#I don't agree with the way I used to be on facebook either

[andauserene]

How would Shockwave and Knockout react to their Cybertronian Conjunx Endura joining human trends? 🫶🏻 Edition

Shockwave :

- He is confused, you can tell.

- He thinks it is illogical for you to follow human's trends and... what do they call it? Social media stuffs.

- But you didn't care.

- You are just being you (resilient and stubborn sometimes)

- He saw you posing yourself in front of a mirror with heart pose in your hands like '🫶🏻' and it certainly makes Shockwave thinks how illogical this trend.

- But he secretly try it himself (poor him has one hand) by transforming his canon arm into a hand (like he did in EarthSpark) and try it.

- He thinks it is illogical for him to enjoy seeing you or himself posing like that, but he cannot tell exactly why he likes to do it.

- Even, when he is alone in his lab, he would do those idol pose and dancing like he is a human idol.

- So, when anyone dares to interrupt him, they better run- Shockwave would do anything to keep this a secret, even if he had to kill in order to do so, just- keep this a secret, please. If they agree, he'll let them live for now.

- But eventually it exposed to the troops and you can't help but laugh at him.

- He glares at you with his single red optic, but he secretly loves your laugh.

- Probably do that again just to get your attention.

- And Megatron would sometimes bring this as a topic and had a wild thought of dancing battle between Shockwave and Starscream.

- Starscream obviously win with that slender body of his.

- But Shockwave agreed only to impress you and get your love attention. I mean, look at his love, look at her laugh! Only exquisites can enjoy such a sight of her laugh.

- Says that someday you could be the death of him, but he doesn't know that that day is today.

- You kill him with overload cuteness as you place kisses and pamper him although he doesn't show it and you obviously don't know it.

- Overall, 13/10! Such a sweet logical ending for both of you.🫶🏻❤️

Knock Out : (little bit suggestive!!)

- He obviously saw this kind of trends, whether on drive-in theaters or just seeing random people do this.

- He normally would think humans are really attention-deprived as they would do such humilating actions just to get followers and famous.

- He dislikes the idea of humans doing this weird stuff on platforms such as... what is it again? TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and such.

- Knows that from Breakdown.

- Breakdown knows that from Soundwave.

- Soundwave knows that from the internet while scrolling cat pictures something.

- Mostly, he thinks this stuff is even more cringe and cheesy than romantic or pick-up lines.

- But probably ended up using one of the rizz at you when he saw you making '🫶🏻' pose.

- He might say things like 'My, my... What would I give to see that body of yours dancing for me' or 'The way you move had imprinted on my mind forever, darling'.

- You, ever the fast-response, become a messy blush upon hearing his words.

- And that only fuel his ego and confidence even more.

- May sometimes even become very bold and grab you from behind before swaying his own body hips against yours, leading you to dance.

- It made you become very very very shy and embarrassed.

- He would just kiss you to shut up, or either carry you to his berthroom and do whatever he had in mind.

- If he is kind enough, you will be alerted for what he will do to you.

- If he is feeling devious and mischievous, he will attack you and tackled you down and you can feel his slender fingers tickling you.

- And even, he would not hesitate to show the 'dance moves' he saw from you and show it in front of everyone, including Megatron.

- The Dark Lord will be confused, but when he sees you blushing or begging Knock Out to stop, he immediately connects the dots and chuckle slightly.

- Then, there will be a battle dance between Starscream and Knock Out.

- Since their bodies are just as slender as each other, if Starscream's hips are not smaller, it will be hard to decide of who'll win.

- But Starscream is outright confirmed by Megatron that he is the best dancer, so, Knock Out loses this one.

- It doesn't matter though, what matters is that your cute little face is blushing light blue Energon and he can hear how the troops comments about you.

- Look at his sweet Conjunx, her priceless face worth millions of fame, no, glamour. She is his Conjunx!

- Overall, he is 17/10. His finish always shines the brightest, but with you, his finish just shine different color.

My first TFP head-canons aaaaaaaaaahh- I do stories at Quotve too, so make sure to check it out!

This is my account on Quotve, may as well upload a few stuffs from there to here and vice versa. See you, Twelve SQuad!!❤️

[beggars-opera]

Hey, can we move our advice about kids on the internet into the 21st century please?

I 100% agree that we should all be as private as humanly possible online, but I also know that I do not follow my own advice, nor does anyone else, including you, probably. Yes, many of us were raised in a time in which the internet could be completely anonymous, but that was in the era before social media. Facebook, Instagram, etc. started as tools to interact with people already in your social circle, which is why personal information is used on them, but they've evolved since then for better or worse, and we need to acknowledge that. Simply telling teenagers that they have to operate under an avatar at all times like we're on a 2002 message board and that they are brainwashed idiots if they don't isn't helping anyone.

If I was giving someone real life advice, it would be this:

If you are a minor, know that there are predators out there who are more than willing to interact with you, so honestly, sincerely, do consider being as anonymous as possible. That means not using your full, or even your real name (this is the perfect time to use the name you always wished you had, mine was Morgan after Morgan le Fay), and putting things on private as much as possible so only people you know, or those you can vet, can interact with you.

If you do choose to show your face, know that this comes with risk and buffering that with other things (like using a pseudonym or never tagging your exact location). This can go a long way to protecting yourself. If you're just posting aesthetic images, sure, make your IG public, but if you're documenting your every move maybe stick with friends only for now.

Even if you are not a minor, creeps will still find you. Again, assumption of risk. Either way, though, the block feature is your friend.

If you're being open online because you're really dead set on being an influencer, know that is going to come with a whole world of pain all its own assuming it actually pans out, so it's probably not worth it. Also you probably won't make it as an influencer, hon, I'm so sorry but statistically it's true.

If you're posting certain things traceable to you this could also bite you later at work, or for prospective employers.

When interacting with strangers online, always assume that people are hiding SOMETHING. That isn't always a malicious thing - they could also be protecting themselves! But don't take everything they say at face value. Online personas are always acting of a sort.

If you find yourself becoming friendly enough with someone that you want to meet them in person, take stock of how much you know about them. Do they post photos of themselves frequently enough that you can tell they are who they say they are? Are they willing to video chat with you before meeting irl? Are they willing to meet with you in a neutral, public location or with a group of friends, or do they act sketchy about that?

To the above point, meet people for the first time in a neutral, public location, preferably with a group of friends, just in case. Look, I've broken this rule myself and even though nothing happened, I still kick myself for it.

Trust your gut. You are the creator and the curator of your own online existence, so do what makes you feel safe.

[plaguevampyr]

Elliott headcannons (some of these I gather from people but there's side notes who it's from)

I definitely do not have an obsession with this man.

Elliott used a smoking pipe before. He doesn't know how to use it by the way that he start coughing. (Bonus from @majokothesmol: "He doesn't use it to smoke. It's a bubble blower." Then @/3-and-a-half-possums-in-a-hat added "plotwist, he inhaled the bubbles")

He doesn't know how to maintain eye contact. That's why he's facing side ways and he looked confidence (or arrogant as you might say it) just to hide the fact he can't make eye contact.

He came from a wealthy family and his parents hates him because he wants to he a writer instead of a lawyer or something. Probably an only child, if not, his sibling is either decades away from his age and probably his parents favorite, sorry Elliott you don't have parent favoritism. (younger or older)

Theatre kid, that's it. You can't tell me that's not a theatre kid. He probably played Goston for the Beauty and the Beast musical in highschool and I don't know why.

Someone said he's a werewolf and it's the funniest thing I've read. (I can't rell you who because I found it on Facebook and it was their personal account...)

When he's folding origami, he folds it neatly and perfectly aligned.

Willy invites him for meal sometimes if he's cooking at home. Don't starve Elliott, you're too glamorous.

Broke ass. (We all agreed on this and it's because he spent most of his money on hair care products. Or some good quality papers.)

Wait, have you guys ever realized that this man has OCs? THIS GUY LITERALLY HAVE OCS? OF COURSE HE HAVE OCS, HE'S A WRITER...

[powdermelonkeg]

Something websites (*cough* Tumblr *cough*) need to learn is that what retains an audience isn't an abundance of new bells and whistles to play with, it's a coherent experience overall.

When someone joins a website, you don't need to grab their attention and hold it. They're already testing the waters. They've agreed to sign up. You've won on that front, and they're there for something specific you already have that they're hoping works well.

What drives them away is frustration.

Frustration, frustration, frustration.

Learning curves are going to be a part of any new website experience; they're something the user comes to terms with, in their own time. But broken or bad features are going to make them jump sites.

On top of that, constantly adding new features makes them feel like all the hard work they've put in to learning what you have isn't worth it; your website looks unstable and your staff looks incompetent, because it gives the impression that you don't know what you're doing.

You are floundering. It makes your new users nervous. It makes your old users hesitate to bring anyone else on board. And why should they? Why should they put effort into it if you're going to throw that effort away next Tuesday? Why get used to a UI that you're not going to bother to keep? Why customize anything if you're going to whittle that customization away?

Between that and the broken, unattended features of this site—the tag organization failing, the inability to look up posts word-for-word, the video player either refusing to play or yanking you to the top of the dashboard, images taking forever to load, advertisements blaring at full volume when you scroll past, you have your problem.

You have the reason why your numbers are failing.

It's not that you're not interesting enough.

It's not that you're too difficult to understand.

It's that you aren't improving what you have, yet you keep adding more half-broken things and unwanted copycat features to the pile.

It's that you're losing your identity in pursuit of a hypothetical perfect customer.

It's that you are actively telling your user base that you prefer those hypothetical customers over them. And your user base, your real people who make you happen, are smart enough to know where your priorities lie.

The bulk of this post talks about Tumblr, but other sites have gone the same way. Twitter is dead and its corpse is decaying in the street. Reddit has sabotaged any trust its users had in its management. If you'd like a really old example—I used to use Fanfiction Net. It's not the most intuitive website in the world, but it was the first one I called home.

I used it to host my works. The adware now on it makes it a hassle to navigate. The bots make comment sections and private messages a dread rather than a joy. So I moved on.

I also used to use it to collaborate on stories with my now-roommate. The message limit was 300 a day. When you're writing dialogue between characters, that's nothing.

So I moved on. We started messaging on Facebook. It was better, it didn't have a limit. But then I learned Discord existed, and I could edit messages, make dedicated channels, etc. So I moved on from Facebook to Discord. And Discord had a steep learning curve, especially if you're trying to make your own server rather than contribute to one. But, most importantly, the payoff was worth it.

If Discord changed its layout every other month while I was learning it, and broke how its reactions worked, and kept shifting what it meant to create a channel? If it opted me into servers I didn't sign up for, in hopes of engagement? If its text never formatted correctly, or its search function only went back a day or two?

I would have gone right back to Facebook. Even if it's a more basic experience, basic is always preferable to unstable.

Figure out what you want, websites.

Slow growth, or a gamble?

You're paying for your magic slot machine in users.

[eisforeidolon]

Question: I know each of you have had programs that are going now, and some that did not make it - and that is complete B.S., by the way. [Audience cheers, Jared mouths thank you] Are there any other projects that are coming up that you can discuss? 'Cause we all know we see on Facebook and things that season 16, they've agreed, they've agreed, and like, okay we all wish that was true, but what can you tell us about future projects?

Jared [pointing at Jeff]: Well, he's set to direct season 16 of Supernatural.

Jeff: [nods] In a heartbeat.

Jared: I - what do I aggressively have going? I have a few things that we're working on developing, but I think aggressively I'm leaving tomorrow for Fire Country and [audience cheers, JDM and Jensen clap] It'll be - you know, I'm just doing a couple episodes, it's not like I'm joining the cast forever, it's a couple episodes, go see our buddy Max, and see some of the friends and family from Supernatural that I haven't seen in four years? So I can't wait to go play in their sandbox. I guess, I guess - I haven't talked to Kripke in a month but he said he was writing something for me, so we'll see if I can go hang out on The Boys.

Jeff: Are you working out? Are you getting ready?

Jared: I'm not.

Jensen: Are you doin' the squats?

Jared: No, I'm not.

Jensen: Are you repping 405?

Jared: No, I'm not.

Jensen: She is [referring to a previous questioner who asked about weightlifting].

Jared: I know. [points to that fan] Body double, just borrow her fan [points to other previous fan with prop] do the leg lifts, and then you're my double. You just got hired. But yeah, aggressively I'm kinda just living it day by day.

Jensen: I don't have much to talk about.

Jared: How much time do you have?

Jensen: I'll try to drum up some work for ya. So it's - no, you know everything that's happening with me so my world is about to change here in about two weeks.

Jeff: Do you start in two weeks?

Jensen: Yeah.

Jeff: Holy smokes.

Audience member(s): Which one?

Jensen: I don't remember which one.

Jeff: The one on Amazon.

Jensen: [cracks up] Countdown starts September. And then we're off to the races, because I think there's gonna be overlapping with The Boys and then there's gonna be overlapping with Vought Rising and then there's and then it's all gonna start again. So it's gonna be pretty cyc-[draws circles in the air], it's gonna be that way for a while. I don't know what the light at the end of the tunnel is.

Jeff: It's, you'd be surprised -

Audience member: You're gonna break Amazon again, right?

Jensen: Either that or Amazon's gonna break me. I know one of the two are gonna happen.

Jeff: I've got my money on Amazon.

Jensen: You have insider information. Uh, what about you, anything [?]?

Jeff: I start something in September that I can't talk about. I don't know how it is with new projects, that we never can talk about, it's ridiculous.

Jensen: And then we do them and then we still can't talk about them.

Jeff: Yeah, yeah. So that and then - did anybody see a movie I did, it was on Netflix, and it did really well, called Postcard Killings? I'm gonna go in October and do the sequel to that, based on a James Patterson thing.

Jared: Email killings? What comes after postcard killings?

Jeff: Oh, I see what you did there. Email killings. Only I can't find the killer because I'm really technology [gestures wildly around his head] - like I can't figure it out.

Jensen: The files are in the computer!

Jeff: There's not a [?]!

[genericpuff]

What the actual fuck are they thinking-

Okay, the caption might seem overblown but... this is not good.

The main LO subreddit has been closed for weeks now. It closed due to the API protests but considering the options in the community poll were to either "stay open indefinitely" or "stay closed until the decision is reversed", there's a tinfoil hat theory going around that the single mod that overlooks that place saw the API protests as an "easy way out", especially considering how hands-off those mods are. By the time the main sub decided to take part in the protests (after the height of the protests were over) it had already been stated by u/spez that they were not going to reverse the decision. Essentially, the LO subreddit is done.

Do you know what's been happening since it closed? Activity in ULO has been skyrocketing, but we've also been seeing a lot more discourse from people who have been forced to stomach the ULO content after having their main community shuttered.

Listen, I've got a lot of issues with the main sub and the things they've done over the past year. There are definitely some really shitty folks in there who have ruined things for those who are just casual readers by just being way too protective of this comic. But that doesn't mean the main sub shouldn't exist. The main sub, as dead as it was by the time it closed, was still an option for people who didn't want blind praise or relentless criticism/shitposting. Though there were people who tried to gatekeep the shit out of the main sub (attempting to make it a "positive vibes only" space) the main sub was never explicitly designed for only praise, and by the time it closed, it was seeing a lot more balance between praise and criticism (to no one's surprise, because criticism has become a lot more mainstream in the LO fandom, simply due to the comic's undeniably tanking). All that said, it made for a nice middle ground. Even I enjoyed going in there and reading people's takes on new episodes every week, whether or not I agreed with them. ULO was not designed to be the only route for discussion concerning LO, it's very specifically run for one specific purpose and that purpose will not line up with those who are now without a space.

Without the main sub, there are people with nowhere to go. Some people casually grin and bear it through ULO, others have gone to /r/LowSodiumLoreOlympus, but considering how dead that sub is also, it's clear the popular opinion is swaying more towards criticism. I can't imagine what it's like to be a community refugee right now.

So what does that leave for those who don't want to use ULO? The Facebook groups, and the Discord. The Facebook groups are probably the most accessible communities - not everyone uses reddit, not everyone knows how to use Discord, but everyone uses Facebook.

So the fact that the Facebook groups aren't going on a small break, but are going on their own 4 month hiatus?

Not only does this further reduce the options for fandom interaction, but this is terrible for the comic. Hiatuses like this can kill long-term retention, and fandom communities are often the best way to keep that retention on some form of life support.

Think of it this way - if I didn't have the ULO community, I probably would have dropped off LO ages ago, cut my losses, moved on. But it's the fact that I have a community to keep in touch with and have fun with that keeps me on this series. This goes the other way as well, into the casual and praise communities - while I'm sure many will still eagerly return in October, for those who are more casual readers, Lore Olympus will essentially be out of sight, out of mind. And that is NOT something you want to happen to a comic that is already losing traction.

I genuinely do not know what Rachel is thinking closing these groups. And yes, I am pointing to Rachel on this decision because she literally runs the official LO Facebook groups. LO going on a mid-season hiatus over the summer when HALF OF HER DEMOGRAPHIC IS HOME FROM SCHOOL is already such a huge risk that will likely kill her numbers; but to go and cut off her official groups from being able to stay connected and talking about the comic during the hiatus, on a platform OCCUPIED BY THE OTHER HALF OF HER DEMOGRAPHIC, LITERALLY ADULT WOMEN ?? What is that supposed to achieve? If she wants to give her mods a break, sure, okay, do that for a few weeks, but four months? Is she so allergic to fans being able to theorize or "figure her out" (because god knows Rachel doesn't like being predictable) or, god forbid, is she worried about giving them too much "freedom" to reflect and discuss the comic during this time without the weekly dopamine distraction hits that they actually stop and realize how shitty the comic is right now?

All I can say is, as much as we're theorizing that LO is going to be getting a 4th season, I really do hope this midseason hiatus is its last. Whatever life this comic has left is being choked out by Rachel and Webtoons' own hands.

And when it does go out, it better go out with a bang. That's the least it can do for itself and its community at this point.

[that-lazy-snail]

Being a fan of Avatar (the movie with blue people) is literally the most exhausting fan experience I've ever had, and I'm a female Star Wars fan, who's favorite Star Wars movie is The Last Jedi.

I'm by no means claiming that the movie is flawless or even "great" but it is by scifi blockbuster standards pretty good. It's no more or less racist than the Star Wars prequels and the writing isn't any worse than the scriptwriting in the Star Wars prequels either, yet it's treated with such disdain among people on the internet that I can't even talk about it without receiving random hateful comments.

I cosplay from the movie, more specifically the new movie and an OC that I designed in 2018. I love the movie, especially the visual elements and the design of the Na'vi and their culture, I think it's a fascinating metaphor for our treatment of indigenous peoples and our planet, I love the themes the film presents. But I'm also aware that it's harmful to indigenous people as well because it promotes a white savior narrative, that it's harmful to disabled people by promoting the narrative that they can't live full lives unless they're normative. I don't deny those problems with the movie, and I have plenty of criticisms of the new film as well. Particularly the use of locks on Jake and Spider, and I saw a video on tiktok complaining about that and I left a comment saying that I really wish they hadn't done that and I thought it was a really poor styling choice since up until that point none of the Na'vi we'd seen have locks so it doesn't logically make sense to give them that hair style. I got quite a bit of response to that comment, some people agreeing with me but largely people were saying, "why do you cosplay it then?" "why do you support it then?" like is it not okay to like things and also have criticism for them? I'm allowed to like things about it and also not like things about it.

I also keep seeing videos saying that Avatar has no cultural impact, that it doesn't have a long lasting fan base despite having lore comparable to Lord of the Rings. Here's the thing with that, it totally does have lore comparable to Lord of the Rings but the fan base can't thrive like LOTR fans or even Star Trek could partially because the internet wasn't a space in the same way then as it was when Avatar came out and the other fact is the sheer amount of shaming and harassment that Avatar fans get. I've seen people leave the fandom because of the hate they received on the internet. They quite literally get bullied out of their enjoyment of the movie. People say that Avatar has no fans, but it's fans are chronically silent and reclusive in our liking of the film for fear of getting harassed. I am part of Facebook groups of that have thousands of members and a very active discord. Avatar fans exist, they just keep low and quiet so as to protect themselves. I know people who speak Na'vi in the same way people speak elvish or klingon, it's just not something we advertise because every time we try to share our enjoyment of the movie we get mean comments or mocking stitches/remixes of our videos, pictures, etc. It's not fun to be a public Avatar fan, it's scary and exhausting.

I love Avatar, Neytiri was one of the first truly strong and inspirational female characters I connected with as a child (I was 9 when the movie came out) and I was fascinated and enthralled with the world of Pandora, as were so many movie goers. I'm so tired of getting railed on for enjoying this movie, or even just the constant ridicule that comes through my feed about it. What happened to the golden rule of if you don't have anything nice to say (or on this case even anything that provides new/valuable commentary/criticism) don't say anything at all?

I'm so sick of hearing the same arguments I've heard a million times about why it's a retread plot of Pocahontas/Dances With Wolves/Ferngully, I've heard it all before, I've seen those movies before and their plots are in myths and any number of other stories, that's not why I love the movie. No amount of people saying that to me will change what I do like about the Avatar. I don't watch Avatar for the plot, I watch it for Pandora, and for the visual spectacle and the world building.

I'm sick of the argument that Avatar's treatment of indigenous voices is somehow worse than any other piece of media written by and for white communities, it's not. Even Avatar the Last Airbender (which is my favorite TV show of all time and is often acclaimed as a great example of native representation) also falls failure to the same mistake of casting white actors in POC roles and changing the narratives of natives to be more easily accepted and understood by white audiences. This is not to say that ATLA doesn't handle its message better than Avatar, but it's important to be aware of the ways in which all media has flaws, even the things we think are less problematic and it's important to acknowledge them and not tear the media down for it, but use it as means to make new media better. Cameron did improve with the Way of Water, he frequently consulted with the Maori tribes he was pulling inspiration from, there's literally articles written by Maori tribe members on it but it is still a white people movie, written by white people for white people so do with that what you will. But don't claim star wars is any better, the prequels were outrageously racist, and they still maintain majority white casts.

The new Avatar movie (the way of water) is not perfect, there are quite a few things I found to be poor choices in regards to cultural sensitivity (aka locks, and casting Kate Winslet as Ronal instead of a Polynesian actress) but it's still better than it's predecessor, and unlike so many people on the internet say, it is not "a bunch of white people playing poc" since neither Zoe Saldana, nor Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, or any of the Metkayina children or Cliff Curtis are white. In fact, Cliff Curtis is Maori, the culture that inspired the Metkayina and many of the extras who play background Na'vi in the films are POC, because in spite of James Cameron's failings, he did want the Na'vi to be played by people of color. Very very few of the Na'vi in the original movie are played by white people, only a few extras with less than 1 minute of screen time and no lines. All the major Na'vi roles were played by people of black and indigenous color. Eytukan was played by a Cherokee native, Mo'at (these people are the two clan leaders) is played by a indigenous woman from Africa and is very black. Zoe Saldana's parents are Dominican and Puerto Rican for god's sake! She is not white. This argument that he casts white people in POC roles is untrue. The Avatars are white cause they're meant to represent the invadors, wolf in sheep's clothing if you will. The Na'vi are bipoc, and they're played by bipoc.

After Avatar, James went to Brazil and became and activist for native communities. He went worked with Brazilian natives fighting the building of a dam over their local river, a dam with would power a major city in Brazil, but destroy the indigenous peoples access to water. He went to their community, and asked them what he could do to help. He donated money, protested, ran conferences and tried to disrupt the building of the dam using his influence, but it failed, and he had to watch the suffering of this indigenous tribe that he'd grown very close to in their time working together to prevent the dam. He's not Anti-indigenous as people love to claim, he's clumsy and arrogant (like all cis white men) but what he does is an attempt to elevate native voices not smother them even if he doesn't necessarily succeed.

The movie isn't the menace to society people portray it as, nor is it as boring or uncompelling as people claim. But I still can't go online to enjoy it because no matter what I say, I like it too much for "a bad movie" or I'm "too supportive of something harmful" although I still see people buying Harry Potter merchandise in the Barnes and Noble and I'd argue JK Rowling is an actively bigoted individual who's words and paychecks actively harm marginalized communities, unlike Cameron who despite his bumbling is trying his best and actually learning and doing better with the new content he puts out.

People also say things like, "You only like it cause you're white, no POC people like Avatar." which is blatantly untrue, I've seen native people who like it, black people who like it, I have black friends who like it, I know a black cosplayer who cosplays from it. In fact, I know more poc who cosplay from it than white people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion of the film, and should be allowed to interact with it without getting harassed. It's just exhausting to like it, so people don't say they do.

I'm tired of even the things that should be praised about the new film being used as a way to tear it down. Cameron said in an interview that he "likes Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman as characters but they're not mom's" when asked why he chose to make Neytiri a mother. Neytiri's motherhood doesn't detract from her warrior-ness, she's still a badass bitch and I think that's the point that this person on tiktok clearly missed. He wasn't saying you need women to be moms to be heros, but how many warrior women who are also mothers can you think of off the top of your head? I can't think of any. The choice to make Neytiri a badass mom wasn't to detract from single or childless female characters but to provide even more diversity in the kinds of strong female characters out there. I loved that 1/2 the cast of that movie was women, just as I loved Neytiri in the first film.

In conclusion, can we please stop making Avatar fans lives hell on the internet. I do my own research about how it is and isn't problematic and make my own decisions, I don't need strangers to yell at me. I just want to enjoy my silly ecoscifi movie about blue aliens. I'm aware of its issues and I do my best to raise awareness of the issues facing real natives, to engage with real native stories and voices and support their protests, legal persuits, tribal sovereignty, land back etc, and be the best ally I can be, but I'm not going to boycot this movie because it does some problematic stuff, or because it has an unoriginal plot, if I did that I could never watch another marvel movie again (and yes they're just as bad if you dig, look at the early ones especially) I'm so sick of the insane amount of factually unsupported hate this movie gets and of having to deal with it. I'm tired, I just want to enjoy my movie which is no worse than any other white backed and driven Hollywood blockbuster.

[lovemyromance]

What stands out to me about that old facebook post "confirming elu///cien" is that SJM says "Elain was somebody I and Lucien didn't see coming". It's like Lucien is the MC and she is thinking about elu///cien with his perspective in mind (you know, like all elu//cien shippers do). I do wonder if she really paired them up initially based on vibes and aesthetics but at that moment didn't delve into their relationship too deeply (with Feysand and Nessian being her priority at that time). At that point Lucien was probably more of a character to her (with Elain being on the background of 2 books) and she thought Elain would suit him well. But then the more she worked on ACOWAR and the more she understood what kind of character was Elain, she found out that Elain just would not ease up to Lucien (with him being complicit in her trauma) but had natural chemistry with Azriel instead. Basically, that's my theory that SJM paired them up based on what she thought would be good for Lucien but then, when she started writing more of Elain, found out that it just doesn't work out from her perspective at all.

I agree. I fully believe she wasn't even planning for Elain & Nesta to have their own stories (given how they were first introduced to us as the "evil stepsisters" trope) when she wrote ACOTAR.

Lucien was one of her main characters, until she wrote the Bat Boys in ACOMAF and decided she wanted to tell their stories first.

SJM has said it herself: she is a pantser, not a plotter. Meaning she doesn't outline or do some crazy mapping flowchart to plot out the entirety of her books. She writes first, then builds the plot around that. Which is why I think she's changed her mind dozens of times throughout the books. Which is why I don't believe in old interviews from before ACOWAR.

She might've originally planned for Lucien & Nesta, then delved further into Nesta's character and realized Nesta would immediately reject any bond she didn't want.

Then she paired Lucien up with Elain, because she wanted him to get his happily ever after - only to realize they don't fit either. But it took her writing ACOWAR, and delving into the characters of Elain & Nesta further to fully understand them. In the first two books, they were simply "Feyre's sisters" but by ACOWAR they were now 3D, real characters. Complex. Unique individuals.

I look at what she has written from ACOWAR onwards, and it's like a completely different story than ACOMAF.

Suddenly Lucien is absent for most of the book.

Nesta has her own big scenes

Elain has her own pivotal moments

Mor + Azriel seems to be no longer a thing

Cassian & Nesta are constantly bickering yet you can tell they care for each other

Azriel goes out of his way to help Elain, be near Elain, protect Elain, rescue Elain.

The entire story seems to shift. Suddenly the focus isn't only Feyre/Rhys. It's all these other characters too.

I think as readers, we can easily see that ACOWAR was the turning point for SJM. We got to know the characters a bit more, and SJM did too in the process of writing them. She began to form that innate writer mentality when one gets comfortable with their characters enough to know that "Oh this character would never say that, they're too polite" or "Hm, this character doesn't seem suited for that one."

That's when things changed for SJM, and I see that clearly reflected in her writing. That was when she scrapped Elucien and began to write Elriel instead.

[bokutosmochi]

I SURRENDER WHO I'VE BEEN FOR WHO YOU ARE ♡ GETO SUGURU

gn!reader x artist!geto suguru

ingredients? geto has a gift for you in the form of a diamond ring.

what's it? fluff

allergen warning/s? flirty!gojo but only for the first part, use of petnames [hun, starlight, angel]

sugar level? 4.5k

regulars? @tokyometronetwork @tahonet

parlor's note? artist/painter geto has been running miles in my mind and i'm so glad to finally be able to put his creative self onto paper and share the idea with all of you!

bon appetit!

the first time you and geto suguru met was because of your friend ieiri shoko.

you and her were childhood friends, raised alongside each other. your family was close with hers and often times, the two of you were sat next to each other during family dinners, whether they be christmas celebrations, new year celebrations, birthdays, what ever the case was. since the two of you were so close in age, the adults figured that molding you to be friends was a good move. because of that, you'd be assigned as playmates. it's either you'd be at their house playing with her toys or she'd be at yours digging into your toy chest for something that interested her.

eventually, that friendship bloomed and you'd be inseparable when you reached school age. you'd always sit next to each other in class, and if your teacher didn't allow you to, you'd either kick up a fuss until they gave up or simply sat next to your best friend during lunchtime. whenever there were assigned projects where you could choose your partner, the two of you would already be looking at each other, an unspoken agreement being formed as you nodded we'll be partners.

that all changed when you turned eight and shoko told you that her family would be moving to tokyo. you may have been young, and that may have been years ago, but you still remember it. in fact, it's one of the clearest memories you have. you remember crying and marching into their house, runny nose and flushed face and all, to beg her parents not to move as she stood behind you twiddling her fingers. it was the quietest she has ever been. you remember telling your parents and sobbing into your favorite stuffed toy. you remember the dinner your family and hers had the night before they left. and you remember playing doctor in the car while on the way to the airport.

it was a different time back then, and given your age, you didn't have the privilege of having social media to connect with her. that only came about when you turned eighteen, fresh out of high school and having been a recipient of an acceptance letter into the university of tokyo.

you saw - or rather looked for would be a more appropriate term to use - her name on a paper with the official list of students and didn't hesitate to message her on facebook -- at this point, you're friends with her on the platform, you've messaged her a few times, but it did not compare to the bond you two had way back when. no plans of meeting up has been talked about either before you moved to tokyo.

[from: you

to: shoko

shooo!! you go to university of tokyo too? we should totally meet up sometime!]

after a few minutes, she replied.

[from: shoko

to: you

yeah, that sounds good. would you mind if some of my friends from high school tagged along? i think you'll get along with them.]

you expressed how you didn't mind - after all, knowing more people in university never hurt anyone, especially not people who your childhood best friend trusted - and with that, plans to go to the campus' cafe together were organized.

(organized may be a weird way to phrase it, but anyone who has friends that don't go to the same school as you or aren't taking the same course as you will understand.)

when you arrived there on a saturday afternoon as agreed upon, shoko was already there sat next to a man with white hair and circular glasses. his posture was very relaxed, maybe even to the point of making some people scoff and roll their eyes at him. a voice in your head told you that has probably happened multiple times before, as he proceeded to say that he does not care in the slightest. sat across from shoko was a man with long black hair tied into a neat bun. he was not facing you so you had no idea what he looks like, only that although relaxed as well, it seemed to be more polite than the other man's. he had broad shoulders which were complimented by his black button down shirt.

all eyes turned to you when you approached the table with a smile on your face and a small wave. shoko grinned and stood up to reach across the table and hug you. "it's nice to see you again. it's been a long time."

"it has!" you gushed, pulling away and sitting next to the man with light yellow splotches on his arm -- faint, fading bruises, perhaps?

"these two are the high school friends i was telling you about."

but before she could introduce them, she was interrupted.

"gojo satoru! you can call me yours though!" the one in front of you wiggled his eyebrows up and down and offered his hand for a shake. when you took his hand in yours telling him your name, he flipped it and pressed a kiss to your knuckles. "it's very nice to meet you. shoko never told me she had such cute friends." he winked.

the man next to you clicked his tongue in distaste. "that's not how you properly introduce yourself, satoru." he scolded his friend lightly.

turning to you, he flashed you a crescent-eyed smile, "hello, my name's geto suguru. you can call me suguru if you'd like. any friend of shoko's is a friend of mine. i'm dearly sorry for satoru's behavior. he can be quite a handful at times."

you warmed up to him quickly. it was hard not to. he was a gentleman, you could tell from his behavior. he was intelligent, well-spoken, and let both his heart and his brain rule over his decision making. you quickly felt at ease in his presence, so much so that when he suggested for the four of you to go to his dorm room when the cafe was getting too crowded, you said yes without a second thought.

the sun was setting and it's rays were directed at geto making him feel warmer and wanting to shed his button down as a result. he did so, revealing the undershirt he wore: a black tank top.

there was a large patch of purple on his bicep and you couldn't help but gasp and stroke it. "oh my god! what happened?"

your eyes widened at what you were doing and you retracted your hand as if you had just gotten electrocuted. your cheeks were warm and you wanted nothing more than for the ground to swallow you whole. what made it worse was hearing gojo and shoko's laughter in the background. if gojo, the man relentlessly flirting with you was laughing at you touching another man's biceps, it must be bad."i am so sorry for touching you like that! it's just-" he chuckled though, cutting you off. "it's fine, hun. don't sweat it."

now he made you blush for an entirely different reason.

"don't worry about this little thing too." he looked at the patch of discoloration in his skin you fretted over. a disagreement was on the tip of your tongue, something akin to that's not a little thing, but he spoke before you. "i don't remember getting hit here." he murmured standing up and walking to the sink. "might be just paint."

and he was right. after scrubbing the area with some soap and water, it came right off. "pardon me for that. i didn't mean to make you worry, i was just painting before going to the cafe and i guess i missed a spot when i was cleaning up." he grinned at you bashfully.

you tilted your head to the side in curiousity. "so you're an artist?"

you couldn't stop talking to him after that. the artworks he produced were so interesting to you and you asked him about it, from the meaning, to the inspiration, to the color palette, sometimes even the songs he was listening to while he painted a certain piece.

it wasn't just his art that piqued your interest though, it was him in general.

thankfully for you, that was the case for him too. it just took him a longer time to find out.

he was in the zone.

sunday morning, he was glad to feel the feeling of wanting to pick up a paintbrush and mix colors once again. he found himself stuck in the past week, experiencing artist's block. it was something that all content creators have felt and hate, although normal. there were days where he felt so unproductive, not used to not creating. as a result of that, he would force himself to pick up his tools, instead of doing so because had the urge to. those artworks never ended up good, or at least no where near as good as the other ones, the reason being they weren't made with passion. if you were to ask about them, he would not be able to tell you a magnificent - or traumatizing - story that brought the painting to life. so now that he felt the itch to paint again, because the artist in his brain urged him to and not because he felt pressured, he thinks he has never felt happier.

it doesn't quite look right, it needs to be darker here. a stroke of dark blue. yeah, that looks much better.

just a spot of black here, a tiny inkling of black on the canvas. yes, that's perfect.

he steps away from his easel after multiple hours of painting - when he's submerged in his hobby like this, he doesn't even notice the way time passes or the way his stomach rumbles when he gets hungry - and looked at it in contentment.

it's beautiful, the way it always is when the paintbrush touches the material lead by his heart rather than his hand. when it's a passion project rather than something he does because he feels like less of an artist if he didn't.

then he realizes something and his stomach drops, he sets down the brush and the palette and his hands starts to sweat and get clammy; the subject of his latest piece looks just like you.

the air gets thick around him and he finds it hard to breathe, so much so that he has to take a few moments and sit down to gather his scrambled thoughts.

you, someone who he just met, inspired his art. he drew you without even realizing it. his heart lead him to the painted photo of you manifested from the talent of his hand right in front of him.

does he like you that much already?

and this hits him hard because only now is he realizing it. along with the realization is him remembering that this is something he's never experienced before. sure, he's had his fair share of partners before, but he was never enamoured with them to the point of unconsciously painting them or making them the muse of his art. in fact, most of the time, the reason why he made them the focus was because they asked it of him. perhaps he used to rush into relationships too early? he didn't feel a strong emotional connection with his former partners, but he wanted to feel the love so many artists before him had described, only true, pure love was hard to find. and now here you are, making him feel things he's never felt before.

he's not going to let it slip away from him. not if it's real. not if you feel it too -- and god, he hopes you do.

within a span of a few months, he comes to the conclusion that you don't mind him.

he has no idea whether you actually like him romantically or not, but the way you aren't bothered by him walking you from class to class, then doing your schoolwork with him was a good sign. you were even starting to hang out with him more than you hung out with shoko -- which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. your relationship with the girl wasn't deteriorating. it's just another case of you meeting and being friends back when you were different people and then not being as compatible as you are now. you're still friends, that you're sure of, just not as close.

you and geto study together although you had different courses. you still had some subjects in common, specifically the general education subjects, and you enjoyed each other's company enough that you still study in the other's presence though you had no idea what they were reading about.

you and geto grab lunch together. at first, it was just spotting the other sitting alone in the dining hall, but then it became some sort of unspoken understanding -- you and him sit together unless there was something that kept you from each other, like an exam or a class or a project that needed to be done, but those instances were rare as you did your best to avoid them.

and over time, you because comfortable enough with geto that you would rant to him about a variety of things that ranges from difficult topics that you had so much trouble with no matter how hard you tried, asshole professors, bitchy groupmates who you guessed were only there because of generational wealth or nepotism, or failed projects which was the case right now.

"there's no such thing as a failed artwork." geto glanced at you as you walked back from campus to your dorms.

"well that's easy for you to say, your stuff always looks good." you huff at him looking away. "'t's not fair. you're way too talented."

he laughs at that, it's lighthearted, easy, the way things always are with you. there's not a dull moment and there's not a difficult moment. he loves that about you, and he loves it so much he doesn't mind if you experience a couple of difficult moments together. it's something all lovers go through, he's aware. he knows you're worth weathering storms for, so long as you do the same for him.

"guess you're right, but since i'm an artist, i also know it's not always about how the piece looks, but the way you feel while making it." he stops to stand in front of you. "if it makes you happy, if it sets your soul free. drawings, paintings, music, these are things that aren't meant to look or sound a certain way; they're meant to be expressions of the soul. so as long as you're able to express yourself through it, it's nothing to be ashamed of." his voice trails off by the end into a gentle whisper. then he tucks a strand of your hair behind your ear. his hands moves to your cheek, down to your jawline, and lastly to your lips. "that and i can't get myself to believe an angel like you could ever create something ugly."

you laughed softly, holding onto his wrist and nuzzling the side of your face into his open palm. "guess you're right."

"aren't i always?"

neither of you could deny your feelings for the other then. there was something blooming, and you knew you were compatible; you had to give it a shot.

the shot came in the form of geto asking you to watch a movie with him.

he was the first one to arrive at the movie theater, wearing his usual all black attire, but this time, his hair was down cascading down his back. it was the first time you've not seen him sporting a man bun in real life. the only time you've ever had the pleasure of seeing it is whenever you were on facetime and he was busy painting his newest artwork. even then, his hair wasn't fully down. some strands just flew from the hair elastic and he couldn't be bothered to fix it, not that you minded. you loved the look of focus and love on his face as he worked on his pieces. the whole world seems to disappear to him and all that's left is his boundless imagination and the limitless canvas in front of him.

he greeted you with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, "you ready to see some zombos dying?"

you really did not expect geto suguru to be this adorable and shy. because although he's not afraid to express himself, sometimes dipping into darker, more macabre arts, and although he will speak his mind on certain topics in class, here he is almost shoulder to shoulder with you when he desperately wants to hold your hand. you're so warm and comforting to him, all he wants is to envelop your smaller hands in his, run the calloused pads of his thumb over the back of your hand or your knuckles, but he can't get himself to do so. he can't even watch the movie properly, his attention is entirely on you. he watches the rise and fall of your chest through his peripheral vision, your fingers toying with your hair, and your cute little face that twists and relaxes with laughter or grimace as the movie continues to roll on screen.

he doesn't mind how he's not getting his money's worth by not watching the movie, you're more interesting to him and he wants to gauge how you'll react to him doing certain things. like shuffling closer to you so you're finally actually shoulder to shoulder with the other. he silently wonders if your heart's beating as fast as his is because he's sure he can feel his in his fingertips and hear it in his ears. he really hopes you don't feel it or hear it. then after a few minutes, he presses his arm against you, yearning to feel some of your warmth against him, to his surprise though, you shiver -- and because of the darkness, he misses the way your cheeks burn up.

"are you cold?" he murmurs softly, careful not to disturb the other movie goers, but just as you were about to respond no, he was already shrugging his jacket off, exposing the black turtleneck tank top he had on. it looked like the exact one people on the internet have been raving about, the ones fanartists have been drawing on their favorite character because of how good it looked. geto was no exception.

it hugged him just right, highlighting the muscles on his chest, his pecs, and his abdomen. it made his biceps pop right with your eyes before you could blink and pick your jaw off of the floor. no words could express how good he looked, how much the tight fitting garment fit him and accentuated his features, his body type, but all you had to say is if he wore a cocky smirk with that, he would have looked nothing short of a young god.

but he was the opposite of that.

instead of abusing his newly found power and demanding women to worship at his feet, he smiled at you his small crescent-eyed smile while handing you the jacket. "here, you can take this. don't want you getting too chilly now do we?"

you hoped that either geto did not see the blush on your face or that he thinks it's just from you "being chilly" even though you were not. while yes, you could not deny that it was not toasty in the room you were currently in, the reason why you shivered had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the person you are with.

"n-no, geto! it's alright, i think you might need it more than me." you said, referencing to how he was not wearing clothes that had sleeves.

"nonsense!" he whisper shouted. his face was close to yours and he was facing you. you could smell the peppermint in his breath riddled with the sweet caramel popcorn and root beer he just had, but it didn't smell bad -- regardless of his cursed technique, his breath never smelled awful, he had it a habit to carry mints or gums with him at all times. "i'll be alright, you're my main priority." his face shown some semblance of tenderness that was quickly replaced by timidness. "was that too cheesy for a first date? sorry."

utterly smitten by the man, you disregarded your opinion of whether or not you agreed with him, whether it was indeed cheesy or not, and just smiled and laughed quietly. "i think it's perfect, geto." you reassured him, taking the jacket from him and draping it onto your own form.

perfect. perfect. perfect.

that was the word that always graced his mind every time he thought of you. you were absolutely perfect for him. objectively, maybe you did have some flaws the way all human beings do, but suguru does not look at those as flaws because they're a part of you. they're just your little quirks that he has grown to love. they're one of the reasons why you're you, and as a result, one of the reasons why he fell for you as hard as he did. they're all things that helped you guys stay together and be attracted to each other though it may be five years since you've met.

you're both still stuck in the honeymoon phase, it's been a number of years since you've graduated from university, you both have stable jobs now, a steady amount of income, enough to pay for rent, taxes, and every necessirty in between, and the future has never looked brighter for the two of you.

so bright in fact that suguru thinks it's time to take your relationship to a new level; one you've talked about before and agree with, you're ready and you want it with each other.

he added some finishing touches to the painting and made sure the velvet jewelry box was already securely in his pocket, then threw a gold-colored silk cloth over his artwork and waiting for you to come back home to him.

he already knew what your answer was gonna be, he's ninety nine percent sure that it's gonna be the answer he wants, but he can't help the anxiety that's crawling up his throat like poison ivy. it makes his tap his feet on the hardwood floor at an annoying fast rate that would alarm him if you were the one to be doing it. it makes him hyperaware of his surroundings, each drip, drop of the leaking faucet he promises to fix, the whirr of the fan in the corner of the room, each ticking of the clock tick, tock, tick, tock.

just five more minutes and you would be home.

time was molasses being poured from its can, so suguru daydreamed about the future he wanted with you: your dream wedding with all the important people in your life surrounding you, your favorite love song playing in the background, one of his paintings is on its steady easel, standing by where you sat together during the reception. you're at the top position in your job, less responsibilities, but more time to spend with him, his art's displayed at the biggest exhibits in japan, and he's never felt better.

the sound of the doorbell jiggling breaks him from his daydream though, and he jumps. his hands are shaking again, and he can feel his heart seemingly trying to beat its way out of his chest -- and maybe that's exactly what the muscular organ's trying to do, trying its best to find its way to you. after all, too many times has he said my heart belongs to you, maybe its time it actually happens.

the door opens to your tired looking face, worn down from work and stress, yet the moment you see him, it's like the tension dissolves into thin air. you light up like your neighbor's extravagant christmas lights and you throw your arms around him, "i'm home, suguru." mumbled into the cloth on his shoulder.

when your eyes drift to the covered easel behind him, your smile widens -- you never stopped being supportive and utterly in awe of his work. "you finished it?" your excitement has doubled because suguru hasn't shown you even a glimpse of this masterpiece. usually with his other workers, he'd allow you to watch him work or at least give you a sneak peek of it, but that wasn't the case for this particular one. it made you all the more curious about what it is and why he was keeping it a secret.

"yeah," suguru replies, pulling away from you and rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "i uh. i really like this one." he approaches the canvas uncharacteristically silent. most of the time when revealing the final product to you, he's ecstatic. his passion carries onto his words, making them more lively and energetic.

what is it with this one?

"here, lemme just-" he grabs one end of the fabric and pulls, revealing the piece to you. a large chunk of his heart and soul - he would argue that it's the majority of his heart and soul, in fact - all spread out for you on canvas.

you gasped, walking forward slowly. once you were face-to-face with it, you felt the need to run your fingers over it, something suguru knew, leading to him nodding his head, non verbally saying that you could do it.

it's a painting of your first date: shadows were cast upon your face and you were speechless at the colors suguru used to do so, so meticulous, accurate, and stunning. he was wearing the tight turtleneck tank top, his jacket on your shoulders and your hand was in his -- he tried the lay-your-hand-palm-up-on-the-chair's-arm trick to get you to hold hands with him and it worked, to his surpise.

it was almost spot on, you wondered how he got every detail right, because the only thing that was different between your actual first date vs the painting of your first date was that in the painting, you had a diamond ring on your left right finger.

your eyes widened, and you whipped around to see your boyfriend down on one knee. "starlight, you know i've never been good with words. i express myself through my art. i lay my heart on each piece i make everyday, but today, i choose to take a break and lay my heart in your hands instead. will you marry me?"

i get: reblog

you get: milk and cookies

[sigmaleph]

it kinda sucks cause like. if social media charged every user, the amount i'd have to pay to keep access to tumblr would be pretty small and i'd happily pay it.

but a website that charged every user would put a hurdle in the way of sign-ups, and they'd get less growth, and because the primary reason to use social media is for the other people who are there there's enormous network effects. people don't sign up because it costs money -> people who would pay for it don't sign up because nobody's on it

so you can't even try to do your own thing and ignore the venture-capital funded huge websites, because if you do you'll get six users total and you won't have a social medium, you'll have an unusually expensive group chat.

I don't have an option to pay a reasonable amount of money for whatever it costs tumblr to serve me posts and serve my posts to other people plus some extra profit they can skim on top. i can pay a greater amount of money that doesn't remotely guarantee tumblr keeps working because it depends on whether enough other people do, too. great deal.

i am every day more sympathetic to the fediverse ideal of "we all agree on a communications protocol and then you don't have a single entity paying server costs for millions of people, you can have tiny servers at any scale funded however makes sense to you" but i don't think it'll work either.

i don't even know if venture-capital-funded social media will die or not. it'd be something if it all dies and we need to grapple with a new way of doing things because we collectively agree the old one failed, at least in that case a theoretical sensible business model wouldn't be competing against the existing one, but like. facebook. so.

[ingravinoveritas]

Hello there! I hope you are doing well (as well as someone who has completed watching season 2) First of all congrats on moving into a new house! I'm still having lots of Feelings™ to process after finishing the second season.. oh god the acting, the genuine emotions on the faces of both Michael and David this time around... I'm simultaneously radiating happiness and being utterly destroyed. And the increasing intimacy between them in the interviews is not helping matters either... I think (this has been marinating in my head for a while) one of the reasons they are doing this is to physically reassure each other that they are not apart, they are still a team and still on their side, because after the heart wrenching ending of the season, it would have been very hard for them to come to terms with it, as they had put their whole beings, their whole souls into playing Azi and Crowley, which might have made it difficult to draw a line where the characters ended and they begin... So the touches, their body language became a sort of coping mechanism, something which said 'hey, don't worry, I'm still here.. I have not gone away, we're still together' and this makes me wanna cry again 😭

I hope my word vomit makes an iota of sense (English is not my first language by a long shot, so) and I hope you do find some time to rest and have a warm beverage of your choice while unwinding. Stay safe and blessed!!

Hi there! Thank you so much for the congrats on my move, I truly appreciate it. I've actually had a very rough couple of days, as on top of the move, my Facebook account was hacked earlier this week, and it essentially pushed me over the edge and I was crying for much of Monday and felt like I had a crying "hangover" all day Tuesday.

You do not at all have to apologize for your Ask--your English is very good!--and I'm glad to read your thoughts as I make my way through all the Anons still residing in my inbox. Truly, we are fortunate to have GO 2 and Michael and David to focus on, as well as the abundance of interviews we've gotten after months and months of little to no content.

To start: I absolutely agree with you, re: the intimacy between Michael and David in these interviews. It's been so fascinating to see them get more flirty and touchy-feely with each progressive interview (I know we don't know the order in which they were done, but I imagine the flirting/touching increased as the day went on). And while I can definitely see them doing what you described--reassuring each other, touching and being close as a coping mechanism--my feeling is they already did all that last year, probably right after filming That Scene. (There is actually a gorgeous MS/DT fic on AO3 right now that depicts exactly that, and it's definitely worth reading.)

But in terms of all the intimacy and touching in the more recent interviews (from last month), I think what we're seeing is something else. I think Michael and David are beyond the need for reassurance because they are so comfortable with each other and know they're still together, permanently. There's no more of the uncertainty of parting ways after the promo interviews end--only the promise of seeing each other again as soon as both their lives and schedules allow it.

There have been so many moments of telling body language and touches and expressions, but if I had to pick a favorite (well, a few), one would be them walking arm-in-arm onto The One Show:

And the other would be David leaning so far over and draping his arm around Michael in the Amazon Q&A video:

...And of course (and possibly most notable), Michael and David seemingly unconsciously moving closer to each other in the TV Insider interview:

It's so telling that there is no urgency or desperateness to any of this--only comfort and very much that sense of "on our side" that you mentioned. Walking out arm-in-arm as they did in particular adds to that "us against the world" feeling and the not-so-subtle implication that while they were Michael Sheen and David Tennant on the season one press tour, here, now, they are Michael and David. Inseparable, always intertwined, and having so much more of themselves in the characters of Aziraphale and Crowley than in the first season.

So yes, everything you wrote absolutely did make sense, and I appreciate you writing in to share your thoughts with me. I have a lot more thoughts/analysis about GO season 2 still to share, which I hope to do in response to the numerous Anons still waiting in my inbox. Thanks for writing in! x

[neurodogical]

right obviously you can dislike something for whatever reason you like, but the way you talk about it still has an impact on the world around you? when people limply reference to Homestuck being “problematic” and Andrew being “problematic” it just evokes transphobic whisper campaign. this is how people treat trans girls on this website too, no? how many times have you seen camab trans people be avoided on “vibes” or “because they said something racist [citation needed]” like is it really necessary for you to contribute to a transphobic rhetoric in your discussion? you can just not like something you don’t have to act like there’s some deep political flaw with homestuck that makes it irreconcilably evil — people literally ONLY do this to camab trans people’s work, it’s nuts.

I understand that this means a lot to you, but my criticism of hussie and her work has nothing to do with their gender. you can criticize something while liking it, too. i agree that people criticize things harder when it's by someone whose TMA though, I've seen that happen. and I'm sorry that it's something that you need to look out for, truly. however, it's really strange to act like homestuck isn't very racist at times, though. do you not remember damara megido's entire existence? how about the manner of speaking of the condensce and other instances of them using aave in weird ass ways? people can grow and change yes, but i don't have to forgive racism and the groups she was racist against are ones im not part of.

I didn't say a thing about racism in my original posts, but somehow you knew to bring it up though... if hussies work spoke to you deeply, well, I'm glad you found something important to you even if it's something I really can't bring myself to like (speaking truthfully, "problematic reasons" aren't even my full reason for disliking it. honest! I was just in online fandom WAY too young, like 11 years old, and was the main moderator of a 15,000+ person homestuck facebook group for years, got taken advantage of by older people, etc.) I won't get further into it, but i don't like being called transphobic for just disliking a piece of media especially when I didn't even state my actual thoughts about it as a piece of literature, I just shared my broad opinion. I don't see how it's transphobic to dislike one piece of media created by a trans person. I never used the words "evil", I think that's unproductive and disingenuous when talking about literature, even if it's something i dislike more than homestuck.

if people take "I should go be transphobic now" out of "i hate homestuck and don't like the author much", that's their issue because they're not truly reading what I'm saying either and they suck. that is to say though, had i known that hussie was nonbinary before this entire thing unfolded, i would not have claimed she wasn't LGBT in my tags of that reblog. i haven't even read DTWOF and therefore don't have thoughts on it, i just had a visceral reaction to homestuck, remembered the hussie i made up in my mind over the course of 2014-2020, and said something rude that I wouldn't now. I'm sorry for how upset I've made you, but I'm allowed to have my own thoughts on a piece of media that's shaped a large part of my life.

[didnt-hear-idsb-live-again]

Not to bring up the variants discourse again but I just got an email from Conan Gray showing a full 9 different vinyl variants for his upcoming album. Only two of them have different covers, the rest are just different colors and exclusive for different retailers. As far as I can tell, there is nothing else that comes with the variants and no extra tracks on them. Personally, I prefer how Taylor did it with tortured poets because I feel like it is actually worth it to get the different covers when they come with stuff like the collectors editions and you get the different bonus tracks. Like it doesn’t feel as much like you’re just buying the same thing four different times, you know what I mean?

If we’re in a market where everyone is doing variants anyways, it just feels like the way Taylor does them is more for the fan, if you know what I mean? Idk if I’m explaining this well but like if the capitalist hellscape has made music like this anyways then it’s feeling like she’s the one still putting care into the fan experience side of it

this is my exact point every time I talk about this!!!! I can't believe people act like it's new when she does it. i don't know why people can't just be normal about it, either - like, when folklore was announced, I picked the cover that I thought was the prettiest and I ordered that one, and that was it! I assume it's the same when artists come out with multiple color variants with no other difference.

I agree that the different bonus tracks are supposed to be just giving us more - and it's actually sad, because if Taylor wasn't The Biggest Thing On This Planet / we weren't in the age of the internet etc, the different tracks per album would be cool bonuses, not something you EXPECT. I have heaps of CD's from when I was younger that are special editions and have hidden tracks on them (for those who are younger, a "hidden track" is when the last track on a tape or CD has 5+ minutes of silence after, and then a new song plays but it's attached to the audio file of the final song. so the CD player doesn't know about it and you can't skip to it). I saw it as an exciting surprise, rather than more content that was part of the album and I DESERVED to be able to gobble up. I think coming from that era just like me, Taylor sees it the same way I do; an exciting thing for us and ways to give us bonuses. (with capitalist benefits, obviously, but I truly don't believe that's the main MO)

I also think a lack of media literacy ties into it: people seem to not be realizing that you don't have to BUY every CD in order to listen to all the songs? like that shit will be online and downloadable within 3 hours of physicals being in stores. I see it predominantly in Facebook groups, but it blows my mind that it seems like so many people don't grasp that.

[halogalopaghost]

I'm so fucking sick of the world.

Thousands of people die on the other side of the world as countries tear into their neighbors with the jealousy of a toddler who wants their playmates toys. Rip and tear and rend and explode and maim and take take take take take because that was MINE thousands of years ago and I've decided now that I want it.

On this side of the world people starve and die and struggle to pay rent and balk against faceless corporate overlords while the cost of food goes up again and the stores lock your shampoo behind glass so you can't steal it because even if you can't afford that shampoo, you need it as much as the food.

Because if you're unclean you get fired and if you get fired you can't afford food or rent or gas or anything, actually. If you can't afford the shampoo you just forfeit your life but you can't steal it either so fuck you actually.

And why do you have an iPhone anyway, if you can't pay rent? Huh? How come that is? Is it because you need it to access the group chat at work that's on slack WhatsApp discord Facebook instead of in a text message? Is it because you have to stand in front of the locked case at the store to google the ingredients of the less expensive shampoo so you know whether it will break out your scalp? I bet you don't need it for those things anyway and you just want it because you're greedy greedy greedy and you have to have the latest toys even though you can't afford food.

Why can't you pay rent? Pathetic. Get a job. But not a good one! And don't demand benefits. And fill out this application on your phone. Enter your well made one page resume and then input all the information again into these tiny fucking boxes that don't work on your phone. Oh, that's right we forgot to mention you'll need a phone haha, did we forget to mention that until you were two thirds of the way through? Did it take you two hours to complete a job application because you had to manually enter the same information four times? We won't call you back, you're overqualified and we're afraid you'll ask for more money. We know you deserve more so we won't let you even try.

Oh, you're sick? Sorry, hope you feel better soon! But actually we hope you feel better sooner because we need you to come in on Saturday. Yeah actually when we hired you, you agreed to work every Saturday for the rest of your damn life and if you don't come in with COVID this week we might have to fire you. Yeah it does suck but oh well you should have read the fine print! Forget that it would have taken another two hours out of your job search to find that in the paperwork and parse the legalese that we intentionally used to obfuscate because we fucking hate you actually. We don't need you. But come in early tomorrow please? Stay late? Work overtime? We aren't understaffed haha as long as you keep agreeing to work twice as much as your body can handle.

are you still coughing, didn't you ever get over that cold? COVID? Huh? You had COVID? Must have forgotten because I don't fucking care to begin with teehee. Well don't wear a mask because that scares our customers. What? Well they aren't wearing them in hospitals so it must not work that well. The WHO? We don't listen to them anymore it's the CDC now. Who funds the CDC? Don't worry about it. Get back to work. You're like family to us <3

[jadevine]

What's up folks, I have recently gotten back into one of my scripts called "TAKOTSUBO: The story of a superhero."

The story:

-Is heavily deconstructive. "Who gets to be (called) a superhero and who's just (called) a gangster/vigilante? It probably depends on if you're white/Caucasian, and which side of the government you're on."

-Is not completely Filipino-centered, BUT it has a lot of Filipino spirits and the Tagalog deities wandering around, forgotten and often shunned for being dark-skinned and non-Catholic. I initially had them wearing tribal tattoos because I fell into the trap of thinking that ALL Filipinos used to tattoo, so now a lot of the young spirits have modern tattoos because they just REALLY don't want to be seen as Catholic, or "potential converts."

-The general look/theme is "The Wizard of Oz gone apocalypse." The Facebook friend that I asked this about apparently LOVES my concept art and the costumes, so... yay?

One person said that this would be pretty damn expensive to pull off as live theater, especially for a new writer with about three acting friends. My Facebook friend mentioned that it may actually work better as a TV series.

Either way, I do not have the money to pay 50-odd actors and however many crew members to make an urban-fantasy city, a dragon, and get in a shitton of staged gang-fights, and I don't want to ask people to VOLUNTEER to do this for free.

Like, there "passion project" and then there's "safety concerns that would be better solved with money."

Sooooooo while I finish the main script, I am going to revisit all my character designs and possibly relearn how to draw, in case I need to make this an actual comic book. One of my proper artist friends has also offered to draw stuff for me, which is really nice! And also kind of terrifying, because I know how expensive ink and paper or a tablet that simulates ink-and-paper IS.

But one person volunteering to draw is still a lot less expensive than a whole cast and crew. So that's on hold while I finish the script and redraft my character concepts. Here’s an in-progress sketch of Lolo the dragon, one of the new-new-new draft’s characters. (He was technically always going to show up, but since I heavily shifted the first third or so of the script around, he appears much earlier in the latest draft.)

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I imagine Filipino dragons can raise/lower their dorsal fins as needed. In person, Lolo’s mouth looks way too much like a bird beak, but it seemed to even out after I took a photo. Maybe the sketch lines are throwing me off.

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Filipino dragons were often called "buwaya" or the local term for "crocodile." The two creatures were basically interchangeable, and a lot of modern people mistakenly think that we didn't HAVE dragons due to the confusion, so that's why I decided that I didn't want Lolo the dragon to look like a mainland/Chinese dragon.

As for why a dragon is called "Grandpa," that is partly because Lolo is indeed old and grumpy, plus he's an homage to Lolong, the largest confirmed saltwater crocodile. The leader of the crocodile hunt was an older man called Ernesto Goloran Coñate, who was nicknamed Lolong by the others. Ernesto was relentless in searching for an alleged maneater, but unfortunately the strain of looking took its toll on him and he died of a heart attack just a few days before they caught this stonking huge unit, so the others named him "Lolong" after Ernesto's nickname.

I have a lot of feelings about Lolong the crocodile, because there are TWO mythological coincidences here!

-The only thing our ancestors agreed on is how we revered crocodiles, and some ethnicities considered them to be ancestral figures, so we did often call them "grandfather/grandmother."

-Some people believed that a regular crocodile could turn into a dragon through human sacrifice, because they needed a soul. And it apparently had to be a sacrifice; we had rules for if a crocodile just wrecked someone's canoe and ate them--their soul went to the good afterlife, and that was it. A crocodile that received a human sacrifice would often become a clan's ancestor/founder, so with the constant wariness of spirits in Filipino folklore, I imagine people started calling EVERY crocodile "grandfather/grandmother" just in case.

Yes, the part about human sacrifice is going to show up in the script. It makes me think about how Western cultures heavily fear death and how colonizers sensationalized the practices of "savage brown natives" while they were converting us to Catholicism, and how modern Filipinos often fear/hate crocodiles as being greedy or vicious (we usually call dirty cops and politicians "buwaya").

So I'm gonna make that everyone else's problem, too.

[servin-up-surveys]

survey #221

Have you ever hit an animal with your car? No, but in the last year, my mom hit a squirrel for the first time in her life while I was in the passenger's seat. I was fucking devastated, and so was Mom. It was either hit the squirrel or the car in the other lane, and the squirrel was panicking going back and forth so it just stayed in the road longer than if it had just run across.

Favorite ride at the amusement park? I don't go to enough of these to really know. I know I enjoyed the Ferris wheel the last time I went to one.

Do you have many followers on your Tumblr? On my main one I have *checks* 142. It's a rather small community (on Tumblr, anyway, they're one of the biggest international bands in the world) that I post about. On this survey blog, it's 21.

Do you tan easily? Absolutely not, I just burn.

Are you expecting something in the mail? No.

Do you inspire others? I cannot imagine others being inspired by me.

Are you healthy? No, I'm not.

Three things you try to avoid as much as possible: Confrontation, gaining more weight, and situations that give me anxiety.

Number of jeans in your closet: I haven't worn jeans since high school.

Do you follow fashion? Nope.

Do you have a big butt? No, I got that Hank Hill ass & I hate it

Do you count how long you and your gf/bf have been together? I do. I like celebrating anniversaries, so. I don't think time together matters much, but. I keep track anyway.

Rihanna or Lady GaGa? Gagaaaaaa

What's your worst interior design nightmare: Um... probably overcrowding. I've never thought of this. Or just REALLY obnoxious colors.

Are you one of those people that often feel sorry for yourself? Meh, not often. I think it's okay to sometimes, like sometimes you just get a really unfair deck to play and I think it's okay to be upset about it, but I think obsessing over it is a very negative move as far as self-care and acceptance of life goes.

Three persons you would like to thank: My mom, Girt, and the psychiatrist who really helped me get my life back after Jason.

Is your closet disorganized? No.

Do you like to cuddle with your S.O. or do you prefer your space? I am a massive cuddler with him unless I'm hot.

What TV shows do you watch on a regular basis? Literally only Naked and Afraid with my mom. It's our dinner thing if an episode is out, lol. I have no real idea how that became "our show" but it did.

Does it make someone a racist if they’re not attracted to a specific race? "That is not how I understand racism. Attraction can indeed be informed by one's prejudices, but on the flip side, there are plenty of bigots who are also very into the idea of fucking the people they're bigoted towards. Who someone wants to fuck is not at all a reliable litmus test for whether they respect those same people and the cultures they belong to." <<< I fully agree with this.

Are you happy with the size of your bedroom? It does the job for me, sure.

Do you add people you don’t actually know on Facebook? No, you have to be at the bare minimum an acquaintance that actually interests me as an individual.

What’s the longest you’ve liked someone without doing anything about it? Idr.

What’s the relationship status of the last person you talked to? My mom is single.

Think of the person from your past that hurt you the most. Is there anything you would like to say to that person? That I'm sorry for how I acted after we broke up.

Does your mom like the last person you kissed? She loves him.

Are you a forgiving person? I'm too forgiving and I know that for fact.

Who did you last have a heart-to-heart conversation with? Girt, I think.

Do you believe that there’s good in everybody? I don't think so. At least, I think people can become to where there's no longer good in them. I don't think people are born that way or something.

Do you use reusable shopping bags to reduce waste? No, admittedly. Granted, we always get our groceries picked up (employees bring our order to the car), so they're already all in plastic bags.

Where were you going the last time you were a passenger in a car? Girt was bringing me home from his house.

Do your parents have a strong relationship together? Hell fucking no.

When was the last time you attended a religious service of any sort? Many years ago when Colleen was going through an extreme devout Christian phase and I happened to be living with her at the time.

Do you think there are more dimensions than what we’re able to perceive? Meh, I don't think so. I don't completely reject the possibility, though. What do I know, if I can't perceive it?

Do any of your neighbors have loud children? I don't hear them, anyway.

What is the hardest part of your life right now, and what is the easiest? I think the hardest part is not having any sort of employment. I think I make it pretty clear I want to be a self-employed photographer, but that's not easy to achieve, at all. Not having a job plays a massive role in my depression, and for just being insanely fucking bored nearly all the time. Which further feeds my depression, and lately has been causing my anxiety to ramp up, too, because I'm so bored and understimulated that anxiety can just bulldoze its way into focus. Then there's the obvious factor to not having a job: I don't have my own money (I don't receive help from the government), which in our society, feels fuckin' bad. I can't help my mom (who I live with) financially, and she's deep in the fucking hole with money right now. We don't even have a working car right now. If our landlord wasn't who it is, I can assure you we wouldn't have a home right now. I kinda wish for my own sake Mom wouldn't even talk to me about this stuff because I can't fucking help. Uh. For the easiest part of my life... I'm sure SOME people would argue being unemployed, I don't have a lot of responsibility, but it's fucking hell and I promise you there's not a damn thing to envy. I'd rather be DOING shit and supporting myself instead of having to rely on my mommy for everything like a newborn. I guess in MY opinion... it'd be having a house at all? Mom and I hate it here, like a lot, but at least we're not sleeping in the cold or fighting for shelter from the rain. I don't even like talking about this, living on the streets is my biggest fear and it's just more terrifying knowing how easily that could be us. We were already homeless once, but at least we had people to house us. I'm in a bad mood after this question lmfao

If you are struggling with chronic illness right now, what are five of your worst symptoms? Anhedonia, negative self-image and thoughts, general sadness, lack of motivation, and existing in a haze sometimes/feeling like a zombie.

What is your favorite social media platform at the moment? Tumblr. I love the people I associate with there and I feel like it's a much more politically left place (yes I'm full aware not everyone is and dark corners exist) than the shit I see on Facebook and stuff. I USE Facebook more, but it's so easy to get pissed off there at the shit you see. I think Tumblr is definitely better at catering towards your interests and stuff. Like no, Facebook, I had no interest in seeing a proud-as-hell father and his son posing with bloody wolves they'd shot to look as if their corpses were smiling at the camera. (I might be banned from that page <333333)

Do you have trouble forgiving people who hurt you? I've always been too forgiving, but I've definitely gotten better at protecting myself and knowing letting people back in is not always a healthy choice.

What is something that is hard for most people but is easy for you? uh idk

What is something that is easy for most people but is hard for you? The most basic of social interactions. Being open about things I like, if it's not online (like I feel like that's a super exciting topic for most people irl???? meanwhile I wanna throw up).

What is your favorite color, and do you own a lot of things in that color? Pink. Uh... not really, I think.

List three things you have survived. A suicide attempt to be literal, asthma attacks, and homelessness.

When was the last time you had someone pray with you? hell if i know

List five of your favorite female singers. Sharon den Adel, Angela Gossow, Amy Lee, Alissa White-Gluz, and Maria Brink.

When was the last time you got ice cream from an ice cream truck? oh I have zero idea

Do you celebrate the 4th of July, and if so, how did you celebrate it this year? lol no, the U.S.A. can burn for all I care. Mom just made burgers and s'mores so I ate those and that's it.

Who was the last of your friends to have a baby? That I know of, Bethany.

Have you ever been pregnant? No, let's keep it that way.

What color was the last pair of flip-flops you wore? Mine are black.

Are you happy at the moment? Why or why not? No. I just haven't been lately.

What is one thing about your life you hope will never change? I hope I always absolutely adore and aim to educate on and protect animals.

How would you describe your journey so far in your 20s? Shit's sucked. Shit's been a rollercoaster. Shit's been frustrating as hell. Shit's been confusing.

What role does music play in your life, and are there any songs or artists that have had a significant impact on you? I fucking love music. Ozzy Osbourne and Rammstein are the only two I consider having had "significant" impacts on me.

What are some activities or hobbies that bring you joy and help you relax? Creating through writing, photography, or drawing, reading, playing video games, hanging out with my boyfriend, sitting on the porch swing at my sister's house with Mom and watching the kids play, watching a variety of YouTube videos, scrolling the Internet...

What are your thoughts on marriage and starting a family? Is it something you envision for yourself? I want to get married, but I don't want kids. I feel ready to move in together by now, but that's a very unfair thing to want, because then I'd be his financial responsibility instead of only Mom's. We've seriously talked about me and working and Girt really doesn't care if I never do (he's pretty fortunate with his job and he's probably going to keep climbing the ladder there), even though it's anxiety-inducing to him because he worries about what happens to me if he dies or something. But ultimately, he's fine if I'm a stay-at-home wife, which he knows I don't WANT to be and he very much encourages me to keep pursuing photography or art in general, but if that's how it happens, well. My point is though, I should really be patient.

Are there any specific skills or areas of knowledge you would like to develop or improve upon? I would like to become certified to handle venomous snakes, solely for the purpose of relocation if I know someone who needs to get rid of one. I'm very protective of all snakes, but I have a soft spot for venomous species since they're so quickly killed by people, even if they just SUSPECT it's venomous. Or if it's just a snake at all... I've taught myself to be able to identify all my local snakes (although I can't differentiate species of Nerodia, I just know a water snake when I see one), so I can guarantee I'd be able to recognize the venomous species that live in my area, and with certification, I could safely transport them away from where they could be harmed. I wanna point out that I would NEVER handle a venomous species with my bare hands; that ain't my jam. I would never go beyond a snake hook.

How do you navigate and make decisions about your career path and professional growth? lol I am not the person to ask this. I barely know what I'm doing. YouTube channels by self-made artists sharing their experiences save me