#barring a few of my posts getting a lot more traction than I'm used to. so I feel kinda anxious/unsure abt even trying to do anything bc

[capricioussun]

I am. about to hit 1k which. I lost track of. Uh. Is there anything anyone would like to see as a thanks/celebration of the milestone?

[tunedtostatic]

I'm trying to figure out how to talk about critical role announcing a live show, because it's the kind of news that's like, how do you talk about that? How do you even begin to begin?

At minimum a few people will almost certainly die as a direct result of critical role doing a live show for 12,000 people during a pandemic. But that's only the best case scenario; it could be many more. How do you even string words together about that?

I know there's a lot of pandemic denial out there but there's also a lot of people who genuinely don't know the pandemic is still going on, now that it's no longer getting press. If you genuinely didn't know that the pandemic isn't over, over a quarter million people in the U.S. and tens of thousands of people in the U.K. currently have covid

[Edit - I made this post on July 16, and now it's October 8 and I'm linking to this in my follow up post, so I just want to add a note to avoid any chance of date confusion by noting that the above numbers were for mid-July, and as of October 8 in the US with the new covid surge it's over twice that number now]

And it's easier for the "it's a mild illness now" misinfo to gain traction when the death rate absolutely is lower than it was in April 2020 or whatever other date forms people's personal traumatic high-water mark, but that does not mean thousands of people aren't losing their loved ones every week, and thousands more aren't suffering long covid, heart damage, neurological damage

I'm whiteknuckling to scientific integrity to write "will almost certainly die as a direct result of critical role doing a live show for 12,000 people during a pandemic" instead of "will die," because I can't see the future and October hasn't happened yet. But barring an unhinged Act of God-level change in covid rates, the live show is guaranteed to get people sick. Statistically, that means deaths - at least a few deaths, potentially many more. Which gets me back to like. How do you even find the words for that?

I've been diving through covid reporting all afternoon for the actual current numbers, because policies declaring the pandemic "over" and ending testing have made reporting so deeply inadequate and crappy, and misinformation is a plague (metaphorical) that I don't want to contribute to. And well, yeah. The most conservative estimates are a quarter of a million people currently sick with covid in the U.S. and 60k people in the U.K. (if you want to know why I'm confident those numbers are 'reliable' in the sense of coming from confirmed sources and not pulling numbers out of thin air or overestimating cases, but also are significant underestimates, please ask me I will make a post about covid stats and hospitalizations and wastewater testing in a heartbeat)

But playing with stats is not giving me words for the, this

How do you deal with looking at a piece of fiction you loved and knowing that the making of the next piece is going to cause injury and death to real alive human beings in such a direct way?

It's easy to fixate on the people who will read this post in the most bad-faith way possible, but I know that with the lack of press there are a lot of people who literally do not know the pandemic is still happening. If this convinces a few people not to travel to the live show, or to use as many layers of protection (n95, tests, quarantining before and after) as possible, then it's worth it

(And if you are one of the people who didn't know that covid rates are still this high, I'm sorry you're finding out from an emo post about a dnd live show)

[bitchassbucky]

Highway 63 (Almost-there 2K writing challenge)

On a dusty stretch of highway that connects two cities, a few aged establishments have made themselves part of the land. They say that some days you wouldn’t find anything but boarded-up buildings and old “Do Not Trespass” signs but there will be nights where people find themselves mingling with the patrons. You have to visit on a warm summer night, though. When the moon is shining and the air is light.

There, you would find a Bar that attracts all kinds of people—city folks, locals, people who wanted to disappear amongst the crowd of faces. The building reeks of cigarette smoke and cheap liquor and yet they see groups of people coming in and out, trying to grab a fix of their favorite sin.

Weary travelers often find themselves checking into the Motel, just a few hundred steps away from the infamous Bar. Some rooms are occupied, some things go bump in the night. It makes a decent stopover rather than sleeping in your car.

Patrons love to rave about the Diner near the Motel. The food tastes like home! they say. The booths are aged and yellow, the buzzing overhead lights are dusty and yet it feels familiar—even if it was your first time here.

Venturing further down the road, you’ll find a dilapidated barn. Nature is on its way reclaiming rotten wood posts and rickety doors. Rumors of ghost and unfriendly souls keeps the walls intact; the rusted tractor sits idle on the side.

If you’re lucky, you’ll find yourself driving down the stretch—catching glimpse of faces you’d never see again. The Motel would’ve had its no vacancy sign up, the Bar would be full of people dancing, the beats spilling onto the street. The Diner would’ve been serving pancakes, chicken, and waffles. Pass by the Barn, maybe you’ll see the vines crawling and waving onto the posts.

If you’re luckier, a postcard would be stuck on your windshield, “Welcome to Highway 63!” it would say. Would you take it as an invitation?

—

Welcome to Bitchassbucky’s almost-there 2K writing challenge! With my blog turning 3 years old this June, I just want to say thank you to everyone who has been there since day one. I made lots of friends throughout the years, I even found a bunch of people that I would call my family too.

I’ve decided to take a little break from writing, just until I can find my traction again. Don’t worry, I will be coming back! Hopefully, a better writer.

Anyway, I just really want to thank you for the laughs, for the ugly cries, for the rage, for the keysmashes, and everything in between. You’re always in my heart.

Enough sentiments, let’s get down to business.

Guidelines:

🟪 MINORS DO NOT INTERACT. You are responsible for your own media consumption. We don’t exist to babysit you.

🟪 Send me an ask (with your @ if you’re on anon) with the prompt you’d like to take.

🟪 All stories should take place in the Bar, the Motel, the Diner, the Barn, or along the road. Welcome to Highway 63.

🟪 No minimum word count! If your entry goes beyond 500 words, please use the read more tool. All forms of content is welcome: moodboards, playlists, drabbles, one-shots, series, headcanons, etc. are counted as a valid entry.

🟪 To send an entry, mention me @bitchassbucky and @bitchassbucky-afterdark and use the Welcome to Highway 63 tag.

🟪 Marvel/MCU characters are very much preferred. Let me know if you want to write for another character.

🟪 Maximum of two people can take a prompt.

🟪 Warnings, warnings, warnings. Tag your fics appropriately. Dark (noncon, dubcon, etc.) fics are very much welcomed, just tag it. No cross-tagging too.

🟪 NO DEADLINE, we all hate deadlines. KEEP IT COMIN’, FOLKS.

🟪 Hard no-no’s: bathroom play, blood-incest, underage pairings.

🟪 No RPFs (Real Person Fics). Reader inserts or character/character only. OCs are welcomed!

🟪 Let’s keep all entries inclusive, please!

🟪 DO NOT REPOST WORKS OF OTHER PEOPLE.

Prompts under the cut!

Song prompts

You're Gonna Go Far, Kid by The Offspring

Bad To The Bone by George Thorogood

Don't Stop Me Now by Queen

Girls on Film by Duran Duran ( @belladonnabarnes )

Highway to Hell by AC/DC

Precious Love by James Morrison

Sugar for the Pill by Slowdive

Everybody Talks by Neon Trees ( @blackberrybucky for Bucky)

The Boy from NYC by The Ad Libs

Knock On Wood by Amii Stewart

How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) by Marvin Gaye ( @buckyblues for Bucky)

MONTERO (Call Me By My Name) by Lil Nas X

Streets by Doja Cat (@luxeavenger)

Tokyo Love Hotel by Rina Sawayama

Lover Boy by Phum Viphurit

Nobody by Mitski

Take Me To Church by MILCK

Curious by Hayley Kiyoko

Line prompts

"Are you sure we're supposed to be here?" // "Are we even allowed in here?" ( @vibraniumqueen for Bucky)

"The GPS fucked up, didn't it?" ( @phant0m-queen for Bucky) ( @uncensored-steve-the-platypus for Steve)

"Drive slower!"

"Not bad [name], not bad."

"Can you shut the fuck up for just one second?!" ( @whoth3hellisbucky for Bucky)

"What did you do?"

"You don't deserve to know me like this."

"Oh, fuck."

"Do you want any advice?" / "If it's from you, then no."

"If you're reading this, I'm dead." ( @buckycuddlebuddy for Bucky)

"Close your eyes, I wanna surprise you." ( @lokiscollar for Bucky) (@drysdale-barnes for Bucky)

"What are you doing here?" / "What are YOU doing HERE?"

"Are you following me?"

"I'm gonna need a drink." (@fuckandfluff for Bucky)

"Keep walking. Just keep walking."

"Hey, I think I saw something back there."

"Come with me!"

"Hand me the car jack."

"We're in Bumfuck, Middle of Nowhere, what do you think?!"

Trope and AU prompts

Biker AU (very on-the-nose, eh?) ( @mxsamwilson for Bucky) ( @thefallenbibliophilequote for a series)

Rom-com AU

College AU ( @babyboibucky for College!Bucky)

Vacation/road trip AU

Band AU ( @hey-its-grey )

Mob/Gang/Criminals AU ( @buckycuddlebuddy for Bucky) ( @xbuchananbarnes for Sam)

Spies AU

Stalker AU

Dystopian AU

Fuck buddies/friends-with-benefits trope ( @whoth3hellisbucky for Bucky)

Found family trope

Mutual pining trope

Idiot x Dumbass trope ( @vibraniumqueen for Bucky)

Amnesia trope

Unreciprocated feelings trope ( @buckyblues for Bucky)

Lovers-to-friends trope

Friends-to-lovers trope

Enjoy yourself and I’ll see you around.

[bangchanswolfpelt]

honestly, i can see distancing yourself/denying any relationship seeming like a practical move depending on how fans react—i’ve seen stuff like that get ugly with people who don’t have nearly as big a fanbase as BTOB 😅 i definitely haven’t been a melody long enough to have a well-rounded opinion, so i trust your judgment, haha. for me, it’s not really based on anything in particular, it’s more just the overall vibe i‘ve gotten from Minhyuk? and i haven't seen that interview! if you wanna drop a link, i'd love that, but i'll probably come across it eventually if you don't have the time

and i can definitely see things being different when you don’t really see yourself as a celebrity!! i’ve also gotten the impression that things used to be more relaxed for earlier gen idols, just from watching early BTS, Seventeen, and now BTOB videos? stuff like admitting to Namjoon getting viruses on the shared computer from downloading porn to Hyunsik and Minhyuk looking at adult manga probably wouldn’t go over as well now, which is honestly too bad 😤

ahhhh, i was fresh off people being annoyed at twitter fandom, so i assumed worst-case-scenario and was worried he was getting flack for like. acknowledging younger fans exist or something equally dumb 😅 thank you for the clarification!!

and that WAS the live i was thinking of!! i remember the bit about him still being a baby, it made me so 🥰 Minhyuk’s one of the few idols i’m into that’s actually older than me (though not by much, haha), but that moment made me really wanna baby HIM 🥰🥰🥰 his lives are my favorite now along with Bang Chan's, he's just so comfortable and warm during them, and he always genuinely seems like he's enjoying himself<3

now for

~Daddy Chan Discourse~

(under a cut because this is already a Long Post and in summarizing what people have said vs. what's happened i basically ended up writing an actual essay; please nobody feel obligated to read this, not even you, s💙, i just needed to get this out of me apparently? 😳)

there’s been people calling Chan problematic or even straight-up predatory because they’re saying that he refers to himself as ‘daddy’ and his fans as 'baby girls', and that it’s creepy for him to do that when he has underage fans. i'm not sure when these 'callouts' started, i think it was a couple years ago, but since then it seems like one of those controversies that just comes around again whenever people want to talk shit about a specific idol/group. i’ve seen it come around at least once, and have seen tweets recently that look like they’re following the same trend, though i don’t know how much traction it’s gotten either time.

the criticism directed towards Chan assumes:

the daddy/babygirl nicknames between him and fans are something that Chan started and encourages

the daddy/babygirl nicknames between him and fans are inherently sexual

the daddy/babygirl nicknames give Chan a foothold re: preying on younger fans whom he already has an unhealthy amount of power/influence over

the first assumption is flat-out untrue; the second and third are true, but not as straightforward as people want to act like they are. we're gonna go over them point-by-point, thank you for coming to my ted talk, good luck leaving, we've barred the doors.

(1) the daddy/babygirl nicknames between him and fans are something that Chan started and encourages

i was not in the fandom to watch this all go down in real time, but i’d seen enough references to it in passing to track down old vlives and see what was up, so i feel like i have a fairly accurate idea of how we got to the current state of events, re: Daddy Chan.

my understanding of how things have actually went: Chan showed himself scrolling through his selfies during a live, fans zeroed in on one specific image in his photo album, and eventually figured out that it looked ~suspiciously~ like a pink wallpaper that said ‘baby girl’ on it. from that, fans extrapolated that Chan has a daddy kink and a lot of people started referring to him as ‘daddy’, with some fans even requesting that he call them/the fandom ‘baby girls.’ Chan proceeded to roll with it in a way that was awkward, but good-humored and pretty indulgent.

Chan did not just start calling himself 'daddy' and Stays 'baby girls'; this is something that started with the fandom.

(2) the daddy/babygirl nicknames between him and fans are inherently sexual

when it comes to fans who call him 'daddy' and asked to be called 'baby girl/boy', yes, it absolutely is. this literally started with jokes and theories about Chan having a daddy kink; any fan who tries to pretend it's not is likely being obtuse. however, i do think Chan himself has made an effort to downplay the sexual aspect of it when it comes up.

regardless of what Chan is personally into or comfortable with, he's definitely aware that he has younger fans and tries to be considerate of that, especially when it comes to keeping Chan’s Room (his weekly vlive) welcoming and safe for them. when the 'daddy'/'baby girl/boy' nicknames come up while he’s live, he’s definitely gone out of his way to downplay the sexual implications of being called ‘daddy’—in one stream, he said that some fans at an event wanted him to refer to them as ‘baby boys’, so he'd be switching to ‘baby girls’ AND ‘baby boys’ in his sign-off to be more inclusive, then said that he was sure they meant that he was a ‘father of eight’ when they called him 'daddy.' he’s also since transitioned from calling stays ‘baby girls’/‘baby boys’ to ‘baby stays,’ he said because it's less clunky to say, but i think it's also definitely meant to make the nickname less suggestive and more comfortable for everyone.

(3) the daddy/babygirl nicknames give Chan a foothold re: preying on younger fans whom he already has an unhealthy amount of power/influence over

i have no idea what Chan's doing in private, but if he's fostering unhealthy relationships with individual fans, i don't think you can use fans calling him 'daddy' as evidence of that. it's something that was started and perpetuated by fans, and although he acknowledges it and plays along to some extent, it's pretty clear that he's not encouraging it, and might not even be entirely comfortable with it.

while idols absolutely can exert an unhealthy amount of influence over individual fans, to the point of forming predatory and abusive relationships, i think it's also important to acknowledge that a fanbase as a whole can exert control over an idol as well. idols (probably especially younger, less-established ones) depend on a group of people that could turn on them for doing something as normal and human as going out in public with a friend, and depending on the situation we're looking at, i think that's important factor to keep in mind. a lot of people (who seem to be coming from a very Western/American viewpoint) want to attribute the same amount of power that old, established, rich white men in hollywood have to idols, and that's simply not the case for most (if any) idols in kpop.

could and should Chan have nipped the 'daddy'/'babygirl' situation in the bud? he probably could have and absolutely should have. but he's also a young man in his early/mid-twenties navigating an industry where he has a fairly limited amount of power, and on top of that, a lot of these incidents have occurred during in-person events or livestreams where he's put on the spot and trying to balance behaving appropriately with keeping his fans happy. i'm not going to blame him for not having a perfect reaction when it's clear he's doing his best to keep this contained while still maintaining a fun, comfortable relationship with his fanbase.

it's also not entirely on him. i personally love the daddy dom fantasy and talking about daddy!Chan in spaces where it's just friends/other fans, but dragging it into situations where Chan himself has to acknowledge it is inappropriate, and the people responsible for that are the fans who cross that boundary, not Chan. the obligation to refrain from sexually inappropriate behavior is not a one-way street between idols and fans, fans don't get a free pass to start dragging their daddy dom roleplay into public no matter how hard JYPE tries to sell us the fantasy of a perfect dateable boy. seeing fans display that kind of behavior, then turning around and blaming Chan for not having the perfect response to shut it down is just abhorrent.

~

i’m not normally someone who goes to bat for celebrities, but the spread of purity culture throughout fandoms and the shades of xenophobia i've seen in kpop fandom specifically have been increasingly irritating. i've seen some truly nightmarish takes about parasocial relationships, and an increasing unwillingness to allow anyone with a platform (in this case idols) to be anything less than perfect. this is a fucked up way to treat any human being, but i think it's especially egregious when we're engaging in an industry that everyone acknowledges grinds people up for consumption.

on top of that, as someone new to kpop (but not new to Asian entertainment industries), i'm seeing other people who are also new coming in with a lot of very obviously Western-/American-centered views and criticism. a lot of these people don't seem to understand that Asian entertainment industries are not the same, don't even understand how their own local industries work, and aren't interested in learning because their sense of superiority has them convinced that there's nothing they need to learn.

i'm also just very tired of people taking things that they don't like or are mildly uncomfortable with and blowing them up as if an actual crime has been committed. if taken far enough, it can ruin an innocent person's career, but even if that doesn't happen, it still desensitizes people to the language used to describe actual harm. it's already been done by people making callout posts that equate erotic fanart to real-life child abuse, and it's only getting worse the longer this goes on.

@tinysmuttythoughts yooooooooo that is wild 😳 i was NOT expecting this to be an accidental called-shot, but like. this dude has so much impulsive, bad-decision energy, and hitting up your ex is such a classic move 😂 the fact that her current bf messaged him, tho??? why do i feel like this broke bad for everyone involved???? 😂😂😂

also, i think i watched that live?? did he get in trouble for that???? 'cause if it's the one i'm thinking of, there was like. nothing sketch happening at all!! he was just talking about how fans don't need to speak formally / use age-based titles/honorifics when they talk to him in the chat because he knows they don't when they talk about him with each other, and seeing younger fans do that was just an example. there's nothing weird of inappropriate about idols looking themselves up (especially when they've been tagged!!), and he even invited people to block him if they were uncomfortable because the chat started panicking about what he'd see on twitter 😤

(the daddy Chan discourse is flaring up on twitter again, so i'm already Big Mad about people projecting bullshit onto idols who are just. literally doing their jobs and interacting with fans 😤😤😤)