#also can i say i’m a really good fan of like the internet trend (is it a trend??? idk. internet Thing) of like giving somebody a snack/gift

[m1d-45]

I DID IT I GOT THROUGH THE BASEMENT OF THE CHURCH... and then they hit me with the chase scene and i almost died on the spot AND THEN diluc. it was like that one meme with the darkness and the person lying on the ground and then "omg diluc hi!!!!!!!"

my hands are still shaking as we speak. at the very least i am getting so much fuel for cringefail creator au - teddy anon

“omg diluc hi!!” you’re so right actually

also good job!! here are some treats for your troubles: 🍦🍡🧁🍮🍬🍫🧋

[drdemonprince]

At one point he was down in between my legs, fingering me, and he made a throwaway comment about probably being Autistic. 

I leaned back, trying to relish what pleasure I was getting. “Well, we can talk about that subject, if you like,” I said vaguely, not really wanting to bring my professional life into things. 

He kept working away at my body, kissing between my lips and thighs. “Oh I know who you are,” he said suddenly. “Your book changed my life. In a way, I guess this is me thanking you.” 

I made him exit my body and we went to the kitchen to hash it out. It turned out he was a big fan of many things I’d written. 

“I’ve seen you around the neighborhood many times,” he confessed. “But you posted online that you don’t like when people come up to you, and so I always decided to leave you alone.” 

He said, “Your book is the reason I got divorced, actually. My ex-husband was a therapist, and when I showed him your book and said I thought I might be Autistic, he didn’t believe me. We have been separated for a year.” 

He asked, “Did I just make this weird, telling you when I did that I was a fan?” I told him that if he’d said it sooner, I would have never fucked him at all. 

People never realize that when they approach me, what they are doing is dragging me into work. It doesn’t matter whether I was at breakfast, or an orgy. I was just some guy standing there, enjoying his beer, but now they have made me the known scholar and author. And sure, my job might be meaningful, but that doesn’t mean I like to work. 

I tell my friend that I no longer want to be a public figure, and that I am planning how to make it all end. She tells me, “You’ve got to do what is the best for you, even if it’s something that the rest of us wants and can’t imagine giving up.” 

I ask myself, did I want this? It would be more flattering to say I didn’t, and play the role of the hermetic author whose work developed its own life purely because it was so good. But that isn’t true. 

From the moment I got a Myspace account in high school, I was publishing essays about my political views. I serialized multiple novels on Tumblr, guerilla marketing them with giveaways and custom-made images until they hit the Kindle sales charts. I have made memes, tried starting viral trends, coined phrases, and given hundreds of hours’ worth of media interviews. I write prescriptive nonfiction, for Christ’s sake. Of course people seek guidance from me. I offer it up! 

I have been strategic about how I dress, and my video backdrops, and retaken clips of myself speaking over and over again until they sounded right. I’ve hosted debates with my most vicious critics while I’m in the shower, started public beef with creators who had larger accounts than I did, and rushed to my keyboard when upsetting news broke, because I alone was possessed of the most correct take on it.

I wanted this. I didn’t know what this was, this internet fame I was chasing, but I did all I could to make it mine. I thought that by writing so much, I would one day be able to escape myself, maybe really feel connected to other people. Instead it has meant never being able to stop thinking about myself: how I am seen, what I am working on, how it all fits together, what comes next. It has also meant being spoken about, theorized about, and criticized, and developing a firm exoskeleton of disdain between myself and the world. 

I believe now that that it is immoral for any person to be listened to by ninety thousand other people. Holding authority and status like that runs counter to my anarchic ideals. I am not more important or correct than anyone. I should not be trusted to tell people which commodities to buy, which companies not to support, what to read, what to think, what words to use, or how to conduct their lives. 

All the other animals know there is no one way that a creature “should” live. There is only the way that it does. The world has no consciousness, no beliefs. It cannot pass judgment. We only feel so watched and evaluated because we have covered the planet with so many millions of our eyes. But we can stop performing dignified human goodness at any moment. 

I think that celebrity is an evil, corrupting force that pits the human instinct for bonding against itself. Instead of appreciating the singing of our friends around the fire, we stream Chappell Roan until stalkers break into her house. Rather than playing card games together, we stan Twitch streamers, filling up their chats with highlighted messages until they acknowledge us. We long to be famous novelists because then we would have the social permission to write, and we don’t have the money or time to enjoy the activity on its own. 

I wrote about Chappell Roan, stalker stans, and how turning art into content creation ruins the work, and the creator's life. It's free to read in full (or have narrated to you by the app!) on Substack.

[your-poetic-lifeline]

Hello! I hope you’re having a great day/night!! I had this idea but I’m lacking my writing skills so here we go,

Mirage and octane dating their s/o (l HC that octane would date someone the opposite of him, the rare occasion that he will stop just for them) but their s/o want to keep it a secret because they’re scared people won’t like that they are in a relationship in general (like when kpop celebrities date someone and their fans go crazy toxic) idk if this makes sense but thank you and take care!!

HELLO!! I have emerged from finals ٩( ᐛ )و on that apex grind to celebrate. Hope y’all are doing good. :) And that I captured the vision for this one!

also imagine the internet in the 2700s… has to be a thousand times the hell it is right now.

Dating the Legends in Private

pairings: mirage x reader / octane x reader

content included: private relationship situations, relationship boundaries, gn reader, semi-fluff?

—————𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 𓆝 𓆟 —————

Mirage

༻ Mirage has a lot of things. Money and success from the bloodsport he made his career. A reputation and bloated ego followed around by cameras.

༻ But he’s never had love before. Not in the way he does with you. And it’s an entirely different thing from all that…

༻ It’s not something you can just show to the public so easily. But he really wants to.

༻ “I love you, so my fans will love you!”

༻ It doesn’t really work like that… with the Apex games being so big, Mirage is nothing less of a trending celebrity. That’s too many eyes peering into your relationship, you think.

༻ And people online can be heinous.

༻ Though his ecstatic pitch and sweet smile almost had you sold on the idea, you had to mention your concerns over the tougher realities of being in the public eye alongside him.

༻ He knows, but he loved the idea so much he was hoping you’d wanna risk everything for it like he wants to…

༻ He’s a little sad, but of course he keeps you off his social media as you wish; no questions asked.

༻ He probably thinks about it further and also starts making himself less recognizable when he’s in public with you. Wouldn’t want a fan or paparazzi disrupting a date with you after all.

༻ Not to mention the idea of anyone saying something below respectful or endearing of you makes his chest puff a little. He’d have no qualms confronting the source of the act. Online or otherwise…

༻ Wouldn’t be too surprised (or disappointed) if he got into a controversy for that!

Octane

༻ We’re well aware he lives on social media.

༻ Phone and selfie stick always on hand. Livestreams during the most casual of times.

༻ So I can imagine that if you didn’t let him know about your boundaries beforehand, you’re gonna find yourself in an awkward situation where a camera is shoved in your face and honestly— depending on how much you really don’t wanna be seen— you might catch your boy off guard with the harsh shove you gave his arm when he moved to pan the camera to you.

༻ He just thought a semi-regular appearance with the two of you together would be nice. Sure, he’s an adrenaline junkie, always doing crazy stunts, and that’s what people wanna see. But daredevil activities are not the only thing that make him happy.

༻ You make him happy too, so he wants to post you. But he completely understands the turn it could take.

༻ Realistically, I imagine him sneaking a photo of you onto his social media anyway. Perhaps a blurry portrait of you. The candid, aesthetic kind that has you mid smile.

༻ Whether you scold him for technically going against your wishes or not is up to you.

༻ And depending on how serious you seem with wanting to keep your relationship separate from his public persona, he’d probably think back on how he handled that. He’d start to feel a little regretful. It makes him realize he may have lost some of your trust. And he definitely doesn’t want that.

༻ He decides to take down the post and apologize to you. Sure, there are still screenshots and reposts out there. But that’s all they’ll ever see of you from this point forward. For once, he’ll take this seriously.

༻ And for a guy who isn’t known for handling consequences well, the idea of negative comments from celebrity articles or the typical weird, possessive behavior from fans upsets him and he now understands your reasoning more.

—————𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 𓆝 𓆟 ————

banner source

[modelbus]

ok ok WE NEED A CUT CHAOS PART 4 BDBDVZVZ

it’s not milking it if it’s what the people ask for…. This one is a bit different! It’s headcannons style of the other cc’s finding out what happened and such :D

Part 1

Pairing(s): cc!Ranboo, cc!Tubbo, cc!Wilbur and cc!Tommy x Fem!Reader (Platonic) Head Cannons of: Cc!Phil, Cc!Dream, Cc!Niki, and The Public (fans)

Cut Chaos Part 4

Phil

“You what?!”

Is overly concerned, ends up having a long lecture over communication and talking things out.

Even after multiple reassurances that everything is fine now, he’s very disappointed in Wilbur, Tubbo, Ranboo, and Tommy.

Ends up talking to Kristen about it later, he feels bad that he didn’t realize what was going on while it was happening.

He’s constantly on the lookout that things aren’t actually okay for weeks after that, then relaxes once he realizes you were being serious about it being okay now.

”That’s never happening again, to anyone.”

”It’s nobody’s fault. Just remember to follow basic internet rules and not trust everything we see. We’re literally content creators for fucks sake!”

Is more likely to be lenient on Ranboo, Tubbo, and Tommy but is just all Dad Mode Disappointed.

Dream

You’re the one to tell him, maybe with an offhand remark about hating rumors due to what happened. He pauses and goes, “wait, what?”

Wide-eyed the entire time you explain, this man cannot believe his ears.

”They did that? Really?”

Absolutely pissed on your behalf. Skips worrying and goes straight to muttering curses with a glare.

Deadass just doesn’t believe you when you say it’s okay now.

”Are you sure? Because that’s fucked. That’s really fucked. Good for you on resolving it, but… things don’t sound fine. That doesn’t just go away, right?”

Pushes you to talk to someone about it. A therapist, an animal, someone.

”I just can’t believe…”

He’s 100% blaming Wilbur, Ranboo, Tubbo, and Tommy. All of them. And the internet, for even spreading the rumor.

Posts a vague tweet in his private about disliking rumors being spread about content creators and how harmful it is.

Likes vague tweets then unlikes them.... mr. drama over here...

Niki

When Dream told you to talk to someone about it, you go to Niki.

She gets it, having experienced firsthand how horribly internet rumors can affect your life.

Out of everyone, she blames the internet the most for it.

Although she is still very disappointed in Wilbur, Tubbo, Tommy, and Ranboo.

”I would’ve expected better from them. I’m sure they didn’t even think about how it’d hurt you. And that’s so frustrating, right?”

Comforting <3

Playing cozy games together

”I’m an open door.”

Somehow it ends with you planning a trip to go hang out with her, although you’re not quite sure how

Also end up planning a stream??

The Public

After a while, after everyone is more comfortable and doesn’t feel absolutely shitty over what happened, it’s a little bit funny.

So there’s little quips in vlogs, streams, and videos that allude to what happened.

”I’m a ghost!” “Just don’t ghost me.”

”They’re talking about rumors, I swear—“ “Rumors, huh?” “…no.”

”Why am I back in videos now? ….don’t worry about it.”

It doesn’t take long for Twitter to realize what happened. The most popular theory is the correct one, leaving mixed opinions.

Most people are advocating to let things be, no matter what happened.

Some people, the mean ones, are saying they should’ve left you out for good.

A lot of your fans are upset at them, but take the cue from you and don’t cause a huge fuss.

Either way, it ends up trending for a little bit on Twitter. It’s slightly ironic to you.

Nobody addresses it to confirm/deny what went on, although when prompted through a donation Tommy says he "fucking loves" you in "a platonic way, chat. PLA-TON-IC!"

And when the Tik Tok fans find out…

incredibly dramatic

”Chaos squad is over guys D:"

Angsty edits

[detectiveneve]

I think there’s a definite problem though with the amount of art and fics being HEAVILY Astarion with cis women. That reeks of his queerness being erased. There should be a healthy balance of Astarion with different partners, but the “default” in the fandom is always him with a woman. As a gay man it’s very frustrating.

Okay so. in however much any of this matters. 1. Shoving this under a cut for people who are tired of seeing the discourse (I am too, I tend to scroll really really fast past it.) 2. I know the fandom discourse machine looooves super firm and snarky opinion jabs summed up in 169 words or less but I am literally incapable of not elaborating so. sorry YOU asked. since it’s also probably relevant, Im coming at this with the Mega Dyke with the fuck around and find out perspective irt my life experiences and queerness. I don’t generally care about niche queer internet discourse and I don’t generally care about fandom discourse, so you can tell how bored I am at work rn that I’m deep diving into this. tldr yeah you’re not wrong I agree that astarion’s queerness is erased in certain spaces but that has nothing to do with being attracted to women. my funny hot take is once again that astarion is a he/him evil femme to me so. let’s MOVE.

I received the second one within the first few minutes of the first, and I’m goingggg to proceed on good faith and with the idea that I think we’re all in agreement for the most part, because I think we are. But I’m going to address the most obvious thing that. I don’t really…. think is necessarily the point in this. first of all, I empathize that it suuuucks to not see as many works made for your main pairing of choice (there’s generally a deficit for literally everyone BUT astarion to boot too.) however ultimately fanworks are exactly that: fanworks, and they’re made For Free and posted by a Fan Author who has done this As A Hobby, “a problem nobody is addressing” in this context is……. you are one google doc and keyboard away from writing what you want to see in the world. or, I don’t know. encourage + comment + follow up on fic authors that write what you enjoy. fic is not paid content and the fic authors in bg3 are writing for themselves and what they put out, that they wrote for FREE, is up to them. I once again empathize with not seeing as much of a specific thing as you would like, and I definitely empathize with seeing a popularization of specific characterization that makes you want to scream, cry, throw up, etc. which brings me to what I can actually comment on and critique here. (general note: if you proceed to misread me on the basis of “people can do what they want!!” I assure you. you can do whatever you want forever. I do not care. I am not mad. I am minding my business 90% of the time. do I like domstarion? no. but it is NOT my concern nor my judgement.)

“That reeks of his queerness being erased. There should be a healthy balance of Astarion with different partners, but the “default” in the fandom is always him with a woman.” <- so! now that we have “it’s all for free man idk what you want me to say here” out of the way. we CAN critique something real in this that I do agree with. the sort of…. honestly kind of fascinating (derogatory) trends of what I’ll call Straightifying astarion for lack of a better word.

this brings me to the point I kind of offhandedly made in the previous post, about how there IS nuance to be said on astarion’s queerness getting erased. I do actually agree with you that in some spheres of the bg3 fandom, his queerness has been heavily sanitized and he’s become something of a placeholder for Sexy Vampire Boyfriend romance tropes. he’s mostly there to be a stand-in for a sexy dom vampire man; MANY of his complex character traits that have literally Nothing to do with romance have been basically entirely removed to serve a specific idealized idea of him that suit the scene. it’s frustrating! I find it frustrating. I also agree that within this specific Brand of Mischaracterized Astarion, he’s been so……….. reduced down to this that his more overt queerness is basically entirely removed. however, the issue is not that he’s with a woman in this? the issue is that the writer is not incorporating a sort of.. overarching queer lens, for lack of a better term, to the characterization they’ve got going on. you can write whatever you want forever, but it’s not written in a vacuum, I agree.

Since these are all popular straight romance tropes, he falls directly into the pit of Sexy Man (straight) very quickly, and his attraction toward others (let alone, good god, his complex relationship to sex, sexuality, desire? good fucking luck finding something thoughtful in there about that) tends to fall by the wayside as a result. It is what you would expect but it’s not without room for critique in what I think we’re aligned on; which is seeing astarion’s queerness erased is maddeninggg. And it is EXTREMELY frustrating to see if you’re someone like me, or possibly yourself, who’s into 1. really analyzing characterization and 2. really into exploring queer dynamics in writing + lit + media many different formats. THIS—the sanitization, the removal of astarion’s queerness—this is what is irksome as a queer reader.

however. the issue I’m seeing is that ^^^^^ this brand of mischaracterization is 1. being conflated with simply that he’s with women, and 2. the frustration of having less content (understandable) is turning into a very WEIRD dialogue in which the extreme of “well actually he wouldn’t even want to fuck women!!” is the stance to take (very weird) (kind of misogynistic) (kind of also reeks of continuing to talk about women as sex objects that astarion would not or would want to fuck) (astarion himself doesn’t even want to fuck for about 90% of his romance so maybe we should talk about that too) — rather than that it would be nice if his queerness would be addressed more openly and with more nuance and clarity than it currently is in That Particular Sphere Of Astarion Characterization. and, of course, the idea that it would be nice if he was portrayed with other kinds of partners! which I agree with and equally appreciate.

but there is no default. literally, there’s no default. what you’re seeing is what people are making of their own tavs, and maybe you would like to see more of another kind, but it doesn’t hold up as an actual fandom critique. what holds up is when we dive into how people write him; how do they write his personality, what traits are being exaggerated and what traits are being ignored; IS his queerness remembered within the text at all? and beyond that, how is that queerness treated when it is written? because I’ve seen the other extreme in which it’s The Homophobic Gay Stereotypes That Maybe We All Agreed At One Point Were Equally Offensive To Exaggerate To The Point Of Horror. half the discussion I see AROUND his queerness amounts to “omg he’s such a slutty flamboyant little fag” but in a quirky haha internet way. very “fruity is a nice alternative to saying queer!” “calling a gay guy fruity in the real world will get you punched out.” vibes in here sometimes and it is EQUALLY weird.

anyways. Astarion’s a multifaceted character which means the first thing everyone did was pick one or two traits to exaggerate and cling to and these color the entire reading of his character rather than taking in the whole. i agree that means his queerness got put to the wayside in some formats of him, and that’s deeply unfortunate + very frustrating. but fanfic is free, so I’m not with you that there’s a Problem That Needs Addressing so much as that’s what people are creating, and you should add to what you want to see in the world.

I’m not going to go on a tangent about how “oh let m/f be a thing!!” because I ALSO agree literally no one needs to be told “m/f is okay to do ❤️” we live in the real world here. and it’s really mindboggling how in some iterations he’s been turned into Straightstarion rather than his CANON QUEERNESS being applicable in every format of every relationship dynamic he could ever possibly be in. However. However. the answer to that is not? acting like the baseline attraction to women is the problem. if the way you’re talking about attraction to women feels rooted in upset about not relating to it and feeling like you’re forced to either relate to it or simply not engage, I do Get It, but at the risk of opening up an entirely different can of worms that needs an entirely different essay to address, gay men are not immune to misogyny and if the language used while talking about women is also objectifying or belittling women to some extent or acting as though attraction to women makes his queerness lesser. newsflash. that is still misogyny (and biphobia). it is not about defending straightness here, it’s entirely that reducing women down to sex objects even in the conversations about not seeing women sexually is alive and well (and repulsive), and that’s what I mean when I say I can hear the “lol I don’t fuck WOMEN that’s DISGUSTING” behind some of the other side of the conversation here. also this is an entirely separate essay but queerness will almost never exist in an easily consumable binary and trying to type him by his character traits is also. kind of weird. just as a thing.

[jewishbarbies]

Forgive me but I have so much I can say about this that it physically hurts that her fans believe this nonsense…

“she has always been on the frontlines of change in the industry and setting trends”

When?

“she literally changed the demographic of country music from just being for/about older women to teen girls”

There were female artists before that those “older women” listened to when they were teens. When Taylor’s fans are older women there will be a new singer that teens listen to. It’s how the music industry and freaking aging works. 

“she was one of the first people to really centralize social media in marketing”

She’s literally not. The singers that came up in the early 2000s are. They think 2006 is when the internet was being utilised for promoting singers because of Taylor. Google was invented in 1998. Social media & the internet was being used for almost a decade before. JLO is the reason google images was created for goodness sake.  

“she left RCA because she felt that even if they gave her a good deal they would diminish other writers on the label.”

Do they really think she’s the only so singer to leave or stand up to their label. Britney Spears stole her upcoming song from her label and released it to a radio station in 2004/05. 

“she unabashedly writes about her feelings as a young girl and a woman despite getting shit for it at every turn.”

Most female artists who came before her have struggled with this. Dolly Parton would win awards and get up on stage and not be allowed to speak because her MALE partner spoke for her. Even though Dolly was doing all the work. 

“she's one of the first artists to successfully transfer genres from country to pop.”

This is just false. It happens all the time. Not to mention it happens with different genres and artists all the time. 

“she stood up against streaming when literally no other artist did, got them to change some of their policies”

Because she’s the only one that is selfish enough to publicly pick a fight with someone and pretend it’s got nothing to do with her own bank account. Even when I was a fan of hers I knew she was doing it for herself. 

“yet now the exact thing she was worried about has happened.”

Because she was greedy and arrogant and didn’t buy the masters when they were offered to her because she thinks she better than everyone. 

“her move into pop music was completely different than the type of pop that was being made at the time and it influenced pop for years to come.”

Am I deaf? She stuck to the pop model created by those before her to make sure she was successful. Madonna, Janet Jackson, Britney Spears, Billie Eilish they all took risks with their music and careers to push the envelope and change the sound of pop. Not Taylor “stick to the formula” Swift. 

“all before the me too movement.”

The act TS did herself was admirable but this sentence. This belief that this Swiftie (and potentially other Swifties too) have is a slap in the face to what this movement initially represented and what it meant for women who had endured this. 

“her rerecording process is the first of its kind to be this successful and others are now following suit.”

Wtf does this sentence even mean. They don’t know sh*t about her recording process especially in comparison to other artist. Are they seriously so deluded to think no artist was successful before Taylor. How can they compare her to anyone if they believe this. This statement alone makes it sound like she is the reason music is successful. 

“the way she publicized her fight to own her masters”

Yes for public sympathy cause she’s a narcissist. 

“she also basically started the crop top set trend of the mid 2010s”

One quick google search and this is what I found. “Although the crop top first gained prominence in the fashion industry during the 1930s and 1940s - the latter in particular due to fabric rationing in World War II” I’m sure if I spent more time researching I could find more. But I also know it became very popular in the 1970s with men and carried in through to the 80s and 90s for men and women. Then the 2000s was when the trend reignited. 

“heavily influenced the twee fashion of early 2010s”

This is not the compliment they think it is. This fashion trend is layered with the issues. Her racist fans probably love it because it’s a style that is deemed acceptable by those Hampton holidaying rich white mothers and fathers that got sent to boarding school in England when they were young (I hope that analogy makes sense). It was also equated to thinness particularly at the time it was popularised. Not to mention you google Twee and the pictures you see are if Jess from New Girl, Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl (a character from a 2000s show) and Alexa Chung. 

Also such a bizarre way to end their long winded rant. 

They are all so blatantly ignorant and stupid. I wasn’t going to say stupid but it really is all it is at this point. They are stuck in this cult they can’t even make reasonable arguments anymore. It’s exhausting constantly being bombarded with them all in every facet of life. I see so many videos of Swifties singing her music in public settings like that video of them on the plane, if I was on that plane I’d have jumped out of it, and it’s just infuriating the lack of respect they have for the rest of the world. Yet they expect everyone to respect and worship their cult leader. It’s disgusting and exhausting. 

Sorry this was so long. I don’t have many followers and I know you’re a safe space for people who don’t like her. And I feel like this is something others might agree with. 

[alohaasaloevera]

Uhhhhhh I promise I’m cooking something up guys. Promise… I’ll even show you the plan(?)

—

(Directly pasted from discord but I make it more Tumblr Talk A.K.A punctuating and rephrasing my unpunctuated word vomit)

Klance post canon, but the internet is obsessed over Keith. Since the internet is the internet, they end up graphically talking about how much they want to smooch Keith and do some Stuff with him, and Lance is not very happy about this.

Some random event comes up, and overnight Lance is instantly trending on social media!! He now has a bunch of people drooling over him too!!

The paladins do go attend galas and interviews and all that schmooze because they are celebrities (they literally saved the world??). People eat the content that is posted up, and that’s when the first few klance shippers rise. Most people are like “??? Where did you get that from” but the klancers are confident in their ship.

Keith and Lance are put into their old “rival” dynamic—instead of combat-related issues, it’s now about who is hotter. People argue about this A LOT and honestly KL probably talks about their rivalry in at least one of the interviews,which makes the fans EVEN CRAZIER!!

The Klancers are seen as delusional for picking up the (VERY REAL) fond looks Keith gives Lance in interviews because “Keith isn’t gay!!” (*cough* Lance is openly bi)

AND THEN LANCE GETS CASTED TO STAR IN A TV SERIES??? Everyone is pumped especially because he’s one of the main characters and he’s being paired with this one pretty girl (IT COULD BE ANY POPULAR WOMAN IDK) that he’s met up with a couple of times.

Flash forward to the series debut (and maybe even the second season) and people ARE GOING FERAL! Not only because Lance and the girl in the show are depicted as a really cute couple and have a really good development of their relationship throughout the first like 2 seasons before they get together (WHAT KLANCE COULD’VE BEEN, DREAMWORKS.), but mainly because there’s a NEW leaked bts where Lance is spinning the girl around in the rain and doing romantic stuff idk and people are posting about how they want to go jump in a highway

But then someone posts a video of lance spending time with keith IN THIS LITTLE LAKE WITH A WATERFALL!!1!1!!1 AND HE’S TWIRLING KEITH AROUND JUST LIKE HE DID WITH THE GIRL??1?1!!1?

The internet explodes again.

—

things to note:

Keith is giggling in the video. Don’t ask why, I’m just correct.

The romance between Lance and The Girl in the series WILL BE 200% non-toxic. This is so I can make a plethora of people scream and cry over it in the fic, just like how they did with klance in 2017 (Except for the fact that. Y’know… they didn’t end up together 💀💀).

Jealousy will be a huge element in the story. Whether it’s Lance/The Girl or Keith/I don’t fucking know, there is going to be lots of yearning.

Uhhhhh I’m terrible at making stories and consistently updating so I can’t promise you a completed fic!!

If I do end up committing to The Bit and completing the story, I would aim for it to be around at least 50k(?), with like 20 chapters at most.

I am NOT finished with VLD (currently on 4x6), so as I run through the seasons there is probably going to be more and more references to the show as I update!

—

Thanks for reading this whole little thing!! I will say some of this was inspired by the fic Headlines by an orphan account. I highly recommend the fic!

I hope to get the first chapter of this fic out by next week (the 27th), but I am also notorious for procrastinating, so we’ll see.

[age-of-moonknight]

Link to a scan of an issue of the Moon Knight manga! It's only six pages long, but it's still very exciting.

Thank you, Tumblr, for trying to jump in front of a non-existent bullet to protect us all from spam links, BUT I’m so glad I reached out to palebluebirdcomputer to get the actual link, because this is so much fun. :D

Do any of you recall the Japanese live-action Spider-Man tv series (it’s a real hoot by the way, if you’re a Spidey fan and looking for a whacky good time, you can often find whole episodes on YouTube)? Well, reportedly, Moon Knight was also supposed to get the Japanese live-action treatment, but it never materialized. There were some promotional manga chapters published around 1979 but they’re allegedly notoriously hard to find in their entirety in anglophone internet circles so !!!! thank you once again for sharing this with me! It’s really an incredible find! And if anyone around here can read Japanese and would like to share, I’m always curious to see what this might say.

[not-alien-girl-v]

Internet Hcs About the Evans

i don’t know. read it

warning: like everything language mentions of porn idk dont read it if ur gonna be like ew stop being lewd

Tate: Knows the fnaf lore. Specifically watched Markiplier play it and also a Sally Face fan like hardcore and kins both Sal and Larry equally. Has a Tumblr acc but it’s only to interact w fanart of fnaf and sally face and like idk follow other fan accs he’s one of those empty accs with some random ass username no posts no bio no prof pic just his name in lowercase. has a deviantart?? again doesn’t post just to look at fanart he’s really into fanart and almost gets into reading fanfiction about his various interests but ultimately decides against it cuz i feel like violet would clown on him for it if she ever found out

Kit: Has an insta but it’s private with like 27 followers and it’s all like just his family and friends and sometimes when his friends post he’ll comment something like ‘Looking good bud 👍’ and then disappears from the internet for another month or two until he gets a notif that his wife posted or something. too scared to go on twitter and i don’t blame him. for the most part he just doesn’t understand how the internet works and has no intentions of finding out so he leaves it alone. he also has a facebook but same rules apply with the instagram only ever goes on to hype up his wife and kids and sometimes friends

Kyle: frat boy sorry cuz i don’t imagine frankenkyle can fathom the internet anyway i feel like kyle gets into debates online like way too much and he sees nothing wrong w the fact that he’s like actively searching out bigots to give a piece of his mind to. he’s got a tiktok and only follows like racist sexist ppl so his feed is full or opportunities to curse someone out digitally. he’s also got a twitter thats almost been banned a lot. he’s completely anonymous w it tho and his insta is completely regular he’s got like maybe 900-1000 followers just of like his friends and frat guys from his own or other frats and a bunch of girls who asked for his insta cuz they thought he was cute even though he never replies to flirty dms. he WOULD have several white boy went fishing posts and you guys can’t argue w me on this ok i wrote too much for him. he definitely has a lot of girls commenting every time he posts and i think his brothers would give him a lot of shit for not ‘jumping on that shit’ but he’s all like ‘oh i’m old fashioned u know i’m not like that’ has an active snapchat that he adds stories to all the time but once again never responds to messages

Jimmy: he has an account on instagram, twitter, probably facebook but they’re all mostly like linked to the freak show ykwim like he’d have like a verified checkmark but he only ever posts like freak show related announcements or like every now and then a little video that he records of him and some other ppl in the show behind the scenes and it’s captioned like ‘come see us (enter date here)’ and that’s pretty much it he’s not super big on being active in social media because he claims he has plenty of friends irl he doesn’t need fake robot friends. also may not know how the internet works

James: i mean sally runs the hotels official instagram page and all other socials and he probably has no idea that she’s doing that until he finds out she posted some image of video of him on one of the accounts and then some guests recognize him at the hotel and say like ‘omg ur that guy!!’ and he has no idea what it all means n shit. I think he would get a great kick out of instagram reels like non tiktok but you know how like a month after a trend happens on tiktok then it goes to reels? right like he eats that shit up he thinks its the funniest goddamn thing like funny cat videos or someshit

Kai: right so like we all know he trolls reddit and 4chan and posts rude reviews on thatcow. the kinda guy that kyle finds himself internet battling like this is the enemy he's been preparing for. he has a tiktok to stay relevant and he's just a comment section lurker 'user17896379' type shit he just likes various biggoted comments and occasionally replies just to start fights and shit. he's got a facebook and insta where he's totally normal tho like 'hey guys vote me for senate!!' again similar to kyle but like opposite ends of the same spectrum. i would love to view his search history. searches the most despicable things on p0rn websites every time he yanks it and i just am desperate to know what shit he's looking at

[obsessivelollipoplalala]

I agree with your point on online discourse, I also have a somewhat controversial opinion about fans wanting XYZ celebrity to educate their audience about anything going in the world that for the lack of a better term gets "trend" . I get the point about "they have a larger platform" but at the end of the day random celebrities aren't activists and usually aren't even well versed in anything and most activists even don't tackle every issue under the sun they have their own niches. If rather someone with millions of followers stay quiet on something they don't know anything about rather than sharing misinformation.

I agree. Maybe I’ve been online too long, but I’ve become so jaded against the idea that celebrities can use their platform to do any meaningful good, because I think very little meaningful good comes from posting online, anyway. It does depend on the topic, because a someone wanting to make a feminist statement to show their support of women isn’t the same as thinking that online posts will lead to concrete policy change, for example. But it’s abundantly clear that people vastly overestimate the power of Poasting. People online have completely lost perspective, so they really think tumblr posts or instagram stories are on par with Martin Luther King’s “I Had a Dream Speech.” It’s ridiculous. If someone with a large audience chooses to post about an issue, that’s their right, but people with large platforms have a responsibility to think before they post, and so many do not. I would much rather a celebrity not say anything at all than spread misinformation to hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers. Getting your opinion out into the world is not important enough to justify contributing to the huge misinformation sphere in politics right now. Even on a small scale, I’ve so often wished that Brian stopped and thought more before he posted something on insta, because him posting with his emotions and not his head has gotten him into hot water multiple times.

Another thing is that I think people online want celebrities to post about x because they want to see if they pass the Problematic test, you know what I mean? The intersection of stan wars and politics is a really Online and annoying thing, like you should not view politics as a mere opportunity to brag about your fave,  or a way to smugly drag fans you don’t like because they like someone you don’t. Obviously, I have criticized shitty celebrities and their fans, so I’m not saying people should never do that, I’m saying that too many people online treat politics itself like a fandom, which is bad for a lot of reasons, and demanding that every celebrity should post about every hot topic without even knowing anything about it is an extension of that mindset. Most celebrities are not activists, and neither are the internet addicts who demand they post about whatever.

[pebblysand]

Hello Pebbly,

Firstly I wanted to say sorry for the the hate you’ve been receiving lately. I just don’t understand why people would go out of their way to send death threats because they have a different opinion. It would be a different story if they weren’t allowed the option to be anonymous.

Secondly I wanted to ask a question about the new chapter of Castles. It was said Ginny only started her nightmares after Amycus died. Why do you think that is?

Lastly I’d like to say I adore your writing. Fan fiction or not, you truly have a gift and I’m so honoured that I get to read your beautiful stories

aw thank you anon, you're very sweet ❤️. although to be honest, i do think the issue goes beyond having different opinions, here. because the strangest thing is: i agree with these people 🤣. i fundamentally do also believe that trans rights are human rights. but i don't think that a) sending hate to people on the internet who do disagree with that affirmation is the solution to bigotry, and b) completely disengaging from fandom because of JKR's opinions is the way forward.

firstly, i agree. the fact that these people go on anon is evidence itself of the fact that they know what they're doing is idiotic. i understand being angry (i'm a gryffindor and an enneagram type 8, trust me, i really do), but obviously, all this does is relieve these people's urges for violent speech. it doesn't actually help any of the issues. and, that's fine, i guess if they feel better after dropping me these anons, then i'm happy for them. but, i doubt they do. i think a big part of being a gryffindor is learning where to take your outrage, and how to use it in ways that can make the world a better place. or else, the frustration just ends up eating you from the inside. this is not it.

additionally, as @copper-dust pointed out, fanfiction (and fandom in general) is one of the main ways to get the representation of marginalised groups that may be lacking in the source material. telling people to disengage is nonsensical. and, on a personal level, i must admit i don't relate at all with this trend we're seeing online of disengaging with any form of media (be it tv, books, etc.) that we, as a society, deem "problematic." if i had to cut out everyone i disagree with from my entertainment regimen, there wouldn't be much left. i mean... wait until these people find out like eminem, 🤣. it's hard to do more controversial than that.

personally, i think life is much more interesting when you engage with media critically and are able to use your brain to question the things you might see or read. i love eminem when he talks about fame and his daughter. i hate him when he talks about kim. there's a duality there that i find essential to my experience as a human on this planet. it's about understanding people are complicated and mostly exist on a spectrum. to tell you the truth, i don't necessarily believe in the idea of separating the art from the artist, but i do believe in engaging with art while remaining aware of who the artist is. reading things in a more educated and nuanced way.

i also must admit that i find this way of telling people: 'you mustn't read/watch/etc. [x] because the author is problematic' bizarrely moralising, and it gives me the ick. i grew up catholic and i find this attitude of 'i'm better than everyone else because i don't engage with problematic content' strangely reminiscent of saints and sinners. like: i claim the moral high ground. i am the saint. you are the sinner. and, well, good for you, i guess. i find sinning more interesting. i don't strive to be a role model, and i don't strive to live a perfect life. i'm not really keen on curating my experience of the world to the point that i end up living in a sterile echo chamber. that wouldn't be very interesting to write about and also, if we acknowledge the best in people, we must also acknowledge the worst - or else the good loses its gravitas.

by that same token, this also ultimately makes me "kid of fine" with the fact that these anons exist, in a strange way. they're not nice to get, of course, but i suppose they're allowed to disagree with me. i wish they wouldn't send me death threats about it, and it does make me angry that, doing this, they ultimately harm the people they claim to defend, but it is what it is. i don't think it's for me, as a non-elected individual representing no one but myself, to tell people what they should or should not think, and do or should not do. i do believe in the right of governments, through elected democracies, to regulate speech as a collective (the way certain countries have made racist speech or holocaust denial illegal), but i guess that's a different matter altogether. i wish people would get fined for expressing racist, transphobic, homophobic, murderous, hateful, etc. "opinions," but that is sadly not for me to decide.

.

anyway, apologies for this digression, now onto your question.

It was said Ginny only started her nightmares after Amycus died. Why do you think that is?

i recently re-read this letter from robert and michelle king, the showrunners of the good wife (do not click this link under any circumstance if you have not watched TGW and intend to watch it someday, major spoilers in that letter) where they said:

'We’ve always taken as a guiding principle of this show that drama isn’t in the event; it’s in the aftermath of the event.'

i find this quote incredibly interesting, and it really resonates with me. i suppose as someone who basically 'grew up' (as a writer) on the good wife, it's probably a vision of drama and creative endeavours that has influenced me more than i had realised. after all, i am currently writing about the aftermath of a dramatic event (the war), and to be, that's where the fascinating material is.

i think there's a lot of that in the way ginny's trauma manifests in castles. a reference i also always think of (for castles as a whole, not for this specifically) is series four of peaky blinders where tommy goes on this shootout situation with the italians, manages to come out of it alive and arthur joke-warns him about the fact that he'll get the shakes later, when the adrenaline comes down. i'm interested in that: what it feels like when the shakes come and the adrenaline comes down.

i think for ginny, there's a lot of that: during the war, when she was being assaulted, she was in survival mode. keep your head down, try to survive, do what you have to do, worry about it later. then, she comes out of it and it's like: all that stuff that she's trying to ignore is coming back to haunt her. i actually headcanon that with the chaos of the aftermath of the battle, the press, the way the weasleys were sort of ushered out of hogwarts, having to bury fred, etc. it took her maybe a couple weeks to find out for sure that amycus was dead. i can sort of picture her trying to ask around (people in the order, the DA, etc.) without raising any suspicions and not being able to get a definite answer until the list was confirmed in the press. i think that's when she realises it really is over, you know?

first of all, she realises he is dead, that he won't talk, and that no one will ever find out. she's very worried about her parents, about hurting them, about how other people might see her, about harry - so that's a big relief. and, secondly, she realises that she is free. that he won't come back. and, i think, that is of course a huge weight lifted off her shoulders, but paradoxically it also allows her to let her guard down a little (let the adrenaline come down), and that's when the nightmares come crashing. i think she only get them then because it's the end of war-mode and the start of healing-mode.

.

anyway anon, thanks again for your kind words, i'm so glad you enjoy my writing, and my apologies for taking advantage of your message to rant about Stuff. i hope you have a wonderful day ❤️

[meimi-haneoka]

I’m sorry I said some unpleasant things to you earlier.

Your answer made me think about a lot of things I hadn’t thought before, both about CLAMP and Clear Card ? So thank you

I'm going to reply to this one immediately because I've been thinking for the past hour whether to reblog that post again and reply to your questions, or leave it be as I had said 😅

I'm sorry if I came across as irritated too, but the reason why I (and I think the other fan you reblogged from too) feel so over the edge about this topic is because it's been very difficult lately to interact with certain corners of the fandom without slipping into a puddle of negativity feeding on negativity, over matters that concretely no one of us can do anything about.

Sometimes I have the impression people see only the "artwork producing" side of Clamp and forget that they are human beings too, with their own wishes but most importantly, reasons and circumstances we know nothing about. And I have the impression the ease with how fans insult them might stem from (temporarily?) forgetting about that. It's so easy especially on the internet.

I don't know what perception you have of Clear Card and how much of what's been going on reaches other sides of the general Clamp fandom, but in 7 years and half many things changed, and I changed my perception too.

It might be absurd to think about that now, but there was a period early on when I also thought Clear Card could be here only as a commercial opportunity and I couldn't feel the love in the story. Turns out, I was probably influenced by external factors but most importantly, I hadn't reached the core of the story yet. I hadn't touched what was one of the biggest thematics they would talk about and I didn't understand yet what they were trying to do with this series, what risks they've taken to develop and portray properly those parts (like creating new characters that had importance and influence on the plot as much as the main character herself).

It's been 7 long, bumpy and difficult years of complaints in & out the CCS fandom, and the English official translation didn't help at all since it skewed most of the portrayal of the new characters. Now the last volume is out and I'm checking the comments of the Japanese fans, and lots of people who had dropped the series for the reasons I told you before are now satisfied with how the series ended.

A character in Clear Card says "when given the reason to change, no one can ever stay the same" and that's something we really need to remember more often. People, things, situations change. And what initially was discussed as just a one-shot to promote the start of the anime project, quickly changed into a full fledged and complex manga series. Ohkawa was probably struck with inspiration for a good story and thought it would've been a pity to develop it only through an anime, she wanted for them to tell that story with their own hands.

I also want to quickly address something you said in your reblog that I hadn't seen before.

For a lack of a better word, "fetish" to me means everything that encompasses your inclinations when you read a story. Those that make you go 😍 about it. It can be anything, big hands, wide shoulders, even kisses or the request for a wedding: I've seen over the years the most disparate complaints and even insults, sometimes, over those things. Like how Clamp didn't know how to draw anymore just because they didn't stay stuck in the past with their 90's shoulders and their art style is constantly changing depending on the themes of the story. It should be something to praise them for, because they're evolving and always keeping up to date with the trends, they're not stagnant.

I'm not saying we can't wish to see those things in their stories, what I said is that we can't expect them to live and work in the function of satisfying those requests for us. They should be free to write and draw what they really want to portray.

If I was able to make you see another side of the situation, I can only be glad about it! Thank you for your ask.

[subdee]

And the other way to look at this, really, is not about AI at all, but seeing this as the continuation of a gradual corporate incursion into the early spirit of sharing that characterised the internet. I say incursion but maybe the better word is enclosure, as in enclosure of the commons. And this positions AI as just a new method by which companies try to extract value from the things people share freely, and capture that value for themselves. And maybe the way back from this is being more intentional about building our communities in ways where the communities own them. GameFAQs was created to collate some useful stuff together for a community, and it ended up as part of a complicated chain of corporate mergers and acquisitions. But other communities experienced the kinds of upheaval that came with that, and then decided to create their own sites which can endure outside of that - I’m thinking here especially of Archive of Our Own, the biggest repository for fan-writing online. And incidentally, the source of 8.2 million words in that AI training set, larger even than Reddit.

The Washington Post published an article - GATED, which is exactly what "How to Find Things Online" talks about - that allows you to search Google's C4 training dataset, and this is what turns up for Ao3. 8.2 million words!!!!! No wonder the African content moderators are striking for better pay to remove all the porn from the chatGPT results!!!!!

Anyway. This is a very good accessible article about our upcoming... what? Retreat to unsearchable private communities that lock newcomers out so that people can talk to other people, not robots? Increasingly paywalled and corporatized commons? Future that looks like The Matrix, culture permanently frozen at "the peak of your civilization" as all the future training sets keep regurgitating the same info that millions of people put online, for free, from 1990 - 2020?

Here's AO3's recent post on their AI policies BTW, where they explain that they already removed the website from the Common Crawl in 2020 and recommend, for now, setting your new works to archive-only if you don't want them used to train commercial AI without your consent.:

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/25888?fbclid=IwAR0GgjG4nOWZh7WuwNT4bPCEnLd-sX1j9PxYNx7fQoC5OGQST24SOr5b1lw

Archive-locking as the only real solution makes sense, but also, is again exactly what this article talks about in terms of the incentives moving from putting things online for free where anyone can access them, to putting them behind a gate of some kind to keep the community a nice place **for** the community that built it.

Anyway. May AO3 live a long, long time. Not just because it's the most popular website in the WORLD in category: "books and publishing" but because it's being increasingly recognized as a gold-star example of a community seeing where the corporatization trend is going, and getting out ahead of it to make a community space for humans to share their work with other humans, for free.

[married-2-the-music]

K-pop Discography Deep Dives: Purple Kiss

A Disclaimer: I was planning, when I first started Tumblr, to be a lurker, but then I began an office job and needed something to listen to to keep myself occupied. And then, I started going through entire K-pop groups’ repertoires, album by album, and jotting down my thoughts. And then, I stumbled into K-pop tumblr and decided, you know what, there’s at least four people on this hell site who would read in depth rants about these discographies and at least five who wouldn’t read it and then get mad because it’s kind of our job as K-pop fans. My lukewarm takes should be taken with an entire silo of salt and the knowledge that this is completely for fun and occupying my very bored, very neurodivergent brain. All this to say, for the love of god, I’m a sleep-deprived student and I don’t have time for internet hate, so don’t kill me. With that being said, enjoy!

Here are my credentials: I’ve been what I’d consider a casual fan of Purple Kiss for a little while now, and I first found them through a cover of Seventeen’s Adore U. I know their singles, their names and a little about the members of the group, but I’m the first to admit that there’s far more that I don’t know, and far more that I’m open to learning. So, let’s get started!

Before Purple Kiss’ official 2021 debut with seven members (Goeun, Yuki, Chaein, Swan, Ireh, and Dosie; Jieun left earlier this year), they had two pre-releases in 2020. The first, Can We Talk Again, is a bit of an odd choice for a k-pop single. Its beginning is slower than a usual single, but it’s also a bit fast for a traditional ballad, which makes it difficult to classify. It’s pretty but also a little meandering, and though I think it needs a better build and climax, I appreciate that it immediately sets them apart from other groups of their time’s brasher girl crush. When I’m in the right mood, I enjoy this one (although the rap is unnecessary).

If Can We Talk Again is a gentle plea, My Heart Skip A Beat feels more like a declaration of war. From the second those guitars sound, I’m nodding my head. It’s very much a product of its girl-crush era, but the rock elements and the fullness of the chorus (no anti-drop here, folks) sets it apart. The rap works far better here than in Can We Talk Again, and the song never loses its momentum. I especially liked the two-part bridge: the sung-through section and the more odd EDM section, which feels more thought through and not like they’re rushing to the end. So when that last chorus does come, it feels earned.

After two wildly different beginnings, the middle path of Ponzona is their official debut. Its name is the Spanish word for poison, and they take that horror element and absolutely run with it. This song begins the trend of Purple Kiss’ title tracks, which often stay in the slowly creeping, oddball “witch-pop” style, which suits them well. It isn’t a style that’s for everyone, but I think that when it’s done well (as it is here and in a few of their other songs), it can really work. The song reminds me a little bit of Spider by Hoshi, albeit with a less tightly-wound arrangement than that one. I like this song; I could do without the breakdown in place of a bridge, though.

From Into Violet, the first album, I liked both Hello and Period. They’re similar, but Hello just edges it for me. It has that quietly twinkling guitar and piano in the background and such nice use of their voices, with a lovely mini-explosion of emotion at the beginning of the choruses (especially the last, which has some excellent harmonizing).

Zombie is the first Purple Kiss song I heard, and I liked it right away. It starts with the satirical tone and poppier beat, and the abject oddness won me over before the first chorus. Speaking of choruses, this one is a lot of fun: it’s anthemic, and while the post is a little repetitive, I appreciate that it isn’t as a whole. I even don’t mind the rap in this song, since it does a good job keeping the energy. Its off kilter humor reminds me of Sunmi’s You Can’t Sit With Us, right down to the zombies. I really like this one.

Though I think Zombie is their strongest single, I think Hide & Seek is their weakest EP. While I like parts of the songs (like the calmer jazz of 2am and the soothing mood of ZzZz), I don’t like any of them enough to feature as a hidden gem. Cast Pearls Before Swine comes close with that pre-chorus but something about the follow-up doesn’t work for me.

My My isn’t part of an album, but is instead a special Christmas track. I’m a bit of a hater, truth be told, and it takes a lot for me to enjoy a Christmas song, so I’m already biased against this. Look, I don’t really like this one, but I’m not going to judge it too harshly because I feel like that wouldn’t be fair. Their voices are pretty nice in this one, though, it just doesn’t feel at all like Purple Kiss.

MemeM, at first glance, seems like a return to form, and parts of it follow a usual Purple Kiss template. I like the pre-chorus, and especially the bridge, but I just can’t get past that repetitive anti-drop chorus; I find it utterly grating on the ears and had to resist the urge to turn the song off. Unlike with Ponzona, which somewhat has an anti-drop, there’s not enough drive in this and it leaves the song feeling…empty, and not in a way that feels intentional.

Fortunately, I like the album (also called MemeM) better than the title track. While I do agree with public opinion that Pretty Psycho would’ve made a better single for them (“maestro, maestro, I’m a pretty psycho” gets a good laugh from me every time), my hidden gem is Hate Me, Hurt Me, Love Me. Despite the quiet, almost mournful beginning, it quickly blooms into a very fun pop song, and I admit I went “aww” a few times at the cute special video they released with it.

Nerdy, like Zombie, follows more of a fun-creepy vibe, which I naturally prefer to the “I’m so cool” concept. It’s both a niche that sets them apart from their peers and a style that Purple Kiss pulls off well. I absolutely adore the completely unnecessary, over dramatic classical dance break during the bridge and the sarcastic tone of the verses, although I wish that the choruses had a bit more heft to them, as they’re around half vocalizing and repetition, but overall I like this one.

The Geekyland EP is really strong and probably my favorite of their works, and I loved the acoustic guitar in Summer Rain, the wispy instrumental of Can’t Stop Dreamin’, and the Latin-pop influence of Fireflower, but my hidden gem is Love Is Dead. From the start, the strong beat, the slinky (definitely not the right word, but *shrug*) vocals, and the rock influences had me tapping my foot. This was an instant standout for me, and not something I’m used to hearing from k-pop. The “love, love, love is dead” hook has been stuck in my head since.

Sweet Juice comes right out of the gate with that tense creepiness and a far-too-quick-for-my-liking classical sample, before spiraling into an equally tense chorus. I like the sparseness of the instrumental and especially the added atmosphere the voices have, but I wish that the classical instruments made a return and that the chorus had just a little more “oomph” to it, to make the building tension feel more genuine. Like with Nerdy, it’s a good song, but with just a few changes I feel like it could be great.

I liked the Cabin Fever EP too, although not as much as Geekyland, so I have a clear stand-out in Autopilot. I’m a lover of synth and citypop, and this song’s crying-on-the-dancefloor vibes immediately made it a favorite. Its quiet ending and emotional, acoustic plea add a little bit of heft to its hook of “I feel like a monster, oh, but I can’t stop”, and, given Purple Kiss’ affinity for telling stories of monsters, I choose to read it as a look at the other side of monsterhood: what happens when the kind of self-acceptance they so often sing about isn’t enough? I acknowledge that I’m probably reading way, way too much into it, but Swan’s voice makes me have emotions (lol).

7Heaven surprised me on first listen, because it sounds nothing like a Purple Kiss song. I have no idea what caused such a dramatic shift in concept, tone and vibe, but I was a bit confused. 7Heaven is a very catchy song and feels like somewhat of a spiritual successor to Autopilot, but without the interesting lyrics that made Autopilot still feel like a Purple Kiss song. While I do like the song itself, it’s fairly standard for k-pop and doesn’t distinguish itself like the rest of their catalogue (whether I like every song or not) does.

Festa is only a three-song single, and neither of the b-sides really stood out to me. Truth be told, I’m a little annoyed that they didn’t wait another month and a half or so and released another great full EP for Halloween, which would’ve fit their vibe so well and probably felt more complete, while this one feels a little more rushed and very not-them.

Groups having their own, very clear, identity is a topic I genuinely care about, and something that I feel is becoming less common, which is one of the reasons I mostly stan 2nd and 3rd generation bands. I’m not saying that I want groups (or the idols in them) to be pigeon-holed, but looking at, say Girls Generation, Dreamcatcher, or Stray Kids, their styles (inspiration from vintage pop, rock, and hip-hop respectively) are very evident while still managing to have variety and keep innovating. Anyway, this was a longer rant than I’d planned, so let’s get back to my final thoughts.

Overall, I’m glad I did this! I got to learn so much more about Purple Kiss and who they are as people, got to listen to some great b-sides that I’ve added to my study playlists, and learned that they write a lot of their own songs, which is super cool! I’m always looking out for more self-produced groups. (And always looking for more recommendations too). Special shout-out to Yuki for writing such well-flowing raps in her second language, because I can’t even write them in my first.

My top 5 songs are Zombie, Love Is Dead, My Heart Skip A Beat, Autopilot, and Nerdy. Special shoutout to Hello. Purple Kiss gets an 8.25/10 from me, because they’re incredibly consistent in tone, style, and quality (except for a few dips), and they’ve done a great job carving out a niche, but I don’t think that they have any songs I would consider classics or favorites. I think that they, like LOONA, often stay in a middle ground of good, not terrible, but also not excellent. Also like LOONA, they do a lot of experimenting with genre, albeit in their b-sides, not their titles, which I think works better. I didn’t become a Plory through this deep dive, but who knows? I’ll be keeping an eye on them, and maybe after the next comeback, I’ll change my mind.

I’ll see you next week for a boy group (well…soloist, technically). I’m super excited for this one, so prepare for a lot of discussion. Tschüss!

[littleapocalypsekitten]

Anti-Capitalist Stories.

Okay, so this was something random I was thinking about earlier today while not really being able to get back to sleep.  I wonder if it’s because someone showed me this delightful little sci-fi story last night that I read before bed. (I was in a thread-conversation on a forum about how billionaires seem to want to just dick off the space and someone was “Oh, read this story I found)!  I got to thinking about the abundance of such narratives in current culture - there’s a lot of them.  It seems like a trending thing in art (not without good reason).  After that, I got to thinking of “Why are they allowed?” in terms of... Yeah, nations with free-speech laws say that we can express art any way we want even if it honks off the powers that be within certain reason.  As long as we aren’t libeling or harassing someone, even obvious parody of celebrity persons is okay.  However, I can’t help but think about how the people who have all the money in the world *could* actually shut down people’s voices (movie studios and publishers run on revenue...) and this made me think the sad thought of “The reason why they aren’t is probably because they actually think we’re kind of powerless.”  Either that, or they think we aren’t internalizing the messages of some of these stories to a degree that would ever mean any significant trouble to the status-quo.   I mean, my own bullshit fiction isn’t making a dent in anywhere because I am not a famous person by any means and I just put out free stories on the Internet that almost no one reads because I want feedback to improve my craft, so I know that no one’s coming after me, nor the oceans of other writers who do the same thing and craft their little tumblr-mythologies and whatnot, but what I got to thinking about was the actual famous stuff, the popular stuff, household name stuff.  I’m a big fan, for instance, of The Hunger Games.  I read the books before seeing the movies and I’ve read the prequel novel (which goes even harder on criticism of certain imperialist-ways with jabs at America’s doings via the fictional future country of Panem and its Capitol along with it’s crafting of a villain’s start of darkness).  I’ve seen stuff posted around here about how the movies nerfed some of the messages in it a bit.  I don’t think they did too badly - they are actually very good adaptations of the source material - the book author worked on the screenplays and it shows... I’m most annoyed with the mythology of mockingjays being left on the cutting room floor for whatever reason because their symbolism is important in the books, but anyway... There are some things they couldn’t go quite as hard on for the movies in order to get the movies made and the story out there in a form that non-bookworms would see.  Also, movies have to be marketed, so there was merchandising - the most jaw-dropping to me of which was the “Capitol Collection” makeup tie-in. (I saw that in a pre-film ad going into the second movie and was floored).  At the same time, I think that the very thing was a wink and a nod making fun of the marketing... like “Yeah, we’ll let you use us to market your product - Oh, haha, your product is this tone-deaf makeup for people to look like the vapid, vain Capitol citizens who happily watch children die for entertainment - our bookworms are in on the joke and are laughing at you.”    I still kind of marvel that the films were actually made, though.  Books? Yeah, I think publishers tend to have more freedom there (after all, screechy parents who try to book-ban actually drive up sales), but high-budget films that are very Bite the Hand and go hard with messages that are counter to profit-system...  And Squid Game.  I watched Squid Game.  It goes even full-bore harder on something of a similar theme (because its intended audience isn’t teens and pre-teens).  That series... it’s not just violent, but SAD.  (Mild spoiler ahead) - an integral part of its plot is that after the first “game” where all of the people who were selected for it who survived actually saw what the game was about - that it wasn’t just join in a weird rich people indulgence for prize-money, but actually saw people slaughtered and knew that each game was a risk of a horrifying death... well, they ran a vote and gained their freedom.  80%, when offered to return, WENT BACK because they found that a week living under their crushing debts and inability to take care of their families was worse to them than risking their lives for the money / a way out.  Oh, and when we finally meet the masked rich guys running it... Oh, they are just such slime.  And the only reason they’re doing this is because they’re BORED.  I don’t think I’ve seen anything that has better conveyed how having an overabundance of money eats the soul than that!  And we know people like this exist in real life - people who could help communities, change so many people’s lives, chuck some change some people’s way - build houses for the homeless for instance, fix areas with water-problems...hell, create a public art museum and all they do is... I don’t know, just do things that will make them even more money they don’t need, launch cars into space, buy Twitter, whatever... We don’t know that anyone’s running secret death-games anywhere, but it’s easy to imagine, which is why we imagine it so often.   There are loads of other popular media that has this kind of bent...  ... and it’s not being shut down b people who probably could.  It makes me wonder.   Is it beause they think the messages don’t mean much because the people who enjoy this media for the messages are kind of powerless?  Or do they take us all for vapid fools who only like these stories for the spectacle and the violence?  The flash, the love-triangles, good-looking young heroes and whatnot?    In other words, I had a thought for the abundance of certain themes in fiction / tv / movies lately reflecting the collective angst of much of the world along with the depressing thought that so much of it is allowed to be made / isn’t subverted or shut down by the powers it vents against because they do not see it as a threat. 

[bellmo15-blog]

Hate Art is Stupid

You know, there’s a lot of things people do on the internet that I don’t think I will ever understand. From people who say that gaming is “dead” or “isn’t good anymore” while also ignoring the existence of all the great and wonderful games we have gotten over the past few years to react channels on YouTube where there success is built entirely of just reacting to other people’s stuff to how people will call out how awful AI is (which it IS awful, I am not denying that at all) but then turn around and defend AI when it’s used for “fun.” I could go on about every negative trend that’s popped up on the internet but there’s one in particular I really dislike and will never understand why some people do it. Hate art.

As someone who regularly commissions artists and has even become good friends with certain artists I have commissioned I have strong opinions on hate art. In fact, I didn’t even know hate art was really a thing until I started getting commissions and many artists having on there comm sheets that they won’t do hate art, and for good reason. And while I thankfully don’t see hate art as frequently as you might think, just the concept alone makes me groan and roll my eyes at. I don’t think I need to explain what it even is since the definition is in the name. Hate Art is art based solely on your own hatred for a character, series, person or anything really and usually in a manner that showcases stuff like those characters getting beaten up or dying or anything really. I also don’t think I need to explain why that concept on its own is a fucking stupid idea but since I’m bound to get some people asking me “Why are you agents the idea of hate art?” regardless allow me to answer that with my own question. Why waste your energy and creativity on making something solely for the purpose of telling people how much you hate that thing when you can instead be focusing that creative energy to create something based around a character or series you do love?

Look, I get it. We all have different opinions on different things based on certain factors regardless of if it’s loving something to not loving something. There are things that I love and have a passion for that no doubt some of my friends and followers don’t love as much as me. Just as how you all probably have something you love that I don’t and there is nothing wrong with that. My problem is when people’s hate for something is so strong they resort to making art solely for the intention of showing how much they hate it, maybe even doing it solely just to get under the skin of the people who do like it.

And sadly, I use to follow someone who one day decided to resort to making hate art. I’m not going to name names because even with me expressing how much I dislike the idea of hate art I don’t want people to go after anyone in particular but it was an artist I had been following for years up to that point and had some genuinely good art and had even commissioned them in the past but one day about a year ago they decided to actually make hate art. They made hate art of a certain character I loved but they really didn’t like sinking in actual shit and went on some big rant in their description about how much they hated them and I’m sorry, but I didn’t even have to think twice about unfollowing them because come on dude, really?

And yeah, you could make the argument that as artists they should have the freedom to draw whatever they want for whatever reasons they want and we shouldn’t control them. Which yeah, I do agree with on the whole "artists should be allowed to have freedom" part. I have always been in favour of the idea that any artists should have the freedom to do whatever they want with their medium. Even if I or really a majority of people are not personally a fan of how certain artists chose to use their talent (*cough* Pixar seriously thinking continuing the Toy Story movies after the emotional and amazing ending of 3 is a good idea. *cough*) I would be a pretty big hypocrite if I was such a supporter of artistic creative freedom but then tried to control how people used their creativity. Thing is, I also think criticising how some people use their talent is also just as fair because how are you going to ever improve if you don't take some legitimate criticism? Especially when you use you talent for a purely hateful reason as well!

No matter how much of a supporter of artistic creative freedom I might be, you will NEVER convince me that hate art is something I should be okay with or even get done myself even with the amount of characters from fiction I do hate.

For example; if I was still writing stories I could just as easily write one about Yami from Komi Can’t Communicate getting sentenced to and dying in prison because she is by far my least favourite character from that show due to her whole personality revolving around nothing but Komi and is even willing to kidnap and threaten to kill one of her friends just to spend time with her but the reason I won’t is because why do that when I can instead make Komi Can’t Communicate part of my crossover universe and write a story about a character from another franchise I like helping Komi get over her shyness and anxiety of interacting with other people. I could also just as easily commission an artist to draw for me a pic of Stella from Helluva Boss getting beaten to an inch of her life because she is a character I absolutely despite due to how abusive she is towards her husband Stolas, a character I actually do really like, and openly admits that she enjoys tormenting him on top of how she hit’s WAY to close to home for me personally as someone who had to put up with an abusive and manipulative step mother that came into my life during my teenage years who ended up being the cause of many of my personal issues or making the ones I already had even worse but even with how much I’d want to punch Stella in the face if I ever met her I will NEVER waste my money on something like that when spending it on a commission of Stolas sounds like a much, MUCH better use of my time given how much I like him more and slightly relate to him!

I know I’m not the only one who see’s just how stupid hate art is. Plenty of people agree with me that hate art is the dumbest thing in the world. I mentioned before that many of the artists I’ve commissioned in the past or want to commission in the future have on their commission sheets that they will turn down your requests if it’s hate art and I’m so glad they do because hate art is something we need to stop from being a thing. It’s just a shame that I know this concept won’t just go away because I call out how stupid it is because nothing get's you attention more than negativity nowadays!