#fandom the thing and not the website trademark fuck you

[mcbitchtits]

Image: Tweet from @BepDelta from Nov 11, 2021: “The sanitization of internet continues, Fandom (service used to host wikis for many games/topics) is removing any wikis that contain lewd themes.

https://monstergirlencyclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Monster_Girl_Encyclopedia”

Wiki screencap: “Monster Girl Encyclopedia Wiki This wiki will close in two weeks (Wednesday November 24). Fandom is removing wikis on topics that contain large amounts of sex, nudity, and/or fetish material. Even if the wiki itself is kept “clean”, we are still unable to host it.

The two week’s pause is so you can look for a new host and copy your content there.

I’m sorry for the bad news -- Sannse”

original tweet

looks like things are going well on Ye Olde Capitalist Consolidated Internet™

[betafibiiiiiivviiixiiixxixxxiv]

Alright, this whole thing with Honey Impact is a clusterfuck, so I’m gonna make a rant (written with the help of friends) about it breaking every leg Honey Impact seems to think they can stand on. Buckle on in kids, because this is gonna be a long one.

Disclaimer: I am not a legal expert, but you do not have to be a legal expert to do some basic fucking research, which Honey Impact has clearly not done despite saying that they have.

First, it should be known that months ago Mihoyo released a statement asking people to stop supporting leaks and that they would be increasing efforts to deal with illegal disclosures of their unreleased content. This has been a long time coming, and honestly with the recent actions of leakers and/or dataminers, I think it’s deserved.

https://twitter.com/GenshinImpact/status/1372142018621706240

Second, unlike what many people seem to think, it is not unfair of Mihoyo to shut down Honey Impact’s site. It is within their rights. Honey Impact is sharing and profiting from content that does not belong to them. That is the bottom line of this. They do not own that content and they do not have the permission, nor the right, to share it.

Furthermore, Mihoyo did not go behind Honey Impact’s back to shut down their website. For example, if a streamer or youtube video infringes copyright, the company/corporation/individual/whatever entity holding that copyright would go to the highest power to tell the streamer or person who uploaded that youtube video that they’re infringing on that copyright, which would be Twitch and Youtube respectively. In this case, the highest power was the host domain hosting Honey Impact’s website.

https://twitter.com/HoneyDodogama/status/1436309421932548098?s=20

https://genshin.honeyhunterworld.com/2021/09/10/mhy-is-trying-to-take-us-down/?lang=EN

Heading on to the points from the 9/11 update Honey Impact shared on their website and on their discord blatantly trying to paint Mihoyo as the bad guy and claiming that what they’re doing is in fact not illegal and pretty much digging a bigger hole for themselves:

Here is where they claim they did some legal work to try and keep their website afloat. Honestly, it seems more like they were trying to find a way to keep doing their illegal work for profit.

1)    In their first point, they claim that the Terms of Service (ToS) is not a contract. That is incorrect. It is a contract. You may not have signed with your name in blood, but you agreed to it when you checked the little box(es) to access the game because a digital signature is still your signature. If you agreed to the ToS and you violate it, you can be held accountable for doing so. What kind of legal work are you doing that you don’t even know this?

2)     In this point they say that Mihoyo provides a software that requires Kernel level of access to your PC. First of all, you have to grant Mihoyo/Genshin this permission. It is like when an app on your phone asks you for permission to access your photos, your microphone, your camera, etc. Second, the Kernel level of access to your PC isn’t to steal and sell your information, install a virus, etc., but to enforce anti-cheat measures which is common in other games.

Furthermore, it has been adjusted to be as minimally invasive as possible and if they violated any rules or laws regarding invasion of privacy or if they made it so that your computer turned into a bitcoin farm, the Google Play Store and the Apple Store and other platforms would have removed Genshin Impact from their platform. (And Mihoyo would’ve gotten into a whole lot of trouble.) What kind of developer are you that you don’t even know this?

On top of their misleading accusations, they use cookie based ads on their own site. Aka the things that save and keep track of your emails, passwords, browser history, etc, and they sell it to the highest bidder without informing you of who or what it's for or giving you a single share of the profits they're making off the private information you have stored on your device(s) while accessing their site. So who is actually being invasive?

3)     Honey Impact does give credit where credit is due with the watermarks, but they host ads on the website and they run a Patreon asking people to support them in developing their website. Which is very hypocritical of them since they themselves said that they make 10kUSD+ a month and stated that they don’t want people in their discord server to donate to them. They also beg for donations in their streams.

They are not only illegally distributing someone else’s content, they are also profiting from it. This violates the fair use clause of copyright law.

This is like people taking artists’ work and selling them behind their back. Even if the artist is making bank compared to whatever you are making, it is still theft of intellectual property. You are pretty much reposting art that the artist has said not to repost. You are a thief. What kind of content creator are you that you don’t even know this?

4)     Unlike what Honey Impact has said, everything that is under the Genshin Impact banner, be it released content or unreleased is covered under the trademark that Mihoyo owns. As the owners of that trademark, they want Honey Impact to stop using their website to illegally share unreleased content that they illegally acquired.

Honey Impact also refers to their website as a fansite. But fansites generally aren’t for profit/have ad revenue, as profiting off of someone else's content goes directly against Fair Use, which they seem to think they are somehow entitled to if they scream about it loud enough… 

Just look at the Genshin Impact fandom wiki. There is a reason why they do not allow leaked/datamined/unreleased content on their page. (Because it is illegal!!!!!!!) Also, since Honey Impact was using Fandom, the host domain of the Genshin Impact fanwiki, as an example of an entity making money off of official content: first, Fandom hosts a lot more fanwikis than just the Genshin Impact fanwiki (which, btw, has no for-profit ads), which culminates in a lot more overall traffic compared to Honey Impact’s site of stolen goods. Which means Fandom needs more money.

https://twitter.com/HoneyDodogama/status/1436990491942342662?s=20

Second, again, the Genshin fanwiki DOES NOT POST UNRELEASED/LEAKED/DATAMINED CONTENT ON THEIR PAGES. BECAUSE DOING SO IS ILLEGAL. I don't know why Honey Impact thinks the fanwiki has that kind of content on its pages, but it doesn't.

Moreover, about not being subject to the NDA; it does not matter that Honey Impact, or anyone else on their team, did not sign an NDA. The crux of the matter is that the stuff they’re sharing doesn’t fucking belong to them. It is still theft of intellectual property.

Furthermore, this is not a grey area in law. Any company/corporation/individual/entitiy with a copyright has the right to tell other people to stop using their content protected by that copyright if they so choose. There has been precedent for this. D*sney is one such example as is Anne Rice.

As for other content creators that aren’t dataminers and/or leakers, they have been sanctioned by Mihoyo to release the content they have been releasing. Don't drag down other content creators such as streamers, artists, fanmerch creators, etc as they comply with a very much public list of conditions that Mihoyo has published to allow them to LEGALLY profit. They make fun of Mihoyo’s legal department not even being able to make a clear paragraph in English, yet Honey Impact’s English isn’t perfect either. So what if Mihoyo can’t spell? Honey Impact apparently can’t even read.

5)     What they are asking Honey Impact to do with their website is to follow the law. It is not some fraud company politics, it. Is. The. Fucking. Law. The reason they don’t want Honey Impact to have backups is because they’re not supposed to fucking have it in the first place. Furthermore, company politics has to do with what goes on inside the company, not what the company does to people/entities outside of it.

Ultimately, the stuff related to unreleased content of Genshin Impact Honey Impact has been posting on their website DOES NOT BELONG TO THEM. It’s bad enough that they were posting it without permission, it’s even worse that they were getting money for it.

Not to mention, with the way they have been acting, if you’ve been sympathetic and/or defending them, they really don’t deserve it. They added a pretty nasty disclaimer on their new website (which has since been deleted), which, by the way, can get them sued for libel, so that’s another charge on them, and also really shows how petty and childish they’re acting.

Moving on to how they claim they’re back, which at this rate won’t be for long, they say they’ve moved to an Amsterdam based server and that that server is non-DMCA compliant.

So Ionos, their former host server for their website, is, in Honey's words, "DMCA compliant" only in the sense that they take responsibility for the content posted on their platform(s) and domain(s). All that means is that Mihoyo has to go through the DMCA process with the company to officiate the start of the paperwork.

Moving to an Amsterdam server that claims to be "not DMCA compliant" doesn't mean they can't get struck by DMCA. It just means that the company disclaims any and all legal obligations regarding the content posted and it will be solely the content creator's responsibility. So all that means is that they'll get their DMCA even faster now because Mihoyo will not be legally obligated to send the paperwork to the hosting company before sending it to them.

By the way, DMCA laws are INTERNATIONAL. Just because you moved servers from the US to Amsterdam does not mean you suddenly do not have to follow DMCA laws. Also, Mihoyo does have a local EU branch to deal with such things in Europe.

[thenextchapterbegins]

a mun rants

so my friend just brought myself attention to “rolescapes” and after a brief look at @rolescape​

I HAVE SOME CONCERNS.

1. you guys dont have a fucking income planned out? maybe this has changed in ur discord but from ur page and guys i want you to really know what they have planned for ideas on how to generate income. 

Ads: Pay to promote your RPH, creator blog, character blog, Instagram art, deviant art, etc and we will feature you!

Ads: For Etsy artists, redbubble artists, critical role, etc.

SPONSORS!!!

Pay to buy points — points can be earned by using the site, or they can be purchased and used to buy promotion space and some types of collectible badges.

Content creators can sell themes, and Rolescape will take a very small percentage

There will be an entire section for cosplayers, who generate a lot of traffic and are an important part of the RPC in their own area. They can advertise.

Community fundraisers — talent show. Every week, we will ask for submissions for the talent show. Talent shows will consist of dramatic readings of stories/fanfiction, acted-out cosplay scenes, impressions, fandom songs, skits, fan art reel, and whatever the community sends in that they can think of. Buy a $1 ticket to the show and receive a one-time access code to enter the page. All money collected goes back into making Rolescape possible and pays for the storage space to host all those gifs of Adelaide Kane.

The bottom 3 are perfectly fine the top 3 are incredibly worrying. 

thats right folks

you can pay to win RP

nothing says like causing descivness in the rping community by allowing rpers with money overtake promotional spots because they can literally pay to promo their blog across the site whilst a poor struggling blog can only watch as they gather no interactions. IM SURE THAT WILL GO WELL.

also as you know rolescapes exists already. its a tabletop rpg website do you wanna hear their response to this. 

While Rolescape is not a trademarked name, we are looking into this further and will post any updates if changes to the name should be made.

Thats right boys and girls they legit went “WELL ITS NOT TRADEMARKED SO IF WE EVER GOT MORE POPULAR THEN THE OTHER SITE I SUPPOSE WE WOULD HAVE TO CHANGE IT.”  Like what the fuck is this?

also

just the cherry on this sundae

“ Made FOR roleplayers, BY roleplayers “

you guys remember this saying

lettme remind you

“DASHCON. a con made for tumble users MADE by tumble users.” and dashcon as u kno, was a great success. 

oop just came across this as i was reading on security concerns.

“We do not have a formal security specialist on board at the moment, but as Rolescape continues to progress and grow, there is room to designate specialists to further our commitment to user security.“

what the fuck is this?

do they have anything planned out? are people donating to a literal empty shell of a website?

so far they have plan for income, no real security in place besides the creator which means nothing because the creator will be too busy with the thousand other things and they need a security head, they have plans to make a hyper-agressive rping community by adding pay to win mechanics. 

also an incredible worry for me is how diverse is the staff making the website. is it truly a website for rpers? even with tumble as it is with its desciveness on characters, aging up muses, you know genderbends, dubious situations from evil muses gaslighting to abuse, etc etc. people all over the spectrum on what they think is ok or not ok of course within legal limits its incredibly worrying for me because a site made by rpers when i dont know these rpers could be a site that could be heavy on “badthought” rping  punishing those that rp what they think isnt ok and yeeting them from the platform or it could truly be an open place for everyone no matter their opinions or styles of rping and i would like to hope they know this going in but so far on their page im not seeing anything that would alleviate this fear.

[pr-ay-the-gay-away]

I loved what you had to say in the last Ask you answered, that being said, how can a commoner such as myself grow from just reading Celeb mags and tabloids to truly understanding the industry and being more media literate. What steps should I take? What could I read to better understand this world? I really would like to follow what you did to become media literate.

“how can a commoner such as myself grow from just reading Celeb mags and tabloids to truly understanding the industry and being more media literate”

Well first off, we’re all “commoners” here. Both you and I.

Consider this: media literacy and the consumption of celeb mags and tabloids are not mutually exclusive concepts. Being more media literate does not mean foregoing the consumption of certain types of media. Consume all the media you want and can handle healthily!

I should clarify that in my example, being more media literate has allowed me to make better informed decisions for myself. My personal decision to stop following gossip mags, gossip websites, tabloids, etc was born from the acknowledgement that it brought a lot of negativity into my life and it didn’t contribute positively to building my world view. Recognizing the manufactured nature of celebrity gossip-centered media and how the messages they perpetuated were influencing my perspective was important.

Remember Kanye interrupting Taylor’s acceptance speech? I laughed at Taylor’s expense. I went “Yeah! Imma make Kanye memes about other things that are better than _insert something Taylor has done or attempted to do_”. Developing my media literacy has allowed me to reflect on how that was a very scripted publicity stunt, but just because Taylor and her team would have been in on it doesn’t absolve the negative impact it would have had on me and other impressionable viewers. The impact of that kind of engagement is that I go around with this normalized view of thinking it’s ok to try and tear others down, thinking it’s ok to make arbitrary comparisons between other people, between women, as though it’s a competition for which woman deserves recognition over everyone else. It’s gross and doesn’t align with my personal values. Without this recognition of how I’m being manipulated, I would have just been left to this reactive immaturity - behavior and attitudes that one might recognize as being the markers of a toxic stan.

Now if someone can subscribe to Just Jared, Just Jared Jnr, TMZ, Perez Hilton, Hollywood Life, E Online, Daily Mail, etc and be inundated with the sheer amount of manufactured media and not have it negatively influence their life and world views, that’s great. They can go do that if they like. But for me personally, years ago I would have seen the headline “Justin Bieber challenges Tom Cruise to a fight in the UFC ring!” and I would have spent so many brain cells thinking about all of it. It would have been like “What the fuck is wrong with Justin Bieber? What a stupid little shit. OMG. How can someone be so stupid. Did he get dropped on his head as a baby? Is it drugs? Does he have a shit mother? How does a kid turn out this way? What a fucking idiotic prick.” at the same time thinking “Man I can’t stand Tom Cruise, I would love to fucking see this fight. At the very least someone I don’t like is gonna get punched in the face. I may hate Justin Bieber but I kind of want to see him beat up Tom Cruise”. It’s like, why am I even thinking about this violence? I don’t even like violence. Yeah Justin and Tom’s public images both shit me, but now that I can recognize 1) the existence of a highly manufactured and controlled public image, and 2) the toxicity of the entertainment industry and how that affects stars, I can exercise more empathy towards both of them instead of wanting general bad things to happen to them. And now, I would see that same headline and I go “Lols, I wonder what they’ve both got coming up that they’re trying to promote. Ugh, so glad I don’t seek this shit out anymore” and I go about my day.

“What steps should I take?”

The very first step I would recommend is to watch this YouTube CrashCourse series on Media Literacy 

“What could I read to better understand this world?”

Read everything? Seek out information and knowledge, cross-reference and fact-check. Develop your inductive reasoning through the pursuit of a wide variety of knowledge, across different domains. Study different domains. If not formal study, just take an interest and read and learn about different domains. Work in different jobs and industries. Experience life. Travel. Talk to people from many different walks of life and backgrounds. Build your world view. See a therapist.

“I really would like to follow what you did to become media literate.”

It’s an ongoing journey, just like any life skill. You don’t really become media literate and then that’s it, you’re now media literate, you just keep trying to improve and learn and grow. We’re constantly developing and evolving our social consciousness with each new experience at every moment of every day.

In the specific context of Camren, I can tell you that my journey basically consisted of consuming a lot of 5H/Camren content. Practically bingeing on it. Along the way I probably bought into a bunch of different theories and “exposing” posts, and because I hadn’t yet read or seen anything to contradict it, it may have seemed plausible at that moment. For me, after reading posts by @emisonme and @decoding1432 (and some other now defunct blogs) on PR manipulation in fandoms, including various astroturfing tactics that they employ, I started to then realize that I couldn’t take “exposing” posts at face value. But it was the post about how management manufactured the OT4 v Camila “feud” narrative, along with the paper trail of the transfer of the 5H trademark that really exposed the timeline of events and how it all contradicted the public narrative published by the girls, their teams, and celebrity news publications - that post really blew my mind and really opened my eyes to the manipulation. It was at that moment that the entire feud narrative was made transparent and revealed to me to be complete and utter bullshit, as well as the cascading implications of that. In that new light, I could then look back at all of the “exposing” blogs and posts that perpetuated the feud narrative for what they were - total crap.

[larriefails]

Why are you comparing Louis saying he couldn’t have top producers and songwriters working with to him not being up on the business aspect of the industry? The reason why people believe he’s knowledgeable in this area is because it was stated years ago him and liam were the ones who handled the business calls and business meetings for the band and because Louis would also be trying to scout new talent which is what he did with 5sos. He has cared about this throughout 1d.

You do know that the 5SOS thing didn’t happen as you think it did, right? That is the one useful thing I found out via the Larries

Louis’ first tweet about them was in November 2012

But 5SOS were already signed to a publishing company and had been high up on Australia’s iTunes charts by June 2012 X

They were also signed to Capitol Records as early as January 2012

And both One Direction and their management company (Modest, who went on to sign 5SOS as well) had already set up a company in September 2012

And while Louis and Liam were directors of it X

All the members of 1D were equal shareholders (that data is under a paywall now, as far as I can tell, this screenshot was done by a Larrie, just FYI, but the website they used is legit, for once)

And One Mode basically owns the entirety of 5SOS trademarks X

If 5SOS had been “discovered” by Louis, or even by Liam and Louis, then it’d be unfair to then give equal parts of the revenue to the other three members. From what I understand, the role in a company like this one is no really that relevant and the important part is who the shareholders are. Also how much could they discover a band that had been signed for nine months by the time they set up the company and for eleven months by the time Louis tweeted about them?

What happened here is that One Direction was used as a springboard to give 5SOS popularity outside of Australia. Three months after Louis’ tweet about them, 5SOS were One Direction’s opening act for the European leg of Take Me Home. This is most likely why they were given shares to profit off 5SOS’ brand

As far as Louis and Liam being the ones that took business calls, I mean, I can vividly remember this being something the fandom just “knew” but I cannot remember where we got it from, and trying to find a source of it is proving really tricky. I’m kind of guessing it’s something they said in passing and that the fandom latched onto because that’s what they do, but that it doesn’t necessarily represent the band’s dynamics

Also, Liam was quite adamant during promo for Strip That Down that the whole “Liam is sensible” thing with him wasn’t really who he was and that it was sort of pushed upon him

This doesn’t mean that I don’t think Louis is business savvy. I’m sure they all were after years in the industry. But that’s the thing. I’m sure they all were. But Larries paint him out to be like, the president of One Direction, which is bullshit

Also, if he had been the de facto leader, which is why they call him, if he had been all up in 1D’s business much more than the others, then he’d simply have more contacts for his own solo career 🤷‍♀️ How could he cruise for years doing all the business side of one of the most profitable bands in the world and then reach his solo career and not be able to pick up a phone and call a big time producer? That makes no fucking sense, unless you want to believe Louis is being ‘sabotaged’.. are u a rad?

So what do I believe? The theories and speculation that Larries came up with going by stuff Louis, Liam, or the others said in passing in an interview? Or by what Louis said in black and white, in his exact words?

As a person that was never a Larrie, I prefer much more to live grounded in reality, but you’re free to believe whatever conspiracy theory you want

[olderthannetfic]

Have you heard of Writscrib? If yes, what are your thoughts?

I hadn’t heard of it. I see that there’s an indiegogo. This is some kind of micro-transaction tip jar website for creative people, right?

Are you asking if the people running it are legit? I have no idea. Their pitch seems okay. Or are you asking my opinion as someone who writes a lot of fandom meta? Like... why ask me as opposed to anyone else?

Long story short: Sounds good for original work. Fandom should stay away.

But, hey, I’m always happy to tl;dr, so here goes...

I love that we can now spend our money on the media we actually like, supporting the careers of people we want to see make art. If everyone would stop going to summer blockbusters and spend that $13 for their ticket, $1 for the online booking fee, and $10 for a fucking hot dog and coke on some Patreon or whatever, the media landscape would look very different.*

And it’s not just about what we buy legitimately. Even if you pirate everything, every minute spent on a major media property that disrespects us is a minute not spent on some indie weirdness that might actually cater to us. Your time and your energy are finite. Tumblr is all about paying lip service to also supporting diverse media, but at a certain point, if you’re trying to hold down a job and raise kids and leave the house for your vitamin D needs, it comes down to supporting indie media or diverse media or better creators or whatever your thing is instead of mainstream media.

That said, Writscrib, like anything that involves $$$, is aimed at original works. The content on Tumblr is a lot of reblogging gifsets and posting other fanworks. I don’t know that Writscrib has a lot to offer someone who’s mostly here for the fandom stuff.

If somebody can find an audience that wants to pay them to write meta, fair enough. It’s no different than a movie reviewer being paid for their work. But most fanworks have a complicated relationship with profit. A lot of fan art violates trademarks on logos and such. Fanfic really should not be paid for unless someone is publishing their sequel to a 19thC novel or recouping printer’s fees on a zine. (No, I don’t think zine eds should ever be paid for their time and labor. It’s the cost of the paper/ink/print shop and nothing else. If that fannish labor is to onerous, they should find a new hobby. That’s what the rest of us do.)

Most meta writers, including me, do not produce work that I think deserves pay. It’s not that it’s not enjoyable to read, but it doesn’t have the level of polish or rigor that would make me open my wallet. The same is true for most bloggers. Yeah, somebody might love your photos of your breakfast and your inane ramblings about your day, and that’s their business if they want to pay you, but most of that stuff strikes me as what everybody does on every social media site. I wouldn’t reward one person more than another, personally. Plus, most meta is only worth the discussion it inspires. The more people respond to it on a level playing field, the more interesting the whole becomes for a reader. I guess a micro-transaction website could let you pay commenters, but...

Writscrib might be good for authors who blog as an addition to Patreon. It could be good for indie musicians. I can definitely see the utility for visual artists who produce a lot of studies before embarking on a major piece. It’s entering a crowded marketplace with Patreon well established and lots of creatives having tip jars associated with their major social media accounts on sites everyone already uses. But if Writscrib manages to take off, it could be cool.

However, I think fanworks fandom should stay off of it. Stop asking for tips for your damn fic! Either build a normal career as an author (self published or otherwise) or accept that the time you spend on your hobby is a reward in and of itself. There’s no reason we should pay some of us and not others of us to do fandom shit, and there are plenty of legal reasons why it’s better to avoid it for the majority of fanwork types.

IDK... Was that what you were asking?

*Yeah, I live in obnoxiously expensive cities.

[killapunk]

Rules:

Always post the rules.

Answer the questions given by the person who tagged you.

Write 11 questions of your own.

Tag 11 people.

dont wanna tag those many. tagged by @aliencadaver tho

1) What’s your favorite genre of movie? What’s your favorite movie from that genre (or one that you watched recently and liked a lot)?

YOU KNOW ME I am all about horror. Top movie is still the Babadook because I’m a firm believer in talking back to whatever scares you.

2) If you were to become famous, what would you most want to be famous for?

Being a fucking badass. Art and characters can come after that. I wanna be badass. 

3) Are there any tattoos you want or have planned?

None so far, but I do really want a little star inside a broken circle somewhere on my back. 

4) If you could permanently change your hair and eye color to anything you wanted, which colors would you choose?

Blue hair, red eyes. It’s sort of been my trademark look for a while now!

5) What’s your favorite fantasy/mythical creature?

I really like banshees because I want to be able to scream bloody murder whenever I wish and do some lasting damage.

6) If you could only listen to one genre of music for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Viking metal. It would actually help me get shit done- motivate me, y’know? I can also cheat and say videogame soundtracks since that has basically every genre in existence somehow

7) What’s your ideal comfort food?

Filling and sweet. Like a bun with a chocolate middle.

8) If you could instantly be transported to any place and time period, where and when would you choose?

Miami, the 80s. You kiddin’?

9) What would your ideal house/apartment/etc. be like?

Small, with huge windows or glass walls. Make the most of the space, sleep in a loft. High up so I can always see the sky. Decked out in neon bullshit, but not enough to look cluttered.

10) Which superpower have you always wanted?

FLIGHT... But also the ability to set things on fire, haha. Also being able to scream loud. Also.............. yeah quite a few.

11) Which historical fashion trend do you think we should bring back, if any?

Those gigantic horse asses from the 1800s, duh. (Bustles, they’re called).

1. You can take the pain of any one person and dissolve it into nothingness. This could radically change them, mostly for the better. Whose pain do you take? 2. What food could you survive on? 3. Which mythological creature do you wish you were, potential downsides and all? 4. What does your wardrobe consist of? 5. Describe your dream job.  6. What was your first OC like? Got no OCs- what was your first fandom/obsession? 7. You either die instantly and save humanity (as a concept, not individuals) or you live and only save your family/best friend/pets. I know we all wanna die on this damn website, but which do you choose? 8. Which country have you always wanted to visit? 9. What was the most recent dream you can remember? 10. What’s a cartoon or show you can’t get into, no matter how hard you try? 11. What’s one thing about yourself you aim to improve?

i tag @graccino @fillipsfunkylife @uni416 @pt90 @rockytoad and idk who the fuck else , if you wanna do it, go ahead

[sweetest-teeth]

2. Places I Was Never Meant to Be

The past year and a half I’ve really gotten into astrology. To the point where I know more than just my sun sign and could probably tell you the signs you’re most romantically compatible with. Know what a moon sign is? It’s supposed to be who you are when no one else is around. Who you are when you’re alone with your thoughts. I’m an Aquarius moon, which means I’m innovative and I’m an outsider. Or I feel like one, at least.

This makes a lot of sense. I’ve been in plenty of spaces that didn’t have people like me in mind. Like of middle school, when I was having my huge musical awakening. Knee-deep in my punk phase, I had the Sex Pistols and X-Ray Spex and Sham 69 on heavy rotation. Then I watched Patti Smith perform on some VH1 Honors, her trademark white button-down untucked, hair askew, singing a song called Rock n Roll Nigger. I read a Richard Hell interview on some website, where he asserts that punks are niggers too. After all, they’re outcasts aren’t they? At 13 it was tough to realize that so many of the bands I idolized didn’t have room for first generation black girls in their fandom. But you couldn’t tell me nothing then, not when my room was still plastered with posters of white dudes.

For many white people - scratch that, for many white people with limited interactions with black people - I’m an anomaly. I don’t use ebonics regularly. I watch Wes Anderson movies. I know white culture, however you want to interpret that. I can talk about Jason Schwartzman’s body of work, but if I mentioned New Jack City or School Daze in a room of white friends I’d get crickets.

Maybe assumptions are to be expected at a small liberal arts college where most people are, in fact, solidly middle-class. I sat in a wealthy friend’s car the summer before senior year, chatting with another girl about our post-grad job prospects. She pulled out a glass piece and said, “I think we’re at a point where we’re not expected to make more money than our parents.”

And I nodded silently, watching her unscrew her grinder to pack the bowl. I didn’t tell her I grew up eligible for free and reduced lunches at my public schools. Or that my family’s been on food stamps before. That my mom was a CNA and my dad a cab driver, so if I wasn’t going to make more than them then what the fuck did they come to this country for? I didn’t say any of those things because it was too much to explain. Too much hidden class shame. Too much not wanting to talk about things with people who would never get it.

College was the first time I really had rich friends. Like, really rich. One winter break another friend invited me to her grandparents’ condo for the night. The building boasted a roster of former residents like Alice Cooper and Scottie Pippen. As I looked out their window overlooking the Navy Pier, nursing a glass of wine, tummy still full from Indian takeout, I took inventory of my life. How did a low-income black girl end up here, with friends who don’t even know what student loans are, or even just how hard it is to pay rent sometimes. Or even just the concept of a lack of money causing problems. 

There was a time this dissonance made me squirm. Made me question if I belonged in the spaces I found myself inhabiting. My education and knack for standardized test taking are what saved me from a less-privileged fate...not to give myself all the credit, of course my family made sacrifices to be where we are. But I am the outlier in my household. The only bookshelf is in my room. I don’t expect my parents to read the shit I write. Aside from the news and the Qu’ran, they hardly read at all. 

I used to get this feeling whenever I was in one of many ultra-white classrooms. Or later, whenever I was at ultra-white networking events. It’s hard to describe...like I had an invisible sign on my head. Or like I was in one of those workbook exercises for kids where you have to circle the item in a group that doesn’t belong. I joined a professional association in hopes of getting a job after graduating. My mentor asked m about the job connections my parents had and I almost laughed out loud. What kind of connections? None of the ones I wanted in my quest for upward mobility.

As I get more familiar with navigating between worlds, I’m learning a whole mess of things. I’m learning to marvel at myself. No, I wasn’t intended to be in some spaces. No other working class people are there. Or black females for that matter. Yet here I am, existing, thriving, doing the damn thing. I almost feel like I have superpowers. One thing about Aquarius moons: we may be loners at heart but we’re a strong-willed breed. As far as I’ve gotten off of my own sweat and smarts - no private tutors, no job leads from Daddy - I’m learning that if I’m somewhere it’s because I put myself there. Because I belong, goddamnit. Aside from myself who’s gonna tell me otherwise? I’m learning to shut that voice up. It’s not that easy, but I’m getting there.