#and so few people talk about the really weird shit that phase of my life taught me even though they seem like pretty universal things

[mumblesplash]

the fact that doctors can just Recommend Weight Loss with no instructions beyond ‘eat healthier/less’ is actually insane to me, i lost weight on purpose ONCE and it took me like 6 years to recover a semi-normal relationship with food and hunger

#uhh #disordered eating cw #just in case #mumbling #like jfc i know i’m not the first to say it and my experience is relatively SO tame #but it STILL fucked with my head for YEARS #and most people don’t go nearly that long between weight loss attempts at all for basically their whole lives!!!!! #and we’re so blasé about it like yeah just eat less to lose weight #and so few people talk about the really weird shit that phase of my life taught me even though they seem like pretty universal things #like when you lose weight deliberately by denying yourself food you get COLD #you get cold and you get in your head and you get sad it’s like being less alive #the times i’ve lost weight/recomped on accident (by doing smth that makes me move more‚ getting better sleep etc) #it’s been WARM #burn hotter move freer feel happier #and also the way hunger feels when you’ve been denying yourself food for an extended time is NOT the same as baseline hunger #it’s actually kind of wild that we use the same word to describe both feelings like that shit is NOT the same #that shit is not ‘being really hungry’ it’s a fuckin. blood curse or some shit you feel straight up unhinged #and i should disclaim here i am not talking large amounts of weight #i’ve fluctuated over i think a 20lb range max since reaching close to my adult height and that’s a guesstimate #but even in my relatively unremarkable little experiences here the way deliberate weight loss fucked with my brain is absurd to me #i’m fine now have been for years but seriously thinking back on it the fact that this is routine medical advice. unreal

[sorcerous-caress]

Worldbuilding and human kink? Is it my birthday /lh. This has me googling “halfling sex” and being a little surprise someone has thought about it enough to write a generously large paragraph.

Apparently it’s not uncommon for them to have more casual sex with close neighbors and friends indulging in it together. I genuinely think it would be hilarious for a halfling with a human, elf, drow, orc, dwarf, etc (the more uptight races) friend/neighbor to ‘seduce’ and then being very friendly and kind, but not exclusive or even inherently romantic.

Halflings 🤝 Humans

Being horny on main.

Oh my god imagine a poly relationship that's a human who thinks this is a casual friends with benfits deal, a halfing who thinks everyone here is just friends, and one high elf who acts as if they're robbing a bank whenever they watch the human go down on the halfing.

Add a dragonborn who is sweating over which one of those people is gonna end up as their mate for life, who isn't phased by the sex but it's the romance part that's considered a big taboo in their culture to even date someone for love, so imagine seeing more tha one person?

High elves being sex repressed 🤝 Dragonborns being romance repressed

Also I really love world building AAAAA i wanna invent shit and make shit up and shake it around like a snow globe. I believe elves went to the moon much sooner than humans with just magic, dwarves have found fallen space rocks and meteors and used them to forge their weapons, winged elves or any species who can fly already mapped the world and drew all the know maps before humans even learned how to tame horses.

Also the horses is funny, elves has seen them all their lives but never bothered to tame it because it feels weird yk? Why would they ride on an animal, plus their cousin is a centaur so it feels even more weird.

Then they see the humans coaxing the horses with carrots while holding a saddle behind their back, skip a few years and suddenly the horse population skyrockects as humans steal this one animal to their side.

Imagine being a wood elf and in harmony with all of nature, then glancing over at the human city and feeling very confused on what these weird wolves are and why do the humans call them dogs, also why are they obeying the humans and holy shit that one is wearing bowtie.

Occasionally humans just wander into the forest, spot an animal that seems semi useful then kidnap it back to their city, suddenly their population spikes and they're the new best friends of humanity.

It happened the other way with cats tho, the wood elves remember overhearing two cats talking about the hairless apes wandering around and how one was betting the other that they can get them to share their food by just screaming at them.

Humans probably inspired their cuisine based on halflings' recipes since they didn't add soul consuming spices for fun like elves and didn't sprinkle in literal gem and gold dust like dragonborns.

A human with a Halfling neighbour who comes over every other day to share their stew because "they accidentally made too much and can't possibly finish it all themselves so how about you grab a bowl or two, human?"

One day the human makes a joke about how they're a simp or going to horny jail, whatever modern shitposting meme is trending, and the halfling takes it seriously and offers to sleep with them.

I mean, that is basic neighbourly hospitality to them. Of course they will fuck their friend who is in need, you don't even have to ask twice, come here and lay down and they'll take care of you until satisfied.

Now their trips over to your house are twice as frequent, half to feed you their cooking, other half to sate your lust appetite.

#♡human kink #♡halflings #♡smut #dnd human kink #♡modern au human kink

[pawstepsinthesnow]

On DeviantArt, DreamUp, and Lies

I’ve had things to say about the whole situation, mostly on Twitter, but Twitter is a horrible place to have an actual conversation. Warning: this is going to get long. There will be links in the body, I understand that this will tank visibility, but I need to have this written out.

If you haven’t already heard about DeviantArt’s extraordinarily failed rollout of AI scraper protection and their own AI image generator, DreamUp, I’ll quickly summarize it here for background context going in. 

On November 11th, 2022, DeviantArt debuted their own AI art generator in a huge, splashy announcement talking about how they were going to protect your art from scraping for AI datasets, and to that end, they’d made their OWN, ETHICAL AI generator only trained on opt-in art on dA.

There was just one little problem.

Every single artwork on DeviantArt was opt-in by default. 

[Nobody liked that.]

Now, I like to get my story straight-- the earliest snapshot I can find of the announcement did not say that it was trained on dA specifically. However, multiple news websites reported that it was trained on dA.

After a few Twitter spaces in which they patronized the fuck out of Major Artists (if I can find the backup of this, I will update the post to include it), they updated their policy to opt-out all art by default.

This is a distraction.

I’ll refer you to this twitter thread first, because I think it’s a brilliant summation, but for a quick summary of what their opt-out actually does:

Webpages have tags in them for web-crawlers to read, such as the ones Google uses to index webpages. dA is proposing a new one, “noai”. In order for this to actually have any effect, web crawlers need to be programmed to recognize it. You can probably guess the obvious problems with this.

[image desc: popular meme image from the show Arthur, captioned “that sign can’t stop me because I can’t read”]

Additionally, dA’s own ToS says they won’t take any legal action to enforce their noai directive, meaning it has all the weight of a “take one” sign on a Halloween candy bowl.

Very notably, this does not affect any images that have already been scraped for datasets such as LAION, which Stable Diffusion is built on. It is well known that LAION is rife with stolen artwork.

DreamUp is built on Stable Diffusion.

The Main Point: Lies

As of the time of this writing, DeviantArt is claiming that no artwork from DeviantArt was used to train DreamUp. (ARCHIVE.ORG snapshot taken while I was writing this post for proof) This is blatantly false, knowing what’s in LAION, but in an interview with the Verge, dA’s current CEO gives a more nuanced take: “no dA-specific training”.

That is unfortunately also a lie, and trivially proven.

Before I can say how, you need to know two things about me, and a bit about the technology.

The first thing about me: I’m a cybersecurity master’s student in a very rigorous program, and my particular flavor of neurodivergence ended up trading a lot of points in “basic life skills” for “really good at computer shit”.

The second thing about me: I’ve poured years of my life into community management on dA, helping build art RPGs. It’s a little bit of a weird space if you’ve never been exposed, but what  you really need to know is we have our own lingo and our own systems of IP. 

So, Stable Diffusion is a neural network. People really hype this stuff up, but what it really is in the end is an extremely complicated math problem. What you need to know is that these neural networks undergo two phases: a training phase and a usable phase. A pretrained neural network can be retrained on additional data, but it cannot be untrained. Once trained, its training data is an intrinsic part of it. It’s actually a little worse than a human being-- we forget shit all the time, but these things can’t. All products of a neural network are mathematically dependent on its training data.

As a text-to-image generator, these generators need a specific type of data: described images. In order to generate an image from a caption, it needs to know what’s in it, after all! 

LAION is an intrinsic part of Stable Diffusion. DreamUp has stolen art in it. This is a fact. What I’m seeking to disprove here is dA’s CEO’s claim that there was no dA-specific training. In order to do so, I asked a basic question-- does DreamUp understand the shibboleths I pose it? If I ask it to generate images that use terms that would only be understood by those who work in my opaque-to-outsiders closed species groups, then it has dA-specific training. 

In order to run tests, I used Hugging Face’s official Stable Diffusion test space as a control. Any differences in Stable Diffusion’s output vs. DreamUp’s output would be down to DeviantArt’s additional training. Please also note that these tests were run on the 12th, before any username bans went through.

Here are my results:

(Please note that an “import” is a certified character for use in an ARPG. Ketucari is an arpg I help run.)

“ketucari import by matriarchs haunt”

STABLE DIFFUSION:

A lot of textures, rope, and horses. (Horses might be a factor of the dA data already in the dataset, horse arpgs are extraordinarily popular and I believe outnumber closed species arpgs like ketucari).

Dreamup results:

These pictures are recognizably in the style of ARPG imports, to the point where I swear I’ve seen similar ones. The beasts on them are twisted horses, likely due to the sheer amount of horse ARPG imports in the training data. 

Additionally, with the names of multiple popular horse groups, a fellow ARPGer was able to generate an even more convincing import. (I’m sorry I don’t know your username, though your name is so familiar!)

For comparison: a ketucari import of a character I own, another import of a popular arpg with a character I own -- please note the basic format of a character with color-your-own lines posed on a background. 

A second test:

Stygians ARPG is a different flavor of ARPG I don’t help run, but I generally hang out in. This is the reference art for the Stygian species. Their name is a common word that can be easily confused for other things, but they’re a large group. Stygs do not follow the above ARPG format but have free-drawn adoptables, so they won’t have quite the same GLUT in the training data that imports do. 

“legendary stygian by zoomutt” (Zoo is a sweetheart and the species owner, and legendaries are a specific lore subclass)

Stable Diffusion:

Predicatably, it has no fucking clue what I’m on about.

Dreamup:

This is the most damning, and convincing example yet-- these are recognizably deer-shaped creatures. The left has a four-critter lineup like an adoptable sale, and the middle has a frame and a label, though notably in a different style than Zoo usually uses for her sales. One person in the Stygs discord did point out there’s an MLP character named Stygian who might be contaminating the results, which I do want to make note of (I stopped watching the show a while back). I do also want to note that none of these creatures are at all MLP-styled. 

So, how is dA generating recognizable closed species and ARPG imports?

Because they fed it additional, tagged data from dA. It knows people’s styles and IPs. That’s why you have to block your username to begin with.

#deviantart #dreamup #ai art #lies

[tragedy-peanut-gallery]

do you have any headcanons about daeron ii's and myriah's daughter-in-laws?

Oh boy DO I!!!!! I’m gonna organize them in lil bullet point forms cause I have so many thoughts abt them!

Jena:

- Honestly I think it might be a bit weird to say but I think she was the westerosi equivalent of a goth skater girl. Like, there’s probably some old painting of her in Blackhaven as a teenager where she has dyed black streaks in her hair and way too much eyeshadow with a medieval skateboard (horse). I need this to be true in my life

- Her betrothal to Baelor I imagine was to ease up relations with the marcher lords since they probably weren’t too happy about the Dornish having a strong influence on the throne. I wouldn’t be surprised if Myriah suggested the match, and they happened to pick Jena because she was the closest to Baelor’s age

- That being said though, their match went pretty well! I mean for a while it was pretty obvious that Jena and Baelor were basically a pr relationship but over time they did come to care for each other! They didn’t really have the slow burn romance that Daeron and Myriah had but they still had some kind of affection

- She did have her kids pretty young, but not really early in the marriage because I have to believe her weird late teens goth angst was why she named her kids Valarr and Matarys of all things or it might kill me

- If I could give her a friendship with any of her sisters in laws it would probably be Aelinor? But they weren’t like friends friends, they were just able to get along pretty well because they grew up in the same region even though their interests are wayyyy different from one another

- Ngl she probably had some crazyyy beef with Dyanna. Like, those ladies could not sit next to each other at the family function cause it either ended with them fighting (mostly about who’s kids are the worst),or them ganging up to bully another noble while absolutely hammered on some of that dornish red

- Also it needs to be said, Jena was probably absolutely a stunt queen when she had to grow out of her goth phase. Like, she went to the Alyssa T school of Being a Bad Bitch because she probably went riding and sailing with her kids all the time while they were still babies. If Baelor had a dragon she’d be bullying him to take her flying literally every day and get it to shit on the roofs of people she doesn’t like. Myriah’s mentality was “Oh I’m gonna be queen so I have to be careful about what I do” while hers was “Whoah I’m gonna be queen I can do (almost) whatever the hell I want!!”

- Unfortunately tho, it’s highly likely she died with her kids during the great Spring Sickness, but to add tragedy for flavour I think she died after both her sons. Rip queen :(

Aelinor:

- Okay so figuring out the whole timeline/relation with her kinda drove me insane, but my theory for the time being is that she’s Elaena’s stepdaughter through Ronnel, which does make her technically cousins with Aerys through marriage? I think she’s still probably a few years younger than him tho

- I also kinda think Elaena’s behind this betrothal a bit tbh- I think Aelinor really liked Elaena but saw her a lot more as a mentor she aspired to be like rather than any kind of surrogate mother figure

- Personality-wise girlie’s a completeee introvert. Like, I think she wants to be social and charming and all that, but she got that social anxiety that makes it so she’s scared to talk to people and spends most of her day inside reading

- For her hobbies….. I can see her being big into reading and research but idk I also really like the idea of her being big into poems, she likes really analyzing people from a distance and writing lil blurbs about them to spend the time. She’d literally rather die than share any of her works with anyone though, even if it’s really flattering to them lol

- So, I think her social circle’s kindaaa limited to the royal family, I think her best friends would be Aerys, Alys and Shiera cause I think that’d be kinda fun (and also I think she had a bit of a thing for Alys cause….. yuh) :)

- She and Aerys probably slept together like, once on their wedding cause they were completely convinced they would only have to do it one time…. They both regretted it

- And ngl despite the Horrors™️, and the whole of house Targaryen dropping like flies I think she was a lilll glad that Aelora was heir? Not because everyone else before her died, mostly due to the fact that she really liked Aelora specifically and maybe liked to pretend she was her daughter whoops

- Anyways my fun lil tragedy for her is that she outlives pretty much everyone she loves <3 she’d still be kicking during Maekar’s reign as a sorta dowager queen but she’s not doing much with that title, I diagnose her with…… death via heart attack while trying to write her will

Alys:

- Honestly this lady reads as a complete social butterfly to me lmao. Like, really bubbly, charismatic, and likeable as a person- I think she came in as a companion for Daenerys and both Daeron and Myriah decided to set her up with Rhaegel just cause she was really kind (and being from a major house definitely didn’t hurt either)

- For hobbies I can absolutely see her as a lady that was just crazy for birds lol- and that’s an interest I could see her bonding with Daeron over! She loves hawking and keeping some pet songbirds and feeding ravens, ngl I could see her and Aelinor working on a giant bird encyclopedia together lol

- When it comes to her and Rhaegel, I don’t think it was really love at first sight? Like, I think they got along and did eventually bond after the twins were born, but they only fell in love a few years into their marriage

- Speaking of the twins though! I really don’t think she was cool with the idea of them marrying, honestly it kinda horrified her but she saw how weirdly close they became and tried to cope by justifying that they’d be better together than apart with other people cause…. Tbh how the hell else can she get over the fact that her own children are marrying when that hasn’t really been the norm for a bit-

- Oh and she was especially nottt at all happy about Daenora marrying Aerion. Since by then I can imagine she’s lost both her husband and oldest children, she would be f u r i o u s that Maekar would even allow her last daughter to marry his craziest son, even if he wasn’t the one who suggested the match in the first place

- Girlie probably didn’t stay after Aerion died, like- she was quick to pack Daenora and Maegor and haul ass back to the Vale. No she didn’t give a flying fuck that they were considering her grandson as heir, they’re living in the Eeryie forever now!

- She did miss Aelinor after she left though (clueless about Aelinor’s kinda gay feelings rip) so the two probably shared a lot of letters, but I think Alys passed not too long after being back in the Vale from….. honestly imma say slipping on a toy and cracking her head open. At least one of these gals gotta have a sorta silly death

Dyanna:

- Ngl she’s probably second to Alys in being one of the sweetest in the group, but she takes NO bullshit from anyone. As stated before, she’s ready to throw down with Jena at the drop of a hat but tries not to start too many fights

- She and Maekar married out of love. To me!!! Like, idk they don’t seem like a politically advantageous match, so in my brain Dyanna was probably the daughter of one of Myriah’s ladies in waiting and the two ended up falling in love as teens cause idkkkkkk that’s kinda cute <3

- As for hobbies: absolutely cracked at weaving. 85% of the decorations at Summerhall are her tapestries and the other 15% are crafts by other artists that she really liked. She probably weaved most of her childrens’ baby clothes herself and regularly gifts handmade crafts to her family and friends

- Idk if she really had a favourite with any of her kids, but I can kinda say for certain that she definitely had a hard time with Aerion because she felt like she needed to be overly strict with him specifically which….. probably maybe perhaps gave Aerion some mommy issues idkkkkkkkk

- I like to think she had a cat at some point too, and when it had kittens she gifted them to each of her kids but they mostly became general household cats over time (except for Egg’s cat, that was his own and it…. Found itself at the bottom of the well whoops-)

- Canonically she died first out of the gang, and the narrative implies that she died giving birth to Rhae but I’m ignoring it because one fic I read a while ago had her die from breast cancer and honestly while it’s still tragic it also makes it so Dyanna’s not reduced to “woman who died in childbirth #67” which gets some originality points from me

Idk these are all my headcanons, I hope you like them! <3

#jena dondarrion #aelinor penrose #alys arryn #dyanna dayne #asoiaf asks

[liketheinferno2]

few disconnected things about xvi:

The big eikon fights are all LONG like bare minimum ten minutes I think I was on titan for thirty. To make this bearable they're in checkpoint phases like xiv raids. I like it. Unfortunately I have a habit of pausing to talk to people and then completely forgetting what I was doing so left Clive in the knife edge of Zantetsuken for 2 hours.

These summons are as classic as you get for like... narrative function. I'm a huge fan of old ff summoners where they're just kind of born this way and the visual on it is the form of this god creature overtaking their entire body. Less classic when most characters only get one eikon but very effective. Jumping out of my seat about some of this stuff I love gamma ray level megaflare. Titan the size of an mountain dwarfing summons as tall as buildings. Odin's SCARY in this one man maybe it's just me... but when the guy on the other end can sever anything he perceives as capable of being severed that's the sort of thing I love to see with reality bending fantasy powers.

I'm about 90% of the way done I think... at this point it is coming back again and again to this thesis of choice and autonomy as essential to human life and worth fighting for, for yourself and others. This story has an interesting presentation where characters can be very groundedly human having literal conversations at some points and theatrical actors posed for effect at others. Not a bad thing, feels very Utena-like to me. The eikon pulling scenes too, I have to compare it to sword pulls? Like this isn't sex but it can be intimate/caring/painful/violating in a very personal way... I'm just counting on my fingers here but you see it used like 1. By accident, painful and stressful for both parties, 2. on purpose, pushing Clive fearfully into a new life like he becomes a Bigger Adult, 3. to assert dominance, bad for everybody, 4. out of caring to gain understanding of another person, 5. out of love and trust willfully given, 6. forced and violent in that weird theatrical way I was talkin about earlier.. looking back on these as a whole I feel gears turning.

Kinda shoujo kinda berserk kinda thing you have to embrace the chuuni to get into. Other thing that keeps crossing my mind is how much this feels like ff's take on a Guts and Casca. OTHER other thing is how much this feels like this team's take on ff7's Avalanche, ff15's mistakes, ff4's drama with ff14's design ethos. REMINDS ME OF A LOT OF THINGS I LOVE BUT IS ALSO DISTINCTLY IT'S OWN THING both in and outside the bounds of the rest of the series. Not really getting the GoT comparison but that was low hanging fruit for lazy critics in the first place lol.

Also really really really good at portraying gentle touches and the sense that these characters feel safe in each other's arms and I love that shit. I'll hold off for now with the pictures but almost my entire photo library for ff16 is characters holding each other or saying some gay shit or both at once. Stopping myself here but there's your thinking out loud gamer post for the week o/

#let him speak #final fantasy sex and violence #post script i like that there's dodge assist OR auto dodge #slow reaction time doesn't mean I don't wanna try with training wheels on :P #i will keep auto DOG on though

[qpr-culture-is]

I know it's not really a confessions blog or something like that but I'm just so confused and lost and I just want to describe my feelings to someone. English is not my first language, sorry for any mistakes

So first of all I'm trans, I think it's pretty important to the story, kinda had a transphobic phase because my country it's not only very lgbtqphobic but our queer community is also very hostile towards trans people, like more than I have seen in other communities, so it's common. Pretty closed about this, tried to come out to some of my friends and classmates almost 2 years ago now, went wrong, don't talk to them and become very paranoid. Not even planning to tell someone about me being trans before a lot of people transferred to our class, they all were added in our group chat and I immediately pin pointed this dude with gerard way as their pfp who then asked to refer to him with he/him only and use other name. Holy shit. I literally never in my life seen an openly trans person, not even a closed one, never interacted with someone also trans irl so it was HUGE for me. Skipped first week of school, was kinda worried that I'm going to be an outcast, but that I finally meet him, and like the first thing he said to me was "wait are you that person with *fandom* as your pfp?" so we immediately connected. I was on cloud nine because he is SO COOL and only a few girls in our class are deadnaming him and it's so nice no one is being mean to him and I think it kinda changed my way of viewing how people will react if I come out to them. Because most people just don't care. Then I gave him my other socials and he saw me using any pronouns and he was like hey! How do i refer to you! Cool! And i told him that I'm actually also trans and he never ever questioned or doubted it even though I'm pretty fem presenting.

So yeah I rambled sorry it was just a really cool experience really cool dude. So the reason why I'm writing to qpr blog it's because I lately started catching feelings for him?? But I'm not in love?? I don't really know how to explain this but for a really long time I was just thinking that I just have a friend crush then that I want to date him and like I knew about qpr and I knew that qpr is way more complex and it's not just the secret third thing after dating and being friends. But like, I want to kiss him and give him gifts in a way that I view as romantic but when he's mentioning dating or his exes I don't feel a thing. Today was weird, I slept for only 3 hours and felt a little bit wonky, so I said a lot of things that were like straight up flirting. And I felt embarrassed and blushed and shit but not in "hehe I flirted with my crush!!" way but more in "holy shit it was embarrassing why did I say it" way. And he also talked about a guy that he has a very weird relationships with for the past 2 years, he said that like yeah we're friends but not really we had some periods of dating but not really and he also constantly flirts with other people including me. And I was just yeah kill him and didn't thought much of it, not jealous or sad that he have something going on with other people, but I still want to date him, but in friends way. So after I pondered about it for a while I think that I just want to have that Secret Third Thing with him. Still feel lost because I never felt like that before and because I think that I'm alloromantic and I was in romantic relationships before so I know how I act when I'm in love with people. With him it's so close what I feel when I'm in love with someone but at the same time it's so different and such weird foreign felling. Woud like to hear some advice for how people realised or what people feel and want in qpr relationships, I know it's different for a lot of people, but I want to hear something from heros who read this wall of text

Giving you a little breakdown of things I have noted;

-You can absolutely be alloromantic and want a qpr/have a squish

-To me it does sound like it may be a squish

-All in all you'll have to make that decision for yourself, and it could very well just be the fact that you've never connected with a person like you have with him before so it's all a bit different for you

And here's a bit of my past experiences

It's really a bit hard to remember since it's been forever, and given I'm aroace squishes have always seemed like legitimate crushes (in a weird way) so keep that in mind.

The last squish I remember having was a little over a year ago. I really connected with the person and they made me laugh a lot. I felt pulled to them in some kind of way. I wanted to spend time with them and I wanted to be called their partner. It was just,,, different than my previous feelings towards friends. Now, if it weren't for events that happened later on, I could have very well been convinced it was a romantic crush (we ended up in a romantic relationship for a bit but my aro ness got in the way and I began to feel very uncomfortable with the whole thing), and am honestly not sure how to differentiate those feelings from that of a romantic crush.

The only other time I can think of having a squish would be quite a while back, and at the time I was completely convinced it was romantic (I had not even really been aware of the aro and ace labels at the time). Once again, the feelings were towards a close friend. They were my best friend in fact, and at the time I really thought we understood each other like nobody else did, and it was almost as if we were very drawn to each other. Contrary to what you noted, there was a bit of jealousy here and there when they were with someone else later on (tho I know believe to be more in a platonic context anyways). And... thats basically all I've got

So those are my main experiences with having squishes, if that gives you an idea of what to expect from one. I'd also like to say that I'm so sorry for taking so long to reply to this! I've been a bit busy the last few weeks and am currently on holiday break now and haven't felt up to doing a whole lot (and keep forgetting to post as well)

[dirtbag-linecook-kyloren]

10 characters/10 fandoms

YESSS THANK YOU @jaynesilver FINALLY MY WIDE READING OF FIC COMES IN HANDYYY

We're gonna go chronologically through my life because I think that's REALLY FUN (I legit couldn't choose a west wing character just know that if there's a secret 11th character is the ensemble cast of the west wing)

Artemis Fowl, Artemis Fowl

My first antihero, and we started YOUNG on that, I was reading these books premiddle school. I was obsessed with these books as a kid, and I'm still obsessed with them today. There's rumors of a third, more adult series when Artemis and Holly may get together and I will EAT THAT SHIT UP I LOVE THEM

2. Vexen, Kingdom Hearts

I Legit think this man primed me to enjoy Hux as a character. Like, I'm not kidding, I was obsessed with him as a kid. I'm 90% certain I wrote deviant art fan fic, but I have since abandoned that account so it's hard to know for sure if it ever got published. I was definitely roll playing at age, like, 13? way too young but god I loved him he was BATSHIT

3. Ianto Jones, Torchwood

Man, I can't really explain how much Ianto Jones as a character, he and Jack's kiss on screen, their relationship, and the events of the 456 changed me? It was DEEP though, I woke up the next day a different person, with much less trust in television writer's and their good intentions.

4. Desmond Miles, Assassin's Creed

We have to jump a few years to mid high school, because no joke I was on that Kingdom Hearts train for a WHILE. I love him, he was probably my first blorbo, before the term was invented. I tried to play the games after (MAJOR SPOILER) but I just couldn't do it. They didn't have the draw without him.

5. Stiles Stilinski, Teen Wolf

Now we've hit late high school, arguably my second blorbo. As a kid with ADHD, he was no joke valuable representation to me, even if it was sometimes played for laughs. I was also the least athletic kid on multiple sports teams who still tried really hard, so I got him, yknow?

6. Will Graham, Hannibal

It's legit tough for me to chose if I like the Will Graham of the books or the TV show better. (Don't ask me about the movies, I haven't seen them, and I probably won't. Movies and I have trouble. See: ADHD.) I'm not sure if he's a blorbo or just like, a regular character I like? My hannibal phase was my last 8 year ship, so the line is pretty blurred.

Now we've reached the part where I dived into a lot of fandoms at once, because I dropped out of college and kind of did a weird spiral? Idk, we've lost chronology is what I'm saying

7. Artemis Crock, Young Justice

god I cannot say enough good things about her and I also cannot express how much (MAJOR SPOILER) made me mad FOR HER. Like it was cruel specifically to her and we should talk more about that, honestly. She was definitely a blorbo, but we're still PRE blorbo as a word in my vocabulary.

8. Darcy Lewis, MCU

My first real fandom bicycle, I ship her with everyone from Loki to Agent Coulson to Natasha. As someone who often feels like the comic relief character in their own life, I appreciate her.

9. Kent Parson, OMG Check Please

My sweet, sweet disaster son. My emotionally constipated hockey boy. The reason captain america is my SECOND favorite character with a birthday on the Fourth of July. I love him, he was amazing, and also my first experience with like, really toxic fandom was being so mad when people tried to equate his canon mental health issues with a noncanon, imagined abuse?? It was wild, I ended up so distressed about it i did have to leave the fandom.

10. Armitage Hux, Star Wars

I mean you've been on my blog for like ten seconds i think it's obvious?? The others needed explanations but like YOURE HERE YOU KNOW

WAIT I FORGOT TO TAG PEOPLE SHIT @sariastrategos @gingersnappish @fallingdeeperintothispit

[vaingod]

What are some of the things you've noticed about these middle class city gays and their lifestyles? What are some of the things that stood out to you the most that is completely normalized? Because I see these pretty gay boys from the global north on Instagram and how perfect and white their teeth are, iPhone, MacBook, nice restaurants, nice gyms, holidays, expensive clothes that look very plain but you know that plain white t shirt was somehow $100 to me its like when Katniss sees the people in the Capitol and I just can't relate...especially since theyre all so skinny and pretty and have nice things!

Ok im saying this all as an immigrant thats lived here for a decade and still experiences this disconnection between city gays. Its the money, its always the amount of money they are comfortable throwing away on tech like you said but its more than just some rando city person buying themself an apple product once every 3 years or something. In order to live the life that you noticed these people tend to live you need 1 of the 2.

1. Rich parents. Most city gays that you see on Instagram are these. They usually go to school or have a job like one day a week type deal but they dont worry about rent or bills ever, no number on paper scares them to say the least but they are also really weird about you paying back like coffees or miniscule shit.

2. Are in debt. Most of my friends that are middle class are this

Like i wont forget meeting this girl through a drag actor friend of mine and she was cool and one of those all pink people so we vibed nicely until she started pulling up pages and pages of clothes and shoes and furniture that cost more than ive spent my entire life and talking about all the things she wants like a bratty child and i was losing my grip on reality before she talked about her hot pink custom paint job porshe and how her dad payed for it all cus she wasnt gonna drive a boring straight car. Like this attitude specifically is what drives me up the wall cus as someone whos jumped to and from alternative scenes a big appeal was making my own accessories and clothes and fucking shit up and looking trashy but alluring to other people like me. even when i went through my fem diva phase i exclusively thrifted vintage clothes to embody a 60 year old diva i didnt spend hundreds of dollars to look good?? My 90s thrifted furcoat ive worn for 7 years cost me 10 bucks.

As for middle class or poor gays that are in debt that keep going in debt to allow themselves the luxuries that they see gays with (their parents) money can allow themselves, i feel like its a very complex social dynamic that isnt easily explained by poor prople are allowed nice things or everyone deserves luxuries. And its harmful however its explained because very often the sentiment from middle class gays in regards to overspending obfuscates what a luxury is, not a few times have i heard from gays with debt "if i had the money i would take a private jet everywhere i wouldnt give a single fuck if i had access to things that rich people had I would use them just the same or more"

Class division is really like that tho, id compare it to how middle class suburbians dont want better public transport and shut any finances that go into it cus they dont want poor "suspicious" people coming to their neighborhoods. And that shut down of public transport only hurts them and their community but they do it anyway. Ill say it outright most middle class gays in debt that do everything to spend money to live a fantasy of not being in the same social class as poor gays are doing so intentionally.

#again im just some insane immigrant babbling but the way you described that type of people felt closer to my perception of them? #like theyd do anything not to be socially or technologically behind. they must be the epitome of beauty no matter what it costs #therefore expensive gyms and diets and cleanses that dont work and laser and chemical peels and scar removal white teeth etc etc etc

[justinsentertainmentcorner]

David Browne at Rolling Stone:

OVER THE LAST few years, the Gulf Coast Jam, a multi-day concert blowout held every spring in Panama City Beach, Florida, has become one of country music’s leading festivals, pulling in headliners like Miranda Lambert, Luke Bryan, Florida Georgia Line, Kane Brown, and Kenny Chesney. But recently, festival producer Rendy Lovelady has noticed something unusual backstage. “Ten or 15 years ago, everybody would sit in a circle around the table, pull out their guitars and start singing old country songs,” he says. “There was a lot of camaraderie. Whereas now, the camaraderie has definitely lessened. They tend to stay in their own community.” Part of Lovelady wonders if it’s the lingering after-effects of Covid-19, which forced touring performers to interact as little as possible with anyone outside their circle. But it’s also possible that the drop-off in backstage hangtime is a sign of something else: the national culture wars seeping into the traditionally close-knit country community, a space where artists often take pains to refer to their peers as “my good buddy” or compliment one another.

From less personal interaction backstage to public online feuds, country music is slowly being pulled into the same battles that have infiltrated nearly every aspect of American life and entertainment. “It really is weird right now,” says one leading country manager, who spoke on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the moment. “Country music has aways been this kind of neighborhood where everyone gets along. We had everyone’s back. But it doesn’t feel that way anymore. The heels are dug in more than ever. It’s pretty heavy.” The manager has also witnessed the same backstage chilliness that Lovelady recounts. However, he says it is unquestioningly due to opposing political ideologies and beliefs. “I’ve always enjoyed seeing people in the hallways backstage,” he says. “But it’s not like that. You tend to avoid people, because everyone talks politics backstage. Everyone used to leave their dressing room doors open. The doors are shut now.”

The major signs that Nashville is visibly fracturing have all happened fairly recently. In August of last year, country and alt-pop singer Cassadee Pope, and then Maren Morris, took Jason Aldean’s wife Brittany to task for making seemingly transphobic comments. (“I’d really like to thank my parents for not changing my gender when I went through my tomboy phase,” Brittany Aldean posted.) This summer, her husband’s song “Try That in a Small Town,” and especially its controversial music video, led to Americana songwriter Jason Isbell tweeting, “Dare Aldean to write his next single himself. That’s what we try in my small town.” On X (the social media site formerly known as Twitter), Jake Owen, a mainstream country singer, seemed to side with Aldean. He clapped back at Isbell by writing in part, “Jason, you’re always the first to get behind your keyboard and spout off with this stupid shit.” (He since posted that he “came in hot on the conversation because I’m passionate about” songwriters.) The public tiffs also included Zach Bryan, whose duet with Kacey Musgraves “I Remember Everything” is on track to be the Number One song in the nation, taking a shot in April at country acts “insulting transgender people.” The comment was prompted by veteran Travis Tritt’s tweet that he would be “deleting all Anheuser-Busch products from my tour hospitality rider” following a Bud Light promotion that featured transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Bryan, who said that he wasn’t aiming directly at Tritt, later talked it out in person with the Nineties star at a music festival in Texas, with Bryan calling Tritt “a good guy” and Tritt saying, “So glad we had a chance to chat, Zach.”

Although these feuds haven’t dominated the genre, they also haven’t gone unnoticed. “Like all industries, we’re not immune from the external pressures and the world at large,” says R.J. Romeo, president of the Romeo Entertainment Group, a leading talent agency that books country acts. “So naturally, there’s more divisiveness in the country now than ever before. That’s going to show up in opinions on music and everything.” The history of country music hasn’t been without its share of fights and rumbles; ask anyone who’s worked on an awards show or at a festival and you’ll hear tales of artists grumbling about their peers’ egos, sales figures, or place on the bill. In 2013, Zac Brown made waves when he called Luke Bryan’s song “That’s My Kind of Night” the “worst song I’ve ever heard.” They later hammed it up and hugged it out on live TV at the CMA Awards.

Public quarrels over politics, meanwhile, have been as rare as synthesizer solos in the genre. The then-Dixie Chicks’ feud with Toby Keith, which started when Chicks singer Natalie Maines criticized one of Keith’s songs in a 2002 interview and caught fire after Maines dissed George W. Bush onstage in the U.K. over the 2003 Iraq invasion, was one of the few times in recent memory when open warfare broke out among country artists over political matters. Such quarrels may become more common. “With everything heating up with the presidential race, people are beginning to have very distinct opinions,” Lovelady says. And the shift, involving country stars of different generations and accelerated by social media, has been jarring for longtime observers. Country acts, Romeo says, “all go through media training, and they’re usually very diplomatic or middle of the road with a lot of their responses. But I’ve seen more artists come out of what we call ‘the artist bubble’ and show more of their true self, you could say — or their less polished self.”

Rolling Stone explores how the culture wars are roiling the once-tightknit community of country music fans.

#Culture Wars #Country Music #Music #Politics #Maren Morris #Jason Aldean #Morgan Wallen #Oliver Anthony #Zach Bryan #Travis Tritt #The Chicks #Toby Keith #Jake Owen

[sentientgopro]

Hey y'all, not exactly active on here, especially when talking about myself, but I really need to get some shit off my chest right now. I had a couple realisations yesterday that culminated in some shit I never thought I would be saying or thinking.

I never thought I could be anything but straight. I liked women, so I mustve been straight. Im definately an advocate for everyone giving their gender true consideration, even when most will come out the other side cis, and confidently so, as did I.

Then I realised I didn't like women in the way most straight guys do. Afer clearing up some prior misconceptions about Aromanticism and asexuality, I realised those two labels fit me perfectly. But sometimes I wonder why I still feel a certain way about girls. There's just something about the way they look that's appealing to me, even if I dont find girls attractive...

Oh shit. That wasn't attraction. That was envy.

So that train of thought kind of went from 0 to 10 real fucking fast. This realisation brought to my attention feelings that Ive had for a good while, but have passed off as r/196 induced brainrot. Besides, and this is the biggest thing that stopped me realising this earlier, I dont feel that who I am now is wrong. I look in the mirror, and I see myself. But I've only recently kinda grasped the concept that being trans isn't all about dysphoria, having dysphoria is not always the way to tell. Although I dont think being a man is wrong, fucking hell, being a girl would be much better. And it feels so fucking weird actually typing that.

But what I'm saying is, atleast for the time being, I could manage to just not do anything. Which is for the better seeing as my parents would start screaming at me for saying anything remotely in the direction of being an ally. And I live on TERF Island. Transitioning would be an absolute pain in the ass, especially right now, so it kinda feels like why bother when the way I am doesnt really feel wrong. Transitioning could be quite dangerous and have big risks, it kinda just feels like I dont need that shit in my life, Im already running on fumes and a list of people I need to outlive. I usually hold a mindset of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", but this usually applies to binary things, like if my team wins using the same strat a few times in a row in CS, "Do it again, ain't broke, don't fix", but this is not nearly as binary as that, this isn't a win/loss.

Something that is both comforting and a little concerning is that no matter what, there is atleast a 2 year hold on this. I should be able to go to uni after that and start living my own life, but as of right now, doing something like transitioning is NOT an option. Ive got a 2 year long planning phase and Ive kinda just been taking stock tbh. I don't think "that" period of my life hit too hard, Im still skinny (Yeah, ik skinny =/= feminine but its better than being buff imo) kinda fuckin tall, if my growth follows the same as my brother did which it is so far Im gonna be like 6'3 by the end of that 2 years (6'1 now) so thats probably gonna be more of a mild annoyance than a genuine problem. My voice varies ALOT, I can have a pretty damn low voice, and a bit of a higher pitch, it naturally varies, I normally find I talk in a higher pitch when I'm happier and lower when Im trying to appear more... normal? idk, theres probably somrthing to think about in that.

Honestly idk, theres no real end point to this, I just wanted to talk about this somewhere. As much as I never saw myself being in this position, I use r/196, play ULTRAKILL, and Study Computer Science and want to continue it as a career path, cmon, it was only ever a matter of time, this was inevitable.

#196 #personal logs

[chumby4life]

Much-belated Xmas/New Year's Chronicle

Very late and very happy New Year to all :). I never actually use this blog for, well, actually blogging, so I thought why not. I can't be bothered to make a separate one, or just keep a diary for that matter, so this is what you get.

Christmas was pretty good. I spent the actual day of it working, but eh what you can do. I listen to other people's woes for a living, and I was completely expecting all of my conversations to be from people who were sad about the holidays. Suicide rates are highest that time of year, after all. Surprisingly, I saw none of that. It was just the usual problems you hear about - relationship/academic/financial struggles mostly. I guess maybe I was projecting my own dissatisfaction with the holidays onto my job haha.

Saw my mom and sisters afterward, I was happy to finally make enough money to get them nice gifts. Though seeing family always makes me a bit uncomfortable. I think my favorite gift this year was the Beerus S.H. Figuarts from my friend :)

For new year's I visited my college town to see my friends for the first time in a while. Being a homebody with a remote job, I usually am just dressed like crap, so it was a nice opportunity to dress up. My hair is severely unmanageable, so allow me some pride and vanity in showing it off.

You should see it in its natural state...Actually, you shouldn't lol. Ignore my flushed complexion - these were taken after a few drinks. I was very happy to see one friend in particular - we'll call her Birdie - she lets me crash on her couch every time I come to visit since graduating. Though I'd much rather sleep in her bed... Unfortunately, I'm too much of a coward to do anything about that. And I feel like I'm deluding myself whenever I get the sense that she feels the same way.

Anyway, it was fun to resume our little traditions. We saw a movie. We went to a bar we both like, I bought her drinks like the Supreme Gentleman I am. We got shots of a particular brand of whiskey like always - it tastes awful but it's just what we do, idk. Oh, my other favorite gift was this necklace she made for me:

ARGHH just look at that attention to detail! It's based off of Sonic - the blue, the little charms she said were supposed to be like Chaos Emeralds. So cute. And the way it can be worn multiple ways!! It's things like this that make me think maybe she reciprocates my feelings (even though she makes jewelry for our other friends as well). She's also kept a few really stupid things I did over time, things I didn't expect she would keep. One time in 2022 I drew a big tittied Sonic on my class notes - it was especially humorous given the subject matter of the notes. And the dumb shit I drew on her whiteboard she has yet to erase - the terrifying Wario and the Big Green Dub version of Turles (quoting the Big Green Dub was an inside joke in our friend group for a while).

Like, one has to wonder, why keep these things? Do you like me or something?? Are you gay, huh? I wish. I don't even have a clue if Birdie is anything at all - I wouldn't be surprised if she were ace or something given she never talks about it, and has never had a significant other, as far as I know.

The day of New Year's Eve, we went out with some other friends/acquaintances. Unfortunately there isn't much for students to do in Athens besides go out to drink. It's just weird reuniting with people from an earlier phase of your life, people who are the same as ever. Catching up, I listened to them talk about their bands, the shows they went to recently, their finals, etc. Things I would've been concerned with a year ago. Now all I do is work. I was touched at how they congratulated me when I told them what I was up to. "Abby and her big girl job", as they said. It's just kind of bittersweet, you know? I'm just a visitor amongst them now.

I fantasized about using the strike of midnight to my advantage with Birdie. About telling her how I felt, or maybe kissing her, idk. But in reality, it took me a certain amount of alcohol to work up the courage to even hug her. I'm such a coward. Anyway, I am definitely not built for college bars anymore, lol. They're always so packed and loud - not to mention my tolerance isn't what it was.

So yeah, that was my holiday time ramble. I know no one read it, but hey it's kind of fun to use your blog as an actual blog! Maybe this is something I'll do every couple months, idk. Though I don't usually have a lot going on tbh.

#blog post #actually blogging??? #gay stuff

[hawkinsp0st]

Hope you are having a great day!! Remember to drink some water today !! Do you have some any Enby Mike headcannons? (Maybe also if you headcannon Will as trans too then some T4T headcannons of the two. no pressure tho if you don't)

omg thank you friend, i am going to start drinking water right now and take my meds as i haven’t yet ! <3

i hope you’re having a great day as well! 😌💛

omg t4t byler headcanons/thoughts YES………..

ok so this is trans will byers dating unlabeled (but def not cis or straight) mike wheeler:

• so will byers is such a good example of healthy masculinity (like think abt him being such a good brother to el!!! “we’ll fix it together” etc) and mike adores this about him……..so when will discloses that he’s trans, mike’s not even phased, he just stares at will like yeah and? ur still the cutest sweetest boy in the world, always have been? ur so handsome and resilient and and and

• in addition to the butterflies he gets as the boy of his dreams is confessing his feelings to him, will feels so euphoric about his gender when mike reveals his feelings and says “i think i like boys… well. especially a particular boy. you.”

• one day mike asks will “how did you know you were… different?” “oh, when i realized i was gay? that’s easy—“ “um, actually. when did you. like. realize you are a boy? only if you’re comfortable talking about it, obviously.”

will blinks, not expecting the question, but wanting to answer—he always enjoys talking about this with mike, who makes him feel warm and affirmed.

“well, i think i always knew… but not everyone is like me. sometimes people realize later in life. it all depends.” “what does it depend on?” “hmm… lots of factors. like, maybe someone didn’t even realize being… different was an option, but then they find out about the concept, and it clicks. i read a book about a guy who was like that—lived as a woman until he was 35 and then woke up one day and went ‘shit, i’ve been a guy this whole time.’”

mike still looks a little nervous, so will gently continues, wanting his boyfriend to know he’s right here and not going anywhere. “do you… know someone who’s feeling this way? who needs someone to talk to?”

mike takes a deep breath—it’s so easy to open up to will. “i think… well, i’ve been thinking a lot, and i’ve always known i’m not a girl.”

will can’t help but let out a little giggle at mike’s willingness to jump right into the topic and his assertion that he’s most certainly not a lady, and mike laughs back. “yeah, same,” will smiles fondly.

“but… sometimes i don’t… totally feel like a boy, either?”

oh, will thinks, that’s neat. he’d read about people who felt that way, but didn’t know much. “that’s really cool, mike.”

“it is?”

“yeah, totally. lots of people feel that way.”

“they do?” mike’s shoulders drop in relief as he looks at will.

“yeah, i mean, i haven’t met anyone like that before—till now? but it totally makes sense. like, how can we expect everyone on the planet to fit into one of two categories?”

mike smiles softly. “yeah. yeah, you’re so right.”

• it gets brought up again a few days later, during a movie date in mike’s basement. in the film they’re watching, someone is putting on eyeliner. mike pauses the movie and just points at the screen, shouting, “that’s it! i just remembered!”

will giggles. “what’s it?”

“eddie—before he passed. he would bring around this friend sometimes, crystal? and she was like… well, i don’t know if i should even say ‘she’... or ‘he’? but crystal was so cool, always had like—blue eyeliner on—gosh, i loved that so much. i’d never seen someone who looks like that before—“

will watches in awe as mike rambles. he could watch his boyfriend go on about any topic for hours, but seeing mike’s eyes light up with self-acceptance and discovery makes this an especially happy moment.

“—and i don’t mean that in a weird way! like, i wasn’t attracted to crystal or anything. i just mean—“

will cuts him off with a kiss, smiling into it. “mike, it’s okay. tell me all about her.”

mike looks like he can’t believe he’s got permission to go on, but of course he does, because it’s will, and will never fails to take all the messy parts of him and arrange them into something pretty. mike’s smile is bright.

“when i saw crystal, that was the first time i felt this, like, consciously. about… maybe not being a boy. or a girl. or anything.” he’s talking fast with his hands. “and then i came to california and saw you, and i thought, ‘wow, i have a girlfriend but wow, boys are beautiful—i mean, this boy is beautiful,’ and i started to think that maybe i don’t want words for who i am. i don’t know. is that weird?”

mike’s eyes are starting to water, and will feels himself get choked up, too. the joy of the moment and how absolutely stunning mike looks when he’s this happy and comfortable makes will forget to respond.

“it’s not that—i mean, it’s great to have words!” mike rushes, thinking maybe he’s offended will by mistake. “like, you’re a guy and that’s so true! i’m not against… labels, i just think—“

will places a hand on mike’s face. “no, i get it. i totally get it. and no matter what you call yourself—or don’t—i love you. i really, really love you.” mike just blinks. “this isn’t going to change anything. i promise.”

mike immediately turns to fully face will & pulls him close. “i love you too, will.” in between kisses, mike murmurs, “i’m just happy i realized i like boys.” will laughs, about to tackle this ridiculous person he calls the love of his life.

• they talk for hours about mike’s labels and lack thereof, and settle on “boyfriend” and “mike” because, in mike’s words, “i definitely want everyone to know i’m your boyfriend. and i’m definitely, ya know. mike.” mike wiggles his eyebrows and nudges will gently in the ribs.

will rolls his eyes and pinches mike in the side. “yeah, asshole, evidently that’s never going to change.” and suddenly here will byers was, at 16, with the love he never thought he’d get to have.

so yeah in conclusion trans will byers and unlabeled mike wheeler are so in love :-)

#oops this is long! #they/he mike wheeler #putting that in my tag even tho i use he/him for him in this :-) #i wanted to keep it set in the 80s so i felt like mike hadn’t thought about pronouns at this stage of the game #byler #trans will byers #nonbinary mike wheeler #unlabeled mike wheeler my beloved <33333

[aroaceconfessions]

A few weeks ago, the realisation that I might be not just grayace, but also somewhere on the aro-spectrum, hit me very very hard.. I always was so 'happy' about not also being aro. The thought of not being really interested in romantic stuff seemed so lonely and empty to me (even though I KNOW that's not the case and there is so much more than romantic relationships). But for me, I always wanted 'that' deep, loving connection with someone and I couldn't imagen living without it. But for the longest time, everytime someone showed the slightest interested in me, even if I was interested too, it scared the shit out of me and all the romantic attraction was gone. I was just super super scared and repulsed all of a sudden. I tried to date anyway, since.. that's what I wanted, right?.. I thought it was just because I'm so insecure about myself. The breakups always came very fast though and even though I was quite relieved, I also felt heartbroken. I liked the people I dated, so why wasn't I happy? Why did I destroy something that could've been amazing? A few years ago, I met my current bf. It was totally different with him for many reasons.. long story short, he didn't scare the shit out of me, feelings started to grow and stayed, so I'm in a relationship I feel mostly great with now. But I keep having so confusing phases.. Phases where I wanna be all lovey-dovey, where it feels like my feelings for him are overflowing. Where I'm so happy and I can't imagen a life without him. And then, all of a sudden, it's gone..? I still LIKE him, I still want him in my life and all, but.. I don't 'feel' the 'this is my partner love' anymore? Being romantic in any way also feels super weird in these phases. It's like.. yeah, I kinda love you, but let's be more like buddys for now? I thought about breaking up alot, because.. that's so mean of me? If I don't love him that way, I shouldn't keep him in this relationship, right..? I thought maybe we are just not meant to be. We both have our problems and are not always super harmonically, so maybe that's why...? And then.. wosh.. my feelings are back and I'm like WTF?!... I suspected for a long time the phases are connected to my depressions, but I keept my eyes on it and they are not.. That's when the realisation hit me.. could it be that I'm aro-flux or something?.. I also don't know if I should talk about it with him.. He knows I'm ace and he was / is very understanding, even though it's a total different world for him. So I'm a bit scared he might take this the wrong way. Telling someone 'I just wanted to let you know, sometimes I don't love you anymore, but I guess I'm just some kind of aro, so it's cool' could hurt them alot, I imagen.. ? But not telling them feels like I'm hiding something important about me and since it also concerns him, shouldn't he know and have the chance to say that this is maybe not what he wants?.. I'm so confused...

#greysexual #graysexual #greyasexual #grayasexual #grey-asexual #gray-asexual #aspec #aro #aromantic #arospec #questioning #dating #relationships #internalize arophobia

[coming-of-age-witch]

school bus rides :

i've practically grown with bus rides to-and fro- home and school. it feels so homely now, as i see myself going from the front seats to the last ones to next year taking over the back seat (peak level seats resevred for seniors). i feel so many things as i try to acknowledge my cluster of galactic emotions towards bus rides and note down possibly each one of them.

over the years i get so attached to inanimate object. i already have started imagine how this time, next year, will be the last few days i'll board my school bus until the day finally comes when i don't. school bus rides have seeped into such a formative core memory, the realization that all these bling and banter of the bus rides is auspicious hit me only this year, i want to cherish every moment of it.

i've been going in bus since 2nd grade and now i'm in 9th, next year will be the final year. i've seen bus drivers change, seniors come and go, weird set of people who were too old for me to relate too then, kiddish fights and oh so much talking with my bestfriend. the guy who's subjective interests intertwined with mine and we talked everything about history politics philosophy conspirancies only for him to change his house, and hence bus routes a month ago. the seniors i met this year we're the best and just so friendly that i ended up getting a crush on one of them, but they'll leave in a week. i dont know if i'll see them again, i wonder if they'll ever randomly visit the bus next year while i'm still there and tell i've grown up?

i went from being the youngest and looking up and fearing the seniors to being one of the seniors in the bus. i went from being the only person of my batch initially to having now 6 more people in my year in the bus. i've met so many people who i never heard of later, and some that i already forgot. i'm at the age which 7yr old me used to see as so grown up, but i'm not grown up at all. i look at the people a grade younger than me and think if they'll miss our presence because i can already see the bus rides being hollow without the group of seven 12th graders cracking up at the backseats. oh also i went from sitting in the front seat and sleeping to sitting in the third-seat-from-the-last and sleeping. the 2nd seat from the front was my favourite as a middle schooler and i commanded it to be only mine, and now i see those 4th-5th graders doing their hooligan shit there. makes me feel awfully old. 8 total years in the bus and i honour it to be a very memorable part for me, i cried upon my marks, i literally eat my tiffin only in the bus. i went from being the last person to be dropped off to the 3rd last.

little things but so crucially important to be, they lace the fabric of memory that i'll carry behind.

as the thought that next year this time i would be counting my days left in the bus seeps in, i really don't know how to feel. a part of me is happy to see the journey closing, a beautiful ending to a recollection of things i'll definately tell as my school experiences. it would truly seal the fact that i've grown up to reaching peak years of teenage, at the doorsteps of an important & integral phase of my life. i fail to truly verbally justify the essence of the emotion but it will be like a curtain closing and i'll feel relieved, i'll look back , think how amazing those days were, and then i'll move on.

but a part of me remains wishing to really set the moment still, to get a extension of time with all the people currently in my bus especially those i spent so many giggles and laughers with, writing this, as i rewind myself in the strings of memories , i sure want to keep myself in this spiralling tour, like a glitch in the matrix where i witness back and forth all the moments that i've seen throughout the years, to see the pieces that come together to form the big picture, i want to live the bus ride, the homely feeling that it now gives me. the feeling i want to treasure. as the bus passes through the water unit, the playgrounds, the highway, the railway colony, all these places that i pass regularly on my way to school, everything seems to cinematic in the bus. i remember taking an unfiltered picture in the bus of simply the window and its outside and my eyes really witnessed a sense of "years pass by" in that damn video, so many shops pass by in such a short span of 1:05secs, that video also encapsulates all the people talking their people talks and the cars honking their honks, the people in the streets doing the people walk, roadside vendors vendoring, so many things in such a little time capsule. i want to capsulate myself in these feelings, like the everpassing sound of the 8th grader guy talking like we're batchmates, the seniors friendly teasing dadas beating each other , the didis crying out of laughter, the little 5th graders' pre-puberty voices and lame ass jokes the just-knowing-things humor of the 7th grader the little 2nd grader sleeping fully flat just like i used to do only seven years ago.

its truly mesmerizing, for a moment i want to just feel it continuously happening, before the seniors leave, before the study stress hit again, before its already exams and before i reach my last year.

i guess the second feeling comes only once in awhile and i feel happy after i go through the overwhelming emotions. auspicious.

i have a solution to this craving of multitude of memories. the desire to keep a strong imprinted memory of this golden hour silver lined bus memory really makes me feel so many things, letting go and to be let gone of. i've decided that from the next day onwards i'll simply lay in bus seat, my bag facing the handle and me leaning on it. while i face the window and in a lousy position i look at him, simply watching shops petrolpumps people car bridges pass by, while all the talks of everyone around me silently turn into a unanimous melody. i'll envelope this feeling and send it to my deepest pockets and keep it in a glassjar with visual memories of the best time in the bus with the best people i've met, the extremely fun seniors and the kiddish juniors.

it also reminds me of a kid who was junior to me while i was a middle schooler, i used to take toffess from him, we used to have bhujia trading, he's 2 grades younger and well i dont remember much other than all those bhujia business. but i also remember getting angry at him for he was being selfish to maybe me or another kid, he was only trying to have his own bhujia to himself i guess. but then he left the bus, one might think he dislikes me, so did i. but year or two ago we walk by each other, when he was in 5th and me in 7th and we just talk about whereabouts and since then everytime we meet we wave, he greets me, we don;t go in the same bus anymore but we meet here and there now and then and its just smiles and greetings but i can't believe that its been years. he's in 7th now and i'm in 9th. he's grown up, i can then say i've grown up too. and its just too illusionic to see people growing up and meeting them after a certain time gap from usually meeting to random interaction, i feel overwhelmed seeing him thinking about the glory days as a pre-teen. i'll surely hug him, he's a little brotherlike to me. i just saw him 2 days before, he's in the school band for the annual school function and we passed by with him playing guitar, definately time passed.

i can't possibly help but note that i can't bring myself to read things i write with plethora of emotions and unfiltered memories, raw and genuine and just so personal, unless i really do feel the same emotions i felt while writing the emotionally heavy text. the same goes for here, i think the next perfect time to read this mamoth sized note will surely be when i do reach that time of the next year counting on my precious final days :)

#very lengthy piece of stuff that i clearly wrote out of overflowing writing pace and emotions in my fingers. #bus rides #just that #nostalgia #nostalgia core #nostalgia aesthetic #nostaligiacore #childhood #nostalgia trip #memories #best times #record #periodt #no tissues used tho #i believe #whatever happens happens for good #vent #random #desi tumblr #desi shit posting #desi girl #desi teen #desi things #desiblr #academicism #dark academia #indian academia #academia #chaotic academia #my writing

[pleasedontsavemeiwouldratherdie]

Nonzenseeee stuff 24

Happy Sunday! Sunday was a fantastic day for me. My best friend since elementary came home from Zambales today, and we played some computer games and celebrated his father's birthday. It was crazy, it was fun. I wonder what it feels like to come home again after a lot of years of being away. I think it is a super nostalgic feeling. I know it sounds weird, but I want to go away for some time too, and then go home. I want to experience that nostalgic feeling of coming home. I think it will be magical hahahaha

nuts I've been thinking of moving my photography stuff to another blog so that I can keep it in order. and to make way for me to post a lot of nonsense stuff here, without worrying that my photography stuff being buried. nuts I always like to talk about nonsense almost every day because This nonsense post series is the only way I know of expressing thoughts that keep swirling around in this big old brain of mine. I really like the idea of putting these thoughts in a notebook, but my handwriting is so bad I can't even read it hahahaha

When I think about moving my photography stuff laziness always takes over because it will take me a lot of time to be able to move or post it on a new blog. Hopefully in November, December, or maybe next year I will have the big motivation to do a new nlog. This blog will always be my home and the new one will be my storage unit of photography stuff hahahahah

I've been in my count Dracula phase for the past few days, too lazy to go out because I find it kind of boring to go bike around the same road alone over and over again, and there are a lot of roads and places in our municipality that I really want to explore, but the problem is, I don't have anyone to go with me, not because I'm afraid, but because I really need some help.  those places are far away from our house and I'm afraid that something terrible might happen and I don't have someone to help me nuts I think I'm definitely afraid hahaha yeah I'm afraid hahahah ewan abnoy. "Hey, why don't you go to some nice and safe places like parks, museums, and art exhibits?" The truth is, I don't have any money. Because I invested all of my money in Lazada, I believe in financial freedom hahahahaha Nah I'm just kidding. I'm just a person who buys all the things I need when I have money. To be honest, I didn't spend a single penny on some of my basic needs, like clothes. A lot of my clothes came from my titos and ukay ukay that my father always bought hahaha kung lagi nila akong binibigyan bat pa ako magsasayang ng pera bumili divaugh hahahah I don't really consider myself a stylish person; I'm just the one who wears whatever I get in my closet hahaha. My parents are always lecturing me on what to wear because, in their eyes, I always look shit even though I look like David Bowie on crack hahaha The most stylish person in the room is my father. That's why he always knows what is going to look great in some people's eyes. And yeah,  he came from the 70s, and in his teenage life he grew up in Manila. What am I going to expect hahahah even though they keep lecturing me, I always end up wearing the outfit I always say to them that I'm not trying to look nice in people's eyes, I just want to look great on myself hahahaha

Anyhoo, that masonic lodge is kind of weird and it always caught my attention. I'm familiar with masonic and !llum!nat!  stuff Because back then, I really liked to read a lot of conspiracy theories. That sign means that somewhere in that town, people are gathering to talk and do some stuff. That Masonic lodge was in Calumpit. "Hey, they are just a group of wealthy people that really like to gather in some town and talk about some stuff. There is nothing wrong with that" and that is the reason why I always wonder what they are doing and what they are talking about. I used to imagine it was some kind of eyes wide shut Kubrick type of stuff or some bohemian groove type of stuff. I don't really know i don't really like to know. if you have some thoughts about that lodge. Say it to me before I go missing because of this post hahahaha

[lovemesomesurveys]

Do you want the last dream you had to come true? I don’t recall my last dream, but I’m gonna say no cause my dreams tend to be really weird and random. 

When did you last talk to the person you'd most wanna talk to right now? There isn’t anyone I really want to talk to right now. 

What kind of pill did you last take? My sleeping pill. 

Do you like wearing glasses? I actually do. I feel super weird without them. I think I kinda hide behind my glasses so there’s that, but yeah I have no desire to get contacts or like laser surgery. 

Does your mom know the last person you hung out with? Yes, she knows herself. 

What were you doing 4 hours ago? I was watching Yellowjackets with my mom and bro. I know, I know I’m super late to that show but naturally and no to surprise to no one I’m obsessed already and I’m only on the 4th episode. I was in episode 1. 

What would you most like to eat right now? I’m looking forward to the Taco Bell I’ll be eating pretty soon.

How long were you last in the car for? Uhh like 5 minutes, if even that. 

What is something good that happened last weekend? My aunt came to visit me for a few days and we had fun as always.

Do you like holding hands or do you think it's stupid? I think it’s cute. It’s also not so black and white, like there’s other options you could throw in there. 

The last song you heard, what does it make you think of? I forget what song I last listened to.

How'd you get your last injury? Health related issues. 

What do you like about your birthday? I don’t get as into it like I used to, like I used to get so excited when I was younger. My birthday is just whatever. It’s nice if I’m able to go somewhere, like a little vacay getaway, though. 

Do you like being home alone at night? No.

What first comes to mind when thinking of 10th grade? That was the year I started my emo phase. 

What's the scariest thing that's happened to you? Uhhh.

Has an ambulance ever came to your house? Yes.

The person you're thinking about- what are you thinking about them? I’m not really thinking about anybody.

When did you last skip class? *shrug* I’ve been outta school since 2015. 

Do you like the shape of your fingernails? Ha, what nails?

Did you look at your fingernails for the question above? No. I already knew I barely had any nails to check. 

Whose pool did you last swim in? It was my friend’s boyfriend’s (at the time) community pool. That was a decade ago. 

What's something you like about your 3rd hour? --

Is formspring a good idea? I had one back in the day and it was interesting, but no one ever sent me questions, ha. I just answered the ones you could choose from that were asked by like a bot or something. There was some celebrity tea being spilled on some formsprings, which at the time I ate right up. 

What's your biggest problem at the moment? Meh.

What's the cutest thing someone's ever done for you? Hmm. I’m not sure what I’d say was “the” cutest. 

When did you last see a police car? *shrug*

Why aren't you doing something more productive than this? I have nothing else I need to be doing, let me be.

How many people know about the last person you kissed? A few.

How many different cars have you driven? I’ve never driven a car. 

What did you do on Thursday? I had a doctor appointment in the morning and then just chilled and napped. 

What color was the last thing you drank? Light brown coffee with some cream color. 

What do you do on Fridays? Same shit I do everyday. 

Have you ever had to take desperate measures in a desperate situation? Mhm. 

What door did you last open besides any on your house or car? I haven’t opened any doors in awhile. Kinda hard when you’re bedridden and even if I’m up in my chair I’d still need help. I don’t need to open any doors in my house, so that’a helpful. I don’t go anywhere, except for a doctor appointment, and in those cases I’m being pushed around in a gurney so I can’t open any doors. 

What is the meaning of life? To figure out what that meaning is for you.

#personal #text #survey #surveys