#if i was on twitter i think i would have been doxxed and killed long ago

[nana2009]

what’s your Twitter account if you have Twitter and also post smth there :p

i'd rather be caught on 8chan than on twitter

[hannie-dul-set]

STAR STUDDED BAGGAGE [3].

SYNOPSIS. the saying “never meet your idols” exists for a reason. you just didn’t expect the reason to be because said idols would end up declaring that you’re their alleged lover from a past life (past lives, rather). now you have three big celebrities vying for your attention, and it’s not as dreamlike as you imagined it to be.

PAIRINGS. choi yeonjun, choi soobin, choi beomgyu x female! reader. GENRES. reincarnation! au, celebrity! au (soloist! yeonjun, actor! soobin, rock band member! beomgyu), slight college! au, slight historical! au, rom-com, angst, reverse harem woohoo. WARNINGS. swearing, talks about stalking, talks about death, data privacy violations, so much emotional whiplash yummy, a very long conversation, google dependent historical information. WORD COUNT. 6.3k.

NOTE. this chapter finally made its way out hell 😭😭😭 per usual, please let me know your thoughts on the chapter! a single comment on ao3 inspired me to finish this, so ur feedback really means a lot! enjoy<3

MASTERLIST | NEXT >

CHAPTER 3 — can we go back to being parasocial?

IF SOMEONE HEARS YOUR SUMMARY OF THE EVENTS THAT UNFOLDED WITHIN THE PAST FEW DAYS, they may accuse you of lying. Delusional, even. You’d think the same had you not been the center of it all— yet the proof is in your pockets. Your phone. In the album Choi Yeonjun failed to sign, stuffed inside your bag at the last minute before you left your apartment earlier.

The summary. Right. Yes.

“Can they stop sharing that video of Yeonjun excessively flirting with a fan?! I’m going to kill myself if I see it one more time.”

You were lucky enough to nab a fansign slot. But instead of getting Choi Yeonjun’s signature, you ended up getting a kiss of a hand instead, along with a scrawl of numbers on your album that you’re far too terrified to try to dial.

“Hey, send me our photo with Soobin the other day,” nudges Huening from beside you. “I’m gonna print it out and put it in a locket and use it as a family heirloom.”

You bumped into one of your favorite actors, Choi Soobin, in the middle of a late night convenience store run with your friends to fuel your group all nighter, stained his shirt with your ice cream, and got a photo with him in the process.

“By the way, have you called the business card yet? What are you gonna do with your broken phone screen?”

And Choi Beomgyu may or may not have professed his undying love for you, asked for your hand in marriage, and started crying in front of you in less than ten fucking minutes.

“She’s zoned out.”

The problem is, you can’t even bask in the delightful absurdity of it all because one common thread from all those three separate instances has been keeping you up for nights. It’s clawing at your brain, lingering in the back of your mind like an incessant stalker— which, mind you, is not a pleasant feeling when the very causes of such disturbance were once the bringers of joy and all things good in your otherwise meaningless life as a cog in the capitalist machinery that is society.

“Hello? Are you awake?”

Said problem being the fact that you’re pretty sure they all called you by your name at one point.

How the fuck do they know your name?

“I deleted Twitter. I Airdropped it to you. No, I have not called it yet. Now please let me think in peace.”

Crazy. This is all too crazy. In the first place, what are the odds that you bump into three celebrities within one week’s time? Is this some sort of prank, or something? Are those three filming a hidden camera show together? No, no. That couldn’t be because there’s no fucking way a company is sane enough to stage a risky hidden camera prank during a fansign knowing full well how obsessive and insane fans can get. You’re lucky your face wasn’t caught in any of the videos circulating online— video of you and Choi Yeonjun, mostly him, acting out a fucking sageuk. You’re lucky you haven’t been doxxed yet.

“Finish your sandwich,” Taehyun clicks his tongue, nudging your food closer to you, and you sigh heavily. Maybe you’re just wrong, you think, taking a bite from the bread. Maybe this is just a misunderstanding. Maybe you’re just overthinking.

You eat your lunch and steal some wet wipes from Gaeul in between. Right. It’s not like you’re ever gonna bump into them again. You live in, as cliche as it sounds, two different worlds after all. You’re just gonna watch their dramas, listen to their music, enjoy their performances, and that’s it that’s it that’s it.

“Prof Jang sent a message. Class is canceled.”

But still—

“Woohoo! Let’s go to the new dessert shop that opened downtown.”

Choi Beomgyu’s voice saying I love you, Choi Soobin’s cologne wafting in the air you were breathing in, and Choi Yeonjun’s lips pressed against your skin.

How can a sane person just forget about all of that?!

“Why do you look like you’re fantasizing about perverted shit?” Woohyun slaps you in the face with a reality check. This is fucking stupid.

“I’m not fantasizing,” you grunt, because they were events that actually fucking happened— they weren’t birthed from your brain’s insanity. “Anyway, dessert? Where is it?” You ignore your burning face, hoping that your friends decide to ignore it too, but Gaeul has her eyes narrowed at you. Crap. She didn’t recognize that it’s you in the videos right? Holy fucking hell, you’d rather die.

“Aren’t you gonna answer that?”

Oh. Well. That’s— that’s something. A good something because she hasn’t suspected you yet, moitioning instead to your cracked phone that has been buzzing under your notice because you’ve been thinking way too fucking much.

You check the caller ID, but it’s an unknown number, and it doesn’t match the business card you got from your run in with the alleged Choi Beomgyu. “Hello?” you answer, and a voice you don’t recognize says your name and asks if it’s you. “Yes, this is her. Who’s this?”

Another item added to the weird as fuck things that happened to your this week. You excuse yourself from your friends, and with knitted brows, you listen to the stranger at the other end of the line. “You met Choi Soobin the other day at a 7-Eleven in Gangnam, right?” The fuck? Did someone see you that day? Is this a stalker? “This is his manager. Lee Byeongho. I would like to speak with you regarding a certain matter.”

Now, hold the fucking phone.

“Is everything alright?”

You respond to Huening’s concern with a stiff smile before turning away from them. “Did I do something wrong?” you fuss into the call. “I didn’t post any of the photos from that day. I never talked about it online either, and I’m pretty sure my friends haven’t either. Wait. Wait a minute. How did you get my number?”

“Yes, it was difficult to obtain knowing only your first name and university.” That doesn’t answer your question. That just gave you more questions. “But, no. You aren’t in trouble. Actually...I called because you’re the only one who can help us— help Soobin— get out of trouble.”

Your face scrunches up.

“I’m at your campus right now. Parking lot. Do you mind meeting me for a moment?”

Just what did you get yourself into?

“You haven’t finished your food. Where are you going?”

“Somewhere,” you reply, quickly snatching your half-eaten sandwich from the table as your friends follow your swift movements with matching looks of confusion. “I’ll be right back. It’s nothing, don’t worry.” However, you are quite worried. You’re pretty sure Lee Manager, or whatever, is committing some data privacy crimes against you, but the one thing you want at the moment is answers. Your brain is about to explode from all the fucking questions and confusion. There’s a sliver of hope that meeting up with this sketchy guy can answer a few of them. You’d take that chance to air out your head.

There’s a black van in the parking lot. It’s the first thing you noticed because one of its doors are open, and there’s a familiar looking guy waiting just in front of the exposed seats. 

He notices you approaching. “It’s nice to finally meet you,” he says. What’s with men you’re meeting for the first time treating you with familiarity? You’re going to rip your hair out and throw yourself into moving traffic.

“Sure, but can you get to the point?” you stiffly say. “I’m a little busy. I still have classes in a bit.”

“Of course, I’m sorry. This whole situation must’ve come off as a shock to you.” Great, now you’re feeling bad. Soobin’s manager (allegedly) looks like he’s been through a whole lot as well. “Anyway. You are a fan of Choi Soobin, correct?”

“Well,” you blink. “Yes.”

“How about the dramas Kang Jaehee has written and directed?” he follows up. “Are you a fan of those as well?”

Your brows furrow. “I guess?” Peach Tree. That Summer. Mogi. Those are the titles that come right at the top of your head. “What does that have to do anything with me?” Manager Lee spares you a look of pity. You feel like this meet-up is just set out to making you even more fucking confused.

“I sincerely apologize. I didn’t want to drag you into this either, but I’m afraid you’re the only option I have,” says Manager Lee despondently. “Since...since you are a fan of Soobin, and I assume that means you also care about his career, so—”

He pauses. Like he’s practicing the next set of words he’s about to say inside his head.

“—do you mind meeting up with him to convince him to take the lead role for Kang Jaehee’s upcoming drama?”

But nothing could’ve prepared you for that.

What.

What the fuck?

“Mr Manager. Sir,” you start, appalled beyond comprehension. “I’d appreciate it if you start making a bit more sense.” 

“Trust me, I can’t believe I’m doing this either.”

You’re speechless. Your mouth is hanging open with no words coming out because, again, what the fuck? Manager Lee looks just as defeated as you, as if he weren’t the one who had just presented that ridiculous proposal. You are, quite frankly, at a discernible loss. 

Manager Lee lets out a sigh and digs a hand into his pocket. “I’m afraid this is all the time I have today. But please contact me once you’ve made a decision.” Another business card acquired. This is just dandy. “I am really hoping for your cooperation, miss. I’m sure you’re aware of Soobin’s inactivity lately, and my intention of approaching you today is simply in order to help my star’s career. Please consider the favor positively, and we will compensate you as much as my authority can allow.”

With that, you’re left with another laminated piece of paper in your hands. Gosh. This is a headache. When you get back to your friends, they notice the distress you’re in, further justifying a visit to the new dessert store, and seeing how your soul has completely left your body, you’re dragged along with them with ease.

“Hey, pick one. My treat,” says Woohyun. You let out a grunt and point at a random pastry on display. Next thing you know, you’re seated in between Huening and Gaeul at the store you don’t even know the name of. 

Huening is force feeding you an eclair. “Eat.” Your scowl disappears when you allow the eclair entry into your mouth. “Seriously, what’s going on with you? Who did you meet earlier?” 

Seeing as you show absolutely no intentions of telling them, they refuse to question you about it further. Good on them, because there’s no way in hell you’re spilling your predicament. Not until you find out exactly what kind of situation you’re in, at the very least. The two business cards feel like they’re weighing your pockets down, a constant reminder of their existence along with the scrawl Yeonjun left behind.  

“I know exactly how to make you feel better.”

The declaration comes from Gaeul, who slides her phone over to you, and when you look down to see what exactly her miracle medicine is to make you feel less manic, you hack out a cough upon seeing Choi Yeonjun’s face on her phone screen. “The hell is wrong with you?” asks Taehyun from across, giving you some water to push down the eclair lodged in your throat. “I know you like him, but even that is an overreaction.”

Jesus, you’re close to losing it. When you’ve avoided choking to death, Gaeul puts an airpod into your ear, and you hear Yeonjun reading out some comments. “Choi Yeonjun, you look really happy lately, did something good happen? someone asked,” he says while having snacks of his own. “First of all, why are you calling me Choi Yeonjun? It’s like you’re putting a wall between us. I don’t like it.”

Gaeul makes a noise of some sort and had you not been subjected to this week’s insanities, you might have reacted the same way too. Instead, you simply listen to his live in caution, feigning disinterest as you watch him nibble on some pretzels and churros through the screen, continuing to answer the slew of questions in the comments.

“Anyway, you’re right! Something good did happen.” Yeonjun hums while picking out a pretzel from the paper bag, rustling noise and a lively tune filling the audio for a moment— a short moment, right before he continues speaking. “That’s because I finally met the love of my life.”

Taehyun has to give you his water again.

“Oh? Oho, what’s with the exclamation points?” he laughs. “Did I meet them the other day? Hmm...that’s a secret. You’re curious? You think it might be you? Well, let’s see. Should I describe her?”

“God, he’s so fucking messy,” says Gaeul from beside you. “This is why I like him. How many calls is he getting for his manager and company this time?”

“What’s going on? Why is she so startled?”

“Yeonjun’s talking about his apparent soulmate, I don’t know. Wanna listen?”

“Didn’t he get in trouble for doing the same thing last time too?”

Now, you’re not one to give a shit about his love life, and you like to stay out of that side of celebrity gossip as much as you can, but Choi Yeonjun himself is droning on about the love of his life right now. You can’t not hear about it even if you want to. However, as much as you want to let things come into one ear and out through the other, you can’t. Because— wait. Wait. His description is eerily familiar. His description is making you double take and second guess what you’re fucking hearing.

“Sounds a lot like you,” Taehyun remarks without much thought, right after Choi Yeonjun says that the girl he likes has a bit of an attitude, but he likes that about her.

Huening lets out a snort. “Yeah, that’s definitely you. Why don’t you go in a wedding dress the next time you attend a fansign? Who knows, you might have a shot.”

You snap them a dirty look. Fuck. This is making your head spin. For the second time, Choi Yeonjun’s tendency of putting himself into headlines and the trending searches for doing something insane is giving you nothing but stress.

“I did give her my number, but she hasn’t messaged me yet, so I’m quite hurt.”

Number. Hold on a fucking second.

“The comments are going crazy.”

You grab your bag from underneath you, dropping it down to your lap.

“Hey, if you’re watching this, pl—eeeeease contact me. Kim Noona thinks I have a phone addiction now because I’ve been dying waiting for your call.”

You quickly get up from your seat.

“Yo, where are you going this time?”

“I need a minute,” you announce, eyes scanning the store for a quiet place alone while hugging your bag to your chest. There’s nowhere. Looks like you have to get out. 

“Damn, we were just joking. As if you have a chance with a celebrity like him.”

Huening’s joke is ignored and you quickly leave outside the doors, making a sharp turn around the corner, slipping through the passersby downtown until you find an empty alley. Your heart is racing. Your heart is racing like crazy and you may be reaching right now. You may be acting crazy, but what Choi Beomgyu said during the interview with Yeong-Il the other day is echoing in your mind, and— in conjunction with everything else that had happened— you’re starting to think that maybe he wasn’t joking.

Your cracked phone screen greets you when you take it out of your pocket. On your other hand is the first business card you got this week.

“Who’s this?”

“Hello. Good day.” You tell them your name, the events that led up to you receiving this number, with the hope that maybe you’re finally on to something. “I’d like to talk about the compensation for my broken phone.”

Whatever that something is, you’re gonna get to the bottom of it.

*

It’s already beyond closing time at Kwiyeomdongmoim Cafe (a mouthful, you know), yet your pink apron is still neatly tied around your waist as you pace back and forth, to and fro, in circles inside the breakroom. The time is half-past nine in the evening. You should’ve clocked out thirty minutes ago, but you’re still waiting. 

The knock on the door signified the end of your wait. You turn to see your boss’s head popping in through the half-open crack. 

“Three guys are waiting for you,” informs Seokmin. “They all seem handsome. Are they your suitors?”

When you ditched your friends at the still unnamed dessert store the other day, you did it to make a few calls. Three, to be exact. Today is the culmination of those calls, which is why you’ve been erratically nervous the entire freaking day. Choi Soobin, Choi Beomyu, and Choi Yeonjun’s managers all answered respectively when you called all the sketchy numbers you got and made some negotiations (apparently, the mess on your album is Yeonjun’s number, but he got his phone confiscated after that livestream). 

“As if,” you say, walking up to the door leading back into the cafe. Suitors, more like stalkers. Fans stalking their idols is common, but the other way around is a pretty fresh idea. “Anyway, thanks, Kyeom. Thank you for letting me use the store for a while.” Because this is the only private place you can think of outside of your own home— and there’s no way in hell you’re letting them in there when you don’t even know how they managed to get hold of your personal information.

“We’re closed anyway.” Seokmin smiles and makes way for you to pass by. “Go ahead and do your thing. Do you want me to stay inside or keep watch?” 

“You can stay inside, it’s alright.” 

He nods. “Call me when you’re done. Scream if you need backup. I can handle all of them.”

You laugh and thank him once more, a pat on his arm before you decide to peek out the door first as a precautionary measure. From your spot, you can see three thoroughly covered men in windbreakers, caps, and masks sitting on three separate tables in the store. The blinds have already been rolled down, so you can’t see anything outside, but there doesn’t appear to be any cameras around, so you take it as a safe sign to finally leave your hiding spot.

The moment you do, the break room door creaks, and all three pairs of eyes immediately fall on you. 

They stand up. They call out your name in unison.

Holy shit.

And when they do, they all look at each other with a sudden flash of hostility in the air.

Um. Well. How are you supposed to do this? “H—hello,” you manage to squeak out, prompting their attention once more. Soobin takes off his cap and removes his mask, the other two following suit, and oh my god. Oh my god. You suck in a deep breath. Today, you are not a fan. You are an interrogator. This is not a fansign. This is an interrogation. 

“I— uh, I asked your managers if I can meet you all to—today for a specific reason.” Wow. Good job. Your hands are shaking and you can’t look up from the floor or else you’d start losing your mind. “But—but, before that— would...would you like some drinks…?”

Interrogation paused. You need to get your shit together first.

“Please enjoy.”

With the help of your boss (because your hands wouldn’t stop shaking and you dropped the first one you made), you managed to whip up four iced teas and settle all three of them into one table at the very back of the store. You send a stiff smile at Seokmin after he placed all the drinks on the table.

God, you owe him so much— especially when he’s being unreasonably glared at by the three men sitting with you right now. Choi Beomgyu to your left, Choi Soobin to your right, Choi Yeonjun directly across from you and holy fuck, you have yet to look at them properly yet for your own safety. They haven’t been talking to each other either, simply sitting and waiting for you to speak. You’re pretty sure they know each other though, at least by name, being in the same industry and all. 

To say that the tension in the air is suffocation would be an understatement. How...how do you start this? The fuck should you say first?

“You know, I was really happy when Kim Noona told me you called.”

Apparently you don’t have to start it. Choi Yeonjun does it for you.

“But why are these two crashing our date?”

And that’s when things also start to get messy.

“Date?” Choi Soobin interjects. He sounds offended. Why does he sound offended. “What are you talking about?”

Choi Yeonjun doesn’t get a chance to make his case. Because Choi Beomgyu from your left suddenly snatches one of your hands from the table, prompting you to look at one of them for the first time tonight, and your eyes fly wide open. “I’d...like to apologize for the other day. I was just overtaken by my emotions. I hope you weren’t too freaked out.”

You are quite freaked out because holy shit, this is too much maybe. Not maybe. Yes. This is too much. Too. Much.“Hey, why are you holding her hand?!” you hear Choi Soobin exclaim from your other side. Choi Beomgyu’s soft expression suddenly disappears into a glare and a sneer the moment he shifts his gaze.

“You’re holding her hand too!”

“Why can’t I?!”

“Hey, this isn’t fair! One of you switch with me—”

Dizzy. You’re feeling dizzy. Your head is spinning and you’re suffocating from the heat emanating from your very face. Whatever they’re arguing about isn’t even reaching your ears anymore. You’re getting lightheaded and your sweaty hands start slipping out from the two’s weirdly tender hold on your hands because your body is physically breaking down.

“Shut up! Oh my god, my head—”

Your vision actually starts spinning for a second so you quickly bring the bottom of your palms to your temples, elbows on the table to balance yourself, only to be wobbled and shaken because the three suddenly jolted off their seats in panic.

“Are you okay?!”

“I’m fine, just please—for the love of god— sit down and shut up.”

They sit down and shut up. You massage your temples in silence. You remove your hands from your face and, after sucking in a deep breath and releasing it thereafter, feel your heartbeat settling into a normal rate. As normal as it can get in this situation.

“Whew. Okay. I think I’m ready. Let’s get down to business.” Finally, you’re the one steering the conversation. You give each of them a once over as quickly as possible because now you know that prolonged eye contact will only hurt you. You settle with looking at the gaps between each of them. That’s fine. You’re fine. “Choi Soobin, Choi Yeonjun, Choi Beomgyu.”

It’s like three bulbs just lit up in succession. Your brain is starting to hurt.

“A—as I was saying, you three are some of South Korea’s biggest celebrities and although I am, in fact, a big fan of all three of you—” Why is Choi Soobin growing pink. Why the fuck is he blushing. “—that— that does not make me fail to recognize the amount of weird shit that’s been happening lately, and I think I need answers.”

They are still sitting down and shutting up. They listen to instructions well, at the very least.

“First, how the fuck did all three of you know my name without any prior introduction. Second—”

The words get clamped in your throat. It’s lodged in there very tightly because you make the mistake of looking one of them in the eye, only to notice that all three of them are looking at you with the same expression. An expression you can only describe as longing.

And your face starts burning.

“Se— second, why…why do you all keep looking at me like I’m an ex you want to get back together with…?”

Maybe you asked the wrong question.

Because for some reason they all look sad now. Really sad. Really fucking sad and it’s making your stomach clench and nerves all numb and funky because making three big celebrities all sad simultaneously is a bragging right at one end of the spectrum, and a national crime at the other.

It’s Choi Soobin who cracks the silence. “I…I had a feeling when I saw you again for the first time at the store.” Again? “Do you not remember me?”

Your face furrows. “No…? Did we ever meet before you became an actor?”

Hurt. The look of sadness has now spiraled into hurt and one might think you just stabbed and twisted a knife into his fucking gut.  “How—how about me?” Your attention turns to Choi Yeonjun who isn’t looking any better. It’s like his entire world view was just proven to be wrong and why does it feel like you’re the one to blame. 

What else can you do but shake your head in denial? Now he looks like he’d just been told he’s adopted!

“You’re…you’re joking,” he tries to laugh it off, but it only comes off as strained and shaky, then, in one fell swoop— desperate. “R—right…?”

“Great!”

Before you start feeling even shittier, Choi Beomgyu finally decides to join in. 

“And here I thought her forgetting about me was the worst case scenario.” His tone is bitter. There’s a snap in his words. “I didn’t think there’d be other bastards in the same situation as me. God fucking damn it.”

There’s a moment of silence. You watch as realization hits the other while you’re still left in the dark. Choi Yeonjun juts his seat closer. Choi Soobin tries to reach a hesitant arm to your direction, but you’re  tugged to the other side by Choi Beomgyu, who’s suddenly a little too, too close.

“Hey.”

Your hands are clamped together. 

“I meant it when I said I love you. I do. I have loved you four hundred years ago and I still love you now, and if whatever god or deity decides to make you meet you for the third time, I’ll still love you then.”

Beomgyu’s holding both of them in between his in a firm grip.

“Second life is about you. Blue Spring is about you. You’re the person I’ve been waiting for from the beginning of this life until the last.”

Now, if this situation wasn’t crazy, your heart would be skipping a beat right now.

But it is crazy. This is fucking insane. And you look around to see that there’s a weird look of sympathy and understanding in the other Choi’s eyes, clearly not recognizing the visceral insanity of this situation, which fills you with a swallowing lump of existential dread. You pry your hands out of Beomgyu’s grasp (you swear you can hear glass breaking), and slowly turn to Choi Yeonjun and say, with a very hesitant, very cautious, “Y...you too…?”

The look on his face says it all. And then you swivel over to Choi Soobin.

“And you?” 

“I’ve lo—”

“No!” you snap. “Don’t finish that sentence. Please. Oh my god.”

You see Seokmin popping his head out from the corner, mouthing an are you okay? and you shakily bring up a weak thumbs up. “Well, isn’t this interesting,” you hear Choi Yeonjun say, which feels like a slap in the face because what exactly is interesting about this. “Here I thought I was special.”

“Get off your high horse,” retorts Choi Soobin, a sneer in his voice. You double take. Choi Soobin is supposed to be sweet and gentle and kind. Who is this man? “Whatever kind of past you had with her doesn’t mean anything. I met her first. I met her at the end of King Danjong’s rule.”

“Ha!” Choi Yeonjun starts. “We got married under King Taejong. I’ve loved her before any of you did.”

Now, what the fuck?

Choi Soobin’s face pales and he chokes over his words. “M—married?”

There’s a smug grin on Choi Yeonjun’s face. He leans back against the chair with his arms crossed in victory. “You heard that correctly. Married. Pack up your bags. Unless you want me to tell you everything we did on our we—”

“Shut up, shut up, I don’t want to hear it!”

Marriage. King Danjong. King Taejong. Second life. The gears are churning inside your head. You don’t like the direction where the gears are pointing.

“What about you?”

Choi Yeonjun raises the question and the attention is now on Choi Beomgyu. He’s been quiet. The other two wait for him to say his piece— a feigned air of disdain and arrogance but there’s an unconcealable undertone of nervousness underneath it all. Your iced teas have been left untouched. Choi Beomgyu simply scoffs and presses his crossed arms against his chest.

“I have no reason to tell you any of that. This is between me and her.”

And at your mention, you receive the undivided attention of three pairs of eyes once more. Your heart rattles. God fucking damn it. Listen, you’re an avid consumer of the entertainment industry. You’ve watched a good amount of dramas and have read a good amount of manhwas to surmise a conclusion with the bits and pieces of stray information being tossed back and forth between the three. And it’s all ridiculous. But you have nothing else to work with unless they come spilling their guts themselves.

“So,” you clear your throat. “Are you three, like…a couple…hundred years old…?”

They all look offended. 

“No!”

Well, maybe you’re wrong about that part. But after a very long, convoluted discussion, the “facts” (if you can even call it that), are finally laid down on your feet.

They say you’ve all met before. Separately, in three separate lifetimes, with this one allegedly being your fourth unless there were lives in between that they can’t remember. One thing for certain is that the three of them remember the life they had while loving you— and they loved you very much apparently because those feelings and memories got carried over even after they got reborn into the present day.

The problem is, you don’t have the same symptoms. You don’t remember anything about your past lives. Hell, you can’t even remember anything in this life before you hit two years old. 

You slump in your seat. The table rattles. They get up from their chairs and come circling around you in concern.

“Are— are you okay, do you need to lie down? You could rest in my van for a while and—”

You swat Choi Yeonjun’s hand away before it could land on your shoulder. You’ve now got your hands on your face in stress, and peeking through you see Choi Soobin on your right, crouching down and looking up at you with furrowed brows and big, sad eyes. On your left is Choi Beomgyu, half-seated on the chair. You let out a very long, very anguished and muffled groan. This is too much. “If— if what you guys are saying is true,” you say. “What does it matter?”

There’s a tense pause in the air. 

“What do you mean…?”

You spring up from your seat and turn around, Choi Yeonjun in front of you. 

“I mean what does it all matter? King Sejeong, Joseon era, or whatever— I don’t care about all of that. We’re in the twenty-first century right now. I’m neither your lover nor your wife. I’m just a fan of your dramas and music and performances and that's it.”

You squeeze your eyes shut. You don’t really want to see their faces right now. You let a huff of air slip past your lips, turning back around to collect the untouched glasses of drinks on the table.

“Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to meet me and explain. I hope it’s all settled. Thanks for clearing everything up today. You can now all leave.”

It’s Choi Yeonjun who races after you when you make your firm and quick strides to the counter. He cuts off your path. “I—I don’t understand,” he chokes out. You make the mistake of meeting his gaze and see the threat of tears glazing his eyes. “What—what do you mean?”

Admittedly, that hurled a giant pang against your ribcage, knocking the air out of your chest, but you move forward. You brush past him, setting the glasses back on the counter, and— after a moment’s pause— you turn around, a heavy weight on your shoulders. It’s like gravity is trying to suck you deep into the mantle. “What I’m trying to say is we should all just get over what happened all those hundreds of years ago and live our lives in the present. I mean, I don’t know any of you. Don’t you think it’s unhealthy to keep clinging onto the past, especially when you guys are nothing but strangers to me in this life?”

Dead silence. You don’t dare look at any of them in the face. You try and retreat to the break room as quickly as you can, hands fumbling to untie your apron along the way, but you stumble over your steps, screeching to a halt the moment you hear someone say—

“Do you think it’s that easy?”

You could hear your heart in your eardrums. 

It takes all the strength in your body for you to look back, to see the pained expression on Choi Beomgyu’s face standing the farthest away from you out of the three. “Do you think I put my name out there so that it’d be easier for you to find me, wrote all those songs about you in the hopes that I could see you again if you’re someone I can just easily forget?”

Your throat tightens. It’s like you’re swallowing a boulder.

“If you wanted me to forget about you, you shouldn’t have died right in front of me then. You shouldn’t have told me you loved me right before you went cold in my arms if you wanted me to fucking forget.”

Oh.

Oh, god.

Choi Yeonjun and Choi Soobin don’t look any better. It hits you that you might have been more than a little bit unfair.

“I’m sorry.”

You don’t know your history. You don’t know what the fuck happened between you and them throughout those years that made them feel so strongly about you. But it must be harder for those who remember than for those who forgot.

It’s not like they chose to live in the present with half of their souls stuck in the past, either. You’ve been acting awfully unfair.

“I was being insensitive. I’m so sorry,” you exhale. Your knees feel like they’re about to buckle. Your head is spinning in circles. “But to be honest, this is all still very overwhelming, and I’m having a hard time comprehending and making sense of everything. It doesn’t feel real.” You try to take a step closer, but your legs give in. Choi Yeonjun quickly rushes to balance you back on your feet.

“Don’t push yourself,” he says, softly. You can’t look at him. God, these guys really know how to bring your guilt all the way home.

“Thanks, um, anyway—” You breathe in. Shit, you can’t believe you’re considering this. “Again, I really can’t and won’t be able to understand the magnitude of your— well, uh— feelings, since I really don’t remember anything. But how about…I spend some time with each of you individually, and maybe…maybe it can help in jogging back my memories?”

The atmosphere shifts. Ah. This feels like a fucking trap.

“You— you mean it?”

To be honest, you’d much rather just not deal with any of this, just stay at home and continue living your life with these three men as persons you only know behind the screen. But those looks in their eyes— hopeful and melancholic— make you feel your organs are being rearranged every five seconds, and you’d feel bad leaving them with the pain of this conversation especially after they poured out their hearts to you.

You can’t deny the joy and escape they’ve given you for the past couple of years you’ve spent as their fan. Maybe entertaining this unreality is the least you can do.

“I mean, well,” you start, clearing your throat. “Choi Beomgyu, you still need to pay for my phone. Choi Soobin, your manager wanted me to talk to you about something, and Choi Yeonjun—”

You look at the guy who still has one arm pressed against your back, two hands in a firm grip on your shoulders. He’s looking at you and batting his eyes expectantly. You let out a sigh and set yourself loose.

“I need to discuss something with you soon, too.” As in, please stop vaguely mentioning me in your live streams because I fear I might find an angry mob in front of my house. “I think I have all your contact information anyway.”

There aren’t any more reactions coming from them. This seems like the best possible solution for all of you. You sigh again. This has been an emotionally draining evening. You can’t wait to get some fucking rest.

“I’ll be in touch with you or your managers soon. For now, let’s call it a day.”

STAR STUDDED BAGGAGE. © hannie-dul-set, 2024.

[emeowwww-blog]

I performed a social experiment today, and the results kinda lowkey shocked me:

TW for topics relating to violence, self harm and suicide, bullying/harassment, threats against personal safety, and adjacent topics.

Note: I refer to myself as a “good person” a few times here. I am not in any way suggesting that I am a model for people to follow. I refer to myself as such to show what I think a good person would do.

Idk why it continues to surprise me, but I did a social experiment today and I still find it so weird how outright fucking MEAN people are.

I was simply talking about my likes and dislikes, and I say a few things about a game I like (that gets a lot of hate for no reason). I expected backlash for liking the game, that’s normal and I get that no matter where I say it. Suddenly, I am getting death threats and suicide guilt trips for liking said game. I am told that i should kill myself, I should die, I should never have been born, my parents were right for starving and neglecting me.

Over a game.

The social experiment I performed was to create an overemphasized version of my current life, and to slip up and create loopholes to see if people would find out I was lying. I joked around and tried to copy the behavior of other people, while also subtly attention seeking and dropping hints that I was faking my life. I also did my best to get peoples social media for later purposes.

I was being serious when I was talking about liking the game, and THATS when people snapped. Suddenly they brought up all the evidence of why I was lying and how, which I found odd that they hadn’t before. I played up my argument and pretended to be one of the people that guilt trips and gaslighted others to win the argument to make them react more.

I did expect “kys” jokes and other mean comments. That is what I set out to find. I did NOT expect to be sent death threats, doxxing threats, threats to harm my irl family, etc.

I eventually revealed that it was an experiment, and that I had screen recordings and screenshots of the hate messages and messages proving whose social media belonged to who.

Now, I don’t have social media besides Pinterest, Tumblr, Ao3, and Discord. I purposefully did not ask for or share these things. I made burner Tiktok, Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram accounts, and followed the members with those.

After I revealed the information, I thought it would be a good idea to tell them (jokingly) that I was going to leak the screenshots to their family and friends that followed their socials.

And guess what, they IMMEDIATELY started apologizing and begging me not to. People were even advocating to ban me and erase all message data relating to me (as though that would do anything).

My experiment set out to show how humans, especially younger people ( <22), act when they are behind their online identity. And how they change immediately when they realize that someone they know in real life will find out.

I am not going to send screenshots to their IRLs, nor on and of my socials, as I am not petty and I respect their privacy as minors (and humans) like a good person would and should.

My complaint is just asking why people are so mean? What do they gain? Absolutely nothing. I keep being disappointed for being surprised, over and over again.

Please be a nice person, to anybody who read this long post. I have made huge mistakes in the past, in the same way that this experiment shows.

You do not have to like someone. You do not have to agree with their opinions. But imagine if this wasn’t an experiment. Imagine if a younger person with a little out of the ordinary life joined this group, and got treated this way.

They wouldn’t be prepared for this. This could harm people. This DOES harm people. There are countless, and I mean COUNTLESS news stories about cyber harassment and bullying leading to teen suicide.

Be a good person, both IRL and online. You can and will harm people by your negative actions. I don’t expect you to like everyone. I expect you to be kind and respectful. If they become angry or mean, that does not indicate that you can react harshly.

Cut off your connection. Block them. Report them. We have measures on the internet to essentially get a restraining order on people you don’t like.

Be a good fucking person.

Have a wonderful day/night. I am sorry for the rant.

[coffee-without-anesthetics]

Hello tumblr user coffee-without-anesthetics can you explain Miligram to me like I'm your 80 year old grandmother who doesn't understand why she needs to decide why she needs to either vote to "forgive or do not forgive" this nice-looking lad/lass when you handed the phone to her and told her to tap the button you pointed out

hello!!! yes i can tumblr user kayoi1234, but too bad you're getting the full recap (miligram made me giggle, nice)

alright so we've got 10 buddies (prisoners) in this Milgram prison who are all technically guilty of "taking a life" (not killing someone, only around four of them did that from what we know.)

in the beginning, this is all the info available.

there's 3 trials over the course of years, 1 of which already fully passed, the second of which is more-or-less on the edge being finished -> as im writing this, you can vote for 2 characters, and the last 2 are yet to be judged at all

during each trial:

the official youtube channel releases a new MV (song) about the character currently being judged. (and a cover of a deco*27 song on spotify)

a voice drama of a discussion between the character and the warden (Es) is uploaded on spotify. an english translation by fans is usually uploaded not long after on youtube

and later, when both of the above has been realized for two characters

interrogation questions are answered on twitter. (here's the fan eng account)

INFO 1: in official sources (website etc) they use "guilty or innocent". this is misleading. they're all guilty of something. the only question is your forgiveness. INFO 2: the official english translations of the songs sometimes Suck Major Ass (see: Undercover), but theyre fine enough most of the time.

now that we're onto trial2 we know what an unforgiven vote does, which is: less privileges/freedom, more restrains, mental state done did fucked up if they care, more but can't remember right now.

in-universe, the warden judges them. you influence the judgement with daily votes.

and the most important of all: any reason to judge is a good reason!!

unforgiven cause you think they're reprehensible? sure! forgiven cause theyre cute? yeah! forgiven for the lolz? why not!

…there's also the question if this all is technically a infohazard because by knowing about the vote and then abstaining from voting (or not doing anything at all) is still participating anyway.

TLDR: over time you get more info about 10 characters who all took a life, and with that info you decide whether you forgive them or not in three trials

if you wanted basic info you can stop here.

diversity win! the amnesiac nonbinary 15 y/o prison warden with identity issues can hear the voice anyone who's ever voted! neat!

in the beningening, no one knew what an unforgiven vote would do and the info we had about characters was spotty at best, but we still got 4 characters judged unforgiven.

now more fun stuff!!

(im gonna use prisoner numbers not names cuz i don't wanna type allat)

unrelated: there's a side spin-off manga (???) called minigram. i have no idea what goes on there. random facts: 04 is half-french and the daughter of a landlord. 09 got diagnosed with DID via talking rabbit and teenager. 03 is the twitter-using guy who doxxed a kid to death. there's a fucking smokers club (05, 07 and 09). fun stuff all around

the thing is that the literal last character of the roster to be judged is a Justice Fanatic who got forgiven!! guess what she did to those who weren't.

long story short she got 03 blind in one eye, 06 now has a broken arm + bruised ribs + concussion iirc, 08 is a kid so she got skipped, and 09 fought back but you can see it took a lot.

why aren't any of them dead? the resident medic 05 was judged forgiven so he was free to help them.

there's no conclusion, *gestures at all of them* i just think they're neat

[cockroachmotherfucker10]

PRIDEFALL UPDATE: real or fake?

What is Pridefall?

Operation Pridefall, also known as Project Pridefall or simply Pridefall, refers to an attack planned by /pol/ (a political discussion board on the anonymous website 4chan) for all of June, AKA Pride month. The original 4chan thread, which has since been deleted, was primarily focused on “redpilling,” i.e. spreading queerphobic propaganda to make people question the LGBTQ+ community. However, now that it has spread outside 4chan, there are threats of harassing, doxxing, and outing queer people (especially minors) on social media, spamming gore and rape videos in private messages and Pride tags, and even kidnapping, assaulting, or killing queer people in real life.

Specific targets include Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and dating apps. The goal is to go after smaller accounts so the queerphobia isn’t lost in the comments.

Is Pridefall real?

Yes and no.

I searched “pridefall” on 4chan last night. Apparently any new threads on it are being deleted, and anytime someone mentions it, everyone calls them slurs and says no one is doing it.

However, Pridefall is gaining some traction on Instagram--I have seen it for myself. I don’t have TikTok or any dating apps, but I’ve heard that some people are spamming homophobia on TikTok. As for Twitter, I only looked briefly, but I saw some Pridefall accounts there, as well as a lot of warnings and blocklists from people who are worried about it.

I’ve also heard that there have been a few Reddit and Discord raids, and that there is an Operation Pridefall Discord server (someone who spied on them says they have been banned on Discord as well as a platform called Riot before, so very few people are left on the Discord server now).

What do you think, Lia?

This is not coming from 4chan. No one on 4chan is interested anymore.

Most likely, people outside of 4chan heard about it and decided to take matters into their own hands.

The original 4chan thread wanted to make Pridefall “normie-palatable” by avoiding Nazi imagery or other overt unpleasantness, but I have seen a LOT of both on Instagram. This reinforces my belief that 4chan isn’t doing this.

A lot of the people behind this are young, or at least unsophisticated. Most of the Pridefall accounts on Instagram engage in very childish trolling, and one of them said they were a minor. Some of the threats I’ve seen are so outlandish that I can only imagine they came from a fairly young person.

My guess? Most of these people are around 13-19.

There are also very few of them and some of them probably have multiple accounts. Anti-Pridefall accounts outnumber them by far.

However, on Instagram I’ve seen Pridefall accounts following each other and commenting on each other’s posts, so there may be a few groups working together.

A lot of this shit is going to get deleted. I know Instagram is working through reports very slowly right now because they have fewer people available due to COVID-19, but most of the worst accounts I saw last night were deleted by this morning. I saw some more accounts deleted today.

Most, if not all, of these Pridefallers are just trying to scare us. Because they’re probably quite young, there’s very few of them, their accounts keep getting deleted, and law enforcement can track online activity, there is no way they have the balls or resources needed to coordinate major attacks.

There is a very, very slight chance this could spill over into real life, but as long as you practice basic online safety, you will be fine.

That being said, if you are threatened or doxxed by a Pridefall account, PLEASE contact the police. Better safe than sorry.

I do think that the threat of being doxxed or outed is more real than the threat of being attacked. I have already seen one Pridefall account who posted a trans boy’s address on Instagram (he is okay, he posted recently) and another who posted someone else’s address.

There is little chance this will last throughout Pride month. Apparently the goal is for Pridefall to worsen until the end of June, but given that this is most likely just some vastly outnumbered teenage trolls who are bored in quarantine, I seriously doubt they’ll be able to stay interested for a whole month.

This might not be as big on Tumblr. Tumblr is a lot more anonymous than, say, Instagram, which will hopefully deter would-be doxxers. It’s also known to be a highly liberal and queer-friendly site, so any Pridefaller with half a brain cell should know that A) their content is sure to be outnumbered and reported (only us Tumblr users know how bad staff is at deleting questionable stuff), and B) anyone with the original goal of “redpilling” is sure to fail here. Plus, I only remember seeing few, if any, mentions of Tumblr on Pridefall planning threads.

Still, expect to see some Pridefall activity here. Unsurprisingly, not all of these Pridefallers have half a brain cell. Some of them will definitely be unable to resist the lure of a community as openly queer as Tumblr, and we’ve all seen or heard about doxxing, harassment, gore, Nazis, and queerphobes on here. Also, 4chan has historically had some beef with Tumblr, so young teenage boys who idolize 4chan may target us for that reason.

How can I stay safe?

If you have any social media accounts where you A) have posted identifying personal information, and B) are openly supportive of the LGBTQ+ community (especially if you’re queer yourself), put them on private for June. Any other accounts are probably fine to stay public.

If you need a private Tumblr, you can make a password-protected secondary account and only share the password with mutuals you trust.

It is probably okay to be openly queer on a private account (e.g. have pronouns/rainbow emojis in your Instagram bio), since a private account is not likely to be doxxed. But if you want to be extra careful, remove queer identifiers from anything that is publicly visible.

Use Pridefall blocklists. They’re all over Instagram and Twitter. I may repost some here.

Report any Pridefall accounts you see. This is VERY important because this is how we can actually get rid of Pridefall content.

DON’T RESPOND TO ANY PRIDEFALLERS WHO PERSONALLY INTERACT WITH YOU. I know it’s tempting to give a snarky reply, but if they message you, comment on your post, etc, just block them. Seriously, don’t feed the trolls. It's exactly what they want.

Make sure your password game is strong. Use a different password for every site (I know, I know, it sucks), and use passwordmeter.com to test their strength. Write them all down on a piece of paper.

Make sure your username game is strong. Don’t use the same username for multiple sites, and avoid putting personal information in your username, such as your name or birthday.

Do NOT open random links!! Pridefallers could message you links that will give you viruses or track your IP address.

Don’t accept DMs or follows from people you don’t know. Pridefall accounts don’t always look like Pridefall accounts. Some of them are undercover.

Use a VPN. This is probably a little overkill unless you’re particularly at risk of being doxxed, but it will hide your IP address.

Be careful who you interact with. A lot of queer people on Instagram are DMing Pridefall accounts or commenting on their posts, but this could make you a target. As helpful as anti-Pridefall accounts are, you might even be targeted for following those.

Be wary of Pride tags. Unfortunately, a lot of Pridefall accounts plan to infiltrate tags commonly used by queer creators during Pride month. Use discretion when looking for queer content.

Be safe IRL. Lock your doors, lock your windows, be aware of your surroundings, don’t walk alone in poorly lit places, know basic self-defense, etc. Again, I absolutely do not think people will be attacked in real life, but you should be doing this shit all the time, not just in June. Thanks to COVID-19, you’re safer inside anyway!!

Make yourself hard to dox. Even though I have a very unusual first name (it's not really Lia), I am extremely hard to find online. I just went into an incognito browser window and searched my first and last name in quotation marks, but I didn’t find myself until page 4 of Google (and that result wasn’t even posted by me). I’m only half as careful as I could be, but here’s some of the things I do:

-I never use a picture of myself as my profile pic, except for Facebook and Instagram, which are both on the highest privacy settings possible.

-If I post identifying information on a public account (my college, my age, etc), I use a pseudonym or my first name only.

-On Instagram, I only use my first name, and I used special characters to type it, so you won’t find me if you search my name.

-On Facebook, I only accept friend requests from people I know. Most, if not all, of my Instagram followers are IRL friends, friends of IRL friends, and trusted Internet friends.

-If I’m really being paranoid, I’ll make a brand-new email account to sign up for a site. That way, my accounts aren’t all linked through one email address.

-Before I post a picture online, I delete the EXIF data with verexif.com, since EXIF data can hold GPS coordinates.

🌈 Stay safe, everyone.

You will not be harmed. You will be okay. Like cockroaches, we are survivors, and we will get through this!! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

-Mod Lia

[catintheruemorgue]

Random azz headcanons!!

warning: suicide on dazai’s part (very last one), swearing

an: in one whole day i’ve been told i may have covid, my wallet got stolen (tho they only took my bank card and id), my car wouldn’t start and i got bad news but honestly this was just a normal day for me!! (i literally have the worst luck it’s almost funny) anyways i thought of stupid social media headcanons.. this is mainly just crack !! :)

•the ADA have game nights and sometimes play among us (rarely because if Ranpo plays he just calls an emergency meeting and calls out the imposter, “Atsushi your leg is shaking..” so it’s only when he’s too sleepy to join.) If Dazai and Kunikida get imposter duo Dazai will accuse Kunikida immediately but not even for the kill he’ll just say he vented in front of him, which then in turn causes kunikida to start yelling that it's him. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBJbyuspGVo) think this clip.

•Ranpo once found Poe’s myspace from when he was 16 and proceeded to almost bust a lung at all the edgy poetry and how he called his followers his “Ravens” The best part though, was the profile picture. As if Ranpo hadn't humiliated him enough he printed it out and framed it on his work desk. Poe just about passed out seeing the very photo that haunted his memories sitting on his rivals desk for everyone to see-- Poe in a black hoodie, hood pulled up with one eye covered. The word “pain” was edited across the photo in gothic, cursive looking font.

•Mark Twain loves the song Breakeven by The Script. (this isnt social media but so fucking important.)

•If it weren't for opposing sides Chuuya and Mark would be best friends. Chuuya loves his adventurous attitude and thinks the guy is just really awesome. They would have sleepovers where they would sing songs like Fuck You by Ceelo Green and Gives You Hell by All-American Rejects. Chuuya always posts them belting the lyrics on his story on snapchat and when people from the Port Mafia slide up and say something along the lines of “uhhh? This is sus..” Chuuya sends back a huge paragraph on how they are just jealous they don't have an amazing best friend like he does, and that they should be careful, he's still their superior.

•Yosano constantly is fighting with racists and bigots on facebook and will always talk to Atsushi about it for hours. He's awkward but thankful that she keeps him informed. She's very good at arguing and will rip apart disrespectful men when given the chance but has a hard time fighting women. When it comes to fighting a woman she will recruit Ranpo to sit over her shoulder and give her advice on what to say. Some of the things will warrant a light smack to the head.

•Mori’s most used app is Turbo Tax and nobody knows why.

•Oda loves to leave long in depth reviews for items he's purchased, he doesn't even try to be funny but sometimes Dazai sends him screenshots saying “Is this your review?”

•Gin, Tachihara and Hirotsu all downloaded Life 360 and have fun tracking where each other are. All of them have labeled the Port Mafia headquarters as “Hell”. Also Tachi and Hirotsu would get so confused when Gin was always with Akutagawa after hours.

•Kouyou has a blog where she helps people solve their issues. She's rarely on it but when she is she's always giving the best advice. She also reviews soaps and oils.

•Fitzgerald got doxxed and freaked out because he didn't know that was a thing. He immediately replied with “How do you know that ?” Not knowing there could be consequences for bullying for kids online.

•Atsushi accidentally joined a pyramid scheme but when he tried to sell Yosano something she was there, again, to inform him that it was an MLM. “No Atsushi-kun, that one's not good either.” Much better than Tanazaki who didn't know any better (and bought so much stuff) or Dazai who just thought it was funny.

•Poe has a snapchat but has left people on delivered for weeks to months at a time. The only person he actually responds to is Ranpo, but even then sometimes he leaves him on read (very rarely).

•Fyodor always starts his posts with, “unpopular opinion but..” and if he doesn't like someone's statement he’ll end whatever he has to say with, “Spit.” With an eye rolling emoji.

•One time Akutagawa made a bare ass instagram just to dm Atsushi, “I will get you.” The tiger boy just added Dazai to the chat who, for the hell of it, added Chuuya and proceeded to cuss them both out. Not surprisingly Atsushi had to beg Dazai and Chuuya to block one another while ignoring Akutagawa’s threats.

•Dazai is only famous on twitter because his suicidal tweets are “relatable” and because he’s attractive. He actually secretly gets super pissed because he doesn’t think his pain is “relatable” but will tease people with remarks like, “Make way, celebrity coming through!” when he shows up late for work.

[svbatomic]

as someone who has been on stan twt on and off since 2017, mcyttwt is by far the worst and most genuinely mentally damaging stan twt community i’ve ever been in. like to the point that after four years of being a stan twitter user mcyttwt was the only fandom that made me so stressed all the goddamn time that i had to leave the whole app for good. and like a big reason for that (and also a big part of the reason that i think the culture there is the way it is on there) is that mcyttwt actively rewards you for being terminally online (i am about to complain now btw so uh . mcyttwt refugee rant incoming below the cut)

the only reason i was on mcyttwt for so long (until late february/early march i think) is bc i couldn’t talk to my friends about mcyt irl as i would honestly get unironically bullied if i told anyone i’m a Cringe Social Reject Dream Stan Tm (not trying to imply dsmp stans r like. oppressed or some shit i just am well aware of the fact that everyone fucking hates us lol) and so i was like cool i can have a community of ppl who share my interests online and still have friends irl and it’ll be great

but bc of the weird ass performative culture around cancelling and shit on twitter it got to the point where i couldn’t do that anymore bc mcyttwt lowkey punishes you for having a life outside of it. like i would be inactive for a weekend bc i was hanging out w my irl best friend and come online to see i’d lost sixty mutuals and been @.ed in like three pissed off callout threads bc a cc or fan that i followed made one kinda dodgy joke and i didn’t unfollow them immediately bc i had a fucking life outside twitter and that meant i was problematic by way of inaction. and pretty quickly it went from shit like this happening once every couple weeks to every single fucking day.

and like the standards for what necessitated cancellation were so fucked. i had one mutual who had like a hundred followers who said she thought schlatt was funny on other people’s streams and got told to kill herself in the replies. at the same time i had an ex-mutual who would regularly post shit that doxxed schlatt and everyone was more or less okay with it. and unless you were online 24 fucking 7 it was impossible to keep up with all the different people you were supposed to be soft-blocking and hard-blocking and educating-not-cancelling, and you will absolutely get in trouble for inevitably falling behind

idk tldr that app is fucking insane to the point that i get actual anxiety from opening it and the only reason i was even on there for as long as i was is bc i felt like if i wasn’t on twt i wouldn’t have any outlet to discuss my interest in mcyt which is why i’m so glad that i said fuck it and redownloaded tumblr from back when i was a marvel blog bc like. towards the end it didn’t even feel like i was running a stan account it felt like i was a one man pr team with a minecraft profile pic

[kryptonite-cutie]

I never thought I would have to make another post about this but it’s getting personal now.

I’m going to put a trigger warning of SA and Rape so y’all were warned.

This artist @vmiae had already been attacked a lot recently for posting a fan art they created over a ship they feel passionate about.

Now anyone who has been in tumblr long enough know exactly how toxic and dangerous tumblr is when it comes to ship wars, and Twitter is even worse. This artists has received threats to their life, exposition of their personal information, been purposefully misgendered, and had jokes made about their sexual assault. I now have also received hate messages and frankly disgustingly ignorant anon messages that are attacking me personally for just rebloggjng their art.

This is not okay.

It is one thing to criticise art, but to actively attack and attempt to dox an artist for posting fan art and even go as far as to attack the people who reblog and share it. I’m not heavily apart of the ACOTAR and TOG fandoms but when I tell you that these are the single most toxic fandoms I have even been near. Anf that’s coming from someone who watched everything that happened with the Harry Potter fandom and the rest go down. Take the time to evaluate yourself and think about the fact you are sending hate and death threats and the like to strangers on the internet over a fictional story. Over fictional characters. In a fictional relationship.

This kind of shit does actually make people kill them selves. Y’all preach mental health but turn a blind eye when your actions cause harm to someone else mental health. Unpack, evaluate your toxicity and make changed for the better. Because this isn’t good enough people.

[hazymultiverse]

What would La Squadra's daughters be like when their young adults I feel like all of them would have some very interesting daughters?

Me, five seconds after seeing this ask: okay haze,,,, you have a bunch of other requests that have been waiting,,, don’t write your weird genderbend alternate universe domestic au headcanons reskinned as their daughters. It was a fun daydream while it lasted but no one is gonna care about-

My hands, already typing: ROLLER DERBY!

Risotto Nero: Risottos daughter is still quiet as she gets older, but doesn’t take any shit. Knows plenty of self defense, and keeps a knife she got for one of her birthdays on her at all times. Probably plays bass and her only makeup experience is corpse paint and over the top eyeliner for going to underground metal shows. She begged her dad for a dog in her early teens, and it’s absolutely massive, but a huge sweetheart. Has a great relationship with her dad, even though they don’t know exactly how to talk to each other.

Formaggio: Oh this girl is something else. Cannot keep her mind or focus on one thing at any time, she’ll tell you seven different stories in the process of telling one, and she won’t even finish half of them. She’s a killer hair stylist, seeing as she’s learned to shave designs into her own head, and into her dads. Says pog unironically, and has a shit ton of pins and cute charms on her backpack. Her and dad are best buds, and they prank each other constantly.

Prosciutto: Pros’ daughter is the type of girl at school that you can’t tell whether she’s really cool, or outright terrifying. Her style is immaculate, her makeup is precise, she can run full speed in heels, and if she hears you talking shit she will end your fucking life. She’s really apathetic about most people though, and puts up cold fronts in front of her friends. But they’ve come to learn her specific brand of friendship and affection. She’s probably bailed half the other girls out of jail before. Her and Prosciutto have an... interesting relationship. It’s not bad per se, but they have some conflicting opinions, and they’re both rather stubborn about being ‘right’. Lord help you if they team up.

Pesci: she’s short, thick, and pure muscle, covered in bandaids half the time and roller skates daily. She’s on her local roller derby team! She doesn’t always know her own strength, and she’s absolutely solid, so her hugs can be a bit painful if she isn’t careful, but she’s real sweet. Missing a tooth from when she got dared to hold onto a friends car while in her skates, but she’s never really been self conscious about it. Her and her dad take fishing trips together, mostly catch and release though, she feels too bad to actually kill them.

Illuso: she’s either into a very specific, very refined style of dance, or serious martial arts. Either way, she probably has a bunch of medals because she’s better than you, and she wants you to know that. She has this look that makes you think she’s about to insult you at all times, and she probably is. Uses an odd mix of twitter slang and really old phrases like “groovy” and “copacetic”. Makes all her insults sound like compliments (wow, I wish I had your confidence to wear that in public) and probably has screenshots saved about you just waiting for the moment she can strike. Her and her dad are at each other’s throats a lot with typical teen drama, but every so often they bond with the ancient art of judging people together.

Melone: absolute prodigy child, and knows too much. Instead of using this ability to get into a prestigious school or graduate early or something, she’s decided to use it for more fun purposes. Queen of blackmail, people pay her to dox people online or create some of the most convincing deepfakes you’ll ever see. Melone did not openly encourage this, but also doesn’t discourage it either, he’s thrilled at some of the choices she’s made, and looks forward to seeing how she keeps going. Her and Mel don’t act like a parent and child, but they have a good relationship. Though, they almost seem to treat the other like an experiment sometimes.

Ghiaccio: From the start, Ghia was protective, and that may have caused a few issues, but they’ve surprisingly worked it out faster than most because they never stopped talking to each other. She did hockey and softball when she was younger, and some acrobatics classes. A real athlete even through college. At some point she taught herself sign language so she could keep yelling at people even when she was told to quiet down. Her and her dad get along pretty well, though it gets explosive when they don’t.

Sorbet and Gelato: Their kid seems to be their opposite at first, kind, soft, caring and a general ‘good girl.’ But if you stay in the same room as them long enough, you know better. She’s a demon in disguise, but no one would ever dare claim her to be at fault, because she seems so sweet! She couldn’t have possibly done anything! But you know better. She collects things in shoeboxes under her bed. You don’t want her to show it off, no one does. She has Gelatos laugh, but Sorbets smirk, a chilling combination. She doesn’t really talk to her parents in front of people, but they always exchange knowing looks.

[idratherlivefreetofail]

I’m just gonna write for a little bit because this is on my mind and I originally wrote out this post a few days ago but tonight something else happened related to this. I just want to get my feelings and thoughts on this out there somewhere and off of my chest. I’m not gonna use any tags and I’m gonna try to slightly censor names so this post doesn’t pop up in any tags even if I don’t tag the post. I’m also gonna put it under read more too. 

So there’s been a lot of drama around Scott**Cawth*on lately, the creator of the F*NAF series. He was trending on Twitter a lot recently because information got out that he donated money to M*itch*McC*onnell and T*rump and democratic politicians that don’t support trans people. He posted a response about this a few days ago basically being upfront and honest that yes he did do this but not because he wanted to hurt the lgbtq+ community or other minorities or because he supported these politicians social views but because he felt like they’d be the best to help the economy. There’s a lot more too it than that and his words are much better than how I could describe or explain it. But after reading it and reading some of the responses to it and now he’s retiring...  I honestly feel super conflicted about this whole situation...

On the one hand, I don’t necessarily think that Scott is a bad person or a bigot, but he did do bigoted actions. He’s done a lot of genuinely good things and I think most situations have more to them then just what’s on the surface. I honestly think he was trying to do what he personally thought was right but it feels like he’s just ignorant on how what he did contributes to oppression in America. I don’t even hate the people who accept his response and still want to support him either. I’ve seen many different types of people still support him. I appreciate him being honest and actually responding to it though. Plus anyone who doxxed him over this and sent him death threats and made him and his pregnant wife’s lives feel like they’re in danger before there was a even a response or explanation, deserves a serious fuck you! How can you sit there advocating for human rights and people to be treated equally when you do that sort of shit?! That’s crossing the line! You’re no better than some of the bigots out there if you think threating to kill someone would ever make them want to support you! Plus how do you think that makes people in these minorities look too? But on the other hand, it doesn’t matter what his intentions were. People have a right to be angry at him, upset with him, criticize him and not support him in the future anymore. He actively supported people who have done horrible things and continue to do horrible things. People who actively want to hurt people in US and want certain groups of people to not exist. Especially people of color and the people in the lgbtq+ community! Anyone who thinks this is people “canceling him” because of his views and because he’s a republican, DO NOT understand why this a big deal or why so many people are hurt by these actions! It’s so much more than just a difference of views or opinions. Which shouldn’t even be considered political or opinions in the the first place! People’s rights are not fucking pizza toppings or ice cream flavors! People fighting for their rights to live and fucking exist in peace shouldn’t be considered politics! I don’t give a shit that he’s a republican, I give a shit over him supporting people who want people like my sisters to not have rights! Do I think democratic politicians are that much better? No and I think not enough people who aren’t bigoted criticize them when they do something shitty. I don’t even hate republicans because I know there’s some who aren’t bigoted and don’t support these politicians. I think politics have problems all across the board and now turned into this fucked up game of “pick the one YOU think is less shitty! ;D” It’s a big mess. Plus I’m sorry but donating a ton of money to charity also doesn’t excuse horrible actions. There’s been a ton of shitty people who donated to charity to make themselves look better. Not saying that’s what Scott did, I’m just saying that reasoning is a bad excuse when you use it on people being critical of him. Just because you admire someone or like what they create doesn’t mean they can do no wrong. Sometimes you need to be critical of them and call them out when they do something genuinely bad. Yes there’s people who are against him that have gone too far with that. But I’ve seen so many of the people supporting Scott just brush off his bad actions like they aren’t a big deal at all and I think it kind of gross. All I ask is for people to think for themselves in the situation and be open to listening other perspectives

It’s all such conflicting feelings for me personally and honestly I don’t know how to feel because I understand all the feelings and perspectives from each side. Plus this disappointment hits me personally because I genuinely enjoy f*naf and the things Scott’s created and what those games inspired people to create. There’s a YouTuber I really enjoy who does mostly f*naf videos and I’m sitting here wondering if I should still watch him. I had a huge hyperfixation on with fnaf during a time where I wasn’t really letting myself enjoy anything a few years ago. If it wasn’t for these games I never would’ve discovered Seán and his videos. If you’ve been following me for a long time, you KNOW why that’s a huge deal for me! I guess it’s a case of separating the art from the artist but still. This is really conflicting for my own morals and my own empathy, I don’t know how to feel about it. I’m just conflicted and disappointed. I don’t want to support Scott in the future though and that’s my own opinion. 

[burakku-jakku]

Defending myself/explaining the controversy

This has to do with recent drama, so I’ll post this under the cut since it’ll be long and I know some people won’t want to see what’s mentioned. I’ll also be taking a break from managing this blog, while I do have posts queued, I will be quiet. I will also be turning off anonymous asks, as I don’t want to be threatened with doxxing or sent death threats.

I’m going to write a brief summary of what’s going on. I used to have an Osamu Tezuka server, I made it when I was 17 and it was the first time I had a server this big to run by myself. I had one before, but it was a small, private one for friends. This was the first time I had a public one where anyone could join. I didn’t really know what I was doing, and because of this, there were some bad people and some stuff that slipped through the cracks. I did later add a second moderator, but when this server just started, I was the only moderator. One of these less than favorable people was Ray @/Meloncrab who was 26 at the time of joining. Ray loves Rock, whose canonically 17 years old, the age I was at the time. No big deal, but Ray would often post graphic NSFW and fetish drawings of Rock and show them to me.

I was 17, and I thought they were weird, but I didn’t really care. I didn’t see a problem with this, but I should’ve. The server has since bee deleted, and I don’t have archives of any of the pornography she drew, but I do have archives of the fetish art she made. This was posted to a Rock Holmes blog run by her.  

I did get complaints from other people about Ray’s behavior. She acted like this server was the Rock server, and if you said anything bad about Rock, she’d get very mad. Even though Rock has canonically murdered and raped people. I should’ve banned her sooner, but I was 17 at the time and I thought that was mean. Again, this was the first time I had run a server by myself, and I didn’t want to ban someone unless it was absolutely necessary. I didn’t think her behavior of “showing NSFW art to someone nine years younger than you and a minor” was bad. 

Long story short, I did eventually ban Ray, but she started saying awful things about me on her twitter account and I had to jump in with a callout post, which I posted in November of last year, where I was now 18. What I didn’t know was Ray, who again, had a full time job and was nine years older than me, had been lurking and stalking me on my social media accounts. While it seemed like she vague posted about me once a week, I never said anything publicly about her since November of 2019.

Anyways, jump all the way to October 4th, almost a year later. A member of my server left and claimed I was sexually harassing them and that I was a pedophile. This member was Mars @/Missilemarz who is 17. After Ray had left, I had gotten a lot better about making it clear members could only post NSFW images only in the NSFW chat. However, I wasn’t that clear about NSFW text. Some members (including myself) have been known to occasionally do this. Again, I just turned 19 as of writing this, so I should’ve known better. However, over time, I got better about handling this.

However, Mars was rarely apart of these conversations, and only ever made it clear once that she was uncomfortable. She never contacted me or Jay (the other moderator) that she was uncomfortable. If she had done this, I would’ve made it a more strict rule. Like I said, she only said she was uncomfortable once. When she did, I was quick to warn the user and correct the situation. I’m the member named Rie by the way. 

Mars left quietly and didn’t tell anyone, I had no idea she left until I got messages from my friends telling me people were threatening to doxx them and telling them to kill themselves. One of my friends, whose suicidal, has been really effected by these. I’ve calmed her down since, but you shouldn’t claim you’re a victim and then tell my friends they’re better off dead and that you’re going to doxx them. While I do agree that I should’ve been more strict, I would’ve done so if she made it more clear she was uncomfortable. She is making a big deal out of something that could’ve easily been handled if she contacted me or Jay (other moderator).

Ray (now 28) whose drawn fetish art and NSFW drawings of a 17 year old, is now defending the 17 year old and going after me. Ray is calling me a pedophile even though she showed me, when I was 17, very graphic Rock NSFW drawings. You accuse me of these things, then write about how you want a 17 year old to get all fat and bloated. Again, I can’t prove this since the server was deleted, but I have other people I know who can back me up. I will say that at the time I made the callout post for Ray, I got similar anonymous asks on my own blog. I don’t know if Ray sent these, if Mars sent these, or one of their friends did. 

I deleted the sever because of doxx threats, and I didn’t want my friends to feel unsafe. I will say, I’m sorry for poor server management, but I want an apology for threatening to doxx and kill my friends. Maybe you didn’t send these, but someone you know certainly did. I want you to apologize for something that could’ve easily been handled if you contacted one of the moderators. I want you to apologize for making my friends feel unsafe over something that, again, could’ve easily been handled. I will drop all of this once you drop this and stop harassing my friends. 

[infinitecrime]

Do you think all this craziness and the cancellation attempt will affect Seb's career and reputation in the long run?

Career and reputation? No. Mental health and relationship with the fans? Abso-fucking-lutely.

His career won’t suffer at all because a) he didn’t actually do anything and b) despite how loud we are and how big we seem when you’re in the middle of things, fandom is a minuscule proportion of movie-goers, and the insane people trying to cancel him are an even smaller proportion of that. His agency, Marvel, Disney, potential employers - I doubt they will ever see any of this, and if they do, they will see it for what it is: completely ridiculous. In 3 months we’ll look back on this like “lol remember when people tried to end seb’s career and get him to kill himself because he made out with someone who once wore a kimono?”.

His reputation won’t suffer for much the same reasons. If you read the few smallish articles that have been published about the #SebastianStanIsOverParty shit, every single one is completely on his side or at least neutral, and refers to ‘trolls’, ‘obsessed fans’ and ‘attempts’ to cancel him while gratuitously throwing around ‘allegedly’ and ‘fans claim’. Perhaps because they were written by adults with jobs who can approach these things maturely and think critically.

His mental health? My god, I hope he hasn’t seen any of this. But he must be aware of at least some of it by now. At the very least his team will need to inform him of the threats on his life and the fact that his address was leaked so he can take precautions to keep himself safe. I cannot imagine how terrifying this all would be, or the mental toll of knowing thousands of people think you are evil for something you didn’t even do, or the toll of knowing that you can now face insane consequences for not only your own human mistakes but for the actions of everyone you interact with. The #RIPSebstianStan tag is deeply disturbing to me, and if I woke up to see #RIPMyName trending with photoshopped memorials and eulogies, I’d be fucking terrified to leave the house. I don’t mean to be melodramatic but I genuinely do worry for him, especially since he has been open about his struggles with mental health. I hope he just sics his lawyers on them, puts his phone on aeroplane mode and kicks back with a cocktail, and that his friends remind him of the type of person he really is: not always perfect, but kind and caring and doing his best.

His relationship with the fans will deteriorate even further. He already pulled back massively a few years ago - not interacting with fans at all, not answering DM’s or replying to comments, not even liking and commenting on his own friends posts. I think he probably asked friends to avoid posting about him and tagging him some time ago, because they used to do so regularly and now they rarely do. He’ll probably enforce this even harder. If I were him, I wouldn’t feel safe or comfortable doing conventions anymore. I would probably limit all non-necessary, non-work interactions with the public. The irony is that by doing this to protect himself and his mental health, it will only piss off the entitled, obsessive “we made you, you owe your career to us, post what we want when we want it” crowd more. I would not be surprised if he completely deleted Instagram before the year is up - but maybe not, because he would be removing his only contact with the public, and his only means of defending himself from things like this and the fake photoshopped shit people come up with like clockwork. I also can’t imagine him ever doing anything - One Minute Men, interviews, insta lives, photographs - from his apartment, (assuming he gets a new one soon since he was doxxed), ever again. I think we will get even less details about his private life than we did before, because we clearly cannot be trusted with them.

I also can’t imagine him ever having a public relationship again. I genuinely don’t think twitter would ever let him be happy. Even if he found a woman (or man, idk his life) that had a squeaky clean, ideologically pure twitter account and had never made a mistake or been ignorant about anything in their life, they would almost certainly just photoshop something or make shit up, and the abuse would start all over again because no one has any sense of proportion or critical thinking. And what woman would put up with this level of abuse and craziness at the start of a new relationship, knowing it can only get worse, even though it’s not his fault the ‘fans’ are like this?

[onisiondrama]

Link

Notes:

Greg / James says if anyone online is being negative to you then they show up at your house that’s stalking or harassment. This person said they were following him for days, that’s stalking. Asked how you could give that information to a stalker (I think he’s talking about the 9-1-1 call.) He wonders how Youtube is ok with this. They talk about how Post Malone sued Jake Paul for filming his house. Someone says Chirs Hansen filmed Greg’s house then posted it to Youtube. Says he bragged about it, asks how it’s allowed.

He lists negative things that have been in the news about Chris Hansen. Cheating on his wife, being evicted, owing a credit card company money, etc. Says let’s say someone did that and he felt like showing up to their house after making a series of hateful videos about them. Says he would be in jail. He says anyone else would have been in jail. Someone asks if Chris Hansen has a journalistic license to do that and Greg says no. He says Chris’ show was canceled because someone killed themselves and was sued for $100 million so he is done. Asks where his credibility is. Points out the likes to dislikes ratio (on Chris Hansen’s 9-1-1 call video I think) is mostly likes and asks if the world lost its mind.

Someone tries to bring up the lawyer but Greg says he doesn’t care. He just wants nothing to do with this person. Says showing up to someone’s house is what psychos do. It’s creepy. Says he’s freaked out by the boundaries that were crossed and there is just cheering. Says it’s like Trump would still be elected if he shot someone. Morals are gone. Nothing matters anymore, only what satisfies people to get their entertainment kick. People aren’t people anymore. Someone says that’s the whole internet and Greg says that’s why you handle shit in real life. If you have a problem with someone, you use the legal system. Don’t make video after video after video.

Greg says people just want to be mad at someone for shit that isn’t even real. Says he’s heard stories about himself for 8 years and was always surprised with what people came up with. Says people are always mad, but they can’t do anything legally because it’s not about real shit.

Compares his situation to when PewDiePie was robbed. Says people aren’t being compassionate because they don’t see celebrities as people.

Says he doesn’t know the full story about the lawyer and it’s none of his business. Asks why people are obsessed with going after people when they don’t know the full story. Says everyone went after James Charles without knowing the full story.

Says the problem with coming back (I think he means fighting back) is that you are directly hurting someone. Says Tati got a ton of hate when James Charles came back. It’s always hurting someone, but people will keep hurting you if you don’t come back. Everyone wants to hate someone, it’s one or the other person. Says what if the other person has a mental disorder or was suicidal, would you want to fight back? If he was in that situation he would rather let people hate him.

Greg says he could fight back and violate non-disclosure agreements, but he prefers not not engage. Says there is a guy who is now showing up at his doorstep to get his side of the story. You can’t bully someone to entertain your audience and to make you money.

Says people aren’t going after human traffickers or people that admitted to doing horrible things because it doesn’t sell video titles. People want to see people that know be torn apart.

Says he’s going to be a little woke. Says when he went after Social Repose and went after Eugenia Cooney for promoting eating disorders, you didn’t see him going after nobodies that were worse because he was talking about things that would get him clicks. People on Youtube don’t talk about things that really matter. Says it’s fake and they only do it for money. 

Says we were all drunk on self obsession and didn’t realize how shallow it is. Says the real world is more important than the internet. When he talks to people in real life, they listen to him. People on the internet only hear what they want to hear. Says that’s why you don’t do an interview with people who have more to gain from you being a monster then you being who you really are. That’s insane. Asks how bad would it be for them if they built a whole channel on you being a monster and you go on and show you are the opposite. 

Someone says he (chris hansen) would twist everything Greg would say. Greg says the fact that you could twist someone showing up to your house after you already threatened legal action against them and make yourself the good guy blows his mind. Says people have families and this is not a reality show. Says they are trying to collect profit and clout.

Someone says he did the right thing by calling the cops and Greg asks what was he supposed to, what would anyone do? 

Says person after person who came on the show had nothing to say because there’s nothing there. 

Says for most people, when they are on good terms with someone they say nice things about them. When you don’t want them in your life anymore, they’re going to make it like they hated you the while time.

Someone says they haven’t heard of half the people on the show, but now everyone knows their names and it was all for clout. Greg says, “you and me both.” Says he’s only had a conversation with half of the people on the show. Doesn’t know who the other people are. Says they don’t do any credential check to verify if that person was in your life, all they want is the number of women to go up.

Greg talks about his old tweet that said he’s a comedian because people will laugh when he dies.

Someone asked how long Greg was going to be in voice chat. He says until his heart feels better.

They talk about how being famous sucks.

Greg asks how many people Chris Hansen interviewed are innocent. Greg says zero because only someone dumb enough to be a criminal would be dumb enough to be interviewed by him. He says he demands they pay him because they are making money on everyone involved, including alleged victims. He says this is why you go through the legal system, so you don’t make money off people’s suffering. He says no one is willing to pay him or they would lose money. No one wants the real story unless they make money.

He says Youtube’s new anti-harassment policy only applies to targets people like. When someone people don’t like is harassed, people applaud.

Greg says as soon as he went to college everyone was civil, There were no bullies in college. Someone says they are in a sorority and Greg says they messed up his point because he remembered hazing is bullying. 

They talk about slut shaming and gender. He says slut shaming keeps people from making a lot of money online. Says he knew someone who made 20,000 a month and didn’t show nudity. (I’m not sure what his point was there.)

Says he tweeted about something nice someone he once knew said, but he forgot to crop the number at the top. He deleted it. Twitter didn’t do anything about it because it was an accident, but Patreon said he was using Patreon to fund doxing. He says it funded his projects and discord events and they still destroyed it.

Says he doesn’t understand what is wrong with his 9-1-1 call and why people meme’d it. He said he was polite and calm. Says he feels bad about talking about someone’s mental disorder, but you have to tell them the absolute truth. He told them so they could understand the situation and didn’t want it to be public. Now this person is going to be more upset.

Says he lost his desire to drag people online.

Says he used to make videos documenting things step by step and the first time the audience reaction was mostly people saying he was wrong was 2016. Before that everyone would say what he said was real.

Says there were two people on Hansen’s show that he bolt locked his door because he was afraid they were going to murder him in his sleep. Says he has a mental disorder, depression. He’s not better, but when you are afraid of someone you can’t have them in your life. Says it’s surreal he’s being made out to be a piece of shit for not allowing that in his life. (sure Jan)

Says when someone with a mental disorder is going through something and they are rejected it’s like Chernobyl. Someone says people literally go crazy and he agrees.

If he could go back in time he wouldn’t talk to anyone and to not make friends. If he collabed with someone he would only work with them professionally because when you get to know people you start to see the cracks so you don’t want to be with them anymore then the cracks gush all over you.

Says when he’s kicked out of someone’s life he looks at himself to see what he did wrong. Says he uses Hannah Minx as an example. Says she kicked him out of her life because he said “i love you” way too soon. He says he said “ok I fucked up” and that’s the end of it. (lol he talked about her for years) He said that’s how he likes to handle rejection. Says when you have depression you blame yourself more. 

Says everyone should ask how they should make them-self less toxic, but that’s not how you get video views.

[alexzalben]

Do you honestly think that the Riverdale writers are behaving respectfully towards their fans? I don't care about the ships, I am an adult, I watch shows for fun, but I've just been on socials and there is a grown man mocking and laughing at young girls. As a woman, I am really worried. Shouldn't they just avoid socials, if it's so bad?Teens might not be right, but do they deserve to be mistreated? Where do we draw the line? I am a long time Decider reader, really interested in your opinion here

First of all, thank you so much for reading, I appreciate it (as does the rest of the staff, I’m sure)!

Second of all, I don’t necessarily want to direct any specific comments about comments since I did not write them nor do I know the specific context behind them; but I do want to talk from my own experience for a moment here to hopefully give a little perspective.

So, I’ve been on the internet a long time. I was directing/writing/acting in viral videos that got millions of views on YouTube before we had the term “viral video.” I’ve been on Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr and whatever else for a long while. I’ve posted hundreds of podcasts, and performed thousands of live shows, and written thousands of articles. Mostly, people have been nice, whether in person or online. But I’ve also had, conservatively, hundreds of people threaten to kill me, tell me to kill myself, threaten my family, call me disgusting names, etc, etc. I’m not alone in this experience, and as a white man I have it infinitely easier than anyone else who doesn’t fit into those categories. I’m lucky, I guess, in that, thanks to a fluke of my birth people have only tried to hack my account and dox me a bunch of times, instead of every day incessantly.

This is all to say you would think I’d be used to this, and mostly I have taught myself over time to take a breath, block the account, and move on. Mostly. But sometimes... You don’t. Because you’re tired. Or you’re having an awful day. Or your boss yelled at you and you think you need to lash out at someone else in turn. Or the comment just rubs you the wrong way. Or you’re drunk. Or it’s a little too hot in your house. Or you think you’re being funny and it comes out wrong. Or, I dunknow, you’re just not thinking.

Does it make anything better? No. The biggest lesson I’ve learned in my life is that unless someone really, really deserves it, responding to anger with calm listening will always yield better results, because they’re not expecting it. They’re looking for a fight. That’s in person, though, and the internet is a different beast. It’s also just, as mentioned above, not always your reaction. Sometimes you can’t help yourself because you’re human.

I’d also venture based on my own experience that right now that is happening a lot more. Pretty much every human on Earth except for the total sociopaths are scared for their lives every single second of every day. That wears on you, and makes every emotion and reaction heightened.

This is a long way of saying that as much as possible, even when people lash out, I’ve tried to take the extra second on top of my usual second before reacting, because what we’re going through right now is catastrophically insane. Again, am I always successful? No. Did I wake up in a bad mood this very morning because I had horrible nightmares, yell at my kids for literally no reason, realize what I was doing, and then let them watch movies and eat popcorn all day because I felt awful in response? Yeah, man, that’s just where we’re at.

And that’s a long way of saying: is yelling at someone right? Is a grown man sniping at a kid good or correct? No. Can we always help ourselves? No, particularly not right now. Is this an excuse? No way! Even now, we need to own our actions. But is it an explanation? I think so. We’re all raw nerves, so if you see something that seems out of character, or more extreme than normal... Walk away, I think. Come back later. See if it’s the same. It probably won’t be. If it isn’t, understand that we never know what people are going through, even though we’re all going through the same thing. It’s just the same thing, in entirely different ways, on different schedules. And if we all take that extra second on top of the extra second before we engage, maybe it’ll get a little better. Probably not, because there are external forces at work we can’t control here. But maybe?

Anyway. Hope that all makes sense. If not, thanks for reading through my blather for a while, I appreciate it.

[casgirlsam]

Remember how you insulted pinkssunrise cause she tweeted that she likes Dean's character cause his hard past makes him more complex as a character. You said: "I relate to Dean. And saying trauma makes a fictional character more interesting is insulting to me! My trauma isn't here to be your fetish!" But you also tell in*est survivors that c*ld in*est p*rn is just a kink, cause the characters are fictional? So, you either think fiction relates to reality or it doesn't. Can't have it both ways

so i wasnt going to answer, but youve been going at my friends (and enemies) for months about this, so it ends here. also im using this as a way to educate people about proship points that apparently yall refuse to listen to.

edit: apparently the mobile cut shortcut doesnt work so semi-long post ahead!

firstly, the sweater situation:

what sweater ACTUALLY said was

she called dean’s trauma, trauma that is so similar to my own, “spice” that made him more interesting. she said jensen was “bland” because he had parents that loved and supported him

as you can see, my concern was more for the VERY REAL PERSON she insulted and the fact that she said jensen WAS BORING BECAUSE HE WASNT ABUSED AS A CHILD. now stop going to people with this very obvious lie

secondly, “STOP SAYING FICTION DOESNT AFFECT REALITY!”

i never said that. ever. doing a search under my @ on twitter shows everything i said about fiction and reality

ive complained about people blaming fiction on people doing bad things because it takes personal responsibility from the person and ive complained about rps shippers not understanding the difference between reality and their fictionalization of real people. but never have i said they don’t affect each other

there’s isn’t a 1:1 relationship between fiction and reality. it’s complex. fiction can help push ideas and propaganda. for example: every cop show ever is pro-cop propaganda. yes, even my two faves b99 and monk.

HOWEVER!

fiction does not always act in this manner. nor does it affect everyone the same way. i still enjoy these shows even tho they’re obviously painting cops as lovable goofs.

fiction also can help people understand themselves better. so clearly it’s not as simple as one extreme or the other.

hannibal and dexter, for example, didnt cause a rise in serial killers.

and you’ll find basically every out spoken proshipper makes this point, but most of them are on twitter so it’s not as easy to talk about complex issues there

anyway, it’s the same with fanfic. do you really think that fics with extremely dark concepts are going to cause people to go out there and do those things? do you really think someone is going to read a wincest fic and suddeny want to fuck their sibling? or an underage fic and suddenly wanna fuck a kid? i would hope not because that’s a ridiculous thing to say

and the important thing to note here is that these characters are just that. CHARACTERS. theyre not REAL. harassing/sending death threats/doxxing content creators, REAL LIVING BREATHING HUMANS, for things they make that you dont like is a hard line no one should ever cross and that EVERYONE should have a problem with. i don’t understand how thats a controversial statement. DONT FUCKING TELL PEOPLE TO KILL THEMSELVES JUST BECAUSE YOU DONT LIKE WHAT THEY DO WITH FAKE PEOPLE

you wanna fight ACTUAL predators? then do that. leave fan content creators alone.

and btw: yall only care about victims when they act like what you think victims should act like. newsflash: not every person reacts to trauma the same way and not every person copes the same way. stop harassing, often lgbt+, people that cope in ways using fiction that YOU PERSONALLY dont like

and stop LYING

[loudlytransparenttrash]

Goodbye 2019: A review of the lies that shaped the year

January

One Twitter user posted this thread, describing how there were “50-70 white men” wearing MAGA apparel who “surrounded us” and “sought to intimidate, mock and scare us” by “chanting ‘build the wall’ and “other trumpisms.” “The group was clearly looking for ANY opportunity to get violent,” they were “bumping into us and daring us to get physical.” Video was then clipped and shared on social media, the mainstream media spread the edited footage and within hours the story about “racist white MAGA hat wearing teens cornered an innocent Native elder while chanting build the wall” consumed the country.

Slate wrote an article comparing the student’s “cruelty” to Jim Crow mobs and neo-Nazis. BuzzFeed’s Anne Petersen tweeted how the students and Brett Kavanaugh are the epitome of “white patriarchy.” Kathy Griffin called for doxing the kids and Stormy Daniels in a now-deleted tweet fantasized about putting these children behind electrocuted walls. New York Times author Kurt Eichenwald wished that these kids should be doxed and denied work for the rest of their lives. Headlines included, “White students in MAGA hats taunt Native American elders,” “Covington Catholic High Student's White Privilege Didn't Win,” “White America, come get your children,” “White victimology, white privilege and the Covington Catholic rules of race,” “Boys Will Be Boys. Covington's Showed Yet Again Why Only White Boys Can Smirk Through That.”

The students and their families were doxed, harassed and threatened for weeks after. Covington Catholic High School was forced to close over security concerns. Then the original video was released that provided context: A group of Covington Catholic High School students went to the March for Life during a field trip to Washington, DC. While there, the students were confronted by the radical black supremacy group, Black Hebrew Israelites, where they were verbally harassed and racially abused, calling them crackers, fa*gots and told them to go find a school to shoot up. A black student was berated as a race-traitor and told his white classmates were going to harvest his organs. A Native activist later approached the kids and started continually banging a drum inches from their face. One student, Nick Sandmann, stood calmly in typical teenage bemusement. That’s it. That’s the story. Once it was realized not a single accusation made by the original poster or the media who spread it was true, everyone went silent, and despite many retractions, no apologies.

February

Empire actor Jussie Smollett was approached by two white men wearing Trump’s Make America Great Again caps and yelled racist and homophobic slurs at him before attacking him, dousing him with bleach and tying a noose around his neck, all while chanting, “This MAGA country!” Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Al Sharpton were among those calling it a modern-day lynching and evidence of the fear and hate black people live with. Harris and Booker even wrote an “anti-lynching bill.” Everybody gobbled this story up and quickly used it to push their idea that it said something more important about the state of race in the United States. Essentially they argued that Trump and his supporters are agitating for this kind of violence and, well, here it is.

Afterwards, Smollett proudly bragged how he had fought off his attackers to the loud cheers of a crowd, a true badass. He then appeared in an ABC interview where his eyes welled with tears as he recounted his traumatic experience and how defiant and inspirational he’s gotta be now. When asked why he thinks he was targeted, Smollett blamed Trump and his evil supporters.

But then some red flags started. 1. He held onto his sandwich during the attack and waited 45 minutes to call police. 2. When police arrived to take a report, Smollett asked that the officers turn off their body cameras. 3. He was still wearing the noose around his neck and wore it “like a tie” throughout their entire 40-minute interview. 4. He said he was on the phone with his manager when the attack happened but he refused to show his phone log to police. 5. He supposedly received a threatening letter a week prior to the “attack” which had child-like writing and drawings on it of his name and the word MAGA, and cliche magazine cutouts of letters pieced together to spell out “black fag.” In summary, we were supposed to believe white Trump supporters wearing MAGA hats were roaming around Chicago, carrying a noose, they saw Smollett, knew who he was, knew his show, his sexuality and singled him out for a lynching. 

As the police connected the dots, they found the whole thing was a giant hoax plotted by Smollett himself. When the “black fag” serial killer letter stunt failed to receive national attention, Smollett orchestrated the attack by paying two Nigerian brothers he worked with $3,500 to stage the attack on him while getting Subway. Chicago police spent days and worked overtime poring over security footage and devoting resources that could have been put toward real victims. On February 20, Smollett was charged with a class 4 felony for filing a false police report and was later indicted on 16 felony counts of false reporting. Smollett joined a long list of hate crime hoaxes since Trump took office. I can only assume because reality isn’t at all matching their delusion of the gloomy Nazi “MAGA country” they keep going on about, they’re forced to create these endless hate crime hoaxes to validate the delusion.  

March

After spending two years perpetuating allegations that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election from Hillary and wet dreams of Trump being removed from office and even imprisoned, the entire left, every Democrat and the mainstream media were visibly shaken by Mueller’s investigation ending with zilch. When the news broke that there would be no indictments against Trump nor anyone associated with his campaign, and Attorney General William Barr had exonerated him, those who were so certain of victory and so locked into their conspiracy, were once again forced into utter meltdown mode. Mueller spent tens of millions of dollars, employed 19 prosecutors, more than three dozen FBI agents and an analyst and issued 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants, 280 demands for phone and email records and interviewed 500 witnesses throughout the course of the investigation. No evidence was found.

There was however a major abuse of the rule of law by Obama administration officials and Department of Justice and FBI employees, a shameful politicization of the Russia investigation by Democrats and an end of journalistic integrity by many members of the media who all did their best to delegitimize and undermine the election. The DOJ and FBI used unverified research to obtain a court order to surveil the Trump campaign, and thereby obtain access to past campaign communications. In applying for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) order, the DOJ and FBI did not disclose to the secret surveillance court that the debunked Christopher Steele dossier (Trump/pissing prostitutes) was funded by the DNC and Clinton, the whole basis for the probe. The FISA application also did not inform the court of Steele’s bias and his desperation to keep Trump out of the White House. It was all a setup.

Since Election Day 2016, the Trump-hating political and media establishment have been in a cute relationship to achieve their desired end of destroying Trump. Their shared hatred of the man is indisputable. But the idea of them colluding in this information operation to maximum political and legal effect is altogether more disturbing. Russiagate put Trump’s presidency under a cloud of suspicion for more than half of his days in office, delaying his agenda through forcing the administration to expend valuable time and resources defending itself from the constant hounding. The Five F’s seems to be the Democrat’s only tactic, all they can do is deceive, degrade, deny, disrupt and hope that it all will eventually wear Trump down enough to ultimately destroy him.

April

On Easter Day, churches across Sri Lanka were targeted by radical Islamist suicide bombers. The Muslim terrorists walked into several crowded churches and murdered masses of people. They also targeted international hotels popular with Western travelers. The bombings marked the country’s deadliest violence in a decade, leaving 290 dead and over 500 injured. After the quick condemnation of white supremacy and Islamophobia after the Christchurch shootings a few weeks prior, the media and Democrats avoided at all costs condemning Islamic terrorism and recognizing the victims as Christians. A host of politicians such as Obama, Hillary Clinton and Julian Castro all refused to condemn Islamic terrorism and none called the victims Christians, while others such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Portland mayor Ted Wheeler stayed silent altogether. Christians being killed at the hands of Islamists goes against the entire left-wing doctrine, despite it happening all over the world. 

It’s not the only time we’ve seen the media and politicians cover for Islamic extremism. Under Obama, officials were so afraid of the phrase “Islamic terrorism” that they redacted the very mention of Islam and even Islamic State from the Orlando gay nightclub massacre transcripts, despite 49 people being killed and 50 others injured by a Muslim terrorist who had pledged allegiance to ISIS. In the UK, police and child protection workers were so afraid of the phrase “Islamophobia” that they ignored and refused to investigate Muslim human trafficking and child rape rings, allowing 1,400 young British girls to be raped with knives, bottles and their tongues nailed to tables. In Sweden, the police and media were so scared of “anti-immigration sentiment,” they covered up dozens of sexual assaults against teenage girls. Not wanting to make their new waves of Muslim refugees look bad, German media and the government also covered up mass sexual abuse across the country where 1,200 women were sexually assaulted and raped in just one night. Who exactly are we protecting by refusing to tell the truth and call something what it is?

May

Alyssa Milano, an actress who has been a valiant fighter for progressive causes, demanded for American women to undertake a “sex strike.” The idea is that women should not risk pregnancy until they have an insurance policy. Uh, so like exactly what Christian conservatives already believe in. There’s something funny about Milano embracing the banner of Christian conservatives in order to own Christian conservatives. Just like when Janelle Monáe advocated for women to go on a sex strike, saying that “people need to start respecting the vagina.” Once again, that’s what conservatives have already been screaming, respecting your vagina, respecting yourself, respecting sex and the good and bad product of sex. 

In championing this “revolutionary” concept of women withholding sex in order to attain bodily autonomy, Milano and her blue-check buddies unwittingly preached the same message you often hear during Sunday sermons, especially in youth groups. The Christian perspective posits that the way for women to attain bodily autonomy is to have self-control over your body and choices, to not give away your body so carelessly and to be aware of the consequences of sexual activity outside of committed relationships. Most Christians embrace Milano’s message, not just because the only women who’d participate and use sex as a political bargaining chip in the first place are those who probably need to reevaluate their sex lives anyway, but it also places greater meaning on sex and the power and responsibility of it, which again is another Christian view.

Milano, like many others, also referred to abortion as “reproductive rights,” which is a pretty new term that replaces abortion and is also much catchier on picket signs when used alongside “human rights.” The problem is the term isn’t even close to being accurate. Abortion has nothing to do with reproductive rights. By the time abortion is even a possibility, post-fertilization has already created a tiny human and the mother has discovered that she is pregnant. In other words, reproduction is already complete. That “right” to reproduction was already exercised when you gave it up, literally and figuratively.  

June

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tried her best to compare Trump to Hitler by comparing illegal migrant detention centers to actual concentration camps: “This administration has established concentration camps on the southern border of the United States for immigrants, where they are being brutalized with dehumanizing conditions and dying,” she tweeted. Ocasio-Cortez continued this claim during an Instagram Live video, where she said, “The United States is running concentration camps on our southern border. That is what they are. The fact that concentration camps are now an institutionalized practice in the home of the free is extraordinarily disturbing.” 

Of course, the claim that conditions at U.S. border facilities are anything like Nazi concentration camps or Japanese American internment camps is absurd. Detainees are not subjected to forced labor, malnutrition or executions. They also chose to enter these facilities by willingly coming to the United States and either illegally crossing or turning themselves in to U.S. Border Patrol, while obviously concentration camp inmates were forced to be there. Let’s not forget the little detail that any of the migrants may opt for voluntary departure at any time. I don’t remember concentration camps ever having that policy. Concentration camps detained and persecuted their own citizens because of who they were, not temporarily detained people who chose to illegally break into a different country. I don’t think there were many Jewish people trying to sneak into Nazi Germany. Even the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum released a statement rejecting such ridiculous comparisons.

But it’s not just AOC driving this rhetoric. MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough showed photos of border officers escorting kids to showers and compared it to Nazi officers marching Jews into gas chambers. Former CIA chief Michael Hayden posted photos of the Auschwitz death camp, also comparing it to the temporary housing policy at the border. The New York Times published an article that called for U.S. Border Patrol agents to be doxed so they can be “publicly shamed" and “held accountable.” Almost the entire Democrat Party and mainstream media have made similar comparisons. Yet the CBP detention centers are not operating any differently today than they were during the Obama administration. The famous photos of caged kids are from Obama’s time in office. Even when the most anti-Trump news network CNN went to investigate, the kids had full bellies, they were watching soccer, playing video games on big flat-screen TVs, sleeping in comfy beds and participating in tai chi classes, rather than ya know, being caged, gassed and worked to death.

July

The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal held a hearing on complaints from Jessica Yaniv, a man formerly called Jonathan who now identifies as a woman, after multiple small business beauticians refused to wax Yaniv’s penis and testicles. The defendant in the case was a young mother who operates in her family home, but there were also 12 other female beauticians Yaniv filed human rights complaints against which put some of them out of business while others paid settlements to save further legal action. Up until July 17, Yaniv’s name was fiercely protected by the Canadian government, as well as technology platforms like Twitter, which banned numerous women and some men who’d tried to warn others about his predations. But once the ban was lifted, it was revealed Yaniv had used “connections” to a band to help solicit advice from both women and teenagers on how to approach young girls and talk to them about tampons and menstruation in female washrooms. You can read the whole thing here.

Yaniv also recently tweeted shock to be turned away from a gynecologist. “So a gynaecologist office that I got referred to literally told me today that ‘we don’t serve transgender patients. And me, being me, I’m shocked... and confused… and hurt. Are they allowed to do that, legally?" I’m sure Yaniv will be taking gynecologists to human rights courts next for refusing to inspect anuses. We have to be careful to not misgender Yaniv as several journalists have been banned from Twitter for this crime against Yaniv. Any concerns about women being forced to touch male genitalia or biological men being allowed into women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, rape crisis shelters and prisons, you’re done for. This whole story resembles a new trend forming, such as the Christian cake shop owner who was sued for not wanting to bake a cake for a same-sex marriage: An individual from a politically designated victim class seeks out a service, intentionally from a small business owner who they know they can exploit, and the moment the businessperson declines - voila! A movement is born with a slew of lawsuits, powerful interest groups and media backing. 

August

Dave Chappelle’s newest Netflix special was only uploaded for a few hours before the PC grievance mob went to work trying to sink it. Buzzfeed lectured Chappelle for his “truly vile” jokes and instructed him “to be more thoughtful.”  Salon spoke out against “the cruelty” and Slate compared him to that "uncle who doesn’t know, or doesn’t care, how much he’s disappointing you.” While “Uncle Dave” was once cool, they say, his jokes in 2019 make you “wince.” Vice went a step further and gave a total trigger warning to its audience, writing "you can definitely skip” it altogether. As of today, “Sticks & Stones” shows a 38 percent score from media critics on Rotten Tomatoes, while 39,881 of viewers have given it a 99 percent audience score, reflecting the massive disconnect between the media and the general public and proving the only ones who are “out of touch” are themselves. This same pattern can be seen with “woke” movies too. Media critics sing their praises and hail their progressive activist messaging and pandering, yet in reality, these movies completely bomb.

Hollywood wants to water down comedy as not to hurt anyone’s feelings, but in doing so quickly turns into telling people what’s funny and what’s not and who can laugh and who can’t. Even the most devoted left-wing activist surely can see the problem. But a comedian like Dave Chappelle makes fun of everyone and doesn’t believe in a protected class during a stand up routine, as it should be. He also made fun of things that the right cares about, yet they still applauded the special as a celebration of comedy. But no, because Chappelle didn’t obey by their rules, because he didn’t stand on stage and call Trump a Cheeto (the pinnacle of left-wing comedy), he too must be one of those Nazis we keep hearing about. Chappelle isn’t running for public office. He’s a comic, and we’re not meant to seek the ultimate answers from him. It’s his job to talk about and then joke about current events, trends, what’s going on in the world, his only sin was talking about them a little too honestly. 

September

Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg addressed the United Nations through teary eyes and gritted teeth, claiming that the world is about to end and how unfair it is that she has to save it. Throughout the melodramatic speech warning of “mass extinction” and attacking capitalism, Thunberg repeatedly declared “how dare you!” and “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood!” Sadly, she’s right. How dare a child from one of the most healthiest, progressive, wealthiest, safest and most peaceful countries known to man be indoctrinated to believe adults have failed her and the weight of the world is on her shoulders to save mankind from apocalypse. It’s not her fault.

It’s the fault of the schools who pile on the panic-stricken talk of environmental disaster starting from kindergarten. It’s the fault of the ideologues who obsess over every weather event as if it were Armageddon, whether it’s hot or cold, rain, sun or snow, it’s all evidence of the end looming. And it’s the fault of the politicians, too cowardly and desperate for votes to tell people that utopian visions of a world run on windmills is a pipe dream. And why the hell isn’t China being lectured by the Swedish teenager? Their emissions from aviation and maritime trade alone are twice that of the United States, and more than the entire emissions of most nations in the world, but we’re the ones being told to ban straws, stop eating meat, roller skate to work and stop having kids? Really? Then again, it’s easier to go after countries which roll out the red carpet, gives her a platform and awards her with prizes in return for her criticisms. The real pollution culprits aren’t nearly as accommodating.

Climate activists could learn something from Thunberg’s honesty, though. She argues that “money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth” have to come to an end. Thunberg’s dream for the future means technocratic regimes will have to displace capitalistic societies. We can see this future in the radical environmentalist plans of AOC’s Green New Deal, one supported by leading Democratic Party candidates. It’s authoritarianism. There is no other way to describe a regulatory regime that dictates exactly what Americans can consume, sell, drive, eat and do in their personal lives. As Hawaii Democrat senator and climate change enthusiast encouraged fellow activists to think of climate change as a religion rather than a science, we can only hope that most Americans will continue to reject these regressive ideas. One reason we should is so that Greta Thunberg’s generation, including her army of schoolchildren, can continue not having to suffer needlessly.

October 

Media outlets responded to Trump’s announcement of the U.S. military’s successful mission against ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was not met with much praise and excitement that the world’s most wanted terrorist leader had been stopped, but with anger and snark. Many media outlets, the Washington Post for one example, worked hard to spin the killing of Baghdadi into, somehow, a negative story for Trump, beginning with a look at Baghdadi as not as a brutal terrorist and murderer, but as an “austere religious scholar.” 

The Washington Post followed it up with a chain of negative stories: “Three ways the Baghdadi raid undermines Trump’s chaotic policy,” “Despite the killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, some analysts question U.S. ability to prevent ISIS resurgence,” “The U.S. kills an ISIS leader. But Trump is giving the group a new lease on life.” They even complained how long Trump talked for and how using words such as “dog” and “coward” weren’t as presidential as Obama. Oh, and a Washington Post and CNN journalist tweeted how wrong it was for Trump to call al-Baghdadi a coward because it takes guts to blow yourself up rather than allow yourself to be captured...

If only it ended there. The Washington Post joined other media outlets including the New York Times in debunking the “doctored” and “faked” photo Trump tweeted of himself giving a Medal of Honor to the dog that chased down al-Baghdadi. White House reporter Steve Herman also debunked the meme by breaking news on Twitter, "I've requested details on this photo! There was no such a canine event on today's schedule!" He later confirmed in a tweet after speaking to a White House official that the meme was indeed Photoshopped. Jim Acosta of CNN also made sure everyone was aware, "The dog is not at the White House." The Huffington Post wrote, “A photo tweeted by Donald Trump is getting dogged by accusations that the pic is the very definition of fake news. The photo didn’t really happen,” then proceeded to show side-by-side photos to prove it was photoshopped. Everywhere the meme was called “fake news.”

Once the media confirmed that the very clearly photoshopped dog was not at the White House after all, and the meme was just a meme, they moved onto asserting the meme was insulting and disrespectful to the original recipient of the Medal of Honor, James McCloughan, which the photo was taken from. Yet when the meme was shown to McCloughan, he laughed and said he wasn’t offended and he liked it. Now that another outrage had fizzled out, the only thing that was left for them to complain about was... Trump hates dogs because he used the term negatively to describe the ISIS leader. Yep. 

November

Nine American Mexican family members were slaughtered in broad daylight in an ambush by a drug cartel in Northern Mexico, less than a hundred miles from the Arizona border. The family were traveling to visit family when they were attacked by the cartel which left three women and six children dead, including a pair of infant twins. As Trump voiced outrage over the attacks, condemning the violence and offering the Mexican government help to come down harder on the cartels, not a single one of the seventeen Democrats in the race issued a statement on the attacks. 

That’s probably because they’ve already established it’s racist and bigoted to point out that some Mexicans can do bad things and there’s gonna be some bad eggs illegally crossing the southern border, despite leading Democrats including Clinton and Obama holding the same view just a few years ago. Let’s forget those behind most illegal border crossings are actually rapists or in just one city, over just a few weeks, seven illegal immigrants were convicted of rape. For the record, Trump never called all Mexicans rapists. He said there are rapists among those being sent over, along with drugs and MS-13 members, all true. He also said in the very next breath that there’s also good people crossing. Now, it’s also racist to call MS-13 gang members “animals” despite them being known for beheadings, dismemberments and cutting out hearts. And now we know we’re not even allowed to talk about the epidemic of terrorism and violence along the border, even when nine American women and children are massacred as it runs counter to the new, insane Democrat narrative mocking the need for stronger border security or the need for borders at all. 

This is the latest incident that has shined a spotlight on Mexico’s growing crime problem as drug cartels have launched an insurgency in the failing country.  A month earlier, hundreds of gunmen stormed the city of Culiacan after Mexican National Guards arrested one of the sons drug kingpin “El Chapo.” In a stunning display, the Mexican president told his National Guards to surrender to the cartel and release El Chapo’s son. The day after the family massacre, more murders and bus burnings were unleashed on the city of Juarez. The mayor of Juarez said the chaos was the cartel’s response to police arresting suspects involved in an ongoing drug turf war. We’ll have to wait and see if the new Mexican president’s policy of “hugs not bullets” will end the endless territory being controlled by different armed groups, similar to the Middle East and Africa. Maybe love and giving into cartel demands will bring law and order back.

December

Democrats finally did what they’ve been promising to do since Trump won the election, they impeached their mortal enemy. The obsession with impeachment has little to do with anything Trump did, and everything to do with who he is. Democrats never expected to lose the 2016 election, especially not to Donald Trump, which humiliated them even more. And ever since, they have been trying every trick in the book to prove what a horrible mistake voters have made. Democrats have floated the idea of impeachment over fake Russian collusion conspiracy theories, drivel about porn stars and even the president’s criticism of his critics. All of them bombed. With time running out before the 2020 presidential race gets into full swing, they seized on the only thing they had left: bogus “concerns” with a phone call to the newly elected Ukrainian president.

The evidence Democrats have rallied on makes for the weakest impeachment ever launched in American history, highlighting gross abuse of congressional power and serving as a national embarrassment. The impeachment inquiry was kicked off by an unknown person during a phone call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. An unredacted transcript of the phone call was quickly released to the public, putting the conversation between the two leaders in plain sight for all to see in an unprecedented move. There was nothing to hide. Democrats and media outlets took slices from the transcript and came up with a story about Trump pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden’s family in exchange for nearly $400 million in military aid. Yet when Trump mentioned “do us a favor,” in the very next sentence, he referred to Ukraine looking into the 2016 election meddling after Mueller did such a poor job, it had nothing to do with Biden. Zelensky himself said there was no pressure and he didn’t even know about the military aid being delayed. 

But House Democrats still held four weeks of impeachment hearings and not a single piece of incriminating evidence to impeach the president of any kind of crime was found, whether it be a “quid pro quo,” “bribery,” or “extortion. In fact, to the contrary, witnesses called by Democrats actually exonerated the president of any wrongdoing. Ousted former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich blatantly admitted that Trump committed no crime. “Do you have any information regarding any criminal activity that the president of the United States has been involved with at all?” “No,” Yovanovitch said. Former State Department Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker was asked, “In no way, shape or form did you receive any indication whatsoever, or anything that resembled a quid pro quo, is that correct?” “That’s correct,” Volker said.

Despite clearly having no case against the president, Democrats still voted to deliver their promise, it was now or never. Unlike other impeachment cases, it wasn’t at all bipartisan, the House’s impeachment inquiry passed without a single Republican vote. In fact two Democrats joined GOP lawmakers in voting against the resolution, ironically making opposition to impeachment the more bipartisan vote. One Democrat even switched parties after he was pressured by his Democrat colleagues to vote against his will. Now, Pelosi is refusing to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial. She knows Trump will be swiftly exonerated and claim another monumental victory, so let’s savor in the impeachment juices that nobody cares about for as long as we can. At least until the next “existential threat” or “constitutional crisis” they can whip up.