#BECAUSE I THOUGHT THAT WAS JUST A CULTURAL THING

[halo-chainsaw]

Shut up i'm talking patreon only 7$!!!!!

The patreon podcast is out, and I have just finished listening to it!

I decided to write down some notes for those who are interested but do not have the patreon. It's a long one, but I picked out what I thought would be important + silly moments here n there

Podcast is recorded the morning of Dream's video (I'm sorry but not to Tommyinnit)

Tommy called his mom about the situation first, discussing about how it was awful (pre reddit post)

Harry wrote the "you can call me anything but do not call me poor" LOL

Tommy didn't watch the dream stream but read a synopsis, and he said that was enough

He's spoken to Dream privately several times (starting 2023), all his friends told him that dream was taking advantage of him, but he wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt

He has told dream to change how he acts, and dream has refused. Has had conversations like this multiple times.

Told dream in a conversation he was no longer speaking to him and was no longer talking to him after he talked to his mom. Was previously ignoring him but blocked him outright.

After his dream v quackity sketch dream sent him awful and mean messages.

Jack and Tommy are pissed off about people saying to "resolve it privately". They have tried multiple times to solve things privately, but Dream will take things public.

Jack had a 2 hour long call with dream on jack's DADS BIRTHDAY??? and it was about why he didn't like dream, and about dream's allegations.

the "Jack mentions Dream" account bothers Jack since its a bunch of indirect things, and him responding to messages rather than him just bringing Dream up.

Dream says Jack spreads rumors about him.

Jack does not think dream is a p*dophile, but he finds the situation(s) he was in wildly inappropriate.

Dream showed everyone his evidence against the grooming allegations in the DreamSMP discord. Jack said he told Dream it weirded him out, because either way, he was still messaging a fan, and it pissed Dream off.

Jack flat out calls Dream "stupid".

He's very pissed about the "unfaithful" rumor, and he's very vocal about it for a minute.

Jack reiterates the editor story with the 50 quid

They point out how the Dream ignores the George and Caiti situation, along with clipping Tubbo out of context.

"I can't believe he thought he could win by just lying. Especially when you've got a reputation of lying." -Jack (paraphrased/two different sentences put together)

Tommy says the video were for him, not everyone else. Makes a jab about Dream unable to use media literacy.

Tommy says Dream knows what he's talking about when he refers to misogyny. That there's so much more behind the scenes, that it's miserable.

Tommy says he doesn't want to do any of this anymore, that it's pointless. He says Youtube doesn't make him happy, that he doesn't fit in, and he wants to be done. He will still be posting to Youtube because he loves making videos, but he doesn't want to be part of the Youtube sphere/culture. He wants to be a proper comedian.

"I might as well go down sayin' what I fuckin' mean." -Tommy

brings up the "putting others down", Tommy reiterates how he's been very kind/warm to everyone, but if someone famous is being an asshole he's gonna make a joke about it. "That's what I've done with Logan, done to you, and what I'm going to continue to do."

Tommy calls him one of the most self indulgent and exhausting people he's ever met.

Brings up Dream calling him the internet police, he says that he's just sick of the bullshit. "When I see it, say it."

Tommy reiterates he can't do this much longer, that it's all pointless. Dream is just doing what he's been doing for years. He is not proud of dream and he doesn't respect him. Tells him straight to "Fuck off".

Tommy would talk to Jack, unsure if what was happening with Dream was odd/bad or not. He's a little relieved that it's in the public eye now.

Jack talks about how everyone on the server is talking against him, that no one is defending him. They've all known he's awful.

Tommy says he felt close to Dream, so he struggled with seeing the bad actions he had done. He felt skewed/manipulated.

Tommy tells a story about back when he was 14, he would annoy people in Hypixel by lobby spamming. One day he heads into a streamer's chat that he looked up to and said hello. the streamer, who was about 20 at the time, tore into him, calling him the R slur and many other horrible things. He said he felt heartbroken and shaken up. "Shit like this just happens along the way, and it's miserable, but like- for me, I just keep remindin' myself "this isn't the first time I've done this"."

Jack tried to make his disassociation as public as possible, he had told Dream to his face (during the allegations) in the DreamSMP discord that he did not want to be associated with him anymore.

Talks about how people still group DreamSMP members with Dream, and how they think every member is bad due to Dream's actions, and he's tired of it.

He doesn't like how public everything is, but he's glad people can finally see that they don't like Dream.

Tommy, from now on, is telling everyone how he feels. He's going to be blatant. (if that's what i understood from a comment he made)

Jack is still shocked that Dream chose that moment of all things to jump in. They have made comments here and there but Dream never said anything.

Jack talks about a part in his stream where he says something along the lines of "I'd understand this type of outburst if we had been bullying im for weeks and weeks. But we haven't been. Nor would that make it okay." And then someone on twitter said "Jack just admitted that they'd been bullying Dream non stop for weeks and he's proud of it!!!!" Jack says he can't believe people's ability to misinterpret.

Tommy saw Tubbo dissecting Dream's stream for 7 hours and knew that was the point it was becoming ridiculous.

Jack blatantly calls out how Dream uses manipulation tactics in how he speaks to the public. Tommy calls it painful for him to watch because it's what Dream had done to him and others in private.

Jack goes back to Dream's stream, talking about their phone call together, about how it was disingenuous and weird to bring up publicly. He says there are things he can't talk about publicly that formed his opinion.

"I just think he's like an impossibly self-indulgent, selfish man, who thinks everyone's on his own time." -Tommy

Jack thought Dream was purposefully being negligent in the way he would speak, and while he still is, he is seeing that a lot of it also comes from Dream not being able to pick up on social cues and norms. Though, he also reiterates that it doesn't excuse his awful behavior.

"I don't get how he can't listen to anyone else." -Tommy

Both of them have talked to Dream multiple times about how he acts and he never listens. Not even just them, they say "We all have really tried", which implies more members of the SMP or other personal friends.

"He doesn't seem to feel very much empathy for the pain he's caused, and if I was in his shoes- I don't know where his guilt is." -Tommy

They talk about his inability to apologize and how they can't understand it. Tommy gets a little heated. Dream has given them empty apologies and goes to do the same things again. They talk about how he doubles down over and over until no one sides with him, that's when he apologizes.

Jack calls Dream dismissive, and how its obvious that he doesn't care.

Tommy implores the audience to not imagine these dramas as Youtubers doing it, but to imagine their friends doing these things. Youtubers are not above others, there's no difference. The only difference is responsibility.

Jack points out how it's odd that they decide to post these things. It shows that they just double down on their awful actions.

Tommy ends by saying he doesn't want to continue this, but if there are things that need to be said then they will be, but on the Patreon.

Jack says he is done as well, that he's done with all his serious points, but he will be making jokes here and there. He won't be joking about rumors, but things that actually happened.

"Anyway, back to writing!" "Guys, let's all get back to coding."

[rowsdowersavesusall]

I’m a chronic TikTok and Tumblr user and the opinions of non-TikTok Tumblr users are interesting. It is very addicting, but so is tumblr. Before TikTok, I couldn’t stay off of Tumblr. It was endless free and diverse information. Discussions of almost all subjects, but you only had a taste of deep and personal, newsworthy, or enlightening stuff every few hours of scrolling.

TikTok gives you these deep and personal, newsworthy and shocking, and enlightening stuff every scroll. In addition, public knowledge is prioritized. The things that particularly strike a chord with people are shared at a better scale than Tumblr could manage. Yes, we had live snail reaction and Castiel confession but TikTok had these sort of events at least twice a day. There were 2-5 new phenomenons a day and one trend every week or so that if you brought it up with any TikTok user they would know what you were talking about.

The personal connections it let ppl have even momentarily happened 50 times a day and were deeper than you could get on Tumblr. Seeing someone’s face and hearing someone’s voice while they talk to you is such a huge part of synthetic human connection I didn’t know what I was missing when I only had Tumblr. I got replies to comments I made every single day.

On Tumblr, I got spoken/replied to maybe once every few months, and even then a large part of Tumblr culture is not talking like you’re having a one on one conversation but hearing someday something and then turning to an audience to give your thoughts on something. I’m doing that right now.

Both of my TikTok and Tumblr accounts are infinitesimal and insignificant. I still got to read personal messages to me. Every. Single. Day. I can’t even rightfully show just how huge a difference this makes.

Starting TikTok I was commenting like once every few weeks because that was just as often as I did on Tumblr getting no replies. I felt barely moved to say something or let the abstract reaction in my head turn into real words and communication. Suddenly i get replied to constantly, and a few months ago I was shocked to look at my comment history and realize I leave about 20 comments a day.

It makes a difference that I don’t have anyone to talk to outside of the internet. I work night shift with no coworkers, I’m not on good terms with family, and there’s no good way to meet ppl where I live. I already see the effects of TikTok on my Tumblr. Despite no connection or communication I am constantly on output. It helped rejuvenate some horribly neglected social skills, but it did not fix any deeper feeling of loneliness because it was all touch and go.

On TikTok I learned about things I never would have heard about through Tumblr. I know because I was looking at both and the difference is so vast. With this also came cohesiveness and actual action. An account alerting ppl to YouTube accounts with less than 100 followers would rally TikTokers to help them achieve hundreds of thousands. An old man with a fishing account tearfully gave a goodbye before he was surprised in the morning with 500,000 followers. Nothing makes ppl feel more connected and strong in their convictions than partaking in a collective call to action, which was far more often due to easier spread of information and no holds barred on personal presentation.

In the beginning I was disturbed by how easily ppl shared info online, and still I believe ppl didn’t fully understand the consequences of having any part of your life broadcasted to millions whether you want it to happen if not. In my mind it’s a machine working in overdrive to bridge all gaps made by the isolation capitalism has put us in. It will never fully bridge that gap, but it got farther than anything we could have hoped for.

I knew about things happening in every corner of the world. Losing TikTok is both a withdrawal from an addiction creating by the horrible and severe isolation and stress being overworked has brought on us, and it’s growing up with a TV and then never seeing a TV again. Sure you still have a pretty diverse town, but it will never provide a close call of the same informational relay. It’s just living without TV of Internet. The world is small again. And maybe that’s how millions lived before us, we for some reason can’t live without it once we’ve had it.

"lol tiktok users would rather learn mandarin than come to tumblr" yeah man that's crazy. who would have thought that people from the video-based dopamine-machine app wouldn't decide to join the text- and image- based no-algorithm website?

[kingjasnah]

idk if this has been discussed but i do wonder if there was a way jasnah could have won over fen. jasnah calls her very emotionally intelligent and she only started responding positively to dalinar in ob once he got truthfully frustrated with her and did some yelling and idk i wonder if jasnah had set aside all her philosophical talk and made a passionate and emotional plea if fen would have been more receptive. but of course jasnah wouldn't do that

short answer: agreed. long answer: ive been wanting to talk about this for weeks. so you're getting kinda a long one.

jasnah is obviously one of my favorite characters and that's almost why i was clapping and cheering during the taravangian takedown--like all of her flaws and everything that makes her compelling was completely cracked open. if jasnah cares about anything at all, it's how she is perceived. we dont know what happened to her when she was a child and we dont know why it seems that she was institutionalized or at least in confinement for a period of her youth but we do know that every single thing she does is a measure to keep her from never going back to the kind of powerlessness she felt back then. i remember shallan commented on her perfect her hair and makeup and clothing was waaay back in book 1/2 and thought how interesting it was for a self professed heretic to still take care to make sure the darkeyed sailors on their ship to the shattered plains never saw her out of makeup. jasnah has been vulnerable in this series, sure, but only to her family. or maybe shallan. or maybe hoid? persumably. every single page she has appeared on in this entire series has reinforced that to her a huge part of the way she does her job (and im considering hiring a spy to follow her sister in law her job too, not just being queen. i mean what she considers her role to be in her family) of statecraft is in the perception that she is perfect. and yeah, that's why it was never going to work with fen

dalinar did have a hard time cracking fen because i think that in the beginning of their interactions they both made fundamental misinterpretations of each other based on where they came from. fen only thought of dalinar as a warmonger who would walk all over her country in the name of conquest, and dalinar straight up did not understand that fen's perspective was so heavily influenced by the thaylen mercantile culture. they still found common ground and yeah it was a frank conversation and an abandoment of diplomat speak that did it. jasnah's made emotional pleas before but i think the crux of her error with fen is that she DID know how important the mercantile culture was but she interpreted it as "fen is going to leave the alliance if she gets a better deal for her country so i need to prove that im her best option" instead of "fen values exchange of commerce but she really values relationships. fen's culture involves building relationships with other merchants so that they can trade with each other and understand each other" (please see the original two rysn interludes). fen didn't need a perfect argument from jasnah but she also didn't need dalinar's approach either. all she needed was for jasnah to TRUST her enough to treat her like an equal partner in their alliance instead of a marker to be moved around a war map.

cause let's be honest. fen is an extremely capable ruler. she's smart and she's been in power for a long time. i do not think for a second that she was genuinely aghast that jasnah sent spies after aesudan or well, the kharbrath murders were pretty bad but im certain that a middle aged to senior member of ruling nobility has seen worse. it's not a bad thing for jasnah to put her people first. i am convinced that fen felt betrayed because jasnah had already set the parameters of their relationship by even engaging in this debate with taravangian. fen saw her logic backfire on herself and went "oh. okay. you are putting YOUR people first because you do not see the thaylen people as having the kind of relationship to you as, for example, vstim had with the shin or with the reshi king. you see us as an argument to be won over, as numbers on a map, as a thought excersize. not onyl withh you walk all over my country in the name of conquest (like dalinar might have) but you'd do it for the sake of what, rhetoric??" in that way, at least taravodium was honest.

but yes. jasnah would never do that. jasnah put on a full face of makeup every morning in her cabin just in case a handful of sailors that she never learned the names of would see her. of course she would never let a queen that she respected see her worry for her kingdom on purpose but it's over now. the mask has cracked, she lost, and she knows that the trap she fell into only closed around her because of her own hubris/the kind of love you have for winning that you'd have to have in order to spend your pre-apocalypse time actively arguing about heresy with every scholar and ardent out there. taravangian's arguments would not have worked on fen if jasnah had never put her in the position to be won over in the first place. i cannot stress enough that jasnah was my first love in this series and watching her finally crack and expose what i have always considered to be the most interesting thing about her was easily one of my favorite moments in the book. insane shit. i can't wait to see how she builds herself back up.

[landscape-suicide]

Speaking as a transmasc of formerly-lesbian experience and just knowing how these guys can be on an intimate level…I get the sense that trans man lesbians are often doing a very fluid “man in the streets, woman in the sheets” thing but won’t cop to it because tmebian culture really really hates any fluidity or uncertainty or fun. They’re more comfortable with being bioessentialist than just professing to the fact that some guys are girls sometimes.

idk lol I think ive seen a lot of lesbian trans guys do afabsbian identity valorization shit while also being very openly inclined to fluidity and gender play. I think you're underestimating the extent to which gender experimentation is allotted towards afab lesbians in certain circles of lesbian culture. with michfest especially it was very much a shift in attitude towards gender play as something hot and trendy. I just dont think ones willingness to get goofy with their gender identity really meaningfully has any correlation with their willingness to buy into bioessentialism to be frank, lol. I mean “man in the streets, woman in the sheets” certainly aligns with a subset of transgender man that can best be described as a veritable menace to trans women tbh. its largely because the exclusion of trans women from lesbian/feminist spaces has never been about actual issues with men, and so lesbian culture is actually rather keen on flirtations with manhood - but not really with transfemininity. It's part of why so many cis lesbians are comfortable thrusting transgender women into heterosexual relationship dynamics, they are literally more comfortable with the thought of having sex with us as cisgender men then as trans women. I just don't think you can funnygender your way out of culpability in transmisogyny lol

[bckwardsfrwards]

could you do dr phosphorus x reader relationship headcanons on a alien reader

Absolutely! Thanks for the ask :D

These are for a GN reader! Headcanons below the cut sorry for the long wait I have a lot of projects I'm working on at the moment!

At first he'd be a bit weary, You being from an entirely different planet and all. But he'd be quick to warm up to you once he realized you weren't a real threat to him. (Not that much is)

He'd crack stupid jokes with you most of which you don't understand. But his genuine attempts to make you laugh slowly start to work. And when you reference something from your homeworld he's equally puzzled. You both laugh anyways putting the cultural difference aside.

He often seeks you out since you more than tolerate his presence. He was so used to being alone or disregarded that he easily latches onto your genuine attention.

You often find yourselves telling stories from your past, some pleasant but most not. You sympathize with the doctor and all he has lost.

"Courting" with Doctor Phosphorus is a little strange to say the least. You're unused to Earth's unspoken societal rules and rituals. So when he is openly being flirtatious you're a little oblivious to it. You can't see his eyes and you don't understand the meaning of prolonged eye contact, so when you finally figure out his intentions of romancing you you're a little embarrassed at your obliviousness.

Actually dating the doctor is an interesting experience for the both of you. You've never been with an earthling and he's never even seen an alien before you. But you quickly catch on to what he likes.

You learn Phosphorus hasn't known a friendly touch in 15 years and without thinking too much you pull him into an embrace. He's a bit shocked when you pull back and you're completely unharmed. Casual touches quickly become one of your favorite things. Tracing the outline of his bones over his translucent skin.

You can see through him both literally and figuratively. He's not as good at hiding his emotions as he thinks. He seeks you out often just for the comfort of your presence. Whether it's sitting together in companionable silence or just holding hands, feeling the heat radiate from him.

You learn that it's not as hard to read Phosphorus as you originally thought. The way the flames on his head grow a little hotter and burn a little brighter when he's upset. How after a particularly draining mission he'll be more needy for your touch than normal.

He has no shame when it comes to your relationship. Often joking openly with the other commandos about it. Holding your hand in the back of the transport car. Trying his damnedest not to let you out of his sight. He's overly cautious and for good reason, he's terrified of losing you.

You can hold your own in a fight but whenever you find yourself injured he's gentle with you. Attentive and overly cautious making sure that your wounds are tended to. He tells you it's because he was an actual doctor once but you can tell it's just an excuse to worry over you.

As snarky and sarcastic as he is, he is also very genuine and caring. He tries to put your needs before his own whenever he can. Deflecting and claiming he doesn't need to be doted on. But you do anyway, you show him the same gentleness and affection that he so clearly craves and he melts into it.

You show him love he hasn't known in this body and he isn't sure how to handle it. He's torn between giving in and staying reserved. But he lets you in, lets himself be vulnerable and cared for.

That's all for now, maybe I'll do a part 2 and include NSFW headcanons :)

[elbiotipo]

The most annoying thing about generic medieval fantasy slop is that most of it has basically nothing to do with real European history. Tolkien's stuff was based on folklore and myth from anglo-saxon England, so the omission of things like religion and social classes makes sense. But most modern DnD-like fantasy stuff is based on worlds that are much less mythical, and yet they're all exactly the same while having not much to do with real europe. There's no notable distinction between the names and languages of people from one country and another, they're all random european names that come from everywhere from Ireland to portugal to greece to Novgorod, with a few made up european-sounding names with no thought behind them. The exact way social stratification varied, like how some serfs from the HRE would be trained as knights and given valued positions as the emperor's Ministeriales; or the difference between serfs, free peasants who rent, free peasants who have common land, and gentry; or the antipathy between HRE Princes and the Free Cities' elites; or that the centralisation of the governments of the iberian crowns that was made possible by an increase in burghers who studied Roman Law and became Civil Servants; or how feudal lords didn't do much administration and were rarely even literate; is all completely ignored in favour of a worldbuilding-wise nonsensical stylistic mish-mash of anglo-saxon England, Arthurian Britain as imagined by the French, ancient-regime france and the late-medieval Hanse. I wanted to ask you something but I got lost in the rant, sorry

Don't matter, you can keep talking to me like that all night if you wish, in fact, feel free to get more comfortable over there

ahem

I'm very tired of the Middle Ages, even with well researched settings, I believe we reached a point of saturation. I do wonder when this omnipresence of the Middle Ages in fantasy came from, because while there are undertones of it in Tolkien for example, it doesn't scream Middle Ages (more of Arthurian and Anglo-Saxon legend though) I have a feeling there is more to this relatively Middle Ages obsession, because it's even widespread in pop-culture in a way that I feel other time periods aren't.

But what bothers me is the same as you Anon, the fact there is a lot of interesting things to explore about the Middle Ages, and instead it's treated as a shallow aesthetic, as a monolith that can be just used as decoration for your story. Because that's in fact my main complaint with worldbuilding, when cultures are treated as interchangeable monoliths, and then every setting is the same; and if your setting is generic and flat, it means that you could switch your characters to any other setting and that makes them generic and flat. And what is interesting about Middle Ages Europe is that people back then, like any past societies, had very different worldviews and very different ways of organizing their lives. You wouldn't just exchange a knight into a modern soldier or cop and it would be the same. The life of people back then was different, and I would expect a fantasy work inspired by that to reflect it.

Many don't seem to want to engage with that though. They want the aesthetics without any thought about the societies, culture, economics, dynamics that were there. And to be honest, at this point, those aesthetics are not even that compelling anymore.

[postcardsfromheapside]

This game has been out since Halloween.

In that time, there have been numerous Veilguard positive posts in which patient, loving, wonderful, insightful and intelligent individuals attempt to impart lore onto a fanbase which doesn't deserve their time and attention.

I can't believe I'm running across posts made within the past five days which express disgust and frustration towards the devs over things which have been explained in great detail multiple times on this site, BUT IN THE DAMN GAME.

AND Y'ALL KEEP COMPLAINING THE GAME TELLS BUT DOESN'T SHOW. AND YOU DON'T EVEN LISTEN OR WATCH.

"the crows are presented as wholesome" - they are not. this site has a crow fanbase which has run off and lionized Viago as Daddy, conveniently ignored all the in-game details which either hint or baldly state things Definitely Aren't Cool, and generally fetishized what it means to be a Crow because of Zevran and Lucanis. Then the same people, or others who weren't paying proper attention, whined when the headcanon crowded out the actual in-game material, and they said "Antiva is whitewashed." There have been multiple posts about this.

"slaves are meant to be everywhere in Tevinter and we don't see that" - we aren't everywhere, we're specifically in Docktown which is poor and people generally can't afford slaves there, but we do see evidence of slavery, and we run around with abolitionists and help save people from fascist slavers and free people who will either be slaves or victims of blood magic so IDK what to tell you, there have been multiple posts explaining this too, maybe leave your slave or savior fetish somewhere else.

"Racism is supposed to be rampant" - fuck off. I actually will not be explaining this because for once it was nice not to be called a slur. If you need this to feel "immersed" or to feel there are actual problems, I need you to check yourself fucking hard. If you want to masquerade what it feels like to experience bigotry, go play one of the prior games. This has also been discussed in multiple posts.

"Handling pure lyrium is fine now" no handling the dagger is fine Solas cleansed it, the dagger woke something up in Harding specifically she talks about how some dwarves are connected to the stone, she previously had not been one of them and maybe the dagger woke something up in her, or did you need a pop up explaining this? Were you paying attention during cut scenes and dialogue?

"Adult Dalish without vallaslin" - in the 10 years since Inquisition/Trespasser, doubtless some dalish have come to adulthood and found out what assholes their gods were and made the decision not to go through that specific cultural rites. Or maybe city elves joined the Dalish. Who knows who made up the elf population at that ritual site. Elves are not a monolith. We've made multiple, multiple posts about elves not being monoliths.

"Solas' opinion on blood magic went from neutral to negative" SOLAS FUCKING LIES. We've made multiple posts about Solas lying, if you need this explained further I suggest you play the game all over again, he lies to you throughout the entire game.

"Re-write of the after credits scene in Inquisition to recontextualise the Flemeth and Solas interaction" it's recontextualized because now we know who and what they were to each other. Learning new information does that. This is literally what happens all the time in science and history. You recontextualize what you thought you knew with new information. You're supposed to change your position, not whine about how the new information makes everything different.

These are just some of the things I pulled from a list on a post in which someone was really just upset about everything. Everything. Varric, Morrigan, Solas, everything. But I can't take their criticisms seriously, because they're upset that "too much was told" and "not enough shown" and yet didn't even pay attention to DA lore or in-game dialogue or context clues around the world of Northern Thedas to answer their own questions.

Everything in this game makes complete sense if you use lore from prior games and a single iota of imagination to see how it fits. We've had many delightful posts discussing this, seeing how things could be explained, when approaching the game from a place of curiosity rather than being upset because personal headcanons weren't satisfied or long-held expectations weren't met.

[modern-politics111]

This Inauguration Day, remember two things: You are not alone. And you have the power to help

Today, it's normal and expected to feel afraid and angry. So much has been said about Trump's plans and all the terrible things he wants to do. And many well-meaning voices have talked about these plans so often, they feel inevitable.

I want this post to serve as a history lesson for younger readers, and a reminder for old folks like me. The big lesson: We've faced exactly this situation before. We got out of it. And we have the power to do it again.

Here's what I mean:

You are not alone

Trump and the GOP want you to feel like everyone supports him now. They're acting like all Americans are full MAGA now and that the culture has shifted away from liberalism.

But that's not true. The man won a small popular vote victory on the back of millions of voters not showing up this time. Check the research; in most cases, the "huge shifts towards Trump" was really voters not showing up. Not good, of course, but not a sign of a mass conversion to MAGA.

And communities like this one still exist. We're not just here to be a community - more on that in a sec - but you're among 60,000 friends across America and internationally who aren't OK with this. And those groups exist in real life, too, likely near you.  Check them out, because being too online is part of the problem, too. And the Internet is where a lot of the non-stop wave of untrue predictions of doom come from.

Find your community of people who want to resist. Start here, and look around offline. But remember that there are millions just like you, who want to stop this.

You have the power to help

Let's get this out of the way: There will be elections. Elections we can win. Elections that matter.

Don't believe me? Come back tomorrow (Jan 21). There's an election in South Carolina - State House District 113 in North Charleston, Hanahan, and Summerville, to be exact. It's a safe Democratic seat, just the kind of seat a tyrant would prevent elections in. When the polls close tomorrow at 7, you'll see that we still have elections.

Then we have a chance to build Dem power in Iowa, maintain control of the Minnesota State Senate, and choose our candidates for two critical US House elections. Those elections will happen, too.

Later in the year, we've got to maintain control of the WI and PA Supreme Courts, win back the Virginia Governor's office, and flip state and local governments across America. Those elections will happen, too.

In 2017, we all got a lesson in government. Specifically, that state and local governments can do a lot to resist the President's agenda. These races are where the power is. And when you start winning, you build momentum and energy. Then you can win races you thought Democrats had no business winning.

And that's why this sub exists. To inform you of these elections, and give you the tools to help win them from anywhere.

You can help win all sorts of elections right now. I know. Today is hard, and it hurts. But a secret I've learned is that sitting in your misery, or yelling it into the void, rarely makes things better. The cure for sorrow is changing the situation. And you'll be amazed at how easily Trump folds on his big promises when he gets a little resistance.

You are not alone. You have the power to help. And we're right here with you.

[lala056]

Exhausting

I have no respect for billford shippers that look down on stancest shippers.

Oh what, you’d have me believe a genetic tie to a partner is somehow worse than being with someone that stabs through your hands, forces you to swallow live spiders, and also SA’s you by having yourself forcibly strip down in public and swing your clothes over your head like a helicopter? (sorry but anyone that forcibly removes your clothes and exposes your body, even if you’re a guy/lacking breasts and it’s just your chest, is committing SA against you. They’re exposing your body against your will plain and simple. Try to write that off how you like but that’s the facts)

The logic behind this baffles me honestly.

There’s a reason Alex titled that kissing drawing as "the worst drawing in the world" and then linked to an amazon BIBLE page (yeah I know that was part of a joke well guess what he frequently uses the bible joke for shipping in general so yeah).

Because he knows it’s BAD, TOXIC, PROBLEMATIC AS YOU GUYS LIKE TO LABEL THINGS. What I see people incorrectly accuse PROSHIPPERS to REPRESENT rather than the actual representation of the LIVE AND LET LIVE CREDO OF SHIPPING.

Ever stop to consider that maybe Alex didn’t do stancest or art involving Wendy/Dipper because he simply a) didn’t like those ships, which is valid since everyone has their own tastes, and he did base some of these characters on his own family so it’s close to home for him, or b) knows how toxic and chronically online a lot of haters are? That he wanted to avoid drama for this stream that he’s trying to milk every cent out of for CHARITY? (It's ridiculous how many times he felt obligated to say "REMEMBER IT'S FOR CHARITY" when shipping came up just to try and prevent any meltdowns from uptight fans and viewers. And even then he still didn't do some because he knew the fact of it being for charity still wouldn't fly for some- because a lot of people would rather watch REAL PEOPLE SUFFER to preserve their fictional sensitivities)

Not to mention he still works with Disney (chibiverse hello), any backlash (the form of false pedo accusations or incest apologist accusations being what happens to be thrown around all willy nilly nowadays over fictional bullshit) could get him blocked not only from working with the company ever again, but lose any input he might have over his beloved passion project and baby Gravity Falls itself?

This is a man who has said COUNTLESSLY that he doesn’t care about ships, has even encouraged people to "be weirder" and made omelet hypotheticals for how much HE DOESN’T CARE BECAUSE FICTIONAL SHIPS DON’T MATTER.

Alex Hirsch is a KING.

And it’s sad to see that so many of his loyal subjets are so bigoted and blind to ignore his own feelings in order to justify their own, or to somehow perform the mental gymnastics in order to absolve themselves of "thought crimes" so that they can feel like they aren’t bad people under the imposition of conservative purity culture.

The terms "cest" and "age" are trigger words now. If those show up in any form, pitchforks come out and roofs get burned. Companies overreact and overcompensate. He said Disney people were watching, so of course he’s gonna say and act in what is deemed an appropriate manner because even companies apparently prefer abusive relationships to ones that have a blood tie even if blood ties are wholesomely depicted.

The age old double standards.

And don’t get me started on bringing up Dipper Goes To Taco Bell. Alex and cast know of that story, they’ve made references to it in a video game and such, immortalized it. They engage with all corners of their fandom, also shown by Jason’s "saving the town" reference on stream.

Another thing, anyone notice how they laughed off the Dipper and Wendy suggestion Jason made, rather than exploded? BECAUSE THEY DON'T CARE IT'S NOT THAT SERIOUS - and most likely turned them down because they know there's more drama about characters being aged up and crap so it wouldn't have mattered if they're adults now, there are people who will always see them as "kids".

Point is - If there was such a strong hate on Alex’s part about the darker side of fiction or taboos he’d do all in his power to make sure they were never mentioned again and be active against them. 

He’s a kind, caring man that obviously likes to just get along with people, but he does put his foot down when he feels something is awful. He’s made political posts about presidents he feels are corrupt and spoken out against social injustice. You honestly think he wouldn’t speak out about those taboo ships in frank language if he thought that they shouldn’t exist and that the people who create for them are awful?

Newsflash, he would. Yes, he’d isolate a sadly small part of his fanbase, but he’s shown time and again he doesn’t care about being liked. He cares about what’s right.

And abusing others over which made up character kisses who, isn’t.

If you’re someone that mislabels proshippers too, to mean "problematic shippers", then as a billford shipper you’re one by definition. And yes, I'm including you AU billford shippers too because there is always some degree of toxicity.

Knock the hate and abuse off. People that go off about why their ship is justified and another isn't are the reason people leave fandoms and leave amazing works often unfinished, even Gen writers and artists.

[creampuffqueen]

Avatar Yangchen's Favorite Foods

My winter break boredom combined with my chronic writing procrastination have combined to form Yangchen Thoughts at never before seen levels.

AKA, I was doing a bit of research into potential Air Nomad cuisine and suddenly found myself needing to know what Yangchen's favorite foods would be. So here we are.

Most of the foods listed will be primarily of Tibetan origin, considering that is the main cultural inspiration for the Air Nomads. However, because Yangchen spent a large portion of her life in different Earth Kingdom cities, there will be some dishes taken from other cultures as well. I will be providing links to as many recipes as possible! (Note: some of the recipes themselves are not vegetarian, but could easily be modified so to fit with the Air Nomads' vegetarian lifestyles).

Now, when it comes to food, Avatar Yangchen strikes me as someone who prioritizes function over flavor. Obviously she prefers her food to taste good, but she's more concerned with what said food can do for her, convenience-wise. She prefers foods that can be eaten on the go, snacked on while working, or downed relatively quickly. As well, she wants her food to be on the filling side, which lessens the amount of time she has to spend eating. She's quite pragmatic about her food. (Is this a good thing? I suppose that's up to you to decide). Finally, her cooking skills are pretty minimal, so most of her favorite dishes are quite simple to make.

Most of this post will be under a cut because, as per usual, I can never make anything short :)

Butter Tea

This is a very traditional Tibetan drink, and it's one that Yangchen would have grown up drinking. It's actually mentioned in The Dawn of Yangchen! It's a drink she would find very comforting, as well as filling due to it being nearly half butter.

Breakfasts

Tomato Egg Soup

It's quite literally what it sounds like. This is a breakfast dish, probably very common in the Earth Kingdom and/or Fire Nation. It's simple to make, but hearty and warm.

Shom-Dae - Rice Pudding

This is a rice pudding made with yogurt. It can be eaten with fruit as a filling breakfast, or sweetened to be made into a dessert. Yangchen doesn't have much of a sweet tooth, so she prefers this for her breakfast.

Snacks

Bhobi

This is basically a Tibetan burrito. A soft, thin flatbread wrapped around various fillings. Typically these can have anywhere from 3-5 different fillings, consisting of things such as stir-fried vegetables, noodles, eggs, you name it. Yangchen would absolutely be a fan of the versitility, and would likely make these to use up leftovers for a tasty snack.

Shogo Khatsa - Spicy Potatoes

As the name implies, this dish is made up of spicy potatoes. I think Yangchen would actually be a huge fan of spice, and as such would totally love these. She would probably also dip them in Sepen, which is a Tibetan tomato-based chili sauce.

Various Street Foods

Yangchen would love trying local street foods at all the places she visits, but she has a few favorites. Fried tofu, spring rolls, and spicy cucumbers. They're all very easy on the go snacks.

Onion Tingmo

This snack is definitely more of a comfort food. These are a type of steamed bun with green onions folded in, and I think these would be Yangchen’s guilty pleasure; the kind of food she could eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Meals

Tenchung - Lentil Soup

The Air Nomads would certainly be fans of lentils, considering their high protein and iron content. This is another very simple soup, but would be very comforting and nostalgic for Yangchen - as well as quite filling.

Mokthuk - Momo Soup

Momos are Tibetan dumplings, which Yangchen would enjoy eating on their own, but when added to a hearty soup the dish is called Mokthuk. As you're probably starting to figure out, I think Yangchen is a pretty big soup fan. Just like in the attached video, Yangchen would load her soup up with chili oil for added spice.

Pishi - Tibetan Dumpling Soup (also known as "Lemur-Face Soup")

This soup is extremely similar to Mokthuk, but the dumplings are made in a different way and more resemble wontons. This dish is often colloquially referred to as "Lemur-Face Soup" by Air Nomad children, as the folded dumplings resemble the faces of flying lemurs. Because the dumplings for this soup require a bit of extra effort, it would have been a rare treat growing up. Yangchen loves it both for the flavor and the fond memories it brings.

Desserts

Tenshi-Bhakthuk

This is a fried pastry covered in a sugar syrup that is typically served at New Year's celebrations. They are small, crunchy little snacks that Yangchen would love eating each year at the celebration.

Bulug

The best way I can describe this is that it's a Tibetan funnel cake. This is also served at New Year's celebrations. When Yangchen was younger, she and her sister Jetsun would always get one of these to split. It's a bittersweet memory now, but she still absolutely loves the food.

----

And there we have it! A whole selection of foods I think Yangchen would enjoy. Feel free to use this in fics, art, headcanons, whatever, and your own as you see fit!

Due to all this research I've done, I also have lots of ideas for foods that could be added to the Air Nomad cuisine as a whole - who knows, maybe that will become a separate post of its own!

Pretty much all recipes came from Palden's Kitchen ; would absolutely recommend checking his channel out! His videos are very high quality and his voice is incredibly soothing, honestly I want this man as my grandfather now.

Finally, I also need to give a shoutout to @atlaculture for providing inspiration and resources for my Tibetan food deep dive!

[rimouskis]

thoughts on social media use, algorithms, and the strangeness of being a human in the world:

I don't remember when I downloaded tiktok. It was either 2021 or 2022. I was working from home and had more unsupervised down time than I was accustomed to. It was easy to scroll and get lost in it.

The algorithm was good. It had my interests pinned so quickly that it was almost alarming. I suddenly felt reattached to youth culture, which was something that had been slipping out of my fingers as I aged into my 20s. I rather enjoyed getting to explain new jokes or memes or references to my older friends who weren't on the platform. It was, for a time, my favorite way to spend time online, aside from Tumblr.

And all I did was consume. I barely even commented on things, mostly because the constant notifications you couldn't silence when your comment got liked were annoying, but also because I didn't think I had much worth adding. It was entirely passive. Scroll, watch, scroll, scroll, scroll, watch, watch, scroll. An eternal feed of dopamine beamed right into my skull.

I stopped writing as much, though there were lots of things I could blame that on. I stopped reading almost entirely, though that had been true for a little while, so I also couldn't blame that on the app either, not really. It wasn't like I could point to the app and say "THIS THING IS RUINING MY LIFE!" because it wasn't. I was entertained. I felt informed because I started seeing some news items this way that I hadn't seen elsewhere. I was Connected To The Culture, and I've always enjoyed that. I found music I liked, and cultural critics I liked, and endless, endless amounts of Content that I liked.

My phone was old. So old, in fact, that the screen was made out of some sort of thing where the stark white like/comment/home icons on tiktok's interface literally burnt themselves into my screen. I was kind of embarrassed about that. I didn't use it a weird amount, I was on other apps, I had a life, I ran, I was outdoors whenever the weather was good, I was always busy around the city going to events and seeing people and going to hockey games. So what if I burned some icons into an old, faulty screen?

Then my life got blown up in short order, through no fault of my own, and it wasn't until I got a new, fully in-person job that I began noticing how much I was watching tiktok when I had a SECOND of free time at my job. It was more obvious when I was in an office that my fingers twitched with desire to scroll and watch short-form videos. It was embarrassing. It was like a smoker tic for a cigarette between their fingers.

Sometime in late 2023, I told my friends I wanted to stay off of tiktok more. I was sick of not writing like I used to. I felt like all my time was spent staring down at a little screen. In bursts and spurts, I would go a day or two without using the app, or only using it in the evening before I slept. I always ended up back on it, though.

It wasn't until March 2024 that I deleted the app off of my phone instead of just hour-limiting it. It was gone.

Funnily, some time later, maybe a week or two, I tried to redownload it. But, lo, my curated algorithm was gone. It had reset entirely, like it had forgotten me. My For You Page was gibberish, wholly unlike the fun, """"curated"""" (bleh) page I'd once had that could spoonfeed me stuff calibrated to my exact interests.

And just like that, the spell was broken. I deleted the app off of my phone forevermore. I left it logged in on my laptop, where the FYP was similarly broken, and I would—once every two months or so—go online to check on the pages I followed and watch a bit of their content. A mere five or so minutes would go by before I hit the end of my "Following" feed, and I'd close out of the tab, having seen all I wanted to see. It was kind of shocking how once the addictive, spot-on algorithm was destroyed, so too was my interest in the app.

That isn't to say my attention span has returned. It doesn't feel like it has. It wasn't like I smugly wiped my hands of algorithms, either. Even though I'd previously never used the "For You" tab on Twitter, I began clicking onto it. Then, a couple months ago, I started going into Instagram reels consistently, also having never done that before.

Twitter is, of course, a terrible place now filled with absolutely hateful bigots, but it's also a place unshakably dedicated to a culture of dunking and owning and getting one over another poster and being confrontational and being rude and being the first to say the most provocative, attention-grabbing thing about ANY topic.

It became deeply unpleasant to be on. It had been for a while, if we're being honest. I stayed off hockey twitter for months because I couldn't stand the horrible takes about the Pens, or about Geno's contract, or about how Sid should jump ship.

Instagram, meanwhile, was more insidious. I've never felt the kind of anxiety about my Instagram that I know bothers some other people—I deeply enjoy it as a tool of curation. I'm a hobbyist photographer. I like sharing snippets of my life (lol obviously, given what I'm doing right now). I love the language of images. I didn't really follow any influencers or news outlets, just old friends and acquaintances and family members and some small artists I enjoy. I muted the stories of people who shared incessant and oversimplified PSA graphics about the news or social issues. I kept it rather apolitical—that was what Twitter and sometimes Reddit were for.

When I started perusing the curated/algorithm Reels feed, though, I started to get sucked back in.

It was nice, at first. My tendency to stay away from political/news content meant I didn't get ragebait on there. In fact, the VAST majority of content I was served was interior design, furniture restoring/flipping, and home remodels.

It was really interesting. I liked seeing people's homes! I liked daydreaming about getting to do big-scale renovations with custom homemade cabinetry and wallpaper and gorgeous tiles. Sometimes I'd get recipe content, too, and vaguely crunchy-but-still-sensible environmentalist stuff.

I started noticing, again, how much time I was spending on it, but it also wasn't just taking my time.

All the beautiful new furniture made me want new furniture, too. All the starkly-beautiful and obsessive (and frankly stupid and overconsumption-informed) organization content made me want to improve my hall closet. Suddenly the interior design in my home—which had gotten compliments from everyone who'd ever stepped inside, from my landlord to my friends to my family—wasn't good enough for me anymore. I wanted a change. I wanted a gallery wall. I wanted a sideboard. I wanted removable wallpaper. I wanted beautiful, impractical, expensive storage. I wanted, I wanted, I wanted.

I've never been particularly influenceable, not when it comes to internet influencers. I'm very informed and watchful over my money. I know what I like spending on. I plan and I make it happen. And what influencers were often selling—clothes, makeup, beauty products—wasn't where I loved spending my money.

Home decor, though? Home improvement? Interior design? Turns out that could get me to open my wallet.

I did make some changes to my living space. I like them. I think they're beautiful and they solve both a storage issue I had and a oh-god-I-own-too-much-art-where-am-I-gonna-put-it-all problem I had. But I noticed what made me spend that money: seeing other peoples' beautiful homes.

I didn't like that.

I read AHP's "Culture Study" newsletter. I find her an interesting journalist and I usually find what she has to say, and what her guests have to say, to be interesting. This morning, she put out a newsletter talking about how she'd deleted Instagram from her phone before Christmas, and taken her email app off too while she was at it.

There are so many good chunks of this newsletter, but I want to share a few:

I find myself diverting my scroll energy to Facebook, where I still have an account to access dahlia groups, but it feels even more gross than before: a wasteland of AI accounts promising blue dahlias and weight loss reels and suggestions to friends of friends who haven’t updated their Facebook accounts in nearly a decade. It’s like a frat house basement at 10 am. Why the fuck am I here.

and

After years of people yelling at me in books, think pieces, and tweets (lol) to “break up with my phone,” “delete your social media accounts,” and “fuck Mark Zuckerberg,” turns out the thing that I needed was a whole conglomeration of quiet arguments and technological shifts that made my phone and the social media accounts on it feel less precious. Put differently, I haven’t come to value it less; instead, it’s become less valuable.

and

The amount of space these technologies take up in our lives — and their ever-diminishing utility — has brought us to a sort of cultural tipping point. I’ve sensed it over the last year, when my social feeds seemed to finish their years-long transformation from a neighborhood populated with friends to a glossy condo development of brands.

AHP articulated precisely what I'd been feeling. My curated feeds of people I'd CHOSEN to follow had been replaced with algorithms of content created by professional influencers who wanted my attention (to monetize it, to sell me things, to sell my eyes to a company, whatever).

I was disgusted by the few home renovation accounts I'd begun to follow posting their all-precious Amazon links of useless chintz. Twitter was plainly a hellhole. I'm sick of businesses and businesspeople deciding what I see in the desperate hope that I hand them money.

This has bled out to other parts of my life, even. Though I've lovingly heaped praise onto Spotify for giving me two new playlists of just-for-me algorithm-picked songs each week, I've gotten into watching and listening to DJ sets on Youtube (this and this were really enjoyable) because something that's become patently clearer to me was my own desire to experience curation.

I want to feel like what I read, what I hear, what I see, has been lovingly and intentionally made by another human because they loved it so much that they had to share it. Not because they wanted to sell me something. Not because an algorithm thinks that since I liked Song A, I'll like Song B, C, D, and XYZ based on other listener patterns. Because a real human put time and effort and a pinch of luck into discovering something and wanted to share it.

I'm getting off of Instagram Reels. I'm unfollowing the home decor/design pages I added into my feed. I'm debating deleting Twitter off my phone entirely. I'm tired of being fed ads, even if they're disguised as pretty home updates. I'm tired of being fed the worst news and the worst denizens of the internet all clamoring for attention. I'm tired of an algorithm determining what will suck up my attention.

So, all of this to say: it's been weird seeing people—friends, acquaintances, old coworkers—post on Instagram mourning the (very brief) death of Tiktok. The idea of the app being banned in the States, while worrying from a freedom of speech/oligarchy perspective, didn't bother me on a personal level as a now non-user. It's been weird noticing that my dad has started watching YouTube shorts in retirement. It's been weird seeing all the algorithms and feeling so claustrophobic about them. I want out. I want away. I can feel their presence like a shrinking room, the walls touching my skin.

This is pie-in-the-sky and naive, but it's why I like Tumblr. I shell out a few bucks a month so I don't even see ads anymore. I ticked the "do not show blazed posts" option for my dash. I don't go on the "For you" page. Every morning when I scroll my dash, I always reach the end, because I don't even follow all that many people. There is a finite limit to what I see. I can go a half hour without anything new appearing on my dash, some days. It can even get boring.

...it's nice. It feels self-curated. It's actually what I want out of social media.

Anyways, this is now a stupidly long post, and I don't have a closing statement beyond "I want to experience human-curated spaces that aren't trying to sell me shit" and "I want to stop subjecting myself to algorithms out of fear that I'm missing something or out of fear that I'll be bored."

I'll finish out with three more quotes from the AHP piece:

Not being bored is why you always feel busy, why you keep “not having time” to take a package to the post office or work on your novel. You do have time—you just spend it on your phone.

and

App Time is Time, App Energy is Energy

and

The world, filtered through the apps, is not the world we want for ourselves. And in many cases, it’s not the actual world we inhabit.

[jeonscatalyst]

as someone whos been on army twitter since 2018, it only seems like armys dont support jikook's bond the way jikookers do is because shippers are in a sub-fandom and within that subfandom they are in an echo chamber. its nothing unusual it's in literally every fandom but thats the only reason lol. like taekookers are saying the exact same thing, that the fandom is full of jikookers and everyone dismisses taekooks bond. solos and shippers all have their own "evidence" and "proof" or armys "not defending ___", and 9.9/10 its something 1) armys have never seen or even heard about bc twitter and the internet is a biiiig space or 2) something taken completely out of context. i like to be in this tag bc ive been an ot7 biased army since 2019 with jikook being my fav duo, and while i dont care to know if theyre in a relationship with each other, its not something crazy either because friends to lovers is like the oldest trope ever and also theyd be cute as hell together lmao. i dont follow any solo focused accounts or pairing accounts, literally only armys and when are you sure came out my tl looked like this tag 😭. armys are well aware of jikook's bond and are supportive of it, the issue is taekookers. i could make a thread of vmin, namkook, sope are married and get 10k likes, but i couldnt do that bc of taekookers. theyd swarm the quotes and no thats not armys doing it or armys fault, thats the twitter algorithm being 100000000x worst after elon musty took over bc it was not like that at *all* pre-him. with likes being hidden and the algo pushing deplorable disgusting terrible tweets, it makes it infinitely harder to take accts down.

also its like the way straight armys and lgbtq+ armys experience being a fan. you notice subtexts and clues that may or may not actually be there or mean what you think/want it to mean but its still your fandom experience and youre able to talk about it with other like-minded people. perfect example for this: like crazy. the queer coded-ness of it all, the makeup & earing on one side, jimin in my eyes created the bisexual Iliad in song form ! but thats not how most het armys wouldve viewed it at all, and that doesnt even mean my interpretation of it is correct or the only way to view it. im not going to look down on those who viewed it differently. so shippers are experiencing something different; they watch their pairing to see how they look at each other, touch each other, speak to each other, treat each other compared to everyone else. armys simply arent doing all that; and that doesnt mean we dont care or that shippers love them more (lol), it just means that within the shipping culture and sub-fandom, thats what yall do. which is cool, but like i said its not the *only* way an army can love and appreciate their bond. there's also the echo chamber aspect of the subfandom culture i didnt really get into but it also plays a huge part in why jikookers think armys dismiss or dont love jikook in the same way jikookers do. all this isn't necessarily a slight against you but i think conversations like these are necessary bc talking points like "armys dont actually like seeing jikook together" or "majority of the fabdom is taekookers who hate jikook" are extreeeemely slippery slopes that discourage any type of meaningful thought, and only encourages and eggs on solo rhetoric, which as we hopefully all know is directly antithetical to what any of the boys would ever want.

Hi anon,

I completely understand the points you’ve made, and I do agree with you to an extent. It’s true that in every sub-fandom within the main fandom, whether it’s Taekookers, Jikookers, other shippers, or solos, everyone essentially complains about the same issues, each armed with their own “proof” to justify their arguments. That part, I fully agree with.

However, while I see your point, I do want to emphasize that Jikook’s bond is often undermined by many within the fandom. And it’s not just Taekookers or solos; even some OT7 fans contribute to this. The reasons for this vary. Yes, you’ll find other groups complaining about the same things we do, but when you dig deeper to understand their grievances, it often turns out to be something taken out of context or just bitterness over someone highlighting Jikook or saying something positive about their bond.

The truth is that Jikook’s bond stirs mixed feelings in this fandom for many reasons. It has never been the simplest relationship to understand…or even to love, if I’m being honest. Many people join fandoms and sub-fandoms as an escape from real life issues, seeking something that feels lighthearted, comforting, or entertaining in their spare time. Because of this, a lot of people dislike grappling with more complex dynamics like Jikook’s. They either reject it outright because they don’t understand it or ignore it altogether. This lack of understanding often leads to their bond being undermined.

Jikook’s dynamic has historically made many people uncomfortable for a variety of reasons that I won’t delve into here. But when we talk about this fandom ignoring or undermining their bond, there is more than enough evidence to support that claim.

In contrast, what’s complicated or complex about Taekook? Their dynamic is fun, easygoing, and comforting, qualities that are universally appealing. There’s no need to overthink their interactions or navigate any layers of complexity when watching them. Everything that has ever appeared complex about those two is largely a result of shippers fabricating explanations to reconcile their behavior with the expectations of a romantic dynamic. These narratives are often crafted to justify why they don’t exhibit the typical actions or interactions one might expect from a couple… I.e Taekook not seen spending much time with each other = the company separating them or regulating their interactions on camera. Most people in the fandom, except for some Jikookers and solos, have no reason not to enjoy their dynamic. An easy way to see this is by observing the response to their content. A Taekooker can make up lies, edit photos, or take moments out of context, and it will gain over 20k likes, with the fandom eagerly eating it up. Meanwhile, Jikookers can post real, authentic moments of Jikook, only to have their posts reported. So, no, for the most part, Taekookers don’t have a strong basis for their claims. (This isn’t the bone of contention but just had to mention this)

I also agree with you that many fans don’t pay attention to the same things shippers and solos focus on. Sometimes they’re simply unaware of certain dynamics, which can come across as indifference. I also don’t entirely agree with the narrative that ARMYs dislike seeing Jikook together. I’ve seen the fandom be supportive of Jikook as a duo but I still firmly believe Jikook is one of the pairs whose bond is most heavily undermined. A clear example of this is how much of the fandom dismisses Jikook’s interactions as mere fanservice, simply because some of their moments appear too “intimate” or “gay” for their liking.

This is definitely a topic that deserves more discussion because there’s so much to unpack here.

[zahri-melitor]

Thinking more about Tom King; I do wonder how much of how he’s viewed on tumblr is a result of the following two facts:-

The majority of the DC comics fandom on tumblr does not have personal memories of 2001

The majority of the DC comics fandom on tumblr is not prepared to give government security or intelligence the time of day as having a necessary purpose

It sounds a bit ‘you don’t know what you’re missing’ but fundamentally I think part of the problem is that you’re (generally) too young to appreciate many of King’s fundamental storytelling elements, because you’re too young to remember or care about the topics he keeps going back to interrogate.

And this is something that comes up in conversations I have with friends who are school teachers and university lecturers all the time, because September 11 for the majority of their students has now moved from category 1 here to category 3:

Core ‘where were you’ memory (people born early 90s or before)

Foundation of their childhood status quo (mid 90s to mid 2000s; maybe as late as 2007-2008)

History (late 2000s onwards)

They’re the ones at the forefront of talking about this with their students, and it’s moved from ‘default background for undergraduates’ now into ‘history that has an effect on the present’. They’re now too young to have soaked in the exhaustingly omnipresent US patriotism of the culture of the 2000s. And so the reaction of current students as a cohort to things heavily based or reflective on this period is fundamentally different to someone who lived through it.

A similar, earlier comparison would be writers who frame everything through the lens of the Cold War as an analogy for their writing. I’m a category 2 for the fall of the USSR, and I grew up with that dividing line; there was a lot of media made in the 90s that still premised the Soviets as existing into the future (very early 90s stuff that hadn’t been fixed in time) or that frantically had had a word find-replace for “Soviet” to “Russian” but the general attitude hadn’t changed (good comics example here is go read any of KGBeast’s appearances around Knightfall in DC comics; they’re really struggling with what to do about him). There was also even more media that still wanted to hammer Cold War themes but invented new fake countries to overlay it onto and to discuss as being the background of proxy wars, so they had the out of ‘this isn’t a real place, it’s Markovia/Kaznia/Pan Balgravia or Qurac/Kahndaq/Bialya’.

Many of these got further use for decades up until the present, partly because Central Asia has remained a hotspot for conflict for decades as a result of the fallout of the Cold War proxy conflicts, and partly because shoving extra expy states into Europe means you can play with the politics without having to be exact.

Because to me, this is what I see King doing to the present. And why it sticks out is that most people aren’t harping on the themes constantly anymore like they were 20 years ago. But for King it’s a well he keeps going back to because he was so heavily involved in it and didn’t really get the chance to start processing it until he left the CIA around 2010 and started working his feelings out in stories.

Because yes, at this point he’s beating a dead horse, but there are also incredibly successful writers of military thrillers who are STILL writing veiled ‘it’s the Soviets’ or ‘it’s the Arab Terrorists’ plots and selling. There’s clearly an audience for it. The audience just is an aging one.

And as someone who does remember the period, some of his work is extremely ‘oh god I remember’ and some of it is genuinely well thought through analogies interrogating the topic. Media and storytelling are frequently in conversation with the world and with themes the writer cares about. And I think we can all tell how large some of this loomed in Tom King’s life.

[digestive]

The whole scent thing might be a wire and cloth mother related psychological reason, you associate warmth and comfort with love whilst a lack of it dosent interest us, which can be part of the reason couple swap clothes in order to feel closer to each other and the scent we associate with them let's us remember them as well during those moments when we feel safe.

But regarding us acting like scientists, we live in a society where something we don't understand is plastered everywhere and is seen as natural, whereas we cannot quite grasp it and therefore our curiousity comes into play and that's when the mental lab coat might come out to play.

Personally I can't relate emotionally or experience wise cause they view romance and sex in such a different light, and personally both of these things were stuff I thought I 'had' to do later in life.

Which might be why now I want to understand them because like, people want this?? For real?? It's just such a different lifestyle.

But I mean, if we were talking about learning of a different culture, such as celtic or asian, it wouldn't be an issue cause these are people who live their lives differently and you would be curious how it differs from your own.

Alloallos for me is a similar thing. This is something that I cannot fathom and/or there is tons of shit I didn't even realise because its not my scene. Took me a while to realise that cherries are considered 'sexy' cause they're associated with sex and losing your virginity and allos use the stems to judge how well they kiss by tying a knot in it.

I still don't get it, probably wont ever get why they do all these things, but I know they do it as part of their own way enjoy their sexuality and romantic orientation.

So maybe the best way to stop feeling fucked up about being aroace is instead to see our experiences on a similar level to allos in a way that lets us know the reality of being alloallo or aroace and how we navigate our identities and the reasons for these behaviours.

Plus I like having that scientist in my brain becuase they help me remove the stigma I have for my sexuality and romantic orientation day by day by showing me the bigger picture and letting me conduct my own mind experiments and develop hypothesises for romance and sex in order to feel less alienated from the alloallos. And maybe that's the purpose of it.

Acting like a scientist can ground us and give us a dynamic where we feel more in control regarding these romantic and sexual behaviours we happen to see, and we don't have to feel negatively if we can follow a fiction narrative that gives us the autonomy to question things and make discoveries about stuff that confuses us.

It's a way to connect with others while allowing ourselves to have room to be okay with not fitting the mould.

this is really weird but part of my aroace experience is viewing allo people like a scientist would view a living specimen in an experiment

its like. they do something and i observe and note their behavior. i know this sounds super fucked up but here is something that happened today:

my sister was showing me her texts from her boyfriend and he was saying stuff like "if u want i can spray a shirt with my cologne to give to u" or "i'll give u my hoodie to wear"

and i just looked at her and said "people exchange clothes because they like each others scent? fascinating." and i felt like a freaking scientist observing a new species' behavior. i promise its not as weird as it sounds. im not uncomfortable with romance/sex (for other people), i just have no idea how it works.

im curious do any other aspecs have experiences like this? or is it just me?

[beautifulpersonpeach]

Hi BPP, there’s a clip going around from Love in the Big City with the quote: “If 2 people with an age gap speak informally, they’ve had sex.” I know it’s not a hard and fast rule, but considering all things Jikook… any thoughts?

***

(Did anyone else reading this ask burst into laughter at the end?)

(No? Yeah?)

(You too?)

For the less cultured, Anon is referring to a quote from episode 5 of that show when Go Young (main character) is kinda buttering up a guy he's just started seeing, Sim Gyuho, trying to convince him to accept his invitation to a musical. In that scene, both men have just slept together and eventually start dating.

There aren't many examples of Korean queer male experiences in mainstream media so I can see how several things claimed in this show are taken as real insight into the everyday lives of gay/queer men in Korea. In that way I totally get your ask, Anon.

It's true that dropping honorifics between two people with an age gap implies an unusual intimacy - an intimacy that might be because they've fucked.

But sexual intimacy isn't the only kind there is. Obviously lol. Pulling from personal experience, I've seen informal speech between longtime professional partners, between neighbours whose kids stay at each other's houses - people I don't think have had a sexual relationship. It's a bit rare to see informal speech between people with age gaps no matter how close said people are, but I gave those examples to show it's not entirely unheard of, just as an FYI.

That said, given the frankly suspect jikooking jikook are known to engage in, this little bit of info certainly doesn't help their case. Jungkook in particular comes out looking like a fruity loops bowl microwaved on the high setting, what with all the weird posturing, possessiveness and blatant disregard of social norms whenever Jimin is involved.

With those two you just never know...

[blazehedgehog]

what was the deal with games media and forums during the 2000s being so harsh and in many cases downright unfair towards games that wanted to experiment or do something interesting? part of me feels that is why the 2010s had so many massive game series pumping out boring and "safe" games.

We were a lot more ignorant back then. You have to figure that games media has a definitive age, right. Now we had video game magazines going ball the way back to the 80's, but it feels like there was a real boom in game magazines in the 90's with things like EGM, Gamepro, Game Players, Game Fan, Nintendo Power, Game Informer, Edge, Next Generation, PC Gamer, CGW, Tips & Tricks, PSM, etc.

But the age of the industry back then... even if a lot of the writers were in their 20's, 30's, and sometimes even 40's, the readers were all pretty young. I started reading gaming magazines when I was 11. And to some degree it felt like the industry grew up with us. It also reflected the wider era as a whole.

We used to be a more innocent people. More ignorant. Unaware of the wider world at large. American white males (the primary demographic for gaming magazines) lived in this tiny little bubble where they got to feel like they were kings. The world was their oyster. Racism? Nah man, civil rights solved that back in the 1950's. Racism is over. We beat the nazis in the 40's, they don't exist anymore either. Women belong in the kitchen making us a sandwich. I'm American, I'm straight, I'm white, I'm a man, and that makes me the center of the known universe. As long as I have beer, boobs, and bacon, my life is perfect.

And the thing about being comfortable is that people like to be comfortable. Comfort usually means cozying up with something you already know you're going to like. A known quantity. So that's this era, right: repeating familiar ideas and milking them for all its worth, completely unchallenged, because nobody is comfortable when they are being challenged.

But widespread, modern internet access began to spread across the world. Smartphones and social media connected us more closely than we ever have before, both for better and worse. And suddenly all those Straight, white, American males are rubbing elbows with very different international cultures than they're used to, and the perspective on American life begins to shift. The veil is lifted. Eyes are opened for the first time. The world is a very different place than what most Americans thought it was.

Racism? Not actually solved. Nazis? They're still out there, actually. Women? Minorities? Equal rights are not as equal as it sounded. Plus, we trample all over other cultures constantly. And bad actors are rapidly trying to muddy the waters so they can continue to operate unopposed. Welcome to the real world.

Some people embraced this new knowledge with open arms. Learning, and growing, and changing, seeing fresh perspectives and new ideas. And other people just wanted to stay comfortable, sticking their heads in the sand, and trying to deny what was now right in front of them.

My point is, as a people, a worldwide planetary entity, we're a lot more diverse now. We're a lot smarter and more accepting of others. We're a lot more mature.

And then there's something I haven't touched on and its the fact that corporations love "comfort", too. They love being able to avoid taking risks and feeding us the exact same content in perpetuity. But with the indie game boom, more people than ever before can put their art out into the world, which just drives diversity even more.

My point being that we used to be pretty dumb and ignorant, but some of us are less dumb and ignorant nowadays.