#also I've got nothing else to do at work so

[yumeka-sxf]

I would have included this scan with my recent miscellaneous collab scans post, but I decided it deserves its own post, not just because it's one of the loveliest official Twiyor illustrations I've seen, but also because the story of how I got it is...interesting 😅

This image is from the chara fine graph (which is basically a framed picture) that was included as a preorder bonus for buying the complete season 2 blu-ray set from a shop called Rakuten Books (together with badge pins of the same designs). I briefly mentioned it back in October of last year when season 2 was airing, along with preoder bonuses from other shops like Animate and Amazon. I only wanted to get this one though, so as per my usual process of trying to secure rare SxF goods, I made a note to myself to keep an eye out for when it released. Rakuten, which I believe is the main company for Rakuten Books, has their own proxy buying service, and as the season 2 blu-rays were released, I saw them appearing there. But as noted on their main site, the condition for them to send you the chara fine graph is that you must preorder all of the three season 2 blu-ray discs from them. Once you buy the third one, if they know that you've already bought the others, then they'll send you the preorder bonuses along with it.

I was concerned that if I bought the discs via proxy, they wouldn't know that I bought all three and would cancel my order at the end! I would be devastated if that happened after waiting months and spending all that money on the complete set. I knew people would sell the chara fine graph second-hand as soon as it released, so I decided to wait until then and try to find it on Mercari.

So the months went by and eventually I found out that the final blu-ray volume of season 2 would release on April 17th, 2024. I made a mental note to check Mercari for it then, but unfortunately something else released around that same time...CODE: White in the US, which had its first screening on April 18th. Admittingly, I got distracted by the CODE: White release and had seen it twice by the following weekend. I did do some preliminary searching for the chara fine graph, but not with my usual refined search terms. It wasn't until the 21st that I finally sat down and really started searching for it. And while I did find a few listings, they had already been sold.

I was hopeful that more people would sell it, since it had only been less than a week since release. But I guess I underestimated how popular this chara fine graph was because, after the initial five listings I saw that were sold within the span of a few days, none appeared after. I had, like, ten Mercari tabs open on my browser with different search terms that I refreshed many times a day, but nothing was showing up. I would groan whenever I'd see the preorder bonuses for the other shops like Animate and Amazon pop up, but not Rakuten Books. I did finally see one new listing of someone selling just the badge pins, but that was sold within a few minutes, which made me even more nervous. I would also be nervous getting up in the morning since I didn't want to see that a new listing was posted and sold while I was sleeping! Thankfully I work from home so it wasn't too much of an inconvenience for me to refresh the Mercari tabs on my personal computer whenever I had a minute. But as the days went by and I didn't see any new listings, I started getting mad at myself that if I had only started seriously searching for it right on release day, I would have had at least five chances to get it and could have saved myself this hassle. I even sent a message to Rakuten Books via their online form, asking (in Japanese) if they could somehow sell it to me and ship internationally, etc. But their response was pretty much what I expected...a polite "no."

But then, on the evening of May 4th, I found a new listing and immediately bought it! What should have been a red flag though is that the person was selling it for $30 (with the badge pins included), while everyone else had been selling it from around $80-$100. The title they gave to the item was weird too; they simply called it "Spy Family" instead of "Spy Family Chara Fine Graph" or "Spy Family Rakuten Books Bonus" or something descriptive like that. But the seller had a decent rating so I didn't think there was a problem. After I got the email from Buyee (my proxy service) that they successfully bought the item, I thought I was all set. I closed out all my search tabs and went to bed feeling satisfied.

However, when I got up the next morning, my heart sank when I saw that about an hour after I had gone to bed, Buyee sent me another email saying that they refunded and cancelled my order! The reason they gave was "due to the convenience of the seller" 😫

But what was most frustrating about this is that, when I checked the searches again, I saw that the same seller had relisted the item, with a higher price and more descriptive title, and it had been sold already. What probably happened is that the seller realized they made a mistake with the title and price of the listing and wanted to change it, which Mercari apparently allows them to do even after it had already been sold and paid for!

I was furious with Mercari for allowing this. The least they could do in a situation like this is give the original buyer, like, one day to buy the item again with the increased price before the seller is allowed to relist it again. I wanted to write to the seller and/or Mercari, but I wasn't able to make a Mercari account since it's restricted to Japan. I was also internally yelling at myself that if I had just started searching for it within a day or two of release instead of procrastinating, I could have avoided all this. So it was back to square one, but I wasn't going to give up! I opened up more search tabs with even more refined search terms. I also expanded to other proxy-supported shops like Surugaya and Yahoo Japan Auction. I even got my mom to help me, since she's often up in the middle of the night and can check in case anything is listed during that time while I'm asleep. I downloaded the Buyee app too so I could check listings even if I was away from my computer. With all this, I was hopeful I'd be able to buy it again, though it was more of a question of "when" than "if." With second-hand collectibles, you never know when they could pop up...I could find a new listing the next day, or not for a year or two. But I just kept up the searching, and finally, after another month went by, on June 3rd (June 4th in Japan, so technically Twiyor day 😁) I finally found it again...on Yahoo Japan Auction of all places!

I had never bought via auction before so I was a bit nervous I'd get outbid or something. But I immediately clicked the "pay buyout price option" (which was only a few dollars more than the original price) and, thankfully, a short while later Buyee informed me that I successfully won the auction! But after what happened before, I was still paranoid that it could get canceled for whatever reason. But that didn't happen, and after waiting for shipping, it finally came~

I always like to add a "lessons learned" in these situations, so I'd say the lesson here is don't be blasé or procrastinate when it comes to something you really want. And of course, being persistent pays off more than not!

[kahvilahuhut]

just a normal workplace conversation

Summary: What happens when you have two people, who have known each other since university, work on the same project leading different teams? Definitely completely normal conversations that definitely stay on the the same topic all the time (sarcasm). What else can you talk about on your way from one room to another.

Tws: mention of a wound

---

"Hey, Toby. Do you have a moment? Can I get your thoughts on something?"

Tobias turned around and saw Aleena leaning on the door frame, hologram gloves on. He waved his hand. "Sure! If we also get more coffee on our way to your little hologram room," he glanced at his three empty cups standing in the same corner of his desk, one clearly leaving a stain on his to-do list.

"Still a coffee freak, I see. Have you ever tried matcha?"

"Green tea is for evenings when you gotta calm down but don't want to sleep yet. Speaking of, hang on, need to write this down or I'll forget," he opened his whiteboard marker and wrote 'buy more genmaitcha' on his notes section of the board.

"I disagree with your tea opinions but sure, do whatever you want."

"Funny how you're talking about tea when all our office had back then was english breakfast and some flavored green tea."

"It had earl grey too."

"Yeah, yeah. Anyway," he closed his whiteboard marker and placed it in his lab coat's pocket, "what do you need my thoughts for? Though, if it's something anatomy related, I probably barely have any thoughts."

Aleena smirked and motioned him to follow. "Weren't you the guy with the heaviest physiology book in dorm?"

"Bold of you to assume I ever opened it," he chuckled. "I think I mostly used it as a press for things. Like if I accidentally fucked up my notebook's front page and couldn't straighten it out with bare hands or a ruler. Never been into collecting leaves, though. I even managed to skip the whole school year that had it."

"City kid."

"Hey, I was raised in suburbs, we had trees and plants there! A pair of pigeons used to make a nest in front of my house. I just, you know," he shook his hands, "don't want to touch anything dirty. One of the reasons I suck at gardening, too."

"Honestly, that explains while you prefer working in a clean lab environment."

"Hah, nothing better than the smell of dimethyl sulfoxide," he paused with a wide smile, "Get it? Because it doesn't have a scent. At least when it's pure."

"Missed your humor, lab boy. And your sweaters. Is that a bee?"

"Yes! I think the first time I knitted one like this was almost seventeen years ago. I've made at least four of these. First one got ruined when I accidentally knocked a wine bottle while leaning to- Well, anyway! Glad you noticed. I think Samuel hates it. Saw him today when I came to the office in the morning and he just stared at me and my sweater."

"He hates everything related to you, it seems, if I can be honest?" She looked around to make sure that no one was close by, "I heard he wanted to pick someone else as the lead chemist, and the project board overruled him."

"Oh, god, you should have seen his face when I mentioned in the interview that I've only been doing part-time roles for last decade due to health problems. I mean, he's a Mackie guy, though, so no surprise there."

"They seem to have not liking you as a personality trait. Which is funny, considering how your wife works there."

Tobias laughed. "I think Klara's the only reason why their agents haven't shot me in some dark alley yet," he paused, "Can you blame them though? Imagine a guy who tried to whistleblow one of your projects now appears on your new project rekated to the previously mentioned project."

"Christ, Toby, you know how to have fun, don't you," Aleena laughed and opened the door to hologram room. "Speaking of projects, that's one of the things I need your help with. I found something while looking through the old project's files. Since you were there, I thought you could explain it."

He walked in after her, slightly wincing at the bright lamp shining in the middle of dark room. "Oooooh. I'm already having a bad feeling about this." Tobias wasn't sure himself whether he said that about the thing Aleena was asking him about or that he forgot to refill his migraine meds in the bag.

"You said the same thing about taking Frank as one of the ad faces."

"Was I wrong?"

"You tell me - is he good in bed?"

"He sucks. Interpret that however you want."

"Alright then, keep your dirty secrets." She walked to the round, grey area on the floor and pressed a button on the screen next to it. A hologram appeared, showing a scanned part of a hand, stab wound clearly visible. Aleena switched on her gloves and waved her hands to zoom in on the inside parts of the wound. "This was the problem, wasn't it? The substance clogging literally everything around the wound."

Tobias nodded. "Uh-huh. And then they decided to use it as something to cause lethal damage with. And failed."

"Yeah, well. I was thinking, you know," she swiped her hand to the right and an animation appeared, "what if we managed to somehow make it only block the wound, like some kind of magic band-aid?"

"When they closed the project they were indeed theorizing that, if I remember right."

"So it might just work?"

"Hell yeah it might work."

[fanfic-inator795]

**Random fandom related rant incoming regarding ROT//TM//NT, don't like don't read**

Okay so, if any of you have followed me for a while, you know that I was in the Rot//TM//NT fandom for like three years before eventually leaving for the most part, save for occasionally peeking in on things (and taking part in the second Fashion zine, which is still in-progress if anyone's wondering).

When I left the fandom, my major point for WHY I left was that I felt like the fandom was becoming way too angst and gore heavy, being way too obsessed with post-movie stuff regarding the Kraang, the apocalyptic future, characters getting brainwashed/mutilated/going through ptsd/disturbing scenarios in general, etc.

This is still my main reason for why I'm still (and probably will always, regardless of how often I end up revisiting the show in the future) keeping my distance from the fandom. However, my other main reason is just the sheer fact that the fandom has a favoritism problem when it comes to the turtles - specifically the fact that Raph is essentially pushed to the sidelines in fandom works I'd say 85-90% of the time.

Just a reminder that I do not - and have not - check the tag every day so maybe my view on things is skewed, but of the ROT//TM//NT stuff that still makes its way into my Tumblr view space or YouTube algorithm, this is definitely how things seem to be.

In general, when it comes to art and fics and edits and all that, pretty much 8 times out of 10 it's going to be focused on either Leonardo, Donatello or both. Without a doubt, when it comes to fan creations involving the turtles, these two get the most solo-pieces. Like- at this point it's not even close. It cannot be denied that they are the fan favorites.

Mikey is next in line, because he's the funny and cute and chaotic youngest sibling, and then Raph is dead-last, getting the least amount of solo-pieces. Hell, half the time when I see Raph included in an art piece/fic/edit, it's only because it's centered around ALL the turtles, making him seem like an after thought. (and even then I've seen plenty of stuff where the artists/writers/editors focus solely on 'the twins' and Mikey, and then either don't include Raph at all or give him very little focus)

What's more, adding onto my frustration at just how angst-focused the fandom was when I left (and, from what I can tell based on my brief pop-ins, still seems to be) is that whenever you DO manage to find a Raph-focused fandom thing, it's him in these angsty or depressing scenarios/AUs, or he's crying over one of his brothers, or he's being the one giving comfort to his brothers.

Because that seems to be all the fandom sees him as! He's the protector, the Big Bro/Mom of the group, the one who dies first in the bad future, the one who we can project bad childhoods onto - though that's not to say that the others don't get projected onto either, they all absolutely do.

As such, you could argue 'oh well, this is just a part of the fandom, it's not a slight against Raph specifically' except it IS because while yes, all the other Turtles get plenty of angst art/fics/edits too, they also get plenty of fun stuff - memes and silly lighthearted scenarios and works where they get to be cool and badass. And as far as I can tell, Raph - for the most part - doesn't get that. At best, he'll get the fandom making jokes about how he's the dumb one or the emotional one. I remember coming across this one Hippoworm fic where all the other turtles got to participate in their wedding and form bonds with Warren and Hypno, meanwhile Raph was the one who ended up being the 'bad guy' of sorts, crashing the wedding because he was too oblivious to catch onto what was happening. This is what I mean when Raph just gets either horribly sidelined or shoved into the roll of support whenever he's not the one getting tortured or brainwashed.

Outside of specific 'Raph is best Turtle' fans/creators (who were already pretty rare back when I was still in the fandom...), you don't see the art of Raph being cool or wearing cool outfits like you do with Leo/Don/Mikey. You don't get fics where he's the full focus and gets to go on this big adventure or have this big interesting arc (AND IT'S NOT CENTERED AROUND TRAUMA, I feel like I have to emphasize this because again this fandom is just so angst heavy). What's more, you go to AO3 to find ANY non-angst/lighthearted Raph-centered fics and it's nearly impossible because, to fans, it seems like he's always got to be attached to one or all of his brothers. It can't just be him or, hey, I'll even take him and a side character/one of the villains (excluding the Mud Dogs because come on now those are literally just his brothers again). Just SOMETHING that lets him be an individual outside of his family - something that, again, literally every other character seems to get!

Even when it comes to something as simple as headcanons - I'd say 95 percent of people view the 'Donnie is autistic' headcanon as canon. But you could argue that Raph has just as many moments that come off as him having autistic traits, but most fans seem to either ignore these bits or see them as jokes, once again seeing Raph as the dumb one whenever he's not the group's shield or responsible one.

On the one hand, I can't fully blame the fandom for this as the show itself often shoehorned Raph into constantly being in a support role for his family. Going by the number of spotlight episodes he gets, it's really just "Mrs. Cuddles", "Sparring Partner" and "Raph's Ride Along", maaaybe "Mystic Library" (even though most fans only remember that ep for the Donnie Rap, let's be real here) and "Man VS Sewer", though the latter still has quite a bit of focus on the other turtles - otherwise he's strictly used as co-protagonist at best and sidekick to one of his other brothers at worst. He does get to land the final blow in "Evil League of Mutants", and gets a bit of extra spotlight in both season finales... buuut then gets kidnapped by the Kraang in the movie (which, regardless of how much it makes sense for the story, it still sucks to see Raph get tortured and put out of commission for more than half the film, essentially being used as a catalyst for Leo's development).

So yeah, hard to build off canon when the canon gives you so little. On the other hand, I still can't help but side-eye the fandom every time Raph - a large/plus-sized and not conventionally attractive character - is either pushed aside completely or strictly used to uplift or prop up the other three skinny 'pretty boy' turtles. Slotting him in strictly as the 'parent' of the group and essentially adultifying him or, even worse, putting him through tons of pain or killing him off so that the others can go through a guilt arc isn't that much better.

Now, could a lot of my feelings towards... all this be personal biases and my own bitterness at my fave being seemingly slighted by the fandom? Sure, you could argue that if you really want to. But from what I've seen, experienced and recalled from my days within the fandom, I feel confident that the points I've ranted about are founded in evidence. The fandom has a huge favoritism problem in my opinion, and it's this plus a distain towards all the angst and torture/gore-fics that have really soured my feelings towards Rise as a whole - and that feeling hasn't gone away.

That's the main reason why I wanted to just get all my feelings out (hence why I'm not tagging this rant), not to attack anyone in particular but just for my own personal benefit. I do hope that eventually I'll be able to rewatch the show (though probably not the movie) and fully enjoy myself without being reminded of all the fandom hang ups and other small annoyances I have with Rise. But for now, gonna be honest, I don't really regret leaving the fandom.

[halorvic]

[deoidesign]

.

[icewindandboringhorror]

I have found a beautiful perfect humble rock specimen that is light yellow with a weird dark yellowy brown lining, somewhat resembling a chunk of smoked gouda cheese... effervescent

[quatregats]

Honestly I think everything would be much better if I could think about everything much more and also much less

[deathfavor]

me: :)

Me realizing one of the ship weeks starts next week and I've written nothing: OH SHIT-

[something-about-sunflowers]

I’m not gonna bother typing it out right now cause 1. I just took some nyquil and I’m gonna be Out in like half an hour and 2. I wanna get my thoughts in order enough for it to be coherent and not just an impulsive rant but, I’ve got some Opinions on the nature/motivations behind all this excessive Izzy hate and why its so aggressive and why its apparently transitive to the real human beings who are fans of him. Its. There’s insidious intent is all I’m gonna say now. That and there’s a reason that you should just be blocking the people who are saying/doing this shit.

[theramblingvoid]

Nobody asked but I think the amount of unpaid labour people have to do to just find a job these days is a failing of our society. I could spend - have spent - days scrolling through Indeed, hours touching up my resume for each job to include all the right keywords and get past the AI filter and what have you, debate over what the strongest wording for a cover letter is, and after all that send it off to a hiring manager who will glance at it once and move on to the next candidate and get paid more for that second of consideration than I am for all I did to apply. "Do you really expect to get paid to apply for jobs? What is your solution to this?" I don't have one. I'm just angry.

[dredshirtroberts]

y'know. i don't often hate the way my brain is and how difficult it makes certain things for me.

i do a little today though.

[julesnichols]

One day (when I've slept enough to both remember enough to make all of my points and be coherent) I'll explain what I meant when I joked about Sophie being worse

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA for sabotaging my boyfriend's hookup with his girlfriend by filling his sex playlist with DJ Crazytimes

I (28NB, they/he) have known my boyfriend (call him C, 29M, he/him) for some 15ish years now. As long as I've known him, he has been on and off again with his girlfriend (call him T, 29NB, he/him). Respectfully, and with love, C and T are two of the worst and most annoying people I know. I want to marry them both specifically so that I can study them under a microscope like a parasitic virus.

Technically they're monogamous, but they're both hooking up with other people (myself included), usually the same people, because they have the same taste in lovers (bad). I have suggested that they give actual polyamory a try, and they reject the idea wholeheartedly. I think they get off on their dynamic, and far be it from me to try more than the bare minimum to dissuade them from it.

A couple months back, they got into a fight and broke up (again) because T (who was unemployed at the time) stole $50 from C (who works at GameStop) so that he could pay for a tank of gas (using C's car) to go hook up with another guy a couple states over. C was not upset that T was hooking up with another guy (because he was Also hooking up with that guy and knew he would not have a leg to stand on), but because of the stolen money + car.

C and I currently live together, because you can't afford an apartment on a GameStop salary, and also, like I said, he's my boyfriend. I'm making carnitas tacos next Friday, and T is coming over, because despite everything, he has nothing else to do on a Friday night. I know that C and T are going to get into a huge fight, and I know that it's probably either going to end with them getting back together out of spite or with someone's vehicle getting keyed--I'm betting on both.

Here's where I think I might be the asshole. I would really like to get inbetween them. Not in a "I don't want you to date each other" kind of way, but in a "holy shit you are both so insufferable i would like to get in on that" kind of way. I currently have my thing with C, and I've hooked up with T once in the past, but I would really like to make it official with him as well.

My plan is as follows: C and T are going to be in the same space again next Friday. They're going to fight, then hook up, then get back together again. C is one of those cybersexual "i built my own computer and run it on Linux" people, which is to say, he thinks tiktok and youtube are evil, and he he thinks spotify premium is supporting megacorporations. So, his sex playlist for T (we do not have our own sex playlist) is just an actual folder of mp3 files.

While C is at work, I'm going to log into his computer and change several of those mp3 files to DJ Crazytimes' Planet of the Bass, which I play often, and he is frequently annoyed by. My hope is that he'll realize it was me, he'll come and yell at me for ruining their hookup, T will take my side to piss him off, and the tension will get to the point where they let me join their hookup, and I can ask to date both of them after that.

To be clear, I recognize that I'm also Incredibly Toxic for enabling and encouraging this behavior. That said, I feel like I'm justified in this scenario considering C and T are both Also toxic, and furthermore, it is a known fact that I'm dating C right now, so for them to hook up, C would technically be cheating on me. I asked C's sister (a childhood friend of mine) for her take on whether it would be funny or just annoying, and she just told me that we all deserve each other, so I think I should be good. Am I being uniquely shitty here?

What are these acronyms?

[snapbackslide]

ranting bc life is annoying me rn lol

[birdantlers]

A heartfelt and grievously expanded-upon update to this—please, please read the whole thing if you can. reblogs much appreciated.

(DISCLAIMER, for all who are saying reasons like abusive parents/legal stuff/toxic ex/triggering memories/page got deleted/job/stalkers/bullying/[[insert any other shitty life thing]], This is not concerning that—personal safety & health ALWAYS comes first, and is worth more than any media ever could be. This is my biggest reason for defending that autonomy. I would be a hypocrite to say I hadn’t deleted triggering posts of mine or ones that got me in trouble with my family.)

it genuinely makes me sad and kinda upset when someone purges all their old art off the internet like. barring harmful content what if someone liked that. What if someone would have. And now nobody will ever know and it's just gone. even people's old invader zim askblogs or whatever getting deleted feels like a micro alexandria to me and that's just something I made up. I wasn't even thinking of a specific one it just stresses me out. Is this the autism I don't get why nobody else seems to freak internally abt it like I do. I see artists whose blogs I've never even looked at go like "man so glad I deleted all my old stuff it's so clean" or saying they throw out art from when they were kids I'm like. how are you not hurling. How is that not distressing that is literally your tree rings why would you do that. I want to see what's out there. people want to see it I promise someone out there likes it

...don't they??? Does everyone get quietly irrationally upset by this as me, or is this just hyperfixation/autism/some amalgam of the two. I'm not a hoarder or obsessive compulsive or anything like that so i wonder..

Anyways. reblog if you had a favorite amateur youtube animator in your childhood whose channel got nuked without a trace one day that you still think about.

I wanted to attach this video because it condenses my point very well. A TLDR of sorts. Please watch the whole thing, it genuinely changed the entire way I think about art as a concept.

(2nd vid is "Subjectivity in Art")

“The moment your art touches an audience, the ownership shifts in an irreversible way. [They're] not having an art experience with you and your intentions. They're having an art experience with the art object.

“You can't just burn your past; it's not even your past to burn anymore. It's other people's history as well. Whether or not you like it, that art is already bonded to somebody's soul, and if you rip the art away, you're ripping a bit of the soul that has adhesive contact to it.”

The digital age makes it very easy to distance or detach yourself from the impact your work has—be it art, fanfic, videos, even memes. Online content is as important to people now as any other media, if not more. But it's also by far the easiest, fastest, and most effective form of it to erase from public access. Media so unbelievably important to people and in general. Yes, you—with the 2010s purple sparkle dog speedpaint. I still think about that speedpaint all the time, because it was the first time i learned that you could draw on a computer, and I thought it was cool as hell. I still do.

I do wish there was a stronger culture of preservation and consideration for this, because every time I see people talk about snuffing their stuff because it doesn't personally resonate with them anymore, I just think ...what about all the people it did?

I've seen lots of people saying "get over it, it doesn't even matter," but it fucking does. It does matter. Even if I didn’t make it, even if I don’t have to deal with being the one who made it, even if I'm naturally inclined to be distressed by it—It still matters. And there’s nothing you could ever say to suddenly make it not matter, because there’s nothing you could ever say to make it not matter to me.

Don't devalue the act of creation. Don't dismiss something you made. It's out there, in people's thoughts and hearts and souls, and that is real. Even if you don't know it. Especially if you don't know it. Especially in a world where physical media is being snuffed out, the internet is constantly dying without any physical remains to recover, social isolation is rampant, and simply because independently produced content online is still media.

Fanfiction can hold equal or greater significance to someone as a book, but you can’t unpublish a book. Authors don’t have a button that can vaporize every copy of their work across all time, but fanfiction authors do. I’m not counting people who download fics either—when you buy a book, that transaction is over. But online, you have the power of unending transaction that can be terminated instantly at your will. The process of publishing fanfic vs. publishing a book may be different, but people’s connection to the art is the same intensity.

So yeah. I do get depressed about the Internet being a constant Alexandria, but the times I get the most depressed is when I click someone's page and see that all their work is gone because they're ‘curating a new aesthetic’ for their page or some shit. Or weeding out all the "ugly" art. Or just went on whatever the hell 'thrill deleting' is, because they just get a kick out of it.

Fuck it—yeah! It upsets me! I’m not wrong to say that. I’m saying it!

Under the cut, because it got long as shit! Also don’t worry the ending is way sappier and more ‘beauty of human nature’ vibe so it’s not all doom and gloom lol

What if that was someone's favorite art of that character. What if someone read that 'cringe oneshot' on the worst day of their life. What if that Warriors meme vid is still burned into a college student’s mind despite being gone for 10 years. What if it's actually not just you and the ones and zeros you rent out to the world—secure in knowing the original will always be on your computer for you to do whatever you want with it.

I really, deeply wish there was more of a general awareness of this, because even though social media can be used like a diary, that’s functionally the opposite of what it is. It’s social media. When you post, it’s no longer in a vacuum, even though you can’t see the real humans that content touches—often deeply.

Media is history. You shouldn’t burn that history just because you personally believe it isn’t worth saving.

Because it’s no longer just your personal opinion. It’s no longer just your personal work. it’s. history. Memory of media is not a suitable replacement for the media itself. If it was, we wouldn’t save anything at all. Nostalgia is an agent of that. The definition of nostalgia is grief for moments of the past that are inaccessible, and the biggest balm for that pain is accessing a physical reminder of those moments. That opinion of yours is no longer personal. It’s weighed against uncountable people across all time that your thing is ALSO personal to. People who would, and will mourn its absence.

How many times have you joined an older fandom only to discover that some of its most popular works are gone? How many times have you routed through random blogs looking for scraps people hopefully reblogged? how many times have you used Wayback machine desperately praying that a fan fiction or a YouTube video will be there? How many times do you look up crunchy old vines or YouTube videos or anime AMV‘s? How many times do you remember old fanfic.net sex that impacted you in middle school, only to shake your head and go ‘probably no point even looking.’

i mourn the absence. No, people can’t and shouldn’t have their agency over what they post revoked, but they should be conscious of that weight. If you’re reading this and getting extremely annoyed, and you’re not in the pink text above,,,, good.

I honestly do hope it gets under your skin. I hope it sits with you. I hope you feel it every time you hit that button, and whether or not you do hit that button—if you hesitate, if you remember this, even spitefully, I’ve done my job. I am howling into the void. And I may not want an answer, but I do want my anguish to be heard and remembered. Because it isn’t me just being melodramatic.

I know I sound that way writing so much, but if my favorite writing YouTuber can drop trow this week and go, "yeah, sorry, all my video essays from less than a year ago that you listen to in the car all the time? I'm "rebranding" my content so i deleted them. besides, my personal views don't really agree align with the analyses i did, or the techniques i taught in them anyway. Sorry if some of the literal tens of thousands of you used them, but I don't want to feel shackled to having youtuber "classics" tied to me”

….then i guess I'm just going to have to sound dramatic! That fucking sucks! Hours of work and knowledge gone! This was a new channel too. It’s very likely there’s no archive of any kind, because who would think someone who worked hard enough to write, record, and edit hour-long videos, would just turn around and nuke it all? I definitely didn’t see it coming, but I did just start a new screenwriting class a few weeks ago, so I’ll tell you at least one person is REALLY missing those fucking videos right now. Because a lot of them were about specifically screenwriting, which I know jack shit about. and that specific person’s pace, editing, and style of breaking down information was the best suited style I found that I could focus on and absorb. There’s no replacement for that. No alternative for his individual perspective. his jokes. his opinions.

No, they may not resonate with him now, but in this decision, he’s put up a big middle finger to everyone who might have. And he has like 100k subscribers! Those are confirmed supporters! Imagine how many silent and untethered observers are feeling this loss right now. Imagine how many will not have it in the future.

If he never posted them at all, we wouldn’t know we had it. It wouldn’t be a loss. But we did. We did have it. Until he decided that no, we didn’t, because he just happens to be the one out of millions of individuals holding the button to burn it in a hundredth of a second.

His personal work, the attachment I had to it, and the ways that it helped me are now just ripped away. I am one person out of millions, literal MILLIONS of people who saw and liked this content before it vanished. The soul has been ripped, the access severed, and by CJ’s (and my) definition, the art is functionally dead. Not for the YouTuber or anyone else lucky enough to save a link or download, but everyone else. From this point until the end of time, even if people even two weeks from now don’t know it. Even if someone who stumbles upon his channel today, doesn’t know it.

We only mourn the concept of Alexandria because we had some kind of scope for what was inside. Yes, maybe you got self-conscious and deleted your 12 year old deviant art account. Do you know who else is doing that?? THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of other twenty somethings who ALSO feel self-conscious about their old socials. Art. Fanfic. One direction fan videos. anything.

Suddenly, an unquantifiable amount of information from your age group—an entire age group in 2012, is. gone. And we will NEVER know what’s been erased from that history. We will NEVER know what could have been significant to us ten years from now. Twenty years from now. A hundred years. A thousand.

You could have deleted a fanfic that would have been someone else’s new go-to panic attack distraction tomorrow. You could have deleted a video someone used to laugh at with their friend who died yesterday. When you delete something, you risk tearing a hole in unknowable personal histories.

The Internet isn’t just a big library of Alexandria. It’s a library containing libraries. And those libraries have their own libraries in those libraries have their own as well. libraries inside libraries, inside libraries, ad infinitum. To conceive the amount of destroyed history on the Internet is crushing.

And I just can’t help but I ask myself how in gods name people can choose to contribute to that, instead of reposting everything to trash heap alts titled “hall of shame” or some shit.

You can offload to alts. Put up disclaimers. Make password locked blogs, or dropboxes, or anonymous imgur dumps. Anonymous reuploads. Orphan fics. Make a playlist or linktree of unlisted videos. Cut off the watermarks. Delete all references to it on your main. Make a dedicated unlisted playlist. make a google drive. Make new portfolio sites. Delete any questions you get about it. Change pen names. Pretend it never existed.

Give a heads up.

Something.

But don’t. kill. the media.

The knowledge that our stuff is going to forever be tied to us is a cross we have to bear, but the responsibility that comes with putting it out there in the first place, can’t be ignored.

Anyway. I'm not trying to start conflict. This is not a bash on anyone, nor a call for witch hunts. Or anon hate, or blocks and unfollows or anything of that nature. I'm not wishing ramifications or hate of any kind on anyone who does wants to do any of this.

I'm also not guilt tripping— I am not saying that you should feel bad. I AM saying why it makes me feel bad. That’s not guilting, it’s a dialogue. One I personally feel is long overdue.

It's me yelling into the void: please consider the real people on the other side of the screen before you hit that button. Realize and know that whatever you're about to erase from history could be the most important thing in the world to someone.

Art is an experience. It's why we revisit it. If art and history simply lived in the matter and code of media, we would only need to look at it once. We wouldn’t put things in museums. We wouldn’t build libraries. We wouldn’t look up vine compilations.

If you're able, consider (and I do mean consider, this is not a call to action) not destroying that. And don’t shrug it off as some pretentious asshole venting on Tumblr. You only need to look in the notes and tags to see that it isn’t just me. it’s never just me, or you, or the pixels.

And even if you do shrug it off, then at least recognize that what you make matters. Whatever you think about it, if it’s out there, that's not your discretion anymore. If a tree falls in the woods and even one person is around to see it, it fucking mattered. Because it happened. Don’t mulch your tree rings if you don’t have to. Because if enough people do it, a whole forest is gone. Media is history, no matter whether you think it’s worth putting in a museum, or only has 30 notes.

Thousands of years ago, a child named onfim doodled on his homework. They’re crude, and everyone has the wrong amount of fingers, and they’re also priceless archaeological artifacts recognizable throughout the world.

the only thing separating Onfim’s doodles and your MS paint Pokémon doodles is time. The only thing separating your old MS paint Pokémon doodles from being a priceless artifacts, thousands of years in the future is time. Your creations are already priceless artifacts. No matter what you do, don't ever, ever deny that. It isn’t blowing up your own ass, it’s artistic and anthropological fact.

The mundane and the supposedly unworthy are often the first things lost to time, and that’s why they’re so precious. That’s why artists who were before their time are scorned first only to be celebrated later. Do you think they knew that was going to happen?? What if they nuked it? Many probably did! But now that’s happening exponentially and instantaneously everywhere, WITHOUT the artist having to destroy their only copy—which makes it way easier and more dismissable.

Sometimes, If you’re revolutionary enough, people will make an effort to preserve your work, but recognized and thoroughly recorded work is rare compared to unrecognized and thoroughly recorded work.

Sometimes something is beloved enough that it would be impossible for it not to go down in history, but even then it isnt a guarantee, and it’s rare. But if van Gogh burned all of his paintings in a fit of despair before his death, we would have no van Gogh. Because he wasn’t respected as an artist in his time, but that wasn’t what defined the worth of his art. The people after him did, because his art was still there for them.

If you rip the art away, you're ripping a bit of the soul that has adhesive contact to it. If you belittle your art, you belittle the very real relationships and emotions and revisitations people have with the media. You defy the inherent worth and weight of a creation. you created. That's effort. It's passion. No matter how flippant or unskilled or worthless you think it is, it matters. Because at the end of the day, you could have chosen to make nothing at all, and you didn't.

•

Muting notifs

[thebibliosphere]

Speaking of therapy, I say, as though we're old friends, and you're not a stranger trapped in this metaphorical elevator with me and you can hear the suspension wires starting to fray.

I've been doing a lot of work recently that's focused on imposter syndrome and the feeling that no matter how well or how much I do, I'm not good enough. That I'm somehow tricking everyone into thinking my work is actually good.

Some days it's a minor niggle in my head that I can gentle and soothe with logic and affirmations. Or smother, depending on the mood. Other times it's loud and all-consuming and the mental anguish it causes me is so real I can feel it twitching in my muscles. This desperate fight-or-flight instinct with nowhere to go and nothing to fight but myself.

Anyway, because I'm several types of Mentally Unwell™, I was switching between workshop sheets ahead of next week. Filling in different forms. (Trying to get a good grade in therapy) And I got my "recognize your harmful ADHD coping mechanisms" worksheet mixed in with the "you're not actually lying to people, you just feel like you are because your brain is full of weasels" worksheet, and seeing them side by side made something go topsy turvy in my head, and I just had to sit and breathe for a couple of minutes until the urge to scream passed. Because it clicked, it all suddenly clicked.

The reason the imposter syndrome workshops and therapy sessions aren't sticking was because I do routinely trick people into thinking I'm someone I'm not.

Because I'm masking my ADHD for their convenience.

I've always known there was something wrong with me. My neurotypical peers made it abundantly clear I didn't fit in or was failing in some way I couldn't see nor remedy, no matter how hard I tried.

So I compressed myself into a workaholic box of hyper-competence in the hopes they'd stop noticing the flaws and exploit like me instead. And then subsequently lived with the daily fear that if they looked too close, they'd realize I'm a monumental fuck up with enough personal baggage to block the Suez Canal.

If you ever need someone to burn themselves to ashes for your comfort and convenience, I'm your gal.

Or I used to. Until I had a bit of a breakdown, and the rubber band holding my brain together snapped and pinged off into the stratosphere, never to be seen again.

Unfortunately, the trauma of living like that didn't also fuck off and instead left a gaping maw where my personality ought to be, so now I get to deal with that aftermath.

And it's that aftermath that's affecting the imposter syndrome shit. Because yes, I am hyper-competent and good at what I do-- but it doesn't feel real because that is how I mask.

And the truly frustrating thing is I am good at what I do. I am not pretending. I worked hard to be good at this. It just feels like I'm dicking around because 90% of my personality turns out to be trauma masquerading as humor in a trenchcoat, and having people genuinely like something weird I'm doing is so foreign my brain has decided it's just another form of masking.

I'm pretending to be a good author so people will think I'm a good author, and my brain thinks we are in Danger of being found out. We are in Danger, and writing is Dangerous because then people will know I'm Weird and not whatever palatable version I've presented myself as for their NT sensibilities.

Like the neurotic vampire with a raging praise kink wasn't an obvious giveaway.

Anyway. I got nothing else. Thanks for listening.

I'm going to go be very normal in another room and not stare into the abyss of my own soul for a bit.