#especially bc i would have to market myself i think it would just be really helpful

[angelmush]

i think culinary school is a portal to hell :) i would strongly advised against it :)

i appreciate u being real w me haha. i ended up going with a community college culinary arts AAS program because $$ and also if i hate it it's easier to change to something different.

[itsrlymine]

idk if you’ve answered this before or if it’s something you may not want to answer but i was wondering how your journey from the early stages of finding out about manifesting up until knowing you’re the operant power and your full potential was like

my manifesting journey so far

Hello my love! I think I just haven't seen the question yet but I would love to answer!

As far as I'm concerned, I knew manifesting as manifesting around the time I was 18 and in my first year of university. But ofc, I was manifesting the whole time before. The university I went to had the lowest acceptance percentage ever but I still managed to get in even with my grades that didn't meet their requirements and i didn't even do the college essay that everyone else had to do. I remember just deciding over and over that I would go there no matter what anybody said. I was told it was expensive and I didn't care, I was gonna go anyways. It was $40k/yr at the time and I got $36k worth of scholarship....... I just thought that was just luck.

Before then, I was obsessed with One Direction and 5 Seconds Of Summer like y'all it was bad! I wanted to see them in concert so freakin bad, it was like my life depended on it. I literally manifested them coming to my state and to a city that people don't really tour all the time and yall!!!!! I was like right in front of them and I def passed out hearing Zayn sing live. I saw both bands live together, it was incredible. I used subliminals to clear my skin in high school as well but eventually forgot about them.

I think having my dad tell me I could do anything I wanted is what lead me to believe that if I wanted something, it was automatically mine.

In college, I would always have s*x with the guys i wanted just by visualizing or saying they wanted me sooo bad (still works now!). I would make up friend groups in my head and then find that i would be in them not even two weeks later. I watched "The Secret" in my first year and that was really transformational for me bc I always felt like I was failing God and my family bc I didn't want to go the medical route/even finish college.

The summer of 2021, I was 22 and at home with my parents and broke asf and i said no more! I started consciously manifesting again even though I didn't know that's what it was called. I decided I would get a job in marketing that would pay me over $70k/yr even though I had one month of experience and only certifications in the field. Did that matter??? Of course not!!!!! It was remote and had unlimited pto and i could go on as many vacations a year as I wanted. I found out about the law a month after I started my job but for some reason, it felt so complicated and I found myself trying so damn hard rather than just reminding myself how I got what I wanted before. literally inner conversations, visualizing and talking out loud about my desires.

What made me realize I could manifest anything was when I changed my menstrual cycle and went to Dubai for free twice. What the 3d looks like never matters especially when it came to my cycle, I deadass couldn't see how my internal organs would change according to what I wanted but ofc they changed anyways. it was shortened and I haven't had cramps in months. Going to Dubai for free by imagining Abdullah slamming the door in my face and telling me I was in Dubai. I literally made a pinterest board of where I'd go in Dubai and I went to every single place. I would tell myself over and over that I'm gonna leave my wallet at home because everyone was gonna pay for me bc we are rich asf duh!. When I tell y'all that's exactly what happened!!!!

I've manifested so other "crazy" stuff but yea these ones definitely altered my brain chemistry.

[cherryrikis]

SUMMER ISNT OVER

PAIRING s2l park sunghoon x fem reader

WARNINGS eric makes a kinda offensive joke

GENRE strangers to lovers, romance/drama, summer love

SYNOPSIS driving to anaheim with your cousins was meant to be a fun trip away from the rest of the family. but when you knocked on the door of the wrong hotel room, the whole course of your trip would change.. and you’d find yourself missing a certain someone when its time to go home.

authors note - definitely longer than my standard fics (bc @hannicorpse wrote this with me !! ) but it’s only 4k ish😊

growing up in a big family meant your aunties and uncles had kids generally close to you in age. but more than anyone else, you always stuck with the same 3 of your cousins. danielle, eric, and karina. so now, you’d be stuck together for the next week as you drove through la.

“i don’t get why the drive is sooo long. like, it’s barely 40 miles from here.” eric complained as he saw the route on google maps. it was nearly 2 hours from his house in pasadena to the hotel in anaheim.

“how do you think we feel? we pretty much drove the same distance in the opposite direction just to pick you up!” danielle scoffed.

“maybe if you didn’t pop a tire and just slept at auntie’s house like we did, we could’ve been in anaheim by now.” karina. snickered.

“it wasn’t my fault! who just leaves a bunch of broken glass in MY driveway? and besides. i am not driving to long beach in this traffic.”

“you’re the one who decided to move up and out when we all stayed.” karina commented yet again.

“not my fault i didn’t wanna stay coastal. or in the hills.” “kinda is.”

with all the back and forth arguing coming from your cousins, it was getting harder and harder for you to focus on the road. you tried to ignore it, until you couldn’t anymore.

“can you guys just stop bickering? i can barely hear myself think, i literally just missed that last exit to the freeway. if anything, eric should be driving since he’s the second oldest, he’s the only boy, and he made us go out of the way to get him!” you announced in frustration.

hesitantly, eric reached out to tap your shoulder. “what now?” you sighed. “can you go to that gas station over there? i forgot to use the bathroom..” “eric sohn!” you groaned in annoyance, before reluctantly doing so.

despite taking an unusual amount of time to use the bathroom, eric did make up for his incompetence by driving the rest of the way like you suggested early on.

one minute, you’re closing your eyes to take a nap. and before you knew it, you were in anaheim, arriving at the marriott hotel.

the amount of luggage between you three girls was ungodly, especially since you’d be here for so long. yet somehow, eric probably packed more than then the three of you combined.

after finally checking in and hauling all the bags into the hotel elevator (since karina refused to get a luggage cart because she didn’t want to have to put it back), you were able to enter your rooms and relax.

you got two connected rooms instead of one big one, because it had a better deal. eric and karina shared the first room, 2343, while you and danielle shared the second room, 2345.

the singular hotel rooms alone weren’t really big, but it would still suffice. not a full kitchen, or a ‘real’ living room. on the other hand, both bedrooms were roomy and the bathroom was nice. so that was a plus.

during those first few hours after you had arrived, it was mainly spent going around grocery markets to get food and snacks to stock up the room.

but you all were starting to get hungry, craving some korean barbecue or hotpot. so, you were sat in some korean barbecue restaurant in buena park, cooking the meat before karina began to talk.

“you know, the pool is pretty nice and big. we should go check it out later.” she suggested, slightly looking up from the grill. you and danielle hummed in response.

when you got back to the hotel, turns out there were no towels at the pool. you had to ask for them at the front desk. so being the youngest, (and also being the one who accidentally burnt half of the brisket), you were forced to go and retrieve the towels.

“how many?” the receptionist asked. “uhh.. 5 pool towels please. actually.. sorry, i meant 4.” “sure thing, just let me go grab them from the storage room.”

you silently thanked the employee as she handed you the towels, before taking the elevator back up.

as the lights flashed floor 23, you walked to your room, smiling at any stranger who walked past you.

realizing you forgot the room key, you knocked loudly on the door as you waited for danielle to open up.

but when the door opened, it was in fact, not danielle. yet a handsome boy, around your age, with a charming accent. australian, maybe?

you slightly froze as the australian boy, along with three others behind him, stared at you.

“i- i am so sorry. i thought this was 2345.” you apologized, your cheeks flushing pink in embarrassment.

“ah yeah. this is 2347. i guess your room is next door. but uh, no worries. im jake, by the way.” he smiled at your shy figure. “so, what are you doing with all those towels? gonna go swim?” “oh, yeah. me and the people i’m with are gonna go see the pool later tonight.”

you awkwardly rubbed the back of your neck, scanning his room through the door frame. it was bigger than yours, but similar for the most part. two bedrooms, a full kitchen and living room. clearly, they paid for the suite. you noticed a pale boy sitting on the couch, staring at you. he was pretty cute. maybe even gorgeous. few moles, nice hair. practically porcelain skin.

you zoned out onto his face, pausing for a moment before returning your gaze back to the aussie who you now knew as jake.

“oh, you can come in if you want? you seem a little out of it.. uhh..” he stopped, waiting for you to say your name.

his words immediately brought you back to reality. “huh? oh. it’s uh, y/n. it’s okay i’ll just go back to my room. sorry again.” you mumble another apology, before leaving to go back to the correct room.

jake closed the door just as you left, letting out a laugh he didn’t was holding back. “she was so funny. she looked so scared.”

“who was that?” sunghoon asked. “some girl next door. her name was y/n or something.” jake answered.

“she’s kinda hot.” jay chuckled, nudging sunghoon with his elbow. jake and heeseung agreed, quickly discussing you and wondering if you had any friends with you. sunghoon quietly nodded in agreement. but, he couldn’t get you out of his mind. the thoughts in his head were practically louder than the voices around him. and he just hoped he didn’t accidentally mention it out loud.

however, the one thing he did say out loud, was suggesting to go to the pool. (in hopes of seeing you).

when you got to your room, you distributed the pool towels to each of them, then keeping one for yourself. you talked about how you went to the wrong room and laughed it off, but you left out the fact that all you could think about when jake spoke to you, was his cute friend with those moles.

eric scolded you for ‘disturbing the neighbors and their peace’ but honestly, you couldn’t care less. karina defended you anyway. it was kinda her and eric’s thing to just always bicker. they were more like brother and sister than your other cousins who were actually siblings.

later that night, you made your way to the pool. around 7:30pm. much to your surprise, jake and his friends were already there. “hey beautiful.” he teased, coming up to you from the pool, while his friends remained in the water.

“oh hey, i know you. were you waiting for me? didn’t take you for the flirtatious type.” you joked. “who’re your friends?” asked eric, not noticing the way heeseung had his eyes set on karina.

“right,” jake nodded. “oh, boyfriend?” he paused and asked you, interrupting himself. “older cousin..” eric grimaced.

“oohh.. um. sorry.. anyway, the one with the dark red hair is heeseung. the one with the dark blue trunks is jay. and the one with the moles is sunghoon.”

“do heeseung and sunghoon speak english?” eric halfheartedly joked.

“dude.” karina scoffed, slapping his bare chest.

“yeah..? we were all born here, in la.” jake raised an eyebrow. “so i assume you’re all cousins then?” he continued awkwardly.

“yeah.” you nodded. “that’s eric. the one next to me is karina, and the one next to her is danielle.” karina and danielle waved at jake after the introductions, but eric refused.

“don’t get any ideas.” eric crossed his arms, finally noticing how karina and heeseung were pretty much fawning over one another.

the atmosphere felt thick, and it was silent for a long while, before jake had broken the barrier.

“uh.. anyway. you’re welcome to hang out with us..” he shrugged, gesturing to their chairs before hopping back into the water.

taking up on his offer, you placed your belongings next to jake and his friends’ seats. you sat down for a moment, barely listening to how karina told eric can’t he just ask questions like that.

soon after, you moved to sit on the very edge of the pool, sticking your feet into the 10ft deep water.

you looked at sunghoon, watching as he had a contest with jay to see who could hold their breath the longest.

you noticed his habit of licking his fangs. you noticed how he’d often touch his eyebrows. you also noticed how he looked at you every so often, before hesitantly swimming up to you where you still sat.

“why aren’t you getting in?” he asked as he held onto the edge of the pool, his hands on either side of you.

“i will in a bit.” you paused. “so, sunghoon, right? one of jake’s friends?” “yeah.” he smiled, flashing his canines. “and you’re y/n, the girl who came knocking on the wrong door?” “yeah.” you grinned, mirroring him.

sunghoon hoisted himself up out the water, moving to sit next to you on the deck. luckily, he covered you in time as karina and danielle jumped in with a big splash.

“when did you guys get here?” he asked, finally looking into your eyes up close.

“just this afternoon. but we leave by the end of the week.” “yeah. us too.”

“so where are you from?” you question.

“west hollywood.”

“don’t tell me you’re one of those trashy hollywood kids.” you joke.

sunghoon playfully pouts, before breaking his act and laughing. “not even. i think i was raised pretty well.” he smiled. “but what about you? where are you from?”

“i live in long beach. but i was born and raised in beverly hills.”

“ew! don’t tell me you’re one of those trashy country club kids.” he jokes, clutching his chest.

you gasp, kicking water at him. he paused for a moment, before splashing you.

you and sunghoon were so immersed in each other and your conversations. you almost didn’t hear your cousins and his friends say they were going back up, after two hours of being in the pool.

the two of you stayed until closing time at 11pm, and even a little beyond that. you couldn’t think of a time you had that much fun with a guy.

“i had so much fun today.” sunghoon smiled with a genuine look of adoration, as he helped you up.

“i did too.” you blush before going to grab your tote bag. “we should hang out more often.”

“yeah, definitely. uhm, do ya think- do you think that i could like, you know. get your number? i mean, it’s okay if not. because like, if you’re not interested i totally get it. or if you just wanna be like friends that’s okay too. but like-”

you cut him off, pressing a finger to his lips. “of course you can.” you smiled brightly, taking his phone to dial in your number, pressing the call so you could also have his number saved on your phone.

“now we could call or text each other anytime.”

he smiled. and that was enough for you.

you walked back to your rooms together, but sunghoon paused before going in. “see you tomorrow?” “yeah, of course.”

“goodnight sunghoon.”

“goodnight y/n.”

you did in fact see each other tomorrow. while both of your groups went out, you two stayed behind to spend some time together. with so much spare time (and no car), you settled to just watch a movie in sunghoon’s room.

“what movie is this?” you asked.

“the notebook.” “oh. i never watched it.” and his jaw immediately dropped in shock. “there is no way you never watched this cinematic masterpiece. now you have to watch it! pay attention.” sunghoon exclaimed, pulling you closer to him by your waist.

by the end of the movie, you were barely awake. it was good, you could definitely agree. but, in the same sense, it was so comforting, it quickly put you to sleep.

you leaned closer into sunghoon, placing your head on his shoulder. almost in the crook of his neck.

his heart swelled when he looked down at you, watching how you struggled to stay awake. why do i feel this way? i mean sure, she is really pretty. but i barely met her yesterday.. he thought.

it really put things into perspective for you both.

despite this fact, he couldn’t stop himself from leaning down to press a soft kiss on your lower cheek, a centimeter or two away from your lips.

“kissing me on the first date?” you mumbled tiredly. “hey, we’re hardly here for 6 more days. let’s make it count.”

and you did exactly that, you were making every last moment count.

the next day, you went to the glendale galleria together. “i haven’t been here in so long.” you sighed, forgetting just how big the shopping center was. “it’s almost like this mall i visited up in san jose.”

you gasped as you saw a beautiful necklace. it had a dainty gold chain and a stunning pendant. “sunghoon? don’t you think this would look gorgeous with my white sweetheart top?” “i don’t know much about women’s clothing, but i know you’ll look good in anything.” he replied smugly.

“aw thank you! but- oh. nevermind it’s way too expensive.” you shrugged, going to put it back. but sunghoon stopped you.

“i’ll buy it for you.” “it’s okay, really. it’s too much.” “for that necklace? $150 is not a lot.” “but to me it is.”

he ignored you, swiping his card anyway.

sunghoon nearly bought everything you slightly stared at, despite all your protests. that night, you came home with bags of clothes, snacks, makeup, and just random items you didn’t even really need.

you felt so guilty, thinking it was a waste of his money. you wanted to pay him back but surely, there was no way you could afford it. yet sunghoon didn’t care. he wanted to see you happy.

you settled for buying him a slice of pizza from the food court or generally just any food he wanted. and that was enough for him.

on the next day, you even went to disney california adventures together. because you and your cousins just so happened to go the same day as sunghoon and his friends.

most of your time at the theme park was spent with him, often making your groups uneven. or, one of your cousins had to be with one of his friends.

you loved going into random gift shops with sunghoon, taking pictures while trying on mickey ears and random headbands. he even bought you two matching ones.

the radiator springs ride in cars land was jay and sunghoon’s favorite. sunghoon loved how he felt butterflies in his stomach. not only from how steep the slope was, but also from how you tightly squeezed his hand in fear.

the drop tower was a memorable moment to everyone. the picture that was displayed at the exit of the ride, revealed eric was actually clinging onto jake and karina the entire time.

“do not save that. if you guys actually buy this souvenir picture i’ll literally run away from home.” he grumbled in embarrassment.

“it’s okay dude. stop stressing, because you’re gonna end up grabbing onto me again when we go on the incredicoaster.” jake joked.

you all laughed at eric’s humiliation but quickly bribed him with a pretzel from the pym test kitchen (even though it was insanely dry).

you couldn’t forget about your last ride of the day, the classic, the ferris wheel. karina, danielle, heeseung, and jay, decided to go in a rocking cart. you and sunghoon, along with eric and jake, decided to stay in a normal carriage. but eric refused to ride with jake, settling for going by himself.

eric was one of the only boys in your family, so being around sunghoon and his friends seemed to make him feel a little unwanted. but you understood.

you laughed as you heard danielle and karina’s screams while their carriage practically turned upside down.

at the very peak of the ferris wheel, was where you and sunghoon had your first real kiss while the sun set in the background. “this is so pinterest worthy.” you whisper. “don’t ruin this beautiful moment for me.” he mumbled, turning to watch the view after you pulled away from him.

by the end of it, you were giggling like a bunch of high school kids.

when you walked out the park, passing one last gift shop before the exit, sunghoon quickly ran inside. and he came out with two matching stuffed animals. a baby stitch plush, and a baby angel plush.

of course, you were angel, and he was stitch.

the beach day was one of your personal favorites.

you had picked up food from a local restaurant along with some snacks to bring to the beach, like a picnic. after you had finished eating, you all went for a swim.

you and the girls were the first to get out of the ocean, watching how the boys attempted to drown each other. you murmured a few sentences between one another that evening. however, it was clear nobody was listening to each other. “no way..” you whispered to yourself as you looked beside you.

heeseung and karina were practically making heart eyes at each other, not caring about the people around them. danielle’s cheeks puffed up as she held in her laughter.

but, you couldn’t say much either. the whole time, your eyes only ever remained on park sunghoon. the man who had caught your attention from the start.

the tension between the pair was obvious. so, you and sunghoon came up with the ultimate plan.

sunghoon would complain about how he was sore from wrestling in the water, so he asked if karina could hold his bags. but, he knew heeseung would quickly come to take it from her.

after getting everything and everyone into the car, you set course back to the hotel. sunghoon drove single handed, with his right arm resting in your grasp as you played with his rings.

you gave each other a knowing look before turning around to see almost everyone else had completely fallen asleep.

there sat heeseung, with karina’s head buried in his neck. jake remained isolated next to them, his headphones on full blast, as danielle, jay, and eric rested peacefully in the row behind him.

you smiled at sunghoon, even if he couldn’t see it. but you both knew your mission was accomplished.

by day 6, you were back in sunghoon’s room again. just lying down in his bed, speaking out gently and peacefully as you held each other.

“if you stayed in beverly hills earlier on, maybe we’d have known each other earlier.” said sunghoon.

“probably. my uncle, dani’s dad, is a realtor, and he always sold houses in your neighborhood. maybe i really would have known you sooner.”

“this whole trip has gone by way too fast.” he sighed, his face buried in your hair. “at least we still have tomorrow.” you mutter.

“will we keep in touch?” “if this whole time really mattered to you, you’ll know. but, we’ll worry about it tomorrow.”

as your words slowly began to die down, sunghoon figured you had fallen asleep.

he held you tighter, bringing you closer to him. sunghoon pressed a kiss onto your lips softly, before he too fell into a wakeless dream.

technically, sunghoon’s room was really jake’s room too since they always had to share a bed. but, seeing you two together and understanding the situation, he decided to take one for the team and sleep on the couch (only after heeseung did him a favor and brought him a blanket).

and before you knew it, it was your last day together. you were sitting by the pool where you met. your feet and lower legs dipped into the cold water as you felt the warm anaheim breeze. same position, same spot.

"it's been a good week. best week i ever had. this whole trip feels like a long dream and i haven't waken up yet. like, im still in long beach, tanning in my aunties backyard." you say.

the moment felt still, everything was paused, before sunghoon spoke. "you'll visit me up in the hills won't you?"

"of course i will. you trashy hollywood kid. and you'll visit me down in long beach?" "course i will." and he pressed his lips onto yours.

a part of you wished you met sooner, and that you had more time.

when sunghoon pulled away, you didn’t want to let go. you brought yourself up to kiss him again, holding him as if you’d never see him again. because who knows when you really will?

you almost sob when it's time to go home, you think you really have fallen in love this time around.

sunghoon refused to let you go, as if you’d vanish into thin air if you’re not within his grasp. and you felt the exact same way. despite not being together for long, now you really don’t know how you’ll go on without him.

because now, the summer was over.

you two were inseparable in the moment, jake and jay literally had to pry and rip sunghoon off of you.

they were gone before you could cry, but not before he could kiss you for the last time.

“make sure to call me!” he exclaimed from the car, after jay forced him inside. “i love you y/n!” sunghoon shouted out loud, as they started to drive off.

“i’ll call you every night! i love you too sunghoon!” you called back. “more than you know..” but the last part barely came out above a whisper, as his car was gone into the horizon.

and after that, was when you finally let it all out. all the longing, and the heartbreak.

the downside of summer love, never knowing if you’ll meet again.

you sobbed quietly in the backseat alone, refusing to let your cousins see you like this. you couldn’t handle being around them right now.

for you, the amount of time you knew each other didn’t matter. it was the way you understood each other, made each other feel. the way you cared for each other, some might even say it was in the way you loved each other.

but now, it was time to return to your normal lives, go on with your jobs or school. your endless summer has reached its finale. but how could it end like this?

one minute you’re bawling your eyes out in the back of karina’s jeep. your eyes swelled up as you clutched your chest with a heavy heart. the next minute, you wake up in your driveway, watching as your cousins hauled your luggage out to your doorstep for you.

before you knew it, now you were in despair as you hugged your pillow tightly. your silk pillowcase was almost as soft as his milky skin. it was unfair. you had no idea if you’d truly keep contact, or even ever see him again. maybe this whole summer fling thing was stupid.

one good moment wouldn’t make up for all the bad that followed after. you began to think, maybe it didn’t mean as much to him as it did to you. he’s handsome. he probably gets around. i’m not the only girl.

you lay awake that night, torn between the feeling of his lips on yours, and if whether or not it’s something you’ll ever get to experience again.

but by the next morning, someone was frantically knocking, pounding, on your front door. it was much to your surprise when you saw who it was. park sunghoon.

“holy shit, you scared me! what are you doing here..?” you gasped out, still processing the moment.

“you’re fucking crazy if you think i’ll just leave you like that, angel.” he muttered, before pulling you in by the waist to reunite your lips in a desperate kiss.

you suppose whatever you were thinking of last night can be disposed of. he did come back for you, and you do get to experience his lips on yours again.

last night, you were crying to the point there was no water left in your body. only dried tear stains and your red eyes remained as evidence. but now? by the following morning, your lover boy was already at your door.

and when he finally moved in to kiss you again, you smiled, reaching up to softly stroke his warm cheek.

you realized, all doubts you had about him were insecurities. false scenarios your mind made up to keep you questioning.

because sunghoon knew he would never leave you. he’d say it a thousand times over again to let you know just how much he loves you.

the summer wasn’t over yet. not until the two of you were through. because everyday with sunghoon felt like summer.

[olderthannetfic]

I would never defend them - at least not the ones who actually harass people - but I do wonder if there's some antis out there who genuinely come from good intentions.

Super serious and genuinely shameful confession: I'm an ex-radfem. I went into those circles in the first place bc I liked some of Dworkin's works. And while I obviously do not recommend anyone ever get into radical feminism, I will say this: If haven’t been down that very specific rabbit hole of ideology yourself - especially in online settings - you cannot even begin to imagine how fucking INSANELY pervasive the ideas are. Even if you've been a victim of radfem hate, if you haven't been a radfem yourself, I'm truly inclined to think you have no idea what those spaces are actually like. Sorta like how if you've been a victim of fundie hate, that is awful and it fucking sucks, but if you haven't been raised fundie yourself, you really don't know what it's like to be IN those circles, just a VICTIM of those circles.

I hate to throw around words like “hivemind” or “groupthink” but it is that. I went into radfem spaces thinking that I was above believing certain things that they believed but I clearly wasnt, it is so fucking toxic and that’s why i’ll never believe that “TIRF” (trans inclusionary radfem - something I tried and failed to be) can be a real thing. And then these same people have the audacity to call trans rights a cult, but you know, it's whatever.

Obviously terfs are more serious in the "real world" than antis are, but there are some parallels in the way that both groups feel about kink/porn discourse. (No, I'm not saying that antis "believe TERF ideology" or anything, but I do think in the specific context of sex stuff, there ARE alot of parallels.)

I am not defending radfems either, but I will say that I got into it because I was genuinely worried about things such as: PH and how they just steal content from sex workers, the abuse going on in the sex work industry, the phenomenon of young girls who are waiting to turn 18 so they can start an OF account, romance novels that were not marketed as dark but should've been considering they straight up romanticized abuse and rape.

I really do think that most antis are of a similar mindset -- people, typically young traumatized people (not trying to pull the neurodivergent minor card, it's just that statistically speaking, that label CAN describe most antis) who are truly worried that, like, idk, some young girl is gonna watch Twilight or read Reylo fic and think that an overly possessive bf is #goals. Again, I'm NOT trying to defend this ideology or line of thinking at all, I'm just saying that i DO think most of them really don't realize the harm that they're doing, and actually think they're doing good.

I actually kinda feel bad for them, but like my earlier comparisons, I feel bad for them in the same way I feel bad for fundies or evangelicals. I feel bad that they hold such an awful ideology while thinking they're doing good things, but I stop feeling bad once they start ACTUALLY hurting people and I'll always feel worse for the people who they harass and harm.

And like I'd never want to be a radfem again and I hate that I was one once but, between myself and your ~10k (ballpark estimate lol) followers, I think that my time spend in that belief system gave me some really good insight to cult mindsets, which was something I didn't understand before or have much sympathy towards, and I've emerged with a lot of empathy for people who ARE stuck in bad ideologies. I could've been born into a hate group. I could've been preyed on by alt-right people and sucked in that way. Instead, it was reading radblr during quarantine that got me. Before I fell into it, I just mindlessly hated everyone in that group, and now I just feel sorry for them (still without justifying any of their actions).

It's honestly a really, really, complicated thing to try to grapple with. Anyone, yes including you reading this, can be brainwashed into hate. The second you think you're too good for that, you've lost.

This was more of a vent than a discourse ask. I guess my tl;dr is: I hate antis, terfs, fundamentalists, etc, as much as the next guy, but I also recognize that some of those people truly truly do think they're on the right side of history, and some of those people have been sucked into an ideology they never would've believed otherwise if not for xyz factors. While hate groups will never deserve pity, there are some vulnerable people in hate groups who for some reason believe they're doing good, and I wish I could help all of those people.

--

Yeah, I assume many antis are perfectly sincere in their desire to protect people. They're just wrong about what will work.

[misc-obeyme]

your post about the human au with beel as a farmer has me giggling and kicking my feet!! and now i can't stop imagining the brothers on their own little farm (writing this even though i know nothing about farming)

lucifer and satan mainly handle the finances, making sure they have the best equipment and techniques to produce good crops. the goats and sheep seem to take a liking to lucifer, especially the baby ones, who love chewing on his clothes. satan stays away from them bc they keep thinking his blond hair is food, choosing instead to coo over the farm cats

mammon and levi are the unofficial handlers and bully victims of the birds. mammon gets pecked by the chickens as he goes to collect their eggs, and he says one day, he'll cook them all up as revenge!! (everyone knows he's lying). levi spends more time with the ducks, where they quack at him on the farm and when he's fishing at the local ponds. (one time, a group of baby ducks imprinted on him and followed him home. it took forever for him to get them back to their mama)

asmo does a lot of advertising for the farm, with both his social media and charming personality at the farmers' market. he designs the cutest packaging and sews any holes that end up in his brothers' clothes with lovely little patches. his favorite animals on the farm (a couple piglets and bunnies) are marked with pink bows, but you could tell by how he squeals whenever he sees them

you already went over beel, but i imagine him still having his super strength and can easily carry adult sheep with ease. he also has gained a lot of (kissable) freckles from being in the sun all the time

belphie is a straight up cow whisperer, which may be caused by his habit of cuddling with the cows on their pasture to skip out on chores. but he's great at milking and can instantly tell if something's wrong with the cows, to the point that other farmers go to him in need of help. he's a lazybones hero!

aaaaaa the sillies - 🎠

Honestly, I'm surprised that little post of mine got so much attention lol! I was definitely thinking about it more in terms of what I think the boys would do if they were humans, rather than how it would be if they all worked on the same farm. But I saw a couple tags suggesting a Stardew Valley crossover, which could be all of them on the same farm or all of them with separate farms. I haven't played Stardew in a long time, but I am so obsessed with farming sims it's ridiculous. My favorite is Story of Seasons Trio of Towns, I've played it so many times and I still replay it from time to time because I loved it so much lol.

ANYWAY that's all to say that my farming experience comes almost entirely from video games. I took a class about plants and agriculture in high school, but otherwise it's all vibes and cozy gaming!

But I think you've nailed it with these. I keep seeing Satan falling asleep in a pile of hay, just completely covered in barn cats. Cute lil Asmo all decked out like a farmer but only for the aesthetic 'cause he's running that farmer's market booth like nobody's business. Cow whisperer Belphie, please I love it so much.

Also freckled, sun-kissed Beel... human!Beel would have so many freckles if he spent any time outside at all. I love this because I'm extremely freckled myself and it'd be really cute if MC had freckles to match his.

Though I actually hadn't even thought about MC's role in a human au. Since they're already human. Would it be reversed? MC is the demon in this scenario? Or just MC is their same human self but they meet the others in a different way? I think both options could be interesting. I was initially going with the idea of there being no magic and no realms though.

I was trying to think of what the characters would do with their lives based on their interests and Beel just screamed farmer to me. Like yeah he probably still works out a bunch, but he really loves food. So I thought it would be interesting to consider that as his primary motivation for wanting to become a farmer. He just wants to feed everybody.

Anyway, I love this, I'm thoroughly enjoying imagining the boys on their farm. Though Mammon threatening to cook the chickens is hilarious. Like I can just hear him saying that to a bunch of indifferent hens, too. It reminds me of a story my mom used to tell me about my great-grandmother getting so annoyed at my uncle's pet rooster for getting his beak tangled in her yarn that she straight up made soup out of him. I dunno how true that story is, but it's one my mom & her siblings have told me numerous times lol.

[wander-wren]

today i am angry because lightlark keeps (kept? i think it’s dead) getting compared to the hunger games

i don’t know if tumblr saw the lightlark drama and i’m not interested in rehashing it especially bc some of it got uncomfortably personal towards the author at one point and also it was months ago so just! suffice it to say lightlark is a book by alex aster, it is a terrible book, and i did not put myself through the torture of reading it but i did watch a 7.5 hour video essay

(i think the essay could have been 6 or even 5 hours, and i think this person went a little too hard on the critique at some points, so that rubbed me wrong a little but it was also extremely thorough and i was bored.)

but anyway. one of the big things about lightlark is that it was marketed as “hunger games x acotar” which is….fine. but every time someone compares a book to thg i’m automatically suspicious because no one does it right.

and of course, neither did lightlark.

the book is a complete disaster so i will try to stick only to the relevant points but seriously. there’s so much.

the official premise of lightlark is that six realms in a fantasy world have been cursed for hundreds of years. each curse is (supposed to be) a twisted version of the realms magic, and the curses also cut them off from their main island of lightlark. except for once every century, when the island becomes accessible for 100 days and the six rulers travel there to try to break the curses via death tournament.

but then you get to the book and learn that the curses are only broken if a ruler dies without an heir, since their special ruler magic just transfers to the heir and no one gets anywhere. this was only a caveat so we could have a young protagonist ruler, i’m sure. ALSO, IMPORTANTLY, if a ruler dies without an heir, their entire realm also dies.

and obviously that’s bad so the rulers have to consider carefully who they want to kill, and they keep putting the killing off bc it’s not easy to condemn thousands of people to death.

so why, pray tell, the FUCK, are you doing a death tournament every century.

(they’re not, by the way. the first 50 days are dedicated to some demonstrations that are definitely hunger games inspired and meant to allow the rulers to forge alliances bc even though there’s only six of them they’re also required to partner up for some reason?? but there’s almost no fighting and almost all the fight scenes end very quickly with no real damage to the main character. it got really annoying really fast.)

but like, let’s pretend for half a second that lightlark IS about six rulers fighting to the death to break a curse. it’s still not even close to being like the hunger games.

the hunger games was about teenagers under constant surveillance forced to perform and then kill for the masses, many because they weren’t rich enough to buy their way out or into good training.

no one except the rulers and the essential staff is even allowed on lightlark, and no i don’t know why that is. and the characters spend the entire book trying to avoid killing each other as much as possible (well, minus two cases) bc they want to find another way to break the curses. i don’t understand why it’s billed as this big bloody dangerous battle even in-universe when everyone involved really REALLY doesn’t want to fight.

also, this isn’t related to the thg nonsense, but if i’m talking about lightlark i have to talk about That Twist. alex aster really loves her twists and is very proud that no one can see them coming but that’s because reading the twists is like watching the street for cars, then trying to cross and getting hit by an airplane.

as i said, the characters keep trying to find a new way to break the curse, even though it’s been 500 years and many of the rulers have been alive that long (no i don’t know if that’s normal or a ruler perk, it’s not explained) so they SHOULD have tried all of these fairly obvious methods by now but SURE, JAN. this book would make so much more sense if it was only the first century and everyone was still scrambling to figure the curses out. but whatever. alex aster wanted her protagonist to be in a love triangle with two 500yo men

(there’s nothing inherently wrong with that and i actually really loved grim, not for the reasons i was supposed to bc the writing was bad, but i liked him, until—well, put a pin in that.)

ANYWAY. THE POINT. our protagonist, who i guess i should say is named isla, needs to find “the heart of lightlark” which “blooms where darkness meets light.” everyone assumes they’re looking for a super special flower but they can’t find it. then, isla decides this random-ass bird that’s only almost gotten her killed twice is DEFINITELY going to show them the heart, so they follow the bird.

and at dawn, the bird lays a fucking egg. and it falls out of the nest. and cracks. and the yolk. floats. into the air. in time with the rising sun.

I CANNOT EMPHASIZE ENOUGH HOW MUCH IT IS A LITERAL FUCKING EGG

no foreshadowing. isla has an internal monologue where she thinks she always did see the moon as an eggshell and the sun as yolky, but the yolky sun description happens twice in 400+ pages and the egg moon description happens Never, so like. shoutout to aster’s copy editor??

i can’t take this book seriously bc it is a literal egg an EGG isla has to carry an EGG YOLK to break the curses. there are scenarios where i could accept that but this Serious YA Fantasy Book is not one of them.

and since i mentioned the one thing i did actually like, i will explain isla’s one love interest, grim. technically her only love interest bc nothing about the other guy struck me as romantic but idk maybe her inner monologue was yearning or smthn. anyway, grim.

grim is from the least trusted/most stigmatized realm. he’s described as a huge hulking nightmare of a man, a demon, every badscary description under the sun. but like. the times he is alone with isla? he takes her to a chocolate shop during their first meeting and hand feeds her truffles, which is a little weird and overly sexual but…still. chocolate. then he hides her from another ruler no questions asked even though he has every right to be suspicious. he opens up to her and shit. he calls her “hearteater” (it’s a reference to her curse, her people eat human hearts to survive, no that doesn’t make sense either) (also isla is magically not cursed so our protagonist doesn’t have to be scary and gross and worry about that during the novel haha!) (guess what else is never properly explained….)

anyway grim calls her “hearteater” but like, almost in a teasing/endearing way, which is fun, and when they start to fall in love he just calls her “heart” which is ALSO cute imo i’m weak for nicknames. he’s like. the narration and aster really really want me to think he’s the scary bad boy but he’s just such a soft dude.

and then. ohhhh, and then. one of the other hit-by-airplane twists is that the weird sexy dreams isla has been having all book about grim? they’re not dreams. they’re memories. the two of them used to be together for about a year before the book started, and grim erased her memories as part of a plot to betray her yada yada i was braindead by this point so i don’t fully remember all 17 elements of the betrayal. but like…..first of all that retroactively makes all of their interactions but especially the chocolate thing kind of weird and creepy? also WHAT was the FUCKING POINT pf making her forget she loves you if you’re literally just going to seduce her immediately anyway. like. the book makes a halfhearted effort at having grim avoid her but it really didn’t feel like he was purposely being mean to push her away. because every time they did interact he was so sweet! sir!!

anyway he betrayed isla probably mostly to keep up the ambiguity of the love triangle and so aster could brag about more twists and i hate that bc WHY. he was doing so well.

anyway. i got so far off track. lightlark is a wild fucking ride and i did not even scratch the surface of the plot-hole filled mess that this book is. my sister does own it and i did check a few things bc i straight up could not believe they were real (like the egg. i cannot get over the egg.) so.

also this book only got published bc it went viral on booktok so that kind of tells you everything you need to know. the good news is it does give me some measure of hope/an ego boost bc if lightlark exists in the world…..surely whatever i’m doing can’t be too bad.

[femmesandhoney]

Am I wrong for feeling like its possible to recognise the double stands between male and female rappers, having utmost respect for women like MTS, but for also feeling it’s fine to think songs like WAP don’t do women any favours, find it kind of offensive and that it’s ridiculous women (especially black women) feel like they have to make that kind of music?

I just don’t think men consider songs like WAP to be a gotcha, they just see it as soft porn? Women should be able to make music about whatever they like but until we’re out of the patriarchy I just don’t think songs like WAP will be seen as just another song about sex, and won’t be appreciated for the work/time put into it by the artist as it should be.

I don't listen to many popular female rappers, then ones I do listen to are much more obscure, since yeah they usually are hypersexual in their lyrics and videos as many popular female artists are. I think female artists are allowed to be sexual in their art and music, like they're adults they can write songs about basic human things, but its a fine line between oversexualization as your entire branding of yourself that men will see at face value and never care about anything else. it makes me sick seeing how many of her male contempories obviously don't respect megan and will do anything to tear her down in their songs, for example, and its likely bc shes a black woman singing about her sexuality unashamed as the focal point of her music. I think songs like WAP and similar are always never not gonna be about sex though, theres not other ways to spin a lot of those songs lol. Like yes there was effort put into making it, but it is just another song about heterosexual sex at the end of the day. Like ofc men won't take that seriously, they take nothing of women's sexuality seriously in a state where men want and use sex to dominate women in their eyes.

ofc then the question you pose and spin from it is if its even worthwhile to have music like that from a feminist perspective, i would say no. the songs really don't help women look better in the eyes of the patriarchy, but at the same time its a libfem take of feminism in that singing unashamed of her sexuality is empowering. radfems would look at it less kindly, considering how much of her music is just her wanting to fuck men (and correct me if im wrong, im using megan as an example and don't listen to her much), and it does make me cringe once I realize just how many songs of hers are like that. similar reason for why i dislike sabrina carpenter too, i just cannot stand when a female artists entire repertoire is constantly sexual and focused on men 99.9% of the time w little introspection or a break from the sexual themes and sexual branding/marketing of themselves.

theres more i could say, but idk i feel im not expressing myself with this topic how i want to, but to round it out i agree theres obviously gonna be a double standard within rap between men and women when women are forced to present as sexual as possible to sell their art and i hate the libfem branding of over-hyper/sexualization as a form of empowerment for women, especially as a means to fame that no man will or ever have to deal with and be told to do to sell their music and art.

[louisisalarrie]

Who knows if we will ever get an honest answer to BG? I've really tried to ignore it. But then the next jersey comes on stage and the next awkward interview and I'll never get over how he talks about the boy. Look at Zayn and see the difference. We all know he loves kids and it just doesn't make sense. I wasn't here in 2015/2016 and working me through the masterposts. It was such a mess back then. The announcement, the tweets, RBB, "It's not real", the stolen pregnancy pictures, awkward silence during interviews, no bandmates or people close to her were publicly happy about the pregnancy, the press made fun of it, they couldn't believe it themselves. And then the pap walks, the mini skirt three days after giving birth..Jesus! Calling us delusional is so ridiculous, we didn't cause the chaos. And who’s protecting the child? He's being marketed from all sides. How do you grow up with a background like that? In 2-3 years he'll find out all about his story on the internet. In the end, it's so sad and a shit show for everyone involved, especially the kid. They should stop using the child as a PR instrument, it‘s so wrong. But who knows who‘s pulling strings behind the scenes?

I think that’s such a massive part of this, right? Like… that kid, dealing with this all. which, going through my blog from years ago, a lot of people also just stopped posting about larry/unlarried bc there was a child involved. granted, at the beginning, there wasn’t an actual child, but in the years since, this kid has been subject to larries and antis arguing over his existence and damn… how do they explain that to him?

I can’t even imagine being told I was used to closet an artist as a child my god that would make me feel so guilty and I’d be infuriated and probably out the shit myself. but regardless of what you believe, there’s no way in hell he can have social media. even with parental controls or blocked tags and topics, he will come across this on his own eventually, and if it’s not been explained to him, well… that’ll make shit so bad.

He’d have to be homeschooled, hope that no fan sees him in public etc., and that’s not a life for a child to live. And it’s not his fault. He didn’t choose this.

It has to end before it gets undeniably worse.

[horce-divorce]

i'm so over this delta 8 shit. like yeah it's better than not having anything but it's not weed and it's not doing the same thing. i miss weed so much. d8 makes me cough so bad, it's weak as hell even when it's really good stuff, and it seemingly has 0 cbd compounds unless you buy the more expensive, cbd added/"live resin" type stuff. it doesn't help my pain at all, and its so much more expensive than weed no matter how you slice it. plus we always need more of it bc it's so weak. those 1g carts from Michigan were lasting Bel and I about 3 days each between the two of us. we go through a whole 2g cart of d8 in that amount of time or less. it's ridiculous.

and the thing is, when i lived here before, yeah, i had like 3 or 4 weedguys i could rotate between to get real stuff anyway. not so anymore. i've been gone for almost 4 years and they've really been cracking down on drugs around here in the interim. it's given the d8 market a massive foothold, but it's seriously been impossible to find a regular weedguy. every time we've almost found a lead, we start hearing about raids or the guy goes MIA. we'd basically either have to drive to the border ourselves at this point, or just cave and use the d8 that's available locally. and we're broke, so we've been doing the latter, obviously lol

weed has been keeping me off a feeding tube for years. my doctors in michigan told me outright to keep using it because they didn't want to prescribe me opioids. and then i move back to the only state in this whole area where weed is still illegal lmao. d8 has been keeping me off a tube lately, but tbqh i don't think it will continue to. my MALS attacks have been getting more frequent (which makes my POTS a lot worse), I'm eating less again, and even when i do manage to eat, it takes so much out of me and is still so painful, I usually end up having to sleep afterwards. i'm losing so much of my day just for having the audacity to feed myself and it's making me depressed again. i'm even on an antidepressant this time!!! it's also helping a little bit with the pain, but not enough to matter in the long run. i'm still gonna end up on a tube at this rate.

i'm also just sick of living in wisconsin so that makes me cranky, too. i love who i live with, being with my boyfriend and my roommate is great, but i've spent like 16 years living in wisconsin against my will already and somehow I KEEP fucking ending up back here, always against my will, and it's always pissed me off, but now it ALSO has the audacity to be the one (1) state in the whole area that won't let me have the one medication all my doctors have agreed is saving my life. every other state touching us, on every single side, has weed. canada has weed. 24 fucking states have legalized it. but no, wisconsin has to stick it's heels in the mud and keep that boot on our necks at ANY cost, especially over a change that would benefit literally everyone and increase revenue overall. i fucking hate it here.

america as a whole needs to get it's head out of it's ass about pain management. not just cannabis, but opioids and any other alternatives, too. but of course, the cruelty is the point. they want us to be suffering. they want to torture us. they want us to be stuck in ineffective health management loops until we die. more profit for insurance companies and hospitals, less "handouts" needed back, less conscientious objectors and protestors and political dissidents to be bothersome, less noisy disabled voices calling for justice in the world.

i am determined to keep trying to manage my MALS for as long as I can without getting surgery and, hopefully, without being on opioids (not because I buy into the fearmongering, but because of how strict the rules are about being prescribed them, about the lists you end up on, the random piss tests, and all the other bureaucratic crap that comes along with it). and if we end up staying here long-term, then yeah I will be doing everything i can to try and get weed legalized here to.

but i'm just pissed. and tired. i'm sick of having to fight for my stupid little life from every single facet, like, i'm fighting for my life and kicking screaming throwing up etc and it barely even amounts to a squeak in the grand scheme of things.

welp. too bad. i'm surviving out of spite. oh, i don't matter? cool, then it won't matter if I stay alive a bit longer and keep taking those pithy handouts, i guess! thanks! 🤪

[onlyswan]

ahh i’m a psych major (with a minor in marketing) and i just graduated! now that it’s been mentioned i can see oc as a psych major. especially with the chem test she failed. i related to oc in that moment bc i was failing one of my stats classes and i honestly had the same reactions as oc did. except i ended up dropping the class to retake it next semester 😭

oh also random but i absolutely love jk and oc i think your drabbles have become one of my fav jk fics/ drabble sets bc they are so realistic. i could definitely imagine the things they go through happening to any normal couple; like long distance, long term, short term, and couples who can’t always see each other even if they live in the same town/ state/ country. i often like to imagine how it would be for celebrities/ idols that date “normal”/ non-celebrities. for instance chen from exo, how he kept his relationship AND partner’s pregnancy a secret from the entire world 😭😭 which now that brings up curiosity, i can’t recall whether it was ever mentioned but in the drabbles, does army know about jk and oc’s relationship? in a perfect world, we would all be so supportive of him bc he deserves all the happiness in the world. no matter how much we wish it could be us😭 i’d be happy for him regardless!!

that’s it for now :) i hope you’re having a great day art!!! <3

omgomg you’re soooo damn cool congratulations beloved !! 🥹✨ i hope i also graduate please bless me with your gathered wisdom and magic🧎

beloved thank you so much :((( it’s really so nice to hear your feedback in regards of that! i’m conscious of that and i try my best but of course i’m not perfect and knowing myself i can be dramatic not only with my speech hehe (it’s not fun when i’m in a new relationship or going thru a breakup i’m either in euphoria or hell BUT ANW) this made me so happy thank you!! <3 🩵

in regards of your question !! of course at the beginning it’s implied that their relationship is secret but moving forward i leave that to your imaginations :D god forbid i have to write about media backlash and all that jazz it’s gonna end up as an entire dissertation. wish i could protect my baby from this ugly world bc i genuinely despise some of you 🫵🏼

hehe anyways thank you for dropping by and making me smile <3 ily and i hope you have a wonderful day!

[cupuacu]

loooove december break!! i genuinely thought this was one of the most mentally exhausting semesters of my life. it felt like it was never ending yet at the same time like i had 100000 things to do and send it over to the professors like yesterday. and i have never been so bad at communication as i was the past 6 months. i'd forget to say things and when i could say them i chose not to. literally snowballed itself into horrible hurried projects. it all started so chill i literally didn't worry that 1) laptop wasnt working 2) only signed in for two classes 3) i needed to change my table and chair because my back is RUINED. of course that all got solved along the way but it'd be easier if i had fixed those three things back in july break, i think i'm a masochist when it comes to things like this, i see the whip coming and i just stand there motionless. like as soon as it was 12:01 02/12/2023 i felt like i needed to scream freedom lol

then these days honestly i didn't even feel anything at all (other than that temporary extreme relief that it was over). because it just all feels so pointless. i will go thru all of this again next semester because i'm already fucking up now (signed for classes i know i can't handle because everyone tells me "i need to challenge myself if i want to get better", signed for mandatory unpaid internship as if the PAID one i did last year didn't absolutely kill me). part of me just wants to finish this stupid fucking shit by next year (impossible bc i still have like 20 classes left to do). i love architecture but university really sucks your soul out. they (society and the job market) kill your inspiration then they kill your will to live. i look around this city and everything is so ugly and useless and not functional and it tries so hard to look clean and modern it ends up just being fake and empty. if i go into private stuff i'll get insane clients that'll want the ugliest dumbest shit ever built, if i go into the public one the government has no sense of self and just tries to copy whatever's trending on the southeast/south or usa/europe as if it would work or as if they had money. like jesus christ think locally. all these ugly glass boxy buildings are gonna be the end of us, these dumb empty parks are doing more harm than good, stop restoring historical buildings if you're just gonna abandon them again. if i see anything in a beige palette i go in a rabid rage like where is the life where's the originality? sure overly-regional things can be cringe and people in the north and especially in my city have a terminal case of vira-latice. ideally i'd have started uni in 2017 and finished it in 2021 and moved on to whatever the future may hold but im MENTALLY ILLLLLLLL!!!!!!!! did 2 semesters then took a gap year then came back to uni and i'm just as lost as i felt in 2017. I FEEL STUCK IN TIME!!!!!! sure if i had done it "normally" i wouldn't even be here because i would have For Real killed myself. to be quite honest i didn't even think i was gonna make it past 13 years old and here i am 10 years later pushing thru it and all i got from it is that i should've thrown myself out of the damn 15th floor of a building when i had the chance in 2013. like genuinely genuinely speaking whenever i look around whenever i go out society and the world just seems to get worse. i can still see beauty in some things but it feels like staring at a small flower in a world where everything is destroyed. i can distract myself as much as i want to but the sense of doom and the sense of me being a waste of a life NEVER goes away.

and on the topic of distractions i have been using my phone so much it's making my brain go insane so i'm trying to not use it as much (12h screentime.....) sadly i haven't been able to focus on drawing or reading or writing or doing anything that is "by me for me" because i cannot focus. i feel soulless yet so depressed. seeing dead bodies and people fighting and suffering so hard just to live daily definitely made it worse but i feel bad saying that because it's like 'oh no this horrible thing is happening and i can't do anything except watch' bc there's ppl Going thru that horrible thing. i will always have an undying respect for palestinians and i think in fact watching all this made me realise how resiliant and strong ppl can be. and also how evil some ppl can be, i have never seen someone as inhuman as z**nists like the more i learn the angrier i get. and this is silly but sites like twitter (for me at least) there were a endless stream of them. no matter how many i blocked there would always be more. here at tumblr i guess i curated my dash very well and i don't use the for you tab here so i don't see them at all (thank god). yet you'll always find out someome at staff is a z**nist or something like that (same happens in other sites) and it's wow no matter how good my dash/timeline is these are all still a morally failed site owned and/or run by losers and i wish i wasn't as chronically online so i'd delete every account on every website and never use the internet again.

the only thing that has made me sort of zone out and forget life is gaming. i've been playing stardew valley like my life depends on it and sadly i can't even put mods on switch so i'm genuinely #grinding. i'm on year two winter and i got so much stuff already (my first time playing had me on year four fall and i didn't have half of what i have now). also last month my mom bought ssd cards for our laptops and i was able to redownload genshin so i'm playing it a lot again. i really missed kazuha and xinyan i feel like i have a slight delusion thing where characters genuinely bring me joy. also i haven't played genshin in sooooo long my hands forgot how to use the keyboard (and i've been losing fine motor skills lately but i'll talk about that later) and i was so used to playing zelda that i mixed up some of the world dynamics. i'd be like where are the sky islands i need to look at the map from above, why can't i mark things far away with a camera so i can check later, how do i see hero's path i need to know if i've been here before, why is it so hard to aim, why can't i parry, why don't the enemies drop decent loot. and also i'd be annoyed by common genshin stuff like the endless amount of text and dialogue like my GOD let me skip. i don't care!!!! i stopped reading text after the raiden shogun quest now i just skip everything!!!! why are the cutscenes so boring!!!!! why is every archon quest the same!!!!! but i love open world games. i love long quests. i love exploring. i love puzzles. hate the gacha system though. i haven't played in over a year and i thought when i'd come back there'd be 27827383 notifications and primogems STACKED for me to use and yet i wasnt surprised when there wasn't anything bc mihoyo is the worst company on earth and capitalism is the end of us. kinda sad i missed the birthday event and lost a cute fontaine companion though. by the way the flying and diving system is so broken (to me at least) and it's sooooo uncomfortable. my fingers are on the WASD keys and the space key and the shift like jesus christ this sucks. i got too used to using the switch and having a controller and the gyroscope and the comfort of it all lol.

the fine motor skills worsening started this year i think. i can't pinpoint exactly why or when but i think it was a mix of a bunch of things. i've been sedentary my whole life so my bones and joints are all fucked. i've been sitting ans standing wrong my whole life and my bones/muscles just adapted to it so now when i try to fix it, it hurts like hell. i'm pretty sure one of my legs is way shorter than the other. back to my fingers, i noticed that i wasnt able to type on my phone as fast as i did in the past. couldn't move them that fast anymore. felt like there was some sort of lag or glitch on the brain-to-hand connection. didn't pay much attention to that cos who cares how fast i can type. then i wasnt able to type on a keyboard properly, then not able to hold things properly, and now my hands just feel sort of numb and/or slow compared to before. fine for me though, i feel like i need to slow down when i do projects or when i'm gaming. i always get too much into it (and often at the last minute) then my body pays the price. the last project this semester had me up for 2 days and on the verge of an psychotic episode for another 4.

oh and to top it all off my laptop hard drive decided to kill itself in the middle of the semester. it was showing signs of giving up waaaay before that and i didn't know any better and didn't look into it. i'm still very hurt over it. there were SO many photos and SO many videos and documents and audios and music. my lifetime was there. and now it's gone and i still can't believe it. so mamy personal moments and also a lot of work i made and collected just gone forever in the void that is technology. i will never be able to see the baby pictures of my dogs and i won't be able to see the videos i took when i traveled with my family and i won't be able to read things i wrote when i was 13 and i won't be able to see pictures of myself growing up over the years and i wont be able to see all the pictures i saved of my online friends and i wont be able to listen to all the music i downloaded or watch the movies i downloaded or read those pdfs and i won't be able to use the billion autocad blocks that took me years to organize and i won't be able to make a portfolio bc my work and the proof of its existence is not there and i wont be able to play the games i had in those specific save files...... its like it never existed. like i have never felt a loss like this in my entire life. literally my burning of alexandria lol they will always exist on my mind of course, but i must also be experiencing some sort of early on set dementia because i forget EVERYTHING unless it's in front of me. so there's also the loss of the loss because everything i had in that hard drive died and it will also die in my memories.

and my phone fell last month i think and now the camera app doesn't open and i havent been able to take pictures. it's funny cos after i had my iphone stolen in 2019 and had to buy the one i have now (cheap and low quality) i thought i stopped taking pictures of everything. but man these days made me realise i unconsciously photograph things. i try to open my camera almost by muscle memory then watch it close itself and glitch. now i've been trying to write things down or just memorize them, which has been hard bc of my hands and my bad brain. but it's fun. analog almost. i get to appreciate and look at things more carefully with my own two eyes now instead of "ill take a pic and look at it later". and man, is the sky beautiful!!! the leaves are beautiful, the sky is beautiful!!! even the ants on the ground are!!

and its kinda early, but i do feel my body age also. probs due to me being unhealthy and normally old = sick. my back hurts so bad for sitting and standing and existing and sitting on a bad chair on a bad table for years, im really glad for being able 2 go the doc and get physio therapy and my posture fixed. i want a tank to make me flat cartoon style, that'd fix my pain!!! my posture doc kinda is weirded out by me (im too hairy and too awkward) but the therapist doesnt care at all. theyve really be relieving my shoulder pain, i wonder if there's still a way to fix it... itd be genuinely life saving

[liesmyth]

why didnt you like babel? genuinely curious, i haven’t read it myself but it seems fun

[disclaimer: there’s going to be like 2 or 3 people who know my feelings about this book bc I have talked about with them at length, and may see this ask and maybe wonder if I sent it to myself. I just want to preventively state, for the record, that I didn't]

*takes long breath*

I thought the writing was shallow and just didn’t have enough going for it to tackle the themes the story engages with AND make it an interesting, memorable story with characters I care about. The authorial voice is all over the book and it’s annoying + patronizing; I don’t need handholding and lecturing, and especially I don’t need it if the narrative manages to fail at what they mouthpiece characters are lecturing me about. It’s also really flat as a both a fantasy novel and an alternate history because the story just doesn’t enagage with the fantasy elements at all beyond the superficial. Like, if I’m reading a novel about an empire run on magic, I would expect the story to reflect some of the ripple implications of the empire being built on magic.

[Just typing this out makes me think “oh you know who did this really well? jonathan strange & mr norrel” and then I remember that Babel was marketed as “a response” to JS&MR and tbh... under this point of view, Babel is to jonatha strange & mr norrel what season 7 of supernatural is to dante’s purgatory. sorry to say]

Anyway, I freely admit I am a hater. I don’t like Kuang; I tried very hard to like her, checked out Babel because I wanted to see if she’d grown as a writer like I hope, and I shall now go into the world knowing she’s Not For Me and absolutely never touching another novel of hers. She falls into the sff “new adult” limbo of those books that are nominally adult fantasy because of their content; but also engage with the premise and the setting in a way that is very didactic and linear, often morally rigid, and would all around be a much better fic for YA novels —  this isn’t to bash YA, it’s just to say that a certain level of simplification is baked into the genre and I can suspend my disbelief accordingly. My problem with this book was how much I kept hearing it was Nuanced when it feels like it was written by putting progressive book twitter into a blender and passed off as historical fantasy just to match the #aesthetic of the author’s academic work.

[thirdtidemouse]

okay about the art school au

tell me if you have any bright sparkling ideas for this au bc god knows i would eat them up. like i said before i know johanna is a graphic designer now but she has roots in illustration theyre like siblings. she leans towards children's books, making up stories and weird wonderful characters out of thin air. her work is also very botanical - her doodles in the show are full of winding plants and flowers. she could fill a page with dense undergrowth.

gerda is a student too but she's like that one teacher that just LOVES fonts. she is graphic design, product design, interior design, going back and forth between the computer room and the workshop to lasercut something or to build a weird chair. she could probably run a company marketing department at 18.

i also said kaisa is an analogue photography girl. she doesn't really care for most commercial photography she's like a man ray superfan and probably gets snotty about using digital cameras sometimes but loves to mess around with unconventional and cameraless methods. she might smell like chemicals. she doesn't want anyone close enough to be able to tell. she has always been an academic nerd and it shines in her artist research, drawing from the most conceptual artworks and fascinating herself with what there is to discover about them. she would love mike nelson.

edmund is perpetually covered in ink, of all colours, on his hands and his face. he's constantly workshopping prints of all kinds, one of his final pieces being a gigantic woodcut relief print depicting mythical creatures with lots of iconographic detail (think luke pearson's norse-inspired patterns o_<). he takes print room safety VERY seriously. do not put your hands or hair anywhere near the roller on the press. he will get you.

ive got like an outline idea for 6-8 chapters depending on whether i do it as a comic or writing? comics take so much effort for comparatively less story coverage so it would be a big endeavor but i would really love to have it all in visuals (also i'm not a superstar writer?) it's so difficult because some things i want to describe like in written word but some things i want to have visual 😭 artwork between paragraphs could be good but idk how cohesive it would be and it might be a bit jarring to suddenly be reading what you were looking at and vice versa.. that kind of thing works really well for a memoir like alison bechdel's fun home but not so much straightforward fictional story idkkkk... i can like see some panels in my head but i also want to do long descriptions and idrk if i want to mash them together. if i really do this it's going to take some PLANNING

victoria is still crazy but in a much more creative way. she loves to discuss everyone's work with them, she loves weird and experimental stuff. she likes to make elaborate and unconventional sets, props, and costumes for her colourful multi-media short films. she loves any art that moves, and makes great use of audio, sampling heavy thunderstorms pretty often.

AND! if i included the creatures (as people) then tontu would be a fashion & textiles tutor. i shan't be taking questions.

also thank you for the inspiring tags @the-hilda-librarians-wife 😭 your hospital au was so awesome i might find myself doing footnotes like you did, describing techniques and stuff where it would be out of place to just straight up write it down in the story.. bc i am gonna get SCIENTIFIC with the photography

(if it was a comic i'm thinking about the fun I'd have with speech bubbles especially in a classroom/studio - one of my hugest ever inspirations is anatola howard and this comic is so spectacular for speech bubbles lol)

[somethingshifted]

i watched this video (put it off for all of 3 days because i get nervous watching video essays on my favorite things for some reason) and i loved it. it made me so happy. readmore cuz long post

even if the subject itself was how gorillaz nearly ended because of plastic beach's ambition, this video was so enjoyable. because i feel like getting an account of how people felt about the album release, at the time, from someone who was present is incredibly important for preservation? the extensive things fans have archived is important first and foremost as so much was personally privated by the band, but it's hard to get a pulse on fan feelings as a whole other than digging through wayback machine or knowing someone who was fandom present.

alongside this i'm appreciative of lady emily remarking on the landscape of releasing music at the time. where CD wasn't as huge, not as many people cared about vinyl, music channels were obsolete, and youtube was nascent even in 2010 when it comes to money making opportunities, especially for record labels forget about solo projects like lets-players. which just brings into perspective how taxing PB was to make. it's a beautiful project made off the failure of carousel to launch and didn't make as much of an impact as it needed to survive... which was something i personally was fully unaware of at the time. i just sat on youtube thinking that's where updates were mostly and relying on deviantart friends relaying info to me (i was very internet-dumb). carousel was insanely ambitious and destined to fail with how much they were expecting, and seeing the long list of projects that died out and the way the art being featured during tours became more of an after-thought was heartbreaking a bit so i can definitely understand why tensions blew up.

the idea of media (because PB isn't just an album even if that is the main skeleton veins and organs of it) being made for an era that doesn't exist is depressing, but her explanation to how it came to be and how different the climate is now is a great reminder to myself. because i keep asking 'why don't they do X Y and Z' and the truth is it costs SO much to do that, not to mention do it well AND have the artists and designers and so on be paid and treated well, and PB had so much going for it that didn't return profit. like the way the world is, passion itself doesn't reward you with a living which is sad, and appreciation and apt payment for visual arts doesn't get much better as the future moves on. and kind of humbles me to not have a stick up my ass for cracker island. KIND OF- i still feel my gears grinded when i see how sanitized some things are. major 'he wouldn't say that' feelings.

having reservations on gorillaz marketing behavior is fully allowed and honestly, needed because having a fanbase of only yes-men is detrimental, god forbid they thought NFTs would be well received. i feel hesitant to be a hater for newer stuff bc even if character writing choices annoy me so hard, i still find gems, and i still want to understand the full background of how much of what used to exist, can't exist the same way anymore as the world gets more expensive and a higher bar of quality is needed (outside the writing. that's more on current writers forgetting pretty well established easy characterization) idk if anything as wide-spread and ambitious as PB could ever exist today. isn't that sad? melancholy? i feel like being in your 20s during today consists of a lot of foot-in-one era, foot-in-the-other. the things you grow up with are impossible to go back to since technology is moving at a breakneck speed. but it being so expansive and story heavy was special and i'm learning more about that every day. as someone who's still iffy on the lore taking such a huge part of the overarching characters that it's still referenced at the end of the 2010's i really really do fucking love it. one of a kind. people who get very defensive of plastic beach have full reign to do so, just lemme stand behind you as a humanz defender

she also touched upon a feeling i thought was unpopular but i'm glad she did mention, and it's about how the story for the following albums were more self contained. i do feel though that wishing the band was a band and not characters milling about is a semi popular stance (?) i'm happy people recognize that because seriously my pulse on fandom feelings is sooooo lacking, even now as i venture to twitter and tumblr in 2023. anyways, even for how fantastical PB is and how much i love it, both the climate of the world not supporting projects like this and with gorillaz being self funded since 2019 (didn't know this and that is insane to me) gorillaz can benefit with the bar of expectations being lowered. multimedia projects are a rarity, with websites being sleeked and dumbed down for mobile users only, death of flash, social media being the hub for everything (why i get their reliance on it), singles needing to always be the strength of albums, and trends dying out faster than a mayfly, it's just hard. would i like to see them return to something like that, yes of course, but i sure as hell am not expecting it. unless some billionaire wants to dump their entire savings into their lap. the phases 1 and 2 performing well while being multimedia in the way of animation, interview, in-character and etc, is fantastic but there is no way that sort of MV quality would be passable today. and as a whole it was just less expensive AND way more new and fresh to make compared to making something in 2023 while also accommodating collaborators and managing the band. i guess it's difficult for me to hold a concrete stance. 'aw man why'd they do that... oh well...' times change ig. one thing i will shit on without feeling much guilt is the merch handling though like christ

i really want to hear her defend humanz like she said she might, like i'm on my knees... to wrap this up: very nice video if you want to hear about the behind the scenes of gorillaz all laid out in order. knowing the charting numbers didn't really hit for me till this video. and insight on how the band moved. there was a comment that said the flash games that are still archived today and she hearted it so you can check that out too, i've been going to that site archive for weeks now. i guess there was ONE thing which was i personally hated the way russel was used the entirety of that phase and i regard his mental break being phase 2 more than phase 3 so i raised my eyebrow at her depicting russel being cool and important, but like that's such a small bit, that i can understand why seeing him be a (silent) superhero was super cool. like yes he actually did do more actions on phase 3, bc even phase 1/2 he was, while well spoken gentle and wise, just there on the drums. i just want him to Say Something in phase 3 like that's his baby he's saving... well... ok. that's ok. don't get me started on my boy this post is already long e-fucking-nough

can i add. saying murdoc is the joker for gay teenage girls killed me

[vintage-bentley]

final thoughts words opinions etc before the release in a few hours (so i have something to read before i go cold turkey on social media bc i wont be able to watch for at least 2 weeks and cannot ruin this for myself) GO:

Ahh good luck with going cold turkey! I’m sorry you have to wait 😭💕

I’m excited. At first I was really worried that this would be a classic case of the sequel being a shitty cash grab that shouldn’t exist…but from the clips we’ve seen, it looks good. So I trust that I’ll love it just as much as the first season, if not more because apparently it focuses even more on A/C.

As far as the elephant in the room goes…I really want to believe we aren’t being baited. The “leak” was directly from an Amazon pride promo, it feels weird for it to be included if it wasn’t actually romance. And the marketing is being so heavy-handed on the idea of romance, it would honestly be the stupidest corporate decision ever to do that if it was just bait. There’s also the Sheen “best buddies” comment which gives me a lot of hope, because it’s such an unusual way to put it that it feels like it’s an inside joke. And the recent reviews seem to be implying there’s romance. So, I’ve got my hopes up. As always, I’m staying cautiously optimistic, but on a scale from 0 (cautiously) to 10 (optimistic), I’m a 9.

I’m SUPER excited about there being lesbians. I’m worried about the fact that they’re written by a straight man…and I’m really hoping they’re treated normally and not either over or under sexualised. But I’m optimistic about this too, just because I love Nina so much from what we’ve seen of her. She seems well written and well acted, so I can only assume the same will go for Maggie, and hope that the same goes for their relationship.

Aside from ineffable husbands and The Lesbians (I’ve seen retro wives suggested as a ship name which is adorable), I think the thing I’m looking forward to most is more historical scenes. Season 1 episode 3’s opening is my favourite part of the series and I’ve watched it so many times, I just love seeing all the different costumes and seeing the husband’s relationship develop over time. I’m excited to see more of that. Especially the 40’s scene. I’m most excited about one particular historical scene that people talked about after the screening, I won’t say more than that, if you know you know, if you don’t you’ve probably purposefully avoided that information and I applaud your restraint lol.

Now, if the show ends up not being bait, I won’t hate Neil as much as I’ve grown to, but I still won’t love him. Because I think the way he’s handled concerns about baiting is incredibly insensitive and out of touch. He seems to think that this is the same as teasing a long awaited straight couple, so he can be as secretive and coy as he wants. This line of thinking completely ignores the fact that gaybaiting is a real problem, that viewers have been burned by before and don’t want to be burned by again. As great as it would be if gay couples could be anticipated and teased the same way straight couples are…we just aren’t there yet. We’re still at a point where LGB fans aren’t at ease watching a romance build up between two men or women, because we know there’s a chance it won’t go anywhere. Like I’ve said before, knowing that OFMD was a romance before going into it made the viewing experience much more pleasant for me than it would’ve been going in without that knowledge. Because knowing it was a romance allowed me to enjoy it as such…while not knowing would’ve had me going “I’m crazy, I’m just seeing what I want to see, that won’t happen” the whole time (and it sounds like that was the experience for many people who saw it before hearing about it from others!). That’s something OSA people don’t experience when seeing themselves on screen. So if there’s a whole crowd of LGB viewers basically begging you to save us that frustration and doubt, “wait and see if you’re being baited” isn’t exactly the best attitude to have. Especially when you’re on tumblr, and could easily put a yes or no answer under a read more prefaced with many spoiler warnings. Again, unfortunately, we just aren’t at the point yet where anticipating a gay ship is the same as anticipating a straight ship.

It just feels like Neil doesn’t have any compassion for his LGB viewers who don’t want to be baited yet again, which is really annoying considering he seems to think of himself as an amazing ally.

So, if it ends up being bait, obviously I’ll be angry. If it doesn’t end up being bait, I’ll be happy but also annoyed at how Neil made us feel crazy for even hoping for this outcome.

I think that pretty much sums up what’s going on in my head right now! 😄

[lettucedloophole]

i never considered sex also being a social construct, and when you pointed that out, (ESP W THE USE OF DWORKINS QUOTE OMFG) it literally blew my mind, including the fact we don’t know what a society looks like outside of patriarchy. i’m having some trouble tho w homosexuality as a social construct. did you mean that in a way where the term and idea of homosexuality is a social construct bc all love is the same, and shouldn’t be classified as such bc of the fact we think its “different”?

also totally unrelated to the specific topic but still on the basis of radical feminism, how do you keep pushing? lately i’ve been feeling like its so hopeless bc i hardly see any significant change happening in the western world, one of the biggest examples is like how u said everyone wants to defend the status quo, and that contributes to my feelings of “im only one person i cant change it all by myself in my community and inspire others to do the same so i should just give up”. i know i won’t really be able to go back to how blissfully ignorant i once was :’) and that’s probably what keeps me from leaving rad feminism bc there’s just so much truth in it and i know i’d rather me and every other human in the world be liberated than give in and live a life with even more misery but there’s still times where i have those thoughts of complying and it just sucks. i gave up my skincare routine (now its just cleanser and moisturizer & the occasional sunscreen if might be out in the sun), makeup, fashion marketed towards women, porn, FANFICTION 😭, crushing on men, dating men, and even being friends w men. i didn’t give up my libido but it disappeared on its own bc of everything i continue to learn. i realize how deep misogyny is in our society and culture and just want to isolate myself from everyone. I CANT RUN FROM IT NO MATGER WHAT THO……💔

for homosexuality as a social construct; kind of. if sex is a social construct (i.e., the categories of male & female don't exist outside of society), it follows that sexuality is as well-- especially because the social construct of women & man are packaged with expectations of submission (to man), pregnancy, confinement to the home, and domination (of women), all but the last trait for women. in patriarchal mythos the class of people defined as "women" are supposed to be heterosexual, and the same goes for men.

the only context which heterosexuality exists in is under patriarchy, so it's impossible to untangle from bioessentialistic complementarianism. similarly, homosexuality is also a construct of patriarchy, albeit a positive subversion / defiance of the heterosexual structure of relationships. but when sex is eventually abolished, and men + women no longer exist, current classifications of sexuality will disintegrate with them. instead of 'man attracted to woman' or 'women attracted to other women', we will just have people liking people, & relationships formerly regarded as homosexual will no longer suffer a stigma compared to heterosexual ones.

if we argue that people are just "born" as heterosexual or gay without investigating what in society makes hetero or homosexuality so appealing or alien & disturbing (the patriarchy), we concede that homosexuals are naturally unnatural (in that, so little of the world is bisexual or gay or asexual under patriarchy, and this is not because of patriarchy, but "nature". therefore, the order of patriarchy is made acceptable through naturalization.)

-

ANYWAYS, onto your more important question... resisting mental domination, as bell hooks put it. unfortunately this is the hardest thing to answer as i myself haven't even gotten it down yet :') i relate to what you're saying so much, and a lot of other radfems do, so know that you're not alone even if it feels that way.

if i could talk to myself when i first Rad(fem)icalized, i would say... don't be too hard on yourself. we're all suffering from a lifetime of gendered socialization which basically amounts to self harm for women 💀 i went Ham with the radfem stuffs, giving up makeup & sexualized fashion & shaving, and it was relatively easy for me since i was already quite gnc & angry lol, but.

while i think it's good to give up much of that stuff, the world's not gonna explode if you struggle or give yourself some exceptions. don't let up on anything that gets in the way of your personal/political liberation, at least not for a long time, but. don't let people online jerk you around or make you feel like you're a bimbo for wearing makeup or whatever. some internet terfs can be reallyyy misogynistic if you adhere to gender roles or. don't hate trans people.

when you feel angry, don't turn it inward. it's something women & gender minorities do way too much. if you're not comfortable expressing it, though i think expressing it "unhealthily' (screaming at someone, breaking a plate) is better than pointing it at yourself, find a healthy and / or productive way to release it. we are trying to avoid this aspect of female socialization ↓

it's also mega important to remember that... it's easy to think men don't understand the patriarchy, but they do. the thing is, though, they don't give women grace for struggling with sexist socialization and use it as "proof" that women are actually inferior. women who are aware of the patriarchy but have no faith in other women do this as well. have faith in other women. have faith in trans people. have faith in gay & bi people. their liberation is tantamount to your own. and i don't mean individual gender minorities who are assholes... just don't let those assholes make you lose faith in these groups as a whole.

honestly i feel like there's a lot more i could say but idk, don't want to bury you in words lol. feel free to send more asks or message me if there's anything i can elaborate on or help you with! or even if you just need someone to talk to. much love, anon :') 🫶