#crazy phenomenon. I don't know why these people think they know more about me than I do

[morangoowada]

I find it weird how people say that black people with lighter skin tones are NOT black... I've dealt with multiple people thinking they understand more about my identity than I do, they claim that I'm not dark enough, but I still suffer from racism because of my skin color, they claim I'm not welcome in black spaces, but I'm also not welcome in white spaces, or even worse they treat like the racism I suffer from is less validating than the racism a dark skinned black person would suffer.... This is a phenomenon that I see happening a lot here in Brazil for some reason, it's like we are unwelcome everywhere... A white person thinks I'm too dark, a black person thinks I'm too light??? Where do I belong??

[schizopositivity]

My partner just showed me the strangest video that came up on their tiktok. The video was of a woman that said something along the lines of "Did you know all schizophrenic people smell bad? They just have a bad odor that is always present. Even if they shower, and use deodorant, they just smell bad constantly for their whole life."

And that video was stitched by some guy wearing scrubs who said something like "actually this is true, here is one article from the 70's of a psychiatrist who had noticed that a lot of his schizophrenic patients smelled bad". So, someone posing as a medical care worker saying this is true, but his only evidence is that one psychiatrist said this once. No trials, no real evidence, not even an attempt at an explanation on why they think every schizophrenic person just smells bad all the time.

But the most absurd part about this is that there wasn't a single comment disagreeing or asking for proof of this supposed phenomenon. It was just full of people saying "I knew a schizophrenic person and they always smelled bad!" or "I've noticed this too! They always just smell awful!"

There's so many things wrong with this. First off, they are being vague as hell, "smell bad" could mean many different types of smell, and can be caused by so many different things. Second, like I said, absolutely no proof at all, but they say it as if it is an undisputed fact. People are so quick to bully people with schizophrenia, that they don't even check that this is legit, or even sensical. Third, how do they think this would be true? You could argue that schizophrenic people are more likely to be homeless and not have access to showers or hygiene products. You could argue that schizophrenic people could be mentally ill to the point where they neglect their hygiene for long periods of time. But the first speaker went out of her way to clarify that the bad smell is there even after showering and deodorant. So do they think that this is an innate biological side effect of having schizophrenia? How would that even work? The more you think about this whole thing the less sense it makes.

This was just a ramble about a great example of how people with schizophrenia are consistently harassed and dehumanized. And no one will stand up for us, or even question it, because so many people view us as less than human. We deal with so much stigma that makes people believe we are dangerous, crazy, unintelligent, and a burden to the people around us. But that wasn't enough, so now we are all inherently stinky, just always smell bad, and they present that as a fact. It just goes to show how so many people don't care what we as schizophrenic people will think about it, or how it will affect us, because they simply do not care about us at all. They don't consider us as equal. As humans who are the ones experiencing the stigma along with our mental illness, and have to face each day with the weight of both on our shoulders. With no relief given to us from the people who have the privilege of not experiencing either one.

Not all schizophrenic people smell bad. That is just a lie that people are willing to believe because they already don't care about us as people.

[disneyprincemuke]

what if i told you that i've fallen? * ls2

[part one out of eight]

and what do you do when you fall in love with the person you swear is your best friend in the entire world?

pairings: logan sargeant x fem!driver

notes: u don't have to be acquainted with the original series to read and enjoy this i promise there's context here like i swear i swear i-

this is also A STANDALONE FIC OK THIS Is juST THEIR MEGA TIMELINE FIC WHERE whaT IF i entertained the idea of them ending up together xoxo <3

wc: 6.2k

(series masterlist) | (through the years)

2020

girls and guys can always be just friends for the rest of their lives. realistically, it isn’t that difficult to prove it: her friendship with oscar has always been the one remaining evidence that it is possible. and for years, her friendship with logan also told everyone that the phenomenon of ‘opposite gender friendships are impossible’ is simply a lie.

that was when she stepped out of her university campus one evening: a breeze blew her hair back, stray leaves swirling on the ground as logan leaned against the hood of his car. she felt her heart drop to her stomach when he looked up from his phone to smile at her.

suddenly her best friend didn’t seem like much of a best friend anymore. suddenly, she got giddy at the thought of sitting in the passenger side of his car; blushing when he put a hand on the back of the headrest as he reversed the car out of their parking spot. all of the things that he does have got a deeper meaning to them — is he doing that mindlessly or is she crazy to think that he could possibly feel the same?

truthfully, she has no idea where the feelings came from. up to now, she’d only ever seen logan as a best friend with whom she had several things in common. not to forget 1 of the 2 people who drove her around in their fancy cars whenever she needed them to. and not only that, one of the kids her parents let stay with them in their house during times they had to spend apart from their families back home.

“hey, feeling alright?” oscar elbows her gently.

the girl perks up slightly, turning to him with a wide smile as she blinks rapidly. “yeah, why do you ask?” she follows his gaze down to the untouched cup of mojito sitting on the table. she meets his eyes again with a sheepish laugh. “i just don’t really feel like drinking tonight.”

the sheer thought of having feelings deeper than the surface level for logan was enough to make her stomach churn.

oscar raises his eyebrow, glancing at the mojito again. “i don’t believe that.”

“i swear!” she shrieks, eyes widening as she waves oscar’s concerns away. “i’m just not feeling the club at all, actually.”

“really? but you’re usually in your element when we go clubbing,” oscar frowns, taking the mojito into his hands and starting to drink it immediately. it’s odd that she’s not out on the dance floor, creating a small dance party with random goers. “is something wrong? you can talk to me.”

she looks over her shoulder as the sight of her best friend on the dance floor with another girl greets her once more. it’s only complicated because she got him that girl the minute they stepped into the club. it’s what logan always teases her about being able to score him dates and girls even better than he could all by himself. she has this way of talking him up where girls immediately fall for him. it’s a power, even.

he praises her for that all the time.

as much as she’s convinced that this crush would never develop into something more than it is, it worries her. this one is different. she knows by heart because she’s never been kept up all night by anything before — not even her toughest days in school had gotten her this stressed.

racing, maybe, but nothing else.

and she knows she can’t talk to oscar about this. so she takes a deep breath and shakes her head again. “it’s nothing. i think i’ll just order some bar food.” she scooches out of their booth. “do you want any?”

“i’m alright, mate,” oscar grins. he waves goodbye to her, watching her disappear into the crowd. he turns to lily. “did you notice that? she was acting weird, wasn’t she? it’s not just me?”

lily nods, taking a sip from the mojito that the young girl left behind. “it is. we should try and figure that out soon before it gets bad.”

logan couldn’t tell you when he started seeing his best friend as more than just a friend. it came randomly.

the last time he remembered feeling normal about her was the night they all slept in his room the night before her first race in formula 3. someone was shivering and it sure as hell was not the guy sleeping next to him on the other bed with a blanket strewn over his shoulders tightly. when he sat up, he snorted when he saw the younger girl curled up into a ball as her teeth softly chattered.

he sighed as he got up to his feet, picking up the blankets that she’d conveniently kicked down to the ground sometime during her slumber. he would never have noticed if he hadn’t stepped on it, her stuffed animal lying on the ground, abandoned and betrayed by her after she discarded everything on the bed with her initially.

he remembers that he laughed as he lifted her arm, placing the stuffed animal under her arms. and he thought that she looked so adorable nuzzling her cheek into the plushie, falling into an even deeper sleep.

what got him was when he laid the blanket over her. she pulled the blankets around herself a little tighter, smiling in satisfaction as she felt her body start to warm up. “thanks,” she whispered before abruptly snoring again.

he felt his heart go heavy at the sight, thumping against his chest as she sighed heavily. suddenly his head starts to spin and he feels something he’s never really felt for anyone before.

and, oh, god. he needs to sit down.

he sat at the edge of her bed, scratching his head as both of his friends slept. he looked over at her and felt something tugging at his heart and he knew instantly that it was over for him and the way he looked at her.

he thought it was just a fleeting crush and something that would eventually go away. but it’s been 2 weeks and he still hasn’t been able to push away the nagging feeling in his chest. everything just leads back to the girl with the seemingly brightest smile and most hypnotising eyes.

it wasn’t long until he felt like he could burst from the way he felt. which is why he’s now sitting opposite oscar, at brunch, while they wait for her and lily to arrive from stopping by at a bakery not too far away. he’s bearing holes into oscar’s head, waiting to catch his attention, but the australian seems to be too caught up with what’s on his phone than his friend quietly breaking down across the table.

“oscar,” logan finally says, hand darting out to try and catch his attention. “mate, i need to tell you something. it’s important.”

“oh, you never really have anything serious to say.” oscar puts his phone down on the table, pressing his lips together. he folds his arms and leans on the table. “did you do something bad again? you have to tell her dad this time, i can’t keep doing that for you, mate.”

“no, no,” logan sighs, shaking his head. “i’m serious. this is serious. like, you can’t tell lily at all.”

“wha–“

“i know you tell lily everything, no shame in that. but you really cannot tell her this one.”

oscar furrows his eyebrows. “you’re kind of scaring me. how serious is this thing you’ve done?”

“insanely serious.” logan puts his palm on the table. “mate, i think i’m in love.”

out of all the girls that logan has ever been with, he’s never once said that he’s in love. or at least said it out loud. if oscar is hearing about it for the first time since they met years ago, logan must be pretty serious about this.

logan’s just never been the type to commit to anyone, more or less ever claiming that he is in love with any of the girls that he’s gone out on a date with.

oscar looks around, worried that the girls may have already arrived and overheard his friend. “you’ve never ever said that before. are you serious?” logan nods. “like for real, serious? you’re sure about this girl?”

“that’s the thing.” logan starts to play with the menu, opening and closing it as he tries to play off the severity of his feelings. “i don’t know. but it’s been bugging me for weeks now. i can’t get her out of my head.”

“it must be serious if this has been going on for weeks,” oscar scoffs with a small smile. “how long have you known her?”

logan contemplates telling oscar the truth. will oscar ever slip up and tell her about his feelings? and what will happen if it changes everything and he loses his best friends? literally, the people he knows are his ride-or-die.

“you have no idea the severity. it’s–“

“why are you hunched over whispering like a bunch of schoolgirls with gossip?” she snorts, patting logan on the shoulder as she slots herself in the empty spot next to him in the booth. “anything to tell me?”

logan shakes his head, moving in further to give her the spot. “nope, nothing.”

without anything said, oscar feels like logan’s already told him everything. typically, she’s always in the knows of anything feelings-related, or anything that has to do with a crush. and he knows logan doesn’t mind that lily knows. the arrows are only pointing at one possible person present in the room.

but it can’t be. they’re all best friends.

“ah, keeping secrets now, i see,” she hums, narrowing her eyes down into a suspicious stare.

“way to hold it against me, mate,” logan scoffs, picking up the menu from the table. he glances at oscar across the table who raises his eyebrows at him.

logan, already knowing that he’s caught on, just nods in devastation. in a way that oscar’s never seen him before and that in itself is concerning.

the feeling never stops gnawing at her when she lies awake at night in her bed. she tosses and turns for hours, biting her fingernails as she tugs on her hair in frustration.

her lock screen, a picture of the 3 of them at a track from just a couple of days ago, consumes her. she’s come to overanalyse everything: his hand placements in pictures, their text messages, the way he speaks to her, everything that he does seems to mean more than it used to. and it should not be this way at all.

he is her best friend, after all. and what would she know about crushes and love? she could have been a small percentage of the population that grew up without really having one. it’s not something she concerned herself about over the years.

of course, she allowed herself that one boyfriend when she was 16. but even now she knows that that was not love.

could this be love? surely not — not with her best friend.

not with the boy who moved into her house when she was 13 to live with them for some months of the year, then leaving to spend the holidays with his family in florida. it’s not fair that she is consumed whole by the thought of being his girl.

because when you grow up alongside people, you tend to know the worst side of them. especially when you live together.

but why is it that, as aware as she is of logan’s flaws and everything that made girls want to walk away, she still longs to have him all to herself?

she hears his voice mixed with oscar’s from the next room over. it seems that they are also kept up by something that doesn’t seem to concern her. should she join them for another sleepless night like she typically does?

but it seems to be almost crossing the line of the boundaries of late night conversations they seem to be having. she hums, dropping her phone next to her head as she rolls over to lie on her back.

she looks up at the ceiling and tries to map the past couple of years and how it’s led her here. her heart thumps in her chest as she thinks of the green eyes that have captivated her lately, breathing shakily as the urge to stare into it at this very moment grows.

but she doesn’t know that in the next room over, the older boy feels the same way about her. technically, all her tossing and turning, fears of losing him over feelings that are slowly festering in her gut, are all for nothing. because if she got up right now and just laid it all out for him, he would be okay with it. he’d welcome it with open arms.

not knowing if he feels the same is what scares her the most.

a knock on the door makes her jump, sitting up dishevelled as she turns her attention to the door. she should be asleep for her classes tomorrow — which she would have been if logan hadn’t taken up every inch of space in her mind — so if that’s a test from her parents, it’s over for her.

“it’s us.”

she scrambles out of bed, keeping her footsteps soft to avoid the notion of announcing that she’s out of bed. when she opens the door, it’s come to her surprise that they’re wearing jackets and pants. oscar holds up his car keys with a small grin. “we’re hungry.”

“i’ve got classes tomorrow,” she says in a whisper as she avoids logan’s stare that’s boring holes into her skull.

logan shrugs. “and you’re still awake,” he’s the first to walk towards the stairs and beckons his two friends to follow him, “come on, we were craving ice cream. thank god you’re awake.”

she looks down at herself, in her pyjamas and then glances over at her friends with furrowed eyebrows. “i’m not dressed to head out. could you give me like 5 minutes to change at least?”

“no time for that,” oscar frowns, “do you wanna get caught?”

“besides, i brought an extra jacket for you. your mum would flip if she sees one of your jackets was used, no?” logan stops at the top of the stairs, holding up one of his smaller jackets in the air to show it to her. “i reckon we should get a move before your parents hear you out of bed, dude.”

she takes a deep breath, her gaze softening at the jacket that’s held in the air. it’s not that cold out, so she would definitely do without a jacket. but the thought of being wrapped in a jacket that belonged to logan — with his smell and the whole shebang — almost brings her to her knees. and going to sleep with his cologne all over her? it’s enough to make a typically emotionless woman cry.

“mate, do you wanna come or not?” oscar whispers, still towering over her at her door.

she nods, slowly closing the door behind her as she tries to run silently to the stairs where logan is. “does it smell like you? cause that would be kind of gross.”

a lie: she literally wants it to smell like him. just so she can have a sliver of what it feels like to be his.

“nope. that’s clean.” logan smiles proudly, holding up the jacket with both hands, opening it wide for her to wear it. while normally it would be an issue if it smelled like logan (which is why he took a fresh jacket out of his closet), it’s all she wants right now — to go to bed smelling like him to replace the emptiness of sleeping by herself.

she slots an arm into the jacket, thanking him softly as she feels her cheeks heat up at the gesture. and this is what it’s like suddenly overthinking every interaction she has with logan. did he always used to do this or is everything amplified by the thought of her heart suddenly beating for him?

did his actions always have this romantic intonation in them and she was too stupid to notice, or has it always been this way?

she freezes as logan circles her, pulling the jacket down her shoulders before he zips it up for her. he tugs on it gently and pats her shoulder. “warm enough? i’ve got a thicker jacket if you need one.”

she shakes her head, eyes wide as she looks up at him. he doesn’t seem to notice; turning towards the stairs to make their way to the car. oscar walks past them and shakes the keys as softly as he can. “let’s go. i’m starving.”

she watches the 2 boys walk down the stairs, frozen in the ground at their interaction. she sucks in a deep breath as she tries to process everything: the way he was so close to her and how his gesture was so familiar yet so unfamiliar at the same time.

“mate, let’s go,” oscar scolds, beckoning her from the bottom of the stairs. “i’ll leave you behind if you’re not down here in the next 15 seconds.”

“okay, be patient!” she squeaks, jumping from her spot to rush towards oscar.

by the door, logan keeps a tight grip on the front door as he can barely glance at her happily jumping down the steps. the sight fills his chest with such warmth that he’s never felt before and even forces a small smile on his face that he doesn’t notice.

the gesture with the jacket took everything of his soul to do. it would be crazy for her not to notice the way his hands shook as he zipped the jacket up for her, his breaths shaking as he stood inches away from her. it’s odd because they’ve spent so many years together yet there is this sudden shyness that he cannot seem to escape.

surely she’s starting to catch on as well, right?

he doesn’t even notice that she’s passed him, muttering ‘shotgun’ as she jogs over to the front seat of the car happily. oscar pats him on the shoulder and shoots him a mean glare to snap him out of his trance.

“if you’re going to be this obvious, i’d be more shocked that she hasn’t caught on yet,” oscar mutters with caution before walking out.

logan drags his feet out of the house, slumping his shoulders when he realises that he has to sit at the back. he just shrugs before oscar opens the door to the driver’s seat. “you and i both, dude.”

“see you later, mate.” logan barely lands a pat on her shoulder before walking away, approaching frederik at the other end of the garage.

she looks at the shoulder that he didn’t even touch before her eyes follow the boy now jogging towards his friend. is she going insane or is logan avoiding her?

since they’d gone and grabbed food together 3 weeks ago, it’s been different. logan’s been speaking to her less, keeping conversations short and he barely even looks her in the eye. she can’t say there’s ever been a time that this has ever happened for this long.

she excused it for logan being busy initially, but 3 weeks is too long.

“hey, are you alright?” mick comes up behind her with a small smile and a hand on her back. “you’ve just been standing there for a good minute by yourself.”

“i’m… do you think i’m annoying?” she whispers, eyes wide as her brain goes at a rate it’s never gone before. she starts walking with mick and looks down, bracing herself for his answer.

“what? why would you say that?” he says softly, tilting his head. “did something happen? another reporter get on your nerves?”

she sighs, shaking her head. she looks over her shoulder again where logan walked off before and sighs again as she meets mick’s eyes momentarily. “no… i don’t know… i feel like oscar and logan are avoiding me.”

mick hums, looking around with eyebrows furrowed. surely she is just overthinking it, right? for as long as he’s known any of them, they’ve been inseparable. he can’t think of a time where either logan or oscar went without mentioning her once in a conversation.

it’s like their worlds revolved around her.

“i don’t know, mate,” mick slings an arm over her shoulder as they talk, “maybe just give it some time? it’s a busy weekend and you know they’re your best friends.”

she shrugs. “i guess you’re right. maybe they’re just busy.”

but she can’t just shake away the feeling of something not being right.

“i’m gonna tell her.”

“are you stupid?”

“what? no.”

“then don’t tell her.”

logan puts his hands on his hips, chewing on the inside of his cheek. he stares at oscar with a bewildered expression. “why not?”

oscar mirrors his expression. how stupid can logan be right now? “if she doesn’t reciprocate, then what are you going to do? we literally live with her. tell me what you’re going to do when you tell her you’re in love with her and she doesn’t feel the same way.”

the american throws his hands into the air. “i’m not in love with her!”

“it doesn’t feel that way lately!”

“i have a small crush on her. doesn’t mean that i’m in love with her, okay? and in my head, if i tell her and she doesn’t feel the same way, then it’ll make it easier to move on.”

“babe, i– crush on who?” lily tilts her head, walking into the room with a curious stare. “logan has a crush on somebody? i swear i had this same conversation speculating just 5 minutes ago.”

oscar turns around wide-eyed at his girlfriend. “nobody.”

logan sighs. “oh, lily’s not stupid. you know who i have a crush on.”

the brit blinks blankly at the 2 boys in the room. “no, i don’t.” she tilts her head as she threads the room cautiously. “am i supposed to kn– no way.”

logan nods. “yes way.”

“and you knew this whole time and you’ve been lying to me?” lily shrieks, smacking oscar’s shoulder. “why didn’t you just tell me?”

“so you could tell her and mess up our dynamic? no way!” oscar scoffs, scratching his head in frustration. “listen, i actually like living in her big house with her family. and i actually also like being best friends with her — she’s nice to me.”

“she’s nice to me too,” logan points out.

“that’s different — you’re actually in love with her.”

“i’m not in love with her!”

“you guys have got to start talking to her again,” lily mutters as she climbs into the backseat of oscar’s car. she inches forward and glances out at the window where the younger girl slowly walks over to them. “you’re killing her.”

logan turns around, shaking his leg as he keeps his hands on the steering wheel. “you’re asking too much of me!”

“i do talk to her!” oscar defends himself, throwing his hands into the air. “but i can’t keep a straight conversation with her without wanting to tell her that our best friend is in love with her!”

the urge to tell her gets worse every single time. she’s just blabbing on all the time oblivious to the fact that their best friend spends countless hours talking about how majestic she is.

“i’m not in love with her!” logan scolds, reaching out to smack oscar on the shoulder. he looks at lily and presses his lips together. “and i try to talk to her, okay? but it’s hard.”

and he really does, but she’s got this need for eye contact when she talks to people; it makes it all the harder not to start rambling about how she’s got him wrapped around her fingers currently. it’s just so unfair how she doesn’t know the effect that she’s got on him.

he can barely keep a conversation with her, his defences crumbling when their eyes meet, stuttering and losing his words. and for a guy like logan, feeling like this for someone is beyond his comprehension. it’s just not something he thinks he can get used to.

“well, you’ve got to keep it together! she’s been really upset lately!” lily mutters, smacking both of their shoulders.

logan sighs. “surely, it’s not that–”

the back door opens and the girl slides into her seat with a polite smile. “hi,” she greets them with a small nod. she doesn’t wait for a response before she puts her airpods in and starts to type away on her phone.

“i told you,” lily mouths to the two boys in the front seats, rolling her eyes as she sits back with her arms folded over her chest.

her jaw drops slightly, eyes watering at the conversation she was definitely not meant to overhear. she steps away from the doorframe she hid behind and slumps her shoulders. "you what?"

the two boys, engaged in a whispering conversation just seconds ago, widen their eyes as they turn their heads to the source of the shocked voice.

she had fallen asleep on her couch as they played video games on the playstation, and they had to have a private conversation about logan’s lingering stares and silent pining.

immediately, logan starts stuttering and flailing his hands around to come up with an excuse for what she could have possibly heard. "i- i mean.. like-"

"the girl you fancy is me?" she asks slowly, then turning to oscar. "and you kept this a secret from me the entire time?"

"no, just let me explain, god," logan smacks his forehead, trying to calm the girl down. "will you listen to me for a second?"

oscar presses his lips together and drops his head in disappointment. "i couldn't tell you. don't be like that."

"you guys made me feel like i was going crazy thinking you didn't wanna be friends with me anymore," she complains, stomping her foot into the ground. "i felt like i didn't even know you guys so well in the past month. i felt like you guys were pushing me away."

"what? no, please just listen to me. this is all my fault."

"i thought you guys didn't even wanna be friends with me anymore. all of that to find out that it's because you just suddenly realised i'm cute?" she bursts, giving logan a look. "seriously? you didn't notice that years ago when we first met?"

oscar lifts his head, his look of disappointment quickly replaced by confusion. logan also drops his hands, head tilting at her response.

he had a list formed of possible ways she could react if his secret ever came out. this was not one of them.

"pardon?"

"we've been friends for so long growing up. you think that i never had a crazy puppy crush on either of you?" she scowls at them, wiping the few tears that managed to escape her eyes. "get a grip, my dudes!"

"what?" logan screams. "you're telling me i've been in over my head for literally nothing because you've had a crush on me too?"

"had?"

"you've got a crush on him right now? and me before?" oscar exclaims in disbelief, pointing at logan. "and we never knew? seriously?"

she shrugs, folding her arms over her chest with a smug smile. "i'm just better at keeping secrets compared to you guys, i guess."

she turns on her heel and walks out of the kitchen. “you’ll get over it. trust me. i’m actually in the process of getting over my crush on you, lo.”

but she’s never been more wrong about anything in her life.

logan leans on his car, elbow propped on the roof of his car and chin in his palm. he taps away on his phone as he lazily enjoys the breeze of oxford while he waits.

“i thought you were going to be late?” she hums, tilting her head as she approaches him. she’s got his jacket around her shoulders and an eye squinted from the sun shining brightly above them. “i took all the time i could walking out of campus.”

he shrugs, pushing himself off the car and slips his phone into his pocket. “traffic cleared up a while back. where’s lily?”

she shrugs back at him with a soft giggle. she jogs over to him and wraps her arms around him momentarily before quickly pulling away. “thanks for picking me up, by the way.”

logan throws his head back with a snort, folding his arms over his chest. “did i have a choice?”

he knew better than to decline her wide eyes asking him to please pick him up from campus after an entire day of classes. that, and that fact that it’s just so difficult to say no to her when it came to things like this.

“very funny,” she laughs with a playful eye roll as she rounds the car to the other side. “lily has something on with another module. let’s head out to dinner, you and i?”

he grins and unlocks his car. “yep. let’s go.”

"what's wrong?" worry paints her face as he starts acting calmer than before. her eyes follow logan's hands, lifted up to her face as he tries to brush back her stray hair behind her ears. "are you alright?"

"have i ever told you," he pauses to trace a line down her cheek with his fingertips, "how pretty you are?"

"only when you're drunk," she whispers back with a playful smile. "did you ingest some kind of poison and you've only got a couple minutes to live? is that why you're like this?"

"no," he shakes his head. a small smile appears on his face, tucking a finger under his chin to lift her eyes up to meet his. "i just think you look very pretty. i don't tell you that often."

she admits she almost felt her knees buckle at his words and melt on the ground at his words. logan had never been a very outwardly affectionate type unless he's drunk, so while this is expected behaviour out of him, it's never gotten quite as intimate as this.

she's had him fall asleep with his head in her lap before on the couch, but never has he been this close to her while whispering sweet words at her.

"it would be weird."

"it shouldn't be."

"logan, are you alright?"

he doesn't respond. and she freezes in her spot when his hand drags along her skin, cupping her cheek as he leans down into her. and he would have done it. he would have kissed her but something stops him.

it could’ve been the sheer reminder that they’re supposed to be just best friends. just that, nothing more and nothing less.

he stops himself right as their noses touch and sighs shakily, holding himself up with a hand on her arm. “i’m sorry.”

she lets out a soft sigh and forces a grin on her face. she grabs his shoulders to stabilise him, “do you need to throw up?”

“i think so,” he mutters with a hand on his chest. he turns to look at her with a heaving chest and puffy lips. “can you help me back to the villa please?”

she chuckles, approaching him with her arms held out. “okay, let’s get you back, mate.”

she stands in front of the bedroom door, stuffed bear in hand with a soft huff as she awaits a response.

the door opens, revealing logan in his pyjamas and dishevelled hair. he blinks for a few moments before realising who’s standing at the door. “oh, hi.”

“i couldn’t sleep,” she sighs softly, pursing her lips and slouching slightly. “can i sleep in oscar’s bed?”

logan blinks. he tries to think of what oscar would say if he consulted the australian about what to say in response to her question.

his heart has a simple answer: yes, let her spend the night in your bedroom. but his mind, clearly going with logic, knows exactly the solution to avoid getting himself into deeper shit: maybe you shouldn’t let her because it will complicate things.

guess which answer logan chooses.

“yeah, of course.” logan takes a step back and beckons her into the room. “what’s wrong? nightmare? watched a horror movie all by yourself again and scared yourself?”

“yeah,” she grins sheepishly, climbing onto oscar’s bed.

lie. she couldn’t fall asleep at the thought of logan and her almost kissing a week ago on their trip to the bahamas. and since oscar’s not here to put a stop to their antics, she did the one thing she knows would put her to sleep, or at least to a calmer state of mind.

“oh, what did you watch?” logan giggles, closing the door behind him. “do you need me to turn the nightlight on again?”

she smiles, shaking her head. “just insidious. i got bored while i was doing my homework.”

“you should really start watching that with someone around,” logan sighs, walking over to his bed on the other side of the room. “you know how insidious gets you all jumpy and weird.”

“yeah, i barely made it to 20 minutes of the movie,” she laughs, sighing as she drops her back on the bed. she pulls the blankets up and tucks herself under them. “anyway, thanks for letting me sleep here tonight.”

“of course, dude.”

logan finds himself at her university campus once more, leaning up against the side of his car as he awaits the girl to meet up with him.

he hears heels clicking against the gravel of the university parking lot, making him raise his head in anticipation with a wide grin.

“aw, happy birthday, dude!” logan cheers, opening his arms to the girl approaching him. “how were your classes?”

she sighs heavily, rolling her eyes. “horrid.”

“you left before oscar and i could make you pancakes for breakfast,” logan frowns, squeezing her slightly as she stumbles into his body. “we’re going to take you out for pancakes instead.”

“wow, pancakes for dinner?” she giggles with a hand on her chest. “how lovely.”

“and ice cream,” logan beams with a grin. he gently reaches forward to take her laptop into his hands along with the bag on her shoulder. “because it’s your birthday–”

“where’s my gift?” she teases, hopping forward to rest her chin on his arm. she looks up at him with puffed cheeks and wide eyes. “you promised me a present this year.”

logan blinks blankly at her. he looks at the way she’s cosied up into his body and then back into her eyes. “it’s with oscar.”

she blinks, taking a step back as she realises how close she’s gotten to him. “so you got me a present? how sweet of you, logan.”

“you threatened me to get you a present,” logan scoffs with a roll of his eyes. he starts laughing along with her, shoving her things into the backseat of his car. “as i was saying, because it’s your birthday, i’m giving you 2 options: to drive my car, or to not.”

he flashes her his car keys, dangling them high enough in the air for her to not reach them.

“i’m getting spoiled this year with options,” she laughs, jumping into the air to snatch the key out of logan’s hands. “i wouldn’t turn down the chance to drive your car and send you into cardiac arrest.”

she walks around logan to run over to the driver’s side of the car. “don’t forget to wear your seatbelt.”

“i wouldn’t ever dare if you’re the one driving.”

gen taglist: @33-81 @darleneslane @namgification @localwhoore @happy-nico @nikfigueiredo

[sysmedsaresexist]

To the anon asking about my username...

There's a bit of confusion here, I'm going to answer many of your questions but I may not post the ask itself, hopefully it'll make sense :)

When I started my blog I was heavily anti endo and I specifically posted bad pro/endo takes, debunking or just laughing. To this day, most of it is still pretty hilarious. I wasn't focused on cringe, but totally crazy, out there claims that made zero sense and were flat out wrong. Check out my tags #shit endos say, #shit singlets say, and my newest tag, #shit anti endos say, I hope you have a laugh at a couple of them.

In my pinned post, you'll see the thing that started it all. A pro endo saying that sysmeds are sexist.

I would also like to know how they came to that conclusion. I'm right there with you. Also like you, I still have many issues with the pro/endo community. I believe CDDs are trauma based disorders. I post research pretty much weekly about it (check out #debunk and #research). I think endogenic plurality and CDDs are completely different things.

And you know what, my pro endo friends support me. We're all learning. I'm kind with my opinion, I'm open to talking about it, we debate, we share resources, we change our views and adjust based on new info.

This blog corrects misinformation from both sides, now. Some of it is worse than others. Antis can and do spread just as much misinformation as pro/endos.

What I would encourage you to do is start with the multiple selves theory. It actually developed right alongside Freud's theories on hysteria (which included early versions of CDDs at the time), and if Freud hadn't been such a perv, it might actually be much more well-known. It's a nonpathological theory on consciousness and philosophy. People have been describing this phenomenon for a very long time, "endogenic" is just the newest term for it. Here's a couple examples.

2015 - at any given moment in time, one or another of our subselves is in control and determines how we think and act.

1987

2012 - this one has so many links to other people talking about this theory

2023 - These results suggest that the normative principles by which agents have adapted to complex changing environments may also explain why humans have long been described as consisting of “multiple selves.”

2020

2010

Like I said, though, you can find this stuff as far back as the 50s with ease, anything older might take a bit more digging, but it's not a small or new theory.

I think an overlap in language has created a lot of confusion, but it's really not out of the realm of possibility for people to be more in tune with these parts of themselves. It's been documented for over a century outside of psychology, in other areas of research-- anthropology, philosophy.

I'm going to be honest, I don't think a single one of the headmate sale blogs are real. I think they're antis trying to start shit. Like maybe one out of every ten is actually someone misguided behind the screen.

Even CDD systems still incorrectly believe in core theory, endogenics picked it up from us and don't know any better. System resets aren't real, but there are real experiences that can FEEL like a reset-- try being patient and educating people. Ignore the others, because some people just can't be helped, and you're better off spending your time spreading good, accurate posts than arguing with people who don't want to learn anything.

I forget what I was saying.

Anyways, I'm a pro endo sysmed.

I hope you'll stick around and see what's going on.

[h50europe]

When one side of the fandom lies bleeding while the other one is thriving or how I learned about fandom wars the hard way

This is a message from someone whose beloved ship rests forever in the depths of the ocean.

We had high hopes. It looked like our ship was afloat and ready to explore the seven seas for three seasons. Then, the show got a new showrunner who was very homophobic, and from that point on, the show and our favorite ship went downhill. Even though I'd been in different fandoms for about fifteen years and should have known better, I let myself get caught up in an unprecedented fandom war. Those who favored the Het couple were attacking one half of our ship, not just his character but the actor. Don't think they don't know what's going on just because an actor isn't on social media. We knew some crew members and learned that everyone knew about this fandom war.

The whole thing escalated until the show's final episode, which came to a more than undignified end after ten years. Knowing what he was doing, the showrunner wrote an ending that damaged the show and destroyed our ship. It was bad. There were words like, "Now we're dancing on your grave," and much worse. I was mentally at the end of my rope at that point. Then, the sets were immediately dismantled after the last scene was shot. It's something that happens very rarely when a show reaches some cult status. Our ship didn't even do a joint farewell interview for the fans because the actors left the set quickly and never looked back.

Why am I telling you this? Because I've learned to observe things from a certain distance.

We are fans of the same show but have different priorities and ships. As a multi-shipper, it's easier, I'd say. But those who are running amok right now because their ship is staying in the harbor while another is sailing away with flying colors brings back extremely unpleasant memories to me. But the same goes for those who are just as happy about what's happening and are starting to lose their grip. Please take it from someone badly burned: This is not a competition. This is not me winning and you losing. It's deceptive to think you're on the winning side and make fun of others for it. The tide can turn. We don't know what the showrunner has in mind. We don't even know that season eight might not be the last. Take what we have right now and be thankful for it. Enjoy it while it lasts. But don't be tempted to point fingers and mock others or say, "Your ship will never be canon. Mine already is. Your ship is crap. Mine is better." Also, do not be fooled by the fact that the haters in the fandom are a small group of people who only appear to be many because of their vocality and because some are playing the old sock puppet account game again to make it look like they are many.

I can only tell you from experience that we should treat each other respectfully. Not every Buddie fan is an enemy. Unfortunately, I also see another phenomenon that is becoming more and more common. Fans barely dare to post anything for fear of the crazies in the fandom (which unfortunately exist on both sides). Fans who have nothing to do with a fandom war want to have fun. And if they have a ship, they just want to interact with like-minded people. Which - especially on X - seems to turn into a gauntlet. Because suddenly, Your Rudeness sneaks into the conversation and starts pissing on the timeline. For clowns like this, the block button still works. Getting involved in any discussion is pointless. I also had to pay dearly for this realization.

"Never wrestle with a pig because you'll both get dirty, and the pig likes it." - Positive energy is much more powerful than negative energy. If you stay positive, negativity can't touch you. Oh, and I've wrestled a lot of pigs. Other than excessive blood pressure, gastritis, and countless sleepless nights, it didn't do me any good.

Stop participating in dick-measuring contests. Stop bragging about your favorite ship and how the others are nothing but losers. Stop saying we won because we didn't. Again, this is not a contest. We are on equal footing, and we can all coexist in peace. There is plenty of room. For everyone, for every ship, for every fan. Oliver made a single statement for those unhappy with Buck's journey and his current travel companion. He dropped it for good. And I couldn't agree more with the message and how he did it.

Of course, we would like to see more of our ship. Of course, we want the actors to have a relationship storyline to sink their teeth into, and hopefully, we get to see some domestic stuff and some hot scenes. But so far, that is fanon and not canon. So far, there is usually more going on off-screen than we see. We can only hope that this will change. Those who call themselves open-minded and tolerant while going on a witch hunt should think twice about what those words mean, and they should live them and not just throw shallow phrases around.

My wish for the future of this fandom is that it becomes a safe place. Safe as in a h*te-free zone. A place where no one has to be afraid to speak their mind. And a place where you can express (constructive) criticism without getting a shitstorm. Peace out.

[strangecloud]

Do you remember your first Skyrim playthrough?

I played Skyrim on the 360 when it came out. I remember the starting Helgen cutscene making me uncomfortable, being carried to an executioner's block. The character I ended up playing was a paladin sort of dude who instead of shielding or avoiding blows would use Restoration to heal himself back up when he inevitably got hit.

I've been on an Elder Scrolls kick lately, playing Morrowind and Skyrim and even some ESO. I think they're good games, but I believe I've puzzled out why so many people prefer Morrowind over the rest of the series.

When I say the starting cutscene in Skyrim made me uncomfortable back in like, 2011, I mean it has since lost any of that power. I've just seen it so many times. I think this is the core of why Skyrim, despite being indubitably an absolute achievement in game design, seems to be less and less appreciated as time goes on. Simply put, most people have played it to the point that it's almost like a solved game.

This is a phenomenon that has happened to me across some games, even my favorite game of all time, Fallout New Vegas. I've just played it so darn much that the whole thing is predictable, like I can see all the decisions and consequences without even booting up the game. This contradiction of the medium has been commented on and explored by the metafiction of games like Undertale. The artificiality of an entirely predictable system, no matter how lifelike, will lessen your investment.

And it's not the game's fault. If anything, a game being good to the point of wearing out its welcome with diminishing returns because people just insist on playing it over and over again is a crowning achievement. However, transcending that, making a game that's quality to the point of beating that almost invincible limitation? That's on a whole other level.

Enter: Morrowind.

On the surface, Morrowind just looks like an old ass game. Everything is a little weird, to the way combat works to how it expects you to visually navigate the world with directions, sometimes daisy-chaining instructions on how to get where you're going. You know, go here following a path, to ask this person who actually knows where you want to go how to get there. And then follow a path again. The game expects you to study in-game lore books to figure out what to do. Like, actually roleplaying a researcher poring over tomes for answers. It's real weird.

But it makes a lot more sense when you consider, all of this, intentionally or not, contributes to a very interesting result. It makes the game a kind of perennial experience.

Even if you know what you're looking for, there's no map markers telling you where most things are in Morrowind. Some things might be easier to do off the top of your head when you're familiar with the game but even then, most of the time there's nothing for it but to knuckle down and search around. Like, actually paying attention to the world instead of some compass or map.

The character building works almost the same. You can steer your character into some set of gear you really want, assuming you know it exists and how to get it, but until then you're mostly gonna use whatever fits. Random magical items are more likely to dictate your effectiveness than anything else. You just don't control your builds and progression as much.

And the main story and lore are probably the best in the series. There's just so much to think about, find out, and discover. Even the little blurbs that random NPCs will spout about how their job works are very well written and made with a ton of thought. It's like the anti-Skyrim, the more you put into it, the more you get in return.

All this to say, playing Morrowind is still a rewarding experience decades after it was released, because there's a weird kind of harmony in its crazy designs. It's like it was made to be played and enjoyed forever, there's so much in there. Even if you've played it before many times, you might just forget where an important item is and have to navigate manually. You might decide to make a wacky character that leads you down factions and quests you've never done. You might find out some fact about the lore you've never really thought about.

It just keeps going.

I'm not one of those people who resent modern Bethesda for "dumbing down" or "selling out". I love Skyrim, but there's very little it can give me after all these years. On the other hand, Morrowind just keeps on giving.

I think that's the difference, and I think that's why people like it so much.

[dr-spectre]

So brainwashed Callie in official content is cringe. Do you feel the same about it in Fanfiction? Have there been any takes on Hypno Callie that you enjoyed?

Honestly? I don't feel the same way about it in fanfiction. There's a lot of information and different takes floating around about certain things in the franchise so I dont necessarily blame people for using the word "brainwashed" for Callie in their fanfiction. The English localisation of Splatoon has said she was brainwashed despite other languages and the original Japanese version not using the word. At least from my own knowledge. So I get why most fans would take that information and immediately believe it's true.

Plus there's more people talking about what actually happened to Callie on twitter and tumblr which is really incredible to see!!! Im so happy to see Callie being treated with more respect!!!!! It is a night and day difference compared to the treatment in 2017 to 2020.

Surprisingly enough I don't actually consume a lot of fanfiction. I can read my own writing easily but I can't read others that well and... I feel really bad about it... but I have read a bit of this one fanfiction that got Hypno Callie 99% right. I fucking forgot the name but i was recommended it by someone in the past, it had "dome" in the name? It was about DJ Octavio and the Octarian domes.

The way they explained the shades was actually really interesting and unique! It's basically shades that play catchy music and that's how Callie got hypnotised. It fits in line with DJ Octavio too as he's well... a DJ. Plus daydreaming and listening to music goes hand in hand so it has some basis in reality too. Everyone at some point has been put into a daydream state when vibing out to music.

Although I say 99% because there's this one line that Callie says, "Are these shades brainwashing me?" And it was so clunky I'm sorry LOL. And there's this implication that its also doing something further to Callie's brain but it's not that explained well, which i really dont like. Other than that, my Hypno Callie content is mainly fanart and 99% of that has been phenomenonal and powerful stuff.

However.... my biggest fucking gripe in "fan content" if you wanna call it that is... timeline videos and people going over plot details and stuff like that.

These people actually do RESEARCH and spend a lot of time analysing the story of Splatoon and trying to put the pieces together. Yet for Callie it feels like they just do a quick read through of Inkipedia and that's it because they dont give a flying fuck about her character. It drives me fucking psychotic and i cant be safe watching Splatoon videos anymore. How hard is it to say hypnotised? HOW HARD IS IT?!?!?! JUST USE THAT WORD!!! THATS ALL YOU HAVE TO DO!!! GOD DAMN!!!! DO YOU EVEN KNOW THE MEANING OF THE WORD BRAINWASHED AT ALL?!?!?!

It's really disappointing to me that this outdated timeline video is the ONLY VIDEO to say Callie was hypnotised and not "brainwashed." And that... makes me kinda pissed off.

YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE THE CHOSEN ONE!!!!

YOU TOO!!!!

I can't even watch these videos anymore man. I'm sad. I'm not even trying to send hate over to them, they put in a lot of work... except for a character I really care about....

Imagine you like a particular character and you feel really strongly about them. Now Imagine people saying wrong or yucky things about that character and treating it as fact despite you knowing "Hey something is not right here. I think there's more here than people realise." And all the most popular and well liked content is spreading that kind of information around about your favourite character. It would drive you crazy yeah? I'm sure everyone has that one character in every fanbase.

Anyways, thanks for the ask! Sorry if it was long... I tend to ramble about Hypno Callie LOL! (Autism)

[pinkinsect]

going insane over shidou ryusei recently and seeing your posts about him being connected to hide songs are making me even more crazy. can i know more about your thoughts.. maybe what you think his backstory will be like.. (<- i have clinical shidou disorder)

hi sorry to hear about your shidou disorder. as a fellow sufferer i have to say it doesn't get better.

i don't have a set backstory in my head for him, just conclusions of things it's like from all of the supplemental info we've gotten for him. to succinctly sum up my thoughts about what his backstory will be like: Not Great!

tl;dr: there's so many dots to connect that anything could happen at this point. but i think that possibly, shidou's backstory is one of deprivation; either deprivation of physical needs, self-determination, or both. though i don't have a set idea of how exactly that may have happened, there's a few options—poverty, an abusive household, family members with too many expectations, too many restrictions on himself or his behavior. i wouldn't be surprised if he'd been arrested at some point (it's happened before. it could happen again) or if he had been in the foster system, where the aforementioned conditions occurred, given there's absolutely no mention of any immediate family members in the egoist bible—and he seems to really hate santa, though that could be for other reasons.

the rest of this is basically explaining why i think so—it ended up being awfully long (it turns out i cant Not summarize rocket dive/pink spider/ever free) so the rest of this is under a cut. let's go!

there are plenty of people view shidou as someone who is Just Horny And Violent; Born A Freak Forever A Freak. and you know what? i fuck with that type of character, but i think there's more to shidou than that.

during the U-20 match, he has his trademark "football is a biological phenomenon" speech (which is probably quickly overshadowed by its last line, "right in the womb," and i can't blame everyone. it is baffling), that gives us some of the first deeper insight into shidou.

"Every human on the planet wants to leave proof of their own existence behind. The act of passing on their own genes has been programmed into all living beings. They connect with others, wound others, do things that make them persist in the memories of others. Those who create something, those who want to become something, and of course, those who make children. They're doing something that leaves behind proof they existed."

shidou often says he wants an explosion, but another way to think about it is freedom. he wants the freedom to play the way he wants, to live the way he wants. and for soccer, that's through finding people he can create an explosion with—people he can play freely with.

(i think this has been acknowledged by other characters too; given shidou's placement on the Isagi Yoichi Type Indicator compass and noa telling kunigami to "take away [shidou's] freedom" by marking him. i choose to look into individual word choices in blue lock since kaneshiro seems to like making specific word choice relevant later)

shidou is all about freedom, and i think that could come from being deprived of it, in some ways.

a lot of the supplemental info we're given about him could be described as "things someone does just because they can." people often go through their lives taking certain things for granted, until it's taken away. once it's returned to them, you'll see a sort of appreciation that might seem a little out of the ordinary.

(personal experience, so it might not be great evidence, but plenty of people who've spent a lot of time in prison seem to gain a newfound appreciation for couches and making food late at night.)

his morning routine consists of "going onto the balcony naked and soaking up the sunlight, dancing however he likes, and yelling whatever comes to his mind ("stuff like capillaries and flesh rupture!!")." is it strange? yes, but to me it's an appreciation of freedom; one's free will to do and say anything, and to let the sun hit you while you're doing it.

something else that sticks out to me from the egoist bible is his favorite and least favorite foods; yukhoe and bean sprouts respectively. i normally wouldn't mind it, but the juxtaposition of something that can be so indulgent and really cheap produce is interesting to me, especially because of his reasoning for hating bean sprouts: 「フォルムが貧弱で萎える」, which I would translate as "They look weak and wilted," but the words used for weak and wilt can also mean "insubstantial" and "to lose passion." that extra translation detail could be a reach and extraneous information, but similar to my earlier point, kaneshiro seems to really like using words with multiple meanings instead of more clear cut synonyms. the top of shidou's scale being a rich, fatty dish of raw meat and the bottom being bean sprouts is interesting to me, and fits this picture of shidou that isn't necessarily hedonistic, but is "living deep and sucking the marrow out of life" in a very explosive way.

now a section specifically for hide songs because there's so much

as you mentioned, i really think that the hide songs will tie into shidou's backstory; an awful lot of the characters' favorite songs represent their character in the past or present. pink spider is his favorite song, and rocket dive is mentioned in chapter 253 in regards to shidou's goal.

for those less familiar with hide's work, pink spider was written as an answer to rocket dive, and the cd for the single contained a third track: five minutes and twenty-seven seconds of silence, then a short clip of ever free, the titular single released several weeks after his death.

all three songs deal with a desire for freedom, and to break out of the monotony of one's surroundings for something new—but with varying tones and approaches.

rocket dive has an endlessly encouraging tone, ending happily with a new star being seen in the sky (and this is a reach, but shidou's given name—ryuusei—is a homophone with the japanese word for meteor/falling star, ryuusei).

pink spider, shidou's favorite song, is about a spider so trapped in its surroundings it kills anything that comes close, until it learns there's more. and to reach it, it steals a butterfly's wings and flies and fails and tries again, and we never know if the spider succeeds at its second attempt at flight, or is resigned to watching the sky from the ground.

ever free's speaker is trapped on the ground, and faced with the questions "how much does love cost?" "can you eat a dream?" in response to their own questions about how love feels and what it's like to feel their dreams. but still, they dream of flying toward freedom, of escaping. like pink spider, and unlike rocket dive, we don't ever know if they make it off the ground.

despite the order of songs released being rocket dive -> PINK SPIDER -> ever free, i think that the order the songs represent shidou may be the opposite. he started, trapped, wings closed, uncertain, but had the dream of freedom inside of him. and though he may have hurt someone—or lost someone—in the process, he seized that freedom, and the expanse of the future awaits him to live in and make a name for himself.

something specifically about love being something that could be bought, or a dream being something that could be eaten, makes me want to think that shidou had a lot of expectations, or restrictions, placed on him as well.

hide in general is shidou's favorite, though, not just that one song of his. hide's live performances are high energy, and he's just really funny when talking to the audience between songs? it fits the massive amount of his songs are upbeat lyrically and about sex and desire, but an equal amount are about difficulty controlling unhealthy behaviors, cynical, or reflecting on one's own flaws and the loss of others.

the duality there makes me think of shidou's other favorites, chainsaw man and a clockwork orange—both media that can be, and often are, interpreted on the surface as simply spectacles of violence and sex, but are also acclaimed for their deeper themes. it could be like shidou, in a way. there's layers.

to sum it all up. i think shidou probably was in foster care. maybe was sexually abused. probably also saw a lot of bad things happen to other people, so it's nothing personal to him on a surface level, at least. he's out of that situation and deciding to enjoy the hell out of life. probably repressed and that's why he cries when alone at night (possibly nightly ?) for reasons he doesn't know.

[thealogie]

from one person who is Not Normal About These Old Men to another:

how come it's always men? at least on tumblr? like i see plenty of people thirsting over women or saying they like women but i don't see any of them going as absolutely batshit insane as we get about men.

is this just internalized misogyny? is it just because many of us are straight women? what's going on? i have a personal interest in this because i would love to be one of the famous people tumblr gets obsessed with, but i sort of wonder if (provided i even achieve that level of fame, of course) anyone will ever care about my art the way they care about the art of men.

(the exception to this rule is Taylor Swift. and i don't know why.)

anyways i know you probably can't explain this perceived sociological phenomenon any better than i can but i like hearing what you have to say about stuff

It honestly is just misogyny but it’s not our fault (for the most part!). I’m not saying fandoms aren’t sexist (I’m out here saying every day that they are lol) or don’t treat female characters unfairly. but I for one don’t have these issues and would love to be blogging about a slow burn gay subtext show with two women as leads. But there are just fewer shows where the central relationship is about two women.

Jessica Jones for me was the same level of crazy as any show with two guys. orphan black too. If they just give us media that scratches this part of the brain but with more diverse leads I will be eternally grateful. We are getting there, and honestly when it comes to movies and shows with one female lead, we’re so far ahead but a slow burn homoerotic will they won’t they with two women? I blame the industry because I’m ready to hype it and I honestly think that audiences at large have proven that they can enjoy women-led things.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

sorry about bringing a sensitive situation to your blog again Bpp but I can't keep quiet. The way people are acting makes me very uncomfortable. All you said was that even tho you think a BTS boycott is misguided people can decide for themselves and that everyone will do what they want, you listed the Gaza charity you're donating to but someone is calling you brainless zionist for that?? When 'propalestine armys' are already saying BTS should be held accountable for 'making them feel unsafe'?

BTS???!!!???

It's reminding me of when people attacked you for 'not holding Jungkook responsible for sportswashing' during the Olympics. People came to your blog, a jikook blog, and were attacking you for not allowing them to call Jungkook a murderer!

If people want to boycott they should boycott without trying to solicit support and then attacking people, calling them zionists when they say they disagree with their method!! It's driving me crazy seeing what's happening. I'm from the US. I've marched in protests, written and called my representative, I skipped buying a new microwave and TV system I've been saving for because a portion of my income now goes to Palestine charities, I talk about Gaza everywhere, but 'armys' on twitter are calling me a zionist because I don't think it makes sense to punish j-hope for Scooter Braun. For V's new song I saw people checking the catering team to see if someone there was a zionist! They're doing background checks on the CATERING TEAM.

What will these people do if nothing changes by the time Jin comes back? How will they escalate things? They are getting more and more angry and already attacking the members Bpp you saw it yourself.

Please talk about this. I know you're avoiding this topic but please talk about this. I feel I'm going crazy Bpp. The hate is getting so much the thought of Jin coming back to this mess scares the fuck out of me. What are your genuine uncensored thoughts about this? What is the worst case scenario? I'm thinking of leaving the fandom until Jin comes back because this is too much!

*

Ask 2: BPP, the ask about the boycotts, what did you mean by focus on tannies is misguided? Its a hard topic so I understand if you want to avoid it but I'd appreciate if you can you explain why.

***

"It's reminding me of when people attacked you for 'not holding Jungkook responsible for sportswashing' during the Olympics."

I think you mean World Cup, lol.

Anyway, me not talking about it is less about me avoiding the topic, and more because I've talked about this before and really hate repeating myself. As I said back then, the way I see it, what's at the root of this issue is people demanding Collective Responsibility. I've talked about this on my blog for a long time.

I talked about it when ARMYs where saying Jungkook should be held accountable for Qatar's hate crimes;

I talked about it when someone sent me an ask about Black multis calling to boycott BTS during the Black Lives Matter movement;

I talked about it when people asked me why I still support BTS even though they work with Supreme Boi;

I talked about it when people asked me why I didn't boycott Jimin even though he worked with Bobby Jung;

I talked about it when people where saying BTS should be held accountable for ARMYs actions as a fandom;

I talked about it when I said I don't hold Taemin responsible for Shawols attacking Yeonjun and other idols who covered his songs.

...I've been talking about this for a long time on my blog. About how the issue at its root is using BTS and/or k-pop idols as a proxy to punish people actually responsible because it's simply easier to use BTS and/or idols k-pop stans already feel they have control over. There's really no point talking about this, because what's happening here is a bigger phenomenon than just Palestinian ARMYs wanting to hold HYBE and/or BTS accountable. It happens with artists and their fans generally, outside k-pop as well.

Like I said all those other times, Collective Responsibility (CR) perhaps isn't a phrase we've all heard before, but it's an impulse a lot of people have. It is also considered by ethicists to be demonstrably and fundamentally immoral, because it is punishing someone not directly responsible for the beliefs and actions of another person, as though they are responsible. It's an expression of Association Fallacy (AF), the worst examples of which show up in our society as genocides and holocausts. Also, a consequence of AF is that it leads to purity tests, because then anyone connected to the guilty party becomes fair game. It's how people can rationalize scrutinizing the catering team hired for a music video by a k-pop group to use as evidence of a Zionist infiltration conspiracy.

This is something particular to me, and it is that I strongly believe in holding the people actually responsible, responsible. Because once you start using proxies or expanding that locus of responsibility, an impartial application ropes in more people including those who actually aren't responsible, and so it demands people being selective about who they think should be scapegoated. And 9 times out of 10, people choose targets they feel they already have influence or control over. It's simply human nature.

Because we are talking about ARMYs, HYBE and BTS, I'll give three examples specific to the fandom.

One.

Last year when October 7th happened, myself and a few ARMY friends were talking about the fall out and predicted that what's happened since, would happen. But the focus of our discussion was led by some friends who are American. America is the largest funder of Israel. If we were to draw a tree map of who contributes the most to Israel's military complex among BTS, HYBE, and the fandom, it would be US ARMYs by virtue of their tax dollars, discretionary spending on brands like McDonalds and Remax (notice Starbucks is mentioned in that article exactly zero times), and university tuitions and academic membership fees as some of the largest funders of Israel are American universities. My friend, let's call her M, said last year that if the focus is to have an impact on the situation in Israel, the largest focus would have to be American-centric and on established institutions. These were the arguments she gave our group when people were calling for boycotts of Golden.

Fast-forward to Winter 2024, Israel's campaign in Gaza has escalated to a full on genocide, people are more angry, more restless, and more hungry for retribution. Calls for boycotts are louder. I don't want to single this person out so I won't mention them, but to drive home my example, I've noticed one of the ARMYs calling for boycotts of BTS is a UC Berkley professor - a university that has long documented direct ties to the Israeli government, as well as research in the West Bank, and she's a professor in a department that receives Israeli funding... UC Berkeley in general has been in the news as a focus point of Israeli-Palestinian clashes over the last 10 years and especially this year.

Now, personally I have no issues with this person as like I've said, just because she's associated with a guilty party paying for the government's actions in occupied territories, doesn't mean she is responsible. However, the minute you expand the locus of responsibility, to use the logic of proponents of the BTS boycott, the question then becomes why this person is able to compartmentalize their receipt of Israeli funding via their salary and their continued fee paying to a university with long ties to Israel, why they are demonstrably still patronizing several brands on the BDS list, but they are focusing their attentions on Scooter Braun and using BTS as the tool to do so. Granted, it would be far more difficult to divest themselves from a portion of their salary even though it comes from Israel, or to stop using many of the American brands on the BDS list. BTS on the other hand, although they contribute significantly less to Israel's campaign of violence, is a Korean band that simply constitutes a hobby for this person. BTS and HYBE are far easier ways for this person to express their hate of Israel via Scooter Braun, all they have to do is not spend their Israel-American funded salary on this hobby, and so this is where this UC Berkeley professor expends most of her efforts - leading the HYBE Divest from Zionism movement.

In contrast to my next two examples, we don't yet have a conclusion to this latest BTS boycott campaign.

Two.

In Spring 2020, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement took off in the US and quickly became a worldwide campaign. Around the same time, Yoongi released D-2 and one of the tracks included a sample of Jim Jones' speech. Jim Jones was a psychotic cult leader responsible for the massacre of ~1,000 people at Jonestown, people he lured there under the pretense of a racial utopia where White, Black, and people of all races would be equal. Because of this promise, his followers were overwhelmingly Black. It is one of the worst mass deaths in US history, and it was the result of a sick White man hijacking the Civil Rights Movement. Still, Jim Jones' speech has been sampled in many works over the years, such as: Pretty Picture by The Used (an American band) which used the same sample speech as Yoongi, and Jonestown by Post Malone which had been released two years before Yoongi's song, also referenced Jim Jones. Both times these artists have referenced this atrocity without backlash or issue, and those are just two examples out of a very long list. That particular song by Yoongi had also been completed in 2019.

However, with the backdrop of the BLM movement, all it did was raise emotions to a nuclear pitch in a k-pop fandom where even the smallest issues become huge scandals. K-pop stans demanded a boycott of BTS and this included some Black multis and ARMYs. When BigHit released the statement and apology that it was a producer who had put it in, regrettably, Black multis strengthened their call for a boycott demanding that it would continue until Yoongi himself took responsibility, named the producer, and fired him. BigHit was declared a racist institution and every incident of Black erasure since then (such as Weverse articles) revives that assertion.

The fandom before Dynamite was far less fragmented than it is now, and so the response from the fandom was to rally behind Yoongi, and match BTS's US$1 million donation to the BLM movement. Several Black multis who didn't get their demands 'left' the fandom, and some became unabashed antis. Many of those Black k-pop fans support groups that worked with unapologetic racist white and Korean people during that time and since, groups they've not made the same demands of.

That was the conclusion of that BTS boycott campaign.

Three.

Many artists were dragged when it was revealed they would perform at the 2022 World Cup, because they were deemed as complicit in Qatar's human rights violations. They cited the Qatari government's history of hate crimes against LGBT+ people and minorities, and also the construction of the main stadium where thousands of migrant workers died due to inhumane working conditions. Some artists took that criticism to heart and dropped out. When it was announced that Jungkook would be singing Dreamers at the World Cup, people called for him to drop out and some fans called for boycotts of BTS until that happened.

Notably, many of these people didn't extend their calls to any of the teams actually participating in the World Cup. Many k-pop stans who called for Jungkook to drop out, themselves watched the World Cup. Several multi stans decided this was the final straw in what changed their perception of Jungkook as a good person, and in their support of BTS more generally, and unstanned.

Most ARMYs settled for 'condemning' Jungkook or expressing disappointment for HYBE's sportwashing, but again, it was interesting to see many of the same people happy and rooting for Son Heung-min. The response of the fandom to that boycott campaign was largely to ignore it, I suspect many people don't even know people called for boycotts.

That was the conclusion of that BTS boycott campaign.

**

Collective Responsibility is something some people are instinctively critical about, being careful of where to assign blame. It's why the only Korean company listed in the official BDS boycott list, is HD Hyundai, a company that sold machinery used demolish homes in Palestine; while a company like Samsung that invests in Israel and has an R&D center in Israel isn't on the BDS list, because there is yet to be a direct link between the work of that subsidiary and the loss of life in Gaza. Now, people are free to boycott Samsung if they want, but others are just as free to find the basis tenuous at best.

I keep saying people are free to do what they want, and it's perfectly natural and more than understandable if someone cannot stomach the idea of Scooter Braun working with BTS and decides to unstan them as a result - which, just like the other BTS boycott campaigns, is what I suspect will be the end result of this latest boycott if HYBE does not meet their demands to remove Scooter Braun this year. The music industry is filled with undesirables, and so long as BTS are in the music industry, they will work with them directly and indirectly. Everyone decides for themselves what they can tolerate - for example some people couldn't tolerate buying Angel by Jimin because a convicted rapist was featured on the song and they didn't want him to get their money, but they could tolerate buying and streaming Filter though it was also made with a convicted sex offender.

Personally, I was angry the Angel feature happened because it was one of Jimin's first solo American projects, one of his first introductions to the American public as a solo artist, and I felt he could've had a much better feature than someone many Americans already found distasteful. I believe I've been explicit about my dislike of Scooter Braun on my blog and about how I feel he is not the best partner for HYBE in the US. My views on his belief in the two-state solution and sentiments about Israel which he bases on being descended from Holocaust survivors, while admittedly complicated, only add to my dislike of him.

Still, I don't hold BTS responsible for him, and so I think any act to boycott BTS on his account is misguided. But this boycott campaign is what to expect from k-pop stans. It's happened before and will happen again because people feel the way they feel, at the end of the day. And because there's already a latent expectation in k-pop fandoms that you're entitled to a safe space in k-pop, and that companies cater to you. It's the flip side of the parasocial contract and how this industry has built insane levels of fan loyalty. It's why many of the people calling for BTS boycotts and HYBE divestment, aren't doing so for UMG, Atlantic Records, Warner Music, and a handful of other American labels and their artists who have more established ties to Israel than Scooter Braun.

As to my views on how HYBE could respond, I'm waiting till after the GSM on the 29th to form an opinion.

I hope this answered your questions and concerns, Anons. I'd genuinely prefer to not talk about this again.

[soupandflowers]

What are some headcanon you have for China?

oh man, you've opened a can of worms!! note, that a lot of my headcanons derave from deep china discussions i had with wonderful friends on discord.

my favorite one is that i think of him as aroace!!

don't get me wrong, im still able to enjoy ships with him (i do like rochu a lot!!), but in the grand scale for what i think of what is the best romantic relationship for him: none at all!

i just can't see him that way. when i first thought about the best ship for china, closest thing is rochu but even then, it never felt right. and i love my aroace china headcanon, because even after all this time, after everything that has happened, you don't need romance in order to truly live, but rathermore, love. in whatever form that is outside of romance. i consider his familial ties to be one of the most important things to him because of that.

and also it's really comforting to me, because even as a bi person, it's good to know that romance is not a necessity in order to enjoy life

another favorite is that i headcanon that he sends packages of food to kiku at least every chinese new year. ive been having a lot of discussions in regards to yao and kiku's enstranged relationship, to one point in time where they just don't know how to interact with each other especially after ww2. kiku would no longer be there at family reunions or celebrate chinese new year. id imagine there would be zero contact for the first few years after the war and then one day, kiku just get this random package at his door from an anonymous sender and no return address. inside, is his favorite snacks and ingredients for him to make a meal for the lunar new year. japan wouldn't say anything of course, but yao continues to send it year after year.

that said, id imagine food would be a crucial love language for yao. i have a cantonese friend who really emphasized on this fact about chinese culture. food is literally one of his best ways to show that he cares. a package to an enstranged kiku. a street snack at hong kong's doorstep. baked treats for macau. a recipe for taiwan. feeling down? let's have some dim sum and talk about it. its subtle, but it goes a long way. especially since he is an amazing cook.

and also he DEFINITELY has raised more nations than the current east asian family in the past. new nations come and go all the time, so not only he has raised them, im pretty sure he outlived a lot of them.

last one, but i also think a lot about when he was young. we do know from the davie comic that nations don't exactly realize they're.. different from humans at a young age. id actually imagine china to be raised by humans first rather than nations. id imagine when china first came to be, he'd rathermore wander amongst his people and their villages and got to spend time with the landscape before actually coming in contact with his government. of course since he is a child, people would take him in. as the people around him get older and he doesn't, the phenomenon around him starts to swirl and word gets out and that's how i imagine him coming into first contact with his government. and also isn't it canon that if you spend too much time around a nation as a human, you'd go crazy? that will def have its effects as well. just this poor baby yao that like.. has no clue what's going on and why he is so different from everybody else. and id imagine this is something he had to figure out on his own instead of other nations guiding him. id imagine it would be a while until je met someone else just like him.

thank u for asking!! this was very long but i hope this suffices ^_^

[puckpocketed]

on the topic of mutuals actually ! (+ my thoughts on blocking) long and winding non essay under the cut.

mutualism and friendship

it's come up semi-regularly in conversation in the past month-ish and i've been marinating on it so I guess I should write my thoughts down here.

i'm sure this isn't a groundbreaking brainwave no one has ever had before but uh . i think this is probably a product of having grown up with very little social media but i just dont particularly care for the concept of mutuals. i dont think about it. i think of people on here as friends first and mutuals second. "mutuals" is barely meaningful to me as a label other than shorthand for friends, and even then it is rendered useless by the fact that I think of some non-mutuals as friends.

idc if you follow my blog back, if we're regularly interacting and having fun then we are friends regardless of mutual status. the focus on "being mutuals" is, to me, a little impractical (and sidebar,, honestly its kinda crazy how divorced it is from the real human phenomenon of connection and friendship. hello!!!!! why we letting social media button supplant friendship and connection. not to be Old Man Yells at Clouds but what are we doing raising this generation to think about being mutuals and commenting/liking posts as some friendship obligation, on the same level as smiling at them or laughing with them. hello. what are we doing giving them anxiety about whether or not enough people liked their posts. what are we doing???? does someone wanna talk about this with me because it eats me up lmao)

I'd rather people follow me because they, idk, enjoy the little character bits i do + my unhinged liveblogging + occasional gifs and baking - rather than out of some obligation because we are friendly. don't put yourself through the ordeal of being flooded by sharks magma whenever they play a game just because we're friends LMAO i wouldn't do that for anyone if the situation were reversed !!

^on this topic, if I don't follow you back it doesn't mean I don't like you, I might simply not vibe with your blog. the decision to follow is not predicated on whether or not we have good rapport. it's literally just choosing to see your blog on my feeds. speaking as someone who has done a fair bit of leg work to curate my internet experience, following/not following is part of that. and I think of other people's choices this way as well. i think not vibing with my blog is fine! it is incredibly scattered and the content is NOT for everyone and that's okay.

on blocking

blocking simply aint that big to me. I don't take it seriously or personally if i somehow realise I've been blocked, and blocking others isn't personal for me either. to me it is, again, simply an act of dashboard curation. I think i'd be way more anxious if i thought about blocking in terms of liking/hating.

I block people for all sorts of reasons, silly or serious. Sometimes i'm just annoyed that day, sometimes they say stuff that is deeply offensive to me. There's a whole spectrum of feelings about the blogs subject to my blocking habits that fall between the two extremes. at the core of it, it's about not wanting to see them in my feeds. simple as that.

(by the by, I block from my main blog and not my side blog, so people can still see things from puckpocketed if they want, and I don't have to see them! WIN-WIN!)

blog =/= blogger. I try to keep this distinction clear in my head. when a person makes a post on their blog and I have a problem with it, whether it annoys me mildly (stupid rude shit on my posts) or genuinely offends me to my core (racism or something), blocking them is not about saying "fuck you". it is not the "I have moral highground" button. not to me.

everything falls under this umbrella: racism, misogyny, completely out of pocket comments on my posts, being mildly annoying. Blocking isn't personal because I don't actually know anyone well enough to hate them, and the act of curating my feeds ain't praxis. blogging isn't praxis. I have bigger fish to fry so to speak. I have a real life and people to care for and communities to build. I have poetry to read and dogs to say hello to. i got a whole life to live!

the content of someone's blog is a TINY portion of who they are when weighed against the rest of their existence. it is but a sliver of their life and their personhood. I see it like this: wouldn't like it very much if someone made sweeping conclusions about my personhood based on my blog posts, and so I try not to do that either. key word is try. I don't always succeed and I think that's okay. we are all doing what we can on this bitch of an earth <3 what is most important is I'm trying to give people the grace I'd want for myself. like . shit. isn't that what its all about?? (mini confessional: I was a mean and angry person for a long time. in some ways i still feel like i am. but learning kindness by studying it instead of having it baked into my brain chemistry or however the fuck other people get it has taught me that we have to try)

anyway if u are still reading this hiii!!! I'd say sorry i just wanted to put my thoughts somewhere but . well. its MY blog and i get to paste weird magazine cutouts and glitter to my walls if i wanna !!! thank u for ur time

[thelastspeecher]

eregyrn-falls replied to your post: “I've been watching a lot of tornado related...”

tornadoes are something that terrified me as a little kid, no doubt due to television. (i can remember a nightmare from early childhood about a tornado.) i grew up in eastern PA, where at the time we didn't have any. so it was the IDEA of them that terrified me. honestly, it still does. i would very very VERY much prefer never to live in a place that gets them with any regularity.

​i realize they're old hat for you, and that's true for anyone who lives with a natural phenomenon. you come to respect it, rather than be terrified of it. but for me, i can't get past the suddenness of them. the fact that they can strike in the middle of the night when you might have almost no warning at all. while they aren't completely unpredictable (obviously there are observable weather fronts and stuff), to me, they feel that way.

the natural disasters that i can deal with are hurricanes, and blizzards. both of those are things you see coming for DAYS. you can get out ahead of them. you can take steps to protect your house and your pets and yourself. (i mean, both of those in theory, assuming you have the means and the financial situation.) earthquakes and tornadoes are too sudden for me and that's why they scare me.

oh you're not the only one who's had a tornado nightmare! one of the worst nightmares I've had in my entire life was a tornado nightmare!

I think that what allows me to continue living in a tornado-prone area despite my general anxiety over like, idk, life, is two things: 1) tornado predictions give a crazy amount of warning nowadays, and 2) I live in a tornado-prone area, I've had a few close calls, but it's not like I live in Moore, Oklahoma lmao.

most tornado warnings aren't even that a tornado has been spotted by someone or confirmed by radar. most of them are "radar indicated rotation", meaning that a thunderstorm with a rotating cloud has been detected on radar. which doesn't mean tornado. it does mean a storm capable of a tornado and more likely to produce one, but it doesn't mean a tornado. or even a funnel cloud!

very VERY rarely are people caught off guard by a tornado anymore. FEMA says the average amount of time between a tornado warning being issued and the tornado or storm striking the area is 10 to 15 minutes. plenty of time to grab your emergency kit and go to your safe place. we have tornado watches if the weather is favorable and often know days in advance whether we'll be hit by weather conducive for tornadogenesis.

and even when we don't know in advance, like I said, we still have plenty of warning! about a week ago, I woke up to sirens, then ten minutes later, heard them again. which I knew likely meant a tornado warning had been issued (the first time, I checked my phone and saw it was severe thunderstorm and just rolled over to sleep some more lol). and before I could check, my phone went off, blaring the same alarm as an Amber Alert. which I knew 100% meant tornado warning. and it was. my roommate and I had time to use the bathroom, grab the dogs and emergency bag, and even take the dogs outside really quick to pee before the storm hit us! and we didn't have a tornado watch in effect. there weren't supposed to be conditions for tornadoes that morning.

and like I said, I don't live in Moore. if I did, I wouldn't even DREAM of living somewhere without a basement. as it is, I fucking hate that my best option is a hallway on the first floor. we've gotten tornadoes before. some have gotten close to me. one literally lifted over a building I was in. but thankfully, we're not as prone as other locations in my state; the storms tend to lose some steam by the time they reach here. and the tornadoes that do spawn tend to be lower level, again, because of the storms losing steam by the time they get here.

I know a lot about the science of tornadoes and grew up in Tornado Alley (or adjacent, depending on what graphic you use), so I know that our current methods are so flipping good at protecting us. we DO have warning. not as much as for a hurricane, but generally speaking, enough to, like I said, use the bathroom and grab the pets. earthquakes...yeah those don't typically give much warning, but that's something scientists are working on. buildings in earthquake-prone areas are built to withstand them (much like many buildings in tornado-prone areas are built to withstand severe storms), and people grow up learning what to do in an earthquake. (which is find a table to hide under, essentially, btw.)

no, what scares ME the most are wildfires.

you're flat-out fucked over by those.

[llawlieta]

What’s your most unpopular DN opinion? (It can be about canon, fanon the fandom)

This is a hard to answer question for me because I don't know that I have many unpopular opinions, or any at all?! So I'm just going to ramble a little bit at you. I hope this is the quality content you were looking for.

I am FAR from confident that my own characterization of Light and L is right, but I sometimes feel like my view of them is an unpopular one because I see different sides of fandom taking certain traits and pulling in totally different directions - Light is either dramatic with a hair-trigger temperament and ready for Violence OR he is very soft and fluffy. (Or, he is either constantly openly and shamelessly putting women down or actually a #feminist.) Same thing with L. L is very soft and gentle and full of angsty feelings, or (and I think the following is a view that some people have adopted as a rejection to the Uwu L ™ characterization that was king in the early days of the fandom, sjsksjd) he is a confident asshole with almost no consideration towards other people beyond what is useful to him to be able to solve a case.

But then of course I know this is a bit like saying nothing because all fandoms will do this to their blorbos, and all characters are more complex than you'd think from a cursory search through their Tumblr tag. I was discussing this with a beloved friend and she illuminated me by mentioning that fandom... just loves Drama and Heightened Feelings... People consume the source material and want more Feels out of it (especially media like Death Note, I'd imagine, which really doesn't spend more time than necessary dwelling on anyone's feelings) and so they take... Light having a yelling fit and make it a very prominent trait of his personality. Or L having a soft moment and fill him with soft feelings that are coming out all the time. Which is a reasonable instinct to have! even though I think the interesting part of those moments in canon is precisely the fact that they are extraordinary in some way.

So I AM saying nothing and this does happen in every fandom, and contrary to what that cursory search through any fandom tag would tell you, a lot of people certainly treat the characters with subtlety and pay careful attention to all of their dimensions. I mean, evidently, most people do it much better than I could ever hope to do!! (In my defense I have to say that if I stress myself out with writing Light and L properly in-character I will drive myself insane, so not doing it is Self Care for me). But, ah! hopefully this is still some sort of answer, anon!

The L thing bothers me more, because he is my beloved boy and because I think people insist a bit too much on the view of him as confident asshole who doesn't give a fuck. Cleverer people than me have discussed this, particularly in the Lawlight server in which I am, but L does in fact Give Some Fucks. I'm noticing it more now that I'm rereading the manga! A lot of soft little L moments are making me sort of understand why people back in the early fandom days really ran with that Soft Uwu L interpretation haha. It's not remotely accurate to reduce him to those traits! but it's not accurate either to reduce him to the opposite ones?

And I feel like the same phenomenon happens with Lawlight, My Beloved Ship. Sometimes it feels like, if people don't portray them as a very soft and fluffy couple, they can portray them as a couple that would be so toxic and unhealthy that they couldn't have a normal, loving relationship without mind games and manipulation always running through the undercurrent of it. Idk we all know these boys are crazy insane but I don't think they'd be quite THAT toxic!!

Rereading the manga has made me have the realization once again that (I think) L and Light honestly just fit together very well, and don't hate each other with nearly as much venom and intensity as one might think, and there's a lot of common interests and genuine mutual appreciation and fun in their relationship. Particularly in a no notebook AU where there'd be no need for 70% of their mind games of course lol, but it's also there just, like, canonically.

↑ they discuss the news and buy groceries together and read different books silently on the couch actually.

[molsno]

im the genderkoolaid complainer anon from earlier just saw your response- that transunity shit is soo bullshit 😭 (saying as a black person) its literally all lives matter for trans mascs. most trans men from Real Life aren't even that annoying ey're just the most insane vocal minority. i could get behind transunity if it was like uplifting trans ppl of any flavor no matter what (ex: trans mascs standing with your trans sisters when faced with transphobia/transmisogyny(noir), trans fems standing with their trans brothers when faced with transphobia/transmasc hatred then making out about it) but its just like ":/ Why are the girls getting more attention than me!!! I have it worse than them!!! [totally not bio essentialist]" It's crazy. literally most online subset of mascs. there's a reason many of the truthers r white they've never experienced or know what basic intersectionality is

I mean yeah I'm all for trans unity in the sense of sticking up for each other against transphobes and supporting each other when we're in need, but like there has to be an acknowledgement that the things we go through are not exactly the same and that there are privilege dynamics between us even as fellow trans people. I generally like to assume good faith, so I feel like some of the people who are suckered into transunitism genuinely believe that it's good-natured and don't realize that it's spearheaded by a bunch of transmisogynistic trans guys. I'd like to think that some of them can actually be shown the truth, but they need to be willing to listen to trans women first.

and yeah, you're absolutely right. I've compared it to "I'm not a feminist, I'm an egalitarian" plenty of times before but all lives matter is a great analogy too. a lot of poc have pointed out that transandrophobia truthers are mostly white, and I've definitely seen that too. it makes sense then why they all view oppression as strictly interpersonal, rather than being anything systemic.

something I've also noticed is that they use the fact that black men are portrayed as more dangerous and are thus subjected to more violence as proof that antimasculism is real. now, I'm white, and I'm fully aware that because of that I don't have the nuance to describe the causes of this phenomenon in detail, but it just seems so callous and cruel to use the violence black men face as a tool to strengthen their ideology. and in doing so, they explicitly ignore the fact that black women (and black trans women especially) are ALSO subjected to violence due to being portrayed as a threat to white cis women and white children. it's just another way that transandrophobia truthers demonstrate the biologically essentialist "afab = vulnerable, amab = dangerous" attitude that they've all internalized, which is wrong for many reasons, one of which being that afab people are only portrayed as vulnerable if they're white.

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

I can't be the only one (as an English-speaking non-Korean) who imagines sex with Namjoon to be especially good because we'd be able to communicate easily and he'd sound hot af talking dirty in English. Hearing him say "I'm gonna cum" in his deep voice would probably send me over the edge.

Personally, I don't care for dirty talk. I feel it is usually forced and unnatural. I know all the lines in porn (probably means I have seen too much, welp); I can always immediately tell when someone is repeating something they heard. I prefer people to say whatever is on their mind, whether or not I perfectly understand. Even if it's funny (keke I've heard some crazy shit), I enjoy laughter so why not? Sometimes I have to keep my composure until the right moment, tho. XD

I think Namjoon has a very sexy voice. I would be fine with him speaking his natural tone in his native Korean. I don't understand a single word and I'd still enjoy it. (I don't understand but I luv u, iykyk!) While language barrier is definitely a hurdle, I think nonverbal communication speaks volumes more.

Side note, I see "I'm gonna cum" not really dirty talk, but maybe a courtesy to announce before you bust a nut into / all over me. But, also, it has happened to me plenty of times were the other party has said nothing and I already know what's about to happen thanks to the wonderful off-key opera of noises. :D So I appreciate it, but it's not totally necessary.

If we're only talking from a sexual perspective, the progression feels obvious. Well, I am usually leading, so take that into account too. I would definitely be more careful if I knew there was a language barrier. Use obvious hand gestures, pay extra attention to sounds / body tension / etc (I can't talk with Namjoon's big dick in my mouth anyway), be more inclined to pause if I feel unsure. Someone can say sweet words that on paper sound good, but it's usually the delivery of those words that ignites the emotion. Someone can fumble though their words and make no sense, but you know exactly what they mean when you have context.

From a relationship perspective, of course, this can be a little tough. But many times it has happened when two people that are committed to each other learn each other's languages. I think that's very cool. Also, knowing the words in a language is different from knowing the nuances of a language. Language is a cultural phenomenon. How many times have we discovered that Namjoon's lyrics are actually quite intricate use of the Korean language? There's probably a lot we could never fully comprehend because we don't have the context of being Korean. Being open to these experiences broadens our views of the world and helps us better appreciate our differences. I don't believe we need to assimilate. There is something beautiful about the individual. Well, I would like us to be agreeable to a degree and give up on malicious intent for self-gain, but I'm no Anubis so I won't get into that.

Anyway, in some cases, maybe your partner not knowing perfect English is a plus. Then they can't understand your blog and be traumatized! :D

I will agree with those that say English has a lot of ways to express sex talk more effectively than other languages. For example, I've heard that people who know multiple languages prefer to read fanfics in English because reading in their native language feels awkward. But even native English speakers have a lot of trouble saying what they mean and meaning what they say. In writing and in person. You know what I mean...

Honestly, I think sex with Namjoon would be especially good because he sees sex as a form of unique communication of two bodies that simply cannot be explained in any other way (I am just guessing, I haven't asked him personally lol). Sex is taboo in many cultures because people who don't understand it are afraid of it. People have used sex to manipulate as well as to express their connection to another in profound ways. Keeping sex taboo is also a form of control, as shame and humiliation are tactics of control. That's not what this is about XD but I just wager Namjoon has some personal opinions about that.

I don't think you always need the perfect words to express how you feel. That puts a lot of pressure and stress on yourself. Of course, don't be belligerent! In addition, putting that expectation on someone else is hoping they can read your mind, which no one can. But if someone loves you, they will show you. They will learn about you, study you, do their homework about you. They will take the time to crave out a space in their heart for you. Communication is not only about words - that is only one of the love languages, after all.