#genuinely it's that tweet about assuming the worst like

[icharchivist]

love seeing a lot of tweets vaguing an obvious bad take and you read the vague tweets and it’s like “damn whoever had the take you’re vaguing must have really said something stupid” and then you see the OP and you see like, a tweet slightly misworded by virtue of being 250 characters long, that absolutely did not say the thing everything is vaguing they’re saying, but you could conclude that by doing the absolute worst bad faith reading of that tweet, and now you’re watching people dogpilling them on their qrt over something they did not say and everyone having hot take about how they’re a bad person for something that is “implied if you assume the person meant badly by it” and it’s like wow maybe it’s good twitter is dying actually

[autismserenity]

know someone who enjoys horror stories? share this one! it's true!

hahahahahahahahahaha aarrggghhhhhhhhhh 3,000,000 deaths due to COVID-19 last year. Globally. Three million. Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic. The reason people are still worried about COVID is because it has a way of quietly fucking up your body. And the risk is cumulative.

I'm going to say that again: the risk is cumulative.

It's not just that a lot of people get bad long-term effects from it. One in seven or so? Enough that it's kind of the Russian Roulette of diseases. It's also that the more times you get it, the higher that risk becomes. Like if each time you survived Russian Roulette, the empty chamber was removed from the gun entirely. The worst part is that, psychologically, we have the absolute opposite reaction. If we survive something with no ill effects, we assume it's pretty safe. It is really, really hard to override that sense of, "Ok, well, I got it and now I probably have a lot of immunity and also it wasn't that bad." It is not a respiratory disease. Airborne, yes. Respiratory disease, no: not a cold, not a flu, not RSV.

Like measles (or maybe chickenpox?), it starts with respiratory symptoms. And then it moves to other parts of your body. It seems to target the lungs, the digestive system, the heart, and the brain the most.

It also hits the immune system really hard - a lot of people are suddenly more susceptible to completely unrelated viruses. People get brain fog, migraines, forget things they used to know.

(I really, really hate that it can cross the blood-brain barrier. NOTHING SHOULD EVER CROSS THE BLOOD-BRAIN BARRIER IT IS THERE FOR A REASON.) Anecdotal examples of this shit are horrifying. I've seen people talk about coworkers who've had COVID five or more times, and now their work... just often doesn't make sense? They send emails that say things like, "Sorry, I didn't mean Los Angeles, I meant Los Angeles."

Or they insist they've never heard of some project that they were actually in charge of a year or two before.

Or their work is just kind of falling apart, and they don't seem to be aware of it.

People talk about how they don't want to get the person in trouble, so their team just works around it. Or they describe neighbors and relatives who had COVID repeatedly, were nearly hospitalized, talked about how incredibly sick they felt at the time... and now swear they've only had it once and it wasn't bad, they barely even noticed it.

(As someone who lived with severe dissociation for most of my life, this is a genuinely terrifying idea to me. I've already spent my whole life being like, "but what if I told them that already? but what if I did do that? what if that did happen to me and I just don't remember?") One of its known effects in the brain is to increase impulsivity and risk-taking, which is real fucking convenient honestly. What a fantastic fucking mutation. So happy for it on that one. Yes, please make it seem less important to wear a mask and get vaccinated. I'm not screaming internally at all now.

I saw a tweet from someone last year whose family hadn't had COVID yet, who were still masking in public, including school.

She said that her son was no kind of an athlete. Solidly bottom middle of the pack in gym.

And suddenly, this year, he was absolutely blowing past all the other kids who had to run the mile. He wasn't running any faster. His times weren't fantastic or anything. It's just that the rest of the kids were worse than him now. For some reason. I think about that a lot. (Like my incredibly active six-year-old getting a cold, and suddenly developing post-viral asthma that looked like pneumonia.

He went back to school the day before yesterday, after being home for a month and using preventative inhalers for almost week.

He told me that it was GREAT - except that he couldn't run as much at recess, because he immediately got really tired. Like how I went outside with him to do some yard work and felt like my body couldn't figure out how to increase breathing and heart rate.

I wasn't physically out of breath, but I felt like I was out of breath. That COVID feeling people describe, of "I'm not getting enough air." Except that I didn't have that problem when I had COVID.) Some people don't observe any long (or medium) term side effects after they have it.

But researchers have found viral reservoirs of COVID-19 in everyone they've studied who had it.

It just seems to hang out, dormant, for... well, longer than we've had an opportunity to observe it, so far.

(I definitely watched that literal horror movie. I think that's an entire genre. The alien dormant under ice in the Arctic.)

(oh hey I don't like that either!!!!!!!!!) All of which is to explain why we should still care about avoiding it, and how it manages to still cause excess deaths. Measuring excess deaths has been a standard tool in public health for a long time.

We know how many people usually die from all different causes, every year. So we can tell if, for example, deaths from heart disease have gone way up in the past three years, and look for reasons. Those are excess deaths: deaths that, four years ago, would not have happened. During the pandemic, excess death rates have been a really important tool. For all sorts of reasons. Like, sometimes people die from COVID without ever getting tested, and the official cause is listed as something else because nobody knows they had COVID. But also, people are dying from cardiovascular illness much younger now.

People are having strokes and heart attacks younger, and more often, than they did before the pandemic started. COVID causes a lot of problems. And some of those problems kill people. And some of them make it easier for other things to kill us. Lung damage from COVID leading to lungs collapsing, or to pneumonia, or to a pulmonary embolism, for example. The Economist built a machine-learning model with a 95% confidence interval that gauges excess death statistics around the world, to tell them what the true toll of the ongoing COVID pandemic has been so far.

Total excess deaths globally in 2023: Three million.

3,000,000.

Official COVID-19 deaths globally so far: Seven million. 7,000,000. Total excess deaths during COVID so far: Thirty-five point two million. 35,200,000.

Five times as many.

That's bad. I don't like that at all. I'm glad last year was less than a tenth of that. I'm not particularly confident about that continuing, though, because last year we started a period of really high COVID transmission. Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic. Here's their data, and charts you can play with, and links to detailed information on how they did all of this:

Here's a non-paywalled link to it:

https://archive.vn/2024.01.26-012536/https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates

Oh: here's a link to where you can buy comfy, effective N95 masks in all sizes:

Those ones are about a buck each after shipping - about $30 for a box of 30. They also have sample packs for a dollar, so you can try a couple of different sizes and styles.

You can wear an N95 mask for about 40 total hours before the effectiveness really drops, so that's like a dollar for a week of wear.

They're also family-owned and have cat-shaped masks and I really love them. These ones are cuter and in a much wider range of colors, prints, and styles, but they're also more expensive; they range from $1.80 to $3 for a mask. ($18-$30 for a box of ten.)

[annierosaart]

the new tweets from the official twitter talked about losing or weakening empathy without falling, and gave it an official term, EXILE or errari.

... i win

i fucking win

exusiai is nearing half a decade of not being in laterano. not only that but she ALSO says agenir didn't look like what's expected of someone who has it combine with her genuinely being unable to tell when a Laterano messenger, probably a sankta because liberi don't seem to get many field tasks aside from military stuff bumped into her. she's fuuuucked

also!

"emotions sensed from them are […] counter-conventional or self-contradictory"

exusiai's entire module is the counselors assuming the worst of exusiai, despite very reasonable and plausible explanations for her accidents existing. we also know the notarial hall chased her for playing rock music.

plus, the text says that the common cause for this is time away from laterano, implying it's not the only one.

i

win

[astronomodome]

recent twitter discourse under the cut bc I hate everything good in the world and love making myself suffer

It just frustrates me so much to see Doc and others hounded so much on twitter for not speaking out about the genocide in Palestine. Of course I have to preface this discussion with saying that yes it is terrible and it’s morally correct to speak out about it and offer resources. However (and I mostly see this on twitter) a lot of the pressure being put on ccs to post about it is not only performative but in fact harmful to the ccs’ wellbeing AND to the cause it’s meant to support.

All the tweets I’ve seen about getting the ccs to post about this issue sort of have this air of moral superiority to them despite coming from a place of genuine concern (I assume), like these youtubers have some moral obligation to do stuff for their fans. Serious world issue aside I think this comes from a very parasocial place, this idea that ccs owe their fans whatever the fans want to ask of them. They’re not your friends. They have thoughts and opinions that you don’t see and they have the right to develop their thoughts themselves just like any other person. So much of this demanding stuff dips into harassment territory and it’s just so disappointing to see.

The worst part, to me, is that the statements that ARE given at that point are meaningless too because they come not from a place of genuine thought and emotion about the issue but because a bunch of twitter users demanded them to talk about it. Maybe they would be able to make a statement more meaningful and helpful than just ‘hey look at these three links’ if they were given the grace everyone else is given to study the issue and speak out if it means a lot to them.

The ccs don’t owe you anything. Get over yourselves. Do what you can to support Palestinian voices, donate, signal boost on your own platform and stop pretending it’s some huge moral failure that a minecraft youtuber won’t tweet what you want them to.

[pyrrhiccomedy]

is there anything remotely constructive one can say in response to a middle-aged lesbian TERF who thinks that saying "date whoever you want, but if you're closed to dating whole groups of people like black, disabled, trans, you should examine your biases" is a form of (quote) rapey coercive conversion therapy that likens lesbians' sexual orientation to racism and is the same thing as homophobic harassers telling lesbians they should try dick?

Is there anything constructive to say to a TERF-terf? Like an actual terf? Like they call themselves a terf openly and tweet about how transgendered women are peeping at them in the bathroom? No. Those are kissing cousins to fascists. Lost cause. Move on.

Is there any way to have a constructive conversation with a middle-aged lesbian who is asking the question you have here, but has not been fully radicalized yet? Like, they are asking a very terfy question, but they actually might be willing to engage in a conversation with you in good faith? Yeah, I think so. You just have to come at it strategically.

So let's set the parameters for what we're talking about here carefully. I'm gonna say the word "penis" a lot, so brace yourselves for that.

We are not talking about non-lesbian terfs. Our demographic is a middle aged lesbian on the brink of being radicalized, but who is still willing to engage in a genuine conversation about her ideas.

We're also only going to deal briefly (in this very paragraph) with the use case of lesbian terfs who make no distinction between trans women who have fully medically transitioned, and trans women who still have dicks. Because like, if you just think a person assigned male at birth will always be male no matter what their body looks like or how they feel on the inside, the problem isn't so much that you're a terf as it is that you're a gender essentialist. Like, you can definitely be both, but the gender essentialism is the deeper issue, and that's a harder one to talk people out of because you start getting into a lot of science. Your question mentioned dick, so our use case here is a lesbian who doesn't want to date a trans woman because she doesn't want to touch a dick, and she perceives being asked to consider why she doesn't want to date trans women as pressure to put herself into a situation where she might interact with a dick.

Step one: engage your own empathy first.

The question being posed here logically holds together. You need to recognize that before you can engage with this person productively. Like, you know that this question is terfy as fuck, and that a trans person would probably feel bad hearing it, but the question in and of itself is not nonsensical. There's an "If A then B then C" happening here that holds together. "If a trans woman has a penis, and I, a lesbian, don't want to touch a penis, then by encouraging me to be more open-minded about dating trans women, you are exerting social pressure upon me to touch a penis." That tracks. It's not a kind or enlightened or nuanced way of looking at the situation, but the problem is that it is defensive, not that it is nonsense.

The second part of your empathy homework is to understand that middle aged lesbians have by and large had experiences that give them reason to be defensive. Lesbians who came up in the 70s and 80s faced way more pressure than most of us ever will to "give dick a chance." So while you see their question as a terfy dog whistle, they see your question ("why not consider why you don't want to sleep with a trans woman?") as an anti-lesbian dog whistle. Because when they were coming up, it would have been! You know that you don't mean it that way, but they have probably earned the right to assume the worst.

The third part of your empathy homework is to stop accusing this woman of being a terf unless she is an actual, out and out, radicalized terf (in which case, you can stop reading, because that's not what we're talking about here). Saying "that's terfy" or "that's a terf argument" or "you're really sounding like a terf" makes people SUPER DEFENSIVE. You are trying to make this woman feel less defensive, so she will allow herself to be more open to your ideas. You're not wrong! But you're also not going to get anywhere, and you specifically asked for how to have a productive conversation.

Okay, so empathy engaged. We have acknowledged that her question is not inherently spurious. We have acknowledged that she has a right to be defensive about her unwillingness to touch a penis. We're not going to call her a terf while we're trying to make a connection. Step two.

Step two: recognize that your argument as you've posed it here kind of sucks.

"if you're closed to dating whole groups of people like black, disabled, trans, you should examine your biases" STOP stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop. You are comparing three things here that have nothing in common other than that people are prejudiced about them. Not wanting to date black people is completely different from not wanting to date disabled people, and both are completely different from not wanting to touch a penis. Conflating all of these things makes it incredibly easy to sidetrack your argument. Literally all I have to say is "so you're saying that not wanting to touch a penis is just like being racist?" and you are never going to get the conversation back on track. Those things are not the same. Leave racism is out of this. Leave ableism out of it too. Like, if you're comparing apples to oranges, I could add "children" to the list of 'whole groups of people I'm closed to dating,' and like - I shouldn't even have to continue this line of thought, this sucks, this is a bog, get out and never go back in. Not wanting to touch a penis isn't like anything. Stop comparing it to other stuff.

Step three: disrupt their way of thinking.

You're going to do this by asking questions. We're going fully Socratic here. You're not going to tell this woman anything. You're not going to 'invite her to consider' shit. You're going to listen, and you're going to ask questions, and that's it.

Here are some good questions to ask:

If a person looks 100% like a woman, like you can't tell at all that they're trans even if they're totally naked, and they think of themselves as a woman, and they act like a woman so completely that you'd never guess they'd ever lived as a man, does it actually matter that they're trans? Like if there's no way of telling unless you draw a blood sample and test their DNA?

This question is, first of all, to make sure sure sure that we're not talking to a gender essentialist. If they answer "yes," you can follow up with:

So do you just think they have, like...a male energy or something that you'd pick up on?

And if they're like, well, no, that's nothing, then you can keep asking questions until they grant you that a trans woman who is functionally indistinguishable from a cis woman is, like, not the problem, and you can continue. If they say some shit about chromosomes, we're in gender essentialist territory and you can mildly ask them if they might be willing to read some scientific studies you've found, and drop the conversation for now.

If she's agreed that a 100% cis-passing trans woman is not the source of her unease here, you can cut to the chase with:

It's the dick, right?

And then stop talking for like, five fully uninterrupted minutes, while this woman goes on a rant about how YES, IT'S THE DICK, SHE DOESN'T WANT TO TOUCH A DICK, IS THAT A CRIME? IS THAT A CRIME NOW? ARE YOU SENDING HER TO JAIL?

Let her get it all out of her system. If you can bring yourself to do it, crack a couple of jokes, because of course it's funny to imagine someone going to jail for not wanting to touch a dick! It'll let the tension out of the argument, and make her feel more like you're on her side.

Once she's fully wound down about this, you can pause for a moment, thoughtfully, and then ask:

Okay so...but...are you a lesbian because you love labia? or because you love women?

This can go a couple of ways:

1 - "Yes, I am just wild about vulva, that's my whole thing." okay cool! nevermind! you're never gonna be sexually satisfied with a trans woman who hasn't had bottom surgery then, no stress. We can drop this whole conversation, just...

But you don't think it'd be weird if a lesbian was more into women than labia, right? Like, lots of lesbians do sex stuff that doesn't even involve direct pussy contact, we're a famously creative bunch of outside-the-box (ba-dum pshh) thinkers. So like, if that woman were willing to view a trans woman's dick as just like, an unwanted but tolerable lil clump of skin on the body of a woman she's otherwise very attracted to, you wouldn't condemn her for that, right?

If she'll give you that, cool, case closed imo. You're a lesbian who loves pussy so you don't want to date a trans woman, but you won't judge another lesbian for dating a trans woman. And peace on earth returns.

If she won't give you that, you can keep asking questions about why, and the conversation is going to turn in a more "why exactly do you feel like you need to judge other people's sexual practices when everyone is a consenting adult" direction, which is way less fraught than the terf conversation.

Okay, moving on:

2 - "Of course I love WOMEN but I want a WOMAN woman."

This is easy. Now we're back in "so is there some kind of magic 'male energy' you're picking up on, here?" territory. Keep asking questions until this breaks down or turns into gender essentialism again.

3 - "Uh...that's a good point kind of except I'D STILL HAVE TO TOUCH A PENIS."

This is the one time I'm gonna tell you to make a statement instead of asking a question, because the point is still just to keep her talking. The statement is, sagely:

A penis has way more emotional power than like, somebody's elbow or something.

That's it. Now you're just gonna let her talk again. She's going to talk for a while about her feelings about penises. This is a really important time to empathise. She might have trauma. She might have righteous anger. She might share a fucked-up conversion therapy anecdote. This is your time to be a good friend. Lots of women, lesbians and otherwise, have negative associations with penises, and the reasons for that are usually painful. Like if she's just "yeah yuck ew gross gross hahaha I hate them they're so weird looking," that's fine too, but prepare yourself to listen.

Anyway, whether it comes out as "ew penises gross" or a thirty minute conversation about deep personal trauma, a time will come when you can, oh so gently, like you are cradling a fatigued bumblebee in your hand to carry it to some sugar water you've set down in the shade, ask:

Do you think maybe you've given the penis too much emotional power?

And then stop talking again. Be genuinely curious when you ask this question. Does she think that maybe she's allowed the penis to loom overlarge in her connotative universe? If so, is that something she's interested in changing - not so she can date trans women but just like, in general?

From there you should be good to just...talk. Don't expect a capitulation right there in that very conversation. The goal is "you've given me some food for thought," not "oh, wow, you've opened my eyes to what a bigot I've been." Don't push too hard all at once. Let her go away and think about it. In a few days or weeks - whatever feels right - bring it up again and ask if she's thought at all about it since the last time you talked. Keep asking questions.

Good luck.

[unnecessarilygrandiose]

I'm gonna try to keep myself calm as I write this post because I know this will most probably never reach the people who harrassed him into this but if it reaches even one such person, I know the passive aggressive tone I'm soooo tempted to pull out probably won't help.

I know there have been fifty thousand posts about it already but I just need to say it.

One of the themes of season 1 of Heartstopper was learning to be comfortable in your sexuality. Nick's arc was about discovering more about who he was. Part of Charlie's story, if you remember, was about his struggle with his self esteem which was wrecked by homophobic bullies who had outed him the previous year. The show reinforced, over and over and over, how cruel and wrong those bullies were, and how traumatising it was for Charlie to have to deal with that. If you remember, Charlie sometimes got so uncomfortable and anxious that he couldn't even bear to sit with his own friends for lunch and hid in the art room.

Now try to understand what happened today. Kit had to out himself because he felt so uncomfortable with the way he was being treated that he just could not take it anymore. Do you see? If you've paid any bit of attention to the show surely you must realise that this is traumatising for him. A kid has just been forced to out himself on a public platform to hundreds of thousands of people. He has been harrassed into revealing something personal about himself that he was not ready to share. This is traumatising. And, I'm trying to be gentle here, but if you played any, any part in this, be it accusing him of queerbaiting, making tweets and posts speculating about his sexuality, or maybe just did something simple, and only once— made a joke online, dm'ed him one thing about his sexuality that you thought was funny, or just said something like "He should just come out instead of keeping his fans guessing," and you genuinely meant no harm by it, you have contributed to traumatising him. I will repeat, you have contributed to traumatising him. Read this paragraph again.

Him being private about his sexuality was not queerbaiting, because everyone deserves their privacy, and especially if it's about something so personal. Yes, even celebrities deserve this basic human consideration. If you felt you were being queerbaited, I just want to remind you that he is not a fictional character. This is not a crafted alternate universe with a will-he-won't-he storyline about your blorbo and whether he will reveal his sexuality as the happy culmination for the crafted storyline. He deserved his privacy. Perhaps you might not understand the fear of being outed, because you are cishet or because you had a receptive and accepting coming out, but it is an ugly feeling. And to deal with the anxiety of having to come out to hundreds of thousands of people? When he was not ready? I don't think you or I could even fathom how overwhelming and frustrating it must be. He deserved to be able to come out in his own time, or not come out at all if that's what he wanted.

If you feel that his coming out was important to you because it's representation, you could have just watched the show! There is So much representation in Heartstopper!! And not just there, there is a lot of representation in dozens of shows out there! Certainly there's enough that no one needed to request or force Kit to come out. Just. I know I am repeating myself, but he is a human being, a person, and he deserved to have been treated as such.

I don't want to assume the worst of all the people who contributed to this, because perhaps some of you didn't realise you were doing something wrong, but I want to put it plainly: what you did to him, unintentionally or not, was awful. It was fucking atrocious. And you need to do some serious looking inside and sort out your priorities and your perception of how you treat people you call yourself a fan of. We are not owed anything that a person deems too private to reveal, and the fact that a lot of you acted like you were owed this, is disgusting.

Lastly, but most importantly, I hope Kit is okay. I hope he has the support of all his friends and family. I hope he knows that he will be accepted by most people with an open heart and no judgement. I hope his fans learn to be better and show more consideration in the future. I hope he gets his mental peace back.

[theropoda]

if i ever find myself lying to myself again about how im normal and have nothing wrong with me other than being oversensitive im gonna show myself my own damn tweets from like 2016 bc That Is Not Normal Behaviour. i guess i keep denying myself the right to be sad about myself and my life because i didnt know anyone else who had it like me, so i didnt have anything to compare it to and just assumed that my life wasnt that bad when it.....Certainly was not good and shouldntve been that way. esp bc the whoooole time my parents way of cheering me up about the situation was "other people have it worse, it could be worse, dont worry it isnt that bad" (in general thats indian culture i think LOL, to acknowledge that your situation is bad is some kind of embarassment almost)

its so crazy though to see tweets of me just entering like high school trying to figure it out like "i have no idea how i will keep living"........Well guess what.......I LIVED BITCH........Life may still be difficult but it has genuinely gotten clearer, about hey imDisabled actually which explains fucking everything, theres people like me out there!! and i feel like the path to a good life is visible to me now i just need to walk it. It looks really fucking ugly and hard etc but knowledge is power and just knowing things about myself that i didnt know back then, makes me feel better i guess. Dont worry lil john you made it :] i can only hope john from 8 years from now feels the same way.

its interesting to look back on this time period, like i was literally just going through My Files looking for oc stuff and just kinda happened across this archive. probably the part of my life where i most severely delt with self hatred and the idea i was a morally horrible person (average 13 year old experience i have learned) that should straight up die....i learned to deal with it eventually, convince myself that im not evil, but its just....interesting seeing it at its worst, before it subsided, and the past few months it's been comin back again except this time its less "im literally evil scum i oughta die" and more "i'm a pretty okay, average guy, but man do i want to be so much more". but i definitely think that's an improvement LOL.

anyways whats the point of this post. just airing out my thoughts. also that it gets better. even if things don't become perfect they'll maybe get clearer. maybe you're not out of this hole yet but you know it can be done. Or something i dunno

[eddieydewr]

You know stantwt has rocks for brains when they see someone say "he had a conversation with us 2 times about us being the only fans there and asking us to take pics and signing and stuff" about noah and understood it as "he had to beg 2 fans who came to his event for pictures" (@hooyosnotproud and @pynchyaoi r being idiotic and wording exactly that! Bunch of close-minded black and white thinkers). Like how the hell would you interpret 2 TIMES AS 2 PERSON?? Even little kids who aren't fluent in english wouldn't interpret it like that 😭 Like I genuinely don't know if people on that app has their brains overly rotten from talking about stranger things way too much that they're now incapable of having the most basic understanding and comprehension of the things they read or they're just being stupid on purpose and twist someone's words so they could go with that narrative of how much of a loser noah is. One of the people who was actually there said there were like 50 people at the event and it wasn't even a meet and greet. Like they could go hate on him idc, but the way they're spending way too much time and energy making false narratives about celebs they hate INSTEAD OF ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING TO HELP OUT is pissing me tf off. Like go share masterlinks, share donation drives, watch youtube videos wherein the revenues from the ad go to the Palestinian organizations, encourage others to boycott brands that finance the Israeli government. But no they decide to make fun of someone instead and think that that's enough activism. I see videos of Palestinians especially kids being killed, injured, and traumatized and my first thought wasn't to mock a fucking celebrity but to look for ways on how to help out and idk curse, insult and say all the bad things known to existence about the IDF and the prime minister who ACTUALLY DO THE KILLINGS themselves. I haven't seen anyone who tell the IDF and the prime minister to fuck themselves off and to kill themselves like what they do to celebrities btw. Seems like these people's priority is to hate on celebrities rather than to help which is sad because Palestine is suffering right now and what they're doing isn't productive.

lmao i think i saw the tweets you’re talking about. acting like it was a comic con when it was something to do with startups and entrepreneurship? not exactly a meet and greet with an actor when he was there for the TBH brand. and you’re right; none of it helps palestine. not even when they tag noah in tweets containing gory pictures and videos of palestinian victims. completely counterproductive and noah never alluded to wanting palestinians to die, and being gleeful about it. whatever they seem to think of noah, he is not that kinda person. they’re just determined to hate on him and assume the worst 🤷🏻‍♀️

i notice millie is getting a lot of accusatory comments about not caring about what’s happening, and being an UNICEF spokesperson, she ought to do better 🙈 girly isn’t even on social media. whereas there’s barely anything for finn and stan twitter LOVES to complain about him every 5 business days because he’s friends with “problematic” people. none of it makes sense.

i know i keep saying it but online activism just pisses me off.

[420pogpills]

As a Jewish person this whole thing has been horrible it way some dream fans ignored the anti semantics tweet from Kanye (which zach was mad about) to defended dream. I get being body shamed isn’t nice but login on to a website and seeing a creator like dream replying to a person like that is horrible doesn’t matter if it was a joke I don’t care.

Seeing the people then say it’s not that deep and what he had was worse like they clearly never had to worry about their life’s being threatened. I understand defending dream but in this case I can’t be bothered if the fan base will try and compare body shaming to someone threatening the life’s of Jewish people which zach rightfully mad about.

anon with all due respect, i think there's a couple of things you're choosing to ignore here. i'm assuming the other ask is also from you so i'm just going to respond to this one.

"I get being body shamed isn’t nice" i don't know how to tell you this but dream had someone make a threat against his LIFE severe enough that the fbi got involved. now not only is he less safe with his face being public knowledge, but he also had to deal with some of the worst cyberbullying i think i have ever seen in my life.

you get that body shaming isn't nice? you're right, it's not. but what dream experienced - and continues experiencing daily - is not body shaming. it's intense harassment from millions of people over the world, and most of it has nothing to do with his looks. and ANYONE who encourages that, as a joke or not, is part of the problem. regardless if you are hurt, regardless if you are upset - that does not give anyone the right to encourage someone else's suffering.

this isn't just about dream. this is about everyone. this is about the insanely fucked up and desensitised society that we live in, where people don't give a second thought to telling someone they are hideous, to telling them that they should die or hurt themselves, to posting their leaked private info, even while fully knowing any of those things can affect a person's life permanently. the internet is a place where people like to forget we're all fucking human.

i'm so sorry you're having to see the awful shit that has been said by disgusting people like kanye west. i am so sorry that even after all these years, you're still having to see people engaging in anti-semitism. i'm so sorry that you're hurting, i promise you i do not at all believe you're in any wrong to be upset. but PLEASE take a second to think about who genuinely deserves your anger. because is it dream, who made a mocking tweet to kanye west (in poor taste but he's human who makes as many mistakes as you and i do) who later made sure to clarify he does not support him? or is it kanye west? the people who publicly listen to, and stream his music, giving him the money and the platform that he has, while knowing the horrific things he has said? because you might even have friends who have his music on spotify or your local radio station might play his music when it releases.

i'm not saying you should not be upset at dream, because you are well within your right to be upset with him, be upset with the fanbase, be upset with the world for being what it is today. but please do not try to excuse the encouragement of abuse and harassment someone has experienced because you are hurting too. that's not going to help anyone, that's not going to change anything - but it will serve to continue making things worse.

[alltheselights]

Cannot believe how vile “fans” are being to Louis after the chaos yesterday. He himself and his team did plenty to help out and if people cannot see that and think Louis was being nonchalant about the entire situation they clearly don’t know him and should just unstan atp

It doesn't seem like some of these fans even like him since they aren't willing to give him the benefit of the doubt even in the most extreme circumstances, so I genuinely don't understand why they're here or why they were going to one of his shows in the first place. If your response to a traumatic event is to blame and get angry at one of the people least responsible for it, that's a very strange reaction. And to assume the worst of a tweet that was written almost immediately in an attempt to calm fans, likely in response to the fans who were yelling at his buses about the show being cancelled....I mean, you really have to twist yourself in knots to reach the conclusions that some "fans" were making about him today. It's absurd.

[feelbokkie]

Okay, I finally came upon some free time today! Love the new theme and pfp! You post so much too! I legit had to go back and fix this message before sending it since you posted LR14 while I was typing this lmao.

I'm glad Changbin and Hyunjin officially ended the bet in and are just genuinely spending time with Y/n (but I still believe they're way too late with that...like, it's still gonna blow up in their faces I'm afraid) and that Cerberus is getting signed! The second bet boys need to stop though!!! 😩 Seungmin is the main menace in there but I'm so disappointed with Minho being cool continuing the second bet even AFTER he saw Y/n struggling emotionally??? (Also Jisung has to get himself together, he seems to be struggling himself from his tweets lmao)

Also, how is LR going to end in a WEEK!?! I'm so excited/anxious about how it's all gonna go down 😣 Still holding out for Felix physically fighting people 😤

"Please Don't Care About Me It's Okay" was also so good! I also really hate crying in front of other people. It's why I think I'm so awkward comforting people who are crying since I assume they also don't want to be seen crying, but I also can't leave someone alone if they're crying unless they ask me to (but they always ask me to stay 😭)

-👻✌️

P.S.

Your SKZ shelf looks great! You'll eventually need a second shelf though since they release so much music! I'm jealous since I'm a relatively baby Stay so I'm working backwards to get the older albums 😔

I'm trying to rest more (I'm actually using my comp hours to leave work early today 👍) but I'm in one of the worst states for air quality because of the wildfires rn so my asthma is acting up 🫠 I'm hoping it doesn't look like the apocalypse again this afternoon like yesterday. The sky was so hazy and orange and everything smelled like smoke, but the superintendent refused to cancel school 🙃

I tried to answer this during my break but I was taking too long, but I’m home now!

Thank you! I feel like a change and here we are! And yeah, i’ve been posting like crazy but I think it’s mostly rambles and LR. I inly uploaded early so I could read comments while on break at work lol. I also gave up writing for 3 years before starting Feelbokkie so I think the reason why I’m posting so much is because I repressed my creativity for so long and unfortunately it everyone else’s problem now😅

Seungmin is an absolute menace with the bet I think he just wants to watch the world burn. And as far as I know, I say as if I didn’t write the damn thing, Min doesn’t know that the reason why Y/n shut down is because of the bet. Felix doesn’t even know that because he’s choosing to trust Hyun and Bin when they said there’s no bet going on. Hyunjin vaguely knows it’s because of the bet. He knows that she spiraled because she felt bad for sleeping with both him and Bin but he never put 2 and 2 together. As far as Min knows, she was just sad. But if he realized that it was because of how Hyun and Bin were messing with her, he would have shut that shit down immediately. As for Ji, idk what his problem is. He’s just taking over as leader for baboracha I guess.

And yeah, last night I did the math and if I post a chapter a day it should end by Wednesday. I’m going go try to finish it up today and schedule the posts but we’ll see. Just try to mentally prepare for the last 6 chapters.

I hate crying period, let alone in front of other people. It’s so bad that when my oldest brother died this past December I don’t think I cried. I was like Y/nnine in chapter 12 basically, just worse off, until something totally unrelated happened the week before I posted my first post on here and lost it. I cried in front of my mom and nieces and nephews. It wasn’t pretty. I’m so bad at comforting ppl too (which is shy I don’t write as much fluff I think)

PS

Thank you! I have 5 more albums coming next week and then I should have at least one of every album, including the Japanese ones so I should be good until next comeback. But I have all the Korean albums rn. I’m a baby stay too! (although am I even that anymore with the amount of content I’ve made?) i’m just really bad with saving money 😅

You deserve to leave work early! Take a break! And I get the air quality thing. It’s (almost?) wildfire season here so Imm going to have to start wearing a double mask out to avoid getting an asthma attack. (i say almost with a question mark bc I saw a smokey the bear billboard today on my way to work but I’m not entirely sure). They never cancel schools when there’s a fire over here unless the campus is on fire. Last year the mountain right next to campus was on fire and we still had class. And my school is in mountains. Literally one gust of wind and it would have been over. 😩

[kidnamedfinger]

[double posted to make it less long to scroll] ok but thats not what josh is saying in the tweet right? theyre just saying that object impermanence happens and it isnt intrinsically a shunning of people and people shouldnt automatically read into it and assume malevolent intent in not reaching out to someone. it doesnt say "if your friend refuses to talk to you suddenly it means they forgot about you and you should baby them." because thats obviously not reasonable.

i agree that diagnosis culture CAN make people not want to take accountability. i forget about my irl friends for certain amounts of time if theyre not in front of me - genuinely, i do. if you think thats a thing that babies do thats fine. but i also do feel bad about it and i try to do things like scheduling hangouts with people or send memes to them when i can or just message them when im thinking of them just to say hi. its not like i use my adhd dx (which i do have) to make it other peoples' problem. so its just random that p.e., whose tweets i otherwise enjoy, would jump on this specific tweet which - compared to what most terminally online people say about having adhd - is pretty harmless.

ironically, to me it seems like p.e. is ascribing malintent to josh in this tweet, and literally all that josh's tweet asks is to NOT automatically ascribe malintent to people who aren't always initiating social content. this is a relevant distinction because ive been approached many times by people whose communication styles differ from my own, who assume that because im a bit late with returning a personal message or because i havent talked to them in a while that i have a problem with them. and in the worst case scenario, it turns into a whole thing where that person assumes im avoiding them or ignoring them because i actively dont want to communicate with them. or maybe they just are worried (e.g. literal family members whose existence and messages i forget about) and want to be able to reach me when they need to. luckily, sometimes its resolved when i can agree to respond to messages quicker and set reminders on my phone and all that. actionable steps i take to be accountable for my behavior as an adult. not letting the chemicals in my brain totally dictate how i behave forever. but i forget sometimes or i slip up sometimes. and thats why i, like josh, would ask for some grace.

sorry to jump on this tweet thing - it would be double ironic if /i/ assumed malintent from p.e. in replying to this in the first place, and the larger point is valid. but i feel that the legitimate criticism - which is a criticism of using adhd or any dx as a substitute for refusing to take accountability of ones adult agency - should not automatically be whipped out when someone with adhd talks about an experience they have in their lives and asks for a bit of understanding in a relatively neutral context. sure josh could have worded it without the whole "eyes light up" thing i see how it sounds infantilizing. but the rest of the points dont feel connected to the tweet theyre quoting. unfair, even. sorry.

[starjxsung]

Star my darling,

I’ve sent the selfies to your discord, as Felix would say on bbl, I hope you enjoy the gifts. 🎀

Speaking of 7/11, I would love to go on a date with you and buy our favorite donuts for each other. I really love the big glazed ones with Chocolate on top! They’re so insanely good. If someone came up to tell me that the 7/11 donuts had CRACK c0caine in them I would full heartedly agree with them. They’re just so addictive.

I like to pair my donuts with a nice cup of coffee, (specifically a caramel macchiato since that’s one thing my job has never failed to teach me.) and it’s delicious. However, I’m probably going to stop for awhile since I caved in and bought some today but I had the WORST stomach pain after and I had to lie down and think about life for a moment.

I hope you’re doing well, how’s work? Are you doing okay? Hopefully nobody has given you too much trouble.

Also, did you hear of SKZ reportedly having a comeback July 19th? I want to believe it but you know how stays are LOL. In March people were saying they were going to have a comeback in April but you see where that went. I’m a little more convinced since people have proof this time.

That’s all the time I have for right now, until next time my love. 🤍

-Cutie anon 🎀

Hi my angel sorry this took so long to respond to I genuinely spent like 4 hours staring at your face and yearning inconsolably. you are so beautiful and I thoroughly enjoyed my gifts. And I love u !

I would also not be surprised if 7/11 donuts were made so lovingly with CRACK lmfaooo I could genuinely eat an entire case of them. First date idea we eat an entire case of donuts at 7/11 and then nobody else can buy donuts for the rest of the day bc they’re all sold out !

STOP donuts and coffee are my favorite fucking breakfast combo EVER…. I am a sweet breakfast person through and through. I think that was my breakfast every single day in college at my uni’s coffee shop. The people knew me by name and the baristas used to add extra caramel to my macchiatos bc they knew I loved them sweet 🫶 the way we both have the same favorite breakfast. Marriage next !

I’m doing well! Work is work (busy) and my week was full of presentations and meetings. I spent all of yesterday at my parents’ house for no reason in particular and I’m currently getting ready for a run. Just the mundanes of life tbh

I also did hear about the July comeback! I think it’s very plausible to align with their Q2 projections but I also wouldn’t be surprised if stays were lying because you know how they are LMAO. Though I did see many reputable accounts tweeting it so I’m assuming it’s true (!!!)

I love you so much and I hope you have the best weekend my love. Eat some good food (and hopefully no stomach aches this time around) and drink a good caramel macchiato for me please. kiss kiss

💕🫶💘

[mermaidthoughts]

Romantic relationships in modern days

I’ve had this on my mind for some years now, and I think it’s time to talk about it. I don’t want to date a guy who approaches me with the intention of dating me. Am I weird for that? I think friendship is the best kind of relationship you can have with someone before dating. I always thought that a good relationship came from a good friendship.

And yeah, I can tell that to a guy that approached me wanting to date me, and he can be like, "Then we can be friends first," but it won’t be genuine (also, if I say that, it doesn’t mean I will end up dating you). In the back of his mind, he can be thinking, "How long will it take to start dating?" and that just shows that it’s not a genuine friendship because he had no intention of doing that at first. Also, why would I want to date a guy I met two weeks ago? I don’t even know him.

The best kind of romantic relationships are the ones that start like this: you both meet each other, and there’s no other intention than to just be friends and get to know each other. Then, along the way, you develop feelings for each other. That’s the best.

I read a tweet the other day talking about being in an age where guys don’t ask you to be in a relationship anymore; they just assume it. That’s the worst thing a guy can do to me. If you didn’t ask me to be your girlfriend and I didn’t say yes, then we're not dating. Is it that hard? And there was a guy saying, "What if she says no? I prefer to assume we’re dating, like, excuse me? You prefer to not know and not acknowledge her feelings and just assume you’re dating? She doesn’t even know that; she 100% thinks they’re just friends, and she might not have the slightest intention of dating him, and he’s just like, (I don’t even have words; that’s just the stupidest thing a guy can do." Obviously there are girls who might be like that too, but if a guy wants to date me, I expect him to at least know that I’m not like that. If you didn’t ask and I didn’t say yes, then we’re just friends.

[marginaletchings]

fandom advice from someone who has been an active participant since the 90s*:

*- I am aware some folks have been active in fandom since long before that, you pedants don’t need to crawl out of the woodwork at me.

* * *

Learning to shut up/not say something is a very valuable skill, and it’s #1 on this list because I like dramatic irony. You don’t always have to comment on something that upsets you, even if/when you are right to do so. Sometimes you need to realize even if/when you are justified and correct, it’s better to just... stop. Learn to pick your battles. Most hills are not worth dying on whether you’re in the right or not, and that’s something that I’m still learning to keep in practice. But trust me: It is well worth the effort and it will cut down 90% of the drama in your fandom life, and life in general.

Try to step back and reread someone’s comment or whatever in good faith, not bad. Stop assuming the absolute worst of everyone around you. Even when someone says something stupid, going at them with pitchforks and torches is going to do nothing but cause unnecessary public drama and misunderstandings. Are some people worth calling out publicly? Sure! And are many others putting their foot in their mouth and don’t need to be pilloried? Absolutely! I don’t know how to tell you all this, but many of us, especially fandom folks in their 30s/older are still working on un/re-wiring some old shitty microaggressions and patterns of behavior. No, the time you grew up in isn’t “an excuse”, it doesn’t make Saying the Stupid Thing unhurtful; and yet, dogpiling someone who otherwise has a chill track record still makes you an asshole. You can’t say “intention doesn’t matter” and then publicly lambast someone for a recent Tweet they didn’t think enough about making. Don’t get me started on people freaking out over Tweets someone made 7-15+ years ago. There was a LOT of cultural change in the 2010s, please allow people to have personal growth and move the fuck on.

If you have a problem with something someone has done/said, once or twice or several times, but they appear to have a decent track record otherwise? JUST TALK TO THEM. Send them a DM. Be like, “hey, I noticed [x thing]. [x thing] was [hurtful/upsetting/disappointing] to see because [y reason(s)]. I feel this could have been [handled/said/expressed] better. Are you willing to talk about this? Thanks for listening.” Yeah sure there will be people who react poorly--and I guarantee you, there will also be plenty of people who genuinely don’t want to be hurtful to others either.

Learn how to apologize graciously. No matter what your intentions were, and even if someone is reacting very strongly to something seemingly innocuous--learn to apologize. Swallow your pride. Even if someone is being rude, and shitty, sometimes all they want to hear is an acknowledgement of their sense of having been done wrong. The best you can do is offer something along the lines of, “I am sorry [person’s name/handle], I’m sorry that what I [wrote/said/did] was [hurtful/harmful] to you. I’ll do my best to avoid [writing/saying/doing] [thing] again, and I’m open to feedback if you have any on what I could’ve done better. Thanks again for reaching out to me about this.” It shows that you’ve taken the time to sympathize with how they’re feeling, you’re not making excuses or making it all about you/your feelings, you redirect the conflict into a positive forward progression, and finally, you show graciousness and thank someone for their time, humanizing their efforts.

Learn how to accept people’s apologies. Don’t be a nitpicky asshole. (See advice #1 & #2.) Sometimes you need to thank someone for their apology, mayhaps offer critcism as calmly/constructively as you can if they ask for it, and then step away. Also, if they don’t ask for criticism, don’t dump an essay of it onto them. You can even offer to give it to them with the caveat that it will only happen once you and they have had a chance to cool off and mull things over. Not all conflicts need to be resolved in the immediate moment and most of them CAN’T be anyway.

Try to understand that even if you do your best at all of the above, sometimes people will never be happy, and you are allowed to calmly take your leave from situations once you have communicated to the best of your ability. Then refer to advice #1.

Remember when engaging in disk horse/discussions to consider the “yes, and...” principle: listen to and get on the same page with their line of thinking, then expand upon it so you don’t leave the other person hanging, or leave them with the burden of the discussion, or give the impression of shutting the discussion down. If you don’t understand a person’s line of thinking, then ask for clarification. Conversations/discussions are just two people writing a back and forth dialogue and what makes conversing more difficult than writing a script (ime) is you don’t know what the other person is thinking, so you need to do your best to communicate as deliberately and levelly as you can. There is a progression to talking to people and should be a forward movement. If someone says, “I think it’s interesting how many wars the United States has had with its current allies” and you reply, “The American Continental Army fought the British in the American War of Independence”... that... doesn’t offer anything, there is no movement, and seemingly you have failed to give the other person the benefit of the doubt that the AmRev is one of those wars to which they referred. Now you’ve left them with the awkward burden of trying to redirect the conversation or just disengaging entirely. A better way to respond would have been, “Yeah, absolutely! I’m interested in the American Revolution in particular” which first shows that you have listened to what they said, enough to pull a specific thread from their thought, and now you have expanded on it by relaying one of your own thoughts/feelings which will give the other person incentive to either say something about that war, or to ask you their own questions. In short: You have showed someone that you heard them, and are now giving something in return for them to expand upon. It’s the difference between talking with someone and AT them, and doing too much of the latter can be extremely offputting for everyone around you.

[ufonaut]

WHOOOOO I am very happy Ted Wildcat is back and hasn't been killed off to support Yolanda. Jay likely won't rejoin the JSA until /after/ Dark Crisis since he's busy with Jesse trying to find Barry (I was saddened by his absence on the cover). Hoping for a JSA 2020s run of some kind. It'll be a disappointment if they were left to the sidelines after this. Overall, tentatively interested. Rebirth comics have been a real hit-miss for me. And take your bet, who'll be the leader of the JSA this time around? If the editors try to make it Alan, it should only last one issue (or less) before he goes off the wall and someone else is voted in.

it's not a cover actually, it's a panel (splash page, if you're being technical about it) from dark crisis #3! unless the worst case scenario comes into effect, i do believe jay will join them that very same issue or in #4 since the cover for the latter shows hal and barry, and joshua williamson tweeted something along the lines of "the brave & the bold are back!" so i have to assume he's been well & truly found by then BUT i'm sooooooo relieved to see ted too and if we ever lose another member of the og jsa i genuinely don't know what i'll do with myself

i do think we're getting a legitimate run some time soon, it's twice now that joshua's said someone's working on it (on a podcast a couple months ago and then more recently on a reddit AMA) and the fact that the geoff johns/bryan hitch run got scrapped because of the creative team being unavailable rather than any other reason definitely points to there being serious editorial concerns about the jsa's absence. i just hope it's soon!

to be honest, i hate the current lineup almost completely for the reasons exemplified here and i do regrettably believe alan's gonna be the leader in some capacity -- which sucks! i like carter as their eternal chairman and it's also worth noting that alan was once chairman for a single day & a child died on his watch so he immediately called it quits (see: all star squadron 1981 annual 3), which is a good enough reason for him not to be interested in the position ever again imo.

don't get me wrong, i'm very very excited to see the gang again and i'm actually a known enjoyer of a whole lot of rebirth comics (and nearly all of infinite frontier-era comics) buuuuuut god, it's a sad reminder that we're always gonna be stuck with what geoff did in '99 and 2007 and there's no coming back from it :(

(hoping desperately i'm proven wrong!)