#made this in feb 2023 but I never posted it here

[fairytalefabel]

[bitchlessdino]

2K celebration: the party chronicles (m)

Author note: I’ve finally reached 2k followers 🥳🎉 to celebrate I’m opening up with a new series to showcase some fun up and downs of a classic house party and ofc it’s a smut/suggestive series so MINORS DO NOT INTERACT, nothing new, nothing too different, but definitely exciting. Thank you guys for being here just have fun. To my moots, my followers, my readers, you’ve all made this journey fun and gave me a sense of fulfillment and I enjoy writing and interacting with you guys. Let’s go ahead and enjoy the series as chapters gradually come out!

Warning: smut, mature themes, various povs (gn!, fem!, and afab! depending on chapter), party au, characters all in drinking age (21+), mentions of alcohol, virginity, threesomes, car sex, + varying tags per chapter

Summary: Parties. You either hate them or you love and can’t get enough of them. What fun can you expect from a house of young and reckless party goers with nothing to lose?

Chapter 1: Seungkwan and Jeonghan

Seungkwan likes Jeonghan's friend while Jeonghan is more than willing to be the perfect distraction to entertain Seungkwan's friend. Looks like they're switching besties for the night.

Chapter 2: Joshua

Josh's job is getting beers for the party but meets a cute convenience worker and sees if he can get a good bargain with a tempting offer.

Chapter 3: Seokmin

A party host's work is never done, even with seokmin's help, and trust me, he's helping a lot.

Chapter 4: Mingyu

Mingyu and his ex had be broken up for so long already and he was finally getting over them, but god be damned if you didn’t look so hot tonight.

Chapter 5: Seungcheol

At the grown age you are, you were very much ready to lose this social construct that is your virginity, and who better to lose it to than the hottest guy at the party.

Chapter 6: Vernon and Chan

Nobody fucking like love triangles, especially you. So what was the perfect solution to that problem? You guessed it.

Chapter 7: Jihoon

Designated Driver? Jihoon is DD for the night but gets a little too distracted with a pair of DDs.

Chapter 8: Minghao

Winning a game of beer pong is no easy feat, so he insists he and his pong partner finds the nearest closet to celebrate. *JUST POSTED

Chapter 9: Junhui

Jun is late getting to the party for good reasons and not because he’s lost (which he totally is)

Chapter 10: Soonyoung

Soonyoung has liked you as long as he's known you. Hot bops, good vibes, and more than a couple of drinks lead to very a messy confession.

Chapter 11: Wonwoo

Wonwoo is home alone but the party next door is so loud, maybe he could have a good talk with one of the party hosts (he does have their number)

Started [Feb 3, 2023]

Ended [ongoing]

[femslashfeb]

HELLO ALL

TLDR

No reblogging from the blog this year - posting prompts tomorrow the 31st

For the past few years I've very much struggled with reblogging everyone's activity in the tag. So this year I will not be doing so.

(OR maybe I will? I just don't want to commit)

Even if I knew how to make a bot that reblogs - a lot of people still use the unique tag to tag outside challenges. So I've always had to hand submit. However it became too stressful for me and for the past few years I ended up avoiding it until later weeks or even months.

If you noticed I didn't finish reblogging last year so- I've just given up on that.

Honestly I've struggled a lot with depression for the last 7 years or so. It's been harder and harder to find my way back to tumblr. It doesn't help that my phone can barely handle the amount of apps it already has.

My main account @puff-pink hardly ever updates because of my big sad. And I don't know if I'll ever get back on the horse in the same way I did before.

Some of you know me as an artist, and tho I still churn out subpar art for my day-job I've struggled a lot to make art for myself during my depression. Partially because one year I overworked my hand - and still deal in continual wrist aches. Even the weeks I don't pick up a drawing tool.

I intended this challenge for myself and maybe the small fandoms I was in at the time. But it took off among writers and creators of all types across all fandoms.

One year I even tried to tally the most popular fandoms but there were honestly too many to keep track of- and I stopped after the first three pages of submissions.

I don't claim to have invented the concept of FemSlash February. Before I started the prompts I swear I had heard the phrase somewhere. Tho not sure where. Perhaps it had been amongst my friends on Skype. Back when I had online friends and Skype(I'm still not sold on Discord🤷‍♀️).

However that January I thought it would be fun to partake in a challenge of some kind. But scouring tumblr and the general internet. I could only find half hearted efforts on fanfiction sites from years past.

I'm so proud of all my Sapphic creators on here that have partaken every year. Even if I've never shown favoritism or awarded anyone. I do notice those that actually complete the challenge AND those that keep coming back each year(looking at you H20 writer(I don't remember your username but there's a mermaid writer that's a writing machine)). I truly am proud of you especially in my shriveled state of creativity. Thank you for your efforts. For your hype. And for your love of women of all kinds across all the universes.

Each year I'm surprised to find even more categories I never thought to include. From mood boards, to doll photography, to ofc the classic art and writing. May your pencils forever be in union with your sister mediums.

On that note. There is a strict NO AI GENERATED ART or writing this year.

Not that I could physically stop anyone who does use AI. But I do not want that sort of thing associated with this challenge. It's become scarily good in 2023 to the point it can't always be identified. So I simply ask for the honor system when it comes to AI generated creations.

That being said. If you've made it to the end of this post:

Prompts will be posted tomorrow.

I usually prefer to give yall more of a buffer, but I've been busy. Both with Big Sad, rescuing some feral cats, my own life, errands, chores and work.

If you're still here- here is a preview of the first three days.

FEB 1 - black

FEB 2 - spring

FEB 3 - cake

The 14th as usual will be some sort of Valentine romance type theme(haven't decided specifically yet) and as always there will be a Rest Day.

Expect some repeat prompts. In the past I tried to avoid them but idc anymore.

It's also a Leap Year this year so expect one extra prompt to throw off the symmetry of what's normally 28 days.

Thanks for coming back this year. And thank you to those that still check on this blog.

❤️🧡🤍💜🩷

Keep loving girls

-PuffPink

[srbachchan]

DAY 5487

Jalsa, Mumbai                Feb 23,  2023               Thu 7:57 PM

Birthday- EF - Dr Manoj Mehta Friday, 24 February .. love and grace on this special day .. from the Ef .. ❤️

At times it goes back to time .. a used to conundrum .. once set on it difficult to change .. but change is the dribble these days .. change or suffer be left behind .. so I did the pass over .. went to the latest in speed .. it is the most relevant in the today of todays .. some fascination but came back to the tried and tested .. and am doing rather well .. rather be the well of the change .. 

a day of clearing .. clearing the post and much that has lain devoid of any need or character .. tough to part , but parting has ever been the needed tough .. so let it bleed in its hemisphere of its presence, and delivered off the limits in space ..

the space .. the space .. the much needed ingredient in the lives of those that collect the affection of the mass and more .. to store them is never a problem so long as it is known that it became the part and parcel of the store within .. within .. the heart and the soul .. that little cubicle residing in us the space within .. the best in all conditions .. it weathers every storm .. every joy and lingers on till it is time to part in departure .. or some say remains till the departure has matured .. 

no one has been able to justify it with fact though ... yet !

so yes on the issue of the ‘give’ and the comments read .. there shall of course be effort to deliver and see what can be done in an efficient manner .. and in the discipline of the giving .. 

we give to the most for the need of the most .. we give to to the MAKER .. and there is ever wonder whether he is the needy too .. the giving though here is the reverence and obeisance to the Almighty .. that give is the excess .. 

and a remind of the maker of films and he that produced them in the Southern .. who whatever he made in his project would part with half of it to the deity of his belief  .. he carried his earnings in the fold of his spread lower wear , the cloth that covered him in the styled wear of the south and offered it to the LORD .. a believer of immense faith and trust and affection .. 

so .. so .. so ..

so me goes .. and goes for the while ..

Amitabh Bachchan

[kanmom51]

JM Wlive 10 Feb 2023

cr./ to the creators of the media used by me in this post.

Where do we start?

Maybe with JM starting his live at 19:01 or 7:01 pm.

If numbers are your thing, well we get them here with the 1 and 9 and by using both 19:01 and 7:01 we can get the 11/8.

Just a little fun. Intentional or not.

So, what did we have in the 1:40 hr. live?

JM came to us with another arts and crafts live. I think that having that distraction, literally doing something with his hands, puts him at ease, which makes it easier for him to navigate the live without a constant need to look into the camera or even the comments.

JM starts off by telling us his album is on it's way, probably to be released in March.

This out today:

JM also hinted to look forward to something coming today, and et voila, we had his TikTok dance clip drop.

JM gave us something to not only dream about but also, just maybe, to actually look forward to:

..."wait a little..."

Just how little, is the question that comes to mind. Lol.

Is it something new, the dating requests? Or is it just a JK and JM new thing not only answering the question but also answering it similarly?

JM:

and:

JK:

JM was asked about his fighting with Tae.

Nothing or no one to fight over. Disappointing to some?

JM was also asked about Jin, whom he referred to as cool, and like JK, he confirmed that Jin is doing ok and at times is in touch with them in their group chat.

JM being the usual sweetheart that he is:

JM talked a bit about Sachwita and Yoongi, how well he's doing and how he hopes he will appear on the show when his album comes out.

Someone asked JM if he can motivate them:

We got a lot of JM mentioning JK, telling us stories involving JK, starting with thinking he saw JK's name in the comments.

JK didn't comment, but I can just imagine him sitting at home watching JM's live:

going all:

Same here JK. Same here.

Some of the songs we got during the live:

Vibe

Astronaut

Euphoria

And we know how JM looked out for JK during his Euphoria rehearsals and performances.

And we were lucky to get JM singing Euphoria too.

JM was watching the Euphoria MV

and talked about how well everyone did and how cold it was while filming.

That that

So, this was the cute/teasing version JM's talking about?

Lauv

Ok, so we all know they love Lauv's songs. Past and present. JK was singing Never not going to the loo in his live, lol. While JM had Better than this going in his live.

Flower works

Both JK and JM had Flower works going during their lives (respecting their hyungs doing their songs during their lives).

JM mentioned JK once more while talking about multitasking. I tell you, this man has JK on his brain.

JM made a couple of flowers to add to his previous lego flowers and then moved on to create a Valentine's teddy.

End product - Valentine's bear minus a nose, lol. Funny pick for someone who doesn't think much or care for that day.

I want to almost end my post with Sam Smith's Unholy.

Cause peeps, all claims that Jikook don't know the actual song (well, it was a claim made about JK, but same same to me), they don't hold water. Unholy clearly on JM's playlist. When it came on I was rofl. Literally.

What did we have there?

We had Unholy on JM's playlist.

We had JM's giggle as it came on, and then knowing that Jungkookie sang it in his live.

We had JM turning it off perhaps, so Jiminie-like, but then also continuing to hum it, lol.

So either he watched the live, either live or after, or he's on sm and saw posts about it or he heard about it from the horse's mouth?

And talking about Jungkookie...kind of felt JM had a hard case of Jungkookie on the brain during this live, the amount of times he mentions him, the way his whole face lights up, and the smile on his face... beautiful.

Finally, just for fun and giggles, but also a warm fuzzy feeling, let's end this post with just under 30 seconds of JK and JM mentioning the other in their lives:

I'm finalising my post after JK's boxing workout Wlive we are all gushing about.

Now I need to go count how many times JM's name was mentioned in that one and we need someone with good editing skills (not me) to go add those to this clip, which at just under 30 seconds doesn't even start to come close to the amount of times these two have mentioned each other in their last lives, all while the other isn't even there in the room with them, even when the other isn't even commenting in their live either (JM).

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Buzzfeed

Published: Feb 12, 2023

We recently asked Black members of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us the reason they left Christianity. Here are their insightful replies:

Warning: This post contains mentions of sexual abuse. 

1. "First, I never wanted to go to church, it was something my mom made us do. Second, homophobia. The last time I went to a church it was a lovely and inspirational sermon until the pastor started disparaging gays for absolutely no reason. Even at my grandfather's funeral, the pastor there managed to blame gays for the state of the world. Just random unnecessary hate."

—justchillman

2. "When I was younger, the pastor at the family church was allegedly involved in a scandal with a child and no one would do anything because he was a 'man of God.' I was instantly turned off of organized religion after finding out. That was the catalyst and the more I grew up and did some soul-searching, the more I realized I could not believe in a God that would protect a monster over a child (amongst other things as well)."

—sdhendrix182

3. "I stopped believing because my ancestors were forced to convert to what their masters believed. Plus, we pray so much and are some of the hardest believers, yet our lot in life remains the same generation after generation. I didn't understand why we were suffering so much even though we went to church and prayed so much. So, I stopped believing, stop praying and start doing and became very successful."

—Anonymous

4. "The amount of gossiping that went on in my church was astounding to me, even as a child. I always felt I had to be perfect or else I would give everyone else even more to talk crap about. The irony of the 'judge not lest ye be judged' Christians being the judgiest people I ever met was lost on them, but it made me really evaluate if I actually believed or if it was just putting on a show so I could fit in. I found out it was the latter."

—afinallullaby

5. "I was raised Catholic but as I got older, I questioned the church and its teachings more and more. A lot of it started to not make sense. When I discovered that I was nonbinary and pansexual, the church responded by forcing conversion therapy on me rather than accepting me. A God that supposedly loves everyone is not going to force that sort of hell on anyone."

—Anonymous

6. "I am a 60-year-old heterosexual African male and was increasingly bothered by the comments and jokes about gay people from the pulpit. I was a devoted and tithing member of a non-denomination mega church. My childhood years were spent every Sunday in a southern Baptist church. But I began to feel more and more uncomfortable with rhetoric that was justifying why gay lifestyles were 'unacceptable.' In short, I asked myself is this what Jesus would say or do with anyone or any group? My answer was no. This caused me to have enough doubt to question a number of teachings and stories in the bible that I was now able to look at with open eyes."

"I began to research the origins of religion and came to understand it is all about a belief, not facts. I then asked a basic question is there any area in my life where I operate on belief and not fact? With that in mind, I had to get honest and admit, I have no concrete data or facts that clearly show me there is a God. The idea of attributing what we don't understand to a God is no longer acceptable to me."

—Anonymous

7. "I grew up in church with pastors on both sides of my family. It's overwhelming as a child to be told all the things you can't do because it's a sin and you'll go to hell. Don't get me started on the teachings about relationships and sex. I wasn't allowed to date until I was 17 and once I turned 17, I was suddenly supposed to be okay with openly dating without feeling conviction. Religion played a huge part in me not dating or having significant relationships until my mid-20s and even then it still felt wrong."

"Additionally, end-time prophesy teachings (the rapture) were genuinely traumatizing. I was under constant fear that the rapture would happen and I would be left behind for some unknown sin I committed. I now have a child of my own and I REFUSE to put any sort of religious teachings in her head and I've told my parents that I will decide what's appropriate for her until she's old enough to make her own decision about religion."

—Anonymous

8. "At a very young age, I was forced to attend church. It felt like a cult. I was cognizant of the so-called church body I convened with. All I did was look and listen. Attending church continued until I was in my early teenage years. After all that I have experienced and been through I made a conscious decision that I did NOT want to be in the same place with any of those people which I will never do."

—Anonymous

9. "I didn’t grow up in church or a religious household, I was just told God exists, sin exists, and went to a few summer bible schools. As an adult, I wanted to grow my faith. The more I started reading, researching, and contemplating, I called bullcrap. It took about three years of combing through Christianity, Black Hebrew Israelites, and belief in God with no attached religious text before I settled on atheism. Honestly, I never felt more at peace or free."

—Anonymous

10. "As I got older, a lot of things in the bible just didn't add up (no mention of dinosaurs, no one could give an exact timeline of the events in the bible, the fact that the whole origins of the bible itself are a matter of debate). Not to mention that Christianity was used to keep slaves in check. I definitely have been persecuted for my stance, but I will never go back to any religion."

—Anonymous

11. "I did research on the history of the church and became very knowledgeable on all its past. Once I understood the roots of the faith, it became impossible for me to logically subscribe to it."

—Anonymous

12. "I grew up in a Baptist church in a religious extended family. My belief in some higher power diminished because of multiple reasons. Multiple friends of mine died in the same year and I just can't fathom how a higher power allows so much grief and hurt (at a personal level as well as across all of society). Mass shootings, violence, homelessness, assault, and so many heinous acts get explained away by free will, but why let people suffer if an all-powerful being could make it better? Modern Christianity is so far from the teaching of the bible. Looking at the mega-churches and the pastor and their lavish lifestyles, they're businesses."

—Anonymous

13. "I was raised in the church and the older I get, the more it seems to me how religion is used just to control the less fortunate."

—Anonymous

14. "I would say that actually reading the bible for myself without someone else's interpretation led me out of Christianity. Once I read it fully, I saw how humans created a God in their image depending on their circumstances and state of mind. While Christians will believe their God is going to save us from ourselves, the work of being better stewards of the Earth and each other falls on us. We must evolve into better humans."

—Anonymous

15. And "I was baptized at 12 and literally a year later I started to question my faith. So I read the bible in full. So many questions that many refuse to logically answer besides the usual 'Have faith.' I have not found anyone that can explain to me why God needed to kill all the animals except for the only two of own their kind on Noah’s ark when it was the humans who sinned. So many inconsistencies and not to mention man has touched the bible. What better way to control people than saying promises of heaven or being condemned to hell? I consider myself an agnostic atheist."

—Anonymous

Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity. 

==

Black Americans have consistently tended to be more religious and slower to leave their religion per capita than white people and other ethnic groups, and more likely to regard religious faith as being personally important.

[ Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/racial-and-ethnic-composition/ ]

But perhaps that trend might change.

[banqanas]

Can I ask how you learned Japanese? I'm curious about learning it myself but have no clue where to start.

Disclaimer:

I'm self taught (only have one basic class in Japanese) and never took JLPT. I can talk, write and understand basic japanese, but definitely not proficient. Because I only apply my jp knowledge for hobby stuffs (a.k.a i can read a novel about oshi and have conversations with fellow otaku. but none of it is applicable in regular daily life)

I started since 2014 so I've been learning jp for almost 9 years (still am). I dont think I'm qualified to give advice so instead, here's a short essay on how I got to this point;

2014: learnt reading & listening from manga & anime. reading raws while comparing to fan scanlations. same with anime. doing this consistently to get used to the language 2018: peak of my learning -took a basic class in japanese in college. helped a lot in getting used to sentence structure and particles -started translating seriously (short written text only: interviews, tweets, articles) -practice writing and conversing via twitter. started tweeting in japanese and talked to japanese people in same fandom. found kaiwa friends. -also started translating spoken japanese (livestreams), but was not confident enough to translate word-by-word 2019- jan 2021: started translating mobage contents. literally just doing the same things as the year before but more frequently and more quantity. also started translating short spoken japanese without any text/script aid (radio). feb 2021: discovered high&low. met todoroki yosuke. trajectory of life changed. stopped translating for the time being 2022: slowly translating media with real people starting with some kamen rider stuffs. got more comfortable with translating spoken japanese (unscripted). 2023: here i am.

The long essay version:

The earliest I started learning japanese was around ~2014 where I was into a very niche series that has no translation so I had to buy the manga and try to read them myself. At the time there's no translate using image function, so a lot of it was me typing in the words in hiragana and hoping that I find the right kanji. During this period I (was forced to) learn a lot about kanji radicals and how to properly write them.

From that day on, Jisho was my best friend

I learnt mostly by comparing anime/manga fan translations with raws and going back and forth to check the words in dictionary. I prefer fan scanlation bc most of them are literal and are easier to understand as someone who isn't an english speaker.

I still consciously do this whenever I watch anything but I can differentiate what's a literal translation vs localisation now.

I started dabbling in translation around 2018

At the time I was into Hypnosis Mic (rap songs). I was better at understanding jp words now and could write simple words. I would tweet in japanese and reply to my fav artists drawings (this template is my origin). I also started posting my drawings with jp caption

I used to help around the fan translation group with seiyuu interviews or magazine articles (mainly written text). And the admin of the group would check my translation before posting them. I tried translating songs myself, but I realised that while I could translate, they don't make sense 😅😅

I made some friends in the fandom who were also learning japanese and we would consult each other with translations. I also made a friend with a japanese person wanting to learn english. So I would talk to them in japanese while they would reply to me in english.

So I stuck around with translating short interviews/tweets. I also started doing livetweets of niconico livestreams. I wasn't confident enough in spoken japanese so I only made general summaries instead of word-by-word translation.

At the same year I also took an introductory class to Japanese Language at my college. It was my first formal lesson in japanese. The book we used was Minna no Nihongo Elementary 1. The class got me used to sentence structures, particles, numbers, time etc etc. The class did not made me translate my anime stuffs better back then but the present me is very thankful for everything I learnt during this class bc it's what people in the real world use.

The next following years (2019- early 2021) were when i was most active bc I got into translating mobage contents. I translated pretty much everything I could from home screen lines to event stories to radio. I got better at making my translation sound better and not too literal. Also helped proof reading friends translations.

I personally think this was the best learning duration for me. Compared to actors, seiyuu (voice actors) have really clear enunciation which helped me got confident in my listening skills for spoken japanese, thus became confident enough to translate it. I could understand and catch up with what they were talking about with minimal text. But I still need to listen to the same radio show 2-3 times before I could fully understand them.

I dedicated every waking minute of my life to this game until it shut down. Then I got so broken hearted, I didn't want to consume anymore 2D media. Depressi spaghetti phase.

On that fated day in February 2021, I watched High&Low on netflix and I fell for Todoroki Yosuke. Started the process all over again by consuming everything i can about highlow to get used to the actors voices, way of speaking, dialect, common words/phrases etc. Also includes stuffs related to exile tribe. During this time I barely translated anything bc I wasn't confident enough with unscripted spoken japanese.

By 2022 I got the hang of it and started translating stuffs for kamen rider. And this year I can listen to fanta's radio while doing chores without thinking too much about it but can still understand their conversation! I read a novel for the first time!

I'm sorry that this got too long but I hope it helped to give you an idea of where to start! Here's to learning more! 👍

[kimuramasaya]

every month of 2023! 🎉

rules: link your favorite and/or most popular post from each month this year <3 (it’s totally fine to skip months!) and tag some CCs you love!

tagged by @ambivartence @dongkwan and @xiaojuun thank you beloveds 💓

I'll tag @woodziecup @lunetual @dreamaze @hwichanis and @mizugucci, but if you haven't been tagged and want to do this, consider this your tag!

I did not post nearly as much as I thought I did this year, and my gifs really got increasingly niche 😅 I'm just linking to my favorite set from each month since there are few months with only a couple posts

jan: txt sugar rush ride studio choom. these aren't the best since they were the first gifs I made in 3 months, but this is what got me giffing again, so it feels important

feb: tnx sungjun love or die. here's where the niche content starts. my other tnx sets from this month did better, but I liked this one best

march: vanner hyesung vlive. this was my busiest month as I made my way through old vanner content and vity groovy stages

april: dkb lune 24/7 compilation aka the time I made 27 lune gifs and then only posted 15 to look less insane

may: ikon jinhwan u. when will my husband return from the war 😞

june: vanner on idol league. my belovedest peak time winners ♡

july: jinhwan solo concept photos. remember when I went off with this coloring? I still can't believe how well these came out I'll never color something so well again

august: vanner gon performer ending fairy. everyone needs to perceive my wonseo it's not optional

sept: vanner hyesung performer ending fairy. I only posted 4 sets (all of vanner) this month, but even if I posted more, my cutest hamji would probs still be my fave

oct: ini masaya hana ending fairy. my one and only post for the month. this started my jpop posting, which somehow has a smaller audience than my kpop flops

nov: ini drop choreography video. despite me not discovering this song until like august, it was my second most played song of the year. this was also probably one of my most rewatched yt vids, and i do think everyone should watch it at least once

dec: jo1 takumi radiovision. I've barely posted this month, but expect more jo1 and ini gifs next week since I'm done with work for the year. it's just me and my audience of 4 against the world

[stevemarmel]

A Non-Technical Review of Spoutible

I have been one of a handful of people that have been beta testing Chris Bouzy's Spoutible (Http://www.Spoutible.com) for the last few days. 

Before I go too deep, I'll say this: I'm still on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and have a page on facebook. But... those are interconnected. Post one, it lands on the other. If you wanna find me, here's the obligatory linktree. I'll be adding to it, eventually.

I think 2024 is going to be the election where we have to utilize a lot of different social media platforms to get our messages out and organize.

So... This is a very non-scientific review but I'm not going anywhere. I hope to use Twitter (ugh), Mastodon (I use Ivory), Post (of course) and others. As easily as possible.

I am making a point of figuring out which of these Twitter alternatives I want to park on and use the most. I'm looking for familiarity, all the best tools of Twitter, without the "Tools on twitter." It's vile, and I tire of the pale emperor.

So I'm looking for a good service that is run by someone with good intentions. And that's what I think Spoutible is.

It has all the stuff i like on Twitter. Threads. Character limits. DMs (except they're encrypted!) Trending topics.

I'm enjoying the diversity of opinion there even in the beta. I am hoping that stays the same. I know that's part of Chris Bouzy's vision. I am hoping that I am part of a wide variety of opinions.

And yeah, that includes the right, as long as it's not the racist, trolling right wing (OR left wing). I don't need another bigot thunder dome and it seems as if that's the goal. I'm not looking for a silo but I am looking for civilization.

The site itself is beautiful and clean. Pictures load. Links load. DMs are private. You can easily follow, share or quote. Obviously, right now it has that new car smell and we'll see what happens when the flood gates open. Like other services, I (and I hope you) give it a chance to have and overcome flaws.

I also hope that it allows connections between Twitter, Mastodon, Post, Instagram, Counter Social and more.

You can find all my links here: https://linktr.ee/stevemarmel

Twitter was great when it was the giant public mall we could all safely hang at but... let's be honest. That twitter is on life support. It's like we're all communicating in a war zone. It's still necessary for activism but man, it's a slog.

Will Spoutible be a tool to organize and activate in 2023 and 2024? I hope so. I believe in it. I'll ride the roller coaster with the rest of you... I think there are at least 150K waiting to get in when the doors fly open on Feb 1.

I know this isn't a TECHNICAL review. It's a personal one. I made a TON of actual friends on twitter. Real life people I'd never know were it not for the service. I miss that the most. It's what I hope for the next wave of social media. I saw "Everything Everywhere All At Once" a few days ago and resonated with the character who begged "Please Be Kind."

And fighting unkindness with kindness.

#BreachDay is coming. (Well, that's what I'm calling it). I look forward to seeing you there. I am Marmel (surprise!)

P.S. I coined "#Spoutipets" - here's Lambeau as they anxiously await the launch.

[dominic-sessa]

life update!!

i finally have some free time and havent properly posted something in so long so i thought id write up something!

first of all i want to say that ive successfully fixed my bingewatch problem in late january!! i hate to say it, but seeing how many movies i saw last year in my letterboxd wrapped really concerned me 🫤 i wanted to make an effort to make use of my time properly (after starting a new job and all) and i thought i wont let myself waste time bingeing horrible b-movies just so i can bump up the percent watched in someones filmography (its kinda tricky doing it so i made a resolution to only watch movies which interests me if i want to see more of someone)

with that said, i ended up not watching anything on weekdays and eventually think that staring at my phone for more than an hour wasnt my thing anymore (at least in the context of doing it EVERYDAY). so that may be one of the reasons why the turnaround for my hyperfixations got slower (which i think is good!).

ALSO, i do want to mention that because ive been watching less films recently i initially thought it would be great for my gif making hobby since i wont feel the pressure of wanting to gif so many movies at one sitting. i tried this in early feb and.. well... lets just say that it takes time for my very old laptop to make gifs (i had it since college during the pandemic so it was really used!). i only screen record scenes i want to gif because i hate having to wait to download AND even if i had hq clips it would take my laptop so long to render. so making something lq and having to wait 30mins just for a single gif wasnt doing it for me (bcs i said i wanted to make more use of my time).. so thats the reason why i havent posted anything lately (I REALLY REALLY wanted to make a gifset of josh whitehouse in valley girl but the quality just ended up stressing me 🫠)

and for my last update, as u can tell from my reblogs on queue, i just saw daisy jones and the six and LOVE josh whitehouse and he really got me playing the guitar again 😭😭 (i still think its a miracle!!!). ive been practicing some old pieces i used to perform when i was in high school during my 5-9's and i just had a bizzare idea of getting into the piano. i only ever played classical before, so i always had a problem doing improvs. i spent some time looking at videos on youtube and found out improvs on the piano were waay easier to play and understand, so im gonna buy a keyboard very very soon (which im so excited for)!!!! learning how to do jazz improvs on keys would probably be my new hobby and making gifs would probably be back until i get a new laptop (which at the moment is very low priority 🥲)

SO THERES THAT! Now heres an audit trail of my jan-feb hyperfixations!

still on a tom blyth high since late december 2023

dom sessa: after watching the holdovers (seriously this time)

sam claflin: i wanted to get out of the coriolanus blackhole so i ended up reading finnick odair fics 😭😭 i found out he was the lead in daisy jones and the six so i watched that! my hyperfixation didnt last tho!! i have love rosie on my watchlist but got side tracked bcs of... *drum roll*

JOSH WHITEHOUSE -i find it crazy how most of my hyperfixations are englishmen. but yes. my sweet pookie. i love him. i will try not to talk much bcs if i start i wont stop. but tldr i didnt binge his filmography so i was on his youtube channel for quite some time and spent 15mins a day there... thats maybe the reason i got into playing the guitar again? love his music videos AND love how he plays flamenco. i play classical on the guitar and am a tarrèga girl so i never bothered to learn flamenco (tarrèga hated it) . but knowing just that made me want to at least remember some pieces i used to play just so i can play again... THEN i found out he has a new movie coming up with...

malcolm mcrae: ngl his pretty face caught my eye (special shoutout to anya! literally the power couple)... my first thoughts were like 'ohh i wonder what his character is like in triton'. but then i found out hes in a band SO i was thinking ok hes in a movie w josh so theres probably gonna be something music in it. i then looked up his band and love their songs!! theyre only a duo which i think is p strong (u dont need that many ppl in a band rly!) and i watched some interviews they had too!

KANE RITCHOTTE: my babygirl. my darling. idk what to say abt him. his songs with malcolm are always so magical. ive been playing gods in the details on repeat since early feb. hes my favorite more* member. the literal musical god. im praying hell sing more songs. ALSO i was suprised he did a cameo in daisy jones and the six with malcolm (they were the one who taught some of them how to play their instruments!! i was in awe bcs malcolm was the literal billy dune. LIKE sam claflin really copied his playing style which is so neat!!)

thats all!! thanks so much if uve read up until this point ily and pls lmk what uve been up to as well 🫶

take care <3

[claudiajcregg]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by both @mihrsuri and @unseenacademic 💜💜💜 Thank you so much! I actually wrote up most of the answers the day I was tagged, and then forgot to post them. For over 10 days, probably. Me bad.

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 23! (One of them is a 'collection' of short ficlets, and has 6 chapters. So 28 stories in 23 works so far. Probably about to be more stories in still 23 works.)

2. What's your total Ao3 word count? 156,597 words. For now.

3. What fandoms do you write for? Currently? Just TWW. Who knows in the future!

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

They have about 35% of my total kudos, but the first two are ~21% alone. (The first one is the only fic that has over 100 kudos. Then again, any of them getting above 30 is a miracle.)

maybe everything's just turning out how it should be (Big Block of Cheese 2008; CJ & Josh. Posted Feb 2021) [121]

say it's here where our pieces fall in place (Vignettes, 1998-2008. Posted Jan 2022.) [66]

just your smile lit a sixty-watt bulb in my house that was darkened for days (Thanksgiving 2006. Posted Dec 2022.) [55]

nobody knows how to get back home (Missing scene from ITSOTG. Posted April 2023) (wait what. top 4?!) [50]

we could be the way forward and I know I'll pay for it (B4A Campaign Fic, spring 1998. Posted May 2021) [47]

5. Do you respond to comments?

YES. I don't take them for granted, and I like interacting with my readers. Sharing is nerve-wracking and makes me feel so exposed, so any comment makes it worth it. I like to thank peeps for their time! As of late, it's taking me weeks to get back to comments for Brain/spoons reasons (and because I try to do so in order, though not always). I sometimes feel bad I have fallen behind on leaving my own comments, so replying to what I get makes me feel bad. I love getting the rare, long, thoughtful comments, because I love seeing what people pick up on (had to restrain myself from commenting on everything), so if that one's up next… It'll delay everything. I have a harder time letting go of those.

I know replying or not is a hot topic, and I fall on the side of 'whatever the author does is fine' (I see them as being voluntary gifts to the author, kinda, but I understand why some authors can't or won't reply! Especially those who get dozens.). It does feel weird(ly demoralizing) when you see that yours is one of a couple of comments they haven't replied to, though. (Selfishly, as someone who tries to write medium-long comments, lack of anything can sting. It's irrational, it's not what I'm after, but it'd be nice to know whether that hour plus of my time was worth it. It's not transactional and I hate that c4c idea or whatever. Just. weird feelings.)

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

As we've established in previous similar memes (lol, I think I've answered these questions before), my fics don't really have angsty endings! For the most part. I think I said don't want you to go but I'll be okay then, and I can still buy that/definitely popped into my brain. I think some of my late S7 fics have an ominous feel to them, with some references/buildup to the angsty parts of IM, but I wouldn't call them angsty endings.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Um. The opposite is true! still you never took your hand from mine was my first thought, but I feel like oh, and I will be with you to feel the California sun is pretty darn happy. I could have picked almost any of them and I could make a case for them!

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I luckily do not. I have gotten a couple of comments that have messed with my brain, and made me second-guess things, but they were not hate.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes, but not regularly and not that well. It's usually short, mild scenes at most, but I did challenge myself to write a more explicit one last summer, especially after I got those 'one bed' tropes in the Wheel but didn't go there in the 500-word limit. Streets say it's hot. IDK. I also wrote a smutty continuation to the exchange fic. Best if we forget parts of that one happened. I also started writing one that would be in my S5 pregnancy universe but 🤐

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I don't. But this question confirms to me I have answered this before because I know I've joked about how TV has already done that for me, lmao. See: Bones/Sleepy Hollow.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? (I had to track down this question because it wasn't anywhere.) I don't think so!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope! I'm having déjà vu here. I know I have answered this before: I could do it myself! But I have a feeling it wouldn't be as easy as one might think, but I'd be honored.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I don't think so…? If I have, it was years ago, in my forum/LJ days. I've been trying to make it happen for a while now, but who knows if it'll ever happen. WE HAVE IDEAS. We want to make it happen. (Wink wink, nudge nudge. You know who.)

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Spaceships are so cool. Atlantis was the first space shuttle I saw in person (and also the one I've seen the most) and it and its exhibit are awesome. I'm only missing Discovery out of the four space shuttles, because I didn't go to the second National Air and Space Museum location in Virginia back in 2015. And once the new exhibit center is completed, I'd love to see Endeavour again.

(In all seriousness, I don't have one. Booth and Brennan will forever and always hold a special place in my heart, but I love CJ and Danny so much, writing for them, their journey. Pls don't make me pick.)

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I am a big 'never say never' person, because I end up picking stuff up (and maybe rewriting it to fit my current style/ability) if I remember an idea… But I'm guessing many of them won't get finished. Probably some of those that are deep in my notes app or on the drive.

16. What are your writing strengths? I (try to) dig into the emotion of a scene as best as I can.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Everything else? I know it sounds like an excuse (at least to my ears), but writing in your second language is hard. I know my writing sounds limited because of it – my descriptions will never be as evocative as I wish they were, my dialogue won't be there. I am not the most imaginative person, either.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

If it makes sense, and won't take the reader out of the story, go for it! (A few words, or a line or two, might work if there's appropriate context.)

But also, as a non-native speaker, I'll always recommend using pals who might be fluent in that language and checking with them! I know that, throughout my many years in fandom, I've read quick things in Spanish within English fics that weren't entirely correct in the context they were being used (i.e. character's fluency, smaller details), and they took me out for a second. (I know, I know – pot, meet kettle. If anyone has read an unedited story of mine, they've found me making up English phrases.)

19. First fandom you wrote for? Bones. In Spanish. (I also think I wrote some ficlets in English that are probably hidden in some random LJ comm I created for my writing. They're probably 14-15 years old.)

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

I honestly cannot pick! And maybe it's yet to come. But basically, if I've gone through the embarrassment of having someone edit/beta a fic and catch all the avoidable mistakes, it's because it genuinely has something I like about it and that I think others will like, too. (Perceived quality aside.)

Off the top of my head, and out of the posted fics (obvious recency bias, sorry). I have a story for all 23… Also, let's consider I've mostly not read them since they were posted so I might be off. (Would love to hear what everyone's favorite is, if you've read any and are reading this!) Obviously, that top 5 by kudos has great ones. There's a reason

don't want you to go but I'll be okay: I just remember finishing it and knowing it was something special. Felt like many things coming together. I wanted to write angstier, a break from the endgame of the IM AU I've yet to post, and I think it works. I had had that quote as inspo for a while, and I think the trip to Berlin put it back on my mind. (The first haunted by the notion draft is from around this time, too!)

your love is a secret I'm hoping, dreaming, dying to keep: the structure is likely a tad repetitive, maybe (but also, the point of 3+1s, sort of?) but I love writing in that s7 period, and there should be more fic with the press corps. I think the stuff I wrote while editing (which included an overhaul of the +1) is even better than what was there.

oh, and I will be with you to feel the California sun: recency bias, yes. I love a good early Cali story, and even if this was nowhere the story I sat down to write originally, I love how it turned out. It's silly but fun, and so sunny.

still you never took your hand from mine: I will always have all the soft spots for my memoir stories, even if two of them have yet to be posted. This one doubled its size a year and a half after “finishing” it because I realized what it was missing. It's sappy, probably unrealistic re: the publishing industry, but damn it if it's not one of those that have made me cry while editing them.

we could be the way forward and I know I'll pay for it: I had to include an oldie but goodie from my first year, and this one is so special to me. (Along with BBC 2008, which I also absolutely adore. That was the fic I always wanted to post. Hilarious it was third. But it's also my most popular fic by a huge margin.) Seeing it recommended on Tumblr? God. I love campaign stories and all their potential. I love that I took a random line from some unposted story and it evolved into this fic.

nobody knows how to get back home: I almost added the most recent one because of how fun it was to write (or, as I mentioned above, Big Block of Cheese) but I like how bittersweet this missing scene one is. I find CJ's internal struggle so interesting to explore, and this is one of her most vulnerable moments. I also wanted to see a hug so badly.

[mysmorgasbordoffantabulosa]

A couple of thoughts on the BigHit Music/BTS relationship and... that rumour!

First the rumour

So, let's get the rumour out of the way... [though I'll probably come back to it eventually].

Last month an anon directed me to a rumoured 2020 blind item, about two members, who hadn't extended their contract...

This account is a known Taekook account. The comments/replies suggest the original poster of the blind doesn't exist and they posted this blind just before closing their account... but here's the thing why can't I find any reference to the original post. You're not telling me shit loads of Taekookers, hell OT7 and solo stans wouldn't have been all up in that shit if this blind was around in 2020. I never saw such a blind back then and I follow two big blind item websites (they have always intrigued me). This makes me think the post wasn't real. But perhaps there's a slither of truth in it...

Then on 11th Feb 2023, Crazy Days and Crazy Nights posted this...

And in the comments, there is the prevailing theory that BigHit/HYBE is deliberately not promoting their (Tae and JK) solo project stuff as some sort of evidence to back this theory up. Despite the fact that BH doesn't promote work that they don't produce themselves. I have yet to see a tweet or Weverse announcement about RM's involvement in a K-Variety Show he's doing, or Hobi, Suga and Jimin's recent fashion brand deals. Why because those companies are more than capable of promoting their own work with the members themselves.

Tae's cooking show is currently being promoted by the broadcaster as per usual and JK's World Cup Single was for a different label so any promo would have been done by them. Also, if BH weren't supportive of these endeavours do you really think they would allow their staff to travel and work with the Tae and JK and and provide support on these projects? You knot

I also find it interesting that a blind item that is supposedly 2 1/2 years old is suddenly back again and linked to a recent company purchase and Blackpink. That just seems suspicious.

I'll leave that there for a bit...

Let's keep it on the down low...

Now let's look at HYBE and BigHit and why I think the boys might have more control than we currently see.

Earlier this week, in light of the whole HYBE/SM drama, I saw two TikToks from the same user that piqued my interest and how BTS might have more power than we think...

Now I, like many others, was under the assumption that HYBE had full control over BigHit, but after a little research, I've found that this TikTok is true and BigHit is a separate entity to HYBE itself...

This twitter thread from April 2021 (when Scooter Braun and Ithaca Holdings were purchased), is very insightful and all publicly available...

So, in essence, when HYBE was in the process of purchasing Ithaca Holdings from Scooter Braun, Bang PD did something, he and the HYBE board (mostly made up of former BH Entertainment people) unlisted BigHit Music from the stock market and separated it off as private company. Still owned by HYBE but privately owned by them and independently operated and not affected by HYBE's dealings.

Before I move on some context that's needed for later…

In 2018, BTS re-sign with BH

In 2020, we discover BTS's contract renewal will run from June 2020 to June 2024

October 2020 BH Goes public BTS get shares in the company

6 months later Big Entertainment splits in HYBE and BigHit Music.

By 2021 we learn they have extended their contract for the full 7 years to 2027.

2022 BTS go on break from group duties ahead of enlistment.

NOTE: I think Points 3 to 5 are very important to all of this....

(I hope we're all still here, lol)

Why do I think this is important and shows us why BH/HYBE is not out to get the boys?

Firstly, it shows that HYBE wanted BTS/BH to be protected in case anything happened to the rest of HYBE. This is pertinent considering the CDCN blind specifically mentions the purchase of the US company. How it's worded suggests that BTS profits paid for it and that the boys are in a slave contracts. If BH is sperate that suggests that their profits don't automatically go into HYBE's bottom line. Also, any idiot with a Google Degree can tell you in seconds that BH had one of the most progress profit sharing deals with its artists.

Additionally, we don't know who owns the shares in BH, we know that in March/April 2021, HYBE was the sole shareholder, what's to say that other entities are shareholders too... such as BTS.

Think about it, in 2020 HYBE/BH were trying to persuade BTS to do the USA thing, what if BTS who were not in a happy place with all the speculation of enlistment, plus covid, were close to saying no to an extension and a push into the USA. What if HYBE offered them something they could refuse, which would kill two birds...

What if BTS wasn't happy about BH becoming HYBE?

So why did BH not become HYBE in 2020 and waited until 2021? I wonder if the answer to this was BTS and their contract extension. Imagine this...

You're BTS and the company you've literally built, is about to go public and you as artists who were promised more control in your contract could potentially loose said control when the new company is formed. Add to this you've yet to officially extend your contract and said company want you to do something new and could benefit them massively (US market push & new ventures etc.).

Your BTS, what would you do?

Me I'd kick up a fuse until you made sure there were some provisions in place to protect your brand and your creative freedom.

Maybe, that's why BigHit didn't immediately become HYBE because BTS weren't fully onboard.

What would placate them?

Maybe making BH into a separate entity and giving the boys the control, they crave?

The would do two things, ease their minds about the USA push a little, as well as the change to HYBE.

However, this could happen straight away, and would take several months to implement, it's also possibly why the Scooter Braun detail didn't happen sooner. Prior to this happening, they were given share in HYBE, and I think during that six months they were given iron clad contract extensions that benefited them and BH (note not HYBE) greatly.

Another thing to consider... perhaps BTS are shareholders in BH Music the private company. All we know is originally when they private the company HYBE was the sole owner; once you're a private company you don't have to announce things about profits, stocks & share sales unless it's a takeover situation, unlike HYBE as public company.

I also think this private (and very possible) arrangement might be what led HYBE to purchasing stock in YG Plus because HYBE would get a slice of BTS revenue (from manufacturing/distribution costs that YG Plus generate) prior to BH/BTS getting their profits, because... what if, only a small portion of BH's actual profit can go into the HYBE's bottom line.

Anyway...

In conclusion, I think there was a slither of truth in the "original" blind item, but I wonder if it involved all the boys, perhaps led by the two (who we all believe to Taekook).

No, I don't think it was connected to their sexuality, but more likely their (BTS's) unease of the company they helped build going public and a possibly fear of being undermined by any new management, as well as the push into the USA.

The latest version of the blind, is most likely being stirred up by antis who want to isolate Taekook from the others (hence the constant HYBE don't promote their solo work, even though HYBE/BH don't do it for other members), making them out to be diva's who want more and more. Then use incorrect information in the process and therefore creating a blind that actually doesn't make factual sense.

The Blackpink thing? I have no idea.

[useyourtelescope]

yuletide 2023 recap!

This yuletide exchange was fun, though as usual I am still making my way through the collection (here's hoping this year I actually finish reading all the open tabs in Jan/Feb at least).

For my gift, I received a gorgeous fic for The Borgias - some Cesare/Lucrezia hurt/comfort post-season 3 with lots of my fave tropes, you can read that on ao3 here:

One Touch of Your Hand

I wrote five fics - 2 for Only Murders In the Building (Gen) & 1 each for Nancy Drew (Nancy/Ace), The Borgias (Cesare/Lucrezia) and Why Didn’t They Ask Evans (Frankie/Bobby). I did end up with 3 unfinished treats sitting in my drafts, 1 of which I wrote about 3k for, but it was probably wishful thinking that I might have completed them in time too. The published 5 are the most individual fics I’ve managed for Yuletide, or any exchange for that matter (though it’s about 1k short of the total words I’ve done for an exchange thanks to the long fics I wrote for Yuletide 2019). 

Summaries of the fics themselves and thoughts on writing them below the cut:

A Whole New Direction - OMITB, Charles & Mabel & Oliver, Banter Post S2, ~800 words [ao3 link]

"I know yesterday we said we’d kind of shot ourselves in the foot podcast-wise by limiting ourselves to the building only, never mind whose idea that was—“ “It was your idea,” Mabel and Oliver replied in unison. “But never mind! I thought of a way we could continue the podcast without betraying the original premise.”

I enjoy writing their banter so this was a fun quick one; the main section came easily, it was just trying to decide where I wanted to end it that took the most time.

Co-Location - OMITB, Gen (Charles & Mabel + some Oliver), Canon Divergence in S3, ~1k words [ao3 link]

Charles offers a solution to Mabel's apartment-hunting woes.

This is a bit more sentimental than the general vibe I go for with writing the show (though not as angsty and internal as the Will POV post-Oliver’s heart attack fic I wrote for the last exchange I did), but the idea lent that way and I had to follow. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to end this one either, but when my beta mentioned that perhaps next season in the show Charles might not be able to stay at his apartment after the latest murder and would have to go to Oliver’s, the image of all three of them having to sleepover together made me laugh so I had to work that in.

Got A Lot To Learn - Nancy Drew (TV 2019), Nancy/Ace, Post-Canon Fluff, ~1.7k words [ao3 link | tumblr post]

Nancy and Ace approach a minor relationship milestone soon after breaking the curse.

This was my assignment! My recipient wanted something in canon which gave me an excuse to return to the the idea of Nancy learning ASL for Ace/his dad, which I thought was really sweet when they mentioned it on the show but the timing of that reveal meant it was angsty and I wanted it in a cute scene. Still getting the hang of writing the characters/universe but hopefully I'll be able to play more with them later this year (maybe even with the unfinished ND treat I started, though Nancy/Ace was more background in that one).

Power Over Me - The Borgias (Showtime TV), Cesare/Lucrezia, Explicit, Modern AU - Alpha/Omga, ~15k words [ao3 link | tumblr post]

Cesare has always been protective of his sister. When she unexpectedly has her first heat he worries that he might need to protect her from himself.

This got a bit away from me lol! It's not a trope I expected to write but the recipient's prompt really clicked as Cesare/Lucrezia do have that intensity that lends itself to this type of AU. It was still supposed to be a 5-6k thing initially but then I got the idea of putting Cesare through it on his special shopping trip for Lucrezia lol and started to consider more about the character arcs and showing more of Lucrezia's side of things and it snowballed into a much longer piece. That meant I had to leave aside the other Ces/Lu fic I started writing as a treat for this Yuletide, but even though I think that'll be shorter the storyline is more complicated so this was probably the better one to pick to finish for a deadline and a fun experiment for me.

The Very Thought Of You - Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, Frankie/Bobby, Mature, Love Letters & Reunions, ~6k words [ao3 link | tumblr post]

A few months into their marriage, Frankie has to return to Marchbolt without Bobby. Finding the telephone insufficient for maintaining their usual level of intimacy, she starts to write to him.

There was a note in the recipient's letter about how they show each other their affection and they prompted letters for another ship which gave me the idea of Frankie and Bobby writing to one another. I was originally going to mostly focus on their time apart and just see a little bit of them reuniting at the end but once they were together I wanted to spend more time with them in the same place and thought it made sense to follow through on some of those spicier letters with giving them a bit of alone time too so it became 6k rather than 3 lol, but most of it flowed quite easily. It was just the letters and some of the historical aspects I spent time rewriting, especially Bobby's letter since that's the emotional point of the fic.

All in all, I really liked all 5 I managed to complete, but probably going to take a little exchange break for a bit and write whatever is flowing easiest rather than trying to write for a deadline.

[ikemenomegas]

2023 Top 10

This year has been such an incredible journey. I typically hate New Year’s, it’s the one day of the year that truly reminds me of all I failed to accomplish which now goes on next year’s to-do list, but... it’s also important to remind oneself of all that has in fact been accomplished. Since this blog’s birthday on November 06, 2022, I have apparently made 264 original posts, not all of it writing, but the absolute majority. It’s taught me a lot about my capabilities as a writer, and made me both proud, frustrated, disappointed, and more determined by turns. Thank you to everyone who’s stopped by and read anything, to those who’ve shown encouragement and prompted some extremely fun posts, thank you to my mutuals without whom I never would have worked up the courage to post any of this where other people could see. Seeing these pieces brought me a lot of nostalgic joy. Here’s to a 2024 that continues to push us all to reach higher and further, to balance our many goals, and learning how to recognize ourselves for what we’ve accomplished, no matter how small, and let it carry us forward. Much love, Io

1. Winter Heart, 291 notes - Jan 19 2023

2. Maybe Ever After, 216 notes - Jan 6 2023

3. With One More Year (comes one season more) 5+1 drabbles, 173 notes - May 11 2023

4. wishing on every one that you’ll be mine, 161 notes - Feb 15 2023

5. “Somewhere there is a simple life”, 149 notes - Feb 3 2023

6. JJK actor AU ,114 notes - May 16 2023

7. Cryptic pregnancies, 110 notes - Jan 27 2023

8. Anchor (up to me love),105 notes - Jun 12 2023

9. Boreas, 102 notes - Feb 11 2023

10. Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, 96 notes - Apr 23 2023

Since this blog was created Nov/2022, here are some

Honorable Mentions from 2022

1. Small Intimacies (sfw), 312 notes - Nov 26 2022

2. I believe we are fated to do the things we choose anyway, 144 notes - Dec 17 2022

3. ウタカタ (Hey, let’s stay like this forever), 124 notes - Dec 20 2022 

4. The younger years, 108 notes - Dec 4 2022 

5. Young, 108 notes - Dec 1 2022

Created by TumblrTop10

[ronearoundblindly]

Ro's Bi-Weekly Edit

[skipped Feb 26th-Mar 11th, included here]

March 12th - March 25th, 2023

In case you missed it, here are the fics and ficlets posted within the last four two weeks!

Below the cut are links and snippets of 4 works from 3 series:

Threadbare, Part One Steve Rogers x Fashion Designer!Reader

You are a ninja with the tape measure, gentle hands sliding over his chest and waist and—Steve swallows—his hips, all while rattling off numbers…which no one writes down. Steve moves his arms and legs when told. When you’re kneeling on the edge of the platform, eye level with his crotch, Steve decides to distract himself and get some answers. “I’ve been looking forward to my first meeting with Mr. Tovarich. When might he arrive?” Tony clears his throat, wincing. “Not possible, buddy.” Steve tenses. “I thought that—“ “You can’t meet him for the first time.” Tony holds up a hand before Steve can move. “You already did. She’s measuring the distance between your balls and the floor.” Steve startles out a ‘what,’ snapping his legs shut with your hand between his thighs. “Captain Steve Rogers, please meet your favorite designer,” Tony beams, shoving his tongue against the inside of his cheek and hiking up his eyebrows. Steve shrinks, face burning. “Hello, Captain Rogers,” you introduce yourself with a lovely smile, “I will…need my hand to make your suit, sir.”

The Root of All Ransom, Part Six/Finale, Rated Mature Ransom Drysdale x Rich!Reader

Because Ransom needs money. He had money long before he had you. It’s what he needs the most in life. He loves money. If losing you is what it takes to keep the money… That’s the thought he can’t finish as control of the urge to come slips from his bruising fingers. His desire for his status quo is faltering. His equilibrium’s been changed. He does love money. He does. Now, to Ran's surprise, he loves you, and he has no fucking clue how to love both. He doesn’t know if can keep both. But friction is friction. He’s surrounded by the feel and sound and smell of sex. It’s familiar and more than a little haunting to him if this is the last time, but Ran crests that mountain before any coherent thoughts form. He can’t trust himself to speak. He might repeat what he never should have said aloud.

Threadbare, Part Two Steve Rogers x Fashion Designer!Reader

Tony lifts his hands in surrender and starts retreating to the door. “Look, I hate to take credit—“ “No, you don’t.” Incredulous, sagging eyebrows dip below his frames. “—but I am very, very good.” He points a finger back and forth between you and Steve. “You’re welcome.” He tries to peek under a pile of sketches atop your work tote, and you rush to slap your hand down. Stark might see the other designs you’re working on, and just like he can’t know about Fisk, he can’t know about those. “Fine.” Tony puts his hands up again. “I’m going.” Steve steps to your side, apology loud in his eyes, and asks if he can make you a tea or something stronger, ya know, because Tony has that effect on people. “Yeah—“ you stare off toward the elevators where Stark remains lurking “—he’s still there,” you whisper. Steve huffs a laugh and shifts to bridge the mere inches left between you, his hand gently landing on your upper arm and planting a kiss on your forehead like a breeze. “Better make it look good then.”

The Dignity of His Choice, Reflection: Part One, Rated Mature Steve Rogers x Wife!Reader from Fools Rush In

That’s the epic truth you lost touch with when Steve was out-of-touch. People always grow; it’s just not always in the same direction. Steve has made a point to grow alongside you, and he deserves not to be alone in his efforts. You cannot fathom all that Captain Steve Rogers has endured in the last three months or the last century, but you can try. Love is walking beside someone when you can’t see the path beneath: one or both of you could have no footing, and you’ll still take that step. One stumbles, the other balances the weight until equilibrium is reached. There are plenty of steps forward, but for now, Steve melds to you, plants his feet beside yours and carries the burden of it all because he let go of your hand when he stumbled. He let go, and you still held him high. He would fall without you. He shouldn’t lose the love he walks beside, the warmth he feels close to his soul, solely because he stumbled in fear. He still stumbles as a dancer though. That consistency, at least, is as comforting as ever. Song by song, you reminisce, slowly evolving from smiles to chuckles to laughter that shakes both of you. You missed him. You missed his perspective. You missed his purity. You missed your perfectly imperfect partner. Steve’s the One in every way. He always was.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: David Remnick

Date: Feb 6, 2023

Note: this is a very long article, so I won't post it in full, but I wanted to share some excerpts.

[..]

In Tehran, Ayatollah Khomeini was ailing and in crisis. After eight years of war with Iraq and hundreds of thousands of casualties, he had been forced to drink from the “poisoned chalice,” as he put it, and accept a ceasefire with Saddam Hussein. The popularity of the revolutionary regime had declined. Khomeini’s son admitted that his father never read “The Satanic Verses,” but the mullahs around him saw an opportunity to reassert the Ayatollah’s authority at home and to expand it abroad, even beyond the reach of his Shia followers. Khomeini issued the fatwa calling for Rushdie’s execution. As Kenan Malik writes in “From Fatwa to Jihad,” the edict “was a sign of weakness rather than of strength,” a matter more of politics than of theology.

A reporter from the BBC called Rushdie at home and said, “How does it feel to know that you have just been sentenced to death by the Ayatollah Khomeini?”

Rushdie thought, I’m a dead man. That’s it. One day. Two days. For the rest of his life, he would no longer be merely a storyteller; he would be a story, a controversy, an affair.

After speaking with a few more reporters, Rushdie went to a memorial service for his close friend Bruce Chatwin. Many of his friends were there. Some expressed concern, others tried consolation via wisecrack. “Next week we’ll be back here for you!” Paul Theroux said. In those early days, Theroux recalled in a letter to Rushdie, he thought the fatwa was “a very bad joke, a bit like Papa Doc Duvalier putting a voodoo curse on Graham Greene for writing ‘The Comedians.’ ” After the service, Martin Amis picked up a newspaper that carried the headline “execute rushdie orders the ayatollah.” Rushdie, Amis thought, had now “vanished into the front page.”

For the next decade, Rushdie lived underground, guarded by officers of the Special Branch, a unit of London’s Metropolitan Police. The headlines and the threats were unceasing. People behaved well. People behaved disgracefully. There were friends of great constancy—Buford, Amis, James Fenton, Ian McEwan, Nigella Lawson, Christopher Hitchens, many more—and yet some regarded the fatwa as a problem Rushdie had brought on himself. Prince Charles made his antipathy clear at a dinner party that Amis attended: What should you expect if you insult people’s deepest convictions? John le Carré instructed Rushdie to withdraw his book “until a calmer time has come.” Roald Dahl branded him a “dangerous opportunist” who “knew exactly what he was doing and cannot plead otherwise.” The singer-songwriter Cat Stevens, who had a hit with “Peace Train” and converted to Islam, said, “The Quran makes it clear—if someone defames the Prophet, then he must die.” Germaine Greer, George Steiner, and Auberon Waugh all expressed their disapproval. So did Jimmy Carter, the British Foreign Secretary, and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Among his detractors, an image hardened of a Rushdie who was dismissive of Muslim sensitivities and, above all, ungrateful for the expensive protection the government was providing him. The historian Hugh Trevor-Roper remarked, “I would not shed a tear if some British Muslims, deploring his manners, should waylay him in a dark street and seek to improve them. If that should cause him thereafter to control his pen, society would benefit, and literature would not suffer.”

The horror was that, thanks to Khomeini’s cruel edict, so many people did suffer. In separate incidents, Hitoshi Igarashi, the novel’s Japanese translator, and Ettore Capriolo, its Italian translator, were stabbed, Igarashi fatally; the book’s Norwegian publisher, William Nygaard, was fortunate to survive being shot multiple times. Bookshops from London to Berkeley were firebombed. Meanwhile, the Swedish Academy, the organization in Stockholm that awards the annual Nobel Prize in Literature, declined to issue a statement in support of Rushdie. This was a silence that went unbroken for decades.

[..]

Since 1989, Rushdie has had to shut out not only the threats to his person but the constant dissections of his character, in the press and beyond. “There was a moment when there was a ‘me’ floating around that had been invented to show what a bad person I was,” he said. “ ‘Evil.’ ‘Arrogant.’ ‘Terrible writer.’ ‘Nobody would’ve read him if there hadn’t been an attack against his book.’ Et cetera. I’ve had to fight back against that false self. My mother used to say that her way of dealing with unhappiness was to forget it. She said, ‘Some people have a memory. I have a forget-ory.’ ”

Rushdie went on, “I just thought, There are various ways in which this event can destroy me as an artist.” He could refrain from writing altogether. He could write “revenge books” that would make him a creature of circumstances. Or he could write “scared books,” novels that “shy away from things, because you worry about how people will react to them.” But he didn’t want the fatwa to become a determining event in his literary trajectory: “If somebody arrives from another planet who has never heard of anything that happened to me, and just has the books on the shelf and reads them chronologically, I don’t think that alien would think, Something terrible happened to this writer in 1989. The books go on their own journey. And that was really an act of will.”

Some people in Rushdie’s circle and beyond are convinced that, in the intervening decades, self-censorship, a fear of giving offense, has too often become the order of the day. His friend Hanif Kureishi has said, “Nobody would have the balls today to write ‘The Satanic Verses,’ let alone publish it.”

[..]

Rushdie was hospitalized for six weeks. In the months since his release, he has mostly stayed home save for trips to doctors, sometimes two or three a day. He’d lived without security for more than two decades. Now he’s had to rethink that.

Just before Christmas, on a cold and rainy morning, I arrived at the midtown office of Andrew Wylie, Rushdie’s literary agent, where we’d arranged to meet. After a while, I heard the door to the agency open. Rushdie, in an accent that bears traces of all his cities—Bombay, London, New York—was greeting agents and assistants, people he had not seen in many months. The sight of him making his way down the hall was startling: He has lost more than forty pounds since the stabbing. The right lens of his eyeglasses is blacked over. The attack left him blind in that eye, and he now usually reads with an iPad so that he can adjust the light and the size of the type. There is scar tissue on the right side of his face. He speaks as fluently as ever, but his lower lip droops on one side. The ulnar nerve in his left hand was badly damaged.

Rushdie took off his coat and settled into a chair across from his agent’s desk. I asked how his spirits were.

“Well, you know, I’ve been better,” he said dryly. “But, considering what happened, I’m not so bad. As you can see, the big injuries are healed, essentially. I have feeling in my thumb and index finger and in the bottom half of the palm. I’m doing a lot of hand therapy, and I’m told that I’m doing very well.”

“Can you type?”

“Not very well, because of the lack of feeling in the fingertips of these fingers.”

What about writing?

“I just write more slowly. But I’m getting there.”

Sleeping has not always been easy. “There have been nightmares—not exactly the incident, but just frightening. Those seem to be diminishing. I’m fine. I’m able to get up and walk around. When I say I’m fine, I mean, there’s bits of my body that need constant checkups. It was a colossal attack.”

More than once, Rushdie looked around the office and smiled. “It’s great to be back,” he said. “It’s someplace which is not a hospital, which is mostly where I’ve been to. And to be in this agency is—I’ve been coming here for decades, and it’s a very familiar space to me. And to be able to come here to talk about literature, talk about books, to talk about this novel, ‘Victory City,’ to be able to talk about the thing that most matters to me . . .”

At this meeting and in subsequent conversations, I sensed conflicting instincts in Rushdie when he replied to questions about his health: there was the instinct to move on—to talk about literary matters, his book, anything but the decades-long fatwa and now the attack—and the instinct to be absolutely frank. “There is such a thing as P.T.S.D., you know,” he said after a while. “I’ve found it very, very difficult to write. I sit down to write, and nothing happens. I write, but it’s a combination of blankness and junk, stuff that I write and that I delete the next day. I’m not out of that forest yet, really.”

He added, “I’ve simply never allowed myself to use the phrase ‘writer’s block.’ Everybody has a moment when there’s nothing in your head. And you think, Oh, well, there’s never going to be anything. One of the things about being seventy-five and having written twenty-one books is that you know that, if you keep at it, something will come.”

Had that happened in the past months?

Rushdie frowned. “Not really. I mean, I’ve tried, but not really.” He was only lately “just beginning to feel the return of the juices.”

How to go on living after thinking you had emerged from years of threat, denunciation, and mortal danger? And now how to recover from an attack that came within millimetres of killing you, and try to live, somehow, as if it could never recur?

He seemed grateful for a therapist he had seen since before the attack, a therapist “who has a lot of work to do. He knows me and he’s very helpful, and I just talk things through.”

The talk was plainly in the service of a long-standing resolution. “I’ve always tried very hard not to adopt the role of a victim,” he said. “Then you’re just sitting there saying, Somebody stuck a knife in me! Poor me. . . . Which I do sometimes think.” He laughed. “It hurts. But what I don’t think is: That’s what I want people reading the book to think. I want them to be captured by the tale, to be carried away.”

Many years ago, he recalled, there were people who seemed to grow tired of his persistent existence. “People didn’t like it. Because I should have died. Now that I’ve almost died, everybody loves me. . . . That was my mistake, back then. Not only did I live but I tried to live well. Bad mistake. Get fifteen stab wounds, much better.”

As he lay in the hospital, Rushdie received countless texts and e-mails sending love, wishing for his recovery. “I was in utter shock,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Nigerian novelist, told me. “I just didn’t believe he was still in any real danger. For two days, I kept vigil, sending texts to friends all over the world, searching the Internet to make sure he was still alive.” There was a reading in his honor on the steps of the New York Public Library.

For some writers, the shock brought certain issues into hard focus. “The attack on Salman clarified a lot of things for me,” Ayad Akhtar told me. “I know I have a much brighter line that I draw for myself between the potential harms of speech and the freedom of the imagination. They are incommensurate and shouldn’t be placed in the same paragraph.”

Rushdie was stirred by the tributes that his near-death inspired. “It’s very nice that everybody was so moved by this, you know?” he said. “I had never thought about how people would react if I was assassinated, or almost assassinated.”

And yet, he said, “I’m lucky. What I really want to say is that my main overwhelming feeling is gratitude.” He was grateful to those who showed their support. He was grateful to the doctors, the E.M.T. workers, and the fireman in Chautauqua who stanched his wounds, and he was grateful to the surgeons in Erie. “At some point, I’d like to go back up there and say thank you.” He was also grateful to his two grown sons, Zafar and Milan, who live in London, and to Griffiths. “She kind of took over at a point when I was helpless.” She dealt with the doctors, the police, and the investigators, and with transport from Pennsylvania to New York. “She just took over everything, as well as having the emotional burden of my almost being killed.”

Did he think it had been a mistake to let his guard down since moving to New York? “Well, I’m asking myself that question, and I don’t know the answer to it,” he said. “I did have more than twenty years of life. So, is that a mistake? Also, I wrote a lot of books. ‘The Satanic Verses’ was my fifth published book—my fourth published novel—and this is my twenty-first. So, three-quarters of my life as a writer has happened since the fatwa. In a way, you can’t regret your life.”

Whom does he blame for the attack?

“I blame him,” he said.

[..]

[ Archive: https://archive.is/uiRsY ]

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I'll state it plainly: Rushdie was betrayed by people who not only should have known better, but did know better.

They took a faux-moralizing position in order to keep themselves out of the firing line. When the bully goes on the rampage, you side with the bully to save your own skin. One of the earliest modern day incarnations of cancel culture, joining the outrage mob so as not to be their target.

That's understandable in a way, but there's a profound cowardice in the people who took such a self-interested defensive posture in the 1980s, who scolded Rushdie and anyone who defended him, and yet still today have not admitted their contributions and collaboration with what happened. I've yet to see any of them admit "I/we got it very wrong."