#all Twitter conversations are negative. ALL of them. the way it affects you mentally is fucked.

[villagewildflowers]

If you’re looking to diminish your social media use, delete the apps and access them from a browser. It makes things so clunky (less interactive and addictive) that you spend less time scrolling, messaging, exploring.

For example, I’ve noticed on Instagram browser ads and suggested reels on your feed are gone. You can still post a photo to your story but you also can’t see who viewed your story (so nice honestly!) or who liked it (relieving me from those creepy guys who serially like every story I post…). I’m so here for the low-quality social media interaction in my life.

[csuitebitches]

Rebranding Yourself Online using ChatGPT

Summary from “Brand Aid: Taking control of your reputation before everyone else does” by Larry G Linne and Patrick Sitkins. This book is from the early 2010s so some things are outdated and not exactly applicable. It’s also a more corporate/ business focused book. I took away what i felt were the major lessons and were more applicable to young adults/ teens/ people on social media today (because social media in 2013 vs today is very different).

I also wanted to add my own input to the summary. I’ve added prompts for ChatGPT that you can use to help figure your personal brand out better.

When rebranding yourself online, I would highly recommend:

1. Archive all your personal Instagram account’s posts (if you have an online business, create a separate page and show very little of yourself). Remove all your stories and highlights. Deactivate your account for at least 8 months.

2. Spend the next 8 months building your social media strategy, your personal brand and reinventing yourself in any way and form you want to (mental, physical, spiritual, etc).

3. Use Pinterest and figure out a theme that defines you the best. Take a look at @mafeanzures

————————-

* A brand is what people think of you.

Questions to ask yourself:

1. What do you think other people think of you?

2. What personal attributes would you benefit from the most if those items were well known to everyone?

Question 1 and 2 in the next few prompts refers to these 2 questions.

ChatGPT prompts after you finish writing down the above answers:

“I want to develop my personal brand on instagram (or any one social media site at a time). Currently I’m seen as a (2 of the most negative qualities and 2 of the most positive qualities from question 1). I want to be seen as (4 of the most positive qualities from question 2). What should I do to be seen as that?”

This will give you a STRATEGY that you can further modify.

Now, ask the same question again but with one change:

“I want to develop my personal brand on instagram (or any one social media site at a time). Currently I’m seen as a (2 of the most negative qualities and 2 of the most positive qualities from question 1). I want to be seen as (4 of the most positive qualities from question 2). What should I post online to be seen as that?”

This will give you CONTENT that you should consider posting.

**

* It is very likely that if you are to meet someone new and you’re aware you’re going to meet them, you’ll check their social media out. Whether its LinkedIn, facebook, twitter, instagram… keep your online presence clean.

* Before you post ANYTHING online, ask yourself: “how will this affect my brand?” If you post a story about a nasty break up/ a friendship falling apart/ a negative restaurant review… how do you think other people will see you? Be extremely mindful of your brand and what you post online.

* Rather than the age old advice “just be yourself”, look at “just be your best self.”

**

7 steps to a great brand:

1. Write down what you think people think of you: both positive and negative

2. Determine your goals in life (career, family, etc). What brand items do you need to get there? For example, the brand item “intelligent” to move up the corporate ladder. What will you need in order to be perceived as intelligent?

3. Gap analysis: the difference between point 1 (current situation) and point 2 (desired situation).

4. Develop action items. For example, if you want to be seen as innovative at work, start bringing ideas to meetings.

5. Influences on your brand: your dress, style, voice tone and quality, health, recreation, the car you drive, social environments, where you live, the language you speak, the subjects of your conversations, social media postings all impact your brand.

6. List what you must do to protect your brand. For example: not drinking in public; dressing a certain way; etc.

7. Review every 6 months.

Ask ChatGPT: “I am (ethnicity) (gender), (age) years old based in (City, country). Currently I’m seen as a (2 of the most negative qualities and 2 of the most positive qualities from question 1). My viewers would mostly be people from (conservative/liberal/ rural/ urban/ define audience. In case there are two audience types, ask one at a time) backgrounds. I want to be seen as (4 of the most positive qualities from question 2). What behaviours should I not engage in?”

**

Using the power of “always”: 5 specific things you pride on yourself for doing regularly.

“I always take the time to be updated in my field of work.”

“I always volunteer every Sunday.”

**

Things to keep in mind:

A. Are you easy to find online?

B. Is your content consistent?

C. Do your pictures, videos convey your personal brand?

D. What will enhance your brand?

E. What will damage your brand?

Ask ChatGPT: “I want to develop my personal brand on instagram (or any one social media site at a time). Currently I’m seen as a (2 of the most negative qualities and 2 of the most positive qualities from question 1). I want to be seen as (4 of the most positive qualities from question 2). What can potentially damage my brand if I’m not careful?”

**

If you are willing to see what you are doing and saying on the front page of a newspaper tomorrow, proceed with it. If you wouldn’t want it on the front page of the newspaper, STOP immediately.

**

More things to keep in mind:

1. The internet amplifies everything

2. Context matters

3. Consistency is everything

4. Your “at home” brand is as important as “outside of home” brand

[tea-with-evan-and-me]

I don’t understand why it’s so hard for people to keep an open mind about this. For those who don’t want Evan to be dating because you want him to date you, here is a question: what are you doing about it instead of typing away on tumblr/twitter???? Like you think he will just show up and date you??? Girl go get you a job, a hobby, ANYTHING that will help you meet ANYONE.

i don’t, either. it’s at the point where a few people are expecting me to humor absolutely ridiculous theories and opinions that are just.. not based on reality.

there are people who i have tried to hold a conversation with here who are clearly grasping at straws to make up reasons - absolutely unrealistic reasons - as to why evan and haley aren’t dating. at some point it really does not matter if they are or aren’t dating, because if it isn’t haley, it’s going to be the next woman who they will say the same things over. i just want to make it clear: it is not healthy to be so utterly desperate for your celebrity crush to be single. i am not obligated to placate unreasonable people who are obviously needing a break from this subject, because it’s affecting them mentally in a negative way. i do not want anyone on here to suffer emotionally, i do not want to offend any well intentioned people; i want folks to have fun chatting about someone we all share a love for. i shouldn’t even have to be like, yo.. evan peters is not going to date you, the odds of even meeting him are incredibly small. evan peters does not know any of us exist and parasocial relationships are detrimental to your health. i’m afraid i haven’t made it clear enough that this just isn’t a mindset i am going to endorse. i hope that’s something people can understand is coming from a genuine place, not a “i want to stomp on your heart” place 🥲

[circlecast]

How I Left the Victim Behind

In this part of the conversation, I, Brian, the host of the show called Relaxed Male, discuss the concept of victimhood and how I personally left behind the victim mindset. As a certified men's coach, I aim to help men remove the "nice guy" persona from their lives and live on their own terms. In this episode, I focus on the negative impact of adopting a victim mentality and how it affected me. I explain that despite experiencing certain events in my early life, such as my parents' divorce and moving with my dad, I refuse to label them as traumatic. Instead, I believe that my anger and grudges stemmed from my own thoughts and perspectives. I share an example of how I had a difficult time following instructions and even got a teacher fired because I stubbornly refused to do something she asked of me. Throughout my academic years, I would often blame others for my lack of success, such as my dad for not disciplining me or my teachers for not teaching me effectively.

However, I eventually realized that it was my own fault for not putting in the effort and taking responsibility for my actions. This pattern continued into my college years, where I blamed my roommate for not understanding my financial situation. But deep down, I knew that I needed to take control of my own life and stop playing the victim. It was only through this realization that I started to see the consequences of my lack of responsibility, such as being stuck in low-level jobs without any progression. As I became a parent and got married, I recognized that I needed to take responsibility not just for myself, but also for the direction of my family's life. 

 share how we would talk about our dreams, hopes, and aspirations as a family, but I never took the necessary actions to make them a reality. Eventually, I hit a midlife crisis at the age of 40, realizing I hadn't accomplished anything and missed out on opportunities like taking my kids camping. I learned the hard way that someday never comes and we need to approach life with intention, not playing the victim. Without direction, we're just floating and can't get anywhere. Playing the victim had also hindered my professional growth and nearly cost me my marriage. I started seeking intimacy elsewhere, which almost led to an affair.

Thankfully, my wife found out before it went too far. I realized that playing the victim only holds me back and prevents me from taking responsibility for my actions. Victims do not earn respect because they refuse to learn from their experiences. Once I stopped playing the victim, I began making progress and achieving more in life. I emphasize the importance of accepting responsibility for all actions, even when the results may seem unfair. Taking responsibility also applies to leadership roles, as it builds trust within a team.

I offer coaching to anyone who wants help in breaking free from the victim mindset. I mention a once-in-a-lifetime special where five people can receive six months of free coaching from me, but the spots are limited. Interested individuals can reach out to me through email or my website to sign up for coaching. I express gratitude to the listeners for tuning in and encourage them to ask questions or share the podcast/show with others. I let them know that I am open to having conversations and reaching out to others. I ask listeners to spread the message of Relaxed Male by sharing the podcast/show on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I emphasize that growth can only happen with the help of listeners sharing the content. In conclusion, I thank the listeners once again and wish them a great rest of the week.

If you would like to take me up on the special offer please email me bryan@relaxedmale.com

  00:00:00 Introduction to the topic of victimhood and leaving it behind 00:01:35 Welcoming new listeners and addressing their problems 00:03:00 Sharing personal experience of parental divorce and custody 00:04:14 Grudges and anger towards parents and stepparents 00:05:19 Taking responsibility for personal thoughts and actions 00:06:57 Recognizing patterns of avoiding responsibility and facing consequences 00:09:08 Carrying victim mentality into college life and financial struggles 00:10:39 Realization of Lack of Responsibility and Stagnation 00:19:32 Breaking Free from the Victim Mindset 00:22:33 Embracing Leadership and Leaving Victimhood Behind

Newest podcast episode to change your Mindset

[aarontveit]

*@noahmfisk is my twitter

terrified to leave my home for so many fucking reasons. fuck this shitshow so much. i just absolutely fucking can't.

i don't even know how to react to this year anymore. to this place anymore. this shit has always been here, and to act like it hasn't is to have been turning a blind eye.

i don't owe, nobody does, these people SHIT for my existence. i don't owe my family SHIT for my existence. these "parents" don't get a license to their child's existence just because their child lives under their roof. they can go fuck themselves. I AM TIRED OF THIS BULL SHIT.

these are just all of the same antivax/antiscience crowds that were also part of the fucking convoy. i am so fucking tired of this crap. you can't talk to people like this because to them, we are the brainwashed individuals. they are also protesting giving their kids up-to-date vaccinations schools require (the ones you get suspended for not having, you know, the ones that help you not die from things and protect you from things given what they did to us through history but sure, deny the helpful vaccination for your child cause you're edgy and Anti-Trans-Jan from the PTA Mom Squash Squad)

they don't view their own behaviour and views as actual ideology in and of itself, because that's exactly what it is. they have to see us as what they are, because, well, classic projection - in all honesty.

we have people in ottawa, toronto, and all across, walking around "proudly" displaying that they are na""s and it's just getting beyond.

this doesn't just affect the LGBTQIA+ community.

but sure, you want to be fucking blind, be fucking blind.

i make no apologies for my anger. when your own upbringing involves conversion therapy, a catholic mental institution, a group home, "traditional catholic values", and the entire family hate projected onto you & used consistently as the family therapist because "you're the mature one"? right up to your mother's death in 2017 and to this day? and fuck high school and the bullying. fuck the fake counseling. fuck the counselor in high school too who told me "it's always so nice when you come in, because you talk your way through and solve your own problems. i don't have to do anything" - YEAH, BECAUSE SHE WOULD JUST SIT THERE AND /EAT/ WHEN I CAME I EVERY SINGLE TIME (and gaslight me for bringing up my mother negatively). fuck my family for the emotional, mental, and physical abuse. fuck them for making me feel unworthy.

yeah. fuck all of this. lmao.

fuck the "if you have any [no space for hate images], if we see this and we see you, then you are the enemy" lady.

fuck alllllllllllllllllllll of this noise.

if you think terrifying kids back into the closet in any form is the answer, just get the fuck away from me. what are you doing and why are you even here. just get the fuck away.

i am tired of surviving. i just want to live.

[gamer2002]

Buried Stars – Review2002

Buried Stars is a survival mystery Visual Game, where you play as a Han Do-yoon, known for being a betrayal of own musical band, participant in a popularity show. Do-yoon, together with four other participating musicians, plus one show’s staff member, gets trapped under a collapsed stage. With the help being unable to arrive for at least six hours, no way to contact the outside world, but via toxic social media, and even a threat of murder becoming materialized, Do-yoon will have to struggle to survive and keep his sanity intact.

I say that there is a lot of good in this game. The art with the direction is great. Characters have sprites where we see them from their front, side, plus one where we see their back. This is utilized to position them on the screen in various places and poses, making you feel more like you are reading a comics/manga with good variety of different shots, than a visual novel. This also makes characters seem more alive, despite being less animated than characters in original GBA Ace Attorney games. Music is pretty solid. It does have some good tracks, and they do set up the mood well, though it isn’t an iconic OST.

The story is also good and told well. During your first playthrough, you are locked in the worst ending, where everything goes to hell. It’s a spectacular bad ending, where survivors of the stage collapse lose theirs minds, and keep on killing and/or getting themselves killed. In this way, the game very clearly establishes gravity of the situation – you have a dysfunctional and not properly mentally adjusted group of people in a crisis situation, and only your support can get them out of this alive. The story also touches pretty much every existing pathology in show business, excluding only substance abuse. And I do mean, they do touch really dark aspects of being a start. To spice things up, there is also not!twitter, that can destroy your own sanity. The game really does well at demonstrating how social media works.

And besides all that, we also have a mystery surrounding murder threats that reach the survivors. I say that this aspect is decent. Whodunit, despite presence of more than one good red herring, is the weakest part of the mystery, due to the game outright telegraphing it at certain points. Still, howdunit and whydunit are compelling on their own, with the final confrontation being satisfying and climactic.  

Still, despite all that praise, there is something that does drag the game down. The gameplay. The primary section you’ll spend most time on is Communication. Communication boils down to you picking one of characters standing in front of you, and picking a topic you want to talk with them, in a one-on-one conversation. The topic you pick, and occasional binary choice you make during such conversations, affect your sanity and/or your relationship with the character, positively or negatively. You also gain from such conversations additional information. Some of information has to be gained, before Communication section can be concluded. Some of information unlocks topic conversations. Other information expands approached character’s profile, which, alongside good relationship with them, is required to unlock their rapport events. Each character has five such events, and you need to see them all, if you want to get their best ending.

There are several problems with this. Keeping Do-yoon’s sanity high is akin to walking on a minefield. While binary choices are rather fair, outside of them you still get often punished without any way of seeing it coming. How can I tell that Do-yoon will start the conversation in an insensitive way? I can’t. While new game plus does show how the conversation can affect your relationship, and if you unlock required information out of it, the game won’t show you how your sanity will be affected, nor if you unlock new character profile. In case of certain two characters, this is pretty nasty, because you get one of their profiles from a topic that will negatively affect your relationship with them. I got tired of this, at some point, and just save-scummed my way to the best ending.

Besides being unfair, this is also a pretty bad example of communication based gameplay. Like I’ve said, you are having one-on-one conversations in this, despite many characters being around. So, you can freely talk shit about a character that stands nearby, after having improving your relationship with them. I understand that rapport events are about getting close to characters and making them open themselves to you. When it happens, due to you being forced to know what happens to those characters without you being reliable, it is satisfying. And the system works well during those few occasions, where Communication section involved only one other character. But outside of those occasions, Communication section artificially kills entire group dynamic, which is most ironic in a communication based gameplay.

In other communication based games, like Ace Attorney, Danganronpa, or Your Turn to Die, discussions aren’t just one-on-one, they involve a group of people. That is why it is so exciting, due to everyone talking with everyone. But here, everyone talks only with you, and nobody registers anything that happens outside their conversations with you. This causes those sections to be boring, despite their difficulty that I’ve explained above, which makes them tiresome. And this also does drag down the cast. You do have good and interesting characters here, with well written backstories that you learn about, as you gain their trust. But I rarely see them interesting together, because Communication sections cut all communication between them, for crying out loud! Inha and Juyoung are supposed to be good friends, you do hear from them telling you things supporting that, but I don’t recall a single interaction between them that made it evident.

Fortunately, between Communication sections you have deduction gameplay, where you pick one or more clues that answer the question. Simple mechanic, but much more effective, due to presentation that involves all characters that are around you. This is why the final confrontation, and other important deductions, are so good, due to them involving everyone present.

Overall, I can’t give this game more than 7/10. I recommend the story, and the visuals are good, but you rather want to save-scum through it. But that still won’t fix how gameplay drags the story and characters down, in some aspects. It’s pretty sad, because you really can experience strong emotions here. The game does provide you with pretty unique feeling of aiding people that need you being supportive and reliable during an escalating crisis. I appreciate what the creators have tried, but they could’ve designed things better.

[not-enough-teeth-and-treasures]

An Autistic’s Perspective on Tears of Themis’ Representation (spoiler alert: it’s bad)

Before you read, I should warn you that there will be spoilers for Chapter Five! Read at your own risk. Also, trigger warning for discussions of ableism and harmful disablility stereotypes. I get pretty heated as well, so if you’re not a fan of swearing and stuff, then it might be best to skip this.

So, I was debating whether or not I wanted to talk about this, mostly because this game doesn’t do anything new in regards to the perception of autism in media. Unfortunately, it ends up leaning into a lot of not great tropes and goes into “what the fuck that’s incredibly offensive territory” waaay to quickly. So here I am.

The most prevelant character with autism (or who we start out thinking has autism. Don’t worry, I’ll get to that) is a small, supergenius child (a boy as well *sigh*) is so overdone at this point that there aren’t many new criticisms I can say. The stereotype of autism presented in media is overwhelmingly extremely intelligent (usually with sciency or math based interests) men with no ability to socialize or be kind to others. This not only paints autism as a disability that effects men primarily (which creates intense stigma around AFAB autistic people and makes it harder for us to get diagnosed or believed), but also creates this expectation of greatness. Autistic people are often held to superhuman standards, which further others and dehumanizes us in the eyes of allistic people. The vast majority of autistic people are not savants, and that it perfectly fine.

But all of this is pretty standard. The red flags started popping up when it was revealed that the autistic kid, Hugh, doesn’t actually have autism and is faking it in order to keep people from asking hard questions about him or trying to pry into his life (which is full of secrets). I’m definitely not a fan of perpetuating the idea that people fake diabilities in order to manipulate people, so this plot twist was not my favorite. However, it wasn’t really enough to inspire me to write a whole ass essay about the representation. And then I got to the fucking text conversation with Vyn.

Here is where I’m gonna put a trigger warning for talk about eugenics, curing autism, ableism, and basically just a fuck ton of awful shit. Fuck, this makes me so mad.

So, I went in and took screenshots of both options just to see, and all of them lead to terrible bullshit. Lets start out pretty light with the MC and Vyn discussing symptoms.

This is a pretty limited and honestly incomplete explanation of autistic behaviors. These can definitely be symptoms, but they’re heavily overcovered and really basic. A lot of autistic people don’t have these symptoms, and it would be really nice if more media branched out and covered more of the spectrum. However, considering they don’t do anything different in any other areas, I’m not surprised.

Also not a fan of Vyn’s use of “abnormal.” It has some very negative connotations and is a bit insulting, honestly. These behaviors are perfectly “normal;” they’re just not as accepted by neurotypical people. Plus, no behaviors can really be labeled as normal because humans are complex and different.

That was the easy shit. Let’s get into the truly awful garbage.

This is treading into ABA territory here. For those of you who are unaware, ABA is pushed as the best autistic therapy, but a large majority of autistic adults consider it to be abusive and unhelpful. This is mainly because it seeks to “correct” many behaviors that are helpful for autistic people. It seeks to surpress stims (which are behaviors that improve the mental health of autistic children), force us to talk (as opposed to letting us use sign language and technology), and more. This harms our mental health and makes us ashamed of who we are. These behaviors do not need to be “corrected.” We don’t need to act “normally.” All this therapy does is make us more palitable for neurotypical people, and it’s bullshit.

It also doesn’t help that ABA was pioneered by Ivar Lovaas, a man who did not believe autistic people were human. He developed ABA as a way to “build a person” using harsh punishments such as withholding affection and ELECTRIC SHOCKS. If you think this is a think of the past, you’d be wrong. Electric shocks are still being used to harm disabled people. Look up the hashtag #StopTheShock to learn more and help push for legislation that bans this practice.

Oh, and did I mention Ivar Lovaas also inspired gay conversion therapy? Because he did! So yeah, fuck ABA and fuck Vyn for performing it (god damn it, Vyn, I liked you a lot).

And now, onto the eugenics. Fuck my life.

FUCK! THIS! BULLSHIT!

I am so tired of autism being treated as this horrific disease that needs a cure. I had a perfectly fine childhood. Yes, it was hard at times, yes I got traumatized, but a large part of that was due to ableism and abuse from teachers and peers. A large reason why autistic people suffer is because the world is not built for us, and we are often denied accommodations that would make our lives better.

It is beyond offensive and disgusting to suggest that we would be better off not existing than “suffering so much” because of autism. Because that is what this game and everyone else who thinks there should be a cure is suggesting. There is no me without autism. it literally affects my brain structure. You are wishing for a completely different person when you tell me that autism should be cured.

Now, I’m not going to get into the horrible consent issues that arise from talks about a cure, including genetic editing, fear mongering to parents so they think abortion is the only option, and straight up Nazi style eugenics. I do not have the spoons to delve into that exhausting discussion. But if you want to know more, then there are so many incredible autistic people who have written blogs, Twitter threads, and more about why a cure is a terrible idea.

Oh, and if you’re going to come at me with the “severely autistic people should be cured” bullshit, don’t bother. There is no such thing as “severe” autism, first of all, and second, non verbal autistic people (which are who people think of when they talk about “severe” autism), largely don’t want a cure. There have been so many surveys of tens of thousands of autistic people, and the result is that the overwhelming majority do not want to be cured. We want support and proper accommodations. Listen to us.

So, in conclusion, fuck this text conversation and it’s ableist and offensive bullshit. I really wish ToT had stayed away from autism, or at the very least did not touch on therapy or a possible cure. For a game that is about genetic experimentation on children and how bad that is, it sure peddles a lot of eugenics.

Fuck, this text conversation actually made me ill and I hate that. I’m so done with constantly trying to prove to the world that I am a human being who deserves to exist. I’m gonna go cuddle my service dog now.

[writingtoforgetreality]

Take It Easy - Little Movie Star Chapter Four (Jensen Ackles x Daughter!Reader)

[Actors-Masterlist], [Little Movie Star-Masterlist]

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Summary: The aftermath of the hate comments. Jensen explained that the future would not be easy if you had a public life. Bonding time with Danneel was appreciated & a revelation left Jensen with a plan for you.

Words: 2,022

Warnings: language, mentions of cyber bullying, bonding time, fluff, tiny bit of angst, fake social media posts (picture credits go to their rightful owners)

If you like my work & wanna support me: a coffee would be highly appreciated ❤

~2016~

Sunrise came sooner than anticipated. Wanting to procrastinate the talk with Jensen & Danneel, you slowly dragged yourself out of bed & went to the bathroom. Risking a look in the mirror was a big mistake. Your eyes were puffy from all the crying you did yesterday. Technically, you could go for sunglasses. Nope, you could not do that. You know who wears sunglasses inside? Blind people…& douchebags. Chuckling slightly at your own joke. Hopping in the shower real quick, you hoped the warm water could calm you down enough.

After putting on a comfortable outfit for the day, you took a deep breath & started walking to JJ’s room. It had become quite the routine for you. If you were up early enough, you stopped by her room & took her with you downstairs. Knocking softly & opening the door slowly, you saw her already awake, waiting for you to pick her up.

“Good morning, princess. Slept well?” she nodded eagerly & stretched out her arms.

“Let’s get to breakfast then.” smiling sweetly at her. Just for a second, you forgot all about last night & just lived in the moment. Oh, if it were that easy all the time…

Silent voices made you stop in your tracks. Eavesdropping was not something you usually did but you could not help yourself. Besides, you could tell that this conversation resembled around you.

“Maybe she hasn’t seen the comments yet.”

“Oh come on, Dee. Of course she has. I mean, our comment sections are filled with that bullshit.” Jensen was deeply hurt by what some of his fans were saying about you, after one single post.

“What should we do?” Danneel sighed.

“We talk to her.” that was when you coughed to bring the attention to yourself. They turned around & looked surprised by your sudden appearance. You set JJ down & crossed your arms over your chest.

“Sorry for listening in on you guys.” your eyes flickered down because deep down, you knew what you did was not okay.

“Hey, no, it’s fine. We wanted to talk to you anyway.” Jensen walked over to you, followed by Danneel.

“Please don’t listen to any of them, angel.” the nickname made your eyes shot up & when you looked at Danneel, you could feel the tears threatening to escape. Jensen could tell right away & wrapped his strong arms around your frame. You did not care about being vulnerable in front of them. Even though you were sure you would regret your actions in a few hours from now.

Breakfast was filled with conversation between the three of you. JJ & the twins were not understanding anything anyway & you were glad that they were too young to care about stupid comments made by anonymous people on the internet.

“I’m sorry, (Y/N).” Jensen’s voice was filled with disappointment. Though, you were not sure if it was directed at his fans or at his decision of making an Instagram post in the first place.

“None of this is your fault.” reassuring him quietly.

“You don’t deserve this. And we don’t want you to think that we’re not happy with you being here because that is bullshit. We love having you here.” Danneel’s hand found yours on the table & she gave you a little squeeze that put a small smile on your face. You were about to tell them something you had never admitted to anyone before. It was a big step for you & you were making yourself even more vulnerable in front of them. But they seemed genuinely concerned about you & you did not know why but you believed what they were saying. You just hoped your trust in them was not misplaced.

“It’s just…It’s not the first time I’ve heard something like that. A lot of the families I had been to previously had shared their opinions with me. I’m used to it, I don’t even know why it’s affecting me this much.” Jensen & Danneel shared a look with each other. Yes, they were happy that you were sharing a little bit of your past with them but what you shared broke their hearts. The worst thing was that they knew it was not the only thing that had happened to you. There had to be so much more that you still had not told them & they were scared what would come in the future.

“Can you promise me something?” Jensen waited until you met his eyes. “If you have thoughts like that, you come to us immediately. Because whatever your mind tries to tell you, it ain’t true. A lot of these comments are not only hurtful but also threatening. And I’ll put a stop to this right now.” he pulled out his phone & opened twitter. He showed Danneel & you the tweets before he hit send. Afterwards, they told you that comments similar to what you had read will continue to come at your way, simply because they were celebrities. After all, you were part of their family now & therefore your life would also be kind of public. As much as you would allow it anyway.

To some, these tweets might not be a lot but to you, they meant the world. After Jensen tweeted these, you grabbed your own phone, opened Instagram & reposted the picture you took yesterday.

You meant every single word because you did feel like a part of this family & why you still could not understand why they wanted you in the first place, you were more than happy that you were here still. A few weeks ago, you would have never thought to stay with them for so long. Yeah, they really meant it when they said they wanted you to be a part of them.

“I know exactly what we need!” Danneel stood up & you gave her a confused look. What was she planning?

“Girls-Day.” giving you a wink, she helped you out of your seat & gave you a light push, telling you to get dressed so you guys could go shopping. Danneel was aware that you were still slightly uncomfortable whenever you were alone with her but she wanted to change that & what better way than a shopping trip together?

The trip to the local mall was very much needed. Danneel warned you about possible paparazzi & the thought made you nervous. What if you did not look good? What if it gave the media something negative to report on? Danneel silenced your thoughts by dragging you into the first shop. Your shopping spree was successful & you came back with tons of shopping bags. Feeling bad because you did not pay for anything, Danneel assured you that it was no problem. Besides, you did not have a lot of clothing to begin with & she told you that you needed it. Also, she gave you permission to raid her closet any time you wanted. And who were you to decline such an offer?

“Successful much?” Jensen joked when the two of you entered the house, struggling with all the bags you were carrying. He gave you a hand & set some of the bags on the couch. Your mood had changed drastically if you were to compare yourself to a few hours prior.

“Jensen, can you help (Y/N) putting her stuff in her room?” Danneel grabbed some of her bags, definitely not nearly as many as were filled with your clothing.

After putting all of the bags on your bed, Jensen offered to help you putting them away in your closet & you thanked him. While the two of you got to work, he commented on some of the clothes that he was storing away & said that you & Danneel chose a lot of great looking things.

“So, how was today?” Jensen started a conversation & you were not in the mood to lie to him so you told him the truth, the entire truth for once.

“A rollercoaster of emotions. But it ended great.” shooting an honest smile his way, one, that he copied.

“I know it’d be easier if we weren’t popular & all that.” he sighed.

“Not all of it is bad, though. I mean, you get so much love on a daily basis.”

“True, but it can be frustrating, especially when family gets involved. Still happens with Danneel sometimes.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah, you know, when people get jealous & all that.”

“I’m sorry.” a tight lipped smile was on your face.

“Nothing to be sorry for. This life has its perks, but it also has a lot of disadvantages. When you’ve been in this business for so long, you start blocking out the negative comments...Hey, that was the last piece, we did it.” raising his hand for you to give him a high-five.

Falling backwards on your bed, Jensen mimicked your actions, you let out a long, satisfied sigh. Today had been exhausting, both mentally & physically.

“Now that we know that you enjoy shopping…what else do you do for fun?”

“Um, I guess a lot of creative stuff. I like writing. Taking pictures. Drawing. Oh, this will sound ironic, but I actually like acting a lot.” that peaked his interest. He propped up his arm & laid his head on it.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I mean...Whenever I imagine playing a role, it helps me control my emotions.”

“Do you have any experience?” he curiously asked. Maybe you had acted somewhere before?

“God, no. Just because I like it doesn’t mean I’m good at it.” laughing shortly, then you continued. “It’s not like there were a lot of opportunities coming my way growing up.” shrugging, you enjoyed the comfortable silence that followed. Shortly after, Jensen walked out of your room, telling you to get some sleep.

A plan was starting to form in his head. He had connections & if acting really was something that you enjoyed, why not trying? The producers had the last word & then he could see if it really was something that was just a hobby to you. He had a feeling that you would surprise him, though. Dialing the next person that came to his mind, he wanted to hear his opinion.

“Hey, man. How are you?”

“Hi, Jared. I’m great, thanks.”

“How’s (Y/N) doing?”

“Danneel & her went shopping today. But look, she just told me something.”

The conversation went on for a while & Jared was on board with Jensen’s plan. Still, it was meant to stay secret for the time being. They planned a dinner in a few days from now. Just him, Danneel & you, joined by Jared & Gen. It would also be your first time meeting them. This decision was made shorty after you arrived at the Ackles’ house. Simply because you were freaking overwhelmed with the entire situation & had to get used to them at first. Now, it felt like a good time to introduce you to the Padalecki’s. At the dinner, they would tell you about their little plan. Before that could happen, though, Jensen had to make a few more phone calls to set everything up. Hopefully, you would not kill him after finding out. No, he could tell that you were being serious about this. You might not admit it but he noticed that your passion for acting was way bigger than you let on.

~to be continued~

Next Chapter 

Published (04/10/2021) by Cathy

Tags: @vicmc624​, @imaginationisgrowth, @stoneyggirl​, @alyispunk​, @thevelvetseries​, @multifandomlover121, @samsgirl93​, @supernatural3002​, @diabetes-03, @prettyybubblesintheair, @originalsoulcollector​, @vir-tual, @bellero​, @sergantbuckybarnes (let me know if you wanna be tagged <3)

[trashylvania]

Black Lives Matter, amirite?

I'm near-certain that the only possible context for your sardonic response is a post I made yesterday about wanting to get my mom out of the dangerous neighborhood she's in because I'm terrified she's gonna be a victim of violent crime, and instead of quickly contradicting your implied assumptions and calling you a racist and a troll, I'm gonna use your question as my framing to talk about some issues I don't see people discussing often enough on here. I've been meaning to write a long-form political post for a while, and your response has given me an excuse to finally do so. I write about and study these topics academically in the social sciences + public policy studies and want to share some of what I've learned, in case you or anyone reading is interested.

As for racial stereotypes regarding crime in Chicago (the city where my mom and I are from), some high-crime neighborhoods in Chicago have a notable, historical racial component thanks to generational disadvantages imposed by a housing policy known as 'redlining' from the 1930s to the 1960s: as a quick summary, this was a primarily racially discriminatory practice that essentially prevented majority-black families from moving out of the inner city by designating them as too high of an investment risk for banks to provide home loans, which really started devastating majority-black communities once deindustrialization hit and factory jobs left -- leading to a rapid increase in poverty and loss of most employment opportunities within those communities. (Here's some links on this phenomenon: history of redlining in Chicago, effects still felt today in communities historically affected by redlining, and a research journal examining how practices like redlining isolate these neighborhoods from the rest of the city and create essentially a bubble of violent crime).

However, despite your implicit assumptions, that's not the case in the neighborhood my mom and I are from. In this case, both the victims and perpetrators of crime are from all backgrounds: black, brown, and white. Why? Because our neighborhood, like many in Chicago and across America, has been heavily affected by the Opioid Epidemic. The real criminals, systemically speaking, are predatory and negligent pharmaceutical corporations.

While the running narrative and assumption is that the Opioid Epidemic is really only a problem in majority-white, poor rural communities, it isn't (and side note: if your activism neglects or shuns poor rural and urban whites, you don't really give a shit about actual social justice, please clout-chase elsewhere). The Opioid Epidemic's effects are way more far-reaching than people might realize and has absolutely decimated poor and working-class communities all throughout the country, inside and outside of cities; the residual effects of the policy failure known as "the War on Drugs" (which in practice was more of a "war on the poor, black, and brown") has absolutely served to exacerbate these issues, but is also entwined with government lenience on corporate crimes, corporate lobbying for deregulation policies, lack of access to information resources and infrastructure for public healthcare in both rural and inner-city areas, the stigmatization of addiction and mental illness, the Global Economic Recession of 2008 and its effects on employment, deindustrialization and economic globalization's twin impact on the loss of American manufacturing jobs, etc that has lead to a social, economic, and cultural epidemic of nationwide despair that has yet to be addressed with substantive national policy in a holistic manner. (Here's some links: a research article that I think is one of the best overviews of the Opioid Epidemic's causes and impacts, a research article that details how pharmaceutical companies dodge litigation and includes the results of court cases and how paltry the consequences were compared to the devastation their drugs, negligence, and profit-seeking cause, a manuscript on research and policy aimed at combating the epidemic and how it affects socioeconomically depressed groups such as incarcerated people, veterans, and rural communities, and a well-sourced article that is admittedly politically biased towards my view that single-payer healthcare is the only substantive policy solution for the Opioid Epidemic and widespread health issues in general).

Pretty much everyone knows at least a few people who are addicted, or who overdosed, or were killed by drug-related violent crime in areas like this. That's messed up, and because it's ultimately perpetuated by corporations and its impact is greatly exacerbated by class, I don't expect this administration or rich neolibs on Twitter moralizing for social capital to do much of anything substantial or give a single genuine call to action on it. This opens up a whole conversation about how social justice has been co-opted by wealthy interests who have eclipsed class issues with weaponized identity politics -- before anyone gets angry, identity politics are still worth addressing especially as they intersect with class issues, but sufficiently analyzing this topic in a critical manner easily warrants its own separate post. (Nonetheless, here are some links on how easily social justice narratives can be manipulated by those with wealth and influence to ultimately perpetuate inequality and retain the economic status quo: - an excerpt from Manufacturing Consent that describes this phenomenon, which has existed long before the advent of social media, an article with a link to a great report about how social media politics are not representative of the majority of Americans' views [crucial if you care about effectively communicating your goals and motivating people to help your cause; also surprisingly, the linked report illustrates that most Americans in the real actual world are more tolerant than given credit for, and their issues with social justice stem from how activists - primarily those based in social media - approach political discourse], and a fantastic article about how neoliberalism's hyperindividualist fracturing of identity has negatively impacted substantive progress).

So, all in all, I see the damage done by the influx of opioids in my old neighborhood and the violence it precipitates due to a lack of proper rehabilitative and medical infrastructure for poor and working-class people. People with addictions are treated like criminals and thrown in my county's overfilled prisons. It pisses me off that this isn't addressed enough, because it's an absolute outrage, and exposes how these systems would rather let our classes kill each other or die before holding pharmaceutical corporations properly responsible and instituting universal healthcare for poor and working-class people.

I hope to see a call in the near future for more cohesive discourse and activism that isn't harmfully devoted to the atomization of identity and that isn't dictated by academics in the Humanities, wealthy influencers, establishment politicians, celebrities, or Extremely Online activist personalities -- all who are out of touch with real-life people, the issues they face, and how they speak about and view them through their own lens. Because if you want meaningful progress, ignoring or paying mere lip service to class/economic issues -- and their impact on sociocultural issues -- will ensure you never actually get progress as long as you willfully look the other way.

[alexzalben]

What do you think of all the backlash the last Riverdale episode received? I’ve never seen the writers speak out like this before on all the hate.

This is a pretty complicated topic that I probably can’t do justice with one Tumblr ask, but I’ll try to address some of the broad strokes ideas here. And hang tight, because this is gonna go long.

First of all, a caveat: I have by no means read through every comment the writers were responding to, nor do I know what they discussed or how they’re feeling about things, nor do I speak for them in any way.

However, I do think one of the joys and downfalls of making TV in the social media era is the accessibility of the creative team to fans. Joys because it opens up new ways of understanding how a show is made, demystifying the process, which is always a good thing. Downfalls because to some fans - not all fans, by any means - it makes them feel like they have a say in what happens in the show.

On the latter, it’s not to say that the writers aren’t listening, on many series they’re well aware of what fans think about their show, the plots, the ships, etc. Sometimes they’ll even shift where they’re going based on fan feedback. Nikki and Paolo on Lost are the example I always go to, where they were introduced to show the outside perspective of what other survivors were doing while Jack and his gang were going on adventures... And everybody HATED THEM. So much so that plans changed and they were literally buried alive on the show by the end of the season, in a very unsubtle metaphor.

That said, there’s a difference between what I perceive to be the tone around Nikki and Paolo, which mind you was pre-Twitter days, and what some shows have to deal with now: one is constructive criticism presented as “hey we don’t like this”; the latter sometimes veers into “you suck and you should kill yourself.”

I want to emphasize again: this is not everyone. Usually there is a small section of any group of people that delves into hyper-negativity, and they always get an outsized focus to the number of people who actually do that. Again, example here, but for a while I was part of a pretty popular online sketch comedy group. We got tons of views, tons of comments, I’d estimate 95-99% of those comments were great. Did I internalize those? Of course not. I internalized the one comment out of 100 that told me what a shitty writer I was. That’s the one that rolled around in my head all night, because it seeped into the fear that most writers have that they do suck and will never be successful, at any level. It’s Imposter Syndrome, plain and simple, and it affects everyone no matter how famous (or not) they are.

Reason I mention that is it’s entirely possible that 99% of the comments to the writers of Riverdale this episode were mostly fine, but if 1% of them were of the “fucking kill yourself” variety, that hurts, a lot. It’s not on everyone, by any means, but that pulls the focus, and it’s horrifying every time no matter how often it happens (and believe me, it happens far too often).

Specifically with Riverdale, there are another few factors that are exacerbating this. One is, and I don’t want to diminish this: the pandemic. We’re a year in and people are crumbling mentally. Nothing has been “normal” for a year, that impacts every single aspect of your life, and some things are easier to lash out at than others, like a TV show. If a deadly virus is causing inconsistency? Not much you can do about that. If your fave TV show is shaking up the broadcast schedule and changing your favorite couples? Complain to the writers, the directors, the actors, etc.

The other is the arc of this season so far, which I do think is driving people fucking nuts. This again gets back to the pandemic, but ending with episode 19, waiting months, and then coming back for a premiere that is actually the third to the last episode of the season? That’s unsettling. It throws you off kilter, because it’s not the right rhythm. I know this sounds a little silly, but it’s actually very important: stories have a rhythm to them, and a lot of TV shows in particular have had that rhythm broken. Riverdale had three episodes that were all essentially climax, then upended the show with a time jump, and has continued to mix things around almost every episode. And then it’ll be going into another three month break.

This is definitely the point where someone says “mix things around? they’re doing the same couples they always did.” Sure, theoretical person. But having sifted through fan comments and tweets over the past couple of weeks, every single week one section of the fanbase has been 100% sure it is their ship’s time to shine, and the next they’re being told it’s done forever, and then the next they’re back on, then the next they’re done... It’s an emotional rollercoaster ride, and that’s how the writers designed it, and it’s frankly not over yet. But add in that pandemic uncertainty above, and you have a recipe for people panicking.

Also, and again, this is a small section of any fanbase, but it’s very clear that because of this hyped up panic, some people are being absolutely terrible assholes to other fans. I know I don’t usually curse this much, but the amount of gloating I’ve seen from people on all sides, back and forth, is super gross. Personally, if someone is sobbing for whatever reason, my reaction has never been to quote tweet them with “you lost, get over it” and a peace sign emoji. It sucks when people are sad, and we have a moral obligation to make sure other people feel okay. Don’t know if you’ve ever heard this one, but “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Sort of an important life rule.

Overall, I think a fanbase is stronger is they support each other rather than engaging in ship wars, and I do think there’s a lot of people who do do that. Or just express their displeasure, without attacking people. But there are some people who do, and that’s overall making the whole tone of the discussion that much worse.

So what’s the solution here? I always emphasize to my writers that it’s okay to have a negative take as long as you provide something constructive about a way out of the situation, and I’ll apply that both to the Riverdale fanbase, as well as this extremely long Tumblr ask.

There are three things I’d suggest, and both of them are on you. By “you” I mean the general you, and the reason I suggest them, versus what the writers and creators of Riverdale can do is that “you” are the thing you can control and change.

The first is changing the tone of the discussion. Realize that there are people deeply, emotionally impacted in different ways by this TV show. Allow that they may be having different emotional reactions than you, and give them the space and the support to work through it. If you’re a Varchie fan, it actually makes you a better fan to check on a Barchie fan and see if they’re okay. If you’re a Barchie fan, it’s okay to be happy for a Varchie fan and sad at the same time. Mainly because none of you had anything to do with it. This isn’t even a case where you wore your lucky socks and your fave team won the game. The writers are writing what they wrote, and you are a passive observer, not involved other than the involvement you bring to it. So if everyone supports each other regardless of the circumstances, that will improve things overall.

The second? Disengage. Take a break. Stop watching the show. You have no obligation to tweet, or go on any other social media outlet for this series, nor do you have to keep watching the show if it hurts you. In fact, taking a show break if you feel too involved is a very good thing. Check out, clear your head and come back much later and look at it with fresh eyes.

Third? Think before you comment. It took me a long time to get here with this one, and I’m still working on it, but before you comment: pause, read it over again, and think “is this something I really want to send?” You do get that rush of taking whatever anger you’re feeling and getting it out of your body and mind, but ultimately it’s usually more damaging than either waiting, posting something a little more thoughtful, or not posting at all. It’s really thinking about what you’re adding to the conversation, and what you’re hoping to get back.

So there you go. Lots of thoughts there, and I’m sure there’s lots more to say. This is only my outside perspective on this, and I hope it’s helpful at least in some small way. And if not, that is cool, too!

[nso-csi]

201111 hypebea twitter update

Taemin on the Making of ‘Never Gonna Dance Again : Act 2’ The K-pop artist breaks down the inspiration behind his solo project.

For Lee Taemin, Never Gonna Dance Again is the dawn of a new era. The title is an antithesis for a performer marked by his ability to entrance audiences with movement, and the 27-year-old hopes to demand attention with a concept both provocative and unimaginable. Led by the prologue single “2 KIDS,” followed by the release of Act 1 in September, Act 2 serves as the final installment of the series. Shortly after its launch, the nine-track effort quickly went number 1 on Apple Music charts around the world. Clearly, his third Korean studio album has already proven to be his most successful project to date. Taemin is more than the youngest member of SHINee, the legendary K-pop group that debuted under SM Entertainment in 2008, nor is he limited to the iconic “MOVE” dancer that set the K-pop industry aflame in 2017. His solo aura is almost unrecognizable from his role as a member of supergroup SuperM, his fourth debut across three generations. The common thread is that all of these eras are true to Taemin’s greatest gift: range. He is malleable in a way that breeds experimentation, but doesn’t adhere to standards. This is the reason Taemin has become a household name, and a muse to both idols and fans alike.

About an hour before Never Gonna Dance Again : Act 2 dropped on Monday evening in Korea, Taemin entered our Zoom call harboring a clear excitement in his tone. After working hard for so long, it’s only natural to anticipate the world’s response to your work, especially if every release is as risky and groundbreaking as his. Lead single “IDEA” screams arthouse and intensity, with featured vocals from legendary performer and labelmate BoA, who laced the track with her lines “Killing me” and “Killing me softly.” Avant-garde fashion accompanies the tantalizing hook, and aesthetic reminiscent of both heaven and hell add to the visual prowess in the music video, elevating the narrative Taemin aims to tell and harboring a ferocity matched only by the sharp and fluid choreography. “The title track ‘IDEA’ was inspired by the allegory of the cave (Plato’s Cave). Instead of ‘being trapped in a cave’ and living in the shadow of the truth, I want to free myself from the darkness and embark on a journey of enlightenment where I discover a new ego, identity and meaning,” Taemin explains, referencing Greek philosopher Plato’s theory of ideas. “IDEA” is a follow up of “Criminal” from Act 1, which had an equalizing parallel that was haunting yet seductive. “IDEA” is just as visually demanding and hypnotic, but levels up from the previous title track.

Throughout the conversation, it becomes clear that Taemin’s youthfulness has not begotten him despite his wisdom. The care with which he approaches talking about his music could be surprising given the mature vibes of his sound, but this duality should be expected from someone who forwent the typical teenage experience to pursue music professionally. There’s a sweet charm in the way he expresses himself, and an eagerness to continue innovating as a result. “I participated in the writing of three tracks: ‘Heaven,’ ‘Think of You,’ and ‘Pansy.’ I’m always writing and taking notes in my notebook when I have time between schedules, so a lot of the inspiration came from that.” Taemin says, breaking down each track he worked on with a noticeable passion. Describing “Think of You” as a warm song that expresses honest and sincere messages for his fans, and “Heaven” as giving positive energy and strength, he goes on to talk about “Pansy,” a song that holds a little extra weight. “The significance behind the flower is ‘remember me.’ I wanted to tell a message to my fans who have waited for me for a long time, because in between there are periods where I’m not working on my solo music. So for those fans who have been waiting patiently, I wanted to show that gratitude and how I’m very appreciative of that. I wrote the chorus part, and when I was writing it that day, the weather and my surroundings were the main inspiration.” Beyond nature, the flower serves a more sentimental value. “The pansy flower has a specific day, Pansy Day, and that’s also the day of SHINee’s debut, so it worked perfectly.” Taemin also believes these three songs stand out the most compared to Act 1 due to their warmth and fuzziness, a bright contrast from the powerful and dark undertones heard previously.

Speaking of his creative process when working on new music, Taemin has a unique approach to finding inspiration: searching his mental state in the current time. “When I watch a movie, I’m not inspired by the movie itself, but the feelings that I have as I’m watching it. That’s what plays the most important role.” Looking back on recording for Never Gonna Dance Again, he adds, “I had that period where I was going through a slump of trying to create something new, so I wanted to make that experience artistic and useful and incorporate it into my album.” He combines his real life thoughts with his signature drama, a method that can’t be duplicated as it’s unique to him. For his involvement in Act 2, Taemin describes it as “writing a personal letter to my fans.” He elaborates, “Rather than creating perfect lyrics or a perfect song, it was more about sincerity and delivering that comforting message and being very honest with my feelings.” The feelings showcased are the most up-to-date represenation of Taemin’s artistry, but even that’s open to change. “I’m always thinking about what I’m good at, what are some things that other artists didn’t try,” he reflects. “I’m not an artist that’s limited by genre. I’m not just an R&B or K-pop artist, but I’m one who likes to experiment with different genres and styles to diversify my portfolio.” For Taemin, sharing his own thoughts and emotions is one of the biggest reasons he wanted to become a performer, and it’s what steers him away from following what’s trendy or high in demand.

Of course, this doesn’t mean Taemin doesn’t respect the other artists he’s worked with. In fact, he treasures both his past and his present, and recognizes them as equally important to his current sound and image. “SHINee is a big part of who I am as an artist. For example, in one of the teaser photos for the new album, I’m wearing this military uniform outfit which alludes to SHINee’s single ‘Everybody.’” Fans immediately recognized the 2013-inspired getup, and it’s just another treat for both Shawols and Taemin. He hasn’t forgotten his roots, nor does he plan to even as he evolves. “For the past 13 years, I’ve been spending a lot of time with them and creating music together as a group.” It’s only natural that this influences his career, and his Shawols are still his most fervent supporters even after such a long time. “With my solo career, I don’t want fans to think that I’m throwing all that away. It’s more about creating something new and different than what I’ve been showing in my past with the group. In the past years, I learned a lot, and I always had things that I wanted to try and experiment with. It’s not about the end of SHINee or moving on, but a new beginning.” His consideration of the fans’ feelings doesn’t negatively affect his progress, but proves how he hopes to continue growing with those who helped him get this far. Sincerity is probably the most important message Taemin wants to send as he embarks on this new journey. “For a new beginning, something has to end. I want fans to know that this is not goodbye, it’s not the end. I will continue to bring great music and show something new to the audience.” What that may be, we’ll just have to wait and see. But if Never Gonna Dance Again is any indicator, the future of soloist Taemin will continue to keep us guessing.

Ashlee Mitchell

[n-ctarinenga]

Be Home Soon [ calum hood ]

w.a.h series | pt.1 | word count: 3,912 | masterlist

Sometimes, when you let your mind wander, you would come back to a thought that encompasses every other question you'd asked yourself in the last few years. 

Where would you be now, if yours and Calum's lives hadn't merged when they did?

You admittedly hadn't had the best of weeks upon the day you had met Calum in Los Angeles. Being a graphic designer from the same side of the world as him though, it was easy to find a mutual connection. 

Before sitting down in a waiting room at Interscope records, your week had been filled with paperwork. Paperwork that basically piled around your ankles as you waded through all the necessary documents to confirm your new life away from where you'd always known as home, New Zealand. 

Not only was the stress of the move on your shoulders, but the stress of your new job was too. It almost didn't matter that you had gotten your bachelors degree, because nothing could prepare you for the first day on your dream job. 

It was this first day on the job that you had met Calum, being sent to the same waiting room as him while you waited on your supervisor and he waited on his band mates, him being the first to arrive. 

You'd recognized him instantly, and heard your boss in your head telling you not to get starstruck in front of the clients. Seeing it as your first major test, you let your shoulders relax, sitting down on one of the couches opposite him and setting your bag down by your feet.

"Morning." You smiled politely, looking over to him as you noticed him glance up at you from his phone.

He stalled for a second as he looked at you, just long enough for you to notice before he spoke. 

"Morning." He replied, a small smile on his face as he nods in your direction. 

Feeling like you handled the interaction well, you gave yourself a pat on the back mentally, opening twitter to catch up on whatever you'd missed overnight and this morning. As you scroll though, a text notification comes up on your screen, letting you know that your supervisor is running late in a meeting, and will take a little longer than expected.

You let out a soft sigh before you stop scrolling, letting your phone rest on the couch beside you and pulling out your smallest sketchbook while you wait. 

"Hey," the man from across the room asks, catching your attention and making you look up from your pencil case, "I hope you don't mind me asking, but is that your dog on your phone case?" 

You hadn't prepared yourself to actually converse with someone yet this morning, but you could feel your face light up as you flip your phone over beside you, showing off the picture of your most favorite dog in the universe. 

"It is, yeah. Her name is Ayla. Normally I have flowers in my case but I had to take them out when I was coming over here and the first idea I had to replace it with was my favorite girl." You laugh lightly, handing your phone over to him so he could see the sweet neo mastiff on the back of it. 

His face breaks out in a grin as he looks at the Polaroid in the back of your clear phone case, and you do your best to ignore the flutter in your heart at the sight in front of you, his bright grin helping clear the clouds that had been covering your week. 

"She's adorable. My boy Duke is probably about the size of her head." He laughs, handing you your phone back, "If you don't mind me asking, where is your accent from?" 

You're surprised with his question, mostly because you didn't expect to be having a conversation with him, but also because you were sure your accent wasn't that pronounced. 

"It's from New Zealand. Born and raised." You smile proudly, and this time, it's his face that lights up. 

"Can't believe we're practically neighbours, though I thought you sounded familiar." He admits, leaning back in his seat while you smile with a raised eyebrow. 

"Well, they do always say aussies and kiwis can find each other anywhere." 

He nods in agreement, and from there, it doesn't take you both long to start talking about your home towns, sharing your experiences about childhood snacks under slightly different names, the shows you'd both end up getting months after they had already screened in the US, and of course the numerous sports rivalries between your countries. 

The ease in which he made you laugh felt different than your normal interaction with strangers, and as you shook your head, telling him about the extreme culture shock you felt walking into a supermarket to get your first load of food after moving, he could feel a wave of calm and familiarity coming from you that made him feel nearly instantly comfortable in your presence. 

The conversation flowed easily, and as you saw your supervisor approaching while in the middle of talking about how long of a flight it is between Austrliasia and America, you felt kinda disappointed you'd be leaving your new buddy. 

Once your supervisor collected you, you said your goodbyes to Calum, walking off towards the office space you could now call your own. 

As you walked off with your supervisor, Calum's eyes followed you, taking a moment to catch a breath he didn't realize he'd lost. 

You'd been talking for easily less than thirty minutes, but there was something about you that made Calum wish you would walk back around the corner again to tell him more about your life. 

He kicked himself for not getting your number, only knowing your first name and that you're a graphic designer, but nothing that would help him contact you again. 

The only thing that snapped him out of his thoughts was Ashton walking into the room, crashing down onto the couch beside him.

Little did he know, but you were feeling exactly the same as you sat down in your small office space, cursing yourself for not having the guts to ask him for his number, not wanting to seem like you wanted something from him.

There was a part of you that wanted to run back out to the waiting room, the hopeful side of you thinking there was a chance he'd still be there. 

Something about leaving him back in that room didn't sit right with you, and before you could talk yourself out of it, you stood up from your desk, walking back through the hallways to the waiting room. 

As you reached the entrance, someone else did too, and you bumped into someone solid that sent you wobbling back a few steps, the person reaching out to steady you. 

Looking up from where you had been watching your own determined steps, your eyes widen as Calum stands in front of you, hands on your upper arms to steady you, shock crossing his face before a string of apologies fall from each of your mouths. 

"Oh my god I'm so sorry-" 

"I'm so sorry are you okay-" 

Cutting each other off, you laugh lightly nodding at his question after a second. 

"I'm fine, really. I was actually coming back here to see you so I'd say this worked out." You laugh, scratching the back of your neck nervously as he lets his hands drop to his sides. 

"Really?" He asks, a small smile on his face. 

"Yeah, I uh," you shrug slightly, "I would really like to hear more of your stories. Honestly, you're really interesting to me, and you haven't shown me your dog even though I showed you mine so I think you owe me." You joke, and feel your heart back flip as he bursts with laugher. 

A wide grin covers his face as he nods, pulling his phone out of his pocket and unlocking it before handing it to you. 

"You have a good point, and I'm glad you find me even half as interesting as I find you." He comments, looking down at your phone that you'd swapped him but still managing to make you blush as he typed his number in. 

Taking a quick selfie to set as a contact icon, you save your number under "waiting room kiwi" before handing him his phone back.

The connection you felt that day did anything but sizzle out, evident by what happened after your phone first buzzed with a text from him later on that night. 

With two years passing since you met, you and Calum had experience with distance from each other, being in a relationship since your chaotic first date that lasted a lot longer than anticipated, after a lost wallet sent you on a wild goose chase, knowing from that day on that you were both very much meant to be in each others lives. 

Whenever you could, you would make the journeys necessary to be with each other. It was hard sometimes, fighting off the thoughts that the distance would affect your relationship negatively, but you did your best to remind yourself, and to remind Calum, that even when things were hard, you would always have a home in the other's arms when you could finally hold each other again. 

With you basically living with each other while Calum was home recording Calm, it felt like you'd actually had a moment to breathe and just exist around, and with one another. 

But then the pandemic hit, and everything shifted from slow motion into fast forward. With only two days to decide if you would be staying in California or going back to your families, you spent more than half of those 48 hours with tears in your eyes as you did your best to help each other pack what you could of your lives into suitcases, not knowing when you could come back. 

It was the hardest decision you had ever made together, the decision to be away from each other for God knows how long. 

Calum gripped your hand with a tight grasp nearly the entire 23 hour flight from California to Auckland, almost like he was trying to commit the feeling of your hand in his to his deepest, most permanent memories. 

With a last "I love you" between tear flavoured kisses, your heart ached as you watched Calum's flight leaving you in Auckland while he traveled on to Sydney, and even the arms of your parents and siblings couldn't stop the aching in your heart you as you felt the distance between you and the man you love grow every second. 

You sat between your older brother and sister on the way home, not far out of the city you'd only been back to a few times since moving to the States. 

Calum spent a large percentage of time on his flight to Sydney with his eyes closed or cast down to his phone, flipping through pictures of your lives together before things became so uncertain and unpredictable. He knew it would make him feel worse in the long run, but with no end in sight to whatever you could even call his current situation, all he cared about was the fact he just had to say goodbye to the woman he loves. 

Upon landing and seeing his big sister waiting for him from her own flight home a day earlier, Calum basically crumbled into her arms, searching for any ounce of comfort he could before they made their way back to their home. 

You and Calum loved your families, and wanted to protect them and be there for them, no matter how much pain you caused yourselves.

Being at your childhood home for only hours before lock down took effect felt like the most absolutely wild fever dream your mind could come up with, but as you gathered around the TV every 1pm, the reality of it all started to sink in. 

Though the first few days of being separated, you and Calum had a hard time finding space between family bonding sessions to phone each other in any capacity. You would spend hours together on facetime in the middle of the night instead, you watching him noodling with songs from the new album just around the corner, or him watching you reorganize a room you hadn't had the chance to since your teens before one of you would inevitably pass out. 

With time blurring together the days quicker and quicker, the only thing that reminded you what day it was, was how many days since or how many days til it was Great British Bake Off night. 

One night, the feelings of the world hit you harder than the others. 

The shine of being home had quickly worn off, and sleeping became harder and harder without your boyfriend beside you like you had been used to the last few months.

With your exhaustion and situation hitting you all at once, you could barely breathe as tears ran down your face as you sat at the end of your childhood bed on the phone to Calum, doing your best to hide your current state from him as you covered the speaker with your hand. 

"-and I just can't get zoom to work at all. I 'ave no idea how kids are meant to be using this for school when I can't even get it goin' to call my mate a dickhead." Calum complains, his example making you laugh, which is soon followed by an all too telling hiccup. 

Hearing that small sound barely picked up by your phone made Calum freeze, tense energy immediately flowing through him. 

"It's cause your WiFi is shit, babe." You laugh, but are confused with the silence you're met with on the other end.

"Babe?" You question. 

Calum lets out a sigh, your quietness over the last ten minutes of your call making sense to him as things started to click. 

You would only ever hiccup on two occasions, one, when you were close to blackout drunk, and two, when you had been crying. 

"Darlin', you don't wanna be hearing me complain about technical issues, do you?" He asks, his heart aching as your following silence told him all he needed to know. 

"I'm just happy to hear your voice, actually." You say in a soft voice, a fresh wave of tears falling down your cheeks. 

Calum had to blink away his own tears at your words, inhaling as deep a breath as he could. 

"This is fucking horrible." He comments, and you scoff lightly, nodding even though he can't see. 

"You've got that right." You agree as you look down to the rug under you, faded from years in the sun that was nowhere to be seen as autumn's clouds quickly turned into winter rain. "I don't think I've ever missed someone so much in my life." 

"Next time we're in a pandemic, we're going to Michael's." Calum adds, trying and succeeding in making you smile. 

"On the way out I'll grab Moose and South, then we'll just have to steal Petunia to get the A team together." You laugh. 

Calum takes a moment to drink in the sound of your laughter, knowing it had been few and far between these days, yet it still sounded like music to his ears just like the first time he'd heard it. 

As your shared laughter dies down, you can hear Calum take a deep breath before he talks again. 

"I didn't know I could be homesick for a person." 

And with that, your heart breaks even more than it already has been. 

You stay on the phone to him for a while longer before your mum calls you for dinner, leaving him with a promise of a text later on in the night. 

You join your family after cleaning up your face, but take it you didn't do the best job as your brother and sister offer to do the dishes while you go back up to your room, telling you you'd looked too tired for it tonight, and hell, they weren't wrong. 

Crashing down onto your bed, an idea flashed through your head as you stared at the ceiling above you. 

While you'd never been one to really verbalize your feelings and emotions, you were the kind of person who knew how to get their emotions down onto paper, or in this case, into the text box to your boyfriend's number. 

Hey sweetheart. Honestly, I swear sometimes you know me better than I know myself. You were right, as normal, things have been harder than I've been letting on. But because I know you and how that head of yours works, I didn't want to fill your mind with worry when so much is going on around us already. There's a large part of me that wishes we weren't as self sacrificing as we are, even though it's obvious to anyone that we're always the ones choosing the ones we love over ourselves. Things are way too scary for me to think about for too long and I hope you're doing better at distracting yourself from thinking about it than I am right now. I'm not as good with words as you are, love, but I feel like if this time apart shows me anything, it's that you're the best thing I've ever had the honour to hold, and god I'm dying to hold you again and never let you go. I could say I miss you and I love you in a million different metaphors and references, but sometimes simplicity is best, and I miss you, and I love you, so so fucking much. I'm more homesick now than I have ever been in my life. Not for LA, not for here, not for anywhere in the world, apart from the space beside you. You have my heart darlin, and you are my home. Good luck with your game of monopoly against Mali, though I gotta be honest I'm backing her on this one. Goodnight, I love you, and I'll see you (onscreen) tomorrow, honeybee. 

Upon hitting send and rolling over as you close your eyes in hope for some resemblance of a full night's sleep, you couldn't have even imagined the pounding Calum felt in his chest after reading your message three times over before finally looking away. 

Walking into her brother's room, a sad and understanding smile appears on Mali's face as Calum's attention pans to her. 

"Rain check on the game?" She asks. 

"Yeah, thanks." Calum clears his throat. 

Questioning her movements for a moment, Mali moves forward into the room, sitting down beside Calum and wrapping her arm around his shoulders. It wasn't hard for her to see how much this was affecting him, both of them being as close as they are, and Mali wished she could fly you over herself to ease the heartache you were both going through right now. 

"I'm gonna ask her to marry me next time I can see her again." He says, a finality and certainty to his words. 

He was entirely serious, too. After this was over, Calum never wanted to let you go again, not like this. He was well aware of all the things he'd been lucky enough to do in his life, but you by far were the person who convinced him just how lucky he is. 

You had his heart, and he had yours.

Mali just smiled as she comforted her little brother, knowing this was going to come from the first day you spent in the Hood family home when you joined them for Christmas two years prior. The ease at which you fit into his family was like you were meant to be there all along, and the looks shared between Mali and Joy during that period of time showed they were both very aware of that. 

After promising to shift their game forward a Day, Calum is left on his own again. 

Laying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, he doesn't quite know how to reply to the text message still sitting open on his phone. 

He couldn't hug you through text, and knew no other way to comfort you like he wanted to, apart from the one thing that always made your heart beat at a different pace, apart from him, which was something he was capable of: music. 

Picking up his acoustic guitar from the otherside of the room, Calum sits down behind his desk, phone propped up against his computer screen as he opens the camera. 

Looking up to the ceiling, he takes a deep breath, collecting himself before he starts. 

Gaze falling down to his hands again, he starts to slowly pick out the chords to the first song that came to his mind, the perfect song for you. 

Upon playing out the final chords, Calum can feel the tears rolling down his face falling onto his shirt, wiping them away with the back of his hand that feels nothing like the soft touch of your fingers before throwing on a hoodie and walking downstairs to sit with his family, deciding against the solitude he knew would swallow him completely if he didn't do something about it. 

Somewhere deep inside, something's got a hold on you. 

And it's pushing me aside, see it stretch on forever. 

I know I'm right, for the first time in my life. 

That's why I tell you, 

you'd better be home soon. 

The crisp air of a morning soaked in an approaching winter wakes you earlier in the day than you would have hoped. 

Fairy lights strung around your room still shined from last night, hung by your brother upon being bribed to help you earlier in the week, you not being bothered to turn them off before falling asleep. 

You couldn't say you slept well, but you were grateful for anything at this point. 

Rolling over, you pick your phone up from your bedside table, scrolling through a few notifications before landing on the text messages sent to you from your friends during the night, the good morning texts sent to you at two am reminding you of the time difference you were struggling with.

Your heart leaps as you see a message from Calum, remembering your own message from last night and the word vomit it contained. 

You tilt your head in surprise as you sit up in bed, seeing a simple text saying "I love you too" sitting under your text to him, a video sitting under the message causing your interest to be pique. 

Hitting play on the short video, your heart drops to your stomach and tears well in your eyes, the tune instantly recognisable.

After all, you had both been hearing it all your lives. 

Tears flood down your face as you play the video over and over again, shaking your head as you wipe away your tears on your hoodie. 

"Little shit." You laugh through your tears, knowing he would know exactly the effect the video would have on you. 

Hand covering your mouth to soften the sound of your sobs, you lay back down again, curled into a ball in the middle of your bed as you feel the weight of thousands of miles press down on your chest. 

taglist:  @spicycal @softbabiestan @irwinkitten @mrandleer @smalla-than-a-bugg @candidcal @lukeskisses @wallflowercal @brooklynsninenine​ @whereveryouares

[swampgallows]

twitter and tumblr et al are all so self-congratulatory for ‘having conversations’ about mental illness and neurodiversity and trauma but it all seems like it’s only for the sake of self-diagnosis instead of recovery. which like obviously im not the first person to bring up the anti-recovery mindset on social media (and i sure better not be the last) but like im not really fuckin interested in how many of my eight billion idiosyncrasies are actually ‘symptoms’ of ptsd or anxiety or adhd or whatever the fuck. i wanna know what you expect people to fuckin do about it. what’s the step AFTER diagnosis? just being able to reblog/retweet Posts and go “OMG this is SO me”???? a diagnosis is not just an answer, but meant to be a new step. ‘i have this, so now how to do i manage it?’ 

i recently watched a lecture from a pediatrician about how severe the overlap is between ptsd symptoms and adhd symptoms, how the two are comorbid, how they are exacerbated and/or misdiagnosed in children of color, and how, ultimately, the two can be so similar in their behavioral symptoms to the point of being indistinguishable. which is why dr. brown later suggests that it is more important than ever to begin screening for trauma in childhood, as well as screening for adhd more for girls and children of color. why? because the root cause affects the treatment. e.g. hyperactivity due to trauma (hypervigilance) is not physically manifested in the same way as with autism or adhd even though behaviorally it is quite similar. therefore medication administered to patients for hyperactivity from adhd can have a drastically negative affect on patients with ptsd, even though they are meant to treat the same issue. it is in treatment that diagnosis matters most, not just the merit of diagnosis in and of itself.

a diagnosis itself is not a treatment. getting a diagnosis (or self-dxing) just to make zero alterations to your life or behavior and instead rest on the laurels of “having an answer” (or excuse!) is not treatment. it is your first step to treatment. this is also why diagnoses can change or sometimes, as our understanding of treatment and science and psychology grows and develops, they can be eliminated entirely (see: all subsets of schizophrenia pre-DSM5, “ADD”, etc.). 

mostly im just fuckin mad seeing these posts over and over or hearing from my peers about trauma but nobody can seem to tell me a single fucking thing i can do about it, including my therapist (who offered oh-so-helpful suggestions like “picture yourself as someone doing something other than what youre doing right now, just believe it's possible” [direct from my therapy notes]). if i hadnt done my own research to discover treatments like EMDR or even fringe controversial experimental shit like mdma and ketamine therapy and had to rely on social networks and shit therapists, id be stuck in a goddamn loop of meditation and yoga and pity party posting online. it’s just so fucking frustrating that this information is so hard to find and that trying to recover, even among peers who are also suffering from the same thing, feels like a solitary burden. it is very annoying when people say ‘you’re not alone’, but they only mean in diagnosis and not in recovery.

i keep trying to tell my therapists that i am done discovering “why” i have trauma. i understand acutely that i have it, and i want to know how to move on and grow from it. but all they keep telling me over and over is to just sit with my feelings, or imagine myself being different than how i am now, offering no tangible way for me to bridge that gap. things like red flags for avoiding the trappings of abusive relationships, or recognizing ‘green flags’ for healthy relationships, or figuring out how to establish proper emotional boundaries (and why boundaries are necessary, and that having boundaries is not selfish or greedy) are all things i learned on my own from my own research. i have had to be my own advocate through everything and it is FUCKING EXHAUSTING. throughout three different therapists i have taught them more about what i am going through than they taught me. and so it becomes very hard to trust in these people when they still believe shit studies from 20 years ago like “ecstasy puts holes in your brain and you can become permanently psychotic after doing it JUST ONCE!!111″  i know humans arent perfect but jesus fucking christ. 

[pockpop]

nct dream reaction to nctzens hating on their mixed s/o

↬ synopsis; black and korean s/o dating a member of nct dream and receiving an enormous amount of hate because of it

↬ genre;some fluff,some angst, lots of cute stuff

↬ requested; yeet

renjun ♡

“hey what are you looking at?”

you quickly hide your phone and roll over on his bed, trying to tuck your phone under the pillows but he’s tickling your sides making you laugh loud and toss and turn before he finally got a grip on your phone and unlocked it.

when he saw you were looking at your twitter mentions, his big smile settled into a frown as the sweet compliments about your relationship became littered with ones bashing every single thing they could. from your darker skin tone to your laugh, to the way you dress. saying you weren’t a true korean and that you weren’t enough for renjun, he was internally glad you didn’t know much mandarin because those were even worse than the korean ones.

“i hope you’re not taking these things to heart or letting them get to you..” he’d whisper, not being able to look you in the eye. he would be beyond pissed and definitely would scream about it later to the boys but when you laughed, he’d be hella confused,

“yeah it kind of sucks your fans aren’t fond of me but it’s nothing i’ve never dealt with before.”

when you kissed his cheek, he swore his heart just burst in his chest and would just want to spend all day wrapped up with you, escaping their hateful words and thoughts with his lil angel.

jeno ♡

of course he’s aware that you’re receiving hate and just bashing from his fans, but he was pretty oblivious to just how bad it was until you two were out on date.

it was the first time he was able to see you in a few weeks and naturally he was being a little clingy. holding your hand, arm wrapped around your waist, resting his chin on your shoulder but you stiffened every time and during his last attempt to hold your hand,you pulled away so he asked you what was up.

“this whole night, you keep pulling away from me and acting weird. i haven’t seen you in forever, why the awkwardness?”

“i just don’t want to give your fans more to hate me for. they already complain we touch too much.”

cue a triggered jeno alright, he’s a teenage boy that just really wants to shower his fine ass girlfriend with affection after all this time and she is rejecting him because of his fans.

“they say i’m not good enough for you, look at this foreign girl coming in and stealing all the good korean men we have even though i’m half korean but whatever. they don’t get why you’re attracted to me or if it’s just for the publicity!”

he’s just not having it at all, he can tell they are getting to you so he’d be the one to shut that down real quick “and you believe them? you really are stooping down to that mentality? i’m dating you because you’re just my type, you’re funny and beautiful, and i just want to spend sometime with my baby without all that negativity that doesn’t matter at all.”

when you nod and agree, sweet jeno is back into play showering you in kisses and giving you the best night of your life, reminding you that you and him are all that matters.

haechan ♡

he’s just straight up not having it. sure, he can handle the hate he receives, he can take it with a grain of salt because he’s been going through it for a hot minute, but hate towards his baby? and from his fans? think again mmkay.

so extra that he posts pictures of you and him all over your social media, showering you in affection and showing off his queen, petty with his captions too like ‘ don’t hate her cause you ain’t her’ bull. he’s so ready to face the backlash from the company and k nctzens just to prove he’s serious about you.

and if the comments are actually getting to you and he sees you questioning if you still want to be with him, he’d be even more hurt and upset. always trying to assure that it’s only you two in the relationship and literally deletes your twitter app just so you don’t have to see any of the hate anymore.

jaemin ♡

more than anyone else, I feel he’d be the most hurt. probably more offended than you tbh.

everybody and they mama know jaemin loves loves nctzens but to find out they are bashing your name, bullying you online and especially when he’s not around, it brings out the worst in him.

like one night you two are hanging out around the dorm and he’s laying in your lap, letting you play with his hair as he tells you a story when your phone is just blowing up. he gets to it before you can out of annoyance and their instagram notifications and when he sees all the negative comments under the photo of you two, he’s mortified. they were making all these kinds of racist remarks or just plain out asking how you got so lucky and how did he even end up with someone like you.

“don’t look like that, i always get comments like these.”

jaemin looks at you in surprise but you shrug it off,”those are nothing compared to the ones i posted from when we went see your family, the comment section had some mixed reviews.”

“why haven’t you told me about this?” jaemin’s whole demeanor had changed, the heartbreak in his eyes as the comments rolled in made your heart hurt.

“because it would ruin the mood, because its negative and i don’t know” your voice trailed off as you avoided eye contact. “i expected it and sometimes its not too bad.”

“you know none of what they say is true?” he starts slowly,tossing your phone aside, his attention is solely on you now,”like you know i love all of you, from here,” he touched the crown of your head,” to here,” he let his fingers trail all the way to your toes making you wiggle your toes in your fuzzy socks. 

“love is strong word,” you mention and jaemin is all smiles because he’s sure he does love you and there’s nothing anyone can say or do that would change that.

chenle ♡

you two were out on your first date and subsequently a fan came up while you guys were seated.

“yeah i’m a big fan!” but then her eyes turned to you and her smile faltered slightly, her eyes looking you up and down, chenle noticed her gaze and beamed at you. “and this is?” the fan asked and chenle grabbed your hand, a pink tint coming to his cheeks.

“this is my s/o,” 

the fan smiled at you but it made you uncomfortable as the smile wasn’t genuine at all. chenle was oblivious to the whole ordeal and took pictures with the fan and conversed a little more before the fan was gone. 

turning his attention back to you, he noticed you scrolling through your phone, milkshake discarded, pout on your lips.

“hey i’m sorry about that, for the whole day you now have my complete attention.” 

“no it’s not that, i just think now our relationship isn’t a secret and your fans aren’t so happy about it.” 

chenle would be the one to brush it off, try to relieve you of any worry or troubled feelings. he knows how fans can be, how ruthless and mean but he’s so down to shield you from ever believing or listening to anything they say or do.

“maybe they aren’t happy but i am happy, you make me happy and if they can’t accept you then that means more extra love from me.”

this made you smile letting him hold your hands,”that was hella corny but i’ll take it.”

jisung ♡

it makes him uncomfortable and angry all at once. especially if you’re his first serious relationship and he wants it to work, but he would have a hard time figuring out how to handle it. like if you don’t care and you don’t take the comments to heart, he wouldn’t worry too much but if you were one to take offense to the things fans say, he would constantly be making sure you knew he was truly down for you.

like always blowing up your phone with memes and funny pictures of himself, texting you like crazy and just being a reminder that you two can make it work no matter what. 

lets say one night you two are out and about for the first time in forever, like an amusement park and even though he still gets nervous around you, he’s holding your hand in a death grip.

you had been telling him about the comments you had been getting lately and he just wanted to show you good time. he’d win you tons of stuffed animals and you two would share a cotton candy and just be cliche af. ending the night with a lil kiss on the top of ferris wheel,you know the cute stuff haha

but he would always avoid any drama or confrontations from fans in public like he’d hold his tongue just to keep the peace but it would be hard cause he ain’t the one  

[bieke007]

Teens Experience with Social Media

Have you ever truly thought about the recent effect Social Media has on teens and adolescents? 

Well I am here to help you better understand how it has transformed in the past few years and how it is affecting people. 

Research from Common Sense Media and the Pew Research Center reveal many things about social media use in teens, including how it effects of doesn't effect their mental health, what sites are the most commonly used between each generation, how it is used, and what over-all affects it has on human interaction and relationships. Here were the finding’s I found most informative and eye-opening:

Tips for parents: Parents and educators have the space and opportunity to have conversations with kids about social media, their behavior on it, and the pros and cons of a digital footprint. Instead of being divided by technology, be on their side and show them you care, and they will reward you by being honest with you.

(I agree with this, as I am a nanny and I have seen first hand the effects of restricting social media and technology all together. They then crave it more, learn to sneak it, see it as a thrill, and it also has detrimental effects in the classroom as well. I think it is extremely important as adults to monitor children's technology and also set a good example ourselves of what a healthy user looks like. Depriving them of it is not the answer.)

When we look at how social media behaviors correlate to mental health symptoms, we see that more time spent using social media is tied to an increase in mental health symptoms. Eighth-graders who spend 10 or more hours a week on social media are 56 percent more likely to report being unhappy than those who spend less time. We also see that higher emotional investment in social media is strongly correlated with higher levels of anxiety. It remains unclear whether social media is causing negative outcomes or whether children with mental health issues are turning to social media to soothe their symptoms. But they are also the kids who benefit from finding communities to embrace them, from being able to interact freely and practice social skills in a safe space online.

Six years ago, four out of 10 teens (41 percent) had their own smartphones; today nearly nine out of 10 (89 percent) do

Six years ago, about half (49 percent) of all teens still said their favorite way to communicate with friends was in person; today less than a third (32 percent) say so.

Across every measure in our survey, teens are more likely to say that social media has a positive rather than a negative effect on how they feel

Despite the increased use of social media that has occurred over the past six years, teens are no more likely to report having a negative reaction to social media on any of these measures today than they were in 2012.

Teens’ preference for face-to-face communication with friends has declined substantially, and their perception of social media’s interference with personal interactions has increased.

Many teens think tech companies manipulate users to spend more time on their devices and say that digital distractions interfere with homework, personal relationships, and sleep

There has been an uptick in teens’ exposure to racist, sexist, and homophobic content on social media, ranging from an increase of 8 to 12 percentage points

Many young people turn off, silence, or put away their phones at key times such as when going to sleep (56 percent do so “all” or “most” of the time), having meals with people (42 percent), visit- ing family (31 percent), or doing homework (31 percent) (see Figure G). But many others do not: A significant number of teens say they “hardly ever” or “never” silence or put away their devices when doing homework (37 percent), visiting family (34 percent), having meals with other people (31 percent), or going to sleep (26 percent)

More than one in 10 teens (13 percent) say they have “ever” been cyberbullied (see the “Methodology” section, on page 21, for a definition), including 9 percent who say this has happened to them either “many” or “a few” times

More than one in four teens (27 percent) say social media is “extremely” or “very” important to them for expressing them- selves creatively

Teens overwhelmingly choose Snapchat as their main social media site

Roughly two-thirds of U.S. adults (68%) now report that they are Facebook users, and roughly three-quarters of those users access Facebook on a daily basis.

The video-sharing site YouTube – which contains many social elements, even if it is not a traditional social media platform – is now used by nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults and 94% of 18- to 24-year-olds.

Americans ages 18 to 24 are substantially more likely to use platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter even when compared with those in their mid- to late-20s. These differences are especially notable when it comes to Snapchat: 78% of 18- to 24-year-olds are Snapchat users, but that share falls to 54% among those ages 25 to 29.

What I found to be most surprising from all of this information is that social media can actually positively impact individuals mental health if they are already experiencing mental health issues. I always figured it would be the opposite. I was really surprised that teens actually found social media to be inspiring and help them feel more confident and connected with their peers. I have always seen social media to be a source of comparison in a negative aspect. Whether that be body shaming, cyberbully, who has the next best what, editing photos to look like something else, viewing yourself or life as boring and going nowhere, etc. 

Although teens say that social media actually connects them more, I still fear that the younger generations will severely lack in person/people skills. This is going to be detrimental to their job searches, relationships, and everyday lives. Although there were not many outstandingly negative results of social media yet, I think there is still much research to be done, and we will continue to see it negatively affect their lives, rather than positively. 

[rotationalsymmetry]

Why it’s bad — not just not helpful, but actively harmful — to go out on your way to shit on* people who might not vote Biden:

(Premises: truth is good and important, kindness is good and important, my audience is generally left of center and does not like Biden’s opposition, anybody reading this basically wants to do the right thing, the idea that the means justify the ends is kind of situational: sometimes how important your end goal is does actually affect what methods of getting there are appropriate (pushing someone away from you is excessive if they said something you didn’t like but appropriate as defense against assault), but also some things are always just wrong. Also, that climate change is a global existential threat, covid-19 is real, imperialism is bad, Black lives matter, there is no moral justification for the US to restrict immigration at all let alone anything about how undocumented immigrants are being treated, the prison system is extremely racist in practice and not actually a good idea in theory either, etc.)

People are stubborn cusses who don’t like being told what to do. Personally I’m not going to hold up “be nice to me or I might do the opposite of what you want just to spite you” as a threat because fuck I’ve got more self control than that and I know the stakes are sky high. But realistically: some people really are contrary enough to do that. So, demanding rather than asking or arguing for a thing is always a risk. (Demanding often feels safer. But that’s an illusion.)

People are stubborn cusses who don’t like being told what to do. And especially certain kinds of people — people with a history of being bullied or abused — tend to be very sensitive to being pressured, manipulated, or coerced into doing what other people want them to do. So it can harm relationships between people and between factions of the Left when some people/factions are demanding that others act a certain way, especially when the demands come attached to negging-like statements. (I get there’s a place for eg just shutting down terfs or Nazis. This isn’t that kind of thing; no one’s argument is based on the idea that other people aren’t really people here. At least not on the “don’t tell me what to do” side of this. Also, it’s possible to deplatform people without telling them they don’t really believe what they say they believe.)

It’s not polite and is not really ethical either. Consider: “if you cared about me you’d wash the dishes”, vs “hey, it’s your turn to wash the dishes.” “If you really held progressive values, you would vote Biden (and by implication, not criticize him until after the election)” follows the same pattern. “The fewer people vote Biden, the more likely it is that (the Republican candidate) will win the election” is a neutral statement of fact, and not one of the things I’m objecting to. It’s also not something I’ve actually heard anyone say this election cycle.

It’s not constructive, because getting people who are already likely to vote Democrat to actually vote is a better use of everyone’s time than trying to persuade someone who has already decided not to.

It’s not constructive, because if you want to change someone’s mind this is not how you do it. See point 1.

It’s not necessary: it’s possible to express support for Biden as a candidate and encourage people to vote for him without mentioning the existence of people who might not vote for him at all. Even if in the moment you feel motivated to express support for Biden because you read a post by someone expressing a lack of inclination to vote for him.

If you’re not sure about that claim that it’s not constructive (fair — you should be suspecting me of motivated reasoning), look at what people who actually run campaigns do. Is Biden insulting people who don’t want to vote for him on Twitter? Is the Democratic Party asking volunteers to insult people who don’t want to vote Democrat, as a way or contributing to the campaign? Is it paying people to do that? No? I wonder why that is? Maybe that’s because insulting people who don’t want to vote for a candidate doesn’t actually win campaigns?

Put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Remember a time when someone insulted you for not agreeing with them. How did you feel? Conversely, think of a time when you changed your mind about something. How did that happen?

Why it’s actually OK to talk about being unenthusiastic about voting Biden (even if you really want him and not his opposition to win the election):

Well, fuck, look for another post on the subject I guess.

Some notes on impulse control:

Sometimes, another person says something on tumblr and you’re like “fuck yeah” and it just feels right to you and you reblog it. Maybe that’s where some of this is coming from: people who’ve decided to definitely vote for and fully support Biden (reservations notwithstanding) see a post, feel frustrated, go “yeah that’s right,” and reblog without really thinking about how it’s going to come across. That’s understandable. People tend to use social media to relax and unwind; we don’t necessarily bring our full game to it.

If that’s going on, maybe learn to recognize this pattern (recognize when a post that’s a feel-good vent to you is really hurtful to someone else, because it’s manipulative af) and think twice before clicking post? Maybe in general get in the habit of taking a breath/five seconds before posting or reblogging something? I realize for many of us that’s easier said than done, and it can be a work in progress. I’m not proud of everything I’ve hit post on even after I’ve given it some thought.

Maybe some people have an attitude of “well, if anyone is hurt by this, I don’t want them on my blog anyways.” I’d suggest, as an in between measure, tagging this stuff. “Biden” or “us politics” or “election 2020” or something. Explanation for why people who might have this kind of reaction might still be people who share your values either right before this post or right after, depending on what order I decide they’re done in.

Now, I messed up here. My first five or six reactions to this sort of post was not a positive one, but I wasn’t sure whether I had a good reason to not like them or was just...reacting. I have mental health issues and sometimes have much stronger reactions to things than the things warrant. So I just...didn’t say anything or do anything until it got to be too much and I lost my shit. Not ideal. If I had to do it over again, I’d send politely worded messages to people I wanted to keep following who were posting this stuff, asking them to not do that and briefly explaining why. But, I’m at a point where I can’t do the politely worded thing, which makes actually directly addressing the people who are doing this a much trickier proposition. So. Here we are. And I’m blogging to whoever the fuck reads my blog (other than my husband, who really doesn’t deserve any of this) like that’s actually going to help.

At least it’s making me feel better.

* “shit on”: this isn’t about the sort of posts that are all “vote for Biden!” Or “vote for Biden because ... ” or “I’m voting for Biden because...” or “here’s some non-straw-man arguments for not voting Biden that I’m going to disagree with in a way that basically respects that someone can make one of those arguments and be a fundamentally decent person also.” This is about the posts that are all “if you’re considering not voting Biden you are a tentacle monster from the dimension of non-Euclidean geometry, and also incredibly stupid because the only reason someone might do this is this tissue-thin straw-man argument.” And it’s certainly not about the posts that are “you might want to deliver your mail in ballot in person if that’s possible where you live” or “check to make sure you haven’t been dropped from the voter registry” or other posts that actively address barriers to voting or getting one’s vote counted. Those are good, keep doing those.