#socializing is easier for them there than it is for me in real high school

[squishosaur]

lonely girl sleepover ✌️

[alliepsmithh]

israel posted a video of them giving water bottles to palestinians on a beach, then destroyed their luggage and shot at them after they stopped recording.

israel posted a photo of one of their soldiers "assisting" with an elderly man, then they shot him twice in the back and killed him.

in 2015, the idf posted pr photos of an israeli soldier giving water to an elderly palestinian woman, only for them to execute her after the photo was taken.

in 2005, an idf soldier emptied his rifle into a 13-year-old palestinian schoolgirl. he said he would have done the same thing if she was 3-years-old. he was acquitted of all charged.

israel claimed that hamas beheaded 40 israeli babies and then a month later cut off power to a palestinian hospital where premature babies were on incubators.

israel bombed a group of children collecting rainwater.

israel shot and killed two palestinian children playing with their scooter.

israel shot a hard of hearing girl in the face with a stun grenade and broke her jaw.

israel is using bombs with blades that are designed to cause maximum damage to the person in range.

israel forced medical workers at al-Nasr medical center to leave babies in incubators in order to evacuate the hospital they were bombing.

israel turned off power to hospitals in palestine, forcing nurses and doctors to use their phone flashlights when treating patients.

israel raised their flag over Al Shifa hospital.

israel has blown up the chambers of the palestinian legislative council.

israel targeted a "suspicious vehicle containing several terrorists”, meanwhile the only people in the car were three girls, ages 10, 12, and 14, their grandmother, and their mother. the only survivor was the three girls' mother.

israel planted a copy of mein kampf in a children's bedroom in a gazan house they claim hamas was hiding in.

israel poured fake blood onto the floor of an israeli child's bedroom and claimed hamas killed them.

israeli soldiers posted a video of them dancing on gazan graves.

israel posted a video showing a calendar in a palestinian children's hospital was a hamas guard list because it was written in arabic.

israel was using white phosphorus on hospitals.

israel bombed a refugee camp.

israel has burned olive trees in palestine.

israel has put cement into the water supply of palestine.

israel claimed that they found tunnels under Al Shifa hospital, only for it to be exposed that those tunnels are actually in sweden.

israel built a bunker and command room under Al Shifa hospital in 1983, only for them to now say that they are hamas tunnels.

israeli police arrested an israeli high school teacher, who posted on facebook expressing sympathy with palestinian civilians who have been killed.

israeli soldiers filmed themselves throwing a stun grenade into a palestinian mosque.

we are witnessing a genocide in real time framed under the guise of stopping hamas. israel has been terrorizing palestine for as long as israel has existed, but their access to technology and social media has made it much easier to fool people into supporting them.

meanwhile, noah schnapp is posting that zionism is sexy and celebrities are standing with israel. just absolutely twisted shit.

edit: for those who would like sources, my twitter is alliiesmith. i have retweeted everything i’ve mentioned. i apologize for not providing this sooner

edit 2: i’ve had some people in the replies and reposts pointing out that linking my twitter seems like promotion. i just wanted to clear up that that was not my intention. i’ve been retweeting resources and news much faster than i’m able to add to this post, and i thought that my twitter profile could be something of a hub for information. i don’t care if you follow me, but i think scrolling through and seeing what i’ve retweeted could be helpful.

[inbarfink]

I mean, the thing is that fiction about aliens is almost always going to be about some sort of Other on some level. Whatever it’s about demonizing or fear-mongering about some sort of Outsider Group or trying to get the audience to sympathize with the Other via the metaphor of a lovable alien. 

And Invader Zim is kind of an interesting spot there because, like, it’s not just ‘Bad Outsider Out to Destroy Our Beloved In-Group’ or ‘Poor Sympathetic Outsider Being Put-Down by the In-Group’. First thing first because Zim is kinda both. He is both the Outsider secretly hiding inside the in-group plotting their destruction - but the narrative and framing also sympathizes with him and supports his view of the in-group (that humans are stupid and gross).

So he can’t really be A Scary Demonized Outsider when he gets so much narrative sympathy and support, but also… he is a murderous little world-conquering bastard and most of his suffering is generally just him gets exactly what he deserves so he can’t be your classic sort of Sympathetic Outsider either. 

And the other thing is that the in-group is not even really involved in Zim’s conflict. Zim’s biggest challenge in conquering the earth is Dib, another Outsider. Often, despite being a human and thus part of the literal in-group, Dib is an even bigger Outsider to humanity than Zim is.

Zim and Dib are both Outsiders, and Zim isn’t just an Outsider as an Alien on Earth - among his own people he is in the same situation as Dib is, an Outsider in his own in-group. (Not that he can ever admit to himself that is the case). So these two Weirdos are fighting to protect/further the goals of two in-groups that will never actually accept them. 

And so often their main weapon against each other and the primary danger and the source of their suffering for themselves is the same thing; the in-group conformity and enforcement of social norms. 

Dib’s main evidence that Zim is an Alien is, most of the time, just the fact that he looks and acts weird. But also he himself is constantly bullied for looking and acting weird.

And Zim’s most constant source of anxiety while undercover on Earth is the fact that he’s going to get caught being Too Weird and then not just fail his mission, but get brutally dissected and experimented on. But his best defense against being exposed is… basically just to point out just how much Dib also Diverges From the Norm.

It’s the story of two Weirdos trying to get the other punished for being weird in some way, while the Normies just kinda look on and laugh at them both. And the actual thing they want, recognition and acceptance from their in-group is the one thing they are doomed to never actually get. 

And honestly, I think that's actually what makes a lot of real-life Outsiders cling to IZ, especially while we’re teens. I think, in a way, the fact that it’s kind of a messy Outsider narrative makes it more relatable to the messy middle-school/high-school experience than something more neatly crafted to be uplifting to the Weird Kids.

I mean, I certainly see the obvious value in fiction that’s actually trying to create a positive narrative for queer teens or autistic kids or maybe just scene kids or any combination of the following. This sort of media is very good, and can be just as important to some folks.

But... also the truth is that when you’re an edgy teen wrecked with self-loathing for Weirdness you don’t even fully understand “There’s nothing wrong with me and all the people making me feel like they are Bad!” can be a hard message to really believe in. Sometimes it’s easier to start from “Maybe I am all the terrible things people say that I am but.. still deserve love and sympathy, I can still be the hero of the story”. 

And because, sadly, the problem of Weirdos attacking each other for being Weirdos using the same rhetoric that’s used to hurt them, just for the sake of approval and recognition from in-groups that are never going to treat either of them as nothing but a joke - is not a phenomenon exclusive to the Silly Alien Invader Nicktoon.

And Dib and Zim’s rivalry is a great basic framework to explore it both in analysis of the canon and in fanworks.

[assignedmale]

As a trans creator whose work went viral an awful lot of times and who was targeted by so many hate campaigns that I lost count of them (I started publishing Assigned Male Comics 9 years ago, to give you an idea), I think it would have been very easy for me to go down a bitter path. Our communities are merciless. Our movement is obsessed with ideological purity. It's a fact. Our siblings will devore us for the smallest misstep. It's very easy to become jaded, when you give your entire being to a cause that will treat you as disposable as soon as it's done draining all your energy. When I started getting invited to different countries to speak about my work, I viewed it as some kind of "reward" - I create work that spoke to people, so it got me speaking engagements. I realized that it was in fact the opposite : it's seeing the impact art can have on communities that became the real catalyst of it. With all the hate I've attracted, from transphobes, far-right extremists and other trans people alike, I often wonder why I keep doing it. What is it that makes it that I'm still there after a whole decade, when it would have been easier to let resent and bitterness become my fuel. I always come to the same conclusion. It's meeting all of you, meeting so many communities from all around the planet, that keeps reminding me of the healing and transformative powers of belonging and empowerment. It's only with that in mind that the incredible amount of responsibilities and pressure that comes with a platform such as mine can make sense. Because why do we do this? Why do we burn ourselves out for a cause that we know will throw us away the minute doubt is cast on our ideological purity? It's so that "thriving" may be something more to trans people everywhere than a distant dream. Your activism should be to work towards that. And that starts at home. As a trans person, when you're given a voice and an audience, feeling attacked suddenly becomes a thing of every instant, from the moment you wake up to when you go to bed. It's not something volunteer social media moderators can help you with. I will always have compassion to anyone who goes through that, willingly or not. We ask a lot from trans public figures, who literally put their lives at risk for doing so. It shouldn't be that dangerous to do the work they do. Let's all recognize that. That being said, bullying, high-school-level drama and feuds should never be tolerated. Resist the urge to dogpile and raid. You might be filled with righteousness right now, but I can assure you that you will not feel better afterward. The world won't be a better place for it. When the world becomes too much, I retreat in a corner and write comics. Sometimes, after a long creative process of multiple hours of drawing, rewriting and rewording, I post one of them on the internet. Most of them, I keep to myself. Thousands of Assigned Male Comics strips none of you will ever get to see. I believe that our minds aren't made for the instantaneity of social media. I want my readers to sit back and get thinking, which is why you will rarely see me post more than 3 or 4 times a week, and only a very curated selection of posts. I basically hit the "post" button and run back offline. One day, I'll retire entirely from social media. When that happens, I'll keep posting on Webtoon. Go read the comics there, it's under the title "Serious Trans Vibes". "She's done it," you can then think. "She's thriving."

[wonieleles]

project: stay single — yang jungwon

synopsis: when being the youngest and only girl of the park household, strict parents and overprotective brother and cousins are a given. therefore, park y/n sworn off dating until she enters college (not that she had much of a choice). but when the awkward but terribly cute yang jungwon is placed in her lab group, she finds herself wanting to break the number one rule in her family—no dating till college. or maybe they could be just friends, right?

pairing: classmate!jungwon x fem!reader

genre: smau, high school au, strangers to friends to lovers, mutual pining (?), instant attraction, forbidden love but not really, fluff, (attempted) crack, slow burn cause they’re two socially awkward kids 😕

warnings: my humor, not grammarly approved grammar, lots of deez nuts jokes, death/suicidal jokes (kinda), inaccurate time stamps, typos (most likely intentional), occasional bathroom jokes will include specific warnings in the chapter if necessary

started: july 7, 2022

status: ON HOLD!

taglist: open! just send an ASK to be added! replies will be ignored.

note: this is my first smau, so please bear with me. also this is not an accurate depiction of any idols since i’m just using them as characters, and therefore will be creating my own version of their personality for this story. i hope this doesn’t upset anyone, i just thought it’d be easier than using random face claims for made up characters

profiles: park family and co | everyone’s favorite idiot nerds | chem hate club

chapter one: sunghoon abuse 😢

chapter two: ALREADY???

chapter three: i was hacked !!!

↳ bonus chapter one: park family shenanigans

chapter four: and they actually talked? without help???

chapter five: chaos at 3am

chapter six: the beginning of the nishimura riki murder plot

chapter seven: god answers prayers (REAL !!)

chapter eight: sunghoon GET OUT OF THE GOD DAMN BATHROOM

chapter nine: ynwonshipper acc (0.4k words)

chapter ten: can i have a lawyer?

chapter eleven: funny story i almost died

chapter twelve: just keeping it 💯 😎😜😆🤩

chapter thirteen: yn’s fbi agent era?

chapter fourteen: oh no

chapter fifteen: the idiots’ dilemma (0.6k words)

chapter sixteen: riki’s metal bat kink (UNCONFIRMED)

chapter seventeen: maybe it’s cause i do … like him

chapter eighteen: jang wonyoung is a liar (with a capital L)

chapter nineteen: autocorrect strikes again?

chapter twenty: be delusional !!

chapter twenty one: sunoo was right 😱

chapter twenty two: hear me out but i think i’m psychic (0.3k words)

chapter twenty three: tutor x tutoree trope?!

↳ bonus chapter two: and they were WHAT??? (0.8k words)

© 2022 wonieleles. all rights reserved. please do not plagiarize, copy, or repost my works on any platform.

[qprstobin]

home back to you - pt 1

So my friends knew this was coming - finally posting the first part of the Steve/tommy/carol post S2 fic ❤️

Summary:

Steve’s fight with Billy is exactly the kick in the pants Tommy (and Carol) need to make amends with Steve. Now if only Steve and his weird security detail full of bratty middle schoolers made it easier to talk to him. The Steve/Tommy/Carol post-s2 fic that no one has been asking for but me <3

AO3 Link | Pt. 2

Minor tw: some ableist language, tommy badmouthing Jonathan and Nancy (tho this is NOT a bashing fic), the S2 shower scene being weird as hell

Tommy thought that Billy Hargrove was the best thing to happen to Hawkins High since Steve Harrington ditched his throne (and Tommy and Carol along with it).

Billy was wild in a way that was hard to match, sending fire thrumming through Tommy’s veins and scorching the hole that Steve had left behind. He was making things exciting again, shaking up the social hierarchy in a way that Tommy felt (or well, Carol pointed out) he could use to his advantage. It didn’t take long for the two of them to be practically attached at the hip, reminding him of earlier, easier days.

(Days he was trying hard to forget.)

A part of him was also watching how Billy circled Ste- Harrington, like a hawk circling its prey, reminding him of the nature documentaries he liked to watch when he was sick. It would worry him, maybe, the look in Billy’s eyes, if he wasn’t hoping this would be the thing that truly unseated Steve. That made him return to normal, drop Wheeler and come crawling back to him and Carol.

(He thought that Steve would’ve broken up with Nancy months ago, they’d never fought for this long before-)

Tommy came to regret that sentiment after everything played out.

It started at practice – well, if Tommy was being honest with himself (which he was trying to get better at, with mixed results), it likely started from the first moment that Billy laid his ice blue eyes on Harrington, that night at Tina’s party.

He hadn’t noticed it then, not as drunk as he was pretending to be but drunker than he really meant to be, thrumming with adrenaline (and something that felt strangely like attraction, though, that didn’t really make any sense) as Billy in one fatal blow, beat Steve’s record and became the new Keg King.

Tommy had felt bad about how excited he was, knowing that Steve, Carol, and him had worked hard to learn how to hold their liquor. That didn’t stop the petty part of him from being happy about it.

Not only was the new kid already putting Harrington in his place, maybe this would be the thing that caused Steve to turn (his) their way again. Cause him to care about his reputation a little more. He’d worked so hard for it – they all had – he didn’t get how he could just drop it so easily.

(How he could drop them so easily.)

Tommy was so sure this was the first step in finally pulling Steve’s head out of his ass – (show him that he and Carol didn’t need him) – that he introduced Billy to him that night.

Like he said, he didn’t realize it then, but that was the real start of it.

The start as he remembered it was at basketball practice the next day.

Billy was… competitive with Steve on the court.

Which, of course he was, Ste- Harrington managed to stay aloft in the social hierarchy, despite dropping all of his actual friends because of his place on the basketball team.

Basketball was the biggest sport in the school, in the county, and not just because everyone around was a fan of the Hoosiers, though that definitely played a part. Back when they were still sophomores, Tommy and Steve had helped lead the school to its first championship in years.

Steve shot the winning shot and got the keg king title at the after party, in one fell swoop securing his place not only in the Hawkins history books but also his spot at the top of the high school’s food chain for the rest of his high school career.

The next year they made him captain, and Harrington was good at being captain. Though he spent most of his time with Wheeler and even Byers (which, really? The guy that his almost-girlfriend cheated on him with? He was preferable to Tommy and Carol? His best friends since grade school?) he still made sure to dedicate time to the team, both on and off the court. And the team respected him for that.

(Tommy had to respect him for that, too. Even if it wasn’t fair that the only time Tommy got St- Harrington was when they were hanging out as a team.)

If Billy could unseat Steve on the court and with the team, his reign would be all but guaranteed. So, it made some sort of sense to Tommy as he watched Billy push their captain around, get in his face, yell at him to ‘plant his feet’. Tommy could see that Harrington wasn’t at his best, almost seeming hungover.

Thing was, despite how gone Tommy himself was, he knew that Steve hadn’t drank much that night. Aside from the fact that losing his Keg King title wasn’t enough to lure him into doing his own keg stand, he’s pretty sure he saw Wheeler hitting the punch bowl more than Stev- Harrington was. Especially when it led to a loud argument in Tina’s bathroom.

Even if he had been blackout drunk, Tommy would be able to tell when Steve was trying not to cry.

(He’d have to ask Carol later if it was possible to be emotionally hungover.)

The predatorial posturing was interrupted by Wheeler appearing at the door. Normally, it wouldn’t be odd to see her at practice. Tommy had seen her working on homework (gross) on the bleachers before, and even would occasionally pop in when doing a story for the school paper, but she had never interrupted like this before, with frustration visibly leaking off of her.

Ste- Harrington sighed and followed her out, waving to the coach. For once, he didn’t look like he was literally walking on air when approaching her.

“That Harrington’s girl?” Billy asked, sliding to a controlled stop next to Tommy.

He responded without thinking, “Not sure she will be after today.”

Billy threw his head back and let out a mocking laugh. Tommy flushed as he watched the sweat from Billy’s mullet trickle down his chest. He forced himself to look away as Coach blew the whistle.

–

Two days later Tommy got his confirmation.

“Wheeler isn’t here today, again,” Carol said, appearing beside his locker as he closed the door. He didn’t jump, used to his girlfriend appearing out of nowhere. “And you’ll never guess who else is missing.”

Tommy’s mouth dropped.

“No.”

“That fucking creep, Byers.”

Seemed like Tommy had been right. Steve and Wheeler had broken up.

(If they hadn’t yet, Steve sure wasn’t going to take her back this time. Talk about turning into your parents-)

He felt suddenly energized, riding on a high that carried him all the way through to afternoon practice. Especially with the way Billy’s eyes lit up at the little piece of gossip.

He decided to follow Billy’s lead on this, waiting for him to bring it up to Harrington. During practice, he mostly shoved the other around, taunting him and generally running circles around him. Tommy could tell that Harrington’s head still wasn’t in the game, and it reflected on the rest of his scrimmage team. They trounced them.

(Tommy almost felt bad about it, but the bitter part of him didn’t.)

Coach pulled Steve aside, probably to try and figure out ‘what the hell was up with him’, and the rest if the team hit the showers. Tommy and Billy both drew the short stick, getting some of the last shower slots, which was… not a problem exactly.

Tommy preferred to shower last, normally taking a little extra time to shoot hoops and shoot the shit. The less time spent in the locker room around his naked teammates, the better. Why would he want to spend time around a bunch of naked guys, anyway? Though, it was more time spent loitering around in his gross clothes than he really wanted.

Anyway, he wasn’t sure why he felt so uneasy about it.

Steve (Harrington dammit) still wasn’t done talking to the Coach by the time Tommy and Billy were finally able to get under that sweet, freezing water. He lifted his chin up towards the spray, savoring the feeling, letting it center him. His eyes were clenched shut, so he didn’t get soap in them.

(Not for any other reason at all.)

Right as he was ready to get out, Steve finally entered the showers. Tommy’s eyes popped open just in time to see the smirk crawl across Billy’s face.

“Don’t sweat it, Harrington,” he said, wiping water from his face as he stared intensely at their captain. “Today’s just not your day, man.”

“Yeah, not your week,” Tommy was quick to add on, eager to rub his newfound knowledge in his face. “You and the princess break up for one day, and she’s already running off with the school Creep.” He leaned around the shower pole to make eye contact with Steve.

Steve just stared at him, a note of confusion on his face before his eyes flickered down to his fancy soap impatiently. Surprise and glee flooded through Tommy.

“Oh shit, you don’t know,” he said, unable to keep his grin from growing. Steve continued with his routine, trying to ignore him. “Jonathan and the princess skipped yesterday. Still haven’t shown.”

His former best friend was refusing to look at him, but Tommy could see the way his mouth had tightened. He leaned against the pole, as close as he would allow himself to get in that moment.

“But that must just be a coincidence, right?”

Steve glanced at him before he grabbed his even fancier shampoo. The brief moment of eye contact was almost too much for Tommy. Steve kept his expression cold and uncaring, but Tommy knew him well enough still, could see the pinch around his eyes. The distaste. They were standing too close.

Tommy couldn’t stop the laughter that burst out of him, one part mocking, the other veering into hysterics, and turned away to grab his towel.

He didn’t really pay attention to what Billy said after that, trying to get his head on straight, but he couldn’t miss the way Billy’s mouth wrapped around the words “pretty boy”.

–

The town had an eerie feeling hanging over it that weekend.

He stayed over at Carol’s house all three nights. It was only meant to be one or two, but then both of her parents got called into work because of some sort of weird flu or food poisoning or whatever was going around.

Neither of them were fans of sleeping alone, though neither of them would admit it.

(Not that they really needed to admit it, after knowing each other this long, dating for this long. They didn’t need to waste time on pointless conversation.)

A pack of wild dogs seemed to be roaming through the woods, filling it with feral sounding snarls and leaving trails of debris everywhere. Tommy thought it was odd how they seemed to come out of nowhere, but it wasn’t uncommon for people to ditch animals on the side of the road, so didn’t give it too much thought.

Come Monday morning, the strangeness continued when Billy pulled up to school quieter than normal, rage hanging from his shoulders. His little sister wasn’t in the car with him for once, but Tommy just figured she was sick or something. He didn’t completely understand their family dynamic, honestly.

“Man, what happened to your face?” he exclaimed in surprise once the other man drew closer.

Vicki, who had been chatting with Carol, gasped dramatically and ran up to him, clucking her tongue and simpering at him. Billy put up with it, but didn’t have as heated of a smile to give her as he normally did, to her agitation.

“Had to teach someone a lesson,” he grunted, throwing his around her as something of a consolation. She huffed a little but snuggled up to him anyway, accepting the unspoken apology.

Privately, Tommy thought that it looked like someone had taught Billy the lesson, not the other way around. He wondered if it was Steve, and was privately impressed. He didn’t know Steve had it in him to go after someone like that, but maybe he’d been right. Maybe Wheeler ditching him was the kick in the pants he’d needed all along.

Tommy couldn’t wait to see what he might do, might say, when he got to school that day.

But Steve wasn’t at school that day, he didn’t show up to school that entire week.

He would’ve been worried, but Steve didn’t need him to worry about him anymore. He’d made that clear.

(Tommy was worried anyway.)

That week, he distracted himself by spending time with Billy. There was a sense of unease around the man at all times, but it lessened slightly as the week went on. Tommy could tell that he was fixating on him a little bit, more than he had with anyone other than Carol (or Steve) in ages.

Carol thought the whole thing was funny, giggling with Vicki and Nicole over milkshakes as Tommy, Billy, and whatever other members of the basketball team they dragged along with them were their normal rowdy selves. She knew how Tommy could get – had known him since he moved to this god forsaken town.

All that to say, he was feeling pretty good, despite the conspicuous absence of Harrington at their practices.

That peace was shattered the day he came back.

Tommy didn’t actually see Steve during the actual school day on Monday, but he did see the ripples that were sent through the student body. Whispers filled the halls, but cut off abruptly when Billy walked through them.

Carol’s lips were pinched at lunch, but she refused to tell him why. Wanted more information before she told him. She hated not having the full picture.

Looking back, it wouldn’t have mattered if she had told him. Nothing would have prepared him for seeing Steve that day.

Tommy stopped short when he saw Ste- Harring- Steve shuffling out of Coach’s office that afternoon. He had sunglasses on, but they couldn’t hide the rainbow mosaic on his face, a mix of purples and blues and yellows and greens – bruises all in different stages of healing. He looked like he’d been run over by a truck.

Tommy felt like he’d been hit by a truck. What the hell had happened?

Billy wouldn’t have done that, would he?

“Steve?” he called out, unable to stop himself from saying something. Ignoring the fact that that was the first time he had called Steve by his first name in literal months. He wasn’t really concerned with that right now, not trying to hide how much he cared. Not when Steve’s face looked like that.

Steve turned, his hair flopping limply. It was obvious he had done something to it, but not much. He never let it get this… lusterless in public. His face scrunched up, obviously squinting despite the sunglasses.

With a sigh that seemed to be masking a tired groan, Steve said, “I’m not in the mood, Hagan.”

Tommy knew getting last-named shouldn’t hurt (he and Steve had been doing it for months at this point, wielding it like a weapon every time they bothered to talk to each other), but it did.

“What happened to your face?” he asked, pushing down the hurt and unconsciously echoing the same question he asked Billy the week before.

“What do you think?” Steve scoffed, tossing his head back like he always did when rolling his eyes. This seemed to be a bad idea, since he immediately rocked back forward with a wince. “Your new best friend broke a plate over my head.”

Tommy reared back. “He did what?”

“Oh, he didn’t tell you?” he said, sounding incredibly bitter. “I shouldn’t be surprised. Probably didn’t want to admit that the only reason he wasn’t arrested for being a fucking psycho is because Hopper had other things to worry about.”

There seemed to be a strange ringing sound echoing through the halls, and it confused Tommy until he realized it was just his ears.

Billy did that?

Tommy didn’t want to believe it, not only because it just didn’t make sense (it made perfect sense, Billy had always seemed a little off to Tommy but he was too obsessed with him to care-) but because this wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

People got into petty fights all the time and normally no one was that fucked up at the end of it. A couple of bruises, maybe a broken nose or a black eye, something for the girls to coo over and for other guys to be subtly impressed by, knowing that guy was a guy that shouldn’t be messed with. The worst fight he’d seen happen was when Creepy Byers lost his shit on Steve the year before.

(Tommy wondered for a second what it was about Steve that made guys lose their gourd over him, but shoved that thought out of his mind.)

This- this wasn’t what was supposed to happen.

This wasn’t what he wanted.

Steve seemed to take his shocked silence for some sort of answer, because he sighed quietly to himself.

“It’s like talking to a brick wall, I swear,” he said, walking past him with a hand on his temple, massaging around the bandage he was only now noticing.

He moved aside to let him pass automatically, not sure how to get his mouth working again. Steve started towards the entrance, but paused suddenly, turning to call one last thing to his former best friend.

“Be careful around Billy, Tommy,” he said, using his first name for the first time in a year. “He’s more dangerous than you think he is.”

Pt. 2

[milolovesbmc]

wait wrol jeremy is canonically/intentionally autistic coded??? please elaborate what are his little autistic mannerisms tell me everything

OH MY GOD THIS IS THE BEST FREAKING ASK I'VE EVER GOTTEN!!! HOLD INTO YOUR SOCKS CAUSE I'M ABOUT TO RAMBLE!!!!!!

So, First off, Jeremy (in the Broadway/Off-Broadway productions) IS autistic coded!! since Will Roland based his interpretation/acting for Jeremy on teenagers from a theater camp he attended, who where most (not to say all) autistic. Also, I can't possibly talk about Jeremy being autistic without mentioning this, in the first/original version of Be More Chill Pt.1 one of the SQUIP's line to Jeremy is literally "every lame characteristic, makes you come off as autistic" which they cut (for obvious reasons) but there, had to be mentioned!! So in conclusion, yes he IS autistic coded!! With that outta the way:

WHY WILL ROLAND'S JEREMY IS AUTISTIC CODED!

EYE CONTACT

- This one is the one I have the least to talk about, it's mentioned he has issues with eye contact in More Than Survive, "[...] Avoiding any eye contact at all"

ABNORMAL SPEECH

- OKAY SO HEAR ME OUT ON THIS

- One of the biggest differences between Roland and Connolly Jeremy is how Will R Jeremy talks

- He has issues with Volume control, like how sometimes he's talking and he out of nowhere yells out a word or something and he seems to not notice? Also, he's the only character that talks louder than the rest normally (you have to differ this from stuff like how Michael screams the lines he says in More Than Survive while he's dancing, that's intentional, he's being goofy and having fun)

- Sometimes he talks too fast, like to the point he slurs his words, you can notice a couple or more of these throughout the show

- To finish off the speech thing, he talks in a really flat tone, you can tell not only by comparing his tone to other characters (like Jake for example) or if you compare the voice Will Roland does for Jeremy to the one he does for Jared in DEH, Jeremy's it's flatter

-I'm not too sure this is included in "Abnormal speech" for autism, but I felt like I had to mention that he does stutter/stammer (?) A lot throughout the whole show, it's even mention by the SQUIP in Be More Chill PT. 1 ("All your stammering's a chore" "Stammer?! No- no I don't stammer!")

- it's also suggested he speaks in a "weird" way when in Loser Geek Whatever he says "The please don't speak!" When referring to how he's perceived by his peers

SPECIAL INTEREST

- His special interest is clearly Superheroes and stuff of the sort (mainly from comics I'm pretty sure, but I don't know too much about superheroes) and he references them a lot of times and sees like most of his life and actions through more of a superhero/fiction sense

- The biggest example of him doing this is in More Than Survive (I'm gonna be mentioning MTS a lot here) when he says the line "If this was an apocalypse, I would not need any tips, on how to stay alive!"

- Also, I can even go into that one line even deeper, by this line he basically means that for him it'd be easier to survive in a zombie apocalypse rather than a high school, because an apocalypse has simple rules you need to follow to survive; getting food, not being biten by zombies... While to "survive" high school you need to do a whole bunch of stuff no one tells you you need to do; socialising, not having grades too high or too low, being cool, talking to people, making eye contact... Which are harder to him. This also means that he would know how to survive in a zombie apocalypse because of how much he plays Apocalypse of the Damned (most definitely part of his special interest)

- Also, here's some references/ties he makes between real life and fiction/superhero stuff:

"I like your sideburns, wolverine, right?"

"Like in X-Men?!"

- Not to mention one of his options for the SQUIP's settings was literally Batman

SOCIAL SKILLS

- I don't think I can give very specific examples here, but basically, the literal whole theme of the show is Jeremy not fitting in cause he's "socially awkward" and just generally "weird", you can mostly see it through how the SQUIP helps him socialize, the most clear example is maybe at the mall with Brooke and Chloe.

SARCASM, JOKES, METAPHORS ETC.

- Biggest one is in ILPR when Christine says "no this is where you meet for the swim team" when Jeremy asks about if you meet for Play Rehearsal there, and he takes the joke literally and starts to look around to make sure he's in the right place

- While Michael is talking about the Whole evolution thing, Jeremy is really confused, most probably because he doesn't understand why he's mentioning that as advice/metaphor?/an answer to his problems, then gets even more confused when he says "There's never been a better time in history to be a loser!"

- In Two-Player Game after Jeremy talks about getting the SQUIP and how it'll work and how it'll improve his life, Michael says "and if it does? Will you be too cool for... Video games??" He's clearly using that as an indirect way of saying he's afraid of losing him (which he actually does later on so that's fun!! /J) and Jeremy catches that but basically just completely ignores the metaphor thing and talks about it in a literal sense

RULES

- He mentions how he has some "rules" he follows to survive in More Than Survive (ofc it's in MTS) in the line "And so I follow my own rules, and I use them as my tools, to stay alive"

- This is not part of the musical, but it is in the book and I thought it was a good thing to mention here because it's pretty related, in the book he has these things called "Humiliation Sheets" they are papers he makes (and prints everyday, mind you) where he marks his social Humiliations, like when someone ignores him or laughs at him etc

MOTOR SKILLS

- Jeremy has like, pretty bad spacial awareness, like when he's Walking down the hallway In MS and he literally walks into half the people

- A really big example of it is in Be More Chill PT.2 when all of the people in the mall are flossing (as a whole thing because of the SQUIP) and Jeremy can't manage to get it right

STIMMING

- This is mentioned by the SQUIP in Be More Chill PT. 1, where it literally says "your tics and fidgets are persistent"

- Some of the ways he stims in:

1) The literal first line of the musical, when he says "c-c-c-c'mon c-c-c-c'mon go go!" that's a vocal stim, cause he's inpatient/nervous. (Also in I love play Rehearsal and voices in my head, maybe in some other moments too but idk rn)

2) Not to sure if this one counts as stimming, but he tends to hold onto things pretty tight (mostly through MTS) , like his sleeves or his backpack or Michael when Christine signs up

2.5) This closely relates to stim 2, but he also opens and closes his fists a lot, like clenching and unclenching them

(There's more but I can't remember all of them rn)

3) he moves his hands and rise and drops them a lot when he's upset and talking about what he's upset about, like in More Than Survive and Loser Geek Whatever, also, a lot of big gestures generally

4) At the Halloween party before (?) a guy that I'd kinda be into (Reprise) Christine asks "just say what's on your mind" and Jeremy basically makes a really weird noise which Christine goes along with, that's indeed vocal stimming!! They're stimming together how sweet is that!!

- This is not Jeremy related but I just wanted to mention it, Michael stims like A LOT, you can look at him in any scene and he will 99% surely be stimming in some way, specially in MITB (someone ask me about Michael being autistic so I can talk about that too pretty please /hj)

Can you tell I'm really into psychology and stuff?? This is basically my two fav interests combined, BMC AND PSYCHOLOGY YAYY!!!!

Btw feel free to talk about you own opinion/take on the whole thing, I'd be happy to know!! :D

[ladyhearthkeeper]

Traditional homes for older and younger generations

In central Europe, we are facing a real estate crisis. Renting a flat or house is become so expensive that it's even better to buy it (for those who can afford it.) On the other hand, retired people who are home owners cannot benefit social benefits. It's not easy for young family wanting to have a place to call their own to raise their children.

One of my older neighbour was telling me that he finds the cost of living so high, and selling his place won't amount to much as a big chunk will go off in taxes. The best solution would be for his adult kids to come back to live with them.

Many older people cling to their beloved homes until their children send them off to a retiring home (or they choose it themselves with dignity.) Many are heartbroken of leaving their homes. Wouldn't be easier if they were left to live in their own homes, with their family to help them? It wouldn't be easy, right. But wouldn't it be a gentler solution to these housings problems? Sending old people to homes doesn't make the rents go down. On the contrary... One big real estate venture is making retired people communities with facilities for them. Carting off those who have wisdom and insight in a closed enclosure of sorts? Though, there are some efforts being done to create old people homes near schools and young families. It's not the same thing as living your finally years in your own home, with the help of your loved ones (proper medical staff who can come for help).

We are so focused on getting what 'we/i' want that we have become individualistic creatures. We cannot bear other people... Not even those who gave us birth and raised us. So off we must go. It is the socially acceptable thing to do. We'd rather hire help to take care of our kids rather than accepting loving offers from family to take care of our children if we must go out to work or else.

For some, their parents are abusive and generally bad people... So they don't have a choice. But it's not the same for most people. (or at least I hope not.)

But I believe that if family lived together, it could solve many problems. Both the elders and the younger people can help each other. But it requires some sacrifice.... Perhaps, giving up on the fantasy sold to us by materialism and consumerism.

[seasaltmemories]

Mars Review/Analysis

Mars was a series I had vaguely known about for a while. I've seen the iconic statue kissing scene, the male lead ranked as one of ppl's faves problematic love interests, and even had a mutual who talked about reading the series once a year. However it wasn't until a discussion on the portrayal of sex and other mature topics in shoujo that I figured it might be useful for me to read such a foundational work

Cue me reading the first chapter and breathlessly telling people it alone would count as the one of the best of shoujo. I binged the rest of the 15 volume series in a week, and through so many familiar ups and downs, it still felt like something special.

CW: Suicide, Sexual Abuse, Homophobia, Transphobia

Summary time:

Kira, a shy high school student, lives only for her art. Rei, An arrogant, rebellious and violent playboy, wears his delinquency like a badge of honor. They are exact opposites in every way, but when Kira sees Rei kissing a statue of Mars, she overcomes her fears and asks him to model for her. And, to everyone's surprise, Rei agrees.

On the surface it seems just like a typical good girl/bad boy story, and it is hard to say it isn't, but so much of what makes the story work is the details. Their meet cute is subdued, nothing but an excuse to get them talking again, but as they talk more and more, their chemistry just shines through. I don't know if it just fits my specific tastes, but it really is the stuff of girlhood dreams. Rei has this easy-going charm that is hard to look away from, and you can see Kira start to fall fast and hard despite herself, and by the end of volume 1, they've shared their first kiss and are more or less an item for the rest of the series

It is a pretty fast courtship for most romance stories, but the fact we skip the pining to get straight to an established relationship means we get this sort of easy physical affection that is so refreshing. Frankly I would enjoyed just watching them be absolutely adorable, but as we uncover both their dark pasts, they take on this young, restless "us vs. the world" love I can't resist

I mention before how a lot of Rei's appeal lies in his laid-back nature, rather than brood in a corner, he's outgoing and popular but the same carefree nature means he doesn't put much stock in social convention or consider the consequences his poor impulse control can get him in. It's a much more thought-out portrayal of a "bad boy" even as the dramatic details of his backstory build up. Considering his mother's early death, his estrangement from his father, and the fact he saw his twin brother commit suicide in front of him, it is clear his ease with everything is more bc of a general apathy, even towards his own wellbeing

Kira we learned started the series still recovering from the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her stepfather, as her relationship develops with Rei, she has to process a lot of trauma she still has surrounding her sexuality. It is clear her introverted, passive nature is not just a means of making her more relatable/easier to project onto, and that the real Kira has only started to come back out of her shell

I'd be lying if I acted like these issues were explored in nuanced, subtle ways, but even through the melodrama there was something real to it all that captured me. Like I usually struggle to latch onto most contemporary romances where the biggest obstacles couples face are their willingness to go ahead an make the first move. But these are real problems that real ppl face, even if it is heavily dramatized, and so their determination to stick together and make a place where they can be happy and safe just tugs at my heartstrings, even the breakneck pacing from one arc to the next, felt true to the whirlwind that is young adulthood. Did Fuyumi Souryo forget a plot thread when Rei's dream of becoming a pro racer fell away from the plot for like ten volumes? Maybe, but in life you're usually not really following a laid out plan and are more trying to survive from one crisis to the next while discovering patches of stability along the way

The melodrama really started to test my limits with the introduction of the antagonist, Masao. In contrast to Rei and Kira's detailed history of violence, Masao's just plain evil and attracted to the both of them for extra "creepiness" It's not just tasteless, it's boring, his entire arc nearly killed my interest in the series

Thankfully he only shows up for one arc in the middle and then briefly at the end to stir up more trouble. He's more bearable in those chapters thanks to the fact he's reflecting how much our main leads has grown, but his existence is painfully utilitarian, which applies to most of the rest of the cast, clearly only existing to highlight our main duo better. This also leads to some transphobia and insensitive portrayals of suicide.

Rei's mother and twin also suffer similar "secretly evil all along" reveals as Masao, which I do think cheapen Rei's struggle. Frankly we don't get enough time to unpack either character's history to really understand them, but even if the narrative doesn't suggest it outright, it is hard to ignore the feeling their deaths aren't so tragic bc of their flaws. Even so, they bothered me less than Masao for some reason. For all her violent tendencies, Rei's mother is still given sympathy that Masao never gets. And even though Sei's suicide note expresses a lot of misanthropy and sadism, to me there were enough lines almost suggesting he feared those tendencies within him and was also struggling in his own way. Perhaps their underdeveloped nature all helps keep either plot point form having to overstay their welcome

And that's the thing, despite all the dark and shocking plot twists I casually mentioned, what really stands out as I look back on the series, is the strong love Rei and Kira share. Going back to the plot summary, what you see is what you get. If you aren't on board with the series after volume 1, then it probably isn't for you. But few pieces of media have ever sold me on two character's love for each other as hard as this did. I mentioned before that I tend to need my media to acknowledge tragedy before I can accept their hope, but even when Mars isn't pulling out its soap opera cliffhangers, I always wanted to see how Rei and Kira would come together to support each other through their next stages of life.

[pikahlua]

Would you mind elaborating on your views on the villains as a disillusioned youth? It’s such an interesting take and it feels so genuinely accurate I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it and how that framing changes how I perceived their characters

Ah, well, I'll do what I can. At some point this'll dip into a subject outside my wheelhouse though.

To me, the League of Villains notably fail to stand for any message. They just become whatever messages they absorb. Tomura specifically does this when he allows Dabi and Toga to join, and AFO comments on how he’s just using Stain’s ideals which Tomura doesn’t buy into. But by co-opting Stain’s message, Tomura gains allies. This sort of thing happens throughout the entire series--where they cooperate with the yakuza in order to gain their tech, or they allow Tomura to become a symbol of freedom so the meta liberation army will follow him. Tomura is not swayed at all by Stain’s ideals or the yakuza’s or the MLA’s, but he allows these people into his fold regardless. And you basically have this again with the mob at the hospital in the most recent manga arc. The LoV capitalize on the emotions of others in order to earn others’ strengths for themselves. So they’re not representing any real message or philosophy. They’re not “villains who have a point” in the traditional sense. They’re representative of something else.

In a story about kids going through academia to become heroes, wouldn’t the villainous corollary have to be something similar? You need the “villain academia” counterpart, basically. What do the LoV all have in common? They’re outcasts left behind by society. This is the part where I get into something I am definitely no expert on, so please go research this more before you fall back on my explanations: one of Japan’s famous major social problems is its “lost generation” that resulted from the economic stagnation of the ‘90s. With the aging population and the economy in a...very weird state, a lot of the youth in Japan have felt abandoned and lied to by the world around them. We’re sort of going through something similar in the west, especially Gen Z in the USA, but Japan has been ahead of us on this trend for a few decades now (a canary in the coalmine, so to speak). Basically, the Japanese youth go through academia, work really hard to study and pass grueling entrance exams and go to a big name university that is supposed to guarantee them a high-paying corporate job they won’t ever be fired from and fulfill the expectations of society. Yet so much about Japan’s rigid, traditional structure leaves many of these children by the wayside by the time they make it out of school. There is a large contingent of “failures,” the children who couldn’t follow this one true path, or those who did everything they were supposed to and still got screwed anyways. You end up with a generation full of people society broke its many promises to.

So that’s what I see when I look at the League of Villains. I see a contingent of youth who were screwed over by their society and its broken promises to them. I see society’s “rejects” that society pretends it didn’t create and is content to ignore and vilify. I see an angry, discontented swath of abandoned people who demand to be seen and heard, even though they don’t have some cause to rally behind or message to convey. I see a ball of disgruntled emotion, a problem society caused, a problem society must change to fix. I see the kids who wanted to fit in but were excluded, so they rejected the norms to save themselves.

And so that perspective informs how I think the heroes must address the villains, or rather, why it’s easier for the student heroes to address these villains than for the pro heroes.

[notebeans-galaxy]

you wanna know something? I was extremely ambitious as a child. I've wanted to be an engineer and an astrophysicist since before I learned long division. I wanted to be a writer by the time I was 9, and I wanted to be a singer by the time I was 11.

That ambition decreased in middle & high school, but it never fully went away; I decided I also wanted to be a visual artist and a programmer and a polyglot and an activist. On the more casual side I want to study genetics, pharmacology, voice acting, literature, linguistics, anthropology, the occult, & religious history.

I was a straight A student in elementary school. I wasn't just a straight A student, I was a dedicated nerd; I genuinely enjoyed school despite severe social ostracization and I thought most of my homework was interesting enough that I wasn't bored while doing it.

And somehow, despite that, despite that I've always been ambitious and always sought challenge and that I was competitive to a fault, I somehow managed to convince myself I was lazy in middle and high school when my grades dropped due to severe unaddressed childhood trauma causing mental health issues, my ADHD medication losing effectiveness from being on it for a decade, and multiple undiagnosed chronic illnesses. I never actually stopped trying. I'd just convinced myself that because I couldn't complete classwork with the same attention I used to, that because I was stressed and exhausted and had to rest more often, that it was somehow my fault that my grades got worse. No, I'm fucking disabled. No one ever bothered to tell me that ADHD was a disability until I was in high school, no one but me realized I was depressed or autistic until I asked for diagnoses, no one ever took the severity of my chronic fatigue or post-exertional malaise or orthostatic intolerance seriously enough. fuck the way estrogen interacts with dysautonomia y'all it's so bad, testosterone HRT was more effective treatment for it than anything else. i still need salt tablets but my POTS is stable now entirely because of T.

I think the real kicker is that all it took was a bus to my house for me to attend school again. The barriers to success for disabled students often have such simple solutions and yet no one's willing to implement them until forced to. I was convinced for years that it was my own failures & incompetence that were the issue, and all it took was not being forced to walk.

I'm going to start college in the fall and I know it's possible for me to achieve some of the things I've had my sights set on since I was a kid. I still have chronic fatigue and chronic pain and non-24 complicates scheduling, but calculus is a hell of a lot easier when you aren't suffering 3+ types of cognitive impairment simultaneously. side note why is calculus Like That I can do physics related calculus because i learned integrals and derivatives before literally anything else because i was taking AP Physics: Mechanics concurrently with Calc AB during my first attempt at 12th grade, but i struggle to comprehend the rest of it.

A few years ago, I'd resigned myself to not being able to pursue my interests. I figured I wouldn't be able to succeed in anything I tried due to how ill I was. And while I still may not be able to study all of the things I'm interested in at a college, I sure as hell can pursue the most important ones — the original four things I wanted to do with my life. Writing and music can easily remain hobbies; I don't need those to be part of my career to feel fulfilled in them. I'm planning to study cosmology in the distant future (from what I understand, you need a Ph.D to even get started) and I'll be basing my class choices around that; underclassmen all have undeclared majors at my college, but as of now I'm planning to frame my schedule around pursuit of a physics degree (which is also easily transferrable to engineering!). Crushing college debt, here I come — but it's worth it to study astronomy, physics, & cosmology.

All it took was a bus. All it took for me to graduate high school was a bus.

[green-socks]

Anchor part 2: Someone New

Pairing: Mickey 'Fanboy' Garcia x F!reader x Robert 'Bob' Floyd

Summary: You finally get to meet Bob, who Mickey has not shut up about. Poor Bob is more confused than ever.

Words: 2.2k

Warnings: none really.

Notes: This was finished weeks ago and then I forgot to post lol. As always, thank you to @a-reader-and-a-writer for being an awesome beta help <3. And the credit for the headcanon of Mickey's real name and the backstory I use here goes to @marvelousmermaid who is officially Fanboy's wife and I'm just loaning him.

Part 1 | MASTERLIST

You and Miguel had been together since freshman year of high school. He was your best friend, and you knew there was nothing in the world that could make you not be in each other’s lives. You didn’t know if you’d use the word soulmate, because that didn’t feel quite right, and because the word sort of sounded like there could only be one.

Because while you and your Mickey were still madly in love with each other after all this time, it was sometime after college that you had both expressed the want to possibly add someone else to your relationship.

That was of course easier said than done. A lot of people were interested in a night of fun, or just casual, semi-regular sex, and you had tried that too, but ultimately you both agreed that you were the committing kind of people. That maybe was evident from the way you had already committed to each other, but at least now you knew. The other problem was that it was understandably difficult for someone entirely new to jump in with two people who already had known each other for ages. Many were hesitant to date two people already so in love with each other, fearing there wouldn’t be space for them, or that they’d never get the inside jokes and feel left out. You both could understand that as well, and you tried to make it clearly about dating you both as individuals and not just a package deal.

But so far you hadn’t found anyone who was the absolute right fit. Which is why you were very interested to hear more when Mickey texted you that he had “met someone”. When you demanded more explanation, he just replied “I’ll explain when I get home”, so here you were, waiting for his drunk ass to get back. He’d said he’d only go for one drink and check the situation out, but you knew Mickey never resisted a good time, so you weren’t surprised when it was past two am when he finally got home…

…And accidentally spilled some soda on the floor, waving a take-out bag. “Babe, I got us some nuggies!” he announced excitedly.

You did love nuggies.

Grabbing a few paper towels, you went to wipe the soda stain before it dried and then accepted the bag from him with a kiss on his cheek.

“Thanks, honey. Now, what was that text about?”

“There was this guy tonight, Bob, he’s a WSO like me, and we, like, immediately bonded over so much stuff and he’s so cute, you should have seen him. I flirted with him a little, to see how he’d respond, and I think he was feelin’ it, he kept blushing a lot. It was cute,” Mickey babbled. “And he’s a total nerd. You love nerds.”

“You got me there,” you laughed. “Wait, so is his name Bob or is his callsign Bob?”

“Sort of both? His name is Robert and Bob is his callsign. I dunno.”

“Huh. Interesting. Anyway, what does he look like? Would it be inappropriate to sleuth his Instagram??”

“Y’can’t, he doesn’t have any social media,” Mickey said, mouth full of fries.

“More interesting! Well, I’m obviously curious to meet him just based on what you said. Look at you, getting a crush first night back! You little ho,” you teased affectionately, and he grinned back all boyish and proud. “We should talk about this more properly tomorrow. It’s late and you still have an early morning tomorrow.”

He agreed, and so you made him drink some more water before getting to bed. You’d probably get more information tomorrow, both about why Miguel had been called back here, and about this other WSO who your boyfriend seemed to be very interested in.

--------

It’d been a week since you came to Fightertown, and you could tell the stress of the mission was getting to Mickey. He was usually one of the most optimistic people you knew, but even Mickey seemed much more stressed, serious, and tired than usual. Obviously, he couldn’t tell you too much about the mission, but he did keep you updated on everything he could.

Every night when he came home to you, he’d collapse on the couch and then you’d make him eat something and watch YouTube videos while he regaled the latest twists and turns of being back at TOPGUN. You felt like you were following a season of ‘Keeping Up with the Aviators’ or something, and you felt like you knew the others already without actually having met anyone else besides Reuben of course.

Your boyfriend had been working long days all week, which was why you were surprised when he texted you around noon, telling you to come to the beach behind The Hard Deck. Deciding you could push back work a little, you drove the short way there to see what was up.

-

You settled yourself on the beach a little to the side of the bar. You had brought a book with you in case you needed entertainment, but once the gang of aviators got going, it was clear that Mickey and his colleagues were bringing the entertainment and then some. It would have felt a little weird to just sit there and ogle at the sweaty aviators playing their weird-looking football, but you had been invited to watch, so you figured it was okay. It was unclear to you what the rules of the game were and who was winning, or sometimes even who was on which team, but it was still really fun to watch them all rolling in the sand and getting into the game. It seemed like they were really having a great time, and the fun was infectious.

You suspected you knew the reason why Mickey had asked you to come today. It was a chance to see him and his fellow aviators out of uniform and in a more relaxed setting, but it was especially an opportunity to see one particular man. Mickey had told you that Bob wore glasses, but it wasn’t that that made him stand out amongst the gang of overgrown children. A flash of yellow among the shirtless players drew your attention immediately, and the glasses confirmed your guess that this was Bob.

It was obviously difficult to tell much about him from this distance, but you thought he seemed really cute. Mickey had talked about Bob a lot this past week, and you recognized the signs of infatuation in him. Your boyfriend was a man who got quickly excited about new things and jumped in headfirst, falling fast, whether it be new people or new hobbies. You liked that about him, but you also knew you had to stay realistic about the situation, and that he really was trying to keep it cool until there was even anything to get properly excited about.

It still made your stomach flutter pleasantly to see Miguel hugging Bob after scoring a point and lingering a touch (or two) longer than what was generally considered a hug between just friends. You could see the adoring look on your lover’s face even from here. And admittedly you had to restrain yourself from clapping and cheering along when later Bob was hoisted on tall shoulders and carried around like a hero.

Eventually, the merry gang all became too tired to play anymore, so Mickey jogged over to you.

“Come with me, amor. I want you to meet everyone,” he said, pulling you up to your feet.

You were excited to meet the people you had been watching all afternoon, even though the large crowd felt a little intimidating.

Before Mickey could even get everyone’s attention, Reuben came up to pull you into a big hug. You loved Reuben’s hugs, so you didn’t even complain about his sweaty chest pressing against your face.

“Been a long time! It’s good to see you,” he grinned, pulling away.

“Good to see you too, dude. Sorry I didn’t come to see you sooner,” you said, swiping your cheek dry from the sweat.

“Nah, don’t worry about it, we’ve been busy.”

“So I hear. I’m glad you got to have a little fun today at least.”

“Guys, this is my girl! Babe, this is.. everyone,” Mickey exclaimed proudly, interrupting your catching up with Reuben.

He introduced you to the whole group and told them that you were staying here with him for the duration of this special assignment. Everyone shouted greetings at you at once, and then someone suggested moving the party to The Hard Deck, so you let Reuben sling his arm over your shoulders and steer you inside.

You thought you’d noticed a flicker of disappointment on the one bespectacled aviator’s face when Mickey had introduced you, and you hoped it was because Bob assumed Mickey was taken for good and not because he didn’t like how you looked or something.

(Mickey could have told you that he, for his part, had noticed Bob eyeing you with interest up until you’d been introduced as Mickey’s girl. And that had made him happier than even the beach football game.)

-------

Bob was sitting at a table on the edge of where most of the group was hanging out. He felt like it was a good spot to be still sort of with them without seeming rude or like he didn’t want to be associated with them, but also far enough out that he felt like he could calm down a little. It had been a long day of high-energy socializing, and his battery was running low. He just needed a moment to recharge.

And reevaluate. Fanboy had a girlfriend. Which, in his mind, meant that either he really couldn’t trust himself to read any signals ever, or Fanboy actually had been flirting with him all week despite his relationship status. Which generally wasn’t a good thing. He’d seen enough of supposedly taken Navy men flirting at bars with random people that he knew what the gist usually was.

Yet, somehow, this situation didn’t seem like that at all. Since coming inside the bar, Bob had learned that they had been together for ages, and they seemed very happy together. Bob still trusted his observing skills to be able to tell that much. Besides, Fanboy just didn’t seem the type to go behind anyone’s back. Sure, he had only known the other WSO for a week, but he felt he knew enough of Fanboy’s character to vouch for that.

So, that left him taking Fanboy’s friendly acts for flirting as the most likely explanation. It wouldn’t be the first time, but usually, it went the other way around. He’d never been able to tell when someone was flirting with him, so it felt ironic that this time he really had thought it had been about that.

As if his thoughts had summoned them, the couple approached his table.

“Hey Bobby, mind if we sit with you?” Fanboy asked.

“Of course not.” He managed what he hoped was a polite smile.

“Sorry to disturb you. I just wanted to come meet you properly, since I’ve been hearing so much about you this past week,” you said.

Your smile was kind, but the words didn’t sound like empty flattery, and based on the way Fanboy looked a little sheepish, it was the truth.

Bob fought not to blush right out of the gate. But before he could stammer any reply, you moved on.

“Do you prefer to be called Robert or Bob or Bobby or something else?” His face must have reflected the slight bewilderment he was feeling, since you continued, “It’s just that I never call Miguel Fanboy since I don’t work in the Navy, and I don’t want to call you by your callsign if you’d rather be called something else outside of that context, you know?”

Not feeling any less bewildered, but still slightly touched that you’d ask for his preference, he replied, “I don’t mind any of those, to be honest. My cousin sometimes calls me Robby, for example. So, your call, I guess.” He shrugged, grinning a little.

“Wait, Miguel, huh?” Bob turned to Fanboy.

“Yeah,” the other man grinned back, “I’ve just been Mickey to pretty much everyone but my family since I was a kid. Mickey’s a bit.. easier.”

Bob thought he understood what Fanboy meant. People maybe laughed at his callsign sometimes, but at least no one had ever judged him for his actual name.

“Anyway,” Fanboy continued, “we, uhh, we wanted to ask you something.”

You both looked nervous all of a sudden, and Bob was more confused than ever.

“Would you like to have dinner with us tomorrow night? Our place. After you guys get out of training,” you blurted.

“Oh, uhm, sure.” Bob felt like he was blinking a lot during this conversation. “That sounds nice.”

“Great! We’d love to get to know you better. You seem like a really great guy.”

Okay, now was that a flirty look? From you? Just now? Or is he imagining things again? Bob felt like his head was spinning.

The two of you got up to join the others again, both of you simultaneously reaching to squeeze his hand, saying, “Tomorrow” with matching winks to boot.

Bob wasn’t entirely sure, but he felt like hadn’t just been invited to a simple board game night.

---------------------------------------------

tagsies: @wildbornsiren @mayhem24-7forever @callsign-phoenix @hederasgarden @lt-natrace @yespolkadotkitty @happypopcornprincess @lorecraft @alexxavicry

[aestheticsimschallenge]

The Sims 4 Aesthetically Challenge

This is a 10-generation family challenge with every generation having a different aesthetic and color! I have worked hard on this challenge and I hope that you enjoy it!

Overall Rules:

No cheats besides a start-of-game free real estate cheat.

If you wish to age a sim up before their birthday they must be either an A student or level 3 on all skills for toddlers, infants must have all movement milestones to age up early.

You must complete all challenges to consider the generation done, if you do not - you have failed that generation. Feel free to start it over again with their kid to continue gameplay!

Only have the base game but still want to play? No worries! Anywhere you see BGO is a label indicating the switch of a trait or other aspect that is in a pack being switched out for something in the base game. You can ignore any likes/dislikes you do not have, they are just a bonus for fun! If I missed any of these moments, please let me know!

I recommend looking at the next generation when they are born, some requirements will need to be completed during childhood.

Please have fun and share any pictures or videos with #aestheticallysims

Generation 1

Growing up you always strived to be perfect and now as an adult, you feel like you finally can be. Or at least your version of perfect, except your kid, does not exactly live up to your expectations, or just life in general.

Aesthetic: Polished with the color red thrown throughout

Traits: Proper, Perfectionist, Materialistic BGO: good

Likes:

red

Japanese folk music

cerebral sims

hard-working sims

deep thoughts

Dislikes:

jokes

electronica

rascals

funny sims

pranks

Aspiration: Fabulously Wealthy

Career: Doctor BGO: tech-guru in the entrepreneur branch

Challenges:

live in Mt. Komorebi/ no shoes in the house BGO: Ignore

master the logic skill

can only have one kid, must be a strict parent with a strict relationship

must marry early in young adult years

complete both the aspiration and career

Generation 2

Living in the home of a strict parent who never thought good was good enough was tough, now you just want to let loose and have a good time. Knowing your parent does not approve of your career or aspiration choices is hard but your dedication to the things you love makes it easier, plus the support of your best friend and partner.

Aesthetic: Sporty and orange

Traits: Active, Socially awkward, and adventurous. Infant: wiggly toddler: wild BGO: outgoing and your choice

Likes:

orange

fitness

skiing

snowboarding

high energy sims

outdoorsy outfits

Dislikes:

kids radio

homebody sims

deep thoughts

Aspiration: Body Builder

Career: Athlete

Challenges:

must go skiing once a week BGO: go to the gym

must master cheer or football team in high school

A student for your entire childhood

must marry your childhood best friend/sweetheart who is good and family oriented

must have three kids

must complete career and aspirations

Generation 3

You were very close to your grandparents growing up and wanted to be just like them. You always believed that while your parents had good intentions they did not quite understand the legacy left by your grandparents and how it should be upheld. You intend to add to that legacy and strive for success.

Aesthetic: Your choice and the color yellow

Traits: genius (can also use ambitious once the sim is old enough), overachiever, snob. BGO: evil. Infant: calm. Toddler: Independent

Likes:

yellow

focus music

hard-working sims

egotistical sims

arguments

gossip

Dislikes:

mischief

ambitionless sims

potty humor

silly behavior

Aspiration: Renaissance Sim. Child: Mind + Body. Teen: Goal Oriented

Career: Law. BGO: secret agent, diamond agent

Challenges:

must move to a new home/remodel drastically

master wellness skill

strict parent

must have more than one kid

master a club in high school

must master career and aspirations

Generation 4

After growing up in such a strict and goal-oriented family, you feel that is what you have to be. So you set out on your way in the business career trying to "make something of yourself" just like your parents always wanted. Eventually, the hustle culture of it all catches up to you - you are burned out and miserable. So upon your birthday into being an adult you give it all up for the quiet and fulfilling life in the countryside.

Aesthetic: Cottage Core and green

Traits: loves the outdoors, animal enthusiast, maker. BGO: foodie and self-assured. Infant: sensitive. Toddler: angelic

Likes:

Green

gardening

cooking

french country

pet enthusiasts

country fashion

discussing hobbies

Dislikes:

modern

spirited sims

deception

Aspiration: Master Maker. Child: playtime captain. Teen: Admired Icon. BGO: freelance botanist

Career: Business

Challenges:

Level 6 of career before aging up to an adult

Quit your job and move to the countryside on your birthday (Cottage living world if you have it or the horse ranch world)

must have a flourishing garden, chickens, and one other barn animal of your choice. BGO: only the garden

must be gay and married to someone right before or right after becoming an adult

master in gardening and cooking skills as well as your aspiration

supportive family dynamic for all kids BGO: ignore

Generation 5

If there was a better childhood or parents to have, you can't imagine it. Seeing how loving and supportive your parents were inspired how you move through the world. You strive to be the best parent and partner you can be.

Aesthetic: Suburban soccer mom and blue

Traits: family-oriented, goofball, clumsy. Infant: sunny. Toddler: silly

Likes:

blue

family-motivated sims

nature enthusiasts

affection

jokes

Dislikes:

argumentative sims

malicious interactions

Aspiration: Super Parent. Child: social. Teen: drama llama BGO: big happy family

Career: entertainer - comedy branch

Challenges:

must master parenting, comedy, and cooking skills

must have at least 6 kids

must build a tree house

complete aspirations and career

must have a close family dynamic with at least 3 kids

Generation 6

Growing up was smooth sailing, your parents had so many other kids they did not have time to instill a lot of structure or responsibility into you. You ended up being really good at going with the flow and focusing all of your energy on your favorite thing - the arts.

Aesthetic: Artsy/Bohemian and Purple

Traits: Creative, art-lover, lactose intolerant. Infant: wiggly. Toddler: charmer. BGO: Glutton

Likes:

purple

idealist sims

emotional decision-makers

compliments

boho fashion

Dislikes:

egotistical sims

argumentative sims

polished sims

small talk

Aspiration: Painter Extraordinaire. Child: creative. Teen: admired icon

Career: Painter: real arts branch

Challenges:

master aspirations and career

master painting skill

must go out on a first date to an art museum for every first date

must paint the streets of san myshuno (BGO: ignore)

must live in san myshuno arts district (BGO: ignore)

Generation 7

Your love of the arts comes from your parents, though you prefer music or writing to painting. But one thing you love just as much if not more is being social with other sims, you love to feel like you belong. As well as thriving off of academic achievement, of course, being the star student is not easy but someone has to do it. After a high school heartbreak that drove home to you the importance of the truth, you will do anything to find it and spend all of your time searching for it.

Aesthetic: Light Academia

Traits: music lover, vegetarian, insider. Infant: cautious. Toddler: angelic. BGO: childish

Likes:

pink

optimistic sims

stories

deep thoughts

Dislikes:

high energy sims

rocker fashion

gossip

Aspiration: Nerd Brain. Child: creative. Teen: goal-oriented

Career: writer - journalist branch

Challenges:

complete career and aspiration

master handiness and writing skills

be cheated on by your partner in high school

must start a writers club (BGO: ignore)

must write in a cafe and use it as a meet-cute for whoever you marry

have two cats (BGO: ignore)

Generation 8

From the first moment you can remember, you were different than the rest of your family. You strive for the finer things in life and live off of gossip. Your goal is to be Regina George (Pre bus incident of course). This is however the polar opposite of your parents and no matter how much they love you, there is always tension because of it.

Aesthetic: Glitz + Glam and deep purple

Traits: kleptomaniac, self-absorbed, party animal. Infant: intense. Toddler: fussy. BGO: erratic

Likes:

purple and white

egotistical sims

spirited sims

romance enthusiasts

gossip

affection

flirtation

compliments

Dislikes:

homebody sims

deep thoughts

small talk

Aspiration: villainous Valentine. Child: slumber party animal. Teen: live fast

Career: Actress/Actor BGO: entertainer - music

Challenges:

must complete aspirations and career

must master drama club as a child and teen (BGO: ignore club)

must have multiple children with multiple Sims

must reach the top level of fame and live in a celebrity house

you have to try to have a music career as well as your main career and master singing skill

master acting skill

distant family relationship with kids (BGO: ignore)

Generation 9

Growing up was not easy, your parents were either MIA or distant so you turned to your grandparents and siblings for emotional support. Being the child of one of the most famous sims ever did not make it any easier, never knowing who was talking to you for the right reasons or not. You just can not help wishing you could live a simple life and go back in time before all of this fame stuff. You spend your whole life trying to run away from your childhood and remove all of the nasty articles those pesky journalists wrote about you over the years. Striving to be anonymous is not as easy as it seems.

Aesthetic: Vintage maximalist and dark green

Traits: neat, paranoid, gloomy. Infant: cautious. Toddler: clingy. BGO: jealous

Likes:

green and brown

pessimistic sims

homebody sims

complaints

streetwear fashion

Dislikes:

optimistic sims

spirited sims

compliments

Aspiration: Archeology Scholar. Child: mind and body. Teen: your choice. BGO: computer wiz

Career: Freelance: paranormal investigator BGO: criminal

Challenges:

complete aspirations and career

live in a haunted house (BGO: ignore)

close to grandparents and siblings

master hacking skill

join computer club in high school (BGO: ignore)

must take at least one vacation every season (BGO: spend an entire week of each season not going back to your base lot)

Generation 10

Your parents were always afraid of everything, never wanting to move on and live their life. Who cares what any dumb paparazzi think? The only real places you could go as a kid were school or the library so you threw yourself into your academic career and books. Not to mention at least not everything was haunted in the stories. Despite your frustration at being limited you empathize with and are extremely protective and loyal to your parents, just because you can critique them does not mean anyone else can.

Aesthetic: Dark academia

Traits: bookworm, genius, loyal. Infant: calm. Toddler: Independent

Likes:

black and purple

argumentative sims

hard-working sims

cerebral sims

discussing interests

Dislikes:

rascal sims

malicious interactions

pranks

Aspiration: Academic. Child: mental. Teen: goal-oriented

Career: Education, professor track BGO: astronaut

Challenges:

you must get two university degrees and join the secret society (BGO: read at least 15 books)

must complete career and aspiration

must get the responsible trait (BGO: ignore)

be in the chess club in high school and master the logic skill (BGO: only have to master the logic skill)

master 5 skills of your choosing

must move lots (tired of being haunted much?)

[likecastle]

Hey! If you're still accepting prompts, I'd like to request: bad fruit. My #1 choice is always ronance but if you wanna try something different, could be Karen/Joyce (they've really grown on me lately) or any other ST femslash pairing you feel like writing at this moment <3

Ahhhh thank you for the push to try my hand at Karen/Joyce! What is the ship name for this??? I feel like every time I learn it I immediately forget it again. Anyway, I had a great time hurting my feelings with this one! No major warnings, I don't think, other than Joyce making herself sad.

Mike and Will go running out into the back yard, the kitchen door banging shut behind them, and Joyce sinks heavily into one of the chairs at the table. After a moment’s hesitation, Karen sits down next to her. Not across from her, Joyce notices, but close enough that Joyce can smell the chemical musk of her hairspray.

“How are you?” Karen asks, and Joyce feels her shoulders sink. She knows how this conversation is going to go, just from the tone of Karen’s voice. It’s what Joyce thinks of as her sympathetic PTA mom voice, all superficial concern. They used to have real conversations, once, but these days it’s mostly small-talk when one or the other of them is dropping one of the boys off.

“We’re doing OK,” Joyce says, and in some respects, that’s an understatement. Sure, money’s tighter than it used to be, and it’s not as if she doesn’t notice the other mothers whispering about her when she goes shopping at Bradley’s, but in a lot of ways, it’s a relief to have Lonnie out of their lives. Still, when she looks around the cluttered kitchen, she can’t help seeing it through Karen’s eyes—the dirty dishes stacked in the sink, the overfull ashtray on the table, the pair of shriveled apples sitting in the fruit bowl. The sad, lonely little life of a woman even a loser like Lonnie Byers doesn’t want.

She can feel Karen watching her, and when she finally looks up, Joyce is surprised to see an expression of chagrin on her face, not the sickly pity she was expecting. “I don’t know why I said it like that,” Karen says. “Of course you’re going OK.” She doesn’t sound insincere this time. “You’re . . . I mean . . .” She shakes her head, at a loss for the right words. “Oh, screw Lonnie,” she says finally, looking almost shocked at herself for saying it. “I always knew you could do better than him.”

Joyce laughs, embarrassed at this unexpected praise. “I don’t know about that.”

“I do,” Karen insists. “You’ve always been a catch. Even back in high school, you always seemed so cool, skipping class and smoking with the boys.”

Joyce doesn’t admit this was mostly because she was afraid of saying the wrong thing to the other girls. It always seemed so much more complicated, navigating the all the arbitrary rules and complicated social hierarchies girls constructed around themselves. Things were just easier with guys like Jim and Lonnie. At least she always knew where she stood with them, even if she didn’t always like the view from there. “Well, it’s been a long time since then.”

“Please,” Karen says, dismissing this with a breezy wave of her hand. “You’re still a catch. You’re beautiful and smart and you’re so good with the boys. Half the time, I don’t even know what Mike’s talking about, but you always make the effort.” She puts a hand over Joyce’s where it rests on the table, and Joyce wonders how she keeps her hands so soft. “Anyone would be lucky to have you.”

There’s something in Karen’s voice that sounds a little too earnest, but when Joyce glances over, Karen’s not looking at her anymore, her gaze fixed on the wooden fruit bowl on the counter, those two sad little apples.

It’s not the first time Joyce has wondered if just maybe . . . ? It’s nothing definitive, just little moments she’s sure nobody else would even notice. Like that one time at the Wheelers’ Christmas party—it must have been ’78 or ’79, not long before Karen got pregnant with Holly—when she’d caught Karen looking at her across the crowded living room with an expression of what she could only call longing. She told herself in the moment it was just late-night maudlin sentimentality from all the mulled wine, but there have been nights when the look on Karen’s face has come back to Joyce like an ache in her chest, and she’s let herself wonder what if.

But there’s no point in wondering, not really. What would Karen Wheeler, of all people, ever do about it, if she really did feel that way? Would she divorce her husband and blow up her comfortable suburban life, move her kids into Joyce’s cramped little house like some sort of backwards Brady Bunch? Of course she wouldn’t. Even if she did think of Joyce that way, one glance at the dusty curtains and the slowly spoiling fruit on the counter could reminder her what she really wants.

Joyce slips her hand from beneath Karen’s and stands up from the table. “Coffee?” she says. “Or—is it too late for coffee?”

Karen shakes her head. “No,” she says quietly, “not too late for me.”

[neptune-ian]

meant to add for my ask about relationships / soulmates etc. that society has made it so complex nowadays in terms of finding a partner, I do think older generations had it easier in that area as they did not have to try so hard and I do think so many women or girls try so hard to get guys attention or say they maybe want to manifest idols being their relationships it is like no one tries being single anymore or everyone is in such a hurry to get a partner even if they are young or naive. I kind of laugh sometimes when theres young idols and tarot readers make it sound like they go through girls faster than tissues if I were them dating would be the last thing on my mind as they have eons of time to date later on in life but again I think fomo is so real these days.

If someone else has an item then everhone else has to have it as well, if someone else has a partner then so many others want a partner and if someone else looks a certain way then everyone else tries to look or dress that way. like people are scared of being by themselves or if they dont have a clique they dont belong somewhere or if they dont have a relationship they must be always on trend or they have to have latest brand names, so no one tries to stand out anymore or just be themselves. and even tho we are often told to be ourselves it does fuck all to be honest cause like no ones going to give u any attention cause someone else will always be trying to get it instead

I remember being in school and seeing so many girls just getting into makeup and thinking I dont know if I need makeup im not overly pretty then my "friends" bck then would always be trying to get guys numbers and this was in mid 00s mind you so we were still somewhat using old phones and school wouldve been bedlam or hell if we had have smartphones back in those days. iPods were our main entertainment or distraction but even so there was still some

Social media, dating apps, going outside, LGBTQ+ clubs etc… for you to higher your chance of meeting « the one ». I don’t believe society completly made it harder but I’d say people did made it harder and less meaningful but I got you ✅. Example : (not exhaustive)

Dark feminine energy

(My butt yes…)

That’s one of the most stupid things TikTok/spiritual community and women have put in a high position. How come you have/should break men hearts because they are bad and you are good??? Why would you have to manipulate??? Why only showing your strenght and acting like a superhuman when you in fact need to be vulnerable (atound trustworthy people) and accept your emotions? Why fo you have to be « dark » to be powerful???? What’s the point of all that???

IT’S THE SAME SH*T AS « Alpha Male » 💀

Also the « baddy », « lady boss » thing where you only need money and to show off that you are « better » than every other human being and nothing else…

Light feminine energy

Same thing. Why would you have to be submissive to whatever people tell you? Why would you mostly refer to your womb and reproduction capability? Aren’t you more than just a walking huge belly? Or a poor docile looking thing? Aren’t you allowed to fight for yourself even if that means being alone against the world???

Tell me HOW are you supposed to create a genuine and long lasting bond when all you got to do is breaking people’s heart, treating them like less than human, your sexual objects, your slave, your toy, your garbage, your opposite and inferior being? Explain me how you are supposed to be open, vulnerable, giving, loving and supportive when you just act dense and indifferent toward the opposite gender (or same sex in some case though it’s seems more rare?)??? That does not make any freaking sense. Think a minute : will you dare tell me that being the dark feminine energy people brag about will actually help you having a good self esteem AND relationship? For the first option it may work but mostly on a superficial level ; you are not listening to your own needs. The second option? Dont even daydream about it cause it won’t happen.

Are you not allowed to dive into your OWN energy (be it masculine/feminine/androgyne)???? And stop showing how strong you are and finally allow yourself to open up to genuine people (that will one day or another come into your life)?

That’s what stops people from finding a partner, all they want is to perfectly fit into a « cool » and trendy category just to show off. That’s so stupid and I personally feel bad whenever someone rely (and relates) to those trendy things. (Dark/light feminity/alpha/omega/baddy/boss lady/mascu/incel…) - it also keeps perpretrating gender stereotypes.

[eeveenicks]

It’s so weird to me that kids and adults are forced to use the same websites now and there’s an expectation that we need to make social media “kid friendly,” but the definition of “kid friendly” is so fucked.

I guess I’m old but when I was a teenager I played on Neopets and posted on Nintendo Power forums and only really instant messaged with IRL friends and you were always being told not to post pics of yourself or your real name anywhere. I wrote fanfic on FFN and drew anime characters and shared sewing projects on Deviantart and everyone had cute creative screen names to express themselves and things they liked. Using the internet was fun! It was meant to be fun not obligatory!

There were safety rules you learned and kid/teenager friendly spaces. Even Facebook and MySpace had options to set your profile to private iirc. And hell, even on Facebook you needed a school email address or to be accepted into your high school network to join and even then you really only interacted with your IRL friends or future college classmates. You just poked each other and drew on each other’s walls and posted memes about 300 or flipping your pillowcase over to the cool side or whatever. It was stupid but fun before it became the fully evil empire.

Now the internet is like… Twitter and TikTok and shit that profits off of giving people anxiety or making them angry and getting people to post their faces and share personal information. And they frame making stuff advertiser friendly as making it safer for kids while also actively encouraging kids to engage in riskier behavior online and it’s just so fucked up.

Like I was safer on Deviantart or Livejournal in 2005 not sharing my face and personal information and knowing to click away from porn or age restricted stuff I wasn’t comfortable with seeing than kids are today with all these so-called “child safety” measures.

Like goddamn no one is getting traumatized by a “female presenting nipple” or the word “dead.” They’re getting traumatized by fucking pedos and shit knowing their faces and scanning the backgrounds of their TikToks to see where they go to school. They’re getting groomed by people clicking on their profiles seeing their trauma and triggers and using it to manipulate them. Or predatory ad companies targeting them by demographic.

The fucking penis-enhancement spam emails of 2005 would cause pearl clutching by today’s standards but we just laughed at them and moved on instead of being targeted and manipulated. Shipping wars were about flaming each other online (and only online) about who you wanted to get with who, not fucking swatting people or sending followers to harass them for being “problematic”.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. I get it. I’m old and out of touch. Not everything was better in 2005. But I think there’s something to be said about the way stuff was set up on the old internet with kids having kid spaces and adults having other spaces and niche interests all having their own websites/forums/chat rooms etc. and making cool screen names and profiles and signatures based on self expression and interests rather than just feeding your age, face, demographics, and insecurities to websites literally designed to sell everything about you to ad companies. And then normalizing having the same handle and stuff across platforms to make you easier to stalk.

I’m so grossed out by the fact that sites and apps are designed to make people angry. Your negative emotions are monetized for engagement. And there’s this weird sense that you have a moral obligation to doomscroll about upsetting shit because otherwise you aren’t aware or empathetic enough. It gives a weird moral value to unproductive suffering. All because it’s easier to monetize anxiety, anger, and fear than any good emotions. Creating monetary incentive to make children anxious and depressed and encouraged to show their real identities online because that’s how social media and ad companies make money is so fucking disgusting. The idea that anxiety, anger, and emotional pain is somehow more virtuous than being emotionally healthy and enjoying life is fucked regardless of the context.

The internet really started going downhill after that Facebook emotions experiment in the early 2010s, and the sad part is so many kids only remember the internet after that point and those tactics are so normalized.