#WHO else is gonna put up with me?

[deoidesign]

One of my first digital pieces (2010) versus one of my recent ones (2024)

We all start somewhere!

[snekdood]

"if we make america worse and more of a dictatorship that will be even harder to unravel and make it the way we want the country to be, maybe then everyone will join our Glorious Revolution!" bb girl you cant even be in the same room with someone who thinks you should vote, how in tf do you think you're gonna unite people to fight in The Revolution with you? it's gonna be you and your 5 friends, i hate to break it to you.

[arom-antix]

Hey, just wanted to reach out to say that I found you pointing out and calling this person was really great and you shouldn't have apologized. It was incredibly true what you said, and to be honest it seems out of touch with the reality of a great deal of the japanese fandom, the nuances and their culture. Also, it was as you pointed out, extreme and may I say rude. I want to mention too that the way it was written, as if entitled of the knowledge and the 'explanation' made it all worse in context of the 'fucked up'. The original poster always gets away by using the 'well-written academic'' statement of their 'metas' as an excuse to do or say and make everyone else agree and if not, uses victim narrative and discourses exactly selecting wording for people to agree on it or feel bad.

I don't know if they tagging you in the way they did made you reblog and apologizing/backing up, but no one thought bad about you pointing it out. On the contrary, a lot of people had been bullied and discriminated by this person when they called them out/disagreed going onto lenghts of sending their friends to harass people, and the other persons can't even defend themselves because they are effectively blocked. To quite a few people in the fandom has been done, even accusing them as 'acephobes' (when they're not) or even Nazis by spreading lies. So yeah, I just wanted to say that. I think you were right to call them out publicly.

Thank you very much for this ask. To be completely honest I agree with everything you said here and don't actually feel bad about pointing anything out. I mainly apologised because I didn't want any potentially poor phrasing from my side to cause unnecessary hostility and because I myself have gripes with this person's behaviour but didn't want to cause a scene.

My honest opinion is that they have a serious issue with taking accountability for their own mistakes and highly overestimate their own intellect. If you're reading this, @thegirlwhorideslikeasamurai, sorry if I seem harsh, but it's true. I saw your post lamenting how you're the only academic meta writer / fan in the fandom and I didn't interact then because I honestly do not care enough to start that drama but with the information Blonndiec has just given me, I think it's necessary that someone calls you out.

You're not an academic. You're not beyond the mental capabilities of other fans. You're actually incredibly childish in your metas and analyses and I am not kidding when I say that I was halfheartedly writing essays more academic than every analysis I've seen from you when I was barely a teenager. I don't know how old you are and I frankly don't care. You're not as clever as you think you are.

Also, don't think I didn't notice that you didn't reblog my correction (link here to my correction and here to their "response" for those who didn't see that exchange) of your post so that you could control what your followers saw of the exchange. You're the opposite of an academic. You control information to tailor the narrative, you don't cite your sources properly if at all, you don't format your posts in anything close to how an academic analysis would be, you make unbased claims, you reference posts and canon material without in any way indicating where that information is from, you reference your own (equally unacademic) metas and your conclusions from them without indicating what post it's from or that it's your own theory this new one is based on and instead present it as a common fact, and I could go on and on and on. Your posts are also riddled with logical fallacies and you talk in absolutes and opinions when there's no canon basis to claim such things. I'm sorry, but that's not academic in the slightest.

To be clear, you don't have to be an academic to post on the Internet. You don't have to be anything at all. You could up front be a genuine idiot with no remorse and that's fine. But when you claim to be an academic and also put down the rest of the fandom for not being on your level, you have to be able to back that up. It'd still make you sound like a prick but at least your arrogance would have a basis. It currently does not.

I haven't personally seen the discussions that Blonndiec is referencing and I'm not going to claim anything definitive (because that would be unacademic of me, take notes) but if what they're saying is true and did happen as described, which I have empirical, if anecdotal, evidence to believe could very well be (a friend of mine has personally been blocked by you after they criticised you without actually mentioning your name which I of course can't prove is the reason for the block but the timing is awfully convenient), you should know that you should be ashamed of yourself.

If there's context missing, feel free to enlighten me and call out any incorrect accusations. You have every right to defend yourself. However, I encourage you to cite your sources since you're such an academic. If you don't, then it's just your word against Blonndiec and anyone else who might comment's word and that doesn't prove anything. Don't misunderstand, acephobia and nazi rhetoric should absolutely be called out but only if it's actually happening. False accusations can ruin lives. I hope you know that.

I'm not a fan of calling people out publicly and, again, thank you for this ask, Blonndiec. But considering many of the issues I've personally seen and those I've been informed of by second hand sources were posted publically, I don't really feel bad about calling this out. I could do a full breakdown of just the insulting "academic" comments alone and how there's no academia to be found in said academic metas and, Samurai, if you give me reason to, I will show exactly what I mean point by point (and academically just to give you an example of even low level academia).

If you respond to this, do it in a reblog. That's what a real academic would do. If I'm wrong and you can prove it, you'd have no reason to not show my post in your rebuttal. If I'm right, you'd have every reason to be upfront about your mistakes and how you intend to rectify them. There's nothing wrong with being wrong but there's a lot wrong with refusing to admit to it in a way that lets others peer review you (academic thing, look it up) and come to their own conclusions about the situation. That's what you did when you just @'ed me instead of reblogging my response. A true academic wouldn't hide a peer review. You'd know that if you were one.

I swing in many academic spaces and yet that doesn't make me any kind of expert and I don't claim to be one because I'm not. But since you want to be one so badly, reblog this with a response and show us all how smart you are. I'm dying to know what your academic take on this is.

[jtl-fics]

Fluent Freshman - 38

PREV

If it weren’t for the fact that he and Riko had stumbled across a truly traumatizing video of his birth that they had watched secretly in Tetsuji’s office when he was away on a business trip one weekend Kevin would believe that he was born with an Exy racquet in his hand. But the image that is seared into his retinas to this day has proven that he came into this world empty handed.

That doesn’t change the fact that Kevin has spent the majority of his life utterly and completely submersed in Exy. He was trained as a Raven, he was court, he was a champion as both a Raven as a Fox and if he had his way he’d leave college with more Championships under the orange and white than the black and red.

Exy was everything in the world to him.

He could overlook many personality defects if someone brought something to the Court.

Apathetic five foot nothing who was more likely to stab him than shake his hand? Well, he’s the best goalie that Kevin had ever seen in his entire life (and that was saying something).

Tight ass who has anger management issues and will not shut the fuck up about his girlfriend now that he’s not even allowed to have? Well, he is a very solid backliner who has excellent ball handling skills (even if Aaron keeps telling him to stop saying it like that or why he keeps yelling that he’s straight).

Overly touchy, too emotional, will not shut the fuck up about his fiancé in Germany? Well, he is a very solid backliner who is great at rebounds (Kevin doesn’t get why Nicky gets mad when he says that or why he brings up Erik).

Guy who actively dislikes him and is dying for any chance to punch him and also being overly attached to his friends? He’s a great enforcer on the court and had the stamina to play far longer than the other two backliners (Why Dan always said “yeah he does” whenever Kevin commented on Matt’s stamina he will never understand, and he also doesn’t want to.)

Suspicious kid from Millport with a mouth that could strip paint and a past so shrouded in mystery that it even had Andrew perking up in interest? Well, he’s the fastest Striker in the game and the only person that has ever kept up with Kevin’s obsession with the sport. (There was the minor downside that he was the son of the Butcher and almost died before the championships, but Neil pulled through.)

He tolerated all of them and now they’re his best friends.

There are some who he does find personally objectionable but so long as Jack and Sheena manage to continue to be good on the court he doesn’t care about the many many faults in their personalities. They’re his teammates, they aren’t his friends.

He accepted that he might not like any of the others that came onto the team. For the most part he had never given a shit about before the Foxes, content with his brotherhood with Riko even if it wasn’t…perfect. Then he became friends with FF and FF had done him a truly large favor and Kevin wanted to pay that back the best way he knew how. Through his truly infallible health advice and through perfectly crafted smoothies.

Then Daniel appeared with the truth that FF truly met all requirements to be a Fox and Kevin tasted his own smoothie for the first time.

He considered both revelations to be equally upsetting.

Still…

FF was one of the best dealers Kevin had ever had the pleasure to be on Court with. The man knew his position well and interrupted offensives with an enviable ease that made Kevin wish to possibly strap some sort of device onto him and figure out how he did certain things.

It wasn’t that far off to believe that a man raised in the same environment as FF could possibly have similar talents and since Lisa fucked off back to some small town cult they really did need a good sub. Sheena was a good offensive dealer but they had games coming up where defense would be imperative and FF did not have the stamina for a full game and likely would not for quite some time considering he’d be recovering from being stabbed.

So, he’d defended Daniel’s right to try out.

At first, he had felt vindicated. Daniel kept up quite well during the initial warm-ups. Kept pace with Jack, Sheena, Aaron, Andrew, and Nicky. Kevin had been bringing up the rear mostly to make sure that Andrew didn’t stab the guy during warm-ups.

Then it was time for the first precision drill.

The other thing about how Kevin was raised is that he was raised surrounded only by the best of the best. The Ravens were at the top of the Collegiate hierarchy. The National Court used their stadium for practice.

The worst Exy that Kevin had ever seen in his entire life up until the moment that Daniel took hold of an Exy racquet was still only the worst team in Collegiate Division 1 Exy.

Then Kevin watched the ball go so wide that the entire court went silent.

All of the drills that followed were as bad, if not worse.

Kevin felt himself start to vibrate with anger the longer it went on. He started to shout corrections at Daniel but the younger man merely rolled his eyes, “I think I know what I’m doing.” He would say before pointedly proving that he did not.

Kevin only realized nearly an hour in that he had wasted his entire practice shouting himself hoarse at the actual waste of human life that was Daniel Stanton.

Kevin could accept being bad at Exy and having an inoffensive personality. Kevin could accept being good at Exy and having a bad personality.

Kevin could not accept being bad at Exy and having a bad personality.

Coach Wymack called the practice to an end and Kevin thought that he’d manage to keep his anger mostly inside (he is ignoring the near hour of practice he spent screaming directions) when Daniel decided to deliver the Coup de Grace.

Sweat soaking his bangs, panting, and without a single thing done correctly (even the way he was currently holding his borrowed Exy racquet set Kevin’s teeth on edge) the man had the gall, the gumption, and the absolute AUDACITY to come up to the coach.

“So, where do I sign?” he asks.

Kevin sees red and unleashes hell.

***

This was the most fun Andrew has had at a practice since he started having to come to them.

The look of embarrassment on Daniel’s face as Kevin accurately tore into everything he did wrong on the Court and every personal failing that Kevin could home in on. His attention shifted away to FF sitting in the stands near the University official who was shaking her head at the obvious poor showing. The University may have wanted Daniel around to spruce up the Fox’s marketability but even they couldn’t let someone so obviously awful onto one of their few Division 1 teams.

FF was sat sipping one of Kevin’s god awful smoothies looking completely unshocked by Daniel’s showing.

Kevin turned his attention to FF, “You said he was good!” Kevin points at the freshman as he continues to sip the drink.

Andrew interrupts, “He never said he was good.” He remembers the conversation so exactly and there are few things he loves more than having the opportunity to rub it in Kevin’s face when the man is wrong, “He said ‘Daniel has always been athletic’ never anything about him being good.” Andrew reminds.

Kevin whips back around to Daniel, “Have you ever even played Exy?” Kevin demands.

“I didn’t think it’d be hard to pick up.” Daniel argues crossing his arms defensively.

It sets Kevin off on another furious rant.

Andrew had thought that FF didn’t have a mean bone in his body and he’s quite pleased to have been proven wrong. The thought that FF had let Daniel get all the way into embarrassing himself in such a way?

Andrew had to give him props.

“How does it feel getting to watch this idiot crash and burn?” he asks coming to the glass.

“Really thought he could manage it if I could.” FF says with a shrug that has Aaron bark out a laugh.

“You really figured?” Aaron asks coming to stand next to Andrew.

FF just shrugs again, “I mean I also started not knowing how to play and now I’m on a pretty good team.” He says as if FF starting as a child not knowing how to play is the same as someone walking in demanding a spot on a college team.

Nicky lets out a laugh.

“Oh, Smithy I could kiss you.” Nicky laughs and makes his way towards the Court entrance to likely do exactly that moving past a Daniel who was so red in the face with embarrassment and anger that he looked as if he was about to turn purple.

Andrew tuned in.

“…small pond. The only reason you ever felt like you were worth anything is that Smiths was too nice to put you in your place before now!” Kevin was probably talking about medium-sized fish in a small pond but Andrew didn’t really care to know.

“Are you going to let him talk to me like this?!” Daniel finally turned to Wymack.

“Kevin, you shouldn’t talk to the public like that.” Wymack says without a hint of chastisement in his voice.

Kevin still straightened at the reminder, “You’re right. Sorry coach.” Kevin sneered at Daniel, “Get off the court before you taint it.” He hisses.

“You’re really not going to sign me?!” Daniel demands.

“Why would I?” Wymack asks with a raised brow.

“You took a chance on John!” Daniel points towards FF.

Andrew watches as Wymack’s face does something he’d rarely seen it do, it goes utterly and completely cold. “I don’t take chances with my kids.” He spat, “I give my kids a second chance. Get the hell off of my court.” He hisses.

Daniel’s face purples further before he stomped off of the Court.

“Don’t you dare walk off with that racquet! It’s worth more than you!” Kevin shouts after him and Andrew in that moment realizes that Daniel is going to do something stupid.

And FF is on the other side of the Plexiglass with only Nicky at his side.

It’s like watching a train crash.

Daniel might say something, but Andrew doesn’t know. He sees Neil rushing as well, his sense of danger always well-honed but Neil had been in Captain mode in the moments before walking some of the sophomore and freshmen through what they had done wrong.

Neither of them will make it in time.

Daniel throws his racquet, and he throws it right at FF barely 5 feet away in the stands.

The Racquet blows past FF’s head and Andrew lets out a breath.

Then before it could crash into the seats behind him and break FF’s hand wrapped around the shaft of the stick and stopped it’s trajectory.

“Your aim really isn’t getting any better by not listening to Kevin’s advice.” Smith says as he twirls the racquet in his hand so that the net was on the ground. “Also, don’t break the equipment, like Kevin said it’s pretty expensive.” He says.

Daniel let out a primal scream but where Andrew had stalled out to watch the miraculous catch Matt Boyd had not. Daniel was tackled to the ground by the backliner, “Absolutely not.” Matt said with a scowl.

“Smithy are you okay?” Andrew hears Nicky ask.

“Yeah, why?” FF asks as if he hadn’t just been attacked but considering everything that Andrew had seen it wouldn’t shock him if Daniel’s attacks were just par for the course back home for FF. “The racquet looks okay too.” He adds.

“Coach Wymack,” The University representative made their way down looking flustered at the outburst of violence.

Obviously not someone who regularly watched Exy or paid attention to their team.

“This is why I wanted absolute control over who does and who doesn’t get a shot here.” Wymack hisses pointing at Daniel as he struggled under Matt.

“You have our sincere apologies for this.” She says looking at Daniel, “He didn’t… we thought he’d be good for the team’s culture but it seems like we may have misjudged-“

“That guy just tried to take Smithy out!” Nicky interrupts.

“I told you he was dangerous.” Neil adds.

“Can someone call campus security?” Matt asks from the ground, “This jackass keeps aiming for kidney punches and I would like to not be pissing blood during winter break.” Matt requests.

“O-of course!” the University representative says fumbling for her cell phone.

Andrew looked at Matt and figured that the backliner had a handle on that particular mess at the moment.

He made his way over to FF and Nicky who was checking over the freshman.

“Nice catch.” He says.

FF shrugs, “It’s my racquet he was borrowing.” He says, “I didn’t want to get a new one.” He adds.

***

FF watches as campus security took custody of Daniel as he continued to spit and scream. There are talks about pressing charges, but FF just wants Daniel off of the campus and away from him. It’s Jack of all people who says that getting a restraining order is a great way to make sure Daniel stays the hell away from him and FF nods consideringly.

Honestly, he’s still mostly in shock he managed to catch his racquet the way he had. His reflexes weren’t quite up to snuff since he’d been trying to catch the netting, but his hand only closed around the shaft.

Embarrassing.

He really hopes no one teases him about his slower reflexes.

“He needs to be charged for assault at least.” Kevin hisses as they watch the security officers take Daniel away.

“It’d be attempted assault.” Aaron corrects.

“He assaulted my eyes with his Exy.” Kevin insists.

“If that counted as assault, don’t you think I would have pressed charges for all the times I have had to see you dance at Eden’s?” Neil asks. “Also, you’re the one that insisted he try-out.” He reminds.

“Smiths told me he was good!” Kevin screeches.

“No, we’ve been over this Day. Smithy said he was athletic.” Nicky reminds. “Are you going to do what Jack suggested?” he asks turning to FF.

“I’d like to see significantly less of Daniel.” FF admits.

“You know he did actually commit assault, if I pee blood I’m making Kevin go buy me pads.” Matt says.

“Whatever.” Kevin says as they continued to make their way back to the dorm to get ready for the day.

MASTERPOST FOR ALL PARTS OF FLUENT FRESHMAN AU

NEXT

[vaguely-concerned]

I've been picking mostly only the essential flirt options with lucanis in the romance so far (I've personally found the dynamic much more natural and mutual when you do that, more like forming a solid friendship slowly and inevitably becoming something else and less like you keep pushing on him and getting little back b/c he seemingly just gets overwhelmed and goes into freeze instead), and I think rye is a pretty hard person to read at the best of times even though he's been Down Real Bad from pretty early on and their chemistry as people is naturally really good. so the way the almost-kiss plays out in this playthrough feels a lot like it has the added layer of lucanis realizing that no but for sure rook is flirting and not just being kind or a good friend* it IS actually happening it's not just wishful/fearful thinking!!! and then uh. maybe going a bit too hard a bit too fast in all the excitement at that revelation haha

*in lucanis' defense he has seemingly literally never had a friend who wasn't his cousin-brother before, under those circumstances I suppose some confusion is extremely natural if not outright expected lmao

[gabriestat]

I fear him. I don't know why. Perhaps I fear him because I could love him again, and loving him, I would come to need him, and needing him, I would come to learn from him, and learning from him, I would be again his faithful pupil in all things

the vampire armand, anne rice

[crownedwille]

.

[tonyglowheart]

(Thousand Autumns spoilers ahead)

SCREAAMMMS... Yan Wushi challenging Hulugu to take the pressure off Shen Qiao at what promises to be great personal cost??? y'all are fuckin insane, this IS peak romance !! from a guy like Yan Wushi this might as well be the equivalent of a loud explicit public declaration of love to the whole jianghu... sorry some of yall apparently just can't stand his toxic yuri swag !

[unordinary-diary]

Seraphina’s Nightmare

A dream sequence looking at Seraphina’s headspace after the season 1 finale.

There is no audio, it’s not broken.

I made this for a project in my film class because I simply couldn’t think about anything other than UnOrdinary. It was going to be about twice this length but I ran out of time before my deadline.

[toytulini]

victorian style haunted house that has dysphoria about not being an open concept minimalist hellhole, before we even have those, so it doesnt know why it just feels sooo miserable and has to lash out at everyone inside it, so its wretched and haunted the whole time, until its finally bought by a house flipper in the 2020s who knows JUST how to fix it

[jfouler]

i'm gonna be busy as hell tomorrow so early happy new year !!

despite the horrors 2024 was a pretty good year in many little ways!! i chose to do a lot of things that scared me. i made some very cool irl acquaintances (touched a lot of grass.) killed the part of me that cringes. did a lot of yapping. i also kept a journal the whole year which i've never done before ??? idk i'm in my mental self care era

[onlyasimp4nobody]

[puppppppppy]

who up seeing their disorder in a fictional character but feel like its not their place to put a name on it

[oifaaa]

you should read it instead of watching it

The assumption here is that I can read which I think you'll find I can't

[vv-ispy]

on one hand I totally understand tropes are popular but on the other hand I think Amos is a lot more compelling as a middle aged woman trying to figure out her life after a loveless relationship than a mother figure ya know

[bricky-b]

this weekend was the perfect storm for weird-ass dreams

on saturday i spent most of the day doing chemistry homework, stuff with molecular orbital theory and VSEPR. then sunday i spent the whole day reading a v long gravity falls fanfic. i also got my covid + flu shots on sunday. then i stayed up till like 1:30 am before falling asleep watching videos about like wrongwarping n stuff in SMB NES.

this all culminated in a dream where ford, dipper, and mabel were stuck in a molecule, running along a ball-and-stick diagram and the different kinds of orbitals (pi and sigma, bonding and antibonding) would make them clip into parallel universes bc yanno uncertainty theory and whatever. bill was hiding somewhere in the molecule too but he was also hiding in one of the many parallel universes. ford was trying to do calculations to figure out where and when bill must’ve been, meanwhile the kids were clipping between realities like it was the backrooms which it turned out was what bill wanted them to do because their behaviour was more chaotic than an electron so the more uncertainty “energy” (don’t ask me) they built up in the molecule, the more likely it was to…i don’t even know. explode ? open a rift to the nightmare dimension ? idk. i kept waking up from this dream thinking that would reset my brain but the minute i closed my eyes again i was back in it. my conscious mind (which watches and commentates on my dreams like shitty reality tv) was genuinely getting exhausted because of the science weirdness, making the whole thing distressing even if it was also objectively funny. at one point i tried to distract myself (i was like half awake half asleep) by thinking about bill nye the science guy but the imaginary episode pivoted back to the universe destroying atom after the introduction sequence. what also didn’t help was that both my shoulders hurt from getting vaccinated so i kept tossing n turning failing to get into a comfy sleeping position, waking up briefly before falling back asleep and getting thrown right back into the weird molecule dream

and now i’m here, at 5:45 am (at least, that was the time when i started writing) unable to properly fall back asleep because my body hurts and i can’t close my eyes without seeing that stupid molecule !

its molecular geometry was octahedral btw