#oh theyre just normal people with regular flaws and lives

[c1airidryl]

Finally at long last internet fame is starting to matter less and less to me

[ziamln]

Just wondering,why do you think nobody has forced zayn to post about the baby? And is that a good thing or do you think he’s in trouble for it?

It is an interesting question, thank you for asking.

I think a lot of the reason he's been able to get away with it so far is the fact that they've been pushing this crap about him hating social media alongside him being an extremely private person.

A lot of the fans don't even question his lack of 'excitement'/posting because of his anxiety and the slow reduction over the past year of his social media presence. One of the articles that was questioning why zayn wasn't there went on to say that it 'isn't anything out of the ordinary. Its not really about him- he's not the one gestating a baby' [essentially saying hes irrelevant to the posts] and going on to talk about how he's 'notoriously private' and prefers being 'out of the mix' and saying their desire for privacy will only intensify, which is utter bullshit if Giggles latest posts are anything to go off- she's actually getting less and less private.

Also a lot of the baby related posts are all linked directly back to giggles, and rarely Zayn, we've only had 2 posts linking Zayn to being the father and the rest was a shit ton of articles. There's not many people questioning why he hasn't said anything, they're mostly just [alarmingly creepily] idolising his supposed child. They've never questioned his absence BC the relationship has always been tailored to favour giggles and make her out to be this amazing person.

All of a sudden giggles is the most amazing person and a Queen and the best everything. No one wants to remember a single bad thing she's done. I mean they don't question a single thing because they idolise her and her relationship so much they forget how badly this whole things has been played out through the drastic changes in bumps between pictures and don't even get me started on the shambles of the dates and timeline of this mess.

Also I'm not sure how well thought out and planned this whole thing was or whether it was a last minute decision of yes, there's quarantine and its more difficult to stunt so how can we carry this on??? Oh perfect quarantine baby announcement so people can't see the same patterns and flaws from the last two baby gates! [Or I also have the theory about how she may be pregnant [not zayns ofc] and that she fell pregnant around the time this one was announced randomly at 5 months in the middle of lockdown???? Like that's not weird at all...] Like you're trying to tell me she would be careless enough to get pregnant whilst being at the "peak" of her career and was unsure if Zayn was 'the one'... Okayyyyy.

Out of all the Hadids the only one who has explicitly used Zayn's name is Bella in her recent, and that was most likely to promo her new Versace perfume but z*gis didn't see how odd that was and ate that shit up BC omg Bella mentioned Zayn, couple goals!1!! The only other real indication they've had for Zayn being the dad is that hella photo shopped post giggles posted captioned as baby daddy and so now no one is questioning Zayn for not responding because the mother of the child confirmed it and they're obviously loved up and there's nothing else left to question at all is there?

Tbf though with all three of the baby gates it has never been made out to be about the 'father', they get next to nothing out of it. It has always been tailored to suit whatever narrative or promo the 'mother' needs because its all about the fame for them and what they can get out of it and just like hardly anyone questions [other than larries, ziammies or people who can see past the lies] Louis or Liam's involvement in their children's lives, unless theyre hating and calling them a deadbeat [once again proving they get nothing out of this but the 'mothers' do]. 

Giggles has proven time and time again that she loves capitalising off Zayns name, e.g. Mohameds recent [deleted post]- who started trending? G*gi and Z*gi, but not Zayn???? Why??? and then surprise surprise Giggles makes a post... And then, the first thing she does after Zayns posts a selfie after months of silence... The baby daddy post... And people don't even question this shit because being happy for Zayn means they love him so much!!1!!1!1!!! Like its funny how in this whole thing, everyone BUT Zayn has been getting some sort of promo from it. Seriously, go onto google, search Zayn and go on the news bar, not a single article there is Zayn centric, its all about Giggles or the 'pregancy' and Hadids.

Zayn has always been second place when it comes to Z*gi, despite the fact that she has used his name to get to where she is, [you can't deny how much her profile has grown since this shit started] Zayns music gets no attention from the media unless they make it about Z*gi- this has always been about boosting Jelenas career, and its evident about how much press this baby is getting over any of Zayns projects or music.

But no of course because some can see through the lies and question if Zayn is truly happy and actually look into this shit we are fake fans because we aren't playing ball and just being blindly happy for him.

Or maybe its to make people question less if they decide to go down the route of it turning out to not be Zayns child [DNA scandal or something?] Not sure on that one though now that Bella mentioned him... Tbf tho, until Bella mentioned him, if you look back at everyone elses posts, lives or interviews they have never mentioned Zayn, only ever mentioning giggles or 'they'. Honesly, its actually amusing how giggles posted that post saying baby daddy, Zayn actively ignored it, [its not like her posts could get lost in his feed when he only follows 27 people and he couldn't spare her a like i'm-] yet Bella managed to post a picture of Gigi saying baby mama, kind of embarrassing if you ask me, love.

Its funny how he's only hates social media when it suits the narrative. He was pretty active on social media this time a year ago, posting a few times a week or at least a few times every month, and then suddenly at the start of the year he's posting a bit and then, bang- nothing. All of a sudden Zayn hates social media and doesn't post for 5 months after years of regular posts...

So he can come online to post about UFC [which I find adorable] but he can't take a minute to like his pregnant girlfriends pictures and z*gis don't even question that??? It kind of says a lot about what Zayns role in the relationship is to them. Because Giggles is the queen don't forget, Zayn has no relevance unless it suits them or she posts a picture with him, after all, all he did was get her name out there!!!1!!

No one is even questioning Zayns family's lack of response on this whole thing and some of the shade they have thrown, purely because they liked a few posts or made a comment here and there so obviously Zayn is the father and he must be so excited because his family is liking the post, oh wait but he hasn't? No that's totally normal and not questionable at all.

They think being happy for Zayn equates to genuinely caring about him, when in reality its not the case because if they truly cared and weren't so far up Jelenas arse they'd be able to tell what was true and false and whether he was truly happy or not, simple.

As for whether he is in trouble or not, its hard to tell. I should think not, with all the crap he's having to endure the least they could do is leave him in peace. But they're evil personified so chances are they could be very pissed with him and waiting for this 'baby' to be born to wreak havoc and have him super involved. I doubt that would sit well with him though because its obvious to see how difficult he has found stunting since the beginning, this would be hell for him if they made him have to be active. I do have a feeling that BC we are in the endgame of some of these stunts [some contracts may be ending soon] that they could get a lot more in your face with it...

Or maybe because Liam has taken on the engagement they'll go easier on Zayn? I just hope Zayn is not made out to be the bad guy however this ends, he deserves better.

Ok i need to stop because there is so much wrong with this whole thing I could go on about it forever, but either way this whole thing is hella suss, regardless of what you believe. You can't deny it.

I'm sorry this ended up so long, I hope it answered your questions though! x

[pizzavorous-wolf]

Okay I just finished The Last of Us 2 gameplay and have many thoughts also when I read some other opinions from others.

First of all I understand why Joel had to die so early in the game but it was still early for me... I liked him but I dont mind him dying - characters die in stories. I dont even mind the way he died. Not everyone needs to have some dramatic tragic way of dying I find that actually a bit annoying... I like some realism in stories and seriously I dont mind this way. Sometimes it’s just bad timing and being at the wrong place meeting wrong people. Im tired of magical rescues or surviving.. sure there’s place for them but not overusing them.

Im very satisfied with Eli and Dina. Do you guys realise no matter how flawed this game is from your point of view this is huge fucking step? This is first AAA game that has openly protagonist LGBT character and very visible wlw relationship ON SCREEN? And not even limited to one time or just side convo? It’s huge fucking thing.

Now Im just gonna jump right to the ending. At first I couldn’t believe they actually did it and gave us exactly what we wanted but then yeeahh... Look you can never satisfy gamers... its either “oh gosh this ending is bullshit why does everything have to be dark i will pretend it never happened >:/” or “wtf this is not realistic they are just gonna live happy life now? it should have been darker” so yeah Im gonna say there should have been two endings at least. I seriously expected two endings yknow... the whole Abby vs Eli thing was screaming two endings at me. But we got what we got. Im bitter about the ending BUT at the same time I can understand what Naughty Dog was aiming for. They wanted to paint Eli as flawed human just like every single of us is. The whole game is pointing finger at our flaws. Eli was too caught up in her seek for revenge she didnt see the good thing she had. She realised too late the revenge is not the answer and so her fear of ending up alone came true. Seriously do you not know people who realise their mistakes too late? I know plenty. This is very human character.

But at the same time sure - I also would have loved the perfect lovey-dovey rainbow colored ending her living happily with Dina on the farm forever. Yeah that would be nice. But I also like in some way the actual ending. Because it shows Eli’s human nature so well.

Same for Abby. Both hated and loved. I didnt like her at first - when I didnt know her story yet. She lost her father. Who wouldnt seek a revenge? But she only aimed for Joel. No one else. Joel was her goal and the end of it. She also changed her kind of closeted mind about the outsiders (Scars) and I think she opened up to the different way of thinking during convos with Lev. She helped people she used to hunt and kill. She protected them with her life. She betrayed “her” people for them. Is this evil person? Antagonist? Not for me.

Obviously then again who wouldnt seek revenge when her ex boyfriend and his pregnant girlfriend got murdered? She was done with her revenge for father and now this? The vicious circle was burning.

But then... she wanted to kill pregnant Dina because Mel was also pregnant and that didnt stop Eli right? But then... yeah she didnt want to continue that circle. She broke it. But it was only her who did so. Once again to me - a person who breaks the circle of ongoing revenge is not the bad or evil one. She changed. She grew.

Eli did so as well but... a bit late. But thats okay. Because people grow at different speed as well. In that way I really like the game. Im not gonna spit poison at it because I see the writers wanted to show the complexity of human nature and the matter of coincidences... I dont need perfect stories and as I said many gamers still wouldnt be satisfied.

I also have respect for Naughty Dog for designing Abby. Shes very muscular. I can see other AAA game studios are still taking kind of baby steps in showing women as not only the hot perfect eyecandy for straight male gamers. They’re like “uhm... so this woman will be slightly overweight.. and has short not neon colored hair..shes not very feminine.. but dont worry! Shes only side character! She wont get in your way too much! Is it okay with you guys? :( Its okay right?”

But Naughty Dog gives you very visibly muscular woman with no makeup and hardly any feminine features as one of the main characters and you also have to play as her. Nothing subtle about it. No other eye-catching hot women for horny male gamers anywhere. Just women trying to survive living rough life. And looking normal. Abby is ripped and you will be very aware of it all the time. No “forcibly sexy” angles shes treated as any “regular” muscled male character would be.

I find it very refreshing. You only play as woman characters in this game. No macho muscular ruffled middle aged dude running around with rifle. We have already so many games like that. This is such a breath of fresh air at the AAA game industry. It was bold. Naughty Dog was expecting the backslash from those dudebro gamers. There are LGBT flags all over the map too. They give zero shit about being subtle and not hurting the dudebro gamer too much. Theyre so very open and I love that. No matter the other flaws I respect this so so deeply. And I hope they will be the inspiration for other studios to stop tip-toeing and just fully stand up - openly and with no shame.

Naughty Dog you did so well and I appreciate that. That game isnt perfect in all ways but Im seeing all that hard work and you standing up - rebelling againts the set rules - pandering to straight male gamers - yeah you go. I support you all the way.

[la-knight]

BOOKS I (RE)READ IN 2018: FURTHERMORE BY TAHEREH MAFI

"Alice Alexis Queensmeadow, 12, rates three things most important: Mother, who wouldn’t miss her; magic and color, which seem to elude her; and Father, who always loved her. Father disappeared from Ferenwood with only a ruler, almost three years ago. But she will have to travel through the mythical, dangerous land of Furthermore, where down can be up, paper is alive, and left can be both right and very, very wrong. Her only companion is Oliver whose own magic is based in lies and deceit. Alice must first find herself—and hold fast to the magic of love in the face of loss." "Red was ruby, green was fluorescent, yellow was simply incandescent. Color was life. Color was everything. Color, you see, was the universal sign of magic." "Love, it turned out, could both hurt and heal." "Narrow-mindedness will only get you as far as Nowhere, and once you're there, you're lost forever.” "Alice was an odd girl, even for Ferenwood, where the sun occasionally rained and the colors were brighter than usual and magic was as common as a frowning parent." "Making magic is far more interesting than making sense." So I actually read this book a few months ago and then recently reread it via audio so I could remember all the details for this review. I was first introduced to Tahereh Mafi’s work through her book Shatter Me, her debut novel. Ironically, it wasn’t through any of the ways I normally hear about books - Booktube, Goodreads, my best friend, Booklr - but from my husband’s aunt. She runs - or used to run, not sure if she’s still doing it - a book review blog. And she posted a review of Shatter Me and I was like, “What a weird, interesting writing style, lemme check this out.” At this point the entire Shatter Me Trilogy plus novellas had been published and I devoured all of them (still need to review those, too). So when I heard Tahereh Mafi was writing a middle grade book, I got super excited! Especially because this was during a time when I was too stressed out to read any YA, since most of the YA I like involves having to save the world and all the stress that entails. I need to lay out some trigger warnings real quick: the main character, Alice? Her mom is incredibly abusive, both emotionally and physically. It’s treated as not such a big deal in the book, which is honestly the story’s only real flaw, but it’s bad. It took me seven tries and resorting to an audiobook (and even with a fantastic narrator, that short audiobook took me almost a month to get through) because the abuse was so bad. So:

TRIGGER WARNING: THIS BOOK CONTAINS EMOTIONAL AND PHYSICAL ABUSE OF A CHILD BY THEIR PARENT

Let’s get started, yo! First of all, the setting. OMG. See, I love tthis thing called Victorian fairy tales, which is something you can find in books like Mary Poppins - these super fantastical bits of whimsy that just warm your heart and make you grin because they’re so creative and fun. In the Mary Poppins books, you can jump into chalk drawings and go to a circus amidst the stars and make friends with a woman who sells living candy-cane horses. In Catherynne Valente’s Fairyland series, there are shadow balls and talking phonographs. And in Furthermore, there’s light raining down from the sky in literal drops, sticks of magic you use like money, and forests full of invisible berries. The way the world is put together and described, so full of color and imagination, is awesome and beautiful and I could picture it perfectly. It reminded me in all the best ways of books like The Phantom Tollbooth (one of my favorites). But I wouldn’t want to live there, because Ferenwood is full of colorism and ick. Alice, the female lead, is an albino in a world where color is important and the darker you are, the more magical you’re considered to be. So Alice gets treated like garbage. 

Also I think Alice may be autistic, but I don’t know if she’s deliberately coded autistic or if Tahereh Mafi did it by accident while trying to make Alice eccentric, but she comes across as autistic. I’ve actually begun to pay more attention to that sort of the thing in recent years, being autistic myself, and I see it a lot - authors giving their characters autistic characteristics, often without meaning to. I just touch on it here because Alice is already treated badly for being albino, but she’s also considered a freak because of the way she behaves - like an autistic preteen. And I wonder if Tahereh Mafi did that on purpose as a sort of commentary or not, because while Alice is treated badly by the people of Ferenwood for her behavior, the Narrator (who is an actual character in the story; love when that happens) always sides with Alice in this regard. The storyline is sweet and I love it. Alice tries to compete in the magical testing all the preteens do on their twelfth birthday, and so she dances. And her dancing is magical but it’s not Magical, you know? So she fails the test. Well, turns out a boy who passed the test the year before, Oliver (the brat), needs Alice’s help fulfilling a quest - rescuing Alice’s missing dad. So they go on a quest together, although Alice hates Oliver (and rightly so, he’s rude). They go to a dozen different and cool places, all of which are dangerous and all of which are different. I wish we could’ve spent more time in those places but I understand why we didn’t. The only annoying thing is there’s an origami fox on the cover but it only pops up in one of the worlds for like two pages and then it’s gone and I thought we could spend more time both in that world and with that creature since it ended up on the cover. But alas, not. I understand why - middle grade is often cursed to be short, especially if it’s the author’s first MG novel ever. Once you get big and bad like Rick Riordan you can start tossing out gihugic tomes like Son of Neptune or Blood of Olympus on the regular. Oliver’s reason for needing Alice was one I didn’t see coming, nor was her magical talent - a talent they hint at throughout the book but never explain until near the end, at the perfect moment. I thought it was an interesting commentary on how young girls perceive themselves, that Alice hates this marvelous, amazing talent she has of bringing color into the world from nothing...because she can’t use it to change how she looks. Society has trained her already, by the age of twelve, to discount something incredible about herself because she can’t use it to make herself into what society wants her to be. That’s pretty impressive for a book this short. I loved some of the more deliberate messages in the work - the thing I mentioned about society’s pressures on young girls, and also that it’s okay to tell boys to screw off if they’re mean to you, and to have hope and to look for second chances (Alice thinks she only has one chance to pass the test and believes her life is over when she fails, only to find out she can try again the next year). I love all of that, and the lyrical and whimsical quality of the prose, and the world building is so creative and also makes me a bit hungry (people eat magic in this book, among other things; I wonder what it tastes like). Now...let’s talk about the abuse. That’s my biggest issue with the book. Alice’s mother is a total bitch. And not in a cool, kickass way like the lady in the show Empire. She’s vicious, she’s cruel, and she’s abusive. Alice knows - and the Narrator confirms - that she turned bad when her husband went missing, and apparently the worry for him and the strain of raising four kids on her own is making her hard and sad, but I don’t give a shit. I was hoping Tahereh Mafi would’ve gone all Hansel and Gretel on this lady and when Alice comes home with her dad, the wife’s dead or something. She beats Alice (at one point she beat Alice for chasing a boy out of the place where she was sleeping, even though he kept staring at her in her sleeping clothes, because apparently the boy - Oliver - had the right to break into their barn at 3AM and ogle Alice???), she verbally abuses Alice, she sends her to bed regularly without dinner, is constantly criticizing, won’t hug her or kiss her, and - this one really got me, for some reason - forces her to do illegal things. Those invisible berries I mentioned? Alice can find them and bring back whole baskets because of her magical gift, and so her mom sends her out to pick them all the time. If she brings home enough, her mom smiles. If she doesn’t, her mom yells and calls her names and sometimes beats her. Guess what? Picking those berries is illegal. We don’t find this out until much later in the book, but it is. The thing I didn’t like about the berries is that Oliver, who’s thirteen, is less concerned about Alice’s mother beating her for not picking enough contraband berries and instead focuses on how her ability to find the berries in the first place means Alice has really impressive magic. NOBODY seems to care how much Alice is being abused, not even the Narrator. The Narrator sympathizes with Alice’s hurt feelings and despair over her missing Father, but it’s never objectively stated that her mom is abusing her AND SHE IS. Yeah, her mom is sooo glad to have her back after Alice almost dies on her trip with Oliver, but so what? My roommate’s mom is so abusive that my roommate’s clergy leaders, doctors, and psychological therapist all said my roommate needed to cut ties with said mom, even though my roommate’s mom has also exhibited the same kind of “oh baby I’m so sorry, I love you so much” bullshit. That’s what abusers do. So I hate Alice’s mom. She literally makes her daughter feel like if she doesn’t risk her life numerous times AND bring her father back, there is no chance her mother will ever love her. And if she pulls that stuff off (which she does), then MAYBE her mother will love her. Nuh-uh. Nope. Hate that bitch. Other than that, I really loved this book. The characters felt real (Alice is me, but without my anger), Even the ones I didn’t like were still REAL, and well-drawn. The world building and word choice is fantastic. Basically, if you can get past the evil mom, read this book. World Building: 1 star Realism: 1 star Word Choice: 1 star Plot: 1 star Characterization: 1 star - ¼ star because Oliver Newbanks is an obnoxious little creep - 1 star because the mom is AN ABUSIVE EVIL BITCH - ¼ star because NOBODY DOES ANYTHING ABOUT THAT +½ star because Alice is amazing and has a genius brain and I love her Total score: 4/5 stars Would I Buy It: Yes! I own it and loved it enough I got the sequel for Christmas (in...2017...I've been sitting on this review for months...)! Would I Recommend: yes, but with trigger warnings. Again, highly abusive evil bitch mom who somehow doesn’t die.