#if we're being so honest with ourselves they are literally the same person

[virginreprise]

if you slap joel miller and arthur morgan together, looks and personality, you will have created my dream man.

[astrangetorpedo]

Julien Baker Track by Track - An Interview with Apple Music

“Everybody is scared of death or ultimate oblivion, whether you want to admit it or not,” Julien Baker tells Apple Music. “That’s motivated by a fear of uncertainty, of what’s beyond our realm of understanding—whatever it feels like to be dead or before we're born, that liminal space. It's the root of so much escapism.”

On her third full-length, Baker embraces fuller arrangements and a full-band approach, without sacrificing any of the intimacy that galvanised her earlier work. The result is at once a cathartic and unabashedly bleak look at how we distract ourselves from the darkness of voids both large and small, universal and personal.

“It was easier to just write for the means of sifting through personal difficulties,” she says. “There were a lot of paradigm shifts in my understanding of the world in 2019 that were really painful. I think one of the easiest ways to overcome your pain is to assign significance to it. But sometimes, things are awful with no explanation, and to intellectualise them kind of invalidates the realness of the suffering. I just let things be sad.”

Here, the Tennessee singer-songwriter walks us through the album track by track.

Hardline

“It’s more of a confession booth song, which a lot of these are. I feel like whenever I imagine myself in a pulpit, I don't have a lot to say that's honest or useful. And when I imagine myself in a position of disclosing, in order to bring me closer to a person, that's when I have a lot to say.”

Heatwave

“I wrote it about being stuck in traffic and having a full-on panic attack. But what was causing the delay was just this car that had a factory defect and bomb-style exploded. I was like, ‘Man, someone got incinerated. A family maybe.’ The song feels like a fall, but it's born from the second verse where I feel like I'm just walking around with my knees in gravel or whatever the verse in Isaiah happens to be: the willing submission to suffering and then looking around at all these people's suffering, thinking that is a huge obstacle to my faith and my understanding, this insanity and unexplainable hurt that we're trying to heal with ideology instead of action.”

Faith Healer

“I have an addictive personality and I understand it's easy for me to be an escapist with substances because I literally missed being high. That was a real feeling that I felt and a feeling that felt taboo to say outside of conversations with other people in recovery. The more that I looked at the space that was left by substance or compulsion that I've then just filled with something else, the more I realised that this is a recurring problem in my personality. And so many of the things that I thought about myself that were noble or ultimately just my pursuit of knowing God and the nature of God—that craving and obsession is trying to assuage the same pain that alcohol or any prescription medication is.”

Relative Fiction

“The identity that I have worked so hard to cultivate as a good person or a kind person is all basically just my own homespun mythology about myself that I'm trying to use to inspire other people to be kinder to each other. Maybe what's true about me is true about other people, but this song specifically is a ruthless evaluation of myself and what I thought made me principled. It's kind of a fool's errand.”

Crying Wolf

“It's documenting what it feels like to be in a cyclical relationship, particularly with substances. There was a time in my life, for almost a whole year, where it felt like that. I think that is a very real place that a lot of people who struggle with substance use find themselves in, where the resolution of every day is the same and you just can’t seem to make it stick.”

Bloodshot

“The very first line of the song is talking about two intoxicated people—myself being one of them—looking at each other and me having this out-of-body experience, knowing that we are both bringing to our perception of the other what we need the other person to be. That's a really lonely and sad place to be in, the realisation that we're each just kind of sculpting our own mythologies about the world, crafting our narratives.”

Ringside

“I have a few tics that manifest themselves with my anxiety and OCD, and for a long time, I would just straight-up punch myself in the head—and I would do it onstage. It's this extension of physicality from something that's fundamentally compulsive that you can't control. I can't stop myself from doing that, and I feel really embarrassed about it. And for some reason I also can't stop myself from doing other kinds of more complicated self-punishment, like getting into co-dependent relationships and treating each one of those like a lottery ticket. Like, 'Maybe this one will work out.'”

Favor

“I have a friend whose parents live in Jackson, where my parents live. They’re one of my closest friends and they were around for the super dark part of 2019. I'll try to talk to the person who I hurt or I'll try to admit the wrongdoing that I've done. I'll feel so much guilt about it that I'll cry. And then I'll hate that I've cried because now it seems manipulative. I'm self-conscious about looking like I hate myself too much for the wrong things I've done because then I kind of steal the person's right to be angry. I don't want to cry my way out of shit.”

Song in E

“I would rather you shout at me like an equal and allow me to inhabit this imagined persona I have where I'm evil. Because then, if I can confirm that you hate me and that I'm evil and I've failed, then I don't any longer have to deal with the responsibility of trying to be good. I don't any longer have to be saddled with accountability for hurting you as a friend. It’s something not balancing in the arithmetic of my brain, for sin and retribution, for crime and punishment. And it indebts you to a person and ties you to them to be forgiven.”

Repeat

“I tried so hard for so long not to write a tour song, because that's an experience that musicians always write about that's kind of inaccessible to people who don't tour. We were in Germany and I was thinking: Why did I choose this? Why did I choose to rehash the most emotionally loaded parts of my life on a stage in front of people? But that's what rumination is. These are the pains I will continue to experience, on some level, because they're familiar.”

Highlight Reel

“I was in the back of a cab in New York City and I started having a panic attack and I had to get out and walk. The highlight reel that I'm talking about is all of my biggest mistakes, and that part—‘when I die, you can tell me how much is a lie’—is when I retrace things that I have screwed up in my life. I can watch it on an endless loop and I can torture myself that way. Or I can try to extract the lessons, however painful, and just assimilate those into my trying to be better. That sounds kind of corny, but it's really just, what other options do you have except to sit there and stare down all your mistakes every night and every day?”

Ziptie

“I was watching people be restrained with zip ties on the news. It's just such a visceral image of violence to see people put restraints on another human being—on a demonstrator, on a person who is mentally ill, on a person who is just minding their own business, on a person who is being racially profiled. I had a dark, funny thought that's like, what if God could go back and be like, ‘Y'all aren't going to listen.’ Jesus sacrificed himself and everybody in the United States seems to take that as a true fact, and then shoot people in cold blood in the street. I was just like, ‘Why?’ When will you call off the quest to change people that are so horrid to each other?”

(x)

[jozor-johai]

So do you think Dany and Jon are just two Heads of the Dragon? and if so, who do you think is the third? my money's on Bran as like, the Ice Representative to balance out Dany's fire and Jon's Ice/Fire dealies.

Thank you for this ask, sorry it took ages to respond.

Say that we know (or we think we know) that two "heads" of "the dragon" are Jon and Dany—insofar as we even think we understand what that phrase is supposed to mean (an assumption that I think is worth questioning as well, but that's not a task for now).

Here's what I love about this question—the issue of "who/what is the 'third head'" comes up as a literal question in a religious sense when Arya is talking to the Sailor's Wife in Braavos. There's a statue to the god Trios, and the Sailor's Wife can't tell us the purpose of one of the heads:

Three-headed Trios has that tower with three turrets. The first head devours the dying, and the reborn emerge from the third. I don't know what the middle head's supposed to do.

GRRM is definitely referencing the concept of the "three headed (dragon)" when he invented Trios; the imagery is too central and too specific for that not to be the case. What's fun, of course, is that we're all asking ourselves the same thing—what (or who) is that middle head?

I like your suggestion about Bran. It's a pretty unorthodox idea, because most people assume/expect that the three heads of the "dragon" must be Targaryen or at least Valyrian... but I don't think one needs Valyrian blood to ride a dragon, so as far as I'm concerned Bran is an option. He's a cool idea, too, because of his attachment to the North, the far North, and maybe even the "Ice" concept, like you say. Bran's also a powerful skinchanger—or, in training to be one—and there's not a doubt in my mind we're going to see some dragons get skinchanged. GRRM has been asked about that idea before and he's gleefully dodged answering it.

That would also be interesting because it's worth remembering that Jon is technically not canonically a Targaryen (yet), or even a contender to be a "head of the dragon" (yet). We think we've figured it out (and we probably have) but it's still technically a mystery. In that sense, then, if I was going to lean on the comparison with Trios, I would say: perhaps by now we should have met the first "head" —the "death" head—and we should have met the last head— "rebirth" head—so we should be missing this middle head whose purpose we don't know. However, we think we've figured out that Jon is the marriage of Ice and Fire, so maybe he's the "unknown" middle head—and then Dany is, on one side, the "rebirth" head (of fire?), and we should have met the "death" head (of ice?) already, but we don't know who it might be. Perhaps it's Bran!

If I'm being honest, I personally haven't thought too much about solving the third head of the dragon issue. It's clear to me that some key piece of the puzzle is being intentionally obscured from our view, so it feels like a fool's errand to be confident in solving it at this point. I realize that's a lame answer, but it's the truth—I try to approach these things beginning with how they work in the story and how they work with the symbolism at play, so without being sure how the "three heads" are even supposed to work I haven't tried to solve this mystery.

If there are truly three people who are going to be the "three heads of the dragon," I think the rules of good storytelling limit our options to characters that were introduced in AGOT. If we limit that to POVs—which is not necessarily a valid assumption, but I think is likely—then that's only Tyrion, Bran, Arya, or Sansa. I'm torn on the common "Tyrion Targaryen" theory... I don't really like it, but it would explain why he's included as a POV in AGOT and why he makes the shortlist for possibilities here (among other things). Bran would be a much more interesting option, though.

The thing is, I'm ultimately not convinced the "three heads" are going to work like we expect. Yes, it's said that Aegon, Rhaenys, and Visenya were the "three heads," but who knows if the common understanding of that is true? Plus, the person who presents the idea to Dany of the need for "three heads" to ride the three dragons is Jorah... who I don't think knows shit about dragons. So my mind is wide open when it comes to possible interpretations of the "three heads of the dragon."

[bloodbruise]

hiii! firstly, i just wanna say that i admire your writing and the way you use imagery to cast certain moods for different stories. i think in your past life you were some great poet, like homer lol! i am a baby to tumblr, but ive been wondering about posting my own takes on certain topics. i wanted to ask how you started writing and posting regul(us)arly, without getting embarrassed or discouraged!

(ps-thank u for being u🩵)

this is !!! so incredibly kind of you wow 🥺🥺 i’m floored. to even be mentioned in the same breath as a poet, let alone homer, is an honor. though if we're measuring by a 'homer scale,' i'd place my writing abilities closer to homer simpson than the poet.

if i am being completely honest, i really started posting because i was searching for a queer community. i grew up in a major city and still have a great one there, but i moved to a smaller city to go to a really STEM oriented, cutthroat school—where all connections are really just for career advancement. i basically looked back and realized that i had spent the last four years with my head shoved so far up a book that i was really suffering without that community. i also knew i was gonna have to start writing my personal statement for med school soon. writing is my weakest skill, and the only writing i'd been doing was scientific IRMaD papers for school, so i wanted to force myself to practice. what better way than through something i already loved and engaged with consistently: fanfiction.

when I first started posting my writing, it was definitely intimidating. i had moments when i overthought, got embarrassed, and quickly deleted posts. but i learned that it is just part of the process of finding your space in fandom. you’re inevitably going to stumble a bit, you’re gonna hit some zero note posts, and yeah, it can be discouraging. i think its really naive when people say “oh, just post for yourself, who cares if you get no interactions with it.” because honestly, if we were ONLY writing for ourselves, we'd just keep everything in our google docs, right? a big part of the joy in fanfiction is connecting with the community. 

but you also cant let that hold you back. what always keeps me going is the enjoyment i get from crafting stories—writing things that i wanted to read or the characters i wanted to see (i love horror and medicine. i literally threw them together to make my evan. and i would be nothing without my unsettling, ethically questionable, freak medical malpractitioner). so it is so, so important to stay true to your own vision. if you see barty with neon purple hair, write him that way. if your remus is a pretty pretty princess, embrace it. they’re your stories. and if anyone tells you otherwise, they can fuck themselves.

so i would say keep posting and interacting with other people, your favorite authors, friends, followers. as you continue, your confidence will grow, and your audience will find you. be patient with yourself and push through the doubts. it's all about finding your voice and enjoying the process! 

please feel free to tag/send me when you do start sharing your writing! i would be happy to read it :)) and i also wanted to thank YOU for being you because you are so very kind and you put a huge smile on my face ❤️❤️❤️

[sophieinwonderland]

"We finished watching Sweet Tooth and I need to say that I really hate the "humans bad, animals good" narrative."

I agree. I have always hated that narrative and trope. Humans are more than just evil greedy fascists that just wants to watch the world burn. I feel like that trope is mocking charities and people like firefighters who literally risk their lives saving others, both animals and humans alike. It's obviously difficult to prove this, but personally speaking, I believe humanity exists to protect life on the planet. That our purpose is to safeguard life much the same way Noah did in the bible (not that I'm Christian or otherwise religious. it's more like a "natural purpose"). Hate humanity or not, we are the only species on Earth capable of protecting life on the planet from cataclysmic events from space. Imagine something bigger than what hit the dinosaurs...

People who create shows need to realize this nuance and show coexistence among humans and non-humans (like hybrids) instead. On top of being more interesting to watch (for me at least), it could probably also help lessen racism in real life as well as it might make some people think "Maybe we aren't that different after all". That's what I think anyway.

I don't really know about humans being here to protect the planet as if it's our purpose. Especially when we cause so much damage to it along the way. But whether this is something we're meant to do or not, I do agree that we're the only species that has a chance at preventing another mass extinction.

Not just from space, but from the Earth too. There have been 5 mass extinction events in Earth's history.

As we are now, we will either be the sixth, or we'll be what prevents the sixth.

I hope it will be the latter in the end.

There's an irony that a species needs to get to the point where they're actively destroying the planet though to have a chance to save it.

It's a scary thought, if I'm being honest. So many species are going to die off. Preserves will try their best to save as many as they can. But they won't be able to save them all. And that's sad.

But maybe, if we can reach a point of stability, we can start reversing the damage we've done, find ways to save what's left and maybe bring back species we've lost, and will be advanced enough by the next extinction event to save ourselves and the rest of the planet.

It's a slim hope, I'll admit. But without us, or at least another intelligent species like us, there's no hope.

It is possible what we will just end up causing ourselves and much of the other creatures in the world to go extinct along the way. And if so, I think life will find a way to survive and the torch will pass to whatever species evolves to be as intelligent as us in the post-extinction world. (My money is on some type of octopus. They're smart, can grab things, use basic tools, and survived multiple extinctions including The Great Dying.)

Personally, maybe I'm biased by being human, but I'll throw my money in with humanity.

[peridot-tears]

I think a lot about how US-centrism is a really big thing, and something we USians commit whether we are conscious of it or not -- because, quite frankly, no matter how much we proclaim to dislike our country or want it to change, or straight up just want to leave it behind, it's already been deeply intertwined into our personalities.

But there's also that other factor where when it comes to fandom, we end up writing AUs set in the USA, because, well...that's still our home? That's what we're familiar with? So of course I want to play around and reimagine WangXian as diaspora Chinese growing up in New York, just like me. I think it'd be really funny to reimagine Arno as an exchange student who has to deal with NYU kids out here (I pity the man, NYU is an elitist nightmare). And if Tumblr is a US-based site, where most of us end up gathering, that's just math, right? There are going to be a lot of USians here writing about our experiences in this country, because they're the things that immediately affect us the most.

I don't think it's inherently bad to want to reimagine characters in the world we personally live in, but we do have to ask ourselves some hard questions about why we want to take these characters and put them in a setting that we are comfortable with. Would we appreciate them all the same if they were in a setting unfamiliar to us?

And if we were on a non-American site doing the same thing, and the people on that site got mad at us, how would we react? We have to be honest with ourselves.

Also, HUGE disclaimer:

This is not permission to whitewash characters.

If you're writing an AU with characters of non-American origin, do your research on their cultural norms.

Also, the USA is the "melting pot" or whatever the fuck you wanna call it, right. So is this character going to be an immigrant, a tourist, a tenth-generation American, or a second-generation American from another country's diaspora?

*Or are they Indigenous? In which case, what nation are they from, did they grow up on the rez, elsewhere, and what relationship do they have with their family and identity?

We should still think outside of our country. Realizing and acknowledging that we are raised to be ignorant of the world, and that our country holds a cultural Monopoly (i.e. our fucking media and entertainment are EVERYWHERE, and my roommate from Vietnam knows iCarly as well as I do, and I know someone from Nigeria who grew up on Johnny Bravo, just to name a few examples) are only the first step. We need to deprogram and see the rest of the world as a place that exists outside of us while still being affected by just how sprawling our influence is.

My personal experience:

I'm an immigrants' kid who grew up among other immigrants' kids in New York (note, I say "immigrants' kid," meaning I am explicitly not saying we immigrated, only that our parents did. People assume I came here just because I'm not white, which is some racist bullshit).

I have lived on other continents.

MDZS is easy for me because it's my culture. I've written them as diaspora Gen Z kids, Chinese people who grew up in mainland cities I'm familiar with, and in the canon Ye Olde China (Tang-dynasty-ish, but also a Ming-dynasty AU) setting.

I write French Frye in modern-day Paris and London very easily because as a USian, we're taught that "world history" is just "Western and Central European history." We're a Eurocentric society. Also, I've been in those cities and know people from there.

I struggle with writing Ratohnhaké:ton even though he is literally Indigenous to the land I grew up on (Kanien'kéha:ka were from upstate New York, just a day's drive from me, before colonization forced them to move further north). As a USian, that means I was taught the colonizers' attitude towards Indigenous folks, and despite all my research and talks with Indigenous folks to learn to be better, I will eventually trip up and accidentally say something racist or culturally offensive.

This isn't going to stop me from writing fanfic about him, but I'm gonna do my due diligence and consider the circumstances he would be in in a modern AU.

Yes, I want to write a modern-day AU where he goes to China and trains with Shao Jun, because I'm Chinese and I think that would be neat.

When I read modern AU MDZS fanfiction, I can tell who's not Chinese when I read about WangXian living in a house in China. I cannot emphasize how different the apartment-to-house ratio in most major Chinese cities is from the USA. I don't find it offensive, it's just a really strong tell.

If you're writing an AU set in NYC and there isn't a single "yerrrr" in it, you've already outed yourself (this is a joke).

[thatoneguy031]

Can I talk about something? Out of character, I mean.

It's a long post, but you don't have to read it if you're not interested. It's more of a vent post than anything else.

I've been having a hard time with this blog. Not in the popularity sense, this is what I expected from this kind of thing. I mean like... I don't know what to do with it. I've experimented with a few things(You can go way back in my post history if you want to see what I mean), but those ideas sorta fell flat, no?

This was originally meant to be a storytelling blog. I wanted to share my little synopses of my characters and plot points or whatever, because I was genuinely proud of what I've done so far.

Then I resorted to trying to be a comedian. I would try to post something funny under most reblogs, leaving them be if I couldn't come up with a remark of any kind.

It wasn't until recently that I decided to turn this into a Pokemon IRL blog, and I'm not even doing that well with this. That, and I'm afraid that I come off as self-centered, so I cut any posts that give that kind of vibe. Heck, I even tried doing a playthrough series, but I keep forgetting about it, and when I do remember that it exists, I just postpone the next update to oblivion.

I really want to keep this blog going, and trust me when I say I'm going to, but it's not going anywhere, and I feel like nothing is happening. At first, I thought it was just Tumblr having boring days, but I realized that I'm just not doing anything entertaining. My blog just turned into a pool of reblogs with the occasional Pokemon-related post or rant. And I mostly wait for either @the-one-from-dres or @drizzileiscool to bring up the occasional topic that I might have enough insight to talk about. Sorry for @'ing you guys, by the way, I just need folks to know who I'm talking about. Y'all the goats.

Once I got my drawing tablet, I thought that I could do a bunch of art stuff, but then it devolved into the same potential self-obsession problem, where I would just draw that one character(which is literally just a Samurott with anxiety and a Goku complex, let's be honest with ourselves here) over and over again. I have other characters I can draw, and I'm even taking free art requests. Granted, I haven't gotten any requests yet, but the option was still there.

And that's how we got here. I have to retake my Regents in literally under 24 hours, and I'm bitching and moaning about how I'm not getting anywhere in my ha-ha internet blog, which everyone already takes as a joke anyway.

If anything, I think my problem comes from a lack of communication. There was this like, 4 day period that I didn't hear a word from Dres, and I thought he hated me for something I did, until he involved me in 3 back-to-back reblog games literally the next day.

I still feel awful about it now, it was so petty of me to even think that way. For context, Dres might as well be my day one, and he's inadvertently taught me the ins and outs of Tumblr, like how to use tags and things like that. Hell, we even played DnD together once. No exaggeration, he's the closest thing I've had to a real friend in years, and I'm convinced that's only the case because he hasn't seen me in person.

I love him deeply, and only wish the best for him. To think that he'd leave me after I did basically nothing, I've really hit a new level of desperate. He likely had his own things to do, while I'm still stressing about things that probably don't even matter in hindsight.

Back to my original point, I want to do a lot more on this blog, and I also wanted to make it a chill place.

That's one of the reasons why I don't talk about politics myself. I don't want to get involved in things like that at all, because I want people to live without worry. The furthest I go with that kind of thing is "Stop being dicks to each other. We're people, deal with it." I know it's more complicated than that, but at this point, I'm almost scared to get involved in that kind of thing. I don't even know what a terf is. I didn't know Rowling was a bad person until recently when Drizzile was talking about her.

And it's like, I don't even know why it's so hard to talk to people for me. But at the same time, I think I really have something wrong with me, but I'm too scared to get it checked out. And, while I'm not getting into personal details, I don't have the right circumstances to even have that happen in the first place. That's the out of character reason why I say I might have ADHD, instead of outright saying I have it. I literally can't get it diagnosed myself if I wanted to, and I don't do the self-diagnosis stuff because I always get paranoid and think my problem is worse than it is. For example, I've convinced myself three times within the past year and a half that I had appendicitis, because I would get this really specific pain in my stomach. Guess who I told about it?

No one. I was terrified of wasting someone's time just for it to be me freaking out over nothing, and if I'm being honest, I still am. At this point, I have a plethora of things wrong with me, I know that now, but I don't ever get them checked out. I'm doing well so far with them, why worry about it now.

I just don't want to offend anyone. All I wanted to do was make a place where I and other people could have fun.

This is still going to primarily be a Pokemon IRL blog, but I'm doing something different. Please, if there's anything you all want to see on here, let me know. Stuff for Guy, art stuff, whatever floats your boat besides the obvious. And I'll do my best to keep up with my stories and fanfics or whatever. Once I get my stuff settled again, obviously, but I don't want to make it seem like I'm doing this for myself.

I don't want to turn this into a pity party. I really don't. At this point, I'm sick of having people worry about me. Whenever they do, I feel like I'm being an attention hog, and it sucks. If you did read this, thanks for listening. I just needed to get this much off my chest.

[themainspoon]

Firstly: The biggest problem with bisexuality is that you have to constantly come out to people. You're either Straight by Default or once again running the gauntlet of declaring yourself a faggot. Being visibly queer is relieving in that I don't have to do that anymore. Secondly: Are you ABSOLUTELY SURE you're not a girl? It made everything much harder but much simpler, learning a new normal was absolutely worth trading in my ability to blend in. -- the anon who occasionally tries to crack your egg

My issue as a bisexual guy is that even if I wanted to be visibly queer (say for example, in a queer space) I literally have no way to ever make myself visible that won't get misinterpreted. Like many bisexuals (at least according to the research I've been reading), I would in fact like to be percived as bisexual instead of straight or gay. The fact that people so often think that we are straight and that we "pass" is not a privilege for us, it is erasure and a reflection of the fact that the way our society understands sexuality doesn't allow us to really exist. The people who claim we have "Straight-Passing privilage" and the people who claim that we're "actually just gay and in denial" are doing the same thing, just from different angles. They are forcing us into the categories of straight or gay because they cannot imagine sexuality outside of that binary.

Our invisibility marginalises us within both mainstream society and the queer community, and partially as a result of that invisibility we remain misunderstood. The thought I was explaining was that even beyond just that, lacking any real way to properly perform our sexualities could also be impacting our ability to formulate our own identities and to be able to meaningfully be ourselves.

Even if I were to become a woman, I would still face the issue of having no way to meaningfully present myself as a bisexual woman. So that wouldn't actually help all that much.

And to answer your question. I do not at this point in time think that I am a girl. I say it like that because I personally don't belive that identity is unified, fixed, or inherrent. My work has exposed me to too much post-structualism. I do not view myself as having any sort of "inherrent essence", or any "true inner identity" that cannot change. My subjectivity could change, and my identity could shift alongside it. I just don't think I can say that I will definitively always be anything, because I don't know how things are going to change. I know that response is probably profoundly unsatisfying, but it's the only honest response I can give you.

[cliperry]

THE WORLD'S BIGGEST BOY BAND JUST GOT BIGGER - HARRY 'When fans have meltdowns, I always go in for the hug. If it . doesn't work, you're stuck'

February 17, 2013 | Daily Mirror, The / The Sunday Mirror (London, England)

Page: 6,7,8,9,11 | Section: Features

So, since we last met, things have changed a bit, haven't they? You're world famous and you're worth ��15 million… Louis: Ah, don't believe everything you read… Harry: No way… David Beckham, that's famous.

Louis: It's just weird for us. We've not really got our heads around it, to be honest.

Liam: We're making a film at the moment and there are times when I look at it like a viewer and I'm like, 'Wow, this is actually a lot bigger than I thought'.

Have you had 'the moment' when you realised just how big things have got? Zayn: I think it was when we did Madison Square Garden. We're five normal lads dossing about and we're allowed to be on that stage, where all these idols have been.

Harry: Walking down the corridors, there are pictures of John Lennon and Elvis. It's incredible, it doesn't seem real. How are you coping with that level of fame? Zayn: We kind of separate ourselves from the people we see on TV. It's weird, if we see our video come on or something, I look at it like, 'Yeah, that's that band One Direction'. You see yourself as another person. What, like Showbiz Zayn and Real Zayn? Zayn: Yeah, exactly. Harry: I'm always thinking there's someone missing when I look at the other four boys because I'm so used to seeing it as a five. It's bizarre.

American fans are more forward than Brit ones. Do you come home to find groupies waiting in your bed, that kind of thing? Zayn: I remember one time, me and Louis were sat by the pool outside our hotel in LA and two or three girls emerged from the bushes - then we turned around and there were like another six coming from the other side, and more and more kept coming. It was like something out of a zombie film. We were like, 'What are we going to do?' We found a door that had an entrance back in to the hotel and we legged it, being chased by all these girls.

Liam: Another girl hid in a bin so she could try to sneak in the back entrance of where we were performing, but she got caught. It didn't work out too well for her. What do you do when girls have hysterical meltdowns? Harry: Just go in for the embrace, always. Give them a big hug. Sometimes, it calms things, sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't, then you're stuck.

Do you have to have bodyguards with you everywhere you go now? Or wear disguises? Can you literally not go anywhere? Louis: We never disguise ourselves, we should try it sometime.

Liam: Yeah, you can go places. I went to Westfield yesterday with my mates. The time it gets really out of control is when you're all going to be in the same place at the same time, because it can create a crowd. The rest of the time when we're on our own, it's easier.

Harry: People don't just randomly attack you in the street. I never feel scared to go out.

When was the last time you did something really normal, like get on a bus or buy a loaf of bread? Louis: I got on a train recently. I love a train.

Liam: Oh, I like a tube ride. Harry: I nipped to the shop for a pint of milk yesterday.

Well, well, well, what a difference a year makes…

A little under 12 months ago, we met five nice lads in a band who were making waves across the Pond. A few weeks ago, we met them again. Except this time, we were meeting superstars. Yep, One Direction have cracked America in a way no British band has managed since The Beatles, have sold 14 million singles and played Madison Square Garden. So we admit, we were anxious about meeting them again. Previously we've had unlimited time to chat, but this time we were given 15 minutes. We were also told not to ask about Taylor Swift, whom a just-turned-19 Harry Styles had a public and er, swift, relationship with recently. Oh, and just after our chat, the story broke that Zayn Malik, 20, had allegedly cheated on his Little Mix girl Perrie Edwards (during our interview, Zayn was more talkative than we remember, though he kept schtum when we asked about the prospect of kiss and tell stories).

We're also anxious because we do kind of fancy them. Yet today we realise how age-inappropriate that is when Harry, Zayn, Louis Tomlinson, 21, Niall Horan, 19, and Liam Payne, 19, come in to the room and start play-fighting, chucking Comic Relief red noses at each other (there's also some prankster-ing: a call from Niall's doctor and Louis taking the phone and telling him there's something wrong with his band mate's penis). It takes some time to get them to calm down. The one exception to this is the charmer Harry Styles (who hangs out with Nick Grimshaw in the Groucho Club and thus is too grown up to be chucking stuff). He greets us with a kiss on the cheek, takes a seat and asks how we've been. Oh we could so take him home to meet Mum. Except had we been pregnant teens, we could be his mum. So has it all gone to their heads? It seems not (phew).

Here's what the most famous boys in the world had to say in our short but sweet chat.

What's the worst thing about fame - like do you find it hard to trust people these days? Do you worry about 'kiss and tell' stories? Harry: I usually trust people until they give me a reason not to.

Otherwise you'd just stay in a bubble all the time.

What is it about you lot that made America go crazy? Harry: No idea whatsoever. Louis: I think it's hard to say. We don't take it seriously though. Niall: Timing, as well - there hadn't been a boy band in a while.

Niall! You spoke! It's probably fair to say that, though we love you all, Harry gets the most attention in the UK, but we hear a rumour you are the most popular one over in the USA… Niall: (Goes a bit red and says… nothing.) Liam: Oooh, she's pulling it out of the bag. That Irish charm has won them over. When we do Little Things over there, he gets the biggest cheer.

Do you all get secretly jealous when one person gets more attention than the others? Louis: No, not at all… It's good for the band. And different people like us individually.

Zayn: We all have different sorts of fans. When they're in the queue sometimes you can tell who is a fan of who. Just the way they are and their personalities and stuff, you can kind of tell. Harry: Because they usually have it written on their faces…

Do your girlfriends (Louis is seeing student Eleanor, Liam is back with his ex, dancer Danielle and Zayn is with Perrie, if she hasn't dumped him by the time this comes out) get a lot of hassle from fans now? Do they need security? Liam: Getting in and out of the hotel is sometimes a bit difficult. But they're quite respectful - when you're with your girlfriend they kind of just leave you to it, because they know we don't get to see them very much. You get the odd person who asks for pictures.

Zayn: Yeah, but that's because it's your girlfriend and they just want a picture of your girlfriend, they're just being nice.

Liam: They don't need bodyguards or anything though. In fact, they don't know the full extent of how crazy things are because they're only with us every so often. And you've just been to Japan, too. Bet that was quite different to an American audience… Harry: The fans are giggly and energetic, but they won't come near you. They don't say anything. No meltdown hugging was needed. Niall: We did a lot of karaoke while we were there. Islands In The Stream, Take That's Back For Good, a bit of Shaggy… So are we going to lose you to America soon? Will you all be living in Hollywood mansions this time next year? Louis: No way. Why would we? It seems like it's expected of us, but we're British boys.

Harry: Definitely not. They don't even know what Toad In The Hole or Branston Pickle is. And if you say bangers and mash, they're like 'Bangers? Bangers and what?' Not good. Time to go home when that happens.

S o, since we last […]

What's the worst thing about […]'Girls come out of the bushes and chase us. It's like being in a zombie film' NIALL 'That Irish charm has won over the Americans. He gets the biggest cheer,' says Liam LOUIS 'Why would we move to America? It's like it's expected of us, but we're British boys' Liam 'Our girlfriends don't know the full extent of how crazy things are'

Caption:

. One Direction's Comic Relief single One Way Or Another is available to download today and to buy from Sainsbury's tomorrow

PIctures: John Wright Photography/Hackford Jones. Words: Lara Kilner.

[colorful-white-ideas]

I agree with anon actually. Here, we discuss Bill, Alida, and their kids in the most disgusting way possible! Then we go like "yeah yeah let's not talk about them." Guys, we literally said the same thing about them last year, 2 years ago, 5 tears ago, and more! Now what? Did they break up? No! Did they have more kids together? Yes! And I don't get it. Why u expect a couple to cuddle and hug in public when they did more than this at home and have already 3 kids?! Why u all act like u have a camera in their house knowing what's going on there? Maybe they're so lovey dovey in private and not in public cause if u remember once Bill and Alida were lovey lovey in public in a football match, Simon and Mortox both lost their shit over it and over analyzed everything in that video! That was the time for me that I found out it doesn't matter how Bill and Alida behave in public! People gonna over analyze everything and just keep going with the idea that Bill and Alida hate each other and Alida wants his money and fame! Let's be honest. We just don't like Alida cause we don't find her as beautiful or as perfect as Bill, or we think it is sth awful that she's only 5 years older than him! Tbh I'm tired of this. This is the woman Bill chose for himself and in his life, he could do 100 times better but idk what she has that Bill chose her in the first place. Maybe he really loves her! Maybe he really hates her! Maybe she's not the person that haters tried so hard to sell to us! Maybe if you hang out with her, you actually feel good with her and find her so kind and good! Maybe... maybe... maybe... maybe! We're just here repeating everything we talked about before several times! Even about that short film!!! U know? I expected u to stop answering anything about Bill and Alida but I guess u just like dramas or generally after 8 years can't get over Alida or accept her. Most people in Fandom accepted her except 4-5 people. Guys... get over it... we do not know Alida, we do not know Bill, we know NOTHING about their private life. All we see is less than 1 percent of their life! Chill. Accept them as a couple ( even if they look weird to u ). Move on. We're discussing them for about 10 years now. Then what? Really? What we got? Expect more babies from Bill and him being happy as a father we literally know nothing in their life! And this is so wrong to talk about them like this when we don't know them. What if one day we find out that Alida's not the bad one? U know what I mean? It's wrong to judge them when u don't know both parties or anything about them at all! Through these whole years Simon and Mortox tried so hard to sell us lies. Please don't turn to one of them! You're my favorite blog! Be more open minded. Chill. Accept. Move on. They have nothing to do in our lives, so why should we even bother ourselves talking about people that we don't know?! U know? I personally won't like to judge anyone from a video or a picture! I have to be in their lives, see them, talk to them and then I can judge! For example my parents get pics together, cuddle in public, and do everything in public eye. But here, in this house, there's not one single night that we sleep without hearing them screaming or arguing! Playing the lovey dovey couple in public isn't going to change what's really happening irl! Fact! So don't expect any couple be like that in public after being in the same relationship for a very long time! They got used to each other. As I said they did more than that at their home 😉

Oh and fuck mccreepy. He's an asshole. Hope he doesn't hurt Bill physically or mentally one day. He's like one of those guys threatening u, and then u can do nothing to get rid of him. Cause he will kill u. lmao. (i watched a lot of drama tv shows. Lol)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAnddddd, Merry Christmas, yall. 🎉🎊

Anon got mad at me for saying that for me they have an open relationship and for suggesting that he ( during the Hemlock grove era , when he was single) may have had groupies .

That is not "talking about Alida or Bill in the most disgusting way" and I'VE NEVER REPOSTED NOR GIVEN SPACE TO THE DISGUSTING THEORIES ABOUT BILL'S KIDS.

Yep a couple of years ago I had my moments but never have I ever messed with the children nor with alida's appearance. Can they please stop saying I'm being mean against her ?

Even when some anon came here calling A a "leach" I defended her.

And yeah fuck Brian mc creepy.

[minutiaeoflife]

Slipping Through My Fingers

"The hardest part of growing up is letting go of what you were used to, and moving on with something you’re not." – Unknown

Adulthood for me is quite scary, totally scary haha. I mean, who wouldn't? Right? Well it depends on the person on how he or she handles it. Others may feel overburdened by the demands of juggling job, relationships, and their own aspirations, while others may welcome the obligations and difficulties as chances for personal development. But I suppose that when we overcome these obstacles, we gain a better understanding of who we are, our advantages and disadvantages, and our priorities. It's a process of learning how to strike a balance between support and independence, making choices that will affect our future, and, in the end, figuring out our own feeling of security and direction.

At this stage of development, I actually considered a few people who I wanted to interview with. But then I ended up deciding I would love to hear some things from my friend. Her name's Rhea, she's a very close friend of mine. We actually grew up together, although not literally, we've met since 7th grade and until now we're still very close with our other 2 friends, well she doesn't have any choice though, kidding aside. Actually I chose her because aside from the fact that she's nearby and convenient, I think it would be best to interview someone who's still entering the early adulthood stage, and I want to hear their thoughts about this. And since she's the same age as me, I think again, I would be able to empathize and relate with her.

As she entered this stage, as per her statement, her weight gain is undeniable, as she always consumes foods that are sweet and oily. These types of foods can't be really avoided especially to those kinds of students like her who are boarding or renting an apartment/house because it's convenient. Since she's always stressed and often pulls an all-nighter. As a compensation, she eats more, thinking that through eating, she can gain energy even though she's restless. Ever since the class started, her average sleep every day is about 2 hours since she has to study. Whenever she has no classes or activities to complete, she'll take that advantage to sleep. Rhea actually has a heart condition in which as of now, it's worsening. Recently, she fainted due to restlessness, and to be honest as her friend, I got worried about her situation, because who wouldn't right?

As college students, we can't deny the fact that we are mostly busy doing or studying for our acads, but Rhea tries her best to achieve her so called "healthy living" thing. She often exercises or jogs early in the morning whenever she has time to do so. I'm glad that her friends and classmates encouraged her to to some outdoor activities or play sports, like playing badminton with them, since it would help her physical health to somehow have a break from stressful things she's getting from acads.

When I asked her if her decision-making skills and way of thinking have improved when she entered this stage, she answered using this quote. "We tend to make impulsive decisions when we are young" Justifying that when we're still a young, we don't mind about the consequences of our actions and decisions, we have the tendencies to think and make decisions abruptly because we are driven by our emotions in that moment. But now, that we are already an adult, we tend to cautiously think of the consequences of our actions and decisions because it's either we hurt someone, or we hurt ourselves. And I think that the beauty and essence of being an adult because it is the ability to take a moment, think things through, and decide with awareness and responsibility. As we grow older, we take into account the wider effects of our decisions on both ourselves and those around us rather than acting only on instinct or emotion.

Studying effectively is a skill that she wants to improve. Before, when she was still in her freshie days, she tends to study 4 to 5 times because she can't easily retain or remember the things she studied, which she found it hard. Now, she's doing her best to study twice or thrice as much as she could because she wants to challenge herself to understand and remember the topics immediately. She is committed to improving her understanding of the topics and challenging herself to step outside of her comfort zone in order to develop better study habits and reach a higher degree of mastery.

About making complex decisions, she's not confident when other people are involved because she's scared that they might judge her or blame her when things go downhill. Other than that, when it comes to experiences and other deals, she's handling it with maturity, like, when we're still in high school, she used to be bossy, which made some of our classmates feel scared or intimidated by her. But now, she tries to think maturely and take some things into considerations and much more understanding because she believes that not everyone is capable of doing this and that, make time, and so on.

She admitted that she felt more satisfaction when she gets a high grade and doesn't get a fail grade, because of course, sino ba namang student ang hindi, diba?. She's the type of a person who always give her all, no matter how hard situations may get, she keeps on moving forward.

Her ideal healthy relationship between romantic partners would involve being considerate and understanding toward each other. In such a relationship, both partners must meet in the middle to avoid misunderstandings. There are times when a partner may want to go out, and for Rhea, she would allow her partner to do so because she trusts him. She believes that constantly reprimanding a partner for spending time with friends will eventually lead to frustration, suffocation, and dishonesty. Therefore, Rhea thinks it's important to give her partner the space he needs, no matter how long they've been together.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There's this part in Mamma Mia (the movie) where Donna watches her daughter, Sophie, fixing her hair while singing "Slipping Through My Fingers." It's a moving scene that perfectly conveys the conflicted emotions of seeing a child mature and gradually move out. When I interviewed Rhea, I felt a similar surge of emotions coming out from me, but I couldn’t quite distinguish what it was. I felt a mixture of pride, nostalgia, and perhaps even a little melancholy, as though I were witnessing her enter a new stage of life, much like Donna had witnessed Sophie grow into her own person. It got me thinking about time and how, despite our best efforts, moments eventually pass and are replaced with memories.

Even though I'm just a friend of hers, I got emotional whenever I try to reminisce about our bond. Our friendship started young, and now, the four of us are still together, sharing countless memories and experiences. It feels like I've seen her growth through the lens of both a parent and a friend. It's been such a fascinating experience to watch her change from the person I knew to the strong, independent person she is now. As I consider how much time has gone by and how much we've all changed, I feel a mixture of pride and sadness. However, it's also lovely to see her develop into the person she was always destined to be. Even as a friend, I can’t help but feel a sense of fulfillment, knowing I’ve been there to see her through every step of her journey.

Mamma Mia reference

photo ops;

*this was during the interview, we called our two other friends as well*

Her college friends.

Love,

Irish & Jairine <3

[lets-jam]

12, 17 and 18 if you feel like it 😁 wanted to pick more positive ones

choose violence fandom ask game

these are really fun... MORE... also 2077 again cause thats really the only 'fandom' ive been a 'part' of for the past few years

12 - the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

spider murphy!!! wheres the art about this bad bitch! who talks like someone from the movie hackers (1995) and is insane and was besties with the guy that literally broke the internet n like was kinda there for it. i think she wouldve been a great reference point for actual history of the web before it was forcibly ruined and destroyed, and had like actual opinions on that and opinions on how the new net was so corpo controlled that no one was even allowed to netrun like they used to! shes like another alt to me, lots of potential, interesting story or pov on stuff and just kinda a cool lady who was also actually 'friends' with johnny in not a sexual way so maybe we couldve had a woman related to him that didnt involve his only pov of them being about sex also a spider murphy alt interaction wouldve been so cool

17 - there should be more of this type of fic/art

more fic of alt not being some evil ai. more fic actually exploring the cyberpunk vibe of where does the self begin and end, at what point do we become a new person/being, what defines humanity (what we are or how we're treated or how we see ourselves or how others do?) and getting into the weirdness that is how johnny and v exist and at what point in their merge do they become a whole ass new person, play with memory and what that means for the self, existential horror of that variety. more fic exploring their relationship but in the very specific way *I* want to see it. more 'ship' fic that like plays with the fact they are living eachothers lives and are the same person and bleed into eachother but at the same time how they cant connect like regular people. more silverv fic where they actually play with the bittersweet nature of being separated and possible existential crisis happening because of that way of living they had being gone. more silverv fic where it doesnt work out cause ladies lets be honest it would not work out between them if johnny had a body. and more fic actually dealing with the kind of crisis that would come after executing a man on live television for the entertainment and profit of others. more fic where johnny and v butt heads philosophically the list goes on and on. and all of these are like where ive found like at least one that KIND of goes into this but... MORE. and also fic that understands the women from johnnys life have their own internal world and thoughts and life beyond him (and related to this johnnys feelings about being forever stuck in time and left behind by the world and others he knew) also more fic on ai being weird little fractaled aliens in their alien net world beyond the blackwall, maybe even some fun stories of people working in conjunction eith them maybe more stories of them posessing ppl willing or not knowledge about it or not esp since v is for all intents and purposes possessed by an ai themselves even if he doesnt think hes an ai art wise more comics like damn letsjam-art what happened :(

18 - it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...

alt. being an actual person as in like her own multifaceted being and all the agnst from what happened to her (running theme apparently) actually dealing with the rammies of the internet infrastructure being completely gone for a time and causing a dark age as a result... like no one really deals with the rammies of what that would mean to just lose all that knowledge indefinitely not to mention lose the infrastructure, not to mention losing a world wide web cause im pretty sure its stated that nets are primarily local. dealing with how people are barred from doing any actual true netrunning since its so policed and controlled, how people arent even making their own programs but loading premade ones to use against others, which is where spider murphy wouldve been great to see the difference in what freelance netrunners could do back when the net was still around and untethered vs now again dealing with the identity crisis and weirdness and just what doesnt kill you makes you stranger vibe of unwillingly merging with another personality to the point you cant even tell where you end and they begin and maybe actually liking it by the end and i hate the game for doing this but it wouldve been so much more fun to have the usa still split apart into independent states that govern themselves vs whatevers left of the nusa vs like the no mans land in the middle of the country vs independent city states like night city. and even tho i didnt like them resetting the status quo in the game the game never really much delved into the fact THERE WAS A WAR ON AMERICAN SOIL RECONQUERING AND ANNEXING STATES BACK INTO THE NUSA like i just did not feel that major like event much int he game outside of like the random homeless veteran or like a single quest and vs too much of a blank slate to have any opinions on it so like whatever i guess but it wouldve been more fun to have an alien 'usa' to deal with in the game also sleeping on johnny actually being confronted with the death and suffering he caused that extended years beyond the nuking of the tower due to like radiation n shit and the resulting like 'red sky' era and like being challenged and possibly even changing his views on things as a result or like exploring what exactly it would take for johnny to change his mind on his whole 'this is for righteous justice that i can arbiter and any casualties are justified and acceptable' mindset

ty for the ask!

[lily-drake]

Going 2 b honest it's kind of weird of u 2 assume those of us who use it/its don't know the implications that might come from that . For some of us its reclaiming it (plenty of us got called "it" as children for looking a bit 2 transgender or being a bit 2 autistic or weird or gay) for some of us we don't care. Some ppl use it because their genders r more complicated than "man" "woman" or "nebulous other/none". Some ppl use it because they r therians/kin/etc but that is not my experience so I can't speak on it. It's not rlly ur business 2 decide what we deserve 2 call ourselves. I mean if u want 2 misgender ppl that's its own problem but assuming u don't want 2. Don't patronize us and assume we don't know what we're doing. Most of us aren't children and we r perfectly capable of understanding what we r saying. I hope u never interact with someone who uses it/its because its literally not that fucking deep

It is deep though. I am deeply sorry for the people who were constantly called and referred to as “it” throughout their childhoods and lives. That’s a heartbreaking thing and I can only imagine the pain each individual felt when being referred to as such. It’s heartbreaking to know that many of the people were not truly seen as humans, and it truly is a travesty of our modern age.

I know many of the people don’t understand the implications of the word as a majority asking to be called “It” are in fact children. Children that don’t fully comprehend right from wrong, that don’t fully comprehend truth from fiction, children that simply can’t understand the meaning because their brains are still not yet full developed. If you don’t trust a 10-year-olds to drive safely by themselves as they don’t fully comprehend the dangers of the road, if you don’t trust a 13-year-olds to comprehend the consequences of getting filler/injection as they are still underdeveloped puberty wise, if you don’t trust a 16-year-olds to be able to comprehend what it takes to take care of a family; then you shouldn’t trust them to comprehend the decision they are making to willingly dehumanize themselves, to be at war with themselves constantly, never knowing who they truly are.

Gender isn’t actually that complicated. See “gender” was created for the use of languages and languages alone! For example Latin uses genders to refer to masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns and verbs, and where all Romance Languages are derived from Latin, they follow similar patterns! For example Agriculae means “The Farmer” and because it ends in “ae” the word is masculine; Stella means “A Star” and because it ends in “a” the word is feminine; Verbum means “A word” and because of the “um” the word is neuter. Gender was never used to describe a person, nor was it ever meant to, it’s just for the words themselves. And as for sex, well simply put, there are only 2 sexes as proven by science.

Animals also only have 2 sexes which are male and female. So even if someone finds that they wish to be more animalistic, they would still be either female or male.

I will call people by what they are. I hold respect for the person, but that does not mean I have to respect their choices; and I expect the same in return. When I made that post I already knew someone would tell me to kill myself, which a person did. I knew that I would be insulted and told to grow up, which many people did. I knew that people would talk down to me and try to guilt trip me, which did happen. Despite this, I hold no grudge and I will continue to talk in a respectful manner. I believe that everyone has an important purpose in life, that each person is imperfect (myself included), but even so everyone can create beautiful and important things no matter what. Most importantly, I believe that real and objective truth is one of the greatest things we hold in this life. For if we can not see the world through the lens of reality, there is nothing left in this world that can ever be viewed as true and beautiful ever again. Where truth has been covered up, chaos and cruelty will reign in its place. I often hear people say that “God made a mistake”, but that would imply that God is some bumbling oaf that doesn’t know his left from right. God is a perfect being, He has never, nor can He ever, make a mistake. If you don’t believe in God, then it must be even harder. To constantly be war with yourself, to never be at peace with oneself is a heartbreaking thought. To never trust your mind, to curse your soul, to choose to remain in confusion and darkness…I can only imagine how painful that must be. I send all my love and all of my prayers to these people, because they deserve happiness; but more importantly they deserve the peace and assurity that comes with truly accepting oneself for who you are, not who you think you “should be”.

Thank you for taking the time to read through this, and please know I am open to having a peaceful and open discussion. There is nothing wrong with a disagreement nor civil debate. I hope that even if we can not come to an agreement I hope that we can at least see eye-to-eye and that both of us can come to an understanding.

[nightwatch-ithaqua]

eh, not my preference, and i seriously doubt we share any servers anyways because.. well, we arent really in any because we dont like being social, and we certainly arent in any big official ones. one on one convo like dms or discord tend to not work very well for situations like this because, as i mentioned, socially awkward and from that point on itd fully be on the other person to keep anything going since we dont really like reaching out firsf to people we arent close with.

ill be honest, they kind of did scare me off a tiny bit lmao, i dont like being told to quiet myself down in any way even if its completely true and necessary haha .. but eh, ill try a bit harder nonetheless.

i thought of two new things, the ears on the hood and the mask. personally if you asked me whether the ears were real or not i honestly couldnt really tell you.. i could move and feel them like actual ears but when the hood comes off theres nothing there lol. my mask was also like that for some reason, by all means just .. a normal mask, but it worked more like my actual face when i wore it. eyes moved and blinked, could make expressions and open my mouth etc.. crazy (shrugs)

🪷

Yeah I mean. We have ADHD so we forget about people we aren't close with so fast it's not even funny anyway.

And like if you aren't comfortable then like, you aren't comfortable. That's okay.

As for my mask, the only thing that I moved were my eyes. In headspace me and the others can move the ears to express ourselves but we couldn't like.. actually in our own bodies. Sometimes we can emote with the mask in the headspace too but like again, not in our bodies. Something about life in the headspace has to be extra expressive for us because we don't have an inner voice to hear each other.

So a lot of our communication is via images or emotions or thoughts. Unfortunately this leads to a lot of us also accidentally invading each other's memories but we've worked on controlling that better.

Also I get you. We're always told we talk too much. Marshmallow is.. he's always so stressed coming out from doing headspace stuff he fronts alone on purpose or with some of our more mute or semi verbal alters so he can have company but also sit in silence.

Dyslexia does make it harder to read for sure but I'm just excited to get an ask.

I have less suspicions about you now though so I'll tell you about the emoji and why I held off saying anything.

That emoji you sign off with has been the same emoji sitting in our discord status for quite some time.

I held off on telling you because awhile back a group of bullies tried to accuse us of being racist and supporting slavery despite no proof (what worried us was that people seemed to believe them anyway). All because we used Pluralkit on discord and they didn't like that. Yeah our attitude got a bit hostile and we became extremely on edge and our abusers kept trying to make themselves sound innocent like we shouldn't just assume they were being mean. And I doubted myself really bad, I kept wondering if we were just digging this hole but we also remember that it literally started with them attacking us.

There was even one instance where they tried to bait an alter of ours into flirting with a minor. It failed of course, not only because they were a minor and part of this group, but even if they were an adult we don't like our alters being sexualized and we most certainly aren't interested in our attackers, attacker's supporters or some random strangers we don't even know.

So I was wary that somehow you using this emoji meant that you were one of them. Not to mention you being a minor. Needless to say I'm still on edge since you're not opening up about your discord but those ARE your boundaries. And frankly we insist on always respecting boundaries.

Being a system is shitty and us being so open about it does unfortunately put a target on our back. But we look at it a few different ways. One, we show other potential systems whether or not this is a safe space to engage so they can decide from there. But two, most importantly for our sakes, we can find out who our real friends will be.

It's less exhausting than masking and coming forward about it and then all the "I don't understand why can't you be one person" "who was fronting the most" "okay so who's [username]" etc. or even them secretly starting to make fun of us behind our backs. Though that can happen either way.

[faygeleh-system]

credit !

key: j / art / benjamin

System Questions

When did you discover that you were a system?

we actually "discovered" we were a system about... 8 years ago, i think? when we were around 13? and at the time the system as a whole was very, very different. i dont think any of our current alters existed then, including myself, at least not in the same way we do now. the old host at the time was a very immature person (i dont hold it against him - again. literally 13) and didnt handle our system in a way that was responsible, tbh. When I took over at approx age 15, i made the mistake of suppressing our entire system, blocking them out, pretending i didnt notice them or that they weren't there. i basically gaslight myself into thinking we arent a system, writing off all of our symptoms as parts of my other disorders. i only just started accepting that we were a system again about two years ago, and only really let lose earlier this year.

Are you polyfragmented?

yep! we have fragments that come and go somewhat frequently

How did you discover that you were a system?

we've "discovered" we were a system a few separate times. the first time that i "discovered" was actually a re-discovery after doing some internal searching, when i felt like two previous names we had gone by were not just other names, but entirely different people. after a lot of self-searching, meditation, and discussion among ourselves, we've concluded this is true and that they were previous hosts. the first shared memory, as far as we can remember, of an "original discovery" was that previous mention at 13. the previous host had discussed it with an old friend, who was also a system .

How do you communicate with your system?

i struggle to communicate because i dont have access to the headspace - at least not to the same extent that everyone else seems to. i basically communicate through things exactly like this (see others in the "answering questions" tag); basically just writing a lot and letting anyone else use the keyboard as much as they want to I basically "manage" the headspace, if we want to phrase it that way. I consider it my personal responsibility to make sure we are all as safe as we can be, fronting or not, and making sure that we front responsibly. We may talk in the headspace, or through writing, like J mentioned.

Do you know how many alters are in your system?

We have four primary alters, with a few fragments and some "others" who choose not to make themselves known.

Do you have any introjects or non-human alters?

we're all some variation of non-human, mostly dogs and/or cats of some kind ; whether as our actual species or spiritually through therianism, etc :3c i am also a fictive but don't like to discuss my source We've recently started to suspect that I'm an introject of an abusive friend we had in high school. I think I look a lot like her, we're the same age, and if I had to pick a birthday I've always felt like it was in December; her birthday is in November, but we had an extremely traumatizing incident with her happen in December of 2019. I am almost certain I existed prior to this (maybe as a fragment?), maybe even as early as 2017. But to be fully honest I do not really remember much prior to December 2019 aside from a few shared memories that J also has. There are also a lot of differences between myself and this friend, namely that I am very strictly a gay man and she is a lesbian trans woman, but otherwise there are enough similarities that I could see our brain splitting to create some kind of "alternate version" of her...? Not sure.

Who fronts the most?

me, usually, but co-front frequently with art and Ben as we've previously mentioned

How often do you switch?

this is a really difficult question to answer , tbh? i wanna say "a lot", as in, at least a couple times a week, if not more - but we also struggle a lot with amnesia and time gaps, so its hard to say for sure

Are you open about being a system or do you mask in front of others?

it depends on who? we absolutely mask around people we don't know or don't trust irl, i.e. at work or around strangers . however our closest friends and my gf all know about us being a system, and we're open about it online since most of our online presence is about trying to be open and authentic and positive, so that includes all of us (:

How do you feel about being in a system?

after years of surpressing im trying so hard to learn to be okay with it. not that i dislike any of my alters - if anything i love them like family, and we get along so well - but its a direct result of the worst trauma of my life and is so hard to think about. some part of me i guess still feels some shame for the trauma i endured as a child. idk.

Do you have a system journal? If so, do your headmates have different handwriting?

this blog is the closest thing we have to a journal, so kinda? but we dont physically write often enough to say who's handwriting looks like what tbh

Is your amnesia strong or mild?

Very strong. For all of us.

Are there relationships within your system? This can be siblings, parents, or romantic partners.

None of us are in romantic relationships with each other, but both I and J consider ourselves "older brother" figures for our little, Red. He's six and struggles to be function alone, and we're very overprotective of him for the sake of his safety.

What do you like most about being in a system?

we work really well together as a unit, which i am incredibly thankful for, especially after how hard we (mainly i) tried to suppress it for so long

What are your thoughts on how DID is represented in media?

its... bad lol. ive never seen a single representation of DID in mainstream media that's even trying to be sensitive or positive representation - it's just serial killers, abusers, "crazy people", etc - we don't get to just exist in any way. this is honestly a big part of why it took me so long to accept being a system again.

[genericpuff]

you ripped off your entire "theory" about LO being made for kids from Pyrrhic Victoria's latest video lol. Word for word, that's pretty hypocritical but then I guess that's to be expected from the person who still financially supports Webtoon and LO even though you've based your entire image off how much you supposedly hate LO

if I "ripped off" P&V then this is news to me because I've only watched each one of their videos once (they're long and they cover a SHITLOAD of topics, bruh) and it's been ages, BUT-

This honestly makes for a great segue to talk about opinion sharing in the fandom in general because ima be honest with you, there's like... only so much you can talk about in the LO crit community. Like as much as we make fun of the stans for all sharing one echo chamber of opinions, the ULO community isn't that much different in the sense of like, having the same takes and opinions about the topic we've chosen to unite on and being hyper passionate about it to the point of having the same conversations at least ONCE per week. Like it's just a webcomic about pink and blue people, a lot of takes are pretty much the exact same and that's not a BAD thing but ... both P&V and I have been in the ULO stratosphere for AGES now so ?? There's only SO MUCH to cover about LO before it all starts blurring together lmao I can't "own" an opinion, and they undoubtedly know that they can't "own" any one specific opinion either, especially within a fandom like this. C'mon now.

"LO is made for babies" or "LO is marketed to children" is also one of the way more common takes, that's like saying I'm ripping off panel redraw accounts for doing my own panel redraws. LO's been compared to other things that are commonly marketed to children like MCU films, Disney movies/shows, etc. time and time again because that's been SUPER common knowledge for YEARS now prior to any of us joining the community, regardless of "who joined first", it's literally WT's entire business model and it's pretty plainly obvious. The specific comparison I made was just one that came to me during a ramble on stream the other night and I wanted to put it to paper because that's what I do here. If that specific comparison has been made in the past already in a 3 hour video that I completely forgot/didn't realize, then great! I'm not the only one who came to this conclusion! Thanks for the validation!

None of this is with shade at P&V or even you, btw, I think it's honorable you want to stand up for them if you enjoy their stuff and I can't harp on you for that but like... this ain't it? Y'all gotta understand this community is still HELLA small as far as fandom culture goes, we all know everybody, have helped build these parts of the community together from cardboard and glue whether or not we still directly affiliate with each other, and share many of the same takes and schools of thought that stem back YEARS before even WE were in the community ourselves so it's kinda silly to try and point fingers at any one person and say "abc is ripping off xyz!" esp when the "ripping off" is just like, having the same opinion about something? A lot of both our takes also intersect with takes from other antiLO accounts and channels that pre-existed theirs and my own. It's a fandom, after all, no single person can lay claim to any specific opinion we're all coming from many of the same schools of thought with foundations that pre-exist us, it's just different people delivering their own unique spins on takes that have been heard many times before. Some of us do re-imaginings, some of us do panel edits, some of us just crack great jokes about it. We're not all pals with each other, we're not even all from the same platforms or community bubbles, but I think we're all pretty familiar with each other's content and what each one of us is about for the most part.

I know you're likely not gonna take "trust me" as a promise that I'm not ripping anyone off, but like... trust me, I'm not sitting here sifting through P&V's 15+ hour video backlog and going "huehuehue I'm gonna steal this!" because I would gain nothing from doing that and their content is ultimately just part of a bigger genre of topics and opinions that are constantly being re-assessed and re-discussed as the comic goes on, they were just the first ones to make an ongoing Youtube series about it (which is commendable in and of itself with how much content they've made around it, most other Youtubers just review it once in 20-90 minutes and call it a day).

P&V's contributions to these discussions have their own personal unique flair to them but the opinions themselves aren't all brand new revelations. Back when I still watched their videos, their alternate scenarios as to how something could be written were pretty neat because it came with their own unique experiences and viewpoints as webcomic creators which isn't something you'll find on every other account. But "LO is marketed to children and here's why" isn't exactly one of those takes because it's one we've all talked about in the community LONG before those videos even existed. And it's been talked about since before any of us were in the community, period. So... yeah, that's pretty much all I have to say on that lmao it's not that complicated, there's no "conspiracy" going on here, it's a Tumblr post about something that's already been talked about in the past by many others, my guy.

As a closing note, accusing me of being hypocritical on the basis of something you don't even have facts on like "financially supporting Webtoons and LO" is such a silly hill to die on, c'mon pal. You want me to stand here and tell you my side of it as if you're even gonna believe me? Because even if I do say "actually, I no longer even have the Webtoons app on my phone and I can't even remember the last time I paid for coins on the app because all the series I usually FP nowadays are on hiatus and I stopped FP'ing LO back at the start of S3" are you really gonna believe me? Did you even bother to read through the majority of this post? You want receipts or something? What do you want from me? I got nothing to hide, but I'm not gonna sit here and try to explain myself to someone hiding behind an anon filter who's already decided I'm a hack so idk what you want 🤣 Even if I did still FP the series, what then? There are people in this community who do still FP to keep up on content so they can keep talking about it, why is that a crime all of a sudden? Since when did this become some kind of weird "prove you're loyal" indoctrination? Or are you just mad my takes are basic?