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ronoken · 3 years

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So, who wants a publishing story?

No one?

…Tough.

To preface, this was prompted by a post I saw about always making sure you read a contract before signing it. I wholeheartedly agree.

So, I write books. A roundabout result of writing books is I occasionally get to speak at conventions. When I do speak at conventions (which hasn’t been for a year. Thanks, covid), a standard question I get asked is about the benefits of self-publishing versus getting a contract. And yes, I fully realize that everyone’s experience in this is different, and I get that. Here’s mine.

So, several years ago, I wrote a book. I put a solid year into it and did numerous rewrites, edits, etc. with three wonderful editors and boom. Book. Done. And then, like many who are impatient or who don’t want to run the risk of rejection, I self-published my first novel.

And to my great shock, I actually sold some copies.

Quick aside. I’m not famous. At. Fucking. All. Some is not millions. Some is several thousand at best. And that’s over YEARS. I am not widely known and I do not claim to be. At all.

So yeah, like, I didn’t sell a million or anything, but I was moving over 100 copies a month when I was putting in the marketing work. Not too shabby. I was hustling on Twitter, FB marketing, Google ad marketing, working the review sites, doing interviews, everything I could. And it actually worked. I can honestly say the number of copies I moved a month directly correlated with how hard I pushed. And when I pushed, I pushed damn hard. I even got to a point where a reviewer who became an editor for DC would routinely provide public reviews for my books, and I was doing a superhero series. Not gonna lie- it was fucking rad.

Anyway, after a couple years of doing this, putting out a second novel which sold okay, a bunch of novellas, and so on, I received an offer out of the blue to have my work officially picked up. For realsies.

Admittedly, I was over the moon about this. I was being contacted by an unsolicited source! AND THEY HAD MONEY!

Now, my work wasn’t Shakespeare. I knew that. They did, too. They offered me a nice little starting sum. Not a lot, but holy shit it was FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS UP FRONT. One of my editors reads my Tumblr and I don’t think I’ve ever told them how much it was. It was 5k. To start. Not a lot, publishing-wise, but that’s because the work was already done. See, most publishers will give you more, but the catch is it’s considered a down payment for more books in a series. They pay you to write future novels, and then they expect you to pay it back. I already had a shit ton of content out, so I essentially skipped that step. Which tells me that publishers really don’t expect to have to actually pay you much, but that’s another post.

To my editor- sorry I never said the exact amount. It felt weird, but it’s been years, so it’s not as weird? I dunno. That logic train made sense as I was writing this.

So, 5k upfront, and then 50% of all sales thereafter, and they would handle EVERYTHING. Marketing, scheduling tours, covers, putting me in stores, the lot. Considering how much time, money, and effort these things took, this was not a terrible deal, but there was a catch.

My story would officially no longer be mine.

Oh, my name would be on it, and I’d write it, but from there on out, the publishing house would have 100% control over how it was marketed, where it went, and so on. If they wanted to option it, I would have zero say and zero rights, meaning they could take it and do fuck-all, and I would be left with nothing. Per the contract, they could even go so far as to issue me a cease and desist on my own work and hire a new person to take over. I was signing away everything in my universe if I said yes.

So, despite the allure of having things offered to me like a legit marketing team, book tours, and money (such as it was), I said no thank you.

Now, it didn’t hurt that I’d already made 5k in sales by that point. I knew my worth and how to push to keep it that way, if I so chose. Also, it helped that I was in an okay place when that offer came in. I could look at it and say, “well, that sure would be nice, but I don’t need it.” A lot of talented writers aren’t in that space, and the offer of several months rent or money for food as well as REALLY-REAL PUBLISHING can be hella tempting. And I get it, for some folks, the deals work out alright. And for some they don’t. And I sure as Hell am not going to judge. Seriously, I still have vivid nightmares about working 60+ hours a week and not being able to afford baby formula. Hell, if they had offered that to me just one year earlier, I would have been forced to take it. At that stage of life, 5k would have been life changing. I was just starting to hit the OK section of life, and only barely. Money when you need it is fucking awesome, and sometimes, you take what you can get.

But if you are a writer? And you’re in a place where it’s not life and death? Read the damn contract. Every single time. Make good and sure you know what you’re getting into and ask yourself, is it worth it to you? If it is, awesome. Again, not gonna judge, and every situation is different.

In my specific case though, it was choosing a nice bit of cash over something I had slaved for years over. I couldn’t do it. I still can’t. It’s the one property I’ll never let go of because when I wrote it, I didn’t even know if I could write a book. It proved to me that yes, I really could, and that was worth more than I can put into words.

TLDR: Read your contracts. Make choices good for you. Some things are worth more than money.

#writing #publishing #read your contracts

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shijiujun · 3 years

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Danmei Bookstore Masterpost - Where to Buy Your Usual Books

Heya guys! Okay so I get these questions really often - where to get digital or physical copies for danmei; there are plenty of guides for the digital copies so I’m just going to briefly mention other guides that have been done up and focus mostly on which “legit” bookstores you can get your simplified, traditional Chinese danmeis :DDDD And some familiar terms you might see.

This list includes only links to the Chinese sources - With the exception of one bookstore, I’m clueless on if there are actually official EN translated sources. It’s not entirely exhaustive but it’ll probably help you to discern real from fake stores!

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Common Terms:

预售 yu shou — Pre-order; most danmei books published are usually pre-order when the listing is first announced, quite rarely do I see immediate sales

通版 tong ban — In stock; you’ll see this most often with traditional Chinese (Taiwan) prints, that are usually limited edition or available only during pre-order periods and are sold again after the pre-orders are all fulfilled

陆商 lu shang — Chinese bookstores

北美 bei mei — Literally translated is North America i.e. Via Lactea, the only store that currently sells uncensored Chinese and translated EN danmei for selected titles (see below)

无删(减) wu shan (jian) — Uncensored, no deleted parts

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Why buy from China bookstores? They’re cheap, come with tons of freebies that vary from store to store. Pre-orders usually take about 2-3 months to deliver, but the content is censored. Still good to get for the artwork and freebies though! The ones below, unless otherwise stated, can be found on their Taobao official stores. Usually when a notable title is published, ALL of them will list the new title with varying freebies.

✅ 博库网 Boku Wang

One of China’s biggest general bookstores; they don’t take in every single danmei that comes to publish, only the major ones (e.g. Sha Po Lang, 2ha), but when they do, their freebies are out of this world XD

✅ 锦瑟闻香 Jinse

One of the more reliable bookstores in terms of choice of artists and freebies. Recently I think Jinse got into an agreement with Chang Pei, one of the danmei online publishing sites, to make official danmei merch for certain titles. Got into a bit of trouble if I recall with the bigger artists for Sha Po Lang for using their art (with permission) but erasing the artist’s watermark (without permission) and had to scrap their initial plans 2 days before the book PO went live, but other than that, has been okay. Takes on every danmei set to publish in China

✅ 快乐图书 Kuaile

A hit and miss, but for major titles they’ve managed to get quite good artists and freebies made.

✅ 源创 Yuan Chuang

Also another hit and miss, more known for hilariously missing the mark entirely i.e. unable to get any artists to offer their art to them for book prints, but they’ve gotten real good at it recently. And their weibo admin is hilarious, users poke fun at the store for missing out on freebies but all in fun.

✅ 天宇图书 Tian Yu

Mostly sells without freebies and art, only the book itself and its intended gifts inside. Helpful for when you don’t have space anymore for freebies or don’t like the freebies and just wanna have the book itself.

✅ 磨铁 Mo Tie

A really small bookstore but shines from time to time e.g. their print for 2ha.

✅ 翰联图书 Han Lian

Hit and miss as well, more hits than misses for artwork and freebies! Takes on every danmei set to publish in China

✅ 新华文轩网 Wen Xuan

Used to be more hit than misses, nowadays it’s mostly misses XD They’re still pretty reputable and is also a general bookstore, but their artwork/freebies recently have been terrible!!! Takes on every danmei set to publish in China

✅ 新视角 Xinshijiao

MY GODDAMN FAVE!!!! I don’t know how XSJ does it but they NEVER miss when it comes to art and freebies. They either get the best or second best always!!! Packaging is great, customer service is great~ Takes on every danmei set to publish in China

✅ 心诺 Xin Nuo

Had one of the nicer Sha Po Lang print box cases, but has a history of stealing art without permission for their freebies.

✅ 风入松 Feng Ru Song

This store does either the super big name prints or the super small ones, never the in between, hilariously, but their gifts are also pretty good when they do!! Feels a lot like an indie type of bookstore

✅ 酷威 Ku Wei

Only does gifts for super big prints, otherwise they just sell books normally on its own.

✅ MANCOOL (China Address Only)

A bookstore accessible only on WeChat! They’re pretty cool; they don’t do prints for all danmei that come to publish in China in the pipeline, but they usually work in conjunction with one or two bookstores as mentioned above. They have their own freebies/gifts, and because they’re on WeChat, they sometimes to extra gifts via online games on gachapon!!!!

✅ 萝卜 Luo Bo

OOOMPPPPPHHHH okay Luo Bo is NOT an official bookstore or danmei seller, but their reputation is REALLYYYY GOOOOD. Their unofficial stores on Taobao and Weidian (China only) basically sell limited in stocks from Taiwan, so if you missed out on the Taiwan preorder, you CAN camp and wait for their notice and listing to buy them. Well-known in the Chinese danmei community for selling authentic/rare ones!

✅ 诚品 Eslite

Functions like Books TW, sells any Taiwanese danmei print if there’s stock e.g. TGCF or anything from Pinsin. General bookstore, ships internationally BUT if I recall, slightly more complicated to buy on Eslite than on Books TW as you have to input your passport number.

✅ Animate TW (Taiwan Address only)

Sells selected, popular danmei and BL works from China, Taiwan, Korea and more! Also sells merch. Recently more known for selling the TGCF Traditional TW prints.

✅ 博客来 Books TW

Ships internationally! My to-go for usual danmei prints or those from Pinsin that are not on pre-order. Shipping goes by DHL ($20 to SG for like 5-6 books), get it within the same week. Easy-to-use interface when checking out, just a tad bit more checkout pages than necessary but ain’t complaining. General bookstore in Taiwan, the biggest online one.

✅ 平心 Pinsin

OUR FAVE DANMEI PUBLISHER FROM TAIWAN!!! Super reliable, has a functioning site, knows how to configure landing pages for big pre-orders, has clear instructions in English on how to buy etc. Always makes deadlines for prints, and plenty of stock most of the time!!!

✅ 墨扉 Mo Fei

Known for uncensored version of Nan Chan and other nice titles - Site looks okay to use so far (much better than others tbh), but they do POs like once every two months or something! Takes about 6 months or more to print a book after preorder but acceptable so far

✅ 威向 Wei Xiang

I’m actually super impressed with the range Wei Xiang has! They carry plenty of danmei books, old and new, known and unknown, and while their login account needs like some updates, their cart has the least number of pages I’ve seen amongst all the TW bookstores so far, easy check out too!

✅ 葭霏 Jia Fei

GOD where do I start with Jia Fei. They’re notorious for taking 10,000 years to produce one book (*ahem* 2ha) and their customer service sucks. Their website is prehistoric, and you have to email or call in via Facebook to make any sort of orders via a third party argh IDEK. They’re terrible with updates after PO as well, the only saving grace is that they do take on some of the popular titles, which honestly is shite for international customers especially. Of course once you get the hang of it, it’s fine, or if you get the items through a GO, but yeah.... I’d take any other bookstore ANYTIME.

✅ 壹乐 Yi Le

So Yi Le is one of the newer players in the industry (since 2019) and only recently started to produce danmei regularly! They’ve got good covers, they select good titles, but their website is useless - You have to be on Weibo for updates XD

There are a few more lesser known ones like 顶狄社 Ding Di, 出格文化 Chu Ge, 槐安 Huai An etc., but the above are the more recognizable ones!

✅ Via Lactea (Canada)

Recently, this would be one of my favourite bookstores. They’re located in Canada of all places and sell BOTH uncensored Chinese and official, translated EN danmeis - but for selected titles only. I’m not sure how they managed to cut a deal BUT in terms of niche/small danmei prints, Via Lactea is possibly your best bet.

It has great covers, super aesthetic and artistic ones. Nothing is censored, and it comes with plenty of freebies as well, including some new epilogues or extras. They function like a China bookstore but with much better resources, and they take on smaller name danmeis!!

Local shipping in Canada is cheap, and expensive anywhere else, BUT if you ship back to China to your warehouse or proxy, shipping is FREE, and you only have to pay for China warehouse/proxy to yourself.

They don’t have a huge team, so they contract translators to translate danmei, currently the speed seems to be two titles per year, and they’re also venturing into ebook versions, in both Chinese and EN.

✅ Cam Phong (Vietnam)

Vietnam’s main publisher of danmei, has done 2ha, TGCF and other notable titles so far! Their local artists do the covers really, really well!! Freebies are amazing too

✅ Clover Book (Thailand)

Thailand’s main publisher of danmei, has done 2ha and other notable titles, and also some smaller danmeis too!

✅ B Lab (Korea)

Sort of a new player for danmei prints, and they only do selected big prints e.g. TGCF and 2ha!

✅ JJWXC 晋江

This one needs no explanation I think. Biggest online danmei, baihe and yanqing novels. Here’s how to support your fave authors at a low, affordable price.

✅ Gongzicp 长佩

The other well-known danmei online platform. While JJWXC has a bulk of all danmeis, Chang Pei actually has like 40% of danmei novels I think? Which is quite a lot. If it’s not on JJWXC, 90% chance it’s on Chang Pei

✅ Bilibili Manhua

Downloadable from App store or just read on desktop. First 30 chapters+ are usually free then they start charging, but it’s easy to get credits via App store or Play store.

✅ Bilibili Comics (EN)

Usually one or a few chapters behind the original Chinese version.

✅ Kuaikan Manhua

If it’s not on Bilibili Manhua, it’s on Kuaikan, for sure. Works the same way as Bilibili manhua!

#danmei #danmei recs #where to read and buy danmei #danmei bookstores

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mangakamen · 2 years

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The Ghost of Persona 5′s terrible criticism past and current

Honestly, I think this something that I need to get off my chest since I’m known as the guy who responded to that almost 5 hour video from Cvit - Persona 5: Style over Substance. I want to talk about why I decided to respond to the guy, some of the background details, and even talk about stuff that’s happening today with this (yeah, it is). Get ready for a long post. And as a Side note, this isn’t a post for me to paint a target on people or call to arms - I’m just getting this off my chest after about 2 years

Now, if for whatever reason you don’t know what I’m talking about, let me get a couple links - I understand that you’re looking at about 9 hours worth of content, but I’m not expecting you to watch it all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGzS4KtItEo

Now, what I wanna talk about is how petty some people are. Like, to give context, Cvit’s video came out in August 2019 - My video series started on June 2020 - almost a year later. One thing I want to point out before I was developing this video series I had avoided Cvit’s video - Not because I can’t stand criticism of things I like, but rather because... It’s almost 5 hours long.

Like, I know that this was the beginning of the youtube meme of overly long criticism videos with a snarky narrator who acts like their opinion is the be all end all - Ironic I know considering where my Youtube’s content has been going as of late, but hey, It’s been 3 years.

No, what really caught my attention was that I was seeing a ton of weird criticisms being spread across twitter, tumblr and reddit.

So, I started to look, and found that some people had cited Cvit’s video - Now, I’m not one to instantly believe that someone is outright making arguments in bad faith, and not to mention, the game of Telephone is a thing so maybe there was context that I was missing.

So, I decided to live tweet my reactions to it.

It started off with me simply disagreeing with his takes with the subjectivity of how music can affect a person’s enjoyment if used too much - That’s nothing big and depends on the person, as well as how much you play in a single sitting of a game.

BUT THEN... He talked about the english dub of the game, and used the Persona Problems site:

For those who don’t know, this is a website that was created to catalogue the issues with the English Translation of Persona 5 - All well and good, right?

Well...

While there are some examples that do indeed highlight issues (He’s a scum being a prime example) they have just as many terrible examples.

Here’s one such excerpt

Now with that, you might be thinking two things 1) God that’s a bad screenshot, and 2) Seems like a legit criticism to me.

Well, let me tell ya, there’s more than meets the eye here - most notably the context and characters.

For those who have played the game, know that this scene involve Futaba, she’s the character saying the lines. Futaba is a recovering shut-in and is flustered about being with the protag on Valentine’s day - She’s stumbling over her words and is not sure what to do in this situation - Also, she’s a teenager.

I’m not saying that Persona 5′s translation is perfect, but this site will often remove context from scenes and just look at the lines in a vacuum, which is dishonest if you ask me. And naturally, this extended to Cvit - Who just took the webiste at face value and slapped it in his video as if it were a completely reliable source. Hell, I doubt he even read the source other than one example;

But it was then that I decided to make an actual video on the matter - But I didn’t want to talk about all near 5 hours of Cvit’s video, so I made a general complaints video - and it ws to be the ONLY video I had planned at the time to talk about Cvit’s.

THAT WAS UNTIL I GOT A FLOOD OF COMMENTS SAYING THAT I TOOK HIM OUT OF CONTEXT.

There were a ton more, but this was one of the many.

It was because I had gotten a mob of comments, e-mails and tweets @’d at me telling me how flawed my video was because “I Nitpicked’ or “I took Cvit out of context”.

So, that’s why you have 6 videos - each going after a specific portion of Cvit’s video - And one large combination video. Because people just wouldn’t shut up and wouldn’t stop harassing me about it.

Should I have ignored them? Maybe, but if I did, then people wouldn’t actually listen to the parts where Cvit removes context, interjects fake context, ignores Japanese culture (funny since he praises Yakuza which is Japanese) and outright lying about the game. (But hey, I guess Pyramids aren’t tombs now?)

I think what got me more was that you had prominent youtubers, like Foxcade, defending his video.

Ironically dismissing the complaints that Cvit almost practically started this whole “hating persona 5″ and how so many people referenced his video or used his points against the game in debates that I saw online.

I do not regret making my videos, the only regret was that I wish I had better audio balancing at the time, and if I ever decide to go back to remaking that long ass video - I’d gladly re-record every single line I made.

But now we get to today. And for some bloody, gat-damn reason, the fact that I responded to Cvit is used against me, and painting me as a Persona 5 fanboy who thinks the series can do no wrong.

Then again, this is also a problem with LIS fanbase because I dared to criticize the game franchise they love. In addition, I’ve been critical of the Persona franchise in the past:

Especially Persona 5.

But hey, why bother actually looking to see if this is true if some random reddit user claims this, then it must be true?

And for some reason, these same people leave out the fact that I only responded to Cvit’s persona video (his almost 5 hour long video). Ignoring the fact that in my videos on Cvit that I proved that he actively removed context and used faulty sources. Ignore that I criticized the Persona games in the past.

I must be a terrible person.

This is the latest in times where this has been used to dismiss my points, and it ignores SO much context of the videos in question and doesn’t actually provide any legit examples or evidence. Part of the reason why I did this on Tumblr (and will link on Twitter later) was because I can provide screenshots in a single post to prove that what I’m saying has some level of evidence backing it up.

This is part of the reason why I distance myself from fandoms - There’s so much toxicity and slander that It’s no wonder people hate fans of popular things. Even when you’re trying to defend the thing you like, if you’re unliked by these people, they will outright lie and mischaracterize you as a terrible person - Evidence backing them up be damned.

And ironically enough, it’s the same damn problem that Cvit had in his video on persona 5 - “ I don’t think I have to tell you this, but if you’re actively removing context from the scenes in order to make your point, then your point is dishonest and casts doubt on your other points too. And frankly, that’s a terrible thing to do: “

But unfortunately, this is the internet - And people don’t actually care about context or trying to be nice - They only care about instant gratification and being ‘right’, whether or not they have evidence. “Just trust me bro”.

And it utterly disgusts me that I’m being attacked for simply pointing out flaws in a highly regarded - And yes, people still see Cvit’s video as a good source of Persona 5 criticism - video and proving it. Sorry that it has to take a lot of time for me to respond to a near 5 hour video where I give proper context and explain in detail why Cvit’s points are wrong and why I think it’s in poor taste to insult the developers of the game based upon that terrible inaccuracies.

Hell, I’ve even been harassed by these kinds of people.

I thank you for your time reading this, and hope you have a good day.

#Persona 5 #Cvit #MangaKamen #LONG ASS TUMBLR POST #rant

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otp-holic · 3 years

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The one place (where something happened) (A03)

“In your life there are a few places, or maybe only the one place, where something happened, and then there are all the other places.” Alice Munro. (or the one where they receive a letter from a familiar name and we go into 4Ks of fluff around a lost afternoon in France)

4K. Lamely explicit at one point. Fanfic + Pictures Inside. Trigger for FLUFF as the main plot. Part of the Never let us lose what we have gained series (AO3)

This was supposed to be a manip with 200 words of bantering and it's now 4Ks of fluff with a few pictures. I've decided to leave them inside the cut because I feel they work better with its context there. I'm sorry for the hassle, but I really hope you give this a chance... unless you have cavities, only like fics with amazing plots or are allergic to shameless fluff.

Please do not repost the pictures, I know this is futile, but… I try :)

DAGUERROTYPE, France 1944 Private Collection.

Steve is cooling down from his very early run, enjoying the feeling of the pink sunrise looming over the awakening Brooklyn streets as he walks the last couple of blocks on the way home, when his phone beeps.

“Check your actual mailbox, we dropped something for you there. I think you should appreciate us making it old-fashioned just for you, grandpas!”

Steve smiles at Sam’s text and as soon as he arrives at their building he snaps a picture of the very common and flat envelope with “Barnes&Rogers” scribbled on top of a Stark Logo, to send along his response.

“Nice try, but this is inaccurate. A letter would have never made its way to us without an address or stamp. We’ll send you a proper thank you card to show you how it’s done.”

He can’t help but chuckle at his own joke rereading the text while he opens the door, and when he looks up from his phone and into the kitchen, he is received by a sleepy Bucky looking at the coffee machine like he looks at Steve during their most soft and embarrassingly cheesy moments.

“You love that thing more than you love me, confess it.”

“In the mornings? Yes. I don’t even like you in the mornings most of the time,” he answers matter of factly. “Want some?”

Steve playfully wiggles an eyebrow.

“No way. Your sweaty self is tempting, but coffee smells better. I might join you in the shower later.” Bucky offers him one of the two cups he has poured and he notices the envelope Steve is holding. “What is that?”

“We’ve got mail!” He hands it to Bucky. “I have no idea what's on it, but Sam texted me to say they had something delivered to our mailbox and there it was. Open it.”

Bucky leaves the cup on the counter, face sparked with a curiosity that makes him look twenty-one (and Steve weak on the knees), and goes for it.

The content is a bit underwhelming at first glance: Another envelope, white, no Stark logo, but topped with a bright green post-it with a note on Pepper’s script.

“This got to me via PR. We analyzed it and checked with the source (no peeking, I swear) and it seems legit. With that return address, it’s likely to arouse your interest. Love, P.”

Bucky tears off the post-it and the letter is revealed to be addressed to Steve Rogers at the Stark Tower, but it is when they turn it around when everything goes still for a second.

The return address is some street in Marseille, but what has Steve’s mouth dry and Bucky’s hand trembling just a bit is the combination of the place and the name written on top: Emmanuelle Jaques Dernier.

“Boom?”, Bucky says, trying to cut through their heavy hearts and taking Steve’s hand. It’s a terrible terrible joke, but Dernier would have loved it and he grins.

“That’s a terrible terrible joke,” Steve verbalizes, “but I think at least we’ve reached the same conclusion.”

“Elementary, my dear Steve,” Bucky answers as he opens the second envelope, only to reveal a folded letter and yet another envelope. “It’s a fucking vault of paper!”

Steve takes the letter from him, unfolds it, and quickly scans it (normal office paper, printed, hand-signed) before he starts reading it out loud to Bucky’s undivided attention.

“Dear Mr. Rogers,

My name is Emmanuelle Dernier and I am the great-grandson of Jaques Dernier of the Howling Commandos.

First, let me tell you that we all in our family grew up with amazing stories and praise for you, Sergeant Barnes, and the rest of the team. I never got to meet my great-grandfather or any of them (you), but I’ve always felt like I did.

In fact, that’s the ultimate reason behind this letter: I ached to honor him and I’ve been putting in order all his remaining letters, pictures, and memories so they don’t get lost forever, and there are many things I’m discovering through this journey. So many pictures and tiny details… and amongst them, you and the rest of the Commandos appear at the most random and memorable moments. Nothing that’s going to make it into history books, more like the stories my grandpa used to share with us over and over again, those important tidbits that make him more human.

Anyway, I was going through the pictures he kept when I came across some war photos that didn’t seem to match the 40s timeframe. Typical daguerreotypes from the 20s in a very bad state, probably taken with a camera from the era in 1944 and developed on a later date by somebody who clearly didn’t master the technique.

They were in a very bad state and hidden inside an envelope that said “Terribly drunk soldiers in France making idiots of ourselves in unique and creative ways. Fun evening, horrible hangover. About 20 miles west of the Maginot Line. Autumn ‘44”. I’m attaching a photocopy of that, I hope you can understand my decision to keep the original.

After restoring the daguerreotypes with some experts, all I got were five very bad pictures with silhouettes of people apparently having fun…. but there was one that got a lot better in the cleaning process that feels important somehow. I’m sending the original, as well as the restored version I got.

I, of course, don’t have the whole context, but I hope it brings back a good memory. My great-grandpa might be in the picture, but I don’t think this one belongs to my family or to a museum.

Thank you for your service, I really hope this letter finds its way to you.

E.Dernier.”

“I can’t believe… Steve, most days I’m convinced that day and that place are a figment of my imagination,” Bucky smiles, remembering. “When I think of a moment of pure joy during the war, I think about that afternoon in France, and it always feels unreal. A bubble of air and laughter while we were so surrounded by death.”

Steve nods, reminiscing about that warm and humid September morning when they arrived at yet another abandoned and destroyed little village, this one about twenty miles west of the Maginot Line. They had orders to lie low and wait for twenty-four hours before they started the maneuver to wipe another Hydra base off the map, and that little town was perfect for that.

Among bomb debris and fallen walls, they found one small building miraculously standing next to the remains of the church, so they decided to set camp under a roof for a change since the weather was being a little flickery with the rain, and they had the rare luxury of time.

The inside of the tiny house was as unusual as the outside: nothing was destroyed beyond being dusty and worn by time, and everything they found (furniture, kitchenware, and even fabrics) belonged more to Steve and Bucky’s early childhoods than to 1944, a living museum frozen in time.

Only it was not a museum, but the parish house left untouched and non-raided: old-fashioned clothes, outdated church books, yellowing clergy collars, and, of course, the wine cellar. Oh, that wine cellar… the havoc it unleashed.

“I remember the absolute excitement when Falsworth found all those bottles of old unscathed mass wine from the parish,” Steve brings his memory to words, looking at Bucky, “I’m still a little convinced that we are going to hell for drinking them.”

“Not for that, probably, but it was a wonder nobody died on the spot of wine poisoning, it tasted like sweet vinegar, ugh.”

“But it did his part, right? Took our minds off things; got us drunk, bold and silly.” Steve answers.

“Apparently not all of us,” Bucky says very seriously, looking at Steve.

“Technicalities… I got drunk by proxy. Seeing you all so happy made me giddy and tipsy, too.”

“I came and went… I remember being a little surprised at the clarity of my thoughts at some moments there when some of the guys were basically drooling on the floor. Now I understand, of course.”

Steve squeezes his hand, not much to be said there.

They were already way too drunk by the early afternoon, drinking to the sound of a sudden rainstorm pouring outside. All of them scattered across the small dusty living room and its adjoining kitchen while they went through all the bottles of wine they had been able to find. Cheering for the foregone priest every time somebody raised a glass, and laughing as if there were no ruins or war on the other side; just silly men (boys, really) laughing their hearts out.

“Earth to Steve… I don’t know about you, but I’m dying to see what the hell that envelope is hiding. Especially now that we know about its time stamp.”

“I’m sorry, me too! Gabe drunkenly handling that old camera and those glass plaques the way he did? I’m honestly impressed that he was able to take any pictures at all,” he muses. “Shit, is it weird that I’m nervous?”

“I’m gonna save us the bantering because I’m nervous, too,” Bucky answers in all sincerity. “Truth is, Steve, I remember everything about that day.”

It’s a new admission, a newly opened door for them because for some reason, they have never talked about that peaceful surreal afternoon, and Steve nods in recognition as he silently goes for the envelope one-handed, not wanting to let go of Bucky’s hand because his surface is way cooler than his wrenching insides. Maybe the picture is an overexposed french wall but maybe…

The photo he extracts from the envelope is clearly the original and damaged one Emmanuelle specified in his letter. Anybody else looking at it would see nothing beyond Dernier’s blurry profile, but since Steve and Bucky were there when this was taken, they know exactly what moment Steve is holding in his hand.

“Buck,…” is all Steve can say, struck by the blurry keepsake.

Later in the afternoon when they had already consumed most of the wine and there was not a single coherent thought left in the room, one of the guys took the parish books and besottedly announced that there was a wedding set for today… thirty years ago. Alcohol fueled a goofy idea that escalated at the speed of light, with Morita saying they were going to a wedding because they deserved a celebration, Dernier confessing that he had once considered becoming a priest, and Dum-dum bringing out all the old fashioned clothes from the wardrobe and deciding they were getting nice and clean for the festivities.

“That’s clearly Dernier in the picture killing it in his priest role, right?” Bucky says, half smiling and interrupting Steve’s thoughts. “You know, I went all-in with that fake wedding party. I was laughing to tears when I saw you put on that ridiculously long and ill-fitting jacket from the 10s, feeling weightless and silly for the first time since sailing off, and God knows we all deserved that. And it was all safe and light-hearted until fucking Morita decided you had to be the groom, and...”

“Were you jealous because I won the dashing groom competition?”

Steve’s attempt at a joke is weak, but there’s truth behind it: Morita chose Steve as the groom (“Cap, you are the most dashing and the least drunk”) to a chorus of excited voices cheering for him. Somebody else, most likely Dum-Dum, chose the rest of the roles (Sarge, best man duty; Jones, camera; Morita, keep the wine flowing; the rest of you, misbehave!) and in the blink of an eye, they were all going outside laughing under a light rain, and about to celebrate Steve’s fictional wedding to nobody.

“How could I be jealous?” Bucky cuts in. “Do you remember all you said to me that afternoon? During World War II and in front of a battalion of men?”

“I was drunk.”

“Fuck you!” Bucky disentangles his hand from Steve’s to use both of them to hold Steve’s face and kiss him with violence. “Tell me. Do you remember what you said?”

As if he could ever forget. He can recall every step he took from the house to the makeshift wedding spot amidst the trees where his best man (looking dapper even in that ludicrous jacket) was laughing along Dernier. He can still smell the petrichor, can still sense the blush coloring his cheeks while hoping nobody noticed and can still hear the beating of his heart when Bucky handed him a battered umbrella (“You don’t deserve to get rained on your wedding day, punk”) and a fucking ring made out his shoelaces (“You’ll have to buy something a little more permanent.”). And then…

“Dernier started the ceremony and he wanted to know if I had somebody in mind and I said ‘of course’.” He replays, his voice barely a whisper. “I said I’d had my eyes on a brown-haired Brooklynite since before I could remember. I said that I was pretty sure those blue eyes were set on mine too and that hopefully those eyes would be set enough to want to marry me even if I had never dared to ask.”

He’s been holding Bucky’s gaze the whole time, and he’s far from over yet, but he needs to fucking breathe before he goes on. Neither of them has moved a muscle for the past minute.

“Then he asked me to repeat the wedding vows after him and…”

“And you said Buck, right?”, Bucky interrupts, voice winded. “You fucking whispered I take you, Buck, as my lawful wedded husband till the end of the line. I heard, Steve. Even if the rest of the world didn’t, I did. But you never said anything, so I always deemed it impossible, a product of the corniest nook of my mind trying to outweigh all those bad things, because not even you could be as bold, reckless, and mushy as to do that,…it’s my fucking fault, I should have known better!”

“Not completely reckless, pal. I was scared shitless as I said those words, but what else could I do? You were right by my side about to put a ring on my finger as my “best man”, everyone, including you, supposedly drunk past recollection, and everybody else too far away to hear my whispers. It was such an easy choice in the end because truth should always win over fear. And those vows were. The truth.”

“You have always been too honest for your own good, Rogers,” Bucky is breathless and exasperated and goes for his mouth again, bringing in all he (they) couldn’t in 1944. “You destroyed me, Steve. My knees were as weak as a teenager’s in front of his first crush. I wanted to kiss you so badly when I heard you say all that there in the open… and I couldn’t even acknowledge it.”

“I know. And for what it's worth, I really thought you didn’t remember.”

It is too much. Is it normal to feel this much? Steve would blame it on the serum enhancements, but he was already overwhelmed at 16, so that’s clearly not the answer.

He craves, no, he needs touching, grounding, closer. Bucky. There’s too much space between them even if they are back to kissing like they would have that day in 44, and at any other time if their own lives wouldn’t have stolen those moments from them.

“It happened.” Bucky whimpers, biting on Steve’s lip who abandons his own stool to straddle him, both of them gasping in sync at the feeling of their cocks, hard against each other’s through their soft pants.

Bucky soon ups the stakes by carding his metal hand through Steve’s hair pulling his head backwards to help himself into that spot on his neck.

“Same two moles as when you were tiny, as when we were at that war... Your cute vampire bite. Favorite spot.” He licks on them with the tip of his tongue. Steve growls on cue and Bucky giggles. “Favorite chain reaction.”

“Buck, you cheater, you know what that does to me!” Steve cries out followed by Bucky’s evil chuckle.”Bed, couch, countertop,…I don’t care, but naked. Now. Stained pants due to heavy petting are too much of a trip down memory lane for me. Let me keep a bit of my dignity.”

Steve stands up liberating Bucky from his grip but aching at the loss of contact.

They are naked and making out in the middle of the kitchen in no time; Bucky steadily pushing him against the refrigerator while fiercely grinding against his crotch.

“Hey, ‘teve,” Bucky pants. “The way this is going, it’s my dignity now that's at risk. I don’t think I can make it further than the floor before I come.”

Steve groans into his mouth just at the thought and they start sliding to the floor the best they can until he’s a human blanket moving over Bucky. With no lube at hand, and no time, that’s their best option.

They kiss and kiss and kiss, his hands not leaving Bucky’s sweaty hair. Bucky’s hands on his ass, forcing their groins closer with one while he (almost absently) plays around his hole with the other, driving Steve crazy in the process. Dicks left to do their own thing through pressure and friction. Everything is working. And fast.

“Oh, fuck!” Bucky exclaims “Can you promise me all this stuff with the letter was real and not a long-con plan to assure your fragile masculinity that I love you more than I love that espresso machine?”

That. That silly unfunny excuse of a joke that screams Bucky all over is what pushes Steve all the way over the edge. He fucking laughs as he comes making absolutely embarrassing sounds, pressing their foreheads and noses together until it hurts, and shaking from head to toe without stoping his pressure on the stupid and smug man under him. His lover. His partner. His unofficial husband. His best friend.

His Buck.

“There’s still too much blood in your brain if you can play that dirty,” Steve states, placing one hand between them grabbing Bucky’s hard cock. “Let’s see if I can do anything about it.”

“Your hand, usually so helpful, but I was already following you after that sound you make when you come and laugh at the same time, shit, it always goes straight to my dick, I’m,…” he keeps talking with difficulty between breaths and moans until he leaves his speech unfinished coming all over Steve’s fist.

They kiss on the lips breathing into each other before Steve rolls over. They are sticky and panting in silence, spread on their kitchen’s floor, Steve’s shoulders crushed between Bucky’s and the dishwasher. Domestic bliss at its most literal.

One lavish fuck and two showers later they reemerge into the kitchen in search of something to eat: Bucky is in charge of the food today, while Steve cleans the mess they left a couple of hours ago.

He’s decluttering the counter when their damaged picture laying there puts a smile on his face but also reminds him of the restored version presumably still waiting inside the disregarded letter, so he grabs the envelope to retrieve its contents: one photocopy (from Dernier’s original writing), and the promised photo.

And it is restored. Everything is clear where it was blurry before: Dernier (so deep into his priest impersonation that he’s not even looking at them), the trees, the battered umbrella, the ridiculous jackets… and them.

“You had the nerve to call me reckless and mushy, Buck?” Steve laughs as he stares at the picture where a very young Bucky is about to put a ring on his finger with the least subtle lovestruck expression he’s ever seen (“and it’s for you”, his brain proudly reminds him) “Wow, you might as well be kissing me there, anything would be more subtle than this!”

“Don’t shame me, you punk, especially not when you were the one responsible for breaking my brain back then!” Bucky answers coming from behind and stealing the picture from his hands to scrutinize it. Goofy grin and raging blush quickly taking over his face. “But you’re one to talk, Cap. You are gazing at that shoelace’s ring as if I were handing you a diamond tiara!”

Steve laughs softly at that and moves his right hand to his pocket, feeling the weight of the little compass he had retrieved earlier from one of his drawers. He used to carry it with him everywhere for comfort, but he has a better option now.

“Didn't you know that shoelaces are forever?” He asks, taking the compass out of his pocket and holding it in both hands as he opens it, nudging Bucky with his elbow to get his attention.

Bucky is confused for an instant while he looks at his young face staring at them from inside the little box. Of course he knew that (he made fun of Steve for days and days) but Steve detects the change in his expression when he notices the other thing.

“Wow, you gigantic sap,” Bucky says, taking the compass out of his hands to double-check he is seeing what he thinks he’s seeing. “You saved my shoelace.”

He had. While they were all celebrating his wedding under the rain dancing to no music, he quietly slipped the little string off his finger and tied it to the most secure place he had back then.

“It’s not a shoelace, you jerk, it’s a symbol. A declaration.” He laughs, stealing the compass back to safely pocket it again.

“You are delusional,” Bucky snorts, kissing the top of his head. But he’s widely smiling and lost in thought as he goes back to their sandwiches.

Steve stays on the spot enjoying the peace in their silent companionship, his focus on the latest news showing up on his phone, the text he’s writing to Sam and the comforting sounds of Bucky moving around the kitchen.

“You might have married me, but I never actually married you.” Bucky blurts out of the blue a bit later, sitting by his side as he hands him a plate with a sandwich and some grilled greens on it. “Do you want mayo with that?”

“Uh?” Steve forgets all about the news and the text and looks at Bucky in confusion.

“Mayo, do you want some?” Bucky repeats nonchalantly.

“No mayo, thank you; but I was actually more interested in the other part, you know, that thing about marriage?”

Bucky looks him in the eye: earnest, blushing and with the same look of smug adoration he had on the picture.

“Oh, that part.” He jokes. “You apparently married me in 1944, but I never married you back. And I would like to.”

“Marry me?” Steve asks and Bucky visibly nods.

“I’m sorry for throwing the idea at you like this, books tell me I'm supposed to have candles, music, and a ring, but you showed me that restored picture and I couldn't stop thinking about it, about proof,” Bucky speaks uncharacteristically slow and very softly, voice trembling here and there while he claps his hand with Steve’s finger by finger for reassurance and as a distraction. “A single photo had the power to transform a moment that existed just as a made-up happy place inside my mind into something tangible and real. Something that would be tangible and real for anybody getting a hold on it and looking at our stupid faces.”

“So stealthy,” Steve says, and they both laugh together.

“Proof, Steve. I was slicing tomatoes and thinking how there’s so much evidence, thousands of files! out there proving that all the stuff that fuels my nightmares were real, but nothing solid about this. Us.” Bucky stops for a moment collecting his thoughts, still smiling even with the heavy subject he just dropped into the mix. “Sorry, I believe I put more time into these sandwiches than into thinking this all the way through so I’m…”

“Take your time, we’ve gone from mayo to marriage to nightmares in five minutes so don’t worry, you have me hooked here.”

Steve makes Bucky laugh again as he intended, and he feels their calloused laced fingers immediately squeezing closer.

“It’s stupid because it doesn’t change anything for us but,.. I don’t fucking know, Steve, I think that picture has messed up with my mind! I instantly found comfort in the idea of people finding facts beyond the nightmares now or in the future. An easy to understand, universal and oversimplified proof of how much I loved you and how much I was loved in return.” Bucky takes a breath and stares at him sporting a million-watt smile. “Marrying you,… I would really love that. And for real this time.”

“Ok, Buck.” Steve instantly replies, eagerness winning over thoughtful and heartfelt declarations. He tightens the grip on their joined hands to drive them to his lips and seals the easiest answer he’s ever had to give.

And it's done!Sorry for the cavities, for going on with the fic when it should have ended and for ending it where it might have had to keep going. It was painful and fun. I'm free!

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aphrodite1288 · 3 years

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May I ask approximately how often those ig/twt sasaeng infos end up being true?

Like is it a credible source of info? (I hate saying it like this, it sound terribly invasive so I really don't keep up with all of this) I've always thought that sasaengs did not share much their informations for free because it's like a business for them so it's seems suspicious to reveal something so big just like that right? That's what I always read, was I misinformed? Sasaengs do that now?

They only share very famous info, such as comebacks' concepts &dates, which color each member died their hair for the cb. How many songs in the album, leaked demo versions of the songs or leaked dance,if a member is dating or not (not who they date they mostly suspect an idol dating when they see them buying couple things at stores and going out very often they claim they're dating, most if the times sasaengs don't know who the idol is dating exactly) and very famous scandals such as drugs, molestation, alcoholic members, idols being threatened, fights among some idols or in the same group, big scandals like "The Sun nightclub" and sex trafficking and stuff like that...things that everyone knows in korea, things u can't hide. These things were never a secret everyone knows of them. So they share those.

But to know who is dating who? it's very hard ! idols tend to be very very careful, extremely disguised that you can't tell who they are! they never hangout or go on dates outside!à they always do it at home or rent extreme private places far away from korea, far from the famous spots idols frequently meet up at,unless the couple don't care if they're outed so they go on dates freely never disguised and they don't care if they get discovered such as "SNSD's Sooyoung and her amazing boyfriend cute romantic pics that dispatch blessed us with, or the lead couple from descendants of the sun etc...other than that it's almost impossible to catch idols dating they know the tactics of paparazzi and sasaengs and their moves and where they always go to snap pics so idols are more tricky and smarter than what y'all think, it's almost very hard for them to get caught as their guards are always up!)

Something else those stoopid sasaengs pages tend to do, is they share old pics of fake couples and claim they're Jenkai or taennie (taehyung of bts and Jenn ship) or liskook blah blah... To gain followed and to scam shippers and get their money, that's why if u follow those Sasaeng pages they always ask you to move to their new accounts, they constantly making new accounts coz they scam people and get reported so they ask their followers to move to their new accounts and they tend to bring other sasaeng pages down and calling each other fake, I have witnessed many many sasaengs pages bringing e/o down and calling e/o fake and they mostly share the same content and claim it as theirs, I've witnessed many beefs and I laughed my ass off really.

Upon my dear Kaisooists's REQUEST: I've bought from them infos to test them when they said they had Kyungsoo and jongin's girlfriends pics, but when I bought the news and pics they only sent me few pics of a random girl claiming she is Ji's girlfriend and and pic of Ksoo with an old woman( she was a movie producer) when they went for a coffee ☕ to discuss some scenarios suggestions! And I've had those pics long time ago back in 2016 but they're using them now to claim it's Ksoo and his new GF while I've seen the Pics I'm 2016! 🤦🏿‍♀️. The other pics were of a couple a man who's short and looks like Ksoo and his GF, and i discovered that those pics they sent were the rumored FAKE pics dispatch used to claim Ksoo is dating Sojin of the girlgroup "Girl's Day" which no one believed coz that was clearly not ksoo and it was proven later it was her friend/boyfriend, and he doesn't look nothing like Ksoo and he was a chubby short man and Ksoo back then in 2013 was skinny and with a small figure so it was clearly not Soo, also why would a 1 year old rookie Kyungsoo date his SUNBAENIM who's 7years older than him (in age she is 1986 liner) 🤦🏿‍♀️ I mean there's nothing wrong with age gap when it comes to love but for a shy rookie who's under a dating ban and who only debuted a year ago???? That's a NO NO, he was still young to affect his and his members' career by a reckless dating scandal, when he broke up with the love of his life just to debut in SM so clearly he cares about his career. And the pics of Sojin and the other guy whom they claimed was Ksoo are all over internet. It was a flop coz no one believed that stoopid dating scandal dispatch posted to cover up some shit happened back in 2014 when a lot of disasters happened in the industry with the members leaving and death of many other people in the industry, Taeyong's scandal (NCT's), Goohara's rape and sex tapes, Boom's früh scandal, Ladies'code's death caused by a sasaeng, etc...

Anyway I discovered they were a scam, i bought from them to test them upon my fellow kaisooists'requests who asked me in private and begged me to go test those sasaengs whom are so famous and claim to know everything..Thus, I found out I was right, coz they sent me old shit or fake couples who look like Kyungsoo and Ji with some random girls whom they claimed were their gfs.

One famous Sasaeng asked me to pay 100$ To get Ji's new girlfriend's pic, but when I asked her for previews she sent me pics of random girls in Internet, I told her how am I supposed to know if she's Ji's girlfriend or Donald Trump's girlfriend??? She said " well I know she is his girlfriend", I told her " okay prove it??? Do u have pics of Ji with her?", she said "No! Only her !" I told her "and how am I gonna know that she's his GF?? I will pay you 100$ You have to give me legit shit!! That's motherfucking 100$ Sis????!!" She said "I JUST KNOW AND YOU HAVE TO TRUST ME , IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME LEAVE MY ACCOUNT AND UNFOLLOW ME"

I wasn't even following her so she blocked me.💁🏿‍♀️ Actually many of them blocked me, when I tested their korean to know if they really are korean or live in S.K, by asking my friend who speaks korean. I found out they weren't even korean...and they don't even know how to read korean. And they blocked me right away.

And that's only one of the many stories with those fake ass sasaengs whom I tested and found out were basic lying bitches doing it for followers and clout & CASH 🤑💰 and claiming things from their own imagination. 💁🏿‍♀️

But Hey! ofc they do know some things and as I said before above! They know the very famous things such as upcoming idols' or actors' projects, movies, dramas, Comeback dates and concepts etc... Which they use as a proof to gain y'all's trust! But what y'all don't know is that those things aren't even secret, they're news everyone of y'all can find if u join korean kakao talk groups or Kpop amino groups or just naver posts for those who know korean of y'all. It's not magical.

And if anyone gonna come here giving lecture as to why I bought news about Kadi and that I'm a privacy invader and blah blah, I'm just gonna tell you "don't waste your time writing your comment coz 1) I don't read comments so I'll probably never see it, 2) I don't give a flying fuck about your opinion, so calma" .

Hope i answered your ask.

#instagram and twitter sasaengs are fake!#Don't believe sasaengs

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inqorporeal · 3 years

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Gonna start by saying that I find the current structure of monetization testing to be a terrible fucking concept. The people most likely to use it are the ones who are already struggling, who have noticed that simply putting out a virtual tip jar doesn't really do much (mine exists; I get maybe one Ko-fi tip a year, if any at all), but the simple fact is that social media platforms currently treat users and content creators like commodities rather than customers. They won't add any feature that doesn't financially benefit them. Tumblr users are often poor; some are kids, a lot of us have suffered job losses and financial troubles and evictions over the last year and a half. We're not a good source of the revenue a platform like Tumblr genuinely does need in order to stay functional. This is a terrible platform for monetization.

Other people have already mentioned how fan content being monetized opens up vulnerable creators to being DMCA'd into oblivion; it's why AO3 begs people to stop linking to Patreon from their AO3 content, and why other fan sites undergo content purges. There's the additional bitter irony of them introducing this concept only after purging the legit SWers from the platform. We see what you did there.

So let's talk about spread for a moment. Tumblr posts that get loads of attention rely on spread, on being reblogged over and over from mutuals to followers to strangers. The spread maps look like a fungal root system. Wouldn't it be nice to get some return on that popularity? Damn right it would. But paywalling posts isn't the best way to do that: the spread will either stonewall at the limit of people who are willing to pay for it, throttling its potential popularity and revenue... or we get a new type of reposting, where someone ganks the whole post and then reshares it without the paywall. Spread continues as normal, the original poster gets nothing from it. This already happens with paywalled news articles; shit, I've done that, myself. It's not a new concept; this is what's inevitably going to happen.

This feels kind of like the new owners are making an attempt to make as much back on their investment as they can (their percentage cut of each subscription isn't minimal) whilst driving the platform into the graveyard of the internet.

#i'm squinting hard at the staff #also stop being shitty to the beta users omfg

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ghost-of-a-vulture · 2 years

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Some anti: so anyway ur a terrible human being and i really hope you fuckin die because you watch dream omg ur a racist ableist transphobic peice of shit you killed my mother i hope you fuckin die <3 anyway im better than you because i have good interests and watch anime and hang out with my friends you fuckin loser<3 go burn <3

Me, an autistic trans pansexual 13 year old with legit no fuckin friends who watches Wilbur, tommy, Ranboo and Slimecicle and Hermitcraft just trying to talk about my interests: i watch like 3 dsmp members and its not Dream or Schlatt, and every time someone says the dsmp is problematic they never back up those claims, and the one Google doc ive seen just has "they played among us with pewdiepie a few times" and..... posts with links to George fylode [im sorry i cannot spell].... and all the other sources have [they have since apologized] under them so... like can i have some links? Like genuinely if they did something horrible and wrong that i just. Haven't realized im willing to help you point that out but maybe don't trash ppl because of the fucking youtubers they watch-

Anti: fuck you fuck you wdym you want an explanation with actual resources you're so blind omg go die you fuckin bastard

Me: bro you can just. Block dsmp tags and you don't have to see them. Or just Block me.

Anti: noo noo i can't Block the tags then who will i make fun of??? The entire internet has to stop posting about things that i think are problematic based on something i saw from a friend with no sources and ive never seen the content in my life!!!!!

Me:

.....

If you're gonna throw a fit, how about i block you and we go our separate ways. I don't have any concrete evidence to support your claims and im genuinely just trying to enjoy my interests, my life is already stressful and this really helps okay? Im sorry you're upset.

Anti: fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou

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aerugonian · 3 years

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I don’t know if you’ve answered or talked about this before but I’m wondering if you have any chracters that you don’t like and if that will shine through in your fics.

Like I’m mostly wondering about your opinion on Izuku, bakugou, nedzu, naruto, sasuke and sakura.

Sorry if this is random but I think it’s interesting to ask people their opinions on different characters.

It’s a fun question! I’ll say outright that I don’t hate/have any strong dislike of any of the characters you listed, if that’s a concern. I have no interest in bashing any of them, but the way they’re talked about in any of my fics will vary depending on the POV character. If the POV character dislikes them or disagrees with them, they may be critical or harsh towards the other character regardless of my personal opinion. That’s true for characters I like, too.

I don’t really have any strong opinion on Izuku. I think he’s fun, he’s a fitting protagonist for BNHA, and I can see the appeal of his character for a lot of people! But he’s not really the sort of character I’m drawn towards, so I don’t really seek out content for him.

Bakugou is a fascinating character to me - I really disliked him when I first started reading the manga, but he’s grown a lot on me. That being said, his behavior in the earlier parts of the manga is pretty atrocious and he has a lot to learn. I do know he gets a lot of growth, though, which I think is awesome!

Nedzu is an enigma to me. I don’t feel strongly about him in any direction, but I’m also not completely caught up in the source material so my opinion may change in the future. He’s entertaining though lol

Naruto is, once again, a protagonist I can see a lot of appeal in but personally don’t feel drawn towards lmao. I think I just tend to like side characters more than protagonists. I don’t really enjoy him in canon but I still get annoyed when people bash him - he had a lot of legit reasons he behaved the way he did and he was literally twelve when things started! Give the guy some grace and understanding 😭 (I vibe with his love of ramen, though)

I have really mixed feelings on Sasuke. He needed some serious help and an intervention LONG before it actually happened, but he also did some terrible things that he should take responsibility for. It’s been a long time since I read the entirety of canon so I’d have to refresh my memory, but I liked his potential and was saddened by a lot of his choices.

I’m not really a Sakura fan but also don’t like Sakura-bashing. She’s not really the sort of character that appeals to me I guess, and I don’t seek out Sakura-centric content, but it makes me happy to see there’s a lot of love for her in the fandom at this point! I like it when she’s given a chance to shine/develop and get serious about her career, and to become three-dimensional outside of her romantic interest in Sasuke.

Characters I do strongly dislike: Danzou, canon Orochimaru (some fanon versions are okay lmao but that list is short), Endeavor and Mineta. Possibly some others but those are my big ones. They just really, really get on my nerves and I don’t like seeing them most of the time.

#no judgement on people who like characters i don't just btw #my opinion is my own #i try to stick closely to how i think a pov character would think of others #rather than putting my own opinion in there #my characters have said many things i disagree with lol #it could be my opinion will color things at times but for the most part #i don't usually hate characters so much as feel neutral towards them #asks

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dystopian-penguin · 4 years

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Is this a real life story? Is this a fic concept? Who knows 🤷

But here’s a very long account of... something.

This isn't a gay disaster story. It's a gay sad ending story. It's a gay "self-homophobia is very real and realistic” story, and not in the "gay panic is kinda cute" way.

It all started 14 years ago (yes that long), when I was still deeply in the HP fandom and even more deep into reading James/Lilly fics in ff.net all day long. For the first time in my entire life I decided to sort by “all works” and not just “completed”. I know it might sound super silly, and even a bit cliche considering this is tumblr and we live and breath fics, but that single decision literally changed the course of my life. And unlike what I usually do, I am not exaggerating. I found this one fic that must have had, like, 20 chapters and almost 100k words and dived into it without looking for rocks in the bottom. Long story short: the last posted chapter ended on a huuuuuge cliffhanger, like the very next moment after the kiss, and it left me completely destroyed.

So I did what I always do, what I am known on tumblr and my small social circle in here to do: I went to scream at the author.

But I wasn’t content to just scream in the comment section, oh no. For all I knew the bitch wouldn’t even see it, the last update had been from like 8 months previously. So I stalked her ff.net profile and found her MSN email. Yes, the story is THAT old.

My literal first words to her must have been something akin to “OH MY GOD I HATE YOU SO MUCH”, which yay for the beautiful poetic irony that the universe crafts at times. She took it in stride because, let’s face it, a shitton of people had already greeted her like that by then. And we started talking, and it was easy and fun. We had a lot in common, more or less the same type of interests, the usual you’d expect if I had met her on tumblr even. We must have talked like 3 hours straight on that first day, and I left feeling pretty good cause I had made a new friend. Not only that, but right off the bat I admired her so much. Not only because she was talented as fuck (imagine writing a 100k unfinished fic at only 15 y/o), but also because the more I talked to her the more I could see just how fucking cultured she was and how intelligent and ect. She came from a wealthy family and such a different reality from me. She had been abroad, in fact she usually travelled abroad with her family like twice a year, she was fluent in english even then (at that point I was I intermediate at best), not to mention german because her family was german. She was 15 (a year older than me back then) and trilingual and could write wonderfully and I was fascinated by her instantly.

Something else worth of note was that her profile pic on the day we met had been set to a close-up of a blue eye. I must have asked on that very same day whose eye was that because damn if it hasn’t been the prettiest blue I’ve ever seen. I mean, I hadn’t told her that, but I was curious enough to ask. And as everyone and their grandmother might have guessed by now, it was hers.

Somehow (and I truly don’t know HOW), we got into the habit of talking every day, or at least very close to it. I got to know about her daily life, just one state south from where I live and sooooo much colder than what I had ever experienced. She went to a swiss school, fully bilingual, was the first in her year in the IB program which for the love of crap I didn’t even know it existed back then. Might not ever have known if I never met her. Eventually we exchanged phone numbers, and back then SMS messages were like 1,50 bucks for inter-state ones. Our mothers were not happy.

Around a year and a half went by this way. She became my best friend, my rock. We both had a shitton of problems in your high school lives and in our family lives, and we were so relieved to know there was someone out there we could share those with. In the meantime she ended up breaking up with her boyfriend, ironically just a few months before I had my very first kiss. When she broke up with her boyfriend she was absolutely devastated (they had been together almost a year or so), and relied on me a lot back then. Which I was more than happy to support because for the first time in my life I felt like I belonged somewhere. I felt like I was actually part of someone’s life. I didn’t feel like I ever bothered her, like I was ever intruding in her life. I felt like I was truly part of her world, like she actually remembered my existence when I was not around, and at now-16 years of age that had literally been the first time I had felt that. I never had a true friend before her. Not sure I ever did after her either.

On easter 2008 we finally convinced our moms to let us meet. Her family had a whole goddamn country house with a huge plot of land, so it was decided I was gonna visit her first. So I got semi-sedated and got into my first plane ride EVER, and for those of you that are reading this and know me (although I doubt anyone is reading at all), you know how terrified of planes I am. You know how BIG of a gesture it is for me to get into a fucking plane for the first time in my life for a person.

I already knew she was pretty. I mean, we had talked on the webcam a couple of times before (just a few times because the internet back then was really terrible). The blue eyes I mentioned, and the most fucking beautiful silky blonde hair you’ve ever seen. But when I saw her the first time on that airport it still took my breath away. Even more, what truly surprised me, was the huge smile she gave as soon as she saw me out of the gate and she rushed to hug me. I was paralyzed. I mean yes I was happy and hugged her back, which was a huge deal because back then I was not touchy feely at all (and she was VERY). But I was paralyzed. Because I had never in my entire 16 years of age seen anyone smile that big or that brightly at seeing me. Hell, I suppose I had never seen anyone smile that brightly at all. As the day progressed she was so legit happy that I was there, and I could never fully wrap my head around it. We drove to her house and her mom took the long way just so they could show me all the interesting spots in her city, and she shared tidbits of her daily life that I still didn’t know, despite us being so close, because those are the things you only learn by actually being next to the person irl. Later on she introduced me to her two best friends in school, and we all decided to watch a horror movie.

Yes, it’s THAT cliche.

Now, you see, I’m absolutely fucking impervious to horror movies. Yes I get jumpscared just as much as anyone else, but I don’t get scared. So I was sitting there a bit lowkey bored, narrating the entire plot of the movie and what would happen a few scenes before it did because the movie was just that easy to guess. And she had taken complete ownership of my left arm the entire time, being half super scared and half impressed I could guess every single thing on the plot. Later on she apologized for not letting go of my arm because she knew I wasn’t as touchy feely as she was, and I was once again taken aback because I come from a ridiculously touchy-feely country and NO ONE ever apologizes for it or respects my boundaries on it.

The next day we wake up bright and early to go to her ranch-thingy. She slept on top of me on the car almost all the way there. I must have woken up like a whole hour before her but didn’t move at all.

I’m a city slick. I’m a huge city slick, through and through. Which means I am both fascinated and absolutely terrified on any plot of grass bigger than a garden. And her country house was fucking amazing. I had only experienced the true freedom of being in nature a few times in my life, and she made sure to show me every nook and crane of the forest surrounding it. Because yes it was a forest and not a jungle like where I lived, and that made it all the more magical.

But the truly one magical thing in the entire 4-days weekend was the stars. You see, I am absolutely in love with the stars. It’s stupid to say something like this when I was retelling the greatest love story of my life, but the stars are my one true love. I got my first telescope when I was five years old. My mother cannot for the life of her explain where I got this obsession from. She always said I was already born that way. So I find myself for the first time in my life with the least amount of light pollution I’ve ever been subject to in my entire life (even nowadays). For the first time in my life I has actually been able to see the Milky Way with my own two eyes. And what made everything even more impressive was that it was a full moon, and the night sky still looked as incredible as it’s supposed to look. Honestly it might have been a great contender to the beauty of her blue eyes.

The moment I remember the most is us laying down on some beach towels (no idea why they had those in the countryside), stargazing for hours at end. By then we were two full states to the south of mine, so I believe the technical definition of what I was feeling is fucking freezing my inexistent balls off. I had gotten dressed in just some jeans and a tshirt way before the sun set, and I was dammed if I was gonna interrupt our stargazing to go put on some decent clothes. I remember her asking a few times if I was cold, and I also remember myself lying through my teeth saying I had gotten used to it by then. Blatant lies, my nipples could cut through fucking glass at the moment. But I wasn’t gonna interrupt it because it was just the two of us on a grassy clearing, her family was at least 200m away and we couldn't even hear them anymore and it was just us and the stars and her hands were so close to mine that I could feel the heat (the only source of it for my beach-town ass I suppose). It was the perfect fucking moment. The moment most people dream of having their entire lives. I have no idea how long we stayed there, but it was a few hours for sure. Her mom had to call us back inside, and nothing broke my heart more. We talked about anything and everything. I told her what I knew of astronomy and I could see for the first time I was fascinating her with knowledge. Because I had always felt and will always feel like a peasant in the presence of a princess when it comes to her. With how cultured and educated and just fucking smart she always had been. But as I told her of the constellations (sometimes grabbing her hand to point to the stars and make her spot them better), and proclaimed my love for the night sky, she listened. She listened and I had never felt heard before in my life. She listened and I felt I had managed to make her fall in love with the stars a little bit by just talking about them.

She listened and I felt I had managed to make myself fall in love in her a little bit by just seeing the way she looked at me as I talked.

All good things come to an end and time had come for me to go back home. I will never forget how she hugged me goodbye on that same airport. Where I had seen the brightest smile on my life and now I could see she was holding back tears for me. Because I was leaving. I was important enough in someone’s life that they were about to cry because I wasn’t going to be around anymore. She way she whispered “I’m gonna miss you so much” on my ear, on such a low note I am sure it was just so her mother wouldn’t hear her, and her voice will haunt me for the rest of my life. She told me a few days later that she did cry on her way to school that morning.

After this it was near impossible to not be with her at all times. We texted constantly, and used to talk like 2 whole hours on the phone before bed. Once again I must remind you this was 2008 so it was no cheap business. Her mother started to try to separate us a bit, insisting she didn’t contact me as much, even tho I was sure the one who could not afford those phone bills, not her. It all culminated on what was ironically (or perhaps planned by her mother?) brazilian Valentine’s day (we are the only country in the world that celebrates in on St. Anthony’s day, which is June 12th). It was the first day in almost two years we didn’t talk at all, because of how much her mother had nagged her about it. The next day we talked as if we had been separated by a war for a decade.

I’m gonna take a break here to let everyone know that no, I did not think I was in love with her back then. I don’t think she knew either, but it’s hard to tell.

Her mother planned her entire july winter break to the minute just so she could spend the least amount of time in my house as possible. We got 5 days instead of the previous 4. But her mother came up with a ridiculous amount of trips for the family. She visit 3 different countries (and a whole different state inside her own country) within 30 fucking days. That’s how bad it had gotten then. Our SMSs had to be cut down to just two or three a day because of it.

But it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because when she arrived at my house (her family had insisted in meeting mine before letting her stay) I was able to see from three floors up how brightly she had smiled at seeing me again.

I’ll make this part short: we stayed cooped inside blankets the entire time, playing on my PS2. It was so ridiculous that my mom, maaaany years later, told me she usually left the house for hours at time just to give us an opportunity of finally doing something about our very obvious feelings. Unlike the trip we took to her ranch, this one was filled with 3am deep existencial talks. And unlike the other trip, we spent the whole time sleeping on the same bed. Not a whole lot happened other than us dancing around the obvious feelings and how to deal with being so close to each other.

Nothing beside the very last morning together. I remember always waking up after her, because that’s just how we were. I remember she was already up, reading this book in fucking german of all things. It had been the first day of the entire week we had a meager ray of sunshine. And the way my window and ourselves were positioned, the sun was shinning directly on her. I woke up to the vision of an angel. I had never seen hair in such a warm bright color. I had never seen eyes that were the living embodiment of a spring afternoon sky. I woke up and her propped up on a couple of pillows, reading under the weak morning sun was the first thing I saw. It was the first thing I saw and I could swear I was still dreaming.

Because for the first time in all this, I could not contain and muffle the voice inside my head that was screaming: I want to wake up next to this every single day for the rest of my life.

It was the last time I woke up next to her for the rest of my life.

To my credit I did shake off my daze from the sight quite fast. I had gotten so good to drowning out these feelings that I was great at putting my poker face back up. We talked, we had breakfast, we let ourselves feel a bit sad about her leaving.

Then, just about half an hour before we actually had to go shower to take her to the station, it happened. The one moment that made me feel confident this all wasn’t just in my head. It all wasn’t just wishful thinking of a lonely pathetic girl who got way too bullied in high school.

We were having an impromptu pillow fight cause why not. That’s how girls who are secretly in love handle their feelings after all. It’s universal I think. And, well, on the overall 9 days we spent together irl I never actually beat her once because I’m just that much of a noddle. But this one fight we were both in bed, with weak footing and etc. You can see where this is going.

So on a scene to rival any anime, or that one gif of girls playing handball that fall on top of each other, she fell on top of me. Well, did she fall? I don’t know. For all I know, she planned.

And we had the moment. The gaze. Those few indescribable seconds of your life that you’re always gonna remember like yesterday, no matter how old you get. She had each of my hands pinned to the side of my head, and at first I thought we were still fighting so I just struggled and laughed and was saying stuff like “get off me ya psycho!”. But then I looked up. I looked up and.

And then I felt it. I felt everything her eyes were telling me. She wasn’t playing with me anymore. She was staring at me as if she already knew it was going to be the last time. She was staring at me as if it was a love story because it was. She was staring at me as if her entire existence, as if the whole oxygen on the earth itself depending on my presence.

She was staring at me like I has never been looked at before, or since. Even with a 3-years long relationship I had muuuch later on. No one had never, or will ever, look at me the way she looked at me.

And I froze. I froze because I had no idea what else to do. I froze because inside my head back then this was still wrong. Girls should not kiss. Girls should never kiss.

It was wrong.

It was so wrong, but nothing, not a single piece of bigot ramble ever uttered in history would make me feel more scared than losing my best friend. Nothing in the world scared me more than losing her.

Could I cross this boundary? Did she want to? Or was it just a spur on the moment thing?

But then she stared at my lips and I could not help but lick my own. Out of instinct, out of craving, out of love.

To the risk of getting an angry mob to my house right now, no, we did not kiss.

In fact, I dont quite remember the next few seconds at all. It had been single the most intense moment in my life at this point. It is still one of the most intense moments I’ve ever experienced. I completely blanked out of how I actually got pulled out of it and back into the land of living. Next thing I know we are sitting on opposite sides of the bed, trying to move away from the awkwardness. We did manage, in a couple of minutes. and things went back to normal between us.

But things would never be back to normal within me.

I’m gonna take a pause here to point out I’m bisexual. So like every bisexual, I am a very confused person. Cause you see, the moment you figure out you're bisexual it’s so much more confusing than figuring out you're fully homosexual. Because in the moment, things don’t just click. Things dont just start to magically make sense. I was 16 and I had absolutely liked guys before. Was it with this intensity? No because I was fucking 16. She was the first person I was been truly in love with. But I know it in my soul that if she was a dude I would love her with the exact same intensity. This particular discourse took me another three years to solve, but I digress.

And then she left.

She left and, like I said, her mother had programed her entire july milimetrically so we could be as far apart as possible. She left my house straight back to her ranch, not even her own house, And they have no internet there, so no MSN. Just a single 30-minutes phone call a day, for the 4 days after we had spent the entire week cooped up in bed inside blankets and playing lame-ass RPGs. And then right after that she left for germany for two full weeks. But before that particular trip, she did manage to get home. She got home to a letter of her grandma that read...

Well to be honest I cannot tell you what it read exactly. Because she was extremely vague about it when telling me. But it was enough to destroy her. It was enough to make her think that her grandma would not want anything to do with her anymore and it was based off somewhat new events. It doesn’t take a fucking genius to figure out the full contents of the letter. Her family is from the brazilian Bible Belt. But back then, at 16, confused as fuck, and already preemptively heartbroken, I legit had no idea what it said. She was vague and I didn’t want to pry. I just wanted to make her stop crying. I just wanted to put that beautiful smile back in her face but on that day I could feel her slipping away for the first time.

The rest of the story takes place in just a bit under two months. Maybe 6 weeks at most.

She goes to germany and finds a boyfriend, as one does. She leeches on this boy like a lifeline, but never stops texting me our 3 international texts we were allowed daily. In fact, the first thing she did after kissing him was pulling off her phone as texting me.

You can imagine how well this guy takes it.

Now, she goes back to brasil and this guy actually lives somewhat close to her. It’s a doable relationship. Once they both have access to internet and MSN again, and she is fast to introduce us, so happy that both of the most important people in her life are meeting. Even tho they had been together for like 3 weeks at this point.

I’m ok with it because, well, I still hadn’t figured myself out. I know no one will believe this, but I honestly did not feel jealousy. In fact, it was almost relief. Relief that I would not need to look into my feelings any further than I had back in july. I was happy for her. She seemed genuinely happy with this guy, and so was I.

And then Independence Day weekend comes and hell starts to... well, not break loose, but certainly get weaker on the seams. In here Independence Day is on September 7th, but both on my city and hers there's a city holiday on the 8th. On that year it ended up getting us a 4-day weekend again, and obviously I thought I was the one who was gonna be invited to visit her. I has been counting on it, planning for it.

Two weeks or so before that she informs me that she wants to invite her boyfriend over instead of it, which is like. Ok. Fair. But for the first time in this entire story I felt jealousy. Because that ranch, those stars, that sky... it was our place. I did not wanna share those experiences I had with her with anyone else. But I kept quiet of course, because how could I not? I tell her “yeah it’s a bit upsetting because I was hopping we could see each other, but I am genuinely happy you get to spend time with him!”

She ghosts me in that week.

To this day, 12 years and 2 months later, I do not know why. I do not know how. I know her grandma called again when she learned the boyfriend was gonna come over and not me, but that’s all.

She ghosted me before ghosting was even a thing. So I had no other social parameter to deal with the situation. I will never forget the absolutely heart wrenching pain I felt when I figured out she had blocked me on MSN. It’s indescribable.

It’s indescribable because she was the first person I felt like actually gave a flying fuck if I lived of died, if I was happy or if I cried. And she had up and decided to fucking cut me out her life without a single fucking word of explanation. One night everything was fine, we even had a group chat with her boyfriend. The next day she is gone forever. I don’t know, nor I think I will ever learn what triggered it. What was the last fucking draw, the last fucking prejudiced word directed at her that made her do it.

My world had been full of color, full of life, and even if literally everyone around me in real life would be so much happier if I didn’t exist (back then I DID NOT get along with my mother), she had seemed this entire time to be so much happier with me around. She was the one person who liked my existence. And literally overnight, I wake up and my world is empty. My world is empty and my air is missing and I don’t fucking know why.

It’s been 12 years and I still don’t know why.

Her boyfriend harassed me a bit back on orkut. Like, I have no idea why. It was unprompted. But it does give you a big fucking clue does it now?

I haven’t gotten a single word from her ever again. I know she’s alive, that’s not the fucking point of the story. I know because I tried to contact her again through every fucking means possible. I even sent her a letter of all things for fuck’s sake. When facebook came along I found her there too and sent her a message. Once 3 years after the fact, and then again 6 years after the fact. That was the last time I tried contacting her.

I cannot say I was “faithful”, so to speak. I cannot say she has been the only thing in my mind. I cannot say that I have not loved again, because I have. I had a serious 3-year relationship, as I mentioned. I had actual gay disasters stories in between. She has not remained the foremost thing in my mind. She has not remained my one true love. There were times where I spent months without thinking about her. Even silly crushes are enough to stray my thoughts away, to stray my heart away

But what worth are those times if I always go back to thinking of her as soon as I see myself without someone? What worth are those times where she is not in my mind, if she had never left my heart to begin with?

What worth is forgetting about her at times when she is my default setting?

I know what you're thinking. “you’re not in love with her, you’re in love with the idea of what could have been”. And you’re absolutely right. I know you are. I’m fully aware of it, of the implications of it, not only on my love life but my mental health.

But she has been the single most influential person in my life. She was the one that got me to writing. She was the one who made face my mother and have The Talk we needed for fucking 16 years about who my father was. Fuck, she is the sole responsible for setting my life on that path, and all the domino effect of events that happened because of the decision of talking to my mother about it. She was the one that made me figure out I was bisexual. Not a lesbian, definitively not straight, but not gay either. Bisexual, out and proud.

She was my first love.

She was my first love and she is the one that makes me give some credit to the saying “at the end of your life you will see you’ve fallen in love with the same person over and over again”.

She was my first love and she makes me go fucking crazy enough to give the whole “soulmates” concept a decent thought, because this cannot have been natural. Loneliness cannot explain the entire thing. It cannot explain how ridiculously drawn I was to her right away. Attraction doesn’t explain it either. It cannot explain how insanely synced up I’ve always felt to her. How insanely connected.

I’m not gonna lie, I loved my ex. Truly and deeply. They were the only person to ever treat me respect, and I felt almost as connected to them as I did to her. Almost.

If we are getting technical, I felt, like, 95% synced up with them. Which is more than the vast majority of humankind can only dream of feeling.

But it was not 100%.

There has only been one person in my life that I have felt 100% connected with. One person in my life I have not been able to shake away, have not been able to get over. Oh I have moved on. I have moved on and moved back in and then moved on again. Many times, over and over.

But I have not gotten over you. I will never get over you. What happened. How it ended. You were my biggest heartbreak. You were my biggest love story, and I didn’t even get to live it.

You make me so illogical that I sincerely hope there is a next life out there. One we can meet, sit down, and talk.

I’m sure you are a completely different person right now. I am a completely different person too. And it is insane, it is illogical, and it is immature to think that these two completely different people would still have any vestige of a thing in common like we did as kids. Because we were kids. We were kids and now we are both adults, and have a single damn thing changed?

A whole fuckton of them changed. Seasons changed. Years changed. The entire fucking world changed. I have changed more than you can possible imagine a person would in 12 years.

But you being the default setting of my heart has not changed. No matter how “unfaithful” I’ve been to you. No matter how much I will keep on living not being attached to you. No matter how much I know at some point I will forget you, forget this feeling, and bask into the pleasure of a new love. No matter how much at some point I will surely think “wow, what a crazy bitch I was back then, with all these feelings for a random girl who certainly doesn’t even remember I exist”.

And that’s one of my biggest fears you see. Cause for me you are half the fucking book. For me you’re the constant element that comes back when sea is calm and things are ok.

And I fear that to you I was nothing more than a line, maybe a throwaway paragraph in your life.

#my stuff #my writting #gay disaster

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smokeybrandreviews · 4 years

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Coriander Colored Nonsense

I wasn’t going to touch upon this because it’s, um... stupid, but this topic seems to be gaining traction all over the internet. There’s a pretty decent cosplayer out in the Nords known as Wanderlustluca, or Thatstarwarsgirl77 on the Tweeters. She’s rather prolific in her hobby, dressing up as all kinds of sh*t and, for the most part, pulls that stuff off pretty adeptly. As a card carrying Weeb, cosplay is one of my cultural wheelhouses and i have to say, she’s pretty okay at it. I’ve seen some better creations, but you can see she respects the source material of her costumes, which is more than i can say for some actual, big budget, studios renditions. Luca has earned the ire of the purple hairs on the internet for cosplaying as Starfire. Apparently, Lust cosplaying as an orange alien is racist. Racist. People are actually making the argument that dressing up as a literal, tangerine colored, extraterrestrial, is racist. Let us, together, unpack this literally crazy notion for what it is.

Starfire’s real name is Koriand’r. Which was the color of her goddamn skin originally. Kori didn’t turn orange until the Teen Titans cartoon came out on Cartoon Network. Apparently, that is the point of contention. The fact that Lust went the extra mile for authenticity and got a spray tan, turning herself orange to match the comic source material, is why there is all this racist outry. What even is the problem? If we’re going by that stupid logic, how is 45′s super terrible bottle tan not racist? How are the kids from Jersey Shore not wildly racist? Hell, half of those motherf*ckers weren’t even Italian. The one was actually Irish! I didn’t hear anyone screaming racism or cultural appropriation back then so why the f*ck is this a thing now? How is it a thing in this, specific, circumstance?? Starfire is a f*cking cartoon, man! A f*cking cartoon alien, in fact! But, okay. Fine. Let’s just say her race is the same as her species; Tamaraneon. She’s still a f*cking alien! She’s literally an impossibility for which to ascribe race. How can someone be racist for portraying a character that has no race?

Starfire is orange. And an alien. From deep space. Her “race”, which is just as made up as she is, happens to be Tamaraneon. They hail from the planet of Tamaran. Not Earth. In deep space. In a f*cking comic book. Everything about this character is made up. It’s fake. It’s all imagination and f*cking drawings by George Perez, man. If he made her purple, and Lust took a dip in a pool of crayola, would she be racist then, too? How do you describe a terrestrial bias to an extraterrestrial? That sh*t is inherently flawed. I know that Anna Diop, a black woman, is playing her in the current Titans run but that sh*t is bad, man. It’s a terrible interpretation of the character and i, as a black man, feel like she was wildly miscast. That’s not what Starfire looks like to me. Diop got that part because “Oscars so White”. Plus, her bit of natural melanin saves on body paint and effects work. Painting Kori orange every episode would get real expensive, real fast. However, if you just do it once, for a f*cking cosplay, it ain’t that hefty on the pockets and will probably be praised way more than the cost-cutting shortcuts taken by a budget-minded television production, which i think is the real problem. Wanderlustlucas is a direct challenge to the current Starfire with the most visibility.

Diop, being a black woman in the current Starfire role on Titans, is considered stunning and brave. It’s a shining example of representation. It’s the the tip of that color-blind spear to stab at all of this “woke” white guilt. Titans is not a better show because Diop is one of the leads, it’s just chock full of pandering visibility. All these little SJWs and Purple hairs are upset some super white, northern viking European, cosplay celebrity, is doing more justice to the character than the DC diversity hire, which is an actual point to be made. Why is Diop actually Starfire when she skews so far from the source material? George Perez is Puerto Rican. Starfire’s real name is Korand’r. Coriander is a spice used prolifically in Puerto Rican cuisine. Starfire’s original design was chock full of gigantic, flaming, curly brown hair. Starfire, if she’s anything, is f*cking obviously Puerto Rican or, at the very least, Hispanic in origin. Why is there no outrage for Diop in the role over some Puerto Rican actress? Because it doesn’t f*cking matter! Diversity in these circles is a joke and as long as there’s a token black in your cast, your show gets the pass, Even if that person marginalizes another minority group. That hypocrisy, alone, makes this racism argument f*ckin dumb.

Ultimately, what you have is a bunch of butt-hurt try-hards upset a white woman created a more comics accurate version of a character they want more than anything to be diverse. But that’s an impossibility because the character in question, aside from being completely made up, is a f*cking orange alien. A fan who happened to be white, created a pretty legit cosplay, one that is so much more accurate than the actual, officially released costume in the poorly written, PC vehicle currently airing. Not everything is about politics. Not everything is about visibility or representation. Let fans be fans, man. Let creators create. I’m so goddamn tired of Mary Sues and representation outcry and the worst version of Feminism, ever. Wanderlustluca did a great job with her homage. Give the chick her credit and move on, man. there are much larger battles that need fighting.

#Starfire #Koriand'r #Teen Titans

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