

18 Recognise that the apparent is unreal, while the unmanifest is abiding. Through this initiation into truth you will escape falling into unreality again.

19 Just as a mirror exists everywhere both within and apart from its reflected images, so the Supreme Lord exists everywhere within and apart from this body.

20 Just as one and the same all-pervading space exists within and without a jar, so the eternal, everlasting God exists in the totality of things.

ஜனகன்:

1. அறிவு எப்படித் திரட்டப்பட வேண்டும்? விடுதலை எப்படித் தகயல் பெறப்படும்? மற்றும் உபேகம் எப்படித் தேடப்படும்? இதனை எனக்கு கூறுங்கள், ஐயா.

அஷ்டாவக்ரர்:

2. விடுதலையை நாடுகிறாயே, மகனே, புலனின் பொருள்களை நஞ்சென விட்டு விடு. பொறுமை, நேர்மை, கருணை, திருப்தி, உண்மையை அமிர்தமாகப் போற்றித் தாழ்த்திக் கொள்ளு.

3. நீ நிலம், நீர், நெருப்பு, காற்று அல்லது ஆகாயமெல்லாம் அல்ல. விடுதலையை அடைய உன்னை சாட்சியரான pure (சுத்த) உள்ளத்தைக் காண்.

4. உடலிலிருந்து வ���றுபட்டவனாக உன்னைப் பார்ப்பதன் மூலம், நீ உள்ளத்தில் ஓய்ந்து இருப்பாயானால், இப்போதே நீ மகிழ்ச்சி, அமைதி, மற்றும் பந்தங்களின்றி இருப்பாய்.

5. நீ பிராமணருக்கு அல்லது வேறு எந்தச் சாதியிலும் சேர்ந்தவர் அல்ல, நீ எந்த வாழ்க்கை நிலையிலும் இல்லை, நீ கண்களால் காணக்கூடிய ஒன்றும் அல்ல. நீ பிணைபற்றாதவனும், வடிவற்றவனும், எல்லாவற்றுக்கும் சாட்சியுமாக இருக்கிறாய் - ஆதலால் மகிழ்ச்சி அடைக.

6. தர்மமும் அதர்மமும், இன்பமும் துன்பமும் மனதிற்குரியவையே, அவைகள் உனக்கு பொருத்தமில்லை. நீ செய்கிறவன் அல்ல, அதற்கான விளைவுகளை அனுபவிப்பவனும் அல்ல, எனவே நீ எப்போதும் சுதந்திரம் பெற்றவனாகவே இருக்கிறாய்.

7. நீ ஒவ்வொரு விஷயத்திற்கும் சாட்சியாகவே இருக்கிறாய், எப்போதும் முழுமையாக சுதந்திரம் பெற்றவனே. உன் பந்தத்தின் காரணம், நீ சாட்சியை வேறொரு பொருளாகக் காண்கிறதுதான்.

8. 'நான் செய்கிறவன்' என்ற சுயநினைப்பின் கரிய பாம்பு உன்னை கடித்துவிட்டது. 'நான் செய்கிறவன் அல்ல' என்ற நம்பிக்கையின் அமிர்தத்தை பருகி மகிழ்ச்சியடை.

9. 'நான் சுத்தமான pure (சுத்த) உள்ளம்' என்ற அறிவின் தீயால் அறியாமையின் காடை எரித்து மகிழ்ச்சி அடையவும் துன்பமற்றவனாக இரு.

10. இவை அனைத்தும் தோற்றமளிக்கும் இடமே - கயிற்றில் பாம்பு போல கற்பனையாக தோன்றுவது. அந்த ஆனந்தம், பரமானந்தம், pure (சுத்த) உள்ளமே நீ - எனவே மகிழ்ச்சி அடை.

11. ஒருவர் தன்னை சுதந்திரம் பெற்றவனாக நினைத்தால், அவர் சுதந்திரம் பெற்றவர். ஒருவன் தன்னை பந்தத்தில் இருப்பவனாக நினைத்தால், அவர் பந்தத்தில் இருப்பவர். இங்கு "நினைப்பதே உண்மை" என்ற வாசகம் உண்மை.

12. உன் இயல்பே முழுமையான, சுதந்திரமான, செயலற்ற pure (சுத்த) உள்ளம், அனைத்தையும் வியாபித்த சாட்சியம் - எந்தவொன்றுடன் தொடர்பும் இல்லாதது, ஆசையற்றது, அமைதியாக இருப்பது. உன்னை சாம்சாராவில் ஈடுபடுத்துவது மாயையால்தான்.

13. உன்னை ��சையாத pure (சுத்த) உள்ளமாக தியானம் செய், எந்த இரட்டைப்பாட்டும் இல்லாதவனாக இரு, நீ வெளிப்புறமோ அல்லது உட்புறமோ எதற்கும் சார்ந்தவன் என்ற தவறான எண்ணத்தை விட்டு விடு.

14. நீ உடலுடன் அடையாளம் கொண்டதற்குள் நீ நீண்ட காலம் சிக்கியுள்ளாய். 'நான் pure (சுத்த) உள்ளம்' என்ற அறிவின் கத்தியால் அதைத் துணிந்து மகிழ்ச்சியுடன் இரு, மகனே.

15. நீ உண்மையில் பந்தமற்றவனும், செயலற்றவனும், சுய-ஒளி படைத்தவனும், களங்கமற்றவனும், ஏற்கெனவே இருக்கிறாய். உன் பந்தத்தின் காரணம், நீ மனதை அடக்க முயல்வதுதான்.

16. இதனை நிமிர்ந்து பார்த்தால், இது அனைத்தும் உண்மையில் உன்னால் நிரப்பப்பட்டுள்ளதுமே மற்றும் உன்னில் பிணைக்கப்பட்டுள்ளதுமே, ஏனெனில் நீ pure (சுத்த) உள்ளமாக இருக்கிறாய் - எனவே குறுகிய மனநிலையுடன் இராதே.

17. நீ தணியாதவனும், மாற்றமற்றவனும், வடிவற்றவனும், அசையாதவனும், அழிவில்லாத அறிவும், சங்கடமற்றவனும் ஆக இருக்கிறாய் - எனவே pure (சுத்த) உள்ளத்தைத் தவிர எதையும் பிடிக்காதே.

18. தோற்றமளிப்பது பொய்மையானது என்பதை அறிவித்து, வெளிப்படாதது நிலையானது என்பதை உணரு. உண்மையைப் பற்றிய இந்த அடையாளத்தின் மூலம் நீ மீண்டும் மாயையில் விழுந்து விடாமல் தப்பித்துவிடுவாய்.

19. ஓர் கணினி எங்கேயும் அதன் பிரதிபலிப்புகளை ஒட்டவும், அதன் வெளியில் இருந்தும் எப்படியோ இருக்கின்றதோ, அதுபோல், பரமாத்மா இங்கு எங்கும், இந்த உடலுக்குள் மற்றும் வெளியில் இருக்கின்றார்.

20. ஜாரின் உள்ளும், அதன் வெளிவட்டத்திலும் எங்கு இருக்கும் அதே இடத்தில், பரப்பிடப்பட்டு நிறைந்துள்ள eternal (நித்திய) ஆத்மா, அனைத்திலும் இருக்கின்றார்.

[unhingedblahaj]

[music/artist review] "Into Sands", written and performed by Ley Soul

I can't lie: I've listened to this song almost nonstop today.

As the digital clock struck midnight, Ley Soul's triumphant return to the top of my monthly Spotify summaries was all but confirmed with the release of her newest single, "Into Sands". I'd briefly met Ley Soul in person over the summer of '24, in [redacted], [redacted]. We caught up about the last year of life experience and personal growth in a whirlwind of a conversation that let me see her in a different light. You see, I'd known her before the runaway social media success and trips to LA where she'd write songs and produce music; I'd sat in the same classrooms as she had.

I can't speak to any more of her musical heritage and upbringing beyond what she explicitly told me, but what I can confirm is that her musicality stands upon equally immovable pillars of talent and diligence. Like the satiated customer in a Michelin-star restaurant, I realize my comments exist in context far larger than my purview, atop considerable commercial acclaim and a TikTok press conference of worship paired with what seems at times seemingly non-existent shame. Ley Soul has captivated a niche--something I've only grown to appreciate more--and expanded on her basis set of soundscape vectors. In that conversation from summer '24, she'd mentioned experimenting with non-conformity to equal temperament in response to my praise for "Fortune Eyes", which I had then dubbed my favorite work of hers thus far. While my over-intellectualizationisms attempted to frame this as atonality or microtonality, she smiled as she reassured me that the feelings being evoked mattered more. For her, music, it seemed, had transcended the framework of proficiency and culminated to an expression of self. If such a trajectory were given a blanket title, one might call it artistry.

That's not to diminish the growth in technical mastery demonstrated in this 4-minute, "heavenly", "trippy asl", "soty" (song of the year). Ley Soul's breakout single, "Intergalactic Janet", had never resonated with me due to its simplicity and derivative nature (not to deride taking inspiration, but even Ley Soul herself admits her 19M stream single could be confused for the likes of Erykah Badu). I was still very happy to hear that a friend of mine had found some level of commercial success, but frankly, I couldn't pretend I didn't feel a similar sense of disdain for the "common folk" who created financial incentives in the mediocre that others had expressed with the success of someone like... I don't know, Ed Sheeran? Katy Perry? I don't know who the boomers point to as ruining music nowadays.

My fears were Thanos-snapped out of existence with "Fortune Eyes". Genre staples (such as compressed bass with boosted mids and complex percussion arrangements) aside, Ley Soul's brazen experimentation instantly reminded me why I was drawn to her as a person. She'll prove to you she knows all the rules, and alternate between sharp jabs that demonstrate the comprehensive nature of her prowess and inevitable combinations that demand and reward relistening. As for the last minute of the song, in terms of my analysis, exemplified that she had a firm grasp on what sound she wanted, and was pretty darn close to achieving it. Attempt to relive my surprise when she offhandedly mentioned that she wasn't super satisfied with the song's ending. This isn't even her final form.

"Into Sands" manages to do everything "Fortune Eyes" did, but better, somehow. Ley Soul's vocal agility and tone take center stage again, with everything from the ostinato that plays over the intro, choruses, to the breathy harmony lines, to a brilliantly orchestrated belt mix owing their vibes to singular, phenomenal performances. (For nerds: her controlled usage of vibrato in the multiple lines and harmonies from 2:34 to 3:02 does things to a certain corner in your chest.) While Ley Soul's lyricism has never been dense, her preferred level of verbosity highlights her control of tone (especially vowel placement!!) and her inhuman riffage. Her presentation, while aided by the forward and permeating production magic of Elijah Hill and Matt Kahane, oozes with the confidence that comes with the complete encapsulation of one's objective.

Listening to this song consecutively with Ley Soul's other singles (some released, some only on YouTube), it's not difficult to consider this her most technically proficient, cohesively polished, and (at least personally) vibe-a-licious single thus far. I do hope to retract this statement, because in case you weren't aware, Ley Soul has two more pre-save links live right now.