#no clearly it is the tumblr statistics that are wrong -

[theminecraftbee]

I posted 23,379 times in 2022

That's 12,272 more posts than 2021!

5,012 posts created (21%)

18,367 posts reblogged (79%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@/gardenergulfie

@/harley-the-pancake

@/simplydm

@/bananasofthorns

@/starsandfluff

I tagged 20,218 of my posts in 2022

Only 14% of my posts had no tags

#from the queue - 11,399 posts

#answered - 2,886 posts

#stream liveblogging - 822 posts

#hermitcraft - 555 posts

#ask game - 354 posts

#double life spoilers - 213 posts

#hermitcraft spoilers - 196 posts

#a bee fic - 177 posts

#joe hills - 171 posts

#empires smp - 130 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#i love grian’s weird contradictory ‘is immediately bound by any rules of competition and won’t break them even if they’re all in his head’

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

[image ID: two pictures of joe in his daughter's homemade zombiecleo costume. /end ID]

...oh my god,

4,233 notes - Posted October 26, 2022

#4

huge fan of how they did this 1.20 update so far. the changes really do feel like “they are doing things to make minecraft more minecraft”, just adding several small things that makes everything feel nicer is exactly what i want from an update. just… small details! huge fan of that! also a big fan of them going “we are only going to show you features that are done”. it does mean we don’t actually get to know what they’re planning until it’s about to be in a snapshot, which will be an adjustment, but it’ll prevent all the nonsense that happened around 1.19, so I’m a fan. overall, like how 1.20 is looking!

4,370 notes - Posted October 15, 2022

#3

genuinely all the pairs are insane. shoutout, for example, to tango and jimmy, the single most doomed pair of people i can possibly imagine. mr. “dies with tragic futility” and mr. “dies first despite his best efforts” are on the same team AND one of them was already blown up by a creeper. i cannot imagine a more “will die first” pairing. those poor boys i’m already planning their funeral,

5,032 notes - Posted June 17, 2022

#2

“Alright,” Jevin says, “now you just have to give the egg basket back.”

Grian stares at him with big, black, soulful eyes, and holds the basket closer to himself. “...give... you... the eggs...?”

Jevin closes his eyes and mentally counts to five before opening them again. “Yeah. That was the point of the game, right? Collect the eggs and then give them back to prove you’d found them.”

Grian continues to stare.

“So you hand me the basket...”

“Are... are you keeping an eye on them?” Grian asks.

“Keeping an eye on the eggs.”

“Well, it’s a dangerous world out there,” Grian says. “You never know when some maniac with TNT might show up. Probably best to just keep these in my ne- base. Keep these in my base.”

“A maniac with TNT?“ says Jevin, in a tone of voice he hopes conveys exactly who the maniac with TNT normally is on the server.

“You never know,” Grian says. “You’ve seen the eggs now. You know I found them. Really, what do you need all those eggs for? Surely you won’t miss these, right?”

Jevin sighs. “Yes, but I need the eggs to prove you didn’t cheat. You can’t win unless you turn them in.”

Grian stares blankly at Jevin, big black eyes watering as he tries to decide between winning (a thing Grian is very bad at giving up on) and, presumably, some stupid bird instinct that’s refusing to let him let go of the eggs. Jevin’s not sure which one is winning. He is sure, however, that he is slightly regretting making the egg hunt actually use eggs.

Because, he thinks wryly, it’s hardly just Grian.

“Jevin,” Doc says, landing on the platform to the egg hunt central area. Grian makes a sound somewhere between a hiss and a squawk and pulls his shulker full of carefully-padded and protected eggs closer to his chest. “I have found all of my eggs.”

“Excellent! Now, if you’ll hand them over -”

Doc is holding a shulker close to his chest. “Give you my eggs? Don’t be ridiculous.”

...the worst part, Jevin thinks, as he tries to figure out how to negotiate with a bunch of hybrids who haven’t slept in too long and therefore don’t realize they’re being irrational, is that the others are almost certainly going to insist on playing again next year. Something about optimal hiding spots. Next year, though, he swears: he’s not calling them eggs.

5,705 notes - Posted April 20, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

general writing advice, actually: you don’t need an excuse beyond “BUT WOULDN’T THIS BE COOL” to write something into your fic. write things in solely because they make you cackle with the delight of a 12-year-old-boy playing with his dinosaur toys. it’s fun and there’s nothing stopping you or any of us at all any longer.

20,415 notes - Posted February 25, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[plow-and-propose]

Orange Flags (found in any post but especially ones about politics)

We don't always have the time and/or energy to do our own research, so here are some things to watch out for:

No sources. Obviously this doesn't 100% guarantee that the post contains misinformation but it does mean you can't easily verify it. Is OP right? Wrong? Outright lying? You don't know!

Contradicting sources in the notes. Again, doesn’t necessarily mean that OP is wrong, but you should absolutely do your own research before sharing if several different people are providing contradictory evidence.

'Unreliable' sources. What constitutes as unreliable depends a bit on context but be especially wary of unsourced screenshots (could be taken out of context), clearly biased sources (e.g. 'Nationalist News of [Country]' type newspapers), and second hand sources (e.g. a different, unsourced tumblr post).

Minor mistakes. Like an incorrect statistic, an exaggerated number, or a omitted detail - something fairly small. Maybe OP just misremembered or forgot about this one thing, but it could be a sign they've made an error or lied about something far more major.

Urgency. Obviously there is a lot of reason for urgency when dealing with crises, but if a post gives you the vibe of go go go there's no time to explain share this give money do it now don't think about it go then OP may not have stopped to check their sources, or even be actively using urgency to mislead you.

And lastly here's a tip: if you're not sure, save the post as a draft. More information might become available later.

Stopping the spread of misinformation is hard. We all want to help and sharing posts feels like a very quick and easy way to do it. But it's also very easy to share the wrong thing by mistake. Try to stop and think.

Source for this post: my own experience. These are things I've picked up over many years of being gullible online. I highly encourage you to take the time to educate yourself about how to stop the spread of misinformation.

[onecinder]

i love john doe's queerness in telltale batman

I'm gonna mostly be talking with my canon ending in mind, which is Bruce keeps being Batman and stays friends with Vigilante John.

But John Doe is like.. legit one of the only sympathetic, human jokers we ever got. I don’t count Arthur Fleck because we are left feeling horrified and sick in the end, no sympathy left at all, even if he started out so. In The Killing Joke he is also slightly humanised in the final moments when he refuses help -- a brief lapse in his insanity -- but thats like a breadcrumb. He’s still evil. But here in Telltale Batman, yes he ends up fighting Batman or Bruce and locked up in Arkham no matter what choices you make, but HE’S STILL SYMPATHETIC. The game wants the player to feel guilty and question their choices if they chose Villain Joker path, and STILL feel guilty and make efforts to better help and understand John in the Vigilante path. Especially since you can choose to keep John as your friend and Bruce visits him in Arkham. Bruce doesn't treat him like he's irredeemable, ever (unless the player decides he's gone too far. But it's telling that the friendly option is there, so the devs deemed it in-character enough for Bruce. At least in Telltale, His two greatest rules are that he won't kill and that no one is irredeemable.)

Anyway, no matter what you choose the player just feels bad for him, because although he is capable of manipulation and murder, the situations he is put in are just inherently unfair and tugs at your heartstrings -- if you have a conscience. In vigilante he was genuinely trying to be a good guy. We didn’t get that with any other Joker. We never got a joker who was friends with Batman (except lego batman kinda) and had an actually close relationship with him who wasn’t depicted as doing it for his own benefit, manipulating him, crazy or sick. He has a downward spiral just like Arthur Fleck but totally retains that humanity Arthur ends up lacking. He is canonically queer but he isn’t demonised at all, the player knows he was in love with Bruce (canon: "all i wanted was to be loved by you" along with several comments on Bruce's awesomeness and handsomeness) - but it was never outright depicted in a twisted light (there were undertones, such as John admitting he just couldn't say no to Bruce, and of course Bruce's manipulation of him, but that's a rant for another time. At least the relationship was authentic) Actually, it was the only GOOD influence on him since he was surrounded by criminals straight out of Arkham. And it wasn’t even that Bruce didn’t reciprocate ("you broke my heart, John"). Just that the circumstances didn’t allow him to.

Although Bruce was ultimately the one who influenced John onto the villain path (and the one -- not Batman, but Bruce -- who John loved) I don’t think the player would once think their relationship was a bad thing. Hell, at the end of the episode we got statistics - - iirc, the VAST majority of players (95% maybe? Correct me if I'm wrong) expressed regret over what their relationship could have been and told him they were of course friends once upon a time in their final moments in Ace Chemicals, vigilante ending.

Joker is usually depicted as a mass murdering psychopath, to varying personalities and characterisations. His queercoding has just been another aspect of his character lending to his insanity, and he's just pretty much been a prime case of the demonisation of queer people. (ofc there are exceptions like Lego Batman, where it's this love between him and Batman that ultimately saved the city, but yk the vast majority.) And of course there are moments like this where he's very clearly depicted as a creep (not sure which comic it happens in though):

John has been confirmed by Kent Mudle (director of the series) in a Tumblr ask to be bisexual. But unlike normal queer Joker depictions, John's queerness didn’t make him a villain, it was just a part of him, one of his many characteristics that made the player love/cherish him. Their relationship, John's gayness, was never a bad thing, it fostered a relationship with a person who tried to help him rehabilitate, had his best interests in mind and tried to help him become a better person... albeit, in Bruce's way. But hell, he was (hetero)romantically pursuing Harley and that turned out way worse than Bruce’s influence ever did.

IDK, I just love how for once his queercoding (well, it's canon but not in-game) is a good thing, never a demonisation -- and the bad parts of his and Bruce's relationship was not a result of the queerness at all.

[chaosandthe-deadblog]

hi i’m that one person who was upset about a sonadow sex joke you made. let me preface by saying i’m not here to argue or scare you but to apologize.

you don’t have to respond to this at ALL i just saw your blog name and felt guilty for hurting you.

im sorry about upsetting you and reacting the way i did. i still think its eugh and everything. but i just get upset when people make jokes about that with characters previously stated to be minors because of personal trauma and people sexualizing me as a kid and just morals in general. of course i know that i can’t control how people enjoy their stuff, and i know it’s going to exist regardless. but i want to at least know if who im interacting with is someone i don’t want to talk to due to being a proshipper or whatever stuff like that.

i wasn’t trying to ‘cancel’ you or anything. i was upset and said something in the moment. i’m sorry. i should have just unfollowed and moved on. i should’ve saw the human i knew behind the screen but what i could only think of was a random person i didn’t know. i’m really sorry.

well, anon, i accept your apology. but also i dont. so let's take this one by one, okay?

first of all. you're still wrong, and i'm still angry.

it wasnt a "sex joke", i was commenting on a uquiz someone else made, because i found the sheer fact that sonadow of all ships was included in that quiz to be really funny. not to mention, the uquiz was based on statistics from ao3, and i guessed the correct answer by just knowing how shipping culture works. i thought this was funny. you know, people are allowed to find suggestive humor funny, even if you're uncomfortable with it, anon.

but i'll humor you. lets say i was doing the things i got accused of doing. big deal. i don't think you're wrong for being upset, much less for being uncomfortable, but one: could've settled this over dms, two: not everyone is you. not everyone is uncomfortable. not everyone cares so much. i didn't give that joke more than two seconds of thought, you clearly did, and i don't think you're wrong for that, i think it wasn't my problem.

secondly, and this will sound horrible, but (like i said) your discomfort isn't something i (the people running that oc poll, and my followers, by the way) needed to know about. i hear you, anon, and i'm sorry that all that happened to you. i understand the discomfort. but, like i said, we could've settled this in private, you could've at least told me which mutual you were, and no one else had to know.

third: i am not a proshipper, and i don't appreciate that you're still calling me gross, by the way. this isn't an apology if you're not accepting you were wrong. i'll humor you again and say that i was doing what you say i was doing: it is not that serious to me, and i don't like being called gross for something that is just plain, morally neutral weird (not good, not bad, neutral weird)

and fourth: thank you for at least recognizing what you should've done. however you didn't do that. from what i understand, based on what happened shortly after your anon, you went to the person running that sonic oc poll (which, whatever, i was losing anyway), and you lied about what i was doing to get me kicked out. good on you for realizing that was wrong. but you know, i'm still angry. im banned from many fandom events now because you couldn't just unfollow me. so i'm glad you realized it was wrong, i accept your apology, but i'm still very much angry with you.

i'm glad you're sorry, i'm glad you're recognizing i'm a human being (okay?) and i'm glad you at least tried to apologize. don't call me gross, apologize for real, and next time don't do this to someone through tumblr anon over whats essentially a common ocurrence on the sonic fandom, and every other fandom

(by the way, even if we weren't mutuals, you shouldnt do something like this to "a random person you don't know" either, but what do i know right? and "because of my trauma" isn't an excuse, because by that logic you also generated trauma in me, because now i'm fucking paranoid about everything i fucking post. i can thank you for that.)

have a nice day.

by the way

[neurodiversitysci]

Why do other ADHDers like Russell Barkley?

I keep coming across posts on Tumblr and Reddit complimenting him. The most recent comment I read said something like, “he’s the only one I’ve come across who actually gets it!” 

...Why?

I’ve read a few of his articles, and he talks about ADHD the way “experts” in the 90′s and 2000′s talked about autism. He explicitly likens ADHD to brain damage. (Yes, executive dysfunction can be caused by both brain damage and ADHD, and yes, a long time ago, ADHD was literally called “minimal brain dysfunction,” but we’re long past that now). He could not have more of an “outsider” perspective on ADHD. 

Frankly, Russell Barkley sounds like a jerk.  

What his fans say about him, and the quotes they share, only reinforce this impression.

I get it, he has historical importance, as one of the early ADHD researchers and the one to champion the diagnosis of ADHD and bring it to popular attention. (And--if anyone remembers what initial popular stereotypes of ADHD were--he probably therefore has a lot to answer for). Similar things could be said of Simon Baron Cohen regarding autism, though. 

I am willing to honor Russell Barkley’s historical significance, but can’t we move on to a new, less insulting generation of ADHD researcher-experts?

He knows what executive function is, and what happens when it goes wrong. He knows the statistics where people with ADHD are more likely to get into car accidents, are more prone to alcohol and drug abuse, and pretty much every other negative life outcome. This is important information, and it’s clearly been eye opening for a lot of people, but he’s not the only person sharing these facts.

(Also, does it occur to him to compare negative outcomes for people with ADHD to the negative outcomes for people with other disabilities? Does he consider the possibility that we get in trouble, not only because of our impulsivity and executive dysfunction, but also because we live in a world that treats us as broken and shuts us out of school, work, and health care we need to function better? I really, really doubt it.)

So, I do a massive double take every time I read another ADHD’er praising Russell Barkley. What are they seeing in him that I’m not?

11/8/22

[drbased]

Another Takedown: We're with the big boys, now!

So I happened to spy a copy of the International Socialism journal, issue 157 published in Winter 2018. On the front cover there is a rainbow trans symbol and the title of one of the chapters: Marxism, feminism and transgender politics by Sue Caldwell. I thought wow, this is it, this a defense of genderism within a socialist framework. This'll be my undoing, finally I'll be able to recognise that my terfism is wrong. This isn't randos on tumblr anymore. So, I buy it, turn to page 25, and begin my journey.

And gyns, if you've read those randos on tumblr, I can assure you that there is nothing new here. I'm going to take apart this whole thing. So this is gonna be a long one, folks.

In August 2017 Donald Trump tweeted that transgender people1 were no longer welcome in the military because they are a “burden” due to “tremendous medical costs and disruption”.2 This was the latest in a series of attacks on transgender people which include attempts to overturn legislation that allows people to use the toilet for their preferred gender. Transgender people face the threat of violent attack; 2017 is on course to see the highest recorded number of killings of transgender people in the United States.3 In the UK transphobic hate crime has tripled in the last five years, while prosecution rates have dropped and transgender people report lack of trust in the police. More than a third of transgender employees say they had to leave their job due to discrimination in 2016.4 A survey released by Stonewall reports that eight out of ten trans school and college pupils had self-harmed and 45 percent had tried to take their own lives.5

1 I am using trans or transgender as an umbrella term to denote people whose gender identity does not match their birth sex, and this includes non-binary and gender fluid identities. When I use trans man or trans woman I am referring to people who have transitioned from female to male (ftm) or male to female (mtf) respectively, regardless of whether they have had any medical intervention. I am aware that these terms are contested and that meanings may change over time. 2 Thanks to Alex Callinicos, Joseph Choonara, Gareth Jenkins, Laura Miles, Sheila McGregor, Judith Orr and Camilla Royle for their comments on this article in draft. 3 Human Rights Campaign, 2017. 4 Yeung, 2016. 5 Weale, 2017.

Hmm. So, right off the back, I think it's a bit of a reach to describe 'banning from military' as an 'attack' on transgender people. I mean, first of all, you're a socialist journal. You're supposed to be materialists, right? Not being made to fight in a war is saving someone from an attack. I know this is a nitpick, but this is what we do, here: we deconstruct narratives and analyse how rhetoric is employed to achieve an affect. A socialist journal uncritically parroting liberal, egalitarian rhetoric? Love to see it.

Now, the '2017 is on course to see the highest reorded number of killings of transgender people in the United States'. So, first of all, kinda curious there's no number used here, right? Why not use it? This is clearly, off the bat, a persuasive piece, so really go for it. The statistics and facts are on your side, right? So what's that really hard-hitting number? 29. Up from 23.

'Some of these cases involve clear anti-transgender bias. In others, the victim’s transgender status may have put them at risk in other ways, such as forcing them into homelessness.'

Hmm. Look, I'm not going to belabour this point, because it's been done by better people elsewhere. Statistically, that's not a significantly high number, even for the transgender population. And it's nothing compared to the murder of women and girls in the same year. But let's talk about what's not being said, here:

Considering how little it takes for a person to ID as trans, there's no reason to assume these people were presenting in any way that makes them a target.

To belabour that point, you guys know we still live in a homophobic society, right? You guys know that homophobic violence still exists? How can you be sure that the motivations have anything to do with gender and not sexuality, considering how often those two things end up being linked?

As better women than me have pointed out, black transgender women in prostitution have the highest murder rate. That's a lot of overlapping risk factors. And in this statistic, a good number of these are people of colour, specifically black people.

Including killings of transgender men is really, really icky, considering how we already have an epidemic of violence against women. But it makes up the numbers. Because, for all the supposed compassion for trans people, this is more of a numbers game than anything else; a desperation to prove the unprovable. And even then, when you make the bar to entry this low, the numbers still aren't particularly powerful enough, so instead they're obfuscated with a really lazy 'highest recorded number of killings'.

A similar rhetorical tactic is used with 'In the UK transphobic hate crime has tripled in the last five years'. So, I couldn't find the source for this one, but you know what I did find?

The law recognises five types of hate crime on the basis of: Race Religion  Disability Sexual orientation  Transgender identity

HOLY

SHIT

BATMAN

MISOGYNY ISN'T EVEN CONSIDERED A HATE CRIME IN MY COUNTRY???????? Transgender people have only been in the public eye for less than a decade whereas FIFTY PERCENT OF THE POPULATION, A POPULATION KNOWN TO BE VIEWED AS PROPERTY SINCE THE BEGINNING OF RECORDED HUMAN HISTORY, DON'T HAVE A RECORD OF HATE CRIMES AGAINST US IN THIS COUNTRY?

ARE

YOU

FUCKING KIDDING ME????

OK, WE NEED TO STOP RIGHT HERE, I'M DONE BEING COY.

Is there anything we can do about this? Is there anyone in the UK who knows anything about the law who can help get misogyny recognised as a hate crime?

[luckyladylily]

I don't think vote withholding strategies are effective, or even pretending to withhold your vote, but if you absolutely must there is a wrong and right way to do it.

Wrong: Yell about not voting for biden on social media. No one is combing through Tumblr to see if bajorfag34 is angry about Israel. Unless you can get a me too level social media movement going no one cares.

Right: Register to vote. Until you are registered you are already assumed to not vote, so "withholding" your vote is meaningless. Make sure to volunteer your demographic information. Self identify as democrat.

Once registered, make sure to participate in any and all political surveys you get the chance to respond to. They are annoying, but that is what poll data comes from.

Make calls or send letters or similar to all your representatives on at least the federal level (congressmen, senators, and president minimum). Research their position on Gaza. If they are for or against a ceasefire, say you will or won't vote for them accordingly. Mention you are a registered voter. Make it clear you will change your position if they change theirs. Send such letters regularly.

Vote in the primary if you can for anyone who isn't biden and is pro ceasefire. I genuinely don't know if we will have the opportunity. At the very least, write in "ceasefire".

Vote in the general. If you absolutely can't vote for biden, write in "ceasefire". It may or may not be a non issue by that point, but it is important to clearly indicate why you are not voting biden. Make sure to vote for all other issues on the ballot, make sure you vote for anyone on the ballot that supported a ceasefire.

If you want to take in system action of this sort then this is basically the minimum of what it takes to actually communicate that they lost a vote from you. If you are not serious enough to do most or all of this then statistically, which is all that matters to them, you were very unlikely to have voted for Biden in the first place or the reason for your non vote will be lost in the noise.

[tuiyla]

"#and people can be so fucking performative about mertina but that's another topic"

can you talk more about that? I have noticed some people on reddit resenting Faberritana’s popularity because three of them are white (and one is viewed as the epitome of pretty privilege) and another is a slender, lighter-skinned and mixed-white Afro-Latina (aka Hollywood’s “acceptable” version of a black woman, akin to Zendaya) and while that’s a discussion to be had, imo some in the fandom take it too far and suggest that racism, colorism and fatphobia are the main reasons why they're the four most popular female characters on Glee in general and idk that also rubs me the wrong way.

Yes of course, because it can be a controversial topic but honestly fuck whoever takes issue with me saying this.

Like, let's start off with this: I get that the Faberritana thing can be annoying. I myself find it grating, particularly when I see stuff from the height of the Glee fandom 2011-2012 and it's very clearly centering on Faberritana, at the expense and exclusion of the two other main girls who are less conventionally palatable for, let's be honest, racist and fatphobic reasons. And Glee itself was very, very bad at centering them. So like, I Get It. Faberritana feels like elevating the three white ladies of the group and "allowing" Santana to also take on that fan favourite role. I'd wager, because of the queer storyline and yes, Naya's undeniable conventional attractiveness. Although I do take issue with the baffling backlash people like Zendaya face because shifting the blame onto women of colour for Hollywood deeming them more screen appropriate is in itself fucked up. Particularly in Naya's case because her mixed heritage was constantly ignored to boil it down to something more easily consumable, such as in the context of Glee her being the token Latina and her Blackness all but erased. But anyway.

The answer to this being this, like you say, taking it too far and creating a counter movement is just all wrong. To me. Not only because putting some women down to elevate others NEVER should be the fucking case oh my god it's 2023, but because appreciation for Mertina being born out of spite towards Faberritana enjoyers is... not real appreciation. I could start stanning St Berry sooo hard but if it's just because I find Finchel more and more repulsive, that ain't gonna be the great win for St Berry I sometimes see people posit Mertina appreciation as. I know this sounds strange but it's the fandom equivalent of trying to make an ex jealous via your rebound. You're not actually taking the rebound's feelings into consideration. Alright okay out of left field simile but you get where I'm coming from.

I think that's what annoyed me the most in my reddit days, which, *shudders* are thankfully over. This childish need to counterbalance to take extreme. X ch is popular? Well I don't like them so there must be a moral reason as to why they're The Worst, actually. Y ship is well-liked? I'm going to passive-aggressively show appreciation for Z shit all while implying that all who support another ship hint hint wink wink are Wrong and basic. I think all who spent time on the sub will be able to relate to this. But like I say, that's not real appreciation. If you feel like showing appreciation for, say, Mertina because they're statistically less like to be talked about with the same fervor, good! Please do that. But make it come from a place of authenticity or I, for one, will not be able to get fully behind it.

It's slightly different on tumblr. One, because you curate your own dashboard and experiences and I've fortunately seen the love get spread around a lot more. There are entire blogs I associate with loving Tina (hello tumblr user @tina-cohen-chang) and though Mercedes love is less "centered", I guess, it's ubiquitous as far as I see. And sure, some chs will always be more appreciated than others, but I don't see people throwing a hissy fit about Artie not being even close to being as popular or Klaine, or similar things. Liking the Glee boys is basically synonymous to liking Klaine + Sam + Mike but people never used the term Klainesike so I guess that's okay. And to be clear, it is okay! Like who you like, call it what you want. I'm happy to see things like Tina week or the relatively smaller but constant portions of Mercedes love. It's never the people complaining about Faberritana supplying it, though, which is why it's so performative. You don't have to be a content creator, no one does, but also no one owes you anything and supporting less fan favourite-y chs out of pure spite just makes you look like an ass.

Circling back, even with all this said I too find the unironic use of the Faberritana portmaunteu cringe and I do think Mertina deserve more appreciation. And I think there are layers of racism as well as the show's own issues playing into why that isn't the case. They were less featured and that in itself is a problem. And that's worth investigating within fandom circles. But that's never what happens when the people of reddit complain about Faberritana's popularity and instead it just becomes this resentment party where no one wins but they give themselves brownie points for even pretending to like the Black and Asian women of the show. Congrats I guess, real win for intersectional feminism right there. Really kicked racism in the gut with that.

Basically it just becomes grating, far more grating than unironically using the term Faberritana, when people get into petty passive-aggressive counter-movements in fandom. It becomes not about love for Mertina but bitterness that chs they happen to not like are popular. And I know I just said in my reply that I don't vibe with what I perceive to be inauthentic appreciation of chs, but I also don't like when fans start policing within fandom. So I'm not doing that with anything I'm saying, in fact what I'm trying to get at is to enjoy and let enjoy. Heaven knows I don't have the energy to spread all my Glee love equally and that's okay. I do try to express the love I have for chs other than Santana, or other than my usual suspects but at the end of the day, I know what I like and I like it because I want to enjoy it. Getting sort of off topic, anyway, so just like stop be an ass about people's love for things and mind your own business. If your own business is liking thing X then that's great, enjoy the fandom content and create your own if you wish, but why be mad about what people like about a 10 year-old show, particularly if you're too lazy to actually have those discussion about race and gender and other larger societal issues. You know?

[your-mom-friend]

*grabs your face and smushes your cheeks* listen to me

I am about to tell you things you need to understand. You ready for this?

You are average. You, darling, are an average human being. Another statistic. one among billions.

Isn't that wonderful? Let me explain

Think about all those posts you've seen thus far. All those weird little quirks or anxious thoughts you've had. Somewhere you've likely seen someone else expressing that they've done that too. Look at how many notes those posts have. Hundreds? Thousands? Your experience is not unique.

It's not unique!! Do you understand what that means? It means you've never been alone! You've never ever been alone and all over the world are people who have experienced exactly what you did!

Your intrusive thoughts do not make you immoral! Your impulsive thoughts do not make you dangerous or stupid! You don't have to feel bad about the bad thoughts because look! That silly tumblr post had an actual person behind it and they talked about it and look! Tens of thousands of people agree with them! You've never been alone!

You know what else that means? You can reverse engineer this shit! Now that you now just how average you are, you can use this! No one's going to care that your hair isn't perfect! You know why? Because you wouldn't care if you saw that on someone else! You would maybe notice but you wouldn't judge them as harshly as you do yourself!

Don't get me wrong. Everyone is unique. But it is not our experiences that make us unique. It is not the existence of such experiences that make us unique. It is the arrangement of experiences, the sum of them, the reaction of them and the number of them that make up who we are. It is your gorgeous gorgeous brain that truly makes you unique. It is the way you think and feel and react to the human condition that makes you so uniquely you. But darling, you don't ever have to worry about being alone. Because in one space or another your particular experience is common enough to talk about.

Don't be afraid of helping people! Some people are anxious about helping people. They fear they are overstepping a social boundary by helping a stranger when they haven't asked for it. Some may react negatively. They might take offense. But don't let this deter you! You are one among millions and so are they. But you may be among different millions. Do not lose the ability to help people in the fear that they might take it the wrong way.

If you were struggling, say, with filling out some bank forms. Too anxious to ask someone to help you because well what if they judge you? But think about it from their perspective. If someone were to come up to you, clearly embarrassed, asking for some help to fill out some forms because they don't understand, would you turn them down, if you could help it? If you new how to help them, would you turn them down? Probably not. Which means, that if you ask someone, they probably won't turn you down either. Or if you see someone struggling silently. What would you do if you were in their situation and someone lent you a hand? Would you judge them for trying to help? if, in this case, you wouldn't, then they probably wouldn't either. Don't be afraid to lend a hand.

My personal saying is that you should, whenever possible, try to be someone good that happened in someone's day. Be that guy that stopped to help someone pick up fallen groceries. Be the girl that talked to that old security guard that is usually ignored. Ask him things. Be the kid that helped a girl fill in her first debit card application. Be the guy that made silly faces at a kid on the bus to entertain them on a boring ride. Be someone that gets fondly recounted to parents or friends when someone talks about their day.

[thephantomcasebook]

'People are looking for this show to fail, no one is expecting season 2 to be good.' Why are so sure of it? Most people online were happy with season 1 and there were many comments on how it redeemed Game of thrones, it's still a mystery to me though, because many scenes would fit seasons 7-8 of GoT, like, Rhaenys breaking the floor with her head, Cole murdering a guest the wedding and getting away with it, etc, the writing was far from perfect, yet people liked it a lot. You criticize the promo, but many loved it as well, Olivia and Emma are popular, twitter and tumblr love them together. If anything, I'd guess WB and HBO would continue to do what they were doing because it clearly worked, people love Rhaenyra and Daemon and team black, they are the main marketing attraction, their social media and the book that were released barely had any pics with the greens, but a lot of Daemon and Rhaenyra.

I know that I go on these epic, Kevin Smith style, long winded rant posts.

But this one will be pretty short.

To Quote Paul Atreides

"Truth is in the streets, not in this parade of Sycophants who flutter around this palace with their meaningless statistics and empty ritural."

Simply put:

Twitter and Tumblr is not real life.

At no point, since their inception, has these sites represented even a majority of the true beliefs, likes, or tastes of the general public. There are many entertainment companies that are finding that out the hard way when their money has drained away trying to impress and appease the relatively small cast of people on these sites compared to the general public.

A majority of people, off tumblr and off Twitter, don't like Olivia Cooke. Some of it is Alicent hate - true. But a lot of it is because she is seen as a smug and patronizing asshole who plays girl activist while lecturing people from her cushy expensive London flat. Emma D'arcy is seen as an aloof grifter who identified as a woman for over 30 years, but once she couldn't break big into entertainment, changed her pronouns, and suddenly got cast. And then used it to be just as insufferable and sexist - entitled is the word used.

People on Tumblr and Twitter eat that shit up, because, they're people just like them. But if you go off the sites, talk to real people - especially people covering media and behind the scenes - you get a completely different story. You have to get out of your own echo chamber and look and investigate a little deeper.

I'll wager with you, right now, that if they pursue the twitter and Tumblr crowd and what they like, this show will be cancelled. If they put Olivia Cooke and Emma D'arcy together in the media tour, they're gonna be behind the eight ball. If they lead with talk of Patriarchy, this show is gonna be cancelled.

You, and they, Nonny, do not have any clue how fucking ugly this could turn on a dime. If they put a foot wrong, if they continue to push social political messages, if they even fuck up, just once, Youtube will excoriate them to the end of time. And unlike Twitter and Tumblr, Youtube is an important platform because a majority of people watch it. And if the Youtubers come for this show, it will be the end of it.

I cannot stress this enough. Warner Brothers is out of money. They are 50 billion dollars in debt. They don't even have the budget to release more than 2-3 movies a year now. Dragons are expensive, battles with dragons are extremely expensive. They have basically cancelled all of the other spin-offs. If this show drops audience below the target, Warner will kill it. They have delayed the show three times now with requests to rewrite the scripts.

This is House of the Dragons last chance.

I'd say I wouldn't gamble it on what Twitter and Tumblr likes.

[wonjns]

tamed studies ✐

🖇️° pairing; xu minghao x male reader

🖇️° genre; smut 

🖇️° summary; classic trope of the mean idiot and the patient tutor... but uh, did i mention the tutor was a super sexy chinese exchange student who happens to specialize in brat taming??

🖇️° includes; bottom!malereader, dom!hao, degradation, orgasm denial, slight impact play, swearing, fingering, unprotected sex (dont irl!!)

🖇️° WC; 4.3k (oh my god)

° AN; this was a request !! i feel bad because i was asked to do this forever ago but i’m glad to be posting my first requested work. i tried to make it longer and worth the read in order to make up for taking so long to write it. im not rlly ur everyday tumblr blogger or fic writer so its exciting for me ! lmao @megggegg

you were,,, a brat. sort of. 

no, not sort of, you were actually just a jerk. and severely spoiled.

highschool life was hard, and college life proved itself to be even harder, especially now that you attended one of the highest reputable universities in the nation. you were up to your neck in classes, and while you performed decently in most of them, math was a travesty. being the freshman that you were, your parents had big expectations and high hopes that you would follow in the oh-so-successful footsteps of your older brother, junhui, who was in his senior year. 

jun was a prodigy - a so called “genius” by your parents who would sing his praises constantly for his ability to excel in every academic subject he touched. naturally, due to his success in school, your parents expected the same of you. every brunch and social that was held in your family’s country club would somehow end up in your mother preaching about how ‘her two beautiful sons were going to become the best doctors the community as ever seen’ - and when your skills clearly weren’t up to par with your older brother’s, it caused you to grow resentful to both him and your parents, the feeling being quite reciprocated. 

you became frustrated that no matter the amount of shopping sprees or days off you took, you couldn’t seem to settle down and wrap your head around statistics. instead of remaining level-headed and talking out your struggles with your family, your pride forced you to swallow it all up and only express yourself through tantrums... much like what you were doing right now.

“AND IF YOUR GPA DROPS EVEN A SMIDGE LOWER, WE’RE NOT PAYING FOR YOU TO ATTEND SCHOOL ANY LONGER!” your mother shouted as you stomped your way up your home’s marble staircase, attempting to dismiss yourself from yet another argument. 

“YOU WOULDN’T DARE! your little reputation couldn’t handle the embarrassment when all your friends find out.” you spat.

“that’s damn right! you’re getting your education one way or another, so its best you get ready for community college then.” your father joined in at your mother’s side.

you froze in place, hand lingering on your door knob. community college?! you almost threw up in your mouth. you let out an exasperated yell, slamming your door. the echo of the force travelled down the hall to jun’s room. out of curiosity, he steps out from behind his own door and sees your parents huffing away back to their own chambers. he cocks an eyebrow and walks down to your room, knocking gently. 

“y/n? what was that all ab-” he speaks lowly, but you cut him off, your voice still very much shouting. 

“go the hell away!”

“well damn, dude, I just wanted to ask what was wrong.” he quips. 

“thanks for you concern, asshole, but I don’t remember it being your business.” you call back, sinking your head deeper into your pillow as you scroll angrily through your phone.

junhui sighs and goes downstairs to calm your obviously seething parents, aiming to talk them down from making any rash decisions for you. despite your attitude, jun was a pretty sweet older brother, and knew you just needed a bit of help rather than be withdrawn from university all together. 

it’s not like you cared though.

⊱────────────────────────⊰

one week later, you heard another knock at your door.

making sure to groan in extra loud annoyance so that whoever was on the other side knew they were already pissing you off, you sat up in bed. you heard the knock again, this time followed by your mom’s voice. 

“y/n, come down stairs. now.” was all she stated before walking away. 

what could she possibly want at 1:00 in the afternoon? you grumbled, throwing on a hoodie before literally rolling out of your king sized mattress. you shuffled your feet along the floor as you walked down stairs. 

as soon as you reached the common area, your eyes slightly widened as you were greeted with the sight of a tall, tan skinned boy with round glasses sitting on the edge of his nose. he set a large assortment of textbooks down at the table next to him as he conversed with your parents. you simply stopped in your tracks as you stared at the.... admittedly beautiful, man.

his hair practically shined in the natural lighting, and his shoulders were broad. his lips were plump and the perfect shade of pink, and you couldn’t tear your eyes away from his sharp jawline or the way it would flex when he smiled or how his adams apple teasingly bounced when he chuckled at something your parent’s said. 

it seems you were caught in the middle of your trance, as your dad waved his hand from where he was standing. 

“y/n?” 

you blinked a couple times as you snapped out of it, realizing you were biting your lips. you slightly blushed when you noticed all of their eyes were focused on you, especially this new stranger’s shining orbs. 

“who’s this?” you speak up, adding slight attitude in your voice to cover up your obvious gawking. 

“this is minghao, a friend of your brother’s. he’ll be your new tutor until you pick your grades up.” your mom replies, and the boy slightly bows his head while he smiled down at you. 

“T-TUTOR?” you gasp, a bit over-dramatically. “what the hell do I need a tutor for? i’m not in elementary school.” you claim, stomping your foot down. 

“well until you stop getting these third grader scores on your tests, this is what we’re doing. you start today, and you don’t have a say in the matter.” your mom chimes in, never dropping her snarky smile. 

“today!? it’s saturday-” 

“anyways,” your mother continues, interrupting you. “we’re going out for the day, but jun will be back soon. we told him you should be well into your lesson by the time he’s here, alright?” 

“yes, maam.” minghao chimed enthusiastically, giving her a thumbs up. 

you rolled your eyes and groaned once more, huffing out a sigh when you at the at large table with all of the textbooks. when your parents left, minghao took a seat across from you, sitting as if he were waiting for you to say something first. 

“you have a beautiful home..” he finally spoke, looking around and spotting the chandelier above the staircase.

“yea yea, that’s what they all say. you can just get on with the bullshit, i guess. it’s not like i’m gonna pay any attention.” you respond in a bored tone, propping your head up against your hands.

minghao furrowed his brows at you as you tried to avoid his eyes, but you couldn’t stop yourself from awkwardly peeking. the older male sighs and spreads out the textbooks before mumbling something about getting started, opening the first book. it read statistics - an instant turn off for you. 

30 minutes into the first lesson and minghao peered at you, catching you on your phone for the umpteenth time. he sighed, setting his calculator down. 

“listen, I know you don’t wanna go through this, but your parents are trusting me to make sure you don’t fail another class. I sit next to your brother in a lot of our classes and he’s practically a genius, so I know you have it in you too.” 

you rolled your eyes yet again, narrowing your gaze at minghao. his eyes sort of sparkled, looking a little too cute as he pleaded for you to cooperate, but this only stirred you to piss him off more. you smirked as you ignored him, bringing your phone back up to your face. 

this caused minghao to scoff in disbelief. 

“y/n, look at me.” he spoke, causing your grin to grow wider as you ignored him. 

however, he opened his mouth again and this time your smile dropped completely. 

“look at me, now.” 

the tone in his voice was completely different - much lower than previously and demanding. you looked up from your phone and chills ran wild across your skin from the glare you caught from him. his eyes lost their sparkle, and instead looked like a deep, dark brown abyss. 

“put your phone down.” 

you could’ve swore a spell was cast on you, because you dropped your phone on the table just a little too fast for your own liking. this caused a shit-eating grin to grow on minghao’s face, one that lit your skin on fire. 

he stood from his seat, leaning across the table closer and closer to you. he stopped a couple inches from your face, and his vanilla cologne surged through your senses. 

“that’s a good boy... why are you listening so easily now?” he asked as he picked up your phone, putting it in his pocket without moving his face any farther from yours. 

you gulped, trying to get back in your groove. you furrowed your brows at him, scooting back on your own accord. 

“s-shut up. I’m just finally ready to get this lesson over with so you can get out of my house.” you sneered. but he wasn’t buying it, not one bit. 

he sat back into his chair, eyes never leaving you. the truth was that he caught how in between your attempts to ignore him, he followed how your eyes lingers on his long, beautiful fingers when he would turn the page or type in the calculator. minghao was very observant, and it was biting you in the ass.

“come over here and sit by me.” he ordered, patting the empty chair next to him. 

“no... and give me my phone back!” you retorted. 

“you need a closer look at the reading. the sooner you just listen the sooner you can tweet all you want.” 

you sat in contemplation for a while, before groaning and getting up. you made your way hesitantly around the table before placing yourself in the seat beside minghao. you were growing annoyed of yourself - why were you caving for his demands so easily? 

he sat and stared at you for a while, a smirk evident on his annoyingly handsome face. you parted your lips to ask him what was his deal, but before you could utter a sound he reached out and grabbed one of your chair legs, scooting you closer until your shoulders were merely centimeters apart. he then leaned down to your ear, speaking lowly despite you two being the only ones in the house. 

“i know your problem... you’ve just never had anyone simply take control, have you?”

you felt your face turn red, and you instantly scooted back from him.

“wh- what the hell are you talking about?!” you ask, sounding almost offended. 

minghao did nothing but chuckle and drag you right back into his space before casually turning back to the textbooks. he resumed the tutoring session as if nothing happened, meanwhile you tried to stabilize your breathing. you had no idea what this dude’s problem was, but he somehow had an excitement bubbling deep down within you. 

an hour goes by, and like magic you’re suddenly more intrigued in the lesson. it was like he had you under hypnosis with his cologne, because you slowly followed along when he spoke and were understanding more of the material. 

then, he began to quiz you. he asked you to solve a formula for him, and when you actually managed to identify x correctly, he brought one of his large hands down to rest at an exposed part of your thigh - thanks to your small gym shorts. your breath hitched when he squeezed it gently, offering you praise. 

“nice job. now look at this graph and....” 

his voice trailed off in your mind as you couldn’t get your eyes to leave his warm hand at your thigh. it felt so soft, and encased your leg so effortlessly. his thumb rubbed the smallest and softest circles into your thigh as he spoke, but stopped when you heard your name called once more. 

“y/n? did you hear me?” he spoke, pretending as if he hadn’t caught you lingering on his hand. 

“o-oh, yeah, whatever. it’s right here.” you answer, pointing to a spot on a complicated looking chart. you were fully guessing, but didn’t want him to know you were distracted. 

“wrong.” 

this time, he squeezed your thigh with stronger force, causing you to gasp. 

“the hell are you doing!” you call out, scooting back out of your chair. 

minghao was fast, though, because before you could actually move away he caught your wrist, pulling you in and quickly situating you on his lap. you squirmed, but didn’t exactly try to leave as he brought both hands to massage both sides of your thighs this time. 

“you were doing so good, what’s wrong?” he whispered from behind you, his warm breath against the nape of your neck causing visible goosebumps to rise. 

you gripped the table infront of you for stability, trying your best to keep a whine from leaving your throat. 

“I-.....I.... uhm, I-” you stuttered. you were desperately trying to find a witty comment to spit out, but it was like you completely lost your mojo, how frustrating. 

“next question,” he spoke, lightly nipping your earlobe with his teeth. 

you flinched, and genuinely couldn’t speak. his scent and ministrations into your soft thighs were completely overriding your ability to focus. he pulled the hems of your shorts back so that he could massage higher up on your thighs, the sensation causing everything he was saying to fade into the background of your mind as it started hazing over. 

“know the answer this time?” you heard him ask, and nervousness overcame you when you realized you hadn’t heard a single thing he’s said. 

you began mumbling, eyes trying to make sense of the worksheets in front of you. you feel his hand reach around your front before landing on your clothed bulge, which, much to your embarrassment, had already grown into a hard erection.

minghao chuckled loudly, “no wonder you can’t concentrate, you’re all worked up. aw.” 

he gave your member one good quick squeeze, the stimulation causing you to yelp in shock. your hand shot down to grip on to his wrist, your breathing becoming labored. you tried to look over your shoulder at him, but his free hand came up to cup your jaw, forcing your head back to the textbook. you suddenly felt his own hard-on straining in his pants, pushing into your lower back.

“minghao, i-” 

“i hope you get this next one right... or we can pack it up and call it a day?” he spoke, his voice holding a teasing tone. 

“n-no! no, i can answer it.” you responded, sounding way too desperate.

he bit his lower lip in a smirk, and went on to explain the next formula and percentages normally, as if you weren’t propped on his lap. when it was your turn to answer, you felt utterly clueless. you struggled enough to even pay attention to each word that fell off his tongue in the first place

“answer me, bitch.” he warned, his grip on your cock from the outside of your shorts slowly tightening again.

“n-n-nintey two! the percentage of x is 92″ you fumbled out, squeezing your eyes shut as it was practically guess work. 

“...excellent job.”

you let out a sigh of relief, loosening your tight hold on your calculator. you felt the exact plump lips you had admired this past hour and a half begin placing light, feathery kisses down the back and sides of your neck, minghao releasing his hold on your member. you whined at the loss of feeling, but your breath hitched as you felt him beginning to pull at your short’s drawstrings. you sat completely still while his lips worked into a soft spot on your neck, and he untied your drawstrings at an agonizingly slow pace. 

you forced yourself to maintain your breathing when he finally loosened them, slowly reaching into your pants without a word. he began palming your bare length as he kissed harder into your weak spot, sucking a red mark into your throat. you moaned, wondering how you even found yourself in this situation, yet not wanting it to stop. 

“maybe you’re not a dumbass after all, just a little slut.” he murmured into your skin. his words made your skin feel even hotter, but it still sprung your attitude right back into action.

“I probably would’ve gotten them right sooner if I had a tutor who wasn’t a horny asshole.” you respond, leaning your head back on to his shoulder as his hands work you. 

however, he stopped all his movements, groaning as his teeth sunk into your soft spot. you whimpered at the jolt, almost regretting your comment as you bucked your hips into his frozen hand desperate for more of the pleasure. 

“is that so? let’s keep going then.” 

he brought his hand away from your erection and gripped your jaw again, forcing your head up and at the math problems before you.

minghao went on to read out the graph to you, but this time brought his tongue down to your collarbone, drawing circles into your sensitive skin in between his sentences. you squirmed under him but he gripped your hips still, making it impossible for you to seek any kind of pleasure on his lap. 

you took deep breaths in between his pauses as he took his time ravaging your exposed skin, moving your hoodie aside so he could claim more territory with colorful marks. you dug your fingers into his legs, begging him to get on with it. he chuckled quietly before licking his way back up to your ear before finishing the word problem.

“so? whats the solution, little boy?” he asked, his hand finding its way back into your pants. he stroked along your length as you gathered up the willpower to speak, the pleasure becoming too much to function. 

your mind raced, hopelessly looking for clues to the answer. you tried to focus, but as the long silence dragged on you felt yourself inching closer to your orgasm, finding it impossible to keep your eyes racked on the calculator. when you couldn’t handle it anymore, you summoned an answer out of thin air hoping it was correct so that minghao could just finish you off, you were so close. 

“t-...the solution would be to plug the integers into the denominal fraction!” you sputtered, minghao’s hand speeding up its stroking. 

just as you gave your answer, your felt minghao’s face draw next to your ear, and keys jingling at your front door - your older brother jun stepping in. 

“incorrect.” 

and he ceased his actions, pushing you off his lap. 

⊱────────────────────────⊰

ever since then, you were obsessed with your tutor. you’re not sure if it was the thrill of almost being caught by junhui, or the frustration of having your release so cruelly denied by minghao, but each week it seemed like you would get worse at math intentionally. 

the brattier you were to minghao, the more dominant he was with you - and it was intoxicating. it was a constant back & forth in the secrets of your own studying whenever it was just you two in the house, although you found it pretty hard to control yourself that one time in which junhui was still upstairs. 

this week, the house was empty and the textbooks hadn’t even been opened yet before you were straddling minghao’s lap and making out. he barely had time to set his bag down and take a seat before your lips were quick to take action, devouring each other. his hot open mouthed kisses caused your mind to gloss over, moaning wantonly when his tongue pressed against yours. 

when you ground your hips down on his semi-hard bulge, his hands wrapped around your waist to keep you still. you whined at him, trying to chase the friction. 

“we need to start our lesson for the day.” minghao sighed. “your results last week were good, but we have a lot of work to do.” 

“nooo,” you fussed at him, squeezing his shoulders. “i don’t care about the math anymore, let’s take a week off.” 

you continued to aggressively kiss him before he could protest. however, minghao soon peeled his lips away from yours, the satisfying sound ringing in your ears. 

“no breaks. you need to behave, y/n.” he warned, which only made you giggle before diving back into his plush lips.

god, he tasted amazing. your lips worked eagerly against his before you felt a hard smack on your ass. you jumped, whimpering at the sting his large hand caused you. you looked minghao in the eyes with an angry pout, and that only landed you another spank on your other cheek.

minghao shifted you around his lap until your back was pressed against the wooden table. he brought a hand up to wrap around your throat, forcing you keep eye contact with him. 

“are you ready to be a good student now?” 

you shook your head, growing aggravated. you had studied so much and now all you could think of was your brothers sexy best friend whom you willfully let control you each week. you needed him, badly. and he knew it. 

minghaos hand never left your throat, and you watched his eyes study you, contemplating what he should do next. eventually, he released a slight hum, an idea seemingly coming to him like a light bulb. 

“alright, fine.” he finally spoke aloud, pushing the textbooks off of the table in one swoop. he then stood, holding your underarms to lift you from his lap on to the table. 

“if you can pass a pop quiz, we don’t have to study today.” 

you eagerly nodded your head in compliance, cooperating as he pressed a hand to your chest and lowered you until you were flat-backed on your table. he began stripping you of your pants and boxers, leaving your bottom half exposed to the cold air. you licked your lips when you watched him start to remove his belt, but felt your excitement grow dim when he stopped after only undoing a few buttons.

he crawled on to the table, one hand resting next to your head as he hovered over you. the other came and started palming your exposed cock, allowing it to grow hard. when your eyes wandered down to watch his ministrations, he called your name sharply, shifting your attention back to him. 

“you get 5 chances.” he told you, and you nodded.

damnit, those were the hardest questions of your life. 

you had managed to get three wrong right off the bat, and minghao sinisterly chuckled at you each time you whimpered at him grinding his clothed hips to your needy and exposed bottom half. 

“you dumb bitch... only two chances left.” he taunted, wiggling his two fingers infront of your face. he then took his two digits and prodded them at your lips.

you sighed when you took his elegant fingers into your mouth, swirling your tongue around them like a melting popsicle. your eyes rolled back from the satisfaction. he withdrew his long fingers from your mouth earlier than you liked, and began sucking on them himself. your face grew beat red at his actions, but you felt your cock twitch at the sight. he then reached down and lifted your legs around his hips, teasing his coated fingers at your entrance. a moan of desperation escaped you.

“tell me about the theory of probability if you can, little whore.” he demanded, circling one of his fingers around your bottom. 

the teasing and degradation almost made you moan, but you forced yourself to stay composed, as you were finally confident in an answer. you stilled your breathing and delivered the definition without breaking eye contact. he smiled at you.

“good job, baby boy.” he replied, his demeanor instantly softer as he placed a kiss on your nose. 

and without another word, he slowly sunk one of his coated fingers into your entrance. a loud moan drew from your throat, and you could’ve came from just that pleasure after being teased so much. but, even your bratty demeanor was scared to go against minghao’s wishes. 

he asked you another question, and you almost exploded in joy when you also knew that one, earning you another finger. the stretch wasn’t painful but it was doing its job, causing you to feel full from his hands alone.

“last one, baby. what happens when N is even in the variance formula?” 

you, being on the verge of your high once more, grabbed the back of his neck and brought his ear down to your lips, whispering the answer to him before licking the shell. he groaned, a smirk growing wide on his lips. 

“shit, prince, you’re a genius.” 

the tall male instantly removed his fingers from inside you, and shimmied off his own pants. your head was spinning when he plunged his erect member into you, instantly grinding with exact precision. 

you couldn’t stop the moans from falling past your lips, and only grew louder when he leaned down to suck sulaciously on your adam’s apple.

“I hope junhui comes home early to see his little bitch of a brother being such a good boy, such a smart boy....” he purred into your ear in between littering hickeys on your neck and chest while rutting into you.

the pleasure was sending you to cloud nine, to the point that you didn’t even care about the probability of someone actually coming home early and catching you. all you knew was that tutoring was probably the best investment your parents have ever made.

© 𝐟𝐥𝐰𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐢 — all rights reserved

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

Thank you for answering my question. This is what I come back to. People think Jimin and Jungkook are in a relationship based on stuff from official content, not seeing them in the street on their time off. There is almost nothing outside of official content that adds to that belief, that I know of. So by analyzing content, would you say that you are indirectly adding to existing speculatory discourse about their orientation? Can those things ever be separated? Even associating with Jikook blogs and saying you read the discourse, you hint at a personal belief. I believe you believe they are not straight men, correct me if I am wrong. Talking about art and intent is worthy. A lot of blog readers are mostly in these spaces to hear their Jikook intuitions supported and that is not a crime either.

Another question I consider important is what role does personal identity play in criticism? Should being non asian or non queer, for example, be a factor of consideration for people sharing and expressing their ideas? I am going to be honest and say that I think it matters who is saying what. I like to know who I am reading. This is not to be gatekeeper about it. If you want to decenter western concepts of 'queer' from discourse about Korean performers that is commendable no matter who you are.

Is it bad that a critic's identity matters in how I recieve their criticism? I don't want to shut anyone out. But before I delve into someone's ideas, I like to have these cards on the table. Is that bigoted? I am not saying I value the critique of white, cis, non queer people less. I have experienced feelings of alienation reading criticism at times. Just look at the statistics for how many published film critics in the western sphere are white and male. Shouldn't that affect how we think about popular criticism? Thanks for taking timewith these questions. I understand how they might recieved as invading of your privacy or identity. Please feel free to ignore of course.

Anon, I got your other ask telling me that it's not necessary to publish this if I feel uncomfortable to talk about my identity. It's good that you reconsidered, realized why it's not ok and you are more than capable and have the option to choose what you want to read. I didn't answer your questions not because I was uncomfortable, but because I wanted to take some time and really think about what I'm going to say. I'm addressing it now because I want my position to be very clear for everyone because I will not repeat myself.

I will break down your ask in two parts:

All I did was to write about GCFT and how a piece of media can be analyzed. I also said that I'm aware of what is written on jikook blogs and from what perspective. But from that to immediately assume I have some beliefs is a long way to go because I never talked about this and I never will. I don't believe in anything, I look at content and write about what I see. I only plan to write about MMA Black Swan performance in the future as an artistic act that involves JM/JK and I will back it up with references that will sustain my point on view. I am aware of all shipping content (from multiple ships) that exists in this fandom and of course I know the one that involves Jimin and Jungkook. I would have to be completely ignorant and not be aware of what's been going on online to not figure that one out. I will also not address the type of content and information that is used by people who speculate and write about them, there are numerous blogs and twitter accounts who do that. This topic ends here as I clearly stated my position on what type of writing I will be doing.

I don't think my identity should be disclosed in order for my opinions to be valid. It's just that, an opinion on tumblr, nothing more. You have the right to choose what you want to read based on your own criteria. I do not hold such a view when it comes to criticism. What's important is the approach the critic has, how informed a critic can be on the topic they're writing about, regardless of racial or sexual identity. Not to mention that this should not be a demand. I certainly never had to do that or expected to see such information when I read something. And last but not least, I may write posts using criticism, but this a blog where I just publish my thoughts. Sometimes I do a bit of research, other times I just state my opinions. Everyone is free to be ok with it or not.

[formerprincewille]

I think it is far too easy to fall into the trappings of confusing a minor issue like "Ava is not in the promo pics much" with major issues like "Ava's bullies got to tell their stories instead of her" and "Ava is statistically the least likely to be given the benefit of the doubt or arouse much interest from a core audience like druck's, so it is so much more frustrating that her story has been so poorly handled and severely diluted by the writers". There are some legitimate issues that are unique to Ava's character. It's all fair and well that Ava had a lot of screen time during s6, but when the resulting effect was that the audience reduced her to her flaws (note: except many tumblr fans who are an extremely small part of the overall audience) rather than taking some of that time to educate themselves on matters that could've helped them better understand Ava's reactions and experiences - what good was that for the character and an audience who clearly show their that they have a conscious/unconscious bias against her?

Therein lies the problem. For example, in s6 Ava was clearly presented as in the right by the writers during the conflict with Mailin. Yet many felt that Ava was harsh or felt bad for Mailin. Or they knew Ava was right but wished she handled it better. But that’s the thing- the choice was to either have a storyline with white privilege and how it’s super prevalent (pretty much universal) and how it affects black people, and it was made more complicated given that it was one of Ava’s best friends who was doing it. Or they could’ve dropped the storyline completely. You are absolutely right that there is racial bias against her (though I would never say it’s the reason for everyone who doesn’t like her, that paints too broad of a brush). But that can’t be controlled, clearly not, because you had audiences still feeling more bad for Mailin even though Ava was right. So is the solution to not have the storyline? Or to make Mailin an outright villain? It’s not a situation that you can really win because you can’t control how a (mostly white) target audience is going to react to a storyline like that, especially given the implicit bias that a lot of white people have. Even with Ava calling Mailin out, and Nora explaining that Josh gave her books to help her understand better, and Mailin apologizing and saying she was wrong and trying to educate herself, and even the writers literally saying the audience should be sympathetic toward Ava and educate themselves, a lot of people still didn’t. You can’t force that to happen just because it’s the right thing to do. I think the reason Mailin was used in that storyline as opposed to a stranger or a villain was because white privilege is so common and that it affects ALL white people, including good-hearted and well-meaning ones. 

And yes, they really did fuck up the bullying storyline and really gave her the short end of the stick when it came to that. It should’ve been a much bigger conversation, and though I was totally OK with her forgiving Isi and I liked the clip itself, we should’ve gotten a lot more. But after that happened, as unsatisfying as the resolution was, where else was there to go with Ava’s story? The conflicts that she had mostly stemmed from the bullying and they resolved it (albeit poorly). They also gave her a relationship in someone else’s season. They also gave her a music storyline. They also gave her the white privilege storyline. They also explained that she moved in with Nora and Zoe because her parents got divorced. All of these happened in other mains’ seasons. So what is left to explore? Huelk?? On top of that, there are many characters who barely got any development at all over the course of three seasons. Like Finn, or Zoe, or Mailin. Even Josh, who played a big part in Nora’s season, got no real development himself. There were a lot of things that could be explored that were not brought up or resolved in other seasons the way that they were for Ava. This is why I didn’t think we would have an Ava season. Because why do these things in the seasons of other people if they were going to give her her own? There was so much rich story to tell with her if they had waited on the bullying and white privilege stuff. A lot of people don’t agree, but giving her a season “just because” doesn’t really make sense either because they would have to make up another conflict for her to have. And given that she was already centered in so many of the conflicts it probably would just make things worse in the fandom. As much as people moan over missing the old writers, they were also the people who made Ava central to the conflicts in both season five and season six with the cashqueens. And giving her her own season and actually having to make her legitimately flawed (because all the mains are in some way) would not result in more people warming up to her. What they really need are black writers. Because white people are not equipped to write black characters if they are delving into racial issues. Do I think they should have handled Ava‘s character and storylines differently? Yes. Does that also mean that I think no other main character has a story to tell and that it’s unacceptable for anyone but Ava to have a season? No. 

[feuilletoniste]

Yeah so this is obviously some transphobic bullshit on its own, and normally I’d just block the op[1] and move on, but something stuck with me. “Tumblr [...] is a primarily female space”? That doesn’t seem right.

Unfortunately it’s not exactly easy to find demographic statistics including gender for Tumblr, since the site doesn’t ask for that information upon signing up, and there aren’t really any site-wide polls with reliable information. This report states that: “Tumblr does not ask for gender information when a user signs up. Furthermore, although it does ask for user age, no independent verification is done, and Tumblr believes that the age information is unreliable. Therefore, it is a challenge to create ground truth labels” (Large-scale Gender/Age Prediction of Tumblr Users, Zhang et. al., 2015).

(Source: “Percentage of U.S. internet users who use Tumblr as of 3rd quarter 2020, by gender,” Statista)

As you can see in the above graph, around the same number of Americans who identify as male use the site as those identifying as female, according to this particular online panel with over 2000 respondents above the age of 15.[2] Web traffic from the US only makes up a little under half of the total accounts on Tumblr (a little over 47% as of Jan 2021 according to SimilarWeb), but it’s by far the largest percentage (the second-greatest percentage of traffic comes from the UK, accounting for only a little over 5.6% of the total hits); the remaining approximate 52% is scattered between 251 countries.[3] Because of this significant gap, I think it’s safe to say that the US data can safely act as a rough stand-in for the total demographic makeup.[4]

(Source: Quantcast report on Tumblr demographics, 2011)

The Quantcast analysis, once again, only reviews US data, and is fallible, but in this report we can clearly see that male-identified users constitute a slight majority.[5] An article from the Pew Research Center again supports the argument that Tumblr users are approximately equal in terms of gender,[6] stating that, “Unlike other social media platforms, Tumblr users are equally divided between men and women. Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest all are more popular among women; men are slightly more likely than women to use Twitter” (5 facts about Tumblr, pewresearch.org, 2013). This also opposes the claim in the original post that “most other social media” is male-dominated in terms of percentage of users.[7] (A similar report from Business Insider in 2015 also supports my argument.)

And finally, an article from TechJury once again corroborates the idea that the gender demographic makeup of Tumblr is approximately split evenly: “According to a survey from January of 2019, 27% of canvassed male internet users from the US stated that they are using, or have used Tumblr. [...] Tumblr gender statistics from January also found that 14% of female internet users from the US are familiar with Tumblr” (TechJury.net, Statista).

Anyway, I don’t have a good way to wrap this all up, but in conclusion: I don’t think the actual statistics support your claim that Tumblr is a “primarily female space,” so even setting aside the transphobic bullshit of the rest of the post... yeah, you’re wrong.

[1] Which I did anyway, I just also screenshotted the post and went hunting for more information. [2] Age demographics are an entirely different beast. [3] All of which contribute individually between 0-5% of the total traffic. [4] Which, let me remind you, does not exist. We do not have those data. [5] These data are from 10 years ago, mind; a more recent Quantcast report from 2013, allegedly surveying a representation of the entire website, found a 56-44% divide in favor of female-identified users. [6] Excluding those who don’t identify as either male or female, but that’s a topic for a different post. [7] In terms of loudness or prolificacy, that’s another story.

[jbbuckybarnes]

We need to talk...

I knew that this topic of interactions will come up again, because it has never been talked all the way through, so I had this drafted for a while. So much of this old draft still resonated with this permanently unfinished discussion that I just had to edit it and post it, because I feel like it has to be said and put into one post. We can’t keep starting this conversation and then make it so dramatic that there is no conclusion or compromise. The only reason this time is more mellow is because people have better standards for this stuff due to a pandemic going on. This is written for the MCU fandom, but I’ve seen this go down in different fandoms, so here we go:

Things that are NOT at fault for readers not interacting:

The Readers. Should be clear after asking them again and again. And nothing changing. The readers at large are not at fault for a couple people being demanding or hateful. Neither are they at fault for this website and other social medias automatically putting writers at a disadvantage. They do their best with the time they have in their life (just like writers). And after asking them over months to try and reblog more and not much changing, it should be obvious that it isn’t where the problem lies. At least not 95% of it. NOW:

Things that ARE at fault for readers not interacting:

Pushing them, thinking they owe you stuff, while you tear other writers down saying that nobody owes them stuff. That happens time and time again. To me, to friends, to writers I check in with. Don't expect community to come to you when you don't come to them.

Not putting anon asks off when demands and hate get too much. It’s literally THAT easy when people get nasty. It’s sad for the nice anons, but they will understand. Save your mental health! Save the mental health of people reading that hate on their dash. I don’t know how many people constantly answering to hate I have unfollowed and I’m sure people have unfollowed me for doing the same.

Ego and hypocrisy. You can't say numbers aren't a problem and then say they are. In the same post. AND then also deny it later in some of the cases we’ve seen in recent months. Yes, that happened. In several fandoms where this topic comes up semi-regularly. And that might also be the reason people are tired of this stuff and speak out against it.

The fact Tumblr is only used approximately twice a year by most people. And has a shitty tag system. And a shitty algorithm. You are at an automatic disadvantage.

The fact some of you can't understand that 3-5% of your following interacting is a good and normal rate on pretty much all social media. The bigger you get in followers, the bigger the gap gets between followers and interaction (and demand and hate). There are literal statistics on that. 1% interaction at 10k is still good for a platform you have no power over!

The fact some of the people here call anons *haters* for pointing out that you interact w the same 10 people, making that speace seem excluding, when it's literally true what those people say!? Nothing wrong with only support the same 10 people on your blog, but then don't say that you practice what you preach (cause you don’t). You can’t demand more interaction when you don’t interact more yourself. That is how it works, for anyone, not just people of a certain follower count. If I reblog more fics, my blog gets more clout. Logical conclusion. Works for everyone. You have no time for that? Then don’t expect more back. It’s called SOCIAL media for a damn reason.

Telling people asking for Tumblr advice to interact more to make new friends but being the most defensive/indifferent person once they talk to you in DMs. Yes, that keeps happening and I know it from either my own experience or from others sharing their experiences with me. It’s kinda sad. It’s more of a minor factor in people not interacting, but I’ve seen it enough to mention it.

Making shitposts and personal posts all day and then saying you don't have the time in your life to interact w peoples' writings. Like, drabbles exist on almost anyone's masterlist. 5 minute read, easy support for a writer that might be losing motivation. Not every work has to be written like a novel to be great as hell or “quality proven.”

Oh, and there hasn't been a MCU movie in a while, making most of our readership probably currently not care about the fandom as much. Especially after Endgame ended up being a total opinion splitter.

Bonus: The misunderstanding that pushing shy readers to interact does the exact opposite. Not to start about the fact that we are in the middle of a pandemic at the moment. That means they may not have time to read and you may not have time to write. Normal. Logical. The same reason lots of people currently don’t publish. Don’t expect anything predictable and controlable out of current times.

Bonus: Check how you connect interactions to self worth and worth/fun of your writing hobby. Define what success means for you in this space, otherwise you will never be satisfied. It won’t matter if a post has 1k reblogs, you’ll always want more, because you chase an infinite metric.

Bonus: Maybe take a month to concentrate on community, getting outside of your bubble that you deny but very likely have (I’m not excluding myself from this), and actually improve interactions. Some people seem to have forgotten that when you interact with other writers, they probably interact back. Surprise! Your followers already know your tried and true fanfic friends, they want some new stuff without searching for it. Basic Marketing knowledge, know what your audience wants. If you do this for the interactions you gotta look at it from a marketing standpoint and not a pure passion standpoint. Oh: And maybe they find you interacting in the notes of someone else’s post and become an active follower. Win-Win-Win situation.

Bonus: Community is a loop, a net of interactions. Some people here have clique behavior, sound defensive and/or simply don't practice what they preach. That is not me or anyone else hating on specific blogs (I’m also no complete exception), it’s people trying to tell you that you can’t ask for shit you don’t practice yourself. Nothing wrong with supporting your friends only, but then don’t go around expecting new people to find your stuff. It’s literally THAT simple. You can’t have both!

Bonus: Ignoring some of the ride or die readers that are already there. Some of the people on here wish they had that and it’s deadass taken it for granted by some. Meanwhile I'm sitting here with Serotonin levels like christmas when someone I know reblogs my stuff and my fic gets some clout. Imma repeat myself: If you do it for the numbers, you gotta look at it more like marketing and less like pure passion.

And again: You are on a social media platform that will always put you at a disatvantage. That is not the readers' fault. It's how social media works at this point. If you want as much interaction as you can without putting in more interaction work yourself, simply share your works on here, AO3 and Wattpad simultaneously. Problem solved.

Bottomline: If you want more love on your work you gotta go beyond what you currently do, since it’s clearly not working for you. Reblog stuff from people you don't know. I don't give a sh*t if it's a 5k or a 100 follower blog. Hell, there is the whole 366 reblog challenge and some of you deadass went on reblogging the same people when that’s not really what this was made for. I, personally, haven't run out of new people to reblog, so this shouldn't be hard. Actually take time to talk to people in DM's, it takes 10 minutes in the evening to write a few people a message asking how they are or sending a cute gif. If you want stuff, you have to give it. Not leave it. People have come to me before, telling me "the community doesn't owe you stuff", no, they don't, but they do owe if they wanna be owed something back or even demand to be owed something back. Community is about back and forth. You give, you get. It's work, cause it's a big hobby. If you don't have time, that's cool, but then don't be sad about lower interaction. It’s logical that low activity from you leads to low activity from others in the long run, unless you do something worldshakingly new. You don't wanna look beyond a circle of friends or your go-to writers much? That's fine, but don't be upset about barely new people interacting cause they feel excluded or simply don’t find your work because of the same people seeing the same people reblogging the same works. What's not fine is not seeing how readers are NOT THE PROBLEM.

I haven’t talked to a single person about this that DIDN’T find the posts surrounding it demanding and completely ignoring the arguments some others had...repeatedly. Every single time it came up. Not just once but time and time again, whenever this topic comes up. You want interaction? Interact. You don’t want hate? Don’t give it a platform. As harsh as that sounds, I’ve never felt better on this platform since I put anon asks off, even when I miss the nice anons. They probably understand. PS: Again, this was written a while ago and edited to fit into a more general context now. I hope people can discuss this in a civil, non-judgmental way, because that is how I tried to write this. This is not again a specific person or group, it’s pinpointing what I see repeating for two years on this platform now, in all corners. I’d also like to mention that we are still in a pandemic and lives have never looked so vastly different, so you can’t demand anything normal in this very not normal time. Even if you do it all right, your interactions dropped in the pandemic cause people likely stay away form this platform for mental health reasons. There is so many layers to look at, these clearly aren’t all, but I hope it makes some people think about what and when they complain. Numbers will never satisfy you, they will always leave you wanting more if you don’t know why you do what you do and for what. Anyway: Be nice to each other and me in the notes in case this gets shared! No drama please! Ignore any grammar and typo mistakes, lol. Love ya!

[werevulvi]

So I've been away from tumblr for a while. Not sure how long. Maybe a month? I'm writing a book (fiction) so I've been and still am busy with more fulfilling distractions from reality than social media. The book I'm writing is about a woman, Olga, who's transitioning like me, but then she's an assassin. I don't wanna get into all the itty gritty details of that until I'm done, but writing that book has been serving as a great distraction from my gender issues. Except I need to take breaks from my hyper-focused super intense writing spree at times to not accidentally boil my brain. What? Is working on a project for 10+ hours a day, every day, for over a month a little much? Sorry I can't hear you over my autistic hyperfocus. And those breaks get me tossed right back into... mostly dysphoria. That’s what I wanted to rant about.

I know this is an unfair accusation, but sometimes I wonder just how paranoid and anxious feminism has made me. I fully abhor victim mentality, but sometimes reading feminist posts, articles, etc, about the various evils of men (crime statistics, female victims' accounts of male violence, etc) makes me feel... like a victim, and hopeless, for being female. And it requires a lot of effort to dig myself out of that pit. I need to remind myself that I can trust men, that most of them are not violent, that they're not the real enemy, and that women are not so different from men. Otherwise what? Otherwise I'd give into my PTSD and get drowned out by my dysphoria.

PTSD says all men are dangerous and want my pussy, either to harm it or fuck it. PTSD says it's my fault I'm a victim of sexual trauma, because I am female. And I dunno why, but sometimes feminism echoes that sentiment, and that's not great for my recovery, or my long term pursuit of happiness. Dysphoria says I'm too different from men and that's why I hate being female. Dysphoria doesn't want any special treatment just because I'm female. Feminism echoes what my dysphoria says, sometimes, and that's not great. Dysphoria wants equal treatment. Receiving equity due to my "failed" sex feels like... I dunno, like wanting to crawl out of my fucking skin and set it on fire, I suppose. Bad female skin humiliating me. Because that again reminds me that my sex being female is what's wrong, and not the treatment of women as "weaker" and more emotionally frail. Then my solution is to get rid of my femaleness, so that I can be strong, fast and free. Independent enough to open a fucking jar. I feel trapped in the unfairness itself.

I still want to be different from women, not from men. I want to stand out among women, and I'm jokingly boasting about how I'm such an NLOG (Not Like Other Girls) and proud to be different, in masculine ways. I'm proud to be hairier, having a deeper voice, and that female socialization didn't stick to me as much. And likewise, I feel good when I'm similar to men, blend in among them, am compared to them as an equal to them, and that I managed to pick up on some male socialization. This is more subconscious, and not something I really think about.

I still wish I was male, and that impossible dream still hurts, I guess. I've been trying to distract myself from those thoughts by writing my book and... having sexual fantasies in which I am male. Clearly my own home made therapy that made me connect somewhat with being female (3 years ago) was ineffective in the long run, but now I can't possibly make myself believe I'm a man again, just because I still/again wish I was male. It comes and goes, yes, but it's seemingly in a curvy line that over time points me in the dysphoric direction, and not in the desisting direction. And that's what's so hard. That I basically have to force myself to this realization that... I can't talk myself out of my dysphoria, and that that little bit of connection I got to my sex 3 years ago, was an appetizer for a meal I'll never have. That feels cruel.

And I keep telling myself I don't have dysphoria. Nah, I'm just transitioning for the heck of it. If only!

I don't wanna be trans, and I don't wanna be dysphoric. I wanna be male, but that's different. I can't even see myself as a man simply because I am not male and can never be. Thus, I'm a woman, and unhappy with it. Yet, I clearly can't function as a woman socially either, and that frustrates me. I'm happy that I can look and sound so convincingly male in my appearance, and I'm really excited to go back on testosterone, but I... I feel trapped, in a medical condition I cannot escape. And it doesn't matter what fucking caused it, it's not going away! Point is it's not going away! I've tried for sixteen years! I am tired! And now I can't even call myself a man without laughing all the way to hell and back.

Everyone wants to be trans nowadays. Everyone who benefits from a new label. But I don't. Clearly I don't have an easy time with it, and it might be because I just have a shit ton of sex/physical dysphoria, and not even calling myself a man helps. It just adds insult to injury. I don't wanna play pretend, goddamnit, I wanna be a real boy! That's "problematic" to say, because I shouldn't shatter other trans people's dreams. Well, mine's shattered and I wanna whine about it. I don't blame them for their identities. How could I? Ignorance is bliss, and I miss bliss.

I think that's why I feel like I'm a woman who just wishes she was a man, and kinda always have. I wrote it in my diary when I was 16, four years before I even came out as trans, before I knew anything about trans ideology or gender critical or anything, but I knew I was dysphoric and fit the loose criteria for FTM transsexuals, and I didn't like that verdict. It felt like a death sentence, and now... now it feels like a cruel joke.

I don't think I'm really all that different from trans men. De-gendered, perhaps, but still just as bloody dysphoric and still just as much of a testosterone junkie. I'm just a less happy go lightly kinda FtM. I've always been a bit of a nihilist. The "if you leave the half full glass it will eventually dry the fuck out no matter how much water you keep pouring up into it, because the nature of water is to vaporize" -kinda nihilist, not the "the glass is half empty" -kind. Yes, there is a difference. I'm not a pessimist, I'm a hardcore realist, and reality is... being trans sucks and I can't do fucking shit about it. I want a solution, not rose tinted goggles. But at this point, I'd take that too. I've tried... but they keep falling off.

Perhaps I'm too autistic to get gender identity, or maybe I just don't have social dysphoria or gender incongruence, perhaps it just feels so fucking pointless. Words... they're just blah blah blah. They have whatever meaning we put in them. So I changed my personal meaning of "woman" to include my dysphoria and beard, and since then I'm fine with calling myself a woman. But woman is still just a word. It's what I am that I dislike, not what I'm supposed to call it. My problem is not in how people perceive me. They can perceive me as a stranded jelly fish if they so wish, it doesn't change reality that I'm an adult human female. And it's reality, that biological reality, that bothers me.

And I don't like that I realised that, because biological reality is the one thing I can't change. I can change my identity, but my identity as a woman is not the problem. The problem is my sex is still persistently female. And I don't wanna change what is not a problem. Why fix what ain't broken? I get that my sex isn't broken either (well it might be now, considering I've smashed it with testosterone) but I just don't wanna be a woman. Because dysphoria. No point in arguing. It just goes round and round in circles. I can't make a logical argument for why I don't like ketchup either though. It always comes back to "but I just don't like it."

I just get sad, sometimes, over being female, and uncomfortable. And I get envious of men's bodies, and then I get sad I can't have that. And I try to emulate what men's bodies do, which makes me feel a bit better, but then I remember I'm still female, and I try to be okay with that. Sometimes I even half succeed, and feel like "yeah, being a woman is actually kinda badass!" but then I remember that a cranky uterus and estrogen exist in my body, acting as if they want me to suffer a slow (very slow) death, and I get sad again. Is trying to like being a woman even worth it, considering that's mostly been going downhill since I was 3 years old? Well what the hell are my options, aside from that?! Pretending to be a man? Pretending that the nonbinary labels could do anything at all to benefit my existence?

I'm sorry, but I don't see the appeal, in either of those options. I'll try to just exist. That became my focus; just existing. But I can't distract myself 24/7. Because as soon as I stop distracting myself, for even just a minute, I get caught in the inevitable doom that is my dysphoria, and how hopelessly trapped I am inside it.