#the amount of love and effort I put into these pieces only for tiktok to baselessly take it down

[kidovna]

This is the third tiktok video of mine that has unfairly gone under review and can no longer be accessed. I’ve tried reaching out to the team innumerable times with no replies at all. So much for being a content creator friendly website.

[partycatty]

giggling at this idea i just thought of but would u consider... hear me out... mk1 johnny finding out that reader has a body pillow of him? like those anime ones but bcs he's a celebrity, someone made one of him too 💀 & reader secretly bought it and tried to hide it/deny it but johnny sees all fr fr

i wrote this and then it got DELETED i almost cried

johnny cage > superfan

johnny never visited your place, but now he sees why.

notes: the way i used to unironically have a bodypillow of a character i'd rather die than admit... this hits so close to home

[ masterlist ]

you and johnny were an unlikely pair in the grand scheme of things. you were a toned down worker in your own field while his face was plastered on every billboard, magazine, and teenage girl's home screens. at the end of the day, though, you were both humans in love and that's all that genuinely mattered.

johnny's arm that was slung around you as you two cuddled on his couch shakes you back to reality.

"you know what's funny?" he suddenly brings up, closing the tiktoks you were watching together. "we always come to my place. never yours. i've only ever seen the inside when i pick you up."

there wasn't a hint of annoyance or accusatory language in his voice; he was curious. as he typically is.

"i don't know," you shrug nonchalantly, hoping to get the topic over with. "your place is nicer." this was entirely true. despite downsizing after his divorce and other events he has yet to disclose to you, he still had a truly nice home. it radiated the energy of a celebrity without needing the size, but was just homey enough for you to spend your nights there when you felt like it.

"so?" his eyebrow quirks up.

"so, it's better to hang out here. my apartment isn't all that exciting, not a lot of room to do much."

"but it's the person that excites me," he replies quickly, kissing your forehead. "plus, all we usually do is sit on my couch here. what's the difference of doing it there?"

as your mouth opens and closes to try and dismiss the subject, johnny turns to face you completely with a beaming grin.

"can i come over tomorrow?" he asks, like it's your first date with him. his eyes are bright, like a kid asking for permission from his mother. you couldn't even bring yourself to look him in the eyes as you swallow hard. there wasn't necessarily a true reason to not have him over, but preparing for his arrival would take a considerable amount of effort to... redecorate. finally, you nod with a sheepish smile, and johnny plants a slap-like kiss to your lips as a thank you.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

the following morning, you were throwing your piles and piles of collectibles into boxes and shoving them into your closet. the replica of his brass knuckles or figurines of ninja mime had to go before he arrived. johnny couldn't know that on top of being his girlfriend, you were a fan. and not just any fan, a superfan. every piece of evidence had to be thrown into a corner lest you face his endless prodding and teasing. besides, even if he was a celebrity, he probably didn't expect his partner to have such belongings. it felt... wrong. but even still, you couldn't help but support him in his works!

a knock at the door makes you visibly jump as you're kicking the last of the merch under your couch. wiping your hands, you race to the front door and take a deep breath, making sure you plugged in your wall scents and lit your candles. you swing it open and johnny peeks his head in, glancing around with his typical grin. he puts his sunglasses atop his head to adjust to the indoor lighting, a curious glint in his eye.

"i don't know what you were talking about," johnny finally says, hands on his hips. "it's nice here. quaint."

"i think that's just calling me poor politely," you reply as you fight a smirk. johnny tenses up, already apologetic before you reach up to kiss his check. "i'm teasing, dear. now what?"

"a movie?"

"not one of yours."

"we didn't even finish citizen cage last time!"

you roll your eyes at his puppy-like stare. you immediately cave in with a huff. as his own version of a thank you, johnny swoops over and picks you up, sure to support your ass more than your thighs as they wrap around his waist. he shoots you a devious grin, as if to say "i can't help it!"

you're playfully tossed onto the couch, and you have just enough time to chuck a throw pillow in his direction as he heads toward your bedroom.

"i'm stealing your comforter," he announces. "since i don't see a regular blanket around here." you gulp, remembering your johnny cage themed throw blanket that once laid on that very couch. thankfully, it's buried under your other laundry.

"not everyone has blankets for every occasion!" you shout back, settling into your new spot and allocating space for his large body. that is, until you hear eruptive laughter come from your room. of course it was johnny, but the laugh was so hysterical, so out of character, you partially wondered if he had gotten possessed. "babe?" as you're about to rise from your spot, johnny responds in an unusually high pitched voice, strained from the cackling.

"why do you have this?!" his grin is audible, dripping from his upward inflection. your stomach drops, but you try to play dumb in case it's not what you expect.

"have what?" your voice is low, unwilling to give anything away. your question is answered when johnny emerges from the hallway, holding up your dakimakura with one hand, slung around its painted shoulder.

your face heats up in record time. it's a drawing - a realistic one - of johnny, laying down. the other side features the same, except blushing and only in boxers. you must have forgot to fully hide it, and left it on your bed like a fool. and what a fool you were for thinking a simple blanket would conceal it. times like these you wish you could afford a throw blanket to bury yourself in it and hope he'd go away.

"if you wanted me in your bed, you could've just asked," he giggles to himself, admiring the possession. "hey, at least they got my features right."

"please put that away before i die of embarrassment," you quietly beg, voice muffled by your head in your hands.

"really though, doll," johnny's smile doesn't disappear, just lessens. "why, of all things, do you own a bodypillow of me?"

"it was limited edition," you mutter. "the artist put it on sale."

"limited edition? you're a collector?"

shit. you sold yourself.

"maybe."

"collector of what?"

"...paraphernalia."

"i could deduce that. i won't judge you, honey." he kneels down to meet your level, putting his hands on your knees as he sets the pillow down beside you.

"i, uh... i collect things. related to you." johnny's face freezes, lip twitching in amusement as you continue to defend yourself. "i'm not weird about it, though."

"except for the pillow."

"50% went to charity!"

"touché. don't worry about it, sugar," johnny kisses your forehead. "there are worse things to collect. if anything, you're pretty lucky to have a famous boyfriend. lots of stuff to collect. you want one of my shirts? i'll sign it for you—"

"enough, enough," you giggle, swatting your hands at nothing. "this is already mortifying for me. you should see the rest—" you stop in your tracks, smile dropping in an instant.

"there's more?" as he asks, you two stare at each other in disbelief. and before you could react, he darts off to your bedroom, pushing himself off of the wall as he nearly runs into it. you shout-laugh as you follow after him.

"JOHNNY!" as you turn the corner to stand in your bedroom doorway, johnny charges at you and slings you over his shoulder. all you can do is half-resist his grip as he swings your closet door open. your legs kick against his body, and you're slapping his back. "DON'T LOOK!!"

"i can't not look!" he protests, patting your ass playfully. his hand falls to his hip as he inspects your crammed closet just as his grin widens once more. "is that a life-size ninja mime cutout?"

[flowersintheimpala69]

Okay been thinking abt this recently and this is rlly just a rant abt fandom etiquette so that’s ur warning in advanced

Recently I feel like I’ve been seeing a lot of people criticizing fanfics as if they’re books? Like I saw a few TikToks of some people calling out SPECIFIC fics and giving their (quite negative) review. I even saw someone say they had a discord group they were asking people to join which was specifically for reviewing fanfics. I saw a COMMENT on someone’s fic where the commenter was pointing out points in the prose/narrative they didn’t like. And like. Yall that’s so fucked. Don’t do that.

(Exceptions would be if ur a beta or if the author does ask for CONSTRUCTIVE criticism)

I’m not saying you have to like every fic you read. Whether it’s because you disagree with the content (you don’t like the ship, you don’t like the kink, you don’t like the prose, you don’t agree with the dark content etc ect) you can just stop reading it or not comment on it.

Not only do people deserve the right to write whatever they want fuck they want (that is literally the purpose of ao3) but authors take TIME out of their lives to write fics. They do it for FREE and they share it online for FREE because of their love for the media and their generosity to share. And cannot stress enough how much time and effort authors put into their fics. It’s a labor of love. A lot of them have school or jobs or a family to take care of because contrary to what a lot of people not in fandom spaces and (a strange amount) of teens that are in fandom spaces think, a lot of fanfic writers ARE adults with adult responsibilities. No idea where the idea that only cringe teen girls write cringe Wattpad gay smut in their rooms cuz sure some teens write fic but those 200k novel length beautifully written fics yall love sm? Probably written by someone in their 30s.

And like I actually did argue a bit with someone on TikTok abt this (cringe I know) and they brought up this point that “well people criticize books all the time so it’s fine”

I can not stress enough how different it is for someone to write a 1 star review on good reads about a published book and someone commenting and criticizing someone’s fic. I am a true believer in that fanfiction is an as serious piece of writing as a published book. But again. Fanfic writers do it for FREE. Also again authors should have the right to write whatever and however they want.

Also the people I see criticizing(at least on TikTok, I can’t rlly assume how old u r on ao3) are younger people. And hey this is NOT me saying young people don’t belong in fandom spaces. They don’t necessarily belong in ALL fandom spaces (ex: nsfw stuff) but they absolutely have the right to be here. But it seems all these younger people are coming into fandom spaces (which imo is because quarantine caused a lot of teens to become involved with internet and in turn fandom more) and they seem to not know or understand commen fandom etiquette.

I saw someone else (on TikTok I think?) describe it as how people who’ve been in fandom for a while have already HAD these conversations about how to act in fandom and now new people are coming in and having the same convos and debates that were has a decade or so ago. I really agree with that.

So. Sorry for the rant. But! If you do not understand fandom etiquette that’s okay! People gotta start somewhere. But it’s your responsibility to learn and also I feel like it’s common sense not to borderline harass or criticize people who curate content for you for FREE.

[misqnon]

nhello monti! it is March Again :v i feel like it's super obvious who i am so thank u for humoring me and using the name i gave u LOL.

my bad, ive never really celebrated april fools so i forgot it.. was... that day. im also glad u checked ur inbox. also theres no pressure to reply in a certain time frame!! i see ur posts that u have seen my asks and thats enough to put me at ease. so . take ur time!

fellow zoro fan!!!! i have a hard time choosing a favorite straw hat tbh.. they r all so special to me. i do probably like brook and franky just slightly more though. old men my beloved (tbh franky isnt that old but hes old compared to the younger members so). wano is the arc of buff men!! as a man liker... it pleases me.

the edit u sent Is So Good. thank u for sharing. i keep seeing sanji tiktoks and wanting to send them to u but i dont wanna spam ur inbox </3 my messages r already So Long..

ive listened to a bit of the dub (through clips) and tbh i do like it!! i like brook's voice acting a lot (hes who ive heard the most of. also he nails the laugh, which is very important to me) but luffys voice is so jarring to me i just cannot.. get past it. i think im just too used to the sub luffy after . a decade . of hearing him sound like that. plus i usually have to use subtitles anyways cuz i have an audio processing disorder so. sub is just what i default to. but yeah definitely valid to watch dub instead!! they do a great job from what ive seen :)

i have seen a bit of extra content involving the live action cast and tbh usopps actor.. is my favorite. he nails usopp. hes real life usopp. and i love usopp a lot so,,. tbh i might just pirate it (ahaha.... pirate.... pirate.... pirate the pirate show .......) because i really want to watch it!!

YEAH u have plenty of time!! plus i imagine there will be a part of the story where they go back and visit places they said they would return to (like u mentioned laboon). so 2 more islands plus however long it takes to revisit everything! no need to stress

stay strong 🫡 egghead will be so much better going in blind!

catholic guilt about liking sanji is ... i get it. thats funny /lh. i also feel intense guilt for the weirdest and simplest of things LMAO. im glad i didnt make u feel bad about it!!

YEAHH FELLOW DOFFY LOVER!! ive seen a few videos by melonteee and theyre super good. i would watch more but.. ironically (considering i got 800 episodes through one piece..) i cant watch a lot of longform content because i space out so bad. it takes a lot of effort for me to give my full attention and it gets pretty exhausting so i dont do it often. ur art of him is lovely!!! tongue piercings..... 😳.

i got to like .. stardust crusaders. in jjba. and i imagine i just havent seen enough of dio to feel attached to him like i do doffy, but i have seen a few people say they feel the same!!! ive kinda been wanting to go back to it but i just hate old man joseph joestar with such a passion.... i get too angry when hes on screen LOL. its way worse than how i feel abt sanji bc i dont simmer with intense RAGE every time sanji's on screen and i have a lot more positive feelings towards him. that was a bit of a tangent, whoops.

thabk u for validating my sanji hatred. actually i have come to enjoy a lot of sanji content recently though, and i dont think i hate him as much?? as i did?? i will credit this to u. idk if me just talking about it with another human being helped or if its because i see how much u love him but. i think this is good for me!! less rage .. is always good for me. watch me go back to hating him with a passion again now that ive said im fond of him. because im That Inconsistent 😭😭 (i hope this doesnt happen)

it was only super recently where i realized its not inherently a bad thing to like problematic media. to be fair tho there are definitely a lot more problematic fans when u enjoy problematic media, and i see it with one piece a lot. there is a WEIRD amount of transphobes in this community and i cant help but feel like part of that is because of oda's writing spreading some common transphobic ideas. i think hes redeemed himself a lot with the most recent trans characters, and i adore them, but the damage.. is done. but yeah im sure another big part of why theres so much negativity is just because one piece is insanely popular. the bigger the fandom, the bigger the shitty part of it is.

THEY *HAVE* EARNED THE RIGHT TO BE REAL PEOPLE.. UR SO RIGHT. i love that u can see their morals so clearly in like. every action . or inaction. they take. ughh. people talk about luffy falling asleep during people's backstory and say hes rude for it. and its like!! thats a core part of his character!!! he doesn't care about what happened in the past!! he just cares about how you are NOW. tbh though i WOULD be offended if he fell asleep while i was traumadumping LOL. like as a character decision its genius, but as a person .. i am too sensitive for that. BUT IT SHOWS HIS CHARACTER SO WELL!!

IM SO GLAD U NOTICED AUJFH. that moment is so special. u ARE my favorite sanji lover!! my favorite character?? honestly its law... hes so stupid (/pos)... but like.. its hidden behind a very serious mask. i just love people who are extremely silly. and someone who hides their silliness with all their might (and fails) makes them more silly. some of my favorite law moments are in wano and i Really .. ugh. i wish i could tell u but i refuse to spoil even the most minor of things!! so i will wait till u get there. also his backstory just Kills me. it . it hurts. i love tragic characters. looks at choso from jjk. i have a type .

law may be my ultra favorite but i have .. at least 30 different Favorites. including the straw hats. and tbh everyones at about the same level.. in terms of how much i love them. i think its safe to say i adore one piece characters. its because everyone is silly!!! i can list all the ones im aware of (since there r so many op characters.. i have. a list . but i keep adding to it.) if ur curious LOL. if not, no worries :)

YEAHHH ZOROOO MY LOVE!! thank u for The Food. yum. his one eye is very pretty in ur style 🥺. i havent tried to draw him yet tbh but i understand the struggle!! i tried drawing choso a while ago and his hair is so insanely painful.. art is hard.

hello march!!

is. is it super obvious

i have a guess but i wasn’t feeling super confident about it or anything JSAHBZJVHFD

More below ↓

i actually had like no idea until i received a reply earlier and now im wondering if ur possibly a recent mutual of mine 🔍🧐 maybe starting…with @ a….but i will not make u answer if u dont wanna HAHAHA

i will humor u as long as u want 👍

good to know there’s no pressure!! as soon as i get a message i like to reply as soon as i can but thats bc i get excited lmao. however this does make me feel more at peace

YEAA FELLOW ZORO FAN!! originally my favs were just the top 3 of 1. sanji 2. robin and 3. franky but as we got past water 7 and franky didnt get much more development spotlight he fell a bit just bc i dont get to see him doing much :( still love him though. bc of Shipping Reasons (embarrassing) Zoro got on my radar more and i started to appreciate him as a character more and more. plus he’s just. really badass im ngl. and in addition to that he is. so fucking stupid and uncool and goofy at the same time and that just makes him more likable. so now i just have a quartet of favs cause zoro wormed his way in there somewhere and i hold him dear to my heart. (plus im so bad with directions it is QUITE LITERALLY almost as bad as zoro and so i. genuinely relate to him on that LMAO) but i agree !! i LOVE ALL THE STRAWHATS VERY MUCH. I CANT EVEN CHOOSE A LEAST FAVORITE BC I LOVE ALL OF THEM A LOT. also god yes we fucking love an old guy in this household. and i LOOOVE FUURANKIIIII my silly king!! franky is fairly young but early on in the story when its just a bunch of teenagers and 20 somethings and then 34 year old franky is there its. kinda funny and i love that for him. also speaking of old men i called dofuwani old man yaoi once and someone called me out saying 41 and 46 was not old enough 😔 /ashamed. sorry yall lemme pull out some slash of rayleigh and crocus real quick-

aside from the strawhats my other favs are doffy, crocodile, corazon…god there’s so many characters now that i think about it lmao. secondarily i also like bartolomeo, kizaru, kid, bon clay…i have huge crush on katakuri even tho i havent met him yet…im sure there will be more as i continue and meet more

omg im so flattered u consider sending me sanji tiktoks sjnkjcnd!??! someday. someday u have to do this for me. i will send u more funny edits and op posts

BROOK’S DUB VOICE IS GOD TEIR. ARE U TALKING ABOUT/ HAVE YOU SEEN THIS VIDEO. IAN SINCLAIR IS AMAZING LAMNDKJFN

i got used to luffys dub voice bc i watched it first but ive always been meh/neutral dislike towards it and once i heard mayumi tanaka in sub i was like damn. its the only voice i dont like but hes the Main Character. his sub voice also makes me like luffy more as a character mvkjdnvf dub just makes him sound more like a selfish weird boy instead of a silly selfish little guy. you feel me (and no i feel u even with dub i have captions on bc. yeah </3)

taz inaki and jacob are a trio of mischievousness and silliness that i adore. emily is also fun and goofy but on a more ~ refined ~ scale. and mackenyu is so professional to them all in comparison but it makes it hilarious tbh. i follow all of the main 5 on instagram and love seeing them post about it. the recent april fools video starring jacob (usopp) was. hilarious. like what is

(and yes…pirate it….do it….yohohoho or whatever nami would be proud)

i am so ready for wano and egghead i will stay strong for u march 🫡 must avoid spoilers…and still take my time to enjoy the story..

i understand not being able to do longform content lmao. i did watch their 3 hr stream comp of one piece odyssey but like…i had it on in the bg while doing other things. im glad uve seen their stuff tho!! its one of my fav one piece content channels. im glad u liked my doffy 🥹i embellished a Little bit but his piercings are actually from this colorspread !!

i was insane and in highschool when i was into jjba. a lot of it was also during the summers and i had a lot of free time so i. read all the way up through part 7 after watching parts 1-3 (or 4? cant remember). im not as into it anymore but jojos (and araki) still hold a place in my heart <3 HATING OLD MAN JOSEPH IS SO FUNNY KDSNFVK NO OFFENSE JUST LIKE. YEAH. U SHOULD HATE HIM. THATS A VALID RESPONSE AND HE DESERVES IT. KICK HIS CHEATING OLD ASS. i loved younger joseph and like a lot of ppl him cheating on suzie q pissed me da fuck off. but in pt 4 he’s frail and old and they make u feel bad but still. i KNow What You Did. appreciative u hate someone more than sanji tho like hell yea my boy aint at the bottom LMAO. its cool others have noticed the similarities between dio and doffy too! i always wonder if long running mangaka take insp from each other sometimes

omg…im converting u…my influence as the fav sanji lover /j. but that makes me happy!! hell yea we’re changing outlooks over here. i validate ur sanji hatred but i also wont be mad if u like him a little teehee. his fanon is. a lot better than his canon tho so. that helps. we are fixing him. taking him away from oda and dressing him up like a doll . and if u go back to hating him thats ok too at least he isnt old man joseph 

i only interact w one piece here on tumblr or in the 2 op discord servers i happen to be in. with it being so mainstream (and i have. never been in a mainstream popular fandom like this before) i know theres a ton of gross dudebros who like it so i try to avoid that. sucks to hear there’s a bunch of transphobia but im not surprised :/ i still do see yamato discourse and its like got damn how much convincing do u need yall. but no i agree it probably is the audience oda cultivated + his earlier portrayals…though i do really like that he. tried again and did better. though even with yamato i sometimes feel like he puts him in situations that go against canon (like why did he draw yamato as a geisha and include him in the womens day colorspread…oda why) but alas. give and take

YES THERE;S SO MANY CHARACTERS WHO HAVE INSTANCES LIKIE THAT!! SO MANY MORALS AND CONVICTIONS THEY STICK TO AND SO MANY STRONG CHARACTER TRAITS. thats why i find so many op characters easy to write, bc they’re outlined so heavily in the show in what their archetypes and ideals and behaviors are…it kinda bothers me that luffy falls asleep during moments like that too bc it would make ME upset but like. YEA THATS IN CHARACTER FOR HIM DFKNFV

AH A LAW LOVER!! he’s very popular !?!? i know he comes in again in wano but during punk hazard and dressrosa i was like is this enough screentime for how popular he is omg. i guess he’s just pathetic and sad and grungy punk emo boy . tbh if i didnt already have so many favs who fill that spot i would probably have him as a fav as well. but i do REALLY LIKE law. his backstory with cora….fucks me UP!! and he’s been through a lot and come out stronger. plus his juxtaposition and interactions with luffy and the strawhats is so fucking funny kcncd. the op server im in has PLENTY of law lovers so i see him often. i think i stole this from a tumblr post recently but i saw this and saved it to my phone bc i loved it so much

i relate to him here. he is so me. this was me dyking it up at university fr

ik this is from one piece party but i think it shows his secret silly here. he got it from cora i think how could he not. but he hides it under that I Am A Serious And Scary Doctor . like sure trafalgar 

YES send me the full list!! in return i will list more favs as well. mayhaps a tierlist of some kind. we will see

glad u liked the zoros :^) idk anything about jjk but i will look up this choso man one moment. [...] okay i actually really like his design (and hair) but that looks like hell to draw i wish u the best </3 i have a degree in art and ummm its still really hard sorry to tell u it does not get better </3 [JOKING THATS A JOKE A JOKE CJNCD]

here’s a question to leave u off with: what do you think each of the strawhats eye colors is? since most of them are just drawn with black dots. and IF DIFFERENT what are your headcanons/what do you Wish they were 👁️ eagerly awaiting ur response bc i have Opinions on this

talk to u next time!

[mrj9200]

Baby politics is gonna do you 

Nina Turner's tweet is the easiest way to explain the impact of politics to Gen Z, and here's why. I thought that if I had no understanding of politics it would have no impact on me. Growing up politics to me was who was prime minister or president and that's as far as my understanding of it went and I know I was not the only one in my age who knew that little. As I came into my teen years I knew no more than I had known in the past, 

I knew who was prime minister and that in a few years I could tick the piece of paper and make my vote on who was next in line. I knew no more at 17 than I had known at 7 and I was okay with that. I didn’t see the point, if the Prime Minister in the UK stepped down from her job after 45 days all it meant to me was that she did a shit job especially if Kim K’s marriage to Kris Humphries lasted longer than her time in office, or if National beat Labour in the election then my parents wasted their time voting. 

What I didn’t realise is that politics was the reason i’d lose $50 from the $400 of my very first pay to tax, something my parents moaned about and the 6pm news never shut up about, what I didn’t realise is that politics was the reason I was $15,000 in debt at 20 for a degree I didn’t even have yet, what I didn’t realise was that even if I wanted nothing to do with politics at all, it played a part in almost every aspect of my life. 

To quote Turner “politics is going to do you regardless” you don’t have a choice, whether you like it or not politics is gonna play a part in your life. What I think some of my generation don’t understand is that regardless of the type of society you live in democratic, communist or even a dictatorship, politics will have an impact on your life. 

Day after day we see the fuck ups of other governments online tiktok posts about americas anti abortion laws , instragram stories about  Iranian civil rights movements and facebook posts about how russia's  gonna kill us all and it’s so easy to think that because to think that in New Zealand theres very little we need to do aside from voting. This isn’t the case, there’s so much we need to do, to do better for our society and it's so easy you just need to find the right places to look. The quicker my generation learns to understand that they can dictate the way politics will affect their life by making changes to the things they care about. 

Turner’s tweet puts politics into a black and white format regardless of whether you like it or not it will impact your life. You don’t have a choice and that's the thing people either struggle or love, not having control over every aspect of your life and even your best efforts not having it your way every single time makes people anxious, they feel out of control and that’s understandable but for some people the lack of control is the best thing about it, if they have no control over it then they can’t take the fall for any of it because if it’s out of their control then they don’t have to take the blame. 

Worldwide Gen Z makes moves to change politics. There's movements for change in political activity worldwide and it all starts with change that people want; they just have to be willing to stand for this change. There is no point in complaining about the impacts of politics and not making a change. Just like there’s no point in letting people control politics for you, there’s limited time in this world.

 What is the point of letting other people make the decisions that impact the politics in your life without any of your own input.

 Turner's tweet makes something that seems so complicated something that is plain and simple. Politics is one of the only things in this life that is guaranteed. Life is full of political choices, these choices change little things from what supermarket is the closest one to your house, or what the bus comes to choices on the larger scale. Like who gets to dictate the choices you make about your own body and the amount of freedom you have within your country of residency. The quicker everybody learns that politics is something you cannot hide from, it is not something you can not ignore, the quicker we as a society will start to see the changes that politics needs to be beneficial for the majority. Once we all start to pitch our ideas and come together to make impacts on the aspects of life that we all care about is when we will start to see the full potential politics has to benefit our lives individually and as a society.  You can choose to ignore politics and take bliss in the ignorance of it all, you are just delaying the inevitable one day you are going to have to take control of the political choices you can, in the words of Nina Turner if you don’t do politics, “baby politics is gonna do you.”

[officialcharactersimp]

Final Analysis & Response: Reblog Ratios

First off, biggest thank you in the world to @spicysashimi for help with organizing numbers and creating a sexy spreadsheet

We collected data from 8 authors and 109 works to explore the relationship between the amount of notes, especially reblogs, to the amount of time spent working, the word counts, and the followers. Here are the exact categories (per sample):

Followers per author (not included in overall averages)

Word Count per author

Total amount of notes

Total amount of reblogs

Percentage of notes that are reblogs

Reblogs per every 100 words

Notes per every 100 words

Reblogs to followers (as a percentage)

Total number of hours spent working on the pieces

Reblogs per hour of work

Notes per hour of work

We calculated both per author and total. Our findings were as follows:

To draw your attention to the most important statistics:

- 6% of all notes are reblogs

- Authors get 3 reblogs for every 100 words

- Authors get 6 reblogs for every hour they spend on each piece (which is 2-7 across the board).

Tumblr isn’t instagram or tiktok. The main thing likes do is administer The Warm Fuzzies. This site functions on reblogs. If you have a shitton of notes on a post, you might show up in the “popular” tab of a particular hashtag, but that’s all. Reblogs gain the things we need for our blogs to grow and for our work to be recognized.

To do a little more math, I’ve run the numbers and some several tests: it costs exactly $0 to reblog a post you like, takes approximately 5.3 seconds (it depends on the length of the post and if you’re on mobile or desktop, of course), takes 2 buttons, and takes .5 effort. As for the amount of good feelings, exposure, gratitude, and motivation it gives an author? The limit does not exist.

You might think your reblog does nothing, but that’s not true. I can almost guarantee you even if you have like 20 followers, they don’t all overlap with the author’s followers. Even one new person seeing our work can be a big difference, and not just in numbers.

You reblogging a piece means that someone might see something they need to see right then. I know it sounds silly, but really. Sometimes I’m really in my head and a good piece of fanfic can pull me out of it. And if it’s not that piece and that moment, maybe someone will like the author’s style, follow them, and it will happen. Sharing can do a lot. And it’s not happening.

In response to this, several of us have decided to go on a “strike” from July 26 - August 2, this coming week. Any other writer/content who sees this is welcome to participate alongside us. We won’t be posting any of our own works this week, instead just reblogging authors and pieces we like to set an example and show some love.

Of course, this strike will look different for everyone. I already have a sideblog I reblog on, @officialcharactersimp-recs, but not many people follow it, so for me this week, I’m going to be reblogging on my main, @officialcharactersimp, so that these authors really can get the recognition they deserve. Some of us will be answering asks, some of us won’t. Some of us will be taking the time to get feedback from our followers, and some of us will be taking a whole step back.

Join us if you would like!

If you'd like to read the raw numbers for yourself

Thank you to everybody who participated in the study. Although not everyone’s data was used for various reasons, everyone is tagged here for putting in their time and effort:

@spicysashimi - so much help w numbers

@nermalina - not only a huge sample size but helped organize the ideas for the strike and a general big support

@spideyyboii

@caroldantops

@squizzybeanexe

@twilight-99-tm

@captains-simp

@wandavicky

@addicted-to-loki

@supremeinlilac

@animnerd

@leahwrites95 (babiiface95)

@starshipsofstarlord

And all of the mommy milkers discord for being the realest mvps and being supportive, helpful, and working together.

[boytouya]

Can I please request an ftm reader who's in a relationship with tomura? where has a tik tok where he posts about jokes, dead memes, food. Hot topics in Japan, screaming randomly seeing a little frog at the Park all while speaking English so basically live stream where reader consumes all types of hot wings and sauces where the viewers see the LOV while seeing the mystery famous tomura shigaraki brings jugs of milk and laughter. Would tomura learn English to understand his bf tik tok? As readers fanbase they hear language barriers which is why reader can get away with it.

𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐚 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫

a/n: if anyone is fluent in japanese please let me know if i wrote something wrong or used the wrong tone!

Warnings: me using unreliable sources for japanese, brief mention of shig’s childhood

You didn’t want to consider yourself an influencer. Sure, you had over four hundred thousand followers, some of which loved to dm you random things, ask questions about personal life, and seek out advice. You even had a Japanese following, probably because you taught phrases to your viewers every once in a while and it had peaked their interest. And okay, maybe you worked on a brand deal or two. But you hated the idea of being labeled as an influencer. You were just a man doing what he loved, cracking jokes about your favorite subjects, telling stories, sharing recipes, livestreams showcasing your favorite places in Japan. Your boyfriend, leader of the League Of Villains, Tomura Shigaraki, only knew broken English. It was often taught at a young age, but because of his childhood he never got to fully learn the subject. Plus, with barriers to his memory, it made it harder for him to understand your TikToks. Every Friday you take the time to teach him common phrases, though! He still liked every video, tuned into every livestream, and let you use his phone if you needed two of them. You never planned things out, you just went with what called out to you for the day.

Your last TikTok livestream had been a wild one, you were rambling about your spice tolerance when someone in the chat had mentioned trying the Hot Wing Challenge. It blew up overnight, and you woke up to your twitter chiming with excitement over such a simple suggestion.

That led you to where you were now, blinding yourself with a ring-light and setting up Tomura’s phone. You tried your best to hide anything that gave away your own, along with your roommates’, whereabouts. After doing so you adjusted your shirt and started your live, smiling at the camera. The chat rolled in whilst you struggled to read questions. After a failed attempt at reading them out loud, you pick up the plates beside you and hold them up to the camera.

“You guys wanted me to try it,” You hold up multiple different sauces, one of which has a skull and crossbones over it. Surely you’d be paying for this later when you need to use the bathroom. “They all ship at different times.”

Behind you, a raspy voice asks a question that the audience can't translate, but they put pieces together as you laugh and shake your head. You respond with "Damare!” (Shut up!) before making a show of putting way too much sauce on a drumstick and sinking your teeth into it with faux aggression. You chew quickly, hoping that the faster it’s gone the less it’ll obliterate your taste buds. It doesn't necessarily taste good, and even if you like spicy food it isn’t exactly satisfactory on the tongue. You must be making a funny face because there’s two more sets of laughter behind you, and the chat is moving much faster than before.

There are five levels and five different drumsticks, so only four more to go. A voice that doesn’t belong to Tomura, but a cheery teenage girl, almost breaks the sound barrier as she chants “Skip it! Skip it! Go to the last level!”

Curse Toga and her influence. She was a popular guest (though it was her voice only), lots of people had commented how they loved her when you made a collaborative TikTok with her, and she had a huge impact on your viewers. The chat that had just been telling you you needed to every wing had now jumped to telling you to move onto the spiciest level, just because Dracula incarnate had just told you to.

“Fine!” You grumble, picking up the smallest drumstick and pouring a generous amount of ‘Blair’s Ultra Death Sauce’ on the small wing. The moment you let it sit on your tongue you regret it, forcing yourself to swallow and tapping the table aggressively. “What the fuck? What the fuck?!”

Your nose is runny, tears fall from your eyes and you make the mistake of rubbing them away with your palm. Shooting up from your seat with a groan, the only thing you can say is “Water! Tsumetaimizu! (Cold water)”

Your skeleton nearly jumps from your body when Tomura (or at least you think it’s him, you can barely tell from squinting your eyes in effort to remediate the burn. He hands you a glass of milk with maniacal laughter. There are people in the chat bullying him for his laugh, calling him cute, and freaking out because they think they recognize him.

“Manuke, (Dumbass)” Tomura laughs mid sentence, the milk slightly spilling onto his fingers as you rush to grab it from him. “You should see your face right now.”

You chug the glass down, wondering if squeezing some into your eyes would help with the burn. You force them to fully open, watching as every member doubles over with laughter. Of course they’d laugh at the suffering of others.

“Our eyes match,” Tomura says quietly. Then, he picks up your half eaten drumstick and takes a bite, making a high noise in the back of his throat. You get ready to laugh in his face and call him a moron, but he doesn’t seem phased at all. Quite the opposite, really. “Totemo oishii desu (It’s very tasty).” He says with a smirk. You’d kiss the stupid look off his face if there wasn’t sauce on his lips and an audience of nineteen thousand.

[edie-k]

Looking Out (Romione, PG-13)

Title: Looking Out

Rating: PG-13

Pairings: Ron/Hermione, implied Harry/Ginny, Harry & Hermione friendship vibes

Summary: Harry Potter is always going to look out for his best friends - even if it means an awkward conversation or two. 

Notes: I think some of this story was inspired by too many “he looked at me” TikToks. A big thanks to cheesyficwriter for her beta help on this. And I swear, I don't lowkey hate Harry but if you have read my last few pieces and think that, I don't blame you. Not owned by me, characters are not mine. Hopefully, you all get zero Harry/Hermione vibes from this. Hermione is just a little sensitive to be perceived as uptight and Harry does not want to think about Hermione in any way BUT uptight.

Link to AO3

“Stop!”

Harry tapped his fingers on the wooden table and glanced at the closed door.

“Ron! Quit!” He heard Hermione’s muffled voice shout from the other room. Ron responded but it was too mumbled for Harry to understand. He furrowed his eyebrows.

“Go. Now,” Hermione stated and he heard Ron’s low chuckle before the door swung open and the two of them strolled into the kitchen of Number 12 Grimmauld Place.

“Apparently I have drawn the short straw and I will be fetching the pizza,” Ron sighed.

“Oh.” Harry furrowed his brow further and frowned. “Can you do that?”

“Yes!” said Hermione, rolling her eyes. “Harry, he’s had you completely snowed this entire year. He is quite capable of managing Muggle money now, he’s just been pretending to be incompetent.”

Ron shrugged. “The only downside of having you home for good is that I’m busted. I’ll be back in a few.”

“Margherita, please,” Hermione requested.

“Piles of meat, you’ve got it,” Ron replied   and gave Hermione a kiss that lingered long enough that Harry almost looked away. Before he could, Hermione put both hands on Ron’s chest and pushed him away.

“Get going! You know what it’s like if your sister gets here after practice and there’s no food!”

Harry heard the front door close as Hermione pulled out the chair across from him and picked up the copy of The Daily Prophet she had been reading that morning at breakfast. “Didn’t you already read that this morning?” he asked, glancing up from the training manual he was reviewing.

“Mmm,” she said. “I got down too late to really read it in-depth, just scanned it. I wanted to go back and read this feature on a new non-profit that’s a combined effort of a Muggleborn witch and a Squib.”

Hermione settled into her reading and Harry tried to resume his reviewing. After a few minutes of silence, Hermione broke the quiet. “Harry? Is there something on your mind?”

“What? No, I’m fine,” he said nervously.

“Then why are you looking at me every thirty seconds?”

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize.”

Another minute of quiet reading went by before Hermione spoke again. “Really, Harry. What’s going on?”

Harry let out a heavy sigh. “Okay, look, this is awkward. Ron’s my best friend. But so are you.”

“I’m familiar with our dynamic,” she replied, an amused look on her face.

“If you ever need my support or me to talk to him or something… I don’t want to but I would do it. If he’s bothering you or-”

“Bothering me?”

“Yeah.” Harry squirmed in his seat. “Like earlier.”

“What, you mean the pizza toppings?” asked Hermione, looking confused.       

“No,” said Harry. “Just… you know.”

“I do not know.”  

“Earlier when you were in the kitchen.”

“Harry,” said Hermione, the frustration clear from her face and tone. “Stop dancing around and tell me precisely what is going on.”

“You were telling Ron to stop bothering you and he wasn’t!” Harry blurted out.

“What?” asked Hermione, looking completely bewildered. “No, I wasn’t.”

“Yes you were!” Harry insisted. “I heard you tell him to stop and quit twice before you came out here.”

“I don’t - oh,” Hermione stopped abruptly and then her cheeks turned pink.  

“And you told him again as he was leaving. Look, I’m not, it’s fine if you don’t want him... touching you all the time and if he’s not taking the hint, I would very awkwardly tell him to -”

“No,” Hermione interrupted. “Harry, that’s just, that’s flirting.”

“Huh?” asked Harry, looking in her direction. “But you don’t flirt!”

“Of course I do!” Hermione insisted.

“I have never seen you flirt,” insisted Harry.

“Well I do,” she stated indignantly.

“Since when?” demanded Harry.

“For a while but I suppose it was a bit more blatant after Ron’s birthday in sixth year,” she replied, blushing a bit.

“He was still dating Lavender!”

“Oh, and you weren’t flirting with Ginny while she was with Dean? It wasn’t as though we were snogging! It was just…little comments. Brushing hands. Lingering glances. That type of thing.”

“No way,” said Harry.

“We typically didn’t do it in front of you.”

Harry stopped for a moment. That response sparked a whole slew of other questions in his mind but he shook his head and kept to the topic at hand.

“So Ron’s not bothering you?”

“No, my boyfriend, that I have been separated from for ten months, is not bothering me,” she replied, rolling her eyes yet again. “On the rare occasion that I’m not in the mood and I want him to actually stop, I say, ‘Ron stop’ and he always does.” Harry recognized that voice as her standard no-nonsense tone.

“How is that different from what I heard?”

Now Hermione gave him a      look     that he did recognize - the one that she used when she thought one of her friends was being an idiot. “The tone should be a big giveaway.”

“So what’s the flirting sound like?”

“It sounds like what I said earlier.”

“It was too muffled for me to get the full context. Please Hermione?”

“I’m not doing it for you!”

“How am I to know the difference?”

“You don’t need to!”

“Hermione. I feel like such a git. I was really just trying to look out for you and instead, I accused my best mate of treating you terribly when I know how much he loves you. I just don’t want to make that mistake again.”

Hermione just shook her head.

“Come on! Do it for Ron. Ron can’t know I doubted him and I’ll just feel better when I know the difference!”

Hermione exhaled sharply. “Fine. I say ‘Stop, Ron.’”

The words were spoken in a light, giggly, and sultry tone that belonged to someone else but came out of Hermione’s mouth.

Harry stared at her.

Hermione stared back.

“What the hell was that?”

Hermione now gave an angry snort that sounded exactly like her.

“No, really,” said Harry, shaking his head. “I don’t know who that was but it wasn’t you.”

“Just because you haven’t witnessed it before doesn’t mean it’s not me.”

 “Hermione, outside of last year, the amount of time we’ve spent apart is measured in weeks at most. There can’t be an entire chunk of your personality that I’m missing.”

     “Well apparently there is.”

“So you’re just an entirely different person with Ron when I’m not around?” Harry asked.

“No,” insisted Hermione. “I’m the same person but with some additional traits that you aren’t familiar with. I know there are things that Ginny sees that Ron and I don’t…” Harry grimaced. “Not - oh gross, you know what I mean.”

“Apart from that, Ginny sees the exact same things you two do,” Harry proclaimed.

“That’s impossible. I was there at the end of our sixth year. Ginny had fun Harry and we got the other version.”

“Well, damn Hermione, I’m so sorry that I wasn’t a delight to be around when I was being hunted by - ”

“Ugh, Harry, now you’re being impossible. The whole thing with Ginny at that time was brand new and fun. It’s the same thing with Ron and I. It still feels new to be open and vulnerable with him in a way I never could before and it’s fun. All I meant was that Ginny makes you happy in a way we don’t but it’s the same with Ron and me.”

“Except I don’t try to be some sort of weird sexy version of myself.”

In that moment, Harry realized just how much he had matured since he was 15 and that he was definitely getting better at recognizing other people’s emotions. Because after only five seconds, he realized that he made a terrible mistake with no clear path to redemption.

“Hermione, I don’t mean it’s weird like, weird-weird. It’s just for me, you aren’t or you, um…”

“Not only do I have pizza, I found this one wandering about so I brought her in. Looks rather ragged, figured we should feed her up,” said Ron, bursting into the room with two pizzas and Ginny trailing him, rolling her eyes at his lame joke.

It was a close second for the happiest Harry had ever been to see him.

Ron set the pizzas on the table and looked between Harry and Hermione, who were still glaring at one another. “What’s going on?”

Hermione turned her gaze from Harry to Ron and her eyes darkened. She crossed the room in three steps, grabbed the collar of his shirt, and pulled him down to meet her lips. Harry looked away from the two of them while also carefully avoiding Ginny’s eyes. He could feel her staring at him with questions written across her face.

Hermione let the hand gripping Ron’s collar trace down his chest to right below his belt before she grasped his hand and turned. “Upstairs now,” she ordered, pulling him behind her. Ron followed her wordlessly, looking gobsmacked but ecstatic.

“What the fuck was that?” asked Ginny, watching them go, amusement in her voice. Harry opened the pizza box, ignoring the question.

“Harry?” asked Ginny, now looking more curious.

“I’m really not sure,” Harry said. “Do you want something to drink?”

“Uh, okay,” said Ginny. She watched Harry grab two beers out of the icebox. As he slid one across the table to her, a thump and a moan came from overhead.

“Ugh, did they not do a silencing charm?” said Ginny, crinkling her nose.

“In fact, I wouldn’t put it past her to have used an amplifying charm,” said Harry. “I believe I may have offended her.”

“Oh Ron, don’t stop!”  

“Correction,” said Harry. “I am now certain that I offended her.”

“I don’t even want to know,” Ginny shook her head, taking her wand and silencing the kitchen.

An hour later, Ron came back in the kitchen in his flannel pajama bottoms. He shifted the leftover pizza into a single box and closed it up before opening the icebox and grabbing two beers. He pushed the door open with his elbow and started to back out but stopped short when he saw Harry and Ginny still seated at the table.

“Harry,” Ron said with a lopsided grin. “I have no idea what the two of you were talking about before I got back but thanks for looking out for me, mate.”

[arhvste]

hi baby, i just wanted to say thanks for the work you do for characters like suna, oikawa, kuroo and atsumu. i see them mischaracterised all the time on tiktok and it breaks my heart seeing things like oikawa only going for someone based on looks, atsumu is a racist, kuroo is a fuckboy that would sleep with your bestfriend and how suna is a toxic stoner boy that would only call you when he's high. thank you for your works they really help erasing those types of nasty hcs 🌺🌸

ugh anitiktok 😖 these characters weren’t written for these types of hcs to be forced and closely associated with these characters and it saddens me so many peoples visions and perceptions have been warped to fit these fanon versions of their actual characters,, oikawa is literally so kind to his fangirls, to have someone like him fall for you, he’d be looking for someone to see past his ‘happy-go-lucky’ facade and see just how much work and dedication he puts into things,, he pushes himself past the points expected of him,, he just wants recognition for his efforts and dedication not some girl who only fits societies beauty standards and only sees him for what he gives them. he wants someone who’ll go beyond what he shows and figure him out a little for themselves, that’s what will hook him onto more than any type of physical features. atsumu isn’t racist. have you seen how much respect he has for aran? i get it, he can come across brash and provocative but again, he’s racist nor is he smug or bothered about his fangirls. he’s there to play volleyball and he the best he can be,, he doesn’t want attention from flocks of girls with no end, he again, wants to prove himself an ideal setter and set an example for what hard work and perseverance achieves,, he’s absolutely not racist and not a single character in the haikyuu universe is. with kuroo, i believe it’s canon that the nekoma team weren’t actually very popular with the girls in school. they’re not the underdog type of team like karasuno but a more refined but scrappy type of team. it’s understandable they wouldn’t get masses amounts of attention at school up until nationals. kuroo was raised by his father and grandparents. do you really think they’d accept him bringing home a new girl every other night? absolutely not. he’s far too concerned about his own team and ensuring kenma’s taking care of himself to be a fuckboy. he’s respectful and a fucking loser for that matter but that’s what’s so loveable about his character. he’s far from the ‘bad boy, sex god fuckboy’ persona people have labelled him as and it makes me a little sad everytime i see toxic hcs of him mentioning these traits when they aren’t even there to begin with. and lastly suna. i get it. he fits the typical ‘hot stoner skater boy’ everyone has a thing for. he’s a volleyball player and a well known one at that. he is defiantly not high off his ass every night. he’s probably smoked a handful of times but then again, who hasn’t? i don’t think making him a stoner is a very strong character trait just to pin onto him. people really took his lazy character design and ran with it,, i’ve fed into this hc a little but i can’t see him just as someone stoned out of his mind all the time. he plays pro when he’s older, there are regular drug checks being given to these players. he’s not high every day and it’s not fair to force that onto him. he wouldn’t be toxic either. just because he’s a little stoic it doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how to communicate. suna maybe wouldn’t shower you with love and affection all the time and out of public but in private he’s more than happy to show you how he loves you in his own little ways whether that’s straight up telling you or just him holding you until you both fall asleep and wake up again. he wouldn’t be toxic and ghost you, he’d just be a little more lowkey about his affections. sorry this got so long but i think about this a lot too,, i could go on for hours about the mischaracterisations of these characters and more forever but i think i’ll leave it at that now,, you’re so welcome for all my pieces about them and i’m really happy to tell you i have a lot more in my wips for them <3✨

[outropeace]

elotito tagged me on this so i’m gonna do it for her <33333

1. describe how you first started writing and when you first posted

i began to write in general since i was around 14 like any other emo kid kdjdjsks and o began to write fics when a friend asked me for one as a birthday present. it was written in a hurry and it’s not my favorite but i really enjoyed doing it. i posted that exact same fic on their birthday

2. which of your characters do you typically resonate most closely with? do you base any characters off of yourself?

it depends the fic i guess. and not really, i think the closest i’ve been to do that is in the rockstar au (coming to the @bottomlouisficfest very soon), i put one or two of my old insecurities in h so he could connect better and wouldn’t be persieved as just an asshole-y dude cause i don’t like that and louis don’t deserve that uwu🌸

3. where do you often find inspiration?

music, movies, tiktoks (DONT JUDGE KDKDKS)

4. has quarantine helped or hindered your writing process?

before the quarantine i had around 3 wips, now i have 8

5. do you listen to music/noise while you write or do you prefer silence?

i listen lofi youtube playlists shjdkld

6. what is your biggest writing pet peeve in your writing or in general?

me repeating “Oh...” over and over again through tall my fics, it shouldn’t be legal

7. describe your ideal writing setup

rainy day, good coffee, comfy sweater, my cat besides me, arely sending texts about teeth/imessage games, snacks

8. favorite time of day to write?

nights (it’s usually when i have time)

9. favorite genre to write + one you’d like to try writing in the future?

i’d LOVE to write a thriller

10. do you struggle with writer’s block? how do you typically overcome it?

i just leave the fic for a bit, i don’t really like to push myself about this cause i’m just doing it for fun

11. what is the easiest part of your writing process and the most difficult?

the easiest is the dialogues, i could write pages and pages of just dialogues in hours and the hardest is the smut dhjdd

12. how do you come up with original characters? (if applicable)

it depends, is the antagonist? i ask myself how’d i feel if i were them, like a third party just trying (and usually failing) to get in between

13. what is your favorite and least favorite word?

i like “wet” i just... yeah.... and least favorite i don’t really know tbh

14. what is one thing about your writing that you’re really proud of and one thing you hope to continue working at?

i like that people conect with the characters because i always put a lot of effort in making them realistic (as much as i can), i make them flawled and sometimes even messy but with good hearts and intentions, all of them are (even the antagonists). and my grammar OH MY GOD MY GRAMMAR

15. what work of yours has your favorite ‘verse/world building? how did you come up with it?

hands down the ice prince fic. and funny thing is, i already had my prompt for the fic fest but i just couldn’t stop thinking about one particular prompt about a bratty prince and an alpha who hated omegas and the amount of POSSIBILITIES that had. two days later or so, the mods of the fest gave us the opportunity to pick another prompt if we wanted and the rest is HISTORY

16. what font and size do you write in? single spaced or double?

11 and single

17. what is a typo(s) you find yourself making consistently?

baby do we have TIME FOR THIS ONE?

18. (if applicable) do you separate fic writing from fandom?

yes, always 100000000%

19. what emotion is your favorite to write? which is the most difficult?

angst, sadness, anguish, sorrow, jealousy, i love to hurt hearts. and it’s not an emotion but after they get together it’s really difficult to me to actually keep going (oh god dkdkdkkdd)

20. what is one thing you hope readers always take away from your works?

that that’s okay to fuck up, that no matter the circumstances you have to respect your partner and TALK WITH THEM and that a person can be successful, independent and a badass while being soft and a c*mslut

21. what is the best and worst writing advice you’ve ever received?

i think “write whatever you like, you’re not being paid for it anyways” is the best and only advise i’ve actually listened to

22. which one of your works would you most want to see turned into a film/television show?

it’s complicated cause my two favorites are abos and idk how that would work dkskkss but the ice prince and the alpha/alpha fic

23. do you write scenes chronologically or out of order?

chronologically but i have a document apart where i write everything that comes to my mind at the moment, that one is A MESS

24. how do you handle criticism?

i think good, if it’s respectful

25. what is the advice you would give to someone who is looking to start writing?

trust yourself, have fun

26. what kind of feedback on your work always makes your day?

ANY type of positive feedback makes my day tbh

27. which fic ‘verse of your own would you most like to exist in? which fic’s characters would you most like to befriend?

none tbh dkdkks and louis, obviously

28. what do you always enjoy getting asks about/wish people would ask about more?

about my stories, i love when people just come to rant to me about certain things the characters did and ask me why they did it

29. what has writing added to your life? how has it changed you?

it relaxes me a lot. i just can write for hours and hours and it just feels nice and in some way exciting

30. why do you write?

refer to question 29 kdkdkxk

boost yourself + tags!

1a. share the last sentence you wrote

from the exes to lovers au:

The second hiccup of the night came in the form of his ex smiling to a boy sitting next to him on a couch. The boy had gorgeous, dark and wild hair, clear hazel eyes and a pretty pouty mouth. Their body language screamed attraction and that they both were ready to devour each other. Louis was familiar to the smile Harry was giving to him, bright and seductive, ready to give anything you asked for.

2a. describe the wip you’re most excited about

right now i’m very excited for the happiest season au, my “cliche story” au and for my exes to lovers au dksks i’m excited about a lot of my wips i’m so sorryjdjd

3a. share the piece of dialogue from one of your works you’re most proud of

from the alpha/alpha au:

“I’m not giving up on love,” He softly touched the hand that was still grabbing his thigh. “To me, love is like flowers. Each one needs a special treatment, if you give an orchid the same treatment you give to an iris, the orchid will die. Same thing with love. I’m not giving up on love, I’m just changing the treatment. We might not be an orchid, but we could make such a pretty iris.”

4a. share the best first and last lines from your work(s)

favorite first line from the sugar baby au:

Powerful people only end up with powerful people. The rest are just playthings in their lives. Louis Tomlinson was many things, but he wasn’t anybody’s plaything.

favorite last line from the ice prince fic:

“Who would have guessed…” Harry whispered after a while, smiling against Louis’ lips. “the dragon finally got to keep the princess.”

5a. link the last fic you read

HAYLEY’S MASTERPIECE

6a. link the last work you published

that’d be the ice prince fic

7a. link to your ao3 (if applicable)

hereee

8a. someone that inspires you

louis teheeee

9a. a comfort fic/work that you’ve been grateful for this year

god, again, there’s so so many of them, like the amount of authors i’m so grateful for, the list is infinite but these are a few that comes to my mind

all elote’s (@defencelesst) fics makes me really really happy and never fails to give me a cozy/wintery feeling, her louis IS THE MOST PRECIOUS THING ON EARTH AND HER HARRY IS JUST PERFECTION, i’m in love with her descriptions and how she just takes you THERE. hanis @loulicate-recs always makes me smile so fucking hard. ris @falsegoodnight fics NOW.... well.... ris fics they make me smile but also make me want to throw my phone to the other side of the room BEST OF BOTH WORLD IG. MAR’S FICS (loubellies on twitter, idk their @ here i’m sORRY) ARE LITERALLY ONE OF MY FAVORITE AUTHORS AT THE MOMENT, such a pretty louis IM SO IN LOVE WITH MAR’S LOUIS ITS UNFAIR

10a. other writers that you’d like to tag!

omg i’m probably so late to this and idk how many of you have actually done this so here goes nothing @allwaswell16, @runaway-train-works, @greenfeelings, @kingsofeverything, @thepolourryexpress, @larents

[oloreaa]

I completely get you with the smut fics. I love me some smut but I think as a writer you really see the difference in what people will reblog and have emotional responses to? I've written 1000 word smut fics that get 100+ notes compared to 3000 word fics that I've put so much time/research/effort into (& I'm so excited to publish them!) & those sometimes don't even reach 50 notes. It's a hard pill to swallow. But I don't see what we can do? I suppose I just wanted you to know that you're not alone in seeing this and being disheartened by it

Oh yeah, absolutely. My only Mando smut fic has over 400 notes while being a piece just over 2k, while 6-8k chapters from my (sfw) long fic don't even have a quarter of that amount.

I don't think that there is a lot to do, to be honest. Not from our side, at least, because we can write as much as we want in whatever quality we are able, and we know that our content is good. It's just a question of other people, if they would a) give the story a chance and b) actually reblog it instead of giving a like at most. A lot of people always seem to forget that tumblr is not instagram, twitter or tiktok, where likes actually contribute to exposure.

Thank you for this ask🥺🥺❤

[aahsoka]

So having been on tiktok for a bit I wanna talk a little about it.

What I like

It’s actually rather entertaining to scroll through up to 30 second videos one after the other. Sometimes the humor falls flat or it’s not your taste, but the algorithim is quite good at recommending the kind of content you will like.

I joined right when there was a big trend going around about sharing your culture, and soon after a Blackout trend where non-Black creators stopped posting for a day & spread/supported videos by Black creators. So I ended up with a fairly diverse fyp or “for you page”. It also quickly gathered that I am bisexual, so I get plenty of lgbt+ content. There’s some art mixed in there, some cosplay, some historical costuming/seamstresses, lots of avatar jokes lately, musical theatre content, fashion, girls in bikinis on rollerskates (in outer space), commentary on political issues, body positivity, all the kinds of stuff I like. To get a feed that caters to your interests you just have to watch & like videos you’re interested in & eventually it gets a feel for what you’ll watch and what you won’t.

Theres a trend where people say which ‘side’ of tiktok they’re on and I get ‘science side of tumblr’ flashbacks but I’ve mostly avoided the “straight” and conservative sides of tiktok. I would be considered a part of “woke”, “alt” (as in alternative) and lgbt+ tiktok (there are separate ones for each letter of the acronym). Possibly also “theatre” and “cosplay” tiktok. These categories are nebulous and you’re usually part of multiple communities; its just as arbitray as ‘science side of tumblr’ was.

The format reminds me of snapchat a little, and I love to talk to myself on video & post dumb thirst traps for my friends (none of which I’m attracted to so idk what my goal is there) and make stupid jokes. So this app is kinda perfect for my attention seeking side & hyperactive tendencies. Its very easy to consume on a short attention span, though not as easy as vine was.

Being in quarantine, its a way for a lot of people to engage in hobbies that involve community. Cosplay is pretty popular, as its a fun way to show off a costume & dress up & have fun without having to attend a convention. I enjoy the way lip synced audios can be used to emulate the character someone is dressed as; that’s something you couldn’t really do unless you were really good at impressions. Its a nice succinct way to show the process of creating a cosplay as well.

Those who enjoy theatre, but cannot perform in shows at this time, are able to create mini-monologues & sketches as well as sing parts of their favorite songs. Its an avenue through which to perform without putting anyone at risk of the virus. It’s also an easy way to show off your talents without having to go through the audition process & actually get cast in a show as a prominent enough role that someone will notice it.

It’s a convenient format for discourse and educational videos. Nice, short, easily digestible tidbits that stay in your mind. This extremely catchy song, for example: “Black neighborhoods are overpoliced, so of course they have higher rates of crime, and white perpetrators are undercharged, so of course they have lower rates of crime. And all of those stupid stats you keep using are operating off a small sample size. So, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up”.

As well as other videos where people take the time to explain historical events, satirize racist arguments to demonstrate why they are wrong, talk about prevalent tropes in movies, teach a few signs in ASL, share facts about their culture, etc, etc. I have found there are quite a lot of people there from unique and fairly unknown cultures and backgrounds- and this is a place where they’re able to share their culture & existence with people all over the world. There are a thousand different viewpoints. Their videos are doing far more for diverse representation than any other platform, I’d argue, as everyone is extremely visible on the app. (‘Their’ as in the creators, not the app itself).

I also have enjoyed coming across new artists on the app. It’s really fun to watch the process they go through, as most art videos deal with the whole creation of a piece. It’s inspiring. I have also come across a painter who’s work I’m in love with, and a woman who makes and sells the CUTEST ceramic mugs, and I need to purchase some stuff from them both.

Now onto the bad:

Unfortunately, the app doesn’t have much in the way of a filtering or warning system. I talked about that tiktok of the kids coming across human remains? That was just on people’s fyp. Just popped up. No warning. No reason for it to still be up. Traumatizing.

You can click on a video and say ‘not interested’ (I do this to literally every video I get where some girl is thirsting after kylo ren 🤮..... like I want the star wars videos just not THOSE videos). However, it doesn’t seem to know exactly why you weren’t interested, because I still get those videos from time to time. There’s no content filter where I can blacklist the kylo ren or any other hashtag.

There’s some very shitty content. There are racist conservatives. Misogynistic teen white boys. Really weird thirst traps. Videos where people lip sync to something with a straight face and tag it with #acting. Harmful body image trends. I thankfully stay very clear of this, but this kind of content makes me worry for the minors on the app. The one’s who don’t have enough of a concept of self yet to realize they don’t need to be able to do the newest pointless beauty trend to be beautiful, to realize it’s ok for them to be gay, to realize how predatory some adults can be, etc etc.

It is extremely easy to come across minors on the app who don’t look like teens. One time I went to a girl’s page and it said she was FIFTEEN. I’m usually good at guessing ages but something about this app messes that up. I wish there was a way to separate people under 18 and adults. Where I don’t have minor’s thirst traps popping up on my fyp. Where pedophiles don’t get a chance to curate that fyp intentionally. If anyone reading this has kids, I highly recommend they make their tiktok private or only viewable to friends.

Just like any site, there are plenty of bigots. Lots of racist comments. Plenty of transphobia. Any hatred you’ve seen elsewhere, of course it exists on tiktok. I have actually zero clue if you can report people & if it works. Most people seem to send a video commentary to their haters or duet a video of a racist pointing out their racism. I’ve heard of creators blocking people, however. I remember a tiktok of a Black woman who’s video somehow went fairly viral in Poland and now she gets a lot of racist comments from this large group of random racisf Polish followers she has and its extremely time consuming to block them all, as there’s no mass block feature.

The rumors about what works with the algorithm and doesn’t abound. I’ve heard well lit videos get more views. Many people suspect they have been shadowbanned for speaking out about current events. TikTok will remove the audio from videos sometimes if they deem it controversial enough. Most of us know they were criticized recently for intentionally keeping Black creator’s videos from being seen (a catalyst for the Blackout, actually). Or you may also recall when it was criticized for widely removing lgbt+ content. Those creators are fighting to be seen the same amount as straight cis white creators are allowed to be seen with no effort.

The effects some trends could have on teen girls. So many of them are already so uncomfortable in their own skin simply because of societal standards, but the absolutely meaningless challenges people come up with on tiktok make it so much worse. One trend was based around whether your finger touched your lips when you put it in your nose. Or if you could get your clasped hands around the back of your legs and over your butt (if they get passed, you have a flat ass, if they get stuck, its big). These completely arbitrary signifiers of the things you need to have in order to be pretty, are far more ridiculous that anything I have seen yet in my life. I worry about little girls taking these ideas to heart. There is a very kind body positive community on the app & I hope more people can find that.

There’s also that thing where they steal your data. Like most apps. But apparently they got a lot more invasive than usual, so I would look into it before making an account; if you want to do that.

I think the apps users can be great & its a pretty intuitive set up. It certainly deserves its popularity solely as a creative form of social media. That being said, its owners are so so insidious & do the worst things. Just like all other social media, its controlled by the worst kind of people. Who can never figure out how to effectively get rid of nazis or keep kids safe from adult content.

These are my less serious gripes with the app:

1) Lip syncing

When people lip sync and don’t do any kind of skit, joke, etc, just look as if they’re saying what someone else said; I hate that. I have to go back and find the original tiktok so I can like it instead. You literally did nothing interesting by ripping off someones audio and moving your lips along to it. So many people on this app are creative and so many others lack any semblance of creativity.

Also people are too easily impressed by lip syncing to kinda-fast songs. I lip synced to like....10 seconds of the devil went down to georgia and two people praised my lip syncing abilities. Like, I can also sing and talk fast, out loud, isn’t that more impressive? more skillful? The fiddle playing in that song is impressive, not the fact I can lip sync ‘the devil went down to georgia, he was lookin for a soul to steal, he was in a bind, cause he was way behind.’ Have you ever seen someone play Johnny’s fiddle solo????? It’s insane!!!

Rather than see someone lip sync to the verse in Stressed Out 2x faster than normal (which is, extremely simple and the song was overplayed and ingrained into our collective consciousness) and go WOW what about someone.....doing the verse out loud. You can litterally just mouth random words and look like you’re saying the right ones. It’s driving me crazy lmao. I’m set to become a God of tiktok because I have a repertoire of fast songs and rap verses memorized. It’s not even an uncommon skill to speak or sing quickly, people literally make rap music for a living! Listen to it maybe.

2) “Acting”

I am begging you to stop making me sit through those horrible POVs. I cannot take another girl not quite fake crying towards the camera as she lip syncs the words from a song that apply to the random situation she decided she was in. I cannot take another boy who thinks its sexy to stare into a camera and smirk in every single situation he creates.

Back to lip syncing, making facial expressions along to words isn’t really acting. Try saying the words out loud perhaps? The inflection you use with your lines is a pretty big part of acting. Like you can lip sync all you want, just stop tagging it with #acting.

3) Comedic timing, or lack thereof

You don’t need the entire intro to sit there looking at the camera waiting until the first line starts and you can lip sync to the part that’s the joke. You could cut off at least 15 seconds. Brevity is the soul of wit.

When your joke involves both reading text on screen and listening to the song for the punchline, if it isn’t done prefectly, its so difficult to follow. I can’t read a paragraph in 5 seconds. Paraphrase.

4) self deprecating artist audio

the audio thats like ‘this wont get views’ ‘I suck’ ‘you probably won’t see this anyway’ LOVE YOURSELF

It sucks when people dont enagage with your art but it sucks worse when your value in yourself and you art is based solely on receiving that validation. Please find a healthy medium.

Also you’re asking for pity, and you don’t want that. You want people who genuinely love your art for what it is.

5) editing videos is really hard how do you make such cool & smooth transitions????

please help me I don’t understand

Finally

here’s my account if you’re interested

[60b3r]

Memes Kill Creativity?

Memes vs. Genes

In the 1976 book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins coined the term 'meme' to describe something with symbolic meaning that spreads by imitation from person to person within a culture. This idea is an analogue to the nature of selfish gene, described similarly as a piece of genetic material possessing information required to be able to replicate themselves inside a living. The only key difference in both terms is that the gene is natural, while memes are artificial. The rest of memes' operating schemes completely mimic the genes perfectly. In our current timeline, memes as we know today are taking many forms: as image macros, short videos, and rick-rollicking music. Memes in imageboards and forums have been pushing internet porn traffic into a stalemate and putting our power grid into unnecessary burden. Of course, memes are not to be regretted, but otherwise need to be taken seriously, since they are able to put our current understanding of media industry and economic system into shame.

As with every other thing that have existed, memes are not exempt in its dualistic nature. If you ever venture to the depths of dark web, you may know that memes also took part in the infamous mimetic Tumblr-4chan War. Not only that, some memes are reportedly causing harm towards some users, even though it is often disguised or said to be a dank joke or mere sarcasm. Memes have seen its share of use in online bullying, mass shootings, and hate crimes, cowering behind the freedom of expression tag. Regardless, memes are also an extremely effective form of information transmission. Like all living systems with no set moral standards, memes do evolve and are subject to natural selection. Memes, like genes, actually work like a mindless machine. Again, this is eerily like the performance of DNA in living systems. The last thing we want from this thing is virulence.

Every day, something went viral on Twitter. Hashtags are flaring into the top trends, some videos are being watched billions of times, and another cat vs. cucumber pic garnered thousands of likes. Viral properties of a virus (duh) is defined as the capability to multiply quickly in relatively short amount of time. The term saw a huge increase in usage during the dawn of the internet age and the rise of computer malwares spread through unsecured ports of network protocol. This term is being applied to memes, as it is like a virus (which is a pure embodiment of a selfish gene). Now, a lot of people are utilizing memes to create art, because it enables them to cater the short-attention spans of current internet users. They create shorts, illustrations, inside jokes, and small comic strips. Some of you might not agree with me on this one, but stay with me now and I will explain to you why I would like to treat memes and art as a single unit of interest in this argument.

The dawn of meme-technology

Viral memes and their popularity are now often considered important in defining a time period in the internet culture. Now every netizen can somewhat distinguish the approximate age, sex, and political views of other users from the usage of rage comics, meme songs, and meme platforms they use. Intuitively we can make a generalized difference between the userbase of Reddit, 4chan, 9gag, Vine, and now Tiktok. Others, by the share of relatability with sub-genres of different areas of interest (film memes and game memes). Some others, even, in the perspectives of different social and economic class system (first world problems and third world success memes). Meme preferences to us netizens are ironically giving away our anonymous identity. Identity which the media companies are vying to get their hands on. That's where I would like to come into my opening argument: both memes and genes which originally possesses no intrinsic value, suddenly become a subject of value with technology.

How do we draw the logic, I say? The ones and zeros inside electrical systems are value-free, so does DNA in living cells. As we meddle ourselves with biotechnology to manipulate genetic material for profit, we also simmer ourselves in the computer sciences and tweak physical computation to perform better. We give value in the inanimate object by manipulating them. In our world, we often heard these expressions: that communication is key, sometimes silence is golden, and those who control the information wields the power. What’s these three statements have in common? Yes, information and expression. Memes are the simplest form of both. This is the beginning of the logic: memes are no longer in and on itself independent of external values. The infusion of utilitarian properties in memes as artificial constructs are seemingly inevitable, and for the better or worse shapes our current society.

We might have heard that somewhere somehow, the so called ‘global elites’ with their power and wealth are constantly controlling biotech research and information technology—or, in the contrary, they control these knowledge and resources to keep shovelling money and consolidate their power. Memes are one of their tools to ‘steer’ the world according to their 'progressive agenda', seemingly driving the world ‘forward’ towards innovation and openness. Nah, I am just joking. But, stay with me now. It is actually not them (the so-called global elites) who you should be worried about. It is us—you and I, ourselves—and our own way of unwittingly enjoying memes that are both toxic and fuelling the age-old capitalism. Funny, isn't it? We blame society, but we are society. But how are be becoming the culprits yet also be the prey at the same time?

Middle-class artists are hurt

Now, aggressive marketing tactics using memes are soaring. Media companies are no doubt cashing in the internet and viral memes to their own benefit. Streaming and cataloguing are putting up a good fight compared to their retail, classic ways of content delivery. This is quite true with the strategies of Spotify and YouTube, other media companies alike. They can secure rights to provide high-quality content from big time artists and filmmakers and target these works directly to the end consumer, effectively cutting the cost of distribution which usually goes to the several layers of distribution line like vinyl products, radio contracts, and Blu-ray DVDs. I believe this is good, since it is like an affirmative action for amateur artists to start a career in the art industry. Or is it? Does it really encourage small-time artists to begin? Yes. How about the middle-class artists? Not necessarily.

You might sometimes wonder, “how the hell did I get somewhere just by following the trending or hot section in the feed?”. This toxicity of memes often brings some bad things to our tables. Social media algorithms handle contents (like viral memes) by putting those with high views or likes to the front page, effectively ‘promoting’ the already popular post and creating a positive feedback cycle. By doing so, they could capitalize on ad profits on just few ‘quality’ contents over huge amounts of audience in a very short amount of time. The problem is most of the time, these ‘quality’ contents have no quality at all. They just happen to possess the correct formula to be viral, with the correct SEO keywords and click-bait titles with no real leverage in the art movement. This way, I often find both the talented and the lucky—of which the boundaries between them are always blurred—overshadow the aspiring ‘middle-class’ artists who work hard to perfect their craft.

If you are already a famous guitarist with large fanbase, lucky you, you are almost guaranteed to top the billboards. What, you have no skills? Post a video of you playing ‘air guitar’ and… affirmative actions to the rescue. Keep on riding the hype wave and suddenly you get to top trending with minimal effort, thanks to your weird haircut. Those haters will surely make a meme out of your silly haircut, not even your non-existent guitar skills. But still, hype is still a hype, and there’s no such thing as a bad publication. This also answers why simple account who reposts other people’s content could get much more followers than the hard-working creators. Not only being outperformed by the already famous artists taking social media by storm, now the ‘middle-class’ artists are also dealing with widespread content theft and repost accounts because of the unfair, bot grading system. It is unimaginable how many nobodies got the spotlight they don’t deserve just because they look or act stupid and the whole internet cheers around them. Remember, this is not always about the artist, but also the quality of the art itself. I believe a good art should be meaningful to the beholder.

Why capitalism kills creativity

The problem in current art industry is that we are feeling exhausted with the same, generic, and recycled stuff. We indeed already see there’s less discourse about art now. Sure, the problem lies not in the artist or medium, but is in the viewers—the consumer of the art form—and how the capitalist system reacts to it. The hyper efficient capitalist system doesn’t want to waste any more time and money trying to figure out what’s new or what’s next for you. What we love to see, what is familiar to us, the market delivers them. The rise of viral memes phenomenon in the social media pushes the market system to the point where they demand artists to create the same, redundant, easy art form. Listen to some of The Chainsmokers’ work and we'll see what music have become: the identical 4-chord progression, the same drop, the predictable riser, and the absence of meaningful lyrics. We sat down and watch over the same superhero movies trying hard to be the next Marvel blockbuster. The production companies are also happy not to pay writers extra to come up with new ideas and instead settle with borrowed old scripts from decades old TV drama. Disney's The Lion King and its heavy use of the earlier Japanese Kimba The White Lion storyline is one guilty example.

Despite it initially being an economic system and not a political ideology, it is untrue that many Marxist philosophers usher the suppression of art. While it is ironic that Stalinist policy intends to curb ‘counter-revolutionaries’—in this case his enemies—by limiting freedom of press and media; American propaganda added further so that it seems that the ideology is also limiting art and kill creativity. We all know the Red Scare in the U.S. during the Cold War saw a popular narrative of communism and socialism that is devoid of freedom of expression. This state propaganda then further become ‘dehumanization’ and make freedom of expression invalid under the guise of equality. Marx argue that total equality is not possible, and the uniqueness is being celebrated by having them doing what they do best and provide the best for their community. Thus, an individual's interests should be indistinguishable from the society's interest. Freedom is granted when the whole society is likely to benefit from an action. According to Mao in his Little Red Book, freedom of expression in art and literature, after all, is what initially drive the class consciousness. It is capitalism, not communism, that kills creativity.

If left unchecked, the threat of this feedback loop is going to cause a lack of diversity, resulting in stale content, less art critique, and overall decline in our artistic senses. Artists’ creativity that are supposedly protected by the free internet are destroyed within itself through the sheer overuse of viral memes. Capitalism has successfully turned the supposedly open, free-for-all, value-free platform that is the internet against the people into a media in which they are undeniably shaping new values on its own: the art culture that's not geared towards aesthetics and appreciation, but towards more views and personalized clicks. How social media and media industry caters to the demands of the consumer are, in Marx's own words, “digging its own grave”.

Spare nothing, not even the nostalgia

Well, people romanticize the oldies. The good old days, when everything is seen as better and easier. Look at the new art installations that uses the aesthetics of naughty 90s graphic design to become new, the posters released in this decade but with an art deco of the egregious 80s pop artist Andy Warhol, or the special agent-spy movies set frozen in the Nifty Fifties. Nostalgia offers us a way to escape from the hectic choices of our contemporary: different genres of music, dozens of movies to watch, and different fashion to consider. We choose to settle with our old habits, that we know just works. Remember how do we throw our money on sequels and reboots and remakes of old movies we used to watch during our younger days? We don’t even care about new releases at the cinema! Did you remember how Transformers 2 and their subsequent sequels perform at the box office at their opening week?

The huge sales of figurines and toys of Star Wars franchise—if we could scrutinize them enough—came from the old loyal fanbase of the late Lucasfilm series, not primarily from new viewers. Then suddenly, surprise-surprise. Our love for an old franchise deemed dead enough to be remembered and treasure soon must be destroyed to pave way for three new outrageous sequels (the ones with Kylo Ren and Snoke) by the grace of our beloved capitalism. Sadly, nothing is left untouched by the capitalism’s unforgiving corruption. Nostalgia has become a gimmick that makes people like some art more than they should, because it’s familiar. It is another way of squeezing your pocket dry.

Not that it is bad to make derivatives like covers or remixes, but the trade-offs are far too high. Consequentially, the number of original arts is now very little, because artists don’t bother making new stuff if they just aim for a quick buck. Most of the young adult novels are essentially the same lazy story progression with only different time setting and different character names. Most of them even have the same ending! No more a beautiful journey like the thrillers of Dan Brown or the epic adventures of Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings, which defines their respective times. Do we seriously want to consider Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey as a unique work? Isn’t the Hunger Games and the Maze Runner essentially the same?

If you play video games, you must have known that the trend always starts over. Game developers are making gazillions of sequels, and only a few of them that are actually good. Most are outright trash. Oh, wait, old video games like Homeworld are also getting remasters to cater the demand of nostalgic consumers. No new Command and Conquer release from EA Games? Re-release the 25 years old Red Alert because people will re-buy it! Profit!

15 June 2020 8.03 PM

[meladotjournal]

Esther - As The World Caves In

EPISODE TITLE: “... And I Feel Fine” 

“Esther and Aeszura are back, reunited with Kadriel, and everything’s going great. A little too great. The trio is in for a rude awakening.” (stolen from Kari’s lovely creator)

GOD has entered the chat.

Takes place during Supernatural Season 15, Episode 12 -- “Galaxy Brain”. Chuck has decided to destroy every single alternate reality, which of course includes that of our dear original characters. Set sometime after Esther’s resurrection, the previous end to her storyline. Near 2300 words!

/////

Esther’s body was different. For starters, it was almost unbearably warm. And tired. She lay in bed, with a heavy knit blanket over her legs, as instructed. Human, undeniably so — her skin no longer glowing from any fancy brand or curse or possession or enchanted knife, but from her own renewed spirit. Every atom, every fiber regenerated and patched together, burning and restarting her system completely. 

The blade was no more, her tether reintegrated into her system in some dubious amount, but it was enough to feel whole. Technically her physical body was only a few weeks old, but it was a practically perfect replica of what she was before any of this had started -- before the monsters, before the deals, before the day the world split into two. She could stand to lose a few years, they had always joked, but having it actually happen was something entirely alien. And even then, her childhood scars and even her piercings were nowhere to be seen. Her trusty denim jacket was also lost (and it would have been much too warm for her now anyways) so she fiddled with the sleeves on her newest and itchiest sweater, getting used to the feeling of fabric on her skin, something she hadn’t felt even when she did have a body. 

Things were different, but she was home. There was no more running, no more resenting or repressing. There weren’t any more doubts or voices clashing against each other in rough agonized tones, but one unified Esther. Everything wiped clean, baby-smooth pink skin rubbed raw and healed without question by the angel Kadriel. Kari. 

She knew that she would have to find a way to help Kari, not because she was obligated to, but because she wanted to. Her chest ached in an unfamiliar way that she both hated and loved, for the first time in a long time finally feeling. 

It had been a long time, impossibly long, since Esther last walked the Earth. It was even more difficult now to process, and Esther had to stop herself from wondering how far along her corpse was in the decaying process, if there was a corpse at all. Kari didn’t like to talk about it -- about the time she spent alone. A lifetime ago Esther wouldn't have cared so long as she was still functioning as needed. But what used to be a twinge of guilt was nestled in the center of her brain once again, and she held back her burning questions until Kari was comfortable talking about it. Esther didn’t remember much, if anything at all from the time in between. Sometimes, just as she was drifting off to sleep, she could feel flashes of something her mind couldn’t quite wrap around. A clenched fist, cold leather seats, an aluminum briefcase, and then blinding bright light. If she didn’t know any better, she would have assumed she had visited Heaven. 

Esther watched the angel from across the room. Before, she never really understood how it felt to be nothing more than a human surrounded by all-powerful supernatural beings. She never heeded the feeling of static in the air, or the migraines, or the taste of blood in the back of her throat. Putting the supernatural aside, despite her unchanging appearance, Kari was difficult to recognize. She’d give a friendly wave and smile like always, but it never reached her eyes, not anymore. Esther recognized the look, the dullness. If she was different, Kari was immeasurably so, with her hawklike gaze and eerie presence. After thousands of years of unchanging existence, what could possibly have happened that could do this to her friend?

Pulling her own now-glossy eyes away from her much older friend, she squinted at Kari’s borrowed laptop from where she sat on the bed. 

“Put your glasses on, Esther,” Kari chimed, “I didn’t give you brand new eyes just for you to neglect them.” 

“I look like a fucking nerd.” She did.

“Yeah, you do.” Another voice agreed. The lump of blankets piled on the couch trembled before revealing a vibrant mop of hair and a mess of freckles. “Please just, urgh, destroy them before I have to shove them down your throat and choke you with those ugly fucking things. I’m still not convinced that’s even actually you over there -- you’re like a shitty clone or something.”

Esther wasn’t used to having her feelings hurt. Aeszura went back to her phone, mindlessly scrolling through musical.ly -- TikTok. Even their phones are different, Esther complained. I can’t believe they came out with another fucking iPhone, They couldn’t wait until I stopped being dead? 

“I simply wouldn’t allow that to happen. Besides, you know that’s not how it works, Aes,” Kari sighed. 

Esther perked at the mention of what “it” was, but unfortunately the explanation ended before it even began. She knew that Kadriel had worked tirelessly to bring her friends back to life, but it never occurred to her that Aeszura could have helped along the way somehow. 

“Keep laughing,” she squinted in the direction of the red blob, “I noticed that you’re missing some freckles, p-pizzaface.”

“Don’t even pretend like you can see that far. Idiot. Stupid.”

Esther threw her head back into the hard wooden headboard of the bedframe, swearing at the sky before angrily shoving her glasses on. She glared at Aeszura. Different. Everything’s different. Aeszura, despite her best efforts to loudly scream otherwise, had grown. It was hard for Esther to place. Was her hair longer? Were her eyes softer? She was definitely angrier, but Esther couldn’t figure out why. She didn’t like talking about what happened either, but Esther knew enough to piece together that she died sometime before Esther did. Her mouth went dry at the memory, at the sound of her phone endlessly ringing in a black sedan, the final voicemail and the hole in he forehead and the fucking Muppets. Her stomach clenched, a pit of ice chilling her insides. Different. But they were still here. They were still together, somehow beating the odds and breathing the same air at the same time. No monsters, no case, just them, at home (wherever they were), together. Esther locked eyes with Aes and smiled, because despite everything -- despite the pitfalls and the immeasurable traumas divided between the three of them -- she was so damn happy. Before she could open her mouth to speak, her phone went off. 

At the same time, Kari bolted upright, her hands clutching her head. Seconds later, all three of their phones buzzed, a frantic siren and an avalanche of notifications filling the room. Esther’s stomach dropped once again, too scared and too overwhelmed by her annoyingly human brain to process whatever was suddenly being broadcast on the TV. Kadriel?

“Oh, God -- A-angel radio -- going -- argh. Can’t-- can’t hear anything. Um, excuse me,” Kadriel’s face wrinkled, eyebrows furrowed with the effort of sorting out through hundreds (or was it tens?) of panicked inaudible voices. “God -- God?”

“What the FUCK is happening, Wings?”

“Kari-- are you okay? Aes -- your phone --” Esther jumped out of bed, shoes still on, of course. Her heart pounded. Annoying. 

“The sky, oh my God -- Satan -- FUCK. SHIT. The sky, you guys, the fucking sky --” Aeszura clutched her phone, nails tapping angrily on the already-shattered screen. 

“My father is back, it seems --” 

“Portugal, Cuba, London, even fucking Guam --”

“Or he was --”

Esther looked between the two of them, hyperventilating. Stupid. Annoying. For a moment she wishes that she was back to the way she was, comfortably numb. She shook it away as quickly as possible, shaky hands clutching for something that didn’t exist anymore. She places a hand on her chest, scratching at her annoyingly pristine skin, trying to feel for the raised lines of skin that are no longer there.

“What’s going on?”

Kari gave Aeszura a meaningful look. 

“It’s the end of the fucking world.” She spits, shocked and pissed and incredulous. 

“What-- what about God??!” 

“He’s the one that’s ending it,” says Kari, hushed and so, so very tired. “Heaven and Hell are already gone. The empty, I think, too. Earth’s all that’s left.”

“Wh-- what do we do?!”

“I think we need to step outside, Ess.”

/////

There’s nothing to do. 

Esther’s friends both dissolve at the same time, and for one very terrible moment she panics, suddenly alone. Suddenly so much more afraid. And she’s not used to it at all. Stupid, she reminds herself, They’ve gone outside. With shaky legs that refuse to fucking work properly, she bolts through the front door to join them. 

/////

There’s nothing for us to do. It’s happening. After everything, despite everything, the end comes anyway. We thought we could cheat death, and we did, for a time.

Suddenly, I am alone, and for one very terrible moment I panic, suffocating, choking on emptiness. My friends -- my friends are gone. Stupid, I’m being stupid. They’re outside. It’s fine. 

As much work as Kari put into this body I fucking hate it sometimes. It’s just that I hate feeling scared all the time again. I hate when my emotions affect fucking anything, be it the way I think or how my body moves. But at least this isn’t a vessel forged by God, not anymore. That rat-bastard. I don’t want to think about what’s happening, or why, or him. I am a new creation forged by the blood, sweat, and tears of my friends. Still owing them, always, but at least now I’m here to repay them with whatever time we have left.  Maybe the tether isn’t gone. Well, it obviously isn’t, it’s me. Just different. Different. And with my new stupid shaky legs I sprint outside to join them. 

The sky is blue. The air is hot. Everything would be fine if it weren’t for the giant flaming meteors headed straight for us. The sky just keeps getting hotter and God doesn’t care. 

I don’t want to see this. 

Aes has her hands shoved in her pockets. I can’t see her face -- she won’t let me. What is she thinking about? I’m sure if I could then I would see the comet reflected in her eyes. I would see pain. I do see millions of shredded pieces crammed into the one and only Aeszura, the only truly redeemed demon ever to exist. For someone who talks so much, I see all the words crammed in her brain that she never lets slip out. Secrets, so many unthinkable things that I’ll never get to know. I want to punch her. I want her to push me over and laugh and I want to sing stupid songs and give her stupid gifts and call her mean things like we always did. There’s still people we have to piss off, and things we need to talk about when she’s ready to, and places to vandalize and funny tulpas to invent and harass people with. 

I still owe her my soul. I hope she knows she has it. Always has. Whatever kind of soul she’s got buried under there, ours are mates. I can see them going down to a shitty bar and downing as much booze as they can steal, going on roadtrips and doing crimes and running away from the soul-Feds. If the world wasn’t ending we’d have made it remember us. Can’t really raise hell when it doesn’t exist anymore. I hope that idea gives her some sort of peace, knowing she can’t be tortured anymore. She was never evil, never deserved the shit she got stuck with. And now, good or bad, kind or cruel, demon or angel, we’re all going to the same place. 

Kari looks so tired. Her shoulders slump now, and she’s somehow much more gray, much more guarded. I want to make it okay. I want to apologize for everything. I want to go back to the gardens and I want to hold her hand and I want to spill drinks and complain. I want to teach her about toothpaste and I want her to tell me about the bible, like my parents used to when I was a kid. I want her to place a glowing hand over my face and make it feel okay. There’s still movies we have to see, and things we need to talk about when she’s ready to, and places to visit when the weather is nice and when I can stand upright for longer than fifteen minutes without getting tired. 

I still owe her for my being here today. I’d still take this over anything, over zoning out of my mind in heaven reliving illusions of whatever good memories I could possibly have. If I could choose just one moment to live in for eternity, it would be this. Anything less than the end of the world wouldn’t feel right, I think. The world is always ending. And at least for this one I’m whole, and I can feel it. As shitty as the terror-filled part is, I still feel so fucking alive, for the first time. Never in my life have I ever felt so alive. And I can see my friends, the people I can finally call my friends. I’m not alone in the sky, and not in the pits either, I’m in the middle, and it’s a damn good middle. 

But there’s still people to save. So many people. 

I need to hold something. My hands are wretchedly empty, clammy, and shaking. It’s definitely out of character, and very embarrassing and very stupid, but I step closer between the two giants and pull the both of them closer to me. 

Finally pieced together, even if it’s a little late. 

I’m still happy anyways. It’s as good of an ending that we’ll ever get, I suppose. Together. 

[theseadagiodays]

March 30, 2020

Kids Arts Activities through Quarantine

As BC’s spring break officially ends, I am very aware that working parents, with kids at home who now need online schooling and extra care, are extremely hard hit by the current changes.  I also realize that Adagio may not at all reflect the tempo of their lives as they juggle these new responsibilities.  What I hear from my friends in this situation is that Prestissimo Agitato (agitatedly fast) probably sums it up far better.  So, I am hoping that some of the kids’ arts activities which I list below might help give parents even a few tacet moments.  

This accelerated pace also relates to health care workers, grocery employees, and so many others who are working harder than ever during this period.  Conversely, people who have temporarily lost their jobs, aging people who were enjoying the well-earned luxury of post-career social time before the virus hit, and many others now find time spooling out before them in a sometimes overwhelming abundance.  And while I am fortunate to be able to sustain a considerable amount of my work during this unusual time, I relate more to both the challenges and privileges of being faced with increased space in my life.  In fact, I have always been aware that my choice not to have children has meant that my life’s rhythms are quite different from many of my peers.  So, I take this reality as an onus to use the extra capacity I have to contribute where I can.  And writing this blog is one way I am attempting to do that.

As I share this, I am inspired by the words of one of my favorite writers and thinkers, Rebecca Solnit, who in her Harper’s article, The Mother of All Questions, poignantly sums up the role that people who choose not to have children can play in their communities.  “There are so many things to love besides one’s offspring, so much work that love has to do in the world”.

So, for children and adults alike, I offer Lunch Doodles and Lockdown Diaries and Puppet Shows and Haiku.

At 1 pm EST, every day, Mo Willems, livestreams his Lunch Doodles classes for all to follow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmzjCPQv3y8

Or, if you want to get your hands a bit dirtier, you might try this homemade playdough recipe to make the rainbows that people are sticking to their windows all over the world to spread hope.

https://www.pre-kpages.com/rainbow-play-dough/

In Saskatoon, Wide Open Children’s Theatrehosts livestreamed storytelling and puppet shows at 10 am CST and bedtime (7 pm CST), every single day, on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/events/638733030283792/

Christchurch artist, Stephen McCarthy has created a free downloadable, Lockdown Diary, that will keep anyone busy for ages:

https://www.mylockdowndiary.com/?fbclid=IwAR0G3KgCfRfnr2FXhEIumzR2SigQB3bEYXfOu1m9m0g8tqL2RnQPoprJL2w

The New York Times has created a digital coloring book with a truly timely image.  You can play with their online pen or print it out and do it old-school analog style.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/23/opinion/covid-coloring-activity.html

And finally, if you want to distill your feelings about this unique time, the simple container of a Haiku works very well for this.   The 3 lines form is made up of 5 syllables, 7 syllables, & 5 syllables.  The invite it is to write your own, video record yourself reading it, and then send it to Quarantine Haikus: https://thebridgepai.org/quarantinehaikus/

Here’s mine:

cherry blossom tree

as colorful as ever

like nothing has changed

March 31, 2020

Resilient Quarantine Artist Projects

The life of an artist is one of constant reinvention.  And these times call for just that.  As I’ve shifted from a flute performance career, to directing a community arts non-profit, Instruments of Change (instrumentsofchange.org), to creative writing, I have sometimes struggled to define myself by my job description or title.  However, if I have learned anything from this necessary process of unravelling my identity from my career achievements, I have learned to connect more deeply to who I AM rather than what I DO.  This process of redefinition has led me to recognize that, at the core of everything I do, I am an arts advocate, first and foremost.  So, this is the title that sits most comfortably for me.  As an arts advocate, I am constantly seeking ways to increase public perception of the value of the arts and artists, themselves. And this eloquent article (https://madmimi.com/s/708e601) which my friend, Juliana Bedoya shared, perfectly illustrates why artists are ideally equipped for dealing with our current uncertain circumstances.  To summarize Andrew Simonet’s piece, Dear Artists, This is What We Train For:

1.    Artists are accustomed to charting unfamiliar territory.

2.    Artists are excellent at “working with what they’ve got” - to quote Duke Ellington

3.    Artists are keen observers, and they use those powers to create expressions of resonance and relevance.

4.    Artists thrive at adapting to constantly changing rhythms and flow.

In only the few brief weeks since quarantined living began (although I know that this has seemed eternal for some), it has been remarkable how many resilient strategies and projects I’ve encountered in my artist community.  So, here, I’d like to share just a few initiatives that are happening in my own backyard.

In Vancouver, the Little Chamber Music Series That Could has launched their Isolation Commissions, where individuals, for only $200, can hire solo artists to film a 4 min video of themselves performing something which reflects the impact that this extraordinary social situation is having on their artistic practice. It might be an improvisation, a favorite piece, a work that brings comfort, or a new composition in progress. Incredibly, by March 31st, already 30 video performances from 30 unique artists had been successfully commissioned. Interested “commissioners” can contact Mark Haney at: artisticdirector@littlechambermusic.com to arrange their desired artist partnership.  And you can learn more about their innovative program here: http://littlechambermusic.com/isolation-commissions/

For years, the Sunday Service has provided live improv sets at Vancouver’s Fox Cabaret, and they are not letting self-isolation stop that tradition.  So now, every Sunday, at 9 pm, Cyber Service livestreams collaborative improv, from each of their respective homes, on their You Tube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2A8-xxVUssHFIr_WDt4Gyg?view_as=subscriber&fbclid=IwAR2ojZlCDLZHjkN6qq0iDKtm4mPkI9dQvoZeGVv9IWpYX85zDfq0lKePegA

Instruments of Change is also playing with our own adaptive strategies as we anticipate the potential cancellation of our free, outdoor summer concert series, Street Beats.  In 2018, originally invited by VIVA Vancouver, I of C launched this series to make a wide variety of top-rate live music accessible to all, while celebrating our city’s vibrant public spaces.    So, in an effort to continue meeting those objectives without the possibility of large public gatherings, Street Beats sound engineer, David Spidel has proposed Street Beats - the Stream Beats edition.  His idea is to drone video record several Vancouver parklets and plazas, and then green screen these behind various livestreamed performances of Vancouver artists.  We should learn, in the coming weeks, if VIVA goes for his slightly wacky concept, and we’ll keep you posted.

April 1, 2020

Lockdown Laughs

This year, the internet exploded with announcements that there should be a moratorium on April Fools Jokes, as we are all living a far worse hoax than any one of us could ever devise.  And while I’m usually a huge fan of this prankster holiday, I fully understand the sensitivity of the ask. So, instead of tricks, I thought I’d just include some good laughs for much needed levity.

As a dentist, my Dad spent his life glaring into terrified people’s mouths, so humor served him well to put his patients at ease.  It is no surprise, then, that he has injected daily doses of giggles into my quarantined existence with his reliably hilarious links.  Here’s my favorite so far:

https://www.theloop.ca/watch/news/strange/this-couple-s-hilarious-horse-dance-has-gone-viral/6144325579001/1660977952457681249%20/your-morning/

Masters of lockdown living, people in China have perfected the art of making themselves laugh in hard times. And watching this American comedian’s stand-up routine, which weaves in crazy Tiktok videos from China, was perhaps the hardest I’ve laughed since this whole ordeal began:

https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/608485/tik-tok-quarantine/

Also, my local arts community has come through again, with a livestream version of their weekly Thursday night comedy show, Jokes Please, that’s hosted at Little Mountain Theatre, only blocks from our home.  It airs every Thursday, at 9 pm PST, but remains on their Facebook page for future viewing, too. https://www.facebook.com/jokespleaseshow

April 2, 2020

A Simple Verse

Some days, a few artful lines can go a long way.  In life, as is now evident more than ever, there are many changes over which we have no control.  And while we often wish we had the power to say or do something that could shift those things with which we are uncomfortable, this is not always possible. However, what we can control is the steadiness with which we face these uncomfortabilities.  As we all struggle with feelings of powerlessness in these uncertain times, TS Eliot reminds us that patience and faith will get us through.

I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; 

Wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; 

There is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. 

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: 

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. 

                                                                                               T.S. Eliot

April 3, 2020

Physically Distant Connections

There is much to be learned from trees.  For those who have not yet read the wonderous, Hidden Life of Trees, in it Peter Wohlleben describes the remarkable communication system between our forest friends.  Without language or physical touch, these living beings can support, nourish and love one another in magnificent symbiosis.  In fact, trees are masters of social distancing, as he illustrates here:

“The average tree grows its branches out until it encounters the branch tips of a neighboring tree of the same height. It doesn’t grow any wider because the air and better light in this space are already taken. However, it heavily reinforces the branches it has extended, so you get the impression that there’s quite a shoving match going on up there. But a pair of true friends is careful right from the outset not to grow overly thick branches in each other’s direction. The trees don’t want to take anything away from each other, and so they develop sturdy branches only at the outer edges of their crowns, that is to say, only in the direction of “non-friends.” Such partners are often so tightly connected at the roots that sometimes they even die together.”

Ironically, another term for the crown of a stand of trees is corona. So, let us all follow their lead and trust that our separateness is what will keep us together.

And, if you’re keen to read more about the wisdom of trees, the latest Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Overstory by Richard Powers, weaves a dense and motivating tale that explores what drives radical tree activists’ passion to save our dwindling forests.  Powers is not a man of few words.  On nearly every tenth page of his 512 page tome, there will be a word that you will likely have to look up.  But trust that you will be the smarter and more moved for it.  This has been the most powerful read I’ve had in the past couple of years, emotionally and intellectually.  So, if quarantine living happens to leave you with some extra time on your hands, it’s definitely worth it.

Pratityasamutpada is my favorite Sanskrit word.  (And yes, as nerdy as that sounds, I do have a favorite.)  It means the interdependence of all things.  And since physical distancing began, nothing has made me feel more connected to my fellow citizens than the nightly 7 pm cheer for our health care workers. So, I will leave you with a video from this week that captures the essence of interconnectedness beautifully.  https://youtu.be/BS8dMC1sfXc

[scrambledthoughtz]

fed up w/ quarantine & other thoughts

been feeling really fucking fed up with myself recently. every time i feel like complaining about this quarantine or shelter-in-place, i feel like a stuck-up asshole and i just remember that TikTok that's like "Kim, there are literally people dying." i understand that i'm in a huge position of privilege given the circumstances because my family and i can afford to stock up on food, toilet paper, and cleaning agents. i know that we are lucky to even have the chance to complain about the fact that we are stuck at home -- reading, sleeping, catching up on lectures, painting, or whatever other activites people have picked up during this quarantine. i know that there are people out there (like doctors, nurses, mail men, grocery store workers, Uber drivers and more) who are working their asses off to make sure that we are able to maintain at least some degree of normalcy despite the chaos that we have all been thrown into. and massive props to them -- i really can't even begin to express my gratitude for those who are still working hard at their jobs while the rest of us get to stay at home. so trust me when i say i know. i know i shouldn't really even be complaining because in the grand scheme of things, i am lucky. my family is lucky. many of us are lucky. but with all that being said, i'm not going to deny the fact that these extended periods of time spent cooped up inside has taken a bit of a toll. i've been so fed up with myself recently for a number of reasons. first, it has been SO hard to focus at home. i'm not used to being inside for so long, or not having the option to go somewhere else to study when my room proves itself to be a massive distraction. it's not like i don't have anything to do. i do. i had midterms last week, and finals this week. but despite this, i've found it so difficult to focus and to commit to sitting down and actually put effort into my schoolwork. i'm the type of person who hates turning something in when i know i haven't put my best effort into. sometimes it is what it is, but especially with my bigger assignments (like this 10-page research paper i have due at the end of this week), i would absolutely hate to turn in something that i'm not at least decently proud of. and i've always been this way. i always tell people the story of when i fell asleep the night before my country report was due, and i woke up to it being finished, thanks for my mom to took over and finished up my project while i had temporarily passed out on the floor next to the computer. in the end, i got an A, but i was still upset because i felt like i didn't deserve the grade that i had gotten. it was my mom's A, not my own. since then, i've mellowed down a little. i've grown to understand that i can't put my 100% into everything, but i still hate turning in something that i'm not proud of. but i just can't find the willpower to sit down and freaking type out this paper. i don't even know why. actually, maybe i do. a few weeks ago, i went to an academic coaching appointment at Foothill, and i told the coach that i may have an perfectionist instict where i drag out assignments because i know that they're going to take a lot of effort and brainpower and i don't want to churn out anything sub-par. it's a worthy revelation, but it doesn't do me any good if i don't work on it. now, i'm not a perfect (or even a stellar) student by any stretch of the imagination, but i don't think i really realized how much of my identity is tied with school and my education. without that structure and constant push, i feel genuinely lost. it's like, "what now?" what am i working towards? if i have too much time on my hands, i'm almost always itching for that empty space to be filled with schoolwork, or any type of productive activity. it's not like i LOVE school or anything, but i also don't hate it. and actually, nowadays, i really miss it. i miss my instructors. i miss my classmates. i miss sitting in a classroom and participating in-person. i'm honestly kind of sick of talking with people over the phone, text, email, or FaceTime. i miss the physical face-to-face connection. i miss my workplace. i miss it a lot. i miss my supervisors, my co-workers, and the ridiculous conversations we'd have during the night shifts. i miss laughing so hard that my stomach hurts and tears are streaming out of my eyes. i've been spending an obscene amount of time on social media, and it's been more toxic, time-consuming, and draining than anything. i've uninstalled and reinstalled Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok countless times over the past week. i honestly lost count of the number of times that i uninstalled one of those apps in a brief moment of determination and productivity, and then reinstalled in a prolonged period of boredom. my sister has been so productive these past few days, and i envy her focus. i'm starting to develop an irrational resentment towards her. she is able to focus for long periods of time, she has the willpower to not snack out of boredom, and she has somehow developed impressive upper body-strength. she goes on daily runs, and she is able to manufacture structure for herself in an otherwise long, uneventful day. the days are beginning to blend together, and i've told myself that i wouldn't let myself succumb to boredom. i try to keep myself busy. i downloaded an audiobook that i listen to in the morning and while i'm walking my dog. it's a charming book, something that i wouldn't be able to get through if i was physically reading it myself. it's called "The Rosie Project." i see so many people rediscovered hobbies and talents, learning how to cook, finally getting to that "stack of books that they've been meaning to get to", creating their own home workouts, and i feel so much guilt. i feel so much guilt that i've been sitting on my ass all day, complaining. not doing much except for refreshing each of my social media apps, hoping for new posts to scroll through. i know that there are things that i should be doing, but i just can't. i know that i should learn to cook because i am going to be moving out soon. i know that i should take this opportunity to work out more often. i know that i've been looking for more time to read, and this extra time has cropped up. i know, i know, i know. i'm beginning to develop familiar resentment towards my friend, who keeps on sending me frightening statistics. stop getting your anxiety all over me. i know that the amount of coronavirus cases in the Santa Clara county has tripled in the past week. i know that the president is shutting down borders and banning international (and even domestic) travel. i know that we are basically trapped. i know that a "shelter-in-place" directive is one of the most serious directives out there, and that it should not be taken lightly. i know that we need to work on flattening the curve, and that we are barely even there. i know that school is probably cancelled for the rest of the semester and that it'll take place virtually, even though the shelter-in-place is only supposed to last until April 7. i know that it'll be extended because the spread of this virus has shown no signs of slowing down. i know that, despite what the media tells us, the elderly are not the only ones who are susceptible. wash your hands, wear a face-mask when you go out, wear gloves, don't touch your face or your mouth. social distancing is the legal mandate. stay 6 feet away. no social gatherings. stay at home, stay at home, stay at home. don't go to the beach and party it up like a fucking idiot. all non-essential businesses shut down. no one knows how long this is going to last. the death toll keeps increasing. our governor may even shut down beaches because ppl aren't taking the shelter-in-place mandate seriously enough. it's crazy, it's uncertain. thankfully my professors have been so understanding, so kind, and so generous. my Ethics professor made our final option (although i'm still going to take it because i have a fucking B in the class right now -- another story for another time). my research methods professor has extended our paper deadline three times, and she sends out announcements reminding us to take care of ourselves. i know that it's a difficult time, but i can't help but feel guilty. yes, it's a difficult time for everyone involved, but surely more so for others? i'm just sitting at home complaining and eating chips. this doesn't apply to me? i don't deserve an extension on anything because i'm not doing anything anyways. it's not like i have anything else to do except my assignments, and i'm still not doing them. i feel like a lazy piece of shit who is just going to take advantage of these extensions to procrastinate even more than i already am. sure, it's lonely at times and i've only really talked in-person with my family for more than a week. but i didn't do anything to deserve this. the real support and recognition should go to those on the frontlines -- the doctors, nurses, infectious disease experts, and so on. props even to my dad, who is a dentist. i'm just sitting at home, having the luxury of doing nothing, having my meals made for me, while my professors are frantically working behind the scenes to make sure we still get our education. i don't deserve this. it always boils down to this, and i'm not sure why. a lingering feeling of guilt or "un-deserved-ness".