#video games can be educational occasionally

[agayconcept]

my youtube algorithm has gotten all sorts of fucked up so:

☆ give me ur youtube channel / show / series recommendations !! ☆

[hazard-symbols-that-fuck-hard]

Cool Shit I've Made (masterpost)

If you want to support me, or if you just want to see what I'm up to, check out the stuff under the cut!

My Currently Active Sideblogs

@organical-mechanical: This is actually my main blog! Go here for all of my unrelated art, EVEN MORE off-topic posts, and the occasional reblog or link to other people's art, generally under the theme of bodily imagry, machinery and software, and/or the combination of the two. Naturally, there's a heavy content warning for blood and gore.

@mind-of-moth: My ask blog/webcomic/light novel? about an inexplicably human doctor in a My Little Pony-esque world grappling with various concepts related to death

My YouTube Channel

As you can see, my YouTube channel is tied to @organical-mechanical and not @hazard-symbols-that-fuck-hard, so you can expect the content to revolve more around innards and CRT monitors rather than the NFPA. In any case, this is where I store-- what else-- my video art

My Itch.io Projects

Hazard Tarot Cards:

A printable card deck for only seven smackaroos, featuring all of your favorite hazard symbols!

Mad Science Interactive:

A mock virtual science lab where you grow your own transgenic beast using real-world techniques! The game is 100% free and playable in-browser, with bonus content should you choose to donate $10 or more! (it's basically a three-minute glorified slide show)

[edenfenixblogs]

New Pinned Post: How This Blog Approaches The Conflict

I am not normally a politically-focused blog. I am normally a personal blog that enjoys fandom and occasionally processes my own past trauma. As this war goes on, I am finding that it is against my personal ethics and morals to stay silent when I have the ability to educate and remain more patient than most. (My patience is not endless. I’m still human). So, while disinformation/misinformation, and propaganda abound on all sides. I feel like the best way I can help lower the temperature is to put my skills to use.

Primary Political Goals:

1. Emphasize humanity above all and use verifiable information and good faith education and discourse to reduce tension.

2. Do my absolute best to move the conversation away from polarizing, accusatory discourse that forces Jews, Muslims, Arabs, Israelis, and Palestinians to play a desperate game of defense and toward a shared mutually beneficial peace that honors each grouped indigeneity culture, and connection to their ancestral homeland.

3. Demonstrate and emphasize both Jewish-Muslim solidarity and Israeli-Palestinian solidarity.

Primary Blogging Goals:

As a diaspora Jew, my primary goal is threefold

1. Educate about antisemitism and Islamophobia—including calling it out and explaining it to the best of my ability.

2. Elevate responsible, verifiable voices—regardless of religion or nationality—and information to the best of my ability.

3. Demonstrate effective activism and provide insight and encouragement for other to find their most effective way to contribute to fostering peace.

Elaboration:

1. I have the most experience with an understanding of antisemitism. I am more of an expert in antisemitism and have more ability to identify and educate about it. That said: I will not tolerate any Islamophobia or racism and if I don’t have the ability to educate about it, you will be blocked. If I have the ability to educate about it, I will do so and give you the chance to read about it and adjust your behavior. If you do not do so, I will block you.

2. This does not mean equal representation of all nationalities and religions. It means the best informed and most reliable voices AND the voices I personally have the best ability to vet, verify, and substantiate. This will often mean Jewish voices and Israeli voices. This is me staying in my lane, not choosing to suppress any voice. I will not elevate purposefully divisive, tokenized, or uninformed voices. This does not mean that I won’t elevate Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab voices as well. I will. But my primary goal here is responsibility. To do that, I have to stay in my lane.

3. I am most effective as an educator on this matter, a guide to finding reliable peace-oriented voices, and an example of patience. There’s a great desire among many to protest or create videos detailing their opinions and stances. Not only is this primarily performative—especially among non-Muslim/non-Palestinian goyim—it has the potential to be extraordinarily damaging to Jews both in Israel and in Diaspora as well as to Arabs, Muslims, Palestinians, and South East Asians worldwide. If you truly desire to help and not just feel like you’re helping, the best thing you can do is follow the lead of much more experienced activists with a demonstrated track record of effectiveness and good faith in their areas of expertise. As I stated: mine is primarily education and greater than average (though not limitless) amounts of patience. If you want to donate money or engage in more direct action and aid, I suggest finding pro-Palestinian Israeli voices and peace oriented Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian voices as well as organizations with experience in this conflict that do not rely on eliminating any population or erasing anyone’s connection to the Levant. Follow their lead on that matter. If you are only just engaging in this conflict for the first time due to current events, you likely do not know nearly as much as you think you do about any of this. Being uninformed and spouting disinformation has actual dire consequences that can get Jews, Muslims, Palestinians, Israelis, and Arabs killed. It is vital that you’re responsible in your engagement on this matter. Learning dogwhistles and how to spot bad faith arguments is a must. And to be effective, you should spend more of your time learning than you’re doing protesting or arguing. This is a 2000+ year old conflict. There is a lot to know and understand. And there are a lot of people willing to prey on your newcomer status and manipulate your existing beliefs to use you as a pawn to further their bad faith aims. The only consistent, trustworthy principal is to trust those who repeatedly affirm their goal as peace and shared prosperity and who reject any form of demonization based on ethnicity or religion. This is not a game. This is not the west’s fight. This is a conflict between two horribly oppressed, traumatized, and nearly exterminated ethnoreligous groups.

I am begging you to think, listen, and learn before joining the fray.

Note: I also don’t claim to be perfect. If I mess up or reblog something that causes unintended harm (which is very easy to do when engaging in discussions and activism about this conflict), I will say so and issue a correction. There’s no need to be hostile in informing me about this. Just message with your concern and I’ll evaluate from there.

Additionally, I will not interact with Hamas apologists. Hamas is a terrorist organization.

Anyone trying to make me feel like this is an Us vs. Them situation will be blocked.

[agere-ena]

I just found something so huge brained in my notes app you guys

I think Mizuki would enjoy being in Nightcord VCs whenever she's doing something boring, it keeps the executive dysfunction at bay. In this case, it's spring cleaning!

She's going through storage boxes she hasn't touched in a while, informing her circle members every time she finds something interesting, occasionally turning her webcam on to show it off... And then she comes across the box that houses her magical girl toy collection.

Gasp!! She totally thought she lost this particular MiraMagi henshin pact!! She turns her video on and shows everyone her beloved toy. Ah, but it doesn't look nearly as cool as usual when it's not turned on... That simply won't do. She runs off to go get batteries for it, turns it on, and shows her group members every single light sequence!!

... Oh, right, she's supposed to be cleaning!! She gets back on that. For all of five minutes. And then... gasp!! Her MiraMagi deluxe play-and-learn tablet (with 20+ educational minigames included)!! This one, too, is turned on and shown off... As she idly starts one of its minigames, she reminisces on the day she got it. She was a little embarrassed buying this particular toy, it doesn't quite scream "collectors' item for all ages" as much as the simpler henshin items. This was absolutely, undeniably a toy for little kids, and there she was, buying it for herself, about 3 times the age of the intended audience.

She mostly just wanted it because it looked pretty, but upon turning it on and tapping around aimlessly for a bit, she discovered that the minigames were actually pretty fun! And, weirdly enough, sometimes they were even challenging for her. She'd had to hand off the device to her sister in order to finish a level every so often... Jeez, she wishes her sister was here right now, this level is one of the tougher ones.

At this point, every member of the VC (sans Mizuki herself) has gotten a pretty good idea as to the minigames' mysterious spikes in difficulty. It's pretty hard not to come to the conclusion that they have, given that Mizuki's messing up every other word she says, and that the game she's struggling with seems to focus on single-digit addition.

There's some typing from Ena's end, and, a moment later, she asks Mizuki if she'd like to pop over to Empty SEKAI for some help. Kanade and Mafuyu are also surprisingly enthused about seeing the device in person, with the former suggesting that Miku and the others might like to take a look at it too!!

Mizuki is overjoyed at everyone's interest in her cool toy, and she agrees right away, promising to bring over as many toys as she can carry!! Cue several hours of a very happy baby showing off her toys to everyone who will look. No more spring cleaning gets done that day.

[masterofengene]

heyy , could you do &team reactions to their s/o having trouble with sleeping ? thanks a lot

&team with an s/o who has trouble sleeping.

Warnings: none

K.

Okay so he gives off the vibe that he has trouble sleeping as well, maybe occasionally.

He is gonna be a sweetheart about it.

He knows you need sleep and he knows it's what is good for your body so he is gonna try every way he knows how to get you to sleep.

Essential oils. Massages. Soft music playing throught the room.

He makes it his mission to get you to fall asleep.

"I know you can't sleep...but you have that big assignment tomorrow and you need the rest...."

Plays with your har until you fall asleep (unless he falls asleep first, his methods are very affective.

He doesn't want you to take melatonin, instead he wants to find a natural way for you to sleep.

Fuma

He may be the most fit one in &team. But TRUST he turns into your own personal pillow.

In his mind, cuddles are the solution to any problem (he's right)

He's gonna put on your favorite show with the volume down low, turn the lights out.

Then cuddle.

He's gonna spoon you so he can feel when your breathing evns out, or have you lay on his chest.

He says it's because he wants to make sure you fall asleep but really it helps him fall asleep more than you.

Hums tunes in your ears until you relax and rubs your back

Nicholas

Honestly, I feel like he has a hard time sleeping as well.

So really the nights you spend together, you guys might not even sleep.

Because you both know that your brains won't slow down enough for you to sleep so you both just...don't sleep

Instead you guys stay up just talking about your day and just playing around until the exhaustion finally wears on you two

If you guys have something important the next day. Pillow fight.

Pillow fights exhaust both of you so quickly. You could just wage war on each other for 15 minutes then boom.

Sleeping babies.

Ej

Okay so deep breath.

I feel like he would take a logical approach and do things that he knows bores you, or that you don't find entertaining.

Puts on a nature documentary.

"What? It's educational!"

He isnt even into it, but he knows you'll be so bored you'll fall asleep

Evil genius.

Certified evil genius

Lights a candle that he knows you like.

Random background noises.

Whale noises (clearly those don't work)

Eventually you fall asleep while he is reading the encyclopedia to you

Yuma

He's gonna have you drinking herbal tea that has no caffeine.

He won't do much else to help you sleep, just pull you in for snuggles and sing for you tbh.

He's gonna make sure that everything around you is calm and serene. If maki tries to come in and disturb your slumber he's throwing the nearest object at him.

Be prepared to be the little spoon. He's gonna cuddle you for days.

If he notices you tired one day, he is gonna try and get you to take a nap. Even if it's just a 15 minute power nap.

He knows how important sleep is.

Frowns when he sees you chugging an energy drink.

Jo

To be honest. I get the vibes that he doesn't sleep that well.

I feel like he's the type that stays up all night to play video games or watch anime.

You both don't realize how bad your sleep schedules are until you two stayed up until 6 in the morning and fuma walked in looking like he was ready to strangle you both for staying up all night.

From then on you two try not to stay the night with each other, because your bad sleep feeds off each other.

You two can only spend the night together once a week for the sake of your eye bags.

Gucci eye bags

Designer eye bags

Harua

He's not going to nag you into getting sleep.

He reminds you about once a week that you need to try and get a better sleep schedule going.

When he notices that you're staying up way too late, he's going to start texting you every night that it's bed time.

He's trying okay. But he doesn't want to see annoying or bother you.

If he notices that you're struggling to stay awake, he will try to get you to a place where you can relax as soon as he can.

"Please start trying to slep better...always being awake isnt a good thing."

Taki

To be honest I feel like he has just as bad a sleep schedule as you do.

Like it's just because he started training to be an idol so young so he just couldn't help it.

He was used to late nights anyway so he always had trouble falling asleep.

So when he met you you're two sleep schedules sort of fed into each other.

It was like an understood "my body won't let me fall asleep"

So you two just filled your nights with telling each other stories either over the phone or in person.

You two would just talk about your day until you finally fell asleep.

Maki

Okay. He straight up doesn't care. At all.

He knows you and he knows how to help.

If you say "I can't sleep." He won't listen because yes you can.

He knows his voice is calming to you. You told him so. So when he notices you're restless he comes to cuddle.

He does it so Inconspicuously that you don't even notice his master plan.

Lulling you to sleep with good cuddles and whatever rambled comes to mind. Sometimes he serenaded you in German (even if you have no idea what he said)

He just talks. He let's everything come out at once.

[wndaswife]

gerri fields headcanons

really good with directions and navigation. when you go out together she’s always the one who has google maps on her phone telling you which train and bus tickets to buy etc

not the best with writing letters, but when writing songs for you, she’s incredibly well-spoken and really, really creative

when watching movies or shows with you, she’s always the most opinionated about infidelity or any other form of betrayal between partners or friends and has gone on several spiels about it while you’re watching with her. she has high standards set on friendships and close relationships and sees them as objective

would definitely help you move a couch into your new apartment (with help) and would also buy the most gorgeous lamp for your living room as a housewarming gift

is really fucking good at super mario kart because she’s had a long history with the game playing with her younger brother and cousins years ago. always chooses either luigi or koopa troopa. she’s good at a lot of board games too, and has beat you in battleship every time you play together

can be very anxious at times and initially feels ashamed and confused by her first panic attack. she considers herself to be a very laidback person who lets things happen as they naturally do, and isn’t completely educated on anxiety. by the time she has a panic attack in front of you due to a stressful situation that’s been eating at her for weeks, she tries her best to level her breathing and tells you that it’ll pass as it’s happened several times prior. you comfort her and have gerri understand that it’s completely normal and not anything to feel ashamed of, and especially that it doesn’t make her weak

has been wanting to get into repairing guitars and finds it really relaxing once she gets into repairing her own. you like to lay on her bed while she sits at her desk repairing some of the guitars from some other guitarists she’s met at local live music performances. i can vividly imagine quiet music playing in the background while you scroll through your phone with gerri sitting across the room at her desk with her hair up while she changes and tunes acoustic guitar strings and occasionally talking with each other or when you want to show her videos on your phone. that goes on for about two hours before gerri gets hungry and you go for a walk to get take out and watch a movie together back home

can be kind of unrealistic at times because she has such a hard time envisioning the future. even with small things like making plans for the following week or a few days away, she feels no urgency to plan and would always rather figure things out as they come, which can sometimes be frustrating as it makes it a little hard to make plans with her. it’s not because she’s lazy or purposefully difficult, but it’s just that gerri is so present-focused that it doesn’t come naturally to her to make any sort of long-term plans

but also, gerri can be a huge dreamer who can at times face difficulty focusing on reality. with some things, she can’t be bothered even trying to imagine a future because she’s just so unconcerned with things that don’t involve the present. but with things she’s passionate about, she can be incredibly idealistic while forgetting the reality of things. it’s admirable though, because gerri can sometimes talk for a very long time about the kind of life she wants to live away from home in an apartment of her own while continuing to play live music, to live in a nice place and can even plan down to the decor in her future living room, but can completely forget things like needing to work in order to be able to reach those things. but you love hearing her dreams and things she’s passionate about so much, and you always indulge in her idealism. she likes that about you too

similarly, gerri is a huge romantic. she loves with everything in her because she knows absolutely no restraint in romance and her dreams

[scarefox]

This is a whole ramble but there is a theme in there (for fun and giggles)

I sometimes have to think about the whole "petplay" / master-servant game Gun has going on with some of the GMM guys (Tay and Joss, officially but he probably has some of the others joined too). It's just so damn wild and funny. And everyone is pretending like that's just the most normal thing besties do. I mean sure why not but also 😏 Just them taking turns in being the others obedient cute pet-servant for one day, while he calling him "his pet" and treats him like a pet (and that outside of cameras and fanservice stuff, they do that in their private time mainly. just dragging it out in the open occasionally). I love that for them 👌

OG Fun Night S1Ep3

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-

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... hmmm 😏

yea that's more likely

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THE WHOLE ENTIRETY OF FUN NIGHT S2EP7 is just damn wild where they compete to be Guns number 1 pet, winning a freaking collar of all things! While talking about the drama "3 Will Be Free" (which is literally a canon polyamory drama with Tay, Joss and Mild)

-

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also that TayGun date special

But Off is always like "You guys have fun but leave me out of that nonsense" 🙅‍♂️ whenever Gun asks him to join the pet poly circle....

BUT isn't he basically Guns first "pet" before Tay even?! Guns nickname for him is literally Papii... which I first thought means "dad" (or daddy if you will 😏) but someone once educated me that it means "puppy". Because of their first drama together "Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey".

So what I am trying to say here is: Off you lost that fight already years ago!! You have been Guns doggo all along!! lol

(but that's fine, he just doesn't want to mingle with the others 😌)

It's tragic, there once was a compilation of all the Tay and Gun pet moments (+ trust falls) with parts of an interview where Tay explains his side. And the MC was shook like "And you just let him treat you like a pet??" and Tay all shy and giggly "Yea, it's just a thing between us. I don't even know why. I went with it" 🤷‍♂️ And that he thinks that Gun is the most powerful guy in whole GMM. (A+ video.. why did they take that from us)

Yall don't understand how neat the whole OffGunTay(New) and Gun swinger / poly dynamic is. Alone for the fact that they don't care for the strict exclusive ship rule where they can only be touchy with their on-screen partner. But Gun is touchy and playful with every GMM guy and that's fine and neat af (even tho they all mainly stay in their official ship constellation as well). Meanwhile there are still so many couple themed ship war fanvideos from fans out there about which couple would be most likely real and which one will sink: OffGun or TayGun 🙄 Like bruh, everyone is Guns pet or cuddle buddy, what are yall not getting? OffGunTay(New + others) love and cherish each other (in whatever way that is does not matter). And Tay AND Off and even New encouraging Gun getting cuddly and kissed by other guys. Off and Tay are literally that "You are doing great sweety" meme when Gun has fun with others. Off being jealous is literally just a playful running gag.

I swear most BL fans are way too innocent and stuck with the oldschool relationship style for this awesome GMM (friend)ship dynamic they are playing with here...

Like look at this pile of TayGunNew while Off takes a photo

I don't know why this post turned from the petgame thing to OffGunTay & GMM polycule but it's basically the same ven diagram. Just everyone gets kisses, flirts and cuddles. As they should.

But it does not have to be the one ship over the other. Each of them literally has two hands 😌

holding hand throuple style 😌

Thanks for coming to my TED talk

Anyways.... A poly drama with them when?? Didn't P'Jojo say he wants to do a drama with Gun but doesn't know what theme? (P'Jojo who did "3 Will Be Free" with Joss and Tay already). Here! This? ✨

EDIT: I had to ad this

[yuurei20]

Riddle Info Compilation part 2: Upbringing (pt2)

At the beginning of Book 4 we see a very subdued Riddle (Grim describes him as “kinda defeated”) in the Hall of Mirrors.

Ace explains that Riddle is not enthusiastic about going home due to “an extreme case of helicopter parenting waiting for him.”

Trey reminds Riddle that he is not allowed in Riddle’s house and thus cannot bring him any cakes, but encourages him to visit his parents’ bakery, assuring him that Chenya will probably be visiting as well.

Riddle says, “I think…I’m going to try talking with Mother some. I don’t know if she’ll listen, but even so.”

In Book 5 it is revealed that Riddle was ultimately not able to escape his home to Trey’s family’s bakery during the vacation.

We learn a little bit more about Riddle’s upbringing during Spectral Soiree when he tells Ruggie and Ortho that he has had “no exposure to the comic books and video games the rest of you enjoy.”

Riddle says that his opinion is “entirely grounded in reality” as a result, and that he has “never had much interest in watching or reading escapist fare. Ah, but I have read a great many autobiographies. By the time I was your age, Ortho, I was already reading medical dictionaries.”

Ortho comments that “there are studies that show consuming entertainment media is essential for well-rounded emotional development,” and Ruggie points out that Ortho—a robot—is worried about Riddle’s emotional growth.

Riddle accuses them of ganging up on him, saying it is none of their business.

Riddle insists that while he is not up to date on popular culture he has “read all the classics that are foundational for a literary education. Treasure hunting? Adventure? There’s no point in bothering with stories that have no lesson to learn.”

Ruggie reacts with surprise, as treasure hunting “is like solving a puzzle,” but Riddle seems confused.

We learn during Book 6 that Riddle didn’t have a TV in his home growing up, and he first tries to opt out of the video game that Ortho encourages him to play on the grounds that his mother has told him that “video games are addictive and can hurt academic performance.”

Idia mocks him for blaming games for his own lack of self control, leaving Riddle momentarily speechless.

Riddle takes offense, insisting that his grades would never drop just because he happened to play a video game, and Idia successfully provokes him into playing the game in order to prove it.

Vil comments that Riddle playing right into Idia’s hands is “embarrassing to watch” and Azul says, “Riddle’s very bright, but has zero resistance to trolling.”

Later, Riddle says that he has spent most of his time learning magic ever since he was born, receiving specialized magical training lessons at three years old.

Azul says he must have been quite the prodigy but Riddle explains that he can’t be certain if he ever had any special talent to begin with since his mother “apparently went to every possible length to ensure I’d be an exceptional mage, starting from when I was in the womb.”

Riddle says that grade skipping isn’t really done in the Queendom of Roses, and the private school he attended prior to NRC didn’t allow it,1 which is why he never did so.

He explains, “Besides, you have to be at least 24 to get a medical license in the Queendom of Roses. So I doubt my parents saw much point in me skipping a grade or two.”

Riddle’s education also included dance:

He explains that “social dancing is part of gentlemanly etiquette” and that he has “mastered it, of course.”

He offers to lead Ortho and Ruggie in a dance to thank them for what they taught him during Spectral Soiree, but Ruggie turns him down in favor of the buffet.

We also see Riddle waltzing with a ghost, and then with Vil.

Riddle explains, “I’ve had an interest in social dancing since I was a child. I learned it from my mother, as part of my rigorous education.”

Riddle says he knows how to behave in formal situations and will occasionally call out other characters for poor etiquette, such as when Silver falls asleep during a party and when he scolds Heartlsabyul students for holding conversations in the entrance to the dorm.

[vroomian]

Falling into the modern girl in thedas rabbit hole again lol.

I want to do a human girl(?)/solas thing. She’s not important to the inquisition, and mostly works as a seamstress, and occasionally as a cook.

she’s highly aloof. I want her to be a foil to solas because she’s so distant from the other people. I personaly think that being stuck in a medieval level world would be unbearable, and I’d have trouble relating to the humans who live like that. I want her highly educated. She’s forgotten more than most people ever knew in the modern world. Putting her among people without even a third grade level education is…. So. She’s bored and she can’t really see the people around her as people and she’s trapped in filthy circumstances and have I mentioned that she’s bored???? It’s be hell to go from a world of constant stimulation to can’t do shit after sunset because it’s too dark.

Anyway she doesn’t really deal with anyone important until the journey to sky hold when she and solas fall together naturally as the quiet kids lol. She’s bored and in pain and can’t even find yarn to keep herself busy so she starts asking solas questions because hey even if he sees her little more than an animal, she sees him as a mildly interesting video game character so it’s like. A perfect match lol.

I also keep using she but I’m pretty sure she’s non binary in my head. Also a mage who learns to shapeshift because magics the one thing she doesn’t already know a lot about. She shifts gender and races and into animals. Anything she can. I think I’ll call her Mouse because she’s so quiet and no one actually knows her real name.

A scene: solas and mouse in skyhold are chilling together in scilence. He’s sketching her something and she’s knitting. Sometimes she sings to herself while she knits, because she’s so used to working to music that the silence gets oppressive sometimes. The song is definitely Follow you into the dark by death cab for cutie.

“Love of mine, some day you will die, but I’ll be close behind, I’ll follow you into the dark —“

But then she cuts herself off because solas has dropped his book, staring at her even paler than normal because: Oh.

This human is mortal. One day she’ll die. All that raw intelligence, all that quiet strength, all that deep contemplation would one day be no more than dust.

Solas leaves without saying anything to her. He has to fix this.

[yonpote]

I need to know why and how you were anti-phannie from 2014-2016

alright here we go i get to talk about THIS shit now.

i was generally anti-rpf at that point, and honestly? i think it was for fair enough reasons as some people were a bit too eager about showing (general) youtubers stories they wrote about them sucking and fucking their friends. i think i was also pretty high and mighty about being a somewhat oldhead phannie tbh, like ugh do these gaming-channel-only people even know about dan being super edgy and offensive 🙄 and lowkey it was a lot of subtly misogynistic "i'm not like other girls" type shit like i was sooo much better than yall cuz i hadn't watched that video (yet.)

i was generally not into these sorts of fandoms to begin with. i wasnt on the superwhopotterlock side, i was on the homestuck/dangan ronpa/anime of the month side of tumblr, if that gives you an idea of what i was like lol. around 2014-15 i was very much in a community that is kinda similar to what you might see on twitter now, where if you had any interests in media that portrayed anything problematic, that means you are in full support of that problematic thing. if dan howell said something racist in 2010, it doesn't matter that he wasn't being racist in 2015 he's still racist and liking him makes you a racist etc. and of course, rpf is included in problematic topics. if you ship real people, even if said people say they don't mind it, you are a sick pervert and you should be in the loony bin for being so depraved. and if you write or read any fiction that has immoral acts, it means you support those acts in real life too and you are trying to normalize abuse and SA (yknow as if whitecishetpatriarchy hasnt normalized that enough) and you're a danger to children and you deserve to rot in prison (yknow as if a queer person writing stories about queer people hasnt heard that one before)

now here's the real kicker. in 2015-2017 i ran a game grumps fan blog where i did talk about shipping the grumps. "wait how were you anti-rpf if-" well have you ever heard of this thing called Lying? or perhaps even, Cognitive Dissonance? i HAD to run a separate blog for this interest, because if my friends knew i consumed slashfic about arin and danny they would stop being friends with me and think im this evil horrible monster etc. genuinely that was where my brain was at, and is a little bit the reason i decided to this day, to make my phannie accounts completely separate from my main accounts.

nowadays, none of my non-phannie friends actually give a fuck and i do occasionally talk about dnp being silly gay white boys w them! at this point i dont post about em on main just out of respect like "hey im sure you dont actually want to hear about british yaoi constantly regardless of our level of friendship so i'll keep it over here okay?"

also, yeah i grew out of thinking consuming media with deplorable acts makes me deplorable. my favorite tv show is hannibal. i know its shocking, but i dont actually support serial killer cannibals. i will say, i dont fuck with "pro/anti" language with regards to what is considered "problematic" or having that be an identity marker. i think that people are free to write fiction as they please so long as its all properly tagged for people who dont enjoy that kind of content to avoid. but i also think there can be and often are problems in the way these stories are written, and yeah if all the romance stories you read growing up involve some sort of force or danger, that CAN normalize this sort of action as inherent to romance stories/real life romance. but i think thats an issue with like, society at large, and it's not on an individual fic writer to be educating teens who read their dead dove fic despite the explicit rating and tags.

TL;DR: BASICALLY. I WAS A DUMBASS KNOW-IT-ALL BUT DW I GOT BETTER.

[omnomnomdomcaps]

A Guide to Language Domming, Pt. III

Tips and Tricks for Language Players  

Hello again, my curious friends! As I wrap up this guide, I wanted to go through a few important tips for any eager ageplayers and their bigs looking to try this out. There’s a lot to think about, it’s fun to think about, so without further ado let’s dive in! 

From accent to attitude to activities, immersion is the key.

When we talk about how to language play, it’s always important to remember why we language play. What we’re doing, after all, is using the power of foreign language to immerse our littles in the feeling of being little, to create an escape from the power, responsibility, and sensation of adult life that’s hard to find anywhere else. That immersive experience is what it’s all about, and that understanding is at the core of how we think about making ourselves the best language doms we can be. 

Your accent matters. Does it have to be perfect? No. It doesn’t even have to be particularly accurate. But being confident in the way you use your words helps sell the fantasy of this different world that you’re creating. You’re not Roger anymore - you’re Rodgrido, or whatever it may be. Think about changing the physicality of how you talk (some great videos on Youtube about this). Think about using a different tone or pitch than you usually do. Immerse yourself in your language, and you’ll be able to immerse your little much easier. 

Your attitude matters. Remember this fantasy that you’re building. You have the rest of your lives to treat your partner like an adult. When you’re language playing, you should treat your little like a little - a little baby who doesn’t know their words yet, who can’t read or write or count, who totally and completely needs you. Talk down to them. Tease them. If they break the rules and speak English, remind them that it’s just baby speak, and that they need to communicate like a grownup if you’re going to understand them. Which they can’t, of course. 

And the activities that you choose matter. With the basics of your fantasy in mind, you can choose appropriate activities to suit your little. Maybe they need to be fed breakfast. Maybe they need to be put down for a nap at some point. In between, they should probably have some age-appropriate cartoons and stories, and some healthy learning too. That could be alphabet blocks to spell basic words, or flashcards to learn names of animals and the sounds they make, or a board game where they learn how to count as you roll the dice and methodically move the game pieces. 

Now, how much learning should they actually be doing? Well, that’s a great question, and it brings up the next important tip:

You can make it educational, but don’t make it hard. 

Occasionally, my little and I will refer to a language domming session as a “lesson.” We say that half-joking, and it’s important to remember - even if your little ends up picking up a few words from the play, you don’t want to push the learning aspect of things too hard, or you can end up creating an environment that just isn’t quite as fun. 

The best way to avoid this is by making it clear throughout the play that your expectations (for what your little is going to learn) are low. If you’re counting, count very slowly, and don’t make your little try to say more than one number at a time. If you’re talking about what sound a dog makes, use your doggiest voice to do it. If your spelling out words with alphabet blocks, treat your little like they don’t know any of the letters. And if your little is able to repeat back any of it, shower them with gold stars and heaps and heaps of patronizing praise.

With that last example, by the way, it’s worth remembering that “alphabet blocks” as an activity is going to be a wildly different experience depending on what language you’re using. And that’s because…

Not every language is created equal.

Whoa there, hold your horses - not going to be any crazy hot takes here. I’m not here to say some languages are superior to others. And even in terms of how easy or hard they are, that depends a lot on your audience and their language background. But different languages do create different dynamics for play, and that should be taken into account. 

In the case of alphabet blocks above, there’s really not much “learning your letters” you can do when it comes to Spanish, German, or French - it’s more about spelling basic words (on the plus side, the blocks themselves are super easy to find). Japanese, with its large syllabaries, can be daunting (but I have seen the blocks, and they’re very cute). Russian and Greek are somewhere in the middle. And Hebrew, with its right-to-left spelling, can be downright trippy. 

And while it’s possible to be gentle or stern in any languages, the same messages are still going to sound and feel very different depending on what they’re delivered in. Italian and French are traditionally seen as romantic, and drive some listeners wild.Spanish might be more familiar, and less exotic, to an American audience, but has a ton of easily accessible children’s media to make up for it. German and Dutch have a reputation for sounding harsh, but may work well for a sterner dom. And so on. 

For many people reading this, though, you’re probably not going to try to learn a new language from scratch to use for play. Still, even if you’re not picking a language based on some criteria, it’s important how the language that you’re bringing to the table is going to sound and feel to your little, and what special advantages and tools it gives you to work with. 

Know when to stop. 

I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating, again, and again, and again. Especially in a kind of play like this, where verbal communication might be limited, and where the intensity of the scenes might make it intimidating to ask for a break, you need to be able to recognize when it’s too much. 

Creating nonverbal cues is one good way to approach this. Make sure you have signals in place that you can send, and made absolutely clear to your little that it is 100% okay, and 100% understood, if they need to send them. 

If you’re trying out language play for the first time, it’s also a good idea to limit the session. Maybe make it last from lunchtime through naptime, so that you can just snap back to English when your little wakes up. Don’t feel like you have to give the full experience in your first go-round.  

Again, this is meant to be a deep and immersive form of ageplay. If you and your little just met on Fetlife and are playing for the first time, maybe it’s a bit much. But if you’re comfortable and ready for it, if you’ve built up a strong bond of trust and clear communication, then…  

Anything is possible with language play! 

Seriously. There are so many exciting activities and experiences that I’ve talked about, and that’s barely scratching the surface of what you can do when you open up play to a new language. 

Maybe your little already has a year or two of high school Spanish or French classes under their belt. Maybe you can use that heavy accent and very limited vocabulary to set up a preschool scenario, and all the teacher-student fun that you can bring with it. 

And why stop at French and Spanish, or Dutch and Polish, or Swahili and Thai? You can set up some wonderful scenarios with Klingon or one of Tolkien’s Elvish languages, if that’s what you’re into. You could even make up your own alien language - though from what I hear, it’s a bit of work.

Language domming doesn’t even have to be an ageplay thing. You could use it for petplay, teaching commands to your pup with lots of repetition and rewards. You could create a scenario where you’re some mysterious foreign kidnapper, tying up your partner as you threaten them with words they can’t understand. Is it my thing? No, not really, but who am I to judge??

Whatever you choose to do with language play, there is a world of possibility at your fingertips. Explore, experience, enjoy. And please, when you’re done, give us every single juicy detail. 

As always, thank you, and keep it kinky. - ONND     

[roguemonsterfucker]

Hello, you can call me Unknown.

This blog is my personal space to reblog monster related content but also some other types of post that I find interesting, amusing, or educational.

Warning: - Do not follow if you’re under 18 or if you want to avoid sexual content! This is an adult space and I reblog NSFW content and talk about NSFW things. - Do not follow if occasional talk of dubcon/noncon and cnc (consensual non-consent) bothers you. - I don’t tag most content.

** All messages sent to my ask box will be published publicly to my blog. Anon is always on if you wish to remain anonymous, but do not send messages to me expecting them to stay private. **

My other blogs: - @unknownthemonster: A personal blog where I talk about dildos and my sexual experiences and sometimes general life things. If you ever need to DM me, that’s the place to do it. - @writingsofwerewolves: My personal writing blog. I post about my characters, I post my writing, and I occasionally reblog relatable writing posts there. - @knotbinary: A NSFW textpost blog. For all your spicy text post needs. - @adrianthevampire: A SFW blog for some of my interests like doll collecting, stuffed animals, and video games. - @apprenticesavageopress: A Savage Opress (from Star Wars) fan blog. - @autistic-thrawn: A Thrawn (from Star Wars) fan blog. - @geneticexperiment: A MewTwo (from Pokemon) fan blog. - @yautjaapologist: A Yautja (from Predator) fan blog. - @teameddiemunson: An Eddie Munson (Stranger Things) fan blog. - @monsterfuckerconfessions: A place for all monster enthusiasts to anonymously share any monster thoughts. - @isthemonstervideocute: I’m not quite sure what I’m doing with this blog yet, but I have it lol. - @shippedwithmonsters: My personal selfship blog. - @imagineyourmonster: An “imagine your f/o” selfship blog for people who only want impersonal selfship posts.

Other websites: - Twitter - Youtube - Pillowfort Personal Account - Pillowfort Community (anyone can join and post to it) - Another Pillowfort Community - AO3

Other info: - I love getting asks! Whether they’re questions for me about general monster stuff or my characters, or if they’re just people gushing about their own interests! My ask box is open and anon is always on! Please feel free to share any thoughts your questions you have! (that goes for pretty much all my blogs btw). - Werewolves are my #1 favorite monster, but you’ll see a wide variety of monster content reblogged here. - I’m over the age of 25 but I won’t give more specifics for privacy reasons. - I’ll add more things to this post as I think of them.

[olivieblake]

hi olivie!! big fan i’m in love with ta6 and am looking forward to reading more of your work. one of my social media platforms (my book / pop culture youtube channel!) has gained an unprecedented # of followers! which is great! i suppose the reason i make youtube videos is for people to watch them… but do you have advice for this scenario? where overnight you suddenly seem to have SO many more eyes on you than normal? how do you deal with the pressure of being an “influencer” when what you’re doing is following your passions & you have gained an audience! it’s a good problem to have, i know. im curious for your take <3 thank you!

oh god well you've come to the right place I guess, in terms of people who went from underrated to overhyped over the course of about 48 hours. it's a blessing of course but also in some ways a burden, especially when it comes to creating art, which is by nature subjectively made and interpreted. so, do I have advice... not really! I actually don't think that internet/social media "fame" (microfame lol) is something the human brain is meant to withstand. with every surge of popularity WILL come a surge of haters, that's just the nature of the game, and while I think you can convince yourself on some level to interpret that as a good thing, it's still hard to shake off the effect of what some people think is appropriate to say, especially in those kinds of volumes. not that this is about me

I think I generally have pretty good boundaries, but I've really gotten to a point where I have to admit to myself that there is no conceivable way to have skin thick enough for everything, shy of psychologically warping in a potentially bad way to cope with it. so, I guess my main piece of advice is: remember what you're doing and why you're doing it. always come back to that, because what you're making isn't for everyone, and therefore inevitably people will criticize or complain. don't forget that the people who interact with you, especially the ones who do so to be negative, are only a fraction of your audience, most of whom are consuming your work silently, and they are only a TINY SLIVER of the actual world, which is filled with people who care about you and want you to succeed. go outside. seriously. literally. turn off your devices and remember where life is actually happening. never create content directed at the haters—it only hurts the people who support you and will never do anything to change or educate the trolls. overalll, my advice is the same advice to my husband, who is occasionally frustrated by the problem students in his classroom. address the person in the room who wants to learn from you. focus on the person who is actually listening, because they're the person you will really, meaningfully reach

[ohnoitstbskyen]

So a bit of personal behind-the-scenes blogging here about YouTube sponsorships, doing creative writing for a job, workloads and stress and burnout.

I am never taking this many sponsorships ever again.

I don't know if there was something in the water in September or if a bunch of marketing budgets just needed to get burned, but at the end of August I started getting a lot more emails than usual from agencies that wanted to purchase sponsorship integrations. I'm sure there's some structural industry-side reason for this that I'm simply not privy to, but from my perspective it was just a flood of emails.

There were the usual ones, of course, the RAID: Shadow Legends sponsorship that I am getting very tired of turning down over and over again, a bit of crypto-nonsense and Play2Earn games which can go get f*d, and then a smattering of things that just kinda don't fit my channel or my audience, like a Chinese-run site doing online coding classes for people who want to emigrate and work in the PRC, or one of those semi-fraudulent "purchase a square foot of land in Scotland and become a Lord, technically!" which are, like, usually just a harmless novelty, but not really fit for my audience.

The way influencer marketing on YouTube works (at least at my level of micro-celebrity) is that companies will contract marketing agencies to run campaigns for them. The agencies bid against each other for contracts, promising to deliver maximum engagement at minimal cost. The company picks an agency and gives them a pile of money to spend on ad-buys. Agencies reach out to influencers en masse (usually through mailing lists and directories of channels above a certain size, listing their general content and likely audience profiles), and ask us how much we charge for a 30-60 second integration.

The marketing agency's objective is to make their budget deliver as many trackable metrics for their client as possible, usually in the form of signups, clicks, website traffic and so on. Some agencies will focus on advertising only with huge names that have massive reach, some will pick out a hundred smaller creators hoping to cast a wider net. Most agencies will do some mix of the two.

So, they email me like "how much for an integration?" and I... have to invent an answer. See, there isn't really a standard rate for any of this. How much is a view on my channel worth? How much return on investment does an ad on my channel generate? I'm just a person, I don't have a market research department, I don't have any education or training in evaluating the effectiveness of advertising. I make video essays about game characters and occasional anime.

The best resource for YouTubers on this subject is... each other. We basically just have to talk to one another, figure out what everyone is charging and try and derive a reasonable rate from that. There isn't a union or a guild, there are no associations or central resources (or even community resources) that set the standards or allow us some form of collective bargaining.

My problem is that most of the peers I talk to don't really do influencer marketing. They stick with ad revenue and Patreon/Twitch subscriptions, or just aren't on the radar of advertisers yet, so I'm flying this one kinda by the seat of my pants.

Ayway, returning to the subject. In September I get a lot more inquiries about sponsorship than usual, which puts me in the very unusual position of turning sponsors down not because their product is a bad fit, or a crypto scam, or RAID: Shadow Legends, but because I simply can't make enough videos fast enough to fill the "order."

I book Squarespace and Skillshare, which are reputable companies whose products I've used myself, which basically fills out my schedule, and then the offers keep coming. I should not have accepted as many as I did.

---

I should say, I've never been poor. I come from a middle class family in a Scandinavian social democracy, there are safety nets under me that most people don't get to have, and I don't ever have to really be afraid of ending up on the street or starving. What I have been is broke. I used to make my living as a commission artist and cartoonist, and spent essentially a decade constantly, constantly dancing right on the very edge of being able to make rent each month. I was chasing a dream of building up a customer base to fund my independent comics work, and... it broke me a little bit. I came down with a very dark depression that I couldn't really deal with, and spent weeks and weeks pulling all-nighters chasing commissions and doing work trying to scratch money together.

YouTube happened entirely by accident, and for all that I've complained about the troubles that come with this work, might have genuinely saved my life a little bit.

I bring this up to say, ever since the YouTube gig started reliably paying my bills, I have had at least a couple of realizations per year of just how anxious and freaked out I still get about money. I still check my online bank obsessively, I still fret over keeping savings and paying bills, I still feel guilt over spending money on non-essentials.

And when I get too many sponsorship offers, I still feel like I should accept all of them, and pull whatever all-nighters it takes to fulfil them, even though I'm not 24 any more and when I tried to do it as a 24 year old it caused a depression that nearly made me suicidal.

Because what if these are the last sponsorships I'll ever get? What if the next sixth months are really bad months and I don't make as much in ad revenue? What if my videos lose steam and the audience moves on? What if everyone gets tired of me? What if someone copyright strikes my channel twelve times out of nowhere and kills it forever?

I haven't been broke in years now. I'm not a wealthy man, but I haven't been broke. I don't have a pension fund, but my bills are paid, and looking rationally at the statistics and analytics I have access to, there is literally no reason to believe it'll all go "poof!" and be gone overnight.

And yet, I feel so guilty about not taking every sponsorship I can ethically take. I feel so guilty about not hoarding money, building savings, protecting myself, "being responsible." And I feel so afraid of that unnamed catastrophe lurking just around the corner, where I'll be punished for my hubris to think that I was ever safe, and thrown right back into that fearful scramble. Right back into that depression.

It's a sticky fear. You scrub and scrub and scrub, and the stain of it just won't come out.

---

I took too many sponsorships in the latter half of this year. This is a champagne problem, there are creatives I know who would kill to get sponsorships at all, and I'm not trying to fish for too much sympathy here. "Oh no, too many people wanted to give you money to read 60 second ads, boo hoo YouTube man, how sad for you" is, like, a valid response to this. I'm not exactly being ground down by the Amazon Fulfilment Center over here. It's not a cry for help, or a plea for support, it's just a blog.

But I took too many sponsorships. I clogged my schedule, and committed myself to a lot of work, and... every other part of my life suffered. I found it harder and harder to spend time with my family, because the next deadline was always on my mind. That knowledge that taking time to do anything else inevitably means a harder rush to finish the work, it means more stress and less space to think, less space to do good work.

Because that's the other anxiety, of course. Having taken these sponsorships, I now feel pretty intensely that I need to make videos that are good enough that my audience doesn't feel taken advantage of, that they feel that the content I put behind the ad was worth the time they took to sit through it. Sponsored videos need to be better, they need to have higher production quality, better scripts, better editing.

So how do you justify taking time to do anything else?

I spent less time with my family, I became less and less able to keep the apartment clean, less and less able to cook, less and less able to even spend time socializing and doing enrichment for my pet rats, which they need for their mental health. And I started to feel the familiar sensation of burnout eating me up from the chest outwards.

I had started taking piano lessons at the local community center, something I've wanted to do for myself for a decade. And I had to cancel those lessons over and over again, and usually last minute, because work just got in the way. Last week I told my teacher that I simply wouldn't be able to make it to them anymore, to cancel the whole thing. And that knocked the wind out of me more than I thought, honestly. That was something I had been so excited to finally do for myself, and it just got bled out in front of me by the workload I couldn't get myself to say no to.

I've dealt with burnout many times before. I know what it is, I know how to recover from it. But I have never learned to stop inflicting it on myself. I am a workaholic, I am addicted to the stress of this sh**, not because I find it pleasurable, but because for ten years the satisfaction of finishing a piece of work and securing the paycheck was the only sense of real relief and catharsis I ever got to feel from my anxiety, and I don't know how to stop chasing that high. When I'm stressed, when I'm anxious, when I'm feeling unsure or unmoored, the only response I know is to drown myself in work. Energy drinks and junk food and too little sleep. I don't have any other real coping mechanisms.

It'll take... a while to fix those things, I think. It's not happening right now. But I am promising myself this, at least: I am never taking this many sponsorships ever again.

[cupcraft]

Welcome to the Cup Blog here since circa 2013 with incidents at a semi-regular pace.

Previously cupsmp

Pfp: @voidless-screaming (link)

Banner: My build

FREE PALESTINE 🇵🇸

^^More links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 6, esims evacuation, aid , gofundmes

Domestic violence resources (US),

I write fic and poetry and post about anime, supernatural, bg3, minecraft, CoVT, other games, post sims builds, variety interests, and sometimes the occasional technoblade art or post :). Currently super hyperfixated on house md and hilson. Sometimes my chronic inniter disease flares up, don't mind the posts.

This has been my main since 2013 so I will always at heart be a variety blogger.

Other Blogs: @cupqueencake (post limit blog), @cup-of-lucario (pokemon sideblog), @steampunkcdplayer (original writing).

Sims 4 Gallery: DispleasedBrick

AO3: cupqueencake

Current Fic WIPs: ?

Old fics: I used to write a ton for dsmp/osmp but all wips are discontinued.

Writing Requests: CLOSED

Banners in order: my sc, ctommy my sc and blissfali's tags, fanart.tv, my sc, mysc, annoyingatfirst quote (daggryet edit)

Name: Cup

Age: 25 - grad student

Pronouns: they/he/she

bi/ace and nonbinary and i prefer masc or neutral terms primarily.

I am autistic I may ask for tone clarification and I often use tone indicators.

I also have auditory processing issues so sometimes I can mishear certain words or misunderstand a sentence -> If i do this with quoting a video/stream/etc let me know!

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Past Zines/Fandom Exchanges: Dreamoire Zine, DSMPPoetryZine, Mcytblr Summer Au 2022, Mcytblr Holiday Fic Exchange 2022

Past Surveys: [DSMP Nicknames]

Incidents: (URL Video, URL Story, the tommy loh url bet, The Mozz Incident, the accusation incident + finale, url bet incident pt 2 + memes if I had one the bet)

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Tagging System:

Honestly its just gonna be cup.whatever. I maintag art/writing. For liveblogs its WHATEVER.liveblog. I do tag commons tws (feel free to ask to me add one!). I also tag discourse/etc. Find my sims builds easily with cup.builds. Find my poetry easily with cup.poems and or with fic cup.fics and or surveys cup.survey. My mutuals tag is tea.cakes and my anon/follower tag is tea.cups. the end!

DNI: Honestly I block bigots and rude people. MCYT fans you are still welcome here just no dream or wilbur soot/lovejoy supporters. Just be normal.

Boundaries on death jokes: I do not need k/ys warnings or death joke warnings on any post, i do not mind if you say it in the tags reblogging from me either. I just ask do not say to "ky/s" even as a joke to me directly.

Fanfiction/writing/art on posts or things i do: You may rec my fics, do fanart/inspired works/webweaves/etc. with my stuff. Please always link it and give me an @/ (for art especially! not necessary for fic rec lists).

Boundary about my graduate program: though i am happy to direct people to resources if i know of any off hand please dont ask me diagnose you in my ask box it makes me very uncomfortable especially because i am not finished my education and do not know you.

[thaumatology]

🚗 CAR — does your oc have a driver's license? can they drive/operate any automobiles/machinery besides cars?

🎮 VIDEO GAME CONTROLLER — what are three of your oc's favorite hobbies?

📚 BOOKS — what level of education has your oc most recently completed/is currently in (GED, undergraduate, grad school, phd, etc)?

🚗: He does, and is a competent but unremarkable driver. He also has some experience piloting a boat, though the larger the boat is the less comfortable he is with it.

🎮: He reads a lot, both fiction and nonfiction. Probably his first instinct if he finds himself with free time and nothing to do with it is to find something to read.

He does play video games, but not a ton, and usually isn't super up to date on the latest popular games, unless there's some outside connection that draws him into them.

He used to play bass guitar, and occasionally he still pulls it out and messes around with it a little, but as he's gotten older he's found himself having less time and energy for it than he used to.

📚: His most recent level of standard education is a masters in biology, which has turned out to be almost completely useless in his job. His magical skills are a mix of mentored and self taught, and he's still working on improving them.