#now the same people are making posts and threads about how it's wrong

[riricitaa]

.

[tzuberry]

zerobaseone maknae line as tropes / cliches ૮ • ﻌ - ა

pairing shen quanrui (ricky), kim gyuvin, park gunwook, han yujin + gn reader⠀⠀⠀details fluff, slight angst in ricky’s and gunwook’s, bulletpoint and written

cw getting stood up, mention of lipstick use in ricky’s ⠀⠀⠀wc 738 696 604 802 respectively (2840 in total)⠀⠀⠀reading time 11 min

note title kinda misleading TBH... havent written on tumblr in a while, so this is a new account and my first post! im hoping this doesnt flop :( i loved writing this so much, so if it flops i might just repost it ... idk.. likes and reblogs are appreciated !!! (only if u want to ofc 🤞🏻)

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ricky 리키

blind date... but you got stood up, and ricky is your best friend

it’s not that you really wanted to go on a date, it’s that your friend assured you this was the perfect guy for you

and your friend swore, cross their heart, that you would not regret letting them set you up

but now you’re sitting at a table alone, with pitiful looks being thrown your way by the restaurant staff and the other groups of people around you and it’s clear to you; you do regret it, and this is the last time you’ll let anyone other than yourself handle your love life

after compulsorily buying a meal for yourself so as to not leave the place empty handed, you slowly chew on your food, wondering where it went wrong

did he see a picture of you and decided that was it? did he hear a story about you that was just unflattering? what was it about you that made them turn around and away from the restaurant—away from you?

in the midst of all this, your phone emits a ding! sound. you’re not doing anything important, so you see it fit to check the notification

ricky 😡🐱: how’s your date going?

terribly. but that’s a little embarrassing to admit, especially to ricky...

yn: good! i’ll text you later

you lay your phone down on the table and pick up your utensils once again to finish your meal, but a shadow casting over your plate interrupts you

“why are you alone, then?”

When you follow the voice (and the shadow), Ricky is standing next to your table, his phone in hand with the screen open on your text thread. He turns it off with a swift click of the power button, and he takes the space on the other side of the table where your date should have been.

You don’t know how to respond. You’re embarrassed; a second ago, you were alone at a restaurant filled with people, and now, your best friend has caught you lying to him about being at said restaurant alone.

“What happened?” Ricky asks as his arm makes its way across the table to your glass of water. He lifts it to his lips, taking a sip and placing it back down. He looks genuinely concerned, maybe even a little pissed, but all you can focus on is how your lipstick stain is on the rim of the cup, and how he drank from that same spot.

You shake your head. “I, um,” you pause, pursing your lips and trying to find a good enough (fake) reason. “Nothing. I didn’t like him, and he said he had other plans, so I just let him go.”

Ricky furrows his eyebrows at that. It’s a very visible sign of incredulity; he doesn’t believe your lie. Nevertheless, he simply shrugs it off. “He doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

“Thanks, I guess,” you reply, still dealing with the aftereffects of being stood up. You poke your fork at the food before you; a lost appetite and an expensive meal don’t mix well.

Ricky leans forward, letting his forearms rest on the surface of the table. He’s looking at you so seriously, analyzing your every move. “Why are you looking at me like that?” you ask, attempting to come off as teasing, but he only waves you off. “I just want to look at you.”

You feel yourself practically melt under his gaze, but you ignore it. This is Ricky, your best friend... nothing more. Right. This is Ricky—you should tell him the truth about why you’re alone.

“He didn’t come,” you admit. “I wasn’t super excited about this date, but I thought– I thought I would at least go on a date. This is... nothing. I was here by myself before you got here.”

There’s a pained glint in his eyes. Is he feeling sorry for you? Maybe you do deserve all the pity you’ve gotten today. He gulps, keeping eye contact with you while biting on a small portion of his bottom lip.

After a while, he sighs. “Come on.”

Ricky begins to stand up, stuffing his phone into his pocket before you hold him back by the wrist. “What?” you question.

“We’ll go do something else,” he says with a bob of his head. Your grasp on his wrist somehow turns into your hands being interlocked. “Let me take you on a date. I’ve always wanted to, and I promise I won’t screw it up.”

gyuvin 규빈

boy next door who you’ve always had feelings for, you just never thought of him liking you back

you’ve always liked kim gyuvin

from the moment his family moved in next to your house, with his bedroom parallel to yours

you could see everything through his window; who he was, what his hobbies were, what he admired, and how he acted with his friends

this all made him seem... unattainable. you felt like you were the audience for a show, and gyuvin was the actor

it didn’t help that you went to the same school, and to further that, he was immensely popular

it was obvious. how could you expect that someone like him wouldn’t be? he’s tall, cute, extroverted, funny and kind—the entire package, if you would say so yourself

you weren’t totally unpopular. you had your fair share of friends, a few social circles that you hung out with. but gyuvin seemed too out of reach for you, even if he was your neighbor

the singular interaction you’ve had was when he came over to ask for sugar. it went like this: “hi!” “hi?” “i was baking, and i kind of ran out of brown sugar. do you maybe... uh...” “oh, sugar? wait, i think i do, hold on.”

it was that awkward. so when your mother told you she became new friends with gyuvin’s mom and wanted to have dinner at their house as a family, you freaked

but it’s not like you can say no, so you found yourself at the kims’ door a few days later

“Hi! You must be [Name]. I’ve seen you around, and I’ve heard about you from Gyuvin, but you’re much prettier up close! I know who you get your looks from,” Mrs Kim says, winking at your mother.

“You’re too kind, your son is very polite, and...”

You tune their conversation out—did she say she’s heard about you from Gyuvin? Why would he be talking about you?

Your mom finishes it (whatever she was talking about) off with, “They’d be perfect together, don’t you think?” Mrs Kim nods vigorously, then pats you twice on the shoulder. “[Name], maybe you would want to go spend some time with Gyuvin first? I’m afraid dinner isn’t ready, there’s still a long way... I’ll call you both down when it is. He’s up in his room.”

You bow, excusing yourself and obligingly treading up the stairs. This is the second time you’re about to interact with him—you better not mess up.

On the final step of the staircase, you start to hear talking from one of the bedrooms. From where you stand, it’s not clear where its origin is, and so you try to listen for the voice. It leads you to a slightly open door, and holy shit—this is Gyuvin’s door.

“They’re coming over today, and, ugh, I don’t know,” he rants. Is that about you? It has to be. Who else is coming over? You move closer to the door frame, nearly peeking your head in. “I just– I don’t know how to talk to them! Last time, I went over to ask if they wanted to hang out and...” he trails off, the regret evident in his tone. “I asked for sugar. To bake.” Oh my god. This is about you.

You take another step, risking the possibility of the door creaking. “I don’t even bake! I came home with sugar and my mom asked why and I just said I found some on the street.” He sighs, exasperated. You inch even closer, toying with the chances of him catching you eavesdropping, when... creak. At the same time, Gyuvin’s rant is cut short. “Gunwook, you have to help me, I can’t be an idiot in front of them–”

His head snaps towards the door, where you are, standing and staring at him like a deer caught in headlights. He quickly hangs up, bidding Gunwook a hushed goodbye through the microphone. “How much of that did you hear?”

You swallow the lump in your throat, flattered and shy at the same time. “I think... all of it.”

Gyuvin’s hand raises to cup his nape, and he gives you the most endearing yet bashful smile. “Would you, maybe, um, wanna hang out sometime? With me, of course...”

gunwook 건욱

friends to lovers, and everyone is sure you both like each other but all you do is deny it

you know gunwook like the back of your hand

although you met a little over a year ago, he quickly became a constant in your life, especially because you saw him everyday at school

he would wait outside your class, eat lunch with you, walk you home (and sometimes to school in the mornings), help you with homework even though he’s always busy with all the extracurriculars he participates in, and additionally schedules weekly study sessions together

this led countless people to think you were dating, even though you’re really not

you deny it, making a gesture with your hands indicating the negative. “we’re just friends, he would never be my boyfriend,” you laugh it off. gunwook tenses up, and the corners of his lips suddenly become downturned. “yeah, we’re just friends...” he agrees, sounding somewhat unsure

that’s what happens every single time someone mistakes you for a couple. you’re the first to refuse that assumption, while gunwook just follows your lead

you thought, “hey, maybe he’s just shy around the topic of dating.” and so you don’t push it, or even ask about what he thinks of the rumors surrounding you two

at this week’s study session, which he scheduled at his house, he can’t focus

repeatedly tapping his pen and running his fingers through his hair—doing anything but his homework, really—he doesn’t even spare you a glance

and so you take the responsibility upon yourself to ask. “is something bothering you?”

Gunwook sighs, looking as if he’s internally debating the pros and cons of unloading his baggage onto you. His eyes dart around his room, from the door, to the desk, to the bed, and finally to you, before he swipes his tongue between his lips and lets out a breath. “Can I ask you something?”

You drop your pen. Why does he seem so conflicted?

Readjusting your position on the bed to face him, you lean closer to Gunwook as you shove your school books and other materials out of the way. “You can ask me anything,” you say, determined to comfort your friend.

He visibly hesitates, biting his bottom lip. He’s still not looking at you, and not so much as a second is allotted for one glimpse. “Do you...” he pauses, trying to muster the courage. “Do you really think of me as just a friend?”

The question almost makes your jaw drop to the floor. What does he mean by that? Sure, you did have a short-lived crush on him when you first got acquainted, but it faded instantaneously. You didn’t know you could be anything more—you thought you had no chance with a guy like him, so your feelings were trivial to you.

Tilting your head, you reply, “I’m not sure what you mean.”

Gunwook shrugs, also following your actions and pushing all his textbooks away. “I guess– oh my god, this sounds stupid, but,” he groans, “I’ve liked you since last year, since before we even became friends. And whenever someone asks if I’m your boyfriend, you just– you immediately say no.”

He... likes you? You’re dumbfounded, eyes wide and mouth actually agape this time. You’re certain your cheeks are red, judging from the heat you feel rush up to your face.

At your silence, he continues. “I know it’s stupid. I didn’t just become friends with you because I like you, it’s more than that, but everytime you say I could never be your boyfriend or something like that, I hate it.

“I’ve liked you for so long, and please answer me,” he sounds breathless as he speaks, “Can I... can we be anything more?”

yujin 유진

first love / teenage crush

you didn’t know when you started liking yujin, you just did

maybe it was when you would watch him play soccer after school, with him alone on the field practicing and you doing your homework on the bleachers

or maybe it was when he bought you a drink that one time. you were thirsty after running to school because you were on the verge of getting an offense on your permanent record if you were late one more time

clicking a few buttons on the vending machine, the solace provided by strawberry milk was nearly yours—until you open your wallet to find that there’s only a thousand won inside

“maybe next time,” you think, “i don’t need to drink anything right now.”

but before you can leave, someone sneaks their two thousand into the slot for you, and the milk drops down into the small metal box below for you to claim

when you turn around, you’re met with yujin

and then a switch flipped. since then, you’ve noticed han yujin wherever you went

you stumbled onto the soccer field on a hot day when you were assigned cleaning duty, and you found that he was the only one there

deciding to repay the favor, after spectating him practicing for a while, you go to buy a drink for him too when you buy your own

you leave it next to his bag with a note, saying: “you’re really good! i bought this for you, make sure to get some rest ♡”

and so watching him practice while doing your homework became a regular occurrence for you, even if you weren’t 100% watching all the time. it was like background music, and your interest in him (caused by him buying you milk) became a full blown crush

Following the steps of your daily routine, you hurriedly arrange your books in your backpack, ready to go see Yujin—the best part of your day—when your teacher stops you at the door.

“[Name], I’d like to talk to you about tutoring someone,” she says, a soft smile plastered on her face as if she wasn’t actively ruining your day. “You’re one of my best students, and a classmate of yours really needs help.”

As hard as you tried to get away, you got stuck in the classroom for the rest of the afternoon, discussing possible tutoring times and the topic outlines where your “classmate” needed further explanation. Not only were you annoyed you missed some time to see Yujin, but when you got to the field, hoping he would still be practicing late into the night, he was gone.

Although you were displeased at the thought of having to tutor your male classmate every day of the school week, you had no choice. In addition, he was at least paying you, so it wasn’t like your hard work was for nothing—just that now, you would have to sacrifice your time with the boy you like.

You started to tutor him after school, and going to see Yujin became a rare possibility. Your tutoring was yielding good results, however, and your tutee received high marks on almost all tests after being taken under your wing.

He runs up to you, showing you his paper with a big red ninety-eight in the corner; he got an even higher grade than you did. “[Name]! Thank you, look at this! I’ve never gotten a grade this high!” You nod, but everything he’s saying is going in one ear and out the other. Since he technically doesn’t need your help anymore, maybe you could go watch Yujin today.

You cancel your session for the day, with permission from your advising teacher. After two and a half weeks, you’re finally back at the field—but this time, he’s the one who isn’t here. You let out a deep breath, deciding to power through and do your homework like normal.

You’re in the middle of trigonometry when a cool sensation is pressed up against your cheek, water beginning to drip down your skin. Flicking your head towards the perpetrator, you discover it to be Yujin holding a strawberry milk for you. He giggles, handing you the small box and sitting down beside you. “Here. I haven’t, um, seen you in a while. Why’s that?”

You take it from him, detaching the straw from the back of the box and poking it through the designated hole. “Yeah,” you say, sipping on the milk for a few seconds after. “I started to tutor Jiwon, so I couldn’t come the last few weeks.”

“Oh, you must be busy, then. Nevermind,” he mutters, shaking his head. “No, what is it? You can’t just say nevermind.” You scoff, a teasing grin making its way onto your face.

Yujin gulps. “Will you, uh... come to my game this weekend?”

[user2872]

Context: This thread was about that infamous video of Bryke making fun of a bunch of Zutara fanarts.

This kind of people is why adults like Bryke exist and why most Zutara shippers are so bitter toward the canon events. The fact that 2 grown-ass men decided to sit down and make that garbage, and throughout the process of editing, recording voice-overs and posting the video for the whole world to see, not once did they actually stop and consider how messed up what they're doing is.

"some fans keep harassing me about going the way I wanted" Yes, "some fans" meaning not all the fans who were made fun of and minds if I point out that to one person in that "some fans", they just got publicly humiliated by the ppl they looked up to, after sending like 2 or 3 fanarts that they worked hard to make. Oh yeah, and these fans were mostly teenage girls, btw.

The fact that someone would actually try to justify this type of behaviour while if this were to happen now, the whole show would've been scraped off existence, regardless of how amazing it is, makes me feel sick to my core. Yeah, like Avatar is the only show with a large fanbase and obsessive shippers. Surely no other shows had the same issue and there's totally no other more appropriate way for an adult to deal with it.🙄

And of course, ppl saying their ship is better is such a nasty and hurtful thing but 2 grown men making fun of minors are "understandable" to this person. Ironically, they even admitted that this topic is highly subjective, so why is it soooo wrong for people to express different opinions on the ship?!!!

Honestly, the fact that Atla is a show revolving around minors overcoming their trauma and being understanding and kind toward others and yet, two of its producers actively brought out fanarts to make fun of their underage fans publicly is just baffling.

[wingzie]

Speaking to the media as a UK Army

Earlier in the week I mentioned in a local group chat that the UK’s attitude towards BTS and KPOP overall had changed. It felt like everyone was excited during Dynamite and then interest was quickly lost. Things got worse after the Festa Dinner. Because of previous experiences with a certain boy group, it was reported that the members would never return. These stories were soon edited, but it was obvious that there was a certain bias against the members now. The previous hype posts for them and their new releases were less present. Instead, we have gone back to having to do everything ourselves during chapter 2. 

As I am sure many of you are aware, it has already been a tough week for UK Army. We found out that MUSE had inclusions, making it harder to chart. We got backlash from solos for something that wasn’t our fault and the emails we sent were ignored or received weird responses. We are a resilient bunch though and we continued to promote and gain more funds. I figured that things for us couldn’t get any worse. I was wrong. On Sunday I was sent an article from the BBC by a friend. They asked my thoughts on it and I quickly understood why. Something else worried me though. I recognized the journalist. He is someone that we have history with. He kindly wrote about Persona and Wembley in 2019, but he also sneaked in a line that he thought that the members were miming through the concert. At the time, a few Army tried talking to him about it on Twitter and he was receptive to the feedback. I decided to try and do the same and to do it privately in the DM’s. Something which he told me himself that he appreciated. I spent a good amount of time drafting my message. I made sure that it was polite, but also included the reasons why a certain part of the article was troublesome. During this, a friend of mine also made a detailed thread correcting the misinformation. Once the message was sent, I went on with my day and waited to see if I would get a reply. Much to my surprise, I did indeed get a reply. I don’t have consent to share our messages, but we replied back and forth a few times and he said that he would look into changing the wording. I quoted my friend's thread, explaining that I messaged him privately and that he was working on it. As someone who posts about Jikook on a regular basis, you could say that I am used to getting unnecessary abuse. However, I was not fully prepared for the response to this. As more hours passed and there weren't any changes made, the more anger and hate I received. This greatly confused me, as I wasn’t the one who wrote the article itself. I just wanted to try and help and we had to be patient. 

A day later the edit was made. I messaged the journalist again to thank him and he responded back, explaining that the reason it took so long was because there was a debate internally about the best way to respond. I then shared on TL about the edit being made. It wasn’t the best edit, but that’s all we got. Unfortunately, the hate towards myself increased even more. Some said that the article was my fault, that I failed BTS or that I was an anti. Plus a few words that I daren’t repeat here. Some saw what was happening to me and sent kind support. These included people who I have never interacted with before and I will be forever thankful for that. I also spoke with some about the response of the general public towards the article. The article was heavily advertised so there were discussions in relation to Seventeen going to Glastonbury. This hasn’t been done before so some were curious and some were confused. It was interesting to see the reaction to it, even if it was poorly written. I was personally exhausted though.

This whole ordeal started on Sunday and I woke up on Tuesday still feeling a bit wary of receiving more hate. On top of this, I had gained around 300 more followers from all of this and didn’t know how they would react once I started posting Jikook. If I’m honest, I felt a bit uncomfortable with everything going on. What did shock me though, is that some of these new followers were going through my “pinned” post and liking the threads on Jikook. It made me a bit self-conscious, but I didn’t want it to overcome me and Jimin’s promotions though, so I came up with an idea. 

July is my Birthday month and to celebrate I am doing a giveaway for other UK Army. This gives them a chance to get any albums they currently do not own and to try and boost sales for Jimin at the same time. The UK fanbase don’t really want to be associated with me because of my account, so I decided to do everything myself. To help boost morale, positivity and the community spirit that Army has. Overall, I do not regret reaching out to the journalist. He was rather difficult to speak to, but an edit deserved to be made for the way in which it was written. I appreciate the discussion we had and those that supported me. My focus will continue to be on Chapter 2. Look after yourselves and each other. 

[stormblessed95]

Okay, I know this is inflammatory and if Stormblessed chooses to publish this ask I want all the weirdos out there to know this opinion stands only for me, but if there are parts of the show that lean more towards being “fanservice” (oh, how I loathe that word), it’s not the parts you think.

HYBE has no interest (and no reason to have an interest) in promoting specific ships. If you think that is what’s happening you are wrong, plain and simple. Just… what on earth could they stand to gain from that? BTS are seven or they are solo artists. Corporations care about money and there’s no money to make from highlighting one duo over another, and their content is, to a very great extent, done for the preexisting fans that already fill their coffers.

Are they making money from Jimin and Jungkook doing a travel show? Yes, probably. Would they have made the same money from any other ship doing a travel show? Yes, probably, especially if it involved at least one member from the maknaeline. (They’re simply more popular, I don’t make the rules.)

So IF there’s fanservice in AYS (aside from the members doing and filming things they may or may not have done if they were on their own and I’m not talking about their personal interactions I’m talking about playing with water guns and making up elaborate games, going climbing and riding go karts etc., they might have done those things if there were no cameras but they might also have spent the entire vacation sleeping) it’s reinforcing the OT7 brand. It’s calling Yoongi and Tae, it’s talking about missing the members, its Tae joining the show, it’s calling RM, or remarking that specific members would love this or that.

It’s easy to forget in between yapping solos and shippers fighting over crumbs in the trenches on Twitter that the single most important thing about BTS is that they are seven and that their genuine connection is their lifeblood, AND, it’s important to note, the members also know this. So I’m not saying it’s not genuine when they talk about missing members (after ten years attached at the hip I’m sure they’ve had a weird old time in the solo era) but leaving those clips in the show, highlighting them and using them for voiceovers is a conscious choice, one that flows like a thread through everything they’ve done as solo artists. There’s always a mention or a cameo, a little titbit that connects 1 to the other 6, because BTS are 7.

It's not just you. I'm cosigning this opinion. I'm also adding the fanservice was all the titties given to us 😂 y'all remember when ARMY would lose it over bare foreheads and were seeing JKs tattoos through a shitty microwave reflection 😂

Now, both anon and I are not saying the OT7 bond is fanservice, but it's highlighted within the show for a reason. I'm the reason. Most ARMY are the reason. We all fucking lose it over how much the members love each other. It's not "fanservice" but it's what pulls people in. Check how many "OT7 ARMY" accounts finally started posted about AYS when they would call a member or when Tae joined as proof. Their bond isn't fanservice. Hybe absolutely profits off it though. Let's not get all twisty and offended over y'all reading in between non existent lines here, okay?

[thisismeracing]

Ex | MS47

SOCIAL MEDIA AU

Pairing: black!singer!reader (she/her) x mick schumacher

Warnings: curse words, Twitter environment, breakup, mention of food, pregnancy, it's not proofread, etc etc. Minors DNI!

summary: Y/n and Mick used to be the golden couple in the paddock, that's why the internet went wild when they announced their breakup. Imagine how they reacted when Y/n dropped a song about not wanting to be his ex. Would the couple have any hope in getting back together?

a/n: none of the pictures used are mine, they are all from Pinterest and other apps. everything else is made up by me and I do not give permission for it to be published on a different platform. I would appreciate it if those things could be taken into consideration 💛

my masterlist | my taglist

yourusername

liked by dualipa, mercedesamgf1, and others

yourusername New song is out 🖤 Hope you guys like it!

view all 19,976 comments

schumicedes This feels like such a personal song, it gave me chills!

⤷ yn1990 It's like she recorded a voice message for him and then dropped it as a song.

f1sainzito I still can't believe they broke up, I'm still mourning their relationship

⤷ charleslechair1 I bet they will get back after this song lol

ynprincess I love her but this cover feels so...weird, idk, like it's rushed

⤷ mickeyn someone made a thread on twitter explaining it a bit, but it's basically a picture mick took of her, she wanted to make her message clear and that's why it's so artistically beautiful, it goes beyond the aesthetic

jorjasmith you’re so brave and pure, Ily!❤️❤️

winteryn Yn wanting to be friends with her ex, meanwhile I literally changed cities so I wouldn't see mine again

⤷ cruelsummer1 that's why I feel like they like gave themselves time, not really broke up fr, and now they realize it was not the best idea because they literally love each other.

dojacat Don't make me miss my ex, yn!!!! ☠️

woffantastic NOT THE MERCEDES ADMIN LIKING IT

mickschumacher

liked by georgerussell63, mercedesamgf1, and others

mickschumacher ⛰️

comments on tihs post have been limited

ynandschumi I wanted to comment something but I just know it will be deleted, so I'm just gonna say: you guys look good, hope you enjoyed your hike!❤️ also Angie seems a bit sad without her mother doesn't she....................

⤷ mercedessummer bestie, you did not LMAO

lewishamilton Roscoe says he's mad he was not invited!

mickschum90 I love you, mick!

sunandstarsyn This does not give happiness vibe...

dailycelebsupdate

liked by wonderfulyn and others

dailycelebsupdate We woke up this morning to the leaking of Y/n Y/l/n’s baby shower. The singer spent a little over a year off the radar after her breakup with F1 star Mick Schumacher, only to show up now pregnant! Who are we betting on to be the baby daddy?

view all 10,467 comments

ynlove we aint betting a thing, and stop saying “only to show up” as if these pics were posted intently, they were LEAKED. Respect Y/n’s right to her privacy!

sainzsunny I hated the fact that the leaked something that she did not want people to know, but my bet would be that she and Mick are back together since that song release 🤐

mickeyf1 You guys are disgusting

swiftieyln She lookes so peaceful, glowing and everything 😭

⤷ ynhundreds that because she was being able to keep her private life to herself.

f1gossipupdates

liked by user90, and others

f1gossipupdates Is everyone thinking the same thing?

view all 9,789 comments

schumacher47 Is leaking season? Wtf the wrong, why cant celebs have their privacy??

⤷ f1khalid especially Mick, he’s really open about how he likes to have his personal life respected. 😔

ynstars BABY SCHUMACHER ON ITS WAY!!!

hockeyf1d They MARRIED???!!!

ynbrasil I just know Yn will be pissed when she open her socials to this shitshow

yourusername and mickschumacher

liked by mercedesamgf1, estebanocon, and others

yourusername It's been a long ride and we wanted to share with you guys in a different way, the circumstances, however, did not help, so we are sticking to the good ol' Instagram announcement. We got married last year and decided to keep living in our particular heaven, I hope you guys don't get this the wrong way because we love the love and support some of you give us, but Mick and I needed to bask in our own love without interruptions or assumptions. This love grew bigger than us and it will be walking around the world in a couple of months. We appreciate our friends' discretion, and our fans' love, we see you and we love you. We hope you guys can respect our privacy and our wishes on keeping some details to ourselves. Love, Mick and Yn Schumacher

view all 34,572 comments

ynweeknd SHE SIGNED AS YN SCHUMACHER OMGGGGG

schumickeyf1 "This love grew bigger than us and it will be walking around the world in a couple of months" PLEASE IM SO LONELY THIS IS A WHOLE NEW LEVEL OF ROMANTIC

mickschumacher Forever, mrs. Schumacher ❤️

⤷ yourusername forever and some more, my love 💗

charles_leclerc omg thank goodness you guys told everyone, I was so scared I would let it slip

⤷ lechair16 Charles ☠️☠️ LMAO

lewishamilton you guys deserve all the happiness in this world 🤍

ynandmick I was right and nature is healing

twentyoneyns So let me get this clear, my ex gives me a reason to go to therapy, while Y/n's ex gives her a ring, then all the love and orgasms in the world, and then a baby??????????? God definitely has its favorites.

⤷ schumercedes not the orgasms 🗣🗣 HAHAHAHAHAH

ynandmickey MOTHER AND FATHER

⤷ popyn Literally

mercedesamgf1 We already have a spot for them 💜

sunnydaysyln Are we calling the baby schumini or minimacher? or baby schumi? or macherbaby?

⤷ yourusername HAHAHAHHA I love them all

********************

If you liked it, make sure to like and reblog <3 feel free to talk to me as well, my inbox is always open!

I will start a taglist on my posts, to be part of it you just gotta comment/send an ask saying so, and most important: have your age in your profile (I don’t interact with minors!). See you guys next story! <3

[bri-the-nautilus]

Come To the Dark Side, We Have Hot Guys: A Star Wars Story

Spoilers below for S1 of Ahsoka and the first six episodes of The Acolyte.

I'm writing this with The Acolyte most of the way through airing its first season, with episode 6 having released earlier today. Say what you will about the show, but it's really brought out a lot of the uglier sides of the Star Wars fandom. Everyone and their mother has seen videos or Reddit threads dunking on the Critical Drinker or SWT and their mouth-breathing misogynist audiences at this point, so I don't feel particularly compelled to retread that ground. Instead, I want to talk about the... other side of the fandom, the hypocrisy therein, and how we're all being played for absolute fools by the creative team at Disney Lucasfilm.

Yes, this post is about Qimir.

Now I want to say that I have no problem with villain simping/shipping. Far from it. Most of my posts on this account are me simping for Shin Hati (we'll talk more about her later) or various Soulsborne bosses. Hell, my mutuals and I have a running joke about me having a weakness for evil blonde women. While I personally am too gay for my own good and couldn't care less about men as a concept, I absolutely see the appeal of characters like Qimir and Kylo Ren. I absolutely get why people thirst over them and love making fandom content for them. I think Qimir/Osha has the potential to be a really fun ship, actually. The point I'm making here is not "simping for these characters is wrong and bad," and I want to make that crystal clear before we continue.

That said, let's talk about Qimir, and how the landscape of the show and its surrounding discourse has changed since his reveal. Again, I'm ignoring the chud sphere here, partly because their little corner of the Internet has remained remarkably stagnant since then. The podcast bros still think it's woke, fucking Shadiversity is still whining about fight choreography (which as someone who actually has done HEMA/stage combat, Shad annoys me to no end, but that's an entirely separate can of worms), and it all seems to be business as usual over there. No, the most marked changes have been on the Acolyte-positive end of the fandom space. Here's what the top posts in "hashtag TheAcolyte" on Twitter look like tonight:

You get the idea.

Again, no hate to any of these people. This is tumblr ffs, we've all engaged in a little simping for a morally dubious hot person. I love seeing fans having fun engaging with something, and again I kinda dig the Osha/Qimir ship.

Anyways, if you were around for the Acolyte-positive discourse before the Qimir reveal, and especially the show's marketing and the reponse to that, you'll have noticed a marked difference.

Fans quickly began to see The Acolyte as " the gayest Star Wars ever." Showrunner Leslye Headland is an out lesbian, and her wife was cast as Master Vernestra Rwoh. Archetypical girlboss Carrie-Anne Moss was cast as Master Indara, immediately drawing comparisons to her role in the Matrix movies. Leads Osha and Mae Aniseya are played by the nonbinary Amandla Stenberg. The lesbian witches of Brendok were talked about in press releases before the show aired. Dafne Keen (Jecki Lon) stated in an interview that she portrayed the short-haired, serious Theelin as having a crush on Osha, something that fans were picking up on in their first interactions in the premiere before Keen even gave that interview. While Headland said in a post-premiere interview that she didn't set out specifically to make "a capital Q Queer show," it's an objective fact that no Star Wars movie/show has had as much potential in that area, and fans (especially the queer community) took notice. (For what it's worth, in the same interview Headland commented that she was proud of creating something that so many queer fans identified with.)

The show came out, and Master Indara was killed off in the first sequence, which I'm honestly fine with. It was a good scene and works on a lot of levels. Headland's aforementioned interview came and went. Episode three aired. The lesbian witches turned out to be even gayer than was previously thought possible, and people ate that shit up while the Critical Drinker's brain suffered a major cascade failure. Jecki became a runaway favorite in the premiere and episode four, as did lovable himbo Yord Fandar and the wise, paternalistic Master Sol. In Acolyte-positive circles, this was basically how it went. People thought Brendok was cool, the Yord Horde became the show's biggest social media sensation, Jecki and Sol cultivated devoted followings alongside Osha and Mae, there were a wealth of different ships involving various combinations of Jecki, Yord, and the twins... you get the idea.

Then episode 5 happened.

The writing was really on the wall when the Brendok coven was abruptly wiped out. Introducting such an interesting (and queer) Force-wielding culture only to exterminate them in the same episode was certainly a choice that somebody made. But episode 5 was a shock to the system for many fans, as the show's resident Sith revealed himself and killed Jecki and Yord in some of the most brutal recent onscreen deaths in Star Wars. To be clear, I think this was a great sequence. Two beloved main characters being suddenly and gruesomely killed off was a masterfully executed shock to the system, especially after viewers were lulled into a false sense of security by all the redshirt deaths in the previous scene.

This, understandably, completely changed the landscape of the Acolyte fandom. Virtually overnight, much of the simping and shipping involving Jecki and Yord dried up, and once the dust had settled as far as the "rip blorbo, gone too soon" posts went, what remained were the usual Sol/twins offerings and a wave of Qimir hype. Which is understandable. He's a badass emo Sith boy with a cool helmet who brutally murdered fan favorite characters in front of us and has palpable tension with the female lead. Who wouldn't love... wait a minute.

This feels familiar somehow.

But if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing's changed at all?

And just like that, "the gayest Star Wars" is all about the (straight) sexual tension between an edgy, murderous Sith boy and a light-side girl plagued by dark thoughts whose friends said boy just killed. This is all eerily similar to how the Sequel Trilogy focused on Rey and Kylo while abruptly dropping Finn and Poe's character arcs. Even the fandom discourse is the same. I mean Reylo was so ubiquitous back in the day that it became a derogatory catch-all for good girl/evil boy shipping. Multiple authors now have either gotten their initial start/fame writing Reylo fics, or straight up published legally distinct Reylo fiction after the fashion of Netflix's After. You had the occasional person piping up to say "hey they kind of just left Finn and Poe hanging after TFA, it would've been cool if they got together but at the very least don't relegate them to being side characters/comic relief in separate story threads," and that was it. The same thing is going on with The Acolyte now, only the sequel trilogy wasn't marketed on the strength of being a queer story by a queer creative team. The Acolyte is, which makes it all the more baffling that by the midway point of the first season, all the gays have been buried and the show seems to be heading straight for Reylo 2: High Republic Boogaloo. And the fans are eating it up.

As an interesting aside, I think it's an interesting exercise to contrast the Kylo/Qimir pattern with the broader fandom's treatment of Shin Hati (told you we'd circle back to that), and the ship between her and Sabine Wren. On paper, Shin is very similar to Kylo and Qimir. Villain? Check. Edgy-looking armor? Totes. Emotionally damaged/stunted in some way? Sure looks like it. Tension with the heroine? You betcha. If anything, the only major difference is that Shin isn't as evil as the others. Compare her actions in Ahsoka (clearing out part of a light cruiser with Baylan and making repeated attempts on Sabine's life) to Kylo (oversees multiple war crimes, kills his fan-favorite dad) or Qimir (orchestrates the murders of several Jedi before brutally executing two fan-favorite characters). She's definitely bad, but I struggle to see her as on par with Qimir, let alone fucking Kylo, in terms of evilness.

Which makes it all the more interesting to me that the Shin/Sabine ship has received so much more mainstream skepticism/criticism than the Osha/Qimir or Rey/Kylo ships. "They have no chemistry!" "She's an evil murderer!" "She's a blank slate!" "Sabine is taken!" I may be a touch biased, but from where I sit a large part of the fandom, even the ostensibly progressive side, seems to look down upon Shin/Sabine shippers while swooning for heterosexual variants with far more evil villains.

This isn't a monolith, and I can't stress that enough. I'm not trying to start shit here. Villain shipping is awesome. We support women's wrongs in this house. You do see the occasional person decrying Reylo or Osha/Qimir as toxic, which I think is fairly unnecessary. Like yeah, maybe it's a toxic dynamic, but these are fictional characters. For these specific characters, part of the crowd appeal is the toxic badboy side of things. I don't think we should really spend much energy attacking any fictional ship (between adults, mind you) as toxic, which is why it puzzles me that an as-yet-unconfirmed lesbian ship in a niche show receives such a large proportion of this sort of criticism compared to the canon relationship between two main characters of a blockbuster trilogy.

At the end of the day, this whole affair has been rather sobering for me on both Disney Lucasfilm and the Star Wars fandom. For all the support the Shin/Sabine ship has received from Ahsoka cast members Ivanna Sakhno (Shin), Natasha Liu Bordizzo (Sabine), Eman Esfandi (Ezra Bridger, the other character people like to ship with Sabine), and Rosario Dawson (Ahsoka), I'm rather sour on the prospects of it becoming canon. The sequel trilogy dropped the ball on what many saw as a promising chance for an MLM romance between Finn and Poe in favor of trotting out the "why do good girls like bad boys" dynamic, and The Acolyte, "the gay show" overseen by a lesbian, has seemingly shifted to center a similar dynamic after killing off most of its prospects for a queer relationship among the main cast. Simply put, I think that Disney as an international company based in the frighteningly divided United States is reluctant to commit to anything beyond lipservice in terms of LGBT representation in their movies/shows, which again doesn't leave me feeling optimistic about WolfWren's canon potential. And the fandom takes the bait. People love the damaged evil badboy/good girl dynamic, and when the queer fandom suggests the possibility of a queer ship taking center stage in a show with no other extant relationships, even the more progressive side of the fandom tends to either ignore it or actively push back on its basis in reality until Disney Lucasfilm inevitably puts the kibosh on it. The amount of times I've heard people dismiss WolfWren for the same reasons they now like Osha/Qimir and liked Reylo (before that ship was fleshed out/canonicalized, anyway) is ridiculous, but at the end of the day you kinda feel stupid for expecting anything else. Again, I think Qimir is a cool character and I'm as much of a sucker for villain romances as the next girlie, but seeing how easily the fandom lets dangling heterosexual carrots lead it away from Disney Lucasfilm's broken promises of queer rep is a sobering ordeal.

[reminiscingtonight]

Public Relations

Leah Williamson x Reader

Word Count: 2.6k

[WOSO Masterlist]

Being a public figure meant not having an ounce of privacy in your life. 

You’re more than proud of the part you played in the 2019 World Cup and subsequent international matches, but there’s no denying how much you treasure the moments you could keep your personal life more… personal.

That’s why when you and Leah first started dating, neither of you were in a hurry to publicize it. 

Technically you guys were in the same circles before you even got together. Same sport aside, you actually first became friends with Keira. You had become friends with Keira when your national teammates went over to Man City during Covid. After one too many video calls with Rose, Sam, and Abby in which Keira had the unfortunate act of being caught in the background, it seemed almost inevitable that you became friends. The two of you just clicked.

So yeah, you were already somewhat in the same orbit. Now how did Keira tie into you and Leah getting together?

Well let’s just say after a night out spent with her best friend, Leah woke up with a pounding head, a sinking feeling she did something stupid, and a returned DM.

[I think you’re pretty good looking yourself too]

Leah’s drunken initiation didn’t disappoint. It didn’t take too long for your flirty messages to turn into something genuine, and before you knew it, the two of you had been dating for almost a year.

Dating Leah has been nothing but bliss. The distance sometimes wreaked havoc on your sleep schedule and wallet, but Leah was worth the late night wake up calls and frequent flights overseas.

The two of you had just started talking about being a little bit more public with your relationship, ready to stop hiding as much. On your last trip out to see Leah, you even posted a picture of you at her game. Leah has always loved the sight of you in her clothes, so your surprise appearance, dressed only in her jersey and clothes you stole from her apartment only set to light her heart ablaze.

While you were taking the soft coming out approach for the public, you didn’t think you were hiding much from your teammates. You never shied away from taking Leah’s calls in front of them. Hell, if memory serves right, some of them have even almost walked in on you as the two of you were… let’s just say having a less than family friendly call. These were the people you thought of as family, the first people you told anything to. You were sure they were already well aware of your affections for the English defender. 

Turns out you were wrong.

It all began with the end of an international window. 

You’re chilling in the locker room, basking in the joy of another successful game while scrolling through your phone. It’s easy to ignore the numerous notifications of congratulations. You’d reply to them all eventually, but there’s only one text thread you’re seeking out. 

While you were on the field, Leah’s been blowing up your phone with her play-by-play reactions. Seeing her live reactions as the game was progressing, despite the late hour in England, only made your heart flutter. You smile at the texts, sending a quick heart back before making a mental note to call Leah after she’s gotten a couple hours of sleep. 

When you tune back into the noise around you, you catch the end of some plans to go out on the night. 

“So what do you say? Let’s go out, party, maybe get some cute girls’ numbers?”

You look up to see Sonnett wiggling her eyebrows at you. The smile on your face is genuine, a bubbling laugh coming out to accompany it. “I’d be down to go out, but I think Leah might be upset if I follow through on that last part.”

“Who?”

Your head tilts at the confusion clear in Sonny’s voice. “Uh, my girlfriend?”

It’s almost as if your words bring about a halt to everyone’s celebrations. The locker room goes strangely quiet as everyone stares at you weirdly.

You blink, confused by the sudden lack of noise. “What?”

Kelley’s the first one who seems to get her bearings back together. “What-- who-- girlfriend? Since when have you been in a relationship?”

“Leah Williamson,” you start, not even having the chance to answer the second question before the room erupts.

“The England captain?!”

“No way!”

“Since when?”

“I call BS! There’s no way you could’ve hid something as big as this!”

You’re a bit insulted at their lack of faith in you, but you choose to give them all the benefit of the doubt. Everyone’s busy in their own ways, maybe if you just explain it well you would jog their memories. “Why do you think I went to England during the offseason?”

Your team still looks unconvinced, each of them exchanging skeptical looks with one another.

“I literally have an instagram post with me wearing her jersey at one of her games.”

Kristie taps at her chin before snapping her fingers. “Wait, that Arsenal pic from last February?”

You nod, thinking that this is it. The post would 100% be enough to convince your teammates. After all, you were wearing Leah’s jersey. Not to mention, the [(S)he likes my American smile] caption that pretty much spoke for itself.

Only Sonnett doesn’t seem to think so, shaking her head in disbelief. “Nah, this is fake news. No way you have a girlfriend. Let alone bagged Williamson. Like c’mon, choose someone more believable.”

Rose sends you a knowing look but doesn’t jump in to help you. Leave it up to the only person in the locker room who’s more than aware of your relationship to the English captain to not say anything. If anything, she looks amused at your inability to convince the others of your relationship with Leah. Fucking Rosemary.

“Hey don’t worry about it.” Sonnett's smirk has you doing everything but ‘not worry’ about it. “I’m sure the great Leah Williamson wouldn’t mind you sliding into her DMs. After all, who could say no to a face like yours?” 

The defender leaps away when you lunge for her with a murderous expression plastered on your face. 

---

Rose is the first to meet you when the game ends. You’re both sweaty as hell, legs bruised all around and sore. All you have to do is take one look at the grin on her face to know you’re not going to like whatever’s about to come out of her mouth.

“A little birdy told me you have a visitor.”

You narrow your eyes at her. “One word and I will ‘accidentally’ tell Sof about your drunken confession.”

Rose’s cheeks instantly flame red. 

“What was it you said? Something about her--”

The midfielder shoves hard on your shoulders, nearly knocking you over but efficiently cutting you off. It’s not a secret how much Rose likes Sofia. Sofia’s honestly the only person on the team who isn’t aware of the younger girl’s crush on her. You’re half tempted to lock them in a room together to speed up their coupling, but you’re not that evil.

“Anyways, tell the little birdy to mind her own business too unless she’d like me to tell Luce some cool secrets of hers as well.”

Your friends love playing dirty, but so do you. 

Leah’s not hard to spot. She looks beautiful dressed in your blue Reign jersey, a matching beanie on her head.

“Hey stranger.”

“Hi, you’re wearing the wrong jersey,” you grin, taking a minute to appreciate your last name on Leah’s back before you’re eagerly pulling her in for a hug. 

She pulls away with a snort, rolling her eyes at you. “I’m wearing your club jersey, what more do you want from me?”

“I know, but don’t you think you’d look more fabulous in my US jersey?”

“Don’t push it.” But the sparkle in her eye tells you it wouldn’t take too much for it to happen. Leah may be fiercely loyal to her Lionesses, but she did love you quite a lot. 

By the time she’s set to leave, you’re heavily debating whether or not you should book a last minute ticket to go with her. It’s only Leah stealing your phone and her reminders of how much you love your own club that stops you from following through. There’s lots of tears and kisses when you drop her off, heart already aching before she’s even through the airport doors.

Leah waits to make an instagram post until she’s already back home, but you can’t help but still feel the little flutter in your heart at the picture she chooses. 

Taken the night of the game, she’s still wearing your jersey, though your name and number are partially obscured. You’re not visible in it, but she’s sticking out her tongue at you and throwing out her signature hand gesture over her shoulder.

[I like your American smile 💙]

---

It seems as if Leah’s visit to Seattle is more than enough to convince your teammates of your relationship, but the general public still remains steadfast in their beliefs of your “lovely friendship”. You wanted to laugh when you read the countless [friendship goals!!] and [imagine visiting your best friend on the opposite side of the world] comments on Leah’s post. To you, it seemed like a further stretch for you and Leah to be best friends than lovers, but then again, they said the same thing about Kristie and Sam before they posted a picture of them making out with each other. 

When you slyly suggest doing the same, Leah correctly calls you out for just wanting to make out with her, not that she has any objections to doing so. In the end, the two of you agree to just table the discussion until you’re reunited again. With the US going over to England for a friendly in just a little over a month, the two of you are set to meet up again soon anyways, so waiting a little longer wouldn’t be too much of a burden.

When you first arrive in London, you’re instantly herded to the hotel, no pit stops, no detours to see your girlfriend. Megan’s sure to poke fun at your pout while you’re in the car together. 

Leah’s nothing if not professional, so it would have been hard to convince her to house you on that first night anyways. Still, you can’t help but sulk in your hotel room. Leah texts back a picture of Georgia guarding her door.

[G says you’ll see me over her dead body]

You know you could take the midfielder. But it’s the sentiment that counts. 

By the time the actual game rolls around, you’ve been training like crazy, not having enough downtime to miss your girlfriend much. Before the game starts, the two of you still send each other good luck texts. You’ve sent one before the other’s games since you started dating, and although you’re pitted against each other tonight, neither of you wanted to break the streak yet.

When Hemp scores the first goal not even ten minutes in, you know it’s going to be a long game. 

It’s a constant back and forth. 

Sophia scores.

Then Georgia. 

You don’t get too much time on the ball. Millie’s been marking you close all game. You’ve been forced to pass the ball almost instantly every time it makes it to your feet, and you wouldn’t be a striker if it wasn’t starting to get on your nerves.

But then suddenly it’s as if all of the stars align. When Andi pokes the ball out, you’re there to receive it. The second you have it, you’re making a break for it. With your blood pumping in your ears, you dodge white shirts, Mary’s yellow one set in sight.

From the corner of your eye you see Lucy streaking towards you. You don’t even have enough time to divert before she’s sliding.

It’s a good tackle, but your momentum keeps you going. The ball soars out of bounds while you go flying over Lucy’s outstretched legs.

You land hard, sliding a few feet before staying down. You rest your head on the grass, all the noise sounding like a faint ringing in your ears. It doesn’t take long before a hand is resting between your shoulder blades, rubbing softly. You don’t have to raise your head to know it’s Leah.

“I just need a second,” you wheeze out, trying to pull some air back into your lungs. 

Your girlfriend hums in response, but doesn’t leave your side.

When you finally make it to your feet nearly a minute later, Leah hasn’t moved an inch, only taking a step back when you give her hand a light squeeze. Lucy gives you an apologetic pat, the whistle sounds again, and just like that, the game’s back on.

The closer the game gets to half-time, the more antsy you get. Player after player sends in more than a couple shots towards goal, but nothing seems to go through.

And then it happens.

Trinity rockets the ball right past Earps. 

You’re the first to reach her, screaming right into her face. “Let’s fucking go!” 

The twenty year old accepts your hug with vigor, letting out a surprised yelp when you lift her into the air. 

When the game ends in a 2-2 tie, you know it’s a well deserved draw. 

You carefully make your way around the field, shaking hands and hugging where necessary, all the while keeping an eye out for your girlfriend. It’s only minutes but feels more like a lifetime before you make your way over to her. Leah gives you a toothy grin, brushing a stray piece of hair off your face when you reach her. 

“Hi baby.”

“Hi,” you breathe out, not caring how you practically melt into Leah when she gets her arms around you.

The blonde chuckles, arms briefly tightening before she’s leaning back to give you an appreciative once-over. “Nice job today. You played great. Definitely gave our backline a run for our money.”

“Thanks babe. I guess you did a fine job too.” Your grin betrays your amusement. 

Leah rolls her eyes at you, a hint of a smile on her lips. “So do you want me to strip right now, or?” Leah puts her hands on the hem of her jersey, giving you an expectant look.

You know exactly what she’s asking for, but you decide to play coy. “Oh, now you want to wear my jersey? I dunno, I might give it to Keira.”

You pretend to scan the field for Leah’s best friend, but your girlfriend doesn’t even bother humoring you. Leah narrows her eyes. “Guess I’ll be going home alone tonight then.”

Though mostly likely empty, her threat still has you quickly scrambling to pull your jersey off, practically knocking Leah over by how hard you shove your jersey into her hands. 

Later that night, you and Leah post the same picture. You’re in England white and she’s in US blue, your arm wrapped around her waist. You’re laughing at something Sanchez said off to the side while Leah’s looking at you with a look that can only be described as lovestruck.

The English captain’s caption is a cute and simple heart.

Yours on the other hand--

[History will say we’re roommates 👯]

kmewis19: they’re lesbians, stacey

lavellerose: moms

keirawalsh: moms

sophsssmith: my otp right here

leahwilliamsonn: don’t be getting all sentimental now 🙄

lavellerose: lmao someone’s in the doghouse

.

Safe to say, everyone gets the message.

[slocumjoe]

How do you think Nick's questline could have changed if all he found at the end was a skeleton inside that room?

lets go boys more reason for me to go off about

Nick and his purpose

So, Nick's purpose is to finish off the last thread of the guy he's a ghost of. It isn't, actually, but he thinks it is. He thinks he must tie up Valentine's loose ends so the guy can rest knowing that someone carried out his revenge.

Nick is not a man who cares for revenge. He isn't that cold, or eye-for-an-eye. This is not a moral he carries. Nick is not a "get them how they got you" kind of person. But Valentine is someone he feels he wronged by existing, fundamentally. This cop gets abused by the system he thought was supposed to protect him, which he thought was protecting others, and then they violate him further by scanning and copying his brain. Nick is the result of this ethical violation and betrayal. Nick could not exist without this. This is a guilt he carries.

Nick doesn't care for revenge, but he does believe in doing right by people. Valentine is someone he wronged; when Valentine died, he died never getting what he wanted, in a time of extreme hurt and trauma. He didn't get his revenge. So, Nick, a walking freeze-frame of all this pain and probably discomfort (Valentine was in a sketchy university, undergoing a sketchy procedure he didn't want to do), and he thinks this is what he has to do. This is what Valentine wanted, and he owes it to the guy.

Some people like to think Nick is an exact copy of Valentine, but I think circumstances, context, and experiences are what make a person. If I was put in different circumstances, I wouldn't be the me I am now. Valentine was not a robot in the post-apocalypse struggling with identity issues. Nick and Valentine cannot be the same. Valentine was the baseline Nick was built off of.

So, all this to say, Nick probably doesn't have the best, clearest idea of what he's meant for, or what he owes to the world. His idea is built off how he knows Valentine felt. But Valentine was going through it when his brain was scanned. His ideas of morals and justice were skewed. That's how anger and grief work.

Considering this, Nick walks into the bunker, and no, Eddie wasn't a ghoul. Just a guy who died God knows how long ago.

There is no thread for him to tie up.

There is no way for him to make it up to Valentine.

This is a wrong he has no way to right.

I think Nick is a lot more emotional than people give him credit for. He just keeps it all inside. Emotion you don't see is still emotion. Pain not expressed is still pain. I think in the moment, he'd try making it a joke. "Well...would'ja look at that. Something did the job for us and didn't even leave a note to save ourselves the trouble. I guess courtesy went out the window long before the bombs."

If Eddie Winter is already dead, Nick has nothing to do, functionally. He thinks that was his ultimate goal. His goal was done long ago. It was never something he needed to stew over. Valentine got what he wanted even if it wasn't by his hand or the ghost of it. But the thing with revenge is that it has to be you. If the person you hate most, who hurt you most, tripped on a weed and ate shit, is that revenge? Or is that just life not playing favorites?

Is it enough if life goes on?

Is it enough to say you don't have any obligations and can live despite someone else? Whether it's someone you feel you owe, or someone who owes you? Moving on without that gratification is not satisfying. You want an answer. You want "It's okay" or "I'm sorry."

Nick sees he has no end. There is no Eddie Winter. Valentine's only mark on this world, the only person who remembers him, is Nick. Nick is the only one to grieve him, or know his pain, or what he would think of all of this. Maybe, deep down, Nick wanted to find Eddie Winter not just to kill him, but to prove to himself that he isn't the only ghost. That it wasn't just him, keeping a good man from a good rest. That Eddie was what was really keeping that book open.

But if Eddie is dead, it's just Nick. Nick is all that's left.

You go in the bunker and Eddie Winter is dead.

From here, Nick has a different goal, whether he likes it or not; move on. Be Nick. Figure out who Nick is and accept himself as such. See that he is more than a copy of memories because he's made his own. That looks like a lot of things. Finding family in Ellie and the Survivor.. Finding community in Diamond City. Finding purpose in helping people. Finding himself in what he does now, how he does it, what he thinks of it.

Before he can do any of that, he has to accept that Eddie is dead, and so is Valentine, and just because they are doesn't mean he has to be..

His only path is to accept that he has no answers, and owes no answers. For someone who holds himself so responsible, who thinks he has to fix whatever he comes across, who hates that someone had to hurt for his existence...this seems impossible. To accept that he doesn't have to fix anything.

That there is nothing he can do for what he has of Valentine. That he can't take a dead man's anger away.

That he has nothing of the man he remembers being.

[baby-alien11]

Online haters (Y/N Ulrich Universe)

This idea came to me while I was at the gym suddenly thinking on the words that my classmates on elementary and intermedia school used to say to me (I was a victim of bullying and the school didn't do a thing, fortunately I switched schools in my last year of intermedia school), and I used that awful experience as inspiration

The next chapter will be posted on my birthday (is in may, I'm a taurus)

taglist: @volturi-girl-imagines @dessxoxsworld @aonungsgirlfriend @ethanlandryluver

something feels off about this relationship

maybe this is for publicity

yeah, besides she isn't THAT pretty

she doesn't seem as in it as Jack does

she looks a little fake, don't get me wrong, she seems nice but...

maybe she is with him for fame

she's a nepo baby, you know how they are

That were some of the replies you saw on a tweet that appeared in your timeline during the night when you openned Twitter due to not be able to sleep, a part of you wanted to report the tweet for spam but the other wanted to keep reading the rest of the replies

That was the part that won

Reply after reply was more hurtful than the other, seeing people doubting your relationship with Jack and posting "proofs" just increased your sadness

The caption that made you burst into tears was a whole thread called "proofs that Y/N and Jack's relationship is fake"

Since you entered the world of social media at the age of thirteen, you knew that the hate comments were a daily thing, you saw it when you spend summers in the Riverdale set on how most of the cast commented having them or the way Melissa recieved them after Scream 5, but you didn't know how it felt

Until now...

Deciding that you've seen enough of that, you turn your phone off to get to sleep but you still couldn't because anytime you closed your eyes, the only thing you saw was all that tweets again and again

During the whole night you only played with baby dragon Jake while looking at your celling, noticing it was a new day when the door of your room was openned by your father

"Good morning, tornado", Skeet greeted entering the room to open the curtains, "You woke up early?"

"I couldn't sleep", you sighed sitting in your bed

"What? Why?", Skeet answered sitting in your bed, "What happened?"

Without saying a word, you took your phone to open Twitter and show him the tweets that you saved, for the next minutes you saw how your father's face scrunched in anger for the words on the screen

"How did you find these?", Skeet interrogate you returning the phone to you

"Last night after videocalling Jack, I couldn't sleep and I went into Instagram and then Twitter, and after scrolling for a while, they appeared in my timeline"

"You know, the people who write this kind of stuff, are jealous and they don't know what to do with their lives, so they just spread hate everywhere, and we don't listen to them or take them seriously, understood?"

"Yes dad, but I sill feel awful, why the sudden hate? All my life I've been your little shadow and I haven't done anything controversial or bad"

"I know, but people like to hate on people who are gainning relevance, and you kid, are on the way to become one of the best VFX make up artist in the industry"

"You think?"

"In the five classes that you already had, I can see awards in your future"

Feeling emotional, you hug your dad at what he responded in the same way tightening the hug

"Hey, today is my flight to go to the convention, but I don't want to leave you alone after this"

"My passport expired last week, mom lives in London, and Jakob and Naiia are travelling"

"Kid, let me find a solution, just get up from bed and go get some breakfast, listen to your old man"

Laughing for his last comment, you were about to get out of your bed your phone started to sound at the notifications of a few messages making you smile because you knew who was sending them

my champ

BABYYYYYYY

WAKE UP

IT'S A NEW BEAUTIFUL DAY

my beautiful girl

good morning love

are you already on the set??

my champ

since five in the morning

I can't believe it's snowing in the middle of april

I wish you were here

my beautiful girl

I wish I was there with you too

That's what I get for not checking my passport

my champ

hey, are you feeling well?

your texts feel a little off

For a moment you consider to tell him about the tweets but you didn't want to distract him from the filming of his new movie

my beautiful girl

yeah, it's just that I didn't slept too much

I had a little insomnia

my champ

you should sleep a little after getting breakfast

to feel better

my beautiful girl

definetely I'm going to take that advice

my champ

and if I have free time during that we could facetime

my beautiful girl

yes to everything

my champ

it's a date

Smiling for the conversation, both of you continued chatting until he was called to film

"Kid, pack a suitcase for four days", Skeet announced appearing in your door with his phone on hand

"What? Dad, my passport is expired"

"I already know that, you are going to stay in Anna's house"

"I thought she was with Jack on Canada", you frowned

"I talked to her, she said she needed to come back for work, so you are staying with her until I come back, now get up and pack your things"

Finnally getting up from bed, you change into some of you regular clothes with Jack's favorite pink hoodie on top, to start packing some clothes, personal stuff plus your laptop and the materials to keep practicing your VFX make up on you

Once your suitcase and backpack were ready, both of you went to the car that was waiting to take them to their destinies

Thankfully, Jack's house wasn't so far from yours so after a thirty minute drive, the car stopped in the driveway where Anna was already waiting in the entrance

After getting your luggage and saying goodbye to your dad, you walk towards the house meeting with Anna in the middle

"Hi angel", Anna greeted while hugging you, "Skeet told me you weren't feeling well, want to talk about it?"

"Hi Anna", you responded, "Yeah, I would like to"

When your things were inside Jack's room, you and Anna went to the kitchen where the both of you started to make breakfast

"So, what happenned?", Anna asked while the waffles were being cooked

"Some nasty tweets about me that I found last night", you sighed

Taking your phone out, you entered to Twitter and showed her the tweet with all the responses

"Honey, I don't want to read them because I know that everything they say is false", Anna said causing tears to start pooling in your eyes, "You are one of the most wonderful girls that I've ever known, and I'm glad that you are in mine and Jack's lifes, have you told him about this situation?"

"We talked earlier but I didn't told him, I know he's filming and I don't want to distract him, he's excited about this role"

"You'll have to tell him at some point"

"I know, it's just that I don't want to distract him"

"If you don't tell him, I will", Anna joked serving the waffles

Laughing for that phrase, you help to bring the rest of the things to the table for breakfast

After finishing breakfast and helping to clean the kitchen, you went to Jack's room to unpack some things and have the nap that he suggested early in the morning, including the facetime that both of you agreed to do

"There she is", Jack exclaimed making you smile, "Wait, is that my room?"

"Yeah, dad didn't want to left me alone while he's at the convention because I didn't felt good, so he talked to your mom and here I am"

"Is because you didn't slept all night?"

"Yeah, and I didn't slept for some things that I read", at that point you felt tears starting to fall out of your eyes which you tried to clean, "Some tweets about me, about us"

"Baby..."

"There's no death threats fortunately, but it still feels awful to read those things"

"You are none of the horrible things that people say on the internet, you are the sweetest and most gorgeous girl I've ever met, and I'm happy that we were the only minors during Scream 6", that phrase made you laugh, causing Jack to feel proud for getting a smile from you, "Don't let those type of comments get to you, they don't know how you are, they don't know you how the people who love you does, like I love you"

"I love you too", you smiled

Seeing how your eyes were closing due to the lack of sleep, Jack convinced you to take the nap he suggested, staying in the videocall the whole time, even reading a fairy tale with fun voices causing you to laugh loud, until during the second story you finnaly managed to fall asleep

When Jack noticed that you were asleep, he took a screenshot because he tough you looked cute sleeping while hugging baby dragon Jake, before hanging up to enter Instagram and post something about the theme

yn.ulrich, masonthegooding, misstrinitybliss and 156, 530 more

jackchampion I remember the first time I saw Y/N, it was during the welcome reunion before fimlimg Scream VI, we were the only "kids" in there and we started talking, at that moment I realised that she was chaotic, good soul and heart, the purest vibes that I ever felt, kind, humble, gorgeous, cares about every living being, intelligent, creative and much more adjectives that aren't enough to describe how wonderful she is

Seeing the girl you love crying over nasty tweets about her and about our relationship was heartbreaking, she doesn't deserve any of that, she doesn't bother anyone, she doesn't mess with anyone, nobody should suffer things like this because some of you think things that are completely false

So, pelase, if you are one of the people who posted those tweets or responded to them, delete it, because you are messing with the mental health of someone I love

Comments disabled

[windvexer]

growth in witchcraft as shedding of snake-skin

Sort of obvious, but I had to learn it (like everything else) the hard way. And as spooky season approaches and people may be revitalizing their practices after breaks, I want to say something that might end up saving a couple folks from a lot of frustration and heartbreak:

Just because it worked that way for you in the past, doesn't mean that's how it works for you now.

I mean this in a literal, making-stuff-happen with magic and sorcery way.

You guys have heard the adage that some spirit guides are with you for life, some for short periods, some for just one lesson, etc., right?

Well, the same can be said for sorcerous techniques.

I don't know if I just shed techniques like hermit crabs shed shells or what, but this happens to me a lot. Here's the kind of thing I mean:

You used to do readings with a specific little ritual involving a prayer and incense, but now that technique seems to produce incorrect readings. It feels flat and you can tell you're not connecting.

You used to be able to tie intent into knots and carry the thread around with you all day to conjure specific little occurrences, but now it barely seems to work and manifestation is spotty.

You used to be able to converse with spirits by going into a deep meditation, but now when you try you can hardly connect and it's like their messages are getting blotted out.

And I think sometimes when these things happen, people tend to process this with:

self-blame (I'm not a devoted enough witch, I brought this on myself!),

scapegoating spiritual allies (I used to pray to Hekate before divination but now my divination doesn't work, so Hekate must be mad at me), or

developing personal doubt (I used to think magic worked but now I can't replicate my own results).

When the reality is, if you're a magical snickity-snek and you've shed your skin, you might be slithering about in the soil trying to do the little old things that no longer fit the bigger, better you.

Sometimes this "shedding" is very obvious and we can feel and taste it. "Shedding" may come before, during, or after a period of intense personal transformation. It may come in a numinous moment when you hear a single phrase, or view a single image, that makes you become the Hanged Man and see reality in a whole new way.

But it can also happen without us really noticing it. I might put down my tarot cards for a couple months, pick them up again, and suddenly the ways I used to read don't work for me any more.

It's not because I'm a bad reader, or that the spirits have abandoned me, or that magic isn't real.

It's because what used to work for me doesn't any more, and now I just need to find new techniques.

So if you're trying to pick up what used to work and it just doesn't seem to be helping any more, consider that it's just like outgrowing an old set of clothes. Nothing is wrong with you, or the clothes. It just doesn't fit any more.

Since I think it'd be frustrating as hell to read a post like this without some actionable steps, below the cut are some ideas that might help you develop new techniques if your old ones seem to be failing you.

Start with your beliefs

Examine your own rituals and see if what you're doing still matches what you believe. Let's say you used to pray to Hekate and light incense before divination, but now you do that and your divination doesn't work.

Do you believe Hekate is allowing your divination to be possible? Do you believe she's the best goddess to seek aide from at this time?

What role does the incense play? Is it an offering to Hekate? Is it to feed the ancestors who supply you with interpretations? Is it just to set the correct tone and atmosphere?

Maybe you've grown in your relationship with divinity, and you now believe it's more proper to call on gods with formal prayers - but your divination ritual still uses a simple, improvised prayer.

Maybe your understanding of Hekate has changed and it feels more suitable to call on different powers.

Maybe you feel strangely about constantly "paying" gods to help you, when they say they don't need it - and lighting the incense makes you feel awkward.

Change what you're doing to match what you believe. That's always a solid first step.

Examine your own emotions and reactions

Try performing rituals (from the smallest ritual of stirring intent into coffee, to full-blown compass-casting affairs under the full moon) mindfully.

Be aware of what you're doing as you do it, but also try to examine your own reactionary thoughts and feelings.

Suppose my ritual of stirring my coffee seven times clockwise to manifest a desired emotion doesn't work any more. It used to work great, for years, so I do it quickly. But now it doesn't work, so I do it mindfully.

And while I'm stirring, I watch a few thoughts pop up to the surface: why am I doing this seven times? I'm stirring my coffee for too long and staring into it like an idiot, and it's embarrassing. What if someone thinks I'm weird?

If any individual step of a ritual makes you feel embarrassed, stressed, or avoidant, or if you feel relief from not having to do that any more - that technique is probably not serving you very well.

Seek out methods that make you feel excited, hopeful, empowered, or interested. Or, at the very least, ones that don't make you feel bad.

Be open to shifting your paradigm entirely

Going back to the stirring coffee thing, maybe I think stirring seven times is too much. So I try to stir my coffee three times. But that still feels clunky.

Then I get into left-handed vs right-handed stirring, because someone might have said that doing stuff with your right hand is for blessings.

Then I try out a new little inner mantra while I stir X times with Y hand.

But it's just not working. No matter what I try, it feels like walking barefoot on a gravel road.

So maybe I just need to do something entirely different.

Maybe numerology isn't my thing any more. Maybe now, I just need to embrace my inner divine creator.

Maybe I should think about the ultimately powerful creative energy within rich, black soil - and as I pour my coffee, I can imagine that I'm pouring pure creative energy into my divine cauldron. When I sprinkle in a little sugar, I'm seasoning that creative power to my personal tastes - and no matter how many times I stir it, when I drink that creative power, a new reality blossoms from within me.

No numbers. No memorized chants. No left hand/right hand stuff. Just me, imagining myself as a planet, drinking pure creative energy that will bloom out of my aura as wildflowers bloom in the spring.

Ask for help

I'm not called fool for no reason, and after a couple years of being unable to astral travel - after having successfully done so for years - I finally sat down and asked my spirits for help.

The answer was immediate and simple. So simple, in fact, that I was confident it wouldn't work at all.

Well, of course it worked. I spent years trying to figure out the problem on my own, trying time and time again to use an old technique that I was confident would work. It took a goddess like four seconds to tell me the new way it worked for me.

Even if you're not in communication with spiritual allies, you can still perform divination to help troubleshoot your own magical skills. Try asking a series of questions: what doesn't work for you any more, what you should try, and what you should avoid trying.

When divining, consider the different "levels" of application. A reading that means "don't use excessive force" might refer to high-level life stuff, like, you're working too hard on all your responsibilities right now, learn to relax and the magic will come. But, it might also be referring to something very specific, like, you're trying to raise huge amounts of energy in individual rituals, break them up into smaller spells where much less force is required for each one.

[decolonize-the-everything]

genuine question: i thought communism ideology supported no states? what do you not support with communism?

Also: is PSL problematic/harmful? I hadn’t seen anything about them denying a genocide.

Apologies if this looks like I’m coming to you instead of research. Unfortunately research has lead my to discourse reddit threads and people speaking over another of what is true and right. It’s difficult for me to sort through what is actually backed and i always perfect to get first hand, personal opinions from individuals for conversation purposes! If this is inappropriate please lmk! I’m a fan of your blog and truly am just looking for more input and takes on our options and to know the best way to get involved in a community— and avoid getting involved with the wrong kind of people I don’t agree with!

Thank you in advance!! Hope your future doctor visits continue to treat you well!

So a classless, moneyless society is socialism.

There are branches of socialism the same way there can be democratic and Republican beliefs within capitalism.

So communism is socialism with a state/government. This is what PSL is and advocates for.

And yeah im stepping on a fucking beehive saying this but yeah, Marxists/Marxists-Leninists support a communist state. For this exact reason, they deny that China has been persecuting Uyghur people. They think if they deny the genocide is happening at all then communism will seem more "valid."

Additionally, they think the genocide is little more than more anti-communist propaganda from the USA. Even Aljazeera has written about this.

Aside from that, yes PSL has organized with orgs like BLM before, but that said.... Ugh.

They speak over everyone. In fact, I've been told several times that they are now doing the same thing with the Pro-Palestine rallies they've been hosting, too.

As someone who worked with them closely during the BLM protests of 2020 I can confirm this with my own experiences. They're super organized, which is great for them. For the rest of us though, it means we have to work around their schedules. They spread their own parties propaganda at these events while making themselves out to be The Official Organization for the event which was almost never true. When they were at our events it's because they were invited by us, but everyone thought it was the other way around. They have a way of centering themselves which seems anti-thetical to their allyship.

They very much use minorities to boost their party's status. Which is not much different from how a democrat tries to get minority votes would.

I don't use Instagram but the USPCN and NAARPR posted about how PSL was doing this. I had just reblogged a post where PSL was calling for a strike in solidarity and was immediately informed to IGNORE it and boost actual Palestinians calls for action instead. They included a link to the Instagram post as well. I'll see if I can find it and reblog it after this.

Anyway, It was a good question and didn't bother me at all to answer, thanks for sending it!

[txttletale]

nothing about ai art is new

[we’re sitting in a taco bell drive through and ive abused my control over the aux cord to make you listen to indie rock classic apollo 18 by they might be giants for hours on end]

so there’s been a lot of yammering on about stable diffusion and how it will revolutionize/destroy/democratize/annihilate the world of art, depending on which impassioned twitter thread you read. what they all have in common though is (incorrectly) treating this as some radical new shift, an unprecedented leap forward caused by cutting-edge technology. this is wrong: nihil sub sole novum.

this post is not about:

ip law

whether ip law is a good thing (no)

whether ai art is Real Art (what is this girls 1917?)

how AI art actually works (as far as i can tell, like this)

this post is about

karl marx babeyyy

so in a sexy little number called wage labour and capital, carlos marx lays out some of the foundations of marxist theory. these include the labour theory of value (that the value of a thing, whether expressed in the use of something or in its exchange for other things, is only created or increased when a human being performs labour. e.g. fabric + hours of human life = clothing, which is both more useful and more valuable in exchange terms than the fabric) and the division of labour

to make a long and well-written argument short and poorly formulated (seriously, read the original, it’s like 25 pages), the price of a commodity* rises and falls around a base price that’s based on the cost of production. ‘wages’ are simply the term for the price of the commodity of ‘labour-power’, or hours of human labour**--and therefore, they rise and fall around the cost of producing human labour.

now, how much does that cost? pretty simple. first there’s the basic costs of the labourer continuing to survive day to day. then there’s the costs of them having children who can grow up to be labourers and keeping them alive too. finally, there are the costs of the labourer’s training, and these can far outstrip the first two. it’s expensive for a capitalist to hire a digital artist because the cost of producing digital artists (the survival of a human being + years and years of practice) is high--so the commodity of their labour power is priced highly.

however, marx also succintly explains supply and demand--concepts everyone’s probably semi-familiar with. when there are many sellers of a commodity, they compete for buyers by offering their commodities at lower and lower prices.

bearing in mind that ‘wages’ are just the price of the commodity of human labour-power--this means that technological development in production has a twofold depressive effect on wages: not only are less people employed (if a capitalist can produce twice as much of a commodity, they’re not guaranteed twice as much of a market--so they will instead tend towards producing the same amount at half the cost), but more people are capable of doing the work. so for the same process of production, there are more people capable of doing it, and less people needed to do it. as marx puts it:

“The greater division of labour enables one labourer to accomplish the work of five, 10, or 20 labourers; it therefore increases competition among the labourers fivefold, tenfold, or twentyfold. The labourers compete not only by selling themselves one cheaper than the other, but also by one doing the work of five, 10, or 20; and they are forced to compete in this manner by the division of labour, which is introduced and steadily improved by capital. Furthermore, to the same degree in which the division of labour increases, is the labour simplified.

The special skill of the labourer becomes worthless. He becomes transformed into a simple monotonous force of production, with neither physical nor mental elasticity. His work becomes accessible to all; therefore competitors press upon him from all sides. Moreover, it must be remembered that the more simple, the more easily learned the work is, so much the less is its cost to production, the expense of its acquisition, and so much the lower must the wages sink – for, like the price of any other commodity, they are determined by the cost of production. Therefore, in the same manner in which labour becomes more unsatisfactory, more repulsive, do competition increase and wages decrease”

when marx wrote this, he was talking about artisan craftsmen who made goods by hand in small workshop. since then we’ve seen this exact process sweep across every industry, devouring the manufacturing sector, now creeping second by second into the white-collar service economy. now, we are seeing this on the horizon for artists--there’s far more skill in creating AI artwork than some people give credit for, but it is ultimately in terms of time and accessibility easier and broader to do--it will have these effects if it is able to produce output on par, or even just slightly worse than, professional photographers and artists, for a fraction of the cost of labour-power.

so, like, why have i just written all this? to point out that the phenomenon people are scared of wrt AI art driving already precarious working artists into poverty is not some new and endemic technological horror. it is a social process that’s been ongoing for centuries--and the productive forces are not going to roll back, because capitalism demands ever-rising profits which demand ini turn ever-lower costs of production, including (especially) lower costs of production of skilled labour. if you are trying to stop stable diffusion AI tech from being used then you are trying to stop the horse by pulling on the reins of the cart. 

if you are scared that AI art is going to make your passion and profession economically worthless, the tools themselves are not your enemy--it is the system that decides how these tools will be used, that art becoming easier to make is a vector by which to divide and precaritize working artists instead of to broaden access to the joy of creation--in the same way that industrial production has been used to create the system of wage-slavery instead of providing for all, in the same way that will repeat over and over again until the system that allocates resources and labour to maximize profit instead of human welfare is toppled and replaced

[the drive thru employee politely clears their throat. i turn to them and say ‘oh i didnt want anything i just like the smell out here’ and drive away directly into a lake]

*in marxist terms, a commodity is anything that: 1. has use value, as in, someone wants to have it and use it--eat it, wear it, play with it, watch it-- 2. has exchange value, as in, it can be exchanged for other commodities (price is a reflection of this exchange value through money), 3. has value through the application of labour power (someone has worked to produce it. even raw materials count--coal power plants don’t buy coal that’s still in the ground)

**engels explains the distinction between labour-power and labour in the introduction to the 1891 edition:

 “What the economists had considered as the cost of production of “labour” was really the cost of production, not of “labour,” but of the living labourer himself. And what this labourer sold to the capitalist was not his labour.

 At the most, he could sell his future labour – i.e., assume the obligation of executing a certain piece of work in a certain time. But, in this way, he does not sell labour (which would first have to be performed), but not for a stipulated payment he places his labour-power at the disposal of the capitalist for a certain time (in case of time-wages), or for the performance of a certain task (in case of piece-wages). He hires out or sells his labour-power.”

[ernmark]

Juno Steel and the Case Closed (part 1) reaction

It's been a while since I've done one of these, hasn't it?

But it's the last episode, and I wanted to be here for the end. So if you'd like, some thoughts and theories under the cut:

It was a solid choice to have Nureyev go-- to make this final story about Juno and his world and his life, rather than specifically about their relationship. But also, the choices made around Nureyev's leaving-- holy shit.

Because here's a man who's spent the last twenty years entirely defined by his relationship with one man, and now he's cut loose and of course he's flailing to re-establish himself in a different orbit. And you can hear it in his voice, where it rises into something halfway to panic (amazing job, Noah Simes), and you can feel exactly how horribly wrong it's going to go if he goes down that road. And then there's Juno, who's healthy enough to be the voice of reason, even when it hurts him? Who makes it clear he's willing to wait until Nureyev is ready for him? Oh my god, that's perfection. (And Nureyev going maybe back to Brahma-- my little fanfic writer heart did a leap there). Nureyev may very well be back next episode (I suspect he will, if only for the final moments), but I really like this as an ending of their arc-- not the neatly laced up riding off into the sunset together, but looking forward to that sunset and being actually ready for it when it comes. It makes my heart feel so good.

--

And from that happy moment, to have Juno go back to Hyperion, to his office, and immediately start slipping back into his worst self? Oh, that's too real-- in a way that I am very happy with. Because he isn't 'fixed'. Juno 'born-a-sad-baby' Steel won't ever be 'fixed', not by romance or a vacation or a wonderful new family dropping him reminders of how much they love him. What's wrong with him isn't something that can be fixed-- but this time around it's different. This time around, when he yells at Rita she stands up to him (with a small, tremulous voice, because goddamn standing up to people you love is terrifying). I am so proud of her for that, and of him for backing off. It takes a palpable effort for him to rein himself in, but he's making that effort-- and he knows how, in a way that I don't think he did in those early seasons. It's a choice he's making, over and over again, just like it's a choice he makes to keep replaying Jet's wisdom instead of drowning his misery in tequila.

(Another kudos there: that Juno's problem isn't addiction, not the same way it is for Jet-- alcohol isn't a problem for him when things are going well, but it's easier to retreat into a bottle than to deal with his feelings. It's a distinction you don't see very often. Honestly, the way this show has dealt with addiction has been really refreshing to see.)

I've said from the beginning that one of the things that really drew me to this show was how it handles Juno's depression-- as a genuine mental illness that's an inherent part of him. And it's enheartening to see him struggle with it, but now be able to reach out for the tools and the support he needs. And that support doesn't have to be Jet literally talking him away from the bottle, or Rita or Nureyev petting him and making him feel better. He can reach for the pieces of them that they leave behind. And he can wish the Ruby 7 a good journey home, and send Nureyev to find himself, not without pain and grief, but without completely losing himself to it.

That kind of story gives me so much more hope than any kind of 'happily ever after' ever could.

--

And then the designated mystery, which has me so freakin' excited:

Nightmare.

She is the culmination of so many plot threads that I've been picking up on for so long and I'd completely forgotten about, and I am so freaking excited to see it.

I was in such a rough place emotionally when we last visited the most obvious of those threads, I genuinely don't remember if I posted meta about it or not, but it definitely struck some bells:

When Juno rescued Rita from Dark Matters, the safehouse she was in was described as being full of items that were clearly meant for a child. At the same time, Sasha was having Rita destroy all evidence of her own life so thoroughly that not even Rita herself would be able to find traces afterward.

It seemed most obvious to me that she was hiding a child (one that, I didn't realize until Juno remarked on Nightmare's area code, could have been hidden in the suddenly repopulated New Town without anybody asking inconvenient questions about who she was or where she came from). Also her taking care of a child would explain her ever-escalating reactionary tendencies-- she certainly wouldn't be the first parent who descended into authoritarianism in a misguided attempt to protect someone.

So some theories about who and what Nightmare is:

Alessandra's daughter is the most obvious, of course. (I still hold onto that theory that Sasha was either the Worst Client that Juno told Alessandra Strong about, or else that Sasha was the cheating spouse in that story.)

Nightmare could be Annie Wire's daughter-- assuming that Annie survived the factory, grew up, had a child of her own, and then died for real this time, leaving her grieving sister to raise her niece.

Nightmare could be Annie Wire herself-- dead, kept in stasis, revived by Dark Matters technology, and then whisked away to the safe house.

Nightmare could be a clone of Sasha and/or Annie. Honestly, not digging this theory, but I might as well throw it out there.

Nightmare could herself be a Radical, not unlike the Ruby 7, who's taken on Sasha's appearance and stayed that way ever since (after all, Sasha would have been at just about the right age when she was recruited by Dark Matters)

From a narrative standpoint, I'm most fond of the idea of Nightmare either being Annie or Annie's daughter, personally. Because that's literally the second mystery we were given, and it was pointedly never solved. As much as I like the idea that some mysteries just aren't and you have to make peace with that, I'm a big fan of long games like this, and of tugging on threads from the beginning of a story when you're wrapping up the end. That's especially true for Sasha's arc closing here, back in Hyperion City. Sasha's voice was one of the very first that we heard in this series, and Sasha's trajectory has always been a funhouse mirror version of Juno's. She's always been an integral part of his story. It seems fitting that her story gets wrapped up alongside his.

[getvalentined]

I posted about this on the twits, but I'm gonna do it here too because it's not like this is limited to that platform.

Since I've been seeing my least favorite shitty FF7 rumor around again, friendly reminder that there are no "legal issues" between Gackt and SE delaying anything. Sources claiming otherwise say "trust me bro" when Nomura has literally said it was just the workload.

People who claim that delays in production of anything in the Compilation are because of Gackt are parroting a rumor that's been around for over a decade, which was started by people who used it as an excuse to be racist and homophobic under the thin veneer of frustrated criticism. The majority of hatred toward the character of Genesis Rhapsodos in early fandom, and hatred toward Genesis in modern day fandom from OG Purists, stems from this same place.

Why do you think these people always assert that Genesis' very existence "ruins Sephiroth's character," but never complain about Angeal? Why do you think they have no problems with Aerith having a Jenova-infused Angeal Copy in her church for years—something that should totally change her understanding of the Crisis, but doesn't seem to in any way whatsoever—and yet anything and everything Genesis does is treated as an unforgivable retcon?

It's an excuse to say heinous, horrible things about an all-but-explicitly queer character who is modeled off a real Japanese man, and that's all it ever was, but it gets a pass because they dress it up as criticism of the franchise. Then, when they inevitably start throwing out slurs, nobody cares because "it's just Gackt—I mean Genesis, everyone knows he sucks."

Yeah, you "know" because you let a bunch of bigots tell you he should be judged more harshly than any other character in the entire series because he's not white or straight enough. Because he's based directly on a real flesh-and-blood Japanese man, and to these people that makes him deserving of hate, because people like that shouldn't exist. Because the character is all but explicitly queer (and it is even more explicit in the original language and when accounting for some key culturally-specific literary references portrayed throughout the narrative), and people like that shouldn't exist.

You "know" because you never questioned why this character specifically is the only one it's "objectively and morally correct" to hate and belittle, even though everything he's supposedly hated for applies to multiple other characters throughout the series.

The character is loathed, and the actor is blamed for everything, because some old guard fans said that's how it's supposed to be in this fandom, and if you don't engage with things that way then you don't deserve to be here.

Very cool and normal behavior!

There are very valid reasons to dislike this character, mind you, and plenty of reasons to be critical of the actor. I'm not saying otherwise. I'm saying the pervasive and frankly disgusting fandom-wide hatred stems from the same place as the continued, repeatedly disproven assertion that Gackt is to blame for everything "wrong" with the Compilation and its development: bigotry. I know this because I saw these assertions come into being in real time when Crisis Core first came out. I watched the people saying these things post the most homophobic rants on their personal accounts, I watched people I considered friends get banned from LJ communities for referring to Genesis as Gackt and referring to Gackt with racial slurs.

And I watched them come back later, promising they were better people now, armed with new claims and new arguments that allowed them to continue to be hateful trashfires without getting in trouble. As long as they weren't overt, it was okay. If they slipped up and used a slur in the comments that was mostly okay, since it wasn't in the main post. Mods might lock a thread here and there, but those people got to stay. Their "criticism" was "valid," and thus their bigotry was validated.

Those same claims and complaints are still regurgitated today, only now it's by people who aren't racist and aren't homophobic, but don't realize that their criticism is horribly unbalanced because it was all born from people who were just masking hatred.

Even worse is when these behaviors are mimicked by people claiming to like the character, because the fandom taught them that this was how you're supposed to engage with him, because it's just Gackt—Genesis (I said Genesis!) so he's a piece of shit no matter how you slice it and he deserves to be treated that way. Nobody else does, and nobody questions it, because this is just how it's done.

I'm sorry to be the one to tell people this, but if you slap a bunch of gay stereotypes onto Genesis and then have the characters around him treat him like shit because of them, while implying or outright insisting that IT'S OKAY BECAUSE IT'S GENESIS AND HE SUCKS SO IT'S FUNNY, you are following in the footsteps of bigots. If you constantly refer to the character as "Gackt" like the name itself is a pejorative, you are following in the footsteps of bigots.

No, there is no nuance here. I don't care if you allegedly came to all these conclusions on your own—you didn't and you know it—except for the fact that actually that's worse, because it means that you did some kind of deep dive in the source material and came out the other side agreeing with a bunch of racist homophobes who are still spitting bullshit after over 15 years.

Do fucking better.

[jedi-enthusiast]

@confusledqueer apologizes for not responding sooner, it’s been a busy couple days and—honestly—I forgot for a bit.

Moving on-

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Me equating some of the things that anti-Jedi people say to antisemitism and, sometimes, outright Nazi-esque rhetoric is not “wild” or “a stretch,” as you’re implying.

Justification of their genocide, denial that it actually was a genocide, a belief that the genocided party “caused” their own genocide, and a belief that they genocided party were wrong or “led astray” while one person was sent to make things right- (via either making them change their ways or outright destroying them/their culture) -are all things I’ve seen people say about the Jedi…

…but they’re also things that people have actually said about Jews.

Take the example I put in the post of someone denying that the Jedi Purge was actually a genocide, and how—by changing “Jedi” to “Judaism” and “Force-religions” to “Abrahamic Faiths”—it sounds verbatim to Holocaust denial.

Or, as another example, people claiming that the Jedi “kidnapped kids to brainwash them”…don’t you see how that sounds like Blood Libel?

So me pointing out that a lot of stuff anti-Jedi people say sounds like antisemitic rhetoric isn’t a stretch, not when a lot of it sounds verbatim to what people are saying with the rise of antisemitism and stuff they have said in the past.

—————

Now, I’m not Jewish, but it’s not just me, your neighborhood White Girl™️, who’s pointing this stuff out.

Actual Jewish people have pointed out the alarming similarities between anti-Jedi rhetoric and straight up antisemitism. So, if you wanna argue about- “you shouldn’t compare real world discrimination to fictional stuff” -then you should probably take that into account.

Go ahead and try telling Jewish Star Wars fans to stop calling out antisemitic rhetoric in the fandom, I’m sure that’ll go down real well.

I also find it hilarious that you’re telling me to be careful about the rhetoric I use in a thread about how I shouldn’t point out that some of the rhetoric other people spout is basically antisemitism rebranded.

And my point in that post wasn’t- “since this is based off of a real world culture/religion, you can’t criticize it.”

My point was- “since this is based off of a real world culture/religion then you need to be careful about how you criticize it, otherwise you might unconsciously be spouting bigoted beliefs and antisemitic rhetoric because you don’t recognize that that’s what it is because you’re saying it about a fictional culture.”

By all means, I get that some people just don’t like the Jedi, that’s their prerogative and we all have our own tastes.

Criticize them, if you feel like it, but don’t go around spouting rebranded antisemitism to do it. I’m sure you can come up with plenty of things to complain about them for without doing so.

—————

Now, I can understand why you might be worried about the slippery slope from this to shit like actual censorship—which, I think we can all agree, is a bad thing. Or how you might think criticizing this could lead to the whole “fandom purity” debate.

My thing is, it all comes down to does it actually harm people?

Perpetuating harmful stereotypes via saying stuff like the Jewish based characters “steal children,” or “lost their way,” or “they caused/deserved their genocide”—that does cause actual harm.

Think about why the “angry black man” stereotype or the “cheating bisexual” stereotype are bad and people- (rightly) -push back against them. It’s the same thing here.

Shipping a problematic ship, calling a fictional serial killer “babygirl,” writing about dark topics*, headcanoning characters as gay or trans…none of that is actively harming people.

(*obviously when writing about dark topics you should tag appropriately so people can avoid triggers, but that’s another topic for another day)

That’s the difference.

And, for the record, I think letting people spout bigotry just because they’re saying it about something fictional is the more dangerous mindset than calling it out.