#but at this point i'm curious where theyre going lol

[plaguethewaters]

sometimes you see a fanfiction with a take so BAD on some charchters you just. gotta read it all. out of morbid fascination or something

like not even bad bad - everyone has their own opinions yadda yadda - but also how have we watched the same serie man

[jellori]

Hi i came back since i have a ton of silly question, hope you don't mind dear !!

So imagining that other's critters are ALIVE and well, what would relationship Dawn would have ? (I'm imagining him and Craftycorn do a lot of draw that Dawn would offer at his two dad's 😊❤)

Does also mean that Dawn would interact with Huggy, Kissy or even the Prototype at some point ?

I'm sorry i ask a lot and if you already response i apologies but i'm really curious how it's going on !!

Bye <3

I dont mind asks, ever!

I have a bunch of requests in my Box I still will answer. But as I said. Just too busy to draw rn!

Now to the ask:

Well if the critters were alive, I just see them all as a big family. Very close because I assume the factory is still shut down- but theyre alive.

I know Crafty, Happy and Kickin would make amazing Babysitters to get the energy out of Dawn. Its always very easy to put the pup to sleep after hanging out with them as they do many activitys. Arts just fun as a whole- but with the other two its when The zoomies activate and its just a hour of fun!

Bobby is a big overbearing but lovely aunt- very affecionit and we love her.. but Dawn does not like the kiss attacks he gets at visits..

And she tends to pinch their cheecks often.

Bubba very much turns everything into a lesson- but he makes it fun so Dawn does not mind.

With Picky with her cooking theres always something new to try.

And lucky for Dawn hes allowed to be the be the Taste tester more often than not.

More than once has she had to grab the Pup to stop them from just biting into a pie she made..

Edit I forgot a part of the question lol

I dont think Dawn meets huggy or kissy. As theyre in another part of the factory completly and Dawn doesnt leave the Area where all their buildings are.

Catnap has talked about the prototype. Hes still a believer-

Even when Dogday is quick to shut him up about it..

Maybe there and here Dawn has heard things or seen a arm around- but thats it

[crushedsweets]

I am so curious as to what you'd think about Nina and Hoodie as a duo. They've been two of my absolute favorites (even if Brian technically isn't even a creepypasta) since I was younger and I've always loved them as a sort of big brother/little sister pairing. They are so siblings to me I adore them. What are your thoughts on the sillies..

OHHH this is actually super interesting... but also im worried i do not have a lot to say because they won't mesh very well/very much. but i will try. not super realistic headcanons i think but what do i know... <3

brian isnt very present in my story, partially bc ik some mh fans dont like the crossover very much. and by time ninas in the story, i want him+tim to kinda separate from slenderman as toby and kate take over. he's still involved and coming around since he gets horrible slender sickness(but its from the operator) if he's away too long, but he doesn't live near or befriend most of the main cast..

nina is very present in my story because i love her and she is such a good and fun representation of the fandom yk. but brian is much more realistic and late 30s man, while nina is a very cartoonish early 20s girl. theyre on very different fields character and life wise...

BUUUUUUUUUT they would still meet of course.

she'd be bubbling around the entire cast, meeting people through jeff. people initially think she's in the same vein as jeff, natalie, and toby, with a LONG list of blood on their hands influenced by the operator, so they just don't think much about it. theyre mostly surprised by how cheery she is, but the proxies are the first to find out she's just... obsessed with jeff..... so thats very off putting. brian isn't fond of it.

nina would develop some light slender sickness(again, from the operator) just by being around jeff all the time, but the operator never infected her because he didn't see her as a worthy vessel. so, she would have to come to the proxies about it. if toby isnt in the mood or busy, she'd just have to hope brian/tim are around with some pills that'll soothe the pain

brian is more likely to help. with nina, he'd be quick to take on a more protective role, trying to console her as she cries on the couch holding her head whining about static.

initial convos would go smth along the lines of "do you want some coffee ? or uh kids like hot chocolate huh... maybe tea" "i'm literally in my 20s please tell me toby has weed somewhere" "that does not help with this pain i promise" "how would you know" "haha. water it is."

brian was a major stoner back in his early 20s and nina thinks its fucking hilarious. . . she'll try to get him to smoke with her but he's rlly not interested LOLLLL.... hes like 15 yrs older than her he thinks its weird .

again, he's not around a lot, but she's always happy to bump into him. she'd be squealing n shit 'HIII BRIANNNN how r u :3' and he'd just be like :) hey nina. and then never answer the 'how r u' bc he doesnt actually wanna sit and talk .

its a good change of pace. he's been through hell and back for well over a decade by this point, everyone around him is a sad sack of shit, and he spent a long time just. fighting to be an optimistic, cool guy to hang around . . but .... like.... um..... its hard to be that kind of person after all he's been thru. something about nina just forces that sort of like..... glee out of him . its not a huge difference where he's suddenly bouncing and giggling and whatever, he's still just Some Guy. but he'll be like :) lol .

mayhaps he'd catch her trying on toby's goggles and he'd offer to let her try on his mask. but nina would fake gag and be like 'no i dont want that dirty musty nasty sack on my head' and he'd be like ?????. then he'd say she can wash it and then try it on. which.. as an older sibling.... is the type of shit i'd do just to get my sister to do smth for me that i dont wanna do LMFAOOO. she might fall for it just cuz my dear nina is the ultimate fangirl

i dunno i kinda struggled with this one just cuz in my au, they wouldnt be all that close and the Type of characters they are don't mesh very well, but i am super fond of the concept and would love to try expanding on it more

[astroninaaa]

hi thanks for your explainer posts on the legal stuff, they're super interesting! i'm currently studying for the exam you have to take to get into US law schools (since theyre graduate programs here unlike in most places where law is an undergraduate degree) so its really interesting to learn a bit about how the law functions differently in other places!

one thing i'm curious about -- when i first saw the info about cellbit being able to get the twitter info for these accounts, i assumed that he wasn't actually going to go through with suing ALL of them, and it would be more likely that most of them would simply get some sort of cease-and-desist letter instead, with maybe just a couple having full legal processes to use them as examples. However, I saw people on twitter saying that the process is actually a lot more simple than i had assumed and also takes place mostly online, so suing all of them would actually be more realistic than it sounds. do you know anything about that? how likely do you think it is that he actually sues all of these people (and also the other batches of accounts that probably just aren't public yet that hes also gonna go after later lol)

hi anon!!! good luck on your exam, i really really hope you get in!!!! law is So Cool.

yes it is a LOT more simple than that. he wouldn’t need to sue them individually, and in brazil nowadays we do a LOT if not almost all of court/lawsuit work through the internet. mediation meetings are done through zoom. oral sustentation as well. it’s preeeetty chill

if he wants to, i’m absolutely sure he can sue all of them at once pretty easily. it depends on what his strategy is tho. i think sending cease-and-desist letters could also be a good call and probably way easier than suing hundreds of people, because even tho it’s simpler than it sounds, it’s still fucking hard /lh

even tho the crimes committed are basically the same, the degree of fucked up shit said throughout the many accounts and tweets varies quite a bit, so even tho he could sue everyone in the same lawsuit, it would still be 😭😭😭 a MESS and the judge might think the situations are too different bc of that varying degree and ask him to do different lawsuits anyway. so, like, how worth it would it be?

i don’t know how likely it is for him to sue everyone because that depends on him and his lawyer and what they think will work best, but i think he did the most important bit already — which was getting twitter to delete all the tweets, which they already have (they actually turned in to court with all the proof that they deleted everything like, this week, iirc). if he wants to sue everyone, he can, but i think he also can just sue the worst ones and that’d be wayyy easier. there’s also the whole discussion on whether or not he can sue the foreigners. so while he technically could sue everyone, can he sue the non-brazilians? the judge still has to decide that

so yes like technically he can and if he really wants to drive home the point of “you’re not free of consequences for what you say on the internet” he def should, but i think it depends on his strategy here.

[sege-h]

Sonic Movie 3 trailer thoughts, don't read beyond this point if you haven't seen it or otherwise don't want to be spoiled

Pros:

-I'm excited for the fights in this movie but that's not a surprise

-VERY curious as to how they'll handle Shadow and his backstory since Gerald is still in the picture

-I do like Keanu as Shadow although I feel like I need to hear more of the voice to decide if I'm really sold on it

-THE MOTORBIKE i was hoping it'd get used. I Was wondering if the one that's been on tour irl is a prop from the movie but it doesn't look like it? Plus they used it as a movie 3 ad at gamescom even though the backdrop for it used Movie 2 assets just with the 3 logo because like. We had gotten NOTHING yet. No trailer, no posters, just the logo for it.

Cons:

-H a t e that Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are being called on by the government now. I know this is the most copaganda Sonic of them all just by having Tom be a cop, and Wade being a protagonist too since he got his own show and all (lol. Lmao)

But I didnt expect them to go full in given that in the first 2 movies the military is the secondary bad guy. The story this movie is based on (SA2, obv) is the most anti-military thing ever and it could've easily still been the case for the movie too. Shadow gets out, overconfident military idiots think they can get him back on their own AND get Sonic too in one fell swoop by framing him for Shadow's bad deeds. It's even easier here than in the games because they could just go 'Well we only know one too fast for the naked eye hedgehog alien so its clearly you doing this'

-I've been against Jim Carrey putting on a fat suit from the start. Because I knew that if movie Eggman didn't start out fat (which he didn't) and gets fat later then they'd go for the fatphobic angle of 'ewww hes fat now ewww hes a slob because being fat and a slob go hand in hand guys right am I funny yet huh guys haha do you get my joke yet' and that's EXACTLY what happened in this first trailer alone

Extra notes: I dont know why they think Eggman getting zapped by the quill is so funny that they had to do it 3 times, however I was watching a Sam stream just today where he was like 'if he licks that quill again im gonna fight someone' so I do think it's funny from the aspect of 'oh man theyre gonna get him in the trailer alone' HSDHSHDS

[cerealmonster15]

Now I'm very curious about this Ruggie 2nd Years Rizz...

oh shit now i gotta back up what i said LOL omg lemme think um um ok here are scenes off the top of my head that TO ME are certified ruggie moments w/the second years and also me talking about their vibes,,,

that one vignette story [i think ruggies ceremony robes] where hes helping out at mostro lounge and he and azul have a hive mind moment where theyre bonding over their money grubbing ways, and jamil is also there and says something like 🧍 hmm wow you two are unnverving when you are together actually. and theyre both like "yeah normally i cant stand his fake ass but we can unite over money ♥" what the hell ever common gay goals i guess 😒kljksldfjdskljf they could come up with SO many money schemes together,, a slowburn via ruggie doing odd jobs at mostro lounge... it could happen ejlekjwrlkdjfsf

actually kalim has a flavor of rizz too but in his case it's like "everyone is my best friend and i cannot be deterred even tho it's kind of off putting in hater school but also it's kind of cute" while ruggie is that "lovable scamp who is kind of a bitch and definitely scheming behind your back" vibe LOL and theyre so funny together. i think kalims lab coat story is the one that comes to mind for them where kalims like OH FUCK i have to cancel the party bc jamil said so and cant help sorry everyone :( and ruggies like NO i will NOT forgive you we HAVE to throw the party. with food. and then they go make food together in the cafeteria and it's cute. i think thats also the one where ruggie was like lol teeehee what if we got this outrageously expensive mushroom for the party haha teehee- and then sam was like yeah i have it in stock and kalim was like yeah ok sure ill buy it. and ruggie was like WAIT FOR REAL??? they are just always a silly combo when theyre together fdlskjfskl like prince and the pauper or whatever... ruggie is doin whatever it takes for a free meal or a quick dollar and kalims like "i am sweating cash money and i love my friends ill buy you whatever you want :)" ruggie has the street smarts to keep kalim alive and kalim can keep ruggie fed lol. ruggie would have his hands full forever but i believe in them LOL. but also ruggie calls silver and kalim the "ira fuwa" "facepalm brigade" and how theyre so frustratingly like. nice and/or oblivious and i think that's FUNNYYYYYYYYYYYYYY i like when ships are FUNNYYY so to me. thats more points fklsdjfkls

ruggie and jamil. they are so funny. i already liked them as 🤝 fellow working class boys [similar to why i LOVE ruggie and epels bond but sorry epel youre banished to the first year realm this post aint about u] i lied when i said off the top of my head, bc i had to double check this one but in JAMILS R card regular uniform story it's jamil ruggie kalim and leona at lunch, jamil and ruggie have like a 2 second bonding moment of basically being the attendant of the other two. once again ruggie likes food and jamil really likes to cook so i do feel theres promise there. but then also when GLOMAS halloween event dropped, that was more proof. that one scene where theyre paired off running together and manipulate those npcs to buy themselves more time,,, w/their schemes and lies and similar style unique magic/signature spells.... sjdklfjdskf they could be such an awful little duo together and i love that for them. truly an iconic moment of partners in crime

RUGGIE AND RIDDLE!!! this is one i initially was like "huh where is this coming from" back in ye olden days of twst bc i'd randomly run into this one person who kept making fanart of them and every time it would end up being by the same person lolol. and back then i think they hadnt interacted too much outside of that one scene in book 2 where ruggie steals riddles magic pen [teehee enemies 2 lovers potential,,, tried to push riddle down the stairs/got his best friend instead... also could apply a lil with jamil considering jamil was also one of his victims] anyway i like their opposite energies, kinda like a lite version of floyd/riddle with ruggie taking the role of one being more loose and, again like w/kalim, hes more street smart. riddle was sheltered all his life. i think theres potential to balance each other out. AND THEN ALSO later we got halloween 2 event where riddle ruggie and ortho were in a group together searching for mirror shards. i thought it was cute when they bonded doing a lil puzzle and all talked about doing an escape room together. I saw cute fanart of that once and it hasnt left my mind

ALSO speaking of riddle but also kalim and silver theres the beloved anthology comic which counts in my mind. the one where silver was struggling to stay awake and asks ruggie for his notes and then kalim is like LETS HAVE A STUDY PARTY ILL ASK JAMIL TO HELP!!!! and ruggies like YEAH FREE FOOD also we should invite riddle.

look at that. like ruggie even openly admits later hes literally just there for the feast but he made a point to be like We Need Riddle Here Also and i literally cant stop thinking about it actually. like sure hes right in terms of studying but like did he even give a shit about that part. also since im here and i need to talk more silver/ruggie theres also the part of this same comic where silver touches ruggies ears and he immediately falls asleep

like wtf thats so cute [source btw...] [i cant remember if they had any rule on reposting screenshots but i didnt see any when i was glancing around so i hope i am not killed for this!!!!]

once again ruggie has the street smarts that can assist silver who grew up in the woods with his only other socialization boy his age for years being Sebek Zigvolt jklJFDKLSJKFLS blease teach him what regular(?) boys behave like. and then back again like what i said in kalim's part, where ruggie called them in one of those laundry stories [i cant fuckin remember which vignette it is bc at least 2-3 of them are about laundry and i MIX THEM UP] but i think it's one where ruggie goes with leona to diasomnia and are like "hey bitches malleus' robes got mixed up with leonas" and silver is there and silvers like "oh my god malleus made a friend" and leonas like "i literally do not like that man what the hell" and ruggies like "sorry leona silvers just like that. so is kalim btw." like im obsessed with the concept of silver and kalim being So Sweet And Oblivious that apparently the other second years are all looking at them like a unit and being like "man what is their problem" thank you ruggie for this lore. for my life.

ruggie n the twins r also funny. like what i said with azul i could see him having a slowburn when hes working at mostro lounge lol and i could see it as a haters to lovers thing bc everyone in this place is a BITCH but we love that for them. i think ruggie would be fighting for his life with floyd but tbh who wouldnt be. actually idr much of their interactions except i think they were both in portfest on team performer and even then i cant recall specific interactions fjklfjeklwjflew bc floyd was like fuck this im already good at shit you bitches are on your own LOL but also i remember floyds whole thing bein he can just pick up whatever skill as needed whenever it suits his fancy and he learns real fast. i think ruggie could #respect the grind except i dont think floyd gives a shit about doing it for money. redirects to azul and his schemes JFKLDJSKLFJSD still. i think they could be funny plotting scheming bitches together if they wanted. i think this is my weak spot i cant remember many specifics BOYS WHERE ARE YOU!!! but also theyre the 2 odd ones out in terms of second years w/o an onscreen classmate. thats one point in their box LOL. i think floyd would join ruggie in a little snooping and stealing of snacks. for funsies.

okay and then jade the reason i even brought it up in the tags of this post lololol even they i think havent interacted too much that i can remember <- suddenly remembering book 3 was all about bananaclaw helping destroy octavinelle. except i think ruggie was barely there actually and the twins were mostly in the water so this still tracks. i think. well anyway that's not the point MY POINT IS RUGGIE AND JADE in ruggies R card uniform story is funny. i love that ruggie was in the cafeteria in the middle of the night looting for snacks and then jade just. Was Also There. hello fellow student i am very normal and taking a walk at night <- i actually did this in college all the time so idk why im bullying him but. dont fancy boarding high schools have CURFEWS actually idk. anyway. i love how quick and crafty ruggie is the second he realizes hes FUCKED UP and jade might KILL HIM [and then jade just. god i literally never know when hes being coy or genuinely like 🧍what do u mean i am a regular teenager why ever would anyone fear me.] anyway they kinda matched each others freak A LITTLE a little bit. jade is a bigger freak but i like that ruggie sorta has that octavinelle schemer vibe to him sdkjfklsd "hey you ate my vegetables" "oh FUCK well ill trade u with recipes" "wow these r awesome teach me more" "NO that will cost you >:)" "ohoho i see how it is >:)" like ruggie feared for his life for a second but as soon as he did what he promised he was like alright fuck u im outta here teehee. fears deleted. bastard mode returned. a scheming silly little guy who is good with cooking fits right into the little octavinelle pocket

ok that's enough!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i actually think about the second years a lot more than i care to admit LOL they are really fun to mix and match but tbh i say that about every group of students. divorce vortex third year toxic yaoi polycule.... second years are all shoved in a barrel that im shaking back and forth at top speed.... the first years are always trying to kill each other but are also kinda ride or die,,, ough it's cute i love sorting characters into groups and drawing connected lines to them jKLFJDSKLFJ ok i have to go draw overblot yaoi now. thats not related to ruggie but it's related to second years. bye!!!

[kurjakani]

FOR THE CHARACTER ASK THING!!!!! Im quite curious about your peter lucas thoughts, whats goin on with that old man?

SEND ME A CHARACTER AND I’LL DO THIS;

PHEW THANK YOU I LOVE TALKING ABT THIS MAN. I'm gonna say. I definetly have a bit of a version of him in my head - it's been ages since I listened to MAG and he's kind of taken a life of his own. Also sorry i got so rambly here man i. Ill b real im lik3 right abt to fall asleep but i got exited abt him so here i go nevertheless..m

Sexuality Headcanon: HMM like. Bi. I dont think i can imagine him call himself that tho.

Gender Headcanon: old man. Like thats a part of his gender identity, being old.

A ship I have with said character: w MEEEE. My mag self insert. Lol. But yeah i am not that into the lonely eyes ship, just. Bc i do not care abt Elias all that much! I don't know many ships that include him otherwise. I haven't seen mary keay and plukas shipping but I'd love to. Idk. Awful vibes i think it could be great. Salesa maybe??? But I feel like its more like. Plukas likes looking at Salesa and Salesa kinda forgets hes even there sometimes.

A BROTP I have with said character: martin please. Please martin hang out w him tricking him into thinking ur getting more into the lonely but ur actually occupying his space and u are drifting away from the lonely TOGETHER. Also if u guys have heard the tim & plukas behind the scenes jokes abt cayacking and train documentaries. Yeah that too theyre """"buddies""""

A NOTP I have with said character: haven't come across anything that bothers me !

A random headcanon: i am really split on weather he barely eats or if he's like, a lowkey foodie. Idk why.

General Opinion over said character: For me I do view him as someone HURT by his loneliness, though in the show, if I recall right, he seems quite content? With his existance. Or says he is, and how he's drawn to it.

I will say- I partially mirror some of my own experiences of loneliness onto him. I was so afraid of opening up to people at one point that I convinced myself that I WANTED to be all alone. I used to want to move into a little cottage in the woods and cut off all contact to people. But it was a self destructive coping mechanism. At points a survival mechanism. Maybe canonically Peter Lukas is a reliable narrator?

I recall him talking about the warm glow coming from the windows of houses though, and the loneliness it made him feel- if i'm attributing this right. And i have a really hard time contributing that to anything but YEARNING. And reveling in yearning. I also have experience w that. Yearning is a DELIGHTFUL feeling.

So yeah I think I do find a lot of comfort in the version of Plukas I have in my head.

Honestly he's burrowed a little nest into my head abd become something beyond a little blorbo from my shows.

Like i have thought about marrying him as a performance art piece. But i dont think rustied featherpen would like that.

Anyways hes the hands. I reach out to the old hands with swelled joints and paper thin skin almost translucent yet the palest veins i ever did see like they'v been drained. Bro. He is the medival manuscript where the sun orbits the earth and that's his eyes and where they land on me. He is so far away and like honey 2 me bro

[definitelynotshouting]

Hey friend, I am absolutely rotating the HECK out of Hunger AU rn. I just binged all of the tagged posts and I'm going FERAL! Watchers being like parasitic wasps? Listeners being like fungi? Absolutely based takes.

I'm very much a fan of the emotional realism going on and I'm so terrified of Angry!Mumbo. Like. Bro doesn't get all that angry that often those folks are the scariest properly pissed.

And I relate far too much to the Search Party tbh. Something about the themes of mental and physical illness, wanting to help but not knowing how, the one you want to help not wanting help at this point, the resentment that causes on both sides of that stalemate... yeah I've been there.

Also, I am insanely curious about the ecological niche that Watchers and Listeners fulfill. Like. There has to be a reason they are the way they are. I'm insanely curious about what the environment they evolved in looked like, and even more curious as to what they provide back to the universe in return.

Like. Irl most wasps are predatory insects, controlling the population of pests and invasive species, but the tidbits you've given us about how they feed on emotions and the groups they feed on put me more in mind of, like, herding dogs. Yknow? Does that make sense? Gathering players together and moving them away from half abandoned worlds to let them dissolve back into the greater code. Maybe interviening in virus-infected worlds or virus-vulrable worlds, encouraging those players to move or perish.

And Listeners, well, fungi occupy so many diverse niches they could do just about anything, really. It's very fun to think about and I am rotating them vigorously, thank you for feeding us so well <3

(May I be 🐸 anon?)

This is such a sweet ask i am so 🥺🥺🥺🥺 abt it, im really pleased that you're enjoying the emotional realism ive committed to for this fic, because thats just such an important aspect for me-- my goal here is to depict a deeply emotional, moving, and messy situation about illness and recovery where no one's feelings are punished or demonized by the narrative. Its just so, so important to me that the Search Party (and later on, the other hermits) get their emotions properly respected and explored. Its not just about Grian, even if he is the ultimate focus-- everyone else deserves varied, emotional responses to an ugly and terrifying situation where theres hurt on all sides. This is the kind of realism i love putting in all of my writing, and the kind of justice i want to do for all characters in stories like these!!

Its a little funny how this au originally started with me brainrotting absently about Watcher biology because i wanted to explore the idea of Grian pretending to be an avian and finding certain aspects of it deeply uncomfortable. And then it just. Snowballed into this!! And now i am chewing on worldbuilding for breakfast DKXNSJDJ im really glad you enjoy the Watchers and Listeners lore!!! I need to make a proper post on Devs (or dev crystals, as theyre actually called), as well as general code structure, bc they are both so fucking cool as well

I absolutely love your herding dog analogy, and its giving me some great ideas because for the longest time i couldnt quite figure out what exactly a Watcher's ecological niche was beyond predator to Players and prey for something else that's extinct. But now im really looking at the connection between Watchers feeding habits and Players' biological need for play (or dreams, if you want to get into the minecraft end poem of it all), and theres something there that i really wanna take some time to tease out before i give a concrete answer. I need to update my hunger au masterlist LOL i am saur behind 😭

Anyway this was such a lovely ask to sink my teeth into!!!! Thank you so much for sending it, and ofc you can be frog anon!!! This was a really stimulating conversation for me so thank you again for getting my brain whirring :D i hope to see you in the inbox again!!

[rontra]

Okay, your ideas are just so fascinating.

First Raven x Willow, and now Summer x Salem.

They're curious ideas, and I would really love to know what inspired you to create fanworks based around these two AU crackpairs?

BHSDFHBJD i'm glad you think it's interesting 😌

i think it comes naturally with the territory of having my particular media interests. OR maybe my brain is just wired in a special way and it's not as natural as i think. i dont knowHBDSFMJ

I MEAN OKAY the most barebones, un-entertaining logistical answer is: as someone who is a big fan of the rwby milfs i necessarily end up with a lot of rarepairs on my hands because the pool of characters i choose from is already chock-full of rares who have minimal or no interactions w each other. but that mostly accounts for my one-off "huh that's neat" posts that i don't really pursue further (certainly not to the point of. umm. how many words is TCaBS now)

the second tier is of course that i just think it's fun. right. it's fun to come up with ways to execute something like that and it's fun to see what other people think of it. it's not always very deep sometimes it's just a fun prompt challenge or experiment. it doesn't take a lot of effort to think of these ideas because this play is very intuitive to me, so a lot of the time i'm just in my little playpen and it produces fanworks that you can also see

the third layer of the answer is the storyteller instinct (lol) and where it really starts burrowing into my brain. that's when there's character to dig into. bc i LOVE doing character stuff and figuring out how 2 weirdos would interact and what would ripple out from that…

Raven/Willow and Summer/Salem are great examples of this to be sure. definitely rarepairs that have STUCK with me and ive gotten INVESTED in making fanworks for. this is because i find their characters complement each other very well and create interesting stories just by simply pairing them together… i've already talked At Great Length (and could easily talk for Another Great Length) about summer and salem's relationship specifically in the context of my art of them, and there's something like it going on with blackswan too--

the type of narrative relationship that they have… raven and willow are sort of mirror characters to each other too. both are absent mothers to the primary characters, who vanished from their positions after being knifed in the back by someone they loved (raven was let down by team strq when she needed them most; willow's husband finally tells her that her entire life is a stageplay farce) - both of them are totally checked out from their family and reclusive - both of them are inclined to drink (overt with willow obviously drinking on screen, more subtle with raven strewing bottles all around her tent) - neither is recognizable to their daughters as the same person they were before breaking, and reuniting with the woman who vanished is still a resolution hanging over us - a great deal of emotional real estate is vested in them despite having relatively scarce screentime, right? they're both very interesting characters in their own right and it made me hop around like a little goblin that RT gave me a pair of mirrors who Do Not Know Each Other's Existence (well, that's not necessarily entirely true; raven might know willow EXISTS on account of roughly knowing the schnee family roster since theyre . kinda famous. but even that would be one way and sort of Conceptual rather than personal lol)

the way they handle their problems is different, as is their overall strategy for engaging with the world. but those differences ultimately highlight their similarities too, and the end product is that its only more interesting to try and imagine how they would function as a pair, sharing so many of the same wounds but coping with them differently. could they condemn each other? are they used to not being condemned? TCaBS is at least partially about willow being the only bitch in the world who looks at raven and goes "no i get it", you know? i'm into that kind of thing--this is ALL OVER the summer/salem fanworks too--and any type of interesting dynamic like that is what really gets me into making works to explore it…

i'm using raven/willow as an example here just to demonstrate the line of thinking i had particular to that ship of course. there's a lot of various dynamics in the world that you can easily spin up by picking two or more rwby milfs and pushing them together. it's just one example but that's sort of how my brain works with this stuff in general. i don't really ever think about if the characters have a defined relationship in canon or not. i just think about what would be interesting or complementary… i'm following my heart!!!!!! playing in my playpen!!

this is a long post just to say pretty much it's largely that i operate without thinking about things like "rarepair" or "crackship". i just go "look at my ships boy" and post something ludicrous that still somehow sells people on it. amen

[koocycle]

omg over wine was delicioussssss I devoured it up this afternoon when I really should have been working LOL

I'm hoping y/n doesn't go on this trip with jungkook cause it really feels like he only did it as a last minute hasty decision because he realized she wasn't going to just drop everything for him on the fly, and he started feeling insecure because of y/n potentially starting up her career again, at the hands of taehyung no less!!!! (though to be honest I would be insecure too if my wife was photoshooting with kim taehyung wtf)

I think he needs to stew in those emotions for a while and really ask himself why he feels the need to stifle her career, which she clearly loves and it makes her excited and happy, and if he even has any leeway to feel that way in the first place, since he's always making his career a priority over not just the wellbeing of his marriage but also his own wife's feelings :( and i know he doesn't necessarily see it that way cause he keeps saying that hes working so he can give them a good life but like.. come dude haha. if you can afford designer brands regularly you're already doing pretty well for yourself, its not like he's working to keep food on their table or theyre going to go into deep financial debt if he cuts a few hours a week! I felt soo bad for y/n at the award dinner. like imagine finding out your spouse has pretty much accepted a promotion (which in and of itself is a big deal and can definitely alter people's timeline/plans/life) and then being gaslit into thinking that you're the one overreacting. that would drive me absolutely batty.

I really hope they can get past this "not talking and just having sex" thing too because they're both being little chickens right now and avoiding the much needed honest heart to heart without their guards up talk with each other!!! I know it makes for juicy angry smutty scenes but sometimes I just feel like girl.... if you don't put a metaphorical barbed wire fence around your vagina and if this man doesn't keep his bloody pecker in his pants right now I swear to god!!!

anyway... im sorrty this is so long lmao just wanted to let you know that the story is bloody amazing, and I cannot wait to see what's in store for these characters!!

yeah the timing for that “gift” was definitely a little off since he already made it so clear that he wasn’t happy with the whole modelling ordeal

maybe it’s a little soon to say, but i think he isn’t even aware of how happy it makes her to be back at the studio for a simple shoot, that he isn’t even aware how he feels the need to stir the pot about it. i think he simply doesn’t understand yet. you can’t know what it is that your partner desires when you only spend the nights with them, right before your up and about the next day and continue the cycle! to him, it’s probably just a little shoot she went to instead of being with him that particular day. which it technically is, tae said himself that it didn’t have to be anything big. but to her, it is!

and the thing about the designer brands is very true! i feel like at this point it just became routine for him and he kind of forgot how to love her the way he used to. he obviously still loves her, it’s evident in the way they argue, but times are different now.

the methaporical barbed wire fence!!! omg.

imagine if she actually did… i’d kinda be curious where that would lead them to LOL

[eirian]

When Death Smiled sounds really interesting, I wanna hear more about it! I'm trying to find it through your links currently but not having any luck, so I'm assuming it's a story you haven't posted yet? If you have I'm sorry, I'm really bad at finding stuff :( But uhh, questions about it.... Is there a character you're particularly fond of despite them not having a very prominent role in the story (maybe a background comic relief or something like that)? I'm curious about the world building also, since the story includes angels and themes of death did you make your own versions of Heaven and Hell? Or did you discard that general concept and work with your own unique version of a possible afterlife? What is the part of this story you enjoy focusing on the most? Sorry for the wall of text, haha, I just love seeing people talk about their ideas. Hope I didn't go too overboard!

THANK U SO MUCH WAHHH

yeah its not posted yet! i just have some character refs posted on my toyhou.se so far :3

i havent rly gotten attached to any bg characters besides lowkey the old guy who ran the coffee shop before mortimer came in, but ive been tossing around ideas for other characters like the grim reaper and maybe a love interest for azrael (though im not sold on him having a love interest at all at this point, it was just an idea to toss around)! im most attached to azrael lol

as for the world, i guess i kinda did have my own versions of heaven and hell though they werent exactly explicitly named heaven and hell if that makes sense? just, a place were bad spirits go and a place where good spirits go, yknow? and also i guess a purgatory where so-so spirits go LOL. but azrael and chaim arent traditional angels in the sense that theyre not christianity-related angels; theyre "angels" in the sense that they take responsibility for bringing souls to life and ushering them to the next life after death! they were "born" at the same time and mirror each other so they consider themselves brothers but they dont actually have a mother per se. i GUESS the "higher power" in this story (which isnt really touched on tbh) could be considered their parental figure but i havent rly given it much thought

my favorite thing to focus on in the story is the relationship between mortimer and azrael, i love guy-accidentally-adopts-some-kid stories and this is definitely one of them lol!

THANK U FOR UR INTEREST <3333 i love to speak

[whitetrashjj]

hi! so i've recently finished the 100 very late i know and ahh! i've gotten to love bob and eliza as well after watching interviews of them im so happy theyre married they look so in love (i say this like i didnt spend the last 3 weeks of my life obsessing over them LMAO) and i was rly surprised to see that they kept denying hating the romantic bellarke agenda? especially in the earlier seasons, but it was SO obvious, to me at least, that they were the main ship of the show... i scoured the internet for reasons why but all i could get was that the fandom hates jroth and the fandom would like to bury jroth alive SDJHFDSHJ but yeah! still rly curious and ik you were actively in the fandom during the time so if you could just briefly explain i would be vvvvv grateful

Okay... I'm gonna try and give a bit of a run down of the history of beliza and bellarke and jroth and clexa and how that all influenced things. Keep in mind I wasn't in the fandom from the start so the beginning is second hand recounts.

Okay so from the start bellarke was obviously intended, they were canon in the books but clearly with the Finn thing and everything else they were going for a more slow burn kinda vibe which was good obviously. Now this is where the bellarke denial started, but it was more casual there. Like a playfull not trying to give away the slow burn or surprise (this is very typical for slow burn ships and that's why I love the Pates for how they are handling jiara). So all was well in the house.

At this point Bob and Eliza were really good friends so that wasn't a problem. At one point apparently Devon kinda let it slip that they were actually in a fwb kinda situation at some point during the early season. I never saw first hand proof of this but it was a known fact amongst the fandom and I find likely given where they ended up.

Now, I'm not 100% on the order of event here but the following happened over s2/s3. Two major things that changed the fate and reception of bellarke forever.

The first being clexa. Now, from a story telling pov clexa was never going to last and Lexa's fate was always sealed. But I'm not going to go too much into that whole thing. But obviously there was alot of hype around Lexa and that ship. Which Jason loved, that man is driven by ego and having thousands of people up his ass fuel him. So he shifted his focus to them, knowing full well he was going to kill Lexa. And then when the backlash hit he kept pandering to them - putting little Lexa mentions in to keep the viewer ship, to keep people talking about his show. And by result of this the bellarke denial came in strong and their romantic development or story like was put on hold.

Now meanwhile it seems beliza had a falling out, Bob started dating his long term gf Aryn and they would not attend cons together. Also time to double down on the bellarke denial. Only this time it was legit (not that bellarke wasn't happening or intended, but they didn't like it and didn't want it to happen) we got the infamous 'bellake shit' quote from Eliza, which she insisted she actually said 'ship', even tweeted it (has since then once happily married admitted that she said shit lol) And yeah while we were still getting the on screen hints it seemed no one was rooting for it personally.

Then. The tide turns. Bob and Aryn has broken up. And we hear an announcement. Bob and Eliza are going to a con together?? Wait. what? And this con. Let me tell you. Changed the world. They were best friends again. Now, I am not an irl people shipper, there have been very few that I have seen and speculated before they were together and these two were one. I can't remember exactly why but there was something in the air before that and I was sus. And then there were a few things, like Eliza was saying how her favourite song was Ophelia and then she turns to Bob and says 'you must be so sick of hearing it i play it so much' and I was hmm because are they spending that much time together? Bob was wearing a bunch of mardigras necklaces and when Eliza said she wanted one and a fan overheard bob saying to her something 'you'll have to give me something later for one' and then after break Eliza had some ??? Which people freaked out about but not enough in my opinion. And then the fact that (actually this might have been a later con my timeline is messy its been a while) Eliza was wearing an engagement ring and straight up told people she was engaged when they asked. People assumed it was to the guy who play mccrery because there was rumours of them dating but they hadn't been seen together in ages.

And then most importantly they were now pro-bellarke. Talking excitedly about the scenes. Saying themselves are sometimes confused because the script will saying something like 'bellamy looks at her lovingly.' but then Jroth continues to deny things. they weren't to the level of it now but they were for sure making it clear that jroth was gaslighting a fandom lol.

Anyway moving on to one quite morning, I hadn't touch social media all morning as it did laundry and when I finally take a break the fandom is imploding - thankfully I had only missed it by like 15minutes. But Bob and Eliza has both tweeted that they had gotten married with a pic of their hands on their wedding day. Now I instantly believed it - oh yeah it's all coming together. But there was all this shock because it seemingly came out of no where. People thought they had been hacked, and then other cast would congratulate them and then they were hacked. Certain people were saying its a cover because Eliza and Alycia actually got married, and other were saying Bob and Eliza were homophobic for getting married during pride month. But at the end of the day it was all true, there were married and it was happily ever after.

But for some reason this seemed to piss off JRoth and he seemed to get so much worse. At one point during the filming of season 7 i think (i get confused about later seasons it could have been 6 or 8) Bob and Jason unfollowed each other and we though it was hilarious until we realised what it could have meant. Recently beliza revealed that the bellarke get together was actually written, in a place that so many people has speculated and it would have made sense but at the last minute it was taken out.

It seemed like Jason didn't like the beliza was together, he was having more and more issues with Bob and Jason just didn't do bellarke out of spite. Did that stupid murder out of spite and gave a pandering ending for clexas out of spite.

Once the show was over beliza have been very open about how bellarke was always planned from the beginning and they don't understand why it never happened.

Any way I've been out of it for a while so I'm a bit foggy on the detail these days but that's the guts of it. Anyone is free to add

[firesofdainix]

Curious, do you think Lloyd would forgive Morro for what he did in canon?

Short Answer: It depends, but I like it if he doesn't because it's spicier that way

Long Answer: I've seen a LOT of Green Cousins fics, in which Lloyd and Morro have already buried the hatchet a long while, or are set in another alternate universe entirely. The 'green cousins set in a time past possession where Morro was forgiven is definitely not one of my favorite genre of ninjago fics (if you can call it that? Lol) because for me its just a lot of forced interaction and it barely is written naturally. (Except for @/peachyninjago 's fics theyre the best and only Green Cousins post-Possession fics I'd read ���🙏🙏) While I haven't dug deep into the fandom for actual in-depth Morro redemption fics (recommend me some because i wanna know how I'm doing), the duo, like I said, focuses on those things I've said before. It's fun to see them, but I also have this underlying problem (it's probably just me though) in which i internally have a lot of thoughts going through as I, well, properly read stuff instead of skimming over. For example, I wonder if Lloyd has forgiven Morro enough to the point he is seen willingly hanging out with him (and only him LMAOOO), but that's just me

In Splinter in the Blind Man's Eye, it's been implied, MANY TIMES, that being possessed by Morro was the WORST thing that happened to him. The feeling of now being able to control his body, how he felt so much guilt while Morro does a lot of immoral crimes with his own hands, and the traumatic moments in which he was caged in his own mind like a prison, forced to bear witness and become an audience member for Moro's own thoughts (implied that he also thought about murdering his friends in an explicit manner...). When he got out, he felt so weak and did nothing but watch as his friends suffer, and I KNOW he blames himself. He blames himself for being too weak to resist Morro, for letting him hurt his friends and family, for getting manipulated so he could involuntarily release the Preeminent from the Cursed Realm. He definitely holds a lot of guilt over Morro's actions, some of which he is not at fault for in the slightest. In short, he is both scared of Morro and feels like crap even thinking about him.

So, in a scenario in which he actually lives, after all the things he's done... I think Lloyd wouldn't cope with it. This man, ghost, had tormented him for what seems to be a few months, which left him so drained and exhausted. I have an inkling of a feeling Morro is able to show remorse and regret (his final scene in Possession tells us so, choosing death over being forgiven by his master with an accepting smile on his face) he's also bad at feelings and is heavily prideful. So, while Morro DOES try to show he's sorry, it'll take Lloyd a LONG time to forgive him, thanks to the memories he had made with him that were a lot unpleasant. There may even be a timeline where Lloyd *wouldn't* forgive him, cutting contact with him or being sort-of friends/acquaintances.

It's one of the things I've been juggling since the start of TAGOMJTR: how Lloyd and Morro’s relationship continues to grow, and how to develop it in a natural pace despite their grievances with one another. It'd be spoilers to say what actually happens... but Morro is still NOT even in the first step of making up to Lloyd.

[cerealmonster15]

silver/kalim, you say? 👀

i havent thought of this ship before but i Am curious if you want to talk about them

YES OUGH i love themmmm. theyre def one of those ships that like, i didnt notice in main story bc they havent shown up together much, so it's very much come more from the vignette/card stories + some events. especially bc silver himself hasnt been in the main story much yet!

there are a handful of specific instances that really have me 👀 at them:

in i think leona's ceremony robes card, when leona's coming to get his mixed up laundry from malleus, silver's at peak Oblivious Mode and thinks leona's there to talk to malleus bc they are Friends, despite leona very blatantly saying they arent lkfdshgklfdj. ruggie makes a comment that silver and kalim are known by the second years for their kinda airheaded happy go lucky vibes. i think the eng translation called it 'the facepalm brigade' or something lol. like everyone else can be in a bad mood but those two never are and are just painfully oblivious lol. it's cute that they have the same sweet boy vibes :)

they're classmates! in... uhhh.. i think it's either kalim's standard uniform or silver's standard uniform story, kalim makes a point to wake silver up after he fell asleep, to remind him to change classes. it's cute that kalim cares!!! he also gets advice in kind of a funny way from kalim lol, about if he's being too hands off with malleus like sebek says he is [and then silver decides, after seeing how helplessly reliant kalim is on jamil, that silver is Right to want to give malleus space to grow LOL]

silver's lab coat story - silver and kalim are held after class and have to do make up work bc silver fell asleep in class and kalim broke equipment in class jfkldshg. they decide to stay back and work together :) silver is still having trouble staying awake, and confides in kalim [and jamil who got pulled into it lol rip] about his chronic sleep problem, kalim decides that before they work on their assignment, they should make a wake-up potion to help silver stay awake, and silvers really grateful that kalim's so enthused about helping him with it 🥺 the poor goobers both get each other so off track so easily lol. but it's so cute. you can tell in that story kalim really cares about silver and helping him feel better ;A;

a very small thing lol but in jade's halloween ssr story at the very beginning, when kalim's trying to bargain with jade or w/e, jamil complains that kalim's taking so long and silver fell asleep bc he had to wait so long. the way that convo goes just makes it sound like silver was hanging out with kalim and jamil Just Cuz and i thought it was cute kjlfdshg ANYWAY

in the second halloween event [it hasnt come out in engtwst yet so ill avoid story spoilers; im talking the endless halloween/not the masquerade one] there's a scene where jamil says silver scarily reminds him of kalim - i think it had something to do with his Innocent Good Boy Energy or something lol. and silver's response was something like "oh, thank you. kalim is nice to me in class so i am glad you think we're similar." and then later when [REDACTED] happens, silver makes a point to say to kalim that he is a good person and considers him a dear friend 🥺 this scene in particular made me SO HAPPY lol i felt SO VALIDATED!!!!

i THINK. I THINK!!! there's a similar opposite scene. where someone tells kalim that he's a lot like silver and kalim takes it as a compliment?? BUT i can't for the life of me remember the context. i'm not sure if it also happens in halloween 2 or if that's in another event/story. or if i made it up LOL <- god does anyone know what the hell i'm talking about. it's been so long. i used to be so sure it existed and now i dont KNOW!!!

the general vibe of noble/knight is cute. like kalim is the eldest of a wealthy powerful family, to the point that he has an attendant- jamil - and silver is raised as a knight to malleus. i always thought it would be cute if later down the line, jamil's off to live his life free as he pleases, and silver like takes on that role either officially or unofficially by Kalim's side to protect him bc he Loves Him 🥺 wah wah let me have my cliches LOL

circling back to the thing ruggie said in my first bullet point lol, i found through google translating journeys lol, theres a ship tag or something for them in jpntwt/pixiv or w/e that i believe comes from that story. i think it's いらふわコンビ - if you search that it's nothing but silver/kalim lol. when i was auto translating captions with google on fanart of those two, i kept seeing the term "fluffy combination" or "irritated combination" and i was like. what the hell's that mean lol. this was before engtwst existed, so i think i eventually tried comparing the characters to ruggie's dialogue in that story ^ on youtube, and it was clllloooose but not quite the same or something. a few fan translations i saw translated the thing ruggie said as "mad free zone". like those two together Do Not Get Mad lol, or that they have a "frustratingly, easy going vibe". and a spanish sub called it "el espacia libre de locos" which is roughly "space free of craziness/wildness" whatever. anyway. いらふわコンビ. whatever it means, people use it in silver/kalim fanart lol <- there is a lot of adorable fanart of the two of them :')

not really super related but i believe the miraheze wiki says somewhere that silver, kalim, and rook are the only three students that use/specialize in light magic. i dont really know where that comes up but it's a fun fact/i think it's bc theyre the only three characters not based on villains/are more hero leaning from their origins? [besides i guess jack since hes supposedly not based off Anything lol just a random wolf boy]. it was just cute that they had that in common, like boys with the good vibes that make u think "why are you in villain school for villains" fjkdslhgf

there might be other scenes/reasons i'm forgetting but that's the gist of why i Love Them. they are sweet good boys.

[writingfics-passingtime]

Same anon as the last one, maybe Murdock goes with her to meet with Reynolds as security again. As even though he's not "jealous" he's protective and Murdock and Reynolds get into a brief altercation and Reynolds security escorts him out he gets a small scratch (possibly from how/where he landed or from the brief altercation itself) but she insists on checking him for injuries and helping him and as he doesn't feel like arguing he caves and she finds out that way?

He doesn't immediately get Reynolds as he understands that she doesn't want to know, but he also can't allow for her to be alone and in danger either so its a win win for both of them (Murdock and reader) in a way lol.

Also I think most 'lers want to get got occasionally and Murdock is no exception so if not that trope then another possibility would be them making a wager and getting "spicy-ish" tied up in some way as theyve both already established theyre uneasy about the amount of trust and safety they already feel about the other. Maybe stormed in together?

Yeah, I'm really interested in the dynamic of how to add in Daredevil going forward. Also very interested in that dynamic between Matt and the reader where they're definitely not official, maybe not even an item at all (bad guys to catch, no time for talking about messin' around, you know?) but Matt is this protective person by nature.

Dinner with Reynolds is pretty much a must at this point, and I think it'll be an interesting internal debate for her regarding Matt. Does she tell him? Why does she tell him? Surely, just because they're working the case kind of together - but does she want him to care? It'll add another layer of tension I'm excited to explore.

I've already started working on the scene with dinner with Reynolds (the soundtrack for writing it is the fifty shades version of Crazy in Love, in case anyone was curious about the feel of the scene) and I'm trying to channel some underlying unease, as well as that eerie big money feel of a marble-floored penthouse with all white furniture and ceiling-height windows. Private art collection tour, maybe?

I'm just spilling the beans at this point, so you'll have to wait and see what happens in part two ;)

[beautifulpersonpeach]

Repost: Ask on BTS Paving the Way

Anonymous: Hey bpp. You talked a little bit about the 'BTS paved the way' discourse on your pinned post but I'm curious to see - read? lol - more on your thoughts about it. If youve talked about it before, can you pls link? Since you might not want to discuss/rehash this at all lol. I got curious because this discourse seems neverending and i just watched a yt video essay abt it. Imo, both sides of the spectrum - army and kpop stans -seems to be missing each other's points. Like, i think a lot of kpop stans havent paid attention to what bts have contributed to kpop and theyve dismissed armys arguments entirely and i think a lot of armys havent been into kpop and kpop history to definitively say the stuff I've seen them saying. A lot of the arguments and statements are very inflammatory too and while I agree with what armys are saying, the language they use isnt going to make kpop stans listen - i mean, the ones who arent blinded by their hate for bts/army anyway lol like a lot of kpop stans think when army say bts paved the way/bts popularized kpop, they always think army mean popularized it in the west. When we have receipts of them doing spectacularly globally, especially in places like india where they seem to have exploded since dynamite. Theyve also broken a lot of records in japan, where kpop is already popular but still seem to have a lot of trouble penetrating mainstream bec theyre very insular. They also think that we mean 'first to xxx', which isnt really what we mean at all. And a lot of army seem to dismiss what older kpop groups have achieved too and just like to prop up bts while putting down other groups and dismissing what theyve achieved for the genre. I just think since a lot of armys are in kpop only for bts -same tbh - we tend to be ignorant of the genre as a whole, which isnt good bec we're always arguing x member is the best in the industry or even bts is carrying the industry on their backs, which dismisses a lot of great artists that are doing great work like solo artists like taemin. Like, I'm an army and I'm not a "stan" of any other kpop artists but the whole argument just makes me v v uncomfortable. I guess i still haven't adjusted to stan culture since i've never been a fan of any artists like i am of bts - to the point of joining the fandom and really immersing myself in it - so the intensity of it is still jarring to me. I know it happens with big western fandoms like taylor swifts too but i think i'm still old school when it comes to being a fan of a musician, you listen to the music, rave about it to friends and buy/stream the music and go about your day.

**

Hi Anon,

Anon, I sympathize completely and not to harp on you here, but my first instinct reading this was “who cares?” - this is generally how I feel about this topic whenever I see it, so not knocking you specifically here. And I’d just like to remind everyone there’s an active, senseless, and deadly war raging right now in Ukraine. Please donate and/or pray for Ukraine if you’re able to.

(And then there’s the leader of Stray Kids who is probably a bigger ARMY than me at this point)

This is not me dismissing the gripes of stans of 1st and 2nd generation groups (the usual suspects), this is me saying that what I’ve seen of this discourse is huge swarths of people engaging in an elaborate exercise in collectively missing the point. And yes I’m also referring to those splitting hairs over the semantics of what it means to pave a road. (Heaven help us). And you already allude to this in your ask, anon.

The phrase: 방법을 만들다 which is what a lot of Koreans have used to describe 'paving the way’, is colloquially used to mean 'chart a course’ or someone showing how something can be done.

If this were a normal conversation with normal people and not k-pop stans, it would be enough to point out that yes, BTS was not the first k-pop group to step foot outside Korea or in the US, but BTS is the one group that has gone farther than any k-pop group has before i.e. created the new path. It’s really that simple. BTS has become a household name globally without doing a single show at Coachella nor having any of the mediaplay seen for other groups that attempted to fully break into the US market. The fact that Korea’s military enlistment laws (which before BTS were enshrined as basically unchangeable) have been modified at least partly on their behalf (and for the benefit of any idol who meets the criteria) and that BTS is the first k-pop group to receive a Grammy nomination, has created a new tier, the highest one yet, of what is possible for k-pop artists.

BTS is the biggest group in the world. They rival Coldplay according to Coldplay. Before BTS, the reality is that this ambition was not even within the realm of possibility for much of k-pop. Even with BTS breaking the records and gaining the influence they have, k-pop is still considered to be niche in some circles, though there is undeniably more visibility and investment brought to the genre since BTS started snagging headlines. Some people still hope BTS will go the way of Psy and BoA who were a fad on the Western landscape for a minute then essentially faded into obscurity. But so far, that’s not what has happened, and everyone is paying attention to see what BTS is doing right, that perhaps other groups can emulate.

BTS won’t be the biggest group in the world forever, but the chances that the next biggest group is a k-pop group, is significantly higher now because of BTS.

La fin.

It’s true some ARMYs can be downright disgusting with how they throw around BTS’s accomplishments and sometimes ignore, dismiss, downplay, or just straight up shit on older groups who made the first moves into Western spheres, whenever this topic comes up.

But a part of me understands them. When BTS won the TSA award in 2017, it felt like hell to be on Twitter and I wasn’t even an ARMY at that point. I did a search through my old screenshots and found more than 15 k-pop fandoms spent weeks shitting non-stop on BTS and ARMYs about how useless it was to win at the BBMAs. It was a non-stop barrage of racism, xenophobia, misogyny, all the -isms you can think of related to POC musicians. Though of course BTS was not the first group to go to the US, all of a sudden, k-pop stans were convinced BTS had 'sold out’, abandoned their heritage and were pandering to 'white colonizers’ (sound familiar?). I started calling myself an ARMY the next year (2018) and as I’ve said already, I was reporting things almost constantly. It was hell.

*

You’re right this discourse seems never-ending because it is never-ending. Remember you’re dealing with k-pop stans who will argue with you that water isn’t wet if it means something positive for their group and some ARMYs are just as bad. Whenever I see people arguing about what paved the way I just mute that whole conversation. I sympathize with you feeling uncomfortable about this topic. I’d like to suggest doing what I currently do which is to not waste a single moment of a single day worrying about something that’s already obvious and settled. This particular discourse is the perfect example of a time sink imo, because really, who cares?

Originally posted: March 18th, 2022 1:35pm