#but like really think about it. was there any less 'speak with zero'

[battlecrazed-axe-mage]

Y'know...kinda just thinking out loud here while my noodles cook, but when you think about it, narratively Zero was undeniably the main character of the post-Endwalker patches and I did not see any of the negative fuss and furor about it that Dawntrail and Wuk Lamat are getting now

[mieczyhale]

one of the guys that runs a reaction channel i've been watching for ages just announced that they're ending the channel next year bc he got a job offer and he's getting married and he's thinking about his family and his future and like...

my son in christ you are 21

i literally want to fucking die

[universalitgirlsblog2]

🧁🍥STOP BEING LAZY AND PATHETIC🧁🍥

This post is my notes of Thewizardliz video on how to stop being lazy and pathetic. This account will be my digital notebook where I will write notes from Liz and Tam Kaur's videos ( LOL ) .

🧁WHO ARE LAZY PEOPLE ?

Lazy people are the forgotten ones. People that don't want to do anything with their lives, they will always end up on a sideline.

🍥REALIZE THAT NO ONE CARES IF YOU ARE LAZY

Everybody has problems. No one cares about your victim mindset and about how life was hard or unfair for you. Life is unfair to everyone . Life goes on. Everyone is busy with their own lives. We got to get moving !

🧁YOU AREN'T LAZY , YOU ARE PRIVILEGED

People that need to survive have no option to be lazy . People that are walking up the stairs and they can barely breathe , they have no option anymore than to lose that weight. People that are so vulnerable and their bodies cannot handle of them being so underweight have no option but to lose weight. People that have to go to work otherwise there is no food on the table. They have no option to be lazy. If you have the option to be lazy, you are privileged.

🍥THE HALO EFFECT

The halo effect is when we see a beautiful person , we will think that they are less likely to do something bad because we associate someone beautiful with being a good person. Its the same way with successful person. If we see a successful person in any field , we will assume that they are successful in all their aspects of life. Suppose if a person have a successful business , we will automatically think that they are successful in their relationships and everywhere. If you are lazy , you can't benefit from the halo effect . It takes effort to be beautiful and to maintain beauty. We only see these successes , we don't see the progress. Most people are privileged and have it all but most people come from zero and create it for themselves. It takes discipline.

🧁FOCUS ON YOUR LIFE FORCE : HEALTH , DIET AND RELATIONSHIPS

When you feel that you are lazy , focus on your life force . What is your life force ? Health and diet. Focus on moving your body and eat foods that don't spike your insulin and eat food that nourish your body. When you feel lazy or don't feel good , don't isolate yourself. Connect with your family and friends. Also focus on your relationship with yourself. What are you engaging your mind in ? Be connected to your own energy. Journal. Sometimes God or your guides are speaking to you but because your mind is constantly racing , you can't listen to them.

🍥CREATE ROUTINES AND STICK TO THEM

Humans need routines. You need a structurised routine. Sometimes we can't stick to routines but we need a base so we have something to go back to. I would like to add something here , I am reading a book by Brianna Wiest , it's called 101 essays that will change the way you think. There was line in the book . " As children, routine gives us a feeling of safety. As adults , it gives us a feeling of purpose ."

🧁CLEAN SPACE IS SELF RESPECT

Clean space is a clean mind. Not even cleaning after yourself is a sign of huge disrespect to yourself. Stop reading this and clean your room right now !!!!!

🍥THERE IS REASON WHY YOU MADE THAT COMMITMENT TO YOURSELF

Remember the reason . Remind yourself, " Why did I even start ? " " Why did I even want this goal ?" . If you don't want the goal anymore then do something else.

🧁THINK ABOUT WHAT STORY ARE YOU TELLING YOURSELF

If you are telling yourself that you are a lazy person , you will act like one. Your mom didn't carry you for 9 months just for you to say that you are lazy. Get a hold of yourself. Don't complain about how you don't have your dream life if you are lazy.

🍥REALISE YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR REALITY ANY SECOND

You can change your realities really fast if you start acting like the person you want to become.

🧁HEAL THE PAST AND MOVE ON

Go to therapy and heal from the past. You can change your story around . If you are a victim of trauma or abuse , don't just go around and tell people because they lose respect for you .

🍥YOUR BODY RESPONDS TO YOUR THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS

If you are constantly living in the past , reliving it , your body will make you ill. If you want a different outcome and different future, you have to do things differently. People around you don't need to change, you have the power to control that. You have the responsibility to heal yourself. What others did to you , it is on them . They will get their karma.

🧁ARE YOU LAZY OR DID YOU STOP PROGRESSING ?

People become happy when they start progressing. We constantly need that drive or something to strive for. Create a new project . Find a new hobby. Learn a new skill. Do something that you haven't tried before or pick something you used to love.

🍥TOO MUCH INFORMATION MAKES US LAZY

There is so much information on the internet to the point we don't know what to do. There are so many videos on the best diet , skincare or workout , we get consumed in other people's opinions and lives. We start filling their lives with our energy. ( Just a suggestion; you can search workout or skincare recommendations but at the end you should choose a diet or skincare or workout which suits you , not others )

🧁ARE YOU TOO CONSUMED IN OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES ?

If you wonder to yourself : Why do I not have any energy left for myself ? Because you are too consumed in other people's lives so you aren't living your own.

🍥FEELINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS RIGHT

Feelings are just feelings. If we all just react to go out of emotions we would all unalive each other.

🧁ALLOW YOUR FEELINGS TO PURGE AND YOUR BODY TO HEAL.

Feelings purge by you feeling them. Release your emotions , don't suppress them . If you suppress those Feelings, they will get stored in your body and might show up later as physical illness. Sleeping is also healing. Let your body heal. Once that's done , get up and do something . Don't dwell there for too long.

🍥WHAT DO YOU FEEL VS WHAT DO YOU WANT ?

If you feel like eating unhealthy food but then you want your dream body. It doesn't correlate. You need to have discipline.

🧁COURAGE IS BEING VULNERABLE

Go outside and try to meet new people. Do something which you wouldn't normally do .

🍥LEARN TO ASK FOR HELP.

Learn to accept help. Sometimes God send people to help you. Ask help from God and you will receive help in miraculous ways.

🧁BE PRODUCTIVE ON YOUR OWN TERMS.

What does productivity look like for you ? What are your goals? Create that productivity mindset and visions. What works for others may not work for you.

🍥ARE THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU DRAINING YOUR ENERGY ?

If you have toxic people around you , you are constantly around them , you are going to feel bad. Distance yourself. No one can make you feel upset, you have the control over how you feel.

🧁CHANGE YOUR PERSPECTIVE ON SITUATIONS.

Most people are projecting their insecurities. Instead of feeling angry, have compassion for them. Similiarily , if you are going through a break up instead of thinking that they were the last person on earth. Think that your souls were meant to cross and then meant to separate. You learnt your lesson and they learn their lesson.Change your perspective on things .

🍥FOCUS ON THE THINGS YOU CAN DO

Think about three things you can do . What is your passion ? What makes you happy ? Who makes you happy ? Be grateful for these things. Realise that you can do alot and remind yourself of what you can actually do.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Thinking the unthinkable

On SEPTEMBER 24th, I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!

Time and again, I find myself thinking about radium suppositories: specifically, I get to thinking about the day that the consensus shifted from "radium suppositories are great" to "stop putting radioisotopes up your ass."

The thing is, people really liked radium-based quack remedies. They drank radium-infused water, smeared radium cream on their faces and bodies, and yes, rammed radium suppositories up their assholes:

https://maximumfun.org/episodes/sawbones/radium-girls/

The fact that this made whatever ailed you sicker didn't deter the radium true believers: if you're getting sicker, then you must need more radium.

When I think about the debate over radium, I imagine that the people who understood that radium was really bad for you must have run up against critics who told them they were being unreasonable. "You can't tell people to stop using radium. Tell them to use suppositories with less radium. Tell them to use them less frequently. But you can't just tell people, 'stop putting radium up your asshole.' They won't take you seriously."

About 20 years ago, I started pitching various institutions that reviewed consumer tech policy on the idea that they should reject any product that had DRM. After all, DRM didn't just restrict how you used a gadget today, it provided a facility for nonconsensually, irreversibly field-updating that gadget to add new restrictions tomorrow. How could a reviewer in good conscience say, "Go ahead and buy this device if you need this feature," if they knew that at any time in the future, the gadget's maker could take that feature away and leave the buyer with no recourse?

Here's the warning I (half-seriously) suggested magazines run alongside such products:

WARNING: THIS DEVICE’S FEATURES ARE SUBJECT TO REVOCATION WITHOUT NOTICE, ACCORDING TO TERMS SET OUT IN SECRET NEGOTIATIONS. YOUR INVESTMENT IS CONTINGENT ON THE GOODWILL OF THE WORLD’S MOST PARANOID, TECHNOPHOBIC ENTERTAINMENT EXECS. THIS DEVICE AND DEVICES LIKE IT ARE TYPICALLY USED TO CHARGE YOU FOR THINGS YOU USED TO GET FOR FREE — BE SURE TO FACTOR IN THE PRICE OF BUYING ALL YOUR MEDIA OVER AND OVER AGAIN. AT NO TIME IN HISTORY HAS ANY ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY GOTTEN A SWEET DEAL LIKE THIS FROM THE ELECTRONICS PEOPLE, BUT THIS TIME THEY’RE GETTING A TOTAL WALK. HERE, PUT THIS IN YOUR MOUTH, IT’LL MUFFLE YOUR WHIMPERS.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-james-hill

No one took me up on my offer. Over and over again, magazine editors, managers of nonprofit review outlets, and indie gadget reviewers told me that it was unrealistic to publish a roundup of, say, this year's portable music players with the recommendation, "Just don't buy any of these. None of them are fit for purpose."

In other words: No one wanted to publish, "The correct amount of radium to stuff up your asshole is zero."

But the correct amount of rectal radium for you to administer is "none" and the correct car for you to buy today is none of the cars:

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/

This isn't the first time the correct automotive recommendation was "don't buy any of these cars." Back before seatbelts came standard in cars, the correct car was "don't buy a car." Sometimes, the correct answer is "none of the above." Even if that makes you sound unserious, the alternative is that you counsel people to put radium up their asses in a bid to seem "reasonable."

Today, DRM-infected products are routinely downgraded and bricked:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/5/24236237/ftc-software-tethering-letter-consumer-reports-ifixit

Even when companies face public uproar over these disastrous decisions and vow to reverse them, they can't, because these downgrades are one way:

https://www.stereocheck.com/news/music/unfortunately-you-cant-revert-to-the-old-sonos-app-anymore/

That's bad enough when it's your smart speakers, but what about when the company bricks your wheelchair:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/when-drm-comes-your-wheelchair

Or your $100,000 exoskeleton:

https://paulickreport.com/news/people/paralyzed-jockey-michael-straight-wants-to-keep-walking-but-manufacturer-wont-repair-exoskeleton

The reality is that we're living at the end of a catastrophic experiment in deregulation and its handmaidens, corruption and regulatory capture, and there are lots of "normal" things that we just need to stop doing. Not do less of them – just stop.

Like, the correct amount of collusion between realtors representing sellers and realtors representing buyers is zero:

https://www.latimes.com/business/real-estate/story/2024-03-19/realtor-rules-just-changed-dramatically-heres-what-buyers-and-sellers-can-expect

We got that one right, but there's plenty more that we're still engaged in this pathetic, denialist bargaining over. What's the correct degree to which White House officials should cycle back into working at the industries they oversaw? Zero. How many times should such a person come back to work at the White House? Again: zero:

https://prospect.org/power/2024-09-19-next-administration-can-stop-ethics-scandals/

When the Biden admin dropped its executive order on ethics just hours after the inauguration, they trumpeted that it "went further than any other towards slowing the revolving door and limiting conflicts of interest while in office":

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-ethics-commitments-by-executive-branch-personnel/

And it did. But it was also full of loopholes, because banning these conflicts of interest altogether was viewed as politically unserious, so the correct amount of radium up the administration's asshole was set at non-zero. The result? Well, it's about what you'd expect:

https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/what-the-hell-is-anita-dunn-even-allowed-to-work-on/

Congress hasn't updated consumer privacy law since 1988, when it took the bold step of…banning video-store clerks from telling the newspapers which VHS cassettes you took home. Since then, a coalition of commercial surveillance companies and the cops and spies who treat their data-lakes as massive, off-the-books anaerobic lagoons of warrantless surveillance data has prevented the passage of any new privacy protections for Americans.

The result? Stalkers, creeps, spies (both governmental and corporate), identity thieves, spearphishers and other villainous scum are running wild, endangering every American's financial, physical and political wellbeing. The correct amount of commercial data-brokerage for America is zero:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/06/privacy-first/#but-not-just-privacy

In other words, we should order every data-broker, every tech giant, every consumer electronics company and app vendor to delete all their surveillance data. All of it. The correct amount of radium in that asshole is – as with every other orifice zero:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/07/revealed-preferences/#extinguish-v-improve

From the perspective of the radium pitchmen, the most shocking thing about the past four years has been antitrust enforcers – like Lina Khan, Rohit Chopra, and Jonathan Kanter – who refused to bargain about how much radium we needed to stick up our butts. Fearless of being branded as "unserious" and "unreasonable," they seriously, reasonably said the right amount is none, actually.

None. Which is why they're so mad at Khan and co. Which is why they're so bent on getting Kamala Harris to fire Khan – despite the fact that this would burn precious political capital in the senate. Some people just love the feeling they get from a radium suppository – especially the suppository salesmen:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-09-19-lina-khan-doesnt-need-to-be-confirmed-again/

The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this month!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/19/just-stop-putting-that-up-your-ass/#harm-reduction/a>

Image: Museum of the Health Sciences https://www.uab.edu/amhs/

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

EVEN MORE SPOILERS FOR SEASON 6

I figured since I already read it, I'd give my thoughts on the recent interview Astruc and Thibaudeau took part in.

Due to incompatibility with the new animation engine, SAMG will not be working on the next seasons of ‘Miraculous’. The series is now being developed entirely in France, with the integration of Dwarf Animation.

Okay, props for no more outsourcing, even if I'm not sure what this means for the other ZAG shows.

Season 6 is considered to be “a new beginning”, aside from being a new story arc. It is sometimes referred to by the writers as Season 1.

I'm sure that isn't confusing to the executives at all. Also, maybe don't imply you're starting from scratch when you're already reusing the plot of the main villain using the Butterfly Miraculous.

The writing team already has concrete ideas for how Seasons 7, 8 and 9 will begin and end. They also have ambitions to make it to a Season 12, only if the support of viewers and executives allows them to do so. With this, they emphasize the fact that they would not continue with the show if it were no longer needed or interesting.

So basically, they're planning to keep this up for as long as they can until someone pulls the plug.

The opening of the sixth season is still undecided. They are still discussing whether they will change the musical arrangement or not. Thomas also considers the possibility of making a brand-new theme song. A song has been confirmed for S6. They have the music, the arrangement and a female singer. The character remains unknown.

Imagine how funny it would be if they brought back the woman who sang for Marinette in the movie instead of having Cristina Vee sing again.

Despite leaving Paris at the end of ‘Revolution’ (5x23), Chloé Bourgeois will return in Season 6.

Putting aside all the things I've said about her "damnation arc", what is even the point of bringing her back at this point? She has no powers, no influence, no allies, and isn't a threat of any kind. This makes her not being the next Hawkmoth make even less sense, becuse she has more of a reason to hate Ladybug than Lila does.

Also, with the news that Chloe is coming back, this means that she essentially escaped punishment or at least found a way to rebound like Lila did. So that's a grand total of ZERO villains who actually got punished for their actions after five seasons. I'm starting to think Ladybug and Cat Noir really suck at their jobs.

Sebastien Thibadeau: “[Cerise] (IOTA: I'm still calling her Lila for simplicity's sake) is a villain without costume. She is a villain all the time. There is a reason why, but this reason, neither I nor Astruc will reveal to you yet.” Interviewer: “You mean you already intend to tell it?” Thomas Astruc: “Yes. And you know what, we have already told it, but you haven’t noticed.”

Translation: Ladies and gentlemen, LET'S GET READY FOR RETCOOOOOONNNNS!

Seriously, we are approaching the sixth season of this show. It has been eight years since Lila first appeared all the way back in "Volpina", and we still know nothing about her other than the fact that she has some three moms for some reason. You can't pull the whole "This is something you need to rewatch to understand!" excuse because the last two seasons hinged on breaking the rules about Sentimonsters.

Speaking of, I love how this comment about Lila accidentally implies that Gabriel never did anything evil when he wasn't Hawkmoth/Shadowmoth/Monarch. All that emotional abuse and isolation Adrien suffered was all out of love!

Thomas Astruc on Chloe redemption arc: “We put the characters in situations, and then we say to ourselves: “what would be the logic?” How would the character logically react in “such and such” a situation? And we tried, we tried everything. But every time, we say to ourselves: “if we write this, it’ll be wrong”. There’ll be no reason, it’ll come out of nowhere, the fact that she’ll face something nice and say: “Oh, I’ve been horrible, Marinette what have I done! From now on, I’ll be...” No, nonsense. I understand people’s desire for Chloe to be nice. I’d like that too. But I’d like it if in real life, people with a lot of power suddenly started doing nice things. But Chloé has no interest in changing. She has no reason to change, unfortunately.”

Ah, yes because Gabriel (Global terrorist and abusive parent), Felix (Betrayed Ladybug and temporarily wiped out all of humanity on a whim), Nathalie (Willing accomplice to Gabriel) Andre (corrupt politician and Chloe's primary enabler), Sabrina (Willing accomplice to Chloe) all had compelling reasons to change their ways.

Also, "I've been horrible, what have I done?"

MY BROTHER IN CHRIST, THAT'S HOW VIRTUALLY EVERY REDEMPTION ON THIS SHOW IS EXECUTED.

The fact that he's seriously acting like he actually wanted to write a redemption arc is insulting. Not only does it ignore all the things he's said to fans who were upset at the turn of events, but it makes no sense for him to take this stance because he's a writer. If Chloe turning a new leaf is too strange of an idea, then write an actual character arc allowing her to progress to a state where she recognizes what she's done is wrong. You control the character for God's sake! It's not like you're training a dog to stop humping the couch. You can change things to make a redemption arc possible.

In other words, Astruc is either lying to save his ass, or THIS IS WHAT THOMAS ASTRUC ACTUALLY BELIEVES about writing characters.

Sebastien Thibadeau talks about Andre's character development: In contrast to Chloe, “Andre Bourgeois evolved as a character because we had already imagined a back story. He had the potential to change, and that’s where the beautiful scene comes from — I think it’s magnificent — between Gabriel and himself on the roof of the Grand Palace, where he says: “But Gabriel, what’s become of us? We’ve forgotten the kids we used to be”. But we [writers] know what kids they used to be, and we’d like to tell the story one day, to show what young kids they were, when they were struggling through Paris and weren’t yet what you’ve come to know in the series. He’s sad about what’s happening to his daughter [Chloe], and he’s trying to change it, but he can’t. He is proof that a character can change.”

This. This right here is what cinched it for me. I've tried for years not to say it because it's a word that has been flung around a lot over these last few years, but I feel like this little snippet is enough of a reason for me to say it.

These writers are sexist.

They may not believe it, but whether they intended for it or not, they wrote a story arc where a grown man was shown to have more sympathetic qualities than his daughter. How the hell can you defend it in a way that doesn't highlight the misogyny that this show runs on?

The fact that they gush over how much "potential" Andre had right after saying how that same kind of potential wasn't enough of a reason to attempt a redemption arc with Chloe really shows how confusing their priorities are. I'm sorry to keep saying this, but for a show that takes a heavy anti-capitalist philosophy, it seems like the members of the 1% are the characters who get the most depth and sympathy... unless you're under 18 and lack a Y chromosome, that is.

A meeting will be set up in the coming weeks to decide on whether or not to make a live-action for ‘Miraculous’, Thomas Astruc reveals.

As a former Arrowverse fan, I'm willing to see this out. Not only did the Netflix One Piece series prove you can make an animated property work in live-action, Ladybug & Cat Noir: The Movie managed to do really well even without the usual writers behind it.

Thomas when asked about Gabriel’s wish in ‘Re-Creation’ (5x26) and whether he brought Emilie back to life: “All the answers are in the episode.”

For the love of--STOP SAYING THAT!

You keep claiming that we just need to rewatch the episode to understand things, but between the continuity errors and abandoned subplots, it's hard to tell what's important and what isn't. Either say "No comment" or give us an honest answer.

If people are still confused about how the season ended after almost a year, and you keep giving answers like this:

Maybe you need to change the way you tell the story.

Astruc when asked about ‘The Supreme’: “Oh, if only you knew... Nothing we do is meaningless.”

Sebastien Thibadeau on Season 7: “Once you’ve seen the start of season 7, I can swear you’ll watch season 6 a second time. That’s all I can say.”

Because it'll make Season 6 look like a masterpiece by comparison?

Thomas Astruc on the worldbuilding: There are Kwamis and Renlings, what makes you think there aren’t others [creatures]?

I swear, by the time we get to Season 10, we're going to get stuff like aliens, demons and talking mushrooms, or at least something ludicrous like that.

Zoe had a love at first sight when she met Marinette in ‘Sole Crusher’ (4x07), they confirm.

Of course! That's why it wasn't framed any differently from something like the umbrella scene and Zoe showed absolutely no signs of attraction to Marinette! It's genius!

Executives had Thomas write several alternative concepts for ‘Miraculous’, very different from what we know today or even the early PV. Among them, “a concept where Ladybug is the head of a group of superheroines, like Sailor Moon. There was no love story.”

Can you imagine a world without the Love Square?

The script writers’ favorite episode is ‘Simpleman’ (4x19) as it represents a personal, work and family attachment. Marinette’s grandfather, Roland Dupain, is inspired by Thomas Astruc’s grandfather.

Okay, either Astruc had a complicated relationship with his grandpa or he's been dead for years. While I understand that older generations have outdated views (for example, my great-grandmother yelled at me for saying I wanted to learn Japanese because "They tried to kill us!"), the fact that a caricture of a grumpy old man was based on his grandpa is a little concerning.

Also, between this and Sabine being based off an old flame of his, this only makes the theory that Chloe is based off a real person Astruc knew more plausible.

Astruc: “This is why our work is so difficult. We have to manage to bring in this generation of younger ones, and at the same time, we have to satisfy the generation that was here before and that grows with the series.”

First, if you're trying to please older fans, maybe don't get into fights with them on Twitter.

Second, you made a thread after "Simpleman" aired where you insulted fans for not getting the "meta" element to the episode and compared them to the character you just said was based on your grandfather.

You've also been burning away a lot of the older fans' goodwill over the years. Trust me, I have a few examples.

Despite sharing a similar appearance, the symbol on Nino’s T-shirt is not related to Hack-San.

Okay, is this a fan theory I missed back when Season 4 was airing? Why would anyone draw that conclusion?

Thomas Astruc talks about Season 6: “I’ll say it sincerely, I was very doubtful at the end of Season 5. I said to myself: “if we were to continue, how would we exceed?” Well, we did. It’s been a great season. The new writers have brought us a lot of great stuff. All the episodes we’ve written in Season 6 are fabulous. Each episode is on point, there is no unnecessary lines. All the scenes are really interesting, really well-crafted.”

Translation: Tons of filler, bad comedy, reused Akumas, and more Love Square drama that we're trying to claim hasn't been done before.

Thomas when asked if Marinette will get akumatized: “We never give any information about what may or may not happen.”

JUST. SAY. NO. COMMENT.

There are many important details throughout the series that no one has noticed. Thomas says that when we see the next seasons, we’ll think, “Oh, the writers had it all planned.”

You know, like how Season 3 established that Sentimonsters can be sent out of control by Cataclysm a few episodes before Adrien, a Sentimonster, gets hit by a Cataclysm and is affected in a different way. It was all planned from the beginning.

The Ladybug PV was an animation test and was not intended to be public. Jeremy Zag decided to leak it himself.

Honestly? Dick move on Zag's part. You have to wonder how pissed off Astruc was.

According to Thomas Astruc, what the ‘Miraculous’ series is today represents only 5% of what he wrote in the original bible he presented to Jeremy Zag. “The universe has evolved a lot since. I don’t know if the ideas I put there will be reused someday. It was very extensive.”

Thomas Astruc and Sebastien Thibadeau discuss the parallels between Marinette and Gabriel: Astruc: “Gabriel’s personal back story is the cause of his misery, not his will. And above all, it creates a beautiful mirror with Marinette, which is what’s interesting. They both have a lot of love for Adrien, they’re both designers, they both have a Miraculous, but it’s other choices.” Thibadeau: “That’s what makes it a great hero-villain contrast. Even if they don’t know it from the start, they have a real point in common. As we see at the end of Season 5, they both love Adrien. Except there’s one who does it by doing the right thing, and then there’s another who does it by doing the wrong thing, hurting people, to get there.”

And the one who did the wrong thing by hurting people ended up winning. What does that say about the contrast?

------------------------------------------------------------------

And that's it for the interview. I have to say Season 6 does not look pretty so far.

[sector38]

From Sector: 38

Entry: II

After my last "encounter," my mind was made – I couldn't just sit at the edge of the sector staring out at the abyss – a hunger had made itself a home inside of me, nested under my bosom and in between my ribcage. For what it was worth, I could now say I was the proud owner of a brand new sector pass (actually in date this time), meaning I could also now apply for a real job. Before, it felt like I was wading through murky waters devoid of a lighthouse: without any sense of direction or purpose, but now I knew where I was going, who I was to be, and what I was to become – a xenologist.

It wasn't the easiest job. When I told my friends, they outright laughed. Sure, the world wasn't what it used to be – fancy bits of laminated paper were all lost to the flood – but that didn't mean that anyone could just walk in with zero qualifications, no questions asked. This was especially so for jobs that didn't exist pre-flood (including but not limited to, you guessed it, xenology). Before, if the job existed, maybe I would have gone to some elite university and collected my certificate that, for some reason, was meant to equate four years of my life, with a smile – now, we had the circuits.

On the bright side, it was a shorter process, 6-12 months if you survived that long and shorter if you didn't. I didn't know the process that well (sue me), but I knew that I would be starting at the outer tier, maintenance (glorified clean-up crew) and working my way in, each stage more deadly than the last until finally I reached the core, or as its more commonly known, "The Arena." I could never just choose the easy path.

I knew I should have been nervous, but... I just wasn't. I guess after the encounter, it was hard to feel like I hadn't been given some top-secret information that put me ahead. I hadn't really had the time to think about it, or I did, but there wasn't really much to say or do. It wasn't like I could tell anyone – I don't know what would have been worse: them not believing me or their faces of disgust.

When all countries were dissolved, you'd have liked to think everyone would lose their patriotism (you know, considering there were no more countries to worthlessly devote themselves to) – wrong. The world became one big country, one metaphorical empire ruled by the human race. This meant anyone or anything not of the human race or not subservient to the human race (like my neighbour, Julie's pet squid) was technically considered an enemy of the state.

Wait, did I fuck a public enemy?

First-day jitters were nothing in comparison to whatever I was feeling, especially considering this wasn't even my first day more like a very short tester solo shift - in all my time on sector 38 I'd never felt seasick (probably because the plates don't move) and yet here I was suddenly greatly empathetic towards the poor souls who found themselves violently ill holidaying in pacific waters. I could barely walk straight, my legs felt like jelly, and my stomach was so heavy I genuinely wondered if I'd swallowed an anchor between breakfast and lunch.

Even now, i still don't understand why i was alone during my tester shift? I get that it was just three tasks, but typically, unless you're a high-level, you're not to be left alone - always followed by a superior. Still, as i said, it wasn't even like I was going to be doing much, according to the alerts who sent me my assignments the night before my shift

. Stack the crates

. File away medical instruments

. Clean the pods on deck Xv_2

Pretty standard stuff, to be honest. If i cared half as much as i should, I'd be outraged that they gave me such menial work - but i didn't, so i wasn't. All i cared about was getting to see more of them, speak to them, and understand them, and the only way to do that was to become a xenologist.

At that point, I couldn't care less about hierarchy and ranks - i didn't understand the tangled web of beurocracy or how clearing badges worked, well not until I'd spent less than five seconds on the deck and i was promtly told

"Attention!"

The wooden crate I'd be carrying dropped to the ground with a hollow thud, the solid wood colliding with the metal flooring, making an awful cacophony. I looked up at the figure and saw a man dressed in a black suit with a white under shirt and black tie, on his black hair sat snug a white naval cap and across his chest a number of metal pins. He looked at me expectantly, i hadn't been told anyone else would be on shift as far as I knew I was supposed to meet my peers next week.

While trying to carefully stack the box in the appropriate space, I gave an awkward smile

"Hi"

Somehow, in a moment, his face grew colder, from freezing to a subzero tundra in an instant - I could tell he wanted to say more, to reprimand me, put me in place - but promtly his alarm sounded on his right wrist.

He left without a word, his face coloured with urgency.

To say I was confused would be an understatement. In the new world, the navy took on a more active role with the marines following suit to a lesser degree and the army taking the least precedence out of the three - so seeing a navy officer wasn't unheard of or even uncommon, but a lieutenant?

It just didn't make any sense, especially considering my work for today was entirely made up of menial tasks - and the look on his face as he left or even before that when I greeted him? I'm not in the navy, clearly so why what was he expecting me to do? Salute? Bowe? Kiss the ground beneath his feet?

It didn't matter, I told myself, i quite literally had one job: keep my head down and become a certified xenologist...well, aside from cleaning the pods on deck.

After stacking the last of the crates and refusing to give into my temptation of opening them, I set about trying to look for the ever elusive deck Xv_2

I mean, would it have KILLED them to give me a map or something? All the corridors looked the same - eggshell cream walls with blue strip lights - every turn, every left, every right didn't feel like it was getting me any closer, to be honest, I wasn't sure if this was some sort of time warp zone, an after effect of some eldritch creature washed up during the flood.

Wandering through the halls, I passed numerous rooms with bolted doors and bright yellow signs with bold black writing, as if they were so afraid that someone might accidentally open the securely locked doors - aside from doors armed to the teeth I passed a myriad of people, i can't really use one word to describe them:

From white coats with slicked-back hair, needle-straight posture to black suits, black ties, white collars, and broze pins to white hazmat suits and black boots.

Like some sort of machine, my brain was fixed on identifying and categorising my colleagues (colleagues). Well, that was until I heard it, tapping against the walls

It was faint at first, easily missable, but then the sounds grew louder, the rapid patter of the metal walls surrounding me like rain against the window - except there was nothing to see, no visible trace of the source of the sound just the noise, just the polyphonic array.

If this was a film, the corridors would be dimly lit with no signs of life but my own heartbeat and panting breath ringing in my ears, but this is the real world, if anything the bright neon lights and the industrious workers who I chanced upon only led to an increase in my anixety - it was as though i was going insane, as though i was being followed

"Could no one else hear that?"

The noise was atonal and offbeat - seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once, bouncing off the walls like an echo. My eyes darted around the corners of the walls as I discreetly tried to turn my head to locate the source of the sound only to be met with nothing. Whatever it was, it was quick. It was just too quick, the persistent creature darting always just out of sight.

Finally, after what felt like a literal millennia, I ran into a steal door labelled

Xv_2

I pushed both the persistent scurrying aside and the absurdly weighted door - inside a dimly lit room with large cylinders attached to the centre wall. To call it a deck seemed overly gracious, with the sizing being more akin to an office space or a large storeage room.

As i walked closer towards the cylinders, I understood why they needed to be cleaned - they were filthy, dust coating them in an opaque sheild blocking any possible view of whatever was sealed within them.

I grabbed the tissue pack I'd hastily shoved in my bra before leaving the house and stared at the cylinders - there was NO way they'd be enough. A part of me seriously thought about using my top, but the thought quickly vanished when i remembered I did actually have to leave the facility without being arrested for public indecency.

And that's when i felt it, a brush of cold air against my neck, raising my hair and sending a shiver down my spin. Instantly, I dropped my tissue pack on the small table and turned around but only to be met by nothing, empty space. I stared out at the room for a moment as though someone or something would magically appear it would probably still have only been the second strangest thing to happen to me as of last.After sufficiently staring out into an empty room I turned back around...

The tissues were gone.

I looked down at the floor, nothing. Half baked thoughts swirled around my head as i looked around the room

"I could have sworn i- did i bring them? Yes. Maybe i dropped them on a crate? No, i had them when-"

Finally, i got on my knees searching underneath the desk in hopes that somehow they'd fallen and I'd kicked them under. It was so dark I should have brought my phone or a flashlight or something, as I lent further under the desk the space narrowed which, if i was paying attention i would have known.

But, alas, i wasn't - instead, my mind was still fixed on how i needed to be more prepared in the future and how i shouldn't have a phone if i wasn't going to use it because the last time I didn't bring my phone i got-

Cold.

Cold air against my bare thighs, that feeling again. Except this time the cold felt more real? The touch more weighted less like the air and more like a person?

I stilled against the feeling, with every passing second the pressure grew till i could shape the outline: a hand.

I tried to move backwards from under the desk but promptly the feeling of another hand splayed across my waist - halting any movement. The hand across my waist kept a firm solid grip, with the cold air seeping through my clothes and onto my skin as though I were naked whilst the other fingers which previously splayed across my thigh began to move, inching ever so slowly towards my upper thigh.

Maybe it was the confusion or remnants of my first (but technically not first) day jitters. Maybe it was a cocktail of both, but I found myself slightly pushing towards the unknown force. Whatever it was must have taken that as a sign because suddenly, the fingers brushed in between my inner thighs dangerously close to my knickers.

I didn't know who or what was behind me, no-one else was in the room bar me and with only one entrance and exist it would have be impossible for anyone to come in without my knowledge - especially considering how heavy the door was.

This couldn't be a who, I thought. It must have been a what.

The thought excited me, that familiar warmth spreading in my lower stomach now juxtaposing the icy touch of the creature - I couldn't help but let out a breathy whimper. The creature must have heard because, within an instant, its cold finger pressed against my clothed entrance. The pressure was barely there, barely feelable almost imperceptible but that's what made is to so maddening - what made me push back against it despite the very firm hand on my waist.

We continued our dance: me pushing backwards, aching and desperate for any sort of relief or solid touch, and its outright reluctance to give it to me aside from the arctic hold on my mid section I could feel myself growing wetter, throbbing in a hot aching want. If i was capable of shame at that point, I would have been berating myself for wearing white panties instead of a more concealing black.

The feel of the wet material sticking to me and the mystery surrounding the strange figure was getting to be too much, I'd tried to bite my glossed lips concealing more whimpers and moans but i couldn't hold back anymore. I began to rock back harder, sounds slipping from my mouth like condensation down glass till the monster showed me mercy.

A cool finger began to push into me through my now presumably clear underwear, the sensation of wet cotton and the icy appendage dipping into me making me moan all the more - but it wasn't enough. I began to beg, pleas falling from my mouth faster than my brain could protest.

Cold and wet dragged along my cunt so abruptly I hit my head against the desk but I was too aroused to care - slowly the figure dragged its icy dripping tongue against me, lapping up my desire through my panties and adding to the wet region.

The drag was devastatingly slow, and whilst the pressure was a reprieve from my previous torture, it was nowhere near enough, tears gathered in my eyes as I begged for more. Then, I felt the being give one final lick before spreading my thighs out further and removing its hand from my waist - I was untouched.

For a brief moment, i wondered if it had left me, alone and hungry, desperate for something more - thankfully, it didn't. Instead, I felt what seemed to be a light kiss to my upper thigh before my skirt was bunched up to above my ass. The suddenness of it all made my gasp like a scandalised southern bell -as though I wasn't begging to be fucked by a stranger (who most definitely wasn't human) under a desk at my first day at work- though rapidly my gasp morphed into a whine as I felt the monster slip underneath my shaking spread out thighs so that the back of its head might rest against the floor with now both hands grasping my waist and hips.

It began to lick into me (still over my underwear) with a passion that I've never known, the glacial touch contrasting the warm friction building. I began to rock and press down onto its tongue and in response it sucked and licked and fucked into me with its tongue.

I'd asked, begged for more and I'd gotten it but I've always been greedy, always been stupid and reckless and impulsive, always been bossy even when I'm on my knees and then was absolutely no different.

"Let me fuck your mouth"

Instantly as soon as the words left my mouth I felt it moan against me the sensation only making me want it more, carefully after giving a few more playful sucks it released me - somehow even with its cold presence when it left me, the room felt so much more glacial.

I slid out from under the desk my shaking legs doing very little to help me in this endeavour, but before i could turn around to face the entity hands covered my eyes, of course this did nothing in ways of stopping me from seeing but I understood the getsture and so I closed my eyes.

Once my eyes were closed, the figure rearranged our bodies like a jigsaw piece as though it and I were one cohesive being all while I was immersed in the faint scent of sea salt and rain-soaked earth emanating from the creature - the delicate nature of the smell, alien to the steady yet all-consuming auror of the beast - like the sky before a storm. Once again, it was pressed against the ground with the back of its head to the metal flooring, and I was on top of it, this time fully able to sit with a straight posture.

It slowly guided me with my eyes still closed to its mouth with my still clothed cunt at first gently resting against its lips not wanting to move before it was ready till I felt it place both its sturdy hands on my waist and force me to rock into its mouth slightly.

I began slow, moving backwards and forwards on its cold tongue, trying to find a starting rhythm before the heat that momentarily subsided rose in full formation. Its hands were everywhere on my waist, my hips, my tummy. Like it was pushing and pulling me down and up, away, and to. Then suddenly one of its strong arms was lifting me slightly off its mouth eliciting an unexpected whine from me whilst the other moved the lace fabric to the side before gently lowering me back onto its cold wet mouth.

The feeling was foreign, invasive, intrusive, like a virus spreading through my body overtaking each nerve and blood cell before leaving me powerless to resist or even the desire to. The cold spit-soaked tongue dragged perfectly against me like waves hitting against the rocks, never missing their mark. I began to ride into its mouth, eyes rolling to the back of my head as I felt a familiar pressure build within me. I was so close to the edge, to the beginning and end of bliss. I didn’t know what the creature was or if it was even capable of feeling pleasure in the same way I did, but the desperate movements of its cold hands, one gripping my waist and the other my boobs showed me I wasn't alone in my heightened arousal.

Pleas and cries spilt from my lips, each more nonsensical and crass than the last:

"Please, please, fuck I'll be so good, fuck, your mouth its so- so perfect, you're so good for me, fuck, just like that, right there-"

Till eventually like an electrical current, the feeling washed over me - like fuzzy static interferce my whole body sparked alite. Its cold hands pressed me down harder as my body spasmed, tears welled in my eyes as I tried to move away, the pleasure building to be all too much, the overstimulation becoming extreme - but its presence remained lapping up my cum from my wet, warm, throbbing cunt.

My legs felt like jelly as it finally allowed me to stand, my lack of balance definitely not helped by my inability to see.

"Can I open my eyes... Tap me twice for yes?"

I felt a press of cold lips against my neck and then temple, sending a shiver down my spine and a small smile on my face before opening my eyes and turning around to see

Nothing.

I looked around the room confusion growing clearer on my face - thoughts regarding whether I'd made the whole scenario up in my head beginning to take root - before I felt cold hands rest against my cheek holding my head tilted slightly upwards before I felt cold lips move again against mine. The kiss was dry, soft, and sweet, still smelling of sea salt and storms and in that moment my mind was still, at peace like a total oneness with the world, with the truth whatever that may be.

Warning. Warning. Emergency alert. Code Amber. Please isolate in groups immediately. This is not a drill. Repeat. Warning. Warning. Emergency alert. Code Amber. Please isolate in groups immediately. This is not a drill.Warning. Warning. Emergency alert. Code Amber. Please isolate in groups immediately. This is not a drill. Repeat. Warning. Warning. Emergency alert. Code Amber. Please isolate in groups immediately. This is not a drill.

[penkura]

Connected to this scenario request, here's a little part two! I might be making this into a small series, idk yet!

Law’s office door is rarely ever wide open. Everyone knows how it works, if the door is cracked just a bit he's welcoming anyone who wants to come in so long as they knock first. If it’s closed completely, you better keep walking, he doesn’t want to see or speak to anyone at that moment thank you very much. It hadn’t changed at all with the two, small additions to the crew in the form of Noa and Luna, though Law is less likely to get onto either of the children if they simply barge right in. They’re just kids, they don’t know all the rules of the ship yet, it’s only been about three weeks at this point since you brought them on accidentally.

It hasn’t been bad at all to have them around, they haven’t interrupted his work so Law is fine with the two kids staying aboard for the foreseeable future. Not like you, Bepo, or Ikkaku are going to let them go any time soon anyway. He has to admit he doesn’t mind how lively it’s become with them around. Despite being your responsibility, everyone has been helpful in getting the five-year-old and nearly two-year-old settled, even helping at night when Luna becomes fussy or Noa has a nightmare.

Law doesn’t realize how much he actually enjoys having them aboard until one day when the Polar Tang makes it’s way into much colder waters, he’s first one up as always and has his coat on quickly, stopping long enough in your shared bedroom to throw an extra blanket over you and the two children asleep in your bed, you’ve got to stay warm too. For once he’s glad this office is so close to his room, less of a walk in the chilly hallway though he stops Clione, who is just coming off night watch, to turn up the heat so no one complains they’re freezing to death. He’s barely done any work when he hears his office door open, expecting a ‘good morning captain’ from whoever it was, but he never hears anything, instead being slightly startled when something grabs onto his leg and starts burying it’s face in his coat.

“…good morning, Luna-ya.”

The toddler looks up at Law, a sleepy grin on her little face which makes him smile softly at her. She’s very good at slipping into his office and nearly giving him a heart attack, since she doesn’t talk yet she’s quiet enough to sneak into various places. Her favorite place to slip into being his office because she just adores Law, he doesn’t get why but won’t argue it.

It really makes him think of Lami when she smiles at him.

“Uh! Uhh!!” Luna lifts her chubby arms up and grabs at Law, making him nod as he sets down the book he was holding. “Uh!!”

“I know, I know. You want up.”

She’s so small and light, Law has zero problems lifting her up, Luna gives a little squeal of delight before she hugs him around the neck. Law has rarely thought about you two having kids, but has constantly pushed it away because he’s just not sure about it. Having Noa and Luna around has been more than enough right now, they’re helping him see if you might be able to handle having kids of your own, but for now, this is fine.

Once Luna catches sight of the book he’s been reading, her eyes light up and she starts to point at the pictures of the next island you’ll be docking at.

“That’s where we’re going next. You think it’s pretty?”

“Ooo…”

Luna’s little ooo’s and aah’s at the pictures makes Law smile while he flips through the book for her. He’s watched you read through picture books with her and Noa, Luna loved to stop you and stare at the pictures, the colors make her happy and she has nearly torn a page out multiple times, but you’ve been able to stop her. Law hasn’t told you about the few times she’s slipped into his office and he’s stopped everything to read her a book she’s brought to him, only because of his original insistence about not having them aboard. He still doesn’t think it’s the safest place for them, but it has to be safer than where they were living at that point.

Luna keeps making little sounds and grabbing at the pages of the book, especially when she sees the flowers, Law tries to explain to her what each one is but she’s not really interested in that. She just likes looking at the pictures and seeing the pretty colors.

“This is a park there, it’s nothing but flowers,” Law points at a picture while Luna ‘aah’s at all the flowers on the page, “We can take you and your brother there. You can see all the flowers in person.”

While she doesn’t respond with a word, Luna nods a little before yawning and rubbing her eyes, laying her head on Law’s chest. It’s way too early for her to be awake, he realizes, as she sticks her thumb in her mouth while he adjusts so her head is against his shoulder. Closing the book, Law is quiet while he takes Luna over to the couch in his office, laying across it and covering her with a small blanket he has.

“You go back to sleep, all right? When [Y/N]-ya gets up, she’ll come get you for breakfast.”

She’s asleep so quickly he doesn’t notice at first, not until she starts drooling on his coat. Ah well, it’ll wash later, for now he’ll let her stay comfortable and safe, even when he dozes off on his own.

You do find them a little while later, Noa by your side and feeling relieved when you find where Luna had snuck off to. You’re glad Law has come to accept having Noa and Luna on board, it’s like you two have your own little family now and all the help in the world with the rest of the crew.

This is more than you could’ve ever asked for.

[drdemonprince]

i was on NPR talking about Autism shit two weeks ago, and i have the book sales figures from that week and that national media appearance had.... absolutely zero relationship to sales. on the typical week these days, 1,400 to 1,500 copies of Unmasking Autism will sell. The week that I was on NPR there was a slight dip; only about 1,300 books were sold.

i have done a lot of press for my books. For Laziness Does Not Exist I did easily a 100 damn podcasts and radio shows and newspapers and excerpts in magazines. none of it corresponded to a noticeable bump in sales. the biggest "get" my publicist found for my latest book was the Glennon Doyle show, a booking she and her team celebrated and then spent months clamboring excitedly for... it, too, had no obvious relationship to sales.

Unmasking Autism became a bestseller because some other guy made a tiktok about it, and then a bunch of tiktokkers made videos about it too. all on their own. without any prodding from me, or any relationship to me. it was completely organic, passionate, and sincere, and rooted in the book's true merits and usefulness to other people, and that's why it inspired lots of sales. and continues to more than a year and a half later. all the press I did for Unmasking Autism prior to the release of that tiktok did relatively far less. NPR, Goop, the LA Times, Lit Hub, Jacobin, Huffpo, the New York Times, the Financial Times, MSNBC, Business Insider. Didn't matter. at least not much. so why do i bother?

publishers really ride your ass trying to make you give lots of interviews and show up for lots of events but it's all based on the worship of traditional media and magical thinking that it will somehow convert listeners into buyers. and that's just not how it works. the truth is 95% of books never sell more than 5,000 copies, and most people don't buy books or read them. i love reading but i dont think this is itself some terrible loss, as most books are padded-out commodities made for sale more than a work of true artistic passion or scholarly merit, and sometimes listening to a 90 minute interview with an author tells you the bulk of what you need to know.

it's freeing to know that the effort i put into getting my books out into the world have almost zero relationship to the books' success. marketing just does not work. it's a relief. unmasking autism did fabulously because it's actually both good and useful. laziness has had a long life span because it speaks to real problems in people's lives and gives them a message they are desperate to hear. but no amount of thirsty ass online shilling will make somebody realize that and it's maddening to try. you just gotta focus on doing good work, work that you enjoy making or need to make and that you feel good about, let things flop if theyre gonna flop, and keep on living your life.

which is all good news because i really do hate a lot of these fucking interviews. how can i stomach being on npr or in the atlantic or whatever these days given how complicit nearly all major media outlets are in justifying this genocide. like who fuckin cares about them, who wants their approval. who needs it. it's of no value

[turcott3]

the set up

cole caufield x fem! reader

warnings?: alcohol, cursing, kissing, smut, unprotected sex, public sex

masterlist

-

“truth.” you spoke aloud. you were at emma’s bachelorette party, one day before the rehearsal and you were all drunk playing truth or dare like teenagers.

“i know you have a crush on one of the players, who is it?” she asks inquisitively.

“well i’ve always had a little crush on caufield.” you reply with a shrug and a light smile on your face.

“oh really?” emma giggles.

“yeah, i mean he’s just so happy all the time and he’s really handsome, how could i not like him?” you reply taking another sip of your drink.

“i mean yall would be cute honestly.” she continues, texting someone quickly on her phone.

“who ya texting?” steph asks her next to you.

“just brendan, making sure he’s not blackout drunk, you know.” she laughs, knowing the boys were also having their party today.

“oh also, i’ll have your bridesmaid and groomsmen pairings done in the morning.” emma speaks up shutting her phone off. the rest of the night was spent partying, thinking in the back of your mind that you had just admitted your crush on cole to your best friend.

-

“hello?” you groaned into the phone, a call from emma waking you up.

“did you see my text?”

“no i just woke up, i need ibuprofen before i stare at a bright screen.” you laugh lightly.

“oh did i wake you? i’m so sorry.”

“no no it’s fine, i needed to get up, ill read it in a sec.” you reply.

“okay thanks, see you in a few hours y/n!” she says.

“bye love.” you reply, ending the call and getting up, digging for your pills. you popped two before opening your phone back up to read her text. as you ran across your name you almost choked on your drink.

“cole?” you question starkly, eventually leading to a sigh.

“of course i’m with him.” you groan, now feeling pressure to look flawless to maybe impress him. you knew that you’d found him attractive for a while but you had zero clue how he felt toward you.

after many hours of getting ready and making sure your rehearsal dress was perfectly wrinkle-less, you finally were able to leave your hotel room and make your way to the rehearsal venue.

“y/n!” emma yells as you step through the door, running up to hug you.

“hope you enjoy your pairing, yall two are sitting over there for dinner.” she winks pulling away.

“you’re stressing me girl.” you laugh nervously, sitting at the small two top table by yourself. much to your demise, you didn’t get much time to prepare as cole walked into the room a mere 5 minutes later, finding his way to his seat.

“how’ve you been? i haven’t seen you in a while.” cole asks smiling.

“oh i’ve been great, how about you?” you ask, picking at your manicure.

“better now that i’m here.” he replies, turning to face the couple as they were about to speak, a blush creeping onto your cheeks.

“hey guys so, before we get to eating dinner i just wanted to go over like the order of how everything’s gonna go just so we’re all prepared for tomorrow. and i won’t be mad that it’s not perfect, it’s not supposed to be. but if we don’t have any fun whatsoever, then we’ve failed our mission of being ‘the gallaghers’ so let’s hope we can do that at least.” emma spoke loudly amongst the room. she spoke for a few minutes just running through the order of how everyone is gonna walk out, you and cole being the third “couple”.

“and one last thing, i’m not making you guys sit at separate tables, i sat you with your pairing just because i didn’t like how it looked on the seating chart so, basically you’re attached at the hip all night. sorry.” she laughs, you knew she was particular in not wanting the wedding to be old school and formal.

“you think you got that all down?” you ask, trying to make it seem like you weren’t anxious, and it was starting to work. your nerves were beginning to ease as your anxiety seemed to remember that cole wouldn’t hurt a fly.

“i think i do. and we’re about to practice so that’ll be the test.”

“i’m nervous for tomorrow though.”

“whys that?” he asks, taking a bite of the plate that was sat in front of him.

“what if i like trip on my dress or like sneeze. i’m just scared ill ruin it.” you admit.

“it’ll be fine, you’re just over thinking it.” he replies and you nod knowing he’s right.

“that reception is gonna make it worth it though.” you giggle.

“oh absolutely, that’s gonna be the best part.” he replies

“and you’ll dance with me right?” he asks, with a hopeful smile on his face.

“oh um,” you pause finishing the sip you were about to take, “yeah of course i will.”

“great, i was hoping you would.”

-

you’d spent a vast majority of the night getting to know cole, which you loved doing. he’s an easy going guy who’s very sweet and respectful, which you adored. you went to bed tonight pondering on what the day would bring the two of you. you could feel the flirting between the two of you all evening.

the next morning, you woke up feeling refreshed. you went over the details of the wedding in your head over and over until you didn’t miss a word. you grabbed onto your garment and makeup bag and fled the room, rushing to be by your best friends side as she got ready for her big day.

“so you nervous?” you ask.

“girl no, i already know im saying yes.” she laughs as she sits in the chair being dolled up by her make up artist.

“oh that’s good.” you replied unpacking your things beginning to get yourself ready with the girls. the time came quickly. it seemed like minutes passed by between the time you finished your hair to the time you were stood with the guy you’ve had a crush on for a year.

“you okay? you’re fidgety.” cole asks quietly.

“oh uh, yeah i’m okay. just nervous.” you say, his hand then softly rubbing up and down your back.

“don’t be nervous, you’re gonna be great. if you trip ill catch you. i’m here.” he replies reassuringly as you flash him a weak smile.

“thank you.”

“of course, and you look beautiful by the way.” he says before locking arms with you, prepared to walk down the aisle. you made it down without any trips and appreciated cole going the extra mile to help you up a couple of stairs. you all stood on your respective sides, admiring the couple between you, sharing occasional glances with cole from across the altar. selfishly, you couldn’t stop thinking about him and how kind he was to you just moments prior.

-

the reception started about 30 minutes ago and you’re already 3 wine glasses deep with cole. you’d been dancing for a while and finally made your way back to the table, still littered with the others. you both had grown to be decently drunk and were getting touchy with cole, which is something you wouldn’t DARE to have done about 45 minutes ago.

“cole is need to pee, will you come with me and hold my dress?” you ask, sporting proud puppy dog eyes.

“yes, come on.” he replies standing up reaching his hand out to you, you found your way to the, luckily, single stall restroom. you locked the door quickly and turn to face him.

“i actually don’t have to pee.”

“i know.”

“you do?”

“yes, you’ve been making it obvious.” he giggles.

“what do you mean obvio-“ you start and are cut off by his lips harshly on yours, but in a way you enjoy. it was a quick change in environment, the fun had subsided and all you wanted to know was how he felt buried deep inside you. you felt yourself grow wet at his hands grazing down your back and onto your ass. his lips trailed to your neck, nipping and sucking on the skin before returning back to your lips after a long moment.

“i don’t wanna ruin your make u-“ he starts.

“shut up and fuck me caufield.” you reply interrupting him, a skill you’d both acquired in the last two minutes. cutting him off. a look of shock briefly flashes across his face before a smirk takes over.

“are you sure?” he asks, his hands placed on your waist.

“what do you mean? did you not hear me?”

“no i mean are you sure you wanna do it here?”

“yes, i want you right fucking now cole, and maybe again later when you’re staying in my room with me.” you reply and he smirks, turning you around and bending you over the sink. he assists you in pulling the short train on youryour long skirt over your ass, pushing your soaked lace thong to the side.

“so wet already?” he asks dragging a quick finger through your soaked core.

“mhm.” you reply biting your lip. you looked down at his pants in the mirror as he quickly unbuttoned his dress pants, rubbing himself hard very quickly. you bit your lip as you watched him line his hard cock up with your entrance.

“nuh uh, eyes up here.” he says using his hand to push your chin back up, locking eyes with him as he ran his leaning tip through your wet folds.

“cole we have to be fast.” you complain, as if you weren’t enjoying the teasing. a sigh of relief left your mouth as he buried himself deep inside you, his tip brushing your g-spot instantly, your eyes rolling back.

“oh fuck.” you whimper, realizing you are in a very public place and have to make sure you keep your voice down. you mentally acknowledge the fact that you have no choice but to be fast in this moment, wanting to get the job done quickly. in thinking, you fucked yourself back onto him, colliding in the middle.

“god fuck-“ he grunts, placing his hands firmly on your ass cheeks, thrusting quickly, letting the fabric of your dress muffle the sound of your skin clapping.

“you’re so tight y/n.” he says, almost speeding up his already decent pace.

“oh my god cole, that’s it right there.” you whisper, tears forming in your eyes as you collapsed further over the sink. gently, he wrapped his arm around your chest pulling you up, deepening the angle of his thrusts, hitting your g-spot right on the head with each thrust.

“fucking god, i’m gonna cum.” you whine, a tear slipping from your eye.

“come on baby, cum for me. i will too yeah?” he asks with eyebrows raised in the mirror and you nod as the knot unravels in your stomach, shockwaves shooting through your body rapidly as he filled you to the brim with his milky climax, fucking you all the way through both of your highs.

“i can’t believe we just did that.” you sighed out, catching your breath.

“me either.” he chuckles behind you, pulling out slowly.

“oh fuck, here, stay right there.” he says observing the mess he made between your legs. he grabs a few sheets of toilet paper, carefully wiping you clean, tossing them in the toilet and pulling your panties back over your core.

“my eyes.” you groan looking in the mirror.

“let me see.” he replies and you turn around. he licks his fingers to fix the smudges under your eyes and around your lips, dabbing the sweat off your forehead with a paper towel.

“do i look okay?” you ask, pulling the dress back down.

“just as gorgeous as before.” he replies, readjusting his pants, making sure everything’s in straight.

“okay you ready?” he asks holding onto the door knob.

“wait hold on, can i ask you something?”

“yeah of course.”

“will you come stay with me tonight? like in my room?” you ask boldly, the buzz beginning to wear off.

“if that’s okay, yes of course i will.”

“it’s more then okay.” you smile lightly, wrapping your arms around his neck, pressing a firm kiss to his lips.

“good, then i can fuck you right.” he mumbles on your lips, kissing you again.

“woah fuck y/n i’m sorry.” he says as you pull away.

“what what’s wrong?” you reply nervously and he turns you by your hips to the mirror, using his hand to turn your head to the side, exposing the dark hickey he left on your neck.

“honestly, it’s fine, really.”

“are you sure?”

“yes cole it’s fine, and besides you’ll be littered in them tomorrow morning.” you wink, kissing him one last time as you turn the doorknob. he grabs your short dress train of the floor, carrying it as you walked out of the bathroom. you hear a chuckle a few feet away from you, realizing nick was standing there and definitely watched the two of you enter the bathroom.

“emma!” you shout as cole lets go of your dress, taking your hand as you jogged over toward her.

“we’ve been looking for you.” emma replies with a smirk on her face.

“oh uh, i just had to go to the bathroom and there was a line.”

“yep mhm, a line.” she laughs, turning your chin to the side, high fiving her husband.

“what?” you ask.

“bitch, what do you mean what? yall just fucked in true bathroom at my wedding and now you’re holding hands. oh brendan we have outdone ourselves.”

“what?”

“girl, i put you with him so that THIS would happen. nick was our spy, great help.”

“you wanted us to fuck at your we-“

“well that isn’t EXACTLY what we had in mind, i was thinking like a kiss during a slow dance on the floor but this? this is fucking gold.” she laughs hugging you, as you stood confused as ever.

“so this was a set up?” you scoff.

“well, yes.” brendon pokes in.

“thanks gally.” cole laughs, a soft hand wrapping around your hip.

“now yall go have fun.” emma says waving the two of you off.

-

“what a night.” you sigh, collapsing into your bed, cole right beside you.

“yes for real, we really got set up.”

“i’m not mad about it.” you reply.

“me either, i’ve been wanting to talk to you for a while.”

“why didn’t you, i’ve had a crush on you for like a year.” you laugh.

“yeah well, now we fucked in a bathroom at a wedding, i’d say that is quite the stride.” he smiles widely at you.

“i’m fucking exhausted. i would totally love to stay up and fuck all night but i feel like maybe we should sleep it off and then maybeeeeeeee fuck all morning?” you giggle.

“whatever you want baby.” he smiles, his thumb grazing over your cheek lightly, pressing a sweet kiss to your lips

“god you make it so hard not to just wanna fuck you like a damn bunny right fucking now.” you say and he busts out laughing.

“let’s go to sleep, come on love.” he says tucking the two of you under the covers.

“we can fuck like bunnies in the morning okay?”

“okay.” you pout, poking your bottom lip out.

“goodnight pretty girl.” he says softly.

“good night pretty boy.” you smile as he presses a light kiss to your nose.

-

[katwatcheskny]

How would other uppermoons react to a child that became a upper rank demon? Like, Say, they were little less than Ume's age when they were turned, but more emotionally and mentally mature as a demon than Daki-

upper moons react to child upper moon

type: preference

pronouns: you/your/yourself

characters: kokushibo, douma, akaza, gyutaro, daki

a/n: i tried to make this as realistic to their canon personalities as possible. the one that was easiest and the most fun to write was douma this time, i also one hundred percent believe that would be his canon reaction and no one can change my mind. enjoy~

KOKUSHIBO

Would he even bother to notice that you are a literal child and not a very small adult? Probably, eventually. He just assumed you were older.

Kokushibo only cares about the other upper moons being efficient and useful to Muzan. Because of your maturity and clearly being powerful enough to become an upper moon, Kokushibo tolerates you.

He does use you to shame the others.

Like whenever Akaza tries to kill Douma because he’s annoying him. Kokushibo will chastise Akaza by reminding him that you’re half his age but have twice his maturity. Which is like a backhanded compliment.

You’re like actually one hundred or something, but sure.

Otherwise, he treats you the same as the rest of the upper moons. Which is with an apathetic neutrality for the majority of the time.

DOUMA

This motherfucker is condescending to a child upper moon.

Once again, you may look like a child but you were turned into a demon like over a hundred years ago. You’re not literally a child anymore, you have more knowledge, wisdom, and lived experience than almost any other living being on the planet but the other upper moons.

But to Douma, you are a baby. 

A little, itty bitty little baby. You’re just so cute with your wittle hands and your wittle feet. You’re so cute he could just eat you up, yes he could, yes he could! Who's a cute little baby? You are, yes you are!

Is he doing this to just fuck with you? Very possibly. 

Douma reminds everyone that you are a child whenever they speak on something he deems inappropriate, like swearing or sex. He will even come up behind you and cover your “innocent” ears.

Buys you children’s toys. 

AKAZA

Would have zero qualms fighting a child (x).

Akaza doesn’t really enjoy being in the company of the other upper moons. So, he doesn’t really care about you when you first meet.

He is surprised that you are a child. While you’re technically not the only child in the upper moons (considering Daki was barely thirteen when she was turned into a demon), but you’re the only one who looks like it.

However, that doesn’t mean you get a pass. Akaza is able to make the distinction that you aren’t really a child, so he will fight you.

Especially when Kokushibo uses you to shame him.

Akaza would want to fight you especially after that. Fighting is the only way he can express his emotions, especially as a demon.

Would be impressed with how strong you are. Okay, maybe you don’t suck. If you could give him a good fight, you would become Akaza’s favorite member of the upper moons.

GYUTARO & DAKI

I combined the two for this specific request because their reactions to a child upper moon would probably go hand-in-hand more than separate.

Gyutaro sometimes (most of the time, to be honest) wishes that Daki would have matured mentally and emotionally over time the same way that you did. Would never say it aloud, but he thinks it.

Daki kinda knows Gyutaro wishes she was like you, and so she hates you because she thinks you’re trying to steal her big brother from her.

So, Daki reminds you that you’re short and ugly.

Daki’s childish feud with you only makes her seem more childish by comparison to your mature indifference to her and her insults.

If Gyutaro gives you any attention, it makes Daki so mad she cries.

So, you don’t interact that often.

Gyutaro kinda still sees you like a child because of the way you look. Which is why he thinks Daki is being so unreasonable, you’re a kid and a fellow upper moon. He thinks you’re okay for a kid.

[evera-era]

a new kind of love. (pt. 1)

synopsis: ellie thinks relationships are too complicated, and has since written them off. but what is she supposed to do when she starts developing feelings for her best friend?

ellie williams x fem!reader

warnings: slow burn AF, jealousy, some sassy ellie, male tries flirting with reader for like 3 seconds, lots of playful banter.

a/n: this was honestly so fun to write,, slow burn + friends to lovers go brrrrr

“Did you see that shit?!” Ellie exclaims, almost cracking her neck to look at you. “Fuck yeah! That’s a new high score.”

“Nice.” You mumbled, but your eyes didn’t drift from the book you were reading.

“Seriously? You’re not even looking.” She groans. “Whatever. If you did, your mind would’ve been blown. And you would’ve at least given me, like, a high five or something.”

“Okay, okay, sorry! I’ll look now — do it again.” You say, folding the corner of the current page you were on. Ellie adjusts her backpack as you put your book away.

“I can’t just ‘do it again,’” She says, mocking you. “My chances of ever getting that far again are practically zero.”

Ellie had managed to successfully skip a rock all the way across a large stretch of lake. It was a big deal to her, clearly. She had done this everytime you went on this particular path during patrols, but today was a new record for her.

The air was still. You took a moment to examine the trees around you before speaking. “Everything seems clear.” You said, turning to her. “Should we head back now?”

Ellie stops to take a look around. She gives a quick nod. “…Yeah. Guess so.”

You grinned before raising your hand. She turns, slightly puzzled, before narrowing her eyes at you.

“C’mon,” You wiggle your outstretched fingers a little. “Your celebratory high five, like you said!”

“Yeah, but now it’s out of pity. And about two minutes late.”

She waits for you to step aside, but you don’t put your arm down. “Mm-mm. I’m not moving til we make up, Els.”

Make up. The phrase makes her stop, just for a second. She found it a little amusing — you’ve never said that before. But she knew you were trying to make her feel better, so she chucks it up to you just being you.

She claps her hand against yours before making her way down the trail. “There. We made up. Happy?” She says, already having placed some distance between you two. You jog to catch up with her as she mounts Shimmer.

The two of you arrive back in Jackson about an hour earlier than any other given day, since today’s route was shorter than the rest. As you’re dropping off the horses, Ellie looks at you.

“I’m starving.” She says, guiding Shimmer. “Wanna grab lunch?”

“Sure.” You reply.

“Cool.” She offers you the horse’s lead. “Think you can put her up for me? I’ll be back in a sec.”

When Ellie returns to the spot she left you and Shimmer in a moment ago, she’s confused. The horse was not in her stable. In fact, she was nowhere to be found — and neither were you.

Ellie blows raspberries, slightly concerned. But that quickly fades when you turn the corner, Shimmer’s lead in hand.

“Ta-da!” You cheer. Shimmer’s hair is littered in fake plastic butterflies, tucked neatly within her strands. “It’s those little hair clips I found on our last patrol. Isn’t she purty?”

Ellie rolls her eyes, dropping her hand from her hip. “Really?”

“Yes, really.” You frown. “You don’t like it?”

“Looks kinda weird.”

“Ellie!” You whine.

She sighs. “Okay, sure. She looks… purty… indeed.”

“‘Course she does,” You say in a proud manner, walking Shimmer confidently to her stable. Ellie looks off to the side, her face beginning to warm as she murmurs “Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”

She pretended to be annoyed, but truthfully, she cherished days like these. The two of you hadn’t gotten scheduled together in a while. And even though you were adults now, and had other responsibilities, she didn’t miss your company any less.

She still liked Jesse and Dina, of course, but she wasn’t nearly as close with them like she was with you. You and Ellie were basically inseparable; you had been, ever since the very first day that you joined the community.

You broke the silence first. “Hey, maybe one day, you’ll let me play in your hair.”

Ellie glares at you. “Absolutely not.”

“Why not?” You urged. “Come on, I bet I could make you look just as pretty as Shimmer.”

She shakes her head. “Nope. Hell no.”

“Hm… you’re right.” Your devious grin widens. “You could never look that good.”

Ellie elbows you in your side, and you burst into a fit of giggles.

“Shut up. Let’s go eat.”

—

A few days later, Ellie was at the pub with Jesse when she glanced over and got caught off guard.

You were walking in, talking and giggling with some random guy that she had never seen before.

The interaction she witnessed left a weird taste in her mouth. You were so engaged in the conversation that you didn’t even look where you were going. If you did, you would’ve seen that your best friend was actually in the same bar.

It might’ve just been platonic, but for some reason, it annoyed her ever-so-slightly. You and Ellie talk about everything, and yet you’ve never mentioned him.

To make matters worse, his eyes were lusty and unwavering and practically embedding themselves into yours. And you didn’t seem to notice — or maybe you just didn’t care — which pissed her off to no end.

“Who’s that?” She questions, jutting her chin in your direction. Jesse looks over his shoulder, then back at his drink.

“Uh… stable boy, is what they call him. I think.” He says. “Came into town two nights ago, along with his dad. An old friend of someone’s.”

“Is he, like… into her, or something?” She mumbles, watching intently. Jesse replies with something along the lines of “Hm. Might be.”

The guy was tall, which forced you to look up at him through your lashes. He was smiling the whole time; he clearly liked this angle of you.

Ellie resists the urge to clench her teeth. Can’t you see that he’s so obviously thinking with his dick right now?

Ellie knew it was wrong to feel this way. You were allowed to make new friends, and she shouldn’t interfere with that. But she couldn’t help it — the guy seemed like a fucking creep. She hated that you were even talking to him.

Thinking about it wasn’t enough. Whatever it was, it was bubbling up under her skin, as if someone lit a match underneath her.

“Gonna introduce myself.” She says, setting down her glass. She doesn’t even wait for Jesse’s response before she’s hot on your trail.

When she approaches you, she says nothing. Merely clears her throat and gives a curt nod to your new friend.

“Oh, hey Els!” You say, touching her shoulder. You looked back over at him. “This is my best friend, Ellie. She looks scary, but she’s nice. I promise.”

Ellie remains silent, just purses her lips and puts her hands in her pockets. There’s a noticeable shift of energy in the conversation. Stable boy must have picked up on it; it’s not long before he excuse himself and leaves.

It’s almost comical how quickly Ellie relaxes upon his exit. You drop your hand and give her a dramatic stare, jaw agape.

“What?”

“Really?” You say in a loud whisper. “Els, I know it might be hard for you sometimes, but you don’t have to be a dick!”

“Pfft. I was not being a dick.” She protests. “And even if I was — he literally deserved it! That dude was looking at you like he wanted to bone you. It was fuckin’ gross.”

“Oh my god, Ellie—“

“What? It’s the truth!” She states, like it’s a fact. “Look, I get that he probably hasn’t seen a cute girl in a fucking millennium, but—“

“Did he tell you that?” You ask sarcastically.

“Whatever.” She mutters. “I just took him down a couple notches, that’s all. He’ll survive.”

“He was just being nice.” You say before pausing. “Wait. Did you call me cute?”

Honestly, the words had came out before she had a chance to catch them. She’s not really sure why she even said it at all.

Ellie didn’t normally lie, but she knew you’d never shut up if she didn’t. So she glances at you, then sneers. “And risk it getting to your head when it’s big enough as it is?”

You punch her in the arm, to which she very quickly defends herself against. She’s in the middle of playfully warding you off as Jesse approaches the two of you.

“We abusing Ellie now?” He jokes, glass in hand. Ellie gives you a light shove as you let go of her forearm.

“When isn’t she?” She says.

“Puh-lease,” You enunciate. “That was nothing. You’re gettin’ soft, Els.”

The auburn-haired girl laughs it off. As you and Jesse begin to make conversation, Ellie — for some reason — can feel her face wanting to tingle again.

She didn’t like it. It was ticklish, it annoyed her, and it seemed to only start doing that around you, nowadays.

What the fuck is happening?

Maybe she was getting a bit soft after all.

[toskarin]

hey rin, a friend of mine enjoys composing music digitally and has a lot of respect for you as someone with more experience with that sort of thing. he has a hard time convincing the people around him to listen to the things he makes, in both the "finding an audience" way and "getting the people around him to give him their opinion on something he's working on way," and he wanted me to ask you if you could speak on your own experiences with those problems and how you've dealt with them. less related, he was also curious about your inspirations for the music that you make. i know this is a lot to cover, so if it would be easier for you to speak with him directly then please let me know

so I'll open by saying that, as far as people who can give good advice on this go, I'm probably not one of those. a lot of what I do only works because of some specific problems with my brain that are oddly adaptive to this sort of thing

that being said, this is a bit of the "tough love" kind of advice for surviving as an artist, so I'll make a second reblog for the second half of the question

this is either advice that will work or a ramble that will lead your friend to making his life unbearable, so look before you leap

-

The Easy Section, or "You've Gotta Be a Bit of a Tradie"

let's go over the business stuff quickly before I start rambling at length about the boring stuff

learn to love the work itself. "find a job you enjoy and you'll never work a day in your life" is garbage, but creative work really is the one area where you should double down on this. kick back and bump your own album on release day, thinking about how every second of it is something that didn't exist before you put it together. this is what's gonna keep you above water when the wind is dead

get on bandcamp. there is nowhere better for small musicians right now. bandcamp is basically the last remaining website with an effective suggestion algorithm that caters to people who want to actively engage with music and buy it

consider getting on instagram. in the majority of places you're likely to live if you're reading this, the local music scene is on instagram. probably don't use your personal instagram for this

consider getting on soundcloud. you won't make sales through soundcloud, because it's a streaming-focused site (more on that in a moment) with a focus on passive listening, but it's pretty decent for networking, especially with digital music production. soundcloud is linkedin for deadbeats

stay off spotify. streaming generally isn't worth the trouble these days unless you're playing concerts or are otherwise already established. if you aren't uttering the words "you can find me on..." more than once a month, it's probably not worth pursuing a spotify presence to end that sentence with

self-promote. if you have platforms, use them. find the subreddit for your genre and post yourself on the self-promo day. consider posting some bandcamp album codes when you do this, not just so you can get word of mouth, but because someone having an album in their collection means you effectively have a permanent zero-cost advertisement for your music which will only show itself to people who are verifiably looking at something similar. companies pay dizzying sums for ads that couldn't dream of being this targetted. this is a big reason why bandcamp is THE place to be for small musicians

cross-promote and collab. work with your friends. if you don't have musician friends, go make some and then help each other out. "independent" music is a misnomer

blind yourself to the metrics. do not look at engagement metrics. pay them no mind at all. don't look at them unless you're trying to see how effective a specific, deliberate course of action was and already know what you want to find

remember that strangers are unknowable. people do things for arbitrary reasons. if you don't have someone giving you written feedback, don't make any assumptions at all about why they did something. skipped tracks and minimum-price pwyws mean nothing at all

present your stuff in a way that gives it context. why should someone care about your stuff? give them a reason. carve out an hour to really work on a nice album cover, go the extra mile and include track-by-track narrative with your dungeon synth album, or just describe what you're expecting people to buy. I firmly believe that NOMAD/VIRTUE was successful in large part because of its presentation

gimmick. gimmick gimmick gimmick. discount codes are more fun than automatic discounts, free album codes are more fun than free albums, contests are more fun than giveaways, so on so forth. lacking any physical goodies to bundle in, you should still endeavour to give people Something To Do that makes them feel like they're really engaging with your music

zero expectations, zero overhead. do not rely on the whims of complete strangers to justify whether or not you end up in the red. if you ever find yourself saying something like "I can afford to pay for a session musician because I'll just make it back" you can't afford to pay for a session musician. you're probably never getting bailed out if you eat a loss, so try not to put yourself in a situation where you can eat a loss to begin with

someone else's expectations, someone else's overhead. if someone else is paying you to make this music for a soundtrack or something, if (and ONLY if) you have the money in your hand and know you have it, you're no longer gambling. at this point, you can start to look at expenses as investment

now onto the less fun stuff. here's where I ramble for like an hour at you.

-

if there's one thing I've really had hammered in over my decade-odd as a somewhat commercial artist (in all the disciplines I've worked with, which is most of them), it's that you have to be a bit of a bitch about it sometimes

that nagging fear in the back of your head that you're annoying? it's stopping you from doing what you need to do: annoy people

with that being said, this next section is kind of...

The Rough Section, or "You've Gotta Be a Little Hard-headed"

at the end of the day, you'll often find that you are your only advocate, and that means you kinda have to get your foot slammed in a few doors if that means holding them open. this also unfortunately means that you've gotta convince yourself you're pretty good. you don't have to think you're great, but confidence is a trade skill

the last opinion people see before the first time consciously engaging with your work (which here means "the thing that primes them for how they feel about it") is yours

which brings us to the first uncomfy rule

absolutely no cutting yourself down before anyone else even gets a swing

you can be modest if you want (you don't have to), but you absolutely cannot prime people to see the flaws in your work. if 50% of people are discerning enough to notice a flaw, why make that number 100%? what do you gain from that?

if something isn't as finished as you'd have liked it to be, but you've pushed it out the door anyway (which you will sometimes have to do), you absolutely cannot prime people to consider it unfinished

if the thing is still being worked on, there's nothing wrong with being forthcoming about that, but the fastest way to make someone think of something as "inferior product" when they otherwise would never have reached that conclusion is by telling them it is

and that, of course, leads us into a bit of an inversion of the previous rule

absolutely do not take the majority of your validation from strangers

doing this is bad for a million reasons, but I see the worst of this in visual arts, where artists double down on what gets them the most engagements and lay themselves at the mercy of complete strangers who have no actual investment in them

of course, it's normal to desire validation and approval from people you respect, but if you put yourself in a position where it's possible to enter a negative feedback loop that crystallises into you no longer making art from the default response of neutral apathy from strangers, it's not a matter of when: it's going to happen to you one day

so what's the move here? spend 8 years making music you don't release like you're in a compressed time chamber? probably not. I did it that way, but I didn't get much out of it, so you probably won't either

the actual answer is that you've gotta network. you need an inner circle. you need people with shared interests so that you can gas each other's stuff up

just like everyone else, you need your friends

you need to have friends who care about you, about what you're doing, and you need to care about them and what they're doing

this is because, while self-confidence is important...

the majority of your external validation as an artist should come from your friends and peers, not strangers

it's important to have artist friends, because then you can encourage each other in ways that are personally meaningful, but having your friends behind you, whether or not they're musicians, is so incredibly important

if you're motivated exclusively by success, however you're choosing to measure that, what you're actually doing is forming a nightmarish parasocial relationship with the concept of a crowd. not even a real crowd! a fictional group that materialises when you've created "the conditions for success"

there is no such thing as a truly independent artist. if your understanding of artistic success requires competition against others, you're going to lose that competition and then explode (unfortunately common)

finding your audience as an artist (and mind you, art is a social field) is very much a process of networking, but it feels gross to say it that way, so I'll just leave that at "if you want to be known by others, you need to be willing to know others"

anyway, this doesn't really terminate in a complete sentiment. I was just transcribing a train of though

if I were to boil this down to a shorter, snappier answer that I could read comfortably read out, it'd be...

TL;DR

the process of finding an audience is so much less about actually finding one than it is about learning to create happily whether or not you have an audience. developing an audience is the largely incidental byproduct of long-term creative efforts coupled with self-advocacy and interpersonal networking

if you want to be found by a scene, you have to participate in a scene, and if you want to participate in a scene, you need to be in the scene. so on so forth

as stupid as it might sound when I put it into words, the truth is that you can't build any kind of audience in isolation. someone has to find you somehow, and it's a lot easier to be found if you're actually somewhere that people might look

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 少年歌行/The Blood of Youth

The Blood of Youth is a 2022 live-action adaptation of the tale of a deposed, disabled, and incredibly cunty prince who's on his way back to settle the score with his asshole father, and the rag-tag band of weirdos he accumulates along the way, including Spear Girl, Bad Monk, and Fire Puppy (pictured above).

I hope you like shounen anime, because this is the most shounen anime something is allowed to be without actually being based on something running weekly in Shounen Jump. What if Nirvana in Fire were also Naruto? It would be the Blood of Youth.

This show is an underrated gem of action-packed fun that not nearly enough people in English-speaking fandom have seen. In an attempt to correct that -- and ahead of an announced second season and prequel in progress -- I'm here with five reasons you should try it out.

1. Zero thoughts head empty

You do not have to pay an enormous amount of attention to this show to understand what's going on. The show itself does not always know what's going on. It got distracted by a shiny object over there, and now we're all gearing up to go punch the shiny object. We'll get back to the main plot when we're done with the punching.

It has a million billion plot threads going on at any given moment. Bad guys roll in from sects you've never heard of before, using superpowers with stupid names, only to get kicked into next week. There's approximately eleventy thousand characters -- so many, in fact, that I ran into problems several times while making this rec post, because there aren't readily available photos of everyone I want to talk about. Just look at the DramaWiki cast list. See how it goes on for like fifty screens? That's a little what the show feels like.

Except I'm not saying that like it's a bad thing, because the show knows it's doing this, and it acts accordingly. It telegraphs pretty well who's important and who isn't (and then it goes out of its way to color-code the latter, which is handy). What you're left with is absolutely a manga-style plot, complete with training arcs and semi-relevant sidequests, all working up to the final boss match.

It is an extremely self-aware show. On multiple occasions, something would happen, I would crack a joke about it, and then a beat later the show itself would make the exact same joke. I wouldn't call it an outright comedy, but it's still very funny, and on purpose. It has no illusions about being some kind of profound, meaningful epic. Mostly it's just here for a good time.

Yet this lightheartedness is what makes the powerful emotional parts really powerful by contrast. The show is not stupid; it's just goofing around most of the time. When it knuckles down, it can be devastating. And you know what? It does wind up being profound and meaningful about some stuff. How about that.

So yeah, if you're up for something that bops merrily right along and only occasionally rips your heart out, here you go!

2. Putting the poly in polycule

Bisexuals, rejoice! It's representin' time!

Here you go, I made a relationship chart of about 40% of the show's potential and canonical ships. I could have included so many more, but I only had so much space on the image, so I had to leave out some amazing ones, like the sword hedgehog who's real into this one cougar who could easily wipe the floor with him, or the rich nerd who thinks he has a chance with the aforementioned hot butch, or the fancy MILF who cheated on the emperor with a dreamy jianghu man and is trying not to cheat on him again with a different, slightly less dreamy jianghu man. See? There's just so much.

I would also say these are not exclusive ships. They are extremely inclusive ships. I am a fan of most (though admittedly not all) of the pairings listed here, and in fact of many of the three-and-more-somes indicated by these lines. They're such a cuddle puddle of shared intense feelings that it's hard to imagine anyone getting more than mildly jealous. Moreover, the potential for romance does not get in the way of hetero friendships; a boy and a girl who are each dating other people can go do adventures together, and (mostly) nobody gets weird about it, which is nice. If anything, what makes the overall dynamic so polycule-like is how equally friends and love interests get treated, meaning that it's not difficult to see a lot of crossover potential between those two categories.

If you're like me, you're hesitant about canonical romance, especially when it's straight, mostly because so many straight love stories wind up being tiresome, gross, and/or skull-poundingly boring. You will then be pleasantly surprised by how the canon pairings with members of the main cast are not like this at all!

Xiao Se and Sikong Qianluo are the main textual romance, and golly gee, they're just cute as heck. As the chart above indicates, I like interpreting them as two Kinsey 6's who have found their single exceptions, Mulder-and-Scully-style. Maybe one of the best things about their relationship is that it gets sidelined all the time for the plot. They're not so busy being in love that they forget to get shit done. Then they get a bit of downtime and get to go on a date, and you're like, aww, those sweet gay disaster babies are gonna do a little bit of heterosexuality. Just precious.

Tang Lian and Fairy Rui are right up there with the cuteness. She's a sex-positive dancing beauty who wants to ride that pretty boy like she stole him, and he's a shy sword boy so tightly bottled up that he'll explode if he sees a bare ankle. Avoiding spoilers, I will simply say that this is a pairing of two relatively soft people, until a bad thing happens to one of them and the other hardens up about it. If that's your jam, they're here for you.

Lei Wujie and Ye Ruoye are probably the most magical and the most practical of the bunch. They have a beautiful, super-dreamy, really horny sword-dance meet-cute, complete with its own pop song ... and then that's it, they're basically just together. She likes him, he likes her, good for them. In-laws aside, it's a refreshingly low-drama situation. Besides, I always love it when the hypercompetent woman gets the sweet, devoted himbo who'd do anything for her. Ruoye's had a hard life, and she deserves someone who can dick her down good at night and make her a nourishing breakfast the next morning.

And then there is, of course, The Ship:

Xiao Se and Wuxin are canonical, textual soulmates. The show treats their dynamic as more important than any other. It's so important, in fact, that the show has to sideline Wuxin for huge parts of the drama, lest everything get too damn gay. They each get a boyfriend catch on the other. They both do fairly reckless things when the other is in trouble. They are the secret hidden happy ending to the series. They share the kind of ride-or-die relationship built on mutually being the hugest bitches in any given room. Whether or not you think this is romance, it is extremely romantic, and the series agrees as much as it can, all things considered.

And if none of those flavors of love float your boat? Well, have you considered ... eunuchs?

3. She likes e4e

So I'm on record as being real into eunuch characters, right? Well, if you're with me on that, you are in for a treat here, because these are some absolutely buck-wild eunuchs.

There's five main ones, and I can't even begin to scratch the surface of what's going there. Like, really, I don't even think I understood all of what was happening with them. They're kind of the bad guys, but then they're kind of the good guys, but then some of them are the bad guys, but then they're just working for the bad guys, but then they screw over the bad guys, and ... it's just a lot, okay? It's a lot, and it's all happening with this bunch of catty bitches.

Also, you would not believe the difficult time I had finding any images for this section. I guess for some reason, fandom isn't way into a bunch of canonically dickless color-coordinated middle-aged men in weird hats? Whatever, man, they are missing out. If, however, you have the good sense to be into the intense and complicated (semi-romantic??) relationships among colleagues who also professionally just happen to be missing their external genitalia, buddy, strap in (and maybe strap on, depending).

Don't let me oversell how much these guys are in the show. They're not. They're vaguely important at points throughout, and they become incredibly important near the end, but they're hardly main characters. They're mostly back at the palace, doing their various schemes and looking absolutely fantastic.

So if they're such a minor part of the story, why do they get their own selling point? Well, I think their presence is a good example of two specific things about the show:

Specific thing the first: It's so queer -- not gay, but queer. Thinking back to my last selling point, you will notice how many of those straight pairings may look normie on the outside, but once you get down to it are not playing by cishet rules. (For instance, I've seen a lot of people read Tang Lian's resistance to sexual advances as asexuality, which, sure!) Likewise, there are lots of incredibly important, intimate relationships that don't conform to standard romantic pair dynamics. Add to that a lot of bodies with unusual characteristics and conditions, and you've got the makings of plenty of delightful non-normative love stories.

Specific thing the second: There are so many things going on with so many side characters that there's a kink here for everyone. Don't care for eunuchs? How about slinky villains with mind-control powers? Devoted servants who would do anything for their masters? Former bad guys who owe life-debts to the good guys who saved them? Bonded pairs traipsing around the jianghu together? Sons nursing legitimate grudges against the men who killed their fathers? Alcoholic widowers with incredibly slutty necklines? Mysterious cross-dressers with unconvincing moustaches? Vengeful brides? Martial siblings? Murderous royals? Guilt-ridden half-siblings? Boring star-crossed lovers? All these and more! It's a smorgasbord of rarepair fuel!

Also, I just love these toxic drama queens. It's like if RuPaul's Drag Race had the authority to have you executed.

4. The most intriguing outfits I've ever seen in anything (and yes, I'm including Winter Begonia)

Time for a fashion show!

The asymmetrical fits, the detailed embroidery on everything, the brilliant colors -- everybody just looks so good. And yet everything still looks ... eh, I don't know if "practical" is the word I want, but at least wearable. Nobody's dragging ten-foot trains of fabric behind them or wrapped in eighty floofy layers of gauze (except Rui, but she's special). Their outfits are strange and elaborate, but they don't defy physics.

What's truly stunning is how often they get new outfits. Xiao Se alone changes clothes about once every other episode, and more if he's getting a flashback. He is the fashion plate of the whole series, and every look he serves is pitch-perfect.

They're not outright color-coded, but the main characters do have certain colors associated with them -- which is extra-fun when you watch those colors bleeding into their friends' clothes as their relationships get stronger. I also think -- and I'm willing to be proven wrong on this point, but I think I'm right -- that they recycle some characters' outfits into parts of other characters' outfits. On more than one occasion, I'd swear that Lei Wujie shows up wearing the left half of something Xiao Se was wearing a few episodes back (tailored to fit him, of course, because that dumb ponytail boy is tall).

Where I think the costume design gets massive points, though, is that the costumes are themselves adaptations.

Before the live-action series, there was a 2018 3D animated donghua. I have never watched the latter, but apparently the drama is intensely faithful to the animated visuals, to the point where some fights are shot-for-shot remakes.

Of course, you can do a lot more with unreal clothing and bodies in animation -- and you can show a lot more skin, at least according to Chinese content laws. The live-action costumers chose to preserve about as many of the appearance beats from the donghua as they could manage, while still accepting the limitations of real-life bodies and materials. You can see some side-by-side comparisons here. The live-action outfits manage to be instantly recognizable without being slavishly devoted recreating to their inspirations.

So if you're sick and tired of dreary, ill-lit shows with bland palettes, this vibrant, colorful drama may be just the thing for you. It's a rainbow from start to finish.

5. Actually a good central plot?

Despite all the wacky delightful shounen nonsense that this show has -- and it has a lot -- the core of the whole narrative, which is Xiao Se's story, is surprisingly great and cohesive.

The short version is this: Xiao Se used to be Xiao Chuhe, sixth prince and somewhat heir apparent. Then he and his jerk-ass dad had a falling-out that resulted in the prince's having his martial arts abilities all but taken from him. He's been living the life of a very well-dressed innkeeper for several years, trying to avoid all of that palace garbage. But now his jerk-ass dad is dying, which means that a lot of horrible decisions are finally having unfortunate consequences for everyone, and Xiao Se's got to get back in there to make sure everything does not go to shit and land someone terrible on the throne -- even if it has to mean taking it himself.

His central conflict is between what he used to be and what he's become. Does he miss being Xiao Chuhe, high-ranked martial artist and future emperor? Or is he happier being Xiao Se, long-suffering nobody who can barely run a business, much less hold his own in a fight? What would he be willing to do to get back what he's lost? What are his obligations to himself versus his obligations to everyone else? How much is he responsible for his father's bullshit? And why has he wound up having to babysit this stupid Fire Puppy?

It's okay, they're best friends now. Lei Wujie decided.

No spoilers, but I liked Xiao Se's ending a lot. I feel it's very true to the character and shows a real understanding of who he is and what he values. And really, at the end of the day, sometimes all you need for a happy ending is your girlfriend, your girlfriend's girlfriend, your girlfriend's girlfriend's boyfriend who's also your boyfriend, your other boyfriend, his girlfriend, and your long-distance for-real soulmate.

Feel like giving the youths a try?

You can find them on YouTube or on Viki. But be absolutely sure that no matter where you watch it, you make sure to go watch the epilogue as well. (And if you get real into the story, well, here's a link to information about all the other adaptations.)

You are also welcome for how I did not spend this post going off for five hundred years on how much I love Wuxin and his funky relationship to Buddhism. I figured that's way too niche of a selling point for most people, and might indeed have even been counterproductive. But know that I could have.

Also, I'm very happy about the announcement of a second season, because that's going to mean Liu Xueyi has to shave his head again, and he looks unbearably good with a shaved head.

Oh yeah, did I forget to mention the whole motorcycle photoshoot?

In case you hadn't noticed, the whole cast is stupidly hot. Hachi machi.

[eriexplosion]

Okay so. I cannot take it seriously when people say that we weren't led to think CX-2 was Tech. Because no we were not just having foreshadowing of the creation of an Evil Bad Batch. The clues led directly to Tech.

We have to start with the fact that they didn't kill him off definitively. Start with his survival being debated (and there's no way they didn't know it would be debated because I choose to believe they are not stupid) then introduce a character that lasts suspiciously long and has weirdly intense beef with Crosshair and you already are inclining people towards believing this is Tech.

CX-2 goes through a speedrun of Tech scenarios with 1. the leg crushed by a heavy falling object, similar to Ruins of War 2. knocked over by an explosion leaving him dangling above the abyss from a line like Plan 99 3. going over a waterfall and crawling out in a shot that completely matches the scene from The Crossing.

One or two of these is a coincidence, all three together less so.

Plan 99 notes mixed into The Battle of the Snipers. Which the Kiners only explained as the notes 'sounding good in brass' and nothing else.

He gets distinctly Tech like dialogue and no I don't just mean 'domicile' though we do have to acknowledge that no one else in Star Wars uses this word on the regular. We also have the exact match of 'Who are you' to Decomissioned, and the matching of 'I have simply cut off her means of escape' to Tech regularly saying 'I am simply-' when explaining himself, which again is something no one else in the show shares. Tech has a distinct way of speaking that matches CX-2, especially as of Point of No Return. (And CX-2 doesn't really sound like Crosshair, because Crosshair is just straight up not as chatty as CX-2 and never has been.)

He gets a long, unnecessary scene with Phee where he suddenly forgets how to be a murder assassin and starts playing soft.

He doesn't shoot Hunter when he has a chance and chooses to instead shoot his own man, he doesn't blow up the Marauder while Wrecker is inside, and when Omega surrenders he opts to just wait for her to hand him her communicator. He doesn't even shoot Shep when Shep starts talking back to him, all of which indicated that maybe for whatever reason he didn't want to, bolstering the Tech theories.

Getting into an opinion rather than analysis here but: Evil Bad Batch is a stupid fucking idea, it serves no purpose whatsoever other than a cool boss fight that adds nothing to the story. Having a CX be someone, anyone they actually cared about would have been interesting and actually played into the themes of family and forgiveness that were set up earlier in the season. Instead it's just more people to kill off to zero interesting payoff. It's stupid.

Every person I spoke to offline thought that this was Tech. All of them. People that have never looked on social media, watched a theory video, anything. All thought CX-2 was Tech and were confused when he was speared. This was not terminally online theorizing gone wild, this was a very widespread thought and assumption.

So, if they didn't mean to do any of that and at no point intended to imply this was Tech and were solely trying to foreshadow their 5 minutes of Evil Batch fight? They did it poorly. When the majority of your audience actively believes you are leading to one direction only for it to be some other direction that you meant to lead them to, the problem is not The Audience Didn't Read It Right, the problem is you wrote it badly.

[ms-demeanor]

any tips for Adult Phone Calls? i've been putting some off and it's going to start costing me money if i don't Get It Together soon, but that pressure just makes it harder!! part of my issue is not knowing what The Script is and part of it is that i find real-time conversation as An Adult really daunting....

Yes!

Okay so a big part of my job is answering phone calls; I am a professional person who answers phone calls from people who would rather not have to call me and who are usually confused and upset by what is happening, which often has the potential to be expensive for them. It's a stressful call to make!

As a professional phone answerer, here are the things that help ME when people call:

Be able to describe the reason that you're calling and what you would like to do about it. This is a simple two-step giving basic background information and your desired outcome so that the person answering the phone can get the process started for you. Examples: "Hi, I'm a new patient referred by Doctor X; I'd like to make an appointment with Dr. Y." "Hi, I tried to use my credit card but it was rejected, I would like to know why." "Hi, I am calling about a late payment; I would like it removed from my record." "Hi, my sink is leaking and I'd like to schedule a visit for repair." "Hi, I think my computer has a virus, I'd like to bring it in to get checked out."

Call when you have some time. Don't call when you've only got five minutes to be on the phone, this could take a while and you will be less stressed if you call when you've got at least ten minutes to half an hour where you won't be interrupted. If you are less stressed, the person taking the call will be less stressed, and the whole process will work better.

Have any account/ticket/serial number/referral information handy. Pre-game the call in your head and think about any questions they might need to ask you, then gather the information they might need. Examples: If you're calling about something like a car or computer hardware, know the basics of make/model/age. If you're calling a financial institution or service provider, have your account number, verification information, etc. handy If you're calling a medical office you might want to have a list of medications as well as your insurance card available.

And here's some information that might make CALLERS more comfortable:

We're not mad at you for making the phone call; talking to you is our job. You're not bothering anyone or imposing on anyone's time. Please make the call instead of churning in panic for weeks or months; it's much easier to fix something or resolve an issue if it's addressed early than if you respond to it months down the line.

You can just say right off the bat that you're not sure about the call or that you don't know what's going on and you need help. You might want to say something like "Hi, I'm having an issue and I don't know the next steps to take to get it resolved; could you please help me?"

You can also just say something like "Hi, thanks for helping me; I'd like to let you know that I have a little trouble using the phone and may need to ask questions as we go or think for a second. Thanks for being patient with me, here's my issue."

There is like a zero percent chance that your call is going to be one of the more stressful things they do that day. The call is stressful for you, it is very routine for them, and they are used to everything from getting screamed at to trying to communicate in languages they don't speak to help callers.

Also: if you have not called this place before, feel free to call it with no plans to speak to anyone just to see how the phone system works. It may be an automated phone system and you can call and pre-navigate the options and take notes for when you're ready to call back, and you may be able to find out more of what the system will ask of you. If you get picked up by a person when you're not ready you can simply say "Oh, I'm sorry, I've got another call coming in, I'll call back, thank you" and hang up.

The Script for most Adult-type phone calls is "I am having X problem and I need help fixing it," and then requests for information and someone either providing a resolution for you issue or escalating it to the next step in the process.

It's hard to pre-plan a script without more details because some people you'll call will have a more difficult script than others (canceling cable, for instance, can be a hassle and there are people out there who have written specific instructions on how to do that) and some will be very easy (scheduling an appointment or opening an account can often be very simple!) but regardless of how difficult the specific script is you can ask for help along the way, and the process will be easier if you've done a little information gathering about your own needs/issues/desired resolution.

Good luck! Please don't let the phone scare you too much! People on the other end of the phone are usually quite happy to help.

If it's something really contentious like dealing with a collections agency, look up specific resource guides because that's where it pays to have a very specific idea in mind of how you're going to approach the problem.

[statementlou]

i feel like i can talk to you about this because you have rational opinions. so louis bought a starbucks coffee at the airport and the fandom on twitter are eating him alive, calling him evil and wishing he goes to hell. i’m disappointed since starbucks is on the list of brands to boycott but i feel like this reaction is too much? someone even said jay would be disappointed in him, but people said that was taking it too far. i don’t know, i love louis and i’ll keep supporting him and his music but the fact he can be a careless millionaire is disappointing

1. thank you sweetie I would boop if I could 2. oh my god it's a fucking cup of coffee and if people think that's the worst thing Louis, a multi millionaire, has ever done financially they need a reality check! His money will be handled by bankers who are putting it into all kinds of evil fucking shit that he won't even know about, it's actually very hard to know or control that and there is no way trying is even on his radar. That's a passive thing and not on purpose; but the fact that people don't bother to know about that or care really speaks to how performative this kind of online approach to activism is, that they only care about image rather than effect (the effect of his investments would be easily thousands of times more than any number of coffees or even of the promotion Starbucks might get from him holding it.) But furthermore buckle in cause you hit a nerve: Starbucks isn't even an actual organized boycott target as concerns Palestine because THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT financially! The official BDS movement calls for boycott of very specific and pointed targets of which Starbucks IS NOT ONE it's literally just an online trend which is not the same as an actual boycott to materially impact a target! Losing them money is always great, they are a crappy union busting small business killing corporation, but it has zero direct effect to help Palestinians unlike supporting the meaningful boycotts called for by BDS. I don't think Louis has decided to buy starbucks because he has this analysis, but to me it's a pretty important point. Him crossing an actual picket line (playing Israel, playing Eurovision [lmaoooo that thought tho], waving an Israeli flag god forbid) would be a very different situation and something that would trouble me so the distinction matters to me. But I get that to people on twitter, that's what they feel like he has done. To which I would say...

There are so many fewer ways to help Palestine than we would wish, and it's SO hard to deal with feeling so powerless right now in the face of such horror, so I love that people feel so strongly about doing whatever they possibly can. But worrying about consumer spending, even on BDS targets, is perhaps the least effective of the things a person can do. Note that BDS boycotts do not mostly focus on asking people not to buy things; they list the products that are especially complicit, but the main work of the movement is to get large investors (corporations, public institutions, whole governments) to divest from the companies targeted because that actually hurts them enough that it becomes less profitable to continue to collude with Israel than to drop them as clients. Consumer spending is not enough to do this. It's easy and doesn't require doing actual work but it's basically virtue signaling, not organizing. Just NOT doing something (yes including voting) is not enough! I personally choose not to give my money to certain corporations because it feels bad to me and I can't stomach doing it, even if they never notice me doing it. But if I was running out of fuel and the only nearby station was a Chevron, I would spend a few bucks there and not beat myself up about it because it will have zero impact on their overall profit reports but a LOT of impact on my life. And if I was in the airport for the second time in mere days after circumnavigating the globe and playing a massive show and doing press and fan service before even having time to adjust time zones and about to get on another flight to another country I might buy a fucking coffee from whatever coffee shop was in there too! But Louis isn't me and I'm gonna be real honest I would be real surprised if he KNEW there was a boycott or gave a shit- he is not a political activist! It's reasonable to be disappointed if someone behaves not how you want them to, but just in general responding to being disappointed in people by lashing out at them is... not it. Not useful, not rational, and not actually an okay way to act to other people. Louis is an awesome sweet caring person who I believe tries hard not to have a negative impact on anyone directly and who cares very much about others; if that's not enough for someone to be a fan of him, okay then they should not be a fan of him! But warning: they're not going to be able to be a fan of anyone else either. No one is pure and perfect... maybe that energy would be better spent trying to make a meaningful difference in the world, and a great first step in that IMO is to recognize and challenge your inner cop. The better world I want to live in doesn't include policing other people, not on twitter and not anywhere.