#the TUMBLR REFERENCE they're one of us huh

[nicoleanell]

Move over, hbomberguy, CJ the X emerged from hibernation to do a 47-minute video essay about Folgercest.

[etoilesbienne]

Forever's Entire Proposal to BadBoyHalo q!BBH Analysis + Transcript below the cut.

Before I start, I want to make clear this is from BBH's perspective + mentality, and I do not speak Portuguese, as well as none of this is intended as character writing criticism. I really like the direction both of these characters are going in, I just want to highlight how much of a horror show this scene is! I'm starting much earlier than what's shown in the clip at the top, unfortunately Tumblr's file limits exist :/ Timestamp for the entire clip I'm using is at here in BBH's vod.

Some preface for everything going on in this scene and context:

For one, Forever's current drugged arc has continued references to the Vargas Era in Brazilian history, which, to heavily oversimplify, is a period when culture was suppressed by Getúlio Vargas, a 1930's Brazilian dictator, and made to look very perfected to the outside world to cover up the many issues from the government at the time. (I really recommend looking more into the Vargas Era on your own, I can say I've found every reading on this topic to be both interesting, as well as gives Forever's current arc a really good layer of historical reference with his presidency. It's a good topic to look into!)

Mostly, it's a representation of how fucked Forever's mental state currently is. Not only is he erratic from the drugs he was put under - He's actively been washed over with nationalistic propaganda. That's fucking horrifying for the President of the island to be under! It gains another layer of horror as well, because to all of the islanders, Forever is the only community member with any perceived sort of power. Him becoming erratic - pulling a gun on Phil, forcing other people to sign up for the drugs and medical procedure he went under - it's something that carries weight in terms of the island being united and working together, and is currently reinforcing the concerns the French group had with seeing him as unfit for power, with BBH included in all of these presidential coup meetings as being a sort of "honorary french" deal.

On Bad's side, however, is the known fact he finds marriage overrated, and meta-wise cc!BBH has mentioned he's playing a "more aromantic approach" because he doesn't want to be another character stuck in the shipping boat. (This isn't a knock against shipping, I just think it's good knowledge to have about q!BBH's character/stance on romance going into this.) And then finally, when the link timestamp starts, but before Forever has truly begun his serious conversation, BBH does this:

He switches out his regular Totem of Undying to specifically a Death totem. It's very quick, but I think it sets up his mentality going into this... I think he expected Forever's final reaction.

Forever: Here, Bad. BadBoyHalo: Hello. F: Hello! F & BBH, simultaneously: So, uh - BBH: Do you know where any of the kids are? F: I know where Richarlyson is, but, oh uh maybe we should go a little bit further there's a translator screen. BBH: Okay. F: Otherwise, I want my chat to know what we're talking about.

[Break for when they move the benches again]

F: Here, nice, nice, nice. F: OH! It's even better! BBH: Yay. F: It's perfect, I would say! BBH: So, you don't - F: Yeah, I don't know where the eggs are, Bad, but I'm really - there's something I know, okay? BBH: Uh-huh. F: I can tell you. BBH: Tell me. F: They are just good and fine, okay? BBH: What do you mean? F: They're fine! They're well! BBH: Look, what do you want, Forever? F: Ah, I want to get married! BBH: No, I mean, like, what do you want? F: Why? BBH: Like, if you know what happened to the - F: Why… don't we just get married! BBH: Do you know what happened to the eggs? Do you know where they are? F: Let's get married. BBH: What's happening, Forever? Etoiles: [mumbling] Fit: Hooray. Tina: Hip Hip Hooray! F: Let's - Let's just get married. Fit: Hooray. Tina: Hip Hip Hooray! Fit: Hooray. Wooooooo. Tina: He saved us. That's crazy! BBH: Okay. Oh, hey Etoiles. You - You're not focused, Forever. Tina: It's probably the most beautiful battle ever! Of all time! In a rose field! F: Yeah, I'm totally focused! I'm happy! Etoiles: Thank you, Tina! Tina: Yes! BBH: No - No, you're focused on the wrong thing - Etoiles: You see, I clicked well! I clicked well! F: Guys, can you give me and Bad a moment, please? - Tina: [Overlapping with Forever] I'm so sorry - F: - We are having a deep conversation, I am asking him to get married! Tina: - I'm so sorry Mr. President, I didn't know. Etoiles: Okay! Okay, Forever, what I, Forever, I - I don't understand, like, there's the code who's attacking us, and you don't give a shit, but you are the president? F: Where - Where is the codes? I want to help you guys! Everything will be perfect! Tell me. Pierre: Congratulations Badboy and Mr. President, congratulations F: If the codes are not here right now, Etoiles, you are just being inconvenient, because I want to get married, and you are just in the way, man - Etoiles: Okay - F: - Go away, please! Etoiles: Okay, okay, I will go away. Okay, okay. F: If the codes show up, you will tell me, okay? BBH: [short confused laugh] F: [cheering as Etoiles walks away] YES! BBH: [looking around at the sky] F: See, Bad? This is how we solve problems. Isn't that perfect? Pierre: Can I be your best man for the wedding? BBH: What? No? There's not gonna be a wedding - F: He asks me for drugs all the time, Bad, he just asks me for drugs. BBH: - okay? F: [laughing] Pierre: Huh? BBH: He's obviously not in his right mind, AyPierre. Pierre: Yes, look at this smile! Must use a lot of uh… BBH: A smile doesn't mean a whole lot. F: Pierre, I will, I will tell Cucurucho, man, I told you already. Pierre: Yes, I want to be happy… F: Cucurucho will come to you and he will put the smile on your face! Pierre: Yes! F: Now go away, I want to get married. Pierre: I want it! F: (Portuguese as Pierre leaves) F: Oh my god, finally some silence. So Bad, BBH: mhm. F: Don't you think this place looks beautiful? BBH: I guess. F: Oh my god, they're still around so the translator is just crazy. Let's change it again please. Sorry, but - F: (Portuguese, I am assuming it is more ooc focused, my apologies. If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me!)

[Break for when they move locations, this is where the clip above begins.]

F: So Bad, BBH: Yes? F: What is it going to be? Are you going to get married, or not? BBH: Why do you want to get married? F: Yeah, because everything's perfect, right? A marriage would be perfect, as well! BBH: Why do you think everything's perfect? F: Why don't you think everything's perfect? BBH: Because we don't have our kids, Forever. They're gone. F: No, no they're just fine, man! You are not seeing the world the way you should, Bad, and I'm going to tell you - BBH: How should I be seeing it? F: I'm here for you, buddy. I'm here for you, buddy, okay? BBH: Is anyone here for you? F: And I'm going to tell Cucurucho that he should help you! Like he did to me. BBH: I don't want his help. F: You need his help, Bad. Just - BBH: I don't need his help, Forever. F: - Bad, you are looking bad, Bad, - BBH: I feel fine. F: - you know? BBH: You know what would help me, Forever? F: So let's get married! BBH: Forever. You know what would help me? F: Hm? What? BBH: Tell that white puffball to give me my son back. To bring back all of our kids. F: White puffball? What does that mean? BBH: Cucurucho. F: Okay. BBH: What does he want? What does he want, Forever? Does he want diamonds? F: Why do you think Cucurucho is the one with the eggs? Why do you think Cucurucho is the one with your child? BBH: I know it was him, Forever. F: What are you guys getting from exploding the whole city? Why did I become the president that's trying to help everyone, and you guys are just exploding everything? This is funny man, this is perfect. [laughs] You know? You guys are just too crazy! [laughs] Man, you guys are exploding stuff, and you all are saying that I need help? [laughs] That's funny, man, that's funny! BBH: We need our kids back, Forever. That's why. We'll stop, all Cucurucho has to do is return the eggs. I want Dapper back, I want Pomme back, all the kids back. F: Why do you think Cucurucho is the one with the eggs? BBH: He obviously is the one with the eggs, okay? F: What proof do you have? BBH: Remember - F: Cucurucho's great, Bad. BBH: - I saw - F: Uh huh. BBH: - It was a strange person in the federation building, Mysterioso or whatever his name was? F: [laughs] Yeah, he doesn't like [I cannot figure out what he says here] BBH: I saw him at the federation building. I bet that's the same person who gave Sofia's plans to Maximus. F: [laughing] BBH: That means the Federation was responsible for Sofia. F: Okay, okay. BBH: That means they're behind everything! There's not anything they don't know about. F: Did Maximus tell you that that man is the same one that gave Sofia to him. BBH: He said it was a mysterious hooded figure, and there's only one - F: There's only - Can only be one - BBH: - mysterious hooded figure. F: - It can only be one. BBH: If the federation does not - did not take the kids, they know who did, and they know where they are - F: Ohh. BBH: - I just want them back, that's it. F: Yeah.

BBH: What do they want - What do they want, Forever? Mr. President? You're in contact with them, what do they want? F: Well, Bad, I can tell you something, you know? This is actually quite funny, this is actually quite funny. BBH: What's funny about it? F: So everyone on the island thinks that I, being the president - me, being the president - means that I'm working for the Federation, but do you know what you guys don't see? BBH: What? F: I am the only one working for you guys! A favor(?), you know, the federation does what they want. I'm the only one that tried to represent the people of the island. BBH: So you're trying to get our kids back? F: Oh, they're just fine right now. BBH: Where are they? F: I don't know, sleeping maybe? BBH: How do you they're fine? F: Cucurucho said it's classified! Isn't that funny? BBH: Do you believe it? F: That it's classified? I don't know, is there anything to believe in that? BBH: [sighs] BBH: What happened to you, Forever? F: What? BBH: What happened to you? What did they do to you? F: Uh, I don't know what you're talking about, Bad. I'm just feeling so good, 'cuz everything's so good man. BBH: This isn't like you. You're not acting like yourself. F: Why? Why, I'm happy? I'm not happy? You say I'm not a happy person? BBH: That's just it Forever, you wouldn't be this happy with Richarlyson missing. F: Richarlyson's okay, he's just - BBH: Is he? Is he? F: - sleeping a lot. BBH: Has he gotten up? Has he danced around? Has he put any signs down? Has he said anything to you? Have you built any projects with him recently? Have you done anything with him at all? F: [Deep sigh that turns into a laugh] No, no. BBH: Then how is he fine? F: [long pause] Bad, I have something I would like to show you. Or maybe test on you. BBH: What? F: You know, you guys are just so funny with that clock joke. BBH: Clock joke? F: Yeah, I want to test something. F: Don't you want to get married? BBH: I want my son back. I want Dapper, Pomme, F: [begins launching mines] BBH: [evades, throws health potions] F: STOP THAT FUCKING CLOCK NOISE. BBH: You like your mines, Forever? BBH: It won't bring Richarlyson back.

To start from the beginning, BBH is under no pretenses that this would be a marriage proposal of all things. All he is aware of is that Forever wants to have a serious discussion with him. He's also gone out of his way to put himself on a Death totem, meaning he has every possibility to be downed if Forever were to successfully attack him.

With Forever's current mental state and reinforcing a societal idealism & a desired performance of aggressive happiness and "normalcy" - his character now desiring something like a marriage can be read multiple ways. For one, an imitation of how one of his closest friends, his ex-husband no less, was recently married and is currently considered one of the best federation workers (albeit begrudging on Cellbit's part). For two, a marriage is a pretty huge symbol of a plastique performance of a perfect life. Especially in this context, it's saccharine, it's a status symbol, everyone wants it. With the medication as well, we don't truly know if Forever genuinely feels strongly about BBH to want to marry him, or if he feels he has to be in a marriage for a "perfect" life with BBH being "the best option" as a spouse. (Again, this is not a criticism of Forever's character, this is a very symbolically rich move for him to do, and I, personally, cannot get enough of it.)

Now back to BBH, this is a guy who is admittedly not looking for romance, not trying to romance anyone, and is currently in the middle of a character arc having to do with how pissed he is at Forever for not running the government in a way he approves, and then getting wrongfully jailed by Forever. I do not think BBH is in any way afraid of Forever as a person, but I do think BBH has concerns about what he may be forced to do in an attempt to get his children back. BBH as a character in general has very, very little regard for his own life, watch a pov of himself in a dungeon and just see how many totems pop, but he does care about his kids more than anything else in the world. The way his character goes about his care for his kids isn't something that often occurs in more masculine-presented characters like him either, frankly I think a lot of more ship oriented readings of him end up hyper-feminizing him* because of this "maternal" archetype.

In a return to Forever's saccharine performance of perfectionism, I find the moments Forever makes the both of them move across the rose field - The rose field, previously quite literally stained by blood as Etoiles had just finished another battle with the code there, tensions are running high and everyone is still distressed from the eggs going missing - I realize it's because cc!Forever ooc wanted to move to not have the chatbox be interrupted by other people speaking, but it's just so good thematically. He keeps moving to have a better view of roses. It's never perfect enough. They have to keep moving. They have to be alone. Nobody else is allowed to be around when he corners BBH with the marriage proposal. Nobody can get in the way.

Speaking of people interrupting, the other members appearing in the middle of the conversation adds to the fridge horror that's been subtly happening all the way through. Nobody pauses and makes sure BBH is okay throughout this scene, everybody is extremely sure that he is fine and can handle himself. The only person to even make a criticism of Forever is Etoiles, over being somewhat irritated that it looks like Forever has been doing little to nothing as President to aid new members or former islanders (despite this technically not being true, Etoiles has seen none of it, and has been giving new players items continuously in an effort to help them, as well as has had little time to do anything except fight code entities).

And then onto the rejection, BBH never agrees to the marriage at all, because why would he? I've seen quite a lot of discussion thus far that he doesn't reject Forever outright, but I disagree, it's a little moment in there, and I couldn't get it in the video posted itself, but he explicitly tells Pierre "there's not gonna be a wedding," and then is cut off by Forever. It's quiet, I don't think many people heard it outright, but BBH is right in his assertion Forever isn't in his right mind to be asking for marriage in the first place.

The other side of that, however, is that BBH is very well aware Forever didn't want to hear an outright rejection either. BBH knows what Forever is capable of, and he knows this version of Forever is not his usual self. It's not an easy situation, especially when he's fully under the impression Forever does have some power with the Federation, and fully believes the Federation has the eggs. Whether or not this is actually true doesn't really matter to Bad's perspective here, he's deadset in this belief. With that belief in mind, how is someone supposed to respond to being cornered about marriage - a concept he has little interest in - but the person cornering him is 1. known to be volatile due to recent events, 2. potentially has some form of contact to the people currently holding the eggs captive, and potentially put his children more at risk than they already are, 3. the literal only person in power on the island.

I don't think BBH ever believed he had the option to outright tell Forever no, he's in a depressed state as is, his kids might be dead for all he knows, and he has the impression Forever could bring harm to them.

Admittedly it is interesting how many outright untrue facts BBH holds onto, but cannot change his belief in them. His opinion and perspective of Forever is one thing, but it's much, much more obvious when he brings up the connection between the new Mysterioso and the previous masked person who gave the plans for Sofia to Maxo, those were two separate unknown figures as we know as the audience, but Bad does not know this, and does make assumptions and connect dots in his own right, tending to his own detriment. This is all intended here, he's wrong about Forever factually, but to his knowledge he's acting in the best way he can. He's under the impression Forever is just not telling the full truth to him about everything with the eggs disappearing, and believes the federation is lying. I think it's made even more obvious he's prioritizing the eggs over everything else here, especially with his final statement about Richarlyson. BBH believes the eggs are the only true way to every player's heart, and blatantly ignores the actual romance aspect of what marriage implies, because romance genuinely does not matter to him at all. He doesn't have time to worry about being in a relationship if his son might be dead.

Mostly, I find this scene to be a great relationship horror set up, because damn if I haven't been on dates like this, where I feel like I can't say no or something might happen. I understand the paranoia and anxiety surrounding q!BBH's mindset in the moment. It isn't a rational response by any means, no, but it is a very aggressively human response to this situation for a demon to have.

Basically, I don't think BBH is a fundamentally romantic character in the first place, nor do I think he'd ever be happy in a cutesy marriage position anyway, he never once responds romantically to any of this, and solely prioritizes the eggs, the final Richarlyson line cements this fact. It's not a dig at how Forever will never have BBH romantically - it's a dig at Forever based on what BBH's priority is, his kids.

*I want to be clear this statement is meant to be a neutral fact, it's just worth mentioning in an analysis like this that BBH as a character is more typically set on the feminine side by the fanbase, and how his character's interpretations are influenced by that reading.

[oneknightstand-if]

FAQ

(That I just made up because there's no time for questions yet)

600,000+ words for the first chapter?!?

(Damn, Tumblr insists on blowing up even small gifs into full size, huh)

I know, I know... that's not going to be sustainable unless we're aiming for the first 6 million word release in history. I'll be streamlining things more from this point onwards.

Is this a standalone or the first book of a series?

It's a series. The first book One Knight Stand will keep going until we finally complete that Lesser Circle of Seven (or die trying) but the apocalypse won't be over yet.

What is with all these wikipedia links in the game?

So I was going to have tooltips that popped up and explained things such as 'greaves' and whatnot like Twine games do… but oops, Choicescript doesn't have that capability. The closest I could do is include a link to a website that explained it.

I decided that wikipedia had the best chance of still being available years from now and have handy explanations to most things I was referencing (so I wouldn't have to chase after broken links when sites go down forevermore).

And then I just started running amok and linking to anything that the player might not know offhand. If you already understand the reference or have no further interest in it, please feel free to just ignore them.

How can I see the code for the game?

You can view the game code on my site the same way you do on Dashingdon just add /scenes to the end of the URL.

Do I need to know anything about King Arthur, Camelot, or random arthurian lore to play this game?

No, you don't need to know anything about it.

You can spend the whole game going "Who is Arthur? What's a Camels-a-lot? What am I even doing here?" as a legit strategy. (You can even play that way if you actually do know stuff about arthuriana.)

If you choose to be an in-game lore expert, it just means your MC is as likely to give an explanation as one of the other characters. However, anything important that the player needs to know will come up in the game itself.

You can also ask the other characters for info dumps on Camelot... and boy, will some of them give you (completely skippable) lore dumps all right.

Hey, this stuff that Merlin's saying about Camelot doesn't jive with what I know!

Maybe that's the difference between what canonically happened in One Knight Stand's backstory. Or maybe Merlin is just gaslighting you.

What's going on with Merlin's pronouns?

If Merlin's pronouns don't fit with the gender that you've chosen for them within the MC's speech or internal narrative, then that's a coding error (please report it).

If another character (say a little girl who's convinced that Merlin is Elsa) is using different pronouns for Merlin than what's expected, then that's simply how that other character is currently perceiving Merlin.

But what pronouns does Merlin prefer?

Merlin doesn't care what human pronouns you use for them. Out-of-universe I'll be using they/them for simplicity's sake (same reason I'll be using 'incubus' instead of typing incubus/succubus the entire time).

What's up with all of Merlin's kaomoji in their text messages and e-mails?

They're a fifth-century mage who's been sealed away for 1500 years... they're *trying*.

 m(✿￣ｰ￣)m plz understand

Why are there so many Merlin questions in this FAQ?

I don't know, it just ended up that way. Probably because they show up in Chapter 1 and have a rather... complex... situation that needs warnings attached to it.

(✿≖ᴗ≖ )ゞ "Naturally, I'm simply the most intriguing member of this party."

Are all RO's available to all MC's?

Your MC won't be blocked from a romance due to gender or sexuality. At most you'll get a passing mention if you're not the gender that the RO usually dates.

There are certain *other* mitigating factors, however... for example not all RO's are going to be kosher with the Serial Killer MC (especially if said MC won't knock off with all the killings).

Also there is one modern day RO that is incompatible with a certain Camelot MC background.

Is there a lock-in point for romances?

No, there will be several points where you can initiate and break-off relationships with the various RO's (and know that the RO's can take take those on and off-ramps just the same as the MC).

You can also romance another character after breaking up with your current RO... but that's going to get tougher and tougher the more you do that.

Can we start a romance in Book 1?

Romances will proceed at a different pace depending on who your MC is romancing (and also on your MC themselves). For example Adrian will be friendzoning you through most of Book 1 for... reasons. Meanwhile, potential sex scene with Merlin in Chapter 3 if you're feeling particularly horny.

Do I need to romance someone to take part in their personal subplot?

No, you just need to be "close" to someone, either platonically, romantically, or otherwise to take part in their subplot. You'll also need to actually be physically present (which will not always be possible for everyone at the same time).

Is there any poly?

In the series, yes, but not in the first book One Knight Stand, as forming the triad will require developing a certain level of trust and loyalty between all three members. And right now everyone is too busy side-eying each other in suspicion at this point.

Thus, since the poly options won't appear until Book 2, saying who is involved would be a *spoiler* since it indicates who'll actually still be available for romance later in the series.

In general, there are three triads that will be available... one is male/male/MC, one is female/female/MC, and one is male/female/MC. Note that there is some overlap in the characters potentially involved in various triads since only a couple of the ROs are interested in this sort of thing.

What about options for flings and friends with benefits--

*points to Merlin*

So... Merlin the incubus as an RO. Can they be romanced monogamously? Can they be romanced asexually?

You can indeed romance Merlin and have them be emotionally monogamous to you as the partner they will always return to while everyone else is a (literal) snack.

But they can't be physically monogamous with the MC. They need to eat and being Merlin's sole food source would literally kill the MC in two weeks or less.

In fact, romanced Merlin is even more likely to seek out other food sources just to make certain that the MC is safe with them and that they won't get too hungry and accidentally eat your soul.

Merlin's nature as an incubus means their sexuality is highly integral to them, and while they will reflect back what their partner wants/needs from them, they are not naturally romantic. Basically if you're not having sex with them, then a high affinity MC is defaulting back to platonic friends.

These are things that are definitely going to be brought up in-game if you try to initiate a long-term romance with Merlin.

Will any other RO have problems with an asexual romance?

Nope, sex can be entirely avoided with all the other RO's, just choose the snuggle options instead of the sex options.

How explicit are we talking here regarding sex scenes?

You'll have the choice between fade to black and something rather more explicit but not full-blown porn. If anything rated higher than that gets included as a DLC option (not part of the base game) will depend upon how much (if any) interest there is in that sort of thing.

Can I romance the saboteur?

You can certainly *think* you are! (Note: This is not recommended for your MC's longevity)

Can I romance the 404 Error?

You can certainly *try*. (You actually have a better chance here than with the actual saboteur.)

Can I romance the dude in the elevator, that random paramedic, or some stranger walking down the street?

( ⓪ ᴗ ⓪ )

So there's only one traitor, right?

There may actually potentially be more than one depending on the MC's actions. But there's always that one particular saboteur present despite whatever else the MC may do.

Will the gender of my past Camelot reincarnation be the same as the one I've chosen in game?

No, there's no connection between your MC's current and past gender (or really their current and past *anything* since they're basically an entirely different person now).

There are four different backgrounds available for the Camelot reincarnation, 2 male and 2 female, so if you end up with a past incarnation you don't like at the end of the game, you can replay for one more suitable to your tastes.

How is the MC's past Camelot Incarnation determined?

Mostly through your choices during the Camelot flashback sequences. Mostly.

Who are the potential past incarnations of the MC?

That's for you to find out! (No really, this is one of the major subplots of the game).

What is with all these grayed-out options?

Options will be grayed out if they conflict with a previous choice the player made if you haven't fulfilled the prerequisites for unlocking them.

An example would be the "I'm lying about my amnesia" option not being selectable if you didn't chose to have amnesia in the first place. (The exception right now is the fencing & book club choices... I just haven't written those routes yet).

If nearly *all* the options have been grayed out, then usually that's triggered by your fear or vice kicking in or because your MC is literally possessed (Congratulations!). You may want to work on that.

I'm here for the story and not for the trauma… what background choices are least likely to spectacularly blow up in my face later?

In that case, I'd suggest the Lab Technician job, the Imposter secret, Abandoned or Abused as your childhood, Lust as your vice if you're not planning to pursue a long-term relationship with a RO (Sloth if you are), either Heights, Snakes, Spiders, or Closed Spaces as your phobia, avoiding Luck as your talent & avoiding the Internet as your addiction, and finally having Adrian as your close friend.

Not saying that you can't make other choices during the game that'll set you on the path to Hard Mode, but these background choices have the mildest potential repercussions.

I want the full spectacular clusterf*ck experience here! What background should I choose?

The Wrath (Vice), Accident (Childhood), and Serial Killer (Secret) combo is always f̴u̸n̷. The "Lying about my amnesia" secret is also it's own brand of mindtrip as well.

Also, some other options include starting off as a Security Guard as your career, with Fear Itself as your phobia (blood or death are also 'good' options), Luck as your talent, the Internet as your addiction, and of course Adrian as your stalker because obviously we don't need any good relationships to fall back on when playing Among Us.

What is going on with the "lying about your amnesia" option?

What indeed.

If you don't like meta fourth wall breaks or otherwise heavily self insert, you might not want to choose that as your secret.

My MC's skin is pretty dark, is that demonic-bruise thing actually going to be seeable?

Since the bruise being perceivable is an important plot point, then no matter how dark your MC's skin is, that bruise is darker still even if has to become the abiding abyss of a black hole to do so. (I even described it as a black hole in some routes to cover my posterior.)

My MC is intrigued by this agenda of demonic conquest & people-eating and would like to subscribe to their newsletter. Can I join the other side?

Well... there's certainly some Dead Ends where you can do that!

Screw all these people and this forced quest! My MC wants to leave the group and this plot behind.

You can certainly do that. You'll die (since your MC is currently on the top of several different 'Kill on sight' lists), but you can do it.

At some point the MC will be strong enough that they can split from the group and frolic off into their own nonstandard ending adventures in the apocalyptic world while everyone else deals with the whole apocalypse plot thing. But you're nowhere near that point yet.

So the MC can die prematurely here, huh.

Yep, this game is horror-adjacent and you're being given a hundred save slots for a reason. I'll be inputting checkpoints as well once we come to that part. Hopefully Choice of Games will start allowing normal save points in the near future.

Also, please note that all the Dead Ends include clues towards the truth of what's going on here that may otherwise not be knowable, so they're not complete wastes of time. Also, they all give Achievements.

What is a Cloudcuckoolander etc?

Please see this post for all your cloudcuckoolander needs.

What is going on with the Changeling MC?

Please see this post for all your changeling needs.

OMG, what the hell is this monstrosity that is Merlin's Guide to Arthurian Lore?

We're playing Among Us/Werewolf/Mafia/etc here. You aren't getting any word-of-god lore directly from me. That'd be too easy.

All info about the One Knight Stand world will be filtered through the natural biases (and lies) of the characters involved in the game. Hence, Merlin's Guide to Arthurian Lore.

Feel free to read or ignore, as you like. (Also feel free to text Merlin back and tell them exactly what you think of that doorstop.)

So Why 'Among Us' in the description?

Obviously, it can't be officially marketed like that, but I thought that would be the most popularly recognized description for this type of situation.

I also considered using the OG Mafia or Werewolf instead, but I thought that might've confused people into thinking that there are actual gangsters and werewolves present in the game.

About those werewolves...

No comment.

Are there any guides available?

Here's a link to various guides & info posts available on the Choice of Games thread.

Escaping the Monster Under the Bed

Getting Excalibur Shards

Gaining/Avoiding Corruption

Gaining/Avoiding Fear

Potential Past Incarnations

Saving & Getting Pippa Killed | Version 2

Saving Zain

Potential Camelot Incarnations

Camelot Family Trees

Quick Guide to Sparring with Lancelot

My save slots keep getting stuck in the Status Menu! (or any of the submenus associated with it such as Messages/Inventory/etc)

Unfortunately, that's a common problem with Dashingdon games or any games that use the smPlugin.js save system (like One Knight Stand). You can't save the game directly after checking the stats menu (or any of the submenus associated with the stats menu such as Messages, Inventory, menu). If you do, that save will be permanently stuck in the stats menu for good.

So you either have to...

Save the game before checking the stats menu

After checking the stats menu move the game forward by at least one screen before saving. That means picking an option, hitting the 'Next' button or whatever is currently available in that particular game.

I keep getting an error in the game.

Before reporting any errors, please clear your browser's cache (just the cache, not the cookies, localStorage, or any other browser data) and refresh the page.

Then, if you're loading an old save slot, check the Status Menu to make certain that your stats haven't been reset back to default (which can be caused by the data in the save slot corruption). If the Status Menu variables have reset back to their original values, you'll have to load another Save or restart from the beginning of the game).

If you're still getting an error message after trying these steps, please feel free to send in a bug report.

When will the Book Club Route be done?

When it's done. There's no set date at this point and considering the time investment (3-4 months for 150,000-175,000 words) and how burnt out I currently am with Chapter 1, it won't be anytime soon.

I will also no longer be responding to any update requests regarding the book club.

What the hell is going on with Gawain in Merlin's Guide to Arthurian Lore?

So, while I was plotting out One Knight Stand and deciding which version of Arthurian lore would be taken as the "truth" of the OKS world, I looked at Gawain and his five million wives and lovers (because if you were going to create a female OC back then, high probability she's shacking up with Gawain) and then I decided, yes, I'm going to make all of them canon.

The yandere. The other yandere. The one who dosed him with aphrodisiacs. That one who died of heartbreak because he couldn't figure out how to get back to her castle. The cursed baba yaga.

Merlin's cursed ex-lover. [insert Merlin screeching in the background about not having done any such thing] The fairy daughter of Morgana... and that other fairy... and this fairy too.

All of them.

Good luck, Gawain.

[the-blorbo-project]

Blorbos at Conference!

Long time, no update, but this project is moving forward! This weekend, we're at a conference hosted by the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, or SCMS, presenting as part of a panel devoted to fan studies.

Why do panels matter?

First and foremost, it's a way to get research before a bunch of other researchers while it's still in progress. This helps catch poorly formed ideas, surface new good ideas, and share what's coming up with the fan studies research communities. It's also good for our humble PhD student CVs!

The Findings

Of course, the most interesting part is what, actually, we're presenting, AKA the findings! They're a work in progress, and the hardest part is the coding (talked about here). Therefore, I'm focusing on what I could do deep analysis on relatively quickly. (note: these images don't have image IDs because I summarize them below, but they're graphic representations of what I talk about in the text).

The majority of survey respondents were young: about 39% were 18-22 and 32% were 23-27. A further 17% were 28-32, about 8% were 33-37, and then it got progressively smaller from there. Shoutout to all 3 respondents who were 63 and over! So glad you're here.

In terms of social media usage, most people used tumblr - unsurprising, since that's where we got our most traction for the survey. Discord was the second most likely. Part of a later analysis will be seeing if these terms are more likely to be used by different age groups or on different platforms, which is cool.

Almost everyone surveyed had heard of these terms. Blorbo was the most-used and meow meow was least used, but very, very few respondents had not heard of these terms at all. This may be in part due to how we used them in our survey recruitment, since we did want to find people who knew what these terms were so that they could define them for us.

These numbers slope slightly down because something broke when we imported them into NVivo (a coding software) and frankly I don't understand it well even when it actually works, let alone when it breaks.

Here's a little visual of the terms you suggested for characters. Unfortunately, NVivo crashes every time I try to exclude words from this word bubble (like "term"), so it's not as clear as I'd like it to be, but there are some interesting ones. Particularly interesting are the cluster of gendered terms; husbando and waifu, malewife, sexyman, boy, girl, etc. I want to do some analysis of this because it parallels some preliminary coding results. Y'all also really find your blorbos scrunkly/skrunkly/scrungly, huh?

I also want to figure out how to tell the visualizer that "glup" and "shitto" go together, because "shitto" all by its lonesome over there is cracking me up.

Qualitative Findings

Like I said, the coding is...so far from done. That's mostly due to some Ao3-author levels of life disruption from both of us. BUT! I can tentatively say a couple of things:

There are notably clear definitions about these terms. We weren't sure if there even really was a definition of "blorbo", but it clearly refers to a very specific kind of one-true-character. By contrast, comfort characters are associated with experiencing positive emotions, and meow meows are more likely to be evil or morally grey (but you love them though).

Unsurprisingly, your characters make you happy. We're distinguishing between general positive emotions, attachment, relatability, and one-true-character belovedness. Also sexiness, but that (surprisingly) hasn't come up that much.

There are a couple of ways in which darker themes come up. Villains remain beloved, but a recurring theme is also using tragedy or trauma in fiction as catharsis.

Finally, there's a lot of playful and tactile language. "Rotating him in my mind" really is that common.

Additionally, I'm really interested in the role of gender. Many of you referred to your blorbos/meow meows as your guys, with some of you clarifying that it was "my little guy (gender neutral)". Others noted that most characters you'd seen people describe as blorbos or meow meows were men/masc. This did not come up for comfort characters. Analysis of the characters you consider exemplars of each definition will help flesh out this analysis.

Still to Come

SO much. Who are these characters? Is a specific character exclusively a meow meow, or are they also a common comfort character? What types of positive emotion are associated with each type? Are these character types or do they speak to a fan's individual (or a fandom's communal) relationship with a character?

Additionally - we didn't ask about neurodivergence, but many of y'all referenced it. I'm looking forward to exploring that as well.

That's all for now! I present this live in about two hours. If you're somehow following this account AND at SCMS, please come by!

[perpetuallypottytraining]

(im the anon that said regression is not nsfw)

oh okay i get it kind of :thumbs_up:

do u talk abt potty training stuff on ur main age regression acc too or is it just this one? cuz if u do i might follow idk hehe

okay, I thiiiink these are the same person? Probably? Unclear. I'll answer both here, for clarity.

1 - No, I don't talk about potty training stuff on my main, not anymore. I moved those posts here a couple of years ago. The only content that's there are maybe some reblogs from other regressors.

2 - Okay, first of all, age regressors did NOT come up with those terms, nor do they have exclusive rights to use them. Those terms have been used by people for, like, ever. Parents calling their kids "little ones", family members calling out "littles, come over here!" to refer to any younger members, the obvious origins of "mom" and "dad" and their variants, and "caregivers" being tied to both people who care for babies, children, the elderly, and those with disabilities.

If anything, age players have more rights to the terms "littles" and "caregiver" in the context that we're using on this site. They're the ones who originated/popularized them. I know this because I was here, on this site, in 2016, when age regressors decided to split off from the sfw age play community, and there was legitimately tons of discourse about who had the "right" to those terms.

(who here remembers the chire and the other handful of communities that attempted to exclude anyone who liked the parental nicknames and the usage of the word "little" in their regression? I do. god, do I remember. this is the main reason that a lot of old regression blogs specify that they're "community free regression")

Second, I... don't? Tag anything here as ageplay? Everything here is just tagged with omo tags, then with assorted organizational tags - there is nothing here tagged with agere or ageplay - just posts that use the very vague term of "little" and the other term of "caregiver" within the post itself.

(which, I just feel the need to repeat, is a word that even normies use!! my own parents, aunts, and uncles call me and my cousins littles!!! Outside of that, "Littles" is a shared community term!! Littles and Caregivers, as we use them, originated from Dominant Daddy/Mommy and Little Boy/Little Girl - it's the gender neutral version!! Cg/L! Regressors are the ones who decided to keep it!! Because it's vague!! That's intentional!!)

But, yeah, you're allowed to feel your feelings, and, honestly, the fact that you're uncomfortable with the "playing grown-up" tag is something that I anticipated when I made that tag - that it might make people uncomfortable! But, I've been working on making my own boundaries and enforcing them, while not immediately catering to make other people comfortable at the detriment of my own comfort/space.

This is my blog. People didn't like when I put non-sexual omo on my agere blog because it helped me regress. That's okay, and even I became uncomfortable with it after a while, so! I made this blog! It's not my agere blog. It's my soft omo blog. It's nsfw and for adults only. And, only just recently, I decided to take advantage of those two facts and put some other nsfw posts here. I do not want to make yet another sideblog for the handful of "icky" posts I'd like to reblog, especially when this blog is already here.

A nice thing about Tumblr is that tags are now blockable, so if, for some reason, you wanted to follow me still, you'd still be able too view all my other posts while excluding that specific tag. Or you can block me, if you wanted to - you curate your own online experience, and I'll hold no ill will towards you for making sure that you're comfortable and safe.

As for saying thats someone can't be both an age regressor and an age player? Literally what are you talking out????? Huh???? Do you think that adults can't age regress and slip into the mindset of a child while also being capable of, while in adult headspace, in a consensual relationship, roleplay as a child for sexual gratification??? Those are two different things!!! Ageplay is roleplay, and as such, one is capable of adult things! Agere is someone slipping into the headspace of a child!! Healthy communication with one's partner makes it clear what's okay in one headspace and what's okay in the other!!!

I'm not even an ageplayer and even I know that it's possible to do both 😭😭😭 and I just read fanfiction and people's actual blogs!!

As for your sign off, um. Okay? I don't even interact with a.geredips posts and blogs.... even if they're very relevant to me and my regression! Not even with my main!! (I'm also very shy and timid and a bit scared to interact) And, on my main, if people who follow me start breaking people's DNI, I literally softblock or block them - if they can't follow people's boundaries, then they can't interact! I'm just one blog, and I doubt that if anyone wanted to demonize age regressors, they need any help from me - people who deliberately mistag are probably more than enough tbh.

Ageplay and age regression, like it or not, was cut from the same cloth - a cloth made out of a gradient from black to white, with shades of grey all in between. Like a baby blanket! Black/ageplay and ABDL on one side, white/agere on the other, with you and me and my friends and mutuals somewhere in the middle, all spread out across!

Plenty of adults don't think anyone should return to the comfort of childhood things, and look at the whole blanket with scorn and disgust. Cutting off more and more of the blanket, because you think that my grey isn't as palatable as your grey, is not going to change these people's minds. Both of us live in the grey zone, and I personally think that by accepting more of the grey, our baby blanket will be strong enough to handle anything - even and especially people who think our blanket should be torn to shreds.

[everyl1ttleth1ng]

For reasons I will blame on a tweet that said “I just saw someone refer to TS and TK as ‘The English teacher and PE teacher getting it on’ AND I LOST MY MIND” and one of Taylor’s many amazing new songs on TTPD, “So High School,” it appears that I have joined the ranks of the psychos writing fanfiction about real people. We do AUs pretty well here on tumblr so, in this alternative universe of mine, the names, appearances and some elements of what is publicly known about these real people have been borrowed from actual reality and used to populate an entirely fictional story about teachers in a cross-discipline romance. Obvs I do not know any of my “actors” in real life and obvs this is not meant, in any way, to speculate about any of the named people’s actual lives. Also, some of my “actors” are just identified by their first names here but they are all played by real people in my head and you’ll probably pick ‘em if you’re even vaguely aware of actors, musicians and prominent figures across and around the NFL. And it’s set in the high school that Devi Vishwakumar goes to because, why not?

…

“She’s back,” announced Dalton, slumping into his chair and dropping his head dramatically onto his desk amid a tangle of whistles.

Pat chuckled. “Sorry dude, I was going to warn you but I never thought she’d agree to sub so soon after getting back into the country. Tammy must be desperate to cover classes. The poor girl’s probably still jet-lagged.”

“She doesn’t look jet-lagged,” muttered Dalton without lifting his head. “She looks like her perfect Disney Princess self, just more tanned from a year under the Spanish sun.”

“Dude,” said Pat, shaking his head. “Sometimes I wonder if PE is the right spot for you. You’re still young, it’s probably not too late to switch to something more dramatic.”

Travis looked from one colleague to the other. “What am I missing here?”

“Dalton has a crush,” said Pat. “It’s kind of endearing. She’s only a full decade older than he is and completely out of his league.”

“Shut up,” groaned Dalton.

“Knock, knock!” called a voice from the staff room doorway. “Paging Mr Travis Kelce.”

“English teachers?” said Travis, getting to his feet, his tone incredulous. “Are my eyes playing tricks on me or is that a pair of lost English teachers at our door? What are you two doing slumming it over on our side of the school?”

Dalton looked up in wide-eyed horror which quickly turned to relief when he saw which of the English teachers it was, or rather, wasn’t.

“Hey, Trav,” said Jack, accepting the embrace the bigger man offered with a grin and thumping him warmly on the back. “Em and I are worried we might have developed some kind of Stockholm Syndrome since our shared week on Grade Seven Camp. We really miss you, buddy.”

“Jack and all his pretentious poet friends are used to looking down on jocks. Now that he’s embroiled in a bromance with one, he’s finding it all very confusing.” Emma waited until Travis had released her from her hug before she added, “And we’re here to use you for your access to sports equipment.”

“Hurtful,” said Travis. “But it’s nice to have you guys visiting me in my staff room for a change. I kind of stick out like a sore thumb in yours.”

Jack snorted. “You know those old ladies love you.”

“They’ve started bringing in packets of those chocolate cookies you like just in case you pop by,” said Emma. “Better not leave them hanging, Trav.”

“Cookies, huh? Ok, I’ll be round tomorrow recess.”

“Nah, that won’t work,” said Emma. “Taylor swans in for thirty seconds this morning in a sleep-deprived haze-”

In the background Dalton surreptitiously lifted his head off the desk, the faint imprint of a whistle on his cheek.

“- mentions she watched Dead Poets Society on the plane ride home from Spain and suddenly they're all selecting extracts of poetry, dusting off an old gramophone and sending us over here to you lot to borrow some soccer balls.”

Travis looked from Jack to Emma with a bemused expression on his face. “Am I the idiot here if I have absolutely no idea what you two are talking about?”

“I know!” piped up Dalton. “Are you guys gonna recreate that scene with Robin Williams on the oval?” He nodded knowingly. “Iconic. I should tell Taylor I’m a fan too.”

Pat laughed. “Yeah, Dalton, you should. And maybe Taylor could come over while you watch the movie with your girlfriend. Remember her?”

Dalton glared at him then resignedly dropped his head back to the surface of his desk.

“Who’s Taylor?” asked Travis. “Is she another one of the old ladies with the cookies?”

Dalton scoffed dramatically, muffled though it was.

Pat cackled. “You okay there, Kinkaid?”

Emma pushed on Travis’ arm to get him moving. “C’mon, we’ve all gotta get to our homerooms eventually. We’ll explain while you take us to the soccer balls.”

…

“You are a lifesaver, my girl,” said Tammy, patting Taylor fondly on the arm. “I cannot thank you enough for coming in today.”

Taylor pushed her blonde hair out of her eyes and blinked sleepily. “What if I fall asleep on them? You don’t understand. I think it’s a real danger!”

Tammy laughed. “Hard to fall asleep in PE. Besides, you’re just there for the supervision ratio given that this is all of Grade 8 combined. Travis will have it all under control.”

“Travis?” asked Taylor. “Am I so tired that I’ve forgotten the name of a guy I’ve worked with for six years or is this someone new?”

Tammy looked up from her laptop in surprise. “Oooh, no, you wouldn’t have met Travis yet. He’s an old friend of Pat’s from college. Apparently they used to play football together. When Bill retired at the end of last year, Pat put in a call to his buddy and this place has not been the same since.”

Taylor nodded. “Ok, yes, this is sounding familiar. Britt did mention that some old friend of Pat’s had started at Sherman Oaks and that he was always at their place. I’m a bit worried he might have muscled into my spot at Friday Night Wine.”

Tammy considered her a moment. “So did you meet anyone in Spain? On your big single girl adventure?”

“I mean, I did.” Taylor shrugged. “He was nice, I guess, but nothing really came of it. We went our separate ways after a month or so. If I’d found the one, I might not have come home.” Taylor narrowed her eyes. “Hang on, why do you ask? What does this have to do with PE?”

Tammy patted her hand and handed her the class attendance papers. “You’ll see. Let’s go introduce you to Travis.”

“Okaaay,” said Taylor warily, as she followed Tammy dutifully out of her office. “You’re the boss, Mrs Reid. I’ll just grab a coffee and meet you there.”

…

The local school district’s baseball competition had half the PE staff out at a neighbouring school for most of the school day and long into the afternoon but Travis wasn’t worried, even in the face of all the Grade 8 PE classes combined. Tammy would find him a spare adult or two to stand around the edge of the gym and take care of supervision and he would get to teach more of his favourite unit - Grade 8 Dance. Last combined lesson they’d learned the Electric Slide and totally nailed it. Today he was gonna make the kids partner up and learn the Cha Cha. 

He plugged his phone into the sound system and cued up his playlist of Latin beats, cranking the volume as high as it would go, then headed over to unlock the gym doors and usher in the waiting students.

“Mr Kelce?” a familiar voice called from the gym entrance once the students had all shuffled in.

Travis turned to see the wife of his former football coach, now one of the Sherman Oaks deputy principals, waving to him. “Mrs Reid!” he boomed back, dancing his way over to her. “Come and cha cha with me. Let’s show these kids how it’s done.”

The older woman laughed and said, “Why not?” momentarily placing her ever-present sheaf of paperwork on a table near the door and giving him her hand.

The kids whooped and cheered as they watched Travis demonstrate how to be the perfect dance partner. He had particularly high hopes for these Grade 8 boys. They sorely needed a good example of how to treat other people, especially girls, and he hoped he could fill that role for them. The song playing came to an end and he spun Tammy out into the middle of the floor so they could both bow extravagantly, hamming it up for the student reaction.

“Let’s thank my extraordinary partner one more time,” Travis called. “Give it up for Mrs Reid!”

Tammy waved and curtsied then grinned at Travis and made her way toward her pile of papers and the door. 

“Ok, get yourself into the grid we learnt last week,” Travis instructed as he walked over to the sound system to cue up Shania Twain’s Man, I Feel Like a Woman. “We’re gonna warm up with a few rounds of the Electric Slide and I know that you guys are awesome at this so make sure to give it your own flair!”

He cued up a few songs to follow, mainly chosen to give the students a laugh. He chuckled to himself as he selected Vanilla Ice’s Ice Ice Baby and Kool and the Gang’s Get Down On It. 

Raising his eyes from his phone and looking over the heads of the line dancing students, he saw a statuesque blonde woman walk through the gym doors, a huge smile on her face as she took in their enthusiastic movement.

“Ms Swift?” cried out one of the girls. “You’re back!”

“Hi, Sophie!” she replied, waving as she made her way around the outside of the grid towards Travis. “Keep dancing! We’ll catch up later!”

Travis suddenly didn’t know what to do with his hands. He barely stopped himself from shoving his phone into the pocket of his shorts and disconnecting the cable to the sound system.

“Hi,” she said as she drew near, smiling broadly and holding out a hand to him. “I’m Taylor.”

“Travis,” he replied, taking her slender hand in his. “Nice to meet you.”

…

“Hey Trav,” said Jack, wearily looking up from the pile of papers he was grading. “Em’s around here somewhere if you’ve come to get the soccer balls back. Thanks for that by the way.”

Travis waved a hand. “No rush. Was it a success? Should I be worried I’m gonna lose half my football team to poetry or whatever?”

Emma’s head appeared over the top of the partition dividing their desks. “Not if their essays are anything to go by,” she said dryly, yanking off her massive headphones.

“Oh, hey, Em. Didn’t see you there.”

She gestured with the headphones. “That was kind of the idea. I was laying low. But then I remembered how much I hate marking and how much more fun it is talking to you.”

Travis grinned. “So, it seems you two left out a crucial piece of information when you were talking up your pal, Taylor, this morning.”

Both sets of tired eyes lit up.

“You’ve met her already?” asked Jack excitedly. “What did we leave out?”

Travis rubbed at the back of his neck, smiling shyly. “Neither of you told me she was gorgeous.”

Emma whooped. “I’m gonna get some of those cookies.”

Jack grinned, shoving his pile of papers aside and leaning back in his desk chair. “Tell us everything,” he said.

[carronyaflowers]

those people are setting themselves to disappointment because red bull would never sign with him 😭 even tho i think charles is not renewing with ferrari i don't think he will go to rbr😕

ooh i have mixed feelings about this actually because i enjoy so much of these different narratives and is also delulu:

Charles' martyrdom with ferrari. Boy bleeds red and there's also the fact that ever since he was a child (or so he says for PR benefit) it was always the red car for him, and of course there was the connection with jules and his papa, and how overall, ferrari seems like such an important part of his life, and despite all these hardships and downfalls, there's just something so compelling about a mouse staying in a big red car carrying all its history and legacy. And despite it being too big for him, the mouse also became much bigger than it. IDK there's just such a feeling of being meant to be in them.

But also, I need him to leave that failteam so much. He's being wasted there. They're supposed to be this big glorious team but I haven't seen that team anywhere these past years. They're so unserious the collective of chirlies (gn) in tumblr and twitter could probably handle that team better.

So if he's to leave, where would he go? Right now, there's four big teams that'd be (or potentially be good enough) to fight for wins, for championships. But honestly, ferrari as we see is not there, I think mclaren could be there but not yet, so that leaves us with merc and rb.

In theory, should lewis suddenly retire, charles could go there

But BUT IT'D BE MUCH JUICIER FOR HIM TO GO TO RB

So yeah, this point really goes to me being delulu. But also consider that Charles is argued to be one of the few drivers that could actually keep up with Max and that's with a shitbox (and this was also referenced from interviews with Max himself, Christian and even Helmut ) (i'm sorry that i won't be able to provide vids but trust on my delulu mind that there's references to that somewhere i know it). And Charles' and Max's driving styles are extremely compatible so engineering the car won't be too much of a problem (see @il-predestinato essay on this (i'm sorry again for the lack of link i'll maybe edit this tomorrow morning or after my exams next week if u have the patience). And i don't think rb would be opposed to having a talented naturally fast driver.

As from Charles' point of view, why don't we think charles may choose rb should he leave? Questioned this, i immediately remembered @drivestraight on the limit fic, especially this part:

After a long moment of silence, Max finally speaks up. “You want to know what I really think about you moving to Mercedes?”

Interested, Charles replies, “I asked you for a reason.”

Max takes a moment to collect his thoughts before he replies, “Mercedes are good, better than Ferrari, for sure, but they’re not your style.”

Charles lifts a brow. “And what’s my style?”

Max grins, effervescent. “On the limit.”

Charles laughs. On the limit, huh? High praise, especially coming from Max. “Maybe I should call Christian. See if he’d give me Checo’s seat,” he jokes.

so yeah, i just think that at the end of the day, a driver would want a team that could provide him the car that would let him show his speed, let him challenge for wins, and might even get him a championship

TL;DR: I think that at the end of the day, I really just want to see Charles in a car deserving of him, and should that be with ferrari or rb or any other team, i don't think i'll care much (of course i'll care who am i kidding but really it won't be that much bc i'm a charles fan first, f1 second), as long as he's happy with his decisions and he gets to drive his heart out.

DISCLAIMER: Bestie, idk if this made sense at all, i'm sick, i've been studying for an exam and my mind is honest to god filled with theories and writings in the social sciences (please i have a love hate relationship with pedagog of the oppressed and origin of the family bc theyre a pain to read and a headache but they're also such good readings) but keeping up with these charles contract discussions have been a joy and anxiety hehe so yeah that's my thoughts on that and the essays on the lestappen gate 2023 tag might be more coherent and make more sense but yeah thank you for the ask, it was great to have these thoughts out even tho they prolly did not write well as i'm in this state

[afterdarkprincess]

Hi lovely 💕

For the sleepover questions:

- Tell us your Solo/Sami headcanons.

- Tell us your CM Punk/Drew headcanons.

- And for good measure please add your Sami/Jey & your Ambreigns headcanons as well while you’re at it.

FMK: Roman, Seth, Mox

FMK: Solo, Sami, Jey

FMK: Punk, Drew, Cody

FMK: Jade, Naomi, Bianca

FMK: Rhea, Liv, Becky

Questions, questions, questions:

- What’s an accomplishment/ thing in your life you’re very proud of?

- Name three things you love about yourself?

- What makes you furious in fandom spaces (your fandom pet peeves so to say)?

- Who was your first celebrity crush? Who’s your latest?

- Who do you adore on this website (aka tumblr crushes)?

- What do you find attractive in a person (physically and personality wise)?

- Favorite story you ever wrote?

- Favorite story someone else wrote?

- Your current favorite song?

- One ingredient/ dish you love and one you despise?

This or that:

- Cats and/or dogs?

- Coffee and/or tea?

- Hiking, cycling or swimming?

- Pizza or pasta?

- Mexican, Chinese or Indian takeout? Or something else?

- Cooking, baking or ordering in?

- Quiet night in or a night out socializing with friends?

- Cold weather or hot weather?

- Pants, skirts or dresses?

This got a little out of hand oops 😂

Feel free to answer whatever you wanna answer and skip whatever you don’t. Or answer everything. Up to you. Happy sleepover!

Hugs and kisses 💖

AHHH Thank you!!!!! I've been so excited all day to get home and hae time to answer these!!

Gonna answer under the cut because I'm sure this will be long lol 💖💖💖

💕Solo/Sami headcanons

I feel like a LOT of my headcanons on Solo and Sami come from one specific fic on AO3- The Solo Man

I love Solo as being selectively mute and/or very shy. I haven't really gotten to explore this with Solo in my fics very much, but I'm really looking forward to doing so.

I do feel like Solo has such a soft spot for Sami (I mean I have eyes) Sami was a real source of kindness for him when he really didn't have that from anyone.

💕CM Punk/Drew McIntyre headcanons

oh noooo my brainrot lol

They're TOXIC as fuck, they bring out the worst in each other. I can't find anything sweet or soft in them, it's obsession, it's raw, it's violent. Possessive and Obsessive.

And they fuck nasty obviously. I tend to prefer Bottom Drew, something so fun about subverting their size difference but I'll eat up anything.

💕Samijey headcanons

Ahhhh I just love them- I feel like a lot of my headcanons POP out in my fics. I feel like Jey Uso is an acts of service guy. I think he does anything and everything to make sure that Sami feels taken care of. This shows up really early on in Devil in the Details and uhhh fun fact I wrote the first part of that fic before I knew that Sami was vegan, hence why there are SO many references to Jey cooking chicken for Sami. It was too integral to how I was having Jey show his affection to take it out, so for that one fic Sami is just no pork not vegan lol

Sami talks ALL the time, and Jey pretends to be annoyed but the constant stream of consciousness is actually so comforting to him. He very rarely has to worry about what Sami is thinking or feeling because he will just tell him.

Jey cut those crop tops so Sami would look at him.

From You're My Keeper (Pull Me Deeper):

“You really like my waist, huh?” he murmured. 

As if to prove his point, Sami sank his teeth into the soft flesh under his bellybutton. “Can’t stop looking at it,” Sami whispered into his skin. “So fucking perfect. Those stupid crop tops are fucking killing me, dude.”

“Really? Hm, I thought so.”

Sami’s head shot up. “You knew?”

Jey blushed. “I guess, I kinda knew you were like… Looking. I guess I thought… Nevermind, this is fucking embarrassing.” He clapped his hands over his face. 

“You thought what?” He felt Sami tugging at his fingers, and Jey reluctantly let his hands get pulled away. Sami had the worst look on his face, smug and bemused. Didn’t he know this was absolute torture?

“I don’t know, I thought maybe if I cut the shirts shorter, then like… You know… You’d look at me more,” Jey pushed out through clenched teeth. Scratch that, this was the worst look. Sami positively beamed, fondness radiating out from him in shameless sunshine rays. If he was a dog, he’d surely be wagging his tail like a maniac. Jey tried not to linger on that thought too long.

“Jesus you are so fucking cute,” Sami wheezed, burying his face into Jey’s chest.

Literally one of my favorite fics ever- I reread it all the damn time. (If the author of this fic is on here?? let me know pls & I'll tag you💖)

And I do think that Sami/Jey switch up who tops and bottoms, but I'm always here for bottom!Jey, sweet pillow princess.

💕Ambreigns headcanons

OO this is a good one- I typically go for Ambrolleigns (bc they all have two hands) or Ambrollins because of my donut sister @elementaldoughnut12 I feel like where Dean and Seth have that very turbulent high passion love, Dean and Roman have a level of like rock solid devotion?? Someone that they can always rely on, coming even closer together after everything fell apart with Seth.

Even more than Seth's betrayal, Dean leaving spurred on the creation of the Tribal Chief. Roman, alone and brokenhearted, left by the man who he thought would never leave him, turns himself into something cold and cruel. Makes himself monstrous, surrounds himself by a cheap copy of what they had.

He wants Dean back, wants it more than anything, but some part of him is terrified that Dean will reject him, will detest what he has become.

💕Fuck, Marry, Kill

FMK: Roman, Seth, Mox

Fuck: Roman (I'm gonna need that tongue baby good lord)

Marry: Mox 100%, I'm gonna need to hit that multiple times, and also I feel like our personalities are really complimentary

Kill: RIP I'm so sorry Seth, please keep serving even in Death

FMK: Solo, Sami, Jey

Fuck: Solo- and he needs to bring the gloves okay? 🥵

Marry: Jey 🩵

Kill: Sami :( I hate to kill my hubby's hubby though

FMK: Punk, Drew, Cody

Fuck: Cody (he's hot, IDK that I'd wanna deal with him all the time)

Marry: CM Punk.... listenn

Kill: Drew- would need to take him out to marry Punk anyway

FMK: Jade, Naomi, Bianca

Fuck: JADE- HELLO?? PLEASE???

Marry: Naomi- Jimmy can come too

Kill: Bianca

FMK: Rhea, Liv, Becky

Fuck: Liv

Marry: Please, please Mami, I'm-PLEASE?

Kill: Becky, RIP girlie

💕Questions, questions, questions:

- What’s an accomplishment/ thing in your life you’re very proud of?

90k words posted on AO3 as of today has me feeling really good. I challenged myself at the beginning of the year to get to 100k by the end of 2024, but even where I'm at now... a year ago I would have laughed at you if you told me that. I've been writing in spits and spurts my whole life, but I really lacked confidence to do anything with my fanworks. I usually didn't even finish them. Before this last year, the most I had written was 2 NaNoWriMo attempts, both sat at around 25-30k and were never completed. And now with the all the support I've gotten here and on AO3, I've had the most creative period in my life. It makes me tear up thinking about it honestly.

- Name three things you love about yourself?

My passion, my sense of humor, and my tits lol

- What makes you furious in fandom spaces (your fandom pet peeves so to say)?

The only pet peeve I really have is like being rude and giving people shit for what they like and don't like?? Like I've been around since the days of Don't Like, Don't Read. If you don't like something, it's not for you, it costs zero dollars to shut the fuck up.

- Who was your first celebrity crush? Who’s your latest?

Oh gosh, so many. I mean the first would definitely be Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon 💖💖 Daniel Radcliffe when I got a little older and realized I wasn't going to be able to marry a cartoon. Right now? I mean all of those hot Samoans first of all. Rhea Ripley, obv. Moxley.

- Who do you adore on this website (aka tumblr crushes)?

EVERYONE lol this list is gonna be so long @feelschicken who has been my IRL bestie for like 20+ years at this point, who allowed me to drag her into Wrestling via several hour long conversations in the car where I would literally yell about the Bloodline

@elementaldoughnut12 my donut sister who has inspired so many of my fics and cheered me on through so much of this last year. Love you so much punkin 🥰

@harmshake my beloved tumblr gf, a constant source of positivity in my life 💖 Not to mention she writes the HOTTEST fics omg

@southerngirl41 who's been on the tag squad since the BEGINNING and I appreciate her comments so much

@jeysbvck Shan 💙 because we're both unhinged and feral for Jey- she just gets me

@imabillyami of course you too obviously- you are so sweet and not to mention your fics are amazing

@rollinsland who keeps my dash FULL of content of all my faves, and is so so sweet

@shanie-the-komania-toyaddict my Zowens connection, and another amazing sweet person

@motherknuckers I think we share a braincell for real

@samijey because like... A Way With Words is THE Sami/Jey fic, not to mention her amazing gif skills 😍

@thlayli-ra who definitely gave me the Punkintyre brainrot

@who-do-you-want-to-be MY SWEET KOALA FRIEND

@jeyuwuso WHOSE FIC I LINKED EARLIER, literally love all their work!!!

@taydaq her ART, especially Samijey 🥹

I know I'm missing people, I could be at this all night: @crxssjae @hypno-bear-tini @rosiel77 @mzv11 @theninthwonder @dontletme--cavein @codyswhitebelt @jobikinn if I missed others I'm so sorry 😭 and if tumblr messes up these tags I'll scream

- What do you find attractive in a person (physically and personality wise)?

Humor, they gotta be funny. They gotta make me laugh or we're not gonna work. We gotta be silly goosing.

- Favorite story you ever wrote?

Ours is still my favorite

- Favorite story someone else wrote?

oooo yay it's rec time!!! Already called out a few but here's some more:

Green - my favorite Candy fic

Losers and Loss - a Zowens fic that melted my brain into absolute goo I said The Solo Man already but also Pretty which spurred on my love of bottom!jey and Jey in pretty lingerie

Sticks & Stones and also Green-Eyed Monster - both by the Zesty Bean, all of their works are great but those are my favorites

Silver Knight and Little Clover - my donut sister knows how to make a rarepair that I'll go nuts for

And I could not forget I've got you to lose ... of COURSE 💕 maybe gimme a heads up before you post that last chapter so I can get all my favorite snacks and be prepared.

- Your current favorite song?

Guilty as Sin? - Taylor Swift

- One ingredient/ dish you love and one you despise?

Oo good question- I'm a big fries and ranch girlie (the midwest in me popping out) and for despise??? mmm it's gonna be pickles, they're gross to me.

💕This or that:

- Cats and/or dogs?

Cats 🐈

- Coffee and/or tea?

Coffee ☕️

- Hiking, cycling or swimming?

Swimming 🌊

- Pizza or pasta?

Pizza🍕

- Mexican, Chinese or Indian takeout? Or something else?

For takeout specifically it's gonna be Chinese

- Cooking, baking or ordering in?

Cooking!

- Quiet night in or a night out socializing with friends?

I love a good night out once in a while, but I prefer a night in

- Cold weather or hot weather?

Hot weather ☀️

- Pants, skirts or dresses?

DRESSES 👗

---

whew.... that took a while but it was so fun honestly 😅

[salchat]

Dean-in-progress Part 1

I was major-league pissed off today (still am, really), because the Marsden (my hospital) is only communicating through a crappy app and not telling me what's happening!!! It's not as if I'm just trying to do my online shopping or book my car in for a service - this is my life-and-death health!! Anyway, I'm chemoing tomorrow and will get a chance to talk to them. Sigh.

But! There's always art, so I decided to do a lovely Dean picture and a detailed log of his progress - which you may or may not be interested in.

Look at this paper! What a great colour!

I don't usually go for the really bright ones, but let's see what I can do with this. Now I need to sort out a reference from the juicy collection I have handy. Oh look! This is nice:

What pastels to use, though? Hmm. I fancy going in pretty rough to begin with - lots of broad strokes and smudging with my finger. I'm going to sort out some purples and some browns. And a gold would be good. But I don't have a gold. Might have to get creative.

A gold eye pencil! I might not use it, but it's lovely and bright. And I might not use all of these pastels, but they're nice to have handy. I'm going to go with a dark purple to begin with.

Huh! Classic error! I've straightened it up. There's nowhere near enough angle on the shadow on his cheek, or the line of his mouth and chin or his eyebrow or his hair. People do this all the time in figure drawing - your eye wants to straighten things up - make them more vertical or horizontal than they are!

This is better. And I've smudged more of the shadows, because somehow it makes it easier to see in 3-D and understand the form more. There's a long way to go, though, and, as usual, his mouth is going to be a challenge. Because this isn't any mouth - this is Dean Winchester's mouth. (British Tumblrs - think M&S Advert!)

There are some things better here and some worse. My main two strategies are to copy abstract shapes or to try to draw the actual forms. These two strategies are pretty much opposites. When you copy abstract shapes, you don't think about what they are. You don't think 'this is a nose' or 'this is a mouth' because if you do your mind will make assumptions that aren't necessarily true. It's just the way our minds work - a kind of shorthand thinking. So, you switch off one type of understanding and you think exclusively of angle and proportion and shape as an abstract thing. But, when you draw the forms, you deliberately think about the features and what they are and what the shadows and shapes in front of you mean. So I'd be thinking, 'how does that shadow shape under his nose express the shape of his upper lip?' Because for me, it's not about copying photographically, it's about understanding and interpreting.

Here's the next one:

The mouth is better and I've moved the light on his eye, because it was too far to the right. Probably still is, actually. And there are all kinds of bad and wrong things going on with the lip-chin line. Hmm... And as for his hairline...

You'll probably struggle to pick out the changes in this one! But I've done a bit of work on his hairline and there are some changes to his lips. Oh, the challenges of Dean's lips! But they're so important.

So, this is progressing. And there's a lot of it that's okay. But it still has a long way to go and the most important thing isn't really there yet, as far as I'm concerned - it doesn't have enough Deanishness. It's not him. Not as much as it should be. But that's okay! Because eventually it wil be, to the best of my ability anyway!

[kob131]

The Jaune hate is so unreasonable I just saw someone proclaiming that because they gave Jaune a episode focused on him in rwby beyond they don’t deserve another volume it’s in the reply to this post if you don’t believe me tumblr . com/invincibleweasel/748231224518131712/seriously-this-is-just-an-example-of-how?source=share

Fuck it, I'm biting-

It absolutely is.

First off, the idea that ANYONE would want to be Jaune is ridculous. Read a Jaune-centric harem fanfic or one with Jaune as the main focus. Because 99 times out of 100- Jaune is a different character altogether. There's a reason why Coeur Al Aran basically has to rewrite Jaune everytime he uses him- Cuz Jaune FUNDAMENTALLY is not a character anyone would want to be.

He spends Volumes 1-3 being an absolute joke, being the target of 99% of the slapstick humor and a running joke about how much Jaune sucks. He spends Volumes 4-6 basically being as sidelined as possible, to the point he may have been partially REPLACED. And Volume 7-8: Oh lordy, Jaune can basically be shoved into the background until it's time to stab Penny and lose NOTHING.

Does THIS sound like a self insert to you?

And before you try bringing up Jaune's relevancy in Volumes 1-3: Let's talk about Jaune's relevancy POST Volume 3. You know, when Miles would have more influence on the writing staff?

Volume 4- Decent amount of focus, exploring his feelings about Pyrrha's passing, gets focus with his armor being replaced-Aaaand he just made it all about Ruby. Yeah, that scene of Jaune talking about losing Pyrrha to Ruby in Kuroyuri? How it references Jaune's loss and then makes it about how awesome and inspiring Ruby is?

Doesn't seem like a self insert thing huh?

Between Volumes 5 and 6, Jaune has a grand total of 5 noteworthy moments (Jaune attacking Cinder, Cinder humilating Jaune, Jaune healing Weiss, Jaune being aggressive with Oscar and Jaune's scene with Pyrrha's statue). Reminder that this is about the same amount of focus that Yang got in Volume 4. A character everyone screeched and gnashed their teeth about for being 'sidelined'...and Jaune gets roughly the same amount spread across TWO Volumes and somehow he's stealing spotlight?

Same shit with Volume 7 and 8. Here's a problem- What is Jaune's view on the Ironwood situation? We know Ruby, Weis, Blake, Yang, Nora, Ren, Oscar, Qrow, James, Winter, Penny and even fucking MAY MARIGOLD'S stances on the question, either through repeated moments, conflict or big dialogues.

Jaune, the character who started as a foil to RUBY who is the other big player in that conversation?

Jaune: Well, if it wasn't for the embargo making everybody so mad, people probably wouldn't be so quick to blame you for everything else.

This is the closest we get. This is all Jaune gets to say about the whole situation, which is BARELY about this. Reminder that Jaune started as a foil to Ruby in Volume 1. He is up there with Yang and Oscar in 'characters connected to Ruby' and they're also characters who act as major foils to Ruby's actions and stances. Jaune meanwhile is treated like a background character. Once again- could shove in the background until he stabs Penny and it wouldn't change a damn thing. In a very Ruby-centric part of the story.

People love to say that Jaune is given these big moments and thus it means he MUST be a self insert! Well, let's compare shall we? Let's go ahead and take a character we KNOW the creators love and kind of project onto and compare to Jaune-

Randy Marsh from latter seasons of South Park.

Does Randy do nothing for the whole season before getting one big moment or having a few moments spread out over multiple seasons?

Nope, Randy completely takes over the show, often acting as the protagonist of the episodes or even seasons to the point of dominating the fucking opening for a time. Because that's what a self-insert/Mary Sue/creator's favorite actually does in a show. Not THIS bullshit.

Jaune is not favored by the writers. In fact, by Volume 8, he seemed more like he was hated by the writers (well, probably one writer in particular...). Even in this case given- Jaune was given the second episode. Not the launch episode, not the penultimate episode. Not the fucking finale which could be what RWBY goes out on. No, he's given the episode that would be the easiest to forget.

At this point, people who bitch about Jaune give him more time and focus than the writers do. Because even in Volume 9, Jaune was still secondary to Ruby. And yet they huffed paint thinner until they deluded themselves into thinking Jaune was the focus.

They don't WANT Jaune to be forgotten or pushed aside. They want Jaune front and center so they can excuse acting like dipshits towards Miles because he's the weak link on the writing staff.

P.S. Gotta love the 'white boy' part. Implying that Jaune would be better if he was a different skin color. ... Also implying OP and everyone agreeing with them is fucking RACIST.

Imma go ahead and assume your words for black people who don't agree with you starts with an 'N' or a 'P/M'. Surely you have no objections!

Since this is about the same thing you pull.

[kipandkandicore]

alright, so we feel like we need to respond to @eeveecraft ‘s post that they made using the document we’ve compiled.

looks like they’ve blocked this syscourse blog… but not our main. so we cannot reblog their post with our thoughts, but we can still see it (and therefore are going to respond to it). we don't think it's block evasion to respond in this way… (though if it is, let us know and we'll rewrite this response on our main blog which isn't blocked).

we don’t like to vague or to talk about a post without reblogging it directly, but we don’t see another way for us to respond properly, so here we go.

we are anticipating this will be quite long... so we're preemptively putting this under a cut.

here’s a link to the original post so you can read it for yourselves and come to your own conclusions!!

and here is a link to our document compiling thoughts on tulpamancy language by those affected. it is so important to center voices of marginalized groups in discussions that impact them!!

but after witnessing an announcement by Plural Nest that they’re switching to parogenic terminology because they’ve been convinced by sysmeds that tulpa = appropriation while literally “sourcing” things from minors, singlets, non-Tibetans, and yes, of course, sysmeds is just so goddamn frustrating that I’m going to write this post. I will be referring to this Google Doc Plural Nest themselves linked in their announcement that contains a motley of blogs and accounts by various people:

it's weird to us that at the very beginning of this post the author claims that the poc voices we've included should be disregarded because they are "minors, singlets, non-tibetans, and sysmeds."

first of all: do minors and singlets not get to have a say on their culture? do they not get to speak out when they notice cultural appropriation that is causing them harm? additionally, is this not an issue that concerns buddhists, and specifically asian buddhists? as we understand it, the term "tulpa" has direct ties to vajrayana buddhist practices. we believe that a buddhist does not have to be specifically tibetan in order to understand this language and to feel affected by western cultural appropriation.

also: how does this person define "sysmed?" because many of the individuals linked in the document are not system medicalists, nor do many of them disbelieve that the western practice of tulpamancy exists. as far as we know, this has always been an issue of adjusting language to respect people of color. not attacking the practice itself.

last, it's interesting that they linked the doc (which includes our tumblr information) but didn't feel it was necessary to @ us, either on this blog or on our main. huh.

now onto their prefaces:

Something that has always bothered me about this “discourse” is that the people who go on and on and on about how they’re protecting minorities and stopping actual harmful, real appropriation by attacking the Tulpamancy community never: Go after actual harmful depictions of tulpa that actively profit off of sensationalizing the paranormal version of the word and deliberately linking it to Tibetan Buddhism (Supernatural, Mandela Catalogue, Slenderman, etc). Uplift the voices of actual Tibetan Buddhists, even ones who disagree with them (which there ARE Tibetan Buddhists who are 100% okay with tulpa as a term, not just the Tibetan Buddhist AMA). Explain how us using tulpa to describe our systemmates is actively harming Tibetan Buddhists. They just say it’s harmful without providing any real examples of harm besides the word annoying them.

why put "discourse" in quotes? are we having a conversation? or are you trying to make it look like these discussions are one sided?

we're a white system. however, we are doing what we can to learn about racism, and are trying to become an active antiracist in our spaces. a big part of unlearning racism is learning how and when to pipe down and listen to the voices of people of color, especially when they're speaking out about something that harms them.

we're not the ones insisting that tulpa language is harmful with no basis for these claims. we are doing what we can to uplift marginalized voices who have said as much. centering poc voices in issues that they feel concern them is an important part of having less racist discussions in our spaces. idk if we’d say we're "protecting minorities" here... rather, we're attempting to make sure the voices of these minorities are heard, acknowledged, and taken seriously. and eeveecraft has done the first two in their post, but not the last.

1) we are personally unfamiliar with supernatural (watched a few seasons years ago and haven't touched it since), mandela catelogue, or slenderman. in fact, we haven't really seen tulpamancy acknowledged in public spaces and fictional works at all. that doesn't mean that we condone the racism within these works!!! we just can't speak on them as of yet because we haven't consumed that content. we certainly would like to, so we can understand what this author is saying about tulpamancy portrayals in media. but we feel like sensationalized instances of tulpamancy in popular media is not the only way this language has been harmful. people online using tulpamancy language have proven to be racist and unwilling to listen to marginalized groups. and since we're more involved with the system community than with the supernatural, mandela catelogue, or slenderman communities... we haven't spoken about it. because we are not a part of those spaces, and are still pretty uneducated about them specifically and how they have portrayed tulpamancy.

this doesn't mean we'll never get around to it! we'd love to help shed light on the racism of tulpamancy in popular media, and we hopefully will one day soon! but that doesn't negate the fact that advocates for tulpamancy language online are being incredibly racist...

2) again, we think that asian buddhists have the right to be upset about this, whether or not they're specifically tibetan. what's more, multiple people with testimonies in the document are actually, specifically tibetan! we'll be interested to see eeveecraft's sources of tibetan buddhists who are pro-tulpa language... maybe they'll be referenced later in the post? (edit side note: they referenced one person they know personally, one tumblr user, and one twitter user, whose thread we could not access for some reason. we added the testimony of the tumblr user to our document, though!)

3) we have explained it. language appropriation is real. it has genuinely harmful effects. our words don't exist in a vacuum. cultural appropriation is not some nebulous thing that never causes real harm to those who experience it!! i mean seriously... is that really what this author believes? we'll include some links to cultural appropriation and specifically how it affects buddhists and/or people of tibet:

x x x

we've said this before, but we will choose to believe the marginalized groups who say that this language directly affects and harms them, rather than those who claim otherwise without the ability to back up those claims with articles, resources, or testimonies from those minorities.

how are these not examples of real harm?

the testimony from the tumblr user referenced in eeveecraft’s post did speak favorably of tulpamancy as a practice, but didn’t say much if anything about tulpamancy terminology, which is what we have been trying to learn more about and discuss.

The intention of these people never was to protect vulnerable minorities, it was to deliberately blacklist a word a community has used for over a decade and a word that is literally being used in academic studies. If we as a community dropped tulpa, cold-turkey, 100%, we would lose access to so much of our history and access to scientific studies that the community NEEDS to be more accepted by the general public.

we vehemently disagree! our intentions are to uplift the voices of vulnerable minorities who have genuine, understandable concerns about tulpamancy language. we don't believe that if this language was changed that community members would lose access to their history and scientific studies.

language changes all the time. researchers have to adjust their language accordingly all the time. there are tons of words that used to be used in research, but aren't any longer because it was discovered that those words were bigoted or culturally appropriated. this literally happens quite regularly in academic spaces, as far as we're aware (examples: multiple personality disorder -> dissociative identity disorder, transvestite -> transgender, etc!)

we have a separate post we're actually working on that refutes these claims made by eeveecraft. we'd call this sort of thinking fearmongering: the action of intentionally trying to make people afraid of something when this is not necessary or reasonable, within system spaces. eeveecraft's post is actually rife with fearmongering, and there is a huge issue with fearmongering in pro tulpa discussion.

after this, eeveecraft links to a tibetan buddhist who was open on reddit about the practice of western tulpamancy and how it relates (or doesn’t relate!) to the buddhist practice. from what we can tell, the author of the post believes that western tulpamancy and buddhist tulpamancy are similar in the name alone, and that’s it.

our issue with this is… if they share a name but are not the same practice at all… why wouldn’t the tulpa community want to change their language? if the language was shifted, there wouldn’t be all this confusion and arguing about a western practice with an appropriated tibetan name.

it’s true though that this is a post concerning tulpa language made by a tibetan buddhist, so we’ll be adding their testimony to our doc. it was never our goal or intention to cherry-pick testimonies - we genuinely weren’t aware of dharmayokeyodasampa’s post!

eeveecraft’s next large section discusses the differences between modern and paranormal tulpamancy, how one is harmful while the other isn’t, and how the two terms should not be conflated.

but they fail to mention how common and likely it is for people to conflate two different terms that have the exact same name. how is the average person supposed to know that when the community talks about tulpamancy they’re referring to modern tulpamancy and not paranormal tulpamancy?

it’s especially bizarre that they claim alexandra david-neel’s tulpamancy definition is the one that is harmful. don’t get us wrong, we completely agree! but that line of thinking doesn’t align with that of other pro tulpas discussing tulpamancy. many tulpamancers are huge supporters of adn and still today claim that she was not racist and did not commit cultural appropriation through her “fact or fiction” tales in magic and mystery in tibet.

like, this is incredibly common. for as long as we’ve been in system spaces and have been trying to learn about tulpamancy (which has been more than a year at this point) we have never seen a single person try to separate sensationalized media portrayals of tulpamancy (aka “paranormal tulpamancy”) from the western practice (aka “modern tulpamancy”) that eeveecraft talks about. if other tulpamancers were also trying to make this distinction… wouldn’t it be more regularly included in discussion? we think it’s a huge and important distinction, if it really exists as one. but we’ve never seen anyone talking about it.

this also leads us to wonder… if people within the tulpa community themselves are having to make distinctions between two different types of tulpamancy - one of which is perfectly fine and normal while the other is racist cultural appropriation… wouldn’t practitioners of modern tulpamancy want to change their terminology as a way to distance themselves from the real racists?

they later write:

Also, important that another blog reblogged that post [our post with the doc, we believe] and mentioned that they’ve spoken to actual Tibetans on Facebook and how none of them think tulpa is harmful specifically because it’s so far-removed from Tibetan Buddhism. Like, they’re cool with it as long as the community doesn’t try and link it to Tibetan Buddhism, which is literally what the community does and has been doing for YEARS.

the most glaring issue we have with this is… if the term was coined by a white explorer appropriating tibetan culture in the 20th century (which it was…), and if other tulpamancers will readily admit that tulpamancy language has close ties to tibetan buddhism (which they do… and it does…) why the huge push from pro-tulpas to distance themselves from their own language and their own language’s history?

this post both claims and denies that tulpamancy language is connected to buddhism. other tulpamancers will readily admit that tulpamancy as a term was created by alexandra david-neel, an explorer which bastardized the terms “sprul pa” and “tulku” in order to write a best-selling book and make money.

it’s weird that those who are pro tulpa language recognize these facts while simultaneously trying to brush them off and sweep them under the rug.

the community is trying to link tulpamancy to tibetan buddhism by maintaining their culturally appropriative language. tulpamancy language directly ties this western practice to vajrayana buddhism and the asians who practice it. we don’t understand the willingness to acknowledge and deny this fact at the same time? maybe we’re misunderstanding this part of the post, but it seems incredibly bizarre to us.

the next section explains that asian poc should have no say over what is and isn’t cultural appropriation of tibetan buddhism. and at first, this does seem like an important point to make! the author explained how chinese individuals should have no say over what is or isn’t japanese cultural appropriation as an example.

but this point still sits weirdly with us. what about diaspora tibetans - those who are culturally tibetan but live outside of their homeland? what about those who are buddhist and who have concerns over their religion and how aspects of it are being taken, bastardized, and promoted without permission or adequate education? as white people, why do we get to decide who has more of a stake in these discussions than the buddhist people of color expressing their worries and concerns? do white non-buddhist voices matter more than asian buddhists regarding this topic?

we really don’t think so.

next:

All it [tulpamancy terminology discourse] does is segregate the community and draw unnecessary lines, which is exactly what sysmeds want because it’s ways easier to harass and kill smaller communities that way or turn them against each other until they eat each other alive. And they won’t just stop with tulpa terminology, they’re just using tulpa because they found a convenient scapegoat to attack it. Sysmeds literally find ANY excuse to demonize or take away a word from the endogenic community, it’s no different here.

To further prove this point, sysmeds literally tried to say “system hopping” is a term appropriated from RAMCOA survivors, which was completely false. They are not afraid to pull the appropriation card on any word they can, tulpa isn’t the only instance of it.

again, many of the people who are bringing up these concerns aren’t even sysmeds. many of them actively support the practice of tulpamancy and endogenic plurality in general. this 100% has to do with racism in the community and unlearning racial biases. the goals of this discussion are not to destroy the tulpa community.

we genuinely don’t see what system hopping has to do with this. because again, the people making these points against tulpamancy terminology are mostly not sysmeds at all.

and if eeveecraft themself can admit that there are two different kinds of tulpamancy - one good (modern), one bad (paranormal), why in the world wouldn’t those who practice the “good” tulpamancy want to change their language in order to be respectful to people of color while further removing themselves from the “paranormal tulpamancers?”

they then say that many people who are against tulpamancy terminology don’t even know what it is. and that may be true for some systems, but certainly not all! we are against tulpamancy terminology and we understand completely what the practice is. our wife has created a thoughtform (which she achieved using tulpamancy guides and engaging with the tulpa community). she has been an active member of this community for quite some time, and changed her labels recently after learning about the dubious roots of the terminology.

just because willogenic (one of the proposed terms to replace tulpamancy) as a label does not cover the whole scope of tulpa experiences, doesn’t mean there are no other terms that have been suggested.

parogenic exists. paro/paromancy exists. thoughtform exists. and if none of these words truly would work as a suitable replacement, we fully believe in the community’s capability to come together and select a new, less racist term. we have complete faith that the tulpa community can achieve this.

it’s also worth noting that many of the proposed replacement terms were created by and for the plural community. we fully believe that if there is no term which perfectly fits the definition, we can change the definition of the term!! so paro could mean any headmate created in the way tulpas are created. the community made these terms, and the community can change them if they need to!!

it’s a shame to see eeveecraft does not share that same faith in their community.

next, they talk about how discussing tulpamancy terminology actually causes harm:

Let’s start with me. On multiple occasions, I have had multiple anons harass my inbox, calling me racist, calling me slurs, and even sexually harassing me in the comments of one of my posts specifically because of this issue. In fact, several sysmeds tried raiding our Discord server alongside harassing us on Tumblr because of what Amanitasys’s post started, and this has also happened to @cambriancrew, @sophieinwonderland, and more because we happen to be blogs that intersect both communities.

we have never, nor will we ever, support doxxing, targeted harassment, suicide baiting, or any other horrible thing that can come out of people being vicious and self-centered online. of course, we can see why folks may call eeveecraft racist, because they are promoting incredibly racist ideas.

the user cambriancrew has been a loud, ableist voice in discourse spaces for years.

the user sophieinwonderland is a proud racist, and is a promoter of zoophilia and other outrageously harmful ideas like transx. we’ve written on this before.

it makes sense that people want to call out and address these issues when they see them. while we do not condone harassment, it’s not fair to call those who are voicing understandable concerns “harassers.” it’s not fair to lump these people in with actual online bullies who cause serious, long-lasting harm.

further, they talk about how anti-tulpamancy terminology discussion harms the plural community by dividing it.

The relationship between the Tulpamancy and broader Plurality community was already tenuous, and for most of the Tulpamancy community’s history, it has stayed isolated from other Plurality circles. It was only within the past few years that the communities started to intermingle, but this drama can ruin that.

Because as someone who HAS been in the community for over half a decade, I can tell you that the majority of the Tulpamancy community thinks this drama is stupid and aren’t going to change terminology for multiple reasons. Now, do NOT take this as the community going, “Tulpa is a completely unproblematic word!” when the community has debated the term’s usage for YEARS. Nobody is saying the word is perfect, but it’s what the community has used for over a decade now and every attempt to change the word has failed. And honestly, as someone who’s reviewed the vast majority of Tulpamancy guides in existence, I likely know better than anyone else that if tulpa was blacklisted like some people want, the community would lose so much history and resources, it’s not even funny.

it's interesting to see the author here claiming that those within the tulpamancy community think this drama is stupid and aren't ever going to change the terminology. especially when multiple times in the post, eeveecraft admits that there are issues with the terminology that tulpamanvers will readily admit, and that those who are "paranormal tulpamancers" are somehow completely distinct from and unrelated to "modern tulpamancers."

we recently created a post on reddit's r/tulpas, hoping to share our document compiling asian buddhist voices on the matter. we wrote about our experience here - basically, our post was removed less than 5 minutes after being posted, despite complying with the subreddit's own rules and guidelines.

it leads us to wonder... how many other posts like ours have been taken down by the moderators without a second glance? how many other pro-tulpa, anti-tulpa terminology folks have tried to speak out on this issue among their peers, only to be immediately dogpiled, shut down, and have their posts removed? how can good-faith discussion happen in these spaces when the community leaders are so quick to remove content, and those seeking answers and discussion are dismissed as bad actors?

we think that those with concerns (either from within the tulpa community or from asian, buddhist spaces) absolutely have the right to air their grievances. and by ignoring, deflecting, and brushing off these voices, those who are pro-tulpa terminology are not doing anything to help, participate in, or even put an end to this discussion. instead, they are perpetually putting it off, and allowing a wound within the community to fester and get worse over time as resentment builds.

to us, this poses a more significant threat to the tulpamancy community and the plural community overall than any real attempt to discuss the issues of racism and cultural appropriation regarding tulpa language.

eeveecraft then claims that changing tulpamancy terminology will cause others to lose access to the wealth of resources created by tulpamancers over the years.

If we completely dropped the word, the ability of new people to look up and find these guides becomes FAR more difficult. “Tulpa” is a unique and consistent word and makes it easy to look into the community, which in turn helps people discover resources that can help them on their tulpa creation journey.

their responses to the anticipated "just change the resources" argument are as follows (paraphrased)

there are tons of guides, resources and research articles already published using tulpamancy language. and tulpas need these to remain the same in order for tulpamancy to spread in the public sphere

the majority of people who wrote resources are no longer in the community and may not consent to their resources being adjusted

they personally are critical of and found flaws with other tulpamancy replacement terms

there aren't as many resources being created now as there used to be

we've seen a lot of these claims before, and are actually working on a separate post that refutes many of them. but basically:

we believe sites like tulpanomicon, tulpa.io, and tulpa.info could include information as banners and on their front pages that express community concerns and explain that they are making the shift. sites can also be set up so they redirect to others. so, say, if the terminology changed to "paro/paromancy," the sites "tulpa.info" could redirect to "paro.info." the community could rally together to rewrite many resources that exist, while creating new ones. this wouldn't be an instantaneous shift, but it certainly could be achieved over time.

for those who aren't in the community or don't want their resources changed... they can be left alone. if the host sites (reddit, tulpanomicon, tulpa.io, tulpa.info, etc) included disclaimers on their websites about the language shifts, it wouldn't be that big of a deal for many guides and resources to be left untouched

if the community were to come together and choose, say, paromancy as a replacement for tulpamancy, the definition of this term could probably be adjusted to accommodate for tulpas who were created naturally or spontaneously. with such a huge language shift, it makes sense that some adjustments need to be made in order for everyone to be represented. additionally, we see no issue with "thoughtform" being both an umbrella term and meaning something specific based on the context. there are many, many umbrella terms which function this way!

honestly the shift of language might bring with it a resurgence of interest in the community. especially if people are vocal about the change and why the community has decided to commit to this shift! we genuinely think that this could bring so much good press to the community and help it regain popularity.

after this, they speak about how those pushing for a change in tulpa terminology remind them of sysmeds, and that they have to be doubly careful about which spaces they interact with because those which claim to be "inclusive" may be phasing out language that they believe is racist, ultimately excluding those who use tulpa language and cutting them off from the plural community.

we don't think this has to happen. we think this makes a lot of assumptions and assumes the worst about these communities, and fails to recognize or acknowledge the genuine concerns people have.

we run a positivity blog for systems, plurals, and multiples of all sorts. right now, we're nearing 2k followers. on that blog, we are very clear in our stance that we are pro tulpa, anti tulpa terminology. we will never turn away a tulpamancer from our blog simply for the words they choose to use to identify themselves. we will be vocal about lifting up marginalized voices, we will be honest about our concerns, and we personally will not be using or advocating for tulpamancy language on that blog. but we certainly have not and will not cut off tulpamancers from that space.

we don't see why this can't be the case in more places. it is not our goal to divide the plural community from the tulpa community. rather, we think this shift could bring us together as we join to make a long overdue shift away from culturally appropriative language. we fully believe this could make the community stronger as a result.

So, in the Tulpamancy community’s perspective, we either: A.) Give up our most used word and people lose access to so much history and resources, and create a huge divide in our already fragmented community. Or: B.) Stick to our guns, but be excommunicated and villainized by the broader Plurality community.

we aren't a fan of the false dichotomy here. we think there is a secret third option, which is:

c. band together with the plural community to address this issue, choose a new term, commit to change, and adjust the resources we can while uplifting the voices of those who have been so often silenced along the way. this change could bring the community together and also shed positive light on the community in public spaces, bringing us together and strengthening both communities as a result.

personally, we like this option a lot more!

in their next section, eeveecraft writes:

So, what are people trying to attack so hard and blacklist from plural spaces? What are people fighting so hard against to conform to their standards, or be labeled as racist? What Tulpamancy is, for a lot of people, is a means to living a better life. I cannot tell you how many stories I have read of tulpas stopping their hosts from taking their own lives, how creating a tulpa has hugely improved the mental health of others, or how tulpas encourage their hosts to socialize and take care of the body, or how just making a tulpa connects you to a community with the mutual interest in self-improvement and self-love, and so, so much more. Tulpamancy improves people’s lives, and Tulpamancy techniques are not exclusive to us.

we absolutely agree that the practice of tulpamancy can be immensely beneficial, beautiful, and positively life-changing. we ourselves have seen our wife's mental health and outlook on life drastically change for the better through fostering connection and building a relationship with her thoughtform, nevetien. nev has improved our wife's quality of life so much, and the community they've found online and with each other truly is something special.

we love this for her. we want them to be able to grow and flourish in the future together, and we feel so lucky to be able to help them nurture each other and witness their strength and joy as they grow closer together as a team.

this does not negate the valid concerns over tulpamancy language by buddhist poc. it is possible to support the practice of tulpamancy while rejecting the racist roots of the language. and shifting away from tulpa language does not mean abandoning those with thoughtforms, willomates, paros, or whatever term is chosen in the future.

finally, the conclusion:

“Tulpa” as a term, at best, is murky. Nobody is arguing that David-Neel was a saint. She wasn’t, and she’s dead and buried. Tulpa isn’t her word anymore. People in the Tulpamancy community are just fed up with outsiders trying to dictate how their community should be run. We know the term has issues, we know its history is not all sunshine and rainbows. We do not need outsiders barging in and stating the obvious and acting like they know more than we do about our own community and history. And look, I know some people who believe tulpa is appropriative have good intentions and just want to be non-offensive, but people take advantage of that. Sysmeds took advantage of people wanting to do right and weaponized people into being their mouthpieces under the guise of, “We just want to be racially-sensitive.” But instead of actually protecting minorities, all it did was harm another minority while ignoring groups who are taking advantage of the word, and using it for clout and profit. That is exactly why I started this LONG essay with why this whole thing is a bad-faith argument.

it is weird to us that eeveecraft is willing to acknowledge issues with alexandra david-neel, while deflecting issues that arise from the terminology coined by her. she may be dead, but the cultural appropriation she committed is still alive and well today, and will be for as long as tulpamancy terminology remains in use.

we understand the frustrations with not wanting the community's path to be dictated by outsiders. however, this language does affect many outsiders (i.e. asian buddhists and practitioners of vajrayana buddhism). it also does seem like there may be many people within the tulpa community who are uncomfortable with this language and want to shift away, but their voices are buried or silenced by others within the community.

you can't say "some people who believe tulpa is appropriative have good intentions," then follow that with "sysmeds will take advantage of that and weaponize others while claiming to be racially-sensitive." that attempts to negate and cast aside the real concerns of those who have issues with this language and want their voices to be acknowledged and included in the conversation. in this way, eeveecraft, you weaponize the voices of anyone worried about the racism of this terminology, by lumping them in with sysmeds so that you can ignore their valid concerns.

we are not attempting to ignore groups who are taking tulpamancy terminology and using it for clout and profit. we genuinely will take some time to learn about tulpamancy in popular media (specifically aforementioned supernatural, the mandela catalogue, and slenderman) in order to speak up against the use of culturally appropriative language. we just felt the need to address the problems in our own home (tumblr, and the plural community here) before stepping outside our front door. we can't be expected to properly or accurately discuss issues that we were never made aware of, because we just hadn't been exposed to it before.

we did not make that document in bad faith. we have never argued against tulpamancy in bad faith. we are not a sysmed, and in fact are vehemently pro-tulpa and accepting of systems of all origins. however, as we learn more about racism and struggle to call it out and come to terms with its existence within our own communities, we can no longer continue to support tulpamancy language in good faith.

we know this was incredibly, incredibly long. if you've stuck with us this far, thank you so much for reading. we are not an expert on tulpamancy, though we have been involved in the community for a while. we're no expert on race, cultural appropriation, buddhism, or anything that we've talked about today, really. we're just a system who truly cherishes the plural community, trying to confront our own internalized biases and sharing how we feel about this response to our document.

thank you for your time. take care.

[puck-the-devil]

I was about to go to sleep... but I saw you answered my ask :)

Thank you for being honest. Really, I'm just a tumblr user asking questions and getting answers. Other occults may have been too nervous to come forward considering a certain angel's company... some of you are a bit like guard dogs. I'm glad you don't smell like dogs, too.

Your comment about pixies reminds me of just how dastardly they are. Sure, they're born from a baby's laugh, but they'd also pull out it's teeth for a giggle. At least the pixies I've met enjoyed that kind of thing. Not all of them, of course. Just as not all fairies are out for mischeif. Except you, of course.

Whoever said my name was moon? I can't reveal my name. Not yet.

-🌜

Huh! Funny, you must have a similar bedtime as me at the moment since I was answering right before then as well.

'Guard dogs'? How are we like guard dogs and how does that cause us to be deterred by 'a certain angel'?

Abby, is this you again? Are you referring to Uriel? Or is this another of Abby's many siblings and Abby is the 'certain angel' in question?

Oh, no, I completely agree about the pixies. They can be some of the most vicious of us. Have you met Tinker Bell? She very nearly killed a girl. Not to mention that bothersome Navi going around annoying people...

Well, you're the one signing your posts with a moon emoji! What else am I supposed to call you?

[maydayfireball]

Len model finished !! His video was suppose to be a black background like rin's was, but i got a little carried away.. Just like Rin, check below for the model progress timeline and video credits !!

Turning Rin into Len ! I'm lazy and i want these two to look very similar, so i just edited rins face and body. Time elapsed: 00:34:53 (his head isn't smaller i just didn't screenshot well.)

2. Struggled drawing Len's hair ! I wouldn't normally include this part in my time, but like. fuck len. tumblr helped pick which one i used of these two blue prints. Time elapsed: 01:07:00

3. Len hair finished ! Why does this man hate me ! Time elapsed: 02:46:44 (almost two hours, huh..)

4. Body rig ! Unlike rin, I decided to rig len from scratch. This is because his base is too different from anyone else's to get away with weight transferring. (significantly shorter than kaito / gackpo, but with a different body shape than rin.) So here's a gif of his silly little arm movin. Time elapsed: 04:08:32

5. Hair Rig / Physics. For all the models (except rin) I've done their hair rig / physics right after rigging the body. This is mostly so i can have a fully optimized base to work off of later when making outfits. For rin i just.. forgot to do her hair lol. anyway time elapsed: 04:34:30

6. Outfit Designing. I didn't time this for rin since that timing was more for commission reference sake, and more clients won't have me designing their stuff. so it wouldn't have made sense to include it. but here we are. Rough outfit sketch. Fuck drawing headphones. Time elapsed: 05:06:05 for all my original models, the concept was more or less blending their design aspects together. (with the exception of gackpo, who's only difference between updates is colors and slight hair changes.)

7. Outfit modeling ! He went pretty easy, since It was just a matter of making parts i already did for Rin. So anything I struggled with last time, i had practice for. Time Elapsed: 7:50:25

8. UV Mapping. I included this step into texturing last time, but I felt like separating it this time around. Basically, i unwrapped all the UVs for the model and laid them out on a texture sheet to draw over. From what i've seen, a lot of people do this differently / in different orders? like they might uv map and then immediately texture the shirt, before moving onto the next piece of clothing. But texturing (using my tablet in general) hurts my shoulders typically, so i try to get it all out of the way at once. So i uvmap before even pulling the tablet out. Time elapsed: 8:50:48

9. Texturing. My neck hurts ! Time Elapsed: 11:40:19

10. Extruding, triangulating, exporting.. and then spas / toons. i think last time i included the extruding / triangulating in meta under texturing? But i've decided to break it up this time. Basically, i add depth to parts of the outfit, manually turn quads into triangles on tricky sections (like shoulders and hips) so they're easier to rig. Basically getting it ready for pmx before i export it. Time elapsed : 12:45:23 (left is unextruded / mirrored, right is extruded with the mirroring fixed.)

11. Rigging adjustments and physics ! Basically, used the weight transfer plugin to transfer the weight onto the outfit to match the base. I then cleaned the rig up and added bones / physics for parts that needed them. Time elapsed: 13:40:25

12. Cleaned ! Honestly there wasn't much to do, since most of the cleaning (like renaming bones) carried over from Rin.

Total time elapsed: 13:41:56 !!

Significantly less time than Rin, but that's honestly to be expected. Overall three days worth of work? Since I didn't. actually work on him much the first day.

I've also discovered that my models shoulders tend to disagree with game rip motions (which is why they look so. sharp. in the video), though i've noticed other models doing this as well.. it occurs since most motion rips don't use the rotate bones, but mine are made with those in mind. Kind of annoying, but maybe i can find a work around.

Final thoughts??? He might be my favorite original model right now honestly. I really like him. I might even distribute him and Rin, with expressions to remove their headphones and arm warmers.

Video Credits: Song: My Love Is Hellfire by SLAVE.V-V-R Len Cover: XZenvii Motion: anonRipper, Colorful Palette Scripts: TearlessHen, thtrandomlurker, minmode, skyth effects: おたもん, soboro, beammanp, 化身バレッタ, 呉石

[butchviking]

prime numbers

thats a lot of fucking questions anon jesus christ

2. what would you name your future kids?

answered

5. is there anyone who can always make you smile?

this photo of ray toro it's my emergency ray and even when literally suicidal it has never filed to rouse a smile out of me

7. what was your life like last year?

amazing. last year was the best year of my life so far. i did so much cool shit i never imagined i would do i felt so free and full of life i felt like the whole world was at my fingertips

11. are you listening to music right now?

yes! this morning we're doing please catch for us the foxes mewithoutyou. i'm on tie me up! untie me! rn on my second repeat of the album. thinking about maybe throwing in an rtl or even a bullets after this playthru tho 🤔

13. how do you feel right now?

pretty good! well mostly neutral i suppose but i'm up early for work i'm already showered i don't have much to do and i've still got over an hour before i gotta go so this is a rare W for me im pleased w myself. i'm usually always up late and in a mad rush

17. opinion on insecurities.

bizarre question. um they're not good and when they're overwhelming in someone they're off-putting but we all have them and i am in many ways a simpering wad of insecurity so im hardly gonna throw stones about it. i think what is very frustrating tho is when ppl can't admit to them.

19. have you ever been to New York?

nope!

23. fear(s)

needles, unexpected spiders

29. favourite film(s)

the crow!!!

31. 3 random facts

about me or in general? umm 1. you can dissolve ping-pong balls in acetone to make a very strong glue 2. im allergic to the cold but no-one ever believes me until they see it for themselves because that sounds absolutely ridiculous 3. many viking houses were built in the shape of an inverted ship, with curved roofs and sometimes curved walls.

37. favourite actor/actress

huh. i don't think i really have one. i mean i have actors and actresses who are in things i like and who i think are good but i don't think i could point to one as a favourite. maybe david tennant but that's just sort of because he's everywhere in everything and he was(/is) doctor who

41. relationship status

single who want me

43. favourite song ever

no. we're not doing that. that doesn't exist

47. turn ons

um. nothing good. well, love. but mostly mean weird stuff. shhhhhh its fine im normal i am normal

53. 5 things that make me happy

music/concerts/moshpits

images of whoever my latest Guy (gender-neutral) is

exactly 3 glasses of wine. no more no less

talking 2 friends hanging out with friends having positive social interaction

the sense of achievement when i actually get some shit done i needed to do

59. why i joined tumblr

when i was 14 all my friends were into the whole Tumblr Aesthetic and kept referring to ppls outfits as 'so tumblr' and i wanted 2 figure out what that meant. i bet they're all long gone i bet they don't even think about this website anymore

[growling]

Odd and unusual, deeply unsettling creature dubbed by the locals as "tumblr user Growling" (pinned post)

hello everypony this is growling's blog of tumble on which i post my yaoi (anything can be yaoi if you're open-minded enough)

-> it/its or he/him in general -> metaphysical/spiritual fictionkin + plural, which is why I switch between I/we pretty often when referring to myself (please do not use psychiatric or pathologizing terms for us such as DID, alter or introject. our system members do not have defined roles, either.) -> Collective/unclaimed names include: Seth, Mateusz, Andrzej, Jaspis, Karneol, Sylwester, Stefan, Kosma, Cezary/Czarek, Sójka and Mikołaj. We collect names like cool rocks -> evil loveless aplatonic aro narcissists with dangerous levels of autism they warned you about. now start barking

Rain Code side || Akuma Kun side || Yomi's blog || Spotify (if you like character playlists and think I got immaculate music taste....) || Twitter (18+ area)

Attention keeps me alive and I love receiving asks heyhey hey you should send me asks I need enrichment in my enclosure haha..... That being said I'm usually bad at articulating myself and prone to get overexcited/anxious when I try to respond, so I may take way longer to answer. They had to nerf me somehow. Genders vary between parts but as a general rule none of us are comfortable with feminine terms even as joke/slang, "girl" isn't gender neutral guys what the huh.... I do not have a DNI as they're just objectively ineffective and dumb, stop expecting others to curate your own experiences and use the block button as it was intended, also the hell do you mean by "basic dni criteria" are you just virtue signaling or is this some sort of code.

Current fandoms & things I'm into: Winx Club, Rain Code, Bungou Stray Dogs, Akuma Kun, Danganronpa, The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, Gushing Over Magical Girls, Akudama Drive, Gravity Falls, Tribe Nine and occassionally posting about Warriors, but I've distanced myself from the community because it's rancid over there, same with Wings of Fire. Non-fandom specific, we really like violent whump (not the fever type. the, uh... other one) or just terrible things happening to fictional characters. Wanting them crying, terrified and in pain is an expression of adoration from us <3 though we're too shy to post/reblog any of that sort of stuff for now since not many people are as into it. Oh yeah and also cat genetics, these are cool.

[northwest-cryptid]

Wtf is the difference between incel in italics and not in italics I'm confused???

Let me attempt to explain, sorry this is gonna be a lot and I might not do a great job so if you need anything clarified feel free to send in another ask because I have a lot of thoughts on this sort of topic.

Incel gets thrown around a lot as an insult for people who are basically sexists.

You know what Incel actually literally means? Involuntary Celibate.

So for the sake of explanation I'm going to refer to Sexist Asshole Incels as Incels (A) and literally Involuntary Celibates as Incels (B).

I know PLENTY of people who fall into Incel (B) category, and thankfully they have a lot of good people around them and are good people themselves so they don't end up turning into Incel (A).

However, let's assume for a moment that someone is incel (B) and they're on the internet.

This is an individual, we will say they're a young man; who's just down on his luck. Perhaps he's depressed and not conventionally attractive. He may have some kind of social anxiety or maybe even something like Autism that might make it difficult for him to meet and socialize with people.

Alright we all got this dude in our head? Cool.

Now it's important to note that by all accounts this individual is an alright dude, he's not sexist; nor is he transphobic or bigoted or any of that. He's just a good dude. He's just shy, keeps to himself; maybe he lives somewhere that doesn't have a lot of people his age, maybe he still lives with his parents well into his young adulthood because he doesn't have the money to move out in this economy without getting a roommate. By no means is he a bad person, he just happens to be literally; involuntarily celibate.

Now he goes online to talk about some game he likes on tumblr and sees a bunch of people talking about Incels. So not knowing the term he looks it up, he learns that Incel means:

Huh yea okay, so he's not hostile towards anyone, not women or anyone sexually active. However, he is a young man who desires romantic or sexual intimacy and involuntarily can't get it.

However, these people online discussing Incels seem to regard them only in hostility. If you're an Incel it means you're sexist, if you're an Incel it means you're an asshole, if you're an incel it means you're a bad person.

Well he likely doesn't take kindly to that, he's not wronged anyone, he's not hostile; but... he IS an Incel right? I mean he is an individual who can't seem to find romantic or sexual partners despite desiring one. That's quite literally what it means.

Now, quiz time;

Which internet culture do you think is going to pick this man up? Is it

A. The actually good people who could explain to him that his ability to find a sexual partner has no measure on his worth or moral alignment as a person and that he is no less for his celibacy and that it's absolutely just a situation where he likely would have better luck if he were around more people, or could socialize easier; and maybe even help him to do so in a healthy and organic way which could potentially lead him to a sexual or romantic relationship that he desires without causing him to have weird hostile and sexist views of that sexual or romantic partner

or

B. You know, Incels (A) who are going to tell him he can't get laid because of the Woke Left and Feminism; and teach him that women are just objects he should sexualize and whatever the fuck they talk about I don't know man I don't subscribe to their Alpha Beta bullshit.

So the answer is B more often than not sadly.

And it's really easy for them to make those good genuine people out to be assholes when we literally use Incel as an insult so often that the definition went from "Involuntary Celibate" to "Yea they're still involuntarily a celibate, but also they're hostile and bad."

It's really hard to disavow the importance of sex and also say "but if you want it and can't have it; then you're an Incel and that's bad."

Which, while you and I may understand it goes deeper than that; the individual in our scenario (who by the way, is a lot more common a real person than you might believe) does not know this, because they're likely not so well acquainted with our culture.

We strictly treat incel as a bad thing, as an insult.

The inherent issue I have with this is that I've always gauged things like this from the view of someone who is on the boarder. Someone with no alignment one way or the other, who isn't familiar with the culture; and may not know deeper understanding of words or circumstances.

I do this because I've seen this sort of thing happen time and time again, people who have the potential to either educate themselves and better themselves; or literally be indoctrinated by horrible sexist assholes and creeps. You know what the issue is NEARLY every time?

The good people who could actually help them, are so fucking sick and tired of the shit they have to put up with from every asshole they come across; that it's a very reasonable and understandable reaction to hear one bad thing from someone and go "oh god not another one"

We handle someone vile, by being vile back; and I'm not saying that's necessarily right or wrong. I can't say I don't understand why, we're not in elementary school, I'm not going to tell you to just "ignore your bullies" as if that'll make them stop.

However I want to share with you a situation I had a hand in specifically; for the sake of privacy I won't be mentioning the individual in question by name. I believe that a topic of this nature shouldn't even be addressed in public but I also think it's a fantastic example of what I'm talking about.

I have been a part of NSFW communities for a long time, we're talking like a decade plus kind of long time it's literally what I do for a job majority of the time. In that time I've had the pleasure and absolute horror of knowing a lot of interesting people. One such person is a great example because we had become friends some time before they informed me that they were into something called loli. Now I'm going to assume that most people here know what that is, but for those who don't I'll summarize it as saying it's hentai that depicts specifically underage girls. So you know, not fucking okay.

Now, I wouldn't blame you if you think I should immediately drop kick this fucker into next week for openly admitting to something like that, but again I want you to think back to the question I asked last time.

If I react poorly and harshly and rudely (even if understandably so), who do you think is going to take them in? People who could help them realize the fault in stuff like loli? People who could help them overcome a problem and be a better person? Or people who are going to tell them shit like "it's just a drawing" or whatever and validate a problem until they feel like it's okay? I've seen it happen a lot, I knew a lot of really genuinely skilled animators who were good people, took one or two bad commissions for the money and began to think it was suddenly okay because "they're not real people or whatever" and I no longer associate with those people because of how they decided to lead their life going forward.

However, back to our situation with the individual in question; I basically sat them down and asked them why. I made it very clear that I understood they were not a pedophile or anything of the sort so then what exactly was it they enjoyed so much about it? So much so that they'd openly admit to it. We discussed it for a bit, and that was that; I left them with their thoughts; and a few days later. I'm talking DAYS later. They came back to me genuinely excited to tell me they were a changed individual who just wasn't into that shit anymore. They were GENUINELY proud of themselves for overcoming that, and I was proud of them for it too.

They were able to grow and better themselves because they had the right kind of people to talk to, who weren't going to insult them and see them as less for being honest about something that by all accounts was bad and wrong; and who also were firm in the belief that some things are just wrong on a moral level but that someone can grow out of that if they try.

To this day I wonder how differently they'd have turned out if I rejected them harshly for that one message. If I had cut ties with them and simply did the most instinctual thing of going "OH EW GROSS NO BAD" instead of attempting to better understand them first and really help them out of that situation.

Now believe me, if they didn't grow out of that; we'd not be friends, because at that point they would have made their choice knowing all the facts and done so with the conviction that it was how they wanted to move forward.

So what does this have to do with Incels?

Well simply put, I've literally met an Incel (A) who I didn't realize was an Incel (A), he and I got along great; we'd chill and talk and animate stuff and it was fine. Great co-worker, very good at animation the whole nine yards right? Then he hits me with some absolutely transphobic bullshit about trans women, genuine real Incel (A) shit. I very hesitantly mentioned I was trans and he left the call; came back to work on the animation about an hour later and asked me about being trans. We talked about it (for several hours) and it changed his mind. It wasn't even that he considered me "one of the good ones" he was able to understand that his views of trans people were unwarranted, that his fears towards trans women were irrational. He's literally dating a trans woman now, and they're a very wholesome and happy couple. You know the biggest factor in what changed his mind? No joke, he told me that the number one thing that made him question everything was the fact that when he came back to ask me about being trans; I was kind enough to actually give him the time of day when he had said all that shit to my face not knowing he was talking about me the whole time. He respected my understanding that he knew I didn't owe him.

When I say "I wish people knew the difference" the people I'm specifically talking about are Incel (B) individuals.

I genuinely wish that people experiencing Involuntary Celibacy, who are OTHERWISE GOOD PEOPLE; who are perfectly fine, not assholes, not sexist; just down on their luck people understood that they're not worthless vile assholes just because they can't seem to "get any"

Because the truth is, we've been doing this sort of thing for a while with a ton of different words and phrases, we hurt good people while trying to insult bad people.

"small dick energy" okay yea sure let's just insult everyone who has a small dick as if that has anything to do with moral values and their personal views. When I worked at an adult novelty shop (that's a sex shop for people who don't know) one of my nicest coworkers would often explain to people that he genuinely didn't know how a lot of the toys worked because his dick wasn't big enough to use them, which I still don't know if that really matters or not like I swear anyone can use those things but I don't know he'd know better than I on that one to be fair. He'd often make a lot of jokes about having a small dick. He was a great dude and by all internet standards he had "big dick energy" he'd regularly step in to help women who were being harassed at our store, and he was genuinely understanding when I told him I was trans even though he didn't "know how it worked."

What I'm getting at with all of this is simply

A. Try to be understanding and have compassion for people who might be teetering on the boundary between being an educated good person, or a fucking sexist asshole or pedo or some shit. More often than not, a polite nudge in the right direction can be all someone needs to actually get on a better path in their life and genuinely change for the better, they just need that understanding an education.

B. We gotta call people what they are, if someone's a Sexist Asshole, they're not an Incel they're a SEXIST ASSHOLE, if someone is a rude piece of shit they don't have "small dick energy" they're a RUDE PIECE OF SHIT. We use words that mean other things until they mean what we say they do and everyone who happens to fall into the initial category suddenly feels alienated and becomes a REALLY easy target for all the people who are actually the problem to sweep up into their web of "FEMINISM IS TO BLAME"

and by all that is good in the universe, if you're an Incel (B) PLEASE, PLEASE know that you're not inherently a bad person just because you have trouble "getting some" like dude it doesn't matter man. People aren't talking about YOU when they say Incel unless you're going out and being a hostile piece of shit sexist asshole, if the shoe fits and all that; but IF YOU'RE NOT DOING THAT I WANT YOU TO KNOW YOU'RE FINE, AND I'M SORRY. IF YOU ARE DOING THAT, THEN STOP BEING A HOSTILE PIECE OF SHIT SEXIST ASSHOLE DUDE.

Anyways I hope that helps clear things up on the matter.