#For context of those not used to the twitter

[changeling-droneco]

I've watched contrapoints for years now and I do want to give my own thoughts on her from what I've seen over the years, however, do know this comes from a goy and thus might get some stuff wrong or have come to the wrong conclusion, but I feel like I just have more context and information that people might want.

Contrapoints and antisemitism is a very much a bit of a loaded thing because a big part of her brand is that she uses like “reddit” and “4chan” lingo and the like as a part of deprogramming people away from alt right pipelines by meeting them where they are and sing familiar terminology (see her video about "are traps gay" which uses the word trap because thats going to be what some random 14 year old boy is googling and it better for it to be her then some alt right transphobe and thus, she uses the much more derogatory language because thats what people she wants to pull out are going to be looking for)

However, unfortunately means theres an underlying antisemitism to some of her recurring bits even if she tries to clarify are not meant to actually be antisemitic but instead playing with the tropes people come to expect, like lizards controlling the government. Which while before october seventh I would have considered it tasteless but overall another part of trying to deprogram that just isn't working as well but it's definitely a lot more grating and dangerous looking back even if she has come to regret some of those decisions and seems to be retiring or at least changing some of the worst offenders.

As for her take, I think she's wrong about a good chunk of things but she's also right about some other important details like actually knowing the definition of Zionism. Natalie has always been good at not falling for the thought of twitter is activism and calling it out as nonsense that doesn't accomplish anything. She's also good at sticking to her guns, and has experience with cancel culture many times before. While also has experience eventually changing her mind as she gets more information or things develop. I also fully agree with her not wanting to make a video, I do think her style of content simply would not land at ALL.

She's also at least in some part has been one of the only left wing youtube video essayists calling out antisemitism in the past few months, which is something I feel is important to bring up in discussions about her statement. She has actually talked about the rise of antisemitism online in a video she made three months ago.

As while she never made a video specifically about palestine she DID make a video on conspiracy theories where she talks about antisemitism. Not as much as I would have liked, but she does talk about the alt right pipeline and antisemitism and how it relates to it and I think she does a good job of it.

While I would watch the whole video for context both good and bad of both Natalie's style and the angle she's coming, I have also just got a link to when she gets to that section because the video is long as hell and while I do understand leaving it more towards the end to hook people in it is still, a long as hell video.

Though to hit the bullet points for those who don't have the time;

She actively calls out the talking about of "Antisemite is a slur" as a right wing talking point of bullshit

Talks about how how all conspiracy theories tend to be rooted in antisemitism

Uses an example of how fast twitter pipelined her to hitler content with an alt account and clarifies she doesn't mean metaphorical hitler but like, the actual guy.

Goes over multiple forms of antisemitism she found, from graphs to lying to basically anything you can think of and points out how some of the stuff she saw was genuinely more vile then actual nazi propoganda she saw at a museum

How calling out dogwhistles can be turned into being like "Well I just said the global elite bankers and you thought of jews so who's the real antisemite hmm checkmate athiest"

Does talk lightly on israel and palestine and while she condemns the war, does point out how people are just using it as pretext to be nazis, I think she could have gone more in depths but I also feel going light on it wasn't a bad call even if I feel she was a bit too charitable to the college protests.

Points how conspiracy theories especially in the west is about finding a scapegoat, which jews have historically always been (i disagree with the in the west part but the rest is solid)

Talks about the history of where the "Greedy Jew" comes from and how it happened and briefly touches on the blood libel aspects. Along with how people often view money itself as a sort of almost occult mystery which lends itself to conspiratorial thinking

Brings up the phrase "antisemitism is the socialism of fools" which i think is just a really interesting phrase and a really useful one.

Points out how being on the left does not "inoculate against foolishness" and how the "revolution" tends to start socialist but easily be corrupted into nationalism

While she doesn't say it likely for pacing reasons when talking about the defeat of Hitler she does have a fun notation on the screen of "(which, as with the other Allies, had nothing to do with ideological opposition to antisemitism)" before going into how Stalin proceeded to stop Hitler then turn around and do their own jew purge under some guise of getting rid of the other

Does address her previous incorrect assumption that the idea of a "reptilian" could be salvaged as a metaphor for the ruling class and talk about how she was wrong and talks about the history and the inherent antisemitism to it that cannot be scrubbed away

Talks about the rise of antisemitism on tiktok and social media then proceeds to i think have a valid crash out about how dumb as hell this is and how susceptible people are to propaganda and conspiracy theories.

I don't know Natalie, just her videos and how she presents herself, but so far she's been very good at least at presenting herself as good at keeping a bit of a cool head and being open to discussing sensitive topics at a person to person level. I see her statement and the response as a good time to reach out if someone is in a good spot to do so and have the facts on hand. I also understand being far too bitter or tired to not wanting to even engage with her in the slightest.

So at the end of the day, I suppose my TLDR; is that she's definitely a lot more aware of the antisemitism and propaganda building up around her, but that doesn't make her inherently immune to the more subtle stuff either. She's imperfect, and her statement is mediocre, but I also see more effort from her then I've gotten from basically every other "big name" online to actually try and balance "i dont like what israel is doing" with "dont be a fucking nazi"

I get if its not enough for some people, and support those people, but the effort should be acknowledged and recognized that she is at least trying to do the right thing and not promote antisemitism, even if she falls flat in some key places.

This just got shared over on Discord by a friend of mine--ContraPoint's personal statement on the I/P conflict.

It is hellaciously antisemitic. We have repeated invocations of the genocide canard. Repeated invocations of "Jews have too much influence on the US government" canard. Multiple instances of blood libel. I could probably get a Bingo on one of my cards without trying too hard if I actually went line-by-line.

AND YET.

ContraPoints' core thesis here is "no, the Pro-Palestine movement is functionally a group of self-defeating antisemites whose actions do not help Palestinians at all and are fundamentally self-defeating."

As I commented on Discord,

if this is what qualifies as a voice of reason and a call to sanity within the Hamasnik movement--and it is--then you know we have trouble

[f1-unpopularopinions]

Look, I’m not gonna lie, F1 fans can get so obsessed with their favorite drivers that anything a Team Principal (TP) does feels like a Machiavellian plot to ruin their lives. DTS and social media don’t help, painting drivers as heroes and TPs as soap opera villains. But the worst is when a TP’s quote gets misinterpreted, poorly translated, or taken out of context. Suddenly, you see everyone on Twitter screaming that Toto is the devil for something he never said or that was deliberately twisted by a clickbait headline.

And don’t even get me started on contract renewals. When a TP doesn’t immediately renew your favorite driver’s contract, the fandom loses it. Example: “Toto doesn’t value George!” But, really? It’s normal for a team boss to explore other market options, as Toto himself has said—that doesn’t mean he’s not negotiating with his current driver or doesn’t want him (like when Toto mentioned he’s been watching what Max is doing, but it doesn’t affect talks with George). F1 is a business, and TPs have to think about the whole team, not just the driver who makes you scream every weekend.

These parasocial relationships are making the F1 fandom super toxic. Every race strategy turns into a drama, every poorly translated comment into a betrayal. And the worst part? When things spiral out of control and fans start attacking team members on social media—from engineers to the TPs themselves. Some even send death threats or wish the worst on them, forgetting that everyone in F1, not just your favorite driver, is a person with a life and a family.

Furthermore, the Internet is full of fake news/quotes taken out of context, so many people believe what they read at first glance and do nothing to investigate it. From there, the snowball gets bigger and they get to the point of saying they're going to "kill Team Principal," and no... Even if they say it's a joke, it's not right to say those things.

.

Send us your unpopular F1 opinions!

[silverstrying]

My thoughts toward the actual r-word itself are nuanced... I think the defense that is used - that people the r-word actually describes aren't going to be offended by it because they literally can't be - aren't wrong! People who cognatively cannot take care of themselves and need a caretaker (strict defintion: "an IQ of 70 to 75 or below that is accompanied by significant limitations in social, practical, and conceptual skills"), aren't going to care because they aren't going to understand. It /is/ different then the n-word and faggot because those people can defend themselves, and r-word descriptive people cannot.

Which is the whole point!!! Of not saying it!

I do not see saying the r-word itself as bad because the people its categorizing! Aren't going to care! What actually matters is that you are following a social convention.

You say the n-word or faggot without being one of those populations - you will get beat up. This strongly encourages people not to say those<3. But there will be no consequences in saying the r-word because they can't fight for themselves.

It's a social convention /because/ they can't defend themselves. The point is that you are being respectful to someone that you don't have to be respectful to!

But if you aren't going to follow that social convention - if you won't be needlessly nice to a random person - what other conventions won't you follow? When else will you be needlessly cruel?

It's less about the word itself and more about the signifiers it has.

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.

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Anyway that tweet was hilarious.

[beloved-child-of-the-house]

i see way way way more posts yelling about how wrong it is to tell middle aged women that they’re too old for fandom or tumblr than I see people saying anything of the sort to middle aged women. Like I’m 36 and I’ve never had anyone tell me I’m too old to be here 🤷🏽‍♂️

[hexhomos]

isnt it wild how jayce is the most heavily misunderstood arcane character..everytime i see takes about him being upper-class and rich or mean and condescending or not caring about viktor in s1 or whatever other garbage ppl say about him i lose a year of my life

It's crazy to me that I've been saying jayce is working class for years and this got confirmed in the draft 1 board for arcane christian linke posted on twitter sometime ago lol

house Talis is a MINOR HOUSE of toolmakers whose most prominent contribution is the 'collapsible pocket wrench'. They're literally blacksmiths. This is a service and labor position. Jayce can't even afford to use gold in his inventions in act1 because he relies on the Kiramman money for everything. This is not the life of a rich guy in Piltover this is middle class at best lol his drive to finish up hextech and succeed academically is him trying to build a better life for himself!

Blacksmithing is historically a very intensive work position. The work wears you down & eventually disables you very early in life (jayce's injury in act3 seems to be a metaphorical speedrun of that, in some ways) we're never told how jayce's dad died but it is very fair to imagine it was a work related. he's fucking aware of this, its true In Real Life and it brings such an interesting context to his interactions with Viktor and how they want to create things that help common laborers and make the work better if it wasn't for the council. (in s1 act2 their progress day showcase to heimerdinger BEGINS with jayce complaining that they've been stuck fulfilling the council's demands these past 10 years and now, finally, *finally* it's their time to decide what to do with hextech. and they're not even allowed that.)

Also, the perfected hexgems in s1 are kept in Kiramman-crest boxes. I noticed this just the other day. JAYCE AND VIKTOR DON'T OWN SHITTTTTTTTTTT they're getting exploited big time while all that 'investor' money is charged back with deep dividends

just like real life academics they probably spent most of their life writing up grant proposals like dogs and begging for funding that will wring them dry later on. Where the hell is all my jayce and viktor class solidarity 'getting drunk off their mugs and complaining about their dipshit bosses' content?

[related post]

MARCH 2025 UPDATE: just got my Arcane artbook and it directly confirms the Talis family legacy is not big industry, because those weren't even part of the world. It is only post-timeskip that we start to see ramped up production + Jayce's focus is giving magic to the common people.

[azhdarchidae]

i rlly do not think white global northerners understand how fucking bad the anti sinovac psyop was in context of the philippines and other targeted countries being from the global south, with a history of economic and military intervention and destabilization by the usa specifically.

i live in the philippines and sinovac was the only available vaccine for MONTHS of the pandemic. people were fucking dying and we had no pfizer, no j&j, no astrazeneca, no moderna. sinovac was the ONLY vaccine supply we had. and the supply wasnt even enough for even my small city. we do not have the infrastructure to manufacture our own vaccines and tests. we were entirely reliant on imports from other countries who Did have the capacity to manufacture such things

i got up early for several days straight to go to a pop up walk in vaccination site (were talking there by 7:30am) set up in a fucking public basketball court because it was the only way to get vaccinated, and 3 times i had to go back empty handed so to speak after exposing myself to this massive opportunity for transmission because they fucking ran out of shots and prioritized the elderly and disabled and i didnt have my legal pwd (person with disability) card yet. i had to go to a different barangay (local unit of government) to get my shot MONTHS LATER and only got mine because one of my family was in the local govt and reserved some shots for us.

many filipinos use facebook which is where some of the psyop was conducted because you can use it for free on your phone and it is often where news is disseminated. i know we have that joke about People Believing Anything They See On Facebook but i cannot stress enough that people here get local news from fb the same way you (used to) get news from twitter about shit like localized emergencies and whatnot.

because we are third world, you know that the state of our education system is nothing compared to the states. media and news literacy here is dangerously low and the population is sensitive to mis/disinformation, as can be seen during the 2022 presidential elections where the usa Also interfered lol. i cannot stress enough how much of the population was susceptible to this psyop, especially those in poverty who couldnt afford proper education. hell, even educated people fell for this shit. do you think jhunjhun who didnt finish grade 6 would be able to identify disguised foreign intervention that was in his own language?

we were already recovering from public scrutiny of a different vaccine, a dengue vaccine, which lowered public trust in inoculation. and then the usa goes and does THIS??? i cannot emphasize enough that they are directly responsible for the tens and thousands of unvaccinated covid deaths. they are responsible for my friends having to bury their unvaxxed parents and grandparents at the age of 19. they are responsible for mass death and disability.

but were just a country in the periphery. so who cares about us? our lives are worthless to the usa, which is why they admitted that they did this when they would otherwise "never" to their own population. third worlders arent real people to your government. we are merely statistics and a petri dish for experimentation. so who cares if we die? the real important thing isnt our lives, its that the usa has more control over us than china.

[elbiotipo]

To me there's a deeper meaning, though I don't know how to express it, on people using pathologizing language in education i.e. "cognitive atrophy" "brain damage" as an explanation for learning issues.

Which to be fair, the authors of that paper asked specifically not to be used, but the twitter thread linked on that post (which has 38k notes as of this post, jesus christ) did use, extensively. Using language such as "brain damage", "cognitive atrophy" and how could I forget, "soulless".

However, the authors of the paper also didn't have a good methodology, other people have gotten into it better than myself, but the paper does not really point to any cognitive decline, and the methodology used does not offer long-term explanations. But what I do think is that when we're talking about things such as AIs in education, or any other new technology, we should investigate them as tools used in a social context. Why do people use AI as a tool? How do educators and instutions handle this? In which way this tool worsen education or might, god forbid, enhance it? Here the focus, as so much Usamerican education research at least in my experience, is on almost purely numerical and anatomical (EEG? really?) results rather than any pedagogical studies on the tools and their users. (and those results are very poor too)

And once you go down the road of finding pathological answers to educational issues, you will start finding pathological solutions instead of social ones. Why try to confront social or familial issues, when these students obviously have something wrong with their brains? Hell, why even provide them with education, their brains can't even handle it. Eventually you might as well give up and just educate the worthy ones. If you don't believe me, see how education and mental healthcare in the US works.

For someone like me who believes that education is fundamentally a social institution and that every student comes from a social and cultural background that needs to be understood before the process of learning begins, these studies (or rather, unhinged twitter threads) that claim that a complex process like learning can be understood in pathological terms are profoundly hostile to me.

[tbaluver]

hiii! could you do hcs of lads men reacting to mc posting or sending them this but like with theur pictures?? hihiihi 🤭💕

https://x.com/mahaegals/status/1888472565120733590?s=46

Sending Him A Cleavage Photocard Pic- The Love And DeepSpace Men

featuring ( in order ): xavier, zayne, rafayel, sylus, caleb summary/context: if my title didn't make sense and you don't want to check the link ( im sorry im bad at titling .·°՞(¯□¯)՞°·.) scroll all the way down for a reference! tags: suggestive a/n: hihi anonnie ! ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡ hehe i remember seeing this trend all over twitter and i was def thinking abt this bc of my lads brainrot i hope i did it justice ! enjoy reading ! (∩˃o˂∩)♡ any likes and reblogs are always appreciated! enjoy!

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Xavier:

He didn’t even realize that there were pictures of him peeking through your cleavage. His eyes instantly went to your tits and admired how they sat so pretty and how it would look so good with him in between them

He won’t reply for a few minutes because he’s busy staring until he finally realized that you had his pictures in your cleavage

He can feel heat traveling to his body, and yes, it was down in his trousers, but he can’t help and feel a little jealousy boil in him because why are those pictures of him on you and not him.

₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎: there’s no need to put my pictures there

₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎: On my way!

He’s using that speed of light to USE. The moment you look at his messages, you’d already hear your front door opening

Zayne:

He definitely should’ve seen it coming. With a sigh, he rubs his temples and eyes, shaking his head. A small smile tugs at his lips as his ears flush a deep red.

His cock twitches in his slacks when he stares longer at your breasts displayed so perfectly while his photos peek out of your clothes. He doesn’t even realize how many minutes pass by, completely hypnotized by the mounds of flesh.

☃︎: apologies.

☃︎:..i’m a little distracted.

You knew it was one of his weaknesses. You most likely sent that picture without context to tease him and it's definitely working.

☃︎: is this another way of you telling me you want another private check up?

☃︎: i’ll be home in an hour

☃︎: i believe you won't be needing those photos once i'm there.

Rafayel:

SWEET MOTHER OF PEARL

He would gasp SO loudly once he saw it. His mouth is wide open once he opens the messages to see your beautiful boobs cupped so nicely and so perfectly on his screen with his pictures popping out of your clothes.

It didn’t take that long for dirty images consuming his brain along with his dick rising in his pants

Responses from him include various compliments and keyboard smashes or both combined. He would get really impatient if you didn’t respond immediately because he needs to see and hear you right now

𓆟: oh my glubsddhkahf

𓆟: my girlfriend is so pretty (っ˘ڡ˘ς)

𓆟: so gorgousddsfjo

𓆟: cutiecutie

𓆟: answer the call pretty plss

Sylus:

A low chuckle escapes him as his lips curl into a smirk, savoring the image on his phone. Your pretty breasts are sitting nicely while pictures of him peek out of your bra, the one that he bought you. Tease.

Sylus will never get used to seeing your breathtaking figure on his screen. You always try to surprise him, and he can’t help but be amused but also find it adorable that you try too.  two can play at that game.

But obviously he’s going to shower you with compliments first

𓅂: my my my

𓅂: to what do i owe this pleasure to sweetie?

You can expect him to send you a couple more pictures. One of him is in the shower, where water drips down his body, giving you a clear view of his upper body but not enough to provide you with everything you want. Another of him is in his tank top, where he works on his motorcycle.

𓅂: to add to your photo collection.

And another one where he copies you. He'll send a close up shot of his towel wrapped around his waist, a picture of you peeking out of it, giving you just enough for you to have a full view of his v-line and his abs

𓅂: such a shame only a picture of you can be here

Caleb:

COLONEL DOWN COLONEL DOWN

See this is why he opens your messages after he finishes flying. Mainly because he knows that any picture of you might have him distracted when he's up in the sky. Literally head in the clouds.

Do not ask him the colors of your shirt/ bra or anything else in that picture, NOTHING

He’s also the type to realize late that there were pictures of him on your cleavage. It would just be a blur to him and he just thought your shirt/ bra was shaped silly.

✈︎: only i get to see this rightt :o

A low groan slip out of his lips as he held his phone tightly, his eyes tracing the shape. His brain fumbles on what to do or say but his dick is already racing him to it

✈︎: so picture caleb gets lucky but what about me :(

✈︎: you're killing me pipsqueak >:(

His hands would be shaky the entire time he’s sending you messages. His dick was too hard to even think properly

✈︎: looks like im gonna take a quick detour :D

✈︎: gonna show picture caleb that's not where he belongs

Like a puppy going after a treat

context: sending him a picture like this but only his pictures

ʚɞ cr. for the divider @/ cafekitsune

ʚɞ thank yew to @divinedevotions for helping me sketch the reference pic so i can edit their photos on it .·°՞(¯□¯)՞°·.

ʚɞ thank you to my beta reader @ilovemitsuya (˵˘ ³˘˵) ᯓᡣ𐭩

ʚɞ my other works if you want to check it out! Love And DeepSpace Masterlist, Pg. 2

[artfulstar]

Woah woah woah. Twitter is shutting down in Brasil? I'm thankful for your mental health but what?

Yep.

TLDR: Elon fired everyone in the Brazilian offices of twitter but legally Twitter can't continue existing in Brazil WITHOUT a legal representative. So now our Federal Supreme Court subpoened him to apoint a new representative or the website is getting shut down in the country

The long version with the context about the fight:

It all started when the supreme court started to shut down in the country profiles of brazilian people who had commited crimes using the website (an example is Monark, a dude who literally used his profile to say we should give n*zis and racists unlimited freedom of speech [he fled to the US to escape prison btw]).

Elon caught wind of this and decided to threaten our constitution and said that he would get the profiles back on because he wouldn't accept a government restricting "freedom of speech" on his platform. The supreme court issued a statement that if he did that, he would face a fee everyday for every account reactivated. It was money so he didn't do that (or maybe turns out he couldn't do it anyway and he was just lying for his lil fanboys).

This was all back at the start of the year but suddenly almost two weeks ago it was reported he fired every single employee in the offices of brazil, including the legal representative.

Then tonight, around two hours ago the official profile of STF replied and tagged elon with the doc of the subpoena because since they didn't have a legal representative, they couldn't do it in the proper way. The subpoena says that Elon has 24 hours to appoint a new guy for the job or the social is getting shut down in brazilian territory.

So we have 3 options for whats gonna happen in the next 24 hours:

Alexandre de Moraes (The guy who Elon started a one-sided beef with) backs down and doesnt shut down the website (highly unlikely)

Elon backs down and appoints a new guy so he doesnt lose the 4th biggest public of his site

Twitter gets shut down until Elon's manchild's ego gives in

thats all <3

Edit:

This was Elon's reply to the tweet. YES he is pathetic like that

Edit 2: it's currently 17:38 brasilia time of 30/08 and Twitter is bound to get disconnected soon, the order has been given by Moraes. People who use a VPN to access Twitter will get fined 50k reais (almost 9k dollars).

Yesterday a note was posted lying about Brazil being a dictatorship and saying that one of the people being censored is a 16yr old girl. The truth is that it's a grown ass man that use his daughters account to promote attacks on delegates, ministers, judges and other politicians. They also call orders to ban n*zi accounts "illegal orders" (WHICH ARE VERY LEGAL UNDER THE CONSTITUTION OF BRAZIL). They also say "we don't want every other country to have the freedom of speech laws the US has" meanwhile they've been trying to impose them in a sovereign state.

I would say what I want to say to Elon but unfortunately my mother taught me to keep those kinds of thoughts inside. Just know they're three letters <3

edit 3: twitter was officially unavailable on brazilian territory by the time it struck midnight of the 31st

Edit 4:

Translation: 🚨 NOW: Elon Musk is looking for executives to represent Twitter/X in Brazil, to negotiate the platform's RETURN in the country, reports Correio Braziliense.

he's going to do what cellbit said kkkmk he purposely let them suspend it, then after a few days he'll come out and be the savior of the brazilian people and say he only did it for us

Don't let elon fool you. He doesn't care and is probably only doing it because his investors are threatening him with money

[lycandrophile]

i clicked on the original tweet just to see if anyone else felt as weird about it as i did because at this point i’m just tired of seeing people going on and on about trans men dating cishet men who try to convince them not to transition as if it’s a funny joke about a trans man doing something silly and not a manipulative and generally very unhealthy relationship dynamic that can hurt the trans man involved really deeply (as forcing someone back into the closet tends to do.)

did i find anyone else feeling that way? no. there were a few people pointing out that it was weird in general, and plenty saying it’s a weird thing to say about a cis woman, but nothing expressing any sort of concern about the tired stereotype it’s perpetuating.

but you know what i did find? replies like the one in the second screenshot, using the tweet as their chance to tell the world how much they hate trans men and how repulsive they find the idea of ever being compared to us. and replies like the third one, shaming trans men in relationships like that as if the fact that they’ve found themselves in an unhealthy relationship makes them deserving of public shaming, as if their relationship is hurting anyone other than them.

stereotypes like this just feel like yet another way of indirectly calling us stupid little girls who don’t know what’s good for us, and the fact that a picture of a woman is being used (even jokingly!) as an example of what trans men “like that” look like should make the implications of rhetoric like this all the more obvious.

it’s relationships like these that keep us miserable in the closet for so long and drive up our sexual assault rates even more. they’re not funny and if anyone is going to be making jokes about them, it certainly shouldn’t be people who have never been in that situation. if you actually cared about us you’d be looking for ways to support the trans men you know who are in relationships like that instead of hopping on twitter to joke about how stupid they must be.

i don’t care if it’s a joke. if it victim blames trans men for the transphobia we face in our personal relationships, adds to the common idea that we can’t be trusted to make decisions about our own lives, and invites even more blatant transphobia against us by people who unabashedly admit they see all trans men as “disgusting and phony”, it’s not fucking funny.

(i also want to note that the people making these jokes never like to mention that this also happens to trans men in relationships with queer women. they also hate those trans men, of course, and are happy to express that when they get into fights about trans men who date lesbians, but they’ll never talk about it in the context of this particular stereotype. it’s always a man being manipulative in a relationship and pressuring trans men to not transition, as if a woman would never be capable of such a thing.

they also like to conveniently ignore the existence of older trans men who transitioned after already being in a committed relationship with a cishet man and were able to make that relationship work despite their transition, because acknowledging that would require recognizing that trans men can be in seemingly contradictory relationships and genuinely be happy with their partner. who needs nuance when you can simply choose to judge all trans men for our relationships regardless of what they’re actually like?)

do you think they also would call me “a trans man being purposefully misgendered” with this kind of vitriol because i’m still living with parents who don’t recognize my gender instead of moving out before i’m ready to be financially independent? at this point, i’m starting to feel like they might, with the way every decision a trans man ever makes is the subject of a public debate and people have decided that trans men are secretly using being misgendered as a weapon to somehow hurt other trans people.

as a general rule, i’d say the only people who should be making “X looks like a trans man” jokes about literally anyone/anything are trans men, and posts like this show exactly why those jokes being made by anyone else (even by other trans people) just isn’t a good idea.

[sunrizef1]

Pushing it Down and Praying

Pairing: Lando Norris x Reader, Oscar Piastri x Ex!Reader

Warnings: litteraly idk, emotional cheating (maybe)(not really)

Authors Note: this got away from me but I do rly like it

Requested: Yes/No

——

yn

liked by rolemodel lando and 121,008 others

yn and it feels like the end of a movie I’ve seen before

load comments…

user1 she’s so pretty

user2 I <3 ceilings

user3 me when I’m writing about my ex Oscar Piastri

user4 Oscar mention

user5 why is Lando in the likes

user6 ceilings, plaster

user7 ✨

user8 I miss dad

user9 the way they never posted eachother on main but yall are still attached to that relationship

user10 can we leave her alone with the Oscar comments

rolemodel love you

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oscarpiastri liked your story ♥️

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lando

🎵 All My Ghosts - Yn Ln

liked by oscarpiastri georgerussel and 3,887,009 others

lando cuz I hate all my habits but I happen to love you

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user11 oh! Oh! Well-!

user12 oh darling that song is about Oscar piastri 😭

user13 is this cute…?

user14 as someone who's heard the rest of this song/album idk if this is the move

user15 idc reclaiming a song about an ex is actually adorable don't @ me

user16 cuz allllll my ghosts are with meeee

user17 the implication that comes with using all my ghosts… like I feel yn would say that her ghosts are Oscar at this point

user18 in the context of the last verse I think this is nice

user19 no yn like…

user20 idk how to feel

user21 don't think I haven't noticed that neither yn or Tucker are here

user22 Oscar liked… wtf are we doing

user23 oh I'm gonna lose my whole mind

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yn

liked by rolemodel oscarpiastri and 678,087 others

yn pushing it down and praying… song and mv out now

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rolemodel so proud of you and this video

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yn love you

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yk what I think I do

yn

And I'm grateful for that

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liked by lando rolemodel and 412,009 others

yn nobody knows what its like to be us

tagged: lando

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lando no, they don't 🫶🏻

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user24 ooh this clapback to the twitter detectives ik what this is

user25 this feels like a real healthy reaction to everything that happened actually

user26 these grown adults reacting healthily

user27 they’re adorable idc

user28 are these song lyrics???

user29 yall this is “spring into summer” it’s unreleased, she sang it a few weeks ago at a show. It’s also definitely about Lando lol

user30 in case y’all were curious about more of the lyrics for this song: “Hold it against me, cool to the touch, Nobody knows what it's like to be us. Somebody finds me in the shallow end, Love you like I mean it just because I can.”

user31 also: “You're always gonna be someone that I want. We have too many years between us. If I could jump into the past, I'd only change one thing, I'd never hurt you first, I'd never let you leave. And now I'm here forever, runnin' back to you, Always.”

user32 oh those lyrics are about her releasing pushing it down and praying aren’t they

user33 I saw all the comments and went and listened to spring into summer and I fear it’s so adorable I can’t

rolemodel I loved playing your ex in the mv tysm

lando yeah u guys rly look alike

rolemodel :(

user34 I need spring into summer released I fear

user35 oh I love them

user36 nobody knows!!!! No one!!!! Not one person!!!

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user37 I just think it’s really cool how they both got over the other song and stayed together while still being healthy and strong

user38 these are my babies

lando yeah yeah I love you or whatever

yn love you too or whatever

lando 😦 call me!!!!

user39 why do I get the feeling that's the first time yn has said ily to lando lol

oscarpiastri congrats 🍾

yn thanks Oscar :)

lando thanks Osc

oscarpiastri you’re welcome 👍

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Tags: @evie-119 @casperlikej

[darqx]

Pick up the receiver I'll make you a believer

❗️For commonly asked qs please see my BTD FAQ

After doodling the first image that hug body slam meme immediately came to mind and i couldn't help myself 😂

Thanks very much I'm glad you are enjoying my art and characs! :D

To put the answer simply, Rire used to work for the prior King as a Collector (of souls) and he was that King's only Collector and so got the brunt of his ire for any related, perceived fault. Aside from that personal connection Rire also really disliked him because he viewed the prior king as a useless glutton who failed at ruling a sector (conditions were tanking/had tanked for ages), and which the Royal powers were wasted on.

Almost all of his sunglasses are actually normal human sunglasses, he can just see better than a human can 😎

Anything can be a kink, anon :d

Boring victims are often exceptionally weak-willed victims so that's something in particular he dislikes.

Yes he can play the piano and violin, and horseback ride and ballroom dance etc. Put it this way he has a lot of particular small skills that he picked up during his Earth visits so he could hide in plain sight with the upper echelons XD

Not like how a snake or cat hisses which is what I'm assuming you're implying XDDD He can't bite off a limb (his mouth ain't that big) but his teeth are very sharp so he can feasibly take a chunk out of someone or like, completely bite off something smaller (finger, ear...)

I havent added to it in a while (since I dont often find songs I like enough to actually download lol) but this is my current playlist for him in no particular order:

Anon, the fact you capitalised "Aliens" made me think of Xenomorphs and I had to immediately stop thinking 🤣

On a side note, I can't actually tell you either way because he hasn't encountered an alien (that isn't a demon or a human) lol. He'd probably initially treat an alien much like he would treat a common demon, if they are obviously not human, and then if he realises they are also not quite a demon this could peak his interest.

Pointing you in this direction because regardless of the canon answer this proves he could look good in one LMAO

Sorry to burst your bubble but no :d Though I suppose he could simulate the effect by reverting parts of them to their "liquid" state 🤔 DO WITH THAT INFO WHAT YOU WILL.

It is theoretically similar to a human's.

If you can remember his age then that is how old he is :d I'm not really like other creators who give their characs a definitive "birthday" down to the year, mainly because I don't often have set "time periods" in my stories lol.

His birth date falls somewhere between late October - late November though.

In the context of BTD; they just don't like each other XD Well I can't actually speak for Cain, but Rire not liking Cain is partly a riff on general angel/demon rivalry dynamics, and partly because Rire would see Cain as more of a threat since canonically Cain is way more OP than him.

Most of the time when i draw them Cain is also actively getting in Rire's space whilst Rire is actively trying to avoid him, so there's also that XD

It...depends. On which aspect of "ownership" you're implying. For those that he has deals with, he'd calculate what exactly the value of the deal lost would be and in this situation he'd likely write them off as Cain would be more annoying to handle then they'd be worth (he can always make more deals).

If someone was specifically marked by Rire, that's a different level of possessiveness and he'd actually try cos like

Hey guys some offence but why are some of you sending me asks formatted as if i were ChatGPT

Is there one for like, personal ambition or cunning or something cos I don't think he'd be any of those listed lol.

Rire doesn't have a mobile phone and he doesn't need one because he has a demon power that basically CCTVs all his citizens to himself. And really, if he wants to find you he'll find you.

He's somewhere in the middle of that scale through the sheer fact that he's been around long enough to see technology change and would've kept up with how to use things to blend in better, but also doesn't need to use the electronics to the point that he'd need to be an expert at it.

Is this cos Gato is Canadian cos I don't remember a country location being specified when we did it? |D Personally I figured most of the settings were in the US since the US has the most documented serial killers

Also sos no i dont anon, you'll need to either ask Gato or EP or dig through any of their lore posts they might have left.

Think kind of like Rire (he did learn a lot from her after all), but with a more Elizabethan era socialite vibe. Possibly a black widow but we dont have any proof about that.

Has/had a p good relationship. I use both terms because I still never decided whether she was currently dead or not lol.

Lol a misconception but Rire doesn't actually perceive humans as trash XD Trash suggests that he hates them and they wouldn't be worth regarding at all, whereas Rire usually finds them more like...novelties. Or like whatever that feeling that is associated with viewing ant farms or animals performing tricks is. Rire's mother would view them as more like working animals or livestock.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How lock-in hurts design

Berliners: Otherland has added a second date (Jan 28) for my book-talk after the first one sold out - book now!

If you've ever read about design, you've probably encountered the idea of "paving the desire path." A "desire path" is an erosion path created by people departing from the official walkway and taking their own route. The story goes that smart campus planners don't fight the desire paths laid down by students; they pave them, formalizing the route that their constituents have voted for with their feet.

Desire paths aren't always great (Wikipedia notes that "desire paths sometimes cut through sensitive habitats and exclusion zones, threatening wildlife and park security"), but in the context of design, a desire path is a way that users communicate with designers, creating a feedback loop between those two groups. The designers make a product, the users use it in ways that surprise the designer, and the designer integrates all that into a new revision of the product.

This method is widely heralded as a means of "co-innovating" between users and companies. Designers who practice the method are lauded for their humility, their willingness to learn from their users. Tech history is strewn with examples of successful paved desire-paths.

Take John Deere. While today the company is notorious for its war on its customers (via its opposition to right to repair), Deere was once a leader in co-innovation, dispatching roving field engineers to visit farms and learn how farmers had modified their tractors. The best of these modifications would then be worked into the next round of tractor designs, in a virtuous cycle:

https://securityledger.com/2019/03/opinion-my-grandfathers-john-deere-would-support-our-right-to-repair/

But this pattern is even more pronounced in the digital world, because it's much easier to update a digital service than it is to update all the tractors in the field, especially if that service is cloud-based, meaning you can modify the back-end everyone is instantly updated. The most celebrated example of this co-creation is Twitter, whose users created a host of its core features.

Retweets, for example, were a user creation. Users who saw something they liked on the service would type "RT" and paste the text and the link into a new tweet composition window. Same for quote-tweets: users copied the URL for a tweet and pasted it in below their own commentary. Twitter designers observed this user innovation and formalized it, turning it into part of Twitter's core feature-set.

Companies are obsessed with discovering digital desire paths. They pay fortunes for analytics software to produce maps of how their users interact with their services, run focus groups, even embed sneaky screen-recording software into their web-pages:

https://www.wired.com/story/the-dark-side-of-replay-sessions-that-record-your-every-move-online/

This relentless surveillance of users is pursued in the name of making things better for them: let us spy on you and we'll figure out where your pain-points and friction are coming from, and remove those. We all win!

But this impulse is a world apart from the humility and respect implied by co-innovation. The constant, nonconsensual observation of users has more to do with controlling users than learning from them.

That is, after all, the ethos of modern technology: the more control a company can exert over its users ,the more value it can transfer from those users to its shareholders. That's the key to enshittification, the ubiquitous platform decay that has degraded virtually all the technology we use, making it worse every day:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

When you are seeking to control users, the desire paths they create are all too frequently a means to wrestling control back from you. Take advertising: every time a service makes its ads more obnoxious and invasive, it creates an incentive for its users to search for "how do I install an ad-blocker":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

More than half of all web-users have installed ad-blockers. It's the largest consumer boycott in human history:

https://doc.searls.com/2023/11/11/how-is-the-worlds-biggest-boycott-doing/

But zero app users have installed ad-blockers, because reverse-engineering an app requires that you bypass its encryption, triggering liability under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This law provides for a $500,000 fine and a 5-year prison sentence for "circumvention" of access controls:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Beyond that, modifying an app creates liability under copyright, trademark, patent, trade secrets, noncompete, nondisclosure and so on. It's what Jay Freeman calls "felony contempt of business model":

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

This is why services are so horny to drive you to install their app rather using their websites: they are trying to get you to do something that, given your druthers, you would prefer not to do. They want to force you to exit through the gift shop, you want to carve a desire path straight to the parking lot. Apps let them mobilize the law to literally criminalize those desire paths.

An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a felony to block ads in it (or do anything else that wrestles value back from a company). Apps are web-pages where everything not forbidden is mandatory.

Seen in this light, an app is a way to wage war on desire paths, to abandon the cooperative model for co-innovation in favor of the adversarial model of user control and extraction.

Corporate apologists like to claim that the proliferation of apps proves that users like them. Neoliberal economists love the idea that business as usual represents a "revealed preference." This is an intellectually unserious tautology: "you do this, so you must like it":

https://boingboing.net/2024/01/22/hp-ceo-says-customers-are-a-bad-investment-unless-they-can-be-made-to-buy-companys-drm-ink-cartridges.html

Calling an action where no alternatives are permissible a "preference" or a "choice" is a cheap trick – especially when considered against the "preferences" that reveal themselves when a real choice is possible. Take commercial surveillance: when Apple gave Ios users a choice about being spied on – a one-click opt of of app-based surveillance – 96% of users choice no spying:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/96-of-us-users-opt-out-of-app-tracking-in-ios-14-5-analytics-find/

But then Apple started spying on those very same users that had opted out of spying by Facebook and other Apple competitors:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Neoclassical economists aren't just obsessed with revealed preferences – they also love to bandy about the idea of "moral hazard": economic arrangements that tempt people to be dishonest. This is typically applied to the public ("consumers" in the contemptuous parlance of econospeak). But apps are pure moral hazard – for corporations. The ability to prohibit desire paths – and literally imprison rivals who help your users thwart those prohibitions – is too tempting for companies to resist.

The fact that the majority of web users block ads reveals a strong preference for not being spied on ("users just want relevant ads" is such an obvious lie that doesn't merit any serious discussion):

https://www.iccl.ie/news/82-of-the-irish-public-wants-big-techs-toxic-algorithms-switched-off/

Giant companies attained their scale by learning from their users, not by thwarting them. The person using technology always knows something about what they need to do and how they want to do it that the designers can never anticipate. This is especially true of people who are unlike those designers – people who live on the other side of the world, or the other side of the economic divide, or whose bodies don't work the way that the designers' bodies do:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

Apps – and other technologies that are locked down so their users can be locked in – are the height of technological arrogance. They embody a belief that users are to be told, not heard. If a user wants to do something that the designer didn't anticipate, that's the user's fault:

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

Corporate enthusiasm for prohibiting you from reconfiguring the tools you use to suit your needs is a declaration of the end of history. "Sure," John Deere execs say, "we once learned from farmers by observing how they modified their tractors. But today's farmers are so much stupider and we are so much smarter that we have nothing to learn from them anymore."

Spying on your users to control them is a poor substitute asking your users their permission to learn from them. Without technological self-determination, preferences can't be revealed. Without the right to seize the means of computation, the desire paths never emerge, leaving designers in the dark about what users really want.

Our policymakers swear loyalty to "innovation" but when corporations ask for the right to decide who can innovate and how, they fall all over themselves to create laws that let companies punish users for the crime of contempt of business-model.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/24/everything-not-mandatory/#is-prohibited

Image: Belem (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Desire_path_%2819811581366%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[were--ralph]

why exactly do you dislike generative art so much? i know its been misused by some folks, but like, why blame a tool because it gets used by shitty people? Why not just... blame the people who are shitty? I mean this in genuinely good faith, you seem like a pretty nice guy normally, but i guess it just makes me confused how... severe? your reactions are sometimes to it. There's a lot of nuance to conversation about it, and by folks a lot smarter than I (I suggest checking out the Are We Art Yet or "AWAY" group! They've got a lot on their page about the ethical use of Image generation software by individuals, and it really helped explain some things I was confused about). I know on my end, it made me think about why I personally was so reactive about Who was allowed to make art and How/Why. Again, all this in good faith, and I'm not asking you to like, Explain yourself or anything- If you just read this and decide to delete it instead of answering, all good! I just hope maybe you'll look into *why* some people advocate for generative software as strongly as they do, and listen to what they have to say about things -🦜

if Ai genuinely generated its own content I wouldn't have as much of a problem with it, however what Ai currently does is scrape other people's art, collect it, and then build something based off of others stolen works without crediting them. It's like. stealing other peoples art, mashing it together, then saying "this is mine i can not only profit of it but i can use it to cut costs in other industries.

this is more evident by people not "making" art but instead using prompts. Its like going to McDonalds and saying "Burger. Big, Juicy, etc, etc" then instead of a worker making the burger it uses an algorithm to build a burger based off of several restaurant's recepies.

example

the left is AI art, the right is one of the artists (Lindong) who it pulled the art style from. it's literally mass producing someone's artstyle by taking their art then using an algorithm to rebuild it in any context. this is even more apparent when you see ai art also tries to recreate artists watermarks and generally blends them together making it unintelligible.

Aside from that theres a lot of other ethical problems with it including generating pretty awful content, including but not limited to cp. It also uses a lot of processing power and apparently water? I haven't caught up on the newer developements i've been depressed about it tbh

Then aside from those, studios are leaning towards Ai generation to replace having to pay people. I've seen professional voice actors complain on twitter that they haven't gotten as much work since ai voice generation started, artists are being cut down and replaced by ai art then having the remaining artists fix any errors in the ai art.

Even beyond those things are the potential for misinformation. Here's an experiment: Which of these two are ai generated?

ready?

These two are both entirely ai generated. I have no idea if they're real people, but in a few months you could ai generate a Biden sex scandal, you could generate politics in whatever situation you want, you can generate popular streamers nude, whatever. and worse yet is ai generated video is already being developed and it doesn't look bad.

I posted on this already but as of right now it only needs one clear frame of a body and it can generate motion. yeah there are issues but it's been like two years since ai development started being taken seriously and we've gotten to this point already. within another two years it'll be close to perfected. There was even tests done with tiktokers and it works. it just fucking works.

There is genuinely not one upside to ai art. at all. it's theft, it's harming peoples lives, its harming the environment, its cutting jobs back and hurting the economy, it's invading peoples privacy, its making pedophilia accessible, and more. it's a plague and there's no vaccine for it. And all because people don't want to take a year to learn anatomy.

[kdh-tally]

Once the requests are unpaused can I request a Romance x Mira x Abby where fans found separate photos of one where Mira is girlfriend with Abby and the other with Romance and knowing the K-pop fans they absolutely feral and try to cancel Mira calling her stuff like “wh0re” , cheater, etc etc and there are many toxic Abby and Romance fans trying to cancel her and petitioning her out of Huntrix and basically how everyone is handling the situation ofcourse write this when you’re ready to like this

Mira Dealing With Cancel Culture

Prompt : Fans just love taking things out of context. Mira can't catch a break.

Author's note : I'm finishing this at 3am. This is gonna be scheduled for like 4:30 sumn pm on sunday. Sorry if it isn't proof-read!! I'm half asleep. And for those of you who don't know Bubble is basically an app that lets you "talk" to K-pop idols.

It started because of two photos. 

The first was of Mira and Abby outside a restaurant in Itaewon. It was newly opened and the two had booked the whole building in advance to get some privacy. Unfortunately for them, getting privacy was finding a needle in a haystack. Impossible.

Neither of them had noticed one of the employees, one that just so happened to be a fan of the Saja Boys, take a clear photo of them. Mira had her hand on Abby’s biceps, entertaining herself as they waited for their order to arrive. 

Once it was uploaded to the internet, it blew up. Fans were immediately shipping the two, creating theories and such. It was cute, annoying definitely, but cute.

Things went downhill when another photo was released.

This one was of Mira and Romance. The taller boy had been hugging her from behind while she shopped in a convenience store. Though they wore masks and hoods to hide themselves, their long pink hair was too obvious. 

Fans were immediately confused. Mira was supposed to be with Abby wasn’t she? The company never truly issued a statement on those images though. However, for her to be seen with Romance again so soon?

Fancams dating months back began resurfacing. Videos of Mira intimately interacting with Romance on stage were being compared to variety show clips where Abby and Mira stood a bit too closely for it to just be a friendly gesture. 

There had to be one single conclusion. She was two-timing them. Twitter accounts began coming up with their own conclusions, claiming Mira was a cheater. They believed she was two-timing both boys without their knowledge. 

Some Romance fans called Mira a manipulator, using his flirty personality for attention. Abby’s fanbase was split, some defending Mira, insisting there had to be a misunderstanding but most were attacking.

By day three, there were already organized petitions circulating online demanding Mira be removed from Huntrix. One gained over 100k signatures overnight. “Protect Abby and Romance. Remove Mira.” The comments were vile.

Some fans even spammed Huntrix’s fan café and the Saja Boys’ social media with snake emojis and edited clips labeling Mira as a serial cheater. Huntrix’s company remained silent.

–

Mira lounged on her couch, Romance cuddling her waist while Abby massaged her shoulders. She opened instagram, looking through what the fans were saying.

“Oh this one says ‘she’s not misunderstood, she’s just a snake. Don't let her pretty face fool you.’” She read aloud, voice dripping with amusement. A smirk creeped onto her face before she burst into laughter. “They’re getting so creative,” she chuckled, wiping a fake tear from her eyes.

“This doesn’t bother you pinkie?” Romance mumbled, his voice muffled by her soft skin. 

“Not really,” she shrugged, leaning back into Abby’s touch. 

Abby hadn’t spoken. Multiple thoughts were running through his mind. While he was happy Mira didn’t let the negative comments get to her he truly wished fans would stop attempting to interfere with their personal lives.

It had taken a lot for the three to get to where they were. It had nothing to do with the boys competing for Mira’s love, they had always agreed to share, but more so them getting Mira to accept her feelings for them. 

After all that, Abby hated that so many people felt the need to decide how he was supposed to feel about the situation. “I think I’m gonna make a statement,” he spoke, hands kneading gently into the girls shoulders. 

Mira leaned to look up at him, Romance tilted his head in is direction as well. Both wanted to hear his opinion. “Even though you’re not bothered they shouldn’t have the ability to dictate anything,” he explained. “Sure they might be trying to protect Romance and I but it’s  just gotten to be too much” 

Romance smiled softly at the other man, “You’re so cute you know that?”

“Shut up.”

–

Later that day, Abby had gone live. It was his first solo live since the rumors and photos had spread. His face was stone cold and serious, a drastic difference to the normally sweet and playful behaviour he put on.

“Hello everyone,” he began. “I know there have been some rumors circulating about my relationship status and I’m not going to be explaining my private life to you but Mira is not the villain.”

He ran a hand through his hair, “I’m not some victim of cheating. Stop harassing her. This isn’t some K-drama where you pick teams and decide who gets to be the lead.”

He didn’t even wait to read any comments, quickly turning off the stream. He stuffed his phone back into his pocket before heading to bed with his other darling partners. Mira was fast asleep, her back to Romance’s chest as she grabbed at Abby’s pillow. 

The other man smiled as Abby entered the room. “I watched your stream.”

“Yea?”

He nodded, fluffy pink hair getting even messier. “I wish she’d allow the company to put out a statement.” Romance mumbled as he placed a light kiss on the girl's neck. Truth was, their company wasn’t staying out of their own will.

Rumi and Zoey had immediately ordered for them to release a statement since the first day the rumors began circulating. However, Mira, not really caring for dramatics, insisted they let the issue fizzle out. 

It didn’t seem like it was going to be disappearing anytime soon. “Kinda find it hilarious that no one thinks we’re all in a relationship though,” Romance laughed under his breath.

“Can’t blame them, me and Mira do make a really good couple.”

“I think you mean me and Mira, you muscle head.”

“Go to sleep loser”

“I’m trying you idiot”

–

A few days after Abby’s live, the hate had quieted down. The trending tags disappeared and the conversation was no longer a headliner. While there were still many questions about why the company wouldn’t speak up for its artists, no one wanted to cross Abby. 

But that didn’t mean it was over.

Mira hadn’t said much since the backlash, at least not on Bubble or Instagram. She posted a few pictures, reshared Zoey’s story once, and uploaded a behind-the-scenes from their last comeback. Everything seemed fine.

That’s what Romance and Abby thought too until they walked into her room one afternoon. Mira was sitting cross-legged on the floor, a small box open in front of her. Fan letters. A mix of them.

Some were cute, decorated with bows and heart stickers and many pink crayons. And some were folded like they were meant to be hidden. Romance leaned against the doorframe while Abby stepped inside.

Mira looked up, smiled, pushing the letters back into the boxes with slight urgency. “Hey. Didn’t hear you guys.”

Romance raised an eyebrow. “You got fan mail?”

“Umm yea,” She let out a fake laugh, brushing her bangs behind her ear. “Just looking through stuff. Fans are weird, but some are still sweet.”

Neither of them moved. Abby’s eyes scanned the few letters that remained spread out on the ground. One had been crumpled up, then smoothed back out. Another had a red line drawn under a sentence. His stomach turned.

He picked it up. Read it. “You’re the reason your parents hated you, right? Bet they’d be real proud of you now. Hooking up with two guys at once. Classic problem child behavior.”

He didn’t say anything, he just crouched and gently pulled the paper from her hand.

Romance stepped inside too. He’d seen Abby’s face after reading the letter. He knew it couldn’t have been anything good.

Mira didn’t move, she just kept smiling. But now it was clearly forced.

“You said you didn’t care,” Abby said softly.

“I don’t.” Mira shrugged, too fast. “I mean, it’s stupid. People online don’t know me.”

“But they knew that,” Romance muttered. “About your parents.”

Mira flinched. Her lyrics, lines in a song meant to make her feel more confident about who she was were now being used to bring her down. Romance crouched next to her, grabbing one of the hate letters and reading it out loud, monotone.

“You manipulate Abby and Romance because no one else ever loved you?” His eyes looked cold. He wasn't mad at her, but mad for her. “Who gave them the right?”

Mira looked away.

“Mira…” he trailed off as he noticed how her eyes began to water.

“No.” Her voice cracked.

Abby sat beside her. “You know you can cry around us.”

“I don’t want to.”

After a moment, Romance stood up suddenly, his hands clenched into a tight fist around his phone. “Alright.” He walked toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Abby asked, already knowing the answer.

“Fixing this mess,” Romance said without hesitation.

–

Romance’s story hit Instagram within the hour. In the frame was an image of the hate letters he and Abby had read. No names were tagged but his caption was clear. Imagine sending this to someone you claim to support. Hope you never meet me in person.

The second slide contained a recent photo of the three cuddling. Mira asleep on his chest as Abby rested his head on her stomach. She’s still the love of my life. Cry harder.

The third and final slide was a picture of Abby flipping off the camera while wearing a sweatshirt that so obviously belonged to Mira. The three of us are fine. Go worry about your own lonely lives <3

The next day, the company posted a short statement. Mira finally gave into Rumi and Zoey’s pleading. “Let us take care of you for once Mira,” Zoey cooed as the girls laid in a pile in their penthouse. The pink haired girl said nothing but nodded.

“We are actively investigating the fan accounts that sent threatening and abusive letters to our artist, Mira. Legal action is underway. Harassment will not be tolerated. She will also continue to participate in all future Huntr/x projects.”

It was short. But the message was clear. 

A week later, Mira posted on Bubble. It was short and blunt. Just the way she was. “You don’t have to get it. You’re not in it.”

And that was that. The hate stopped. The petitions for her to leave the girl group closed. Abby, Mira, and Romance showed up together on a variety show the next month. Though they wanted to, the host wouldn’t dare question any of them about their individual relationship status.

Fans watched them interact. The way Abby laughed too hard at Mira’s teasing. The way Romance instinctively fixed her mic. The quiet glances between all three.

Mira wasn’t a cheater.

The three weren’t pretending to be a love triangle.

They just were.

[vyva-melinkolya]

we all agree that the push towards short form, vertical video (tiktok/reels/shorts) is ruining fucking everything right? Tiktok has been useful for the dissemination of political information (e.g Gaza) i’ll give it that, but that feels moreso a result of meta and twitters algorithms being just a little *more*’evil and censor happy. And i want to make it very clear that my hatred for tiktok has nothing to do with the fact that it was a product of a Chinese company, because i see a lot of critiques relying on some sort of sinophobic conspiracy. On the contrary, it’s what tiktok has become in the vacuum of western popular culture and marketing that makes me fearful.

I know that every generation faces a new, polarizing technology and inevitably, there are those among said generation who will critique it. That is the nature of things. However, there is also something to be said about how, with the acceleration of technology (running parallel to the acceleration of capitalism, acceleration towards collapse etc), each coming generation faces an increasingly more malevolent “advancement”. TLDR, i’m going to talk my shit.

I’m going to speak on the aspect that is most relavent to me, as a musician. I am petrified by what short form video is doing to music and to musicians. I think that tiktok provides the illusion of making music and being a musician more “accessible” while actually pouring gasoline on the fire that the pop music machine had already started. Standards for what popular culture “expects” from music are being doubled and tripled. Let’s talk about song length. Success and marketability favoring shorter songs is not something new, it has been the trend for decades. But with short form video, it goes even further. You’re not just hearing the same song over and over on the radio, you’re hearing the same 15-30 seconds of the same song over and over again. This in-turn, starts to influence the way people write music, persuading people to make songs that *could* have that 15 second appeal. There is an art to pop music, there is an art to writing a catchy hook—this is something else. We weren’t meant to hear or understand music like that. There are so many songs from reels that i found annoying, until i heard them in their full context. It’s insidious. It makes everything feel like a fucking commercial, even if nothing is being advertised.

I’m going to pull directly from someone else’s experiences, someone who’s music seems to be everywhere on short form videos. The ambient musician My Head Is Empty has a hundred million streams on the song “i was only temporary”. Despite that exposure, they experience “never ending copywrite issues” and have “received death threats” by people who refuse to credit them when using their song. Pulling a quote here, from a comment on their own post

“vyva_melinkolya unfortunately it just gets worse. i saw a bot content page that steals pod cast footage and spams dozens of videos with my song stolen, comment on a "motivation" spam content , who actually made a post telling people the name of my song, and the previous page i mentioned, the pod cast spam commented on that video saying "Bro stop don't give out the sauce. this audio helps me pull numbers brooo" - so people are actively INTENTIONALLY stealing it and telling people to not credit me. like. u can't make this stuff up”

Beyond this, My Head Is Empty feels frustrated that despite all this exposure, the rest of their work (nine albums) as a musician remains under appreciated, and i think that frustration is 100% valid. People cannot fully appreciate music, or even understand it as a work of art created by another human, when it’s taken so far out of its context. Again, the soul being sucked out of art by “the machine” isn’t anything new but, this is a whole other level. Being a musician is more expensive than ever, streaming earns you fractions of a cent etc, it all feeds into itself.

When a song or a musician i love deeply finds its way on to tiktok (let’s use Duster’s “Stars Will Fall”, one of my favorite songs ever as an example)I am not upset that i cant “gatekeep” it anymore. I’m not upset by the idea of something I love and hold dearly finding a larger audience. I AM upset in the manner in which it is being disseminated. I’m upset with art I hold dear to me being chopped up and used as “trending audio”. When I saw Duster in concert recently, lStars Will Fall” was the song I was most looking forward to hearing. It was the last song they played, and it was the song seemly everyone chose to talk loudly over. The audience was mostly people my age and younger. This complaint might come off as petty or pretentious or cliche, i frankly do not give a shit.

Let’s talk about how musicians are expected to promote music on tiktok/reels. This is a matter of opinion, at the risk of sounding very pretentious: the “POV we are x band from x” “My label says i need x followers before x” “posting this video until c musician notices me”. I understand that some of it is in jest but, what the fuck? When did this become the norm? I do not blame anyone for promoting their music like this, but we should want more for ourselves. I’ve always said being a musician is deeply embarassing, inherently. If being a musician is inherently embarassing then what is this? I dont have a solution for this, and the music industry has always been ugly and bloodthirsty and seldom fruitful— but i feel like the very small amount of dignity we had as artists is now lost and I cant fucking stand it. Artists seem to promote the same single with dozens of reels over the course of months, hoping that something sticks. I dont want to sound like i’m shaming or, again, sound like i can provide a solution. I’m just very fucking sorry that it seems like this is “the way”. And personally, i’m scared that if i dont “get with the program”, im going to fail.

Again, all of this speaks to larger trends in entertainment industry and even larger trends in capitalism. But i’m just airing specifics right now because frankly? I cant take it anymore.