#tumblr is responsible for 3 of these which feels high for me but i guess i am mostly. seeing anything. on here if i'm realistic

[unopenablebox]

5 songs i've been listening to lately, tagged by @teethleave

sapphire bullets of pure love -- they might be giants

fists up -- the blow

lemonade -- tsunami bomb

champagne supernova -- oasis

trick me -- kelis

i mean this week i've only listened to dwj audiobooks and flood on repeat, but reaching back into a week and a half ago yields more variety

tagging @qvincvnx @dippingbirdfursona @digsdigsdigs @idionkisson

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA For telling my partner I'd like to bring my ex into our relationship?

I'm copying this over from r/relationship_advice, because the responses are giving me the impression they don't really get what polyamory is & I'm hoping tumblr does. For reference: there's me (29M), my ex (28, Trans Man), and my partner (30M).

My ex and I were best friends in high school, went to the same college, & dated through the tail end of undergrad, for about a year and change. We ended things on very good terms, the only reason we broke up was a difference in life paths: I stayed in the city to get my Master's, he traveled constantly for his work (he's a sculptor who makes these huge custom multimedia pieces, they're genuinely some of the most beautiful things I've seen). We fell out of touch for the most part, but I'd see him popping up on social media occasionally, or he'd text me when he was in town and we'd hang out, along with some other school friends.

The last time I saw him before our present situation was about 3 1/2 years ago today. We went out for drinks, he came back to my place after, and we ended up hooking up. He stayed in town for about a week, and we hooked up a few more times, and then he left again. He sort of dropped off the face of the earth after that, but he'd always been pretty sporadic, especially when he had a big project, so I didn't think much about it.

Not long after that, I met my current partner. He's truly one of my favorite people in the whole world; he's incredibly thoughtful, and earnest, and passionate about his morals & principles (he's an environmental lawyer), and more than anything, he's someone I never feel like I have to pretend with. He asked for my number, we had our first date a few days later, and ended up staying awake the entire night just talking about anything and everything, so we went ahead and got 5am pancakes and called it our second date. We've been together for a little over 3 years now, we've been moved in together for about 2, and while we've had the occasional fight or rough patch I can definitely say I love this man, and I plan to spend the rest of my life with him.

So, the big change.

About a year ago (~2 years since seeing my ex, my partner and I have lived together for about a year at this point), my partner and I are having a night in, and there's a knock at the door. It's my ex, looking absolutely ragged, holding a 15 month old baby. As in, a baby who was conceived 24 months before then. Yep, it's pretty much what you're guessing. I let them both in, we had a sit down in the kitchen, and he told me everything he'd been doing in the past 2 years in between me cussing him out for keeping it all from me in the first place. I really do want to keep this as short as possible, so to give you the super condensed version:

She's my daughter, he's completely sure about that, there's no one else he's been with the math is even close to correct for

The second he found out he was pregnant, he more or less panicked. He's got a whole Thing about feeling like he's irresponsible/not a "real" adult, and this really set him off, so telling me felt like "admitting to fucking both our lives up" at the time. His OB/GYN said some pretty awful shit to him about not being more careful as a trans man too, which just made it all even worse

Because of all that, he'd genuinely planned to just never tell me I have a daughter & raise her completely on his own, but a few things compounded to force his hand:

The birth was really rough on him, and his recovery was slow enough he was having trouble going back to work, to the point where money was getting tight

On top of that, our daughter has celiac disease, and between paying out of pocket for blood tests & spending more on baby food she's safe to eat, things got desperate enough he went and took out a really dodgy loan from a scummy payday company

He was at our door because all of this had finally spiraled to a point where he'd lost his apartment, they'd been sleeping in his car for about a week, and he couldn't think of anything else to do

I think I was probably feeling every human emotion in existence at the same time through all of this, but the thing I remember most from the whole conversation was the way my partner kept drifting right back to the baby, and the soft way he looked at her. We put my ex & daughter up in a hotel room for the night and told him we needed to talk, and we'd discuss our options in the morning, but I think even then I kind of knew what our answer was going to be.

Sure enough, for the last year and a half we've been co-parenting our little girl, all three of us. We didn't want to juggle who's got her, or force my ex to find a place to stay, so we've turned my partner's home office into our daughter's room, and redid most of the downstairs layout so my ex could move into an actual bedroom, rather than just sleep on our pullout couch in perpetuity. We finally succeeded in convincing him that rest and recovery was more important than trying to contribute to the house finances right away, and it's been magical watching all that stress and terror slowly fall off him. It's like he's a little more alive again every time I look.

Which is where my question comes in.

I'd like to restate, I love my partner 100%. None of this changes that whatsoever. If I ask, and he says no, that will be the end of the discussion for me completely. But I have eyes. My ex is, objectively, a very attractive man. I know we work well together, and I have to admit I'm very curious to see where that same chemistry could lead now that he's not on the other side of the country half the time. I've also been noticing these little moments between him and my partner. Nothing I'd consider crossing a line, but I've caught my partner checking my ex out several times, as well as vice versa, and they get along remarkably well. Sometimes I'll go to enter a room, and see them both sitting there laughing and chatting and playing with our baby, and I'll just hang back to watch because it makes me so happy.

Add to all that, we're pretty deeply ingrained in each other's lives now. My partner and I don't often go out on dates alone anymore, but the last few times we did it felt as if my ex was missing from the table. We watched a movie together last night, and my ex sat in the middle of us with his feet in my partner's lap and his head on my chest, and it felt just as natural as my arm on my partner's shoulder. It's not about just having sex with him, and it's not that I'd want to invite any old person into our relationship. I know we already all love each other, and I think there's potential for that to become romantic between the two of us and my ex.

It just feels as though we're all holding our breath, waiting for someone else to say it first. My ex certainly isn't going to bring it up when he's living rent free in "our" home (it's his home too, but he doesn't seem to see it like that yet). My partner grew up sheltered enough that I'm not sure he's ever heard of polyamory at all, so he's not going to bring it up. That just leaves me.

My problem is, if I'm wrong about what I think I'm seeing, or if I bring it up the wrong way, I can't take it back. I don't want my partner to feel insecure or betrayed, I don't want my ex to feel pressured or put on the spot, and I definitely don't want my daughter to lose any of us, which I know could happen if we aren't all on the same page. Or worse, if we do all date and it goes badly.

Should I just keep this whole thing secret? Is that even worse? Would I be the asshole for opening this can of worms on everyone else?

Help!

[ae-azile]

3. 8. and 22.

(for ask game)

3. Screenshot or description of the worst take you have seen on Tumblr: 

There have been many bad takes on Tumblr (and on social media in general). But I suppose when it comes to this show, it's any time I see someone express their views on a character in a manner that obviously puts other fans’ analyses down. Like, it isn’t the fact they view a character differently. It's the fact that they feel the need to belittle a different interpretation to make their point. If you need that, is it a great take? 

I won't get into specifics, because the few I have seen this from do actually have interesting takes. It's just the way they feel the need to write them passive aggressively. This seems to mainly happen with Kim meta, but I occasionally see it with Vegas meta too. 

8. Common fandom opinion everyone is wrong about: 

Bahaha, I wrote myself into a corner with the response to question 3! 😂 I guess I am going to go with Korn and Gun. Both are viewed with a lot of hate, and rightfully so. But I also think they are products of their environment and have a lot of layers to them. And overall - at least from what we have witnessed solely in the show - I feel like Gun is more redeemable than Korn, despite Korn being a better father. Can't forgive him for what he did to Namphueng, Pat, Porsche, and Chay. He literally destroyed a family. I think Gun being under the impression they were all dead, losing the mother of his children, and likely being abused himself was what made him abusive. While I have no doubts Korn also carries a lot of trauma that plays into who he became, I also feel like his worst actions can't be viewed with any compassion like Gun's potentially could. Don't get me wrong, perpetuating the abuse cycle is NOT okay or excusable. But unfortunately, it can potentially be a reality that abuse victims who don't have help, resources, or healthy outlets end up re-enacting. There is an explanation for his worst crimes. There is no explanation for Korn's, nor will he ever offer a truthful one.

22. My favorite part of canon everyone else ignores: 

I don't know if everyone ignores it, but I love that Arm is working multiple guard positions? Boy does surveillance, builds and distributes weapons, designs high tech spy gear, and goes on missions with Kinn (which is sort of dumb in hindsight because he is one of the main people holding that compound together). On top of that, he was the first one to tend to Big when he was shot, implying he has some medic or strong first aid knowledge, led the clean up crew after Tawan set off the bomb, and then built bombs of his own for the attack on the compound later on. 

He does all of this, and still manages to be a guard to Tankhun, who is likely the safest yet most emotionally demanding family member. And he seems committed to that position. I am sure Arm could easily be removed from Tankhun's team. He has plenty of other work demands, and he better be the highest paid guard other than Chan. Yet he chooses to stay with Khun along with all of those duties. Hm. Love that for him though. 

[coralhoneyrose]

Coral. Coral help. I NEED to know your thoughts on B!F!Robin. I am dying. IS did her so dirty by giving her the LITERAL EXACT SAME OUTFIT as M!Robin and GAVE THE LEVIN SWORD TO FELIX I am screaming. They can't let F!Robin have ONE thing to herself so thank Naga for the child banner I guess. But on the other hand...she looks so pretty! She rocks that outfit harder than M!Robin! Her special colors are so niiice! But I'm mad because something like this has literally never happened to a brave unit arrgghhh! I am conflicteddd help me make sense of my thoughts :(

(Also I stg her in-game dialogue better be JUST as sappy and romantic and Chrom-related as M!Robin's..........)

Omg Idk why tumblr didn't give me the notification for this--apologies for the late response! I do want to preface this by saying that everyone is wholly entitled to their own feelings about this unit and I don't want or intend to be dismissive of any of that! Brave units are really special and you only get one shot at them for a character, so it's natural for people to be super invested in how they're executed and have strong feelings if it's not what they were hoping to see. With that out of the way, I'm actually pretty uncomplicatedly happy with how her brave unit turned out! I am very very much a proponent of the "both Robins are the same character with the same personality" view point; because of that, I tend to like seeing them receive the same treatment and IS giving them both the same outfit was really nice in that regard. Particularly given that the original designs for Robin have the male and female avatar wearing the exact same outfit, I think keeping it the same for the brave felt really natural to me! I didn't personally feel like she was cheated or short changed, and I really like the subtle adjustments that were made to it with the bow and sleeves and cut of the shirt to tailor it slightly better to her while still keeping the concept consistent. I also just think the way Wada Sachiko does shading / coloring and the way Robin's face / hair are drawn are gorgeous. She really does look so, so pretty <3 I will say I would still love to get Grand Master F!Robin eventually though, so I'll cross my fingers they put her out as an attuned unit sometime down the line. Please IS, people (me) would pay good money for her in those golden thigh-high boots 🙏

If I have one disappointment with this unit, it's that Chrom doesn't feature in her forging bonds T-T But that being said, she does name drop him absolutely constantly and her unit title is "Exalt's Right Hand" which is delightfully shippy as well. Even their little teatime dialogue thing has Robin talking about joining hand in hand with him. ALSO her bonus battle entry voice line she got is a line from the Chrobin B support ("Now, what was so damned important?"), which I think is pretty wonderful...especially given that Brave Chrom's bonus battle entry quote is a line he says to Robin as well ("You are yourself").

As for the levin sword.....not sure what they were thinking with that one LOL. I suppose maybe in that regard they DID want to differentiate her from m!Robin by giving her a different weapon type?? And Felix is one of the swordiest sword guys ever, so I definitely understand wanting to keep him as the sword user...but what possessed them to give him the levin sword specifically I have no idea. I think I am just choosing to view it as funny more than anything kdfksdg

Okay, I just threw a lot of words at you and idk how useful they actually are for clarifying any of your own feelings LOL but! Hopefully you were able to take something helpful away from it! And I appreciate you caring to hear my thoughts in the first place <3

[dats-hq]

Ryo- 1, 2, 7, 21,22, 

Miu and Saki- 13, 18, 26, 30

Hey did you know that if you accidentally press Ctrl-Z one single time on Tumblr desktop sometimes it will undo 90% of your post and not give you the option to Ctrl-Y? Because I didn't until now ahahhahahahahahahahaha (I am now Piedmon)

Guess I'll just rewrite the entire thing lol

Ryo

First impression? I knew he was going to be cool. That hair? That jacket? That KUNEMON? When I found out he was rude, it was all over.

When I started to truly like him? Honestly don't have a good answer for this lol. I thought he was great from Part 1. His emotional spiral was visible from orbit and I was already stressed about saving him by the time I fought the first spider Kemonogami boss.

7. A quote I remember? [in response to Takuma asking if he knew which Kunemon was real in Part 5]

"Sorta? I couldn't understand what the others were saying, just the real one, so."

I just love the image of Ryo surrounded by the sounds of kew kew and being totally lost until he hears his kew kew.

21. When was he happiest?

I think it's got to be some time when he was able to just vibe with Kunemon. Like when he's shit-talking Takuma and Kunemon is like "Kew" and Ryo is like "haha so true", or when he surprised Kunemon with a gift he made himself and it was training equipment specifically designed for Kunemon's body. [no idea how that works but I love it]

22. When was he at his lowest?

Aside from the obvious answer of Part 3, I think there's a lot to be said about how Ryo tries to drag everyone down to his level in Part 1 and 2. Like he just can't stand that the others have hope. I like imagine this betrays some deep-seated trauma with getting his hopes up about his mom because of adults sugarcoating the updates on her health too much early on. Regardless of if you like that headcanon, I still love how fucked up Ryo gets in the early chapters.

Miu

13. Favorite friendship

Honestly? Perfect tie between Syakomon and Takuma. I love how Syakomon is her only-slightly-less-unhinged collaborator and hypemon, and I love how Takuma is the only human who really consistently treats Miu like a fellow human.

18. How do I think they were as a kid?

Talked with some friends a while ago about how fucked up it is that Miu's parents believed some random stalker over their own daughter, and it makes me think she was always a "problem child". High energy, low impulse control, very little intuitive understanding of social norms.

Feel free to read that any kind of neurodivergent way you'd like.

26. When were they the most "themselves"?

No moment sticks out in my mind for this question as intensely as when Miu gave a prayer to the old school near the end of Truthful route, thanking it for keeping everyone safe and eventually convincing everyone to do the same. It was just so earnest and heartfelt and uncorrupted by any worry about how Kaito or anybody else would judge the behavior. Love that for her.

30. Funniest scene they had?

[Takuma desperately courting Miu's help to get everyone else to calm down in Chapter 6, even addressing her by her preferred royal title]

Miu: Hmm, nah, can't help. Thanks for calling me Lady Miu though >:3c

Saki

13. Favorite friendship

Well since I guess I'm just straight-up a Saoki shipper at this point, I'll say Miu. I spent a lot of time thinking about their relationship back when I wrote Not My Problem, and there's a lot of potential there that the structure of the game itself doesn't really allow to get explored. They kind of both have the same deal going on emotionally, not feeling like they have a place in their communities and lacking independence, and yet outwardly they have entirely opposite vibes (always a fun dynamic). They never really talk about their feelings with each other, so you'd think they wouldn't get along because of those opposite vibes, yet they seem to really enjoy each other's company from what little we see in the prologue and a few Free Action conversations where they both talk about how the other seems like they'd be cool to be friends with.

Every time I replay Survive, that first conversation they have about going to see the Kemonogami realm means so much to me.

18. How do I think they were as a kid?

Saki strikes me as a very quiet, antisocial kid. Like she made friends relatively easily, but never because she was the outgoing one. Obviously that's changed by the time we meet her, but Saki always feels like someone who has changed a lot even before the game begins.

26. When were they the most "themselves"?

Bro this is such a hard mode question for Saki lmao

The first answer that pops to mind is when Takuma gets back from the human world and he talks to Saki and she's super casual about telling him about her surgery and they also just tease Aoi a bit together. The usual secrecy isn't something Saki actually wants, it's something she thinks she needs.

30. Funniest scene they had?

Well, if it was just about a single line, I'd say when Minoru shows up on the bridge in Part 2 trying to act all brave and she's just like "When did you grow some balls, Minoru!?" but it's not exactly a funny scene overall so

Going to go with when you find her snacking on some nuts and then when Aoi asks about the missing nuts she's just like "woah look what I just found this exact second!" and throws them at Takuma.

[p-taryn-dactyl]

hey guys, i just wanted to say thank you to everyone who sent in condelences in response to my post about the recent threats ive been receiving.

thankfully, these have not been appearing on Tumblr but on my tiktok (where they were the worst) which I have now privated and my instagram, where a few accounts sent threatening dms but ive blocked and reported them

what started as me sharing things on my private story turned into me receiving 50+ messages from accounts and people I do not know. I consider myself a pretty understanding person and with the content of the things I posted, in context to world events, I can understand that emotions are running high and that people forget that others exist. But the absolute second you threaten my family, my little sisters, my best friends, you loose any sympathy from me for your person.

i originally started posting on my private story but once i realized i was taking the cowards way out by only posting my opinion in an area where i currate who views it, i decided to post on my public story. I guess this is where it started getting bad and where I messed up but again, I feel immense empathy and sympathy for people in pain right now but you have no right to threaten my sisters. I honestly don't care about my life, I plan on going into a career field where my life has a high probability of being threatened. Its the little girls that I grew up with and took care of that i will fight for.

i'll probably delete this later but i do have one point to say that is going to sound angry because i am beyond pissed off

do your fucking research people, don't blindly believe the misinformation being spread, don't take one sides account as gospel while the other is overshadowed by lies. im sick of the hypocrisy i see in the mainstream media. im sick of a lot of things

sorry for the rant and i hope everyone has a great day/night and stays safe <3

[sleepymarmot]

Glass Onion

Yes, I had been waiting for this movie for a while and dropped everything to watch it the day of release. What about it?

Liveblog

Is it bad that I’m already like “I want all of these people to die”? Well, maybe not Lionel I guess.

Lol a bit of sci-fi to justify the actors not wearing masks for the entire movie

Is the bad CGI robot some kind of Star Wars legacy? :D

Aww, poor Benoit Soo, one of the guests plans to murder the host for real, and invites a detective to frame another guest?

It’s been 30 minutes, can people start dying please (Not Andi though, that’d be uncool)

Love the scenery, and Craig’s outfit is nice

Cool shot where Andi has the same expression as the Mona Lisa

“This is reckless. And you’re gonna get somebody killed.”

Okay, so far we’ve established the motive for: Peg, Duke, Lionel, maybe Claire. What about Birdie? And the random guy hanging around? And Andi? Is Andi automatically disqualified because we saw her destroy the box? That could be a real alibi or a red herring.

Nooo, so awkward, I can’t watch this Oh, he did it on purpose, that makes it a bit less painful

Huh, he didn’t mention Andi in the monologue...

Oh good, exactly an hour into a murder mystery, someone finally died! Yes, yes, of course it was an attempt on Miles’ life, I thought we’ve already established he’s who everyone wants dead. Cool trick to keep Norton among the active cast, I thought it was weird for the most famous actor to play the victim. (It’s nice to see Norton again btw, I wondered a while ago why I hadn’t seen him in new movies recently.)

Lmao the lights! Now this is fun

Oh no, Andi! :(

Plot twist!! Well now he's responsible for an innocent woman’s death, that’s going to give him a motive to find the killer

This shit is wild

Hell yeah she’s alive!!!

Is she going to attack the Mona Lisa?..

I feel bad about the painting. The way this was framed as a triumphant moment has the same energy as that Tumblr post about destroying famous paintings because rich people like them.

Review

[Additional spoilers for Knives Out, The Last Jedi, Midsommar, and The Handmaiden]

The film takes too much time to get started. The characters are too flat to carry it until the plot actually launches. Only gets good after the plot twist. The secondhand embarrassment scenes are excruciating.

The plot: “rich people bad, the detective teams up with a pure-hearted woman of color and helps her win”, take two. Are they going to make a whole franchise out of this? Not a great foundation for murder mystery: just look for the most entitled white man and that’s your killer.

Benoit Blanc himself, though, is a good character to build a movie series around. A classic independent detective with a kind heart and a taste for adventure — I want to see more of him. Many people have said it already, but I want Blanc to replace Bond as Daniel Craig’s #1 role.

The biggest strength of the film were, of course, all of the clever and fun twists and reveals. As you can see from the liveblog, I was misdirected very successfully and loved it every time.

And now for the biggest flaw of Glass Onion in my eyes. Just like Knives Out, this film has an extremely fun outer layer wrapped around the heart that I find a genuine downer. Most of the shallow, annoying characters got off scot-free, and what was harmed the most in act 3 was an innocent painting. I’ve already seen The Last Jedi, I don’t really need the same ending scene as the Canto Bight storyline — except worse because the writer doesn’t see the difference between “rich asshole’s property” and “priceless piece of art”. Which is a bad enough take to see on Tumblr, but straight up baffling to encounter in a high budget movie, written by a professional filmmaker. (Amazing timing, though. How did they manage to release this not only in the middle of the Musk major meltdown/Twitter takeover but also soon after the Van Gogh soup discourse?)

In retrospect it also reminds me of a couple of other famous scenes with a female protagonist involved in destruction, and the comparison is not in Glass Onion’s favor. Midsommar also ends with the heroine and a huge symbolic fire, but it’s a horror/drama, and the event takes not only the lives of those caught in the fire but the soul of the heroine. The Handmaiden, on the other hand, features a scene of art destruction that is genuinely positive and cathartic, but the nature of art and the role it plays in human lives is radically different.

[Edited to add] I’ve seen people who liked the ending defend it by saying that people are more important than art. The thing is, if this were framed as the trolley problem — if destroying a priceless work of art were presented as the only way to save an unknown number of lives — I would feel differently. Instead, the film seems to want the viewer not to value the Mona Lisa just because the rich amoral characters do value it.

In a more Watsonian and practical sense, I don’t see how this is a win for Helen. She was the one who burned the painting. The fuel played only a minor part, the painting would have been destroyed just the same without it (in fact, that’s what expected Miles’ lighter to be for). But even if it were otherwise — okay, so this new fuel can easily cause a fire; well, so can electricity and gas if you’re not careful! Not great for PR of this specific product, but not a death sentence either. Most importantly, it’s the person who committed arson that will be charged for it, not the person who unwittingly provided the fuel for the fire.

I did have a good time, to be clear! Very worth watching unspoiled. The release was timed well: the overall lighthearted tone, clever twists, vibrant visuals (bright colors, stylish outfits, idyllic location) make this a good holiday movie.

I’m having trouble with a numerical grade (the worst part of IMDB and Letterboxd is that they make me care about grading, even though it doesn’t work with how I think about media at all). Glass Onion feels like a 7, but I gave Knives Out a 9 and they don’t feel two whole grades apart.

[figula]

evening

today wasn't as annoying as yesterday, i am mostly over the tax thing. managed to knock like 12% off the total by going through all my groceries purchases (all my business expenses are really spread out, it's annoying) but ill have to pay like £450 which. bleh i guess is fine bc i actually have the money to do so it's churlish of me to complain about a bill i can pay, when there are people who cant afford to eat healthy meals or heat their homes! let alone pay an unexpected bill w/o problems

i got a few commissions today + made a few ready-to-ship wigs that i'll put on instagram tmr so that's good too

had a chat w/ my high school best friend liz - she had the most incred gossip that none of you will care about but i'm going to share anyway! she's dating TOM LASTNAME! this is actually crazy news im so excited. they always kind of liked each other (they met when htey were 16, in sixth form) and now they're both 30 they're actually properly giving it a go bc they're not dating anyone else + the timing is right and she was like "there's so much feelings and history but it seems so SIMPLE" and i was just like omfg that's so romantic. passed this onto ben (who does not know either of the people involved - well he's met liz once or twice - but made appropriate responses when needed) and was like "that's so romantic, that's so much better than our story [met on tumblr on the citalopram tag]" and ben was gravely like "it's never romantic to date anyone from your hometown" lmfao but i do think it's so lovely they're together FINALLY + i really hope it works out for them. i told her to bring him to the wedding as her +1 bc i really want to see them together <3

[mangopit]

I posted 1,712 times in 2022

139 posts created (8%)

1,573 posts reblogged (92%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@eau-duresistance

@retroactivebakeries

@sassforallofeternity

@thearchivist-theprime

@26velociraptors

I tagged 997 of my posts in 2022

Only 42% of my posts had no tags

#art - 172 posts

#woohoojazelyn thoughts - 142 posts

#ace attorney - 117 posts

#vid - 75 posts

#reblog bait - 51 posts

#quizzes - 48 posts

#viz - 41 posts

#eeaao - 32 posts

#rotbtd - 29 posts

#carmen sandiego - 23 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#but instead we're talking about a quantity of people that we know is larger than something but the sentence doesn't actually establish what

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

the posts that are like "stop idolizing your faves, they are human and will inevitably disappoint you" are usually just people who want stannies to shut up. the posts that are like "i'm not surprised [beloved celebrity] did this problematic thing, they always left an indescribably bad taste in my mouth" are just people who want to feel validated in never liking a person everyone else liked. the posts that are like "stop pretending you've always hated [celebrity], you just want to feel superior now that they've been exposed" are just people who feel absolutely humiliated they ever stanned said celebrity.

95 notes - Posted May 25, 2022

#4

See the full post

118 notes - Posted June 17, 2022

#3

possibly one of my favorite lines of imagery from "all summer in a day". perfectly conveying the stillness, the shame, the sudden realization of individual responsibility, of failed individual responsibility. good shit. reading this in the sixth grade brought up my trauma in ways i couldn't even comprehend lmao

245 notes - Posted January 1, 2022

#2

i know they're two types of movies that serve completely different purposes, but like,, honestly. now that i've seen everything everywhere all at once, the mcu multiverse feels like some weak shit. like oh no mister white man accidentally messed up his multiverse encantation spell or whatever because a high schooler was distracting him?? :(( okay well michelle yeoh literally staved off infinite versions of herself and the temptation to fall into any one of those seemingly better lives, JUST so she could do right in her own universe. oh so the next big mcu conflict is between two reality shifters who disagree on which one of them is more capable of messing with the multiverse? right so you're telling me an asian immigrant and her queer second gen immigrant daughter were able to communicate and compromise..... BEFORE these two supposed grown adults in charge of the multiverse did??? like damn mcu fans really do pay to watch superheroes be incompetent for 3 hours at a time😳 i guess asian immigrant families are just built different 😬💅🏼

750 notes - Posted April 23, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

watcher ily but i fear them more

973 notes - Posted October 19, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[handsomeawkward14r14i]

WARNING : Religion / MentalHealth /Philosophy Skip all Text in ORANGE to avoid .

Been a While since I’ve posted a Blog , it feels like I’m talking to a void yet again. Guess that’s what I get for having to start my channel all over and failing to use Hashtags the “responsible way.”

Welcome to my Tumblr!

I’ve only had it for a year ….and the only thing I ever knew about it before I took the plunge was that Ask Pinkamena came from it and so did allot of early 2000’s EDs ,that it was Chaotic, and that it would be a good mental break from mindless TikTok scrolling That last one , my friend getting it and the start of the end of my High school Senior year led me to making a Lies For the Liars / JTHM/Invader Zim / Momster Energy /Emo themed Tumblr.

Moving Forward from that ; idk what will become of it , It might take a turn for the worse , it might take a turn for the better , or just whatever I end up Hyper fixating on ( which happens to be more religious things at the moment. Contrary to my SpaceHey page Start of April 2024 is probably the best I’ve ever been. Religious or not it’s nice to have something to fall back on when you can’t take on life for yourself. I don’t condone ignorance but worrying about everything and getting nothing done is very different from Trusting in someone you can’t see and seeing answers show up to your problems. So much better than letting them slowly kill you.

If I read that and didn’t have any idea about Christianity or was struggling with sin and or was stuck in the sin cycle constantly hating myself or thinking that God didn’t care enough to help . I’d be confused and I’d think you were one of those lucky people and that something was wrong with me . Or I’d think you were a miserable boring no life brainwashed loco .Or I’d disagree out of religious trama or discrimination against sexuality or gender or just a completely different set of beliefs. All respect! I feel you and I don’t blame you for your opinion I’ve had plenty of doubts over the last two and a half years and experienced slight judgment from the people who claim to “love everyone.”

Anyone who wants to hear let them, anyone who doesn’t it’s perfectly understandable and I hope you love and take care of yourself. <3

so let me break it down. In Christianity you believe a man named Jesus was sent from Heaven to die for your sins ( look up some videos on it I’m not great at explaining.) , Gods only son. He was born by a woman who had never had smex with her husband and once he was older he began to teach people in his Town/City /ect. about his Father and About how to love each other . HE WAS Crucified , Dead , and buried After Jesus died he rose on the third day. April 30th today btw !!!

If you’ve been a Christian for a while and either struggled to do everything right . Or are an older Christian, are filled with the Holy Spirit but feel like you sin too much or aren’t fit for the job . Stop for a moment. Stop that thought process God doesn’t hate you for some stupid Sin you keep doing over and over yes , even if you’ve repented repeatedly . It’s not your job to fix it yourself and it’s tricky to figure out especially when you think you’ve given it to God but your still trying to figure out how your going to dig yourself out of the mess you’ve made. It’s simple, repent , pray , fix your eyes on God( focus simply focus on him , watch videos for all I care on things your curious about that relate to anything in the Bible it doesn’t matter.) and ask him what he wants you to do for the day or how he’s going to fix your problem for you. like your life depends on it. And when the devil starts talking Rebuke and Resist. If you have crystals or idols in your house get rid of them if you have placed power on them . Crystals and statues aren’t inherently bad but can be when you place belief or power on them , if you have Sleep paralysis Anoint your bedroom and or home spiritual attacks are real and they hindered my growth for longer then what i would have liked them to . They also worsened my mental health and made me believe I was the problem , that something in me was off , that i would never be able to do anything or get anything done , that I would never fulfill my potential, that I was stuck , I was too self conscious to take myself seriously, but to pessimistic to not feel self conscious when I wasn’t serious. It was too much of everything and too little of what i needed. Not to mention I craved the pain I craved the uncomfortable feelings because I’d gotten used to them and they were predictable . ( wow , how emo of me .)

Sometimes it’s hard to step away from the past

Sometimes it’s impossible to forget

Sometimes that shit seeps into your everyday life , friendships , relationships , religion. It ruins everything and forces you to be too involved or too detached. Mental health is real and when you’re already struggling like that Demonic Oppression happens a little too often especially when you are open minded , or accidentally or purposely open the door to it . Christians with the Holy Spirit , they see the light in you they’ll do whatever it takes to dim it …and it’s not like some funky little spirit that likes to mess around and see if they can make you feel sad or mad and or trick you into doing drugs . No it’s all meticulously planned …..like a subscription to a Channel…only personalized ….your a walking target , but also a walking embodiment of hope to those who no longer have it .

If you’re beautiful your either preserved, mocked or killed

God is out to protect and provide for you

Satan …well he wants to kill you that doesn’t always mean he can.

The innocent bystanders “ who may be complete jerks.” Are the ones who you need to show love to but remember you can’t love others until trying to love yourself ….until you quit hurting yourself ).

One more word of advice!

Live like you TRULY DIE ! TOMORROW!

the world will end tomorrow or by the end of the week how do you live during that time . Do you become a Nihilist ? Do you remain the same ? Do you enjoy every minute thing , take in every detail , make it a point to talk to the people around you , take a break from the phone and go watch the sunset, hear the crickets or go touch some grass for once ! it’s up to you but enjoying the small things , even the things that are mundane and boring helps tremendously. Granted if you don’t feel a sense of urgency you probably will read this and think nothing . But hypothetically if I could promise you that you would die tomorrow, what would you do . Get closer to God , Break out your favorite CDs to listen to one last time , Go on a walk and reflect , make amends . Spend every day like it’s the end !

If I can I will keep Posting Random Thoughts, Comic Strips , whatever comes to me . but don’t expect my page to loose its “abnormal atracting glisten”….( the fuk ….? I mean..)

Weird Sparkle.

Good to be back! Happy Easter you guys !

[aloneandunreal]

january 19, 23

3 months later and... she's back! i've thought about posting before this but either did not have the energy or did not think it was relevant enough to post (although most of the stuff i speak about on here isn't very relevant, anyway). but yeah. new year. 2023. i feel like the years keep going by and they are no longer starting to feel "real." i know that sounds dumb, but seriously. take a look at "2023" and tell me that sounds and looks like a real year. i don't know. ever since covid started, the years just haven't really felt like they used to. but maybe i'm just romanticizing it. i also am getting older, which is a hard pill to swallow. i know that sounds dramatic because i'm "only nineteen," but for whatever reason i feel so old. i can no longer really be a teenager or act like one because i am technically an adult. but i don't feel like one at all. i wish i did, but as always i am stuck in the past and don't want to grow up. reminiscing on my teenage years is so much easier than focusing on the future. it's not that i was doing much, or having a great time, and this is definitely rosy retrospection, but i felt like i had less adult responsibilities. turning twenty in 5 months makes everything feel so much more real. this is really my last few months of being a teen. i used to want to be around this age so bad when i was a teen, but it's quite honestly not all it's shaped out to be. i guess i always want what i don't have. and when i have something, i don't realize how much i'll miss it until it's gone. of course, i didn't peak in my teenage years. considering everything, i've been doing better mentally and socially while at college compared to high school, but as i said... it's more of a "i'm scared of being a real adult" thing.

not only that, but i also just feel that being a teenager after/during covid is not the same as it was before covid. if that makes sense. i always tell my mom i wish i was in college when she was. being in college now just isn't the same as it was 3-4 years ago. not that i would know, but just based on what i've seen and heard... nobody had the trauma of a 3+ year long pandemic. i also feel as if social media is a really big part of everyone's lives now. it always has been, but during covid, that was all we had. so now it's heavily used by... basically everyone. more specifically, tiktok. i feel like everyone cares about specific aesthetics rather than just being themselves. which i understand, sometimes i want to be a certain way, too, but i don't want to be put in a box. this is laughable to write out, but for example, coquette.

this is going to sound dumb, but covid changed so many things. people went into quarantine as young as 7th/8th grade and came out almost finished high school. it, along with dependence on social media and new trends etc, has really changed teenagers. they are so different compared to when i was a teen. which is of course expected, but it just makes me feel old. and it also makes me realize why some older folks complain about the younger generations (yes, even mine). we're annoying! to give one example that makes me especially annoyed, is concerts. concerts before covid were so different. this doesn't apply to all, but concerts used to feel like a little community. we all loved the same artist, and were seeing them live. but now, so many younger people just don't understand concert etiquette. that sounds really pretentious, but i can't help but think it. some artists i wish i had seen in concert before covid. because now it just won't be the same as it was. which is unfortunate. i'm sure this is worded very badly and i sound stupid and pompous, but nobody is looking at these posts or my blog so i don't really care. i keep telling myself this is my place to write my thoughts, knowing nobody will be seeing them but me. and i guess whoever on tumblr stumbles upon this account. ha.

nothing against teenagers nowadays. technically i still AM a teen. but it's just different. however, of course, as there is with all generations, there are similarities too. things that will never change no matter how many years go by. it's sort of comforting seeing it, if that makes any sense. it makes me have some hope. but not much. and of course, i'm a hypocrite talking about social media, tiktok, etc, because i use it. and have since i was very young. but i suppose this is just commentary on it as a whole, not necessarily a critique. i'm calling myself out, too. all i'm saying is that i wish things were more natural and organic; more carefree. people will say they're carefree but, truly, how can you be in this day and age? especially if you're between the ages of 18-25. social media can ruin lives and mental health. covid has impacted everyone on earth. making money and being able to survive is a huge worry. what about graduate school? the earth is dying. school loans, debt... the list goes on. of course some/all of these have always been issues, but i personally just don't think anyone can TRULY be carefree anymore.

i don't want to have to work my whole life to afford living. i want to enjoy life, have fun. it makes me wish i had done more with my teenage years. i still have time to "have fun" and "live my life", but soon i'll need to start worrying about grad school, jobs, internships, etc. i guess young me hadn't really thought about that.

i feel so melancholic thinking back on my younger self, what i was like, who i was friends with, experiences i had. of course, i've written about this before - it's a trend with me - but i can't help it. that's just who i am. i've even started looking back somewhat sentimentally on my senior year of high school, even though that was just two years ago. same with my freshman year of college. and, of course, way before that as well. i don't know why i do this. everyone's changing, including me, but i'm still semi-stuck in the past. i have one foot in adulthood, and one in teenagehood.

it's funny thinking about how i started this blog when i was sixteen, during covid, my junior year of high school that got cut short. how i was so afraid of turning seventeen, for whatever reason. well, guess what? you're turning twenty in 5 months. how's that make you feel, sixteen year old me? not great, i'm sure. i wish i could shake myself and tell her to stop being so afraid. but then again, in three or four years, i'm sure i'll be wanting to say the same thing to myself now.

i'm not totally unhappy/unsatisfied with my life at the moment, but i wouldn't say i'm doing great. if you couldn't tell with what i've been writing. i wish i wasn't so caught up in the past, so scared to move on. i wish i could just happily feel nostalgic about things instead of whatever... this is. i hate feeling a knot in my stomach thinking about old memories, both good and bad. still, it's a familiar sadness/nostalgia i've always had. but i just don't know how to let go of it. i want to be happy, have a happy, fun, fulfilling life. i want to be remembered and thought of fondly by others, and vice-versa. i want friends i'll have for a lifetime. but it feels impossible. i hope it's not.

i don't know what i have going for me; i don't know what's to come, and that is what scares me. i want to make the best of the time i have, but i can't when i'm so stuck in the past. like i've been my whole life. i can never live in the present. i'm either in the past or the future, almost never the present. i can't enjoy things normally. and, just as my teenage years, my 20s will be over at some point. i don't want to be 30+, looking back, and regretting all the time i've wasted. i'm scared of growing older, but i really just need to face the truth. there's no going back in time, and i'm not going to be young forever. but how? i still haven't fully learned, even after all of these years.

i guess that's all for now. a pretty anticlimactic way to end a journal, but it is what it is. i wonder if i'll ever have anything good to say on this blog, anything positive. i feel as if i only go on here to rant about nonsense and be sad. i don't think i've ever given a "happy" update. because, unfortunately, happiness is not easy to romanticize like sadness is. maybe one day i will. but for now, we're stuck with the sad, sentimental rants. these are supposed to be the best years of my life, but it doesn't fully feel like it.

while writing, i listened to:

playground love - air

bathroom girl - air

cemetery party - air

get free - lana del rey

bel air - lana del rey

in my head - bedroom

kids - MGMT

my kind of woman - mac demarco

[aroaceofthesea]

I posted 7,695 times in 2022

That's 7,651 more posts than 2021!

318 posts created (4%)

7,377 posts reblogged (96%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@incorrectinfinity

@jankwritten

@minglana

@glassamphibians

I tagged 761 of my posts in 2022

#mine - 281 posts

#percy jackson - 91 posts

#life - 73 posts

#pjo - 61 posts

#dracula daily - 38 posts

#goncharov - 21 posts

#me - 20 posts

#ace - 17 posts

#school - 17 posts

#asexual - 15 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#reading a post thinking bout some1 nd then baam its bout that 1 character whose personalty you only know thru textposts nd has the same nam

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

What the fuck is going on over there wtf

256 notes - Posted November 22, 2022

#4

Tips to, you know, not die in your sleep when being attacked by a vampire:

Use a garlic flower wreath to keep the vampire away

Idk maybe NOT COMPARE YOURSELF TO OPHELIA who died with a lot of flowers over her

Maybe (just maybe) don't ignore the flapping just outside the window like what the One Person Who Seems To Know What Is Going On has mentioned specifically

Don't sign off with a fckin 'Goodnight everyone' in your diary this is literally How To Die Tonight 101 even if you're not being attacked by a vampire

(please don't take out your flower wreath while sleepwalking tonight lucy)

299 notes - Posted September 12, 2022

#3

I saw something a couple days ago about wanting more aro content so here i am to deliver

398 notes - Posted September 29, 2022

#2

They're a 10 but im aroace so i don't really care

1,477 notes - Posted July 2, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Haven't seen goncharov (1973) yet? In that case go watch it RIGHT NOW, but if you don't have the time for a 3h 32mins film (which is understandable but you have to make the time at some point) and you want to understand the memes I have you covered. (Keep in mind that there are gonna be important spoilers in this post)

Important characters:

Goncharov

Katya Michailov - Goncharov's wife

Andrey - Goncharov's lover (or almost)

Sofia - Katya's lover

Minor characters

Mario Ambrosini

Ice pick Joe

Valery Michailov - Katya's brother

Important scenes

The Boat Scene: a scene in which Katya almost dies.

Beer Bottle Scene: an infamous scene in the movie

Anchovy scene: a scene with heavy homoerotic subtext between Goncharov and Andrey

Dressing for dinner scene: a scene where Katya and Andrey are shown dressing up with cuts that give each of the things they wear the same importance as survival items, from Katya's high heels to Andrey's dagger

Bridge scene: goodbye scene between Katya and Goncharov. Beautifully made as you can see Katya second guessing her choice to betray him but she's too far in to turn back

Fruit stand scene: a heavily homoerotic conversation between Katya and Sofia while they are buying apples

Important plot points

Katya betrays Goncharov

Andrey betrays him too for money

Goncharov has betrayed Katya's family too, and Andrey is a living reminder of that

Goncharov is shot at the end, resulting in his death

Katya fakes her death at one point

Katya's father is killed at the beginning of the movie and she feels responsible for it for almost the entire movie, until she finally accepts that there was nothing more she could have done to save him, only to die alone in the boathouse

Even though Katya loves Goncharov, when she has to choose between him and Sofia, she chooses Sofia

There is a love triangle between Goncharov, Andrey and Katya too

Other important things

The clock symbolism is just so important in this film it deserved to be here

18,304 notes - Posted November 20, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[shijiujun]

on the danmei twitter fight

okay guys i didn’t wanna say anything about this and yes it’s that hot danmei twitter translations saga thing that’s going on, because honestly i feel like there’s nothing much to say but when i see dumb posts on tumblr taking about that, by people who present a misleading hot take and their friends or moots run off with it without even knowing what exactly is going on - it really pisses me off.

and also if you shit talk translators for not continuing their translations or locking their translations whatever - the door is that way on your right and left, but anyway here’s a rundown on what happened because i am seeing people make comments without two brain cells put together, without the slightest bit of consideration for the people who bring them translations

here’s my hot take and thesis: if you enjoy english translations made by fan translators, you don’t, in any way, no matter happens, shit talk fan translators. fan translators do this for free, and whatever their intentions are, whether genuine sharing or like some of you like to say, for clout, if you consume, and you enjoy these translations, i’m sorry, you’re not uninvolved, and you don’t get to sit on a high horse and say translators should or shouldn’t do something. you should just keep quiet, honestly, because someone else is doing you a favour, a favour that you are enjoying and taking. that’s what respect is.

i’m presenting both sides or i guess three sides of the story as objectively as i can, altho my support is still for fan translators who were just minding their own business before this blew up.

===

🔺 what happened:

so it started because one of the bigger translators in the fandom did this poll - i’m not blaming her at all, i doubt she had any intentions of shaming anyone or causing any controversy and was plain curious, but her poll asked english speaking danmei twitter how many people buy the digital, print copies of the danmei they read, and who did not. 

in my honest opinion, it’s not strange at all for her to have created that poll, considering just how much work she’s put into making sure things are accessible for the eng-speaking danmei fandom. i mean i’d be curious too, to know out of my thousands of readers, what the reading and buying behaviour is like. do yourself a favour and don’t read too much into it.

obviously in an era where a lot of people do consume content for free whether the underlying content is profit-making (like anime, donghua, manhua, manga etc.) or not (fanfiction etc.), it was unsurprising to see that the last option - the ones who consume danmei without paying a single cent, came out as the majority. i don’t think this is a surprising result at all, for all sorts of reasons that i will not get into now.

anyway, this is obviously kind of a sore point in the fandom especially for translators who want a wider audience to support their fave author’s works - i won’t get into that for now, but the issue began because other translators or fans started to criticize the majority of people who don’t pay for objectively rather affordable danmei and just consume things for free. 

and yes, i don’t deny that the argument on both sides got really heated and emotionally charged with both sides calling each other names which i believe is uncalled for, but it totally derailed the crux of the issue, which basically is that the majority of english-speaking danmei fandom - consumes danmei for free.

anyway this whole thing escalated and fan translators were brought into this for no fucking reason at all except that the people who didn’t want, or were unable to pay for the danmei they usually consume, made what i call a LOGICAL FALLACY in argument by going to the extremes, i will explain why later.

the end result is that fan translators were brought into this (most of them, the bigger ones i know at least) without even participating in the direct crossfire. and obviously, you can see why they’re hurt and decided to lock their translations. let me explain why

===

🔺 kind of like four camps:

(1) translators and fans who criticized those who consume danmei liberally but do not pay for them in any way - no merch, no digital copies, no physical copies, no audio dramas whatever

*** their arguments:

danmei is so cheap right, that technically people should be able to pay for it in one way or another, even if not all

danmei and its authors are, at the end of the day, out here to earn a living, and the industry, like any money-making industry, is a for-profit enterprise - and unlike public goods, if you cannot afford danmei, then there is no obligation for others to make it free for you (fan translators or otherwise, it wasn’t super clearly stated while this shitshow happened) when it is inherently a for-profit industry

yes, i don’t deny that some of them did call the peeps who don’t pay at all, “leeches” and other sort of names. personally, i wouldn’t go that far or even like venture there to be honest because in general, if it’s something that i’ll get punched in the face for if i called someone that in real life i tend not to do it, but i’ll leave my opinions, whatever they’re worth, for later

(2) the readers and fans of danmei who do not pay in any sort of way for them

*** their arguments:

some of them really cannot afford, even the dollar or more, to spend on danmei for several reasons: upbringing, culture, money-spending mindsets, real poverty, struggling to make ends meet etc. - some definitely more valid than others (and when i say not valid, it’s because SOME, a minority or like those few stragglers, say they cannot afford and then you see them like idk, throwing $50 on other merch on kpop and stuff - i’m just bringing up ONE example. not shaming anyone for spending more money on one aspect rather than the other, but yeah you can see why some of them, when making this same argument, are a little invalid, that’s just a small number of them tho)

if translators are blaming them for consuming free of charge, then the fault lies, at its foundation, fan translators who translate illegally, which i mean, in that definition, all of them including me 

did i mention that we were called illegal translators like you know in response to being called leeches? anyway-

(3) others translators who literally were just minding their own fucking business before some smart alec dragged them into it

i don’t think most of us had an argument. we were just quietly munching on popcorn and staying out of it and yeah, can you imagine, we provide a service, however illegal it is, for free on our own time, we don’t even check whether people support legally or not, we just... provide, and pray that those who are able to, at least support in some small way or another do so, on their own time. i mean i don’t check, most of us don’t, not the bouncers at your local club before COVID happened do, and then suddenly, to be used to derail an argument, we were called illegal translators. and that we should stop translating, and that it is our fault that there are free riders in the fandom

(4) people who offered to provide JJWXC credits to those who said they couldn’t afford it etc.

honestly i think they were just trying to help - no different than a gofundme. there’s no shame in taking a free thing that people already weren’t intending to pay for. it’s there, just take it!

===

🔺 the shitshow that led to fan translators locking their stuff up:

i would provide some actual examples in the form of screenshots but i’ve blocked most of them, and i don’t want to direct any sort of traffic to them so i guess you’ll have to take my word on it or go search on twitter yourself but-

(1) the affordability issue: i can understand the frustration at being called leeches, and some if not a majority of people, do have valid reasons for not being able to afford something or anything and end up pirating content they enjoy. hey, i am not about to crucify anyone for pirating at some point in their lives. we all have done it at some point, or for example hate disney+ and that $30 they were trying to rip off us for a subpar Mulan live action. i don’t have anything to say about that. inherently, is it wrong and illegal? yeah sure of course it is. do we call people leeches? i wouldn’t go that far.

if anyone cannot afford, cannot access for whatever reason, fine, i’m not gonna go check if jjwxc truly is banned in your country, or is your postal service so terrible that you definitely won’t be able to receive a hard copy of the book you like at affordable rates.

and if you have to pirate? go ahead. i mean it’s always been a rampant thing. the only thing fan translators and fans can do is encourage, motivate and incentivise as much as possible to get people to support legally. they can only put up REALLY COMPREHENSIVE guides as to how to access jjwxc or taobao or whatever. 

and if you still cannot afford it and pirate, honestly no one cares about the story behind it. you owe no one justification, just as how no other person is obligated to take it into consideration or understand you or empathize with you. i don’t say this in a malicious way - i do think that in general, you just do you. 

(2) the poor people don’t deserve nice things argument: honestly, this was not the point of this entire debacle, altho yes, people were rude to those who could not afford to support legally. but this is not the point of this whole thing.

main point - there are free riders who can support but choose not to because they choose to just consume it for free and if you are able to you should support

everyone going off on a tangent - you guys hate poor people / you guys are leeches

well guess what, no one wins in this argument. 

there were a lot of people saying “reading danmei is our only source of happiness, are you saying poor people who can’t access legally don’t deserve to read danmei” (this is just one example i’ve seen, there are other variations), and it wasn’t put across perhaps in the right way, but the other camp of people were saying “you’re not entitled to it for free if you cannot afford it”, which raised a lot of hackles and anti-poor yellings 

altho i do not deny that there are those who mean it maliciously, i think what everyone is trying to say is - the danmei industry, like any other profit-making industry, is looking to make profits. the people working in the industry, the authors even, are looking at numbers - traffic to jjwxc or other legal platforms, how much revenue they’re making from their live actions etc., comments, rankings, etc. i think @/hunxi-after-hours made a really succinct post on this aspect which yall should read.

it’s the same as - if you wanted to purchase a standee which costs $20 USD, but you cannot afford it = you don’t get it. there’s no way you can get this standee unless some gifts it to you for free. what the camp trying to ask people to support legally is saying, is that danmei is NOT A PUBLIC GOOD. it is a private, for-profit product. it might be intangible, but it is a PRODUCT that has a price that needs to be paid.

if you cannot afford it, you either don’t get access entirely (i’m saying this objectively and honestly from an economic standpoint). if someone gifts that standee to you for free, count yourself lucky - if someone makes a danmei accessible to you for free, COUNT YOURSELF LUCKY. you don’t have to be grateful and treat them as gods or like obey their every word, but it’s not rocket science. someone did you a favour that you accepted and consumed, show some respect. 

if you cannot afford to buy the standee - you do not go on twitter demanding that someone ensures that you have access to the standee for free. do you see how ridiculous this sounds once it’s a tangible product? and danmei novels ARE PRODUCTS. they are not FREE CONTENT. if someone cannot afford the standee, this is the equivalent of people going “we didn’t get the standee for free because poor people don’t deserve nice things”

totally missing the point. i don’t even know how it got to this. once again, i do admit that some users were unnecessarily mean, but going to the extreme of this is ridiculous. in argumentative essay writing we call this a logical fallacy:

e.g. “if you cannot pay for merchandise or danmei, it is a fact that you might not have access to it” morphing into “if we cannot pay for food, does this mean we cannot have access to it?!” - this is a slippery slope, and factors are not equivalent!!!! do they not teach people anything in school

don’t confuse fanfiction with danmei - danmei novels ARE PAID PRODUCTS unless for free chapters, just because it’s released online doesn’t mean it’s free public property, and also selected novels (did you guys know the WHOLE of SCI novel is free? about 500 chapters sorry, random, just a tidbit)

there are of course nuances right, like if anyone told me they were pirating disney+ content i’d be like yeah hey get one over those bloodsuckers, they take enough of our money and produce shit content anyway. the difference is that danmei authors, and the danmei industry itself can still be considered a nascent and not-yet matured industry, with a majority of authors if not all, depending on monetary flow, likes, comments, virality on the sites their content is hosted on, for a living, unlike hugeass MNCs trying to squeeze us dry for content that isn’t even interesting.

danmei is priced rather reasonably - and this brings me to another argument that was made, that the value of money is not the same for everyone. i don’t want to make comments on this because yes this is correct to a large extent. a $6 book might be cheap to most of us, but might be expensive to someone else. i’m not gonna comment on how cheap or whatever it is, if you gotta use your money for other things, definitely! i still maintain however, that a novel less than a dollar should be affordable to most people, a majority of people. and i definitely side eye some users who obviously have money but are just creating noise because they wanna continue free-riding

(4) the “they’re losing out on their international audience” argument: honestly, i feel like english-speaking danmei fandom gives themselves a bit too much credit. danmei has long thrived in china in its domestic market - sure the international audience is a plus to have and i’m sure the authors are grateful and flattered that people who don’t understand chinese love their content and love it a lot, but do they and their companies care about fans who basically don’t bring in money? i’m not sure (okay i’ll get to the fan translators doing illegal shit later okay i got it don’t be impatient)

and international fans are great, i don’t deny that - but when i see arguments like “oh but it’s their loss if they don’t cater or deny access to us, they get more popularity and sharing overseas”, i honestly think they don’t care as much as you think. once again, hunxi made a really good argument regarding non-sinophone audiences, but it really irks me, because this is the same as:

an instagram influencer saying they’ll give a restaurant exposure for free to their followers, if they get a free meal

it’s par for par - danmei authors wants earnings, popularity, tangible results that show that they are succeeding. this is life. if i put something out there for sale, i better be getting returns, simple economic logic. they probably don’t care that a non-paying reader is bringing them greater ‘exposure’ - once again, i mean this objectively. 

and yes if they’re thriving without the international market then why should it matter that people are pirating right? which brings me to the next point~

(5) it’s fan translators faults for so many people pirating, and fan translators are the ones doing the “illegal” work: this one is like... wow where do i unpack this and how-

firstly, we are talking about assholes who can pay but decide to free ride and not pay for danmei, and we assume that if you really cannot afford and have to pirate, no one’s saying anything as long as you don’t go around spreading how to pirate, how the hell did it get to fan translators from “you guys are anti-poor” and whatever

yes, fan translations are indeed illegal, i don’t deny that, and i also don’t deny that there are translators who translate for clout and popularity but putting these aside - here’s what i have seen from people who ran their mouths and made this argument

“if you guys care about us pirating the book so much than fan translators shouldn’t have translated in the first place” and “if you wanna come after us for reading illegally, then fan translators, you guys should go get the copyright for the book and then translate it cuz what you guys are doing is also illegal”

hooooo i’m telling ya, i am all for translators locking up their translations at this point. see how fucking hurtful that is? you eat from my hand and then now you biting at the hand that fed you the gays in love?

honestly if you’ve made this argument or supported this, you can basically go to hell. yes this is personal because what, you think fan translators don’t take out their personal time and effort and hard work to make translations accessible to you? if you’re ever consumed and read translations, don’t be a hypocrite and make this argument. you benefitted from it, now you wanna say it’s their fault? 

most translators want to share and spread the love they have for a novel right, want to show you how wonderful all these authors are, how much enjoyment u get from reading these wonderfully thought out stories of gays in love. yes we all know we are illegally translating, which is why on top of sharing we first, purchase the novels legally ourselves first, and then we try to encourage people to buy etc. and actually put their money to use. it doesn’t make it any less illegal, but we are bridging the gap between danmei and basically the english-speaking fandom, albeit illegally

we aren’t that self-important to ask for gratefulness but some respect would be nice. like i said, you read it, you consumed it, you enjoyed it, you can only access it because of illegal translators - a bit counter-intuitive to yell at these translators, who are simply telling you, if you can, please support. and none of us went “if you cannot afford, begone!”

===

🔺 some people tried to help by offering jjwxc credits so people who cannot afford as they say, can get legal access: honestly, just take it right, guess what some of these users did in response

they said the people giving away credits are trying to redeem themselves for their comments by giving away free stuff

they also said that we are trying to shame the people who cannot afford it with this handout to them, to show that they are the bigger person - the fact that they think this is a handout to them is TELLING. the people offering this is giving their money not to these readers, but to the authors! that’s the point of this exercise!!!

one of them even said “instead of trying to do these giveaways, here, there are greater world problems out there, donate instead to these causes” - love the initiative, but how did we get from being able to afford danmei and entertainment content to saving the world? i just- i cannot

===

🔺 so why i get why fan translators are locking up their translations, because wow, so hurtful:

you have no idea how many fucking assholes went “sure, lock up your translations, deal with the consequences” - ermmmm firstly, thanks for making a threat. like who the fuck do you think you are?

the consequences is... the authors still don’t get the money these free riders weren’t going to give them anyway, so no loss, and they weren’t reading on jjwxc anyway so you know, the authors don’t lose or gain any readership numbers or traffic they didn’t already have. instead, it WILL push and force people to pay for the PRODUCT. once again, it’s a product.

this works, and i’d say Word of Honor’s payment model worked marvellously for Youku, because they fucking forced everyone to pay to access content. ALL OF THEM. sure ok some people still pirated it, but how many MORE people paid on Youku, on Youku Youtube, watched on Viki etc. than if they didn’t? even english-speaking fandom were wracking their brains trying to purchase a Youku pass even if there were no subs initially - and other examples that lovely hunxi brought up in her amazing piece

and for translators?! honestly me for one, i’m glad i don’t feel pressured anymore to churn out a chapter every week since we get called names etc. most of us are glad to have a break to be honest. we’ve lost all motivation to translate because it’s a free service, at the very least we don’t expect like hate, or rudeass fuckers. for those who are doing a proof of purchase thing - go for it honestly! 

hopefully it’ll minimize the free rider problem - some people for whatever reasons really cannot buy or support legally, that’s totally cool and they don’t have to justify it, i get that. but for others making the same argument but obviously are just unwilling to pay because they can’t read chinese, think it’s too troublesome when there are guides and translators provide it for free anyway so what’s the point - we all make concessions and make decisions to grab what we like (not talking about the ppl who have their various troubles and difficulties!)

===

🔺 and those who are saying why is it the ‘rest of us suffer’ from locked translations just because of a few bad apples:

IT ISN’T ABOUT YOU. where the hell were all of ya when we were getting called illegal huh? it’s about us fan translators getting shot at for no reason, and then people still demanding things for free. i don’t see any of the people i’ve seen on tumblr complain about fan translators stopping or locking translations defend any of us in any way. instead, you’re complaining.

it is the translator’s prerogative to start, stop and end translations, unless of course the original author starts to sue i suppose. i see people on tumblr going like if they were gonna do this, they shouldn’t have started in the first place etc. - i don’t what world you live in, but when i do something for free, then get called names and am attacked or get dictated on how i should do something that’s already like free, i tend to be less generous.

i’m sorry, do us illegal and free translators owe ANY OF YOU? i wasn’t aware any of us were being paid for this hobby. readers, especially those who CAN and just refuse to support, don’t get to say SHIT. translators deal with so much shit and so many entitled readers, i say they get to lock whatever they want as long as they aren’t profiting off of this monetarily.

let me give you an example - nan chan, which is translated by lian yin, completed translations by the way for all chapters. it is all free for viewing, and she only locked up one extra and asked for proof of payment. some dumbfuck quotes that locked up extra chapter tweet and said “honestly, this turned me off reading this novel because they restricted access”.

the. fucking. entitlement. the whole of nan chan is free, that’s like what more than 80 chapters. she locked up the EXTRA and the money goes to the author, she doesn’t earn anything. AND HERE THAT BIJ is (yes, i’m going to call them names because you know, fucking asshole who didn’t bother to check) going “yeah i didn’t wanna read because 1/80+ chapters were locked”. 

AN EXTRA. LITERALLY AN EXTRA!!!!!!

at the end of the day, translators are not like DYING to translate, not like some of you are DYING to read the translations. once again, this isn’t a “BE GRATEFUL” message, it’s a please be respectful to the people who put in time and hard work for free and share the goodness ya know? what’s the use of yelling at fan translators as if we owe you anything?

================

🔴🔴🔴 TOO LONG DIDN’T READ 🔴🔴🔴

some people may need really need to pirate - and no one needs to justify why they cannot afford to purchase etc. pirating happens all the time, translators only hope that when you can, and in whatever way you can, to support legally - in general we don’t ask and we get it! we’re just annoyed that some people think that it SHOULD BE FREE, when it is a paid product, especially for those who CAN afford it

readers are not entitled to shit on translators for what they do with their translations - once again, you’re not OBLIGATED to have it. so what if i start and stop? i’m the one doing the work, i get the only say. don’t be a hypocrite and shit on translators, whose works you’ve read - it’s no loss for translators, we read and enjoy danmei just fine

yes, fan translations are illegal, but you can’t read and enjoy them like some of you have, and then turn around and point the finger at translators - a lot of us are happy to stop translating - this isn’t a threat, but at the end of the day, shitting on translators simply decreases access, and sure, some people can indeed live with you know, MTL or shitty translations from people who’ve learnt chinese for only six months or whatever, but you’re gonna be reading an entirely different book tbh

the people saying illegal translators are at fault - funnily enough, most of them consume the translations, so what the fuck? i mean we know it’s illegal, we’re trying to share the love and trying to minimize the illegalities of it by redirecting people to hopefully support legally. it’s still illegal yes, but i think it’s hypocritical for people who have read translations, stab translators in the back. and now that translators are indeed ‘restricting’ and ‘removing’ their ‘illegal translations’, yall yelling again? and threatening?

fan translators aren’t “elitist” or “classist” - just looking for some respect in a community which seems to have taken them for granted, and also looking for support for their fave authors - and honestly a lot of us were caught in the crossfires truly, don’t be an asshole and demand things from fan translators - who are you talking about? do you know why they decided to lock? do you know know what their locking system is like and what for? 

it’s not EASY to lock the translations up - it’s more admin work, it’s putting together a whitelist of people, if given the choice i’m sure translators would prefer to share everything. but not when there are assholes who have a comment on how they should translate etc. and yeah!!! calling us illegal!! i mean we are but still!!

the last straw was seeing that post on tumblr and people in the comments going like fan translators shouldn’t or should do something, without getting the whole picture, without even considering how hard it is for fan translators being caught in this situation. 

whoever puts in the work gets to decide, and everyone else should leave them alone. 

be nice to the people who really cannot afford as they say so (or just don’t think about it), be nice to the translators feeding you content, and the people who free ride and shit on translators - honestly, i’d say ready the pitchforks.

edit: i forgot to mention this is my hot take and i’ve tried to like present all the arguments i’ve seen so far. i’m definitely not doing all of it justice and i don’t claim to speak on behalf of any of them except maybe one or two- and i’ve definitely left out stuff, but anyway, lmao we’re just tiny people doing what we love. i wish we could solve you know inequality or poverty or hunger or other pressing concerns. if i was that great i wouldn’t be stuck on tumblr or twitter or have to make posts like these like a loser.

thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 304: The Council of OFA

Previously on BnHA: Hawks and Best Jeanist were all, “what up Todofam, we are here to apply for the positions of ‘son #4’ and ‘weird uncle’, respectively,” and then proceeded to insert themselves into the family drama without waiting for an answer. Hawks briefed Endeavor on the nation’s current status of “totally fucked”, promised to help him sort that out, and then asked him about OFA. Endeavor was all, “oh do you mean One For All, the mysterious thing that my intern Deku was apparently being targeted for?” and then we cut away, presumably before Endeavor could clarify that it never occurred to him to follow up on that, and Hawks was all “no of course not, why would it occur to anyone other than me to follow up on any of this super weird and ominously important shit.” Anyway so meanwhile Bakugou was all “LET ME SCREAM AT DEKU UNTIL HE WAKES UP” and the other kids were all “NO”, and then the chapter ended with All Might being all “I wonder what the vestige!me is currently chatting with Deku about.”

Today on BnHA: Deku drops in on the Vestiges, who are all “sup Deku, how do you like our fancy chairs.” OFA II and III are all “if you need us we’ll just be standing here silently in the corner pretending to be invisible and sparking endless discourse with our mere existence.” OFA IV is all “and now I will explain to you in a very convoluted way that you being quirkless was actually a good thing, since it means that you are probably not going to suddenly drop dead at the age of twenty. But also you’re probably going to be the last user of OFA for that very same reason.” Deku is all “that is wild. I’m just gonna stand here and stare at my hand.” Nana is all “so now that that’s settled could you please do me a small favor and kill my grandson for me”, because having just one topic to discourse about this week WASN’T ENOUGH, apparently. Thanks so much Horikoshi.

(ETA: okay so just a note before I start, this week’s RHA translation was a huge mess, so I followed up this chapter by reading a couple of other translations. the main one I’m using for reference is the one by @hanashimas​, whose weekly posts I highly recommend. anyway so you’ll see a couple of ETAs in this post in places where the initial translation was off.)

how many layers of bandages did they wrap this poor kid’s fucking hand in omg

jesus Deku. are you holding onto a bouquet of flowers under that thing?? or a tennis racket??

omg yes, finally

is he reading these names off a teleprompter lol. and if so, what has Jeanist ever done to slight you, Deku? “god bless Kacchan and Aizawa-sensei and Todoroki-kun and everyone else in the whole wide world... except for Best Jeanist. fuck that guy.” actually this joke would be funnier if half of tumblr didn’t legit feel that way lol but anyway

OH MY GOD

I NEED TO HAVE A TALK TOO. ABOUT, OH, EVERYTHING

I got immediate KHR vibes from ALL OF THIS. this is seriously such a Vongola aesthetic. “let’s use the luxuriously cushioned chairs with the seat backs that are ten feet high, and arrange all of the handsome ghost people in a big circle” like come on

that said there are also some slight LoTR vibes as well. “bring forth the ring, Deku”

I like how Six is sitting there with his feet drawn up all casual, but with his arms inexplicably sticking STRAIGHT OUT IN FRONT OF HIM and dangling over his knees like he’s doing some sort of zombie walk

apparently the Fourth wasn’t a big fan of shoes huh

interesting that All Might is the only one who’s still faint/indistinct, and and that Two and Three are fully visible

(ETA: the rest of my speculation about Two and Three has been moved into a separate post, the better to focus on the shit that’s actually happening in this chapter lol.)

and lastly, interesting that all of them are talking now, except for All Might (and I guess the Second and Third as well). to the best of my knowledge Deku hasn’t unlocked the Sixth’s quirk yet, so I guess the quirks don’t really have anything to do with it

oh and it looks like Deku’s mouth is still covered. I guess that’s convenient for the vestiges since we all know it’s hard to stop Deku once he gets going. but on the other hand it’s very inconvenient for people like me who wanted to see some interaction. alas

so First says that OFA’s power has grown a lot in the last four months (i.e. since Deku unlocked Blackwhip), and now the vestiges can communicate with each other as well as Deku

so even when Deku’s not around they can all just chill with each other. this is such a weird thing to me lol. like it’s cool, don’t get me wrong, but it’s also strange as hell to know that you’ve got eight other people hanging out in your head spying on everything you do and having conversations with each other about it. it would be like if Dark Shadow had someone to hang out with other than Tokoyami. good thing you weren’t triplets, Tokoyami

First says that it’s become easier for the vestiges to interact with Deku ever since TomurAFO barged into the OFA Domain back at Jakku. huh

(ETA: apparently this is because AFO forcibly pulled out OFA’s power when he was trying to steal the quirk, so I guess that makes sense.)

okay thank you Banjou for addressing this concern which I initially brought up as a joke, but which was apparently real enough for you to reassure Deku about

“don’t worry, even though we’re awake and hanging out inside of you at all times, we’re definitely not secretly watching and making fun of every single thing you do” hmmmmm

(ETA: “not that you could do anything about it even if we were, since you’re probably going to be the last OFA holder ever!” I don’t trust anything this asshole says lmao.)

OH SHIT??

YESSS DEKU now you can hold them accountable for all of their bullshit! because I do not doubt that there will be bullshit lol but let’s see how that goes

oh damn

well okay then. you didn’t have to stand up and walk over to him and loom all threateningly like that but okay sir

this guy has kind of a Kimimaro vibe to him. remember? that bone-growing guy from Naruto? except I’m pretty sure he had eyebrows. and wasn’t twenty feet tall. speaking of which, that explains the chairs

why are you wearing only 3/5ths of a shirt

lol what

someone’s gonna have to explain this to me. is he just redundant or something lol, or is he strangely poetical or what

(ETA: apparently HE’S MAKING A PUN omg. I immediately gained +10 love for him lol. also it flows a lot better in Japanese. this is one of the things Caleb is usually good at, so we’ll see what he does with the wordplay.)

omg the hermit theory is true!!

“I’M NOT WEIRD, IT’S SOCIETY WHICH IS WEIRD.” lol whatever you say buddy. also love how Banjou tried to give him a big hearty slap on the back but Hermit Boy was not having it lmao

IS HE TRYING TO CAPTURE HIM WITH BLACKWHIP

AND ACTUALLY, NO, SIR, AS A MATTER OF FACT, WE ARE NOT AWARE. SO SPILL!!

?!!?

okay my first response was LOL ARE YOU SERIOUS, THAT’S THE BIG SECRET!? -- and then it hit me what the significance of “died from old age... AT AGE FORTY” meant. at which point it was like “!!!!!” and then “OH, SHIT”

(ETA: there’s also an Iida joke here somewhere but I’m just too tired to make it.)

oh my god oh my god

did he somehow get a copy of the coroner’s report or something? like how does he even know that he died from “old age” as opposed to any number of other natural causes? ??

but anyway. so this is the quirk singularity coming into play then I guess. but then how come All Might is still alive and ticking?

(ETA: so this is one example of where this week’s translation is a mess lol. apparently the Fourth explains here that he didn’t know what the fuck he died from until All Might researched it. and it turns out there actually was an autopsy lol so there you go.)

so Fourth says he held OFA for eighteen years, and since he knew he would never be strong enough to defeat AFO on his own he basically just spent all his time punching rocks in the woods and training to power the quirk up

oh shit

is he implying that his body literally fell apart?? like that’s how he got the scars on his face? -- IS THAT WHAT KEEPS HAPPENING TO TOMURA, THEN. oh shit

DUDE

so you’re telling me that this quirk actively shortens the lifespan of anyone who uses it?? and my little boy here has had it now for a year already?? fuck me, I have immediately have a TON of thoughts about all this but let me save it until he’s done with his explanation

THANK YOU, DEKU

right?? how come All Might didn’t die then. even after he got injured. please don’t tell me he actually is dying still and is just being slow about it because I SWEAR TO GOD

what does this mean??

so what you’re trying to say is you all have NO FUCKING IDEA how long Deku’s gonna be able to hold this quirk before he SUDDENLY DROPS DEAD?! five generations ago this dude was able to hold it for eighteen years, and then four generations later All Might was able to hold it for thirty-odd years or so, and now Deku has it and you all have no clue which way it’s gonna go? actually this makes it sound like it really wasn’t OFA that killed the Fourth at all and you guys are just really bad at forming hypotheses. but since you’re making a big plot point out of it I guess it must be true

and don’t think I didn’t notice the part where you said you didn’t have OFA very long and then “died while fighting”, Firsto. I want to hear more about that. specifically who you passed the quirk onto before your death

and yes, if we are agreeing that OFA was the cause of the Fourth’s death, then the conclusion on this next page is the natural one to draw

so that’s a bit of a relief then, because Deku is quirkless too. so it means he won’t be able to hold OFA forever (and will probably have to find another quirkless person to pass it on to), but at least he won’t be randomly dying out of the blue next Tuesday or something

oh my god now he’s talking about OFA and AFO and user consciousnesses and all sorts of good theory stuff but it’s so much exposition. you’re really gonna make me read all this lol

wait what. why would All Might being quirkless have anything to do with the presence of his vestige in OFA Outer Space Party Land

but Deku is also quirkless and he’s clearly visible and chatting with you guys. so what gives. like how much of this is verified fact and how much of it is you guys just shrugging and making stuff up lol

SERIOUSLY, GUYS

BUT DEKU IS ALSO -- you know what, never mind sob. none of this shit makes any sense but whatever

(ETA: seriously, this all seems like an awful lot of speculation on their part. for Deku’s sake I sure hope they’re right.)

FSSKDJFLSKLKJLKJL ALL MIGHT IS FIFTY-FIVE?!

lol that’s a full ten years past my closest estimate, wow. but this pretty much confirms his age now at last! or at least confirms it within a couple of years, because we know All Might and Nana met when he was in middle school, and he presumably had the quirk by the time he took the U.A. entrance exam. so yeah. gonna go with fifty-five

so they think that because All Might was quirkless, OFA was better able to adapt to his body and became his true quirk, as opposed to being an extra quirk that stacked on top of the one he already had and overwhelmed him. ties in back to the whole “AFO used to bend people to his will by forcing quirks on them” thing, as well as the “Noumus are all mindless because of the strain of having multiple quirks”

Two and Three are really ruining the serious vibe of this scene here lol

they look like they’re doing the counting for hide and seek

and is this Deku talking now? I was about to get mad at First for implying that quirkless people are somehow freaks, as opposed to “normal” people jdslk

so in other words, don’t go giving it to your best friend all casually for shits and giggles, Deku. even if it would make a really cool climax for a movie. well shit. maybe that’s why they were so quick to nope back into Deku’s body afterward

so First says that because quirkless people are becoming rarer and rarer, the fact that All Might just happened to stumble upon Deku is “nothing short of a miracle.” which, yeah, that was definitely a stroke of luck there. being quirkless saved his life. but being quirkless is also part of why he was chosen in the first place, and we’ve always known that much

“in other words, kiddo...”

looks like there was some hurried clone stamp usage going on here lol. but props to RHA as always for putting this scan out so fast, especially given how exposition-heavy this week’s chapter has been

“anyways, that was the main topic” ARE YOU SERIOUS. there are like ten other topics imma need you all to get to here, people

(ETA: seems like this is a mistranslation; the line should actually read something more along the lines of “and now for the main topic.”)

FFFFFFFFF

“ENJOY YOUR CLIFFHANGER THIS WEEK.” dskfalkjlkjwlgkjl you really went and dumped this discourse on us yet again. fucking...

(ETA: forgot to mention, but as several people mentioned, this seems to be another mistranslation -- rather than asking Deku to kill Tomura as though it’s doing her a personal favor, Nana is asking “will you be able to do it.” in other words more of an “are you capable of doing it” type of thing. which is a very reasonable question to ask given that Deku is, well, Deku.)

anyways, and the answer is obviously going to be “no” of course. this isn’t going to end any differently than when the previous Avatars all told Aang to kill Ozai. but I guess it means we’re in for a fun conversation next week

so Nana looks pretty grim here though (nothing at all like the person who once taught All Might the importance of saving people with a smile), and I’m wondering if this means she believes that her grandson is already beyond saving. as in killing him would be a mercy, as opposed to him continuing to live with AFO bending his mind and body to his will. except if that is the case, I think she’s underestimating Tomura’s own will. and definitely underestimating Deku’s will to save

and also, just... I’m so fucking sick of AFO screwing the Shimura family over, honestly. this is exactly what he wanted. well fuck you, guy. you don’t get to have what you want. go out there and save Tomura, Deku. for his sake and for Nana’s. give them some hope. do your thing, boy. can’t wait for your big speech all about it next chapter lol

[cellsshapedlikestars]

Robot Jon! ☺️

(ok, I've been off tumblr for a few days, but I went on early this morning and had an ask with a bunch of prompts because I said I'd be taking a break from my Bachelor fic - which is true, if not for another 3 chapters yet. I haven't answered that ask because I'll lose it and therefore the prompts, but it reminded me that I still had two prompts left from when I asked for them back in... December? I'm the worst. Anyway, I re-looked at those prompts, saw this one, and then couldn't stop thinking about it. So I'm coming out of my vague tumblr hiatus to write this.)

Thank you, as always, for the prompt!

.

Sansa has never liked amusement parks.

The sun that always burned her, no matter how diligent mom was about reapplying sunscreen; the fried food that always made her sick; the crowds and the noise and having to walk everywhere. But the worst part was the rides – oh, she didn't mind some of them, like the Ferris wheel or the teacups; she could even handle the swing ride. The problem was that the rest of her family wanted to go on the horrible rides – roller coasters, haunted houses, swinging ships; the ones that go fast and drop you from a million feet in the air. And since it was hard enough wrangling the amount of children in their group to begin with, it was impossiblefor one adult to split off with Sansa, who alone wanted to ride the gentler ones.

And so, it's sort of ironic that she works at an amusement park now.

She may not have a taste for most of the rides in the park, but she is good at designing them – not the actual rides, but the aesthetics of them. It's her (and her team's) job to come in after the engineers and the builders and take a bare-bones ride and turn it into an experience. She loves her job – she loves watching children exit one of her rides with glowing faces and excitement in their eyes.

Today, she also gets to do one of her favorite aspects of the job, which is costume design. The animatronic models have already been installed, and when she enters the new Dance of Dragons ride, she can already see the scene taking shape in her mind. The concept art has already been drawn up, it's already being advertised – a medieval world that everyone knows is meant to capitalize on the stunning success of the Aemon the Dragonknight series (which her employer does not own the rights to, much to their dismay). But concept art is one thing – reality is another, and it's not until the ride is complete that she can start to truly see it come together in her mind.

“Oh good, you're here,” Margaery Tyrell sighs dramatically as she comes to meet Sansa's team. Margaery is in charge of Marketing and PR for this ride and Sansa knows it's a big responsibility, so she's been even more high maintenance than usual. Margaery walks her through the ride that Sansa has seen so many times in drawings.

“This is our Aemon,” Margaery slaps a hand against the shoulder of one of the animatronic models. “Although we can't call him Aemon. Copyright and all that.”

Sansa looks at the robot and she's struck for a moment how lifelike he is. A lot of the animatronics aren't this detailed, though she guesses this one is because of how close to the ride it is.

“He's handsome, right?” Margaery flashes her a grin and there's something in her eyes that Sansa can't quite place. (Well, she can, it's mischief, Sansa just can't tell why it's there.)

“I guess, in the way that cartoons can be handsome,” Sansa laughs and takes another look at the model – the somber grey eyes, dark curly hair, and an equally dark beard. “You even gave him abs,” she points down at the robot's chest which does, indeed, have a very detailed set of abs. “Am I supposed to leave him shirtless?”

“Oh, no, obviously we want realism, like we talked about,” Margaery waves her hand dismissively. “We just couldn't help ourselves when we put in the order.” Sansa shoots her a confused look, which only gets a delighted laugh out of Margaery. “I'm guessing you don't recognize him?”

“Recognize who?”

Margaery gestures at the animatronic. “Jon!” At Sansa's blank stare, Margaery rolls her eyes. “Jon Snow?”

The name sounds familiar and it takes her a second to place it. “The engineer?”

“Duh! Seven hells, don't tell me you've never actually seen him?”

Sansa shakes her head – she usually comes in well after the engineers have done their part.

“Mormont let him take the lead on this project and he's so... ugh,” Margaery makes a noise that's half frustration, half delight. “So serious all the time. But somehow likable? It's infuriating, really. And no one should be that attractive for a nerd.”

“So... does he know you made him into a robot?”

“He does not,” Margaery grins. “We're all just dying for him to come in for an inspection and see it. In fact,” she pulls out her phone and checks the time, “if you wait around for a bit, you'll get to see it happen.”

Sansa shakes her head and they continue on through the set, Sansa writing down notes in her trusty notebook that she always carries with her. Lists of costumes, set pieces. She'll need to bring in Asha later to discuss the lighting options (right now the dark ride is lit with spotlights, giving the whole place a surreal atmosphere).

Margaery eventually leaves her to it and Sansa loses herself in going over the set inch by inch with Gilly and Mya following along with her. She's so lost in thought that Mya has to shake her arm to bring her back to reality, and they turn to see a group of what has to be engineers standing in the main Great Hall set.

“Oh come on, Jon,” Margaery is giggling as a man who must be Jon stands, staring at the animatronic. He's scowling at it, hands tight around the pile of binders in his arms that are... well, ok, Sansa can understand now why Margaery made the robot so well muscled.

Sansa edges closer to the scene, and she can see that his fellow engineers are laughing – one of them is red-faced from trying to hold it in while another is actively wiping tears from his eyes.

“It's already made,” Margaery says in response to whatever Jon had grumbled to her. “Replacing it would be an irresponsible waste of funds. Oh! And here's the team that will be styling you... I mean, styling not-Aemon because that's copyright infringement.”

Jon looks up and the scowl drops from his face.

“This is Sansa, Mya and Gilly are over there.”

“Hi,” Sansa greets and Jon shifts his binders into one arm and then holds out his hand for her to shake (she can feel her face heating up and she hopes the dark hides it). “I promise to try and do you justice.” She regrets her words immediately, especially when she sees a slow grin spread over Margaery's face. “Though it doesn't totally look like you,” she continues on to try and backtrack. “It... doesn't have glasses?”

She wants to sink into the floor in embarrassment, but the gods are not that kind. At least she doesn't spout out how much she likes his glasses. Maybe Margaery is right – no one who clearly cares so little about their appearance should be this attractive. His beard needs a trim, his outfit is painfully unstylish, his hair is pulled back into a bun. All of it should add up to something she hates, but she just... doesn't.

(And honestly, Margaery's description of nerd isn't so far off the mark, but Sansa finds this isn't a detriment – in fact, she might be more attracted to him because of the glasses and the multitude of thick binders organized with labels and tabs that he's got tucked under his arm.)

“I'd also hope real Jon isn't built like a Ken doll,” one of the other engineers barks out a laugh and points at the animatronic, which, yes, does not have any reproductive anatomy.

“Gods,” she hears Jon whisper, and the hand that he had used to shake hers comes up and covers his eyes. “This is a nightmare.”

“Stop being so dramatic,” Margaery sighs and pats him on the shoulder. “Now, why don't you take Sansa around and make sure she's really taken care of, hmm?” At the words, Sansa feels her face heat even further and Jon drops his hand from his eyes and glares at Margaery. “I just mean,” Margaery grins, not even trying to pretend the innuendo wasn't on purpose, “it might help the design if she has a good understanding of the mechanics. I know there's some new things on this ride we haven't had before, you could show her.”

Jon opens his mouth, but doesn't get a chance to speak, because Margaery barrels on. “Sam, Grenn, you can chat with Gilly and Mya while that's happening. And I... well, I'll just be over here, minding my own business.”

With that, Margaery walks away and the other two engineers – Sam and Grenn, she guesses – head over to where the rest of her team stands, watching from afar.

“You don't have to,” Sansa starts, but Jon quickly turns from glaring at Margaery's back to her and his face settles into something less... scowly.

“I don't mind,” he says quickly and maybe it's the low lighting in here, but she thinks the tips of his ears are red.

“Perfect,” she gives him her best smile, which seems to throw him even more off balance and... and she thinks she could get used to throwing Jon Snow off balance.

[theresa-of-liechtenstein]

17, 22 for the writing asks? 🌠

of course!! <3 sorry this took a literal day to answer, i got busy and #17... 🤧 let's just say i like talking about my WIP. also sorry this is like novel length, rivalfic is my baby

22. How organized are you with your writing? Describe to me your organization method, if it exists.

usually, cough. not very. but with my current WIP (the f1 AU) that couldn't be more different, mostly due to the nature of this fic. i unfortunately had the marvelous idea to write it just before classes started last year, which meant that while i have pretty much the whole of the first part (there will be two, each covering one season of f1) planned, i had little to no time to actually write it down. so i needed meticulous planning, not only to give me a good road map when i did get time to write, but also to motivate me to keep going.

i do a lot of writing on paper before typing it up (thank god im good at touch typing. i learned when i was 8 and have blasted many a coworker out of the water on the occasion that a typing competition is used as an icebreaker.) most of the time, if dialogue or a fake tumblr post or headline comes to mind, i can just add it to a document i have for that purpose. different pages are set up for different races. if you've read every point a pressure point, i don't go into detail for every race. i have just chosen the ones that i think are most important to the story, and will let the fake posts, headlines, and/or classifications speak for the rest.

speaking of the classifications, uh. this is probably the silliest part by far so bear with me and don't laugh.

this past term i finally learned to use a programming language other than html, and obviously with great power comes great responsibility, so i decided to visualize the standings using python. i've already decided the racing characters' classifications and point totals from the beginning and they've been sitting in a google sheet for a while, so this past weekend when finals were finally over, i just downloaded it as a CSV file and read it with the DictReader class in the CSV module and then visualized the data into plots using matplotlib (i'm sorry if my terminology isn't correct i just do things that i learned in class and look up the stuff that was out of the scope of that course lol)

so this is the result (warning for mild spoilers ahead i guess):

now that i've actually visualized the data i now realize that i may have to tweak some of the classifications (it is entirely possible that i have made ilya and linda score too many points for how high i want caledonian to finish in the constructor's championship) and also ignore the 0.5s on the x-axes i need to figure out if i can even get rid of those. i somewhat tried to model the teams' performances on historical precedent but i feel like i got a little too subjective on the points scoring. linda should probably have scored a bit less than how she is now, and ilya a little bit more. anywhey,,, i dont really know what im doing lol these are kind of just vibes

so yeah! i spend way too much time thinking about this WIP as you can see, it's a wonder ppl have indulged me this far tbh. i promise i think about other things

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

bestie not to make an already long reply longer but.

i plan to write two (longfic) parts in this universe, i think i've said this already: one covers therlinda rookie season (every point a pressure point) and the other their sophomore season (every point a surer step).

a lot of the parts of this universe are based on historical precedent, though it takes place in the quasi-present. any timings stated in the fic are directly pulled from real timing sheets specific to a track/race. in my head, the cars look like how they did in 2021: example below. so in essence the rear wing still looks like That, front still looks like that, no covers for the wheels like 2022 spec.

the calendar is based off the 2018/2019 f1 race calendar, with 21 rounds, and everything takes place in chronological order. mcn's performance difference from part 1 to part 2 is sort of based on a team that's currently on the grid (though doesn't follow its history very closely). but mcn in part 1 is definitely a backmarker team for reasons that i kind of still have to fully set and iron out. (bc i don't have the aerodynamic knowledge for that yet.) i imply that caledonian's performance equivalent/championship rival is alpha tauri, but i consider caledonian to be a true midfield team. the ultimate goal is for both theresa and linda to make it to bigger teams; ferrari and alpine (renault) specifically. this is in a universe where the title battle is between ferrari and alpine.

that being said, the two central conflicts in the every point a pressure point universe are not based on anyone in particular in the present, or any historic rivalry between competitors; it was literally borne out of me lying awake on vacation last year going from 'wow why do i approach theresa & douglas / linda & herc so similarly' to 'maybe they have parallels somewhere' to 'what if they were racers' to 'what if they hated each other and then banged' to 'what if this was intergenerational' to 'what if i wrote a fic about this' to 'god i know nothing about any of this, time to research'

i'm a relatively new fan to f1, so i don't think any of my opinions would be very welcome; i'm not looking to make any big statements about the sport either or moralize. i'm a firm believer of shutting the fuck up if you don't know enough about a specific thing/topic/issue and don't have the capacity at the moment to learn more about it. there are others whom i really respect who do have the time to go through and learn about the minutiae of the (MANY) issues of this sport but i do not have the time to do it, ergo, i leave the big statement-making to those good folks. yea, i mean, some of the characters' opinions are a little bit my own, but i don't really think they're that seismic: i think generally people would agree with it.

that being said, i think there's a really big takeaway (other than pleasure/enjoyment) that i want for anyone who reads through either of the two parts of this story; what i want to say, if you want to put it that way, is that life's too short to be petty, really. more than anything, we need each other, even those diametrically opposed. not everything is worth vitriol. as i said: i don't vocalize my opinions about the sport so often. i'm not vaguing anyone, really. i just believe very firmly that we need one another to survive. there's not enough room in our very full lives for hostility. also, like, heal your wounds before it's too late. it affects more people than you think.

yea not to get really too deep about any of this haha but as i said above rivalfic is kind of my baby and i really enjoy writing it; i know people find it weird and the universe comes totally out of left field and i feel like i'm diverging really far from the source material but then again theresa and linda never interacted in canon anyway so sorry tito juan 😩