#and the ‘they are offline friends / have offline lives’ or whatever is annoying too

[oh-no-its-bird]

Obkk modern au where where Kakashi and Obito are online friends who have never seen eachothers faces. It's a years long friendship (and mutual silent crush) where they've helped eachother through what was truly the darkest parts of eachothers lives.

But irl they also happen to know eachother from childhood due to having gone to the same schools and shared the same classes, and they fucking DESPISE the other. You can not stick them in a room without someone starting a fight.

When they interact irl, play into specifically the early dynamics of obkk, with kind of superficially happy/dumb Obito and a "follow the rules to the letter" grumpy overachiever Kakashi

But when they're online, play more into the older obkk dynamic.

Where Obito shows that he has a pretty big mean streak/humor and a serious talent for playing dumb; where he overlays his happier side irl for just social reasons.

While Kakashi shows he's actually super lazy and imperfect with most other factors of his life outside of work/school (and ofc downplays his actual work ethic when it comes to work/school, framing himself as doing bare minimum when he should really do more (bc he genuinley believes that)) and has a pretty wicked sense of humor himself, a love of over-romantic, fluffy porn, and a habit of using endless "cute" emotocons

Kk: Did my proposal today, it was so bad... I really slacked off this time on it. I was so nervous they'd tell me no (｡﹏��")

Kk: I guess the other presentations must have been pretty bad too because they picked mine anyways? I feel so lucky (╥﹏╥)

Ob: it's ok even if you tried your best!! Im proud you were able to do even as much as you did.

Ob: I'm glad you got it, at least one of us won their proposal today. That jackass had a fucking 30 slide detailed slide with 6 DIFFERENT PIE CHARTS and a scheduled water break inbetween. Fucking kissass

Kk: nooo im sorry ( •̯́ ^ •̯̀)

Ob: it's whatever. Just glad you got the thing :)

Ob: want me to kill your boss tho.

Kk: lol

Kk: I'll help hide the body ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧

And then one day Obito does some sort of very mean prank on Kakashi. And it goes uhh. Badly.

I mean, badly for Kakashi. Obito thinks it went great!

That is till he gets home and finds his best friend for a decade, and crush for even past that decade, texting him about a very specific mean prank that got pulled on them.

Wait. No. Wait. WAIT. FUCK.

So like. Obito is a bit conflicted now. He doesn't know what to really do here??? Like. What if it ruins everything with his best friend??? But also hey best friend why the FUCK are you such a BITCH.

But also also, suddenly Obito is recontextualizing SO many of their interactions— from Kakashi suffering the devistating loss of his father when he was especially annoying, to explanations of why he reacted certain ways. And oh my god Obito is... also a kind of a bitch???

Obito has NO idea what to do and is just swinging so violently back and forth on what are really his only two options.

And sometimes he's like gleefully feeling vindictive bc after arguing with irl Kakashi, online Kakashi is ranting about "that same asshole again" at work, so Obito is like "I KNEW it was getting to u, haha you're NOT better than me after all!!!"

But then later he feels kinda bad about it bc like. Aw wait no he actually might have genuinley hurt the person he loves. And also he doesn't want to lose getting to see the real Kakashi, a mix of both of his masks, by fucking this up and choosing wrong.

Anyways Kakashi finally somehow figures it out on his own, they fight, they make up, they make out.

The end yay happy ending

There's an alternate universe where neither of them every found out about eachother and continued to be friends online and hate eachother to escalating degrees offline. But one day they start to slowly shift in dynamics. Irl they get closer and online they get so much angrier and more distant. Till we've swapped and now online they just have this GIANT fallout but offline they're actually in love now. And this continues till they're about to get married/no longer on speaking terms with eachother. And so on their wedding day they reach out again online but ONLY to hate on eachother like "oooo fuck you I'm so happy rn I just got MARRIED."

"Oh yeah you bitch??? So did I. And my husbands better than anything your ugly ass could ever pull"

"FUCK YOU MY HUSBANDS FUCKING AMAZING AND YOURS IS PROBABLY LOOKS AND ACTS LIKE SHIT"

"OH YEAH????"

"YEAH!!!"

"PROVE IT!"

And then they very sharply turn and take simultaneous photos of eachothers furious faces and then angrily, instinctivley press send.

And then they stop. And then they have a moment of dead silence.

And then they begin to have an actual, physical fist fight in front of the uncut wedding cake with ALL of their friends and families watching. And the photographers with their very ready cameras.

There was a lot of cake.

Yeah that was ah uhh. Interesting

The good news at least is now they have a photo of them fist fighting like they want to kill eachother while covered in wedding cake in a frame that says "happy marriage <3" on it, and they like to joke about it (to many, many peoples horror)

The end yay happy ending x2

If I were to write this fr I think I'd legally have to write both versions bc both are excellent

[ufolliegy]

how would benrey transformer meet gordon?

Ok, I have to preface this by stating I am not a writer. So if any of this sounds dumb. That’s why.

Anyway, I'm gonna infodump to you about my tf au now. This is gonna be kinda like an outline for a fic if I ever would write a fic about it. Don't take it too seriously.

Benrey is a defected Decepticon living on Earth. He arrived on Earth with a couple other bots, but they found him annoying and ditched his ass pretty early on. Not that he really cared much, he prefers to be on his own anyway. 

Benrey hangs around on Earth for a while. He finds human culture fascinating and decides to observe it from a distance. 

Unfortunately for Benrey, Energon is pretty hard to come by on Earth. He soon realizes that being a Cybertronian living on his own on Earth is almost certainly a death sentence without a proper source of Energon. 

So, he begins searching for a source. He knows he can’t really go back to the Decepticons, after defecting there's no way he’d expect any sympathy from them. Going to the Autobots is obviously out of the question. He’s desperate, but he’s not low enough to go crawling to the Autobots begging for help.

Through his searching Benrey eventually catches wind of a certain research facility located in New Mexico, USA. From what Benrey is able to gather, Black Mesa Research Facility has either located a rare on planet Energon source, or has developed technology similar enough to Cybertronian technology that they are able to synthesize their own Energon. 

While this is wonderful news to Benrey, he also learns that Black Mesa may have captured several other Cybertronians that had been living on Earth similar to himself. He has no doubt that whatever Black Mesa is doing with these Cybertronians, it doesn’t seem pleasant. Unfortunately, this is Benrey’s only lead, he has no choice but to go through with it. Carefully. 

Then like a dumbass, on his way to Black Mesa his Energon reserves run dangerously low. This forces him into a semi-comatose state in the middle of an abandoned desert freeway.

Enter, Gordon Freeman. Gordon is a 27 year old new hire at Black Mesa Research Facility in New Mexico, USA. He has just recently moved across the country, leaving behind his friends and family to grab this once in a lifetime chance to work at the mysterious research facility. He’s finally found a use for the stupid degree that he worked so hard on. By god, is he gonna use it. 

Just a little while after getting settled into his new life, his trusty old "dad car" finally kicks the bucket. A begrudging and sad Gordon gathers up what little savings he has and heads to the nearest used car lot. 

When he arrives Gordon is less than thrilled. He wasn’t looking for the fanciest car in the first place, god knows he can’t afford that, but so many of these poor old cars look beat to hell and back. 

Eventually, Gordon does find something that catches his eye. It’s a big dark blue SUV. It’s absolutely caked in dust and has a couple good scratches and dents, but other than that it seems to be in alright condition. It drives and that’s all Gordon’s really looking for. Though, he does notice a strange looking purple logo on the steering wheel. He decides not to pay it much mind. 

When Benrey wakes up he’s somewhere he’s never been before. Not that he’s been to very many places on Earth, but this place is completely unfamiliar. It's an uncomfortably tight space with gray walls and a cold concrete floor. He figures he’d been offline for at least a couple weeks, his Energon reserve’s weak attempt to keep him from burning through it completely.

He decides to stay put, not wanting to waste what little Energon he has left, and also because he’s genuinely curious about where he’s found himself. He assumes it could be some sort of human domicile?

After a few hours of waiting around, Benrey hears a door swing open and the overhead lights flick on. Standing in the doorway across from Benrey is a human.

This human has long frizzy auburn hair pulled up into a tight ponytail, a scruffy beard, cute little square glasses, and oh. Oh man. Are those freckles? Aw, he’s kinda cute. Haha- whuh, oh shit, he’s walking over here?

Gordon drives Benrey right into Black Mesa, unaware that his new car is a sentient alien trying to steal from the facility. 

Benrey is thrilled that he’s made it into Black Mesa and he didn’t even have to do anything. But, his excitement is short-lived. Now comes the hardest part, actually getting to the Energon source inside. 

After observing his human captor(?) enter the depths of the facility without problem Benrey devises a fool proof plan to get what he wants. 

While on his way home from Black Mesa Gordon notices when his new car starts to act strange. Very strange. Abruptly, all control of the vehicle is ripped away from Gordon as it veers off the road on its own accord. Speeding through the sparse foliage and rough terrain of the New Mexico desert, Benrey takes Gordon far away from prying human eyes. 

Once Benrey is certain there are no other humans around for miles he unlocks his doors and boots Gordon out of the driver seat onto the dusty desert ground.

Gordon stares up in terror, shock, and genuine confusion at the sight unfolding (literally) in front of him as Benrey transforms. Benrey looms over Gordon as he puts on his very best “scary Decepticon looking to get what he wants” face.

Benrey tries his hardest to get Gordon to fear him, to submit to his master plan of forcing the human to grab the Energon for him. For a bit it works, Benrey is HUGE compared to Gordon and could easily squash him like a bug. Not that Benrey would really wanna do that, that would be kinda icky. 

Then, in classic Benrey fashion, he says something ridiculous that has Gordon going from cowering in fear to doubling over with disbelief and laughter. 

'Benrey: C’mon man, i'm trying to be scary here. Stop laughin’ at me. You even got the credentials to be out here driving, man? Pretty shit at it. You got the papers? You got a, uh- a passport? 

Gordon: I- I’m sorry it's just- Wait, passport? Do you mean like a- a driver’s license? 

Benrey: huh?

Gordon: What the actual fuck are you talking about, man?'

The two of them eventually calm down enough that Gordon isn’t screaming in fear or babbling in disbelief. Benrey explains to Gordon his predicament and why he needs him to go through with his “expert plan” to get to the Energon.

Gordon, for one, isn’t buying it. Gordon argues that there’s no way he’s putting the dream job he just got on the line to help the weird terrifying evil car that kidnapped him. 

Benrey looms over Gordon again, Benrey’s metal face coming closer to Gordon’s than ever before. He leers him down at him, which Gordon very much takes as some sort of threat. 

Then, Benrey stands, stretches his metal joints, and turns around to start walking the other direction into the desert. He tells Gordon that’s fine, and to have good luck making his way home on his own. 

Gordon sputters and yells out after Benrey, shouting for him to wait. He considers his options, as much as he really does not want to help Benrey, dying alone in the middle of the desert is not on his bucket list. Not to mention that even if he does somehow make his way home on his own there's no way he could afford to buy ANOTHER car after he just bought this one. So very cautiously and begrudgingly, Gordon agrees. 

In the end the two form a sort of symbiosis.  Gordon gets to risk his job to help Benrey get the Energon he needs to survive, and Benrey gets to have fun driving Gordon around on cute little trips to the grocery store and stuff. The two of them might get caught by Black Mesa for their crimes in the future, but it will be fine. They should be able to handle it.

[bluntforcespatter]

yeeeah i get that a bit more than i'd like to lol. 'm sorry it's like that for you tho /gen n yeah. it's def easier to just be some little electronic beastie than imagine myself to be properly tangible for anyone. i'm real like a digital pet or smthn, ig is my personal like...thoughts on it. ppl like those cuz they're cute, so they like me because i'm just a lil critter ywy. but if i'm more real and like....more than just words then like it becomes "what if i'm [neg thing here]" like i said, ik all of that's not entirely true, just kinda a ramble of like. getting it in my own ways lol, even if it might not be the most sensical way of putting it edtfbh n i get what you mean! i've watched/played/read stuff like that before. it's a weird sorta cathartic pain, so it's nice in a way. it sounds really good :3 thank you ywy hopefully yours does too. no problem o7 i get it n i'm glad it helps a bit for me to ramble n stuff ywy i always worry it's a bit much or annoying or w/e, so it's nice to hear [read?] that it's actualy helpful gtrfh - 📺

ah, thank you (ᵕ—ᴗ—) all we can do is our best, though, so... i am trying? ¯\_(ᵕ—ᴗ—)_/¯

and SO TRUE !! i spent my childhood online. like i was on forums and shit when i was 6 ( ꩜ ᯅ ꩜;) i was in a very very bad situation and escaping onto the internet made me feel better. i could pretend not to be from my home there. but so many years spent on the internet without anything in real life that was good really made me worse in a lot of ways - like ... the internet was the only place people ever listened to me, let alone interacting with me out of choice. in my home, i wasn't treated as a person. my parents didn't even really use my name, the name they gave me, until i was older. but online people would say "hi ghost! how was your day?" and it made me feel real. but now i feel more real online than offline... and if i am real IRL, then that means all the bad stuff that happened to me IRL did happen. so i just sort of mentally shut it all down and i wish i wasn't this way but my brain is protecting itself or something. that's what i'm told anyways.

i miss quotev i practically lived there. most of my system THRIVED there, with the RP groups we could pretend to be in character and then just be ourselves, people would address us as ourselves and it was so affirming and it felt amazing to finally exist and matter to someone. we have an alter who is basically all digital, so we often see ourselves like a little sprite traveling through 0s and 1s and pixels out into the wide web !! it's fun but sometimes very lonely.

so i totally get what you're saying. if you were a tamagotchi i would put you on a keychain and take you out and about !! digital friends ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶

cathartic pain !! yes !!! it's nice to remind yourself that it hurts - remind yourself you're still here, you still are feeling and alive, you did experience things that you carry around with you... i am very dissociative unfortunately so i relish anything that makes me feel again. most of the time i feel like a fuzzy static CRT TV...

and thank you (o^▽^o) im going to try to have a good evening. i think i can do it. im going home today (was at my roommates mum's to visit, she gets lonely) and im excited to go home and relax !! you're certainly not being too much or annoying. i only get annoyed by actually irritating things. like frustration at ignorance or injustice... i am always yelling on my blog that anyone can come yap anytime about anything because i like to listen. a pain shared is half a burden, a happiness shared is twice the joy !! (* ^ ω ^) hopefully you make time today to do something self indulgent . it's important to take time to do stuff that feeds your soul . or whatever that sounds cheesy but i hope you know what i mean !!!

[sandyspaghettibag]

just had a realization after spending the first three days of this week absolutely inseparable from my phone: the vast majority of humans - at least in america - spend a HUGE amount of their waking lives looking at screens unless they're driving, which is really one of the only remaining scenarios where it's still unacceptable to whip out a phone and get digitally immersed in whatever you want.

this counts for work and school too; jobs you wouldn't expect to be handled electronically still require their workers to be on the computer for an overwhelming chunk of the day, and all but ONE of my college books this semester are ebooks (which have given me and every other student in one of my classes an aneurysm trying to redeem our $200 codes. like why is the digital version as expensive as the physical copy too, idek what to think about all that)

like, we really are addicted to screens as a society, and even if you try and be the annoying friend who leaves their phone at home and tries to live in the real world, it's too late because phones at the very least are required now; it's like leaving the house without your ID at this point. You literally need to have it. Just last year I went to a restaurant (which was vvvvv good tbh) that didn't give out menus, making you scan a qr code to get the digital menu instead. Convenient I guess, but god forbid someone doesn't have a phone (or data for that matter), is that when you bring out the old paper menu? Why not just stick to that, even if just to be traditional in the midst of the world's collective digitalization?

pls don't try and make this some kind of discourse if it's a controversial thing to say btw, I'm as guilty as anyone else, probably spent 24 hours of this week already just staring at my phone (which is INSANE when you actually think about it). Even at social gatherings, I can't help but whip out twitter and just scroll through the dopamine when things get just a little boring… so what's the point in even going if it's just having a different location where I'm on my phone. I won't even talk about how our BRAINS practically require screens now as well, like there is no reason I should have such a constant desire to be on it when I'm at my favorite restaurant or the beach or whatever. I think we as humans need to be forced to socialize offline again, and if that makes me have to swap my phone out for a flip phone and an ipod nano for music, I can live with that

[devitalise]

IMO im sending this so early NOT because I'm trying to beat you (though it does feel nice 🤭) but I'll be offline during our usual end-of-month wrap-up + i SHANT make you wait long!!! HOW DID AUGUST GO! I read ur goodreads review on The Picture of Dorian Gray but I'm dying to hear more 👁️ + do u think you're gonna try and shift into ~fall vibes~ for reading now (whatever that means to you) or continue to go with the flow?

hi cas this was such a jumpscare getting this over a week ago but i'm glad you were able to beat me! of course there's a new autumnal vibe in the books i'll be reading i've even updated my discord profile (goodbye summer kendall you were great)

but i can go into more detail in the

august book wrap up

(2 days early but i'm not finishing a book in 2 days)

The Picture of Dorian Gray (The Original 1980 Uncensored Edition) by Oscar Wilde

well i read a book. there were some really interesting threads in this, i thought Dorian being a narcissistic weirdo was cool to read about, but other than the end of the book taking a much darker turn, i did't find much about this impressive. i don't like reading books expecting them to work harder for me to enjoy them, but i struggled to want to read this.

Must I Go by Yiyun Li

wasn't what i expected it to be, not really a fan of what it was. you give me an 88 year old woman who's survived her eldest daughter's suicide and raised her granddaughter and is looking after her greatgrandaughter and what do we do? we spend almost 200 pages of her dissecting the journal of some random man who ended up marrying his cousin and lived his whole life not knowing he had said daughter? why. i don't care! i don't care!!!!!!! and then when Lila (the character in question) did talk about herself, her mother having her dreams crushed in her marriage, her three marriages and further 4 children, it's just brushed over and kind of shrugged at. none of the "important" men in her life are alive and yet they took up so much of the book. whatever you keep dead people alive in your memory but other than being reminded how selfish and uncaring Lila was there wasn't much about this i felt positive about. wouldn't recommend, went straight in my donation pile.

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante

i finally did it. what a rollercoaster! i absolutely hate reading first person books when i find the character annoying. not to say a bad person, or morally defunct or anything. just plain old annoying. Elena Greco is annoying. fine in the first 2 as she's 10-22 years old and it's expected, but the third book sees her in her mid 20s early 30s and i genuinely wanted to throw this book at a wall. i struggle to see this as a tale of friendship at this point just because like. they aren't friends??? they're two women who at this point are bound by history and maybe that's the point but i want better for Lila and she remains the star of the show

The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante

i finished the quartet and feel emotionally wrung out. this was going fine but i think it's around 350 pages in there's a full blown "relationship" between Lila's 24 year old son and Elena's 15 year old daughter???? reading from the perspective of an awful mother was so jarring, too. really enjoyed the series, i just feel like i felt very untethered towards the end and i just wanted it to end

september / autumnal reads

i'm annoyed that i've ended up in such a white reading space so will be fixing that for sure. also need a romance, i haven't read one i've liked this year! something fun is overdue. i have some horror books picked out but that's not for a little while yet. i don't see myself picking up anything new (maybe?) so i'll just be picking from what i already bought, trying some contemporary reads that have been rotting on my shelf for the past year

[dreamygeorgenap-archive]

I've notice before that, even though Dream loves to tease George, he can't help but be honest or praise him right after. it's like he's scared George might think he's serious and that he's gonna take it personally. this last clip shows it perfectly, cuz not even 10 secs ago he's was like "haha George is cheating what a loser", but then as soon as George starts complaining/getting annoyed, he reassures that George is worthy and important immediately.

he also always says things like "i just wanted to talk to you", "you're worthy and I appreciate you", "you're more than you think you are" (not all direct quotes, but you get what I mean). I'm convinced Dream just knows George is or too humble sometimes or thinks too low of himself.

if you pay attention enough, you'll see George never compliments himself. he will always say "I'm alright... i guess", "I'm not that good at this", "I'm trash at this kind of stuff" even though he's really good at what he does. he just goes too harsh on himself and pay too much attention at this mistakes, getting annoyed and frustrated pretty easily when it comes to himself.

in his speedruns streams, when things go wrong, he will always get soooo frustrated cuz he feels like he owns god-like skills and entertainment for us. that everything has to be perfect and every little thing will make us hate him forever (although that's clearly not true). you can see he struggles a lot with it, bc almost every friend of his tries to calms him down pretty often. Dream does it, Sapnap does it, Quackity and Karl too. okay, they go hard on him sometimes, but all of them have such care and are e-word by George. you can feel the need to reassure that "everything is fine" when things just don't go well in his streams. and I think that's the cutest thing about them.

people love to criticize them for being "mean to George", but they are all friends after all. i get that can be too much and hard to watch sometimes, but if George was really annoyed by that, i believe he would say something. you gotta remember he's offen described as someone who "doesn't let things get to him" and "don't really care that much".

and I say we don't see not even half of all the love between their friendship. just to imagine how they interact when there's no cameras around, a smile grows in my face. they are the best.

ps: I'm not saying being annoyed at the "bullying George" bit is wrong! it's totally valid!! i do get overwhelmed by that too, but i guess I just like to see the bright side of the things hahah

ps²: I'm sorry if that's too long, i just love rambling about them lmao. hope you're having a wonderful day :]

— 🌙 (hope no one has ever used this one before lol)

The reason Dream says stuff like that is because George will say something like, “I’m worthless” and Dream says,”You’re not worthless,George, we love you” in return and sometimes other people, like in the clip you linked, will say “you’re nothing” and Dream defends him, “he’s not nothing”. I don’t think it’s about George being humble, although I agree he is and it was even the word Dream used to describe him, I just feel like Dream doesn’t like when people joke about themselves or other people like that and he wants to remind people of their worth.

I get what you’re saying about George getting frustrated with himself but later on you say he’s someone that lets things go quickly so I don’t think he gets worked up all that much. He’s just vocal when he makes mistakes in a way the others are not. I would say Dream encourages him and is his moral support“pretty often” and Quackity does too but idk about the others. Although I’m sure there’s examples.

I’ve already stated my opinions on the way they bully George. I don’t like it and I think it’s completely overused and I don’t like the “they’re all friends” argument because first of all yes, we know they are but friends can tease and hurt friends feelings. the problem is most friends are not bullying their friend streaming live in front of thousands of people and a lot of those people think it’s okay to tease that singled out friend on Twitter. So George isn’t only teased by them, he’s teased by some of Twitter too.

And I think it’s mostly when Karl and Quackity get together that they immediately jump on the “bullying George” jokes, because when they’re apart and with George they don’t do it as much. But if Quackity, for example, is streaming with George the vibes are great but then if Karl joins its immediately teasing George time. And that to me, in my opinion as a audience member and as a fan, is annoying. Plus I found it very interesting that they kill George all the time but then in Karl’s VR stream they turned the tables and killed Karl and he was annoyed by it. He was almost self aware.

Yes, I get that they have offline lives are offline friends and all that but if they are the same people offline, which I generally believe they are, then they probably tease George off camera too when they get together. Like the “what’s this then?” thing they do I don’t think that happened on camera, so that’s another teasing “hahaha George has a British accent hahahaa” joke that they probably came up with off camera.

[olderthannetfic]

Hi! I know you're one of the older fans on Tumblr & I wanted to ask you about the anti movement. I'm 19 & when I see people talking about the ages of anti fans, they're often within the 14-25 age range & I have no idea why. I also feel it's a little unfair to say that younger fans tend to be antis, though it is understandable since I've also made mistakes when I didn't know things. Why do you think most antis are younger fans? What should younger fans who aren't antis do to be more involved?

Hee! I’m 40, which, tbh, actually isn’t that old for Tumblr (though it’s certainly old compared to the common perception of tumblr), so sure, I can probably answer this. I guess there are two questions here: 1. Is it true and 2. why, if so?

1. Experience suggests that antis do tend to be young... but it does not follow that young people tend to be antis. (You’d have to know the proportion of antis relative to the overall population of fandom, which we don’t. I think the majority of people of any age tend to want to read fic in peace and not be roped into endless wank.) I definitely see some ringleaders who are older and good at manipulating fandom trends for their own ends too.

2. Why would this be the case?

When I was in college, we used to joke about all the freshman year Marxists. It’s an eternal phenomenon: people who don’t have much experience learn a new thing and are on fire to change the world using the one tool in their toolbox. (To a man with a hammer, yadda yadda.) There’s no passion like the passion of the newly converted, and young people tend to have a lot more energy and often a lot more free time to yell on social media. Antis may be one expression of this among people currently in that age bracket. It’s not like people my age didn’t do other annoying-ass things when we were that age. You just don’t see it because it was 20 years ago, a lot of it was never online, and all the websites/platforms from then have been systematically destroyed. (Often by yahoo. Fuck yahoo.)

The other half of the reason, in my opinion, is that there have been concerted efforts to sway lefty/socially liberal people in specific--often TERFy--ways. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the right wing radicalization of gamer guys.

People are susceptible to it because their lives suck and because they don’t know enough history or have enough confidence to form their own opinions and stand up for them. Sure, some people are going to go hardcore for anti views no matter how much they know, but a lot of people are just being swept along with the tide because something sounds superficially pro-gay or pro-protecting kids or whatever.

I cannot emphasize enough that the things that make someone ripe for the alt right are the same things that make them ripe for cults and for various kinds of toxic fandom shit: it’s usually the smart, sensitive overthinkers who don’t have enough close actual friends and who aren’t in a good place in their lives.

---

So what can you do?

You can try to make fewer more significant friendships and make sure your support system isn’t people you only know because you currently share a fandom. Most of my offline friends are people I found through fandom meetups, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for making fandom your life and only hanging out with fandom people, but we’re just regular friends who have dinner parties and shit (well, when it’s not the plaguetimes). Most of the time, we don’t share specific ships or fandoms. It’s vitally important to have a real support network that can’t be ripped away by social media wank.

The next thing we can all do is publicly stand up for what we believe in and not cave to pressure just because someone yelled “think of the children”. It’s important to be clear about the real history and logic behind these things, whether it’s the history of censorship that inspires people to support AO3′s extremely permissive policies or the fact that ‘queer’ was a fully reclaimed umbrella term in the 90s.

It’s okay if we don’t all agree. What’s not okay is appeals to emotion and ignoring science. A lot of anti bullshit is like “Rape fantasies are an abnormal red flag”, and this goes against every damn thing we know about human sexuality.

Part of this is examining our own stances for illogic and hypocrisy. If thought crimes aren’t real, then all of them aren’t real. I see way too many “Okay, but that one gross kink though!” comments from people who claim to be on my side, and this is very silly.

Possibly the biggest thing, though, is that we as a planet need to start being savvier about shitty social media and how it’s destroying our mental health. I don’t have a good overall solution, and obviously, I’m still on tumblr, but we all really need to cut down the amount of time we’re on sites like Facebook and Twitter and probably tumblr too. The more it has an algorithm and the less it has moderation, the more it’s a problem. Individual discords and spaces that can have moderation are better. It’s fine if some of them are 100% antis. The point is to have multiple spaces with rules that suit different groups.

A thing you can do is make your own spaces: be the owner of a discord for your ship, not just a passive participant at the mercy of shitty mods in an existing one. Run a fic exchange with rules you think are sensible and be firm when people try to scream about problematique things you don’t agree are a problem. One of the most pernicious anti problems is mods breaking the rules of their own spaces (usually a “no kinkshaming” one) to cave to social pressure from the loudest, most assholish set of people in the server. They don’t know how many people quietly disapprove and quietly leave their fandoms because they only fear the loud harassers, not the silent toll of caving to them.

Honestly, the climate of fear is the big issue more than a bit of yelling: I routinely meet 20-somethings who live in fear of being canceled and shunned. You can help this by... not being like that with your friends. If they’re friends with a canceled person, don’t ask them to drop the canceled person or face the same fate. If you disagree about some fandom hot take, talk about it calmly and don’t act like the friendship will be over in 5 seconds and you’ll use all your knowledge of them against them in a public callout because they didn’t instantly agree.

Basically, have some self confidence and don’t be fucking terrified all the time... which can be a tall order and probably explains the age thing also.

[dumbdomb]

What should someone do to get your attention? esp if they’re too shy to dm first?

i'm the only one allowed to be shy here lol (joking)! tbh, i really try to make it clear that people are always welcome to talk with me. i don't feel comfy initiating most conversations in general, i'm more quiet and reserved offline, but especially don't like to if it's for rp and naughty stuff. i can appreciate when people are clingy, talkative, etc and want to dm all the time, but i honestly don't know how to respond when the conversation doesn't go beyond greeting formalities.

another thing that happens is people dm me wanting to rp, but then don't offer any information about their boundaries, interests, etc and want me to lead them in everything, fulfill their (unknown to me) desires, be able to predict how they feel without any communication and feedback from them when i ask "feeler" questions, and get upset when i don't live up to their expectations of how a dom is "supposed" to act… i've had a few people treat me like this and it feels bad.

there's nothing wrong with being shy. i'm very shy, too! but if you wanna talk then (i'm so sorry to tell u this but) you'll have to talk. don't worry, bc u can always talk about anything!!! i don't mind if you get nervous, if the only jokes you know are puns, if you're only interested in some really niche topic, however you are is great!! come on, let's talk and be friends!

you already have my attention. i'm not a super popular blog on here, so i respond to pretty much every msg i get. and depending on what kind of attention you're specifically looking for, idk… you've perused my blog, yes? scrolled through certain tags? read my pinned?

just tell me what you wanna talk about. dm like we're already friends. give me something to work with beyond saying hello or telling me how attractive i am. otherwise, unfortunately, that's as far as the conversation will go (bc what else do u want me to say??). make an effort and i'll respond. that's another reason why i allow anons, submissions, replies, etc- so people can interact with me.

don't be afraid to be clumsy, think you're annoying me, or whatever else is going on in that silly head of yours! ily and i wanna talk more!! i love hearing from you!! i wanna know more about you! and you're not talking to me because you're shy?!???? booo. boring! like, how are we gonna become bestest friends forever?!? come talky me and be shy together 🥺

[queen-mabs-revenge]

nah sorry, that's just a bit too much lib shit for me.

protip - bernie is infuriating not bc he's not strictly calling out the 'bad apples' in the dem party, but bc he's completely capitulated to an absolutely irredeemable party of capitalist criminals as exemplified by the entire career of joseph robinette biden.

calling the absolutely fucking ghoul horrorshow of not only not stopping the big angry dem catchphrases of Kids In Cages and No More Wall and Believe Science but actually continuing and doubling down on them a 'disappointment' is just peak fucking liberal behaviour.

sit there and get frothy over a tax credit that literally had a 6 month sundown period and has now thrown all of those kids it 'lifted out of poverty' right the fuck back into it, while ignoring the fact that the policies of this fucking rotten criminal administration have actually increased living costs and thus the precarity of working class people in the past year so that those precious kiddilywinks are now going to be even more food and housing insecure.

get your whole vote scold on while ignoring the fact that the president capitulated most of the supposed recovery plan to the rotating villain of the moment instead of actually acting like a fucking party leader and whipping party members by like...oh idk visiting states of said senators? doing groundwork to actually help the people in their constituency who are suffering? actually doing the work to make it so that holding the position of being a block on legislation is politically unviable? you know...like a president?

but if you actually focused on that then holding this Vote Blue fuckflag would become completely untenable bc it would become very fucking clear that the democratic party, like the republican party, literally has turned its back on the working class, but is using the bureaucracy of the legislative system as a 'oh our hands are soooooooo tied' shield while people are fucking dying! because they are serving the interests of their class! which - pRoTiP - is not the fucking working one :D

you know why bernie is so fucking annoying? not bc he supposedly threw a fit about not getting his wah wah candidacy (which lmao if you're still fucking blaming hilary 'pied piper' clinton's loss to a fucking reality show host on bernie....y i k e s). it's bc he knows that the democratic party is full of the worst fucking scum imaginable, was literally fought against by the entire dnc+friends who in 2016 ruled that they were a private organization and did not need to have a democratic process to choose their candidate, and has seen joe biden's whole career and the actual blood and emiseration that he has caused and still took a whole movement of people who sacrificed their money and time to the ideas he was running on and turned it over to the mercy of the same people who had ruined their lives in the first place -- in the face of an actual global pandemic.

and you know what -- working class people do fucking know how to do the job of these criminals better. they're doing the fucking labor of keeping whatever skeleton of this society is limping along going, and they know what to do to fix it because they're the ones actually moving the fucking joints of the beast. people getting angry because they see the truth of the violence that both parties have and continue to do to working class people while they line theirs and their corporate benefactors pockets aren't some woke online filth hoards doing their keyboard warrior shit. these are people who are seeing the truth of the systematic failure of this capitalist meat grinder and are fucking infuriated. posting a tweet doesn't preclude a person from organizing offline. and likewise, people who see that the democratic party is literally going to suck the marrow from the bones of anyone who actually wants to see change and refuse to give their energy and time and/or vote to their oppressor aren't a terminally online larping mob. they're literally doing the logical thing with their time and energy. the fucking democrats are owed nothing but vitriol as they give nothing but misery.

the democrats and the republicans are both two fangs in the same vampiric mouth. the democrats are actually worse today than the democrats of the past and that's saying something -- they are functionally the mid-century republican party and pretending that because they've co-opted phrases from actual radical organizers that they are better now is fucking laughable. especially in a world in which since reagan they've had all the levers of governmental power several times and yet still there is no law protecting abortion rights, more fossil fuel contracts continue to get meted out, various crime bills still got passed, the wealth gap has skyrocketed, the rate of food and housing precarity has steadily increased, the compensation of labor to production has stagnated, labor relations rights continue to be weakened while deregulation of corporations continues to be strengthened, the military budget has only grown....need i go on?

it's fucking hilarious to imagine that the answer to the rising tide of fascist ideology is this shit-for-brains liberal milquetoast technocratic system-preserving creating-the-conditions-for-misery-and-fascist-reaction bullshit that the democrats are peddling. that voting for what got us to this point is the answer to the violence of the far right. it's fucking baby brained shit to try and scare monger about fascism while literally ignoring the conditions of misery that the capitalist parties have created that have been the coals in the forge of this turn to fascist ideology.

it's deeply unserious to act like the word socialism, and the rise people turning to socialist organizing is a temper tantrum of people who Won't Just Vote. literally cop the fuck on. the word socialist isn't a little red scare tactic anymore because working class people can genuinely see that there is no solution to oppression in the house of the oppressor. i know that to people who are either served well enough by the system as it is (you know, just with a few tweaks here and there) or who have no faith in the ability of the working class to effect change that that concept seems like a larp, but i think that says more about those people than it says about the people who see that this system is not only a dead end, but a breeding ground for misery, violence, oppression, and fascist reaction.

continuing to pretend like Voting Blue™ is the how adults deal with the complete failure of capitalism and the parties of capitalism to deliver a livable existence for the working class of the world and the world itself is either self-serving or self-delusional.

[annoyed-galaxy]

Post-Destroy Ending

I bring from the grave of the beyond a fix-it fic serving up fresh angst and some fluff. Mass Effect destroyed my heart and with that major fucking cliffhanger, I just had to write something. But since there's a lot, I decided to break this up into chapters. Well, who knows how many chapters there will be, but just stick around I'm sure you'll have a great time. My writing is still rusty as hell, but I needed to get SOMETHING out. Anyways enjoy this! It's also on AO3 if you want that link.

Go!

It was the last thing she had ordered when she ran off into the jaws of death. He hated watching her go. Hated seeing her run back towards the beam with Harbinger raining down death. Tali had to tear him away from watching her run, dragging him back into the Normandy.

Garrus was on his fourth bottle of alcohol. The other three bottles were littered across Shepard’s nameplate. He ran his fingers across each letter of her name. It had been a couple weeks and Garrus still refused to put her name on the memorial wall. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. And he sure as hell wasn’t letting someone else do it.

They were still grounded on the uncharted world they had crashed into after the blast from the Citadel. While the Normandy was relatively fine, there were still some repairs that had to be made. There was also the issue with EDI. When the blast caused the Normandy to crash, EDI had suddenly collapsed, no longer functioning. Whatever the blast was, it didn’t kill just the Reapers.

The mass relays were destroyed, comm buoys were in pieces, so communication was very limited. Whatever happened back on Earth, whether people had recovered or not, was not making it to the Normandy anytime soon. The Reapers were defeated, but at what cost?

The door to the lounge opened and Liara sat next to Garrus. She grabbed a bottle of wine and began to pour herself a glass. “How are you feeling?” she asked, taking a sip.

Garrus grumbled to himself. He was drunk, his mind fuzzy and numb. “I’m fine,” he mumbled.

Liara nodded, not buying his story, but knew he hadn’t been okay in a while. “Tali has been working on EDI. She also brought Glyph back. In return, Glyph has been helping Tali with bringing EDI back,” Liara explained, hoping some good news would brighten his mood.

He looked at her, his face plates shifting. Part of him was annoyed that she would bring that up, knowing the possibility of Shepard truly being gone was most likely. But he was happy for Joker at the very least. “That’s good,” he mumbled, returning to his drink.

Liara frowned, worry crossing her face. “Garrus...I know you’re hurting, but...” Liara stopped herself. She didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry, Garrus. I know Joker has been talking about trying to make it back to Earth. But with the mass relays out, who knows how long it’ll be until we get there. Communications have been scrambled too.” Liara put a hand on his back. “It’s going to be okay Garrus. I promise.”

He stayed silent. He had nothing to say. He wanted to go back to Earth, back to the Citadel. He wouldn’t put Shepard’s name on the memorial wall until he had seen her cold corpse himself.

After a few minutes of silence, Liara finally decided it would be best to leave the turian to his sulking. She left with comforting parting words.

༻✧༺

“There’s a body over here!”

Her head was pounding. There were noises. Faint. Distant. Her body burned, stung, felt battered and bruised. She was breathing, but it stung. The voices came closer. She could no longer make out words, but she saw blinding lights come into view. She felt a weight lift from her, probably some rubble, and she couldn’t make out any faces. There were just blurred shapes and bright lights.

“Holy shit, it’s Commander Shepard!”

More shapes rushed over to her. Rubble was being dragged off of her. The light began to fade, her breathing slowing. She felt something cover her nose and mouth. Air filled her easily now. Her eyes fluttered shut and the noise faded away.

༻✧༺

“EDI!” Joker cried out as the robot sat up, blinking. He hugged her, tears forming in his eyes.

“Hello, Jeff,” EDI replied, slightly confused. She returned the hug, tentatively patting his back. He moved out of the way, allowing her to stand on her feet. “What happened?” she asked, looking around the room. She was in the AI core, Tali, Liara, and Glyph all stationed behind Joker, watching with held breaths as she was brought back to life.

“The blast from the Citadel took you out,” Joker explained, his arms on her shoulders. “But the Reapers were taken down too. Tali and Glyph have been working day in and day out to bring you back.”

EDI looked back at Tali and Glyph and smiled. “Thank you, you two. I did not realize I had...died.” EDI looked down at her hands, stretching her robotic fingers. “It felt like I had just stopped working. There was no afterlife.”

Joker put a finger under her chin, lifting her eyes to meet his. “It’s okay, you’re here now.” She smiled and took his hand.

“So what did I miss?” she asked, as they left the AI core. Awkward glances were shared between Tali and Liara.

Joker cleared his throat and took EDI to the bridge of the ship, letting her settle back into her usual co-pilot seat. The door to the cockpit closed as Tali and Liara stepped in. “Shepard activated the Crucible,” Joker began to explain. “Whatever it did, it destroyed the Reapers and other synthetic lives including you. But it also destroyed the mass relays and left comm buoys in scrambles. We’ve been stuck on an uncharted world for about a month now, trying to get you working again.”

“We didn’t feel safe, nor comfortable, taking off without you working again,” Liara added, offering a small smile to EDI. “That and the fact that the Normandy is currently offline.”

“You keep the Normandy in full function,” Tali tagged on.

Joker nodded. “Now that you’re back online, we’re hoping to make it back to Earth. The only issue with that is...”

“We don’t know how far away we are, nor how long would it take, or if we could even get there via FTL,” Liara explained, her voice low and sad.

“Is there a specific reason to going back to Earth?” EDI asked, pure innocence and naiveness in her robotic eyes.

Joker looked at Tali and Liara, asking for some backup with his eyes. Tali rubbed her hands together nervously. “We want to try and find Shepard.”

EDI tilted her head. “Is Shepard alive?”

The three of them exchanged looks once more. “We...we don’t know,” Liara sighed. “But Garrus seems determined to find out.”

EDI lowered her head. “Oh. Right. Garrus and Shepard were in a romantic relationship weren’t they?” Everyone nodded. “I will begin to run diagnostics on the ship then, to see what repairs will be required to get us off the ground once more,” EDI said, more optimistic and hopeful. It seemed to work as Joker, Tali, and Liara smiled a little more.

“I’ll let Garrus know,” Liara said before leaving the cockpit. She went to the crew deck, in the lounge looking for Garrus, but he wasn’t there. She went to the other side, the starboard observatory, but he wasn’t there either. She went to the main battery, wondering if he had gone back to calibrating to distract him, but he wasn’t there either. Liara could think of only one other place he would be grieving in.

As she suspected, the door to Shepard’s cabin was open, a somber tune of a piano playing through the speakers as she stepped out of the elevator. Laying on the bed was Garrus, a picture in his hand. Liara could tell it was the picture of the Normandy crew they had taken back on the Citadel. “Good news, Garrus,” Liara greeted, standing next to the fish tank. He looked up at her, his mandibles parting in curiosity. “EDI is back online. She is going to run a systems check and see what it will take to get us back to Earth.”

Garrus sat up, putting the picture on one of the bedside tables. “That’s what everyone wants to do?” he asked, not looking at her, still looking at the picture.

Liara moved closer, sitting on the end of the bed. “Garrus, you’re not the only one who wants to find Shepard. I, for one, do not want to see her name on that wall either. I want to at least see her body if she is...gone.”

Garrus snorted. “Weren’t you the one who recovered her body last time? After the Normandy’s first destruction?”

Liara nodded. “I was. Until I found her, I never lost hope. Even when I recovered her body, I still didn’t lose hope, especially since Cerberus planned to bring her back. I thought it was crazy, but they did it.” Liara smirked. “Death and Shepard are not good friends. She defies him at every turn.”

“I just...I don’t want to put her name on that damned wall. Because if I do, then it may be as well saying she’s gone. I...can’t accept that.” Garrus’s voice faltered, weak and strained. Liara couldn’t hear his sub-vocal very well, but she knew it was worse than his regular voice. She knew the pain of losing Shepard would be hard on him.

“Then let’s hope we can make it to Earth soon,” Liara comforted, putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

He silently nodded as she left the cabin.

༻✧༺

Another month had passed by, the Normandy was still grounded, but basic functions were online. Power kept the basic necessities alive, powering Liara’s room where she spent most of her time, using her Shadow Broker resources trying to gauge the aftermath of the Reaper War. No matter how much she tried to get any information, with comm buoys out of commission and them being on an uncharted world, anything she received was scarce at best. She still had received no status about the Citadel, Earth, or what state the galactic civilization was in. The only information she could glean, was what everyone already knew; the Reapers were dead and the mass relays were broken.

Voices were raised in concern about food supplies. There was still plenty of food for everyone, including Tali and Garrus, but supplies would run out soon if they didn’t restock. James, Cortez, Tali, Garrus, and Javik all decided to explore the uncharted world in hopes to find some food. Tali had a scanner in her suit that could identify whether something was poisonous and dextro-friendly or not. The only thing they had managed to find was some berries for everyone except the quarian and turian.

“Great, we’re going to be living off berries,” James groaned, picking the bright red fruits from the bush Tali had just scanned.

“Be lucky we found anything at all,” Tali retorted. “Garrus and I still have to find food that we can eat.”

“To be fair, you guys are the only dextros on board so you’re not going through your supply as fast,” Cortez pointed out.

“Hopefully we won’t run out in general,” Garrus said, looking aimlessly at the horizon. The system’s sun was equal to the sun, Sol, providing the same warmth and light on this world’s surface.

“If we do run out of food, we can just eat one another,” Javik suggested. Everyone turned and looked at the Prothean.

“Of course the Prothean would say that,” James cackled. “Talking about salarian soup and shit.”

“Let’s try to avoid that outcome,” Cortez suggested.

The idle conversation continued as the group continued looking for more food.

“Liara.” EDI stepped into the Shadow Broker’s cabin, her arms behind her back as she waited patiently for the asari to notice her.

“What is it EDI?” Liara looked up from her computer screen, frustration painted on her face.

“I found something. Upon doing an internal scan of the Normandy, I discovered a signal that was sent about two months ago. A distress signal,” EDI explained.

Liara looked at EDI in curious surprise. “Oh?”

EDI motioned for Liara to follow back up to the bridge of the Normandy. Joker was sitting in his pilot’s seat, the seat turned to face the door of the cockpit. His hands were templed together and worry was bright across his face. “Jeff and I have already listened to the signal. I had to clear it up in order to understand it since the signal was so ruined.” EDI explained as she stood next to Joker.

“Keep in mind, it’s two months old,” Joker grumbled as EDI used her omni-tool to play the signal.

There was a lot of crackling in the beginning and then a cough. “Help...” Liara strained to listen to the static in the voice. “This is...Com...mander...Shep...ard. I’m...still alive...Please help...” The signal cut off then with one more cough from the sender.

Liara’s eyes widened as EDI and Joker looked up at her to gauge her reaction. “Don’t get your hopes up. The signal is two months old,” Joker repeated.

“Do you...do you know if this signal was received by anyone else?” Liara asked, her voice soft and quiet. It was hard to determine what her reaction was.

“No. As I said, I just received this signal when I was doing diagnostics on the Normandy,” EDI answered. “I cannot determine if the signal was sent to any available ships or if it was sent to the Normandy specifically.”

Liara crossed her arms, bringing a hand to her chin, stroking it thoughtfully. There was a reason Joker reiterated the fact that the signal was two months old. With no knowledge of whether or not the signal was received by anyone else, there was no guaranteeing Shepard was alive. Liara sighed. “There’s nothing we can do about it. But whatever you do, don’t show it to Garrus. Unless we can find out whether or not the signal was received by someone else, there is no reason to bank our hopes on this.”

Joker nodded. “I agree. And honestly, Liara? As much as I want to hope...I don’t think she made it.”

Liara smiled sadly. “We can only hope she did, Jeff.”

༻✧༺

Not sure if turian heaven is the same as yours, but if this thing goes sideways and we both end up there...meet me at the bar.

She was standing in the forest. There was no child there this time. No copy of herself. She was alone. There were voices surrounding her. She looked around. Her body didn’t hurt. She couldn’t feel anything. There was a bar on the opposite end of the forest. She could have sworn she saw a turian sitting on one of the stools, a bottle in its hand.

Her legs began moving, but like all the other dreams, she moved slowly, felt weighed down by a crushing force of gravity, moving impossibly slow.

Shepard.

She heard his voice again. All around the forest. She reached out towards the turian sitting at the bar. She wanted to call out for him, but her throat tightened and no sound escaped. Fire started to form around the turian and the bar.

Not again. Please. Not again.

Come back alive. It’d be an awfully empty galaxy without you.

The flames consumed the bar and the turian, just as his head turned to look at her; the blue eyes, the blue colony marking across his face, his visor, his mandibles parting at the sight of her.

We’re in this until the end.

She tried crying out, but the flames consumed him and the noise of the Reapers echoed all around her. A bright flash of red came into her view. She felt sluggish as she brought her arms up in a futile attempt to block the beam from disintegrating her. But the pain never hit.

༻✧༺

Six months had passed since the Reaper War ended. Food supplies had started to run short, even for the dextros on the Normandy. Despite all the exploring the adventuring party had done, they still found nothing more except for berries for everyone else. However, progress on getting the Normandy back online was going well. EDI had predicted that the Normandy would be airborne within the week.

The mood on the ship was tense. Everyone was excited to be airborne again. Garrus still kept Shepard’s nameplate close to him. People stopped talking about the possibilities of Shepard’s fate, not wanting to further upset the turian and the rest of her close friends. Games of poker were used to distract crew members from the low running food supplies and the restlessness of being grounded for so long on an uncharted world.

“Man I can’t wait to get the hell off this planet,” James chattered, fixing himself a plate of berry flavored scrap food. “We’re pretty much out of food and have been surviving off of berries and MREs for six goddamn months. We haven’t been getting nearly enough proteins we need in a daily meal.” He sat down at the lunch table where the other crew members sat. Tali and Garrus looked at him pointedly. He lifted his shoulders. “What? You guys still have food.”

Tali scoffed. “Barely. There wasn’t that much dextro-food compared to your guys’ food. So we started running out around the same time you guys did.”

Cortez smiled, offering some hope around the table. “It’s okay guys. EDI said we should be taking off here soon.”

“Yes, but how long until we get to a known system?” James countered. “The mass relays are still screwed and we haven’t even received communications in forever.”

“Not to worry,” piped the synthetic voice of EDI who had just rounded the corner of the mess room. Liara stood next to her, a small smile on her face. “Communications have been reestablished.”

Liara sighed softly. “The only problem is that the communications we do receive are delayed. Say, if something was sent four months ago, we would just be receiving it now, or later. So any news we do get is going to be late.”

“Fantastic,” Garrus mumbled, looking down at his plate. He had barely touched his food and Tali was half-tempted to snag what he didn’t eat.

“Getting communications up at all is a start,” EDI admitted. “As I said, it shouldn’t be long before I can get the Normandy back into full motion.”

“Please hurry,” James begged, leaning back in his chair. “I’m sick and tired of this planet. If we had more resources, I wouldn’t mind living here. But I’m gonna lose it if I managed to survive the Reapers just to die to starvation six months later.”

Cortez raised a glass towards James. “Cheers to that.”

Liara rolled her eyes just as Specialist Traynor rushed around the corner. “Everyone! Come quick! I just received a message from Admiral Hackett!”

Everyone perked up a bit at that statement. Most of the communications they received were garbage or were so insignificant that Liara had immediately deleted them. But a message from Admiral Hackett? This had to be good.

Everyone rushed to the elevator, cramming inside of it before stepping out into the CIC. Traynor rushed over to her computer and pulled up the message. “I haven’t listened to it yet, I just saw who it was from and decided to call everyone up.” Joker was leaning on the opposite side of Traynor, by Shepard’s personal computer. There was a glint of hope in his eyes at the news of the message from Hackett.

Admiral Hackett played a huge part in the Reaper War, commanding the forces that brought the Crucible to the Citadel. If he was sending a message directly to the Normandy, then hopefully it was good news. Or news in general.

The message came up, but the frequency was all scrambled, too much static to even hear words. A few tweaks later and the old man’s voice finally came through.

“Normandy. This is Admiral Hackett. With the comm buoys in disarray and mass relays destroyed, I don’t know if and when this message will reach you, but you need to come back to Earth as soon as possible. Do whatever the hell you have to to make it back.” There was a pause in the message as everyone looked at each other. Then the voice spoke again and the words that came out struck everyone.

“We found Commander Shepard. She’s alive.”

[husbandograveyard]

For your sleepover if no one has asked yet, tell us about your OCs! Who was your first? Who's your latest? Do any of them carry your personal traits, or are they completely different from you? Are there any you carry a big soft spot for? (Btw I hope you are okay!! Take care. Sorry I asked so many questions, please only answer the ones you want to🥺👉🏼👈🏼)

OH HECC. Starting today’s round of sleepover talks with this one, sorry for making you wait so long! Okay so I don’t usually talk a lot about my OC’s I am mostly scared I will bother people with them? 🥺🥺 So THANK you for the question and be prepared for quite the info dump, I hope you don’t mind.  For simplicity’s sake, I’ll keep it to One Piece and..tumblr times. We don’t want to open the can of worms that my old OC’s are and the ones I have now I am quite proud of. The most developed one that is near and dear to my heart and on my mind 24/7 lately is Sun, but she’s from BNHA. If you’re into that, check out her info here. Otherwise, I’ll elaborate a little more on my four one piece ladies that I introduced before. And I can maybe offer a sneak peak on someone else i’ll be introducing here soon!  ALSO: Feel free to tell me about your OC’s if you have them. PLEASE. 

Okay So I introduced my Four main ladies here I will add some additional visuals since I did a cute Picrew this morning, as well as some of rinmaru’s fantasy creator that went offline since 2021 unfortunately so no link for that one! 

Let’s start with the two I have the smallest connection with. Mayu and Tae. 

Mayu 

Mayu is the revolutionary army doctor and she is just... very underdeveloped at the moment. I am too focussed on the others to really flesh her out so she hasn’t gotten much of a personality yet. All my OC’s carry some of my own character traits, it makes it easier to relate to them and write for them. She’s like me in a sense that I also am really not a lot of a fighter, have an irregular and terrible schedule and is completely helpless in situations she does not have under control. Nevertheless, I love her and I plan to properly develop her once some of the others have gotten their chance to share their story. 

Tae

Tae is basically my NEED to have a fox zoan. Nothing more, nothing less. I Love her as a character, because she is a daring, mischievous little shit but heck, she could not be more different from me. She has all the courage and the big mouth that I could never even dream to have. She is free spirited and happy-go-lucky, even though she’s a small time criminal practically living on the streets. She’s blind, but that’s not stopping her from being the best (worst) that she can be. From all my OC’s she is the one I relate to the least, but I love her nonetheless. Her story is also one of the two I am still grossly undecided on, but I am determined to write something with her eventually! 

Lott

Then we have fully developed (Char)lott(e).She has got a temperature paramecia type DF, and she is my most tragic OC. Coming from a noble family with a tragic DF, her story is mostly focused around Ace and the Spade pirates, before briefly intertwining with the Whitebeard Pirates until well.. the worst happens. 

Lott and I are alike in the fact that we’re absolutely pacifists, we don’t like violence nor fighting. She uses her powers to be a cook, not a fighter, even though there’s plenty of fighting she could do with the fruit. She’s the youngest of all my OCs and has a certain Naivety that I used to have when younger. She’s not my ‘favorite’ but if we’re talking soft spots, she is close to the top. I wish I could do better for her, but the way her story is pretty sad just seemed to fit. It’s not all tragedy, there’s some goofy spots as well. This is one of the stories I really want to properly write out! 

Layla 

You know how you’re not allowed to play favorites with your kids? Well Layla is where I drop the ball on that one. She was the very first decent One Piece OC I made. She’s originally a DnD character, stats ‘n all, and her story is by far the most well thought out and developed, and yet... still very incomplete, mostly because she’s intertwined with the marines, world government, yonko and possibly the revolutionary army at some point.  Oda is great at keeping his secrets, and I simply have no idea where Layla would go at this point because I’d like to know more about what happened at the reverie for example before deciding her next steps. I am actively writing with Layla, and will hopefully publish something soon.  The more I think about it, the more I projected onto Layla without me knowing. The feeling out of place in your own family and the bad relationships (here’s some more info on the fam). The need to be independent but also being crushed by loneliness when you have finally distanced yourself from everyone.  The fact that she wants to change a lot, but is overwhelmed by the realization that one person will hardly make a difference. A fallen prodigy child. My own life is not nearly as dramatic, but she and I have some points in common. 

She’s sarcastic, snappy and quick-witted, but the moment she loses the upper hand... it’s over. She gets flustered, annoyed, and lets out nervous laughs. That’s basically more of my own personal traits sprinkled on top of her. We’re different in the way that she is way stronger, more resourceful and brave than I could ever be. She’s a badass, I am... a softie. 

Chiyomi 

Have you read all the way to here? hecc, thank you. I feel like this is an appropriate time to introduce my latest, newest, brand-new, fresh-out-of-the-box One Piece OC. This is Chiyomi and I would die for her. 

Chiyomi will be in Wano, but don’t worry for spoilers. Her story at the moment is severely underdeveloped. BUT what she lacks in story, I make up for in personality. Chiyomi is a badass swordfighter and comes across as intimidating with her 10′2″ appearance and her eyepatch. She has a resting bitch face and seems honestly like a rude person... 

...Until you get to know her. Chiyomi is an absolute sweetheart who loves nature, animals and all things cute. She will pick you up and squish your cheeks. Her best friend is a ginormous beetle that’s named Dai. No one has the heart to tell her that he does not actually understand her, and he seems to cling to her. 

She’s born out of two things that I heavily relate to: the fact that I had a reputation to be intimating and unapproachable, despite actually being the softest person there is. And secondly, my undying love for Kiku. Whatever happens, Chiyomi is gonna get a tall samurai girlfriend (even though she’s actually a little taller than Kiku). 

I cannot wait to work on her story and share more about her with y’all. Layla is my ‘favorite’ from the OP bunch, but Chiyomi has found a place in my heart and I am growing heavily attached to her. 

--- 

thank you for reading this all through if you did... I hope this was kind of an answer to your questions. TwT Sorry for the huge info dump, I hope you have a wonderful day! Please feel free to talk about your OC’s or ask additional questions. I don’t want to overshare but I do love talking about them. 

[lunmelia]

I dont even watch spn nor in extension do i ship destiel (bc not in the fandom itself, you can clearly see from my blog xD) but bro when I saw that scene abt Cas confessing and I thought to myself "damn sounds like something i wld say to my friend" and thats how The Scene made me have existential crisis over my feelings for my friend and thus made me realise shit I do love *love* him after all and even I didnt notice it. Idk what i was going for here i am currently just hoping yall get ur ending

Hey! Sorry for the late response, been busy with a short course but I didn’t forget about you. I’m going into what I liked to call “spoiler lockdown” tomorrow, wherein I will be completely off any form of social media for two days to avoid spoilers for the finale. I live in Australia so the episode comes out on Friday night for me, but spoilers start circling around on Thursday, so, completely offline for two days. So here’s me replying before I shut myself off from the world. 

Anyways! I’m gonna be real with you for a quick sec. You should say something. Take it from someone who had a crush on one of her best friends but never said anything, you gotta say something. I mean with me it wasn’t a “oh shit think I’m in love with her” thing it was more a “I wonder what it would be like to date her” thing so it wasn’t too serious, but there was a lot of wondering and at least one time where I almost kissed her. The friendship and feelings dissipated, we’re currently trying to get back to the friendship we had, but dude it’s so annoying to have that “what if” constantly in the back of your head. So take it from someone who didn’t say anything, you should definitely say something. 

It really is better to be honest about these kinds of things. You don’t want to regret not saying anything like I do. It’s really annoying. So my advice, if you’re looking for it idk you can tell me to shut up but just in case, my advice would be to sit him down and just be honest. Tell him what you’re feeling, give him time to process and ask him how he feels about this (don’t just shove him out of the way three seconds later and get sucked into a gooey black void like Cas), and together you can work out where to go from there. Whether you both want to see where a romantic relationship can take you, or if you have to... work your feelings back into the platonic type of love. From someone who had to do the latter out of necessity (because she got a boyfriend just as I started going “jeez maybe I should say something”) it is possible. Just a bit awkward for a bit. But whatever happens, it’s going to be okay. 

I wish you the best of luck with this. If you ever need to talk more about this to someone, my inbox is always open. Trust me I know how goddamn annoying it is to want to talk about your crush but you can’t because the one person you want to talk about it to is your crush!? UGH. So yes my inbox is always open. 

Serious talk over...

lmaooo yeah who the fuck knows what’s going to happen JHGKJHSKGHSKD dude I want it to happen but I’m starting to have serious doubts and you know what? I prefer the doubt over the hope. At least I won’t be disappointed if nothing happens. 

If nothing happens though this will be the... greatest queerbaiting story in the history of queerbaiting. How fucking amazing (sarcastically) would it be for them to queerbait these two for years, LET ONE OF THEM SAY I LOVE YOU, then NOT let it happen SHDGHSDJKGHDASDF god I’m gonna be so pissed. But not really at the show? I’m gonna be more pissed at the network. Because the writers, the actors, the fans can want something but the network always has the final say. You know, they have to get approval for brains on the ceiling. If the network says no, it’s not going to happen. To have gotten Castiel saying “I love you” directly to Dean, we are extremely fucking lucky. Realistically, I’m not expecting anything. 

Unrealistically? GOD I HOPE THEY REUNITE AND DEAN SAYS IT BACK SJKDHGSHDGHADJKGH

[starjeno]

destined | l.mh | 3

genre: fluff | soulmate!au, genderswap!au pairing: student!mark x female!reader warnings: bad words? word count: 1973 summary: it’s a fact of life that soulmates swap bodies. when mark wakes up in a bed that isn’t his, he’s delighted. you, on the other hand, absolutely despise it. a/n: filler chapter, sorry! and i know it’s been a while since i’ve posted. also, i gave the roommate a name finally. 

the sunset filtering through your curtains fills the room with hazy light. it’s soft and golden and comforting, but it does little to placate your roommate. her arms remain crossed over her chest as you pace by the mini-fridge nervously, waiting for this interrogation to end.

“okay, but what did yuta say?” she’s already somehow familiarized herself with the names of the people involved, and while it took some time for her to get used to your new appearance, she currently seems to have grown accustomed to it. you groan, “i told you, yuta likes this whole thing. he just ignored me and then said that i should take mark into consideration.”

“why can’t mark take you into consideration instead?” she retorts. you huff, “i told you this too! mark also thinks i like this whole thing!”

“well? do you?”

you can’t help the hesitation that bubbles up in your throat when you think about the events of earlier. the rapid beating of your heart and the heat in the tips of your ears and the strange familiarity that accompanied each of mark’s words — he felt like a missing puzzle piece, like someone you loved in a past life, and you didn’t like how you unconsciously gravitated towards him as he spoke. 

then again, you only saw him for a few hours, so maybe you’re overexaggerating. you shake your head firmly, “i don’t! you know that! i don’t want any of this!”

she gives you an unplaceable look, her eyes filled with contemplation, before groaning and sitting up, “let’s go out to eat. you’ve had a rough day.”

“you’ll pay?”

“yeah,” she sighs, running a hand through her hair, “i don’t want you to confuse the cashier with your credit card info. let’s get out of here.”

it’s a blessing that your roommate has kun. she’s accumulated enough of his clothing that your new body has a decent selection to choose from. though the clothes all fit loosely, you figure tucking your dress shirt into your pants and looping a belt tightly through should make sure your outfit is secure. she stands in the doorway as she watches you change, blushing feverishly when she associates your initial meeting with yuta with the boxers that now hug you snugly. 

“where do you feel like eating?” 

you hum in thought as you grab a cap, “honestly? kun’s place. he makes such good food.”

she rolls her eyes before dialing her boyfriend’s number on the phone. it rings for a few seconds until the line clicks and you hear a deep voice fill the speaker, “what’s up? you only call at this time when you’re hungry. or horny. or both. please don’t be both.”

“uh, just hungry. also, ____ and i have something we should tell you,” she mumbles, “i’ll be over in five.”

she hangs up before looking over to me and sighing, "i'll do your hair."

as you sit down in front of a mirror and watch your roommate squeeze out a frightening amount of gel onto her palm, you can't help but think about mark again. it's hard not to since his face is the reflection and it shines with a bright optimism that you currently lack. you attempt a half-hearted smile to make his features seem pleasant; it feels wrong when his face frowns.

meanwhile, the girl behind the chair slicks your hair in a neat quiff, sparing a few strands to fall onto your forehead casually. you look handsome, and you're somewhat pleased that kun's first impression of your soulmate will be great on terms of looks.

not that you cared particularly. you don't. you aren't even sure you know what a mark is, much less feel as if others should approve of him.

"there, let's go," she hums, wiping her hands off with a towel and spritzing some floral scent on the two of you before walking out. you follow reluctantly.

kun's apartment is cute and filled with small plants that are groomed to perfection. little canvases with a dramatic ink strokes line the walls above the television and couches, and pens are littered in the corners of every room. there's even a pen tucked into the pocket of the man himself, who is still in the ironed dress shirt he went to work in.

his smile radiates as the two of you walk into the hall, but you can sense the air tension rise, “mina and . . . a friend?”

“ha ha, very funny, kun. you won’t believe who this is,” your roommate grins as you two sit down. kun pauses for a bit before backing into his kitchen, grabbing a spare pan to add on top of the stove, thinking, “uh, a cousin? your long-lost brother? i thought ____ was coming over.”

“exactly,” she huffs before motioning over to you, “meet mark, or better known as ____ in mark’s body.”

kun gasps and points the pan at you accusingly, laughter lacing his voice, “oh my god, you fucking swapped?”

you grin and place a hand to drag the pot down, “i know, it’s crazy.”

“at least he’s cute,” the dimpled boy chuckles, sighing in disbelief. he definitely knew you well.

“agreed,” you smile a bit and your roommate shoots you a short-lived glare before looking at kun, “so we came here to destress from such a horrific event by eating your food.”

“that sounds like a plan . . . ,” he muses, a small smile growing on his face as he takes out cooking oil, “you guys can just chill, and i’ll have something cooked up in ten.”

as soon as you pull your phone out, a notification slides onto a screen. you bite your lip as the social messaging app displays the message of a new follower, and when you hold down for more details, you instantly recognize the handle.

mark. he must've searched you up, and if he's managed to follow you on here, he's probably found all your socials by now. as if on cue, you see three more notifs slide gracefully on your phone, beaming with a new friend request. you aren’t sure if you’re happy or annoyed, or a bit of both, but you hold down and open the app to find a new direct message awaiting your approval.

mark1ee (online): hi! sorry if this is creepy but i figured we’re friends now, so...

good lord. you bite your lips to keep from laughing at his shyness, finding it adorable, and avert your eyes from your phone. mina glares at you quizzically, raising a brow as if to ask what you’re amused at, but you simply shake your head emphatically and begin to type back.

you: how’d you know my last name? there’s probably more than one ____ out there. mark1ee is typing . . .

"here, some cheesy ass lasagna. i put, like, five different kinds of cheese in there, or just whatever was in my fridge.” kun slides two plates to you and your roommate and grabs the nearest chair to sit. he looks at you as you tentatively poke at the stuffing, “i didn’t poison it, you know.”

“shut up, i’m critiquing it!” you laugh as you place a food-filled fork in your mouth, smiling at the instant flavor, “whoa, i forgot how good you are at this.”

he lowers his brows as he smiles, “you mean you forgot my job is in the culinary arts?” 

you face downwards as kun strikes up a conversation with your roommate and glance at the notification on your phone. it doesn’t take a moment of hesitation for you to swipe and check mark’s message.

mark1ee (online): i checked the profile pictures. it would be a lot easier to make sure i’m contacting the right person if i had your number ;) you: how smooth. how do i know this is the mark i met earlier today? mark1ee (online): already asking for pics? damn. mark1ee sent a photo mark1ee (online): i forgot that it’s basically just a pic of you lmao :/ now pls send #

you snort and look up to find your roommate and kun staring at you intently. you wave your hand dismissively, "funny meme, sorry."

they give you a strange look before resuming the conversation, and you hide your phone under your leg before digging into the meal before you.

"so, what's going on?"

at the question, yuta sighs as mark walks in, his hand rubbing a towel through his wet hair, "winwin is coming back early. a week early."

"are you not excited?" mark quips. the older male tiredly grins, "i'm excited, believe me. but i'm worried that i won't pay enough attention to your switch."

mark frowns, the wrinkles ruining the feminine face, "i'll be fine. she just sent me her number!"

he takes a seat by yuta and faces the flatscreen in front, his glossy eyes reflecting the bright lights of the video game. yuta glances at his long lashes and soft brows for a moment before resuming the screen, "damn, good job. maybe you have enough game to survive without me."

"wha- fuck you! and you'll still be here!" mark laughs, picking up the other controller.

"i'm running away with winwin, by the way," yuta jokes. he lets mark join the round before pressing the buttons again, "now that you have her number, what are you going to do? ask her on a date?"

mark freezes. he hadn't even thought of what to do, and right now, yuta feels like a personal certified love guru. what a great fucking idea! before he could spend more time admiring yuta's genius, mark drops the controller and sends a new text to you, hoping for a stroke of luck.

he didn't really need luck though. he had literally found his soulmate that morning.

you: wanna go on a date? nctzn (online): how would i get clothes, doof? i'm wearing my roomie's bf's shit now :/ you: well, keep wearing them and i'll buy myself a dress? i don't care what you wear though, i'm not a great dresser.

mark is lying to his new form. he had always considered himself as someone with a good eye for outfits and color coordination. he sighs as the green dot by your profile that signifies your online presence fades away, and he figures he should probably find another way to pass the time while you’re offline. yuta waits expectantly, “well?”

“clothing’s an issue. and i don’t even know where i should take her,” mark grins, “it’s going to feel so weird, like going on a date with myself? trippy.”

“you’ll survive, it’s not like you’re ugly,” yuta sighs as he rolls his eyes with exasperation. mark doesn’t respond. he’s too preoccupied with the idea of you to even process yuta’s words. he’s never felt so giddy about a girl before — even his middle school crushes never got him feeling this jittery. conversation with you flowed so smoothly, and even mark knew how strange it was to feel this way after one conversation. 

he’s glad you reciprocate his feelings. everything’s he heard about soulmates seems to be true: you fit him well. mark knows he should be a little more hesitant, but this is finally a dream come true. you’re a dream come true. 

you: let’s go on a date tmrw then? nctzn (online): ok why not

mark glances up at the bright orange sky. the sun has only just started to set and the evening barely grazes the warm colors. are you just as happy as he is now? is your head filled with thoughts of him, the same way he can’t stop thinking about you?

mark’s pauses, not sure if he should dare to think his next question, but the idea floats in his head anyway and he turns pink with embarrassment.

yuta turns away, silent.

prev | masterlist | next

[rainingincale]

What are some of your favorite streamers!

God this is such a horrible thing to ask me 🙈🙈🙈 i don't wanna be exposed ddhhddhdh

To explain the sitch I literally just got into watching streamers so I am following literally everyone you can bloody imagine. I mostly like to put on streams in the background so I've got background noise while I do other stuff.

I've been watching the folks on the dream smp and learning about their storyline and stuff which is!!! Insane and a very fun time aha. I'm still massively confused but it really is fun

I also watch like the offline TV people and their friends. I mostly like watching like amung us and Minecraft I guess but im honestly up for anything so have been watching all these people playing whatever they're playing.

As for favs I actually don't know. I think I like watching Sykkuno a lot because he's just really nice and we all need that in our lives lmao. Ash and Abe are super lovely too, and Sydeon!!! And I know people think he's annoying but I actually really enjoy watching Tommyinnit he's such a riot I think its funny.

Im still figuring stuff out but this is like the general vibe I hope I've explained alright, if you have any recs please shoot them my way!!!

[unproduciblesmackdown]

The opposite of your last post for the ask meme! Like 1, 5, 9..

thank you lol sorry it took me a minute to get to posting these answers......i also skipped a couple that got asked previously via answering all primes lol

1: What inspires you?

hm well just basic stuff like “being in a good mood” lol or “being hyped up by friends” or “having reason to be particularly excited about something” which is all like, factors that Contribute Energy......learning about stuff / trying something and discovering like oh i’m Into this thing, or that for whatever reason something turns out to be more within reach / doable than i might’ve thought, like, hey i wanna get on this maybe.......~creatively~ it’s great to like, see other ppl’s art, and while i’ve sure been Inspired by professional artists, overall i’m more like, influenced and motivated by seeing the styles / specific works of Online Randos like me.......i also Draw to create [self-indulgent (usually fairly) niche fanart which is also probably gay and is all the time of characters i like] so like, the Stuff I Wanna Make Fanart Of (which has Whatever characters i specifically would like to draw lol) is sure directly Inspiring in that way. i’d say i never had that experience of like, ppl being kids and seeing some [distributed work in a certain art medium] like oh i want to make my own [distributed work in a certain art medium] as in like, i wanna publish a book, i wanna make movies, etc, but i guess i Did b/c i was like elementary school age in the early-to-mid 00s and experienced some instances of online fanart like :o :o wow damn ppl can do that?? just be a rando drawing fanart and sharing it w/ other people online???? and today i am living that dream, so good for me lol. and also i’d like to shoutout marge simpson anime, which is a particular piece of Online Art (technically fanart even lol) which was like, unusually Motivating as a single work of art lol, i made a notes app fanart like immediately and then a way more “painterly” piece of fanart that was v directly inspired by it lol.......and i was sure Drawing It Up last last winter when bmc 3.0 was impending / happening, b/c i got into like Just in the dec before, so that was Fresh, and then bam the Content is happening concurrently and as soon as we even just learned that jeremy has glasses i immediately spent like honestly 25 consecutive hours making fanart for that exact Inspiration. we didn’t even know abt the hello kitty shoes yet!!! and naturally im not out here for stats or clout but it is Inspiring when ppl enjoy the stuff i make and let me know one way or another. [tag comments that express enthusiasm in any way.....Appreciated]

9: Do you trust people easily, or do people have to earn your trust?

i have to say i am wary! that’s in part just like, a default anxiety defensive mode lol. but it takes me a hot minute (aka weeks....or months.....) to realize when someone like, would like to be friends or something, so while i can be Friendly and Outgoing w/ people like, immediately, i’m not picking up relationships left and right that are close enough that i’d particularly talk about “trust” or whatever. i’m not necessarily Distrustful either lol, it’s more just like, again re: the constant wariness thing. it is not unlike a cat lmao i vibe with them lol i Get that [approach]....and there’s been times i’ve been like “hmm i sure do Not vibe with this person ever and am not comfortable around them / interacting with them to any extent beyond occasional casual interactions that i don’t super enjoy. that’s me being overly anxious and failing to be personable i guess!!” and then that person Does give that reason down the line like oh, actually, that eternal uneasiness was warranted :/ damb

21: How does someone become friends with you?

yknow i was like “didn’t i Also answer this one previously” but it turned out the question i was thinking of, which i Had answered, was “how does someone become important to you” lmao.....same diff

tbh it’s kind of an arduous process lmao like. first of all i am Bad about initiating shit, and a lot of times will like, be wary of Directly Interacting with people for a while b/c i am also Bad At not being too passive / unwilling to assert anything so like, if someone’s regularly interacting with me but i’m not into it / Eventually Realize i’m not into it, it’s that thing again where my main strat is [v gradually sidle away] lol and just find it difficult to extricate myself from interactions / relationships and so that plays into me really feeling like i have to have some real confidence that i’d get on with / vibe with someone Before i start significantly interacting with / getting involved with them which....is also difficult natch lol like. can’t rly get a great feel for what someone’s like w/o talking to them.......but then if i Distance myself at all at any point will that be taken as rejection or whatever.......and then anyways say i Am talking to someone, then it’s like, also i’m just not fantastic at casual conversation always and that stage where you don’t know someone too well and talking is mostly a Polite Ritual and it’s like oh god don’t mess up, respond Normally lmaoo......i am nervous. and i also have a tendency to just naturally try to make an interaction go smoothly than immediately prioritize / feel comfortable busting out My Personality lmao.....so then even if ppl are responding well enough it’s like ah jeez i know we’re all performing always but have i shown them What I’m Actually Like to any significant degree, am i just masking it up / mirroring the crap out of how they talk?? and also it then takes me quite a while to put together “if someone keeps talking to you / choosing to interact with you for like, weeks, it probably means they want to / are interested in doing so” lol.........and then i’ll take ages more of trying to consciously Be More Myself without *also* feeling like this is too much of an act lol, and gradually picking up like oh they’re still not like, annoyed or disinterested or something..............what i am trying to say is it sure takes a minute lol

also when i Am attempting sometimes to like [initiate interaction] with people my version of being Active is still not all that active lmao i will be like [occasional Like] or [even more occasional reply] or [tag comments or no comments coz it’s twitter and im rt-ing stuff] and it’s like oh wow if we’re not having more regular interaction i suppose i’ve failed or something?? does this mean anything further lol, did i do anything.....but welp gotta have that perspective that Not Necessarily lol and i’m not the only person in the world who might not make friends or even friendly acquaintances easily / at the drop of a hat and u can’t necessarily read way into shit that hasn’t Actually been communicated to you.......naturally though it is easier to have some ~perspective~ and Serenity about all this sort of thing when you do already have some Friends lmao........been feeling (and consciously nudging myself towards feeling) More Chill about say like, friendly acquaintances i have who aren’t raring to interact with me on the reg.......ppl i’ll go months or half a year or more between having a convo with and then we’ll be like trading dm’s for a couple days and then it’s back to not really talking, and that Is What It Is, not necessarily a tragedy, and really it feels “rude” to acknowledge to myself like oh i’m not sure that me and whomever even Vibe well enough that *i’d* be raring to talk all the time either, but hey, it’s also true, i don’t have to be Validated by ppl who know me having me in their friend circles in any significant way......i be out here on the peripheral / outer orbits and i can appreciate that for what it is, even if, again, easier to be more Cool with that when i’m not Only in ppl’s periphery...........i appreciate the pal i have who like, 99% of how we Communicate is occasionally sending each other pics of our cats, not very intimate but also back when i was offline for months on end they eventually went out of their way to find someone to get in touch with to verify i hadn’t like died or anything lol........i appreciate the Gestures of Caring that ppl have and do extend, even if we do not actually talk regularly. 

and like also i’m bad at like. idk the main way i talk is again, At Some Length and often about real specific shit lol so im like woop aware that many ppl are not into that, or they might be down for having an exchange like that for a day and then they’re done.........not at all like wholly Against more lol Conversational conversations but i gotta say that’s more of a struggle lmao..........so let’s say befriending me takes some Patience. i kinda operate on [cat] rules. jellicle

25: How do you stop yourself from going back to toxic people?

i absolutely am Refraining from launching off on a ted talk of a tangent that is also me being the [the guy about to throw down a card on the pile on the table and that card pile is like “any conversation” and the guy is labeled “me” and the One Card about to be played is labeled “it’s capitalism” or smthing like that and also it’s all in spanish].jpg.......

anyways idk just try to keep things in perspective, right......i generally am pretty Passive about gradually sidling away from relationships that are bad and so by the time i Have exited them it’s pretty overdue lmao and i get to be quite confident that it was The Right Thing........and just when looking back on stuff it’s like, well if you remember the Good or “Not That Bad(tm)” parts maybe consciously think about the whole of it And specifically the Bad parts / the reasons for peacing out.......also the other day i was mulling over some standard [conflicted / complicated feelings about having cut certain ppl out entirely] and it also occurred to me that a lot of the [conflicted] feeling part came from sympathy for them, whereas from the perspective of Entirely My Own Feelings On The Matter minus that “how do/would they feel about it” consideration, the thought of never interacting w/ these ppl is like. fine with me lol........stuff like this is always Complicated and Individual and there’s certainly no like, one-stop simple Guide To Navigating All This Kind Of Thing, Cmon It’s Easy........another consideration i saw the other day via a graphic on twitter, which is probably most relevant re: say, controlling / abusive Partners, was how like, to think about how someone is acting if they’re saying you should Take Them Back b/c they’ve Changed their behavior, but to pay attention to if they’re trying to guilt you into it / justifying or downplaying their previous behavior / shifting blame and otherwise manifesting the inherently harmful and controlling patterns that are supposed to be gone now........anyways yeah complicated stuff and also just p.s. (and what would’ve been the jumping off point for the It’s-Capitalism tangential essay lol) ppl shouldn’t be blamed if they do choose to let someone back in their life like oh now they’re responsible for bringing their mistreatment upon themself.....no better than blaming someone for, say, having a harmful / controlling romantic partner in the first place like oh well they should’ve known better than to have gotten involved with this person..........ppl are in control of their own abusive behavior and shouldn’t be considered Forces Of Nature no matter how intransigent they are

33: Do you have someone you know you can always rely on?

tbt question 9 lol there’s defo some people that i do trust! love it....

45: Do you consider yourself creative?

another #tbt to question 1 lol.......i mean Yes i am creative in ways but like, who Isn’t, really.......think sometimes “creativity” means “do you like, do Art things” which, yes i do, but then within that there’s art that’s deemed more ~creative~ or w/e......not to mention that i don’t think something has to be definitively labeled an Art to be creative. like, for example, Science and Art aren’t opposites / the antithesis of each other, and anytime defines ~science~ as like, people just memorizing and outputting Facts and Numbers and considers this a distinction from Being An Artist.....wild and i Will fight you lmao. i tell you i can v much remember times i have had to completely disengage to keep from losing my cool at people arguing about “why i respect science but could only be an artist :’|” or “why Art is actually harder than Science and also we’re the underdogs b/c society values science so much more :’|” like.....mf...........anyways scientific pursuits may certainly have a different Methodology (see: scientific method) than art but lbr it still requires creativity and science and art are friends you fucking fools................and then also just zooming in on the Art-Making business here, i also like, have never had any interest in coming up with Original stories / characters and the like, and i don’t enjoy trying and it just really is not my thing, and it’s Funny or something when people wanna say that creative fanworks have value b/c they let ppl cut their teeth for what really matters, inevitably making their own original content(tm)......that isn’t inevitable for me lol and certainly is nothing i aim to do ever, and when there’s the suggestion that if you’re Good enough at ur medium you gotta manifest some of that original the character do not steal shit.........anyways i’m not pressed to claim i am an Artist(tm) or Creative(tm) lol like i guess technically i am both but i have no professional aspirations and my brain does not Do [generate original content] so it’s all like, i’m just out here.........s/o to this time i was trying to do my fuckin thing drawing on a tablet in a cafe and some random annoying guy is trying to talk and i happen to mention like “lol i don’t exactly call myself an artist really” and Guy goes “OH REALLY??? WHAT’S WRONG WITH ARTISTS? WHAT’S YOUR ISSUE WITH ART” like please cool it lmao but god p sure it was a guy who was just. very Around and very annoying in general

49: Do you feel like you’re a good person?

yeah i think i’m alright but really what is the use in like considering there 2 be achievable Good or Bad Person Statuses for everyone........let’s say it’s an ongoing, active state to be in the process of consciously choosing to be Good and working towards Better. especially considering that We Live In A Society which tries to teach everyone and continuously imbues our existence with Bad Messages about how to perceive and engage with other people, and being A Good Person is a lifelong effort and it’s unhelpful to feel that if you’re already Good or well-intentioned enough you can just dust off your hands and be like “well my work here is done” and be unprepared to examine your beliefs/actions or deal with the might-as-well-assume-it’s-an-inevitability that even if u have some noble-ass beliefs you’ll fail to live up to them at some point/s.......so like yeah lol again i feel like i am a pretty good person but can always be better and ought to be aware of / willing to work on that at any point

[islamicrays]

Marriage, Divorce, and Social Media

I was talking to a friend yesterday, and she told me that there is an ever-growing phenomenon in the American city in which she lives: Muslim couples getting divorced left and right.

"Why are all these people getting divorced? Is there a common root cause?" I asked her.

Her reply was succinct: "Social media."

Several months ago, I met up with another sister who said something very similar to me, describing the current situation in her town, in a different American state.

In my own experience, I've also come across cases of this very thing happening.

What is going on?

Social media is a tool, like a knife or a car or any kind of device. We can use it to bring about good, or we can use it to bring about our own destruction.

But the danger that is specific to social media, whether Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or Snapchat or whatever newer thing exists nowadays, is that it carries certain distinct risks that can erode our faith, our iman, along with our marriage.

What are some of these problems with social media?

1. Distraction:

Let's face it. Facebook is addictive. So is Instagram. So is Twitter, if you don't mind the levels of insanity some folks on there regularly sink to. On all of these platforms, you just keep scrolling, and scrolling, and scrolling. Stuff keeps coming up! Endless entertainment. Perpetual amusement. You jump from one person's profile to another's, and go through all their pictures, and click on a name they tagged to see *that* person's page. The fun pretty much trots itself out before you; all you have to do is keep moving your index finger on the screen.

Next to this endless stream of gossip and intrigue, the conversation your spouse can offer you pales in comparison. And that's IF your spouse is even trying to engage you in conversation. Your husband is most likely on his own phone, intently following a fight on Twitter. Your wife is scrolling through pictures of other people's lives on Insta, wrapped up in their world. This couple might even be chilling on the couch together, after dinner and after the kids are in bed--looking at their phones instead of at each other. They're talking to other people online instead of to each other in real life. Where's the connection there? Where's the spark?

The marriage weakens while neither party is paying attention. The husband and wife are both otherwise occupied. It starts slow but it builds up over time. Communication, eye contact, and frequent conversations give way to silence, the glow of screens, and eyes glued to devices. If this trend of distraction keep going unchecked, a noticeable distance is created between husband and wife. All of a sudden, she says that she feels like they "don't really have much in common anymore." He says that they've "kind of drifted apart."

2. Gender barrier erosion:

Social media tends to dissolve the barrier between the genders, since we are all sitting behind the cover of a screen and not physically in the presence of others. The same types of strict observations of hayaa حياء (modesty), for people who try to observe them, seem to be easier to let go of when the interaction is entirely electronic.

Whereas in person, many Muslims would refrain from staring directly into the eyes of a member of the opposite sex, online some would feel no qualms staring at a picture of a member of the opposite sex. Whereas in person, many Muslims would feel reluctant to have a long drawn-out conversation about personal stuff with a non-mahram, online it becomes somehow easier to open up to a non-mahram about deeply private situations. The usually-rigid barrier of modesty that exists in person becomes relaxed online.

When that happens, a relationship starts to unravel fast. All of a sudden, a man starts to unburden himself to another woman: he shares his trouble at work, his frustrations in life, even his problems with his wife at home, and this other sister he's messaging is a sympathetic listener. He finds solace and emotional intimacy elsewhere, with a woman who's not his wife.

Even if he reassures himself that it's not haram because "this is strictly platonic" and this online sister is not his side chick...we all know where this path leads. Things that are private between a man and a woman have a way of going from platonic to romantic. Almost as though there was a third party present with them to make sure things get sexual, like maybe Shaytan. Oh wait...yes, there is that hadith! Online khalwa is still khalwa.

3. Validation and approval-seeking:

Everyone, male and female, likes to feel appreciated, validated, encouraged. We all want to feel special, paid attention to, admired. This need for attention in and of itself is not a problem--the problem is: where do we go to seek this attention?

Speaking as a woman myself, I can say that women have a higher emotional need for reassurance and validation. It's natural for most women to want to feel attractive, desirable, and to have our beauty admired and remarked upon. Men also have a need to be praised and appreciated--but women have this need in a bigger way. Islamically, women do have a natural and wholesome route through which to attain this desire for male attention: marriage. A husband is the only halal source of male admiration, attention, and validation of a woman's beauty. But increasingly, in our age of rampant social media usage, some women are turning to other sources for this: random men online.

It has become about *quantity* of attention instead of *quality* of attention.

A woman can either get higher quality (ie. real, genuine, halal) attention from one man, her husband. OR, she can get a higher quantity of attention (ie. more likes, comments, heart emojis) from non-mahram men on social media when she posts cute pictures of herself dressed up and made up and pouting for the camera, maybe adding a sexy filter. Unfortunately, what ends up happening in these cases is that people pick attention quantity over attention quality.

What solidifies things is the dopamine hit that comes from more likes and comments ("MashaAllah, sister! You're so beautiful!!"). The positive feedback can be addictive for some, and it serves as a vicious cycle that reinforces the pattern. Whatever attention her one man can give her can never quite measure up to the sheer quantity of male attention she's been getting from other people online. It's become a competition now and the husband is losing.

The wife becomes annoyed at him and resentful that he's not giving her her due. All these other guys online praise her looks and style, why can't this guy give her the same level of compliments? Maybe he doesn't deserve her. Maybe she's too good for this oblivious bum. Maybe she'll drop him for another man who knows her worth, maybe one of those dudes she's been messaging with online. *That* guy seems to appreciate her!

There goes the marriage.

Be careful on social media. Guard your marriage and family. Fear Allah in all your interactions, online and offline.

Umm Khalid