#but I know what's coming

[incognito-lionbeast]

Also, sitting here thinking about a Mundane AU where SY & Airplane actually meet IRL. Like, at some point during one of their many needless arguments online, Great Master Airplane dares his almighty hater over DM’s to meet him at an upcoming ACG* convention to yell In Person if he’s so mad about it-- not even once considering that Cucumber might actually accept the invitation. Shit, now he’s gotta find money to go to a convention?! He’d already nearly wrecked his computer earlier this week...

They’re both a little stupid & in too deep to back down. RIP Internet Safety, but at least they’ll be in literally one of the most public places possible, right... haha...

It’s agreed that they’d meetup by one of the Official booths (of a shared interest), and shockingly Airplane is the first one there. Just. Awkwardly piddling around on his phone for a while, honestly hoping that Cucumber-bro had chickened out. Like, sure, he’d have wasted money on nothing, but yknow??? Maybe this wasn’t a great idea???? Actually??

Until he gets a Ping over Legally-Distinct-WeChat, asking if the weird guy in a tacky button-down--the one staring at his phone--is him. And rather, Shen Yuan’s only late because he decided to bring one of his older brothers. Y’know, he has that privilege. Though, upon confirmation that this “friend” of Yuan’s is just Some Guy, his brother doesn’t stick around them too long.

Neither Shen Yuan nor Airplane know what to do. Admittedly, neither had planned past this point. Though, inwardly, Airplane’s a little annoyed that apparently?? His #1 hater is some scrawny, conventionally attractive rich kid.

Outwardly, Airplane decides that he’s going to treat this situation like he would online, as much as he possibly could, anyway. He also refuses to use the very obvious Given Name SY’s brother used, preferring to call SY “Cucumber-bro” -- A little professional distance between he & his loyal “fan”. Not that Shen Yuan is complaining. He’s not sure what he was expecting Airplane to be like, but this annoying early 20-something felt about right.

Though, somehow... all of this accumulates into them just sorta. Hanging Out. Awkwardly at first, but the banter picks up after they’ve had some time to get used to being around each other. If Shen Yuan was the sort of person to admit to these things, he’d almost say he was having fun. Neither of them, but especially not Airplane, have actually had friends to hang out with for a while...

Frankly, Shen Yuan kinda forgot what it was like to be social with people who weren’t family... and after some consideration, he realises this guy seems really lonely. Airplane dodges any conversation about real life, friends, or family like the plague--whether its his or Shen Yuan’s. The only acceptable “family” he’ll talk about is Luo Binghe’s (which, frankly, Shen Yuan is much more interested in, anyway).

In the novel, Luo Binghe’s parents never really made an appearance, so hearing about Tianlang-Jun & Su Xiyan directly from the author was a little exciting?? And maybe a tad infuriating. Wasted potential. So much wasted potential.

At some point, Shen Yuan’s righteous indignation manages to squeak out the confession that Airplane’s dirt poor & gutted his own story because... well, that’s what made money. It is what it is. Sorry you hate it so much, but then--like he’s been saying the whole time, why’d you keep reading it??? Not that he minds. To be honest, responding to your vitriol is the highlight of his day. Wouldn’t be the same if you gave up.

Shen Yuan asks if he’s really happy with that?? And well, no, of course not! But based on how liberal Shen Yuan’s been with his money throughout the course of the ‘con, he clearly wouldn’t understand what it’s like, huh? Angry lil rich kid getting mad online at shit he could easily stay away from. So, unless you wanna admit that you actually really like it, then he’s not accepting criticism at this time. :v

ANYWAY, inb4 Shen Yuan promotes himself from “hater” to “editor” -- nearly on the spot, but he manages to restrain himself til after they’ve parted ways... many days later, still thinking about their conversation. Something, something You can you up...

Which. Of the possible outcomes, Airplane had really expected their meeting to be a one-and-done situation, but now Cucumber-bro’s paying his train fair to drag him & his ~vibrant personality~ out of his comfort zone (his shitty apartment) and back into the Real World. Because this is perfectly reasonable human behaviour?! Though, honestly, Shen Yuan’s family is just happy to see him finally applying himself, so they don’t mind indulging them.

For the record, though, Shen Yuan’s sister is the only one who really knows who Airplane IS... and she thinks it’s really quite funny. And she can’t wait til Yuan’s comfortable enough to actually bring him home. Then she can show Mr. Airplane her brother’s stash of Luo Binghe merch. (✿◡‿◡)

Get adopted, loser.

All in all, though, fine! If this guy wants to throw money at him so they can Fix his story?? Sure, why not! He’d say he’s had worse first dates, but would imply that Airplane’s dated before. And that that first encounter was a date, but yknow in retrospect. Might as well have been.

but anyway, this got way longer than I meant it to. So I’m capping it there. >u< I still have Thoughts (many of them!), but they are mostly “I would like them to kiss.”

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Expertise can't help you here.

[roz-ani]

IS THIS YAOI DOOMED ENOUGH FOR YOU?! IS THIS WHAT YOU PEOPLE WANTED?! 😭

[the-nefarious-vampire]

as an aroace, im particularly dangerous, because i wont fuck or marry. i only know how to kill.

[sunbloomdew]

do you ever see a person and you are overcome with incredible fondness? and you just think "oh." but not in a romantic or sexual way you are just filled with warmth and it makes you happy, it just does. and you think "i'm so happy you exist. i'm happy you are somewhere out there in the world, doing your thing". it's love but also not entirely

like people are lovely and i feel it in my entire chest like a burning candle that smells like roses and a sunny day

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[seren-dipitous-art]

I’ve been obsessed with the Olympics for the past week, and obsessed with Dick Grayson for longer, so here’s the crossover we all deserve.

Plus, gorgeous sweaty acrobat in gymnastics poses? Only positives.

[kensatou]

studio trigger understood the assignment. i would let her wreck me.

[noknowshame]

why is religious Christmas imagery all so joyful and pleasant? where is the inherent horror of the birth of Christ? A mother is handed her newborn child, wailing and innocent. Her hands come away sticky. Red. Simply by giving her son life she has already killed him. He is doomed from the beginning. Her love will not save him from suffering. Because the thing cradled in her arms is not a baby, it is a sacrifice: born amongst the other bleating animals whose blood will one day be spilled in the name of what demands it. the night is silent with anticipation. Mary, did you know? That your womb was also a grave?

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[chimaeraonwards]

John Cusack, the voice actor for Dimitri in Anatasia (1997), shared his statement on Palestine 🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🇵🇸

P.S. He has been a Palestinian supporter for years

[tossawary]

This is petty fandom salt, BUT... I've been chewing on this phenomenon that I've been calling "Fandom's Darling". It is related to things like "Author's Darling" and "Mary Sue / Gary Stu" and "Protagonist Halo" and all that jazz, where one character gains a peculiar narrative weight in a story.

"Author's Darling" is when a writer has a favorite character, and the world and all other characters sort of get... warped to put the Darling in the spotlight. It's most noticeable in TV shows with multiple writers, when a character you personally like suddenly has their previous characterization destroyed to make another character look good somehow. Every other character might become weirdly incompetent. The Darling's feelings are treated as The Most Important Feelings in any given situation. The logic of the fictional world seems broken past suspension of disbelief in order to validate this one character's beliefs or skillset or some other fantasy. And so on.

"Fandom's Darling" is what I've been calling the pattern where a fandom essentially crowns a New Protagonist for their fanfiction stories (it's often a side character rather than the original protagonist, but it can also happen to protagonists). This character becomes the self-insert for all sorts of indulgent fantasies, gaining special powers or backstories, and/or becoming the focus of extreme whump, and/or hooking up with all the various hotties, starring in all sorts of tropey AUs, and so on. They're not always an obvious Mary Sue version of themselves, but the character's original personality and interpersonal relationships tend to get warped or dropped completely, and other characters tend to become a little flat around them. I call it "Fandom's Darling" because it's not just one self-indulgent fantasy fic (you do you! Have fun!) with characterization choices that I don't vibe with (I have neither the time nor the desire nor the authority to police anything, I am just venting), but rather a prolific mini-fandom of sorts revolving around this empty doll / fanon version of the chosen vessel character, so it becomes a little unavoidable.

I am salty about this (mildly frustrated) (imagine a soft sigh of disappointment before I just go do something else) because you are FUCKED if you actually liked the canonical version of this character and their interpersonal relationships. It's almost worse than liking an obscure character that no one cares about. There's about a thousand fics starring your fave, but maybe only about a dozen of them are actually rooted in any kind of recognisable canon.

[cornflakesdoesart]

Little zine I drew this past sunday at the Budapest comic festival at a "workshop" , theme was spring!

[quecksilvereyes]

oh my god do not click links in emails that tell you to verify your data or your bank account gets locked or click links in messages telling you your safety protocol is ending, like, tomorrow, you will get SCAMMED SO BAD AND YOU WILL LOSE A LOT OF FUCKING MONEY never ever let anyone pressure you into giving away login information especially to your online banking by creating a sense of urgency oh my GOD

some things to look out for

1. spelling mistakes. do you know how many rounds of marketing and sales experts these things go through? if theres a spelling mistake dont click it

2. not using your name. if an email adresses you with "dear customer" or, even worse, a generic "ladies and gentlemen", it is most likely not actually targeted to you

3. verifying or login links. even IF your bank was stupid enough to send these to customers, dont EVER click those. look at me. they can legally argue that youve given your data away and thus they dont have to pay you anything back DONT CLICK THAT FUCKING LINK

4. creating a sense of urgency. do this or we lock your account next week. do this or your ebanking stops working tomorrow. give us all your money in cash or your beloved granddaughter will get HANGED FOR MURDERING BABIES. no serious organisation would ever do something like that over email or sms. ever. hands off.

5. ALWAYS CHECK WHO SENT YOU THE EMAIL. the display name and the email adress can vary a LOT. anyone can check the display name. look at the email adress. does it look weird? call the fucking place it says its from. you will likely hear a very weary sigh.

6. if its in a phonecall, scammers love preventing you from hanging up or talking to other people to have a little bit of a think about whats happening. there should always be a possibility to go hey i wanna think about this ill call back the official number thanks.

7. do not, i repeat, do NOT a) call a phone number flashing on your screen promising to rid your computer of viruses after clicking a dodgy link and b) let them install shit on your computer like. uh. idk. teamviewer.

7.i. TEAM VIEWER LETS PEOPLE USE YOUR COMPUTER HOWEVER THEY WANT AS LONG AS THEYRE CONNECTED. IF YOU DONT KNOW FOR FUCKING SURE YOURE TALKING TO ACTUAL TECH SUPPORT DONT GIVE ANYONE ACCESS TO YOUR COMPUTER.

fun little addendum: did you know a link can just automatically download shit? like. a virus? an app you can't uninstall unless you reset your entire device? dont click links unless youre extremely sure you know where they lead. hover your mouse over it and check the url.

thanks.

[demaparbat-hp]

He truly did.