#maybe actually this problem is not as widespread as you want it to be and you're kind of a self-centered dumbass

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

There is zero evidence of widespread “hormone testing curing dysphoria.” There is plenty of evidence that affirming care reduces suicide risk. Stop using mental health as a cover for pushing fear and control.

See this is the type of arrogant shit I'm talking about. The reason that there's no conclusive evidence that there is widespread fixing of this issue is purely because no one does the testing. Which should be one of the first things that gets tested when a person comes in for gender dysphoria.

Because eventually affirmation wears off. Eventually love bombing wears off. And eventually people who believe themselves to be trans who often have a litany of other medical issues or emotional issues end up offing themselves because no one is anywhere in their corner anymore because they had a crap ton of other issues. And a bunch of trenders and groomers decided that they wanted to tell people that if they're having emotional problems maybe they're trans.

And before you say provide proof you're literally on Tumblr. And that's not to talk about the egg cracking servers when it comes to the LGB people who are constantly berated and bombarded with people telling them that they're not actually gay lesbian or bisexual they're actually just trans.

Of course you're not going to see a widespread fixing of an issue when no one does the fucking testing. You arrogant prick.

[pandemic-info]

UPDATE: a judge blocked this for now: https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-pause-federal-grants-aid-f9948b9996c0ca971f0065fac85737ce

—

This is a huge fucking problem.

These grants account for more than 10% of the GDP. 3 trillion – wiped out.

From the article:

The funding freeze by the Republican administration could affect trillions of dollars and cause widespread disruption in health care research, education programs and other initiatives. Even grants that have been awarded but not spent are supposed to be halted.

“The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve,” said a memo from Matthew Vaeth, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget.

(Use of that language, that entire segment, "Marxist equity ... policies" is disgusting. If you think you're wary of propaganda and you do not see the enormous red flags in that statement, I do not know how to help you. If you're not beyond it, maybe pick up a history book — the 1930s are particularly pertinent.)

The average person may not understand just how far-reaching this is, how many programs and services are covered by grants, that regular people rely on all across the US and globally.

Not to mention how many people just had their livelihood demolished.

Researchers, for example, spend months and years writing grant proposals, their work and income relies on these cycles. So even if this is "temporary", a lot of people are going to struggle.

This is not just a few people in lab coats somewhere, working on something you don't care about. Government-funded research is released to the public, since we paid for it, and is very typically about things the public will want to know:

Is this product safe or deadly?

Is this medication actually a "wonder drug" or does it harm you in the long term?

Is this pollution going to affect us long-term?

Etc.

Seriously, if you wanted any of those things to get better — you wanted lower rates of cancer and other deadly and disabling disease? You worry about trusting public health guidelines because you're concerned about bias and vested interests in research? You want "small government" that doesn't interfere with people's bodies based on a small group's religious dogma, with zero basis in factual, verifiable reality?

Then you should have voted to keep this administration out of government.

Because their idea — which is outlined in Project 2025, and they are following it closely — is that research will be required to rely 50% on private funding.

Guess what private funding introduces a ton more of: private interests, private bias. The interests of stakeholders who do not give a shit if you are being killed by their product, as long as line goes up in the short run.

But even beyond scientific researchers — and those who rely on that work, e.g. journalists, science communicators, public health advocates, scientific artists —

grants fund others like: teachers, police, farmers, women's and homeless shelters, native orgs, medical workers, and on the list goes.

All pending "review" by a thoroughly unqualified gang of convicted criminals and cronies.

[veal-exe]

Good faith heads up bud!

Saying/typing the name of that spirit (the w word) is extremely bad practice/manners. It calls the thing straight to you, and those who read it. This creature -spirit is also part of a closed practice for north american natives (not sure just how widespread). This is especially true for folks living in the mountains and old growth forests (really anywhere close to where Old Spirits still reside)

Feel free to use things like "tulpa", or "the winter hunger" though !

I’m going to say this once, and you’re going to listen, because I am not your goddamn spiritual diversity hire, I am from the actual tribe. I am the so-called “North American Native (TM)” you are attempting to white-knight for, and it is laughable that you think you’re in any position to tell me what parts of my own culture I’m allowed to speak aloud.

I grew up partially on a reservation. I have family there. I was raised among people who live these stories. Not read them on Reddit. Not watched them in some shitty horror movie. Not studied them like butterflies pinned to a board. Lived them. And here you are, pulling this half-baked, spiritually colonized nonsense like you’re doing me a fucking favor by telling me not to say “Wendigo.”

Wendigo. There. I said it again. Loudly. Clearly. With full understanding of the name’s weight and meaning. And if that makes you clutch your little bundle of poached sage and scream into your Discord server, maybe just maybe you should take a step back and ask yourself why the hell you think you’re more qualified to speak for my culture than someone who is literally from it.

This whole “it’s bad manners to say it” thing? It’s not traditional. It’s not sacred. It’s not protective. It’s a bastardized superstition passed around by white and non-Native people who’ve taken bits and pieces of closed practices and Frankenstein’d them into something that feels spooky and important, but is not ours. That’s not how we treat stories. That’s not how we treat our dead. That’s not how we treat our gods, spirits, or monsters. That’s how you treat them like fragile little curses in jars you’re too scared to look at.

You’ve taken a real cultural being, tied deeply to starvation, betrayal, trauma, the collapse of kinship under colonial violence, and turned it into Beetlejuice with antlers ooOOOooo don't say it's naaaAAAaaameee. And now you want to pretend you're protecting us from it? You want to "warn" me?

Do you know how fucking arrogant that is?

You are warning a Native person not to speak their own stories out loud because it makes you uncomfortable. You are telling someone who lives this culture that they need to use euphemisms. As if the problem with how MY myths are mistreated is that people say the name too directly and not, oh I don’t know, that non-Native people like you have decided you’re the keepers of it.

Let me explain something to you: the actual danger isn’t saying the name. It’s the erasure. It’s the constant silencing. It’s the fetishization. It’s the spiritual cosplayers like you who are so desperate to feel close to something ancient and powerful that you drape yourself in pieces of our stories like a cheap Halloween costume and then have the gall to scold us when we speak.

What you are doing is not reverent. It is not protective. It is not in good faith. It’s paternalistic, performative bullshit, and I am tired of it. I am tired of white people and non-Native people and people with native great grandparents they never knew who have never stepped foot in their nations treating Native culture like a haunted forest they get to gatekeep, while we, the actual people, are left outside, being told how to interact with our own spirits by people who learned everything they know from Tumblr threads and "NativeLore420" YouTube videos.

You want to talk bad manners? Bad manners is correcting a Native person on their own terminology.

Bad manners is assuming we are so fragile and backwards that the mere utterance of a syllable will doom us all.

Bad manners is inserting yourself into spiritual spaces you have no right to and then turning around and tone-policing the people who do.

And I know you’ll say, “I was just trying to help!” But no, you weren’t. You were trying to be seen as more respectful than the Native person actually speaking. You were trying to look like a protector of culture without ever actually having to live it, carry it, or be harmed by the ways it’s been twisted and lost.

You do not carry the fear. You do not carry the hunger. You do not carry the history. You do not carry the right.

So

sit

the

FUCK

down

and do not ever try to correct me again on what I can or cannot say about my own goddamn culture. You don’t get to decide what is sacred. You don’t get to decide what is safe. You don’t get to decide what names I say out loud.

Shut the Fuck up.

Also, 'Tulpa' IS appropriation! not only are they different, but 'Tulpa' is an appropriated term! The fucking irony!

[lesbianrobin]

ok actually i changed my mind i'm gonna use my words i do think there's a big problem with mammification in this fandom re: athena, hen, and sometimes karen that is encouraged by the widespread woobification of buck. at the same time these characters Do have meaningful caring relationships with one another in canon. those perpetuating the mammy stereotype can fall back on that as a defense but the problem is not "black female character cares about white male character," the problem is "black female character exists to coddle white male character." you Can actually write one character caring about another without making them a simpering matron figure it's not That hard i promise.

also this is gonna sound mean but i do think a lot of the people falling into this racial stereotype are all-around bad writers who turn every character into stock stereotypes because they don't know how to write human beings which is also how we get like. grrr angry latino eddie. perpetually talking like a five-year-old chris. buck who was born with glass bones and paper skin and every morning he breaks his legs and every afternoon he breaks his arms and at night he lies awake in agony until his heart attacks put him to sleep.

so i think this is kind of a two-prong problem one prong being that some people are just not good writers and they copy the simplified stereotypical versions of these characters from Other fics without much reflection and the other prong being that people are racist. these characterizations Should incite reflection. you Should look at that and say, wait a minute, this isn't right.

anyway i have no authority to be speaking on racism but i just wanted to say that if you're feeling attacked because of how you write certain characters maybe like reflect on that. perhaps your critics have a point and you could do better. black characters should not exist solely for the purpose of supporting white characters.

[genderqueerdykes]

I recently saw a post comparing the progress pride flag to the american one, essentially saying it was gaudy and over representative so all the symbols were just noise.

Like listen, I get that statement of the OG pride flag "encompasses all" but I feel it just completely missed the point of what it stood for.

Is it that bad that our trans and intersex peers wish to be seen? Is it that bad that we show respect to our BIPOC peers and remember they are among us especially when frontline queer voices and representation in media is overwhelmingly white?

Like idk maybe I'm overreacting but as someone part of those communities the progress pride flag shows it made me want to scream. Is it too much to want to be seen when queer people have and will turn a blind eye to us?

I'm NOT saying this flag needs to be everywhere. It'd be nice but it's unrealistic but hell, with the amount of stupid infighting and dangerous ideologies spreading within the queer community, it sure is a sight for sore eyes when I see it.

We're still here, we're still queer, and you cannot separate us from that.

Sorry for the rant I think I'm just tired of people getting hung up on "inclusivity politics" as if acknowleding people existing is some great pain and we're "ruining" their pride flag.

you're 100% right in pointing this out and i'm tired of this behavior. thank you so much for taking the time to send this ask, because this is something i'm actually also very deeply bothered by.

i've seen that post too and i've tried to figure it out and i just can't parse what the hell kind of point they're trying to make. that post makes no sense they thought they made a point and they didn't. just because the design is visually complex doesn't make it like the flag of the United States. there's chevrons on the left hand side of the flag and stripes on the right- that doesn't make it a copy of or homage to or some kind of subliminal messaging that calls back to the flag of the USA. this website has some of the lamest conspiracy theories i've ever seen that are just cooked up to make other people feel like shit.

some people are so hateful and bitter that they view inclusion as a bad thing. i'm calling it for what it is. some people are so goddamn miserable and up their own asses that they literally HATE it when people are included into what they think are their little cliques and groups. some people see like, any attempt from another group of people to be inclusive and inviting as an insult and an attack because they're just "pandering" or sucking up to us or trying to look progressive or whatever. like people will write this shit off every time no matter how good the intentions are. i'm sorry that you're being forcefully made aware that trans and intersex people and queers of color need a platform to speak on and a community to stay in, but you're the one causing a problem here if that bothers you. i'm sorry that people of color in specific need to feel safe in queer spaces, but you're the reason that we don't.

first of all, as an intersex trans person of color, i literally teared up the first time i saw the version of the progress pride flag that included the intersex pride flag. like. that's literally the FIRST TIME IN QUEER HISTORY THAT WE'VE SEEN WIDESPREAD USAGE OF THE INTERSEX FLAG!!!!!!!! THAT'S FUCKING HUGE. THIS IS SO FUCKING IMPORTANT FOR US! we NEED that visibility on such a grand fucking scale!!! we NEED TO BE SEEN LIKE THAT. i don't really care if jaded bitter assholes are like "it's pandering" "its ugly" fuck OFF it's NOT! i don't care how disconnected from your feelings you are, but the first time i saw an intersex flag in PUBLIC, i cried. it was on a progress pride flag. i was in an airport. and then i saw another in a grocery store. and then i started seeing them all over town.

second of all, i am so sick of queer people focusing on aesthetics over function. this attitude has gotten out of hand and honestly it feels like its a lot of white queers who don't understand how important flags are for representation and signaling safety and solidarity and how they're not just a bunch of pretty colors to look at. each part has meaning. this is just the "tooth paste gay flag" discourse bullshit all over again. the stone cold truth is that some people literally fucking HATE it when they see people they don't like gain visibility. these are people who fucking hate intersex and trans people and queer people of color and are so fucking angry that we're daring to occupy space, and making their precious flag 'gaudy' and 'ugly'. also white queers love to bitch about how the brown and black stripes are "UGLY", do i really have to say anything here?

the philadelphia pride flag is a flag made by queers of color living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a historically largely black city, to be explicitly inclusive of black, brown and all queers of color. black queers in philly were the first ones to add black and brown stripes to the traditional rainbow flag. the creator of the progress pride flag took notes from this and decided to honor that and carry it over, as they felt leaving out those stripes would be a slap in the face. and they're right, it would be a slap in the face- it IS a slap in the face! the philly pride flag wasn't made so what white and racist queers can sit here and bitch about how it's "pandering" or "trying to include too many people". this shit was made by and for people of color. this behavior is so fucking disrespectful and racist

stop fucking fighting over flags. queer flags aren't here to be "aesthetic" or "pretty"- they're here to serve a purpose. to give people a banner to unite under to find community, love, partnership, friendship, safety, and a space to talk and organize. it's so that you can easily recognize that someone else is part of the same family as you. it's not there to be pretty, it's there to be visually striking, and to instantly convey a message. the progress pride flag WORKS because it contains several pride flags and grabs your attention. maybe you're intersex but have never seen other pride flags before. maybe you've never seen the intersex flag before but have seen the trans and rainbow flags before. it will convey the same message, but now with a greater message which is to explicitly say "we want to include everyone".

if you don't like the progress pride flag:

it was not made for you, and you don't have to use it.

thanks for taking the time to send this i really appreciate your thoughts. people have got to stop manufacturing discourse because they want to sound smart. i have no way to put it other than some people literally just cannot form or articulate a point. and that's fine. that's okay. but some will still try anyway and the argument just falls flat. if you encounter talk like that where they don't really have a lot of ground to dislike it other than personal opinion, it's all hot air and has nothing to do with the matter at hand, but rather, their feelings.

[burins]

on Torchwood and the temptations of queer tragedy

(originally published in yaoi zine 5, here for ease of reading but also you should check out the fantastic scholarship in the free full PDF!!)

If you were on Tumblr in 2009-2012, you are probably aware of Torchwood. A spin off of Russell T. Davies’ 2005 reboot of Doctor Who, Torchwood stars immortal time traveler Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) as part of a cast of misfits assigned to investigate the assorted supernatural and alien debris that falls through a spacetime rift running through the heart of Cardiff. Jack Harkness, in the tradition of swashbuckling space bisexuals, is great to watch, and his slow burn romance with buttoned-up researcher Ianto is the highlight of the series. Or at least it was to me, watching it as a deeply closeted teen in 2011.

Towards the end of the third series of Torchwood, Ianto is exposed to an alien virus and dies very fetchingly in Jack’s arms. It’s extremely Mimi from La Boheme (not, for once in an essay about queer people, Rent.) Ianto knows Jack is immortal and at no risk from the virus (Jack has already survived being blown up and sealed in concrete just in the previous three episodes); he knows that Jack will have to live the rest of his very, very, very long life watching people he loves die. He asks Jack not to forget him, and Jack promises that he won’t. Ianto’s last words are to deny that Jack is capable of remembering him a thousand years into the future; Jack kisses him, succumbs to the virus, and approximately four minutes of show time later, revives.

Reader, I watched this at approximately 1 AM on my beast of a high school laptop, huddled under the covers and trying not to wake my sister by sobbing too loud. I slammed the laptop shut to have a good cry. Then I opened up the laptop and watched the scene again. It became sort of a talisman for me— any time I needed to cry and couldn’t manage it, out would come my Megavideo rip of Torchwood-ChildrenOfEarth-xVideo-x64-S03E04-HD.mkv, scrolled to 53:14. Three minute death scene, me sobbing like a baby, reliable as clockwork.

I loved it for its utility; I needed those three minutes to unlock grief I couldn’t access in other ways. I loved it despite there being two arguably sadder death scenes at the end of the second series (RIP Owen and Tosh, you deserved better.) And I loved it despite its being perhaps the most textbook example of bury your gays imaginable.

Like a lot of media analysis tools that gained widespread popularity in an era with TVTropes, “bury your gays” is a cudgel and not a scalpel. Of course no one wants to be straight people’s tragedy porn. Of course it’s grating to only ever see yourself onscreen as a cautionary tale. Of course the real life origins of the trope are rooted in homophobic moral panics and censorship. And of course many queer people are plenty tired of tragedy. We die more often than straight people, and sooner, for a variety of reasons; we live lives more affected by the mundane grinding sadnesses of poverty and illness and rejection. Is it then problematic to portray queer grief, real or fictional? What about homophobia? Is it actually inherently more revolutionary to write fantasy stories where everyone’s chill with the gays, but somehow also they still have hereditary monarchies? I don’t actually have the answers here, by the way. Like everyone’s least favorite Republican uncle I’m just asking questions.

The real problem I have with “bury your gays” is that I love to bury my gays. I don’t recommend “but I like it” as a lens of critical analysis, fan studies notwithstanding, but you show me a potential tragedy and I am pulling out the shovel. I love to watch Ianto choke to death in his lover’s arms, and I love to listen to several hundred hours of podcast about gay divorce, and I cherish everything that Interview with the Vampire AMC has going on, and I read and reread Nell driving her car into the tree, and I think stabbing is maybe the pinnacle of romance.

Why do I love a queer tragedy so? Why do I gravitate to fic that features death and despair and ideological divorce? Why, as a child, was I always putting my plastic animals through travails that wouldn’t be out of place in a particularly melodramatic episode of Game of Thrones?

The easy answer would be that I was raised Catholic and haven’t quite escaped the ideological shadow of the redemptive power of suffering, but I have too much experience with chronic pain to still think suffering is redemptive. The other obvious answer would be that I’m chasing catharsis in the classic Aristotelian sense of emotional release, but I don’t think that’s the entirety of it either. There is sometimes a sort of talismanic nature to watching, or reading about, or writing a gay tragedy, a warding off of potential harm. It does feel like a little ritual. Aristotle describes catharsis as a release of pity and fear: look at those poor bastards. And as a queer viewer, the scraped underbelly of that emotion, how easily that could be me. Thank god it isn’t.

But neither pity nor fear nor their uneasy third, disgust, are really the emotions I feel when I press repeat on tragedy. To paraphrase Sontag, I “weep in part because [I] have seen it many times. [I] want to weep. Pathos, in the form of a narrative, does not wear out.”* What I feel is grief, and also pleasure. Pleasure in ritual; pleasure in release; pleasure in a borrowed grief that is both real and unreal, because I can set it aside when the episode finally comes to its end; pleasure because after all, the painful and the erotic are never as far apart as we might pretend.

I watched Ianto’s death scene again for this essay, half-expecting that it wouldn’t really work the same. I tried rewatching Torchwood a few years ago and couldn’t make it past a few episodes. I’m not 17 anymore, and everything from the special effects to the treatment of its female characters has aged not unlike milk. I’ve found new tragedies to visit and revisit. But I did cry, watching Jack try and fail to keep his lover by his side. And it felt good.

*Regarding the Pain of Others, 83. Despite the title and the way it’s used in conversations about media (including by me, here) this is actually an essay on war photojournalism. Worth a read but not for the reasons you might think.

[ciaran]

there are a few trends in this discourse - i want to say it's twitter-brained but it's kind of not, we do it on tumblr too - which broadly goes around the topic of "is it okay for people to get excited about and eagerly discuss books that are Not Good? is it elitist to say that some books are Obviously Better than others? is the real anti-intellectualism in telling people that they should read something other than tiktok romance/fan fiction/whatever" and i just want to say that, like. you can sit around endlessly pontificating about how literary culture is falling apart because people read too much romance or like how it's terrible to condemn things as "slop" just because you don't like them but at the end of the day it simply. does NOT matter what you read, if your approach to it is banal and incurious and fundamentally one of what i could maybe call "reading for the sake of saying that you read it" like you can read moby dick and anna karenina and every classic ever but if reading those classics does not lead you to think, in any engaged or sincere way, about their topics, their themes, why they are written the way they are, who wrote them and for whom, etc. then what was the point of you having read those things? just to say that you read them?

on the other hand, even if you read nothing but "slop" all day, you can still be a critical and engaged reader! you can ask tough questions of your books and subject them to rigorous analysis. you can excavate themes and subtext. you can think about why they are the way they are and who they aim to please and who this imagined audience is and whether you are a part of that and who is left out of this audience.

it is literally all in the approach. and it might be harder to do rigorous literary analysis when you don't have the intellectual tools to do so, which is why someone might encourage you to pick up on some of these tools and think carefully about where they are deployed. but even without the tools, it is possible to analyse. it is harder, and more of a struggle for some. reading other people's thoughts jumpstarts your own.

but i've kind of had enough of this discourse that keeps going around on what is okay or not okay for people to read and whether they should be allowed to enjoy things. the corollary of "just because this person reads booktok romance/fanfiction 24/7 doesn't mean they're incapable of Actual Thought" is to say that "your having read the 5 big literary fiction texts of the past decade does not necessarily imply that you have a superior understanding of literature" - you might feel as though you are owed treatment according to your supposed superior understanding but your demonstration of that understanding should also involve the realization that anything can be read critically and intelligently. being a critical and intelligent and engaged reader is your practice, about you, your approach, honed by thought and widespread reading and synthesis and asking tough questions to yourself and to the authors that you gravitate to reading. which means that anyone can read critically and intelligently.

maybe you are frustrated because you feel as though this does not apply to the median reader of the thing you hate, which, lbr, is probably true - most people are not reading very intelligently. but that cannot necessarily be fixed by forcing them to just "read better things" which is a very strangely parochial and eat your vegetables way of approaching the problem. we have already lost the battle of whether most people are intelligent readers - but why does the intelligence or lack thereof of the booktok romance reader bother you so much? literally how does it involve you if a somewhat stupid average woman wants to read a vaguely spicy kinda cringe novel? who cares! really i am far more concerned by the grandstanding of people who claim to read better novels but have not, in any way, deepened or broadened their approach such that all this "better reading" does very little for them.

at the end of the day reading, like any activity, can be transformational for some and completely banal for others. and even for mountain climbers, not all mountains are memorable. that doesn't mean that mountain is like, slop? it's just you know, not that good. what is good is remembering that you can read any book in a variety of ways. you can read it purely for enjoyment, without thought; you can read it in order to remake and transform it; you can read it and be transformed yourself; you can be bored, you can hate it, or love it, or pick it apart. you can do this with an ad on tumblr just as much as you can do it with booktok romance #85 or litfic du jour #90. the way you read something is about you, and your willingness to think deeply about what you've read, and not on the book's innate qualities - and even the best book in the world won't leave a mark on you if you aren't willing to let it.

[coyotes-rules-of-change]

Have we as a society lost our sense of acceptable public behavior?

Picture it: me, a swanky bistro, and an elegant patio adorned by the warm glow of string lights. I'm having a nice dinner—just me and my current favorite menu—until a couple is seated near me. It didn't take me long to hear that they were celebrating a six month anniversary and—given their gradually escalating volume—it was a night out at my favorite restaurant that was not going to fix their obvious relationship problems. In the short time it took the fresh rosemary rolls and whipped butter to arrive at their table, their loud talking had become peaks of yelling quelled only briefly by an unsatisfactorily hushed "quit talking so loud" or an ironic "you're embarrassing me."

Do you hate them yet? Because I definitely did. Except unlike you, I can take care of this; after all, knowledge of my methods is becoming more widespread. All I have to do is wait the thirty seconds it will inevitably take for the volume to boil over yet again.

"I can't take you anywhere!"

There she is again. Time to work my magic—

"Same shit again! I can't fucking take you anywhere! Everywhere we go: "miss, could you quiet down", and "sir, could you tell your date to stop yelling.""

"I'm not the one screaming f-bombs in public places! You need to learn some manners!"

*Whoosh.*

"Babe, I just can't have a conversation with you if you always yell." Already he's speaking at a much quieter volume.

"I just never feel like you're listening to me."—and she's also followed suit. Maybe that was all I needed to do, now I got my peace and quiet... but I'm not one to stop once I've started, and I suppose I'd rather not disappoint you either—after all, this isn't very interesting yet, is it. She continues: "I told you to dress nice and all you can manage is a t-shirt and shorts."

"I love you babe, but you can't tell me that you showing that much skin in a place like this is appropriate either."

No one sees it, but a slight grin crosses my face. I wave my hand and...

*Whoosh.* A light breeze passes through and their outfits shift.

"I'm dressed showing skin?! You're not even wearing a shirt."

"Babe, you're basically just wearing a sports bra and shorts."

"I look good. You don't work out enough to pull off not wearing a shirt in public."

*Whoosh.* A light breeze again. He's sporting some nice light muscle: square pecs, a nice six-pack, and some toned arms.

"Babe, I know I'm nowhere near my bulking goals but I know I look good enough to pull off being shirtless. Look, if you're gonna be like this, maybe we reschedule and have this dinner when you're not on your period."

...

...

...Look. What I did here may have been inappropriate... but would you expect anything less from me. I don't claim to be ethical, and I'm pretty sure you are well-aware of my biases by now... I'm not proud of what I did... I'm not... Okay maybe I am.

The ebb and flow of the conversation took a radical tone when one masculine voice was met for the first time by another. "Well then it's a good thing I'm not a girl."

"I guess that's true. Why would I even say that?"

"Because you're trying to avoid the subject again. Between you're time at the gym and your time at work, I never see you."

"I can't help it. At least I have a job."

*Whoosh.*

"Being an influencer is a job. I just wanna know how you can spend so much time working out when your job is being a personal trainer."

"My body is my sales pitch. I've build so much muscle now my co-workers are telling me I could enter a physique competition. Maybe if you worked out more, you'd actually get followers, and make money."

*Whoosh.*

"That's why I wanted to come here with you. Ever since I started working out with you, I have been gaining followers just as fast as I've been gaining muscle. I guess now is as good a time as any to tell you: I have 1 million followers."

"Babe, that's great news. I can't believe it!"

"Yeah, and there's more. The videos that gained the most traction online were the ones I shot with you. So I wanna go in a different direction with my page from now on."

"Wait, you've built it up by yourself. Why would you change it?"

"I wanna make it a couples page. Health, fitness, and gay pride."

"Most people dating for three years usually get proposals involving a ring."

"Do you wanna do this with me?"

"Yes, of course!"

A couple in my favorite bistro rise and embrace beside their patio table and share a passionate kiss. They seem happy, although I sit there and wonder if they'd be interested in a third for the night.

Have we as a society lost our sense of acceptable public behavior?

No. Not in this case. It could absolutely be much worse.

[lord-squiggletits]

Reread/skimmed my oldest Pharma apologism posts (mainly the ones about Pharma not being a functionist) and it just occurred to me that possibly another reason the fandom saddled Pharma with the "functionist bigot" label is because his introduction by First Aid says that everyone hates Decepticons, but Pharma really really hates Decepticons. Mix that with the portion of the fanbase that lionizes and whitewashes the Decepticons, and I can easily see it entering common fanon that "Pharma hates Decepticons -> the Decepticons are freedom fighters wrongly maligned by the Autobots/the franchise -> Pharma must be a bigoted functionist since he hates Decepticons who represent freedom."

The simpler explanation is just that Pharma is an antagonist and therefore gets the "everything about him must be evil and wrong" black-and-white analysis so common in fandoms in general, but given some of the bizarre Decepticon takes I've seen I can also easily see Pharma's Decepticon hatred being taken as a sign of him being bigoted and evil.

Though AGAIN in this case it would still be singling Pharma out as a bigot for crimes/flaws that multiple other Autobots are guilty of like.

Oh, Pharma hates Decepticons? Well a lot of other Autobots hate Decepticons too, First Aid's narration about Pharma even says "we all hate Decepticons"; for that matter, there are a lot of Decepticons who hate Autobots. It's a massive civil war that's lasted for a lifetime causing two groups of people to be stuck in a near-permanent blood feud, you can't assume that every Autobot who hates Decepticons (and vice versa) hates them because they're a bigot. Maybe there's been a war where both sides have been building an ever-increasing mountain of reasons to hate each other, so hating the opposite faction is a social problem caused by war and politics rather than a sign of individual moral failing.

Pharma worked at the New Institute so that means he must be evil/bigoted? Chromedome and Brainstorm also worked at the New Institute, but there's no widespread fandom shunning of them or headcanoning them as bigots.

Hell, even the very premise of assuming Pharma is a functionist bigot for hating Decepticons is ignoring the very premise of Pharma's motives, which are, uh... being blackmailed by the leader of the Decepticon Justice Division, who represents the ultimate form of Decepticon ideals to the point of literally wearing their symbol as his mask? So how were we jumping straight to "oh Pharma hates Decepticons bc he's a posh bigoted functionist" when there was a far more immediate interpretation/headcanon of "Pharma hates Decepticons because he's being tortured and blackmailed by one."

That's not to say that Pharma couldn't have hated Decepticons before Delphi, and I think you could make interesting headcanons/extrapolations based on either idea. But still. It kinda feels like people saw Pharma and just wanted to make him the Token Evil Autobot who's the opposite of our Good Heroic Autobots regardless of whether evidence from canon supported it or not.

Good riddance to bigoted functionist Pharma fanon, I'm so glad that the majority of Pharma fanon these days actually gives him a chance and puts him on equal footing as other Autobots.

[greencheekconure27]

Up past midnight inventing new and exciting ways of weaving together Tin Man and Wicked universes with a sprinkle of Emerald City for a canon divergence fic I will probably never write. (BTW if anyone wants to take this over please do I'm begging you)

Anyway so far:

Elements from the Emerald City:

-Langwidere, Jack, Ozma/Tip (plotlines remain mostly unchanged)

-Langwidere having beef with the Wizard

-maybe also Jane but she's not Dorothy's mother here or from the same time/universe/dimension as the Wizard (interdimensional travel us unpredictable ok).

-Four Cardinal Witches used to be a thing in the past

-The Beast Forever

-"Only a witch can kill a witch", each witch having a very individual set of spells, ancient tradition of preserving a witches magic as part of her funeral rites (abandoned/outlawed in this universe).

-Eamonn as Captain of the Gale Force instead of Fiyero (One wonders if that skin & mask came from a lion or a Lion).

Elements from Tin Man:

-The royal family are sorcerers but they're not the rulers of the whole OZ, just the South

-Emeralds are still relevant to the story but not because of a magical stone. Instead it's just OZ strip mining Quadling Country for gemstones like in the book, atrocities towards the local population and widespread ecological and magical (Nome King?) devastation included.

-Azkadellia=> Witch Queen of the South, (Quadling Country) not possessed* in this 'verse, currently in hiding in Finaqua after the rest of the royal family was killed and her sister disappeared

-*but possibly using the magic of dead witch ancestors to boost her own like Mistress West had Ozma do in Emerald City. Which gets twisted into "She's a creepy twisted necromancer possessed by an ancient evil spirit" in the Wizard's propaganda

-DG/ Dorothy Gale is still Azkadellia's long-lost sister but closer to her movie self

-but they're not descendants of movie!Dorothy like in the miniseries as DG and Dorothy aren't separate characters in this.

Their father Ahamo** is not the same person as the Wizard and neither is Mystic Man, the other Wizard stand-in (I think it's better to leave the latter one out altogether).

-**but he might have been one of Oscar Digs' old colleagues from the carnival and known he's a fraud

-Toto is a Dog not a shapeshifter (though he can still be the princesses' tutor. He spent the last decade or so looking out for Dorothy in Kansas).

- Glitch/Ambrose, Cain and Raw are still there but they start out as Az' companions here

-Raw is still a Seer but he's an actual Lion here that escaped while the rest of his pride was captured and imprisoned. Which possibly included a certain Lion Cub

-Wyatt Cain is the former captain of the royal guard, roughly the same backstory except they were attacked by the Wizard's men instead and he was found& freed from the tin suit by Glitch a few years earlier. He's currently Azkadellia's bodyguard.

-Jeb Cain is still a resistance member, either in Elphaba's cell or just some local guerilla group

-Jack from Emerald city is also Wyatt Cain's son

-None of these three know the others are alive

-Glitch/Ambrose is still the former royal advisor and weird genius scientist who remained loyal to the previous Queen and got arrested for it, but the reason why he "lost his marbles" is different.

-He was actually the (captive) scientist behind a large portion of the technology we see in Wicked +not that the Wizard let him take the credit). Eventually he refused to cooperate, either because the Wizard and Morrible had asked him to make something particularly horrifying or because he knew something re: Azkadellia and Dorothy's survival and whereabouts. In a last-ditch effort not to give anything away, he managed to shield large parts of his mind even from himself with magic (he has a little because he's some distant relative of the Queen)

- it's powerful but very crude and results in severe amnesia, "glitching", and other problems as seen in Tin Man. He did however manage to make himself so useless to his enemies they eventually just forgot about him and allowed him to escape.He eventually managed to wander back to Azkadellia's people but now they can't access the crucial information either.

-Dorothy will become the next Witch of the East

-Yes I still ship Cain/Glitch for this 🛢️🐦‍⬛👑

And now Wicked (mostly 2024 movie for Act 1)

-most of the story up to Act 1 finale remains the same

- except Glinda escapes to join Elphaba, either on the broom or shortly later with Fiyero

-yes this will be Gliyeraba

-Fiyero & Feldspar take them to Kiamo Ko sooner and they start organising a rebellion

-Elphaba makes her visit home earlier and she and Nessa design the enchantment for the shoes together with plenty of input from Nessa on what she needs and wants from it. Nessarose learns a lot of magic in the process and continues to develop her powers after Elphaba leaves

-She still becomes the Wicked Witch of the East unfortunately. Maybe with some dark magic corruption (let's put that hand-held mirror of hers to good use) but mostly because getting out of the wheelchair won't fix her other problems (such as Boq not loving her romantically, her sadness over Elphaba leaving, grief over her father, being unprepared for her role, her father's shitty parenting etc).

-The Vinkus aren't happy with how OZ government (Dominated by the Gillikinese) has been treating them either so the rebellion had supporters there.

-Fiyero is a prince but he's a spare with plenty of siblings ahead of him so officially his parents pretend to have disinherited him. If asked they will claim they haven't been able to contact him since and they definitely have absolutely no clue where he is.(Luckily Kiamo Ko is obscure and abandoned due to being in a particularly inhospitable and empty part of the country with no major routes in the vicinity. It was originally built as a fort against some ancient forgotten threat at the border and full of old magic).

-They free Doctor Dillamond sooner before he loses speech because I said so.

-Boq and the other Munchkins still get enslaved by the Witch of the East.He does manage to escape her eventually and goes to find Elphaba to ask her for help against her sister.

-He turns up at Kiamo Ko a few years after Nessa became governor, much to everyone's surprise. Turns out Fiyero told him a lot of stories about his home back when they were roommates at Shiz and he remembered enough to puzzle out where they might hide (It was actually a bigger risk than he thought and Fiyero is franky shocked he managed to survive the journey with so little information and not get lost and die out there in the wilderness somewhere).

-He also found this traumatized young Lion on his way and what the hell, Fiyero, did you just leave this kid alone to fend for himself in the woods after you rescued him? *

-*(Fiyero didn't, actually, but the Animals he left him with got raided soon after and Brrr got lost)

- Boq treats Brrr like his kid brother

-Unfortunately Nessarose'has managed to curse him after he escaped and he's been slowly turning into tin these past few months. Body horror ensues.She promised to lift the curse if he returns to her but he can't bear to do that.

-He's also traumatized as fuck after the whole enslavement ordeal and terrified Nessarose will find him again

-Glinda feels guilty

-Boq finally gets to get over his crush on her

-The spell is one of Nessarose's own design this time and Elphaba doesn't know how to undo it( as per Emerald City, "a witches spells are her own". ) It doesn't stop her from trying to save her friend though, and she and Boq embark on a series of experiments.

Azkadellia and Elphaba-Glinda-Fiyero form an alliance to overthrow the Wizard together

-Nessa meanwhile is starting to get worried her curse might've been more serious than she bargained for and will wind up killing Boq, as he refuses to return.She contacts her sister for help.

-unfortunately that's when Morrible drops a house on her. Which happens to contain Dorothy, who had her memories modified as a child and who knows nothing about her Ozian origins as she wasn't meant to return until she's an adult.

-She's a witch though and apparently "Witch A (Morrible)drops witch B (Dorothy)and her house on top of witch C (Nessa)" counts under the "only a witch can kill a witch " rule.

-Elphaba shows up to the meeting with her sister, finds this whole mess, and attempts to kidnap Dorothy so she can take her back to the base where she and Glinda can sort out this mess together.

-she's unsuccessful because the Munchkins still believe her to be Wicked and call the Gale Force on her (she's not really helping her case either let's be honest) and she's forced to flee.

-also will they be able to lift Boq's curse before the tin gets to his heart now that Nessa took her spell with her into the grave?

-The soldiers try to escort Dorothy to the Emerald City (Mme Morrible is starting to have suspicions as to her true identity) but she escapes on the way there

-Meanwhile Azkadellia has been keeping an eye on the whole thing via magic. She also has her suspicions as to Dorothy and sends Glitch, Cain and Raw to escort her.

-the whole Tip/Ozma plot is still happening except instead of Mistress West as a mentor they get Azkadellia

-Elphaba becomes Dorothy's mentor

-Ozma the lost Princess turning up is also very convenient politically for the rebellion as they need someone to replace the Wizard.

-eventual Ozma/Dorothy

-maybe future Boq/Jeb Cain ?

-Glitch and Fiyero bond over their love of dancing

- sequel where they deal with the whole apocalyptic Beast Forever problem

-Btw the Great Drought? Yeah that was the last time the Beast Forever came

-And yes the name "Beast Forever" absolutely gets used by the Wizard's propaganda to link it to old conspiracy theories about a Worldwide Animal Conspiracy against HumansTM

[damnfandomproblems]

https://damnfandomproblems.tumblr.com/post/780124777049407488/httpswwwtumblrcomdamnfandomproblems780096141

A long response but I had some things to say:

1: "I'm not an anti but..." proceeds to call fanart of fictional characters pedophilic and equates fanart and people who draw it to actual literal child molesters who hurt and legitimately groom literal children despite people, including victims and organizations who deal with this, kindly asking people to not do this because misusing and watering down terms and making light of serious things like this harms more people than fanworks of pixels.

2. This response completely missed the point of what they're responding to. First of all, fanworks are not comparable to literal groomers so bringing them up takes away from your point and makes others not take you seriously because it shows you don't know what you're talking about. Lastly the other person didn't say this stuff doesn't exist "at all", they said it's not the big epidemic antis are trying to claim it is, because it's not.

3. Fandoms were built on these kinds of works along with the "non-icky" works. People have been creating and enjoying these kinds of works since long before you or I were born. It didn't increase the amount of predators in the world because that's not how it works. People didn't go out to harm kids because someone wrote or drew AkatsukiShipping (Dawn x Cyrus). Attacking people for shipping it doesn't make you a hero, it makes you an asshole. These works have always and will always exist. If you truly want to protect children, go after legitimately harmful things. Maybe start with learning what pedophilia (a persistent attraction to REAL, prepubescent kids, which does NOT inherently make them a child molester) and grooming actually is and how it actually works.

4. Yes, there are groomers in fandom spaces but the majority of people aren't, no matter what they ship or who they simp for. But most of the people you mentioned are streamers. Big name streamers, who use social media to find and get close to victims. There are also groomers who use social media but aren't in fandom spaces. Why aren't you condemning streamers and social media then? From what you said, it has more to do with the platform than fandom stuff and subject matter. This just makes you bringing up fanart more confusing. Most of these people just made videos of them playing games, not making fanart. Why bring it up trying to equate the two. Again, their grooming is more connected to social media than fandom stuff.

5. You know what else has groomers? Education, a lot of groomers I see are revealed to be teachers. Hollywood, actors and celebrities are shown to be horrible people. Religion and the wealthy. Why aren't you condenming them? I hear about more groomers outside of fandom spaces than I do in them. If you think it's a widespread problem then stop looking for it and stop only looking at that type of content. I've heard about all the Minecraft groomers too but it's still not a huge number, it's not an epidemic.

6. "I would argue the real life groomers are the reason antis are scared of "problematic" ships... because they're trying to find any sign someone isn't trustworthy, but don't know what to look for" again, you did the same thing at the start of your ask by comparing fanart to something actually serious. You want to know what to look for? To start with, stop looking at people's ships and tastes in fiction. Look at the people. Look for if they're trying to isolate and get close to a literal kid, not pixels. They're not a pedo and not grooming anyone if all they're doing is drawing NSFW fanart of Ash.

7. Again, proshippers aren't saying or doing that. We just know what words mean and what a groomer actually is. Antis however are doing the same thing you did, comparing fictional characters and ships to living beings being harmed. Antis aren't concerned with legitimate predators; they see "icky" fanworks they don't like and try to run people off the internet for making them. When they call someone a predator, it's because they don't like something they ship, and their only "evidence" is fanart of not real characters. Fandoms have always done these things. And groomers have always existed, long before fandoms have, and they exist outside of fandom just as much as they do inside of it. Changing or getting rid of fandoms won't help. That's why we say antis are making up problems that don't exist. Because they are. Because they think ships reflect your morals and are more concerned about the equivalent of a pebble with big googly eyes than people, including kids. You're rarely going to find predators by looking at what people ship or who they simp for, and if you do it's because they're hurting a real person, it doesn't relate to the fiction they like. But antis don't care. They don't want to try to solve real problems. They just want to control what other people do. So they'll make up a problem in an attempt to accomplish that. That's what we're talking about.

8. Most proshippers aren't burying their heads in the sand. But every anti I've encountered is seemingly living in a fantasy where they're some super heroic knight singlehandedly saving the world by attacking innocent fandom dwellers. And they try to force others to play along and get mad and throw tantrums when you don't want to. We're not pretending fandoms don't have problems, we're just tired of people thinking everything is serious and has a deep reason for existing and messing with the places we come to to have fun and get away from everything.

Posting as a response to a previous ask.

[weltato]

A Complaint - AO3

I have a question for the AO3 readers: why is interaction so hard for you? I never normally see this much of a drought, my goodness.

I will admit, the bookmarks are very nice, thank you to those people, but this is kinda sad. Normally I'm not bothered, but it's just- can't even say hi? You just read a fic and leave? You don't wanna take a second of your time to hit kudos? I understand some of the hits might be "shit I didn't want to click on that one" and some will be "eh, I tried it, but didn't like it" but I just can't believe that over one hundred people have done that. And true, maybe there's the rare few that have been coming back to read the fics and that's bumped the count up, but I have ONE (1) comment saying anything. Just one. I know it says two there but that's my own reply and I'm not counting it. These are my two most recent fics btw, this is a recent issue for me, my older fics haven't been this dreadful.

Genuinely, that second image bothers me more than the first one. At least that one got a comment and people have bookmarked it, ok then. That one is fine actually, that's not a problem for me. But the second one is just..."wow" is really all I can say.

That, and a resigned sigh that this is the fate of the internet right now. Tumblr posts are getting less interaction than they used to thanks to the widespread like-culture bleeding through from other apps and AO3 readers are putting the authors on such a pedestal that they're afraid to even leave a comment or a kudos anymore.

I'll admit, I only recently started leaving comments more often and that I used to be part of this problem, and I'll also admit that these two fic stats are for a fandom that is pretty much dead thanks to the show killing itself at the end (TUA S4 look what you've done), but even my niche fics - Red Dwarf, Wind in the Willows, VHS Christmas Carols - have got relatively balanced stats in comparison.

Either it's the fanbase being dead (probably the cause), users not interacting anymore (still a problem), or my writing is just going down the toilet at the moment (I don't actually think it is but everyone has different tastes in writing style) but this is something that's irking me right now and I had to complain somewhere.

I'm not usually bothered by numbers and statistics, I know it not gonna benefit me in the slightest, but sometimes I look at things and wonder why the interaction on it is so shit. This is one of those times. You read the top, right? You know this is a complaint, it doesn't necessarily need to make sense.

I'm gonna shut up now.

[eriexplosion]

Okay so. I cannot take it seriously when people say that we weren't led to think CX-2 was Tech. Because no we were not just having foreshadowing of the creation of an Evil Bad Batch. The clues led directly to Tech.

We have to start with the fact that they didn't kill him off definitively. Start with his survival being debated (and there's no way they didn't know it would be debated because I choose to believe they are not stupid) then introduce a character that lasts suspiciously long and has weirdly intense beef with Crosshair and you already are inclining people towards believing this is Tech.

CX-2 goes through a speedrun of Tech scenarios with 1. the leg crushed by a heavy falling object, similar to Ruins of War 2. knocked over by an explosion leaving him dangling above the abyss from a line like Plan 99 3. going over a waterfall and crawling out in a shot that completely matches the scene from The Crossing.

One or two of these is a coincidence, all three together less so.

Plan 99 notes mixed into The Battle of the Snipers. Which the Kiners only explained as the notes 'sounding good in brass' and nothing else.

He gets distinctly Tech like dialogue and no I don't just mean 'domicile' though we do have to acknowledge that no one else in Star Wars uses this word on the regular. We also have the exact match of 'Who are you' to Decomissioned, and the matching of 'I have simply cut off her means of escape' to Tech regularly saying 'I am simply-' when explaining himself, which again is something no one else in the show shares. Tech has a distinct way of speaking that matches CX-2, especially as of Point of No Return. (And CX-2 doesn't really sound like Crosshair, because Crosshair is just straight up not as chatty as CX-2 and never has been.)

He gets a long, unnecessary scene with Phee where he suddenly forgets how to be a murder assassin and starts playing soft.

He doesn't shoot Hunter when he has a chance and chooses to instead shoot his own man, he doesn't blow up the Marauder while Wrecker is inside, and when Omega surrenders he opts to just wait for her to hand him her communicator. He doesn't even shoot Shep when Shep starts talking back to him, all of which indicated that maybe for whatever reason he didn't want to, bolstering the Tech theories.

Getting into an opinion rather than analysis here but: Evil Bad Batch is a stupid fucking idea, it serves no purpose whatsoever other than a cool boss fight that adds nothing to the story. Having a CX be someone, anyone they actually cared about would have been interesting and actually played into the themes of family and forgiveness that were set up earlier in the season. Instead it's just more people to kill off to zero interesting payoff. It's stupid.

Every person I spoke to offline thought that this was Tech. All of them. People that have never looked on social media, watched a theory video, anything. All thought CX-2 was Tech and were confused when he was speared. This was not terminally online theorizing gone wild, this was a very widespread thought and assumption.

So, if they didn't mean to do any of that and at no point intended to imply this was Tech and were solely trying to foreshadow their 5 minutes of Evil Batch fight? They did it poorly. When the majority of your audience actively believes you are leading to one direction only for it to be some other direction that you meant to lead them to, the problem is not The Audience Didn't Read It Right, the problem is you wrote it badly.

[jokeroutsubs]

[📝ENG TRANSLATION] 🎈Bojan Birthday special 🍰 Bojan Cvjetićanin: A Successful Procastinator

Original article written by Robert Rebolj for Slovenske novice, published 22.08.2020. Photos by Žan Pevec and Tomaž Rupnik.

English translation by @kurooscoffee, review by IG 10_anja, proofread by @flowerlotus8.

🎧 Audio version available here.

Full article below the cut! 👇

A Successful Procrastinator.

2020 was supposed to be the year for the young Ljubljana's Bežigrad band, which has announced their breakthrough into stardom through dedication and songs like 'Gola' and 'Vem, da greš'.

Ph: Personal archive.

Bojan is currently one of the most popular musicians, loved by both girls and boys alike.

"Last year, we made a plan that was supposed to withstand anything, even a bullet. On the 1st of April, we would have released the album, presented it at two events in Ljubljana's Cvetličarna, and then we would have a summer full of concerts. Unfortunately, everything fell through. If we can't support the album with concerts, it doesn't make sense to release it for now," the 21-year-old singer and songwriter, whose future is expected to be dazzling, described the unexpected turn of events.

Ph: Tomaž Rupnik. The five Joker Out members from Ljubljana have been making waves with great music for some time now.

How are you coping with the disruption of these events that are important to you?

Bojan: At first, we found the whole situation funny; we thought everything would normalise within two months. Back then, I was quite inactive and uncreative, and with each passing month, my mood became even more gloomy. Realisation that this could drag on for a long time has a significant impact on your psyche. And while there’s a widespread belief among the people that this is now a period of new creativity, I’ve created very little myself. I was grieving more than anything else!

We’re hearing a lot of criticism about the immature behavior of young people—partying, ignoring experts' warnings. But there are also those who are very responsible. Which of those are you?

My perspective is that young people here are actually quite responsible. I think they are aware of the warnings and don’t socialise recklessly. Recently, I went out for the first time in five months. In front of Kino Šiška, around 50 people had gathered. It was very calm. People socialised within their groups and kept their distance.

Ph: Žan Pevec. "My parents taught me that no amount of money can replace a clear conscience and fair earnings," he says.

I’d say we don’t have a problem with ultra-parties here. What seems more problematic to me is that the restrictions on cultural events are extremely strict and, without any legal basis, prevent a huge number of people from working and making a living. Meanwhile, at Brezje¹, a few thousand people gathered without any sanctions; most of them belong to the critical age group, and on top of that, they didn’t follow safety measures. It seems to me that a lot of blame is being shifted onto young people, but in reality, those who were the most active in breaking the rules during the pandemic were about 15 years older than us.

¹Brezje is a settlement in the Upper Carniola region of Slovenia, best known for its basilica which is the largest pilgrimage church in Slovenia.

What are the strongest values you’ve taken from home?

My parents taught me to always be honest, no matter what I do, because no amount of money can replace a clear conscience and fair earnings. In our family, we’re also very compassionate and respectful toward all people. Both of them supported me greatly in my creative endeavors and gave me everything I wanted, as long as I was fair to them and fulfilled my responsibilities.

And you did fulfill them? You weren't a rebel?

And I did, yes. I wasn’t a rebel—maybe I had a few moments in secondary school, but that’s probably pretty normal.

Were you a nerd?

A terrible procrastinator (laughs). Every year, at the start of the school year, I promised myself it would be different this time. Before school began, I’d buy new notebooks, pens, a pencil case, and all the supplies, tidy up my desk, make and hang up schedules. It would last maybe three days, and then I was even worst than the previous year—a disaster! (laughs) Only now at university—I'm studying sociology—am I a little more diligent, but I’m still quite a procrastinator.

Which was your favourite subject, and which caused you the most trouble?

The worst was definitely maths, but that’s entirely my fault because, from elementary school to the end of high school, I probably did a total of ten homework assignments. Awful! Of course, you can’t learn maths that way. During periods when I focused on it, I didn’t have any problems. I also really liked my maths teacher! My favourite subjects were sociology and history, and over time, I became happy that we learned Latin as well. I won’t single out physical education—we always played football there, which was fantastic.

So football is your favourite sport?

I’m a fan of extreme sports, especially the acrobatic version of wakeboarding (the most adrenaline-filled version of surfing, editor’s note). I also love fast cars. I used to train judo but had to quit because of severe migraines, and then I started playing football. So yes, it’s probably my favourite sport now.

Do you follow Cristiano Ronaldo's discipline as a counterbalance to the temptations of rock 'n' roll?

In that respect, I’m more like Diego Maradona! (laughs)

Let me guess—when it comes to music, you’re less of a procrastinator?

Not at all! (laughs) I’m not musically educated, which I also deeply regret. As a child, I never showed any interest in music, so, naturally, my parents didn’t enroll me in music school. It was only later that I started taking private guitar lessons, and at the age of 12, I learned everything I know to this day.

"On stage, I stop caring about everything. I feel invincible, like no one can touch me."

Unfortunately, when it comes to learning instruments, I’m the same kind of procrastinator I was in high school. As for writing music and lyrics, I only create when I feel a strange inspiration that I have to write it down. It’s very hard for me to just sit down and start writing. I deeply regret this. If we look at the history, The Beatles’ John Lennon and Paul McCartney reportedly had regular creative meetings, and not one of them ended without a song being written. This means they wrote thousands of songs in their lives, whereas literally everything I write eventually gets released.

From today’s perspective, what would you teach your own children?

I’d like to have kids as young as possible...

Really?!

Really. I’ve even picked out the names already! (laughs)

Please, share them with us!

(Laughs) Oh no, I can’t reveal them yet—someone might steal them! I’ll tell you, but you can’t write them down! (laughs) Anyway, continuing on, I’d definitely teach them everything my parents taught me. I believe those are very good values and solid foundations on which a person can then grow in the right direction. I also think education and the ability to think abstractly are very important. My parents strongly encouraged this in both me and my sister. And although it might seem like I resisted them a bit in the educational part, I’m endlessly grateful to them today for all their encouragement.

What do you value most about your parents?

With my father, definitely his humility. With my mother, it’s how well she listens and how compassionate she is.

You seem very confident, but are you truly confident deep down as well?

I am, I’ve never had any problems with this, and when I work, I know what I’m doing. I also feel like I’m good at sensing and reading people, and I know how to respond to them. I’m open to those who are open to me, but others don’t interest me. I guess it all stems from respect.

How are you with girls?

Also very respectful. It’s true that I’m quite flirtatious, so I like confident girls who might even outflirt me in this regard. I really like that. I’ve only had one somewhat serious girlfriend, but I always try not to be rough, rude, or impolite, although I’m sure there were times when I was. But my main guiding principle is to be a good person. I don’t support violence; it should be stopped at all costs.

At first glance, confidence and modesty don’t seem to go hand in hand…

But that’s exactly it. My father is incredible in this regard, I admire him greatly. He’s an extremely intelligent and successful man, a doctor, a surgeon. He’s achieved so much in life and has provided my sister and I with almost everything. Then I feel embarrassed when I catch myself getting excited about material things and wanting everything, even though I haven’t achieved anything in life yet and can’t afford those things.

"I want to have kids as young as possible. I even have their names picked out!"

My father, who could afford a lot and truly deserves it, doesn’t have that need or desire. Such things mean nothing to him. He always brings me back to reality, as I feel bad about myself at these realisations, like a completely spoiled brat.

Successful people are usually very hardworking, and with work comes absence. And no material thing can replace the absence of parents. How was it for you?

My father worked from early morning, when I also went to school, and he’d come home late in the afternoon, just as I was returning from sports activities after school. My mother, also a doctor—a pediatrician—had a well-organised work schedule. So, we were able to spend our free time together. My father always made time to attend my matches, and later, neither he nor my mother missed any significant concerts. My parents always made plenty of time for my sister and I. I have absolutely no complaints in this regard.

I know firsthand that you’re very popular among both girls and the gay community. Are you aware of this?

I knew about the girls, but I didn’t know I was confirmed to be popular in the gay community. However, I’ve recently met quite a few gay people, and they told me that I am. I admit that I really like this. I’m a big supporter of people being free to be who they are. And if everyone can connect with my lyrics, which are usually written as love songs for women, I feel like I’ve achieved a lot. In general, the gay people I’ve met have been incredibly kind and cool. And they’re amazing partygoers, so I definitely enjoy their company!

On stage, you have such a nonchalant presence…

In life, I’m not nonchalant, but on stage, I always switch to a different version of myself. I stop caring about everything, I feel invincible, and nobody can touch me. In this aspect, I strongly identify with Liam Gallagher’s persona from the band Oasis.

In this sense of immortality, many musicians have lost their compass later in life, along with their voices, and even their hearing. What about you, are you being careful?

I’m very concerned about my voice. At least three or four days before a concert, I avoid partying and staying up late because I’m terrified of losing my voice on stage. As for hearing, I hope I won’t have any issues since we always use noise-canceling earplugs during rehearsals, and at concerts, I wear special headphones to control the volume of the sound reaching me. While some old rockers might call us soft, I don’t care—I definitely don’t want to be deaf and voiceless at 60. Right now, my band and I are ready to do whatever it takes to make it big and turn this into our full-time job. You know, after all, we have to work a bit too! (laughs)

By co-hosting this year’s EMA Fresh alongside Maja Pinterič on national television, you also tried your hand at hosting. If you could evaluate yourself: are you satisfied, do you think you have a talent for hosting?

My first real hosting gig was in ninth grade at a school anniversary event. Objectively speaking, I did very well, and that’s when my mum openly said for the first time that I was truly born for the stage. Before that, she didn’t take me seriously when I mentioned wanting to work in show business.

"My view is that young people here are actually quite responsible."

Later, I hosted almost all events in secondary school, got some bigger opportunities later, attended a drama club, and so on. Honestly, I think there’s a host in me too, but it’s clear that I still have a lot of work to do if I want to become really good. Regarding EMA Fresh, I think I did my job well. If I had prepared better, I could have done very well. Unfortunately, the procrastinator in me won again.

[justwinginglife]

Kafka Hibino Welcomes You To The Cafe

Head back to the cafe entryway (main story)

“ABSO-FREAKIN-LUTELY!” Kafka’s grin was wide as the moon and as bright as it too. 

You’d come to the cafe often, whether it was to enjoy a cup of coffee before school, a meal on your lunch break, or even the occasional dinner when you felt like it, but you’d never once met the mastermind behind all the delicious concoctions you consumed. Kafka was one of those masterminds. 

Today, you’d ordered a particularly stunning meal, and you’d only taken a single bite out of it before immediately calling the manager over to request that the chef be brought to you so you could offer your compliments. When the surprised chef made his way out of the kitchen and you realized just how cute he was, you invited him to join you for dinner. He accepted immediately, yanking off his apron and shoving it into his manager’s hands with a grin. 

“Kafka, was it? You sure you don’t mind me calling you by your first name when we’ve only just met?”

He shakes his head emphatically. “Anyone who’s as kind as you are can call me whatever the heck you want. But I go by Kafka.”

“Kafka it is. So, tell me, have you always wanted to be a chef?” 

He smiles nostalgically. “Actually, I wanted to be a soldier when I was younger. Thought it was all I was good for. But I had this childhood friend growing up- she’d get scared so easily, and I couldn’t fight, but I could cook. So I’d make her these meals to cheer her up and she’d smile so big she forgot she was ever crying. So I decided I wanted to make people smile with my food.” 

Something flutters in your chest. “That’s probably the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”

His grin widens unabashedly and he straightens proudly in his seat. “You think so? THANKS. That’s kind of you to say.”

“She’s very lucky. This childhood friend of yours. She’s lucky to have someone so close to her who is so considerate and caring. And with excellent cooking skills no less.” A touch of jealousy slips into your words but you quickly mask it with adoration. 

“Well I think I’m the lucky one to have met you.” His goofy smile is still widespread across his face, but his tone lacks any humor, his words only meaning to convey true sincerity. 

The flutter in your chest turns into thumping. “I feel lucky to have met you too.”

Over the next hour, you discover that what felt like dumb luck turned into a stroke of fate. Without even realizing it, the moment you laid eyes on him, your life was changed. What was a friendly encounter is now a promise of more meetings to come, of more laughter to come, of more light hearted banter, of more lingering glances. If you wished for someone to talk with, here was someone who could talk for hours. If you wished for someone to hold you, here was someone with the warmest of hugs. If you wished for someone to stay by your side, here was someone who was loyal to the end. And he was all yours for the taking.

“You know, Kafka, I’m a pretty decent cook myself. What do you say, we have ourselves a little cook-off?” You propose with a daring look in your eyes. 

He straightens in his seat curiously. “Oho, very bold of you. I’ll take you on any day!” Then he ponders something for a moment, tapping his chin in thought. “Only problem is- I highly doubt our manager would let something like a cook off competition happen on company grounds let alone the company kitchen.”

“That’s fine. I was thinking you could come over to my place anyway.” You swallow down your pride. “Maybe this weekend?”

His eyes widen. “I, uh, yeah, I’m not this weekend, I mean I’m not free, I mean I’m free this weekend, I’m not doing anything.”

You hold your breath to keep your giggles from escaping. He’s so eager it’s adorable. “Great, well then I’d love to have you taste defeat in my kitchen.”

He gives a short laugh. “Oh, is that right? You think I’m coming over just to lose? Well think again, because I’m about to make you the best damn dinner you’ve ever had in your entire life.”

“You’re on.” You smile to yourself and think- Kafka, it’ll be the best damn dinner of my life regardless, all because you’ll be there. 

Taglist: @pixelcafe-network @ouiouimochi @inkytypewriter @minasfwoopyponytail

[its-time-to-write]

I AM RUSHING TO GET THIS IN!!!

Friends to lovers maybe with a disabled reader?? Maybe she's someone he knew from back home who he runs into at a diner she's working at now. Maybe she feels like he abandoned her and her life fell apart when he moved away?

ANyway love you lots!!!

warning: there’s a lot of parentheses (it’s a choice) and a lot of swearing (I do what I want)

reader’s dialogue/feelings are based off my own experiences so if u read this and are like ??? don’t worry about it. i’m just projecting. the chronic illness is unspecified.

LOVE U BABE

you’ll probably date her

It’s hard enough growing up in a council estate in a shit part of Manchester (although you’d staunchly defend there’s no such thing as a shit part of Manchester) but it’s harder with fucking chronic illness. It manifests is clumsiness (joint pain), fidgeting (widespread pain), and bruising (skin problems).

Not to mention the fucking tiredness.

School is complete shit all the time, and life is complete shit all the time too. 

Okay fine, not all the time, but a lot of the time.

There are bright spots in between flare ups, bright spots that consist of learning how to bake with Simon (Jamie’s stepdad) and petting Roy (Jamie’s cat) and watching horribly cheesy movies with Georgie (Jamie’s mum).

Oh, and Jamie. 

You’ve known Jamie since birth, probably, when your mum brought you home and Jamie sat down on the saggy couch, aged two, and asked, “When does it open its eyes?”

He took it upon himself to look after you, magnanimous in a way he would not have been if you were actually related to him (thank god). When he starts to get tired of you, he can go back home to his own room and his own mum and hug her tight without having to share her with anyone else.

When you’re three and he’s five, you get a diagnosis. Jamie says, “That’s shit,” when your mum tells him you can’t play, and you’re told that you echo him with your first swear. 

“That’s shit,” comes your tiny voice from the sofa, face down and covered in bags of frozen peas.

Your mum is too surprised by the first words you’ve said all day, that she a) doesn’t scold you and b) doesn’t catch Jamie as he slips by her into the house. He sits on the floor and starts to tell you about primary school and helps your mum when it’s time to put the peas back in the slightly-broken freezer.

It goes like that for years. 

When you’re feeling well, you kick a football around with Jamie. When you’re feeling poorly, he climbs the steps to your room and tells you things, anything at all to distract you from the pain ripping through your body.

It’s nice. It makes you feel, like, someone cares, almost? Or someone understands? Or maybe the world isn’t carrying on without you, that a piece of it does stop when you do, and maybe you aren’t entirely alone.

You first realize you like Jamie (like-like) when you’re twelve and it feels like ice-cold water has been poured on your head, but not exactly in an unwelcoming way.

A shock, sure, but a soothing one.

You don’t tell him, but you think he probably knows. He’s not an idiot, he’s had girls swooning all over him since he was eight. 

(And your mum knows, and she and Georgie talk, and Georgie tells Jamie to be extra nice to you and maybe a little bit careful not to be mean about it.)

He carefully slips on your small bed when you’re fifteen and he’s sixteen (almost seventeen, but it’s the one time of the year when you’re only a year apart) and balances on his side so he can look at you.

“You’ll be alright?” he asks, and you don’t have to ask what he’s talking about.

He’s going to play for Manchester (City, not United, and not the Premier League Team), and it’s all you’ve been able to think about.

You don’t say anything, so he gingerly pats your head. It messes up your hair, but it also feels like tiny electric sparks are shooting through your body (not the pain kind).

He lays there for a long time, whispering about secondary school and football and making enough money to buy houses for everyone he’s ever loved, you included.

(He promises he’ll call all the time.)

—

He does call, until he doesn’t.

Some days are good, some days are bad, and now the bad days feel like they’re your fault.

“You’re overdoing it,” your boss says, “You need to slow down or you’ll be out sick tomorrow.”

You bite back the words I’m doing my fucking best, and just nod. Fuck him, and fuck this. You can work just the same as everyone else, pain be damned. There are fucking bills to pay and yeah, this shit hurts, but what the fuck are you supposed to do. Benefits aren’t enough at the moment, and it’s been a solid two years since you’ve given up on waiting for a knight in shining armor (even if that knight is in the Premier League now, just like he always swore he’d be).

Your boss is fucking right the fucker, but you push through on Friday (it’s fucking shit) and crash on Saturday (it’s even more fucking shit).

Your mum places bags of frozen fruit on your joints, rearranging the pillows on the floor. You’ve long since outgrown the couch, instead needing more space. Your dad moved the coffee table, saying, “It’s on its last legs anyway,” and the space you called a living room now became a treatment room of sorts.

Georgie and Simon come over all the time for family dinner (potluck-style) and they are comfortable enough step over you or sit down on the floor to talk.

It sounds worse than it is, but when they’re in the flat it feels better, all warm and glowy, like things are right.

Nights are the worst, with the moving around trying to get comfortable, so you’re awake bright and early on Sunday morning. Early enough to sit on a bench in front of the estates, bundled up in your duvet and puffing cold air out into the sky.

You hear footsteps splashing down the tunnel, someone on their way home after a long night. Or maybe it’s one of the many kids who like to sneak out to play footie in hopes that they’ll be the next Jamie Tartt.

He’s not that great, you want to tell them, except you don’t even believe it yourself. He is that great, he’ll always be that great, and you should have fucking known that he was going to fuck off and fuck a gorgeous, carefree model and not you. 

(Not that you want to fuck him. Well, you do, but you also want to, like, hold his hand.)

It was always going to end up this way, you should have known not to actually have real feelings for him, you should have left it at a childhood crush and not let yourself believe something could actually happen.

The footsteps pass you by, and it’s a man in a baseball hat and an awful silk-print tracksuit carrying a Gucci travel bag.

He’s out of place here, and you wonder if he’s lost. But no, he strides up to Georgie and Simon’s door like he owns the place, pulls out a key, and walks right in. It’s only after the door swings shut behind him that you realize it’s Jamie.

“Oh shit,” you whisper, clouds accompanying the words.

(You won’t admit it, but the surprise has rebooted your system a little bit, aching limbs forgotten for a moment.)

—

“This is shit,” you say as you lean on your fucking cane of all things. “It’s one thing if it’s Simon and Georgie, it’s another fucking thing if it’s Jamie fucking Tartt.”

“That’s a lot of fucking fucks,” your father says sagely, ignoring the glare you send his way and saying ow as your mum swats the back of his head.

“It’s only two fucks and one shit,” you tell him. “And I’m not going.”

“Then I’ll tell them to come over here,” your mum says placidly. 

Absolutely not. Also-fucking-lutely not.

“I am going to my room,” you say with dignity, turning to go back up the stairs.

Your dad waves, the prick. “Have fun,” he says helpfully. You flip him off without looking, and you know for a fact he’s doing it back. You know he’ll be up in an hour with a plate of dinner and sneak you early desert.

There is no fucking way you’re seeing Jamie after two years like this.

The cane is a relatively new development and sure, it’s helpful with walking sometimes, but a cane? The fuck were the doctors thinking when they suggested this? You’re barely twenty, not a damn convalescent. 

By the time you make it to your room, the doorbell’s ringing and voices are filling the flat. You reach for your bottle of pills and carefully tap the right amount into your hand (even though you know there is no drug on earth to calm down your traitor heart).

You lay down flat on your back with no immediate plans to move. You find your playlist and slip an earbud in, letting the music take you somewhere else. Somewhere where you don’t hurt for no reason, where you can focus like you’re supposed to, where you aren’t so damn tired all the time.

There’s a tap on your door.

“Come in,” you call to your dad, except the door opens and it’s Jamie, no longer in his stupid outfit from earlier, but in a nice jumper that you think might be Simon’s.

He smiles like he didn’t abandon you and sits down on the floor. You hand him the other earbud (it’s better than talking) and let Stevie Nicks croon in your ear.

“How’ve you been?” he asks (the prick) and you have half a mind to ignore him. 

“It’s been two years,” you remind him. “Try again.”

Jamie looks stricken. “Right, yeah, I know, it’s just- I’ve been busy.”

“Yup,” you reply. “Me too.”

(The cane is leaning on the wall by the door, and you need Jamie to not notice it.)

Jamie points to the cane. “That’s new.”

“Yep,” you say because it’s not the same as yup. It has a different vowel. It’s a different word, you’re having a civil conversation, your brain is making sentences just fine.

“I’m sorry,” he says. He sounds like he means it, which is worse. “I went through some shit, you know? It don’t excuse it, but… got a new gaffer, Keeley dumped me, then I got sent back to City right when I were getting better. It’s been shit. I’ve been shit,” he corrects.

Your arm’s falling asleep so you shift, trying to stifle a groan.

Jamie’s up in a moment, all concern. “You alright?”

“Clearly,” you gasp out as savagely as possible. “Fuck off, alright? I don’t need your pity, not now, so go find some other charity case.”

Fucking flare-ups. Fucking Jamie. Fucking chronic illness and its fucking lack of a cure.

Jamie looks like he’s been slapped. To be fair, you would if you could get in the right position.

“You’re not charity,” he says, and unfortunately (and again) he sounds like he fucking means it.

“Okay,” you say. “That’s fucking mint. Thanks for staying such a good friend all these years, it’s been real fucking fun. I’ve got to lie here in discomfort, so I imagine you’ll be leaving now. Goodbye.”

Jamie stares at you a moment, then leaves.

—

It’s a good day. It’s a good day and it’s raining and you don’t even care because it’s a good day. Nothing can ruin it (this isn’t a premonition) not even stupid Jamie showing up out of nowhere.

(It’s a little bit of a premonition.)

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing he says when he turns up in his mum’s kitchen, an hour before he’s supposed to be home. You’re supposed to be long gone by now, but you and Simon have cheese pinwheels in the oven that aren’t done for another twenty minutes, so now you’re stuck here until then.

“Fucking mint,” you say, just like the night before. Simon freezes but Georgie just rolls her eyes. 

“We’ll be in the other room, loves,” she says. “Jamie, don’t be a fucking idiot.”

You tell him, “I’m having a good day, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t fucking ruin it.”

“You’re not a charity case,” he says, and you think maybe he is broken, but like a record is broken, not like a teacup.

Jamie says, “I weren’t lying about going through shit,” and you snap (like a rubber band, not a bone).

“Big fucking deal, Jamie, you’ve been going through shit since you were six years old. I’ve been going through shit too, in case you didn’t fucking notice. It’s not an excuse to be a shitty person or a shitty friend,” you burst out.

“I didn’t say it as an excuse, it’s just a fucking reason,” Jamie shouts back. “Jesus Christ, you’re not the only person with fucking problems! You’re allowed to be mad shitty sometimes, I didn’t ever complain, so why’s it fucking different for me?”

You open your mouth to tell him why it’s fucking different, except you don’t actually have a reason. How many times did you sit with him as he iced his knee, or his face, or his arm while you iced your back, or your chest, or your legs?

Pain is pain, your fucking government-issued therapist had said. And shit if she isn’t right.

“You abandoned me,” you reply, voice small. “You left me for Keeley and I wouldn’t have minded, I really wouldn’t have. I just wanted to talk to you.”

Jamie rubs his face with a sigh. “Didn’t know how to talk to you, after. I knew you liked me since we were kids and I liked you too, so it felt fucking… weird. Dunno. But, I was with her because it was what I was supposed to do and she was mad fit and fucking funny. I’ve had a crush on her for fucking… ages.”

“Right,” you say, feeling one millimeter tall, “I get that.”

Jamie shakes his head and says, “Nah, you don’t.” (The fuck does he mean? He can’t read your mind).

“You don’t get it,” he continues. “Had a crush on her, didn’t I? Not the same as you. You were proper in love with me, and I…” he trails off.

“He was proper in love with you too,” comes Georgie’s voice.

Jamie turns bright red and you do too, and it’s like you’re kids again and he’s in your bed and you’re trying not to think about how close his lips are to yours.

“That’s… well, that’s…” You try and fail to come up with the right words.

“Yeah,” Jamie says, still blushing. “Yeah, suppose I was. Couldn’t do anything about it, then. Could do something about it now. If you’ve forgiven me.” He says it casually, like he won’t mind if you tell him to go away out of his own mum’s house and never return, when in reality he’ll burn up and die if you do.

“I will. I do,” you say. “I’m sorry too, I am. I can be a prick sometimes.”

Jamie shrugs, but he’s smiling a little. “I’m a prick all the time, love. Fucking… fucked childhood or some shit.”

“Some shit,” you echo. “So, proper in love with me, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jamie says. “Proper. Wrote my first name with your last on every bit of paper I could get me hands on, didn’t I?”

“Fuck off,” you say with a grin.

“It’s true,” Simon shouts from the sofa. “Found some bits when I was cleaning one day.”

Wait. Simon didn’t move in until Jamie was a teenager. That means… 

“Oh my god, were you fifteen when you were writing that? You weren’t even a kid anymore! What the fuck Jamie, you had it bad!” you tease.

“Fuck off, it was just a stupid joke,” he says defensively.

“Uh huh, sounds like,” you say as you go to wrap your arms around him. “You liked me.”

“Fuck’s sake,” he grumbles, leaning down to kiss your head. He’s never going to fucking live this down.