#first is a gen account second is art but tbh I might just use art for most stuff and private the other once they add a locked acc feature

[wolvesrain]

take my hand let’s go to bluesky together

[mollydollyjournals]

I'm supposed to go for dinner with my in laws tomorrow. Today, technically. Hb isnt even sure if he's going so I have to wait until hes decided. But I dont feel like I can go at all. It would be a really bad idea for me. I'm fucking tired. I'm worse than I've been in a long time. Again. I keep getting worse. Why the fuck would I be able to go play Good Wife in a situation that's anything but that.

And I just got a lot better with my art. That ADHD hyperfocus finally paid off somehow. In the past month I've learned way more with drawing than i have in years. I wanna draw. I wanna make comics. I wanna learn. It feels like growth and i dont want to go sit in a mansion pretending the sofa I'm sitting on isnt worth more money than my entire life. I'm not them. Nigga we ain't them.

If I stay up late enough I can tell hb I wont be able to wake up in time. Its likely anyway, and I already told him this. It's just the only thing of my issues that he seems to relate to. I think he can relate to more really, but he keeps playing the part. Kyriarchy is a hell of a drug.

I have therapy every Friday. Last session I mentioned that this dinner was coming up and I didnt want to go. My therapist said, 'then why not stay home?' and I felt like, you know...you're right. I know you're right. You know you're right. Insert Nirvana song. The correct option, really, is for me not to go. Even hb isnt really well enough to make the 3-4hr round trip for dinner.

But they are high achieving high functioning middle class rich white people and whether we care about that or not the fact remains that they own the house we live in. And that's capitalism, folks. That's why I havent left hb in all the times I've thought that might be better for us. That's why hb hasnt broken away from his parents in all his life. That's why his mother hasnt left his father even though shes literally even told her children she wants to. Its money. In some cases, cant handle leaving the middle class lifestyle behind. In my case, just need a secure place to live with vaguely reliable heating and internet. Regardless, fucking capitalism.

So I dont know what to do. They wouldnt understand that I finally got some kind of breakthrough with my art. Not unless i was going to make money out of it. My own mother barely understands that kind of thing. God theres so much i havent even written here.

I just dont want to go. It's not a good idea for me to go. It's a good idea for me to stay here and make my art and draw my comics and stay sober where I can and drink where I need to. Fuck I'm really glad I started with my therapist tbh. It really surprised me that a cishet white guy that isnt trying to fuck me might actually relate to me. My brain keeps spinning all kinds of bad outcomes for that. But for the time being at least, this is someone who thinks similarly to me, but is qualified as a therapist in a lot of ways that I need. And if he says 'addiction isnt the ideal but I'm really glad you got drunk instead of k1ll1ng yourself' and 'if you're that stressed about going, why do you have to go?' that's what was in my head to start with. That was exactly it. I could have game over'd and I definitely wanted to but I drank instead to just keep myself going. Until later. Until tomorrow if I can manage it. My increased sui// shit is from feeling like I'm being judged for that and cant get out of it, and if I cant continue as an alcoholic, and i cant continue without alcohol, then i guess i just cant continue. And fuck even a paid professional is such a rarity as someone who might tell me that yes, I should continue to exist, and yes, I am a good thing in the world, and yes, there is a way to realistically drink less, but yes, i should drink myself into oblivion if that helps me to continue to exist another day. And in deciding whether to go see my rich white upper middle class in laws, I should consider whether I actually want to do that or not and maybe just be selfish a bit in my decision.

But hb will give me shit if I don't. I was really hoping he'd cancel. He said he was probably going to. But he didnt confirm. He said hed confirm tomorrow, at a time that's fine for him but way too late for me. Really, we shouldn't go. Neither of us should. We only want to go to show up for his mother, who is a baby boomer who's been through a lot and tried her best to fill the role assigned to her. Otherwise we'd see the rest of his family at another time - not that we dont want to see then, we just dibt want to cancel.

And all of this is the same performative bullshit I grew up with. As a poor person attending a school full of rich kids. As a 2nd gen immigrant brown kid at a school full of white folks (where in the recent BLM movement that same school was called out for its racism). As a yet-undiagnosed autistic kid trying to look neurotypical while not even aware of the issue.

Its the same. Every time I have to go back there. Even hb got more vocal about judging me recently. Again. I'm too tired. I cant do it. I can work on my drawing, I cant do this middle class family Good Wife shit.

Its nearly 2:30am and that'll be my excuse. I wont be able to wake up in time. Hb will understand that. But he'll see it that I'm still awake because I stayed up drinking and smoking and whatever. Not that I'm doing those things because I'm anxious as shit. Or that actually I had a reasonable amount of wine with my mum today when I went to visit her for the first time in a really long time, along with two of the pets I brought home when I lived with her who are now elderly and one could drop dead any second, and I'm really an introvert, and if I'm going to go anywhere to socialise it has to be my mum. It has to.

I dont know if I'm overreacting, because at this point I'm going to have to tell hb that I wont be able to go and hes going to know that I drank and whatever and maybe he wont go off at me. But I am completely certain that there'll be some passive aggression going forth. And I hate this. And even this journal post, on my own private anonymous tumblr account, is taking up way too muc mental energy that I was previously putting into a drawing that I actually felt good about.

[badrpstories]

I’m in a group discord rn with some rper folks in my fandom (or tangentially in the fandom, since some people are multifandom/crossover friendly, and just so happen to have a main crossover verse in our fandom). And it’s got like some of the big names, as most do, like the most “in” blogs at the moment (generally people who either recently remade or recently joined), as well as some lesser-known people in more niche areas of the fandom.

And… A weeb. God. The only reason I know for a fact that they’re a weeb is bc I have /never/ heard anyone talk like that, even people who speak multiple languages (I speak English and mandarin since I’m first gen Chinese American), so I know really well how people who actually speak English as a second language talk. We don’t say “ni hao! Hi!” to random white people, or to anyone in general. We say one or the other (depending on the main language of the other person). The only time we switch between languages is when we literally don’t know the word/the word literally doesn’t have a good translation, but these words are never words like “hello” “goodbye” or “thank you”. Even their OCs talk like that and I cringe so hard every single time. I feel kinda bad though, since every time they talk like that the server seems to magically clear out.

But at the same time, I can’t bring myself to feel that terrible about them. The server sometimes clears out when I post too, and I’m just like -shrugs- I guess???

Oh and in the same server, yknow those popular kids I was talking about (well not actual kids that’s just the phrase I use)? One night one of them asked for like an on-the-spot critique in the channel bc they posted wanting a critique on their blog and no one sent anything in. So I gave them a critique, yknow, professional style: you tell them what they’re doing right, tell them what you think is not so great, and summarize/general things. They actually took it really well, contrary to what people tend to think, and couple other people asked me for a critique. Also it was like hella late, and like… Well, I also asked them to critique me (just like people in general). And… I mean I guess I sorta got a half assed one from the first person? It was like “oh I couldn’t really find anything wrong wow you’re a really good writer I’ll write something longer tomorrow.” It’s been tomorrow, and now it’s tomorrow’s tomorrow. But I’m fairly lenient when it comes to time, so I’m like “alright, that’s fair, whatever”. They also decided to follow me and be mutuals after the critique and said I should message them about plotting later, so I was like “ok sure!” And supposedly they don’t check their private messages often on discord (I guess they might have multiple accounts bc they have multiple blogs for different characters/fandoms) so it took them a bit to get to me (after a quick reminder in the group chat). At this point I’m still willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I’m going to sit back a bit and like not invest too much in them. They run a fairly popular blog and probably get people clamoring to plot/write with them, and they have a bajillion drafts while I run a slightly less popular blog with much fewer drafts bc I prefer to keep at most 10 at a time. So,, not gonna invest too much time. It’s still a risk rn bc with me, I prefer to keep a select few active partners who I can give all my time and attention to, but really it’s just personal preference. I’ll return the same amount of care and attention given to me.

Oh and there are these two other ocs (I’ll call them Ha and Hu) who I just can’t stand. Our fandom is a game fandom, and there is a class system (in some ways similar to how RPGs have like mages and knights and healers and shit) and there are a group of them that we call the “canons” since they technically aren’t characters but they have a few unique personality traits and some limited backstory. But it’s the class system that matters most in this case. Ha and Hu are just two of the most popular classes/canons rehashed and given a different faceclaim, name, and gender identity. It really irritates me as both a writer and a budding game developer. It’s like they barely put any effort into their characters’ classes and just decided “eh I’ll take the existing classes and just give em a little twist and voila! Here we go!” The sad part to me is that their OCs are otherwise pretty good (aside from one design flaw in which a character is inexplicably young-looking despite being like 40, which,, can be justified, I just didn’t see a justification in the backstory). Oh and the red hair deal: redheads don’t actually have red-red hair. It’s actually closer to orange, at most kind of halfway in between. But not bright, cherry red like they drew their character. It just bothers me so much… I hope they ask for character critiques soon. I really really really hope they do so I can tell them that their class designs really aren’t new class designs as much as bad concept art of the existing classes. Ugh. Although tbh if they don’t care about improving their OCs or making them stand out, I’m fine with them staying the way they are. Let them have their fun. But if they do want to improve, I hope they ask for critiques at some point. I want to tell them one way to improve on their characters.

[asrisgratitudejournal]

BTS

This might be the most random thing I wrote here (aren't all my posts here random in state-of-the-art already?). So, on the trip last weekend, suddenly Mas Kharis blasted Boy With Luv in the car (it’s just his automatic Spotify playlist that did this). Being an ARMY, I can’t help but shout and be happy about it. “OMG, BTS!” It turns out that Mas Kharis and his family also know one or two things about BTS, especially BT21, and then the convo shifts into who BTS is and what makes them popular.

One of the questions Bang Reybi asked me was “why do you like them, Non? What makes you hooked into them?”. The funny thing is… I can’t answer the question. At all. It took me whole 2 mins (?) to think. To be honest, there is no single answer to that question. If I can summarize, the answer would be: “all. everything about them.” But that’s just an answer of someone who loves something unconditionally, someone who’s crazy in love (now playing: Beyonce-Crazy in Love). At this moment, I need to answer rationally, especially now that I talk with 3 men who are doing their PhDs in Oxford.

First thing first, of course, peoples’ guess would be: “Is it because they are handsome?” Well, I wouldn’t be mad at that assumption because how they look definitely play a part. However, it’s not like all of them are over-the-top-good-looking or anything, unlike other Korean boybands such as EXO or TXT as an example from the 4th gen boy group, not all members of BTS are that handsome. There are indeed some eye candies in the group, let’s say V or Jungkook or Jin, but tbh if you look closely, one of my bias (favorite member of one’s group) is RM, which is known for his average look that even some people used to think that he didn’t deserve to be in an idol group (Gosh I wonder how people could be so mean).

So, to that question, I tried to explain by saying that “I can relate to them so much.” I mentioned how I love RM just because I can find so many similarities to him. He loves to enjoy nature, visits art museums, reads books, can’t cook, and can’t drive. He just shows that he is… human. As I am. But, of course, that answer didn’t satisfy Bang Reybi. He argued back by saying “Well, that doesn’t answer the question of why you pick THAT specific person to follow, though. I mean, there are hundreds of people you can relate to, who do the exact same things as RM does as you mentioned before, yet you specifically only choose him, not the others.”

Then I came to my second answer. “Yes, what you’re saying is true”, I said to Bang Reybi. “However, these hundreds of other people, I don’t have access to them. I don’t know how I can follow them since their social media accounts are probably not public, nor I have the chance to meet and find them.” Other arguments come to mind. I mentioned how interactive BTS is with its fans. They always try to communicate with their fans and talk to them via social media. At this moment, I haven’t revealed to them that BTS fans are called by a specific name that is ARMY, and I haven’t got out of the closet yet (as an ARMY). We were just talking about why people get to like BTS in general, including me.

After I mentioned their social media presence, Mas Kharis said more about how BTS is now in every product basically. He said one time his wife asked him to buy a UNIQLO x BTS collab shirt in Oxford since it sold out really fast in Indonesia. And this is where I came out, I accidentally being overproud of BTS and mentioned all of BTS’ collaboration now, including BTSMeal, BTS as the brand ambassador of Tokopedia, Hyundai, Samsung (Korean Pride yeay), and many more. At this point, Bang Reybi be like “Noni, are you a fan of BTS? Because it seems like you’re now an encyclopedia of BTS.” Then, I came out of the closet. Yay! This 27-year-old woman who’s doing PhD at the University of Oxford finally revealed that she is an ARMY (hah lega banget). Bang Reybi then asked since when I became their fan and what things related to BTS that I’ve bought/spent money for.

It’s really funny, though. I also just realized this but in fact, it’s not been that long since I’ve become an ARMY. I got to be an ARMY because of Vannia partly, and the other part is because of James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke. It was January 2020, I guess? It’s only been one year! Before that, back in 2019, I just know that Vannia is an ARMY together with other 4-5 ITB Mothers. She mentioned them occasionally when we hang out together, but she never shoves them to me, asked me to listen to them or anything. I just said to Vannia that I knew and heard of them since VMA 2017, and I praised them for their performance but never went deeper for them.

On a weekend back in 2019, I think(?), Vannia asked me to take pictures of BTS in one of the MRT stations and at that time, to be honest, I still have this prejudice of BTS: a boy band, a South Korean boy band who sing and dance and being trained in one of those entertainment company, which is cool, though, because they successfully made their way into Indonesia’s market. Vannia mentioned that for their Tokopedia contract, Tokopedia gave them an empty check to fill, it’s up to them how much they want to be paid as Tokopedia’s brand ambassador. I relayed this information to Bang Reybi and the others in the car and they just awed hearing the fact (I was also awed the first time I heard that).

I believe I also took a pic in this MRT station back then? I only know RM at that time, and I’ve been a fan of him because I know he’s the leader of the band and also one with 148 IQ (in which now IQ is not relevant anymore, but anyways). Will attach the pic if I managed to find it.

Then, later, I started to make myself familiar with the members’ names. And I came across the carpool karaoke video. If you want to call it hidayah, this is it. I think the carpool karaoke video is one of hidayah that I got so that I got in the ‘religion’ – Bang Reybi, Prama, Mas Kharis, and I already agree that this BTS phenomenon is probably how religion started and developed back then. Starting from knowing the members, I started to listen to their music. In my honest opinion, their music is fine, they are not spectacular or anything, but it’s just that their lyrics have very deep meaning (and very beautiful, too, grammatically - God I wish I understand Korean so that I can appreciate their songs more). But I’ve got to say we got better music out there so I can’t really answer “I love them because of their music” to that first question Bang Reybi asked me.

I really went into a rabbit hole since I watched their content. I mentioned to Bang Reybi “another way for them to communicate with their fans is by making a lot of content.” By watching their contents: BTS Gayo, Run BTS, In The Soop, concert making videos, holiday packages, and many more (yes, Bighit really knows how to make money out of them, yeay to capitalism), we as fans got to see the other side of these idols. Not their performing self, with heavy makeup and tight choreography on the stage, but this normal human being that interacts with others sloppily while answering a quiz or playing games. Then again, it’s the “oh I so can relate to them” factor that works here. We fall in love with their characters, with their personalities. Prama then jumped in to conclude mentioning ‘penokohan’, I don’t know what that is in English. But, probably, if we’re to compare with Islamic history/system, it would be similar to how sahabat Rosul loves him so much, or how FPI loves HRS so much. Well, that’s if you want to make some analogies~

Then we jumped into how BTS influences people. Because it’s just crazy how I, personally, just buy books RM recommended or ARMY who are into fashion just buy BTS’ clothes. To this question, “how can they be SO influential?” I have no other option but to simply say “It’s just because we love them so much. You will do anything for the ones that you love. You want to have the same thing, eat the same food, go to the same place. There’s no rational answer when it comes to love.” So, people, if you want to influence others, make sure you get the first step: make them love you, and if you can, unconditionally.

We then delved into so many other things on BTS. We talked about how diverse ARMY is, how their biggest market is the US despite their songs that are in Korean mostly (except the recent release of Dynamite and Butter), and how they can give a winning to political party/candidate if they were to be the one who gives endorsement.

I suddenly remembered this narrative that probably also played part in the rising of BTS popularity. It’s about how they are living proof of a success story. I then went on to talk to these men about how BTS was used to be the underdog, coming from non-big3 entertainment companies in South Korea. Their company didn't have as much money and connection, two important things that are apparently important in guaranteeing a boy group's success in SK. They had such a difficult time getting a slot to perform in a music show, being mocked for their names and their concept, and it took them 2 years to get their 1st music show win. They even had to face the accusation of plagiarism, invalid daesang win, and chart manipulation. It’s a cruel world indeed, but even now when they are at the top (yeay!), they still have to go through discrimination and racism at times just because they’re Asian. In a way, this story of how BTS got through so many hardships and succeeded at the end really empowers so many ARMYs all over the world, especially those with low self-esteem and who feel like they can’t survive the world on their own. Accompanied by their album concept of ‘Love Yourself’ and their speech at the UN, it makes it easier to love them, not only as a 7-member boy group who has good looks and sings and dances but as a messenger and motivator to tell you to be strong and to love yourself.

In the middle of the talk, I forgot who said this, but we suddenly look at the equivalent of this phenomenon -BTS-ARMYs relationship- to the ones that football fans have with their favorite clubs. They are very similar in nature. Bang Reybi mentioned his friend who came to London just to watch the Champions League final together with a fan club in a pub (nobar Bahasa indonesianya mah). However, it has a slight difference when Prama mentioned that most of them are loyal to the club itself, not to the players. I don’t know about ARMYs, though. It seems like most of them would be loyal to the band instead of the member (?), but looking at how hostile BTS solo stan is, I would say we ARMYs more loyal to the member rather than the band itself.

Then a question comes to my mind, so I asked them: “how do you guys pick that specific club you’re loyal to in the beginning? what makes you stan them? Is it how good they play in a match? Or the strategies, the technique they played with? Or what?” Then Mas Kharis explained it’s more like who the league winner/the greatest football club was at that time when they were children and just learning about football. Who you hang out with also might have played a role in your preference of football club. If you hang out a lot with this big brother/friend who supports Chelsea, for example, you would be likely to support them since most of the time you’d only be hearing about how good Chelsea is and how the other groups suck big time. Isn’t it EXACTLY the same as how we girls got into one KPOP boy group? (As in my case, I hang out a lot with Vannia, therefore BTS).

Later, I also said we as ARMYs are not as crazy as people think we are. I could make an argument of how almost all my male friends have this dream to go to the UK just so that they could come to the city/stadium where their favorite football group plays or trains. They also bought their fav groups’ jersey, merch, watch a match together in a café, TWEET NONSTOP when a match was going on, commented on how bad their players’ performance was on Twitter, commented on the coach on Twitter, pick a fight with Twitter account who mocked their fav group, shouted so LOUD whenever their team made a goal or missed a goal. Then, how is that different from us KPOP fans? My long-life dream is to come to Seoul watching BTS perform in Jamsil stadium. I bought BTS’ album, bought their merch, spammed my Twitter timeline on their online concerts, (probably) will shout as loud as those football fanboys when I got to see BTS (which right now with the covid-19, the probability to see them in person with my own eyes in this lifetime would only be 5%). It is the same! It is exactly the same behavior, us and those football club supporters, yet we’re being looked down on as if we’re just immature teenagers with our empty brain and we love them only because of their looks. Ugh. Frustrating.

However, I don’t deny that there are indeed immature teenagers between us ARMY. We’re not a perfect group of people with no flaw. We’re just diverse. So diverse that you can almost find every occupation there is in the world inside the ARMYs circle. You’d find also a very broad range of age, genders, geography, and of course different level of devotion to BTS. It is like a group of people with the same religion, really. In Islam, some people are just so extreme and express their love to Allah in a way that is harmful to the Islamic community itself: e.g., terrorists and suicide bombers. Then when a case of terrorism happened, we’d say “what they did doesn’t represent Islam at all, they are just some of the extremists who don’t even understand what the real Islam is.” So does ARMY. Those ARMYs that are so hostile and very childish that you face or see in social media? They are just a bunch of ARMYs that are on the extreme side. What they did then paint an image of ARMY as a scary and hostile group of teenagers who will do whatever it takes to defend their oppas unconditionally. So, lesson learned here is for us to be careful now in stereotyping and generalizing a group of people.

For closing these 4 pages of essay, a last question Bang Reybi asked was “but I never heard of BTS as often as I heard Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and Jack Ma, for example. I mean, if they have their ARMYs, if they have that big of an influence in the world, how come I never know about them and how big they are until now?” To this question I answered, “well that’s because you don’t care about music? I mean it’s not like BTS changing the world in the way those names you mentioned did. At the end of the day, the root of BTS is their music, they are a boy band. It is a very niche world indeed. You didn’t hear BTS as much probably it’s just because your life is closer to tech, therefore, Steve Jobs, crypto, therefore, Elon Musk, and economy, therefore, Jack Ma. You wouldn’t check if Ariana Grande is getting married or Lady Gaga buy a new home, would you? Because that information is irrelevant to your life that’s why.”

-Kkeut.

partially written on 04/06/2021 at 30.18 dan 07/06/2021 at 9 Woodlands Close

Bonus: found the MRT pics when I didn't even know the name of all BTS members