#But this is the first time when I genuinely can't focus because I'm just BOMBARDED by it

[amethystina]

Hiiii🩷🩷 I have a question... does Yohan think that Gaon loves Soo Hyun in a romantic way😳? If so, oh boy thats a huge misunderstanding to clear. Also, thank you for the amazing update!!! I'm sure as hell sticking around on this journey to see these two work out their feelings!!

Hi there! 💜

Yes, he does. Because Yo Han's got no reason to believe otherwise, based on how Ga On is behaving. He can tell that Ga On is attracted to him, sure, but that's physical. And sexual and romantic attraction are two entirely different things. One doesn't guarantee the other and just because you feel one — or even both — you don't actually have to act on it.

I'm more or less writing Yo Han like a bisexual demiromantic, i.e. he's good at recognising sexual tension/attraction but he's not very experienced with love. He's never really been in love before because he's never allowed himself to get close enough to someone to actually fall in love. And when you combine this with his upbringing and lack of social interaction with other people? Love is probably pretty tricky for him.

Not in a "he doesn't feel it" way because he does — and he knows that he does — but he's not the best at reading it in other people. Not at all helped by how he just doesn't get the whole "love at first sight" thing (because, again, demiromantic), which has made him wonder if, just maybe, his concept of love is different from everyone else's. He knows what love means to him and he's seen other people be in love (like Isaac and his wife) but applying that to his and Ga On's relationship is very difficult for him, especially with Soo Hyun complicating things.

Like, if Yo Han tries to compare how Ga On behaved around/treated Soo Hyun (who he assumes Ga On was in love with) to how Ga On behaves around/treats Yo Han, he can see a lot of differences. And it's a problem when his method for figuring this whole situation out is: "That is how Kim Ga On behaves when he's in love and, if he doesn't, he's probably not in love with me." Because that misses the part where people don't always behave the exact same way when they're in love (because it can be influenced by who they're interested in) and, if anything, it should be the other way around.

At this point, it's probably better to look at how Ga On behaves around you, Yo Han, not Soo Hyun, if you want to figure out what he's like when he's in love x'D

... but he doesn't know that, of course.

So, in short: Yo Han knows that Ga On cares about him and he knows that Ga On is sexually attracted to him, but he has no way of knowing if Ga On is in love with him. Yo Han has too little experience with it to be able to gauge that.

But, at this point? He thinks that Ga On is just too in love with Soo Hyun to ever love him (which is what this post was about)

And, in a very heartbreaking way, he's kind of grateful that Ga On made it clear he's not going to act on what's between them because Yo Han assumes it's only sexual attraction and some confused fondness on Ga On's end anyway. And Yo Han would just... rather not if that's all Ga On can give him. Because, for once, he doesn't just want sex — he wants love, too.

... this man is, once again, a goddamn onion.

(and will make you cry just as much as one)

And, for my own sake, I'm going to have to make a detour and write Yo Han's POV of what happens after he's gone into his bedroom because I SWEAR THE FUCKING BASTARD WON'T LEAVE ME ALONE. There is SO MUCH GOING ON in his head and snippets keep inconveniently popping up at irregular intervals, distracting me. And as soon as I push one aside, the next one pops up.

It's like a never-ending game of angsty Whac-A-Mole.

Someone save me.

ANYWAY. I'm glad you liked the update! And thank you so much for wanting to stick around 💜 I was genuinely worried about how you all would react to this chapter. Like, who's insane enough to throw in a rejection 400k into a story? People have probably gotten chased down with pitchforks for less.

So thank you for the trust, support, and dedication — it means a lot to me 💜

#Amethystina Replies #Anonymous #Who Holds the Devil #Amethystina Writes #Even if she would prefer not to this time #Like #I ALWAYS know what's going through Yo Han's head too #But this is the first time when I genuinely can't focus because I'm just BOMBARDED by it #I WISH I COULD SHUT IT OFF BUT I CAN'T #So I'm going to write it all down just to get it out of the way I guess? #Maybe then it'll quiet down #Also #I guess it might be nice just for the sake of knowing exactly where he stands #I make no promises that I'll post it though xD #Second also #Do yourself a favour and don't ponder how that 'my love isn't like other people's' work in relation to 'I'm a monster' #And 'I will smother his light one day' #Because that's... yeah #That'll break your heart #I'M SORRY I CAN'T SHUT IT OFF OKAY

[ottiliere]

Ok so, 2 things

1. Oh? System Dirks are coming in here to show their appreciation? Because ours also DEVOURS this AU. It is genuinely so relatable and cathartic. When people don't think sharing vent art is good, I point at this AU and how it shows the ugly side of recovery so perfectly.

2. I was idly scrolling through the JTHM tag as I do frequently and got such intense whiplash seeing your recent post about asks in it. Like. Complete opposite side of our dash radar. What is this I hear about a JTHM ask?? I am fascinated already I font care if it's related to Dirk or not I just genuinely would love to hear your thoughts on it.

1) pulling all the dirks who follow me in for a hug through the walls of my plastic isolation bubble. it really makes me so happy to hear this. I can't give an extended answer to this point because I spent so much time talking about the next one but I hope you feel the mind waves of love I am bombarding you with.

2) The ask I got was in fact about Dirk, but as I'm drafting it it is...drifting...very much...into being about JTHM. "hear my thoughts on it" … this would be nothing shorter than a dissertation. I think about JTHM very often. I don't think it's possible for me to be concise about this in any sense of the word.

JTHM, to me, is one of the formative experiences that made me who I am. It is one of my favorite pieces of fiction ever made, that I have ever engaged with, and I know for a fact I will struggle to find something that is told in such a captivating way from an author with such an open soul. I discovered fanart of it by chance on DeviantArt, and, being naturally drawn towards edgier themes, searched everywhere on the internet until I found it uploaded onto some woman's livejournal account. I was obsessed with JTHM for a very, very long time. I reread it periodically, once or twice a year, and I have been doing this since I was 12. It has heavily influecned the way I go about making art and telling stories and engaging with everything I watch or read or what have you.

Everything about this comic blew my mind as a child, artistically absolutely, thematically especially. The narrative style that is glib with occasional moments of morose clarity that never lasts too long... we will never see anything like the suicide scene in anything else ever written again, of that I'm sure. It is unique in its existence. once you read that it unlocks something in your brain and you just can't go back. Multiplied by a million if you read it at a formative age you weren't really supposed to be reading it. Like homestuck.

Nny... he is the base of the character trope I always return to in fiction, usually unconsciously. I didn't realize that what I was doing to dirk mirrored nny until some friends pointed it out... it is a fascinating phenomenon. He is the first of his kind I have ever encountered in anything, ever. Blatantly unwell, the focus of a story that isn't necessarily slotting him into an antagonistic role. Like, he's the protagonist who I guess is also the antagonist but he's also a human. He's this guy with severe mental illness who is lead around like a puppet on strings first by the society that torments him for existing and then by the creature living in his walls that steals his memory and cognitive ability and manipulates him into doing his bidding. I had never seen that before? Usually I am not one for "made mentally ill by inorganic sources" trope, but the fact that it's stated in the comic that he was already seriously unwell before he became a flusher... it's just sad. He is not a good person, but his life is inherently tragic and the outcome of a society that does not care for him, or people like him, at all. forgive me for the comparison, but he is like the joker 2019. I mean this in a way that I love joker 2019. if you didn't like joker, well. sorry. but it's true.

This ties in, obviously, with the way that Jhonen goes about fiction: he does whatever he wants, to an extent. I have recently very closely befriended some individuals and while pondering how we were meshing so well on the creative side of htings, it eventually came to light that the singlemost defining moment in our lives was how we all read JTHM at a very young age. And it is insane, stepping back and looking at all of our narrative and art styles and seeing that the similarities we've all evolved independently stemmed from JTHM, in addition to our view of what it's like to be an artist. we are but jhonen's warriors in a world that is currently characterized by a very homogenized mixture of “art”. I mean, just look at the current box office trend. look at the “genre” that is marvel movies. not that I don’t enjoy marvel movies, I DO like them, my loki phase was strong and hard, but objectively... these things are what they are: mass-produced consumables. there is a reason people got excited when it was announced that Cronenberg was making a new film (which was awesome btw); art is dying. milquetoast narratives, stories afraid to push boundaries and be "weird", authors not trusting the audience to pick up on their intended message so instead of leaving it just a little ambiguous, they must instead spoonfeed it to every reader... There is some equation of what it means to make art and how it equates with your moral standing; my stance has always aligned with dear Jhonen's.

in a way my view of the world is the direct inverse of nny's; I truly believe in the best of people, I love humanity, I love the world and I am fundamentally incapable of being outwardly cruel towards others. my natural setting is to logically empathize, to put myself in the shoes of other people and look at their life the way they're living it. there is nothing more important to me than showing unconditional positive regard towards others. I have not always been this way. I used to foster great amounts of animosity in my heart for the things that have been done to me. I used to be an abjectly miserable person, I used to be violently suicidal every day for years and years and years etc. now though... I don't know how to describe it. something alights upon you after vast quantities of self-reflection, detached from the scrying eyes of swathes of people, of strangers, fandom most relevantly but I do also mean society as a whole. at this point in my life there is nothing more important to me than being a nice person, and helping others in what ways I can. if that's through posting raw depictions of mental illness, I will happily do so. I didn't realize that people didn't KNOW they can do this, and it is heartwarming that I can touch people in such a way even parasocially. I have worked on myself, I love people and I love when people are weird and their true creative selves because that is what the world needs in this day and age. art is dying. If you let bitterness into your heart it will consume you. it will cloud your judgment and prevent you from making a true connection to the medium, it will block you from making what you REALLY want to make. It will poison how you interact with other humans on a fundamental level, if you are constantly walking into interactions suspecting the worst intentions.

it almost seems like critical thinking is a dying skill...or, at least, it is when it comes to interacting with art and not relying on other people to tell you what to think. but even still I still do not hold ire towards those who seek me harm for what I make. I do not answer many of the asks I get on purpose, the death threats, etc... because these people are hurting in a multitude of ways, and they have not yet learned how to cope with their own pain. You could call being an optimist a character flaw, maybe it is. I don't know. That is, for better or worse, the epitome of what I am: an unrelenting pollyanna who believes in the best of people and the potential they have to heal. The one anon hate I got about the AU months ago that I actually deigned with an answer; they eventually came off anon and admitted they were just frustrated they didn't know how to properly use tumblr's UI to filter me off their dashboard and displaced their emotions onto me. They apologized. Such is life. We are all humans inhabiting this great big earth and I love to love people. contrary to what I depict in my art, I am a very happy person. I love my friends and I'm currently in a very good life situation with occasional downfalls and eventual upturns. Jhonen, I know, as stated in the second interview image, was often like this as well. nny was a speakerphone for little observations about life and pessimism; he was a character, a means to tell a story.

so ya I guess those are some of my thoughts about JTHM. not all of them though. here’s some nny

#ask #lucy art #these asks really got me plugged into nny again... expect art soon probably #like besides whats here these are PRACTISE #the power of anonymous users on tumblr #jthm

[prioritizingpurples]

there's this green blogger I follow, limmuda, and they've just posted something about purples being allies to greens and I don't feel like we're obligated to being their allies, but the points they make sound convincing and i'm having trouble articulating why i disagree. if you have time/energy could you have a look at their post and share your thoughts? i understand if you can't, I just really look up to you as a purple role-model

You've hit on it in your ask, really--purples are not morally obligated to be the "allies" of greens to the same extent that greens are to purples. I had trouble articulating my disagreement, at first, too, and I think that's because we give similar practical advice: listen to people no matter their speaking style, genuinely follow through on what you hear, assume that people are experts on their own lives, said and don't overgeneralize about a whole caste based on knowing a couple. This is good advice when thinking about how to approach people from ANY caste as individuals (and I think that's an important thing to note--that doing this to other castes is good advice, but if you do it to purples you're an ally. the bar is low to be an ally, i promise!) But, while the advice is the same, the situations are not--greens are privileged over purples. like, if I were writing a guide on how poor people can be an ally to rich people, I would include stuff like "listen to people no matter their speaking style and don't assume they're all the same". but yknow what? i don't really care about how to be an ally to rich people! i do care to some degree how to be an ally to greens, but it's not my first priority, and it doesn't have to be. expecting purples to be allies to greens can conflict with expecting greens to be allies to purples--for example, if a purple squashes their own natural speaking style and emotional reactions in order to be an ally to greens. not only that, purples are already expected to be "allies" to greens. in day to day life, people see their style of speaking as "smart", many of us adopt it in order to be taken more seriously, and people assume their opinions are more valid and grounded than ours (even if the green is, say, an art green!), etc. while there may be places that are purple-dominated, and where green styles of speaking are seen as condescending or out-of-touch, these are mostly (a) online, where it probably will not affect your life, and (b) in purple areas that are almost entirely purple and which will almost certainly not have any greens unless the greens really want to be there--essentially, greens can avoid messages from purple culture, while purples cannot avoid messages from green culture. i think it's telling that their answer focused mostly on cultural misunderstandings and miscommunications, while mine focused more on treating purples fairly and calling out people who don't. now, if a purple WANTS to go out of their way to be extra understanding and kind to greens due to cultural differences, that's fine! it's a-ok for purples to identify as green allies! but it's also fine for purples to say "i have been pretending all day that you sound smart when the only thing i can think of is how much i feel condescended to and i'm going to vent about that on my personal blog". doing so is not violating caste solidarity or failing to be understanding of cultural differences--on the other hand, expecting nobody to feel that way is. it is /absolutely fine/ to say "yknow what, i don't want to be a green ally, i want to focus on what i can do for my fellow purples".which, like, not that greens don't have problems, or don't face casteism--they do. but generally not because of purples. i will still call out anti-green casteism when i see it, because casteism is wrong and we're all oppressed under blues, but these are fundamentally different situations and can't be treated interchangeably. and as a purple, i am going to prioritize purples. i have no problem if a green decides that they are going to prioritize other greens and problems that greens face, as long as they don't endorse anti-purple casteism--that's the basis of my separatism. as separate castes, we have different concerns and priorities, and since each caste knows themselves and their needs best, each caste should focus within themselves to fix their problems and meet their needs instead of relying on other castes. (for this reason, i'd be more comfortable declaring myself an ally to e.g. a green separatist cause, organization, or movement than just "an ally to greens".)also, when greens face casteism from purples, it is almost (almost! not 100%, but usually. do not bombard me with messages about edge cases) always in a low-stakes situation in which the purple has little or no power, social or material, over the green. when purples face casteism from greens, it is much more likely to be a higher-stakes situation in which the green has power over the purple. ("is stupid a worse insult when said to greens or purples?" vs "are purple artists real artists who deserve to be seen as such and compensated for their work?") we do not have the same moral obligation to not get in flame wars or be mildly rude to random strangers as we do to not demean and attempt to damage people's livelihoods--and purples do not have the same moral obligation to be a green ally as greens do to be a purple ally. greens have power, both individually and as a caste, that purples simply do not, and the more power you have the more careful you have to be to not hurt people with less power. (yes, yes, I know, starving artist vs purple billionaire, generalizations are bad. generalizations are also necessary, because we don't have time to talk about every single green and purple on the planet.) not all casteism is created equal. the average purple cannot effect the lives of blues except maybe by sending anon hate. the average blue can effect the lives of purples in so many ways, whether through land or law or money. not all power differentials are that severe! but even when they're subtler--maybe even especially when they're subtler--it's important to pay attention to them. (another thing that greens can do: when we upset you, avoid it--walk away, block us, whatever. because you have that luxury. anti-green casteism is generally not as widespread or as vicious "irl" as anti-purple casteism is, because greens have that privilege. take advantage of it.)....gosh, this got very long and rambly, whoops! thank you so much for the compliment by the way nonny, i really am honored by it. i'm not a role model, haha, i'm just a 4-year-old with internet access and too much time on her hands. but it means a lot to me! hearing stuff like that is why i keep running this blog. it's so incredible to know that i inspire other purples like this!