#i don't. get why it's a big deal though? it' a private account which i assume meant it had no followers

[mostlysignssomeportents]

They were warned

Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.

Truth is provisional! Sometimes, the things we understand to be true about the world change, and stuff we've "always done" has to change, too. There comes a day when the evidence against using radium suppositories is overwhelming, and then you really must dig that radium out of your colon and safely dispose of it:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/19/just-stop-putting-that-up-your-ass/#harm-reduction

So it's natural and right that in the world, there will be people who want to revisit the received wisdom and best practices for how we live our lives, regulate our economy, and organize our society. But not a license to simply throw out the systems we rely on. Sure, maybe they're outdated or unnecessary, but maybe not. That's where "Chesterton's Fence" comes in:

Let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_fence

In other words, it's not enough to say, "This principle gets in the way of something I want to do, so let's throw it out because I'm pretty sure the inconvenience I'm experiencing is worse than the consequences of doing away with this principle." You need to have a theory of how you will prevent the harms the principle protects us from once you tear it down. That theory can be "the harms are imaginary" so it doesn't matter. Like, if you get rid of all the measures that defend us from hexes placed by evil witches, it's OK to say, "This is safe because evil witches aren't real and neither are hexes."

But you'd better be sure! After all, some preventative measures work so well that no living person has experienced the harms they guard us against. It's easy to mistake these for imaginary or exaggerated. Think of the antivaxers who are ideologically committed to a world in which human beings do not have a shared destiny, meaning that no one has a moral claim over the choices you make. Motivated reasoning lets those people rationalize their way into imagining that measles – a deadly and ferociously contagious disease that was a scourge for millennia until we all but extinguished it – was no big deal:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles:_A_Dangerous_Illness

There's nothing wrong with asking whether longstanding health measures need to be carried on, or whether they can be sunset. But antivaxers' sloppy, reckless reasoning about contagious disease is inexcusable. They were warned, repeatedly, about the mass death and widespread lifelong disability that would follow from their pursuit of an ideological commitment to living as though their decisions have no effect on others. They pressed ahead anyway, inventing ever-more fanciful reasons why health is a purely private matter, and why "public health" was either a myth or a Communist conspiracy:

https://www.conspirituality.net/episodes/brief-vinay-prasad-pick-me-campaign

When RFK Jr kills your kids with measles or permanently disables them with polio, he doesn't get to say "I was just inquiring as to the efficacy of a longstanding measure, as is right and proper." He was told why the vaccine fence was there, and he came up with objectively very stupid reasons why that didn't matter, and then he killed your kids. He was warned.

Fuck that guy.

Or take Bill Clinton. From 1933 until 1999, American banks were regulated under the Glass-Steagall Act, which "structurally separated" them. Under structural separation, a "retail bank" – the bank that holds your savings and mortgage and provides you with a checkbook – could not be "investment bank." That meant it couldn't own or invest in businesses that competed with the businesses its depositors and borrowers ran. It couldn't get into other lines of business, either, like insurance underwriting.

Glass-Steagall was a fence that stood between retail banks and the casino economy. It was there for a fucking great reason: the failure to structurally separate banks allowed them to act like casinos, inflating a giant market bubble that popped on Black Friday in October 1929, kicking off the Great Depression. Congress built the structural separation fence to keep banks from doing it again.

In the 1990s, Bill Clinton agitated for getting rid of Glass-Steagall. He argued that new economic controls would allow the government to prevent another giant bubble and crash. This time, the banks would behave themselves. After all, hadn't they demonstrated their prudence for seven decades?

In fact, they hadn't. Every time banks figured out how to slip out of regulatory constraints they inflated another huge bubble, leading to another massive crash that made the rich obscenely richer and destroyed ordinary savers' lives. Clinton took office just as one of these finance-sector bombs – the S&L Crisis – was detonating. Clinton had no basis – apart from wishful thinking – to believe that deregulating banks would lead to anything but another gigantic crash.

But Clinton let his self interest – in presiding over a sugar-high economic expansion driven by deregulation – overrule his prudence (about the crash that would follow). Sure enough, in the last months of Clinton's presidency, the stock market imploded with the March 2000 dot-bomb. And because Congress learned nothing from the dot-com crash and declined to restore the Glass-Steagall fence, the crash led to another bubble, this time in subprime mortgages, and then, inevitably, we suffered the Great Financial Crisis.

Look: there's no virtue in having bank regulations for the sake of having them. It is conceptually possible for bank regulations to be useless or even harmful. There's nothing wrong with investigating whether the 70-year old Glass-Steagall Act was still needed in 1999. But Clinton was provided with a mountain of evidence about why Glass-Steagall was the only thing standing between Americans and economic chaos, including the evidence of the S&L Crisis, which was still underway when he took office, and he ignored all of them. If you lost everything – your home, your savings, your pension – in the dot-bomb or the Great Financial Crisis, Bill Clinton is to blame. He was warned. he ignored the warnings.

Fuck that guy.

No, seriously, fuck Bill Clinton. Deregulating banks wasn't Clinton's only passion. He also wanted to ban working cryptography. The cornerstone of Clinton's tech policy was the "Clipper Chip," a backdoored encryption chip that, by law, every technology was supposed to use. If Clipper had gone into effect, then cops, spooks, and anyone who could suborn, bribe, or trick a cop or a spook could break into any computer, server, mobile device, or embedded system in America.

When Clinton was told – over and over, in small, easy-to-understand words – that there was no way to make a security system that only worked when "bad guys" tried to break into it, but collapsed immediately if a "good guy" wanted to bypass it. We explained to him – oh, how we explained to him! – that working encryption would be all that stood between your pacemaker's firmware and a malicious update that killed you where you stood; all that stood between your antilock brakes' firmware and a malicious update that sent you careening off a cliff; all that stood between businesses and corporate espionage, all that stood between America and foreign state adversaries wanting to learn its secrets.

In response, Clinton said the same thing that all of his successors in the Crypto Wars have said: NERD HARDER! Just figure it out. Cops need to look at bad guys' phones, so you need to figure out how to make encryption that keeps teenagers safe from sextortionists, but melts away the second a cop tries to unlock a suspect's phone. Take Malcolm Turnbull, the former Australian Prime Minister. When he was told that the laws of mathematics dictated that it was impossible to build selectively effective encryption of the sort he was demanding, he replied, "The laws of mathematics are very commendable but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/07/australian-pm-calls-end-end-encryption-ban-says-laws-mathematics-dont-apply-down

Fuck that guy. Fuck Bill Clinton. Fuck a succession of UK Prime Ministers who have repeatedly attempted to ban working encryption. Fuck 'em all. The stakes here are obscenely high. They have been warned, and all they say in response is "NERD HARDER!"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/05/theyre-still-trying-to-ban-cryptography/

Now, of course, "crypto means cryptography," but the other crypto – cryptocurrency – deserves a look-in here. Cryptocurrency proponents advocate for a system of deregulated money creation, AKA "wildcat currencies." They say, variously, that central banks are no longer needed; or that we never needed central banks to regulate the money supply. Let's take away that fence. Why not? It's not fit for purpose today, and maybe it never was.

Why do we have central banks? The Fed – which is far from a perfect institution and could use substantial reform or even replacement – was created because the age of wildcat currencies was a nightmare. Wildcat currencies created wild economic swings, massive booms and even bigger busts. Wildcat currencies are the reason that abandoned haunted mansions feature so heavily in the American imagination: American towns and cities were dotted with giant mansions built by financiers who'd grown rich as bubbles expanded, then lost it all after the crash.

Prudent management of the money supply didn't end those booms and busts, but it substantially dampened them, ending the so-called "business cycle" that once terrorized Americans, destroying their towns and livelihoods and wiping out their savings.

It shouldn't surprise us that a new wildcat money sector, flogging "decentralized" cryptocurrencies (that they are nevertheless weirdly anxious to swap for your gross, boring old "fiat" money) has created a series of massive booms and busts, with insiders getting richer and richer, and retail investors losing everything.

If there was ever any doubt about whether wildcat currencies could be made safe by putting them on a blockchain, it is gone. Wildcat currencies are as dangerous today as they were in the 18th and 19th century – only moreso, since this new bad paper relies on the endless consumption of whole rainforests' worth of carbon, endangering not just our economy, but also the habitability of the planet Earth.

And nevertheless, the Trump administration is promising a new crypto golden age (or, ahem, a Gilded Age). And there are plenty of Democrats who continue to throw in with the rotten, corrupt crypto industry, which flushed billions into the 2024 election to bring Trump to office. The result is absolutely going to be more massive bubbles and life-destroying implosions. Fuck those guys. They were warned, and they did it anyway.

Speaking of the climate emergency: greetings from smoky Los Angeles! My city's on fire. This was not an unforeseeable disaster. Malibu is the most on-fire place in the world:

https://longreads.com/2018/12/04/the-case-for-letting-malibu-burn/

Since 1919, the region has been managed on the basis of "total fire suppression." This policy continued long after science showed that this creates "fire debt" in the form of accumulated fuel. The longer you go between fires, the hotter and more destructive those fires become, and the relationship is nonlinear. A 50-year fire isn't 250% more intense than a 20-year fire: it's 50,000% more intense.

Despite this, California has invested peanuts in regular controlled burns, which has created biennial uncontrolled burns – wildfires that cost thousands of times more than any controlled burn.

Speaking of underinvestment: PG&E has spent decades extracting dividends for its investors and bonuses for its execs, while engaging in near-total neglect of maintenance of its high-voltage transmission lines. Even with normal winds, these lines routinely fall down and start blazes.

But we don't have normal winds. The climate emergency has been steadily worsening for decades. LA is just the latest place to be on fire, or under water, or under ice, or baking in wet bulb temperatures. Last week in southern California, we were warned to expect gusts of 120mph.

They were warned. #ExxonKnew: in the early 1970s, Exxon's own scientists warned them that fossil fuel consumption would kick off climate change so drastic that it would endanger human civilzation. Exxon responded by burying the reports and investing in climate denial:

https://exxonknew.org/

They were warned! Warned about fire debt. Warned about transmission lines. Warned about climate change. And specific, named people, who individually had the power to heed these warnings and stave off disaster, ignored the warnings. They didn't make honest mistakes, either: they ignored the warnings because doing so made them extraordinarily, disgustingly rich. They used this money to create dynastic fortunes, and have created entire lineages of ultra-wealthy princelings in $900,000 watches who owe it all to our suffering and impending dooml

Fuck those guys. Fuck 'em all.

We've had so many missed opportunities, chances to make good policy or at least not make bad policy. The enshitternet didn't happen on its own. It was the foreseeable result of choices – again, choices made by named individuals who became very wealthy by ignoring the warnings all around them.

Let's go back to Bill Clinton, because more than anyone else, Clinton presided over some terrible technology regulations. In 1998, Clinton signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a bill championed by Barney Frank (fuck that guy, too). Under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it's a felony, punishable by a five year prison sentence, and a $500,000 fine, to tamper with a "digital lock."

That means that if HP uses a digital lock to prevent you from using third-party ink, it's a literal crime to bypass that lock. Which is why HP ink now costs $10,000/gallon, and why you print your shopping lists with colored water that costs more, ounce for ounce, than the sperm of a Kentucky Derby winner:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/30/life-finds-a-way/#ink-stained-wretches

Clinton was warned that DMCA 1201 would soon metastasize into every kind of device – not just the games consoles and DVD players where it was first used, but medical implants, tractors, cars, home appliances – anything you could put a microchip into (Jay Freeman calls this "felony contempt of business-model"):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

He ignored those warnings and signed the DMCA anyway (fuck that guy). Then, under Bush (fuck that guy), the US Trade Representative went all around the world demanding that America's trading partners adopt versions of this law (fuck that guy). In 2001, the European Parliament capitulated, enacting the EU Copyright Directive, whose Article 6 is a copy-paste of DMCA 1201 (fuck all those people).

Fast forward 20 years, and boy is there a lot of shit with microchips that can be boobytrapped with rent-extracting logic bombs that are illegal to research, describe, or disable.

Like choo-choo trains.

Last year, the Polish hacking group Dragon Sector was contacted by a public sector train company whose Newag trains kept going out of service. The operator suspected that Newag had boobytrapped the trains to punish the train company for getting its maintenance from a third-party contractor. When Dragon Sector investigated, they discovered that Newag had indeed riddled the trains' firmware with boobytraps. Trains that were taken to locations known to have third-party maintenance workshops were immediately bricked (hilariously, this bomb would detonate if trains just passed through stations near to these workshops, which is why another train company had to remove all the GPSes from its trains – they kept slamming to a halt when they approached a station near a third-party workshop). But Newag's logic bombs would brick trains for all kinds of reasons – merely keeping a train stationary for too many days would result in its being bricked. Installing a third-party component in a locomotive would also trigger a bomb, bricking the train.

In their talk at last year's Chaos Communications Congress, the Dragon Sector folks describe how they have been legally terrorized by Newag, which has repeatedly sued them for violating its "intellectual property" by revealing its sleazy, corrupt business practices. They also note that Newag continues to sell lots of trains in Poland, despite the widespread knowledge of its dirty business model, because public train operators are bound by procurement rules, and as long as Newag is the cheapest bidder, they get the contract:

https://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-we-ve-not-been-trained-for-this-life-after-the-newag-drm-disclosure

The laws that let Newag make millions off a nakedly corrupt enterprise – and put the individuals who blew the whistle on it at risk of losing everything – were passed by Members of the European Parliament who were warned that this would happen, and they ignored those warnings, and now it's happening. Fuck those people, every one of 'em.

It's not just European parliamentarians who ignored warnings and did the bidding of the US Trade Representative, enacting laws that banned tampering with digital locks. In 2010, two Canadian Conservative Party ministers in the Stephen Harper government brought forward similar legislation. These ministers, Tony Clement (now a disgraced sex-pest and PPE grifter) and James Moore (today, a sleazeball white-shoe corporate lawyer), held a consultation on this proposal.

6, 138 people wrote in to say, "Don't do this, it will be hugely destructive." 54 respondents wrote in support of it. Clement and Moore threw out the 6,138 opposing comments. Moore explained why: these were the "babyish" responses of "radical extremists." The law passed in 2012.

Last year, the Canadian Parliament passed bills guaranteeing Canadians the Right to Repair and the right to interoperability. But Canadians can't act on either of these laws, because they would have to tamper with a digital lock to do so, and that's illegal, thanks to Tony Clement and James Moore. Who were warned. And who ignored those warnings. Fuck those guys:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/15/radical-extremists/#sex-pest

Back in the 1990s, Bill Clinton had a ton of proposals for regulating the internet, but nowhere among those proposals will you find a consumer privacy law. The last time an American president signed a consumer privacy law was 1988, when Reagan signed the Video Privacy Protection Act and ensured that Americans would never have to worry that video-store clerks where telling the newspapers what VHS cassettes they took home.

In the years since, Congress has enacted exactly zero consumer privacy laws. None. This has allowed the out-of-control, unregulated data broker sector to metastasize into a cancer on the American people. This is an industry that fuels stalkers, discriminatory financial and hiring algorithms, and an ad-tech sector that lets advertisers target categories like "teenagers with depression," "seniors with dementia" and "armed service personnel with gambling addictions."

When the people cry out for privacy protections, Congress – and the surveillance industry shills that fund them – say we don't need a privacy law. The market will solve this problem. People are selling their privacy willingly, and it would be an "undue interference in the market" if we took away your "freedom to contract" by barring companies from spying on you after you clicked the "I agree" button.

These people have been repeatedly warned about the severe dangers to the American public – as workers, as citizens, as community members, and as consumers – from the national privacy free-for-all, and have done nothing. Fuck them, every one:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/06/privacy-first/#but-not-just-privacy

Now, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and not every one of Bill Clinton's internet policies was terrible. He had exactly one great policy, and, ironically, that's the one there's the most energy for dismantling. That policy is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (a law that was otherwise such a dumpster fire that the courts struck it down). Chances are, you have been systematically misled about the history, use, and language of Section 230, which is wild, because it's exactly 26 words long and fits in a single tweet:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

Section 230 was passed because when companies were held liable for their users' speech, they "solved" this problem by just blocking every controversial thing a user said. Without Section 230, there would be no Black Lives Matter, no #MeToo – no online spaces where the powerful were held to account. Meanwhile, rich and powerful people would continue to enjoy online platforms where they and their bootlickers could pump out the most grotesque nonsense imaginable, either because they owned those platforms (ahem, Twitter and Truth Social) or because rich and powerful people can afford the professional advice needed to navigate the content-moderation bureaucracies of large systems.

We know exactly what the internet looks like when platforms are civilly liable for their users' speech: it's an internet where marginalized and powerless people are silenced, and where the people who've got a boot on their throats are the only voices you can hear:

https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act/

The evidence for this isn't limited to the era of AOL and Prodigy. In 2018, Trump signed SESTA/FOSTA, a law that held platforms liable for "sex trafficking." Advocates for this law – like Ashton Kutcher, who campaigns against sexual assault unless it involves one of his friends, in which case he petitions the judge for leniency – were warned that it would be used to shut down all consensual sex work online, making sex workers's lives much more dangerous. This warnings were immediately borne out, and they have been repeatedly borne out every month since. Killing CDA 230 for sex work brought back pimping, exposed sex workers to grave threats to their personal safety, and made them much poorer:

https://decriminalizesex.work/advocacy/sesta-fosta/what-is-sesta-fosta/

It also pushed sex trafficking and other nonconsensual sex into privateforums that are much harder for law enforcement to monitor and intervene in, making it that much harder to catch sex traffickers:

https://cdt.org/insights/its-all-downsides-hybrid-fosta-sesta-hinders-law-enforcement-hurts-victims-and-speakers/

This is exactly what SESTA/FOSTA's advocates were warned of. They were warned. They did it anyway. Fuck those people.

Maybe you have a theory about how platforms can be held civilly liable for their users' speech without harming marginalized people in exactly the way that SESTA/FOSTA, it had better amount to more than "platforms are evil monopolists and CDA 230 makes their lives easier." Yes, they're evil monopolists. Yes, 230 makes their lives easier. But without 230, small forums – private message boards, Mastodon servers, Bluesky, etc – couldn't possibly operate.

There's a reason Mark Zuckerberg wants to kill CDA 230, and it's not because he wants to send Facebook to the digital graveyard. Zuck knows that FB can operate in a post-230 world by automating the deletion of all controversial speech, and he knows that small services that might "disrupt" Facebook's hegemony would be immediately extinguished by eliminating 230:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/zuckerberg-calls-changes-techs-section-230-protections-rcna486

It's depressing to see so many comrades in the fight against Big Tech getting suckered into carrying water for Zuck, demanding the eradication of CDA 230. Please, I beg you: look at the evidence for what happens when you remove that fence. Heed the warnings. Don't be like Bill Clinton, or California fire suppression officials, or James Moore and Tony Clement, or the European Parliament, or the US Trade Rep, or cryptocurrency freaks, or Malcolm Turnbull.

Or Ashton fucking Kutcher.

Because, you know, fuck those guys.

Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/13/wanting-it-badly/#is-not-enough

[waitsobs]

THE LONG GAME ⋆˚࿔ chapter eighteen!

When popular actress y/n l/n's private account gets exposed, it is revealed that she has a crush on one of the girls from the girl group katseye. y//n tries to de-escalate the situation, but makes it worse, and loses her chance with the girl. The only way she think of winning the girl over is by playing the long game. 

AQUARIUM CONFESSIONS

The drive to the aquarium was pretty quiet for y/n. She never felt comfortable on her birthday. She always had a sense of emptiness that she could never shake.  

Once she arrived, she found a parking spot and walked to the front to find megan. She was really hoping things weren’t going to be awkward between them. 

When she finally got to the front, she saw Megan standing there, smiling, staring in her direction. Y/n smiled back and waved as she approached her.

“So would you like to tell me what we’re doing here?” Y/n questioned, brow raised. 

“What do you mean?” Megan answered smiling. “it’s an aquarium we’re here to see the animals.” 

Y/n shook her head, a tiny smile pulling on her lips. "No, Megan. You know what I mean. Why did you invite me here?”

"Okay don't get upset but Lara told me you don't like acknowledging your birthday." She explained.

Y/n eyes had opened as if Lara had revealed her deepest darkest secrets to Megan . She was going to open her lips to speak, but Megan read her facial expression.

"No, no, no," Megan blurted, shaking her head and holding her hands out. "She didn't tell me why, so don't worry. I won't push you to tell me unless you want to.”

Y/n was definitely going to scold Lara later but she appreciated the gesture of what Megan was trying to do. Y/n didn’t realize she had drifted off into her head until Megan started speaking causing her to snap back into reality.

“I just wanted to do something for you even though you don’t like your birthday.” Megan explained rubbing her palms together anxiously.  “You can totally leave if you not feeling this.”

Y/n inched forward and grabbed Megan’s hands interlocking them to make her stop rubbing them. “Clam down I’m not going to leave after I just drove all the way here.” She smiled, looking into Megan’s eyes 

Megan look down at their connected hands and it felt like volts of electricity just shocked her all at once. She looked back up at y/n who was giving her a thin lipped smile. “Thank you for doing this for me.” She muttered gently. 

“It’s no big deal.” Megan replied, shrugging her shoulders. “Now let’s go inside.” Megan pulled y/ns hand which was still connected with hers hauling her to the entrance.

Megan and y/n had been walking for a while. Every time they came across another aquatic animal, y/n would tell Megan what it was and where it came from.

Megan smiled, "I never knew you knew so much about animals."

"Well we did have each other blocked for like— four months so I could see why plus I don't really talk about so that's another factor." Y/n explained.

Megan scratched her neck, realizing she had never truly apologized. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that. I feel terrible, and I probably made you think you did something when you didn't." Megan rambled while glancing away from y/n.

"Okay, Megan, you really need to chill out. Y/n exclaimed, laughing as she turned to face her. I'm not worried about it anymore, we're good."

“Still I just wanted to apologize.”

"And you have—by bringing me here now let's keep looking around." Y/n took Megan's hand and dragged her away to see other animals.

The next animal they encountered were the sea otters. Sea otters had been her favorite since she was little because of her dad. He always got her sea otter related things and told her facts about them. In that moment she payed attention to how the sea otters moved and how they reacted with each other. 

"You want to know why I don't enjoy celebrating my birthday. Y/n spoke out, drawing Megan's attention as she continued to stare at the sea otters. "My dad passed away four years ago, him and I were born on the same day." She added, turning her head to look at Megan.

There was a comfortable silence between the two until y/n began to speak again, pulling her attention back to the sea otters. "I hate my birthday since he's not here to celebrate it with me. It sucks, you know. You've known someone your entire life, and then they're just gone.

Megan was silent as she continued to stare at y/n. In that moment, she knew she had to be there for her. She nudged y/n and extended her arm for her to grab. Y/n accepted her offer, latching onto her arm and resting her head on her shoulder.

"I can't say the same thing has happened to me, but know that he is proud of you. Please remember that you’re an amazing person. Megan expressed as she put her cheek against y/n's head.

Megan's comments sat with y/n as they stood in another moment of comfortable quietness. The two didn't need to say anything to know that they got each other.

"Thank you so much for today Megan, I was an honestly planning on just staying in my room all day and shutting everyone out."

"You don't have to think me, I understand." Megan said as she wrapped her arm over y/n's back, bringing her closer.

And the thing is, despite the fact that the two had never spent much time together, Megan felt like she understood y/n and y/n understood her, but who knows—who truly understands each other nowadays?

masterlist ⭑.ᐟ next

Taglist: @saysirhc @urmom2314 @artrizzler19 @yeetaberry127 @yjiminswallet @lara4eclipze @meiphobic @meizinisnumberone @meganskiendielsbtc @soobnotfound @linnnsworld @1luvkarina @raviolisupremacy @peranoo @vrtualstar @ssamlovr @gtfoiydlyj @firstclassjaylee @kristalag @xochitlisbest  @yazzyminny @esccecvp @snoopyiz @vivilvr @fearnotfearmore @apersonwhowrites @blushmimi | TAGLIST CLOSED

[a-little-bit-of-ravioli]

20 questions for fic writers

Tagged by @the-real-azalea-scroggs! Had to wait until I was of my phone because doing these is a nightmare on mobile lmao

1. How many works do you have on A03?

18 as of a few days ago!

2. What's your total A03 word count?

157,937! Which is. Only a fraction of the word count in my Docs folder. Be prepared.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I mainly write for The Legend of Zelda; specifically Linked Universe! In fact, that's all that's posted on my Ao3 currently, since my fall into that fandom began with me uploading there! Pre-Ao3 I wrote for Black Cat (Anime/Manga), Megaman NT Warrior, various Pokémon things, Assassin's Creed, Yugioh, Final Fantasy XIV and Octopath Traveler! Some of these I still write privately, but I haven't gotten around to re-posting any.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Whistling on Deaf Ears - My longest fic on Ao3, focusing on Wild and Twilight's friendship and how good intentions can lead to disaster.

Iconoclasm - Warriors deals with the room full of portraits in Cia's palace. The Chain also deals with it, but with a bit more fire.

Deserving - Twilight finally tells Rusl that he was the wolf in the village during TP, but that also means dealing with some heavier topics. Colin half overhears them and forms his own conclusions.

Something Greater - The start of the "Hyrule can see magical auras" series! In this one we deal with Legend and his many rings.

Ocean Magic - Mermaid Legend and Zora Time have a race and then fight one of the Big Octos from WW! Fun times.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Every single one!! I love comments, they give me an excuse to ramble about my fic more!! I am always down to ramble about every single insignificant detail of any line and/or section. If you ever want more background info about one of my fics, look to the comments!

So please, I adore comments, I treat them like treasures, not responding to them would be a CRIME.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

There's no contest; Inevitable, my (so far) only MCD fic.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Hmmm, that's hard to quantify. I usually try to end fics on a hopeful note regardless. I'd say possibly either Deserving, where Twilight reconnects with his family, or Shimmering Blue, Striking White, where Time meets the Fierce Deity settled down on Satori Mountain and they both get closure.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Thankfully, no! I've been blessed with mostly amazing and patient readers, even when my upload schedule isn't the best.

9. Do you write smut?

No, not really. I've attempted it, but I'm too asexual for it lol

10. Do you write crossovers?

Very, very rarely. Mostly privately, and only very specific ones. Only a single one has had an actual plot, so far (more on that one in question 15!).

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Also a nope! I tend to write for smaller fandoms, where these things don't tend to happen a lot!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have! But it's been a while. Over a decade, in fact! I tried to find the fic to link it here, but it was on the German fanfic website fanfiktion.de, and my friend who posted it back then must have deactivated her account, because it's nowhere to be seen (I still have the Word file though!). It was a Multi-Crossover that started as an RP in a forum, and we took turns turning the RP into prose one chapter each. "If a Hero Turns to Dark" was its title. We were edgy teenagers.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

Hissssss. Bad question. Shoo. They are all equally important!!

But it's probably TenRose from Doctor Who.

15. What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

One of the very few crossovers I've ever worked on; a crossover fic between Assassin's Creed and Doctor Who, that I have mapped out in both chronological and timeline order, and yes, those are different. I only ever wrote about a quarter of it, since my primary audience of it disappeared when we graduated. I doubt I'll ever pick it back up properly, and if I do it'll probably go through heavy rewrites first since it's so old. Finishing it is a nice thought, but realistically, after 9 years it'll never be high priority enough for it to actually happen.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, especially arguments, and emotional impact. I've been told I do really well making characters feel alive and believable! Also I like to believe I'm decent at setting a scene and giving it the vibe I want it to have!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I struggle with dialogue tags when nothing much is happening besides the talking. I always feel it's too bland, and fall back on the same phrases. My scene transitions could use some work too.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I've done this with Japanese phrases, because I was a massive weeb. Usually I followed them up with their own translations, though; I'm not the biggest fan of footnote translations, unless they are properly linked to. Simple dialogue tags are my favourite way of indicating a language switch.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Black Cat the Manga/Anime! It's a series about an assassin turned bounty hunter trying to live a life separate from his murdery past, but getting dragged back into things by still wanting to avenge his best friend's death. The series has a special place in my heart and my bookshelf, it left an imprint on 13-year-old me that will never leave.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Probably Jailbreak, uncharacteristically enough! It's one of the only fics I never got stuck in once. Writing it was a great feeling from start to finish. I love writing all of my fics, but that was a special few days.

Tagging @ahrva @nowhere-to-go-but-down @silvercaptain24 and @aeghina! And anyone who wants to do it, really, go wild

[vashtijoy]

I was wondering if it is possible that the surname "Akechi" is actually a pseudonym/alias . . . like, his celebrity name, and not the surname of his mother. I don't think the game ever hints at it but it came to me because Dietman and the Silent Requester uses the alias concept and my brain kinda automatically assumes everything in that mission has some kind of parallel to Akechi himself, and because it would make sense to use a different name (that he chose for himself) from his mother for his Detective Prince image, honestly. Do you think that's possible?

This is a fun one, but for myself, I think it probably isn't that likely. Ditto the idea that Akechi is mukoseki (essentially, unregistered at birth, which would have put him at a very significant disadvantage).

Akechi obviously has a life beside what we see. He's registered in high school and is participating in university entrance, all of which he might struggle to access if he was unregistered; he's presumably registered as "Akechi Goro" and not a second name unknown to us. He's remarkably high-achieving, which tells us that he hasn't just been parachuted into a (probably private, as he makes a big deal of earning his school fees) high school post-Shido; he was likely in a good middle school before that, through his own efforts. He tells us he obsessed about his grades so someone would want him. School will have been a big deal for him—up to a point.

He must have been registered with a doctor at some point, and so on. He will have taken standardised tests in elementary and middle school, and those tests will have needed a name, and have gone on file. By the point of canon, he's taken the national mock exams. By the time he's in high school, people do not know that he's an orphan, that he was an unwanted child, that he never had a father—he's successfully hidden it all. Which is a story in itself, if you ask me; a story which might suggest a successful change of identity—or simply that he got into private school, perhaps on a scholarship, and never told anyone his history. Yusuke mentions that his Kosei scholarship entitles him to a free place in a dorm; I like to think that Akechi, in middle school, may have benefited from something like this.

He also works in multiple fields—he must get paid by someone, even if Shido isn't paying him a yen. So he must have a bank account; he must pay tax on that income��two things Shido might certainly be able to help him with, if he saw fit. But even if Shido gave him the apartment he lives in and a credit card for his day-to-day expenses, there's still a lot going on, that that alias would have to take into account.

Shido is capable of a lot, but Akechi can't ask Shido for help establishing his anti-Shido alias; that would ruin the plot. He could, perhaps, strongarm people's shadows into doing things for him, changing things, forgetting him; we know he interrogates them. We never see him do any of that, but you could easily hypothesise it, and I wouldn't put it past him at all.

But in the days before the Metaverse, Akechi already has a lot of paperwork pointing to him; he's not a ghost, he hasn't fallen between the cracks; he's a boy with a life and a history. He's not somebody who can just start going by a different name—not without it raising questions, and drawing attention. Not without people looking up years later, when he's on TV, and saying "hey, that's <name>".

but mom

It seems to me that Akechi is just going by the same name he's had all along, perhaps because some part of him wants Shido to know who he is, perhaps because it's his mother's name, it's his name, and he doesn't want to cast it aside. But then why doesn't Shido recognise his name, like he recognises his face?

It's often said that Shido just doesn't remember people, but in fact he remembers Joker's name—he remarks on it when he sees the death certificate, though he doesn't know where he's heard it. He is doing the same thing Joker is, when he knows Shido's face, his voice, but can't place them.

My suspicion is that Shido just never knew Akechi's mother's name, and that Akechi knows that was the case, and why it would be the case. I think she was a sex worker all along, and that Shido was one of her clients; that, perhaps with the charm and cleverness her son would later show, she wormed her way into his good graces, as much of a mixed blessing as that would have been.

Akechi does not really say, for instance, that his mother and Shido "had a relationship"; he uses the word aijin, which is much more like a mistress, or plaything. Some boys at Shujin talk about how Shiho is going to be Kamoshida's next aijin after Ann. Shadow Okumura suggests to Cognitive Sugimura that he make Haru his aijin—"just take her as your lover". A couple of women on Harmony Alley laugh about becoming the aijins of politicians so they can be spoiled rotten. And Akechi says that his mother and Shido had an aijin kankei—an aijin relationship; she was his mistress, and when she became pregnant, she was dropped like a hot potato.

Akechi's mother might well have used a name that wasn't her own, for her work. She might well have gone only by a given name. That seems more likely to me than Akechi setting one up for himself.

is it a stagename?

One thing makes it very clear that "Akechi Goro" is not a stagename, even if it is an alias: Akechi is not famous at the start of canon, and so he has no need for a stagename. We watch the Detective Prince develop in realtime. And Sae, who's clearly known him awhile, knows him as Akechi; he hasn't adopted a different name for the screen.

could you do it anyway :|a

Absolutely. Go wild. You don't even have to think about this shit if you don't want to. That said, if I was writing this, I would probably face tweeny Goro with at least a few of these issues.

[five-star-stay]

Hi!! As a hanji stan I fully agree with you and I bring you at least one more thing to fairly complain about!! Screen time. It happens very very often that when they are performing and it’s HIS PART, the cameras just. Don’t film him. They zoom out, they show the audience, sometimes they even focus on a different member (hyunjin or felix usually). I used to gif him a lot and this got me so angry so many times!!! What else does he have to do to get a tiny bit of attention??? He has shown multiple times (all the time tbh) just how insanely talented and charismatic he is! There’s literally not one single thing he can’t do. All rounder is not just a silly cutesy nickname thing here. He’s the real deal… literally one of my reasons for biasing him is just how amazing his overall performance as an idol is. He can sing, he can rap, he can dance, he sounds even better live, he has stage presence, he’s funny, he’s sweet, he’s cute, he’s good looking, and so much more that I’m forgetting right now…

As far as I know the only thing he deliberately actually stood away from was getting his solo Instagram account when the rest of the members got theirs…

It’s been very frustrating to watch as the other members get amazing solo opportunities and he gets literally nothing…

Hi anon, I completely agree with what you said and yes I completely sympathise with your frustrations. Even in music videos, he's never been made a thumbnail and that makes me so sad like not even on HIS songs. He's not getting the chance to be the face of it. And a lot of times in mvs too like social path, his screen time is literally just what they showed in the teaser even though he has the most beautiful bridge in it the focus isn't on him in mv during that part at all.

I understand that felix and hyunjin are pushed more as the faces of the group and the most popular members, and I have no ill will towards them. But why does pushing them come at the cost of han never even getting the bare minimum?

They also plastered an ot7 Tommy Hilfiger campaign all across their stores and it felt maddening that people were calling han stans rude or childish for asking why han didn't get accommodated and wasn't given a separate solo shoot on a later date so he could've been part of the campaign in at least solo shots. And the way they could've done a billion things to include him but all they did was qrt a skz post and said "❤️❤️ HAN" and getting thanked for it by "stays" while they hid replies about being called out for zionism and not tagging han on insta and tiktok as if he isn't part of the group is SEARED in my brain. And they couldn't even spell skz right... i hate that brand's social media team but also you need two hands to clap, div1 is just as at fault.

Another instance was not promoting lee know and han's instagram on their group instagram stories, they had 29 million followers then and 30 million now. When other 6 made their ig it was big news and shared on the stories so everyone knew. But minsung made it on skz anniversary day which was a day filled with a lot of posts spammed on the group account, making it so nobody knew about the group account tagging them in the caption because it was after the "read more" and most people don't click that button especially on days with so many posts to catch up on. Results: the other 6 hit 3 million in 24 hours and minsung took a couple months and han has just now reached 4 million. It's frustrating because at every step, the company has let Han down and it's always coupled with excuses from so called stays that just don't care about Han individually. I'm honestly so concerned about how jype will handle their solo careers if they don't even realise or care enough to make sure minsung don't get left behind in terms of followers on private instagram (which will affect their engagement and brand deals) just because they took their time and waited for when they felt ready. They're literally being punished for doing what's right for them.

I hate it all!!!

I wish han can negotiate a better deal for himself in a new contract and if he decides to stay on for the group but join some other agency for solo promotion, I would not blame him because jype just tries to bury his individuality and doesn't let him create a brand for himself. Literally the only thing he has is his hanpop and even then it's months of him sometimes asking on live for stays to tell skziji that they want certain songs released. Please God, give Han a management that appreciates him.

Proof:

[parkminijiminie]

"Everyone's entitled to their own opinions, but it makes me sad that a poor quality video was enough for some to drop JK and call him names."

I’m tired of reading this tbh. Some of us think the video is probably real and we don’t call JK names? I haven’t seen Demini and their anons calling him names, or did I miss something? We just think the video is real and it makes us question our previous opinion about Jikook, which in the end we know nothing about or not even 5% of their lives. Sure, some ppl might call him whatever but I haven’t seen any of that around here? Again, we just think the video is real and JK was with that girl and their privacy was invaded. As for me I have 0 idea if she was a fling or a friend, but it does very much look like JK and its apartment, come on. And the amount of ppl focusing on details like the window bay when we all know angles can trick our minds big time is weird. Remember when the very first taennie pic was leaked? The one in the car? So many armys were trying so hard to debunk it, saying it was an edit using a pic of Tae from in the Soop or whatever… well that aged well. I’m not saying the video is 100% real, who knows, could be a hoax, but honestly.. let’s be real, it looks legit. And JK is more than allowed to bring a woman into his apartment, he’s a grown adult, he does whatever he wants with his own private life and I think we’ve all been pretty clear on this blog that the problem was his privacy being invaded. A lot of us are Jikookers who are trying to consider all possibilities here, and if it turns out JK was involved with that woman then good for him. As for me I see no problem with him dating someone else than Jimin even though I used to be pretty hellbent on them being a thing. Well, now I try to take a step back and look at things as objectively as I can. I’m so disappointed in Jikookers pitting at eo and calling us names because we think the video is real. Stop with the cult like mentality.

Thank you for this. It got so tiring always talking about that video and why it can't or can be real. First was the security system, then the couch, the windows.... like, can we put it to rest, please? I did this post to address the 🪟 because I constantly get asks about it, and this is the last time I will engage in conversations about the videos's authenticity unless some new information comes up.

Yes, I believe this is JK and his apartment. No, I don't know who that woman is and what her deal with JK was. I don't have a problem with JK engaging with women, and I wouldn't call him any names ever over it because it is not my business to judge him. It's completely fine and reasonable to wonder, though, what Jikook's relationship is in light of this new information. I see so many accounts acting like people are idiots for thinking this may be JK or that Jikook were not together then, or maybe were never together to begin with, or trying to make some "conclusions" over the nature of their relationship.

We can't "conclude" anything because we know too little, and shipping is like walking a path blindly. You start in one direction, thinking you will find a meadow because you feel grass underneath your feet, but then you end up in a lake. We can only make assumptions based on clues from the partial information we have. The key is that we should be objective while doing it. I see too many people comfortably showing clear subjectivity in their "analyses" by taking small, unrelated things and turning them into a narrative, and then denying everything that may counterpose it.

To me, these types of people are delusional, have no critical thinking, basic logic, or science understanding. In real life and in science, when you are exploring a hypothesis, your deductions should come from the evidence and information you are presented with and not the other way around. If new information becomes available, some of those deductions may turn out to be incorrect. You accept it and continue with your theory in a way that best explains all the data you have available now. Simple.

[yzashaven]

can i get like the full story cause i dont wanna join the server but im curious on whats going on?😭😭😭

you won't really see the full story on the server since we talked about it in a private channel HELP but anyway i'll try to explain it from my side and what i've seen/noticed!

so basically it all started with the "copying" accusations on fal's (@scara6) account; i also noticed that @/diorlumx was posting the same stuff. i thought that maybe it was what i thought it was, one of them copying the other. i scrolled a bit on luma's account and did find some similarities. after some time, luma messaged me to ask if i was friends with falーto which i answer yes and after a few hours they told me about it and how she was copying them (which is false)

around the same time, i was talking with fal about it and later got some confirmations that she was NOT copying luma, it was the other way around and the "proof" they sent me was more of a collection of coincidences. such as having the same pfp which is COMPLETELY NORMAL no need to make a big deal out of it 😭 another thing, even though luma clearly stated on "someone copying them" on their blog, what they told me was that they never said anything of the like

while we were at the discord server, they were acting a bit strange when we talked about scara or xiao (the server is literally centered around those two) we all talked for a bit then sooner later, they left the server; i asked them why and they said that they felt jealous about how we talked about those two LMAO like as if they were claiming that scara n xiao are ONLY THEIRS

as for the "bullying" i was literally just talking to them about it and being honest about how they clearly needed a reality check along with help. because how the fuck does one become possesive about A FICTIONAL. CHARACTER. THAT EVERYONE IS ALLOWED TO ENJOY? 😭 self-shipping is 100% okay but don't cross the lines by doing shit like that and also causing unnecessary problems instead of simply talking it out

[mysteriousfandom--trash]

To be honest, I don't care if said person blocks/harasses me after this post because I'm not super active but I just want to make light of the situation. And if she sees this, then hi. Go ahead. Take a screenshot and post it to your Twitter and get your "friends" to harass me. Anything you try to say will be wrong because the evidence doesn't match up to your claims. I don't care anymore. This blog is dead as hell because I rarely use it. I don't have any other social media.

I'm only making this post for a heads-up warning because I hate it when people can't let things go. This literally has been going on since October of 2022 and it needs to stop already. This all is unnecessary and stupid. I want my friend to feel safe online, not to be harassed by some adult who can't let some small issue go. It's just super ridiculous to be completely honest.

--------------------------------------------------

[EVIDENCE WILL BE INCLUDED BY MY FRIEND. THE EVIDENCE IS REAL AND THE TRUE RECIPTS ARE HERE!! Some screenshots are from my friend, and most screenshots are from me]

!!THE PERSON I'M TALKING ABOUT GOES BY SALLYEXE AND USES SHE/HER PRONOUNS SO PLEASE RESPECT IT!!

**BLOCK AND REPORT, DO NOT HARASS

Her Twitter profile is changed up now, as these are old screenshots, but these are the same person/gen

sallyexe (she/her) - text referring to her

my friend (they/them) - text referring to them

--------------------------------------------------

So, lately I've been trying to help a friend [unnamed for their own privacy] and someone else, who goes by the @ of @/sallyexe097. They have been in unnecessary conflict for months now and it's got to end.

My unnamed friend is a minor, and the sallyexe person is an adult mind you. This is important. It may not seem like it, but it is. It's kind of a big deal when an adult harasses a minor on the internet. That can't slide easily.

Yes this is only my friend's side of the story, but they are telling the truth and the evidence will help with it. It started in early(? February when these two interacted. My friend wanted to clear up some drama between the two that was occurring. Seen below:

My friend was understanding and eager to pass over it, with obvious shown signs of no aggression. So..I don't know what you mean by "they were aggressive". :/ My friend and her continued the conversation, and it ultimately lead in sallyexe being aggressive and harassing them:

For context about this, they were arguing about a ship fight. She ships one thing and my friend ships something else. Sallyexe doesn't agree with it and constantly harasses my friend and calls them names.

They even blocked each other on Twitter after that exchange. I have proof that they did in fact block each other:

Though, there are instances where she replies to my friends' private anger posts about her???

The only conclusion would be that she is spying on my friend with another Twitter account, which is not known.

This is just very weird and unnecessary. Spying on my friend isn't going to make you seem cool or anything, it just makes you look weird. Not only that, but sallyexe has gone full lengths to guilttrip people to believe her, even threatening su!c!d3 at one point:

After all this happened, I personally talked to sallyexe myself on Tumblr to try and get the situation to be dealt with. And I did succeed because she did end up apologizing to my friend on Tumblr:

However, this wouldn't be the end of it because sallyexe began posting about my friend again just a week ago for no seemingly real reason. My friend has moved on so why can't she? It's fucking ridiculous and I'm tired of it.

I've included her Twitter and Tumblr (known) accounts and here are her tiktok accounts:

first one

second one

Anyway, if you see this post and read through the whole thing, please reblog and spread it to get awareness to it. I need my friend to feel safe and for this person to stop. Thank you.

[don't mind all the sonic tags, it's just the fandom where it happened, and i at least want to get people to see this post]

[blazehedgehog]

Considering your financial situation, wouldnt it be justified to just pirate the big releases especially when they often leak/the fact that you wait some time anyways before making a video?

Ofcourse I understand supporting indies and other smaller games, but I think sonic games will survive one less sale tbh

Working for TSSZ kind of broke me of my habit of pirating most games. I didn't need to pirate games anymore. Tristan was a consummate professional about that kind of stuff. If I wanted to write about a game and did not own it, I'd put in a request and it'd get bought for me, or I'd even buy it for myself and expense it to get that money back.

Here's the deal about pirating big new games: my computer is from 2015. My faith in capturing video from PC games, especially brand new PC games, is not very strong. Even if it's something like Sonic Superstars, a game that seems to be targeting lower spec systems than most.

That is why you see me holding a PS4 copy of Superstars and not just buying it on Steam. On PS4, I'll get consistent performance and consistent video capture.

It's also just a different world out there. The last time I was into pirating PC games, torrenting was a lot safer and a lot easier to do. I've got accounts at a couple of private, invite-only trackers, and both of them straight up say "Hey if you're torrenting files, either from us or anywhere else, you should be using a VPN bare minimum."

And I don't. Nor do I want to use a VPN. It's a lot of hoops to jump through just to get a game, what, a few days early?

And then there's the other headache: I mentioned having accounts at a few private trackers, and those places will crack the whip on you pretty hard if you don't seed. To give you a peek behind the curtain a little bit, during the Sonic Frontiers review, for the pinball segment, I was debating on how to get footage of "real" pinball. Do I borrow somebody else's video?

Then it dawned on me: No, Farsight Studios made a bunch of really great pinball conversions via Pinball Arcade. One problem, though: another developer named Zen bought out the rights to most of their library and as a result Pinball Arcade lost like 70% of its tables. So, I figured I'd have to pirate them. It was also a good excuse to get the PC version of Addams Family Pinball, which I bought and paid for on my phone years ago.

So I grabbed a torrent from one of these private trackers. All seven seasons from before the Zen Pinball buyout. 8, almost 9gb. Something like 100 pinball tables total. I was literally in the process of scanning the rar files for viruses when I realized: wait, I'm an idiot, I bought Pinball Arcade Season 7 on the PS4. There was a pricing error when it launched and they were selling the whole season for like $6, when normally a season would be closer to $30.

So I fired up the PS4, captured my video from that, and that's what is in the final product: me playing Pinball Arcade Season 7 on console.

So now I have this torrent of all of Pinball Arcade on my PC and I'm not sure I want to risk installing it. It seems clean, but there's always that worry. I have bricked a PC once from playing illicit software.

And clearing that torrent with the private tracker? They had me seed that thing every day for two months before they took me off the "Hit & Run" list (meaning my account was potentially up for deletion). All the while they're saying "Hey, protect yourself, use a VPN when you torrent from us."

All of that is just one big bundle of nerves and stress and work that is solved by just waiting for it to officially release and buying it normally. It is the ultimate in convenience.

[aroaessidhe]

2022 reads // twitter thread        

Just Your Local Bisexual Disaster

YA contemporary about an aspiring music photographer who needs a date to her sister's quinceañera

dealing with a crush on her best friend, ex boyfriend, and the new girl in town

and trying to figure out her feelings while preserving her friendships

[enderspawn]

i don't know how well worded this is, because ive been trying to think of how to phrase it correctly but i'd like to say first that i don't exactly agree with a lot of the way dream handles things despite me being a big fan of his, but i can understand it?

a lot of the time the people who initially bring things are either heavy antis who dug through the trenches to find dirt on him or fans of his who bring it up and are concerned about supporting someone who does whatever it is they bringing up. for the most part the people who so adamantly dislike him don't tend to listen when proven wrong nor do they often take his statements at face value. whats the point in convincing people you've grown if they don't bother listening?

also a lot of the qrt's end up full of death threats, doxxing, gore, and other stuff and i imagine the primary reason dream posts things on his private instead is because the people on there won't do those things. he's aware his tweets will get screenshotted and reposted, so i think he figures those who want to see it will.

again i dont fully agree with the way he goes about things, and i do wish he'd step back sometimes but also it's hard for me to fully blame a guy for lashing out with how often he's harraseed a dehumanized. i can't say i would react to it all that well either yknow?

i can understand that, as well as acknowledge I don’t know what it’s like to deal with that amount of attention or hate.

but also, if he did genuinely think “what’s the point in convincing others you’ve grown if they don’t bother listening?” then… why would he bother to try anyway? for the concerned fans, maybe, sure! but I also feel like it shows that he does still see a point in trying to convince others outside his pre-existing fan base, at least a little. i can’t say for sure.

with the hate he receives in qrts though, I guess my thought is why does he still publicly tweet on these issues then? while I don’t exactly check, if he gets those things when he’s publicly and poorly addressing an issue and is fine enough with it to continue that behavior, then why would it be an issue for a well-intentioned and prepared statement which paints him in a MUCH better light? the people who have issues with him interact with his account, that is where they would see it best— not a screenshot on a fan account.

i can understand that he’s human and could be lashing out and I can sympathize. but also, he is a public figure— part of fame is learning how to deal with that public and constant harassment because no one is universally beloved. for all he says people should just block and ignore hate on his boundaries or for all he says people should learn to put down their phone and log off, he’s terrible at following it himself.

he is still learning how to deal with it, I recognize in the grand scope he’s still a very new cc/public figure. but, he went into this with the clear intent to gain this fame and so far seems to be refusing any help in learning how to deal with it, like for example: a pr team/advisor. (honestly it seems like he doesn’t have a clear idea on what they actually do, but I don’t blame him for it bc that’s very much the general public thought on it LMAO, I’m biased bc I’ve studied it to know what it’s Actually About)

i just…. when you have a following, especially of his scale, you have an obligation to take responsibility for your audience. you have an obligation to act in a way to reduce harm. yes, he can’t control every single person, but he can change his own actions to try to prevent those single people from behaving poorly. as much as I agree it may be unfair, he has the obligation to be the bigger person here and not engage— not like he has, at least. like bitzel said, vague tweet if you must. screenshot it. whatever! do some kind of behavior to LIMIT that harm. this is ultimately something he signed up for and something I think he’s not really succeeding at

i guess, my point is that my sympathy for his plight does not exceed my expectations for how he should behave. i sympathize, but I don’t believe it excuses in any way his actions and that he’s solely in the wrong and needs to stop, re-evaluate, and move past.

[peekbackstage]

Thanks so much for sharing your perspective. I've found your posts very informative and appreciate your time and effort. I saw you mention something about XZ's team not doing a great job responding to the situation, though of course they aren't to blame for it. If you don't mind, would you share your thoughts on what a better response might have looked like, and what impact it might've had if they'd done things differently?

One of the things that stands out most to me is how unprepared XZ Studio was when dealing with a PR crisis. It seems to me like they most likely did not have a strong social media team at the time who would have been tracking any trends or conversations associated with XZ. (By the point at which 227 happened, XZ Studio had already been established for about five months.)

It is pretty standard to track your artist’s name and keep an eye on trending topics, especially to get in front any major issues. As 227 began to develop, had XZ Studio been tracking the development on social media, they could have potentially defused the situation very quickly when the big call to action first emerged from XZ fans to report a fanfic to the government. It was so out of hand, and there was no statement from either the company or the artist that it seemed as though both were complicit in allowing it to continue, which is precisely why so many antis emerged, incensed against XZ’s apparent lack of action to rein in his fans and guide them appropriately. 

Much of the backlash that occurred against XZ and his fans is because there was no initial response when the call to action first appeared - they could have essentially stopped it before it got too far and prevented AO3 and Lofter from getting banned. A simple statement from the artist and the management company to defuse everything could have potentially stopped the movement in its tracks, with the amount of influence XZ does have over his fans.

When things did go sideways, there still was no statement or even an apology from management or XZ, who was being criticized for the actions of his fans. Though it wasn’t his fault (technically), the ways in which his fans behave reflected poorly upon him as an artist and an influencer. Had he taken “responsibility” immediately and apologized, it might not have gone so far as a boycott against him that resulted in so many brands dropping him. 

What I think a better response would have looked like once 227 occurred would have been this:

1. Immediately issue a PR statement condemning the actions of the fans and take responsibility for not initially “guiding” fans properly. Apologize on behalf of the company, the fans, and the artist. Statement should also include a note that states the offending content is merely fiction and that there is no truth to the story. There is no reason to be upset over something that is not true or defamatory, as it is imaginary. (This would essentially be a coded statement denying a certain relationship to begin the process of dissociating and creating a different narrative.) 

2. Artist should issue a statement condemning the actions of the fans and apologizing as well. Call to action for any fans who might continue to act out to behave appropriately. Remind fans that fiction is not real, and to stop acting out against something that is imaginary. 

3. Meet with Weibo privately. Ask them to help with community management to ban accounts that are breaking their TOS. Do this very early on in the process. Also, invest a good deal of money to hire an entire social media management team or a company to heavily monitor Weibo and aggressively report accounts that are engaging in defamatory behavior and potentially breaking Weibo’s TOS. Take legal action against anyone who is actively breaking the law. 

4. Book an interview with a large media outlet or a well-known media personality. Allow and even encourage questions about the incident. Artist should condemn the actions of the fans who caused the incident and apologize to the public for their behavior. Artist should also say something like, “The story is fake/imaginary/fiction/not real.” (Saying something like that more or less demonstrates how dumb all of this is.) I am assuming that questions won’t be asked about AO3/Lofter being placed behind the Great Firewall due to China censorship. 

5. Dissociate from anything and everything that might allow others to continue associating the artist with the incident. In XZ’s case, that means dissociating from WYB, because he’s associated with said incident given the fact that this was all caused by a fanfic. Put a moratorium on kadians and any other potential “interactions” that would allow fans to continue to have “content” to discuss on Weibo. The point here is to change the narrative - this way antis won’t also have content they can use to criticize XZ.

6. While this is happening, call all brands and schedule meetings. Attempt to rescue the brand deals. For brands who are very unhappy, offer a contract revision to suspend the contract terms for a set amount of time (such as four months) to see if the issue blows over. (It’s better to put it on hold than it is to have to try and get a new brand deal, especially once the brand’s annual sponsorship monies have already been allocated for the year.)  

Potentially work with third party PR team to circulate rumors among XZ’s fanbase that he is losing brand deals to create urgency for a counter-campaign against antis trying to boycott XZ’s brands. If there are just as many people calling brands to support XZ as there are calling for a boycott, then it would potentially be a 50/50 toss up as to whether or not a brand deal manages to be saved. This might also lead to a surge of sales for all of XZ’s brands, which would then maybe demonstrate to the brands that XZ shouldn’t be dropped.

7. Track sentiment/feedback once all of the above has been completed. If all of the above didn’t help at all, create new action plan which might include withdrawing the artist from all activity for a set amount of time. 

So there you have it. Maybe a response like the above could have potentially ended up with a different outcome for XZ. Maybe it wouldn’t have helped at all and everything would have still been just as bad. We’ll never actually know. 

What I hope is that XZ now has a better team who can handle issues like this in the future, and that he will see a full recovery for his career this new year. If 2020 has proven anything to anyone watching, it’s that XZ’s consumer power is still massive, and that his popularity has not waned at all. The fact that he is still sweeping all the awards that require fans to vote, often winning by millions of votes, and the red sea that fans managed to put on for him during the Tencent awards are undeniable symbols of his enduring popularity.  

This kind of influence is staggeringly powerful - brands and media outlets that previously might have felt uncertain about XZ as an artist most likely will have positive sentiments towards him as a result. 

So, let’s hope that 2021 will be the best year for XZ. 

The future is full of possibilities and the sky above is endless.

Edit: @pepeyee Made it clear to me in the replies that I definitely did not clarify myself or my thoughts on all of the above well enough, so I will be writing a response to all of the above to further clarify some points so that there is no confusion about my stance here. 

[btsandvmin]

Answering asks in regards to my recent post about shipping

Ok, so I got a few asks which I think are all responses to my recent post How much do we really know?

I got a few others but these are the ones I am choosing to reply to.

If you follow me and have done so for a while you probably understood my post already, and thus most of these replies might not be that interesting to my general readers. This for the most part just a reply to explain the points I felt got completely misunderstood by these particular anons. But I also go through some others that asks as well. Those will be at the bottom of the post if you want to skip the explenations.

Here goes. So the first ask I got was this:

Anonymous asked:

You mentioned in a post that during the billboard Vlive V suggested that him and Jimin “sleep together casually.” But the very next day Jimin said in a press conference that he was with JK all night and cried with him over the #1 spot. Do you think you ignore things JM says or does to fit your Vmin narrative? There just seems to be a big confirmation bias. A lot of your evidence seems to come from V’s songs but that’s entirely your analysis based off your perception of their relationship. (Not that I don’t agree with you on some of it.) How do you step back and look at things unbiasedly or rationally?

First of all, yes I did mention this but I didn't say that Jimin and Taehyung slept together that particular time/day. I am not 100% sure the post you read was the "How much do we really know?" but if it was, I said this:

"....or that Vmin seem to casually sleep together in private (if we take Tae’s words for it in the Billboard vlive)..."

Meanwhile in that vlive this is what Taehyung said.

"I told him to sleep next to me" followed by "...as he's too lazy to come to my place" it makes it sound like they normally would have gone to either place to sleep together, but both were too lazy to do so this time. Thus they didn't sleep together this instance, but the way Tae talks makes it sound like they casually ask each other to sleep together at times and like it almost was a given that one of them go to the other.

Worth noting is also that the way Taehyung says it (though there is always room for error since I don't speak Korean) it seems he was asking Jimin to come over first, and he wasn't even aware of the Billboard result. He also asked Jimin to do this on JK's birthday, so clrealy it didn't seem like a big deal at least from Tae's side to ask Jimin to come over to him on this particular day.

What I said in my post applies even if they didn't do it that day. Because it doesn't matter if Jimin went in the end or not, Tae still "casually" asked Jimin to come to his place to sleep.

You can look at the whole vlive (1st in BILLBOARD! Gather ARMY!) from September 1st 2020 and get your own understanding, it's not that long and it's full of cute moments.

But if we get into Ji/kook a little bit, the way I understood the situation from what they said is that of course yes, Jimin did tell JK about it. He said as much and of course I will believe him when he says it.

I never said that Jimin didn't say this, so I don't understand how my post would in any way imply that I ignore what Jimin says or does to fit a Vmin narrative. I didn't even mention Jimin, because it wasn't what I was talking about. Jimin's situation didn't matter in that context, just that Tae asked Jimin to come sleep with him.

Sadly I can't include all pictures because there is a photo limit, but Jimin also says he wasn't prepared for the news, and he was talking with Taehyung, and then he started to cry as he got the news. To me it seems he might have told Tae first (and that they already were on the phone when Jimin got the news?), and that JK likely wasn’t with Jimin when he got the news himself, but that he told JK at a later point.

But aren't you ignoring how they told the story a bit as well if you see this as a pure ji/kook moment?

The thing is that to me, no matter what ji/kook did that night doesn't even matter for what Tae said. It still indicates Vmin sleep together casually in their private time even if they didn't end up doing it that particular day. And if Tae could say that and ask that on the night leading into JK's birthday then how does that make Ji/kook seem like likely lovers even if they were together? Of course it doesn't mean that Vmin automatically becomes real, but I never said that either. Maybe the two ships cancel each other out, but in the end the fact that Taehyung said this, said it like it was normal, and suggested it the night before JK's birthday says something to me.

It's fine if Ji/kookers love the fact that JM told JK, I don't blame them, but they in turn need to take Tae's words into account as well. The whole point of my original post was to say I don't understand how shippers can feel confident in their ship being real, and this is a perfect example of why focusing in on one thing and ignoring or not noticing another makes these beliefs based on too little information.

You also seemed to ignore the rest of the post (if that was indeed what you were reading) where I state that I do have a bias and where ALL shippers use narratives that fit their ship to tell a certain story.

You also mention me ignoring moments and having confirmation bias, and sure I can't truly get rid of that, but again... I didn't ignore Ji/kook. I never said those things didn't happen. If anything I keep saying all ships have moments and shippers focus on them so much they don't see others have similar moments. Likewise I won't deny ji/kook moments when they clearly exist, that was a big part of the post, if you actually read it and didn't just get stuck on the small details. But it's good you are curious about and know confirmation bias. I have brought it up as a problem many times as well, and I will surely talk about it more in the future too.

Then, moving on to your point about "evidence" I would once again like to say (like in the post) that there is no such thing as proof or evidence for ANY ship. Just moments that shippers put together with their interpretations into a narrative. So you saying "A lot of your evidence seems to come from V’s songs but that’s entirely your analysis based off your perception of their relationship. (Not that I don’t agree with you on some of it.)" is why I felt you somehow misunderstood my whole post.

Of course it’s all my analysis based on my perception of their relationship. That’s the WHOLE POINT about how all shipping analyses work. Not just mine, but all.

Also, yes Taehyung's songs is a big part of why Vmin is suspicious, but it's far from the only reasons I have to question them. I simply used Tae's actions as an example in my post because they are quite many and out there. Many facts tied together, but of course what they mean is always a guess. Which I also stated clearly. I literally brought up a lot of examples of Vmin and said they make a lot of sense, but that doesn't mean we can be sure or "know" Vmin is real.

So, yes, I do feel you misunderstood me on several points, and it seemed you didn't read properly at all but rather got stuck on the details and then used Ji/kook moments to "refute" me even though it in my opinion wasn't relevant to the post at all. Which is why I in turn posted this reply:

It didn’t take long for someone to misunderstand my posts and get caught up on the details and examples instead of the general message. While they were at it they decide to throw in a good “accusation” of something I legit have said I am many times and no one can avoid. Good to know some people just don’t want to understand. 😗👍

Not only you but less interesting/good asks as well might have made me feel a bit annoyed, so I replied like this, I suppose I misunderstood your intentions too.

You also asked "How do you step back and look at things unbiasedly or rationally?" and my personal belief is that I can't. I am biased towards Vmin, and I do try to see things from many ways and to get content in its full context. But simply by consuming and remembering more about Vmin than other dynamics I will still remain biased. I don't think any shipper can truly remain neutral.

Then I got a a second ask (Edit; I now know this is by another person than the first ask).

This isn’t me trying to misunderstand you, I’m just genuinely curious how you ship vmin while also questioning Tae’s honesty (your BB night comment) and thus also Jimin’s, and also hand over the best tools to anti-vminnie who can use your words as proof that “well even vminnie don’t believe vmin so why should we?” And if all ships are basically equal, why ship at all, or why ship vmin? They have the most conclusive things and yet the more we get the more you question and doubt them.Why?

And suddenly there came a whole new additional set of problems.

I suggest reading my post Shipping vs Believing because if you knew my stance you would understand that I think there is a huge difference between shipping and believing and that you can ship whatever you like and it doesn't have to be tied to reality at all.

In general this ask makes you sound like a delusional and defensive believer, so I perhaps suggest reading my post Can shipping turn into conspiracy theories? as well. This additional ask is why I replied with this second short post:

You say I question the honesty of Tae or Jimin's words, but hopefully you understand this is not at all true since I explained what I actually meant in my original post. Tae asking Jimin to sleep with him is just as true as Jimin telling JK about the win. These two things don't contradict each other and I trust both of the statments to be real.

Also, how am I "handing over tools" to anti-vminies? These things are all out there, and I wasn't even talking about anything negative? Just because I have a more healthy approach than "Vmin is obviously real" that doesn't mean my words should be interpreted as "shipping Vmiin is pointless". However, you did get it right that I don't believe in Vmin, but you seem to have the wrong idea of why I have that stance to begin with. Which again, was part of the message in the original post which you here continue to not understand in other ways.

Me not talking as if Vmin is 100% real doesn't mean I hand out tools to antis. Personally I think that's a weird interpretation of my text, but I can't do anything but try to explain my view on shipping, which I feel that I have many times.

I also don't personally think all ships are equal, but I do think many ships have similar moments and that those moments either get ignored or hyper focused on in a way that makes shipping analysis less trustworhty and always biased and not based purely on facts and the full context. Basically yes, a lot of ships seem to cancel each other out, but that shouldn't stop anyone from shipping. BUT it should make people careful about calling moments "proof" and be sure their narrative is the only possible truth.

I also don't think it's fair to say "They have the most conclusive things and yet the more we get the more you question and doubt them.Why?". I've always tried to keep a distance between shipping and analysis and while we do get more and more for Vmin it's not that I start doubting them more... It's just that I remain open to other things despite more things happening that fits in a Vmin narrative.

I honestly can't tell if you have read a lot of my posts before or not, but it doesn't seem like it, and thus it feels even more unfair for you to lay this judgement on me as well.

Then I got a third ask (edit: which was a second one from the first anon):

Anonymous asked:

I think I’m the anon you responded to. I did read more of your posts where you question things a bit. It’s nice to see you still have a healthy view point on things. I wasn’t really disagreeing with your posts, just wondering if you felt everything was being considered when coming to conclusions. Have a good one !

All this drama, and for what? :P But have a good one too I guess. Thanks for taking the time to read more and trying to understand my point of view.

I also got this ask from another person, and I hope you might understand what I meant after reading my reply to the first anon.

Hi I am sorry I am confused. Can you tell me why specifically you think Vmin alluded to sleeping together during the Billboard Vlive? Didn't Tae say he was talking to Jimin on the phone and told him to come over? Then at the press conference Jimin said "I was with Jungkook" and they were sitting stroking their phones. I am not a shipper or an anti shipper or anything like that. I just would love to see the receipts on this if you have them?

Again, I didn't mean Vmin slept together that day. But the fact that he asked and it seemed like a very normal (even perhaps expected) thing that one of them would go to the other, I can still express it as Tae alluding to Vmin sleeping together at least sometimes during their private time.

Now onto another anon, with a very different take. :)

Anonymous asked:

Spot on. Shipping is one thing but how can some people "believe" in a ship, I'll never understand. People need to realize that even with all the content we get (from concerts to DVDs to Run to BV to interviews), we only see them for maybe like 2-3 days (total) out of 365 days. Like? They visit a country for 7 days and we only get 10 hours of content from it. Do we have any idea what any of them is doing right at this moment? "Supporting" a ship is stupid even if you're right at the end.

Thank you anon. I don't fully agree that we get as little as 2-3 days total out of a year, but we definitely don't see the majority of their lives. And while you are a bit crude, I agree... Even if a ship is real, supporting and believing and being convinced of only one ship is at least in my opinion not the right way to go about it. Which is why I say let's speculate but also support them all whatever the truth might turn out to be.

There we go... It ended up being a lot of drama made out of nothing else than a small misunderstanding. Anyways, I hope I made myself clear. Thanks for the asks, sorry for the somewhat annoyed attitude and I hope you understood what I tried to say.

Thanks for reading. If any of you had the patience to do so all the way through I salute you. <3

[foxymoxynoona]

Hi hi, so I have a question and would love your thoughts. Short question with a lot of background info. Sorry, this is becoming a pattern.

I saw an ask about Jungkook telling Sasha about his tryst with cocaine, and it got me thinking. When it comes to relationships, what is the line between what you absolutely have to share and what you can keep private?

Does he mention all his sexcapades and does she mention everything that went on with Seojoon? Won’t it become tmi at some point? What of the other drugs he took and make up noona? Sasha did weed too I think. Do they need to go into details, or is a generic “You hurt me and I f*cked up a lot, even with drugs” sufficient?

I’m a huge advocate for communication, but I’m also a private person. If you’re getting back with someone who hurt you, do you need to tell them every single thing you did as a result of the hurt/post the relationship??

I don’t think it’s necessary for someone to know every single thing about another person, especially for a period when they’re not in their lives. I may be wrong though, but I would love your opinion.

Honestly, I’m confused 😂 because, asides this novel I’ve found myself in multiple situations where I wondered if I should bother confiding in someone, when down the line we may not remain close or maybe they already broke my trust and I don’t know if I could trust them again.

Thank you

🌚

This is a very interesting question and you can probably predict that it will get posed by the story once JK and Sasha are back together and trying to answer this exact question for themselves. There will definitely be debate among readers, I'm certain, because there's no easy, black and white answer, not when you account for everything that could be covered in this.

I don't know precisely where the line falls. I am actually a very private person IRL too and yet I don't really have any remaining secrets from my husband, now that he knows I write BTS smut lmao (although he hasn't yet read any of it, I'm so scared to let him in case he doesn't think it's good 😅). We've also been together many years and I feel very safe oversharing with him constantly. Our lives are closely intertwined, we have been through some very difficult things together, and we have to deal with the baggage of any trauma from before our relationship.

That "knowing just about everything" took time though. In the beginning, we were slower to share trauma or embarrassing things until we felt safe about it. We definitely had some hurts when one of us overshared details of a prior relationship, lol, because it was hard to gauge what was transparency and what was overshare. We had both been in relationships previously that were FULL of secrets, so honesty and trust and respect were very important to each of us and we explicitly talked about that as a need. We also wanted to be upfront about what being together would be like, which meant letting each other see our sore spots and vulnerabilities.

I certainly have friends who kept very big but private secrets or struggles from spouses until something made it directly relevant (like a friend who didn't share she'd had an abortion until she suffered a miscarriage, or another friend who slept with someone while they were sort of on a break, etc.) It's so situation specific. Everyone has a right to privacy, even from a spouse, but I suppose it also depends on the content of what you're keeping private, why you're keeping it private, and what the impact of it could potentially be on the other person if they found out you'd kept that secret. Finding out someone didn't tell me about abuse until they felt safe with me, to me, is very different than finding out they had sex with a guy whose kind of my rival less than a week after dumping me... Can't wait to see what others think though!

[transrightsjimin]

I'm asking as a confused trans and gay person regarding some of your recent posts saying aphobia doesn't exist, etc. Do you consider asexual people to be inherently LGBT even if they are cisgender and straight (heteroromantic)? I don't want to discriminate at all, I'm just confused because I see people fighting on here all the time about whether aces are part of the LGBT community or not. Do you have some insight for me as an ace nonbinary person? Thanks in advance!

no it’s fine lol dw!

i’m not sure how to explain this w/o being too extensive in what i say bc i’ve talked about this before but more in private conversations (and maybe some rants in tumblr posts) nd i tend to ramble abt it.

first of all i do not actually like the common conception that there is one way to define LGBT or the idea that everyone should fall within that category term or not, for example because the English language is colonial and rigid and does not reflect on experiences of all cultures, bc being gay or trans are not distinctly different experiences everywhere while they would be divided into different categories. so whereas i was more insistent on saying ‘you must be gay / bi / lesbian / trans to be LGBT / suffer from homophobia or transphobia’ i’ve come to realize now that this argument is rather exclusive of many gender diverse identities that do not correspond to all experiences or cultures. so i will stay away from using that argument.

however, i am speaking from my experience with online LGBT and asexual communities and have seen how the latter has tried to force itself into the other. i think a large issue with the asexual and aromantic communities is that they are partially based upon the creation of AVEN, an online forum founded by a homophobic and antisemitic man, and partially (though related to the former) by just blatantly made up statistics and history. not once have i seen a good argument or research or even personal accounts that illustrate very well why aphobia is a thing. i am asexual myself but do not want to take the lack of discrimination i faced for it as proof. there have been accounts of ‘aphobic’ discrimination that are either 1. much more a general concern with the OP facing misogyny and girls being sexualized, 2. someone making a remark based on a misconception of OP’s experiences or 3. misappropriation of terms and applying them to asexuality, e.g. ‘corrective rape’ was coined to refer to (African) lesbians who were assaulted under the presumption that it would turn them straight. asexuals have appropriated this term years ago to claim asexual people face rape on a large scale because perpetrators try to force them into liking sex. some people don’t even know the original meaning of the term because of this. i’m also not a big fan of this new interpretation of the term anyway, because legit sexual attraction is not the main reasons people commit rape; it is to seek power. this kind of mindset of asexual people being inherently vulnerable to sexual violence due to lack of feeling sexual attraction is seriously harmful; in the crime show Law and Order SVU, a suspect was let off because some main character said the suspect was asexual and this couldn’t have done it. people can be and sometimes are raped by an asexual person, because it is about taking advantage of someone and not attraction. the sole fact that so many authors of overly fetishistic fanfiction are asexual should prove this much, but instead the lack of attraction is used to distance oneself from the harm one can still cause.

and yes, asexual people can face discrimination, especially if you’re a girl you’re expected to be sexually submissive, which is pretty horrifying on its own. but this is not the same as targeted discrimination on a mass scale or institutional whatsoever. we are not thaught as we grow old that asexuals are disgusting, are a joke, or need to be violently murdered. my biggest issue with the asexual and aromantic community that we (as i have removed myself from it years ago) keep telling it that anecdontal accounts of being mildly discriminated is nowhere near the same as risking being kicked out of your house, being violently attacked due to the way you appear or having a partner of the same gender, being systematically discriminated by all sorts of institutions in society and being thaught that what you are is bad from an early age on. and then the counterargument is that LGBT is more recognized but asexual and aromantic isn’t, so ‘ace / aro’ people deserve to be included because they are underrepresented in media. but that is not the case at all. the speed at which asexuality has suddenly been incorporated and included into LGBT spaces, also offline, has been ridiculously fast. nowadays when you see a bunch of LGBT flags you see the asexual one being included a lot, sometimes in 3 different versions, while the lesbian flag is nowhere to be seen. lesbians are consistently excluded from their supposedly own community and they are not included in LGBT due to a need to change underrepresentation or lack of awareness, but because they face their own version of homophobia. the most mind-boggling thing about cis / cishet asexual and aromantic people being told that they are not oppressed, is that the response is not relief (’oh i’m glad i don’t face systematic oppression for this thing’) but anger (’how dare you not let us into your group!’). LGBT is seen as a fun party that is unnecessarily mean to anyone it gatekeeps, as if it is not actually necessary to keep out cishet people who benefit from their privilege and can use that against the rest in the group if they join.

my largest issue with the asexual community however, and i’ve touched upon this a bit before in the post, is that it victimizes itself, to such a degree where it puts itself oppositional to ‘allosexuals’. the whole idea that people who experience sexual attraction to another person are inherently privileged over abd hold power over asexual people is just not true (and the same goes for this rethoric for aromantic people). this idea is so wrong and the whole concept of the ‘allosexual’ as oppressor collapses once you consider that people who are attracted to the same gender are actually in danger and oppressed for their very attraction. not only are those who experience attraction (that isnt platonic) to other people portrayed as oppressors, but also as perverted freaks. once i decided to stop associating myself with acearo people and instead interact with LGBT people with other experiences, i realized just how much stigmatizing abd frankly, homophobic and transphobic bullshit i’ve adopted within the spaces i used to be in and that i still see gather a lot of traction (now their harmful points are also used on twitter and IRL in the public domain). the community has a huge issue where it teaches you to be puzzled and grossed out by people who want to date / kiss / have sex with other people, and this results in GSAs that now include asexuals to prohibit kissing your partner per request of asexual / aromantic members, asexual people showing up at pride with ‘can we just hug?’ signs, the common serophobic jokes (’at least we dont get hiv!!’ blergh), and for me it led to a great discomfort with kissing and sex imagery and it wasn’t until i left the community that this was in fact subtle homophobia because so much content on here is lgbt themed and to combine that with the increasing aversion to romance or sex without critically looking at that is... very toxic to say the least.

so where it’s standing right now, i don’t think including asexual or aromatic people in LGBT spaces on the basis of those identities is a good idea. one community advocates for the acceptance of sex, whereas the other is stigmatizing it and painting off those who are in fact oppressed for their transness or homosexuality, as the oppressors. it clashes and it doesn’t work. the ‘ace / aro’ community (quote unquote bc i see ‘ace’ being used a lot to imply superiority over ‘allosexuals’ like, theyre being the ace at something) has too many issues, which it is largely based on, to figure out. it can be a community on its own and i do not think you need to join LGBT to have a valid identity that has something to do with sexuality or gender and deals with a form of stigma.

it woukd be a rant, i warned you lol

[kimvvantae]

feel better; (1)

➜ being with jimin is hot but cold at the same time. sweet but painful, exciting but sad, intimate but distant - and you don’t know if getting too close is worth the risk.

pairing: daddy!jimin x (f) reader

genre: smut (in future chapters), angst, fluff 

warnings: language, non-explicit mentions of sex

word count: 2k

A/N: this is an introduction of what i plan to do. if you guys like it i might update. also, i know that daddy kink is cringey, but 190105 jimin awakened the sub bitch inside of me and i had to write it. i’m not sorry.

➜ check out masterlist in bio for more of my works!

It's one of those days when you're sure the Universe hates you.

Whenever you think everything is fine, whenever you think you're about to have a nice day for once, whatever creatures that control the world probably look at you and say hm, I don't think so, bitch.

You close your eyes tightly and embrace your own body, heavy blankets covering you. The bedroom is considerably dark, but it's probably already noon and the world outside must be looking beautiful. It's summer, after all - and you're in one of the nicest places in the planet to enjoy summer: Rio de Janeiro.

You still don't know exactly how you ended up here. Jimin simply texted you some nights ago, asking if you wanted to "escape" from work. Of course you said yes, but you didn't expect that Jimin meant "escape" literally and would take you to fucking Brazil. 

You don't know him very well, but one thing you've learned about Park Jimin in these six months is that he's a very surprising man.

When you started with the whole sugar daddy thing, you didn't expect it to turn out to be good - because at the beginning, it really wasn't. You just started it because the idea of earning money easily was nice and you were desperate, so when you found out there was an app to find daddies (yes, there are apps about it), you downloaded it quickly. Let's just give it a try.

You did not meet anyone at first: you just sent nudes and some videos to your "clients", always covering your face and identity to protect yourself, and the experience was humiliating to say the very least. You kept doing it because the "clients" actually did pay for it and, again, you needed the money. Many of them said they'd pay more if you met them in person. You always refused. If just sending them some nudes made you feel that bad, then meeting in person or maybe having sex with them would be terrible.

That is… until you met Jimin.

You still don't know why the fuck he was using that app. Let's be honest, Park Jimin is not the type of man that needs to pay for sex. He sent you a message, though, and for some time you just sent him nudes as usual. Jimin was doing it anonymously - as most of the "clients" do - so you had no idea he was young. That is, until he started to ask for your private number. You got worried at first; he wasn't the first one to ask this, and you'd always refuse any kind of personal contact with the "clients". You're not stupid. You know that most of those old men are searching for a dumb girl or boy to use them in ugly ways. You considered blocking him…

Until you woke up to one thousand dollars in your bank account.

No one has ever paid that much.

All that because he wanted your private number.

Well, you gave him. If anything became strange, you could just block him and get rid of this number, right?

However, things took an unexpected route when the first thing Jimin sent was a video of himself masturbating for you.

You couldn't believe it. It could be a fake video, right? Are you telling me this beautiful man was on an app that only old men use? It took hours for you to reply - both because of your suspicion, your shock, and the fact that the video was mesmerizing. 

The man on the video was ridiculously hot. He was biting his bottom lip (such plump lips!) and moaning in a way that made your legs feel like jelly. And his cock - wow. Just wow.

You got wet and texted him back.

It was the first time someone made you come with texts.

You used to make fun of your friends when they talked about sexting, but sexting with this man was something out of this world. He was good with words and, before you noticed, you were sending more and more videos and nudes of yourself - and he'd constantly send videos of himself, too, what made you come to the conclusion that it wasn't fake. You've reached a point where you were doing it because of how hot it was, and not because of the money.

But then, Jimin thought that just sexting wasn't enough and asked to meet you in real life.

You still hesitated. You knew nothing about him. He could be a rapist, a psycho, a murderer. Jimin didn't force you into meeting him, though, what was unexpectedly nice of him (sugar daddies usually are not that nice), but he would ask from time to time if you'd like to meet.

A certain day, curiosity took the best of you and you said yes - as long as you'd meet in a public place.

Jimin choose a mall downtown.

It was a shocking moment.

One thing was seeing photos or videos of him. Another thing was seeing him in person.

His beautiful, plump lips. His cat-like eyes. Pitch black hair, flawless skin. He's not that tall, but his body proportions are balanced and perfect. The way he carries himself with confidence and pride, the way he looks at people with his piercing gaze…

When his eyes landed on you, you felt like being shot.

You promised yourself you wouldn't have sex with him, but ended up fucking the whole night.

The. Whole. Night.

Jimin was seductive. He was strong and flexible and had great stamina. Rough but  slow, deep and intoxicating, breath-takingly intense. He wasn't focusing only on his pleasure but on yours, too - and he didn't stop until he saw you begging desperately for release, dripping wet, toes curling, a moaning mess.

Jimin is that good.

After that night, you started fucking constantly. He started paying you higher, too - you soon found out Jimin is actually very rich and he doesn't mind buying you ridiculously expensive stuff. He even bought you a car. You're being so well paid that it's getting hard to hide your "secret life"; people are starting to notice you don't seem to struggle that much financially, which is strange, considering you work as a secretary with an average salary and has a university loan to pay (well, had; Jimin paid it for you).

You two are not close in the slightest, though. You don't know anything about Jimin's life other than the fact that he's super rich, his family owns Korea considering the amount of business they have in the country, and that he fucks good. Your relationship is strictly sexual. You don't ask about his life, he doesn't ask about yours. Jimin also made clear that he doesn't mind if you have a boyfriend or not and that you can end your "business" with him whenever you want. That's what surprises you: he seems to be a nice guy. Jimin doesn't force you to do anything, he constantly asks if you're liking it or not when you're fucking. His sex might be rough, but his actions and words are not. He never screamed at you, never spanked too strongly, never roped you too tightly, never offended you. Jimin doesn't think he can do whatever he wants with you just because he's paying for it.

Does it make you feel less bad? No. You know that what you're doing is prostitution. Sure, Jimin is the only person you have sex with, but it doesn't change the fact that you're being paid. You still need the money anyways - and you won't finish it all until you get what you need.

Jimin being so nice and fucking so good makes you consider staying a little longer sometimes.

He is so nice that he brought you to Rio with him after all. You know he's a busy man, having some free days to travel was probably hard for him. You should be rewarding him. You wanted to make him feel good, to enjoy the sun and the sea, to wear that pretty bikini he bought for you. Shit, you two should be fucking out there in the beach.

But here you are. Locked in the bedroom under the covers.

Sick.

Fever, headache, vomiting everything you eat. The doctor said it's a virus or something. You were already feeling bad even before you got in the plane, and now you feel bad for not telling him, because you could've taken some medicine and you'd be feeling better now. 

Instead of a sexy bikini, you're wearing one of your ugly (but comfy) pajamas, far from the nightgowns Jimin likes. Your hair is a mess, you're not wearing any makeup. What if Jimin gets disappointed with you bare face? Everything about this trip is wrong. 

When you hear Jimin's steps and the door opening, you close your eyes again.

He sits down by your side and put his hand on your forehead.

"How are you feeling?" He asks softly. You open your eyes and see the stunning man in front of you: he's wearing simple black shorts and a white cotton shirt. It's amazing how he can look good in such a simple outfit.

"Like crap," you say, raspy voice, and Jimin giggles. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you apologizing, baby? No one gets sick on purpose." It's one of the rare moments when Jimin is not talking with any type of sexual connotation, which is surprising. You expected him to be mad or disappointed, but he looks… concerned? The way his eyebrows are furrowed and he analyzes your face look like concern, at least. "I think the medicine is working. If you feel worse, I'll call the doctor again, okay?"

You nod weakly while Jimin caresses your hair. "I wish things were different."

"It's alright. This house is mine, we can come back whenever we want." You don't know why you still get shocked when Jimin says stuff like I own a mansion in a private beach so naturally, as if it's not a big deal. "We can visit Copacabana next time… and the Christ statue, if you want to, but that place is always too crowded. There is a city near here called Paraty, I think you'd love it, too…"

You lay there in silence as Jimin speaks. Okay, that is unexpected. You thought he just wanted to fuck in a cool beach, you didn't expect Jimin wanted to take you to touristic places. It almost felt like…

A couple?

You brush this idea off as soon as it crosses your mind. You know Jimin doesn't feel anything but sexual attraction for you - and it's the other way around. You're not stupid enough to fall for him. This is a man that pays to have you. He surely has some obsessive issues. You think that he wouldn't be a nice boyfriend at all, your relationship just works because you're as detached as him.

The idea of being in an actual relationship with him is… well…

"Rest now and you'll feel better soon." He says reassuringly, a small smile on his lips. Again, you search for any hint of annoyance on his expression - nothing.

The discomfort eases a little.

That is, until you see Jimin getting under the covers with you.

"What are you doing?!" You ask, surprised. Jimin's not going to initiate anything sexual, right? He's seeing you're sick!

"I'm not a doctor, but… one thing I know is that cuddling helps a lot in the healing process."

You feel Jimin's arms wrapping around your waist, your back touching his chest. He snuggles closer to you in a warm, cozy hug.

Your heart races. 

"Sleep now, baby." He whispers on your ear and kisses your neck tenderly. "Don't feel bad. I'm not mad at you."

As unexpected (and weird) as it is, you smile softly. It's been a long time since you've been so close to someone like this - no second intentions involved. It feels good. Although you're very aware of what your thing with Jimin is and you agreed with it in the first place, not being treated like a sexual toy feels good.

It's the first time you touch each other like this.

It feels more intimate than any sex you've ever had.

"And…" Jimin whispers in a raspy, low voice. "We'll have enough time later for you to pay for what we lost here, baby."

This makes you shiver. You love it when Jimin talks like that.

Your stomach twirls in excitement just imagining what Jimin will do to you in the future.