#and while doing that i came across a lot of opinions and posts and takes

[bengiyo]

Heesu in Class 2: Maybe It’s Time to Stop Calling Myself a BL Viewer

After finishing Heesu in Class 2, it’s been surprising to feel like I’m in the minority for enjoying it. We’ve seen a great deal of concerted posting from fans of the webtoon about how this show betrayed its source material with its adaptation changes. Over the last few weeks, I’ve read the original webtoon to gather my own thoughts. After reading through @my-rose-tinted-glasses post on why this project didn’t work for her, I decided to sit with it for a while. I then came across this tweet from Dr. Thomas Baudinette:

I respect Dr. Baudinette’s academic interest in the genre and the useful insider insight he brings to the table. However, I will say plainly that I think this is a grossly disingenuous take, grounded in the idea that stories about queer romance take precedence over other queer stories. Additionally, it deeply misreads the adaptation choices and insinuates that a queer show that includes heterosexuality in it is somehow betraying the BL audience. There’s a lot to unpack here, but I will say plainly that I will go back to just being a queer cinephile who dabbles in BL instead of advocating for BL if this is who we are.

I am a queer person here for stories about queer truth. BL is a romance genre. While I respect BL viewers who are here to get their feelings from swoony moments, I cannot abide the presumption that a story that is inherently about the coming out experience somehow let its source material down for maintaining that connection. Every year we get into a big fight about what is or isn’t BL (see: 180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us, Love in the Big City, What Did You Eat Yesterday?, etc.), often arguing that BL is a branding term used to get romance viewers to show up and support queer works. I think it’s fine enough to argue that Heesu in Class 2 isn’t a BL because it uses Korean drama frameworks (@lurkingshan) for its story instead of sandblasting you in the face with pop music as two boys stare at each other, but I think there’s real value in what the show is doing for mainstream viewers.

I’ve avoided discussing the webtoon too much in my commentary, but now that I have read it I will say firmly that this would have sucked as a TV show. We know that about 40-50% of the shows we get each year are based on their source material. The webtoon is adorable and well-intentioned. It’s also a very simple narrative in which we are primarily in Heesu’s point of view, and any time we leave his point of view it’s to see only what other people are thinking about him. In my opinion, simpler narratives like the Heesu webtoon work best as films and not as dramas. 

We recently went through this with Living With Him, in which a really short manga got stretched to eight episodes and had to add contrivances to the middle to pad out the time that eventually hurt the core narrative. Thai BL is rife with secondary, tertiary, and quaternary couples to pad out time to meet the long run time demands of the airing schedule. When you’re adapting a fairly simple story, you either have to add depth or bloat. Oftentimes we get both. In the case of Heesu, it’s clear that they were only adapting the first season of the webtoon, and so they added depth.

The constant refrain from detractors of this webtoon is that it deprioritized the queer characters and their narrative in favor of straight narratives. I wholeheartedly disagree. Every single straight story in this show (and the gay ones) are meant to add context to the queer struggles Hee Su and Seung Won face, from Ji Yu and Chan Young to all three of his sisters.

Ji Yu’s music arc hearkens to the queer fear of being public with yourself and facing judgment and scrutiny. Chan Young’s tennis arc features real parental abandonment consequences that many a queer person fears. Hee Sin exemplifies how easy it is to fall for people and also deal with the constant rejection of most people not being into you (because they’re straight). Hee Jae exemplifies how toxic a relationship with your best friend can be when the romantic feelings aren’t fully reciprocal. Hee Yeong shows us what it means to be brave and face your friend after you’ve let them down romantically. Ho Sik highlights how easy it is for straight people to express and pursue their romances, and then be public with them. None of these plots exist in a vacuum; they’re meant to add context to the tension between Hee Su and Seung Won.

On the queer front, the show expanded on the initial lesbian advice plotline as a way for Hee Su to open the discussion about queerness with his siblings. The look shared between the sisters, their careful responses, and the way they treat him in the final episode after Hee Su comes out to Hee Sin shows that they talked to each other. Hee Sin clearly pulled on her prior knowledge when she insisted to Hee Su that she still loves him. Hee Jae, the grumpiest sister, was especially direct about praising Hee Su when he offered to help them take Hee Yeong to the airport. Hee Yeong told him plainly that he must remember that she is always on his side and will support him. Seung Won’s mom acknowledged that her own coming out affected him, and let him decide how open to be about his family.

The coming out sequence with Hee Sin was so powerful. He made it clear that this isn’t a gay-for-you situation. He said plainly that his crushes are on guys, and will probably always be on guys. Hee Sin’s response took me back to this incredible scene from The Fosters, in which Lena’s dad apologizes to her for saying “I still love you.” He rejects it as something horrible, in which you confirm to your kid that you could possibly stop loving them. He says he wishes he had instead said, “Thank you for telling me something so important about yourself, and I can’t wait to meet the person you want to share your life with.” 

I’m also annoyed about the insistence that the straights were given priority in this narrative in which everyone gets about the same level of on-screen intimacy. This is a show that managed to avoid getting an R rating, which means that it’ll be accessible to a much wider range of viewers without needing additional parental controls. The straights getting time means that when the gays throw the ease at which they pursued romance back in their faces, it’s actually grounded in events that transpired in the narrative. I will also say that I did NOT like the way Jiyu and Chanyoung meddled with Heesu in the webtoon, and thought conspiring with Seung Won was not kind to Heesu. I like that the drama instead uses their stories to support the queer themes as Ji Yu directly supports Seung Won.

I’d also like to say that all the Chan Young commentary troubles me. Hee Su has been in love with this boy for ten years. I actually think the show needs to spend time fleshing him out into a real person for the audience to understand why Hee Su likes him so much. He’s charming and friendly. He’s kind and thoughtful. He wants to help the people he cares about. He also trusts Hee Su implicitly. 

I do not blame him for being overwhelmed and surprised when Hee Su suddenly confessed to him, and I think there is real value in him botching that moment. So many viewers who might not have spent a lot of time thinking about how they would handle queer people coming out to them will benefit from seeing Chan Young flub that moment. What’s more important is that he did eventually talk to Hee Su and begin to repair the break in their friendship. It isn’t about being right every single time; it’s about always doing the work required to make things right. 

Finally, I really loved that Hee Su got to be mad at Seung Won for confusing him all this time. It was fun to see Hee Su, who I think was way out of line for always interfering in Chan Young’s life, face the reality that he had also been subject to that kind of behavior. This worked so well for me because we understood that what Seung Won liked so much about Hee Su was how warm and open he was. I will have more to say in the future about how many shows we’ve already had this year reject one-sided pining as inherently pure.

In the end, it’s just a really dissonant experience for me to see such a kind show getting such an energetic negative response. Like anyone else who’s watched over 300 BLs since 2016, I like seeing cute boys kiss each other and make face as much as anyone else. However, if we’re unable to appreciate using a webtoon with clear ideas about the difficulty of coming out when you’re in love with a friend in a format that far more viewers are used to, I don’t think I can rock with this anymore. I can’t even find myself associated with the kinds of people who would have called Degrassi homophobic because it wasn’t exclusively gay. 

[thecoppercompendium]

So, you want to make a TTRPG…

Image from Pexels.

I made a post a long while back about what advice you would give to new designers. My opinions have changed somewhat on what I think beginners should start with (I originally talked about probability) but I thought it might be useful to provide some resources for designers, new and established, that I've come across or been told about. Any additions to these in reblogs are much appreciated!

This is going to be a long post, so I'll continue beneath the cut.

SRDs

So, you have an idea for a type of game you want to play, and you've decided you want to make it yourself. Fantastic! The problem is, you're not sure where to start. That's where System Reference Documents (SRDs) can come in handy. There are a lot of games out there, and a lot of mechanical systems designed for those games. Using one of these as a basis can massively accelerate and smooth the process of designing your game. I came across a database of a bunch of SRDs (including the licenses you should adhere to when using them) a while back, I think from someone mentioning it on Tumblr or Discord.

SRDs Database

Probability

So, you have a basic system but want to tweak it to work better with the vision you have for the game. If you're using dice, this is where you might want to consider probability. Not every game needs this step, but it's worth checking that the numbers tell the story you're trying to tell with your game. For this, I'll link the site I did in that first post, AnyDice. It allows you to do a lot of mathematical calculations using dice, and see the probability distribution that results for each. There's documentation that explains how to use it, though it does take practice.

AnyDice

Playtesting

So you've written the rules of your game and want to playtest it but can't convince any of your friends to give it a try. Enter Quest Check. Quest Check is a website created by Trekiros for connecting potential playtesters to designers. I can't speak to how effective it is (I've yet to use it myself) but it's great that a resource like it exists. There's a video he made about the site, and the site can be found here:

Quest Check

Graphic Design and Art

Game is written and tested? You can publish it as-is, or you can make it look cool with graphics and design. This is by no means an essential step, but is useful if you want to get eyes on it. I've got a few links for this. First off, design principles:

Design Cheatsheet

Secondly, art. I would encourage budding designers to avoid AI imagery. You'll be surprised how good you can make your game look with only shapes and lines, even if you aren't confident in your own artistic ability. As another option, public domain art is plentiful, and is fairly easy to find! I've compiled a few links to compilations of public domain art sources here (be sure to check the filters to ensure it's public domain):

Public Domain Sources 1

Public Domain Sources 2

You can also make use of free stock image sites like Pexels or Pixabay (Pixabay can filter by vector graphics, but has recently become much more clogged with AI imagery, though you can filter out most of it, providing it's tagged correctly).

Pexels

Pixabay

Fonts

Turns out I've collected a lot of resources. When publishing, it's important to bear in mind what you use has to be licensed for commercial use if you plan to sell your game. One place this can slip through is fonts. Enter, my saviour (and eternal time sink), Google Fonts. The Open Font License (OFL) has minimal restrictions for what you can do with it, and most fonts here are available under it:

Google Fonts

Publishing

So, game is designed, written, and formatted. Publishing time! There are two places that I go to to publish my work: itch.io and DriveThruRPG. For beginners I would recommend itch - there's less hoops to jump through and you take a much better cut of what you sell your games for, but DriveThruRPG has its own merits (@theresattrpgforthat made great posts here and here for discovering games on each). Itch in particular has regular game jams to take part in to inspire new games. I'll link both sites:

itch.io

DriveThruRPG

Finally, a bunch of other links I wasn't sure where to put, along with a very brief summary of what they are.

Affinity Suite, the programs I use for all my layout and designing. Has an up-front cost to buy but no subscriptions, and has a month-long free trial for each.

Affinity Suite

A database of designers to be inspired by or work with. Bear in mind that people should be paid for their work and their time should be respected.

Designer Directory

An absolute behemoth list of resources for TTRPG creators:

Massive Resources List

A site to make mockups of products, should you decide to go that route:

Mockup Selection

A guide to making published documents accessible to those with visual impairments:

Visual Impairment Guidelines

A post from @theresattrpgforthat about newsletters:

Newsletter Post

Rascal News, a great place to hear about what's going on in the wider TTRPG world:

Rascal News

Lastly, two UK-specific links for those based here, like me:

A list of conventions in the UK & Ireland:

Convention List

A link to the UK Tabletop Industry Network (@uktabletopindustrynetwork) Discord where you can chat with fellow UK-based designers:

TIN Discord

That's all I've got! Feel free to reblog if you have more stuff people might find useful (I almost certainly will be)!

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

Gotta say, thank you very much for sharing your insights into the 2025 conclave. I love reading them; your takes and bringing into focus people largely overlooked by English speaking media.

I'd love to know where you look for information and (you've probably answered this before but I'll ask anyway) was there anything that you think may have happened prior to the 2013 conclave that influenced appointing Francis as Pope?

Once again thank you for sharing your takes, I'm looking forward to your posts!

Hello!

So to answer your second question first: yes, I know a fair amount about the dynamics leading up to the conclave that elected Francis twelve years ago, although a lot of it is stuff I've actually learned fairly recently. While official balloting counts of papal conclaves do not exist, unofficial counts do tend to emerge afterwards, and from the ones for 2013 we see the future Pope Francis (i.e. Jorge Mario Bergoglio) initially positioned as one of three softcore/mainstream conservative vote-getters, along with Canada's Marc Ouellet and Italy's Angelo Scola. Bergoglio then cannibalizes the votes of moderate cardinals Sean Patrick O'Malley (USA) and Odilo Scherer (Brazil), and finally picks up more and more of Ouellet's supporters until he defeats Scola after five ballots.

This is in part speculative, but the conventional wisdom/widespread educated guess is that Bergoglio started as a Latin American regional favorite who then gradually became the "anyone but Scola" candidate because of how the math shook out. It should be remembered that the 2013 conclave, unlike this year's, was, or at least seemed, fairly ideologically homogeneous; everyone in it had been appointed by John Paul II or Benedict XVI (themselves very similar to each other in most ways), and there was not a clear "progressive" option. What happened with Pope Francis as time went on was that it turned out that the Latin American cultural and theological environment that he came up in, when "scaled up" to the global Church, looked very different from Euro "conservative Catholicism". What we got from that was twelve years of a Pope who didn't actually make any major changes to Catholic doctrine and who had plenty of "hot mic" moments about women or gays of the sort one would expect from an elderly Peronist living and working in Italy, but who was enormously more concerned with what kind of place the Church was--how welcoming it was--for people who just "weren't like" the Central European and Northern Italian aristocrats and academics around John Paul and Benedict.

Also, people forget this today, but as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio came across as much more doctrinaire and conservative, especially on issues related to sex, than he did as Pope. You can still find lots of LGBT South Americans, including LGBT South American Catholics, who have a very different and much less positive opinion of Francis than do similar people from other parts of the world. Suddenly having to deal with a worldwide constituency genuinely changed his way of looking at some things. The same might happen with a successor who isn't as good on these issues (then again it might not). With Cardinal Ambongo (papabile, deeply homophobic but otherwise Francis-aligned Archbishop of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo) in particular there are reasons to believe that if he became Pope it'd be politically and logistically very difficult for him to reverse Francis's more pro-LGBT decisions, even though he might want to.

The Latin American cardinals of twelve years ago, who weren't well-understood in the West and who ended up producing, arguably even imposing, a Pope who reigned the way Francis did, are today the African and Asian cardinals who don't like gay people very much and often aren't crazy about women either, but who over the past week have mostly been interested in talking about climate change, decentralizing Church governance structures, and fighting terrorism through interreligious dialogue.

As to where I look for information: I first found these sources by Googling the cardinals' names and reading anything that didn't look like generic Global North boilerplate, but some that I've found that way are ACI Africa, 9News Nigeria, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Kaniva Tonga News, Radio New Zealand, the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier, and the Straits Times out of Singapore.

I hope some of this helps/is of interest to you!

[shadow-ravin]

Through a (different) looking glass

You can also read or listen to this post on AO3. A couple of weeks ago, I came across a comment on Reddit from a person who refused to listen to podfics that the author wasn’t involved in creating because they aren’t how the author intended the story. That was not the first time I’ve encountered this attitude. There are many out there with the same opinion and many authors who refuse to allow podfics of their works for that same reason.

I want to take a second to acknowledge that if you don’t want people making podfics of your works, that’s your choice, and while I don’t understand it, you are more than welcome to make it. I also want to acknowledge that if podfics aren’t your thing, then you have no obligation to listen to them, even if they are of your own works. That said, this reason, not wanting to consume or allow podfics made because of some desire to preserve the author’s intent, is one that makes absolutely no sense to me.

Now, I could point out how fanfiction in itself is inherently transformative. The fanfic author has already taken someone else’s work and changed it, changed the meaning and purpose of it. Altered it in ways that are beyond the original author’s intent. And thus, disliking podfic on the basis of author’s intent is incredibly hypocritical, but that isn’t what I’d like to talk about today.

I’d like to talk about reading and writing. An author can pour their heart and soul out onto a page and intend many things, but once they put their work out into the world and allow others to read it, the original intent and meaning of it matters very little. To explain why, I’d like to take a second to describe how reading works outside of letters representing sounds and sounds making words.

If you talk to anyone who is involved with teaching kids to read and actually knows what they are doing, you’d find out that there are a number of factors that contribute to a person’s ability to comprehend what they are reading and one of those factors is background knowledge. Children with more varied lived experiences and greater knowledge of the world have a much easier time reading than those who don’t. For example, a child that has never seen a lion or a zebra before would have a hard time understanding what one was. 

In a classroom setting, a teacher would guide the children and help them interpret the text. They might show pictures or videos so that the child understood what a lion was or they might teach them how to use context clues to use the text itself to determine that a zebra is kind of like a horse but wild and with stripes. Now lions and zebras are concrete objects with easy definitions. So what happens when the thing your brain is trying to interpret and comprehend happens to be an abstract idea or complex problem?

It comes back to the same thing. Our background knowledge and lived experiences become the lens through which we interpret the story, but there are no pictures or videos to give us an easy concrete answer to what something is. Add to this that people are unique. No two people have the same life story and no two people are going to interpret the same story in precisely the same way. I had an experience with this in college. 

For a YA fiction class, I was supposed to read a YA novel and create a book trailer for it. The book I chose was Green Angel by Alice Hoffman. For those of you who haven’t read it, it is about a teenage girl who loses her whole family in some kind of tragedy that affects the whole community. The novel never directly states what exactly happened, only that a lot of people died. As an American 90’s baby who’s first real awareness of the greater world came with the terrorist attacks on the twin towers, I interpreted this book as a post-9/11 novel. The unnamed tragedy sounded exactly like a terrorist attack. The mysterious, unnamed, unknown perpetrators sounded like terrorists. The confusion and fear and grief in the aftermath of the event sounded exactly like what the US experienced. This interpretation of the text heavily influenced the way I approached the assignment, and initially, I got a bad grade on it because of that. 

My professor, 30-plus years older than me, didn’t appreciate the way I interpreted the text because it was different from her own interpretation. Instead of a post-9/11 novel, she saw it as a reactionary text about the Cold War. My terrorists were her communist spies. The fear and suspicion of the community, too similar to the red scare. The unnamed tragedy seemed to her to be exactly what the culture of the time convinced her would happen to the US.

In the end, we had a very productive talk about our different interpretations and decided we were both equally right. Neither one of us was the author and neither one of us could possibly know what the author originally intended. Maybe the author intended something else entirely, but we’ll never know and that’s okay.

Every person brings their own self into a story and walks away with something different. What the author intended has very little relevance to the reader when compared to how the reader interprets the story. A man is never going to interpret a story the same way as a woman. A trans person will never see a conflict the same way as a cis person. A LGBTQIA+ person will never look at a relationship the same as a straight person. A child will never grasp the same subtext as an adult. And a reader will never take away the exact message as an author intended.

Restricting or refusing to interact with podfic on the basis of “preserving the author’s original intent” seems not only backwards and pointless, but a way of needlessly restricting fandom and creativity. 

People re-interpret older works and translate them to different mediums all the time. Most often, we see this when books become movies. I’m not going to argue which is better, but instead would like to offer a different point of view: more cake. 

In most fandom circles, it is highly encouraged to write whatever you want even if it has been done before. And if your fandom circle does not encourage this, I suggest you go find a less toxic one. This is because everyone loves more cake. Just because many people have already written a fix-it fic or a everybody-lives-and-nobody-dies fic or a meet the family fic or whatever it is for your fandom, does not mean that you shouldn’t write one too because it will be equally loved and it does not take away from the others just by existing.

Movies are more cake. They don’t take anything away from the book just because they exist. Instead they give fans a new way of interacting with their favorite story or characters. Podfics, like movies, are more cake. They give something new without taking anything away.

In their most basic form, a podfic is just an audio recording of someone reading a fanfic. No different than an audiobook and great for accessibility, but most podficcers don't create podfic for accessibility reasons. Accessibility is an awesome bonus but, as blackglass put it, we create because it is our way of interacting with fandom, our way of putting ourselves into the content we enjoy and sharing our own interpretations of the stories we love.

And podfic is different from the original. In an audiobook, a reader is paid to read a story into a microphone in a way that conveys the original content to the reader in a format as similar to the original as possible. Audiobook narrators not only have less freedom for creativity in what they do, but also they are doing their job not recording the story because they love the story.

Podficcers use tone, inflection, pacing, sound effects, music, and more to share the story the way they read the story. And, just like with reading a fanfic, a podfic is just as open to interpretation. What the podficcer intends is probably not what the author intends and, just like the reader, what the listener takes away from the podfic is probably not what the podficcer intended, but that's the way fandom and creativity and the human mind work. We take an idea and we make it a part of ourselves, we change it, transform it to reflect our own lived experiences and then we share it with others so that they can do the same.

[lukolabrainrot]

Calm theory anon here. I was reading blogs and came across a couple narratives that I wanna give my opinion on for what it's worth. The idea that Luke and Nic are fighting because he didn't like her recent post. The thing that I find most hilarious is I have seen so many people shaming others for assuming more is going on BTS then what we the public are seeing. yet people have made it up in their heads that L and N are fighting. So it's okay for you to think there some big beef but it's not okay to think L and N are in some type of relationship. In order to assess this you kinda have to look at habits. Guys if you look back at a lot of Luke SM habits on insta he doesn't always like everything she post. Maybe it didn't come across his FYP. Or maybe he was told not to like it. I will tell you what I did notice. Luke as I said doesn't like every post of Nic. The other photos that he didn't like were Galway and Brazil. Both places clearly held a lot of meaning for them. So in my delusional state I'm going to go an assume it's the same reasoning. Now Nic is human as we all know. She is flawed and imperfect. But I will be forward in saying if Luke not liking a post of hers actual bothered her she would let him know. She doesn't seem to be that insecure that a like on a SM post would affect her. Now I can honestly say we have all met those woman that demand that but not all woman need a like. I would rather you be there for me in person and tell me in person then make it an obligation. That you must like every post is an obligation that is given. So how does it hold any type of meaning then if a man is only liking a post out of obligation? It takes away any type of meaning and makes it the same as brushing your teeth daily. Also I find this narrative to be very dangerous the idea that Luke chose someone else over Nic. I have one question for those that think this. Have any of you ever dated someone you were extremely close to? And don't tell me they aren't close. You don't know that. They have alluded to hanging out without camera around in interviews. But moving from friends to lovers is an actual scary step. If things end badly you lose your BFF so yes that step should be thought over and discussed. So how do we know they have discussed it? How do we know if they have even stated how they felt? Feelings like this aren't always easy to convey. It's fine to make assumptions. It's understandable to want to explore the reasoning on why they do things. But just remember no one actual knows. But some of these narratives have brought a lot of hate on Luke and Nic and that's all they are narratives. Now my opinion has always been like that on LukolaBrainrot. I think a lot more is happening BTS. We just have to be patient. This isn't our relationship. We aren't celebrities. They have a team of people behind them. They have got this figured out, and I truly believe they will tell us when they are ready.

Thank you Calm Theory Anon!!

I'm just going add a couple more of my thoughts about the last couple of weeks. Note: This is all SPECULATION from the evidence of the last couple of weeks. I feel pretty confident though in my theories. Heads up, this is going to be long:

I firmly believe L was with N in NYC. Did we see him... no. Did we see JD... yes. That's not new though, and signals to me there is nothing to hide there and keep private. We can argue all we want about the handholding video, it doesn't change my opinion. Was I caught off guard... yes, very much so. But it doesn't confirm anything (JUST LIKE PAPGATE DIDN'T ACTUALLY CONFIRM L/A WERE IN A RELATIONSHIP), and I feel more confident than ever that that is one of her closest FRIENDS. If you don't believe that though, I know I won't be able to convince you otherwise. People have also argued that there would have been a sighting (photo/video) of L in NY if he was there. Y'ALL, there were NUMEROUS unconfirmed "sightings" of L while they were in NY... from NY itself, to Cyprus, to Brighton, to Scotland, etc. We have had ZERO in real time photos or videos of him since Sorrento. There's a reason for that... the man is GOOD at being incognito (when he doesn't have people around him blowing up his location in real time). And he's DEFINITELY more famous in London. Period. So if he has been able to go incognito in London for two months, he can go incognito in NY for a week. I'm also going to say this. N stands out a lot more than L, and is a lot more recognizable. I think L can kind of blend into the crowd easier. AND DM just seems to HATE N. Lastly, L/N 100% coordinated those travel posts. They are BOTH smart people and know their fans. They wanted us to know they were in NY together. They wanted us to see that her claddagh is on her left hand now. They wanted us to see the pic of L in N's house while she was getting ready with a ring on his ring finger. They wanted us to see a red bag in the background of her hair product story (regardless if that was the same red bag from L's Brb story). These clues are not subtle. Like the fact is they are in a relationship, and personally, I think they have been for a whileeee. But there appears to be a certain subsection of this fandom that just refuses to listen to the public narrative that L/N have been putting out about each other. And this is how we ended up with the handholding video debacle. A lot of celebs never even give crumbs/clues about their relationship until they are officially public. L/N know their fandom though and knew we would have fun with it. We should consider ourselves very lucky that they catered to us this way. They didn't have to. I don't think they hate MOST of their fandom, but I do think there is a certain subsection of this fandom that has been VERY toxic and they are VERY frustrated with. Which is totally valid.

This leads me to L's story today with the Mayfair comment. The fact is is that there is a VERY good chance that pic was not taken in real time [please do your own research to know why]... I think the point was that he wanted to add to what N said at the Time Award this week and confirm that they are back in Bton mode. Doesn't confirm that they are back in London though. Could they be? Yes. Could they still be in the U.S.? Yes. I think he also wanted to follow up regarding A's SM blast yesterday and reiterate they are no longer connected despite the games she plays that I am almost certain is included in her NDA. He also turned off comments pretty quickly on this story. He hasn't done that at all this summer [I believe] with his stories or posts, despite the onslaught of hate he has received this summer on SM. I think him and N have been testing the water since August to gauge where the fandom was at with their feelings about them as a couple, and wanted to try and minimize the backlash they will receive when they go public. The fact is is that it is pretty common for celebrity couples to receive a certain amount of backlash when they go public (the amount is what varies depending on the situation). With THIS fandom though, and everything that has gone down publicly since the London premiere, there will 100% be backlash from some when L/N go public. I think the comments being off is because L is setting the stage to announce their relationship, and let the cards fall as they may. And comments will be turned OFF. L/N will probably have a certain amount of hate sent to them for a few weeks, as well as adjacent people in their life, but people will get over it. I could be wrong of course, but I have a very strong feeling that they are setting the stage to just announce their relationship. I originally had the expectation that they were planning to go public at some point in NY, but I think what was my own lack of patience more than anything lol I think it was just setting the stage for a public announcement that wouldn't overshadow her accomplishment after they get back from NY. But he wanted people to know (who were paying attention) that he was with her and supporting her during this big moment (even if we weren't going to see them together). I am going to say this one more time. We can argue all we want about the coordinated travel posts, and project out whatever narrative makes us feel better and ease our anxieties. The fact is L/N aren't stupid. They know their fans. They coordinated those posts. They wanted us to know they were in NY together. They wanted us to see the rings. Because they are in a relationship. Period. No one can convince me otherwise atp.

This brings me to my last point... the handholding debacle. N lost control of her public narrative with that. It's just a fact. Her privacy was also violated. Also a fact. I don't believe she was as well prepared as she should have been for the amount of attention she was going to receive in NY, or the frenzy around her and JD. This had to have been a difficult experience for her and everyone involved. Unfortunately, I believe a lot of the interest in a particular group of the fandom has been almost solely on trying to prove that N is in a relationship. She is not defined by who she is dating. L is not defined by who he is dating. No one is defined by who they are dating. So I think N responded impulsively because she was fed up with all of this speculation about who she is dating (when I feel like she has made it pretty clear what is going on for her in that department) and the invasion of her privacy. This is also why I believe it was very strategically planned for neither L NOR JD to interact with her Time post for a while. BECAUSE THAT AWARD WAS ALL ABOUT HER AND HER ACCOMPLISHMENT. It wasn't about them. And eventually L did like it... he was literally with her though the whole trip y'all. Sure he congratulated her in person 😉 And he made sure to put the like so people wouldn't flip out and start spewing that they are beefing and hated each other and whatever other misinformation people would have come up with if he hadn't have liked her post. I think it is also strategic that JD hasn't liked her post yet, because I think he is trying to publicly distance himself from the narrative that was spewed about him and N last weekend. I bet he has also privately congratulated N though as well!

I definitely understand, last weekend was a MAJOR whiplash of emotions. However, I feel like a lot of this fandom reacts emotionally before having all the information (I know I am guilty of that as well sometimes). That is why I took a little break this week from the blog, because I was having a lot of emotions and didn't have enough information at the time to really understand what was going on. I also think there are a lot of narratives put out there in this fandom that are put forth as facts, without a lot of evidence backing it up. And it has turned really toxic in some spheres and led to troubling behavior (ex: the handholding video). I mentioned that I do think N wasn't as prepared as she should have been for the attention she was going to receive in NY (and the coordinated travel posts announcing L/N were going to NY probably didn't help the frenzy), but that behavior from the fan was troubling and not alright.

These are human beings, their lives are messy and complicated just like everyone else's. We also don't actually know these people, and I think we have a lot of questions still, and get anxious that we aren't interpreting information correctly. I have mentioned this before, but I am a VERY jaded person when it comes to the human species. I truly think L/N seem to be very kind and genuine people though, and I don't think they would do a bunch of things just to f*ck with their fans (although they have LOTS of reasons to be upset at some of this fandom). If the dating rumors were totally false, they wouldn't have started feeding into it again in August and would have officially corrected the narrative after the 90 days were over. That isn't what they did though. They both have good teams behind them, and they have a plan for how they want to go public with their relationship. They have been setting the stage for a while. We just have to be patient. It seems to be coming very soon though with the recent moves online and on SM from L/N. And tbh, if you have really been paying attention, L/N have been telling us they are in a relationship for a whileeee. It's pretty obvious to me (IMO).

Again, THIS IS PURELY SPECULATION AND THEORIES FROM WHAT I HAVE OBSERVED!

[astrobydalia]

more observations (lost count)✨

Hello guys! Life's been crazy lately and I barely have time to make any of the master posts I wanted to, so you'll be getting lost of observation posts that I've been collecting in my drafts for the past months. As always, enjoy!

❗️long post

work by astrobydalia

✨ Sagittarius and Aquarius are so fucking similar. Both of them are chaotic af, love their freedom and think they're smarter than everyone else. People who have both of these in their big 6 have the most unhinged

✨ Libra is WAY more obsessed with perfection than Virgo

✨ Whenever I had Libra or Taurus ASC on my Solar return chart I was lazy AS FUCK. I had no motivation to work whatsoever during those years, all I wanted to do was vibe and enjoy life. I also felt very relaxed and stress-free, when difficulties came I just went with the flow

✨ What is up with Gemini risings and always feeling intellectually insecure all the time? Literally their #1 insecurity is feeling like they are dumb or like they’re not good enough for highly abstract and intellectual tasks/professions. They come across as someone immature who lacks wisdom or has a superficial/simplistic view of things. I feel like this is because they attract people who are a bit of know-it-alls (Sagittarius DSC) and they have a reputation for being scattered-brained (Pisces 10th house) so people tent to infantilize them a lot.

^^^But let me tell you this not true at all, Gemini risings are some of the most brilliant people I’ve met with so much potential. Their problem is that they allow overthinking to get the best of them and end up doubting themselves 24/7. These are the type of people who have amazing ideas but they never pursue any them. They really struggle making decisions for themselves, they always need to ask for opinions first which is not a bad thing but this makes them come across as incapable or as someone who lacks self-sufficiency

✨ Mercurial signs (Virgo and Gemini) like to focus on concrete things and immediate reality, they process life by connecting one thing at a time and taking info as it comes, they focus on what's going on around them cause Mercury is all about multiplicity and details. With Jupiter signs on the other hand (Sag and Pisces) one thing about them is they don't care about details as long as things make sense as a whole, they see life from a more broad and general perspective, they prefer having a birds eye view of things because Jupiter is all about expansion and therefore it likes to encompass many things at once. This is why Virgo and Gemini rule mundane life themes and immediate reality while Sag and Pisces are more about general life lessons and higher knowledge

✨ Scorpio moons/8th house moons are the definition of an energy vampire fr. They just have a really poor understanding of healthy emotional boundaries, they expect you to give your all but aren't willing to reciprocate and always turn everything into a manipulation or mind game somehow which makes it pretty exhausting to be around them in the long run. Don't get me wrong, most of the ones I’ve met were very and good people but they always end up taking my energy away and make me feel emotionally burnt out

✨ Mercury-Mars aspects have this "it is what it is" mentality and really dislike over complicating things by reading too deep into them. They tend to think things exactly as they seem. This does not mean they're simplistic, on the contrary this makes them surprisingly insightful fast thinkers and are not the type to be easily fooled

✨ I've seen people saying that hard aspects between Mercury-Pluto makes people misunderstand your words. This is not true, this happens with Neptune cause Neptune rules delusion, but Pluto is a very blunt and straightforward planet cause it's all about revealing the dark truths. Mercury-Pluto aspects makes someone very deliberate with their words and they know exactly what to say to make their message stick. You will understand their words exactly how they want you to understand them. What happens with hard aspects is that the native tends to have a more provocative approach in the things they say, they don't care if you're offended by what they say as long as what they say makes an impact. People can misunderstand their intentions because of this, but not their words

✨ The ironic thing about Aquarius placements is that they are very good when it comes to connecting with the masses, the public usually feels very drawn to them because they're very good at appealing to collective values which makes them come across as relatable to many people as a result. However, when you actually try to relate to them or connect one-on-one, you will find yourself with someone that is surprisingly elusive, distant and more distrustful than Scorpio placements which is a huge contrast from the welcoming vibe they give off to the public. I've found that the only way you will get close to an Aquarius placements is on THEIR terms lmao, if they've decided they like you, it'll be them who will approach you and/or make the effort to engage with you

✨ A reocurring thing I've seen with Virgo placements is that they really dislike big changes and prefer to stay in control. I think this is not mentioned often cause it's kinda weird to say that about a mutable sign, but Virgos being mercury+earth ruled they feel comfortable relying on facts, data, observations, etc and they use all this tangible info to navigate reality, that's why they rule daily life and routines because they invest a lot of their energy on factually understanding and categorizing their reality (earth signs in general are very attached to the tangible). Their mutable nature shows in that they easily use their knowledge to adapt, find solutions and fix what’s wrong but when they are in situations where these "categories" prove to be useless (aka Pisces themes), they get very triggered cause that means they no longer have control of their reality

✨ That being said another reoccurring thing I’ve noticed with Virgo placements is that they love to predict things. But not in a mystical sense it’s more like they enjoy understanding things in such way that they’re able to easily put a label on them and easily predict what’s going on or how something works

✨ I have not seen a single Taurus placement who didn’t have the most insanely sexy and pleasant voice ever. Doesn’t matter if they sing of not, just hearing their voice is so delightful

✨ Aquarius Mercury really believe their opinions are the most ultimate and correct opinions out there. They are certain that their judgment is always 100% objective (aka always true) so in their mind if you slightly disagree with them that means you’re mediocre, dumb or narrow-minded.

✨ There's always a duality in all mutable signs. Sagittarius can be very humorous and optimistic but also very dark and profound. Gemini can be curious and chaotic but also very analytical and logical. Virgo can be picky and perfectionistic but also very permissive and conformist. Pisces can be very compassionate and wise but also very detached and clueless

✨ Neptune does not do well in air houses/signs at all simply because air energy rules (different types of) information and connections, while Neptune is all delusion and confusion. Also air energy is purely cerebral and rational while Neptune appeals to the unconscious

✨ I have not fact-checked this but I feel like it's safe to say that Mars rules testosterone. Testosterone is a hormone associated to violence or impulsive behavior, sex drive, red blood cells (blood), masculinity, etc That's literally all mars

✨ People always talk about how Capricorn moons have had a rough life but I've noticed this is also very true for Sagittarius Moons?? Responsibilities are not imposed on them like Capricorn, in their case they have to build up wisdom about life through pure and raw experience without anyone giving them a heads up or any pointers first, that's why they grow up feeling like they're fully on their own. Things work out for them at the end but they always have most MESSY life experience it's really crazy

✨ Both domicile and afflicted Mars are ambitious and determined but the main difference is that Libra/Taurus/Cancer Mars need to find some type of enjoyment or fulfillment in their goals in order to get motivated while Capricorn/Aries/Scorpio Mars find motivation in the challenge and endure through stuff they don't find pleasant

✨ From what I've seen males with Scorpio placements are very superficial and will gaslight as a lifestyle. They are the type of people who look the other way or brush things off or never takes anything seriously and I've noticed they do this so they never have to take accountability.

✨ Neptune/Pisces energy either gives “glamorous and ethereal” vibes or “weird in an extremely cringe way” vibes, there’s no in-between

✨ A reoccurring thing I've noticed with those who have Chiron in Taurus/2nd house or Chiron-Venus is that they often have dubious morality or double standards because they don't have a solid values

✨ Every single Libra Moon/rising female I’ve met embodied the material girl stereotype. They really have this “instagram girl” vibes to them if that makes sense

✨ Those with Sagittarius in the 5th house can actually find a lot of joy and happiness in becoming parents or they have a lot of fun with children

✨ Scorpio Mars can't stand not knowing what's going on around them and at first I thought this was bc they were suspicious/paranoid but then I realized it’s because they’re just controlling as shit. They come across as very chill and care fee but they’re actually SUPER controlling dude. Even when they know for sure that they can trust you and you’re doing nothing wrong they still want to keep taps on you and won’t leave you alone. They won't bluntly violate your privacy but will still find ways to always know what you're up to

✨ The resentful and spiteful stereotype associated to Scorpio actually belongs to Leo placements imo. They can be very reactive and childish when you insult their ego and will make it very known that they won't let it go

✨ Cancer North Node people always have some sort of issue or inner conflict with of having kids. They feel drawn to the idea of becoming a parent but deep down they low-key don't? I've also seen many women with this placement who had fertility issues

I have the theory that these natives are conflicted in this topic because they see family as an achievement or a societal expectation (Capricorn south node) so in this life time they have to know what it's like to desire a family for the right reasons and not because they feel like they 'should'

✨ Capricorn risings really are hyper-aware of their public image and how others perceive them. That's why they always end up becoming very popular and respected, cause they know very well where they "stand" publicly so they know how to successfully curate their own reputation. It's not surprising to see this placement a lot in celebrities

✨ Pluto in the 12th house are genuinely unsure of who they can trust which leads to a lot of paranoia and projection. The type to ignore the most obvious red flags but then automatically doubt your loyalty cus you spoke in a suspicious tone

✨ Pisces/12th house placements 🤝 disappearing. Y’all shit on Gemini for ghosting but have you ever met a pisces/12th houser?

✨ Saturn in 5th house people had parents (namely father) who were overly critical of them and their self-expression. Doesn’t necessarily mean they were unsupportive of the native but they were quite hard on the native’s creativity

✨ I've seen a lot of bullies/mean girls have Aquarius placements. Honorable mentions: virgo, Leo, libra

✨ Neptune-ASC people are really good at making themselves invisible when they want and/or making parts of themselves go completely unnoticed even if they're bluntly obvious. I've noticed they actually get away with a lot cause they have this tendency to not be accurately seen by others if that makes sense

✨ Neurodivergent individuals usually have Mercury harshly aspecting (conjunction, square, opposition and inconjuction) Uranus and Saturn. Said Mercury is more often than not in a water house/sign/degree or in Aries. Of course not everyone with these aspects will be neurodivergent, but it's just a pattern I've seen

✨ Pluto-ASC people most of the times fail to have a lighthearted view towards life. They always want to look beyond the surface of things which doesn't really allow them to enjoy life as it is. They often get a reputation for looking too deep into everything and in turn the Pluto-asc native often sees others as superficial

✨ Virgo risings are huge conformist and won’t go after anything that’s outside their immediate boundaries. They only make an effort towards things that are accessible and will quickly lose interest in anything that has difficult availability or requires them to go way out of their comfort zone. They're overall pretty self-serving.

✨ I know several people diagnosed with OCD. All of them have Virgo AND 6th house placements, 22º in their big 3, Scorpio Mercury/Moon and Mercury dominance

work by astrobydalia

[psychedelic-pebble]

AAAAAH okay so i came across your page a few days ago, and i LOVE LOVE LOVE the way you write for fiddleford. i also saw your recent post about slowing down because life is a little too much right now, so feel free to ignore this, but i'd love to hear other hcs and or more drabbles for fiddleford, nsfw or sfw. he's just so cutie patootie

eek thank you!! writing for Fidds is always so fun, he’s such a silly little goober. i’ve cooked up some headcanons both sfw and nsfw (will be under the cut), so i hope they will do! eat up fellow Fiddleford lovers

Young!Fiddleford HCS!!

Warnings: None for the first half, although there is NSFW content under the cut, so MDNI.

Pairing(s): Young!Fiddleford x Reader

SFW

Fiddleford is generally protective, not to an extreme degree, but he wants to make sure you’re safe and happy. He’s not the confrontational type most of the time but if someone is actively harming you he’d stand up for you.

He loves displaying his affection in somewhat silly ways, and not overly grand gestures. Sure, if it’s a really special day (anniversary, birthday, etc.), he’d make plans and do things with you, but not in an over the top manner.

Like the previous hc, he’d probably take you on smaller dates or more casual things like picnics. Not the type for fancy rich restaurants, not that you’d mind. He has some good spots that make you feel just as loved and appreciated, if not more.

Seeing you do even somewhat domestic tasks warms his heart. Whether you live together or not, seeing you cook him breakfast early in the morning or help you do menial tasks around the house makes him feel all the more connected to you.

That being said, I do think he would be the type to want a long term relationship and future with you. He’d like to spend his life with you and eventually settle down together, maybe buy a nice house somewhere and enjoy each other's company on a day-to-day basis.

He doesn’t like arguing, he‘ll always admit to his faults and hold himself accountable when he’s in the wrong. The last thing he wants is to hurt you, and if he does by accident, the first thing he’s gonna do is try to fix things and make you feel better.

He’s kind of indifferent about PDA, doesn’t mind it, doesn't hate it. He does like it when you hold his hand, although he’d get moderately flustered and have to keep his cool.

NSFW below!! Be warned!

Like I wrote in my other post, he’s likely to be very shy in the bedroom. It’d take a while for him to warm up to it, and he gets flustered embarrassingly easily.

He’s decent at being dominant, although it’d take a bit for him to get good at building up that persona. He wants to do what you like, so he doesn’t risk doing anything that might make you uncomfortable.

He can top if he really tries though, it’d take a couple tries but he’d eventually get decently good at it!

In my humble opinion, I like to think of Fidds as a sub-switch. He doesn’t mind topping, but he’s not the best at it. Asks you a lot if he’s doing okay or if you’re enjoying yourself.

I think he’d really enjoy being a submissive top with a dominant bottom. He’d like being told what to do, especially if you’re ordering him to do it.

Praise kink praise kink praise kink!!!!! Oh my god, call him pretty boy/good boy or anything along those lines and his mind will fizzle out. Tell him he’s doing a good job too.

You have to encourage him to touch you at times. His hands would hover above your waist, desperately craving to grip it but not wanting to hurt you unless you tell him outright that you want him to. Even then, he’d be gentle so as to not rough you up too bad.

If you top him, he gets adorably flustered and embarrassed. Insists that “he should be the one pleasuring you”, and you have to reassure him that this is more than pleasing for you.

He can’t keep quiet for the life of him. Even if you cover his mouth he can’t help the whimpers and whines that escape.

He’s not particularly good at making out, but he enjoys it. Whimpers and swears into your mouth because he can’t help himself.

He covers his face with both hands with an embarrassed groan if you talk dirty to him. It's not that he doesn’t like it, no, he just gets so embarrassingly turned on that he can’t handle it.

[bl3upi3]

Can I request nettspend x reader where they have a rap beef but then hash it out and collab and start being cute on ig (reader is more of a producer than a lyricist so they make him a beat :3)

It’s Not a Collab

Summary: You’re a rising underground producer with one viral hit and a lot to prove. Nettspend is a loudmouthed rapper who made the mistake of dragging your name and your beats through the mud. What started as a petty war turned into a viral feud, fan-fueled chaos, and one unexpected collab offer. You hate him. He kind of loves that.

Word count: 2013

A/N: Not proofread. I think I could’ve done better. It feels a bit rushed, but I wanted to leave room for a possible part 2. Hope the person who requested it likes it!

You’ve been producing music since high school, starting out with your friends just messing around, making random tracks and beats for fun. You blew up one summer after making a XavierSobased-type beat and he actually reached out to work with you. You and Xavier ended up doing three songs together, and one of them even went viral on TikTok. You weren’t exactly famous, though. Aside from working with Xavier, you hadn’t really done any big or successful projects.

You weren’t exactly chasing clout, but that little burst of attention had people in your DMs, rappers, wannabes, and a few producers trying to leech off the hype. Most of them were unserious.

One day, while you were scrolling through TikTok, you came across an interview with Nettspend. You knew who he was, he was a good friend of Xavier. Xavier had mentioned him before, even said he’d probably sound great on one of your beats.

In the video, Nettspend was sitting in front of a plain white background, answering questions from someone off-camera about the underground scene and different rappers. Then came a question that made your heart stop for a second.

“What do you think about your friend Xaviersobased working with a producer who got discovered on TikTok?”

He was talking about you.

Nettspend didn’t answer right away. He tilted his head a little, raised an eyebrow, and gave this dry half-smile like he was deciding whether to be messy or diplomatic.

“I mean… it’s cute,” he said finally, voice flat. “Xavier does charity work sometimes.”

Your jaw dropped.

The interviewer laughed, and Nettspend didn’t even crack a grin to show he was joking. Just looked dead into the camera like he meant it. You stared at the screen, chest tight, heat crawling up your neck. A million comebacks flooded your brain, but none of them mattered because by the time the clip ended, your blood was already boiling.

You didn’t post anything. Not right away. You didn’t want to look pressed. But you were pressed. So you did what you knew how to do best.

In the days that followed, you started working on a new beat. You didn’t like Nett at first, you knew how self-centered he was, always acting like he was better than everyone else. You even based the beat on one of his own tracks, flipping the vibe and twisting it into something darker. You sampled a few of his vocals too, just to be petty. Then you titled it “Charity Work” and dropped it.

It didn’t take long for people to connect the dots. Within an hour, “Charity Work” was all over TikTok. Duets, stitches, edits, everyone had an opinion. Some thought it was genius, others called it shady. A few diehard Nettspend fans tried to come for you in the comments, but your followers clapped back harder.

And then, Nettspend noticed.

He tweeted: “Y’all funny. Sampling me like I’m dead.”

No @, no mention. But you knew who it was for.

You liked the tweet. That’s all. No words. Just a like.

That like must’ve touched a nerve, because a few hours later, Nettspend started tweeting wild.

“She be better off posting her body than her bad beats. Can’t EQ for shit.”

“Y’all hyping a TikTok producer like she’s Mozart just 'cause she’s got titties?”

At first, you laughed. Then you didn’t.

It wasn’t just about music anymore he was taking shots at you as a woman, as a producer, as someone who hadn’t come up the "right" way.

You posted a screenshot of a message you’d sent him months ago, back when Xavier had first suggested a collab. It was short and polite: “Hey! Xavier said we might vibe on something, lmk if you’re ever down.” Left on read.

Then you added a caption:“He been ignoring me since before I made him relevant y’all do the math.” Boom. 20k likes in an hour.

Now it was war. Nettspend posted an Instagram story with a photo of your beat file, claiming he could make it “better in 30 minutes on his phone.” You responded by uploading a remix of his beat, but way cleaner, with tighter transitions and again, people noticed.

Someone on Twitter made a thread: “This beef between Nettspend and Y/N is lowkey the best underground drama of the year.”

You responded: “He mad I made him sound better than he actually is.”

After that, nothing. No tweets, no subs, no responses. He went on with his life, and you went on with yours.

“Charity Work” kept blowing up, even after the drama died down. People online started calling it Y/N ft. Nettspend, like it was a real collab. New listeners didn’t even know it came out of a beef, they just liked the sound.

Your face was more recognizable now. You started getting invited to festivals over the summer. Still, you knew the chances of running into Nettspend were high. You moved in the same scene, worked in the same underground lane. You were both known for the same vibe.

Between sets, a few media outlets stopped you to shoot quick interviews or content for TikTok. During one of them, while you were talking to a festival media team, the interviewer suddenly leaned in with a smile and asked:

“Y/N, how does it feel to reunite with Nettspend? Especially after all the drama from a few months ago?”

You blinked. Reunite?

People were still talking about that?

You gave a small laugh and said, “I mean… I don’t really care. I’m just here to enjoy the performers—maybe see if Nett’s improved.”

Then you smiled politely, turned away, and dipped.

Eventually, it was time for his performance. You’d seen him arrive earlier, paparazzi all over him, cameras flashing. He tried to play it cool, all nonchalant, but you could tell he was doing his best to avoid crossing paths with you.

When he hit the stage, the crowd went wild. People screamed his name like he was headlining the whole festival. You watched from the VIP section, a little elevated above the rest of the audience, just observing.

Then, you heard it, the start of your mix.

The beat dropped, and the crowd fell quiet for a split second, confused. Then a video of you flashed on the big screen. A clip from your earlier interview.

“So Y/N wants to see if I got better,” he said into the mic, voice echoing over the field. Then he pointed right at you from across the venue. The cameras cut to a live POV of you, your face projected across the screen.

“Enjoy the show,” he added with a smirk, before launching into his verse, rapping over your beat.

Your cheeks burned, part frustration, part pure embarrassment. You didn’t know how to react. Everyone was watching, waiting to see if you’d laugh it off or storm out. You stayed still. Calm on the outside. Boiling on the inside.

He was rapping like he owned the moment, like he didn’t spend a months acting like you weren’t worth a single collab. Now he was up there performing your beat, turning it into a stage stunt. Playing the villain.

And the worst part?

The crowd ate it up.

You stood there, jaw tight, trying to decide if you should leave or pretend it didn’t bother you. Then, you felt someone tap your shoulder. One of the event coordinators, face wide with excitement.

“He just changed the set last minute. Said he wanted to open with that track for the drama. Honestly? It’s working. They love it.”

Great.

Later, backstage, you ducked into one of the trailers to cool off. You weren’t even supposed to be working this festival, just attending, but somehow you were still getting dragged into his mess. Again.

Your phone was vibrating nonstop, notifications from TikTok, Twitter, Instagram. The interview clip. The reaction shot. His callout. It was all over the place.

And then, another message popped up.

@nettspend: “You good? ”

You stared at the screen, completely deadpan. You good? After all that?

You didn’t answer. Just closed your phone, leaned back, and let the noise roll around you like static.

You’d been dragged into his show once. It wasn’t happening again. If he wanted to use your beat to get a crowd reaction, fine. But next time?

He could try doing it without your name in his mouth.

You ignored his message.

At least, you tried to.

The next day, clips from the festival were everywhere. “Nettspend confronts Y/N live on stage,” “Underground’s messiest beef hits new level,” “The beat that started a war.” People were eating it up, remixing the moment into edits, fancams, reaction videos. Some even started tagging you both under posts like you were their favorite chaotic duo.

Two days later, you got tagged in a post from Nettspend. A black-and-white still of the stage, the screen behind him frozen on your face mid-reaction. His caption?

“She looked mad… but the beat was fire.”

Comments full of “they should just collab already.”

Later that night, a Dropbox link landed in your inbox.

Subject: “Bet you won’t.”

Inside: a rough vocal demo. Just him and a mic. No beat. Just a challenge.

You listened.

And to your absolute horror you liked it. Not the words, not the smug tone, but the potential. It was raw, full of ego and bite, but weirdly magnetic. Something about it clung to your brain like an earworm. He’d left room for a drop, for layers, for... you.

You stared at your laptop.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

No. Nope. Absolutely not.

But your fingers were already moving.

You didn’t tell anyone. You just stayed up late, tweaking 808s, slicing his breath, bending the vocal into something sharper, deeper. Then you layered your signature sound over it, clean, cinematic, a little aggressive. You exported it. Saved the file name as “ghost.wav.”

The next morning, you sent it back.

No words. Just the beat.

Ten minutes later, he replied: “Oh. So you do like me.”

You stared at your screen, half a laugh stuck in your throat.

You typed: “No. I just like shutting you up.”

His reply came back too fast.

“Then pull up and shut me up in person.”

You rolled your eyes so hard it almost hurt. Typical. You could already hear his smug tone through the screen.

“You asking me to collab or catch a fade?” you shot back.

“Both. Depends how good the beat is.”

You weren’t smiling. You definitely weren’t. Except you were. A little.

Three days later, you showed up at the studio he sent the address to. You told yourself it was for business. Strictly work.

The second you walked in, he looked up from the soundboard, chewing gum and lounging like he didn’t just spend the last few months being your public enemy number one.

“Wow,” he said, slow, cocky. “You’re shorter than I thought.”

“And you talk more online than you do in your tracks,” you snapped back, dropping your bag next to the desk.

His grin widened.

You hated that you didn’t hate how it looked on him.

The tension was stupid. You sat down beside him, cracked open your laptop, and didn’t look at him as you plugged in.

“So?” he said. “You gonna produce, or just look mad and cute the whole time?”

You gave him a cold glance, fingers flying across your keyboard.

“You want a beat or a black eye?”

“Surprise me.”

And that was how it started. The worst session you ever had with someone. And somehow also the best.

He threw out ideas like challenges. You clapped back with production that made his jaw go tight. Every sound he laid down, you pushed harder. Somehow, the energy turned electric.

At one point, he stood behind you, leaning over your shoulder to hear a section you were tweaking. You pretended not to notice how close he was.

“You like the tension drop here?” you asked, eyes still on the screen.

“I like when you’re bossy,” he said, deadpan.

Your hand froze on the trackpad.

“Don’t get comfortable,” you said. “This isn’t a date.”

He chuckled low, like he knew something you didn’t.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “But it’s sounding a lot like foreplay.”

You turned to face him, ready to say something, anything but his face was so close to yours you forgot what.

He looked smug.

You looked annoyed.

The air looked like it was about to explode.

You turned back to your screen.

“Shut up and record.”

And he did.

[scaryspears]

Mortal Kombat x Bimbo Reader

Another test run, and these are just bullet points not full blown stories. I've already written another bimbo reader post so I suggest checking that out. Please do requests if this isn't enough.

This one is just Bi Han, Kuai Liang, Hanzo, Shang Tsung and Johnny.

"I need to die looking good."

Bi Han Noob Saibot

He doesn't understand your constant need to dress up and put makeup on, but he won't say anything about it. A lot of women are just like that, so Bi Han just figured it's a female thing. Misogynistic of him, but he doesn't care.

While seeing him training you gladly set up a chair and watched him from afar whilst drinking a cocktail, and you've attached yourself to him ever since. He couldn't take you seriously at first, but he could only admit to himself that your dense personality was a little adorable.

When the blood got too much you would hide your face in his chest, which he didn't mind even though some makeup stains would go on his clothes.

When he returned as Noob Saibot he swore to make you drop dead gorgeous, even if you already were. But you would join him in death as his revenant lover. Quan Chi was sure to give you the best manicures so long as you were loyal to him.

Kuai Liang

As a man that puts Lin Kuei traditions in high regard he could understand your need for the newest fashion and dressing well. He showed you his wardrobe and you decided to copy his style, which he found adorable.

He likes having tea with you, but you're certain he must try a frappe or at least a smoothie.

Kuai isn't one for public affection, Lin Kuei and all, but he lets you climb over him. If he's not disciplining Frost or the other Lin Kuei then he's snogging you in the snow. After you drag him into it at least. He only initiates things first if you guys are alone.

Although you didn't understand a lot of things he could appreciate you being there for him to give comfort on sensitive topics.

Hanzo 'Scorpion' Hasashi

It was like talking to a different Johnny Cage in his opinion. It was a bit jarring to have you flirting with him and not get the slightest hint that he's not interested since revenge was on his mind. It was after he was brought back as Hanzo Hasashi that he appreciated your presence more.

The Shirai Ryu are ninjas, so that meant blending into society when on mission and you had a lot of things to say about clothing choices.

The Shirai Ryu shrine looked better than he remembered, you had given him ideas on the layout and studied a thing or two on Japanese culture to make it legit.

When he caught you teaching the new members cheerleading moves he knew he had to be more welcoming with you, because those were complicated moves. And it showed him you were no stranger to teamwork. Hanzo could see the beauty in that.

Shang Tsung

This villainous man came across you giving Mileena style tips and fixing her hair. He had no clue how you snuck into the private parts of the palace, but he suspected you were partially from the Chaosrealm.

Mileena didn't react well to your absence, and after Kitana's rejection she seemed to have formed an attachment to you so Shang expected you around the palace. Shao Kahn was glad that Mileena had a nice person to look up to, so he was fine with you in the palace.

Shang had you participate in the tournament for a reason, but he underestimated your powers as well as your fighting abilities. Such beauty in combat is rare.

Johnny Cage

Barbie and Ken in the eyes of many Earthrealmers, but you two are the 'it' couple when it comes to vanity, expensive taste, and being drama queens.

He is your husband, your best friend, and your mirror. Your super power was convenience and getting yourself out of serious situations, but how it acted up was at random times. Johnny could relate to that.

In the meantime, you could both bathe in the spotlight, and the cameras. And your friends from home can be jealous and gush about you marrying an actor.

It was a match made in pink and green.

[bad268]

AITA? (Dennis Hauger X Leclerc! Reader)

Fandom: RPF/Indycar

Requested: Nope (Your Pole Winner!) (Also I fucked up my schedule, so we’re posing this early lol)

Warnings: Family neglect (IT'S FICTION)

POV: Second Person (You/your/They/them)

W.C. 2952

Summary: Reddit, AITA for wanting to leave my family?

As always, my requests are OPEN

MASTERLIST // HITLIST

~~(^Pinterest)

Arthur would never say that he was one to doom scroll, but given that it was the winter break, he had nothing else better to do. He ended up going down a rabbit hole of Am I The Asshole Reddit stories when he came across a story that kind of sounded familiar.

“AITA for wanting to leave my family and start new?” It read. Arthur knew this one would be juicy, so he watched on.

“Burner account because one of my brothers follows my actual Reddit, but I just need opinions. For context, I am the youngest in the family, and I have three older brothers (fake names): Alain (24), Guido (27), and Leo (36). They’re great, and I love them, don’t get me wrong, but Alain and Guido are always the centre of attention. I feel like I am just constantly in their shadow, and no one notices me.” 

Awe, Arthur thought, that’s sad. As an older brother, he thought of his younger sibling and how he used to feel overshadowed by Charles’ success. He knew how bad it felt to be ignored and would hate to find out if they felt overshadowed by his or Charles’ careers. He knew this video wouldn’t relate that much, but it still made him think.  

“So, Guido is a racing driver,” Okay, maybe Arthur could relate, “He’s doing good, and he’s making his team and country proud. Alain followed in his footsteps and is also racing. Alain’s in a different level, but technically, they’re in the same team, I think. I’m so proud of both of them because it’s not every day that you can make it at the levels they are at, but it feels like everything I do will never live up to their successes.”

Now, this was getting interesting.

“Growing up, everything, and I mean everything revolved around my brothers and their careers. I am not exaggerating when I say that every family gathering, holiday, family dinners, or even random conversations is somehow always about them or racing. I get it, we live in a place where it is hard not to talk about racing, but it just feels like a lot. I try to bring up my interests or anything else to talk about, but I’m always pushed aside. It’s like I’m just a background character in their lives and not their sibling.

“Leo has tried his best to include me, and he’s the only one who knows about my passions and is always cheering me on. But he has his own life to worry about. He started his own company and moved out a while ago. He also just got engaged recently, so he already has a lot going on. I also used to have my dad, who would make sure to include me, but he passed in 2017. That’s really when I felt the switch. It really just feels like I lost my support system, and I have no one to turn to.

“I do have my boyfriend, though, but my family doesn’t know about him. I met him through Alain because they used to be teammates, but now, he races in a different series than both of my brothers. He’s actually the one who told me to make this post. He thinks he might be biased because he just wants what’s best for me, so he’s all for me moving in with him. He said he could take care of me until I got settled, and a change in scenery could help.”

“The final straw came a few months ago. All that my family remembers is that Guido won his home race for the first time, and Alain won his first race within a couple of weeks of each other. I told them the week before Guido’s win that I got accepted into my dream university in a different country. It is a very selective school, and I had been applying for two years. My mum, Guido and Alain just smiled and went back to talking about the upcoming race. Not even a congratulations. I thought I would bring it up again after the race, but they were all too busy celebrating their achievements.” 

“The worst part was they wouldn’t let me go out to celebrate their wins with them because I am “too young” and they “don’t want to babysit me.” It broke my heart. Leo was the only one that cared, and he told me how proud he was. It felt good to hear that from him, but I really just wanted my mom and other brothers’ support on this, too. I spend all of my time cheering them on, but the one time I do something worth celebrating, it’s brushed aside. I can’t take it anymore.”

“This is why I come to you, Reddit. I want out of this or at least a break. I want to move away and be in low contact with my family at least for a little bit. I need to make a decision on my university anyway since it’s starting soon, and it’s not in the country I live in now. My boyfriend’s new apartment will be close to campus, so he said I could live with him until I found on campus accommodation or if we decide to just stay living together. He has to move there for work, so it just worked out that way. I know this sounds dramatic, but it’s exhausting feeling like I will never live up to my brothers’ success. I just want space from them to figure things out. So, am I the asshole for wanting to run away from my family because I feel overshadowed by my brothers?”

Arthur sighed, opening the comments, and the top two comments were pinned edits.

“Edit 1: to those asking about where my mum is on all of this, she doesn’t care. Some of you pointed out that she may not have heard me when I told her about my university acceptance, but she did. She said that she “didn’t even know I wanted to go to university” despite me having told her I wanted to go here since I was 10. She always just brushes what I say off or says I need to be more supportive of my brothers because “that’s what family does.” Well, I don’t feel supported, mum. She’s also tried to say that I am jealous of their success. I tried to tell her I felt unseen, and she literally said, “You just need to find your passions.” Well, mum, if you had listened to me at all, you would know what my passions are. It feels like unless I’m winning a world championship, I’m not worth her attention.”

Arthur felt a weird sense of deja vu at that sentence. He had a similar conversation with Dennis and Olli when they were all teammates in Prema F3. Arthur complained about how he felt like he was always compared to Charles, and unless he was winning, he wouldn’t get any good attention. Arthur thought this post was hitting scarily close to home.

“Edit 2: please stop saying my boyfriend is toxic. It’s not like we’ve been together for a few months. I’ve known him since early 2021, and we started dating in April 2022. He’s not a bad person, he just thought an outside perspective would be better. He also thinks it would be good to be independent from them for a while. I may not have explained that right. English isn’t my first language.”

Now, Arthur was even more confused. He scrolled on, and while he thought this person definitely wasn’t the asshole, most of the comments were siding against the original poster. They were saying that the family probably doesn’t realize the extent of their treatments, and it’s not their fault if op didn’t say anything. He was even more confused because the post literally said that they tried to tell their mum they felt unseen. Part of him wanted to defend this person, but that probably wouldn’t look good coming from his official account. Also, it’s not like the original poster would actually see the comments.

That’s why he decided to send it to a couple of his friends to see if he was the only one seeing it this way. He sent it to Clement, Olli, Oscar, Charles, and Dennis. 

Dennis was packing his apartment up and getting ready for his move to America when his phone dinged with a text message and paused his music. He decided this was a sign to take a break to check it. Imagine his surprise when he saw it was from Arthur, and it was linked to a TikTok voiceover video of your own Reddit post that he helped you write. Not wanting to give anything away, he asked Arthur for his opinion of it to which Arthur adamantly stood on the NTA side but felt like he was missing something.

"So you don’t think they are wrong to want to leave?” Dennis clarified. He wanted to make sure he knew where Arthur stood before alerting you.

“Absolutely not! You know how I almost left Ferrari because of the comparisons to Charles, so I feel where they come from. I get that some people need to separate themselves from the situation, but everyone else is saying they’re bad for turning against their family. Real family would understand and be supportive.”

Dennis let out a sigh of relief even though he knew Arthur would understand. Of all people, Arthur had to understand, but to hear it from the man himself was a relief. Dennis quickly sent a screenshot to you.

“Is this you saying I should tell them?” You responded back quickly, certainly quicker than Dennis was expecting. You were already on your phone, doom scrolling on your Reddit post and rethinking all of your life choices.

“I’m just pointing out that Arthur is on your side,” He chuckled as he sent out the reply just as you called him. “I was just texting you.”

“I want you there when I do it,” you said fast, just wanting to get it out and done with it. You started to get anxious the longer you didn't tell them, and the deadline to confirm your acceptance was quickly approaching. It was now or never. “I want to come clean about everything at once, and I need to confirm my acceptance by Friday.”

“When is the next family dinner?” He thought he had a few days to prepare, but when you responded with a time rather than a day, he knew he only had a few hours to prepare to meet your family. Not as Dennis, Arthur’s teammate. No, now it was Dennis, your boyfriend. No pressure.

You got to your mom’s house early for once. You gave her the heads up that you were bringing your boyfriend, and she was indifferent to the statement, merely sending a thumbs up, and that’s it. That gave you the confidence to go forward with your plan. You waited until Dennis showed up before getting out of your car, and when he did, you immediately walked over to greet him at his door.

“Are you ready?” Dennis said as he turned off his car and climbed out, taking your hands in his.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” You sighed, squeezing his hands tightly and taking a deep breath. “She knows, but I don’t think she cares. I haven’t told Arthur or Charles yet, either, but Enzo knows. He’s known for a while.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” He chuckled lightly as he pulled you in for a tight hug as he thought about the protective test he received from a random number, later discovering it to be Enzo, threatening him not to hurt you. Dennis thought it was funny, looking back on it, but there was still one thing plaguing his mind. “Do we want to tell them the entire plan about going to America, or are you just saying that you’re moving away to college?”

“Probably that I’m just going to college. If they care, I’ll tell them about the college, and they’ll be able to tell I’m not staying in Monaco,” You shrugged carelessly until you heard the shift of rocks as someone stopped walking.

“Wait, you’re not staying in Monaco? I thought you were attending the International University of Monaco…” Charles trailed off, and there stood Arthur right beside him with his jaw dropped. “I thought you wanted to stay here?”

“I’ve been here my entire life, and it’s not my dream school, Charles,” You explained quietly as Dennis put a hand on your shoulder, silently showing that he was supporting you. This gave you the confidence to meet Charles and Arthur’s gazes. What you saw almost made you cower back down, but you needed to stand your ground.

“And Dennis, what are you doing here?” Arthur finally spoke up, looking between the two of you. Both Charles and Arthur glared at him before everyone broke out into an argument. In the commotion, your mom and Enzo, who apparently arrived earlier than you, came out of the house. 

“Hey! Listen to me!” You shouted over everyone. Silence fell around the whole group, and you gestured for everyone to go into the house. The last thing you wanted was to subject people passing by to your family drama. You closed the front door as you took a deep breath, moving away from Dennis so that you could see everyone in front of you. “Charles and Arthur, you both travel for a living. All I’ve ever known is Monaco and France. I want to go out and be an individual, not Charles and Arthur Leclerc’s little sibling. I want to make my own name. I feel like none of you hear me, especially you, Maman.”

“We listen to you,” She tried to interject, but you weren’t having it.

“What’s my dream school, or what do I want to major in?” That simple question silenced everyone. You, Dennis, and Enzo looked around at Pascale, Charles, and Arthur, who all looked guilty. “You know Enzo, Charles, and Arthur’s passions, but what’s mine?”

“You haven't decided,” She responded after a beat, “The college or your study.”

“It’s (major),” You deadpanned, “It’s been (major) at the University of Notre Dame since I was 10 years old. I told you that I got accepted into the program in May.”

“No, you didn’t,” She retorted immediately before pausing as she remembered May, “Wait…”

“Yeah, I was overshadowed by Charles winning in Monaco a week later and Arthur winning in Imola like a month later. No one acknowledged my accomplishments, but you all celebrated theirs!” You progressively got louder as you bit back your tears. “I wasn’t even allowed to go out with you guys because you didn’t want to babysit me. I’m not a child anymore! I’m 21 years old! I want to be treated like one. I want to be treated like an individual, not your younger sibling. I’m tired of being overlooked!”

“We never want you to feel overlooked,” Charles finally said as he walked up to you and pulled you into his chest. No one said anything, but Arthur, Pascale, and Enzo joined the hug one by one. They finally realized their faults when they thought back to how they acted. They did overlook you sometimes, they did discount you in some situations, and they did baby you. They always thought they were protecting you, but now, they realize it did more harm than good. “We never meant for you to feel like you didn’t matter.”

“You did, and now that you know, I want you to know that I am attending the University of Notre Dame, and I will be moving there for the next school year,” You explained carefully as you all pulled out of the hug. “This is my dream, and I have supported you through all of yours, so I ask the same in return. I’ll have Dennis there with me,” You said with a smile as you looked over at him over Arthur’s shoulder. “He’s moving to compete in IndyNXT, and the plan is to stay with him until I get on-campus accommodations.”

“This sounds very familiar…” Arthur trailed off, looking between you and Dennis before a lightbulb went off in his head. “Did you post about this on Reddit?”

You froze as your eyes snapped toward Dennis. He promised no one close to you would see that post, yet one of the people it was about clearly knew about it.

“Oh my god, I knew it sounded too familiar!” Arthur’s jaw dropped before he lost all of the colour in his face. “Wait, I’m so sorry we made you ever feel less important or worthy. We love you, and we had no idea that you felt this way.”

“We’ll do better,” Charles nodded in agreement as he tightened his arm around your shoulder, “We have a lot to learn, but we’ll support you any way we can. We’ll also give you the space you need to become your own person.”

“But don’t think we won't surprise you in Indiana whenever he’s racing in the States,” Arthur cheered, slapping Charles on the shoulder. “Indiana is close to Florida, Texas, and Vegas, right?”

“No, not exactly,” You chuckled as you held out a hand for Dennis to join the family huddle, “He’ll be in IndyNXT, so maybe there will be some overlap.”

“We’ll show up to support both of you whenever, wherever you’re at,” Pascale said finally. Tears sprang into your eyes as you finally felt acknowledged by your family. You finally felt validated.

~~~~~

© BAD268 2025. DO NOT REPOST WITHOUT PERMISSION.

[qqueenofhades]

Hi Hilary I know you’re only replying to so many politics asks — I can only imagine how many are sitting in your inbox rn — and you’ve already been such a comfort to all us folks who’ve really appreciated your insight time and time again! But I did want to ask about all the posts I’ve seen more recently about signing petitions and reaching out to the White House for a recount. I feel like at this point we’re really reaching — everyone’s talking about how there’s evidence suggesting cheating on Trump’s part, and while I would never be surprised by that, I have yet to see any trusted sources backing those claims. It feels like we’re long past that point, even though the results came in so much faster than I ever expected, but I was wondering if you have an opinion on all that? Take care in the meantime, and thank you for all that you do!

I will make this the last politics ask for the night, and hopefully for at least a few days (no promises, though), but --

This, most unfortunately, is not going to work. For one, Biden/the White House cannot request a recount in state-level races. There are strict rules governing who can and cannot request those, it's usually either triggered by a certain percentage margin or requested by the candidate, and then it also has to be paid for. Kamala has given her concession speech and the Democrats are not going to go down election-denialism rabbit holes. It is hugely unfortunate that the worst people in the world who launched a coup after losing last time are the ones to benefit from it, but... yeah. It just sucks all the way around.

The election interference happened on the day with all the Russian-linked fake bomb threats in blue areas of swing states, the ballot boxes set afire, etc etc. I fear we have only begun to see how bad it will be in this and any future elections, as with many other things, and the reports of people's ballots disappearing or not being received etc are obviously disturbing. But there is, as you say, scant evidence aside from social media chatter backing this up, people are angry and hurt and looking for something to make it not be real (me too, man) and that's easier than thinking that half the country simply shrugged and chose fascism because of grocery prices and trans panic. And it sucks absolute shit, but this is what happened. It happened broadly consistently across the country and was a symbol of the anti-incumbency that's been going on since Covid (New Zealand's liberal government also fell victim to this and elected reactionary conservatives, so this is a thing). We can split hairs about this or that policy decision by the Democrats, and believe me there needs to be a messaging revamp and the firing of basically every Democratic Corporate Consultant TM, but we need to face up to the truth that many, many ordinary American people chose this. They wanted it. And if we are going to do anything about it, we have to reckon with that fact instead of looking for conspiratorial excuses. For one thing, that's what those assholes do constantly, and fuck them.

Likewise, results came in across the country much faster due to the fact that people once more voted largely in person on Election Day, and not early/by mail as they did in 2020. They came in largely matching the expected timelines given by election officials of both parties beforehand. If there is basis to all this missing-ballot stuff, then yes, obviously, it should be investigated (though I have very low confidence that it will be if they are already making preparations to close the federal cases against Trump). But at this point, as you say, this is not something that has logistical legs and is going to undermine a lot more. It sucks. Sometimes I wish we didn't have to be the adults in the room and could just be whiny cheating shitstains like the Republican Fascist Party -- it seems to work out for them that people want Democratic policies and then elect Republicans to punish Democrats for not instantly and perfectly implementing all of them. The exit polls largely matched with what the results turned out to be. It absolutely sucks almighty shit, but it's true.

I am old enough to remember George W. Bush getting reelected in 2004, and it sucked, though not as much as this just because Trump is so crazy and extreme and the GOP has abandoned even the basic pretence of democracy and decency. It's a race to the bottom and through to the center of the earth for them now, especially since they have literally no incentive to reform or do anything but double down on their extremism. Why would they? They just won a major election and got popular legitimacy, something the Republicans have lacked for a long time. This is only the second time they've won the popular AND electoral vote (the first likewise being 2004) in the 21st century. We got the blue trifecta in 2020 because we benefited from the same desire for reversal of course that the Republicans are getting now. In and of itself, this does not indicate fraud. Terrible things about America and the future, yes, but not fraud.

So: Yes. We need to focus on the things we can control and prepare ourselves for what is still to come. It will be hard and it will suck and as I keep saying, it was completely avoidable, but people didn't want to avoid it. They're now going to learn painfully why they should have, but we can't do anything about that either. It is very much going to be a case of picking your battles, drastically limiting your daily news consumption, and a lot of other protective measures, and that is where, at least IMHO, we should focus our effort.

Take care. ❤️

[themoreitisreproduced]

To AGE is a Blessing

-as Marisha Ray once said.

In the world of social media, it seems almost a given that artists, who are so regularly pushed to the side and ignored by algorithms, are finally in a competition so fierce one might compare it to the Olympic games themselves. Regularly artists are driven off of social media platforms, away from arts groups, and away from art all together by the social media machines desperate attempt to value the worth of their work based on likes. Is this a modern concept? Well, if we are simply talking about social media, then yes, it is, but the pitting of artists against one another has never been something that is strange to the art world. After all, there are only so many spots in a gallery. Something else that remains similar to the artist who came before in today’s day and age is the need for artists to group together. Older examples might be things such as The Brotherhood of the Pre-Raphaelites or the Surrealist painters, groups of artists who decided they enjoyed each others work and wanted to make work together, as a group. Though smaller now, these art groups have stood the test of time and still exist today, aided by social media.

One such art group is the A.G.E, the Artists Guild of Exandria. Exandria, the fictional world from hit D&D actual play show Critical Role, is a world of dragons, monsters, battles between Gods and wild, wild adventure. Now, when reading this you may be thinking to yourself, oh, so the A.G.E is an official project of Critical Role, but that is not true. Like many of the groups that came before it, the A.G.E is a collection of self-directed artists who want to make the world ever so slightly better than they found it. If that is through the use of art, then so be it. Similarly to their forefathers, the A.G.E utilises new and exiting exhibition states, such as social media, to show the work of their artists. Stretching across every continent and numerous cities, countries, and cultures, The A.G.E brings people together to create art about a show they all love and appreciate.

Again, I can practically hear people reading this asking themselves why. Why should you care what a bunch of fan-artists (most of whom have full-time jobs or full-time education) do in their spare time? It’s not as though the artists there are doing anything new. They are simply rehashing old characters and stories and pulling at people’s heartstrings in a cheap and easy way, as all fan artists do. After all, it’s not like fan art is a real genre of art. Firstly to that I say that is a lot of questions and most of them are statements, and secondly I say, if fan art is not real art, I urge you to look at any painting done in the renaissance period. Most of the art done is inspired by or from the bible itself, and while Critical Role is not the bible, artists have always taken inspiration from popular media of the time. Take, for example, Andy Worhol, who’s many works inspired by popular culture seem to be the only thing people recognise him for. It seems to be that when art became accessible through means of posting on social media, suddenly there was a huge upset about who could be counted as an artist and who wasn’t.

I have mentioned before the rage I feel at the class divide in art. It is almost glaringly obvious throughout history and even more so now, when everybody can have an opinion about every and anything. You will not see any of the pieces produced for The A.G.E’s projects hanging in a gallery. Instead, you will see them on social media, spoken about in friendly conversation, and forming a new medium of gallery and display all together. A medium that, instead of being a large white cube that focuses on separating the viewer from all the context in the world, not allowing them to think about what events might have inspired the artist, allows the viewer to think about how these pieces connect to their favourite characters. The way The A.G.E exhibits their pieces may be a lesson to all museums and galleries – there is value in the digital (not A.I) pieces being exhibited as they are meant to be seen, on a screen. The A.G.E members all have jobs, or a full-time education outside of art. They are not doing this for the money, they are doing this because they love it.

Now, again I hear you ask about the issue of Copyright. What about the original characters? The ones made by Critical Role? Are the creators not bothered by this blotch on their copyright? You might be screaming down with the A.G.E! Perhaps I have not been clear enough about how Critical Role works. Yes, whilst they still retain all their copyright to their characters, the cast and creators of Critical Role actively encourage fan art and fan works to be made and posted about their story. They encourage it so much to the point where one of the cast members is known and gladly accepts the title Art Dad, and they have a monthly show reel of fan art made. They even have a section on their website addressing this!

But what makes The A.G.E special, you’re probably now asking. What makes them different from every other artist on social media trying to make it? Why them, why not a bigger group? I hear you ask why, why, why, and I say back because they are good. Not just the technical skill of the art, The A.G.E is full of good, encouraging people and artists. Many people in the A.G.E are around to offer technical help on project pieces, sit with you whilst you work, or even just play a video game or two. You can feel the human connection in The A.G.E when you view any one of their projects, the time, love, and collaboration that has been placed into it right from the beginning, which is how art should be made.

The A.G.E works very simply.  Every few months or so, a new project will be announced, ranging from tarot cards to a toy workshop, and people will submit for certain characters to be given to make or draw. I will not pretend to know how this works, I have no idea, but I do know, quite simply, the people who assign the characters are nothing short of magic. You would think that only being allowed to draw one character causes chaos and makes people hunt each other for sport, which is where you would be wrong. Dreadfully so, in fact. As I have mentioned previously, The A.G.E is full of good, kind people with hearts bigger than their chests can carry. Critical Role has well over 100 named characters, so the pickings are often wide and varied. You could have someone pick a main, leading man or lady, or a side character who was only in one episode, hell, someone even once drew the fly swatter the cast use, so the choice is entirely up to the artist.

Now, I see you beginning to understand why The A.G.E is so special, and why it sparks such joy to write and view. The need for human connection in this day and age, especially post pandemic, cannot be understated, and The A.G.E provides that. Whether through talking about projects, or leaving support on people’s pictures, The A.G.E has an inspiring amount of connection in and outside of its projects. So you can say to yourself, The A.G.E is just a bunch of fan-artists, and I will say yes, yes they are.

And isn’t that beautiful?

Words: 1310

(Note: This post includes no images of the work of the members of The A.G.E, however I strongly encourage you to look at it yourself. Every members post is reblogged by the main social media account - @artists-guild-of-exandria. As also seen on BlueSky.)

[sloasis]

For a lot of things I'm prepared to be like yeah maybe I read too much into it, that's my fault. But THOSE moments that they write and film and talk about and then just forget? It's a crime. They made buck talk about eddie for an entire episode while he wasn't even there, they had his ex-boyfriend and sister point out he might have feelings for him. They had him sublet his house and confirmed yeah the loft stage is gone. And the episodes that came directly after pretended THAT never happened. I hate that every writer has a different opinion on buddie, can't trust anything to be done well.

No EXACTLY . You are speaking facts about how each writer has their own views and just . Forget what another writer did just because . I made a post about how the episode Aisha directed was super good but then . It seemingly went no where and I got a little bit of backlash about it like . I was correct and just speaking facts about how all the plots in Holy Mother of God were unconcluded . All the plot lines were untouched upon again , were dropped for nothing in its place . It's frustrating to have seen that play out in season 8 . Like I love the show but just because I do , doesn't mean we can't criticize it . I hope the writers learn from this in season 9 , I really do . I have hopes but also doubts and we really won't know anything for a while either :( . But anyways . Buck's whole arc of , feeling frustrated that another person he loves is leaving him again and moving into Eddie's place to combat those feelings . Then finally accepting that this change has already happened so he should just sleep in Eddie's house and make it his ( until he comes back ) , was SUCH a good arc . But then it went absolutely no where . No mention of it , no showing of it ever again except him just looking for a new place without a conversation of Buck and Eddie talking about that . Lol . I appreciate you and all the other anons I've gotten because talking about it to . Let other viewers know and even the writers if they somehow come across ( our ) posts that , we as fans and as watchers , feel like all of the great writing ( the writer that ep did ) and the directing Aisha did in Holy Mother of God was just . Wasted . And they should learn and take notes from it and be able to communicate to other writers that what they did in that episode should've been fleshed out even more so . This goes for many many other unconcluded plots as well like Eddie's ENTIRE Texas arc , Hen's bday / captain arc that should've happened .. ETC . Having multiple writers in a show can come with some complications such as stuff like this where someone writes something very very well but then the next episode , it's just gone . I feel like what they need is COMMUNICATION within the writers room and between them all . I don't know all the writers nor am I even an expert but . I feel like a lot of this could've been avoided if they just all talked about what they wanted to do , vote on it or flesh out each others ideas . It should be a collective team . Not just one man who wants to do whatever he wants just because his name is attached to the creators of the whole show . That's just straight up NOT fair . Anyways . I really could get way into it but thank you for letting me . Air out my opinions and agreements lmao !

[9w1ft]

Happy Eye Day

to celebrate 6 years of the eye theory, i reached out to you all for questions! thank you all for sending them. i picked out 9 to answer. this was a lot of fun!!

if you have any favorite eye theory memories or your own answers to these questions, feel free to add them on!

(if you’re new to the eye theory, tap here!)

👁️ Where were you—physically and emotionally—when you first began piecing together the elements that would become the eye theory?

I remember it was early spring 2019.. rep tour had ended that past november, taylor had reportedly bought that lotto ticket in ireland, TheSwiftLife app had closed on february 1st, and we had just started getting inklings that a new era was upon us as taylor had begun shifting her instagram aesthetic from reputations’ deep monochrome palette to one of pastels and dreamscapes. i had been coming off of a true puzzler high. i was super super into the taymojis as some of you remember, specifically how the main app account had been distributing them via their page throughout the previous year, and trying to draw connections between that activity and general kaylor activity. all of this to say, that chapter of my kaylor journey had closed and i was eagerly awaiting the next. one day in march, i think, @swift-79 approached me via dm’s with the idea which became the eye theory: that the right side eye that appears on the rep tour poster photo, a shattered version of which appears on the skin of the CD, which was packaged with the rep album promo magazines, was in fact a photo of karlie’s eye. perhaps, even, partially her face. her realization, which she came across and pieced together with her coworker, came after taking a photocopy of the CD skin and cutting out the different shards of the photo to try and piece them together to see if they created a full image. what they noticed in doing so, was that the resulting image seemed to focus a lot on the right side eye, and, when hanging the image up on a wall, up against the full photo, they suddenly noticed how much that side of the photo was reminiscent of karlie’s face. she came to me and asked my opinion, and i began the process of evaluating this over the next few weeks, with my ultimate goal being to see if i could find the seminal photo of karlie that it might have been based on.

👁️ How long did you sit with the idea before deciding to share it publicly? Was it a quick impulse or a slow build? What was the first image, lyric, or moment that made you go, “Wait… something’s going on here”?

one thing i had been struggling with is that while a lot of photos looked similar, there were certain structural differences between taylor and karlie’s faces, mainly, their brows. over the years i’ve absorbed this knowledge: that you never want to upkeep your brows in a way that makes them look symmetrical. rather, they should look like cousins. in the case of taylor and karlie, their more arched eyebrow exists on opposite sides. so while the shape of karlie’s eye itself often matched up super well with taylor’s, the brow placement never really worked. and so while i really could have put together an initial theory post sooner, i was adamant on getting it as right as possible because i knew the first impression among readers would make all the difference.

i remember it was while i was looking for exact photos, i had been pouring through karlie’s work and came upon a piece of estée lauder promo on youtube, where karlie was showing how to apply a serum on your face (the eye area) using your hands. she had placed her hands over her face in a similar fashion to that of the rep tour poster photo, and i at once paused the video, took a screenshot, and tried to match it up with the poster photo. and due to the angle of the face, i flipped the photo of karlie and realized how well it now matched. it was kind of a… jaw dropping moment for me. and i continued on to find a handful of examples where a flipped photo of karlie’s eye really made a great match with the right side of the rep photo. to swift-79’s true credit, she pushed me along with writing the op and got the post timing right. i might have waited longer but she was correct in thinking that we ought to post the theory before taylor truly began rolling out ts7 and the opening in the conversation went away. so we posted on April 18 (i think?) some time after midnight my time.

👁️ What kind of response or engagement were you expecting when you hit “post” on the first eye theory entry? Did reality match that expectation?

i really didn’t think it would take off the way that it did. oh my god. like, i did have faith in the theory, quite a bit, but at the time ts7 theories were all that was on everyone’s mind at the time, counting palm trees, cushion buttons, stairs, holes in fences, etc… so putting out an abstract post rooted in rep era and rooted in kaylor felt like it wouldn’t capture the attention of tumblr. boyyyy was i wrong! perhaps, as people were more open to clowning (as rollouts often allow for), people were more open to something like the eye theory. or maybe, it’s just that it’s that good. that’s what i happen to think. that if you notice it and recognize the essence of karlie’s face in the right side of the photo and it clicks? there’s simply no turning back. it’s the most giddy feeling i think ive ever felt. the moment that i couldn’t unsee it. i think this was true of a lot of people.

👁️ When was the first time that Taylor or Karlie did something that seemed to be in response to, or recognition of, the eye theory? What happened and how did you feel?

It certainly was a thrill for taylor to go on and release the ME! music video only an handful of days later, by putting her hands onto her face not unlike the rep photo, and then for the opening shot of the music video including a snake with a blue eye to the left and a blind looking eye to the right. that morning i was at the bus station sharing pleasantries with my neighbors, one earbud in my ear and another on the conversation, and eye on my phone, when i noticed it all. i had to excuse myself and walk to work instead because i was quite literally having a nervous breakdown 😆😆 oh and of course weeks later taylor goes on to share the lover album art on instagram live with a HEART OVER HER EYE. with karlie, i distinctly remember the first time she took to instagram with a post of her showing off her makeup, when she zoomed in on her eye.. oh man. to this day, it TRULY never gets old. the mischievousness is contagious. felt like the universe winking at me.

👁️ Were there any posts, interviews, or moments happening in the fandom or in the world of pop culture at that time that felt like they were directly feeding into what you were observing?

in general, the culture of the time was high theorizing over ts7. taylor was still on tumblr and we all were too, and it definitely affected the mood around theories. everyone had an appetite for it! maybe that’s what helped it along in the beginning and in the early days. i think that in principle, evil eyes as a motif are something that weave in and out of the cultural zeitgeist in waves, so it’s a little bit hard to fully say oh, everything in the taylor swift expanded universe suddenly included eyes because we pointed out the eye theory. but i did sense a certain amount of pop culture connection. over the next few weeks people in taylor’s circle most definitely covered eyes in their social media posts and for what it’s worth, i firmly believe it wasn’t all simply coincidental. especially if you believe taylor was going somewhere with her best laid plans in lover era. i think it’s plenty possible that people who were in on celebrating her journey and may have been in the know about this may have helped out or found it funny or celebratory.

but anyways this was the beginning of 6 glorious years of learning just how ubiquitous evil eye motifs and eye covering poses etcetera really are in our culture. both in looking back at past stuff taylor and karlie had done or was involved in and thinking about what did or didn’t “count”.. but also, as eye symbols exist in our everyday world. it brought so much joy into my life, to turn a corner and see a poster on the side of a building with the corner ripped off, leaving a cartoon of a dog missing half their face, etcetera. it was everywhere and it was too too funny. a lot of mutuals and close followers remember what that was like, i think, the little inside jokes that came from that setup.

👁️ Did you talk to anyone else about the theory before you posted it? Was there anyone who validated or challenged it early on?

aside from the the idea originators, i do think i ran it by some of my mutuals at the time for opinions. in particular i was excited to share with @theprologues because during rep era we had both been following evil eyes as a symbol in general. the swarovski bracelet, taylor’s eye ring, karlie’s 2016 evil eye nails or her jacquie aiche custom eye patch jacket, etcetera. once i posted the original post, i had so many enjoyable conversations with many bloggers of the time, some that are still here, some that have sadly moved on from tumblr. i did get challenged by some, i have some funny stories actually, but overall i was on cloud nine and there was nothing that could bring me down from it. the weeks i had spent looking into it beforehand truly did pay off in that regard, i think. not that i could persuade everyone but rather that nobody could dissuade me. my ego happily grew from there 😌

👁️ What is your response to people that don't believe in the eye theory? Even if both eyes are Taylor's, it's undeniable that Taylor and Karlie reacted to the theory and ran with it.

i think often the premise is misunderstood, but i haven’t been in too much of a rush to correct anyone because the theory has its own legs and people not believing it doesn’t hinder my enjoyment of it nor does it stop stuff from happening. often i see people mistaken that the theory is about the rep album cover photo, when it’s only ever been about the tour poster photo. sometimes people don’t put in the effort to look for photos of both of them where the angle of the face can be matched, etc. also i feel like some people get really focused on a pixel level on the photo instead of taking a step back and looking at the photo and simply recognizing that the right side of the photo looks like karlie and how that’s the overall point, a point which makes sense under the premise that karlie is the hidden muse of the reputation album.

as you have alluded to in your question, i don’t really find a discussion of the truth of the theory to be too productive because i think it’s pretty clear that it’s real. the reaction to it, from them both, has been so real and continued. and i think that is the more important point, that it’s this sort of inside joke that we have with them. and if they can have an inside joke with some kaylors, what does that mean of kaylor? sounds farfetched but i truly believe it, even as time passes. also, i think it’s possible to enjoy the theory without believing it to be actually true. and for me, if the community at large is more happy and having more fun, that’s more important than proving something to prove some people wrong, you know?

👁️ Why do you think this one is so special to them? As you've said before, sometimes they tend to stop things the second we pick up on the trend. But they just keep on with the eye flagging.

i’m not sure but honestly part of me wonders if it’s just because it’s funny to them 😆 or that it’s like a.. low cost high payout thing to do. a way to make some of us smile! it’s also possible that it’s origins are more sentimental and precious than we know. at one point i floated the idea that the gold heart locket is actually a lovers eye locket, that maybe a picture of karlie’s eye is in the locket, or maybe karlie has one too with taylor’s eye in it, and i think in that case it could just be a really sweet motif for them. maybe it feels like a good luck charm sort of thing?

at the same time i assume at some point it’ll come to a more quiet happy place where it’s only something referenced every once in awhile. i think i’ve archived everything annually to gauge that, to see the extent to which it is still being referenced. their social media presence overall has really dwindled in recent years but even this year, we have gotten one or two things each month so far.

👁️ How has the “eye theory” evolved since its inception? Have there been any surprising developments or revelations that have reshaped your perspective?

i think the biggest thing for me has just been seeing the reception of the theory as it finds new audiences and reaches new shores. the eye theory’s presence on platforms like tiktok and twitter grew, and we got name dropped in major magazines, introducing a new wave of enthusiasts to our ongoing exploration… through the eras tour many of you sent me clips and pics of eye stuff that happened on tour, some of you incorporated eye patches and embroidery and stickers into your outfits… i had fun exchanging eye theory friendship bracelets… it’s been such an amazing couple of years. i’m continually amazed by the community that has formed around this theory. your insights, enthusiasm, and shared discoveries have enriched this journey beyond measure. it’s shaped the way i’ve thought about communication, what i value, and the way i think about taylor and karlie, too. it’s really helped this all become my happy place. i LOVE every moment ive had crashing out with all you day in day out. here’s to six years of seeing, connecting, and staying curious! and here’s to many more. thank you all for being part of this ever-evolving narrative 🫶

[mariacallous]

Carson Campbell didn’t feel any remorse for his vote, and was even relishing in the chaos it might cause one of Love Island USA’s most contentious cast members of the season. “I love mess and I love reality TV,” the 24-year-old student and content creator says. “I love something with an end goal, when people are working toward a purpose.”

As a Love Island USA superfan who live-tweets and recaps every episode on TikTok, Campbell feels personally invested in how the reality dating show unfolds. Most reality programs are pre-recorded, but Love Island USA, an American spinoff of a British dating show by the same name that follows contestants at a luxury villa with the goal of finding love, is filmed in real time and airs six nights weeks (on Peacock) over a six-week period in the summer. Its format relies on votes from viewers, via the Love Island app, to help determine how the show progresses (you vote on favorite cast members, who pairs off on dates, and more).

That interactive component gave viewers the power to split up two contestants—Huda Mustafa and Jeremiah Brown—who coupled together in the first episode but had become too toxic for their own good by episode 13. Mustafa was controlling and territorial; in one episode she eavesdropped on Brown during a private conversation with other male contestants, calling him a “bitch” and a “pussy.” Brown was portrayed as a textbook love bomber; during a group challenge he confessed to telling 10 women he loved them.

When the time came to decide on their relationship, “we all agreed,” Campbell tells me from his home in Queens, New York. He often consults with his friends when a vote takes place. “America came together as a democracy and said we need them apart no matter who we have to throw in there as collateral. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not fair. But it was the right thing to do. Watching at home, we can see when something is going to crash and burn.”

The split sent Mustafa into a rage and her “crash out” went viral across social media. “Peak cinema,” Campbell calls it. While a lot of fans appeared to be fed up with Mustafa, prior to the shake-up, some worried about her well-being— “I thought Huda crashout would be funny, y’all I was wrong,” @daesbloodline posted on X. Fans have even tracked down Noah Sheline, her ex-boyfriend and father of her four-year-daughter, to express their disapproval for Mustafa. “You got one hell of an easy full custody battle ahead of you brother,” one person commented on his TikTok feed. Sheline released a statement on TikTok calling the fan obsession “unhealthy.”

“Her going on that show to find love, or whatever you think it was she’s doing, remember she’s still human, she has a daughter, and a life,” he wrote. “ I don’t like that I’m seeing so much negative shit on my page or even clips of it about her.”

Although Mustafa was villainized for her erratic behavior on the show, “crashing out”—a Gen Z term for a meltdown—is not uncommon on the show. And it’s a response that seems almost unavoidable on a social experiment where participants are not only surrounded by each other day and night and forced to watch their love interests hook up with other people, but are also subjected to the audience’s often ruthless opinions of them. “I don’t know whether it’s America hates me, or America knows something I don’t,” Mustafa says in a confessional following her fan-induced breakup with Jeremiah. The answer to that may be a little bit of both. One thing is for sure: with 1.2 billion minutes viewed in its first two weeks—the second highest for a streaming program on television—America is watching. Closely.

Because Love Island’s fans help influence major storylines, outcomes, and eliminations, they essentially become backseat producers. But that power can also facilitate an unhealthy amount of investment, says Colman Feighan, 26, a former reality TV producer who is based in LA.

“Involvement from the fans makes a lot of people feel like they can control every single outcome. And they—very much like Huda—feel out of control when it doesn’t necessarily go exactly as they want, or if it does, then they want more to go in their way,” he says. “Very much like the crash outs we’ve seen with her, people are having their own crash outs as well.”

For some fans of reality TV, who treat the genre like an escapist fantasy, their deep investment comes from “getting to play god on top of it,” says Alo Johnston, a licensed therapist at Pershing Square Therapy. “If you as an audience member are using the show to escape a real world that feels uncontrollable and overwhelming then you might feel extra invested in controlling this one small thing.” Following Brown’s elimination from the show, fans demanded his return and have since created a Change.org petition that has over 72,000 signatures.

But it can also be about more than control—our reactions often have to do with how we deal with personal traumas. “When you start to see the way the way people talk about reality show cast members, where some people say, ‘Oh I didn't think what he did was that bad,’ and others are saying ‘I think he's the devil incarnate,’ you're seeing that they are actually reacting to their ex and not the actual person on screen,” Johnston says. “A crash out could be because you are thrown back into processing your own grief or trauma.”

Mustafa’s ex Sheline isn’t the only one who became collateral damage in viewers’ displeasure over how the show has played out. It is a common theme among devoted watchers this season—especially in superfan communities on X, like Huda HQ and Ace Mob, and across TikTok—where online discourse has reached new levels of intensity.

In some cases, viewers are influencing casting decisions at the very outset of the show—and doing deep background checks to reveal anything they consider problematic about contestants.

Before the premiere, fans alleged that two contestants—Austin Shepard and Yulissa Escobar—support MAGA and promised to vote them off right away. A video of Escobar using the n-word in a podcast interview surfaced online, TMZ reported, and she was dropped from the show in the second episode. (Shepard has lasted.) Fans have alleged that multiple other cast members support Trump and the Republican party and spun up a conspiracy theory that contestants Ace Greene and Chelley Bissainthe had a relationship before the show; Bissainthe’s friends have said they followed each other before the show but never dated.

“I find it strange when people suddenly try to expose someone just because they’ve gained popularity,” Feighan says. “If the person has committed a crime or engaged in abusive behavior—even if it’s not publicly documented—then calling that out is fair. But if the issue is simply a difference in opinions that upsets some viewers, the appropriate response is to stop supporting them and unfollow, not to incite a public takedown as not everyone is going to share the same beliefs.”

The negative backlash this season—which has resulted in some contestants getting death threats—is so widespread that Peacock aired a warning during its June 24 episode. “The keyword in Love Island is … LOVE. We love our fans. We love our Islanders. We don’t love cyberbullying, harassment or hate,” it read. On X, the show posted a reminder to viewers to “be kind” and, in an episode of the weekly recap show Aftersun, host Ariana Maddox urged fans to stop acting so reckless. “Don’t be contacting people’s families. Don’t be doxing people. Don’t be going on islanders’ pages and saying rude things,” she said. In 2018, former Love Island UK contestant, Sophie Gradon died by suicide after appearing on the show. That same year, production mandated cast members to attend a post-finale evaluation with a mental health professional, according to Vanity Fair, and cast members now have the option to attend up to eight counseling sessions. In 2019, contestant Mike Thalassitis also died by suicide; that same year show’s former host, Caroline Flack posted on Instagram about being “in a really weird place”. Flack took her life in 2020.

“If the relationships on Love Island make us believe the performance of love leads to the real deal,” Anna Peele wrote in Vanity Fair, “the losses—it feels shameful to say—seem to authenticate the depth of human experience.”

But it’s not all on the fans. Producers are incentivized to edit shows around trending conversations, which raises the stakes for viewers, according to Feighan. “They have the ability to reach numbers like that because whatever is trending online they are able to see that and then put out teasers that show whatever is currently trending on platforms like TikTok,” he says. “It’s catering to the people that are tuning in and talking about it on a daily basis. Whereas you don’t have so much flexibility with other dating shows that are all pre-recorded.”

Reality TV is formatted to be addictive, says Jennifer Gillian, a professor of media studies at Bentley University. “Add to that the surprising ethical norming that occurs when viewers begin to ask themselves, ‘What would I do in this situation? What do I think others would agree is the right thing to do?”

But “that’s where the line gets blurred—people are treating it almost like a competition talent show when in reality it’s a love show,” Feighan says. “Online culture in general—with the keyboard warriors and trolls—is so quick to give input on how they would do something, and it’s very easy to say so when you hide behind a screen, but at the end of the day these are real people on a TV show.”

Though this season has courted its fair share of controversy, conversation across social media is still mostly jokes and memes, especially TikTok supercuts of the villa’s unofficial “Mean Girls” crew—Greene, Vansteenberghe, and Taylor Williams. “Imagine you come out the villa … get your phone, think you gon see thirst trap edits of you on tik tok and instead Morgan Freeman calling you a RAT,” @ascenario_ said of another video, which called out Vansteenberghe for being two-faced.

For Campbell, the crashing out, the fan communities, and emotional intensity viewers bring to the show is what makes it must see TV. It’s how reality TV—on and off screen—works.

“With this show specifically, I don’t have a problem with anybody loving who they love and who they're going hard for,” Campbell says. “My issue is who you like in the show tells me more about you. If your group is called Huda HQ—which is a very corny name—it tells me that you are mostly unstable. The problem is not necessarily about being a part of the larger fan base, because that’s normal now.”

[slitheringghost]

Your five worst opinions:

You think that across two aisles and up a third is the same thing as three rows to the right

You think Voldemort thought of himself as Tom (I can't find this post so maybe that was a nightmare I had)

Some of your opinions along the lines of the James/Snape relationship give James too much grace

You severely overestimate Lily's magical prowess. I respect your central thesis about Lily intentionally defeating Voldemort even though I don't agree yet, but I don't see enough evidence that she did exceptionally well in school or was a skilled duelist

The rest of your opinions are fine. If I had to pick a fifth maybe the thing about Lily helping up Flitwick when he falls over

1. I’m right 2. I’m right 3. I’m right 5. I’m right

4. THIS IS A MISOGYNISTIC ABOMINATION OF A TAKE and I shall prove you wrong. Here’s all of the evidence.

Lily as a brilliant student

- Lily was Head Girl, and all of the Heads we know - Tom Riddle, Dumbledore, Percy Weasley, Bill Weasley - are said to have gotten top grades (Percy and Bill got twelve OWLs). James as Head Boy is similarly brilliant (“exceptionally bright”, “cleverest students in the whole school”, creating the mirrors and the Map and Animagi, thinking the DADA exam was a piece of cake, etc.) I think some of those are political decisions too (maybe why James was chosen over Sirius, who based on Slughorn’s words/what we see/my biased preference lol, might’ve been a bit more brilliant than James) but top grades does still seem to be a prerequisite for the position, and they’re handpicked by Dumbledore.

(It’s more dubious how much grades count with prefects, given some of the choices: Ron, Remus who is very smart but presumably gets lower grades than James and Sirius, Lucius Malfoy who never really shows himself as exceptional at any magic).

- Slughorn calls Lily “one of the brightest he ever taught” and he taught Tom Riddle. While Slughorn has some… dubious choices and picks people based on fame/charm/connections/etc too, he clearly can also recognize talent: he praises Tom, praises Hermione’s talent in the first class, praises Snape, praises Sirius in the same scene as Lily, all of whom are canonically brilliant.

And if it was about other factors in Lily’s case rather than pure talent, it would’ve been considerably more advantageous for Slughorn to praise James as a pureblood boy, with a father with a Potions business if you accept that extracanon, rather than the Muggleborn girl.

- Lily’s wand is said to be “nice for charmwork”; in the same scene, Ollivander says James’s was good for Transfiguration, and James is clearly a Transfiguration prodigy, so it’s reasonable to extrapolate that Lily was then a Charms prodigy.

- Slughorn mistakes all of Snape’s modifications as Lily’s work, which means Lily came up with similar modifications and/or Snape and Lily came up with those together (similar to how the Marauders invented the mirrors and the Map together), and specifically praises her as being an exceptionally innovative and out of the box thinking student. Snape and Lily are implied as intellectual equals, and I think it makes a lot of sense that their abilities would match up nearly perfectly with each other’s until their friendship broke off, which I’ve elaborated on in this post (go down to the Snape and Lily section).

(Additionally though, based on Slughorn being Head of Slytherin House, his other favorites, Tom asking him for info on horcruxes, etc., he does consider talent on several scales and his statement about Lily being the brightest he ever taught goes beyond Potions and is about her as an overall student)

- There is of course the parallel of Tom Riddle and Lily both controlling wandless magic and doing unsupported flight before either of them even knew what magic was. Lily’s flight is different from that of Neville, Harry’s, etc accidental magic because Lily is in full control of it, and is indicated to have practiced it often enough for Petunia to tell her not to do it.

Since Tom calls himself “flight from death” at 15, I do assume Tom had a similar flying ability as a child and what we see in DH is the fully trained version of that. However, you could say this is more about innate magical power than intellect and skill, though it does suggest boundary pushing and a penchant for experimentation on both their parts. The rest of the parallels in their magic also indicate Lily being as brilliant as Tom.

- While explicit confirmation that Voldemort tried to recruit Lily and James is extracanon, I do think Voldemort telling Harry “Better save your life and join me or you’ll die like your parents… begging me for mercy” is evidence towards the idea that he did ask them to join (especially evidence for Lily, since Lily is the one who died begging for mercy). I could also say a lot about Voldemort evidently recognizing Lily’s magic and giving her credit for deflecting the Killing Curse, but that would be a whole other meta.

Dueling ability

- We know that James and Sirius are immediately wary of Lily’s wand in SWM. Sirius in particular is able to hold Bellatrix off for a while in the DoM battle and taunts her and they’re paralleled in combat (their laugh, etc) which implies they dueled together a lot, and Bella is Voldemort’s best duelist and parallels Voldemort in battle. So Sirius is at a similar level to Bella (though I think Bella is still better, just as Voldemort is still better than Bella). And Sirius is wary of Lily’s wand which means he sees her as a genuine challenge as an opponent, as does James. (James and Sirius also mimic each other in battle which implies James was also skilled).

- Of course, that’s their dueling ability at 16 - it’s possible they diverged later on. I see Dumbledore as playing to their strengths while training them for the Order. So Lily was assigned more the healing/cursebreaking/Dark magic expert role while James and Sirius were primarily in combat (tho Sirius also had some Dark magic expertise and I HC he was a wardcraft expert and was assigned the role of enacting protections on civilians’ homes), so by 1981 I think Sirius and James were better duelists than Lily, but Lily was still an excellent one.

- (I would add joining the Order as evidence, but, well, there seem to be a lot of Order members with mediocre talent and/or were picked for other reasons than skill, so that’s not great evidence).

There are probably more details but I’m stopping here for now.