#but usual disclaimer about this being a Personal Me Post on my Diary Blog and not intended as some profound widereaching thing

[ggreeeenheart]

adhd is constantly having to exaggerate the impact of small hiccups in your life to explain why you didn't do or accomplish X or Y task. (or why you didn't do them Soon Enough)

because despite it being the massive rockslide of dysfunction hitting you hard and sporadically. like. nobody ever Actually accepts that

[saintmeghanmarkle]

Megan's pr plan gossip. by u/deedee50

Megan's pr plan+ gossip. We all know that Megan calls the paps to car parks etc and other exciting places where she can be photographed. After she was seen entering an eatery that Cameron Diaz and Benjamin McFadden were outside that was turned into a story about them dining along with Gwyneth who happened to be there at the same time. The reason Megan put out the story that they had had dinner together knowing it was completely false was to be able to then ring said celebrities in this case Gwyneth and Cameron, so she could apologise for the false press, and ask if they'd like to meet for a drink or a bite to eat somewhere more private and get to know each other. Also pulled this trick with Travolta (who quickly shut it down).Megan asked and got a list of WMEs clients who might be open to a mutually beneficial friendship contract, unfortunately apparently there were only 18 names all c-d list, real housewives/selling sunset types. Not 1 A.Lister. She has started drinking more than usual, crying to h, why does everyone hate me?? Etc. Also seems convinced and has convinced h that they will get back in the RF fold, using public pressure of constantly holding out olive branch's that are rejected, the atmosphere is very much "they owe us, after what they put poor meg through just like husbands mummy"The person who drops me this info is soon starting to seek out offers that the payout would more than cover being sue'd by the litigious harkles and keeps a detailed diary. The majority Of information is only gained because madam seems to have 2 levels of voice shout and shout louder when things don't go her way. I've told before how staff talk and laugh that even garden staff know whats going on it's that loud. plus theres caneras EVERYWHERE manned by security also privy to what's going on, he still wants her, she tolerates him, they fight a lot Doria is ref. This is all alleged, I've explained how I get the info, and why and it's up to you if you wish to think it's true, partly true or false. I'm saying this as I love this forum, the posters are intelligent ,witty and fun and it brings me relief from real life, so that's why I post, and my friend is aware I post here. post link: https://ift.tt/hQlVkdT author: deedee50 submitted: April 09, 2024 at 06:05PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit disclaimer: all views + opinions expressed by the author of this post, as well as any comments and reblogs, are solely the author's own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the administrator of this Tumblr blog. For entertainment only.

[devilsxxharlot]

❣️ 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔟𝔯𝔬𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔩.

Disclaimer: for the safety of myself and others, I do not interact with individuals under 18. This means ageless blogs or underage blogs that interact with me are promptly blocked. This is not a bitter thing. In my opinion (and from the experience of someone who began reading NSFW extremely young), it's not safe for minors to consume NSFW material. This is also why anon is not permitted on my blog.

Thank you for being respectful and understanding :). I am more than happy to interact with people once they're 18 and up!

Introduction.

Hello and welcome to 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔟𝔯𝔬𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔩.—or, in other words, my introduction + information post. You may be wondering, what is this account? Well, don't you worry, I'll tell you all about it. And if you're not wondering, strap in anyway!

This account is for cross-posting my smutshots, headcanons, and general thirstings for fictional characters. You may (probably not) know me from Ao3 :3!. Anyway. The most exciting part of this account may be that this is where I'll be taking writing commissions :). More on that later, though...

Suffice to say this will be a very adult space because it will LITERALLY just be me being a whore. Maybe in company, maybe alone. Who knows? Certainly not me.

Fandoms.

Lego Monkie Kid.

Demon Slayer/Kimetsu no Yaiba.

Aphmau (PRIMARILY Minecraft Diaries and My Inner Demons).

Creepypasta (sort of—I'm in a revival phase... currently I'm on a Tobias Rogers and Laughing Jack kick <3).

These are the fandoms I'll write the most for, purely because I'm most familiar with their characters and, well... in love with some of the characters /silly dramatic. You're free to ask about other characters or try to get me into other fandoms, though! :)

What I Do and Don't Write.

Like I said previously, this is an NSFW account, meaning a lot of what I write will be straight up porn or, at the very least, greatly suggestive. That is a warning in itself, but here's a list of kinks/themes I frequently write about so you can know what you're walking into!

Dubcon (specifically somnophilia and intoxicated sex; sometimes with a hesitant but not unwilling reader!).

Biting/marking/blood in general (period sex DOES NOT bother me and I may get nasty with it).

Degradation/praise.

Overstimulation/orgasm control.

Unprotected sex.

Anthropomorphic + alien characters, depending on context and comfort.

Non-sexual themes also include depression, self-harm, suicidal ideation, etc. Usually my smut is written between characters who love each other, so sometimes these topics come up for comfort reasons. It's not meant to glamorize or romanticize anything: it's strictly comfort.

With the things I do write out of the way, here are some of the things I absolutely do not write.

Rape. Not even for roleplay purposes. All involved characters are actively consenting or have established consent at some point (ex. a somnophile fic obviously won't have one person actively consenting, but the fic will either imply or outright state that said person consented at a different point or would be consenting if they were awake).

Abuse. Not even for roleplay purposes.

Incest. Not even for roleplay purposes. This also includes step-family.

Pedophilia. Not even for roleplay purposes.

Zoophilia. I do not write porn for feral characters, and writing for anthropomorphic/alien characters is greatly contextual (ex. I write for LMK!Wukong because it's obvious he's sapient and mostly built like a human; but I wouldn't write for the xenomorph because they're more creature-coded and I don't believe they have the same level of sapience as humans).

DDLG/MDLB or any variation of it; this also includes ageplay. Both make me uncomfortable.

ABO. I like heat/rut tropes as much as the next guy but I'll eat rocks before I play into the alpha and omega stuff I'm sorry.

M!PREG.

Piss/scat play (squirting isn't included in this!).

If you're curious about anything you don't see listed here, feel free to ask me!

Boundaries.

My work is never to be reposted or fed to AI. Doing so will result in a block and report if applicable.

Requests & Commissions.

Now for the most important part...

Requests are low-priority, free prompts you guys can give me. I decide whether or not I want to do a fic for it or headcanons! You just give me the character/s and the idea and I wait for inspiration to strike :).

Commissions are top-priority prompts or requests that I'm getting paid for. There are two options related to commissions:

Character x Reader: CxRs are charged at $15 USD per 1,000 words. The reader can be vaguely customized (sex/gender, dom/sub, body-type). These are published publicly after the commissioner gets to enjoy it first :). Looking at my current works, this would mean a CxR fic would cost around $45-90 USD.

Character x OC: CxOCs are charged at $20 USD per 1,000 words, the reason being that I will do everything in my power to make the fic as accurate as possible! So they just take more effort to write. For CxOC fics, they run closer to $60-120 USD.

If the word count is below 500, I round down to the nearest thousand. If the word count is 700+, I round up to the next thousand. If the word count is 500-700, I'll charge half price (ex. a 1,500 word CxR would be $22, not $30).

I can only accept money through Cashapp. Upon accepting your commission, I'll keep you updated as I work on your piece and send you snippets for you to approve of. After I finish, I'll request payment and then send you a PDF of the fic!

Requests are CLOSED. CxR Fics are OPEN (0/1 slots claimed). CxOC Fics are CLOSED.

End.

[velvettte]

˖°𓇼 RULES ˖°𓇼

DNI/BYF

this blog is strictly 16+. please do not interact (like/reblog/comment/send asks/etc) if you are below the age of 16. i check accounts that interact w me if you send asks so having an age in your bio (or at least some general indicator) helps

if you are a minor, you MUST block #aquamour. this is the tag i will be using for nsfw content, and its to keep both of safe! please please please, block the tag. i will block any minors who interact with nsfw posts for both of our safety. i understand accidents — if it’s an accident please just unlike and move on.

i don’t have to say this, but do not interact with me if you are racist, homophobic, ableist, or have participated in character hate nights — just don’t be a shitty person

please do not dm me unless we are mutuals! it makes me kind of uncomfortable. i would be more than happy to talk in the ask box anytime

please do not spam like my works! the last thing anyone wants is to be shadowbanned :( — if i catch you doing this, i will block you

please do not drag me into discourse. drama scares me.

please be nice to me! this blog is just a way to expand from my normal sfw writing on my other blog (which some of you might know) and expand my writing palette a bit. it’s a safe space where we can talk about characters and share headcanons and have a good time!

WRITING RULES AND DISCLAIMERS

i currently do not take requests, however i absolutely take SUGGESTIONS. if you have an idea you’d like to share, feel free to put it in my inbox and i’ll get to it if it inspires me

i usually write for g!n reader, but if not, i write for f!reader and specify

for nsfw: any characters i write are aged up! if you have an issue with this, please block me and carry on with your day. my nsfw posts will usually be f!reader

i currently write for hq and jjk, though i’m looking to expand into blue lock when i get more comfortable with characterizations. i do not write for all characters, so in case you’re unsure, send an ask and i’ll get to it <3

INBOX RULES

please do not spam my inbox! i promise i will see them and get to them as soon as i can. please be patient with me, as i’ll be a uni student with heaps of work.

please do not trauma dump in my inbox or use it as a diary. i completely understand having a lot of emotional struggles and wanting to share them with a creator who can understand you, but please ask if it is okay first. i can get very anxious, especially around topics of self harm and suicide, so please be mindful. this blog is how i escape my own problems too, and it can be draining being a therapist to people on the internet. if you are a mutual, feel free to dm me or ask for my discord to talk about anything

finally, thank you so much for reading my rules! i hope you enjoy velvettte and my masterlist!

[sixteenyearoldrants]

entry number one - to my old friend group, i am not stupid.

disclaimer: this is basically a diary. when i was 8 i took a dork diaries quiz and it told me to write a blog as a form of venting, which is exactly what i’m doing right now. you should definitely not read this fellow tumblr users it’s boring and a waste of your time i’m basically just talking to myself. if you read this and think you know me irl, no you don’t. i’m using initials to replace names btw.

introduction to my rant

my school is tiny. it only has like 250 people in the ENTIRE school, and my year (the biggest year) has 53 people. over half of them are guys, so that leaves my options for school friends pretty limited. if you’re wondering why i don’t include guys as possible friend group joiners, there is absolutely no reason why, except the fact that there’s an unspoken rule that there are no mixed gender friend groups. at all. they just don’t exist in my year. they exist in the other schools in my town, the ones with over 900 people, but definitely not in mine. as of right now, there are seven friend groups in my year. all groups except group one are all girls

group one is all of the guys. they all have their own little micro groups, but usually all of them hang out in one huge group together. group two and three are kinda exclusive? like they’ve stayed the exact same people since day one, and they’re all actually really nice but i’ve never talked to any of them about anything that isn’t homework answers, so that’s a no. group four is the closest thing we have to popular people, except there’s not enough people in the school for us to have actual intimidating popular people and they’re too nice to be mean-popular. before one of these girls joined, she was a kpop stan and my best friend. she’s still nice but i miss how close we were before we drifted.group five consists of four girls (two of whom are sisters whos parents are first cousins!!!!) and are undeniably the ‘weird kids’. i’m gonna make a separate post later on why they’re considered this but it’s most definitely accurate name for them.

group six is my old friend group that i recently left because they were extreme bitches and sosososo toxic. they genuinely act like they’re better than everyone and judging from the shitty two years i spent with them, they actually think they are. the only person i actually like is LB, she’s the sweetest person ever, i love her to bits. she left the group with me for reasons i will later reveal.

and finally, group seven. this is the biggest group, with seven or eight people. i’ve always been good enough friends with the people in it, so when my old friend group got to be too much, they let me and LB hang out with them, and i’m so happy i was able to fall back on them. i’m a lot happier in this group.

the actual rant  - why my old group was so toxic

okay, so i come across as a very ditzy person. i laugh at the stupidest things. i zone out when people talk sometimes. i like to run everywhere, sometimes i skip. i always have to ask what’s going on because i wasn’t listening. i genuinely cannot stay serious. it’s just how i am. like i guess i am kind of a ditz? but i’m not stupid at all. not at alllll. as a matter of fact, i’ve always been really smart (except in algebra because wtf how am i meant to equalize algebraic fractions using coordinates???) but anyways i’m very clever. i can tell in two seconds flat if someone’s trying to bullshit me, i can win any argument purely through logic, i can persuade people by figuring out exactly what i know they want to hear without giving them false hope. right now, i’m doing the highest possible level in every class through my second language, in a school where everyone else grew up surrounded by it and i could barely say a sentence when i joined, and have never ever made a grade lower than a C+. 

i am not stupid.

but for some reason, because i’m a bit ditzy, this friend group took that as an excuse to treat me like i am stupid, and i hated it. it wasn’t so bad for the first year. it was normal. i may have been the most common butt of their jokes, but it was fine. there was no actual bad intent behind it, they were just normal inside jokes and stuff. but then, in second year, it actually started to sting.

i would say anything and automatically recieve a dirty look, for example, once i told them about my brother’s sleepwalking, because tbh if your brother unlocks the door and walks out of your house in the middle of the night to stand outside the neighbors door in his pyjamas and socks because he’s “borrowing the hoover”, ALL while asleep (he sleeps with his eyes open too which makes it even creepier bc he doesn’t blink he just stares with weird ass zombie eyes), you’re probably gonna think, ‘hey! that’s a funny story! i should tell my friends about that!’, right?

so i went into school that morning and told them about it really excitedly, and all i got back was one “... okay.”, and all of them giving me a weird look and giving each other knowing looks and then starting up a conversation about the posters on the wall in the room we were in, like i had never said anything at all. (LB wasn’t there. it was just the three bitches)

i know i’m just being dramatic. i know i’m too sensitive, but i had been so excited to tell them about that, and then they couldn’t be bothered to respond with anything other than a look. and it fucking hurt so much and i don’t know why but that memory just always stuck with me. after that i just kinda faded into the background for the rest of the conversation and didn’t say much.

but then i realized that a pattern was emerging. if i tried to start a conversation, i would get the “... okay?” and the looks would be given and exchanged. if i asked a question, i.e “wait, so *name* did/said what?”, they would exchange looks, giggle, and then say *insert my name* in a super exasperated tone and sigh, then continue without answering. they treated me like i was some sort of dumb dog, and i couldn’t stand it. constantly making snide jokes about me. i took the hint after about a month. they didn’t like me. i couldn’t make them like me. i just accepted it. but as you know, at that time i didn’t really have many other friend group options, and another girl had once left our group and they had talked so much shit about her when she left, and i knew they would do the same if i left. so i stayed.

eventually, in the last month of school, they started being bitchy to LB too. they would basically ignore her on the bus home, give her dry responses, just being typical bitches. it got to a point where we would be walking around at lunch, and the three of them would literally have their backs turned to us while talking under their breath so we weren’t included in whatever they were talking about.

i didn’t mind, i was used to it, but it was starting to get to LB. she cracked when i stopped to tie my lace while she waited for me, and the other three full on speedwalked away from us, no shame. she asked if i had been feeling left out recently, because she definitely had, and i was like “omg finally i’ve been wanting to rant to you about this forever” and i explained to her that they had never really liked me and treated me like shit and we decided to leave.

so we did. and now we’re with group seven, those ex-friends seem to have no problem with either of us. in fact, they treat us like nothing ever happened and treat me the way they did when they liked me.

so that’s something i guess. i’m not going back though. ever.

if you read all the way down to this i love you have a cookie.

❤ THE END❤

[5secondsofrant]

Thoughts on Lierra

DISCLAIMER:

This posts contains personal opinions and theories. I’m not confirming stuff.

This post’s purpose is not to hate on them but to share what I think.

As my bio says, I’m up for discussion, while it’s done with respect to me but also about the people we’re talking about.

This might be a long post due the time this has been going on. Honestly, I feel like this can get messy at some point and I apologize but there’s too much to cover.

Sierra has been part of the boys’ circle of friends for a while. She is (or was) best friends with Kaykay, who has been friends with Ashton for a while, so it tells you she has been around two or three years (if not more). She also seems to be friends with Mitchy and if you look up, you can also find candid photos of her with the boys, usually at parties.

I don’t know if you remember, but the first time she was papped with one of the boys, it was actually with Ashton. And not only that, but at the time he had referred to her in really lovingly terms to her on social media (twitter and Instagram mostly), always showing support, and after she started to date Luke, he stopped (I won’t go deep into this because there’s already a big post on this, really well-made by the people at sierratheory where they show this with solid proof).

As you know, there are a few blogs here that talk about this topic I’m discussing right now, and I’ve read divided opinions on this relationship: some say is fake, some say is really real.

And to be honest, I can see the reasoning behind both parts, so I’m going to try and explain why I’m so in the middle about this whole relationship.

> Why I think it could be real:

- They share the same social circles and most importantly, they were friends at some point. Following that narrative, it makes sense that you can fall for a friend and take it a step further into a full-relationship.

- The boys (well, Calum, Ashton and Luke since I’ve never seen her interact or be around Michael —though I can be missing something here because I’m not a really big user of social media, so I tend to not see the boys’ stories on Instagram or Snapchat—)seem to be genuine friends of her, at least it seemed that way in those videos I came across from a Halloween party, the photos I’ve seen of them with her at parties and also there’s the fact that Calum attended her birthday party.

- If we follow the narrative, they both seemed to be in vulnerable states after breaking up with their previous couples, so maybe that made them get together.

- They have met each other’s families, and I guess that shows that they’re serious about this (and in my personal opinion, it would be really fucked up to drag your family to a media show, though it’s not new and sometimes the artist doesn’t really have a choice). Apart from that, they’ve shared important dates like thanksgiving and the lunar New Year.

- She’s always around. Parties, his home, near Petunia, she was there a lot during the 5SOS3 and Meet You There tours. Let’s not forget she was also in the video diaries.

> Why I think it could be fake:

- Grandebaby, my favorite fail ever. You probably know about this, but if you don’t, basically Sierra was answering to a fan about herself from a “fan account��� to help this confused fan to understand who she is, and why she’s hanging out with the boys. But then, she switched accounts and forgot and responded to the fan again following the conversation she had started from the fan account, so she basically got caught.

- The time “Luke” left a comment on one of her pictures and he was performing on stage.

- The fact that as soon as people began to suspect about them, she started to tease with photos that shared location with Luke, or taking photos at his house or with Petunia.

- Every time we get Lierra content, it’s before or after something related to the boys music is happening (go and look back to the drama before the Meet You There live album release, Who Do You Love as a single release, and even Youngblood).

- We have gotten so many stories by fans that seem to be made up; while I don’t blame her or them for this, I feel like a lot of those stories where they’re all in love (especially that one where she cried because she loves Luke so much) are fake and made up by fans to get clout and maybe show an image of them to the public.

- We always get filtered photos at the most random times. Remember two weeks ago there were photos that came out of nowhere about them hugging in the airport? And the whole fandom brought back their attention to them because they’re “goals”. The thing with this is that in my opinion it’s really strange: why this photo, from so many months ago, was suddenly leaked? After a few hours, a pair of girls came out to say that they shared them but didn’t think that anyone would share them on social media because they asked the people they shared them with to not do so, but… One, they shared those photos really back in the day (when they took them they were on tour so it has been a hot minute) and suddenly people decided to share them? Or did they share it recently? Again, really strange, especially since it brought attention back to them before Coachella.

- Her birthday party drama. I can understand that you get mad because someone posts pictures of your birthday when you want it to be something private (though, some of her friends still posted and she didn’t say a thing. She even posted something herself if I’m not wrong). But let me remind you this girl went crazy trying to find a “mole” in her group, which tells you a few things: either she has had stuff filtered before and doesn’t know who is doing it and that leads to you to think that she is worried about the things this “mole” can share. One thing is being mad about your privacy, which is understandable, but respond like this about only a small birthday video tells you a lot about what she could be doing behind the scenes.

Also, it caught my eye that Ashton was nowhere to be seen. She invited a few of the friends you can see hang out at parties but he wasn’t around. Even if Calum was there, Ashton didn’t show up (I’m not saying they go everywhere together, but they usually go to the same parties and are seen together) and while we can only speculate about this, I wonder why Ashton has been absent of the picture for so long (especially when Sierra even seems to be close with his sister)

- The amount of articles and paparazzi photos of them are astounding for such a ��lowkey” couple, especially considering she’s not really famous and he’s known, but he isn’t on the Beyoncé or Justin Bieber level to get that amount of press (same with Michael, but that’s another story). Every time they’re on an airport, there seems to be paparazzi. Every time they’re out in a restaurant or a club, what you have? HQ pictures. We even got paparazzi photos from freaking Australia, where paparazzi aren’t such a big deal as in US. As I said in the Kaykay and Ashton post, paparazzi are usually called by the artist’s management or the celebrities themselves.

- She honestly seems like a damage control for what Arzaylea did. Look at the image she gives out: a singer, who’s passionate for music and went through a heartbreak (sounds like someone to you?), and is trying to put herself back together in the music industry but is having a tough time. This girl is smiley, kind to fans, kind of shy when she speaks, everyone refers to her as a really good friend. Now, what’s the image of her in the fandom? an angel, who saved Luke from his darkest hours—but not only that, he also saved her. (TBT to the premiere of the Lie To Me video and everyone commenting how she saved him, totally dismissing Luke’s own hard work to put himself back together, but yeah, love can fix your mental health in a snap, I guess).

- This brings attention to the band (and good attention). Relationships have been a game that publicists have played since the old good days back in Hollywood, whether is to bring attention or to hide a sexuality, they exist (you can check this article to read more about it). People love to idolize and ship people, especially given heartbreaking-Nicholas Sparks-ish narratives about their love. In this case, attention was needed: the boys took a two year hiatus, being a band that while didn’t do bad, wasn’t at the top to afford doing this, they [management] had to do the most with their come back. You and me care about their mental and physical health, but for their management and record label they’re numbers that weren’t adding up. Youngblood was a risk for everyone, so it’s rational to think management could pull on those strings so their money makers don’t flop. While I believe that the fandom is really supportive and the music the boys brought this time around is good enough to make it to the charts, no one in the business was going to take the risk.

- Honestly they look so awkward together. The only times that their photos don’t look strange is when they’re posted by themselves. I’ll link some down below where I truly believe they look really awkward to be a couple. (Example 1) (Example 2) .

- That Post Malone tweet I discussed a while ago.

> Some things I can’t place up there because while they’re strange, I don’t totally believe they have to deal with a “fake” or “real” relationship:

- Her dad posting so much about Luke on social media. I don’t get what’s the necessity, since her daughter is probably the less hated 5sos girlfriend ever. And the way he phrases things is such a weird way, it’s almost like if he were thanking his fans, which is totally strange in my opinion for a parent.

- Luke’s brother using her to promote his clothing brand.

- Those photos of their first appearance holding hands, were strange. Almost staged. And then there are photos of Sierra walking near Crystal which really made me go “huh”. (And as far as I know, I think KayKay is also friends with Crystal, and if you’re friends with her, I can’t really trust you lol —also, doesn’t it call your attention that the girls are friends with her but the boys they’re dating, or supposedly dating, don’t even interact with her?).

- Sierra deleting photos so when you check her profile the first thing you see are photos of Luke and her.

- Maybe it’s me but it’s so... awkward I’d like to say, the fact that there are photos of her hanging out with the boys while Luke was still dating Arzaylea. (But again, that could be a personal opinion)

After this, and weighing the fact that I listed more fake things than real, you might be wondering why I’m in the middle about this.

While I can see why people think they’re fake, and until some point I did, I lean towards the fact that this relationship is probably real, but by staying in the middle, I’m trying to explain that I’m not 100% convinced. I’d say is a 70/30 for me.

They can be real, even if the way things happened were weird (especially after Luke denying her for so long until Youngblood came out, but again, Luke is really good at denying relationships until he’s pushed to talk about them in public) but if they’re real, this is definitely tainted by PR. I can totally see them both seeing the benefit that they could get from their relationship and allowing it to happen this way. At the end of the day, I think that Luke would be that kind of person to go on board with giving clout to a girlfriend because he truly believes in her and wants to help out somehow (and in my opinion, the boys don’t seem to mind giving shout outs to their friends projects or work while they’re aware they’re doing it and not being tricked into giving clout).

And she needs it, whether you are a fan of her from her old days in the group with her ex-boyfriend or you arrived now, we both now she doesn’t have the attention she needs, and to be honest, I believe she needs a publicist and a manager that actually care about her career (and her to be on it full time too, since she’s technically starting from zero). I think she really missed a really big chance by not releasing music back when she first left “Alex & Sierra” and she was giving interviews about her career to such important music platforms as Billboard. Maybe she needed a longer break to make music and figure out what she wants to do, but in my eyes, she and her team (if she does have one) seem to be really, really lost, especially in terms of her public image.

While I believe it’s true for the amount of candids that we get, and I’m theorizing about them agreeing to this PR over their relationship, I really hope it’s going that way. Sometimes she shows some tendencies to be there for attention rather than to be there for Luke, which is... Sad. Hopefully they truly like and care for each other and she just does that because it’s part of her personality.

And also, I’d like to think that if this girl wanted to use the boys, she could have from a very long time ago (but well, since they seem to be technically have started hanging out by the time she splitted from Alex, this theory can be throw out the window, because after that, she needed a way to get attention on her, but I’d truly like to be wrong about this one).

I don’t know what it is but there’s still something that rubs me off in the wrong way about this relationship and I can’t quite tell what it is yet. If I ever find out, I’ll probably make a post about it.

And I’ll be transparent about this whole thing, because I mentioned it on my Kaykay/Ashton post, but I don’t have the best perception of her. I could make a whole post of why she gives me a weird vibe off based on stuff she has done or said. 

With that said, I’d like to say that having a bad perception doesn’t equal hating someone, because honestly I can sit here and theorize for fun, but that doesn’t mean you’ll find me on social media sending mean comments to her.

I’m probably missing a lot and this probably was a hot mess, and I apologize, but I tried to touch on the topics that have caught my eye the most about these two. As I stated at the beginning, I’m up for discussion and for you to theorize with me (you can even dm if you want it to be private) while you’re respectful with me and towards Luke and Sierra, which means I won’t be taking any comments that mock or say mean stuff towards her.

Thank you for reading!

[diaryofaninsanewriter]

If you are totally motivated to walk the path of health transformation but are still confused about weight loss diet vs healthy eating habits this post is for you.

Scroll ahead to discover what kind of diet plan worked for me. 

Ever since I lost 25 kgs in 24 months and have turned to a sports person, I am regularly asked about the secret to my weight loss.

In this post, I will be speaking about the facts behind weight-loss diets.

If you are like me, you would have definitely hit search engines like our most-trusted Google to look for the best weight loss diet plans. Prior to my health transformation journey, God knows how many hours I have spent scrolling to pages and videos containing loads of information on weight loss diets and their effectiveness.

If you enter the phrase: best weight loss diet plan in Google. About 37, 20, 00,000 results are indexed. (three hundred and seventy-two million pages)

Can you imagine the number of people who have been creating content around this topic? It leads me to think: if diet plans weren’t effective then why would there be so much content around it?

At the centre of the Google Search first page, you will see something like this:

So people don’t only search for: best weight loss diet plan they also ask several related questions to the topic. Each of it has a detailed answer supporting it through a health and fitness website. There are several sponsored ads that the user also scrolls through on this page.

At the bottom of the Google Search first page, you will see something like this:

So, what are the facts behind weight-loss diets?

Which is the best diet plan that really works?

Before I started my health transformation journey, I had tried almost every diet that I could get my hands on. Unfortunately, none of them worked for me. I ended up feeling deprived, fatigued and frustrated. I usually shifted to my ‘normal’ unhealthy lifestyle and binged on whatever came my way.

I couldn’t stick to a diet plan – it always failed for me.

I just couldn’t cope due to my hectic schedule. I am a mother of two beautiful and healthy kids. I started looking at them. I was doing something right in their diet.

I had a EUREKA moment! I decided to eat everything that is healthy from there on! 

Facts about weight loss diets

Nursing yourself back to health isn’t easy. Age, activity, mental state, level of activity, wear and tear of the body, lifestyle diseases etc – all need to be taken into consideration before you embark on this journey.

Before you implement any of the tips in this blog post, it is advisable to consult a qualified health expert or medical professional. 

Diet May Be More Important Than Exercise

Fruits and Vegetables Are Crucial

Cutting Back On Processed Sugar Works

Not All Carbs Are Bad

Drink Water

You cannot lose 10 kgs in a month

Fasting & Skipping meals never help

Carbohydrates never make you gain weight

What worked for me?

Well, before you jump to the list, you need to understand that these diet modifications were made over a long period of time and very gradually.

Being a working mother of two, I needed to find a diet that would help me to nurse my health back to optimal condition. I needed to be less tired, more energetic and lose all the excess fat below my skin and around my organs.

I had a strict exercise routine that was a combination of aerobics, strength training, yoga. I used to intersperse it with walking, running and cycling. On average, I started with 30 min of physical activity and gradually moved up to 2 hours of activity.

In short, I needed a diet that would complement my physical activity.

The diet modifications that I made are as below and were done step-by-step. As and when I required to take them on. I had no dietician or nutritionist to guide me – simply because I found them very expensive. I relied on a few friends who are doctors and fitness freaks to help me with the modifications. This worked for me, but whether it will work for you, is something that you need to explore.

I truly believe that the presence of a nutritionist or dietician would have accelerated my health transformation journey but I couldn’t afford one. So, I course-corrected in several places and learned as I went along. It taught me to listen to my body and its response to different kind of foods. 

Diet modifications that helped me:

Reducing and spacing out portions

Eating smaller meals through the day

Counting calories and food portions

Maintaining a food diary

Cutting out processed foods completely

Saying NO to fried foods

Throwing out oil and using homemade ghee instead

No sugar – substituted sugar for jaggery

No salt – used sendha namak/lemons for salt

Substitute rice for steel-cut oats, quinoa, rolled oats, bajra, makkai

Watching for hidden sugar and salt

Cutting out milk completely: substitute with curds or buttermilk

Consuming At least one portion of fruits a day

Do you have any queries regarding this post or health transformation in general? Are you struggling towards maintaining a healthy lifestyle? 

Do write to me, I would love to respond to your queries. 

Penned by:

Mayura Amarkant

Disclaimer:

Dear Reader: You must know that I am not a healthcare expert and nor am I posing to be one through this series. I am sharing my personal experiences and journey. I urge you to speak to your healthcare professional before trying anything in this series.

  #40NotOut | Facts about weight loss diets. What worked for me?|#BlogchatterA2Z #MondayMotivation #MondayMorning #MondayThoughts If you are totally motivated to walk the path of health transformation but are still confused about weight loss diet vs healthy eating habits this post is for you.

[love4study]

Step To Step Detail How Blogs Work and What is Blog

How Blogs Work and What Is Blog

Do You Know what this blogging is about, What is blog, How do bloggers make money in blogging? And how are blogs and websites different? You are not just with questions. I also had time.

I have been involved in web development for over 8 years. I felt that I never had a blog. I also remember telling my mother that I never had one. I can't figure out why anyone would have an online diary that other people could read. I started my first blog, a niche Tech blog. There is nothing like a diary blog that started this whole blogging. Why did I start my first blog? Entrepreneurial opportunities thrill me. I wonder if you can really make money blogging and how much. How are you? What is Blog? Are you curious too,

What Is Bolg?

Blogs are essentially online journals with entries known as posts. When you read a blog, you will see that the latest blog posts appear in reverse chronological order, with the most recent appearing posts. A typical blog post will usually include text and graphics. While videos and podcasts are less common, these forms of media are growing in popularity. In the 90s, blogs referred to as online diaries were called weblogs, which was later shortened to blogs. They have since evolved into a multibillion-dollar industry. Personal, non-commercial blogs still exist, but more often we find that blogs are being used by entrepreneurs. Blogs provide great benefits! For one, they provide entrepreneurs with a cost-effective platform for various marketing purposes.

Difference between Blog and Website

If you do not know the difference between a blog and a website, you are not alone. A common question I've heard is, "Should I start a blog or a website. Blogs and websites are often used for interchange. This causes confusion. Minimize the difference between a blog and a website.

A blog is a feature that can be added to the website if needed. It is like an online magazine with entries. These entries are usually called posts. You are currently reading a post on our blog which is part of our website. So, if someone says that they have a blog, they definitely have a website. A website can exist without a blog. But a blog cannot exist without a website. Many websites do not require a blog. So, if someone says that they have a website, they may or may not have a blog. There are three types of websites in relation to blogs: The website is a blog. There is a blog on the website. The website does not have a blog. Let's look at each of these websites in more detail. Website is blog and What is Blog Many websites, in this way, revolve around the content found in blogs, which contain other website content. These websites usually have a blog, about page, contact page, disclaimer page and anything else. They are often referred to as blog sites. Website has a Blog The blog is part of the website but not the main focus of the website. There are blogs from companies like Hostigier (our web host provider) and Amazon. You can find them in the footer menu under your websites. Obviously, the focus of these websites is not their blog. Their focus is on selling products and services. Many businesses use their blogs to help and inform their customers. Website does not have a blog Not much to explain here, right? The website does not have a blog. Most, if not all, no-blog websites cannot create a blog if they need to but for now, they simply have their own website. Why are starting a blog? Businesses create blogs to create blogs, share news, build relationships, and improve SEO (search engine optimization). How do SEOs improve? Search engines reward fresh, valuable content with high rankings. Higher search engine rankings should equal higher website traffic and better revenue. But why would someone want to create a blog?  A blog gives people a platform to: To express thoughts, opinions, and opinions. To raise social awareness. To find a better job. For networking. To improve writing skills Educating or influencing others. To show skill and talent. For accountability and self-motivation. To express creativity. For self-promotion. Expressing feelings for cathartic purposes. to resume. For networking. To connect with like-minded individuals. to make friends. To know about a subject. For accountability and self-motivation. To inspire others. To improve self-worth Creating web traffic for an event, institution, non-profit or business. To Make Money People blog for a lot of reasons. No matter what, most bloggers want to make money with their blogs. Let's take a look at how bloggers make money. How do bloggers make money blogs? What is Blog Bloggers make money blogging and you can too. First of all, you have to make high-quality content. Your content will help bring traffic to your blog and build trust with readers. Once you have visitors to your blog you have the ability to make money. Even modest blog traffic can bring in a good side income.

There are 3 main ways to earn money from your blog. Affiliate Marketing:- This is where you make a commission by promoting and selling other people's products and services. For many bloggers, the Amazon Associates Program is their first step into the world of affiliate marketing. Displaying Ads:- Most bloggers start showing advertisements using Google Adsense. When traffic increases enough, other advertising opportunities will likely outweigh the revenue from Google Adsense. Sell ​​your products and services:- Selling your products through your blog takes more time and effort than displaying advertisements or promoting affiliate products. It also offers a big reward! The low overhead involved in developing your own digital downloads and digital courses provide a particularly attractive opportunity! Most blogs are little more than hobbies, but a large number of bloggers make a significant income. Enough money to quit your job and focus full time on blogging. Many of these bloggers make six and seven figures! The main key to making money with a blog is to provide quality content. I really cannot emphasize this. People buy from people they trust. Quality content builds trust, reader loyalty, higher SEO capability, higher traffic, and more revenue. How to start a blog and Earn money If you have read it, you are probably interested in starting a blog. So, who can start a blog? Anyone can start a blog these days! You do not need to know the programming code. (you get what you see) editors do the coding for you. How cool is it ?! Writing your content is like using a word processing program. That said, there are some other things to learn but they are not really difficult. I will help you understand those things in time. The most common mistake new bloggers make is choosing the wrong blogging platform. You have not done that when you start because I guide you on your path. Choose the right self-hosted/Cloud Hosted/Share Hosting blogging platform Choosing the wrong blogging platform will limit the options, especially to make money with your blog. Some blog platforms impose restrictions that you can make with your blog.

The blog platform that you put restrictions on is called a hosted website platform. These will be Blogger, WordPress.com, Wix and similar networks. You have all the components needed for your blog in one place. Seems good and convenient, but if you are not planning to invest money on it then you do not want their restrictions. Hosted website platforms are used for personal blogs that are not commercialized. Remove the restrictions and protect your blog from being a self-hosted blog. To do this you will need a publishing platform to write your blog and a web host that will store your blog and serve it to everyone on the Internet. Where WordPress.org and Hostigier come from. Wordpress and Bluehost and Hostgator The best combination for a self-hosted blog is WordPress and Bluehost and Hostgator. This may sound confusing but there is a difference between the above mentioned WordPress.com and WordPress.com org. WordPress.org has a self-hosted version of its web publishing platform. To reiterate, you want to use the WordPress web publishing platform available through WordPress.com, not WordPress.com. Bonus! it's free! And it is very reliable! About 32% of all websites are built with WordPress. But don't rush to get it yet. First things first. To install that Hostigier on WordPress and you need a web host. WordPress also recommends that you use Hostigier, so there is no need to shop. You want Hostigier as your hosting provider. This is the best option. I know it can be confusing for those people blogging, but the good thing is that if you follow my guidance, you will never have to learn a lot of trivia, which will give you the road to success. But will slow down I want to see you get up and running with my blog ASAP. Ready to create your blog? You need to get started here Some say 30 minutes is less but give yourself extra time. A hosting account with Bluehost. This way you become a self-host. A domain name that you will get for free when you sign up on Hostiger. Remember I said that you are using WordPress? Ok, you only have to follow those signs. When you set up your Hostigier account and they will install WordPress for you. That is why I said that you do not need to go to WordPress.org first. Our Blogging Basics Series Not ready to start at all? Not to worry! I will cover each step of signing up with Hostigier and installing WordPress in an upcoming post. Sign up below and I'll let you know when next Not ready to start at all? not to worry! I will cover each step of signing up with Hostigier and installing WordPress in an upcoming post. Sign up below and I'll let you know when the next post is published. Don't want to wait on our series? Ready to run on the ground? Check out your blog course launched by our friends Alex and Lauren at Create & Go. They have amazing courses that are sure to help. He taught me a lot in his professional blogger course, Six-Figure Blogger. Btw, that's how easy affiliate marketing is to use. If you sign up for one of Create & Go's amazing courses, we receive a small commission to lead you to them. It can be helpful to recommend, trust and use the high-quality products you know and you can make a little money to boot. Advantage Deals! But do not recommend products that you will not use or use. No confidence has been built in this, readers will just feel used and burst which will hurt you in the long run. The conclusion Most people reading this article are probably interested in creating a blog site, a website that is primarily made up of content in the blog with a supporting page such as the one used to support the content of the blog it occurs. Many bloggers monetize their blogs and make a full-time income and with time and dedication, you can too! If you started your blog with Bluehost through the steps above. Your next step will be to adjust some WordPress settings, set up a theme, and write on your first blog post. This post, Blogging Basics What is Blog  And How Blogs Work is the first in a series of posts that help you set up your blog, monetize, drive traffic, and more through every stage of blogging. I will guide you.

Read the full article

[landy-amor]

1

Let’s start on a lighter note. My name is big and bold on the top of the page, so those who know me will probably know of whoever I decide to talk about. Even so, I will not post names. Outside of that, I will be as honest as possible.

Lighter note = what I now call “my worst heartbreak”.

Disclaimer* (just to not sound like an ardida): I have talked things out with one of the people involved in this tragedy. This helped a lot with putting my heart and mind at ease. My feelings toward the other person have eased up, and although it was indeed an awful experience, I am not angry anymore. I am using this blog as an outlet and sharing my personal experiences with no intent to harm anyone. If anyone who thinks I am talking about them feels like I am not being honest, you are more than welcome to share your side of the story.

Let’s take a step back to ~2004, my third grade math class. I don’t quite remember how I first met this person. I only know my first memory of us. I had a book that I was loving. For whatever reason, this person (which I’ll refer to as A) had my book at a moment she was not supposed to. Therefore, our math teacher took it away and said something about asking for it back after class. I got my book back or whatever. Fast forward to my next memory being fifth grade. I was an elementary kid beginning my lust for boys. Of course, I’ve only had two boyfriends in my entire life, and anyone who says otherwise is a psycho /.\ So in fifth grade, A mentioned her liking this boy. I don’t know if she ever told him, but I feel like she probably did not. During the end of the year festivities, someone told me that same boy liked me and was going to ask me out. {This is the earliest I remember that after hearing a boy likes me, I magically like them back.} So yeah, I liked that same boy A said she liked.

Blah blah, fast forward to ¡middle school! This is when A and I really began to grow close imo. Sixth grade, we joined drama club and band. Drama club was after school, and I was only able to join because she could be my ride home. Looking back, this is when I first connected my ability to participate in things with her desire to. Drama club helped me a lot with my shyness. At least I’d like to think so. We were able to learn improv and experience school plays. I believe this is when we began to hang out outside of school. I might be remembering wrong, but I think I would go over to her house most of the time. She went to mine at the time maybe a couple of times because I lived with my aunts and uncles in a trailer too small for so many people. Anyway, we grew very close over Just Dance on her wii, calls to Cody Simpson’s fan voicemail, and talking about whoever I liked at the time. This went on for 2 years until I moved and entered eighth grade at a different school. The summer I moved, my biggest concern was whether or not we would see each other as often. I knew our friendship could never end. I moved only like 10 minutes away, but A did not really visit. Instead, the other main person of this story visited and grew closer to me. She will be referred to as B.

B and I met in sixth grade. We were in the same social studies class. I don’t remember how we began talking, but Facebook probably had a lot to do with it. The summer that I moved, B came over a lot. We bonded over crazy singing and joking around in my room making videos to post of Facebook. We had a sort of awkward but goofy friendship. It slowly but surely kept growing since that summer.

That year felt like it would be tough. Adjusting to a new school where I would be with people I had heard of but hadn’t met before sounded awful. Being away from my bestest friend sounded worse. I even started making video diaries for A, but they didn’t really get a response. Or the response I was looking for. I don’t remember how many times A and I actually hung out during that year, but we definitely grew a little apart.

HIGH SCHOOL STARTED. I don’t remember much about nineth grade other than I continued to be a nerd with no breaks. Keep in mind, all these years I went around meeting people and telling them about my bff A. OH YEAH my quinceañera! So before high school began, I was supposed to move to Mexico, and we were not going to plan my quinces until we got there. However, my mom changed her mind after Obama announced DACA (which has had a huge impact & deserves its own post). A and I were hoping we’d go to the same magnet high school, but because I was not planning on starting high school here anymore, I did not apply to magnet. Anyway, preparations for my quinces began. I would like to think I kept her in the loop on everything because her opinion meant so much to me. Sadly, I barely knew anything about hers. I was just asked to be a madrina, and I showed up. For mine, she was my dama and all that. I’m not sure if the differences in involvement were because we had just grown apart for a year prior. A big moment I remember was on my quinceañera day, I felt like she wasn’t very present. I never knew if anything had actually happened with her that day.

After nineth grade, I moved close to my high school. Here, I lived with only my mom and sisters. These next few years were full of sleep overs, movies, late night stalking, talks about boys I liked, the usual. Me me me. This is a big question mark for me. Why was it always about my stuff? Did I talk a lot? Was I too self-absorbed?? Or did she just not want to talk about herself??? During these same years, B also joined into our friendship and became my second BFF.

Let’s break down our friendship dynamic now. A, B and I were bffs. I was closest to A though. And somehow, I felt like A and B were closer than B and I. A also had another super bff that was just a friend to B and I. A also had another close friend who B and I were also friends with. This friendship dynamic got confusing various times for me. It also made me very self conscious of my friendship with A because I felt like she was my main bff while she had several. I felt disposable many times.

I would say senior year of high school was the best year of our lives together. A, B and I ruled the world. I trusted them with absolutely everything. My mom and sisters had also grown a loving and trusting relationship with both of them. Although this last year of high school was our best because we could drive and go out more, there were various times where I didn’t know what was going on in A’s life. Although I told A and B literally everything to do with me, it was hard to hear news from A. The last two years of HS, she was involved in extracurriculars that kept her busy and cut our hanging out time, which is fine. I’ve had a problem with expecting the same effort from others as I make with them. Senior year, I was a part of a lot of clubs, and I even invited A and B to join one at my school to increase our time together. Anyway, senior year was going by, and we had many great times together. I met my bb, broke up, met another boy who everyone in my new club-family liked, didn’t work out, began to build my current relationship, and A and B walked every step with me.

During this same year, A and I worked together. Towards the end of the school year, we took a trip with this job. A and I roomed with 2 other girls who we loved. However, A and I were supposed to be this pair of bffs who were the closest ever. Sadly, I felt avoided this whole trip. This wasn’t anything new, though. I experienced this same feeling with A several times before: when I went out of town with her family and on a middle school band trip. I don’t know how to describe the feeling other than avoidant and absent.

Continuing, the end of senior year was approaching. Prom came, and with it, came its own mess. That mess I will keep private. Regardless, it was a mess not very noticeable, and we all had a blast. College visits also came, and A, B and I went together to the one we’d be attending together that fall. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out this way. Graduations came, and we each had separate ones. I wasn’t able to see A’s because I was in line to walk onto the field while she was walking. B saw her walk, and A and B rushed over to mine right after (which I’m deeply grateful for). The next day, A and I watched B graduate. High school had ended.

The summer after high school graduation was the beginning of the end. A was again very distant and hard to reach. Right after graduation, I moved once again. This time, I moved about 4 streets, ~2 minute drive from A. However, no help was offered from either A or B. No visiting was suggested right after we had settled in. I hadn’t seen A in a while, until one day, A and her sister were visiting my neighbor. Yes, the person right next door to me. Apparently, I was one house too far from visiting potential. Through out that summer, B and I tried getting all 3 of us to hang out several times. A was unavailable. She was mysteriously free to hang out with B whenever I couldn’t or just did not mention it to me. AGAIN, this is my experience. I did run it all through B, and not many changes were pointed out. As I mentioned, the 3 of us were unable to start college together that fall. I began school terrified and anxious because I didn’t have the two people I counted on to explore this new territory. Of course I wanted to see them as soon as I could whenever I could during that start of the semester. Sadly, it didn’t go that way. I felt alone. I felt disappointed. I felt hurt. So yes, I broke up with A. We didn’t communicate as much. We never saw each other. And I felt like I was the only one trying. I didn’t want to carry us anymore. Then, I broke up with B because she didn’t see anything wrong with what was going on. (I can now say this one was a bad reason to leave someone.)

For the next year, I questioned my decisions daily. I regretted them several times. I reached out once or twice when I didn’t feel okay. (No help really came from it.) I had trust issues for a year, really bad trust issues. I couldn’t connect with anyone new. I didn’t know how to make a new friend or try to make a new best friend. I vented in the middle of the lunch area to two guys who thought I was crazy. “Why can’t you just knock on her door and confront her?” one said. Hello??? Do you not know girls? I talked things out with my first close buddy who helped me trust again whether she knew it or not. I healed slowly. Then, I found out things I did not know existed about A. These I will also keep private, but my point is, I did not know A like I thought I did for so many years.

The questions I was leading up to are here now: were we doomed from the start? I mean from when I liked the same guy she said she liked. Were the signs there all along? like when she was distant. Was it my fault for making our friendship all about me? Or was it her fault for not bringing herself into our friendship? Was it no one’s fault but miscommunication?

What did I do wrong? What did I do wrong? What did I do wrong? I asked myself this over and over many times when we first broke up. Why did she not try anymore? This was the W O R S T heartbreak I had ever felt. Now it made sense.

I have heard other people’s theories on why things happened. I will not know the why or the who. However, I did take some good things out of this heartbreak.

independence: I learnt how to try things because I wanted to, not because A also wanted to.

renewed trust: I let new people into my heart. I made new close friends I don’t think I would have if my bowl of friendship was filled by mostly one person.

discovery: I opened my eyes to what I already had around me. My first best friend, my first jump to begin a friendship, my first bold friend. All three became my new best friends. My true friends. My honest friends. My adulting friends. My life partners.

love: I may have gotten to this without this experience, but it would have taken me a lot longer. I used to be a “friends are more valuable than boyfriends” gal. Now, I’m a “who has been more valuable to me” gal. During this break up, I leaned on my boyfriend a loooot. He became my best friend quickly. Because of that, I found my true feelings for him much easier.

What a rollercoaster. And that was only one topic....

[bluephoenixdruidicprincess]

Shadowhunters Season 2A Final Review and Hopes for Season 2B

So here we are. We’re a couple of weeks off from Shadowhunters 2B airing. As I promised in my Season 2, Episode 10 review, I’m going to talk about things I liked and didn’t like about Season 2A as well as hopes that I have for Season 2B. In reality, I meant to write this post much earlier but I needed a break from the Shadowhunters fandom. You spend too much time within a fandom that has a lot of single-minded haters (like Shadowhunters does) and it really wears you down. I needed to take some time away from the fandom to re-charge my Shadowhunters fandom batteries. And it was wonderful. A break was exactly what I needed because it really helped me sort through my thoughts and feelings regarding Shadowhunters Season 2A as well as the show as a whole.

As always, I do have a disclaimer to make. This is a post reflecting my opinions on the show. They, in no way, reflect anyone else’s. Opinions are never right or wrong. I’m not telling YOU how to think and feel; I’m telling you what I, MYSELF, think and feel. I do have positive opinions about the show but I also have negative opinions about the show. If you’re the kind of Shadowhunters fan where you just can’t deal if someone says something negative about the show, don’t read this. If you can’t respect other peoples’ opinions, I don’t want you here and you’ll be of no real loss to my blog. Now, if you choose to stay and are offended by what I may say, understand I will listen to your opinions and discuss them with you. However, I will not discuss your opinions with you if you come at me in a rude or aggressive manner. I won’t even respond to you. I will completely, 100% ignore you. I’ve found that by responding to haters, it only legitimizes that level of behavior and it will not be tolerated. If you follow me and you are disrespectful to me or anyone else who might be discussing on this post, I will block you. Also, when I talk about this show, I am analyzing it as a TV series. It has nothing to do with my love for the books. If I am negative about the show, it’s not me saying the books are better simply because I love the books. It’s me pointing out issues that the tv show has as a tv show. There also are going to be spoilers for the books, movie, tv show, etc.

Sorry, that disclaimer was a little more lengthy than my usual one. I felt the need because last year when I did my Hopes for Shadowhunters Season 2, the amount of hate I got was astounding. Up until that point, I had no real grasp on just how much single-minded hate there was in the Shadowhunters fandom and geez, was I in for a surprise. My ask box was just flooded with hate. People seemed to think that just because I had negative things to say about the show, that meant that I out-right hated it. I’m not a masochist, so clearly I must enjoy the show to a certain extent because I’m still watching it. I do not hate the show. I didn’t even hate Season 1. I didn’t particularly like it but I didn’t hate it, either. There were moments within the season that I did like. I love the Shadowhunters books and I am so happy that we’re finally getting another chance at an adaptation and I do want to support the show. But that doesn’t mean that I’m just going to blindly love everything that the show does. And honestly, there are things that the show does a decent job with and then there are things that the show does a really bad job with. A desire to not want to see the show cancelled is not a good enough excuse to not acknowledge that there are things legitimately wrong with this show.

I thought long and hard about how I wanted to do this post. And I’ve ultimately decided that I’m going to bring back my Hopes for Shadowhunters Season 2 post from last year and go on down the list and see if Shadowhunters made any improvements in the first half of its sophomore season. Trust me, the list is going to cover nearly everything I have to say about Season 2A. And yes, I’m going to be referencing the post that first exposed me to the dark side of the Sahdowhunters fandom but guess what? I don’t care how much hate I got with that post. I still stick to my guns and I still believe that the issues I listed on there were very important issues that needed to be addressed and I will never apologize for that post because, again, those are my opinions. You hated that post? Guess what? You don’t have to read this. Last I checked, freedom of speech was still a thing on Tumblr. Just leave if you don’t like it. Let’s get on with this now.

Hopes For Shadowhunters Season 2 List

1) Everyone involved with the show needs to read the books.

2) The dialogue needs to be fixed.

3) I would like to see more lines from the books.

I have three from the list here because they kind of go hand-in-hand with each other.

Okay, now with these, everyone seemed to think that I wanted the show to be exactly like the books. That is 100% not true. I am NOT a source material adaptation snob. I personally don’t really care if an adaptation follows its source material. I love The Vampire Diaries and The 100 so clearly, I don’t have a problem with deviations from source material. I expected Freeform to take its own path with Shadowhunters. I’m honestly surprised that this show follows the books as much as it does. What I care about is that the adaptation captures the essence, the soul of the source material. And that’s what I meant when I said everyone involved with the show needed to read the books. Because whereas certain elements of the books were there, the first season left me feeling like the showrunner had no respect for the source material – and that includes the characters and story. Season One completely neglected most of the emotional aspects of the book scenes they chose to incorporate in the show.

You may ask, “What do you mean about capturing the essence of the source material?” Well, here’s what I wanted from this adaptation. I wanted the show to develop this wonderful shadow world, create complex, dark storylines (the storylines could be from the books or the show could make up its own; I really didn’t have a preference in that regard), and to have a certain amount of fun with it. Meaning, have the characters be thrust into these dark situations but still make me laugh from time to time. The books have such amazing wit and humor. The characters are super funny, super relatable and all that I wanted from the source material was to have that translated into the tv show. And Season One does try to incorporate humor, but more often than not, the humor falls flat. Maybe because the joke wasn’t really all that funny to begin with or the actor didn’t deliver it right. Essentially, when it comes to jokes in Season One, a lot of times it had to do with the writing of it. A lot of the jokes felt like they were simultaneously being written by both a 12-year-old and a 40-year-old. Not a good combination. In fact, if you look on Youtube to try and find a compilation video of funny Shadowhunters Season One moments (like there are hundreds for Teen Wolf) you’re not going to find a whole lot. You know why? Because the writing wasn’t all that funny even though they tried to be. Clearly, I’m not the only one who thought the humor was off because those videos are really hard to find. And I’m not talking about funny videos with the cast, I’m talking about funny moments that actually exist within the show, itself.

And then, of course there was the cheesy lines. Season One was beyond cheesy. There were times I was watching the show and I had to ask, “Why isn’t this show airing on the Disney channel? This feels like a Disney channel show.” Ultimately, the dialogue felt like it was too young for me. And I’m in my mid-20s by the way. It was really weird. Like, who was this show really trying to cater towards? If you’re not going to do a good job and come up with your own good dialogue, then I would prefer you to just take the dialogue out of the book. At least that dialogue is somewhat decent. Quit making me hit pause on my tv just so I can try and figure out why that joke was supposed to be funny. If you have to think about why a joke is funny, it’s probably not all that funny. Again, my own opinion. Feel free to disagree but I won’t say that something is funny just because you think it’s funny. Humor is completely subjective.

So, did Season 2A improve with these issues? I have to say yes. The humor and wit definitely came out more. The characters just felt more like actual characters in these situations. And I really enjoyed that aspect. Huge steps were taken to make the story fit the characters and not the other way around and as a starting point, the show did really well with that in Season 2A. The dialogue also definitely felt way more organic. There was very little cringe within the dialogue once Episode 4 came around. The characters definitely felt like they were having conversations real people would be having. This is partly due to the showrunner change. The writing, and especially the dialogue, just got so much better after they came on board.

4) I need Jace to start being more like Jace.

Another big one that I got a lot of hate on. Although this one may be on me because of the way I worded it in the original post which is my bad. My problems with Jace in Season One were not because I thought he was too nice to Clary. My problems with him was that he was this super angsty character but with absolutely no wit or humor or charm to him. You remember how I mentioned that it felt like the show’s humor was written by a 12-year-old? The 12-year-old humor was extremely prevalent with Season One Jace.

“Sounded boring anyway”

“Better than binoculars”

Really? Those are Jace lines? Jace is hilarious in the books. I have no idea why the writers thought these weak-ass lines were going to cut it. The writing of him in the show is just so half-hearted and it’s really depressing. Jace was my first book boyfriend so I have strong feelings about him. Here’s the thing. If you want to write Jace as this angst-ridden character, ok that’s fine. It’s kind of how he is in the books, too. I don’t have a problem with that. However, while Jace was an angst-ridden teenager in the books, he was also a sarcastic, smart-ass and was very self-aware that he was a sarcastic, angst-ridden teenager and commented on it frequently. That’s where the humor comes in. If you just have Jace being this angst-ridden character without any other personality to level it out, what makes him different from Edward Cullen/Christian Grey, Stefan Salvatore, Oliver Queen, Derek Hale, Angel?…the list goes on and on. The point is that Season One Jace just feels like a really cheap, lazily written version of every angst-ridden hero we’ve seen in pop culture to date. What makes him different? What about him makes me want him to succeed? With Season One Jace, the answer to these questions is, “not a single, damn thing”. He is a bland ass protagonist in Season One. Just a cheap copy of every other angst-ridden protagonist we’ve seen grace our screens within the past 10 years. And that’s what I have a problem with. And it’s interesting whenever I talk to fans who love Season One TV Show Jace, because they all come off and say that they like him because he’s nicer than he was in the books. First off, I don’t know where they got Jace being nicer than he is in the books. Season One TV Show Jace was pretty much a complete douche to everyone except Clary. He was absolutely horrible to Alec. Some say Alec was also kind of a jerk to Jace as well but I say Jace had it coming. You don’t tell your brother, your parabatai, “Maybe your mother was right. Maybe your best isn’t good enough” and expect me to see you as anything other than a jerk. And he also doesn’t even apologize for saying it. Poor Alec just accepts it. During my reviews in Season One, I did not call Jace by his name. I called him The Douche because I simply could not associate him with Book Jace anymore. Honestly, if you ask me, Alec is the real angel for essentially forgiving Jace for saying such a horrible thing to him. Second of all, if you think Book Jace is mean, I don’t know how you survive in the real world. I crossed the street using a crosswalk, I had the right of way, and was almost hit by a car…and the driver was cursing ME out. I’ve definitely come across people who are far meaner in the real world. A lot of them, I’ve met right here on Tumblr. Book Jace does say some mean things but there’s always a reason for it. He is never mean just for the sake of being mean. If you think that the use of sarcasm is mean, I don’t know what to tell you. You would not be able to survive in my family, I can tell you that much. My family uses sarcasm to express our love for each other. And really, I can’t even imagine having a conversation that doesn’t incorporate sarcasm. I guess, if you have that issue with Book Jace, you and me just are not compatible as friends.

So, did Jace improve in Season 2A? Absolutely. He was so much better. His sarcasm finally started to shine through and it was great. Especially Episode 7 of 2A. Those scenes with him in the bar were just phenomenal. It was everything I ever wanted from sarcastic, witty Jace. At first, I thought Dom’s American accent was what was throwing him off with the humor but I guess it really was the dismal writing in Season One. I legitimately laughed at the things he said instead of laughing because I was making fun of what he said. He also definitely added a little something extra in his emotional scenes as well. I really felt connected to him in 2A. Particularly in episode 3, Parabatai Lost. That final scene where he’s holding Alec and begging Alec not to die and leave him…so many feels. My eyes were starting to tear up a little and that never happened in the first season. I’m really proud of the new writers and Dom Sherwood for how they wrote him this season. He was soooooo much better.

5) Clary’s personality needs some work as well.

I suppose my main issues with Clary is that she’s treated as this perfect, flawless, little angel who can do absolutely no wrong. Everyone besides Alec pretty much worships the ground this girl walks on and for the life of me, I cannot understand why. She’s self-centered, self-entitled, and oddly abrasive towards people she needs help from. She’s selfish while being toted around as selfless at the same time. It’s very weird and not in a compelling sort of way. Her selflessness comes across as very cheesy. She’s so selfless it’s cheesy. That’s a really odd phrase to say but think about it a little. Ordinarily, someone being selfless is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s an attractive quality. However, when that selflessness is the character’s core personality trait, that’s when it becomes too much. Basically, her character is missing some sort of relatability and complexity. I’m also not a fan of how self-entitled and abrasive she is. She expects the shadowhunters to help her. She expects Magnus Bane to help her. She expects Ragnor Fell to help her. She’s pretty much, “it’s either my way or the highway.” I would never treat anyone I needed help from the way this girl treats people. She’s completely unwilling to bend on anything that goes against her own interests. And most of the time, she doesn’t even have a solid plan to begin with. Hell, most of the time she doesn’t even have a plan. She just runs in hoping she won’t get caught and she, inevitably, always is. Now, to a certain extent, Clary is like this in the books. The difference is that characters call her out on it in the books. That doesn’t happen in the show. Alec calls her out on it and he’s reprimanded for being too mean to her. I don’t mind Clary being an impulsive character because it’s part of her charm in the books but I do want others to call her out on it. In the show, she basically suffers no consequences when she’s impulsive and dumb because everyone forgives her because she’s this precious little snowflake…for some reason.  I don’t see it at all. There is absolutely nothing interesting about her personality in the show. God, I hate Mary Sue characters. Even her physical appearance is absolutely flawless. She’s supermodel thin. This girl’s hair is always perfectly curled…even when she gets out of bed. She also emerges from bed with full-blown make-up on as well which I legitimately laughed at. I really wish I looked as good as this girl does when I get out of bed but I normally emerge as a cross between Medusa and a zombie. And also, Season One Clary’s hair was absolutely ridiculous. I don’t care what kind of genes you have, no one’s hair is that orange. The actress even said in an interview that the color is a little more bright than what she would normally go for. It was toned down a little later on in the season but when I first saw it, I was like, “Whoa! This girl’s hair could light up a neon sign.”

Now, has Clary improved in Season 2B? Eh, it depends. They did tone down the red in her hair so it definitely looks more natural. I also like her new wardrobe. It definitely feels more Clary-like. It always bugged me in Season One when she says, “I’m a jeans and t-shirt girl” when I’d barely seen her in anything but leather and high heels and not once complaining about it. She’s still impulsive and self-centered and Alec is still the only one who really calls her out on it. And he still gets reprimanded for it. They threw us in for a loop when Izzy got angry at Clary for hiding something from her so that was nice. But Clary ultimately didn’t really seem to care. She was all, “I know I messed up but we need to stick together.” And everyone just kind of accepts that. Clary, that may be how it works in your friendship with Simon, but sometimes other people need time and space when they feel betrayed by a friend. Why are there two guys in love with her again? Clary still puts up a hissy fit whenever she doesn’t get her way and again, no one calls her out on it. I can forgive book Clary for behaving this way because she’s 16 but in the show, she’s 18. She’s an adult, she needs to fucking act like one. TV Show Clary really is kind of a weak character but the show totes around that she’s strong and then completely back pedals. There’s moments even in 2A where she completely kicks ass against hordes of rogue shadowhunters and then struggles later on with one or two of them. Besides all of that, I always hated how quickly she picked up shadowhunting. I’ve always thought it was incredibly unrealistic. Jace gives her a 30 second seraph blade training session in a graveyard (ugh, I hated that scene so much) and she’s an expert at sword fighting. Alec gives her a 10 second staff-fighting training session and she’s an expert on that, as well. Only about a month has passed since the beginning of Season One to where Season 2A ended. I’m a martial artist so I can attest that you cannot pick up fighting that quick. It doesn’t even make sense in show canon either. All of the other shadowhunters have been training their entire lives and she becomes an expert in a couple of weeks. Come on. She saves the Lightwoods continuously by poking the demon one time. It completely devalues just how dangerous demon-fighting really is. Really, it’s too late to go back and figure out how she learned how to fight. That ship has sailed but the show now needs to make a decision on what kind of fighter she’s supposed to be. They need to quit going back and forth between her fighting skills just for plot convenience. Is she going to be a bad-ass, is she even going to be a competent fighter, or is she going to be someone who doesn’t really know what they’re doing when it comes to fighting? The show really needs to make a decision on that front. And there’s no reason that she can’t jump from any of those levels into a different level; the show just needs to develop it. And that’s not what they’re doing here. Ultimately, I don’t have a problem with Clary being impulsive and self-centered and even selfless, I just want everyone to stop treating her like she’s a perfect, flawless, little angel. See her for exactly who she is, then I might believe these two guys are in love with her. Clary needs some sort of complexity to her personality. She is such a Mary Sue right now and I cannot take her seriously as a character.

But I’m not completely ragging on her character. She did have some nice moments in 2A. I really liked that moment in A Door Into The Dark when she goes to the Art Institute and starts painting. I thought that was a really nice moment for her character. The new Clary trying to get in touch with the old Clary again. I did like that she asks Jace and Simon to kill her if it ever looks like Valentine may legitimately be able to use her to destroy downworld. I also liked her moments when she was dealing with her mother’s death, particularly in episode 5, Dust and Shadows. I thought she was very realistic in that episode. So yeah, even though I ragged on her a lot in this. I don’t 100% hate her. She does have some nice moments.

6) The chemistry with Jace and Clary needs to get better.

7) A dark passionate portrayal of the incest storyline.

Again, these two kind of go together. Oh Season One Clace, how you disappointed me. Really, Season One was just a huge disappointment when it came to romantic pairings, in general. The show wanted so badly to get fans that they pushed every relationship in a way that was completely inorganic. They completely missed the point on why people like fandom relationships. It’s not important if these two character are together, what’s really important is how they got together. I hated the way Clace was developed in the first season. I hated their first interaction, I hated the graveyard scene, I hated the motorcycle scene, I especially hated their first kiss. The one scene I wouldn’t have minded (the 90% slap scene in the pilot) was filmed but they chose to cut it and I will never understand why. In the first season, their relationship is so cheesy that it’s impossible for me to take it seriously. After a certain amount of time, I was asking myself, “Are they trying to make a Clace parody? Is the intention to make fun of Clace?” It was that bad. And then, they had the first kiss which was extremely disappointing and rushed. I didn’t feel that Clace needed to be kissing in that moment. I wasn’t really feeling any Clace feels. Maybe other people were, who knows. I saw them kiss and I legitimately said to my screen, “What the hell is this shit? Why are they kissing? This makes no sense.” I guess Clary remembering how Jace said, “You have the sight” to her back in Episode One was just too much for her to handle. She just couldn’t resist him, his douche-baggery, and his non-existent charm anymore. What was even worse was that this scene takes place in the middle of the Institute with everyone watching. It boggles my mind as to why they swapped out the greenhouse scene for this shit. I will never understand it. In the book, their first kiss was a very romantic moment that was important to them as characters but in the show, it was nothing more than a make-out scene and that’s what I despise about it. They took out all of the emotion, everything that made their first kiss so special. The Clace chemistry on the show is also just plain weird at times. This could be because of the writing, though. Kat and Dom always felt really weird to me in Season One as a couple. They just didn’t feel like they were this ultimate pairing that I wanted to route for. They did get better later on in the season after the sibling thing was announced. That’s when their chemistry really started to improve. I don’t know if it was just because they were more comfortable around each other or if their chemistry just worked better as siblings. But regardless, it was much better towards the tail-end of the season.

Now, has the Clace chemistry gotten better in Season 2A? This is a difficult question to answer. Simply because they went through 2A believing that they were siblings and the showrunners clearly wanted to stay away from any of the creepy incest-like behavior that happens in the books. Understandable. It’s a very controversial topic within the fandom. But I am a little disappointed that the show didn’t really go into it. And before you haters start hating, I don’t say that because I like incest relationships. They creep me out just as much as you. What I like about the Clace-sibling dynamic was that yes, it was creepy, but it also showed the depth of their emotions. That even if they were siblings, something was still pulling them together and they couldn’t understand why and they couldn’t just ignore it even though they certainly tried to. I have a little head-canon theory that part of the reason why they’re so drawn to each other is because they share the same angel blood. You know, blood calls to blood. But that’s my own head-canon. I don’t believe Cassandra Clare ever stated that that was the reason in the books. And I also liked that those feelings are still very prevalent later on in the series even after the sibling thing is sorted out. They still are very much affected by their experience of being in love with each other despite believing they were siblings. So I am a little disappointed that 2A didn’t really go into those feelings. Jace really did feel like a supportive brother in this season and nothing more. We’ll see how their chemistry goes in 2B. It is interesting with Jace now knowing that Clary is not his sister but refusing to tell Clary because he wants her to be happy with Simon. I really liked that because it shows that Jace’s selfish love for Clary has turned into a selfless love. I get the feeling from the trailers that it’s not going to last very long though which is a shame. And to people who complain that they don’t like Climon, guess what? YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO. Their dynamic is always supposed to be best as friends. People who complain about Climon have no concept of a slow-burn couple. I love slow-burn couples. It may take forever and a day for them to get together but when they do, it is that much sweeter because we actually got a development of that relationship, a development of feelings that those characters have for each other. So Clace shippers, just be patient. Your time will come and trust me, you will be so much happier that the show took it’s time with them as opposed to keeping them together right at the start. Pairings that get together right from the start are boring to me. They are never done right. Trust me, slow-burns are 100% more satisfying.

8) Isabelle getting her own story arcs.

Izzy is a character that never feels like she’s actually part of the story. Most of the time, it just feels like she’s along for the ride. Pretty much, all of her story arcs were just plot devices to move along someone else’s storyline. She’s there to help Jace and Alec and to be a friend to Clary, that’s pretty much it. I guess there’s her relationship with Meliorn but really, their relationship creeps me out due to their lack of chemistry and I don’t find them all that interesting as a pairing. Then there was the whole “Izzy on trial” thing which is a plot point I’m not even going to get into because I have so many issues with the storytelling part of it. Really, that plot point was insanely dumb and absolutely pointless to the rest of the story. There’s also the “Izzy is the best pathologist in NYC” as well. But again, there are a lot of story-telling issues with that. Suffice to say, this plot point came about simply because Ed Dector was trying to turn Shadowhunters into the crime procedural show he really wanted to produce. He didn’t actually stop and think, “Is this really a good idea? Is it going to make sense?” And the show pretty much forgets about this plot point when it’s inconvenient for the story because, again, it doesn’t really make sense and it would hinder the plot more often than it would help. Now, Isabelle is one of my favorite characters in the books and she is also one of my favorite characters in the show (even if they did do a pretty bad job with developing her). Ultimately, I just want to see more story arcs that develop her as a person. At this point, we get it. Izzy loves her family. She wants the best for her family. This isn’t news anymore. I would like to see some more aspects of her personality. Actually, now that I think about it, this is a recurring theme with the characters from Season One. The characters really were rather one-dimensional.

Did Izzy improve in 2A? Yes and no. 2A incorporated this drug addiction plot point which, in the beginning, I really liked. Some fans think its absolute trash but I’m not one of those fans. Granted, no one likes to see their beloved character go through a drug addiction storyline and I certainly do not enjoy seeing strong, fierce Izzy being weak. But that’s kind of the point with a drug addiction story. The fact that even the strongest of us can fall to a weakness at some point. In a story, it is essential for a character to come into conflict. That’s what allows us to explore the character and figure out who that character is as a person and eventually even care about that person. A drug addiction plot can be a good way to showcase that. Up until this point, Izzy has always been toted as this strong, independent person but in reality she’s plagued with self-doubt. She doesn’t think she’s as strong as everyone else thinks she is and that’s why she ultimately falls into the drug addiction. And I found that super interesting. The drug makes her feel strong both inside and out. Drug addictions are never fun to watch but I was interested in this when it first came out because I was interested to see what kind of growth we were going to get from Izzy as a character. Which is what I wanted. I wanted to see more aspects of her besides this strong girl who cares about her family. But, as we went further along in the drug addiction plot, Freeform kept on disappointing me. First off, they chose to use yin fen (the drug from The Infernal Devices) and then changed what yin fen actually is. I’m actually a little unclear on exactly what yin fen is on this show. I’m not sure if it’s vampire venom or if vampire venom is just an ingredient within the drug itself. The show keeps on going back and forth on it. But regardless, I don’t like that they changed it to vampire venom, period. It just completely devalues the horror story that yin fen actually is. I could’ve let it slide if the show just opted to not include The Infernal Devices in its canon and that yin fen was just now going to be its own separate thing. I could’ve been okay with that. But the show continues to dig itself an even bigger hole when they mention that Magnus’ friend, Jem, almost died from it. If you think about what the show is saying yin fen is and then mix it with Jem’s story, it doesn’t really make sense and I really hope that TID does not get adapted into the same story universe as Shadowhunters. Because boy, are there going to be plot holes. Second of all, near the end of 2A, it became very obvious that the reasoning for changing yin fen to vampire venom was so that the show could reveal a new sexuality to the show. You don’t agree with that? There is no other reason that the show would logically change yin fen to vampire venom unless it was to progress a storyline having to do with vampires. That being that Raphael is asexual. Now, Raphael being asexual is not the problem I have with this storyline. I actually think it’s really interesting and I’m excited to see it get explored. The problem I have with this storyline is that once again, Izzy was used as a plot device to push along someone else’s story and not her own. Throughout the course of this drug addiction plot, I didn’t feel that Izzy has really changed all that much or that we even really got to see someone all that different from the girl we got in Season One. She feels pretty much exactly the same. Granted, we still have 2B. Maybe more of this drug addiction is going to be developed in 2B. But still, I was disappointed in the show for once again making this a plot device to push along someone else’s character arc instead of making it abut Izzy. But like Clary, I’m not completely ragging on Izzy. Izzy did have some really great bad-ass moments that did mesh with her character so I really enjoyed those. I would like to see the show incorporate more with her whip but I can understand why they don’t. It’s pretty difficult to fight with a whip and the fight choreographers may not have a whole lot of time to incorporate it.

9) Some tension with Malec.

Another couple that the show feels the need to rush. Geez, this show really has no concept of slow-burn. What was interesting about Malec in the show is that they were actually developing Malec pretty decently when they first introduced them in Season One. I was enjoying seeing their story unfold in a slightly different way than in the books. Then, the writers got lazy. I liked that Malec was being subtly pushed together. It was working well for the show until Lydia Branwell was introduced. Don’t get excited, y’all. There will be no Lydia bashing here. I love Lydia. I wish the show would’ve done more with her. No, once Lydia and the arranged marriage was introduced into the story, that’s when Magnus became increasing desperate and it just did not mesh at all with his character. I didn’t like it. What made it even worse was that of course, they would bring Malec together in the cheesiest, most cliché way possible because this show only knows how to be cheesy and cliché. Whenever there’s a wedding, you know the forbidden love interest is going to show up and put to a stop to it. The Graduate, anyone? Not only was the whole wedding aspect super cheesy, I had a hard time reconciling that 1) Alec would be okay with outing himself to the entire Clave in this moment and 2) that Magnus would expect Alec to be willing to do it. Now, keep in mind, when I say this, I am not saying that it is not plausible for a homosexual adult to come out like this. I am saying that it was unrealistic for ALEC LIGHTWOOD to come out like this given the character development he had within that season. The show had been alluding to Alec being gay and his feelings for Jace and by the time the wedding scene happened, he hadn’t actually dealt with any of those issues so I had a hard time believing that Alec, as a character, would actually do this at this point in time. In the books, in a similar scene, it made sense because he had dealt with his Jace issues as well as his coming-out issues. Really, this wedding scene was just a fanservice product and nothing more. The show wanted to get the Malec fans immediately instead of doing a slow-burn like they kind of are in the books. As I’ve said before, what’s important is not that these two characters got together, it’s how they got together. And Season One just completely missed the mark on that one. And whereas I love the kiss they have in that episode, I still feel cheated that we never got to see any actual development of their relationship that would’ve made that scenario plausible.

I got a lot of hate on the original post for this one so I really felt like I needed to explain myself. Understand, I’m not saying gay people shouldn’t come out in public like that, I’m saying it was unrealistic for Alec to come out like this given the character development he had up to that point. Malec in Season One ultimately turned out to be a disappointment for me. They are one of my ultimate bookOTPs so I had very high expectations for them. Really, I hated that we never got to see their relationship progress in any way. That’s the problem I have with the way Malec is developed in this show. They’re always telling us what’s going on with them instead of showing us. The writers are breaking the cardinal rule of story-telling: You always want to show and not tell.

Now, did Malec improve in Season 2A? Maybe? I don’t know. I’m a little off and on about this one. Malec was very cute in 2A. They had a lot of really nice scenes. The issue I have is that Malec, as a couple, didn’t have a whole lot to do with the main plot. They were given maybe two or three 30-second scenes in an episode and that was all we got and those scenes never had much to do with the central plot. It always felt like they were just slipped in there to appease the fans. And that’s what I dislike about Show Malec. Say what you want about Book Malec. You can say that it didn’t focus on them nearly as much but at least in the books, when we did have Malec scenes, they were done in a way that still made them relevant to the main plot. And that’s what I want from Show Malec. I want them to be relevant to the actual plot of the show and not feel like their scenes were inserted at the last minute.

Another issue I had with them this season is just how quickly they went through the relationship milestones. One episode, they’re going on their first date (which was a fantastic first date, I loved it so much), couple of episodes later, they’re having their first time (I’ll get to that in a few). Couple of episodes later, they’re professing their love for each other. I just wish the writers would take their time with Malec and develop the relationship slowly and organically. If it keeps at the pace that it is, Malec is going to become stagnant before we know it and I don’t want to see that happen.

Lastly, Seaosn 2A had the issue with sex scenes or the non-existent sex scenes as is the case with Malec. Ordinarily, I don’t care about sex scenes. Most of the time, they’re never done right so I find them to be a complete waste of screen time in general but I can say the show dug itself a hole on the Malec sex issue. First off, they brought up Malec having sex front and center, and then they took a fade-to-black approach when it came to the actual act. Now, normally I wouldn’t have a problem with this. The problem is that it’s weird that previously, the show has never had an issue with sex scenes before with its heterosexual couples but yet they’re unwilling to go the same lengths for the homosexual couple. I can definitely understand why fans would be angry. In this context, it would appear the show is displaying passive homophobia. In Season 2B, I really hope the show addresses this. I like the new showrunners and I want them to keep on working but this is going to be a very hard issue to overcome if something isn’t done about it. The network really needs to make a decision on just how “edgy” they want to be. If they want to incorporate sex scenes in their show, that’s fine. I don’t necessarily think it’s important for a show like this but whatever. For a show like this, I think epic-ness is going to sell more than sex. If Freeform chooses to have sex scenes, they have to do it for everyone. It boggles my mind that Freeform did not see this one coming.

10) Please, let us never, ever see Jace and Alec fight again…EVER

Not gonna lie, the Jalec fight in Season One is one of the reasons why I didn’t particularly like the season. Understand, I’m not opposed to main characters fighting. That’s not the issue. I want my characters to have disagreements and falling outs. It’s what makes the relationships feel real. I just did not like the way the Jalec falling out was developed. It was dumb, lazy, and ultimately didn’t really make sense. The parabatai relationship is super important in the series and Season One made it look like it was just friends having a fight. I absolutely did not like it. I never want to see the show take this approach again.

But on the bright side, the show did so much better with the parabatai bond in 2A. There were so many call outs to the parabatai bond to how it actually is and I loved it. As I said before, that one scene in Parabatai Lost between Jace and Alec was absolutely beautiful. There were other parabatai moments that I also really liked. Jace telling Magnus that he better not hurt Alec, Jace being worried about Alec when Alec was stuck inside the institute while it was being attacked. There were so many great parabatai moments. See guys? I’m not completely ragging on the show. Season 2A gets a B on the parabatai improbvement, though. I give them a B because I didn’t particularly like everything that happened in Parabatai Lost regarding how Jace and Alec got into that situation in the first place but I’m not going to get into it here. I have a whole review that talks about it. You can read up on it there. You should be able to find it in my Shadowhunters Review tag. But everything else this season with the Jalec parabatai bond was great. I loved it.

11) Give the extras at the Institute a purpose or get rid of them

These extras, man. They just mess with the logic of the show so bad. Season 2A definitely did a much better job of incorporating them but still, I don’t like that they just kind of hang out at the Institute. Most of them don’t really do anything. They’re just walking scenery. Really, I’ve kind of gotten used to them but I do secretly hope that they will just one day, disappear. I did like the minor characters such as Raj and Lindsey. I think they could be fun as random inserts into the show. In that regard, I hope the show keeps them around. But overall, the extras are really pointless and the show is wasting their money paying extras who don’t really need to be there.

12) Better fight scenes

13) Better CGI

OMG! The fight scenes were such an improvement from Season One. I loved them so much. As I’ve said before, I do martial arts, so fight scenes are important to me and I am critical of them. Particularly the ones in Season One. The fight scenes in Season One, by themselves, are not bad. The show just edited them badly because I guess the show didn’t want to put too much effort into the choreography and CGI, maybe. Regardless, there was a drastic improvement in Season 2A. It was great. The seraph blades actually look like swords now and not light sabers so that’s an improvement in itself. Izzy’s whip turns into a staff which I thought was super cool. I do wish we could see Izzy fighting with her whip more but I understand why the show doesn’t want to do it.

The new CGI was pretty great, too. Magnus’ magic was really fun to watch not to mention the demon in Dust and Shadows was incredibly creepy…like American Horror Story Season One scary. You remember, back in the day when American Horror Story was actually scary. No offense to those who may still find American Horror Story scary. I, personally, find it to be more of a thriller show than a horror show these days. But anyways, I’m so glad we’re past the days of Shadowhunters Season One crappy CGI. The show gets an A+ on that improvement.

14) No more huge, gaping plot holes or storylines that don’t lead anywhere

This is more of a problem with the show’s general storytelling. Season One was just a mess in terms of storytelling, I’m sorry to say. This was the number one reason for why I didn’t particularly like the show in its freshman season. You know how there are CGI snobs? People who will gripe and complain if CGI is not up to society’s current standards? Well, I am a plot snob. If a plot is bad or it has plot holes, I’m not going to keep quiet about it. I spend pretty much all of my free time watching movies, tv shows, anime, reading books and fanfiction, writing stories, etc. Storytelling is incredibly important to me and I will not apologize for holding Shadowhunters to the same standard of writing that I would hold any other tv series. The way this show is written at times is so unbelievably lazy, at times. Particularly in Season One. Plot holes, galore.

Now, did the show get better at its story telling in 2A? Yes and no. I say yes, because at least the episodes are arcing properly now. They weren’t in the first season. I can’t tell you how often a Season One episode chose to end on the climax part of the story and I was like, “Wait. What? Where’s the rest if it?” That’s an arcing issue. You don’t want to end on a climax all the time. It makes the show feel very disjointed. It should be climax, aftermath, and then end credits. An episode can end on a climax but it’s best if a tv series saves that for a finale type episode. Now, I say no that the show did not get better with its storytelling because the plot feels incredibly “easy” at time. So many really convenient things happen in this show and there’s not a whole lot of explanation for why it happened. The team is trying to find a kidnapped girl and the first homeless person they find knows exactly what happened. Convenient. In Day of Wrath, a demon gets into the Institute. How? Well, the demon has cloaking abilities apparently. No explanation for why it has cloaking abilities besides Valentine’s experiments. It’s never talked about again. Convenient. Madsie having the ability to get through the Institute’s wards. Convenient. The Mortal Sword just so happens to have the ability to decimate all of downworld which is exactly what Valentine wants. Convenient. An adamas stone can somehow be used to track a parabatai when it’s never been mentioned before. Convenient. The Mortal Sword doesn’t have to be powered by a bolt of lightning. Valentine can just use an angelic power core that’s located in every Institute. A plot point that has never been stated before. Convenient. You see where I’m going with this. There is no complexity to the world at all. The writers just pull things out of their asses when it comes to moving the plot along. No one actually works for the story at all and I would definitely like to see that changed in 2B. I would like the storylines to be a little more complex than what we’re getting. This show irritates me to no end in regards to its storytelling and if anything, that is what’s going to make me drop this series.

That’s pretty much all I had to say regarding the list I made last year. Here are some hopes I would like to see in 2B.

Luke

I really want Luke to become a more active character in this show. In 2A, it felt like we barely got to see him. He is a main character but yet it feels like he never really has a whole lot of purpose within the story. Luke is a bad-ass character in the books and the show really hasn’t even scratched the surface with him and I would like to see more of him. Hopefully, he becomes much more of an active character in 2B. It definitely feels like the downworlder community is going to play a bigger role in 2B so maybe by proxy, Luke is going to be back on a more consistent basis.

Maia

My hope for Maia is that the show develops her character a little more. I really liked her character when it was first introduced in the show but in 2A, she was doing things that didn’t really make a whole lot of sense for her character. I do understand why Maia wanted to kill Clary. I got that. However, I didn’t like how Maia just immediately jumped to killing when there was a scene earlier on in the season insinuating that she has a problem with killing. I just wish her decision to kill Clary actually had some sort of emotional weight to it. Maia was also incredibly overbearing in this moment, as well. I get that she made a decision to do this but at the same time she was also completely unwilling to accept the consequences that would come with killing Clary. That being she would’ve destroyed any relationship she might’ve had with Luke and Simon. Clary is pretty much Luke’s daughter and she’s also the girl Simon has been in love with since he was a kid. It boggles my mind that Maia would possibly think Simon and Luke would ever forgive her for killing Clary. She comes off in the show being all, “This is what needs to be done. Why are you two ostracizing me? I thought we were friends?” It would’ve been fine if Maia made the cold-hearted decision to kill Clary and that she also accepted the consequences of such an act but the fact that she can’t understand why Luke and Simon aren’t on her side is what bothers me. Particularly, since she knows what Clary is to Simon and Luke. Hopefully, she’ll be developed a little more in 2B.

Sizzy

I kind of hope the show start alluding a little more to Simon and Izzy’s relationship. Of course, I’m not saying that I want them to be together by the end of 2B. As I’ve said before, I’m a fan of slowburns and Sizzy most certainly is a slow-burn. I wouldn’t mind them starting to allude to it a little more, though. I know people are yammering on about Saphael and I don’t mind if Saphael becomes a thing. Or even Rizzy. The asexual thing is kind of interesting. I just want Sizzy to be endgame. That’s really the only thing I want from this show. There’s just something so fun and interesting about the nerd ending up with the hot, sexy demon hunter. I mean, I was hoping for Sizzy before Cassandra Clare even started developing their relationship in the books. They’re just such a fun pair.

Sebastian

Well, of course I have to mention Sebastian. I really hope the show does him justice. Sebastian is such an interesting character and an interesting villain. He is a completely different villain from Valentine and I really hope the show harps on those differences. I’m really excited to see what the show does with him. I saw a synopsis of what his character is supposed to be on the show and whereas it doesn’t really feel like that’s Sebastian, I’m withholding all judgement until 2B comes out.

The Destruction of the Shape-Shifting Rune

This is a really naïve hope that I have. I know there is absolutely no way they’d actually get rid of this rune but it still doesn’t change how much I hate it. This rune is such a huge plot hole. I called it when it was first introduced. I said the writers were not prepared for the huge can of worms that this rune was going to open and I was spot on. The rune completely devalues Tessa from The Infernal Devices. Infernal Devices aside, I hate this rune on principle, alone. It makes absolutely no sense to me that this rune exists, shadowhunters know it exists, they realize anyone can use it, and yet they’re duped by it EVERY SINGLE TIME. I suppose if the show doesn’t want to get rid of the rune, maybe they could create some rules for this rune. It is so important that magic have limits and I hate that this rune appears to have no limits. Also, Sebastian better not be revealed by using that rune. I will be so disappointed with Shadowhunters if they try to use that rune as a plot twist again. It wasn’t that surprising the first time around or the second time around; if they try to use it again, I don’t know if the show will ever be able to recover in my eyes.

Ultimately, I am still enjoying watching this show to a certain extent. They are doing some interesting things with the story. If I could tell the showrunners one thing though, I would tell them, “Quit the fanservice and just tell the story.” A lot of times, it feels like the main plot gets put on the back burner because the show feels the need to engage in the fans’ desires for the characters. I realize this is coming off a little hypocritical since I just finished talking about things I wanted to see in 2B. But if 2B chooses to ignore everything that I want, I would still be happy with the show if they ignored all fanservice desires and just TOLD THE STORY. I go off and on about whether or not Shadowhunters is actually a good show and part of the problem is that the showrunners care too much about what the fans want. For me, what makes a good show is just watching a story unfold and see how the characters develop within that story. If the showrunners were to ignore the fans to a certain extent and just tell the story, the show would definitely be MUCH stronger. But they’re always consumed with doing the politically correct thing and trying not to insult certain factions of the fandom and it’s actually hindering the development of the story. I can already feel the number of hate messages about to hit my ask box but you know what? I don’t care. I just want to see a story unfold and characters develop within that story in a realistic way. That is all I want from Shadowhunters. So if the showrunners were to ignore everything else that I would like to see in 2B, I would still be happy with the show if it, at least, managed to tell a coherent story. I can’t necessarily call Shadowhunters a good show at this point in time. For me, Shadowhunters is a conglomeration of nice scenes but without much of a story in the background and I sincerely would like to see that change. Right now the show is probably at a B- for me, overall.

Well, these are my feelings regarding Shadowhunters right now. Again, these are my opinions. They, in no way, reflect anyone else’s. I would love to hear what anyone else is thinking about 2B. Do you agree with what I said? Do you disagree? As a reminder, I will ignore anyone who is rude so if you are going to send me hate and you want me to respond, you might want to try moderating your tone. I’m an adult and I expect everyone else to behave as mature adults. Really, bullying is beneath us and I will not tolerate it. Let’s create a fandom that is supportive of everyone’s opinions. Fandoms can be so much fun if there’s support but they’re an absolute nightmare if you have to worry about the hate you’re about to receive every time you post. I left for a couple of months and delved deep within the anime fandoms which was great. I really needed the break. And along the way, I found Dragonball Z Abridged by Team Four Star. If you have not seen it, you absolutely need to. It is absolutely hilarious. I love it so much! Maybe even more than the original series… o

[multifandomaddictedfangirl]

Tumblr / Fangirl vocabulary

Hey! :) Last week, I’ve noticed few people asked me about vocabulary related to the fandoms or tumblr in genral, like “what does engame mean?” or “what the hell is an OTP?” so I thought I could do a “Tumblr / Fangirl vocabulary” to help people who can feel a little bit confused with all of this words. Some of these words are really easy but I wanted to write everything I know. 

TUMBLR 

Post : it’s an article in your blog, it can be a text, a picture, a link, a video, whatever. It’s literally what you’re posting on this website. 

Tags : They are some keywords helping people to find your post. 

Reblog : It’s when you share a post from another tumblr user. 

Following : The people you follow. 

Followers : The people who follow you. 

Dashboard : It’s the main page in which all the posts, from all the people you are currently following, appear. 

Explore : It’s a page with all the posts recommended for you, according to what kind of post you are posting, reblogging, liking; who you follow; who follows you; everything. 

Notes : It’s the number of interaction about a post. People can like your post, they can reblog it, they can add a “caption” (a short text or a gif, or an image, or a link, or basically anything they want). All of this appears in your notes. 

FANDOMS

Fandom : a fandom describes a subculture composed with fans characterized by a feeling of empathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest (for example, in a book or in a movie, or in a tv show). 

Fangirl / Fanboy : a girl or a boy obsessed with a fandom.

Fanvid : a fanmade video often consisting of clips accompanied by music.

Feels : It’s a term used by fangirls or fanboys which refers to an intense wave of emotion, often unavoidable. It can be very good (like intense joy, happiness, excitement) or it can be really bad (sadness, pain, anger...). If you see a comment like “OMG THE FEEEEEEEELS” dont’ be scared. It’s totally normal and very customary in the fandom’s world. 

Squee : onomatopoetic noise released from the fangirl when she is excited.

Headcanon : It happens when a fandom accepts additional information/narrative about a character that is not in the book, show, movie, game, etc. 

Cosplay (shorter for “costume play,”) : It’s when fans dress up to portray a fictional character of a book, show, movie, game, etc. 

Hiatus : It’s a period describing when a TV show is on break (and usually fangirls are in pain).

Shipping : It’s the act of putting two characters together in a romantic or sexual relationship. For example, in The Vampire Diaries (a book and a tv show), a lot of people are shipping Elena and Damon. It means they’d like to see them together as a couple, they think Elena and Damon have feelings for each other or they like their chemestry / love / sexual attraction, whatever...

Ship : A ship is an association of two people in a relationship. Sometimes, ship names can be created and used by the community. For example: Delena is the official ship name of Damon and Elena (my previous example). 

OTP : One True Pairing. An OTP is like your best, strongest, most important ship. For example, in The Vampire Diaries, you can ship a lot of people together but saying “Delena is my OTP” means it’s your favorite couple ever.

BROTP : It’s the ultimate friendship. It’s used to describe two people who share an amazingly beautiful frienship that you might admire. The word “bromance” is often used to describe the relationship, then. 

NOTP : It’s the opposite of OTP. It’s a relationship you absolutely don’t want to see happening. It’s two people you can’t manage to imagine together. Basically, it’s a big “NOPE, NO WAY, NOT HAPPENING”.

Crackship : It’s a ship, a romantic pairing, that is unlikely to happen

Canon : It’s a term used to describe everything that is official in a fandom. It’s the official storyline established by the author, tv show creator, etc. When a ship is referred to as canon, it is real in the show, book, etc. If it’s not canon, then it doesn’t mean it’s not real and you have no right to ship it. It just means it’s not official (nothing says they have feeling for each other).

Endgame : It’s when you hope / believe / think / wish a couple you ship will end the series together (in a book, movie, tv-show, etc).

Fanfic (or Fanfiction) : It’s a story written by a fan, based on a movie, a book, a tv show, a game or any other kind of media which already exist. 

FANFIC (they have their own world, let’s be real) 

Disclaimers : They are must-have alerts written before reading the actual fanfiction. These alerts typically inform readers to whom the canon should be credited to; this helps in avoiding issues of copyright infringement.

Rating : Classification of the fanfictions : G (Suitable for all audiences), K (Intended for general audience 6 years and older. Content should be free of any coarse language, violence, and adult themes), K+ (Suitable for more mature childen, 9 years and older, with minor action violence without serious injury. May contain mild coarse language. Should not contain any adult themes), T (Suitable for teens, 13 years and older, with some violence, minor coarse language, and minor suggestive adult themes), M (Not suitable for children or teens below the age of 16 with possible strong but non-explicit adult themes, references to violence, and strong coarse language),  MA (Content is only suitable for mature adults. May contain explicit language and adult themes).

A/N (abbreviation of "Author's Note") : when the author of a fanfiction writes to the reader in a direct way (usually to leave him a message at the very beginning or at the end of a fanfic).

POV : Point of View.

Bashing : It’s when the author of a fanfiction purposely denigrate a character he or she doesn’t like in the canon show / book / movie, etc, by making him very evil, mean, violent, pervert, or horrible in any way. 

Cliffhanger : It’s when a chapter or the fanfiction itself ends in suspens, in order to interest the reader or viewer in the next chapter or fanfic.   

Crossover : It’s when you make a link between two fandoms and you mix them to create your story. For example, you could try to do a crossover between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural, two famous tv-shows. 

Spin-off : a television show or series, book, etc., that is based on an idea or character that already exists in a previously made product. For example: The Originals is a spin-off of The Vampire Diaries which focus on the life of the Michealson family, especially Klaus. 

Songfic : It is a term used to describe a genre of fan fiction that features a fictional work interspersed with the lyrics of a relevant song

One-Shot (OS) : A term used in fanfictions to say that there will only be one body of text (usually one chapter)

Angst : It’s a type fanfiction that is pretty dark and depressing, often in which characters suffer from not being able to be together or unrequited love.

Fluff : It’s a type of fanfiction that is typically happy and sweet, often G rated, involving shameless flirting between characters. 

Smut: It’s a fanfiction that is erotic in nature.

Slash Fiction : It’s a genre of fan fiction that focuses on interpersonal attraction and sexual relationships between fictional characters of the same sex. When it’s between two women, the word “ Femslash “ is often used. 

AU (Acronym for Alternate Universe) : It’s a type of fanfiction that puts characters into different worlds or scenarios than the canon storyline.

RPF (Acronym for “Real Person Fiction”) : it’s when an author writes a story about a real person who exists in real life. For example; a fanfiction about an actual band or a singer or an actor who exists in real life. 

OC  : (Acronym for “Original Character”) : it’s a character created by the author of a fanfiction. This character doesn’t exist in the show / book / movie, etc. 

OOC (Acronym for “Out of character.”) : It’s used by fangirls / fanboys to describe a situation where a character is acting strangely, like doing or saying something that he normally would never have done or said. 

IC (Acronym for “In Character”) : it’s the opposite of OOC. It’s when an author really well describes a fictional character, respect his or her personality and all.

Here are some of the words I know. This post was really meant to help some people who could naturally feel confused with all the strange vocabulary that, we, fangirls / fanboys, use. If you have suggestions, please tell me :)

[kyzarix-stuff]

Digital Identity, aka “Hi, my name is Kai.”

disclaimer: this blog post is for an academic requirement, please do not attack me with pitchforks or fire

So, this time we’re going to talk about the digital identity that I’ve built online, and my digital footprint. Beware, we will be treading on some backstory here, but the outcome will more or less explain my usernames on most platforms.

Who is Kai?

For the longest time, since I was afraid of revealing my real name when playing games, I went by the usernames kairanshire (a reference to an old character of mine) and kyzarix (a bastardization of the words “Kaiser” and “Rex”); this led to me often being called Kai/Kairan or Ky in game. I eventually just adopted it, and I’ve been calling myself “Kai” in-game ever since. 

Here’s a screenshot of my steam profile, where you can see that I introduce myself as Kai, as well as my Cosplay profile, which is called @kyzarixcosplay or Kyza Cosplay (Kaiza Cosplayer in Japanese).

Who is Sam?

On most other social media platforms that are not used for gaming, I use the handles kairanshire/kyzarix and yet still place my name as “Sam,” usually with some extra phrase to be quirky. I notice that my digital identity, or the way I present myself, also changes depending on the platform. Let us examine my facebook page, pictured below:

Majority of my posts on Facebook tend to be reposts, cat videos, and basic photos taken by friends and family. Compared to my other accounts, although majority of the people who see my Facebook are people I know in real life, I do not share much of my personal thoughts and feelings there. A typical Facebook post looks like this: 

Which, for the most part tells those who see my posts that I generally like cats. I think majority of the posts on my Facebook page are cat related. Since I do not really want to reveal other parts of my identity on Facebook, I am content with being “the person who shares cat videos and photos” on someone else’s news feed. At least this way I don’t think I am offending people by posting pictures of cute animals. 

On Twitter and Instagram, I tend to be more vocal and free with my posts. While I’m aware that these are shared to a more general public, I also for some reason, just feel better and don’t feel the need to curate my posts as harshly. I freely post ~aesthetic~ pictures alongside derpy cosplay pictures and retweets of anime screenshots. These accounts are pictured here:

I also do not reveal my full name or any other personal information (workplace, school, major, age) on these accounts, which is probably why I feel more comfortable crafting an identity which caters more to my interests. This is how I have met a couple of my friends simply through our shared interests alone, rather than physical connections. Fellow weebs, cosplayers, dare I say the word “gamers” and makeup enthusiasts-- I don’t mind them seeing all my posts! That one person that added me just because I was beadle for a class? I do mind them seeing my cosplays because they might call me weeby, I mind them seeing what games I’m interested in because I fear they might judge me. 

In addition, there is one last account that I will show here, which is my private Twitter account. 

This one is not only locked, but also does not conform to my usual nomenclature (no kai here!). I definitely designate that this is a private/rant account, and this was actually made because my parents found my public twitter and called me out for not telling them when I got sick. I didn’t feel comfortable anymore with placing some of my rants (especially about sickness and more personal, sad issues) on my public twitter, since I felt that my parents reading it was an invasion of my privacy.  

My posts are less retweets and more short rants, which I use as a diary of some type in order to vent. Every so often a friend whom I have permitted to see the content of this account will talk to me about what I’m feeling, which does comfort me to a certain degree. This is in essence a curated space for me to rant, where I can control who can and cannot see this part of me. 

So, which one of these is the real you?

One question we need to answer is whether or not this digital identity is a faithful/truthful representation of how I see myself. To be honest, I would say that no matter which platform of social media that I am representing myself on, I am sharing a part of myself. These things are true, though they are incomplete (which I personally think, is okay.) There is nothing on these platforms that I personally am lying about. I do like cats, I love to cosplay, I love games, and I get angry and I rant sometimes. These may be spread out across multiple accounts, but I do not think of them as being necessarily untruthful for being incomplete. Even in certain friend groups our humor and personality and the things we talk about changes-- so why can that not apply to online accounts as well?

I don’t think the digital footprint I’ve left is a lie-- but rather that each account is a piece of a puzzle, which, even if you follow all my accounts, still are yet to be completed fully.

word count: 922

[mynameistori]

entry 1 (aug 11)

Hello! Welcome to my blog, I guess. Does this really need an introduction if the audience will probably be just me and the odd explorer (?) who randomly finds this? Anyway, I wanted to start this “diary” thing (log? I don’t know, I haven’t planned that far) because life has been extremely difficult these past few months and while I’m simultaneously moderately impressed at how long I’ve held on for without doing much, I realize that I’m definitely breaking apart and my mind is going haywire. I mean, just 10 minutes ago the idea of shaving my head popped into my head because tying my hair back by my neck made me look ugly. And that’s definitely not something my usual rational self would even dream of because I’ve worked so hard (more like waited so long) to get rid of all of the layers.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. It sounded a lot better in my head 4 hours ago when I was driving back from Waterloo (where I go to school -- my family lives in Toronto, about 1.5 hours away). I think I even came up with a few topics I wanted to talk about, since I don’t really have anyone to talk to these days and my mind just feels so cooped up and trapped. This thought is kind of paradoxical to me sometimes because I crave deep social interactions where I can talk about anything that’s on my mind, and when that happens I can probably talk for a while, yet I very much enjoy silence and definitely get tired of hanging out with people after a certain amount of time -- like an introvert. But I feel extremely lonely and get bored quickly when I’m alone.

I don’t know how much censorship to put into these entries. I would love to be straight up and just use names as is, but there’s always the risk someone I know will find this and spread shit around and I’m tired of that. And who knows, maybe I’ll post it to some social media account just so somebody (anybody) I know can read it and gain insight into my life and maybe offer me the odd piece of advice or comfort I need. I think I’ll keep all names private. But if you’re reading this and you know the story, don’t be a little shit. These are my words and feelings and unfortunately if they don’t sit well with you, bring it up to me privately. Don’t spread it around and ruin lives (mainly mine)... I’m sick and tired of that happening.

Anyway, onto the first story I suppose. Oh actually sorry I have something else, more like a note. I’m writing this somewhat spontaneously, as I’m pretty much just typing up whatever I say in my head. So I guess just pretend I’m having a deep talk or something with you, because that’s what most of this stuff will be… deep talks.

Ok back to what I was getting at -- first story. What to choose? There are so many. I would like to write about what happened two nights ago (because to be honest that’s what has been running through my mind since then and ruining my mind), but I don’t think that’s a good story to start off with LOOOOL. I think I’ll start with home.

Home to me has a lot of meanings. People always say “home is where the heart is” and I think that is the phrase I associate with home maybe 95% of the time (ok I came up with a random number because I knew I had another side to this but it’s not coming to me at the moment). I think I spend a lot of time thinking about the concept of home. Personally, I don’t think I have a location (like a city) I can call home. I don’t think that there’s somewhere I can see myself (or with a partner, if anyone will ever like my depressive ass -- ok disclaimer I have more sides to me I promise I’m just in a bubble of suffering right now) for an extended period of time. “Settling down”, I mean. Might be a combination of my feeling towards family (story for another time, it’s long and controversial), straight up lack of travelling/knowledge about other places, and how young I still am (I’m 22, I don’t think “settling down” is something I really need to care about?).

When I was in high school, I knew that I didn’t want to go a university in Toronto. I didn’t have a great home life in high school, and desperately wanted to go somewhere far but not too far. So I decided to go to UW -- a reputable, relatively new university with coloured faculties (who doesn’t like colour? To be honest I think that was what attracted me the most at first), and a dance community I could probably find my way into to improve my skills (their competitive dance team had won first place in a well-known competition the previous year, and I had been training in urban dance for approximately 2 years back then). So Waterloo became my home away from home and will still be until I finish up my undergrad (in 8 months!!!) and then I’ll move back to Toronto for approximately 3-4 months until I go to London for my Master’s program (assuming I snag one of the 6 spots -- I’m getting nervous just thinking about it). Waterloo has been great for the most part, but has turned sour since the beginning of the year (drama with friends who I lived with; a story for another time, though I’ve tried to forget about it because it hurt me so much). I knew I wasn’t going to be here for a long time (5 years isn’t that long), but I know it’ll always have a special spot in my heart because of all the amazing people I’ve met here.

Sorry, my thoughts can get a little fragmented and sentence cohesion and paragraph closure sometimes suffer... Revision usually catches that, but this isn’t some fancy thing so I’m sorry for everything above and everything to come~

I mostly think about home when I think about Shanghai or when people ask me where I was born. I love being asked about my birthplace but I hate the question that always follows: “When did you come to Canada?” because that always (or usually, I shall not assume) leads people to see me as Canadian-born because I came over when I was 8 months old. I absolutely hate this. It’s actually one of my pet peeves, because I actually feel very connected to Shanghai and always long to go back. I think because my parents made the decision somewhat spontaneously (their life wasn’t extravagant back in China and my uncle was willing to sponsor their immigration so they decided to come over), I feel that I was “robbed” (not really robbed but I can’t think of a better word right now) of a life I could’ve easily lived. I think this is why I prefer living like a local when I go back to visit, because I want to experience the life I never had. And it’s a super convenient one! Why can’t everything be cheaper, transit more extensive, tech more advanced?! Sigh. Another perk of going back is being forced to be offline from social media. It really taught me to just enjoy life and not wait on other people to make things happen. Though I’d love to live in Shanghai, there are so many barriers to deal with. Like the language. I’m not terrible at Chinese, but it’s still relatively poor and translating it from Shanghainese (which I’m much better at but is pretty much dead for people below my age -- thanks government!!!) doesn’t always work. I also dislike speaking it because I’m not confident at all. There’s also the issue of having too much family there (literally all of my relatives), so it’ll never really feel like I’m independent (especially being the youngest cousin, oh lord I’ll always be a baby). I guess even though it’ll always be a place I love, it wouldn’t serve as a place I’d live for a long time (I don’t think I’d last a year there, if I’m being honest about it).

I guess talking about more spiritual homes, I’ve said before that I love having deep talks. I love it when people are comfortable enough with each other that they are willing to share bits and pieces of their private lives, and these are the relationships I crave, though they are the hardest to find and the most painful to lose. I don’t have people I can truly call home anymore. It was my boyfriend for 1.5 years but we broke up halfway through July (another story, wow!). Some of my friends (not anymore, they’re avoiding me) were home to me but obviously not anymore. I recently joined another group of people who like to dance but I still don’t feel like I’m a part of the group (despite how much time I spend with them) because of a couple of reasons, but I think they’re wary about truly accepting me because of my previous attitudes towards them (I had personal reasons as to why I didn’t want to join them but they just know that I didn’t want anything to do with them for a long time) and because for some members my reputation precedes me (mainly because of those personal reasons but also because I was a huge influence on the urban dance community here #successstory -- just kidding, I was overthrown).

Something I’d love to do is to just start somewhere new where nobody knows me, where my reputation doesn’t precede me, and just live life how I want it. There’s so many things I’m scared to do because of social barriers. But I guess there’s also things I’m scared of doing alone (like dining and clubbing). I can never win, haha.

How do I end this thing, do I need a name? I was thinking about this earlier and was trying to come up with some online alias that I don’t predictably use. I decided on using Tori, which is the name I use for my Pokemon games, haha. It also means ‘bird’ in Japanese, and I guess these entries will help me find my way to freedom.

A rough first entry, but I’m glad it got written. Hopefully you enjoyed reading it, whoever you are. Until next time~

[happyprettypotatoes]

The Potato Diaries: My Experience with Retinoids

Disclaimer: I am not a licensed esthetician or dermatologist, and as such, all thoughts disclosed on this blog are not prescriptive. Each person’s skin is different, so please patch test if you decide any of these are the right product for you.

This is also not a sponsored post, and what is written is my honest opinion.

After you’ve been in the beauty world for a while, you’ll probably hear of something called retinoids. Retinoids are vitamin A derivatives that can unclog pores and increase cell turnover. As a result, they are used for anti-aging and treatment of acne. If you’d like to read more about the different types of retinods, here is a link to a scientific journal article.

Now, I’m not really at that place in my life where I am legitimately concerned about fine lines and wrinkles. Instead, my journey with retinoids - specifically tretinoin - began because of acne.

I will post more in detail about my acne story later on, but the gist of it is that I broke out pretty uncontrollably, and I finally went to a dermatologist who prescribed me several medications, among which was tretinoin. 

I received specific instructions for the tretinoin because of the different side effects I would experience as I began using it:

Even though the dermatologist prescribed the lowest concentration, it was important that I ease into using the tretinoin because it could cause a lot of irritation if I applied it every night right off the bat. As such, I was supposed to apply it every other night until my skin adjusted to it, at which point I could increase to every night.

Tretinoin degrades under sunlight, so it was important I only use it in the evening before going to bed.

With tretinoin use, my skin would become thinner and therefore photosensitive; in order to prevent sun damage, I should wear sunscreen.

I had to stay consistent with my use. Results with tretinoin take at least 2-3 months, and my skin would get worse before it got better.

So, What Happened?

Of all the medications the dermatologist prescribed to me, tretinoin was the only one I ever stuck with since the beginning. I’m not going to lie, it was a rollercoaster at first... However, I had faith it would get better.

I used tretinoin every other night for several weeks. Initially, the whole regimen the dermatologist gave me dried out my skin really badly. It was pretty frustrating (and painful!) because I was lacking so much information that I felt I should have known before I started using the medication. I had to learn with time, looking up others’ experiences on online forums and consulting the dermatologist when I had issues or questions. 

In the end, I managed to figure out how to change my routine so my skin wasn’t in pain anymore (more on this towards the end of this post), but it was the beginning of a long road. I knew from all of my research that I would experience something called “purging” - all the acne that was forming in the lower layers of my skin would eventually get brought to the surface (remember, retinoinds increase cell turnover). That’s what the dermatologist meant by it’s going to get worse before it gets better. 

So, that’s what happened. I did get more breakouts. My skin was flaking because the dead skin cells and surface skin cells were getting replaced by new skin cells, and it was always in a constant state of dryness. Let’s just say it wasn’t so pleasant during those first few months...

After I got through the purging, most of my acne stopped. I was left with hyperpigmentation and more acne scars. Actually, it’s quite ironic now that I think about it; although some of my smaller scars were gone, they were replaced with a new set of scars from the time I was purging. Well, at least the acne was gone, though, right?

I continued with tretinoin for at least another year. I kept the same concentration, and I figured I would just keep using it until my hyperpigmentation and my acne scars faded as much as possible. 

What Was My Skin Routine?

As I mentioned earlier, my skin was really dry after I first used tretinoin. Well, no surprise there: tretinoin dries out your skin. I had a generic cream type, but it still had a good amount of alcohol content. When I was prescribed tretinoin, the directions that came with my medication stated that I had to wait 10-20 minutes after washing my face before applying the retinoid because if my skin was still wet, it could lead to more irritation. 

That’s what I did at first; I washed my face with a "bland” cleanser, patted my face dry, and waited 20 minutes. Then I applied the tretinoin to my face and went to bed.

Needless to say, I had no idea how dry my skin would feel the next morning. After research, I learned to “buffer” the absorption: wash my face, wait 20 minutes, apply a layer of moisturizer (I chose Aveeno), apply the tretinoin, apply another layer of moisturizer (I chose Vaseline).

In the mornings, I would wash with a “bland” cleanser, moisturize and apply sunscreen. I would always wear a hat no matter where I went as well.

Even though this routine kept my skin in a better state, I still had some side effects:

My cheeks were usually a light pink. The dryness affected this area the most, and so they were the most sensitive to weather changes. They also flushed quite easily if I was nervous or excited about anything.

My skin was quite thin, so scarring could happen quite easily if I had any large inflammatory acne.

Another side effect that didn’t really affect me (but I feel I should state) is that tretinoin can lead to adverse birth defects, and as such, you shouldn’t use it if you are pregnant or trying to get pregnant. Your dermatologist and pharmacist should tell you this.

Why Did I Stop Using Tretinoin?

Despite the adverse effects of using such a drying medication on my face, I continued using tretinoin because in my case I saw results. I’m not saying that tretinoin is a holy grail product or that it miraculously made my skin flawless. What I am saying is that it did reduce the appearance of some scars and helped get my acne under control.

Another reason I stayed on tretinoin was because I was afraid. I was really scared of the acne coming back if I stopped using the medication, so I just kept using it. This paranoia stuck with me all the time, and every time I considered getting off of tretinoin, I would worry that the acne would return again.

What finally pushed me to stop using tretinoin was a combination of circumstances:

My medical insurance no longer covered prescription medications, even if they were a generic brand. I would be paying the full price, which was too large of a price jump for me budget-wise.

The pharmacy changed the generic brand they dispensed, and this new brand was much more irritating to my skin. After some digging, I learned that the previous generic brand I used was no longer being produced.

These two things occurred at the same time, and I realized that I was tired (and so was my skin). I needed to find a long-term solution that would benefit my skin more than harm it. So I came to the decision to stop using tretinoin.

Final Thoughts

I have never regretted my decision to use retinoids, and I never will. However, I wish I was more informed of how to use tretinoin, and I don’t know if I would recommend it to anyone right away. I know there are many benefits to using retinoids, but after a half year for me, the cons began to outweigh the pros, and I began to feel as though my skin was suffering. Even so, I hope what I’ve written here will help somehow (even though this was a really long post!).

What I can say for sure is that if you do consider using retinoids, please make sure you are well-informed and you consult with a professional before you decide whether or not it is the right path for you.

Happy potato-ing,

The Pretty Potato