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Spooky Horoscopes 🎃 🍁 👻
(and other bad advice)
aries: light candles. burn bridges and pumpkin scented candles with the same match. burn all the rotten residue. enjoy life without the hecklers.
taurus:
when you trick-or-treat, they will say you are too old. you have always been too old. you are old as the earth and it creaks in your bones
gemini: bitter black brew. it is the deadliest poison. drink, drink until you’re sick, until your eyes are sunken in your skull. add sugar and cream first.
cancer: you can’t keep yourself in the same closet as your skeletons. unless you are a skeleton. if so, sort the bones. find a better place to bury them.
leo: jump in a pile of leaves. take a moment to sink under the pile, in peace. sink, sink deeper and darker. let the ground take you. make friends there.
virgo: what’s better than an over-sized sweater? bury yourself in knit cable sweaters. keep knitting. build yourself a cave of comfort. don’t build a way out.
libra: double-cross the monster under your bed. buy bunk beds. tuck them in at night. everything’s a monster with bags under its eyes.
scorpio: bite your tongue. drink the blood. go see a doctor. tear the stitches out and redo them yourself. what, weren’t you going to do that anyway?
sagittarius: you can’t apologize for the beast the full moon made of you. but the one you became during the crescent moon did some fucked up shit bro.
capricorn: take down your hair, take off your glasses, shed your skin, go deep into the woods, lurk in the dark. it’s time there was a monster to fear.
aquarius: cold, cold hands. blue and veined. kiss mysterious girls and average men in doorways. what happens to them after is not of your concern.
pisces:
some flowers only bloom in the winter. wreath yourself in frost, breathe mist into the air. they never told you ghosts haunt themselves first.
@ihaveaseriousclownproblem Thought this was fun :3
I’m a Taurus and can confirm
CAPRICORN
… I can’t fucking believe that everywhere I look my life is linked to skeletons.
Dirty talk but you both use your customer service voice
Thanks I hate it
partner: *cums*
me: great! will you be needing anything else today?
Customer service but you use your dirty talk voice
You’re a nasty little bitch aren’t you? Trying to return these shoes after 30 days.
There’s a fanfic I read in like 2002
It wasn’t even on FF.net, yet. KP Duty. The author did an ambitious set of fics called Temenos showing the realistic recovery of a character dealing with rape. It took them a long time (writing does), and I was long out of fandom by the time they either finished or abandoned it, in 2013.
Point is: it was still there, today. I still remember this fic and my interest in seeing where the story went and am going back to the library that is FF.net to finally read it.
There is SO much amazing content for Undertale that I don’t have nearly enough hours in the day to consume it all. There’s a backlog of fic that might take me years to chew through, and that’s not touching other creative media.
But things are different. People don’t publish creative work, anymore. They post it. Posts are viewed as transient, to be measured in worth by the positive feedback of likes/comments, and deleted when the author starts to feel “cringey” about it. Or, to be deleted when they simply lose interest.
And that’s a real shame. Not just for me, but anyone who came into the game late. They miss out by showing up late.
There are some people who compulsively save fanwork, for this reason. “No repost” is a new concept for me. I used to find art through chan-boards, and it was a good day when someone had the coveted source—everyone always wanted to know the source of the good shit. That’s what baffles me about everyone’s vehement feelings about cross-posting. The audience wants the originals. And the artists have a habit of hating their work and deleting it.
Everything you post on the internet is permanent in some fashion. You forfeit the absolute assurance of control over your content the moment you hit send. So, why treat things you make like they are disposable?
A fan fiction archive should be a library. Your dead blogs should be monuments.
I have strong feelings about this. I usually don’t join discussions like these but boy are my feelings strong.
I too compulsively save fanfiction because I worry it will vanish. It has happened to me often in different fandoms and it has already happened to me multiple times in the Undertale fandom. I’m in favour of saving things. I’m even in favour of letting people who are lamenting that something vanished know you have the thing and sharing it with them.
If that’s your platform then watch me stand next to you and join.
But reposting…
The thing is, yes, internet culture has changed a lot. I started out in fandom way back in 1998/1999 and yeah, having original sources for cool content back then was more often than not like having currency, because centralised archives were rare to nonexistent.
Nowadays though, a lot of people don’t ask for sources anymore. And the people who repost also don’t always make it clear anymore that their repost is just that. Plagiarism is rampant with reposting. As is making changes to the original and then acting that the changes have always been part of the original. There have been cases where the original creators were accused of being the plagiarisers, and harassed about it for months.
And that’s not the only negative effect reposting can have:
No credit for the actual creators, with the added potential to be regarded and harassed as the plagiariser.
No feedback, which for many authors has little to do with perceived worth, and everything to do not wanting to feel like nobody cares about the content at all. (Also not everyone can write just for the joy of writing, and that’s valid. Can we perhaps not implicitly shame people who already have low self worth for trying to find a scarce source of validation for themselves)
No possibility to interact with the people who leave comments on the repost, to see their reactions and enjoy their excitement, joy, confusion, pain, or even receiving the ultimate validation of “you have inspired me.”
No knowledge about what’s being said about the work. Analysing the characters, the setup, the plot, guessing where it will all go – none of it.
No ability to stop it when the reposter misrepresents the reposted work.
No ability to stop it when the reposter is being a shithead in general making readers/viewers think that if they encounter the content on a different (original) platform, they are in the right when they’re rude to the original creator (because they will assume it’s the shithead).
And finally: no ability to take the work down when there’s doxxing to/discovery by family/friends/coworkers involved, in which case it might become a question of safety and livelihood. “Don’t post what you can’t stand others to see” is not good advice when so many of us are writing to exercise our own demons, especially in the case taken as an example here, rape fic. Writing about sensitive sexual matter can be incredibly relieving as a survivor, but it’s definitely not something you necessarily to show your boss. That’s why pseudonymity is a thing. That’s why we don’t write under our real names for the most part.
Yes, everything on the internet should be assumed to be permanent in some way, but it’s important to be able to at least cut your ties to it and create plausible deniability. If people would only ever write what’s acceptable in their social and work circles, fandom would be even poorer than it already is from having worse deleted for cringe.
Or let’s think about people who are depressed or have other mental health issues who wish to take down their work because doing so helps them emotionally/mentally, something which they couldn’t have anticipated before they posted. “Cringe” may just fall under that.
To assume that every case of deletion is for petty, selfish, superficial reasons is incredibly naive and not a very kind thing to do, sorry to say. We never know what ultimately motivated a creator to delete their work. We can’t know, and it’s not for us to judge or to decide that we can just ignore concerns of creators who don’t want their work reposted.
Discovering a fanwork has vanished is sad, but reposting, especially not how it’s currently handled, isn’t a good solution to this issue.
(Reposting 101: Ask. ALWAYS. ALWAYS. If the creator says no, then don’t do it. If they say yes, follow their wishes regarding credit/limits/whatever. Be polite when handling the work of someone else.)
Common Red Flags
I want you to imagine the following scenario and the advice that you’d give to the subject – let’s call her Mary. Mary has her 10 year high school reunion coming up, and she is very excited about it. She’s had some success in her career, she’s just closed on a lovely house in a great neighborhood, and she’s got the cutest car imaginable. The only thing that she needs help with is losing the twenty extra pounds she’s put on since high school, and she’s tried almost everything to get rid of it. Finally, she decides to hire a personal trainer.
This trainer barely pays any attention to her; he spends most of his time on the phone texting other customers, only half listens to anything Mary has to say, and after being asked for a meal plan numerous times, sighs, Googles a generic meal plan, and unceremoniously hands it to her. Mary does her best to adhere to the meal plan, but at a birthday party a couple weeks later, she breaks down and has a cupcake. Furious, the trainer tells Mary not to contact him for three days.
I’m sure most of you would be absolutely baffled as to why Mary would pay this trainer a single penny, yet this is exactly the sort of behavior we see out of fake “doms” day in and day out. Many new subs simply don’t know enough to know that this behavior is not only abnormal, but completely unacceptable. The media’s portrayal of these sometimes aloof, sometimes obsessive and controlling “doms” doesn’t provide much in the way of proper context, and these poor submissives are often found by these predators before they’ve had a chance to educate themselves and arm themselves with facts.
Below is a list of some of the most common red flags that I’ve seen, based upon asks and messages that I’ve received, my interactions with the littles and submissives with whom I regularly interact, and asks and comments gleaned from @instructor144 and other blogs. This will not be an all-encompassing list, and my hope is that people will continue to add to the list based on their experiences in order to make it far more comprehensive and complete. I will also attempt to briefly explain why each of these is a red flag, in order to strip away some of the excuses these frauds hide behind.
Instant Familiarity – This is a very, very common one; you begin interacting with a potential dom (or they just burst into your inbox uninvited) and right away, they begin to demand that you call them by some honorific (Sir, Master, etc.). They may also begin making demands of you before you’ve even began having a dialog. Titles and dominance are both things that are earned over time, not some magical birthright to be bestowed upon whatever hapless idiot decides that they are the next Christian Grey.
Being Overly Sexual – Look, I get it, sex is fun for most people. We spend a considerable amount of our time and energy seeking out people who will play with our fun bits and who will mash theirs against ours. It’s a biological imperative and a pretty good time to boot. That being said, when you’re just beginning a conversation with a new “dom” or “daddy” or whatever title you’re discussing, you don’t want someone who’s only interested in bumping uglies if you’re wanting it to be more than just a hookup.
Being Demanding – I’m not talking about simply being “needy” because there are times when I brush up against, and am almost adjacent to, that particular adjective. I’m talking about the kind of jerk who insists that you do things that are unsafe, unwise, or that go against your values. He may demand nudes with your face in them, or for you to expose yourself in public places or perform lewd acts with animals (hopefully those are pretty easy red flags to spot), but he may also just carry on like a spoiled child. Either way, that is not what dominance is about.
Being Secretive – I’m not saying that every dom needs to send you a photocopy of his driver’s license, social security card, passport, birth certificate, full credit report and criminal background check right off the bat, but also, I’m not gonna say that some of those aren’t good ideas. In the past, I HAVE actually provided a copy of my criminal background check (squeaky clean) and my driver’s license information. You really need to know who you’re dealing with, and full name, date of birth, address, employer, job title, vehicle description and license plate number are not all unreasonable things to have going into your first meeting. In addition, if they are not open about their home life, they’re most likely married. If they don’t tell people about you online (after you’re supposed to be committed), it’s usually because they’re talking to other people. Discretion is a good thing, secrecy is not. You need to know the difference.
Being Degrading – I’ve touched on this one before, but under the right circumstances, a little degradation and humiliation can be sexy as hell. The thing is, those circumstances are after you’ve discussed it and given the okay for it, not right out the gate. If he’s tossing out phrases like “whore” and “slut” before you’ve so much as discussed his preference for Mexican or Chinese food, throw that one back.
Cutting Off Communication – This one is so common and it is one of the ones that drives me the most crazy. Here you are, supposedly this person’s most prized and cherished possession, the one he wants to nurture and support and help grow… and he’s going to disappear for days or weeks at a time? Nope. Fuck that. If you have an argument and he needs to calm down for a little bit so he doesn’t say something hurtful, that’s one thing. You set a reasonable time to reconvene and he goes and cools off. But some of these guys either disappear without a trace or go off for days as “punishment” – not cool. If he’s got a work thing and is going to be busy, he lets you know when he’ll be available beforehand, not leave you wondering when you’ll hear from him again. It’s called responsibility.
Wanting To Punish You/Wanting You To Break Rules – I want to be very clear with this one, I’m not talking about as a form of play like, “You’ve been a very naughty girl. I’m going to put you over my knee and teach you a lesson.” That’s the sort of thing that is usually fun for both people and that ends with some very satisfied kinksters when it’s over. I’m talking about the ones that get a glint in their eyes every time they catch you in some minor infraction and delight in handing out the most severe, draconian punishments they can think of. Unfortunately, abusers are drawn to BDSM because it’s often seen as acceptable and okay to hit people – but it is not done willy-nilly and it is never done without discussion beforehand. To that end, let me add…
Extreme Punishments – Not every punishment is discussed well in advance. There are some that are created to fit the particular infraction, but these punishments need to be reasonable. Not only do they have to make sense given the circumstances, but they have to be designed to achieve a particular result beyond, “I’m going to hurt you a lot”. This is abuse, pure and simple, and it is usually being hidden under the guise of impact play.
Ignoring/Pushing Your Hard Limits – When you are discussing the terms of your dynamic, hopefully you are setting up a list of things that are “hard limits” for both of you – things that are completely and totally off-limits no matter what. If you’re setting out hard limits and he scoffs and says something like, “Well, we’ll come back to that” or “We’ll work on that”, be afraid. Your hard limits are not something to try to work around or push you past, they are supposed to be firm and immutable. If he can’t respect your hard limits, he can’t respect you.
Refusing/Ignoring Your Safeword – Any time someone denies you a safeword, no matter what excuse they use, you should walk away. Period. I don’t care how much experience they claim to have, how many subs they’ve had, or how well they say you know each other. I don’t care if this guy can sit there and recite every sentence you’re going to say throughout an entire day – he cannot read your mind. He can’t see everything you’re thinking and everything you’re feeling. This nonsense about, “You need to trust me to know when you’ve had enough” is all ego-driven bullshit that will get someone hurt eventually. If you try to safeword and they refuse to stop, that’s rape and/or abuse. Period. There is no other way to put it.
Isolating You From Friends and Family – This is a textbook abuser technique and if it doesn’t seen a thousand bright red flares shooting off into the sky, then it should. You should always have the ability to visit your friends and family. You are a person with agency, and you may surrender some of your freedom to your dom in exchange for structure, but you do not hand over your humanity. Anyone who would deny you this is someone you need to be very wary of.
Demanding That You Change – Listen, nobody’s perfect, and we all have things that we would like to help our partner improve upon. That part is completely normal, and there’s a healthy way to approach this. That’s not what I’m talking about here. The, “You’re great, but if you don’t lose weight/change your hair color/learn to be bisexual/(insert dumbass demand here), then I’m going to have to let you go.” That bullshit needs to be turned out, put down, and left to rot in the sun. If they can’t accept you as you are and work with you to improve the things that you’d like to improve, then they aren’t deserving of your time and energy.
Gaslighting – I’m not referring to it in the kink form (although that’s one thing that I really, really don’t get as a kink – more power to you folks, but wow), but in it’s natural state in the wild. The type of thing where, when you bring up a concern, they tell you that you’re making it up, blowing it out of proportion, that you’re wrong to feel that way about it, etc. This is abusive, manipulative behavior and the sooner you see it and get away, the better off you’re going to be.
These are some of the more common things that we see, and I know there are tons and tons of others. The bottom line, if something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t right. Learn to develop your instincts and trust your gut. If you’re feeling uneasy or like someone shouldn’t be trusted, take heed. It’s far better to walk away from a potential dom that gave off a weird vibe than to allow yourself to be hurt by one just because you wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Educate yourself, play it safe, and take things slow.
Reblog please, and you newbie subs, read this twice, for your own sake.
This site is a FOUNTAIN of information
✍️READ THIS✍️
The Checks and Balances in Power Exchange
Domestic Violence Awareness in BDSM Relationships – Assualt is NOT okay
10 Red Flags of Bad or Abusive Dominants
✔️Let’s pretend you’re standing outside ballroom doors. Inside are men with various sexual tastes. Including evil and abusive ones. You have to walk in and announce what yours is. You walk in and say “I’m a submissive ” The first “Doms” to run to you are going to be the fakers.
✔️PLEASE!!! Don’t use 50 shades of grey as a Dom template. It’s a movie NOT reality. I don’t have time to list all that’s wrong with that movie, but it’s a lot. Three biggies off the top of my head—
Christian Grey is abusive
Ignored her safe word
It didn’t even touch on the subject of AFTERCARE.
Seriously—-NOOOOOOOOO!!! You know how people confuse porn with reality—same concept.
✔️ There is no such thing as stupid questions, too many questions or being too prepared.
✔️SERIOUSLY, if you think you know enough—you dont educate yourself some more—then do it AGAIN.
✔️Experienced Dominants and Submissives can be your greatest allies and support system. Any Dom or Sub worth their salt WILL NOT HESITATE to help or at the very least point you in a direction. My first recommendations would be
Dominant- @instructor144 Seriously sometimes I wonder if there is anything he doesn’t know.
Submissive–
@submissive-seeking
These are just STARTERS, but TRUST me there is plenty of help out there from people who truly care.
✔️My door is ALWAYS open. I won’t pretend to know everything, I do know quite a bit I have been a submissive for 10 years. If I don’t know, I’ll tell you that and I’ll point you to a place to start.
king:
body positivity 2k18: venom thinks we all snacks (:
ITS MINGUS
He teeth too big for he gotdamn mouth!!!!!
He’s adorable and I love him
IT’S A MINI BLACK SABER-TOOTH PANTHER!
I love Mingus, he makes me so happy every time he crosses my dash
oooh my god what a lovely creature! *sobs*
Marshmellowmilktea 