#doing it for me anymore in 2019-2020 and beyond actually)

[ourceliumnetwork]

weirdly sexually charged stress dreams i did not need you actually. it gets very uncomfortable and confusing very fast when my family becomes suddenly involved.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

🦐 to recognize my post

Am I the asshole for asking my grandmother if I can move in with her?

This’ll be one of your classic reddit-style family dramas, I think. Back in late 2019 just before COVID, I (freshly 18 at the time) had run away from home with my mom and moved in with my best friend (R, 17 in 2019) and her (60s, deeply depressed) dad. Her dad and I were on good terms for a long time, but respectfully, he has a tendency to repress any issues he has with someone until they build into a bigger issue. Near toward November of 2020, he kicked me out on account of ��not keeping a job and not doing anything around the house’ (I washed stagnant dishes often, took care of their several animals, and took out trash whenever I could, R and I think he was projecting his shitty roommates from when he was 20 onto me), so I needed a new place to move.

My own beloved father lives ten hours away, and offered for me to live with him. For months, I was preparing to pick up my entire life from the hometown I had lived in since I was 2 years old to move to a new state, and in the last month, I got cold feet and said I couldn’t make such a large change like that. My dad completely understood, and I went to look for a new place to stay, still living with R and her dad at this time.

During this period, I was getting closer with my grandmother on my mom’s side again. She was one of the few family members I felt comfortable with, and we often went to Panera for lunch dates to catch up on things. I won’t go super deep into why I’m so anxious about the rest of the family, because that would require an entire several page google document to explain (especially now that we’re actively banned from holidays).

It was around this time I asked my grandmother if I could move into one of her five or six spare rooms upstairs. My grandfather had died in the last couple of months, and I was confident that if she needed any help (she’s in her mid eighties) moving things upstairs or cleaning the house, I would be beyond glad to do it for her. She then hesitated and said it may be a better idea for me to move in with my dad after all (which was odd, because she hates my dad’s guts, as does the rest of my family), and I let it go after that. I didn’t push, I would just need to find a new place. 

Well, word got around, and she told my aunts and older cousins in passing. I don’t remember if I got sent anything in specific, but one of my aunts (mother’s older sister who I'm genuinely terrified of) absolutely fucking exploded on my (54 at the time) mom, giving her a several paragraph long shitstorm of a message saying she was a terrible mother for letting me take advantage of my grandmother, calling her horrible things, slurs, and insulting her wife, and it got back to me somehow. I was fucking shredded apart emotionally.

Since then, I have moved back in with my mother out of necessity and we have totally reconciled our relationship in the three or so years I’ve been home, and my entire mother’s side of the family- aside from my grandmother- has completely cut contact and don’t invite us to holidays anymore, for significantly more ridiculous reasons than me asking my grandmother what I did.

My mother’s side of the family ostracized her, myself, and my sister since my mother first married my dad 25ish years ago, and has just never treated her the same since, which explains some of the hostility (I want to specify, I’m confident that my mother did nothing outright wrong for this, my family is extremely far-right and EXTREMELY judgemental, and my mom bore unnecessary vitrol for everything she went through), but I need to know if I was actually the asshole for asking to move in with my grandmother, who even now still cares about me as family and lives alone. I could give less of a shit what my aunt thinks now (she lives an entire day’s drive away, in a different state as well), but I can’t help but shake the fear that I was actually taking advantage of her kindness or something of the sort. Was this a wrong thing to ask? Was this actually too much, and should I not have bothered?

What are these acronyms?

[emeraldspiral]

So I don't know how this happened, but after years and years of trying to write a book and abandoning everything I ever attempted because I couldn't get through even one completed first draft, I finally finished one way back in 2018 or 2019. Even more shocking, I managed to get through several rounds of editing with the story still in one piece. Then I got it to a point where I felt like it was as good as I could really get it without soliciting any feedback. So I posted it on Critique Circle and after all my feedback came in and I'd done a few more revisions I got it to a point where I actually thought it was polished enough to start looking into publishing. It was sometime in March or May of 2020 I think when I sent out my first queries to about 4 or 5 agents and I was shocked that one of them actually requested a full. I was expecting dozens of flat rejections or non-replies before seeing even a kernel of interest.

While waiting to hear back from the agents I'd queried I tried working on a few different stories, but then I started thinking about a bunch of things that were bugging me about my book and getting new ideas I thought would improve it greatly. So I decided not to query anymore agents and instead start a new round of revisions. Based on how the writing and revision process for me had been before, I was expecting this to take me maybe a month or two. But somehow it's been FIVE FUCKING YEARS and I still haven't gotten through even one single completed new draft.

I'm sure part of it is that the pace I was working at slowed down dramatically because during that 1-2 months I was waiting to hear back from agents I broke the habits I used to have to maintain a steady, reliable flow of productivity and it took me an excruciatingly long time to pick them up again.

But I think mostly the reason for all that time vanishing and leaving me with nothing to show for it is that I did the same thing I always do where I keep coming up with new ideas, but to implement them I have to go back and start weaving them into the narrative from Chapter 1, and half the time those ideas don't even stick and I go back to what I had before or replace them with something else. And regardless of whether it's a big change that requires massively rewriting or throwing out entire chapters or just altering, removing, or inserting a few lines here or there in a couple of chapters, I still ultimately end up disatisfied because there's still a ton of stuff that I don't like that none of these changes ever actually seems to solve. There's still scenes I want to throw completely out but I can't figure out what I could have happen instead to accomplish the same thing. There's still plot points that are vital to the story but I don't know how to make them happen in a way that doesn't feel contrived without having to add a lot of detail that has to be explained in a lengthy monologue. I keep wanting to add more detail to make everything feel really fleshed out and fully realized and thought through but I still want the story to feel simple and streamlined and not overly-complicated.

So the current status of my book is that it's in a million pieces and it feels like there's no end in sight to this fruitless quest to put it back together again. And this is a feeling I'm used to experiencing with every other story I ever worked on, which ultimately led to me giving up on it and trying something else. And I thought this time it would be different because the experience of writing it initially felt really different. A lot of it came together very naturally and the pieces fit together better than I imagined. The fact that I actually managed to finish the story and revise it as many times as I did and still have it end up in one piece, and actually showed it to other people was just leaps and bounds beyond anything I'd ever accomplished before. I used to look at my folder full of story ideas and get exited about the next one I wanted to write because I thought finishing one story meant I could finish others. But now when I look at that folder I just imagine myself ending up here again, right back where I always end up, unable to finish anything because there's always a million little problems I can never figure out how to fix, so it feels pointless to even try anymore.

[threephantomrey]

just thought of a take on 2019/2020 Velma that i actually really love:

it’s based on that scene in Happy Halloween where she says “i’ll admit, i am afraid. i’m afraid of failing, failing science, failing justice, failing my friends. but you’ve been using those fears against me, and i’m not afraid of you anymore!” and that one scene in Curse of the 13th Ghost where she says to Vincent “ghosts aren’t real” and Vincent says “i wish that were true.” okay so everyone knows how in the 13th Ghost/Return to Zombie Island/Happy Halloween trilogy she says that she doesn’t believe in ghosts and she tries to prove that they aren’t real. and i’ve said before that i think she didn’t go through with opening the chest because deep down she has doubts about her own non-belief and that maybe she didn’t know how to cope with the Zombie Island mystery being real which made her turn to trying to deny it was real altogether. well i want to expand on that a little.

first off, the Happy Halloween quote above: i think her whole non-belief thing was more about her being scared of the idea of the supernatural being real than her actually believing it wasn’t real so therefore she kept trying to deny it. because like if she TRULY didn’t believe in it i don’t think she would’ve kept trying to disprove it or kept saying she didn’t believe and she probably would’ve actually opened the chest of demons. she probably would’ve just said “i don’t believe in it” once or twice and that would’ve been it. but i think she’s really just scared of the supernatural being real, this world that she doesn’t know much about or understand. and tbh if i had experienced Zombie Island too i would also be questioning if it was real and would have my doubts! i would also not know how to cope with that and maybe try to deny it for a bit. i wouldn’t 100% know how to react to this big thing i just experienced and don’t fully understand either. in Happy Halloween she literally admits she was scared, so i think that’s what was going on with her. she’s young and scared by what she doesn’t know, especially by something as big as what’s beyond everything she did know: science, logic, rational explanations, etc. and idk i relate to that. i relate to being young and scared by the unknown. like girl! i feel you! and hasn’t everyone been young and afraid of something we didn’t understand/know much about at one point or another? it’s a very human experience.

my mind turns to that scene in Mystery Incorporated where she says “it doesn’t make sense! i want it to make sense! i need it to make sense!” and starts crying. i think that applies to how she feels about the supernatural in these movies very well. she WANTS it to make sense to her, she WANTS it to not be real, she WANTS to not believe and to deny it and ignore it, but deep down she knows it is real and that terrifies her. she is afraid of everything she knew being changed or not what she thought it was, and i think that’s a really good idea to explore. i think she has the most strained relationship with the supernatural out of the whole gang, not even in just these movies but in other scooby media too. i believe everyone else in the gang is more likely to believe in it and admit that they do than her, even in the versions where she does believe/is more open to believing. and hey, she even admits later on that she cares more about her friends than science, and i thought that was really sweet.

also i think when Vincent says he wishes ghosts weren’t real, he kind of sees where she’s coming from and can relate to her, even though he believes wayyy more than she does and will admit it. because he doesn’t like having to deal with the 13 Ghosts, he doesn’t like his loved ones being in danger because of them, he doesn’t like his own ancestor being this evil demon. he WISHES it was all not real, that he could not believe and it would all go away, but it won’t. this is his real life, he has to deal with it, and he will admit that. so i think when he sees Velma, he sees a young girl who is scared of this world she doesn’t fully understand and has only few experiences with it and probably can’t even fully comprehend said world. someone who probably reminds him of his younger self a little bit, because maybe younger Vincent wasn’t too far off from her. and yes obviously Vincent always believed in the supernatural even when he was young i mean how could he not? he’s a literal warlock born into a family full of warlocks and witches and is related to a guy that transformed into a demon, but what i mean is that he too at one point probably didn’t fully understand this world he was born into and was scared of it and scared of it all being real and scared of sharing the same bloodline as an evil demon. he probably wished it all wasn’t real back then too, that he could wake up and it would all be a bad dream and he’d just be a regular mortal boy in a regular mortal family living a normal life. but no matter how hard he struggled with it, he had to accept it and admit it was real and that it wasn’t a dream and that this was something he was going to have to deal with for the rest of his life. wow.

[cheshire-creeper]

Post-canon content, as a cultural product and also a literary product, fascinates me to no end (as should be obvious by now). The production history of it, the entire size and scope of the thing, how short it ultimately was and yet how much it changed the fandom... It was only a period from 2019-2020, and yet *so much content* came out for Homestuck that it felt like something new was happening every day...

Remember that one time that they put up a weird warning about how Homestuck was not for like, kids/teenagers, even though A) most of the fandom *were* kids/teenagers at the time, and B) most of the old timers had gotten into the fandom *when they were kids/teenagers*?

I remember always waking up and blearily scrolling through Twitter (the only platform worth caring about at the time), trying to piece together through half-fragmented arguments about what actually happened to spark all this debate, this heated rhetoric, and finding out the answer was: not much, honestly. Some baffling decision or tweet by What Pumpkin, or someone affiliated with them. Somebody with like, 5 followers had made some off-handed remark and then somebody with 5000000 followers had retweeted that with a pithy comment and now it was all anybody could talk about. Made me feel like a janitor who had to come in after everybody had already been done with everything and clean up the mess, and trying to reconstruct just how this chain of events was set off in the first place, knowing and dreading that the feared "upd8" was just around the corner, and this would all start up again...

There was always somebody leaving the official team, I know that. Also, they were always putting up new ways to contact the official team, but never using them, probably because at that point the fandom had become so corrosive that any attempt at fairly answering questions would've been moot anyways...besides, that was in the late stage days of the fandom...

There were, like, big name celebrities that you *had* to follow. Funk McLovin. Rads/TomatoGrater. I've always considered celebrities in a fandom, that are known primarily through their creation of content in that fandom, to be a weird concept, but I guess if you use a very loose definition of "big name fan" you might even be able to classify me as a "big name fan." I'm pretty sure that's why a lot of you are following me, at any rate...

I've rambled enough. I'm not going to stop, though, but the other point I wanted to start making would serve for it's own separate post, since it has more to do with the content of Homestuck Beyond Canon/Homestuck^2 rather than some weird rambling down memory lane, that one might not want to ramble down anymore...

I've probably said too much already.

[qumiiiquinnquin]

i feel like its better without my art out there, my ideas presented in visual form on a canvas. i feel like my art does nothing or does not leave impressions. i know thats not true because people compliment my art, and i should be grateful enough or that to not want to quit as badly as ive wanted to for several years. but others have much better ideas and have more creative ways of presenting it. others can actually get far with their art. they have a supportive circle that wants them to keep creating above and beyond. i have a lot to improve on, but the work it will take to improve is not my problem. its not really feeling like im never improving, though ive whined about that too. its just more, why am i creating? its okay to create simply for the sake of creating, its even okay to create for no particular reason. maybe its your reason to live. but what if you hate it? what keeps you going? what if you dont think you're good enough, what is the point in keeping this canvas open and continue working on this drawing? is it worth continuing to create? then what will you do without your passion?

i haven't completely given up yet because its admittedly difficult. i can despise my art but i often do come around or get myself to stop comparing myself to others or encourage myself enough that people like what i do - it does not have to be perfect or up to par with other people's talents. being a creative doesn't mean setting an unreachable bar for yourself. creating isnt a competition. even if i have such intense moments of hate that ive come close to deleting files and art programs and setting my physical art on fire, they do pass and im fine and open a canvas again. but its the fact that ive been feeling like this for years and overall do not like my art, even if i have improved and recognize that improvement. its something to be proud of for sure, and oftentimes i am. but i notice im becoming so unhappy with anything made by me that im even considering giving up, and feel so close to actually committing to it. ive been extremely upset with my art before, only in 2019 or 2020 did the thought of destroying my art start to form and become reoccurring. but if i did something like that, my plan wasn't to completely stop and give up. i wouldve picked up a pencil again several years later and give it another go. but im contemplating giving up completely and not doing it again at all now.

before i deactivate any of my accounts in the future for various reasons, my plan is to upload all of my works in progress. i want people to do what they want with them. i dont care what. i dont have any respect for my art anymore.

[sazorak]

Every Game I Played in 2023, Ranked

I debated moving this list to Cohost (after all these years, the Tumblr text post interface still makes me want to punch a wall) but whatever, here we are! Keeping it relatively short this year.

A lot of the games I played aren't going to be on this list because I don't have much new to say about them (MTG, Dwarf Fortress, Strive, etc), but for those that I do, here's the games I played this year.

2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022

SD Gundam Battle Alliance - 2022 - Steam - ★★★

I really wanted to like this- you know I like me some Gundam- but the experience is simultaneously too thin, too grindy, and bereft of stakes. There's nothing like "oh no we have to preserve the Gundam metaverse from hackers ruining the archived story!" to make me go to sleep.

There's something about the progression system of every "hey, gotta catch 'em all!"-ish Gundam games that is designed exclusively for people who either played these games in the early 00s, or people with addictive personalities. There's been little in the way of evolution. Yeah, the gameplay here is different as a sort of Action RPG, but this is far more Dynasty Warriors than it is say Armored Core.

Just not for me!

... Where's my new Super Robot Wars at damn it?

9. Pokemon Scarlet/Violet DLC - 2023 - Switch - ★★★★

I talked last year about how I mostly liked this game in spite of its many, many issues. The DLC mostly plays to SV's strengths: fun plot and characters, improved open world catching system from Sword/Shield. They also run considerably better, due to a year of opportunity to make things more stable and address bugs.

That said: It doesn't address any of the other issues that have always been there. Open world exploration becomes kind of pointless when you have the ability to invalidate any level geometry. There is such a thing as too much mobility, believe it or not, when you can just jump over everything. At the same time, the ways cutscenes work is soooo slowwwww, to the point that getting through them to the "action" can be quite tedious.

This DLC also continues the unfortunate thing that drives me nuts about all these DLC, that the level scaling is just awful. It basically assumes you have done literally nothing since finishing Scarlet Violet, and not engaged at all with the post game. Which hey, works out for Lil Timmy who is experiencing this DLC in-line with the base game or only after beating it (since it does dynamically scale for earlier progression), but it makes the whole thing kind of a rote exercise for those who actually played the game more than that?

I realize this is multiple decades now of me barking that hey, it'd be nice if Pokemon didn't exclusively try to appeal to 5 year olds, which is definitely a lost cause at this point. We don't even get stuff like Battle Towers or Frontiers anymore really. Ah well!

8. Street Fighter 6 - 2023 - Steam - ★★★★

Ok, here's the thing: Street Fighter 6 is overall a very good game, lots of care and polish, but I got a few bones to pick with it.

1. I kind of hate its input buffer. Just drives me nuts, particularly with how it handles supers and specials with overlapping inputs.

2. World Tour while is neat, the progression of it is so goddamn grindy and miserable. So much HP for enemies as you go on, and you don't have access to a fighter's full skill set even at the very end due to how special "slots" work.

3. The cast feels too safe. I like the new additions a lot, and in general the old chars have been rendered quite well, but there's just not a lot of innovation going on. The system mechanics are quite good, but it's the thing where no one on the cast really calls out to me. Personal taste thing.

Marvel's Spider-Man - 2022 - Steam - ★★★★

I don't think I have anything particularly unique to say about The Spider-Man Experience beyond hey: that's a pretty good Spider-Man. I think the DLC was obnoxious as shit, and a number of the decisions tied to box-checking-completionist stuff were mean for someone like me who has the stupid brain that thinks it's important to do Everything no matter how tedious it is, but overall: a good Spider-Man. Some of the villain stuff felt pretty weak though.

7. Resident Evil 4 Remake - 2023 - Steam - ★★★★★

A great remake! They trimmed down some areas a fair but, but none of them particularly egregious (some of them, particularly a last act boss being removed, was quite appreciated), and the mechanical additions are fun.

Does it invalidate the old version? I dunno, maybe?

6. We Love Katamari Re:Roll - 2023 - Steam / Switch - ★★★★★

Hey, you know what's also a very good game? We Love Katamari. Not much new to say beyond hey: the name is accurate, and you should buy and play it. I liked it enough to buy it twice on two platforms, which is silly but it gave me the excuse to play more Katamari so quite understandable.

A thing that does annoy me about the game is them reusing certain models from the other Katamari Remake, even when they were deliberately replaced in We Love Katamari and are even called out as different in the item descriptions despite not being so. Arrgh. It doesn't really matter, but I got the dumb brain for that kind of thing.

5. Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising - 2023 - Steam - ★★★★★

A fighting game that I enjoyed years past now has actually good netcode! The mechanical additions have been very nice, and I've been enjoying myself grinding away for my meager gains. It's also funny having skipped all the base game's DLC and coming in now, since it's like this release just added 20 more chars I'd otherwise not engaged with before.

A ton of polish has made this a fantastic package across the board, so many smart decisions and little details. I'm sure for GranBlue gacha fans it's probably incredible as something that pays tribute as well.

… but see, my main annoyance with the game mostly ties to being unable to stand the source material it pulls from. It's not enough to diminish my positive feelings for the game, but none the less: man, everything about the lore and characters themselves just does NOTHING for me. This is nothing particularly unique to GranBlue itself even, it's pretty in line with how I feel about every gacha title that exists to roll out chars and appeal to as many niches as possible without real forward movement or actual story, but hey here we are.

Looking forward to that 2B.

4. Baldur's Gate 3 - 2023 - Steam - ★★★★★

A game I admittedly haven't completed yet (I got up to a certain kidnapping in the last act and had to set it aside due to stuff repeatedly coming up for the past couple months) but still: this is a very good tactical RPG. I enjoy the writing, characters, and gameplay quite a lot. A ton of polish went into this.

I don't think I have much to say about it that hasn't been said by others, especially with all the Discourse that has circled it for months-to-years now across Early Access into release.

If there's one thing that does kind of annoy me about the game design, it's the way the player characters are handled. You have the option during character creator to create a character with a number of character-build-y backgrounds, or use their pre-built characters that have existing stories. This choice is lose-lose.

A fully custom character is blank, unimportant. There's nothing special about them beyond their affinity with a certain orb and being Protagonist Man. Their background doesn't really matter, even as you express your personality. You have nothing behind you that meaningfully comes up or affects the story (no Gorion, etc) beyond your role in the conflict. In other words, there's not a lot of reason for you to exist except as a cypher for the named characters.

Playing one of the named characters also sucks, because you lose those the writing for those characters. If I'm stuck aping Karlach, I have no Karlach in my party. You barely even get voice acting once you choose to play those characters either. You effectively end up with less writing and characterization, which kind of sucks! Yes, you do get your backgrounds being looped in and mattering more, which is indeed something, but not enough.

There is secretly a third option that, the more I think about it, is the correct one, they just don't tell you it. You can choose your character background to be tied to the Dark Urge, which results in a lot unique interactions, gives your character an actual background and comes up, etc. They don't outright make this the main option presumably because it comes with a lot of baggage (which, yeah, it does), but it seems completely worth it by comparison to just flitting through the story as either a ghost or the phantom of a real character.

3. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective Remastered - 2023 - Steam - ★★★★★

Play Ghost Trick.

2. Armored Core VI - 2023 - Steam - ★★★★★

From Software continues to not miss. Fantastic game, some of the most satisfying mecha combat I've played. Story is great; it's still your usual "oops we're not explaining much other than in medias res or by circumstantial details" that From Soft has continued to double down on, but I really enjoy that stuff so hey. I 100%'d this game, got all the endings etc. Great stuff.

Really want some proper DLC so I can do even more, though.

1. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - 2023 - Steam - ★★★★★

Let's face it: this wasn't going to end any other way. Breath of the Wild is probably my favorite game of all time, and this is basically just more of that, remixed and remastered into a Second Quest that builds on the first one.

Something I kept thinking about while playing is that while there is volumetrically more to do, more things happening, more mechanics, etc etc, the different approach it takes in terms of focus and approach doesn't make it necessarily a "strictly better" version of Breath of the Wild.

Breath of the Wild was deliberately spare, quiet, and minimalist. Like the name says, its about the quiet wilderness, a poignant world that you explore. Tears of the Kingdom drops much of that, in many ways turning into a kooky madcap version of BOTW. You don't spent nearly as much time smelling the roses and taking in the scenery, as you're often too busy blasting by using any number of the new movement abilities or combat tools or literal flying machines you can now Nuts and Bolts together.

It's a deliberate escalation, one that in my opinion requires the preceding part to work. They add together into one complete singular experience, rather than pulling against each other. That's awesome, exactly what I wanted. Now I get to have two favorite games of all time that are secretly just one-and-the-same.

Some minor thoughts:

1. Lots of great writing and characterization, built up well on BOTW there.

2. It's kind of funny how much it goes out of the way to avoid talking much about BOTW in case someone plays this game first.

3. The last of a Master mode this time around is kind of a bummer but oh well!

4. The vehicle crafting system and everything about it, including the way it plays into the existing physics system is fucking insane. Absolutely incredible game design. Bonkers.

I'm really curious how the hell they're going to follow these games up. Going back to square-0 from this formula- one that is so built up and diverse, seems like it'd be impossible to me. What the hell could you do? Looking forward to finding out.

[rpwprpwprpwprw]

*typing aggressively excited*

this is exactly what i was needing. FUNNY! real fucking funny. cute jungkook. EQUAL DYNAMICS but also a little sub!jk. they’re so real with each other, so natural. the ghosts puns? movie references? yoongi and taehyung as ghostfriends? brilliant story and idea and supernatural concept so well done!!!!

20k words…. I am beyond the excitement allowed for a human being!!!!!!!!!!!!! OKAY OKAY QUOTE TIME

“Yoongi had always been quite fond of the classic with great power comes great responsibility” - SPIDER-MAN REFERENCE AGAINNNN FOR THE BEST SPIDERGIRL EVER (me😝) 🕷️🕸️

“He probably committed a terrible crime in a past life to be stuck with Tweedledee and Tweedledum like that” - KKKKKKKKKKKKKLKKKLLKLKK THAT WAS FUNNY

“The point is that you keep delivering lines like you're a bad boy in a South American novela, then expect us to perform a miracle on you." - NOVELA????? IS THIS A BRAZILIAN REFERENCE? ��🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷😝😝😝

“That was why he was more dead than Jungkook's bedroom”

“Don't worry about it. You’re pretty cute too. Like a man” - AAAAAAAAAAAAA😭😭🤭😍🥰

“almost all of his romantic experience came from bad sitcoms and Twilight marathons with Yoongi” - i respect yoongi. that’s it.

Great smut…. jungkook asking if he’s doing a good job….. damn baby 😭😭😭 AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN

the sad news? authors last post was 4 FUCKING YEARS AGOOOOO 😭😭😭 this fanfic is from 2020. I wonder what happened in this era (2019- 2022) because they are golden fanfics but the authors disappeared from the face of the earth

So here I go, suffering for yet another author who disappeared from the internet... typical. I said I wouldn't do it anymore, now I'm in mourning. again. but I'm grateful that this fanfic found me in the great year of 2025 and I hope all these incredible authors come back this month to celebrate BTS's return with me next month. 💅🏻💅🏻💅🏻

(doing some math here and imagine if the author is actually Brazilian? There are many clues that would indicate this…. it would’ve be SUPER COOL 🙂‍↕️🇧🇷💅🏻)

ghosts just wanna have fun; m

⤷  When Jungkook discovered that he could communicate with dead people, the last thing he expected was that they would be there to give him romantic advice.

✓ Couple: Jungkook x Reader | Psychic!AU & MedSchool!AU

✓ Filed under: fluff, crack (so many ghost puns), light smut (and jungkook being a nervous virgin) 

✓ Words: 20,062

Author’s Note: In which Jungkook is able to see spirits, but it’s just Taehyung and Yoongi giving him dating tips because he sucks at talking to girls. Hope you guys like it, because it has been on my WIPS for over a year and a half and I can’t believe it’s finally out there… emotional, really.

Also, huge thanks to @storytaeme​, who proof-read this mess like a champ. 

 There aren’t many embarrassing situations that can overcome the fact that Jeon Jungkook found out about his psychic abilities as he was about to lose his virginity. 

To say the least, that hadn’t been the most pleasant of scenarios to open the pathway to the afterlife. Really, there was no casual way that he could justify the scream that broke from his lips, or the dramatic spin he took as he turned around on the bed — which, ultimately, had him falling into the small space between the nightstand and the wall, with his legs up in the air, and his butthole fully exposed for both planes of existence to see. 

Still, that hadn’t been the worst part. If those two pallid silhouettes had merely disappeared once he had seen them, it wouldn’t have been as traumatic — perhaps Jungkook could have found a semi-believable excuse about what he had witnessed — but no. Not only did the ghosts remain there, with their arms crossed before their achromatic clothes and eyebrows slightly raised in expectation, they continued their conversation as if nothing had happened. 

“Oh, he was definitely going to put it in the wrong hole,” the shorter of the two murmured, clearly entertained at the idea. 

The other scoffed. “What if he did?” he threw back. “Maybe he likes that, we can’t judge.”

Keep reading

[puppyluver256]

I've come to realize that I have...rather mixed feelings about the act of lost media archival.

Don't get me wrong, a lot of the time this is very important work that helps to get a better picture of humanity's creative history, especially when those who have given themselves authority over larger creative projects absolutely do not want to shoulder the burden themselves. (see: the WB shitstorm that's been happening over the past few years, or hell, Nintendo's crusade against emulation and fan projects) But at the same time, I can't help but feel apprehensive in the case of some admittedly niche but still very significant instances.

For one, there are obviously some instances of lost media that should never, ever, ever be available to the public. The footage / audio of Timothy Treadwell's end or Christine Chubbuck's final broadcast come to mind. And I won't lie, I would not be unhappy if works like Mein Kampf or Birth of a Nation became completely lost forever, as unlikely as that is. There are just some things that would be better off having not been made or, in the case of the irl events, recorded in any manner beyond a text-only documentation. But while I can't bring myself to speculate on Treadwell's footage, Chubbuck and the creators of heinously bigoted material wanted people to see those things, albeit to shame the tendency for news media to go with a "if it bleeds, it leads" standard of practice in Chubbuck's case.

What about the things we the public aren't meant to have anymore?

I'm sure many of those following me are more than familiar with this work, though I myself am not beyond a cursory glance for research purposes, but Unus Annus was a project created by Mark Fischbach and Ethan Nestor-Darling, lasting from November 13, 2019 until November 13, 2020. Its title Latin for "one year", it was designed to solely last a single year. Once that year was over, the Youtube channel hosting the series and all social media accounts specifically made to tie into the series were terminated. Mark said that he would copyright claim any attempt to reupload Unus Annus material, given that its reupload would go entirely against the theme of the work.

It exists in its entirety, as far as I can gather, on Archive.Org.

I feel that by bringing this up, I must once again reiterate that I appreciate the effort of archivists who do good work to make sure we don't lose our creative history. It's still honestly a little frightening to think about, that we could be so dedicated to preserving the arts that we override the artist's intent to have the art be eventually lost on purpose. The project was designed specifically to only last for that period of time and then was intended to be gone forever. That was a crucial part of the project's theme, and by it being archived that intent is completely lost. I never saw Unus Annus during its run. With this archive I could, in theory, see it now if I wanted. But I feel that would be disrespectful to those who created it. I do not intend to shame anyone who feels differently.

Art that is meant to disappear, or otherwise be altered in significant ways by the audience or the mere passage of time, loses its meaning when it is forcibly preserved. Untitled (Portrait of Ross in LA) also comes to mind, taking the form of a pile of candy that in its initial state equates to the mass of the un-titular Ross Laycock. The removal of candies by passing patrons symbolizes his wasting away from AIDS. If no one were allowed to take any of the candies, or worse, the candies were replaced by colorful rocks that could never even spoil, the message would be entirely lost. (the fact that there have been active attempts to purposefully strip it of its meaning certainly doesn't help matters) Similarly, the dunkass that decided to use machine generation to "finish" Keith Haring's Unfinished Painting is possibly the most disrespectful thing one could do to what is in actuality a finished piece that only appears unfinished as a symbol for his own rapidly declining health in the face of AIDS, but that's obviously less a matter of preservation vs the fleeting nature of some art pieces and more a complete lack of both art history education and respect, but it hits similarly with regards to the artist's intent.

And the thing that is most disturbing to me...what of the things we the public were never meant to have?

Fellow artists, I want you to think of every piece of vent art you've ever made. Every project you've been a part of where its memory leaves a terrible bitter taste in your mouth just to think about. Every fic you've ever written in your darkest moments. Imagine if you could hide it totally and completely, where the only copy of it would be in your possession. Now imagine someone found where you were hiding that thing and decided that, because it was a creative work that people liked at one point or featured characters from a popular fandom, it needed to be shared with the world no matter how much you begged and pleaded for it to not be public, or worse, were no longer alive to even consider saying no.

Francisco Goya's infamous Black Paintings were painted directly onto the walls of his private home, never meant to be displayed to the public and only ever intended to be seen by himself and whatever visitors (if any) he had in the time those paintings were present. It was only after his death that these paintings were discovered. They were never named by the man himself, or at least if he did name them he didn't leave convenient name plaques next to each painting or give any other manner for an external audience to identify them. And so they were transferred from wallpaper to canvas, named and interpreted by those who only saw them after Goya's death, with no possible way to get his input on what they were about, what they should be called, or even if he was okay with them doing that in the first place.

That one painting everyone knows could be a depiction of the god Saturn devouring his son, as the title we know it by dictates. It could also be a metaphorical depiction of a man's deep-seated issues and have nothing to do with any established mythology. We will never know. We can never know. He wasn't exactly talking about these pieces in his life, and he's not exactly available for an interview in current day.

Is no work of art allowed to be so personal, so private that it can fade away alongside the artist who made it?

Must any notable artist, once having a certain level of significance and notoriety, allow the public to look upon their work just because it can have their name attached? Are they not also permitted to their own privacy, or is their work now property of the viewing masses (or worse, whoever can slap down the dough to purchase the exclusive licensing rights)?

Must every work of art be shared with the world, regardless of whether or not the artist is even present to consent to that?

Is the mere act of preservation of art, in a paradoxical sense, inherently destructive if the artist does not want it preserved?

Can our most personal work only truly be hidden if it is destroyed beyond recognition?

.....

I don't know. And the thought kind of scares me.

[nancydrewwouldnever]

I feel like the majority of his impetus behind ASP was his disgust with Trump. It feels like it was his more physical manifestation of his anti-Trump stance, beyond his tweets of the time. I feel like once Trump lost re-election in 2020 his politics interest started waning big time.// I noticed this too. I started questioning it ever since he brought the idea forward and doing interviews about it. It felt like a vanity project against trump with interviews of not so great republicans. Then once trump started going downhill and lost, his interest in it has almost disappeared. I wonder if he feels like he accomplished anything with ASP. I don’t think we’ll ever know but from the outside looking in, it doesn’t feel that way to me. However I do think it could’ve been a very decent political site if there was just more of a long term focus and determination about it. He’s just not a person who has that, in my opinion.

So, obviously, I'm using some older asks still in the inbox to spur some things I'm thinking about while I have asks off.

While I do believe in the loss of interest after Trump was out of office, I also want to talk about what ASP might have accomplished for Chris, even half-heartedly.

Let's not kid ourselves that ASP was not a cog in the wheel of a larger PR persona soft pivot strategy. Let's take a look:

The Wired Interview, January 2020 (clock when the interview actually happened though, October 2019 in L.A.)

So this was done not too many months after the Hollywood Reporter Interview of early 2019 that also teased the "quasi-retirement" angle and talked about ASP as well:

So, like any good business venture, using the year previous to launch to tease out the product. (The product being the reinvented post-Marvel Chris Evans.)

Then, a feather in the cap that would have hit at the same time as ASP's initial launch, had it not been for Covid, the Time Magazine May 2020 inclusion article:

But, to me, the real big score for any politico, a write-up in The Washington Post, October 22, 2020:

They even came to his MA house for the photoshoot, due to Covid.

The rebrand/pivot continued into 2021, post-election, but pre- him going back to more regular filming scheule. The Newsweek article, June 18-25, 2021 cover edition:

So, here we had it, the real gain from ASP, the post-Marvel all-grown up new Chris Evans PR persona. Yay.

Too bad whatever personal life decisions he made half-way through 2021 completely blew this up.

I would have liked to have seen where this version of Chris could have gone. (And I guess we'll never see this again, because he seems to have no interest in it anymore.)

[camgirlsurvivalguide]

First and foremost, I’ve released my most highly requested guide as of late, which is how to get started live streaming on Twitch. You can find it listed on the Camgirl Survival Guide Etsy page over here:

https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1402368236/the-camgirls-guide-to-twitch-sfw?ref=listing_published_alert

The Etsy listing includes a 40 page detailed breakdown of everything from Twitch-specific terminology, how to get started using Streamlabs (and customize the absolute fuck out of your stream) and how to use Twitch as a platform in general. It discusses whether or not it can be “worth it” for a NSFW creator to spend time and energy on the platform, and as usual, includes a transparent look at my own cost and income on Twitch compared to what I put into and received out of streaming on MFC. Essentially it’s a fucking chungus of a guide.  

As per usual, though, since I haven’t figured out how to shut the fuck up, I’ll be including a ramble about the topic here on the Survival Guide. If you’re looking for step by step instruction and a very detailed and technical walkthrough, buy the guide. Yes, I know it’s $100. It took me like four million hours to put together and the process of learning the site itself took me over a year, so it’s expensive. Is the information something you absolutely will not find elsewhere? Of course not. A vast amount of knowledge about beginning on Twitch exists everywhere from Reddit to YouTube and beyond - but this walkthrough includes information specifically focused on a SWers experience on Twitch, making it somewhat unique, I think. 

But for the Tumblr edition ... let’s get into some general discussion of the whole MFC to OF to Twitch pipeline. 

As mentioned frequently here on the CGS blog, I left MFC in 2019. I was burnt out. No matter how I reworked my approach, I couldn’t find a way to make streaming on MFC itself enjoyable for me anymore. I liked spending time with my regulars but had grown so sick and fucking tired of spanking myself for tokens that the drive to generate income had dwindled down to nothing, but my expectations for that income stayed the same. Essentially I wanted to make camgirl money without having to actually ... camgirl. I knew my regulars were buying tokens to spend elsewhere and I felt personally owed income from them, even if I wasn’t teasing or doing handbras with any real frequency anymore. 

I’ve talked about this before, but expectation truly had become the thief of joy for me - and I think it had become the thief of joy for my regulars even outside of my room specifically. I imagine that from a member’s perspective, MFC was becoming less and less of a hangout space and more of a financial responsibility, especially if they wanted to show up “publicly”. The number of times I’d heard of members making different accounts so as not to carry their main account’s tipping reputation with them was enlightening. The highest contributing tippers were expected to continue being the highest contributing tippers, and the pressure to maintain those expectations sometimes became so costly that they just stopped showing up at all. As much as I told myself any amount of tip was better than no tip, I can’t pretend I wasn’t disappointed when one of my usual whales wasn’t dropping stacks on me when they came in, even though I was well aware I wasn’t performing like I used to. 

My own dedication to the experience sunk, but my expectations stayed the same. I became bitter and jaded. I fell victim to the habit of lurking rooms I knew my regulars spent money in to watch them support someone other than me, which perpetuated my bitterness even more. Even though I preach a lot of positive shit, I was not walking my own talk in the slightest. In light of all of this, I retired. 

The timing was perfect for me specifically because I had just crawled onto OF a few months prior, which had me set up just in time for the pandemic boom when it occurred in early 2020. The relief was immense; I no longer had to perform NSFW in real time or even talk to another living human being out loud at all, sometimes for days on end. Great! Camgirl money without being a camgirl. Besides, making videos and taking photos was so much easier (oh god, if only I had known), and occasionally messaging people one on one took me less time than live streaming (again - fuck, that didn’t last long, did it?). It was the perfect solution to staying safe financially while recovering from burnout. 

Truly, it was. The break let me unwind. OF was easier, and the income was greater and faster than I’d ever known on MFC. I went from making $6,000 a month (roughly) for 30+ hours of streaming to making $20,000 a month for what I’d considered to be less overall time in shooting and editing content. It was what I needed and then some. 

So why on earth did I find myself nostalgic for MFC a few years later? 

While OF took the majority of the social element out of the picture, it also largely left me lonely and bored. I like messaging my OF besties just as much as the next creator does, but it just isn’t the same as entertaining a room of chatters. I became a camgirl because I liked chatrooms. I had been in chatroom spaces since I was a teen, and as an adult creator, MFC gave me everything I already liked about the internet with added income. I felt like I had friends: real friends, both members and other camgirls alike. I created my own communities out of the larger industry. 

This aspect wasn’t something I realized I was truly missing until I started up on Twitch. I didn’t start Twitch streaming with any income expectation in mind. During the pandemic I became obsessed with Animal Crossing and was spending the majority of my time (when I wasn’t shooting for OF) gaming alone, so I figured I may as well game with an audience. As soon as my usual audience showed up again, I felt a surge of good fucking vibes. It was nice to see the same usernames, to make the same weird jokes and to have that same “good time” feel all without having to do the shit I grew to hate doing over on MFC. 

Does Twitch pay the bills? Absolutely not. It does not pay the bills. It pays some bills, but no where near the amount of bills it would need to pay in order for me to transition over to Twitch full time. It is absolutely not camgirl style money. Despite this, I fucking love Twitch. I think dropping the expectations component made my Twitch streams fun for me and my viewers alike. People contribute when they can, and they know I’m not watching their usernames like some hungry hawk waiting to be fed. 

All in all, I am an internet gremlin, and as introverted as I am, I still need human interaction. Digital human interaction is still my favourite. Being a live streamer in that specific live stream format - me, talking out loud, my chat, talking via text - is comfortable and familiar and extremely natural to me. The boost in my overall wellbeing that I get from Twitch streaming is helping me feel human again, in ways that OF just doesn’t cultivate. 

Which leads me to really take a hard look at how objectifying the OF experience can be. I don’t know if it’s just me or if I’ve misstepped along the way in my approach to OF, but I’ve started to really feel like a content factory or some perpetually sexual creature, always at the ready to receive lewd messages from individual after individual. I like making lewd content - I really do - but producing well over a hundred videos a year to maintain my income is ... overkill. It’s beating the process to death. I used to make maybe one video and photoset a month on MFC. Now I expect myself to make multiple sets per week at the least. My highest earning months I’m putting out new content every single fucking day. 

We all know the pandemic boom is over. Anyone on OF that isn’t being run by management knows it’s harder to make a dollar now than it was two years ago. In a feast or famine industry, we know how to handle famine - but the only way through it (if we want to maintain the same sort of income) is to push three times as hard. With consistently restrictive SFW social media platforms making advertising an absolute nightmare, we also have to fully send it with respect to marketing, too. 

I’m looking burnout in the face. It’s starting to feel like MFC all over again. I want OF income without actually doing OF work, at least not to the degree that I’ve done it in the past. 

As contradictory as it sounds ... this is why Twitch streaming is helping me. I need balance. I need a space where I feel like a complex human being so that I can make space to exude the sexuality that makes me money on OF, and I need hobbies so I can keep my wellbeing level enough to put in work elsewhere. 

All that said, I can’t deny the fact that my history with MFC makes it challenging not be an entitled brat over on Twitch. Sometimes I tell myself I’d be better off putting my 80+ hours of stream time a month back onto MFC. I’ve toyed with the idea, but still haven’t returned to being a camgirl simply because adding more NSFW to my already NSFW-laden schedule wouldn’t help me in the long run, at least not emotionally. 

My advice to anyone wanting to start on Twitch would be to ask yourself why you’re getting into it, and then to drop your income expectations to the floor. Like, grab a shovel and dig a spot for the bar to go, because it’s low. I stream on Twitch for fun. It’s sort of the first actual hobby I’ve had in years, while still maintaining some sort of income and the possibility for increased income over time, all while staying well within my boundaries. I wrestled with the time contribution element of Twitch streaming a lot (going back to that “I should just go back to MFC” thought process) - but the bottom line is that I’m allowed to have hobbies. As long as I’m financially safe and still making OF work to support my life, doing something that I like is okay. It’s more than okay. It’s necessary for life to feel fulfilling. Not every aspect of my life needs to be making me tens of thousands of dollars a month.

Maybe I’ll blow up on Twitch. Maybe Twitch will get to a point where it pays the bills, and I can transition into making OF content when inspiration strikes rather than forcing myself to come up with new ideas (or just keep working with the same formula). In some ways, though ... I kind of hope it doesn’t. I like being a small streamer, because the whole point of me streaming is to cultivate a little community and have a good time with them. My following is growing over time, but the community aspect is staying very much intact. Plus, now I have girls in my community???? Like actual other women that like hanging out in my streams?? What a concept. It’s pretty fun to shake it up a bit in that respect. 

Anyway, snag the Etsy guide if you want to make the startup process for Twitch immensely easier on yourself. Having all the information you need consolidated into one place will make beginning on Twitch significantly less painful than it could be otherwise. Like, I really wish I had something like this when I started, which is the whole reason I made the damn thing. 

As always,

Happy Hustling.

xoxo, Ashley Tea

[stormblessed95]

I know this is mostly speculating but based on what we know about jm and jk who do you think 'made the first move' (not a nice way to say it but I think you get what I mean) and how do you think did it happen? Like them actually acting on their feelings for the first time. Thought it would be fun to talk a little bit more about early jikook and the shift in their dynamics. Have a nice day/evening/night! Oh an btw i love reading your Duo dynamic posts I’m looking forward to more of them!

I've been mentioning for a while about wanting to do a jikooks dynamics over the years from my perspective series. I mentioned it again today in an ask as well. I will DEFINITELY be doing this. Let me just get farther in my duos posts first. I don't want so many unfinished projects going at once. Lol or if yall would rather I pause the duos and focus on jikook, maybe I can do that after I finish JKs duo posts.

I made a post before about how I think things did start to change in 2015, but not in the "we are in a relationship" way, just a... "I like you and I want you to know" type of way. And I think it was Jungkook who was doing the pursing and the convincing of we should try this. You can find that post here:

I also talk about how I think things changed for them more in 2016 too. We went from Jimin joking about giving kisses and/or wanting kisses in a silly manner.... to all of sudden no longer asking and yet mystery hickeys were showing up. Lol I mention the kisses he asks for until he doesn't here:

So I think JK started making a point to be an equal to pursue Jimin and not just be his maknae and to make his own feelings more clear to Jimin in 2015. I think they mutually decided to try and act upon those feelings in 2016 and danced around each other for awhile. And I think they decided to fully commit to being in a relationship together in late 2017 or early 2018. And I think they went through another shift, a "we are in this together forever" one in 2019.

Like how you have Jungkook singing "my true feelings lie beyond there" directly into Jimins eyes, pausing the choreo to do so in mid 2015, or the way he would stare Jimin down at times too:

How we have quite a few moments of *tension* in 2016, but also confusion and power struggles:

How they had a whole love confession in vlog form in 2017:

And I touch briefly on my thoughts about their 2019 Dynamics here:

And in 2020/2021, man I just don't think they even care much about hiding anymore. That closet couldn't be more clear

And then some, but I'll get into that a lot more when I do this Jikook Dynamics series. Think like a whole post or more per year depending on how it works out. But to sum up, I think Jimin made his feelings more clear but that JK perused making it an actual relationship.

Again, these are all my personal opinions. You are all free to disagree with them. It's how I kinda saw the getting together steps go down when watching content. Promise I will do this in a series one day! But for now. Hopefully this satisfies for what my thoughts are. Lol

[sizzlingpatrolfox]

Eh maybe Tae's a narcissist but he's also drawn boundaries with the fandom starting from 2017 that Jungkook and Jimin didn't. Jimin is way too people-oriented to be harsh and JK was still finding himself. Even Western stans who celebrate individualism for Western stars expect collectivism from Kpop stars and get angry when they don't comply. Jimin is the biggest victim of how nice he is.

Low-key the best position in relation to stardom is Jin's I think. I think he's deliberately tamped down his sex appeal but he's undoubtedly good-looking so he has self-policing gf stans, alternately the polite manner-dol and playfully savage, hard to really call out but keeps the delulus down. He goes unexpectedly viral because he's often backgrounded but his ideas are refreshing. Tae and Suga express too much and take the savagery too far and get backlash and Namjoon / Jhope's lack of popularity could hurt them going forward.

I'll start by saying that all of BTS have put up plenty of boundaries to keep people (the fandom included) away from their private lives and lives in general, if I'm being honest.

Jimin, the truth is that people are not understanding his boundaries. You saying that he can't be "harsh" so he can't set boundaries kinda tells me that you're not understanding them either. You can set boundaries and you can make yourself clear without ever being rude or harsh or unpleasant. You can keep people away without being an asshole. Being a dick is not a requisite to make people understand something.

I was never able to find this interaction again but in like 2019 or 2020 there was a man who met Jimin, I think it was backstage at a music show recording and the guy said Jimin is someone who makes perfectly clear what type of relationship he has with you. You know exactly what you are to him. This never left my mind but I was never able to find those tweets again and nobody seems to remember either. If that doesn't scream "BOUNDARIES", I don't know what could say it better.

As for the fandom, his silence is a boundary. He used to be the most active member on social media and for whatever reasons, he changed that habit. Now, that has become a boundary of sorts. Him not talking about his apartment or showing it on Instagram stories is a boundary. Not talking about or exposing his friends in any way, it's also a boundary. You go to his lives and he might say he has to ask his parents about marriage when fans ask him, but that's as far as he goes, and I've talked before about jokes vs statements and this is such an exaggerated situation that you don't even need to explain that he's joking about asking his parents. Beyond that, he doesn't lead the fans on. He doesn't flirt with them under any pretence. I'm so bad at searching for stuff, I wanted to include here a tweet of the fandom laughing at the difference between vminkook's responses to fans saying "you're mine" and how Jimin said "I belong to me". I can never seem to find stuff, but you probably saw those tweets. Jimin won't even let you entertain the idea that you own him and he's clear about it while also being completely civil and polite about it.

^ that's actually what I was talking about when I said that the least Taehyung could do was wave to the fans. I know they don't owe us anything, I don't owe them anything either, but it's about politeness, about appreciation and being thankful. That's why I said it wasn't about entitlement, it was just about manners.

Back to the topic..

My impression of Jungkook is that he goes back and forth (which seems to be a personality trait atp, he goes back and forth in a lot of stuff). He had a moment of boundaries in 2020 and 2021 but that wasn't there anymore once he opened his Instagram account. It feels to me that he goes back and forth because he has moments of not giving in to what people want, but then he has moments of giving people exactly what they want while not meaning anything of it. Which is tricky, because you think there's no boundaries but the fact that he doesn't mean anything of it and he's in reality closed off, that's a boundary. Talking about sex innuendos with fans, you want him to say Taehyung is handsome, he will say Taehyung is handsome, you want him to say no you can't hug Jimin, he will say exactly that. All while being completely detached from the things he's saying. He doesn't feel anything when he says those things, he does not mean any word. His detachment is a boundary. You can't reach him, can't get to him. He rarely, if ever talks about his feelings but he will list every TV show he's ever watched. I literally know nothing about Jungkook's opinion on anything beyond him liking a business proposal. He's never talked about his apartment either, it was Jin who talked about it just because he found it funny obviously, but in the Festa dinner JK didn't describe the place himself.

That was last year, tho. Jungkook might change his approach to the fandom this year, there already seems to be a change.

He might be a bit more intense in showing appreciation (the tattoo, the songs, the writing on the sand) but it still doesn't mean that you can control him or anything like that. If you feel like there's no separation between him and you, it's because he's just playing the idol game well. I personally do think he's put up several boundaries. For years he's even said he's different on camera than what he is off camera. That's a boundary too, probably the biggest of them all; presenting a certain personality in front of the cameras while being a different person in private. Now, whether he allows you to cross those boundaries sometimes, that's his decision. It doesn't mean they aren't there and won't be back up whenever he decides it's enough.

Taehyung likes showing off. He likes posting from his living room and he willingly filmed a reality show with his best friends. He likes walking down the street and appearing unreachable and then he will go and post photos of himself in shorts laying face down passed out in a private plane. But again, it's like he's showing while the rest of us are behind a glass just watching. He probably means for it to feel that way. Again, similar to Jungkook in the core of it but not on the execution, Taehyung's boundary is his detachment too. He's just thinking of himself and the rest of the world are spectators of his life, not participants. And now I realize I just actually described some narcissist traits. I swear I didn't mean to. But that's how he has come across to me for some years, even more so since 2020.

The fandom.. the fans do whatever they want. Asking those men about Taehyung's sexuality was a boundary that shouldn't have been crossed, and yet it was crossed. The boundaries are there, armys just always need to go a step further and beyond because they're too involved. We're all too involved.

[kh4]

why are you on a twitter byf?

hi, youre actually not the first person to tell me this tonight! i Also have no idea why im on a blacklist. i want to clear some stuff up because i was told this three (3) times. i dont exactly like that i have to reply to this publicly because i dont even make personal posts but i think this whole thing is out of hand and has been for a while.

im putting this under a Read More because its long and im finally able to air out some of my feelings about the situation.

TLDR: devin has lurked and kept tabs on me for three years and its exhausting that i have to address it like this of all places. if you need proof or anything feel free to dm me.

this is soooo. okay so i met this person in 2019 from the best of my memory because ive been trying for about an hour to get onto my old blog but i cant remember the login at all, and she and i had done a few dms just about whatever. and then she wanted to make these two kin doubles who hated each other or something be friends again, please note we all shared the same kin, and stirred up some problems.

then, after this happened, her host (or she did? regardless she admitted that she was involved in the creation) had made a callout blog for one of them despite my attempt to steer this off from happening, and i was ignored. i think my last message to her directly, and im not kidding here, was in jan 2020 (three full years ago!).

after this i made the choice, for myself, to soft her on tumblr. i no longer wanted anything to do with the situation, i think kin drama is stupid and im sure it was more personal than kin things from what she had told me, but i had no intention of being involved further. or know any of these people. like at all. after i softed her, she made a post about taking a hiatus after she deleted the callout blog and thats it from what i know about her tumblr because it was deleted soon after iirc.

8 months later she tried to follow my twitter, and i recognized her. i considered it a lottt, but i really didnt want that kind of energy stirring up things again in my life because 2020 was an absolute fucking Disaster of a year enough. so i softed her from my twitter because of this for my own mental health.i havent had a direct message with her since early 2020.

i know nothing about her, her life, anything because i wanted as much distance from that whole situation as possible. i didnt get to know her well enough with her to call her my friend or anything, and everything that happened so soon after we did start talking really made me not feel like i wanted to be friends or get to know her better if this was her vibe. she has made posts about missing me, when i feel as though i never warranted the title of friend at all because she basically just vented to me a couple times before this started and i didnt and still dont have the energy to deal with that kind of person.

i have found out, however, she has fucking LURKED me likely for three years. shes posted about how ensemble stars reminds her of an ex friend (which, she didnt get to know me enough to be my friend, and its pretty obvious this post is about me because my special interest is ensemble stars) and i got into it in mid 2020 so she shouldnt possibly know i ever got into it without lurking me. its some creepy shit ill be honest with you.

she knew and made posts about how my psychotic ass had delusions about being w/ilbur ds-p from nov 2021- mid 2022 because i like. Was in a horrible state and related to how self destructive he was or whatever but i got better and got my life together and dont do that at all anymore. i dropped it and i have most terms blacklisted (and the series itself) because it reminds me of those racist assholes and also of a horrible time in my life im still recovering from.

i have no fucking clue how this could affect her or she would even know. seeing as this was wayyyyy beyond the time i knew her. however this proves she was lurking me to myself and people who know me personally… we're all insanely confused. shes had no reason to keep up with anything about me for three years and im pretty much sick of it haha. ive been quietly freaking out over how scary shes been acting about me and whatever idealized version of what or who i was she had assumed during the very short time i knew her because i didnt want to start anything.

thank you for reading this. i hope this stops soon because i dont want to keep dealing with something thats happened 3 years ago and it happened because i didnt even want to be involved in things. its just unfair and makes me feel insanely uncomfortable im still a hot topic for her even though she hasnt messaged me or anything since following my twitter and being softed. it makes me feel weird and its just weird to me.

[aelaer]

Hey dear, do you still play the ask game? If you don’t mind, here’s 🎁💡💘? Thank you so much for your answer!!!

From this post.

This one actually reminded me that it existed and I finally had a couple hours of energy to answer them yayyyy.

💘 Is it easier to write angst or fluff? I can write both, so long as neither is romantic in nature ahahahah. I don't know if either is easier or harder in nature--it more depends on my mood? I think it's harder to write a contained plot with fluff that isn't wildly OOC with the characters I write. It's definitely possible, and done quite well by some authors, but I think it can be harder. There's more angsty situations presented in canon and by the nature of their personalities.

💡How many WIPs do you currently have? Oh boy. So I am *not* counting the ones in the LOTR fandom that have remained untouched for like, a decade, haha. RIP LOTR. With the MCU... *sigh*

Ones that have a lot of content for them (one-shots are over 50% done, multi-chaptered fics have at least 20k written): 4 pieces

One-shots that have a scene written for them that I'm still planning to finish and publish: 2 pieces

Multi-chaptered fics that are unlikely to ever be finished/published due to being crossovers that I was way too ambitious about: 2 pieces

One-shots that have outlines that I still plan on completing: 3 pieces (these are all prompt fics requested in 2019 and 2020... I'm so sorry... the asker likely isn't even in the fandom anymore, lmao)

One-shots that are remaining prompt asks that have nothing planned yet: 2 pieces (including the new 2022 one from blossom, I'm so sorry, lord know when I'll get to it with this current schedule)

Floating snippets that are just ideas with no set plot to them, and thus may never be published beyond this blog: 3 pieces. Snippets really.

So 6-16 depending on what you count as a WIP.

🎁 Have a piece of a WIP you want to share? I posted two of the snippets in the other asks. Here's one from a one-shot that's like 90% done, I just need to figure out how I want to end it (which is harder than I'd like -- endings can be rough for me. Will probably need to ask my beta for her ideas because it hasn't gone anywhere for 2 years >.<)

.....

It was during one passing group, just as he was about to give his excuses, that Wong learned that the kid had super-hearing. A rather unfortunate time to discover such a fact.

And once Peter learned the news, it was just a matter of a few texts before every Avenger knew.

"We'd like to help out," Tony said, being the first to call Wong. Wong had given his number to a couple Avengers on the off-chance Stephen was wounded while working with them. He hadn't expected his number to be used in this fashion.

"Us sorcerers handle our own affairs," was Wong's gruff reply. "Besides, aren't you supposed to be retired?"

"Special occasion."

Wong said, "We're fine," and hung up before Tony could retort, then sighed. Stephen would be displeased if Iron Man ended up dying after all the work he did to save him in the multiple future fiasco. He was just happy Stephen managed to get to 16 million (and severely lower the amount of time it took to get everyone who left back), but that was another topic altogether.

Then Tony gave out Wong's number to the others.

"It really would be no trouble," Steve said. "We consider all of you our allies after Thanos."

"You're supposed to be retired, too," was Wong's exasperated retort.

A pause. "Well, I did pass on the mantle of Captain America to Sam, sure, but that doesn't mean I don't go out in the field here and there. Just less public."

Wong hung up on him, too.

"We really would like to see him safe," was Bruce's call.

Bruce was a little harder to hang up on; he had been visiting the New York Sanctum frequently for meditation purposes, to better understand and work with the other side of his personality and come to some sort of balance with it. According to Stephen, Bruce had achieved something like this on his own in other futures, but he was certain the resources at Kamar-Taj could help him achieve this faster and with potentially better results.

Still, Bruce Banner was not a sorcerer. "I appreciate the offer, Doctor Banner, but this is a matter for our order," he told him, then hung up before the other could retort.

"It's pretty slow right now; you'd be doing everyone a favor in letting us help," Natasha admitted when she called.

Wong pulled the phone away from his face to sigh; if it weren't for the very slim chance of Stephen potentially calling him, he would have turned off the damn thing. "Weren't you supposed to retire from field work, too?"

"People like me never retire," she answered. "Think on it, Wong."

He grimaced and hung up.

"You have to let us help!" was Peter's plea. Peter had been barred from the Sanctum until the issue was settled—Wong knew that Stephen wouldn't want the kid involved—but apparently Tony Stark was more than happy to give Peter Parker his phone number, as well.

"Stephen would want you to stay out of this," he told the kid without ceremony, and hung up on him, too, though he felt a little bad doing it.

This was getting ridiculous. The other Masters had decided the Avengers shouldn't be involved, but if they had to endure what Wong was enduring, maybe they'd change their minds. Besides, the extra eyes wouldn't be a bad thing to have, at least in Wong's opinion. 

By the time a sixth call from an Avenger in under an hour occurred, Wong was ready. He positioned himself in the Masters' strategy room as they discussed leads and next steps, then let the phone ring beside the others.

They caved in less than two hours.

[ms-demeanor]

Some meandering thoughts about jokes about rape and cultural changes in the last decade and a half

Like, don’t get me wrong, I’m really glad we’re in a place now where we DO question rape jokes and it would be much harder to get away with “raping Jonah Hill is incredibly amusing” as the center of a scene the way that you could in 2007-2013 but I do kind of feel like we don’t talk about how sudden that change was enough.

People talk about how you should have always known that awful things are awful but if you’re surrounded by rape jokes and pedophilia jokes all the time and that’s what’s funny to the other kids around you and the adults in your lives and what makes up the jokes in the movies you watch then it’s hard to act like you always knew it was wrong.

Dead baby jokes were a HUGE thing when I was a teen and in my early twenties and sitting around swapping dead baby jokes was just a thing we did, and tossed in among them were things like:

A joke about incest with the punchline “Get off me pa, you’re crushing my smokes.”

This joke about a pedophile murdering a child.

Let’s not turn this rape into a murder.

And hell, look at the activity graph for “soap on a rope” on urban dictionary:

2014 starts a significant taper.

Letterboxd has their “sexual assault against men played for comedy page” and if you sort by release date there’s a downward trend with 2014 as a really stand-out year for rape jokes about men in popular movies:

2010 - 10

2011 - 12

2012 - 14

2013 - 12

2014 - 18 (jesus, which includes a prison rape joke in “Paddington”)

2015 - 9

2016 - 9

2017 - 11

2018 - 15

2019 - 4

2020 - 1

(this is of course with the caveat that this is only what has been documented so far)

Shock porn sites used to be a thing and they used to be a COMMON thing. A thing that would get remixed and have late night hosts make jokes about them and that got parody music videos.

So on the one hand I was really glad that in 2010 the hacker conference WASN’T asking me to make a rape joke on their tee shirt, but since Pool 2 Girl came up at every single “this is what defcon is about” discussion and some of the guys from the con had printed up “lemonparty.org” stickers to slap up around town it wouldn’t have been *surprising* if they’d been asking for that.

If you were a teenager in 2005 would you have known how much of a dick move goatse-ing people was? We didn’t have the same culture of trigger warnings (not that I disapprove of trigger warnings, they are good and I like them) and there was very much an attitude online at the time of “if you can’t handle it log off.”

I think the fappening was the turning point for a lot of this stuff - I think that was a big cultural moment that changed a lot of people’s attitudes really quickly and I’m seeing echos of that with what Chris Evans is dealing with right now: people are a lot faster to say “oh, that sucks, don’t be an asshole, report people for posting the pics” while I remember sitting and arguing in an imgur thread because there were a bunch of people saying “if you don’t like it don’t take nudes” about the celebrities who got caught in the icloud leak.

People look at Shane Dawson’s (admittedly gross and incredibly inappropriate) behavior with a poster of Willow Smith and act like it’s unprecedented***** but as someone who remembers not only Olsen Eighteenth Birthday countdowns but ALSO the jokes about fucking the Olsen twins that came BEFORE they were legal that’s just bizarre. Seeing people my age and older react to James Gunn’s pedophilic twitter jokes like they’re worse than Jay Leno’s jokes about Michael Jackson (which were made on TV! Across America! On a major network!) is just. It’s bizarre.

I’m glad we are where we are now, I’m glad that making rape jokes in public or jokes about incest or pedophilia (or murder or abortion) is less common and less okay (especially in children’s media, jesus fuck) and more likely to get criticized.

But I’m also pretty sure I’m going to get called a rape apologist by *someone* for saying “2010 was a different time, rape jokes were more common and we didn’t realize how shitty it was” when it really was a different time and rape jokes were more common and most people didn’t realize how shitty it was. I sure didn’t. I do now, and I’m glad I do now. But pretending that we should have ALWAYS known this, pretending that this was NEVER acceptable, pretending that it WASN’T a different time is ignoring the fact that for over a decade there was an entire genre of pedophilic rape jokes (that were frequently also racist) centered around one celebrity and that people told these jokes in public and in pop culture *all the time.*

Does that make it right? Fuck, I don’t know, shit is relative. It was still largely acceptable to electrocute gay kids and people tossed around the word “faggot” pretty freely. Mean Girls is full of jokes about how awful it is for people to think you’re a lesbian and Superbad is full of jokes about getting people shitfaced so they’ll sleep with you (so date rape) and there’s an entire “cute comedy” from the 80s starring Kurt Russel and Goldie Hawn that’s an extended rape-by-fraud joke. I think that as a whole we’re better now as people than we were in 2010 and the 90s and the 80s and the 50s and I don’t think that someone who made a sexist joke in the 80s is irredeemably evil and I don’t think people making rape jokes in the 2010s are rape apologists in 2020 and I wish there was a lot more understanding of both history and nuance in these conversations.

*****to be very, very clear Shane Dawson has been filmed kissing underage fans on the mouth and having explicit sexual conversations with his very young cousin - Dawson has done things that go beyond “inappropriate” and fall clearly into “wrong” “bad” “dangerous” “illegal” etc, which is all the more reason that it’s so strange to see people focusing on him fake masturbating on a poster of Willow Smith. YES doing that was gross but why is it even being compared to the way he’s been filmed interacting with fans? The lack of nuance, making “fake masturbating at a poster” and “creating a sexually abused puppet character” the same as “inappropriately touched and kissed minor fans and engaged a young child in explicit sexual conversations” is NOT GOOD. That is a bad thing. Two of those things are tasteless and two of those things are actively harmful and it’s the actively harmful stuff that we should be focusing on and part of why it’s really weird to see shit like “pizzagate conspiracist accuses James Gunn of making inappropriate jokes” like yes Gunn please don’t but can we maybe refocus and talk about the dude who can be pretty significantly assigned blame for a fucking shooting? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/01/james-gunn-alt-right-marvel-film-director-tweets

Actually, you know what, I thought I was done ranting, I’m not.

It’s purity culture.

YES you should attempt to do less harm with your language, YES you should attempt to not use slurs, YES you should try to avoid making rape jokes. But there’s an entire huge group of people who are willing to drag up rape jokes from a decade when rape jokes were REALLY REALLY common in order to say that nothing you say or do today matters.

And that same group is ALSO really interested in expanding the concept of what pedophilia is to include age differences in adults or liking the wrong style of drawing and it’s a purity culture silencing tactic and can we PLEASE stop pretending that gross, tasteless jokes are the same thing as actually sexually abusing people? Can we stop pretending that pointing out “rape jokes were more common fifteen years ago and I feel bad about it but that’s just the way it was and I don’t make jokes like that anymore” is the same as saying “rape isn’t bad and you shouldn’t make a big deal out of it.”

It’s always good to try to be a less shitty human but if you’re only allowed to grow and improve and be less shitty if you never fucked up in the first place then it’s all just calvinist bullshit and none of us could ever really be saved in the first place.

I dunno, dudes. We got so careful about disapproving of the wrong kind of language that we let a white supremacist concern troll Disney into firing a director who caught the attention of the alt right by shit-talking the president.

I think perhaps we need to reexamine some strategy here.