#which. i dont think its too bad? i mean. my blog my rules i guess.

[donsofwaste]

Maaann, I have some art that I wanna post here, but I haven't finished one of them yet as it's still a wip :( aaauuughh. Hashtag so unfortunate

[itsclydebitches]

Please stop putting Rwde in the main tags holy shit. Blocked tags dont work on trending tags

Okay, today we're going to have a talk about curating your own content online. This isn’t the first time I’ve had an anon, somewhat angrily, demand that I stop using the “RWBY” tag and I’m sure it won’t be the last. However, my answer remains the same: No. Sorry. I’m not going to stop. Why?

Because my posts are about RWBY.

In case the above isn’t answer enough, let’s do a quick FAQs.

Why are you using the “RWBY” tag when so many of your posts are critical?

Because, as said, my posts are about RWBY. That’s the subject. I’ve been in the RWBY tumblr fandom for over five years now. I want all my RWBY content accessible in one place on my blog, not divided up between praise posts, critical posts, fanart, fic, etc. If an easy division between the first two is even possible (which it's not). It’s just all RWBY and, oddly enough, when I started reblogging and posting here, I tagged it with “RWBY.” Because that’s the show. My tagging system is far from complex, but I’m not about to re-organize or switch up 228 pages of content.

But we decided a long time ago that critical posts shouldn’t go in the main tag.

That’s ridiculous. People realize that’s ridiculous, right? I mean, I know we've all mostly agreed to observe this self-imposed rule, but that doesn't mean I haven't been raising an eyebrow at it since it first came up. I’ve been in a lot of fandoms and I’ve never seen another that insisted only praise could go in the main tag. When you come on tumblr and want to look up RWBY posts, you expect to get everything about RWBY—any post that deals with that subject. I would stake a great deal on the assumption that there are other posts in the main tag that you dislike, anon, simply because that's how people work. We all don't like the same things and, indeed, in a long-running show with a massive cast, there's going to be stuff we hate too. Ships you can't stand, takes you think are awful, that character you’re just so sick of seeing… yet we don’t exclude other, major subjects from the tag just because certain individuals dislike them. If we did, there would be no “RWBY” search because no one would ever agree on what is and is not allowed.

You have “RWDE” though.

We do! And as evidenced by the post you’re upset with, I use it when I think it's warranted. Here’s the thing about “RWDE” though: no one can agree on that either. Some fans think “RWDE” is solely for the angry, curse-laden posts. Others think it’s only for posts that are 100% critical. Others think it’s for ranting critical posts, not analysis critical posts. Still others think it’s for posts that say anything bad about RWBY, no matter if other parts of the post are complimentary or neutral—with "bad" ranging from "Actively insulting aspects" to "I didn't praise this enough to the individual's liking." It's so subjective as to be almost useless, to the point where "RWDE" posters are currently upset that others are posting critical takes about "RWDE" takes. Where do we draw the lines then? Your guess is as good as mine. But the one time I tried to post solely in “RWDE,” I was getting different anons going, “Omg stop posting in rwde this isn’t rwde!” So… my posts are apparently too critical for “RWBY” and, often, not critical enough for “RWDE.” Fantastic.

Just create your own unique tag then.

On the social media website where we post specifically to have other people interact with our work? You may not like my posts, anon, but other people do. “RWBY” is useful in part because it allows like-minded people to find me. If I only used a unique tag, I’d never come up in searches. Besides, I already do have a unique tag: “mymetas.” Every critical RWBY post of mine has that attached. Thus, it’s your job to blog “RWDE,” “mymetas,” or me entirely.

I tried that though and tumblr’s blocking system didn’t work for [insert reason here]

I really am sorry to hear that, it sucks, but tumblr’s shoddy system is not my fault—nor my responsibility. And now we come to the part about curating our online experience. Sometimes it’s not just about blocking everything because the system itself is flawed. Often you have to go further by scrolling past.

I'm going to say that again because people really need to practice it more on tumblr: scroll past the content you don't like.

If you don’t like a post, don’t read it. If you start reading a post and realize you don’t like it, stop and go find something else you enjoy. Being a responsible fan online often means going, “Huh. I hate that” and moving on, not coming into the author’s inbox to demand that they—impossibly—ensure that you never have to see something you hate ever again. Anon, you spent more time with something you claim to dislike by coming into my inbox to write and send a message demanding that I stop using "RWBY" than you would have by simply ignoring my post and moving on. That tells me you care more about controlling others' online experience than you do managing your own.

But we don’t want to see critical takes in the “RWBY” tag! We come on tumblr because we love the show and it sucks to see people dragging it all the time. I just want to enjoy the show in peace.

A valid stance… and one that doesn’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to RWBY. Between the time I posted about the teaser and the time I saw this ask, two hours had passed and a hundred and four new posts had appeared in “RWBY." I know because I took the time to count. The RWBY critical community is absolutely miniscule compared to the rest of the fandom. There are maybe 2-7 new “RWDE” posts a day, max, and those are coming from a few key blogs that focus on analyzing the show. There is no scenario in which there are so many critical posts that it’s ruining your RWBY time on tumblr, simply because that amount of critical content doesn’t exist. And if seeing a single critical take from my blog—or even 2-4, because that's my own max per day—honestly upsets you to the extent that you can't just move on, you shouldn’t be on a website known for its diverse content and incredibly iffy blocking system. My posts exist in a sea of RWBY excitement, praise, and celebration. It is your job to scroll past, anon, not my job to play a subjective, rigged game to ensure you never brush past a single bit of seaweed in that massive, ever-expanding ocean.

What this argument comes down to is, “You’re not allowed to tag RWBY content with RWBY because I don’t like what you have to say.” Sorry, but that just doesn't work for me.

[desperateground]

since we're doing anti discourse i guess: the antis ive seen on their own blogs (as opposed to other blogs askboxes) seem more concerned with media that portrays pedophilia in a positive light, as that very much can influence people into thinking it isn't THAT bad. If portrayed as the bad thing it is, they dont mind. Personally, do you see a difference in something that goes "heres an adult in love with a child, how sweet" as opposed to "heres an adult in love with a child, isnt that fucked up?"

under a cut cause this got long

I would love to be on the internet where you are, because it sounds a lot more reasonable than the one I live on, where stuff like this just makes me go ???

the thing is that fiction actually does influence people’s perceptions of reality, and we ought to care about that! if a person grows up watching movies where cops break the rules but it’s OK because they’re the good guys; or where stalkerish and manipulative behavior counts as “grand romantic gestures” that obligate a woman to date a man; or where Black people are depicted as uneducated and violent, of course that is going to color their opinions of the world.

and there are a lot of really good conversations being had about issues like that, and we absolutely need to have those conversations about responsible media creation and consumption. this power can be used for good as well as for evil. many people cite shows like Will & Grace as helping turn the tide of public opinion against seeing “homosexuality” as deviant and instead seeing gay people as “normal” and “lovable” and “relatable.” superman was a beloved enough All-American Hero that a storyline where he fights the KKK is credited with helping turn the KKK from a mainstream fraternity into something seen as a fringe hate group.

so i would agree that a giant wave of media with positive depictions of pedophilia would be concerning. 

however, we do not currently live in a world where “here’s an adult in love with a child, how sweet” is a major issue in media narratives such that people are absorbing the attitude that pedophilia is fine, cool, and good.

in fact, pedophilia is such a hated subject that we have a whole political movement in my country based on people calling anyone they dislike a “pedophile” and accusing them of all sorts of depraved shit involving children. most people who have sexual inclinations toward children are fully aware that these desires are at odds with society and that they will become pariahs if these desires were known to others.

(In fact, this level of ostracization can put people at a higher risk of offending, because they feel hopeless, have nowhere to turn for support, and figure if they’re going to be a pariah anyway, they may as well do the one thing they can think of that feels good. Forcing conversations about this to go completely underground means that you end up with awful groups like nambla dominating the conversation and convincing lost, lonely, frightened people to hop on board with their dangerous attitudes. if the only people safe to talk to about this stuff are people who will excuse, justify, encourage, and promote offenses against children, it makes sense that people would end up in their grip. You can read more here and here.)

much of the “media” that these “antis” are up in arms about is fan created content intended for a small population. the people creating content that riles up antis generally recognize that this is not mainstream content and use things like tags and content warnings to set it aside from other content. the notion that certain tropes in fanworks are going to bring about a massive cultural shift is a bizarre slippery-slope argument, and i think people's energy would be better focused on problems that are actually currently existing rather than a potential future where a few tags on ao3 have become dominant themes in network television and blockbuster movies. 

another issue here is that when an “anti” uses the term “pedophilia,” it’s completely unclear what they are actually referring to. a reasonable person would assume that they mean “a sexual relationship between an adult and a child,” but the definitions of “adult,” “child,” and “sexual relationship” have gotten so blurry within this discourse that it’s impossible to determine what’s being discussed. i’ve seen people claim that any relationship is inherently “pedophilic” if the characters have any sort of age gap, if there is any sort of power imbalance, if they both belong to the same “found family,” or even if one looks younger in appearance.

so when someone says “fictional narratives that depict pedophilia in a positive light,” they may actually be referring to “fictional narratives that depict any relationship I don’t like,” which is such a vague and meaningless statement that it becomes completely useless.

finally, your actual question is whether I personally see a difference between stories where the narrative perspective seems to critique the relationship vs stories where the narrative perspective romanticizes the relationship. i think your question is...hard to answer, because there is just too much there.

first off, it’s not always easy to tell whether a story is “vilifying” vs “glamorizing” something. people watch movies like fight club and take away very different thematic messages about whether the protagonist is someone to admire and emulate. if we say that depictions of abuse are only “good” or “allowed” if the narrative clearly portrays the abuse as “fucked up,” then we’re going to have to establish a High Court of AP English Teachers to determine exactly what narrative devices are employed and how, and that’s just...not...workable.

also, some people like the “fucked up”-ness of these stories; if you’re trying to say that something is bad if people “enjoy it” or “get off” on it or “indulge” in the darkness of the content, then it doesn’t matter if the story itself is wagging its finger at the naughty, naughty reader. the taboo, the erotic, and the deviant are, and have always been, wrapped up in each other. you can depict something as “bad” and yet still “fun;” it becomes a useless distinction when talking about sexual content. 

do i personally see a difference, when it comes to my own enjoyment? yeah, absolutely. i stopped watching game of thrones not because it included rape, but because the way the cinematography, musical score, etc. made it clear that the show was expecting me to feel a certain way about those images, and i didn’t appreciate that. i also didn’t appreciate the directorial decision to give more dignity to a dog’s death by cutting to black than to violence against women. i would probably not enjoy a book or movie that’s just about how awesome and fun it is to hurt people; though i did like clockwork orange - i found the narrator abhorrent, but interesting.

but i think trying to split hairs about what does and doesn’t count as Problematic or Allowable Content, or trying to tell people that what they create and/or consume is Bad and they are Bad for doing it, because its inclusion of dark themes is Doing It Wrong - it’s not helpful. it’s impossible to develop a standard for what is “doing it wrong vs doing it right” that makes any sense, and even if you did, enforcing it through campaigns of hatred and social vilification is not going to be effective. 

[robin-hood-for-freedom]

I now present to you, my followers, the single worst article I have ever read.

TLDR: A supposed 'libertarian' is actually defending vaccine mandates.

This is actually so bad, I think its worth a full response:

If the vaccine causes no appreciable injury, can you still refuse to be injected, notwithstanding that you might be visiting significant risks on others?

For starters, thats a BIG 'if.' In fact, we know for a fact that there is a (yes very small, but not nonexistent) risk of serious harm from the vaccine in the short run, and we have no way of knowing if there will be harm 5 years from now.

But beyond that: The idea that not taking the COVID vaccine is 'visiting significant risks on others' is just...not true. Its pretty well accepted at this point that the vaccine doesnt prevent the spread of COVID, it just reduces your chance of having serious problems from it.

And that to me, is why vaccine mandates are dead on arrival. Even if we knew the vaccine was 100% safe(which is isnt), and guaranteed you wouldnt get sick from COVID(which it doesnt), it only protects you, meaning theres no 'externality' to not taking it.

Occasionally, however, advocates of limited government will condone directives to engage in benign activities (even when not cost-free) if failure to do so might cause injury to innocent bystanders. Safety requirements for nuclear power plants would be one example

This is actually a very high-level libertarian question that I dont think I should unpack here(maybe another post). But Its also not really relevant, since not taking a vaccine even if it did reduce the spread of COVID(which again it doesnt) isnt nearly as potentially harmful, nor as clearly intentional as, say building an unshielded nuclear reactor in the middle of a crowded city.

Punishing aggressive acts that have already caused damage is a routine government function. But it’s more complicated when government compels conduct that might minimize or alleviate future harm. That’s an area of the law — endangerment — where rights theory is difficult to apply. How much increased risk do I have to endure before your potentially malign failure to act can be redressed? When rights theory doesn’t provide adequate guidance, defenders of liberty often look to utilitarian, cost-benefit tradeoffs

I'm not sure I actually agree with this. But even if I did, it would have to be in the most cartoonishly extreme cases. Abandoning rights theory in favor of utilitarian cost-benefit analysis in anything less can lead to justifying all kinds of horrific shit. And applied too broadly can justify almost anything.

And, no I dont think refusing to take a vaccine(that doesnt even prevent the spread of COVID) comes anywhere near that level. To quote Jules from Pulp Fiction it ain't the same fuckin' ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same fuckin' sport

vaccine mandates are nothing new. Wyoming, an indisputably conservative state, requires vaccines for 12 diseases if a child wants to attend either public or private school or a care facility, or participate in school-sanctioned activities.

A lot to unpack here:

First I'm against every single aspect of this, not just the vaccine mandates, but all the way down to the very existence of public schools. So this probably isnt the best example.

But even if you want to set that aside: Do you seriously not see a difference between a kid needing a vaccine to go to public school, and an adult needing one to go to the grocery store?

Also, I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that every single one of the diseases kids need to be vaccinated for are more dangerous to them than COVID-19.

Oh and obligatory mention that the COVID vaccine doesnt prevent the spread of the virus.

More vaccinations would have slowed transmission and thereby afforded fewer opportunities for the virus to mutate.

The vaccine doesnt prevent the spread of the virus. So this is just straight up bullshit.

And even if it were true: the delta variant originated in a country(India) that hadnt had access to vaccines due to fuckery by the US government and pharma companies. So maybe you should be going after them instead of people who are understandably skeptical of a new medical treatment that we cant know the long term effects of.

Significantly, based on data from 40 states, persons fully vaccinated accounted for as little as 0.2 to 6 percent of COVID deaths, and 0.1 to 5 percent of hospitalizations.

While this might be argument for getting vaccinated(assuming those numbers are accurate, which I kinda doubt), its not an argument for forcing the vaccine on people. Since the vaccine doesnt prevent the spread of COVID, you arent reducing the risk to anybody but yourself.

Third, can we be sure that a vaccine mandate will remedy the problem? Put differently, haven’t we seen numerous breakthrough cases in which vaccinated persons have nonetheless been infected? Yes, but the key reason breakthrough cases are a growing part of the total is that we’ve vaccinated a higher percentage of the population. Most important, as noted above, people who are fully vaccinated experience far fewer hospitalizations and deaths.

All of this is completely irrelevant since the vaccine doesnt prevent the spread of COVID

Yes I'm getting tired of repeating myself, but this point cannot be emphasized enough: If you're argument for vaccine mandates is that not getting vaccinated poses a threat to others, then the fact that the vaccine dosnt prevent the spread kills your argument before it even begins.

Perhaps we should just wear masks and maintain social distancing. But the consensus is that the vaccine would still be necessary, and far more effective.

Funny thing, the CDC is saying masks and social distancing are necessary even with the vaccine because(say it with me now) the vaccine doesnt prevent the spread of COVID.

Perhaps natural immunity from contracting the disease is stronger than vaccine-induced immunity. But most studies say otherwise.

I feel like I should point out here that I've seen a lot of arguments from people on both sides of this question. And I dont have enough knowldge of immunology to be able to judge which is the correct position.

Although it wouldnt really matter if the vaccine were more effective than natural immunity, since it doesnt prevent the spread of COVID.

Perhaps a vaccine mandate can be geographically or demographically constrained. That’s an obvious consideration, which suggests that local officials be given substantial discretion in establishing the scope of any mandate.

I suppose that would be better than a national mandate. But even that much would be unjustified since the vaccine doesnt prevent the spread of COVID.

Or perhaps vaccinations could remain optional, but with restricted access to selected activities by the unvaccinated. That notion — a vaccine “passport” — has the support of nearly 82 percent of Americans, according to a recent survey.

In other news: 82% of Americans are morons who dont realize the vaccine doesnt prevent the spread of COVID.

(okay but seriously, given that almost half of all Americans arent vaccinated, I have to question the methodology of this survey).

 we are in the midst of a health emergency, which means that suitably modified, narrowly-tailored, time-limited rules may be justified.

This is a one-time thing because we are in the middle of an emergency is the justification for nearly every tyrannical act ever undertaken by governments. And to hear it coming from a supposed 'libertarian' is equal parts terrifying and nauseating.

Oh and the vaccine doesnt prevent the spread of COVID.

[some-jw-things]

if you dont mind explaining, what did the organisation do that it gives you such reaction? im not jw/exjw myself, im just following this blog because i wanna keep myself educated on all sorts of issues, but if you dont want to its absolutely fine

I mean Jehovahs Witnesses are blatantly a cult. That’s been explained pretty thoroughly by a lot of people.

I guess “this organization is a cult” can be hard to understand what that actually means. On a personal level, it defined my entire life. When I introduced myself to new people, the first thing I said was that I was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It was my entire identity. I actually think of myself back when I still believed in it as a completely different person than who I am now. I consider my old self to be dead, and so does my family.

When I told them I wanted to leave the cult, they mourned me. They cried for months. They raged and got angry. My sister refused to even look at me for days. In the span of one sentence, I lost my whole family, all of my friends, and my entire community. I was shunned, and they blamed me for abandoning them.

And I knew that would happen. They had always made it perfectly clear that love was conditional. I was told flat out— multiple times— that I would get kicked out of the house if I got disfellowshipped. My dad told me as a child that he would stop supporting me if I ever went to college, because every Witness he knows who’s ever gone has left the Truth. He also told me that the day I turned eighteen he would make me pay rent to keep living in his house unless I was preaching full time. All of that later turned out to be empty threats and a doctor told me that last part was actually illegal, but my family made sure I grew up believing it.

I was only loved so long as I followed the rules. This is standard practice for Jehovah’s Witnesses. I am lucky I got off as light as I did and wasn’t kicked out on the street. Even that only happened due to a technicality and how obviously mentally ill I was at that point.

Jehovah’s Witnesses’ theology is the reason I started self-harming. I was afab and when I was fifteen I spent a month asking why God thought women were innately lesser than men. That culminated in a big family discussion where I got anxious enough to start scratching at my lip over and over until I had a massive gash. My family watched. My mother made a token protest that I listened to for about three seconds. I walked away from that conversation with the knowledge that I needed to keep my mouth shut because certain questions were actually not allowed and a brand new bad habit.

I created an entire system for myself based on rigid discipline and punishment and the idea that any mistake meant I didn’t deserve to feel un-miserable, which is exactly the sort of mentality that this all-or-nothing religious purism breeds.

I was institutionalized in hospital psychiatric wards four times in the year after I left, and one more time about a year after that. The high school attempted to put me in foster care then, out of concern for my safety if I continued living in that environment. My mother supported the idea

The first time I remember sincerely contemplating suicide was when I was thirteen. My thoughts then were just that I figured I would never be able to hold off killing myself long enough to live to be eighteen. I felt trapped. I was specifically thinking I would never have the guts to be able to pry myself out of the Org and so I would be stuck in it forever. The JW lifestyle is miserable in a way I can’t express

I have comforted my little sister while she’s had a break down crying in the bathroom during meeting because the talk was about Armageddon and she didn’t think our dad would make it into Paradise. She had to stop attending public school because of panic attacks. She was suicidal too at one point, but our mom thought she wasn’t as bad as me and therefore was making it up for attention

Jehovah’s Witnesses by and large treat mental illness with prayer and talking to the elders. The majority of teenage girls in my congregation had severe unaddressed issues. The Society has whole articles on how sometimes the answer IS demonic possession. Their version of Paradise is a eugenics fantasy

At one point an elder comforted my family by telling them that Jehovah likely didn’t view my choice to leave as legitimate due to my mental issues. They have official articles calling all apostates “mentally diseased,” and how am I supposed to argue why that’s wrong?

The majority of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ teachings are bigoted and hateful. They have a cute little kids cartoon that compares the evil gays to terrorists. I was taught the mark of Cain and curse of Esau were responsible for the existence of other races. JW women are required to submit to their husbands and fathers no matter what, and divorce is a sin that will get you shunned. Trans people are forced to live as their agab, gay people have to remain celibate and never date. The elders reserve the right to out you to whoever they want, whenever they want.

There have been so many talks that have sent me running off somewhere private to cry and panic

There’s this little girl in the hall who was friends with my sister. She had needed a blood transfusion when she was a baby. Her parents had been willing to let her die, but the courts stepped in and took her away for a few days. She was given the blood transfusion, lived, and at thirteen had a crying breakdown in the middle of the hall because the talk had just said she would never make it into Paradise now. Usually though, if you’re old enough to speak for yourself, they let you die

My parents have had three bankruptcies and they mock me for saving money. They live as if the world is going to end at any moment. There’s no such thing as a future

The world has been about to end since my grandma was little. That’s a running joke. She’s lived through more changes to the Org than I’ll ever know about. My family has been ruthlessly controlled by this organization for generations. My family aren’t allowed to accept me even if they wanted to. I’ve seen this Org ruin so many people’s lives in a whole variety of ways. Three other kids I grew up with have been disfellowshipped since becoming adults. There are others who I don’t think could leave unless they literally ran away in secret

JW ideology loans itself to a certain style of parenting and that has consequences. They control every aspect of members’ lives. Behavior, dress, speech, career, free time, friends, which family you’re allowed to see, what media you can consume. The thoughts you are allowed to have. I’ve been sent into a spiraling panic before over the idea that “I shouldn’t be thinking that”

The Org barred outside ideas and all criticism. They forcibly kept me in the dark. Members are intentionally isolated from not just all outsiders, but also all outside opinions. I was raised in a way intended to make me an outcast everywhere but within the Org. I was told never to read about Jehovah’s Witnesses from any writer other than the Society itself. I was told never to listen to its critics. I was told that reading forbidden books would get me possessed by demons

The Society controlled and defined my entire life and somehow still manages to do so even after I’ve left. Every member I know has been hurt by it. I’m just the one who won’t forgive

[cynical-amphisbaenia]

yes hello amygda i've been lurking here for quite some time and it's lovely but honestly i don't feel like saying the usual wOw YoUr BlOg Is 100% GuD and i AdOrE iT stuff. i mean your blog actually is and i do but it almost feels obligatory when every single ClasspectMe ask does that. and le oops, i spilled it - it'd be nice to hear your ideas about my Mythological Role! i've been searching for the right one for some time now. i trust your knowledge, though.

anyway personality is the first thing i want to describe. and the hardest one as well. you see, a common thing in my life is that i can't remember anything. like literally i remember less than 1% of everything that happened to me, ever. it's easier to describe what i was feeling than what actually happened. it's a genetic thing iirc because my mom has that too, but that's beside the point. i'm quite a talkative person and i tend to do the thing i did like a sentence before a lot. i used to be described as "impulsive and agressive" but that isn't true anymore, i can contain myself. that's probably the thing that led to my emotions being kind of, uh, separate from my mind. by that i mean i actually know i felt something a little bit after the fact, i just, i dunno, ignore it so hard i don't even acknowledge the feeling. that led to me joking about "selling my soul to a demon" as an explanation and the joke is still running

i kind of roleplay an arrogant piece of shit? not as a Knight-type persona but like for fun and not actually annoying anyone too much, and basically everyone knows i do. no self-worth problems though

surprisingly i don't have any problems typical for people my age and my family isn't a bunch of assholes, which has both led me to living a life in "easy mode" and to me being spoiled enough not to give a shit about basically anything. it's not a depressed thing: there are little to none things that motivate me besides "i have to" and "i'll literally die if i won't", and even the ones that exist don't seem to have any relation to one another. i'd say i'm an ambivert, but that would imply that i get energy from both being alone and from being with people, and i don't get it at all. i'd also say i'm a pessimist, but honestly i'm just an optimist that tries really hard to be pessimistic and it really shows sometimes, like when i tell my friends some edgy sarcastic shit and then help someone for no reason or give a stranger a chocolate bar or something. i do that a lot for my actual friends though and i actually have no problem making friendos and opening up to anyone

i use mutedHypocrisy as my chumhandle-ish nickname because 1. i don't really judge anyone out loud? i have are a lot of bUdDiEs with DEBATABLE opinions but i just don't discuss it almost ever, keeping to myself. not really a reason for this. and 2. because of my extremely unique memory i usually dont havr or don't remember any opinions of my own except for some really important ones, which had led me to saying two opposite takes on the same thing to a single person, them going "what the fuck", and that happened more than a single time.

on to symbols. well, the tarot cards mark me as The Star and my fate as a fate of The Fool. which is shown by me being, well, talented enough and having a lot of freedom but not enough ambition to really use it, making me basically useless. also the star thing? its number is 17 and the one before is 16, which is the Tower, which is a fucking cataclysm, and the thing is me being a few hours away from being born under "the tower" is also reflected in the situation in which i was born. i won't elaborate though cuz thats personal shit.

i guess fate kind of likes playing with me? in a friendly way. like i'm always in the best circumstances possible BUT i get trolled by luck along the way. like that friend who pranks you a lot but is actually a nice person and is fun to be around, the world around me feels, as i already said, "easy mode". a lot of people have it worse. i feel bad because i've got everything one could ever want but zero motivation and ambition to do things. and it's not even a "willpower" problem, because that thing helps me do A LOT and is the only reason i'm still functional.

i seem to have an affinity for the things i hate, even though this sounds stupid as fuck. i may despise something completely but i'll be like the meme about a guy who says "disgusting" and keeps looking anyway.

i perceive things as a play, making myself a fourth-wall-breaker type of character. i don't think i take it too seriously but that's kinda fun. i think it started when i noticed that my life and the projects i participate in have some patterns that don't change at all. it's not a thing about some situations always being the same, it's some specific things -- the beginnings and endings of ppl's relationships in the friend group, their roles there and my relationships with the people on em, for example. that's some conspiracy theorist shit right there though.

i don't think i can describe my arcs? i don't remember them. like i mean i was literally babied throughout my whole life, even if not in a way i hate or in an overbearing/limiting way. i had some anger issues and despised rules, but that's a teenager thing mostly -- i respect them now for the most part.

if there's anything important i forgot please tell me!!! can't describe my own ass right if i don't remember 95% of my life. love your work anyway.

Well, as much as it's appreciated, it's definitely not obligatory! And I hope no one feels that it is. Now, there's a few possible options. The main things to consider are Rogue or Mage of Heart and Heir or Maid of Mind, though you may also want to consider Void or Breath as the aspects.

You lack Heart in various ways, though not completely. You still try to take on various opinions or roles. This could be due to being a Rogue of Heart. Rogues tend to lack their aspects, and the taking on of opinions/roles could be stealing Heart. You do seem to focus on things like emotions and relationships, and especially your lack of motivation. Mages can also lack their aspect, but this tends to cause them to suffer - you don’t appear to focus on suffering too much, so it’s not as likely as Rogue. However, if you feel that you attempt to experience Heart to learn about it rather than simply just taking it on, then you might want to consider it. 

Alternatively, you could be an Heir of Mind - this is less likely as you only seem to have focus on the roles and adaptability of Mind while you focus on many more parts of Heart. However, if you were so caught up in those things like an Heir could be, it might explain why you ignore those things and lack parts of Heart as well. A Maid is also likely to get caught up serving only particular parts of their aspect - again, this is less likely than Heir as you seem to change Mind rather than create it, but you might feel differently on this. 

To decide between the Heart or Mind would depend on how you define things like your roleplay - does it feel like an exploration and taking (or experiencing) of Heart or does it feel like a changing/creating of roles which would suit Mind?

You could also consider Void if it feels like the circumstances of your life causes you to live in confusion and if it feels like your lack of memory is the main focus rather than it causing you to miss parts of Heart. Reading what you gave me it doesn’t seem to be the case, but you could decide otherwise. In a similar way, Breath could be an option if you feel disconnected from things, especially as you do focus a bit on freedom. For both of these aspects you could consider Heir, Maid or Mage as an option, especially as with Breath you’re clearly not connected to parts of it like motivation.

Hopefully this helps! Sorry it’s a lot of options, so feel free to ask me anything to help you narrow it down. ^^

[incarnateirony]

Hey dude! Do you have any recommendations for LGBTQ+ movies in the romance genre that have like a happy ending. I really don't care how old they are. I'm feeling the Gay™ hence I need the Gay™. You feel me?

HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII NONNIE

First sorry for taking so long, not only did I have to timeline this :) but :) my computer :) froze :) after writing like :) 2 pages :) and I had to do it again :)

So anyway let it be said, the LGBT dialogue is one of osmosis and shared growth and awareness. Some of these films will be very poorly dated, but as you (thankfully) mentioned that them being old wasn’t a *problem*, expect a lot of old stuff. Because one of the most important things to have under your belt when talking about the LGBT media representation battle is the actual journey from A to B – be that incrementalization, subtextual inclusion, text-breeching features, outright evocative and groundbreaking films at the time (which is what MOST of this list will be) and an improvement in our dialogue; let us never forget that while tr*nss*xual is considered a slur and transgender is proper, tr*nss*xual was at one point the politically correct way to speak it – things like that breach in our growing understanding of the spectrum of human sexuality. 

I *WILL* disclaimer these aren’t all romance, so if you explicitly want romance, google them and take a look if it sounds to appeal, but I’m taking this as a general cinema history plug considering what a confused mess fandom conversation about LGBT history in film or modern text as applicable, accepted or not.

Wonder Bar (1936) (I wouldn’t really call this queer cinema, but if you have the time to watch it too, I think it was the first explicit mention of homosexual engagement even if it was fleetingly brief. You might even call it Last Call style. A blink and you’ll miss it plug that was still decades ahead of its time)

Sylvia Scarlet (1936) (Again, I wouldn’t call this queer cinema, but a lot of the community takes it as the first potential trans representation on TV due to the lead literally swapping gender presentation, even if the presentation is… not what we would modernly call representation IMO)

Un Chant d'Amour (1950) (Worth it for the sheer fact that it pissed off fundies so bad they took it all the way to the US supreme court to get it declared obscene.)

The Children’s Hour (1961) (also known as the 1961 lesson to “don’t be a gossipy, outting bitch”)

Victim (1961) (The first english film to use the word “homosexual” and to focus explicitly on gay sexuality. People might look on it disdainfully from modern lenses, but it really helped progress british understanding of homosexuality)

Scorpio Rising (1964) (Lmao this one deadass got taken to court when it pissed people off and California had to rule that it didn’t count as obscene bc it had social value, worth it for the history if nothing else)

Theorem (1968) (Because who doesn’t wanna watch a 60s flick about a bisexual angel, modern issues and associations be damned)

The Killing of Sister George (1968) (by the makers of What Ever Happened To Baby Jane)

Midnight Cowboy (1969) (…have I had sassy contagonists in RP make a Dean joke off of this more than once, maybe)

Fellini-Satyricon (1969) (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA THIS)

The Boys in the Band (1970) (This… this… this made a lot of fuss. Just remember leather)

Pink Narcissus (1971) (a labor of love shot on someone’s personal camera)

Death in Venice (1971) (This is basically a T&S prequel but whatever, based on a much older book)

Cabaret (1972) 

Pink Flamingos (1972) (SHIT’S WILD)

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) (The title doesn’t lie, be warned)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) [god I hope you’ve at least seen this]

Fox and His Friends (1975) (some really hard lessons that are still viable today, that just because someone acknowledges your sexuality doesn’t mean they give a shit about you as a person, and that some will even abuse the knowledge for gain)

The Terence Davies Trilogy (1983) (REALLY interesting history look it up, it’s sort of one of those “drawn from own experience” story short sets)

The Times of Harvey Milk (1984) (Documentary)

Desert Hearts (1985) (Pretty much the first film to put lesbianism into a good light as a true focus based on a novel from the sixties)

Parting Glances (1986) (the only film its creator got out before his death from the aids epidemic)

Law of Desire (1987) (two men and a trans woman in a love triangle, kinda ahead of its time)

Maurice (1987) (This one’s really interesting, cuz it was based on a book made about 15 years before it, but the book itself had been written half a century earlier and wasn’t published until after the guy died, he just thought it’d never get published Cuz Gay, so basically it’s based on a story written in like, the 20s finally getting screen time. It has a bittersweet but positive-leaning-ish ending without disregarding the cost that can come with it and even addresses class issues at the same time 100% DO RECOMMEND)

Tongues Untied (1989) (a documentary to give voices to LGBT black men) 

Longtime Companion (1990) (This one’s title alone is history, based on a NYT phrasing for how they talked about people’s partners dying, eg longtime companion, during the AIDS epidemic)

Paris Is Burning (1990) (Drag culture and related sexual and gender identity exploration as it intersected with class issues and other privileges explored in a documentary)

The Crying Game (1992)( I should correct this that I guess it’s more, 1992 considered, “SURPRISE, DIL HAS A DILL!” – I guess I really didn’t do that summary justice by modern language and dialogue as much as how people in the 90s were talking about that and that’s a my bad. LIKE. SEE, EVEN I CAN FUCK UP MY LANGUAGE I’M SORRY CAN I BLAME THE STRAIGHTS T_T) #90skidproblems – I guess I should call it a trans film. And this alone tells me I should go watch it again to recode it in my brain modernly rather than like circa de la 2000 understanding.

The Bird Cage (1996) (So you mix drag culture, otherwise heterosexually connected lovebirds, and then realize the girl comes from an alt-rightish house and the guy comes from a Two Dads Home and does cabaret, how to deal with the issues OF this conflict when it’s between you and your happiness, even if the fight isn’t even your own as much as it is that of the person you love. The answer is PROBABLY NOT to dress in drag and pretend to be straight, but what are you going to do? – while played for laughs we’d consider modernly crude, the fact that they even dared to approach this narrative was pretty loud)

The Celluloid Closet (1996) (Ever heard of the Vito Russo test for LGBT representation? This is based on a book by Vito Russo.)

Happy Together (1997) (Ain’t this shit an ironic name; a mutual narrative, via chinese flick, of hong kong ceding to china and an irrevocably tangled MLM pairing as a giant mirrored metaphor)

Boys Don’t Cry (1999) (one of the most groundbreaking films about trans identity at the time)

Stranger Inside (2001) (As easy as it is to recoil to the idea of “black gays in jail”, the film makers actually went and consulted prisoners and put a great deal of focus into intersectional african american issues that really weren’t around even in straight films at the time)

Transamerica (2005) (While it made a bit of a fuss for not casting an actual trans actor, it was one of the first times a big budget studio really tried to tackle it which really pushed us forward)

Call Me by Your Name (2017) (since I’ve apparently leaned really heavy old cinema throw in a modern one lmaooooo)

Also honorable The Kids Are All Right (2010) mention for the sake of the fucking title alone. 

And to any incarnation of “On the Road” by Kerouac, which

Was originally a book

Released a sanitized de-gayed edition because of the times

Later released the full homo manuscript

had a few film adaptations

Was one of Kripke’s founding inspirations for Supernatural once he left behind “Some reporter guy chases stories” and took the formula of Sal and Dean (and tbh later, Carlo) in a beat generation vibe gone modern as we know it today.

Reading both versions of this can actually help some folks currently understand that when you get confused over some shit (WHY IS CARLO SO UPSET? WHY IS HE ACTING LIKE AN UPSET GIRLFRIEND??? WHY IS HE SO JEALOUS AND SAD WHEN DEAN IS AROUND GIRLS???? WE JUST DONT KNOWWWWWWWWWWWWW) it’s because some big money asshat bleached the content, and sometimes, it takes a while for the full script to come out and again, surprise, it’s been GAY, they just didn’t want to OFFEND anybody. *jazz hands*

Now if you wanna go WAY WAY BACK, during 191X years, a bunch of gender role flicks came out like Charley’s Aunt, Mabel’s Blunder and the Florida Enchantment.

Also where is @thecoffeebrain-blog to yell about the necessity of watching Oz, for the next few hours? But no, seriously, just look into the entire LGBT *HISTORY* of Oz.

Beyond that though I’m gonna stop here cuz hi that’s a lot. I really don’t know how much counts as “happy ending” but if I had to give an LGBT cinema rec list, that’s it as a sum. I don’t really have like, a big portfolio of UWU HAPPY ENDING GAYS because 1. there aren’t a lot of those but 2. to me, it’s not about the ending, it’s about the journey. Be that in flick or through culture and history itself.

If you want more happy ending stuff, you definitely have to look at 2010+, but it’s not like we’re in a rich and fertile landscape yet so honestly just googling that would probably serve you better since I don’t explicitly explore romance genre or happy endings to really have a collection. LGBT life is hard and film often reflects that if we’re making genuine statements about it and really representing it, and we’re just now getting to a point of reliably having the chance at a happy ending. That or maybe someone can add like “Explicit happy endings” lists after this that has more experience in that subgenre.

Also, I can’t emphasize ENOUGH to remember what was progressive then is not what is progressive now, and frankly, what some people think is progressive now they’ll probably look back on what they said and feel really fuckin’ embarrassed. See: “It’s not text because by alt right homophobic dialogue, M/M sex isn’t gay if you do the secret handshake” MGTOW kinda crazy ass dialogue or parallel narratives they inspire that encourage self-closeting and denial based on the pure idea that being gay makes you somehow lesser, so It’s Not That. Like. I am. 99% sure. At least half of the people talking in this fandom. Are going to regret that the internet is forever. And maybe hope hosting servers end in the inevitable nuclear war that will annihilate this planet.

Also, edit: Speaking of mistaken dialogues and words aging poorly, I’d like to apologize from the poor description I rendered “The Crying Game” with, but that really goes to show how deep-seated the issue is we can so casually fuck up identifying a trans narrative as SURPRISE DICK IS GAY when we were all absorbing the content like 20+ years ago and HOW HARD it can be to de-code yourself from that kind of programming because here I am, writing a giant assed rep post and fucking it up because my brain hadn’t soaked that movie since Y2K. Guess what, time for me to go watch the Crying Game again.

[bma-2020]

Okiedok here’s the delio. I have a list of all the blogs from the last six months who’s actively either responded to a meme i sent, responded to a message ive sent, replied to something regarding mally herself, has actually written with me, written a starter for me from my liking a starter call, has at least liked a starter i wrote for them to awknowedge it exists, all that jazz, i have a lot of open field so it’s not just a possible tumblr didnt let them no option anymore, because i send memes to everyone who posts them that i see. I reply to most peoples ooc posts. I like most starter calls I pass by. I try my darndest to actually interact bc i know how it feels to be ignored and its… i’ve been called one before so i’m using the word, thats fluffing cunty behavior, and honestly if you complain about not being interacted with but never even try when i try with you, ya being cunty, end of. I gotta list. That list only entails Mally because she’s who I care about the most. I’m probably gonna start instilling a new rule in all my blogs that if you ignore Mally and/or Darcy( @tasedandconfused ), since I would say they’re my two main blogs tho darcy gets ignored even more than mally does, probably bc i denied canon and left it entirely we know fandom hates that, if either of them is ignored then… Ya out of luck, I’m gonna unfollow you. I’m debating soft blocking everyone who ignored me on both of them but I don’t want to like be mean and deny the chance to eventually try again but at the same time i shouldnt feel bad for taking a stand and saying this is bullsheet, idk my anxiety says im awful for giving a fluff about myself but also i should give a fluff about myself probably, ive nearly died in the last three months, my brain almost exploded, i just had three root canals on one corner of my face, i have to potentially get surgery on my inner ear which i cant even afford, i dont got time to deal with only being used for like smut memes or like as a resource blog or utter bs like that, i dont got time for it. So new rules here. 1: If Mally or Darcy are not acknowledged, written with, responded to, viewed as more than just their fluffing bodies? ya dropped, im unfollowing, potentially soft blocking, which means blocking and unblocking for those not in the know, on all accounts I follow you on. Every single one. I know most of my muses are on sideblogs but despite not being able to send memes from sideblogs you can block people from sideblogs fun fact, i will do that if i have to. 2: I’m gonna be posting SCs, PCs, memes, etc. I like and respond to plotting calls, starter calls, i send memes, all of that. If I don’t get any response within.. I’m giving one week for people who don’t run on a queue and a month and a half to people on a queue based system, if i dont get anything within that time like at least an im being like ‘its posted’ or ‘its queued i wanted to let you know in case tumblrs a fluffbutt’ (i do this sometimes if i dont get even just a like on the starters i post so i at least know people saw it since i know tumblrs bs, i wait until the day they’re active to do so in case theyre busy yknow) basically i need acknowledgment at all. No you can’t claim this is abt follower count bc when you unfollow someone they inevitably unfollow you too, thats gonna drop my following, not as quickly as soft blocking would but i wanna be fair i guess, which leads to: 3: I’m basing this on your activity too, like if i like a think and you’re gone for a month after that its fine, im not gonna unfollow you unless you never come back or youre online and posting others just not mine because that tells me youre specifically ignoring me and im gonna drop you for that end of. I’m done with the bullsheet im done w the dillish behavior, i love friendship but if im giving and never receiving thats extremely one way and not gonna work. I check through my follow list weekly and i go back about five-10 pages on someones feed before i unfollow them to see their actual activity and see if theyre here or if its a q so. I’m thorough basically. 4: You dont have to be active with me on all your blogs, i mean i’d prefer it but thats hard as fluff so essentially if you have like five blogs and are just like trying w me on two or three thats fine. Ten blogs, four or five with at least a plot formed is cool. Multis just one muse is all I’d need. I’m not gonna unfollow the blogs youre not writing w me on if you at least write w me on some. Again, specifically Mally and/or Darcy. If you ignore both of them, we’re done. I havent been active on darcy because of being ignored and its a huge butt mess and im just tired i wanna use my babies, you don’t get to have my ‘better’ muses like i know a lot of ppl only follow me for my boys or my villains, you don’t get them if you ignore my baby. But, there is a limit there too. 5: If you never respond to a meme or thread even once with Mally or Darcy, or post a starter, i reply, its never replied to again after a month, I’m unfollowing and/or soft blocking for that too. Bc that means youre just raising my hopes to fluff with me or get someone else and honestly, youre even more cunty than than the people just flat out ignoring me if you do that. And this isnt a specific person, this is five of the people actually on my list. Yes, my list is also annotated with specifics again I was very thorough on this yesterday, I hyperfixated I’ll admit it, I’m in a fluffing depressionary bubble and being told to get over it because people want something they dont deserve to have to. I am a believer that people deserve good things but if youre purposefully being cunty… no you dont. 6: No I’m not releasing my list, maybe I will and I’ll omit the urls because I don’t want people being buttholes to each other too but otherwise, yall not seeing it im not giving a callout because… really thats just unnecessary here. I don’t think yall are toxic people or something i just think yall are unintentionally being cunty. And no I don’t mean everyone that follows me i mean the ppl that add up to what i’ve documented so far and fit the bill of butthat that i’ve shown, its behaviors yall gotta check before ya wreck. Yes there will be some people who have priority, everyone has those people, I write w kathryn on other platforms since she doesnt go on here as often but when Kathryn returns from war here (if she does cause she also agrees most ppl on this platform are cunty, i feel really bad saying that word so often but im gonna keep doing it i recently deleted an ask saying I was a huge cunt for not sending someone smut memes when I didn’t even follow them or know they existed so, again the travesty of this place is nutballers) same with owly, alex is here too, my most active partners are always going to be priority because theyre the ones who show the most interest and the most care. I understand that with others as well which is why I have the timeframe set up, because I want to be as open and shizz as possible while atill being firm i guess. I don’t want to have extreme double standards like its impossible for double standards not to exist at least a little bit but I want to avoid a golden chest full of them I guess. 7: I don’t have a seven rn, this was an even number and it bothered me. Seven is nust my warning that I’m bittery writing this on mobile so formatting is not real but i tried my dandest to make this look like something people might actually mind. I dont want to be butty, i dont want to be awful, i dont want to start drama or have drama but that shizz comes around anyways so i might as well make my space as okay for me as i can cause im supposed to avoid stress so my brain doesnt almost explode again, like again i almost fluffing died i dont need ppl fake being my friend or anything, i want stuff to be real and clear. I want to be happy to be on here again and have fun like i used to since my health is plummetting and I’m not allowed to go outside near plants by myself anymore because i welt up. I have plants outside my work place and im surrounded by chemicals all day long I’m welted from here to new york constantly and never comfortable in my own skin because of it and constantly see people online acting like these actual real problems are pretentious because ‘its an excuse’ when, im a fluffing sagittarius, do you know how much i want to magically be a millionaire so i can pay for friends and my own medical stuff and go on traveling and adventures, be outside probably not camping bc as a pagan i know thats a death sentence but like be outside, lay on grass, go back to swimming because i used to swim competitively and due to health reasons i can barely even go in a pool anymore because theres too much sunlight which, bit plot twist i know, im fluffing allergic to vitamin D and the rays of the sun, so go figure, attempts to be healthy kill me more, i also cant eat most plants and am constantly dying from just eating food, they dont know whats wrong with me. i cant fix it by going ve/gan for a month inf act i tried and it almost made my heart stop thanks society. These arent excuses these are the lives of disabled and diseased and to a lesser but still very real point, ethnic lives every fluffing day. This is real shit and its murder and online and gaming? It may be all I have soon since I can’t just go out and make new friends cause, again, I’d fluffing die. I get sick going to the mall or the movie theater, I miss theme parks so much but have to minimize it to weeks i dont have work so i dont get fired for having a welt while working in the beauty industry. I may have to get a degree online and change my field entirely because of my illness that nobody understands. People even make fun of it constantly online and I wish I could just drop online entirely because of how unbelievably ableist the entirety of the world is, i wish i could drop humans in general for their ableism, but i cant. I don’t have choices in most cases, but throwing away people who maybe purposefully maybe unintentionally thats why i’m giving you this warning and will be repeating this warning for awhile, this is where i have choice. I have to use what little choice I have in life while I can since everytime i go to movies or a concert or a theme park i almost die because of not having an immune system that functions or being in certain air qualities pr being near plants or unclean people, I may not have much time and I gotta do whats best for what little mental health I have, and if that means dropping people i care about and really want to write with and do things with but who ignore me then, i guess so be it.

[captain-aralias]

Fanfic year in review - 2019

yeah - i’m going to answer all these questions too. just watch me. 

List of Completed Fics this year:

Keep Calm (Carry On, S/B and ensemble, Teen, 69k)

Sex and Blood (Carry On, S/B, Explicit, 16k)

The Sound of Silence (Carry On, S/B, Teen, 10k)

Coming Up For Air (Carry On, S/B, Explicit, 4k)

Hang the Moon (Carry On, S/B and ensemble, Teen, 30k)

The sky isn’t black anymore (Carry On, S/B, Explicit, 9k)

This is fine (B7, B/A and ensemble, Teen, 4k)

Total: 7 fics, 142k words - making it one of my most prolific years ever in terms of word count! (even though i wrote about 30k of ‘keep calm’ last year, which would take the total down to a more reasonable level). 

i answer some questions about them below the cut... 

Best/worst title?

Keep Calm is the best title, for sure, as it’s a role reversal of ‘Carry On’. The only bad thing about this title is that i love role reversal fics and i can never use it again. also... i guess as i got to the end i started to think... ‘Should i bring out this theme of calmness...? is this even a theme????’ It was a bit distracting, essentially. 

worst title is ‘Sex and Blood’, which does what it says on the tin - can’t deny it. it’s supposed to be about how vampirism links the two things for baz, right? .... but i don’t like it. also - when people comment on it (thank you! please do comment on it! please keep reading it!) this stupid title that i wrote appears on my lock screen of my phone, which i just leave lying around at work. 

but i know - i did it to myself. i should have thought of a better title. 

Best/worst summary?

i don’t know if i already pointed this out on tumblr, but i noticed recently that all my ‘carry on’ fic summaries have a [Clause A - bad or good situation] but/or some other conjunction [Clause B - something happens that causes a fic to exist!] structure, except for ‘The Sound of Silence’. 

Even having realised that, I’ve still written a summary with the same turn for my as yet unnamed bodyswap fic... 

I think the best summary is probably ‘Keep Calm’. 

Worst summary - Coming Up for Air, but I was trying not to give spoilers for Wayward Son. and it’s a PWP.

Best/worst first line?

generally i love my first lines, and hate my last lines. 

i would say all of my 2019 first lines are indeed pretty good. ‘The sky isn’t black anymore’ is straight into being X-rated so i’m not going to quote it here in case that’s not your jam, but i like it a lot. 

i also like: There’s something wrong with Baz. (Sex and Blood). Obvious - but, it works.

i don’t not like any of them, even the really long rambling first line of ‘This is FIne’.

i will call out the first line of ‘Keep Calm’ though, because i spent ages trying to work out how to punctuate it, and i still don’t know what i should have done. it currently reads: The Mage is waiting for me, outside the door to Mummer’s House.

depending on when you read it, though (and i’m sure you didn’t notice) it may have had no comma (The Mage is waiting for me outside the door to Mummer’s House.) or it might have been a dash where the comma was, or even - gasp - a full stop (because rainbow likes to break sentences into fragments so that’s ok).

 i kept changing it. this may seem like a complete waste of time (and i think the right-right answer is that there shouldn’t be a break at all - no comma is correct), but i wanted the first sentence to FEEL like ‘the mage is waiting for me’ - the place is merely corroborative detail. the point is the mage is there, about to take simon away and change the plot. hence ... the punctuation.

Best/worst last line?

as i said - very few of my last lines are what i wanted. i have not mastered them at all. too often it’s just ‘this is where i ran out of story’. the worst is the ending to the ‘Sound of Silence’ where i literally resorted to ‘Carry On’ cliche to get out of it: And he kisses me.

it’s fine, it works - but i could have done better.

the actual ending line of ‘Hang the Moon’ is pretty good i think, but the pacing of that ending is all wrong. i’m much happier now i wrote a whole extra fic so the weight of everything ending isn’t on those final hundred words. 

the BEST last line i wrote... the one that actually really works (for me) is ‘Coming Up For Air’. And I feel like I can breathe again. 

Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?

apparently i wrote a lot - which i probably wouldn’t have predicted last year, although by this time last year i’d written ‘the mage’s heir’ and the first half of ‘keep calm’, which did provide much of the wordcount for this year. so - i guess if i’d thought about it, it would have seemed plausible. 

first person helps me write long. and in b7 i learned to write long. 

i guess i’m surprised because it felt like i wasn’t writing that much in comparison to some people in the fandom (and i probably still didn’t in comparison!) and i wrote several long things rather than many short things, so the list is still pretty short despite being MANY words.... 

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?

strange though it may be to say - i probably wouldn’t have predicted i’d write blake’s 7 this year. ‘never go back’ - that’s my motto. or rather ‘i can’t go back, my brain doesn’t work that way’. but good to have done it. 

What's your favourite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.

hard to say. it’s a draw between ‘keep calm’, which i love because it did everything i wanted it to. and ‘hang the moon’, which is a collection of all my favourite tropes loosely disguised as a fic. 

they’re also the two longest - and i tend to like the long ones better for reasons i have gone into before.

Okay, NOW your most popular story.

it’s pretty much a tie between ‘keep calm’ and ‘sex and blood’ - and since ‘keep calm’ was many chapters long, is earlier, and much more heavily promoted by self and the big bang, i’m pretty sure that means ‘sex and blood’ is more popular over all. 

thank you fandom, for loving vampire porn as much as i do.

Story most underappreciated by the universe?

we all know (well, those of us who know what it is) that b7 is a tiny fandom, so with that in mind, i think ‘This is Fine’ is well appreciated! <3

the story that is (to me) surprisingly about half as popular as most things that i’ve written for ‘carry on’ is ‘Coming up for air’, which i have now re-linked for you in case you never read it.

it disproves the rule that shorter porny things will be more read (although obviously the vampire porn suggests the opposite). idk, i thought it would catch those who were in the post-wayward son crash, like i was. 

the other thing to say here is that it was still extremely appreciated - i mean, it’s got about 50 times as many kudos as any of my b7 things, and overall i would say it is a thing that is well received. i know i’m fortunate to be friends with people who re-blog my stuff and people who comment, and i (in turn) really appreciate THAT. 

so - it’s not a whine. just an observation

Story that could have been better?

i think i would have written ‘This is fine’ better if i’d written it five years ago. i definitely could have written a blake-travis mindlink to make the gods weep with its perfection ;) what a prompt.

i’ve talked about how i don’t rate the endings of ‘Sound of Silence’ or ‘Hang the Moon’ as well, so i think these could have been better. if only i was better at waiting.., and thinking of an ending. or just - if only i was better at endings. 

Sexiest story?

i think that’s the one that has the word ‘sex’ in the title. because vampires are sexy. and so is informed consent.

Saddest story?

sad?? what is this SAD? 

‘This is fine’ is quite sad given that it’s also about telepathic pornography. because we know everyone’s going to die soon. 

and ‘Sound of Silence’ isn’t sad, at least i don’t think it is - but Baz certainly is sad while it’s happening. 

Most fun?

i think ‘hang the moon’ is the most fun - because it has all the things that i like best happening in it. they fight some merwolves together, they go plate shopping, simon fights lots of people, fiona is there - it’s very fun.

Story with single sweetest moment?

hang the moon, probably. the bit with the moon. 

although i was thinking... surely i should talk about ‘keep calm’ a bit - isn’t it my equal fav? and i was thinking - what is the sweetest moment there... and the answer honestly is that i think the sweetest moment is the bit where the mage and simon are gardening together and simon doesn’t know if their relationship is doomed forever ... AND THEN the mage tells simon they can watch some VHSes of lucy next time simon comes back and they dont hug, but it is ... enough <3

I’M SORRY - I LOVE AWKWARD FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIPS BEING REDEEMED. 

Hardest story to write?

‘keep calm’ took me months and there were moments when i thought - fuck, this is not ending, and i hate not being able to talk to anyone about this because this fest is going on for months. and i was fortunate that i had the idea of emailing sharkmartini who i then did not know at all, and she was enthusiastic and getting that feedback made me think - ok, this is worth doing. i can finish this. 

but also - i started writing ‘sound of silence’ immediately after the ‘mage’s heir’ finished and i eventually published it over a year later. because the device i’d chosen meant that simon couldn’t say or do anything for most of the bloody story. and that meant that nothing happened, baz, thanks for nothing, and it was very hard to write.

and ‘This is fine’ - i must have written it in a few weeks. so it clearly wasn’t that hard. but in comparison to back when i (though i) knew everything that Avon would ever think or say... it was hard.

Easiest/most fun story to write?

Coming up for air was the easiest story. i haven’t written anything else in a day for this fandom, although it is something i’ve done before, back in the day. 

most of the others were also really fun to write, unless i put them in the ‘hardest story to write’ box. so, you know - about half. 

Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?

i started to write ‘no’, but that isn’t true. writing ‘The sky isn’t black anymore’ shifted my perception of the way that i’d written Baz in ‘Hang the Moon’ i.e. my own fic (how wanky is that?) 

most of the others are me putting things that i think about characters into words. so i did the thinking before, rather than during. 

Most overdue story?

i wanted to post ‘This is fine’ on Gauda Prime Day and didn’t :( but i know bunnacula said that was ok ;) so i think the most overdue was the one that took me over a year to finally bother finishing. 

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

eeeeeer... 

yes, maybe. i would say writing a happy ending for simon in ‘keep calm’ where the happy ending is that he gets a better relationship with his father (see above) as well as getting to go out with baz (whose happy ending is also not just about simon, but mostly is) is a risk in a fandom where everyone hates the mage so much. 

and then i finally wrote my thing about how i think the mage is actually right about many things, and fiona is classist. what i haven’t ever said explicitly on tumblr, i don’t think (though i said it on LJ) is that another reason it is so much easier for me to be sympathetic towards the mage is that he literally is a version of roj blake (the main character of my old fandom and my personal fav). obviously the mage is a blake who is a bit more autistic and significantly further off the deep end on the ‘greater good’ scale than blake ever was. but blake even also dresses like robin hood and is from wales. i haven’t said this before because i feel like it cheapens my semi-championing off him/might make people who really can’t tolerate the mage think ‘wtf? is aralias mental? why does she like roj blake so much?’ to be fair - lots of people in b7 hated him too. 

ANYWAY. what i learned from that is - these are the stories i want to tell and no one got upset, so that is awesome and i shouldn’t be so worried about what people think before i know what people think. 

i also wrote vampire porn, but i didn’t consider that a risk. because i knew that sharkmartini would love it - and that was one person and that was enough. are we all going to write more vampire porn in 2020? i hope so.

This year's theme and the story that demonstrates it most:

good question but hard to answer. 

i think the theme is ...... possibly influenced by ‘wayward son’..... poor communication is bad; good communication is good. maybe? 

and the fic that most demonstrates this is one that i have the most problems with, and that’s ‘The Sound of Silence’ where simon literally can’t communicate for the first half of the fic. and then baz solves his own problem by saying ‘sorry’ and giving back simon’s voice. 

‘The sky isn’t black anymore’, which i really like but feel i haven’t talked about much (it’s an unproblematic fav!) feels very similar and in fact i struggled to make it less about communication/saying what you want than it kept wanting to be. because i was thinking - this isn’t the problem of the fic! the problem is that it’s all too fast, right? but actually - and here we come back to the learning about the characters - it was both. 

because baz is a character who doesn’t communicate. and, like simon in ‘sound of silence’, he was also shut out from the POV in ‘hang the moon’.

What are your fic writing goals for next year?

write more! i want to get my ‘wayward son’ bodyswap out the door before the end of february..... maybe even january, but february sounds very achievable.

i have to finish my zine fic and then lop about 2000 words out of it, probably. 

i want to write another epic thing that is also about politics and vampires. it’s the one where natasha is alive, as well as other things. the problem with this one is that while i know a lot about it, i dont know exactly what the arc is - and i’m bored of re-writing simon giving up his magic to fix the humdrum (which i did... once... but i guess that was too often). so i have to try and work out what the climax is if it isn’t that - and i like to know the ending before i start...... but. my goal is to figure these things out and then write it. 

vampire porn - obvs. 

aaaand - for all of us: i will run a remix! oh yes, i will run a remix. ‘carry on big bang’ (which i definitely won’t do, it’s too solitary for me and too slow, alas - even though i keep thinking ‘i could do my vampire thing! it’s long’. it’s got to be a no) and the zine are in the first half of the year....... and i’m busy and stuff. so i thought it was going to be in december - but now i’m probably going for sign ups in march, post in may. I LOVE REMIX. i’m excited already.

[dogsplayingpoker]

my girlfrind tagged me and my internet is half dead for some reason so its time for tag ask meme...fair warning i go into a fugue state whenever im asked to pick my favorite of anything which is most of what this is

RULES: Answer 20 questions, then tag 20 bloggers you want to get to know better.  

Name: sascha!

Nicknames: The Sauce

Height: 5,3″

Languages: english. minimal spanish, lots of not-very-useful vocab and alphabet knowledge for others lol. i want to study languages more seriously but i can’t focus enough on just 1 to really ever get anywhere rip rip rip

Nationality: borders are fake and keep us alienated from one another but american

Favorite season: winter????????????

Favorite flower: clover! but also water lillies,,,jasmine,,,carnations...morning glories,,,poppies,,flowers good

Favorite scent: rainy or green or fruity scents?? light watery florals,,, Limes,,,paint and like workshop smells lol. rubber/hardware stores and grass and sleepy savory dog smell

Favorite color: red and blue. gold is 2nd place

Favorite animal: see its very hard to choose actual favorites and not just animals that i feel ive grown to become like associated with over time?? big furry animals like dogs and bears?? but also bats and Pests...Good Posums,,,those goldfish with the big eyes.....we are all god’s creatures........

Favorite fictional characters: Oh god um.......uh,,uhhhh......ughhh....hhhhhhrrngggg i dont know i seriously dont think i can answer this one too much pressure

Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate: hate coffee the other two of both v good. jasmine green tea is the best tea. sweet tea is bad

Average sleep hour: uhhh none. i dont mean this in like funny relatable internet terms im just an insomniac and have no consistent schedule that ever lasts more than a week

Dog or cat person: i respect and love cats and feel like this delineation is harmful but dogs are necessary for my personal mental health lol so i guess i choose them.

Number of blankets you sleep with: 0-to-1

Dream trip: i would love to see any place where people wouldnt be pissed off at my being there lol. there are too many specific places i’d love to get the opportunity to see to really list here....also getting to see loved ones that are far away <3

Blog established: i made this blog as a preteen at a new years eve party at the start of i think 2011? i’ve never remade #livedangerously

Number of followers: 813 atm

Random fact: the oldest surviving piece of music written with its accompanying score is an epitaph known as The Seikilos that a dude composed and had carved into the funeral setele of his wife when she died. you can listen to it on youtube its cool

mental illness rules dictate that i feel too shy to actually tag specific people but i guess hey if we’re mutuals feel free to do this and we can pretend that i had the confidence to tag you lol it’ll be fun!

[getallemeralds]

So, I have a character who is a system, and I wanted to know before I develop them further, how does DID work, from a personal account? I really really really don't want to accidentally create yet another TOXIC misinterpretation of a real condition (because I know how horrible that can feel), and I hope I'm not saying anything wrong even now. (P.S. I love your blog, but I'm too shy to come off anon.)

hey anon!! it means a LOT to me that you sent this message :D theres a lot of really messy-bad potrayals of DID in the media so seeing people actually going to the effort of asking systems abt their experiences is really heartwarming for us. (plus the fact that ppl keep asking us in specific abt system stuff omg,,)

im gonna preface this by saying that, in the end, i can only really talk about my own experiences with full confidence. systems can work pretty differently from each other, but this is how we function and also some details ive noticed from system friends + general discussion over the years

so, to start off: Dissociative Identity Disorder is, at its core, your brain trying to respond to trauma in a pretty severe way. that being said there ARE systems that didnt experience severe trauma and still developed, and im not really sure about the mechanics behind that but i find it really cool and it totally exists. im gonna focus on trauma-based systems bc that’s our ~tragic backstory~ and also tends to be what most people opt for when creating system characters anyway, but the only real difference from what i can tell is, uh, a lack of trauma.

I HOPE YOU’RE READY FOR ME TO SAY THE WORD “TRAUMA” A WHOLE LOT JFC

(system friends are welcome to reblog with corrections or added info!!)

anyway. the way your brain responds to things is really weird. if something happens where you’re just, like, completely unable to handle it, like you dissociate yourself so hard because there’s no way you can manage this, your brain has a chance of going “uh… well, fuck, uh” and generating somebody who can manage it. or it might decide to be a dick and take all of the fucky internalized garbage and turn it into a person whose sole existence is to be an asshole. (they have the potential to get better, i think… ours didnt.) honestly theres a bunch of reasons and a bunch of “roles” that could lead to an alter/headmate* forming.

* we use the terms interchangeably depending on mood and whos fronting. i think its supposed to be “alter” is DID, “headmate” is implication that theyre non-traumatic? we like using “headmate” because it brings this fun mental image of us being a bunch of roommates constantly starting shit with each other and goofing off which is pretty accurate about 75% of the time

i keep getting distracted bc my cat is here. this is gonna be fun to go back and edit.

whatever the original situation is, you’re suddenly not alone in your own brain. and it’s REALLY WEIRD. communication was VERY hard. Icarus, our system original, used to do a very “cliche” thing of sharing a journal with their early headmates, where theyd write a sentence and then theyd write a reply (although back then they didnt realize that was a system-related thing and just thought they were having a fun conversation with their ocs. which… they were, just. Actually Talking.) they didnt have any inward perception of themself or their headmates either, so that kinda built up over time (with some help) along with the appearance of our headspace so that there was… actually a location for people to interact in. once they had a better awareness of things, mental communication got a bit easier– its sort of like background chatter really, when everybody’s awake. sometimes i get weird out of context things from Mae yelling at somebody, or sometimes ill be talking to a friend and someone’ll butt in.

when talking out loud, this usually leads to us suddenly stopping and then laughing or going “no!!!”. when on discord and around people who know who we are… well.

speaking of Mae, she’s pretty much my sister. not like… biologically? because i don’t think thats possible for me, but shes kinda literally my “other half” which ill get into later. headmates can have strong attachments to other alters! friends, best friends, family, dating, whatever. they can also do that with people outside the system, and itll be different for each headmate. there’s like 4 people dating Jorb but i just see him as one of my best friends. we’re people and we have complex social interactions that can get to be kind of a nightmare when you’re around a bunch of people who don’t know that you’re Not Leo and that youre suddenly not super up to existing around people in general.

plus even if like… so Jorb’s dating 4 of us like i said, but his relationship w/ each of them is different? Ica is very clingy and likes rambling to him, Summer’s pretty much just always happy to hang out, Mae makes fun of him a lot but in a loving way, and Leo is… kinda “all of the above” because that’s his gimmick. plus even tho a few other alters have a sibling-ish relationship with Mae like i do, usually its just me and Mae that do the “chaos siblings” bit.

the basic system.. thing… is that there’s “front”, which is being in control of the body– so, like, i’m currently fronting/in front, because im the one currently active and using our computer and staring at our cat.– and then theres the headspace, where everybody hangs out when theyre not in front. the headspace itself can differ in style & functionality for each system, and i think theres some systems that dont really have a location at all? but for us its like a full on location where we have individual rooms, places to visit if we get bored while away from front, etc.

theres also like, being at/near/away from front? so currently im in front, but Leo is pretty much always lurking nearby if he’s awake (we have individual sleep schedules that dont always sync up to the “irl” one, Trust is almost always sleeping), Ica’s somewhat in the back talking to Rookie so i cant really make out what theyre saying (its probably about either a youtube thing they both like or about a comic they want to do), and everyone else is either asleep (in which case they could be nearby but i cant currently “ping” them, so id have to actually take a sec to ground myself in headspace more) or in a different room. communication is easier if im in front and somebody is nearby, or it can be like with Ica rn where im like “well, theyre talking, but i have no idea what theyre saying and am making a guess based off their usual interactions”, or i could pass off front to go talk to Ica and come back (in which case my memory would be kind of vague and weird because information doesnt always properly translate), oooor i could actually go bug them while still in front. which.. im not gonna do rn bc then id get super distracted.

switching front differs between systems a lot! and even varies from day to day. like there are days where we wake up and we have absolutely no idea who we are bc we went to bed as one person and woke up as another. or we could be talking to somebody and then realize “wait, i stopped being Leo a bit ago, who am i”. or we could pass off front to somebody, like if Summer really wanted to front sie’d run up to me and let me know and we’d swap. or if something critical happens (usually a breakdown), Leo or one of the other headmates that’re more built to handle stressful situations will literally drag somebody out of front to make sure they dont hurt themself. or sometimes we throw front at people unexpectedly, like either mid-breakdown where we go “okay i dont wanna be here anymore, tag youre it” or sometimes because we think its funny because its the metaphysical equivalent of getting clonked in the head with a dodgeball, except the dodgeball is “being in control of our shared physical form”. usually mae’s the one that does that lmao

there’s a couple major categories of how alters come about. there’s “walk-ins”, where they kinda just… appear externally? like they just show up. sometimes we get a feeling of “huh. i think somebody might be here? or somebody might be showing up soon.” and have to rummage around for a while until they approach us or we find them. our walk-ins aren’t like, inherently aware of system stuff at first, so they usually get a crash course before they first front (if they choose to front at all) and it can be kinda entertaining. Rookie’s a walk-in! also Hiro, from a couple years ago. most of our walk-ins are fictives (fictional characters, usually appearing in response to us getting extremely attached to something or somebody) but a couple of our trauma splits are also fictives so that’s not like, a Rule or anything. i think these are mostly associated with non-traumatic systems but we get em fairly often so man idk

theres also… uh, i dunno what theyre actually called? we used to call them “constructs” but that sounds kind of mean. these alters exist to fill a specific role! and we usually dont talk about them on here with the exception of one major one, they just kinda hang out. Dhe exists to keep the system stable and manages the “backend” so to speak. Imp is kind of a mix of our intrusive & impulsive thoughts that came about from us trying to separate ourself from them so that we had an imaginary entity to go “nope!” at, which… stopped being imaginary, and is now a gremlin that lives in my brain. they can show up in response to trauma but arent split off of somebody, they kinda just pop into existence to help manage things.

the more… well-known, i guess? alter origin is “trauma splits”. rather than “just showing up one day with no real connection to the system origins”, trauma splits are formed when somebody in-system, uh, splits. it could be in response to a single situation or something built up over a long time, but somebody just kinda breaks and somebody new that has a bit of the original alter’s identity (if kinda influenced by the situation) shows up.

this can vary. All is a trauma split off of Leo himself, who got saddled with all of our brain hell about our ex and their insystem appearance is influenced more by eir than by leo which is… something they struggle with. Mae has a trauma split from a similar situation that is “Mae but from 2 years ago”, so basically her old identity before she reworked herself after getting put through total hell. and then uh… then there’s me and Mae! Icarus quite literally exploded into several people, with Pat (me) and Mae being the most distinct ones. we’re STILL finding out alters used to originally be a part of them that later evolved into their own people, like Summer and Toby. my identity is shaped pretty heavily not just by who Ica was at time of splitting, but also what they wanted to be jumbled together with trying to rationalize what was happening to them (they’re a pretty big fan of megaman star force, which has a media-typical system in it, so they leaned into hard “its like pat and rey from mmsf! i like pat, i wouldnt mind being like pat, its scary but im like one of my current favourite characters” and so i ended up being like, half-weird shapeshifter, half-green-haired prettyboy. and yeah thats where my name comes from!)

(Ica got put back together w/o anybody needing to integrate, which we were all very scared about, and it’s still kind of surreal to me because… me and Mae used to be able to stick ourself back together and thats how we found out about what happened to Ica in the first place? and we havent tried that since bc we have no idea what would happen. Ica 2: Ica Harder?)

despite their origins, trauma splits can be way more than… being a split. :V;; Toby’s not just a tiny splinter of Ica, he’s a quiet guy that gets stressed out and isn’t totally sure how to interact with people. i’ve existed for like 7 years at minimum and im a totally different person than i was when i thought i was still Ica, ‘cause ive had time to grow and change (and a problem Ica keeps running into now that theyre back is… they kinda Didn’t change because they were MIA for 6 years.) like everything else though this is variable– there can be “temporary” splits that dont develop properly and might get integrated back in, which has only happened to us when we were at the lowest point in our life where we were stuck constantly splitting to try and cope with whatever the hell was going on.

so Ica was gone for 6 years, which meant our system was without an original or main– there wasn’t anybody to be head of the system, basically. for a while i was operating under the assumption that i was Ica, so i filled in that role for a few years before i made the realization. eventually i kinda… stopped being able to, though, bc of stability issues, and then we were back to not really having a proper main anymore. to make up for it, we started going by Leo collectively and kinda… trying to pretend to be a single person? and so that ended up creating a construct to fill the role of “system main and the person we pretend to be when passing as singlet/not a system”: Leo himself! he’s kinda the most prominent traits we all have in common rolled into a single guy, which means that not only is he a pretty good system representative but we can also pretend to be him pretty easily (unless it’s someone like Toby who acts totally different). i dont know how common this situation is, i think normally it’s just “if system original is gone, another alter steps up” like originally happened to us before i had a severe case of problems disorder.

uhhh this is very rambley bc there’s a Lot to cover and now im trying to figure out how much of it i HAVE covered. systems are complicated and weird! OH WAIT okay i have one last bit.

so like, for us, first realizing we were a system was total hell. we fought a lot. as more alters showed up through various means, there were times where Ica felt like they were completely out of control of their own life bc of having to manage everything. there were a lot of panic attacks of people fronting and not being sure they were even REAL, despite… being in front. but we still felt like we were deluding ourself. this was in, like, late 2011, so systems weren’t a THING. they were a very fringe community that everyone hated. we got constantly harassed, which only fed into Ica’s panic hell and our identity issues. interpersonal relationships became a nightmare, especially because we have BPD as well which varies in severity for each of us but… for me it’s pretty bad! there were times early on where every day was another fun new breakdown from us arguing with each other or our friends or not being understood or… etc.

so… how are we holding up ~7 and a half years later? pretty well, actually! we talk to each other. we do things for each other, like buy food or games we know specific headmates like. Ica is back and way happier than they were in 2011, and is thrilled to get to hang out with everybody that’s showed up since. we help each other through problems, because at the end of the day our system ended up being a support network. Ica couldnt function on their own, so we’re like… 10+ people working together to try and be a single functional person. and we feel pretty okay with that! we still fight, and we still start shit, but we’re not in constant crisis anymore. we’re still working through all of our trauma, especially the more “recent” stuff that kinda broke our system for a while until we were able to start rebuilding, but we’re doing it together. :D

so… yeah, it can start out as a stereotypical “nightmare system”, with constant infighting and toxicity and self-sabotage and etc. but we worked through it! it took a while, but we’re overall more stable than we were before. we got out of the bad environment that was fucking us up, we got mental help for our other brain hell (we havent been able to bring up the system to our therapists bc its literally a non-issue now and we focus more on other things like our depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc), we found people that support us for being us, and we were able to like… figure things out. and it was a mess! i still have issues about my own identity because of literally thinking i was someone else for two years. Ica’s still trying to figure out how to adjust to things, especially bc they missed our entire “cringe culture” phase so they came back to find that i’d dismantled a lot of their middle-school settings. and, uh, some of their friendships as well.

systems are fuckin weird

[strayology]

About me tag ~

Rules : Answer the questions and tag 10 people

tagged by my fave kachuuuu thank youuuuu

(yeah i haven’t been on for a while,, i’ve been busy with school and i’ve been kinda feeling sick being on social medias but oh well what else can i do for past time?)

1. How tall are you?

I stand a wholly 162cm or 5′3″ (yeah i have always thought I was 5′4″ but I remeasured and I was 5′3″ ;-;)

2. What color are your eyes?

black like the deep dark abyss of a black hole :’)

3. What color and style is your hair?

black,, it’s straight and I style it a couple of ways depending on my mood or outfit. most of the time I wear it down or in a ponytail

4. Do you wear glasses?

yep i do,, sometimes I wear my prescriptions color contacts because my outfit looks better without glasses lol

5. Do you have braces?

nope never did, but surprisingly my teeth are really straight??

6. What’s your fashion sense?

I usually go for more of a sporty or girl crush style. I like wearing loose fitting clothes that are baggy and long (especially on the arm but my arms are so long so sometimes its hard to find stuff that are normal length for the body and long sleeves for my arms) but once in a while i wanna feel cute so i wear a dress or skirt or something, but I feel like i can’t move freely in those lol

and I do tend to dress more in a korean style (apparently that’s the reason why a lot of people have mistaken me as korean)

7. Full name?

ummmmmm... I guess this is the first time i’m admitting on here that my real name isn’t yumi...??????

but it’s,, Yumi Yee

8. When were you born?

October 24th, 2001

9. Where are you from and where do you live?

I was born in the US but I grew up in China and i currently reside in the US 

10. What school(s) do you go to?

As of right now i’m in a 4-year high school, but I also go to a career and tech school for my computer science classes

11. What kind of student are you?

ehhhhh the one that procrastinates but still tries to get work in on time. i mean i dont really like doing my school work for any classes i dont like, and I would procrastinate as long as possible and still meet the deadline. but for classes i like i will try my best to do work right away and perfect it (which usually make people call me a try hard lol)

12. Do you like school?

i mean i like it when i get to see my friends and learn about subjects that actually interest me and let me have fun in

13. Fav subject?

math, chemistry, foreign language (I took spanish), and computer science

14. Fav TV shows?

I don't watch a lot of shows but I watched The Office couple months ago and I love that

15. Fav books?

The Percy Jackson series (although I haven’t finished it oOps), the Paisley Hanover series, and i like quite a lot of poetries (I’m still reading some from these books I bought a while ago, but once I finish i will see if I wanna recommend or not)

16. Fav pastimes?

cooking/baking, reading chinese comics (I recently got into them and they are sooooo good), listening to music, watch youtube, online shopping, editing (sometimes), mess around with the html codes on my blog, and sleeping

17. Do you have any regrets?

bwahahah way too many,, but if those events never happened in my life I probably wouldn't be who I am today

18. Dream job?

being a translator or any jobs dealing with computer science (mainly web designer)

19. Would you ever like to be married?

i mean yeah, but I have never imagined my own wedding or anything but I do know I wanna get married at 28???

20. Would you like to have children?

yeah,, again i’ve never really thought about this because all ive been thinking about is what kind of job i want or how i’m gonna live with my friends or s/o after college

21. If so, how many?

maybe 1 or 2

22. Do you like shopping?

OHHHHHHH HECK YEAAAAAAAAAH,, i seriously think I have an addiction because i always wanna go shopping and I constantly want new clothes or go to the mall in general. and even if I dont get anything at the mall I like to try on different outfits and take pictures in them

23. What countries have you visited?

Well I didn’t really visit these countries but I did live in them,, China and the US

24. Scariest nightmare you’ve ever had?

literally every one of my dreams I remember is a nightmare lmao

I mean this dream isn’t really scary because it didn’t scare me that much,,

(BUT IM GONNA PUT A WARNING RIGHT HERE BECAUSE I DID TALK ABOUT BLOOD SO IF YOURE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH IT SCROLL PAST THIS PART NOW)

it was around when I was 8 years old. it was in my old house, and I was sleeping in my room and I woke up alone on my giant king size bed (yeah I used to sleep with my mom for a while because our room arrangements got messed up) nobody was home because I didn’t hear any sounds, but i saw on the wall that was next to me was starting to drip blood. I wanted to go out of my room to see what was going on, so I stepped out and saw the house was empty, and all i heard was loud dog barking noises. I was terribly afraid of dogs so i ran back into my room and yeah the blood was still dripping but i woke up right then

25. Any enemies?

oOps I have too many of them. I’m the kind of person who kinda knows what I want from a friendship, and also knows what I don’t want. So if I see anyone who has any of those traits I dont want I end my friendship with them right then and there. and if someone who i see is being rude, then I just remember who they are and never try to be around them ever

26. Do you have a significant other?

nope and probably never will :’)))))

27. Do you get along with your family?

for the most part yeah, I mean my parents and I argue once in a while over something stupid and I'll just avoid them for like 2 days to a week. but my siblings and I are super well now especially because they all posted something about us on national siblings day when I thought they wouldn't lmao

28. Do you believe in miracles?

I think I do,, I am a huge believer on luck and stuff. so yes I do believe in miracles and I think miracles do happen

29. How are you?

well today is easter and I was supposed to go on a date, but it got canceled last minutes and I’m kinda upset about it since I was dressed and all. but I feel bad for being about upset because the other person might be actually in medical danger so I tried not to think too much about it by doing photoshoots outside my backyard and i think I may or may not have a potential for stay selca day 👀 (I haven’t done a selca day since maybe october/november of 2017,, and it was an igot7selcaday)

tagging: @jxsng @hwangwhatjin @hwanginthere @sunflowerseungmin @honey-innie @jinniesmeow @wangjyunhao @ughh-m @fluffylix @hjsracha 

Of course youre not obligated to do this if you dont want to !!

[anamelessblade]

🔥

Hi I love u sly. Sorry u get the long rant. and its not going under a read more im tired.

Deep breath– sorry if this pisses anyone off or if you lose all faith in me this has been stewing. 

Write whatever the fuck you want. Yeah, even that really shitty thing everyone is going to scream and yell about and call you all sorts of nasty terrible names for. Yeah, even THAT subject everyone says you should not touch with a ten foot pole.

im being vague on purpose. you know the type of subjects.

‘But Raive what the fuck that subject is awful and condoning shit and romanticizing–’

Let me be clear: Just because I’m saying this, does not at all mean I condone everything that is written. It does not mean I think everything should be written and put out there for public consumption. Maybe it shouldn’t be. Maybe it should be somewhere private or maybe it shouldn’t be. Honestly I’m not sure. All I know is that there are so many people here saying this is a SAFE PLACE and that it should be that for everyone--but this is the internet. It was never safe (i remember my parents telling me to never give my name out, be careful who you talk to be aware. dont give out your age. don’t do this. a lot of you need to realize that too because everyone is always asking for information and i don’t need to verify who i am IRL with you because that’s fucking scary in and of itself). You have to make your safe space by using the tools provided to you to keep the content you don’t want in your face out of it. If you see something you don’t like and it bothers you, that means you found something that bothers you. I’m sorry, I am honestly 100% sorry you have to confront something that you do not like and which may or may not trigger you in some way because of some other circumstance that occurred. Unfortunately, what other people do and write and how they act is entirely out of your control. You cannot make anyone do anything they do not want to--and that includes people who are actively out to hurt others. 

With that said.

 If two consenting adults decide to write something and they tag it and they put all the content warnings in the world and you still go to their blog and come out and tell them they are wrong and immoral and a horrible, horrible person, that’s on you. There is shit I won’t write and dont agree with and things I wouldnt tell anyone to write, but art and writing is not meant to be comfortable, it pushes boundaries, even the boundaries you think should not be crossed. And if it crosses your own boundaries, then you do what you have to make yourself feel comfortable

(please note I am talking about purely fictional things and events not when people come out rping ACTUAL N*ZIS)

'But Raive… what if its hurting people? What if someone uses that writing for something actually irl bad?’

I hate to say this, I really do, but if someone is going to hurt someone and has already decided go out of their way to do it, they are going to do it whether or not someone’s horrifying all-taboo, all squick rp/fic is out there. 

Dont get me wrong. Like I said, there are a lot of things that I think probably shouldn’t be written. But I’m not going to condemn anyone for it so long as they themselves outside of the fiction are a decent person. Contrary to what everyone rages about and shouts– there is a difference and a line between fiction and reality. No it’s not that cut and dry. Some things do affect people and change opinions, but it’s not such a simple thing as 'I wrote this fic and now everyone is going to think its okay’. The things that actually blur the line of fiction and reality (such as rac.ism and h.omophobia and things of that nature) it’s probably already in the hearts and minds of the people watching or reading that media and they will use it as an example of feelings that were already there, because it reflects them. I don’t think any well-meaning person would watch or read a scene with a murder and come out thinking that murder is alright. There is a line when it comes to specific subjects compared to others, and i think that encompasses most of the problematic writing and work that everyone so ardently opposes. Because, most of the people writing these subjects are not condoning it themselves, they’re just writing it as fiction. 

Again, I don’t know if that’s right or wrong, that’s not what I’m about to make a judgment call on. I’m just saying this black and white ideology of policing CONSENTING ADULTS who are NOT OUT TO HURT ANYONE needs to stop. They tag and put all the warnings and say out right in their rule that they write certain subjects you are not comfortable with and you still decide to follow or to interact or whatever-- dude that. is. on. you. and you need to realize that.

I know anecdotal evidence is not like the most scientific way to go about this kind of thing, but i’m at work/taking a break and can’t look up any articles on pyschology or whatever to ‘prove’ my point. Those of you who don’t agree won’t read or want to read it anyway. 

I spent around...almost i’d say ten years on this one forum. Back in its heyday when it was popular there were a lot of us writing shit that...should not have been written. Things I would not write now, but was okay with back then because I was young and not necessarily aware. My idea was it’s fiction. There’s nothing wrong with it inherently. and that’s how most of us were. Nobody came out of the woodworks to say this was AWFUL AND YOU ARE EVIL AND TERRIBLE FOR WRITING THIS because we all spoke to each other ooc and we didn’t conflate in character with out of character. Any time something bad happened ooc it was dealt with, the person removed and that was that. Because no one was hurting anyone IC, it was the ooc that mattered.

 IC drama was IC drama no matter how crazy and shitty it got (and there was a lot of IC drama that everyone watched and commented on and honestly it was insane)... but and this sounds odd perhaps, but writing and reading those things gave me a perspective I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I researched, I looked into things, I wanted to portray things right--and it gave me a really wide view and understanding of what people in certain situations go through. I’m not saying go write these awful things so you can understand the horrors of it. I’m just saying it taught me to empathize better and actively try to understand what other people go through, I guess. 

Anyway. this got long and a little rambly and I wish I could get my point across half as well as I formulated it in my head but...

TL;DR: write what you want, no matter what it is. Tag all the warnings. Put all the content warnings that you can so that those who dont want to see that shit can block it. and those of you who want to attack people who do all of the above, please don’t. Just block and blacklist and do all the things necessary for yourself. And be aware that the world and the internet is a scary place that does not cater to you. 

[societysonlooker]

Hmm ok. You know how people talk about friends and possible romantic interests "playing games" with dms? Or liking posts on face of book or Insta or some shit? Like... "don't message them back right away you'll seem desperate" "leaving him on Read to make him Wonder" "I will carefully create a Persona they like to get them to go on a date with me... then slowly lower it as time goes on". You know. That kinda shit? Manipulative, toxic behavior being mainstream?

(And I call it this because it creates a system of Bad Faith. They didn't answer right away because they don't like me," rather than the other being busy "they left me on Read cause I'm cringy and dumb" rather than the other getting interrupted and not getting a chance to respond. The culture encourages and thrives on people seeing Read and Sent notifications amd taking them in bad faith of the person they're talking to).

Well I seriously wonder how much of that culture is cultivated from interaction models on social media. It's considered cringy, rude, and even creepy to look too far back on someone's insta (and for some people, apparently a few months is "too far"???). It gives you sent and read notifs, shows posts based on popularity, and, not even going into influencer bullshit, has a pretty toxic culture overall (I dont THINK it's worse than Twitter tho? I wouldn't know).

Twitter only shows you posts if you regularly interact with the blog, which, Considering the Troll nature of the internet, is something I am POSSITIVE fed the Bad Faith Culture of twitter. It's also considered Impolite to spam a page with likes. In spite of interaction models, I guess?

Facebook is a passive aggressive hellscape almost no matter what. Relationship status having "its complicated" is an unnecessary feature at best and downright manipulative at worst.

Tiktok, ironically, I want to say is the least guilty here (with the tradeoff of being the most insidious towards indoctrination via just, really fucking "good" interaction models for finding content it thinks you'll like) but I'm skewed by personal bias, cuz the sides of tiktok I was on are most CERTAINLY people who are from tumblr (more on this later).

And, a LOT of those "Unspoken Rules Of Use", translate directly in meaning to DM games.

I do not at all understand those games. I look at messages in good faith. I also never used many of those sites for long. My main social media is and has always been tumblr, which I've only recently realized has the potential to be the single chillest Social media site ever, IF you curate correctly and don't start shit. I'd like to think I've stuck by those rules.

Almost no one cares if you spam their likes or reblogs. When people are posting irl personal stuff, no one cares abt "stalking". Mutuals will leave each other on read for days or months before responding like it was only 5 minutes.

I seriously wonder how much of that manipulation culture, in the digital world specifically, has stemmed from interaction algorithms, and their respectively cultivated culture on different websites.

[byakiibos]

yo!!

oHH gosh i finally have a moment to post here whoops so here’s a giant update kinda posty thingy i guess!! lets get down to business my children

alright so, i apologize for the lack of activity. things have been a bit hectic!! mostly with some family stuff and mental health, but dont worry im alright now!! i dont want to get too personal since i know thats sometimes not really people jam and yknow? thats alright, you gotta have your boundaries and all. 

as for addressing requests, i apologize its taken me a minute to actually get to them. as of right now, i have about fifty waiting in my inbox. which admittedly, its a bit intimidating to see. not that its any bother!! by no means, i just want to be a bit honest i guess. i love doing stuff for you all, its just kinda a reminder that im only one person, i’ll try to answer general questions and stuff first, but i also have the memory of a rock so, yeah, i got that going for me i guess. 

also speaking of requests, for right now im gonna have to close them. i apologize for that!! i just need a bit to catch up on them without them burying me is all. its gonna take a minute, but we’ll get there one of these days. Which i know, i could probably ask for some more mods to help me, but i’d feel kinda bad about it is all-- unless you all would want a separate blog for more mods and stuff which idk if you guys do but eh, we’ll see. I might open them up sooner, but its probably gonna be for just about anything but doodles and sprite edits, since thats what i have the most of rn. 

speaking of requests! because im not sure how often the rules and stuff are checked, i just kinda want to update you all that i probably wont be doing any positivity or advice. its not that i cant, its just that i dont feel like i’d be able to really help i guess? this isnt looking for pity, but i feel like i tend to word things improperly, and i dont want to hurt anyone. but if you absolutely need some advice or positivity from me, i can see what i do, but no guarantee its gonna be worth anything. im one of those people that if you need anything, im kinda here i guess. which i know is eh considering im just some stranger on the internet but its whatever i guess. im just here to give some ~good vibes~. 

despite requests being closed, the inbox will still be open. if you need to post a canon call or promo at all, feel free to use it! i would just appreciate it if you didn’t request anything is all. if you have any questions as to anything, feel free to shoot me an ask! i’ll probably reply. and if you need to directly message me, feel free to! just note that i might be a bit uneasy at first, its kinda a reaction i have to people. dont let that turn you away though!! i’m still open to talk whenever needed. 

but ye!! thats all i could honestly think of to say, if i need to say anything else i’ll just uh, make another post or reblog this one to add onto it. sorry for the bit of long post this is, just want to get them deets and stuff out there. 

TL;DR: sorry for the absence and requests are closing! canon calls, promos, and other general questions are still okay to send though. 

[incarnateirony]

To confused Supernatural fraaands joining pillowfort

Making a “how not to get lost” tutorial. I know a new social platform can be really intimidating, and I'm getting a lot of people flocking in from tumblr, sending DMs asking questions -- and no, that's not a sign to stop, I just recognize there's a lot of questions I can give you a masterpost to share to your confused friends!

Included is: how and where to find people and content, maximize your reach and impact, how to actually use the interface to its best capacity, what bugs to expect, how to talk to the staff and suggest new features, dos, donts, and how-tos.

Pillowfort tutorials and stuff exist, and I'll link those in a bit, but I can not emphasize enough how important it is to find the right communities for you as a base line to start. So, have a list of the biggest Supernatural communities and a few not-huge-ones that may still tickle certain fancies.

Supernatural: show, cast, and ship positive

Destiel: Take a wild guess what the comm is for

ProfoundNet: The PB/Destiel server related, I dunno how much they upkeep it at a glance but everybody seems to stay in touch.

SupernaturalArtsAndFics -  All ships, all cast, don’t be a dick is the rule there.

DeanWinchesterIsBisexual

And lo, though I hate promoting it I will be fair, there’s The_Wincest_Community  and just “Wincest” - the members and content seems pretty identical.

There’s an SPN NSFW Art group too -

Castiel fangroup

SPN Multishippers group

SPN Reverse bang

SPN Fanart,

Destiel Fan Favorites Survey Community

Cockles

After here, groups keep getting smaller and are all like… 30 people or less, I’m stopping centralized listing at the 30-mark. And right now, small groups still have a chance to boom once more people migrate across. But this is where you can start to find MOST of your people at.

You can search the community feature for smaller, related communities. Hell, there’s a Drowley community with 7 members right now. A Sabriel , a Sastiel. Etc. There’s a bunch of fractal J2 hat groups that have like 3-10 people, one has like 20. Any time I try to search J2M I’m getting a nightmare deluge of unrelated results and freeze when I click to page 2 to find something relevant. The Team Free Will group looks young and may end up redundant on a feed, only time will tell. Actor based groups seem… smaller. There’s a J2 Fanart group, but not one for them independently. 17 members. There’s a misha group called Mishapocalypse . So that’s still needing to get built up over there all-around.

For what it’s worth, I tried to paste a few together:

Right now, Supernatural Meta has 19 members. You don't have to be a meta author to join.

Annnnd I just put together a “The Brothers - Sam and Dean”place to enjoy non-shippy talk, content and conversation about the brothers. Just forage up the rules and roll.

And I have a Bobo Appreciation club I just launched but the site is in lag-mode and I don’t have the will to find the link.

Disclaimer: I’m just going with the biggest groups I’ve seen. I have not personally investigated all of these. I can’t say I’m necessarily endorsing all of these as awesome places or whatever, but it’s a place to START on a new platform. And before I get a concern troll asking why I linked a Wincest group, whether we like it or not, Wincest is here. It’s not the biggest ship, it’s not the cleanest ship, it’s not the - whatever. I don’t agree with it, most of my followers don’t agree with it, but lots of fans are multishippers, are scattered abroad, and frankly… now is not the time to be separated bitching over our differences.

Now  a short bit about what communities are GOOD FOR and why I endorse them so much.

See, when you join a community, you get subscribed to all posts going through that community, whether you follow the individual or not. If you fear a community will give content you don't want to see, blacklist the tag on the sidebar under Filters & Blacklist and, if someone just utterly fails to tag their trash you don't want to see, there's always the block function. If a community has more bad than good for you, maybe try to find another, or make your own. There's lots.

But that said, it helps us find each other and content while this platform is young. If you post, say, to the Supernatural group, several hundred people get your post blasted across their feed, presuming you aren't using a tag they blacklisted. It keeps feeds active and keeps us from climbing into holes we lose information in. And, frankly, gives even the smallest account a chance to be seen by the world.

Okay cool, you've found a few communities, there's posts on your feed, you know where to start chattering and finding people, so how does this work past THAT?

Well, first there's a few realistic messages from early beta users and devs about the platform worth reading.

A sort-of masterpost of tutorials and how-tos.

Where to find the beta community, make a wishlist of features to suggest to the devs, introduce yourself, find known issues, contact the staff, history, find other base cornerstone communities outside of fandom, tips, how-tos, you name it. REALLY USEFUL POST. MUST READ.

Realistic expectations for the client in beta.

How to jerry rig it to work as a mobile app with notifications.

In the area of visuals, if you're tired of the blue ... ocean that surrounds us while they refine their visual experiences, if you're on desktop, I made a series of SPN skins. Follow the instructions to install the skin of choice.

Sam Winchester - Vivid; Warm tones, mostly red

Rowena; Dark, black, violet, red.

Team Free Will - Dark; amber green blue slate

Sam & Dean - Earth tones, medium theme

Dean & Cas 1 - vivid; bright, blue/green

Dean & Cas 2 - dark, blue/green, slate, transparent side bar, feather head navbar.

The second Dean & Cas one is the most extensive. The first were quick generated slap-overs to get rid of the most persistent blinding elements, D&C2 I took it a few steps further. It’s lightly responsive with glows on link hovers, more image overlays tucked around quietly, wider use of gradients and color filled posts to match the theme, which the others don’t have. In time I’m going to see if I can start styling the divs themselves such as changing shape/align. Pretty sure I can. I’m weathered in the fires of RPH profile editing to make CSS do ridic stuff.

And yes, I take requests. I do it for free, right now at least. It’ll probably go obsolete. I don’t have a huge number of requests. So why not?

Keep in mind, there's some differences between pillowfort and tumblr, which most people are migrating from. Personally, I consider these HUGE improvements and steps forward once this place gets bigger. So let's do a breakdown, in complement to some of the resources I linked above.

So what makes Pillowfort so fucking special?

Okay, so check it out. On tumblr, we’re used to reblogging shit into the  depths of the internet. As Pillowfort grows it, too, has that capability with some differences. The boldest difference is that when you reblog, your opinion doesn’t get attached to the end of the post. It just reblogs the base post. Some people initially complained and thought that was the loss of a feature but came to realize it’s a blessing.

You see, that means someone can’t kidnap your post with a shitty opinion to reblog it to their friends with a shitty opinion that all attach their heckling shitty opinions. Like, let’s say it’s someone that’s Destiel fandom reading this. Ever had an anti shit reblog your post and it run wild? Well, now, if they try to reblog it, all they reblog is… your Destiel post. Thanks for that.

So how do we actually say what we need to?

Well, fam, it incorporated elements from LJ/DW, in having threaded replies. Multiple threads if so needed. The threaded replies are capable of housing just about anything an OP has. So a blog post has, alongside Like/Reblog notifications, comments. Open the post, read the comments, start an actual conversation with some merit. Did some douchebag come to spam your comments since they can’t reblog? No problem, delete their shitty comments and block them, problem solved.

But it doesn’t end there.

Double back to the stuff about communities I bragged up, above. Notice what all that gives you. Realize you can blog into/out of/across different communities.

When you make your own communities you can have internal discussions or blog in/out posts, you can set rules, promote moderators, remove or ban problem users, and generally control the flow of your community to keep out shitlords. But, if for example, you subscribed to a community that turns out to be secretly run BY a shitlord because, IDK, maybe they don’t like that you think Sam is bi or something, most of these communities are large and blog in/out/engageable enough that you won’t lose your contacts, you WILL find your people over time, and you won’t be completely choked off to a singular abyss.

So the base beat is

PF treats every single post like any root post on an LJ/DW comm, but is able to be reblogged from/to communities or your own blog page as freely as tumblr.  PF takes the best concepts of current and previous fandom platforms in its base application and lays a groundwork that literally all of us can prosper on if it survives and continues.

“I kinda like PF but it doesn’t have X feature-”

Okay look, PF is a smolbabe, like I said. It’s in beta. The thing is, they’re adding things every day. They have a dev list like 2 pages long for goals and things are getting crossed off and added like, biweekly. It might already be on their list to add. And if it’s not, guess what?

The staff actually give a shit and react to questions and concerns. There’s entire beta groups to talk about features with bugs, and/or features that should be added or adjusted. There’s a comm to talk directly to the staff about things. They're linked above in this post, and you can find them, leave what you want to see modified or added... boom! Help make this platform WHAT YOU WANT IT TO BE.

A small, young platform needs people willing to be out there saying what would improve the experience. You’re not just fandom pioneers, you’re social media pioneers if you so choose to be. It’s not mandatory. You can just fan in your space how you want. Or you can go to the beta groups and staff groups and tell them what you think would improve the experience.  Keep in mind, tumblr didn't start with all the bells and whistles it ended up with. It didn't start with a bazillion users. But some people put their toes in the water while others jumped in, and others stayed back for years until all their friends changed pools.

Hopefully this answers most questions, concerns, and wants for people tripping into Pillowfort from the fandoms I attend right now. If anything still confuses you -- don't be shy about making USE of the powerful differences. Pop open this post, leave a comment, hold a conversation and I'll help how I can.