#sometimes I think I'm being too critical with this blog but then something like this comes along and just validates everything

[star-anise]

Everyone's got a take, and I've got a take too, about the current Internet Villain: James Somerton, a gay Youtuber who just got exposed (in the back half of a 4-hour video) as massively plagiarizing the work of LGBTQ+ media critics, historians, and memoirists, and then exposed in another 2-hour video as just making up the wildest nonsense about the topics he demonstrably had access to accurate information on.

He achieved a six-figure income on his work by squeezing money out of his audience with claims...

That only he was creating content that preserved queer history and elevated the voices and experiences of the LGBTQ+ community (a lie)

He was in serious financial distress and would have to go out of business if people didn't give him tons of money (a lie)

That he was going to use some of that cash to make definitely good and not-at-all-plagiarized independent movies, a thing he was definitely skilled and experienced enough to do (a lie), and

That those plagiarism allegations were incorrect,, and frankly,,,, hurtful and homophobic. (a GIANT lie)

Like, here's a visualization of the script of one of his videos, "Society and Queer Horror". The highlighted bits were lifted nearly verbatim from the works of others—the 18 authors identified at the time the exposé was posted—and presented as Somerton's own work.

So here's what drives me absolutely up the wall about this:

If he had just ADMITTED that it was the work of other people, THAT WOULD STILL BE COOL. If he had just said, up front, "We are going on a survey of thoughts and insights people have had about this topic", that would still be a good video with a real audience!

Like yes, he studied business in university, he might not have gotten the kinds of research skills and knowledge someone like Kaz Rowe uses to not just report on the history and analysis of others, but evaluate their relative validity and trustworthiness.

But honestly, since watching my niblings (oldest is 13) watch Youtube, I think you honestly can't underestimate the number of viewers who are really hungry for someone saying, "I don't understand this topic! Let's explore it together!"

But NOOOOOOO, Somerton didn't want to be just some schmuck waxing enthusiastic about homoeroticism on film and acknowledging the smartness of other people. He wanted to be HIM, MR. SMARTYBOY, very sophisticated and alluring and thoughtful and deep. Definitely an intellectual heavyweight who just happened to spout off his own personal ideas and analysis that put him at the forefront of all the scholarship on the topic he's come across.

I hate being wrong. Hate being wrong. But blogging for most of my life has forced me to confront constant textual evidence that two or ten or twenty years ago, I said some dumb-ass shit. Honestly, it'd probably keep me up at night sometimes even if I didn't have a written record. I absolutely understand the desire to scan the field, find the coolest people around, and quickly clothe yourself in as perfect an imitation of them as you can manage.

But if you want to be an artist or a scholar who produces something lasting, you can't prioritize coolness over truth all the time. To develop your true, independent voice, you need to find a time and place where it is just you and just the work you're doing, and you have pick up your tools and say, I don't know if I'm doing this right, but this is what feels right to me.

There are a lot of things in life to which we can only truly contribute our presence and our perspectives. Things we can only witness or hold space for. We cannot go back and bleed the pain out of history, or erase the complexity of another person's life. Not honestly, at least.

But those are the times that need our presence, our perspectives, our witness, and our space. When we gather round and tell sad tales about the death of kings, honesty can be the only thing you give that's worth a damn in the large scale of things.

If this dude had owned up to the truth and honestly showed the work of trying to piece together a queer understanding of the world, trying to draw the threads of culture together until he found a place he fit inside them, it would have been so much more valuable to our culture as a whole.

He probably made more money this way, though. While it lasted.

#staranise original #james somerton #plagiarism #lgbt discourse

[kindnessoverperfection]

I want to break down a common point of conflict when addressing NPD stigma.

A lot of hangups people have tend to be along the lines of "but I DO see a lot of people with actual NPD who are acting in toxic or abusive ways".

This will be kind of long, so bear with me.

Point #1: People are way more likely to be diagnosed if they exhibit "stereotypical" symptoms.

There's this image of NPD as a disorder that is only present in those with patterns of destructive behavior towards others. Many therapists have this conception. (Shockingly, the mental health field is not perfect & without stigma.)

Gonna copy-paste this here from my other blog (so forgive me if you've seen it before), because it's a good example.

Three people are criticized at work. Their boss yells at them for their performance in front of everyone. Person A gets mad and defensive. They yell back, using cutting remarks as a way to try and ease the distress they feel. Person B acts really mature and responsible the whole time, nodding along and agreeing and promising to do better, just desperate to maintain and improve their status. Desperate to be liked. Later they go home and handle their distress through self-destructive means, and spend the next few months overworking themself to the point of illness. Person C doesn't seem to respond much at all. They go quiet and seem distant. They don't lash out or lash in, but for the next month or so, their productivity drops. They simply aren't able to focus on work or self-care, no matter how hard they try. The stress is overwhelming. All three of these people have the same root issues, but only the first would be labeled a narcissist. Outwards behaviors and presentations don't reflect the pain, distress, and difficulties with life that are underlying them.

So, three main things happen.

There ends up being a higher rate of people with destructive behaviors who are diagnosed with NPD

The people who don't particularly exhibit behaviors and are considered ""too nice to have it"" are overlooked entirely (and never get any sort of help for their underlying issues, yayyy)

People are more likely to be more honest about "ugly" symptoms / symptoms that are frowned down upon than they are in other mental health communities.

(Also some people decide to act super edgy about it, which is annoying but here we are. Some of them are trolls.)

(And while I'm at it, some people are misdiagnosed with NPD because a psych sees someone who committed a violent crime and is like "uhh slap them with the Evil Asshole™ disorders!! no further thought given.")

Point #2: People who have messed up are not inhuman monsters who deserve no help or support

While I do think it's important for people to understand that patterns of toxic behaviors aren't the ONLY way NPD can present, I'm not going to let the conversation stop at "some of us are nice though!!"

Human beings aren't RPG characters who can be sorted into "monster" or "ally". Every single person has done something hurtful, has messed up, exhibits some sort of behavior that puts strain on their relationships sometimes.

So I'll bullet point some aspects of this that need to be talked about.

People without NPD also commonly exhibit toxic behaviors, but people ignore that nowadays. Either they armchair diagnose anyone who's slightly rude, or they only focus on it in pwNPD and ignore it in themselves or others. NTs can be jerks too, and they're probably less likely to acknowledge it than pwNPD who are constantly watching and checking themselves and analyzing their behaviors and attempting to do better.

Assuming that NPD makes someone abusive doesn't help anyone. Can it impact behaviors, and make it more difficult for people to be self-aware? Of course. But an important step in healing from any mental health condition (especially personality disorders, ime) is realizing that you're not inherently ""bad"", and that you can take responsibility for your actions and learn to deal with things in constructive ways. Just going "NPD makes people bad, full stop"- other than being a mean shitty thing to say- absolves people of guilt and asserts that there's no reason for them to try and improve.

Yes, it's okay for people to hate their abusers. Their abuser. Not an entire community of people who happen to (maybe) share a trait with them.

Building on the above point, people tend to go in defense mode when they hear things like "pwNPD who have acted in toxic ways can learn to improve their behavior", "people shouldn't be saying awful things about folks with this condition", etc. because they automatically try to apply this to their abuser. Interpersonal situations are very different from society-wide mental health access. No, don't stay with your abuser expecting them to change, and don't hold onto the hope that they will. No, don't censor yourself or your hatred or anger towards them. Just don't make blanket statements about a disorder that they may or may not have- blame their abusive actions, not their mental health.

"I hate you for your abusive actions and the harm that you caused me." =/= "I hate a group of people because of an inherent unchangeable part of them that's tied directly to severe childhood trauma they suffered. Because of it, they're evil and unlovable and are incapable of change. They're inhuman and will never experience real connection with others." ..........See the difference??

Even if there were a disorder with a 100% rate of toxic douchey behaviors, I'd want the conversation around it to be changed. I'd want different words to be used to divide up the spaces and conversations and resources, so that survivors of abusive or toxic behavior can get help, but that the disorder still has space to be treated. Otherwise, there are zero resources for healing. Nothing is being done to help these people or solve the issue. They're just told they may as well not try. They're blocked from healthcare entirely, despite how the entire point of being diagnosed with a condition is supposed to be to treat it.

There's a wide range of people who have NPD- it presents in many different ways, a person who has it may or may not exhibit harmful behaviors- but no one deserves to be denied treatment or told they're unlovable because of a condition they have that was formed from trauma.

Speak out against abusive behavior. Don't destroy healthcare for a medical condition.

#actuallynpd #npd stigma #narcissistic personality disorder

[fromforeigntofamiliarity]

Daddy Issues | Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw | Part II

Summary: Part One

Warning: None

Request: Yes! I’m so happy you guys liked it.

Taglist 🏷: @thescarletknight2014 @another-tblr-fangirl @khaylin27 @flareish @sexualparkour @secretsicanthideanymore @clockworkballerina @callsigndiamond @emilyniamh3679-blog @shanimallina87 @adaydreamaway08 @reader8679 @pinksweetssheep @kkrenae @lucky-lexie99 @sarahjoestewy-blog @happyfern2 @hotch-meeeeeuppppp @wannabewolf @justanothermagicalsara @tomhollandfan2 @thea9900-blog @xoxabs88xox @ebonyhogan24 @speedypeter @spicycrab69 @icecreamgal1 @muushwrites @katiebby04 @lonelywitchv2 @kdoll-7

Y/N stood in the back patio of The Hard Deck watching the moon's reflection ripple off the water soaking the sand, the muffled sound of music and laugher grew louder before being cut off again notifying her that someone had joined her outside.

"I have got to say lieutenant I never pegged you as someone who couldn't take criticism." Maverick's voice filled the silence causing Y/N to whip around. 

"Sir?" She asked confused.

"The training exercise." He reminded holding out a bottle of beer towards her. 

"Oh no sir." Y/N denied with a slight laugh. "Trust me I've taken criticisms all my life."

the two stood there in a comfortable silence for a while listening to the sound of the waves and crickets. Y/N couldn't help but think that this moment could have been one of many shared between them if her mother hadn't stolen that chance from them, she wondered if it would feel as special as it did right now if it was the fiftieth time instead of the first...She liked to think it would.

"If you don't mind I'd like to ask you a somewhat personal question." Maverick once again breaking the silence, continuing after receiving a nod. "You and Rooster...."

"Me and Rooster...." Y/N repeated laughed. "More like you and Rooster." She replied referring to the stand off they had during training that almost lead to both their deaths. 

"Yeah. it's just I saw you guys in there the other night and it seemed like there was something there." He explained. "Look I know it isn't my business but Rooster means a lot to me and I just want to make sure that when I put this team together they are gonna be able to work as a team."

He cares about Rooster? There was obviously some kind of history there, which made Y/N wonder how they could both care for someone yet they never crossed paths. Normally she wouldn't have answered but she convinced herself that Maverick was right, if they were going to work as a team they couldn't let things like this fester, though maybe she just wanted him to know her better, no matter how bad of a light it would paint her in she wanted to him to know who she was. 

"Rooster and I were....Involved a few years back, stationed in the same place, and I hurt him...no matter how much I want to pretend I didn't." She revealed being met with a confused look. "We were pretty serious and one day I put a request...and I left him...he didn't know until I was already gone." 

"Ouch."

"Yeah I'm not proud of it." Y/N hung her head when she remembers her actions. "I was too caught up in the past to let myself be happy with what I had in the present." 

"Trust me kid I know exactly what you mean." Maverick sympathized. "Sometime ghosts from the past catch up faster than you think."

"More like I was trying to catch up with them."

"Well now I'm intrigued..." Maverick joked looked expectedly at her wanting to know more. 

"When my mother found out she was pregnant with me...she decided not to tell my father and she left. When I was fourteen I found some of his stuff and I've been looking for him ever since." She told the story trying her hardest to hold back tears realizing this was probably the closest she would ever bring herself to telling him the truth. "I found a picture of him and my mom, I carry it everywhere. When I was with Rooster it was like nothing else mattered I would go days, weeks without thinking about him, but one day...I saw that picture again and something in me just snapped back. I remembered the reason I had done all of this."

"All this?"

"He's Naval Aviator Pilot, he was the reason I first wanted to join. When my mom found out I joined up she disowned me, hasn't spoken to me since, I had already come too far, lost too much to give up...so I left." As Y/N told the story her eyes practically begged Maverick to put the pieces together. He was a Naval Pilot, does he not remember her mother? they seemed so in love but looks can be deceiving. "Not I think about how much I've lost because I refuse to give up on a guy who could potentially want nothing to do with me."

"Hey I've known you for less than 72 hours and I know that, that guy would be an idiot to not want to know you."

"Do you have any children, sir?" 

"No," Maverick answered. Y/N didn't know if she should be relieved or disappointed, she had always wanted siblings. "Rooster is the closest thing I've ever had to a son."

"Did you ever wanted them?" She asked gripping the the railing of the patio as she waited anxiously for his answer.

Before he had the chance the sound of music and loud chatter broke through. "Well Darwin. If I didn't know any better I'd say you were brown nosing." Hangman said strutting outside with the rest of the Top Gun class following. 

"Good thing you know better." 

"Darwin and I were just bonding over being some of the few Top Gun student to shoot down a instructor." Maverick lied causing Y/N to throw her head back in laughter. 

"That's not how I hear it sir." She smiled when his eyes widened in shock. 

"And how did you hear it Darwin?" Maverick asked as the rest of the team looked on expectedly.

"You didn't get the shot until you were 3,000 ft. below the 10,000 ft. hard deck, a technical loss." Y/N stated matter of factly. 

"And where did you hear that?"

"Ice- I mean Commander Kazansky, sir" She answered. "He likes to reminisce."

"I'm sure he liked to say he and his RIO were the only ones to succeed."

"Actually sir, Commander Kazansky says you won." She corrected. "He said out in the sky there is no hard deck and kill is a kill." 

"You know the commander well?" Phoenix asked. 

"Just in passing." Y/N admits. "He'd tell a few stories give a few tips."

"Well lets hope you remember them well cause your gonna need all the help you can get for tomorrow." Maverick said raising his glass as a chores of groans sounded around the group.

*-*-*

"Time is is your greatest enemy, Phase one of the mission will be a low level ingress attacking in two plan teams. You'll fly along this narrow canyon to your target, radar guided Surface Air Missiles defend the area, these SAMs are lethal. But they were designed to protect the skies above not the canyon below. 

"That's because the enemy know no one is insane enough to try and fly below them." Rooster chimed in. 

"That's exactly what I'm gonna train you to do." Maverick replied. "One the day your altitude will be one hundred feet...maximum, you exceed the altitude radar will spot you and your dead. Your air speed will be 660 knouts...minimum. Time to target two and a half minutes, that because fifth generation fighter wait at an air base nearby and a  head to head with these in your f-18s...your dead. Which is why you need to get in and get out before they even have a chance at spotting you, this makes time your greatest adversary."   

*-*-*

"Darwin we are one minute and twenty from target." Halo informed. 

"Good have that laser re-" She started to reply only to be cut off.

"Oh shit." 

"Omaha what the fuck is going on." She asked fighting the urge to turn and look out of fear of running off course.

"I almost hit a wall." Omaha answered. "We're back on course, we need some time to catch up."

"We don't have time, increase your speed and fall back in line." Y/N replied trying to focus on making the turns. 

"We're thirty seconds ahead of schedule." Halo informed.

"And I want to stay that way. Increase your speed." 

"I can't navigate at this speed." 

"Approaching target." Y/N announced ignoring her wingman. "Dagger two behind, I'd have to drop blind." 

*-*-*

"Why are you dead?" 

"I'm not."

"But your wingman is." He corrected. "You left them behind to face bandits. why?"

"The goal was to make it to the target."

"which is pointless unless you can guarantee a direct hit, which is a hell of a lot harder without you wingman." He said. "Who you left behind to be thirty seconds ahead of schedule?" Maverick asked hands on his hips. Y/N opened her mouth to answer  only to be cut off. "Don't tell me...tell it to their families."

*-*-*

"So Kazansky, I hear you like to tell war stories." Maverick joked with his blonde friend. Letting a smile take over his face 'Iceman' started typing.

"I take it you met Darwin." He stated. "What do you think."

"She...nice" Maverick said as if looking for any good word to describe the young pilot before Iceman gave him a look. "Okay, she's confident if not a bit arrogant, she a good pilot and god does she know it but she needs to learn that it take more than just being the best."

"Remind you of anyone?" Ice replied back causing the two to share a small laugh. 

"Yeah you." Maverick answered. "I know I was the same, almost exactly."

"She reminded me a lot of you when I first met her." Ice stated. "I think you two have a lot more in common than you realize." 

Walking down the tarmac admiral Kazansky noticed a piece of paper lying face down on the ground, bending down to pick it up he was surprised to see a picture of Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell and a woman who look slightly familiar.

Looking up he sees a young woman walking around the tarmac looking franticly around until her eyes landed on him, more specify the object in his hands. Cautiously she approached the man.

"Yes?" He asked looking at her intensely.

"Excuse me sir but that belongs to me." She replied trying her best not to reach out and take it from his hands. 

"Does it?" He asked attempting to probe without outright asking.

"Yes, sir." She answered. "It's my parents." She stated as if she herself was unsure of what to call the people in the photo. 

"Are you close." He asked holding the picture out to her. "To your parents, I mean." Ice and Maverick spoke in a regular basis and never once had he mentioned having a child, which is something that would have come up. So either this girl was mistaken or Maverick himself didn't know about her, seeing as he wasn't the kind of guy to run away from responsibility.

Taking a deep breath Y/N stared down at the photo for a while before giving what Ice could see as an obviously forced smile.

"No, but this is all have." 

"What do they call you?" 

"Darwin, sir." She replied looking confused as to why he would even care. 

"Darwin, Your top of your class is I recall correctly." He noted remembering one of the admirals talking about the cocky pilot that buzzed a tower a week prior. The smirk that involuntary spread across her face did little to deter Iceman's assumption on who her father was.

"Yes sir, I am." 

"You remind me a lot of a pilot I flew with when I was a lieutenant...Maverick." 

"I believe I've heard the callsign before, I'd love to put a face to the name." 

"I'm sure you have, it's surprising there are no pictures around, he was peacock." Ice joked. "He had a thing for buzzing towers as well." 

Y/N looked like a child being scolded as she fought not to smile remembering the event that errand her a hefty scolding as well as 350 push ups on this very tarmac.

"She buzzed the tower you know." Ice informed causing Maverick to display the same smirk her had seen on Y/N when they first met. He wished he could tell Maverick the truth, wished he had told them both when he figured it out himself, but something told him that he shouldn't. "Has a habit of getting herself in trouble, almost made it hard to get her into Top Gun." 

"Guess she is a lot like me huh." Maverick agreed. Ice wondered how Maverick couldn't see it, but then again maybe if he hadn't seen the picture he wouldn't have either. "She left her wingman behind...twice." 

"She can be a bit of a lone wolf sometimes, but I know when the time comes you can depend on her." 

"I guess we'll see." Maverick replied before he looked up with huge grin on his face. "Did you know about her and Bradley?" He asked as the two started laughing at the complicated love life of their friends child. 

Ice walked Maverick to the front door after their gossiping about the two pilots and if they would work it out or not. Opening the door Maverick was a bit shocked to see Y/N walking up, while Tom expected her to have come sooner. 

"Captain Mitchell." Y/N greeted yet her gaze stated locked on the fleet commander. She had put together that there was no way that Ice didn't know and that the Maverick that everyone was talking about was Pete Mitchell, the article she read never included callsigns so this whole time listened to Iceman let her stories about her father.

"Darwin." Maverick greeted back sending a small smile to her and Tom before exiting the home.  

Opening the door wider, Ice gestured for Y/N to come inside. Walking in she waited as he closed the door and turned to look at her.

"Was it the whole time?"

He nodded. 

"Were you ever going to tell me?" 

Pulling out his phone Ice began to type out a response. 

"No."

"Why?" 

"I thought it was for the best." He replied. "Are you upset?"

"I wish that I could say I wasn't, but I am." She admitted never having the ability to lie to him about her emotions, he was one of the first person to know about her feeling for Rooster even before Rooster himself. "I understand that this is something I need to do on my own, I just wish- I don't know."

"Are you going to tell him?" 

"I don't know..."

*-*-*

"Darwin." Rooster called out to her as she walked towards the classroom. Rolling her eyes Y/N knew that he would try to corner her eventually. 

"Yes, Bradley." She asked turning around to face him. 

"Bradley." He repeated raising his brow. "Am I in trouble?"

"Not if you aren't looking for it." She replied crossing her arms over her chest. "Is there something you needed or can I go get ready for the exercise."

"I just wanna understand." 

"Understand what exactly." 

"You know what." 

"I don't have time for this." Y/N scoffed turning away wanting to focus on the mission instead of playing whatever game this was.

"You never do, do you?" He asked walking in front of her to block her path. "when ever thing don't go your way you just walk away. It must be so easy for you." 

"Oh my god Bradley, we have more important thing to worry about." She scolded as he glares down at her. "How do you ever expect to fly this mission if you keep living in the past."

"I'm living in the past?" He asked. "That's rich coming from you. You molded your whole life around a photo that was taken before you were born, of a guy who doesn't know your alive, spent your whole career being this 'lone wolf' so when anyone dares to get close you become emotionally unavailable, your incapable of considering anyone but yourself  which is probably why you abandoned you wingman in the last two exercise missions."

"Wow Rooster if this pilot thing doesn't work out you should become a shrink." Y/N replied sarcastically acting as is his words didn't effect her.

"Please it doesn't take a shrink to realize you have major daddy issues."

Y/N flinched as if his words had just slapped her in the face. "Wow, dad critique from you Rooster....That's rich." She sneered before turning on her heels and walking away.

After a short time Rooster followed behind Y/N into the classroom neither noticed Maverick witness the whole thing.

A/N: ask and you shall be tagged 🏷, if your were already asked to be tagged I’ll tag you for the rest of this series.

Part Three

#masterlist #top gun maverick #mitchell!reader #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw imagine #pete maverick mitchell #top gun imagine #tom iceman kazansky

[vasito-de-leche]

A short (or not) ramble of scenarios and questions for reverse: 1999 self aware. (sorry if this bothers you, I just don’t have enough confidence to post it on my own blog (plus I love your content))

- Okay so first of all, in the main page of the game, when you click on the upper left corner with your level and username, you go to a screen with Vertin looking fly as ever along with some user information.

So if Vertin can see the game’s ui, then she can see the year in which the player has joined the game (2023-2024). I haven’t dived deep into Vertin’s character so I can’t portray her reaction to much, but I feel like she would tell this info to someone close like Sonetto.

Also our motto: I put “When in a rush, say ‘runs in high heels cutely.’”. I’d be so embarrassed if anyone (even fictional sentient characters) saw that. Like im dead.

On that topic, when you mentioned in your Sonetto self aware post that she can sometimes see us, and honestly, I’d be even more embarrassed. Cause like, if any of the characters from games I played, were sentient and could see me, id pray they didn’t see my bad angle. Like imagine looking up to the sky to see, just for a second, the chin of a head as the hands go to scratch their nose. Like the first impressions I would make.

- P2p players. Imagine the player spending money on the game (at the risk of Vertin possibly seeing their credit card number) to help level up or get costumes for their fave characters.

(Some misc. questions)

-what would happen if player didn’t log in the game for a while (a week to a month as best) cause I would ditch some games to spend more time on others

- What does Vertin think of the mail messages that the player gets? Like the latest mail I got was the discord event invitation. Upon closer inspection and critical thinking, it would hint that there would be more players other than us because it says the winners get 60 clear drops (oh and money too)

- If I remember correctly, I think you mentioned about Vertin hearing the player sometimes. So imagine her hearing us trash talk certain character *cough* Constantine *cough*.

(Anyways, I love your content ❤️ especially your fmn headcanons, can’t wait to see more posts!!)

;R1999 - Self-Aware AU (2)

Answering some questions and discussing the Self-Aware AU. A follow up of this post.

not a bother at all, you bring up really good questions and details that are fun to explore! I'm glad you like my stuff, have a nice day o7!

On the subject of Vertin seeing the player's profile.

With the way I intended to portray Vertin within the AU, I don't think she would be affected by the date on the Player's profile!

This is the date you came into contact with her from your perspective, whatever time and space that flows within your world, not hers─the world behind the fourth barrier that she cannot see nor hear nor even fathom, let alone try to make sense of. In a way, it's like expecting ants to care about concepts we made up, such as time. They understand night and day, they do not understand 3PM nor 8AM.

Is it truly proof that time can go beyond 1999, when this is something that only she can see? When it doesn't affect a single thing within her universe by being part of a game menu meant for your eyes only? There's also the fact that she finds out the proper time of the world in the 1.4 update, in Chapter 05.

Her dynamic with the Player is something I like to keep vague, so that everyone can fill in the blanks, but ultimately it is something so complex and private for Vertin─who sees it as a one-sided relationship, since she cannot hear nor see you, unlike other arcanists who may reach the 100% bond─that I don't think she would talk about it with anyone, not even Sonetto! The name on your profile and whatever message you've written there are secrets she will take to her grave. The idea of Vertin being the eyes and hands of the Player, but having no way to truly see or hear them makes for a really fun concept to explore!

And on the subject of messages, let's be honest, if you've written something funny or some modern shitpost, chances are she won't understand it LMFAO so it's okay! I literally just have my socials and "men enjoyer" listed there.

Oh! But since you brought it up, the message section could be a fun, little way to communicate with Vertin, since she can read what's on there!

As for P2P players, Vertin wouldn't see any information from the Player's credit card since that's something that happens outside the app lolol. Like, to me, it directly opens to google play transaction stuff.

On the subject of the player dropping the game for long periods of time.

Hmm, in the first post I said that there might be characters ouside Vertin and her suitcase who may be self-aware, with their own goals and such. But nothing truly "matters" unless the Player is there to witness it. So to keep including these possibilities and details, I feel like there's two options, pick whichever you like the most!

One, time continues as usual within the game─but once it reaches an important date where the plot is meant to kick in with some important event, it simply resets back to where you left it. This is a world that exists outside of your perception, but cannot continue without you.

Two, time freezes entirely within the game─but only for those who are not self-aware. Keep in mind we're talking about long periods of time, this wouldn't happen if you log in every day, or every few days. This is what happens when your phone picks up the fact that Reverse: 1999 is one of the unused apps taking up space in your phone. This is a world that stops existing once you stop looking at it.

In both options, the Wilderness would remain unaffected as it seems to be entirely disconnected from the flow of time and space outside of it.

On the subject of the game's mail.

Since the messages auto-delete and all, I can't check but I'm pretty sure Vertin receives mail too? There were a few ones from a few characters a while back like Druvis III or An-an Lee, and I think the implication is that they were vaguely addressing Vertin?

If someone has screenshots and can confirm this, please let me know!

Either way, the easy answer is that yeah, she knows this is a game, so she could make the assumption that there's more players. She has access to your friend list, after all! And even if you don't have anyone added, the fact that it exists is enough for her to start connecting the dots.

I don't remember saying that Vertin can hear the Player, though! I think I was pretty consistent with her not being able to see nor hear you, to have the Player as some sort of eldritch, unknowable entity. But I also write so much stuff in this blog that it's hard to keep up sometimes lolol, if I've mentioned somewhere that Vertin can hear the player, it was a mistake!

#reverse 1999 #reverse: 1999 #reverse 1999 x reader #self aware au #vertin

[doodledrawsthings]

I'm sorry if this is of any inconvenience but I was wondering how do you have the courage to post your art online cause iwant to do it to someday but I just can't find the right drawing though I've tried I can't figure it out like how do you do this wonderful stuff without worrying about hate or anything?

The main advice I can really give you is just. Don’t. worry about that.

People online will be mean, sometimes. Sometimes accidentally, sometimes with an understandable criticism, sometimes just for the sake of getting a response. Take it all with a grain of salt and curate who you follow and who you see on your dash and in tags if you’re that worried about it. I think when you post your art or anything you do online, that’s just something that has a possibility of happening no matter what you do.

Also I just really think it’s unlikely that anyone’s gonna just send you anon hate because you posted some drawings, unless they’re, like, objectively offensive for the sake of being offensive, or something.

Just try not to take social media too seriously, IMO. When I started posting here I posted grainy iPhone camera doodles of Transistor fan art from my school notebook cuz I liked the game and wanted to see if other people liked it, too. I wanted a place to put the things I drew and a place where I could track my progress as I posted my art over the years, and maybe even meet people. If that’s what you want your eventual art blog to be, then that’s all it really needs to be.

If it’s something more practical you’re looking for: when I was starting out, I would load up the post I wanted to make, hover over the post button, and count down from ten. When I hit one, I just post it, no matter what. If I really didn’t like the post, I could just delete it.

#I don’t mean to sound blunt or make it sound like it’s so easy #like I get it #I’ve gone through stuff like this as well #I still have my highs and lows of managing anxiety depresssive episodes burnout etc #it’s hard. especially if you use Twitter or something and are constantly seeing people yelling at eachother for whatever reason #but if I were you I’d weigh out the pros and cons: #is showing off your work worth the risk of having to deal with the possibility of people being mean to you online? #it’s ok if it is or if it isn’t but no one else can decide that for you #ALSO ALSO #like I said: posting REALLY REALLY does NOT have to be a big deal #post whatever #post a scribble you did of a dog you saw at a park #just make sure it’s what YOU want to post

[utilitycaster]

do you really think the reason Imogen doesnt get as much meta as Caleb (who got every little detail discussed with thousands of notes!) is because people are afraid of a reaction, when its so obviously sexism?

The same reason she doesn't get the exact number of notes as Caleb? No. There's multiple reasons. I'm sure some is misogyny. Some is probably audience size for the respective campaigns, and some is simply accumulation over time - a post about Caleb from 2019 has had 5 years to gather notes.

But also. Are you fucking stupid. You literally showed up because of my tags to be kind of a dick in my inbox. I and multiple people who committed the grave sin of *checks notes* interacting with me were sent hate messages for hours on a Saturday night because I hinted in the tags that I kind of liked Fearne and Ashton as a ship while not being terribly into Imogen and Laudna, and some absolutely deranged loser decided this was an appropriate response. I was called out by someone who had made a blog specifically to block me when I responded to a reblog from someone else on a post I had made stating that Gelvaan was almost certainly not homophobic in canon and that treating Imogen's psychic powers as a metaphor for queerness has a lot of really unfortunate implications. And this hasn't even touched on that one person whose entire raison d'etre appears to be harassing every single person who doesn't think Imogen, Laudna, and their relationship is perfect; and who specifically made multiple alts to harass me. Like, the "It's Obviously Misogyny" people are genuinely putting more effort into being a dick to me than in writing meta about Imogen. You might be one of them.

I talk to many of my mutuals, some of whom really like Imogen, and yes, people do decide "you know, this could be interpreted by someone as too critical, and I don't feel like dealing with the heat" and keep that meta to the DMs or don't share it at all.

You know that post that Matt liked on Twitter that people have been, let's not mince words, jacking themselves off about ever since? If you actually try to say something with substance and evidence about how Imogen has Liliana's fear (the fear that meant that when Imogen begged her mother to leave the Vanguard, Liliana turned her own daughter down, claiming to need to stay with other children) or Delilah's love (which made her cruel, ruthless, and ultimately all-but doomed her) or Ludinus's desire for power (led him to commit endless atrocities) but resists these things in her desire to be a good person - and frankly, I think painting her with the same brush as Delilah or Ludinus isn't even true but I would love to dig into her similarities to Liliana - some asshole who smugly reblogs that post every time someone says "not to be controversial I think Imogen sometimes says things that could maybe be hurtful to other people I think" will throw a full temper tantrum and might send them an incoherent anon calling them a little hypocrite.

It's also fascinating because a lot of the tantrum-havers who will defend Imogen of even the most anodyne "perhaps this is not the most positive trait" and who will cite harassment Marisha received 7 years ago as a reason to not breathe a word of criticism about Laudna - and many of these people joined the fandom about 2 years ago if not sooner - will do this at the very people who have been supporting Keyleth since Campaign 1 was still airing. I mean, seniority doesn't mean anything but if you're lecturing people about something you weren't there for and they were? Clown behavior. Oh and a lot of those people doing the lecturing? Don't really like Keyleth very much, because she does things like "be angry" and "support Orym" and "have a measured viewpoint that doesn't match theirs" and "pretty clearly, along with Allura, who they also barely ever talk about, is directing Bells Hells along a specific path of that pesky moon plot because contrary to a weirdly widespread belief this is the moon plot campaign and not the baking cookies in a cottage campaign."

I mean, half these people forget about Fearne much of the time. The only NPCs I see many of them even talk about are the Vanguard generals and occasionally Abbadina when she's convenient for an argument. Not a damn word for Orlana or Birdie or Dancer or Weva or Rashinna, and they mostly treated Deanna, Prism, and Deni$e as nothing more than implements to shove Imogen and Laudna together but man do they have mountains to say about Bor'Dor. Hell, go to the blog of someone who whines about the way people treat Imogen and look through their meta, if they have it, and the vast majority of the time it's about Ashton and Orym and Ludinus and then they spend the rest of the time complaining about how The Big Mean Fandom is So Mean to Girls but they sure don't have much to say either because turns out if you can't say anything even remotely critical of a female character, it's really hard to write anything, and that's assuming they actually care about writing about female characters instead of just being an asshole, which as stated above is, in my mind, in doubt.

If you have ever spent a single second harassing actual living women online because you didn't like their thoughts on a pretend woman you are, at least in this specific scenario, easily the shittier person. Personally I am confident in my feminist bona fides through, you know, real world activism and how I interact with and support women and feminist causes socially, professionally, financially, and politically in my actual life, but yeah even I sometimes say "you know, I have thoughts about this thing regarding Imogen...but I've had a rough week and I don't feel like having one of the fandom tar pits on my ass" so I'll send my thoughts to a few friends and then idk, write about something else. And I'm pretty thick-skinned (this is the other problem with this strategy; you filter out the more measured and kind and sensitive people first and you're left only with people like me). A lot of people have flat-out given up writing about Imogen (or Laudna, much of the time) because they don't feel like dealing with backlash over some really mild statements. And because you send kind of dickish anons I suspect that it's more likely that you might be part of the problem than part of the solution. So no, it's not the only reason, but it's absolutely a significant one. Congratulations. You played yourself.

#answered #Anonymous #cr tag #cr spoilers

[khaire-traveler]

This is not an invitation for discourse. I am just stating my personal opinions.

I've been seeing some posts going around lately about myth retellings and wanted to give my opinion on something: I think the helpol community (maybe other polytheistic and pagan communities, too) is honestly too critical and intense about modern retellings (and even some historical ones as well somehow).

I know what it's like coming from that critical point of view. I used to be highly critical of certain retellings and stories that used Greek mythology. They used to deeply bother me, actually, but overtime, I realized that staying mad and fuming about these things I can't change - that will always be created - is really exhausting and even causes me to miss out on some truly interesting stories.

Also, seeing how intense some people can be about retellings has actively discouraged people in the community from writing them. How do I know this? I am one of those people, and I happen to know several others in the same predicament. Some people in the community will rip and tear and claw at retellings as if the retelling murdered everyone they loved. People talk about these retellings as if they're literally destroying the earth itself sometimes - like, seriously, y'all, it's wild.

Once, I saw someone post a short story they wrote - a retelling of a myth that I won't name, as I don't want to give the identity of this person away. This person posted this story with good intentions and was a worshipper of the figures depicted within the story, but still, they got absolutely dragged by larger Tumblr blogs and were torn into and literally chased off of Tumblr. This kind of behavior is not ok for multiple reasons, but the main point I'm trying to make is that we are actively making it harder for people within the community to write retellings. You want retellings from people who actually worship the gods? Then maybe make the community a much less judgmental place because sharing creative works takes a lot of courage as it is. Imagine building up the courage to create and share a retelling just to be ripped into by the very community you are a part of. I'm not saying you can't mention to someone when they've gotten something wrong or have written something potentially problematic, but I am saying that you shouldn't ruthlessly dissect someone's work and rip them a part if they seem to be well-meaning but misinformed (assume the best; not everyone is out to get us; easier said than done, I know). You can give criticism while still being respectful to the original author.

For many of these other authors, however, they likely don't even know that worship of these gods exists in the modern day, and even if they do know, acknowledging it may not be relevant to their story, or even their point. Sure, in a perfect world, these authors would acknowledge our little community and pay homage to actual ancient traditions/culture/etc, but we don't live in a perfect world, and that's ok. It is ok, y'all. Not every author writing a retelling is going to be a literal classics major or historian. Not every author writing a retelling is going to be educated on the actual ancient -or modern - worship of these gods. Not every author writing a retelling is going to pay homage to original source material. Do those things suck sometimes? Yes, absolutely. Do we need to lose our heads over it? No, not really. We can choose to focus on other things - on material and media that we actually enjoy and that do depict things how we'd like them to be depicted.

Now, none of this is to say that there are no problematic retellings or that speaking out on problematic retellings is wrong because hoo, boy, there are quite a lot of those. Some retellings claim to be historically accurate and are, in fact, not; some retellings are written by authors with less than ideal values and ideologies; some retellings are even based entirely on misinformation which can be frustrating to hear about. All of these things are true, but it's also true that not every retelling is out to get us. Not every retelling is trying to attack our small community and the gods we worship. As alarming and offensive as it can feel sometimes, it's important that we take a minute and realize that honestly, authors write stories, and sometimes a story is truly just meant to be a story. It's nothing personal. It feels like we, or our gods, are being attacked, but at the end of the day, we still have our own practices, and we are still allowed to engage with those practices. We are still allowed to worship our gods respectfully, even if others do not. And it is important to acknowledge here that others do not worship our gods. These authors are most likely not worshippers of the Theoi. They most likely do not have relationships with these gods as we do, and unfortunately, they may not have respect for these gods either. It would be ideal if they did, but they just might not, and there's no controlling that.

Honestly, most authors are trying their best. They're trying their best to write an interesting, authentic story that will capture the attention of their intended audience. They want to tell a story based on a mythology that inspired them so deeply, so carnally, that they felt the need to write a whole ass book or create a whole ass game about it. They see stories of tragic heroes, powerful gods, and all those caught in-between, and they think, "This is fucking epic; I'm gonna do something with this." Greek mythology is fucking cool. There's absolutely no denying that, and the fact that so many creators of all kinds continue to create retellings based on the love and passion of a mythology from over 2,000 years ago is pretty damn awesome, actually.

#helpol #hellenic polytheism #hellenic pagan

[bunnyswritings]

ur blog is soo helpful !!!! ive been looking into writing more lately and this is like a godsend <3 i was wondering if u could do some starter tips?? like stuff to avoid as a new writer :o ps. hope ur having a wonderful week!!!

ahhh, hello!! this is such a sweet message, and thank you, i hope you have a fruitful week ahead too ♡ i'm so glad you're writing more lately- i'll def do my best to provide some starter tips (though i'm really also a starter myself 😅 so i hope you like these, and feel free to let me know what you think!) also, just to put it out there that these are what i found helpful personally / what i think will be helpful, and may / may not resonate with everyone. Also, this topic is soooo broad and there are a million things that can be covered, but for now I'll just keep it short and go with stuff to avoid (or rather, approach differently) as per request. if you / anyone else would like another post for more specific writing tips, feel free to drop it in my ask box!

Some general writing tips — stuff to avoid; little things to not overdo

over-planning

overusing fancy vocabulary

over-describing

over-criticising your work

over-comparing

more details under the cut!

Over-planning — plan the general outline, direction of your plot, message of your story, characters and their rough personalities; yes, do all that well! good planning makes for a good story, but i think it's helpful to remember that sometimes things don't pan out the way we envision them to. and it's important to let certain things go, appropriately of course. if your initial storyline doesn't quite fit the characterisation of the protagonist etc (and vice versa), then perhaps it's time to rethink things — and NOT be too hard-up about it. [tldr: be flexible!]

Overusing bombastic vocabulary — i'm sure you've come across millions of writing advice pieces that aim to spruce up your vocabulary with bombastic phrases. by all means go ahead and pick a few that fit the mood and style of your writing. otherwise, i'd say that sometimes, less is more. throwing in fancy words for the sake of it may not be as helpful as you think. there should be a fine balance between using words that add flavour + help to illustrate nuances and using words to make your piece seem complex. simplicity goes a long way, as i've learnt. but having said that, building up a solid repertoire of vocabulary / good phrases is always helpful, the key thing is using those phrases in the right context. definitely easier said than done, so i suggest reading your favourite author's works couple of times through and pick up their way of using language to their advantage.

Over-describing — narration, descriptive language are great, and can really help to nudge your story in the right direction. it helps set the scene, the mood, and all these are critical in writing... BUT! not the same can be applied to describing actions. not every single action has to be written out explicitly — an example: she walks over to the kitchen, turns around, and opens the refrigerator. she then takes out a canned drink, and places the drink on the countertop... etc — you get the point. some things can be left implied, rather than explicit.

Over-criticising your work — ahh, the age-old piece of advice. i do it all the time, and you probably do too... sometimes, being harsh on yourself and on your work may seem like the only way to better yourself and push your limits, but often times, i personally find that this is counter-productive both on the physical and mental front. it wears you down, it is a nidus for dejection and negative vibes. i think the way i try to get round this is by taking pride in my own work; telling myself that 'this is something i wrote, these are my ideas put into prose, these are my thoughts written on paper'. the caveat here is that avoiding being over-critical of your work DOES NOT and should not mean avoiding proofreading. proofreading is extremely crucial to check for grammatical and structural errors (i recommend doing it once or twice yourself, and if possible, getting a fresh pair of eyes to do the same).

Over-comparing — this ties in nicely with the previous point. take pride in your work! this is something original from you and you only, written in your unique style. having authors/writers whom you look up to is essential in moulding your writing style and habits, but should not be the sole focus when you write. remember that every writer is different, every piece of writing is different; this goes even for pieces with similar plots / tropes / character personalities. nuances, subtleties and underlying messages can come through very differently when written by different people. after all, our life journeys are all personal, which is a factor influencing the way we convey messages across through the written word.

and... that's it for now! i really hope that this helps. honestly, i'm scratching the surface here, and there are lots more i can talk about when i have more braincells >_<

feel free to drop any other requests or questions in my ask if you'd like ♡

#writing tips #writing resources #writing inspo #writing inspiration #writing advice #creative writing #creative writing prompts #writing prompts #prompts #writerscommunity #writeblr #fanfiction prompts #new writer boost #writer #writing dialogue #bunnyswritings #bunnyrequests #bunnyrambles

[not-goldy]

I'm on a break but I had to jump in real quick on this

Gonna ignore everything you said bout Jungkook- cos it's not necessary. You don't have to go there. He's my bias too so you can understand why I find it offensive when you guys make derogatory comments about him. Like I'm not gonna clap for you or side with you for putting dirt on his name like be fucking for real.

There's a difference between being objective, giving constructive criticism of a person and just plain hating on someone and I'm sorry if you like Jungkook a little bit some of these comments won't fly out of your mouth nor would you entertain them.

And if you wanna get sensible words out of me avoid the triggers is all I be saying. Don't trigger me and then act discombobulated when I act crazy.

But I like what you said about Jimin....

I've been applauding Jimin's supporters since face cos yall pulled your weight and got him where he and the company hadn't contemplated going- let's get that very straight.

I said in my previous post I don't think like crazy was created specifically for a western audience. Nor was it intended to be as huge as it was.

It wasn't even his lead single yet it's his number one single💀

PJMS did too much and got him a number one on BB. BB DID NOT SEE IT COMING. THEY WOULD HAVE MOVED THE GOAL POST I TELL YA.

Yall did too much pushing his tracks to the top of charts. Yall acted as if it was a BTS come back like calm down 🤭

PJMs are soo extra🤭

But don't stop you doing amazing sweetie

They set the bar for Jimin to the high heavens. And we are hungry and wild for his success. It's cool but damn yalls appetite 🤭🤭🤭🤭

I don't think that is a bad thing. It just goes to show people are ready to support Jimin and take him to a level never seen before.

His next come back is gonna be 🔥 🔥

I mean the moment they got friends on a Marvel project I knew the Western industry thought he was on to something with his unique voice and all. Then they got him on Fast and Furious and lemme tell you that's some huge marks on his portfolio.

The portfolio this man is building is crazy!

I get all flustered and tingly thinking about what else he's gonna do and where he's gonna end up next in his career. He might have to move to Los Angeles soon cos he seem to have a place in Hollywood too the movie industry loves him🙂

If you wanna talk about the west then yea without a doubt, he is the one member who has a footing in with producers ready to work with him to make songs for their movies.

Fuck, I have a sense he's gonna cameo in a few Hollywood movies soon and he's gonna get booked to work on more soundtracks and OS for Hollywood. DAMN, IF THAT HAPPENS 😌😌😌😌😌😌

You guys need to relax, be patient and watch him.

Just watch him and don't jinx it up for him I swear to God! Yall be blocking your own blessings with unnecessary rants sometimes🙄

He's on the right track with his career. I genuinely believe that.

And I hope when he's finally ready with a predominantly English Album intended for the western market that hybe will move heaven and earth to give him the extra push and support he needs.

THEY BETTER COS WHEN I TELL YOU IT'S GONNA BE BLOODY UP IN THESE STREETS💀💀💀💀💀

And there's something about Jimin yall not realizing... those who know know.

I mean, Jimin even said it himself. he wanted an MV for every track and they shot him down....

EVERY TRACK....

THAT'S CRAZY.

And I know they shot him down, perhaps because they didn't think it was necessary for something they didn't intend to go all in on????

which is understandable but.....

We Libras are like that.

One time I set out to write a paper for a friends blog and it was supposed to be quick short and easy, but I decided to throw in a few references here and there to make it more academic and well researched- but I had to make sure it was accurate references so I hit the library. Before I knew it, I was calling up professors here and there and going all in I ended up with a 300 page dissertation and my friend couldn't use it for her blog so decided to keep it for her dissertation- so I told her I could work on a proper dissertation for her....

She said she was told she was too ambitious when she submitted it💀😬

When I get asked out for a spontaneous night out, I drive by the store to pick a new outfit and end up getting a pedicure manicure lashes silk press facials, bleach, exfoliate my butt- all for a girls night out.

Don't invite me for a sleep over cos this would be me- literally

We don't do casual so well and always end up going the extra mile and over doing things.

Oh you're sad? Don't worry. A text won't do. I'll call to check on you, email you, make a blog for you, drive by your home in the middle of the night, move into your home, get married to you, have your children, dig my own grave and bury myself next to you cos I never know how much affection is enough 😭💀

I dare you to ask me a simple question- I'll go on and on and try to cover every base and every aspect. One lecturer told me, you are brilliant Goldy but learn to limit yourself and limit the scope when answering questions- yes, I was always the student who never finished a paper on time and always run out of time cos I had so much to say and everything I had to say felt important😭😭😭😭😭

If you listen to Jimin, it wasn't even intended for set me free to be as big as it turned out to be💀💀💀

As amazing of a voice as he has, he had to request for voice training just to make sure he was on track- when I tell yall, sometimes his "shortcomings" are all in his head bless his heart😭🥲

How many times did Jungkook and Yoongi say they had to reassure him he had a great singing voice and yet those were the times he kept insisting he wanted voice training😔

Sometimes we see flaws in ourselves others don't see. Most times those flaws are as imaginary as could be. And yet we obsess over those perceived flaws and even worse, we try to fix them....

If you're someone like that sometimes it may appear all everyone does around you is shoot you down and try to bring you down- but in reality, they'd just be the ones keeping you tethered so the perfectionist or dysmophia in you don't drive you over the edge.

Not saying Jimin struggles with dysmophia of all sorts..... but he lowkey give off vibes if you know what I mean💀

All these comments about him being the triple A guy when it comes to effort, the hyungs using him as inspiration to work hard, the whole Kpop industry making him out to be the "rookie Bible" lowkey stems from over ambitiousness and innate dissatisfaction with the barest minimum- but sometimes that's all that you need to do. The barest minimum.

It took me a while to understand this and feel comfortable with lecturers and people around me telling me I'm enough and don't need to do too much all the time to feel good enough or accomplished.

One time I scored a B+ on a paper, I cut myself for not working hard enough. After bleeding it out of my system I gathered the courage to confront the teacher only to find out she had my grades mixed with someone else's 😭😭😭😭💀

I spent so much time in the study room at boarding school people called me the study room freak and I kid you not I got an award for it😭😭😭😭😭😭

I'm much much better now and can let my grammar errors fly without feeling a need to read through my writings a gazillion times. It's the Marijuana but still. It feels good to not care about anything anymore 😌

He's said he's working on his perfectionism and isn't consumed by it anymore but lowkey lowkey- we love him regardless 😭😭😭😭😭😭

Bottom line, we shouldn't confuse what happened with Face with what's happening with Jungkook.

Jimin's entanglement with the West wasn't intended at all in my opinion. It just happened. He had had Vibe and I think they just rode on the waves of the publicity from that for Set me free and Later like Crazy.

Thus he made more money spending less on advertising and marketing- comparatively speaking.

Then you have the youngest who had to sacrifice and go last after everyone- bare in mind who ever went first with their Solo had the most organic publicity because it was a new phase and all attention was on BTS since they announced a hiatus and going solo.

With little effort, that person was guaranteed to back some coins 🪙

The one to go last is relatively disadvantaged because he loses that organic attention and would require a lot of publicity to sell- but if he happens to be Jungkook then they would need to do just a little lifting because again- Golden Maknae. But imagine if Hobi were to go last- like some of yall wouldn't even care at all lets be honest which is not fair to Hobi but also the sad reality.

If I were Jungkook or Tae I wouldn't agree to go last at all don't give a fuck it's everyone for themselves💀

See this is why I wanted them all to release their albums at once. Hybe would be over stretched but then everyone would shut the fuck up. 😒

It may appear to most that the company didn't put in much effort to promote Jimin and- I understand these sentiments. I do. I just don't think it's a fair objective assessment of the situation💀

It's easy to say this wasn't treated well or that wasn't treated well when all you focused on is your bias. And I think sometimes equity prevails over equality because in as much as some went ahead of others, some already had kicked started their publicity with other collabs, some had been allotted more of the spending budget, some had high productions or low productions, they all can't get equal treatment.

Jungkook's launch is very much deliberate and well strategized too for the last debut. They took the lessons from the others launch and are trying to cover every base. He went last and so Hybe just had to make sure he went out with a bang. It be like that.

Every has to bag their coins somehow and that's all that matters.

Now that phase one is done. I can't wait to find out what they have install for phase two- I hope it's not gonna be crickets cos they all in Jail or military or whatever 😭💀

[my-dark-lord]

I honestly don’t really know how this works lol since I’m kinda new to tumblr and requesting stuff but I was wondering for hc requests could you maybe give HCs of Vox and Val being protective of Velvet? I never see them being protective in stuff and I adore the idea of them being protective? Ty for reading my ask I love your blog! :)

Hey, you're all good, Nonny! No worries at all. Thank you so much for this!!! I love this request very much. I'm coming down off of getting some Valentino hate on my rp blog, so I thought I'd self-medicate with some cute headcanons of the boys being protective of their Velly Belly!

NOTE: Headcanons 7 and 8 are based on the theory that Velvette is one of Carmilla's daughters.

Vox has sent malware to the IP addresses associated with anyone badmouthing Velvette on social media. He never warns them, he simply does it.

If the person's phone is within reach of his tether to technology, he will detonate it in their hand or pocket. If the offense is bad enough, he will wait for them to put it in their pocket to detonate it near their crotch.

Valentino goes to every single one of Velvette's shows, and he is prepared with Moneyshot in the wings in case someone tries to start shit. He has actively halted a show to shoot a critic in the face and have them dragged out. Velvette was simultaneously thankful and pissed at the time, but later gave him plenty of affection for it.

Both Vox and Valentino have a habit of mom-arming her when they're in the limo and the car jerks. Sometimes they both do it at the same time.

Valentino has a habit of holding her in his lap when they sit down near each other, which is both because he cares deeply about her and because he thinks she looks more intimidating seated in the lap of a Big Dog like him.

Vox will put a hand on her shoulder in support whenever there is a fight she is about to get into. Valentino's hands usually end up on her back. Regardless, they both puff up slightly behind her to show their support and that if someone is going to fight one Vee, they're fighting all of the Vees.

Whenever Velvette has a fight with Carmilla, Valentino holds her for hours and plays with her hair. He lets her cry into his fur, and he is there for her. He doesn't always know what to say, but that doesn't matter, because he's there.

Vox, during Velvette's fights with Carmilla, will always offer her a place to sit or lay with him. He will hold her while he works, be gentle with her, and generally just be there for her as well. He will also use some random person's bank account to purchase a hefty weapon supply like a kid ordering a ton of pizzas to a random person as a prank.

Vox has a tendency to lead the way into a room with Velvette in the middle and Val in the rear. They do this to be able to keep her safe in the event that something goes wrong. They do not tend to do this in the Tower, on their private floors.

In a fight, Vox and Val make sure to keep an eye on her. Valentino often provides cover fire if they need him to, and Vox is always prepared with a few zaps to keep her safe. Naturally, they protect each other, too, but they do focus on Velvette a lot. Being that all three of them use ranged attacks, it's easier to stay in a group.

#Hazbin Hotel #Hazbin Hotel Headcanons #Hazbin Hotel The Vees Headcanons #Hazbin Hotel The Vees #Hazbin Hotel The V's #Hazbin Hotel VVV #Hazbin Hotel Vox #Hazbin Hotel Valentinio #Hazbin Hotel Velvette #Hazbin Hotel Velvet #Hazbin Hotel Carmilla Carmine #cw violence #cw explosions

[apollos-olives]

i support you being critical of someone being a bit weird. you're not harassing them, but you're saying 'your behavior is out of line,' which sometimes people need. i'm sorry this is happening, though.

i've just always found it disrespectful for people, even if they're palestinian, to try to make palestine look all cutesy and trendy and make it a fandom thing for people to be interested in. listen, i love people headcanoning characters as palestinian. i do it too! but the way that that blog goes about is personally distasteful and i'm not afraid to say it 🤷🏻 i wish people would leave me alone about my criticism though. like im not harassing the blog, i just personally think it's weird and wrong to fandomize our suffering. that's it. the amount of people in my inbox who have been rude to me for not being approving of that blog is getting annoying. idgaf if you're palestinian or not. palestinians should still get criticism if they're doing something out of taste or wrong. just cuz the blog owner is palestinian doesn't mean they can never do any wrong and that it's all butterflies and rainbows. im being critical because it's just my personal belief that i don't think it's right to do that. it's not even that deep in the first place, idk why people are STILL sending shit in my inbox about it.

[mewtwoandme]

Also, you can answer this privately if you'd like, but I really love how you hold your ground with your ideas. I've seen plenty of creators kinda change their mind on ideas because a few people were offended or just didn't like the concept and it bums me out because while yes sometimes you should listen to critism, other times it's not actually criticism but just people being dumb.

You know honestly, I'm convinced I'm a 40-50 year old stuck in in a 24 year old body XD I'm such a hardass. I just don't have the patience or mental strength to deal with people who are like that, especially the younger generations. Even some people who are are my age or slightly older.

What I'm about to say below is not directed towards anyone, but how I feel generally on the matter. Read more if you want to

When something like cancel culture exists, you know you're not going to please everyone with what you do or what opinions/ideas you have. There will always be people who hate them regardless of what it is or what it's about. Whether it be fandoms, storytelling, art/character preferences, dare I say political views, etc. It goes on and on. But just because they don't like something, it doesn't mean I have to change things to appease them. And that's what a lot of those types of people can't stand. If I don't agree with them or abide by what they command me to do, suddenly I'm the asshole? XD God forbid they hold any accountability for themselves in their decision-making. They can just... not view my content. Scroll over, block whatever, but no, apparently, that's just too hard, and it's easier to bitch about and/or blame the creator. Like honestly my thoughts are I don't give a fuck how offended someone is or if they don't agree with my personal choices on a matter. It's my blog, I run it how I want to, I create what I want to create and I tell a story how I want to tell it.

I'm not going to cater to every individual who thinks they're holier-than-thou and entitled to say I need to change this or that just to fit their views or so it appears less offensive to them. Damn right I hold my ground! It is not my obligation to appease people by having my art/story/characters dictated by their every whim and what they think it should be. If they feel so strongly about what I do, they can easily write or draw their own stuff and make it more ideal for themselves, but if they claim, "B-but, I'm not good at doing that." Well, that ain't my fault, nor is it my damn problem. Don't come to my blog acting like you can manipulate me to draw or write things you want to happen or how you want things to be. You ain't my boss, you're not paying me to do your bidding, so until you somehow become my boss and actually obtain authority over what I do, leave me to write my characters and stories/make my art in peace!

#answered ask #godzilla fan #((sorry it turned into a bit of a rant XD))

[mitigatedchaos]

[ tumblr user ]

It's also a funny criticism. Like yeah, marxism has actual substance and can't be boiled down to a quick soundbyte or a handful of phrases. I'm sorry that y'all can't fucking read.

Leftist wall-of-text meme discourse is circulating.

We could talk about substantive problems with Communism. The labor theory of value and the economic calculation problem would be two key subjects. Either could be handled at great length, or boiled down into a pithy right-wing meme.

But I think it'd be more novel to discuss the mechanics at play for art and the meme game.

I'll discuss several of my own images below, and considerations, including this Tumblr favorite below. I'll also take a longer lefty meme and fix it up. The post is a bit rambly, but not too bad (~2,300 words).

My art hasn't traveled that far, but I do post images that have a lot of text in the images sometimes, and I've never caught flak for it. In fact, I accidentally did "left-wing memes vs. right-wing memes" as a comic back in 2017, and it got reblogged by Argumate, who is not known for making long posts. It wasn't super popular, but the third panel is a personal favorite of mine.

The benign violation theory of humor seems to have pretty good explanatory power. The first panel does contain a wall of text. That it's a wall of text is part of the joke, but you can't have the joke always be that it's a wall of text - it then stops being a violation, because it's expected. The more important part is that if you read it carefully, it's clearly describing a market-based system, which Comrade A here catches on to after a moment.

If we wanted to boil down the long text here, it could be summarized with something more like, "Money can be exchanged for goods and services."

The second panel is the unmasking. If we had the right character, we could end it here. A highly-recognizable, prominent economist or capitalist-aligned politician would be appropriate, but we could also replace the head with a book such as The Wealth of Nations, which would certainly be unexpected, but consistent with market-based position advocated in the first panel.

However, the character used is actually the avatar of the blog Mitigated Chaos, which most outside readers would not be familiar with, so we need a third panel to explain.

In retrospect, only showing half the head here is unfortunate; comics are a visual medium, and if it were done again, there might be another way to arrange it.

While left-wing memes are often described as too long, right-wing memes are often described as quite a bit shorter. The irony is that fully explaining this panel would take quite a bit longer than the first one!

This panel is a reference to the immense productive capacity, largely through technology, that humanity has gained under capitalism, which simulates evolution-like dynamics at the firm level.

Rather than Adam Smith's more benign "invisible hand," this panel treats the competition under capitalism as fierce, not market aid, but market discipline - an invisible fist. At the same, "The Way of the Invisible Fist" suggests that it's like a martial art, and can be taught and learned. This is not an attack, but an invitation ("Can you feel it, brother?") to learn.

"I can feel all the old limitations starting to fall away, now," refers partly to the immense rise in production capacity changing the nature of humanity's environment, such as reducing the burden of infectious disease and famine, which had been with humanity essentially for as long as we've been humanity (more so under early agriculturalism).

...but, along with the computer chip integrated into the forehead, it also refers to the likely condition of capital being directly integrated into or influencing the human body sometime later this century.

However, it also refers to the way that humanity have now tightly integrated capital into our lives, living in such a way that our very survival depends on the capital system within which we live, and which surrounds us at all times. It is very far away from the jungles or even the low-energy farming of the medieval era.

If you learn economics and make projections of the future, you can see "forever," which is clearly exaggerated both to accentuate the frightening nature of this apparently Nick-Land-like view, but also describes the elements of current society that might not be visible to Comrade A due to their lack of knowledge of this system.

However, ending it on the third panel would have looked a little too, "I'm cool; you're not," so on the fourth panel we zoom out, which reduces the resolution of the more "serious" style from panel three, and provides some contrast with Comrade A.

Here, Comrade A is presented as lacking the advanced techniques our Invisible Fist practitioner has, but as overall more reasonable than we might expect.

There's a sort of natural tension between the economic optimization in third panel, and the needs of humanity more broadly. Comrade A's plan is less efficient, but lacks that terrifying edge.

His last statement is his personal opinion, but it's left to the reader whether they agree with it - though it is clearly communist.

Tumblr user oligo* once reblogged a fantastic meme regarding Landian Acceleration. I went looking for it, and as it happens, I found it.

Is this a leftist meme? I think it is! It also appears to be a reference to this much more common meme image, but much less annoying.

Let's talk about it for a little bit!

There are two key things to understand about this, mechanically. First, the thing about internet memes in this sense is that they're significantly a visual art form. Second, they're not supposed to appear to be high-effort.

This meme uses screenshots from the very popular and well-known 1999 movie The Matrix, which provides it appropriate visuals while, because it's so well-known, establishing that the author didn't put in the effort to draw this all themself.

You could draw something like this scene, but then you would need to aim for a different format.

In the second frame, we then get the "crudely"-photoshopped Nick Land head as a visual part of the punchline. (In fact, the author has been careful in trimming it, but simply hasn't integrated the head back into the scene at all.)

Spider-robot-Land doesn't even say the criticism is bad, per se, he just says it's "ironic" - which it is. Nature is brutal, and yet humanity evolved from within nature until we were able to establish civilization.

Also note that you're unlikely to see a lot of criticism for the amount of text here. It's more than a typical image macro, but it's appropriate, so it gets a pass.

Let's try something of mine that's a little more popular.

The Rock Island Willerbean post has 5,600 notes. As some of you are probably guessing, yes, it's about the illegal trafficking of slow lorises, which apparently have venom glands in their armpits removed by smugglers. (Supposedly, when they raise their arms, it means they're terrified.)

As you can see, almost half the image is a textbox!

The use of text in internet memes or images generally very much depends on the context. Here, the image presents itself as a picture from a book. The text works due to presenting itself as a something like a wildlife narrator, but is clearly absurd by referring to a non-existent animal.

The content is both political and ideological - it's in favor, although it doesn't state this directly, of animal conservation.

But this particular approach isn't something you can do very often. You might be able to frame, e.g., a particular variety of car as a wild animal in order to express car opinions about it. But this would fall flat for most political attacks.

Let's talk about a leftist wall-of-text meme flop. Bing has helpfully provided me with an example, which I assume is real because it hits just the right range.

This is less text than is used in the Rock Island Willerbean example above.

The problem is not the number of words, but the combination of this number of words with this particular template. When Rick is showing us the torn hole in the wall, the contents should be direct and immediate, as this is what the visual language of the template is about.

Obviously, a lot of political conflict involves shaping the social terrain in order to determine what counts as "obvious" and what needs 500 words of explanation, giving relative advantage to different factions in on-the-ground social encounters. We aren't going to cover all that here.

This appears to be an argument about the Chromanticore vending machine and advertisements from Cyberpunk 2077. If you've played Cyberpunk 2077, you know the one I'm talking about. (It's a bit lewd.)

Cyberpunk 2077 is about a high-energy society with a breakdown of societal norms. As such, hyperstimulus that previously would not have been possible is made possible by technology, and active state intervention to regulate it does not occur. It's filled with lurid advertisements that are basically soft core, substituting the simulation of what people crave for the substance, a splitting of human desires from an evolutionarily more cohesive whole.

A lot of it's also about somatic capital technology and the increasing changeability of the body under transhumanism. I could really go on all day about this.

But basically, the chromanticore ad is shocking to contemporary viewers, but in Cyberpunk 2077's society, it's just mildly unusual - that particular body configuration would be uncommon, but Night City's residents wouldn't see it as unheard-of, and would instead have rather different gender war opinions about it than we would. Presumably you can just buy a ---- from a megacorp if you want one. (It seems the player can.)

The game's developers arbitrage this to create an environment that has a high hit or impact and feels very different or alien, providing the player with a unique experience.

Let's redo Raider's meme above to fit the template better.

It's tempting to jam preloaded counter-arguments into the image macro, but that isn't really the right place for them. The Internet is loaded with text, and most of it isn't of much interest to most people. The image macro is the hook. You want to get your central idea across, while convincing potential readers that it's worth listening to the rest of your ideas.

Thus in the updated version, we move text out of the image, and into the surrounding posts.

I get the motivation - the image is seen as a complete unit, so therefore, if the reader has seen the image, they've read the argument. And well, if they've read the argument, then they don't have the excuse of not having read the argument, so they know they're wrong, and should just shut up and do what they're told.

Problem is, you can't jam enough text into an image macro to cover all the counter-arguments. The position of the people who don't think the Chromanticore ad is a big deal is generally that they don't think it has all that much of an effect. The initial image macro does nothing to address this.

They might be persuaded if Cyberpunk 2077 depicted transgender people as uniquely evil, or if it presented someone who is transgender because they are evil, but instead the two most prominent transgender characters in the game are one character that briefly whines about the effort put in to pass, and a bartender... who joins the main character in an illegal underground street race, which is roughly the normal level of criminal activity for Cyberpunk 2077.

We could also talk about coalition membership where the goal of Raider's original post is to communicate to swarm CDPR by signalling to like-minded members of their coalition about what they're 'supposed' to do, using that kind of language to establish group membership. But that's a bit beyond the scope of this post.

Anyhow.

Another use for image macros is in an attempt to pithily shut down arguments. These tend to get pretty annoying, and a lot of times it means that the poster is trying to pretend that the debate is over and lay still and be slippery like a dead fish, to deny leverage and show coalitional loyalty. (They'd rather be thought an idiot than be thought disloyal.) I'll discuss the dead fish tactic some other time, probably. (Already wrote a big draft on it.)

The following is not exactly that kind of image macro.

A communist tumblr user misremembered a stat about container shipping, and made this post:

If you extoll the virtues of modern shipping logistics and think the only problem with it is that it isn’t used to distribute things fairly, you’re an idiot. This isn’t even an anti-civ or pro-civ primmie discourse thing. Just 15 freight ships produce more CO2 than the entirety of the world’s automobiles, and there are thousands of them in service. The efficiency you fetishize has a horrible environmental cost, and the best thing I can assume about you when you act like everything will be solved once it’s The People’s Railway is that you just don’t know what you’re talking about.

Usually this kind of person doesn't have good math and production sense. To grab the first link off the shelf,

Maritime shipping causes about 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions – even more than airplanes.

Ocean-bound freight is extremely cheap on an energy per unit weight basis, even cheaper than rail freight. So it was more fun to respond with a little art as bait, even though of course we know that tumblr user isn't going to take it.

This is not a conventional finisher-dunk.

However, for reasons I'm not going to go into, finisher dunks should not be much longer than this.

#the way of the discourse fist #longpost #politics #rambling

[roo-bastmoon]

Quickie (but important) thingies

I've got like 15 minutes in between CT scans so of course I'm on my phone checking on Jikook because the crazy obsession is baked into my DNA by now. Y'all caught me.

Good news: Jimin is linked back up on Spotify. Well done, ARMY, for raising the red flag high and helping get this fixed today!! Let's always have Jimin's and BTS' backs!

Interesting news: It seems that folks Shazamed JK's behind the scenes video and the song that came up is called H-Thirteen (I can't check because the hospital won't let me access YouTube links). Can anyone confirm?

Request: I'm totally not trying to gaslight, minimize, or police anyone's fandom experience. But it feels like folks are on a hair's trigger out here these days. I get it, especially when it comes to Jimin. He has suffered so many insults over the years.

But before we assume Jungkook is a thief or plagiarist, before we assume his music video will be raunchy, before we assume the worst of any member, could we just hold out a bit for more information? It is possible all these concept choices for Seven are an homage to Jimin and Face. (I'm going to especially think this is so, if the song in the background is number-coded to Jimin and Jikook.)

It seems to me that Jimin has always been Jungkook's inspiration--perhaps even his muse.

And I'm not saying we have to blindly trust or believe the best in everyone. (I mean, I do, but that's me.)

Honestly? I have no great love of Hybe at the moment. I have too many suspicions around all the things that happened after Jimin's Hot 100 #1. But the people who work there are just people; I'm sure most are good and some are jerks, just like anywhere.

The members are also human beings. And human beings are always works in progress.

So I just would like to ask that if something a tannie is doing seems alarming, we say "Hm, that seems alarming!" rather than scream with our whole chests that a member is actively trying to hurt or sabotage another member. Especially when we've had years and years of evidence that BTS really love and trust each other.

Look, every member has flaws; they will make mistakes--sometimes big ones, as they grow. And we have a right to criticize behaviors we don't like. But I guess because of my past family life, I am personally triggered whenever someone automatically assumes mal-intent without asking any questions or waiting for more info to come to light.

Not saying we have to love everyone, or we can't call a spade a spade. I guess I'm just recommending we give a little grace until we get the whole story. I see folks on the timeline who just love Jimin so much, who fear the worst because of the lack of transparency or explanations. My heart beats with you, but I encourage you to hold on a bit longer. Let's see what Jimin has to say about all this.

It's entirely possible that Jungkook saw the way Jimin's hard work and sexy style was amazing but unappreciated by the company and he decided to pay respect to that with his single because he knows he's got the social capital to insist on it.

It's possible that stylists and marketing teams think these looks are the hot, sexy, edgy trends for this year and went with it.

I suppose it's also technically possible that Jungkook decided to "rip off" Jimin's style... and go all-in on payola for radio (which isn't confirmed yet)... and also lean heavily into a straight-acting macho-man raunchy music video (again, not out yet) -- but until we are very sure of any of that, may I ask that we speculate instead of accuse?

If it turns out anyone did Jimin dirty, I promise you I will grab my torch and pitchfork and be second in line (behind Hobi) to rage. But for our own health as a community, and as individuals combatting our own stressors, could we... could we just hang in there and give ourselves some time to do our due diligence before we assume evil or selfish intentions? That's my request.

(Caveat: of course--your blogs, your rules. You get to say anything you want in your space and I will never police you. If I'm really worried about something you're saying or doing, I'll just ask you about it directly. But I won't shade you, I promise. I'm just gently asking us to withhold judgement until we figure out what actually is going on. I hope that sounds reasonable and not condescending. I truly do value different perspectives and would absolutely love to count every person in the Jikook tag as a friend, even if we wildly disagree on things. So please don't read this post as me trying to be harsh or holier than thou. I'm simply trying to say: let's judge based on what is, not on what appears to be true.)

Ah, time to put more dye in my veins. Got to go. Love to you all!

P.S. Jimin smiling so happily while killing it in TikTok challenges is panacea.

#jimin #jikook #jungkook #Youtube

[pinkandpurple360]

I think it's also worth mentioning that you can still like a ship but realize the problems with it. I know a lot of Stoltiz fans who shipped it during season one because how 'messy' it was (I wouldn't call forced sex and one dehumanizing the other messy but ya know) jumped ship once season two aired being how it took away the things that they found interesting about it and attempted to make it 'wholesome' when it never was or meant to be so.

I'm complete Fizzomdous trash but even I realize the problems within season two and hate how both were defanged and feeling as if Fizz's personality and treatment from the writers made him less of the gremlin we loved while also taking away his agency (I'm the one who sent the disability ask a while ago). Yes they still have cute moments but I kinda wish their relationship they were treated like...well ya know, like they're both adults. Plus them tag team roasting your sex life. That was fun.

Hell, I could have gotten behind Stoltiz if there wasn't the full moon deal plus while still privileged Stolas at least attempted to get to know Blitzo as a person supposed to only use him for sex. Yes, Stolas still cheated and could be a bit out of touch with reality without realizing how much this is affecting Octavia, but at least there's a chance of character development and a real messy kind of relationship.

Helluva Boss is supposed to be a show for adults yet treats its audience like children more than shows aimed for that demographic. It feels as if it wants to write messy or dark dynamics but then backpedals and tries to 'savage' what's already an unhealthy relationship into something that we should be rooting for. Honestly it wouldn't surprise at this point if Viv chooses to recon the whole of season one being it makes Stolas look bad when he was suppose to be the bad guy to begin with.

Sorry for rambling...

Anon, if every message was like you. I’d never be getting irritated with people. Please know I don’t have a problem with anything said here.

And that’s fine, because we don’t all have to debate things. You don’t have to feel guilty for liking or not liking something. Even if people test me sometimes that’s at least what I try to stick to. I’m tired of shipping wars. You are in no way a bad person if you don’t feel like looking deep into things that happened because everyone will enjoy things differently. I run a blog that’s partially random ‘turn your brain off and enjoy it’ content; and critical content where I really don’t hold back.

So I think this has all taught me to improve my tagging systems so people can filter it and only have to engage with it if they want to.

I completely understand and agree with you, and people should enjoy the fanon in any way they choose. Because those are the fans stories, their content, their original material. They also aren’t above critique when things go to nasty territory (you probably know the kind I mean) but are usually harming nobody.

Its different when we get to ignoring and recontextualising canon events that all of us saw. “That didn’t happen the way you remember” “you’re delusional if you think the scene happened like that” (this oneeee 👹🔥🔥) or when it gets really bad, reaching levels of “actually sex consent is a flexible thing, like paying rent” 😶😶because then it leaves the realm of fiction, and right to reality.

Personally, the romantic relationships other than moxxie and Millie weren’t why I ever watched the show. I don’t really find relationship melodrama fun but if I’m suppose to take it seriously, I will.

I think I’d like Stolitz as exes that are now on ok terms. Almost like an anti verosika. The first relationship Blitzø ended in a more healthy way. Them both realising the spark has gone, the feelings weren’t really “love” but loneliness, and that they learned a lot from each other, but don’t really like each other anymore that way, too much bad blood had happened, and have very different priorities and values in life. A scene where Blitz sees Stolas at Ozzies with someone new, with them both smiling and chatting and stolas blushing at his new crush, and the other guy blushing back and crushing just as hard, then we see blitz genuinely smiling and happy for him without any hint of jealousy, then heading back to pride with his friends, that’s a beautiful ending. To me anyway.

Hell if Via feels this strongly like Stolas’ lustful obsession is ruining his relationship with her. That is grounds for ending it. My dude, he’s just not the one for you. LooLoo land and Seeing Stars, where it ends with Stolas holding Via, only her, while IMP are in their own corner, separate, but happy, those are the happy endings. Not tacking stolas onto IMP and having Via tell us that stolas loves blitz over her even though he honestly…doesn’t. Like cmon there’s no way in any universe blitz is competing with Octavia.

Man can you imagine if Via helped Stolas make a lustinder, do a profile pic, find new dating tactics and choose an outfit? And be very supportive and excited for him? Hi?? yes?? that’s super cute and that’s stolas fixed for me. Stella shouldn’t be his only romantic history and frame of reference, that’s bonkers.

#helluva boss critical #stolitz critical #fizzarozzie critical

[intheholler]

Howdy! I absolutely love this blog and am so glad I found it <3 Do you have any advice for reclaiming (for lack of a better word) your accent? Mine is all weird from years of codeswitching/trying to hide it, and now that I'm older and have more pride in where I come from, I miss that I don't sound exactly like all the other people from my area. Thank you!!

hi there <33 im glad yall found it too lol. welcome!

also sure! i was (am?) in the exact same boat :') so i guess i could try to tell you what's worked for me.

my first advice would be to try and stop being so critical about what you're saying and how you sound when you say it. easier said than done, ik, because obviously when you code switch, you are very aware of and careful about how you talk, but that's the very first massive block i had to work on before anything else.

so, the first thing i did was work on detaching myself from that need and not policing myself as i spoke. i tried to just let the sounds come out, especially my vowels. i always kept those real tight bc i felt like they're the biggest "tell" i wanted to avoid.

i achieved this by talking to myself in private to shake off that internalized shit that made me wanna disguise it around others in the first place. no one can hear you but you, so just yourself have it, even if u feel silly at first like i did. i dealt with some imposter syndrome-esque stuff about it during this time.

its gonna sound goofy, but for a while, to get ur mouth back in the habit of making certain shapes during certain words, start talking to yourself in an exaggerated form of ur original accent. like fully put it on lmao. maybe even heavier than the one you used to have. this helped my brain get reaquainted with my mouth.

then i started just actively listening to myself think and talk. there is the comfortable and familiar way my brain wants the words to be formed in my natural dialect, and then there is my mouth that stops it out of codeswitching habit. it took active work and effort to make my accent go away, and it's taking active work and effort to make it come back.

anyway, a lot of my pronunciations i no longer have to "actively hear" myself give, so i know it's working <3

sometimes i'll even say something, pause and mentally be like "goddamn, what the fuck was that that just came out my mouth" and then im like "oh right, that's me 🥰 hello again, me"

im glad you're ready to start reclaiming this part of yourself and i wish you good luck. it's surprisingly hard! i started making a conscious effort three or four years ago and mine is still not as strong as i'd like.

#asks #appalachian dialect #Appalachia