#actually doomscrolling twitter

[pacific-rimbaud]

Friend, it's been a while. You have been missed.

How have you been kind to yourself recently? 💜

I also want to ask for some book recs from you (could be old, new, a favourite or a pleasant surprise) as I'm hoping to venture back into reading fiction but am very wary of all the booktok/bookstagram sensations. What books/authors does PR love and would want others to read and enjoy as well?

I'm also wary of booktok/bookstagram/booktwt sensations, though I did really love A Song of Achilles and cried absolute rivers at the end. I loved The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen, which won, I think deservedly, this year's Pulitzer. It's exactly the sort of super dry nonsense I love, and I found it hilarious, but it won't be for everyone. Also don't read if you'll be offended by someone dragging the Netanhayu family. I've just picked up Dumb Luck by Vu Trong Phung (sorry for the lack of diacritics!) and am super excited to dig into it. Also Isabel Yap's short story collection Never Have I Ever, just listed as a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, which is awesome because she's lovely and super talented and deserves nice prizes. Is this good?? I'm so self-conscious about my reading taste, my reading for pleasure is like, 19th century Russian doorstoppers, satirical literary fiction, and middle grade fantasies about ghost hunters.

#you asked I answered #book recommendations #also watching some Cinema this summer #keeping the mind awake and alive #actually doomscrolling twitter #just the absolute most foolish website the internet has ever invented #truly a terrible place #and yet #cannot look away

[babynapa]

its so depressing that sm ppl r ok w just settling for the current status quo of both US party leads being genocidal maniacs, but at least one does it slower domestically 😌🫶 help!!!!!!!!

#i think i actually need to stop doomscrolling twitter threads i feel my head exploding #vote or not the current electoral system is fucked and america is an oligarchy its farce of an election means nothing atp #unless people cohesively organize to actually punish the democratic party for being literal genocidal maniacs but looking at #the state of online discourse rn thats not happening any time soon

[ganonfan1995]

I need to make a return to the old ways and start actually using Tumblr and give up Twitter.

#6 years as twitter as my main website has done absolutely nothing for me #made me worse actually #i need to hold myself accountable and give up the bird #doomscrolling takes years off ur life probably #this goes for tiktok too

[bitterfrosts]

I'm serious when I say this, as a 30 year old, that adults in fandom need to stop being so toxic to kids. Yes, kids can write fanfic/draw fanart/make gifsets etc. Yes, it can be quality stuff. You dont need to be a sad adult in your mid-20s to be able to write/make quality fanworks. I can't go 20 seconds without some "fandom mom" shitting all over teenagers for liking a thing and wanting to participate. Just because we've been in fandom spaces longer doesnt mean we do it better.

#what I need to do is stop doomscrolling twitter on priv #but it's still a problem #it's turned into Dont Like Dont Read for thee but not for me #you've become so focused on the Us vs Them that doesnt actually exist that you forgot how to be a decent human being

[prisonpodcast]

I actually managed to draw something today

Maybe I’ll post it tomorrow. I want to sleep now, and I’m not it done yet (I want to fix some things)

I also have a technoblade and Steve drawing from a few days ago too

#yay I was actually productive instead of just doomscrolling tumblr and twitter :D #I’ve been more productive lately #that’s good bc my grades are kinda falling lmao

[sexhaver]

i could move to twitter or bluesky or i could just let my online presence wither away entirely. i deleted my instagram and reddit accounts a while ago and don't use facebook. my group chat of college friends has mostly fallen silent these days. if tumblr died right now i would be truly alone with my thoughts for the first time in a decade. no outlet for the random bullshit i come up with, no feed to doomscroll. imagine. i might actually get something done for a change once i can't sink all my free time into spam refreshing an app. or i could go insane with loneliness. probably both

[iwritethingssometimes]

You know, I'm starting to think my struggle with productivity is not the worst part of ADHD.

Like, I mean, that's the part everyone talks about, right? It's the most famous part of ADHD--you can't sit down and do the boring, non-stimulating, dopamine deprived work. Your brain wants to do anything, anything else.

But, at least for me, that doesn't just apply to work. It applies to play.

I can doomscroll twitter and tumblr with the best of them, sure. I can read tvtropes, and check discord a million times an hour and google random crap, but when it comes to actually like, playing a video game? Reading a book? Watching a movie? It's just.

So.

Freaking.

Hard.

And even when I start playing, even when I'm enjoying a game, I'm constantly fighting the urge to go and do something else. To check my phone, to go and search something up, and, most dangerously of all, to start mucking around with the graphics settings. I can't ever get absorbed into a game, can't shift my brain from "jumbled mess" into "immersed" and--

The thing is.

That means I can't rest.

I can't break the endless buzz in the back of my head, I can't ever really stop thinking and inhabit this escapist fantasy. I can't stop investing energy into my buzzy brain, and so--

Like.

I don't have a recourse to burn out.

ADHD burn-out is probably the second most talked about part of ADHD, but I think this is a big factor that people don't talk about as much, or at least not in these terms. It's not just that you can't get stuff done and keep worrying about it, it's that you can't rest.

You can't treat the burn out.

And so it just. Piles up.

And up.

And up.

Until you collapse.

#adhd #adhd brain #executive dysfunction

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

points at u. how do u play eridan so well!!! hes such a tricky bastard to write for 4 some reason

It's because he's got so many problems and playing him is basically Mental Illness Simulator :') Whipped up a small (that's a lie, it's large and extensive) guide under the cut

ERIDAN DOES NOT HAVE FUN

First most important thing about playing Eridan: THIS BOY DOES NOT DO JOKES. He does NOT DO BITS. He does NOT HAVE FUN. If you check out his logs, pretty much every time he talks to somebody, he has a very clear purpose in mind (usually flirting or grandstanding). One of the few times he does strike up a conversation without a clear goal in mind, it's absolutely disastrous:

CA: fef CA: hey CC: ? CA: glub CC: Glub glub! CC: 38) CA: yeah CA: hm CC: W)(at is it!!! CA: wwhat

He's sooooooo so so so bad at conversation. He doesn't tell jokes. He doesn't know how to lighten the mood. He has no chill. He has no sense of humor. When playing him, if you are making jokes, you are doing it wrong!

The reason for this is because, psychologically, you have to imagine that he is constantly teetering on the edge of a murderous freakout. If he is not, at all times, Being Useful (AKA murderous, sea dweller-y), then Something Bad Will Happen. His entire life is about duty, pressure, responsibility, and, accordingly, at ALL TIMES, he feels an extreme, anxious weight on his shoulders, which makes him incapable of indulging in "frivolous" behavior, like making smalltalk or doing things for fun. In fact, sarcasm and facetiousness are literally considered childish by Alternians, and Equius associates it with lower blood colors:

CT: D --> Humorous insincerity is for pedantic wigglers AG: Pshhhhhhhh, I know! I know you never make jokes. I was the one 8eing sarcastic, you stooge! AG: I was 8eing sarcastic a8out you 8eing sarcastic. Duh. CT: D --> That's because you're a little worse than me

That's why it's also kind of important to make him not really have hobbies. Eridan DOES have interests: he loves wizards and magic, and he's a hipster. HOWEVER, he only ever talks about magic in pursuit of some other goal, like finding a date or winning at a rivalry, AND he's constantly denying his own interest in these things, because they're frivolous, stupid, ridiculous, and deviations from what he "should" be like. He actively distances himself from things that make him happy. In fact, we only know he's a hipster because it's part of his design and Karkat mentions it once - Eridan himself has never talked about it. That's how far he's buried anything that actually brings him joy.

If your Eridan is smiling for ANY REASON, you are DOING IT WRONG!

While we're on the topic, things Eridan is NOT ACTUALLY INTERESTED IN:

History (he only ever talks about history in the vaguest possible terms; I think he is book smart and genuinely knows a lot ABOUT history, but his actual interest in it is middling. He's just expected to be really obsessed with history, especially military history, as a member of the aristocracy, and he reads it in the same way as one doomscrolls on twitter - it's a way for him to self-reinforce his own mental illness and soothe his cognitive dissonance)

Marine life/marine anything (he's TERRIFIED of the ocean, and has spent a few days underwater TOTAL. He knows nothing of the sea.)

Weaponry (he HAS a lot of guns, so he definitely knows how to use and maintain them, but there's a reason he outsources the building of all his doomsday devices. Also, he got a "god weapon" early on in his life, and has kind of just been... using that. He neither has a need to know much about weaponry, nor has ever displayed any particular interest or knowledge. He leaves fully loaded harpoons just lying around on the floor of his house. It's knowledge of necessity, not interest.)

Hunting/Violence/Murder (he's really good at it, he knows a lot about it, he will teach you on request, he will mention it constantly, but he doesn't actually derive any particular joy out of it, especially since we know his thought process after each kill is "that's going to make an orphaned troll very sad. they will be culled soon :/")

Fashion (he has more of an interest than the average Alternian, but it's still not a lot. He dresses up to emulate Dualscar, and his actual clothing choices beyond that are pretty disastrous. Canon Eridan has never shown an interest in fashion. Even if you do want to play him with an interest in fashion, which I think is fine, you have to remember that he deliberately distances himself from anything that brings him joy, so even if he likes fashion, he'll keep that a secret and insist he only does it for utility purposes.)

Pale Romance (just throwing this in there, it's the one quadrant he is *never* shown to pursue. He's tried Feferi and Nepeta in flushed, Sollux, Terezi, and Kanaya in ashen, and Rose and Vriska in pitch. if anything, he goes out of his way to AVOID pale romances, both because he just had a painful pale breakup, and because he freaks out at the implication that he's weak in any way, which pursuing a pale romance would all but be admitting)

The thing that makes playing Eridan so hard, I think, is that he's abjectly fucking miserable, BY CHOICE, and for most RPers, playing a character who's abjectly fucking miserable kind of goes against the appeal of RPing in the first place (that is, having fun). All of the things he says he's really into are things that he either has no interest in, or that actively make his life less enjoyable. All the things he spends all his time thinking about are things that make him feel anxious and hopeless. All the things he actually likes and would have fun with are the things he actively, deliberately, and loudly decries and suppresses.

So that's point 1: Eridan does NOT have fun.

ERIDAN IS AGGRO AS *FUCK*

The next most thing I see that trips people up is that they make Eridan too friendly, usually as an extension of accidentally giving him too much chill. There are two main factors here at play: the first is that he's desperately trying to be a violent, casteist, oppressive, dangerous sea dweller, and outright pushes that image, and the second is that he's really fucking anxious ALL THE TIME, and most peoples' sociability goes down when they feel the cold breath of the reaper on the backs of their necks 24/7.

When looking at the 4 responses to danger - fight, flight, freeze, and fawn - Eridan will overwhelmingly choose "fight," with "fawn" as his secondary option. This makes absolute sense in context: all his trauma comes from its inescapable nature - if he tries to run from his duties, everybody dies; if he freezes up and fails to complete them, everybody dies. Therefore, his only two options are to Fight, and to channel that violent response into completing his duties, and to Fawn, to capitulate to the things that are hurting him - much moreso the former than the latter. Unfortunately, that bleeds over into everything else. Great!

We can see this illustrated really well in his conversations with Kanaya: Eridan does not ask for favors or help, he makes demands:

CA: kan make her talk to me do somethin ... CA: so help me out tell her to talk to me i think she blocked me you got to

ERIDAN: you should of told me about this ERIDAN: if theres goin to be any sort a hope for our race as the prince of hope i demand to be invvolvved ERIDAN: so dont go anywwhere wwithout me got it

The only time he ever really backs off is in confessions, where he's willing to be like "hey, I think we really got something here, don't you think so?", or when talking to Karkat (Karkat is really the only person that Eridan doesn't feel the need to put on airs around, and we can only speculate as to why. It's because they're destined moirails for each other.)

He will also do this for statements that he isn't 100% sure about. If he's going to say something, he is going to ASSERT IT as if it is IMMUTABLE FACT, even if he's immediately disproven. In which case he will admit fault, but then his NEXT wild assumption is the IMMUTABLE FACT.

CA: wwell fine you dont havve to behavve vvillainous if youre bent up on actin against the grain a your nobility or somesuch CA: i can play that role its not like i evver didnt get my gills dirty before TT: Nobility? What are you talking about? CA: wwell arent you TT: No. What gave you that idea? CA: the wway you CA: ok CA: i had a misconclusion about that so my fault CA: obvviously you got rich blood so maybe when you crash landed you wwerent recognized for it by wwhatevver vvehicle upholds the class structure in human society

I feel like he's the type who, if he's genuinely unsure about something, he just won't say it at all. Basically, Eridan is always operating at either 0% or 100%, with almost no in-between. NO CHILL. Given that he only strikes up conversations when he's trying to achieve something from it - whether that's actively getting someone to do something for him, or just trying to assert that magic is fake - he treats every conversation like it' i's a battle, where the prize is whatever it is he's attempting to do, and his conversation partner is an enemy that he has to beat into submission. (Karkat is the only exception. He actually just likes talking to Karkat, and will do more traditional "hey man you wanna talk about your feelings" kind of dialogue with him.)

If your Eridan has chill, you are doing it wrong!

ERIDAN STRUGGLES WITH EMPATHY

This really needs to be qualified: he does HAVE empathy. He DOES care about his friends. But his brain is really cooked, and he has an extremely difficult time actually working up the emotional energy to express or experience it.

He's kind of downright sociopathic, lol:

ERISOLSPRITE: iim of the miind2et that wwhen you havve a rock 2oliid piiece of a22 tiied twwo the dock, you dont bloody wwell tug the knot loo2e and 2hovve the fucker off wwiith the heel a your boot. ERISOLSPRITE: but then another part of me ju2t wwonder2 wwhat the FUCK ii ju2t 2aiid there? liike that wwa2 ju2t 2uch a wweiird 2ociiopathiic thought ii had, ii hone2tly had no iidea howw bad ii could po22iibly feel about my2elf untiil ii BECAME my2elf, iif THAT make2 2en2e.

Like, okay, how do I explain this. His body count is 2000+. He has an EXTREMELY difficult time caring about life or death. He's had to watch kids cry over their dead parents. He has had to kill kids trying to protect their parents, whom he has then had to kill. And he has done this over, and over, and over again, as long as he can remember, to the point where he calls it "all i evver done practically."

Just for the sake of preserving what's left of his sanity, he's had to learn how to not care about that. If he sees someone crying in front of him, it's unlikely to even emotionally register to him as anything beyond "factually, this person is sad." Shit happens, people die. Violence, tragedy, murder, injury, and death are literally daily occurrences to him. For you, the day I killed your lusus was the most important day of your now tragically short life. For me, it was Tuesday.

Vriska is in the same boat, BTW. I think a combination of just being a less sensitive person to start with, the existence of a support network (Equius and Kanaya and Terezi as friends + she was friends with Team Charge before the... incident), and the lack of all the Duty(tm) and Responsibility(tm), helped her cope a bit better, and be better about opening up to people and relying on them for emotional support.

What this means, in terms of playing/writing him, is that his priorities are extremely skewed, and he is genuinely not going to understand things like "maybe I shouldn't tell this land dweller I'm trying to kill all land dwellers," or "maybe this person is sad and I should comfort them," or "maybe my constant talk about murder and death is offputting to other people." Here he is, literally not understanding why insulting and belittling Kanaya has led to her not wanting to help him, as well as not understanding why Vriska might've blocked him:

CA: wwhatEVVER you are so the vvillage twwo wwheel devvice wwhen it comes to auspisticing CA: you cant let a grudge go by you wwont stick your busy stem betwwixt so get wwith the program fussyfangs GA: If Your Slander Werent So Predictable Id Block You Too For Saying That GA: Has It Occurred To You She May Have Blocked You Because You Are Vvery Ovverbearing GA: I Just Said That Aloud Now In Your Silly Accent And Had A Private Moment Of Enjoyment CA: wwho givves a shit wwhy she blocked me or about my fuckin manners come on youvve got a wway wwith her

His brain is constantly running at a fevered 100% full-tilt run; he doesn't have the space, leisure, or energy to spend considering things from the perspective of other people. It leads to weird paradoxes, where he IS considerate of other peoples' feelings, but doesn't actually consider their feelings. After spending almost the ENTIRE conversation with Kanaya belittling her and demanding she be his and Vriska's auspice, he abruptly switches gears:

CA: fine i get it ill step off CA: you dont wwant to be our auspistice cause you dont wwant to get locked into that sort of relation wwith her i can respect that GA: No Thats Not It CA: yeah it is your real feelins run pretty awwful RUDDY methinks evverybody knowws it CA: especially that assblood karkat he and me havve you so pegged about that its upright silly CA: but its cool its totally fine dont wworry ill leavve you alone and givve you a shot

Because he LIKES Kanaya, he REALLY CARES ABOUT Kanaya, he WANTS GOOD THINGS for Kanaya... and yet is entirely, wholly, not taking her feelings into account at all.

BUT! This also applies in reverse! You can make all the death threats and casteist insults and demands towards Eridan as you want, and he won't give a shit aside from his usual grandstanding protests. The only time we ever truly see him offended is when he's genuinely trying to do Jade a favor by giving her the code to his gun, and she calls it a piece of shit and tosses it out with the trash - and even then, he doesn't take THAT much offense. Judge for yourself:

GG: so ill just dump it outside the house with the trash GG: and if it is fated to find my penpal one day then so be it! CA: god damn it CA: its like you people go out of your wway to think a howw to disrespect me GG: maybe you should have been nicer to me! GG: in any case i dont appreciate the spirit in which the gift was given so this is what i will do! CA: fine fuck it wwhat do i care CA: this has been a completely flippin useless exchange as havve they all been wwith your species

After all, he's accustomed to much, much, much worse. His emotional response here is indignation, not even really HURT. Karkat also makes a bunch of genuine death threats towards Eridan, which get entirely written off as "wwitty repartee." He's just really bad at processing hostility! Hostility is very normal to him!

So basically, before letting Eridan engage in any act of empathy or compassion, you have to ask whether or not he's going to recognize that the situation would call for that in the first place, which he is REALLY BAD at identifying. He only asks Karkat if Karkat wants to talk about his feelings after Karkat explicitly says that he's freaking out in every possible way, and without that explicit indication, I don't think Eridan would've even noticed.

If your Eridan has social skills, you are Doing It Wrong!

This also means that, even if Eridan has realized that he needs to act compassionate, he's still going to be really fucking trash at actually providing emotional support. He can't even emotionally support himself, you think he can figure it out for other people?

The most he can do is call it like he sees it - "this is a stupid thing to get worked up over," for example. Or he can jump straight to solutions, like "so what, are you gonna kill that guy?" Being as charitable as humanly possible, he might be able to fire off a "that's rough, buddy" at ABSOLUTE maximum.

ERIDAN KIND OF JUST SEES SLURS AS FACTUAL DESCRIPTORS (AND OTHER GENERAL NOTES FOR HIS SYNTAX AND VOCAB)

And, let's face it, on Alternia, they kind of are. Kanaya doesn't even bother to call him out for calling Karkat an assblood, Terezi and Feferi and Sollux don't bother taking offense to calling Sollux a mustard blood, and Karkat calls himself a gutter blood at one point. Like, even if you're playing/writing an Eridan who's rejected Alternian society, he'll still probably be out here calling people slurs? Things that would be considered hostile from other characters are very much just neutral coming from Eridan. There is no emotional difference to him, calling someone a rustblood or a burgundy, but he's expected to say rustblood because of his sea dweller status, so that's what he goes with.

Also, make some grounded but wild assertions about people and things. This boy loves to Assume. Writing Eridan is a lot of going "ERIDAN DON'T SAY THAT!!!" it's great. Really painful. Highly unrecommended.

He's obviously quite book smart and uses a lot of big vocabulary words. You guys need to have Eridan go on these insane purple-prose rants more often. They're so fun to write and so cringe to post.

CA: yeah go ahead and kiss us off but therell be blood on your hands CA: you could either play along as our auspistice and do a little mediating like you wwere fuckin hatched to CA: or wwatch she and me devvolvve into fuckin full fledged kismesisses the kind like you dont get once in ten thousand swweeps CA: you knoww thats wwhat it wwould be there wwould be rainboww rivvers runnin through star systems and all nebulizin like liquid firewworks CA: it wwill be beautiful and heartbreaking all at once

CA: but the thing is i need a rivval wwho can pose me a challenge CA: and frankly shes not evven fit for holdin my cape anymore CA: at this point i find all her adorable black pixie dabblins to be prime kiddie playtime shit CA: all of her FRAUDULENT MAGICS cannot come close to posin threat to my mastery ovver the TRUEST SCIENCES CA: an wwith my empiricists wwand i servve as the righteous hope that wwill incinerate delusion and the deluded alike CA: my holy fire is the wwhite fury bled from the wwrath-wweary eyes of fifty thousand nonfictional angels CA: and wwhen theyre finished wweepin they wwill boww before their prince GG: wow what are you talking about

For no reason at all. I'm going to post a little Karkat for comparison.

PCG: THE FUNNY THING IS IN THE FUTURE EVERYONE WILL RECOGNIZE ME AS THE UNDISPUTED LEADER, EVEN YOU. PCG: YOU WILL BE STANDING ON THE TIPPYTOES OF YOUR IDIOTIC METAL SHOES, TAKING DELICATE PURCHASE OF MY NUBBY HORNS AND HOISTING YOURSELF OVER MY HEAD TO PUT YOUR SWEATIEST TOUGH GUY SMOOCH UPON MY TWITCHING SPINE LUMP. PCG: IT WILL BE TENDER AND DEFERENTIAL, LIKE A PAUPER KISSING A NOBLE'S RING. PCG: JUST SCROLL DOWN, READ THE LOGS.

Also, notes about his typing quirk:

First, the ww and vv stuff is actively a fake accent he puts on for the #Aesthetic, and his natural way of speaking doesn't include those at all, so it's entirely likely that if you're writing him after he's rejected Alternian society, or if he's trying to be really really emotionally sincere, he wouldn't be bothering with that part of the quirk specifically.

He doesn't ALWAYS drop the G at the end of words ending in -ing. It's frequent and common, but don't feel bad about letting a word end in a g, especially if it would sound or look better (for example, "being a kid and growwing up" doesn't bother to drop the g's at all).

Similarly, he doesn't ALWAYS change "of" to "a," especially preceding a vowel sound. You gotta be careful with when you change this up, because he pretty much only does it when it would make sense spoken aloud.

In phrases like "must have" or "could have," he will often (but not always) change "have" to "of" (so "must of" or "could of").

Dropping the D from the word "and" happens only one time in the entire comic, so it's probably a typo, and if it isn't, it's REALLY REALLY infrequent.

He will sometimes use shorthanded words, like "em" instead of "them" or "ya" instead of "you." I'd say it's occassional, a bit rarer than the G-dropping. He does tend to use "got to" instead of "gotta," however. Again, try saying his lines out loud, to figure out when best to use what.

Given his loquaciousness and clear command of the language, it's likely that this is for Style, but he also doesn't always bother with proper grammar. Places where "[person] and I" would be used are often switched out for "[person] and me," and he might forgo a contraction like "I've" or "we've" and just post the pronoun (for example, "you got to" instead of "you've got to."

He references ocean shit, and ocean anatomy, like his own fins and gills, pretty often! He just doesn't do the puns. Try using "flippin" instead of "fuckin" every now and then, or "glubbin" instead of "talkin," or nautical analogies.

Also throw in some British "bloody"s every so often.

Cusses like a sailor, though, has one of the highest "fuck" counts relative to wordcount out of all the characters (cough like Karkat cough).

HE DOES NOT USE PUNCTUATION. EVER. (Ok, he does use a period once while talking to Terezi in Alterniabound, but I think that that's a mistake because it's literally the only time). This is actually in STARK contrast to other characters that don't generally use punctuation, like Aradia or Nepeta, who will still use ellipses, exclamation points, and question marks. Eridan actively, consciously forgoes using ANY punctuation, EVER, even for questions (which you shouldn't be asking too many of, because Eridan makes DEMANDS).

ERIDAN DOES NOT ANGST

This is another thing that I see a lot. Yes, Eridan thinks that he's worse than everybody. Yes, he deliberately keeps fun things at bay and focuses on things that make him miserable. Yes, he's sad, anxious, emotionally neglected, etc. etc. But I often see this self-loathing played for dramatics - Eridan being withdrawn, quiet, moody, and sad. Or being consumed with guilt and regret, and wishing he didn't have to be a murderer or wasn't forced into the position he was. And that's just not the vibe.

Because Eridan has a lot of pride. He refuses to appear weak, and he has genuinely lost the emotional capacity to feel too guilty about all the killing. Moreover, here's something I often see get overlooked:

He would think of the murders he committed, and the fact that he's so good at murdering, as good things.

It's not only useful, but oftentimes NECESSARY, for somebody on the team to be willing to make those kinds of sacrifices, to be willing to pull the trigger. Very literally, murder kept him and his friends alive long enough to play the game.

There's no universe in which Eridan would denounce killing and violence, because to do so would be to say that he shouldn't have kept his friends alive. Even in a hypothetical golden ending, where everybody survives to the end, Eridan would be the guy on the team who posits murder as a potential solution to problems, reminds people that society is built on sacrifices and suffering, and offers to do the dirty work himself if nobody else has the stomach for it. As much as being the orphaner was DISASTROUS for his mental and emotional well-being, he wouldn't regret the things he did.

And this is reflected in the comic - the rare times he does break down and show that he kind of hates himself, the focus is never on guilt or regret, it's on his perceived shortcomings - calling himself an idiot or pathetic. Because that's what his real insecurity is - he doesn't hate himself because he sees himself as this awful piece of shit, the way Sollux does, he hates himself because he thinks of himself as not good enough, because if he's Not Good Enough, then Something Bad Will Happen.

Remember, his danger response is FIGHT. It's a different paradigm than what most of us are used to, which is why I see his inner turmoil so often represented by him being moody and broody, which he's never really done in the comic. Eridan doesn't get sad, even though he is sad; he gets mad, aggressive, combative. He doesn't wallow; he just keeps swimming.

CA: i got to keep tryin thats howw all the great military masterminds became great through upright persevverance

Again, his response to being insulted is indignation, not hurt. He doesn't sit in his room feeling sorry for himself, he obsesses over genocide and murdering all the land dwellers. His response to seeing the love of his life turn on him with killing intent is to flip out and start killing right back. After being broken up with, his response is to go and pester his friends (and yell at Gamzee a bit) until he can get some emotional support. He doesn't angst, he tries to solve the problem, and, if he can't solve the problem, he starts shooting.

He's awfully violent! If your Eridan is not awfully violent, you're probably doing it wrong!

BUT, ERIDAN LOVES HIS FRIENDS

At his core, however, as tangled up in all of the above as he may be, Eridan loves:

His friends

Wizards

Magic

Probably hipster shit

Happy endings

He is still, after all, a HOPE player. He struggles as hard as he does because he can't give up on the idea that things will get better, eventually. Even if he's struggling in the wrong direction, toward the wrong ideals, and even if emotionally, he's feeling more and more hopeless and closed in, he can't stop himself from trying, and trying, and trying again.

He loves magic. As much as he tries to push it away and calls it stupid and fake and lame at every turn, he still brought his shitty wands onto the meteor. Why does he love magic? It's an extension of his inability to give up. No matter how hopeless the situation, no matter how awful he feels, no matter how unrealistic salvation might seem, if only magic is real, then there's a solution. He wants to be a wizard so badly because wizards can do magic, and magic can overturn reality, and reality is this awful, inescapable nightmare. He is constantly being caught between nihilism and pessimism and hope and belief. In the comic, the nihilism won, but that's the great conflict at the core of his being.

So ummmmm yeah, I hope any of that helps with writing the fish boy at all. Basically, if you aren't constantly cringing while writing the bullshit that comes out of his mouth, you're probably doing it wrong...

#homestuck #eridan ampora

[dateamonster]

youre doomscrolling through twitter to try and distract yourself from your empty stomach and empty wallet when you come across some inspiration porn about a delivery driver who collapsed on a customers front porch. the homeowner turned out to be an emt and after seeing her fall with the help of his doorbell-mounted security camera he was able to perform the necessary first aid and rush her to the hospital, and even started a fund to pay for her medical bills after the footage went viral. in the end she not only raised enough money to pay her bills but enough to quit her delivery job for good.

broke and desperate, a dangerous idea begins to take root in your brain. you are not currently a delivery driver, but youve dabbled, and you do have some experience taking bad falls, as well as punches, kicks, and the occasional elbow to the sternum. you have tried worse things for less money.

you order a pizza and cram yourself into a passable looking red polo tee and khakis. googling "rich doctors near me" doesnt exactly yield the results you were looking for, but it gives you enough of a jumping off point, and in only a few clicks you have an address. the multiple conspicuous security cameras mounted around the property look promising. never mind that the couple that lives here (two doctors! how lucky can you get.) didnt actually order the pizza; you can cross that bridge when you come to it. you approach the front steps, making sure to be well in view of at least one of the cameras at all times, stagger, and then take a dive, smashing face-first into one of those decorative fake rocks uppermiddleclassers love for some reason. you try to embody an air of pitiability as you go down.

you lie there a moment, face down in a strangers rock garden, tasting your own blood as it drips lazily from your nose. after some thirty seconds have passed it occurs to you that you maybe should have done something to check that the couple are actually home first. still you dont get up just yet, and a moment later you are rewarded.

you hear multiple sets of footsteps shuffle onto the porch, stopping short as their owners catch sight of your limp body. you plan to feign unconsciousness at least until they turn you over, so they can see your face, see the very real blood and bruising. you wouldnt want them to think you were faking or anything. after what feels like far too long a pause, a soft, feminine voice says,

"theyre still breathing."

"lucky," says the man, his voice something breathless and thick with gravel.

"i'll take the legs, you take the arms."

and then you are being lifted, carried with no small effort up the steps and into the house. they must be bringing you somewhere more comfortable to treat your injuries. you crack open one eye but all you manage to see from your unfortunate position is a few glimpses of the immaculately clean hardwood, the carpet, the marble tile. your prone body swings like a hammock between them, and soon all their jostling and this blurry upside-down view combined with the iron taste lingering on your tongue starts to make you feel vaguely sick until you have to shut your eyes again.

at last you are deposited on a cold, hard surface, the chill of it seeping through your bloody polo and up your spine. youre no longer lying limp and motionless because youre still hoping to pull off this grift; any half-baked hopes have been chased out by a creeping sense of dread, and you know somewhere in your gut that the moment you open your eyes you will have to face that dread and name it.

a mechanical murmur followed by a harsh clank and the sensation of icy metal closing around your wrists and ankles wrenches the privilege of hesitation from you. you gasp and your eyes fly open. the starburst of harsh white light that greets them reminds you distantly of a childhood trip to the dentist.

"good morning, sunshine," that syrupy voice from earlier chirps at you. squinting through the brightness, you make out two figures of similar stature dressed in vomit green medical scrubs that appear to have been hastily pulled over their ordinary clothes. the man is washing his hands in a small sink somewhere off past your feet. the woman is securing a paper mask, though even with her mouth covered, you can still see the smile pushing up her high sculpted cheekbones to the point where she seems barely able to keep her eyes open.

her skin is like a smooth putty, not a wrinkle or pore or freckle in sight, as if there were a layer of pink latex pulled taut over her real face.

"you came just in time," the man, her husband, calls over his shoulder as he shakes his hands dry and reaches for a box of gloves. "we didnt know where we were going to find another subject, and then, out of nowhere, there you were." he turns and steps into the light, and the face that stares down at you is a lidless mass of pulsing purple-red veins, hairless, damp with sweat already (you hope its sweat). a narrow arrow nose with nostrils too thin to take in breath sits above a rosy sphincter of a mouth, before that too is covered by a mask.

if you manage to scream, you cant hear it over the relentless whine of whatever machine sits just outside of your periphery, just out of reach no matter how you twist and strain at the manacles holding you in place, and the ringing in your own ears.

"youre just what the doctor ordered."

#writing #horror #body horror #medical horror

[the-old-man-has-the-phonebox]

So the news of Tumblr basically being put on life support effective immediately is going to haunt me indefinitely.

Where the fuck do I go? Where do we go?

Twitter is gone.

TikTok is overrun by bitchy children in fandom spaces (not to mention their entitled attitudes towards fan content and their freakishly-puritan beliefs about said fan content).

Instagram’s algorithm is so fucked, we’d never find each other there.

Facebook… obviously not.

Shit, DeviantArt has apparently gone to the dogs, too. AI is running rampant stealing people’s work on there, last time I checked in.

We’d basically need a multimedia equivalent of Ao3, where we funded it to keep it alive to prevent this from happening again. And honestly I don’t think there’s enough people to get one off the ground in regard to actually having the know-how to make it.

What the fuck do we do?

I cannot survive another Vine. I cannot deal with the emptiness I felt those years after, because I had safety nets back then. A friend group irl and other sites like Tumblr and Twitter. Now there’s nothing.

I know it probably makes me chronically online and cringe or whatever-the-fuck for being this upset, but… I can’t handle this. This was one of the last places I had, and there’s now a good chance it won’t be here this time next year or in two years’ time.

This is one of the last places on the entire internet that wasn’t designed to be a doomscrolling hellscape that you got lost in for hours with an algorithm designed to feed you certain posts versus the content you’re actually looking for.

This is probably the last true bastion for queer people online.

I am so fucking scared.

#Would’ve worded this WAY better if I had known it was gonna get notes #automattic #tumblr

[beeffilledshark]

The most unhealthy thing I’ve done in recent memory is search “Titanfall” on twitter and doomscrolled for what felt like an hour. I feel a deep kinship to some of these people. Mostly because they seem unmedicated as well. Most recent update from today (after the apex trailer on the morning of the 23rd):

I don’t feel well. Normally, I would make fun of people for hoping since I’ve been burnt on “titanfall 3 leaks” at least six times since they released Monarch. But with the fact that they’re updating it through tf2, it’s either a sadistic respawn dev who found access or an actual teaser.

This is also after we’ve had this advocate message for the past weekend that Iniquity posted about as well (I need to get this visual mod for no particular reason also).

Maybe one day we’ll all get to play the great big Titanfall in the sky…

#titanfall #titanfall 2 #apex legends #respawn

[mantasunray-art]

ok no one cares about what i have to say but im gonna say it anyway. i don't think it took it all with as much force as a lot of people because 1 i've been very much back on my klance era those last 3 months and i'm watching the office and f1 so i have other stuff to care about (which i didn't have back in oct 2022), 2 since i moved to tumblr i've been spending much less time doomscrolling over this community and reading everyone's thoughts about everything which made me more detached from it all and made me see that i'm doing much better now (i feel less anxious over missing stuff and not knowing everything all the time), and 3 i honestly don't think george is that huge monster that some people are making him to be like that was irresponsible and shouldn't have happened at all but it's not like he has a history of stuff like that or even much worse stuff like yknow some actually terrible abusive people around. so yeah i seriously could see me coming back to some extent. but i just don't think i will because holy fuck the fact that i didn't have to take my anxiety meds nor cried over this in comparison to other times in this fandom makes me see that i can be free??? i have to embrace being out of this unstable hellhole because it was taking a toll on me mentally. before i couldn't because the pros oughtweighted the cons and it was pretty much my only interest so not having it made me wanna kind of die lol and that's why i panicked so much. i was overly dependent on it. of course putting a lot of your happiness onto famous people is a terrible idea but i didn't have any other option at the time. but now i finally have something else (for example klance is my roman empire seriously. first fandom and left it for this one) so i'm gonna embrace it !!! or at least try i guess. so yea those are my thoughts and regarding this acc idk what im gonna do yet but i'm not abandoning it i think. twitter though im most definitely not coming back but that has been basically dead for idk 5 months hahahah

tl dr: i like other stuff and that made my mental health pretty stable over this whole thing and now that i have other stuff to make me happy i really don't wanna go back to throwing up with anxiety over famous rich people that don't even know me even if they're very dear to me and made me happy a bunch of other times

#b.ramble #uhhhh my thoughts about everything #idk how to tag

[antonarcana]

Earnestposting again, sorry, but this is the first time in years I’ve actually found my main platform to be an enjoyable experience. Twitter destroyed my mental health for every year I was on it, and I kind of just thought that was the natural state of my brain, but no! I was actively being made worse by doomscrolling! I enjoyed having somewhere to post my art, and now that I post it here instead, I have a lot less brain worms. Tumblr has its own fuckery, of course, but it’s a lot easier to have a good experience on here.

#AntonArcana talks

[gensational]

The human brain isn't equipped to be in tune with everything going on in the world. Photos of actual corpses are posted so frequently on twitter to a point where it's just become torture to scroll through my feed there.

I am not capable of making much of a difference outside of boycotts and donations, and spreading awareness.

I try my best. I don't want people to suffer.

Please take care of yourselves. spread awareness how you can. We won't be able to do anything if we all make ourselves miserable in a doomscroll.

[fantasyfantasygames]

Alone and Unloved on Twitter

Alone and Unloved on Twitter, hellsiteafficionado, 2023

Caltrop Core is not quite an SRD. It's more of an encouragement to write games, and a very simple system to go along with it. It is fantastically successful. There are literally hundreds of short Caltrop Core games out there. Alone and Unloved on Twitter (A&UOT) uses CC's token-based mechanics for a short game about flame wars, shifting alliances, and cancelling the shit out of everyone.

Your characters in A&UOT have no base attributes. Instead, they have a set of conditions. When you meet those conditions, you get tokens, and when you spend tokens you get to roll that many d4's and take the highest value. Highest value of 1 means a crit fail, 2: fail, 3: success, 4: crit success. You can spend as many tokens as you want, but honestly three gets you a very high chance of success. Like I said - very simple system.

Everything therefore boils down to the conditions. If you write good conditions, you get game play that works the way you want. If not, you incentivize the wrong behavior.

Did I mention this game is about social media?

So here are some samples of the kind of wrong behavior it incentivizes:

Fallback behaviors for when you're out of tokens. Doomscrolling for an hour. Cyberstalking.

Antisocial behaviors. Dogwhistles. Trolling. Engaging in parasocial relationships.

Community-forming behaviors. Like & subscribe. Reaction videos.

Follower-gathering behaviors. Shitposting. Encouraging parasocial relationships.

You choose a certain number of those to decide your play style, and off you go. You spend tokens when you want to do something difficult, like:

Create actual content

Guest-star on someone else's content

Make human connections

Log off

Delete your account

The biggest downfall A&UOT has is that there's no cohesion to it. Which is verisimilitude, certainly, but does not necessarily make for a fun game. Adding an antagonist doesn't quite feel like it would be appropriate, because this is a game about hellsites and you, the users, are the antagonists, but some sort of scenarios would be helpful. There's also no loop of behavior, there's just "do more things to get more tokens to do more things to get more tokens". It's not like Tenra Bansho Zero where your relationships create your tokens which impact your character points which push you towards evil which you avert by changing your relationships. (Seriously, TBZ's mechanics are fantastic.) A&UOT could benefit a lot from... I don't know, maybe a second token type with somewhat different interactions.

I know, I know, it's more social comment than game, but with a little work it could be both.

Find this game on your hellsite of choice. The author, hellsiteafficionado, has accounts on dang near everything.

#ttrpg #imaginary #indie ttrpg #rpg #review #caltrop core #fuck x #fuck twitter #this site is free #i can't quit you baby

[emkini]

Scrolling tumblr today feels more like doomscrolling on twitter than. actual doomscrolling on twitter

#nevermind em