#idk based on my previous experiences with social media

[loser-female]

How do I get into cybersecurity? It looks fascinating but I don’t even know where to begin (for context, I am 28, have a BA in a completely unrelated specialization, and live in the US) 💛

Hi! I wasn't ignoring you, I just had shit days at work. Keep in mind that I work in EU and the labour market is different. I've heard a lot of lay-offs in the last few months but I have no idea if this involved cybersecurity positions or not. Also I'm a SOC Analyst specialising in Threat Intelligence. There are a lot of more positions to look out for, like if you are a lawyer you could go on the cyberlaw, privacy or auditing route.

Languages skills are appreciated a lot of you work in Threat Intelligence (I speak 4, currently learning Mandarin and my country sign language), coding skills are useful too.

Now, the usual path is:

1. Degree in computer science or software engineering (or math or physics, I did two years at physics)

2. You take a specialising course of some sort.

Some universities offers cybersecurity degrees I think (in my country it's a master's for example), and sometimes they might prepare you for CompTIA certs too. If you are lucky sometimes companies hire interns for like 6 months and they too make them study. My company did this... For the last interns. I had to be start my shifts after a month of learning lol. Idk if my manager threw a dice to choose between me and the other guy or if he noticed my ability.

I didn't follow that path, for various reason. I did a bootcamp and I took my certifications. But:

1. I've volunteered in a similar field for years and years (information research, debunking);

2. I speak 4 languages;

3. I did two years of physics before my health declined.

I do not recommend that part, because while I'm stupid good at my job, frankly my previous experience as volunteering did much more than any bootcamp.

Two points I feel I need make:

1. Certs. There are like an hundred or more, and it's a mess to figure it out. Plus it all depends what kind of role you want. Good news: most likely the company that will hire you will provide you access to few courses and the possibility to gain some of them, but IMHO taking a Sec+ or a Net+ is not a bad idea before looking for a job. While EC-Council is what HR looks at... Frankly let your company pay for it. Sec+ is like 350$ while a Ceh is 900$.

2. Downsides of my job - these are not talked enough imho.

-I work insane hours, I have two weekends free every two months because I work in shifts. I get paid more in my country (like I have a base hour rate and I get paid from 25% to 75% more of that rate if I like work on Christmas or a Sunday, nights get paid more obviously)

-I spend a significant amount of time studying and looking at news sites, social media to catch "the last news".

-Male environment. When I go to a conference I'm one of the like 20 women out of 1000, of which like 5 have a technical role like I do. It does make it feel like you are a freak even if no one is mean to you. I work from home, and I have only a female colleague - when I go to the office I'm the only woman out of 20 men. I love my colleagues and my manager, mind you, but if you are not in a good environment it's going to be a mess.

- Every company has a different set of tools, standards, programs etc that they use, and of you want to change job it can be hard to adapt.

-A SOC is a fast-paced environment and can be very stressful by nature, because it's a 24/7 service, and in certain parts of the day you can be inundated with alerts and issues to solve. And sometimes you have empty hours because nothing happens and it's boring.

- it's very important also to have soft skills because (like I did it today) you will be in charge of explaining what's going on to clients in a way that a 5 yo will understand, you will be in charge of projects, need to set enough time to study...

- You will meet people 1000x better than you are - and if you don't have the right mentality it's hard to deal with them, because you (well at least I do lol) will feel like an idiot and no one likes feeling like an idiot.

-Long hiring process. It took me a month from the first interview to be confirmed and two months to actually start - and this could really be a problem.

-Networking and connecting with others while it didn't land me a job definitely improved my skills, my credibility in the environment and who knows what else will happen in the future. Take what you can from others, most will be happy to share and help.

BUT!

Before committing you can try it with popular games such as Tryhackme or Hack The Box. They have learning environments where you can "play" and learn some basics. A real SOC or pen-test is like doing 10 of these challenges together but I had a lot of fun.

I hope this is enough! I tried to explain everything that someone considering a career in cybersecurity. Again, consider that I'm in Europe so this info might not be 100% accurate in the US.

[protagonistheavy]

Ah I finished the newest season on My Little Pony g5... I forgot what theyre even still calling this gen. Is it just "A New Generation?" So much of this show is just unremarkable like that. There's nothing going on and while I obviously speak from the perspective of a grown adult, I also can't fathom many children being that enthralled with the show either.

There's definitely a significant downshift in the target demographic. Even season 1 of g4, the "babiest" of the seasons, was never oriented this hard towards literal babies lol. And again, I can't even imagine young children enjoying this show more than, say, g4 -- which is also on Netflix and just 1000% more quality. If I had a kid and they wanted to watch something, why on earth would I ever choose g5 over g4? What does g5 have over it? Genuinely every aspect is just a total downgrade, offering nothing original or creative, and worst of all, it outright relies on itself standing on the shoulders of g4!! If you want the "best" experience with g5, then you ought to come in familiar with g4, which is just begging viewers to feel that downshift I was talking about.

Like if I was told to make a new generation of ponies for a new young audience, idk, I would choose one or the other: either go hard on being based on g4 and effectively make it a sequel/continuation, and stay consistent with the established lore, OR I'd go the opposite and abandon all/most previous lore, starting with a clean slate that any dumpy 6 year-old can keep up with. Instead we get this back-and-forth cocksucking of g4, g5 is just incapable of making moves on its own, it relies so much on g4 having been there.... UGHHH!

Beyond that, everything else is just worse. The animation in particular is so fucking bad and a BIG reason why I wouldnt make a kid watch this lol. It's barely competent most of the time, but there's so little heart, so little personality (which can be said of the whole production). You know those early ref sheets cartoonists get from the lead artist/animator? And it shows "dos and do-nots" about how to animate characters, e.g. "don't make them stand in straight lines" "add dynamics to their posture" "exaggerate expressions." Yeah well they got the notes flipped fucking backwards for this season. Characters are CONSTANTLY as stiff as cardboard, barely moving at all to accentuate their dialogue -- dialogue that DOES have character and personality! It feels so sad that the VAs probably imagined a better animated cartoon and thus acted the way they did, but it only highlights how stale the animation is when you have so much life in a character's voice, like urgency or quirkiness, only to see the pony barely lift a hoof or turn their head. Gravity also just exists differently in this world, where something can bounce on the ground like a rubber ball two times, and then drop dead where it next lands, not even a slight roll or sway. It's bad enough the characters arent the most vibrant nor is the world very colorful or engaging.... but then youre looking at them and they barely even freaking move.

And the characters. Theyre trying, but its not doing enough. These five just do NOT have any chemistry worth watching. None of them have motivations, between them all is maybe like three quirks, but otherwise they have nothing interesting going on. Hitch and Zipp could almost fill the same role as being these "investigators" so it's odd that there's two of them, which sucks because for the plots this generation wants to make, a detective-focused personality is a great fit -- just weird that it's two people basically. Sunny is very plain and is made especially dumb for the sake of conflict; Izzy remains okay but it's so clear theyre just taking notes off of Pinkie Pie. And then Pipp, just shut the fuck up. I went from disliking Pipp to hating her, the idea of "social media influencer" as a character in a kids cartoon is so frustrating, especially since they have no intent on exploring this concept in any interesting way lol. Her trait is just "she's popular" and sometimes she sings, which is a weird aspect to focus specifically on in a world traditionally known for everyone breaking out into song lmao.

So yeah nothing exciting going on.... The villain is extremely lackluster, but Im glad there's at least some sort of consistent uhhhhhhhhh "threat" I guess. Misty is sometimes interesting, but the dumbness of this plot ruins most chances of finding her appealing. Maybe she'll be more interesting once she gets the inevitable redemption/turn-around, I predict she'll end up being the second unicorn to the main cast, but I doubt she's going to really sync with anyone or improve the chemistry. Overall a very let down experience and probably the weakest post of g5 yet lol.

[fandomshatewomen]

what are your thoughts on the movie don't worry darling and the situation regarding the director and cast?

i've been hearing bits and pieces through like, social osmosis, but i'll be honest i do not care enough about anyone involved to have actually done my own research, so grain of salt et cetera and so forth.

olivia wilde – seems like she is craving for the industry to take her seriously, it's interesting that she is working with the same screenwriter as her previous/first movie 'booksmart' because the tonal differences between that movie and this one are .... a lot lol. i definitely acknowledge that she is battling a lot of institutionalized misogyny, but i don't think she's necessarily done the work to be a sought-after director yet, i hope she sticks with it but i'm mostly kinda /shrug emoji about her.

harry styles – idk it also seems like he's craving to be taken more seriously too, but i dunno if media training just isn't a thing or he thinks he's a lot more charming than he actually is, but i really really hope he stops saying all this stupid shit in public. and maybe starts working with a coach, because he is nobody's acting prodigy lol

florence pugh – i read that she recently broke up with zach braff, note she is 26 and he is 47, and i can easily see that experience coloring her perspective about harry and olivia being involved. she doesn't strike me as the nicest person tbh, but she shouldn't have to be to get treated with a base line respect (the video clip of olivia being like 'a wake up call for miss flo' was super annoying to me)

the others – heard gemma chan was vocally supportive of johnny depp so im over her, chris pine seems super bland but potentially a thoughtful dude, i think i saw kiki layne in a trailer but given she seems to be The Only Black Character i'm very wary of how her character is gonna get treated, nick kroll doing serious acting is neat, and i don't know his name but actor who played annoying jonah on veep playing a not dissimilar character (again based only on the trailer) is pretty funny to me, i think shia labeouf in the harry styles role would have been fucking terrifying whereas harry seems to be bringing more of an eerie energy lol

the movie itself – the 1960s us american suburb utopia thing is a bit overdone if you ask me, the aesthetic is fun but i've never been wowed by the actual content of these stories. there is potential for the interplay between chris pine and harry styles's characters to make some points about us american masculinity, but i dunno i'm not holding my breath i guess.

• mod dyr

[nctjpeg]

Truthfully speaking, every idol in kpop is an industry plant... they train for years with a company to be put in the industry. If that's not an industry plant idk what is. What that guy said was mean but not entirely wrong.

(ok so full disclaimer this is too long and if you don’t read all of this I don’t blame you)

That’s true! I’ve joked that industry plants are just American K-Pop idols in the past and that people who act like they’re the worst thing to happen to music need to realize that every artist you’ve ever discovered and loved is because the music industry interfered i’m their career at one point or another unless you listen to really really obscure music. I was basing my argument off what I think the average perception of an “industry plant” artist is in the American/Western music industry.

So that would be:

someone scooped up by a label and crafted to appear as if they were an indie artist coming up in the industry, with a homegrown/“organic” following. (In contrast with K-Pop, it’s well-known that these groups are processed and did not come together like how bands are “supposed” to form)

who may also be be given an entirely different persona in comparison to who they were genuinely –think Tramp Stamps or Babygoth. (This does absolutely happen in K-Pop too, i’m just pointing it out as a pattern i’ve noticed amongst western industry plants)

But what I dislike about the western perception of K-Pop the most is that I’ve noticed people act like because these groups are manufactured by labels that they don’t work for their fame. People know they train for months/years, but I don’t think it fully connects for some people exactly how much the average K-Pop idol has to sacrifice to get a shot at debuting.

I also think that someone who may not be familiar with K-Pop may think that all labels are rich and powerful and that debuting in a group is equivalent to immediate success. The stuff smaller K-Pop groups (like BTS once was) go through to try and promote their bands is 100% comparable to what a struggling band or artist in the western music industry might do to try and further their career. We all know how some K-Pop labels are seemingly incompetent at managing their artists, so even if there is a label managing an idol group’s career, it’s not nearly as cushy as what I imagine the average American industry plant’s experience might be like. Especially since a lot of western music labels are owned by a few large companies.

Focusing on BTS specifically, there was a lot that contributed to them becoming the most successful K-Pop group to exist currently. Hard work, the cultivating of a fandom that feels especially connected to and defensive of them (even compared to other kpop fandoms), social media, the previous success of other K-Pop bands giving them more momentum to fully break into international markets, but their success was never guaranteed. BigHit wasn’t a big label when BTS first started, they had no big groups before BTS to help build a fandom off of, and if you look at material that came out from their early era’s you can tell the budgets were significantly lower. They did have to earnestly grow their following from nothing to something.

I could be 100% totally wrong and just spewing hot air at this point, and I don’t even like BTS very much anymore, but with the original comment I read that caused me to start thinking about this you could just tell OP was very much a “HURR DURR BOYBAND BAD!!! OLDER MUSIC GOOD!!!” type of person. K-Pop has a lot more nuance than people give it credit for and I want nothing more than to be able to talk about it like how someone would talk about other genres of music.

[bigskydreaming]

With the Tom Taylor stuff, they released a new Batgirl costume for Babs again (different anon then before though so hopefully same issue). People are mad because, well, it's abelist. Especially because like it feels like they've been teasing/foreshadowing her becoming Oracle again (ie. noting that she shouldn't be hopping from roofs, I mean Dick adopted a three-legged dog for Christ's sake). It really seems like the perfect time for the magic disability curing chip to die, and instead they come out with this? Disappointing. Rude. Especially rude because the new costume was announced on the first day of disability pride month, and he's responded by saying - but oh look, here's a back brace on the part of the suit behind the cape. Not a good look imo.

Idk how many people would have to agree on making Babs truly paraplegic again for it to happen? Like would something like this be up to editorial, or could Tom as the writer have enough sway to make it happen? I know the original decision was ten years ago, and Didio has (thank the lord) been fired since then, as has Harras, and I've heard there's been creative turnover as well. Since you've been in the fandom for a while, do you know who else we should be pressuring?

Its literally something that only editorial and higher will ever have decision-making control over.

I can tell you that while Gail Simone was the one who initially wrote the story where Babs returned to being Batgirl - and considering that a lot of Gail's own work was instrumental in fleshing out Babs as Oracle to the degree that she was - what I can say there is that Gail was not actually a fan of the decision to make Babs Batgirl again herself.

It was 100% a decision made by the higher-ups during the initial Reboot discussions, and I do know that a number of creatives, both writers and artists, voiced their protest to the decision at the time - though I can't speak to who exactly did so and who didn't.

Gail has however expressed that she went back and forth a lot on her decision to write Babs becoming Batgirl again, because she really was not comfortable with it at all, but that ultimately the reason she did decide to do it was because it was made clear to her by the higher-ups that they were asking her to write it out of respect to the work she'd done with Oracle previously - but whether she accepted or not, they were going to go forward with it, even if with another writer.

So ultimately, she's said she only decided to take on the story herself because she could at least try to make it as aware of Babs' time as Oracle and what she represented as Oracle as possible, whereas she had no control over if DC went to another writer whose approach to it was basically to magically handwave Babs being 'cured' and being ecstatically happy about it.

Please note, I'm not trying to speak to her choice there or argue for it or against it, I'm simply trying to repeat what I know of her stated perspective on it, as the writer who actually 'did it.'

My point just being that it wasn't a decision made at a creator level at all, and DC was more than ready to go around one of the writers most closely identified with Babs in her Oracle identity, as well as a number of others who were against it, though again I don't know how many or whom specifically.

I honestly don't see any guarantee they'd be more accommodating of any writers today trying to convince them to do it. So while I don't think voicing concerns over disabled representation to writers is ever a wasted effort, I don't see it accomplishing anything here in specific. If any movement is going to be made on this matter, its only going to be done through keeping the subject centered in the awareness of the higher-ups, so basically any editors with a social media presence.

Unfortunately, options are very limited there (I'm not really on twitter these days so I don't really know what editors are even around there, currently), but yeah, in the interest of prioritizing time and spoons, and concentrating efforts.....this is one of those situations where the writers themselves are simply the go-betweens and the only even potentially effective appeals are going to be those made at the editorial level and higher. (Higher being those at the publishing exec and board of directors level, but I wouldn't know where to even begin looking for those particular names).

Sorry I can't be more help!

(Also, just FYI in general on this matter:

For the record, I do try to be very....'light' about expressing my opinions when it comes to Babs' disability, because I do not trust myself to have the necessary objectivity. I have a physical disability that greatly impacts my way of living and has for five years, but in ways not remotely interchangeable with Babs. Additionally, mine does have a surgical treatment that would allow me to resume my original way of living without significant deviations from it, and its a treatment I still am working towards and hope to get in the near future. So I definitely have opinions on physical ableism in society and how I've even been impacted by such things myself, but I've also never viewed or even approached my own situation or disability through the lens of it being lifelong.

So I'm kinda 'thematically' somewhat in a position that has nuances relevant to the conversations at hand and the 'choices' being thrown around in-universe IF and only if such things were subject to 'real world rules' and self-autonomous choices rather than being ruled by the whims of editors with agendas and biases of their own. All of which makes me uncomfortable weighing in too heavily on this subject because I'm a naturally opinionated person, and I have a tendency to center my own experiences in online debates simply because they're the only ones I can actually speak to, particularly in non-monolithic situations like this one where even people with broadly shared marginalizations have opinions that differ in degrees both large and small.

My own disability really brought to light for me that I had a LOT of pre-existing ableism myself that I'm still unpacking five years in, and frankly I just don't trust myself to be able to tell the difference between opinions I express on this subject as a kind of unconscious wish fulfillment, ableism-still-in-need-of-further-unpacking, and even subconscious overcompensation for my own ableism based on addressing current issues I have born of impostor syndrome. Its a whole mess up here in terms of ableism discussions, so if you don't see me weighing in on the Babs matter much elsewhere, that's why.

Personally, I always write Babs as Oracle and physically disabled, even in Reboot-era stuff, and I’m fairly sure I always will - so don’t get me wrong, I have a very clear stance on that front because I'm never on board with erasing, mitigating or invalidating previous representation....that isn’t my issue here at all, its more just wading into arguments for and against undoing the chip storyline that I hesitate to do. I know my stance - I just don’t trust myself to argue it in the right ways or for the right reasons.

Just know its not because I'm oblivious to it, that I approve of DC's decisions here or how their various creatives reply to criticism of it, or because I don't have opinions myself......but my own view of things is too constantly shifting in my own life for me to be comfortable contributing any lasting voice to these discussions, at least where I'm at right now. I'm not good at speaking softly if I feel a need to speak up at all, but I don't believe in speaking loudly when I can't even be sure for myself that I can commit 100% to what I voice...and even more importantly in my mind, WHY I voice it).

[fastcarsgovroom]

Don’t really know what to make of still it but here goes (the Lando Norris issue) Pt 3

This is about the Lando Norris and Max Fewtrell (and other involved streamers) issue so you don't need to read it if it's not in your best interest to. I don’t know if this thing is supposed to have blown over or anything, but I’m posting because heck this is my blog and I want to post about things I think are in line with my personal philosophy (and maybe in-group).    

The entire rant is in five parts:  

Part 1 is where I describe very basically the entire situation, essentially what I saw happening through posts on the tumblr, twitter, and reddit Lando Norris tags  

Part 2 is me trying to describe why some fans felt what they felt and reacted the way they did  

Part 3 is the videos and what was said of them and how I interpreted them  

Part 4 the ‘misinformation’ idk

Part 5 is like, a rant.

Part 3: What was actually said?

The clips of Lando and Max F saying things that were, for the lack of better words, questionable. Clip urls taken from one of the OPs who brought the issue to our attention (hope it’s all right I didn’t credit).

TW for talks about sex, sexism, and misogyny

If anything, listen to the clips for yourself and ignore the wall of text. Make up your own mind. I’m only writing what I’ve seen, and as a way to make sense of it. 

Under the cut

The relevant videos are (not in chronological order)

1. Star signs

https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_qqblm5bUU51y0rtc3.mp4

How I’d describe it: Max F brings up star signs (like, the zodiac) because his chat was discussing it. Lando reacts by saying that if a girl asks about star signs, ‘you get up and leave’, apparently in reference to his personal experience with a girl in conversation about star signs. Max F comments that the girl has ‘dodged a bullet’ based on how, for the lack of better words, passionate (’salty’) Lando’s reaction was. Lando retorts that Max F ‘wouldn’t have wanted to be with her,’ providing some information (where the girl was sitting), which causes Max F to recognize the girl and react in an amused but equally passionate way. The other streamer quoted “she crazy”, supposedly in relation to the girl.

How people have interpreted it: Others have interpreted is as being a sexual encounter, Lando being dismissive of a female-skewed topic of interest (star signs) and only listening to her in hopes of a sexual encounter (edit: the more ‘obvious’ “listening to women in hopes of a sexual encounter” is clip 4, added below. But I’ve also seen people claiming  ‘dipping’ (said by Max F) and ‘coughing’ (said by Lando) here to be references to sex, along with the ‘you wouldn’t have wanted to be with her’ as, of course, having sex, so I’ll leave this interpretation up. Again, I may be getting this wrong), that Lando and friends were making fun of the girl (’she crazy’, ‘you wouldn’t have wanted to be with her’, how Lando said the topic was ‘so boring’ at the mention of star signs, etc.) 

How I interpreted it: Personally, I don’t think we have enough context as to what really went down. I can see how you could come to the above interpretations, but I also, personally, find relating it necessarily to a sexual encounter a reach. Yeah, it could be the men hanging out and getting to know a young woman (girls) but just not jiving with her, or thinking that the woman’s interests were weird and boring. Personal conversations, essentially, that probably has no place on a public stream, but it comes across as being said carelessly and immaturely rather than with malice.  

2. ‘Stealing’, ‘don’t want to talk about it’, ‘that [descriptor]’ 

https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_qqbm90Esu01y0rtc3.mp4

How I’d describe it: This clip starts with a streamer (honestly I can only identify Max F and Lando, sorry) saying Max is bitter, to which Lando adds that it’s because Max F ‘did not receive love from a girl’. This seems to upset Max F, who retorts that if he should ‘tell a few stories’ about Lando, implied to be embarrassing ones. There was a lot of ‘yours’ and ‘mine’ (Lando and Max F) thrown around about the women. Max F brings up that Lando ‘tried to steal mine (Max F’s)’. Lando refutes this, and Max F looks more upset and says repeatedly that he does not want to ‘have this conversation’ with Lando. Lando continues on, referring to the girls as ‘the [descriptor]’, i.e. “the old one?”; “the top golf one?” and “I did not try to steal that one.” 

The other streamer appears to take issue with this, saying ‘that one?”, and Max F adds “can we stop talking about it like that?” and doubles down and tells Lando to stop the conversation. 

How people have interpreted it: This is the more egregious clip; people took offense at how the women were spoken about (’yours’, ‘mine’), the implications that they can be ‘stolen’, and how Lando referred to them as ‘the [descriptor]’. Some also interpreted Max F’s it as referring to a girl. This all leads into the perception that Lando and Max F were objectifying the women and talking about them in terms of conquests (presumably sexual). 

How I interpreted it: I think Lando and Max F were quite disrespectful in how they were talking about the women, more so Lando because he continued with the conversation (in a public stream) despite Max F telling him to stop. It does sound like ‘locker room banter’ about relationships, which is still, ultimately, misogynistic, immature, disrespectful, and inappropriate, especially in a public stream. 

What I don’t get is how ‘the/that [descriptor]’ was taken as intentional and malicious objectifying, and how the ‘it’ was referring to a woman and not the entire situation. 

3. ‘Cowboy’

https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_qqbq6nhmZR1y0rtc3.mp4

How I’d describe it: The clip starts in the middle off in-game banter, with Lando asking Max F if has any other digs at him, to which Max F replies that he does have ‘plenty off digs’ at Lando. Lando brings up ‘cowboy’ as an apparent dig, to which Max F retorts is ‘not a dig’, but was ‘brilliant’ and ‘very good’ for Lando. The Toy Story reference of ‘there’s a snake in my boot!’ is brought up, to which someone says ‘not the only snake, haha’ in a mock-jokey voice. 

How people have interpreted it: There’s probably more backstory to this in previous streams, as OP mentioned. Some have taken issue with, again, discussing personal situations involving a third party (OP has mentioned that the nickname ‘cowboy’ is in reference to a woman). Some also claimed that the nickname ‘cowboy’ is a sex position, so took offense to how it sounded like Lando and Max F nicknamed a woman they knew after a sex position, then openly talked about her in a public stream. Some said the nickname was from the woman’s social media handle, which had a cowboy emoji. 

How I interpreted it: This one is weird. I have no idea what the context is. I have no idea how people came to the conclusion that ‘cowboy’ was a sex position. Is the ‘snake’ in reference to male genitalia? I don’t know? I have no interpretation of this other than things without context always sound so weird. There’s entire twitter accounts about shows and podcasts lines taken out of context, which just sounds bizarre. 

4. ‘Reward’

https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_qqbfwzG9GC1wg3eue_720.mp4

How I’d describe it: I’m not sure if I can describe it without transcribing the whole thing or putting my own interpretation / narrative here. It’s a public stream, sure, but it sounds as coherent as a bit of disjointed conversation you’ve eavesdropped on (To me, anyway. I’m not being obtuse on purpose maybe I’m just dim).  

Clip starts with Lando and Max F sounding very amused with something, with Lando telling Max F about an encounter(?)/incident(?)with ‘cowboy’, referencing ‘rounds’ (round 2… round 6). There’s more banter, Max F saying he was ‘worried’ that Lando was talking about someone else, that he will whatever Lando is doing is ‘good for [him]’, and is ‘healthy’. 

Lando says it was “bit boring, really”, to which Max F says ‘oh, 100%, yeah waffle. Complete and utter waffle’ and “gotta do you what you gotta do, listen to her sometimes you know what I mean? Sacrifices do bring on great things.”

How people have interpreted it: Essentially, Lando is telling Max F about his hookups with ‘cowboy’ (the rounds being, well, rounds of hookups). Lando is saying that being with ‘cowboy’ is a bit boring, but Max F saying that Lando has to make sacrifices (his time? listening to boring conversation (’waffle’)?) in order to maintain said hookup partner. The takeaway was that Lando and Max F discussed sexual encounters with a woman (’cowboy’) on public stream, called her ‘boring’, and implied that she should only be listened to in context of getting a hookup is disrespectful. Many were disgusted. 

Some, perhaps not having watched the clip, attributed the ‘sacrifices for women’s attention / sexual gratification from women’ comment to Lando. Others are angry and disappointed that Lando did not speak up against the comment, which indicates that he too is complicit with the notion that women should only be listened to for sexual gratification. 

How I interpreted it: There’s a lot of innuendo here and ‘keywords’ that are attributed to sex and hookups (i.e. ‘rounds’ being hookups / rounds of sex; Max F’s implication that the many rounds (6) are ‘healthy’, a common description for sexual activity as being a healthy part of the human experience.) So, yes, I’ll believe that they’re most likely talking about their sex life. Why did I use so many words to come to that conclusion, and not just say ‘they are talking about their sex life’ out of the bag? Because that was my thought process so idk what to tell you other than what I did. Maybe it’ll come across as being apologetic and intentionally obtuse, who knows. 

Without the context, it’s not going to be very obvious.

So if I’m taking it as their conversation about sex, then the “sacrifices do bring on great things,” will very heavily imply that Lando has to have boring conversations with ‘cowboy’ for sex. Let’s be clear, this is a very disrespectful and demeaning take. It’s also unfortunately a very common one that’s thrown around everywhere in media, among immature men (young or old, lets be real). It’s also very normalized, so I get when people say they find it ‘normal’ or ‘typical’. This doesn’t excuse the comments or topic of conversation. 

On the other hand, I can also see a POV that Max F may have said things ironically or sarcastically, since it is a sentiment often used (women are nags) and both Lando and Max F are known to be sarcastic, dramatic, and dry at times. This is a reach to the other end of the ‘harmless banter’ spectrum, but without context, maybe it’s possible.

Still don’t know why ‘cowboy’ is necessarily a nickname derived from a sex position. 

Part 4

[dumparchivesblog]

It’s been almost a month since I resigned from my previous company. And honestly, it has been an amazing time for me. Sobrang dami kong naging time to do other things, tapos naka-focus rin ako sa health and fitness ko. I wanted to switch sana to freelancing, and tbh I’ve been doing well in Upwork. Yung ibang projects, pag ‘di ko kaya i-take or tinatamad ako gawin binibigay ko sa friend ko, like nire-refer ko siya so she can start her own Upwork journey. Minsan kasi kahit wala ako in-applyan meron lang mga nag sesend ng invites. Ako kasi, mapili sa kinukuhang projects. Mostly, fixed payment and project basis lang para mabilis matapos, or kung meron hourly rate yung tipong 1 week span lang siya. Malaki-laki rin yung kinita ko sa time na nag-freelance ako. And meron akong mga loyal clients na bumabalik-balik from time to time whenever they need graphic needs. But having experienced full-time in the freelancing world for a couple of weeks, idk. I think and feel that it’s not for me. Hahaha. Minsan kasi nakakatamad rin dahil sa dami ng ‘free’ time mo. Parang instead na maging productive ako, opposite yung nangyayari. Magba-browse ako ng kung ano-ano, ‘di mo namalayan ang dami ng oras lumipas. Napagod ako sa corporate set-up and hindi ko narin kasi talaga feel yung previous company ko. So alam mo yun medyo nag re-connect lang din ako sa innerself ko tapos puro bike ako the past few weeks. And na-enjoy ko na yung time ko. Masaya naman sana maging freelancer, kasi hawak mo talaga oras mo. It’s up to you how you will spend the day and divide the hours for tasks and other stuff. Pero medyo scary and risky din siya cos it’s not constant and parang walang assurance sa kikitain mo every month. Tho na-reach ko naman yung goal ko. Pero ayun nga, mahirap kasi lagi ka mag-susubmit ng proposals and ang dami rin competition. Pero swerte ka if naka-build ka talaga ng relationship with a certain client.  I wasn’t actually looking for a new job. Like okay whatever, chill lang ako. Puro upwork lang talaga. Tapos one time nag check ako ng linkedin ko, ‘di na kasi updated laman nun tapos may biglang nag-message. So ayun, I gave it a shot lang went through the process. Ang dami sis, may initial interview with their creative lead, tapos meron design task, then peer interview, tapos final interview. Actually kabado ako, kasi kakaiba yung company. They create social media ads for different company and businesses pero AI generated siya. So ang role namin, kami yung mag uupload ng assets ni client, para pag nag generate based siya dun sa mga nilagay namin. Pero we can tweak and edit it. Basta ‘di ko ma-explain. It’s pretty interesting. Tapos ayun, na-hire nga ako and I will start na on Monday. Grabe, super ganda ng offer as in walang wala yung previous company ko. The salary offer is just wow. Like I can’t even... Tapos 10am-6pm yung working hours pero as long as tapos ka na sa task mo, you can log-out. And sis, we have 21 leave credits per year + 5 festival leaves (pag may PH holidays and gusto ko mag leave pwede). Tapos flexible pa sila, pwede pa daw mag request ng additional pero for approval ng Creative Lead. They also have healthcare, sponsored fitness, learning and travel benefits. I don’t have to pay any of it, kasi part siya ng benefits ko!! No pressure din in working kasi we have 24 hours to finish our deliverables which I love.  Idk, pero sobrang swerte ko talaga lagi. Grabe yung mga opportunities and experiences ko when it comes to work. May pagka-workaholic ako and love ko talaga ginagawa ko so laging may magagandang return. First job ko call center, lagi ako may awards and nakukuhang perks and freebies. Before ako mag resign meron sana akong free trip to HK nun due to my good perforance, isa ako sa top agents pero ‘di ko na kinuha nag resign na ako. Hahaha. Tapos sa next job ko sa Hallmark, napadala rin ako sa HK tsaka sa Russia. Tine-train na ako maging Brand Manager supposedly pero nag resign rin ako. Tapos sunod sa DP, from being a GD to Assistant Team Leader. Before ako mag first year, I was awarded as Rookie of The Year, price nun pupunta kami ng Arizona and sponsored trip yun ng company but then the pandemic happened so hindi pa natutuloy. Tapos nagkaroon narin ako ng mga cash incentives. Hanggang sa nagresign nalang rin ako uli. Then now, parang naka-jackpot ako sa new company ko. Sabi nga ng jowa ko, mapag-bigay daw kasi ako at sobrang bait sa mga tao kaya grabe daw ako i-bless ni Lord. Plus grabe din daw talaga ako mag trabaho. Sometimes, I just can’t help it. I’m just a very passionate person and I do love what I do. I really commit to it. So ayun, ang dami kong kinuda. Hahaha. Bye.  

[jageunyeoujari]

‘idea’ & self-knowledge as love as freedom

w thanks to @radiatingdyke​​ & henrik !!

so in a previous post, i talked abt spectacle & respect in criminal for context. now starting off w henrik’s thoughts re: plato:

"It’s honestly pretty ambiguous what Plato means by it- at least in the republic- The core theory is that ideal forms are a truer kind of reality than the shadows. The philosopher escapes a cave of shadows projected on the wall by a ruling class, the only “reality” they ever knew and were literally bound to. They crawl through a treacherous passage to find themselves face to face with the dazzling light of the sun which blinds them temporarily, and as their eyes adjust they find themselves in a forest and realize the shadow puppet of “tree” was not the real tree all along! For what the shadows are: Idk how developed popular media/conventional politics were at the time but we (America) based a lot of our shit on it so I think one strong possibility is we find ourselves in a modern allegory of the cave where the shadows dancing on the wall are the world as it’s told to us- through news education and policy and the “real” is personal experience and genuine community. Then shadows would then be actual reality as we know it, including the real trees and personal experience, a veil placed over us by metaphysical forces which can be lifted through Godwork to reveal the true nature of the inner workings of the universe. The last part of the allegory is that the philosopher returns to the cave to free the other prisoners and spread the light”

so while criminal is the revelation in the toxic cycle of the idol culture & mutual destruction & obsession are confused for love, idea is making the decision to learn what true love & connection is, leaving behind the suffocating expectations demanded by the industry, & in the process, become complete in his humanity.

so we first see taemin in jail, condemning himself for his role in the toxic parasocial relations of idol culture, and literally... calling himself out.... altho i would say that this:

in criminal is purgatory proper, the jail may be the end point of his journey there. he confesses his sins, his soul gets purified, & then next we see him in the bar which is confirmed to be heaven (which happens to look much like lee soo man's office) while the flashy models stare at taemin, the walking dead, the posh people in suits (likely executives) ignore him. 

so here we have taemin trying to fit in seemlessly in this world of the elites who have the highest level of control in the idol industry. here, he is assured his status as the best & now guaranteed to be free of pain... but on their terms. there is shallow comfort but nothing else. the others content w playing games & eating delicacies, surrounded by alcohol, but are contained to sitting, indulging in frivolities, & passively looking on but no chance of connection. the bar is just another form of intoxication, but unlike criminal where there is at least an illusion of attaining love, heaven is merely stagnant. this idealized heaven of the elites cannot give true freedom as it is based on sterility & exclusivity, just another form of social control. "the dangerous dream that swallowed me is proven by you." staying here would be another form of self-betrayal & denial of the love he seeks so he rebels against heaven through his dancing, an affirmation of his life.

taemin then being shocked that all these shadow versions of himself are not the truth... silvery dissolving forms... his identity fragmenting............ but still taemin still can't break away from the illusion that the adoration & fame he receives as an idol could be actually hurting him.

as @radiatingdyke has talked about, BoA's 'killing me' line is reminiscent of korean shamans channeling gods. significant that it is BoA who he channels as they are both similar, debuting at a very young age & have been massive stars ever since then. "you are my messiah" BoA cuts him off, speaking the truth. this isn't who he rly is or what he actually wants. he must face himself & the truth or he will die. 

the mirror steps are i think symbolic of plato's ladder of love. to my understanding, the ladder of love is basically about how the aim of life is the ascension of the soul to heaven. the gods can do this as a god's soul is in perfect balance w all the different aspects of itself which makes them necessarily wise & good. humans' souls are in disarray, however, & it is this conflict between all parts of the soul which makes it difficult for us to follow the gods to heaven. to do this, people have to understand the true Form of beauty, by climbing the ladder of love. the steps start from loving a body which one is attracted to due to physical beauty & by understanding the beauty of this body, one can then consider how the beauty of one body is found in all bodies. the progression goes on from loving more broadly until we come to the last step, love of knowledge & wisdom. now one is able to see the actual form of Beauty, bringing harmony to your soul. so in order to taemin to finally know peace within himself, he has to know how to love.

& the progression of the ladder implies for me that by first learning to care for others but understanding who they are in their completeness & beauty, you eventually are able to learn to care for yourself & see the beauty in your own soul. & on the flip side, the better able you care for yourself, the more you are able to care for others. i'll discuss this more when i go into my thoughts on act 2 as a whole but basically, the rest of act 2 has a truly warm & loving atmosphere when taemin speaks to the other. in comparison, act 1 presents his experience of 'love' as enmeshment, painful, confusing, losing his self of sense to cater to the desires of the other. there are feelings of obligation to stay in this destructive relationship bc that’s his prescribed role & anyway, any attention is better than none at all. 

ppl w a poor sense of self can readily suffer mistreatment for the sake of a semblance of connection, confusing obsession for love when what’s rly happening is actually cathexis, an investment of emotions. while care & affection can exist w cathexis, as does happen in fans’ relations w idols, this is not the same thing as love which liberates & cultivates growth in yourself & the other. fans’ obsession w idols quickly flipping to hate when idols stray from the designated persona of perfection is investment in that image but is not real love. in act 1, he does not understand the other clearly for what it is, destruction that must end, & the fact that he is suffering. without such awareness, he is incapable of truly giving & receiving love. 

& while act 2 does have similar themes of taking on other's pain, it becomes a stark contrast to act 1 bc he does so from a place of utter assurance of his identity & true self-love, not from the fear of being left alone. he loves himself for who he is so he is able to love for ourselves purely as well.

& as @radiatingdyke has said (& in much more detail than i can) the ladder reflecting the sky can also be a reference to indigenous korean beliefs where the sky represents the entire universe. the creator god is Hanulnim, literally sky god.  

 also, even tho NGDA as a whole is replete w western imagery & references & v catholic, the overarching narrative of the 2 albums don't feel western to me in that there never is a fight between good & evil. a typical western narrative would be more like there would the defeat of like 'criminal' taemin by 'good' taemin or an obvious redemption arc. & to me, idea doesn't read so much as he confronts & then accepts both the good & the bad in him but that he leaves behind these limited concepts altogether & instead connects back to the true essence of the universe & becomes free to be utterly himself.

he’s struggled so much over the course of his career w figuring out how to reconcile the duality of himself, what it means to be authentic as an idol, wishing for his true self to be seen & appreciated. it’s always been looking outward for that validation but skirting away from revealing the whole truth of himself... & idea is the final answer to all that. no more denial, repression, burning away of the past, configuration to other ppl’s desires, no more use of mystery as a defense against the fear of being rejected if people see him for who he really is. he accepts himself for who he is & that’s all that matters.

in classic gaytholic taem fashion, he compares himself to jesus + mary + other divinity in NGDA imagery but ultimately, taemin is done w being both a god & the condemned. “i’ve finally opened my eyes.” he’s never been anything but a human being & he’s showing us all the beauty in that.

[chiyuukiaru]

Haikyuu!! Chapter 372

Not in order, I wrote this based from part that I remembered first to the last. Also, this is a spoiler, so please ignore this post if you don’t wanna be spoiled (or anime-only viewers).

Oikawa is in an overseas volleyball club.

On my previous post, I more or less already guessed it. But, I wasn't 100% right. Oikawa is indeed in an overseas team, but not a Brazilian club. An Argentinean club, that is. He was probably just sightseeing on the neighborhood country when he accidentally met Hinata.

Oikawa became like a mental-uplifting figure to Hinata.

I correctly guessed this too. Actually, Hinata said it himself. He felt better after meeting Oikawa. These two are so adorable. And would you look at that?! They already made a promise to meet up again, in a way (with Oikawa asking for a treat next time).

Ushijima and Kageyama in the same team.

I never mention this, but I always headcanon Kageyama to be teammates with Ushijima or Hoshiumi. Because these two are the other characters that I feel would be pro and the ones that had a direct conflict with Hinata. So, they team-up with Kageyama and fight Hinata would be a great drama. Glad my headcanon turned out real. It's a fan's biggest happiness lol. Thanks, Furudate!

Not only that, their expressions when they saw the pic is GOLDEN. Idk what exactly they're thinking about, but I bet it's something along the line of: "Damn, I should be more cautious. This combination is also dangerous". We know that Ushijima and Kageyama had long acknowledged Oikawa's talent as a setter (whether people think he's a natural genius or not). With him setting to Hinata, it would be a really yabai combination. Hinata also has made a name for himself as a high-level high school player in Japan (yes, admit it. Even Katou Lucio heard about this. Obviously, from Shiratorizawa's head coach), and he's still training and improving too.

Btw, what language is Schweiden? Is it a club in Japan? I don't think so, tho. The name sounds like it's coming from Sweden. If it's true, then Kageyama and Ushijima are playing in a foreign league (?).

On a side note, actually, I was sure Oikawa went pro too. Just never imagined he'd gone overseas right after graduation. I thought he'd be in a Japanese club first, then transfer.

Kindaichi and Kunimi made an appearance.

I always love the relationship between the members of The Miyagi First Year Training Camp (yes, even those ball boys). They're so precious and even though they were rivals, they learned a lot from each other. Hinata also got one of his biggest (and most satisfying, for me) development from this camp. So when these two appeared, I was elated.

Personally, I think Oikawa posted the selfie on his social media. That's why Kindaichi and Kunimi conversation went like this: "Did you see? I saw". It's like a conversation between 2 friends about the latest post of their friend who switched school or moved far after graduation. Fits.

On the other hand, Kageyama received the selfie from Hinata's chat (I think it's LINE). It suits his personality too, I don't think he would purposely open a social media account. But personal message is alright (awww and that means they're still in contact even with the time difference).

We could see Oikawa play again.

Yes, I also stated that I miss watching Oikawa plays again. He's been missing for hundred chapters, dammit. Now, from the build-up for the next chapter, I believe we could confidently say we would see him play again. And with our strongest decoy too! Wow, just wow.

The mystery coach is revealed. And the flashback with Kindaichi and Kunimi in Aoba Johsai gym.

I was always curious WHY Furudate never showed this couch's face. Now, we know why. The foreshadowing tho, damn Furudate is really smart. They planned this arc from a long time ago, duh.

Also, I always felt there's something I didn't catch when Kindaichi and Kunimi talked about how crazy Oikawa is (cmiiw, I think it was episode 11 in Season 2, I forgot which chapter it was in the manga tho). The animation (and manga panel) moved the focus back to Oikawa and his serving too fast, imo. I remember thinking "What they mean with it? Isn't his serve always crazy? Why talk about it?". My friends told me I was thinking too much about that line, but turned out, I was right to be curious. Because Oikawa wanted to play overseas!!! That's why it was crazy for Kindaichi and Kunimi. Damn, Furudate I respect you!

We were shown, once again, that beach volleyball is not the same as indoor volleyball.

Oikawa directly stated this. Beach volleyball just has volleyball in it. It's still a completely different sport. And he proved that by falling on his face (and his face is so pretty too, sigh). It means, in the current timeline, Hinata "Ninja Shouyou" is indeed a force to be reckoned with. He's acknowledged as a strong player and given a nickname for his play. Hinata really has come so far. I couldn't be more proud.

On a side note, Hinata feeling superior from Oikawa for his better beach volley play is adorable. When you're better at something, even for a little bit, from someone you know is really really good, you can't help feeling proud of yourself, lol. I definitely talked from experience.

Oikawa telling his friends that Hinata was a middle school kid from his neighborhood in English. And Hinata understood that.

And this is a guy whose worse subject was English! Before meeting Yachi and got her help, his grades never entered 2 digits. Now, not only he understands and speaks Portuguese, he understands English (probably learning to speak the language too, it's a package if you wanna survive in a foreign world). Also, we saw he learned Spanish from manga in chapter 370 too. He became multilingual (probably still with accent tho). I'm so proud.

On a side note, I wonder why Oikawa talked to his friends in English? Does it mean, he can't speak Spanish, yet?

Ugh, when this arc was animated, I hope we could hear Murase Ayumu (Hinata's VA) speaks English (he's fluent after all, ahaha). And also, him speaking Portuguese (and maybe Spanish) would kill me too.

There friends, all my rambling. I'm really getting better at rambling. Maybe I should mention this on my CV. I apologize if my words are hard to understand or I'm too talkative and annoying. I just want to let these all out, coz I know I will feel better this way. Also, I think I wrote “On a side note” too many times, lmao. Apologize, once again.

PS: Previously on my post, I said that I didn't want Oikawa to be a mentor figure for Hinata coz it'd feel like Hinata's progress isn't his own, and his struggles wouldn't feel strong enough. I still stand by this. I really don't want Oikawa to be a mentor figure for Hinata. But, I want Oikawa to be someone that can assure Hinata everything will be fine, even if he's all by himself in a foreign country and this, happened. Idk about the mentor thing, it's still up to Furudate to do it or not (honestly, I don't want it. Even if Furudate did it, maybe just make it like the training camp? So Hinata was like, observing Oikawa, asking him about some techniques, etc. I mean, you know, it’s not Oikawa who freely taught Hinata, but Hinata who was asking first. So it is still, in a way, Hinata’s own progress and learning). But, I think we all can universally agree that OiHina team-up is something that we wanna see, yes?! Looking forward to the next chapter.

[incarnateirony]

An apology, but a story.

Okay guys, sorry for uh, talking so much about Pillowfort lately. I do mean it when I say I’m still here to stay until Tumblr totally dies, and I know I’ve been posting a LOT of PF content, but I’m also trying to help tailor an environment over there where this fandom can thrive. Add in momma’s heart attack and coma and my dash has been a hot mess and bare bones of my usual content, and I apologize.

But at the same time I’d like to sort of tell a bit of a flashback story of social media, fandom, and why I really do hope the best for Pillowfort. Some people are too young to remember the slow death of Livejournal, and I’m having like, flashbacks from that. I wasn’t in SPN fandom itself at the time but I was on LJ, so if you’re 

worried about your friends leaving

intent on sticking to tumblr hell or high water

kind of upset at some friends trying to manage both

Let me give a little bit of history to explain what people are doing right now and why.

Long long ago, in a digital world far away when the internet still screamed at you when you connected to it, fandom wasn’t really globalized like it is. Twitter didn’t exist. Eventually Facebook was a hot new commodity not everybody adopted immediately. Tumblr wasn’t a sparkle in anybody’s eye. 

Fandom was mostly relegated to php forums and places like Livejournal. Livejournal proved to be -- at the time -- one of the best methods to engage in fandom. You could have your own journal, but you could also join communities with your account and comment on long discussions. 

There were weaknesses of this to be sure. Notifications were pretty raw to nonexistent compared to how we know of them modernly. You had to basically manually check the comm to stay on top of things, and what was said in that comm was choked to that comm. Now, that had its strengths: you could control the community and posts, ergo minimizing flame wars, but it made fandom a bunch of pigeonhole wings and, to be honest, echo chambers. Lots of things got missed, overlooked, and what have you. And god help you if you pissed off a big name fan in your wing that owned one or most of the communities you went to. Replies and the ilk were pretty limited on what you could do, too. But it was something. It was more than just a standard forum. You could still try to cross-engage.

Then came the LJ Purge, which... is pretty much identical to the Tumblr purge. New rules banishing NSFW to the depths of the internet, some out of control censorship, targeting all LGBT content no matter how pure as NSFW and explicit -- you name it. They didn’t really have wildly out of control filterbots, that’s a new modern invention just to shit in our bin a little better, but you get the idea. What happened -- and is still, more quietly, now that the shock has passed -- to Tumblr is what happened to LJ. People lost mountains of work. 

Now, LJ didn’t die overnight. It died over the course of a few years. Some people left fairly quickly, others tried to stay aboard. For example, Destiel fandom was fairly young at the point the LJ Purge kicked off, and were already sort of outsiders among the fandom newsletters that were more Gen or Wincest doused at that point because -- well, duh -- they had a several year running start on that platform. The communities, as above, were really regulated. There just wasn’t room to breathe. Sure, they had their own comms, but once material started vanishing, they were much more eager to, en masse, migrate to a new platform. And yes, some stayed behind longer, because people, even in shipland, aren’t a borg.

Other communities, like gen or Wincest, stayed behind longer. They had years of built up work and huge communities they were attached to there and it was a lot harder for them to let that all go. But it didn’t get better. More quietly, once the hysteria ended, people just lost their will to continue to use livejournal and they more dribbled across.

Some went to Dreamwidth back then. Some went to tumblr. Long term, tumblr worked for everybody until now. Dreamwidth was pretty much Livejournal, minus censorship, plus a few bells and whistles but it worked for a few people, but let’s face it -- that’s not where central fandom ended up.

Now, people are talking alternatives. Some are saying to go back to Dreamwidth. I refuse. 

Because there’s a reason it wasn’t the most successful platform in the past and we’ll go back to completely segregated fandom like before and 

because certain aspects of fandom that DID go to Dreamwidth and stay there, have still been there, and are a huge thorn in the side to almost anyone with their head screwed on straight, Destiel fandom or not. J2 tinhats are the eternal asscramps of the fandom and they’ve squatted on dreamwidth for their crazy ass tinhat page for years, god knows they probably went to adjacent communities, god knows how ingrained they are into it, and I am NOT willing to deal with that level of horse shit again.

Pornhub tried a grab, that didn’t work, as it shouldn’t, for a list of reasons as long as my arm; Mastodon was suggested, but has a huge issue in some of its other channels that people don’t want to float in the vicinity of. 

And then there’s Pillowfort.

So look, Pillowfort is young, it is a smolbabe. In a few months it went from 4K users to 25K users and is growing innumerably by the day. Its servers are struggling. That turns some people off. I get that. But that isn’t permanent.

So first of all, early pioneers are what make migrations work. Just like LJ had its initial members, and then tumblr had its early migrators, places like Pillowfort can be the same. Dreamwidth already has its foundations. That’s redundant, and foundations I’m not even going to touch, much less the regressive, divisive form of communities that will segregate all of us again. It’s fine if you aren’t one of the first people to take up the platform. The people ahead of you will start laying down content and communities and, if it works out, you can join in when you’re ready.

So what makes Pillowfort so fucking special?

Okay, so check it out. On tumblr, we’re used to reblogging shit into the bowels of the internet. As Pillowfort grows it, too, has that capability with some differences.

The boldest difference is that when you reblog, your opinion doesn’t get attached to the end of the post. It just reblogs the base post. Some people initially complained and thought that was the loss of a feature but came to realize it’s a blessing.

You see, that means someone can’t kidnap your post with a shitty opinion to reblog it to their friends with a shitty opinion that all attach their heckling shitty opinions. Like, let’s say it’s someone that’s Destiel fandom reading this. Ever had an anti shit reblog your post and it run wild? Well, now, if they try to reblog it, all they reblog is... your Destiel post. Thanks for that.

So how do we actually say what we need to?

Well, fam, it incorporated elements from LJ/DW, in having threaded replies. Multiple threads if so needed. The threaded replies are capable of housing just about anything an OP has. So a blog post has, alongside Like/Reblog notifications, comments. Open the post, read the comments, start an actual conversation with some merit. Did some douchebag come to spam your comments since they can’t reblog? No problem, delete their shitty comments and block them, problem solved.

But it doesn’t end there.

See, like LJ, PF has communities. While your post can reblog just about anywhere just like on tumblr, you can blog or reblog them into the communities you follow. Anyone following that community, whether they follow you directly or not, gets that turning up in their feed, maximizing your spread. So sure, it’s a young platform and you only have 20 followers or whatever, but if you make a general Supernatural style post and blog it to the SPN com, 300 people (at current) see it. If you post something to the Destiel comm, over 200 people see it. It’s a way to even find new accounts and friends.

If you don’t like something that’s turning up in a community, you can blacklist shit. And/or find a more appropriate community if it gets out of hand to you.

When you make your own communities you can have internal discussions or blog in/out posts, you can set rules, promote moderators, remove or ban problem users, and generally control the flow of your community to keep out shitlords. But, if for example, you subscribed to a community that turns out to be secretly run BY a shitlord because, IDK, maybe they don’t like that you think Sam is bi or something, most of these communities are large and blog in/out/engageable enough that you won’t lose your contacts, you WILL find your people over time, and you won’t be completely choked off to a singular abyss.

So the base beat is

PF treats every single post like any root post on an LJ/DW comm, but is able to be reblogged from/to communities or your own blog page as freely as tumblr.  PF takes the best concepts of current and previous fandom platforms in its base application and lays a groundwork that literally all of us can prosper on if it survives and continues. 

But that’s the catch.

And it’s cool if you aren’t ready to completely take that leap yet. I get that.

“I kinda like PF but it doesn’t have X feature-”

Okay look, PF is a smolbabe, like I said. It’s in beta. The thing is, they’re adding things every day. They have a dev list like 2 pages long for goals and things are getting crossed off and added like, biweekly. It might already be on their list to add. And if it’s not, guess what?

The staff actually give a shit and react to questions and concerns. There’s entire beta groups to talk about features with bugs, and/or features that should be added or adjusted. There’s a comm to talk directly to the staff about things.

A small, young platform needs people willing to be out there saying what would improve the experience. So if you go there, you’re not just fandom pioneers, you’re social media pioneers if you so choose to be. It’s not mandatory. You can just fan in your space how you want. Or you can go to the beta groups and staff groups and tell them what you think would improve the experience. 

And again, it’s okay if you aren’t willing to move right now.

I’m not moving entirely. I’m double blogging, and will return to my regularly scheduled blogging on tumblr here soon, now that my life is calming down and I got most of my PF heavy lifting out of the way. But I want to make a nest in case this does pan out to be the next forward horizon, rather than taking a step back to something like Dreamwidth that segregates us all again. I want to help them build that platform. 

But I’ll still be here with you guys.

But if you’ve felt like friends are abandoning you

Please try to understand the history, please understand what they’re doing and why they’re doing it, and just try to encourage them to cross blog where you can/will engage. And if you’re feeling daring one day? Try to poke your head into PF.

I have one remaining key that I’m willing to give a really good fandom creator. I gave one to a meta-mind and I’d like this to go to a heavy, inclusive gif creator, because that’s still a sparse art on PF. You’d be the belle of the ball just for crossposting your work, in a place that DOESN’T have a threat of it getting deleted when tumblr throws a hissyfit. Just post on both. Tada. Suddenly you’re the popular kid.

If you’re interested, if you poke your head in, check my recent post listing communities that are growing rapidly and the ilk to know where to get your feet wet. Or send me a DM. I’ll help.

We good? Cool.

[expirationdates]

I’m so done with everything

I am a Christian.

When I first started my journey, I was just another lonely 17 year old that had found grace and shelter in the arms of Jesus. I had no previous experiences with the church, hell, I was an atheist beforehand. Because of my atheist background, I knew and actually despised self proclaimed “Christians” because all the fruit i ever saw from them was hate, selfishness, judgement, legalism, sexism, and racism. I used to think, “ If those people know God’s word and become like this, I’ll take my chances somewhere else.” So when I (surprise!) got called to Jesus, my first thought was “I need to make sure I never become like them.”. My whole existence as a Christian in the early years was to do the exact opposite of the behavior I’d seen... and it was fine for a while. But then I couldn’t escape the hateful things my fellow church goers were posting on social media. Attacks on gay people, attacks on feminism, all coming from people who would welcome you with “open arms.”. I wonder how many people would still open their arms to me if I was gay? Would they ask their children to look away, because it’s so corrupted? I know what the Bible says, but my Jesus said “You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” Matthew‬ ‭22:37-40‬ ‭NLT‬‬.

And there’s just as much hate on the other side. Sometimes Christians just have the genuine hope for you to meet Jesus, IRL, no strings attached. The greatest LOVE to ever exist, the one and only person in the whole world who could ever and would ever give everything they have, everything they own, for your life, and ask nothing in return. He has a better life for you, free of depression, free of mental illness, free of despair, just pure joy, only if you follow Him. But His salvation from spiritual death comes at no cost of your own. And this gift is sooo good, those who experience it want everyone else to know about it. But they get shut down, saying that Christianity is a farce, that God isn’t real, even though we’ve seen God work in our lives, and disparaging our faith. (PS no amount of scientific data is ever going to prove or disprove the existence of God, because He is beyond earthly or even universal laws, He’s the one who created them, who is to say He cannot ignore them?)

I can’t find peace on either side, but maybe I was never meant to. Idk, just ranting.

[lizziebennetnotinjapan]

I need help with a girl and because of the situation, you seemed like a good place to go for advice. We met here on tumblr because she found my rps.....but she lives on the other side of the planet. I’d really like for it to work out but like idk how. Help?

((Hooooo boy. So, as always, this depends on a lot of things really. And, as always, you don’t have to listen to what I’m saying, this is just based on my own experience. I feel like you want me to tell you how to make it work, so I’m gonna hit you with some hard truths which sort of answer the question but also serve as a warning, because I feel like people don’t see the tough side of ldrs on social media.

Firstly, after having been in a long distance relationship in my early twenties, I would not recommend it. It held both me and my ex back in a lot of ways and meant that it had a negative effect on the relationship and on my confidence levels specifically. Your teens/twenties are going to be full of change, while you are deciding what and who you want to be. I’m not saying this is impossible to do while in a relationship, but a long distance relationship can make this very, very hard. Partly because you can easily slip into the pattern of spending all your time either online talking to said person, or saving money to visit said person, or missing said person (and spending a lot of time frustrated and sad), instead of developing yourself (which I absolutely did, and have learned from). I spent a lot of my time in that relationship waiting around for the other person, putting in a lot of the work for the relationship, while they were improving themselves and their career. This built resentment and insecurity, and is something I now regret, as I am still not where I want to be career-wise. You have to put a lot of your needs first, because otherwise that resentment will build up and be damaging all round.

Secondly – and be really honest with yourself here – how mature and good at communicating are you (both)? Because ldrs are not a walk in the park. It can be really, really hard, and you have to be able to communicate very effectively to keep the balance. This is something that TT and I have developed over a long time, and still struggle with sometimes, because getting that balance right is freaking tough. 

Thirdly, and again, you gotta be brutally honest with yourself: do you see this being a potential long term success? If you step back from the emotional side of things, a ldr is a huge investment in time and money – travelling back and forth, potentially paying for accommodation etc. And ultimately, if it’s going to work out, one or both or you needs to be prepared to make a huge move. tl;dr:

– Communication – be honest and open with each other– Balance – neither of you compromising too much (or you will both end up miserable and it will ruin the relationship down the line)Bonus:– Doing small things to let each other know you’re thinking of the other (snail mail! random cute messages! n00ds! bad poetry! voice messages!)– Surprises (if you like them) (give your partner a heart attack by turning up at their house when they think you’re on the other side of the world!)– Virtual dates (dress up! have dinner! watch a movie!)

ALSO 

I love TT and wouldn’t have had our situation develop any other way. It happened the way it was meant to and the way it worked for us, but only after we sorted through (and continue to sort through) a lot of issues and situations. 

The negative situation I have referenced was my previous relationship and the reason I’ve brought it up is because I am assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that you are younger than us (cause we’re ancient).

to reiterate

I LOVE TT. COOL.))

[xavier-on-quack]

Fandom and Social Media

Because it's week 9 and if you don't realize our main topic is social media, then I'm glad I told you lmao, anyways. Let me just get this joke out of the way first:

Ok, now that the fan joke is out of the way, let's get back to the actual topic.

What is fandom?

A fandom is a subculture of people that consists of fans. The word fandom itself originated back from an 1896 Washington Post sports column describing "local fandom."

The word fandom can be separated into two parts, "fan" and the suffix "-dom". "Fan" originated from the word "fanatic", which was used as an adjective for "frenzied" or "mad", while the suffix for "-dom" two things, a rank or the rank of a person who controls that place (a kingdom who is controlled by the king, hence the "-dom") at the back, or wisdom, which is a state of being wise.

I'd like to think that the "-dom" in fandom takes a little bit of inspiration from both sides of the meaning. On one side, it could mean a region controlled by fans, which to be honest, that's what most creators/artists end up doing to appeal to more fans; and on the other side, it could mean the fan's wisdom on that particular topic. Ever think that you know more about Justin Bieber than himself? Well, there you go.

The fun stuff

Now that we've got the English out of the way, we can move on to what is inside a fandom. I hope you're ready, cause where we're going, we aren't coming back.

Canon

This is the 'boring stuff', or lore and characters that are written by the author themselves. This is the information given out by the creator and anything that is not written in the creators own personal bible or baptized by them is considered sacrilegious.

For example, if I said that Harry Potter grew up in the France and ate baguette's for breakfast everyday, and chilling under the Eiffel Tower on his free time, picking up chicks called Emma Watson, I'd probably be burnt at the cross by hardcore fans. It's not Canon.

Anything that J.K. Rowling writes and acknowledges to be canon, is canon.

Harry had erectile dysfunction.

Headcanon

Headcanon is when fans basically choose to believe in what they want to, based on previous interactions between characters, or established lore, even if it goes against canon.

For example, Hermione should have ended up with Harry, and that is my personal headcanon.

Shipping

So, this.. this can be either canon or non-canon, sometimes they go from non-canon to canon, sometimes they are never meant to be but the tension between their characters is so strong you just wanna see them fu-

I digress.

Shipping is when you pair up two characters that you really like, imagining and hoping that they'd be a couple. When when you ship someone, you become a shipper and you get to choose a ship name. An example for me would be when I shipped two of the best characters that had some insane chemistry together but the author just WOULD NOT make it canon and ACTUALLY TRIED TO ANGER THE FANS BY SHIPPING THEM WITH ANOTHER PAIR AND THEY END UP GOING BACK TO THEM ANYWAYS JUST BECAUSE FANS KEP-

I digress.

Harry and Hermione's ship name is Harmony and I love it.

Fanfiction

Fanfiction is when fans take writing into their own hands and start writing about the story based on the characters and lore established as canon, creating a Fanon of sorts. Based on personal experience, this usually happens when fans wants to put themselves in their favourite character's perspective and live their lives because of idk, jealously. Or when fans decide that the story that the creator is writing or the ending that the story is going towards is unsatisfactory. Or or, when fans decide that they want Harry to have private lessons with Snape after school to study each other's wands.

Fanfiction can be anything, literally.

There are fanfictions of literally anything from games to even the real world history. I'm 100% sure that there is fanfiction of Leonardo da Vinci meeting up with a time-travelling dog that adopted a child. Oh wai-

Works of fanfiction aren't illegal as well, since they are considered "transformative" work based on the original source material.

Fanworks

Fanworks are stuff that fans make to pay homage to the canon. Stuff is very loosely defined here, it could be artwork, it could be a piece of music or even an entire alternate universe where they rewrite the entire story based on their liking. While talking about this topic, I would like to bring up Undertale and their amazing fandom, with a game built around making choices and decisions, with such colourful and interactive characters and makes every playthrough different, the alternate universes that have spawned from Undertale is, amazing.

The music and fanart made out of the game also tests the boundary of the fan's imagination. Below is a artwork of a character (Sans) from the game itself, compared to a random fanart you can find with a simple google search.

Props goes to Hakki who drew the artwork.

Social Media

How does this all tie back to Social Media?

Well, everything. A fandom would not be a collective group of people if they can't collect themselves and unite. Social Media has allowed creators to reach out with their personal fandom to get feedback and recognition to motivate them or seeing their reaction. Have you ever made something and other people reacted either positively and negatively?

That feeling is amazing.

Seeing other people invested in something you created is what keeps creators going, and social media allows that. People often think of social media as a very specific thing, like Facebook, Instagram, or even Tumblr, but social media is a very loose term used to describe websites that focuses on communication, content-sharing, and collaborations, and that basically describes all the websites that are user interactive.

Fans will always exist, but fans will have trouble uniting to be a fandom, without the help of social media.

Thank you for coming to my DUCK-talk, I'll be here next week with gaming, and yes, I am very excited.

[jemdeserveslove]

What do you think about this?

Q: Can you tell us anything about the upcoming books in the ACOTAR series? Sarah: There are a lot of fairytales I would like to explore, although many of these ideas are not at all final. I started writing a story for myself during ACOWAR because I wanted to explore new characters and before I knew it I had 250 pages of a new project. I had dinner with my editor and had a few to many drinks, and ended up pitching her three novels and a few novellas in the world. I can say that each standalone will follow a different romantic pairing, both based after and before ACOWAR. There will possibly be a story about a snow queen, and I really like the story of Vasilisa the Beautiful along with Swan Lake. I’m excited because of how much I love romance series following couples in these same storyline.

Hi! Sorry for the long wait

So, I personally don't see a problem with an author pitching new ideas as they're writing. I am no writer myself, but I think it's a very normal thing to happen and I have no issues with it, as long as it's consistent with the previous writing. I remember reading a couple of book series that introduced new ideas as the books progressed and they were so messy and poorly executed (in my opinion) that I could not read the whole thing (it really bothered me lol)

Acosf introduced new ideas like that, such as the Dread Trove for exemple. (correct me if I am wrong, but I'm pretty sure we never had anything on them before acosf) I don't think the Trove was poorly added in the story, hence why it didn't bother me, and the reason for that is because acotar had a trilogy with it's own plot, a plot that was solved. Now, there are new things to solve as the story progresses and I feel that the Trove was a good addition that worked really well with the story. Like, the Trove connects with some plot points in the story that had been opened since acowar, such as Koschei and even the Illyrians (there are theories connecting Ramiel and the 4th item. Is it gonna happen? I don't know, but it's not pure speculation in my opinion) My point is: Sarah added something new to the story that only worked in favor of what she already had at the end of acowar.

I know that there are some inconsistencies in acosf, I remember that as I was reading there were some things that I didn't remember that happened in the previous books, then later, when I finished the book, I opened Tumblr and a lot of people were pointing out these inconsistencies. (so I was like "thank God, cause I started to think I just didn't remember anything lol") Sorry that I can't remember any of them right now, I think they were all little details, but that, you know, are important, so, I understand why a lot of people were really disappointed with this lack of attention to detail.(just one example of something people were disappointed with, there are many) Honestly, it didn't bother my reading experience that much, I think there were a lot more new positive things that were put in acosf that worked well with the (new) plot and I decided to enjoy.

I definitely think that a big part of the fandom wants Sarah to be this perfect and flawless author, which she's not. So, a lot of people just go around online lashing out on sjm that "something didn't happen" or that "something was wrong" and things like that. If people are complaining about couples I think it's really ridiculous and petty (she's the author, so she knows better about these things), but if it's something about her lack of representativeness or criticism as to how it was done, I think it is really valid and necessary. Constructive criticism about books is always good and important and people should do it (I think Sarah doesn't use social media anymore, but maybe the editing company sees it? Idk)

I definitely went off topic lol, I'm sorry. About the " (...) pitching her three novels and a few novellas in the world. I can say that each standalone will follow a different romantic pairing, both based after and before ACOWAR." I don't know when this question was asked, but I remember reading about the confirmation of 3 novels and 2 novellas (acofas being the first novella and acosf being the first of the 3 novels) Acosf covered a couple based before acowar and I'm pretty confident that next novel is Azriel's with Gwyn's pov in it (a couple based after acowar) and that the last novel is Elain's with Lucien's pov (before acowar) + Mor and Emerie that are based after acowar (I think Mormerie could happen in the next novel, but who knows? we'll have to wait and see). I have read that the novella is supposed to be in between the novels and help with the plot construction (so maybe no couple?), but I'm not sure about the veracity of this information.

I'm not that well informed about fairy tales in general, but Sarah seems to really like to put her twists in them (I like her twists) so I don't see why it wouldn't happen. She talked about some of these fairy tales in a couple of interviews, so I strongly believe it will happen. (I probably won't notice right away, because I don't know that much about these fairy tales lol maybe I'll try to be informed, because it is a interesting topic to theorize about it)

This answer was longer than it was supposed to be lol I hope I covered everything and thank you for your ask!

[elizabethrobertajones]

Hey you, during the course of this season i Have seen more and more people leave the fandom or grow disinterested in spn, and im confused why that it. I get why maybe s12 wouldnt be a fave season but if I look at the wank and bads of the previous ones (destiel fiasco in/out the show s9, charlies death Dean cruelty to Cas in s10, Dean/baby love interest s11) s12 didnt really do much that would drive people away en masse I feel? Yet it seems like more people left it :(

Heya! :D

Idk, maybe it was that more vocal people drifted off? I always feel like people’s attention spans are usually only a few years or so. I mean, I feel like I’ve been in the fandom a Long Time and I’ve only been here since the end of season 9, so really this is only my 3rd hiatus, and coming up to 4th year watching with fandom, on a 12 year show I’ve been watching for nearly 10 years, for the most part as a moderately casual viewer… I think I clock up about 5 years major interest and then drift, based on me vs several other things like how invested I was in LotR or Harry Potter or Animorphs, or whatever (to go back in time to my pre-teen interests :P) and it’s not a bad thing and I still love 2 of those franchises and have engagement in them but back to being a casual fan (if “religiously watches LotR at Christmas” is casual allowing for cultural/social stuff, but I’m not composing Legolas/Aragon smut in my teenage journal in secret code any more :P) 

Anyway the season 8 bubble of fandom could be deflating about now - that’s long enough for people to feel they’ve given the show their full attention and it’s still going so it’s getting tiring. That’s the major feeling I get - people are exhausted and we had a baby boomer fandom around season 8 so that ~generation~ of fans is now reaching the natural end of its attention span in a very human natural way. But there’s a ton of new or newer fans who are still enjoying the heck out of it, and the fandom’s still huge and full of people with a commitment to the show or ships. And some people don’t work like that and are loyal from start to finish or commit to TV shows fully to see them to their end. I would dump a show I was getting bored of but come back to watch the end later in a big marathon to find out what happened, but Supernatural hasn’t given me a reason to get totally un-invested until that time… I suspect a lot of people will watch the entire show ONE DAY but don’t want to do fandom and give it all their leisure time any more either.

[under a cut for meandering rambling]

But yeah I think you’ve named some pretty big mass exodus moments (I would like to clarify “Dean/baby” is “Dean/Amara-as-an-infant” right? Because Dean/Baby totally was a thing in 11x04 and it was GLORIOUS :P) and I feel like I DID lose people from my dash all through the time I’ve been watching. Heck, I hit up fandom right after 9x18, and started following people, and that was the JIB of “we don’t play it that way” so I immediately was following several abandoned blogs and I’d barely even started to get to know the landscape :P I feel like people HAVE been jumping ship the entire time and I remember most of those instances as sadly clearing several favourite people off my dash or turning them into different fandom blogs that I eventually unfollowed out of confusion… 

I don’t know, I think people leave when they want to leave because as long as you like the core of a thing and it holds your interest, you can forgive or ignore or scowl at but hold out for better the bad bits and problematic parts. I’m sort of weary of them killing all the women and PoC but I’m still at the stage where I identify it sucks, but I still care too much about the main characters that I’m sort of stuck on this ride with them. 

(I have 2x21 paused on the screen next to me right as Sam meets all the special children, aka introducing Lily the lesbian who dies horribly as a disposable red shirt to show how awful this situation is, and Jake, a black guy whose power is being super strong and to fall to Azazel’s manipulation, kill Sam, and then get killed with extreme overkill by Sam. In the same season he set the cops on Gordon, also a black man who was really aggro and cruel, but in the next season becomes a monster and Sam kills him also one of the most brutal kills he has up there with Jake. Basically, the show’s always had some issues and if we carried on watching all the way to season 12, well, apply self-reflection, but at this point if you’ve been watching as long as I have, you just kind of accept the show sucks at certain things, and for ME personally it’s not kicking off the sort of weariness that others felt about Billie and Alicia and Eileen being killed off this season)

… I don’t really have a point, expect about the demographics of fandom during season 8 getting to the end of their interest now. I don’t think EVERYONE who did will leave, and we’re getting fresh blood all the time, but I think that’s just part of the nature of being in fandom. I don’t think season 12 is particularly bad from my experience, although some pretty high profile bloggers have gotten exhausted - again, they’ve been maintaining blogs and producing content since single digit seasons so they’ve contributed a LOT to the fandom and there’s a fatigue about contribution as well… 

That’s partially why I meta and gif and write fic and occasionally make random shitposts… I don’t want to burn out because any one of those things on its own can get pretty boring, even writing fic. Or especially, idk, as a writer I tend to bounce around projects, so this is keeping me weirdly focused on writing my original fiction on one side of my brain and fan fic on the other and it seems to be a better way of splitting my attention… But I digress. :P 

I know how to manage my own brain to some degree but I have a lot of time to contemplate and self-reflect on why I’m in fandom and what I get out of it, and mostly I just conclude I’m bored and house-bound and I’ve found a few tried and tested things that get me some positive attention in a non-weird rat with a pleasure button way like people running hate blogs or something… But I know my own head and that I can get bored of stuff so I marathon a lot of other shows and think about other things than fandom stuff as much as possible and just let this be the gutter my brain drains into when my attention span is too shot to hell to do anything else and I just want to slump over a keyboard and do the easiest activity I know bar playing Animal Crossing for hours. 

Other people with busier lives and actual jobs and energy and limbs that don’t just randomly stop working when they do anything for more than 5 minutes and so on might not be casual fans but they make a certain space in their life for fandom and get out of it what they need but it’s a high quality demand thing so if their carefully allocated me-time isn’t rewarding them like it should it’s totally their right to go find another OTP to amuse themselves with a fandom producing stuff they want to see and a media source that’s giving them what they want immediately and in a way they don’t have to “look for scraps” as some people were saying about Destiel in season 9, 10 and 11 while things were thinner on the ground.

And as one of the too-much-free-time fandom contributors, I’ve got an enormous luxury to stick out things people who don’t have time for being jerked around or over-analysing to find what they want to see have… Although I’ll try and pass on my thoughts for the people with less time to think them to try and help them enjoy themselves as much as possible :P Anyway I think a whole range of reasons happen that people might get fatigued of the show especially as lives change and people blogging enthusiastically one day might get a job or a new relationship or a dog or SOMETHING and just not spend quite so much time online and then discover they don’t NEED to spend so much time on fandom, and drift naturally… Then try and find some reason on the show they’ve stopped watching, but often it’s just that things look worse after time away when the spark has started to fade because it’s not being nurtured in the same way any more. 

And 12 years is a LONG ASS TIME to be invested in something, so I think in general the fatigue or changing interests is all over the place and we might see it more and more as people drift… People who might watch it all as a catch up one day maybe a year or two after the show ends, but just don’t have the patience to stay in fandom and put in that energy over and over and over. 

Also the show is in a really weird place where it has some of the best writers it’s ever had in Berens and the newbie writers, and Dabb’s doing some fascinating things with the plot, but Buckleming are the executors of the story, in several interpretations of that phrase :P And there are people who skip MotW and find them unimportant or would judge the season on the plot, not the heart of the story… It’s a pretty precarious place, quality-wise. I think season 11 and 12 are a proper like, silver age revival of the MotW (with Nancy Won and Robbie giving last season a massive boost) where I think those episodes are really innovative and interesting, and the writers are being allowed a lot of freedom to play on THOSE canvases, but while the character development and *reasons* for the story have been fascinating and important, obviously 5 of the plot episodes this latest season were Buckleming and crucial to watch to know wtf was going on, even though the writers of those episodes seem to have such a terrible problem with hating the audience (literally, it’s in their scripts and off-screen comments), the genre, second drafts, common human decency towards characters and understanding why they’re important, pacing, you name it… :P So the show literally has 2 faces these days and depending on which one you see when you think of season 12, probably defines how you feel about the show as a whole and all that. I treat the plot episodes these days as a necessary evil between episodes written by people who actually like the show and care about it and its characters (see also: my non-stop sobbing about 12x22 since it aired)… But seeing the other face can really cast a cloud over the show and I’ve seen it make people wonder why the other writers even try. (I mean Perez did an incredible salvage job on Crowley in 12x15 only for it to immediately get yanked away again the next time BL wrote him and I think only they really got to play with him for the rest of the season, meaning all that work to make it seem important and thematically relevant that Perez had set up in 12x12 and messed with in 12x15 ended up being for nothing and Dabb had no time to do anything deep with Crowley, because 12x13 turns out to be the big Crowley & Rowena farewell episode, except for how it flubbed the entire premise of Grand Send Off Episode a la 7x10 or something despite all the ingredients being there…)

I am just rambling now so… Gonna hit post. Hope this makes sense :P This is just my interpretation of how people are feeling/how fandom as an entity seems to work, so it’s pretty subjective and others might feel very differently especially people who have been in negative echo chambers while I’ve built myself a reasonably positive one plus SENSIBLE and CONSTRUCTIVE wanky criticism that doesn’t go off the deep end :P

[pop-punklouis]

I've been sitting on this thought for a while and i think i know why atl's new record isn't getting as much respect as their other albums let me elaborate (prt 1)

(Prt2) they grew a fan base with their signature sound and that fan base hasn’t really changed over the years. People grew comfortable with them with their signature sound and weren’t expecting them to throw it away (mostly) any time soon.

(Prt 3) Their sound changed completely and fast… too fast. It isnt a bad thing of course, but it does throw people away from their comfort zone with the sound they were familiar with and grew to love. There weren’t really any hints of them going in the direction they decided to go. Usually, you’ll see bands shift their sound slowly rather than so quickly like atl did

(Prt4) all in all, it was unexpected and happened so quickly. This is just how I see it though it makes sense to me idk if it does to you. I love them and will support them and totally am for bands experimenting, but i can totally understand both sides when it comes to this record

—————————–

** THIS IS LONG SO BUCKLE UP **

Well, to be fair Dirty Work was a dip into the poppier side of pop-punk, but I thought it was brilliant. the backlash for that album, i think made them want to get back in the studio and show everyone they could still create the standard pop-punk record which is where Don’t Panic came to play. Don’t Panic was a total 180 from ATL’s two previous albums. Nothing Personal and Dirty Work were lingering heavily on that poppier line, yet when Don’t Panic came out it was laid in the thick foundations of punk with the fast guitars and heavy drums. So, in a way, they did slowly shift to the sound they’re at now, with the exception of Don’t Panic. When Don’t Panic was released, it was a cool record for a lot of reasons and one of those was seeing the versatility of the band to pull off an album like Dirty Work and then soon after an album like Don’t Panic. It gave credit to All Time Low in the fact that they are capable of making music that can be extremely left or extremely right in regards to pop-punk’s sound. Future Hearts, I believe, was meant to be a healthy mix of both of those sounds that they had created before, but it wasn’t as strong as I had hoped for yet it did get them that #1 spot which is incredible all in itself. I think they couldn’t find that balance between the two, and that’s why I don’t find the record cohesive.

Buuut, during Don’t Panic’s era, All Time Low seemed to plateau. Like you stated, they cultivated their signature sound which bounced back and forth between the two sides of pop-punk, yet their brand wasn’t growing. They had been a band for almost 10? years at the time, and they had reached a still in their fanbase. They were neither growing or shrinking their fanbase. It was staying in the same wheelhouse which is a negative thing as musicians when you don’t feel like you’ve reached the pinnacle of your career and would like to continue building your brand and band to reach more audiences. They weren’t playing venues any bigger than they had been for a few years, and it was like they were constantly repeating their same cycles and tours. That gets tiring and frustrating after a while. So, when a new up-and-coming band calls you up to help write their debut album, it’s kinda an opportunity that falls into your lap, correct? Especially if this band already had a steady fanbase off the back of a boyband they opened for yeah?

Yes, when 5 Seconds of Summer came into the picture, that’s when I believe All Time Low’s fanbase turned on their green light. 5sos had a fanbase full of those that ATL hadn’t even tapped or had the opportunity to tap into. So, it was a great business decision imo to run with that. Alex wrote a good bit of 5sos’ debut album, they were constantly taking photos or keeping in touch over public social media platforms. It was a savvy way to get All Time Low aboard their fanbase’s interest. It was like “i’ll scratch your back if you’ll scratch mine” kinda thing ya know? Both bands promoted each other and I know that ATL really went hard with their public interactions during the writing, release, and promo period of 5sos’ debut album. It kept their name and faces in everyone’s mind which resulted in an overlap of fanbases. Some ATL fans started looking into 5sos and digging their sound and some 5sos fans were looking into ATL. I’m not saying that both bands aren’t friends or that all their interactions weren’t genuine, but it was calculated and great publicity for all involved imo. So, when All Time Low began writing for Future Hearts I would say it’s safe to assume that they took into consideration their newly acquired audience which were used to 5sos’ sound, and it had made them successful. Especially since Alex wrote a good portion of 5sos’ self-titled and it was a big buzz, I can see them wanting to maybe replicate that sound in a more All Time Low-esque way, not to cater to those fans more but to peak those fans’ interest and have them buy and promote and spread their music. Future Hearts was released and A LOT of people raved about it and absolutely loved it, and it had gotten that #1 spot because of course it was more radio-friendly and the fanbase had grown significantly larger due to 5sos’ reach. And, I think that’s where they continued going forward. They’re going for that sound that tries to be a balance between the overlapping fanbases which is why, i can guess, ATL doesn’t play as much of their older material anymore due to the newer fans who only know the new albums (which like it’s not hard to listen to an artist’s discography… but i digress i get the strategy). Which isn’t a bad thing at all. It was a perfect way to keep their brand and fanbase growing, and I think they did it pretty well all things considered. And LYR was a continuation of that, but I personally believe the band wanted to experiment more than anything regarding this record because they hadn’t ever really written an album predominantly for them and stretching their talents- they always wrote to cater to their audience. As much as that shifted their sound on this record, I don’t find it to necessarily be negative just different, and even though I believe they lost their footing in the production here and there, overall it was a pretty alright album and you can tell how proud they are to release something like this that they felt was truly THEIRS in terms of control and creative freedom so if they're happy then *shrug*.

And within this time period they sold out Wembley, did two amphitheater tours, arena tours etc etc. which is a huge step up from where their plateau was during 2013 and early 2014. It is an obvious shift in growth that was for the better. I love seeing my band get more and more successful and to see others enjoy their music and talents. But, shrug. I’ll always love my favorite band ¯\_(ツ)_/¯