#and obvs there’s the tad account

[thesaintofnevergettingitright]

So I was checking to see if Mr Joey Batey has posted anything on insta (for no particular reason, it’s not like anything of note happened recently…) and I noticed something I find extremely funny. Now, I know that he definitely only made that account when he started the show and that it was probably specifically for Witcher-adjacent content. HOWEVER i do find it very entertaining that he still only follows 5 people…

And that he FORGOT TO FOLLOW MADELEINE????

Sir, you’ve had that account since 2019?? Please figure out how to work Instagram???

[buttercupsfrocks]

Hey, guess what, Tumblr? There's been actual, honest-to-gosh light in my living room for 3 whole days. It's still nippy out, obvs, and is likely to get infinitely nippier before spring. But it almost felt vaguely springlike this weekend. So I thought I'd better take some snaps pronto before I have to resort to the flash again.

Sorry my posts have been so sporadic. Not only has the flat been shrouded in winter gloom and my hair in desperate need of a cut, I started a new teaching job involving a disproportionate amount of admin and a learning curve as steep as Ben Nevis. In addition to the stress of being so far out of my comfort zone I might as well be on Mars, I had to do my accounts, which I hate. Still at least what little National Insurance I owed has been levelled by the rebate I'm due for.

So, to cheer myself up, I may have gone just a tad mad in the Gudrun Sjoden sale. It was my intention to buy a full price tunic I'd fallen in love with online, but in real life it turned out to be a crushing disappointment both colour and fit wise. So I left with a hi-lo sweater (Frankly I wish I could have stretched to two, it's so perfect), and this tunic/dress, both 100% non-itchy wool. Although I receive all the seasonal catalogues by post I can't remember seeing this colourblocked lovely before or I'd have been lusting after it all winter. As you might recall I'm big on a teal/raspberry combo and a keen proponent of the three quarter length sleeve. There's also plenty of layering room so I reckon I'll be getting a ton of wear out of this. The sweater comes from the same range but is a brighter shade of raspberry with some subtle dark blue details.

I realise these tights aren't a perfect match but I reckon they'll do. At some point Snag are bound to come up with the perfect shade and I'll pounce.

[sanstropfremir]

Not the same anon and I don't use twitter so I can't speak for how they use the term "over-dancing" but I do know of a Youtube account of a (Hip-hop?) Dancer who did analysis on different idols techniques based on criterias that they were themselves scored on during dance competitions, and one of those categories is "dynamics" that they described as how well idols control their energy, it included over-dancing, under-dancing, rushing steps and other things that would affect the group synchronization I think. But I do think you raise a point in the fact that usually, idols criticized for over-dancing are just the ones that works best for concert performances and it comes back to what you said about facial expressions and how people find exaggerating "cringy": with the pandemic and HD digital performances, they've just gotten more sensitive when an idol makes their moves "bigger", but really, no one would be complaining about that if they were watching from the rear of a concert

obvs no experience is a monolith so i'm not surprised to hear that other dancers use it! i was intentionally being a tad hyberbolic to emphasize the point that you mentioned, because (imo) it's the bigger issue.

the other thing that i think is worth bearing mention is on the value of specificity in criticism in an artistic setting. yes over-dancing may be a term used, but it's too general to be truly helpful in most cases. it only illustrates that there is a problem; it doesn't pinpoint what the problem is. in my experience, when a situation where someone is overperforming in some way comes up, most people will just bypass saying 'you're overdancing/performing' entirely because they can see what the issue is right away. this is the whole reason why directors exist; their job is to be able to direct, to oversee the piece as a whole, and that includes, when necessary, being able to accurately articulate where problems are and what needs to be fixed in order to achieve the vision of the piece.

technical terms get picked up and used by the general public all the time, but the thing about 'over-dancing' and its current usage by kpop fans is that they aren't using it as artistic criticism. they're pretending to use it as artistic criticism but what they're actually doing is trying to use it to justify their dislike of something, because social media has made it so you have to have a polarized opinion and you have to be able to explain it. hanya very kindly put this in a reply on the original post but you can just not like something. it's fine. and it's ok to not know why you don't like something too! nobody knows everything about everything, and even the people who do know things still don't know everything. there's plenty of groups that i couldn't give you a lick of reason why i don't like them, but i just don't. humans are irrational creatures, that's just the way it is.

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

sometime in this last week, or this week coming, my blog has turned/turns 10. god. a decade old. a whole ass chunk of my life i’ve spent on this hellsite. when i began on here, i was a kid. a lost, lonely, depressed and anxious 15/16 year old kid. a kid scared of her future. a kid confused about her future. what to do for uni. to change schools or not??? to do drama/acting at uni or english/philosophy or to move 8hrs away to another regional uni to “escape” her “washed up, dead end hometown” that was so typical of all the pop-punk music that she was listening to at the time.

she was a tad overdramatic, loud, “funny” (as described by her school friends) and terribly forgetful in regards to homework and school assignments. she was angry at the world, most especially the catholic school she was fucking sick and tired of attending. but she was convinced that since she was the so-called “funny girl”, that she simply couldn’t be depressed or anxious. she believed herself unloveable because she didn’t look like a weird mixture of hayley williams and emo-pop queen lights. but now, i no longer believe that i have to look like the women that i looked up to in the ~emo scene~. fuck beauty standards. i am loveable.

in the years since joining tumblr, i’ve managed to get through business college, my undergrad degree and, well, failed out of postgrad due to obvious burnout and health issues amongst other things. although i’ve lost many friends irl and many followers/mutuals online on here. for those who’ve stuck around to see me get through all of this, thank you. to all the friends/casual mutuals that have since deactivated or only followed me for a short time then unfollowed; thank you.

like obviously i was never/have never been a massive popular blog on here, like thebootydiaries or vampireapologist (who has since deactivated a couple of months ago) with tens of thousands of followers. my follower count is still close to the 8,000 range at 7,892. obviously that’s still a lot of people (and of course, porn bots lmao and many, many non-active blogs), enough like one super old post from like 2012 tumblr pointed out, enough for a small to medium sized city or town, or something like that. i don’t know how many people i’ve really reached. i really don’t know how i actually amassed this small army of people.

i am aware though, that on other platforms like snapchat (lmao does anyone even use it anymore in 2021???)/instagram/youtube/tiktok etc, i’d PROBABLY be considered as some type of ~micro influencer (🤮🤮)~. hell, i actually had a bot slide into my notes about being one on here on this hellsite back in 2019. i don’t know if i’ve ever actually ~influenced~ anyone on here with my shitposts (when i started making some) or my personal posts. i don’t know my reach. even though, now, i do occasionally get featured on buzzfeed listicles (although pay me buzzfeed along with the OPs of those original embedded posts), i still don’t know how many people i’ve reached… and even with my very occasional checks of google analytics lmao. on top of this, grappling with the loss of followers at times is much, much easier than it was when i began on here and the first few years following that. i know that my follower count doesn’t determine my worth and stuff.

but over these 10 years, i have grown. i turn 26 this year. back in 2011, 15/16yo me never thought she’d be here. she was partially down the suicidal thoughts hole, with things about ~picturing her funeral and wondering who’d bother to turn up. if only she could pretend to be dead for a day to see who’d give a fuck~ and 16-18yo me was defs down it with her HSC hellscape thoughts in 2012/2013. that 3rd floor tafe/tech women’s bathroom window drop and the thought of scarring her class for life (and that cool dude from catholic school that she crushed on who ended up at tafe with her) with jumping out of it onto the concrete below. instead, she just posted on fb about ~being a failure~ etc which ultimately did lose her a bunch of facebook friends lmao. it was practically the same thing. her mental breakdown after the end of her hsc, where she let her earrings go green and get infected in her ears because “fuck self care, bc what the fuck is it??? i’ll never get better! let me fucking wallow in my self loathing bc it’s the only thing that i’m fucking good at!!!” so i no longer have my ears pierced. oh! it was just all too fucking much!!

i am happier today. i no longer have those semi-suicidal thoughts. hell, i almost died in 2020 from a fucking bowel aneurysm, after my stomach tumour excision surgery. that forced me to put things into perspective. i appreciate the little things . i appreciate the very few friends that i actually have. yes. i’m still depressed and anxious. some days are still shitty and hard. but nowhere as hard and shitty as they were back when i began on here 10 years ago.

how the fuck last 10 years have gone past, with my ass on here; clearing out my blog and caring more about doing that than my uni work (lmao whoops); having made some lifelong friends both internationally (from the US) and long distance domestically in australia, it’s been a long ride; i honestly have no fucking idea. obviously over these past 10 years, i’ve debated with myself over and over and over again whether i should delete/deactivate this account or not. would it make me healthier??? more than likely. but then when i have meltdowns or just inner ramblings i have to get out somewhere, where else to post??? on fb?? obvs not. it’s “attention seeking” or the like on there. no one will read them. no one will resonate. but on here??? even if i got/get one “like” in the notes or one “yo i feel this” response in the tags or replies, it feels like i’ve reached someone??? okay yeah. i know this place IS NOT therapy and i’m not using my followers as amateur (or probs even actual professional) armchair psychologists…. which is a thing i think people need to stop doing internet-wide: but that’s a whole other post that i reblogged a few days ago lmao. i really need to get another therapist, actually lmao.

but it’s the community i’ve found hard to leave. i have what feel like friends, when i’ve never been employed (still as of yet); and when all of my irl friends/acquaintances are working and doing the whole ~adulting~ and ~grown up life~ thing right. it’s also the frenzied rabidness of spite with hating staff’s godawful ideas. the memes. oh the memes. and also the RaWrInG 20s XD emo scene reemergence on here that’s kept me here. the messy petty drama from time to time of big blogs fighting it out.

this place really is bizarre and fun sometimes. and also the fact that i can still hide behind the ridiculous “roaring pikachu” URL that i made all those years ago. i am anonymous. it’s freeing. but on fb it’s all like “WHY WONT YOU ADD A BANNER IMAGE AND TELL US 20 FUN FACTS ABOUT YOU!!!!!???? LET PEOPLE WHO HAVENT SPOKEN TO YOU IN 10 YEARS KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU BECAUSE WE’RE ALL FRIENDS HERE!!!” and the same goes for Corporate Hellscape Facebook™️ (linkedin) but in the professional sense instead. y’all know fuck all about me really. besides my posts. and i love that and live for that. okay yeah. y’all know more about my mental health than my fb feed obvs… which is probably a terribly unfortunate thing. but still.

over the last 10 years then, my superiority complex for being ~so original and intelligent~ or whatever the fuck i had in high school, has all but ebbed away. i’m not that smart just because i went to uni. hell, i literally did NONE of my in-class work and none of my philosophy readings in uni….. so i have fuck all idea of how i got through undergrad like that lmao. i’m not original when so many people can articulate the same thoughts that i have, but like, sometimes better, on a post (even though sometimes/most of the time the Tumblr User Hot Takes Tuesday™️ takes on here are fucking awful lmao). but still. originality is not something i really have anymore. or really had in the first place lmao.

so will i deactivate after these 10 years, like i’ve been saying for so, so long??? i honestly have no idea. but just know. thanks guise. have a nice gpoy selfie day XD. grab your wands. your tardises. grab your war paint. grab your whatever the fuck other fandom specific stuff that was one that hella cringe post from 2011 til 2015 random tumblr. that relic is as old as time itself. just as this mysterious roaring pikachu is for someone whose too loyal to leave this W E B B E D H E L L S I T E that’s just as much of a train wreck as she is. lmao.

[selfcarecap]

Yes, I've seen it as well. Gosh, that's quite a lot of posts! I got to admit, I felt a tad self-conscious about contacting you so often within such a short amount of time. (given that this new account has only existed since around august, was it?) Time sure does fly by faster than we'd like to acknowledge. But that number seems awfully higher than I reckoned it would be, not to say I don't enjoy our little exchanges. I don't regret becoming a constant on this blog, ever. On the contrary, it makes me proud. The other day, I even considered extending my gratitude by writing you, sort of, a thank you note, including everything I deemed "overdoing" in my birthday wishes.

Also, please don't worry. My absence, and therefore lack of communication, has nothing to do with your age. I've been around long enough, plus our earliest conversations made it pretty clear to me where to place you on the "general" age range. (the ones where you told me about your uni experience)

-sparkles

Ahh noo don’t be self conscious about talking to me and becoming friendzzzz 🥰 it’s not a bad thing <3 and dw lovely anon had even more tags (92) on my other blog and coconut oil anon 42 so yk dw <3 and okay sparkles i’m sorry for not knowing but……. how long have we been talking?? cause i feel like i’ve only known you since i changed to this blog.. which would mean the number is so high bc it’s the amount of our all time interactions (that’s not the correct expression but ykwim skjssj). but idk my perception of time has been lacking lately skdhendhsj ik you obv didn’t always have the name but i feel like sparkles was only born after i switched to this blog anyway… like September or something but i could be wrong :( but aww i’m proud and happy ab it too 💖🥰

and awww🥺 ilysm ❤️ haven’t stopped rereading your bday message every day btw 😌

Ahh that is truee. I mean I was aware that my general age group wasn’t a secret, I’ve dropped plenty of hints and I would say I act my age? Ofc we’re all different but yeah I don’t think a 26 year old for example would talk and type how I do so asksjsjsj okay okay i’m glad 😌