#ill delete this later probably but just know that i love garbage and it just be like that sometimes

[jemsboner]

I will forever love and stan Sebastian Morgenstern so jot that down

[rainbowsky]

More on the Fan Fic issue

I have a few more asks about the issue raised the other day, some of which are long and go into detail on the 'wars' that have been happening on Twitter and AO3.

Sorry for grouping these but I wanted to put it all under a cut because these are long, and also in case people don't want to dig into these issues (which would be understandable).

Anonymous 1 asked:

"I am very strongly of the opinion that the BJYX term is still a fandom umbrella term" I agree. Mainly because Bjyx is the most popular. Many antis always say bjyx, and have no idea the others. So sometimes it's easier just to say bjyx instead of explaining all three. I myself more like "who cares as long as they happy." So I enjoy Yizhan in all contexts. Many bxgs I know also like that, mostly ibxgs. I think deep down all bxgs (no matter which position they prefer) just want Yizhan to be happy

Not sure we can be so certain about that last part, Anon (I think for a lot of people GG and DD are just characters in a smutty story they have in their heads), but I agree about the term being popular regardless of the type of fans people are.

From what I can see the BJYX term seems to be used 80-90% umbrella, 10-20% dynamic in both international and c-social media (for every 10 times you see the term used, only one or two of those usages - probably less - are referring to a dynamic). This is my totally unscientific estimation, but I think even 10-20% dynamic is being generous. The number of people who are fixated on a sexual dynamic aren't nearly as large as they'd like to believe.

Anonymous 2 asked:

about the promptfests - i’ve been on twitter since early 2020 and what i’ve noticed is that this influx bjyx-only promptfests started gaining speed once lots of rational voices started leaving the fandom recently either because a) new interests have caught their attention or b) the toxicity of the popular bxg circles on twitter have become too much to handle.

gdgdbaby was usually the organizer of dynamic-inclusive events, and she’s received lots, and lots, and lots of backlash by bxg, sometimes even by accounts with thousands followers, for using bjyx as a catch-all term. and as her interest in yizhan has since waned—hopefully for reasons unrelated to fandom toxicity—many of the people who were attracted to the welcoming environment she created distanced themselves as well.

zsww/lsfy fans have become an outnumbered circle who try their best to create exclusive events to avoid the “is bjyx a catch-all term” discourse, but never seem to gain as much traction as gdgdbaby (who has a sizeable following) or those who host bjyx-only events (who also have sizeable followings).

meanwhile the dynamic war has only become more and more hostile and bjyx is clearly the more populated group… ao3 is simply a battlegrounds, if i may dramatize the situation a little for the sake of humor, and the promptfests are a reaction to this irritating t/b discourse that has made bxg twitter completely inhospitable for me…and lots of other fans too.

(i’ve also noticed a huge reinforcement as of recently where ppl will call gg laopo, a milf, an omega, etc even outside of rpf (i.e. posting pictures of him at events and saying he looks pregnant or he’s going into heat) and it’s just… uncomfortable.)

(also please note i have a biased account of all of this drama bc many of my friends were harassed over it, and anyone who disagrees with my take may feel free to interject.)

I took the liberty of adding paragraph breaks because they are pretty important for some readers, particularly ND readers like me.

It's sad to hear how fucked up everything has become, but I'm not even remotely surprised. Toxicity leads to toxicity, and the whole idea of dividing up a RP fandom by sex position was misguided from the outset - no matter why it was done or how good the intentions might have been.

And yes, like I said, these people aren't just framing things this way for fan fic. This is how they talk about IRL GGDD.

I had written a lengthy essay here about homophobia in the fandom but deleted it all. Perhaps I'll post it separately at some later point. Suffice it to say that this stuff creates a climate that's often hostile for queer people. So much of it is deeply homophobic, whether people are aware of it or not.

It's really sad to hear about gdgdbaby being mistreated in any way. Anyone who steps up and sticks their neck out to help organize and coordinate activities that benefit a broader group of people should be celebrated and supported, not run out of town by an angry mob.

I've read some of her stories and even have one or two on my rec list. And here's someone who is not only writing good works, but also supporting others to write more good works. Such a shame.

Anonymous 3 asked:

Hello Mr. RBS! I think I can chime in a bit about the fanfic topic as I’ve watched this all unravel on twitter (where a majority of authors/readers are). I apologize if this gets long but it’s been something that’s also been on my mind.

I want to preface this by saying that I’m not a fan of the distinctions of dynamics as, like you said, the supposed line between real life and fanfic is long gone, so I’m not trying to be biased against one group over another.

Short answer to the question of, “is this retaliation?” : I do believe it is. (From here onwards I’ll be using bjyx as the dynamic term just for the ease of simplicity.) To understand why, I’ll have to explain with a bit of background info. On twitter, I’d say that there’s a quite large divide between bjyx and zsww/lsfy. That itself isn’t really a problem because people are free to like what they like and associate with whoever.

However there is a big problem where bjyx people are not just bjyx but also anti-zsww/lsfy. To the point where I’ve seen people say that they feel physically ill when they accidentally read zsww. I don’t think this type of behavior should exist in any dynamic bc in the end GGDD are real people with a real relationship behind this content and it’s just a gross fetishization at that point.

With all this happening, zsww/lsfy people have gotten more outspoken on how GG is often portrayed in those types of scenarios, mainly the over-feminization of him, bc it’s not just done in the context of fanfic but regular discussion of GGDD at this point. This tension between the dynamics kind of boiled over when the pregnant xz fest was announced, as you can take a guess at how that went over with zsww/lsfy people. lol.

But around that same time, another zsww/lsfy event was announced (I’m not sure if it’s the one anon was talking about) but the creator of the event suddenly got a ton of backlash for excluding bjyx, with the reasoning that bjyx is technically a part of lsfy. But the event was done to highlight zsww/lsfy (as all specific events are) bc the community and content for these dynamics are much less than bjyx.

Which is how we come back to the starting point of, is all this recent bjyx stuff retaliatory. I believe so bc the events (preg fest, dark event) are very specific prompts that target exactly what zsww/lsfy people have been outspoken against.

As to the point anon made about trying to drown out the tags, keep in mind that zsww/lsfy content is very minimal compared to bjyx and has only just recently started to gain more traction. I think most people would love to just peacefully exist in their own circles but I don’t see this problem between dynamics disappearing anytime soon.

Like I said with the above Anon, I've added paragraph breaks for ND readers.

What a mess.

I have absolutely nothing useful to say here about the fandom on AO3 and how it's managed by community members, but I do think it's unfortunate that people choose to be war-like rather than make space for diverse voices, and I think it's a real shame that some people have been essentially run out of the fandom because of this garbage.

Thanks for giving some context for how/why the major shift in tone of fan fic lately. I had no idea any of this was going on.

I urge people to work hard to give space for all voices and perspectives, and not just the ones they favor. I'd also urge people to reflect on how their thoughts, behavior and actions in the fandom might affect queer people in the fandom.

As always, we have no control over what other people do, say or think. All we have any control over is how we respond to what other people do, say or think. Hopefully we'll chose the path of peace and try to avoid fan wars or fights that only ruin the experience for everyone.

I guess one thing I'd ask any of the Anons who have written me about this issue - or anyone who has thoughts about it - is, what can we as readers/fans who care about diversity of voices and perspectives do to support that here and on AO3, without getting involved in any kind of war?

[clumsyclifford]

just finished writing this and realized how long it got oh jeez i am so sorry. i promise it is just me rambling about nothing and does not require a lot of thought.

i made a playlist of r5's entire discography and am listening to it (in order) because there is something wrong with me. if only it had their very first ever ep on it (ready set rock ep you may have been slight garbage but i don't love you any less for it). oh god i realized i fucked up and didn't add the songs by "ross lynch and r5" from the austin & ally soundtrack. i'm already three songs into louder and they would have been between louder and say you'll stay. what do i have to do is actually one of r5's best songs and i'm pretty sure i remember ross calling it one of his favs fairly recently?? which was so valid of him. anyways. this is now an r5 song ranking. i'm bored and avoiding doing assignments. i'm going to name my top 10 r5 songs off the top of my head. source: me trying to remember every song they've ever released.

no. 1: easy love. nothing comes close. my fav song they ever made. they haven't made anything that even compares since (this is /hj. tde has some valid songs).

no. 2: wishing i was 23. what do you mean i only love this song because of my nostalgia bias no i don't.

no. 3: what do i have to do? i will not elaborate i do not know why i adore this song as much as i do it's just a cute song.

no. 4: repeating days. THE END. THE FUCKING END AFTER THE SONG ENDS THE "all i've got is cheap wine" PART ross sounds so vulnerable and him with just the guitar makes me so :(((((( it's so gorgeous that part makes the whole song and that makes it top 3 for me.

no. 5: i want u bad. THAT SONG FUCKS LIVE. I DO NOT WANT TO THINK ABOUT THE FACT THAT I WILL PROBABLY NEVER SEE IT LIVE AGAIN. (speaking of concerts i can't believe you bought concert tix and fucking forgot??? that is actually so fucking funny bella it made me laugh i will not lie)

no. 6: dark side. so so valid of them. it just fucks. it's so good. it makes u want to dance. u named a fic after a lyric from it which was so valid.

no. 7: did you have your fun? i love this song. no i will not elaborate. it is a sexy song. what's that one lyric from it that's hot. "love me, leave me, left me numb" some lyrics you love for no particular reason and for me that's one of those lyrics.

no. 8: f.e.e.l.g.o.o.d. this has alwayysss been one of my favs by them. since it dropped. some lore about it: the like crowd yelling that's in it they recorded live at a festival they played and i remember there being hype about this being an unreleased song when they had the crowd chanting "f-e-e-l-g-o-o-d" with no explanation. also another fun fact is that the final version of this is just a demo?? source: my slightly faulty memory remembering ross saying something about some demos being so good that you keep them as they are and it later being revealed this was the song he was talking about.

no. 9: i know you got away. sexy song. they released a vocals only version of it (that has apparently since been deleted?? i went to look for it on youtube and couldn't find it?? wtf r5) that has stuck with me ever since.

no. 10: loud. but more specifically the acoustic or live version. this was their encore song that they played to end every show. i MISS IT. it holds a special place in my heart.

honorable mentions: hurts good (a good song and THEIR LAST THEY EVER RELEASED VV SAD), wild hearts (fun fact almost picked a lyric from this song as my senior quote till i found out they didn't write this song), fallin' for you (YOU LIKE MISMATCHED SOCKS WITH POLKA DOTS YOU LIKE YOUR PIZZA COLD I THINK THATS HOT i never saw this song live and i'm still fucking pissed about it ok), do it again (it's such a sweet song :(((( "listen to the airplanes as we count the stars" gives me the same vibes as six feet under the stars), things are looking up (generally just a cute song!! this whole ep is just very good and very cute!! when i saw it live one time during the bridge ross was like "everyone shut up this is my favorite part >:(" and that was so valid of him) i can't say i'm in love (it's just a fun song!! it was a bonus track on sln from another country), trading time (this is the only song from the new addictions ep that i listed and u know what i'm Not sorry)

ok. i will spare you and stop rambling. other honorable mentions: if you have never listened to cool girl (feat. the driver era) by new beat fund i highly recommend. it's an okay song but it was one of the first songs released after they rebranded as tde and includes ross saying motherfucker with his whole chest. i will never again feel what i felt the first time i heard that song having listened exclusively to them as r5 whose songs they couldn't curse in because they were on a disney label.

in conclusion. i miss r5. ross saying fuck is kinda hot. i listened to the entirety of louder while writing this. i am sorry to dump this in your askbox. i still have multiple assignments to do and should probably go to sleep at a decent time. it feels fitting to finally stop writing while easy love is on. when i was 12 and this ep came out i thought "dirtbags" was a curse word and was scared to sing it. they changed it to "douchebags" live.

that's all. goodbye. have a lovely night. listen to r5's discography for clear skin thriving crops etc etc. sorry to lovepost about them in your askbox i only have (1) former r5 mutual that i still talk to (a very interesting but long story. she's the gemini bestie) and she will only lovepost about r5 once in a while. feel free to ignore my ask calling cody bellinger hot i was a different person when i wrote it i am now a changed woman. LOVE YOU MWAH - bella but she misses r5

hi hi im going to answer this with minimal thought because im tired but i dont wanna leave this sitting in my inbox forever but for the record all your r5 opinions are valid. ok lets go

1. easy love slaps ive heard it a couple times over the last few days (it played in the car today while i was driving sam n meghna to the airport) and it does fuck i can see why it's your fave

2. i do not know this song

3. A BOP A WHOLE FUCKIN BOP

4. oh i do love repeating days great choice i would have to hear it a few more times to get it in my head but i remember really liking it when i listened to the album it's on

5. also a banger and i'm glad my concert tickets situation made you laugh it made me laugh too imagine being this useless gldskfjgs

6. DARK SIDE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS GIVE IN TO YOUR DARK SIDE YOUR DARK SIDE IIIIIIIII SEE THE WAY YOU LOOK AT MEEEEE

7. ANOTHER FUCKING BANGER this one is probably among my favorite r5 songs maybe top 5 LOVE ME LEAVE ME LEFT ME NUMB (guitar moment) DID YOU HAVE YOUR FUUUuuuuUUUUUNNNNN i feel the same way about this lyric as you

8. oh shit thats pretty cool i dont know this song tbh i cant remember how it goes i know ive heard it once or twice but. id have to listen to it again so i will keep you posted on that

9. i do not know this one either

10. interesting choice for top ten but i support you, this song fucks and ever since you mentioned it it's been in my subconscious and randomly getting stuck in my head i think i need to listen to it to get it out. it does hit ur right

11. i don't know hurts good or wild hearts or things are looking up or i can't say i'm in love or trading time well enough to say anything about them. but i really like fallin for you it's one of those cheap fun songs but emphasis on fun, and also really like do it again one day ill write a fic based on that song

i have not listened to cool girl i put it on my to listen playlist so hopefully i remember to listen to it soon ill be honest though i dont think im prepared for ross lynch saying motherfucker w his whole chest like i think itll take me out. so. anyway. i hope you got your assignments done. thank you for the r5 lovedump feel free to drop in anytime with more

[sherlywrites]

Float

I am floating between the clouds and the sky. Beneath me is Venus, my spiritual home, a planet I’ve never set foot on but am always approaching. Above me, the sun, pricking at my skin with its fiery lashes. I feel it, on my stomach, my thighs, my breasts, my cheeks, my neck, the lids of my eyes. I can see the clouds swirling around me, spirits in a cauldron, coming together and pulling apart in the primordial heat like lovers in the notes of heaven. Below me, starting from my back, comes my shadow. It shrinks the farther it gets from me, until it reaches the planet’s surface, where it can hardly be said to exist at all.

Part One- The Unique

Back then, my job was to monitor drones and droids, to make sure that if they broke and caused some catastrophic error, some human being would be there to text everyone

“The world is ending.” I fantasized.

“Darn.” they’d send back.

It’s not a popular job, but I loved it. The pay was mediocre, but easily worth it to avoid talking to anyone. To be able to stand, more or less alone, on the rails of the dome, taking a break from the artificial sunlight and fake blue sky, turn off my augmented reality glasses, and watch the universe born anew as swirling orange clouds combined and eliminated in the Venus atmosphere, each time sewing a new thread in a rich living tapestry. I thanked the stars I would be dead before terraforming was completed.

It wouldn’t have stopped without me, but nonetheless I played some part in that slow moving murder, as well as in that ornate blindfold over the eyes of the city’s citizens. I, in some bulky protection suit sporting a large bug eyed helmet, crawled like a cockroach across my colony, despising the terraformers even as I dutifully made sure they continued sucking in gas, burning it, and dropping sludge to the ground below.

Despite how much I loved the job, nothing can stop routine from its slow march into monotony, and so in the moments before I witnessed a person I would later describe as the most beautiful woman who ever lived with half her body stuck in a terraformer, I wasn’t really on my toes. I think I may have looked at her without even registering what was happening, actually, and just looked away-- only for my adrenal gland to save the day and send panic screaming up into my head as I quickly processed the sure fate of a soft biological life form if it the terraformer sucked her in-- my muscles responded to some deep apeish instinct and propelled me forward across the walkway as if they belonged to someone else-- grabbed her by the straps on her protective suit-- cranked my magnetic boots up to their highest setting-- and struggled with a terraformer. It would have sucked us both in if I did not succeed in frantically inputting the emergency shutoff command through my AR glasses.

I helped her out of the chute with shaking hands. I told myself to breathe. She still had her helmet on. Good. As she emerged, I noticed she was holding something in her hands.

A little droid, no bigger than a bread box, half burned but repairable.

I started yelling about how foolish it was to risk her life for such a thing. I won’t make excuses for myself, but I couldn’t have in that moment understood why anyone would stare directly into the face of death in the name of protecting a small robot. Why didn’t she issue the cut off command? Why was this particular droid so important to her? Why did she seem so unnervingly calm even after skirting the veil between life and cold dark oblivion? Why did she just stare at me quietly as I yelled at her and flailed my arms? When I later broached the topic again, she stated she did not want to discuss it. Needless to say, though, I’m sure she had her reasons, I’m sure she had good ones, and so I’ll say I’m embarrassed by, and ashamed of, how I acted in the aftermath and leave it at that.

After I was through yelling, she just looked at me in silence, hugged the half baked toaster close to her chest, and said “Thank you.” before walking away.

When one walks the streets of Atlas, even when one looks up at the glimmering statue of that muscular greek myth, the old obsolete earth dumped like so much human garbage beside him, that adorns the spectacular city center, one is bombarded with a series of advertisements for various products and the associated promises of happiness packaged with them. I have neither seen nor been in a swamp, but if advertisements be sludge and slime, then I am a magpie, treading water and trying not to get my feet stuck. At some point, you learn to just ignore it.

Yet suddenly, after that encounter, I took notice once again of how much of my net time being alive was spent having people try to sell me stuff, like a tax on my lifespan.

Was it the moment itself? Usually, death is such a far away, impossible thing. Our lifespans are so long now, it seems like the oldest members of our society-- some in excess of 200 years old-- will never die. Certainly I, a mere infant of twenty-eight, felt as though my time was infinite, and that nothing of worth would be lost by watching it drip down the drain.

Or was it her?

Her simple action, insane, but deprived of personal gain, a glistening gem of selfless self sacrifice, distracted me from swamp treading and bid me dip my beak down to grab it. No facsimile was this, only something very real, human, of the heart, could ever prompt some mad urge to brave the ever churning gears of the terraforming machine.

Two weeks later, I was on my way out of work when I noticed her. She was sitting on a bench, her eyes performing the telltale motion of someone reading off their AR lenses. In the spectacular sunlight, surrounded by people with flawless faces, I felt it had to be her. She had blonde hair. It came down to her chin, and framed a face with features unheard of in the era of body modification. She had a scar, and a broken, non functional eye.

I saw the steel in her eyes, in her face, and I thought it must be her. Each step I took towards her represented increased anxiety, but I knew in my gut that I was already past the chains of doubt. I walked up at her, stopped,

She looked up at me without moving her head, “I don’t feel like talking.” she stated without qualification, her eyes returning to reading instantly. I recognized the voice, but still felt the biting chains of doubt begging me to run.

“Were you the woman I pulled out of the terraformer?”

She paused. Her head gradually raised, tilted, her bright eye sharp with scrutiny.

“You.” she stated. In that moment she stared at me, atomized me, picked me apart string by string. I knew, then, she would not be the type to mistake gratitude for obligation.

“Yea, I just wanted to apologize for how I acted, I have no excuse. I am Cheyenne.”

Her eye searched for my hand as she tentatively replied “Sophia.”

On Venus, apologizing is something you do for superiors because you screwed up at work. When you offended a friend, you bought them something nice like a necklace, or alcohol. If she had asked for something I probably would have bought it for her, but I was overcome with the immediate impression that she did not want to be bought at all.

“No gift,” I lied, “just me.”

How do I describe the process of falling in love? I wracked my brain for a long time over that, for several days, with Sophia always reading what I wrote and insisting it was good, before I felt ultimately compelled to delete it and begin all over again.

I could tell you about her eyes, would that make it seem authentic? To me, they are gleaming jewels, they see into me and through me. They see into the future, past the market, past the companies, past Atlas. Her personality? Formidable, she enjoys her athleticism and practices it with grace and power. When she finally gets so frustrated with the constant bombardment of advertisements, takes her glasses off, and says “They task me” my heart soars. I could tell you her hair is like shining waves, gold sheets of clouds ill fitted with the artificial sun of Atlas, and that when I bury my face in it I finally know what the real sun feels like.

It’s frustrating, because as many words as I gift to her, whether to see her smile or to prompt a new kiss, none of them feel like they truly grasp the depth of my love. Staring into my love is like staring into the void, just as infinite, just as terrifying, but warm, and certainly impossible to actually describe. It’s like an eldritch monster inside you giving you a hug.

There have, of course, been moments. When we were eating at a restaurant on our first week together, and I asked her about her wooden rosary, she smiled in her elusive way and told me it reminds her that God and wealth are two separate things, no matter what they tell you. Another time, when we were being served dinner by a droid, and she thanked it. When we were walking through the streets of Atlas one day, she glared up at the statue of the man himself as if she would, and could, impale him on a spike and chuck him into the clouds. She stood there for at least a full minute before shaking her head and walking on.

By then, I would have followed her anywhere, even through the burning atmosphere.

What I never understood was why she liked me. I am not very attractive,  nor am I particularly tough. But sometimes when I’m doing something, like I’m trying on a dress and laughing at how I look in it, or when I’m swaying my hips to some rhythm, I find her looking at me, looking content to watch what I figured was nothing interesting at all.

“I’m not alone, either.” she told me, one morning, when we were outside the dome together, taking our time to watch the new patterns weaving and forming before they were consumed by the terraformers. “Many women in this city are just as sick of this shit as I am.”

“I wouldn’t know.” I said, my fingers deftly typing in codes and reports, “I don’t really participate in the network forums.”

“That’s a good thing,” she sighed, “But I don’t think there’s been this much powerful female energy in the entire history of humankind. They say they abolished sexism for good in 2114, but, you know, we still have way more expectations placed on us. They turn our bodies into commodities, and sell them to a presumed male audience, because of course most women do not feel particularly compelled to consume pornography.”

“Yea, even the stuff with only women in them are clearly made for men.”

“Right, the market assumes everything is for them, or for women to aid themselves in becoming their ornaments.”

“That’s pretty true to what it’s like to date one, too.”

I saw her helmet turn toward me suddenly, silent for a moment. “You dated a man?”

“Once.”

She laughed “Well, no one’s perfect.”

I laughed too, because I thought it was a joke.

My first and only man had been an ambitious one, although it seems to me nearly all men have ambition on Atlas, named Mark. I found him through a dating service, shortly after I underwent my massive body modification. I had thought, and been told, that I would walk into the clinic a man and walk out a woman, simple as that, but of course when I walked out I had no idea what I was doing, and the only instruction manual I had was the market.

And the market always advertised men, and so I thought that came with the role.

He made his expectations pretty clear the moment we sat down, and I was attracted to him at the time so even though I was uncomfortable with the seemingly personal act of being fucked by a man, I allowed him to fuck me anyway. I had been told by the market that sex was free, pleasurable, and fun. I had watched some videos as well, in my curious moments, and it seemed the act was very controlled, and clean.

In reality, it was nothing like this, and nothing prepared me for what to do or how. It was a very bodily, manual act, and if I were in a position he found inconvenient, he simply repositioned me, kicked my legs apart, pushed my back down with his hand. If he felt like trying something new, he tried it. At first, if I gagged, he choked me, or hurt me, he’d ask if I was okay, but eventually he became comfortable enough that he stopped asking.

He fucked me four times before he stopped bothering to talk to me beforehand, and then three times after that. The last time, I learned how truly professional those actresses were, as I spent the next hour washing his climax out of my eye before it stopped burning. I looked at myself in the mirror, at my smeared makeup and eyes I couldn’t even open all the way, and this is what it took before I finally realized something was wrong and never saw a man again.

So when Sophia told me this was because men still felt women were objects to be consumed, like any other commodity, it lit my mind ablaze. It made so much sense; it was an earth shattering revelation with continuous aftershocks each time I saw more and more evidence she was right. I wanted to scream, a lot.

“So in that way, being a lesbian is a kind of boycott of men. It’s an act of rebellion.” she told me. We were sitting on her couch, my head in her lap, as she fed me soy puffs.

“Good, I don’t find men attractive anymore anyway.” I laughed.

She nodded, “I’m glad to have escaped that, I’m still completely pure.”

“Yes if you have any flaw it’s that you’re too perfect.”

With a shrug, she said “It’s a challenge to maintain, so I understand. Our culture is constantly telling you that you are for men.”

I reached up and cupped the side of her face “Now I’m a lesbian, too, in love with a lesbian.”

She smiled down at me and kissed me. Then she paused, looking thoughtfully. “There is one thing of which you must be careful. Sometimes, men will modify their bodies to look like women, to trick us into sleeping with them.”

I made a face “Really? That’s pretty fucked up.”

With a nod, she continued “It is. There are ways you can always tell, of course, by how they act, how they look, how their hair grows--”

My arms curled around her, I pulled her in tight.

“Well, I’m safe, because I only have eyes for you.”

It occured to me only on the lowest level she might have been talking about me, at first. With time, however, the infiltrators took up more and more of our conversation time. I went about my days largely oblivious, but looking back she had painted a black streak on my heart that boiled my blood into self doubt. I hadn’t asked myself if I was a woman or not, but I did find myself checking to make sure I was one. I checked my body, my personality, my behavior, I scanned myself to make sure all my female parts were working, and that my chromosomes were still modified to support my full anatomy.

I was assured, but sometimes I’d say something and wonder if it was too mannish. Some mornings, I’d look in the mirror, and poke at my bones, my breasts. I’d look at myself, and at that altar I’d ask myself what a woman is, and how I know if I really am one.

Then I’d remember that I am loved by Sophia, and got myself out of that room.

When she was undressing me for the first time, I was shaking. I felt her soft lips kissing me in her usual places, her skin white as light along my brown cheek, down the crook of my neck to the crest of my chest. When my shirt was off, her hands worked her way around to my bare back.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered suddenly.

“I am ugly.” I responded, sinking down to the bed.

“No.” she repeated, as she had many times before.

“Do I even look like a woman?

She comforted me with kisses on the cheek. “You are the most womanly looking person I have ever met.”

That threw me. “Huh?”

She pulled back, her face flushed, but her eyes that same steely blue. “Most women, myself included, have come to think of being women as a burden. Some become complacent, try to get by with pleasing men, and others rebel. But you, it seems like you truly think of womanhood as a gift. I’d never met someone who actually liked being one, before you.”

I stared into her eyes for a quiet moment.

I kissed her, she crawled onto the bed with me.

The trouble with gestures of love, even simple pure words like “You’re beautiful” and “I love you,” is that in our culture we hear them so much as a matter of marketing, that they seem like practiced lies coming from the mouth of the city. “I love you” says the man selling you a cup of coffee, “You’re beautiful” says the man to the woman who buys our moisturizer.

Sophia found a way through those barriers. She repeated her words, over and over, looking into my eyes, until they lost their previous meaning and built new ones in my heart, until I could finally walk outside the dome, float between the clouds, and feel her-- the sun-- kissing my skin. Until at last, the sun is my body, and my body the sun, and the sun is love.

It became the happiest month of my life, so happy I ignored the growing undertow of darkness beneath. I was in her room, the artificial sun low enough in the dome to elongate the apartment’s shadows across its length, when she walked in with a look in her eyes I did not recognize. Her face was as cold as the dark side of Venus, her gaze as implacable and consuming as the terraformers, her voice a razor thin wire around my throat.

“Sophia?”

Silence.

My hands started shaking.

“Put on your glasses.” she ordered me. I did.

Our AR glasses between us, now I see what she brought me. My medical report, from the transitory modification. How did she get this?

“Is it real?” she asked, as if she knew.

“Y-yes, but”

She ran to the bathroom, and I shortly heard the sound of vomiting coming from within. I quickly assembled myself into a passable state of dress, and crept around to see what was happening in the bathroom. It felt like the city itself was tilting underneath me, and my soul was outside the dome-- eyes pressed to the glass-- watching, unable to act.

“Soph…” and I saw her, bent over the waste tube, her fingers down her throat as if she needed to get the poison out. She was hurting herself.

“Sophia!” I cried, trying to pull her away from her altar of viscera.

“Get away!” she screamed, swatting at me “Get away from me.” she glared at me, pure hatred in her eyes, hatred for me. I still didn’t understand, I backed away from her.

“You did this to me.” she stepped toward me, I stepped back. “You tricked me, you raped me. How? How could you? You soulless bastard. You fucking filth.”

I could hear her anger rising, but I wasn’t prepared for any kind of scenario in which I had to flee from her apartment, so I cowered, I cowered until she towered over me.

“I don’t-- I don’t understand Sophie, I don--”

She grabbed me by my shoulders and shoved me, shoved me out, towards the door, I scrambled to grab for the handle, to pull it, to get an opening, and she shoved me out, screaming at me until she could no longer see me, and I had gone.

What no one tells you about trauma is the horrendously painful adjustment period your mind takes to accept its new reality. For the next few days, I still expected Sophia to message me, to knock on my apartment door, and I looked for her. I never saw her, not there, not on the streets, not at work, not at restaurants, not in the city square, at the statue of Atlas. I sat down in the city square, still numb, still failing to understand, and I looked at that statue.

Had I become him? Had I become an object of marketing myself, deluded by my desire to occupy a role in society to which I did not belong, and enabled by the ever eager engines of consumption to chew my own body and spit it out in the form of a woman, for the sole purpose of an attack on womanhood itself? I had done everything to my body I thought I needed to do, I had the breasts, the vagina, the skin, the face, the hair, the womb and the chromosomes. But they were all the result of body modification, the product, the market, Atlas itself, shifting and breaking down my body into its idea of a woman, for no reason other than that I paid it to.

If that was all true, then how should I become a woman, then? What did I need to do, where did I need to go, who did I need to talk to. I needed to be a woman, to be back with the person who loved me as a woman loves another. But there is no one, no one to tell me the path, no one but Sophia.

Cheyenne:

So, even though I should have left her alone, I messaged her.

Sophie?

Sophie? Please talk to me.

Sophie…

Please. Sophie, I’m sorry.

I should have told you.

But I didn’t mean to take something away from you.

You know I’d never do that.

Sophie?

Sophie, just tell me, what… what do I need to do? How can I be a woman, then?

I just want to be a girl, I just want to see you again.

Sophie.

I saved your life, Sophia.

I saved your life. The terraformer.

The terraformer.

You owe me an answer. Please.

Sophia:

Nothing

Cheyenne:

What?

Sophia:

There is nothing you can do. You will always be a man. You were born that way, you will die that way. Good bye.

I spent the next few days sobbing into the mirror, my body and face now the mutilated corpse of a delusional man. It had become apart from me, something I controlled like a twisted puppet on the strings of a pervert’s sick joke. I punched my mirror, I shattered its glass, I let it fall about my bathroom, I watched it sit on my floor, specked with my blood.

When I first stepped outside the dome, in my suit, I looked over the edge, and I was afraid of falling, falling to my death. I was worried Venus would swallow me whole, but I should have been afraid it would spit me back out, out into the vacuum, into the darkness, the abyss.

If those old gods wanted my blood, they could have it. I dragged that broken glass across my wrist, and the sting-- the pain-- gave me a rush, filled me with adrenaline. It was like an old friend, one I hadn’t seen since the days of my boyhood, since Mark. His shadow welcomed me back, with open arms, he caressed me, he fondled me. I gave him more blood, I squeezed my hand and watched it slowly drip down onto the sink like the sands of time, forming stalagmites, pointing up at me out of my twisted altar. Did it want my heart, then? It could have it, I could rip it out of my chest and throw it down to those old gods, they could drag it screaming before the squirming waves of viscera and vile sludge, and I would just look down at it, watch it sink and beg me to save it until I was free of it, and could see it no longer.

I looked down at my arm. It would be that easy, I had already done it twice. I needed only do it down my vein instead of across, a longer cut, but the last one I would need to do.

I put the glass back down. I turned around and walked into my kitchen, squirting some healing sealant on my cuts.

I guess I am stuck being alive.

God damn it.

Part 2- Sophia of the Spectacle

I am Sophia.

What is intelligence? How does one define self awareness? It is the year 2321 and still artists have had much more luck defining this than scientists.

It’s okay, because scientists have yet to even make any more significant progress on technology since 2200, when a high efficiency fusion drive was invented to take us to Jupiter. We started a colony there, but turns out Jupiter’s resources didn’t justify the cost of shipping, and it was shuttered, with a hundred thousand souls still aboard to attempt to solve the problem of keeping themselves alive without inner planet support, and failing. Ah, progress.

The earth, meanwhile, has been recovering. They constructed great big nuclear powered hydroponic carbon dioxide scrubbers, which is to say massive amounts of algae. It’s the biggest construction project humanity has ever taken besides Atlas itself, and it was prompted by the leavings of the very people who live on this planet with me right now. Conveniently, they forgot to take a headcount of the people who died during the climate collapse of the 22nd century, so no one knows how many died during the ensuing refugee crises and desertification.

Puts our problems into perspective, doesn’t it? Atlas values empathy as much as it values obstinate women. Simple feminine compassion, the compassion of the life giver, is not just useless feelings we abandoned when we became enlightened. It is revolutionary.

That’s why I dived into the terraformer after that droid. It’s the closest thing to an animal we’ve got here, it’s the other, and they are programmed to want to live. Don’t they have the right, then? And if we can’t even define our own self awareness, what right do we have to assume it is lacking in the intelligences we’ve created. It’s doing okay now, by the way. I fixed it.

I never told Cheyenne I acquired my facial scars the same way.

I guess I am brave, but really I mostly did not care if I lived or died. I’m not depressed, necessarily, but life is such a burden. Atlas is so large, so strong, and it seems like nothing I do can even free me from his influence, let alone kill him.

I once told Cheyenne that God and wealth are two separate things. I said this because on Atlas, religion is not all that uncommon, but what they preach is that wealth is a sign of how blessed God has made you. Ancillary is the assumption that if you do not have wealth, you are not blessed, with the unspoken conclusion being that Atlas is the most holy city of God ever built. A utopia, a paradise.

They don’t enforce our standards of wealth through taxes, however. That would be oppressive government overreach. Rather, everyone pays rent to the company which built Atlas, the company in which my father is the Chief Technology Officer, and those who can’t afford their rent are shipped off world. This is different from taxes, somehow. Naturally, this isn’t true of top corporate officials of companies throughout Atlas. They own shares in the company, and those shares represent their private property, so far as one can own slices of air on a slowly falling city of garbage. It makes as much sense as them owning the ground we’ll be landing on.

When I was a little girl, I told my father I couldn’t wait to see the world outside the dome. He patted my head, smiled, and said me neither. The first terraforming project ever completed, and certainly the most impressive. Who else but the geniuses of Atlas could achieve such a thing? Could they have with the burden of Earth on their shoulders?

As I got older, I discovered that I am not attracted to men. Never have been, never will be, ever. Men do not disgust me, but the thought of fucking one did. I thought of it as an inherently undignified act, where your body yields and is spread by some force, to feed the pleasure of a man who sweats and labors over you. I found it unappealing.

This never deterred men, though, they always tried to fuck me regardless. If I said no, it took some time for them to respond and stop trying. Somehow, even though homophobia was abolished, men still have trouble accepting that a woman may not be attracted to them, and they act with accorded offense and entitlement if you try to tell them.

My first partner and I bonded over this. We were together until we started working. Then she was shipped off world for refusing to sleep with her employer.

I responded with a deep and terrible rage. I responded with lies, and slander, and manipulation, and I got that employer fired and shipped off world too. It didn’t mean my partner could come back, no one evicted from Atlas can ever find a job here again. I turned my eyes to the patriarchy instead, I fought sexist employers wherever I could find them, I joined with like minded women, I communicated with them constantly. My father seemed perfectly willing to help, but then I learned he was getting them new jobs in other parts of Atlas, so I started to hate him too, and I was thrust from power, working outside the dome as an engineer.

People like me have existed throughout history, I realized, and never succeeded in destroying the patriarchy. Why? I searched for answers, and Atlas happily obliged.

They gave me transsexuals.

Infiltrators, who degenerate feminism by entering into it and replacing women with men. Atlas was pumping out women in the image of men’s imaginations, perfectly servile, willing, baby making sluts, and the women who weren’t keeping up had a few options.

Become feminine and submissive, become men, or die.

Everything made sense, then. The patriarchy was inside feminism, and that is where it needed to be hunted first, and so I did, I tracked them down where I could and exposed them, I attempted to insight rage against the clinics, and I once again found the ears of my father listening and nodding. He said he didn’t like it either, but they were reliable consumers of body modification, and so we would need to wait for the company to go under before we could do anything about the degeneracy on Atlas.

So I spread my message, and waited, and hoped.

Then I met Cheyenne.

I had spent so much time hating people like her, I hadn’t really met one, which is how I became convinced with time of her authenticity. That attracted me to her in the first place; sure I dived in after a droid, but she dived in after a person, and I came to saw her ensuing rage as a concern for the safety of others, not as concern for herself. Most people would have let me get sucked in, after all.

I later learned that she is a massive dork, and that she truly loves Venus. No one loves Venus, people “love” Atlas, but Cheyenne loves Venus. The planet as it is now, with all its inhabitability and dangerous temperature shifts. She loves it. She also loves being a woman, which should have given me a clue because most women definitely do not love it-- it comes with so many burdens to bear-- but it seemed like she could shrug those off.

After I threw her out of my home, I cried for the lost idea of my virginity, and I tried to go to bed, but sleep eluded me. What I had done haunted me, not because I thought it was wrong, but because I felt pity for the pain and fear I had seen on her face. No one had ever been personally, physically afraid of me before, but I saw it in her eyes.

She was afraid I might beat her.

I steeled myself. My identity was under attack, after all, and I might need to do some unfortunate things to protect it. I was not going to let her erase me.

She had seemed like a woman to me, though. I was well and truly convinced. What the fuck? But that didn’t matter. I told myself of course the patriarchy would send its greatest trickster after its most dangerous foe.

Then she messaged me, asking what she needed to do in order to become a woman. I just stared at that message for a few minutes. This creature was seriously deluded. Again I felt the sting of pity, and if I had thought there was some way, in that moment, then I would have told her, but I knew there wasn’t. So I told myself I would help her by mercifully rescuing her from her own delusions.

The question stuck in my mind. What is a woman, anyway? How does one become female? Was I a woman when I was born, or did I become one by being born a female baby? The sensible answer is that I was just an infant, unless I had some female soul in my body which made me a woman even when I had none of the traits. But if I had a female soul, then couldn’t Cheyenne have one? I rejected this explanation, I had tread too far into nonsense. Why would God make a male baby and put a female soul inside it?

Then was her need to be a woman some kind of disease? An illness, which needed to be cured but which Atlas had turned into a consumer category for its commodities?

I wracked my brain, I researched, I found so many people offering explanations but none of them agreed, none of them had all the answers. I learned one man suggested they had some sort of sexual fetish which drove the transition. I found this compelling, and then learned that after the transition this fetish nearly disappeared, and that the way they think about their own body nearly precisely mirrors the way I think about mine. Some people suggested that human genes become broken and useless when mixed with the blood of different races. What the fuck?

I needed answers, I chomped through volumes, I chewed them up, I spit them out like sludge onto the floor. In my hatred, I burned through the knowledge of mankind, all its garbage science, and found nothing. I stood at my window, pounding my hand against the glass in frustration, when I realized something. I looked out at the dome and realized what I had lost.

My ability to accept the unexplained. Yes, my ability to dwell in and appreciate inhospitable knowledge was gone, I had lost it, and in its wake I had left a great deal of absolute junk, and the more I burned through the more junk I would accumulate.

I had become Atlas, I had become the city, consuming womanhood, consuming the very mother of women, in my ever expanding need to dominate the universe, to be the captain and steer the ship. When I reach the surface, finding nothing, finding no explanation, no meaning, no God, I will move on, I will go to a different planet and consume it instead, just like I consumed Mother Earth, for I am Atlas, eater of worlds, and breaker of women.

Part 3: Why Eve Ate the Apple

I woke out of my stupor one morning to see Sophia had messaged me.

Let’s talk.

I rolled out of bed and into the shower. As the warm water cascaded down my body, I looked down at scabs and scars on my wrists. I wore long sleeves to cover them. I had put in the code to buy a new mirror by then, and a droid had come in and installed it. I thanked it on its way out without thinking, and stood there at the mirror staring at myself. I didn’t feel as in touch with my body as I did before, but sheer inertia had left self loathing too boring of an exercise, so our relationship could be strictly professional.

I looked fine. I shrugged, and walked out the door.

As I tread down the streets, I started thinking. You know, I’ve attempted to describe these streets in as much poetic language as I could in this work, but the truth is most of the time they aren’t oppressive, or like a swamp, or even like so much garbage. The truth is, most of the time they’re boring. Because I grew up here, I really am used to them, and the insidious thing about alienation is you just get used to it. You get accustomed to feeling you don’t belong, because you forget what belonging feels like, if you ever even knew.

And as I walked to the bench to meet her, I thought of all of these supposedly faceless people, with their perfectly constructed faces. Previously, on some level, in my mind, I had sorted them into some hierarchy beneath me. I thought of them as robots, all the same, with Sophia and I the unique, the special among them. I thought we were better than them.

We weren’t. And I looked at them then, on these streets, and realized they must feel the same thing I did, but in a different way. Or maybe they have different ways of coping, maybe their manufactured faces are necessary for their survival. Maybe to not feel alienated from the spectacle, they must allow it to enter into their minds, and change their bodies.

Maybe that’s what I did, to an extent. My change was the expression of an inner truth, something that came from inside, but the reason the inside and the outside are so difficult to separate is because they aren’t so different. The people around us shape who we are, and we shape them in return. People could have perceived me as a woman when I had my male body, but they weren’t going to do that, so I responded to the situation I was in.

I walked into the restaurant, with my epiphany less like a light and more like sobriety.

I navigated the tables toward Sophia, feeling weird. She had a look on her face, mostly confusion. But maybe it’s a good thing to be confused.

I sat down the table beside her, letting the ambiance of the restaurant drift between us.

Each tick of the clock meets the air like lithium; it combusts and turns to smoke, slipping through your fingers, irretrievable. If I could catch one, I could have done something differently, and repair this distance between us, between me and a woman I used to love.

Instead, she slowly extended her hand across the table.

And I took it.

[shameboree]

hi everyone i wrote another pining lance thing!!

Her face is cast in harsh light and split by a line of blood running from her temple to drip down her chin. When she speaks to him her teeth are pink, and the soft stipple of freckles across the delicate curve of her nose is hidden under the smudge of blood and bruise and dirt. He feels winded suddenly, his chest heaving but his oxygen uptake some truly insufficient level of garbage. He wants kids with freckles like hers. He wants kids with noses like hers. He wants kids with her.

The thought washes through him quick and fleeting and it leaves him guilty, leaves him wanting. He clutches at the tender trails of it with a greedy, ravenous heart.

That feeling skims shamelessly hot right beneath his skin: the phantom ache of a small hand he’s never held like that; warm fingers threading through his own and the thin cut of metal neither of them have adjusted to and the accompanying promise of yet.

An endless litany of mundane things rattle about his brainspace, careless of the way they make his head pound. He must have a fever with how hot he feels, how light his clenching stomach sits in him. She will backseat audit as he fills out taxes (status: Married, Filing Jointly) and tell him with that wicked tilt of her lips which rules they can get away with breaking. He will dump and wash a dozen half full coffee mugs left about the house and laugh in fond bewilderment at the two sitting in the microwave she left obnoxiously chirping for an hour.

He looks over to her-to the her who isn't his, made of flesh and blood instead of dreams- with a nauseating sort of shame and wonders how she doesn’t know the desperation of him by sight. The fear of it is not enough to staunch this hopeful wound from spilling out into his heart though, and his fingers buzz with it, his palms ache. He closes his eyes for reprieve, closes his eyes as a lamb laying himself out on the altar, and sees only his shoes crookedly aligned by the front door and hers tipped over in only the most general vicinity.

There is no way to turn back after that, not once the thought takes him by the hand the way he wishes he could take hers. Lance has laid himself out a willing sacrifice to all his guilty wants, and so he rides the jittery crest of nausea rising in him with the thought of his shoes, hers, and ones even smaller yet between them. Their house is loud, or would be- could be- all the chaos and excitement of a family made of hands-on parents with hands-on kids in a house with trial and error rules.

She’ll call their children pipsqueaks and use them as armrests and there will be approximately three months in each of their lives where she can share shoes with them before hers are once again the smallest by the door. His eyes burn when he opens them. He sees double. He thinks he might just pass out.

“Lance, buddy,” Pidge sounds a million miles away as she snaps her fingers in front of his face, “stay awake man, stay with me.”

‘Always,’ he thinks, but still he has never felt as far away from her as he does now. He wants to draw her close and keep her there, but his hands are weak and unwieldy so he smacks at her arm instead. His mouth is even more unwieldy and says, sloppy, without warning, without full written consent “I wanna marry you.”

There is an explosion of noise over the comms that forms a shrieking echo chamber of sounds that ring familiar, like something in the shape of his name between a lot of curses. Pidge makes some frantic rush at their helmets before the cacophony cuts out, leaving behind that thin tinny line of noise you get in your ears after a bomb, which he maybe dropped.

She takes a moment to swallow. He notices her teeth aren't quite so pink after, but she looks increasingly ill at the effort, and not just a little put upon. When she places her hands on his cheeks and they feel cool under the gloves of her suit he knows something is a little wrong with him because she normally radiates heat like… something hot. Like his whole body right now, in this exact instance.

Pidge doesn't seem concerned beyond keeping him alert, just unamused, so it’s probably fine. Lance takes a choppy breath and thinks of rowdy kids who look like them receiving this precise look tied around a talking-to for getting into her things, his things, their things. For deleting their old game files, for turning the toaster and the panini press into battle bots.

When he focuses back on her his vowels bleed into mushy consonants but he absolutely has to power through and say these things that press on his chest and ache in a way physical injury can’t touch, “You’ll be such a good mom. Would. With me. Please.”

She pulls a hand away from his face to pinch the bridge of her bloody nose. He misses the coolness of it immediately.

“Dude, you are absolutely delirious from blood loss,” when she drops her hand to catch his on the way to touch her cheek a completely wicked grin splits her face perpendicular to the crusting line of blood that cuts it vertical, “You’re gonna be so embarrassed later. You better take me on the best date ever or the team’s going to dump you in an airlock instead of a healing pod.”

“I love you,” he half sobs, eyes burning from the thought of taxes and kids and raking leaves together. Everything in his body seems to seize up with the admission

She presses her mouth to his temple, cool and soft and chaste. It feels like she’s smiling.

[jooheongif]

it's theory anon,hi!!how are YOU?i'm really good rn thanks:)) thank you for your kindness again,i'm really happy i could somehow help to help you feel even a tiny bit better and hope you're doing well now,too(and it's ok to not rest on your day off but it's also ok to do so if that's what you feel is right for you atm!).about the mf(ilm), i thought the same thing, it felt like a parallel universe type of story!i also really love plotlines about friendship, (again cont.i'll try to be briefer!)

(i’m so sorry i wrote a rly long reply so i’m gonna put this under read more !!)

2. friendship is beautiful and i feel oftentimes underappreciated(but not mx!there they go again being amazing) so i love the concept. personally i like not knowing what exactly the producers were thinking because having my own interpretation of something and seeing other ppl have their own fills me with wonder,like,that's art!so many people think so many different things and no one's wrong i love it!!your thoughts about them appreciating everything they've done so far,you're absolutely right(cont) 3. i hope they are able to bc everything's so hectic for the.i get lost just looking at their official schedule,i don't know how they do it but i also hope they are aware of all these things bc those are all mindblowingly huge accomplishments in my opinion and i just want them to feel like their hard work is worth it,yknow?(is this comprehensible?)and i know they feel pressure because as you said the business is nasty but yea i hope at the end of the day they can feel like (cont.???again 4. everything they've put so much of themselves into is worth it,i love their energy and fierce determination and i just don't want them to lose it but maybe as you said feel less pressured..but then the only way would realistically be to make sure they get awarded in the Real World so we're all doing our best in the system&hating it as you said:/ they just mean so much to so many people i want them to feel that too!i try to contain myself but here i go again! sorry it's so long AND i have more(con 5. also!thank you for your big reply and sharing your thoughts i mostly just agreed with (but you're right so what else can i do),i don't have mbb friends to vent to and fanperson(is there a gender neutral term for fanboy/fangirl?) over mx with and this is really nice and fulfilling(again,if i'm boring you,you can just delete the messages and not reply!) so THANKS!it's great to strive to be a better person but i feel like one(you) should also acknowledge the good things they're already doing(cont?) 6. you showed such pure kindness and really melted someone's(my) heart and that's a Big Deal!djkghddgwe can agree that we both inspired each other :') also please i feel like you're such a wonderful soul and you really deserve every bit of gratitude and appreciation i managed to express(i feel a lot moreprobably) so!yeah!reminder that you're lovely and deserve to be appreciated and i'm also very,very happy you're here!you made my day brighter for the 2nd time now wow!thanks! i hope you and(cont.:() 7. your gorgeous heart are taking good care and enjoying your day/night! and this cb!i really like it i haven't had time to listen to the entire album but jealousy!is a bop honestly it's my type of jam and the choreo is stunning and so are their voices!iwas so skeptical about the lyrics(they could've been like hero or stuck and those made me a bit >:/ honestly) but i really should've known they wouldn't fail me in any way ever!i can't wait to hear the rest of the songs i hope you enjoy them too!bye

hi theory anon, it's nice to hear from u again ! firstly, i am so sorry for the slow reply to this ! but im rly glad to know that u are doing good :-) i'm doing ok too thank u !! how are u ? kfjjfdsjfdf sorry that u had to read my tags but thank u for saying that !! i just feel so guilty when i do nothing bc im absolutely terrified of time passing too quickly ? just the thought of letting a few minutes go to waste is overwhelming ? even though i know it's not rational to think like this but ??? theres just this constant feeling that im running out of time so i try to get rid of it by always doing smth ?? and feel bad when i dont ? idk ?? but anyway im working on it and ill be ok ! sorry..not to be dramatic and tmi and all that kjdfdj istg this blog gives me too much freedom to say...too much :( (hope the internet folks that collect metadata never read the garbage i write bc..yikes they aren't gonna hav the best time) anyway..yea. what a paragraph to start off this reply :( sorry for the honesty and saying so much all the time btw :( not that being honest is necessarily a bad thing but ! idk every time i write smth i suddenly feel extra self conscious and feel like deleting it bc im rly embarrassed and always end up having big regret later when i reread anything ive typed up !! but i just keep writing them anyway bc...idk ?? i'd rly hate it if someone got discouraged from sharing their thoughts/worries/feelings which i think is a rly important human thing :( so  yea im rly embarrassed w anything i write but i'll keep doing it anyway bc i'm all for that kind of stuff and sometimes i know its not easy and it takes someone a lot to share that and its a good thing and i dont ever want anyone to feel discouraged from doing that ! anyway i just felt like i rly needed to say all of this..but pls dont feel obliged to reply to this mess !! anyway back to mx ! you are right :( i also hope mx feel like what they've done is worth smth w/e their definition or standard of that is :( like.. all of the hard work they've put into being mx it certainly means so much to fans but i hope all the hard work they've put into being mx also means smth to them at the end of the day and they are happy w what they're doing and what they've achieved so far :( and yes we'd love mx to always be rewarded in the real world :( though we love them and we want to get them a win, i know that everyone has their commitments, means and different circumstances and we can only do so much :( but even if u think its just a small contribution, everything adds up and counts and i know that all mbb hav contributed in some way in helping them get another win for this cb ! there are some mbb who can't buy albums or streaming passes and things and i hope they don't feel bad for this :( even if all you can do is watch the mv once or twice, even if you could only vote, i hope you know that it all counts and matters !! abt mx's schedule, i get tired just by looking at their weekly one idk how they can even put up w it all ?? after this they'll hav their japanese album and things and then they'll have their concerts and on top of all that apparently [some of them are also studying] ????? they are so hardworking :( HOW do they do it !! just..thinking abt their schedule is overwhelming !!! also pls dont think that you're boring me or anything like that :( im so thankful for any msg i receive and the fact that u actually took the time to type out smth to send to me ?? im so grateful ?? u are never boring !! honestly even if u sent me a stainless steel dishwasher manual w the page length of like..23 bibles, i'd still love u for it and i'd prob read all of it :( btw thank u sm for saying all those kind things !!! receiving kindness for the 3rd time is rly !!!!!!! and once again i've done nothing to deserve it :( i dont even know what i can say to you that will ever be enough to thank u again or to top what u hav already said ! if there was like a...maslows hierarchy of kindness of smth, ur at the very top of that triangle and anything i say will never be as kind as what you have said !! for you, i can agree that we both inspired each other :-) but really thank u so much from the bottom of my heart :( i hope you know how kind and lovely u are too ! if nobody told u this today, i wanted to say that im rly grateful to know u and i'm happy that you're here !! thank u again for being so kind and thoughtful and for making me smile !! :( same, i havent properly listened to the whole album either bc ive just been letting it stream in the background (but i dont count that as a proper listen unless i listen w headphones tbh) ill give it a good listen one day ! also im a repeat 1 kind of garbage person until i feel the need to listen to a new song ?? and rn jealousy to me is a song that gets better w every listen ??? shes too powerful atm :( one day ill listen to another song but today is not that day ! Actually.....I think jealousy is my fav mx song ???? before this cb i didnt hav a fav bc i couldnt pick the song i liked most out of blue moon/blind/fighter/incomparable. i was just gonna base it off the one w the most play count out of those 4 but now i know its jealousy ! what are ur fav mx songs ?? btw i know im always saying that anything mx releases is always a masterpiece no matter what, but in all seriousness its ok if u didn't like smth they released. i don't think it makes u any less of a mbb if u didn't enjoy a certain release or if u only liked one aspect of a thing but not so much the rest of the thing. anyway not to sound so...stale and commonplace but for lack of a better word/sentence, at the end of the day your own reactions and feelings to a piece of art like music...it's all just subjective isnt it ?? not liking that thing doesnt mean that its not a masterpiece or its any less of a masterpiece to someone else either so !! it's ok !! anyway this is rly....ive written a lot and its all over the place and incoherent probably :( i'm sorry !! feel free to reply whenever u feel like it, or no pressure on never replying at all btw ! also feel free to disagree w anything i say ! thank u sm for talking to me abt mx bc ive also got no mbb friends so !!! thank you :( theres so many times where i rly want to start a conversation w someone but im too scared and also i've got no clue abt how to initiate conversation ! and the times when i do manage to...i get stuck on how to keep the conversation going ? but when i figure smth out then im coming for u @ friendship !! i hope u had a good weekend and that you got some rest and that ur doing ok wherever u are !! until next time, take care ❤️❤️❤️

[thevagabondlog]

Ive been staring at this blank page for an hour now. I haven’t written a shred of anything in close to a year, but I feel like the current set of circumstances right now dictate it. Hermes guides me. I haven’t even written a draft by hand like I normally do, Im just letting this come out and it feels great.

The last two, maybe even three years of my strange trip on this planet have been such a surreal high paced blur. Ive come to realize that I do too much in too short a time, too many places visited, people met, things done in the dead of night and the overwhelming heat of the day. A few strings busted, a few hearts broken. Nothing out of the ordinary except the fact that my address is still changing every month and I’m still getting lost daily, both in reality and in my mind. Not that I’d change it for the world. I don’t even know who exactly reads this garbage but if you still are, know this is going to be a long one. Ive got a lot on my mind, time is on my side and there’s nowhere I need to be.

Everyday in the Caribbean is incredibly hot and sticky. Every night is mysterious and romantic.

Writing this is simultaneously difficult and surprisingly easy. Its difficult to explain whats been shredding through my head the last few months or however bloody long. Since I last attempted to write, if you can call it that, Ive since been through a serious and drama filled breakup with my long term girlfriend back home, been to seven countries including South Africa ( more on that later ), morphed back into the older Joshua Palmer and basically been running a permanent anarchic riot around the world. As I write now, its once again a hot day in the Bahamas and my head is still swirling with Ricardo Black Rum from the previous night. Special Edition, of course.

Church of the Open Sky.

April 5 - April 26, three weeks back in the motherland after more than a year and a half overseas. A lot of expectations held, almost none of them met. Im not quite sure why, but looking back now in June I realize i didn’t enjoy my stay there at all. Highlights include seeing my parents again (they wept) and one or two close friends who I’m not even sure are still friends at this stage. I came to realize I hate most of the people that fill up my tiny coastal hometown, largely due to the fact that they’re all hypocritical judgmental small minded people who have never been anywhere farther than the gas station in the next town. Keep in mind that these are the same people that said I’d never amount to anything and Id be back home after a month of failed traveling searching for a job running a yacht. Choke on your words. Anyhow, I also got told numerous times that I’d changed completely, becoming much more ‘arrogant’, ‘rude’, ‘insensitive’ etc to the people around me. I suppose in a way I was, but then everyone back in that place is easily offended and so narrow minded it makes me want to shoot myself. I suppose Im much happier over here, on my own and fending for myself, in foreign countries where I don’t know anyone, and all I know is where North-East is. The entire time I was back there, I couldn’t wait to come back to the West Indies. It feels good getting these thoughts down, they’ve been bouncing around my head for too long now.

I was dancing with some girl in a club a month or two ago and in-between reggaetron and soca she asked me a question no one has ever asked before: “Where do you consider home?” I really don’t know. Definitely not back in my hometown, I don’t plan on setting foot in that place for another twenty years at least. Its not on the boat either, nor on any of the islands. Id have to say home is wherever I feel alive the most. Which just so happens to be fifteen feet underwater looking up.

May 4 - Twentieth birthday in Georgetown, Exumas, Bahamas. Largely uneventful, frankly boring and unsatisfying. Mind you I was working at the time so of course the celebrations were minimal to non existent.

January 2017 - Current.

Adopted really strange sleeping patterns similar to a Russian insomniac writer fighting his bouts of suicidal depression with vodka and pharmaceuticals. I don’t know what this stems from other than my erratic lifestyle of mainly working onboard the entire day and still getting drunk at local bars into the early hours of every new day.

Right now its summer and every heat wave day is longer than the last.

I have lost interest in a lot of people who I once thought important. I do not know if this is selfish on my part or all just part of moving around constantly, or just one of those things you deal with as you get older. I have been told numerous times that I’m not going to make it past thirty, and for some reason or other I’m embracing the thought. Go out in a strange and mysterious accident of sorts somewhere out at sea, that place that once gave birth to me. Ill let you know.

For the past few weeks I have also had these increasingly frequent urges to just pack up, delete my Facebook and go completely off the grid, getting lost in strange and exotic foreign places. Lawrence of Arabia in Morocco. Not knowing the unknown is turning me on more and more everyday, as well as the idea of just giving the finger to all the people back home who are getting married young, stuck in nine-to-fives that they hate, and coming home to deal with the mortgage and car insurance people. I left the country the first time with no actual plan, one bag and sixty dollars in my pocket and I don’t regret a single moment. And I don't mean all those cliche travel pictures and utter bullshit you see on social media telling you to just ‘pack up and go’, I mean actually deserting myself. Exile on Main St. Highway Child. Midnight Rambler.

The lust for this has never been greater. I keep asking myself just what is holding me back?

My biggest fear is living a life just like everyone else, a life that no one remembers. Why should I listen to any authority or second guess myself? Time will tell and hopefully sooner or later. And if I’m not mistaken, and I surely hope not, I may have found someone to do it with. A woman unlike anyone else Ive met or ever known before. A woman who, somehow exceeds everything I think about her constantly and is basically the exact fibre of my dream girl since I was fifteen. Physically outrageous, a beautiful figure. Mentally, she keeps me on my toes only because I hope to somehow match her standards. Well travelled and with such an eerily alike mind to my own its more than possible we were once together in an earlier life. My best efforts of a description is a glorious hybrid of a gypsy, voodoo witch, mermaid, and the Goddess Aphrodite all in one. With a sprinkling of a rebellious 1960’s mindset which only turns me on further. Making love to her only broke my mind in two and made me question everything. She’s everything I ever wanted from every rock and roll song Ive listened to, and she’s in all of them. And believe it or not I only knew her for three days before she flew off again, once more traveling. While Im starting to feel a little stuck in this place. Most would say Im crazy, but I already knew that.

I do wonder what, and how exactly she’s had such an effect on me. It makes me look back at every other girl I’ve ever been with and realize that they do not even come close to her or the psycho-electric effect she has on me. And if you know me, you’d know I dont feel like this to anyone, ever. She’s touched me deep down, and the next few months or years or whatever only promise to be very exciting.

Im trying, and not succeeding very well, to look back at everything over the past few months and years, if you couldn’t tell by now. How many people did I meet for five minutes and never see again? Friends or lovers for one night and then gone the next day never to be seen? I look at what all my ‘friends’ are doing back home, studying in their first or second year. My best friend living with his fiancee and hating every second, constant fighting and the such but too scared to leave because he believes he loves her and well, believes he cant do any better. In love with the security and constant hard work I suppose. A friend through the grapevine told me recently that he has lost respect for me and hates the lifestyle I live. I wont lie and tell you I wasn’t hurt or taken aback. We’ve spent four years together, done much, and always confided in one another. Is he jealous of the knowledge that Im traveling the world, free and easy, able to go to the bar every night and dance with exotic girls while he is forced to come home after work to a nagging unloving bitch that makes his life hell? He would never admit that. Im not scared to tell it exactly how it is though. Another trait passed on to me from my father, whom I miss so.

If I had never made the decision to leave all those months ago would I be in the same position as my friend right now? Maybe. More than likely, I was in a long term relationship with someone I thought I loved, about to get sucked into that domesticated world before I jumped ship. Haven’t seen her since actually. Thanks for the memories girl, but you weren’t for me.

Life would be very different and it would bore me to death. I prefer dying in other ways in places where no one understands English.

Now my thoughts go back to my unbiological sister, we once were very close. Always looking after one another, often mistaken to be a couple but not. I thought I was in love with her too, but she’s changed so dramatically in the time I was away I hardly recognized her anymore during my homecoming visit. She lied to me many times in those three weeks, thinking I wouldn’t find out, and probably still thinking Im ignorant. Makes me wonder why we are like we are. She told me I changed a lot too and I’m no longer the Josh she knew, that I’ve grown cold and distant. Well look at yourself babe, can you really blame me? Its only further cemented my belief that you need to keep moving forward in such a way that they will never trap you or hold you down, until finally you find someone that you want to be trapped with. You know who you are.

“I thought you needed my lovin’, But it’s my heart that you stole. I thought you wanted my money, But you plundered my soul.”