#but in some contexts you are like Young to me

[starberry-cupcake]

I want to tell you a story today.

Let me tell you about how I was finally able to finish a collection of incredibly specific 20+ year old elusive esoteric booklets, after years of looking for them.

No, no, wait, don't scroll past yet. Hear me out.

Is this the most interesting thing ever? It depends. Will it do numbers on tumblr? Not at all. Does this story sound like the statement from someone in The Magnus Archives? Absolutely.

"Statement begins", and all that.

Circa 2001-2002, I was a young girl and asked my dad for a little booklet on witchcraft. As young girls do.

It was part of a collection which was released in newspaper stands and, in my memory, it was something that you had to pay a bit extra to get alongside a specific newspaper, one that is rather informal. My mom also asked for one of the booklets, about past lives. My dad got them both when they released.

I was very interested in my little witchcraft booklet, I found the stuff both fascinating and recognizable. Any Latine can probably tell you about the very particular blend we have, especially in the outskirts of big cities, of brujería, curandería, santería and original people's cultural influences. The book reflected this in a way that sounded familiar and also gave new insights.

One day, though, my booklet disappeared.

I never had evidence of what happened but I had, at the time, a friend from school who was from a very religious family. She kept warning me about the book and how what I was doing was wrong and dangerous and how I would eventually "find Jesus". She just stopped mentioning it once the book mysteriously vanished. So, I don't have hard evidence that my book was taken, but I don't have much doubt.

I grew up and my interest for these types of things evolved to encompass different forms of folkloric and cultural insights, especially on how they represent different social contexts. I have a very particular and maybe conflicting view on spirituality but, in any case, these things interest me.

I also became an editor and I love peculiar publications. The history of publication of something, especially rare, can say a lot about its context.

I ended up reading and buying other books with esoteric themes, but that little booklet resonated still, because I could never find again something that spoke so directly to what I had grown up with.

There are a lot of publications about European and North American practices, very often the most popular folklore calendars are strictly set in the Northern Hemisphere. Some Latine authors tend to blend different things from abroad in their books, rather than talk about just us.

This little booklet was a one of a kind, I realized. In its humble and unapologetic simplicity, it contained the voice of who we were.

So, I set to find it again.

My mom had kept her booklet, the one about past lives. It had the name of the collection in it (Revelaciones), the name of the publisher (Agedit) and a list of all the books in the collection at the end. They were 12 in total. There was not a single author name in sight.

The list includes: Numerology, Runes, Past Lives, Modern Witchcraft (the one I had), Chiromancy, Tarot, Dream Interpretation, Crystals, Tasseography, Graphology, Chinese Zodiac and Astrology.

For a long while, my search only resulted in sold out listings of one or two copies. I also came across additional findings that made my search difficult (this is where I get nerdy in a publishing way):

These books had been out of print for almost 20 years, when I started searching.

These weren't really "books" per se, they were published as such (they had an ISBN) but were sold as if they were magazines.

They were never distributed to bookstores and didn't have any new editions or reprints: they had, most likely, only one print run for each booklet.

The ISBN of the book I had didn't show results online.

I found out the reason for these two points through an archived government official bulletin: the publisher went bankrupt in august of 2003.

Given that there were 12 books, they would have taken between 4 months and a year to complete the collection, depending on how often they came out, so the collection ended shortly before the publisher closed down.

Because of the way in which they were distributed (through newspaper stands) they were given by consignment, meaning the booklets that weren't sold were given back to the publisher when the next issue came out.

Due to the fact that the publisher went bankrupt shortly after, it's highly unlikely that remaining copies were sold as such, it's much more likely that they were sold as paper for re-purpose.

Especially since 2001-2003 was a Bad Time for the economy of Argentina. A Really Bad Time.

The books were edited before the book law changed to make mandatory the use of a bibliographical index, so the books themselves don't have the information now required to register a book printed inside them.

There is not a single author name anywhere.

I found out that the publisher had a very wide variety of magazines of different subjects, including a kids' magazine of the channel I started watching anime in as a kid. Between Captain Tsubasa and cartomancy there's just one step.

So, the only avenues left were patience and book sellers who dealt with used copies of both books and magazines.

After some years of searching, in 2022, the book appeared in two different online sellers: one sold it alone and the other in a set with other 8 books from the collection, including the one my mom had. The book sold alone seemed in worse condition and the set had a lower price per unit.

So, I bought the set of 9.

They were in pretty good condition, all things considered. These books were not meant to last. The paper weight vs cover weight ratio is bonkers (the cover is magazine thin), the binding is poor and the books are almost all slightly different sizes. They also have different fonts for the titles. From an editing point of view, they're atrocious.

That only made them so much more interesting to me.

Only one of the books I got in that set had an explicit author: Chinese Zodiac. I assume that one was commissioned to the person whose name appears in it. I did google the man and he doesn't seem to be much of a writer of the subject anymore, he specializes in Tai Chi and Kung Fu, apparently. Seems that his expertise only extended to that one book in particular.

The rest, though. The rest are a mystery.

I don't know if they were written by the publishing team or one person, but they feel like there was one person behind them, for the way they're worded and how they talk to the reader. Or, at least, a different person for different books. They're not detached enough to feel like the work of a team investigation project.

They are also more involved than a newspaper stand collection has any right to be. Talking about Saint Germaine and Cornelio Agrippa and geological specifics of crystal structure. At age 12-13 I wouldn't have paid attention to that but now, knowing what it takes as an editor to put this out and knowing they were a sinking publisher, I've got to respect the craft.

However, the ISBN situation is a NIGHTMARE. The collection changed the ISBN format for these books once every four books.

I could have stopped there. I had my original book, it was just as I remembered, and I got 8 extra books, some with subjects I was very interested in.

However, the tarot book was not included in the set. And that was one I really wanted to get. So, the search continued.

In 2023, my sister gifted me the tarot book. It was from a seller who only had that one and it was in worse shape than the rest. It feels like it was used more than the others. Something was definitely spilled on it. Someone might have learned with it for a long time.

It was very in-character with what I knew from the collection that it focuses solely on Tarot de Marseilles, which is the one most commonly used here (the cover of the book has an RWS deck, so whoever made the cover did not consult with the mysterious author, who used Marseilles iconography inside).

But, again, unnamed author. And the ISBN situation wasn't getting any better. The format of the ISBN in the tarot book matched the one in the crystals book, which gave me an idea of the order list being more or less accurate. Emphasis on "more or less", you'll see.

At this point, I was deep into this. I had 10/12 books, I thought I might as well try to complete the collection, right? How hard could it be?

Well, the two books left were the most elusive of the bunch: chiromancy and dream interpretation.

During my years researching these books, the chiromancy book showed up in pictures just once. I knew what it looked like, but I hadn't seen it for sale. Ever.

That is, until it popped up in early 2024.

I made a post about it at the time. This one was the most expensive of the bunch (not crazy expensive, not even the price of a brand new novel, but expensive in comparison with the others) but it was the first of its kind I had seen in all my years looking, so I got it as soon as I could.

By this time, some repeats had shown up here and there of the books I already had, including a Tarot book in better shape, but I had to draw the line somewhere. There are some that seem to be easier to find than others. Maybe because they were more popular back then, so they didn't get returned to the publisher to turn into pulp.

The dream book though? I still had never seen it.

Not a photo, not an old listing, nothing. I had no frame of reference for what that one looked like, only the title listed in the other books (Interpretación de sueños).

I started losing hope on that one. I started wondering if maybe it had never been released in the first place. Or that maybe it was the most popular one, so people kept it more often than selling it. After all, dream interpretation can be more mainstream a subject than palmistry or tasseography.

The one thing making me doubt that it was unreleased, the one thing keeping me going, was that the last two books on the list (astrology and Chinese zodiac) were listed in an incorrect order until the 11th book. Remember I said the list was "more or less" accurate? Things can't be that simple with this collection.

The list at the end of almost all of the booklets makes me think that astrology was meant to be the last one, but it ended up coming out as the 11th, and they changed the list order upon its release. Maybe the only known author who was commissioned, for the Chinese zodiac book, needed more time to turn in the manuscript.

I thought that, if they had taken the time to change the end list by the 11th book, even if there were only two left, they would have probably removed the dream one had it not come out as planned.

So, it had to exist.

Last week, I was thinking about the books again, as I have done for years, with my hopes of finding the last one almost non existent.

I decided to check in MercadoLibre and wasn't finding it. I went on google and wasn't finding it. I went to google images and nothing. I changed some of the words in the google images search here and there and...

IT SHOWED UP

It had been listed for sale 6 days prior to my search. By a bookstore called "Gluck". My German is beginner-level but I'm pretty sure that means "luck" (at least "glück" does). What are the odds?

The price was pretty cheap but the shipping was a bit steep, so I looked if they had a used copy of Lestat I was looking for, to make up for the shipping cost. I wanted an old Lestat to go with my well-loved 90s edition of IWTV. Turns out, they had an old copy of Lestat, for cheap, because it had what looks like a bite in a corner of the cover. A dog bite, I mean, or cat, not sure which. Perfect. Glück indeed.

So, last week, it finally arrived. The last piece of the puzzle. The dream book.

Turns out, the title was wrong all along.

The list had it as Interpretación de sueños and it was actually called El significado de los sueños. No author, but a promising table of contents. It wasn't the subject I was most interested in but the variety of topics covered is a lot more interesting than I expected.

Still, the most important thing here is that I FINALLY HAVE THE WHOLE SET.

Some insane things about the collection, now that I can look at all of it for myself:

Almost all are mismatched in size

Some have printing mistakes (for example, Astrology has cut marks and extra blank space that wasn't removed)

The last one is wider

The first one doesn't have the list of books

The one about past lives has a different title in the spine than in the book

The one about dreams has a different title in the list than in the book

The one about crystals has a different title in the list than in the book and spine

The one about tasseography has also a different title in the list than in the book and the spine

Most of the cover photos seem to be from different sources, I always believed the one my original book had was taken by the people making the book, because the little owl on it is a Kinder toy I had as a kid

I can now tell you how the ISBN works, so you can look at the madness with me.

The first 4 books have a different ISBN for each, with a change in the part of the ISBN that signifies particular book.

It goes from 8 to 11 and the book with the number 9 is listed as 3rd and not 2nd in the interior list (in my memory, it was 3rd, because that was my mom's book and mine came after, but who knows). All of these have a side bar code with the number 00001.

The next batch of 4 continues having a different ISBN for each book, from books 12 to 15, but the side bar code number also changes, going from 5 to 8, signifying the number of the book in the specific collection.

The last batch of 4 all have the same ISBN, as if they were the same book, with the number 22 (what happened to 16-21? who knows), but they do continue with the side bar code numbers from 9 to 12.

It's wild. I wouldn't have been able to predict anything from this.

Still, here they finally are. I have collected them all. And here's the one that started the interest for this quest.

Put together, they constitute a pretty vast amount of pages. The booklets by themselves look rather short but, together, it's a pretty impressive amount of stuff, and quite detailed for each topic.

I still don't know who wrote them, if it was one person or several, or if they even remember working on them, since it's been about 22-24 years since they came out and it seems to have been the dying breath of a now defunct publisher that didn't specialize in the subject.

But I hope that, wherever they may be, they know some people appreciated their work. Because these little messy books have a lot of personality and represent where I come from better than other more polished publications have ever been able to.

[heretohavenone]

Okay. I've been pondering Jack Slash for a bit. Slimy basted he is, and Number Man, the weirdo HE is. I've come to a couple conclusions after reading through Worm and most of Ward (working on it you'll all be getting my dog gruel opinions on it after) and some of Jack's Backstory via Wildbow posts. First I'll talk about Jack, since he needs more piecing together, for me at least.

Jack Slash is essentially a grifter/shitty salesman when he's speaking 99% of the time. Hes trying, almost without even putting up an act to get you to believe there is some philosophical point he's reaching towards, or some reason why what he's doing means Anything greater than just plain old being a dick. He'll put on different hats to tell you Why he's killing, but in the end, the only thing he wants is to make the world worse and to cause conflict. And that's it. 100%, honestly it. He'd probably kick a puppy if he thought that'd actually help make more people do Worse things, and get him into more conflict. For almost his entire interlude he doesn't really think of himself in terms of what he gets in goals, he simply observes others and thinks of how to best pressure them to continue making things worse while under his control. I think its pretty evident from how much he throws himself into chaotic situations and tries to make things so complicated he can't keep up that Control isnt really what hes most into.

Let's now put this into the context of his past, and more importanty, what Shards want. His past is pretty interesting: locked in a bunker by abusive parents, and told the world had gone to war. They told him a story about how bad everything had gotten, kept him in there for a Long Long time, and he triggered when he left the bunker and he realized it was a lie. Specifically, the thing that broke him wasn't the fact that his parents lied to him. It was that the world was Sane, and Safe, and Not at war. Something he'd grown used to, and absorbed into himself while in that bunker. Essentially, he torn apart by the fact everything was Okay when he was convinced utterly that it had all gone to shit, and people were in senseless conflict like he thought. His worldview got flipped, everything felt wrong, and he triggered. He only thinks the world makes sense In conflict, he had the ability to really process a healthy, constructive world severely damaged to him when he was young.

Jack's desire for conflict make a little more sense with that, but his shard Loving his ass makes a hundred times more sense. He's literally trying to cause humanity to act divided, just like the Shards want, and to create conflict testing. No wonder it likes him so much, that's about as ideal a host as any shard could net, ever. Its like a weapon tester finding a group of suicidal combat junkies. Like. Exceptionally lucky. So Jack is rewarded for his instincts by things Working for him, and gets in a loop of conflicts that are their own reward by making the world as horrible as he thought it was, and making him Comfortable. It's his natural environment. Anything actual push to be constructive and grow attached probably feels alien to him, or just gets contextualized as a tool to create conflict, because he no longer really would know how to do anything but be a grifting jackass hurting people. Even his games are shows of this, every rule meant to be broken and unfair, because you're supposed to stop thinking about them as Rules and more like tools to fuck eachother over. The game Is cheating the game. The point isnt anything he says, it's trying to Kill him.

This is what makes his relationship to Number Man maybe the top five ????? Things when I first read it. He liked the person who's entire sociopathic, utilitarian goals were: Helping The World and Making Order. Seemed contradictory, but Jack did like him as a person, not necessarily his philosophy. Still. They're people who think back on each other fondly, despite what they've become. While Jack doesn't know Where Number Man went, he's not being hunted or hurt or even being pitied for not following conflict like Jack.

They seem to be like Wildbow's fucked up little views on systems and those who take them down rather than working on them, which I disagree with, but they're still fascinating. As much as Number Man is a monster like Jack, who would do everything Jack does if given reason to by finding it the best way to improve people's lives, Number Man is mature by trying to be constructive with his views on what is and is not important, while Jack is purely deconstructive of everything. Their similarity though is how they both seek out their version of thing purely for their own satisfaction, and that's the reason they both seem to admire eachother. Theyre both entirely selfish people.

They're also, hilariously, both killed by people who are both out-doing them in their field. The only Parahuman who hurt Jack Slash was Gray Boy, someone who didn't care about anything but his own selfish ideas of fun who found Jack 'boring', and a disappointment, and that Might have actually thrown Jack off enough it let Gray Boy hit him with a time loop. Number Man got factored in as an uncared for number in Contessa's plan to defeat Teacher. I'm very curious if this one of Worm's few narrative punishments for both's wrong deeds, or just coincidence. Whichever, it's pretty interesting to look at these two freaks' dichotomy in terms of the story, and what Caulron does vs what those who fight against systems in the story do.

But, I like Jack Slash tbh. Cartoonishly evil as he is, he wasn't really didnt do anything else than what he sent himself out to do, and he CLEARLY enjoyed himself while doing it. And Number Man took some time to grow on me, but I also enjoy how he's kind of the opposite in how he shows himself to be very simply then pulls some marble slingshot bullshit to lobotomize someone a mile away.... OKAY I'm still a lil shocked by that.

[animalsalvationassociation]

[ DO NOT REPOST, ALL ART & CONCEPTS WERE MADE BY ME ]

Father Finlee (Full Name Unknown)

Species: Alexander Archipelago Wolf (AKA Black Wolf)

Accent: Russian

Role:

Leader of the Order of the Light

Former Slave of the Призрачный щит Fortress (AKA The Phantom Shield) Lead by the Followers of the Great леший (Leshiy)

Relations:

Mother Zinaida, Mama Izolda, Sister Tatiana, Sister Iness, Sister Jelena (His wives, who have bore him 21 children)

Joseph Hughes (Right Hand, Head of his Guard)

Saídê of the Palace (Enemy, Former Slavemate, Fellow Soldier)

Maren of the Palace (His once desired)

Y.N. Palace (Former Follower . . . Chosen one of the вознесенный)

Fale Tsuyoshi (Enemy, Target)

The Spectator (Selected Ally)

The Hatter Trio (Questionable Alliance)

Personality:

Cult? Cult.

Astute. Finlee is nothing but careful in everything he does. Every move is calculated, precise. Even as a young pup he saw things others didn’t. 

He has quite the temper but he doesn’t show it as often as he used to. He was much more brash and hard headed as a young man, and would easily throw himself in harm's way for a more “brutal” result.

(Man was a BEAST on the battlefield, I'm just saying~)

He prefers to dominate his opponents in the most humiliating way possible, but pure violence is never off the table.

Man is a PERV!!!! P. E. R. V. E. R. T.–PERVERT!!! Do NOT be alone with him!!!! I repeat, you cannot trust this man! – I understand he’s attractive, don’t do itttttttt I begggggg TvT

I don’t care if you’re happily married with two kids and a grandchild, I’m still going to FLIRT with you!!!!

(Wow that wasn’t specific at alllll)

“My dear~” in the most husky voice he can manage (Me: *bangs face into table 20 times*)

Imagine a very flirty Shere Khan (Jungle Book) . . . Yes.

. . . . masochist

How old are youuuuu????

(Answer: Ancient)

It’s called . . .  torture~

(Literally his favorite pastime.)

Somehow this man has weaseled his way into every one of my friend’s hearts. They are all followers now, I literally don’t know what to tell you. Finlee has irl followers . . . I SEE YOU GOOGLING HOW TO FIND THE COMMUNE STOP IT!!!!

Neat freak, everything must be organized.

“Pick it up!” – “Nah” – “PICK. IT. UP.” – “Well since you said it like that . . . No <3”

(The man who tested his patience was promptly murdered at the scene. – @urautismdiagnosis-wistie )

The most Russian man that has ever Russianed . . . but evil.

Torture may be his favorite hobby but revenge? That’s his passion in life.

Screw you America.

Don’t ask also . . .

I am so sorry Fae.

No you don’t get context.

I should feel bad for Y.N.

“Should” being the opportune word here . . . @calamaroo 👀

I did . . . and then I started writing the Light Arch . . . Ya’ll need to apologize.

Don't ask why just do it!

I only feel bad for them before and after this arch . . . never during . . . you guys are meannnnn

Grade A Nuisance upon every sound minded person.

Oh you weren’t insane BEFORE you met him?

WeLl YoU aRe NoW!!!!!!!

For some reason his main wife, Mother Zinaida, is literally the only person he actually treats with equal respect. THIS MAN LOST AN EYE FOR HER!!! (Sure she lost an arm but it’s the thought that counts . . . right?)

TREATS 👏 HER 👏 Right 👏 . . . we are still trying to figure out if the other wives get that same privilege . . . *shrug*

Finlee has been around for a VERY long time. He knows what he’s doing. That being said, if you’re on his list (whichever one that may be) he already knows everything about you, down to your daily routine.

He knows your favorite food, your fav. picnic spot, where you keep your grandmother’s diadem, even your mother’s elementary boy crush.

It’s too late for you.

Finlee has his ways.

I promise, you do NOT trust himmmmm!!!

DON’T FALL FOR HIS HOTNESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!

TwT

Listen at your own risk . . .

Welcome home my dear~

[ This is a Octonauts AU, in no way is this canon to the OG storyline. ]

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

...like I do get where you're coming from here, honestly I do, and I really hope this isn't perceived as a attack, because things can be rough for Marius enjoyers, but I want to clarify things because there's a lot of miscommunication about people's relationship to Marius in this fandom? like we go into gothic horror to feel things, to feel frightened and repulsed, and that's good, but we don't always empathize specifically with the characters who make us feel that way. It's kind of like a Humbert Humbert situation--that's a character who suffers, objectively, gets dumped and locked up and dies, but the emotions generated by the stuff he does don't just go away. the negative emotions Marius generates don't get cancelled out by the suffering he experience, it's not that simple, especially since it's unclear how much he really changes (but not my point, lol).

I mean, I like Marius, sort of, and I definitely think he's the best villain AR ever wrote. he's one hundred percent a lot more of a multifaceted character than people present him as, he's a great example of the challenge that we do in fact go to these crazy books for. I reblog a lot of stuff about him, including from Marius enjoyers, I have nothing but respect for you guys. I like marimand a lot--I mean, it's my most written pairing in this fandom, I ought to like it--and on the whole my emotions aren't intense as other people's, but Marius is objectively a sexual predator. Phrases like "too young for a wet pleasure," "it was just the usual brain-jarring blow," "perhaps my frankly carnal embraces made the wall in his mind, between past and present, all the more strong," the use of "dazed and silent" for Amadeo the first time Marius touches him in b&g...regardless of your own opinions on historical context or whatever, these are things that will affect people more deeply than any of the cartoon violence Armand inflicts on other vampires, or the cartoon violence vampires inflict on humans in general, because it feels more real, more frightening.

calling these emotions 'performative' (which you haven't, but I've seen people do) feels like a disservice to the complexity and impact of the books, and the sensitivity of the real-world horrors they confront. (I believe that people also have similar feelings on David considering his own sexualization of children, but I haven't read the David books atp so I'm not going to go there). Marius being a character who suffers and mourns and gets celebrity crushes and also abuses the people in his life is such a good and necessary example of the complexity of real-world abusers, but he's still going to generate intense reactions, even for people (like me) who don't really care about dm. and if ar truly didn't want that, she wouldn't have written the things she did.

my point is that there are probably some people who do in fact hate Marius for ship reasons, or simply not being able to handle the topics expressed, but there are also plenty of people who are capable of exploring sexual abuse in fiction, but don't have a lot of sympathy for Marius doing these things, and view him negatively as a result. your statement that 'most' people who hate Marius do so for ship reasons suggest some kind of ongoing miscommunication about this issue that I hope my extremely long-winded response will clarify.

tbh i just disagree with the fandom, i think most people primarily hate marius because people wanted more devil's minion content and instead in a pagecount kind of way, armand and marius and frankly david and lestat kind of run away with it. "marius isn't punished enough" dude you don't want people to be punished for stuff. you think armand was sufficiently "punished" for killing claudia and madeline? that little guy skates. look i know how it is. i actually like devil's minion a lot and think that specific chapter is as good as it gets. but idk you can't really get mad at anne rice books for not giving you what you wanted. she would never have wanted you to have that. she would never want you to read a book that was exactly what you wanted in an unchallenging way.

and tbh if armand and daniel were clearly and confidently on on-screen-ily together at the end of blood communion i think that would also affect this discussion more than people are admitting, but the reality is daniel's status at the end of the series in general not just with respect to armand is a big fuckin ???? . i dont like that either but i don't read anne rice books to "get stuff i like", i read them like getting ready for a wet t-shirt contest where the winner gets an uzi

if david and his relationship with lestat were totally unchanged and louis did forever-die at the end and/or was straight up not around, you'd see more david hate too (where david's not POPULAR but he's not generating that much discourse honestly)

that said, feel bad for the quinn blackwood people, now there are some fans who got hosed

[strawberryblondebutch]

Oh lord here we go again. It’s too early for this shit. Check pwhl tag for context (assuming they keep the post up)

I can’t do this again!!

I’m going to say this as a Charge fan — you (and this is the general you, not you the anon) do not know what your organization does behind closed doors. No team had Curl on a do-not-draft list. Kendall is not a singular criminal mastermind. Kelly Babstock is antiblack!

A few months ago, someone fairly popular in the DIY community responded to sex assault allegations against a popular musician by saying, “Well, I know MY favorite band isn’t like that, because they’ve been nice to me at meet and greets!” Which is insanely ignorant. Yeah, no shit this public figure will be nice and respectful at an event that requires it.

You do not know what is going on behind closed doors.

Moreover, throwing every player in an organization under the bus is just… ignorant of how sports work? You don’t get to pick where you’re drafted. Even a free agent signing (1) can have the circumstances of their signing change on them, or (2) be put in a position where they need to take a job. I’m not going to blame, say, Leo Carlsson for being a Duck. He didn’t go to the front office and say, “Please please please hire the guy who covered up sex abuse!” He doesn’t have that kind of leverage. So why are we blaming someone like Liz Schepers for playing for Klee?

Also, as to the point on attendance — it’s worth mentioning that the Timberwolves were at home for their own clinching game. Target Center sold out almost immediately because the Wolves are another exciting young team. It’s very likely that some people who would have gone to the Frost game already had Wolves tickets.

[olderthannetfic]

So I've been back at school since last summer and it's really given me a new understanding of many of the things people rant about on here so i'd just like to share.

For context, i essentially got held back by 2 years due to circumstances so i'm 19 now and the people in my class are around 17 on average. It isn't much of a gap at all but with me being pretty out of touch with mainstream internet culture and everything (plus just having been through things that have forced me to grow up a bit quicker anyway) it feels like a lot sometimes.

Anyway, here's some things i noticed:

While none of them are all that into fandom, on the occasion we do talk about ships (or real life relationships) i often have to bite my tongue. It's the usual "shipping x and y is icky because [insert whatever petty anti argument]", but also they'll talk shit about people their age being in a relationship with someone like two years younger than them. Meanwhile I'm sitting there daydreaming about my boyfriend who's 7 years older than me. And yeah sure the younger you are the bigger the difference that one or two years make, but come on, a 15 year old and a 17 year old dating is like... the most normal thing ever.

What really tends to get under my skin is how they're (sometimes blatantly) ableist in ways they don't even realise while claiming allyship. A lot stems from just ignorance, for instance we read "The Perks of being a Wallflower" at some point and as we were discussing the characters, the vast majority absolutely hated on Charlie. Being autistic with a lot of mental health issues, i related to his awkwardness and his struggles a lot myself. I just sat there silently as they pointed out what i saw as autistic traits and said things like "he's just so weird" and "nobody acts like that" or even "i hate him, he's a psycho and should be institutionalised".

In the same vein, the one classmate i feel is actually quite similar to me (and suspect is neurodivergent, though it doesn't seem like they know it) has called autism a "debilitating illness" and doesn't seem to have any problem with their friend group using "autistic" as a semi-insult. This classmate otherwise has a fairly good understanding of everything, i've ranted with them about the autsim speaks rhetoric and things like that. (I will say, i'm sure they'd stop if i told them I'm autistic but so far i couldn't be bothered to)

Oh yeah and there was that one time one of my classmates deadass argued that my teacher was being racist for saying they had an accent. They do have an accent. Everybody has an accent in their second language unless they learned it super young. Which was the topic we were talking about.

For the most part, i like my classmates. A lot of them are great people. But jesus fucking christ then they keep pulling shit like this. I'm sure at least some of them will grow out of it sooner or later, it's just crazy to me because they're only 2-ish years younger than me yet there just seems to be this huge gap between us sometimes. I'm not saying i'm the definition of maturity. On the contrary, I'm definitely still a kid, just one that's allowed more autonomy now. They just make me feel like a parent listening to their kids going "wtf are you talking about" sometimes.

--

[hanasnx]

Saw the rex post and it made me wonder what kind of links hayden characters send

modern!anakin skywalker doesn’t rly watch porn, but he might’ve gone down a few rabbit holes and never remembers his log-in info for twitter specifically so if you get any videos it’s usually completely devoid of context and very random. once in a blue moon type of thing and he never captions them with anything, if you respond to them he doesn’t respond back but he reads your msg. the kind of porn he sends varies in degrees of kink level

hayden christensen isn’t on social media, so no twitter and he wouldn’t come across the porn part of it. young!hayden during modern times might know a bit more, might be more tech savvy because of the difference in generation and global fame and likely friends. so if he finds any porn, it’s a timid kind of send. he mentions it first, and then sends the video, usually captioned: “reminds me of last night a little..” with a couple of cute emojis. p vanilla stuff

scott barringer knows porn. twitter porn’s not really smthn he gets off to though, but he does send you vids that usually aren’t super serious. like if there’s one that talks about how the turkey isn’t the only thing getting stuffed this thanksgiving, you’re getting that porn meme

leo campo is past twitter porn. he likes to find vids with you, and watch them with you on p mainstream sites. it doesn’t really get dark or super dominant. gangbangs might be the worst of the extent, but that’s super rare and he wouldn’t really watch those multiple partners vids with you unless you’re into it

sam monroe is in too deep. twitter porn rabbit holes, reddit rabbit holes, mainstream sites sure but mostly the really dark ones you’ve gotta go looking for. the kind of shit that makes him feel disgusting after he gets off to it, and really leans on when things are bad for him. you do receive some rly gross shit and you receive it often. it gives you butterflies knowing he wants to show you what he’s into, but he’s too chicken to actually do it so twitter porn is the next best thing

modern!billy quinn doesn’t care about porn actually. he does indulge in a little tasteful erotica that are pretty high brow but they’re not rly stuff that turns him on he kinda just likes the photography. he’d respond to ones you’d send but his personality is a little hard to step to with stuff you’re vulnerable about, so he wouldn’t mind vids but he doesn’t ask you to send them. and he doesn’t use social media like twitter either so his account looks blank asf bcos you made it for him so you can dm him on it w those dirty msgs

clay beresford doesn’t have a twitter that his pr team doesnt have an iron grip on, he wouldn’t rly want a personal one anyway. you two dont really watch porn together either, he’s very in the moment and avoids screen time as much as possible

modern!jacob would send you millennial b&w bdsm with those corny captions and he’s never asked you to get into lingerie to use a riding crop on him, or tie you up n try to use a belt but he still likes showing you that kind of stuff. kinda fanfictiony in a cute way :) makes you smile when you receive them

modern!stephen glass thinks you’ve underestimated him. he’s got such a timid disposition that you don’t expect that he’d send you porn at all and it’s pretty regularly. now you’ve learned to expect that, and you like the stuff he sends. vanilla sex is on the table for him, but so are the videos of guys w their hands tied behind their backs and their girls overstimulating them jacking them off too hard n fast <3

[attex]

On "FUKOUNA GIRL" by STOMACH BOOK

Everyone knows the title and chorus (perhaps including the bridge as well) of this song is a reference to the 不幸な少女０３ animation that became a meme, the song uses it as part of the point it makes, a metaphor for the torment the singer goes through.

But I've not seen people noting the idea of the reference being an allegory specifically in context with the original gif itself.

The original gif/video was supposed to be basic torture porn. The tags on the original (like "sexy punishment"...) make that obvious enough.

It's made for the sake of arousal from seeing this vulnerable young girl in an "unfortunate", agonizing situation. (You could make a point here about the girl in question being stated to be a literal middle school girl and how that relates to the vulnerability and cruelty of it all, but I won't elaborate about that on this post)

She suffers. She cowers in fear for what she knows is going to happen to her, she cries in pain, and vomits after being flayed alive.

Despite the claim some make of the animation being a "shock video", that is blatantly untrue. (I have no idea how more than a few people came to that conclusion).

Now, think of what the song tries to tell you, as the singer states herself to be this so called "unfortunate girl". It is not just about her being cursed by the universe itself by some stroke of misfortune, she is actively hurt and tormented, for the sake of others' enjoyment.

Her pain, whether justified (it is not) or not, can be for the sake of titillating others. Her suffering as a vulnerable girl is meant to give you some sort of sadistic satisfaction. That's the purpose of the original animation, how far is it from the ideas the song presents? Not that far.

"If you wanna flay me..." is enough to make it clear that this "misfortune" is not a mere lack of luck. It has intent, that's the thing haunting the singer in the entire song.

Whether it is a sexual satisfaction or not is to be pondered on, but it a fact that there will be someone who will enjoy the physical (and mental) anguish that a trans woman is going through, and actively stoke it further for their own selfish desire.

[imgonna--explode]

**this does not go in order of the points you made. sorry.

first of all, minors can be diagnosed with personality disorders.* that’s the one glaring issue that first popped out to me while reading.

second of all, surrounding YOURself with communities like these could make YOU worse, but please consider that not everyone’s experience is the same. for me and probably many others, the validation of our thoughts here honestly makes us feel better. you don’t know someone’s situation. sometimes sharing that we’re hurting so much that we want to die can harm us more than whatever these communities can ever do. to be completely honest, the only reason i got really into communities and forums like these is because the one time i shared my struggles, all i received was yelling and crying and “i wish i had a better child.”

third of all, i can see where you’re coming from when you say we don’t really know when to stop engaging with this type of content, i really do, but trust is a good thing to have. even if a kid ends up dying—recognize that that can be a good thing too. you never know how bad something can get for a person, and if the only escape is death, then so be it.

and yeah, teen suicide HURTS. like a goddamn LOT. i would know! my best friend (who i was heavily dependent on for everything) killed themselves just over a month ago (for added context we weren’t even done with middle school). i’m grieving so much and i feel guilty and mad and sad and everything hurts. but i can also see past my pain and recognize the weight of the hurt they were going through that was so great they just needed a permanent break. i think, with suicide, we all get too caught up in our emotions (which is fair! grief hurts! especially suicide! i’m not saying it’s bad, it’s natural) that we fail to see how much they were hurting.

fourth of all, you aren’t helping when you talk about how much of a reality check you get when you turned older. i don’t understand how you can’t see how that doesn’t fucking help in the slightest. even saying “permanent solution to a temporary problem!!1!1!!1!1!!1!1!1!!1!” would be better, honestly.

i completely agree when you say that it’s never too early or too late to recover. i can see where you’re coming from when you say not to post pictures of sh if you’re a child.

why do you say you want me to live through more (crap) years as an adolescent without knowing my situation? i HATE it when people say that, especially online. life fucking sucks ass sometimes, even when you’re young. actually, ESPECIALLY when you’re young. i can’t deal with all this shit for *checks notes* SIX MORE YEARS. i never learned how to deal with extreme grief or emotion or bullying or [everything else going on that’s personal and i probably shouldn’t share]. some children are going through WAY worse. probably a LOT of children are. who are you to say “enjoy your younger years!!! they’re the best :)))” when you don’t know the person behind the screen? it feels insensitive, honestly.

and yeah, we ARE the only people in charge of our actions. if we want to engage in these communities, that’s our choice. even when a kid dies from suicide, that’s their choice, ultimately. you can preach “i love you!!! you’re worth it!!!” as much as you want, but what’s that going to do?

finally, no, reading that didn’t change my mind about anything. it just made me want to engage more.

(side note: all of this is /nm. sorry if it came off as aggressive. tone is hard.)

(side note side note: please don’t turn this into an argument. i probably did by responding, but i really can’t deal with more negativity, and i’d imagine you wouldn’t want to argue with a stupid minor, anyway.)

*https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3749891/ - to be completely fair this article is mainly talking about adolescents and not minors specifically

“Kids shouldn’t be on jiraiblr!” You’re right, they shouldn’t. They should be enjoying life as a kid. But they’re not, they’re fucking miserable, so shut the fuck up and stop complaining. If that’s all you whine about get the hell off jiraiblr, nobody wants you here.

[joojdraws]

Something I've always found interesting about Lady Trudy and Lord Calum is that they're both shaped the same way when you look closely to their character design. Their hands are shaped the exact same and they both have one long tail. They also both have masks on their faces. (Makes me think that Trudy possibly has eyes similar to Calum's underneath) Maybe they're related, who knows… After all one is called “Lady” and the other is called “Lord”… or maybe they're just from the same deity species. Interesting to think about, methinks!

[osteochondraldefect]

another doodle dump . i think i sold my soul and carpal tunnel and last braincell to this podcast and you should too!

[loverboybrightsideghost]

if superman 2025 isn't a good movie i will recover i'll be fine i survived not liking maws that much but BY GOD will i be disappointed for the rest of my life until i die

[b0ybutch]

if ryan guzman ends up katherine heigl-ing himself by leaving 911 im sorry that would be hilarious

[malewifespike]

It’s wild to me that people fr believe Buffy/angel were meant to be and should have ended up together it’s soooo clear when u watch the show that their entire arc from beginning to end, exactly how it happened no more no less, was integral to her character development re: growing up and growing into herself as a slayer and as a young woman. staying together would have stunted her growth as a person and getting back together later would be a regression. Why can’t ppl accept them for what they were, a milestone adolescent experience, rather than trying to make it into something it isn’t. not every relationship has to be “endgame” for it to be important or meaningful

[woolydemon]

ohhh franmaya... forced to bear legacies..........

[the0ther-side0f-dawn]

just a little personal anecdote/ thought dump in the tags..