#triggering tool

[kruit]

King of Cups

[flickering-nightfall]

it seems i have modded too close to the sun

[giothesailor]

Old danganronpa stuff

[phantajam]

class 78 minecraft server

junko: griefs everyone's builds when no one else is online, claims it wasnt her

chihiro: looked at the server logs, knows its her, too non-confrontational to say anything

taka: has never played a video game in his life, has no idea what he's doing

mondo: trying really hard to teach taka but is ALSO bad at minecraft

byakuya: AFK farming and exploiting villagers for maximum emerald output, gets mad if anyone on the server is richer than him

kyoko: the others never see her online, but she inexplicably has a massive amount of resources (byakuya hates that her house is bigger than his)

hifumi: plays a lot of minecraft, good at building

celeste: realized the above information and made hifumi build her a european castle

sayaka: died to a zombie her first night, too scared to log back in

toko: "I-I'll o-only play if m-master byakuya's online-!!" and proceeds to just follow him around while crouching

genocide jack: the same, except she keeps killing him. has started saying "in minecraft" after mentioning her irl crimes

leon: logs in, dies once, rage quits, calls the game stupid, repeat

aoi: says "im going to go explore!" and ends up ten thousand blocks away from spawn

sakura: spends all her time building with the items aoi brings back

yasuhiro: horrified scream every time he sees a hostile mob

mukuro: "if junko really wants me to, I guess I will mine and craft"

makoto: the one who suggested they make the server in the first place

[voidingintotheshout]

.

[whereserpentswalk]

Ttrpg safety tools and the dog test

A quick rundown of what safety tools are: tools for setting boundaries in ttrpgs. Can be useful to some people, but often used really wrongly, and often seem overly gamey to me personally. It's like therapy speak for rpgs. And is similary used by the people it was meant to be used against.

One of the most common examples of these is the X card. The X card is a card with the letter X written on it. It sounds like a good idea if you've never interacted with people before. The X card is a boundary where one of the rules is you can't talk about the boundary. It's very useful for anyone who want to weaponize it, and not very useful for asserting actual boundaries.

There is also a type of chud who dislikes the the idea of safety tools because they think they're "woke". The only way to have a productive conversation around safety tools is to ignore them. Bad faith questions don't deserve good faith answers.

Now, a lot of people would think that its easier for a player to step out then deleate a scene. But a lot the culture around safety tools is based on this toxic highschool mindset around ttrpgs where someone feels like they both have a right, and a duty to be at every single momment of every session, and everyone else does to. So every single safety tool you'll see will assume the of lack the option of leaving the table at all. Being able to leave at any time is the ultimate boundary in ttrpgs and many other safety tools are attempting the impossible task of establishing boundaries without it. People compare them to safe words in bdsm. But it's like trying to create a safe word system but you have to cum and can't take breaks.

See part of the problem is 4chan and reddit have cultures of rpg horror stories. Which are useally lies. I'm not going to say fiction because that implies a relationship with the audience that they don't have. And these lies almost always have queer people, ND people, leftists, and anyone you'd see called a degenerate or weirdo as villains. While the type of nerd that Scott Pilgrim was the first book makes himself out to be a hero. And reddit also happens to be where the concept of safety tools was popularized.

It's this problem where people aren't trying to deal with actual triggers, they're trying to police content they morally condemn. R/rpg horror stories is the home of people who consider themselves outcasts for liking star wars and then have a deep fear of a marginalized person or someone from a slightly less mainstream subculture showing up at their table. And when they're the ones defining what a boundary conflict in rpg space looks like it's useally pretty bad. When a lot of safety tools go bad it's the case of weapons made to catch monsters being bad at dealing with humans.

And beyond all that. Beyond the specifics of rpg horror stories and it's influence. The way people talk about safety tools is mostly about removing content they deem objectionable from ttrpgs. When people talk about the X card and things like it, they're useally afraid someone will talk about something taboo and the table, and want a way to stop them, with the assumption that the rest of the party agrees. The extreme nature of how much someone has the power to censor, is brought with the assumption that what will be censored won't just violate their personal boundaries, but a community sense of morals.

They don't just want their triggers removed, they want things they deem immoral to be removed (not everyone who uses safety tools of course, but the hoard of bearded cishet white men who play 5e who dominate the conversation on them). That's just what a lot of the conversation around safety tools always comes down to. When somebody says they want safety tools to remove torture scenes or sex scenes from their table, it's not their personal triggers, its that they don't believe these things belong in the medium at all. They don't imagine what it would be like to be the only person in the room with their trigger, because the narrative they've created with problem players and safety tools, has made it so they assume the majority of the room shares their boundaries. Safety tools as they exist and are talked about are not built for a minority of players to be able to assert boundaries agaisnt the majority of players.

The dog test: so basically, while safety tools in ttrpgs have good reasons to exist, a lot of the time they're weapons players use to remove content they deem immoral. So often every discussion around things like the X card comes with a lot of moral condemnation, and assumptions about what content can ever be triggering vs what is ok. And this culture of moral condemnations can make safety tools especially dangerous for queer people and ND people, or just members of certain subcultures.

So I've developed the dog test. The dog test, is an example used to test if a safety tool (or more commonly someone talking about them) wants boundaries or wants moral policing. The dog test is simply to see how the safety tool is viewed if it's used to remove dogs from a game. Basically taking the commonly used examples like blood, or sex, and replacing them with the existence of dogs. Perhaps to add to it let's say the only case this hypothetical person will be ok with dogs is if they're killable enemies. This isn't unrealistic, a lot of people have trauma from dog bites, it's probably more likely to be a good faith trauma than a lot of the examples.

If they person is as willing to work with the needs of a player who has trauma around dogs as they are more sympathetic triggers than they've passed the dog test.

Disclaimer. A lot of these thoughts were developed in a discord conversation with @dragonpurrs and a lot of these words were originally things I said to it.

[nvathuw]

top notch brushes that i deeply trust

[theoldwhisky]

What would you advise people to be aware of before reading MDZS or any MXTX books, for that matter? I'm serious.

I would warn them before reading or engaging with any of MXTX's books about the extremely dubious consent content, including elements that lean toward sexual assault. Additionally, I would warn them about the, in my opinion, very clear depictions of eating disorders and malnutrition, as well as physically and mentally abusive types of relationships of any kind that arise, alongside the classic themes of violence, gore, and blood.

Furthermore, topics such as suicide, self-harm, teacher-student relationships, stalking, abortion, and gambling, etc.

I know some of you might say insensitive things like, "One should expect such things in books," or comments like, "It's not that deep." To those kinds of people, I would like to remind you: FUCK OFF!

It is that deep. You don't know someone else's trauma and mental health struggles; warnings are necessary, and not just in the form of jokes or comments like "Just read it and find out." Trigger warnings exist for a reason and are essential. Just because you don't need them doesn't mean that others don't.

If you don't care about this, that's fine; move on. It's clearly not meant for you, but I'm tired of people across all kinds of fandoms, including MXTX, downplaying these issues and acting as if it's acceptable to belittle them simply because you personally might not share the same problems.

Sidenote: I recommend that you always Google the TW (trigger warnings) for the specific MXTX work you are about to read before purchasing it. Additionally, adaptations are usually much more censored and may not be entirely free of specific content in some regards.

[kruit]

Tarot card Queen of Cups

[missilliaamori]

Devil May Cry OC Eri Reference Sheet

Finally done w her! She's my yumesona and she's dating Dante~ Devil Trigger design being posted later! More outfit designs from each game coming soon.

DO NOT REPOST

Programs used: Paint Tool Sai, Firealpaca

[vagabond-art]

happy birthday 11/11! Samatoki in the Yokohama rain

thanks to my patron @ dishonored-pendletwin 💜

[clarabosswald]

"Hamas' terrorists did not pity anyone on October 7th. Not religion, not nationality and not belief changed the fate of those who were murdered that Saturday. Awad Darawshe, of Iksal, was a young man who studied medicine, volunteered at the United Rescue EMS organization, and worked as an ambulance driver for a living; and on the morning of October 7th he was an on call first responder at the Nova party. When the massacre began, Awad exited his ambulance and ran out to aid the many wounded. When the emergency service center asked him to quickly evacuate and leave, Awad insisted on devotedly treating the casualties, until he was shot point blank by the murderers. Awad's sister, Maysam, shall give an address."

"Many ask me what kind of child Awad was. Those who knew him from the stories of the Black Saturday, knew that he was a paramedic and ambulance driver who was murdered at the Nova party. But for us, Awad was our little boy at home, our light, our life, who filled the house with warmth and love. Awad was a boy who always loved helping, full with endless energies. He was a boy full of dreams. He wanted to be a doctor, but also a great chef. To build his own home, but also stay forever by our parents' side. After six days of uncertainty, our Awad came back home in an ambulance, this time - dead. Awad, I'm hearing the words mother tells about you in Arabic, the same language that on Saturday morning was linked with blood and horrors, and many here must struggle to hear it. But it is the language of our childhood! The language with which we dreamed of a better future, of love, of peace, and of life - for all of us. To quote mother: [in Arabic] 'Awad was a gift from the heavens. His journey was short, but it carried many and massive meanings, which taught us how to love each other, help each other, and not let hatred and envy live in us.' Awad, I hope you could hear me. Shukran."

The People's Memorial Ceremony, October 7th, 2024.

[oacest]

It's so sad to me that they do really complement each other in a lot of ways and they could have a way better relationship if they had learnt some better communication and conflict resolution skills.

made for each other <3 (derogatory)

[nvathuw]

shout out to anyone that invented tone curve yall did make my life better

[yoccu]

Time for my regularly scheduled post about breathing and stretching apparently. Because I think a really important thing about stretching that I rarely seen talked about is the role of breathing.

TLDR: When stretching try to focus on fully and slowly exhaling DURING the stretch, this is what allows them to actually stretch best. If they’re particularly sore apply ice DURING the stretch as it will allow the stretch to not cause inflammation. I’ve had like five physical therapists tell me this is all accurate but if it sucks for you don’t do it. Many ways to exist in this world are real and I’m not your doctor.

When I started working on my breathing while doing stretches bc I have chronic and pretty severe muscle stiffness in my neck and shoulders that has caused TMJ and migraines for decades, I didn’t realize for a long time I wasn’t breathing like. Normally? I also have pretty constant CPTSD symptoms and I think this was one of them, a subconscious CONSTANT rigidity and inability to relax that crossed into being Medically Significant. I’ve had MULTIPLE physical therapists insist for MINUTES that I was “not relaxing” when I thought it wasn’t possible to relax any further. I figured this out eventually.

Anyway when I’d start working on my breathing like six years ago I’d notice it would like. Catch and feel weird. A lot. Idk what made me realize but eventually I realized I was inhaling deeply but NOT exhaling deeply. So I just always had like too much breath???

So I started doing that “blow out of a straw” kind of breathing because I realized I couldn’t rely on the SENSATION of exhaling to be accurate. That method meant when I stopped feeling air leaving my mouth I was actually done exhaling and it took like. Five times longer or something it’s nuts.

BUT THIS IS IMPORTANT because inhaling and exhaling relate to the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems! And if I recall correctly, your muscles relax on the EXHALE.

This is why sometimes if I can’t stretch I literally just sit with my back straight but not rigid and just focus on my posture being self sustaining WHILE relaxing every muscle as best I can. Breathing very deeply and slowly the whole time. It makes a HUGE difference. I did this for like MONTHS before incorporating stretches and exercises when I first started out.

But I can’t stress enough, focusing on breath is the best way to get the most out of stretching, and also stretching for a LONGER time and MORE GENTLY. When you want to stretch some elastic you don’t just tug it a few times and go that’s good enough! Even the mildest stretch held for two or three REALLY deep slow breaths is better than a bigger stretch for less time. Some days I can barely tip my head to the side but I hold it there for a minute or so and over that time I can FEEL the muscle letting up just a little. And that’s exactly the progress you want! Too much progress at once and you’ll cause all sorts of pain and pain is basically backwards progress to your physical body. It wants to avoid that even if your brain is thinking no pain no gain. You can’t help your body by working against it.

So that’s my PSA! Remember to breathe while stretching. If that is difficult, literally just practice breathing fully and deeply in and out (to your ability! I get that ppl have breathing problems and you’ll know yourself better than I can) and then add stretches to that. I’ve lived through a looooot of different physical issues where almost invariably being able to breathe deeply in order to trigger relaxation has helped tremendously. It’s a great skill especially if you have really bad anxiety that affects how you breathe (which was my case and I didn’t even know it until like. My late 20s.)

Also if the therapy breathing techniques don’t work for you don’t worry they don’t fucking work for me either LOL. I figured out what does work for me (the straw breathing so I can feel and hear when I’ve inhaled and exhaled completely) and it’s way better for me that counting in my head which has often made my anxiety much worse.

I’m inspired to stretch before I draw now so that’s a net positive anyway

[kruit]

Tarot card Knight of Cups