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#and I don't participate in the many many discord group chats i'm in because I am shy and bad at initiating conversation

pretz3l-log1c · 11 months

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Recently I saw a post explaining cats vocalize around humans as a way to social signal. That Humans do a lot of social signaling as well. That's why people talk about the weather or will grumble about the long wait in line to the person near them. Or why people will ask 'Hey, how's it going?' and just want a 'good. Thanks for asking. And you?'. It's all about recognizing you're part of a group.

Then I saw, and reblogged a post, explaining that compared to most marketing stats, fanfiction is exceptionally above engagment averages at even 10% kudos per hits.

Yet, fanfic writers often feel as if they're screaming into a void and that engagement is down/dwindling/dying/etc.

So now I'm wondering if these two things are connected.

I think the problem fanfic writers are currently facing is a matter of community. In a way participating in fandom by writing fanfic is a way of social signalling. It is a way for the writer to go "I like this thing, don't you like this thing too?"

It's like the writer is calling out hello only for 90 out of 100 people to blankly stare at them. 10 out of 100 will wave hello. Only a few out of 100 will actually say something back.

Is it any wonder writers feel like they're screaming into a void? At least when you scream into a void you don't know how many people heard you, you just hear who screams back. It has to hurt mentally to put your heart out there and feel like it's being ignored.

I think about how forums of the early internet age have largely died off. How Tumblr engagement has ebbed over the years. How fanfiction has become some people's main means of engaging in fandom because it's 'free'.*

So I genuinely think the problem here is fanfic writers want community and are trying to gain that through fanfic. And they feel largely ignored/abandoned/snubbed because they're not recieving that engagement.

So my advice to writers:

turn off/hide/ignore your fanfic stats. If email alerts for kudos and/or comments spark joy then keep them. Otherwise turn those off as well.

create and/or join fandom focused discords. Find people you connect with and build a community that way.

put an author's note on your works that you like to engage with readers. That you want their thoughts, feelings opinions, etc. on your writing. Provide links for people to to chat you up on whatever social media site you prefer.

My advice to readers:

if you're going to talk to fandom friends about a fic you read, maybe leave a comment as simple as 'I love this and I'm going to share it with everyone I know.'

if you find a fic you regularly re-read or an author you loyally follow, let the author know that.

if a fic had a huge impact on you, let the writer know that.

Readers please note: I am not saying leave kudos more often, I am not saying comment on every fic. I am saying, in short, if it moves you then let the author know you were moved.

* yes I know fanworks are a labor of love/hobby and not actually free for the creator at least in time/effort. I write fanfic. I'm just saying it doesn't typically cost money to consume.

#pretzel rambles #writing #fanfiction #fanart #I do make an effort to leave comments on RB art for example #anything from 'oh the color scheeme so pretty' to 'a short fanfic drabble #i don't always succeed #and I think that's ok because ai am still RBing the art so other may see it #and maybe someone else will have the spoons to comment #I think we talk a lot about the spoon theory here on tumblr #so I think it's important to think reading fanfic cost 1 spoon but engaging with it cost 2 and most people don't have a 2nd spoon to spare #i think we need to kinder to ourselves about our expectations for how 'successful' a fanfic is #also kinder to readers and our expectations of them

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heymacy · 2 months

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Hi Macy! 10, 18, and 25 for the fandom asks please!

KAT!! HI HI HELLO!

10. a blog (mutual or one you follow) that has made your fandom experience brighter: literally every single one of you. every! single! one! but if i had to shout someone specific out it would be @gardenerian and @iansfreckles, for everything they've given me over the last few years. they'll know what i mean 💛

18. a fandom tag that you track: i actually don't track any fandom tags! is that surprising? i check the "shameless" tag sometimes to see what y'all are up to but that's about it! i might start tracking the #chappell roan tag tho bc i'm starting to be really active in that fandom. is that a fandom? it is, right? idk, i just adore her!

25. a piece of advice for taking care of yourself in fandom space: oh GOOD GOD i have so many pieces of advice for this. first, use the block button. i am not kidding. the worst thing someone can do, like the ABSOLUTE worst thing that will happen, is someone making a passive aggressive callout post about you on their page. which like, is not that bad. it's happened to me and i'm still here and kicking! second, enter every situation with zero expectations whatsoever. every interaction, every post, every piece of art you share. expect absolutely nothing to happen so that when things do happen, it's an even bigger joy. i never expect anything i post to get any traction so when it happens, it's even better than it would be if i was jonesing for notes! third, find your people. it can be one person or ten people or thirty, but find them. put yourself out there and be unapologetically YOU and the right people will gravitate. then make a group chat, a discord server, etc. and talk! talk talk talk! all the time! about fandom stuff and non-fandom stuff. share things about your life, bitch and moan, just generally engage as much as you can. i do it and it's glorious. fourth, don't feel like you need to be constantly logged in. if you're worried about not being active but your mental health is suffering, set up a queue and take a step back. do not be afraid to be inactive though, because ultimately fandom should be fun and the second it stops being fun, you HAVE to step back and take care of yourself first. engage in other non-fandom hobbies in the meantime, and if you're like me and you didn't have any when the fixation broke and your life was in shambles, find one! it will be the best form of catharsis and help bring things back into perspective. lastly, remember that IT IS NOT THAT SERIOUS. don't participate in infighting. don't make callout posts or vaguepost about stuff because it will only make things worse. rise above it. if you wanna bitch, bitch to your friends in private and be kind and courteous in public. it will save your skin and your sanity. GOD THIS WAS SO LONG but i have just learned so much and i wanted to pass it on. anyway. tallyho! i love you all 💛

#GOD MACY SHUT UP #macy babbles #ask games

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clovercoin · 2 years

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Hi, I'm a bit confused and can't find any page where this is mentioned - are pillowings a closed species? Who can make new pillowings? (alternatively, can you give a link to the rules regarding pillowings?)

EEEE I LOVE TO SHARE ABOUT PILLOWINGS!!!

First are the rules. AHEM.

Any of my adoptables can be gifted, traded, or resold without any limits.

Please contact me ahead of time if you would like to discuss purchase of commercial rights for an adopt I made.

I do not approve of the use of my artwork and adopts as crypto/nft/anything block chain related.

Now more fun stuff, Anyone can make a pillowing! YEP. LITERALLY ANYONE CAN MAKE A PILLOWING (Or cloverse species).

We register pillowings because they use to be a closed species, I have since removed the term from my community as it no longer applies. Registered pillowings and lintlings get to participate in group activities, prompts, the discord art trade game, and get the chance for free artwork from me!

Registering your pillowings is also just a really wonderful way to help the community and the CloverCoin owners to fund events, afford to take time off to work on the group, and just keep our bills paid so we can make more Clo content!

Sorry for our mess! We're currently stuck on Deviantart for the group and the masterlist where we register pillowings and lintlings.

I really wanted to move onto Lorekeeper type website to centralize it, but I sadly don't know how to do that on my own. And my husband Prov says he would much prefer to make a website himself for our own security. (As you can see, we are harassed often!) So we're just waiting on him to get that up and running for the mods and I to test out.

Otherwise here is the pillowings feature list with a ton of traits we regularly see in the pillowing species! Feel free to check out the masterlist for all the pillowings who are registered, so many creative designs in there it's INCREDIBLE.

We sell tons of pillowings (already registered with the group) on CloverCoin Deviantart page and CloverCoin Toyhouse! So if you want a premade one, no worries are have awesome selections.

Prefer to make one yourself? NO SWEAT. Make a dozen mock ups, share your fun! If you decide, "Wow this 1 pillowing is my favorite, I think I want to make them official?" YOU CAN! You just comment a register form on Deviantart for the mods to add them to the archive.

MYO Slot prices have always stayed the exact same since pillowings were introduced as an adoptable species~

Common - $25

Uncommon - $30

Rare - $40

Very Rare - $50

Special - $200

The feature tiers of customization trickle down. So if you purchase a Very Rare myo slot, you get to use Very rare, rare, uncommon, and common traits of your choice on the pillowing design. There are no limits on how many features, what colors you use, anything like that.

Loving the idea of pillowings so far? JOIN OUR DISCORD! We have a creative community that started out as Clo Adoptable Server but now it's more of an art share/open chat for anyone who wants to hang out. C: We love adopts, we love pillowings, & we don't allow anti harassment in server. (Bonus we have oldies NSFW zone for the adults to relax in.)

#clovercoin #clover coin #ajarting #pillowing #pillowings #adopt #adopts #adoptable #adoptables

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lukasagitta · 8 months

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Do you miss the time when you, Shelly, and others were running the comic tumblrs? It seems like so many of you are deactivating (PLEASE DO NOT GO!! Or, if you ever choose to, please stay open like your other tumblrs!)🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺😩😩😩😞😞😞😞😞

I do get nostalgic about those days sometimes! I miss being that passionate about something so huge, having a near-endless supply of content to devour, writing metas and doing research and including CITATIONS!!!, discussing things with friends and followers like headcanons and different portrayals, having a community of people who were all "experts" in a particular character/family to goof around with, getting excited asks from people who cared about my take on things, etc. It was also nice to be jokingly referred to as an authority on anything, let alone my beloved son Jason. Honestly, the DC fandom was a great outlet for my autism LMAO.

I think I've forgotten how to make friends in fandoms nowadays. I join all the Discords and try to chat with people but can never connect with anyone. I was just getting all mopey earlier because I have this massive fanfic that I've poured my heart and soul into, and while a lot of people are reading it, none of them are people that I talk to regularly. I miss being able to ask for feedback and opinions from people that I trusted like I could in the comics fandom. In comparison, being in the Stranger Things fandom feels like I'm screaming into the void. I don't know if it's easier to make friends based on meta vs. fanfics or if I'm just doing it Wrong, but...it's rather lonely and alienating. I think I'll be done with actively participating in fandom after I finish this fic, which is sad, but the lack of community just kills my passion.

I'm no longer in touch with anyone from that group (simply because I literally don't read comics anymore aside from WFA LOL though I do still follow some of them I think??). I didn't know that any of them had deactivated and I'm not sure why that happened. I hope it was just because they lost interest and not because anything bad happened!

In any case--while I don't see myself ever posting on @comic-commentary again, I have very fond memories of that experience, I still stand by most of my metas, and I have no intentions of deactivating/deleting that blog (unless tumblr strikes me down, which would be beyond my control lol). I'm also not leaving tumblr until it dies probably.

And hey, for nostalgia's sake, I poked around in my old icon reaction folder for that blog!

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lunarcovehq · 3 months

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I'm really interested in joining but I'm worried about keeping up with the pace of the rp mainly because of my job. What would you say the activity level is and pace of the plots? What is expected of members aside from what is written in the rules? Are most things on the dash or is Discord used a lot too? Sorry if these are too many questions! Thank you! This RP is so stunning!

Hi love! We're so glad that you're interested and would love to have you join our fam. I totally understand being worried about keeping up with the pace. I just started grad school myself on top of a full time job, so I can assure you we are very understanding when it comes to the fact that real life comes first. I would describe us as being a fairly active group, but I promise you it is nothing that you shouldn't be able to handle with a hectic or demanding job. We are really flexible when it comes to activity and hiatuses. We've had members who've taken hiatuses for a month or two and we have members who take a hiatus for a day. Our rp is a fun lovely community and our writing group is hobby, so if you can't get on to do replies for a week or even a few, that's is 100% okay. We just ask that you communicate with us and then you can be on as much or as little as your schedule demands. As for the activity level and pace of the plots, some of our members post nearly every day/every other day and some of our members can only post replies once a week. But, if you can only get on once a week, you're not going to miss much plot wise. We make sure to give our members plenty of time to be able to write out and react to plot drops and events. We also will time out events accordingly based on our members schedules. For example, our last event which was our Holiday Event ran for a whole month, because we knew our members were going to be away on Holiday and with family & friends. While our Halloween event, lasted only two weeks since our members were all around and it was more of a character driven event than a plot one. All of our members will also typically continue to write event threads for long after the events already over being the muse here is strong, so if you can't make it to majority of event, but you want to participate, we will make sure you will be able to. Our only expectations are what are written out in the rules. This is a Tumblr RP so we will only ever expect you to ever write IC on the dash. Any important announcements, plot drops, events etc. will also always be posted on the main. That being said, we love to foster a community here, so our OOC chat is on Discord, which we love to chat in it every day, so if you don't have time to do replies, but still want to be part of the fun, you can always chat away with us (or if you're busy, feel free to mute us). We also will always post any announcements in discord as well so no one misses anything and will typically have one IC discord day for each event (our events tend to happen every other month). This is completely optional. You do not have to participate in these discord parties if you don't want to and we always work off of the groups' schedules when picking which days these discord IC events will be held/give plenty of instructions per discord party. But, they are a lot of fun! We just want to occasionally give our members the opportunity to have multiple characters interact with each other in real time since Tumblr is set up for more 1x1 threads. That and the discord parties give opportunities for characters who may not have interacted before to get to know each other. I hope that answers all of yours questions and sorry this got so long!

#lunarcoveadmin #faq #sorry this answer is so long but we'd love to have you <3

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ieatsurveys · 1 year

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88.

Are you going to be busy tomorrow? Just working. What was the last topic you read about on Wikipedia? Probably a crime thing. Have you ever donated money to Wikipedia? Yes. Around what time of the year do you start your Christmas shopping? November or December. Do you have blinds or curtains on your windows? Sure do. What are the most common birds you'd see around your home? I don't know. Did you sleep well last night? No. Did you live within walking distance of school when you were a kid? It was a few miles. What board games did you play when you were growing up? Trouble. Do you know any sign language? Yes, I'm fluent in it. When was the last time you bought new clothes? Hm, it's been a while. What did you get? Oh, wait. I lied. I bought a dress. What, other than books, do you have on your bookshelves? Mail. Do you ever watch streamers on Twitch? No. How close are your nearest neighbours? Across the hall and upstairs. Has your house ever been broken into? No. How did you find out? That my house hasn't been broken into? Because.....it hasn't? What do you usually eat for breakfast? Eggs. What's the first thing your hand touches if you reach to the left? My pillow. Describe your favourite mug or cup.

If you could teleport to any country right now for a holiday, what would it be? England. Are you overwhelmed right now? Yes. Did you share a bedroom with someone when you were growing up? Nope. Have you ever had anything dry cleaned? Sure haven't.

How many group chats are you in? In a couple. Do you participate in them much? Just discord. What's the best concert you ever went to? Skillet. Do you like to watch subtitled movies? I only watch things with subtitles. Are you still in touch with any of your exes? Nope. How old were you when the first American Pie movie came out? I dunno. Pretty young. Do you know how to change the oil in a car? Nope. What about a flat tire? No. What do you do for work? Appointment coordinator.

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saltminerising · 2 years

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re /post/674678999607345152/

I used to be in Ice. I love the aesthetic, and used to love the dom team when I played many years ago. But when I came back last year from a long hiatus, I discovered that the new dom team is... uncomfortable? I'm not sure how to say it. They're nice enough on the surface, and I had fun participating in dom for one push or two. But the longer I participated, the more I noticed how awful they can be to people who they deem, like... unworthy?

They're super cancel-y and will gang up on people for things that they perceive to be "bad" but aren't... really... an issue?

Tbh I don't even know why they use Discord and not a different chat service, because they have multiple rules (both official rules and unspoken ones that they just "prefer") about how people aren't allowed to use certain Discord features specifically on their server. I once saw a Nitro user ask permission to use the Ice emojis outside of the server, like in DMs and stuff, because they were worried that wasn't allowed. That's... literally how Discord works. It's what Nitro users pay for. And, at the time at least, it wasn't even in the server rules. Why is someone worried the team would get upset with them for it?!?!

There's just this weird culture of people constantly asking if they're allowed to do things or if something is okay, because it's never clear when you'll accidentally step on some hidden trap no one warned you about and get publicly called out for it like you were somehow supposed to know.

They also don't really seem to get how calling someone out or calling out a specific group of people in a public channel can be perceived. It really sucks.

I once told one of the dom leaders I liked their art (literally something like "your doodle of x is super cute!") and rather than just accept the compliment, they got mad at me because I called it the wrong type of animal. It wasn't even a polite correction, which I would completely understand. Rather, they got super offended I would dare mix up two species of similar-looking animal, and went on a rant about it on a public discord channel, saying how anyone could tell those two types of animals apart. Clearly I touched a nerve--sorry, won't compliment your art anymore. I suppose public shaming was an appropriate response for trying to be nice. Maybe that happened to them a lot or something, I don't know. Either way, getting publicly chewed out for trying to compliment someone was definitely a bit of a shock, especially from someone who is supposed to be an organizer in a position of authority.

It's rarely dramatic from them, though. It's usually just coldness, vagueposting, general passive aggressiveness, and borderline-uncomfortable comments until someone just... quietly leaves. Sentiments like how everyone who does or likes a certain thing are bad and should feel bad, clearly not caring how many members that may apply to. There's no sense of nuance or empathy. Honestly, they act a bit like stereotypical cliquey, holier-than-thou private school kids in TV dramas. I think if you agree with all of their preferences you'd never notice anything was wrong, but the moment someone seems to differ in tastes or personality or the way they communicate, they're frozen out.

Fits with the theme of Ice, I guess.

Anyway, I'm in Shadow now. A little squad of us moved over there together a few months ago. Less dom but I'm okay with that, and the eyes are much harder to work with. But the aesthetic is fun and I can always use nest rentals, and so far I've never once felt unwelcome or like I'm going to be driven out for like, I don't know, accidentally crossing a dom leader's personal tastes.

#fr discord #submission #long post

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garblegox · 3 years

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• Humpty Dumpty Elegy 3 | five books on ☠DEATH🌼 •

The group held a vote on whether to kick Mr. Dumpty out for a year.

Yes won.

I wasn't in on the deliberation, behind the scenes. I'm not a big wig; didn't even get a vote. But I know three big things tipped the scales: Our safety, the perversion, and content violations in chat.

Once we had all taken off our pity goggles, we started to wonder why we overlooked all the murder-suicide commentary. We also thought, in horror, about the reactions of our loved ones, girlfriends, or wives, if we exposed them to Humpty's antics.

A few long-time regulars on the discord were becoming noticeably more absent since he joined. One said a year ago that he wouldn't tolerate Humpty Dumpty's bullshit. He meant it, and he made his point through his actions from the start.

We wanted our other friends back. Friends we'd known for many more years; who actually participate in games with the group; who are gregarious and entertaining; Friends that haven't designated the entire group to be their therapist.

Not everyone had bad memories of Humpty. Because some never logged on when he was in voice chat.

It's officially an elegy.

We all feel gross. Our admin, despite all the negative testimonies, including his own, felt that booting Dumpty was a bitter pill to swallow. He's only ever banned people for egregious, obvious, suicide-by-admin type behavior. But he also felt a bit ashamed for letting people in his group be exposed to such an individual.

In a way, we could hold ourselves responsible for not being more firm in enforcing our boundaries. Five "no"s, and one "yes", means "yes". Five "no"s, a "yes", and a "man, Humpty, you're really a piece of shit, you know that?" also means "yes" just the same. I know how to say "no". And with Humpty, I didn't do my best.

But again, we were never actual therapists, and Humpty rarely acted like a friend. What kind of friend makes you have to consult with books by FBI agents on establishing firm boundaries? Nutty fuckin douchebag friends. I did appreciate him buying me Doom, though. That felt genuinely nice before he cracked a whip at me about it.

This time, I'm gonna try to be far more respectful. He is a human. He is lonely. He does have a lot to learn. And I get no pleasure from his exile. Maybe relief, but no schadenfreude.

Before, I was writing from the perspective of someone at the end of their rope. After experimenting with every level of intensity, trying to get these points across, the only level I hadn't tried was the furious, "Okay fuckhead, you're dead to me. If you don't want to do it the easy way, we'll do it the humiliating way" level of intensity.

It's been fun. But my anger has only one thing left to do, and that's diminish. I got a lot of books for Humpty Dumpty to read, and it's going to be hard to keep the fire hot.

My overall goal is still to share books with people, and to learn from the finest anti-model I've ever met. I told Dump about what I was writing, the reason why, and the fact that I was trying to eviscerate him. He chuckled at me and never got around to reading it, which kind of emboldened me to crank up the spice.

Now that he's cut off, there's a far greater chance he revisits this series. I'll focus on making it actually readable for him too, and not a massive diarrhea cannon aimed at his face. I'll sound like how I spoke to him pre-Twelve Days of Christmas, when I was in investigation mode; When I had hope for him. I got into this mess via sympathy.

"I'm going to kill myself" was Hump's #1 catch phrase. I still reckon he stole it from Wednesday for attention, but whatever, lets just humor him. I don't want that to happen. And if he was ever tempted to really do it, it might be after getting swept off into the goatscape.

So, as we kick off our more namaste-like, Dumpty-free future, let's begin with my favorite books about DEATH. Books a suicidal cat might dig. I know I did.

• #1 Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl •

Cried like a silly bitch at work, the other day, thanks to this book. I re-listened to it on my phone, and you'd think I spent the whole shift slicing onions.

I'm blessed with coworkers whom I can joke about it with. In the kitchen, we have two types of conversations on line: peep-to-peep chatter; or shouting from one corner of the room to the other, as a sort of performance to make front of house laugh.

Our favorite hits include shouting about: Familial trauma or neglect, sleep disrupting insecurities, suicidal thoughts, political cynicism, nihilistic bile, and the last thing we had a good fuckin cry about. Like a half dozen Statlers and Waldorfs, heckling existence itself.

This one produced some rare tears, though. Tears of awe. This feels like one of those, "Read-every-few-years-for-the-rest-of-my-life" type books.

Known as "the third school of Viennese psychology," Viktor Frankl's "Logotherapy" was first put to the test when he survived three years, in four different Nazi concentration camps. From, "logos" meaning, "meaning" or "reason", logotherapy focusses on the existential meaning of a patient's existence.

Frankl would often ask patients, after they spilled out all their woes, "So, why haven't you killed yourself, yet?" It wasn't rhetorical, he wasn't just trying to be hilarious, the "why" was the point of his entire practice.

"One who has a why to live can bear almost any how" -- Friedrich Nietzsche (aka Frick Nitzels)

Viktor witnessed what happened to a person when their meaning was lost. A man, who lived to see March 31st, the day he prophesized would be his liberation, died two days later when it became clear his dream wouldn't come true. First, he went catatonic, then came typhus. Death by April Fools.

Meanwhile, another man, who prayed to god to transmute all of his suffering into protection for his loved ones in other camps, took every measure of sadism and misery with a steady return of hope. That's not masochism, that's alchemy.

I discussed with Humpty the importance of how he constructs a narrative around his life. That he cultivates nihilism at his own peril. That his big strong brain only has access to half of the truth, if he only focusses on the objective ones. Psychology has a reductionism problem, where mechanical focus on clinical diagnoses reduces people to barely animals.

For some people, their neurology is perfectly sound. Not an imbalance in sight. Their lives? Ship-shape & Bristol; Ivan Ilyich approved; all rites passed; A G R E E A B L E. But how do they feel to be alive? Like the biggest bag of worthless shit.

Why? What makes some people seemingly impervious to psychiatric intervention? Because not all psychiatrists think "the meaning of life" is a scientific topic, and therefore not their role to discuss. Which means you can spend a lot of time learning about psychology, and never learn a single subjective truth.

This is why self-diagnosis is so risky. Where is any of this bullshit I'm writing about on Web MD?

So start here. Evaluate self-help by more logotheraputic standards. Ask, "does this even acknowledge the importance of meaning in my life, or help me pursue it?"

This is my favorite shit to summon tears with. I'm not fully sure why. But if I need tears on queue: "I am here- I am here-..." and I'm away. Same at work, as while I write this now. Makes me wonder what madness even means.

• #2 The Road To Character by David Brooks •

What does Dumpty value?

Not dating fat or ugly women; Getting the negative attention of Japanese videogame developers on Twitter; Being seen as the brother of a girl who isn't his biological sister, or in his family at all; $750 Shadow The Hedgehog statues; Not being a "normie"; and many other purely worthless things.

He's where I started wondering if chronic depression might be a philosophical issue for some people, as opposed to a contextual or neurochemical one. The man will never improve till he wraps his head around the idea of intrinsic values.

There's zero hope of Humpty living a happy life without a moral compass. Sadly for him, he's not a real psychopath, who can easily find all the eudaimonia he wants, just at other people's expense, guilt free. He's a dull narcissist, whose fate is just a crescendo of greater and greater solitude; a deeper and more empty abyss, till annihilation.

This is a book I read early, in my journey to deconfuckulate my brain, and it played a major role in most of my Humpty-scolding, largely without me recognizing it. Upon re-reading, I was surprised to find it influenced my decision to read 4 other books over the years. Including Man's Search For Meaning, and Culture And Anarchy (BANGER) by Matthew Arnold.

Btw Matthew Arnold is the guy who gave us the modern usage of "philistine." I'll be writing more about him, because his book is as applicable today as it was seven generations ago. That book is 2 Yosemite Sam guns/2 Yosemite Sam guns, bang bang bang.

Maybe you're like me, and "moralist" sounds like an insult. Well, Brooks isn't here to scold anyone or be a nerdy little bitch. Don't let anyone fool you, this isn't religious or conservative propaganda, it's another contribution to logotherapy. Take it from a pathologically anti-authoritarian douchebag like myself.

He gives a couple handy binaries to help organize your priorities. "Adam I vs Adam II" virtues, or "Resume vs Eulogy" virtues.

The Adams refer to how in Genesis, Adam displayed two different sets of virtues at different times. Adam I is practical, marketable, flexible, conditional, and Hellenistic. While Adam II is spiritual, self-contained, disciplined, unconditional, and Hebraistic.

Adam I is a great object, but a vacuous subject. Adam II puts little value in the objective world, in favor of a richer subjective one. Not everyone is in a rush to hire Adam II for a job, but everyone's coming to his funeral to pay their respects. Spending time around Adam II is mind expanding, and spiritually enriching.

You see the orange of that cover? That's the yolk I've been trying to get into Humpty's empty fucking shell the whole time. But little did I know I'm just a stupid normie, trying to argue against the axiom that life is meaningless. Am I really that cruel for calling Humpty empty? He's the only motherfucker I know to be like "Yeah, sonder is bliss, but leave me out of it. I'm an ant, not a hill, in this useless head of mine."

We could hold modern psychology responsible for a lot of this. When people dropped faith, and abandoned priests, they created a vacuum in their hearts. I think you can fill it with a multitude of things, without going back to church. But to fill it with psychology exclusively is a disastrous mistake. If you want dogma, just go back to church. Way better chance of turning out friendly.

When Humpty asked for help, what did he have in mind? He claimed he was continuously improving, just by being in our presence. But I know "improve" has nothing to do with eulogy virtues, coming from him. It's why I became convinced he was just looking for attention. The sweetness of a spotlight.

Everyone in the group has got eulogy virtues, and the kind of worries that'd fill Adam II's heart with the warmest sympathy. Wednesday is someone who has exhausted all conventional strategies for fighting depression; all the neurochemical and contextual battlefronts have been braved by him. But the real victories have been existential; A change in philosophy. (Plus, our frontal lobes grew in. If you're under 25 look forward to that shit. It's nice. 👍👍👍👍)

There's no such thing as building character through osmosis. Brooks, like many others in this series, see it as a painful reconstruction project. Parts of you need to be dismantled, examined, and often thrown away. This is why this series is so heinously mean. Humpty is the only one that can humble himself; For me to do it is just humiliating. I tried to lead this horse to this water, and this horse stomped it into a mud puddle.

Another thicc scoop of logotherapy, with a stoic cherry on top. I said that it got me to read four other books, but really it's a bibliography of more than a dozen great authors we should all read before we die. From Mary Ann Evans to Montagne. He makes St Augustine sound like Iceberg Slim. Bestseller for a reason.

• #3 Denial Of Death by Ernest Becker •

Hey, I was just wondering if it'd be cool if I could just be immortal and unforgotten forever? At least for a few millennia. I'm thinking Giza pyramids level longevity. Should be easy. I like a good bite-sized goal.

A lot of people will tell you that the reason they, or anyone else, do anything is to get laid. That at the nucleus of all their heroism, striving, and anxiety, is sex. But why is sex so important? Because we're mortal. The real nucleus is death. The one bone our subconscious chews away on, day and night.

This is where "monkey brain" doesn't apply. Death anxiety is a unique byproduct of human intelligence. It's based on our ability to treat abstract symbols as if they were as concrete as the things they symbolize. A banknote, representing cold hard gold glows in the hand of its owner, like real precious metal; a man wearing a hat, that signifies his leadership over 50 armed men, can be as threatening alone with his hat as he is with his all his men in tow; And looking at the corpse of another human is a glimpse at one's own future. As if your death were mine too.

Every bit of psychological progress is just a wobbly house of cards if you built it before grappling with death. It's the "worm at the core of our pretentions to happiness."

We've all heard the story, someone reaches the tippity-tip-tap-top of the hippity-hip-hap-heap and what do they do? They stoop, put their chin to their fist, furrow their brow, and bum everyone the fuck out with an unsolicited existential crisis.

Because you ain't a pyramid you silly bitch. You a poopy worm.

This book though, in all seriousness, is all seriousness. When I read this I was like "FINALLY! Freudian psychology without all the awkward erections!" See, Freud was 95% right, but his dogmatic obsession with orgasms left his work in need of some decryption.

This book is where we all stop pretending we're any different from Humpty Dumpty. When we act out, we're lashing against our fear of death; fear of heroism; fear of success. When we reach to great heights, we're grasping at immortality.

Lets be straight up, Humpty's not stupid. He can give you a crystal clear description of objective facts, plus secondary and tertiary details. That brain of his is firing on all cinderblocks. The problem is, the neurotic are people who see things with perfect clarity, rather than confusion.

Humpty knows he's mortal. He knows heroism is just a reflex, to either uselessly distract yourself from death, or futilely attempt to negate it. He knows success will just leave him with one last thing to do: die, and be forgotten.

But he doesn't handle those facts, lets say, gracefully. His solipsism has him convinced he came up with all these notions himself. Anyone who appears to grasp them, AND put them towards a happy life, must not grasp them properly.

A little stupidity could do Dumpty some good. Or as Ernest calls it, "legitimate foolishness". The religious call it, "faith". His biggest fears are, making a fool of himself, and buying into comforting lies. He won't talk to women because of course they're going to reject him; He won't join a meatspace community because of course they don't want an autist, or an independent thinker; Of course he won't spend time on self-help, it's either redundant, or futile.

Maybe he's right, because you know, each "of course not" has a long flowchart of if-thens and either-ors behind it, that he spent DAYS ruminating on. Instead of one moment, where he tests his pessimistic hypotheses. Testing would be foolish, when you consider the prior arithmetic.

If Humpty looks even a little foolish, people instantly spot his autism and then he's DOOMED.

He's such a god that he can predict the future, but not withstand it. And such a worm that life is a joke, but too sacred to play with it.

You think "worm" is an insult. But most people don't even live up to a worm's standards; worms leave the world around them a better place. All they do is enrich. I bet if we didn't have worms, plants and fungi would officially cancel this "terrestrial animal" project they've been experimenting with for a while.

For want of a worm, the dirt was lost. For want of a dirt, the food was lost. For want a food, the poop was lost. For want of a poop, life was lost. For want of a life, the Earth was lost. For want of a Earth, God was lost. And all for the want of some shit little worms.

• #4 The Worm At The Core by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski •

Giving myself only a month to discuss this was HUBRIS. Good fuckin JESUS god! Then again, the work has all been done, I'm just trying to waft some air from these books at people's noses. It's gloomy, but this is the bread isle for the existentially starving. Virgin Mary toast, by tha loaf.

All that stuff back there? Ernest Becker? Not a scientist, that guy. It was one of those dirty rotten philosophy books. Eew! If you ask any traditional scientist nowadays, what they think about the importance of philosophy, a heartbreaking percentage think it's obsolete. Which to me, means a heartbreaking percentage of scientists are arrogant brainless fuckin' tumors.

When Denial Of Death dropped in '73, it garnered a ton of hype. It inspired a lot of art. But the scientific community abandoned it like a mamma bird, ditching her nest of chicks because they carry a foreign smell. They felt a little cucked by Kierkegaard, the pre-Freudian post-Freudian. And they'll never be outshone by a theologian. Not willingly.

But there were still scientists looking to bring Becker's work into the realm of the empirical. People like our authors here. Data, studies, models of predictability, nice science shit. The result? TMT, or "Terror Management Theory." Sounds so metal.

It's a treatment lane. Some people are mentally ill due to life circumstances, genetics, physical sickness, etc. For which, there are drugs, CBT, and lifestyle adjustments. One illness can be the result of many different influences, and can thus be treated by many different things.

One drastically overlooked influence however is existential dread. Yes, it can kill you.

Drugs won't change your relationship with mortality. All they can do is take away the physical manifestations of our inner conflict. But they don't answer questions once and for all. With the exception to psychedelics, which I highly recommend. A psychedelic near-death experience is a good time. Try experiencing a little eternity, and tell me you long to live forever.

You're longing for the scariest thing IN THE UNIVERSE!

Cognitive behavioral therapy is great for misbehavior. But behaving like a content person, when you're not, doesn't make you a content person. It's painful, like bone tinnitus. It doesn't answer important subjective questions. Doesn't wipe away the oily film of the absurd.

Lifestyle adjustments are great, but again, it's all extrinsic. Perfect in the meantime, as you're working on coming to terms with your mortality. But your lifestyle will adjust itself anyway, as your fear of death diminishes. It's one way you know its coming along. However I'd never assume I'm over my fear, rather that I'm just artfully dancing around the topic in my head. Once again, an art, not a science.

Do I have a healthy relationship with death? I think I do. Sadly, I think it has a lot to do with my parents, a healthy dosage of dying pets and peers, and most importantly, 3 catastrophic nightmare psilocybin trips. Things I can't share with others; All non-fungible experiences.

The shroom inhibitions were another big reason I gave up on Humpty. You gotta be humbled, you gotta be scared, you need to practice your death before you die. You can't just manage death terror with sarcasm, and catatonic pessimism. He needed to see what the fuck a "monkey brain" can really do.

Our generation has made such a mockery of suicide. All the yapping about it is becoming profane. Whether we play that card for laughs, or just to hear another person beg us to keep on living, we play it as often as we can. Why? Why cry so much god damn wolf?

I think it's a "proximal defense" against terror. We construct what they call proximal and distal defenses against death's effect on our emotions.

Distal defenses are like a roof over your head, and mortal terror is like the rain. Distal defenses do most of the work, keeping subconscious thoughts under control, long before they emerge onto the surface. But when the rain gets through our roof, our proximal defenses play the role of a bucket, catching individual leaks.

Humpty's roof is rusty, corrugated swiss cheese. He thinks the scheme of things is all a sham. Group oriented values are the values of a sheep. He's abandoned all hope of having kids, and has sour-graped on the topic entirely. The rain gets in with full force.

His bucket? He turned it upside down, painted "suicide" on the side, and now wears it on his head. He's soaked up to the neck, shivering, and laughing from the dark. You won't fire him, he'll quit. Everything in his life has been pure fate, except for his death. That'll be his creation.

• #5 The Myth Of Sysyphus by Albert Camus •

Camus and I are perfect examples of the fact that being super handsome and cool doesn't make your life happy or more meaningful. Don't worry 'bout it. 'Sno big deal.

I'm barely smart enough to read shit like this. I re-read everything before I write about it, and I re-re-re-read this one. Felt like an Aesop Rock song, where I'm carried along by isolated little lines and phrases that blow my mind. And only after repeated exposure, do I start to get the thread from start to finish.

The point is, Sisyphus is a bad muthafucka. Don't pity the man, he's a hero. Life is an absurd Sisyphean bunch of goofishness. This book focusses on the question of suicide, in the face of this reality. The rock is going to roll back down hill. Why push it up?

I might be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure all four of the previous books have referenced sexy ass Albert Camus. That wasn't intentional, but it's pretty neat. If this book feels like it's really tearing your mental asshole open, try easing into it with the other ones. I'm still loosening up for Kierkegaard. The one guy all five books can't stop slobberin' on about.

One thing I liked about Humpty was that he recognized the absurd, and it consumed him too. We shared the same harrowing passion. I think he had a bitchboy response to the issue, but to be engaged with it at all was something I respected deeply within him.

In a way, a "normie" is someone who has either never grappled with absurdity, or lives to avoid it at all costs. We share a disdain for people like that. Especially the avoiders. Humpty wants what Camus calls "living without appeal"

That is, appeal to a god, an ideology, a fiction, or hope. Anything that would insult his genuine gift of lucidity. His atheism, individualism, rationalism, and cynicism are virtues of his. I got no books on abandoning any of those things. But they're a heavy ballast, and they can sink you if you're reckless. An issue that really only effects the smartest people, to toot all our horns. Hey you, give yourself a toot!

Honestly, I've probably spent more time telling Humpty he needs Jesus, than I've said he needs Camus. Because I think he's too Dunning-Kreuger to take him seriously. If something resembles a stupid movie, TV show, or game he likes, he'll consider himself already schooled on the topic. And there's plenty of flippant absurdist media out there to distract him from that good-good shit.

Albert gives 3 examples of living an "absurd life" without appeal. An actor, a seducer (Don Juan), or a conqueror. It should be noted that Humpty is quite deliberately none of these things, and Wednesday is dying to be all three at once. The act of wearing a mask in social settings is extremely degrading, in his opinion; he says women reject him, but he wouldn't dare approach them anyhow, for love is short-lived and exceptional; And he knows everything conquerable is re-conquerable. The point is, you ain't gonna make Humpty look stupid, by fooling him into carrying that rock anywhere.

He also discusses Dostoyevsky's character, Kirilov. A man who committed "logical suicide". After grappling with the absence of god, and his lack of spiritual purpose, Kirilov sought revolt, freedom, and passion through taking his own life. This is the character I think Humpty most resembles.

It's as if Dumpty has the myth backwards in his head. At the top of the hill is death, and at the bottom of the hill is life. Like death is the burden he shoulders, and life is the inevitable retrograde from all his hard work. He can kill himself, or millions of others, and the worms will eat, nutrients will flow. Life will flourish like nothing happened. Fed only sooner in his haste.

This book has drastically improved my attitude at work. Few jobs are more blatantly Sisyphean than cooking food and washing dishes. And I think few cooks handle it with as positive an outlook as me.

Granted, I can't wait to leave. It's also one of the few jobs where you just get burned every day. The palms of my hands are a permanent strawberry bubblegum colour, while the backs are a ghostly pale mick beige; I'll fucking destroy you in a game of hot potato. But in the meantime, I'm proud to carry my daily rock with dignity.

In fact, inspired by the masterpiece, Holes, I like to think of my work like Madam Zeroni's pig. When I'm carrying a 50lb flour bag down four flights of stairs twice a day, or dumping 180lbs of canola oil into their fryers to start the morning (240 if it's dump day), I hear her spooky ass voice in my head. I watch my body get stronger, and I feel some squaring of my debt to the universe. Whatever it takes to be Sisyphus with a smile.

I guess Humpty was looking to be my rock. I was hoping he'd find his own.

• End bit •

(Oops, this was late. Real dickfuck move from someone trying to give life advice. Although I get a free pass thanks to Atomic Habits, so long as I don't fuck up twice in a row. Considering the massive topic, the drastic change in direction, and waiting 15 days to start writing... well I don't have any valid excuses either way. Just gotta not do it again. Okay? Capeesh? Prick?)

It's amazing how quickly the worst memories began to fade the second I didn't have Humpty Dumpty around to resent. It helps that he's a pretty textbook case of himself, and there are countless other people like him to remind me of our time together.

You gotta wonder, "what kind of hyper-demanding asshole friend expects one to read this many books?" honestly I never expected that. I thought Humpty came to Wednesday and I, believing we had knowledge to share, and I spent close to two years, thoughtfully trying to inject lessons from our reading/life into conversations with Humpty. Not only did he breeze by them with zero feedback, he often chose to argue with us directly.

It's not like he's just never been exposed to these things, but would have loved to be. He's always been bent on disproving them.

This series had a different aim, just before I turned on Dumpty. I called it "Books My Dumbass Friends Need To Read." I used the same five books, with 5 different write-ups, posted it, and after all the fun of writing it, it felt completely wrong.

I've been teasing my other friends for a long time, that they all gotta read some of this shit, instead of just getting the sparknotes from me. These books have patched up issues for me that my friends continue to grapple with, and one of the only tools I know of to fix them is a nice book.

(and shrooms)

But my heart wasn't lashing out at them at all. For a number of big reasons. First, they all read books, unlike Humpty. It's what makes book recommendations possible in the first place, and why I don't need to blog at them. They're all bonafide seekers, who are finding happiness at respectable paces. I learn from them just as well. God bless em. Second, none of them use the group as an emotional barf bag. We all expect ourselves to bring something to the table to REWARD people for giving us attention.

I was furious with Humpty Dumpty. I was tired of wasting the group's time, interviewing him about his made up psychoses. Hours on this fucking piece of shit, who'd move the goalpost to a new fantasy dimension of cum and shit and sarcastic scoffs the second you got an eye on his shadow's true form. I needed to put this iceberg of wasted patience far from our boat.

I might replace my anti-model with a role-model. My boy Wednesday. Hump Day, not Humpty Dumpty. He got two different eyes, he seen so much death, and he knows the future. He's Odin. He's Moondog. The Witcher to my Dandelion. The warrior to my poet.

We'll see. I'm gonna be vague about him. Then again I've been super vague about Humpty.

Toning down the venom is a must, though. These aren't books for pieces of shit. They're books so robust even pieces of shit can put them to full use. Albeit, maybe with the help of a jail sentence. Humpty Dumpty is a nauseatingly relatable human being. He's not of a different form from us, but of a different scale.

Oh boy! Next month I bring you 5 more of these dirty little whores! You had better fucking like reading! Oooooh SHIT!

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izloveshorses · 2 years

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is there any sort of anastasia discord server or somewhere i can easily talk to other fans? interaction scaressss me but i’m SO into this show and i wanna talk to people about it agfhdhfhs

there used to be a couple actually

okay here's the thing, the anastasia fandom is full of wonderful people and i've made some of my most genuine and dearest friends because of it, there's nothing i'd change about it, and for the most part no other fandom i've participated in has been this free of drama. however! for some reason, the anastasia fandom has a notorious history of blowing up the group chats lol. i won't say anything unprompted because i don't want to look like i'm stirring the pot of something that happened a year and a half ago but i will say there probably won't be another discord server any time soon for that reason. the fandom is still lovely, but there's always one or two people who like to cause drama.

that being said, you are more than welcome to chat with me on here!! and there are so many friendlies who i know are always down to talk anastasia. i get being shy but there's no need to be shy here with us, we're all just dorks alshdjkf. and feel free to add me on discord :) @asecretshekept and @msaudreyanne are a few i talk to the most on main and i know their inboxes are open <3

#asks #anonymous #i'm not like keeping some big secret™ or whatever but i'm not talking about it on main yet bc it's not a very fun thing that happened alhds #u can message me tho if you'd like #or if u ask on here again maybe i'll give up and just share it all i'm kinda tired of caring about it #i've moved on™ from it i think but i don't want to seem like i'm trying to start something again u know #or dig up gross memories for the people that were really hurt #i know i'm sounding cryptic asldkhjf so i'll stop here

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lucky-fy · 3 years

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Hi Fy! My name is Meg, I'm from loznet! I was just wondering if we could get a little more information from you about your personality and how you would generally describe your "vibe". You're actually the first person to apply in a very long time, so the group is a little split on acceptance right now, lol. Since you don't post too many personal things on your tumblrs, could you give me a little more information on what you'd be like in the group? Thanks!

Hello Meg! Sorry for the late response, Tumblr didn’t give me a notification!

I’d say I’m pretty chill overall. Though, the one time I asked other people what they thought of me, I was told that I was quirky “but in a good way”. Food for thoughts.

On Discord, I tend to be quite active. I reply to other people, post my own things that can start discussions, etc. If you have a channel for pictures of pets, I might drop some of my cats. I just don’t talk in voice chat, if that’s any concern! (though it may be for the better, as I have quite the potty mout... which is something that doesn’t translate in my written language, aha). I’m not sure how much I could participate in certain activities, such as gaming or movies, due to possible time zones limits and a quite busy IRL (as can be seen by the fact that I didn’t post any art since last summer, rip).

Other than writing/drawing, I also enjoy science, especially biology. Currently studying to become either a vet or an agronomic engineer (it’ll depend on how good I perform during the contest...).

In terms of LOZ, I do plan to play all games, but it will probably take a while because... I am a completionist at heart, rip. And I need to get my hands on copies of the games. I already have Majora’s Mask, and I plan to buy Skyward sword HD when it comes out. I may play on emulators for the 2D games, though 🤔

I may not be too active for the next two months, because I will be taking the contests (for the schools). First the written part, two weeks, and then the oral part in June.

#about me #I do tend to be quite secretive on web pages that can be read by anyone

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anamneseverge · 3 years

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hello mods, wishing you all the very best today! i'm aware that you're not accepting any new members right now, but i'd love to try my hand at an app whenever you reopen again so i hope it's all right if i pop in with a question. i'm an anxious person and get easily overwhelmed by big groups so might i ask how easy you suppose it is for someone to start roleplaying after acceptance, especially if they have no prior experience with discord rp? i apologize if it's a bit of a foolish question haha, but thank you nonetheless for your time!

Hi, Anon! It's more than alright for you to pop in with a question. It's also not a foolish question at all, especially if you don't have any prior discord RP experience.

We'll be honest with you, it can be difficult to get used to Discord MFRP if you've only got previous experience with things like forum or tumblr RP. This is because there are two main ways to get interaction in Discord MFRP: IC chatrooms your character will participate in through our chat channels or in-character prose RP that will take place in either your DMs or our prose channels. Many of these are often fast-paced, and it can be easy to feel lost or overwhelmed.

But please don't let that discourage you from giving it a try! The truth of the matter is that everyone remembers being new to Discord MFRP at some point, and many of our members and moderators would be more than happy to help you get used to it or answer any questions you may have if you ask them. The moderation team actually has a guide written up to try to give you a better idea of how the group is structured and how to get involved. This guide can be found here. We do have more channels than we did previously when this guide was written, however those changes are just extra ic-chat channels and prose channels that were necessary to add as the group grew.

With all of that in mind, we do think that it's decently easy for someone to start roleplaying after acceptance, especially since you're not expected to have all of the world information that we have for the group memorized upon acceptance! You can have your muse discover new things about the world as you do, and other players can help you and your muse ease yourselves into Discord MFRP as a whole.

We hope that this answers your question, and will help you decide if Discord MFRP is for you!

🜄— MOD GLISSHALLOW

#anam faq

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