#haha I still haven't changed my weird icon

[falsestardust]

I'm curious about your process for trans Buffyverse character name choosing in your fics and wanted to talk to you about it since it's something we have in common in both our writing (though it just occurred to me that you haven't seen the name change part of my fic yet OOPS so I guess I can't say too much about my own process yet, but I DO already have my answer haha).

For me sometimes I really struggle with this small aspect when I write. I think it's because the character names are so recognizable and iconic. People are connected to these characters with these names and I almost struggle to change them, and worry that my readers will do a little mental ??? every time they read the new name before it clicks. Which honestly is definitely part of the trans experience (people that've known you forever needing to practice your new name) so that works I guess! (There's something else it just occurred to me that I could ask you because I'm navigating it in my own writing but I'll save that for a different ask haha I've already said *too many words*)

How did you pick new names? If you write more trans fics, will you always use the same ones or do you have a list of options you like? Do you go based on meaning or just sound or initials (initials is big for me because I want Faith to be able to use the nickname "B" still haha it feels essential)?

Anyways, thanks for indulging me :) Trans Buffyverse fics!!!!!

the way the names got picked is definitely pretty atypical to be honest. I’m plural, a system - whatever you want to call it - and we have various fictives from Buffy and Angel, who were primarily the ones writing the fics. our Faith and Buffy fictives just used their own names - nobody could think of any other ideas that didn’t feel weird to write, even though the AU versions of the characters that got written in these fics are not very much like our fictives at all

their names were basically entirely chosen based on vibes and what they saw online that they thought suited them (our Hawk particularly likes birds of prey and thinks they are neat and our Beck wanted a name that started with a B, was short, and was fairly gender-neutral)

thank you for the ask!! it’s always cool to talk about this stuff :)

[distant-screaming]

Even if you don't pay attention while watching 2moons you won't miss anything of substance haha 😅 in that sense, it's a perfect background noise show (if you need other series of that kind then I suggest oxygen or enchante)

I'll try to make my answers short cause I could talk all day 🪤 for me the plot, acting and chemistry between characters matter the most ig (in random order) 🪃 recently I've been dropping series left and right but if I don't find it that offensive, I'll still finish (but in 2x speed, I'm not big on skipping. and some series are much more palatable sped up - unforgotten night for example) 🛸 I'm on the same boat as you, it's not that difficult to make me cringe - accidental kisses, unnecessarily corny lines, people whipping a guitar out of nowhere and singing are just the tip of the iceberg.

Brace yourself, I have some more questions 😼

🗳️ Are there any secondary plot lines that you feel have been wasted potential? Or characters that you felt were intriguing but their story didn't get developed?

📼 Which scene(s) out of any series you could watch and rewatch 24/7 and why?

📝 If you could write an alternative ending to any show, what would you have done?

Good luck with your studies, by the way (I'm so glad that part of my life is already over and done with lol)

Oh yeah, definitely agree - 2moons is very much a fluff show so far. The Crush Shrine makes an appearance, and I want to cry a little bit, but otherwise we're business as usual (nothing is happening <3)!

Oooh thank you for the recs! I'll def check them out >:)

🪤Oooh, intriguing! Which shows have you watched that you've really enjoyed the acting of? (????? does that make sense? Let's pretend it makes sense) 🪃 Honestly, valid - especially unforgotten night soifgsej I've only watched that show through gifs but.......yeah 🛸 pain and misey forever (<- cannot do second hand embarrassment, enjoys bls)

🗳️ - hmm, to be honest, the shows I've watched so far do pretty good jobs of juggling secondary plot lines and characters (minus the obvious offenders eg sotus), but one I can think of off the top of my head is My Secret Love. It's an alright show, but I absolutely adored Park and Lee - the weird jealousy plotline they were given was. Weird. I didn't like it very much but the characters had so much potential!!

📼 ohhhh tons! The Iconic Kiss in bad buddy, the ending of Semantic Error, literally all of Gaya se Pelulika. BUT of course my number one series is The Eclipse - specifically, any scene from the whole beach section. The framing, the acting, the dialogue??? BRO. INSANE. This show literally has me in a chokehold <3

📝 - ....the answer is also The Eclipse for this question aodrejfr. I adore that show but the ending was definitely not up to the standards the show has set for itself. I'd rewrite the Thua apology, the beach singing (PLEASE. WHY) - the barebones are there already, it just needed to be tweaked a little. Also no singing.

I haven't had a chance to watch a ton of shows and I'm still new to the genre, so my answers will probably (definitely) change like 6 months from now sadkfljdaf

[jeongjaebae]

yes yes !! it is i, squirrel anon!! i've just been lurking around every month or so and saw you had a few gaps on not posting so i wasn't sure if you were that active anymore !! (glad you still are active though)

i'm doing great! i'm not sure if i ever revealed my age group?? (oh well) college apps have been quite stressful and the thought of after hs scares me 😭 jacob and i are still together! i actually gave him a nickname cobbie bc i was like why not with tbz jacob too HAHAH. i was supposed to visit my family in the north so i can experience snow again but sadly they said the tickets were too expensive ㅠㅠ. how are you? any life changing events? oh remember about my new year's resolution last year? i've made it to 8k!! while i've been slacking a bit i'm so proud of myself :D

oh no was whisper bad? i mean i watched and listened to the song but like i don't remember anything at all 😭 thought it was an average kpop song i guess... still love tbz though !! but yes i did watch wednesday! ever since i saw the trailer i promised myself to watch it... and i finished watching it in the same day... i also love one of the actors tyler 🫶🏻🫶🏻 i haven't really seen any special stages (• •;) aside from that one han jisung part and yuna stage. i hope you know what i'm talking about HAHAH.

awww i'm so glad my message made you happier! hope you're having a good day cherry <3 (btw idk if the spacing is going to be weird for you? but the spacing on here seems so wide 😭) -🐿️

haha i wouldn't say... i'm too active on here :') like i'm pretty much out of material to post for now until i finish one of my long wips or until tbz's comeback next month magically sucks me back into the fandom LOL

ohh are you an 05 liner then? ah i figured as much!! college apps are indeed a stressful time and picking a major even more so 😭 the fear is understandable, i guess it's kinda hard to picture your life until you get there? hopefully it'll be a smooth transition for you! aHHH that's good that you and jacob are still together!!! omg you nicknamed him cobbie HAHA that's cute, does he know tbz at all? and yeahh everything is so expensive these days, i hope you do get to visit family and experience snow again one day!! it's been a fairly warm winter here so far so it hasn't snowed much, but it's been soooo gloomy all the time 😔 oooh your resolution was clearing photos right?!? 8k is decent progress!! i probably said i had like 2k last year but... here we are at 7.5k this year (it's the many concerts i went to... i wanna keep svt and ateez on my phone forever, they're beauuutiful HAHA)

i'm doing well but life is kinda boring atm 😅 hmm in terms of life changing events... i got a job!! also did a bit of travelling and went to 8 kpop concerts within the past 6 months, and a few of them were life changing (skz, svt, ateez). also started a kpop album/merch collection which was unintentional but... here's where my newly earned money is going LMAO

whisper was... well, i think they were going for thrill ride 2.0 but it didn't meet expectations? i personally didn't like the song and thought that the concepts they teased weren't really related to the song ���� but hopefully next month's comeback will be better!! ahh i still have not watched wednesday but... will start... one of these days :') ooh is the actor you're talking about hunter doohan? just googled him rn LOL. the only thing i know related to the show is that emma myers is a huge svt fan HAHA. and yeahhHH i know that stage, the one with han's iconic hockey uniform that everyone went Wild over!!

and dw the spacing looks fine!! not surprised that it might look weird bc tumblr always does things like that, also i think they went through a recent update? things are a bit wonky HAHA. anywayyy hope you're having a good day too and that everything goes well with college apps and acceptances!! <3

[jongside]

hi!! secret anon again jeje

oh wow so you're an expert in kpop o.O and you even know skz since begining!! that's so cool

which was the first group you got into?

oh my fav onewe ones are RAIN TO BE, veronica and montage_ (you can guess my fav onewe song lol)

omg yes so many song recomendations!! they're going straight to my 'to listen' playlist (i'll let you know what i think as soon as i listen to them) well the txt ones i already knew them, the other ones i don't. I kinda like txt, i know them and their names but i don't really stand them yet

OMG YES YES YES i also can't stand the tv show for shadowhunters, it was really bad,,,, like from minute 0 everything was wrong. i'm reading the last serie, i'm still on the first book hahah. i need to know, who's your fav character? mine is Magnus cause he's iconic,,,, (as you can see i'm a big fan of shadowhunters lol9

yes!! i don't like kdramas that make me cry cause,,, no thanks hahah. The spanish series i'm watching is called "Las chicas del cable" ("cable girls" in english) and it's based on 1930 in spain, and the protagoinst are girls who work at a telephone station(? sorry i don't know how to explain it well (english is not my first language haha)

YES cause after telling you the top 3 songs i was like,,,, waitttttt. let me tell you i like every song they've released jajjajaajajaj

thanks!! i really like my job, is like my dream so i really like it ahahah

i've never been to a kpop concert YET, but ateez are coming to europe so i hope i get tickets. and i haven't been to any festivals tbh, i went to a few concerts, most of them cause they were in my city and for free, i saw two spanish groups 'Maldita Nerea' and 'Auryn' and another one i went cause i really liked, they are 'Destripando la historia' (translates as gutting the story) they are a spanish duo of youtubers that make songs ab disney stories but telling the truth behind the story, like the real story and not the one disney told

and by now you can guess im from spain lmao

okay new question,,,,, how many albums do you have? do you collect pc? do you own lightsticks?

have a great day<3

case 65 anon ✨

Hi my dear anon 💖

U-kiss got me into kpop, like i was so so much into them and i do still take so much pleasure listening to the old songs, Only You my beloved. Then it was Shinee and Btob. What was the first kpop song you heard?

I discovered Onewe with Rain to be so it hold a special place in my heart 😊 Ah yes tell me when you listen and if you like some of them. I must add Xeed to that list cause i just start stanning and OMG i'm obsessed Dream Land is on repeat all day.

It was indeed really bad 🙈 and all the things they changed. Alec wedding...that is when they lost me for good! My favorite character is Jem (baby 🥺) and Magnus and Alec are my favorite couple, so cute.

Las chicas del cable, i watched season one, it was nice hey hey another spanish one that i only watched season one yet but really liked was Gran Hotel! And since now i know you from spain it is only fair for you to know that i'm from france 🙂

In all honestly i don't own any albums or anything kpop related...yet. I always feel "weird" when i say it cause i know that for some people it makes you not a real fan. Well once again it's quite pricey...but now that i have more stable incomes i'm thinking about buying 1 or 2 albums as a treat. What about you anon? Is there some you really want? Or do you have a favorite one? Oh maybe what is your favorite stray kids album?

Have a nice day 💕

[uncloseted]

hi! i really love your thoughts on feminism and anti-intellectualism because that's what i've been thinking for the longest time but haven't been able to articulate as well as you have. while we're on this subject, what are your thoughts on plastic surgery being touted as "empowering"? i am not speaking about plastic surgery for reconstructive/health purposes but body modification. i get that women having greater autonomy over their bodies is definitely a step forward, but if you're (1)

(2) going to modify your body in ways that men find appealing- bigger breasts, wider hips, especially the new trend of "bimbo bodies"- isn't that just sort of feeding into your insecurities? getting bigger boobs would be nice, yes, but the idea that big breasts = sexy again, stems from misogyny and conventional ideals of sexiness (though it does have an evolutionary basis). i feel my most controversial view is that i hate plastic surgery, even when celebs are "open" about it haha i mean even if

(3) you admit to modifying your body you're still kinda selling the notion that there's only one "desirable" body type. Thanks a lot for answering! i love your blog so much

I think it’s... complicated.  There are so many different reasons that people get cosmetic surgery and so many different outcomes that people have from them that I feel like it’s not fair to label all cosmetic surgery as “empowering” or “not empowering”.  At the same time, I also feel weird about drawing lines about what can and cannot be empowering when it comes to cosmetic surgery. 

Beauty is something that’s both culturally prized and culturally powerful; we’re taught from a very young age that people will like you if you’re pretty, and that beauty = good and ugly = evil.  Disney princesses are pretty; the villains are ugly.  Nobody likes Ursula, but they sure like Ariel. This impacts our lives as adults.  People who are conventionally attractive are assumed to be healthier, happier, more trustworthy, and more moral.  That translates to real-life outcomes- people who are conventionally attractive make more money and on average have better outcomes in court cases than their unattractive counterparts.  Although we don’t publicly admit it, beauty is a privilege, the same way being thin is.  As a result, we live in a culture that prizes beauty highly and where our self-esteem is tied up in looks.  As humans, we crave validation, and the easiest way to get it in this system is through being attractive.  So I think it makes sense that a lot of people are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that beauty, and why internally, it feels very important to us to be beautiful. 

However, although women are expected to be beautiful, they’re belittled for caring about being beautiful.  Women are supposed to be naturally beautiful, with no need for makeup or skincare or haircare or fashion, otherwise they’re considered superficial and vain.  It’s an impossible standard, and one that’s becoming more and more difficult to meet with the rise of Facetune and widely available cosmetic surgery.  Plastic surgery is kind of a way out of the “natural beauty” catch-22.  You can fix all your perceived “flaws”, and then you can claim that you are, and always have been, naturally beautiful.  As long as you never admit to the plastic surgery, you can absolve yourself of the guilt that comes along with being “vain” for putting time and effort into your appearance.

Coupled with those beauty standards, we’re constantly being bombarded with all of the ways we’re failing to live up to that cultural beauty standard.  The beauty industry exists to create insecurities in people that weren’t there before (like stretch marks or hip dips) so that people will buy more products to “fix” those insecurities.  We’re bombarded with images of people who don’t appaer to have those same flaws, and so those flaws get emphasized in our eyes.  And then we “fix” those flaws ourselves, through Facetune or Photoshop or other beauty editing apps, which only makes us notice those flaws more frequently.  I think a lot of people, especially now, are getting cosmetic surgery with the goal of looking like the person they pretend they already are.

The sad thing is that cosmetic surgery by and large doesn’t actually make people happier.  It won’t completely change your relationship with yourself or your self esteem; only you can do that, by changing the way you think about yourself.  At worst, it can start a cycle of cosmetic procedures where you’re constantly trying to fix aspects of yourself but are never satisfied with the results.

Where does that leave us?  I’m honestly not sure.  By feeding into beauty standards through plastic surgery, we’re in some ways being complicit in our own oppression.  And yet, becoming more attractive has tangible results that allow us to be more powerful and influential, which can in turn help us to change the way our beauty standards operate, or to get rid of them entirely.  I think some of the concrete actions we can take are to follow and elevate beauty icons who don’t conform to traditional beauty standards and to stop prizing beauty among all other things.

So can cosmetic surgery be “empowering”?  At this point, I’m not even sure what that word means, and I suspect it’s lost its meaning entirely.  I think getting cosmetic surgery is negatively contributing to an oppressive system.  But I also would never judge someone who chooses to do it, and I know I would do it myself if I had the opportunity.  I think where I land is that the choice to have cosmetic surgery or not is feminist; female bodily autonomy is important. The procedure itself is questionable.

[tenacityblitz]

all the numbers u haven't done

roleplaying habits questions.

1. what’s a grammar rule you find yourself breaking or ignoring a lot?

Offhand I can’t really think of anything?? English is my first language so I don’t knowingly break any grammar rules anyway. Unless possible excessive use of commas counts bc I use commas a lot.

2. are there any languages besides english in which you think you could comfortably roleplay?

Unless Gibberish counts bc I learned that stupid crack language back when I was a kid but good lord I would not have the patience to actually type out a reply like that. 

3. how often do you reach for a synonym dictionary when writing? how about mentally?

Sometimes but not too frequently. Depends on how flowery I’m trying to write something or if I’m thinking of a word but I don’t like the first descriptive word that came to mind for what I’m trying to express.

4. how often do you need to translate your own or the other’s writing with a dictionary or google when writing and reading replies?

Never tbh. Especially since I don’t RP in any other languages, all my RP partners have a good enough grasp on English that I can always tell what they were at least trying to say in their reply.

5. do you listen to music while your write?

I used to need music playing in the background to help me focus on doing drafts, but nowadays I need more silence than anything to help focus and produce what I think is a quality response to a longer thread. Short one or two liner things idc what’s in the background. 

6. do you have ideal writing circumstances when you can do a lot of drafts or tackle really long ones very easily?

I can fluctuate with when I best write. Typically I write better at night when the house is quiet and any noise happening in the house is a noise I make, but I’ve had writing inspiration hit me at any time of the day before.

7. are you a morning, day, evening, or night writer?

Bold of you to assume I’m awake during morning hours that don’t include 5 AM bc I’m still awake haha. When I’m not swamped with commissions to do I typically write better during the day or at night when I’m the only person awake in the house and I don’t have any outside distractions from a person IRL.

8. how does tiredness affect your writing?

Not overly so sometimes, I know there’ve been times in the past where I powered through replies even though I wanted to go to bed just because I was riding the motivation train and I didn’t want to lose it and not get to those last replies for who knows how long. But on Discord at least I often have reply to Discord threads be one of the last things I do before I go to sleep so I go to bed knowing I don’t owe anyone a reply on there.

9. have you ever written a serious reply intoxicated?

Not a serious reply anyway. I’ve been on the dashboard before while intoxicated (ColossalCon East was a prime example haha) but I’ve never really RP’d while that intoxicated

10. how much do you proof-read as you are writing vs. proof-read at the end?

I’ll proof read as I go but also give it one last read before I actually hit publish.

11. when you are writing a reply, how much ahead in the thread do you plan?

Entirely depends on the thread. I could write it on the fly or I could have days to think about it from external factors keeping me from getting to the reply as soon as it comes back to me.

12. is there ever been a time when you’ve had to drop a roleplaying partner because you’ve found their writing style exhausting?

Yes actually, gather round for RP horror storytime haha. Flash back to 2013 while I was still in the Black Butler fandom. I stupidly decided to give writing Sebastian a try at the request of a Ciel I’d made friends with (probably through my old Alois or Lizzie blog). She was a nice enough girl, close enough to my age so she seemed plenty mature, and had been what I thought was a good enough writer to warrant trying my hand at a muse I wouldn’t have otherwise thought to try. Legit within days of me making the Sebastian blog she was getting super clingy in her IC posts making Ciel a whiny baby missing Sebastian, would try and guilt me in IC posts to get on and write with her, and I dealt with it for about two weeks before I deleted Sebastian’s blog without warning and deleted the girl off Skype. To this day it’s the only blog I think I’ve ever consciously deleted.

13. does writing roleplay things in public spaces make you uncomfortable?

Not really? I wouldn’t be crazy about a stranger reading over my shoulder while I was writing bc that’s just weird, but I’ve gone to Starbucks or one of the local malls before on my off days (back when I was still at my last job) and I’d do RP stuff there just to get out of the house.

14. how often do you need to change the icon in your reply while or after writing the reply?

Typically I don’t put in icons until I’m done writing the reply unless I go into the reply knowing exactly which one I want to use, or think of a good one while I’m writing it out.

15. do you first get in the “zone” when writing, or do you start writing and “enter” it that way?

Nowadays I just start writing and then get into the zone after I get the first reply done. Discord replies I can chug out any time of day without difficulty, but for whatever reason Tumblr I have to be in the right mindset for. 

16. what is your biggest obstacle to writing every day, if time doesn’t count?

Back when I was at my last job, it would be getting a lot of writing muse while I was busy at work and unable to get on my own laptop or sneak onto Tumblr on an office computer and at least type out the bulk of a reply (yes I was employee of the month many times haha), and by the time I was able to get to my own computer or be safe enough to get on a work computer, that writing muse would be gone.

17. what’s your inbox count currently? what did you do to get it so high/low?

Right now I have 15 IC asks. I won’t lie, two of them are from last years Valentine’s Day bc I was away at Katsucon at the time of receiving them and by the time I got home I still just never got around to answering the asks, but I didn’t want to delete them either so I just kept them for posterity. Some are from this past Christmas that I was terrible and haven’t answered yet bc I’ve been so swamped with commissions, some are from other random meme’s I’ve reblogged and gotten an ask or two for and also just never got around to. I’m horrible at replying to asks most of the time and I know it but I always appreciate whenever people take the time to send me an IC one.

18. how many drafts is a paralysing amount?

I’d guess I’d say over 15 like para thread replies would make me be like -insert meme song- ‘how could this happen to meeeee’. I’m not quite at that point yet but I’ll get there eventually if I’m not careful lol.

19. if you are writing a wrong reply that’s not working out, do you save what you have to be continued at another date, or do you scrap it and rewrite?

Usually I would just draft what I have and go back to it. I can’t remember the last time I scrapepd an unfinished draft and completely rewrote it.

20. longest reply you’ve ever writen on mobile?

N/A because I don’t do replies on mobile. I’ll send asks on mobile but I never reply to actual IC things while on my phone unless it’s something stupid and cracky or one-liner-ish.

21. does the total amount of threads you have going on matter to you, or just how many you owe?

Doesn’t really matter. I can have one thread with one person, I could have five threads with one person. @shinvcho is an example of the latter lol

22. what’s your thought process when you format? any unspoken rules you follow?

I’ve kept to the same formatting for years and years tbh. I’m too lazy to do excessive formatting beyond italicizing and/or bolding specific words for emphasis and spacing out the start of a new paragraph. Anything more than that to me is just tedious and unnecessary; I don’t want to make it difficult for my partners to read.

23. how does your follower count affect your mood?

Anyone who says they don’t appreciate or enjoy even a small spike in followers is a liar, because we live in an age where validation is held in high regard and it feels good to get the validation of seeing more people enjoy what we do on our blogs enough to put us on their dashboards. But it also doesn’t really matter to me when I lose followers because I have a mutual checker so I can unfollow a mutual back if they did so first so I don’t feel uncomfy still following someone who no longer wanted me on their dash lol.

[languageofkpop]

Happy Friday followers! I haven't posted in a while, so I thought I would ask if you guys have any requests. What should my next post be?