#i watch too much youtube.. it’s sickening

[leprosycock]

Tv shows/series recs?

the shivering truth, the midnight gospel, primal, venture bros, bojack horseman, aqua teen, moral orel, the curse, the rehearsal, bates motel, pen15, documentary now, devilman crybaby (2018), panty and stocking (american dub, it’s better), hellsing (so is the dub for this one, you need their accurate nationalities or it loses its touch a little), killing eve (just don’t watch the finale it’s fine pretend that it never happened). i don’t watch a lot of tv tbh

[gyaruhana]

Can you do a smut fic where readers dating thanos and she nearly dies in red light green light, and they realise how dangerous the games are and fuck like it’s their last night together? Im talking pure need and lust, desperation after realising the stakes of the squid games

Thanos / Choi Su-bong - I love you

Synopsis: After witnessing so much death and realizing you may both be next, you decide to fuck in the bathroom.

A/N: combined this with two other requests asking for bathroom sex.. i hope that was okay !! also not entirely proof read..

Warnings: smut content, fingering, praise, he's more gentle tbh

You had never feared death before. It always seemed so far away and it was the least of your concerns considering the debt you and your boyfriend, Thanos, share after betting it all on some coin a youtuber recommended. Never once in your life had you thought you would actually die. You always imagined that you'd die at an old age in a fancy house- maybe even with a kid or two. Point is, you didn't think about death because you really didn't see any need to.

Until today that is. 

You and your boyfriend had come across a great opportunity to earn lots of won by playing a few games. Considering you had already earned quite a bit from a game of ddakji, it was a no-brainer to agree to a few games. At the time, it didn't seem suspicious because the salesman who offered the card to you had given you plenty of won without a catch. 

Although you were knocked out with a gas when you entered the designated car together and practically kidnapped, neither of you thought anything about it- too excited at the idea of making money to pay off your debt with a few games. Any money goes a long way to finally paying off your debt so you can focus on getting your dream life.

Idiotically enough, you also didn't find any suspicion in the guy yelling something about how you'll be shot if you move. It actually made you and Thanos laugh at the ridiculousness of it as you both assumed he was just some drunk making up shit to scare people. How wrong the both of you were.

By the time everyone had made it to the halfway mark with plenty of time to spare, Thanos saw a bee land on some girl and made a comment about it. The girl immediately let out a scream and moved to try to get the bee off of her. It was amusing to watch until the sound of a gunshot rang through the air and her body fell to the floor. 

The smile on both your faces dropped immediately as blood pooled around her now-dead body. You and Thanos stood deadly still as people started to scream and run away out of fear. Every gunshot made your heart drop further because that could be you or him. The idea one of you might die right now was sickening for the both of you. 

The moment the sound of shooting stopped, the doll turned out and called green light again. Thanos quickly reached for his necklace while walking forward, desperately needing to be high right now so he could try to pretend like this wasn't really happening. Meanwhile, you didn't move a muscle - too afraid you might die here. You didn't want to be shot too.

The doll turned its head and called out red light making everyone freeze again. Another gunshot rang out making you flinch but thankfully the doll didn't notice the small movement. When it turned around again, Thanos put the pill in his mouth before closing his necklace and looking behind him. You still weren't moving, making him worry. You didn't have time to just stand there, you had to get going and make it to the end.

“What are you doing? You have to move,” Thanos spoke out as he gestured for you to come over to him. He kept still when the doll announced red light again but he kept his eyes on yours. He couldn't have you just stand there until your inevitable death. The moment the players could move again, Thanos ran toward you and grabbed your wrist before pulling you along with him. 

With Thanos dragging you along, you both managed to make it to the end before the time ran out. The relief the two of you shared was only there momentarily. You may have survived this game but what's to say you'll survive the next game? There was no guarantee. In fact, you weren't even confident in yourself that you'd survive the next game. After all, you only got through this because Thanos had dragged you to the end. 

As if sensing your fear, Thanos looked at you and cupped your face with his hands. “Don't look so stressed, baby. We're fine,” he spoke as he gently caressed your cheek. You gave a small smile at his words but the fear didn't disappear. He let out a sigh before tapping your cheek twice and removing his hands. He knew there wasn't much he could say to make this any better. It was a lot to handle, that was for sure. The only reason he was calm was because he had popped a pill the moment the first person died. 

As the players were slowly led back to the main room which they had awoken in, Thanos took your hand to keep you close to him. Despite the drugs he had taken, he was still pretty stressed about the whole ordeal. Mostly because of you. He couldn't fathom the idea of you getting shot like those other idiots in the last game. He'd definitely go crazy if you got hurt so he needed to keep you close to him. 

Even after you were already in the room, his hand still kept a firm grip on yours as if you might disappear should he let go. You didn't mind though. If anything, his hand squeezing yours was a huge comfort. A silent reminder that he wouldn't be going anywhere any time soon. It made you feel significantly calmer to be close to him.

He led you to the back of the room and sat you down on the bed before sitting down next to you, his legs crossed with his hand still in yours. He looks at you for a few moments, analyzing your face and trying to read your thoughts. He didn’t like the way your eyes lingered on your lap instead of him so he raised a hand and tilted your chin upwards to make you look at him.

“Baby, you good?” he asks even though he already knew the answer to that question. You were quite far from good after all the blood you had seen. “Am i good?” you say sarcastically, mocking his own words. “Of course, I’m not! I just saw people die! Too many! Fuck, that could’ve been me or you,” you speak, your stress about the whole situation evident in your face and tone. “You gotta relax. We’re fine. Besides we’ll get out of here soon,” he says reassuringly as he looks at you with worry.

You let out a sigh and shake your head as you look to the side- away from him. It was quiet for a few moments as Thanos waited for you to say something else, knowing that you were thinking something. “What if we don’t?” you finally say as you look back at him again. “Don’t say that,” he speaks as his face hardens slightly at the idea that you might die. Fuck, he couldn’t bear the thought of you laying lifeless. “Not saying it doesn’t make it any less of a possibility,” you respond with a frown. He knows that you’re right. It’s a possibility that he can’t just ignore.

“I swear on my life that I will protect you,” he says with a sincere look on his face. It didn’t make you feel any better though because swearing on his life in a game where he could actually die wasn’t a good thing. “Don’t say that,” you speak, repeating his earlier words as your face hardens. You didn’t want him to even think about sacrificing his life for you. You couldn’t see what you’d do without him. 45.6 billion was useless if he couldn’t be there with you to spend it. 

“Okay,” he says with a small smirk as he raises his hand in mock surrender. “I’ll swear on the sun and the moon instead,” he said as he lowered his hands. His words were enough to make you smile a little. Him swearing on the sun and the moon was plenty more significant then others may think. He swore on the sun and the moon he’d treat you right when he first asked you to be his. He swore on the sun and the moon to always be there for you after a particularly bad day when you lost your dad. Most of all, he swore on the sun and the moon that he’d buy a nice house and you could get married and live happily ever after together. He never ever took the name of the sun and moon in vain and that’s why hearing him say it now made you feel just a little better about the current situation.

Thanos looked behind himself for a moment before back at you. “Hey.. if swearing on the sun and moon isn’t enough for you, I could show you how serious I am,” he says with a small smirk. It didn’t take an idiot to know what he meant by that. “..what exactly does that mean?” you question even though you already knew exactly what he meant. There was a spark of desire in his eyes that matched yours as his hand gripped yours tightly. “I don’t have to tell you for you to know,” he says before standing up and pulling you up from the bed with him. 

He drags you towards the door on the right side of the room and bangs on it loudly. “Hey, open up. Bathroom needed,” he says and the door opens after a moment. “Ladies first,” he says with a smirk as he steps out of the way to let you go in first. You shake your head, an amused smile playing on your face as you walk in. The guard led you both down the hallway and to the bathroom. Thanos didn’t waste any time in pushing past that door, dragging you behind him. 

With his patience wearing thin, he quickly pulled you into a kiss. It was unlike his usual kisses that were rough and involved his tongue jammed down your throat. This kiss was more passionate as if he was trying to say something words could never convey properly. He quickly pushed you back into one of the stalls and kicked the door closed behind him, locking it with one of his hands. He spun you around and pushed your back against the stall wall. 

“Fuck, you’re so pretty,” he mumbles after pulling away momentarily. He stares at you silently - memorizing every feature of your face. He could never get enough of how pretty you were. It felt like a miracle someone like you was with a dickhead like him. He couldn’t help but admire you. “..What? Is something wrong?” you say as you look at him with concern. You didn’t expect him to just stare at you out of nowhere and it was a little embarrassing. 

He shakes his head as he snaps out of his trance. “No, sorry. Just thinking about how fucking lucky I am,” he says before kissing you again like it’s the last time he could ever get to kiss you. In his mind, it damn well could be. One of you really could be dead by tomorrow evening and then that was it. He’d never see you smile or laugh again or look at him like he was the most important thing in the world. The thought was sickening. No matter how confident or cocky he’d act, he was still just Choi Su-bong. And Choi Su-bong was undeniably yours.

You put your arms around his neck as you kissed him back - the feeling of his hands on your waist keeping you in the moment and erasing any memory of the earlier events just for now. His hands slipped under your shirt to feel your skin before he pulled away from the kiss and opted for leaving kisses on your neck instead. He sucked at the skin so delicately and slowly, trying to savor his time with you as much as possible. His lips paused for a moment when they hovered over your pulse point before he kissed the area and bit it softly to mark you right above your pulse so he could feel your heart beat quicker - a silent confirmation that you were still very much alive. 

His hands trailed down to the waistband of your pants before he tugged them down till they dropped to the floor. His hand then pulled your underwear down too, not wanting to waste time with foreplay with the limited time you two shared together. His index finger gently traced over your clit making a moan escape the back of your mouth. “You’re already wet for me? God - I can just skip ahead then, yeah?” he says as he pulls his hand to pull his pants down along with his boxers. 

“Not even a little prep?” you question as you look at him. He laughs quietly before nodding his head. “Fine, but you better cum quick - I need to feel you,” he speaks as one of his hands finds its way to your hole again. He carefully rubs his fingers back and forth before slipping in a finger. His free hand went to cover your mouth when a moan escaped as he couldn’t risk the guard outside the bathrooms hearing and breaking up this moment with you. 

“Gotta be quiet, baby,” he says as he starts to finger you. You nod your head as you try to keep as quiet as possible. He inserts another finger and begins to quicken the pace in which he thrusted his fingers in and out of you. He kept his eyes on your face, loving your reactions to his fingers deep inside your aching core. He had always observed you like this but there was something different about it now that you two had each other to lose. Everything was so much more passionate than usual. You found that your release came much quicker this time around as you released on his fingers. 

“God, you’re so good for me,” he says as he pulls his fingers out slowly before bringing them to his mouth and tasting you. He held eye contact with you as he sucked his fingers clean before leaning down and kissing you again, his hand finding its place on the back of your neck to keep you close. He slowly lined himself up with you, his tip rubbing against your entrance making him let out a small groan. 

He slowly pushed into you, burying his face into your neck as he stretched you out with his dick. He let out a heavy huff at the feeling of being inside you. It felt euphoric. You were so unbelievably tight as he continued to inch himself further in. You let out a moan that was muffled by his hand as he finally pushed in the rest of his dick with one stroke. “You good?” he asks as he pulls his head away from your neck and looks at you. You were still for a few moments before you nodded your head - finally adjusting to the stretch.

The moment you nodded your head, he slipped out before thrusting right back in. He let out a low groan as he repeated the movement over and over, making sure you could feel every inch of his cock deep inside you. You leaned your head back against the stall door as he thrusted in and out of you with a quick pace. His hands grab at your hips roughly to keep you still while he thrusts in and out of your tight hole. “God.. Holy fucking shit,” he mumbled under his breath as the sound of skin hitting skin echoed through the bathroom. He loved being deep inside you like this. It felt so fucking good. Even more so now because it was a way to reassure himself you were still here with him and not one of the many corpses he saw earlier.

The thought you could be dead soon spurred him on to fuck you harder. He hated that possibility. He didn’t want to think about that. He just wanted to think about you. How your head was thrown back, how your arms were wrapped around his shoulders, how you tried to keep quiet but struggled because he made you feel so good. He loved every fucking part of you - you were perfect.

"Fuck - I love you. Do you hear me? I love you so fucking much. Please say it back" he spoke as he thrusted into you quickly, his pace getting sloppy as he drew ever-so closer to a sweet release. God, he wanted to fill you up with his cum but he needed to hear you say that you loved him like he loved you. He needed to know you cared for him and wouldn’t leave him anytime soon. You nodded your head before forcing yourself to look him in the eyes. “I-I love you too,” you speak and the groan he lets out is so loud.

He immediately releases with one last thrust, making sure his cum spills deep inside of you. You released along with him with a moan and you both stilled. It was quiet for a few moments aside from the heavy breathing that filled the bathroom. He leaned his forehead against yours and closed his eyes as he came down from his high. His hands slowly trailed up from your hips to your face as he gently held your cheeks in his hands.

“I love you,” he repeats as he opens his eyes and looks into yours. There was very much a different kind of look in his eyes this time. A look that told you how much he really meant what he said. There was a hint of fear in his eyes too as he genuinely feared that he may lose you sooner or later to these stupid games.

“I know,”

[malk1ns]

december 21 @ devils, 3-0 loss

and what, exactly, was posted to the penguins youtube channel to cause the entire account to be terminated for violating terms and conditions?

Zhenya is making his escape down the tunnel at the Prudential Center when an arm reaches out and yanks him sideways into a side hallway.

“Hey,” he protests once he’s caught his balance up against the wall, frowning down at his assailant. It’s Jen, who never travels with the team anymore, and she’s got her arms crossed as she glares down the tunnel. “Jen, why you’re here? Almost kill me, like, what you do?”

“Oh, I didn’t do anything,” she mutters, but before Zhenya can ask for clarification she darts back out into the tunnel. When she returns, she’s got Sid firmly in hand, pinching him on his arm right where there’s no padded protection, and hard based on Sid’s wince.

Zhenya shrugs when Sid looks at him questioningly. He feels queasy, standing there in cowed silence with Sid as Jen ignores them in favor of stabbing furiously at her phone.

Jen really doesn’t travel with the team anymore, especially not for a quick overnight trip just a few hours away. Zhenya can’t even remember the last time she showed up unannounced like this.

“Mike, are you still there?” Jen says as she holds up her phone between the three of them. “Yeah, I’ve got Crosby and Malkin here. Sid, Geno, Mike from legal is on the phone.”

“Um,” Sid says, voice smoothed out to media-bland. Zhenya would chuckle if he weren’t so concerned. “Hi, Mike. Jen, what’s going on? We’ve got postgame and then the bus to the airport.”

“The team’s YouTube channel got taken down during the game tonight,” Jen says grimly. “For violating the platform’s terms and conditions. We got hacked, and whoever did it uploaded a video. We didn’t notice until we got the email that the account was terminated.”

No. Zhenya sways, hitting the wall with his back. When he looks to his side, Sid looks as pale and sick as Zhenya feels.

It’s not possible. It shouldn’t be possible. But Zhenya knows, deep in his gut, exactly what happened, what video it was the anonymous hacker put up.

“So,” Jen continues, eyes darting between the two of them, “is there anything you boys want to tell me?”

—

The video’s old, is the thing. You can tell from the very first frame, from the quality to the way Zhenya’s face looks, boyish and young still.

Young enough to record a sex tape with his new boyfriend without considering the consequences. 

It’s not something either of them would do now, or ever had since. They repeat this over and over, to Jen and the growing phalanx of team lawyers that Mike keeps adding to the call—there’s only one video. Yes, they’re sure. Yes, they both knew that they were recording. No, they didn’t share it with anyone. No, they don’t know who has it, or why they’d post it now. 

A few years ago, one of the hotels they stayed in for a roadie had an IT issue. The team found out later that their WiFi had been hacked. There had been a lawsuit, Zhenya remembers, something quiet and quick, and he and Sid had waited anxiously as days turned into weeks turned into months and the video never surfaced. 

At the time, Zhenya figured neither his nor Sid’s computers got hit. He should have known that he wasn’t that lucky. 

In the end, Jen doesn’t spend too much time lecturing them. There’s no point in scolding a pair of 22-year-olds that don’t exist anymore for making it in the first place, and when Zhenya hangs his head and apologizes for not telling her right away that someone could have accessed sensitive content, she softens. Plus, she and everyone else are more focused on what to do next. 

The video hadn’t been up long, Zhenya learns. Just a few hours, really, but from what the team has been able to gather it had been watched a sickening number of times before the YouTube content team shut the whole account down. Sid had gone worryingly pale when someone on the line gave the number of views, and Zhenya reached for his hand, twining their fingers together and squeezing.

“Probably downloaded too,” Sid mutters, and Jen passes her hand over her face.

“We’ve got people checking social media, and…” she trails off, but Zhenya squares his shoulders and nods at her to continue. “Yeah, I mean. It’s everywhere. Not YouTube obviously, but Twitter, tumblr, even Instagram has some clips of it. There’s no way for us to stop it.”

Sid’s quiet for a long moment, but when he speaks it’s with his captain voice. “Alright. What do you want us to do?”

“Well, we’re working with YouTube to get the account back and see if they can help us track down who did it—we’ll press charges, of course, for stealing it in the first place and distributing it now. But now…you’re going to have to make a statement. Together, preferably, especially since…” She looks significantly down at where they’re still holding hands and sighs. “I wish you’d told me about this. Any of it, really. We could have made a plan. It’s not like you’re the only closeted gay men in pro sports. Half the teams in North America have contingency plans on file for shit like this.” 

Before Zhenya can ask more questions, or even register a protest—he’s bi, not gay—Jen fixes them with a stern look. “You're going to say how shocked you are. You’re going to have to talk about how your private property was violated and something was stolen and distributed without your consent, and that you intend on pressing charges. And you’re going to have to apologize—genuinely, sincerely apologize—for the lack of judgment you showed in making the damn thing at all.”

She looks exhausted. Zhenya feels about two inches tall. “We can do at home?” he says, shifting in his skates. His feet are starting to feel uncomfortable in his damp socks. “Like, back in Pittsburgh, we do where it’s our rink?” Their media, he means—their reporters, the ones who have watched him and Sid grow up and feel kindly towards them, shield them when they can. 

“You think I’d throw you to the wolves in some other arena?” Jen snaps, but she doesn’t really sound mad anymore. “Hell no. We’re getting you out of here as soon as we can, and you’re both to go straight home and stay there until we call you in tomorrow. We’ll have statements ready to review, and when you and your agents and whoever else are all comfortable, we’ll hold a presser.”

She looks between them, sagging a little. “I wish there was another way,” she says quietly. “Mike, anything else?”

The lawyers on the line all garble back something that must satisfy Jen, because she ends the call with a nod. “Okay,” she says, reaching out and patting their arms. “Go shower. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

—

The flight home is dead silent. The entire team gives them space, but Kris and Rusty both stop by their seats to grimace sympathetically at them, and Karl passes up some of the candy he imports by the ton from Sweden and never shares with anyone. 

Zhenya drove them to the airport, so he white-knuckles them back to Sewickley, heading on instinct to his house, tucked away in the woods and behind a guarded gate. 

Sid hasn’t said a word since they got out of the locker room. He spent the entire flight bent over his phone, typing back and forth with Pat and JP so feverishly that Zhenya worried over his wrist. He looks calmer now though, staring out the window at the dark highways with one hand on Zhenya’s thigh as they make their way back, thumb moving in a steady, soothing circle over Zhenya’s sweatpants. 

“It’ll be okay,” he says when they’re finally tucked into bed, curled together in the cool dark of the bedroom. “I mean. It’ll suck for a while. And I don’t…JP said that you might need to stay in North America this summer, just to let things cool off. But we’ll get through it.” His voice is steady and sure, and Zhenya lets it wash reassuringly over him. 

“I stay at your cottage,” he says, tangling their legs together and pulling Sid closer. “Take me up to castle, like, we pretend we’re hookup like you used to do.”

“It’s not a castle, it’s the Citadel,” Sid sighs, and Zhenya grins in the dark. Sid’s so easy to annoy. “That’s your big idea? We get busted for making a porno and you want to follow it up with someone catching us out in public?”

Zhenya digs his fingers warningly into Sid’s waist, a barely-there threat to tickle that still makes Sid giggle and squirm in his arms. “It’s good tape,” he mutters. “People lucky to see, like, it’s very hot. Maybe they want sequel.”

“Glad you’re ready to laugh about it,” Sid grouses, but his voice is light as he tucks their bodies together. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be shit.”

“Watch video for reward at night,” Zhenya suggests, accepting the sharp jab to his belly with a grunt. 

Sid didn’t say no, he notes as he drifts off. 

[the-life-of-a-herm]

Watch a YouTube video called self aware agp by Phil illy and see two trans women invalidate trans men and trans masculinity while also talking about being excited to study them and diagnose them and pick their brains, but not interview them or treat them like people. They also cite violently misogynistic cis male therapist ideas on sex the whole time. I'm sickened by the trans men in the comments patting them on their backs for this. Trans men need to start defining themselves and making their own terms and speaking about their experiences more often because I'm sick of us being defined by and studied by people who AREN'T US. Trans women don't have that right. No one but US have that right. One of those transandrophobes we're talking about "studying" and dating ftms and AFAB enbies in this and it's so disgusting, anyone who dates a dehumanizing person should be ashamed. At this point everyone who displays the slightest transandrophobe tendency needs to be FTM4B'd because we have a big prolific wonderful community and we can sustain ourselves. Likewise those losers can sustain their own selves too! It's not our job to take care of them and satisfy their infantilizing curiosities and fetishization kinks.

While i agree those two sound disgusting I will not support what the latter bit of your message seemingly implies. Just because people use their identity as an excuse to act the way they do, doesn't mean that's the actual reason. Bad people are bad because they choose to be and nothing else. Generalizing every trans woman as The Enemy because others do it to you does nothing. We need unity now more than ever.

No, we DON'T have to put up with bullshittery, especially in our own community. But trans women are not that bullshittery. They have fallen down a gross pipeline and I agree they should not be catered to, but I really dislike this dividing inflammatory language. Especially since people need room to grow and learn from their mistakes, otherwise us talking about the issues in the trans community is for nothing.

Hope this made sense. If I misunderstood you I'm so sorry. But you have every right to rant about the disgusting rot you see online! Your feelings aren't unjust! I just do not believe extremes will help us in this case. Much well wishes to you anon, sory this took so long.. The hospital was really stressful and so I decided to wait till I was out of it!

[13tinysocks]

The other day I was watching a video essay about the problematics of “dark romance” and their authors (ex: colleen hoover etc) and also their popularity among book-tok girlies. Although the video was heavily focused on novels I couldn’t help but have in mind fanfics like SYG and specially YCYD

So my question is, Do you think there’s a difference between those dark romance book-took books and your fanfics? (Specially the portrayal of men and women in them) And if there is, what’s the difference? I know that your fanfics, specially YCYD, have constant warnings and disclaimers but that’s doesn’t change the fact that the fanfic is being consumed for satisfaction.

I don’t mean to sound rude, I loved the fanfics, and that’s precisely why I question the dynamics in them.

P.S. I love how immersive your writting is xo

I’ve thought of this often considering I’m rewriting ycyd for the publishing market. In such, making it much darker and uncomfortable as before with beloved characters I didn’t want to make them “too much”. Whereas with these different characters I’ve reared from my teet? Sure, let’s get more explicit.

I think booktok has an identity problem. It wants to be dark and nasty but also classically romantic. Yes my alpha boyfriend kills people but he’s nice to me and I’m also tiny and feeble and he’ll kill anyone who looks at me. Book took often writes abuse but so badly, so unrealistically, they don’t think it is abuse. They think it’s kink but if you view it from a kink perspective it’s watered down slop. The romance is lacking, too quick, cheesy and without chemistry.

Our fics admittedly suffer from the same things. Part of it I addressed the first paragraph, the other well, I was 18 and plain shit at writing.

I think saying “don’t write abuse where the abuser is abused and obviously in a bad headspace” (as many YouTubers who don’t really write on the subject or involved in kink at all tend to say) is dumb. I feel that rhetoric makes people who have actually been abused see themeselves less and less in media. Save for the cliche my mom is a drunk that puts her cigarettes out on me- abuse.

It’s often unsaid but in SOME cases of bad things happening, these things can turn later in life for the victim: into kinks and fetishes. I think this idea is under-explored in “dark” romance novels. Because they’re not really dark at all.

You can not like it. You can be disgusted by these victims but still- they exist. Even non-victims for whatever reason develop gross fetishes. It doesn’t automatically make them bad just- sexually deviant. So long as these people have safe and sane sex I don’t care. But dark romance shouldn’t be safe or sane in my opinion.

To me dark romance at its truest is exploring your kinks to the deepest, nastiest depths with zero regard for character safety or sanity.

Do not misread me. I am not advocating for cp. cp is abhorrent. I would never include such in my work.

I won’t deny it. Syg and ycyd are both stories with abusive dynamics. It is bad on purpose. Ycyd more so. Because if you truly want a horror and romance story in one well- the horror IS the romance. In ycyd’s novelization I want the characters clash and romance to be sickening. I want you to pray to god Dianne gets away from these men. Finds a nice girl in Colorado and rightly fucks off.

But at the same time. I don’t think my style of dark romance should be popular. It is gross! It is bad! But damn if it isn’t fun for those of us into that kind of thing.

Anyway, ycyd is doing very well in writing. I’ll be able to rewrite ho1cs latest chapter soon, the first draft was uttter shit. The job market is bad, im broke, happy Valentine’s Day, go get fisted everybody

[duckydrawsart]

Yeah, your recent art posting is such a weird coincidence because I literally just finished the DMC anime yesterday and vaguely knew the premise of DMC 4 and DMC 5 because of watching partial playthroughs. I'm almost done writing a story where Dante raises Nero as his son which has been a lot of fun. I then realized I could write a sequel that was just DMC 4 with that twist. But now I need to like, either play the game or find a good play through because I don't know anything about it besides like, stuff I watched probably a literal decade ago. Nero and Kyrie seem so cute though! I'm trying to figure out a way to write their relationship when they aren't childhood friends.

How fun! Love Dante as a dad to Nero :') There's definitely a lot of story gameplays/timelines on YouTube that could catch you up (idk how it holds up now but I remember watching this one yrs ago and enjoying it)

Nero and Kyrie meeting during the events of DMC4 is so interesting! I have many thoughts!

I think if they didn't grow up together, Nero would be the first to take notice of Kyrie while he and Dante investigate the Order of the Swords. She's a public figure in Fortuna/a person of interest due to her brothers position as leader of the Holy Knights, and a songstress for the festivals. She'd be hard to miss! Kyrie would surprise Nero with her sincerity and kindness. At first he wouldn't believe she was genuinely that good-natured and it would lead him to "investigate" her (the fact that she's also very beautiful and smiles warmly at him has no influence in his interest whatsoever. nope. none at all. just business) Her willingness to put others needs above her own would definitely trigger Nero's strong instinct to protect as well. She's too kind, too giving, and the Order uses her faith to manipulate and use her like a tool to reel in more followers (and keep their star general on a leash). It would sicken Nero, and I don't think he could stop the growing desperation to help her out of it.

As for Kyrie towards Nero: Everyone she knows in Fortuna are reserved, rigid and pious. Nero, however, is unapologetically blunt and confrontational, practically demanding the citizens ire with his snarky comments, silver hair (being an outsider, they'd probably consider it blasphemous towards Sparda), dance metal music blaring from his headphones, fingers adorned with rings and bracelets and holes ripped into his modern clothes. It's...incredible to see someone so casually open to who they are, something she doesn't see often in her conservative city. He expects her to be offended like the rest of them, but she envies him for his confidence. That being said, he still flushes red and nervously scratches his nose at her smallest of compliments. It's endearing to see someone so self-assured fumble completely under her attention!

There's also the obvious fact that Nero carries Kyrie's same nature to help people. He's in Fortuna to investigate the Order, but that won't stop him from helping an elderly couple carry groceries and whatnot, even if they're not entirely kind towards outsiders. She'd admire him greatly for that. And they would def bond over art and music!

Also I think part of Nero would remind Kyrie of Credo before their parents were killed, before everything changed and they both threw themselves deeper into the Order as a means of distraction/finding purpose in the tragedy. Back when he was allowed to be nothing more than her big brother, who she could talk to freely and confide in. Nero's friendship would fill a loneliness she didn't realize she carried, and put into perspective just how much the Order was taking from Credo and her. It would be a relief to have someone who she can finally voice her suspicions and concerns to without judgment.

Anyways, I'll stop myself here because it just keeps getting longer lol No idea if this was helpful to you, esp since you're unfamiliar with the story. But it was fun for me to think about so thanks for that! Good luck with the rest of your fic! 😊

[ccelicaa]

tag nine people you want to get to know better!

GRAHHH THANK YOU @sparxyv @choccy-milky @the-ozzie @ravenwind-75 FOR TAGGING ME!!!

LAST SONG? - Maria by Justin Beiber…LMAO THIS SONG IS ACC SO GOOD AND THE MEANING BEHIND IT IS SO FUNNY

I listened to this song on repeat drawing my Sebastian study, I HC Sebastian gives off those vibes. Just for the beat and maybe for the lyrics…same with confident by justin bieber (i’m genuinely not a justin beiber fan)

FAVORITE COLOR? - Either blue or red!!!👖👺

CURRENTLY WATCHING? - I don’t usually watch a lot of shows (usually just youtube vids LOL) but I’ve been watching Interviews with the Vampire recently bc it just got on Netflix….

LAST MOVIE? - I think it was Girl vs Monster LMAO😭😭 Just bc i wanted to listen to the banger music from it

SWEET/SPICY/SAVORY? - I CANT DECIDE i like all three of them…it just depends on my mood….but i’d prob have to say like spicy/savory, just bc sweets get a little too sickening too fast😔

RELATIONSHIP STATUS? - Single………and ready to mingle😏

CURRENT OBSESSIONS? - whatever Sebastian Sallow is, also Seolhee, also your mom 🤯🤯😱😱 (i’m sorry)

LAST THING YOU GOOGLED? - “is lestat de lioncourt gay” I CANTJDJDN it was for the show i mentioned earlier LMAO

no pressure tags!! YOU GUYS TAGGED LIKE EVERYONE I KNOW and most of them did it so this won’t be much😭😭 @a-florable @keri-mcberry @traceyc-uk and @ anyone who wants to do this!!!

[fanbasetwo]

senasenasena I’m so stressed out with what’s going on with ricky recently. we been know the mistreatment has always been horrible I’ve been here from the start. but it just never gets better and I’m honestly getting so sick and tired of it. you know zb1twt always trends tags like to stop mistreating ricky but in the end we all know it’s useless. I’m not sure if you saw but there was the mama thumbnail ricky removal yesterday and then his pluschat sns ban and not to forget that he’s the only member who doesn’t have a Christmas post it’s so sickening. i hate this company so terribly much and I’m so sick of contributing money to them and I’m more sick of the so called fans who say they love all the members but just brush aside this mistreatment, like I literally saw someone say that a post talking about Ricky’s thumbnail removal was trying to set yujin up because he was in the Center instead. Oh dear god pleaseee just let him be free. I love zb1 so much you know and I’ve seen a few of my long time zerose friends give up on the group because of how ridiculous this mistreatment is and personally I wouldn’t do that but I’m slowly losing interest in watching their YouTube updates too. what did he do to deserve this not gonna lie I don’t understand why this is happening and has happened. I just miss ricky so much and it’s so hard to continue like there’s nothing wrong

🫠🫠🍓 sorry a long rant from me today I’m just so sick of this

I DON'T MIND THE RANT, TRUST ME WHEN I SAY ‘I DON'T’!!

Ricky himself once after seeing his teaser video joked about how “he only got some time”. Even this gorgeous boy right here knows he's getting mistreated and brings it up a lot of times but the fans just brush it off... WHICH IS DEPRESSING IN ITSELF!! I didn't know about him being removed from the mama performance thumbnail because I haven't been much on twitter these days but this just makes me so fucking upset. And those fans who try to bring up how we're saying this to set up Yujin are so freaking dumb (we love our maknae). It feels like the WAKEONE just wants to use him at this point. They did this with their girl group members too. And him not having a Christmas post is just so obvious :(

I'll be honest, even I don't find myself enjoying their youtube content anymore because of this...

WHAT THE HELL IS WAKEONE EVEN THINKING?! I WANNA PUNCH SOME SENSE INTO THEM NGL >:(

[jenyifer]

The Trainee Ep 2 initial reaction

Slight disclaimer I did watch the episode 1/4 3/4 because YouTube is a cruel mistress and I’m dumb lmao. But I assume if anyone has seen my watching series you’d know I don’t really offer much of intellect anyways sooooo

Let’s get on to the photo review

Quick note here Ryan is a lot more relatable believable character to me in comparison to Chef Prem? I think it’s good writing and set in these scenes with Ryan at his dad’s shop really do a lot to establish who he is as a person. We can see his family circle is hard working and maybe isn’t the best with their feelings. We still see Ryan’s family does take care of each other in important ways and understands to some extent. Also very relatable to be a recent grad with no direction or going to university without passion because you know your family needs you. Idk I like Ryan. He’s not quirky for quirky sake. He’s believably broken in predictable ways.

Ugh couples are the worst. Also performative gestures like this are so stupid now you might say it’s comedy. However I’ve enjoyed a couple office romance interns edition and it’s ways sickening. Just like highschool sweethearts that kind of sweet where they are blind or trying to make others jealous because of their own inadequacies with themselves

I’ll say this it is good for new members of staff to learn to speak their mind quickly because if they don’t contribute you are missing out on new ideas and eyes. Also Jane/Off is so handsome my brain would definitely malfunction. A person in control who knows what he wants 🥵 sexy. Also Off’s irration just scratches a good itch in my brain makes me think of Sean 😩😩

A very important bonding activity converting the non nerds to the joys of Harry Potter and other pop culture. A dance as old as time. My older coworkers try to get everyone to watch their pop culture references too. It’s really an unspoken office life normality. I really wasn’t expecting so many references though. But I still love Harry Potter because idk I see the good parts of the story and adore it. Yes yes I can now see the racism and the transphobia (the dream of Malfoy’s cronies turning into girls) also preachiness about sexism when needed. But I also see the fandom that raised me. The various queer friends I met because of my love of the boy who lived. Something I won’t have had in Mississippi. The books that always comforted me since I was 6 years old quoting the first book. the theme parks that still take my breath away when I go to visit Universal Orlando on the weekends. The queer and loving people who work there and are all too happy to make a child’s dream come true or adult look in wonder at something they have missed. (Sorry for the tangent)

Oh no it’s Gun’s arguably greatest talent crying in character. I felt like I could feel the fear and panic building in Ryan to this point which… if you aren’t crying in the first several days at your big kid job because you feel like an imposter who can’t do shit and will never be trusted? I can’t relate to you. Hell I got a new job a couple months ago. For a month I cried most days when I got home because I felt so awful about my capabilities even though I’ve worked 7 years in my field. It’s normal. Also Jane being shocked by this is hilarious you aren’t telling me he hasn’t broken someone down into tears before.

Oh no here it is folks Jane just enjoying Ryan’s energy and believing in him for no reason. Gun’s tears are very potent and can melt any wall I’m surprised Jane isn’t pulling him in for hugs.

Jane trying his best to keep Ryan without directly forcing him to stay was masterful as a boss. As a Simp it could use work but it’s a start put the ball in Ryan’s court with hope. Jane wants Ryan to grow and experience life which is good as a boss.

Awwwwwwwwww happy gunnie/ryan he’s so tired and anxious now he’s found solace in Jane’s words nothing can bring him down. He’s precious someone put him in my pocket.

[irisu-syndromemes]

plagiarizing an obscure indie game for lazy hip hop and rap

youtube is currently going up in flames over plagiarism found in many people's channels, particularly documentary-ish videos that have commentary from the uploader. this seems to be mostly because of that hbomberguy and his recent video about plagiarism on the website, as well as a specific person who's drowning in controversy lately.

i admit that i don't want to watch the video, because i've watched other videos already, and i've heard about the other channels' plagiarism through the grapevine. plagiarism IS awful, and it's a disgrace to find it's way more commonplace than i thought.

all this made me remember something... a few weeks ago i remembered that i once found a few songs on youtube, and 1 on spotify, that straight up steal music from an old indie horror game that's stayed pretty obscure throughout the years. so i spent the next few days trying to find every youtube upload with stolen music from it, as well as the respective channels, and even uploads on other websites (which i did find; one of them was even "for sale" on a beat-selling website).

it made me angry. it made me sick. to see so many idiotic hip hop "artists" steal someone else's work, sometimes even selling it, because they're hacks who can't be bothered to put in the work for their craft. i accumulated quite a number of tabs of people who did this - WAY too many links to videos and uploaders - and then...

i closed them all. i was furious and it was making me go crazy. my mental health was taking a hit and i knew there was nothing i could do...

the game they're all stealing from is called Irisu Syndrome, and it's a short freeware horror game from japan first released in 2008 that has garnered a bit of a cult following. the music is by MusMus, who is credited as Watson in the game. it's still very obscure, but well-known enough that siivagunner has made a "high quality rip" of one of its tracks. in fact, it even inspired Dan Salvato to make Doki Doki Literature Club partially! suffice to say, i adore this game. it may be short, but it left a lasting impression on me (it's a pretty shocking game! those under 16 and easily-disturbed folks should avoid it), so i've never forgotten about it as the years passed.

the game was made entirely by japanese people... this makes any sort of communication between western fans and the dev or MusMus pretty difficult. for the record, the english patch was supposed to be given an official release, but the dev himself couldn't find a way to contact the english translators, so only spanish and mandarin got official versions.

communication is difficult... i can't just email some japanese person who made this game's music all those years ago, with all these links and all this worry in my heart, and expect a response. i don't want to be intrusive.

...but i also care. maybe i care too much. it's incredibly unfair that some bozos are out there stealing the guy's music and getting comments like "this is fire!!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥" when all they did was add a beat to the tracks. meanwhile the game stays in obscurity. none of them are popular "musicians" but it's sickening all the same. it's stealing. all i want is for the game's music composer to know, so maybe he can report those uploads himself.

for the record i know about sampling, and this isn't it. using the entire track and then not crediting, that's not innocent "sampling". just wanted to make that clear.

i get cold feet easily. i don't know if i can just email him, if he would read it, if i can make my point clear, if anything could actually be done. i don't want to be intrusive. i don't want to be a nuisance.

but all this recent talk of plagiarism, it got me thinking again. it's incredibly unfair, because even if he was okay with it, the plagiarists didn't ask or credit him. i can't just forget about this, so i'm making this post.

i'm making this post haphazardly, in the hopes someone knows what to do. maybe someone knows of a solution, maybe someone could help. maybe even spreading the word, to someone who knows the right thing to do about this. i've thought of making my own youtube video about this issue, but i have no subscribers, and i get cold feet easily. it would get nowhere.

"it's just music from just some game" but it's a game i love anyway. i have all this worry in my heart, and i don't know what to do.

[leviathans-watching]

mfil - 31

-` ♡ ´- m.list | no taglist | next | wc: .4k

-` ♡ ´- a/n: asmo & delusion are besties

*NOT CLICKBAIT!!!* when asmo learns that you, the newest exchange student has a youtube account and following somewhat comparable to his own, he decided right then and there not to like you. however, after an unfortunate (and misleading) exchange goes viral, he has no choice but to fake date you in order to save face. will asmo crush you and put you into place like you deserve? or are those funny feelings in his stomach not hate, like he had thought? like, subscribe, and maybe fall in love (with this smau) to find out!

shutting his door with more force than usual, asmo falls onto his bed, finally letting all his embarrassment surface. it’s rare he loses his composure like this, but you seem to have a knack for making him off-kilter. he’s kissed dozens of demons before, so why is this affecting him? maybe it’s because you’re a human? or maybe it’s because you’re you, and he hates you?

asmo groans, burying his face in his duvet cover. god, why had he let that happen? why had he encouraged it, kind of even… liked it?

“i’m so stupid,” he mutters, wondering what he should even do. besides locking himself up in his room for the next hundred years, that is.

and what’s worse is that he lost his composure! there’s no way you were filled by his bad excuse to leave, and if he’d just stayed, he could have played it off, made you the one to take the brunt of embarrassment. but by running away like a coward he totally looks like some shy virgin!

or wait, maybe he could say kissing you just sickened him?

no, that was too low, even for him. as a purveyor of all things physical intimacy-related, he tried to never make anyone feel bad about their skills. it wasn’t their fault he was better and more experienced in every way, and honestly, shaming someone for something like that was just not cool.

plus, the kiss–god, he can’t even believe he’s admitting this, even to himself!–wasn’t bad. there wasn’t much time for it to develop, but your lips felt nice against his and your smell had surrounded him nicely.

god, why did he do that! why did you do that? he’d called chicken but never actually expected you to hold him to it, meaning he had no idea on what to do next.

he could try to use it to normalize physical affection between the two of you, get back at satan and his brothers like he’d originally wanted, but, for some reason, that didn’t sit well with him.

“i’ve just got to think,” he says, sitting up. he does tend to work well under pressure, after all. “if i don’t act like it’s a big deal, then it won’t be. simple as that.”

it was a tried and true method. act like what happened wasn’t as monumental of a thing as it was and the awkwardness lifted. yes, if he just continued on with things like normal, surely everything would be fine.

leviathans-watching's work - please do not copy, repost, or claim as your own

[mezmer]

Mention of death toward the end

Lately I've been thinking about how much pain my grandma was in during her last days and how she was opening up for years about the pain she felt, how she felt nobody was respecting her or helping her in her last years, how she felt like everyone hated her cuz that's genuinely how my mom kind of treated her. And I grew up yanno when I was old enough to handle it, with my mom telling me how bad my grandma was. And id ask her what grandma did and one thing that seemed to really bother my mom was my grandma having a breakdown and stabbing the couch with a knife. That's it. And stealing my mom's Ritalin. Idk that's a mentally ill woman. Maybe I feel bad looking at it from the granddaughter's point of view as opposed to a daughter. My grandma had a hard life. She was close to her brothers and lost them both in freak accidents when she was young. Both her parents also in freak accidents, separately. Swear to God. And my grandma had a good handle on life probably 90% of the time. She was a very funny and sweet talkative woman. And I've seen her cry, when I was very young, and it changed me, not in a bad way. My mom has huge resentments yet calls me "little sue", as in, she compares me to my grandma often, and I've gotten similar trwatment. My mom has chilled out a lot about her treatment of me since I moved out though.

Anyway, the point is, I feel that growing up with my mom whispering in my ear that grandma is a miserable woman, dramatic, always complaining, shaped me before I was able to take a step back and reason with those comments fairly. So while my grandma was growing more ill and weak in her last few years, my mom would make comments like "she's being so dramatic, talking about how she's going to die" well yeah. She is. And everyone is acting annoyed by her. Everyone is leaving her to cry instead of listening to her. Well it isn't easy to be there for somebody in that situation, I know.

But one thing my grandma taught me from a. VERY early age. Respect your elders. Respect your grandparents. And she told me that her own grandparents taught her that when she was very young.

I regret not listening to her and sort of gravitating toward whatever it was my mom said to me. But really, I never believed my grandma was being dramatic. I JUST COULDNT comprehend her suffering. Now I do. Now I understand. It was like blank space to me, and I would just avoid it. I never should have avoided it. Her final days, I was there about a month before she passed. Usually a month before old folks will still be lucid. God, she was in so much pain, crying out, still even on very strong opiates. In contrast, my maternal grandma was smiling and talking to me two days before her passing, similar situations and ailments between the two of them.

But lately I have been thinking about it so much. She moved to Michigan toward the end so my aunt could help her. She was living with us a year prior and that's when my mom was just a mess. I can't blame my mom too much, but I know it was wrong. I'm remembering all the YouTube links she was posting on my wall that I wouldn't always watch. Remembering her making a photo of me her profile picture before her last fall. And when she passed, it was her profile picture. My aunt went on and changed it back to a photo of her which I appreciate. It was hard seeing that. And she loved me so much. When I came to see her, she said "Maddie oh Maddie ..." And started to cry. After that, she did not recognize me or interact with me ever again. What I would do to hold her. Why didn't I embrace her and hold her in that moment? Why did I step back and watch? I am sickened by it. I regret it so much

[projecthipster]

The Catcher in the Rye

I might need a hat like that. Fashion is about having the confidence to face a hard and phony world and protect you from it.

“Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.”

I figured I might start adding playlists to these posts, too. I didn't make this one but it's the best one since it's non-lyrical to focus on the lyrical prose of the book, and it's not so anachronistic. There's plenty of jazzy tracks in here that make me think of ambling a '50s New York street on a winter night. And even Holden wouldn't call them corny.

I was sort of sitting there getting ready to write a review of The Catcher in the Rye and it killed me. It really did. I get a big kick out of this book. But it can be so phony to write about a book that everyone knows. That can be so crumby. Still, maybe I could sort of get a bang out of writing like Holden Caulfield.

Sorry. Ok. Me again.

And so we come to it at last. By which I mean, it hasn’t been that long. This is still early days of Project Hipster. The Hip (like the Jest?) is near infinite, at least insofar as my writing and reading and watching and eating and listening capacity can take me in one lifetime. But we’ve come at last to one of the defining books, not just of Hipster counterculture, which might or might not exist, but of the concept of counterculture in general, and of postmodernity and contemporary literature as a whole. 

You can find lots of “Shit Hipsters Say” videos dated circa-2011 on Youtube, and most are a bit cringe. The exceptional masterpiece is the series by 1909 Productions. As a Brooklyn music video production co-op, they’re so deep into the scene that it makes me a bit jealous, so they know the real shit that makes it so much funnier. And among rambling lines about warehouse conversions and strange music, one of the pitch-perfect scenes is of a guy just glancing over knowingly and saying, almost suggestively, “Catcher in the Rye.” That’s how Hipster this book is - it’s just the title. Why?

Well, I theorize that it’s for a few reasons.

It’s a masterpiece of subtly experimental style

It was influential for Beats and Hippies, the progenitors of the twenty-first century fusion that is the Hipster.

And most importantly, to the point that those others are just gravy,

3. It’s entirely focused on the character of Holden Caulfield, the most intense and insufferable (but actually very sufferable and enjoyable) hipster you’ve never met.

Man, I don’t know how I can cover this one in one post. Catcher isn’t a long book, but every sentence is packed with meaning.

I’ve found it’s fairly common for Catcher to be derided online these days. I’ve seen it called “male manipulator lit,” which puzzles me a bit when Holden can’t manipulate anyone into anything. He occasionally thinks he might be able to, but it never goes well. Maybe it’s because it’s male-focused and emotionally sensitive, and some might hold that a man showing emotion is obviously doing it to garner sympathy, manipulatively. I hate everything about this thought process, so let’s move past it. Others say that Holden is annoying, self-centered, whiny, miserable in his own head. To that I say: aren’t we all? 

The common factor is apparent. It’s never the writing that drives people one way or the other on Catcher, it’s the character. The perception of a whiny and privileged character. There’s a want to dismiss Holden’s suffering and isolation because he’s grown up rich and had expensive schools paid for. Never mind that his parents are paying for those schools because they can’t deal with him being at home. Never mind that Salinger, who fought through D-Day and saw the Holocaust in person, chose this kid as the lens he wanted to use to explore what the isolation of trauma feels like. Him and the Glass family in Franny and Zooey. That one felt like less of a challenge to review, because it’s not SUCH a landmark. These messed-up kids were a veteran’s way of processing his broken generation. That’s why I consider Salinger one of the Beats. Maybe he’s not so much a branch off the Beat tree, but he’s like a poplar split in half at the base of the trunk that grew into two trees. Because even if he never did drugs with Kerouac, they were both of that lost generation trying to figure out where they belonged after the shattering of the American idyll in the war, the split in psyche between those who suffered through war and those state-side who prospered from it. Kerouac found a lifestyle, albeit not a healthy one, that saw him find a new place. Salinger was even more beaten than that, and that’s why his literature all focuses on the search, not the finding. That’s a common factor in alleged “hipster literature” that’s come my way via this project, being the voice of lost and shaken generations, and I have my theories on that. While millennials at the turn of the 10s hadn’t suffered through a world war like Hemingway or Fitzgerald or Salinger or Kerouac or Vonnegut, they’d had their view of the future shaken by the sudden collapse of the market of opportunities. Modernism and confident conformity to the old way, be that European imperialism or American capitalism, suddenly held less promise. Is it any wonder that the contemporary hipster, the postrecession searcher for purpose, would feel the connection?

But this is all reading things autobiographically, which Salinger hated. He went into seclusion after writing Catcher, rather than respond to any of all the inevitable questions raised by the cryptic text. Right near the start, in chapter 3, Holden says “what really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours, and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.” There’s some irony to Salinger writing that dialogue (It’s not in quotation marks, but the whole book is dialogue) in a book exactly like that, and then hiding himself away from it.

Speaking of the start.

Catcher starts with our boy Holden getting kicked out of another fancy private school. Except it doesn’t. The beginning is after the end, establishing that Holden is writing the story from some sort of psychiatric institute, and he never outright says that it’s a form of therapy, but why else would he be writing like this, diving into his thought process as much as he can, but never too deep, always bobbing back up into the safe air of narration, hinting at further depths? We’re about to read two hundred compact little pages (like I said, Catcher is a pretty short book, and it reads at such a clip that it’s through before you know it and leaving the reader wanting more, which leads them to Franny and Zooey) of this kid wandering the city looking for any sort of conversation that can feel meaningful to him, anyone who’s willing to listen. There’s something of a subtly implicit happy ending threaded into every chapter though, in the fact that we’re able to read it. “Listen,” says Holden, to begin many a sentence, and if we’re open-minded readers, we do. Here is his voice laid bare, with all the vulnerabilities and wrong thoughts and contradictions of life confused and teetering on the cliff-edge of adulthood, and we can choose to see through it to a kernel of lonely soul yearning for connection. Though even in the writing, Holden’s most vulnerable dialogue, there are walls. He “sort of” does more things than he outright does. He starts off by denying the reader any backstory, and this is a funny knock at overwrought “David Copperfield kind of crap,” common to classic literature, but it’s also him being protective of his life. Who are you to want to know that crap, dear reader? By the way, I hate movies. Never mind that when I meet up with Sally the first thing I suggest doing is going to a movie. 

Everyone is a phony to this kid, maybe because he’s phony to everyone, including You The Reader, but for the most part he doesn’t hate them for it. Mostly he feels sorry for them, thinking they may not have genuine connection in their lives. I'll turn the table, then, and think the same about him. On the other hand, when Holden gets on about people close to him that he genuinely likes - dead brother Allie, Jane Gallagher, and above all Phoebe - the pages become third person love letters. This kid is full of love and full of resentment and rattled by trauma but trying to remain pure and trying to keep others pure in the innocence of childhood, where all good things are petrified as in a museum. But he comes to learn to let go, just a little bit at the end as he watches Phoebe place his hat on his head, knowing it helps him. Full of love and pride he watches her grow up just a half-step more, her red hair curling into the curling ornamentation of a carousel horse to create one of the most iconic cover images ever. It’s all contradiction and denial more than straightforward convinced ideology, and isn’t that what growing up is all about? Isn’t that what living in this confusing, contradictory, phony world is all about? It’s laughable and serious and pretentious and vulnerable and scornful and sweet.

Of course, classic books can also be evaluated by their legacy, and Catcher has a huge one. Other books of the mid-century might have had their impact on culture mainly through more widely accessible movie adaptations. Catcher never did, per Salinger's express intent. He never really said why, except that he didn't want to see an intensely personal story adapted by someone else. It's amazing, then, that a solely textual work, so defined by unique textual style, could spawn arguably a whole genre. I see The Outsiders cited as the first modern young adult or teen novel often enough. The word "teenager" was only invented in the fifties, after all, as adolescence began to be recognized as its own stage of life. But Catcher came just before. The Outsiders would probably exist without it, but the modern universe of YA books, from Judy Blume to Leigh Bardugo, thousands of stories that may be wildly genre-diverse but by definition featuring young heroes facing the burgeoning confusion of maturity, responsibility, sexuality, and complexity, would probably look very different without the big splash of a landmark excellent exploration of those themes right at the postwar dawn of American cultural hegemony. Famous coffee company John Green has built a prominent splinter of his own wildly diverse career on just this kind of story. (I like the coffee company’s books quite a bit and look forward to reviewing some of them as Project Hipster continues.) It's no surprise then that he's made no less than seven videos about The Catcher in the Rye. If you want to continue thinking that anything I wrote here is remotely original, don't watch those.

Oh, yeah, I forgot one more reason that hipsters love Catcher in the Rye

4. They’ve got good taste, and this is a damn good book.

In fact,

I give this hipster book five hunting hats out of five.

Project Hipster is a futile and disorganized attempt to dive into the world of things that the internet has at some point claimed "are hipster," mostly through ListChallenges search results.

This review comes from the Twelfth list, Only Hipsters Have Read 17/35 of These Books.

Up next: a movie I enjoyed but I’m not sure I fully “got.”

Stay deck.

[numetaljackdog]

WILT 1/8/2024

spotify//youtube

Limp Bizkit - Leech: trying to get some of my friends into lb and this is the song that sold it for at least one of them

Nirvana - Been A Son: may well be my favorite nirvana track. every single lyric is like. owwww

Daniel Johnston - Walking the Cow: i have been on my bullshit about this whole album for like a full month. trying to learn this one on the piano

Daniel Johnston - Keep Punching Joe: i like the slightly more upbeat, almost kind of bluesy feel he put into this one. it feels very character-driven and humorous while still being a... unique exploration of victimhood

Breaking Benjamin - Polyamorous: this seems like it would be soooo fun to sing live. i just love all of ben's little enunciations and syllables here, his unique voice is so dear to me bc of how long i've been listening to bb. also god forbid poly bitches do anything

Suicidal Tendencies - Suicidal Failure: have also been on my bullshit with this album. i don't really want to talk about this track though, i don't feel like getting too personal

Nirvana - Rape Me: this one also feels weird to talk about publicly. but i've been listening to a lot of in utero tracks, not necessarily the album front to back but just my favs and this is definitely up there. an infamously raw and real record at perhaps its rawest and realest

Gene Wilder - Pure Imagination: i saw the new wonka movie in theaters and was surprised to find i actually enjoyed it a good bit. that nice warm feeling led me to listen to some of the soundtrack of the original and remind myself of how much i love it. i could have easily put the scary boat song on here too

Suicidal Tendencies - Subliminal: i don't really care that much about the actual message of the song pertaining to subliminal messaging in media, i think there are other takes on that subject that have done it a lot better than mike's clumsy rambling. but i do identify immensely with just the feeling of sickening paranoia that the song captures. maybe it's not coming through the television but SOMEBODY is fucking with me. subliminally...

Daniel Johnston - I Am a Baby (In My Universe): okay i won't lie this one is kind of funny. like openly funny and ridiculous rather than the more layered playfulness of the rest of the album. oOoOoOoh i'm only 22........ i'll live forever ^_^ idk. it's still real as fuck though, i feel like a dipshit baby all the time

Kurt Cobain - Rehash: when you listen to home tapes like this, i feel like it really gives such greater dimensions to who kurt cobain was as an artist. in a way, it feels not dissimilar to something like the scrappy brilliant work of an indie pioneer like daniel johnston, which makes sense considering kurt was a fan of the guy's work. at the same time, this particular track is kind of silly and has him doing that voice that i hardly even recognize as his. i've been wanting to watch montage of heck, and this one is here as a marker of my love for the sounds of these home recordings more generally

Korn - Faget: there's a lot of discussion to be had around when it's okay for artists to use this word, but in general i tend to find that alternative artists who use it in a way that identifies with it is something i can't really be mad at. korn, and more specifically jonathan davis, is a freak show of alternative music that appealed to other freak shows. the fact that jd chose to identify himself with the word "faggot" in this song due to his experiences as an outcast and victim of bullying is at worst misguided, and i bet it made a lot of other outcasts and victims in 1994 feel seen, feel less alone. i think that's worthwhile. however it is also funny that a few years later korn would release "all in the family" which is like if someone decided to drag out the meager concept of a homophobic slur into a full album track

The Romantics - What I Like About You: was rewatching pat finnerty videos and got this stuck in my head from the bit where he talks about this song in the dani california video. not much to say except it's a tune! also goes in the file of songs that seem very fun to sing live

Metallica - Wherever I May Roam: oh yeah now we get into the rock adn roll babey 🎸🎵 i mentioned in an audio ask that i've been really indulging in the dumb rock music and 90s metallica is like the prototype for all meathead rock that followed. it's solid though, there's a reason why it got so popular. this is a good track, i really like the prechorus

Puddle Of Mudd - Blurry: possibly the dirtbaggiest of all the dirtbag rock. that's not true actually there's still shit like theory of a deadman and fuckin buckcherry and whatever, stuff that even i don't touch. but idk puddle of mudd just hits now and then with the scratchy yucky vocals and stupidass riffs and this is hands-down one of the best songs off the album. it's at least kind of about something. and ngl everything is pretty blurry nowadays

Tom Petty - Love Is A Long Road: shoutout tom. was listening to full moon fever again and realized how much of a tune this was. big chorus with the good good blend of new wave and americana rock that he always brought

Muscadine Bloodline - Me On You: with country being as big as it is right now and me trying to connect with that sort of honest and grounded feeling that rock and roll gives people, it seemed natural that i would make another attempt to properly get into country. i came across this one on a country rock playlist i was exploring and took to it because of the nice growl in the singer's voice and the rapidfire delivery of lines with some tasty internal rhymes. nothing special but it rips. i am a little wary of the "bloodline" part of these guys' band name but i looked them up and couldn't find anything that immediately sent me running? idk i hope they aren't shitheads

The Offspring - D.U.I.: the drunk driving fandom is dying, can't imagine why. discovered on the soundtrack for "i know what you did last summer" which i picked up on cd at a thrift store

3 Doors Down - Kryptonite: okay these guys actually do suck major shit. and so does this song actually. but it's on here bc i've heard it a million jillion times and have been listening to it a lot again, after watching the pat finnerty video about this. man i feel like i'm cheating on todd this month or something wtf. anyway i discovered not long ago that i've been mishearing the lyrics to this song my entire life in a pretty major way. honestly it's overdue for its own installment in my little series where i explain my misheard lyrics and the much better implications i derived from them. basically i always heard the chorus as "i'll keep you by my side, you're my superhero man/my aching kryptonite" which is WAY more words than are actually in the chorus. the singer just chews on the syllables so much that i always heard them as separate words. but i always thought it was a song about a kind of shitty guy who was trying to be better and act like a superhero for his partner who he viewed as his own super savior, as well as his weakness (kryptonite) because of how much he loved them. i thought it was a really sweet song. but it's just about a douchebag guy who acts like a douchebag to his partner who he doesn't seem to actually like very much. it's not a good song. but again, butt rock. sorry

[2hotwing]

IVE REWATCHED WINX A SICKENING AMOUNT OF TIMES. I was literally rewatching it a few weeks ago.

Everyone hates bloom idk why 💔. I LOVE MY GIRLY BLOOM. I tried watching the reboot i just couldn’t. Then i watched the netflix series. I saw the reboot pics on youtube a few days ago. IM LOVING IT SO FAR.

My favorite songs from winx at the top of my head are sirenix, it goes too hard it’s such a banger. and the introduction to season 4 that goes “do you know how we have”.

NOOOOO I LOVED BLOOM SO MUCH GROWING UP SHE WAS MY GIRL 😭

IDK if i have a fave song i just know i loved watching them transform and the og theme song!!

IM SO EXCITED ANOTHER REBOOT IS HAPPENING I HOPE THEY DO IT JUSTICE

[several-ravens]

hello people of tumblr i'm sorry for this long ass post but i kinda need to rant about kpop since talking with my friends isn't enough

disclaimer: this is coming from someone who's been a rock/metal fan for as long as he's been listening to music, and who's only been listening to kpop for about a year (but that's also why i want to talk about it, having an almost outsider perspective and all)

rant part 1: what i don't like

let's start with the easy stuff: the prices. first of all congratulations to the industry for understanding capitalism and consumerism. second of all, 450€ for a concert ticket is bonkers (for reference, 450€ is also the price of a ticket for hellfest, aka a huge metal festival that lasts 4 days with hundreds of bands. still insane, but a little more understandable). i've also seen today a poster in a plastic frame for the modest price of one hundred and sixty euros and almost cried from sheer disbelief.

still staying in the common sense area: the way the artists are marketed and how it leads to parasocial behaviour (that's a big word for elmo). everything is set up for fans to feel like they know the artists personally (a few examples off the top of my head: fancalls, send-offs at concerts, the application things where you can send messages to them and it looks like you're texting). i understand the appeal (i would love to meet my favourite artists and have the chance to tell them how much i appreciate their music) but it also leads to some crazy delusional behaviour including but not limited to: waiting outside of their hotels, following them around, making inappropriate jokes, touching them without their consent because you feel like you are close to them when you're actually total strangers. also the obsession with being noticed?? (it might just be because i really dislike people who have no concept of boundaries and personal space, idk) (i know that's also present in other music genres, deranged people are everywhere, but sadly i think in k-pop it's pushed to the extreme). that also kinda ties in with the first point, making people obsessed is a great way to sell your merch (to insane prices, let's not forget it)

now about the way the artists are treated:

the amount of content they produce by the minute. some groups will be touring, and also doing interviews and promoting their new album and doing photoshoots and shows and vlogs and meet-and-greets and posting on social media at the same time. they're always doing activities or challenges for youtube videos. please let them sleep.

the oversexualisation both by some fans and some companies themselves, like forcing artists to show skin even if they don't want to do it/don't feel ready yet.

along those same lines, the obsession with artists being as skinny as possible to the point where it's clearly unhealthy. everytime one of them deprives themselves of something they love because they have to appear perfect on stage, an angel dies (and let me tell you heaven is crowded). if it's not dangerous for their health, please let them enjoy their life and eat what they want to. it's sickening that i can name at least one artist who is concerned by this in every group i listen to.

physical appearance is so important that the artists get heavily criticised (bullied even) for everything they do and also don't do. you're considred too fat? bullied. you're considered too skinny? bullied. you've had plastic surgery? bullied. you haven't had plastic surgery? guess what. also bullied. people are calling artists ugly and saying they should leave the group (or worse) like they don't have social media and can't see everything that is being said about them. crazy behaviour. just because you're a 'fan' and you spend your money on the artists doen't give you the right to be disrespectful to them. the level of entitlement some people have istg. but i'm getting sidetracked.

survival shows. i refuse to watch them myself so this is only what i know from my friends, but some of the things the artists go through during survival show makes me sick. not to name any names but not giving them food and putting cameras in the bathrooms?? it's bad enough if we're talking about adults but this is about literal children. what the fuck.

i know this one might be controversial (especially here), but shipping artists with each other. these are real human beings we are talking about, not fictional people, please have some manners.

the fact that nothing is implemented to protect the artists from the insane harrassment and bullying they receive both online and irl. i was talking about delusional behaviour before, and it seems like nothing is really done to prevent that either. almost like paying attention to the physical and mental health of your artists is optional. unbelievable.

there is my last point, and this one is really nitpicky, but i hate the term 'idol'. it has religious meaning, and helps put the artists on pedestals and forget about the fact that they are only humans just like the rest of us (therefore both enabling all the parasocial behaviours and entitlement coming for part of the fanbase, and putting unattainable expectations on them. repeat it with me: artists are humans and should be considered as such)

and because i don't want to be 'l'aigri du quartier' comme on dit chez nous, rant part 2: what i do like

number one, that's obvious: the music. i've discovered that 'k-pop' is used to describe all the music that comes from korea, and includes not only really good pop, but also really good rock and, to both my greatest surprise and pleasure, really good rap. so good in fact that i think i actually prefer k-pop rap over hip-hop (that i love very much). after only a year of listening to it, k-pop is now my second favourite musical genre just after metal (and that's no small feat). even though i don't love everything, i enjoy listening to most styles of k-pop. please please please, if you have never taken the time to listen to more than the few songs that have made it out of the community, i beg you please do. you might be really surprised. i'm even ready to make recommandations if need be.

number two: the artists are incredibly talented. they all sing, dance, put together insane performances on stage, all while being under what i suppose is a tremendous amount of pressure from their companies, fans, and themselves. idk what more to say, you have to see it for yourself. they're amazing.

number three: the merch. i know i complained about the way merch works, and i still stand by that. i also really love collecting. opening a k-pop album is kind of like opening a pokemon booster, you need to know what's in there and it's also incredibly addictive. i love putting my little cardboard pieces in their little binders and decorating my room floor to ceiling with little posters and postcards and other delightful goodies. i've never been more happy to have really high ceilings.

number four: how is everyone so beautiful? i believe in not sexualising your artists and treating them with respect like a normal person. i also possess a pair of functionning eyes that see, and being graced with the sight of so much beauty heals some part of my soul. also, gender envy. a lot of it.

this is the end, thank you so much if you've made it this far. remember, treat everyone with respect, and please try k-pop for yourself it's really worth it. ily bye <3